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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cc4e4fb --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #51964 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51964) diff --git a/old/51964-0.txt b/old/51964-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 0e349ac..0000000 --- a/old/51964-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8633 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Georgian Pageant, by Frank Frankfort Moore - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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 -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: A Georgian Pageant - -Author: Frank Frankfort Moore - -Illustrator: Various - -Release Date: May 2, 2016 [EBook #51964] -Last Updated: March 13, 2018 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GEORGIAN PAGEANT *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - - - -A GEORGIAN PAGEANT - -By Frank Frankfort Moore - -With Illustrations - -London: Hutchinson & Co. Paternoster Row - -1908 - - - - -THE WRITER'S APOLOGY - -THE greater number of the papers in this series, dealing with some -well-known persons and incidents of the latter half of the Eighteenth -Century, are the practical result of a long conversation which the -writer had with the late Professor J. Churton Collins upon a very -memorable occasion. The writer ventured to contend that the existing -views respecting the personality of Oliver Goldsmith, of Henry Thrale, -of James Boswell, of Samuel Johnson, and of some others whom he named, -were grossly erroneous; as were also the prevalent notions respecting -such matters as Fanny Burney's attendance upon the Queen, the “romance” - of the Gunnings, and the “elopement” of Richard Brinsley Sheridan with -Elizabeth Linley. If Professor Churton Collins had not urged upon -the writer the possible interest attaching to the expression of some -opinions unbiassed by those conservators of the conventional who have -dealt with the same period, every one of them being as careful as -Indians on the warpath to tread in the footsteps of the man preceding -him, he would not have the courage to set forth his views in the form -they now assume. - -The non-controversial papers in the series may increase the light and -shade in the sketches of this very humble Georgian Pageant. The romance -of Lady Susan Fox-Strangways naturally took the shape of a “regulation” - story. The details are absolutely correct. - -On the very day the writer meant to keep the promise he made to -Professor Churton Collins, by sending him the completed proofs of this -book, the melancholy news of his death was published--an irreparable -loss to the Literature of English Criticism. - - - - -THE MONARCH OF THE PAGEANT - -On the morning of February 2nd, 1789, a lady was taking a solitary -stroll in Kew Gardens. She was a small person, of dainty features, with -a dimple on each side of her mouth that suggested a smile, varying, -perhaps out of compliment to the variations of the people with whom -she came in contact in her daily life, and shifting doubtless with -the movements of the folk of her fancy through her quick brain, but -remaining a smile all the time. There was about her a good deal of that -doll-like primness which is so pretty an accompaniment of a person of -small stature; but with this particular person it had--not quite, but -almost--the additional charm of dignity. One could at all times see that -she was making a highly intellectual attempt to be dignified; but that -she was not really dignified at heart. One could see that she had too -fine a sense of humour to be thoroughly dignified; and it may be that -some of her closest observers--her closest observers were her greatest -admirers--perceived now and again that she had a full sense of the -humour of her efforts in the direction of dignity. She had large eyes, -but being very short-sighted, she had a habit of half closing them when -looking at anything or any one further away from her than ten feet. But -somehow it was never suggested that the falling of her lids brought a -frown to her face. - -She was a quick walker at all times; but on this winter day the slowest -would have had little temptation to dawdle. The usual river mist was -thrusting up a quivering cold hand among the gaunt trees of the water -boundary of the Gardens, and here and there it flitted like a lean -spectre among the clipped evergreens of the shrubberies. There was a -maze of yew hedges, in the intricacies of which one mist-spectre had -clearly got lost; and the lady, who had some imagination, could see, -as she hurried past, the poor thing's wispy head and shoulders flitting -about among the baffling central walks. (A defective eyesight is -sometimes a good friend to the imagination.) And all the while she was -hurrying along the broad track she was looking with some measure of -uneasiness through her half-closed eyes down every tributary walk that -ran into the main one, and peering uneasily down every long artificial -vista that Sir Thomas Chambers, the Swedish knight and landscape -gardener, had planned, through the well-regulated boskage, with an -imitation Greek temple or Roman villa at the end. Approaching the -widening entrance to each of these, she went cautiously for a few -moments until she had assured herself on some point. Once she started -and took a step backward, but raising the lorgnette which she carried, -and satisfying herself that the group of men a hundred yards down one of -the vistas was composed wholly of gardeners, she resumed her stroll. - -Whatever slight apprehension may have been on her mind had vanished by -the time she had half completed the circuit made by the main walk. -She had reached one of the mounds which at that time were covered with -rhododendrons, and paused for a moment to see if there was sign of a -bud. A blackbird flew out from among the dense leafage, and she followed -it with her eyes as well as she could while she walked on, crossing the -narrow path that led to the seats on the mound. But at the moment of -crossing she was startled out of her senses by the sound of a shout from -some distance down this path--a loud shout followed by several others -rather less imperative. She gave a little exclamation of terror, raising -her muff to her face. Glancing in the direction whence the commotion -was coming, she gave another cry, seeing a tall man rush toward her with -outstretched arms--waving arms, frantically beckoning to her while he -shouted: - -“Miss Burney! Miss Burney!” - -She waited no longer. She turned and fled along the broad walk, making -for one of the many labyrinths not so very far away, and after her ran -the man, still shouting and gesticulating. She could hear the sound of -his feet and his voice behind her, as well as the cries of the other -men who were endeavouring to keep pace with him. On they came, and there -flashed through her active brain, in spite of the horrible apprehension -which thrilled through every nerve in her body, as she doubled back -upon the path which she had just traversed, the lines written by Dr. -Goldsmith and often quoted by her friend Dr. Johnson: - - A hare whom hounds and horns pursue, - - Pants to the place from whence at first he flew. - -She realised, all too painfully, the feelings of the poor hare at that -moment. She longed for a friendly earth to open up before her. They were -behind her--those wild huntsmen, one hoarsely yelling to her she knew -not what, the others, more shrill, shouting to her to stop. - -She was too frightened to think of obeying any of them. On she ran, -and it seemed that she was increasing the distance between her and her -panting pursuers, until one of them, having better wind, managed to -shoot ahead of the others, and to get close enough to say in a voice -that was not all gasps: - -“Madam, madam, the doctor begs you to stop!” She glanced over her -shoulder, still flying. - -“No, no, I cannot--I dare not!” she gasped. - -“Madam, you must--you must: it hurts the King to run!” cried the man. - -Then she stopped. The man, an ordinary attendant, stood in front of her. -He was more breathless than Miss Burney. - -“The doctor, madam,” he faltered, “'twas the doctor--he thought at first -that His Majesty was--was--but that was at first--now he says you must -please not lead His Majesty on--'tis all too much for him. Save us! How -you did go, madam! Who would ha' thought it?” - -She was paying no attention to him. Her eyes were fixed upon the group -of men who were recovering their breath while they walked slowly -toward her. The King was between his two physicians--not Physicians in -Ordinary; just the contrary--the two physicians who had been -summoned from Lincolnshire by some person in authority who possessed -intelligence--it should surely be easy to identify such a man at the -Court of George III--when, some months earlier, His Majesty gave signs -of losing his mental balance. They were the Willises, father and son, -the former a clergyman, who was therefore all the more fully qualified -to deal with a mind diseased--such a case as was defined as needing more -the divine than the physician. The King was between the father and his -son, but neither of them was exercising any ostentatious or officious -restraint upon him. One of them was smiling while he said some -reassuring words to the Royal patient; the other was endeavouring to -reassure little Miss Burney from a distance. - -And it seemed that the intentions of both were realised, for His Majesty -was smiling as benignly as was ever his wont, and little Miss Burney -took her courage in both hands and boldly advanced to meet her -Sovereign. (She had been for three years the Queen's “Dresser.”) But -when they met, after the King had cried, “Why did you run away from me, -Miss Burney?” it appeared that the process of reassuring the King had -been but too effectually accomplished, for before the lady could frame a -diplomatic reply to his inquiry, he had enwound her in his paternal arms -and kissed her heartily on the cheek, greatly to her confusion and (she -pretends) to her horror. The two doctors stood placidly by. They, poor -things, being quite unaccustomed to the ways of the immediate entourage -of the Court of George III--though they had doubtless heard something -of the practices that prevailed at the Courts of His Majesty's lamented -grandfather and great-grandfather--seemed under the impression that -there was nothing unusual in this form of salutation. For all they knew -it might be regarded as _de rigueur_ between a monarch and the ladies of -his consort's retinue. Even Dr. Willis, the divine, took a tolerant view -of the transaction. He, as Miss Burney afterwards recorded, actually -looked pleased! - -But, of course, the prim little lady herself was overwhelmed--yes, at -first; but soon her good sense came to her rescue. She seems to have -come with extraordinary rapidity to the conclusion that the King was -not so mad as she had believed him to be. Her train of reasoning was -instinctive, and therefore correct: the King had put his arms about her -and kissed her when he had the chance, therefore he could not be so mad -after all. - -In truth, however, Fanny Burney took the view of her treatment that any -sensible modest young woman would take of it. She knew that the King, -who had been separated for several months from the people whom he had -been daily in the habit of meeting, had shown in the most natural way -possible his delight at coming once more in contact with one of them. - -And undoubtedly the homely old gentleman was delighted beyond measure to -meet with some one belonging to his happy years--a pleasanter face than -that of Mrs. Schwellenberg, the dreadful creature who had made Fanny -Burney's life miserable. It is not conceivable that the King would have -kissed Mrs. Schwellenberg if he had come upon her suddenly as he had -upon Miss Burney. People prefer silver rather than iron links with a -happy past. He was so overjoyed, that the divine and the physician in -attendance soon became anxious. They could not know much of all that -he talked about to Miss Burney. They were in the position of strangers -suddenly introduced to a family circle, and understanding nothing of the -little homely secrets--homely topics upon which all the members of the -circle have laughed together for years. - -They possibly could not see much sense in his long and rambling chat--it -must have been largely in monologue--but they must have observed the -face of the lady who was listening to him, and known from the expression -which it wore that their patient was making himself intelligible. Only -now and again they thought it prudent to check his exuberance. They must -have been the most intelligent of men; and their names deserve to stand -high in the annals of their country. At a time when the scientific -treatment of the insane had not even begun to be formulated--when to -be mentally afflicted meant to be on a level with felons and to be -subjected to such repressive treatment as was afforded by the iron of -the fetters and the hiss of the whipcord--at a time when a lust for -office could make a statesman like Burke (a statesman who caused -multitudes to weep in sympathy with his harangue on the sufferings -of Marie Antoinette) refer to the King as having been “hurled by the -Almighty from his throne” (in order to give the Opposition a chance of -jumping into place and power over his prostrate body)--at such a time -as this Dr. Willis and his two sons undertook the treatment of the King, -and in the face of much opposition from the place-hunters in the Prince -of Wales's pack, succeeded in restoring their patient to the palace -which his happy nature had transformed into a home for every one -dwelling under its roof. - -They stood by for some time after the King had greeted Miss Burney; and -when he began to speak to her of topics that had a purely domestic -ring they showed their good taste, as well as their knowledge of the -peculiarities of their “case,” by moving away to a little distance, -signalling to their attendants to do the same. Their discrimination must -have been highly appreciated by the King. The poor restless mind had -long wanted such a good long talk with a sympathetic listener, who, he -knew, could understand every allusion that he might make to the past. -He yearned to talk and to hear of such things as some one living in a -distant land looks forward to finding in a letter from home. The _res -angusta domi_--that was what he was hungering for--the trivial things in -which he delighted--the confidences on simple matters--the sly everyday -jests, never acutely pointed even to the family circle, but absolutely -pointless to every one outside, yet sounding so delightfully witty when -repeated as a sign of a happy intimacy of the past! - -Little Miss Burney had never imagined a scene like that in which -she played an insignificant part at the moment, but one of enormous -importance for posterity. She had, a few years before, been placed upon -the porphyry pedestal which is reserved in England for the greatest -woman writer of the generation. Seated there quite complacently, without -reflecting upon the possibility of her pedestal becoming a trifle -rickety, she had clasped her novel _Evelina_ to her bosom, and received, -without her head being in the least turned, the adulation--respectful -in some cases, almost passionate in others--of the most notable men -and women in the most intellectual and artistic society in England. -Dr. Samuel Johnson, who was not disposed to overrate the merits of any -writer whom the world had praised, was kissing her hands, and Richard -Brinsley Sheridan was kissing her feet; Sir Joshua Reynolds was kissing -the hem of her garments; while Edmund Burke was weaving a tinsel crown -of rhetoric for her shapely head; but there were others equally great -at that time who seemed to think that only a nimbus could give the -appropriate finish to the little personage on the pedestal. The -marvellous story of her success has been often told. It is more easily -told than understood in the present day, the fact being that fashion in -fiction is the most ephemeral of all human caprices, and Fanny Burney -was essentially a fashion. She followed up the marvellous success of -_Evelina_, after an interval of four years, with the natural success of -_Cecilia_, and, after another four years, she retired from the brilliant -world into the obscurity of the palace--the palace wardrobe. She had -visited Mrs. Delany, and had been introduced (not presented) to the King -and Queen, and the office of Queen's Dresser--Keeper of the Robes was -the stately designation of a very humble service--becoming vacant, it -was offered to Fanny Burney and accepted by her, acting on the advice -of her father, who most certainly hoped that his own interests as a -musician, fully qualified to become leader of the Royal Band, would -be materially advanced when his daughter should become one of the -Household. - -Reams of indignation have been published from time to time in respect of -Dr. Burney's conduct in urging on his one brilliant daughter--the others -were not brilliant, only mothers--to accept a post the duties of which -could be discharged by any lady's maid with far more advantage to the -Royal Consort than could possibly result from the ministrations of Fanny -Burney. The world has been called on to bemoan the prudent indiscretion -of the father, who did not hesitate to fling his gifted daughter's pen -out of the window, so to speak, and thereby deprive the waiting world of -some such masterpiece as _Camilla_--the novel which she published five -years after her release from the burden of the Robes. There can be -no doubt that the feeling which prevailed among the circle of the -elect--the Reynoldses, the Burkes, and even the frigid Walpole--when -it became known that Miss Burney's health was breaking down under -the strain of her duties at the Court--she had about two hours' daily -attendance of the most ordinary nature upon the Queen--was on the border -of indignation. Every one affirmed that it was a disgrace for so lively -a genius to be kept at the duties of a lady's maid. It was like turning -the winner of the Oaks out to the plough. Edmund Burke, recalling his -early approbation of the intentions of Dr. Burney in regard to his -daughter, declared that he had never made so great a mistake in all -his life; and we know that he made a few. These excellent people had no -reason to speak otherwise than they did on this matter. All they knew -was that the pen of the novelist who had given them so much pleasure had -been (as they believed) idle for nearly nine years, five of which had -been passed at the Court. That reflection was quite enough to rouse -their indignation. But what can one say of the indignation on this point -of a writer who actually made the fact of his being engaged on a review -of the Diary of Fanny Burney--the incomparable Diary which she kept -during her five years at Court--an excuse for turning the vials of his -wrath upon her father, whose obstinacy gave her a chance of writing the -most interesting chapter--the most accurate chapter--of History that was -ever penned by man or woman? - -Macaulay wrote in all the fullness of his knowledge of what Fanny -Burney had written. He knew that for four years after she had published -_Cecilia_ her pen had been idle so far as fiction was concerned. He knew -that for five years after her release from the thraldom of the Queen's -closet she had published nothing; he himself felt it to be his duty to -point out the comparative worthlessness of _Camilla_, the novel which -she then gave to the world, not because she felt upon her the impulse of -a woman of genius, but simply because she found herself in great need -of some ready money. Macaulay does not disdain to go into the money -question, showing (he fancies) how Dr. Burney had by his obstinacy -deprived his gifted daughter of earning the large sum which she would -assuredly have obtained by the writing of a novel in the time that -she was compelled to devote to the Queen's _toilette_. He found it -convenient to ignore the fact that of the fourteen years that elapsed -between the publication of _Cecilia_ and that of _Camilla_ only five -were spent at Court. Surely any born novelist could, without running -a chance of imperilling a well-earned reputation by undue haste in the -dialogue or by scamping the descriptive passages, contrive by dint of -hard, but not over-hard, work to produce more than one complete romance -within a space of nine years. Many ladies who are not born novelists -have succeeded in surpassing this task without physical suffering. - -But even assuming that the author of _Evelina, Cecilia, and Camilla_ -lost not only time but money while she was at Court, how much money did -she lose? She received at least the equivalent of £2000 for her five -years' service, and she was granted a pension of £100 a year, which she -drew for forty-nine years; so that for her enforced seclusion she was -remunerated to the extent of close upon £7000! This sum represents more -than all Fanny Burney's literary works yielded to her from the joyous -youthful days of _Evelina_ down to the somewhat sordid middle age of -_Camilla_. - -But what has the world gained by the lamentable short-sightedness -attributed to Dr. Burney? How is one to estimate the value of that -incomparable Diary so admirably “written up” during her tedious five -years at Court? How many _Cecilias_, how many _Camillas_ would one not -give in exchange for a single year of that part of the Diary which deals -with the approach of the King's malady? In no work of fiction that ever -came from her pen did she ever show such power of observation, not only -of incident, but of character as well; nor is there apparent on any page -produced by her imagination such perfect artistic effects as appeal to a -reader on every page of this Diary of a disease. - -At the outset of her account of these dreadful days we are conscious -of the vague approach of a shadow--we feel as if we were led into the -darkened chamber of a haunted house. Our attendant pauses by our side, -listening for strange noises; she lays a hand upon our arm, as it were, -and speaks to us in a whisper. We feel that the dread Thing is coming. -The King is indisposed--he has not been quite in his usual health for -some time past; but of course nothing very alarming has been announced -by Sir George Barker, the Physician in Ordinary, although there is an -uncertainty as to His Majesty's complaint. But Miss Burney has seen the -faces of the people about her who have come more closely in contact with -the Sovereign; she has doubtless noticed the solemnity of some--the airs -of mystery, the head-shakings, and she is capable of drawing her own -conclusions. “Heaven preserve him!” she whispers in her Diary for -October 19th, 1788. She is very much with the Queen, and she perceives -that Her Majesty is extremely uneasy, though saying nothing. There is -great alarm during the night. Possibly some one has heard the delirious -voice of the King coming from his apartments in that tumbledown palace -of his at Kew. The fright is general, and every one is wondering what -the morning will bring forth. Hope comes with the light. The bulletin is -that the King was ill, but is now so very much better that his physician -believes the move to Windsor, to which the Court was looking forward, -may be taken. The move is made on the 25th, and then Miss Burney has a -chance meeting with the King that causes her to suspect the truth. He -talks to her with unnatural vehemence--unnatural volubility--and without -cessation for a long time; all is exaggerated, and his graciousness most -of all. She has never met with anything like this before, but having -heard of the delirium accompanying a high fever, she believes that His -Majesty is in the throes of a fever. - -The next day is Sunday, and she meets him again in one of the passages, -and she finds him rather more coherent in his talk, but still it is the -talk of a man in the delirium of a fever. It is all about himself--his -health--his dreadful sleeplessness. He keeps at it for half an hour -without making the slightest pause; and yet he manages to convey to -her an impression of his benevolence--his consideration for the people -around him--his hopes that he may not cause them any uneasiness. When he -leaves her she doubtless tells of the meeting to some of her friends in -the apartments where the equerries are accustomed to meet, and doubtless -there are more head-shakings and airs of mystery; but she records: -“Nobody speaks of his illness, nor what they think of it.” - -Apparently, too, no one felt it to be necessary to subject His Majesty -to any course of treatment, although, a few days later, he became -so weak that he, who at the beginning of the year thought nothing of -walking twelve miles at a stretch--more than his sons could do--hobbled -along like a gouty man. Gradually, very gradually, the horror -approaches; and nothing that has ever been done in fiction equals in -effect the simple record of all that Fanny Burney noticed from day to -day. Most touching of all her entries are those relating to the Queen. -“The Queen,” she writes, “is almost overpowered with some secret -terror. I am affected beyond all expression in her presence to see what -struggles she makes to support her serenity. To-day she gave up the -conflict when I was alone with her; and burst into a violent fit of -tears. It was very, very terrible to see!... something horrible seemed -impending... I was still wholly unsuspicious of the greatness of the -cause she had for dread. Illness, a breaking up of the constitution, the -payment of sudden infirmity and premature old age for the waste of -unguarded health and strength--these seemed to me the threats awaiting -her; and great and grievous enough, yet how short of the fact!”... - -At last the terrible truth was revealed. Miss Burney was dining with one -of the Queen's ladies; but there was little conversation between them. -It was clear that both had their suspicions of the nature of the dread -shadow that was hovering over the castle. They remained together, -waiting for the worst. “A stillness the most uncommon reigned over the -whole house. Nobody stirred; not a voice was heard; not a motion. I -could do nothing but watch, without knowing for what; there seemed a -strangeness in the house most extraordinary.” - -To talk of such passages as these as examples of literary art would be -ridiculous. They are transcripts from life itself made by some one with -a genius for observation, not merely for recording. Boswell had a genius -for recording; but his powers of observation were on a level with those -of a sheep. We know perfectly well what his treatment of the scenes -leading up to the tragedy of the King would have been. But Fanny Burney -had the artist's instinct for collecting only such incidents as heighten -the effect. - -When she is still sitting in the dim silence of that November evening -with her friend some one enters to whisper that there was to be no -playing of the after-dinner music in which the King usually took so much -pleasure. Later on the equerries come slowly into the room. There is -more whispering--more head-shaking. What was it all about? Had anything -happened? What had happened? No one wishes to be the first to speak. But -the suspense! The strain upon the nerves of the two ladies! At last it -can be borne no longer. The dreadful revelation is made. The King is a -madman! - -At dinner, the Prince of Wales being present, His Majesty had “broken -forth into positive delirium, which long had been menacing all who -saw him most closely; and the Queen was so overpowered as to fall into -violent hysterics. All the princesses were in misery, and the Prince of -Wales had burst into tears. No one knew what was to follow--no one could -conjecture the event.” Nothing could be more pathetic than the concern -of the King for his wife. His delusion is that she is the sufferer. When -Fanny Burney went to her room, where she was accustomed to await her -nightly summons to attend Her Majesty, she remained there alone for two -hours. At midnight she can stand the suspense no longer. She opens the -door and listens in the passage. Not a sound is to be heard. Not even -a servant crossed the stairs on the corridor off which her apartment -opened. After another hour's suspense a page knocks at her door with the -message that she is to go at once to her Royal mistress. - -“My poor Royal Mistress!” she writes. “Never can I forget her -countenance--pale, ghastly pale she looked... her whole frame was -disordered, yet she was still and quiet. And the poor King is dreadfully -uneasy about her. Nothing was the matter with himself, he affirmed, -except nervousness on her account. He insisted on having a bed made -up for himself in her dressing-room in order that he might be at hand -should she become worse through the night. He had given orders that Miss -Goldsworthy was to remain with her; but it seemed that he had no great -confidence in the vigilance of any one but himself, for some hours -after the Queen had retired he appeared before the eyes of the horrified -lady-in-waiting, at the door, bearing a lighted candle. He opened the -bed curtains and satisfied himself that his dread of her being carried -out of the palace was unfounded; but he did not leave the room for -another half-hour, and the terror of the scene completely overwhelmed -the unhappy lady.” - -Truly when this terror was walking by night Fanny Burney's stipend was -well earned. But worse was in store for her when it was decided that the -King should be removed to Kew Palace, which he detested and which was -certainly the most miserable of all the miserable dwelling-places of the -Royal Family. It seemed to be nobody's business to make any preparation -for the reception of the Queen and her entourage. The rooms were dirty -and unwarmed, and the corridors were freezing. And to the horrors of -this damp, unsavoury barrack was added Mrs. Schwellenberg, the German -she-dragon who had done her best to make Fanny Burney's life unendurable -during the previous three years. Formerly Fanny had dwelt upon the -ill-treatment she had received at the hands of this old harridan; -but now she only refers to her as an additional element of casual -discomfort. The odious creature is “so oppressed between her spasms and -the house's horrors, that the oppression she inflicted ought perhaps -to be pardoned. It was, however, difficult enough to bear,” she adds. -“Harshness, tyranny, dissension, and even insult seemed personified. I -cut short details upon this subject--they would but make you sick.” - -Truly little Miss Burney earned her wages at this time. The dilapidated -palace was only rendered habitable by the importation of a cartload of -sandbags, which were as strategically distributed for the exclusion of -the draughts as if they were the usual defensive supply of a siege. But -even this ingenious device failed to neutralise the Arctic rigours of -the place. The providing of carpets for some of the bare floors of the -bedrooms and passages was a startling innovation; but eventually it was -carried out. An occasional set of curtains also was smuggled into this -frozen fairy palace, and a sofa came now and again. - -But in spite of all these auxiliaries to luxury--in spite, too, of Mrs. -Schwellenberg's having locked herself into her room, forbidding any one -to disturb her--the dreariness and desolation of the December at Kew -must have caused Miss Burney to think with longing of the comforts of -her father's home in St. Martin's Street and of the congenial atmosphere -which she breathed during her numerous visits to the Thrales' solid -mansion at Streatham. - -[Illustration: 0035] - -The condition of the King was becoming worse, and early whispers of -the necessity for a Regency grew louder. It was understood that Mrs. -Fitzherbert would be made a duchess! Everybody outside the palace sought -to stand well in the estimation of the Prince of Wales, and Pitt was -pointed out as a traitor to his country because he did his best -to postpone the Comus orgy which every one knew would follow the -establishing of a Regency. The appointment of the Doctors Willis was -actually referred to as a shocking impiety, suggesting as it did a -wicked rebellion against the decree of the Almighty, Who, according to -Burke, had hurled the monarch from his throne. There were, however, some -who did not regard Mr. Burke as an infallible judge on such a point, and -no one was more indignant at the mouthings of the rhetorician than Miss -Burney. But it seemed as if the approach of the Regency could no longer -be retarded. The Willises were unable to certify to any improvement -in the condition of the King during the month of January, 1789. It was -really not until he had that chase after Fanny Burney in Kew Gardens -that a change for the better came about. - -Though she was greatly terrified by his affectionate salutation, -she could not but have been surprised at the sanity displayed in -the monologue that followed; for one of the first of his innumerable -questions revealed to her the fact that he was perfectly well aware of -what a trial to her patience was the odious Mrs. Schwellenberg. He asked -how she was getting on with Mrs. Schwellenberg, and he did so with a -laugh that showed her how well he appreciated her difficulties in this -direction in the past. Before she could say a word he was making light -of the Schwellenberg--adopting exactly the strain that he knew would be -most effective with Miss Burney. - -“Never mind her--never mind her! Don't be oppressed! I am your friend! -Don't let her cast you down--I know that you have a hard time of it--but -don't mind her!” - -The advice and the tone in which it was given--with a pleasant -laugh--did not seem very consistent with what she expected from a -madman. Fanny Burney appears up to that moment to have been under the -impression that the King and Queen had known nothing of the tyranny and -the insults to which she had been subjected by Mrs. Schwellenberg. But -now it was made plain to her that the eyes of the Royal couple had been -open all the time. If Macaulay had noticed the passage touching upon -this point he would have had still stronger grounds for his attack upon -their Majesties for their want of consideration for the tire-woman who -was supposed never to be tired. - -But how much more surprised must Fanny Burney have been when the King -went on to talk to her in the most cordially confidential way about her -father! It must have been another revelation to her when he showed how -fully he realised the ambitions of Dr. Burney. He asked her regarding -the progress of the _History of Music_, at which Dr. Burney had been -engaged for several years, and this gave him a chance of getting -upon his favourite topic, the music of Handel. But when he began to -illustrate some of his impressions on this fruitful theme by singing -over the choruses of an oratorio or two--perhaps such trifles as “All we -like Sheep,” or “Lift up your Heads,” or the “Hallelujah”--he must have -gone far toward neutralising the good opinion she had formed as to his -sanity. Fortunately the attendant doctors interposed at this point; but -the fact that the distinguished amateur suffered their adverse criticism -proves to posterity that the King was even more good-natured than he had -been painted by Miss Burney. - -On then he went to talk of the subject which must never have been far -from Dr. Burney's heart--the Mastership of the King's Band: “Your father -ought to have had the post, and not that little poor musician Parsons, -who was not fit for it,” he cried. “But Lord Salisbury used your father -very ill in that business, and so he did me! However, I have dashed -out his name, and I shall put your father's in--as soon as I get loose -again. What has your father got at last? Nothing but that poor thing at -Chelsea! Oh, fie! fie! But never mind! I will take care of him--I will -do it myself!” - -Could he have given the devoted daughter of Dr. Burney a more emphatic -proof of his complete recovery to sanity than this? Why, it would have -convinced Dr. Burney himself! - -Alas! although the King may have been very resolute at the moment--he -had just been making out a list of new officers of State, and was ready -to show her that the name of her father's enemy, Lord Salisbury, was not -to be found in it, and he assured her that in future he would rule with -a rod of iron--yet before he returned to his ordinary way of life he -must have mislaid his list, for poor Dr. Burney remained at his post of -organist of Chelsea Hospital. He never attained to the place which -he coveted and for which his daughter was sent to five years' Royal -servitude, and (incidentally) to achieve for herself that immortality -as a chronicler which would certainly never have been won by her as a -novelist. - -But the King did not confine his conversation to the one topic which he -knew was of greatest interest to her. He spoke of Mrs. Delany, who had -been the means of introducing Fanny to the Royal circle; and he referred -to the ill-treatment which he had received at the hands of one of his -pages; but this was the only passage that savoured of unkindness, and -the chronicler is unable to do more than hope that the conduct of the -pages was one of His Majesty's delusions. Then, with what seems to us to -be consummate adroitness, he put some questions to her which she could -not but answer. “They referred to information given to him in his -illness from various motives, but which he suspected to be false, and -which I knew he had reason to suspect,” Miss Burney writes. “Yet was it -most dangerous to set anything right, as I was not aware what might be -the views of their having been stated wrong. I was as discreet as I knew -how to be, and I hope I did no mischief: but this was the worst part of -the dialogue.” - -We can quite believe that it was, and considering that it was the part -of the dialogue which was most interesting to the King, we think that -Miss Burney was to be congratulated upon the tact she displayed in her -answers. She did not cause the King to be more perturbed than he was -when waxing indignant over the conduct of his pages; and there was no -need for Dr. Willis to interfere at this point, though he did a little -later on. Then submitting with the utmost docility to the control of -his excellent attendant, and with another exhortation not to pay any -attention to the whims of the Schwellenberg, the gracious gentleman -kissed her once more on the cheek and allowed her to take her departure. - -So ended this remarkable adventure in Kew Gardens. One can picture -Fanny Burney flying to tell the Queen all that had occurred--to repeat -everything that her discretion permitted her of the conversation; and -one has no difficulty in imagining the effect upon Queen Charlotte -of all that she narrated; but it seems rather hard that from Mrs. -Schwellenberg should have been withheld the excellent advice given by -the King to Miss Burney respecting the German virago. - -It would have been impossible either for Fanny Burney or the Queen -to come to any conclusion from all that happened except one that was -entirely satisfactory to both. King George III was undoubtedly on the -high road to recovery, and subsequent events confirmed this opinion. It -really seemed that the interview with the author of _Evelina_ marked the -turning-point in his malady at this time. Every day brought its record -of improvement, and within a fortnight the dreaded Regency Bill, which -had been sent up to the Lords, was abandoned. On March 1st there -were public thanksgivings in all the churches, followed by such an -illumination of London as had not been seen since the great fire. The -scene at Kew is admirably described by Miss Burney, who had written some -congratulatory lines to be offered by the Princess Amelia to the King. A -great “transparency” had been painted by the Queen's order, representing -the King, Providence, Health, and Britannia--a truly British -tableau--and when this was hung out and illuminated the little Princess -“went to lead her papa to the front window.” Then she dropped on her -knees and gave him the “copy of verses,” with the postscript: - - The little bearer begs a kiss - - From dear papa for bringing this. - -The “dear papa” took his dear child in his arms, and held her close to -him for some time. Nothing could have been more charmingly natural and -affecting. For such a picture of Royalty at home we are indebted to -Fanny Burney, and, face to face with it, we are selfish enough to feel -grateful to Dr. Burney for having given his daughter for five years -to discharge a humble duty to her Sovereign and an immortal one to her -fellow-countrymen, who have read her Diary and placed it on a shelf -between Pepys and de Gramont. - - - - -A COMEDY IN ST. MARTIN'S STREET - -DR BURNEY was giving a “command” party at his house in St. Martin's -Street, Leicester Fields--the house which Sir Isaac Newton did -once inhabit, and which was still crowned with the most celebrated -observatory in Europe. In the early years of his musical career he had -had a patron, Mr. Fulk Greville, who had done a great deal for him, -and in later days he had never quite forgotten this fact, although -Dr. Burney had climbed high on the professional as well as the social -ladder, and was better known in the world than Mr. Greville himself. He -had become quite intimate with many great persons and several curious -ones. It is uncertain whether Mr. Greville regarded Dr. Johnson as -belonging to the former or the latter class, but at any rate he had -heard a great deal about Dr. Johnson, and did not think that, provided -he took every reasonable precaution, any harm could come to himself from -meeting such a notability. He accordingly instructed Dr. Burney to bring -him and Johnson together, and Burney promised to do so. Before the day -for this meeting was fixed Mrs. Greville--who, by the way, was Fanny -Burney's godmother--had signified her intention of viewing the huge -person also, and of bringing her daughter, the exquisite Mrs. Crewe, to -attend the promised exhibition of genius in bulk. - -Of course Dr. Johnson was ready to lend himself to any plan that might -be devised to increase the circumference of his circle of admirers, and -besides, this Mr. Fulk Greville was a descendant of the friend of Sir -Philip Sidney, and had large possessions, as well as a magnificent -country seat, and altogether he would make a most desirable listener; so -he agreed to come to the party to be inspected by the Greville family. -Burney, however, wishing, as every responsible proprietor of a menagerie -should wish, to be on the safe side and exhibit his bear under the eye -and the controlling influence of his favourite keeper, invited Mr. and -Mrs. Thrale to the party. - -These were to be the “principals” in the comedy of this entertainment; -and for the subordinates he selected his married daughter and her -husband--both admirable musicians--Mr. Davenant, Mr. Seward, and a -certain Italian musician, a vocalist as well as a performer on the -violin and that new instrument which was at first called the fortepiano, -then the pianoforte, and later on simply the piano. This person's name -was Gabrielli Piozzi. - -Such were the harmonious elements which Dr. Burney proposed to bring -together for the gratification of Mr. Fulk Greville and his wife. Mr. -Greville was an amateur of some little capacity, and he had certainly at -one time been greatly interested in music. He had paid £300 to Burney's -master, the celebrated Dr. Arne, who composed in the masque of “Alfred” - the rousing anthem known as “Rule Britannia,” for the cancelling of -Burney's indentures as an apprentice to the “art of musick,” and had -taken the young man into his own house in a capacity which may best be -described as that of entertaining secretary. Dr. Burney may therefore -have thought in his wisdom that, should Johnson be in one of his -bearish moods and feel disinclined to exhibit his parts of speech to -Mr. Greville, the latter would be certain of entertainment from the -musicians. This showed forethought and a good working knowledge of Dr. -Johnson. But in spite of the second string to the musician's bow -the party was a fiasco--that is, from the standpoint of a social -entertainment; it included one incident, however, which made it the most -notable of the many of the Burney parties of which a record remains. - -And what records there are available to any one interested in the -entertainments given by Dr. Burney and his charming family at that -modest house of theirs, just round the corner from Sir Joshua Reynolds' -larger establishment in Leicester Fields! Hundreds of people who -contributed to make the second half of the eighteenth century the most -notable of any period so far as literature and the arts were concerned, -since the spacious days of Elizabeth, were accustomed to meet together -informally at this house, and to have their visits recorded for all ages -to muse upon. To that house came Garrick, not to exhibit his brilliance -as a talker before a crowd of admirers, but to entertain the children -of the household with the buffooning that never flagged, and that -never fell short of genius in any exhibition. He was the delight of the -schoolroom. Edmund Burke and his brother, both fond of conversation when -oratory was not available, were frequently here; Reynolds came with -many of his sitters, and found fresh faces for his canvas among his -fellow-guests; and with him came his maiden sister, feeling herself more -at home with the simple Burney circle than she ever did with the company -who assembled almost daily under her brother's roof. Nollekens, the -sculptor; Colman, the dramatist and theatre manager, who was obliged to -run away from London to escape the gibes which were flung at him from -every quarter when Goldsmith's _She Stoops to Conquer_, which he had -done his best to make a failure, became the greatest success of the -year; Cumberland, the embittered rival of Goldsmith, who was the person -who gave the solitary hiss during the first performance of the same -play, causing the timid author to say to the manager on entering the -playhouse, “What is that, sir--pray, what is that? Is it a hiss?” To -which Colman replied, “Psha! sir, what signifies a squib when we have -been sitting on a barrel of gunpowder all night?” - -These were among the notabilities; and the “curiosities” were quite as -numerous. The earliest of Arctic voyagers, Sir Constantine Phipps, who -later became Lord Mulgrave, put in an appearance at more than one of the -parties; and so did Omai, the “gentle savage” of the poet Cowper, who -was brought by Captain Cook from the South Seas in the ship on which -young Burney was an officer. The sisters, who, of course, idolised the -sailor, sat open-mouthed with wonder to hear their brother chatting away -to Omai in his native language. Upon another occasion came Bruce, the -Abyssinian traveller, who told the story of how steaks were cut from the -live ox when needed by the inhabitants of one region. He was immensely -tall, as were some of his stories; but though extremely dignified, he -did not object to a practical joke. Another person of great stature who -visited the Burneys was the notorious Count Orloff, the favourite of the -Empress Catherine of Russia; and from the letters of one of the young -people of the household one has no difficulty in perceiving with what -interest he was regarded by the girls, especially since the report -reached them that he had personally strangled his imperial master at the -instigation of his imperial mistress. - -These are but, a few names out of the many on the Burneys' visiting -list. Of course, as regards musical artists, the house was the -rendezvous of the greatest in London. While the opera-house in the -Haymarket was open there was a constant flow of brilliant vocalists to -these shores, and the young people had many opportunities of becoming -acquainted with the ignorance, the capriciousness, the affectations, and -the abilities which were to be found associated with the lyric stage in -the eighteenth century, as they are in the twentieth. Among the prime -donne who sang for the Burneys were the Agujari--a marvellous performer, -who got fifty pounds for every song she sang at the Pantheon--and her -great but uncertain rival, Gabrielli. The former, according to Mozart, -who may possibly be allowed to be something of a judge, had a vocal -range which was certainly never equalled by any singer before or after -his time. She won all hearts and a great deal of money during her visit -to London, and she left with the reputation of being the most marvellous -and most rapacious of Italians. Gabrielli seems to have tried to make up -by capriciousness what she lacked in expression. Her voice was, so far -as can be gathered from contemporary accounts, small and thin. But by -judiciously disappointing the public she became the most widely talked -of vocalist in the country. Then among the men were the simple and -gracious Pacchierotti--who undoubtedly became attached to Fanny -Burney--Rauzzini, and Piozzi. - -[Illustration: 0049] - -The Burneys' house was for years the centre of the highest intellectual -entertainment to be found in London, and the tact of the head of the -household, and the simple, natural manners of his daughters, usually -succeeded in preventing the intrusion of a single inharmonious note, in -spite of the fact that a Welsh harpist named Jones had once been among -the visitors. - -But upon the occasion of this “command” party, when Greville was to meet -Johnson, and the latter had dressed himself with that extreme care which -we suspect meant that he tied up his hose, and put on a wig the front of -which had not yet been burnt away by coming in contact with his lighted -candle, Burney's tact overreached itself. Mr. Greville may have felt -that the Thrales had no business to be of the party, or Johnson may have -gained the impression that Burney's old patron was anxious to play the -same part, in an honorary sort of way, in regard to himself. At any -rate, he refused to be drawn out to exhibit his conversational powers -to a supercilious visitor; and after a brief space of time he turned his -back upon every one and his face to the fire, and there he sat, greatly -to the discomfiture, no doubt, of his host. In a very short time a gloom -settled down upon the whole party. Mr. Thrale, stiff and reserved, was -not the man to pull things together. He sat mute on his chair, making no -advance toward Mr. Greville, and Mr. Greville had probably his chin in -the air, having come to the conclusion that Dr. Johnson's powers as a -conversationalist had been greatly overrated by rumour. - -It was when all hope of sociability had vanished that Dr. Burney, -who, when a church organist, may have had occasion to cover up the -shortcomings of the clergyman by a timely voluntary, begged Signor -Piozzi to oblige the company with a song. But Piozzi was a forlorn hope. -He was the last man in the world to save the situation. Had he been a -vocalist of the calibre of Pacchierotti he could have made no headway -against the funereal gloom that had settled down upon the party. - -Piozzi had a sweet and highly trained voice, though some years earlier -he had lost its best notes, and he sang with exquisite expression; -but when playing his own accompaniment, with his back turned to his -audience, he was prone to exaggerate the sentiment of the music until -sentiment became lost in an exuberance of sentimentality. - -This style of singing is not that to which any one would resort in order -to dissipate a sudden social gloom. As the singer went on the gloom -deepened. - -It was just at this moment that one of those ironic little imps that -lurk in wainscot nooks looking out for an opportunity to influence an -unconscious human being to an act which the little demon, seeing the -end of a scene of which mortals only see the beginning, regards with -sardonic glee, whispered something in the ear of Mrs. Thrale, and in -an instant, in obedience to its prompting, she had left her chair and -stolen behind the singer at the piano. Raising her hands and turning -up her eyes in imitation of Piozzi, she indulged in a piece of mimicry -which must have shocked every one in the room except the singer, who had -his back to her, and Dr. Johnson, who, besides being too short-sighted -to be able to see her, was gazing into the grate. - -No doubt the flippant little lady felt that a touch of farcical fun -was the very thing needed to make the party go with a snap; but such -flagrant bad taste as was involved in the transaction was more than -Dr. Burney could stand. Keeping his temper marvellously well in hand, -considering his provocation, he went gently behind the gesticulating -woman and put a stop to her fooling. Shaking his head, he whispered in a -“half joke whole earnest” way: - -“Because, madam, you have no ear yourself for music, will you destroy -the attention of all who, in that one point, are otherwise gifted?” - -Or words to that effect, it might be safe to add, for the phrases as -recorded in the diary of one of his daughters are a trifle too academic -for even Dr. Burney to have whispered on the spur of the moment. But he -certainly reproved the lady, and she took his remonstrance in good part, -and showed herself to be admirably appreciative of the exact pose to -assume in order to save the situation. She went demurely to her chair -and sat there stiffly, and with the affectation of a schoolgirl who has -been admonished for a fault and commanded to take a seat in silence and -apart from the rest of the class. It must be apparent to every one that -this was the precise attitude for her to strike in the circumstances, -and that she was able to perceive this in a rather embarrassing moment -shows that Mrs. Thrale was quite as clever as her friends made her out -to be. - -But regarding the incident itself, surely the phrase, “the irony of -fate,” was invented to describe it. A better illustration of the sport -of circumstance could not be devised, for in the course of time the -lively little lady, who had gone as far as any one could go in making a -mock of another, had fallen as deep in love with the man whom she mocked -as ever Juliet did with her Romeo. She found that she could not live -without him, and, sacrificing friends, position, and fortune, she threw -herself into his arms, and lived happy ever after. - -The conclusion of the first scene in this saturnine comedy which was -being enacted in the drawing-room in that house in St. Martin's Street, -was in perfect keeping with the _mise-en-scène_ constructed by Fate, -taking the rôle of Puck. It is admirably described in the diary of -Charlotte Burney. She wrote that Mr. Greville--whom she nicknamed “Mr. -Gruel”--assumed “his most supercilious air of distant superiority” and -“planted himself immovable as a noble statue upon the hearth, as if a -stranger to the whole set.” - -By this time Dr. Johnson must have had enough of the fire at which -he had been sitting, and we at once see how utterly hopeless were the -social relations at this miserable party when we hear that the men “were -so kind and considerate as to divert themselves by making a fire-screen -to the whole room.” But Dr. Johnson, having thoroughly warmed himself, -was now in a position to administer a rebuke to the less fortunate ones, -and, when nobody would have imagined that he had known the gentlemen -were in the room, he said that “if he was not ashamed he would keep the -fire from the ladies too.” - -“This reproof (for a reproof it certainly was, although given in a very -comical, dry way) was productive,” Charlotte adds, “of a scene as good -as a comedy, for Mr. Suard tumbled on to a sopha directly, Mr. Thrale on -to a chair, Mr. Davenant sneaked off the premises, seemingly in as great -a fright and as much confounded as if he had done any bad action, and -Mr. Gruel being left solus, was obliged to stalk off.” - -A more perfect description of the “curtain” to the first act of this, -“as good as a comedy,” could not be imagined. In every scene of this -memorable evening the mocking figure of an impish Fate can be discerned. -There was the tactful and urbane Dr. Burney anxious to gratify his old -patron by presenting to him the great Dr. Johnson, and at the same time -to show on what excellent terms he himself was with the family of the -wealthy brewer, Mr. Thrale. Incidentally he has caused Johnson to put -himself to the inconvenience of a clean shirt and a respectable wig; -and, like a thoughtful general, lest any of his plans should fall short -of fulfilment, he has invited an interesting vocalist to cover up the -retreat and make failure almost impossible! - -Dr. Burney could do wonders by the aid of his tact and urbanity, but he -is no match for Fate playing the part of Puck. Within an hour Johnson -has disappointed him and become grumpy--the old bear has found the buns -to be stale; Mr. Greville, the patron, is in a patronising mood, and -becomes stiff and aloof because Johnson, secure with his pension, -resents it; Mrs. Thrale, anxious to do her best for Burney, and at the -same time to show Mrs. Greville and her fine daughter how thoroughly -at home she is in the house and how delicate is her sense of humour, -strikes an appallingly false note, and only saves herself by a touch of -cleverness from appearing wholly ridiculous. This is pretty well for the -opening scenes, but the closing catastrophe is not long delayed. The men -huddle themselves together in stony silence; and they are reproved for -impoliteness by--whom? Dr. Johnson, the man who has studied boorishness -and advanced it to a place among the arts--the man who calls those who -differ from him dolts and fools and rascals--the man whose manners at -the dinner table are those of the sty and trough--the man who walks -about the streets ungartered and unclean--this is the man who has the -effrontery to rebuke for their rudeness such gentlemen as Mr. Fulk -Greville, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Thrale! Puck can go no further. Down comes -the curtain when one gentleman collapses upon a “sopha,” another into a -chair, a third sneaks off like a culprit, and the fourth stalks off with -an air of offended dignity! - -It might be thought that the imp of mischief who had assumed the control -of this evening's entertainment would be satisfied at the result of his -pranks so far. Nothing of the sort. He was only satisfied when he -had made a match between the insignificant figure who was playing the -musical accompaniment to his pranks and the lady who thought that his -presence in the room was only justifiable on the ground that he made an -excellent butt for her mockery! - -And the funniest part of the whole comedy is to be found in the fact -that the pair lived happy ever after! - -The extraordinary influence which Boswell has had upon almost every -student of the life of the latter half of the eighteenth century is -shown in a marked way by the general acceptance of his view--which it is -scarcely necessary to say was Johnson's view--of the second marriage of -Mrs. Thrale. We are treating Boswell much more fairly than he treated -Mrs. Thrale when we acknowledge at once that his opinion was shared by a -considerable number of the lady's friends, including Dr. Burney and -his family. They were all shocked when they heard that the widow of -the Southwark brewer had married the Italian musician, Signor Gabrielli -Piozzi. Even in the present day, when one might reasonably expect -that, the miserable pettiness of Boswell's character having been made -apparent, his judgment on most points would be received with a smile, he -is taken very seriously by a good many people. It has long ago been made -plain that Boswell was quite unscrupulous in his treatment of every one -that crossed his path or made an attempt to interfere with the aim of -his life, which was to become the biographer of Johnson. The instances -of his petty malevolence which have come to light within recent years -are innumerable. They show that the opinion which his contemporaries -formed of him was absolutely correct. We know that he was regarded as a -cur who was ever at Johnson's heels, and took the insults of the great -man with a fawning complacency that was pathetically canine. He was -daily called a cur. “Oh, no,” said Goldsmith, “he is not a cur, only a -burr; Tom Davies flung him at Johnson one day as a joke, and he stuck to -him ever since”--a cur, and an ape and a spy and a Branghton--the last -by Dr. Johnson himself in the presence of a large company, that included -the creator of the contemptible Mr. Branghton. (The incident was not, -however, recorded by Mr. Boswell himself.) But as the extraordinary -interest in his _Life of Johnson_ began to be acknowledged, the force of -contemporary opinion gradually dwindled away, until Boswell's verdicts -and Boswell's inferences found general acceptance; and even now -Goldsmith is regarded as an Irish _omadhaum_, because Boswell did his -best to make him out to be one, and Mrs. Thrale is thought to have -forfeited her claims to respect because she married Signor Piozzi. - -People forget the origin of Boswell's malevolence in both cases. He -detested Goldsmith because Goldsmith was a great writer, who was capable -of writing a great biography of Johnson, with whom he had been on the -most intimate terms long before Tom Davies flung his burr at Johnson; he -hated Baretti and recorded--at the sacrifice of Johnson's reputation for -humanity--Johnson's cynical belittling of him, because he feared that -Baretti would write _the_ biography; he was spiteful in regard to Mrs. -Thrale because she actually did write something biographical about -Johnson. - -The impudence of such a man as Boswell writing about “honest Dr. -Goldsmith” is only surpassed by his allusions to the second marriage of -Mrs. Thrale. He was a fellow-guest with Johnson at the Thrales' house in -1775, and he records something of a conversation which he says occurred -on the subject of a woman's marrying some one greatly beneath her -socially. “When I recapitulate the debate,” he says, “and recollect what -has since happened, I cannot but be struck in a manner that delicacy -forbids me to express! While I contended that she ought to be treated -with inflexible steadiness of displeasure, Mrs. Thrale was all for -mildness and forgiveness and, according to the vulgar phrase, making the -best of a bad bargain.” This was published after the second marriage. -What would be thought of a modern biographer who should borrow a little -of Boswell's “delicacy,” and refer to a similar incident in the same -style? - -In his own inimitable small way Boswell was for ever sneering at Mrs. -Thrale. Sometimes he did it with that scrupulous delicacy of which an -example has just been given; but he called her a liar more than once -with considerable indelicacy, and his readers will without much trouble -come to the conclusion that his indelicacy was preferable to his -delicacy--it certainly came more natural to him. He was small and mean -in all his ways, and never smaller or meaner than in his references to -Mrs. Thrale's second marriage. - -But, it must be repeated, he did not stand alone in regarding her union -with Piozzi as a _mésalliance_. Dr. Burney was shocked at the thought -that any respectable woman would so far forget herself as to marry -a musician, and his daughter Fanny wept remorseful tears when she -reflected that she had once been the friend of a lady who did not shrink -from marrying a foreigner and a Roman Catholic--more of the irony of -Fate, for Fanny Burney was herself guilty of the same indiscretion later -on: she made a happy marriage with a Roman Catholic foreigner, who -lived on her pension and her earnings. Dr. Johnson was brutal when -the conviction was forced upon him that he would no longer have an -opportunity of insulting a lady who had treated him with incredible -kindness, or the guests whom he met at her table. Upon one of the last -occasions of his dining at Mrs. Thrale's house at Streatham, a gentleman -present--an inoffensive Quaker--ventured to make a remark respecting the -accuracy with which the red-hot cannon-balls were fired at the Siege of -Gibraltar. Johnson listened for some time, and then with a cold sneer -said, “I would advise you, sir, never to relate this story again. You -really can scarce imagine how very poor a figure you make in the telling -of it.” Later on he took credit to himself for not quarrelling with his -victim when the latter chose to talk to his brother rather than to the -man who had insulted him. Yes, it can quite easily be understood that -Johnson should look on the marriage as a sad _mésalliance_, and possibly -it is fair to assume from the letter which he wrote to the lady that he -felt hurt when he heard that it was to take place. - -Mrs. Thrale wrote to tell him that she meant to marry Piozzi, and -received the following reply: - -“Madam,--If I interpret your letter right, you are ignominiously -married; if it is yet undone, let us once more talk together. If -you have abandoned your children and your religion, God forgive your -wickedness; if you have forfeited your fame and your country, may your -folly do no further mischief!” - -Possibly the lady may have gathered from the hint or two conveyed -to her, with Boswellian delicacy, in this letter, that Johnson was -displeased with her. At any rate, she replied, declining to continue the -correspondence. - -In her letter she summed up the situation exactly as a reasonable -person, acquainted with all the facts, and knowing something of the -first husband, would do. - -“The birth of my second husband is not meaner than that of my first,” - she wrote; “his sentiments are not meaner; his profession is not meaner; -and his superiority in what he professes acknowledged by all mankind. It -is want of fortune, then, that is ignominious; the character of the man -I have chosen has no other claim to such an epithet. The religion to -which he has always been a zealous adherent, will, I hope, teach him to -forgive insults he has not deserved; mine will, I hope, enable [me] -to bear them at once with dignity and patience. To hear that I have -forfeited my fame is indeed the greatest insult I ever yet received. My -fame is as unsullied as snow, or I should think it unworthy of him who -must henceforth protect it.” - -This brought the surly burly mass of offended dignity to his proper -level; but still he would not offer the lady who had been his -benefactress for twenty years an apology for his brutality. He had the -presumption to offer his advice instead--advice and the story (highly -appropriate from his point of view) of Mary Queen of Scots and the -Archbishop of St. Andrews. He advised her to remain in England--he would -not relinquish his room in her house and his place at her table without -a struggle--as her rank would be higher in England than in Italy, and -her fortune would be under her own eye. The latter suggestion was a -delicate insult to Piozzi. - -Mrs. Piozzi, as she then became, showed that she esteemed this piece of -presumption, under the guise of advice, at its true value. Immediately -after her marriage she went abroad with her husband, though eventually -she settled with him in England. - -Now, most modern readers will, we think, when they have become -acquainted with the whole story of Mrs. Thrale's life, arrive at the -conclusion that it was her first marriage that was the _mésalliance_, -not her second. - -[Illustration: 0065] - -Henry Thrale was a man of humble origin--a fact that revealed itself -almost daily in his life--and he was incapable of loving any one except -himself. He certainly never made a pretence of devotion to his wife, and -it is equally certain that, although she did more for him than any other -woman would have done, she never loved him. It might be going too far, -considering the diversity of temperament existing among womankind, to -assert that he was incapable of being loved by any woman; but beyond -a doubt he was not a lovable man. He was a stiff, dignified, morose, -uncongenial man, and he was a Member of Parliament into the bargain. -What could a pretty, lively, brilliant girl of good family see in such a -man as Thrale to make her love him? She never did love him--at times she -must have detested him. But she married him, and it was a lucky day -for him that she did so. Twice she saved him from bankruptcy, and three -times she induced his constituents, who thoroughly hated him, to return -him to Parliament as their representative. He never did anything in -Parliament, and he did little out of it that was worth remembering. It -is customary to make large allowances for a man of business who finds -that his wealth and a charming wife serve as a passport into what is -called society, though latterly such men do not stand in need of such -a favour being shown to them. But if a man betrays his ignorance of -certain social usages--not necessarily refinements--his friends excuse -him on the ground that he is a first-rate business man. Thrale, however, -was unworthy of such a title. He inherited a great scientific business, -but he showed himself so incapable of appreciating the methods by which -it had been built up, that he brought himself within a week or two of -absolute ruin by listening to a clumsy adventurer who advocated the -adoption of a system of adulteration of his beer that even a hundred -and fifty years ago would have brought him within sight of a criminal -prosecution. - -His literary wife, by her clever management, aided by the money of her -mother and of sundry of her own, not her husband's, friends, succeeded -in staving off the threatened disaster. But the pig-headed man did not -accept the lesson which one might imagine he would have learned. Seeing -the success that crowned other enterprises of the same character as his -own, he endeavoured to emulate this success, not by the legitimate way -of increasing his customers, but by the idiotic plan of over-production. -He had an idea that in the multiplying of the article which he had to -sell he was increasing his business. Once again he was helped from the -verge of ruin by his literary wife. - -He must have been a dreadful trial to her, and to a far-seeing manager -whom he had--a man named Perkins. Of course it was inevitable that the -force of character possessed by this Mr. Perkins must eventually prevail -against the dignified incompetence of the proprietor. The inevitable -happened, and the name of Perkins has for more than a hundred years been -bracketed with Barclay as a going concern, while the name of Thrale has -vanished for ever from “the Borough.” - -It was this Mr. Perkins who, when the brewery was within five minutes of -absolute disaster, displayed the tactics of a great general in the face -of an implacable enemy, and saved the property. As a reward for his -services his master authorised the presentation to him of the sum of -a hundred pounds. His master's wife, however, being a more generous -assessor of the value of the man's ability, ventured to present double -the sum, together with a silver tea-service for Mrs. Perkins; but she -did so in fear and trembling, failing to summon up sufficient courage to -acquaint her husband with her extravagance until further concealment was -impossible. She was so overjoyed at his sanctioning the increase that -she at once wrote to her friends acquainting them with this evidence of -his generosity. - -This episode was certainly the most stirring in the history of Thrale's -brewery. The Gordon rioters had been terrorising London for several -days, burning houses in every direction, as well as Newgate and another -prison, and looting street after street. They had already overthrown one -brewery, and they found the incident so fascinating that they marched -across the bridge to the Southwark concern, raising the cry that Thrale -was a Papist. The Thrales were at this time sojourning at Bath, and -were in an agony of suspense regarding their property. They had left -Dr. Johnson comfortably ensconced at their Streatham house in order that -they might learn in dignified language how things were going on. - -This is Johnson's thrilling account of the incident: - -“What has happened to your house you all know. The harm is only a few -butts of beer, and I think you may be sure that the danger is over. Pray -tell Mr. Thrale that I live here, and have no fruit, and if he does not -interpose am not likely to have much; but I think he might as well give -me a little as give all to the gardener.” - -There was a double catastrophe threatening, it would appear: the burning -of the brewery and the shortage in the supply of Dr. Johnson's peaches. - -This is how Mrs. Thrale describes the situation: - -“Nothing but the astonishing presence of mind shewed by Perkins in -amusing the mob, with meat and drink and huzzas, till Sir Philip -Jennings Clerke could get the troops, and pack up the counting-house, -bills, bonds etc. and carry them, which he did, to Chelsea College for -safety, could have saved us from actual undoing. The villains _had_ -broke in, and our brew-house would have blazed in ten minutes, when -a property of £150,000 would have been utterly lost, and its once -flourishing possessors quite undone.” - -It seems almost incredible that Johnson, living at Streatham as the -guardian of Mr. Thrale's interests, should require the lady to write to -him, begging him to thank Perkins for his heroism. But so it was. - -“Perkins has behaved like an Emperor,” she wrote, “and it is my earnest -wish and desire--command, if you please to call it so--that you will go -over to the brew-house and express _your_ sense of his good behaviour.” - -Mrs. Thrale was unreasonable. How could Johnson be expected to take any -action when he was deprived of his peaches? - -It will strike a good many modern readers of the account of this and -other transactions that if it was Perkins who saved the brewery for Mr. -Thrale, it was Mrs. Thrale who saved Perkins for the brewery. Possibly -it was her prompt gift of the silver plate to Mrs. Perkins that induced -this splendid manager to pocket the insult of the beggarly two hundred -guineas given to him by Mrs. Thrale--though this was double the amount -authorised by the “master.” Thrale never sufficiently valued the -services of Perkins. If he had had any gratitude in his composition he -would never have made Johnson one of his executors. What a trial it -must have been to the competent man of business to see Johnson lumbering -about the place with a pen behind his ear and an ink-pot suspended from -a button of his coat, getting in the way of everybody, and yet feeling -himself quite equal to any business emergency that might crop up. He -felt himself equal to anything--even to improve upon the auctioneer's -style in appraising the value of the whole concern. “Beyond the dreams -of avarice” remains as the sole classic phrase born beneath the shadow -of a brew-house. - -In the matter of the premium to Perkins, Thrale should have felt that he -had a treasure in his wife, to say nothing of all that she had done for -him upon another occasion, involving a terrible sacrifice. A quarrel had -broken out among the clerks at the brewery, which even the generalship -of Perkins was unable to mollify. Had Mrs. Thrale been an ordinary -woman she would not have jeopardised her own life and the life of her -child--her thirteenth--in her husband's interests. As it was, however, -she felt that the duty was imposed on her to settle the difficulties in -the counting-house, and she did so; but only after many sleepless nights -and the sacrifice of her child. “The men were reconciled,” she wrote, -“and my danger accelerated their reconcilement.” - -If Henry Thrale was deficient in the best characteristics of a business -man, his qualifications to shine socially can scarcely be regarded as -abundant. There were stories of his having been a gay dog in his youth, -but assuredly he and gaiety had long been strangers when he married his -wife, and upon no occasion afterwards could he be so described even by -the most indulgent of his friends; so that one rather inclines to the -belief that the dull dog must have been a dull puppy. We know what -his eldest daughter was, and we are convinced that the nature of that -priggish, dignified, and eminently disagreeable young lady was inherited -from her father. In Miss Thrale as a girl one feels that one is looking -at Henry Thrale as a boy. The only story that survives of those mythical -gay days with which he was accredited is that relating to the arrival -of the Gunnings to take London by storm. It was said that he and Murphy -thought to make these exquisite creatures the laughing-stock of the town -by introducing them to a vulgar hanger-on of Murphy, in the character of -a wealthy man of title and distinction. Possibly the two young men were -put up to play this disgraceful prank upon the Gunnings by some jealous -female associate; but however this may be, it not only failed most -ignominiously, it recoiled upon the jesters themselves, for Mrs. -Gunning, herself the sister of a nobleman, and destined to become the -mother-in-law of two dukes and the grandmother of two more--the parent -of a peeress in her own right, and an uncommonly shrewd Irishwoman into -the bargain--“smoaked,” as the slang of the period had it, the trick, -and her footman bundled the trio into the street. - -The story may be true; but as both the Gunning girls were married in -1752, and Thrale did not meet Hester Lynch Salusbury till 1763, it was -an old story then, and it was not remembered against him except by the -Duchess of Hamilton. If it represents the standard of his adolescent -wildness, we cannot but think that his youth was less meteoric than his -wife believed it to be. At any rate, we do not know much about his early -life, but we do know a great deal about his latter years, and it is -impossible to believe that his nature underwent a radical change within -a year or two of his marriage. - -He became the host of a large number of the most notable people of that -brilliant period at which he lived, and we perceive from the copious -accounts that survive of the Streatham gatherings that he was greatly -respected by all his visitors. He never said anything that was worth -recording, and he never did anything memorable beyond stopping Johnson -when the latter was becoming more than usually offensive to his -fellow-guests. He had no ear for music any more than Johnson had, and it -does not appear that he cared any more for painting, although he became -a splendid patron of Sir Joshua Reynolds, whom he commissioned to paint -several portraits of his distinguished friends for the decoration of the -library at Streatham. To his munificence in this respect the world owes -its finest portraits of Goldsmith, Burke, Garrick, the painter himself, -and Mrs. Thrale. - -The debt which we feel we owe to Thrale on this account is, however, -somewhat discounted when we learn that this enthusiastic patron of -art never paid the painter for his work. He left the pictures and the -obligation to pay for them as a legacy to his widow--and to pay for -them at more than the current rate for each into the bargain. Sir Joshua -Reynolds was as good a man of business as Thrale was an indifferent -one. At the time of his painting the portraits his price for a -three-quarter-length picture was £35, but in the course of a year or two -he felt it necessary to charge £50 for the same size, and this was the -price which the unfortunate widow had to pay for her husband's pose as -the munificent patron of the Arts. - -Men of the stamp of Thrale usually have no vices. - -They are highly respected. If they had a vice or two they would be -beloved. He had a solitary failing, but it did not win for him the -affection of any one: it was gluttony. For years of his life he gave -himself up to the coarsest form of indulgence. He was not a gourmet: he -did not aim at the refinements of the table or at those daintinesses of -cuisine which in the days of intemperate eaters and drinkers proved so -fatally fascinating to men of many virtues; no, his was the vice of the -trough. He ate for the sake of eating, unmindful of the nature of the -dish so long as it was plentiful enough to keep him employed for an hour -or two. - -The dinner-table of the famous Streatham Park must have been a spectacle -for some of the philosophers who sat round it. We know what was the food -that Johnson's soul loved, and we know how he was accustomed to partake -of it. He rioted in pork, and in veal baked with raisins, and when he -sat down to some such dainty he fed like a wild animal. He used his -fingers as though they were claws, tearing the flesh from the bone -in his teeth, and swallowing it not wholly without sound. It is not -surprising to learn that his exertions caused the veins in his forehead -to swell and the beads of perspiration to drop from his scholarly brow, -nor can any one who has survived this account of his muscular feat at -the dinner-table reasonably be amazed to hear that when so engaged, he -devoted himself to the work before him to the exclusion of every other -interest in life. He was oblivious of anything that was going on around -him. He was deaf to any remark made by a neighbour, and for himself -articulation was suspended. Doubtless the feeble folk on whom he had -been trampling in the drawing-room felt that his peculiarities of -feeding, though revolting to the squeamish, were not without a bright -side. They had a chance of making a remark at such intervals without -being gored--“gored,” it will be remembered, was the word employed by -Boswell in playful allusion to the effect of his argumentative powers. - -Thanks to the careful habits of some of the guests at this famous house -we know what fare was placed before the Gargantuan geniuses at one of -these dinners. Here is the _carte du jour_, “sufficient for twelve,” as -the cookery book says: - -“First course, soups at head and foot, removed by fish and a saddle -of mutton; second course, a fowl they call galena at head and a capon -larger than some of our Irish turkeys at foot; third course, four -different sorts of ices, pine-apple, grape, raspberry and a fourth; in -each remove there were fourteen dishes.” The world is indebted to an -Irish clergyman for these details. It will be seen that they did not -include much that could be sneered at as bordering on the kickshaw. -All was good solid English fare--just the sort to make the veins in a -gormandiser's forehead to swell and to induce the lethargy from which -Thrale suffered. He usually fell asleep after dinner; one day he failed -to awake, and he has not awakened since. - -Of course Johnson, being invariably in delicate health, was compelled to -put himself on an invalid's diet when at home. He gives us a sample of -a _diner maigre_ at Bolt Court. Feeling extremely ill, he wrote to Mrs. -Thrale that he could only take for dinner “skate, pudding, goose, and -green asparagus, and could have eaten more but was prudent.” He adds, -“Pray for me, dear Madam,”--by no means an unnecessary injunction, some -people will think, when they become aware of the details of the meal of -an invalid within a year or two of seventy. - -It was after one of the Streatham dinners that Mrs. Thrale ventured to -say a word or two in favour of Garrick's talent for light gay poetry, -and as a specimen repeated his song in _Florizel and Perdita_, and dwelt -with peculiar pleasure on this line: - -_I'd smile with the simple and dine with the poor._ - -This is Boswell's account of the matter, and he adds that Johnson cried, -“Nay, my dear lady, this will never do. Poor David! Smile with the -simple! What folly is that? And who would feed with the poor that can -help it? No, no; let me smile with the wise and feed with the rich!” - -Quite so; beyond a doubt Johnson spoke from the bottom of his -heart--nay, from a deeper depth still. - -Boswell was amazed to find that Garrick's “sensibility” as a writer was -irritated when he related the story to him, and in Mrs. Thrale's copy of -Johnson she made a note--“How odd to go and tell the man!” - -It was not at all odd that Boswell, being a professional tale-bearer and -mischief-maker, should tell the man; but it is odd that Garrick should -be irritated, the fact being that the sally was directed against a -line which he did not write. What Garrick did write was something very -different. The verse, which was misquoted, runs thus: - - That giant Ambition we never can dread; - - Our roofs are too low for so lofty a head; - - Content and sweet Cheerfulness open our door, - - They smile with the simple and feed with the poor. - -Such a muddle as was made of the whole thing can only be attributed to -the solidity of the Streatham fare. - -It was inevitable that Thrale could not continue over-eating himself -with impunity. He was warned more than once by his doctors that he was -killing himself, and yet when he had his first attack every one was -shocked. He recovered temporarily, and all his friends implored him to -cultivate moderation at the dinner-table. A touch of humour is to be -found among the details of the sordid story, in his wife's begging -Johnson--Johnson of the swollen forehead and the tokens of his -submission to the primeval curse in the eating of his bread--to try to -reason the unhappy man out of his dreadful vice. After wiping from the -front of his coat the remains of the eighth peach which he had eaten -before breakfast, or the dregs of his nineteenth cup of tea from -his waistcoat, Johnson may have felt equal to the duty. He certainly -remonstrated with Thrale. It was all to no purpose, however; he had a -second attack of apoplexy in the spring of 1780, and we hear that he was -copiously “blooded.” He recovered and went to Bath to recruit. It was -during this visit to Bath that the brewery was attacked by the Gordon -rioters. On returning to London he failed to induce his constituents to -remain faithful to him, and he continued eating voraciously for another -year. He began a week of gorging on April 1st, 1781. His wife implored -him to be more moderate, and Johnson said very wisely, “Sir, after the -denunciation of your physicians this morning, such eating is little -better than suicide.” It was all to no purpose. He survived the gorge -of Sunday and Monday, but that of Tuesday was too much for him. He was -found by his daughter on the floor in a fit of apoplexy, and died the -next morning. - -Such was the man whose memory was outraged by the marriage of his -widow with Piozzi, an Italian musician, whose ability was so highly -appreciated that his earnings, even when he had lost his voice, amounted -to £1200 a year, a sum equal to close upon £2500 of our money. And yet -Johnson had the effrontery to suggest in that letter of his to Mrs. -Thrale, which we have quoted, that she would do well to live in England, -so that her money might be under her own eye! - -The truth is that Mrs. Thrale was in embarrassed circumstances when she -married Signor Piozzi. Her worthy husband left her an annuity of £2000, -which was to be reduced by £800 in the event of her marrying again; and -also £500 for her immediate expenses. Johnson wrote to her, making -her acquainted with this fact, in order, it would seem, to allay any -unworthy suspicion which she might entertain as to the extent of her -husband's generosity. But his last will and testament cannot have wholly -dispersed the doubt into which her experience of Mr. Thrale may have -led her. For a man who had been making from £16,000 to £20,000 a year -to leave his wife only £2000 a year, with a possibility of its being -reduced to £1200, would not strike any one as being generous to a point -of recklessness. When, however, it is remembered that Thrale's wife -plucked him and his business from the verge of bankruptcy more than -once, that she bore him fourteen children, and that she lived with him -for eighteen years, all question as to the generosity of his bequest to -her vanishes. But when, in addition, it is remembered that the lady's -fortune at her marriage to Thrale amounted to £10,000, all of which he -pocketed, and that later on she brought him another £500 a year, that -it was her mother's money, added to the sum which she herself collected -personally, which saved the brewery from collapse--once again at -the sacrifice of her infant--all question even of common fairness -disappears, and the meanness of the man stands revealed. - -[Illustration: 0083] - -It was through the exertions and by the business capacity of his widow -that the brewery was sold for £135,000. She was the only one of the -trustees who knew anything definite about the value of the property, -and had she not been on the spot, that astute Mr. Perkins could have so -worked the concern that he might have been able to buy it in a year or -two for the value of the building materials. And yet when she became -involved in a lawsuit that involved the paying of £7000, she had -difficulty in persuading her daughters' trustees to advance her the -money, although the security of the mortgage which she offered for -the accommodation would have satisfied any bankers. A wretch named -Crutchley, who was one of this precious band of incompetents, on the -completion of the deed bade her thank her daughters for keeping her out -of gaol. It is not recorded that the lady replied, though she certainly -might have done so, and with truth on her side, that if her daughters -had kept her out of a gaol she had kept her daughters out of a -workhouse. She would have done much better to have gone to her friends -the Barclays, whose bank had a hundred and fifty years ago as high a -reputation for probity combined with liberality as the same concern -enjoys to-day. - -Enough of the business side of Mrs. Thrale's second marriage has -been revealed to make it plain that Piozzi was not influenced by any -mercenary motives in the transaction. On the contrary, it was he who -came to her assistance when she was in an extremity, and by the prompt -loan of £1000 extricated her from her embarrassment, and left the next -day for Italy, without having any hope of marrying her. - -Johnson's verdict on Piozzi, communicated to Miss Seward, was that -he was an ugly dog, without particular skill in his profession. -Unfortunately for this musical enthusiast and devotee to beauty, Miss -Seward met Piozzi on his return from Italy with his wife. (His excellent -control of her money had resulted in every penny of the mortgage being -paid, and of the lodgment of £1500 to their credit in the bank). And -Miss Seward, writing from Lichfield--more of the irony of Fate--in 1787, -affirmed that the great Lichfield man “did not tell me the truth when -he asserted that Piozzi was an ugly dog, without particular skill in -his profession. M. Piozzi is a handsome man in middle life, with -gentle, pleasing, unaffected manners, and with very eminent skill in his -profession. Though he has not a powerful or fine-toned voice, he sings -with transcending grace and expression. I was charmed with his perfect -expression on his instrument. Surely the finest sensibilities must -vibrate through his frame, since they breathe so sweetly through his -song.” From this verdict no person who was acquainted with Signor Piozzi -differed. Mrs. Thrale's marriage with Piozzi was as fortunate for her as -her first marriage was for Thrale. - - - - -A TRAGEDY IN THE HAYMARKET - -ABOUT half-past nine o'clock on the night of October 6th, 1769, a -tall, middle-aged gentleman named Joseph Baretti was walking up the -Hay-market. The street was probably as well lighted as any other in -London, and this is equivalent to saying that a foot passenger, by -keeping close to the windows of the shops and taking cross bearings of -the economically distributed oil lamps hung out at the corners of the -many lanes, might be able to avoid the deep channel of filth that slunk -along the margin of cobble stones. But just at this time the Haymarket -must have been especially well illuminated, for the Opera House was -in the act of discharging its audience, and quite a number of these -fashionable folk went home in their chairs, with link boys walking by -the side of the burly Irish chairmen, showing a flaring flame which left -behind it a long trail of suffocating smoke, and spluttered resin and -bitumen into the faces and upon the garments of all who were walking -within range of the illuminant. Then there was the little theatre higher -up the street, and its lamps were not yet extinguished; so that Mr. -Baretti may have felt that on the whole he was fortunate in the hour he -had chosen for his stroll to the coffee-house where he meant to sup. He -may have thought that he had a chance of coming across his friend Sir -Joshua Reynolds leaving one of the playhouses, and of being invited by -that hospitable gentleman to his house in Leicester Fields; or his still -more intimate friend Dr. Samuel Johnson, who would certainly insist on -carrying him off to the “Mitre,” unless the great man were accompanied -by that little Scotch person, James Boswell, who usually wanted him -all to himself, after he had given people a chance of seeing him in the -company of his distinguished friend, and envying him his position of -intimacy--the same position of intimacy that exists between a Duke and -his doormat. Mr. Baretti was too short-sighted to have any chance of -recognising Sir Joshua Reynolds unless he chanced to be standing under -the lamp in the portico of the playhouse, but he felt that he would have -no trouble in recognising Dr. Johnson. The latter had characteristics -that appealed to other senses than the sense of seeing, and made the act -of recognition easy enough to his intimates. - -Mr. Baretti, however, passed along the dispersing crowd, and was soon in -the dim regions of Panton Street, where pedestrians were few. But before -he had turned down this street he found his way barred by a couple of -half-drunken women. His infirmity of sight prevented his being aware of -their presence until he was almost in the arms of one of them, and -the very second that he made his sudden stop she made a change in the -details of the accident that seemed imminent and threw herself into his -arms with a yell. - -The good man was staggered for a moment, but, recovering himself, he -flung her off with an expressive word or two in the Italian tongue. She -went limply back and, being adroitly avoided by her companion, gave a -circular stagger or two and fell into the gutter with a screech. - -Baretti was hurrying on when out of the darkness of Panton Street a big -man sprang, followed quickly by two others. The first seized him by the -right arm with the oath of a bully, the others tried to trip him up, -shouting that he had killed a lady. Baretti was a powerful man and -decidedly tough. He struck at the fellow who had closed with him, and -used his feet against the attack of the others with considerable effect. -He managed to free his arm, but before he could draw his sword he -was pulled backward and would have fallen upon his head if he had not -clutched the coat of the man from whom he had freed himself. There was a -pause of a few seconds, filled up by the wild street yell of the women. -The most aggressive of the three men leapt upon the unfortunate Baretti, -but before their bodies met, gave a guttural shriek, then a groan. He -staggered past, his fingers tearing like talons at his ribs; he whirled -twice round and, gasping, fell on his knees, motionless only for a few -seconds; his hands dropped limply from his side, and he pitched forward -on his head into the gutter. - -Baretti was standing, awaiting a further attack, with a knife in his -hand, when he was seized by some of the crowd. He offered no resistance. -He seemed to be so amazed at finding himself alive as to be incapable of -taking any further action. - -“He has killed the man--stabbed him with a dagger to the very heart!” - was the cry that came from those of the crowd who were kneeling beside -the wretch in the gutter. - -“And a woman--he had slain a woman at the outset. Hold him fast. None of -us are safe this night. Have a care for the dagger, friends!” - -A sufficiency of advice was given by the excited onlookers to the men -who had encircled Baretti--one of them was clinging to him with his arms -clasped around his body--until two of the Haymarket watch hurried up, -striking right and left with their staves after the wholesome manner of -the period, and so making a way for their approach through the crowd. - -“'Tis more than a street brawl--a man has been slain--some say a woman -also,” a shopkeeper explained to them, having run bareheaded out of his -shop; his apprentice had just put up the last of the shutters. - -They had Baretti by the collar in a second, cautiously disarming him, -holding the weapon up to the nearest lamp. The blade was still wet with -blood. - -“A swinging matter this,” one of them remarked. “I can swear to the -blood. No dagger, but a knife. What man walks the streets at night with -a naked knife unless slaughter is his intent?” - -“Friends, I was attacked by three bullies, and I defended myself--that -is all,” said Baretti. He spoke English perfectly. - -“You will need to tell that to Sir John in the morning,” said one of -the watchmen. “You are apprehended in the King's name. Where is the poor -victim?” - -“There must be some of the crowd who saw how I was attacked,” said -Baretti. “They will testify that I acted in self-defence. Sirs, hear me -make an appeal to you. Out of your sense of justice--you will not see an -innocent man apprehended.” - -“The knife--who carries a bare knife in the streets unless with intent?” - said a man. - -“'Twas my fruit-knife. I never go abroad without it. I eat my fruit like -a Christian, not like a pig or an Englishman,” was the defence offered -by Baretti, who had now quite lost his temper and was speaking with his -accustomed bitterness. He usually sought to pass as an Englishman, -but he was now being arrested by the minions of the law as it was in -England. - -“Hear him! A pig of an Englishman. Those were his words! A foreign -hound. Frenchie, I'll be bound.” - -“A spy--most like a Papist. He has the hanging brow of a born Papist.” - -“He'll hang like a dog at Tyburn--he may be sure o' that.” - -“'Tis the mercy o' Heaven that the rascal was caught red-handed! Sirs, -this may be the beginning of a dreadful massacring plot against the -lives of honest and peaceful people.” - -The comments of a crowd of the period upon such an incident as the -stabbing of an Englishman by a foreigner in the streets of London can -easily be imagined. - -Even when Baretti was put into a hackney coach and driven off to Bow -Street the crowd doubtless remained talking in groups of the menace -to English freedom and true religion by the arrival of pestilent -foreigners, every man of them carrying a knife. It would be a sad -day for England when Jesuitical fruit-knives took the place of -good wholesome British bludgeons in the settlement of the ordinary -differences incidental to a Protestant people. - -It is certain that this was one of the comments of the disintegrating -crowd, and it is equally certain that Baretti commented pretty freely -to his custodians in the hackney coach upon the place occupied in -the comity of nations of that State, the social conditions of whose -metropolis made possible so gross a scandal as the arrest of a gentleman -and a scholar, solely by reason of his success in snatching his life out -of the talons of a ruffian and a bully. - -Mr. Baretti was a gentleman and a scholar whose name appears pretty -frequently in the annals of the eighteenth century, but seldom with any -great credit to himself. As a matter of fact, this dramatic episode of -the stabbing of the man in the Haymarket is the happiest with which -his name is associated. He made his most creditable appearance in the -chronicles of the period as the chief actor in this sordid drama. He -cuts a very poor figure indeed upon every other occasion when he appears -in the pages of his contemporaries, though they all meant to be kind to -him. - -He never could bear people to be kind to him, and certainly, so far as -he himself was concerned, it cannot be said that any blame attaches to -him for the persistence of his friends in this direction. He did all -that mortal man could do to discourage them, and if after the lapse of -a year or two he was still treated by some with cordiality or respect, -assuredly it was not owing to his display of any qualities that -justified their maintenance of such an attitude. - -Mr. Baretti was an eminently detestable scholar of many parts. He was as -detestable as he was learned--perhaps even more so. Learned men are -not invariably horrid, unless they are men of genius as well, and this -rarely happens. - -Baretti had no such excuse, though it must be acknowledged that his -capacity for being disagreeable almost amounted to genius. Such a -character as his is now and again met with in daily life. A man who -feels himself to be, in point of scholarly attainment, far above -the majority of men, and who sees inferiority occupying a place -of distinction while he remains neglected and, to his thinking, -unappreciated, is not an uncommon figure in learned or artistic circles. -Baretti was a disappointed man, and he showed himself to be such. He had -a grievance against the world for being constituted as it is. He had a -grievance against society. He had a grievance against his friends who -got on in the world. But the only people against whom he was really -malevolent were those who were signally and unaccountably kind to him. -He accepted their kindness, and then turned and rent them. - -Dr. Johnson met him when they were both working for the booksellers, -and when the great dictionary scheme was floated his co-operation was -welcomed. Johnson's success in life was largely due to his faculty for -discovering people who could be useful to him. It can easily be believed -that, knowing something of the scholarship of Baretti, he should -be delighted to avail himself of his help. Baretti had an intimate -knowledge of several languages and their literature; as a philologist -he was probably far superior to Johnson; and possibly Johnson knew this, -though he was doubtless too wise ever to acknowledge so much openly. -We do not hear that the relations between the two ever became strained -while the great work was in course of progress. Shortly after it was -completed Baretti returned to his native Italy, and began to reproach -Johnson for not writing to him more frequently. We have several examples -of the cheerfulness with which Johnson set about exculpating himself -from such reproaches. The letters which he wrote to him at Italy are -among the most natural that ever came from his pen. They are models of -the gossipy style which Johnson could assume without once deviating -from that dignity which so frequently became ponderous, suggesting the -dignity of the elephant rather than that of the lion. Walpole was -a master of the art of being gossipy without being dignified. But -Johnson's style was not flexible. We have not Baretti's letters -to Johnson, but the references made by the latter to some matters -communicated to him by his correspondent let us know something of how -Baretti was getting on in the land of his birth. He seems to have set -his heart upon obtaining some appointment in Italy, and his aspirations -included marriage. He was disappointed in both directions; and it would -be too much to expect that his temper was improved by these rebuffs. - -It may well be believed that he quarrelled his way through Italy. “I -have lately seen Mr. Stratico, Professor of Padua, who has told me -of your quarrel with an abbot of the Celestine Order, but had not the -particulars very ready in his memory,” Johnson wrote to him at Milan. -Any one who could quarrel with an abbot of the Celestine Order would, we -fancy, be _capable de tout_, like the prophet Habakkuk, according to the -witty Frenchman. One is not disposed to be hard upon Professor Stratico -for his shortness of memory in regard to this particular quarrel; the -strain of remembering the details of all the quarrels of Mr. Baretti -would be too great for any man. - -Of course, Dr. Johnson gave him some excellent advice. It seems that -poor Baretti had been at first so well received on his return to Italy -that he became sanguine of success in all his enterprises, and when they -miscarried he wrote very bitterly to Johnson, who replied as follows: - -“I am sorry for your disappointment, with which you seem more touched -than I should expect a man of your resolution and experience to -have been, did I not know that general truths are seldom applied to -particular occasions; and that the fallacy of our selflove extends -itself as wide as our interests or affections. Every man believes that -mistresses are unfaithful and patrons capricious; but he excepts his -own mistress and his own patron. We have all learned that greatness is -negligent and contemptuous, and that in Courts life is often languished -away in ungratified expectation; but he that approaches greatness or -glitters in a Court, imagines that destiny has at last exempted him from -the common lot.” - -It is doubtful if this excellent philosophy made the person to whom it -was addressed more amiable to his immediate entourage; nor is it likely -that he was soothed by the assurance that his “patron's weakness or -insensibility will finally do you little hurt, if he is not assisted by -your own passions.” - -“Of your love,” continued Johnson, “I know not the propriety; we can -estimate the power, but in love, as in every other passion of which hope -is the essence, we ought always to remember the uncertainty of events.” - He then hastens to add that “love and marriage are different states. -Those who are to suffer the evils together, and to suffer often for -the sake of one another, soon lose that tenderness of look, and that -benevolence of mind which arose from the participation of unmingled -pleasure and success in amusement.” - -The pleasant little cynical bark in the phrase “those that are to suffer -the evils together,” as if it referred to love and marriage, is, Malone -thinks, not Johnson's, but Baretti's. It is suggested that Johnson -really wrote “those that are to suffer the evils _of life_ together,” - and that Baretti in transcribing the letter for Boswell, purposely -omitted the words “_of life_.” It would be quite like Baretti to do -this; for he would thereby work off part of his spite against Johnson -for having given him the advice, and he would have had his own sneer -against “love and marriage,” the _fons et origo_ of his disappointment. - -But of Dr. Johnson's esteem for the attainments of Baretti there can be -no doubt. He thought that the book on Italy which he published on his -return to England was very entertaining, adding: “Sir, I know no man who -carries his head higher in conversation than Baretti. There are strong -powers in his mind. He has not, indeed, many hooks; but with what hooks -he has he grapples very forcibly.” - -[Illustration: 0099] - -It may seem rather strange after this that Baretti was never admitted to -the membership of the celebrated club. He was intimate with nearly -all the original members, but the truth remained that he was not what -Johnson called a clubbable man: he had too many hooks, not too few. - -Such was the man who was brought before Sir John Fielding, the -magistrate at Bow Street, on the morning after the tragedy, charged with -murder; and then it was that he found the value of the friendships which -he had formed in England. The first person to hasten to his side in his -extremity was Oliver Goldsmith, the man whom he had so frequently made -the object of his sarcasm, whose peculiarities he had mimicked, not in -the playful manner of Garrick or Foote, but in his own spiteful style, -with the grim humour of the disappointed man. Goldsmith it was who -opened his purse for him and got a coach for him when he was -remanded until the next day, riding by his side to the place of his -incarceration. Goldsmith was by his side when the question of bail was -discussed before Lord Mansfield. For some reason which does not require -any particular explanation, it was not thought that Goldsmith as a -bailsman would appeal irresistibly to the authorities, but the names -of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Edmund Burke, Mr. David Garrick, and Mr. H. -Fitzherbert were submitted to Lord Mansfield, and immediately accepted. -An amusing anecdote was current regarding the few days of Baretti's -incarceration. One morning he was visited by a teacher of languages, -who begged a trifling favour of him. This was merely a letter of -recommendation to Baretti's pupils, so that the applicant might have -a chance of taking them over “when you are hanged, sir.” The fact that -this sympathetic visitor was allowed to depart without molestation makes -people doubt whether Baretti was so bad-tempered after all. He did not -assault the man. “You rascal!” he cried. “If I were not in my own room, -I would kick you downstairs directly.” - -The trial was fixed for October 20th at the Old Bailey, and a few days -before this date a number of the prisoner's friends met together to -consult as to the line which should be taken for his defence. It seems -that they were not all agreed on some points; this was only to be -expected, considering what an array of wisdom was brought together upon -the occasion of these consultations, and considering also the course -which was adopted by Dr. Johnson, who thought that the interests of the -prisoner would be advanced by getting up an academical discussion with -Burke. Johnson and Burke were notorious rivals in conversation in those -days when conversation was regarded as an art, and men and women seemed -to have plenty of leisure to talk together for the sake of talking, -and to argue together for the sake of argument, and to be rude to one -another for the sake of wit. Boswell was for ever extolling Johnson -at the expense of Burke; and indeed, so far as one can gather from his -pages, Johnson was the ruder man. - -The example that Boswell gives of his own readiness in making Goldsmith -“shut up” when he questioned Johnson's superiority to Burke in -discussion is one of the best instances of the little Scotsman's -incapacity to perceive the drift of an argument. “Is he like Burke who -winds into a subject like a serpent?” asked Goldsmith. - -“But” (said I) “Dr. Johnson is the Hercules that strangled serpents in -his cradle.” - -This repartee which Boswell gleefully records is about equal to the -reply made by one of the poets who was appealed to in the “Bab Ballads” - to say if he wrote “the lovely cracker mottoes my Elvira pulls at -supper.” It will be remembered that the poet whose name rhymes with -“supper” replied: - - “'A fool is bent upon a twig, but wise men dread a bandit,' - - Which” (the earnest inquirer said) “I felt was very wise, - - but I didn't understand it.” - -It was in regard to this consultation as to the best defence to be made -out for Baretti that Johnson admitted to have opposed Burke simply for -the sake of showing the rest of the company that he could get the better -of Burke in an argument. “Burke and I,” he said, “should have been of -one opinion if we had had no audience.” Such a confession! There was the -life of his friend Baretti trembling in the balance, and yet Johnson, -solely for the sake of “showing off,” opposed the wisdom and ingenuity -Burke exercised to save from the gallows a man whom Johnson professed to -admire! - -But if we are to believe Boswell, Johnson cared very little whether his -friend was hanged or not. As for Boswell himself, he always detested -Baretti, and is reported to have expressed the earnest hope that the -man would be hanged. However, the “consultations” went merrily on, and -doubtless contributed in some measure to a satisfactory solution of the -vexed question as to whether Johnson or Burke was the more brilliant -talker. They formed a tolerably valid excuse for the uncorking of -several bottles, and perhaps these friends of Baretti felt that even -though he should die, yet the exchange of wit in the course of these -happy evenings would live for ever in the memory of those present, so -that after all, let the worst come to the worst, Baretti should have -little cause for complaint. - -It is reported that the prisoner, upon the occasion of his receiving a -visit from Johnson and Burke, cried: “What need a man fear who holds -two such hands?” It may here be mentioned, however, that although it -was asserted that Johnson and Murphy were responsible for the line -of defence adopted at the trial, yet in after years Baretti was most -indignant that it should be suggested that credit should be given to -any one but himself for his defence; and he ridiculed the notion that -Johnson or Burke or Murphy or even Boswell--himself an aspirant to the -profession of law in which he subsequently displayed a conspicuous -lack of distinction--had anything to do with the instruction either of -solicitors or barristers on his behalf. - -At any rate, the “consultations” came to an end, and the friends of the -accused awaited the trial with exemplary patience. Mr. Boswell seems -suddenly to have become the most sympathetic of the friends; for three -days before the event he took a journey to Tyburn to witness the hanging -of several men at that place, and though it is known that the spectacle -of a hanging never lost its charm for him, yet it is generous to assume -that upon this occasion he went to Tyburn in order to qualify himself -more fully for sympathising with Baretti, should the defence assigned to -him break down. - -Another ardent sympathiser was Mr. Thomas Davies the bookseller, a -gentleman whose chief distinction in the eyes of his contemporaries -consisted--if we are to believe one of the wittiest of his -associates--in the fact that he had an exceedingly pretty wife; -but whose claim to the gratitude of coming generations lies in the -circumstance of his having introduced Boswell to Johnson. Tom Davies -was terribly cut up at the thought of the possibility of Baretti's being -sentenced to be hanged. Boswell, on the day before the trial, after -telling Johnson how he had witnessed the executions at Tyburn, and -expressing his surprise that none of the wretches seemed to think -anything of the matter, mentioned that Foote, the actor, had shown him -a letter which he had received from Tom Davies, and in which the writer -affirmed that he had not had a wink of sleep owing to his anxiety in -respect of “this sad affair of Baretti,” and begging Foote to suggest -some way by which he could be of service to the accused, adding that -should Mr. Foote be in need of anything in the pickle line, he could -strongly recommend him to an industrious young man who had lately set up -in that business. - -Strange to say, Johnson was not impressed with this marked evidence of -Mr. Davies' kind heart. - -“Ay, sir, here you have a specimen of human sympathy,” he cried. “A -friend hanged and a cucumber pickled! We know not whether Baretti or the -pickle man has kept Davies from sleep; nor does he know himself.” - -This was rather sweeping, but his dictum showed that he was rather a -poor analyser of human emotion. In the minds of the people of to-day who -read of Tom Davies' bad nights there is no manner of doubt whatever that -the sequence of his emotions was to be attributed to his intimacy with -the industrious young pickle maker. Tom had indulged rather too freely -in some of the specimens of his art presented to him by the pickler, and -the result was a melancholy night; and, being melancholy, he was led to -think of the most melancholy incident that had recently come under his -notice. When a man is full of mixed pickles he is liable to get a little -mixed, and so in the morning he attributed his miserable night to his -thoughts about Baretti, instead of knowing that his thoughts about -Baretti were the natural result of his miserable night. If he had been -acquainted with an industrious young onion merchant he might have passed -the night in tears. - -“As for his not sleeping,” said Dr. Johnson, “sir, Tom Davies is a very -great man--Tom has been on the stage, and knows how to do those things.” - -Boswell: “I have often blamed myself, sir, for not feeling for others as -sensibly as many say they do.” Johnson: “Sir, don't be duped by them any -more. You will find those very feeling people are not very ready to do -you good. They pay you by feeling.” Mr. Boswell thought that he would -do well to turn his friend from the subject under discussion, so he made -the apparently harmless remark that Foote had a great deal of humour and -that he had a singular talent of exhibiting character. But Johnson had -on him the mood not only of “the rugged Russian bear,” but also of “the -armed rhinoceros and the Hyrcan tiger.” - -“Sir, it is not a talent: it is a vice; it is what others abstain from,” - he growled. - -“Did not he think of exhibiting you, sir?” inquired the tactful Mr. -Boswell, though he knew all about Foote and Johnson long before. - -“Sir, fear restrained him,” said Johnson. “He knew I would have broken -his bones. I would have saved him the trouble of cutting off a leg: I -would not have left him a leg to cut off.” - -This brutal reference to the fact that Foote's recent accident had -compelled him to have a leg amputated should surely have suggested -to his inquisitor that he had probably been paying a visit to an -industrious young pickle maker without Tom Davies' recommendation, or -that he had partaken of too generous a helping of his favourite veal, -baked with plums, and so that he would do well to leave him alone for a -while. But no, Mr. Boswell was not to be denied. - -“Pray, sir, is not Foote an infidel?” he inquired. But as he himself -had been dining with Foote the previous day, and as he possessed no more -delicacy than a polecat, he could easily have put the question to Foote -himself. - -But Johnson would not even give the man credit for his infidelity. - -“I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel,” he said; “but if he -is an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel, that is to say, -he has never thought on the subject.” - -In another second he was talking of Buchanan, a poet, whom he praised, -and of Shakespeare, another poet, whom he condemned, winding up by -saying that there were some very fine things in Dr. Young's _Night -Thoughts_. But the most remarkable of his deliverances on this rather -memorable evening had reference to Baretti's fate. After declaring that -if one of his friends had just been hanged he would eat his dinner -every bit as heartily as if his friend were still alive.--“Why, there's -Baretti, who is to be tried for his life to-morrow,” he added; “friends -have risen up for him on every side; yet if he should be hanged, none of -them will eat a slice of plum pudding the less.” Happily the accuracy of -this tender-hearted scholar's prediction had no chance of being put to -the test. Baretti was tried and acquitted. - -Boswell gives only a few lines to an account of the trial, and fails -to mention that the prisoner declined the privilege of being tried by -a jury one half of whom should be foreigners. “It took place,” he said, -“at the awful Sessions House, emphatically called Justice Hall,” and he -affirms that “never did such a constellation of genius enlighten the Old -Bailey.” - -He mentions that Mr. Burke, Mr. Garrick, Mr. Beauclerk, and Dr. Johnson -gave evidence, the last-named being especially impressive, speaking in -a slow, deliberate, and distinct tone of voice. It seems strange -that Boswell, who was (nominally) a lawyer, when he wrote his life of -Johnson, should say nothing whatever respecting the line of defence -adopted by the friends of the prisoner upon this interesting occasion. -It might have been expected that he would dwell lovingly, as a lawyer -would certainly be pardoned for doing, upon the technical points -involved in the trial, even though he hated Baretti. For instance, it -would be interesting to learn why it was thought that the result of -the trial might mean the hanging of Baretti, when from the first it was -perfectly plain that he had acted in self-defence: not merely was he -protecting his purse, he had actually to fight for his life against an -acknowledged ruffian of the most contemptible type. In the present day -if a short-sighted man of letters--say Mr. Augustine Birrell--were to be -attacked in a dark street by three notorious scoundrels and to manage to -kill one of them by poking the ferrule end of an umbrella into his eye, -no one--not even a Conservative Attorney-General--would fancy that a -grand jury at the New Old Bailey would return a true bill against him -for the act, putting aside all question of his being found guilty and -sentenced to be hanged. And yet in Baretti's time swords were commonly -worn, and they were by no means toy weapons. Why should poor Tom Davies -have a sleepless night, owing (as he believed) to his apprehension that -his friend would be hanged in a day or two? Why was it necessary to -dazzle the “awful Sessions House” by such “a constellation of genius” as -had never before assembled in that “Hall of Justice”? - -Mr. Boswell might certainly have told us something of the actual scene -in the court, when he has devoted so much space to the ridiculous -dialogues between himself and Johnson, having more or less bearing upon -the case. The course he adopted is like laying a dinner-table with -four knives and forks and five wineglasses for every guest--in having a -constellation of genii in plush behind every chair, and then serving -a dinner of hashed mutton only. A great number of people believe that -whatever Boswell may have been, he was invariably accurate. But in this -case he does not even give a true account of the constellation of genius -to which he refers. He only says that Burke, Garrick, Beauclerk, -and Johnson were called as witnesses. He omits to say a word about -Goldsmith, who was something of a genius; or Reynolds, who was quite -a tolerable painter; or Fitzherbert, who had a wide reputation as a -politician; or Dr. Halifax, whose evidence carried certainly as much -weight as Johnson's. He does not even say a word respecting the evidence -which Johnson and the others were called on to give on behalf of -the prisoner at the bar. What is the good of telling us that the -constellation of genius had never been paralleled within the precincts -of the “emphatically called Justice Hall” if we are not made aware -of some of the flashes of their genius when they were put into the -witness-box? - -The truth is that Boswell had no sense of proportion any more than a -sense of the sublime and beautiful--or, for that matter, a sense of the -ridiculous. He was the Needy Knife Grinder--with an occasional axe of -his own--of the brilliant circle into which he crawled, holding on to -Johnson's skirts and half concealing himself beneath their capacious -flaps. He had constant stories suggested to him, but he failed to see -their possibilities. He was a knife grinder and nothing more; but at his -own trade he was admirable; he ground away patiently at his trivialities -respecting the man whom he never was within leagues of understanding, -and it is scarcely fair to reproach him for not throwing away his -grindstone, which he knew how to use, and taking to that of a diamond -cutter, which he was incapable of manipulating. But surely he might have -told us something more of the actual trial of Baretti instead of giving -us page after page leading up to the trial. - -From other sources we learn that what all the geniuses were called on to -testify to was the pacific character of Baretti, and this they were all -able to do in an emphatic manner. It would seem that it was assumed that -the prisoner, a short-sighted, middle-aged man of letters, was possessed -of all the dangerous qualities of a bloodthirsty brigand of his own -country--that he was a fierce and ungovernable desperado, who was in -the habit of prowling about the purlieus of the Haymarket to do to death -with a fruit-knife the peaceful citizens whom he might encounter. He was -a foreigner, and he had killed an Englishman with an outlandish weapon. -That seems to have been the reason there was for the apprehension, which -was very general in respect of the fate of Baretti, for it was upon -these points that his witnesses were most carefully examined. - -Goldsmith, Reynolds, and Garrick were very useful witnesses regarding -the knife. They affirmed that in carrying a fruit-knife the prisoner was -in no way departing from the recognised custom of his fellow-countrymen. -He, in common with them, was in the habit of eating a great deal of -fruit, so that the knife was a necessity with him. - -Johnson's evidence was as follows: - -“I have known Mr. Baretti a long time. He is a man of literature--a very -studious man--a man of great intelligence. He gets his living by study. -I have no reason to think he was ever disordered with liquor in his -life. A man that I have never known to be otherwise than peaceable and -a man that I take to be rather timorous. As to his eyesight, he does not -see me now, nor do I see him. I do not believe he would be capable of -assaulting anybody in the street without great provocation.” - -It cannot be denied that the reference to Baretti's imperfect sight told -upon the jury, and uttered as the words were by Johnson in his dignified -way, they could scarcely fail to produce a profound effect upon the -court. - -Baretti was acquitted, and no one could presume to refer to him for the -rest of his life except as a quiet, inoffensive, frugivorous gentleman, -since these were the qualities with which he was endowed by a -constellation of geniuses on their oath. He was acquitted by the jury; -but the judge thought it well to say a few words to him before allowing -him to leave the dock, and the drift of his discourse amounted to a -severe censure upon his impetuosity, and the expression of a hope that -the inconvenience to which he was put upon this occasion would act as a -warning to him in future. - -Really one could hardly imagine that in those days, when every week Mr. -Boswell had a chance of going to such an entertainment at Tyburn as he -had attended forty-eight hours before the opening of the Sessions, the -taking of the life of a human being was regarded with such horror. One -cannot help recalling the remark made by Walpole a few years later, -that, owing to the severity of the laws, England had been turned into -one vast shambles; nor can one quite forget the particulars of the case -which was quoted as having an intimate bearing upon this contention--the -case in which a young wife whose husband had been impressed to serve -in His Majesty's Fleet, and who had consequently been left without -any means of support, had stolen a piece of bread to feed her starving -children, and had been hanged at Tyburn for the crime. - -Reading the judge's censure of Baretti, who had, in preventing -a contemptible ruffian from killing him, decreased by a unit the -criminality of London, the only conclusion that one can come to is that -the courts of law were very jealous of their precious prerogative to -kill. Looking at the matter in this light, the bombastic phrase of -Boswell does not seem so ridiculous after all; the Old Bailey had -certainly good reason to be regarded as the “awful Sessions House.” But -we are not so fully convinced that it had any right to be referred to -as emphatically the Hall of Justice. In the Georgian Pageant the common -hangman played too conspicuous a part. - -But the unfortunate, if impetuous, Baretti left the court a free man, -and we cannot doubt that in the company of his friends who had stood by -him in his hour of trial he was a good deal harder upon the judge than -the judge had been upon him; and probably he was reproved in a grave and -dignified manner by Dr. Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds standing by with -his ear trumpet, fearful lest a single word of Johnson's wisdom should -escape him. Doubtless Mr. Garrick, the moment Johnson's back was turned, -gave an inimitable imitation of both Johnson and Baretti--perhaps of the -judge as well, and most likely the usher of the court. - -Later on, when the avaricious Reynolds had hastened back to his studio -in Leicester Fields to daub on canvas the figures of some of his sitters -at the extortionate price of thirty-five guineas for a three-quarter -length, he and Johnson put their heads together to devise what could be -done for Baretti. - -For about a year Baretti resumed his old way of living, working for the -booksellers and completing his volume of travel through Europe, by which -it is said he made £500. It would appear, however, that all his pupils -had transferred themselves to the enterprising gentleman who had -appealed to him at an inopportune moment for his recommendation, or to -some of his other brethren, for by the end of the year he was in needy -circumstances. Meantime he had been made by Sir Joshua Reynolds Honorary -Secretary for Foreign Correspondence to the Royal Academy, and then -Johnson recommended him to the husband of Mrs. Thrale as tutor to her -girls at Streatham. This was very kind to Baretti, but it was rather -hard on the Thrales. Apparently from the first day he went to Streatham -his attitude in regard to the Thrale family was one of spite and -malevolence; and there can be no doubt that Johnson bitterly regretted -his patronage of a man who seemed never to forgive any one who had done -him a good turn. - -The agreement made by him with the Thrales was that he should -practically be his own master, only residing at Streatham as a member of -the family with no fixed salary. He was as artful as an Irish cabman in -suggesting this “leave it to your honour” contract. He had heard on all -hands of the liberality of Mr. Thrale, and he knew that, in addition to -being provided with a luxurious home, he would receive presents from him -far in excess of what he could earn. He was extremely well treated for -the next three years, though he was for ever grumbling when he had -a moment's leisure from insulting the Thrales and their guests. Mrs. -Thrale said more in his favour than any one with whom he came in -contact. She wrote: “His lofty consciousness of his own superiority -which made him tenacious of every position, and drew him into a thousand -distresses, did not, I must own, ever disgust me, till he began to -exercise it against myself, and resolve to reign in our house by fairly -defying the mistress of it. Pride, however, though shocking enough, -is never despicable; but vanity, which he possessed too, in an eminent -degree, will sometimes make a man near sixty ridiculous.” - -Assuredly Mrs. Thrale “let him down” very gently. Dr. Thomas Campbell, -a clergyman from Ireland, gives us a glimpse of Baretti's bearing at -Streatham. It is clear that Baretti was anxious to impress him with the -nature of his position in the house. “He told me he had several families -both in town and country with whom he could go at any time and spend a -month; he is at this time on these terms at Mr. Thrale's, and he knows -how to keep his ground. Talking, as we were at tea, of the magnitude -of the beer vessels, he said there was one thing at Mr. Thrale's house -still more extraordinary--his wife. She gulped the pill very prettily. -So much for Baretti!” wrote the clergyman in a very illuminating account -of his visit to Streatham. - -But not only did Mrs. Thrale bear with this detestable person for nearly -two more years, but she and her husband took him with them and Johnson -to Paris, where they lived in a magnificent way, the Thrales paying for -everything. It was in a letter to Frank Levet, his domestic apothecary, -that Johnson, writing from Paris, said: “I ran a race in the rain this -day, and beat Baretti. Baretti is a fine fellow.” This is Johnson on -Baretti. Here is Baretti on Johnson; on a copy of the _Piozzi Letters_ -he wrote: “Johnson was often fond of saying silly things in strong -terms, and the silly madam”--meaning Mrs. Thrale--“never failed to echo -that beastly kind of wit.” - -It was not, however, until an Italian tour, projected by Mr. Thrale, was -postponed, that Baretti became quite unendurable. He had been presented -by Mr. Thrale with £100 within a few months, and on the abandonment of -the longer tour he received another £100 by way of compensation for the -satisfaction he had been compelled to forgo in showing his countrymen -the position to which he had attained in England. This was another act -of generosity which he could not forgive. He became sullen and more -cantankerous than ever, and neglected his duties in an intolerable way. -In fact, he treated Streatham as if it were an hotel, turning up to give -Miss Thrale a lesson at the most inconvenient hours, and then devoting -the most of his time to poisoning the girl's mind against her mother. -Upon one occasion he expressed the hope to her that if her mother died -Mr. Thrale would marry Miss Whitbred, who would, he said, be a pretty -companion for her, not tyrannical and overbearing as he affirmed her own -mother was! Truly a nice remark for a young lady's tutor to make to her -under her mother's roof. - -The fact was, however--we have Baretti's own confession for it--that he -had been led to believe that after being with the Thrales for a year or -two, an annuity would be settled on him by the wealthy brewer, and he -grew impatient at his services to the family not obtaining recognition -in this way. It is extremely unlikely that Johnson ever even so much as -hinted at this annuity, though Baretti says his expectations were due to -what Johnson had told him; but it is certain that he had so exalted an -opinion of himself, he believed that after a year or two of desultory -teaching he should receive a handsome pension. And there the old story -of the car-driver who left the nomination of the fare to “his honour's -honour” was repeated. Baretti one morning packed up his bag and left -Streatham without a word of farewell. - -Johnson's account of his departure and his comments thereupon are worth -notice. He wrote to Boswell: - -“Baretti went away from Thrales in some whimsical fit of disgust or -ill-nature without taking any leave. It is well if he finds in any other -place as good an habitation and as many conveniences.” - -On the whole it is likely that a good many of Baretti's friends felt -rather sorry than otherwise that the jury at the Old Bailey had taken -so merciful a view of his accident. If Johnson and Murphy were really -responsible for the line of defence which prevailed at the trial, one -can quite believe that the Thrales and a good many of their associates -bore them a secret grudge for their pains. - -In the year 1782 he was granted by the Government the pension which he -had failed to extort from the Thrales. It amounted to £80 per annum, -and we may take it for granted that he had nothing but the most copious -abuse for the Prime Minister who had only given him £80 when Sheridan -was receiving £200 and Johnson £300. He drew his pension for seven -years. - -Baretti's portrait, painted by Reynolds for the Streatham gallery, -fetched £31 10s., the smallest price of any in the whole collection, -on its dispersal, years after the principal actors in the scene in the -“awful Sessions House” had gone to another world. - - - - -THE FATAL GIFT - -WHEN Mr. Boswell had been snubbed, and very soundly snubbed too, by a -Duchess, one might fancy that his ambition was fully satisfied. But he -was possibly the most persevering of the order of _Pachydermata_ at -that time extant; and in the matter of snubs he had the appetite of a -leviathan. He was fired with the desire to be snubbed once more by Her -Grace--and he was. Without waiting to catch her eye, he raised his glass -and, bowing in her direction, said: - -“My Lady Duchess, I have the honour to drink Your Grace's good health.” - -The Duchess did not allow her conversation with Dr. Johnson to be -interrupted by so flagrant a piece of politeness; she continued chatting -quite pleasantly to the great man, ignoring the little one. That was how -she had got on in life; and, indeed, a better epitome of the whole art -of getting on in life could scarcely be compiled even by the cynical -nobleman who wrote letters to his son instructing him in this and other -forms of progress--including the Rake's. - -Mr. Boswell, who, as usual, is the pitiless narrator of the incident, -records his satisfaction at having attained to the distinction of a snub -from the beautiful creature at whose table he was sitting, and we are, -as usual, deeply indebted to him for giving us an illuminating glimpse -of the Duchess of whom at one time all England and the greater part of -Ireland were talking. He also mentions that Her Grace made use of an -idiom by which her Irish upbringing revealed itself. If we had not Mr. -Boswell's account of his visit to Inveraray to refer to we might be -tempted to believe that Horace Walpole deviated into accuracy when he -attributed to the Duchess of Argyll, as well as her sister, the Countess -of Coventry, the brogue of a bog-trotter. It was only by her employment -of an idiom common to the south and west of Ireland and a few other -parts of the kingdom, that Her Grace made him know that she had not been -educated in England, or for that matter in Scotland, where doubtless Mr. -Boswell fondly believed the purest English in the world was spoken. - -[Illustration: 0121] - -Mr. Boswell faithfully records--sometimes with glee and occasionally -with pride--many snubs which he received in the course of a lifetime of -great pertinacity, and some that he omitted to note, his contemporaries -were obliging enough to record; but on none did he reflect with more -satisfaction than that, or those, which he suffered in the presence of -the Duchess of Argyll. - -It happened during that memorable tour to the Hebrides to which he lured -Johnson in order to show his countrymen how great was his intimacy with -the man who traduced them once in his Dictionary and daily in his life. -It was like Boswell to expect that he would impress the Scottish nation -by leading Johnson to view their fine prospects--he certainly was never -foolish enough to hope to impress Johnson by introducing the Scottish -nation to him. In due time, however, the exploiter and the exploited -found themselves in the neighbourhood of Inveraray, the Duke of Argyll's -Castle, and the stronghold of the Clan Campbell. - -It chanced that the head of the great family was in residence at this -time, and Mr. Boswell hastened to apprise him of the fact that the great -Dr. Johnson was at hand. He called at the Castle very artfully shortly -after the dinner hour, when he believed the Duchess and her daughter -would have retired to a drawing-room. He was successful in finding the -Duke still at the dinner-table, the ladies having retired. In the course -of the interview the Duke said: “Mr. Boswell, won't you have some tea?” - and Mr. Boswell, feeling sure that the Duchess could not go very far in -insulting him when other people were present, followed his host into -the drawing-room. “The Duke,” he records, “announced my name, but the -Duchess, who was sitting with her daughter, Lady Betty Hamilton, and -some other ladies, took not the least notice of me. I should,” he -continues, “have been mortified at being thus coldly received by a lady -of whom I, with the rest of the world, have always entertained a very -high admiration, had I not been consoled by the obliging attention of -the Duke.” - -The Duke was, indeed, obliging enough to invite Johnson to dinner the -next day, and Mr. Boswell was included in the invitation. (So it is that -the nursery governess gets invited to the table in the great house -to which she is asked to bring the pretty children in her charge.) Of -course, Boswell belonged to a good family, and his father was a judge. -It was to a Duke of Argyll--not the one who was now so obliging--that -the Laird of Auchinleck brought his son, James Boswell, to be examined -in order to find out whether he should be put into the army or some -other profession. Still, he would never have been invited to Inveraray -at this time or any other unless he had had charge of Johnson. No one -was better aware of this fact than Boswell; but did he therefore decline -the invitation? Not he. Mr. Boswell saw an opportunity ahead of him. He -had more than once heard Johnson give an account of how he had behaved -when the King came upon him in the Royal Library; and probably he had -felt melancholy at the reflection that he himself had had no part or -lot in the incident. It was all Dr. Johnson and the King. But now he was -quick to perceive that when, in after years, people should speak with -bated breath of Dr. Johnson's visit to Inveraray they would be compelled -to say: “And Mr. Boswell, the son of auld Auchinleck, was there too.” - -He knew very well that there were good reasons why Mr. Boswell could -not hope to be a _persona grata_ to the Duchess of Argyll. In the great -Douglas lawsuit the issue of which was of considerable importance to the -Duke of Hamilton, the son of Her Grace, the Boswells were on the side of -the opposition, and had been very active on this side into the bargain. -James Boswell himself narrowly escaped being committed for contempt -of court for publishing a novel founded on the Douglas cause and -anticipating in an impudent way the finding of the judges. Had the -difference been directly with the Duke of Argyll some years earlier, no -doubt every man in the Clan Campbell would have sharpened his skene when -it became known that a friend of an opponent of the MacCallein More -was coming, and have awaited his approach with complacency; but now the -great chief tossed Boswell his invitation when he was asking Johnson, -and Boswell jumped at it as a terrier jumps for a biscuit, and he -accompanied his friend to the Castle. - -The picture which he paints of his second snubbing is done in his best -manner. “I was in fine spirits,” he wrote, “and though sensible that I -had the misfortune of not being in favour with the Duchess, I was not in -the least disconcerted, and offered Her Grace some of the dish which was -before me.” Later on he drank Her Grace's health, although, he adds, “I -knew it was the rule of modern high life not to drink to anybody.” Thus -he achieved the snub he sought; but he acknowledges that he thought -the Duchess rather too severe when she said: “I know nothing of Mr. -Boswell.” On reflection, however, he received “that kind of consolation -which a man would feel who is strangled by a silken cord.” - -It seems strange that no great painter has been inspired by the theme -and the scene. The days of “subject pictures” are, we are frequently -told, gone by. This may be so, generally speaking, but every one knows -that a “subject picture,” if its “subject” lends itself in any measure -to the advertising of an article of commerce, will find a ready -purchaser, so fine a perception of the aspirations of art--practical -art--exists in England, and even in Scotland, in the present day. - -Now, are not the elements of success apparent to any one of imagination -in this picture of the party sitting round the table in the great hall -of Inveraray--Dr. Johnson chatting to the beautiful Duchess and her -daughter at one side, the Duke looking uncomfortable at the other, when -he sees Mr. Boswell on his feet with his glass in his hand bowing toward -Her Grace? No doubt Her Grace had acquainted His Grace with the attitude -she meant to assume in regard to Mi. Boswell, so that he was not -astonished--only uncomfortable--when Mr. Boswell fished for his snub. -Surely arrangements could be made between the art patron and the artist -to paint a name and a certain brand upon the bottle--a bottle must, of -course, be on the table; but if this is thought too realistic the name -could easily be put on the decanter--from which Mr. Boswell has just -replenished his glass! Why, the figure of Dr. Johnson alone should -make the picture a success--i.e. susceptible of being reproduced as an -effective poster in four printings. “Sir,” said Dr. Johnson, “claret for -boys, port for men, but brandy for heroes.” Yes, but whose brandy? There -is a hint for a great modern art patron--a twentieth-century art patron -is a man who loves art for what he can make out of it. - -Dr. Johnson was unmistakably the honoured guest this day at Inveraray; -and perhaps, while the lovely Duchess hung upon his words of wisdom, his -memory may have gone back to a day when he was not so well known, and -yet by some accident found himself in a room with the then Duchess of -Argyll. Upon that occasion he had thought it due to himself to be rude -to the great lady, in response to some fancied remissness on her -part. He had nothing to complain of now. The Duchess with whom he -was conversing on terms of perfect equality--if Her Grace made any -distinction between them it was, we may rest assured, only in a way that -would be flattering to his learning--was at the head of the peerage for -beauty, and there was no woman in the kingdom more honoured than she had -been. He may have been among the crowds who hung about the Mall in St. -James's Park twenty-two years before, waiting patiently until the two -lovely Miss Gunnings should come forth from their house in Westminster -to take the air. The Duchess of Argyll was the younger of the two -sisters. - -The story of the capture of the town by the pair of young Irish girls -has been frequently told, and never without the word _romantic_ being -applied to it. But really there was very little that can be called -romantic in the story of their success. There is far more of this -element in many of the marriages affecting the peerage in these -unromantic days. There is real romance in the story of a young duke's -crossing the Atlantic with a single introduction, but that to the -daughter of a millionaire with whom he falls madly in love and whom he -marries as soon as the lawyers can make out the settlements. There is -real romance in the idyll of the young marquis who is fortunate -enough to win the affection of an ordinary chorus girl; and every year -witnesses such-like alliances--they used to be called _mésalliances_ -long ago. There have also been instances of the daughters of English -tradesmen marrying foreign nobles, whom they sometimes divorce as -satisfactorily as if they were the daughters of wealthy swindlers on -the other side of the Atlantic. In such cases there are portraits -and paragraphs in some of the newspapers, and then people forget that -anything unusual has happened. As a matter of fact, nothing unusual has -happened. - -In the romantic story of the Gunnings we have no elements of that -romance which takes the form of a _mésalliance_. Two girls, the -granddaughters of one viscount and the nieces of another, came to London -with their parents one year, and early the next married peers--the elder -an earl, the younger a duke. Like thousands of other girls, they had no -money; but, unlike hundreds of other girls who marry into the peerage, -they were exceptionally good-looking. - -Where is there an element of romance in all this? The girls wedded men -in their own station in life, and, considering their good looks, -they should have done very much better for themselves. The duke was a -wretched _roué_, notable for his excesses even in the days when excess -was not usually regarded as noteworthy. He had ruined his constitution -before he was twenty, and he remained enfeebled until, in a year or -two, he made her a widow. The earl was a conceited, ill-mannered prig--a -solemn, contentious, and self-opinionated person who was deservedly -disliked in the town as well as the country. - -Not a very brilliant marriage either of these. With the modern chorus -girl the earl is on his knees at one side, and the gas man on the other. -But with the Miss Gunnings it was either one peer or another. They were -connected on their mother's side with at least two families of nobility, -and on their father's side with the spiritual aristocracy of some -generations back: they were collateral descendants of the great Peter -Gunning, Chancellor of Oxford and Bishop of Ely, and he was able to -trace his lineage back to the time of Henry VIII. From a brother of this -great man was directly descended the father of the two girls and also -Sir Robert Gunning, Baronet, who held such a high post in the diplomatic -service as Minister Plenipotentiary to Berlin, and afterwards to St. -Petersburg. Members of such families might marry into the highest order -of the peerage without the alliance being criticised as “romantic.” The -girls did not do particularly well for themselves. They were by birth -entitled to the best, and by beauty to the best of the best. As it was, -the one only became the wife of a contemptible duke, the other of a -ridiculous earl. It may really be said that they threw themselves away. - -Of course, it was Walpole's gossip that is accountable for much of the -false impression which prevailed in respect of the Gunnings. From the -first he did his best to disparage them. He wrote to Mann that they were -penniless, and “scarce gentlewomen.” He could not ignore the fact that -their mother was the Honourable Bridget Gunning; but, without knowing -anything of the matter, he undertook to write about the “inferior tap” - on their father's side. In every letter that he wrote at this time he -tried to throw ridicule upon them, alluding to them as if they were -nothing better than the barefooted colleens of an Irish mountain-side -who had come to London to seek their fortunes. As usual, he made all -his letters interesting to his correspondents by introducing the latest -stories respecting them; he may not have invented all of these, but -some undoubtedly bear the Strawberry Hill mark, and we know that Walpole -never suppressed a good tale simply because it possessed no grain of -truth. - -Now, the true story of the Gunnings can be ascertained without -any reference to Walpole's correspondence. Both girls were born in -England--the elder, Maria, in 1731, the younger in 1732. When they were -still young their father, a member of the English Bar, inherited his -brother's Irish property. It had once been described as a “tidy estate,” - but it was now in a condition of great untidiness. In this respect it -did not differ materially from the great majority of estates in -Ireland. Ever since the last “settlement” the country had been in a -most unsettled condition, and no part of it was worse than the County -Roscommon, where Castle Coote, the residence of the Gunning family, was -situated. It might perhaps be going too far to say that the wilds of -Connaught were as bad as the wilds of Yorkshire at the same date, but -from all the information that can be gathered on the subject there does -not seem to have been very much to choose between Roscommon and the -wilder parts of Yorkshire. The peasantry were little better than -savages; the gentry were little worse. Few of the elements of civilized -life were to be found among the inhabitants. The nominal owners of the -land were content to receive tribute from their tenantry in the form of -the necessaries of life, for money as a standard of exchange was rarely -available. Even in the present day in many districts in the west -of Ireland cattle occupy the same place in the imagination of the -inhabitants as they do in Zululand. The Irish bride is bargained away -with so many cows; and for a man to say--as one did in the very county -of Roscommon the other day--that he never could see the difference of -two cows between one girl and another, may be reckoned somewhat cynical, -but it certainly is intelligible. - -But if rent was owing--and it usually was--and if it was not paid in the -form of geese, or eggs, or pork, or some other products of low farming -and laziness, it remained unpaid; for the landlord had no means of -enforcing his claims by any law except the law of the jungle. He might -muster his followers and plunder his debtors, and no doubt this system -of rent-collecting prevailed for several years after one of the many -“settlements” of the country had taken place, yet by intermarriage with -the natives, and a general assimilation to their condition of life by -the newcomers, these raids for rent became unpopular and impracticable. -The consequence was that the landlords--such as remained on their -estates--were living from hand to mouth. - -But if the fact that the King's writ failed to run in these parts was -of disadvantage to the landlords in one respect, it was of no -inconsiderable advantage to them in another; for it enabled them with -a light heart to contract debts in Dublin and in the chief towns. They -knew that the rascally process server, should he have the hardihood to -make any attempt to present them with the usual summons, would do so at -the risk of his life; and a knowledge of this fact made the “gentry” at -once reckless and lawless. The consequence was that Ireland was regarded -as no place for a man with any respect for his neighbours or for himself -to live in. It became the country of the agent and the squireen. - -It was to one of the worst parts of this country that John Gunning -brought his wife and four children--the eldest was eight years and -the youngest three months--and here he tried to support them off the -“estate.” He might possibly have succeeded if his aspirations had been -humble and his property unencumbered. It so happened, however, that his -father had been the parent of sixteen children, and the estate was still -charged with the maintenance of ten of these. Thus hampered, Mr. Gunning -and the Honourable Bridget Gunning were compelled to adopt the mode of -life of the other gentry who were too poor to live out of Ireland, -and they allowed the education of their family to become a minor -consideration to that of feeding them. - -Mr. Gunning and his wife were undoubtedly the originals of the type of -Irish lady and gentleman to be found in so many novels and plays of -the latter part of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth -centuries. He was the original “heavy father” who, with the addition -of a ridiculous nondescript brogue, was so effectively dealt with by -numerous writers until Thackeray took him in hand; and Mrs. Gunning was -the first of the tradition of Irish mothers with daughters to dispose of -by the aid of grand manners and a great deal of contriving. True to this -tradition, which originated with them, the lady was certainly the -head of the household--a sorry household it must have been at Castle -Coote--during the ten years that elapsed before the migration to -England. - -Mr. Gunning was a fine figure of a gentleman, a handsome, loquacious -person with a great sense of his own dignity and an everlasting -consciousness of the necessity to maintain it at something approximate -to its proper level, and, like other persons of the same stamp, never -particularly successful in the means employed to effect this object. It -is doubtful if a loud conversational style, with repeated references to -the brilliant past of his family and predictions as to the still more -brilliant future that would have been achieved by its representative but -for the outrageous fortune that flung him into the bogs of Roscommon, -produced a more vivid impression upon his associates in Ireland than it -would be likely to do among a more credulous community. In Ireland he -resembled the young gentleman who went to educate the French, but was -discouraged at the outset when he found that even the children in the -streets spoke better French than he did. Mr. Gunning could teach the -Irish squireens nothing in the way of boasting; and he soon found that -they were capable of giving him some valuable instruction as to the -acquiring of creditors and their subsequent evasion. Whatever their -educational deficiencies may have been, it must be admitted that they -had mastered these arts. Much as he despised his ancestral home, he -found, after repeated visits to Dublin, that his heart was, after all, -in Castle Coote, and that, for avoiding arrest for debt, there was no -place like home. - -The Honourable Mrs. Gunning must have become dreadfully tired of this -florid person and of the constant worry incidental to the control of -such a household as his must have been. Her life must have been spent -contriving how the recurrent crises could be averted, and so long as she -was content to remain in the seclusion of the Irish village her efforts -were successful. We do not hear that the bailiffs ever got so far as the -hall door of their ramshackle mansion; there was a bog very handy, and -the holes which served as a rudimentary system of natural drainage -were both deep and dark. The topography of the district was notoriously -puzzling to the officers from the Dublin courts. - -But with all her success in this direction one maybe pretty sure that -her life must have been very burthensome to the Honourable Mrs. Gunning. -She had social ambitions, as befitted a daughter of a noble house, and -on this account she never allowed herself to sink to the level of the -wives of the squireens around her, who were quite content with the rude -jollity of an Irish household--with the “lashings and leavings” to eat, -and with the use of tumblers instead of wineglasses at table. She was -the daughter of a peer, and she never forgot this fact; and here it must -be mentioned that, however culpably she may have neglected the education -of her children in some respects, she took care that they avoided the -provincial brogue of their Irish neighbours. - -Perhaps it was because Walpole knew nothing of the tradition of the -English settlers in Ireland that he referred in his letters to various -correspondents to the appalling brogue of both the Gunning girls; or -perhaps he, as usual, aimed only at making his correspondence more -amusing by this device. But every one who knows something of the -“settlements” is aware of the fact that the new-comers had such a -contempt for the native way of pronouncing English that they were most -strenuous in their efforts to hand down to their children the tradition -of pronunciation which they brought into the country. They were not -always so successful as they wished to be; but within our own times the -aspiration after a pure “English accent” is so great that even in the -National Schools the teachers, the larger number of whom bear Celtic -names, have been most industrious both in getting rid of their native -brogue and in compelling their pupils to do the same; and yet it is -certain that people have been much more tolerant in this respect in -Ireland during the past half-century than they were a hundred years -earlier. - -Of course, a scientific analysis of the pronunciation of the English -language by, say, a native of the wilds of Yorkshire and by a native of -the wilds of Connemara would reveal the fact that fewer corruptions of -the speech are habitual to the latter than to the former, the “brogue” - being far less corrupt than the “burr.” It was not enough for the -settlers, however, that their children should speak English in Ireland -more correctly than their forefathers did in England; they insisted on -the maintenance of the English tradition of pronunciation, erroneous -though it might be. So that the suggestion that the daughters of the -Gunning family, who had never heard English spoken with the brogue of -the native Irish until they were eight or nine years of age, spoke the -tongue of the stage Irish peasant would seem quite ridiculous to any -one who had given even the smallest amount of study to the conditions -of speech prevailing in Ireland even in the present tolerant age, -when employment is not denied to any one speaking with the broadest of -brogues. Some years ago such an applicant would have had no chance of -a “billet”--unless, in a literal sense, to hew, with the alternative of -the drawing of water. - -The truth, then, is that the Gunning girls had practically neither more -nor less of that form of education to be acquired from the study of -books or “lessons” than the average young woman of their own day who had -been “neglected.” Between the years 1750 and 1800 there were in England -hundreds of young ladies who were as highly educated as a junior-grade -lady clerk in the Post Office Department is to-day; but there were -also thousands who were as illiterate as the Gunnings without any one -thinking that it mattered much one way or another. - -[Illustration: 0139] - -And it really did not matter much that Maria Gunning spelt as vaguely as -did Shakespere, or Shakspere, or Shakespeare, or Shakspear, or whatever -he chose to write himself at the moment. Correctness of orthography is -absolutely necessary for any young lady who wishes to be a success in -the Postal Department, but Miss Gunning possessed some qualifications of -infinitely greater importance in the estimation of the world. She was of -good family and she was beautiful exceedingly. Moreover, she possessed -the supreme grace of naturalness--the supreme grace and that which -includes all other graces, which, like butterflies, hover over -womankind, but seldom descend in a bevy upon any one of the race. She -was as natural as a lily flower, and for the same reason. To be natural -il came to her by Nature, and that was how she won the admiration of -more people than the beauty of Helen of Troy brought to their death. She -was not wise. But had she been wise she would never have left Ireland. -She would have known that obscurity is the best friend that any young -woman so beautiful as she was could have. She would have remained in -Roscommon, and she would have been one of those women who are happy -because they have no story. But, of course, had she been wise she would -not have been natural, and so there her beauty goes by the board in a -moment. - -The Honourable Mrs. Gunning could not have been startled when -the knowledge came to her that she was the mother of two girls of -exceptional beauty. The same knowledge comes to every mother of two -girls in the world, though this knowledge is sometimes withheld from -the rest of the world; but even then the mother's faith is not -shaken--except in regard to the eyesight of the rest of the world. -Doubtless Mrs. Gunning thought much better of Ireland when she found -that her judgment on the beauty of her daughters was shared by all the -people who saw the girls. From the daily exclamation of wonder--the -exaggerated expressions of appreciation uttered by a fervent -peasantry--when the girls were seen in their own kitchen or on the -roadside, the mother's ambition must have received a fresh stimulus. And -given an ambitious mother, whose life has been one of contriving to do -things that seem out of her power to accomplish, the achievement of -her object is only a matter of time--provided that the father does not -become an obstruction. Mrs. Gunning was not extravagant in her longings. -Her Delectable Mountains were those which surround the City of Dublin. -Her social ambitions did not extend beyond “The Castle.” - -When the eldest of her three daughters was scarcely nineteen the -aggregation of savings and credit--the latter predominant--seemed -sufficient to justify the expedition. A house was taken in a fashionable -street, close to the most splendid Mall in Europe, and furnished by some -credulous tradesmen, and the social campaign was begun by a parade of -the two girls and their mother. Alas! the young beauties attracted -only too much attention. The inquiries as to their style and title were -unfortunately not limited. In Dublin for generations the tradespeople -have been accustomed to take an intelligent and quite intelligible -interest in the aristocracy and beauty dwelling in their midst; and it -took only a few days for the report to go round that the exquisite young -ladies were the daughters of Mr. John Gunning, of Castle Coote. - -This information meant much more to some of the least desirable of -the inquirers than it did to the wealthy and well connected of the -population; and among the least desirable of all were some tradesmen who -for years had had decrees waiting to be executed against Mr. Gunning at -a more convenient place for such services than Castle Coote. The result -was that within a week the beauty of his daughters had made such a stir -in Dublin that bailiffs were in the house and Mr. Gunning was out of it. - -It is at this point in the history that the Troubadour unslings his -lute, feeling the potentialities of Romance in the air; and, given the -potentialities of Romance and the wandering minstrel, one may be sure -that the atmosphere will resound with Romance. We are told on such high -authority as is regarded quite satisfactory (by the Troubadour), that -the weeping of the mother and the beautiful girls under the coarse stare -of the bailiffs attracted the attention of a charming and sympathetic -young actress who was taking the air in the street, and that, as might -only be expected, she hastened to enter the house to offer consolation -to those who were in trouble--this being unquestionably the mission -which is most congenial to the spirit of the _soubrette_. On being at -once informed of all by the communicative mother--the Troubadour is not -such a fool as to lay down his lute to inquire if it was likely that a -lady who possessed her full share of Irish pride would open her heart -to a stranger and an actress--the young visitor showed her sympathy by -laying herself open to prosecution and imprisonment through helping in -a scheme to make away with all the valuables she could lay her hands on. -But she went still further, and invited the young ladies to stay at her -house so long as it suited them to do so. - -We are told that this young actress was George Ann Bellamy, but the -information comes from no better source than George Ann Bellamy herself, -and the statements of this young person, made when she was no longer -young or reputable, do not carry conviction to all hearers. Romance, -however, like youth, will not be denied, though the accuracy of an -actress may, and people have always been pleased to believe that Miss -Bellamy and Mr. Thomas Sheridan, the much-harassed lessee of the Smock -Alley Theatre in Dublin, were the means of obtaining for the Honourable -Mrs. Gunning and her daughters the invitation to the ball at the Castle -which resulted in the recognition of the girls' beauty by the great -world of fashion. The suggestion that their aunt, Miss Bourke, or -their uncle, Viscount Mayo, might have been quite as potent a factor in -solving the problem of how the invitation to a ball given by the Viceroy -to the people of Dublin came into the hands of the Miss Gunnings, may, -however, be worth a moment's consideration. - -At any rate, the success made by the girls upon this occasion was -immediate. Before a day had passed all Dublin and Dublin Castle were -talking of their beauty, and the splendid Mall was crowded with people -anxious to catch a glimpse of the lovely pair when they took their walks -abroad. Lady Caroline Petersham, the charming lady whose name figures -frequently in Walpole's correspondence--it will be remembered that she -was one of that delightful little supper party at Ranelagh which he -describes--was in the entourage of the Viceroy, and quickly perceived -the possibilities of social prestige accruing to the hostess who might -be the means of introducing them to St. James's. There a new face meant -a new sensation lasting sometimes well into a second month, and Lady -Caroline had her ambitions as a hostess. - -She was the Gunnings' best friend--assuming that social advancement is -an act of friendship--and it may safely be assumed that she was mainly -responsible for the extension of the area of the campaign entered on by -Mrs. Gunning, and that it was her influence which obtained for them the -passage to Chester in the Lord Lieutenant's yacht, and a bonus of £150 -charged, as so many other jobs were, “upon the Irish Establishment.” - The “Irish Establishment” was the convenient Treasury out of which money -could be paid without the chance of unpleasant questions being asked in -Parliament respecting such disbursements. - -Of course, it is not to be believed that such success as the young girls -encompassed in Dublin was reached without a word or two of detraction -being heard in regard to their behaviour. Mrs. Delany, amiable as -a moral gossip, or perhaps, a gossipy moralist, wrote to her sister -respecting them: “All that you have heard of the Gunnings is true, -except their having a fortune, but I am afraid they have a greater want -than that, which is discretion.” No doubt Mrs. Delany had heard certain -whispers of the girlish fun in which the elder of the sisters delighted; -but there has never been the smallest suggestion that her want of -discreetness ever approached an actual indiscretion. It may be assumed, -without doing an injustice to either of the girls, that their standard -of demeanour was not quite so elevated as that which the wife of Dean -Delany was disposed to regard as essential to be reached by any young -woman hoping to be thought well of by her pastors and masters. But the -steelyard measure was never meant to be applied to a high-spirited young -girl who has grown up among bogs and then finds herself the centre of -the most distinguished circle in the land, every person in which is -eagerly striving for the distinction of a word from her lips. Maria -Gunning may not have had much discretion, but she had enough to serve -her turn. She arrived in London with her sister, and no suggestion was -ever made--even by Walpole--that their mother had not taken enough care -of them. - -In London they at once found their place in the centre of the most -fashionable--the most notorious--set; but while we hear of the many -indiscreet things that were done by certain of their associates, nothing -worse is attributed to either of the girls than an Irish brogue or an -Irish idiom--perhaps a word or two that sounded unmusical to fastidious -ears. Walpole began by ridiculing them, and, as has already been noted, -sneering at their birth; but when he found they were becoming the -greatest social success that his long day had known, he thought it -prudent to trim his sails and refer to them more reasonably: they were -acquiring too many friends for it to be discreet for him to continue -inventing gossip respecting them. - -But what a triumph they achieved in town! Nothing had ever been known -like it in England, nor has anything approaching to it been known during -the century and a half that has elapsed since the beauty of these two -girls captured London. The opening of Parliament by the King in State -never attracted such crowds as thronged the Park when they walked in the -Mall. Never before had the guards to turn out at the Palace to disperse -the crowds who mobbed two young ladies who did not belong--except in a -distant way--to a Royal House. Upon one occasion the young Lord Clermont -and his friend were compelled to draw their swords to protect them from -the exuberant attentions of the crowd. “'Tis a warm day,” wrote George -Selwyn to Lord Carlisle, “and some one proposes a stroll to Betty's -fruit shop; suddenly the cry is raised, 'The Gunnings are coming,' and -we all tumble out to gaze and to criticise.” - -“The famous beauties are more talked of than the change in the -Ministry,” wrote Walpole. “They make more noise than any one of their -predecessors since Helen of Troy; a crowd follows them wherever they -walk, and at Vauxhall they were driven away.” - -This mobbing must have caused the girls much delightful inconvenience, -and one can see their mother acting the part--and overdoing it, after -the manner of her kind--of the distracted parent whose daughters have -just been restored to her arms. One can hear the grandiloquent thanks -of the father to the eligible young man with titles whose bravery -has protected his offspring--that would have been his word--from the -violence of the mob. The parents must have been very trying to the young -men in those days. But the mother showed herself to be rather more -than a match for one young man who hoped to win great fame as a -jocular fellow by playing a trick upon the family. Having heard of the -simplicity and credulousness of the girls, this gentleman, with another -of his kind, asked leave of Mrs. Gunning to bring to her house a certain -duke who was one of the greatest _partis_ of the day. On her complying, -he hired a common man, and, dressing him splendidly, conveyed him in -a coach to the Gunnings' house and presented him to the family as -the duke. But the man knew as little of the matter as did Walpole; he -assumed that she was nothing more than the adventurous wife of an Irish -squireen. He soon found out that he had made a mistake. Mrs. Gunning -rang the bell, and ordered the footman to turn the visitors out of -the house. But the family were soon consoled for this incident of the -impostor duke by the arrival of a real one, to say nothing of another -consolation prize in the form of an earl. In the meantime, however, -their popularity-had been increasing rather than diminishing. As a -matter of fact, although beauty may be reproached for being only skin -deep, it is very tenacious of life. A reputation for beauty is perhaps -the most enduring of all forms of notoriety. The renown that attaches to -the man who has painted a great picture, or to one who has made a great -scientific discovery, or to one who has been an eminent churchman or a -distinguished statesman, is, in point of popularity and longevity, quite -insignificant in comparison with that which is associated with the -name of a very beautiful woman. The crowds still surrounded the Miss -Gunnings, and the visit which they paid by command to King George II -gave them a position in the world of fashion that was consolidated by -the report of the charming _naivete_ of the reply made by Maria when the -King inquired if they had seen all the sights of London and if there -was any in particular which they would like to be shown. “Oh, I should -dearly like to see a coronation!” the girl is said to have cried. And as -that was just the sight for which the people of England were most eager, -she was acclaimed as their mouthpiece. - -So they progressed in the career that had been laid out for them. Duels -were fought about them, and bets were made about them and their future. -For nearly a year there was no topic of the first order save only the -Progress of Beauty. The Duke had come boldly forward. He was a double -duke--his titles were Hamilton and Brandon--and he had sounded such -depths of depravity that he was possibly sincere in his desire to -convince the world that his taste in one direction had not become -depraved. Elizabeth Gunning may have accepted his service from a hope of -being the means of reforming him. But even if she were not to succeed in -doing so, her mother would have reminded her that her failure would not -make her the less a duchess. It is open, however, for one to believe -that this girl cared something for the man and was anxious to amend his -life. - -Then we hear of her being with him at Lord Chesterfield's ball given -at the opening of his new mansion, her fancy dress being that of a -Quakeress. Three days later the world in which they lived awoke to learn -the astounding news that the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon had married -Elizabeth Gunning the previous night. - -Here was romance beyond a precedent; and Walpole romanced about it -as usual. In his account of the nuptials he succeeds in making more -misstatements than one would believe it possible even for such a worker -in the art to encompass in half a dozen lines. “When her mother and -sister were at Bedford House,” he wrote to Mann, “a sudden ardour, -either of wine or love, seized upon him (the Duke); a parson was -promptly sent for, but on arriving, refused to officiate without the -important essentials of licence or ring. The Duke swore and talked of -calling in the Archbishop. Finally the parson's scruples gave way, the -licence was overlooked, and the lack of the traditional gold ring was -supplied by the ring of a bed curtain!” - -This is very amusing, but it is not history. It is a clumsy fiction, -unworthy of the resources of the inventor. Sir Horace Mann must have -felt that his friend had a poor opinion of his intelligence if he meant -him to accept the assurance that the household of the Gunnings and the -fingers of His Grace were incapable of yielding to the fastidious parson -a better substitute for the traditional gold ring than the thing he -introduced. The facts of the incident were quite romantic enough without -the need for Walpole's embellishments. It was Valentine's Day, and what -more likely than that the suggestion should be made by the ardent -lover that so appropriate a date for a wedding would not come round for -another year! To suggest difficulties--impossibility--would only be to -spur him on to show that he was a true lover. However this may be, it -has long ago been proved that the midnight marriage took place in due -form at the Curzon Street Chapel in the presence of several witnesses. - -And then Walpole went on to say that the wedding of Lord Coventry and -the elder sister took place at the same time. It so happened, however, -that a fortnight elapsed between the two ceremonies, and in the case of -the second, the ceremony took place in the full light of day. - -The subsequent history of the two ladies is not without a note of -melancholy. The elder, pursued to the end by the malevolent slanders -of the man with the leer of the satyr perpetually on his face, died of -consumption after eight years of wedded life. The younger became a widow -two years earlier, and after being wooed by the Duke of Bridgewater, -whom she refused, sending him to his canal for consolation, married -Colonel Campbell, who in 1770 became the Fifth Duke of Argyll. Six -years later she was created a peeress in her own right, her title -being Baroness Hamilton of Hameldon in Leicestershire. In 1778 she -was appointed Mistress of the Robes. She attained to the additional -distinction of making the good Queen jealous, so that Her Majesty upon -one occasion overlooked her in favour of Lady Egremont. The Duchess at -once resigned, and only with difficulty was persuaded to withdraw her -resignation. She died in 1790. - - - - -THE FÊTE-CHAMPÊTRE - -NO one knows to-day with whom the idea of having an English -_fête-champêtre_ at The Oaks upon the occasion of the marriage of the -young Lord Stanley to Lady Betty Hamilton originated. The secret -was well kept; and it can be easily understood that in case of this -innovation proving a fiasco, no one would show any particular desire to -accept the responsibility of having started the idea. But turning out as -it did, a great success, it might have been expected that many notable -persons would lay claim to be regarded as its parents. A considerable -number of distinguished people had something to do with it, and any -one of them had certainly sufficient imagination, backed up by an -acquaintance with some of the exquisite pieces of MM. Watteau and -Fragonard, to suggest the possibility of perfecting such an enterprise -even in an English June. It was the most diligent letter-writer of that -age of letter-writing who had referred to the “summer setting in with -its customary severity,” so that the trifling of the month of June -with the assumption of the poets who have rhymed of its sunshine with -rapture, was not an experience that was reserved for the century that -followed. But in spite of this, the idea of a _fête-champêtre_, after -the most approved French traditions, in an English demesne found favour -in the eyes of Lord Stanley and his advisers, and the latter were -determined that, whatever price might have to be paid for it, they would -not run the chance of being blamed for carrying it out in a niggardly -spirit. - -The young Lord Stanley had as many advisers as any young nobleman with -a large immediate allowance and prospects of a splendid inheritance may -hope to secure. There was his _fiancée's_ mother, now the Duchess of -Argyll, who was never disposed to frown down an undertaking that would -place a member of one of her families in the forefront of the battle of -the beauties for the most desirable _parti_ of the year. - -[Illustration: 0155] - -The Duchess had both taste and imagination, so that people called her an -Irishwoman, although she was born in England. Then there was Mr. George -Selwyn, who said witty things occasionally and never missed a hanging. -He was fully qualified to prompt a wealthy companion as to the best -means to become notorious for a day. There was also young Mr. Conway, -the gentleman who originated the diverting spectacle when Mrs. Baddeley -and Mrs. Abington were escorted to the Pantheon. Any one of these, to -say nothing of Lady Betty herself, who had some love for display, might -have been inclined to trust an English June so far as to believe an _al -fresco_ entertainment on a splendid scale quite possible. - -On the whole, however, one is inclined to believe that it was Colonel -Burgoyne who was responsible for the whole scheme at The Oaks. In -addition to having become Lord Stanley's uncle by running away with -his father's sister, he was a budding dramatist, and as such must have -perceived his opportunity for exploiting himself at the expense of -some one else--the dream of every budding dramatist. There is every -likelihood that it was this highly accomplished and successful -“gentleman-adventurer” who brought Lord Stanley up to the point of -embarking upon his design for an entertainment such as had never -been seen in England before--an entertainment that should include the -production of a masque devised by Colonel Burgoyne and entitled _The -Maid of The Oaks_. The fête came off, and it was pronounced the most -brilliant success of the year 1774. - -Lord Stanley was a very interesting young man; that is to say, he was -a young man in whom no inconsiderable number of persons--mainly of the -opposite sex--were greatly interested. Of this fact he seems to have -been fully aware. A good many people--mainly of the opposite sex--felt -very strongly on the subject of his marrying: it was quite time that he -married, they said. His grandfather, the Earl of Derby, was eighty-four -years of age, and it would be absurd to believe that he could live much -longer. Lord Stanley being his heir, it was agreed that it was the young -man's duty not to procrastinate in the matter of marriage. It is always -understood that a patriarchal nobleman sings “_Nunc dimittis_” when he -holds in his arms the second in direct succession to the title, and this -happy consummation could, in the case of the aged Lord Derby, only be -realised by the marriage of Lord Stanley. - -He was small in stature, and extremely plain of countenance; still -this did not prevent his name from being coupled with that of several -notable--but not too notable--young women of his acquaintance. But as -it was well known that he was greatly interested in the stage, it -was thought that, perhaps, he might not be so complaisant as his best -friends hoped to find him in regard to marrying. An ardent interest in -the progress of the drama, especially in its lighter forms, has been -known to turn a young man's attention from marriage, when it does not do -what is far worse--turn his attention to it with too great zest. Before -long, however, it became apparent that his lordship recognised in what -direction his duty lay. There was a young lady connected with the Ducal -House of Bedford--a niece of that old Duchess who played so conspicuous -a part in the social and political history of the middle of the -eighteenth century--and to her Lord Stanley became devoted. But just -when every one assumed that the matter was settled, no one thinking -it possible that the young lady would be mad enough to refuse such a -_parti_, the news came that she had done so; and before people had -done discussing how very eccentric were the Bedford connections, -the announcement was made that Lord Stanley was to marry Lady Betty -Hamilton, the beautiful daughter of a beautiful mother, the Duchess of -Argyll. - -There is in existence a letter written by the Duchess to Sir William -Hamilton, in which she hints that Lord Stanley was an old suitor for the -hand of her daughter. “Lady Betty might have taken the name of Stanley -long ago if she had chose it,” she wrote, adding: “A very sincere -attachment on his side has at last produced the same on hers.” This -being so, it would perhaps be unsafe to assume that Lord Stanley -proposed to Lady Betty out of pique at having been rejected by the other -lady, though one might be disposed to take this view of the engagement. - -The alternative view is that Lady Betty had been advised by her -accomplished mother that if she played her cards well there was no -reason why she should not so attract Lord Stanley as to lead him to be a -suitor for her hand, and that the girl at last came to see that the -idea was worth her consideration. Her portrait, painted by Sir Joshua -Reynolds in the year of her marriage, shows her to have been a graceful, -girlish young creature; but her beauty could never have been comparable -with that of her mother at the same age, or with that of her aunt, Lady -Coventry, whom it is certain she closely resembled in character. Her -mother, in her letter to Sir William Hamilton, apologises in a way -for her liveliness, assuring him that such a disposition was not -incompatible with serious thought upon occasions; and this gives us -a hint that the reputation for vivacity which she always enjoyed was -closely akin to that which made the life of Lady Coventry so very -serious. - -This was the young lady in whose honour the first English _fête -champêtre_ was organised. To be more exact, or to get more into touch -with the view of the Derby family, perhaps one should say that the -_fête_ was set on foot in consideration of the honour the young lady -was doing herself in becoming a member of the great house of -Stanley. Different people look at a question of honour from different -standpoints. Probably Colonel Burgoyne, although a member of the Derby -family by marriage, left honour out of the question altogether, and only -thought of his masque being produced at his nephew's expense. - -And produced the masque was, and on a scale as expensive as the most -ambitious author could desire. It was described, with comments, by all -the great letter-writers of the time. Walpole has his leer and his sneer -at its expense (literally). It was to cost no less than £5000, he said, -and he ventured to suppose that in order to account for this enormous -outlay Lord Stanley had bought up all the orange trees near London--no -particular extravagance one would fancy--and that the hay-cocks would be -of straw-coloured riband. George Selwyn thought it far from diverting. -The Dowager Lady Gower affirmed that “all the world was there,” only she -makes an exception of her relations the Bedfords--she called them “the -Bloomsbury lot”--and said that the Duchess would not let any of them go -because Her Grace thought that Lord Stanley should have taken his recent -rejection by Her Grace's niece more to heart. Lady Betty's stepfather, -the Duke of Argyll, said that the whole day was so long and fatiguing -that only Lady Betty could have stood it all. - -But did Lady Betty stand it all? It was rumoured in the best-informed -circles that she had broken off the match the next day; and when one -becomes acquainted with the programme of the day's doings one cannot but -acknowledge that the rumour was plausible. She probably made an attempt -in this direction; but on her fiancé's promising never to repeat the -offence, withdrew her resolution. - -The famous brothers Adam, whose genius was equally ready to build -an Adelphi or to design a fanlight, had been commissioned to plan an -entertainment on the most approved French models and to carry it out on -the noblest scale, taking care, of course, that the central idea should -be the masque of _The Maid of The Oaks_, and these large-minded artists -accepted the order without demur. The pseudo-classical feeling entered, -largely through the influence of the Adams, into every form of art at -this period, though the famous brothers cannot be accused of originating -the movement. Sir Joshua Reynolds painted his most charming ladies in -the costume of Greeks, and Angelica Kauffmann depicted many of her early -English episodes with the personages clad in togas which seemed greatly -beyond their control. But for that matter every battle piece up to -the date of Benjamin West's “Death of Wolfe” showed the combatants in -classical armour; and Dr. Johnson was more than usually loud in his -protests against the suggestion that a sculptor should put his statues -of modern men into modern clothing. - -But the Adams were wise enough to refrain from issuing any order as to -the costume to be worn by the shepherds and shepherdesses who were -to roam the mead at The Oaks, Epsom, upon the occasion of this _fête -champêtre_; and they were also wise enough to distrust the constancy of -an English June. The result was (1) a charming medley of costume, though -the pseudo-pastoral peasants, farmers, gardeners, and shepherds were in -the majority, and (2) the most interesting part of the entertainments -took place indoors, the octagonal hall lending itself nobly--when -improved by Messrs. Adam--to the show. The “transparencies” which -constituted so important a part of the ordinary birthday celebrations -of the time, took the form of painted windows, and, later, of a -device showing two of the conventional torches of Hymen in full blaze, -supporting a shield with the Oak of the Hamiltons' crest and the usual -“gules.” - -This design occupied the place of the “set piece” which winds up a -modern display of fireworks and sets the band playing “God save the -King.” It could not have been brought on until the morning sunlight -was flooding the landscape outside; for supper was not served until -half-past eleven, and the company had to witness the representation of -an intolerably long masque--the second of the day--after supper, with a -procession of Druids, fauns, cupids, and nymphs, all in suitable, but it -is to be hoped not traditional, costume. - -The entertainment began quite early in the afternoon, when there was -a long procession of shepherds and shepherdesses through the lanes to -where a pastoral play was produced and syllabub drunk under the trees. -But this was only an _hors d'ouvre_; it was not Colonel Burgoyne's -masterpiece. This was not produced in the open air. Only when further -refreshments had been served and evening was closing in did the guests, -who had been sauntering through the sylvan scenes, repair to the great -hall, which they found superbly decorated and, in fact, remodelled, for -colonnades after the type of those in the pictures of Claude had been -built around the great ballroom, the shafts being festooned with roses, -and the drapery of crimson satin with heavy gold fringes. There were -not enough windows to make excuses for so much drapery, but this was no -insuperable obstacle to the artful designers; they so disposed of the -material as to make it appear that it was the legitimate hanging for six -windows. - -For the procession through the colonnades the young host changed his -costume and his fiancée changed hers. He had appeared as Rubens and she -as Rubens' wife, from the well-known picture. But now she was dressed as -Iphigenia. They led the first minuet before supper, and it was thought -that they looked very fine. No one who has seen the two pictures of the -scene, for which Zucchi was commissioned, can question this judgment. -Lady Betty's portrait in one of these panels makes her even more -beautiful than she appears on Sir Joshua's canvas. - -With a display of fireworks of a detonating and discomposing type--the -explosion, it was said, affected the nerves of nearly all the -guests--and the illumination of the “transparency” already alluded to, -this memorable fête came to no premature conclusion. Every one was bored -to death by so much festivity coming all at once. The idea of twelve -hours of masques and minuets is enough to make one's blood run cold. Its -realisation may have had this effect upon the heroine of the day, hence -the rumour that she found she had had enough of the Derby family to -last her for the rest of her life without marrying the young heir. -Unfortunately, however, if this was the case, she failed to justify the -accuracy of the report; and she was married to Lord Stanley on the 23rd -of the same month. - -The union of Maria Gunning with the Earl of Coventry was a miserable -one, but this of her niece and Lord Stanley was infinitely worse. Lady -Betty soon found out that she had made a mistake in marrying a man so -incapable of appreciating her charm of manner as was Lord Stanley. The -likelihood is that if she had married any other man she would have made -the same discovery. The vivacity for which her mother apologised to Sir -William Hamilton was, after her marriage, much more apparent than the -thoughtfulness which the Duchess assured her correspondent was one of -her daughter's traits. She showed herself to be appallingly vivacious -upon more than one occasion. Just at that time there was a vivacious -“set” in Lady Betty's world, and every member of it seemed striving for -leadership. Few of the ladies knew exactly where the border line lay -between vivacity and indiscretion. If Lady Betty was one of the better -informed on this delicate question of delimitation, all that can be said -is that she overstepped the line upon several occasions. It is not to be -thought that her lightness ever bordered into actual vice, but it rarely -fell short of being indiscreet. - -She was always being talked about--always having curious escapades, none -of them quite compromising, but all calculated to make the judicious -grieve. But it is one thing to be subjected to the censure of the -judicious and quite another to come before a judicial authority, and it -is pretty certain that if Lady Derby--her husband succeeded to the title -two years after his marriage--had incriminated herself, she would have -been forced to defend a divorce suit. - -It is, however, likewise certain that for some time she kept hovering -like a butterfly about the portals of the Court, and a good deal of the -bloom was blown off her wings by the breath of rumour. She had accepted -the devotion of the Duke of Dorset, and, considering the number of -eyes that were upon her and the devotion of His Grace, this was a very -dangerous thing to do. They were constantly seen together and at all -hours. This was in the second year of her marriage, but even in -the first her desire to achieve notoriety by some means made itself -apparent. But her escapade that was most talked about was really not -worthy of the gossip of a Gower. She was at a ball at the house of Mrs. -Onslow in St. James's Square, and her chair not arriving in good time to -take her back to Grosvenor Square, it was suggested by Lord Lindsay and -Mr. Storer that they should borrow Mrs. Onslow's chair and carry her -between them to her home. She agreed to this gallant proposal, and off -they set together. The young men bore her to her very door in spite of -the fact that they had met her own chair soon after they had left Mrs. -Onslow's porch. - -There was surely not much of an escapade in this transaction. The truth -was probably that the chair did not arrive owing to the condition of the -bearers, and when the young gentlemen met it they refused to jeopardise -the safety of the lady by transferring her from Mrs. Onslow's chair to -her own. - -Rumour, however, was only too anxious to put the worst construction upon -every act of the merry Countess, and it was doubtless because of this, -and of her own knowledge of her daughter's thoughtlessness, that -the Duchess of Argyll appeared upon the scene and endeavoured by her -presence and advice to avert the catastrophe that seemed imminent. -The Duchess insisted on accompanying her to every entertainment, and -succeeded in keeping a watchful eye on her, though the Duke, who was -at Inveraray, and was doubtless tired of hearing of the vivacity of -his stepdaughter, wrote rather peremptorily for Her Grace to return -to Scotland. She did not obey the summons, the fact being that she was -devoted to this daughter of hers, who must have daily reminded her of -her own sister Maria, to whom she had been so deeply attached. * - - * It was said that she had refused the offer of the Duke of - Bridgewater, because of his suggestion that she should break - off all intercourse with Lady Coventry. - -Seeing, however, that she could not continue to look after this lively -young matron, and being well aware of the fact that Lord Derby would -never consent to live with her again, the Duchess could do no more than -condone the separation which was inevitable. The deed was drawn up in -1779, five years after Lady Betty had been so inauspiciously bored by -the _fête champêtre_. - -[Illustration: 0171] - -In the meantime there was a good deal of talk about the Earl of Derby -himself. A young nobleman who takes a lively, or even a grave, interest -in the personnel of the theatre is occasionally made the subject of -vulgar gossip. Lord Derby had a reputation as an amateur actor, and -he seemed to think that it would be increased by association with -professional actresses. It is doubtful if he was justified in his views -on this delicate question. At any rate, rightly or wrongly, on his -estrangement from his wife, but two years before the final separation, -he showed a greater devotion than ever to dramatic performances and -dramatic performers. His uncle by marriage, now General Burgoyne, had -written a play that turned out an extraordinary success. This was _The -Heiress_, and it had received extravagant praise in many influential -quarters. It was while it was still being talked of in society that a -company of distinguished amateurs undertook to produce it at Richmond -House, in Whitehall Place. In order that the representation might be as -perfect as possible, the Duchess of Richmond engaged the actress who -had taken the chief part in the original production, to superintend -the rehearsals of her amateurs. Miss Farren was a young person -of considerable beauty, and more even than an actress's share of -discretion. She was in George Colman's company at the Haymarket, and -was rapidly taking the place of Mrs. Abington in the affections of -playgoers. She was the daughter of a surgeon in a small way--he may have -been one of the barber surgeons of the eighteenth century. Marrying an -actress (also in a small way), he adopted the stage as a profession, and -became a strolling actor-manager, whenever he got the chance, and died -before his drinking habits had quite demoralised his family. - -Mrs. Farren was a wise woman--wise enough to know that she was a bad -actress, but that there were possibilities in her two daughters. It was -after only a brief season of probation that Colman engaged one of -the girls to do small parts, promoting her in an emergency to be a -“principal.” Miss Farren proved herself capable of making the most of -her opportunity, and the result was that within a year she was taking -Mrs. Abington's parts in the best comedies. - -Her mother was sensible enough to perceive that there was room in the -best society for an actress of ability as well as respectability--up to -that time the two qualities had seldom been found associated--and Mrs. -Farren was right. No whisper had ever been heard against the young lady, -and a judicious introduction or two brought her into many drawing-rooms -of those leaders of society who were also respectable, and this was of -advantage to her not only socially, but professionally. Horace Walpole -was able to write of her: “In distinction of manner and refinement she -excelled Mrs. Abington, who could never go beyond Lady Teazle, which is -a second-rate character.” Again, in a letter to Lady Ossory, he ascribed -the ability of Miss Farren to the fact that she was accustomed to mingle -with the best society. - -This theory of Walpole's has been frequently controverted since his day, -and now no one will venture to assert that there is really anything in -it, although it sounds plausible enough. Miss Farren had, however, ample -opportunity of studying “the real thing” and of profiting by her study. -She found herself on the most intimate footing with duchesses--not of -the baser sort like her of Ancaster, or of the eccentric sort like her -of Bedford, but of the most exalted. The Duchess of Richmond and the -Duchess of Leinster were among her friends, and thus it was that her -appearance at the rehearsals of _The Heiress_ of Whitehall Place was -not wholly professional. Upon this occasion she met Lord Derby and also -Charles James Fox, the latter having accepted the rather onerous duties -of stage manager. Before any of the performers were letter perfect in -their dialogue, Miss Farren had captured the hearts of both these -men. Having some of the qualities necessary to success as a statesman, -including caution and an instinct as to the right moment to retire from -a contest that must end in some one being made a fool of, Mr. Fox soon -withdrew from a position of rivalry with Lord Derby. It was rumoured by -the malicious, who had at heart the maintenance of the good name of -Miss Farren, that Mr. Fox had been dismissed by the lady with great -indignation on his making a proposition to her that did not quite -meet her views in regard to the ceremony of marriage. Miss Farren they -asserted to be a paragon of virtue, and so she undoubtedly was. Her -virtue was of the most ostentatious type. She would never admit a -gentleman to an audience unless some witness of her virtue was present. -She accepted the devotion of Lord Derby, but gave him to understand -quite plainly that so long as his wife was alive she could only agree to -be his _fiancée_. Truly a very dragon of virtue was Miss Farren! - -The Earl, previous to his meeting the actress, had been a dutiful if not -a very devoted husband. But as soon as he fell in love with this paragon -of virtue he became careless, and made no attempt to restrain his wife -in her thoughtless behaviour. He allowed her to go her own way, and he -went his way. His way led him almost every evening to the green room -at the Haymarket and Drury Lane, where Miss Farren was to be found. The -estrangement between himself and his wife that resulted in the final -separation was the result not of his infatuation for the actress, but of -her virtuous acceptance of him as her moral lover. She took care never -to compromise herself with him or any one else, but she did not mind -taking the man away from his wife and home in order that she might be -accredited with occupying an absolutely unique position in the annals of -the English stage. - -If Miss Farren had been a little less virtuous and a little more human -she would run a better chance of obtaining the sympathy of such people -as are capable of differentiating between a woman's virtue and the -virtues of womankind. She seemed to think that the sole duty of a woman -is to be discreet in regard to herself--to give no one a chance of -pointings finger of scorn at her; and it really seemed as if this was -also the creed of the noble people with whom she associated. Every -one seemed to be so paralysed by her propriety as to be incapable of -perceiving how contemptible a part she was playing. An honest woman, -with the instincts of goodness and with some sense of her duty, would, -the moment a married man offers her his devotion, send him pretty -quickly about his business. The most elementary sense of duty must -suggest the adoption of such a course of treatment in regard to -an illicit admirer. But Miss Farren had no such sense. She met the -philandering of her lover with smiles and a virtuous handshake. She -accepted his offer of an adoring friendship for the present with a -reversion of the position of Countess of Derby on the death of the -existing holder of the title and its appurtenances; and people held her -up, and continue to hold her up, as an example of all that is virtuous -and amiable in life! - -She was also commended for her patience, as Lord Derby was for his -constancy. They had both great need of these qualities, for the unhappy -barrier to their union showed no signs of getting out of their way, -either by death or divorce. She became strangely discreet, taking, in -fact, a leaf out of Miss Farren's book of deportment, and never giving -her husband a chance of freeing himself from the tie that bound him -nominally to her. It must have been very gratifying to the actress to -perceive how effective was the example she set to the Countess in regard -to the adherence to the path of rectitude. - -What was the exact impression produced upon Lord Derby by all this -decorum it would be difficult to say. He may have been pleased to -discover that he was married to a lady to whom his honour was more -precious than he had any reason or any right to believe it to be. But -assuredly a less placid gentleman would have found himself wishing now -and again that--well, that matters had arranged themselves differently. - -The years went by without bringing about a more satisfactory _modus -vivendi_ than was in existence when Lord Derby originally offered his -heart and hand (the latter when it should become vacant) to the actress. -Lady Derby was in wretched health, but still showed no more inclination -to die than does a chronic invalid. Miss Farren continued to drive her -splendid chariot, with its coachmen on the hammer-cloth and its footmen -clinging on to the straps behind, down to the stage-door of the theatre, -and to fill the house every night that she played. Her popularity seemed -to grow with years, and she appeared in a wide range of characters, -making her audiences accept as correct her reading of every part, though -the best critics--Walpole was about the worst--of her art had a good -deal to say that was not quite favourable to her style. Only once, -however, did she make a flagrant error on the stage, and this was when -she was misguided enough to put on men's garments in representing the -part of Tracy Lovell in Colman's play, _The Suicide_. - -By this unhappy exhibition which she made of herself she disillusioned -those of her admirers who fancied that she was a model of grace from -the sole of her feet to the crown of her head. She never repeated this -performance. Had she done so in Lord Derby's presence, his constancy -would have been put to a severer test than any to which he had been -previously subjected. The best judges of what constitutes grace in a -woman were unanimous in their advice to the lady never to forsake the -friendly habiliments which she was accustomed to wear, and never to -allow her emulation of the perpetually chaste goddess to lead her to -adopt even for an hour the convenient garb in which she went a-hunting. - -And while his fiancée was moving from triumph to triumph, putting every -other actress in the shade, the Earl of Derby was putting on flesh. But -as his flesh became more visible so did his faith. He was a model of -fidelity. His name was never associated with the name of any other -lady--not even that of his wife--during his long years of probation, and -twenty years form a rather protracted period for a man to wait in order -to marry an actress. It was not to be wondered if the spectacle of the -devoted young peer waiting for the beautiful girl in the green room, -which was allowed to the habitués of that fascinating apartment during -the earlier years of this strange attachment, produced quite a different -effect upon people from that which was the result of witnessing a -somewhat obese, elderly gentleman panting along by the side of a chaste -lady of forty. Nor was it remarkable that, on seeing one day by the side -of Miss Farren, a gallant young man whose walk and bearing suggested -to elderly spectators a rejuvenated Lord Stanley, they should rub their -eyes and ask what miracle was this that time and true love had wrought. - -The only miracle that time had wrought was to make the son of the Earl -of Derby twenty-one years of age and rather interested in the personnel -of green rooms. He had been introduced to Miss Farren by his father; but -to his honour be it said, he made no attempt to take his father's -place in regard to the lady, except as her escort to her house in Green -Street. The gossip that suggested such a possibility was just what one -might expect to find in one of Walpole's letters. - -At last the shameful, if virtuous, devotion of twenty years was -rewarded by the announcement of the death of the wretched Countess whose -desertion dated from the day her husband met the actress. Miss Farren, -with that extraordinary bad taste which characterised every period -of her intimacy with Lord Derby, took an ostentatious farewell of the -stage, and proved by the faltering of her voice, her emotion, and her -final outburst in tears, that time had not diminished from the arts of -her art. Of course, there was a scene of intense emotion in the theatre, -which was increased when King led her forward and Wroughton spoke a -rhymed and stagey farewell in her presence. Four of its lines were -these: - - But ah! this night adieu the joyous mien, - - When Mirth's lov'd fav'rite quits the mimic scene, - - Startled Thalia would th'assent refuse, - - But Truth and Virtue sued and won the Muse. - -Truth and Virtue--these were the patrons of the compact by which Miss -Farren waited for twenty years for the death of the wife of the man whom -she had promised to marry--when she could. - -The scene in the green room when the actress came off the stage was -an unqualified success. Tears flowed freely, making channels as they -meandered down the paint; sobs came from the actresses who hoped to get -a chance of doing some of her parts now that she had left the stage; -and Miss Farren herself showed that she knew what were the elements of a -proper climax, by fainting with a shriek, in the midst of which she made -an exit supported by all the actors who were not already supporting some -of the hysterical ladies in the background. They all deserved to have -their salaries raised. The whole scene was a triumph--of art. - -The exact chronology of the crisis is worth noting. Lady Derby died on -March 4th, and was buried on April 2nd. On April 8th Miss Farren took -her farewell of the stage, and on May 1st she was married to the Earl -of Derby. A satisfactory explanation of the indecent delay in the -celebration of the marriage was forthcoming: his lordship had been -suffering from an attack of gout. - -But if no one ventured to cast an aspersion upon his character or to -accuse him of shilly-shallying in regard to the postponement of his -nuptials until his wife had been nearly a whole month in her grave, -there was a good deal of funny gossip set loose when, after a honeymoon -of two days, the Earl and the Countess returned to London. This also was -satisfactorily explained: the Countess was devoted to her mother! - -The marriage proved a very happy one, and thirty-two years passed before -the Countess died. Her husband survived her by five years. He died in -1834, fifty-seven years after his first meeting with the actress, and -forty-seven since he instituted “The Derby” race meeting, winning the -first cup by his horse Sir Peter Teazle. - - - - -THE PLOT OF A LADY NOVELIST - -IN the year 1790-1 there was played in real life a singularly poor -adaptation of an unwritten novel by one of the Minifie sisters--those -sentimental ladies who, during the last quarter of the eighteenth -century, provided the circulating libraries with several volumes of -high-flown fiction. The adaptation of this unwritten novel possessed a -good many of the most prominent features of the original, so that when -it was brought to light there could be very little doubt as to the brain -out of which it had been evolved. The result of the performance was so -unsatisfactory as to compel one to believe that the worst possible way -of producing a novel is to adapt it to suit the requirements of one's -relations, forcing them to play in real life and in all earnest the -parts assigned to them by the inventor of the plot. - -Miss Minifie, the second of the sentimental sisters, had married in the -year 1769 Colonel John Gunning, the brother of the two beautiful girls -one of whom became Duchess of Hamilton, and later Duchess of Argyll, and -the other Countess of Coventry. The result of the union was a daughter -of considerable plainness, and people said that in this respect she -resembled her mother's rather than her father's family. It seems that -while the Gunning tradition was beauty, the Minifie tradition was a -nose, and it soon became apparent that it was impossible to combine the -two with any satisfactory artistic results. The young lady had made an -honest attempt to do so, but her failure was emphatic. She had eyes that -suggested in a far-off way the long-lashed orbs of her aunts, but that -unlucky Minifie nose was so prominent a feature that it caused the -attention of even the most indulgent critic to be riveted upon it, to -the exclusion of the rest of her face. The charitably-disposed among her -friends affirmed that she would be passably good-looking if it were not -for her nose; the others said that she would be positively plain if it -were not for her eyes. - -Her father was probably that member of his family who had least brains: -they made a soldier of him, and he married a lady novelist, closing an -inglorious career by running off with his tailor's wife and having a -writ issued against him for £5000. He took care to be at Naples, outside -the jurisdiction of the English court, when it was issued, and he died -before it could be served on him, which suggests that he may not have -been so devoid of brains after all. - -Her mother (_née_ Minifie) seems to have entertained the idea of making -the girl work out a “plot” for her when she arrived at the regulation -age of the sentimental heroine of those days, and this plot she invented -with all her accustomed absence of skill. Her materials were a “glorious -child”--this was how she described her daughter--with a gifted mother; -a young cousin, heir to a dukedom and a large estate; and, lastly, -the Gunning tradition. Could any novelist ask for more? A short time -afterwards she did, however, and this was just where her art failed her. -She did much to discourage the writers of fiction from endeavouring to -work out their plots in real life. - -Catherine Gunning, the “glorious child,” being the niece of the Duchess -of Argyll, her cousin was, of course, the Marquis of Lome; and as the -Duchess had always kept up an intimate connection with the members of -her father's family, even to the second generation, her son, Lord Lome, -and Catherine Gunning had been a good deal together, not only when -they were children, but also when they had reached the age when the -novel-writer's hero and heroine begin to blossom. The girl's mother, -doubtless having an idea that these very live young people were -as plastic as the creatures of her fancy, thought to hasten on the -_dénouement_ of her story by whispering it to her friends. She whispered -into more than one ear that Lord Lome and her daughter were betrothed, -and such friends as received this information, strictly _sub rosa_, took -care to spread it abroad--strictly _sub rosa_ also. Now the aggregation -of many confidential reports of this sort is what is termed “news,” so -that in the course of a short time it was common property that Lord Lome -was to marry his cousin, Catherine Gunning. - -Congratulations reached the young lady, which she neither quite accepted -nor altogether rejected. She seems to have learned from her mother's -novels that in such matters it is wisest for a young woman to be silent -but pensive. And on the whole her behaviour was fairly consistent with -that of the heroine which her mother meant her to be. Indeed, all that -was needed to enable her to take the place of the heroine of a pleasant -little love story was the proposal of the hero; and unhappily this -formality had still to be reckoned with. Lord Lome had so paltry an -appreciation of what was due to the art of the fiction-writer that -he declined to play the part of the young hero of the story, and when -people approached him on the subject he said that he had heard nothing -about being accepted by Miss Gunning, and that he could not possibly be -accepted until he had proposed to her. He seems to have acted with the -discretion one would have looked for from the son of the Duchess of -Argyll, and in the course of the year the reports of the possible -union dwindled away, and people began to feel that their friends were -untrustworthy gossips to have circulated a report solely on the evidence -of a young lady's pensiveness. - -This was, however, as it turned out, but the opening chapter in the -romance which the novelist-mother was working out. Indeed, it scarcely -bears to be considered as a regular chapter, it was rather the prologue -to the comedy which was played two years later with the same heroine, -but for obvious reasons with a different hero. In the prologue there was -scarcely visible any of the art of the novelist; in the comedy itself, -however, her hand is constantly apparent, controlling the movements of -at least one of her puppets; and very jerkily, too, that hand pulled the -strings. The clumsiness in the construction of the plot prevented any -one from sympathising with the authoress and stage-manager of the piece -when its failure became known to the world in general, and to Horace -Walpole in particular. Walpole could pretend a good deal. He pretended, -for instance, that he knew at once that the Rowley poems, sent to him by -Chatterton, were forgeries; and he pretended that he knew nothing of the -marriage of his niece to the Duke of Gloucester until the public were -apprised of the fact. He could not, however, even pretend that he -sympathised with the failure of the Minifie plot. On the contrary, he -gloats over the disgrace which, he declared, on this account fell -upon the Gunning family. He hated the whole Gunning family, and he was -plainly in ecstasies of delight when he believed that ruin had come upon -them. “The two beautiful sisters were exalted almost as high as they -could go,” he wrote. “Countessed and double duchessed, and now the -family have dragged themselves down into the very dirt.” - -The “family” had of course done nothing of the sort. One member of the -family had allowed herself to be made a fool of at the suggestion of her -very foolish mother; her father had also been indiscreet, but there is -a wide difference between all this and the family of Gunning “dragging -themselves into the very dirt.” The result of the tricks of the lady -novelist to marry her daughter to the heir to a dukedom was only to -make every one roar with laughter, and no doubt the fatuous ladies felt -greatly annoyed. But the Marquis of Lome did not seem to take the matter -greatly to heart, and he was a member of the Gunning family; nor did the -Duke of Hamilton show himself to be greatly perturbed, though he must -have been somewhat jealous of the honour of the family to which his -mother belonged. The position that the Gunning family had taken among -the greatest families in the land rested upon too solid a foundation -to be shaken by the foolishness of a lady novelist, who had married a -Gunning. And now people who read the story of the “dragging in the dirt” - only shrug their shoulders at the ridiculous figure cut by the actors -in the shallow and sordid comedy, and laugh at the spiteful gibe of the -prince of gossips, who played a congenial part in damning the product of -the Minifie brain. - -Two years after the failure of the Lome plot startling whispers were -once again heard in regard to Miss Gunning and the heir to another -dukedom. This time it was the Marquis of Blandford who attracted -the Minifie fancy. He was the Duke of Marlborough's heir, and was -twenty-three years of age. Of course it was Mrs. Gunning (_née_ Minifie) -who was the first to make the announcement that the young people were -greatly attached; and then followed--after the interval of a chapter or -two--the lady novelist's declaration to her niece, a Mrs. Bowen, that -Lord Blandford had proposed, and had been accepted by Miss Gunning. -The date of the marriage had been fixed, and the draft deed of the -settlements signed; but, as in the former “case,” the recipient of -the news was told that she must regard the communication as strictly -confidential, the fact being that although the arrangements for the -match were so fully matured, yet General Gunning--he had recently been -made a general--had not been let into the secret. - -It must have seemed a little queer to Mrs. Bowen to learn that her uncle -had not been made acquainted with the good luck that was in store -for his daughter. The signing of marriage deeds in the absence of the -bride's father must surely have struck her as being a trifle irregular. -However this may be, she seems to have treated the communication as -strictly confidential by at once proceeding to spread abroad the news -that it contained. It reached the ears of several people of distinction -before long. General Conway heard of it, and from a quarter that seemed -to him absolutely trustworthy. He passed it round to Walpole and the -Court circle. The Duke of Argyll, as the uncle of the young lady most -interested in the match, was apprised of it in due course, and on -appealing to headquarters--that is to say, to Mrs. Gunning--for -confirmation or denial of the report, learned that the marriage had -indeed been “arranged,” but the question of settlements remained in -abeyance. - -Shortly afterwards there came rumours that there were obstacles in the -way of the marriage, and Miss Gunning, on being questioned by some of -her friends, confessed that it was the parents of her lover who were -unkind: young Lord Blandford was burning with anxiety to call her his -own, but the Duke and Duchess belonged unfortunately to that type of -parent to be found in so many novels in which the course of true love -runs anything but smooth. - -Strange to say, it was just at this point that a letter appeared in the -_Advertiser_, signed by General Gunning, apprising the world of the fact -that the Gunnings were one of the noblest families in existence, the -writer actually being able to trace his ancestry up to Charlemagne. - -It was while people were so laughing over this letter as to cause him -to declare it to be a forgery, that the General became suspicious of the -genuineness of his daughter's statements in regard to her _affaire de -cour_. When a blunt old soldier finds a letter bearing his signature in -the papers, well knowing that he never wrote such a letter, he is apt to -question the good faith even of his nearest and dearest. It is certain, -at any rate, that the descendant of Charlemagne had an uneasy feeling -that any woman who wrote novels was not to be implicitly trusted in the -affairs of daily life. His mind running on forged letters, he commanded -his daughter to submit to him her correspondence with her lover. - -Miss Gunning at once complied, and he sat down to read the lot. The -result was not to allay his suspicions. The letters read remarkably -well, and contained the conventional outpourings of an ardent lover to -the object of his affections. But to the simple soldier's mind they read -just too well: some of them were in the style of a novel-writer with -whom he was acquainted--imperfectly, it would appear, or he would have -suspected something long before. Retaining the precious “pacquet” he -awaited developments. - -He had not long to wait. Another contribution to the correspondence -which he had in his hand came to his daughter, and was passed on to him. -Noticing in it some doubtful features, he came to the conclusion that -it was necessary to get to the bottom of the affair in the most -straightforward way. He leapt to the bottom of it by sending the whole -“pacquet” to the young Marquis of Blandford, asking him peremptorily if -he had written the letters. - -He got a reply to the effect that a few of the letters were his--they -were the ordinary ones, courteous, but in no way effusive--but that the -greater number had not come from him. His lordship did not seem to think -that common politeness demanded his expressing his hearty concurrence -with the tone and sentiments contained in these same letters. Now in -the judgment of a novelist of the intellectual calibre of the Minifie -sisters this is exactly what a young gentleman would do when playing -the part of the hero of a romance, so that it would appear that General -Gunning was fully justified in coming to the conclusion that the whole -scheme--the whole piece of scheming--was the design of his wife--that it -represented an attempt on her part to force one of her “plots” upon some -real personages. Dull-minded man though he certainly was, he must have -perceived that his wife's plan was to compel Lord Blandford to act the -part of the hero of her sentimental imagination, and when confronted -with a parcel of forged letters, in every one of which there was a -confession of love for Miss Gunning, to bow his head meekly, as any -gentleman (of her imagination) would, and say, “Those are my letters, -and they express nothing but the most honourable sentiments of my -heart.” - -But as it so happened the young Lord Blandford was not a young gentleman -of this particular stamp. He seems to have been almost as practical as -his great ancestor, who, out of the proceeds of his first love intrigue, -bought an annuity for himself. Hence the fiasco of the Minifie plot. - -The Minifie plot, however, was not worked out in one act only, and an -insignificant prologue. The resources of the lady's imagination were -by no means exhausted by the failure of Lord Blandford to act up to the -heroic part assigned to him. He seems to have talked a good deal to -his friends about the forged letters, and the Duke of Argyll, the young -lady's uncle, took the matter up as an important member by marriage -of the family. He applied to his niece for an explanation of the whole -affair; and her father seems to have agreed with him in thinking that -if the girl was ever to hold up her head again it would be necessary -for her to bring forward some evidence to prove what she still asserted, -namely, that the letters had been written to her by Lord Blandford--this -“pacquet” of letters played as important a part in the story of Miss -Gunning as the “Casquet Letters” did in the history of Queen Mary--and -that they were written with the concurrence and approbation of the Duke -and Duchess of Marlborough. The Duke and Duchess had, she affirmed, -encouraged her by the most unmistakable means to believe that they were -extremely anxious to see her married to their son. - -It was then suggested--Horace Walpole, who gloats over the whole story -in a letter to one of the Berrys, does not say by whom--that the young -woman should draw up a narrative of the progress of the attachment -professed for her by Lord Blandford, and of the particular acts -of encouragement for which she alleged the Duke and Duchess were -responsible, leading her to feel sure that she was a _persona grata_ -with them. It was hoped by the Duke of Argyll and General Gunning that -the girl would be rehabilitated in the eyes of society by the production -of the Duke of Marlborough's formal assent to the statements made -by Miss Gunning in endeavouring to exculpate herself. Miss Gunning -assenting--after a consultation with her mother, we may be sure--a -“narrative” was accordingly prepared by the young lady, and in it there -was the ingenuous confession that although she had been unable to resist -so dazzling an offer as that of Lord Blandford, she had not wavered in -her affection for her cousin, the Marquis of Lome. - -Here we have the true Minifie touch of sentimentality, and we cannot -doubt that the remaining portion of the plot was due to her clumsy -ingenuity. - -This narrative was sent to the Duke of Marlborough, with the following -letter from General Gunning: - -“St. James's Place, - -“_3 rd February_, 1791. - -“My Lord,--I have the honour of addressing this letter to your Grace -not with the smallest wish after what has passed of having a marriage -established between Lord Blandford and my daughter, or of claiming any -promise or proposal to that effect, but merely to know whether your -Grace or the Duchess of Marlborough have it in recollection that -your Graces or Lord Blandford ever gave my daughter reason to think a -marriage was once intended. - -“My motive for giving this trouble arises merely from a desire of -removing any imputation from my daughter's character, as if she -had entertained an idea of such importance without any reasonable -foundation. - -“For my own satisfaction, and that of my particular friends who have -been induced to believe the reports of the intended marriage, I have -desired my daughter to draw up an accurate narrative of every material -circumstance on which that belief was founded. - -“This narrative I have the honour of transmitting to your Grace for your -own perusal, and that of the Duchess of Marlborough and Lord Blandford, -thinking it highly suitable that you should have an early opportunity -of examining it--and I beg leave to request that your Grace will, after -examination, correct or alter such passages as may appear either to your -Grace, the Duchess of Marlborough, or Lord Blandford, to be erroneously -stated. - -“I have the honour to be, - -“With the greatest respect, my Lord, - -“Your Grace's most humble and - -“Most obedient servant, - -“John Gunning.” - -This letter was dispatched by a groom to its destination at Blenheim, -and within half an hour of his delivering it, His Grace, according to -the groom, had handed him a reply for General Gunning. This document, -which the groom said he had received from the Duke, was forwarded, with -a copy of the letter to which it constituted a most satisfactory reply, -to a small and very select committee that had, it would seem, been -appointed to investigate and report upon the whole story. It must also -be quoted in full, in order that its point may be fully appreciated by -any one interested in this very remarkable story. - -“Blenheim. - -“Sir,--I take the earliest opportunity to acknowledge the receipt of -your letter, and to answer it with that explicitness you are so much -entitled to. From the first of the acquaintance of the D------s of -Marlborough and myself had with Miss Gunning, we were charmed with -her, and it was with infinite satisfaction we discovered _Blanford's_ -sentiments similar to our own. It had long been the wish of both to -see him married to some amiable woman. Your daughter was the one we had -fixed on, and we had every reason to suppose the object of his tenderest -affections, and, from the conduct of both himself and his family, -yourself and Miss Gunning had undoubtedly every right to look on a -marriage as certain. Indeed when I left town last summer, I regarded her -as my future daughter, and I must say it is with sorrow I relinquish the -idea. The actions of young men are not always to be accounted for; -and it is with regret that I acknowledge my son has been particularly -unaccountable in his. I beg that you will do me the justice to believe -that I shall ever think myself your debtor for the manner in which you -have conducted yourself in this affair, and that I must always take -an interest in the happiness of Miss Gunning. I beg, if she has not -conceived a disgust for the whole of my family, she will accept the -sincerest good wishes of the Duchess and my daughters. - -“I have the honour to remain, - -“Sir, - -“Your much obliged and - -“Most obedient, humble servant, - -“Marlborough.” - -Now be it remembered that both these letters were forwarded to the -committee with the young lady's narrative, to be considered by them in -the same connection, at Argyll House, where their sittings were to be -held. - -What was to be said in the face of such documentary evidence as this? -Those members of the committee who hoped that the girl's statement of -her case would be in some measure borne out by the Duke of Marlborough -could never have hoped for so triumphant a confirmation of her story as -was contained in His Grace's letter. It seemed as if the investigation -of the committee would be of the simplest character; handing them such -a letter, accompanying her own ingenuous narrative, it was felt that she -had completely vindicated her position. - -But suddenly one member of the committee--Walpole in the letter to Miss -Berry affirms that he was this one--ventured to point out that in the -Duke's letter the name _Blandford_ was spelt without the middle letter -_d_. “That was possible in the hurry of doing justice,” wrote Walpole. -But the moment that this pin-puncture of suspicion appeared in the -fabric of the lady's defence it was not thought any sacrilege to try to -pick another hole in it. The wax with which the letter was sealed -was black, and the members of the council asked one another whom the -Marlborough family were in mourning for, that they should seal their -letter in this fashion. No information on this point was forthcoming. -(It is strange if Walpole did not suggest that they were in mourning -over the defunct reputation of the young lady.) If the Duke of Argyll -was present, it can well be believed that, after the members of the -council had looked at each other, there should be silence in that room, -on one wall of which we may believe there was hanging the splendid -portrait of Elizabeth, Duchess of Argyll and Baroness Hamilton of -Hameldon, in her own right, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. The lady was -dying at her Scotch home when this investigation into the conduct of her -niece was being conducted. - -It was probably a relief to every one present when the suggestion was -made that the Duke of Marlborough's second son was in town, and if -sent for he might be able to throw some light upon the subject of the -mourning wax or some other questionable point in the same connection. -Although it was now close upon midnight a messenger was dispatched for -the young man--probably his whereabouts at midnight would be known with -greater certainty than at midday. At any rate he was quickly found, -and repaired in all haste to Argyll House. He was brought before -the committee and shown the letter with the black wax. He burst out -laughing, and declared that the writing bore not the least resemblance -to that of his father, the Duke of Marlborough. - -There was nothing more to be said. The council adjourned _sine die_ -without drawing up any report, so far as can be ascertained. - -But the full clumsiness of the Minifie “plot” was revealed the next day, -for General Gunning received a letter from the Captain Bowen whose name -has already entered into this narrative, telling him that his wife, the -General's niece, had a short time before received from Miss Gunning a -letter purporting to be a copy of one which had come to her from the -Duke of Marlborough, and begging her to get her husband to make a fair -copy of it, and return it by the groom. Captain Bowen added that he -had complied with his wife's request to this effect, but he had written -“_copy_” at the top and “_signed M_.” at the bottom, as is usual in -engrossing copies of documents, to prevent the possibility of a charge -of forgery being brought against the copyist. - -The letter which the girl wrote to Mrs. Bowen was made the subject of -an affidavit shortly afterwards, and so became public property. It is -so badly composed that one cannot but believe it was dictated by her -mother, though the marvellous spelling must have been Miss Gunning's -own. The fact that, after making up a story of her love for Lord Lome, -and of the encouragement she received from the Marlborough family in -respect of Lord Blandford, she instructed Mrs. Bowen to keep the matter -secret from her mother, confirms one's impression as to the part the -lady must have played in the transaction. Miss Gunning wrote: “Neither -papa or I have courage to tell mama, for she detests the person dearest -to me on earth.” - -But however deficient in courage her papa was in the matter of -acquainting his wife with so ordinary an incident as was referred to in -this letter, he did not shrink from what he believed to be his duty when -it was made plain to him that his daughter and his wife had been working -out a “plot” in real life that necessitated the forging of a letter. -He promptly bundled both wife and daughter out of his house, doubtless -feeling that although the other personages in the romance which his wife -was hoping to weave, had by no means acted up to the parts she had meant -them to play, there was no reason why he should follow their example. -It must be acknowledged that as a type of the bluff old soldier, simple -enough to be deceived by the inartistic machinations of a foolish wife, -but inexorable when finding his credulity imposed upon, he played -his part extremely well. At the same time such people as called him a -ridiculous old fool for adopting so harsh a measure toward his erring -child, whose tricks he had long winked at, were perhaps not to be -greatly blamed. - -The old Duchess of Bedford at once received the outcasts and provided -them with a home; and then Mrs. Gunning had leisure to concoct a -manifesto in form of an open letter to the Duke of Argyll, in which, -after exhorting His Grace to devote the remainder of his life to -unravelling the mystery which she affirmed (though no one else could -have done so) enshrouded the whole affair of the letter, she went on -to denounce the simple-hearted General for his meanness--and worse--in -matters domestic. He had never been a true husband to her, she declared, -and he was even more unnatural as a father. As for Captain Bowen and his -wife, the writer of the manifesto showed herself to be upon the brink -of delirium when she endeavoured to find words severe enough to describe -their treachery. They were inhuman in their persecution of her “glorious -child,” she said, and then she went on to affirm her belief that the -incriminating letters had been forged by the Bowens, and the rest of the -story invented by them with the aid of the General to ruin her and her -“glorious child.” - -Captain Bowen thought fit to reply to this amazing production. He did so -through the prosaic form of a number of affidavits. The most important -of these was that sworn by one William Pearce, groom to General Gunning. -In this document he deposed that when he was about to start for Blenheim -with the “pacquet” for the Duke of Marlborough, Miss Gunning had caught -him and compelled him to hand over the “pacquet” to her, and that -she had then given him another letter, sealed with black, bearing -the Marlborough arms, instructing him to deliver it to her father, -pretending that he had received it at Blenheim. - -In spite of all this Miss Gunning continued to affirm her entire -innocence, and even went the length--according to Walpole--of swearing -before a London magistrate that she was innocent. “It is but a burlesque -part of this wonderful tale,” adds Walpole, “that old crazy Bedford -exhibits Miss every morning on the Causeway in Hyde Park and declares -her _protégée_ some time ago refused General Trevelyan.” But “crazy old -Bedford” went much further in her craziness than this, for she actually -wrote to the Marquis of Lome trying to patch up a match between Miss -Gunning and himself. Immediately afterwards the town was startled by the -report that a duel was impending between Lord Lome and Lord Blandford, -the former maintaining that it was his duty to uphold the honour of his -cousin, which had been somewhat shaken by the course adopted by the -Marlborough heir. Of course no duel took place, and the young men simply -laughed when their attention was called to the statement in print. - -How much further these alarums and excursions (on the Causeway) would -have proceeded it would be impossible to tell, the fact being that -Captain Bowen and his wife gave notice of their intention to institute -proceedings against the Gunnings, mother and daughter, for libel. This -brought _l'affaire Gunning_ to a legitimate conclusion, for the ladies -thought it advisable to fly to France. - -“The town is very dull without them,” wrote Walpole to one of the -Berrys, enclosing a copy of a really clever skit in verse, after the -style of “The House that Jack Built,” ridiculing the whole affair. -When Mrs. Gunning and her daughter returned, after the lapse of several -months, the old Duchess of Bedford took them up once more; but the town -declined to take any further notice of them. It was not until her father -and mother had been dead for some years that Miss Gunning married Major -Plunkett, an Irish rebel, who fled after the rising in 1798. She lived -with him happily enough for twenty years, endeavouring to atone for the -indiscretion of her girlhood by writing novels. It is doubtful if many -of her readers considered such expiation wholly adequate, considering -how foolish she had been. One act of folly can hardly be atoned for -by another. But her intention was good, and her faults, including her -novels, have long ago been forgiven her by being forgotten. - - - - -TRAGEDY WITH A TWINKLE - -IN the summer of 1770 there arrived at the town of Lisle a coach -containing three ladies and one man, followed by a travelling chaise -with servants and luggage. Of the ladies, one was approaching middle -age, handsome and elegant; the other two were her daughters, and both -were extremely beautiful and graceful girls, under twenty years of age. -The man was a small, middle-aged person, with a face which one would -have called plain if it had not been that the protruding of his upper -lip and the twinkle in his eyes suggested not plainness, but comedy. The -very soul of comedy was in the gravity of his face; but it was that sort -which is not apparent to all the world. It was the soul of comedy, not -the material part; and most people are disposed to deny the possibility -of comedy's existing except in juxtaposition with the grin through the -horse-collar. Solemnity in a face, with a twinkle in the eye--that is -an expression which comedy may wear without arousing the -curiosity--certainly without exciting the laughter--of the multitude. -And this was exactly the form that the drama of this man's life assumed; -only it was tragedy with a twinkle. Tragedy with a twinkle--that was -Oliver Goldsmith. - -[Illustration: 0203] - -The vehicles drew up in the courtyard of the hotel in the square, and -Dr. Goldsmith, after dismounting and helping the ladies to dismount, -gave orders in French to the landlord in respect of the luggage, and -made inquiries as to the table d'hôte. Shown to their respective rooms, -the members of the party did not meet again for some time, and then it -was in the private _salle_ which they had engaged, looking out upon -the square. The two girls were seated at a window, and their mother was -writing letters at a table at one side. - -When Dr. Goldsmith entered we may be pretty sure that he had exchanged -his travelling dress for a more imposing toilet, and we may be equally -certain that these two girls had something merry to say about the cut or -the colour of his garments--we have abundant record of their _badinage_ -bearing upon his flamboyant liking for colour, and of his retorts in -the same spirit. We have seen him strutting to and fro in gay apparel, -obtrusively calling attention to the beauty of his waistcoat and -speaking in solemn exaggeration of its importance. The girls were well -aware of this form of his humour; they appreciated it to the full, and -responded to it in their merriment. - -Then there came the sound of martial music from the square, and the -elder of the girls, opening the window on its hinges, looked out. A -regiment of soldiers was turning into the square and would pass the -hotel, she said. The two girls stood at one window and Goldsmith at -another while the march past took place. It was not surprising that, -glancing up and seeing the beautiful pair at the window, the mounted -officers at the head of the regiment should feel flattered by the -attention, nor was it unlikely that the others, taking the _pas_ from -their superiors, should look up and exchange expressions in admiration -of the beauty of the young ladies. It is recorded that they did so, and -that, when the soldiers had marched off, the little man at the other -window walked up and down the room in anger “that more attention had -been paid to them than to him.” - -These are the words of Boswell in concluding his account of the episode, -which, by the way, he printed with several other stories in illustration -of the overwhelming vanity and extraordinary envy in Goldsmith's -nature. As if any human being hearing such a story of the most complete -curmudgeon would accept the words as spoken seriously! And yet Boswell -printed it in all solemnity, and hoped that every one who read it would -believe that Goldsmith, the happy-go-lucky Irishman, was eaten up with -envy of the admiration given to the two exquisite girls on whom, by the -way, be conferred immortality; for so long as English literature remains -the names of the Jessamy Bride and Little Comedy will live. Yes, and -so long as discriminating people read the story of Goldsmith's envious -outburst they will not fail to see the true picture of what did actually -take place in that room in the Lisle hotel--they will see the little man -stalking up and down, that solemn face of his more solemn than ever, but -the twinkle in his eyes revealing itself all the more brightly on this -account, while he shakes his fists at the ladies and affirms that the -officers were dolts and idiots to waste their time gazing at them when -they had a chance “of seeing me, madam, me--_me!_” Surely every human -being with the smallest amount of imagination will see the little man -thumping his waistcoat, while the Miss Hornecks hold up their hands and -go into fits of laughter at that whimsical Dr. Goldsmith, whom they had -chosen to be their companion on that tour of theirs through France with -their mother. - -And surely every one must see them in precisely the same attitude, when -they read the story in Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, and notice what -interpretation has been put upon it by the Scotsman--hands uplifted in -amazement and faces “o'er-running with laughter” at the thought of how -Mr. Boswell has, for the thousandth time, been made a fool of by -some one who had picked up the story from themselves and had solemnly -narrated it to Boswell. But in those days following the publication of -the first edition of the _Life_, people were going about with uplifted -hands, wondering if any man since the world began had ever been so -befooled as Boswell. - -When the story appeared in _Johnson's Life_ the two girls had been -married for several years; but one of them at least had not forgotten -the incident upon which it was founded; and upon its being repeated in -Northcote's _Life of Reynolds_, she wrote to the biographer, assuring -him that in this, as well as in other stories of the same nature, the -expression on Goldsmith's face when he professed to be overcome by envy -was such as left no one in doubt that he was jesting. But Croker, in -spite of this, had the impudence to sneer at the explanation, and to -attribute it to the good-nature of the lady. Mr. Croker seems to have -had a special smile of his own for the weaknesses of ladies. This was -the way he smiled when he was searching up old registries of their birth -in his endeavour to prove that they had made themselves out to be six -months younger than they really were. (Quite different, however, must -his smile have been when he read Macaulay's Essay on Croker's edition -of Boswell's _Life of Johnson_). But, unhappily for poor Goldsmith, -Mr. Boswell was able to bring forward much stronger evidence of the -consuming Vanity, the parent of Envy, with which his “honest Dr. -Goldsmith” was afflicted. There was once an exhibition of puppets in -Panton Street, and on some member of the distinguished company in which -he, curiously enough for such a contemptible lout, constantly found -himself, admiring the dexterity with which the wooden figure tossed -a halbert, Goldsmith, we are gravely told, appeared annoyed and said: -“Pshaw! I could do it as well myself!” Supposing that some one had said -to Boswell, “After all, sir, perhaps Dr. Goldsmith could have done it as -well himself,” would the man have tried to explain that the question was -not whether Goldsmith or the puppet was the more dexterous, but -whether it was possible to put any other construction upon Goldsmith's -exclamation than that assumed by Mr. Boswell? - -Yet another instance is given of Goldsmith's envy, and this time the -object of it is not a wooden figure, but Shakespeare himself. He could -not bear, Dr. Beattie tells us, that so much admiration should be given -to Shakespeare. Hearing this, we feel that we are on quite a different -level. There is no jealousy rankling this time in Goldsmith's heart -against a mere puppet. It is now a frantic passion of chagrin that -Shakespeare should still receive the admiration of a chosen few! - -But such vanity as that so strikingly illustrated by this last told -story, is, one must confess with feelings of melancholy, not yet wholly -extinct among literary men. It would scarcely be believed--unless by -Boswell or Beattie--that even in America a man with some reputation as -a writer should deliberately ask people to assume that he himself was -worthy of a place in a group that included not merely Shakespeare, but -also Milton and Homer. “Gentlemen,” said this egregious person at a -public dinner, “Gentlemen, think of the great writers who are dead and -gone. There was Shakespeare, he is dead and gone; and Milton, alas! -is no longer in the land of the living; Homer has been deceased for a -considerable time, and I myself, gentlemen, am not feeling very well -to-night.” - -What a pity it is that Beattie has gone the way of so many other great -writers. If he could only have been laid on to Mark Twain we should have -the most comic biography ever written. - -Goldsmith was, according to the great Boswell and the many lesser -Boswells of his day, the most contemptible wretch that ever wrote the -finest poem of the century, the finest comedy of the century, the -finest romance of the century. He was a silly man, an envious man, an -empty-headed man, a stuttering fool, an idiot (of the inspired variety), -an awkward lout, a shallow pedant, and a generally ridiculous person; -and yet here we find him the chosen companion of two of the most -beautiful and charming young ladies in England on their tour through -France, and on terms of such intimacy with them and their brother, an -officer in the Guards and the son-in-law of a peer, that nicknames are -exchanged between them. A singular position for an Irish lout to find -himself in! - -Even before he is known to fame, and familiar only with famine, he is -visited in his garret by Dr. Percy, a member of the great Northumberland -family at whose town house he lived. So much for the empty-headed fool -who never opened his mouth except to put his foot in it, as a countryman -of his said about quite another person. He was a shallow prig, and yet -when “the Club” was started not one of the original members questioned -his right to a place among the most fastidious of the community, -although Garrick--to the shame of Johnson be it spoken--was not admitted -for nine years. Boswell--to the shame of Johnson be it spoken--was -allowed to crawl in after an exclusion of ten. According to his numerous -detractors, this Goldsmith was one of the most objectionable persons -possible to imagine, and yet we find him the closest friend of the -greatest painter of the day and the greatest actor of the day. He -associates with peers on the friendliest terms, and is the idol of their -daughters. He is accused, on the one hand, of aiming at being accounted -a Macaroni and being extravagant in his dress, and yet he has such a -reputation for slovenliness in this respect that it is recorded that -Dr. Johnson, who certainly never was accused of harbouring unworthy -aspirations to be accounted a beau, made it a point of putting on his -best garments--he may even have taken the extreme step of fastening up -his garters--before visiting Goldsmith, in order, as he explained, that -the latter might have no excuse for his slovenliness. We are also told -that Goldsmith made a fool of himself when he got on his feet to make -a speech, and yet it is known that he travelled through Europe, winning -the hospitality of more than one university by the display of his skill -as a disputant. Again, none of his innumerable traits of awkwardness is -so widely acknowledged as his conversational, and yet the examples which -survive of his impromptu wit are of the most finished type; and (even -when the record is made by Boswell), when he set himself out to take -opposite sides to Johnson, he certainly spoke better sense than his -antagonist, though he was never so loud. It is worth noting that nearly -all the hard things which Johnson is reported to have said respecting -Goldsmith were spoken almost immediately after one of these disputes. -Further, we are assured that Goldsmith's learning was of the shallowest -order, and yet when he was appointed Professor of History to the Royal -Academy we do not hear that any voice was raised in protest. - -What is a simple reader to think when brought face to face with such -contradictory accounts of the man and his attainments? Well, possibly -the best one can do is to say, as Fanny Burney did, that Goldsmith was -an extraordinary man. - -Of course, so far as his writings are concerned there is no need for one -to say much. They speak for themselves, and readers can form their own -opinion on every line and every sentence that has come from his pen. -There is no misunderstanding the character of _The Traveller_ or _The -Deserted Village_ or _The Vicar of Wakefield_. These are acknowledged by -the whole world to be among the most precious legacies of the eighteenth -century to posterity. Who reads nowadays, except out of curiosity, such -classics as _Tristram Shandy, Clarissa Harlow, Evelina, or Rasselas?_ -But who has not read, and who does not still read for pleasure, _The -Vicar of Wakefield?_ Johnson's laborious poem, _The Vanity of Human -Wishes_, now only exists as an example of the last gasp of the -didactic in verse; but we cannot converse without quoting--sometimes -unconsciously--from _The Deserted Village_ When the actor-manager of a -theatre wishes to show how accomplished a company he has at his disposal -he produces _She Stoops to Conquer_, and he would do so more frequently -only he is never quite able to make up his mind whether he himself -should play the part of old Hardcastle, Tony Lumpkin, Young Marlow, -or Diggory. But what other eighteenth-century comedy of all produced -previous to the death of Goldsmith can any manager revive nowadays with -any hope of success? Colman of the eighteenth century is as dead -as Congreve of the seventeenth; and what about the masterpieces of -Cumberland, and Kelly, and Whitehead, and the rest? What about the Rev. -Mr. Home's _Douglas_, which, according to Dr. Johnson, was equal to -Shakespeare at his best? They have all gone to the worms, and these -not even bookworms--their very graves are neglected. But _She Stoops -to Conquer_ is never revived without success--never without a modern -audience recognising the fact that its characters are not the puppets -of the playwright, but the creations of Nature. It is worthy of mention, -too, that the play which first showed the capacity of an actress -whose name was ever at the head of the list of actresses of the last -generation, was founded on _The Vicar of Wakefield._ It was Miss Ellen -Terry's appearance in _Olivia_ in 1878 that brought about her connection -with the ever memorable Lyceum management as an associate of the -greatest actor of our day. - -These things speak for themselves, and prove incontestably that -Goldsmith was head and shoulders above all those writers with whom he -was on intimate terms. But the mystery of the contradictory accounts -which we have of the man himself and his ways remains as unsolved as -ever. - -Yes, unless we assume one thing, namely--that the majority of the people -about him were incapable of understanding him. Is it going too far to -suggest that, as Daniel Defoe was sent to the pillory because his ironic -jest in _The Shortest Way with the Dissenters_ was taken in earnest, and -as good people shuddered at the horrible proposal of Swift that Irish -babies should be cooked and eaten, so Goldsmith's peculiarities of -humour were too subtle to be in any degree appreciated by most of the -people with whom he came in contact in England? - -In Ireland there would be no chance of his being misunderstood; for -there no form that his humour assumed would be regarded as peculiar. -Irony is a figure of speech so largely employed by the inhabitants in -some parts that people who have lived there for any length of time have -heard whole conversations carried on by two or three men without the -slightest divergence from this tortuous form of expression into the -straight path of commonplace English. And all this time there was no -expression but one of complete gravity on the faces of the speakers; -a stranger had no clue whatsoever to the game of words that was being -played before him. - -Another fully recognised form of humour which prevails in Ireland is -even more difficult for a stranger to follow; its basis consists in -mystifying another person, not for the sake of getting a laugh from a -third who has been let into the secret, but simply for the satisfaction -of the mystifier himself. The forms that such a scheme of humour -may assume are various. One of the most common is an affectation of -extraordinary stupidity. It is usually provoked by the deliverance of a -platitude by a stranger. The humourist pretends that he never heard such -a statement before, and asks to have it repeated. When this is done, -there is usually a pause in which the profoundest thought is suggested; -then the clouds are seen to clear away, and the perplexity on the man's -face gives way to intelligence; he has grasped the meaning of the phrase -at last, and he announces his victory with sparkling eyes, and forthwith -puts quite a wrong construction upon the simplest words. His chuckling -is brought to a sudden stop by the amazed protest of the victim against -the suggested solution of the obvious. Thus, with consummate art, the -man is led on to explain at length, with ridiculous emphasis, the exact -meaning of his platitude; but it is all to no purpose. The humourist -shakes his head; he pretends that the cleverness of the other is -too much for him to grasp all in a moment; it's a fine thing to have -learning, to be sure, but these things may be best not meddled with -by ignorant creatures like himself; and so he goes off murmuring his -admiration for the fine display of wisdom that comes so easy-like from -the man whom he has been fooling. - -This form of humour is indulged in by some Irishmen simply for the -satisfaction it gives them to indulge in it. They never hurry off -to acquaint a neighbour with what they have done, and they are quite -pleased with the thought that the person on whom they have been imposing -will tell the whole story of their extraordinary obtuseness to some -one else; it never strikes them that that some one else may fail to see -through the trick, and actually be convinced of the existence of their -obtuseness. But if such a possibility did occur to them, they would be -all the better pleased: they would feel that they had fooled two instead -of one. - -But, of course, the most widely recognised form of Irish humour is that -known as the “bull.” This is the delivery of a paradox so obvious as -to be detected--after a brief consideration--by an Englishman or -even--after an additional space for thought--by a Scotsman. But where -the fun comes in is (in the Irishman's eyes) when the others assume -that the humour of the bull is involuntary; and this is just what the -Englishman has been doing, and what the Irishman has been encouraging -him to do, for centuries. The Englishman is so busy trying to make it -appear that he is cleverer than he really is, he cannot see the humour -of any man trying to make out that he is more stupid than he really -is. Let no one fancy for a moment that the humour of an Irish bull is -involuntary. It is a form of expression that may be due to a peculiar -twist in the Irishman's mind--indeed, every form of humour may be said -to be due to a peculiar twist of the mind--but it is as much a figure -of speech as irony or satire. “Blarney” and “palaver” are other forms -of speech in which the Irish of some generations ago indulged with great -freedom, and both are essentially Irish and essentially humorous, -though occasionally borrowed and clumsily worn on the other side of -the Channel, just as the bernous of the Moor is worn by an English -missionary when lecturing in the village schoolroom (with a -magic-lantern) on The Progress of Christianity in Morocco. - -It would be interesting to make a scientific inquiry into the origin and -the maintenance of all these forms of expression among the Irish; but it -is unnecessary to do so in this place. It is enough if we remind English -readers of the existence of such forms even in the present day, when -there is so little need for their display. It can without difficulty be -understood by any one, however superficially acquainted with the history -of Ireland for the past thousand years, that “blarney” and “palaver” - were as necessary to the existence of the natives of the island as -suspicion and vigilance were to the existence of the invaders. But it is -not so apparent why Irishmen should be given to rush into the extremes -of bragging on the one hand, and self-depreciation on the other. -Bragging is, however, as much an endowment of Nature for the protection -of a species or a race as is imitation or mimicry. The Irishman who was -able by the exercise of this gift to intimidate the invaders, escaped a -violent death and transmitted his art to his children. The practice of -the art of self-depreciation was quite as necessary for the existence of -the Irish race up to the time of the passing of the first Land Act. -For several generations an Irishman was not allowed to own a horse -of greater value than five pounds; and every Irish agriculturist who -improved the miserable cabin which he was supposed to share with his -pigs and his fowl, might rest certain that his rent would be raised out -of all proportion to his improvements. In these circumstances it can -easily be understood that it was accounted a successful joke for a man -who was doing tolerably well to put on a poor face when in the presence -of an inquiry agent of the absent landlord--to run down all his own -efforts and to depreciate generally his holding, and thus to save -himself from the despicable treatment which was meted out to the -unfortunate people by the conquerors of their country. - -It is not necessary to do more than make these suggestions to a -scientific investigator who may be disposed to devote some time to the -question of the origin of certain forms of Irish humour; it is enough -for us, in considering the mystery of that typical Irishman, Oliver -Goldsmith, to know that such forms of humour as we have specified have -an actual existence. Such knowledge is a powerful illuminant to a reader -of Boswell's and Beattie's stories of the stupidity of Goldsmith. A fine -flood of light is thrown upon the apparent mystery of the inspiration -of this idiot--of this man “who wrote like an angel and talked like poor -poll.” - -Goldsmith was just too successful in maintaining that gravity which is -the very essence of those forms of humour in which he was constantly -indulging for his own satisfaction; the mask of gravity was such a good -fit that the short-sighted people who were around him never penetrated -it. He was making fools of the people about him, never giving a thought -to the possibility that they would transmit to posterity the impression -which his attitude conveyed to them, which was that he was a shallow -fool. - -Of course, it would be as absurd to contend that Goldsmith never made a -fool of himself as it would be to assume that Johnson never made a fool -of himself, or that Boswell ever failed to do so. The occasions upon -which he made himself ridiculous must have been numerous, but out of the -many incidents which Boswell and Beattie and Cooke and the others bring -forward as proofs of his stupidity there are few that will not bear to -be interpreted as instances of his practice of a form of humour well -known in Ireland. If his affectation of chagrin at the admiration given -to the Panton Street puppets, followed by the boast, “I could do it as -well myself,” was not humorous, then indeed there is nothing humorous -under the sun. If his object of setting the room roaring with laughter -was not achieved the night when at the club he protested that the -oratory of Burke was nothing--that all oratory, as a matter of fact, was -only a knack--and forthwith stood upon a chair and began to stutter, -all that can be said is that the famous club at Gerrard Street was more -stolid than could be believed. If his strutting about the room where he -and his friends were awaiting a late-comer to dinner, entreating -Johnson and the rest to pay particular attention to the cut of his new -peach-bloom coat, and declaring that Filby, his tailor, had told him -that when any one asked him who had made the garment he was not to -forget Filby's address, did not help materially to enliven the tedium -of that annoying wait, all that can be said is that Thrale, as well as -Boswell, must have been of the party. - -If a novelist, anxious to depict a typical humorous Irishman, were to -show his hero acting as Boswell says Goldsmith acted, would not every -reader acknowledge that he was true to the character of a comical -Irishman? If a playwriter were to put the scene on the stage, would -any one in the audience fail to see that the Goldsmith of the piece was -fooling? Every one in the club--Boswell best of all--was aware of the -fact that Goldsmith had the keenest admiration for Burke, and that -he would be the last man in the world to decry his powers. As for the -peach-bloom coat, it had been the butt of much jesting on the part of -his friends; the elder of the Miss Hornecks had written him a letter of -pretty “chaff” about it, all of which he took in good part. He may have -bought the coat originally because he liked the tint of the velvet; but -assuredly when he found that it could be made the subject of a jest he -did not hesitate to jest upon it himself. How many times have we not -seen in Ireland a man behave in exactly the same way under similar -conditions--a boisterous young huntsman who had put on pink for the -first time, and was strutting with much pride before an admiring group -of servants, every one of whom had some enthusiastic remark to make -about the fit of the coat, until at last the youth, pointing out the -perfection of the gilt buttons, murmured: “Oh, but isn't this a great -day for Ireland!” - -What a pity it was that Mr. Boswell had not been present at such a -scene! Can we not hear his comments upon the character of the young man -who had actually been so carried away by his vanity that he was heard to -express the opinion that the fortunes of his country would be materially -affected by the fact of the buttons of his new coat being gilt? (It -was this same Mr. Boswell, the critic of Goldsmith's all too attractive -costume, who, when going to see Pitt for the first time, put on Corsican -native dress, pretending that he did so in order to interest Pitt in -General Paoli.) - -In reading these accounts of Goldsmith's ways and the remarks of his -associates it must be noticed that some of these gentlemen had now and -again an uneasy impression that there was more in the poet's stupidity -than met the eye. Sir Joshua Reynolds was his closest friend, and it was -the business of the painter to endeavour to get below the surface of -his sitters. The general idea that prevails in the world is that he -was rather successful in his attempts to reproduce, not merely their -features, but their characters as well; and Sir Joshua saw enough -beneath the rude exterior of the man to cause him to feel toward -Goldsmith as he felt for none of his other friends. When the news of his -death was brought to the painter, he laid down his brushes and spent the -day in seclusion. When it is remembered that he spent every day of the -week, not even excepting Sunday, in his studio, the depth of his grief -for the loss of his friend will be understood. Upon more than one -occasion Reynolds asserted that Goldsmith was diverting himself by -trying to make himself out to be more stupid than he really was. Malone, -whose judgment was rarely at fault, whether it was exercised in the -detection of fraud or in the discovery of genius, was in perfect -agreement with Reynolds on this point, and was always ready to -affirm that Boswell was unjust in his remarks upon Goldsmith and the -conclusions to which he came in respect of his character. It is not -necessary for one to have an especially vivid imagination to enable one -to see what was the expression on Malone's face when he came upon the -patronising passage in the _Life of Johnson_ in which Boswell stated -that for his part he was always glad to hear “honest Dr. Goldsmith” - converse. “Puppy!” cried Johnson upon one occasion when a certain -commentator had patronised a text out of all recognition. What would he -have said had he heard Goldsmith patronised by Boswell? - -So far as Goldsmith's actual vanity is concerned, all that can be said -at this time is that had it existed in the offensive form which it -assumes in some of Boswell's stories, Goldsmith would never have won -the friendship of those men and women who were his friends before he had -made a reputation for himself by the publication of _The 'Traveller_. -If he had had an extravagant opinion of his own capacity as a poet, -he would certainly never have suffered Johnson to make an attempt to -improve upon one of his poems; but Goldsmith not only allowed him to do -so, but actually included the lines written by Johnson when he published -the poem. Had he been eaten up by vanity, he would not have gone -wandering down the Mall in St. James's Park while his comedy was being -played for the first time before a delighted house. The really vain man -was the author of The Vanity of Human Wishes, who bought the showiest -set of garments he could find and sat in all their glory in the front -row of the boxes on the night when Garrick produced his tragedy of -_Irene_--Garrick whom he kept out of the Club for nine years simply -because the actor had expressed a wish to become one of the original -members. The really vain man was the one who made his stock story his -account of his conversation with the King in the Royal Library. Every -one sees this now, and every one saw it, except Boswell, when the _Life_ -was flung in the face of a convulsed public, for the public of the year -1791 were as little aware of the real value of the book as the author -was of the true character of his hero and his hero's friend Goldsmith. - -After all, there would be no better way of arriving at a just conclusion -on the subject of Goldsmith's stupidity than by submitting the whole -of the case to an ordinary man accustomed to the many peculiarities of -Irishmen, especially in the exercise of their doubtful gift of humour. -“Here is a man,” we must say, “who became the most intimate friend of -people of title and the dearest friend of many men of brains. When the -most exclusive Club of the day was started his place as a member was not -disputed, even by the man who invented the word 'clubbable,' and knew -what it meant into the bargain; when the Royal Academy of Arts was -started he was invited to become one of its professors. Some of the -wittiest things recorded by the most diligent recorder of witty things -that the world has ever known, were uttered by him. Upon one occasion -when walking among the busts of the poets in Westminster Abbey with a -friend, the latter pointing around said: - -“'_Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis_.' - -“Leaving the Abbey and walking down the Strand to Temple Bar they saw -the heads of the men who had been captured and decapitated for taking -part in the Rebellion of the year 1745, bleaching in the winds in -accordance with the terms of the sentence for high treason. - -“'_Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis_,' murmured the man of -whom we speak. Upon another occasion this same friend of his, who had a -unique reputation for speaking in the most ponderous language, even when -dealing with the simplest matters, asserted that the writing of the -dialogue in some recently published fables where fish were represented -as conversing, was very simple. 'Not so simple at all,' said the other, -'for were you to write them, you would make every minnow talk like a -whale.' - -“In the course of a few years, in addition to compiling histories, which -remained standard educational works for more than a century, and several -other books, he wrote a novel which received the highest praise from the -greatest intellects in Europe, and which is still read with delight by -thousands of people of all nationalities; a poem of which almost every -line is quoted daily in conversation--a poem which contains metaphors -that have been repeated for generations in the Senate, in the Court of -Law, and in the Church; and a play which has been pronounced the truest -comedy in the English language. He died at an early age, and a memorial -of his genius was given a place in Westminster Abbey. The inscription -was written by the most distinguished man of letters in England, and -although highly eulogistic, was considered by the greatest painter in -the world and the greatest orator in the world to fall short of doing -justice to the subject. - -“But, on the other hand, the man of whom we speak was said by a -Scotchman, who himself was occasionally referred to as a cur and -sometimes as an ape, and more than once as a coxcomb, to have been -roused to a frenzy of envy, because some officers, passing through a -square in a French town, looked admiringly at two lovely girls who -were at a window, ignoring him at another window; and again because his -friends spoke with favour of the dexterity of a wooden figure dressed -as a soldier, and yet again (on another authority) because one of -his friends read a passage from Shakespeare, and affirmed that it was -magnificent. Now, would you say,” we should ask the authority to whom we -are supposed to be stating a case--“would you say that this man was in -earnest when, in the first of the instances quoted, he walked up and -down the room in the French hotel asserting 'that although the young -ladies, of whom he was extremely fond, might have their admirers, there -were places where he, too, was given admiration'? Would you say that he -showed ill-temper or wit when, in the second instance, he declared with -warmth that he could toss a halbert quite as well as any wooden figure? -Would you say that----” - -But we should not get any further than this in stating our case to a man -acquainted with the Irish and their humour: he would think that we were -taking a leaf out of the book of Irish humour, and endeavouring to fool -him by asking him to pronounce a grave opinion upon the obvious; he -would not stay to give us a chance of asking him whether he thought that -the temptation of making “Noll” rhyme with “Poll,” was not too great to -be resisted by the greatest farceur of his time, in the presence of a -humorous colleague called Oliver; and whether an impecunious but witty -Irishman begged his greatest friend not to give him the nickname of -Goldy, because his dignity was hurt thereby, or simply because it was -tantalising for one to be called “Goldy,” whose connection with gold was -usually so transitory. - -If people will only read the stories told of poor Goldsmith's vanity, -and envy, and coxcombry, with a handbook of Irish humour beside them, -the conclusion to which they will come must, we think, be that Goldsmith -was an Irishman, and that, on the whole, he made very good fun of -Boswell, who was a Scotsman, but that in the long run Boswell got very -much the better of him. Scotsmen usually laugh last. - - - - -THE BEST COMEDY OF THE CENTURY - -HE occupied one room in the farmhouse--the guest-chamber it had -probably been called when the farm was young. It was a pretty spacious -apartment up one pair of stairs and to the right of the landing, -and from its window there was a pleasing prospect of a paddock with -wheat-fields beyond; there was a drop in the landscape in the direction -of Hendon, and here was a little wood. The farmer's name was Selby, -a married man with a son of sixteen, and younger children, and the -farmhouse was the nearest building to the sixth milestone on the Edgware -Road in the year 1771. - -He was invariably alluded to as “The Gentleman,” and the name did very -well for him, situated as he was in the country; in the town and among -his acquaintances it would serve badly as a means of identification. He -was never referred to as “The Gentleman” of his circle. In his room in -the farmhouse there was his bed and table--a large table littered with -books; it took two chaises to carry his books hither from his rooms in -the Temple. Here he sat and wrote the greater part of the day, and when -he was very busy he would scarcely be able to touch the meals which were -sent up to him from the kitchen. But he was by no means that dignified -type of the man of letters who would shrink from fellowship with the -farmer or his family. He would frequently come down his stairs into -the kitchen and stand with his back to the fire, conversing with the -housewife, and offering her his sympathy when she had made him aware of -the fact that the privilege of being the wife of a substantial farmer, -though undoubtedly fully recognised by the world, carried many troubles -in its train, not only in connection with the vicissitudes of churning, -but in regard to the feeding of the calves, which no man could attend -to properly, and the making of the damson and cowslip wine. He told -her that the best maker of cowslip wine whom he had ever met was a -Mrs. Primrose; her husband had at one time occupied the Vicarage of -Wakefield--he wondered if Mrs. Selby had ever heard of her. Mrs. Selby's -knowledge did not go so far, but she thought that Mrs. Primrose's recipe -must be a good one indeed if it brought forth better results than her -own; and the gentleman said that although he had never tasted Mrs. -Selby's he would still have no hesitation in backing it for flavour, -body, headiness, and all other qualities associated with the -distillation of the cowslip, against the Primrose brand. - -And then he would stare at the gammon in the rafter and mutter some -words, burst into a roar of laughter, and stumble upstairs to his -writing, leaving the good woman to thank Heaven that she was the wife of -a substantial farmer and not of an unsubstantial gentleman of letters, -who could not carry on a simple conversation without having some queer -thought fly across his brain for all the world like one of the swallows -on the water at Hendon, only maybe a deal harder to catch. She knew that -the gentleman had hurried to his paper and ink to complete the capture -of that fleet-flitting thought which had come to him when he had -cast his eyes toward the gammon, though how an idea worth putting on -paper--after a few muttered words and a laugh--could lurk about a common -piece of hog's-flesh was a mystery to her. - -And then upon occasions the gentleman would take a walk abroad; the -farmer's son had more than once come upon him strolling about the fields -with his hands in his pockets and his head bent toward the ground, still -muttering fitfully and occasionally giving a laugh that made the grey -pad in the paddock look up slowly, still munching the grass. Now and -again he paid a visit to his friend Mr. Hugh Boyd at the village of -Kenton, and once he returned late at night from such a visit, without -his shoes. He had left them in a quagmire, he said, and it was only with -a struggle that he saved himself from being engulfed as well. That -was the story of his shoes which young Selby remembered when he was no -longer young. And there was another story which he remembered, but it -related to his slippers. The fact was that the gentleman had acquired -the bad habit of reading in bed, and the table on which his candlestick -stood being several feet away from his pillow, he saved himself the -trouble of rising to extinguish it by flinging a slipper at it. In the -morning the overturned candle was usually found side by side on the -floor with an unaccountably greasy slipper. This method of discharging -an important domestic duty differed considerably from Johnson's way of -compassing the same end. Johnson, being extremely short-sighted, was -compelled to hold the candle close to the book when reading in bed, so -that he had no need to use his slipper as an extinguisher. No, but he -found his pillow very handy for this purpose. When he had finished his -reading he threw away the book and went asleep with his candle under his -pillow. - -The gentleman at the farm went about a good deal in his slippers, and -with his shirt loose at the collar--the latter must have been but one -of his very customary negligences, or Sir Joshua Reynolds would not -have painted him thus. Doubtless the painter had for long recognised the -interpretative value of this loosened collar above that of the velvet -and silk raiment in which the man sometimes appeared before the -wondering eyes of his friends. - -But if the painter had never had an opportunity of studying the -picturesqueness of his negligence, he had more than one chance of doing -so within the farmhouse. - -Young Selby recollected that upon at least one occasion Sir Joshua, his -friend Sir William Chambers, and Dr. Johnson had paid a visit to the -gentleman who lodged at the farm. He remembered that for that reception -of so distinguished a company the farmhouse parlour had been opened and -tea provided. There must have been a good deal of pleasant talk between -the gentleman and his friends at this time, and probably young Selby -heard an astonishingly loud laugh coming from the enormous visitor with -the brown coat and the worsted stockings, as the gentleman endeavoured -to tell his guests something of the strange scenes which he was -introducing in the comedy he was writing in that room upstairs. It was -then a comedy without a name, but young Selby heard that it was produced -the following year in London and that it was called _She Stoops to -Conquer_. - -This was the second year that the gentleman had spent at the farm. The -previous summer he had been engaged on another work which was certainly -as comical as the comedy. It was called _Animated Nature_, and it -comprised some of the most charmingly narrated errors in Natural History -ever offered to the public, and the public have always been delighted -to read pages of fiction if it is only called “Natural History.” This is -one of the best-established facts in the history of the race. After all, -_Animated Nature_ was true to half its title: every page was animated. - -It was while he was so engaged, with one eye on Buffon and another on -his MS., that he found Farmer Selby very useful to him. Farmer Selby -knew a great deal about animals--the treatment of horses under various -conditions, and the way to make pigs pay; he had probably his theories -respecting the profit to be derived from keeping sheep, and how to -feed oxen that are kept for the plough. All such knowledge he must have -placed at the disposal of the author, though the farmer was possibly too -careless an observer of the simple incidents of the fields to be able to -verify Buffon's statement, reproduced in Animated Nature, to the effect -that cows shed their horns every two years; he was probably also -too deficient in the spirit in which a poet sets about the work of -compilation to be able to assent to the belief that a great future -was in store for the zebra when it should become tame and perform the -ordinary duties of a horse. But if the author was somewhat discouraged -in his speculations now and again by Farmer Selby, he did not allow his -fancy as a naturalist to be wholly repressed. He had heard a story of -an ostrich being ridden horsewise in some regions, and of long journeys -being accomplished in this way in incredibly short spaces of time, and -forthwith his imagination enabled him to see the day when this bird -would become as amenable to discipline as the barn-door fowl, though -discharging the tasks of a horse, carrying its rider across England with -the speed of a racer! - -It was while he was engaged on this pleasant work of fancy and -imagination that Mr. Boswell paid him a visit, bringing with him as a -witness Mr. Mickle, the translator of the Lusiad. “The Gentleman” had -gone away for the day, Mrs. Selby explained; but she did not know Mr. -Boswell. She could not prevent him from satisfying his curiosity in -respect of Dr. Goldsmith. He went upstairs to his room, and he was fully -satisfied. He found the walls all scrawled over with outline drawings of -quite a number of animals. Having thus satisfied himself that the author -of _Animated Nature_ was working in a thoroughly conscientious manner he -came away. He records the incident himself, but he does not say whether -or not he was able to recognise any of the animals from their pictures. - -But now it was a professed and not an unconscious comedy that occupied -Dr. Goldsmith. Whatever disappointment he may have felt at the -indifferent success of the first performance of _The Good-Natured -Man_--and he undoubtedly felt some--had been amply redeemed by the money -which accrued to him from the “author's rights” and the sale of the -play; and he had only awaited a little encouragement from the managers -to enable him to begin another comedy. But the managers were not -encouraging, and he was found by his friends one day to be full of -a scheme for the building of a new theatre for the production of new -plays, in order that the existing managers might not be able to carry -on their tyranny any longer. Such a scheme has been revived every decade -since Goldsmith's time, but never with the least success. Johnson, -whose sound sense was rarely at fault, laughed at the poet's project for -bringing down the mighty from their seats, upon which Goldsmith cried: -“Ay, sir, this matter may be nothing to you who can now shelter yourself -behind the corner of your pension,” and he doubtless went on to describe -the condition of the victims of the tyranny of which he complained; but -it is questionable if his doing so effected more than to turn Johnson's -laughter into another and a wider channel. - -But Goldsmith spoke feelingly. He was certainly one of the ablest -writers of the day, but no pension was ever offered to him, though on -every hand bounties were freely bestowed on the most indifferent and -least deserving of authors--men whose names were forgotten before -the end of the century, and during the lifetime of the men themselves -remembered only by the pay clerk to the almoner. - -Of course, the scheme for bringing the managers to their senses never -reached a point of serious consideration; and forthwith Goldsmith began -to illustrate, for the benefit of posterity, the depths to which the -stupidity of the manager of a play-house can occasionally fall. The -public have always had abundant proofs of the managers' stupidity -afforded them in the form of the plays which they produce; but the -history of the production of the most brilliant comedy of the eighteenth -century is practically unique; for it is the history of the stupidity of -a manager doing his best to bring about the failure of a play which he -was producing at his own theatre. He had predicted the failure of the -piece, and it must strike most people that the manager of a theatre who -produces for a failure will be as successful in compassing his end as -a jockey who rides for a fall. Colman believed that he was in the -fortunate position of those prophets who had the realisation of their -predictions in their own hands. He was mistaken in this particular -case. Although he was justified on general principles in assuming his -possession of this power, yet he had made no allowance for the freaks -of genius. He was frustrated in his amiable designs by this incalculable -force--this power which he had treated as a _quantité négligeable_. A -man who has been accustomed all his life to count only on simple ability -in the people about him, is, on suddenly being brought face to face with -genius, like an astronomer who makes out his tables of a new object on -the assumption that it is a fixed star, when all the time it is a comet, -upsetting by its erratic course all his calculations, and demanding to -be reckoned with from a standpoint that applies to itself alone. - -The stars of Colman's theatrical firmament were such as might safely be -counted on; but Goldsmith's genius was not of this order. The manager's -stupidity lay in his blunt refusal to recognise a work of genius when it -was brought to him by a man of genius. - -It has been said that the central idea of the plot of _She Stoops to -Conquer_ was suggested by an incident that came under Goldsmith's notice -before he left Ireland. However this may be, it cannot be denied -that the playing of the practical joke of Tony Lumpkin upon the two -travellers is “very Irish.” It would take a respectable place in the -list of practical jokes of the eighteenth century played in Ireland. In -that island a collector of incidents for a comedy during the past two -centuries would require to travel with a fat notebook--so would the -collector of incidents for a tragedy. Goldsmith's task may not have been -to invent the central idea, but to accomplish the much more difficult -duty of making that incident seem plausible, surrounding it with -convincing scenery and working it out by the aid of the only characters -by which it could be worked out with a semblance of being natural. This -was a task which genius only could fulfil. The room whose walls bore -ample testimony to its occupant's sense of the comedy of a writer's -life, witnessed the supreme achievement in the “animated nature” of -_She Stoops to Conquer_. It contains the two chief essentials to a true -comedy--animation and nature. - -It is certain that the play was constructed and written by Goldsmith -without an adviser. He was possibly shrewd enough to know that if -he were to take counsel with any of his friends--Garrick, Johnson, -Reynolds, or Colman--he would not be able to write the play which he had -a mind to write. The artificial comedy had a vogue that year, and though -it may have been laughed at in private by people of judgment, yet few of -those within the literary circle of which Johnson was the acknowledged -centre, would have had the courage to advise a poet writing a piece in -hopes of making some money, to start upon a plot as farcical as Nature -herself. At that period of elegance in art everything that was natural -was pronounced vulgar. Shakespeare himself had to be made artificial -before he could be played by Garrick. Goldsmith must have known that his -play would be called vulgar, and that its chances of being accepted and -produced by either of the managers in London would be doubtful; but, all -the same, he wrote the piece in accordance with his own personal views, -and many a time during the next two years he must have felt that he was -a fool for doing so. - -However this may be, the play was finished some time in the summer -of 1771; and on September 7th the author was back at his rooms in the -Temple and writing to his friend Bennet Langton, whom he had promised -to visit at his place in Lincolnshire. “I have been almost wholly in the -country at a farmer's house, quite alone, trying to write a comedy. It -is now finished, but when or how it will be acted, or whether it will be -acted at all, are questions I cannot resolve,” he told Langton. - -[Illustration: 0241] - -The misgivings which he had at this time were well founded. He -considered that the fact of his having obtained from Colman a promise to -read any play that he might write constituted an obligation on his part -to submit this piece to Colman rather than to Garrick. He accordingly -placed it in Colman's hands; but it is impossible to say if the work of -elaborate revision which Goldsmith began in the spring of 1772 was -due to the comments made by this manager on the first draft or to the -author's reconsideration of his work as a whole. But the amended version -was certainly in Colman's hands in the summer of this year (1772). -The likelihood is that Colman would have refused point-blank to have -anything to do with the comedy after he had read the first draft had it -not been that just at this time Goldsmith's reputation was increased -to a remarkable extent by the publication of his Histories. It would be -difficult to believe how this could be, but, as usual, we are indebted -to Mr. Boswell for what information we have on this point. Boswell had -been for some time out of London, and on returning he expressed his -amazement at the celebrity which Goldsmith had attained. “Sir,” he cried -to Johnson, “Goldsmith has acquired more fame than all the officers last -war who were not generals!” - -“Why, sir,” said Johnson, “you will find ten thousand fit to do what -they did before you find one who does what Goldsmith has done”--a bit of -dialogue that reminds one of the reply of the avaricious _prima donna_ -when the Emperor refused to accede to her terms on the plea that were -he to pay her her price she would be receiving more than any of his -marshals. “Eh bien, mon sire. Let your marshals sing to you.” - -At any rate, Colman got the play--and kept it. He would give the author -no straightforward opinion as to its prospects in his hands. He refused -to say when he would produce it--nay, he declined to promise that he -would produce it at all. Goldsmith was thus left in torment for month -after month, and the effect of the treatment that he received was to -bring on an illness, and the effect of his illness was to sink him to a -depth of despondency that even Goldsmith had never before sounded. The -story told by Cooke of his coming upon the unhappy man in a coffeehouse, -and of the latter's attempt to give him some of the details of the plot -of the comedy, speaks for itself. “I shook my head,” wrote Cooke, -“and said that I was afraid the audience, under their then sentimental -impressions, would think it too broad and farcical for comedy.” This was -poor comfort for the author; but after a pause he shook the man by the -hand, saying piteously: “I am much obliged to you, my dear friend, for -the candour of your opinion, but it is all I can do; for alas! I find -that my genius, if ever I had any, has of late totally deserted me.” - -This exclamation is the most piteous that ever came from a man of -genius; and there can be no doubt of the sincerity of its utterance, -for it was during these miserable months that he began a new novel, but -found himself unable to get further than a few chapters. And all this -time, when, in order to recover his health, he should have had no -worries of a lesser nature, he was being harassed by the trivial -cares of a poor, generous man's life--those mosquito vexations which, -accumulating, become more intolerable than a great calamity. - -He had once had great hopes of good resulting from Colman's taking up -the management of Covent Garden, and had written congratulations to him -within the first week of his entering into possession of the theatre. -A very different letter he had now to write to the same man. Colman had -endeavoured to evade the responsibility of giving him a direct answer -about the play. He clearly meant that the onus of refusing it should lie -at the door of some one else. - -“Dear Sir,” wrote the author in January, 1773, “I entreat you'll release -me from that state of suspense in which I have been kept for a long -time. Whatever objections you have made or shall make to my play I will -endeavour to remove and not argue about them. To bring in any new judges -either of its merits or faults I can never submit to. Upon a former -occasion when my other play was before Mr. Garrick he offered to bring -me before Mr. Whitehead's tribunal, but I refused the proposal with -indignation. I hope I shall not experience as hard treatment from you -as from him.... For God's sake take the play and let us make the best -of it, and let me have the same measure at least which you have given as -bad plays as mine.” - -Upon receiving this letter, Colman at once returned to him the -manuscript of the play, and on the author's unfolding it he found that -on the back of almost every page, on the blank space reserved for -the prompter's hieroglyphs, some sneering criticism was scrawled. To -emphasise this insult Colman had enclosed a letter to the effect that if -the author was still unconvinced that the piece would be a failure, he, -Colman, would produce it. - -Immediately on receipt of this contemptible effort at contempt Goldsmith -packed up the play and sent it to Garrick at Drury Lane. That same -evening, however, he met Johnson and told him what he had done; and -Johnson, whose judgment on the practical side of authorship was rarely -at fault, assured him that he had done wrong and that he must get the -manuscript back without delay, and submit to Colman's sneers for the -sake of having the comedy produced. Upon Johnson's promising to -visit Colman, and to urge upon him the claims of Goldsmith to his -consideration, the distracted author wrote to Drury Lane: - -“Upon more mature deliberation and the advice of a sensible friend, -I begin to think it indelicate in me to throw upon you the odium of -confirming Mr. Colman's sentence. I therefore request that you will send -my play by my servant back; for having been assured of having it acted -at the other house, though I confess yours in every respect more to my -wish, yet it would be folly in me to forgo an advantage which lies in -my power of appealing from Mr. Colman's opinion to the judgment of the -town.” - -Goldsmith got back the play, and Johnson explained to him, as he did -some years later to Reynolds, that the solicitations which he had made -to Colman to put it in rehearsal without delay amounted almost to force. -At any rate, the play was announced and the parts distributed to the -excellent company which Colman controlled. It was soon proved that he -controlled some members of this company only too well. The spirit in, -which he set about the discharge of his duties as a manager was apparent -to every one during the earliest rehearsals. Johnson, writing to an -American correspondent, mentioned that Colman made no secret of his -belief that the play would be a failure. Far from it. He seems to have -taken the most extraordinary trouble to spread his belief far and wide; -and when a manager adopts such a course, what chance, one may ask, has -the play? What chance, the players could not but ask, have the players? - -This was possibly the only occasion in the history of the English drama -on which such questions could be asked. If managers have a fault at -all--a question which is not yet ripe for discussion--it has never -been in the direction of depreciating a play which they are about to -produce--that is, of course, outside the author's immediate circle. It -is only when the play has failed that they sometimes allow that it was -a bad one, and incapable of being saved even by the fine acting of the -company and the sumptuous mounting. - -But Colman controlled his company all too well, and after a day or two -it was announced that the leading lady, the accomplished Mrs. Abington, -had retired from the part of Miss Hardcastle; that Smith, known as -Gentleman Smith, had refused to play Young Marlow; and that Woodward, -the most popular comedian in the company, had thrown up the part of Tony -Lumpkin. - -Here, in one day, it seemed that Colman had achieved his aims, and the -piece would have to be withdrawn by the author. This was undoubtedly -the managerial view of the situation which had been precipitated by -the manager, and it was shared by those of the author's friends who -understood his character as indifferently as did Colman. They must all -have been somewhat amazed when the author quietly accepted the situation -and affirmed that he would rather that his play were damned by bad -players than merely saved by good acting. One of the company who had the -sense to perceive the merits of the piece, Shuter, the comedian, who was -cast for the part of old Hardcastle, advised Goldsmith to give Lewes, -the harlequin, the part of Young Marlow; Quick, a great favourite with -the public, was to act Tony Lumpkin; and, after a considerable amount -of wrangling, Mrs. Bulkley, lately Miss Wilford, who had been the -Miss Richland of _The Good-Natured Man_, accepted the part which the -capricious Mrs. Abington resigned. - -Another start was made with the rehearsals of the piece, and further -efforts were made by Colman to bring about the catastrophe which he -had predicted. He refused to let a single scene be painted for the -production, or to supply a single new dress; his ground being that the -money spent in this way would be thrown away, for the audience would -never allow the piece to proceed beyond the second act. - -But happily Dr. Johnson had his reputation as a prophet at stake as well -as Colman, and he was singularly well equipped by Nature for enforcing -his views on any subject. He could not see anything of what was going -on upon the stage; but his laugh at the succession of humorous things -spoken by the company must have had an inspiring effect upon every -one, except Colman. Johnson's laugh was the strongest expression of -appreciation of humour of which the century has a record. It was epic. -To say that Johnson's laugh at the rehearsals of _She Stoops to Conquer_ -saved the piece would perhaps be going too far. But can any one question -its value as a counteracting agent to Colman's depressing influence on -the stage? Johnson was the only man in England who could make Colman -(and every one else) tremble, and his laugh had the same effect upon -the building in which it was delivered. It was the Sirocco against a wet -blanket. When one thinks of the feeling of awe which was inspired by -the name of Dr. Johnson, not only during the last forty years of -the eighteenth century, but well into the nineteenth, one begins to -appreciate the value of his vehement expression of satisfaction upon -the people on the stage. Goldsmith dedicated his play to Johnson, and -assuredly the compliment was well earned. Johnson it was who compelled -Colman to produce the piece, and Johnson it was who encouraged the -company to do their best for it, in spite of the fact that they were -all aware that their doing their best for it would be resented by their -manager. - -Reynolds also, another valuable friend to the author, sacrificed several -of his busiest hours in order to attend the rehearsals. His sister's -sacrifices to the same end were perhaps not quite so impressive, nor -were those made by that ingenious “country gentleman,” Mr. Cradock, -referred to by Walpole. Miss Horneck, his beautiful “Jessamy Bride,” - and her sister, lately married to Mr. Bunbury, bore testimony to the -strength of their friendship for the poet, by accompanying him daily to -the theatre. - -But, after all, these good friends had not many opportunities of -showing their regard for him in the same way; for the play must have had -singularly few rehearsals. Scarcely a month elapsed between the date of -Colman's receiving the manuscript on its being returned by Garrick and -the production of the piece. It is doubtful if more than ten rehearsals -took place after the parts were recast. If the manager kept the author -in suspense for eighteen months respecting the fate of his play, he -endeavoured to make up for his dilatoriness now. It was announced for -Monday, March 15th, and, according to Northcote, it was only on the -morning of that day that the vexed question of what the title should be -was settled. For some time the author and his friends had been talking -the matter over. “We are all in labour for a name to Goldy's play,” - wrote Johnson. _The Mistakes of a Night, The Old House a New Inn, and -The Belle's Stratagem_ were suggested in turn. It was Goldsmith himself -who gave it the title under which it was produced. - -On the afternoon of this day, March 15th, the author was the guest at -a dinner-party organised in his honour. It is easy to picture this -particular function. The truth was that Colman's behaviour had broken -the spirit not only of the author, but of the majority of his friends -as well. They would all make an effort to cheer up poor Goldsmith; but -every one knows how cheerless a function is one that is organised with -such charitable intentions. It is not necessary that one should have -been in a court of law watching the face of the prisoner in the dock -when the jury have retired to consider their verdict in order to -appreciate the feelings of Goldsmith when his friends made their attempt -to cheer him up. The last straw added on to the cheerlessness of the -banquet was surely to be found in the accident that every one wore -black! The King of Sardinia had died a short time before, and the Court -had ordered mourning to be worn for some weeks for this potentate. -Johnson was very nearly outraging propriety by appearing in coloured -raiment, but George Steevens, who called for him to go to the dinner, -was fortunately in time to prevent such a breach of etiquette. “I would -not for ten pounds have seemed so retrograde to any general observance,” - cried Johnson in offering his thanks to his benefactor. Happily the -proprieties were saved; but what must have been the effect of the -appearance of these gentlemen in black upon the person whom they meant -to cheer up! - -Reynolds told his pupil, Northcote, what effect these resources of -gaiety had upon Goldsmith. His mouth became so parched that he could -neither eat nor drink, nor could he so much as speak in acknowledgment -of the well-meant act of his friends. When the party after this -entertainment set out for the theatre they must have suggested, all -being in black, a more sombre procession than one is accustomed to -imagine when conjuring up a picture of an eighteenth-century theatre -party. - -And Goldsmith was missing! - -Unfortunately Boswell was not present, or we should not be left in doubt -as to how it happened that no one thought of taking charge of Goldsmith. -But no one seemed to think of him, and so his disappearance was never -noticed. His friends arrived at the theatre and found their places, -Johnson in the front row of the boxes; and the curtain was rung up, -and Goldsmith was forgotten under the influence of that comedy which -constitutes his greatest claim to be remembered by theatre-goers of -to-day. - -He was found by an acquaintance a couple of hours later wandering in the -Mall of St. James's Park, and was only persuaded to go to the theatre by -its being represented to him that his services might be required should -it be found necessary to alter something at the last moment. - -Now, among the members of that distinguished audience there was a man -named Cumberland. He was the author of _The West Indian_ and several -other plays, and he was regarded as one of the leaders of the -sentimental school, the demise of which was satirised in the prologue to -this very play which was being performed. Cumberland was a man who could -never see a particle of good in anything that was written by another. It -was a standing entertainment with Garrick to “draw him on” by suggesting -that some one had written a good scene in a play, or was about to -produce an interesting book. In a moment Cumberland was up, protesting -against the assumption that the play or the book could be worth -anything. So wide a reputation had he for decrying every other author -that when Sheridan produced _The Critic; or, the Tragedy Rehearsed_, his -portrait was immediately recognised in Sir Fretful Plagiary. - -What must have been the feelings of this man when, from the first, the -play, which he had come to wreck, was received by the whole house with -uproarious applause? Well, we don't know what he felt like, but we know -what he looked like. One of the newspapers described him as “looking -glum,” and another contained a rhymed epigram describing him as weeping. -Goldsmith entered the theatre by the stage door at the beginning of the -fifth act, where Tony Lumpkin and his mother appear close to their -own house, and the former pretends that the chaise has broken down on -Crackscull Common. He had no sooner got into the “wings” than he heard -a hiss. “What's that, sir?” he whispered to Colman, who was beside him. -“Psha, sir! what signifies a squib when we have been sitting on a barrel -of gunpowder all night?” was the reply. The story is well known; and -its accuracy has never been im peached. And the next day it was well -known that that solitary hiss came from Cumberland, the opinion that -it was due to the malevolence of Macpherson, whose pretensions to the -discovery of _Ossian_ were exposed by Johnson, being discredited. - -But the effect of Colman's brutality and falsehood into the bargain had -not a chance of lasting long. The hiss was received with cries of “Turn -him out!” and, with an addition to the tumultuous applause of all the -house, Goldsmith must have been made aware in another instant of the -fact that he had written the best comedy of the day and that Colman had -lied to him. From the first there had been no question of sitting on a -barrel of gunpowder. Such applause could never greet the last act of a -play the first four acts of which had been doubtful. He must have felt -that at last he had conquered--that he had by one more achievement -proved to his own satisfaction--and he was hard to satisfy--that those -friends of his who had attributed genius to him had not been mistaken; -that those who, like Johnson and Percy and Reynolds, had believed in -him before he had written the work that made him famous, had not been -misled. - -The next day all London was talking of _She Stoops to Conquer_ and of -Colman. Horace Walpole, who detested Goldsmith, and who found when -he went to see the play that it was deplorably vulgar, mentioned in a -letter which he wrote to Lady Ossory on the morning after the production -that it had “succeeded prodigiously,” and the newspapers were full of -epigrams at the expense of the manager. If Colman had had the sense to -keep to himself his forebodings of the failure of the piece, he would -not have left himself open to these attacks; but, as has been said, he -took as much pains to decry the coming production as he usually did to -“puff” other pieces. It would seem that every one had for several -days been talking about nothing else save the coming failure of Dr. -Goldsmith's comedy. Only on this assumption can one now understand the -poignancy of the “squibs”--some of them partook largely of the character -of his own barrel of gunpowder--levelled against Colman. He must have -been quite amazed at the clamour that arose against him; it became too -much for his delicate skin, and he fled to Bath to get out of the way -of the scurrilous humourists who were making him a target for their -pop-guns. But even at Bath he failed to find a refuge. Writing to Mrs. -Thrale, Johnson said: “Colman is so distressed with abuse that he has -solicited Goldsmith to take him off the rack of the newspapers.” - -It was characteristic of Goldsmith that he should do all that was -asked of him and that he should make no attempt, either in public or in -private, to exult in his triumph over the manager. The only reference -which he made to his sufferings while Colman was keeping him on the rack -was in a letter which he wrote to his friend Cradock, who had written an -epilogue for the play, to explain how it was that this epilogue was not -used at the first representation. After saying simply, “The play has -met with a success beyond your expectation or mine,” he makes his -explanation, and concludes thus: “Such is the history of my stage -adventure, and which I have at last done with. I cannot help saying -that I am very sick of the stage, and though I believe I shall get -three tolerable benefits, yet I shall on the whole be a loser, even in -a pecuniary light; my ease and comfort I certainly lost while it was in -agitation.” - -Goldsmith showed that he bore no grudge against Colman; but the English -stage should bear him a grudge for his treatment of one of the few -authors of real genius who have contributed to it for the benefit of -posterity. If _She Stoops to Conquer_ had been produced when it first -came into the manager's hands, Goldsmith would certainly not have -written the words just quoted. What would have been the result of -his accepting the encouragement of its production it is, of course, -impossible to tell; but it is not going too far to assume that the -genius which gave the world _The Good-Natured Man_ and _She Stoops to -Conquer_ would have been equal to the task of writing a third comedy -equal in merit to either of these. Yes, posterity owes Colman a grudge. - - - - -THE JESSAMY BRIDE - -A PERSONAL NOTE - -FOR some time after the publication of my novel _The Jessamy Bride_ -my time was fully occupied by replying to correspondents--strangers -to me--who were good enough to take an interest in Mary Horneck, the -younger of the two charming sisters with whom Goldsmith associated -for several years of his life on terms of the warmest affection. The -majority of these communications were of a very interesting character. -Only one correspondent told me I should not have allowed Oliver -Goldsmith to die so young, though two expressed the opinion that I -should have made Goldsmith marry Mary Horneck; nearly all the remaining -communications which were addressed to me contained inquiries as to the -origin of the sobriquet applied to Mary Horneck in Goldsmith's epistle. -To each and to all such inquiries I have, alas! been compelled to return -the humiliating reply that I have not yet succeeded in finding out what -was the origin of the family joke which made Goldsmith's allusions to -“The Jessamy Bride” and “Little Comedy” intelligible to the “Devonshire -Crew” of Hornecks and Reynoldses. I have searched volume after volume -in the hope of having even the smallest ray of light thrown upon this -matter, but I have met with no success. I began to feel, as every post -brought me a sympathetic inquiry as to the origin of the pet name, -that I should take the bold step of confessing my ignorance to the one -gentleman who, I was confident, could enlighten it. “If Dr. Brewer does -not know why Mary Horneck was called 'The Jessamy Bride,' no one alive -can know it,” was what I said to myself. Before I could write to -Dr. Brewer the melancholy new's came of his death; and very shortly -afterwards I got a letter from his daughter, Mrs. Brewer Hayman, in -which she mentioned that her lamented father had been greatly interested -in my story, and asked if I could tell her what was the meaning of the -phrase. - -It does certainly seem extraordinary that no biographer of Goldsmith, -of Reynolds, or of Burke, should have thought it worth while writing a -letter to the “Jessamy Bride” herself to ask her why she was so called -by Goldsmith. The biographers of Goldsmith and the editors of Boswell -seem to have had no hesitation in stating that Mary Horneck was the -“Jessamy Bride,” and that her elder sister was “Little Comedy”; but -they do not appear to have taken a wider view of their duties than was -comprised in this bare statement. The gossipy Northcote was surely in -the secret, and he might have revealed the truth without detracting from -the interest of the many inaccuracies in his volume. Northcote had -an opportunity of seeing daily the portrait of Mary which Sir Joshua -painted, and which hung in his studio until the day of his death, when -it passed into the possession of the original, who had become Mrs. Gwyn, -having married Colonel, afterwards General, Gwyn. - -But although up to the present I have not obtained even as much evidence -as would be termed a clue by the sanguine officers of Scotland Yard, as -to the origin of the sobriquet, I am not without hope that some day one -of my sympathetic correspondents will be able to clear up the matter for -me. I am strengthened in this hope by the fact that among those who were -kind enough to write to me, was a lady who can claim relationship -to Mary Horneck, and who did not hesitate to send to me a bundle of -letters, written in the early part of the century by the “Jessamy -Bride” herself, with permission to copy and print any portion of the -correspondence that I might consider of interest. Of this privilege I -gladly avail myself, feeling sure that the interest which undoubtedly -attaches to many portions of the letters will exculpate me for the -intrusion of a personal note into these papers. - -The grandfather of my correspondent (Mrs. Cor-ballis, of Ratrath, co. -Meath, Ireland) was first cousin to the Hornecks. He was the Rev. George -Mangles, chaplain to George III when Mrs. Gwyn (Mary Horneck) was Woman -of the Bedchamber to the Queen. As General Gwyn was Equerry to the King -it can easily be understood that the two families should be on terms of -the most intimate friendship. My correspondent mentions that her mother, -who only died thirteen years ago, was almost every year a visitor at the -house of Mrs. Gwyn, at Kew, and said that she retained her beauty up -to the very last. Confirmation of this statement is to be found in a -passage in the “Jerningham Letters.” Lady Bedingfeld's Journal contains -the following entry opposite the date “September 19th, 1833”: - -“When the Queen returned to the drawing-room we found several ladies -there. I observed a very old lady with striking remains of beauty, and -whose features seemed very familiar to me. I felt to know her features -by heart, and at last I heard her name, Mrs. Gwyn, the widow of a -General, and near ninety! I had never seen her before, but when I was a -girl my uncle the Poet, gave me a portrait of her, copied from Sir Jos. -Reynolds, small size in a Turkish costume and attitude. This picture is -still at Cossey, and of course must be very like her since it led me to -find her out.” - -[Illustration: 0261] - -The picture referred to must certainly have been “very like” the -original, for it was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1772, sixty-one -years before. The engraving of it cannot but make one feel how exquisite -must have been the charm of Goldsmith's young friend, who survived him -by sixty-six years; for Mrs. Gywn did not die until 1840. - -Very pathetic indeed it is to look at the sweet girlish face, which -appears in this portrait and also in that of the two sisters done in -chalk by the same master-hand, and then to read some of the passages in -the letters in which the writer refers to her old age and feebleness. -Happily, with Lady Bedingfeld's diary before us, our imagination is not -largely drawn on for a picture of the “Jessamy Bride” broken down by age -and infirmity. The woman who can be easily recognised by a stranger -at seventy-nine by her likeness to a portrait painted at the age of -eighteen, would make Ninon de l'Enclos envious. - -The letters are written to Mrs. Mangles, the widow of the Chaplain -to George III, and the majority touch upon private matters with -sprightliness, and occasionally a delicate humour, such as Goldsmith -would certainly have appreciated. We seem to hear, while reading these -passages, faint echoes of the girlish laughter which must have rung -through that room in the inn at Calais, when Goldsmith paced up and -down in a mock fury because two officers passing the window looked more -eagerly at the girls than at him. - -It is obvious, however, that the Queen's Woman of the Bedchamber would -write occasionally to her friend on some topic of public interest; -consequently we find, in the course of the correspondence, many passages -which throw a flood of light upon the incidents of the day. In a letter -dated April 10th, 1818, - -Mrs. Gwyn describes with great sprightliness the wedding of the -Princess Elizabeth, the third daughter of George III, with Prince -Hesse-Hombourgh, which took place three days before: - -“I delayed to write till after the marriage to tell you about it, as -you seemed to wish it. We were all appointed at seven o'clock in -the evening, when I went as smart as I could make myself. I wore the -lavender sattin robe, the same you saw me wear at Court, as the shape -was the same, and it _saved buying_, trimmed with silver, a new white -sattin petticoat, with a white net and silver over it, no hoop, but a -Court head dress, and lappets down. The Company consisting of the great -officers of state, and ambassadors and their wives, and the different -households were the Company. - -“At 8 all were assembled when the Royal family in procession according -to their rank, went into the great drawing-room in the Queen's house. -The Duke of York led the Queen, the Prince Regent not being quite -recovered of his gout, and it is said the remembrance of his poor -daughter's marriage was too painful to him to undertake it. Before the -state canopy was set a fine communion table, red velvet and gold, all -the gold plate belonging to that service arranged behind it, and 3 -Bishops and other clergymen standing behind the table, it looked very -magnificent. Then came the _Hero_, the Prince Hesse Hombourgh, he went -up to the table and stood there, I believe 10 minutes alone, he looked -well a manly unembarassed figure, then walked in the Bride glittering -with silver and diamonds, and really looked very handsome, and her -behaviour and manner was as well as possible, grace and quiet, when she -knelt she wept, and then he approached nearer her in case her emotion -would require his care, which happily was not the case. The Duke of York -gave her away, and behaved very bad. The Prince Hombourgh thought when -he had said I will very loud and distinct, all was done, but the Arch -Bishop desired him to repeat after him, which he was therefore obliged -to do. He cannot speak English and made such works of it, it was then -the Duke of York laughed so, he was obliged to stuff his handkerchief -in his mouth to conceal it. He promised to love her. When all was over -he saluted his bride on each side the face, and then her hand, with a -good-natured frank manner, then led her to the Queen, whose hand only he -kissed, the rest of the Royal family he embraced after his own fashion, -and he led her off with a very good air, and did not seem to trouble his -head about his _English performance_.” The Princess Elizabeth--the shy -young bride who was so overcome with emotion--had scarcely more than -passed her forty-ninth year when she was borne to the altar, and the -hero of the hour was, we learn from other sources than Mrs. Gwyn's -letters, most unheroically sick when driving away in a close carriage -with his bride. - -The Prince Regent's daughter, the Princess Charlotte, had died the -previous year, hence the marrying panic which seized all the other -members of the Royal Family, lest the dynasty should become extinct. It -is pleasing to reflect that such gloomy apprehensions have since been -amply averted. - -Regarding the death of the Princess Charlotte Mrs. Gwyn writes: - -“... While I was at Oatlands the Prince Leopold came to see the Duchess -and staid there 3 hours, no one but the Duchess saw him--she told me he -is more composed in his manners now when seen by people in general but -with her alone his grief seems the same and he is gratified by being -allowed to vent it to one who feels for him and knows how to soothe his -mind. I can not doubt the Princess's life and his child's were thrown -away, by mismanagement--she was so bled and starved she had no strength -left--her own fortitude and energy supported her till nature could no -more. I could tell you much on the subject but it would take up too much -in a letter and besides _it is over_. Dr. Crofts thought he was doing -for the best no doubt--It comes to what _I_ always say of them--they -can't do much and are very often wrong in their opinions as you can -vouch....” - -In another letter Mrs. Gywn's adopted daughter was her amanuensis. It -contains many paragraphs of interest, especially to present-day readers. -The girl writes: - -“Mamma was of course summoned to attend the Duke of Cambridge's Wedding, -but she was not in the room when the Ceremony was performed as before, -on account of the Queen having been ill. Mamma admires the Duchess of -Cambridge very much: though she is not exactly handsome, she is very -pleasing, and a pretty figure, but I understand she must have a new -stay maker to set her up etc. The Duke of Kent and his bride are now -expected. The Duke of Clarence it is expected will be married shortly -afterwards. We hear the Duchess of Kent is a little woman with a -handsome face, and the Duchess of Clarence uncommonly ugly. We went to -Windsor about a month ago to see Princess Sophia as the Queen was not -there, and Princess Sophia has a small party every night. We were there -three days, and Mamma went to the party every evening, and indeed it was -very very dull for her as they play one pool of Commerce, and then they -go to a game called Snip, Snap, Snorum, and which Mamma could not play -at well without a great deal of trouble to herself, therefore she was -obliged to look on for perhaps an hour and half which you may imagine -was terrible for her not hearing a word. I was much pleased in one -respect while I was there by seeing Dear Prince Leopold whom I had -never seen before, and who must be to every body an object of so much -interest. He looked to me the picture of grief and melancholy, but those -who have seen him repeatedly since his misfortune say he improves every -time they see him. Mrs. C.... went one day to see Claremont and was very -much pleased. All remains as Princess Charlotte left it, but nobody sees -her room in which she died but himself, even her combs and brushes are -untouched, and her hat and cloak are where she laid them the day before -she died. There are models of her hand and arm one in particular as it -is his hand clasped in hers. I suppose you have often heard she had a -very beautiful hand and arm, but I will not go on, on so melancholy a -subject; yet I am sure it must interest you.” - -The Princess Sophia, who instituted the fascinating game referred to in -this letter, was, of course, the fifth daughter of George III. - -In another letter reference is made to a certain scandal, which Mrs. -Gwyn contradicts most vehemently. Even nowadays this particular bit of -gossip is remembered by some persons; but at the risk of depriving these -pages of the piquancy which attaches to a Court scandal, I will not -quote it, but conclude this Personal Note with what seems to me a most -pathetic account of the dying king: - -“We continue in a state of great anxiety about our dear King, whose -state is distressing. Certainly no hope of recovery, and the chances of -his continuance very doubtful. His death may be any day, any hour, or he -may continue some _little_ time longer, it depends on nature holding -out against sore disease, which afflicts him universally, and occasions -great suffering, this is heartbreaking to hear! and his patience and -courage and sweet and kind behaviour to all about him is most touching, -so affectionate to his friends and attendants, and thankful for their -attention and feeling for him. He will hold the hand of the Duchess of -Gloster or S. H. Halford for an hour at a time out of tenderness, till -excessive suffering ends it. He wishes to die in peace and charity with -all the world, and has reconciled himself to the Duke of Sussex. He -hopes his people have found him a merciful King. He says he never hurt -anyone, and that, he may truly say as his first wish to _all_ was good -and benevolent, and ever ready to forgive.” - - - - -THE AMAZING ELOPEMENT - -ON a certain evening in March, 1772, the fashionable folk of Bath -were as earnestly on pleasure bent as they were wont to be at this -season--and every other. The Assembly Rooms were open, a performance was -going on at the theatre, the Cave of Harmony was as musical as Pyrrha's -Grotto, a high-class concert was taking place under the conductorship of -the well-known Mr. Linley, and the Countess of Huntingdon was holding a -prayer meeting. For people who took their diversions _à la carte_, there -was a varied and an abundant menu. Chairs containing precious structures -of feathers, lace, and jewels towering over long faces powdered and -patched and painted _à la mode_, were swinging along the streets in -every direction, some with a brace of gold-braided lackeys by each of -the windows, but others in charge only of the burly chairmen. - -Unobtrusive among the latter class of conveyance was one that a young -gentleman, a tall and handsome lad, called from its rank between -Pierrepont Street and the South Parade. He gave the bearers instructions -to hasten to the house of Mr. Linley in the Crescent, and to inquire if -Miss Linley were ready. - -If she were not, he told them that they were to wait for her and carry -out her directions. The fellows touched their hats and swung off with -their empty chair. - -The young man then went to a livery stable, and putting a few -confidential inquiries to the proprietor, received a few confidential -replies, accentuated by a wink or two, and a certain quick uplifting of -a knuckly forefinger that had an expression of secretiveness of its own. - -“Mum's the word, sir, and mum it shall be,” whispered the man. “I stowed -away the trunk, leaving plenty of room for the genuine luggage--lady's -luggage, Mr. Sheridan. You know as well as I can tell you, sir, being -young but with as shrewd knowingness of affairs in general as might be -looked for in the son of Tom Sheridan, to say nought of a lady like your -mother, meaning to take no liberty in the world, Mr. Dick, as they call -you.” - -“I'm obliged to you, Denham, and I'll not forget you when this little -affair is happily over. The turn by the 'Bear' on the London Road, we -agreed.” - -“And there you'll find the chaise, sir, and as good a pair as ever left -my stable, and good luck to you, sir!” said the man. - -Young Mr. Sheridan then hastened to his father's house in King's Mead -Street, and was met by an anxious sister in the hall. - -“Good news, I hope, Dick?” she whispered. - -“I have been waiting for you all the evening. She has not changed her -mind, I hope.” - -“She is as steadfast as I am,” said he. “If I could not swear that she -would be steadfast, I would not undertake this business on her behalf. -When I think of our father----” - -“Don't think of him except as applauding your action,” said the girl. -“Surely every one with the least spark of generosity will applaud your -action, Dick.” - -“I wouldn't like to say so much,” said Dick, shaking his head. “Mathews -has his friends. No man could know so much about whist as he does -without having many friends, even though he be a contemptible scoundrel -when he is not employed over a rubber.” - -“Who will dare to take the part of Mr. Mathews against you, Dick?” cried -his sister, looking at him proudly as the parlour candles shone upon -him. “I would that I could go with you as far as London, dear, but that -would be impossible.” - -“Quite impossible; and where would be the merit in the end?” said Dick, -pacing the room as he believed a man of adventure and enterprise would -in the circumstances. “You may trust to me to place her in safety -without the help of any one.” - -“I know it, Dick, I know it, dear, and I am proud of you,” said she, -putting her arms about his neck and kissing him. “And look you here, -Dick,” she added, in a more practical tone. “Look you here--I find that -I can spare another five pounds out of the last bill that came from -Ireland. We shall live modestly in this house until you return to us.” - -He took the coins which she offered to him wrapped up in a twist of -newspaper; but he showed some hesitation--she had to go through a form -of forcing it upon him. - -“I hope to bring it back to you unbroken,” he murmured; “but in affairs -of this sort it is safest to have a pound or two over, rather than -under, what is barely needful. That is why I take your coins,--a loan--a -sacred loan. Good-bye, I returned only to say good-bye to you, my -dearest sister.” - -“I knew your good heart, Dick, that was why I was waiting for you. -Good-bye, Dick, and God bless you.” - -He was putting on his cloak in the hall. He saw that the pistols were -in its pockets, and then he suffered his sister to give him another kiss -before he passed into the dark street. - -He felt for his pistols, and with a hand on each he felt that he was -indeed fairly launched upon a great adventure. - -He made his way to the London road, and all the time he was wondering if -the girl would really come to him in the Sedan chair which he had sent -for her. To be sure she had promised to come upon this evening, but he -knew enough of the great affairs of this world to be well aware of the -fact that the sincerest promise of a maid may be rendered worthless -by the merest freak of Fate. Therefore, he knew that he did well to -be doubtful respecting the realisation of her promise. She was the -beautiful Miss Linley--every one in Bath knew her, and this being so, -was it not likely that some one--some prying person--some impudent -fellow like that Mathews who had been making love to her, although -he had a wife of his own in Wales--might catch a glimpse of her face -through the glass of the chair when passing a lamp or a link, and be -sufficiently curious to follow her chair to see whither she was going? - -That was a likely enough thing to happen, and if it did happen and the -alarm of his flight with her were given, what chance would he have of -carrying out his purpose? Why, the chaise would be followed, and even if -it was not overtaken before London was reached, the resting-place of the -fugitives would certainly be discovered in London, and they should be -ignominiously brought back to Bath. Yes, unless Mathews were the -pursuer, in which case---- - -Mr. Richard Brinsley Sheridan grasped more firmly the butt of the pistol -in the right-hand pocket of his cloak. He felt at that moment that -should Mathews overtake them, the going back to Bath would be on the -part only of Mathews. - -But how would it be if Mr. Linley had become apprised of his daughter's -intention to fly from Bath? He knew very well that Mr. Linley had -the best of reasons for objecting to his daughter's leaving Bath. Mr. -Linley's income was increased by several hundred pounds by reason of the -payments made to him on account of his daughter's singing in public, -and he was--very properly, considering his large family--fond of money. -Before he had to provide for his family, he took good care that his -family--his eldest daughter particularly--helped to provide for him. - -Doubtless these eventualities were suggested to him--for young Mr. -Sheridan was not without imagination--while on his way through the dark -outskirts of the beautiful city to the London Road. The Bear Inn was -just beyond the last of the houses. It stood at the junction of the -London Road and a narrower one leading past a couple of farms. It was -here that he had given instructions for the chaise to wait for him, and -here he meant to wait for the young lady who had promised to accompany -him to London--and further. - -He found the chaise without trouble. It was under the trees not more -than a hundred yards down the lane, but the chair, with Miss Linley, -had not yet arrived, so he returned to the road and began to retrace his -steps, hoping to meet it, yet with some doubts in his mind. Of course, -he was impatient. Young gentlemen under twenty-one are usually impatient -when awaiting the arrival of the ladies who have promised to run away -with them. He was not, however, kept in suspense for an unconscionably -long time. He met the chair which he was expecting just when he had -reached the last of the lamps of Bath, and out of it stepped the muffled -form of Miss Linley. The chairmen were paid with a lavish hand, and Dick -Sheridan and Betsy Linley walked on to the chaise without exchanging any -but a friendly greeting--there was nothing lover-like in their meeting -or their greeting. The elopement was not that of a young woman with her -lover; it was, we are assured, that of a young woman anxious to escape -from the intolerable position of being the most popular person in the -most fashionable city in England, to the peaceful retreat of a convent; -and the young man who was to take charge of her was one whom she had -chosen for her guardian, not for her lover. Dick Sheridan seems to have -been the only young man in Bath who had never made love to Elizabeth -Linley. His elder brother, Charles by name, had discharged this duty on -behalf of the Sheridan family, and he was now trying to live down his -disappointment at being refused, at a farmhouse a mile or two away. The -burden was greater than he could bear when surrounded by his sisters in -their father's house in King's Mead Street. - -[Illustration: 0277] - -Elizabeth Linley was certainly the most popular young woman in Bath; she -certainly was the most beautiful. The greatest painters of her day made -masterpieces of her portrait, and for once, posterity acknowledges that -the fame of her beauty was well founded. So spiritual a face as hers is -to be seen in no eighteenth-century picture except that of Miss Linley; -one has need to go back to the early Italian painters to find such -spirituality in a human face, and then one finds it combined with -absolute inanity, and the face is called Divine. Reynolds painted her as -Saint Cecilia drawing down angels, and blessedly unconscious of her own -powers, thinking only of raising herself among angels on the wings -of song. His genius was never better employed and surely never more -apparent than in the achievement of this picture. Gainsborough painted -her by the side of her younger brother, and one feels that if Reynolds -painted a saint, Gainsborough painted a girl. It was Bishop O'Beirne, -an old friend of her family and acquainted with her since her childhood, -who said: “She is a link between an angel and a woman.” - -And this exquisite creature had a voice of so sympathetic a quality that -no one could hear it unmoved. Her father had made her technique perfect. -He was a musician who was something more than painstaking. He had taste -of the highest order, and it is possible to believe that in the training -of his eldest daughter he was wise enough to limit his instruction to -the technicalities of his art, leaving her to the inspiration of her own -genius in regard to the treatment of any theme which he brought before -her. - -At any rate her success in the sublimest of all oratorios was far beyond -anything that could be achieved by an exhibition of the finest technical -qualities; and Mr. Linley soon became aware of the fact that he was the -father of the most beautiful and the most highly gifted creature that -ever made a father miserable. - -Incidentally she made a great many other men miserable, but that was -only because each of them wanted her to make him happy at the expense -of the others, and this she was too kind-hearted to do. But the cause of -her father's grief was something different. It was due to the fact -that the girl was so sensitive that she shrank from every exhibition of -herself and her ability on a public platform. It was an agony to her to -hear the tumultuous applause that greeted her singing at a concert or in -an oratorio. She seemed to feel--let any one look at the face which -is to be seen in her portrait, and one will understand how this could -be--that music was something too spiritual to be made the medium only -for the entertainment of the multitude. Taking the highest imaginable -view of the scope and value and meaning of music, it can be understood -that this girl should shrink from such an ordeal as the concert platform -offered to her every time she was announced to sing. No more frivolous -and fashionable a population than that of Bath in the second half of -the eighteenth century was to be found in any city in the world; and -Elizabeth Linley felt that she was regarded by the concert-goers as no -more than one of the numerous agents they employed to lessen the ennui -of an empty day. The music which she worshipped--the spirit with which -her soul communed in secret--was, she felt, degraded by being sold to -the crowd and subjected to the patronage of their applause. - -Of course when she spoke to her father in this strain he sympathised -with her, and bemoaned the fate that made it necessary for him to -have her assistance to save her mother and brothers and sisters from -starvation. And so for several years she was an obedient child, but -very weary of the rôle. She sang and enchanted thousands. She did not, -however, think of them; her mind dwelt daily upon the tens of thousands -who regarded her (she thought) as fulfilling no nobler purpose than to -divert them for half an hour between taking the waters and sitting down -to faro or quadrille. - -But it was not alone her distaste for the publicity of the platform that -made her miserable. The fact was that she was distracted by suitors. She -had, it was said, accepted the offer of an elderly gentleman named Long, -the wealthy head of a county family in the neighbourhood; and Foote, -with his usual vulgarity, which took the form of personality, wrote -a play--a wretched thing even for Foote--in which he dealt with an -imaginarily comic and a certainly sordid situation, with Miss Linley -on the one side and Mr. Long on the other. Serious biographers have not -hesitated to accept this situation invented by the notorious _farceur_, -who was no greater a respecter of persons than he was of truth, as a -valuable contribution to the history of the Linley family, especially -in regard to the love affair of the lovely girl by whose help they were -made famous. They have never thought of the possibility of her having -accepted Mr. Long in order to escape from her horror of the concert -platform. They have never suggested the possibility of Mr. Long's -settling a sum of money on her out of his generosity when he found out -that Miss Linley did not love him. - -It was not Mr. Long, however, but a man named Mathews--sometimes -referred to as Captain, occasionally as Major--who was the immediate -cause of her running away with young Sheridan. This man Mathews was -known to be married, and to be in love with Elizabeth Linley, and yet -he was allowed to be constantly in her company, pestering her with his -attentions, and there was no one handy to horsewhip him. Sheridan's -sister, who afterwards married Mr. Lefanu, wrote an account of this -curious matter for the guidance of Thomas Moore, who was preparing his -biography of her brother. She stated that Miss Linley was afraid to tell -her father of Major Mathews and his impossible suit, and so she was “at -length induced to consult Richard Sheridan, whose intimacy with Major -Mathews, at the time, she thought might warrant his interference.” And -then we are told that “R. B. Sheridan sounded Mathews on the subject and -at length prevailed on him to give up the pursuit.” - -That is how the adoring sister of “R. B. Sheridan,” who had been talking -to Elizabeth Linley of him as of a knight-errant, eager to redress the -wrongs of maidens in distress, wrote of her brother! He “sounded Mathews -on the subject.” On what subject? The subject was the pursuit of an -innocent girl by a contemptible scoundrel. How does the knight-errant -“sound” such a person when he sets out to redress the maiden's -ill-treatment? One R. B. Sheridan, a dramatist, gives us a suggestion as -to what were his ideas on this point: “Do you think that Achilles or my -little Alexander the Great ever enquired where the right lay? No, sir, -they drew their broadswords and left the lazy sons of peace to settle -the rights of the matter.” Now young Sheridan, who is reported by his -sister as “sounding” Mathews, was no coward. He proved himself to be -anything but afraid of Mathews, so that one must, out of justice to him, -assume that the only attempt he would have made to “sound” the scoundrel -at this time would be through the medium of a sound hiding. - -It is at such a point as this in the biography of an interesting man -that one blesses the memory--and the notebook--of the faithful Boswell. -Thomas Moore was quite intimate with Richard Brinsley Sheridan, but -he never thought of asking him for some information on this particular -incident in his life, the fact being that he had no definite intention -of becoming his biographer. We know perfectly well how Boswell would -have plied Johnson with questions on the subject, had it ever come -to his ears that Johnson had undertaken to play the rôle of a -knight-errant. - -“Pray, sir, what did you say to Mathews when you sounded him?” - -“Do you think, sir, that in any circumstances a married gentleman who is -showing marked attentions to a virtuous young lady should be sounded by -a young gentleman who has been entrusted with the duty of protecting the -lady?” - -Alas! instead of the unblushing indelicacy of Boswell, who hunted for -trifles as a pig hunts for truffles, we are obliged to be content with -the vagueness of a sister, whose memory, we have an uneasy feeling, was -not quite so good as she thought it was. - -And from the memory of this sister we have an account of the amazing -elopement of Richard Sheridan with Elizabeth Linley. - -When the young gentleman put her into the chaise that was waiting for -them on the London road, Miss Linley had never thought of him except as -a kind friend. She had accepted his services upon this occasion as she -would those of a courier to conduct her to London, and thence to France, -where she intended to enter a convent. The Miss Sheridans had lived in -France, and had some friends at St. - -Quentin, who knew of a very nice clean convent--an establishment which -they could strongly recommend, and where she could find that complete -seclusion which Miss Linley longed for, and their brother Dick was -thought to be a very suitable companion for her on her way thither. Mrs. -Lefanu (_née_ Sheridan), who wrote out the whole story in after years, -mentioned that her chivalrous brother was to provide a woman to act as -her maid in the chaise; but as not the least reference to this chaperon -is to be found in the rest of the story, we fear that it must be assumed -either that her brother forgot this unimportant detail, or that the -detail was unavoidably detained in Bath. What is most likely of all is -that the solitary reference to this mysterious female was dovetailed, -somewhat clumsily, into the narrative, at the suggestion of some -Mrs. Grundy, who shook her head at the narrative of so much chivalry -unsupported by a responsible chaperon. However this may be, the shadowy -chaperon is never alluded to again; she may have faded away into the -mists of morning and London, or she may have vanished at the first -turnpike. Nothing was seen or heard of her subsequently. - -The boy and the girl reached London in safety, and drove to the house -of a Mr. Ewart, a relation of the Sheridans, to whom Dick offered the -explanation of his unconventional visit on the very plausible grounds -of his being engaged to the young lady, a great heiress, whom he was -hastening to France to marry. Of course the Ewart family were -perfectly satisfied with this explanation; and another friend, who had -indisputable claims to consideration, being, we are told, “the son of -a respectable brandy merchant in the City,” suggested that they should -sail from London to Dunkirk, “in order to make pursuit more difficult.” - How such an end could be compassed by such means is left to the -imagination of a reader. The young pair, however, jumped at the -suggestion, and reached Dunkirk after an uneventful crossing. - -It is at this point in the sister's account of the itinerary of this -interesting enterprise that she mentions that Richard suddenly threw -away the disguise of the chivalrous and disinterested protector of the -young lady, and declared that he would not consent to conduct her to the -convent unless she agreed to marry him immediately. Mrs. Lefanu's exact -words are as follows: “After quitting Dunkirk Mr. Sheridan was more -explicit with Miss Linley as to his views on accompanying her to -France.” - -This is certainly a very lawyer-like way of condoning the conduct of -a mean scoundrel; but, happily for the credit of Richard Brinsley -Sheridan, it is the easiest thing in the world to discredit his sister's -narrative, although she adds that he urged on the girl what would seem -to a casual observer of society in general to be perfectly true--“she -must be aware that after the step she had taken, she could not appear -in England but as his wife.” As the sequel proved this alleged statement -was quite untrue! She did appear in England, and not as his wife, and -no one seemed to think anything the worse of her on account of her -escapade. But to suggest that Sheridan took advantage of the trust -which the innocent girl had reposed in him to compel her to marry him, -a penniless minor with no profession and very little education, is -scarcely consistent with an account of his high-mindedness and his sense -of what was chivalrous. - -And then the sister pleasantly remarks that “Miss Linley, who really -preferred him greatly to any person, was not difficult to persuade, and -at a village not far from Calais the marriage ceremony was performed -by a priest who was known to be often employed upon such occasions.” - Whoever this clergyman may have been, it is impossible for any one to -believe that in the discharge of his office he was kept in constant -employment; for “such occasions” as answered to the account given by -the Sheridan sister of the nuptials of the young couple, must have been -extremely rare. - -And yet Moore, on whom the responsibilities of a biographer rested very -lightly, was quite content to accept as strictly accurate the narrative -of Mrs. Lefanu, contradicted though it was by subsequent events in which -both her brother and Miss Linley were concerned. Moore does not seem to -have troubled himself over any attempt to obtain confirmation of one -of the most important incidents in the life of the man of whom he was -writing. - -He made no attempt to discover if the accommodating priest at the -village near Calais was still alive when he was compiling his biography -of Sheridan, and it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that he was -still alive; nor did this easy-going Irish master of melodies consider -that it devolved on him to try to find some record of the marriage in -question. - -Now what happened after this remarkable union? The narrative of the -sister is quite as circumstantial as one could wish it to be, and even -more imaginative. But whatever qualities of excellence it possesses, -it certainly does not carry to a reader any conviction of accuracy. -It states that the interesting young couple went to Lille instead of -carrying out their original intention of going to St. Quentin, and -that Miss Linley--now Mrs. Sheridan, of course--“immediately secured an -apartment in a convent, where it was settled she was to remain either -till Sheridan came of age or till he was in a situation to support -a wife. He remained a few days at Lille to be satisfied that she was -settled to her satisfaction; but, whether from agitation of mind or -fatigue, she was taken ill, and an English physician, Dr. Dolman, of -York, was called in to attend her. From what he perceived of her case he -wished to have her more immediately under his care than he could in the -convent, and he and Mrs. Dolman most kindly invited her to their house.” - -This would seem to have been very kind indeed on the part of the doctor -and his wife, but it so happened that a letter turned up some years ago -which the late Mr. Fraser Rae was able to print in the first volume of -his admirable _Life of Sheridan_, and this letter makes it plain -that wherever Mrs. Sheridan (_née_ Linley) may have been, she was not -sojourning with the Dolmans. It is from Dr. Dolman himself, and it was -addressed to “Monsieur Sherridan, Gentilhomme Anglois, à l'Hôtel de -Bourbon, Sur la Grande Place.” It recommends the administering of -certain powders in a glass of white wine twice daily, and sends -“compliments and wishes of health to your lady.” - -The question then remains: Was the lady at this time an inmate of the -convent, and did the doctor expect “Monsieur Sherridan” to go to this -institution twice a day in order to administer the powders to his lady? -Would not the doctor think it somewhat peculiar that the husband should -be at the Hôtel de Bourbon and his lady an inmate of the convent? - -These questions must be left to be answered according to the experience -of life of any one interested in the matter. But it is worth noticing -that, on the very day that he received the missive from Dr. Dolman, -Sheridan wrote to his brother at Bath and mentioned that Miss Linley--he -continued to call her Miss Linley--was now “fixing in a convent, where -she has been entered some time.” Does the first phrase mean that she was -already in the convent, or only about to take up her residence there? -However this question may be answered, it is clear that Sheridan -expected to leave her behind him at Lille, for he adds, “Everything -is now so happily settled here I will delay no longer giving you that -information, though probably I shall set out for England without knowing -a syllable of what has happened with you.” - -So far, then, as his emprise in regard to the lady was concerned, he -considered the incident to be closed. “Though you may have been ignorant -for some time of our proceedings, you could never have been uneasy,” he -continues hopefully, “lest anything should tempt me to depart, even in a -thought, from the honour and consistency which engaged me at first.” - -Some people have suggested that Sheridan, when he drew the character -of Charles Surface, meant it to be something of an excuse for his own -casual way of life. But it must strike a good many persons who believe -that he induced the innocent girl, whom he set forth to protect on her -way to a refuge from the infamous designs of Mathews, to marry him, that -Sheridan approached much more closely to the character of Joseph in this -correspondence with his brother. A more hypocritical passage than that -just quoted could hardly have been uttered by Joseph Surface. As a -matter of fact, one of Joseph's sentiments is only a paraphrase of this -unctuous assumption of honour and consistency. - -But this criticism is only true if one can believe his sister's story of -the marriage. If it is true that Sheridan set out from England with -Miss Linley with the intention of so compromising her that she should -be compelled to marry him, at the same time pretending to her and to his -brother to be actuated by the highest motives in respect of the ill-used -girl, it is impossible to think of him except with contempt. - -Happily the weight of evidence is overpoweringly in Sheridan's favour. -We may think of him as a rash, an inconsiderate, and a culpably careless -boy to take it upon him to be the girl's companion to the French -convent, but we refuse to believe that he was ever capable of acting the -grossly disingenuous part attributed to him by his sister, and accepted -without question by his melodious biographer. There are many people, -however, who believe that when a man marries a woman, no matter in what -circumstances, he has “acted the part of a gentleman” in regard to her, -and must be held to be beyond reproach on any account whatsoever so far -as the woman is concerned. In the eyes of such censors of morality, as -in the eyes of the law, the act of marriage renders null and void all -ante-nuptial deeds; and it was probably some impression of this type -which was acquired by Sheridan's sister, inducing her to feel sure -(after a time) that her brother's memory would suffer if his biographer -were to tell the story of his inconsiderate conduct in running away with -Elizabeth Linley, unless it was made clear that he married her the first -moment he had to spare. She tried to save her brother's memory by -persuading her own to accommodate itself to what she believed to be her -brother's emergency. She was a good sister, and she kept her memory well -under control. - -But what did the father of the young lady think of the matter? What did -the people of Bath, who were well acquainted with all the actors engaged -in this little comedy, think of the matter? Happily these questions can -be answered by appealing to facts rather than to the well-considered -recollections of a discreet lady. - -We know for certain that Mr. Linley, who was, as one might suppose, -fully equipped to play the part of the enraged father of the runaway -girl, turned up at the place of her retreat--he had no trouble in -learning in what direction to look for her--and having found her and the -young gentleman who had run away with her, did he, under the impulse -of his anger, fanned by his worldly knowledge, insist with an uplifted -horsewhip upon his marrying her without a moment's delay? Mr. Linley -knew Bath, and to know Bath was to know the world. Was he, then, of the -same opinion as that expressed (according to his sister's narrative) by -young Sheridan to persuade Miss Linley to be his bride--namely, that it -would be impossible for her to show her face in Bath unless as the wife -of Richard Brinsley Sheridan? - -Nothing of the sort. Whatever reproaches he may have flung at his -daughter, however strong may have been his denunciation of the conduct -of the man who had run away with her, they had not the effect either of -inducing his daughter or her companion to reveal to him the fact that -they had been married for several days, or of interrupting the friendly -relations that had existed for nearly two years between himself and -young Sheridan. The dutiful memory of Miss Sheridan records that Mr. -Linley, “after some private conversation with Mr. Sheridan, appeared -quite reconciled to his daughter, but insisted on her returning to -England with him (Mr. Linley) to fulfil several engagements he had -entered into on her account. The whole party set out together the next -day, Mr. Linley having previously promised to allow his daughter to -return to Lille when her engagements were over.” - -The comedy of the elopement had become a farce of the “whimsical” type. -Nothing more amusing or amazing has ever been seen on the vaudeville -stage. The boy and the girl run off together and get married. The -infuriated father follows them, ruthlessly invades their place of -refuge, and then, “after some private conversation” with his daughter's -husband, who does not tell him that he is her husband, says to the young -woman, “My dear, you must come home with me to sing at a concert.” - -“Certainly, papa,” replies the girl. “Wait a minute, and I'll go too,” - cries the unconfused husband of the daughter. “All right, come along,” - says the father, and they all take hands and sing the ridiculous trio -which winds up the vaudeville after it has run on inconsequentially for -a merry forty minutes--there is a _pas de trois_, and the curtain falls! - -Alas, for the difference between Boswell the bald and Moore the -melodious! The bald prose of Boswell's diaries may have made many of -the personages with whom he dealt seem silly, but that was because -he himself was silly, and, being aware of this fact, the more -discriminating of his readers have no great difficulty in arriving -at the truth of any matter with which he deals. He would never have -accepted unreservedly such a narrative as that which Moore received -from Mrs. Lefanu (_née_ Sheridan), and put into his own language, or as -nearly into his own language as he could. But Moore found it “so hard to -narrate familiar events eloquently,” he complained. He actually thought -that Mrs. Lefanu's narrative erred on the side of plausibility! The -mysterious elopement, the still more mysterious marriage, and the -superlatively mysterious return of the fugitives and the irate father -hand-in-hand, he regarded as events so commonplace as not to be -susceptible of lyrical treatment. But the most farcical of the doings -of his own _Fudge Family_ were rational in comparison with the familiar -events associated with the flight to France of his hero and heroine. The -_Trip to Scarborough_ of Sheridan the farce-writer was founded on -much more “familiar events” than this extraordinary trip to Lille, as -narrated for the benefit of the biographer by Mrs. Lefanu. - -What seems to be the truth of the whole matter is simply that Sheridan -undertook to be a brother to Elizabeth Linley, and carried out his -compact faithfully, without allowing anything to tempt him to depart, -as he wrote to Charles, “even in thought from the honour and consistency -which engaged [him] at first.” It must be remembered that he was a -romantic boy of twenty, and this is just the age at which nearly every -boy--especially a boy in love--is a Sir Galahad. As for Miss Linley, -one has only to look at her portrait to know what she was. She was not -merely innocent, she was innocence itself. - -When Mr. Linley appeared at Lille he accepted without reserve the -explanation offered to him by his daughter and by Sheridan; and, -moreover, he knew that although there was a school for scandal located -at Bath, yet so highly was his daughter thought of in all circles, and -so greatly was young Sheridan liked, that no voice of calumny would be -raised against either of them when they returned with him. And even if -it were possible that some whisper, with its illuminating smile above -the arch of a painted fan, might be heard in the Assembly Rooms when -some one mentioned the name of Miss Linley in connection with that of -young Sheridan and with the trip to Lille, he felt convinced that such -a whisper would be robbed of its sting when every one knew that the girl -and the boy and the father all returned together and on the best terms -to Bath. - -As the events proved, he had every right to take even so sanguine a view -of the limitations of the range of the Pump Room gossips. On the return -of the three from Lille no one suggested that Sheridan and Miss Linley -should get married. No one except the scoundrel Mathews suggested that -Sheridan had acted badly or even unwisely, though undoubtedly he had -given grounds for such implications. The little party returned to Bath, -and Miss Linley fulfilled her concert and oratorio engagements, went -into society as before, and had at her feet more eligible suitors than -had ever knelt there. We have it on the authority of Charles Sheridan, -the elder brother, that in Bath the feeling was that Richard had acted -as a man of honour in taking the girl to the convent at Lille. Writing -to their uncle, Mr. Chamberlaine, he expressed surprise that “in -this age when the world does not abound in Josephs, most people are -(notwithstanding the general tendency of mankind to judge unfavourably) -inclined to think that he (Richard) acted with the strictest honour in -his late expedition with Miss L., when the circumstances might allow of -their being very dubious on this head without incurring the imputation -of being censorious.” - -This testimony as to what was the opinion in Bath regarding the -expedition is extremely valuable, coming as it does from one who was -never greatly disposed to take a brotherly or even a friendly view of -Richard's conduct at any time--coming as it does also from a man who had -been in love with Miss Linley. - -At any rate this escapade of young Mr. Sheridan was the most fortunate -for him of any in which he ever engaged, and he was a man of many -escapades, for it caused Elizabeth Linley to fall in love with him, and -never was a man beloved by a sweeter or more faithful woman. To know how -beautiful was her nature one has only to look at her face in either of -the great portraits of her which are before us to-day. No characteristic -of all that is held to be good and gracious and sympathetic--in one -word, that is held to be womanly, is absent from her face. No man that -ever lived was worthy of such a woman; but if only men who are worthy of -such women were beloved by them, mankind would be the losers. She loved -Sheridan with the truest devotion--such devotion as might be expected -from such a nature as hers--and she died in the act of writing to him -the love-letter of a wife to her dearly loved husband. - -They did not get married until a year after the date of their flight to -the Continent, and then they were described as bachelor and spinster. -Neither of them ever gave a hint, even in any of the numerous letters -which they exchanged during this period, that they had gone through -the ceremony of marriage at that village near Calais. More than once a -strained situation would have been relieved had it been possible to make -such a suggestion, for now and again each of the lovers grew jealous of -the other for a day or two. But neither said, “Pray remember that you -are not free to think of marrying any one. We are husband and wife, -although we were married in secret.” Neither of them could make such an -assertion. It would not have been true. What seems to us to be the truth -is that it was Sir Galahad who acted as protector to his sister when -Richard Brinsley Sheridan went with Elizabeth Linley to France. - - - - -THE AMAZING DUELS - -WHEN young Mr. Sheridan returned to Bath after his happy little -journey to France with Miss Linley and back with Mr. Linley, he may have -believed that the incident was closed. He had done all that--and perhaps -a little more than--the most chivalrous man of experience and means -could be expected to do for the young woman toward whom he had stood -in the position of a protecting brother. He had conducted her to the -convent at Lille, on which she had set her heart, and he had been able -to explain satisfactorily to her father on his arrival at the hotel -where he and Miss Linley were sojourning in the meantime, what his -intentions had been when he had eloped with her from Bath. No doubt he -had also acted as Miss Linley's adviser in respect of those negotiations -with her father which resulted in the happy return of the whole family -party to London. - -In London he heard that Mathews, the scoundrel who had been pursuing -Miss Linley in the most disreputable fashion, was in town also, and -that, previous to leaving Bath, he had inserted in the Chronicle -a defamatory advertisement regarding him (Sheridan); and on this -information coming to his ears he put his pistols into his pocket and -went in search of Mathews at the lodgings of the latter. - -Miss Sheridan tells us about the pistols in the course of her lucid -narrative, and states on her own responsibility that when he came upon -Mathews the latter was dreadfully frightened at the sight of one of the -pistols protruding from Sheridan's pocket. Mr. Fraser Rae, the competent -biographer of Sheridan, smiles at the lady's statement. “The sight of -the pistols would have alarmed Sheridan's sisters,” he says, “but it -is in accordance with probability that he (Mathews) expected a hostile -meeting to follow as a matter of course. He must have been prepared for -it, and he would have been strangely ignorant of the world in which he -lived if he had deemed it unusual.” - -[Illustration: 0301] - -But Mr. Fraser Rae was not so strangely ignorant of the world in which -Sheridan and Mathews lived as to fancy that there was nothing unusual -in a gentleman's going to ask another gentleman whom he believed to have -affronted him, for an explanation, with a pair of pistols in his pocket. -In the circumstances a duel would have been nothing unusual; but surely -Mr. Fraser Rae could not have fancied that Sheridan set out with the -pistols in his pocket in order to fight a duel with Mathews in the man's -lodgings, without preliminaries and without seconds. If Mathews caught -sight of the butt of a pistol sticking out of Sheridan's pocket he had -every reason to be as frightened as Miss Sheridan declared he was, for -he must have believed that his visitor had come to murder him. - -At any rate, frightened or not frightened, pistols or no pistols, -Mathews, on being interrogated by Sheridan as to the advertisement in -the _Bath Chronicle_, assured him that he had been grossly misinformed -as to the character of the advertisement. It was, he affirmed, nothing -more than an inquiry after Sheridan, which the family of the latter had -sanctioned. He then, according to Miss Sheridan, expressed the greatest -friendship for his visitor, and said that he would be made extremely -unhappy if any difference should arise between them. - -So young Mr. Sheridan, balked of his murderous intentions, returned with -unsullied pistols to his hotel, and set out for Bath with Miss Linley -and her father. - -But if he fancied that Mathews had passed out of his life he was quickly -undeceived. Before he had time to take his seat at the family table he -had got a copy of the newspaper containing the advertisement, of the -tenor of which Mathews had told him in London he had been misinformed; -and now his sisters made him fully aware of the action taken by the -same man on learning of the flight of Sheridan and Elizabeth Linley. The -result was that he now perceived what every one should have known long -before--namely, that Mathews was a scoundrel, who should never have -been allowed to obtain the footing to which he had been admitted in the -Sheridan and Linley families. - -It appears that the moment Mathews heard that Miss Linley had been -carried beyond his reach, he rushed to the Sheridans' house, and -there found the girls and their elder brother, who had been wisely -communicated with by the landlord, and had left his retirement in the -farmhouse in the country to take charge of the sisters in the absence of -their brother Richard. Mathews behaved like a madman--no unusual _rôle_ -for him--heaping reproaches upon the absent member of the family, -and demanding to be told of his whereabouts. He seems to have been -encouraged by Charles Sheridan, who had unwisely said something in -disparagement of his brother. Mathews had the effrontery to avow his -passion for Elizabeth Linley, and in the bitterest terms to accuse -Richard Sheridan of having acted basely in taking her beyond his reach. - -Then he hastened to Richard Sheridan's friend and confidant, a young man -named Brereton, and to him he sent messages of friendship and, possibly, -condolence to Mr. Linley, though his object in paying this visit was -undoubtedly not to endeavour to exculpate himself as regards Mr. Linley, -but to find out where the fugitives were to be found. He may have had -visions of pursuing them, of fighting a duel with Richard Sheridan, and -if he succeeded in killing him, of getting the girl at last into his -power. - -But Mr. Brereton not only did not reveal the whereabouts of his -friend--he knew that Sheridan meant to go to Lille, for he wrote to him -there--but he also refused to give his interrogator any sympathy for -having failed to accomplish the destruction of the girl. Brereton, -indeed, seems to have convinced him that the best thing he could do was -to leave Bath as quickly as possible. Mathews had probably by this time -discovered, as Brereton certainly had, that the feeling against him in -Bath was profound. There can be little doubt that in the course of the -day Charles Sheridan became aware of this fact also; he had only a few -months before confessed himself to be deeply in love with Elizabeth -Linley, and when he heard that his brother had run away with her he -could not but have been somewhat incensed against him, for Richard had -not taken him into his confidence. By the time his brother returned, -however, any ill-feeling that Charles may have felt had disappeared, -and as Charles always showed himself to be a cool and calculating -gentleman--one who always kept an eye on the jumping cat--it is not -going too far to assume that his change of tone in respect of his rather -impetuous brother was due to his perception of the trend of public -opinion on the subject of the elopement. - -Brereton had persuaded Mathews that there was nothing left for him but -to quit Bath; but before taking this step the latter had inserted in the -_Bath Chronicle_ the advertisement of which Richard had heard, but which -he had not read when in London, thus leaving himself in no position to -contradict Mathews' assertion as to its amicable wording. - -But now the newspaper was put into his hands by Charles, and he had -an opportunity of pronouncing an opinion on this point. It was dated -Wednesday, April the 8th, 1772, and it ran as follows: - -“Mr. Richard S-------- having attempted in a letter left behind him for -that purpose, to account for his scandalous method of running away from -this place by insinuations derogating from my character and that of a -young lady, innocent as far as relates to me, or my knowledge, since -which he has neither taken any notice of letters or even informed his -own family of the place where he has hid himself; I cannot longer think -he deserves the treatment of a gentleman, and in this public method, to -post him as a L------, and a treacherous S--------. - -“And as I am convinced there have been many malevolent incendiaries -concerned in the propagation of this infamous lie, if any of them, -unprotected by age, _infirmities_, or profession, they are to -acknowledge the part they have acted, and affirm _to_ what they have -said _of_ me, they may depend on receiving the proper reward of their -villainy, in the most public manner. The world will be candid enough to -judge properly (I make no doubt) of any private abuse on this subject -for the future, as nobody can defend himself from an accusation he is -ignorant of Thomas Mathews.” Such a piece of maundering imbecility as -this had probably never before appeared in a newspaper. It must have -been read in Bath with roars of laughter. But we do not hear that any of -the ready writers of the time and the town yielded to the temptation of -commenting upon the “malevolent incendiarism” of the composition. A man -of the world, had it been written about himself, would possibly -have thought that its illiteracy spoke for itself, and so would have -refrained from making any move in regard to it or its author. But one -can imagine what effect reading it would have upon a boy of Sheridan's -spirit. For a youth of twenty to find himself posted as a Liar and -a Scoundrel, to say nothing of a “malevolent incendiary,” and remain -indifferent would be impossible. Sheridan did not take long to make up -his mind what he should do in the circumstances. - -The dramatic touch which his sister introduces in writing of Richard's -perusal of the paragraph is intensely true to nature. He simply put a -word or two to Charles relative to what Mathews had told him in -London about his, Sheridan's, family sanctioning the insertion of the -advertisement. Charles had no difficulty in vindicating his integrity on -this point. Richard knew perfectly well that it is one thing to say that -a man has acted too hastily, but quite another to suggest that that man -is “a L------ and a S--------.” - -So apparently the matter ended, and Richard continued chatting with his -sisters, giving no sign of what was in his mind. The girls went to -their beds, suspecting nothing. The next morning their two brothers were -missing! - -Of course the girls were dreadfully alarmed. Some people in the house -told them that they had heard high words being exchanged between the -brothers after the girls had retired, and shortly afterwards the two -former had gone out together. The sister, in her narrative, mentions -that she received a hint or two of a duel between Richard and Charles, -but she at once put these suggestions aside. The poor girls must have -been nearly distracted. Certainly the house of Sheridan was passing -through a period of great excitement. The estimable head of the family -was himself expecting a crisis in his affairs as manager of the theatre -in Dublin--Mr. Thomas Sheridan was never far removed from a crisis--and -in his absence his young people were doing pretty much as they pleased. -He had no power of controlling them; all that he had to do with them was -to pay their bills. Neither of the sons was earning anything, and while -one of them was living as a man of fashion, the other had thought it -well to cut himself off from his sisters, taking lodgings at a farm some -way out of Bath It is the girls of the house for whom one feels most. -Alicia, the elder, was seventeen, Elizabeth was but twelve. They must -have been distracted. So would their father have been if he had had a -chance of learning all that was going on at Bath. - -But, of course, when young gentlemen of spirit are falling in love with -beauteous maidens, and retiring to cure themselves by mingling with -pastoral scenes reminiscent of the gentle melancholy of Mr. Alexander -Pope's shepherds and shepherdesses (done in Dresden), every one of -whom murmurs mournfully and melodiously of a rejected suit--when young -gentlemen are running away with afflicted damsels and returning to -fight their enemies, they cannot be expected to think of the incidental -expenses of the business, which are to be defrayed by their father, any -more than of the distraction which takes possession of their sisters. - -The two young gentlemen were missing, and had left for their sisters -no explanation of their absence--no hint as to the direction of their -flight. And there were other people in the house talking about the high -words that had been exchanged between the brothers at midnight. It is -not surprising that the poor girls should be distressed and distracted. - -Considering that Miss Linley was the first cause of the excitement in -the midst of which the family had been living for some weeks, it was -only natural that the elder of the girls should send for her with a view -to have some light thrown on this new development of the heroic incident -in which Miss Linley had assisted. But Miss Linley, on being applied -to, affirmed that she knew nothing of the disappearance of the brothers, -that she had heard of nothing that should cause them to leave Bath at a -moment's notice. She was, unfortunately, a young woman of imagination. -In a crisis such a one is either very helpful, or very helpless. Poor -Miss Linley was the latter. She had just come through a great crisis in -her own life, and she had not emerged from it without suffering. It was -too much to ask her to face another in the family of her friends. She -went off in a fainting fit on hearing the news of the disappearance of -the young men, and her father left her in the hands of a medical man, -and turned his attention to the condition of Miss Sheridan, who was -unable to walk back to her home, and had to be put into a chair, -Mr. Linley walking beside her with her young sister. It is more than -possible that Mr. Linley was beginning to feel that he had had quite -enough of the Sheridan family to last him for the remainder of his life. - -For two days nothing whatever was heard of the missing brothers. We have -no means of knowing if Miss Sheridan communicated to their father in -Dublin the mysterious story she had to tell; the chances are that she -was advised by Mr. Linley to refrain from doing so until she might have -something definite to tell him. Mr. Linley never had any particular -regard for the elder Sheridan, and he had no wish to have him summoned -from his theatre at Dublin to make his remarks about the dangerous -attractiveness of Elizabeth Linley, and the culpable carelessness of -her father in allowing her to be carried off to France by a young man -without a penny except what he got from his own father. - -At any rate, Tom Sheridan did not leave his theatre or his pupils -in elocution, and there was no need for him to do so, for on Tuesday -evening--they had been missing on the Sunday morning--Dick and his -brother returned. They were both greatly fatigued, and said that they -had not been in bed since they had left Bath. This meant that Dick had -actually not slept in Bath since he had originally left the city in the -company of Miss Linley. Between the Friday and the Tuesday he had posted -from London to Bath with the Linleys, and had forthwith returned to -London with his brother and then back once more to Bath without a pause. -He, at least, had very good reason for feeling fatigued. - -His first act was to hand his sister an apology which had been made to -him by Mathews. This document is worthy of being reprinted. It ran thus: - -“Being convinced that the expressions I made use of to Mr. Sheridan's -disadvantage, were the effects of passion and misrepresentation, -I intreat what I have said to that gentleman's disadvantage, and -particularly beg his pardon for my advertisement in the _Bath -Chronicle_. Th. Mathews.” - -He handed this document to his sister, and then it may be supposed that -he went to bed. He had certainly good need of a sleep. - -Such is the drift of the story up to this point, as told by Mrs. Lefanu -(Elizabeth Sheridan), and it differs in some particulars from that told -by her brother Charles in a letter to their uncle, and, in a lesser -degree, from the account given of the whole transaction by Richard -Sheridan himself, who was surely in the best position to know exactly -what happened upon the occasion of his first visit to Mathews in London, -as well as upon the occasion of his second, made so hurriedly in the -company of his brother. - -His second visit was, as might have been expected, the more exciting. -It included the fighting of a duel with Mathews. The humours of duelling -have been frequently dealt with in prose and comedy, and, assuredly the -most amusing of all is to be found in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's _The -Rivals_. One must confess, however, that the serious account given by -the same writer of his hostile meeting with Mathews, on his return from -Bath, suggests a much more ludicrous series of situations than are to be -found in his play. - -In Sheridan's account he mentions that while still in France he received -“several abusive threats” from Mathews, and these had such an effect -upon him that he wrote to Mathews, swearing that he would not close his -eyes in sleep in England till he had treated Mathews as he deserved. -In order to carry out this vow he had actually sat up all night at -Canterbury, where his party halted on their way from Dover to London. -He called upon Mathews on arriving in London, at the latter's lodging -in Crutched Friars; this was at midnight, and the key of the door being -mislaid, he had to wait two hours before he was admitted. He found -Mathews in bed, but he induced him to rise and dress, though, in spite -of his compliance as regards his raiment, he complained bitterly of the -cold. There does not seem to have been any great suffering on Sheridan's -part through a lack of heat. Then, as his sister's narrative put it, the -man declared that his visitor had been grossly misinformed in regard to -the libel in the Chronicle; and so he left for Bath, as has already been -stated. - -And now comes the account given by Sheridan of the return visit, and, -told in his own laconic style, it suggests such comic situations as -border on farce. - -“Mr. S.,” he wrote, “staid but three hours in Bath. He returned to -London. He sent to Mr. M. from Hyde Parck. He came with Captain Knight -his second. He objected frequently to the ground. They adjourned to the -Hercules Pillars. They returned to Hyde Parck. Mr. M. objected to the -observation of an officer. They returned to Hercules Pillars. They -adjourned to the Bedford Coffee house by agreement. Mr. M. was gone -to the Castel Tavern. Mr. S. followed with Mr. E. Mr. M. made many -declarations in favour of Mr. S. They engaged. Mr. M. was disarmed, -Captain Knight ran in. Mr. M. begged his life and afterwards denied the -advantage. Mr. S. was provoked by the (really well-meant) interposition -of Captain Knight and the illusion of Mr. M. He insisted since Mr. M. -denied the advantage, that he should give up his sword. Mr. M. denied, -but sooner than return to his ground he gave it up. It was broke, and -Mr. M. offered another. He was then called on to retract his abuse -and beg Mr. S.'s pardon. With much altercation and much ill grace he -complied.” - -The remainder of this remarkably succinct composition is devoted to the -subsequent misrepresentations of the transaction by Mathews, and by the -writer's appeal to the seconds to say if his version of the encounter -was not correct. - -But whatever Mathews' account may have been it could scarcely be more -ludicrous than Sheridan's. The marching and countermarching of the -four gentlemen--it appears that brother Charles, although accompanying -Richard to London, thought it more prudent to remain under cover during -the actual engagement; he waited at Brereton's lodgings--the excuses -made by Mathews in order to get away without fighting, and then at the -last moment, the carrying out (by agreement) of a manouvre which landed -Mathews in one tavern and the rest of the party in another--the set-to -of the principals immediately after the “declarations” of one of them in -favour of the other, and the final catastrophe could hardly be surpassed -by the actions of a pair of burlesque duellists in what is technically -known as a “knockabout” entertainment. - -And after all this scrupulousness of detail one is left in doubt as -to the exact _locale_ of the encounter. Did it take place in the -coffee-room of the Castell Inn, or did the eager combatants retrace -their steps to the “parck”? The document written by Sheridan, though -dealing very fully with the forced marches of the army in the field, -throws no light upon this question of the scene of the battle. In -respect of the signing of the treaty of peace, and the payment of the -indemnity, it is, however, moderately lucid. Sheridan must have told his -sister that Mathews signed the apology immediately after the encounter; -she states this in her narrative. But Mathews did not merely sign the -apology, he wrote every word of it, as one may see by referring to the -facsimile, thoughtfully given in Mr. Fraser Rae's _Life of Sheridan_, -and it would be impossible to say that the caligraphy of the apology -shows the least sign of that perturbation from which one must believe -the writer was suffering at the moment. Its characteristic is neatness. -It is in the fine old-fashioned Italian hand. Even an expert, who sees -possibilities--when paid for it--in handwriting which would never occur -to less imaginative observers, would scarcely venture to say that this -neat little document was written by a man with another's sword at his -throat. - -This is another element in the mystery of the duel, and it cannot be -said that when we read the letter which the elder of the brothers -wrote to his uncle, giving his account of the whole business, we feel -ourselves in a clearer atmosphere. It really seems a pity that Mr. -Browning did not make another _Ring and the Book_ series of studies out -of this amazing duel. Charles Sheridan told his uncle that an apology -was given to Richard by Mathews as a result of Richard's first visit to -him in London, but when Richard read the advertisement in the Chronicle, -which was the original casus belli, he considered this apology so -inadequate that he set off for London to demand another. Charles also -mentions, what neither his brother nor his sister had stated, that he -himself, on reaching London on the Sunday evening, went to Mathews to -endeavour to get a suitable apology--according to Richard's narrative -Charles had good grounds for sending a challenge to Mathews on his own -account--but “after two hours' altercation” he found that he had made no -impression upon the man, so that his brother had no alternative but to -call him out. - -But however the accounts of the lesser details of this affair of honour -may differ, there can be no question that public opinion in Bath was all -in favour of young Mr. Sheridan. It was acknowledged on every hand that -he had acted from the first--that is, from the moment he assumed the -duties of the protector of Miss Linley--with admirable courage, and with -a full sense of what honour demanded of him. In short he came back from -London, after so many sleepless nights, covered with glory. He was a -tall, handsome fellow of twenty, with brilliant eyes; he had run away -with the most beautiful girl in the world to save her from the clutches -of a scoundrel; he had had four nights without sleep, and then he had -fought a duel with the scoundrel and had obtained from him an apology -for insertion in the newspapers. Few young gentlemen starting life -wholly without means attain to so proud a position of achievement before -they reach their majority. - -But of course all these feats of errantry and arms run up a bill. -Young Mr. Sheridan's posting account must have been by itself pretty -formidable, and, knowing that his father had never looked on him with -the favour which he gave to his brother, Richard may now and again have -felt a trifle uneasy at the prospect of meeting Mr. Sheridan. If his -sister's memory is to be trusted, however, this meeting took place -within a week or two of his duel, and no bones were broken. Mr. Sheridan -had a few chiding words to say respecting the debts which his son had -incurred, but these he paid, after obtaining from the boy the usual -promise made under similar conditions before a like tribunal. The -prodigal invariably acts up to his character for prodigality in the -matter of promises of reform. - -Richard Sheridan, being something of a wit, though we do not get many -examples of his faculty in the accounts extant of his early life, and -assuredly not a single example in any of his letters that came into the -hands of his biographers, may have sworn to his father never to run away -with a girl who might be anxious to enter upon a conventual life. At -any rate, his father did not show any great displeasure when he was made -aware of the boy's conduct, though it is worth noting that Mr. Sheridan -took exception to the general conviction that his son's act had been -prompted by the most chivalrous aspirations. - -Mathews, however, had not yet been shaken off. He was back in Bath -almost as soon as the Sheridans, and “malevolent incendiarism” was -in the air. No slander was too base for him to use against Richard -Sheridan, no insinuation too vile. But the popularity of the object of -his calumny was now too firmly established in Bath to be shaken by the -vaporous malevolence of his enemy. Mathews, finding himself thoroughly -discredited in every quarter, did the only sensible thing recorded in -his squalid history--he ran away to his home in Wales. - -He was here unfortunate enough to meet with a man named Barnard, or -Barnett, who acted upon him pretty much as Sir Lucius O'Trigger did upon -Squire Acres, explaining to him that it was quite impossible that -the affair between him and Sheridan should remain as it was. It was -absolutely necessary, he said, that another duel should take place. All -the “incendiarism” in Mathews' nature was aroused by the fiery words of -this man, and the precious pair hurried to Bath, where a challenge was -sent to Sheridan through the hands of his eldest sister, under the guise -of an invitation to some festivity. - -Sheridan was foolish enough to accept the challenge apparently without -consulting with any one competent to advise him. According to his -father the challenge had been preceded by several letters of the -most scurrilous abuse. His wiser brother, who had just received an -appointment as Secretary to the British Legation in Sweden, had gone -to London with their father to make preparations for his departure for -Stockholm, and immediately on hearing of the duel he wrote to Richard a -typical elder brother's letter. It is dated July 3rd, 1772, so that, as -the duel had only taken place the previous day, it cannot be said -that he lost much time in expressing his deep sense of his brother's -foolishness in meeting so great a scoundrel for the second time. “All -your friends have condemned you,” he wrote. “You risked everything, -where you had nothing to gain, to give your antagonist the thing he -wished, a chance for recovering his reputation; he wanted to get rid -of the contemptible opinion he was held in, and you were good-natured -enough to let him do it at your expense. It is not a time to scold, but -all your friends were of opinion you could, with the greatest propriety, -have refused to meet him.” - -Without going into the question as to whether this sort of letter was -the ideal one for one brother to write to another who was lying on his -bed with several wounds in his throat, it is impossible to question the -soundness of the opinion expressed by Charles Sheridan in respect of -Richard's acceptance of Mathews' challenge. The challenge was, however, -accepted, and the duel took place on King's Down, at three o'clock -in the morning. Mathews' friend was Barnett, and Sheridan's a young -gentleman named Paumier, who, it was said, was quite unacquainted with -the rules of the game, and had never even seen a duel being fought. The -accounts which survive of this second meeting of Sheridan and Mathews -make it apparent that, if the first was a scene of comedy, this one was -a tragic burlesque. It is said that Sheridan, on the signal being given, -at once rushed in on his antagonist, endeavouring to disarm him as he -had done upon the former occasion of their meeting, but, tripping over -something, he literally, and not figuratively, fell upon the other, -knocking him down with such violence that he was not only disarmed, but -his sword was broken as well. Sheridan's own sword was also broken, so -that one might fancy that the meeting would have terminated here. It did -nothing of the sort. The encounter was only beginning, and anything more -savagely burlesque than the sequel could not be imagined. - -The combatants must have rolled over, after the manner of the negro -duellists on the variety stage, and when they had settled themselves -each made a grab for the most serviceable fragment of his sword. Mathews -being the heavier man contrived to keep uppermost in the scuffle, and, -what gave him a decided advantage over his opponent, he managed to get -his fingers on the hilt of his broken weapon. An appeal at this stage -was made by the lad who was acting as Sheridan's second to put a stop -to the fight; but the second ruffian, or the ruffian's second--either -description applies to Barnett--declared that as both the antagonists -were on the ground one could not be said to have any advantage over the -other. This delicate question being settled, Mathews held the jagged, -saw-like end--point it had none--of the broken sword at the other's -throat and told him to beg for his life. Sheridan replied that he -should refuse to beg his life from such a scoundrel, and forthwith the -scoundrel began jabbing at his throat and face with the fragment of his -weapon, a method of attack which was not robbed of its butchery by the -appeal that it makes to a reader's sense of its comical aspect. - -It is doubtful, however, if the comic side of the transaction appealed -very forcibly to the unfortunate boy who was being lacerated to death. -He just managed to put aside a thrust or two before the end of the blade -penetrated the flesh of his throat and pinned him to the ground. With a -chuckle and, according to Tom Sheridan's account, an oath, Mathews got -upon his feet, and, entering the coach which was waiting for him, drove -away from the scene of his butchery. Sheridan was thereupon raised from -the ground, and driven in his chaise with his second to the White Hart -Inn. Two surgeons were immediately in attendance, and it was found -that his wounds, though numerous, were not such as placed his life -in jeopardy. They were, however, sufficiently serious to prevent his -removal to his home that day. - -It does not appear that young Paumier told the sisters of the -occurrence; but an account of the duel having appeared in the _Bath -Chronicle_ the same afternoon, every one in the town must have been -talking of it, though Mrs. Lefanu says neither she nor her sister heard -a word of the matter until the next day. Then they hastened to the -White Hart, and prevailed upon the surgeons to allow them to take their -brother home. In a surprisingly short time he had quite recovered. -Indeed, although there was a report that Sheridan's life was despaired -of, there was no excuse for any one taking so gloomy a view of his -hurts, for the exact truth was known to Charles Sheridan and his father -in London early on the day following that of the fight. - -The pathetic part of the story of this ludicrous encounter is to be -found in the story of the reception of the news by Elizabeth Linley. Her -father had read in some of the papers that Sheridan was at the point of -death, but, like the worldly-wise man that Mr. Linley was, he kept -the news from his daughter. They were at Oxford together, and she was -announced to sing at a concert, and he knew that had she learned all -that the newspapers published, she might possibly not be able to do -herself--and her father--justice. But, as one of the audience told his -sister afterwards, the fact that every one who had come to hear Miss -Linley sing was aware of the serious condition (as the papers alleged) -of young Sheridan, and of her attachment to him, a feeling of sympathy -for the lovely young creature added immeasurably to the interest of her -performance. - -At the conclusion of the concert her father set out with her for Bath; -and it was not until they had almost reached their home that their -chaise was met by a clergyman named Pauton, and he summoned all his -tact to enable him to prepare Elizabeth Linley for the news which he was -entrusted to communicate to her. It is said that under the stress of -her emotion the girl declared that Richard Sheridan was her husband, and -that her place was by his side. - -Whatever truth there may be in this story it is certain that if she -believed at that moment that Sheridan was her husband, she gave no sign -of continuing in that belief, for though her numerous letters to him -show that she was devoted to him, there is no suggestion in any of them -that she believed herself to be his wife. On the contrary, there are -many passages which prove that no idea of the sort was entertained by -her. - -The exertions of the heads of the two families were for long directed -against the union of the lovers. Mr. Linley felt more forcibly than -ever that he had had quite enough of the Sheridans, and Tom Sheridan -doubtless wished never to hear again the name of Linley. The one made -his daughter promise on her knees to give up Richard Sheridan, and Mr. -Sheridan compelled his son to forswear any association with Elizabeth -Linley. Jove must have been convulsed with laughter. Richard Brinsley -Sheridan and Elizabeth Ann Linley were married on the 13th of April, -1773. - - - - -A MELODRAMA AT COVENT GARDEN - -ON an evening in April, 1779, the play, “_Love in a Village_” was being -performed at Covent Garden Theatre before a large audience. In the front -row of the boxes sat two ladies, one of them young and handsome, the -other not so young and not so beautiful--a dark-faced, dark-eyed woman -whom no one could mistake for any nationality except Italian. Three -gentlemen who sat behind them were plainly of their party--elegant -gentlemen of fashion, one of them an Irish peer. Every person of -quality in the theatre and a good many others without such a claim to -distinction, were aware of the fact that the most attractive member of -the group was Miss Reay, a lady whose name had been for several years -closely associated--very closely indeed--with that of Lord Sandwich, -the First Lord of the Admiralty, and one of the most unpopular men in -England. She had driven to the theatre in his lordship's carriage, and -two of the gentlemen with whom she conversed freely in the box were high -officials of the department over which his lordship presided. - -Almost from the moment of her arrival, Miss Reay and her friends were -watched eagerly by a hollow-eyed, morose gentleman in black. He looked as -if he had not slept for many nights; and no one observing him could have -failed to perceive that he had come to the theatre not for the sake of -the play which was being performed, but to watch the lady. He kept his -fierce eyes fixed upon her, and he frowned every time that she turned to -make a remark to one of her friends; his eyes blazed every time that one -of her friends smiled over her shoulder, and his hands clenched if she -smiled in return. Several times it seemed as if he found it impossible -to remain in his place in the upper side box, where his seat was, for -he started up and hurried out to the great lobby, walking to and fro in -great agitation. More than once he strode away from the lobby into the -Bedford Coffee House just outside the theatre, and there partook of -brandy and water, returning after brief intervals to stare at Miss Reay -and her companions in the front row of the boxes. - -[Illustration: 0327] - -At the conclusion of the play, he went hastily into the vestibule, -standing to one side, not far from the exit from the boxes; but if he -intended to be close to Miss Reay while she walked to the main exit, his -object was defeated by reason of the crush of people congregating in -the vestibule, the people of quality waiting for their carriages to -be announced, the others waiting for the satisfaction of being in such -close proximity to people of quality. - -Among the crowd there was a lady who had recently become the wife of a -curious gentleman named Lewis, who some years later wrote a grisly -book entitled _The Monk_, bringing him such great fame as cancelled for -posterity the names of Matthew Gregory, given to him by his parents, and -caused him to be identified by the name of his book only. This lady made -a remark to her neighbour in respect of a lovely rose which Miss Reay -was wearing when she left the box exit and stood in the vestibule--a -beautiful rose early in the month of April might have excited remark in -those days; at any rate, Mrs. Lewis has left the record that at the -very moment of her speaking, the rose fell to the floor, and Miss Reay -appeared to be profoundly affected by this trifling incident, and said -in a faltering voice, “I trust that I am not to consider this as an evil -omen!” So Mrs. Lewis stated. - -A few moments later Lord Sandwich's carriage was announced, and Miss -Reay and her companion made a move in the direction of the door. The -gentlemen of the party seem to have left earlier, for on the ladies -being impeded by the crush in the vestibule, a stranger, named Mr. -Macnamara, of Lincoln's Inn, proffered his services to help them to -get to the carriage. Miss Reay thanked him, took his arm, and the crowd -opened for them in some measure. It quickly opened wider under a more -acute persuasion a few seconds later, when the morose gentleman in black -pushed his way among the people until he was within a few feet of the -lady and her escort. Only for a second did he pause--certainly he spoke -no word to Miss Reay or any one else--before he pulled a pistol from his -pocket and fired almost point-blank at her before any one could knock up -his hand. Immediately afterwards he turned a second pistol against his -own forehead and pulled the trigger, and fell to the ground. - -The scene that followed can easily be imagined. Every woman present -shrieked, except Miss Reay, who was supported by Mr. Macnamara. The -ghastly effects of the bullet were apparent not only upon the forehead -of the lady where it lodged, but upon the bespattered garments of every -one about the door, and upon the columns of the hall. Above the shrieks -of the terror-stricken people were heard the yells of the murderer, -who lay on the ground, hammering at his head with the butt end of his -weapon, and crying, “Kill me! Kill me!” - -A Mr. Mahon, of Russell Street, who was said to be an apothecary, was -the first to lay a hand upon the wretched man. He wrested the pistol -from his grasp and prevented him from doing further mischief to himself. -He was quickly handed over to the police, and, with his unfortunate -victim, was removed to the Shakespeare Tavern, a surgeon named Bond -being in prompt attendance. It did not take long to find that Miss Reay -had never breathed after the shot had been fired at her; the bullet had -smashed the skull and passed through the brain. The man remained for -some time unconscious, but even before he recovered he was identified as -James Hackman, a gentleman who had been an officer in the army, and -on retiring had taken Orders, being admitted a priest of the Church of -England scarcely a month before his crime. There were rumours respecting -his infatuation for Miss Reay, and in a surprisingly short space of -time, owing most likely to the exertions of Signora Galli, the Italian -whom Lord Sandwich had hired to be her companion, the greater part of -the romantic story of the wretched man's life, as far as it related to -Miss Reay, was revealed. - -It formed a nine days' wonder during the spring of the same year (1779). -The grief displayed by Lord Sandwich on being made acquainted with the -circumstances of the murder was freely commented on, and the sympathy -which was felt for him may have diminished in some measure from his -unpopularity. The story told by Croker of the reception of the news by -Lord Sandwich is certainly not deficient in detail. “He stood as it -were petrified,” we are told, “till suddenly, seizing a candle, he ran -upstairs and threw himself on the bed, and in agony exclaimed, 'Leave -me for a while to myself, I could have borne anything but this!' The -attendants remained for a considerable time at the top of the staircase, -till his lordship rang the bell and ordered that they should all go to -bed.” - -Before his lordship left the scene of his grief in the morning Sir John -Fielding, the Bow Street magistrate, had arrived at the Shakespeare -Tavern from his house at Brompton, and, after a brief inquiry, ordered -Hackman to be taken to Tothill Fields Prison. In due course he was -committed to Newgate, and on April 16th his trial took place before -Blackstone, the Recorder. The facts of the tragedy were deposed to by -several witnesses, and the cause of the lady's death was certified by -Mr. Bond, the surgeon. The prisoner was then called on for his defence. -He made a brief speech, explaining that he would have pleaded guilty -at once had he not felt that doing so “would give an indication of -contemning death, not suitable to my present condition, and would in -some measure make me accessory to a second peril of my life. And I -likewise thought,” he added, “that the justice of my country ought to -be satisfied by suffering my offence to be proved, and the fact to be -established by evidence.” - -This curious affectation of a finer perception of the balance of justice -than is possessed by most men was quite characteristic of this man, as -was also his subsequent expression of his willingness to submit to the -sentence of the court. His counsel endeavoured to show that he had -been insane from the moment of his purchasing his pistols until he had -committed the deed for which he was being tried--he did not say anything -about “a wave of insanity,” however, though that picturesque phrase -would have aptly described the nature of his plea. He argued that a -letter which was found in the prisoner's pocket, and in which suicide -only was threatened, should be accepted as proof that he had no -intention of killing Miss Reay when he went to the theatre. - -The Recorder, of course, made short work of such a plea. He explained to -the jury that “for a plea of insanity to be successful it must be shown -not merely that it was a matter of fits and starts, but that it was -a definite thing--a total loss of reason and incapability of reason.” - Referring to the letter, he said that it seemed to him to argue a -coolness and premeditation incompatible with such insanity as he -described. - -The result was, as might have been anticipated, the jury, without -leaving the box, found Hackman guilty, and he was sentenced to be -hanged. - -Mr. Boswell, who was nearly as fond of hearing death-sentences -pronounced as he was of seeing them carried out, was present in the -court during the trial, and to him Mr. Booth, the brother-in-law of the -prisoner, applied--he himself had been too greatly agitated to be able -to remain in the court--for information as to how Hackman had deported -himself, and Boswell was able to assure him that he had behaved “as -well, sir, as you or any of his friends could wish; with decency, -propriety, and in such a manner as to interest every one present. He -might have pleaded that he shot Miss Reay by accident, but he fairly -told the truth that in a moment of frenzy he did intend it.” - -While he was in the condemned cell at Newgate he received a message from -Lord Sandwich to the effect that if he wished for his life, he (Lord -Sandwich) had influence with the King, and might succeed in obtaining -a commutation of his sentence. Hackman replied that he had no wish to -live, but he implored his lordship to give him such assurance that those -whom Miss Reay had left behind her would be carefully looked after, as -would, on meeting her in another world, enable him to make this pleasing -communication to her. - -He spent the few days that remained to him in writing fervid letters to -his friends and in penning moralisings, in a style which was just the -smallest degree more pronounced than that which was fashionable at his -period--the style of the sentimental hero of Richardson and his inferior -followers. - -His execution at Tyburn attracted the most enormous crowds ever seen -upon such an occasion. The carriage in which the wretched man was -conveyed to the gibbet could only proceed at a walking pace; but still, -the vehicle which followed it, containing the Earl of Carlisle and -James Boswell, arrived in good time for the final scene of this singular -tragedy, which for weeks, as the Countess of Ossory wrote to George -Selwyn, was the sole topic of conversation. - -And, as a matter of course, Horace Walpole had something to communicate -to one of his carefully-selected correspondents. Oddly enough it was -to a parson he wrote to express the opinion that he was still uncertain -“whether our clergy are growing Mahometans or not”; adding sagely, “they -certainly are not what they profess themselves; but as you and I should -not agree, perhaps, in assigning the same defects to them, I will not -enter on a subject which I have promised you to drop, all I allude to -now is the shocking murder of Miss Reay by a divine. In my own opinion -we are growing more fit for Bedlam than for Mahomet's paradise. The poor -criminal, I am persuaded, is mad, and the misfortune is the law does -not know how to define the shades of madness; and thus there are twenty -out-pensioners of Bedlam for one that is confined.” - -Most persons will come to the conclusion that the judge who tried -Hackman made a most successful attempt to expound to the jury exactly -where the law drew a line in differentiating between the man who should -be sent to Bedlam and the man who should be sent to Tyburn, and will -agree with the justice of the law that condemned to the gallows this -divine of three weeks' standing for committing an atrocious crime, even -though the chances are that Hackman spoke the truth when he affirmed -that he had brought his pistols down to the theatre with no more -felonious intent than to blow out his own brains in the presence of the -lady and to fall dead at her feet. At the same time one is not precluded -from agreeing with Walpole's opinion that the people of his period were -growing more fit for Bedlam than for Eblis. - -The truth is that an extraordinary wave of what was called -“sensibility” was passing over England at that time. It was a wave of -sentimentality--that maudlin sentimentality which was the exquisite -characteristic of the hero and heroine of almost every novel that -attained to any degree of success. To people who have formed their ideas -of the latter half of the eighteenth century from studying Boswell's -_Life of Johnson_, every page of which shows a healthy common sense; -or from the plates of Hogarth--robust even to a point of vulgarity--it -would seem incredible that there should exist in England at practically -the same time a cult of the maudlin and the lachrymose. Such a cult had, -however, obtained so great a hold on a large section of society that all -the satire of Smollett, Sterne, and Goldsmith, was unable to ridicule it -out of existence. - -And the worst of the matter was that the types of these weeping -sentimentalists were not unreal. They began by being unreal, but in the -course of a short time they became real, the fact being that people in -all directions began to frame their conduct and their conversation upon -these flaccid creatures of the unhealthy fancy of third-rate novelists -and fourth-rate poetasters. More than once, it may be remarked, even -in our own time “movements” have had their origin in the fancy of a -painter--in one case of a subtle caricaturist. An artist possessed of -a distorted sense of what is beautiful in woman has been able to set -a certain fashion in the unreal, until people were well-nigh persuaded -that it was the painter who had taken the figures in his pictures from -the persons who had simply sought a cheap notoriety by adopting the -pose and the dress of the scraggy posturantes for whose anatomy he was -responsible. - -So it was that, when certain novel-writers in the eighteenth century, -having no experience of the life which they attempted to depict, brought -forth creatures out of their own unhealthy imaginations, and placed them -before their readers as types of heroes and heroines, the public never -failed to include quite a number of readers who were ready to live up to -all those essentials that constituted the personages of the fiction. - -And not alone over England had the sighs of a perpetually sighing hero -and heroine sent a lachrymose flood; France and Germany, if not actually -inundated, were at least rendered humid by its influence. _The Sorrows -of Werther_ was only one of the many books which helped on the cult of -the sentimental, and it was as widely read in England as in Germany. -Gessner's _Death of Abel_ had an enormous vogue in its English -translation. The boarding-school version of the tale of Abelard and -Heloise was also much wept over both in France and Germany; and the -true story of James Hackman and Martha Reay, as recorded by the -correspondence of the pair, published shortly after the last scene in -the tragedy had been enacted, and reissued with connecting notes some -twelve years ago, might pass only as a somewhat crude attempt to surpass -these masterpieces of fancy-woven woes. James and Martha might have been -as happy as thousands of other Jameses and Marthas have been, but they -chose to believe that the Fates were bothering themselves with this -particular case of James and Martha--they chose to feel that they were -doomed to a life of sorrowful love--at any rate, this was Martha's -notion--and they kept on exchanging emotional sentiments until James's -poor head gave way, and he sought to end up their romance in accordance -with the mode of the best models, stretching himself a pallid corpse at -the feet of his Martha; but then it was that Fate put out a meddlesome -finger, and so caused the scene of the last chapter to take place at -Tyburn. - -The romance of Mr. Hackman and Miss Reay would never have taken place, -if Lord Sandwich had been as exemplary a husband as George III or Dr. -Johnson or Edmund Burke--the only exemplary husbands of the eighteenth -century that one can recall at a moment's notice. Unhappily his lordship -was one of the many examples of the unexemplary husband of that period. -If the Earl of Chesterfield advanced the ill-treatment of a wife to one -of the fine arts, it may be said that the Earl of Sandwich made it one -of the coarse. He was brutal in his treatment of the Countess, and never -more so than when he purchased the pretty child that Miss Reay must have -been at the age of thirteen, and had her educated to suit his tastes. -He went about the transaction with the same deliberation as a gourmand -might display in ordering his dinner. He was extremely fond of music, -so he had the child's education in this direction carefully attended -to. His place at Hinchinbrook had been the scene of the performance of -several oratorios, his lordship taking his place in the orchestra at the -kettledrums; and he hoped that by the time he should have his purchase -sent home, her voice would be equal to the demands put upon it by the -most exacting of the sacred soprano music of Handel or Gluck. - -As it turned out he was not disappointed. Martha Reay, when she went to -live at Hinchinbrook at the age of eighteen, showed herself to be a most -accomplished young lady, as she certainly was a very charming one. She -was found to possess a lovely voice, and was quite fitted to take -her place, not merely in his lordship's music-room, but also in his -drawing-room to which he advanced her. To say that she was treated as -one of his lordship's family would be to convey a wrong impression, -considering how he treated the principal member of his family, but -certainly he introduced her to his guests, and she took her place at his -table at dinner parties. He even put her next to the wife of a bishop -upon one occasion, feeling sure that she would captivate that lady, -and as it turned out, his anticipations were fully realised; only the -bishop's lady, on making inquiries later on, protested that she was -scandalised by being placed in such a position as permitted of her -yielding to the fascinations of a young person occupying a somewhat -equivocal position in the household. - -It was when she was at Hinchinbrook, in October, 1775, that Miss Reay -met the man who was to play so important a part in her life--and death. -Cradock, the “country gentleman,” tells in his _Memoirs_ the story of -the first meeting of the two. Lord Sandwich was anxious that a friend of -his own should be elected to a professorship at Cambridge, and Cradock, -having a vote, was invited to use it on behalf of his lordship's -candidate, and to stay for a night at Hinchinbrook on his way back to -London. He travelled in Lord Sandwich's coach, and when in the act of -driving through the gateway at Hinchinbrook, it overtook a certain Major -Reynolds and another officer who was stationed on recruiting duty in the -neighbourhood. Lord Sandwich, being acquainted with Reynolds, dismounted -and invited him and his friend to a family dinner at his lordship's -place that evening. Major Reynolds expressed his appreciation of this -act of courtesy, and introduced his friend as Captain Hackman. The party -was a simple affair. - -It consisted of Lord Sandwich, Miss Reay, another lady, the two -officers, and Mr. Cradock. After coffee had been served two rubbers of -whist were played, and the party broke up. - -This was the first meeting of Hackman and Miss Reay. They seem to have -fallen in love immediately, each with the other, for the first letter in -the correspondence, written in December, 1775, contains a good deal that -suggests the adolescence of a passion. Hackman was a man of education and -some culture, and he showed few signs of developing into that maudlin -sentimentalist who corresponded with the lady a year or two later. He -was but twenty-three years of age, the son of a retired officer in the -navy, who had sent him to St. John's College, Cambridge, and afterwards -bought him a commission in the 68th Foot. He was probably only an -ensign when he was stationed at Huntingdon, but being in charge of the -recruiting party, enjoyed the temporary rank of captain. - -He must have had a pretty fair conceit of his own ability as a -correspondent, for he kept a copy of his love letters. Of course, there -is no means of ascertaining if he kept copies of all that he ever wrote; -he may have sent off some in the hot passion of the moment, but those -which passed into the hands of his brother-in-law and were afterwards -published, were copies which he had retained. Miss Reay was doubtless -discreet enough to destroy the originals before they had a chance of -falling into the hands of Lord Sandwich. It is difficult for us who -live in this age of scrawls and “correspondence cards” to imagine the -existence of that enormous army of letter-writers who flourished -their quills in the eighteenth century, for the entertainment of their -descendants in the nineteenth and twentieth; but still more difficult -is it to understand how, before the invention of any mechanical means -of reproducing manuscript, these voluminous correspondents first made -a rough draft of every letter, then corrected and afterwards copied -it, before sending it--securing a frank from a friendly Member of -Parliament--to its destination. - -Superlatively difficult is it to imagine an ardent lover sitting down to -transcribe into the pages of a notebook the outpourings of his passion. -But this is what Ensign Hackman did, although so far as the consequences -of his love-making were concerned, he is deserving of a far higher place -among great lovers than Charlotte's Werther, or Mr. Swinburne's Dolores. -Charlotte we know “went on cutting bread and butter” after the death of -her honourable lover; but poor little Miss Reay was the victim of the -passion which she undoubtedly fanned into a flame of madness. Ensign -Hackman made copies of his love-letters, and we are grateful to him, for -by their aid we can perceive the progress of his disease. They are -like the successive pictures in a biograph series lately exhibited at a -conversazione of the Royal Society, showing the development of a blossom -into a perfect flower. We see by the aid of these letters how he gave -way under the attack of what we should now call the bacillus of that -maudlin sentimentality which was in the air in his day. - -He began his love-letters like a gallant officer, but ended them in the -strain of the distracted curate who had been jilted just when he has -laid down the cork lino in the new study and got rid of the plumbers. He -wrote merrily of his “Corporal Trim,” who was the bearer of a “billet” - from her. “He will be as good a soldier to Cupid as to Mars, I dare say. -And Mars and Cupid are not now to begin their acquaintance, you know.” - Then he goes on to talk in a fine soldierly strain of the drum “beating -for volunteers to Bacchus. In plain English, the drum tells me dinner is -ready, for a drum gives us bloody-minded heroes an appetite for eating -as well as for fighting.... Adieu--whatever hard service I may have -after dinner, no quantity of wine shall make me let drop or forget my -appointment with you tomorrow. We certainly were not seen yesterday, for -reasons I will give you.” - -This letter was written on December 7th, and it was followed by another -the next day, and a still longer one the day following. In fact, -Corporal Trim must have been kept as busy as his original in the service -of Uncle Toby, during the month of December, his duty being to receive -the lady's letters, as well as to deliver the gentleman's, and he seems -to have been equally a pattern of fidelity. - -Hackman's letters at this time were models of good taste, with only -the smallest amount of swagger in them. His intentions were strictly -honourable, and they were not concealed within any cocoon of sentimental -phraseology. One gathers from his first letters that he was a simple and -straightforward gentleman, who, having fallen pretty deeply in love -with a young woman, seeks to make her his wife at the earliest possible -moment. Unfortunately however, the lady had fallen under the influence -of the prevailing affectation, and her scheme of life did not include a -commonplace marriage with a subaltern in a marching regiment. One might -be disposed to say that she knew when she was well off. The aspiration -to be made “a respectable woman” by marriage in a church was not -sufficiently strong in her to compel her to sacrifice the many good -things with which she was surrounded, in order to realise it. But, of -course, she was ready to pose as a miserable woman, linked to a man -whom she did not love, but too honourable to leave him, and far too -thoughtful for the career of the man whom she did love with all her soul -ever to become a burden to him. She had read the ballad of “Auld Robin -Gray”--she quoted it in full in one of her letters--and she was greatly -interested to find how closely her case resembled that of the wife in -the poem. She had brought herself to think of the man who had bought her -just as he would buy a peach tree, or a new tulip, as her “benefactor.” - Did she not owe to him the blessing of a good education, and the culture -of her voice, her knowledge of painting--nay, her “keep” for several -years, and her introduction to the people of quality who visited at -Hinchinbrook and at the Admiralty? She seemed to think it impossible -for any one to doubt that Lord Sandwich had acted toward her with -extraordinary generosity, and that she would be showing the most -contemptible ingratitude were she to forsake so noble a benefactor. But -all the same she found Hinchinbrook intolerably dull at times, and she -was so pleased at the prospect of having a lover, that she came to fancy -that she loved the first one who turned up. - -She was undoubtedly greatly impressed by the ballad of “Auld Robin -Gray,” and she at once accepted the rôle of the unhappy wife, only she -found it convenient to modify one rather important line-- - -“I fain would think o' Jamie, but that would be a sin.” - -She was fain to think on her Jamie whether it was a sin or not, but she -did so without having the smallest intention of leaving her Auld Robin -Gray. So whimsical an interpretation of the poem could scarcely occur -to any one not under the influence of the sentimental malady of the day; -but it served both for Miss Reay and her Jamie. They accepted it, and -became deeply sensible of its pathos as applied to themselves. Ensign -Hackman assured her that he was too high-minded to dream of making love -to her under the roof of Lord Sandwich, her “benefactor.” - -“Our love, the inexorable tyrant of our hearts,” he wrote, “claims his -sacrifices, but does not bid us insult his lordship's walls with it. -How civilly did he invite me to Hinchinbrook in October last, though an -unknown recruiting officer. How politely himself first introduced me to -himself! Often has the recollection made me struggle with my passion. -Still it shall restrain it on this side honour.” - -This was in reply to her remonstrance, and probably she regretted that -she had been so strenuous in pointing out to him how dreadful it would -be were she to show herself wanting in gratitude to Lord Sandwich. She -wanted to play the part of Jenny, the lawful wife of Robin Gray, with -as few sacrifices as possible, and she had no idea of sacrificing -young Jamie, the lover, any more than she had of relinquishing the many -privileges she enjoyed at Hinchinbrook by making Jamie the lover into -Jamie the husband. - -It is very curious to find Hackman protesting to her all this time that -his passions are “wild as the torrent's roar,” apologising for making -his simile water when the element most congenial to his nature was fire. -“Swift had water in his brain. I have a burning coal of fire; your hand -can light it up to rapture, rage, or madness. Men, real men, have never -been wild enough for my admiration, it has wandered into the ideal world -of fancy. Othello (but he should have put himself to death in his wife's -sight, not his wife), Zanga are my heroes. Milk-and-water passions are -like sentimental comedy.” - -Read in the light of future events this letter has a peculiar -significance. Although he became more sentimental than the hero of any -of the comedies at which he was sneering, he was still able to make an -honest attempt to act up to his ideal of Othello. “_He should have put -himself to death in his wife's sight_.” It will be remembered that he -pleaded at his trial that he had no design upon the life of Miss Reay, -but only aimed at throwing himself dead at her feet. - -Equally significant are some of the passages in the next letters which -he wrote to her. They show that even within the first month of his -acquaintance with his Martha his mind had a peculiar bent. He was giving -his attention to Hervey's _Meditations_, and takes pains to point out to -her two passages which he affirms to be as fine as they are natural. Did -ever love-letter contain anything so grisly? “A beam or two finds its -way through the grates (of the vault), and reflects a feeble glimness -from the nails of the coffins.” This is one passage--ghastly enough -in all conscience. But it is surpassed by the others which he quotes: -“Should the haggard skeleton lift a clattering hand.” Respecting the -latter he remarks, “I know not whether the epithet 'haggard' might -not be spared.” It is possible that the lady on receiving this curious -love-letter was under the impression that the whole passage might have -been spared her. - -But he seems to have been supping off horrors at this time, for he goes -on to tell a revolting story about the black hole of Calcutta; and then -he returns with zest to his former theme of murder and suicide. He had -been reading the poem of “Faldoni and Teresa,” by Jerningham, and he -criticises it quite admirably. “The melancholy tale will not take up -three words, though Mr. J. has bestowed upon it 335 melancholy lines,” - he tells the young lady. “Two lovers, meeting with an invincible -object to their union, determined to put an end to their existence -with pistols. The place they chose for the execution of their terrible -project was a chapel that stood at a little distance from the house. -They even decorated the altar for the occasion, they paid a particular -attention to their own dress. Teresa was dressed in white with -rose-coloured ribbands. The same coloured ribbands were tied to the -pistols. Each held the ribband that was fastened to the other's trigger, -which they drew at a certain signal.” His criticism of the poem includes -the remark that Faldoni and Teresa might be prevented from making -proselytes by working up their affecting story so as to take off the -edge of the dangerous example they offer. This, he says, the author has -failed to do, and he certainly proves his point later by affirming that -“while I talk of taking off the dangerous edge of their example, they -have almost listed me under their bloody banners.” - -This shows the morbid tendency of the man's mind, though it must be -confessed that nearly all the remarks which he makes on ordinary topics -are eminently sane and well considered. - -A few days later we find him entering with enthusiasm into a scheme, -suggested by her, of meeting while she was on her way to London, and it -is plain from the rapturous letter which he wrote to her that their plot -was successful; but when she reached town she had a great deal to occupy -her, so that it is not strange she should neglect him for a time. The -fact was, as Cradock states in his _Memoirs_, that the unpopularity of -Lord Sandwich and Miss Reay had increased during the winter to such a -point that it became dangerous for them to show themselves together in -public. Ribald ballads were sung under the windows of the Admiralty, and -Cradock more than once heard some strange insults shouted out by -people in the park. It was at this time that she spoke to Cradock about -appearing in opera, and he states that it reached his ears that she had -been offered three thousand pounds and a free benefit (a possible extra -five hundred) for one season's performances. - -Now if she had really been in love with Hackman this was surely the -moment when she should have gone to him, suffered him to marry her, and -thus made up by a few years on the lyric stage for any deficiency in his -fortune or for the forfeiture of any settlement her “benefactor” might -have been disposed to make in her favour. But she seems to have shown a -remarkable amount of prudence throughout the whole of her intrigue, and -she certainly had a premonition of the danger to which she was exposed -by her connection with him. “Fate stands between us,” she wrote in -reply to one of his impetuous upbraiding letters. “We are doomed to be -wretched. And I, every now and then, think some terrible catastrophe -will be the result of our connection. 'Some dire event,' as Storge -prophetically says in _Jephtha_, 'hangs over our heads.' Oh, that it -were no crime to quit this world like Faldoni and Teresa... by your hand -I could even die with pleasure. I know I could.” - -An extraordinary premonition, beyond doubt, to write thus, and one is -tempted to believe that she had ceased for a moment merely to play the -part of the afflicted heroine. But her allusion to Jephtha and, later in -the same letter, to a vow which she said she had made never to marry -him so long as she was encumbered with debts, alleging that this was -the “insuperable reason” at which she had hinted on a previous occasion, -makes one suspicious. One feels that if she had not been practising the -music of _Jephtha_ she would not have thought about her vow not to marry -him until she could go to him free from debt. Why, she had only to sing -three times to release herself from that burden. - -Some time afterwards she seems to have suggested such a way of getting -over her difficulties, but it is pretty certain she knew that he would -never listen to her. Her position at this time was undoubtedly one -of great difficulty. Hackman was writing to her almost every day, and -becoming more high-minded and imperious in every communication, and she -was in terror lest some of his letters should fall into the hands of -Lord Sandwich. She was ready to testify to his lordship's generosity in -educating her to suit his own tastes, but she suspected its strength to -withstand such a strain as would be put on it if he came upon one of Mr. -Hackman's impetuous letters. - -She thought that when she had induced her lover to join his regiment -in Ireland she had extricated herself from one of the difficulties that -surrounded her; and had she been strong enough to refrain from -writing to the man, she might have been saved from the result of her -indiscretion. Unhappily for herself, however, she felt it incumbent on -her to resume her correspondence with him. Upon one occasion she sent -him a bank-note for fifty pounds, but this he promptly returned with -a very proper letter. Indeed, all his letters from Ireland are -interesting, being far less impassioned than those which she wrote to -him. Again she mentioned having read _Werther_, and he promptly begged -of her to send the book to him. “If you do not,” he adds, “I positively -never will forgive you. Nonsense, to say it will make me unhappy, or -that I shall not be able to read it! Must I pistol myself because a -thick-blooded German has been fool enough to set the example, or because -a German novelist has feigned such a story?” - -But it would appear that she knew the man's nature better than he -himself did, for she quickly replied: “The book you mention is just the -only book you should never read. On my knees I beg that you will never, -never read it!” But if he never read _Werther_ he was never without some -story of the same type to console him for its absence, and he seems to -have gloated over the telling of all to her. One day he is giving her -the particulars of a woman who committed suicide in Enniskillen because -she married one man while she was in love with another. His comment is, -“She, too, was _Jenny_ and had her _Robin Gray_.” His last letter from -Ireland was equally morbid. In it he avowed his intention, if he were -not granted leave of absence for the purpose of visiting her, of selling -out of his regiment. He kept his promise but too faithfully. He sold out -and crossed to England without delay, arriving in London only to find -Miss Reay extremely ill. - -His attempts to cheer her convalescence cannot possibly be thought very -happy. He describes his attendance upon the occasion of the hanging of -Dr. Dodd, the clergyman who had committed forgery; and this reminds -him that he was unfortunately out of England when one Peter Tolosa was -hanged for killing his sweetheart, so that he had no chance of taking -part in this ceremony as well, although, he says, unlike George -S.--meaning Selwyn--he does not make a profession of attending -executions; adding that “the friend and historian of Paoli hired a -window by the year, looking out on the Grass Market in Edinburgh, -where malefactors were hanged.” This reference to Boswell is somewhat -sinister. All this letter is devoted to a minute account of the -execution of Dodd, and another deals with the revolting story of the -butchery of Monmouth, which he suggests to her as an appropriate subject -for a picture. - -At this time he was preparing for ordination, and, incidentally, for -the culmination of the tragedy of his life. He had undoubtedly become a -monomaniac, his “subject” being murder and suicide. His last lurid story -was of a footman who, “having in vain courted for some time a servant -belonging to Lord Spencer, at last caused the banns to be put up at -church without her consent, which she forbad. Being thus disappointed -he meditated revenge, and, having got a person to write a letter to her -appointing a meeting, he contrived to waylay her, and surprise her in -Lord Spencer's park. On her screaming he discharged a pistol at her and -made his escape.” - -“Oh love, love, canst thou not be content to make fools of thy slaves,” - he wrote, “to make them miserable, to make them what thou pleasest? Must -thou also goad them on to crimes?” - -Only two more letters did he write to his victim. He took Orders and -received the living of Wiveton, in Norfolk, seeming to take it for -granted that, in spite of her repeated refusals to marry him, she -would relent when she heard of the snug parsonage. This was acting on -precisely the same lines as the butler of whom he wrote. When he found -that Miss Reay was determined to play the part taken by the servant in -the same story, the wretched man hurried up to London and bought his -pistols. - -The whole story is a pitiful one. That the man was mad no one except a -judge and jury could doubt. That his victim was amply punished for her -indiscretion in leading him on even the strictest censor of conduct must -allow. - - - - -THE COMEDY AT DOWNING STREET - -IT was possibly because she was still conscious of having occupied the -commanding position of one of the royal bridesmaids, in spite of the -two years that had elapsed since King George III married his homely -Mecklenburg princess, that Lady Susan Fox-Strangways, the daughter of -the first Earl of Ilchester, became so autocratic during the rehearsal -of the Downing Street Comedy. A pretty fair amount of comedy as well -as tragedy--with a preponderance of farce--has been played in the same -street from time to time, but the special piece in which Lady Susan -was interesting herself was to be played at the house of Sir Francis -Délavai, and its name was _The School for Lovers_. It had been -originally produced by Mr. David Garrick at Drury Lane Theatre, an -occasion upon which a young Irish gentleman called O'Brien, who had -disgraced himself by becoming an actor, had attained great distinction. -The piece had drawn the town during its protracted run of eight nights, -and Sir Francis Delaval's company of amateurs perceived that it was just -the play for them. It was said by the critics that, for the first time -for many years, an actor had been found capable of playing the part of -a gentleman of fashion as if to the manner born. They referred to the -acting of Mr. O'Brien, about whose gentlemanly qualities there could -be no doubt. Even his own brother actors affirmed that no such perfect -gentleman as that of O'Brien's creating had ever been seen on the stage. -So said Lee Lewes. Another excellent judge, named Oliver Goldsmith, -declared that William O'Brien was an elegant and accomplished actor. - -Of course this was the character, every aspiring amateur affirmed, to -which a gentleman-born would do ample justice. When O'Brien, who was an -actor, had represented the part with distinction, how much better -would it not be played by the real thing--the real gentleman who might -undertake it? - -That was the very plausible reasoning of the “real gentleman” who hoped -to win applause by appearing in O'Brien's part in the comedy at Downing -Street. But when the piece was rehearsed with the young Viscount -B-------- in the character, Lady Susan threw up her hands, and -threatened to throw up her part as well. - -“Lud!” she cried to her associates in the temporary green-room, “Lud! -you would fancy that he had never seen a gentleman of fashion in his -life! Why cannot he act himself instead of somebody else? When he comes -from rehearsal he is the very character itself, but the moment he begins -to speak his part he is no more the part than the link-boy.” - -Every one present agreed with her--the young gentlemen who were anxious -to have the reversion of the part were especially hearty in their -acquiescence. - -But there could be no doubt about the matter, Lord B------ was -deplorably incompetent. He was not even consistently incompetent, for -in one scene in the second act, where there was an element of boisterous -humour, he was tame and spiritless; but in the love-making scene, which -brought the third act to a close, he was awkward, and so anxious to show -his spirit that he became as vulgar as any country clown making advances -to his Meg or Polly. - -And of course he felt all the time that he was doing amazingly well. - -Lady Susan was angry at first, and then she became witty. Her sallies, -directed against him in every scene, were, however, lost upon him, no -matter how calculated they were to sting him; he was too self-satisfied -to be affected by any criticism that might be offered to him by man or -woman. - -And then Lady Susan was compelled to abandon her wit and to become -natural. She flounced off the stage when her lover (in the play) was -more than commonly loutish, and burst into tears of vexation in the arms -of her dear friend Lady Sarah Lennox. - -“I never had such a chance until now,” she cried. “Never, oh, never! -The part might have been written for me; and I implore of you, Sarah, to -tell me candidly if Mrs. Abington or Mrs. Clive could act it with more -sprightliness than I have shown in that last scene?” - -“Impossible, my sweet Sue!” cried her friend. “I vow that I have never -seen anything more arch than your mock rejection of your lover, only to -draw him on.” - -“You dear creature!” cried Lady Sue. “You are a true friend and a -competent critic, Sarah. But what signifies my acting, perfect though -it be, when that--that idiot fails to respond in any way to the spirit -which I display? The whole play will be damned, and people who know -nothing of the matter will spread the report that 'twas my lack of power -that brought about the disaster.” - -“They cannot be so vile,” said Lady Sarah soothingly. - -“But they will. I know how vile some of our friends can be when it suits -them, and when they are jealous of the acquirements of another. They -will sneer at my best scenes--oh, the certainty that they will do so -will be enough to make my best scenes fail. But no! they shall not have -the chance of maligning me. I will go to Sir Francis and resign my part. -Yes, I will! I tell you I shall!” - -The indignant young lady, with something of the stage atmosphere still -clinging to her, flung herself with the gesture of a tortured heroine, -proud and passionate, toward the door of the room to which the two -ladies had retired. But before she had her fingers on the handle the -door opened and Sir Francis Délavai entered. - -“A thousand pardons, my dear ladies,” he cried, bowing to the carpet. “I -had forgot for the moment that when a man turns his house into a theatre -he can call no room in it his own. But I should be a churl to suggest -that any room in my poor house would not be made beautiful by the -presence of your ladyships. After all, this is only my library, and a -library is only a polite name for a dormitory, and a--but what is this? -I said not a lacrymatory.” - -He was looking curiously into Lady Susan's face, which retained the -marks of her recent tears. - -“Dear Sir Francis, you have come in good time,” said Lady Sarah boldly. -“Here is this poor child weeping her heart out because she is condemned -to play the part of--of what's her name?--the lady in the play who had -to make love to an ass?” - -“Oh, sir, mine is a far worse plight,” said Lady Susan, pouting. “It -were bad enough for one to have to make love to an ass, but how much -worse is't not for one to be made love to by--by--my Lord B------?” - -“That were a calculation far above my powers,” said Sir Francis. “My -lord has never made love to me, but if rumour and the gossip at White's -speak even a soupçon of truth, his lordship is well practised in the -art--if love-making is an art.” - -“Sir, 'tis a combination of all the arts,” said Lady Susan; “and yet -my lord cannot simulate the least of them, which is that of being a -gentleman, when he makes love to me on the stage, through the character -of Captain Bellaire in our play.” - -“To be plain, Sir Francis,” said Lady Sarah, as though the other had not -been plain enough in her explanation, “To be plain, Lady Susan, -rather than be associated in any measure with such a failure as your -theatricals are bound to be if my Lord B------ remains in the part of -her lover, has made up her mind to relinquish her part. But believe me, -sir, she does so with deep regret.” - -“Hence these tears,” said Sir Francis. “My poor child, you are indeed in -a pitiable state if you are so deeply chagrined at a clumsy love-making -merely on the stage.” - -“Merely on the stage?” cried Lady Susan. “Lud, Sir Francis, have you not -the wit to see that to be made love to indifferently on the stage is far -more unendurable than it would be in private, since in the one case you -have the eyes of all the people upon you, whereas in the other case you -are as a rule alone?” - -“As a rule,” said Sir Francis. “Yes, I perceive the difference, and I -mingle mine own turgid tears with your limpid drops. But we cannot spare -you from our play.” - -“No, you cannot, Sir Francis, but you can spare Lord B------, and so can -the play,” suggested Lady Sarah. - -“What, you would have me turn him out of the part?” said Sir Francis. - -“Even so--but with politeness,” said Lady Sarah. - -“Perhaps your ladyship has solved the problem how to kick a man out of -your house politely. If so, I would willingly pay you for the recipe; I -have been in search of it all my life,” said Sir Francis. - -“Surely, sir, if you kick a man hard enough with your slippers on he -will leave your house as surely as if you wear the boots of a Life -Guardsman,” said Lady Susan timidly. - -“I doubt it not, madam; but before trying such an experiment it would be -well to make sure that the fellow does not wear boots himself.” - -“Psha! Sir Francis. If a man were to beg leave to measure the thickness -of his enemy's soles before offering to kick him there would be very few -cases of assault and battery,” cried Lady Susan. - -“That is good philosophy--see what we have come to--philosophy, when we -started talking of lovemaking,” said Sir Francis. - -“However we have digressed in conversation, sir, our minds remain -steadfast on the point round which we have been circling,” said Lady -Sarah. - -“And that is------” - -“That Lord B------must go.” - -The door was thrown open and Lord B------ entered. - -“A good preliminary--one must come before one goes,” whispered Sir -Francis to the ladies. - -His lordship was evidently perturbed. He scarcely bowed either to Sir -Francis or the ladies. - -“I was told that you had come hither, Sir Francis,” he said, “so I -followed you.” - -“You do me honour, my lord,” said Sir Francis. - -“I took a liberty, sir; but this is not a time for punctilio. I have -come to resign my part in your play, sir,” said his lordship. - -“Oh, surely not, my lord,” cried Sir Francis. “What would the _School -for Lovers_ be without Bellaire, my lord? Why only now Lady Susan was -saying--what is it that your ladyship said?” - -“It had something to do with philosophy and the sole of a grenadier,” - said Lady Sarah interposing. - -“Nay, was it not that his lordship's impersonation made you think of -a scene from _Midsummer Night's Dream?_” said Sir Francis. “One of -the most beautiful of Shakespeare's plays, is't not, my lord?--fantasy -mingled with irony, an oasis of fairyland in the midst of a desert of -daily life.” - -“I know nothing about your fairyland, sir, but I have been told -within the hour that her ladyship”--he bowed in the direction of Lady -Susan--“has, during the three rehearsals which we have had of the play, -been sneering in a covert way at my acting of the part of Bellaire, -although to my face she seemed delighted, and thus----” - -“Are you sure that your informant was right in his interpretation of her -ladyship's words? Surely your lordship--a man of the world--would have -been sensible of every shade of her ladyship's meaning?” - -“I have been told by one on whose judgment I can rely that Lady Susan -was speaking in sarcasm when she complimented me before the rest of the -company. I did not take her as doing so for myself, I must confess. I -have always believed--on insufficient evidence, I begin to fear--that -her ladyship was a discriminating critic--even now if she were to assure -me that she was not speaking in sarcasm----” - -“Oh, lud! he is relenting,” whispered Lady Sarah. - -“Did you speak, madam?” said his lordship. - -“I was protesting against a too early exercise of your lordship's -well-known spirit of forgiveness,” said her ladyship. - -“I thank you, Lady Sarah; I am, I know, too greatly inclined to take a -charitable view of--of--Why, sink me if she, too, is not trying to -make me look ridiculous!” cried his lordship. - -“Nay, my lord, I cannot believe that Lady Sarah would be at the pains to -do for you what you can so well do for yourself,” remarked Lady Susan. - -His lordship looked at her--his mouth was slightly open--then he gazed -at the smiling features of the beautiful Lady Sarah, lastly at the -perfectly expressionless features of Sir Francis. - -“A plot--a plot!” he murmured. Then he struck a commonplace theatrical -attitude, the “exit attitude” of the man who tells you that his time -will come, though appearances are against him for the moment. He pointed -a firm forefinger at Lady Susan, saying: “I wash my hands clear of you -all. I have done with you and your plays. Get another man to fill my -place if you can.” - -Then he rushed out through the open door. He seemed to have a shrewd -suspicion that if he were to wait another moment one at least of the -girls would have an effective answer to his challenge, and it is quite -likely that his suspicion was well founded. As it was, however, owing -to his wise precipitancy he heard no more than the pleasant laughter--it -really was pleasant laughter, though it did not sound so to him--of the -two girls. - -But when the sound of the slamming of the hall-door reached the library -the laughter in that apartment suddenly ceased. Sir Francis Délavai -looked at each of the ladies, and both of them looked at him. For -some moments no word was exchanged between them. At last one of them -spoke--it was, strange to say, the man. - -“This is vastly fine, ladies,” he remarked. “You have got rid of your -_bête-noire_, Lady Susan; that, I say, is vastly fine, but where are you -to find a _bête-blanche_ to take his place?” - -“Surely we can find some gentleman willing to act the part of Bellaire?” - said Lady Sarah. - -“Oh, there is not like to be a lack of young gentlemen willing to take -the part, but we want not merely willingness, but competence as well; -and the piece must be played on Wednesday, even though the part of -Bellaire be left out,” said Sir Francis. - -Lady Susan looked blankly at the floor. She seemed ready to renew the -tears which she had wept on the shoulder of her friend a short time -before. - -“Have I been too hasty?” she said. “Alas! I fear that I have been -selfish. I thought only of the poor figure that I should cut with such a -lover--and with all the world looking on, too! I should have given more -thought to your distress, Sir Francis.” - -“Say no more, I pray of you; better have no play at all than one that -all our kind friends will damn with the utmost cordiality and good -breeding,” said Sir Francis. - -“True, sir, but think of the ladies' dresses!” said Lady Sarah. “What -the ladies say is, 'Better produce a play that will be cordially damned -rather than deprive us of our chance of displaying our new dresses.'” - -“Heavens!” cried Sir Francis, “I had not thought of the new dresses. -Lady Susan, you will e'en have to face the anger of your sisters--'tis -not I that will tarry for such an event. I mean to fly to Bath -or Brighthelmstone, or perchance to Timbuctoo, until the storm be -overpast.” - -“Nay, nay, 'tis not a time for jesting, sir; let us not look at the -matter from the standpoint of men, who do not stand but run away, let us -be women for once, and scheme,” said Lady Susan. - -“That is woman's special province,” said Sir Francis. “Pray begin, my -lady--'twill be strange if your ladyship and Lady Sarah do not succeed -in----” - -“Psha! there is but one man in England who could play the part of -Bellaire on Wednesday,” cried Lady Sarah. “Ay, sir, and he is the only -one in England capable of playing it.” - -“Then we shall have him on our stage if I should have to pay a thousand -pounds for his services,” said Sir Francis. “But where is he to be -found?” - -“Cannot you guess, sir?” asked Lady Sarah, smiling. - -Sir Francis looked puzzled, but Lady Sue started and caught her friend -by the wrist. - -“You do not mean----” she began. - -“Lud! these girls! Here's a scheme if you will!” muttered Sir Francis. - -“Ay, if you will, Sir Francis. You know that I mean Mr. O'Brien himself -and none other,” cried Lady Sarah. - -“Impossible!” cried Lady Susan. “My father would never consent to my -acting in a play with a real actor--no, not even if he were Mr. Garrick -himself. How could you suggest such a thing, Sarah?” - -“What, do you mean to tell me that you would refuse to act with Mr. -O'Brien?” asked Lady Sarah. - -“Oh, hear the child!” cried Lady Susan. “She asks me a question to which -she knows only one answer is possible, and looks all the time as though -she expected just the opposite answer!” - -“I know well that there are a good many ladies who would give all that -they possess for the chance of acting with Mr. O'Brien, and you are -among the number, my dear,” laughed Lady Sarah. - -“I dare not--I dare not. And yet----” murmured the other girl. - -Sir Francis had been lost in thought while the two had been bickering -over the body of O'Brien. He had walked across the room and seated -himself for some moments. Now he rose and held up a finger. - -“Ladies, this is a serious matter for all of us,” he said. And he spoke -the truth to a greater depth than he was aware of. “'Tis a very serious -matter. If we get Mr. O'Brien to play the part, the piece will be the -greatest success of the day. If we fail to get him, our theatricals will -be damned to a certainty. Lady Susan, will you consent to play with him -if his name does not appear upon the bill?” - -“But every one would know Mr. O'Brien,” she faltered, after a pause that -was overcharged with excitement. - -“Yes, in fact; but no one will have official cognizance of him, and, -as you must know, in these matters of etiquette everything depends upon -official cognizance.” - -“My father--” - -“His lordship will have no _locus standi_ in the case. He cannot take -notice of an act that is not officially recognisable,” suggested Sir -Francis, the sophist. - -“If you assure me---- But is't true that Mr. O'Brien only ceased to -become a gentleman when he became an actor?” said Lady Susan. - -“I have not heard that he relinquished the one part when he took up the -other,” said Sir Francis. “I wonder that you have not met him at the -houses of some of our friends--he is more popular even than Mr. Garrick. -The family of O'Brien----” - -“All kings, I doubt not,” said Lady Susan. “There were a good many -kings in Ireland in the old days, I believe. I read somewhere that -ninety-seven kings were killed in one battle, and still there were quite -enough left to carry on the quarrels of the country. Oh, yes, there -were plenty of kings, and their descendants have--well, descended. Mr. -O'Brien descended pretty far when he became a play-actor.” - -“If he condescends to take up the part of Bellaire at the eleventh hour -to pluck our theatricals out of the fire we shall have every reason to -be grateful to him,” said Sir Francis with a severe air of reproof. He -was beginning to be tired--as others in his place have been from time to -time--of the capriciousness of his company of amateurs. - -“You are right, sir,” said Lady Sarah. “Come, my dear Sue, cease to give -yourself the airs of those ladies who, Mr. Garrick affirms, have been -the plague of his life. If Mr. O'Brien agrees to come to our rescue you -should have no feeling but of gratitude to him. Surely 'twere churlish -on the part of a damsel when a gallant knight rides up to her rescue to -look at his horse in the mouth.” - -“I am thinking of my father,” said the other. “But I am disposed to -accept the risk of the situation. You will promise that his name will -not appear in the bills, Sir Francis?” - -“I will promise to do my best to save you from the contamination of -having your name made as immortal as Mr. O'Brien's,” said Sir Francis. - -Lady Sarah laughed, and so did her friend--after a pause sufficient to -allow the colour that had come to her face at the stinging reproof to -die away. - -“I hope that you may catch your bird, sir--your eagle--your Irish -eagle.” - -“If I could tell him that Lady Sarah Lennox was to be in the cast of the -play I should need no further lure for him,” said Sir Francis, making -his most exquisite bow to her. - -“Oh, sir, you overwhelm me,” said Lady Sarah, sinking in her most -ravishing courtesy. - -Lady Susan coloured once more, and her foot played a noiseless tattoo on -the floor, for she perceived all that Sir Francis's compliment implied. -Lady Sarah was the most beautiful girl in England, while Lady Susan was -not even second to her, a fact of which she was as well aware as her -friends. - -This was how Lady Susan Fox-Strangways first met Mr. O'Brien, the -actor whom Garrick had brought from Ireland in the year 1762. He -good-naturedly agreed to help Sir Francis Délavai in his extremity, and -his ready Irish tact enabled him to be the first to stipulate that his -name should not appear in the bills--a condition with which Sir Francis -complied, drawing a long breath. - -“Mr. O'Brien,” he said, “should the stage ever fail you, a fortune -awaits you if you undertake the duty of teaching gentlemen the art of -being a gentleman.” - -“Ah, sir, the moment that art enters the door the gentleman flies out -by the window,” said the actor. “It is Nature, not art, that makes a -gentleman.” - -One can well believe that Lady Susan Fox-Strangways, with all the pride -of her connection with a peerage nearly ten years old, treated Mr. -O'Brien's accession to a place in the company of amateurs with some -hauteur, though it was said that she fell in love with him at once. On -consideration, her bearing of hauteur which we have ventured to assign -to her, so far from being incompatible with her having fallen in love -with him, would really be a natural consequence of such an accident, and -the deeper she felt herself falling the more she would feel it necessary -to assert her position, if only for the sake of convincing herself that -it was impossible for her to forget herself so far as to think of an -Irish play-actor as occupying any other position in regard to her than -that of a diversion for the moment. - -It was equally a matter of course that Lady Sarah should have an -instinct of what was taking place. She had attended several of the -rehearsals previously in the capacity of adviser to her friend, for Lady -Susan had a high opinion of her critical capacity; but not until two -rehearsals had taken place with O'Brien as Bellaire was she able to -resume her attendance at Downing Street. Before half an hour had passed -this astute lady had seen, first, that O'Brien made every other man in -the cast seem a lout; and, secondly, that Lady Susan felt that every man -in the world was a lout by the side of O'Brien. - -She hoped to discover what were the impressions of O'Brien, but she -found herself foiled: the man was too good an actor to betray himself. -The fervour which he threw into the character when making love to Lady -Susan had certainly the semblance of a real passion, but what did this -mean more than that Mr. O'Brien was a convincing actor? - -When she arrived at this point in her consideration of the situation -Lady Sarah lost herself, and began to long with all her heart that the -actor were making love to her--taking her hand with that incomparable -devotion to--was it his art?--which he showed when Lady Susan's hand was -raised, with a passionate glance into her eyes, to his lips; putting his -arm about her waist, while his lips, trembling under the force of the -protestations of undying devotion which they were uttering, were almost -touching Lady Susan's ear. Before the love scene was over Lady Sarah was -in love with the actor, if not with the man, O'Brien. - -So was every lady in the cast. O'Brien was the handsomest actor of the -day. He had been careful of his figure at a time when men of fashion -lived in such a way as made the preservation of a figure well-nigh -impossible. Every movement was grace itself with him, and the period -was one in which the costume of a man gave him every chance of at least -imitating a graceful man. All the others in the cast of the play seemed -imitating the gracefulness of O'Brien, and every man of them seemed -a clown beside him. They gave themselves countless graces, but he was -grace itself. - -Lady Sarah saw everything that was to be seen and said nothing. She was -wise. She knew that in due time her friend would tell her all there was -to be told. - -She was not disappointed. The play was produced, and of course every -one recognised O'Brien in the part, although the bill--printed in gold -letters on a satin ground, with a charming allegorical design by Lady -Diana Spencer, showing a dozen dainty cupids going to school with -satchels--stated that Bellaire would be represented by “a gentleman.” - -Equally as a matter of course a good many of the spectators affirmed -that it was intolerable that a play-actor should be smuggled into a -company of amateurs, some of them belonging to the best families. And -then to attempt a deception of the audience by suggesting that O'Brien -was a gentleman--oh, the thing was unheard of! So said some of the -ladies, adding that they thought it rather sad that Lady Susan was not -better-looking. - -But of the success of the entertainment there could not be a doubt. It -was the talk of the town for a month, and every one noticed--even her -own father--that Lady Susan was looking extremely thin and very pale. - -Lady Sarah said that she had taken the diversion of the theatricals too -seriously. - -“I saw it from the first, my dear Sue,” she said. - -Sue sprang from her chair, and it would be impossible for any one to say -now that she was over pale. - -“You saw it--you--what was it that you saw from the first?” she cried. - -Lady Sarah looked at her and laughed. - -“Ah, that is it--what was it that I saw from the first?” she said. “What -I was going to say that I saw was simply that you were throwing yourself -too violently into the production of the play. That was why you insisted -on poor Lord B------'s getting his _congé_. It was a mistake--I saw that -also.” - -“When did you see that?” - -“When I saw you taking part in that love scene with Mr. O'Brien.” - -“What mean you by that, Lady Sarah?” - -“Exactly what you fancy I mean, Lady Susan.” - -Lady Susan gazed at her blankly at first, then very pitifully. In -another moment she had flung herself on her knees at the feet of her -friend and was weeping in her lap. - -The friend was full of sympathy. - -“You poor child!” she murmured, “how could you help it? I vow that I -myself--yes, for some minutes--I was as deep in love with the fellow as -you yourself were. But, of course, you were with him longer--every day. -Lud! what a handsome rascal he is, to be sure. His lordship must take -you to the country without delay. Has the fellow tried to transfer the -character in the play beyond the footlights?” - -“Never--never!” cried Susan. “Sir Francis was right--he is a gentleman. -That is the worst of it!” - -“Oh, lud! the worst of it? Are you mad, girl?” - -“I am not mad now, but I know that I shall be if he remains a -gentleman--if he refrains from telling me that he loves me--or at least -of giving me a chance of telling him that I love him. That would be -better than nothing--'twould be such a relief. I really do not think -that I want anything more than to be able to confess to him that I love -him--that 'tis impossible that I should love another.” - -“The sooner you go to the country the better 'twill be for yourself and -all of us--his lordship especially. Good heavens, child, you must be -mad! Do you fancy that his lordship would give his consent to your -marriage with a strolling player, let him be as handsome as Beelzebub?” - -“He is not a strolling player. Mr. O'Brien is in Mr. Garrick's company, -and every one knows that he is of good family. I have been searching it -out for the past week--all about the O'Briens--there were a great many -of them, all of them distinguished. If it had not been that King James -was defeated by William, in Ireland, Mr. O'Brien's grandfather would -have been made a duke. They were all heroes, the O'Briens. And they were -just too sincere in their devotion to the losing side--that was it--the -losing side was always the one they took up. And yet you call him a -strolling player!” - -“I take back the insinuation and offer him my apologies; he is not a -strolling player because he doesn't stroll--would to Heaven he did! Oh, -my poor Sue, take a stroll into the country yourself as soon as possible -and try to forget this dreadfully handsome wretch. You would not, I am -sure, force me to tell his lordship what a goose his daughter is like to -make of herself.” - -At this point there was a dramatic scene, one that was far more deeply -charged with comedy of a sort than any to be found in Mr. Whitehead's -play. Lady Susan accused her dear friend of being a spy, of extorting -a confession from her under the guise of friendship, which in other -circumstances--the rack, the wheel, the thumbscrew, in fact the entire -mechanism of persuasion employed by the Spanish Inquisition--would have -been powerless to obtain. Lady Sarah on her side entreated her friend -not to show herself to be even a greater goose than her confession -would make her out to be. For several minutes there was reproach and -counter-reproach, many home truths followed home thrusts; then some -tears, self-accusation, expressions of sympathy and tenderness, followed -by promises of friendship beyond the dreams of Damon and Pythias; -lastly, a promise on the part of Sue that she would take the advice of -her devoted Sarah and fly to the country without delay. - -Strange to say, she fled to the country, and, stranger still, the result -was not to cure her of her infatuation for the handsome actor. For close -upon a year she did not see him, but she was as devoted to him as she -had been at first, and no day passed on which she failed to think of -him, or to spend some hours writing romantic verses, sometimes in the -style of Waller in his lyrics, sometimes in the style (distant) of Mr. -Dryden in his pastorals: she was Lesbia, and Mr. O'Brien was Strephon. - -But in the meantime she had improved so much in her acting that when -Lady Sarah, who had within the year married Sir Thomas Bunbury, ventured -to rally her upon her infatuation of the previous spring, she was -able to disarm her suspicions by a flush and a shrug, and a little -contemptuous exclamation or two. - -“Ah, my dear one, did not I give you good advice?” cried Lady Sarah. “I -was well assured that my beloved Sue would never persevere in a passion -that could only end in unhappiness. But indeed, child, I never had the -heart to blame you greatly, the fellow is handsome as Apollo and as -proud as Apolyon. He has broken many hearts not accounted particularly -fragile, during the year.” - -“Is't possible? For example?--I vow that I shall keep their names -secret.” - -Lady Sarah shook her head at first, but on being importuned whispered a -name or two of ladies of their acquaintance, all of whom--according to -Lady Sarah--had fallen as deep as was possible in love with O'Brien. Her -ladyship was so intent on her narration of the scandals that she quite -failed to see the strange light that gleamed in her friend's eyes at the -mention of every name--a rather fierce gleam, with a flash of green in -it. She did not notice this phenomenon, nor did she detect the false -note in the tribute of laughter which her friend paid to her powers of -narration. - -But Lady Sue, when the other had left her, rushed to her room and flung -herself on her bed in a paroxysm of jealousy. She beat her innocent -pillow wildly, crying in the whisper that the clenching of her teeth -made imperative--“The hussies! Shameless creatures! Do they hope that he -will be attracted to them? Fools!--they are fools! They do not know him -as I know him. They think that he is nothing but a vain actor--Garrick, -or Barry, or Lewes. Oh, they do not know him!” - -She lay there in her passion for an hour, and if it was her maid who -discovered her at the end of that time, it is safe to assume that -the young woman's flesh was black and blue in places for several -days afterwards. The pinch and the slipper were among the most highly -approved forms of torture inflicted upon their maids at that robust -period of English history. The French Revolution was still some way off. - -A few weeks later Lady Susan was sitting to Sir Joshua Reynolds for a -group, in which he painted her with her friend Lady Sarah Bunbury and -Mr. Henry Fox; and it was the carrying out of this scheme that put quite -another scheme into the quick brain of the first-named lady. Painting -was in the air. She possessed a poor print of Mr. O'Brien, and she had -found an immense consolation in gazing upon it--frequently at midnight, -under the light of her bedroom candle. The sight of the life-like -portraits in Sir Joshua's studio induced her to ask herself if she might -not possess a picture of her lover that would show him as he really was -in life, without demanding so many allowances as were necessary to be -made for the shortcomings of the engraver of a print. Why should she not -get Sir Joshua Reynolds to paint for her the portrait of Mr. O'Brien? - -[Illustration: 0379] - -The thought was a stimulating one, and it took possession of her for a -week. At the end of that time, however, she came to the conclusion that -it would be unwise for her to employ Sir Joshua on a commission that -might possibly excite some comment on the part of her friends should -they come to learn--and the work of this particular painter was rather -inclined to be assertive--that it had been executed to her order. But -she was determined not to live any longer without a portrait of the man; -and, hearing some one mention at Sir Joshua's house the name of Miss -Catherine Read, who was described as an excellent portrait painter, she -made further inquiry, and the result was that she begged her father, -the Earl of Ilchester, who was devoted to her, to allow her to have her -portrait done by Miss Read, to present to Lady Sarah on her birthday. - -Of course Miss Read was delighted to have the patronage of so great -a family--she had not yet done her famous pastel of the Duchess of -Argyll--and Susan, accompanied by her footman, lost no time in beginning -her series of sittings to the artist to whom Horace Walpole referred as -“the painteress.” - -She was both patient and discreet, for three whole days elapsed before -she produced a mezzotint of Mr. O'Brien. - -“I wonder if you would condescend to draw a miniature portrait of his -lordship's favourite actor from so poor a copy as this, Miss Read?” she -said. “Have you ever seen this Mr. O'Brien--an Irishman, I believe he -is?” - -Miss Read assured her that Mr. O'Brien was her favourite actor also. The -print produced was indeed a poor one; it quite failed to do justice to -the striking features of the original, she said. - -“I felt certain that it could bear but a meagre resemblance to Mr. -O'Brien if all that I hear of the man be true,” said Lady Susan. “His -lordship swears that there has never been so great an actor in England, -and I should like to give him a surprise by presenting to him a -miniature portrait of his favourite, done by the cunning pencil of Miss -Read, on his birthday. I protest that 'tis a vast kindness you are doing -me in undertaking such a thing. But mind, I would urge of you to keep -the affair a profound secret. I wish it as a surprise to my father, and -its effect would be spoilt were it to become known to any of his friends -that I had this intention.” - -“Your ladyship may rest assured that no living creature will hear of the -affair through me,” said the painteress. “But I heartily wish that your -ladyship could procure for me a better copy than this print from which -to work,” she added. - -“I fear that I cannot promise you that; I found two other prints of the -same person, but they are worse even than this,” said Lady Susan. “You -must do your best with the material at your disposal.” - -“Your ladyship may depend on my doing my best,” replied Miss Read. “When -does his lordship's birthday take place?” - -Her ladyship was somewhat taken aback by the sudden question. It took -her some time to recollect that her father's birthday was to be within -a month. She felt that she could not live for longer than another month -without a portrait of the man whom she loved. - -While she was going home in her chair she could not but feel that she -had hitherto been an undutiful daughter, never having taken any interest -in her father's birthday, and being quite unacquainted with its date. -She hoped fervently that Miss Read would not put herself to the trouble -to find out exactly on what day of what month it took place. The result -of such an investigation might be a little awkward. - -It so happened that Miss Read took no trouble in this direction. All her -attention was turned upon the task of making a presentable miniature out -of the indifferent material with which she had been supplied for this -purpose. She began wondering if it might not be possible to get O'Brien -to sit to her half a dozen times in order to give her a chance of doing -credit to herself and to the gentleman's fine features. - -She was still pondering over this question when her attendant entered -with a card, saying that a gentleman had come to wait on her. - -She read the name on the card, and uttered an exclamation of surprise, -for the name was that of the man of whom she was thinking--Mr. O'Brien, -of Drury Lane Theatre. - -She had wholly failed to recover herself before he entered the studio, -and advanced to her, making his most respectful bow. He politely -ignored her flutter-ings--he was used to see her sex overwhelmed when he -appeared. - -“Madam, I beg that you will pardon this intrusion,” he said. “I have -taken the liberty of waiting upon you, knowing of your great capacity as -an artist.” - -“Oh, sir!” cried the fluttered little lady, making her courtesy. - -“Nay, madam, I have no intention of flattering one to whom compliments -must be as customary as they are well deserved,” said the actor. “I come -not to confer a favour, madam, but to entreat one. In short, Miss Read, -I am desirous of presenting a valued friend of mine with the portrait of -a lady for whom he entertains a sincere devotion. For certain reasons, -which I need not specify, the lady cannot sit to you; but I have here -a picture of her poorly done in chalks, from which I hope it may be -in your power to make a good--a good---- Good heavens! what do I -behold? 'Tis she--she--Lady Susan herself!” - -He had glanced round the studio in the course of his speech, and his -eyes had alighted upon the newly-begun portrait of Lady Susan. It -represented only a few days' work, but the likeness to the original had -been ably caught, and no one could fail to recognise the features. - -He took a hurried step to the easel, and the air made by his motion -dislodged a print which the artist had laid on the little ledge that -supported the stretcher of the canvas. The print fluttered to the floor; -he picked it up, and gave another exclamation on recognising his own -portrait in the mezzotint. - -Looking from the print to the picture and then at Miss Read, he said in -a low voice, after a pause--“Madam, I am bewildered. Unless you come -to my assistance I protest I shall feel that I am dreaming and asleep. -Pray, madam, enlighten me--for Heaven's sake tell me how this”--he held -up the print--“came into such close juxtaposition with that”--he pointed -to the portrait on the easel. - -“'Tis easily told, sir,” said Miss Read, smiling archly. “But I must -leave it to your sense of honour to keep the matter a profound secret.” - -“Madam,” said Mr. O'Brien with dignity, “Madam, I am an Irishman.” - -“That is enough, sir; I know that I can trust you. The truth is, Mr. -O'Brien, that Lady Susan is sitting to me for her portrait--that -portrait. 'Twas marvellous that you should recognise it so soon. I have -not worked at it for many hours.” - -“Madam, your art is beyond that of the magician. 'Tis well known that -every form depicted by Miss Read not only breathes but speaks.” - -“Oh, sir, I vow that you are a flatterer; still, you did recognise the -portrait--'tis to be presented to Lady Sarah Bunbury.” - -“Her ladyship will be the most fortunate of womankind.” - -“Which ladyship, sir--Lady Susan or Lady Sarah?” - -“Both, madam.” The Irishman was bowing with his hand on his heart. “But -the print--my poor likeness?” - -“That is the secret, sir; but you will not betray it when I tell you -that Lady Susan entrusted that print to me in order that I might make a -copy in miniature for her to present to her father, Lord Ilchester. You -are his favourite actor, Mr. O'Brien, as no doubt you are aware.” - -“'Tis the first I heard of it, madam.” There was a suggestion of -mortification in the actor's tone. - -“Ah, 'twould be impossible for Mr. O'Brien to keep an account of all his -conquests. But now you can understand how it is that her ladyship wishes -her intention to be kept a secret: she means to add to the acceptability -of her gift by presenting it as a surprise. But her secret is safe in -your keeping, sir?” - -“I swear to it, madam.” Mr. O'Brien spoke mechanically. His hand was on -his chin: he was clearly musing upon some question that perplexed him. -He took a turn up and down the studio, and then said: - -“Madam, it has just occurred to me that you, as a great artist----” - -“Nay, sir,” interposed the blushing painteress. - -“I will not take back a word, madam,” said the actor, holding up one -inexorable hand. “I say that surely so great an artist as you should -disdain to do the work of a mere copyist. Why should not you confer upon -me the honour of sitting to you for the miniature portrait?” - -“Oh, sir, that is the one favour which I meant to ask of you, if my -courage had not failed me.” - -“Madam, you will confer immortality upon a simple man through that magic -wand which you wield.” He swept his hand with inimitable grace over the -mahl-stick which lay against the easel. “I am all impatient to begin my -sitting, Miss Read. Pray let me come to-morrow.” - -“Her ladyship comes to-morrow.” - -“I shall precede her ladyship. Name the hour, madam.” - -Without the least demur Miss Read named an hour which could enable him -to be far away from the studio before Lady Susan's arrival. - -And yet the next day Lady Susan entered the studio quite half an hour -before Mr. O'Brien had left it. Of course she was surprised. Had not -Miss Read received a letter, making her aware of the fact that she, Lady -Susan, would be forced, owing to circumstances over which she had -no control, to sit for her portrait an hour earlier than that of her -appointment? - -When Miss Read said she had received no such letter, Lady Susan said -some very severe things about her maid. Miss Read was greatly fluttered, -but she explained in as few words as possible how it was that Mr. -O'Brien had come forward in the cause of art, and was sitting for the -miniature. Lady Susan quickly got over her surprise. (Had Miss Read seen -the letter which her ladyship had received the previous evening from -Mr. O'Brien she would not have marvelled as she did at the rapidity -with which her ladyship recovered her self-possession.) Her ladyship -was quite friendly with the actor, and thanked him for his courtesy -in offering to give up so much of his time solely for the sake of -increasing the value of her gift to her father. - -A few minutes later, while they were discussing some point in the design -of the picture, Miss Read was called out of the studio, and in a second -Lady Susan was in his arms. - -“Fate is on our side, darling girl!” he whispered. - -“I could not live without you, my charmer. But I was bold! I took my -fate in both hands when I wrote you that letter.” - -“Dear one, 'twas the instinct of true love that made you guess the -truth--that I wanted the portrait because I loved the original. Oh, dear -one, what have I not suffered during the year that has parted us!” said -Lady Susan, with her head upon his shoulder. - -The Irishman found it necessary to fall back upon the seductive tongue -of his country for words of endearment to bestow upon her. He called her -“Sheila,” “a cushla machree,” “mavourneen,” and also “aroon.” But when -Miss Read returned to the studio they were still discussing a purely -artistic point in connection with the portrait. - -Of course now that O'Brien knew the secret of the miniature there was no -reason that Miss Read could see why he and Lady Susan should not meet at -her studio. To do her justice, neither could her ladyship perceive why -they should not come together at this place. They came every day, and -every day Lady Susan begged that Miss Read would allow her to rest in -her ante-room after the fatigue of the sitting. She rested in that -room, and in the company of O'Brien, until at last Miss Read became -frightened; and one day told her friend Lord Cathcart something of her -fears. Lord Cathcart, in his turn, told Lord Ilchester. His lordship was -furious, but cautious. - -He wanted evidence of his daughter's infatuation. He got it the next -morning, for he insisted on seeing a letter which arrived for Lady -Susan, addressed in the handwriting of Lady Sarah. This letter turned -out to be from O'Brien, and Susan confessed that her father's surmise -was correct--all the letters which she had recently received in Lady -Sarah's hand had come from O'Brien. - -Her father was foolish enough to grant her permission to say farewell -to her lover, and thus the two were allowed to come together once more. -They had a long talk, in the course of which O'Brien communicated to her -a secret of the theatre, which was that Mr. Garrick and Mr. Colman were -engaged in the construction of a comedy to be called _The Clandestine -Marriage_, and that Mr. Garrick told him that he, O'Brien, was to play -the part of the lover--the gentleman who had married the lady in secret. - -Lady Susan parted from her lover, not in tears, but in laughter. - -The conclusion of the story is told by Horace Walpole, writing to Lord -Hertford. - -“You will have heard of the sad misfortune that has happened to Lord -Ilchester by his daughter's marriage with O'Brien, the actor,” wrote -Walpole; and then went on to tell how Lady Susan had made her confession -to her father, vowing to have nothing more to do with her lover if she -were but permitted to bid him good-bye. “You will be amazed,” continued -Walpole, “even this was granted. The parting scene happened the -beginning of the week. On Friday she came of age, and on Saturday -morning--instead of being under lock and key in the country--walked -downstairs, took her footman, said she was going to breakfast with -Lady Sarah, but would call at Miss Read's; in the street pretended -to recollect a particular cap in which she was to be drawn, sent the -footman back for it, whipped into a hackney chair, was married at Covent -Garden Church, and set out for Mr. O'Brien's villa at Dunstable.” - -Unlike many other alliances of a similar type, this marriage turned out -a happy one. O'Brien was induced to leave the stage and to depart with -his wife for America. He obtained a grant of some forty thousand acres -in the province of New York, and had he retained this property and taken -the right side during the Revolution his descendants would to-day be -the richest people in the world. A few years later he was given a -good appointment in Bermuda; and finally, in 1770, he was made -Receiver-General of the County of Dorset, and became popular as a -country squire. He died in 1815, and Lady Susan survived him by twelve -years. - -It was Lady Sarah who had made the imprudent marriage. She submitted to -the cruelties of her husband for fourteen years, and on her leaving his -roof he obtained a divorce. - -In 1781, nineteen years after her first marriage, she wedded the Hon. -George Napier, and became the mother of three of the greatest Englishmen -of the nineteenth century. She lived until she was eighty. Her friend -Lady Susan followed her to the grave a year later, at the age of -eighty-four. - - -THE END - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's A Georgian Pageant, by Frank Frankfort Moore - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GEORGIAN PAGEANT *** - -***** This file should be named 51964-0.txt or 51964-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/6/51964/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - diff --git a/old/51964-0.zip b/old/51964-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 966d792..0000000 --- a/old/51964-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/51964-8.txt b/old/51964-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index a8c7143..0000000 --- a/old/51964-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8632 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Georgian Pageant, by Frank Frankfort Moore - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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 -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: A Georgian Pageant - -Author: Frank Frankfort Moore - -Illustrator: Various - -Release Date: May 2, 2016 [EBook #51964] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GEORGIAN PAGEANT *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - - - -A GEORGIAN PAGEANT - -By Frank Frankfort Moore - -With Illustrations - -London: Hutchinson & Co. Paternoster Row - -1908 - - - - -THE WRITER'S APOLOGY - -THE greater number of the papers in this series, dealing with some -well-known persons and incidents of the latter half of the Eighteenth -Century, are the practical result of a long conversation which the -writer had with the late Professor J. Churton Collins upon a very -memorable occasion. The writer ventured to contend that the existing -views respecting the personality of Oliver Goldsmith, of Henry Thrale, -of James Boswell, of Samuel Johnson, and of some others whom he named, -were grossly erroneous; as were also the prevalent notions respecting -such matters as Fanny Burney's attendance upon the Queen, the "romance" -of the Gunnings, and the "elopement" of Richard Brinsley Sheridan with -Elizabeth Linley. If Professor Churton Collins had not urged upon -the writer the possible interest attaching to the expression of some -opinions unbiassed by those conservators of the conventional who have -dealt with the same period, every one of them being as careful as -Indians on the warpath to tread in the footsteps of the man preceding -him, he would not have the courage to set forth his views in the form -they now assume. - -The non-controversial papers in the series may increase the light and -shade in the sketches of this very humble Georgian Pageant. The romance -of Lady Susan Fox-Strangways naturally took the shape of a "regulation" -story. The details are absolutely correct. - -On the very day the writer meant to keep the promise he made to -Professor Churton Collins, by sending him the completed proofs of this -book, the melancholy news of his death was published--an irreparable -loss to the Literature of English Criticism. - - - - -THE MONARCH OF THE PAGEANT - -On the morning of February 2nd, 1789, a lady was taking a solitary -stroll in Kew Gardens. She was a small person, of dainty features, with -a dimple on each side of her mouth that suggested a smile, varying, -perhaps out of compliment to the variations of the people with whom -she came in contact in her daily life, and shifting doubtless with -the movements of the folk of her fancy through her quick brain, but -remaining a smile all the time. There was about her a good deal of that -doll-like primness which is so pretty an accompaniment of a person of -small stature; but with this particular person it had--not quite, but -almost--the additional charm of dignity. One could at all times see that -she was making a highly intellectual attempt to be dignified; but that -she was not really dignified at heart. One could see that she had too -fine a sense of humour to be thoroughly dignified; and it may be that -some of her closest observers--her closest observers were her greatest -admirers--perceived now and again that she had a full sense of the -humour of her efforts in the direction of dignity. She had large eyes, -but being very short-sighted, she had a habit of half closing them when -looking at anything or any one further away from her than ten feet. But -somehow it was never suggested that the falling of her lids brought a -frown to her face. - -She was a quick walker at all times; but on this winter day the slowest -would have had little temptation to dawdle. The usual river mist was -thrusting up a quivering cold hand among the gaunt trees of the water -boundary of the Gardens, and here and there it flitted like a lean -spectre among the clipped evergreens of the shrubberies. There was a -maze of yew hedges, in the intricacies of which one mist-spectre had -clearly got lost; and the lady, who had some imagination, could see, -as she hurried past, the poor thing's wispy head and shoulders flitting -about among the baffling central walks. (A defective eyesight is -sometimes a good friend to the imagination.) And all the while she was -hurrying along the broad track she was looking with some measure of -uneasiness through her half-closed eyes down every tributary walk that -ran into the main one, and peering uneasily down every long artificial -vista that Sir Thomas Chambers, the Swedish knight and landscape -gardener, had planned, through the well-regulated boskage, with an -imitation Greek temple or Roman villa at the end. Approaching the -widening entrance to each of these, she went cautiously for a few -moments until she had assured herself on some point. Once she started -and took a step backward, but raising the lorgnette which she carried, -and satisfying herself that the group of men a hundred yards down one of -the vistas was composed wholly of gardeners, she resumed her stroll. - -Whatever slight apprehension may have been on her mind had vanished by -the time she had half completed the circuit made by the main walk. -She had reached one of the mounds which at that time were covered with -rhododendrons, and paused for a moment to see if there was sign of a -bud. A blackbird flew out from among the dense leafage, and she followed -it with her eyes as well as she could while she walked on, crossing the -narrow path that led to the seats on the mound. But at the moment of -crossing she was startled out of her senses by the sound of a shout from -some distance down this path--a loud shout followed by several others -rather less imperative. She gave a little exclamation of terror, raising -her muff to her face. Glancing in the direction whence the commotion -was coming, she gave another cry, seeing a tall man rush toward her with -outstretched arms--waving arms, frantically beckoning to her while he -shouted: - -"Miss Burney! Miss Burney!" - -She waited no longer. She turned and fled along the broad walk, making -for one of the many labyrinths not so very far away, and after her ran -the man, still shouting and gesticulating. She could hear the sound of -his feet and his voice behind her, as well as the cries of the other -men who were endeavouring to keep pace with him. On they came, and there -flashed through her active brain, in spite of the horrible apprehension -which thrilled through every nerve in her body, as she doubled back -upon the path which she had just traversed, the lines written by Dr. -Goldsmith and often quoted by her friend Dr. Johnson: - - A hare whom hounds and horns pursue, - - Pants to the place from whence at first he flew. - -She realised, all too painfully, the feelings of the poor hare at that -moment. She longed for a friendly earth to open up before her. They were -behind her--those wild huntsmen, one hoarsely yelling to her she knew -not what, the others, more shrill, shouting to her to stop. - -She was too frightened to think of obeying any of them. On she ran, -and it seemed that she was increasing the distance between her and her -panting pursuers, until one of them, having better wind, managed to -shoot ahead of the others, and to get close enough to say in a voice -that was not all gasps: - -"Madam, madam, the doctor begs you to stop!" She glanced over her -shoulder, still flying. - -"No, no, I cannot--I dare not!" she gasped. - -"Madam, you must--you must: it hurts the King to run!" cried the man. - -Then she stopped. The man, an ordinary attendant, stood in front of her. -He was more breathless than Miss Burney. - -"The doctor, madam," he faltered, "'twas the doctor--he thought at first -that His Majesty was--was--but that was at first--now he says you must -please not lead His Majesty on--'tis all too much for him. Save us! How -you did go, madam! Who would ha' thought it?" - -She was paying no attention to him. Her eyes were fixed upon the group -of men who were recovering their breath while they walked slowly -toward her. The King was between his two physicians--not Physicians in -Ordinary; just the contrary--the two physicians who had been -summoned from Lincolnshire by some person in authority who possessed -intelligence--it should surely be easy to identify such a man at the -Court of George III--when, some months earlier, His Majesty gave signs -of losing his mental balance. They were the Willises, father and son, -the former a clergyman, who was therefore all the more fully qualified -to deal with a mind diseased--such a case as was defined as needing more -the divine than the physician. The King was between the father and his -son, but neither of them was exercising any ostentatious or officious -restraint upon him. One of them was smiling while he said some -reassuring words to the Royal patient; the other was endeavouring to -reassure little Miss Burney from a distance. - -And it seemed that the intentions of both were realised, for His Majesty -was smiling as benignly as was ever his wont, and little Miss Burney -took her courage in both hands and boldly advanced to meet her -Sovereign. (She had been for three years the Queen's "Dresser.") But -when they met, after the King had cried, "Why did you run away from me, -Miss Burney?" it appeared that the process of reassuring the King had -been but too effectually accomplished, for before the lady could frame a -diplomatic reply to his inquiry, he had enwound her in his paternal arms -and kissed her heartily on the cheek, greatly to her confusion and (she -pretends) to her horror. The two doctors stood placidly by. They, poor -things, being quite unaccustomed to the ways of the immediate entourage -of the Court of George III--though they had doubtless heard something -of the practices that prevailed at the Courts of His Majesty's lamented -grandfather and great-grandfather--seemed under the impression that -there was nothing unusual in this form of salutation. For all they knew -it might be regarded as _de rigueur_ between a monarch and the ladies of -his consort's retinue. Even Dr. Willis, the divine, took a tolerant view -of the transaction. He, as Miss Burney afterwards recorded, actually -looked pleased! - -But, of course, the prim little lady herself was overwhelmed--yes, at -first; but soon her good sense came to her rescue. She seems to have -come with extraordinary rapidity to the conclusion that the King was -not so mad as she had believed him to be. Her train of reasoning was -instinctive, and therefore correct: the King had put his arms about her -and kissed her when he had the chance, therefore he could not be so mad -after all. - -In truth, however, Fanny Burney took the view of her treatment that any -sensible modest young woman would take of it. She knew that the King, -who had been separated for several months from the people whom he had -been daily in the habit of meeting, had shown in the most natural way -possible his delight at coming once more in contact with one of them. - -And undoubtedly the homely old gentleman was delighted beyond measure to -meet with some one belonging to his happy years--a pleasanter face than -that of Mrs. Schwellenberg, the dreadful creature who had made Fanny -Burney's life miserable. It is not conceivable that the King would have -kissed Mrs. Schwellenberg if he had come upon her suddenly as he had -upon Miss Burney. People prefer silver rather than iron links with a -happy past. He was so overjoyed, that the divine and the physician in -attendance soon became anxious. They could not know much of all that -he talked about to Miss Burney. They were in the position of strangers -suddenly introduced to a family circle, and understanding nothing of the -little homely secrets--homely topics upon which all the members of the -circle have laughed together for years. - -They possibly could not see much sense in his long and rambling chat--it -must have been largely in monologue--but they must have observed the -face of the lady who was listening to him, and known from the expression -which it wore that their patient was making himself intelligible. Only -now and again they thought it prudent to check his exuberance. They must -have been the most intelligent of men; and their names deserve to stand -high in the annals of their country. At a time when the scientific -treatment of the insane had not even begun to be formulated--when to -be mentally afflicted meant to be on a level with felons and to be -subjected to such repressive treatment as was afforded by the iron of -the fetters and the hiss of the whipcord--at a time when a lust for -office could make a statesman like Burke (a statesman who caused -multitudes to weep in sympathy with his harangue on the sufferings -of Marie Antoinette) refer to the King as having been "hurled by the -Almighty from his throne" (in order to give the Opposition a chance of -jumping into place and power over his prostrate body)--at such a time -as this Dr. Willis and his two sons undertook the treatment of the King, -and in the face of much opposition from the place-hunters in the Prince -of Wales's pack, succeeded in restoring their patient to the palace -which his happy nature had transformed into a home for every one -dwelling under its roof. - -They stood by for some time after the King had greeted Miss Burney; and -when he began to speak to her of topics that had a purely domestic -ring they showed their good taste, as well as their knowledge of the -peculiarities of their "case," by moving away to a little distance, -signalling to their attendants to do the same. Their discrimination must -have been highly appreciated by the King. The poor restless mind had -long wanted such a good long talk with a sympathetic listener, who, he -knew, could understand every allusion that he might make to the past. -He yearned to talk and to hear of such things as some one living in a -distant land looks forward to finding in a letter from home. The _res -angusta domi_--that was what he was hungering for--the trivial things in -which he delighted--the confidences on simple matters--the sly everyday -jests, never acutely pointed even to the family circle, but absolutely -pointless to every one outside, yet sounding so delightfully witty when -repeated as a sign of a happy intimacy of the past! - -Little Miss Burney had never imagined a scene like that in which -she played an insignificant part at the moment, but one of enormous -importance for posterity. She had, a few years before, been placed upon -the porphyry pedestal which is reserved in England for the greatest -woman writer of the generation. Seated there quite complacently, without -reflecting upon the possibility of her pedestal becoming a trifle -rickety, she had clasped her novel _Evelina_ to her bosom, and received, -without her head being in the least turned, the adulation--respectful -in some cases, almost passionate in others--of the most notable men -and women in the most intellectual and artistic society in England. -Dr. Samuel Johnson, who was not disposed to overrate the merits of any -writer whom the world had praised, was kissing her hands, and Richard -Brinsley Sheridan was kissing her feet; Sir Joshua Reynolds was kissing -the hem of her garments; while Edmund Burke was weaving a tinsel crown -of rhetoric for her shapely head; but there were others equally great -at that time who seemed to think that only a nimbus could give the -appropriate finish to the little personage on the pedestal. The -marvellous story of her success has been often told. It is more easily -told than understood in the present day, the fact being that fashion in -fiction is the most ephemeral of all human caprices, and Fanny Burney -was essentially a fashion. She followed up the marvellous success of -_Evelina_, after an interval of four years, with the natural success of -_Cecilia_, and, after another four years, she retired from the brilliant -world into the obscurity of the palace--the palace wardrobe. She had -visited Mrs. Delany, and had been introduced (not presented) to the King -and Queen, and the office of Queen's Dresser--Keeper of the Robes was -the stately designation of a very humble service--becoming vacant, it -was offered to Fanny Burney and accepted by her, acting on the advice -of her father, who most certainly hoped that his own interests as a -musician, fully qualified to become leader of the Royal Band, would -be materially advanced when his daughter should become one of the -Household. - -Reams of indignation have been published from time to time in respect of -Dr. Burney's conduct in urging on his one brilliant daughter--the others -were not brilliant, only mothers--to accept a post the duties of which -could be discharged by any lady's maid with far more advantage to the -Royal Consort than could possibly result from the ministrations of Fanny -Burney. The world has been called on to bemoan the prudent indiscretion -of the father, who did not hesitate to fling his gifted daughter's pen -out of the window, so to speak, and thereby deprive the waiting world of -some such masterpiece as _Camilla_--the novel which she published five -years after her release from the burden of the Robes. There can be -no doubt that the feeling which prevailed among the circle of the -elect--the Reynoldses, the Burkes, and even the frigid Walpole--when -it became known that Miss Burney's health was breaking down under -the strain of her duties at the Court--she had about two hours' daily -attendance of the most ordinary nature upon the Queen--was on the border -of indignation. Every one affirmed that it was a disgrace for so lively -a genius to be kept at the duties of a lady's maid. It was like turning -the winner of the Oaks out to the plough. Edmund Burke, recalling his -early approbation of the intentions of Dr. Burney in regard to his -daughter, declared that he had never made so great a mistake in all -his life; and we know that he made a few. These excellent people had no -reason to speak otherwise than they did on this matter. All they knew -was that the pen of the novelist who had given them so much pleasure had -been (as they believed) idle for nearly nine years, five of which had -been passed at the Court. That reflection was quite enough to rouse -their indignation. But what can one say of the indignation on this point -of a writer who actually made the fact of his being engaged on a review -of the Diary of Fanny Burney--the incomparable Diary which she kept -during her five years at Court--an excuse for turning the vials of his -wrath upon her father, whose obstinacy gave her a chance of writing the -most interesting chapter--the most accurate chapter--of History that was -ever penned by man or woman? - -Macaulay wrote in all the fullness of his knowledge of what Fanny -Burney had written. He knew that for four years after she had published -_Cecilia_ her pen had been idle so far as fiction was concerned. He knew -that for five years after her release from the thraldom of the Queen's -closet she had published nothing; he himself felt it to be his duty to -point out the comparative worthlessness of _Camilla_, the novel which -she then gave to the world, not because she felt upon her the impulse of -a woman of genius, but simply because she found herself in great need -of some ready money. Macaulay does not disdain to go into the money -question, showing (he fancies) how Dr. Burney had by his obstinacy -deprived his gifted daughter of earning the large sum which she would -assuredly have obtained by the writing of a novel in the time that -she was compelled to devote to the Queen's _toilette_. He found it -convenient to ignore the fact that of the fourteen years that elapsed -between the publication of _Cecilia_ and that of _Camilla_ only five -were spent at Court. Surely any born novelist could, without running -a chance of imperilling a well-earned reputation by undue haste in the -dialogue or by scamping the descriptive passages, contrive by dint of -hard, but not over-hard, work to produce more than one complete romance -within a space of nine years. Many ladies who are not born novelists -have succeeded in surpassing this task without physical suffering. - -But even assuming that the author of _Evelina, Cecilia, and Camilla_ -lost not only time but money while she was at Court, how much money did -she lose? She received at least the equivalent of 2000 for her five -years' service, and she was granted a pension of 100 a year, which she -drew for forty-nine years; so that for her enforced seclusion she was -remunerated to the extent of close upon 7000! This sum represents more -than all Fanny Burney's literary works yielded to her from the joyous -youthful days of _Evelina_ down to the somewhat sordid middle age of -_Camilla_. - -But what has the world gained by the lamentable short-sightedness -attributed to Dr. Burney? How is one to estimate the value of that -incomparable Diary so admirably "written up" during her tedious five -years at Court? How many _Cecilias_, how many _Camillas_ would one not -give in exchange for a single year of that part of the Diary which deals -with the approach of the King's malady? In no work of fiction that ever -came from her pen did she ever show such power of observation, not only -of incident, but of character as well; nor is there apparent on any page -produced by her imagination such perfect artistic effects as appeal to a -reader on every page of this Diary of a disease. - -At the outset of her account of these dreadful days we are conscious -of the vague approach of a shadow--we feel as if we were led into the -darkened chamber of a haunted house. Our attendant pauses by our side, -listening for strange noises; she lays a hand upon our arm, as it were, -and speaks to us in a whisper. We feel that the dread Thing is coming. -The King is indisposed--he has not been quite in his usual health for -some time past; but of course nothing very alarming has been announced -by Sir George Barker, the Physician in Ordinary, although there is an -uncertainty as to His Majesty's complaint. But Miss Burney has seen the -faces of the people about her who have come more closely in contact with -the Sovereign; she has doubtless noticed the solemnity of some--the airs -of mystery, the head-shakings, and she is capable of drawing her own -conclusions. "Heaven preserve him!" she whispers in her Diary for -October 19th, 1788. She is very much with the Queen, and she perceives -that Her Majesty is extremely uneasy, though saying nothing. There is -great alarm during the night. Possibly some one has heard the delirious -voice of the King coming from his apartments in that tumbledown palace -of his at Kew. The fright is general, and every one is wondering what -the morning will bring forth. Hope comes with the light. The bulletin is -that the King was ill, but is now so very much better that his physician -believes the move to Windsor, to which the Court was looking forward, -may be taken. The move is made on the 25th, and then Miss Burney has a -chance meeting with the King that causes her to suspect the truth. He -talks to her with unnatural vehemence--unnatural volubility--and without -cessation for a long time; all is exaggerated, and his graciousness most -of all. She has never met with anything like this before, but having -heard of the delirium accompanying a high fever, she believes that His -Majesty is in the throes of a fever. - -The next day is Sunday, and she meets him again in one of the passages, -and she finds him rather more coherent in his talk, but still it is the -talk of a man in the delirium of a fever. It is all about himself--his -health--his dreadful sleeplessness. He keeps at it for half an hour -without making the slightest pause; and yet he manages to convey to -her an impression of his benevolence--his consideration for the people -around him--his hopes that he may not cause them any uneasiness. When he -leaves her she doubtless tells of the meeting to some of her friends in -the apartments where the equerries are accustomed to meet, and doubtless -there are more head-shakings and airs of mystery; but she records: -"Nobody speaks of his illness, nor what they think of it." - -Apparently, too, no one felt it to be necessary to subject His Majesty -to any course of treatment, although, a few days later, he became -so weak that he, who at the beginning of the year thought nothing of -walking twelve miles at a stretch--more than his sons could do--hobbled -along like a gouty man. Gradually, very gradually, the horror -approaches; and nothing that has ever been done in fiction equals in -effect the simple record of all that Fanny Burney noticed from day to -day. Most touching of all her entries are those relating to the Queen. -"The Queen," she writes, "is almost overpowered with some secret -terror. I am affected beyond all expression in her presence to see what -struggles she makes to support her serenity. To-day she gave up the -conflict when I was alone with her; and burst into a violent fit of -tears. It was very, very terrible to see!... something horrible seemed -impending... I was still wholly unsuspicious of the greatness of the -cause she had for dread. Illness, a breaking up of the constitution, the -payment of sudden infirmity and premature old age for the waste of -unguarded health and strength--these seemed to me the threats awaiting -her; and great and grievous enough, yet how short of the fact!"... - -At last the terrible truth was revealed. Miss Burney was dining with one -of the Queen's ladies; but there was little conversation between them. -It was clear that both had their suspicions of the nature of the dread -shadow that was hovering over the castle. They remained together, -waiting for the worst. "A stillness the most uncommon reigned over the -whole house. Nobody stirred; not a voice was heard; not a motion. I -could do nothing but watch, without knowing for what; there seemed a -strangeness in the house most extraordinary." - -To talk of such passages as these as examples of literary art would be -ridiculous. They are transcripts from life itself made by some one with -a genius for observation, not merely for recording. Boswell had a genius -for recording; but his powers of observation were on a level with those -of a sheep. We know perfectly well what his treatment of the scenes -leading up to the tragedy of the King would have been. But Fanny Burney -had the artist's instinct for collecting only such incidents as heighten -the effect. - -When she is still sitting in the dim silence of that November evening -with her friend some one enters to whisper that there was to be no -playing of the after-dinner music in which the King usually took so much -pleasure. Later on the equerries come slowly into the room. There is -more whispering--more head-shaking. What was it all about? Had anything -happened? What had happened? No one wishes to be the first to speak. But -the suspense! The strain upon the nerves of the two ladies! At last it -can be borne no longer. The dreadful revelation is made. The King is a -madman! - -At dinner, the Prince of Wales being present, His Majesty had "broken -forth into positive delirium, which long had been menacing all who -saw him most closely; and the Queen was so overpowered as to fall into -violent hysterics. All the princesses were in misery, and the Prince of -Wales had burst into tears. No one knew what was to follow--no one could -conjecture the event." Nothing could be more pathetic than the concern -of the King for his wife. His delusion is that she is the sufferer. When -Fanny Burney went to her room, where she was accustomed to await her -nightly summons to attend Her Majesty, she remained there alone for two -hours. At midnight she can stand the suspense no longer. She opens the -door and listens in the passage. Not a sound is to be heard. Not even -a servant crossed the stairs on the corridor off which her apartment -opened. After another hour's suspense a page knocks at her door with the -message that she is to go at once to her Royal mistress. - -"My poor Royal Mistress!" she writes. "Never can I forget her -countenance--pale, ghastly pale she looked... her whole frame was -disordered, yet she was still and quiet. And the poor King is dreadfully -uneasy about her. Nothing was the matter with himself, he affirmed, -except nervousness on her account. He insisted on having a bed made -up for himself in her dressing-room in order that he might be at hand -should she become worse through the night. He had given orders that Miss -Goldsworthy was to remain with her; but it seemed that he had no great -confidence in the vigilance of any one but himself, for some hours -after the Queen had retired he appeared before the eyes of the horrified -lady-in-waiting, at the door, bearing a lighted candle. He opened the -bed curtains and satisfied himself that his dread of her being carried -out of the palace was unfounded; but he did not leave the room for -another half-hour, and the terror of the scene completely overwhelmed -the unhappy lady." - -Truly when this terror was walking by night Fanny Burney's stipend was -well earned. But worse was in store for her when it was decided that the -King should be removed to Kew Palace, which he detested and which was -certainly the most miserable of all the miserable dwelling-places of the -Royal Family. It seemed to be nobody's business to make any preparation -for the reception of the Queen and her entourage. The rooms were dirty -and unwarmed, and the corridors were freezing. And to the horrors of -this damp, unsavoury barrack was added Mrs. Schwellenberg, the German -she-dragon who had done her best to make Fanny Burney's life unendurable -during the previous three years. Formerly Fanny had dwelt upon the -ill-treatment she had received at the hands of this old harridan; -but now she only refers to her as an additional element of casual -discomfort. The odious creature is "so oppressed between her spasms and -the house's horrors, that the oppression she inflicted ought perhaps -to be pardoned. It was, however, difficult enough to bear," she adds. -"Harshness, tyranny, dissension, and even insult seemed personified. I -cut short details upon this subject--they would but make you sick." - -Truly little Miss Burney earned her wages at this time. The dilapidated -palace was only rendered habitable by the importation of a cartload of -sandbags, which were as strategically distributed for the exclusion of -the draughts as if they were the usual defensive supply of a siege. But -even this ingenious device failed to neutralise the Arctic rigours of -the place. The providing of carpets for some of the bare floors of the -bedrooms and passages was a startling innovation; but eventually it was -carried out. An occasional set of curtains also was smuggled into this -frozen fairy palace, and a sofa came now and again. - -But in spite of all these auxiliaries to luxury--in spite, too, of Mrs. -Schwellenberg's having locked herself into her room, forbidding any one -to disturb her--the dreariness and desolation of the December at Kew -must have caused Miss Burney to think with longing of the comforts of -her father's home in St. Martin's Street and of the congenial atmosphere -which she breathed during her numerous visits to the Thrales' solid -mansion at Streatham. - -[Illustration: 0035] - -The condition of the King was becoming worse, and early whispers of -the necessity for a Regency grew louder. It was understood that Mrs. -Fitzherbert would be made a duchess! Everybody outside the palace sought -to stand well in the estimation of the Prince of Wales, and Pitt was -pointed out as a traitor to his country because he did his best -to postpone the Comus orgy which every one knew would follow the -establishing of a Regency. The appointment of the Doctors Willis was -actually referred to as a shocking impiety, suggesting as it did a -wicked rebellion against the decree of the Almighty, Who, according to -Burke, had hurled the monarch from his throne. There were, however, some -who did not regard Mr. Burke as an infallible judge on such a point, and -no one was more indignant at the mouthings of the rhetorician than Miss -Burney. But it seemed as if the approach of the Regency could no longer -be retarded. The Willises were unable to certify to any improvement -in the condition of the King during the month of January, 1789. It was -really not until he had that chase after Fanny Burney in Kew Gardens -that a change for the better came about. - -Though she was greatly terrified by his affectionate salutation, -she could not but have been surprised at the sanity displayed in -the monologue that followed; for one of the first of his innumerable -questions revealed to her the fact that he was perfectly well aware of -what a trial to her patience was the odious Mrs. Schwellenberg. He asked -how she was getting on with Mrs. Schwellenberg, and he did so with a -laugh that showed her how well he appreciated her difficulties in this -direction in the past. Before she could say a word he was making light -of the Schwellenberg--adopting exactly the strain that he knew would be -most effective with Miss Burney. - -"Never mind her--never mind her! Don't be oppressed! I am your friend! -Don't let her cast you down--I know that you have a hard time of it--but -don't mind her!" - -The advice and the tone in which it was given--with a pleasant -laugh--did not seem very consistent with what she expected from a -madman. Fanny Burney appears up to that moment to have been under the -impression that the King and Queen had known nothing of the tyranny and -the insults to which she had been subjected by Mrs. Schwellenberg. But -now it was made plain to her that the eyes of the Royal couple had been -open all the time. If Macaulay had noticed the passage touching upon -this point he would have had still stronger grounds for his attack upon -their Majesties for their want of consideration for the tire-woman who -was supposed never to be tired. - -But how much more surprised must Fanny Burney have been when the King -went on to talk to her in the most cordially confidential way about her -father! It must have been another revelation to her when he showed how -fully he realised the ambitions of Dr. Burney. He asked her regarding -the progress of the _History of Music_, at which Dr. Burney had been -engaged for several years, and this gave him a chance of getting -upon his favourite topic, the music of Handel. But when he began to -illustrate some of his impressions on this fruitful theme by singing -over the choruses of an oratorio or two--perhaps such trifles as "All we -like Sheep," or "Lift up your Heads," or the "Hallelujah"--he must have -gone far toward neutralising the good opinion she had formed as to his -sanity. Fortunately the attendant doctors interposed at this point; but -the fact that the distinguished amateur suffered their adverse criticism -proves to posterity that the King was even more good-natured than he had -been painted by Miss Burney. - -On then he went to talk of the subject which must never have been far -from Dr. Burney's heart--the Mastership of the King's Band: "Your father -ought to have had the post, and not that little poor musician Parsons, -who was not fit for it," he cried. "But Lord Salisbury used your father -very ill in that business, and so he did me! However, I have dashed -out his name, and I shall put your father's in--as soon as I get loose -again. What has your father got at last? Nothing but that poor thing at -Chelsea! Oh, fie! fie! But never mind! I will take care of him--I will -do it myself!" - -Could he have given the devoted daughter of Dr. Burney a more emphatic -proof of his complete recovery to sanity than this? Why, it would have -convinced Dr. Burney himself! - -Alas! although the King may have been very resolute at the moment--he -had just been making out a list of new officers of State, and was ready -to show her that the name of her father's enemy, Lord Salisbury, was not -to be found in it, and he assured her that in future he would rule with -a rod of iron--yet before he returned to his ordinary way of life he -must have mislaid his list, for poor Dr. Burney remained at his post of -organist of Chelsea Hospital. He never attained to the place which -he coveted and for which his daughter was sent to five years' Royal -servitude, and (incidentally) to achieve for herself that immortality -as a chronicler which would certainly never have been won by her as a -novelist. - -But the King did not confine his conversation to the one topic which he -knew was of greatest interest to her. He spoke of Mrs. Delany, who had -been the means of introducing Fanny to the Royal circle; and he referred -to the ill-treatment which he had received at the hands of one of his -pages; but this was the only passage that savoured of unkindness, and -the chronicler is unable to do more than hope that the conduct of the -pages was one of His Majesty's delusions. Then, with what seems to us to -be consummate adroitness, he put some questions to her which she could -not but answer. "They referred to information given to him in his -illness from various motives, but which he suspected to be false, and -which I knew he had reason to suspect," Miss Burney writes. "Yet was it -most dangerous to set anything right, as I was not aware what might be -the views of their having been stated wrong. I was as discreet as I knew -how to be, and I hope I did no mischief: but this was the worst part of -the dialogue." - -We can quite believe that it was, and considering that it was the part -of the dialogue which was most interesting to the King, we think that -Miss Burney was to be congratulated upon the tact she displayed in her -answers. She did not cause the King to be more perturbed than he was -when waxing indignant over the conduct of his pages; and there was no -need for Dr. Willis to interfere at this point, though he did a little -later on. Then submitting with the utmost docility to the control of -his excellent attendant, and with another exhortation not to pay any -attention to the whims of the Schwellenberg, the gracious gentleman -kissed her once more on the cheek and allowed her to take her departure. - -So ended this remarkable adventure in Kew Gardens. One can picture -Fanny Burney flying to tell the Queen all that had occurred--to repeat -everything that her discretion permitted her of the conversation; and -one has no difficulty in imagining the effect upon Queen Charlotte -of all that she narrated; but it seems rather hard that from Mrs. -Schwellenberg should have been withheld the excellent advice given by -the King to Miss Burney respecting the German virago. - -It would have been impossible either for Fanny Burney or the Queen -to come to any conclusion from all that happened except one that was -entirely satisfactory to both. King George III was undoubtedly on the -high road to recovery, and subsequent events confirmed this opinion. It -really seemed that the interview with the author of _Evelina_ marked the -turning-point in his malady at this time. Every day brought its record -of improvement, and within a fortnight the dreaded Regency Bill, which -had been sent up to the Lords, was abandoned. On March 1st there -were public thanksgivings in all the churches, followed by such an -illumination of London as had not been seen since the great fire. The -scene at Kew is admirably described by Miss Burney, who had written some -congratulatory lines to be offered by the Princess Amelia to the King. A -great "transparency" had been painted by the Queen's order, representing -the King, Providence, Health, and Britannia--a truly British -tableau--and when this was hung out and illuminated the little Princess -"went to lead her papa to the front window." Then she dropped on her -knees and gave him the "copy of verses," with the postscript: - - The little bearer begs a kiss - - From dear papa for bringing this. - -The "dear papa" took his dear child in his arms, and held her close to -him for some time. Nothing could have been more charmingly natural and -affecting. For such a picture of Royalty at home we are indebted to -Fanny Burney, and, face to face with it, we are selfish enough to feel -grateful to Dr. Burney for having given his daughter for five years -to discharge a humble duty to her Sovereign and an immortal one to her -fellow-countrymen, who have read her Diary and placed it on a shelf -between Pepys and de Gramont. - - - - -A COMEDY IN ST. MARTIN'S STREET - -DR BURNEY was giving a "command" party at his house in St. Martin's -Street, Leicester Fields--the house which Sir Isaac Newton did -once inhabit, and which was still crowned with the most celebrated -observatory in Europe. In the early years of his musical career he had -had a patron, Mr. Fulk Greville, who had done a great deal for him, -and in later days he had never quite forgotten this fact, although -Dr. Burney had climbed high on the professional as well as the social -ladder, and was better known in the world than Mr. Greville himself. He -had become quite intimate with many great persons and several curious -ones. It is uncertain whether Mr. Greville regarded Dr. Johnson as -belonging to the former or the latter class, but at any rate he had -heard a great deal about Dr. Johnson, and did not think that, provided -he took every reasonable precaution, any harm could come to himself from -meeting such a notability. He accordingly instructed Dr. Burney to bring -him and Johnson together, and Burney promised to do so. Before the day -for this meeting was fixed Mrs. Greville--who, by the way, was Fanny -Burney's godmother--had signified her intention of viewing the huge -person also, and of bringing her daughter, the exquisite Mrs. Crewe, to -attend the promised exhibition of genius in bulk. - -Of course Dr. Johnson was ready to lend himself to any plan that might -be devised to increase the circumference of his circle of admirers, and -besides, this Mr. Fulk Greville was a descendant of the friend of Sir -Philip Sidney, and had large possessions, as well as a magnificent -country seat, and altogether he would make a most desirable listener; so -he agreed to come to the party to be inspected by the Greville family. -Burney, however, wishing, as every responsible proprietor of a menagerie -should wish, to be on the safe side and exhibit his bear under the eye -and the controlling influence of his favourite keeper, invited Mr. and -Mrs. Thrale to the party. - -These were to be the "principals" in the comedy of this entertainment; -and for the subordinates he selected his married daughter and her -husband--both admirable musicians--Mr. Davenant, Mr. Seward, and a -certain Italian musician, a vocalist as well as a performer on the -violin and that new instrument which was at first called the fortepiano, -then the pianoforte, and later on simply the piano. This person's name -was Gabrielli Piozzi. - -Such were the harmonious elements which Dr. Burney proposed to bring -together for the gratification of Mr. Fulk Greville and his wife. Mr. -Greville was an amateur of some little capacity, and he had certainly at -one time been greatly interested in music. He had paid 300 to Burney's -master, the celebrated Dr. Arne, who composed in the masque of "Alfred" -the rousing anthem known as "Rule Britannia," for the cancelling of -Burney's indentures as an apprentice to the "art of musick," and had -taken the young man into his own house in a capacity which may best be -described as that of entertaining secretary. Dr. Burney may therefore -have thought in his wisdom that, should Johnson be in one of his -bearish moods and feel disinclined to exhibit his parts of speech to -Mr. Greville, the latter would be certain of entertainment from the -musicians. This showed forethought and a good working knowledge of Dr. -Johnson. But in spite of the second string to the musician's bow -the party was a fiasco--that is, from the standpoint of a social -entertainment; it included one incident, however, which made it the most -notable of the many of the Burney parties of which a record remains. - -And what records there are available to any one interested in the -entertainments given by Dr. Burney and his charming family at that -modest house of theirs, just round the corner from Sir Joshua Reynolds' -larger establishment in Leicester Fields! Hundreds of people who -contributed to make the second half of the eighteenth century the most -notable of any period so far as literature and the arts were concerned, -since the spacious days of Elizabeth, were accustomed to meet together -informally at this house, and to have their visits recorded for all ages -to muse upon. To that house came Garrick, not to exhibit his brilliance -as a talker before a crowd of admirers, but to entertain the children -of the household with the buffooning that never flagged, and that -never fell short of genius in any exhibition. He was the delight of the -schoolroom. Edmund Burke and his brother, both fond of conversation when -oratory was not available, were frequently here; Reynolds came with -many of his sitters, and found fresh faces for his canvas among his -fellow-guests; and with him came his maiden sister, feeling herself more -at home with the simple Burney circle than she ever did with the company -who assembled almost daily under her brother's roof. Nollekens, the -sculptor; Colman, the dramatist and theatre manager, who was obliged to -run away from London to escape the gibes which were flung at him from -every quarter when Goldsmith's _She Stoops to Conquer_, which he had -done his best to make a failure, became the greatest success of the -year; Cumberland, the embittered rival of Goldsmith, who was the person -who gave the solitary hiss during the first performance of the same -play, causing the timid author to say to the manager on entering the -playhouse, "What is that, sir--pray, what is that? Is it a hiss?" To -which Colman replied, "Psha! sir, what signifies a squib when we have -been sitting on a barrel of gunpowder all night?" - -These were among the notabilities; and the "curiosities" were quite as -numerous. The earliest of Arctic voyagers, Sir Constantine Phipps, who -later became Lord Mulgrave, put in an appearance at more than one of the -parties; and so did Omai, the "gentle savage" of the poet Cowper, who -was brought by Captain Cook from the South Seas in the ship on which -young Burney was an officer. The sisters, who, of course, idolised the -sailor, sat open-mouthed with wonder to hear their brother chatting away -to Omai in his native language. Upon another occasion came Bruce, the -Abyssinian traveller, who told the story of how steaks were cut from the -live ox when needed by the inhabitants of one region. He was immensely -tall, as were some of his stories; but though extremely dignified, he -did not object to a practical joke. Another person of great stature who -visited the Burneys was the notorious Count Orloff, the favourite of the -Empress Catherine of Russia; and from the letters of one of the young -people of the household one has no difficulty in perceiving with what -interest he was regarded by the girls, especially since the report -reached them that he had personally strangled his imperial master at the -instigation of his imperial mistress. - -These are but, a few names out of the many on the Burneys' visiting -list. Of course, as regards musical artists, the house was the -rendezvous of the greatest in London. While the opera-house in the -Haymarket was open there was a constant flow of brilliant vocalists to -these shores, and the young people had many opportunities of becoming -acquainted with the ignorance, the capriciousness, the affectations, and -the abilities which were to be found associated with the lyric stage in -the eighteenth century, as they are in the twentieth. Among the prime -donne who sang for the Burneys were the Agujari--a marvellous performer, -who got fifty pounds for every song she sang at the Pantheon--and her -great but uncertain rival, Gabrielli. The former, according to Mozart, -who may possibly be allowed to be something of a judge, had a vocal -range which was certainly never equalled by any singer before or after -his time. She won all hearts and a great deal of money during her visit -to London, and she left with the reputation of being the most marvellous -and most rapacious of Italians. Gabrielli seems to have tried to make up -by capriciousness what she lacked in expression. Her voice was, so far -as can be gathered from contemporary accounts, small and thin. But by -judiciously disappointing the public she became the most widely talked -of vocalist in the country. Then among the men were the simple and -gracious Pacchierotti--who undoubtedly became attached to Fanny -Burney--Rauzzini, and Piozzi. - -[Illustration: 0049] - -The Burneys' house was for years the centre of the highest intellectual -entertainment to be found in London, and the tact of the head of the -household, and the simple, natural manners of his daughters, usually -succeeded in preventing the intrusion of a single inharmonious note, in -spite of the fact that a Welsh harpist named Jones had once been among -the visitors. - -But upon the occasion of this "command" party, when Greville was to meet -Johnson, and the latter had dressed himself with that extreme care which -we suspect meant that he tied up his hose, and put on a wig the front of -which had not yet been burnt away by coming in contact with his lighted -candle, Burney's tact overreached itself. Mr. Greville may have felt -that the Thrales had no business to be of the party, or Johnson may have -gained the impression that Burney's old patron was anxious to play the -same part, in an honorary sort of way, in regard to himself. At any -rate, he refused to be drawn out to exhibit his conversational powers -to a supercilious visitor; and after a brief space of time he turned his -back upon every one and his face to the fire, and there he sat, greatly -to the discomfiture, no doubt, of his host. In a very short time a gloom -settled down upon the whole party. Mr. Thrale, stiff and reserved, was -not the man to pull things together. He sat mute on his chair, making no -advance toward Mr. Greville, and Mr. Greville had probably his chin in -the air, having come to the conclusion that Dr. Johnson's powers as a -conversationalist had been greatly overrated by rumour. - -It was when all hope of sociability had vanished that Dr. Burney, -who, when a church organist, may have had occasion to cover up the -shortcomings of the clergyman by a timely voluntary, begged Signor -Piozzi to oblige the company with a song. But Piozzi was a forlorn hope. -He was the last man in the world to save the situation. Had he been a -vocalist of the calibre of Pacchierotti he could have made no headway -against the funereal gloom that had settled down upon the party. - -Piozzi had a sweet and highly trained voice, though some years earlier -he had lost its best notes, and he sang with exquisite expression; -but when playing his own accompaniment, with his back turned to his -audience, he was prone to exaggerate the sentiment of the music until -sentiment became lost in an exuberance of sentimentality. - -This style of singing is not that to which any one would resort in order -to dissipate a sudden social gloom. As the singer went on the gloom -deepened. - -It was just at this moment that one of those ironic little imps that -lurk in wainscot nooks looking out for an opportunity to influence an -unconscious human being to an act which the little demon, seeing the -end of a scene of which mortals only see the beginning, regards with -sardonic glee, whispered something in the ear of Mrs. Thrale, and in -an instant, in obedience to its prompting, she had left her chair and -stolen behind the singer at the piano. Raising her hands and turning -up her eyes in imitation of Piozzi, she indulged in a piece of mimicry -which must have shocked every one in the room except the singer, who had -his back to her, and Dr. Johnson, who, besides being too short-sighted -to be able to see her, was gazing into the grate. - -No doubt the flippant little lady felt that a touch of farcical fun -was the very thing needed to make the party go with a snap; but such -flagrant bad taste as was involved in the transaction was more than -Dr. Burney could stand. Keeping his temper marvellously well in hand, -considering his provocation, he went gently behind the gesticulating -woman and put a stop to her fooling. Shaking his head, he whispered in a -"half joke whole earnest" way: - -"Because, madam, you have no ear yourself for music, will you destroy -the attention of all who, in that one point, are otherwise gifted?" - -Or words to that effect, it might be safe to add, for the phrases as -recorded in the diary of one of his daughters are a trifle too academic -for even Dr. Burney to have whispered on the spur of the moment. But he -certainly reproved the lady, and she took his remonstrance in good part, -and showed herself to be admirably appreciative of the exact pose to -assume in order to save the situation. She went demurely to her chair -and sat there stiffly, and with the affectation of a schoolgirl who has -been admonished for a fault and commanded to take a seat in silence and -apart from the rest of the class. It must be apparent to every one that -this was the precise attitude for her to strike in the circumstances, -and that she was able to perceive this in a rather embarrassing moment -shows that Mrs. Thrale was quite as clever as her friends made her out -to be. - -But regarding the incident itself, surely the phrase, "the irony of -fate," was invented to describe it. A better illustration of the sport -of circumstance could not be devised, for in the course of time the -lively little lady, who had gone as far as any one could go in making a -mock of another, had fallen as deep in love with the man whom she mocked -as ever Juliet did with her Romeo. She found that she could not live -without him, and, sacrificing friends, position, and fortune, she threw -herself into his arms, and lived happy ever after. - -The conclusion of the first scene in this saturnine comedy which was -being enacted in the drawing-room in that house in St. Martin's Street, -was in perfect keeping with the _mise-en-scne_ constructed by Fate, -taking the rle of Puck. It is admirably described in the diary of -Charlotte Burney. She wrote that Mr. Greville--whom she nicknamed "Mr. -Gruel"--assumed "his most supercilious air of distant superiority" and -"planted himself immovable as a noble statue upon the hearth, as if a -stranger to the whole set." - -By this time Dr. Johnson must have had enough of the fire at which -he had been sitting, and we at once see how utterly hopeless were the -social relations at this miserable party when we hear that the men "were -so kind and considerate as to divert themselves by making a fire-screen -to the whole room." But Dr. Johnson, having thoroughly warmed himself, -was now in a position to administer a rebuke to the less fortunate ones, -and, when nobody would have imagined that he had known the gentlemen -were in the room, he said that "if he was not ashamed he would keep the -fire from the ladies too." - -"This reproof (for a reproof it certainly was, although given in a very -comical, dry way) was productive," Charlotte adds, "of a scene as good -as a comedy, for Mr. Suard tumbled on to a sopha directly, Mr. Thrale on -to a chair, Mr. Davenant sneaked off the premises, seemingly in as great -a fright and as much confounded as if he had done any bad action, and -Mr. Gruel being left solus, was obliged to stalk off." - -A more perfect description of the "curtain" to the first act of this, -"as good as a comedy," could not be imagined. In every scene of this -memorable evening the mocking figure of an impish Fate can be discerned. -There was the tactful and urbane Dr. Burney anxious to gratify his old -patron by presenting to him the great Dr. Johnson, and at the same time -to show on what excellent terms he himself was with the family of the -wealthy brewer, Mr. Thrale. Incidentally he has caused Johnson to put -himself to the inconvenience of a clean shirt and a respectable wig; -and, like a thoughtful general, lest any of his plans should fall short -of fulfilment, he has invited an interesting vocalist to cover up the -retreat and make failure almost impossible! - -Dr. Burney could do wonders by the aid of his tact and urbanity, but he -is no match for Fate playing the part of Puck. Within an hour Johnson -has disappointed him and become grumpy--the old bear has found the buns -to be stale; Mr. Greville, the patron, is in a patronising mood, and -becomes stiff and aloof because Johnson, secure with his pension, -resents it; Mrs. Thrale, anxious to do her best for Burney, and at the -same time to show Mrs. Greville and her fine daughter how thoroughly -at home she is in the house and how delicate is her sense of humour, -strikes an appallingly false note, and only saves herself by a touch of -cleverness from appearing wholly ridiculous. This is pretty well for the -opening scenes, but the closing catastrophe is not long delayed. The men -huddle themselves together in stony silence; and they are reproved for -impoliteness by--whom? Dr. Johnson, the man who has studied boorishness -and advanced it to a place among the arts--the man who calls those who -differ from him dolts and fools and rascals--the man whose manners at -the dinner table are those of the sty and trough--the man who walks -about the streets ungartered and unclean--this is the man who has the -effrontery to rebuke for their rudeness such gentlemen as Mr. Fulk -Greville, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Thrale! Puck can go no further. Down comes -the curtain when one gentleman collapses upon a "sopha," another into a -chair, a third sneaks off like a culprit, and the fourth stalks off with -an air of offended dignity! - -It might be thought that the imp of mischief who had assumed the control -of this evening's entertainment would be satisfied at the result of his -pranks so far. Nothing of the sort. He was only satisfied when he -had made a match between the insignificant figure who was playing the -musical accompaniment to his pranks and the lady who thought that his -presence in the room was only justifiable on the ground that he made an -excellent butt for her mockery! - -And the funniest part of the whole comedy is to be found in the fact -that the pair lived happy ever after! - -The extraordinary influence which Boswell has had upon almost every -student of the life of the latter half of the eighteenth century is -shown in a marked way by the general acceptance of his view--which it is -scarcely necessary to say was Johnson's view--of the second marriage of -Mrs. Thrale. We are treating Boswell much more fairly than he treated -Mrs. Thrale when we acknowledge at once that his opinion was shared by a -considerable number of the lady's friends, including Dr. Burney and -his family. They were all shocked when they heard that the widow of -the Southwark brewer had married the Italian musician, Signor Gabrielli -Piozzi. Even in the present day, when one might reasonably expect -that, the miserable pettiness of Boswell's character having been made -apparent, his judgment on most points would be received with a smile, he -is taken very seriously by a good many people. It has long ago been made -plain that Boswell was quite unscrupulous in his treatment of every one -that crossed his path or made an attempt to interfere with the aim of -his life, which was to become the biographer of Johnson. The instances -of his petty malevolence which have come to light within recent years -are innumerable. They show that the opinion which his contemporaries -formed of him was absolutely correct. We know that he was regarded as a -cur who was ever at Johnson's heels, and took the insults of the great -man with a fawning complacency that was pathetically canine. He was -daily called a cur. "Oh, no," said Goldsmith, "he is not a cur, only a -burr; Tom Davies flung him at Johnson one day as a joke, and he stuck to -him ever since"--a cur, and an ape and a spy and a Branghton--the last -by Dr. Johnson himself in the presence of a large company, that included -the creator of the contemptible Mr. Branghton. (The incident was not, -however, recorded by Mr. Boswell himself.) But as the extraordinary -interest in his _Life of Johnson_ began to be acknowledged, the force of -contemporary opinion gradually dwindled away, until Boswell's verdicts -and Boswell's inferences found general acceptance; and even now -Goldsmith is regarded as an Irish _omadhaum_, because Boswell did his -best to make him out to be one, and Mrs. Thrale is thought to have -forfeited her claims to respect because she married Signor Piozzi. - -People forget the origin of Boswell's malevolence in both cases. He -detested Goldsmith because Goldsmith was a great writer, who was capable -of writing a great biography of Johnson, with whom he had been on the -most intimate terms long before Tom Davies flung his burr at Johnson; he -hated Baretti and recorded--at the sacrifice of Johnson's reputation for -humanity--Johnson's cynical belittling of him, because he feared that -Baretti would write _the_ biography; he was spiteful in regard to Mrs. -Thrale because she actually did write something biographical about -Johnson. - -The impudence of such a man as Boswell writing about "honest Dr. -Goldsmith" is only surpassed by his allusions to the second marriage of -Mrs. Thrale. He was a fellow-guest with Johnson at the Thrales' house in -1775, and he records something of a conversation which he says occurred -on the subject of a woman's marrying some one greatly beneath her -socially. "When I recapitulate the debate," he says, "and recollect what -has since happened, I cannot but be struck in a manner that delicacy -forbids me to express! While I contended that she ought to be treated -with inflexible steadiness of displeasure, Mrs. Thrale was all for -mildness and forgiveness and, according to the vulgar phrase, making the -best of a bad bargain." This was published after the second marriage. -What would be thought of a modern biographer who should borrow a little -of Boswell's "delicacy," and refer to a similar incident in the same -style? - -In his own inimitable small way Boswell was for ever sneering at Mrs. -Thrale. Sometimes he did it with that scrupulous delicacy of which an -example has just been given; but he called her a liar more than once -with considerable indelicacy, and his readers will without much trouble -come to the conclusion that his indelicacy was preferable to his -delicacy--it certainly came more natural to him. He was small and mean -in all his ways, and never smaller or meaner than in his references to -Mrs. Thrale's second marriage. - -But, it must be repeated, he did not stand alone in regarding her union -with Piozzi as a _msalliance_. Dr. Burney was shocked at the thought -that any respectable woman would so far forget herself as to marry -a musician, and his daughter Fanny wept remorseful tears when she -reflected that she had once been the friend of a lady who did not shrink -from marrying a foreigner and a Roman Catholic--more of the irony of -Fate, for Fanny Burney was herself guilty of the same indiscretion later -on: she made a happy marriage with a Roman Catholic foreigner, who -lived on her pension and her earnings. Dr. Johnson was brutal when -the conviction was forced upon him that he would no longer have an -opportunity of insulting a lady who had treated him with incredible -kindness, or the guests whom he met at her table. Upon one of the last -occasions of his dining at Mrs. Thrale's house at Streatham, a gentleman -present--an inoffensive Quaker--ventured to make a remark respecting the -accuracy with which the red-hot cannon-balls were fired at the Siege of -Gibraltar. Johnson listened for some time, and then with a cold sneer -said, "I would advise you, sir, never to relate this story again. You -really can scarce imagine how very poor a figure you make in the telling -of it." Later on he took credit to himself for not quarrelling with his -victim when the latter chose to talk to his brother rather than to the -man who had insulted him. Yes, it can quite easily be understood that -Johnson should look on the marriage as a sad _msalliance_, and possibly -it is fair to assume from the letter which he wrote to the lady that he -felt hurt when he heard that it was to take place. - -Mrs. Thrale wrote to tell him that she meant to marry Piozzi, and -received the following reply: - -"Madam,--If I interpret your letter right, you are ignominiously -married; if it is yet undone, let us once more talk together. If -you have abandoned your children and your religion, God forgive your -wickedness; if you have forfeited your fame and your country, may your -folly do no further mischief!" - -Possibly the lady may have gathered from the hint or two conveyed -to her, with Boswellian delicacy, in this letter, that Johnson was -displeased with her. At any rate, she replied, declining to continue the -correspondence. - -In her letter she summed up the situation exactly as a reasonable -person, acquainted with all the facts, and knowing something of the -first husband, would do. - -"The birth of my second husband is not meaner than that of my first," -she wrote; "his sentiments are not meaner; his profession is not meaner; -and his superiority in what he professes acknowledged by all mankind. It -is want of fortune, then, that is ignominious; the character of the man -I have chosen has no other claim to such an epithet. The religion to -which he has always been a zealous adherent, will, I hope, teach him to -forgive insults he has not deserved; mine will, I hope, enable [me] -to bear them at once with dignity and patience. To hear that I have -forfeited my fame is indeed the greatest insult I ever yet received. My -fame is as unsullied as snow, or I should think it unworthy of him who -must henceforth protect it." - -This brought the surly burly mass of offended dignity to his proper -level; but still he would not offer the lady who had been his -benefactress for twenty years an apology for his brutality. He had the -presumption to offer his advice instead--advice and the story (highly -appropriate from his point of view) of Mary Queen of Scots and the -Archbishop of St. Andrews. He advised her to remain in England--he would -not relinquish his room in her house and his place at her table without -a struggle--as her rank would be higher in England than in Italy, and -her fortune would be under her own eye. The latter suggestion was a -delicate insult to Piozzi. - -Mrs. Piozzi, as she then became, showed that she esteemed this piece of -presumption, under the guise of advice, at its true value. Immediately -after her marriage she went abroad with her husband, though eventually -she settled with him in England. - -Now, most modern readers will, we think, when they have become -acquainted with the whole story of Mrs. Thrale's life, arrive at the -conclusion that it was her first marriage that was the _msalliance_, -not her second. - -[Illustration: 0065] - -Henry Thrale was a man of humble origin--a fact that revealed itself -almost daily in his life--and he was incapable of loving any one except -himself. He certainly never made a pretence of devotion to his wife, and -it is equally certain that, although she did more for him than any other -woman would have done, she never loved him. It might be going too far, -considering the diversity of temperament existing among womankind, to -assert that he was incapable of being loved by any woman; but beyond -a doubt he was not a lovable man. He was a stiff, dignified, morose, -uncongenial man, and he was a Member of Parliament into the bargain. -What could a pretty, lively, brilliant girl of good family see in such a -man as Thrale to make her love him? She never did love him--at times she -must have detested him. But she married him, and it was a lucky day -for him that she did so. Twice she saved him from bankruptcy, and three -times she induced his constituents, who thoroughly hated him, to return -him to Parliament as their representative. He never did anything in -Parliament, and he did little out of it that was worth remembering. It -is customary to make large allowances for a man of business who finds -that his wealth and a charming wife serve as a passport into what is -called society, though latterly such men do not stand in need of such -a favour being shown to them. But if a man betrays his ignorance of -certain social usages--not necessarily refinements--his friends excuse -him on the ground that he is a first-rate business man. Thrale, however, -was unworthy of such a title. He inherited a great scientific business, -but he showed himself so incapable of appreciating the methods by which -it had been built up, that he brought himself within a week or two of -absolute ruin by listening to a clumsy adventurer who advocated the -adoption of a system of adulteration of his beer that even a hundred -and fifty years ago would have brought him within sight of a criminal -prosecution. - -His literary wife, by her clever management, aided by the money of her -mother and of sundry of her own, not her husband's, friends, succeeded -in staving off the threatened disaster. But the pig-headed man did not -accept the lesson which one might imagine he would have learned. Seeing -the success that crowned other enterprises of the same character as his -own, he endeavoured to emulate this success, not by the legitimate way -of increasing his customers, but by the idiotic plan of over-production. -He had an idea that in the multiplying of the article which he had to -sell he was increasing his business. Once again he was helped from the -verge of ruin by his literary wife. - -He must have been a dreadful trial to her, and to a far-seeing manager -whom he had--a man named Perkins. Of course it was inevitable that the -force of character possessed by this Mr. Perkins must eventually prevail -against the dignified incompetence of the proprietor. The inevitable -happened, and the name of Perkins has for more than a hundred years been -bracketed with Barclay as a going concern, while the name of Thrale has -vanished for ever from "the Borough." - -It was this Mr. Perkins who, when the brewery was within five minutes of -absolute disaster, displayed the tactics of a great general in the face -of an implacable enemy, and saved the property. As a reward for his -services his master authorised the presentation to him of the sum of -a hundred pounds. His master's wife, however, being a more generous -assessor of the value of the man's ability, ventured to present double -the sum, together with a silver tea-service for Mrs. Perkins; but she -did so in fear and trembling, failing to summon up sufficient courage to -acquaint her husband with her extravagance until further concealment was -impossible. She was so overjoyed at his sanctioning the increase that -she at once wrote to her friends acquainting them with this evidence of -his generosity. - -This episode was certainly the most stirring in the history of Thrale's -brewery. The Gordon rioters had been terrorising London for several -days, burning houses in every direction, as well as Newgate and another -prison, and looting street after street. They had already overthrown one -brewery, and they found the incident so fascinating that they marched -across the bridge to the Southwark concern, raising the cry that Thrale -was a Papist. The Thrales were at this time sojourning at Bath, and -were in an agony of suspense regarding their property. They had left -Dr. Johnson comfortably ensconced at their Streatham house in order that -they might learn in dignified language how things were going on. - -This is Johnson's thrilling account of the incident: - -"What has happened to your house you all know. The harm is only a few -butts of beer, and I think you may be sure that the danger is over. Pray -tell Mr. Thrale that I live here, and have no fruit, and if he does not -interpose am not likely to have much; but I think he might as well give -me a little as give all to the gardener." - -There was a double catastrophe threatening, it would appear: the burning -of the brewery and the shortage in the supply of Dr. Johnson's peaches. - -This is how Mrs. Thrale describes the situation: - -"Nothing but the astonishing presence of mind shewed by Perkins in -amusing the mob, with meat and drink and huzzas, till Sir Philip -Jennings Clerke could get the troops, and pack up the counting-house, -bills, bonds etc. and carry them, which he did, to Chelsea College for -safety, could have saved us from actual undoing. The villains _had_ -broke in, and our brew-house would have blazed in ten minutes, when -a property of 150,000 would have been utterly lost, and its once -flourishing possessors quite undone." - -It seems almost incredible that Johnson, living at Streatham as the -guardian of Mr. Thrale's interests, should require the lady to write to -him, begging him to thank Perkins for his heroism. But so it was. - -"Perkins has behaved like an Emperor," she wrote, "and it is my earnest -wish and desire--command, if you please to call it so--that you will go -over to the brew-house and express _your_ sense of his good behaviour." - -Mrs. Thrale was unreasonable. How could Johnson be expected to take any -action when he was deprived of his peaches? - -It will strike a good many modern readers of the account of this and -other transactions that if it was Perkins who saved the brewery for Mr. -Thrale, it was Mrs. Thrale who saved Perkins for the brewery. Possibly -it was her prompt gift of the silver plate to Mrs. Perkins that induced -this splendid manager to pocket the insult of the beggarly two hundred -guineas given to him by Mrs. Thrale--though this was double the amount -authorised by the "master." Thrale never sufficiently valued the -services of Perkins. If he had had any gratitude in his composition he -would never have made Johnson one of his executors. What a trial it -must have been to the competent man of business to see Johnson lumbering -about the place with a pen behind his ear and an ink-pot suspended from -a button of his coat, getting in the way of everybody, and yet feeling -himself quite equal to any business emergency that might crop up. He -felt himself equal to anything--even to improve upon the auctioneer's -style in appraising the value of the whole concern. "Beyond the dreams -of avarice" remains as the sole classic phrase born beneath the shadow -of a brew-house. - -In the matter of the premium to Perkins, Thrale should have felt that he -had a treasure in his wife, to say nothing of all that she had done for -him upon another occasion, involving a terrible sacrifice. A quarrel had -broken out among the clerks at the brewery, which even the generalship -of Perkins was unable to mollify. Had Mrs. Thrale been an ordinary -woman she would not have jeopardised her own life and the life of her -child--her thirteenth--in her husband's interests. As it was, however, -she felt that the duty was imposed on her to settle the difficulties in -the counting-house, and she did so; but only after many sleepless nights -and the sacrifice of her child. "The men were reconciled," she wrote, -"and my danger accelerated their reconcilement." - -If Henry Thrale was deficient in the best characteristics of a business -man, his qualifications to shine socially can scarcely be regarded as -abundant. There were stories of his having been a gay dog in his youth, -but assuredly he and gaiety had long been strangers when he married his -wife, and upon no occasion afterwards could he be so described even by -the most indulgent of his friends; so that one rather inclines to the -belief that the dull dog must have been a dull puppy. We know what -his eldest daughter was, and we are convinced that the nature of that -priggish, dignified, and eminently disagreeable young lady was inherited -from her father. In Miss Thrale as a girl one feels that one is looking -at Henry Thrale as a boy. The only story that survives of those mythical -gay days with which he was accredited is that relating to the arrival -of the Gunnings to take London by storm. It was said that he and Murphy -thought to make these exquisite creatures the laughing-stock of the town -by introducing them to a vulgar hanger-on of Murphy, in the character of -a wealthy man of title and distinction. Possibly the two young men were -put up to play this disgraceful prank upon the Gunnings by some jealous -female associate; but however this may be, it not only failed most -ignominiously, it recoiled upon the jesters themselves, for Mrs. -Gunning, herself the sister of a nobleman, and destined to become the -mother-in-law of two dukes and the grandmother of two more--the parent -of a peeress in her own right, and an uncommonly shrewd Irishwoman into -the bargain--"smoaked," as the slang of the period had it, the trick, -and her footman bundled the trio into the street. - -The story may be true; but as both the Gunning girls were married in -1752, and Thrale did not meet Hester Lynch Salusbury till 1763, it was -an old story then, and it was not remembered against him except by the -Duchess of Hamilton. If it represents the standard of his adolescent -wildness, we cannot but think that his youth was less meteoric than his -wife believed it to be. At any rate, we do not know much about his early -life, but we do know a great deal about his latter years, and it is -impossible to believe that his nature underwent a radical change within -a year or two of his marriage. - -He became the host of a large number of the most notable people of that -brilliant period at which he lived, and we perceive from the copious -accounts that survive of the Streatham gatherings that he was greatly -respected by all his visitors. He never said anything that was worth -recording, and he never did anything memorable beyond stopping Johnson -when the latter was becoming more than usually offensive to his -fellow-guests. He had no ear for music any more than Johnson had, and it -does not appear that he cared any more for painting, although he became -a splendid patron of Sir Joshua Reynolds, whom he commissioned to paint -several portraits of his distinguished friends for the decoration of the -library at Streatham. To his munificence in this respect the world owes -its finest portraits of Goldsmith, Burke, Garrick, the painter himself, -and Mrs. Thrale. - -The debt which we feel we owe to Thrale on this account is, however, -somewhat discounted when we learn that this enthusiastic patron of -art never paid the painter for his work. He left the pictures and the -obligation to pay for them as a legacy to his widow--and to pay for -them at more than the current rate for each into the bargain. Sir Joshua -Reynolds was as good a man of business as Thrale was an indifferent -one. At the time of his painting the portraits his price for a -three-quarter-length picture was 35, but in the course of a year or two -he felt it necessary to charge 50 for the same size, and this was the -price which the unfortunate widow had to pay for her husband's pose as -the munificent patron of the Arts. - -Men of the stamp of Thrale usually have no vices. - -They are highly respected. If they had a vice or two they would be -beloved. He had a solitary failing, but it did not win for him the -affection of any one: it was gluttony. For years of his life he gave -himself up to the coarsest form of indulgence. He was not a gourmet: he -did not aim at the refinements of the table or at those daintinesses of -cuisine which in the days of intemperate eaters and drinkers proved so -fatally fascinating to men of many virtues; no, his was the vice of the -trough. He ate for the sake of eating, unmindful of the nature of the -dish so long as it was plentiful enough to keep him employed for an hour -or two. - -The dinner-table of the famous Streatham Park must have been a spectacle -for some of the philosophers who sat round it. We know what was the food -that Johnson's soul loved, and we know how he was accustomed to partake -of it. He rioted in pork, and in veal baked with raisins, and when he -sat down to some such dainty he fed like a wild animal. He used his -fingers as though they were claws, tearing the flesh from the bone -in his teeth, and swallowing it not wholly without sound. It is not -surprising to learn that his exertions caused the veins in his forehead -to swell and the beads of perspiration to drop from his scholarly brow, -nor can any one who has survived this account of his muscular feat at -the dinner-table reasonably be amazed to hear that when so engaged, he -devoted himself to the work before him to the exclusion of every other -interest in life. He was oblivious of anything that was going on around -him. He was deaf to any remark made by a neighbour, and for himself -articulation was suspended. Doubtless the feeble folk on whom he had -been trampling in the drawing-room felt that his peculiarities of -feeding, though revolting to the squeamish, were not without a bright -side. They had a chance of making a remark at such intervals without -being gored--"gored," it will be remembered, was the word employed by -Boswell in playful allusion to the effect of his argumentative powers. - -Thanks to the careful habits of some of the guests at this famous house -we know what fare was placed before the Gargantuan geniuses at one of -these dinners. Here is the _carte du jour_, "sufficient for twelve," as -the cookery book says: - -"First course, soups at head and foot, removed by fish and a saddle -of mutton; second course, a fowl they call galena at head and a capon -larger than some of our Irish turkeys at foot; third course, four -different sorts of ices, pine-apple, grape, raspberry and a fourth; in -each remove there were fourteen dishes." The world is indebted to an -Irish clergyman for these details. It will be seen that they did not -include much that could be sneered at as bordering on the kickshaw. -All was good solid English fare--just the sort to make the veins in a -gormandiser's forehead to swell and to induce the lethargy from which -Thrale suffered. He usually fell asleep after dinner; one day he failed -to awake, and he has not awakened since. - -Of course Johnson, being invariably in delicate health, was compelled to -put himself on an invalid's diet when at home. He gives us a sample of -a _diner maigre_ at Bolt Court. Feeling extremely ill, he wrote to Mrs. -Thrale that he could only take for dinner "skate, pudding, goose, and -green asparagus, and could have eaten more but was prudent." He adds, -"Pray for me, dear Madam,"--by no means an unnecessary injunction, some -people will think, when they become aware of the details of the meal of -an invalid within a year or two of seventy. - -It was after one of the Streatham dinners that Mrs. Thrale ventured to -say a word or two in favour of Garrick's talent for light gay poetry, -and as a specimen repeated his song in _Florizel and Perdita_, and dwelt -with peculiar pleasure on this line: - -_I'd smile with the simple and dine with the poor._ - -This is Boswell's account of the matter, and he adds that Johnson cried, -"Nay, my dear lady, this will never do. Poor David! Smile with the -simple! What folly is that? And who would feed with the poor that can -help it? No, no; let me smile with the wise and feed with the rich!" - -Quite so; beyond a doubt Johnson spoke from the bottom of his -heart--nay, from a deeper depth still. - -Boswell was amazed to find that Garrick's "sensibility" as a writer was -irritated when he related the story to him, and in Mrs. Thrale's copy of -Johnson she made a note--"How odd to go and tell the man!" - -It was not at all odd that Boswell, being a professional tale-bearer and -mischief-maker, should tell the man; but it is odd that Garrick should -be irritated, the fact being that the sally was directed against a -line which he did not write. What Garrick did write was something very -different. The verse, which was misquoted, runs thus: - - That giant Ambition we never can dread; - - Our roofs are too low for so lofty a head; - - Content and sweet Cheerfulness open our door, - - They smile with the simple and feed with the poor. - -Such a muddle as was made of the whole thing can only be attributed to -the solidity of the Streatham fare. - -It was inevitable that Thrale could not continue over-eating himself -with impunity. He was warned more than once by his doctors that he was -killing himself, and yet when he had his first attack every one was -shocked. He recovered temporarily, and all his friends implored him to -cultivate moderation at the dinner-table. A touch of humour is to be -found among the details of the sordid story, in his wife's begging -Johnson--Johnson of the swollen forehead and the tokens of his -submission to the primeval curse in the eating of his bread--to try to -reason the unhappy man out of his dreadful vice. After wiping from the -front of his coat the remains of the eighth peach which he had eaten -before breakfast, or the dregs of his nineteenth cup of tea from -his waistcoat, Johnson may have felt equal to the duty. He certainly -remonstrated with Thrale. It was all to no purpose, however; he had a -second attack of apoplexy in the spring of 1780, and we hear that he was -copiously "blooded." He recovered and went to Bath to recruit. It was -during this visit to Bath that the brewery was attacked by the Gordon -rioters. On returning to London he failed to induce his constituents to -remain faithful to him, and he continued eating voraciously for another -year. He began a week of gorging on April 1st, 1781. His wife implored -him to be more moderate, and Johnson said very wisely, "Sir, after the -denunciation of your physicians this morning, such eating is little -better than suicide." It was all to no purpose. He survived the gorge -of Sunday and Monday, but that of Tuesday was too much for him. He was -found by his daughter on the floor in a fit of apoplexy, and died the -next morning. - -Such was the man whose memory was outraged by the marriage of his -widow with Piozzi, an Italian musician, whose ability was so highly -appreciated that his earnings, even when he had lost his voice, amounted -to 1200 a year, a sum equal to close upon 2500 of our money. And yet -Johnson had the effrontery to suggest in that letter of his to Mrs. -Thrale, which we have quoted, that she would do well to live in England, -so that her money might be under her own eye! - -The truth is that Mrs. Thrale was in embarrassed circumstances when she -married Signor Piozzi. Her worthy husband left her an annuity of 2000, -which was to be reduced by 800 in the event of her marrying again; and -also 500 for her immediate expenses. Johnson wrote to her, making -her acquainted with this fact, in order, it would seem, to allay any -unworthy suspicion which she might entertain as to the extent of her -husband's generosity. But his last will and testament cannot have wholly -dispersed the doubt into which her experience of Mr. Thrale may have -led her. For a man who had been making from 16,000 to 20,000 a year -to leave his wife only 2000 a year, with a possibility of its being -reduced to 1200, would not strike any one as being generous to a point -of recklessness. When, however, it is remembered that Thrale's wife -plucked him and his business from the verge of bankruptcy more than -once, that she bore him fourteen children, and that she lived with him -for eighteen years, all question as to the generosity of his bequest to -her vanishes. But when, in addition, it is remembered that the lady's -fortune at her marriage to Thrale amounted to 10,000, all of which he -pocketed, and that later on she brought him another 500 a year, that -it was her mother's money, added to the sum which she herself collected -personally, which saved the brewery from collapse--once again at -the sacrifice of her infant--all question even of common fairness -disappears, and the meanness of the man stands revealed. - -[Illustration: 0083] - -It was through the exertions and by the business capacity of his widow -that the brewery was sold for 135,000. She was the only one of the -trustees who knew anything definite about the value of the property, -and had she not been on the spot, that astute Mr. Perkins could have so -worked the concern that he might have been able to buy it in a year or -two for the value of the building materials. And yet when she became -involved in a lawsuit that involved the paying of 7000, she had -difficulty in persuading her daughters' trustees to advance her the -money, although the security of the mortgage which she offered for -the accommodation would have satisfied any bankers. A wretch named -Crutchley, who was one of this precious band of incompetents, on the -completion of the deed bade her thank her daughters for keeping her out -of gaol. It is not recorded that the lady replied, though she certainly -might have done so, and with truth on her side, that if her daughters -had kept her out of a gaol she had kept her daughters out of a -workhouse. She would have done much better to have gone to her friends -the Barclays, whose bank had a hundred and fifty years ago as high a -reputation for probity combined with liberality as the same concern -enjoys to-day. - -Enough of the business side of Mrs. Thrale's second marriage has -been revealed to make it plain that Piozzi was not influenced by any -mercenary motives in the transaction. On the contrary, it was he who -came to her assistance when she was in an extremity, and by the prompt -loan of 1000 extricated her from her embarrassment, and left the next -day for Italy, without having any hope of marrying her. - -Johnson's verdict on Piozzi, communicated to Miss Seward, was that -he was an ugly dog, without particular skill in his profession. -Unfortunately for this musical enthusiast and devotee to beauty, Miss -Seward met Piozzi on his return from Italy with his wife. (His excellent -control of her money had resulted in every penny of the mortgage being -paid, and of the lodgment of 1500 to their credit in the bank). And -Miss Seward, writing from Lichfield--more of the irony of Fate--in 1787, -affirmed that the great Lichfield man "did not tell me the truth when -he asserted that Piozzi was an ugly dog, without particular skill in -his profession. M. Piozzi is a handsome man in middle life, with -gentle, pleasing, unaffected manners, and with very eminent skill in his -profession. Though he has not a powerful or fine-toned voice, he sings -with transcending grace and expression. I was charmed with his perfect -expression on his instrument. Surely the finest sensibilities must -vibrate through his frame, since they breathe so sweetly through his -song." From this verdict no person who was acquainted with Signor Piozzi -differed. Mrs. Thrale's marriage with Piozzi was as fortunate for her as -her first marriage was for Thrale. - - - - -A TRAGEDY IN THE HAYMARKET - -ABOUT half-past nine o'clock on the night of October 6th, 1769, a -tall, middle-aged gentleman named Joseph Baretti was walking up the -Hay-market. The street was probably as well lighted as any other in -London, and this is equivalent to saying that a foot passenger, by -keeping close to the windows of the shops and taking cross bearings of -the economically distributed oil lamps hung out at the corners of the -many lanes, might be able to avoid the deep channel of filth that slunk -along the margin of cobble stones. But just at this time the Haymarket -must have been especially well illuminated, for the Opera House was -in the act of discharging its audience, and quite a number of these -fashionable folk went home in their chairs, with link boys walking by -the side of the burly Irish chairmen, showing a flaring flame which left -behind it a long trail of suffocating smoke, and spluttered resin and -bitumen into the faces and upon the garments of all who were walking -within range of the illuminant. Then there was the little theatre higher -up the street, and its lamps were not yet extinguished; so that Mr. -Baretti may have felt that on the whole he was fortunate in the hour he -had chosen for his stroll to the coffee-house where he meant to sup. He -may have thought that he had a chance of coming across his friend Sir -Joshua Reynolds leaving one of the playhouses, and of being invited by -that hospitable gentleman to his house in Leicester Fields; or his still -more intimate friend Dr. Samuel Johnson, who would certainly insist on -carrying him off to the "Mitre," unless the great man were accompanied -by that little Scotch person, James Boswell, who usually wanted him -all to himself, after he had given people a chance of seeing him in the -company of his distinguished friend, and envying him his position of -intimacy--the same position of intimacy that exists between a Duke and -his doormat. Mr. Baretti was too short-sighted to have any chance of -recognising Sir Joshua Reynolds unless he chanced to be standing under -the lamp in the portico of the playhouse, but he felt that he would have -no trouble in recognising Dr. Johnson. The latter had characteristics -that appealed to other senses than the sense of seeing, and made the act -of recognition easy enough to his intimates. - -Mr. Baretti, however, passed along the dispersing crowd, and was soon in -the dim regions of Panton Street, where pedestrians were few. But before -he had turned down this street he found his way barred by a couple of -half-drunken women. His infirmity of sight prevented his being aware of -their presence until he was almost in the arms of one of them, and -the very second that he made his sudden stop she made a change in the -details of the accident that seemed imminent and threw herself into his -arms with a yell. - -The good man was staggered for a moment, but, recovering himself, he -flung her off with an expressive word or two in the Italian tongue. She -went limply back and, being adroitly avoided by her companion, gave a -circular stagger or two and fell into the gutter with a screech. - -Baretti was hurrying on when out of the darkness of Panton Street a big -man sprang, followed quickly by two others. The first seized him by the -right arm with the oath of a bully, the others tried to trip him up, -shouting that he had killed a lady. Baretti was a powerful man and -decidedly tough. He struck at the fellow who had closed with him, and -used his feet against the attack of the others with considerable effect. -He managed to free his arm, but before he could draw his sword he -was pulled backward and would have fallen upon his head if he had not -clutched the coat of the man from whom he had freed himself. There was a -pause of a few seconds, filled up by the wild street yell of the women. -The most aggressive of the three men leapt upon the unfortunate Baretti, -but before their bodies met, gave a guttural shriek, then a groan. He -staggered past, his fingers tearing like talons at his ribs; he whirled -twice round and, gasping, fell on his knees, motionless only for a few -seconds; his hands dropped limply from his side, and he pitched forward -on his head into the gutter. - -Baretti was standing, awaiting a further attack, with a knife in his -hand, when he was seized by some of the crowd. He offered no resistance. -He seemed to be so amazed at finding himself alive as to be incapable of -taking any further action. - -"He has killed the man--stabbed him with a dagger to the very heart!" -was the cry that came from those of the crowd who were kneeling beside -the wretch in the gutter. - -"And a woman--he had slain a woman at the outset. Hold him fast. None of -us are safe this night. Have a care for the dagger, friends!" - -A sufficiency of advice was given by the excited onlookers to the men -who had encircled Baretti--one of them was clinging to him with his arms -clasped around his body--until two of the Haymarket watch hurried up, -striking right and left with their staves after the wholesome manner of -the period, and so making a way for their approach through the crowd. - -"'Tis more than a street brawl--a man has been slain--some say a woman -also," a shopkeeper explained to them, having run bareheaded out of his -shop; his apprentice had just put up the last of the shutters. - -They had Baretti by the collar in a second, cautiously disarming him, -holding the weapon up to the nearest lamp. The blade was still wet with -blood. - -"A swinging matter this," one of them remarked. "I can swear to the -blood. No dagger, but a knife. What man walks the streets at night with -a naked knife unless slaughter is his intent?" - -"Friends, I was attacked by three bullies, and I defended myself--that -is all," said Baretti. He spoke English perfectly. - -"You will need to tell that to Sir John in the morning," said one of -the watchmen. "You are apprehended in the King's name. Where is the poor -victim?" - -"There must be some of the crowd who saw how I was attacked," said -Baretti. "They will testify that I acted in self-defence. Sirs, hear me -make an appeal to you. Out of your sense of justice--you will not see an -innocent man apprehended." - -"The knife--who carries a bare knife in the streets unless with intent?" -said a man. - -"'Twas my fruit-knife. I never go abroad without it. I eat my fruit like -a Christian, not like a pig or an Englishman," was the defence offered -by Baretti, who had now quite lost his temper and was speaking with his -accustomed bitterness. He usually sought to pass as an Englishman, -but he was now being arrested by the minions of the law as it was in -England. - -"Hear him! A pig of an Englishman. Those were his words! A foreign -hound. Frenchie, I'll be bound." - -"A spy--most like a Papist. He has the hanging brow of a born Papist." - -"He'll hang like a dog at Tyburn--he may be sure o' that." - -"'Tis the mercy o' Heaven that the rascal was caught red-handed! Sirs, -this may be the beginning of a dreadful massacring plot against the -lives of honest and peaceful people." - -The comments of a crowd of the period upon such an incident as the -stabbing of an Englishman by a foreigner in the streets of London can -easily be imagined. - -Even when Baretti was put into a hackney coach and driven off to Bow -Street the crowd doubtless remained talking in groups of the menace -to English freedom and true religion by the arrival of pestilent -foreigners, every man of them carrying a knife. It would be a sad -day for England when Jesuitical fruit-knives took the place of -good wholesome British bludgeons in the settlement of the ordinary -differences incidental to a Protestant people. - -It is certain that this was one of the comments of the disintegrating -crowd, and it is equally certain that Baretti commented pretty freely -to his custodians in the hackney coach upon the place occupied in -the comity of nations of that State, the social conditions of whose -metropolis made possible so gross a scandal as the arrest of a gentleman -and a scholar, solely by reason of his success in snatching his life out -of the talons of a ruffian and a bully. - -Mr. Baretti was a gentleman and a scholar whose name appears pretty -frequently in the annals of the eighteenth century, but seldom with any -great credit to himself. As a matter of fact, this dramatic episode of -the stabbing of the man in the Haymarket is the happiest with which -his name is associated. He made his most creditable appearance in the -chronicles of the period as the chief actor in this sordid drama. He -cuts a very poor figure indeed upon every other occasion when he appears -in the pages of his contemporaries, though they all meant to be kind to -him. - -He never could bear people to be kind to him, and certainly, so far as -he himself was concerned, it cannot be said that any blame attaches to -him for the persistence of his friends in this direction. He did all -that mortal man could do to discourage them, and if after the lapse of -a year or two he was still treated by some with cordiality or respect, -assuredly it was not owing to his display of any qualities that -justified their maintenance of such an attitude. - -Mr. Baretti was an eminently detestable scholar of many parts. He was as -detestable as he was learned--perhaps even more so. Learned men are -not invariably horrid, unless they are men of genius as well, and this -rarely happens. - -Baretti had no such excuse, though it must be acknowledged that his -capacity for being disagreeable almost amounted to genius. Such a -character as his is now and again met with in daily life. A man who -feels himself to be, in point of scholarly attainment, far above -the majority of men, and who sees inferiority occupying a place -of distinction while he remains neglected and, to his thinking, -unappreciated, is not an uncommon figure in learned or artistic circles. -Baretti was a disappointed man, and he showed himself to be such. He had -a grievance against the world for being constituted as it is. He had a -grievance against society. He had a grievance against his friends who -got on in the world. But the only people against whom he was really -malevolent were those who were signally and unaccountably kind to him. -He accepted their kindness, and then turned and rent them. - -Dr. Johnson met him when they were both working for the booksellers, -and when the great dictionary scheme was floated his co-operation was -welcomed. Johnson's success in life was largely due to his faculty for -discovering people who could be useful to him. It can easily be believed -that, knowing something of the scholarship of Baretti, he should -be delighted to avail himself of his help. Baretti had an intimate -knowledge of several languages and their literature; as a philologist -he was probably far superior to Johnson; and possibly Johnson knew this, -though he was doubtless too wise ever to acknowledge so much openly. -We do not hear that the relations between the two ever became strained -while the great work was in course of progress. Shortly after it was -completed Baretti returned to his native Italy, and began to reproach -Johnson for not writing to him more frequently. We have several examples -of the cheerfulness with which Johnson set about exculpating himself -from such reproaches. The letters which he wrote to him at Italy are -among the most natural that ever came from his pen. They are models of -the gossipy style which Johnson could assume without once deviating -from that dignity which so frequently became ponderous, suggesting the -dignity of the elephant rather than that of the lion. Walpole was -a master of the art of being gossipy without being dignified. But -Johnson's style was not flexible. We have not Baretti's letters -to Johnson, but the references made by the latter to some matters -communicated to him by his correspondent let us know something of how -Baretti was getting on in the land of his birth. He seems to have set -his heart upon obtaining some appointment in Italy, and his aspirations -included marriage. He was disappointed in both directions; and it would -be too much to expect that his temper was improved by these rebuffs. - -It may well be believed that he quarrelled his way through Italy. "I -have lately seen Mr. Stratico, Professor of Padua, who has told me -of your quarrel with an abbot of the Celestine Order, but had not the -particulars very ready in his memory," Johnson wrote to him at Milan. -Any one who could quarrel with an abbot of the Celestine Order would, we -fancy, be _capable de tout_, like the prophet Habakkuk, according to the -witty Frenchman. One is not disposed to be hard upon Professor Stratico -for his shortness of memory in regard to this particular quarrel; the -strain of remembering the details of all the quarrels of Mr. Baretti -would be too great for any man. - -Of course, Dr. Johnson gave him some excellent advice. It seems that -poor Baretti had been at first so well received on his return to Italy -that he became sanguine of success in all his enterprises, and when they -miscarried he wrote very bitterly to Johnson, who replied as follows: - -"I am sorry for your disappointment, with which you seem more touched -than I should expect a man of your resolution and experience to -have been, did I not know that general truths are seldom applied to -particular occasions; and that the fallacy of our selflove extends -itself as wide as our interests or affections. Every man believes that -mistresses are unfaithful and patrons capricious; but he excepts his -own mistress and his own patron. We have all learned that greatness is -negligent and contemptuous, and that in Courts life is often languished -away in ungratified expectation; but he that approaches greatness or -glitters in a Court, imagines that destiny has at last exempted him from -the common lot." - -It is doubtful if this excellent philosophy made the person to whom it -was addressed more amiable to his immediate entourage; nor is it likely -that he was soothed by the assurance that his "patron's weakness or -insensibility will finally do you little hurt, if he is not assisted by -your own passions." - -"Of your love," continued Johnson, "I know not the propriety; we can -estimate the power, but in love, as in every other passion of which hope -is the essence, we ought always to remember the uncertainty of events." -He then hastens to add that "love and marriage are different states. -Those who are to suffer the evils together, and to suffer often for -the sake of one another, soon lose that tenderness of look, and that -benevolence of mind which arose from the participation of unmingled -pleasure and success in amusement." - -The pleasant little cynical bark in the phrase "those that are to suffer -the evils together," as if it referred to love and marriage, is, Malone -thinks, not Johnson's, but Baretti's. It is suggested that Johnson -really wrote "those that are to suffer the evils _of life_ together," -and that Baretti in transcribing the letter for Boswell, purposely -omitted the words "_of life_." It would be quite like Baretti to do -this; for he would thereby work off part of his spite against Johnson -for having given him the advice, and he would have had his own sneer -against "love and marriage," the _fons et origo_ of his disappointment. - -But of Dr. Johnson's esteem for the attainments of Baretti there can be -no doubt. He thought that the book on Italy which he published on his -return to England was very entertaining, adding: "Sir, I know no man who -carries his head higher in conversation than Baretti. There are strong -powers in his mind. He has not, indeed, many hooks; but with what hooks -he has he grapples very forcibly." - -[Illustration: 0099] - -It may seem rather strange after this that Baretti was never admitted to -the membership of the celebrated club. He was intimate with nearly -all the original members, but the truth remained that he was not what -Johnson called a clubbable man: he had too many hooks, not too few. - -Such was the man who was brought before Sir John Fielding, the -magistrate at Bow Street, on the morning after the tragedy, charged with -murder; and then it was that he found the value of the friendships which -he had formed in England. The first person to hasten to his side in his -extremity was Oliver Goldsmith, the man whom he had so frequently made -the object of his sarcasm, whose peculiarities he had mimicked, not in -the playful manner of Garrick or Foote, but in his own spiteful style, -with the grim humour of the disappointed man. Goldsmith it was who -opened his purse for him and got a coach for him when he was -remanded until the next day, riding by his side to the place of his -incarceration. Goldsmith was by his side when the question of bail was -discussed before Lord Mansfield. For some reason which does not require -any particular explanation, it was not thought that Goldsmith as a -bailsman would appeal irresistibly to the authorities, but the names -of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Edmund Burke, Mr. David Garrick, and Mr. H. -Fitzherbert were submitted to Lord Mansfield, and immediately accepted. -An amusing anecdote was current regarding the few days of Baretti's -incarceration. One morning he was visited by a teacher of languages, -who begged a trifling favour of him. This was merely a letter of -recommendation to Baretti's pupils, so that the applicant might have -a chance of taking them over "when you are hanged, sir." The fact that -this sympathetic visitor was allowed to depart without molestation makes -people doubt whether Baretti was so bad-tempered after all. He did not -assault the man. "You rascal!" he cried. "If I were not in my own room, -I would kick you downstairs directly." - -The trial was fixed for October 20th at the Old Bailey, and a few days -before this date a number of the prisoner's friends met together to -consult as to the line which should be taken for his defence. It seems -that they were not all agreed on some points; this was only to be -expected, considering what an array of wisdom was brought together upon -the occasion of these consultations, and considering also the course -which was adopted by Dr. Johnson, who thought that the interests of the -prisoner would be advanced by getting up an academical discussion with -Burke. Johnson and Burke were notorious rivals in conversation in those -days when conversation was regarded as an art, and men and women seemed -to have plenty of leisure to talk together for the sake of talking, -and to argue together for the sake of argument, and to be rude to one -another for the sake of wit. Boswell was for ever extolling Johnson -at the expense of Burke; and indeed, so far as one can gather from his -pages, Johnson was the ruder man. - -The example that Boswell gives of his own readiness in making Goldsmith -"shut up" when he questioned Johnson's superiority to Burke in -discussion is one of the best instances of the little Scotsman's -incapacity to perceive the drift of an argument. "Is he like Burke who -winds into a subject like a serpent?" asked Goldsmith. - -"But" (said I) "Dr. Johnson is the Hercules that strangled serpents in -his cradle." - -This repartee which Boswell gleefully records is about equal to the -reply made by one of the poets who was appealed to in the "Bab Ballads" -to say if he wrote "the lovely cracker mottoes my Elvira pulls at -supper." It will be remembered that the poet whose name rhymes with -"supper" replied: - - "'A fool is bent upon a twig, but wise men dread a bandit,' - - Which" (the earnest inquirer said) "I felt was very wise, - - but I didn't understand it." - -It was in regard to this consultation as to the best defence to be made -out for Baretti that Johnson admitted to have opposed Burke simply for -the sake of showing the rest of the company that he could get the better -of Burke in an argument. "Burke and I," he said, "should have been of -one opinion if we had had no audience." Such a confession! There was the -life of his friend Baretti trembling in the balance, and yet Johnson, -solely for the sake of "showing off," opposed the wisdom and ingenuity -Burke exercised to save from the gallows a man whom Johnson professed to -admire! - -But if we are to believe Boswell, Johnson cared very little whether his -friend was hanged or not. As for Boswell himself, he always detested -Baretti, and is reported to have expressed the earnest hope that the -man would be hanged. However, the "consultations" went merrily on, and -doubtless contributed in some measure to a satisfactory solution of the -vexed question as to whether Johnson or Burke was the more brilliant -talker. They formed a tolerably valid excuse for the uncorking of -several bottles, and perhaps these friends of Baretti felt that even -though he should die, yet the exchange of wit in the course of these -happy evenings would live for ever in the memory of those present, so -that after all, let the worst come to the worst, Baretti should have -little cause for complaint. - -It is reported that the prisoner, upon the occasion of his receiving a -visit from Johnson and Burke, cried: "What need a man fear who holds -two such hands?" It may here be mentioned, however, that although it -was asserted that Johnson and Murphy were responsible for the line -of defence adopted at the trial, yet in after years Baretti was most -indignant that it should be suggested that credit should be given to -any one but himself for his defence; and he ridiculed the notion that -Johnson or Burke or Murphy or even Boswell--himself an aspirant to the -profession of law in which he subsequently displayed a conspicuous -lack of distinction--had anything to do with the instruction either of -solicitors or barristers on his behalf. - -At any rate, the "consultations" came to an end, and the friends of the -accused awaited the trial with exemplary patience. Mr. Boswell seems -suddenly to have become the most sympathetic of the friends; for three -days before the event he took a journey to Tyburn to witness the hanging -of several men at that place, and though it is known that the spectacle -of a hanging never lost its charm for him, yet it is generous to assume -that upon this occasion he went to Tyburn in order to qualify himself -more fully for sympathising with Baretti, should the defence assigned to -him break down. - -Another ardent sympathiser was Mr. Thomas Davies the bookseller, a -gentleman whose chief distinction in the eyes of his contemporaries -consisted--if we are to believe one of the wittiest of his -associates--in the fact that he had an exceedingly pretty wife; -but whose claim to the gratitude of coming generations lies in the -circumstance of his having introduced Boswell to Johnson. Tom Davies -was terribly cut up at the thought of the possibility of Baretti's being -sentenced to be hanged. Boswell, on the day before the trial, after -telling Johnson how he had witnessed the executions at Tyburn, and -expressing his surprise that none of the wretches seemed to think -anything of the matter, mentioned that Foote, the actor, had shown him -a letter which he had received from Tom Davies, and in which the writer -affirmed that he had not had a wink of sleep owing to his anxiety in -respect of "this sad affair of Baretti," and begging Foote to suggest -some way by which he could be of service to the accused, adding that -should Mr. Foote be in need of anything in the pickle line, he could -strongly recommend him to an industrious young man who had lately set up -in that business. - -Strange to say, Johnson was not impressed with this marked evidence of -Mr. Davies' kind heart. - -"Ay, sir, here you have a specimen of human sympathy," he cried. "A -friend hanged and a cucumber pickled! We know not whether Baretti or the -pickle man has kept Davies from sleep; nor does he know himself." - -This was rather sweeping, but his dictum showed that he was rather a -poor analyser of human emotion. In the minds of the people of to-day who -read of Tom Davies' bad nights there is no manner of doubt whatever that -the sequence of his emotions was to be attributed to his intimacy with -the industrious young pickle maker. Tom had indulged rather too freely -in some of the specimens of his art presented to him by the pickler, and -the result was a melancholy night; and, being melancholy, he was led to -think of the most melancholy incident that had recently come under his -notice. When a man is full of mixed pickles he is liable to get a little -mixed, and so in the morning he attributed his miserable night to his -thoughts about Baretti, instead of knowing that his thoughts about -Baretti were the natural result of his miserable night. If he had been -acquainted with an industrious young onion merchant he might have passed -the night in tears. - -"As for his not sleeping," said Dr. Johnson, "sir, Tom Davies is a very -great man--Tom has been on the stage, and knows how to do those things." - -Boswell: "I have often blamed myself, sir, for not feeling for others as -sensibly as many say they do." Johnson: "Sir, don't be duped by them any -more. You will find those very feeling people are not very ready to do -you good. They pay you by feeling." Mr. Boswell thought that he would -do well to turn his friend from the subject under discussion, so he made -the apparently harmless remark that Foote had a great deal of humour and -that he had a singular talent of exhibiting character. But Johnson had -on him the mood not only of "the rugged Russian bear," but also of "the -armed rhinoceros and the Hyrcan tiger." - -"Sir, it is not a talent: it is a vice; it is what others abstain from," -he growled. - -"Did not he think of exhibiting you, sir?" inquired the tactful Mr. -Boswell, though he knew all about Foote and Johnson long before. - -"Sir, fear restrained him," said Johnson. "He knew I would have broken -his bones. I would have saved him the trouble of cutting off a leg: I -would not have left him a leg to cut off." - -This brutal reference to the fact that Foote's recent accident had -compelled him to have a leg amputated should surely have suggested -to his inquisitor that he had probably been paying a visit to an -industrious young pickle maker without Tom Davies' recommendation, or -that he had partaken of too generous a helping of his favourite veal, -baked with plums, and so that he would do well to leave him alone for a -while. But no, Mr. Boswell was not to be denied. - -"Pray, sir, is not Foote an infidel?" he inquired. But as he himself -had been dining with Foote the previous day, and as he possessed no more -delicacy than a polecat, he could easily have put the question to Foote -himself. - -But Johnson would not even give the man credit for his infidelity. - -"I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel," he said; "but if he -is an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel, that is to say, -he has never thought on the subject." - -In another second he was talking of Buchanan, a poet, whom he praised, -and of Shakespeare, another poet, whom he condemned, winding up by -saying that there were some very fine things in Dr. Young's _Night -Thoughts_. But the most remarkable of his deliverances on this rather -memorable evening had reference to Baretti's fate. After declaring that -if one of his friends had just been hanged he would eat his dinner -every bit as heartily as if his friend were still alive.--"Why, there's -Baretti, who is to be tried for his life to-morrow," he added; "friends -have risen up for him on every side; yet if he should be hanged, none of -them will eat a slice of plum pudding the less." Happily the accuracy of -this tender-hearted scholar's prediction had no chance of being put to -the test. Baretti was tried and acquitted. - -Boswell gives only a few lines to an account of the trial, and fails -to mention that the prisoner declined the privilege of being tried by -a jury one half of whom should be foreigners. "It took place," he said, -"at the awful Sessions House, emphatically called Justice Hall," and he -affirms that "never did such a constellation of genius enlighten the Old -Bailey." - -He mentions that Mr. Burke, Mr. Garrick, Mr. Beauclerk, and Dr. Johnson -gave evidence, the last-named being especially impressive, speaking in -a slow, deliberate, and distinct tone of voice. It seems strange -that Boswell, who was (nominally) a lawyer, when he wrote his life of -Johnson, should say nothing whatever respecting the line of defence -adopted by the friends of the prisoner upon this interesting occasion. -It might have been expected that he would dwell lovingly, as a lawyer -would certainly be pardoned for doing, upon the technical points -involved in the trial, even though he hated Baretti. For instance, it -would be interesting to learn why it was thought that the result of -the trial might mean the hanging of Baretti, when from the first it was -perfectly plain that he had acted in self-defence: not merely was he -protecting his purse, he had actually to fight for his life against an -acknowledged ruffian of the most contemptible type. In the present day -if a short-sighted man of letters--say Mr. Augustine Birrell--were to be -attacked in a dark street by three notorious scoundrels and to manage to -kill one of them by poking the ferrule end of an umbrella into his eye, -no one--not even a Conservative Attorney-General--would fancy that a -grand jury at the New Old Bailey would return a true bill against him -for the act, putting aside all question of his being found guilty and -sentenced to be hanged. And yet in Baretti's time swords were commonly -worn, and they were by no means toy weapons. Why should poor Tom Davies -have a sleepless night, owing (as he believed) to his apprehension that -his friend would be hanged in a day or two? Why was it necessary to -dazzle the "awful Sessions House" by such "a constellation of genius" as -had never before assembled in that "Hall of Justice"? - -Mr. Boswell might certainly have told us something of the actual scene -in the court, when he has devoted so much space to the ridiculous -dialogues between himself and Johnson, having more or less bearing upon -the case. The course he adopted is like laying a dinner-table with -four knives and forks and five wineglasses for every guest--in having a -constellation of genii in plush behind every chair, and then serving -a dinner of hashed mutton only. A great number of people believe that -whatever Boswell may have been, he was invariably accurate. But in this -case he does not even give a true account of the constellation of genius -to which he refers. He only says that Burke, Garrick, Beauclerk, -and Johnson were called as witnesses. He omits to say a word about -Goldsmith, who was something of a genius; or Reynolds, who was quite -a tolerable painter; or Fitzherbert, who had a wide reputation as a -politician; or Dr. Halifax, whose evidence carried certainly as much -weight as Johnson's. He does not even say a word respecting the evidence -which Johnson and the others were called on to give on behalf of -the prisoner at the bar. What is the good of telling us that the -constellation of genius had never been paralleled within the precincts -of the "emphatically called Justice Hall" if we are not made aware -of some of the flashes of their genius when they were put into the -witness-box? - -The truth is that Boswell had no sense of proportion any more than a -sense of the sublime and beautiful--or, for that matter, a sense of the -ridiculous. He was the Needy Knife Grinder--with an occasional axe of -his own--of the brilliant circle into which he crawled, holding on to -Johnson's skirts and half concealing himself beneath their capacious -flaps. He had constant stories suggested to him, but he failed to see -their possibilities. He was a knife grinder and nothing more; but at his -own trade he was admirable; he ground away patiently at his trivialities -respecting the man whom he never was within leagues of understanding, -and it is scarcely fair to reproach him for not throwing away his -grindstone, which he knew how to use, and taking to that of a diamond -cutter, which he was incapable of manipulating. But surely he might have -told us something more of the actual trial of Baretti instead of giving -us page after page leading up to the trial. - -From other sources we learn that what all the geniuses were called on to -testify to was the pacific character of Baretti, and this they were all -able to do in an emphatic manner. It would seem that it was assumed that -the prisoner, a short-sighted, middle-aged man of letters, was possessed -of all the dangerous qualities of a bloodthirsty brigand of his own -country--that he was a fierce and ungovernable desperado, who was in -the habit of prowling about the purlieus of the Haymarket to do to death -with a fruit-knife the peaceful citizens whom he might encounter. He was -a foreigner, and he had killed an Englishman with an outlandish weapon. -That seems to have been the reason there was for the apprehension, which -was very general in respect of the fate of Baretti, for it was upon -these points that his witnesses were most carefully examined. - -Goldsmith, Reynolds, and Garrick were very useful witnesses regarding -the knife. They affirmed that in carrying a fruit-knife the prisoner was -in no way departing from the recognised custom of his fellow-countrymen. -He, in common with them, was in the habit of eating a great deal of -fruit, so that the knife was a necessity with him. - -Johnson's evidence was as follows: - -"I have known Mr. Baretti a long time. He is a man of literature--a very -studious man--a man of great intelligence. He gets his living by study. -I have no reason to think he was ever disordered with liquor in his -life. A man that I have never known to be otherwise than peaceable and -a man that I take to be rather timorous. As to his eyesight, he does not -see me now, nor do I see him. I do not believe he would be capable of -assaulting anybody in the street without great provocation." - -It cannot be denied that the reference to Baretti's imperfect sight told -upon the jury, and uttered as the words were by Johnson in his dignified -way, they could scarcely fail to produce a profound effect upon the -court. - -Baretti was acquitted, and no one could presume to refer to him for the -rest of his life except as a quiet, inoffensive, frugivorous gentleman, -since these were the qualities with which he was endowed by a -constellation of geniuses on their oath. He was acquitted by the jury; -but the judge thought it well to say a few words to him before allowing -him to leave the dock, and the drift of his discourse amounted to a -severe censure upon his impetuosity, and the expression of a hope that -the inconvenience to which he was put upon this occasion would act as a -warning to him in future. - -Really one could hardly imagine that in those days, when every week Mr. -Boswell had a chance of going to such an entertainment at Tyburn as he -had attended forty-eight hours before the opening of the Sessions, the -taking of the life of a human being was regarded with such horror. One -cannot help recalling the remark made by Walpole a few years later, -that, owing to the severity of the laws, England had been turned into -one vast shambles; nor can one quite forget the particulars of the case -which was quoted as having an intimate bearing upon this contention--the -case in which a young wife whose husband had been impressed to serve -in His Majesty's Fleet, and who had consequently been left without -any means of support, had stolen a piece of bread to feed her starving -children, and had been hanged at Tyburn for the crime. - -Reading the judge's censure of Baretti, who had, in preventing -a contemptible ruffian from killing him, decreased by a unit the -criminality of London, the only conclusion that one can come to is that -the courts of law were very jealous of their precious prerogative to -kill. Looking at the matter in this light, the bombastic phrase of -Boswell does not seem so ridiculous after all; the Old Bailey had -certainly good reason to be regarded as the "awful Sessions House." But -we are not so fully convinced that it had any right to be referred to -as emphatically the Hall of Justice. In the Georgian Pageant the common -hangman played too conspicuous a part. - -But the unfortunate, if impetuous, Baretti left the court a free man, -and we cannot doubt that in the company of his friends who had stood by -him in his hour of trial he was a good deal harder upon the judge than -the judge had been upon him; and probably he was reproved in a grave and -dignified manner by Dr. Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds standing by with -his ear trumpet, fearful lest a single word of Johnson's wisdom should -escape him. Doubtless Mr. Garrick, the moment Johnson's back was turned, -gave an inimitable imitation of both Johnson and Baretti--perhaps of the -judge as well, and most likely the usher of the court. - -Later on, when the avaricious Reynolds had hastened back to his studio -in Leicester Fields to daub on canvas the figures of some of his sitters -at the extortionate price of thirty-five guineas for a three-quarter -length, he and Johnson put their heads together to devise what could be -done for Baretti. - -For about a year Baretti resumed his old way of living, working for the -booksellers and completing his volume of travel through Europe, by which -it is said he made 500. It would appear, however, that all his pupils -had transferred themselves to the enterprising gentleman who had -appealed to him at an inopportune moment for his recommendation, or to -some of his other brethren, for by the end of the year he was in needy -circumstances. Meantime he had been made by Sir Joshua Reynolds Honorary -Secretary for Foreign Correspondence to the Royal Academy, and then -Johnson recommended him to the husband of Mrs. Thrale as tutor to her -girls at Streatham. This was very kind to Baretti, but it was rather -hard on the Thrales. Apparently from the first day he went to Streatham -his attitude in regard to the Thrale family was one of spite and -malevolence; and there can be no doubt that Johnson bitterly regretted -his patronage of a man who seemed never to forgive any one who had done -him a good turn. - -The agreement made by him with the Thrales was that he should -practically be his own master, only residing at Streatham as a member of -the family with no fixed salary. He was as artful as an Irish cabman in -suggesting this "leave it to your honour" contract. He had heard on all -hands of the liberality of Mr. Thrale, and he knew that, in addition to -being provided with a luxurious home, he would receive presents from him -far in excess of what he could earn. He was extremely well treated for -the next three years, though he was for ever grumbling when he had -a moment's leisure from insulting the Thrales and their guests. Mrs. -Thrale said more in his favour than any one with whom he came in -contact. She wrote: "His lofty consciousness of his own superiority -which made him tenacious of every position, and drew him into a thousand -distresses, did not, I must own, ever disgust me, till he began to -exercise it against myself, and resolve to reign in our house by fairly -defying the mistress of it. Pride, however, though shocking enough, -is never despicable; but vanity, which he possessed too, in an eminent -degree, will sometimes make a man near sixty ridiculous." - -Assuredly Mrs. Thrale "let him down" very gently. Dr. Thomas Campbell, -a clergyman from Ireland, gives us a glimpse of Baretti's bearing at -Streatham. It is clear that Baretti was anxious to impress him with the -nature of his position in the house. "He told me he had several families -both in town and country with whom he could go at any time and spend a -month; he is at this time on these terms at Mr. Thrale's, and he knows -how to keep his ground. Talking, as we were at tea, of the magnitude -of the beer vessels, he said there was one thing at Mr. Thrale's house -still more extraordinary--his wife. She gulped the pill very prettily. -So much for Baretti!" wrote the clergyman in a very illuminating account -of his visit to Streatham. - -But not only did Mrs. Thrale bear with this detestable person for nearly -two more years, but she and her husband took him with them and Johnson -to Paris, where they lived in a magnificent way, the Thrales paying for -everything. It was in a letter to Frank Levet, his domestic apothecary, -that Johnson, writing from Paris, said: "I ran a race in the rain this -day, and beat Baretti. Baretti is a fine fellow." This is Johnson on -Baretti. Here is Baretti on Johnson; on a copy of the _Piozzi Letters_ -he wrote: "Johnson was often fond of saying silly things in strong -terms, and the silly madam"--meaning Mrs. Thrale--"never failed to echo -that beastly kind of wit." - -It was not, however, until an Italian tour, projected by Mr. Thrale, was -postponed, that Baretti became quite unendurable. He had been presented -by Mr. Thrale with 100 within a few months, and on the abandonment of -the longer tour he received another 100 by way of compensation for the -satisfaction he had been compelled to forgo in showing his countrymen -the position to which he had attained in England. This was another act -of generosity which he could not forgive. He became sullen and more -cantankerous than ever, and neglected his duties in an intolerable way. -In fact, he treated Streatham as if it were an hotel, turning up to give -Miss Thrale a lesson at the most inconvenient hours, and then devoting -the most of his time to poisoning the girl's mind against her mother. -Upon one occasion he expressed the hope to her that if her mother died -Mr. Thrale would marry Miss Whitbred, who would, he said, be a pretty -companion for her, not tyrannical and overbearing as he affirmed her own -mother was! Truly a nice remark for a young lady's tutor to make to her -under her mother's roof. - -The fact was, however--we have Baretti's own confession for it--that he -had been led to believe that after being with the Thrales for a year or -two, an annuity would be settled on him by the wealthy brewer, and he -grew impatient at his services to the family not obtaining recognition -in this way. It is extremely unlikely that Johnson ever even so much as -hinted at this annuity, though Baretti says his expectations were due to -what Johnson had told him; but it is certain that he had so exalted an -opinion of himself, he believed that after a year or two of desultory -teaching he should receive a handsome pension. And there the old story -of the car-driver who left the nomination of the fare to "his honour's -honour" was repeated. Baretti one morning packed up his bag and left -Streatham without a word of farewell. - -Johnson's account of his departure and his comments thereupon are worth -notice. He wrote to Boswell: - -"Baretti went away from Thrales in some whimsical fit of disgust or -ill-nature without taking any leave. It is well if he finds in any other -place as good an habitation and as many conveniences." - -On the whole it is likely that a good many of Baretti's friends felt -rather sorry than otherwise that the jury at the Old Bailey had taken -so merciful a view of his accident. If Johnson and Murphy were really -responsible for the line of defence which prevailed at the trial, one -can quite believe that the Thrales and a good many of their associates -bore them a secret grudge for their pains. - -In the year 1782 he was granted by the Government the pension which he -had failed to extort from the Thrales. It amounted to 80 per annum, -and we may take it for granted that he had nothing but the most copious -abuse for the Prime Minister who had only given him 80 when Sheridan -was receiving 200 and Johnson 300. He drew his pension for seven -years. - -Baretti's portrait, painted by Reynolds for the Streatham gallery, -fetched 31 10s., the smallest price of any in the whole collection, -on its dispersal, years after the principal actors in the scene in the -"awful Sessions House" had gone to another world. - - - - -THE FATAL GIFT - -WHEN Mr. Boswell had been snubbed, and very soundly snubbed too, by a -Duchess, one might fancy that his ambition was fully satisfied. But he -was possibly the most persevering of the order of _Pachydermata_ at -that time extant; and in the matter of snubs he had the appetite of a -leviathan. He was fired with the desire to be snubbed once more by Her -Grace--and he was. Without waiting to catch her eye, he raised his glass -and, bowing in her direction, said: - -"My Lady Duchess, I have the honour to drink Your Grace's good health." - -The Duchess did not allow her conversation with Dr. Johnson to be -interrupted by so flagrant a piece of politeness; she continued chatting -quite pleasantly to the great man, ignoring the little one. That was how -she had got on in life; and, indeed, a better epitome of the whole art -of getting on in life could scarcely be compiled even by the cynical -nobleman who wrote letters to his son instructing him in this and other -forms of progress--including the Rake's. - -Mr. Boswell, who, as usual, is the pitiless narrator of the incident, -records his satisfaction at having attained to the distinction of a snub -from the beautiful creature at whose table he was sitting, and we are, -as usual, deeply indebted to him for giving us an illuminating glimpse -of the Duchess of whom at one time all England and the greater part of -Ireland were talking. He also mentions that Her Grace made use of an -idiom by which her Irish upbringing revealed itself. If we had not Mr. -Boswell's account of his visit to Inveraray to refer to we might be -tempted to believe that Horace Walpole deviated into accuracy when he -attributed to the Duchess of Argyll, as well as her sister, the Countess -of Coventry, the brogue of a bog-trotter. It was only by her employment -of an idiom common to the south and west of Ireland and a few other -parts of the kingdom, that Her Grace made him know that she had not been -educated in England, or for that matter in Scotland, where doubtless Mr. -Boswell fondly believed the purest English in the world was spoken. - -[Illustration: 0121] - -Mr. Boswell faithfully records--sometimes with glee and occasionally -with pride--many snubs which he received in the course of a lifetime of -great pertinacity, and some that he omitted to note, his contemporaries -were obliging enough to record; but on none did he reflect with more -satisfaction than that, or those, which he suffered in the presence of -the Duchess of Argyll. - -It happened during that memorable tour to the Hebrides to which he lured -Johnson in order to show his countrymen how great was his intimacy with -the man who traduced them once in his Dictionary and daily in his life. -It was like Boswell to expect that he would impress the Scottish nation -by leading Johnson to view their fine prospects--he certainly was never -foolish enough to hope to impress Johnson by introducing the Scottish -nation to him. In due time, however, the exploiter and the exploited -found themselves in the neighbourhood of Inveraray, the Duke of Argyll's -Castle, and the stronghold of the Clan Campbell. - -It chanced that the head of the great family was in residence at this -time, and Mr. Boswell hastened to apprise him of the fact that the great -Dr. Johnson was at hand. He called at the Castle very artfully shortly -after the dinner hour, when he believed the Duchess and her daughter -would have retired to a drawing-room. He was successful in finding the -Duke still at the dinner-table, the ladies having retired. In the course -of the interview the Duke said: "Mr. Boswell, won't you have some tea?" -and Mr. Boswell, feeling sure that the Duchess could not go very far in -insulting him when other people were present, followed his host into -the drawing-room. "The Duke," he records, "announced my name, but the -Duchess, who was sitting with her daughter, Lady Betty Hamilton, and -some other ladies, took not the least notice of me. I should," he -continues, "have been mortified at being thus coldly received by a lady -of whom I, with the rest of the world, have always entertained a very -high admiration, had I not been consoled by the obliging attention of -the Duke." - -The Duke was, indeed, obliging enough to invite Johnson to dinner the -next day, and Mr. Boswell was included in the invitation. (So it is that -the nursery governess gets invited to the table in the great house -to which she is asked to bring the pretty children in her charge.) Of -course, Boswell belonged to a good family, and his father was a judge. -It was to a Duke of Argyll--not the one who was now so obliging--that -the Laird of Auchinleck brought his son, James Boswell, to be examined -in order to find out whether he should be put into the army or some -other profession. Still, he would never have been invited to Inveraray -at this time or any other unless he had had charge of Johnson. No one -was better aware of this fact than Boswell; but did he therefore decline -the invitation? Not he. Mr. Boswell saw an opportunity ahead of him. He -had more than once heard Johnson give an account of how he had behaved -when the King came upon him in the Royal Library; and probably he had -felt melancholy at the reflection that he himself had had no part or -lot in the incident. It was all Dr. Johnson and the King. But now he was -quick to perceive that when, in after years, people should speak with -bated breath of Dr. Johnson's visit to Inveraray they would be compelled -to say: "And Mr. Boswell, the son of auld Auchinleck, was there too." - -He knew very well that there were good reasons why Mr. Boswell could -not hope to be a _persona grata_ to the Duchess of Argyll. In the great -Douglas lawsuit the issue of which was of considerable importance to the -Duke of Hamilton, the son of Her Grace, the Boswells were on the side of -the opposition, and had been very active on this side into the bargain. -James Boswell himself narrowly escaped being committed for contempt -of court for publishing a novel founded on the Douglas cause and -anticipating in an impudent way the finding of the judges. Had the -difference been directly with the Duke of Argyll some years earlier, no -doubt every man in the Clan Campbell would have sharpened his skene when -it became known that a friend of an opponent of the MacCallein More -was coming, and have awaited his approach with complacency; but now the -great chief tossed Boswell his invitation when he was asking Johnson, -and Boswell jumped at it as a terrier jumps for a biscuit, and he -accompanied his friend to the Castle. - -The picture which he paints of his second snubbing is done in his best -manner. "I was in fine spirits," he wrote, "and though sensible that I -had the misfortune of not being in favour with the Duchess, I was not in -the least disconcerted, and offered Her Grace some of the dish which was -before me." Later on he drank Her Grace's health, although, he adds, "I -knew it was the rule of modern high life not to drink to anybody." Thus -he achieved the snub he sought; but he acknowledges that he thought -the Duchess rather too severe when she said: "I know nothing of Mr. -Boswell." On reflection, however, he received "that kind of consolation -which a man would feel who is strangled by a silken cord." - -It seems strange that no great painter has been inspired by the theme -and the scene. The days of "subject pictures" are, we are frequently -told, gone by. This may be so, generally speaking, but every one knows -that a "subject picture," if its "subject" lends itself in any measure -to the advertising of an article of commerce, will find a ready -purchaser, so fine a perception of the aspirations of art--practical -art--exists in England, and even in Scotland, in the present day. - -Now, are not the elements of success apparent to any one of imagination -in this picture of the party sitting round the table in the great hall -of Inveraray--Dr. Johnson chatting to the beautiful Duchess and her -daughter at one side, the Duke looking uncomfortable at the other, when -he sees Mr. Boswell on his feet with his glass in his hand bowing toward -Her Grace? No doubt Her Grace had acquainted His Grace with the attitude -she meant to assume in regard to Mi. Boswell, so that he was not -astonished--only uncomfortable--when Mr. Boswell fished for his snub. -Surely arrangements could be made between the art patron and the artist -to paint a name and a certain brand upon the bottle--a bottle must, of -course, be on the table; but if this is thought too realistic the name -could easily be put on the decanter--from which Mr. Boswell has just -replenished his glass! Why, the figure of Dr. Johnson alone should -make the picture a success--i.e. susceptible of being reproduced as an -effective poster in four printings. "Sir," said Dr. Johnson, "claret for -boys, port for men, but brandy for heroes." Yes, but whose brandy? There -is a hint for a great modern art patron--a twentieth-century art patron -is a man who loves art for what he can make out of it. - -Dr. Johnson was unmistakably the honoured guest this day at Inveraray; -and perhaps, while the lovely Duchess hung upon his words of wisdom, his -memory may have gone back to a day when he was not so well known, and -yet by some accident found himself in a room with the then Duchess of -Argyll. Upon that occasion he had thought it due to himself to be rude -to the great lady, in response to some fancied remissness on her -part. He had nothing to complain of now. The Duchess with whom he -was conversing on terms of perfect equality--if Her Grace made any -distinction between them it was, we may rest assured, only in a way that -would be flattering to his learning--was at the head of the peerage for -beauty, and there was no woman in the kingdom more honoured than she had -been. He may have been among the crowds who hung about the Mall in St. -James's Park twenty-two years before, waiting patiently until the two -lovely Miss Gunnings should come forth from their house in Westminster -to take the air. The Duchess of Argyll was the younger of the two -sisters. - -The story of the capture of the town by the pair of young Irish girls -has been frequently told, and never without the word _romantic_ being -applied to it. But really there was very little that can be called -romantic in the story of their success. There is far more of this -element in many of the marriages affecting the peerage in these -unromantic days. There is real romance in the story of a young duke's -crossing the Atlantic with a single introduction, but that to the -daughter of a millionaire with whom he falls madly in love and whom he -marries as soon as the lawyers can make out the settlements. There is -real romance in the idyll of the young marquis who is fortunate -enough to win the affection of an ordinary chorus girl; and every year -witnesses such-like alliances--they used to be called _msalliances_ -long ago. There have also been instances of the daughters of English -tradesmen marrying foreign nobles, whom they sometimes divorce as -satisfactorily as if they were the daughters of wealthy swindlers on -the other side of the Atlantic. In such cases there are portraits -and paragraphs in some of the newspapers, and then people forget that -anything unusual has happened. As a matter of fact, nothing unusual has -happened. - -In the romantic story of the Gunnings we have no elements of that -romance which takes the form of a _msalliance_. Two girls, the -granddaughters of one viscount and the nieces of another, came to London -with their parents one year, and early the next married peers--the elder -an earl, the younger a duke. Like thousands of other girls, they had no -money; but, unlike hundreds of other girls who marry into the peerage, -they were exceptionally good-looking. - -Where is there an element of romance in all this? The girls wedded men -in their own station in life, and, considering their good looks, -they should have done very much better for themselves. The duke was a -wretched _rou_, notable for his excesses even in the days when excess -was not usually regarded as noteworthy. He had ruined his constitution -before he was twenty, and he remained enfeebled until, in a year or -two, he made her a widow. The earl was a conceited, ill-mannered prig--a -solemn, contentious, and self-opinionated person who was deservedly -disliked in the town as well as the country. - -Not a very brilliant marriage either of these. With the modern chorus -girl the earl is on his knees at one side, and the gas man on the other. -But with the Miss Gunnings it was either one peer or another. They were -connected on their mother's side with at least two families of nobility, -and on their father's side with the spiritual aristocracy of some -generations back: they were collateral descendants of the great Peter -Gunning, Chancellor of Oxford and Bishop of Ely, and he was able to -trace his lineage back to the time of Henry VIII. From a brother of this -great man was directly descended the father of the two girls and also -Sir Robert Gunning, Baronet, who held such a high post in the diplomatic -service as Minister Plenipotentiary to Berlin, and afterwards to St. -Petersburg. Members of such families might marry into the highest order -of the peerage without the alliance being criticised as "romantic." The -girls did not do particularly well for themselves. They were by birth -entitled to the best, and by beauty to the best of the best. As it was, -the one only became the wife of a contemptible duke, the other of a -ridiculous earl. It may really be said that they threw themselves away. - -Of course, it was Walpole's gossip that is accountable for much of the -false impression which prevailed in respect of the Gunnings. From the -first he did his best to disparage them. He wrote to Mann that they were -penniless, and "scarce gentlewomen." He could not ignore the fact that -their mother was the Honourable Bridget Gunning; but, without knowing -anything of the matter, he undertook to write about the "inferior tap" -on their father's side. In every letter that he wrote at this time he -tried to throw ridicule upon them, alluding to them as if they were -nothing better than the barefooted colleens of an Irish mountain-side -who had come to London to seek their fortunes. As usual, he made all -his letters interesting to his correspondents by introducing the latest -stories respecting them; he may not have invented all of these, but -some undoubtedly bear the Strawberry Hill mark, and we know that Walpole -never suppressed a good tale simply because it possessed no grain of -truth. - -Now, the true story of the Gunnings can be ascertained without -any reference to Walpole's correspondence. Both girls were born in -England--the elder, Maria, in 1731, the younger in 1732. When they were -still young their father, a member of the English Bar, inherited his -brother's Irish property. It had once been described as a "tidy estate," -but it was now in a condition of great untidiness. In this respect it -did not differ materially from the great majority of estates in -Ireland. Ever since the last "settlement" the country had been in a -most unsettled condition, and no part of it was worse than the County -Roscommon, where Castle Coote, the residence of the Gunning family, was -situated. It might perhaps be going too far to say that the wilds of -Connaught were as bad as the wilds of Yorkshire at the same date, but -from all the information that can be gathered on the subject there does -not seem to have been very much to choose between Roscommon and the -wilder parts of Yorkshire. The peasantry were little better than -savages; the gentry were little worse. Few of the elements of civilized -life were to be found among the inhabitants. The nominal owners of the -land were content to receive tribute from their tenantry in the form of -the necessaries of life, for money as a standard of exchange was rarely -available. Even in the present day in many districts in the west -of Ireland cattle occupy the same place in the imagination of the -inhabitants as they do in Zululand. The Irish bride is bargained away -with so many cows; and for a man to say--as one did in the very county -of Roscommon the other day--that he never could see the difference of -two cows between one girl and another, may be reckoned somewhat cynical, -but it certainly is intelligible. - -But if rent was owing--and it usually was--and if it was not paid in the -form of geese, or eggs, or pork, or some other products of low farming -and laziness, it remained unpaid; for the landlord had no means of -enforcing his claims by any law except the law of the jungle. He might -muster his followers and plunder his debtors, and no doubt this system -of rent-collecting prevailed for several years after one of the many -"settlements" of the country had taken place, yet by intermarriage with -the natives, and a general assimilation to their condition of life by -the newcomers, these raids for rent became unpopular and impracticable. -The consequence was that the landlords--such as remained on their -estates--were living from hand to mouth. - -But if the fact that the King's writ failed to run in these parts was -of disadvantage to the landlords in one respect, it was of no -inconsiderable advantage to them in another; for it enabled them with -a light heart to contract debts in Dublin and in the chief towns. They -knew that the rascally process server, should he have the hardihood to -make any attempt to present them with the usual summons, would do so at -the risk of his life; and a knowledge of this fact made the "gentry" at -once reckless and lawless. The consequence was that Ireland was regarded -as no place for a man with any respect for his neighbours or for himself -to live in. It became the country of the agent and the squireen. - -It was to one of the worst parts of this country that John Gunning -brought his wife and four children--the eldest was eight years and -the youngest three months--and here he tried to support them off the -"estate." He might possibly have succeeded if his aspirations had been -humble and his property unencumbered. It so happened, however, that his -father had been the parent of sixteen children, and the estate was still -charged with the maintenance of ten of these. Thus hampered, Mr. Gunning -and the Honourable Bridget Gunning were compelled to adopt the mode of -life of the other gentry who were too poor to live out of Ireland, -and they allowed the education of their family to become a minor -consideration to that of feeding them. - -Mr. Gunning and his wife were undoubtedly the originals of the type of -Irish lady and gentleman to be found in so many novels and plays of -the latter part of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth -centuries. He was the original "heavy father" who, with the addition -of a ridiculous nondescript brogue, was so effectively dealt with by -numerous writers until Thackeray took him in hand; and Mrs. Gunning was -the first of the tradition of Irish mothers with daughters to dispose of -by the aid of grand manners and a great deal of contriving. True to this -tradition, which originated with them, the lady was certainly the -head of the household--a sorry household it must have been at Castle -Coote--during the ten years that elapsed before the migration to -England. - -Mr. Gunning was a fine figure of a gentleman, a handsome, loquacious -person with a great sense of his own dignity and an everlasting -consciousness of the necessity to maintain it at something approximate -to its proper level, and, like other persons of the same stamp, never -particularly successful in the means employed to effect this object. It -is doubtful if a loud conversational style, with repeated references to -the brilliant past of his family and predictions as to the still more -brilliant future that would have been achieved by its representative but -for the outrageous fortune that flung him into the bogs of Roscommon, -produced a more vivid impression upon his associates in Ireland than it -would be likely to do among a more credulous community. In Ireland he -resembled the young gentleman who went to educate the French, but was -discouraged at the outset when he found that even the children in the -streets spoke better French than he did. Mr. Gunning could teach the -Irish squireens nothing in the way of boasting; and he soon found that -they were capable of giving him some valuable instruction as to the -acquiring of creditors and their subsequent evasion. Whatever their -educational deficiencies may have been, it must be admitted that they -had mastered these arts. Much as he despised his ancestral home, he -found, after repeated visits to Dublin, that his heart was, after all, -in Castle Coote, and that, for avoiding arrest for debt, there was no -place like home. - -The Honourable Mrs. Gunning must have become dreadfully tired of this -florid person and of the constant worry incidental to the control of -such a household as his must have been. Her life must have been spent -contriving how the recurrent crises could be averted, and so long as she -was content to remain in the seclusion of the Irish village her efforts -were successful. We do not hear that the bailiffs ever got so far as the -hall door of their ramshackle mansion; there was a bog very handy, and -the holes which served as a rudimentary system of natural drainage -were both deep and dark. The topography of the district was notoriously -puzzling to the officers from the Dublin courts. - -But with all her success in this direction one maybe pretty sure that -her life must have been very burthensome to the Honourable Mrs. Gunning. -She had social ambitions, as befitted a daughter of a noble house, and -on this account she never allowed herself to sink to the level of the -wives of the squireens around her, who were quite content with the rude -jollity of an Irish household--with the "lashings and leavings" to eat, -and with the use of tumblers instead of wineglasses at table. She was -the daughter of a peer, and she never forgot this fact; and here it must -be mentioned that, however culpably she may have neglected the education -of her children in some respects, she took care that they avoided the -provincial brogue of their Irish neighbours. - -Perhaps it was because Walpole knew nothing of the tradition of the -English settlers in Ireland that he referred in his letters to various -correspondents to the appalling brogue of both the Gunning girls; or -perhaps he, as usual, aimed only at making his correspondence more -amusing by this device. But every one who knows something of the -"settlements" is aware of the fact that the new-comers had such a -contempt for the native way of pronouncing English that they were most -strenuous in their efforts to hand down to their children the tradition -of pronunciation which they brought into the country. They were not -always so successful as they wished to be; but within our own times the -aspiration after a pure "English accent" is so great that even in the -National Schools the teachers, the larger number of whom bear Celtic -names, have been most industrious both in getting rid of their native -brogue and in compelling their pupils to do the same; and yet it is -certain that people have been much more tolerant in this respect in -Ireland during the past half-century than they were a hundred years -earlier. - -Of course, a scientific analysis of the pronunciation of the English -language by, say, a native of the wilds of Yorkshire and by a native of -the wilds of Connemara would reveal the fact that fewer corruptions of -the speech are habitual to the latter than to the former, the "brogue" -being far less corrupt than the "burr." It was not enough for the -settlers, however, that their children should speak English in Ireland -more correctly than their forefathers did in England; they insisted on -the maintenance of the English tradition of pronunciation, erroneous -though it might be. So that the suggestion that the daughters of the -Gunning family, who had never heard English spoken with the brogue of -the native Irish until they were eight or nine years of age, spoke the -tongue of the stage Irish peasant would seem quite ridiculous to any -one who had given even the smallest amount of study to the conditions -of speech prevailing in Ireland even in the present tolerant age, -when employment is not denied to any one speaking with the broadest of -brogues. Some years ago such an applicant would have had no chance of -a "billet"--unless, in a literal sense, to hew, with the alternative of -the drawing of water. - -The truth, then, is that the Gunning girls had practically neither more -nor less of that form of education to be acquired from the study of -books or "lessons" than the average young woman of their own day who had -been "neglected." Between the years 1750 and 1800 there were in England -hundreds of young ladies who were as highly educated as a junior-grade -lady clerk in the Post Office Department is to-day; but there were -also thousands who were as illiterate as the Gunnings without any one -thinking that it mattered much one way or another. - -[Illustration: 0139] - -And it really did not matter much that Maria Gunning spelt as vaguely as -did Shakespere, or Shakspere, or Shakespeare, or Shakspear, or whatever -he chose to write himself at the moment. Correctness of orthography is -absolutely necessary for any young lady who wishes to be a success in -the Postal Department, but Miss Gunning possessed some qualifications of -infinitely greater importance in the estimation of the world. She was of -good family and she was beautiful exceedingly. Moreover, she possessed -the supreme grace of naturalness--the supreme grace and that which -includes all other graces, which, like butterflies, hover over -womankind, but seldom descend in a bevy upon any one of the race. She -was as natural as a lily flower, and for the same reason. To be natural -il came to her by Nature, and that was how she won the admiration of -more people than the beauty of Helen of Troy brought to their death. She -was not wise. But had she been wise she would never have left Ireland. -She would have known that obscurity is the best friend that any young -woman so beautiful as she was could have. She would have remained in -Roscommon, and she would have been one of those women who are happy -because they have no story. But, of course, had she been wise she would -not have been natural, and so there her beauty goes by the board in a -moment. - -The Honourable Mrs. Gunning could not have been startled when -the knowledge came to her that she was the mother of two girls of -exceptional beauty. The same knowledge comes to every mother of two -girls in the world, though this knowledge is sometimes withheld from -the rest of the world; but even then the mother's faith is not -shaken--except in regard to the eyesight of the rest of the world. -Doubtless Mrs. Gunning thought much better of Ireland when she found -that her judgment on the beauty of her daughters was shared by all the -people who saw the girls. From the daily exclamation of wonder--the -exaggerated expressions of appreciation uttered by a fervent -peasantry--when the girls were seen in their own kitchen or on the -roadside, the mother's ambition must have received a fresh stimulus. And -given an ambitious mother, whose life has been one of contriving to do -things that seem out of her power to accomplish, the achievement of -her object is only a matter of time--provided that the father does not -become an obstruction. Mrs. Gunning was not extravagant in her longings. -Her Delectable Mountains were those which surround the City of Dublin. -Her social ambitions did not extend beyond "The Castle." - -When the eldest of her three daughters was scarcely nineteen the -aggregation of savings and credit--the latter predominant--seemed -sufficient to justify the expedition. A house was taken in a fashionable -street, close to the most splendid Mall in Europe, and furnished by some -credulous tradesmen, and the social campaign was begun by a parade of -the two girls and their mother. Alas! the young beauties attracted -only too much attention. The inquiries as to their style and title were -unfortunately not limited. In Dublin for generations the tradespeople -have been accustomed to take an intelligent and quite intelligible -interest in the aristocracy and beauty dwelling in their midst; and it -took only a few days for the report to go round that the exquisite young -ladies were the daughters of Mr. John Gunning, of Castle Coote. - -This information meant much more to some of the least desirable of -the inquirers than it did to the wealthy and well connected of the -population; and among the least desirable of all were some tradesmen who -for years had had decrees waiting to be executed against Mr. Gunning at -a more convenient place for such services than Castle Coote. The result -was that within a week the beauty of his daughters had made such a stir -in Dublin that bailiffs were in the house and Mr. Gunning was out of it. - -It is at this point in the history that the Troubadour unslings his -lute, feeling the potentialities of Romance in the air; and, given the -potentialities of Romance and the wandering minstrel, one may be sure -that the atmosphere will resound with Romance. We are told on such high -authority as is regarded quite satisfactory (by the Troubadour), that -the weeping of the mother and the beautiful girls under the coarse stare -of the bailiffs attracted the attention of a charming and sympathetic -young actress who was taking the air in the street, and that, as might -only be expected, she hastened to enter the house to offer consolation -to those who were in trouble--this being unquestionably the mission -which is most congenial to the spirit of the _soubrette_. On being at -once informed of all by the communicative mother--the Troubadour is not -such a fool as to lay down his lute to inquire if it was likely that a -lady who possessed her full share of Irish pride would open her heart -to a stranger and an actress--the young visitor showed her sympathy by -laying herself open to prosecution and imprisonment through helping in -a scheme to make away with all the valuables she could lay her hands on. -But she went still further, and invited the young ladies to stay at her -house so long as it suited them to do so. - -We are told that this young actress was George Ann Bellamy, but the -information comes from no better source than George Ann Bellamy herself, -and the statements of this young person, made when she was no longer -young or reputable, do not carry conviction to all hearers. Romance, -however, like youth, will not be denied, though the accuracy of an -actress may, and people have always been pleased to believe that Miss -Bellamy and Mr. Thomas Sheridan, the much-harassed lessee of the Smock -Alley Theatre in Dublin, were the means of obtaining for the Honourable -Mrs. Gunning and her daughters the invitation to the ball at the Castle -which resulted in the recognition of the girls' beauty by the great -world of fashion. The suggestion that their aunt, Miss Bourke, or -their uncle, Viscount Mayo, might have been quite as potent a factor in -solving the problem of how the invitation to a ball given by the Viceroy -to the people of Dublin came into the hands of the Miss Gunnings, may, -however, be worth a moment's consideration. - -At any rate, the success made by the girls upon this occasion was -immediate. Before a day had passed all Dublin and Dublin Castle were -talking of their beauty, and the splendid Mall was crowded with people -anxious to catch a glimpse of the lovely pair when they took their walks -abroad. Lady Caroline Petersham, the charming lady whose name figures -frequently in Walpole's correspondence--it will be remembered that she -was one of that delightful little supper party at Ranelagh which he -describes--was in the entourage of the Viceroy, and quickly perceived -the possibilities of social prestige accruing to the hostess who might -be the means of introducing them to St. James's. There a new face meant -a new sensation lasting sometimes well into a second month, and Lady -Caroline had her ambitions as a hostess. - -She was the Gunnings' best friend--assuming that social advancement is -an act of friendship--and it may safely be assumed that she was mainly -responsible for the extension of the area of the campaign entered on by -Mrs. Gunning, and that it was her influence which obtained for them the -passage to Chester in the Lord Lieutenant's yacht, and a bonus of 150 -charged, as so many other jobs were, "upon the Irish Establishment." -The "Irish Establishment" was the convenient Treasury out of which money -could be paid without the chance of unpleasant questions being asked in -Parliament respecting such disbursements. - -Of course, it is not to be believed that such success as the young girls -encompassed in Dublin was reached without a word or two of detraction -being heard in regard to their behaviour. Mrs. Delany, amiable as -a moral gossip, or perhaps, a gossipy moralist, wrote to her sister -respecting them: "All that you have heard of the Gunnings is true, -except their having a fortune, but I am afraid they have a greater want -than that, which is discretion." No doubt Mrs. Delany had heard certain -whispers of the girlish fun in which the elder of the sisters delighted; -but there has never been the smallest suggestion that her want of -discreetness ever approached an actual indiscretion. It may be assumed, -without doing an injustice to either of the girls, that their standard -of demeanour was not quite so elevated as that which the wife of Dean -Delany was disposed to regard as essential to be reached by any young -woman hoping to be thought well of by her pastors and masters. But the -steelyard measure was never meant to be applied to a high-spirited young -girl who has grown up among bogs and then finds herself the centre of -the most distinguished circle in the land, every person in which is -eagerly striving for the distinction of a word from her lips. Maria -Gunning may not have had much discretion, but she had enough to serve -her turn. She arrived in London with her sister, and no suggestion was -ever made--even by Walpole--that their mother had not taken enough care -of them. - -In London they at once found their place in the centre of the most -fashionable--the most notorious--set; but while we hear of the many -indiscreet things that were done by certain of their associates, nothing -worse is attributed to either of the girls than an Irish brogue or an -Irish idiom--perhaps a word or two that sounded unmusical to fastidious -ears. Walpole began by ridiculing them, and, as has already been noted, -sneering at their birth; but when he found they were becoming the -greatest social success that his long day had known, he thought it -prudent to trim his sails and refer to them more reasonably: they were -acquiring too many friends for it to be discreet for him to continue -inventing gossip respecting them. - -But what a triumph they achieved in town! Nothing had ever been known -like it in England, nor has anything approaching to it been known during -the century and a half that has elapsed since the beauty of these two -girls captured London. The opening of Parliament by the King in State -never attracted such crowds as thronged the Park when they walked in the -Mall. Never before had the guards to turn out at the Palace to disperse -the crowds who mobbed two young ladies who did not belong--except in a -distant way--to a Royal House. Upon one occasion the young Lord Clermont -and his friend were compelled to draw their swords to protect them from -the exuberant attentions of the crowd. "'Tis a warm day," wrote George -Selwyn to Lord Carlisle, "and some one proposes a stroll to Betty's -fruit shop; suddenly the cry is raised, 'The Gunnings are coming,' and -we all tumble out to gaze and to criticise." - -"The famous beauties are more talked of than the change in the -Ministry," wrote Walpole. "They make more noise than any one of their -predecessors since Helen of Troy; a crowd follows them wherever they -walk, and at Vauxhall they were driven away." - -This mobbing must have caused the girls much delightful inconvenience, -and one can see their mother acting the part--and overdoing it, after -the manner of her kind--of the distracted parent whose daughters have -just been restored to her arms. One can hear the grandiloquent thanks -of the father to the eligible young man with titles whose bravery -has protected his offspring--that would have been his word--from the -violence of the mob. The parents must have been very trying to the young -men in those days. But the mother showed herself to be rather more -than a match for one young man who hoped to win great fame as a -jocular fellow by playing a trick upon the family. Having heard of the -simplicity and credulousness of the girls, this gentleman, with another -of his kind, asked leave of Mrs. Gunning to bring to her house a certain -duke who was one of the greatest _partis_ of the day. On her complying, -he hired a common man, and, dressing him splendidly, conveyed him in -a coach to the Gunnings' house and presented him to the family as -the duke. But the man knew as little of the matter as did Walpole; he -assumed that she was nothing more than the adventurous wife of an Irish -squireen. He soon found out that he had made a mistake. Mrs. Gunning -rang the bell, and ordered the footman to turn the visitors out of -the house. But the family were soon consoled for this incident of the -impostor duke by the arrival of a real one, to say nothing of another -consolation prize in the form of an earl. In the meantime, however, -their popularity-had been increasing rather than diminishing. As a -matter of fact, although beauty may be reproached for being only skin -deep, it is very tenacious of life. A reputation for beauty is perhaps -the most enduring of all forms of notoriety. The renown that attaches to -the man who has painted a great picture, or to one who has made a great -scientific discovery, or to one who has been an eminent churchman or a -distinguished statesman, is, in point of popularity and longevity, quite -insignificant in comparison with that which is associated with the -name of a very beautiful woman. The crowds still surrounded the Miss -Gunnings, and the visit which they paid by command to King George II -gave them a position in the world of fashion that was consolidated by -the report of the charming _naivete_ of the reply made by Maria when the -King inquired if they had seen all the sights of London and if there -was any in particular which they would like to be shown. "Oh, I should -dearly like to see a coronation!" the girl is said to have cried. And as -that was just the sight for which the people of England were most eager, -she was acclaimed as their mouthpiece. - -So they progressed in the career that had been laid out for them. Duels -were fought about them, and bets were made about them and their future. -For nearly a year there was no topic of the first order save only the -Progress of Beauty. The Duke had come boldly forward. He was a double -duke--his titles were Hamilton and Brandon--and he had sounded such -depths of depravity that he was possibly sincere in his desire to -convince the world that his taste in one direction had not become -depraved. Elizabeth Gunning may have accepted his service from a hope of -being the means of reforming him. But even if she were not to succeed in -doing so, her mother would have reminded her that her failure would not -make her the less a duchess. It is open, however, for one to believe -that this girl cared something for the man and was anxious to amend his -life. - -Then we hear of her being with him at Lord Chesterfield's ball given -at the opening of his new mansion, her fancy dress being that of a -Quakeress. Three days later the world in which they lived awoke to learn -the astounding news that the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon had married -Elizabeth Gunning the previous night. - -Here was romance beyond a precedent; and Walpole romanced about it -as usual. In his account of the nuptials he succeeds in making more -misstatements than one would believe it possible even for such a worker -in the art to encompass in half a dozen lines. "When her mother and -sister were at Bedford House," he wrote to Mann, "a sudden ardour, -either of wine or love, seized upon him (the Duke); a parson was -promptly sent for, but on arriving, refused to officiate without the -important essentials of licence or ring. The Duke swore and talked of -calling in the Archbishop. Finally the parson's scruples gave way, the -licence was overlooked, and the lack of the traditional gold ring was -supplied by the ring of a bed curtain!" - -This is very amusing, but it is not history. It is a clumsy fiction, -unworthy of the resources of the inventor. Sir Horace Mann must have -felt that his friend had a poor opinion of his intelligence if he meant -him to accept the assurance that the household of the Gunnings and the -fingers of His Grace were incapable of yielding to the fastidious parson -a better substitute for the traditional gold ring than the thing he -introduced. The facts of the incident were quite romantic enough without -the need for Walpole's embellishments. It was Valentine's Day, and what -more likely than that the suggestion should be made by the ardent -lover that so appropriate a date for a wedding would not come round for -another year! To suggest difficulties--impossibility--would only be to -spur him on to show that he was a true lover. However this may be, it -has long ago been proved that the midnight marriage took place in due -form at the Curzon Street Chapel in the presence of several witnesses. - -And then Walpole went on to say that the wedding of Lord Coventry and -the elder sister took place at the same time. It so happened, however, -that a fortnight elapsed between the two ceremonies, and in the case of -the second, the ceremony took place in the full light of day. - -The subsequent history of the two ladies is not without a note of -melancholy. The elder, pursued to the end by the malevolent slanders -of the man with the leer of the satyr perpetually on his face, died of -consumption after eight years of wedded life. The younger became a widow -two years earlier, and after being wooed by the Duke of Bridgewater, -whom she refused, sending him to his canal for consolation, married -Colonel Campbell, who in 1770 became the Fifth Duke of Argyll. Six -years later she was created a peeress in her own right, her title -being Baroness Hamilton of Hameldon in Leicestershire. In 1778 she -was appointed Mistress of the Robes. She attained to the additional -distinction of making the good Queen jealous, so that Her Majesty upon -one occasion overlooked her in favour of Lady Egremont. The Duchess at -once resigned, and only with difficulty was persuaded to withdraw her -resignation. She died in 1790. - - - - -THE FTE-CHAMPTRE - -NO one knows to-day with whom the idea of having an English -_fte-champtre_ at The Oaks upon the occasion of the marriage of the -young Lord Stanley to Lady Betty Hamilton originated. The secret -was well kept; and it can be easily understood that in case of this -innovation proving a fiasco, no one would show any particular desire to -accept the responsibility of having started the idea. But turning out as -it did, a great success, it might have been expected that many notable -persons would lay claim to be regarded as its parents. A considerable -number of distinguished people had something to do with it, and any -one of them had certainly sufficient imagination, backed up by an -acquaintance with some of the exquisite pieces of MM. Watteau and -Fragonard, to suggest the possibility of perfecting such an enterprise -even in an English June. It was the most diligent letter-writer of that -age of letter-writing who had referred to the "summer setting in with -its customary severity," so that the trifling of the month of June -with the assumption of the poets who have rhymed of its sunshine with -rapture, was not an experience that was reserved for the century that -followed. But in spite of this, the idea of a _fte-champtre_, after -the most approved French traditions, in an English demesne found favour -in the eyes of Lord Stanley and his advisers, and the latter were -determined that, whatever price might have to be paid for it, they would -not run the chance of being blamed for carrying it out in a niggardly -spirit. - -The young Lord Stanley had as many advisers as any young nobleman with -a large immediate allowance and prospects of a splendid inheritance may -hope to secure. There was his _fiance's_ mother, now the Duchess of -Argyll, who was never disposed to frown down an undertaking that would -place a member of one of her families in the forefront of the battle of -the beauties for the most desirable _parti_ of the year. - -[Illustration: 0155] - -The Duchess had both taste and imagination, so that people called her an -Irishwoman, although she was born in England. Then there was Mr. George -Selwyn, who said witty things occasionally and never missed a hanging. -He was fully qualified to prompt a wealthy companion as to the best -means to become notorious for a day. There was also young Mr. Conway, -the gentleman who originated the diverting spectacle when Mrs. Baddeley -and Mrs. Abington were escorted to the Pantheon. Any one of these, to -say nothing of Lady Betty herself, who had some love for display, might -have been inclined to trust an English June so far as to believe an _al -fresco_ entertainment on a splendid scale quite possible. - -On the whole, however, one is inclined to believe that it was Colonel -Burgoyne who was responsible for the whole scheme at The Oaks. In -addition to having become Lord Stanley's uncle by running away with -his father's sister, he was a budding dramatist, and as such must have -perceived his opportunity for exploiting himself at the expense of -some one else--the dream of every budding dramatist. There is every -likelihood that it was this highly accomplished and successful -"gentleman-adventurer" who brought Lord Stanley up to the point of -embarking upon his design for an entertainment such as had never -been seen in England before--an entertainment that should include the -production of a masque devised by Colonel Burgoyne and entitled _The -Maid of The Oaks_. The fte came off, and it was pronounced the most -brilliant success of the year 1774. - -Lord Stanley was a very interesting young man; that is to say, he was -a young man in whom no inconsiderable number of persons--mainly of the -opposite sex--were greatly interested. Of this fact he seems to have -been fully aware. A good many people--mainly of the opposite sex--felt -very strongly on the subject of his marrying: it was quite time that he -married, they said. His grandfather, the Earl of Derby, was eighty-four -years of age, and it would be absurd to believe that he could live much -longer. Lord Stanley being his heir, it was agreed that it was the young -man's duty not to procrastinate in the matter of marriage. It is always -understood that a patriarchal nobleman sings "_Nunc dimittis_" when he -holds in his arms the second in direct succession to the title, and this -happy consummation could, in the case of the aged Lord Derby, only be -realised by the marriage of Lord Stanley. - -He was small in stature, and extremely plain of countenance; still -this did not prevent his name from being coupled with that of several -notable--but not too notable--young women of his acquaintance. But as -it was well known that he was greatly interested in the stage, it -was thought that, perhaps, he might not be so complaisant as his best -friends hoped to find him in regard to marrying. An ardent interest in -the progress of the drama, especially in its lighter forms, has been -known to turn a young man's attention from marriage, when it does not do -what is far worse--turn his attention to it with too great zest. Before -long, however, it became apparent that his lordship recognised in what -direction his duty lay. There was a young lady connected with the Ducal -House of Bedford--a niece of that old Duchess who played so conspicuous -a part in the social and political history of the middle of the -eighteenth century--and to her Lord Stanley became devoted. But just -when every one assumed that the matter was settled, no one thinking -it possible that the young lady would be mad enough to refuse such a -_parti_, the news came that she had done so; and before people had -done discussing how very eccentric were the Bedford connections, -the announcement was made that Lord Stanley was to marry Lady Betty -Hamilton, the beautiful daughter of a beautiful mother, the Duchess of -Argyll. - -There is in existence a letter written by the Duchess to Sir William -Hamilton, in which she hints that Lord Stanley was an old suitor for the -hand of her daughter. "Lady Betty might have taken the name of Stanley -long ago if she had chose it," she wrote, adding: "A very sincere -attachment on his side has at last produced the same on hers." This -being so, it would perhaps be unsafe to assume that Lord Stanley -proposed to Lady Betty out of pique at having been rejected by the other -lady, though one might be disposed to take this view of the engagement. - -The alternative view is that Lady Betty had been advised by her -accomplished mother that if she played her cards well there was no -reason why she should not so attract Lord Stanley as to lead him to be a -suitor for her hand, and that the girl at last came to see that the -idea was worth her consideration. Her portrait, painted by Sir Joshua -Reynolds in the year of her marriage, shows her to have been a graceful, -girlish young creature; but her beauty could never have been comparable -with that of her mother at the same age, or with that of her aunt, Lady -Coventry, whom it is certain she closely resembled in character. Her -mother, in her letter to Sir William Hamilton, apologises in a way -for her liveliness, assuring him that such a disposition was not -incompatible with serious thought upon occasions; and this gives us -a hint that the reputation for vivacity which she always enjoyed was -closely akin to that which made the life of Lady Coventry so very -serious. - -This was the young lady in whose honour the first English _fte -champtre_ was organised. To be more exact, or to get more into touch -with the view of the Derby family, perhaps one should say that the -_fte_ was set on foot in consideration of the honour the young lady -was doing herself in becoming a member of the great house of -Stanley. Different people look at a question of honour from different -standpoints. Probably Colonel Burgoyne, although a member of the Derby -family by marriage, left honour out of the question altogether, and only -thought of his masque being produced at his nephew's expense. - -And produced the masque was, and on a scale as expensive as the most -ambitious author could desire. It was described, with comments, by all -the great letter-writers of the time. Walpole has his leer and his sneer -at its expense (literally). It was to cost no less than 5000, he said, -and he ventured to suppose that in order to account for this enormous -outlay Lord Stanley had bought up all the orange trees near London--no -particular extravagance one would fancy--and that the hay-cocks would be -of straw-coloured riband. George Selwyn thought it far from diverting. -The Dowager Lady Gower affirmed that "all the world was there," only she -makes an exception of her relations the Bedfords--she called them "the -Bloomsbury lot"--and said that the Duchess would not let any of them go -because Her Grace thought that Lord Stanley should have taken his recent -rejection by Her Grace's niece more to heart. Lady Betty's stepfather, -the Duke of Argyll, said that the whole day was so long and fatiguing -that only Lady Betty could have stood it all. - -But did Lady Betty stand it all? It was rumoured in the best-informed -circles that she had broken off the match the next day; and when one -becomes acquainted with the programme of the day's doings one cannot but -acknowledge that the rumour was plausible. She probably made an attempt -in this direction; but on her fianc's promising never to repeat the -offence, withdrew her resolution. - -The famous brothers Adam, whose genius was equally ready to build -an Adelphi or to design a fanlight, had been commissioned to plan an -entertainment on the most approved French models and to carry it out on -the noblest scale, taking care, of course, that the central idea should -be the masque of _The Maid of The Oaks_, and these large-minded artists -accepted the order without demur. The pseudo-classical feeling entered, -largely through the influence of the Adams, into every form of art at -this period, though the famous brothers cannot be accused of originating -the movement. Sir Joshua Reynolds painted his most charming ladies in -the costume of Greeks, and Angelica Kauffmann depicted many of her early -English episodes with the personages clad in togas which seemed greatly -beyond their control. But for that matter every battle piece up to -the date of Benjamin West's "Death of Wolfe" showed the combatants in -classical armour; and Dr. Johnson was more than usually loud in his -protests against the suggestion that a sculptor should put his statues -of modern men into modern clothing. - -But the Adams were wise enough to refrain from issuing any order as to -the costume to be worn by the shepherds and shepherdesses who were -to roam the mead at The Oaks, Epsom, upon the occasion of this _fte -champtre_; and they were also wise enough to distrust the constancy of -an English June. The result was (1) a charming medley of costume, though -the pseudo-pastoral peasants, farmers, gardeners, and shepherds were in -the majority, and (2) the most interesting part of the entertainments -took place indoors, the octagonal hall lending itself nobly--when -improved by Messrs. Adam--to the show. The "transparencies" which -constituted so important a part of the ordinary birthday celebrations -of the time, took the form of painted windows, and, later, of a -device showing two of the conventional torches of Hymen in full blaze, -supporting a shield with the Oak of the Hamiltons' crest and the usual -"gules." - -This design occupied the place of the "set piece" which winds up a -modern display of fireworks and sets the band playing "God save the -King." It could not have been brought on until the morning sunlight -was flooding the landscape outside; for supper was not served until -half-past eleven, and the company had to witness the representation of -an intolerably long masque--the second of the day--after supper, with a -procession of Druids, fauns, cupids, and nymphs, all in suitable, but it -is to be hoped not traditional, costume. - -The entertainment began quite early in the afternoon, when there was -a long procession of shepherds and shepherdesses through the lanes to -where a pastoral play was produced and syllabub drunk under the trees. -But this was only an _hors d'ouvre_; it was not Colonel Burgoyne's -masterpiece. This was not produced in the open air. Only when further -refreshments had been served and evening was closing in did the guests, -who had been sauntering through the sylvan scenes, repair to the great -hall, which they found superbly decorated and, in fact, remodelled, for -colonnades after the type of those in the pictures of Claude had been -built around the great ballroom, the shafts being festooned with roses, -and the drapery of crimson satin with heavy gold fringes. There were -not enough windows to make excuses for so much drapery, but this was no -insuperable obstacle to the artful designers; they so disposed of the -material as to make it appear that it was the legitimate hanging for six -windows. - -For the procession through the colonnades the young host changed his -costume and his fiance changed hers. He had appeared as Rubens and she -as Rubens' wife, from the well-known picture. But now she was dressed as -Iphigenia. They led the first minuet before supper, and it was thought -that they looked very fine. No one who has seen the two pictures of the -scene, for which Zucchi was commissioned, can question this judgment. -Lady Betty's portrait in one of these panels makes her even more -beautiful than she appears on Sir Joshua's canvas. - -With a display of fireworks of a detonating and discomposing type--the -explosion, it was said, affected the nerves of nearly all the -guests--and the illumination of the "transparency" already alluded to, -this memorable fte came to no premature conclusion. Every one was bored -to death by so much festivity coming all at once. The idea of twelve -hours of masques and minuets is enough to make one's blood run cold. Its -realisation may have had this effect upon the heroine of the day, hence -the rumour that she found she had had enough of the Derby family to -last her for the rest of her life without marrying the young heir. -Unfortunately, however, if this was the case, she failed to justify the -accuracy of the report; and she was married to Lord Stanley on the 23rd -of the same month. - -The union of Maria Gunning with the Earl of Coventry was a miserable -one, but this of her niece and Lord Stanley was infinitely worse. Lady -Betty soon found out that she had made a mistake in marrying a man so -incapable of appreciating her charm of manner as was Lord Stanley. The -likelihood is that if she had married any other man she would have made -the same discovery. The vivacity for which her mother apologised to Sir -William Hamilton was, after her marriage, much more apparent than the -thoughtfulness which the Duchess assured her correspondent was one of -her daughter's traits. She showed herself to be appallingly vivacious -upon more than one occasion. Just at that time there was a vivacious -"set" in Lady Betty's world, and every member of it seemed striving for -leadership. Few of the ladies knew exactly where the border line lay -between vivacity and indiscretion. If Lady Betty was one of the better -informed on this delicate question of delimitation, all that can be said -is that she overstepped the line upon several occasions. It is not to be -thought that her lightness ever bordered into actual vice, but it rarely -fell short of being indiscreet. - -She was always being talked about--always having curious escapades, none -of them quite compromising, but all calculated to make the judicious -grieve. But it is one thing to be subjected to the censure of the -judicious and quite another to come before a judicial authority, and it -is pretty certain that if Lady Derby--her husband succeeded to the title -two years after his marriage--had incriminated herself, she would have -been forced to defend a divorce suit. - -It is, however, likewise certain that for some time she kept hovering -like a butterfly about the portals of the Court, and a good deal of the -bloom was blown off her wings by the breath of rumour. She had accepted -the devotion of the Duke of Dorset, and, considering the number of -eyes that were upon her and the devotion of His Grace, this was a very -dangerous thing to do. They were constantly seen together and at all -hours. This was in the second year of her marriage, but even in -the first her desire to achieve notoriety by some means made itself -apparent. But her escapade that was most talked about was really not -worthy of the gossip of a Gower. She was at a ball at the house of Mrs. -Onslow in St. James's Square, and her chair not arriving in good time to -take her back to Grosvenor Square, it was suggested by Lord Lindsay and -Mr. Storer that they should borrow Mrs. Onslow's chair and carry her -between them to her home. She agreed to this gallant proposal, and off -they set together. The young men bore her to her very door in spite of -the fact that they had met her own chair soon after they had left Mrs. -Onslow's porch. - -There was surely not much of an escapade in this transaction. The truth -was probably that the chair did not arrive owing to the condition of the -bearers, and when the young gentlemen met it they refused to jeopardise -the safety of the lady by transferring her from Mrs. Onslow's chair to -her own. - -Rumour, however, was only too anxious to put the worst construction upon -every act of the merry Countess, and it was doubtless because of this, -and of her own knowledge of her daughter's thoughtlessness, that -the Duchess of Argyll appeared upon the scene and endeavoured by her -presence and advice to avert the catastrophe that seemed imminent. -The Duchess insisted on accompanying her to every entertainment, and -succeeded in keeping a watchful eye on her, though the Duke, who was -at Inveraray, and was doubtless tired of hearing of the vivacity of -his stepdaughter, wrote rather peremptorily for Her Grace to return -to Scotland. She did not obey the summons, the fact being that she was -devoted to this daughter of hers, who must have daily reminded her of -her own sister Maria, to whom she had been so deeply attached. * - - * It was said that she had refused the offer of the Duke of - Bridgewater, because of his suggestion that she should break - off all intercourse with Lady Coventry. - -Seeing, however, that she could not continue to look after this lively -young matron, and being well aware of the fact that Lord Derby would -never consent to live with her again, the Duchess could do no more than -condone the separation which was inevitable. The deed was drawn up in -1779, five years after Lady Betty had been so inauspiciously bored by -the _fte champtre_. - -[Illustration: 0171] - -In the meantime there was a good deal of talk about the Earl of Derby -himself. A young nobleman who takes a lively, or even a grave, interest -in the personnel of the theatre is occasionally made the subject of -vulgar gossip. Lord Derby had a reputation as an amateur actor, and -he seemed to think that it would be increased by association with -professional actresses. It is doubtful if he was justified in his views -on this delicate question. At any rate, rightly or wrongly, on his -estrangement from his wife, but two years before the final separation, -he showed a greater devotion than ever to dramatic performances and -dramatic performers. His uncle by marriage, now General Burgoyne, had -written a play that turned out an extraordinary success. This was _The -Heiress_, and it had received extravagant praise in many influential -quarters. It was while it was still being talked of in society that a -company of distinguished amateurs undertook to produce it at Richmond -House, in Whitehall Place. In order that the representation might be as -perfect as possible, the Duchess of Richmond engaged the actress who -had taken the chief part in the original production, to superintend -the rehearsals of her amateurs. Miss Farren was a young person -of considerable beauty, and more even than an actress's share of -discretion. She was in George Colman's company at the Haymarket, and -was rapidly taking the place of Mrs. Abington in the affections of -playgoers. She was the daughter of a surgeon in a small way--he may have -been one of the barber surgeons of the eighteenth century. Marrying an -actress (also in a small way), he adopted the stage as a profession, and -became a strolling actor-manager, whenever he got the chance, and died -before his drinking habits had quite demoralised his family. - -Mrs. Farren was a wise woman--wise enough to know that she was a bad -actress, but that there were possibilities in her two daughters. It was -after only a brief season of probation that Colman engaged one of -the girls to do small parts, promoting her in an emergency to be a -"principal." Miss Farren proved herself capable of making the most of -her opportunity, and the result was that within a year she was taking -Mrs. Abington's parts in the best comedies. - -Her mother was sensible enough to perceive that there was room in the -best society for an actress of ability as well as respectability--up to -that time the two qualities had seldom been found associated--and Mrs. -Farren was right. No whisper had ever been heard against the young lady, -and a judicious introduction or two brought her into many drawing-rooms -of those leaders of society who were also respectable, and this was of -advantage to her not only socially, but professionally. Horace Walpole -was able to write of her: "In distinction of manner and refinement she -excelled Mrs. Abington, who could never go beyond Lady Teazle, which is -a second-rate character." Again, in a letter to Lady Ossory, he ascribed -the ability of Miss Farren to the fact that she was accustomed to mingle -with the best society. - -This theory of Walpole's has been frequently controverted since his day, -and now no one will venture to assert that there is really anything in -it, although it sounds plausible enough. Miss Farren had, however, ample -opportunity of studying "the real thing" and of profiting by her study. -She found herself on the most intimate footing with duchesses--not of -the baser sort like her of Ancaster, or of the eccentric sort like her -of Bedford, but of the most exalted. The Duchess of Richmond and the -Duchess of Leinster were among her friends, and thus it was that her -appearance at the rehearsals of _The Heiress_ of Whitehall Place was -not wholly professional. Upon this occasion she met Lord Derby and also -Charles James Fox, the latter having accepted the rather onerous duties -of stage manager. Before any of the performers were letter perfect in -their dialogue, Miss Farren had captured the hearts of both these -men. Having some of the qualities necessary to success as a statesman, -including caution and an instinct as to the right moment to retire from -a contest that must end in some one being made a fool of, Mr. Fox soon -withdrew from a position of rivalry with Lord Derby. It was rumoured by -the malicious, who had at heart the maintenance of the good name of -Miss Farren, that Mr. Fox had been dismissed by the lady with great -indignation on his making a proposition to her that did not quite -meet her views in regard to the ceremony of marriage. Miss Farren they -asserted to be a paragon of virtue, and so she undoubtedly was. Her -virtue was of the most ostentatious type. She would never admit a -gentleman to an audience unless some witness of her virtue was present. -She accepted the devotion of Lord Derby, but gave him to understand -quite plainly that so long as his wife was alive she could only agree to -be his _fiance_. Truly a very dragon of virtue was Miss Farren! - -The Earl, previous to his meeting the actress, had been a dutiful if not -a very devoted husband. But as soon as he fell in love with this paragon -of virtue he became careless, and made no attempt to restrain his wife -in her thoughtless behaviour. He allowed her to go her own way, and he -went his way. His way led him almost every evening to the green room -at the Haymarket and Drury Lane, where Miss Farren was to be found. The -estrangement between himself and his wife that resulted in the final -separation was the result not of his infatuation for the actress, but of -her virtuous acceptance of him as her moral lover. She took care never -to compromise herself with him or any one else, but she did not mind -taking the man away from his wife and home in order that she might be -accredited with occupying an absolutely unique position in the annals of -the English stage. - -If Miss Farren had been a little less virtuous and a little more human -she would run a better chance of obtaining the sympathy of such people -as are capable of differentiating between a woman's virtue and the -virtues of womankind. She seemed to think that the sole duty of a woman -is to be discreet in regard to herself--to give no one a chance of -pointings finger of scorn at her; and it really seemed as if this was -also the creed of the noble people with whom she associated. Every -one seemed to be so paralysed by her propriety as to be incapable of -perceiving how contemptible a part she was playing. An honest woman, -with the instincts of goodness and with some sense of her duty, would, -the moment a married man offers her his devotion, send him pretty -quickly about his business. The most elementary sense of duty must -suggest the adoption of such a course of treatment in regard to -an illicit admirer. But Miss Farren had no such sense. She met the -philandering of her lover with smiles and a virtuous handshake. She -accepted his offer of an adoring friendship for the present with a -reversion of the position of Countess of Derby on the death of the -existing holder of the title and its appurtenances; and people held her -up, and continue to hold her up, as an example of all that is virtuous -and amiable in life! - -She was also commended for her patience, as Lord Derby was for his -constancy. They had both great need of these qualities, for the unhappy -barrier to their union showed no signs of getting out of their way, -either by death or divorce. She became strangely discreet, taking, in -fact, a leaf out of Miss Farren's book of deportment, and never giving -her husband a chance of freeing himself from the tie that bound him -nominally to her. It must have been very gratifying to the actress to -perceive how effective was the example she set to the Countess in regard -to the adherence to the path of rectitude. - -What was the exact impression produced upon Lord Derby by all this -decorum it would be difficult to say. He may have been pleased to -discover that he was married to a lady to whom his honour was more -precious than he had any reason or any right to believe it to be. But -assuredly a less placid gentleman would have found himself wishing now -and again that--well, that matters had arranged themselves differently. - -The years went by without bringing about a more satisfactory _modus -vivendi_ than was in existence when Lord Derby originally offered his -heart and hand (the latter when it should become vacant) to the actress. -Lady Derby was in wretched health, but still showed no more inclination -to die than does a chronic invalid. Miss Farren continued to drive her -splendid chariot, with its coachmen on the hammer-cloth and its footmen -clinging on to the straps behind, down to the stage-door of the theatre, -and to fill the house every night that she played. Her popularity seemed -to grow with years, and she appeared in a wide range of characters, -making her audiences accept as correct her reading of every part, though -the best critics--Walpole was about the worst--of her art had a good -deal to say that was not quite favourable to her style. Only once, -however, did she make a flagrant error on the stage, and this was when -she was misguided enough to put on men's garments in representing the -part of Tracy Lovell in Colman's play, _The Suicide_. - -By this unhappy exhibition which she made of herself she disillusioned -those of her admirers who fancied that she was a model of grace from -the sole of her feet to the crown of her head. She never repeated this -performance. Had she done so in Lord Derby's presence, his constancy -would have been put to a severer test than any to which he had been -previously subjected. The best judges of what constitutes grace in a -woman were unanimous in their advice to the lady never to forsake the -friendly habiliments which she was accustomed to wear, and never to -allow her emulation of the perpetually chaste goddess to lead her to -adopt even for an hour the convenient garb in which she went a-hunting. - -And while his fiance was moving from triumph to triumph, putting every -other actress in the shade, the Earl of Derby was putting on flesh. But -as his flesh became more visible so did his faith. He was a model of -fidelity. His name was never associated with the name of any other -lady--not even that of his wife--during his long years of probation, and -twenty years form a rather protracted period for a man to wait in order -to marry an actress. It was not to be wondered if the spectacle of the -devoted young peer waiting for the beautiful girl in the green room, -which was allowed to the habitus of that fascinating apartment during -the earlier years of this strange attachment, produced quite a different -effect upon people from that which was the result of witnessing a -somewhat obese, elderly gentleman panting along by the side of a chaste -lady of forty. Nor was it remarkable that, on seeing one day by the side -of Miss Farren, a gallant young man whose walk and bearing suggested -to elderly spectators a rejuvenated Lord Stanley, they should rub their -eyes and ask what miracle was this that time and true love had wrought. - -The only miracle that time had wrought was to make the son of the Earl -of Derby twenty-one years of age and rather interested in the personnel -of green rooms. He had been introduced to Miss Farren by his father; but -to his honour be it said, he made no attempt to take his father's -place in regard to the lady, except as her escort to her house in Green -Street. The gossip that suggested such a possibility was just what one -might expect to find in one of Walpole's letters. - -At last the shameful, if virtuous, devotion of twenty years was -rewarded by the announcement of the death of the wretched Countess whose -desertion dated from the day her husband met the actress. Miss Farren, -with that extraordinary bad taste which characterised every period -of her intimacy with Lord Derby, took an ostentatious farewell of the -stage, and proved by the faltering of her voice, her emotion, and her -final outburst in tears, that time had not diminished from the arts of -her art. Of course, there was a scene of intense emotion in the theatre, -which was increased when King led her forward and Wroughton spoke a -rhymed and stagey farewell in her presence. Four of its lines were -these: - - But ah! this night adieu the joyous mien, - - When Mirth's lov'd fav'rite quits the mimic scene, - - Startled Thalia would th'assent refuse, - - But Truth and Virtue sued and won the Muse. - -Truth and Virtue--these were the patrons of the compact by which Miss -Farren waited for twenty years for the death of the wife of the man whom -she had promised to marry--when she could. - -The scene in the green room when the actress came off the stage was -an unqualified success. Tears flowed freely, making channels as they -meandered down the paint; sobs came from the actresses who hoped to get -a chance of doing some of her parts now that she had left the stage; -and Miss Farren herself showed that she knew what were the elements of a -proper climax, by fainting with a shriek, in the midst of which she made -an exit supported by all the actors who were not already supporting some -of the hysterical ladies in the background. They all deserved to have -their salaries raised. The whole scene was a triumph--of art. - -The exact chronology of the crisis is worth noting. Lady Derby died on -March 4th, and was buried on April 2nd. On April 8th Miss Farren took -her farewell of the stage, and on May 1st she was married to the Earl -of Derby. A satisfactory explanation of the indecent delay in the -celebration of the marriage was forthcoming: his lordship had been -suffering from an attack of gout. - -But if no one ventured to cast an aspersion upon his character or to -accuse him of shilly-shallying in regard to the postponement of his -nuptials until his wife had been nearly a whole month in her grave, -there was a good deal of funny gossip set loose when, after a honeymoon -of two days, the Earl and the Countess returned to London. This also was -satisfactorily explained: the Countess was devoted to her mother! - -The marriage proved a very happy one, and thirty-two years passed before -the Countess died. Her husband survived her by five years. He died in -1834, fifty-seven years after his first meeting with the actress, and -forty-seven since he instituted "The Derby" race meeting, winning the -first cup by his horse Sir Peter Teazle. - - - - -THE PLOT OF A LADY NOVELIST - -IN the year 1790-1 there was played in real life a singularly poor -adaptation of an unwritten novel by one of the Minifie sisters--those -sentimental ladies who, during the last quarter of the eighteenth -century, provided the circulating libraries with several volumes of -high-flown fiction. The adaptation of this unwritten novel possessed a -good many of the most prominent features of the original, so that when -it was brought to light there could be very little doubt as to the brain -out of which it had been evolved. The result of the performance was so -unsatisfactory as to compel one to believe that the worst possible way -of producing a novel is to adapt it to suit the requirements of one's -relations, forcing them to play in real life and in all earnest the -parts assigned to them by the inventor of the plot. - -Miss Minifie, the second of the sentimental sisters, had married in the -year 1769 Colonel John Gunning, the brother of the two beautiful girls -one of whom became Duchess of Hamilton, and later Duchess of Argyll, and -the other Countess of Coventry. The result of the union was a daughter -of considerable plainness, and people said that in this respect she -resembled her mother's rather than her father's family. It seems that -while the Gunning tradition was beauty, the Minifie tradition was a -nose, and it soon became apparent that it was impossible to combine the -two with any satisfactory artistic results. The young lady had made an -honest attempt to do so, but her failure was emphatic. She had eyes that -suggested in a far-off way the long-lashed orbs of her aunts, but that -unlucky Minifie nose was so prominent a feature that it caused the -attention of even the most indulgent critic to be riveted upon it, to -the exclusion of the rest of her face. The charitably-disposed among her -friends affirmed that she would be passably good-looking if it were not -for her nose; the others said that she would be positively plain if it -were not for her eyes. - -Her father was probably that member of his family who had least brains: -they made a soldier of him, and he married a lady novelist, closing an -inglorious career by running off with his tailor's wife and having a -writ issued against him for 5000. He took care to be at Naples, outside -the jurisdiction of the English court, when it was issued, and he died -before it could be served on him, which suggests that he may not have -been so devoid of brains after all. - -Her mother (_ne_ Minifie) seems to have entertained the idea of making -the girl work out a "plot" for her when she arrived at the regulation -age of the sentimental heroine of those days, and this plot she invented -with all her accustomed absence of skill. Her materials were a "glorious -child"--this was how she described her daughter--with a gifted mother; -a young cousin, heir to a dukedom and a large estate; and, lastly, -the Gunning tradition. Could any novelist ask for more? A short time -afterwards she did, however, and this was just where her art failed her. -She did much to discourage the writers of fiction from endeavouring to -work out their plots in real life. - -Catherine Gunning, the "glorious child," being the niece of the Duchess -of Argyll, her cousin was, of course, the Marquis of Lome; and as the -Duchess had always kept up an intimate connection with the members of -her father's family, even to the second generation, her son, Lord Lome, -and Catherine Gunning had been a good deal together, not only when -they were children, but also when they had reached the age when the -novel-writer's hero and heroine begin to blossom. The girl's mother, -doubtless having an idea that these very live young people were -as plastic as the creatures of her fancy, thought to hasten on the -_dnouement_ of her story by whispering it to her friends. She whispered -into more than one ear that Lord Lome and her daughter were betrothed, -and such friends as received this information, strictly _sub rosa_, took -care to spread it abroad--strictly _sub rosa_ also. Now the aggregation -of many confidential reports of this sort is what is termed "news," so -that in the course of a short time it was common property that Lord Lome -was to marry his cousin, Catherine Gunning. - -Congratulations reached the young lady, which she neither quite accepted -nor altogether rejected. She seems to have learned from her mother's -novels that in such matters it is wisest for a young woman to be silent -but pensive. And on the whole her behaviour was fairly consistent with -that of the heroine which her mother meant her to be. Indeed, all that -was needed to enable her to take the place of the heroine of a pleasant -little love story was the proposal of the hero; and unhappily this -formality had still to be reckoned with. Lord Lome had so paltry an -appreciation of what was due to the art of the fiction-writer that -he declined to play the part of the young hero of the story, and when -people approached him on the subject he said that he had heard nothing -about being accepted by Miss Gunning, and that he could not possibly be -accepted until he had proposed to her. He seems to have acted with the -discretion one would have looked for from the son of the Duchess of -Argyll, and in the course of the year the reports of the possible -union dwindled away, and people began to feel that their friends were -untrustworthy gossips to have circulated a report solely on the evidence -of a young lady's pensiveness. - -This was, however, as it turned out, but the opening chapter in the -romance which the novelist-mother was working out. Indeed, it scarcely -bears to be considered as a regular chapter, it was rather the prologue -to the comedy which was played two years later with the same heroine, -but for obvious reasons with a different hero. In the prologue there was -scarcely visible any of the art of the novelist; in the comedy itself, -however, her hand is constantly apparent, controlling the movements of -at least one of her puppets; and very jerkily, too, that hand pulled the -strings. The clumsiness in the construction of the plot prevented any -one from sympathising with the authoress and stage-manager of the piece -when its failure became known to the world in general, and to Horace -Walpole in particular. Walpole could pretend a good deal. He pretended, -for instance, that he knew at once that the Rowley poems, sent to him by -Chatterton, were forgeries; and he pretended that he knew nothing of the -marriage of his niece to the Duke of Gloucester until the public were -apprised of the fact. He could not, however, even pretend that he -sympathised with the failure of the Minifie plot. On the contrary, he -gloats over the disgrace which, he declared, on this account fell -upon the Gunning family. He hated the whole Gunning family, and he was -plainly in ecstasies of delight when he believed that ruin had come upon -them. "The two beautiful sisters were exalted almost as high as they -could go," he wrote. "Countessed and double duchessed, and now the -family have dragged themselves down into the very dirt." - -The "family" had of course done nothing of the sort. One member of the -family had allowed herself to be made a fool of at the suggestion of her -very foolish mother; her father had also been indiscreet, but there is -a wide difference between all this and the family of Gunning "dragging -themselves into the very dirt." The result of the tricks of the lady -novelist to marry her daughter to the heir to a dukedom was only to -make every one roar with laughter, and no doubt the fatuous ladies felt -greatly annoyed. But the Marquis of Lome did not seem to take the matter -greatly to heart, and he was a member of the Gunning family; nor did the -Duke of Hamilton show himself to be greatly perturbed, though he must -have been somewhat jealous of the honour of the family to which his -mother belonged. The position that the Gunning family had taken among -the greatest families in the land rested upon too solid a foundation -to be shaken by the foolishness of a lady novelist, who had married a -Gunning. And now people who read the story of the "dragging in the dirt" -only shrug their shoulders at the ridiculous figure cut by the actors -in the shallow and sordid comedy, and laugh at the spiteful gibe of the -prince of gossips, who played a congenial part in damning the product of -the Minifie brain. - -Two years after the failure of the Lome plot startling whispers were -once again heard in regard to Miss Gunning and the heir to another -dukedom. This time it was the Marquis of Blandford who attracted -the Minifie fancy. He was the Duke of Marlborough's heir, and was -twenty-three years of age. Of course it was Mrs. Gunning (_ne_ Minifie) -who was the first to make the announcement that the young people were -greatly attached; and then followed--after the interval of a chapter or -two--the lady novelist's declaration to her niece, a Mrs. Bowen, that -Lord Blandford had proposed, and had been accepted by Miss Gunning. -The date of the marriage had been fixed, and the draft deed of the -settlements signed; but, as in the former "case," the recipient of -the news was told that she must regard the communication as strictly -confidential, the fact being that although the arrangements for the -match were so fully matured, yet General Gunning--he had recently been -made a general--had not been let into the secret. - -It must have seemed a little queer to Mrs. Bowen to learn that her uncle -had not been made acquainted with the good luck that was in store -for his daughter. The signing of marriage deeds in the absence of the -bride's father must surely have struck her as being a trifle irregular. -However this may be, she seems to have treated the communication as -strictly confidential by at once proceeding to spread abroad the news -that it contained. It reached the ears of several people of distinction -before long. General Conway heard of it, and from a quarter that seemed -to him absolutely trustworthy. He passed it round to Walpole and the -Court circle. The Duke of Argyll, as the uncle of the young lady most -interested in the match, was apprised of it in due course, and on -appealing to headquarters--that is to say, to Mrs. Gunning--for -confirmation or denial of the report, learned that the marriage had -indeed been "arranged," but the question of settlements remained in -abeyance. - -Shortly afterwards there came rumours that there were obstacles in the -way of the marriage, and Miss Gunning, on being questioned by some of -her friends, confessed that it was the parents of her lover who were -unkind: young Lord Blandford was burning with anxiety to call her his -own, but the Duke and Duchess belonged unfortunately to that type of -parent to be found in so many novels in which the course of true love -runs anything but smooth. - -Strange to say, it was just at this point that a letter appeared in the -_Advertiser_, signed by General Gunning, apprising the world of the fact -that the Gunnings were one of the noblest families in existence, the -writer actually being able to trace his ancestry up to Charlemagne. - -It was while people were so laughing over this letter as to cause him -to declare it to be a forgery, that the General became suspicious of the -genuineness of his daughter's statements in regard to her _affaire de -cour_. When a blunt old soldier finds a letter bearing his signature in -the papers, well knowing that he never wrote such a letter, he is apt to -question the good faith even of his nearest and dearest. It is certain, -at any rate, that the descendant of Charlemagne had an uneasy feeling -that any woman who wrote novels was not to be implicitly trusted in the -affairs of daily life. His mind running on forged letters, he commanded -his daughter to submit to him her correspondence with her lover. - -Miss Gunning at once complied, and he sat down to read the lot. The -result was not to allay his suspicions. The letters read remarkably -well, and contained the conventional outpourings of an ardent lover to -the object of his affections. But to the simple soldier's mind they read -just too well: some of them were in the style of a novel-writer with -whom he was acquainted--imperfectly, it would appear, or he would have -suspected something long before. Retaining the precious "pacquet" he -awaited developments. - -He had not long to wait. Another contribution to the correspondence -which he had in his hand came to his daughter, and was passed on to him. -Noticing in it some doubtful features, he came to the conclusion that -it was necessary to get to the bottom of the affair in the most -straightforward way. He leapt to the bottom of it by sending the whole -"pacquet" to the young Marquis of Blandford, asking him peremptorily if -he had written the letters. - -He got a reply to the effect that a few of the letters were his--they -were the ordinary ones, courteous, but in no way effusive--but that the -greater number had not come from him. His lordship did not seem to think -that common politeness demanded his expressing his hearty concurrence -with the tone and sentiments contained in these same letters. Now in -the judgment of a novelist of the intellectual calibre of the Minifie -sisters this is exactly what a young gentleman would do when playing -the part of the hero of a romance, so that it would appear that General -Gunning was fully justified in coming to the conclusion that the whole -scheme--the whole piece of scheming--was the design of his wife--that it -represented an attempt on her part to force one of her "plots" upon some -real personages. Dull-minded man though he certainly was, he must have -perceived that his wife's plan was to compel Lord Blandford to act the -part of the hero of her sentimental imagination, and when confronted -with a parcel of forged letters, in every one of which there was a -confession of love for Miss Gunning, to bow his head meekly, as any -gentleman (of her imagination) would, and say, "Those are my letters, -and they express nothing but the most honourable sentiments of my -heart." - -But as it so happened the young Lord Blandford was not a young gentleman -of this particular stamp. He seems to have been almost as practical as -his great ancestor, who, out of the proceeds of his first love intrigue, -bought an annuity for himself. Hence the fiasco of the Minifie plot. - -The Minifie plot, however, was not worked out in one act only, and an -insignificant prologue. The resources of the lady's imagination were -by no means exhausted by the failure of Lord Blandford to act up to the -heroic part assigned to him. He seems to have talked a good deal to -his friends about the forged letters, and the Duke of Argyll, the young -lady's uncle, took the matter up as an important member by marriage -of the family. He applied to his niece for an explanation of the whole -affair; and her father seems to have agreed with him in thinking that -if the girl was ever to hold up her head again it would be necessary -for her to bring forward some evidence to prove what she still asserted, -namely, that the letters had been written to her by Lord Blandford--this -"pacquet" of letters played as important a part in the story of Miss -Gunning as the "Casquet Letters" did in the history of Queen Mary--and -that they were written with the concurrence and approbation of the Duke -and Duchess of Marlborough. The Duke and Duchess had, she affirmed, -encouraged her by the most unmistakable means to believe that they were -extremely anxious to see her married to their son. - -It was then suggested--Horace Walpole, who gloats over the whole story -in a letter to one of the Berrys, does not say by whom--that the young -woman should draw up a narrative of the progress of the attachment -professed for her by Lord Blandford, and of the particular acts -of encouragement for which she alleged the Duke and Duchess were -responsible, leading her to feel sure that she was a _persona grata_ -with them. It was hoped by the Duke of Argyll and General Gunning that -the girl would be rehabilitated in the eyes of society by the production -of the Duke of Marlborough's formal assent to the statements made -by Miss Gunning in endeavouring to exculpate herself. Miss Gunning -assenting--after a consultation with her mother, we may be sure--a -"narrative" was accordingly prepared by the young lady, and in it there -was the ingenuous confession that although she had been unable to resist -so dazzling an offer as that of Lord Blandford, she had not wavered in -her affection for her cousin, the Marquis of Lome. - -Here we have the true Minifie touch of sentimentality, and we cannot -doubt that the remaining portion of the plot was due to her clumsy -ingenuity. - -This narrative was sent to the Duke of Marlborough, with the following -letter from General Gunning: - -"St. James's Place, - -"_3 rd February_, 1791. - -"My Lord,--I have the honour of addressing this letter to your Grace -not with the smallest wish after what has passed of having a marriage -established between Lord Blandford and my daughter, or of claiming any -promise or proposal to that effect, but merely to know whether your -Grace or the Duchess of Marlborough have it in recollection that -your Graces or Lord Blandford ever gave my daughter reason to think a -marriage was once intended. - -"My motive for giving this trouble arises merely from a desire of -removing any imputation from my daughter's character, as if she -had entertained an idea of such importance without any reasonable -foundation. - -"For my own satisfaction, and that of my particular friends who have -been induced to believe the reports of the intended marriage, I have -desired my daughter to draw up an accurate narrative of every material -circumstance on which that belief was founded. - -"This narrative I have the honour of transmitting to your Grace for your -own perusal, and that of the Duchess of Marlborough and Lord Blandford, -thinking it highly suitable that you should have an early opportunity -of examining it--and I beg leave to request that your Grace will, after -examination, correct or alter such passages as may appear either to your -Grace, the Duchess of Marlborough, or Lord Blandford, to be erroneously -stated. - -"I have the honour to be, - -"With the greatest respect, my Lord, - -"Your Grace's most humble and - -"Most obedient servant, - -"John Gunning." - -This letter was dispatched by a groom to its destination at Blenheim, -and within half an hour of his delivering it, His Grace, according to -the groom, had handed him a reply for General Gunning. This document, -which the groom said he had received from the Duke, was forwarded, with -a copy of the letter to which it constituted a most satisfactory reply, -to a small and very select committee that had, it would seem, been -appointed to investigate and report upon the whole story. It must also -be quoted in full, in order that its point may be fully appreciated by -any one interested in this very remarkable story. - -"Blenheim. - -"Sir,--I take the earliest opportunity to acknowledge the receipt of -your letter, and to answer it with that explicitness you are so much -entitled to. From the first of the acquaintance of the D------s of -Marlborough and myself had with Miss Gunning, we were charmed with -her, and it was with infinite satisfaction we discovered _Blanford's_ -sentiments similar to our own. It had long been the wish of both to -see him married to some amiable woman. Your daughter was the one we had -fixed on, and we had every reason to suppose the object of his tenderest -affections, and, from the conduct of both himself and his family, -yourself and Miss Gunning had undoubtedly every right to look on a -marriage as certain. Indeed when I left town last summer, I regarded her -as my future daughter, and I must say it is with sorrow I relinquish the -idea. The actions of young men are not always to be accounted for; -and it is with regret that I acknowledge my son has been particularly -unaccountable in his. I beg that you will do me the justice to believe -that I shall ever think myself your debtor for the manner in which you -have conducted yourself in this affair, and that I must always take -an interest in the happiness of Miss Gunning. I beg, if she has not -conceived a disgust for the whole of my family, she will accept the -sincerest good wishes of the Duchess and my daughters. - -"I have the honour to remain, - -"Sir, - -"Your much obliged and - -"Most obedient, humble servant, - -"Marlborough." - -Now be it remembered that both these letters were forwarded to the -committee with the young lady's narrative, to be considered by them in -the same connection, at Argyll House, where their sittings were to be -held. - -What was to be said in the face of such documentary evidence as this? -Those members of the committee who hoped that the girl's statement of -her case would be in some measure borne out by the Duke of Marlborough -could never have hoped for so triumphant a confirmation of her story as -was contained in His Grace's letter. It seemed as if the investigation -of the committee would be of the simplest character; handing them such -a letter, accompanying her own ingenuous narrative, it was felt that she -had completely vindicated her position. - -But suddenly one member of the committee--Walpole in the letter to Miss -Berry affirms that he was this one--ventured to point out that in the -Duke's letter the name _Blandford_ was spelt without the middle letter -_d_. "That was possible in the hurry of doing justice," wrote Walpole. -But the moment that this pin-puncture of suspicion appeared in the -fabric of the lady's defence it was not thought any sacrilege to try to -pick another hole in it. The wax with which the letter was sealed -was black, and the members of the council asked one another whom the -Marlborough family were in mourning for, that they should seal their -letter in this fashion. No information on this point was forthcoming. -(It is strange if Walpole did not suggest that they were in mourning -over the defunct reputation of the young lady.) If the Duke of Argyll -was present, it can well be believed that, after the members of the -council had looked at each other, there should be silence in that room, -on one wall of which we may believe there was hanging the splendid -portrait of Elizabeth, Duchess of Argyll and Baroness Hamilton of -Hameldon, in her own right, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. The lady was -dying at her Scotch home when this investigation into the conduct of her -niece was being conducted. - -It was probably a relief to every one present when the suggestion was -made that the Duke of Marlborough's second son was in town, and if -sent for he might be able to throw some light upon the subject of the -mourning wax or some other questionable point in the same connection. -Although it was now close upon midnight a messenger was dispatched for -the young man--probably his whereabouts at midnight would be known with -greater certainty than at midday. At any rate he was quickly found, -and repaired in all haste to Argyll House. He was brought before -the committee and shown the letter with the black wax. He burst out -laughing, and declared that the writing bore not the least resemblance -to that of his father, the Duke of Marlborough. - -There was nothing more to be said. The council adjourned _sine die_ -without drawing up any report, so far as can be ascertained. - -But the full clumsiness of the Minifie "plot" was revealed the next day, -for General Gunning received a letter from the Captain Bowen whose name -has already entered into this narrative, telling him that his wife, the -General's niece, had a short time before received from Miss Gunning a -letter purporting to be a copy of one which had come to her from the -Duke of Marlborough, and begging her to get her husband to make a fair -copy of it, and return it by the groom. Captain Bowen added that he -had complied with his wife's request to this effect, but he had written -"_copy_" at the top and "_signed M_." at the bottom, as is usual in -engrossing copies of documents, to prevent the possibility of a charge -of forgery being brought against the copyist. - -The letter which the girl wrote to Mrs. Bowen was made the subject of -an affidavit shortly afterwards, and so became public property. It is -so badly composed that one cannot but believe it was dictated by her -mother, though the marvellous spelling must have been Miss Gunning's -own. The fact that, after making up a story of her love for Lord Lome, -and of the encouragement she received from the Marlborough family in -respect of Lord Blandford, she instructed Mrs. Bowen to keep the matter -secret from her mother, confirms one's impression as to the part the -lady must have played in the transaction. Miss Gunning wrote: "Neither -papa or I have courage to tell mama, for she detests the person dearest -to me on earth." - -But however deficient in courage her papa was in the matter of -acquainting his wife with so ordinary an incident as was referred to in -this letter, he did not shrink from what he believed to be his duty when -it was made plain to him that his daughter and his wife had been working -out a "plot" in real life that necessitated the forging of a letter. -He promptly bundled both wife and daughter out of his house, doubtless -feeling that although the other personages in the romance which his wife -was hoping to weave, had by no means acted up to the parts she had meant -them to play, there was no reason why he should follow their example. -It must be acknowledged that as a type of the bluff old soldier, simple -enough to be deceived by the inartistic machinations of a foolish wife, -but inexorable when finding his credulity imposed upon, he played -his part extremely well. At the same time such people as called him a -ridiculous old fool for adopting so harsh a measure toward his erring -child, whose tricks he had long winked at, were perhaps not to be -greatly blamed. - -The old Duchess of Bedford at once received the outcasts and provided -them with a home; and then Mrs. Gunning had leisure to concoct a -manifesto in form of an open letter to the Duke of Argyll, in which, -after exhorting His Grace to devote the remainder of his life to -unravelling the mystery which she affirmed (though no one else could -have done so) enshrouded the whole affair of the letter, she went on -to denounce the simple-hearted General for his meanness--and worse--in -matters domestic. He had never been a true husband to her, she declared, -and he was even more unnatural as a father. As for Captain Bowen and his -wife, the writer of the manifesto showed herself to be upon the brink -of delirium when she endeavoured to find words severe enough to describe -their treachery. They were inhuman in their persecution of her "glorious -child," she said, and then she went on to affirm her belief that the -incriminating letters had been forged by the Bowens, and the rest of the -story invented by them with the aid of the General to ruin her and her -"glorious child." - -Captain Bowen thought fit to reply to this amazing production. He did so -through the prosaic form of a number of affidavits. The most important -of these was that sworn by one William Pearce, groom to General Gunning. -In this document he deposed that when he was about to start for Blenheim -with the "pacquet" for the Duke of Marlborough, Miss Gunning had caught -him and compelled him to hand over the "pacquet" to her, and that -she had then given him another letter, sealed with black, bearing -the Marlborough arms, instructing him to deliver it to her father, -pretending that he had received it at Blenheim. - -In spite of all this Miss Gunning continued to affirm her entire -innocence, and even went the length--according to Walpole--of swearing -before a London magistrate that she was innocent. "It is but a burlesque -part of this wonderful tale," adds Walpole, "that old crazy Bedford -exhibits Miss every morning on the Causeway in Hyde Park and declares -her _protge_ some time ago refused General Trevelyan." But "crazy old -Bedford" went much further in her craziness than this, for she actually -wrote to the Marquis of Lome trying to patch up a match between Miss -Gunning and himself. Immediately afterwards the town was startled by the -report that a duel was impending between Lord Lome and Lord Blandford, -the former maintaining that it was his duty to uphold the honour of his -cousin, which had been somewhat shaken by the course adopted by the -Marlborough heir. Of course no duel took place, and the young men simply -laughed when their attention was called to the statement in print. - -How much further these alarums and excursions (on the Causeway) would -have proceeded it would be impossible to tell, the fact being that -Captain Bowen and his wife gave notice of their intention to institute -proceedings against the Gunnings, mother and daughter, for libel. This -brought _l'affaire Gunning_ to a legitimate conclusion, for the ladies -thought it advisable to fly to France. - -"The town is very dull without them," wrote Walpole to one of the -Berrys, enclosing a copy of a really clever skit in verse, after the -style of "The House that Jack Built," ridiculing the whole affair. -When Mrs. Gunning and her daughter returned, after the lapse of several -months, the old Duchess of Bedford took them up once more; but the town -declined to take any further notice of them. It was not until her father -and mother had been dead for some years that Miss Gunning married Major -Plunkett, an Irish rebel, who fled after the rising in 1798. She lived -with him happily enough for twenty years, endeavouring to atone for the -indiscretion of her girlhood by writing novels. It is doubtful if many -of her readers considered such expiation wholly adequate, considering -how foolish she had been. One act of folly can hardly be atoned for -by another. But her intention was good, and her faults, including her -novels, have long ago been forgiven her by being forgotten. - - - - -TRAGEDY WITH A TWINKLE - -IN the summer of 1770 there arrived at the town of Lisle a coach -containing three ladies and one man, followed by a travelling chaise -with servants and luggage. Of the ladies, one was approaching middle -age, handsome and elegant; the other two were her daughters, and both -were extremely beautiful and graceful girls, under twenty years of age. -The man was a small, middle-aged person, with a face which one would -have called plain if it had not been that the protruding of his upper -lip and the twinkle in his eyes suggested not plainness, but comedy. The -very soul of comedy was in the gravity of his face; but it was that sort -which is not apparent to all the world. It was the soul of comedy, not -the material part; and most people are disposed to deny the possibility -of comedy's existing except in juxtaposition with the grin through the -horse-collar. Solemnity in a face, with a twinkle in the eye--that is -an expression which comedy may wear without arousing the -curiosity--certainly without exciting the laughter--of the multitude. -And this was exactly the form that the drama of this man's life assumed; -only it was tragedy with a twinkle. Tragedy with a twinkle--that was -Oliver Goldsmith. - -[Illustration: 0203] - -The vehicles drew up in the courtyard of the hotel in the square, and -Dr. Goldsmith, after dismounting and helping the ladies to dismount, -gave orders in French to the landlord in respect of the luggage, and -made inquiries as to the table d'hte. Shown to their respective rooms, -the members of the party did not meet again for some time, and then it -was in the private _salle_ which they had engaged, looking out upon -the square. The two girls were seated at a window, and their mother was -writing letters at a table at one side. - -When Dr. Goldsmith entered we may be pretty sure that he had exchanged -his travelling dress for a more imposing toilet, and we may be equally -certain that these two girls had something merry to say about the cut or -the colour of his garments--we have abundant record of their _badinage_ -bearing upon his flamboyant liking for colour, and of his retorts in -the same spirit. We have seen him strutting to and fro in gay apparel, -obtrusively calling attention to the beauty of his waistcoat and -speaking in solemn exaggeration of its importance. The girls were well -aware of this form of his humour; they appreciated it to the full, and -responded to it in their merriment. - -Then there came the sound of martial music from the square, and the -elder of the girls, opening the window on its hinges, looked out. A -regiment of soldiers was turning into the square and would pass the -hotel, she said. The two girls stood at one window and Goldsmith at -another while the march past took place. It was not surprising that, -glancing up and seeing the beautiful pair at the window, the mounted -officers at the head of the regiment should feel flattered by the -attention, nor was it unlikely that the others, taking the _pas_ from -their superiors, should look up and exchange expressions in admiration -of the beauty of the young ladies. It is recorded that they did so, and -that, when the soldiers had marched off, the little man at the other -window walked up and down the room in anger "that more attention had -been paid to them than to him." - -These are the words of Boswell in concluding his account of the episode, -which, by the way, he printed with several other stories in illustration -of the overwhelming vanity and extraordinary envy in Goldsmith's -nature. As if any human being hearing such a story of the most complete -curmudgeon would accept the words as spoken seriously! And yet Boswell -printed it in all solemnity, and hoped that every one who read it would -believe that Goldsmith, the happy-go-lucky Irishman, was eaten up with -envy of the admiration given to the two exquisite girls on whom, by the -way, be conferred immortality; for so long as English literature remains -the names of the Jessamy Bride and Little Comedy will live. Yes, and -so long as discriminating people read the story of Goldsmith's envious -outburst they will not fail to see the true picture of what did actually -take place in that room in the Lisle hotel--they will see the little man -stalking up and down, that solemn face of his more solemn than ever, but -the twinkle in his eyes revealing itself all the more brightly on this -account, while he shakes his fists at the ladies and affirms that the -officers were dolts and idiots to waste their time gazing at them when -they had a chance "of seeing me, madam, me--_me!_" Surely every human -being with the smallest amount of imagination will see the little man -thumping his waistcoat, while the Miss Hornecks hold up their hands and -go into fits of laughter at that whimsical Dr. Goldsmith, whom they had -chosen to be their companion on that tour of theirs through France with -their mother. - -And surely every one must see them in precisely the same attitude, when -they read the story in Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, and notice what -interpretation has been put upon it by the Scotsman--hands uplifted in -amazement and faces "o'er-running with laughter" at the thought of how -Mr. Boswell has, for the thousandth time, been made a fool of by -some one who had picked up the story from themselves and had solemnly -narrated it to Boswell. But in those days following the publication of -the first edition of the _Life_, people were going about with uplifted -hands, wondering if any man since the world began had ever been so -befooled as Boswell. - -When the story appeared in _Johnson's Life_ the two girls had been -married for several years; but one of them at least had not forgotten -the incident upon which it was founded; and upon its being repeated in -Northcote's _Life of Reynolds_, she wrote to the biographer, assuring -him that in this, as well as in other stories of the same nature, the -expression on Goldsmith's face when he professed to be overcome by envy -was such as left no one in doubt that he was jesting. But Croker, in -spite of this, had the impudence to sneer at the explanation, and to -attribute it to the good-nature of the lady. Mr. Croker seems to have -had a special smile of his own for the weaknesses of ladies. This was -the way he smiled when he was searching up old registries of their birth -in his endeavour to prove that they had made themselves out to be six -months younger than they really were. (Quite different, however, must -his smile have been when he read Macaulay's Essay on Croker's edition -of Boswell's _Life of Johnson_). But, unhappily for poor Goldsmith, -Mr. Boswell was able to bring forward much stronger evidence of the -consuming Vanity, the parent of Envy, with which his "honest Dr. -Goldsmith" was afflicted. There was once an exhibition of puppets in -Panton Street, and on some member of the distinguished company in which -he, curiously enough for such a contemptible lout, constantly found -himself, admiring the dexterity with which the wooden figure tossed -a halbert, Goldsmith, we are gravely told, appeared annoyed and said: -"Pshaw! I could do it as well myself!" Supposing that some one had said -to Boswell, "After all, sir, perhaps Dr. Goldsmith could have done it as -well himself," would the man have tried to explain that the question was -not whether Goldsmith or the puppet was the more dexterous, but -whether it was possible to put any other construction upon Goldsmith's -exclamation than that assumed by Mr. Boswell? - -Yet another instance is given of Goldsmith's envy, and this time the -object of it is not a wooden figure, but Shakespeare himself. He could -not bear, Dr. Beattie tells us, that so much admiration should be given -to Shakespeare. Hearing this, we feel that we are on quite a different -level. There is no jealousy rankling this time in Goldsmith's heart -against a mere puppet. It is now a frantic passion of chagrin that -Shakespeare should still receive the admiration of a chosen few! - -But such vanity as that so strikingly illustrated by this last told -story, is, one must confess with feelings of melancholy, not yet wholly -extinct among literary men. It would scarcely be believed--unless by -Boswell or Beattie--that even in America a man with some reputation as -a writer should deliberately ask people to assume that he himself was -worthy of a place in a group that included not merely Shakespeare, but -also Milton and Homer. "Gentlemen," said this egregious person at a -public dinner, "Gentlemen, think of the great writers who are dead and -gone. There was Shakespeare, he is dead and gone; and Milton, alas! -is no longer in the land of the living; Homer has been deceased for a -considerable time, and I myself, gentlemen, am not feeling very well -to-night." - -What a pity it is that Beattie has gone the way of so many other great -writers. If he could only have been laid on to Mark Twain we should have -the most comic biography ever written. - -Goldsmith was, according to the great Boswell and the many lesser -Boswells of his day, the most contemptible wretch that ever wrote the -finest poem of the century, the finest comedy of the century, the -finest romance of the century. He was a silly man, an envious man, an -empty-headed man, a stuttering fool, an idiot (of the inspired variety), -an awkward lout, a shallow pedant, and a generally ridiculous person; -and yet here we find him the chosen companion of two of the most -beautiful and charming young ladies in England on their tour through -France, and on terms of such intimacy with them and their brother, an -officer in the Guards and the son-in-law of a peer, that nicknames are -exchanged between them. A singular position for an Irish lout to find -himself in! - -Even before he is known to fame, and familiar only with famine, he is -visited in his garret by Dr. Percy, a member of the great Northumberland -family at whose town house he lived. So much for the empty-headed fool -who never opened his mouth except to put his foot in it, as a countryman -of his said about quite another person. He was a shallow prig, and yet -when "the Club" was started not one of the original members questioned -his right to a place among the most fastidious of the community, -although Garrick--to the shame of Johnson be it spoken--was not admitted -for nine years. Boswell--to the shame of Johnson be it spoken--was -allowed to crawl in after an exclusion of ten. According to his numerous -detractors, this Goldsmith was one of the most objectionable persons -possible to imagine, and yet we find him the closest friend of the -greatest painter of the day and the greatest actor of the day. He -associates with peers on the friendliest terms, and is the idol of their -daughters. He is accused, on the one hand, of aiming at being accounted -a Macaroni and being extravagant in his dress, and yet he has such a -reputation for slovenliness in this respect that it is recorded that -Dr. Johnson, who certainly never was accused of harbouring unworthy -aspirations to be accounted a beau, made it a point of putting on his -best garments--he may even have taken the extreme step of fastening up -his garters--before visiting Goldsmith, in order, as he explained, that -the latter might have no excuse for his slovenliness. We are also told -that Goldsmith made a fool of himself when he got on his feet to make -a speech, and yet it is known that he travelled through Europe, winning -the hospitality of more than one university by the display of his skill -as a disputant. Again, none of his innumerable traits of awkwardness is -so widely acknowledged as his conversational, and yet the examples which -survive of his impromptu wit are of the most finished type; and (even -when the record is made by Boswell), when he set himself out to take -opposite sides to Johnson, he certainly spoke better sense than his -antagonist, though he was never so loud. It is worth noting that nearly -all the hard things which Johnson is reported to have said respecting -Goldsmith were spoken almost immediately after one of these disputes. -Further, we are assured that Goldsmith's learning was of the shallowest -order, and yet when he was appointed Professor of History to the Royal -Academy we do not hear that any voice was raised in protest. - -What is a simple reader to think when brought face to face with such -contradictory accounts of the man and his attainments? Well, possibly -the best one can do is to say, as Fanny Burney did, that Goldsmith was -an extraordinary man. - -Of course, so far as his writings are concerned there is no need for one -to say much. They speak for themselves, and readers can form their own -opinion on every line and every sentence that has come from his pen. -There is no misunderstanding the character of _The Traveller_ or _The -Deserted Village_ or _The Vicar of Wakefield_. These are acknowledged by -the whole world to be among the most precious legacies of the eighteenth -century to posterity. Who reads nowadays, except out of curiosity, such -classics as _Tristram Shandy, Clarissa Harlow, Evelina, or Rasselas?_ -But who has not read, and who does not still read for pleasure, _The -Vicar of Wakefield?_ Johnson's laborious poem, _The Vanity of Human -Wishes_, now only exists as an example of the last gasp of the -didactic in verse; but we cannot converse without quoting--sometimes -unconsciously--from _The Deserted Village_ When the actor-manager of a -theatre wishes to show how accomplished a company he has at his disposal -he produces _She Stoops to Conquer_, and he would do so more frequently -only he is never quite able to make up his mind whether he himself -should play the part of old Hardcastle, Tony Lumpkin, Young Marlow, -or Diggory. But what other eighteenth-century comedy of all produced -previous to the death of Goldsmith can any manager revive nowadays with -any hope of success? Colman of the eighteenth century is as dead -as Congreve of the seventeenth; and what about the masterpieces of -Cumberland, and Kelly, and Whitehead, and the rest? What about the Rev. -Mr. Home's _Douglas_, which, according to Dr. Johnson, was equal to -Shakespeare at his best? They have all gone to the worms, and these -not even bookworms--their very graves are neglected. But _She Stoops -to Conquer_ is never revived without success--never without a modern -audience recognising the fact that its characters are not the puppets -of the playwright, but the creations of Nature. It is worthy of mention, -too, that the play which first showed the capacity of an actress -whose name was ever at the head of the list of actresses of the last -generation, was founded on _The Vicar of Wakefield._ It was Miss Ellen -Terry's appearance in _Olivia_ in 1878 that brought about her connection -with the ever memorable Lyceum management as an associate of the -greatest actor of our day. - -These things speak for themselves, and prove incontestably that -Goldsmith was head and shoulders above all those writers with whom he -was on intimate terms. But the mystery of the contradictory accounts -which we have of the man himself and his ways remains as unsolved as -ever. - -Yes, unless we assume one thing, namely--that the majority of the people -about him were incapable of understanding him. Is it going too far to -suggest that, as Daniel Defoe was sent to the pillory because his ironic -jest in _The Shortest Way with the Dissenters_ was taken in earnest, and -as good people shuddered at the horrible proposal of Swift that Irish -babies should be cooked and eaten, so Goldsmith's peculiarities of -humour were too subtle to be in any degree appreciated by most of the -people with whom he came in contact in England? - -In Ireland there would be no chance of his being misunderstood; for -there no form that his humour assumed would be regarded as peculiar. -Irony is a figure of speech so largely employed by the inhabitants in -some parts that people who have lived there for any length of time have -heard whole conversations carried on by two or three men without the -slightest divergence from this tortuous form of expression into the -straight path of commonplace English. And all this time there was no -expression but one of complete gravity on the faces of the speakers; -a stranger had no clue whatsoever to the game of words that was being -played before him. - -Another fully recognised form of humour which prevails in Ireland is -even more difficult for a stranger to follow; its basis consists in -mystifying another person, not for the sake of getting a laugh from a -third who has been let into the secret, but simply for the satisfaction -of the mystifier himself. The forms that such a scheme of humour -may assume are various. One of the most common is an affectation of -extraordinary stupidity. It is usually provoked by the deliverance of a -platitude by a stranger. The humourist pretends that he never heard such -a statement before, and asks to have it repeated. When this is done, -there is usually a pause in which the profoundest thought is suggested; -then the clouds are seen to clear away, and the perplexity on the man's -face gives way to intelligence; he has grasped the meaning of the phrase -at last, and he announces his victory with sparkling eyes, and forthwith -puts quite a wrong construction upon the simplest words. His chuckling -is brought to a sudden stop by the amazed protest of the victim against -the suggested solution of the obvious. Thus, with consummate art, the -man is led on to explain at length, with ridiculous emphasis, the exact -meaning of his platitude; but it is all to no purpose. The humourist -shakes his head; he pretends that the cleverness of the other is -too much for him to grasp all in a moment; it's a fine thing to have -learning, to be sure, but these things may be best not meddled with -by ignorant creatures like himself; and so he goes off murmuring his -admiration for the fine display of wisdom that comes so easy-like from -the man whom he has been fooling. - -This form of humour is indulged in by some Irishmen simply for the -satisfaction it gives them to indulge in it. They never hurry off -to acquaint a neighbour with what they have done, and they are quite -pleased with the thought that the person on whom they have been imposing -will tell the whole story of their extraordinary obtuseness to some -one else; it never strikes them that that some one else may fail to see -through the trick, and actually be convinced of the existence of their -obtuseness. But if such a possibility did occur to them, they would be -all the better pleased: they would feel that they had fooled two instead -of one. - -But, of course, the most widely recognised form of Irish humour is that -known as the "bull." This is the delivery of a paradox so obvious as -to be detected--after a brief consideration--by an Englishman or -even--after an additional space for thought--by a Scotsman. But where -the fun comes in is (in the Irishman's eyes) when the others assume -that the humour of the bull is involuntary; and this is just what the -Englishman has been doing, and what the Irishman has been encouraging -him to do, for centuries. The Englishman is so busy trying to make it -appear that he is cleverer than he really is, he cannot see the humour -of any man trying to make out that he is more stupid than he really -is. Let no one fancy for a moment that the humour of an Irish bull is -involuntary. It is a form of expression that may be due to a peculiar -twist in the Irishman's mind--indeed, every form of humour may be said -to be due to a peculiar twist of the mind--but it is as much a figure -of speech as irony or satire. "Blarney" and "palaver" are other forms -of speech in which the Irish of some generations ago indulged with great -freedom, and both are essentially Irish and essentially humorous, -though occasionally borrowed and clumsily worn on the other side of -the Channel, just as the bernous of the Moor is worn by an English -missionary when lecturing in the village schoolroom (with a -magic-lantern) on The Progress of Christianity in Morocco. - -It would be interesting to make a scientific inquiry into the origin and -the maintenance of all these forms of expression among the Irish; but it -is unnecessary to do so in this place. It is enough if we remind English -readers of the existence of such forms even in the present day, when -there is so little need for their display. It can without difficulty be -understood by any one, however superficially acquainted with the history -of Ireland for the past thousand years, that "blarney" and "palaver" -were as necessary to the existence of the natives of the island as -suspicion and vigilance were to the existence of the invaders. But it is -not so apparent why Irishmen should be given to rush into the extremes -of bragging on the one hand, and self-depreciation on the other. -Bragging is, however, as much an endowment of Nature for the protection -of a species or a race as is imitation or mimicry. The Irishman who was -able by the exercise of this gift to intimidate the invaders, escaped a -violent death and transmitted his art to his children. The practice of -the art of self-depreciation was quite as necessary for the existence of -the Irish race up to the time of the passing of the first Land Act. -For several generations an Irishman was not allowed to own a horse -of greater value than five pounds; and every Irish agriculturist who -improved the miserable cabin which he was supposed to share with his -pigs and his fowl, might rest certain that his rent would be raised out -of all proportion to his improvements. In these circumstances it can -easily be understood that it was accounted a successful joke for a man -who was doing tolerably well to put on a poor face when in the presence -of an inquiry agent of the absent landlord--to run down all his own -efforts and to depreciate generally his holding, and thus to save -himself from the despicable treatment which was meted out to the -unfortunate people by the conquerors of their country. - -It is not necessary to do more than make these suggestions to a -scientific investigator who may be disposed to devote some time to the -question of the origin of certain forms of Irish humour; it is enough -for us, in considering the mystery of that typical Irishman, Oliver -Goldsmith, to know that such forms of humour as we have specified have -an actual existence. Such knowledge is a powerful illuminant to a reader -of Boswell's and Beattie's stories of the stupidity of Goldsmith. A fine -flood of light is thrown upon the apparent mystery of the inspiration -of this idiot--of this man "who wrote like an angel and talked like poor -poll." - -Goldsmith was just too successful in maintaining that gravity which is -the very essence of those forms of humour in which he was constantly -indulging for his own satisfaction; the mask of gravity was such a good -fit that the short-sighted people who were around him never penetrated -it. He was making fools of the people about him, never giving a thought -to the possibility that they would transmit to posterity the impression -which his attitude conveyed to them, which was that he was a shallow -fool. - -Of course, it would be as absurd to contend that Goldsmith never made a -fool of himself as it would be to assume that Johnson never made a fool -of himself, or that Boswell ever failed to do so. The occasions upon -which he made himself ridiculous must have been numerous, but out of the -many incidents which Boswell and Beattie and Cooke and the others bring -forward as proofs of his stupidity there are few that will not bear to -be interpreted as instances of his practice of a form of humour well -known in Ireland. If his affectation of chagrin at the admiration given -to the Panton Street puppets, followed by the boast, "I could do it as -well myself," was not humorous, then indeed there is nothing humorous -under the sun. If his object of setting the room roaring with laughter -was not achieved the night when at the club he protested that the -oratory of Burke was nothing--that all oratory, as a matter of fact, was -only a knack--and forthwith stood upon a chair and began to stutter, -all that can be said is that the famous club at Gerrard Street was more -stolid than could be believed. If his strutting about the room where he -and his friends were awaiting a late-comer to dinner, entreating -Johnson and the rest to pay particular attention to the cut of his new -peach-bloom coat, and declaring that Filby, his tailor, had told him -that when any one asked him who had made the garment he was not to -forget Filby's address, did not help materially to enliven the tedium -of that annoying wait, all that can be said is that Thrale, as well as -Boswell, must have been of the party. - -If a novelist, anxious to depict a typical humorous Irishman, were to -show his hero acting as Boswell says Goldsmith acted, would not every -reader acknowledge that he was true to the character of a comical -Irishman? If a playwriter were to put the scene on the stage, would -any one in the audience fail to see that the Goldsmith of the piece was -fooling? Every one in the club--Boswell best of all--was aware of the -fact that Goldsmith had the keenest admiration for Burke, and that -he would be the last man in the world to decry his powers. As for the -peach-bloom coat, it had been the butt of much jesting on the part of -his friends; the elder of the Miss Hornecks had written him a letter of -pretty "chaff" about it, all of which he took in good part. He may have -bought the coat originally because he liked the tint of the velvet; but -assuredly when he found that it could be made the subject of a jest he -did not hesitate to jest upon it himself. How many times have we not -seen in Ireland a man behave in exactly the same way under similar -conditions--a boisterous young huntsman who had put on pink for the -first time, and was strutting with much pride before an admiring group -of servants, every one of whom had some enthusiastic remark to make -about the fit of the coat, until at last the youth, pointing out the -perfection of the gilt buttons, murmured: "Oh, but isn't this a great -day for Ireland!" - -What a pity it was that Mr. Boswell had not been present at such a -scene! Can we not hear his comments upon the character of the young man -who had actually been so carried away by his vanity that he was heard to -express the opinion that the fortunes of his country would be materially -affected by the fact of the buttons of his new coat being gilt? (It -was this same Mr. Boswell, the critic of Goldsmith's all too attractive -costume, who, when going to see Pitt for the first time, put on Corsican -native dress, pretending that he did so in order to interest Pitt in -General Paoli.) - -In reading these accounts of Goldsmith's ways and the remarks of his -associates it must be noticed that some of these gentlemen had now and -again an uneasy impression that there was more in the poet's stupidity -than met the eye. Sir Joshua Reynolds was his closest friend, and it was -the business of the painter to endeavour to get below the surface of -his sitters. The general idea that prevails in the world is that he -was rather successful in his attempts to reproduce, not merely their -features, but their characters as well; and Sir Joshua saw enough -beneath the rude exterior of the man to cause him to feel toward -Goldsmith as he felt for none of his other friends. When the news of his -death was brought to the painter, he laid down his brushes and spent the -day in seclusion. When it is remembered that he spent every day of the -week, not even excepting Sunday, in his studio, the depth of his grief -for the loss of his friend will be understood. Upon more than one -occasion Reynolds asserted that Goldsmith was diverting himself by -trying to make himself out to be more stupid than he really was. Malone, -whose judgment was rarely at fault, whether it was exercised in the -detection of fraud or in the discovery of genius, was in perfect -agreement with Reynolds on this point, and was always ready to -affirm that Boswell was unjust in his remarks upon Goldsmith and the -conclusions to which he came in respect of his character. It is not -necessary for one to have an especially vivid imagination to enable one -to see what was the expression on Malone's face when he came upon the -patronising passage in the _Life of Johnson_ in which Boswell stated -that for his part he was always glad to hear "honest Dr. Goldsmith" -converse. "Puppy!" cried Johnson upon one occasion when a certain -commentator had patronised a text out of all recognition. What would he -have said had he heard Goldsmith patronised by Boswell? - -So far as Goldsmith's actual vanity is concerned, all that can be said -at this time is that had it existed in the offensive form which it -assumes in some of Boswell's stories, Goldsmith would never have won -the friendship of those men and women who were his friends before he had -made a reputation for himself by the publication of _The 'Traveller_. -If he had had an extravagant opinion of his own capacity as a poet, -he would certainly never have suffered Johnson to make an attempt to -improve upon one of his poems; but Goldsmith not only allowed him to do -so, but actually included the lines written by Johnson when he published -the poem. Had he been eaten up by vanity, he would not have gone -wandering down the Mall in St. James's Park while his comedy was being -played for the first time before a delighted house. The really vain man -was the author of The Vanity of Human Wishes, who bought the showiest -set of garments he could find and sat in all their glory in the front -row of the boxes on the night when Garrick produced his tragedy of -_Irene_--Garrick whom he kept out of the Club for nine years simply -because the actor had expressed a wish to become one of the original -members. The really vain man was the one who made his stock story his -account of his conversation with the King in the Royal Library. Every -one sees this now, and every one saw it, except Boswell, when the _Life_ -was flung in the face of a convulsed public, for the public of the year -1791 were as little aware of the real value of the book as the author -was of the true character of his hero and his hero's friend Goldsmith. - -After all, there would be no better way of arriving at a just conclusion -on the subject of Goldsmith's stupidity than by submitting the whole -of the case to an ordinary man accustomed to the many peculiarities of -Irishmen, especially in the exercise of their doubtful gift of humour. -"Here is a man," we must say, "who became the most intimate friend of -people of title and the dearest friend of many men of brains. When the -most exclusive Club of the day was started his place as a member was not -disputed, even by the man who invented the word 'clubbable,' and knew -what it meant into the bargain; when the Royal Academy of Arts was -started he was invited to become one of its professors. Some of the -wittiest things recorded by the most diligent recorder of witty things -that the world has ever known, were uttered by him. Upon one occasion -when walking among the busts of the poets in Westminster Abbey with a -friend, the latter pointing around said: - -"'_Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis_.' - -"Leaving the Abbey and walking down the Strand to Temple Bar they saw -the heads of the men who had been captured and decapitated for taking -part in the Rebellion of the year 1745, bleaching in the winds in -accordance with the terms of the sentence for high treason. - -"'_Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis_,' murmured the man of -whom we speak. Upon another occasion this same friend of his, who had a -unique reputation for speaking in the most ponderous language, even when -dealing with the simplest matters, asserted that the writing of the -dialogue in some recently published fables where fish were represented -as conversing, was very simple. 'Not so simple at all,' said the other, -'for were you to write them, you would make every minnow talk like a -whale.' - -"In the course of a few years, in addition to compiling histories, which -remained standard educational works for more than a century, and several -other books, he wrote a novel which received the highest praise from the -greatest intellects in Europe, and which is still read with delight by -thousands of people of all nationalities; a poem of which almost every -line is quoted daily in conversation--a poem which contains metaphors -that have been repeated for generations in the Senate, in the Court of -Law, and in the Church; and a play which has been pronounced the truest -comedy in the English language. He died at an early age, and a memorial -of his genius was given a place in Westminster Abbey. The inscription -was written by the most distinguished man of letters in England, and -although highly eulogistic, was considered by the greatest painter in -the world and the greatest orator in the world to fall short of doing -justice to the subject. - -"But, on the other hand, the man of whom we speak was said by a -Scotchman, who himself was occasionally referred to as a cur and -sometimes as an ape, and more than once as a coxcomb, to have been -roused to a frenzy of envy, because some officers, passing through a -square in a French town, looked admiringly at two lovely girls who -were at a window, ignoring him at another window; and again because his -friends spoke with favour of the dexterity of a wooden figure dressed -as a soldier, and yet again (on another authority) because one of -his friends read a passage from Shakespeare, and affirmed that it was -magnificent. Now, would you say," we should ask the authority to whom we -are supposed to be stating a case--"would you say that this man was in -earnest when, in the first of the instances quoted, he walked up and -down the room in the French hotel asserting 'that although the young -ladies, of whom he was extremely fond, might have their admirers, there -were places where he, too, was given admiration'? Would you say that he -showed ill-temper or wit when, in the second instance, he declared with -warmth that he could toss a halbert quite as well as any wooden figure? -Would you say that----" - -But we should not get any further than this in stating our case to a man -acquainted with the Irish and their humour: he would think that we were -taking a leaf out of the book of Irish humour, and endeavouring to fool -him by asking him to pronounce a grave opinion upon the obvious; he -would not stay to give us a chance of asking him whether he thought that -the temptation of making "Noll" rhyme with "Poll," was not too great to -be resisted by the greatest farceur of his time, in the presence of a -humorous colleague called Oliver; and whether an impecunious but witty -Irishman begged his greatest friend not to give him the nickname of -Goldy, because his dignity was hurt thereby, or simply because it was -tantalising for one to be called "Goldy," whose connection with gold was -usually so transitory. - -If people will only read the stories told of poor Goldsmith's vanity, -and envy, and coxcombry, with a handbook of Irish humour beside them, -the conclusion to which they will come must, we think, be that Goldsmith -was an Irishman, and that, on the whole, he made very good fun of -Boswell, who was a Scotsman, but that in the long run Boswell got very -much the better of him. Scotsmen usually laugh last. - - - - -THE BEST COMEDY OF THE CENTURY - -HE occupied one room in the farmhouse--the guest-chamber it had -probably been called when the farm was young. It was a pretty spacious -apartment up one pair of stairs and to the right of the landing, -and from its window there was a pleasing prospect of a paddock with -wheat-fields beyond; there was a drop in the landscape in the direction -of Hendon, and here was a little wood. The farmer's name was Selby, -a married man with a son of sixteen, and younger children, and the -farmhouse was the nearest building to the sixth milestone on the Edgware -Road in the year 1771. - -He was invariably alluded to as "The Gentleman," and the name did very -well for him, situated as he was in the country; in the town and among -his acquaintances it would serve badly as a means of identification. He -was never referred to as "The Gentleman" of his circle. In his room in -the farmhouse there was his bed and table--a large table littered with -books; it took two chaises to carry his books hither from his rooms in -the Temple. Here he sat and wrote the greater part of the day, and when -he was very busy he would scarcely be able to touch the meals which were -sent up to him from the kitchen. But he was by no means that dignified -type of the man of letters who would shrink from fellowship with the -farmer or his family. He would frequently come down his stairs into -the kitchen and stand with his back to the fire, conversing with the -housewife, and offering her his sympathy when she had made him aware of -the fact that the privilege of being the wife of a substantial farmer, -though undoubtedly fully recognised by the world, carried many troubles -in its train, not only in connection with the vicissitudes of churning, -but in regard to the feeding of the calves, which no man could attend -to properly, and the making of the damson and cowslip wine. He told -her that the best maker of cowslip wine whom he had ever met was a -Mrs. Primrose; her husband had at one time occupied the Vicarage of -Wakefield--he wondered if Mrs. Selby had ever heard of her. Mrs. Selby's -knowledge did not go so far, but she thought that Mrs. Primrose's recipe -must be a good one indeed if it brought forth better results than her -own; and the gentleman said that although he had never tasted Mrs. -Selby's he would still have no hesitation in backing it for flavour, -body, headiness, and all other qualities associated with the -distillation of the cowslip, against the Primrose brand. - -And then he would stare at the gammon in the rafter and mutter some -words, burst into a roar of laughter, and stumble upstairs to his -writing, leaving the good woman to thank Heaven that she was the wife of -a substantial farmer and not of an unsubstantial gentleman of letters, -who could not carry on a simple conversation without having some queer -thought fly across his brain for all the world like one of the swallows -on the water at Hendon, only maybe a deal harder to catch. She knew that -the gentleman had hurried to his paper and ink to complete the capture -of that fleet-flitting thought which had come to him when he had -cast his eyes toward the gammon, though how an idea worth putting on -paper--after a few muttered words and a laugh--could lurk about a common -piece of hog's-flesh was a mystery to her. - -And then upon occasions the gentleman would take a walk abroad; the -farmer's son had more than once come upon him strolling about the fields -with his hands in his pockets and his head bent toward the ground, still -muttering fitfully and occasionally giving a laugh that made the grey -pad in the paddock look up slowly, still munching the grass. Now and -again he paid a visit to his friend Mr. Hugh Boyd at the village of -Kenton, and once he returned late at night from such a visit, without -his shoes. He had left them in a quagmire, he said, and it was only with -a struggle that he saved himself from being engulfed as well. That -was the story of his shoes which young Selby remembered when he was no -longer young. And there was another story which he remembered, but it -related to his slippers. The fact was that the gentleman had acquired -the bad habit of reading in bed, and the table on which his candlestick -stood being several feet away from his pillow, he saved himself the -trouble of rising to extinguish it by flinging a slipper at it. In the -morning the overturned candle was usually found side by side on the -floor with an unaccountably greasy slipper. This method of discharging -an important domestic duty differed considerably from Johnson's way of -compassing the same end. Johnson, being extremely short-sighted, was -compelled to hold the candle close to the book when reading in bed, so -that he had no need to use his slipper as an extinguisher. No, but he -found his pillow very handy for this purpose. When he had finished his -reading he threw away the book and went asleep with his candle under his -pillow. - -The gentleman at the farm went about a good deal in his slippers, and -with his shirt loose at the collar--the latter must have been but one -of his very customary negligences, or Sir Joshua Reynolds would not -have painted him thus. Doubtless the painter had for long recognised the -interpretative value of this loosened collar above that of the velvet -and silk raiment in which the man sometimes appeared before the -wondering eyes of his friends. - -But if the painter had never had an opportunity of studying the -picturesqueness of his negligence, he had more than one chance of doing -so within the farmhouse. - -Young Selby recollected that upon at least one occasion Sir Joshua, his -friend Sir William Chambers, and Dr. Johnson had paid a visit to the -gentleman who lodged at the farm. He remembered that for that reception -of so distinguished a company the farmhouse parlour had been opened and -tea provided. There must have been a good deal of pleasant talk between -the gentleman and his friends at this time, and probably young Selby -heard an astonishingly loud laugh coming from the enormous visitor with -the brown coat and the worsted stockings, as the gentleman endeavoured -to tell his guests something of the strange scenes which he was -introducing in the comedy he was writing in that room upstairs. It was -then a comedy without a name, but young Selby heard that it was produced -the following year in London and that it was called _She Stoops to -Conquer_. - -This was the second year that the gentleman had spent at the farm. The -previous summer he had been engaged on another work which was certainly -as comical as the comedy. It was called _Animated Nature_, and it -comprised some of the most charmingly narrated errors in Natural History -ever offered to the public, and the public have always been delighted -to read pages of fiction if it is only called "Natural History." This is -one of the best-established facts in the history of the race. After all, -_Animated Nature_ was true to half its title: every page was animated. - -It was while he was so engaged, with one eye on Buffon and another on -his MS., that he found Farmer Selby very useful to him. Farmer Selby -knew a great deal about animals--the treatment of horses under various -conditions, and the way to make pigs pay; he had probably his theories -respecting the profit to be derived from keeping sheep, and how to -feed oxen that are kept for the plough. All such knowledge he must have -placed at the disposal of the author, though the farmer was possibly too -careless an observer of the simple incidents of the fields to be able to -verify Buffon's statement, reproduced in Animated Nature, to the effect -that cows shed their horns every two years; he was probably also -too deficient in the spirit in which a poet sets about the work of -compilation to be able to assent to the belief that a great future -was in store for the zebra when it should become tame and perform the -ordinary duties of a horse. But if the author was somewhat discouraged -in his speculations now and again by Farmer Selby, he did not allow his -fancy as a naturalist to be wholly repressed. He had heard a story of -an ostrich being ridden horsewise in some regions, and of long journeys -being accomplished in this way in incredibly short spaces of time, and -forthwith his imagination enabled him to see the day when this bird -would become as amenable to discipline as the barn-door fowl, though -discharging the tasks of a horse, carrying its rider across England with -the speed of a racer! - -It was while he was engaged on this pleasant work of fancy and -imagination that Mr. Boswell paid him a visit, bringing with him as a -witness Mr. Mickle, the translator of the Lusiad. "The Gentleman" had -gone away for the day, Mrs. Selby explained; but she did not know Mr. -Boswell. She could not prevent him from satisfying his curiosity in -respect of Dr. Goldsmith. He went upstairs to his room, and he was fully -satisfied. He found the walls all scrawled over with outline drawings of -quite a number of animals. Having thus satisfied himself that the author -of _Animated Nature_ was working in a thoroughly conscientious manner he -came away. He records the incident himself, but he does not say whether -or not he was able to recognise any of the animals from their pictures. - -But now it was a professed and not an unconscious comedy that occupied -Dr. Goldsmith. Whatever disappointment he may have felt at the -indifferent success of the first performance of _The Good-Natured -Man_--and he undoubtedly felt some--had been amply redeemed by the money -which accrued to him from the "author's rights" and the sale of the -play; and he had only awaited a little encouragement from the managers -to enable him to begin another comedy. But the managers were not -encouraging, and he was found by his friends one day to be full of -a scheme for the building of a new theatre for the production of new -plays, in order that the existing managers might not be able to carry -on their tyranny any longer. Such a scheme has been revived every decade -since Goldsmith's time, but never with the least success. Johnson, -whose sound sense was rarely at fault, laughed at the poet's project for -bringing down the mighty from their seats, upon which Goldsmith cried: -"Ay, sir, this matter may be nothing to you who can now shelter yourself -behind the corner of your pension," and he doubtless went on to describe -the condition of the victims of the tyranny of which he complained; but -it is questionable if his doing so effected more than to turn Johnson's -laughter into another and a wider channel. - -But Goldsmith spoke feelingly. He was certainly one of the ablest -writers of the day, but no pension was ever offered to him, though on -every hand bounties were freely bestowed on the most indifferent and -least deserving of authors--men whose names were forgotten before -the end of the century, and during the lifetime of the men themselves -remembered only by the pay clerk to the almoner. - -Of course, the scheme for bringing the managers to their senses never -reached a point of serious consideration; and forthwith Goldsmith began -to illustrate, for the benefit of posterity, the depths to which the -stupidity of the manager of a play-house can occasionally fall. The -public have always had abundant proofs of the managers' stupidity -afforded them in the form of the plays which they produce; but the -history of the production of the most brilliant comedy of the eighteenth -century is practically unique; for it is the history of the stupidity of -a manager doing his best to bring about the failure of a play which he -was producing at his own theatre. He had predicted the failure of the -piece, and it must strike most people that the manager of a theatre who -produces for a failure will be as successful in compassing his end as -a jockey who rides for a fall. Colman believed that he was in the -fortunate position of those prophets who had the realisation of their -predictions in their own hands. He was mistaken in this particular -case. Although he was justified on general principles in assuming his -possession of this power, yet he had made no allowance for the freaks -of genius. He was frustrated in his amiable designs by this incalculable -force--this power which he had treated as a _quantit ngligeable_. A -man who has been accustomed all his life to count only on simple ability -in the people about him, is, on suddenly being brought face to face with -genius, like an astronomer who makes out his tables of a new object on -the assumption that it is a fixed star, when all the time it is a comet, -upsetting by its erratic course all his calculations, and demanding to -be reckoned with from a standpoint that applies to itself alone. - -The stars of Colman's theatrical firmament were such as might safely be -counted on; but Goldsmith's genius was not of this order. The manager's -stupidity lay in his blunt refusal to recognise a work of genius when it -was brought to him by a man of genius. - -It has been said that the central idea of the plot of _She Stoops to -Conquer_ was suggested by an incident that came under Goldsmith's notice -before he left Ireland. However this may be, it cannot be denied -that the playing of the practical joke of Tony Lumpkin upon the two -travellers is "very Irish." It would take a respectable place in the -list of practical jokes of the eighteenth century played in Ireland. In -that island a collector of incidents for a comedy during the past two -centuries would require to travel with a fat notebook--so would the -collector of incidents for a tragedy. Goldsmith's task may not have been -to invent the central idea, but to accomplish the much more difficult -duty of making that incident seem plausible, surrounding it with -convincing scenery and working it out by the aid of the only characters -by which it could be worked out with a semblance of being natural. This -was a task which genius only could fulfil. The room whose walls bore -ample testimony to its occupant's sense of the comedy of a writer's -life, witnessed the supreme achievement in the "animated nature" of -_She Stoops to Conquer_. It contains the two chief essentials to a true -comedy--animation and nature. - -It is certain that the play was constructed and written by Goldsmith -without an adviser. He was possibly shrewd enough to know that if -he were to take counsel with any of his friends--Garrick, Johnson, -Reynolds, or Colman--he would not be able to write the play which he had -a mind to write. The artificial comedy had a vogue that year, and though -it may have been laughed at in private by people of judgment, yet few of -those within the literary circle of which Johnson was the acknowledged -centre, would have had the courage to advise a poet writing a piece in -hopes of making some money, to start upon a plot as farcical as Nature -herself. At that period of elegance in art everything that was natural -was pronounced vulgar. Shakespeare himself had to be made artificial -before he could be played by Garrick. Goldsmith must have known that his -play would be called vulgar, and that its chances of being accepted and -produced by either of the managers in London would be doubtful; but, all -the same, he wrote the piece in accordance with his own personal views, -and many a time during the next two years he must have felt that he was -a fool for doing so. - -However this may be, the play was finished some time in the summer -of 1771; and on September 7th the author was back at his rooms in the -Temple and writing to his friend Bennet Langton, whom he had promised -to visit at his place in Lincolnshire. "I have been almost wholly in the -country at a farmer's house, quite alone, trying to write a comedy. It -is now finished, but when or how it will be acted, or whether it will be -acted at all, are questions I cannot resolve," he told Langton. - -[Illustration: 0241] - -The misgivings which he had at this time were well founded. He -considered that the fact of his having obtained from Colman a promise to -read any play that he might write constituted an obligation on his part -to submit this piece to Colman rather than to Garrick. He accordingly -placed it in Colman's hands; but it is impossible to say if the work of -elaborate revision which Goldsmith began in the spring of 1772 was -due to the comments made by this manager on the first draft or to the -author's reconsideration of his work as a whole. But the amended version -was certainly in Colman's hands in the summer of this year (1772). -The likelihood is that Colman would have refused point-blank to have -anything to do with the comedy after he had read the first draft had it -not been that just at this time Goldsmith's reputation was increased -to a remarkable extent by the publication of his Histories. It would be -difficult to believe how this could be, but, as usual, we are indebted -to Mr. Boswell for what information we have on this point. Boswell had -been for some time out of London, and on returning he expressed his -amazement at the celebrity which Goldsmith had attained. "Sir," he cried -to Johnson, "Goldsmith has acquired more fame than all the officers last -war who were not generals!" - -"Why, sir," said Johnson, "you will find ten thousand fit to do what -they did before you find one who does what Goldsmith has done"--a bit of -dialogue that reminds one of the reply of the avaricious _prima donna_ -when the Emperor refused to accede to her terms on the plea that were -he to pay her her price she would be receiving more than any of his -marshals. "Eh bien, mon sire. Let your marshals sing to you." - -At any rate, Colman got the play--and kept it. He would give the author -no straightforward opinion as to its prospects in his hands. He refused -to say when he would produce it--nay, he declined to promise that he -would produce it at all. Goldsmith was thus left in torment for month -after month, and the effect of the treatment that he received was to -bring on an illness, and the effect of his illness was to sink him to a -depth of despondency that even Goldsmith had never before sounded. The -story told by Cooke of his coming upon the unhappy man in a coffeehouse, -and of the latter's attempt to give him some of the details of the plot -of the comedy, speaks for itself. "I shook my head," wrote Cooke, -"and said that I was afraid the audience, under their then sentimental -impressions, would think it too broad and farcical for comedy." This was -poor comfort for the author; but after a pause he shook the man by the -hand, saying piteously: "I am much obliged to you, my dear friend, for -the candour of your opinion, but it is all I can do; for alas! I find -that my genius, if ever I had any, has of late totally deserted me." - -This exclamation is the most piteous that ever came from a man of -genius; and there can be no doubt of the sincerity of its utterance, -for it was during these miserable months that he began a new novel, but -found himself unable to get further than a few chapters. And all this -time, when, in order to recover his health, he should have had no -worries of a lesser nature, he was being harassed by the trivial -cares of a poor, generous man's life--those mosquito vexations which, -accumulating, become more intolerable than a great calamity. - -He had once had great hopes of good resulting from Colman's taking up -the management of Covent Garden, and had written congratulations to him -within the first week of his entering into possession of the theatre. -A very different letter he had now to write to the same man. Colman had -endeavoured to evade the responsibility of giving him a direct answer -about the play. He clearly meant that the onus of refusing it should lie -at the door of some one else. - -"Dear Sir," wrote the author in January, 1773, "I entreat you'll release -me from that state of suspense in which I have been kept for a long -time. Whatever objections you have made or shall make to my play I will -endeavour to remove and not argue about them. To bring in any new judges -either of its merits or faults I can never submit to. Upon a former -occasion when my other play was before Mr. Garrick he offered to bring -me before Mr. Whitehead's tribunal, but I refused the proposal with -indignation. I hope I shall not experience as hard treatment from you -as from him.... For God's sake take the play and let us make the best -of it, and let me have the same measure at least which you have given as -bad plays as mine." - -Upon receiving this letter, Colman at once returned to him the -manuscript of the play, and on the author's unfolding it he found that -on the back of almost every page, on the blank space reserved for -the prompter's hieroglyphs, some sneering criticism was scrawled. To -emphasise this insult Colman had enclosed a letter to the effect that if -the author was still unconvinced that the piece would be a failure, he, -Colman, would produce it. - -Immediately on receipt of this contemptible effort at contempt Goldsmith -packed up the play and sent it to Garrick at Drury Lane. That same -evening, however, he met Johnson and told him what he had done; and -Johnson, whose judgment on the practical side of authorship was rarely -at fault, assured him that he had done wrong and that he must get the -manuscript back without delay, and submit to Colman's sneers for the -sake of having the comedy produced. Upon Johnson's promising to -visit Colman, and to urge upon him the claims of Goldsmith to his -consideration, the distracted author wrote to Drury Lane: - -"Upon more mature deliberation and the advice of a sensible friend, -I begin to think it indelicate in me to throw upon you the odium of -confirming Mr. Colman's sentence. I therefore request that you will send -my play by my servant back; for having been assured of having it acted -at the other house, though I confess yours in every respect more to my -wish, yet it would be folly in me to forgo an advantage which lies in -my power of appealing from Mr. Colman's opinion to the judgment of the -town." - -Goldsmith got back the play, and Johnson explained to him, as he did -some years later to Reynolds, that the solicitations which he had made -to Colman to put it in rehearsal without delay amounted almost to force. -At any rate, the play was announced and the parts distributed to the -excellent company which Colman controlled. It was soon proved that he -controlled some members of this company only too well. The spirit in, -which he set about the discharge of his duties as a manager was apparent -to every one during the earliest rehearsals. Johnson, writing to an -American correspondent, mentioned that Colman made no secret of his -belief that the play would be a failure. Far from it. He seems to have -taken the most extraordinary trouble to spread his belief far and wide; -and when a manager adopts such a course, what chance, one may ask, has -the play? What chance, the players could not but ask, have the players? - -This was possibly the only occasion in the history of the English drama -on which such questions could be asked. If managers have a fault at -all--a question which is not yet ripe for discussion--it has never -been in the direction of depreciating a play which they are about to -produce--that is, of course, outside the author's immediate circle. It -is only when the play has failed that they sometimes allow that it was -a bad one, and incapable of being saved even by the fine acting of the -company and the sumptuous mounting. - -But Colman controlled his company all too well, and after a day or two -it was announced that the leading lady, the accomplished Mrs. Abington, -had retired from the part of Miss Hardcastle; that Smith, known as -Gentleman Smith, had refused to play Young Marlow; and that Woodward, -the most popular comedian in the company, had thrown up the part of Tony -Lumpkin. - -Here, in one day, it seemed that Colman had achieved his aims, and the -piece would have to be withdrawn by the author. This was undoubtedly -the managerial view of the situation which had been precipitated by -the manager, and it was shared by those of the author's friends who -understood his character as indifferently as did Colman. They must all -have been somewhat amazed when the author quietly accepted the situation -and affirmed that he would rather that his play were damned by bad -players than merely saved by good acting. One of the company who had the -sense to perceive the merits of the piece, Shuter, the comedian, who was -cast for the part of old Hardcastle, advised Goldsmith to give Lewes, -the harlequin, the part of Young Marlow; Quick, a great favourite with -the public, was to act Tony Lumpkin; and, after a considerable amount -of wrangling, Mrs. Bulkley, lately Miss Wilford, who had been the -Miss Richland of _The Good-Natured Man_, accepted the part which the -capricious Mrs. Abington resigned. - -Another start was made with the rehearsals of the piece, and further -efforts were made by Colman to bring about the catastrophe which he -had predicted. He refused to let a single scene be painted for the -production, or to supply a single new dress; his ground being that the -money spent in this way would be thrown away, for the audience would -never allow the piece to proceed beyond the second act. - -But happily Dr. Johnson had his reputation as a prophet at stake as well -as Colman, and he was singularly well equipped by Nature for enforcing -his views on any subject. He could not see anything of what was going -on upon the stage; but his laugh at the succession of humorous things -spoken by the company must have had an inspiring effect upon every -one, except Colman. Johnson's laugh was the strongest expression of -appreciation of humour of which the century has a record. It was epic. -To say that Johnson's laugh at the rehearsals of _She Stoops to Conquer_ -saved the piece would perhaps be going too far. But can any one question -its value as a counteracting agent to Colman's depressing influence on -the stage? Johnson was the only man in England who could make Colman -(and every one else) tremble, and his laugh had the same effect upon -the building in which it was delivered. It was the Sirocco against a wet -blanket. When one thinks of the feeling of awe which was inspired by -the name of Dr. Johnson, not only during the last forty years of -the eighteenth century, but well into the nineteenth, one begins to -appreciate the value of his vehement expression of satisfaction upon -the people on the stage. Goldsmith dedicated his play to Johnson, and -assuredly the compliment was well earned. Johnson it was who compelled -Colman to produce the piece, and Johnson it was who encouraged the -company to do their best for it, in spite of the fact that they were -all aware that their doing their best for it would be resented by their -manager. - -Reynolds also, another valuable friend to the author, sacrificed several -of his busiest hours in order to attend the rehearsals. His sister's -sacrifices to the same end were perhaps not quite so impressive, nor -were those made by that ingenious "country gentleman," Mr. Cradock, -referred to by Walpole. Miss Horneck, his beautiful "Jessamy Bride," -and her sister, lately married to Mr. Bunbury, bore testimony to the -strength of their friendship for the poet, by accompanying him daily to -the theatre. - -But, after all, these good friends had not many opportunities of -showing their regard for him in the same way; for the play must have had -singularly few rehearsals. Scarcely a month elapsed between the date of -Colman's receiving the manuscript on its being returned by Garrick and -the production of the piece. It is doubtful if more than ten rehearsals -took place after the parts were recast. If the manager kept the author -in suspense for eighteen months respecting the fate of his play, he -endeavoured to make up for his dilatoriness now. It was announced for -Monday, March 15th, and, according to Northcote, it was only on the -morning of that day that the vexed question of what the title should be -was settled. For some time the author and his friends had been talking -the matter over. "We are all in labour for a name to Goldy's play," -wrote Johnson. _The Mistakes of a Night, The Old House a New Inn, and -The Belle's Stratagem_ were suggested in turn. It was Goldsmith himself -who gave it the title under which it was produced. - -On the afternoon of this day, March 15th, the author was the guest at -a dinner-party organised in his honour. It is easy to picture this -particular function. The truth was that Colman's behaviour had broken -the spirit not only of the author, but of the majority of his friends -as well. They would all make an effort to cheer up poor Goldsmith; but -every one knows how cheerless a function is one that is organised with -such charitable intentions. It is not necessary that one should have -been in a court of law watching the face of the prisoner in the dock -when the jury have retired to consider their verdict in order to -appreciate the feelings of Goldsmith when his friends made their attempt -to cheer him up. The last straw added on to the cheerlessness of the -banquet was surely to be found in the accident that every one wore -black! The King of Sardinia had died a short time before, and the Court -had ordered mourning to be worn for some weeks for this potentate. -Johnson was very nearly outraging propriety by appearing in coloured -raiment, but George Steevens, who called for him to go to the dinner, -was fortunately in time to prevent such a breach of etiquette. "I would -not for ten pounds have seemed so retrograde to any general observance," -cried Johnson in offering his thanks to his benefactor. Happily the -proprieties were saved; but what must have been the effect of the -appearance of these gentlemen in black upon the person whom they meant -to cheer up! - -Reynolds told his pupil, Northcote, what effect these resources of -gaiety had upon Goldsmith. His mouth became so parched that he could -neither eat nor drink, nor could he so much as speak in acknowledgment -of the well-meant act of his friends. When the party after this -entertainment set out for the theatre they must have suggested, all -being in black, a more sombre procession than one is accustomed to -imagine when conjuring up a picture of an eighteenth-century theatre -party. - -And Goldsmith was missing! - -Unfortunately Boswell was not present, or we should not be left in doubt -as to how it happened that no one thought of taking charge of Goldsmith. -But no one seemed to think of him, and so his disappearance was never -noticed. His friends arrived at the theatre and found their places, -Johnson in the front row of the boxes; and the curtain was rung up, -and Goldsmith was forgotten under the influence of that comedy which -constitutes his greatest claim to be remembered by theatre-goers of -to-day. - -He was found by an acquaintance a couple of hours later wandering in the -Mall of St. James's Park, and was only persuaded to go to the theatre by -its being represented to him that his services might be required should -it be found necessary to alter something at the last moment. - -Now, among the members of that distinguished audience there was a man -named Cumberland. He was the author of _The West Indian_ and several -other plays, and he was regarded as one of the leaders of the -sentimental school, the demise of which was satirised in the prologue to -this very play which was being performed. Cumberland was a man who could -never see a particle of good in anything that was written by another. It -was a standing entertainment with Garrick to "draw him on" by suggesting -that some one had written a good scene in a play, or was about to -produce an interesting book. In a moment Cumberland was up, protesting -against the assumption that the play or the book could be worth -anything. So wide a reputation had he for decrying every other author -that when Sheridan produced _The Critic; or, the Tragedy Rehearsed_, his -portrait was immediately recognised in Sir Fretful Plagiary. - -What must have been the feelings of this man when, from the first, the -play, which he had come to wreck, was received by the whole house with -uproarious applause? Well, we don't know what he felt like, but we know -what he looked like. One of the newspapers described him as "looking -glum," and another contained a rhymed epigram describing him as weeping. -Goldsmith entered the theatre by the stage door at the beginning of the -fifth act, where Tony Lumpkin and his mother appear close to their -own house, and the former pretends that the chaise has broken down on -Crackscull Common. He had no sooner got into the "wings" than he heard -a hiss. "What's that, sir?" he whispered to Colman, who was beside him. -"Psha, sir! what signifies a squib when we have been sitting on a barrel -of gunpowder all night?" was the reply. The story is well known; and -its accuracy has never been im peached. And the next day it was well -known that that solitary hiss came from Cumberland, the opinion that -it was due to the malevolence of Macpherson, whose pretensions to the -discovery of _Ossian_ were exposed by Johnson, being discredited. - -But the effect of Colman's brutality and falsehood into the bargain had -not a chance of lasting long. The hiss was received with cries of "Turn -him out!" and, with an addition to the tumultuous applause of all the -house, Goldsmith must have been made aware in another instant of the -fact that he had written the best comedy of the day and that Colman had -lied to him. From the first there had been no question of sitting on a -barrel of gunpowder. Such applause could never greet the last act of a -play the first four acts of which had been doubtful. He must have felt -that at last he had conquered--that he had by one more achievement -proved to his own satisfaction--and he was hard to satisfy--that those -friends of his who had attributed genius to him had not been mistaken; -that those who, like Johnson and Percy and Reynolds, had believed in -him before he had written the work that made him famous, had not been -misled. - -The next day all London was talking of _She Stoops to Conquer_ and of -Colman. Horace Walpole, who detested Goldsmith, and who found when -he went to see the play that it was deplorably vulgar, mentioned in a -letter which he wrote to Lady Ossory on the morning after the production -that it had "succeeded prodigiously," and the newspapers were full of -epigrams at the expense of the manager. If Colman had had the sense to -keep to himself his forebodings of the failure of the piece, he would -not have left himself open to these attacks; but, as has been said, he -took as much pains to decry the coming production as he usually did to -"puff" other pieces. It would seem that every one had for several -days been talking about nothing else save the coming failure of Dr. -Goldsmith's comedy. Only on this assumption can one now understand the -poignancy of the "squibs"--some of them partook largely of the character -of his own barrel of gunpowder--levelled against Colman. He must have -been quite amazed at the clamour that arose against him; it became too -much for his delicate skin, and he fled to Bath to get out of the way -of the scurrilous humourists who were making him a target for their -pop-guns. But even at Bath he failed to find a refuge. Writing to Mrs. -Thrale, Johnson said: "Colman is so distressed with abuse that he has -solicited Goldsmith to take him off the rack of the newspapers." - -It was characteristic of Goldsmith that he should do all that was -asked of him and that he should make no attempt, either in public or in -private, to exult in his triumph over the manager. The only reference -which he made to his sufferings while Colman was keeping him on the rack -was in a letter which he wrote to his friend Cradock, who had written an -epilogue for the play, to explain how it was that this epilogue was not -used at the first representation. After saying simply, "The play has -met with a success beyond your expectation or mine," he makes his -explanation, and concludes thus: "Such is the history of my stage -adventure, and which I have at last done with. I cannot help saying -that I am very sick of the stage, and though I believe I shall get -three tolerable benefits, yet I shall on the whole be a loser, even in -a pecuniary light; my ease and comfort I certainly lost while it was in -agitation." - -Goldsmith showed that he bore no grudge against Colman; but the English -stage should bear him a grudge for his treatment of one of the few -authors of real genius who have contributed to it for the benefit of -posterity. If _She Stoops to Conquer_ had been produced when it first -came into the manager's hands, Goldsmith would certainly not have -written the words just quoted. What would have been the result of -his accepting the encouragement of its production it is, of course, -impossible to tell; but it is not going too far to assume that the -genius which gave the world _The Good-Natured Man_ and _She Stoops to -Conquer_ would have been equal to the task of writing a third comedy -equal in merit to either of these. Yes, posterity owes Colman a grudge. - - - - -THE JESSAMY BRIDE - -A PERSONAL NOTE - -FOR some time after the publication of my novel _The Jessamy Bride_ -my time was fully occupied by replying to correspondents--strangers -to me--who were good enough to take an interest in Mary Horneck, the -younger of the two charming sisters with whom Goldsmith associated -for several years of his life on terms of the warmest affection. The -majority of these communications were of a very interesting character. -Only one correspondent told me I should not have allowed Oliver -Goldsmith to die so young, though two expressed the opinion that I -should have made Goldsmith marry Mary Horneck; nearly all the remaining -communications which were addressed to me contained inquiries as to the -origin of the sobriquet applied to Mary Horneck in Goldsmith's epistle. -To each and to all such inquiries I have, alas! been compelled to return -the humiliating reply that I have not yet succeeded in finding out what -was the origin of the family joke which made Goldsmith's allusions to -"The Jessamy Bride" and "Little Comedy" intelligible to the "Devonshire -Crew" of Hornecks and Reynoldses. I have searched volume after volume -in the hope of having even the smallest ray of light thrown upon this -matter, but I have met with no success. I began to feel, as every post -brought me a sympathetic inquiry as to the origin of the pet name, -that I should take the bold step of confessing my ignorance to the one -gentleman who, I was confident, could enlighten it. "If Dr. Brewer does -not know why Mary Horneck was called 'The Jessamy Bride,' no one alive -can know it," was what I said to myself. Before I could write to -Dr. Brewer the melancholy new's came of his death; and very shortly -afterwards I got a letter from his daughter, Mrs. Brewer Hayman, in -which she mentioned that her lamented father had been greatly interested -in my story, and asked if I could tell her what was the meaning of the -phrase. - -It does certainly seem extraordinary that no biographer of Goldsmith, -of Reynolds, or of Burke, should have thought it worth while writing a -letter to the "Jessamy Bride" herself to ask her why she was so called -by Goldsmith. The biographers of Goldsmith and the editors of Boswell -seem to have had no hesitation in stating that Mary Horneck was the -"Jessamy Bride," and that her elder sister was "Little Comedy"; but -they do not appear to have taken a wider view of their duties than was -comprised in this bare statement. The gossipy Northcote was surely in -the secret, and he might have revealed the truth without detracting from -the interest of the many inaccuracies in his volume. Northcote had -an opportunity of seeing daily the portrait of Mary which Sir Joshua -painted, and which hung in his studio until the day of his death, when -it passed into the possession of the original, who had become Mrs. Gwyn, -having married Colonel, afterwards General, Gwyn. - -But although up to the present I have not obtained even as much evidence -as would be termed a clue by the sanguine officers of Scotland Yard, as -to the origin of the sobriquet, I am not without hope that some day one -of my sympathetic correspondents will be able to clear up the matter for -me. I am strengthened in this hope by the fact that among those who were -kind enough to write to me, was a lady who can claim relationship -to Mary Horneck, and who did not hesitate to send to me a bundle of -letters, written in the early part of the century by the "Jessamy -Bride" herself, with permission to copy and print any portion of the -correspondence that I might consider of interest. Of this privilege I -gladly avail myself, feeling sure that the interest which undoubtedly -attaches to many portions of the letters will exculpate me for the -intrusion of a personal note into these papers. - -The grandfather of my correspondent (Mrs. Cor-ballis, of Ratrath, co. -Meath, Ireland) was first cousin to the Hornecks. He was the Rev. George -Mangles, chaplain to George III when Mrs. Gwyn (Mary Horneck) was Woman -of the Bedchamber to the Queen. As General Gwyn was Equerry to the King -it can easily be understood that the two families should be on terms of -the most intimate friendship. My correspondent mentions that her mother, -who only died thirteen years ago, was almost every year a visitor at the -house of Mrs. Gwyn, at Kew, and said that she retained her beauty up -to the very last. Confirmation of this statement is to be found in a -passage in the "Jerningham Letters." Lady Bedingfeld's Journal contains -the following entry opposite the date "September 19th, 1833": - -"When the Queen returned to the drawing-room we found several ladies -there. I observed a very old lady with striking remains of beauty, and -whose features seemed very familiar to me. I felt to know her features -by heart, and at last I heard her name, Mrs. Gwyn, the widow of a -General, and near ninety! I had never seen her before, but when I was a -girl my uncle the Poet, gave me a portrait of her, copied from Sir Jos. -Reynolds, small size in a Turkish costume and attitude. This picture is -still at Cossey, and of course must be very like her since it led me to -find her out." - -[Illustration: 0261] - -The picture referred to must certainly have been "very like" the -original, for it was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1772, sixty-one -years before. The engraving of it cannot but make one feel how exquisite -must have been the charm of Goldsmith's young friend, who survived him -by sixty-six years; for Mrs. Gywn did not die until 1840. - -Very pathetic indeed it is to look at the sweet girlish face, which -appears in this portrait and also in that of the two sisters done in -chalk by the same master-hand, and then to read some of the passages in -the letters in which the writer refers to her old age and feebleness. -Happily, with Lady Bedingfeld's diary before us, our imagination is not -largely drawn on for a picture of the "Jessamy Bride" broken down by age -and infirmity. The woman who can be easily recognised by a stranger -at seventy-nine by her likeness to a portrait painted at the age of -eighteen, would make Ninon de l'Enclos envious. - -The letters are written to Mrs. Mangles, the widow of the Chaplain -to George III, and the majority touch upon private matters with -sprightliness, and occasionally a delicate humour, such as Goldsmith -would certainly have appreciated. We seem to hear, while reading these -passages, faint echoes of the girlish laughter which must have rung -through that room in the inn at Calais, when Goldsmith paced up and -down in a mock fury because two officers passing the window looked more -eagerly at the girls than at him. - -It is obvious, however, that the Queen's Woman of the Bedchamber would -write occasionally to her friend on some topic of public interest; -consequently we find, in the course of the correspondence, many passages -which throw a flood of light upon the incidents of the day. In a letter -dated April 10th, 1818, - -Mrs. Gwyn describes with great sprightliness the wedding of the -Princess Elizabeth, the third daughter of George III, with Prince -Hesse-Hombourgh, which took place three days before: - -"I delayed to write till after the marriage to tell you about it, as -you seemed to wish it. We were all appointed at seven o'clock in -the evening, when I went as smart as I could make myself. I wore the -lavender sattin robe, the same you saw me wear at Court, as the shape -was the same, and it _saved buying_, trimmed with silver, a new white -sattin petticoat, with a white net and silver over it, no hoop, but a -Court head dress, and lappets down. The Company consisting of the great -officers of state, and ambassadors and their wives, and the different -households were the Company. - -"At 8 all were assembled when the Royal family in procession according -to their rank, went into the great drawing-room in the Queen's house. -The Duke of York led the Queen, the Prince Regent not being quite -recovered of his gout, and it is said the remembrance of his poor -daughter's marriage was too painful to him to undertake it. Before the -state canopy was set a fine communion table, red velvet and gold, all -the gold plate belonging to that service arranged behind it, and 3 -Bishops and other clergymen standing behind the table, it looked very -magnificent. Then came the _Hero_, the Prince Hesse Hombourgh, he went -up to the table and stood there, I believe 10 minutes alone, he looked -well a manly unembarassed figure, then walked in the Bride glittering -with silver and diamonds, and really looked very handsome, and her -behaviour and manner was as well as possible, grace and quiet, when she -knelt she wept, and then he approached nearer her in case her emotion -would require his care, which happily was not the case. The Duke of York -gave her away, and behaved very bad. The Prince Hombourgh thought when -he had said I will very loud and distinct, all was done, but the Arch -Bishop desired him to repeat after him, which he was therefore obliged -to do. He cannot speak English and made such works of it, it was then -the Duke of York laughed so, he was obliged to stuff his handkerchief -in his mouth to conceal it. He promised to love her. When all was over -he saluted his bride on each side the face, and then her hand, with a -good-natured frank manner, then led her to the Queen, whose hand only he -kissed, the rest of the Royal family he embraced after his own fashion, -and he led her off with a very good air, and did not seem to trouble his -head about his _English performance_." The Princess Elizabeth--the shy -young bride who was so overcome with emotion--had scarcely more than -passed her forty-ninth year when she was borne to the altar, and the -hero of the hour was, we learn from other sources than Mrs. Gwyn's -letters, most unheroically sick when driving away in a close carriage -with his bride. - -The Prince Regent's daughter, the Princess Charlotte, had died the -previous year, hence the marrying panic which seized all the other -members of the Royal Family, lest the dynasty should become extinct. It -is pleasing to reflect that such gloomy apprehensions have since been -amply averted. - -Regarding the death of the Princess Charlotte Mrs. Gwyn writes: - -"... While I was at Oatlands the Prince Leopold came to see the Duchess -and staid there 3 hours, no one but the Duchess saw him--she told me he -is more composed in his manners now when seen by people in general but -with her alone his grief seems the same and he is gratified by being -allowed to vent it to one who feels for him and knows how to soothe his -mind. I can not doubt the Princess's life and his child's were thrown -away, by mismanagement--she was so bled and starved she had no strength -left--her own fortitude and energy supported her till nature could no -more. I could tell you much on the subject but it would take up too much -in a letter and besides _it is over_. Dr. Crofts thought he was doing -for the best no doubt--It comes to what _I_ always say of them--they -can't do much and are very often wrong in their opinions as you can -vouch...." - -In another letter Mrs. Gywn's adopted daughter was her amanuensis. It -contains many paragraphs of interest, especially to present-day readers. -The girl writes: - -"Mamma was of course summoned to attend the Duke of Cambridge's Wedding, -but she was not in the room when the Ceremony was performed as before, -on account of the Queen having been ill. Mamma admires the Duchess of -Cambridge very much: though she is not exactly handsome, she is very -pleasing, and a pretty figure, but I understand she must have a new -stay maker to set her up etc. The Duke of Kent and his bride are now -expected. The Duke of Clarence it is expected will be married shortly -afterwards. We hear the Duchess of Kent is a little woman with a -handsome face, and the Duchess of Clarence uncommonly ugly. We went to -Windsor about a month ago to see Princess Sophia as the Queen was not -there, and Princess Sophia has a small party every night. We were there -three days, and Mamma went to the party every evening, and indeed it was -very very dull for her as they play one pool of Commerce, and then they -go to a game called Snip, Snap, Snorum, and which Mamma could not play -at well without a great deal of trouble to herself, therefore she was -obliged to look on for perhaps an hour and half which you may imagine -was terrible for her not hearing a word. I was much pleased in one -respect while I was there by seeing Dear Prince Leopold whom I had -never seen before, and who must be to every body an object of so much -interest. He looked to me the picture of grief and melancholy, but those -who have seen him repeatedly since his misfortune say he improves every -time they see him. Mrs. C.... went one day to see Claremont and was very -much pleased. All remains as Princess Charlotte left it, but nobody sees -her room in which she died but himself, even her combs and brushes are -untouched, and her hat and cloak are where she laid them the day before -she died. There are models of her hand and arm one in particular as it -is his hand clasped in hers. I suppose you have often heard she had a -very beautiful hand and arm, but I will not go on, on so melancholy a -subject; yet I am sure it must interest you." - -The Princess Sophia, who instituted the fascinating game referred to in -this letter, was, of course, the fifth daughter of George III. - -In another letter reference is made to a certain scandal, which Mrs. -Gwyn contradicts most vehemently. Even nowadays this particular bit of -gossip is remembered by some persons; but at the risk of depriving these -pages of the piquancy which attaches to a Court scandal, I will not -quote it, but conclude this Personal Note with what seems to me a most -pathetic account of the dying king: - -"We continue in a state of great anxiety about our dear King, whose -state is distressing. Certainly no hope of recovery, and the chances of -his continuance very doubtful. His death may be any day, any hour, or he -may continue some _little_ time longer, it depends on nature holding -out against sore disease, which afflicts him universally, and occasions -great suffering, this is heartbreaking to hear! and his patience and -courage and sweet and kind behaviour to all about him is most touching, -so affectionate to his friends and attendants, and thankful for their -attention and feeling for him. He will hold the hand of the Duchess of -Gloster or S. H. Halford for an hour at a time out of tenderness, till -excessive suffering ends it. He wishes to die in peace and charity with -all the world, and has reconciled himself to the Duke of Sussex. He -hopes his people have found him a merciful King. He says he never hurt -anyone, and that, he may truly say as his first wish to _all_ was good -and benevolent, and ever ready to forgive." - - - - -THE AMAZING ELOPEMENT - -ON a certain evening in March, 1772, the fashionable folk of Bath -were as earnestly on pleasure bent as they were wont to be at this -season--and every other. The Assembly Rooms were open, a performance was -going on at the theatre, the Cave of Harmony was as musical as Pyrrha's -Grotto, a high-class concert was taking place under the conductorship of -the well-known Mr. Linley, and the Countess of Huntingdon was holding a -prayer meeting. For people who took their diversions _ la carte_, there -was a varied and an abundant menu. Chairs containing precious structures -of feathers, lace, and jewels towering over long faces powdered and -patched and painted _ la mode_, were swinging along the streets in -every direction, some with a brace of gold-braided lackeys by each of -the windows, but others in charge only of the burly chairmen. - -Unobtrusive among the latter class of conveyance was one that a young -gentleman, a tall and handsome lad, called from its rank between -Pierrepont Street and the South Parade. He gave the bearers instructions -to hasten to the house of Mr. Linley in the Crescent, and to inquire if -Miss Linley were ready. - -If she were not, he told them that they were to wait for her and carry -out her directions. The fellows touched their hats and swung off with -their empty chair. - -The young man then went to a livery stable, and putting a few -confidential inquiries to the proprietor, received a few confidential -replies, accentuated by a wink or two, and a certain quick uplifting of -a knuckly forefinger that had an expression of secretiveness of its own. - -"Mum's the word, sir, and mum it shall be," whispered the man. "I stowed -away the trunk, leaving plenty of room for the genuine luggage--lady's -luggage, Mr. Sheridan. You know as well as I can tell you, sir, being -young but with as shrewd knowingness of affairs in general as might be -looked for in the son of Tom Sheridan, to say nought of a lady like your -mother, meaning to take no liberty in the world, Mr. Dick, as they call -you." - -"I'm obliged to you, Denham, and I'll not forget you when this little -affair is happily over. The turn by the 'Bear' on the London Road, we -agreed." - -"And there you'll find the chaise, sir, and as good a pair as ever left -my stable, and good luck to you, sir!" said the man. - -Young Mr. Sheridan then hastened to his father's house in King's Mead -Street, and was met by an anxious sister in the hall. - -"Good news, I hope, Dick?" she whispered. - -"I have been waiting for you all the evening. She has not changed her -mind, I hope." - -"She is as steadfast as I am," said he. "If I could not swear that she -would be steadfast, I would not undertake this business on her behalf. -When I think of our father----" - -"Don't think of him except as applauding your action," said the girl. -"Surely every one with the least spark of generosity will applaud your -action, Dick." - -"I wouldn't like to say so much," said Dick, shaking his head. "Mathews -has his friends. No man could know so much about whist as he does -without having many friends, even though he be a contemptible scoundrel -when he is not employed over a rubber." - -"Who will dare to take the part of Mr. Mathews against you, Dick?" cried -his sister, looking at him proudly as the parlour candles shone upon -him. "I would that I could go with you as far as London, dear, but that -would be impossible." - -"Quite impossible; and where would be the merit in the end?" said Dick, -pacing the room as he believed a man of adventure and enterprise would -in the circumstances. "You may trust to me to place her in safety -without the help of any one." - -"I know it, Dick, I know it, dear, and I am proud of you," said she, -putting her arms about his neck and kissing him. "And look you here, -Dick," she added, in a more practical tone. "Look you here--I find that -I can spare another five pounds out of the last bill that came from -Ireland. We shall live modestly in this house until you return to us." - -He took the coins which she offered to him wrapped up in a twist of -newspaper; but he showed some hesitation--she had to go through a form -of forcing it upon him. - -"I hope to bring it back to you unbroken," he murmured; "but in affairs -of this sort it is safest to have a pound or two over, rather than -under, what is barely needful. That is why I take your coins,--a loan--a -sacred loan. Good-bye, I returned only to say good-bye to you, my -dearest sister." - -"I knew your good heart, Dick, that was why I was waiting for you. -Good-bye, Dick, and God bless you." - -He was putting on his cloak in the hall. He saw that the pistols were -in its pockets, and then he suffered his sister to give him another kiss -before he passed into the dark street. - -He felt for his pistols, and with a hand on each he felt that he was -indeed fairly launched upon a great adventure. - -He made his way to the London road, and all the time he was wondering if -the girl would really come to him in the Sedan chair which he had sent -for her. To be sure she had promised to come upon this evening, but he -knew enough of the great affairs of this world to be well aware of the -fact that the sincerest promise of a maid may be rendered worthless -by the merest freak of Fate. Therefore, he knew that he did well to -be doubtful respecting the realisation of her promise. She was the -beautiful Miss Linley--every one in Bath knew her, and this being so, -was it not likely that some one--some prying person--some impudent -fellow like that Mathews who had been making love to her, although -he had a wife of his own in Wales--might catch a glimpse of her face -through the glass of the chair when passing a lamp or a link, and be -sufficiently curious to follow her chair to see whither she was going? - -That was a likely enough thing to happen, and if it did happen and the -alarm of his flight with her were given, what chance would he have of -carrying out his purpose? Why, the chaise would be followed, and even if -it was not overtaken before London was reached, the resting-place of the -fugitives would certainly be discovered in London, and they should be -ignominiously brought back to Bath. Yes, unless Mathews were the -pursuer, in which case---- - -Mr. Richard Brinsley Sheridan grasped more firmly the butt of the pistol -in the right-hand pocket of his cloak. He felt at that moment that -should Mathews overtake them, the going back to Bath would be on the -part only of Mathews. - -But how would it be if Mr. Linley had become apprised of his daughter's -intention to fly from Bath? He knew very well that Mr. Linley had -the best of reasons for objecting to his daughter's leaving Bath. Mr. -Linley's income was increased by several hundred pounds by reason of the -payments made to him on account of his daughter's singing in public, -and he was--very properly, considering his large family--fond of money. -Before he had to provide for his family, he took good care that his -family--his eldest daughter particularly--helped to provide for him. - -Doubtless these eventualities were suggested to him--for young Mr. -Sheridan was not without imagination--while on his way through the dark -outskirts of the beautiful city to the London Road. The Bear Inn was -just beyond the last of the houses. It stood at the junction of the -London Road and a narrower one leading past a couple of farms. It was -here that he had given instructions for the chaise to wait for him, and -here he meant to wait for the young lady who had promised to accompany -him to London--and further. - -He found the chaise without trouble. It was under the trees not more -than a hundred yards down the lane, but the chair, with Miss Linley, -had not yet arrived, so he returned to the road and began to retrace his -steps, hoping to meet it, yet with some doubts in his mind. Of course, -he was impatient. Young gentlemen under twenty-one are usually impatient -when awaiting the arrival of the ladies who have promised to run away -with them. He was not, however, kept in suspense for an unconscionably -long time. He met the chair which he was expecting just when he had -reached the last of the lamps of Bath, and out of it stepped the muffled -form of Miss Linley. The chairmen were paid with a lavish hand, and Dick -Sheridan and Betsy Linley walked on to the chaise without exchanging any -but a friendly greeting--there was nothing lover-like in their meeting -or their greeting. The elopement was not that of a young woman with her -lover; it was, we are assured, that of a young woman anxious to escape -from the intolerable position of being the most popular person in the -most fashionable city in England, to the peaceful retreat of a convent; -and the young man who was to take charge of her was one whom she had -chosen for her guardian, not for her lover. Dick Sheridan seems to have -been the only young man in Bath who had never made love to Elizabeth -Linley. His elder brother, Charles by name, had discharged this duty on -behalf of the Sheridan family, and he was now trying to live down his -disappointment at being refused, at a farmhouse a mile or two away. The -burden was greater than he could bear when surrounded by his sisters in -their father's house in King's Mead Street. - -[Illustration: 0277] - -Elizabeth Linley was certainly the most popular young woman in Bath; she -certainly was the most beautiful. The greatest painters of her day made -masterpieces of her portrait, and for once, posterity acknowledges that -the fame of her beauty was well founded. So spiritual a face as hers is -to be seen in no eighteenth-century picture except that of Miss Linley; -one has need to go back to the early Italian painters to find such -spirituality in a human face, and then one finds it combined with -absolute inanity, and the face is called Divine. Reynolds painted her as -Saint Cecilia drawing down angels, and blessedly unconscious of her own -powers, thinking only of raising herself among angels on the wings -of song. His genius was never better employed and surely never more -apparent than in the achievement of this picture. Gainsborough painted -her by the side of her younger brother, and one feels that if Reynolds -painted a saint, Gainsborough painted a girl. It was Bishop O'Beirne, -an old friend of her family and acquainted with her since her childhood, -who said: "She is a link between an angel and a woman." - -And this exquisite creature had a voice of so sympathetic a quality that -no one could hear it unmoved. Her father had made her technique perfect. -He was a musician who was something more than painstaking. He had taste -of the highest order, and it is possible to believe that in the training -of his eldest daughter he was wise enough to limit his instruction to -the technicalities of his art, leaving her to the inspiration of her own -genius in regard to the treatment of any theme which he brought before -her. - -At any rate her success in the sublimest of all oratorios was far beyond -anything that could be achieved by an exhibition of the finest technical -qualities; and Mr. Linley soon became aware of the fact that he was the -father of the most beautiful and the most highly gifted creature that -ever made a father miserable. - -Incidentally she made a great many other men miserable, but that was -only because each of them wanted her to make him happy at the expense -of the others, and this she was too kind-hearted to do. But the cause of -her father's grief was something different. It was due to the fact -that the girl was so sensitive that she shrank from every exhibition of -herself and her ability on a public platform. It was an agony to her to -hear the tumultuous applause that greeted her singing at a concert or in -an oratorio. She seemed to feel--let any one look at the face which -is to be seen in her portrait, and one will understand how this could -be--that music was something too spiritual to be made the medium only -for the entertainment of the multitude. Taking the highest imaginable -view of the scope and value and meaning of music, it can be understood -that this girl should shrink from such an ordeal as the concert platform -offered to her every time she was announced to sing. No more frivolous -and fashionable a population than that of Bath in the second half of -the eighteenth century was to be found in any city in the world; and -Elizabeth Linley felt that she was regarded by the concert-goers as no -more than one of the numerous agents they employed to lessen the ennui -of an empty day. The music which she worshipped--the spirit with which -her soul communed in secret--was, she felt, degraded by being sold to -the crowd and subjected to the patronage of their applause. - -Of course when she spoke to her father in this strain he sympathised -with her, and bemoaned the fate that made it necessary for him to -have her assistance to save her mother and brothers and sisters from -starvation. And so for several years she was an obedient child, but -very weary of the rle. She sang and enchanted thousands. She did not, -however, think of them; her mind dwelt daily upon the tens of thousands -who regarded her (she thought) as fulfilling no nobler purpose than to -divert them for half an hour between taking the waters and sitting down -to faro or quadrille. - -But it was not alone her distaste for the publicity of the platform that -made her miserable. The fact was that she was distracted by suitors. She -had, it was said, accepted the offer of an elderly gentleman named Long, -the wealthy head of a county family in the neighbourhood; and Foote, -with his usual vulgarity, which took the form of personality, wrote -a play--a wretched thing even for Foote--in which he dealt with an -imaginarily comic and a certainly sordid situation, with Miss Linley -on the one side and Mr. Long on the other. Serious biographers have not -hesitated to accept this situation invented by the notorious _farceur_, -who was no greater a respecter of persons than he was of truth, as a -valuable contribution to the history of the Linley family, especially -in regard to the love affair of the lovely girl by whose help they were -made famous. They have never thought of the possibility of her having -accepted Mr. Long in order to escape from her horror of the concert -platform. They have never suggested the possibility of Mr. Long's -settling a sum of money on her out of his generosity when he found out -that Miss Linley did not love him. - -It was not Mr. Long, however, but a man named Mathews--sometimes -referred to as Captain, occasionally as Major--who was the immediate -cause of her running away with young Sheridan. This man Mathews was -known to be married, and to be in love with Elizabeth Linley, and yet -he was allowed to be constantly in her company, pestering her with his -attentions, and there was no one handy to horsewhip him. Sheridan's -sister, who afterwards married Mr. Lefanu, wrote an account of this -curious matter for the guidance of Thomas Moore, who was preparing his -biography of her brother. She stated that Miss Linley was afraid to tell -her father of Major Mathews and his impossible suit, and so she was "at -length induced to consult Richard Sheridan, whose intimacy with Major -Mathews, at the time, she thought might warrant his interference." And -then we are told that "R. B. Sheridan sounded Mathews on the subject and -at length prevailed on him to give up the pursuit." - -That is how the adoring sister of "R. B. Sheridan," who had been talking -to Elizabeth Linley of him as of a knight-errant, eager to redress the -wrongs of maidens in distress, wrote of her brother! He "sounded Mathews -on the subject." On what subject? The subject was the pursuit of an -innocent girl by a contemptible scoundrel. How does the knight-errant -"sound" such a person when he sets out to redress the maiden's -ill-treatment? One R. B. Sheridan, a dramatist, gives us a suggestion as -to what were his ideas on this point: "Do you think that Achilles or my -little Alexander the Great ever enquired where the right lay? No, sir, -they drew their broadswords and left the lazy sons of peace to settle -the rights of the matter." Now young Sheridan, who is reported by his -sister as "sounding" Mathews, was no coward. He proved himself to be -anything but afraid of Mathews, so that one must, out of justice to him, -assume that the only attempt he would have made to "sound" the scoundrel -at this time would be through the medium of a sound hiding. - -It is at such a point as this in the biography of an interesting man -that one blesses the memory--and the notebook--of the faithful Boswell. -Thomas Moore was quite intimate with Richard Brinsley Sheridan, but -he never thought of asking him for some information on this particular -incident in his life, the fact being that he had no definite intention -of becoming his biographer. We know perfectly well how Boswell would -have plied Johnson with questions on the subject, had it ever come -to his ears that Johnson had undertaken to play the rle of a -knight-errant. - -"Pray, sir, what did you say to Mathews when you sounded him?" - -"Do you think, sir, that in any circumstances a married gentleman who is -showing marked attentions to a virtuous young lady should be sounded by -a young gentleman who has been entrusted with the duty of protecting the -lady?" - -Alas! instead of the unblushing indelicacy of Boswell, who hunted for -trifles as a pig hunts for truffles, we are obliged to be content with -the vagueness of a sister, whose memory, we have an uneasy feeling, was -not quite so good as she thought it was. - -And from the memory of this sister we have an account of the amazing -elopement of Richard Sheridan with Elizabeth Linley. - -When the young gentleman put her into the chaise that was waiting for -them on the London road, Miss Linley had never thought of him except as -a kind friend. She had accepted his services upon this occasion as she -would those of a courier to conduct her to London, and thence to France, -where she intended to enter a convent. The Miss Sheridans had lived in -France, and had some friends at St. - -Quentin, who knew of a very nice clean convent--an establishment which -they could strongly recommend, and where she could find that complete -seclusion which Miss Linley longed for, and their brother Dick was -thought to be a very suitable companion for her on her way thither. Mrs. -Lefanu (_ne_ Sheridan), who wrote out the whole story in after years, -mentioned that her chivalrous brother was to provide a woman to act as -her maid in the chaise; but as not the least reference to this chaperon -is to be found in the rest of the story, we fear that it must be assumed -either that her brother forgot this unimportant detail, or that the -detail was unavoidably detained in Bath. What is most likely of all is -that the solitary reference to this mysterious female was dovetailed, -somewhat clumsily, into the narrative, at the suggestion of some -Mrs. Grundy, who shook her head at the narrative of so much chivalry -unsupported by a responsible chaperon. However this may be, the shadowy -chaperon is never alluded to again; she may have faded away into the -mists of morning and London, or she may have vanished at the first -turnpike. Nothing was seen or heard of her subsequently. - -The boy and the girl reached London in safety, and drove to the house -of a Mr. Ewart, a relation of the Sheridans, to whom Dick offered the -explanation of his unconventional visit on the very plausible grounds -of his being engaged to the young lady, a great heiress, whom he was -hastening to France to marry. Of course the Ewart family were -perfectly satisfied with this explanation; and another friend, who had -indisputable claims to consideration, being, we are told, "the son of -a respectable brandy merchant in the City," suggested that they should -sail from London to Dunkirk, "in order to make pursuit more difficult." -How such an end could be compassed by such means is left to the -imagination of a reader. The young pair, however, jumped at the -suggestion, and reached Dunkirk after an uneventful crossing. - -It is at this point in the sister's account of the itinerary of this -interesting enterprise that she mentions that Richard suddenly threw -away the disguise of the chivalrous and disinterested protector of the -young lady, and declared that he would not consent to conduct her to the -convent unless she agreed to marry him immediately. Mrs. Lefanu's exact -words are as follows: "After quitting Dunkirk Mr. Sheridan was more -explicit with Miss Linley as to his views on accompanying her to -France." - -This is certainly a very lawyer-like way of condoning the conduct of -a mean scoundrel; but, happily for the credit of Richard Brinsley -Sheridan, it is the easiest thing in the world to discredit his sister's -narrative, although she adds that he urged on the girl what would seem -to a casual observer of society in general to be perfectly true--"she -must be aware that after the step she had taken, she could not appear -in England but as his wife." As the sequel proved this alleged statement -was quite untrue! She did appear in England, and not as his wife, and -no one seemed to think anything the worse of her on account of her -escapade. But to suggest that Sheridan took advantage of the trust -which the innocent girl had reposed in him to compel her to marry him, -a penniless minor with no profession and very little education, is -scarcely consistent with an account of his high-mindedness and his sense -of what was chivalrous. - -And then the sister pleasantly remarks that "Miss Linley, who really -preferred him greatly to any person, was not difficult to persuade, and -at a village not far from Calais the marriage ceremony was performed -by a priest who was known to be often employed upon such occasions." -Whoever this clergyman may have been, it is impossible for any one to -believe that in the discharge of his office he was kept in constant -employment; for "such occasions" as answered to the account given by -the Sheridan sister of the nuptials of the young couple, must have been -extremely rare. - -And yet Moore, on whom the responsibilities of a biographer rested very -lightly, was quite content to accept as strictly accurate the narrative -of Mrs. Lefanu, contradicted though it was by subsequent events in which -both her brother and Miss Linley were concerned. Moore does not seem to -have troubled himself over any attempt to obtain confirmation of one -of the most important incidents in the life of the man of whom he was -writing. - -He made no attempt to discover if the accommodating priest at the -village near Calais was still alive when he was compiling his biography -of Sheridan, and it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that he was -still alive; nor did this easy-going Irish master of melodies consider -that it devolved on him to try to find some record of the marriage in -question. - -Now what happened after this remarkable union? The narrative of the -sister is quite as circumstantial as one could wish it to be, and even -more imaginative. But whatever qualities of excellence it possesses, -it certainly does not carry to a reader any conviction of accuracy. -It states that the interesting young couple went to Lille instead of -carrying out their original intention of going to St. Quentin, and -that Miss Linley--now Mrs. Sheridan, of course--"immediately secured an -apartment in a convent, where it was settled she was to remain either -till Sheridan came of age or till he was in a situation to support -a wife. He remained a few days at Lille to be satisfied that she was -settled to her satisfaction; but, whether from agitation of mind or -fatigue, she was taken ill, and an English physician, Dr. Dolman, of -York, was called in to attend her. From what he perceived of her case he -wished to have her more immediately under his care than he could in the -convent, and he and Mrs. Dolman most kindly invited her to their house." - -This would seem to have been very kind indeed on the part of the doctor -and his wife, but it so happened that a letter turned up some years ago -which the late Mr. Fraser Rae was able to print in the first volume of -his admirable _Life of Sheridan_, and this letter makes it plain -that wherever Mrs. Sheridan (_ne_ Linley) may have been, she was not -sojourning with the Dolmans. It is from Dr. Dolman himself, and it was -addressed to "Monsieur Sherridan, Gentilhomme Anglois, l'Htel de -Bourbon, Sur la Grande Place." It recommends the administering of -certain powders in a glass of white wine twice daily, and sends -"compliments and wishes of health to your lady." - -The question then remains: Was the lady at this time an inmate of the -convent, and did the doctor expect "Monsieur Sherridan" to go to this -institution twice a day in order to administer the powders to his lady? -Would not the doctor think it somewhat peculiar that the husband should -be at the Htel de Bourbon and his lady an inmate of the convent? - -These questions must be left to be answered according to the experience -of life of any one interested in the matter. But it is worth noticing -that, on the very day that he received the missive from Dr. Dolman, -Sheridan wrote to his brother at Bath and mentioned that Miss Linley--he -continued to call her Miss Linley--was now "fixing in a convent, where -she has been entered some time." Does the first phrase mean that she was -already in the convent, or only about to take up her residence there? -However this question may be answered, it is clear that Sheridan -expected to leave her behind him at Lille, for he adds, "Everything -is now so happily settled here I will delay no longer giving you that -information, though probably I shall set out for England without knowing -a syllable of what has happened with you." - -So far, then, as his emprise in regard to the lady was concerned, he -considered the incident to be closed. "Though you may have been ignorant -for some time of our proceedings, you could never have been uneasy," he -continues hopefully, "lest anything should tempt me to depart, even in a -thought, from the honour and consistency which engaged me at first." - -Some people have suggested that Sheridan, when he drew the character -of Charles Surface, meant it to be something of an excuse for his own -casual way of life. But it must strike a good many persons who believe -that he induced the innocent girl, whom he set forth to protect on her -way to a refuge from the infamous designs of Mathews, to marry him, that -Sheridan approached much more closely to the character of Joseph in this -correspondence with his brother. A more hypocritical passage than that -just quoted could hardly have been uttered by Joseph Surface. As a -matter of fact, one of Joseph's sentiments is only a paraphrase of this -unctuous assumption of honour and consistency. - -But this criticism is only true if one can believe his sister's story of -the marriage. If it is true that Sheridan set out from England with -Miss Linley with the intention of so compromising her that she should -be compelled to marry him, at the same time pretending to her and to his -brother to be actuated by the highest motives in respect of the ill-used -girl, it is impossible to think of him except with contempt. - -Happily the weight of evidence is overpoweringly in Sheridan's favour. -We may think of him as a rash, an inconsiderate, and a culpably careless -boy to take it upon him to be the girl's companion to the French -convent, but we refuse to believe that he was ever capable of acting the -grossly disingenuous part attributed to him by his sister, and accepted -without question by his melodious biographer. There are many people, -however, who believe that when a man marries a woman, no matter in what -circumstances, he has "acted the part of a gentleman" in regard to her, -and must be held to be beyond reproach on any account whatsoever so far -as the woman is concerned. In the eyes of such censors of morality, as -in the eyes of the law, the act of marriage renders null and void all -ante-nuptial deeds; and it was probably some impression of this type -which was acquired by Sheridan's sister, inducing her to feel sure -(after a time) that her brother's memory would suffer if his biographer -were to tell the story of his inconsiderate conduct in running away with -Elizabeth Linley, unless it was made clear that he married her the first -moment he had to spare. She tried to save her brother's memory by -persuading her own to accommodate itself to what she believed to be her -brother's emergency. She was a good sister, and she kept her memory well -under control. - -But what did the father of the young lady think of the matter? What did -the people of Bath, who were well acquainted with all the actors engaged -in this little comedy, think of the matter? Happily these questions can -be answered by appealing to facts rather than to the well-considered -recollections of a discreet lady. - -We know for certain that Mr. Linley, who was, as one might suppose, -fully equipped to play the part of the enraged father of the runaway -girl, turned up at the place of her retreat--he had no trouble in -learning in what direction to look for her--and having found her and the -young gentleman who had run away with her, did he, under the impulse -of his anger, fanned by his worldly knowledge, insist with an uplifted -horsewhip upon his marrying her without a moment's delay? Mr. Linley -knew Bath, and to know Bath was to know the world. Was he, then, of the -same opinion as that expressed (according to his sister's narrative) by -young Sheridan to persuade Miss Linley to be his bride--namely, that it -would be impossible for her to show her face in Bath unless as the wife -of Richard Brinsley Sheridan? - -Nothing of the sort. Whatever reproaches he may have flung at his -daughter, however strong may have been his denunciation of the conduct -of the man who had run away with her, they had not the effect either of -inducing his daughter or her companion to reveal to him the fact that -they had been married for several days, or of interrupting the friendly -relations that had existed for nearly two years between himself and -young Sheridan. The dutiful memory of Miss Sheridan records that Mr. -Linley, "after some private conversation with Mr. Sheridan, appeared -quite reconciled to his daughter, but insisted on her returning to -England with him (Mr. Linley) to fulfil several engagements he had -entered into on her account. The whole party set out together the next -day, Mr. Linley having previously promised to allow his daughter to -return to Lille when her engagements were over." - -The comedy of the elopement had become a farce of the "whimsical" type. -Nothing more amusing or amazing has ever been seen on the vaudeville -stage. The boy and the girl run off together and get married. The -infuriated father follows them, ruthlessly invades their place of -refuge, and then, "after some private conversation" with his daughter's -husband, who does not tell him that he is her husband, says to the young -woman, "My dear, you must come home with me to sing at a concert." - -"Certainly, papa," replies the girl. "Wait a minute, and I'll go too," -cries the unconfused husband of the daughter. "All right, come along," -says the father, and they all take hands and sing the ridiculous trio -which winds up the vaudeville after it has run on inconsequentially for -a merry forty minutes--there is a _pas de trois_, and the curtain falls! - -Alas, for the difference between Boswell the bald and Moore the -melodious! The bald prose of Boswell's diaries may have made many of -the personages with whom he dealt seem silly, but that was because -he himself was silly, and, being aware of this fact, the more -discriminating of his readers have no great difficulty in arriving -at the truth of any matter with which he deals. He would never have -accepted unreservedly such a narrative as that which Moore received -from Mrs. Lefanu (_ne_ Sheridan), and put into his own language, or as -nearly into his own language as he could. But Moore found it "so hard to -narrate familiar events eloquently," he complained. He actually thought -that Mrs. Lefanu's narrative erred on the side of plausibility! The -mysterious elopement, the still more mysterious marriage, and the -superlatively mysterious return of the fugitives and the irate father -hand-in-hand, he regarded as events so commonplace as not to be -susceptible of lyrical treatment. But the most farcical of the doings -of his own _Fudge Family_ were rational in comparison with the familiar -events associated with the flight to France of his hero and heroine. The -_Trip to Scarborough_ of Sheridan the farce-writer was founded on -much more "familiar events" than this extraordinary trip to Lille, as -narrated for the benefit of the biographer by Mrs. Lefanu. - -What seems to be the truth of the whole matter is simply that Sheridan -undertook to be a brother to Elizabeth Linley, and carried out his -compact faithfully, without allowing anything to tempt him to depart, -as he wrote to Charles, "even in thought from the honour and consistency -which engaged [him] at first." It must be remembered that he was a -romantic boy of twenty, and this is just the age at which nearly every -boy--especially a boy in love--is a Sir Galahad. As for Miss Linley, -one has only to look at her portrait to know what she was. She was not -merely innocent, she was innocence itself. - -When Mr. Linley appeared at Lille he accepted without reserve the -explanation offered to him by his daughter and by Sheridan; and, -moreover, he knew that although there was a school for scandal located -at Bath, yet so highly was his daughter thought of in all circles, and -so greatly was young Sheridan liked, that no voice of calumny would be -raised against either of them when they returned with him. And even if -it were possible that some whisper, with its illuminating smile above -the arch of a painted fan, might be heard in the Assembly Rooms when -some one mentioned the name of Miss Linley in connection with that of -young Sheridan and with the trip to Lille, he felt convinced that such -a whisper would be robbed of its sting when every one knew that the girl -and the boy and the father all returned together and on the best terms -to Bath. - -As the events proved, he had every right to take even so sanguine a view -of the limitations of the range of the Pump Room gossips. On the return -of the three from Lille no one suggested that Sheridan and Miss Linley -should get married. No one except the scoundrel Mathews suggested that -Sheridan had acted badly or even unwisely, though undoubtedly he had -given grounds for such implications. The little party returned to Bath, -and Miss Linley fulfilled her concert and oratorio engagements, went -into society as before, and had at her feet more eligible suitors than -had ever knelt there. We have it on the authority of Charles Sheridan, -the elder brother, that in Bath the feeling was that Richard had acted -as a man of honour in taking the girl to the convent at Lille. Writing -to their uncle, Mr. Chamberlaine, he expressed surprise that "in -this age when the world does not abound in Josephs, most people are -(notwithstanding the general tendency of mankind to judge unfavourably) -inclined to think that he (Richard) acted with the strictest honour in -his late expedition with Miss L., when the circumstances might allow of -their being very dubious on this head without incurring the imputation -of being censorious." - -This testimony as to what was the opinion in Bath regarding the -expedition is extremely valuable, coming as it does from one who was -never greatly disposed to take a brotherly or even a friendly view of -Richard's conduct at any time--coming as it does also from a man who had -been in love with Miss Linley. - -At any rate this escapade of young Mr. Sheridan was the most fortunate -for him of any in which he ever engaged, and he was a man of many -escapades, for it caused Elizabeth Linley to fall in love with him, and -never was a man beloved by a sweeter or more faithful woman. To know how -beautiful was her nature one has only to look at her face in either of -the great portraits of her which are before us to-day. No characteristic -of all that is held to be good and gracious and sympathetic--in one -word, that is held to be womanly, is absent from her face. No man that -ever lived was worthy of such a woman; but if only men who are worthy of -such women were beloved by them, mankind would be the losers. She loved -Sheridan with the truest devotion--such devotion as might be expected -from such a nature as hers--and she died in the act of writing to him -the love-letter of a wife to her dearly loved husband. - -They did not get married until a year after the date of their flight to -the Continent, and then they were described as bachelor and spinster. -Neither of them ever gave a hint, even in any of the numerous letters -which they exchanged during this period, that they had gone through -the ceremony of marriage at that village near Calais. More than once a -strained situation would have been relieved had it been possible to make -such a suggestion, for now and again each of the lovers grew jealous of -the other for a day or two. But neither said, "Pray remember that you -are not free to think of marrying any one. We are husband and wife, -although we were married in secret." Neither of them could make such an -assertion. It would not have been true. What seems to us to be the truth -is that it was Sir Galahad who acted as protector to his sister when -Richard Brinsley Sheridan went with Elizabeth Linley to France. - - - - -THE AMAZING DUELS - -WHEN young Mr. Sheridan returned to Bath after his happy little -journey to France with Miss Linley and back with Mr. Linley, he may have -believed that the incident was closed. He had done all that--and perhaps -a little more than--the most chivalrous man of experience and means -could be expected to do for the young woman toward whom he had stood -in the position of a protecting brother. He had conducted her to the -convent at Lille, on which she had set her heart, and he had been able -to explain satisfactorily to her father on his arrival at the hotel -where he and Miss Linley were sojourning in the meantime, what his -intentions had been when he had eloped with her from Bath. No doubt he -had also acted as Miss Linley's adviser in respect of those negotiations -with her father which resulted in the happy return of the whole family -party to London. - -In London he heard that Mathews, the scoundrel who had been pursuing -Miss Linley in the most disreputable fashion, was in town also, and -that, previous to leaving Bath, he had inserted in the Chronicle -a defamatory advertisement regarding him (Sheridan); and on this -information coming to his ears he put his pistols into his pocket and -went in search of Mathews at the lodgings of the latter. - -Miss Sheridan tells us about the pistols in the course of her lucid -narrative, and states on her own responsibility that when he came upon -Mathews the latter was dreadfully frightened at the sight of one of the -pistols protruding from Sheridan's pocket. Mr. Fraser Rae, the competent -biographer of Sheridan, smiles at the lady's statement. "The sight of -the pistols would have alarmed Sheridan's sisters," he says, "but it -is in accordance with probability that he (Mathews) expected a hostile -meeting to follow as a matter of course. He must have been prepared for -it, and he would have been strangely ignorant of the world in which he -lived if he had deemed it unusual." - -[Illustration: 0301] - -But Mr. Fraser Rae was not so strangely ignorant of the world in which -Sheridan and Mathews lived as to fancy that there was nothing unusual -in a gentleman's going to ask another gentleman whom he believed to have -affronted him, for an explanation, with a pair of pistols in his pocket. -In the circumstances a duel would have been nothing unusual; but surely -Mr. Fraser Rae could not have fancied that Sheridan set out with the -pistols in his pocket in order to fight a duel with Mathews in the man's -lodgings, without preliminaries and without seconds. If Mathews caught -sight of the butt of a pistol sticking out of Sheridan's pocket he had -every reason to be as frightened as Miss Sheridan declared he was, for -he must have believed that his visitor had come to murder him. - -At any rate, frightened or not frightened, pistols or no pistols, -Mathews, on being interrogated by Sheridan as to the advertisement in -the _Bath Chronicle_, assured him that he had been grossly misinformed -as to the character of the advertisement. It was, he affirmed, nothing -more than an inquiry after Sheridan, which the family of the latter had -sanctioned. He then, according to Miss Sheridan, expressed the greatest -friendship for his visitor, and said that he would be made extremely -unhappy if any difference should arise between them. - -So young Mr. Sheridan, balked of his murderous intentions, returned with -unsullied pistols to his hotel, and set out for Bath with Miss Linley -and her father. - -But if he fancied that Mathews had passed out of his life he was quickly -undeceived. Before he had time to take his seat at the family table he -had got a copy of the newspaper containing the advertisement, of the -tenor of which Mathews had told him in London he had been misinformed; -and now his sisters made him fully aware of the action taken by the -same man on learning of the flight of Sheridan and Elizabeth Linley. The -result was that he now perceived what every one should have known long -before--namely, that Mathews was a scoundrel, who should never have -been allowed to obtain the footing to which he had been admitted in the -Sheridan and Linley families. - -It appears that the moment Mathews heard that Miss Linley had been -carried beyond his reach, he rushed to the Sheridans' house, and -there found the girls and their elder brother, who had been wisely -communicated with by the landlord, and had left his retirement in the -farmhouse in the country to take charge of the sisters in the absence of -their brother Richard. Mathews behaved like a madman--no unusual _rle_ -for him--heaping reproaches upon the absent member of the family, -and demanding to be told of his whereabouts. He seems to have been -encouraged by Charles Sheridan, who had unwisely said something in -disparagement of his brother. Mathews had the effrontery to avow his -passion for Elizabeth Linley, and in the bitterest terms to accuse -Richard Sheridan of having acted basely in taking her beyond his reach. - -Then he hastened to Richard Sheridan's friend and confidant, a young man -named Brereton, and to him he sent messages of friendship and, possibly, -condolence to Mr. Linley, though his object in paying this visit was -undoubtedly not to endeavour to exculpate himself as regards Mr. Linley, -but to find out where the fugitives were to be found. He may have had -visions of pursuing them, of fighting a duel with Richard Sheridan, and -if he succeeded in killing him, of getting the girl at last into his -power. - -But Mr. Brereton not only did not reveal the whereabouts of his -friend--he knew that Sheridan meant to go to Lille, for he wrote to him -there--but he also refused to give his interrogator any sympathy for -having failed to accomplish the destruction of the girl. Brereton, -indeed, seems to have convinced him that the best thing he could do was -to leave Bath as quickly as possible. Mathews had probably by this time -discovered, as Brereton certainly had, that the feeling against him in -Bath was profound. There can be little doubt that in the course of the -day Charles Sheridan became aware of this fact also; he had only a few -months before confessed himself to be deeply in love with Elizabeth -Linley, and when he heard that his brother had run away with her he -could not but have been somewhat incensed against him, for Richard had -not taken him into his confidence. By the time his brother returned, -however, any ill-feeling that Charles may have felt had disappeared, -and as Charles always showed himself to be a cool and calculating -gentleman--one who always kept an eye on the jumping cat--it is not -going too far to assume that his change of tone in respect of his rather -impetuous brother was due to his perception of the trend of public -opinion on the subject of the elopement. - -Brereton had persuaded Mathews that there was nothing left for him but -to quit Bath; but before taking this step the latter had inserted in the -_Bath Chronicle_ the advertisement of which Richard had heard, but which -he had not read when in London, thus leaving himself in no position to -contradict Mathews' assertion as to its amicable wording. - -But now the newspaper was put into his hands by Charles, and he had -an opportunity of pronouncing an opinion on this point. It was dated -Wednesday, April the 8th, 1772, and it ran as follows: - -"Mr. Richard S-------- having attempted in a letter left behind him for -that purpose, to account for his scandalous method of running away from -this place by insinuations derogating from my character and that of a -young lady, innocent as far as relates to me, or my knowledge, since -which he has neither taken any notice of letters or even informed his -own family of the place where he has hid himself; I cannot longer think -he deserves the treatment of a gentleman, and in this public method, to -post him as a L------, and a treacherous S--------. - -"And as I am convinced there have been many malevolent incendiaries -concerned in the propagation of this infamous lie, if any of them, -unprotected by age, _infirmities_, or profession, they are to -acknowledge the part they have acted, and affirm _to_ what they have -said _of_ me, they may depend on receiving the proper reward of their -villainy, in the most public manner. The world will be candid enough to -judge properly (I make no doubt) of any private abuse on this subject -for the future, as nobody can defend himself from an accusation he is -ignorant of Thomas Mathews." Such a piece of maundering imbecility as -this had probably never before appeared in a newspaper. It must have -been read in Bath with roars of laughter. But we do not hear that any of -the ready writers of the time and the town yielded to the temptation of -commenting upon the "malevolent incendiarism" of the composition. A man -of the world, had it been written about himself, would possibly -have thought that its illiteracy spoke for itself, and so would have -refrained from making any move in regard to it or its author. But one -can imagine what effect reading it would have upon a boy of Sheridan's -spirit. For a youth of twenty to find himself posted as a Liar and -a Scoundrel, to say nothing of a "malevolent incendiary," and remain -indifferent would be impossible. Sheridan did not take long to make up -his mind what he should do in the circumstances. - -The dramatic touch which his sister introduces in writing of Richard's -perusal of the paragraph is intensely true to nature. He simply put a -word or two to Charles relative to what Mathews had told him in -London about his, Sheridan's, family sanctioning the insertion of the -advertisement. Charles had no difficulty in vindicating his integrity on -this point. Richard knew perfectly well that it is one thing to say that -a man has acted too hastily, but quite another to suggest that that man -is "a L------ and a S--------." - -So apparently the matter ended, and Richard continued chatting with his -sisters, giving no sign of what was in his mind. The girls went to -their beds, suspecting nothing. The next morning their two brothers were -missing! - -Of course the girls were dreadfully alarmed. Some people in the house -told them that they had heard high words being exchanged between the -brothers after the girls had retired, and shortly afterwards the two -former had gone out together. The sister, in her narrative, mentions -that she received a hint or two of a duel between Richard and Charles, -but she at once put these suggestions aside. The poor girls must have -been nearly distracted. Certainly the house of Sheridan was passing -through a period of great excitement. The estimable head of the family -was himself expecting a crisis in his affairs as manager of the theatre -in Dublin--Mr. Thomas Sheridan was never far removed from a crisis--and -in his absence his young people were doing pretty much as they pleased. -He had no power of controlling them; all that he had to do with them was -to pay their bills. Neither of the sons was earning anything, and while -one of them was living as a man of fashion, the other had thought it -well to cut himself off from his sisters, taking lodgings at a farm some -way out of Bath It is the girls of the house for whom one feels most. -Alicia, the elder, was seventeen, Elizabeth was but twelve. They must -have been distracted. So would their father have been if he had had a -chance of learning all that was going on at Bath. - -But, of course, when young gentlemen of spirit are falling in love with -beauteous maidens, and retiring to cure themselves by mingling with -pastoral scenes reminiscent of the gentle melancholy of Mr. Alexander -Pope's shepherds and shepherdesses (done in Dresden), every one of -whom murmurs mournfully and melodiously of a rejected suit--when young -gentlemen are running away with afflicted damsels and returning to -fight their enemies, they cannot be expected to think of the incidental -expenses of the business, which are to be defrayed by their father, any -more than of the distraction which takes possession of their sisters. - -The two young gentlemen were missing, and had left for their sisters -no explanation of their absence--no hint as to the direction of their -flight. And there were other people in the house talking about the high -words that had been exchanged between the brothers at midnight. It is -not surprising that the poor girls should be distressed and distracted. - -Considering that Miss Linley was the first cause of the excitement in -the midst of which the family had been living for some weeks, it was -only natural that the elder of the girls should send for her with a view -to have some light thrown on this new development of the heroic incident -in which Miss Linley had assisted. But Miss Linley, on being applied -to, affirmed that she knew nothing of the disappearance of the brothers, -that she had heard of nothing that should cause them to leave Bath at a -moment's notice. She was, unfortunately, a young woman of imagination. -In a crisis such a one is either very helpful, or very helpless. Poor -Miss Linley was the latter. She had just come through a great crisis in -her own life, and she had not emerged from it without suffering. It was -too much to ask her to face another in the family of her friends. She -went off in a fainting fit on hearing the news of the disappearance of -the young men, and her father left her in the hands of a medical man, -and turned his attention to the condition of Miss Sheridan, who was -unable to walk back to her home, and had to be put into a chair, -Mr. Linley walking beside her with her young sister. It is more than -possible that Mr. Linley was beginning to feel that he had had quite -enough of the Sheridan family to last him for the remainder of his life. - -For two days nothing whatever was heard of the missing brothers. We have -no means of knowing if Miss Sheridan communicated to their father in -Dublin the mysterious story she had to tell; the chances are that she -was advised by Mr. Linley to refrain from doing so until she might have -something definite to tell him. Mr. Linley never had any particular -regard for the elder Sheridan, and he had no wish to have him summoned -from his theatre at Dublin to make his remarks about the dangerous -attractiveness of Elizabeth Linley, and the culpable carelessness of -her father in allowing her to be carried off to France by a young man -without a penny except what he got from his own father. - -At any rate, Tom Sheridan did not leave his theatre or his pupils -in elocution, and there was no need for him to do so, for on Tuesday -evening--they had been missing on the Sunday morning--Dick and his -brother returned. They were both greatly fatigued, and said that they -had not been in bed since they had left Bath. This meant that Dick had -actually not slept in Bath since he had originally left the city in the -company of Miss Linley. Between the Friday and the Tuesday he had posted -from London to Bath with the Linleys, and had forthwith returned to -London with his brother and then back once more to Bath without a pause. -He, at least, had very good reason for feeling fatigued. - -His first act was to hand his sister an apology which had been made to -him by Mathews. This document is worthy of being reprinted. It ran thus: - -"Being convinced that the expressions I made use of to Mr. Sheridan's -disadvantage, were the effects of passion and misrepresentation, -I intreat what I have said to that gentleman's disadvantage, and -particularly beg his pardon for my advertisement in the _Bath -Chronicle_. Th. Mathews." - -He handed this document to his sister, and then it may be supposed that -he went to bed. He had certainly good need of a sleep. - -Such is the drift of the story up to this point, as told by Mrs. Lefanu -(Elizabeth Sheridan), and it differs in some particulars from that told -by her brother Charles in a letter to their uncle, and, in a lesser -degree, from the account given of the whole transaction by Richard -Sheridan himself, who was surely in the best position to know exactly -what happened upon the occasion of his first visit to Mathews in London, -as well as upon the occasion of his second, made so hurriedly in the -company of his brother. - -His second visit was, as might have been expected, the more exciting. -It included the fighting of a duel with Mathews. The humours of duelling -have been frequently dealt with in prose and comedy, and, assuredly the -most amusing of all is to be found in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's _The -Rivals_. One must confess, however, that the serious account given by -the same writer of his hostile meeting with Mathews, on his return from -Bath, suggests a much more ludicrous series of situations than are to be -found in his play. - -In Sheridan's account he mentions that while still in France he received -"several abusive threats" from Mathews, and these had such an effect -upon him that he wrote to Mathews, swearing that he would not close his -eyes in sleep in England till he had treated Mathews as he deserved. -In order to carry out this vow he had actually sat up all night at -Canterbury, where his party halted on their way from Dover to London. -He called upon Mathews on arriving in London, at the latter's lodging -in Crutched Friars; this was at midnight, and the key of the door being -mislaid, he had to wait two hours before he was admitted. He found -Mathews in bed, but he induced him to rise and dress, though, in spite -of his compliance as regards his raiment, he complained bitterly of the -cold. There does not seem to have been any great suffering on Sheridan's -part through a lack of heat. Then, as his sister's narrative put it, the -man declared that his visitor had been grossly misinformed in regard to -the libel in the Chronicle; and so he left for Bath, as has already been -stated. - -And now comes the account given by Sheridan of the return visit, and, -told in his own laconic style, it suggests such comic situations as -border on farce. - -"Mr. S.," he wrote, "staid but three hours in Bath. He returned to -London. He sent to Mr. M. from Hyde Parck. He came with Captain Knight -his second. He objected frequently to the ground. They adjourned to the -Hercules Pillars. They returned to Hyde Parck. Mr. M. objected to the -observation of an officer. They returned to Hercules Pillars. They -adjourned to the Bedford Coffee house by agreement. Mr. M. was gone -to the Castel Tavern. Mr. S. followed with Mr. E. Mr. M. made many -declarations in favour of Mr. S. They engaged. Mr. M. was disarmed, -Captain Knight ran in. Mr. M. begged his life and afterwards denied the -advantage. Mr. S. was provoked by the (really well-meant) interposition -of Captain Knight and the illusion of Mr. M. He insisted since Mr. M. -denied the advantage, that he should give up his sword. Mr. M. denied, -but sooner than return to his ground he gave it up. It was broke, and -Mr. M. offered another. He was then called on to retract his abuse -and beg Mr. S.'s pardon. With much altercation and much ill grace he -complied." - -The remainder of this remarkably succinct composition is devoted to the -subsequent misrepresentations of the transaction by Mathews, and by the -writer's appeal to the seconds to say if his version of the encounter -was not correct. - -But whatever Mathews' account may have been it could scarcely be more -ludicrous than Sheridan's. The marching and countermarching of the -four gentlemen--it appears that brother Charles, although accompanying -Richard to London, thought it more prudent to remain under cover during -the actual engagement; he waited at Brereton's lodgings--the excuses -made by Mathews in order to get away without fighting, and then at the -last moment, the carrying out (by agreement) of a manouvre which landed -Mathews in one tavern and the rest of the party in another--the set-to -of the principals immediately after the "declarations" of one of them in -favour of the other, and the final catastrophe could hardly be surpassed -by the actions of a pair of burlesque duellists in what is technically -known as a "knockabout" entertainment. - -And after all this scrupulousness of detail one is left in doubt as -to the exact _locale_ of the encounter. Did it take place in the -coffee-room of the Castell Inn, or did the eager combatants retrace -their steps to the "parck"? The document written by Sheridan, though -dealing very fully with the forced marches of the army in the field, -throws no light upon this question of the scene of the battle. In -respect of the signing of the treaty of peace, and the payment of the -indemnity, it is, however, moderately lucid. Sheridan must have told his -sister that Mathews signed the apology immediately after the encounter; -she states this in her narrative. But Mathews did not merely sign the -apology, he wrote every word of it, as one may see by referring to the -facsimile, thoughtfully given in Mr. Fraser Rae's _Life of Sheridan_, -and it would be impossible to say that the caligraphy of the apology -shows the least sign of that perturbation from which one must believe -the writer was suffering at the moment. Its characteristic is neatness. -It is in the fine old-fashioned Italian hand. Even an expert, who sees -possibilities--when paid for it--in handwriting which would never occur -to less imaginative observers, would scarcely venture to say that this -neat little document was written by a man with another's sword at his -throat. - -This is another element in the mystery of the duel, and it cannot be -said that when we read the letter which the elder of the brothers -wrote to his uncle, giving his account of the whole business, we feel -ourselves in a clearer atmosphere. It really seems a pity that Mr. -Browning did not make another _Ring and the Book_ series of studies out -of this amazing duel. Charles Sheridan told his uncle that an apology -was given to Richard by Mathews as a result of Richard's first visit to -him in London, but when Richard read the advertisement in the Chronicle, -which was the original casus belli, he considered this apology so -inadequate that he set off for London to demand another. Charles also -mentions, what neither his brother nor his sister had stated, that he -himself, on reaching London on the Sunday evening, went to Mathews to -endeavour to get a suitable apology--according to Richard's narrative -Charles had good grounds for sending a challenge to Mathews on his own -account--but "after two hours' altercation" he found that he had made no -impression upon the man, so that his brother had no alternative but to -call him out. - -But however the accounts of the lesser details of this affair of honour -may differ, there can be no question that public opinion in Bath was all -in favour of young Mr. Sheridan. It was acknowledged on every hand that -he had acted from the first--that is, from the moment he assumed the -duties of the protector of Miss Linley--with admirable courage, and with -a full sense of what honour demanded of him. In short he came back from -London, after so many sleepless nights, covered with glory. He was a -tall, handsome fellow of twenty, with brilliant eyes; he had run away -with the most beautiful girl in the world to save her from the clutches -of a scoundrel; he had had four nights without sleep, and then he had -fought a duel with the scoundrel and had obtained from him an apology -for insertion in the newspapers. Few young gentlemen starting life -wholly without means attain to so proud a position of achievement before -they reach their majority. - -But of course all these feats of errantry and arms run up a bill. -Young Mr. Sheridan's posting account must have been by itself pretty -formidable, and, knowing that his father had never looked on him with -the favour which he gave to his brother, Richard may now and again have -felt a trifle uneasy at the prospect of meeting Mr. Sheridan. If his -sister's memory is to be trusted, however, this meeting took place -within a week or two of his duel, and no bones were broken. Mr. Sheridan -had a few chiding words to say respecting the debts which his son had -incurred, but these he paid, after obtaining from the boy the usual -promise made under similar conditions before a like tribunal. The -prodigal invariably acts up to his character for prodigality in the -matter of promises of reform. - -Richard Sheridan, being something of a wit, though we do not get many -examples of his faculty in the accounts extant of his early life, and -assuredly not a single example in any of his letters that came into the -hands of his biographers, may have sworn to his father never to run away -with a girl who might be anxious to enter upon a conventual life. At -any rate, his father did not show any great displeasure when he was made -aware of the boy's conduct, though it is worth noting that Mr. Sheridan -took exception to the general conviction that his son's act had been -prompted by the most chivalrous aspirations. - -Mathews, however, had not yet been shaken off. He was back in Bath -almost as soon as the Sheridans, and "malevolent incendiarism" was -in the air. No slander was too base for him to use against Richard -Sheridan, no insinuation too vile. But the popularity of the object of -his calumny was now too firmly established in Bath to be shaken by the -vaporous malevolence of his enemy. Mathews, finding himself thoroughly -discredited in every quarter, did the only sensible thing recorded in -his squalid history--he ran away to his home in Wales. - -He was here unfortunate enough to meet with a man named Barnard, or -Barnett, who acted upon him pretty much as Sir Lucius O'Trigger did upon -Squire Acres, explaining to him that it was quite impossible that -the affair between him and Sheridan should remain as it was. It was -absolutely necessary, he said, that another duel should take place. All -the "incendiarism" in Mathews' nature was aroused by the fiery words of -this man, and the precious pair hurried to Bath, where a challenge was -sent to Sheridan through the hands of his eldest sister, under the guise -of an invitation to some festivity. - -Sheridan was foolish enough to accept the challenge apparently without -consulting with any one competent to advise him. According to his -father the challenge had been preceded by several letters of the -most scurrilous abuse. His wiser brother, who had just received an -appointment as Secretary to the British Legation in Sweden, had gone -to London with their father to make preparations for his departure for -Stockholm, and immediately on hearing of the duel he wrote to Richard a -typical elder brother's letter. It is dated July 3rd, 1772, so that, as -the duel had only taken place the previous day, it cannot be said -that he lost much time in expressing his deep sense of his brother's -foolishness in meeting so great a scoundrel for the second time. "All -your friends have condemned you," he wrote. "You risked everything, -where you had nothing to gain, to give your antagonist the thing he -wished, a chance for recovering his reputation; he wanted to get rid -of the contemptible opinion he was held in, and you were good-natured -enough to let him do it at your expense. It is not a time to scold, but -all your friends were of opinion you could, with the greatest propriety, -have refused to meet him." - -Without going into the question as to whether this sort of letter was -the ideal one for one brother to write to another who was lying on his -bed with several wounds in his throat, it is impossible to question the -soundness of the opinion expressed by Charles Sheridan in respect of -Richard's acceptance of Mathews' challenge. The challenge was, however, -accepted, and the duel took place on King's Down, at three o'clock -in the morning. Mathews' friend was Barnett, and Sheridan's a young -gentleman named Paumier, who, it was said, was quite unacquainted with -the rules of the game, and had never even seen a duel being fought. The -accounts which survive of this second meeting of Sheridan and Mathews -make it apparent that, if the first was a scene of comedy, this one was -a tragic burlesque. It is said that Sheridan, on the signal being given, -at once rushed in on his antagonist, endeavouring to disarm him as he -had done upon the former occasion of their meeting, but, tripping over -something, he literally, and not figuratively, fell upon the other, -knocking him down with such violence that he was not only disarmed, but -his sword was broken as well. Sheridan's own sword was also broken, so -that one might fancy that the meeting would have terminated here. It did -nothing of the sort. The encounter was only beginning, and anything more -savagely burlesque than the sequel could not be imagined. - -The combatants must have rolled over, after the manner of the negro -duellists on the variety stage, and when they had settled themselves -each made a grab for the most serviceable fragment of his sword. Mathews -being the heavier man contrived to keep uppermost in the scuffle, and, -what gave him a decided advantage over his opponent, he managed to get -his fingers on the hilt of his broken weapon. An appeal at this stage -was made by the lad who was acting as Sheridan's second to put a stop -to the fight; but the second ruffian, or the ruffian's second--either -description applies to Barnett--declared that as both the antagonists -were on the ground one could not be said to have any advantage over the -other. This delicate question being settled, Mathews held the jagged, -saw-like end--point it had none--of the broken sword at the other's -throat and told him to beg for his life. Sheridan replied that he -should refuse to beg his life from such a scoundrel, and forthwith the -scoundrel began jabbing at his throat and face with the fragment of his -weapon, a method of attack which was not robbed of its butchery by the -appeal that it makes to a reader's sense of its comical aspect. - -It is doubtful, however, if the comic side of the transaction appealed -very forcibly to the unfortunate boy who was being lacerated to death. -He just managed to put aside a thrust or two before the end of the blade -penetrated the flesh of his throat and pinned him to the ground. With a -chuckle and, according to Tom Sheridan's account, an oath, Mathews got -upon his feet, and, entering the coach which was waiting for him, drove -away from the scene of his butchery. Sheridan was thereupon raised from -the ground, and driven in his chaise with his second to the White Hart -Inn. Two surgeons were immediately in attendance, and it was found -that his wounds, though numerous, were not such as placed his life -in jeopardy. They were, however, sufficiently serious to prevent his -removal to his home that day. - -It does not appear that young Paumier told the sisters of the -occurrence; but an account of the duel having appeared in the _Bath -Chronicle_ the same afternoon, every one in the town must have been -talking of it, though Mrs. Lefanu says neither she nor her sister heard -a word of the matter until the next day. Then they hastened to the -White Hart, and prevailed upon the surgeons to allow them to take their -brother home. In a surprisingly short time he had quite recovered. -Indeed, although there was a report that Sheridan's life was despaired -of, there was no excuse for any one taking so gloomy a view of his -hurts, for the exact truth was known to Charles Sheridan and his father -in London early on the day following that of the fight. - -The pathetic part of the story of this ludicrous encounter is to be -found in the story of the reception of the news by Elizabeth Linley. Her -father had read in some of the papers that Sheridan was at the point of -death, but, like the worldly-wise man that Mr. Linley was, he kept -the news from his daughter. They were at Oxford together, and she was -announced to sing at a concert, and he knew that had she learned all -that the newspapers published, she might possibly not be able to do -herself--and her father--justice. But, as one of the audience told his -sister afterwards, the fact that every one who had come to hear Miss -Linley sing was aware of the serious condition (as the papers alleged) -of young Sheridan, and of her attachment to him, a feeling of sympathy -for the lovely young creature added immeasurably to the interest of her -performance. - -At the conclusion of the concert her father set out with her for Bath; -and it was not until they had almost reached their home that their -chaise was met by a clergyman named Pauton, and he summoned all his -tact to enable him to prepare Elizabeth Linley for the news which he was -entrusted to communicate to her. It is said that under the stress of -her emotion the girl declared that Richard Sheridan was her husband, and -that her place was by his side. - -Whatever truth there may be in this story it is certain that if she -believed at that moment that Sheridan was her husband, she gave no sign -of continuing in that belief, for though her numerous letters to him -show that she was devoted to him, there is no suggestion in any of them -that she believed herself to be his wife. On the contrary, there are -many passages which prove that no idea of the sort was entertained by -her. - -The exertions of the heads of the two families were for long directed -against the union of the lovers. Mr. Linley felt more forcibly than -ever that he had had quite enough of the Sheridans, and Tom Sheridan -doubtless wished never to hear again the name of Linley. The one made -his daughter promise on her knees to give up Richard Sheridan, and Mr. -Sheridan compelled his son to forswear any association with Elizabeth -Linley. Jove must have been convulsed with laughter. Richard Brinsley -Sheridan and Elizabeth Ann Linley were married on the 13th of April, -1773. - - - - -A MELODRAMA AT COVENT GARDEN - -ON an evening in April, 1779, the play, "_Love in a Village_" was being -performed at Covent Garden Theatre before a large audience. In the front -row of the boxes sat two ladies, one of them young and handsome, the -other not so young and not so beautiful--a dark-faced, dark-eyed woman -whom no one could mistake for any nationality except Italian. Three -gentlemen who sat behind them were plainly of their party--elegant -gentlemen of fashion, one of them an Irish peer. Every person of -quality in the theatre and a good many others without such a claim to -distinction, were aware of the fact that the most attractive member of -the group was Miss Reay, a lady whose name had been for several years -closely associated--very closely indeed--with that of Lord Sandwich, -the First Lord of the Admiralty, and one of the most unpopular men in -England. She had driven to the theatre in his lordship's carriage, and -two of the gentlemen with whom she conversed freely in the box were high -officials of the department over which his lordship presided. - -Almost from the moment of her arrival, Miss Reay and her friends were -watched eagerly by a hollow-eyed, morose gentleman in black. He looked as -if he had not slept for many nights; and no one observing him could have -failed to perceive that he had come to the theatre not for the sake of -the play which was being performed, but to watch the lady. He kept his -fierce eyes fixed upon her, and he frowned every time that she turned to -make a remark to one of her friends; his eyes blazed every time that one -of her friends smiled over her shoulder, and his hands clenched if she -smiled in return. Several times it seemed as if he found it impossible -to remain in his place in the upper side box, where his seat was, for -he started up and hurried out to the great lobby, walking to and fro in -great agitation. More than once he strode away from the lobby into the -Bedford Coffee House just outside the theatre, and there partook of -brandy and water, returning after brief intervals to stare at Miss Reay -and her companions in the front row of the boxes. - -[Illustration: 0327] - -At the conclusion of the play, he went hastily into the vestibule, -standing to one side, not far from the exit from the boxes; but if he -intended to be close to Miss Reay while she walked to the main exit, his -object was defeated by reason of the crush of people congregating in -the vestibule, the people of quality waiting for their carriages to -be announced, the others waiting for the satisfaction of being in such -close proximity to people of quality. - -Among the crowd there was a lady who had recently become the wife of a -curious gentleman named Lewis, who some years later wrote a grisly -book entitled _The Monk_, bringing him such great fame as cancelled for -posterity the names of Matthew Gregory, given to him by his parents, and -caused him to be identified by the name of his book only. This lady made -a remark to her neighbour in respect of a lovely rose which Miss Reay -was wearing when she left the box exit and stood in the vestibule--a -beautiful rose early in the month of April might have excited remark in -those days; at any rate, Mrs. Lewis has left the record that at the -very moment of her speaking, the rose fell to the floor, and Miss Reay -appeared to be profoundly affected by this trifling incident, and said -in a faltering voice, "I trust that I am not to consider this as an evil -omen!" So Mrs. Lewis stated. - -A few moments later Lord Sandwich's carriage was announced, and Miss -Reay and her companion made a move in the direction of the door. The -gentlemen of the party seem to have left earlier, for on the ladies -being impeded by the crush in the vestibule, a stranger, named Mr. -Macnamara, of Lincoln's Inn, proffered his services to help them to -get to the carriage. Miss Reay thanked him, took his arm, and the crowd -opened for them in some measure. It quickly opened wider under a more -acute persuasion a few seconds later, when the morose gentleman in black -pushed his way among the people until he was within a few feet of the -lady and her escort. Only for a second did he pause--certainly he spoke -no word to Miss Reay or any one else--before he pulled a pistol from his -pocket and fired almost point-blank at her before any one could knock up -his hand. Immediately afterwards he turned a second pistol against his -own forehead and pulled the trigger, and fell to the ground. - -The scene that followed can easily be imagined. Every woman present -shrieked, except Miss Reay, who was supported by Mr. Macnamara. The -ghastly effects of the bullet were apparent not only upon the forehead -of the lady where it lodged, but upon the bespattered garments of every -one about the door, and upon the columns of the hall. Above the shrieks -of the terror-stricken people were heard the yells of the murderer, -who lay on the ground, hammering at his head with the butt end of his -weapon, and crying, "Kill me! Kill me!" - -A Mr. Mahon, of Russell Street, who was said to be an apothecary, was -the first to lay a hand upon the wretched man. He wrested the pistol -from his grasp and prevented him from doing further mischief to himself. -He was quickly handed over to the police, and, with his unfortunate -victim, was removed to the Shakespeare Tavern, a surgeon named Bond -being in prompt attendance. It did not take long to find that Miss Reay -had never breathed after the shot had been fired at her; the bullet had -smashed the skull and passed through the brain. The man remained for -some time unconscious, but even before he recovered he was identified as -James Hackman, a gentleman who had been an officer in the army, and -on retiring had taken Orders, being admitted a priest of the Church of -England scarcely a month before his crime. There were rumours respecting -his infatuation for Miss Reay, and in a surprisingly short space of -time, owing most likely to the exertions of Signora Galli, the Italian -whom Lord Sandwich had hired to be her companion, the greater part of -the romantic story of the wretched man's life, as far as it related to -Miss Reay, was revealed. - -It formed a nine days' wonder during the spring of the same year (1779). -The grief displayed by Lord Sandwich on being made acquainted with the -circumstances of the murder was freely commented on, and the sympathy -which was felt for him may have diminished in some measure from his -unpopularity. The story told by Croker of the reception of the news by -Lord Sandwich is certainly not deficient in detail. "He stood as it -were petrified," we are told, "till suddenly, seizing a candle, he ran -upstairs and threw himself on the bed, and in agony exclaimed, 'Leave -me for a while to myself, I could have borne anything but this!' The -attendants remained for a considerable time at the top of the staircase, -till his lordship rang the bell and ordered that they should all go to -bed." - -Before his lordship left the scene of his grief in the morning Sir John -Fielding, the Bow Street magistrate, had arrived at the Shakespeare -Tavern from his house at Brompton, and, after a brief inquiry, ordered -Hackman to be taken to Tothill Fields Prison. In due course he was -committed to Newgate, and on April 16th his trial took place before -Blackstone, the Recorder. The facts of the tragedy were deposed to by -several witnesses, and the cause of the lady's death was certified by -Mr. Bond, the surgeon. The prisoner was then called on for his defence. -He made a brief speech, explaining that he would have pleaded guilty -at once had he not felt that doing so "would give an indication of -contemning death, not suitable to my present condition, and would in -some measure make me accessory to a second peril of my life. And I -likewise thought," he added, "that the justice of my country ought to -be satisfied by suffering my offence to be proved, and the fact to be -established by evidence." - -This curious affectation of a finer perception of the balance of justice -than is possessed by most men was quite characteristic of this man, as -was also his subsequent expression of his willingness to submit to the -sentence of the court. His counsel endeavoured to show that he had -been insane from the moment of his purchasing his pistols until he had -committed the deed for which he was being tried--he did not say anything -about "a wave of insanity," however, though that picturesque phrase -would have aptly described the nature of his plea. He argued that a -letter which was found in the prisoner's pocket, and in which suicide -only was threatened, should be accepted as proof that he had no -intention of killing Miss Reay when he went to the theatre. - -The Recorder, of course, made short work of such a plea. He explained to -the jury that "for a plea of insanity to be successful it must be shown -not merely that it was a matter of fits and starts, but that it was -a definite thing--a total loss of reason and incapability of reason." -Referring to the letter, he said that it seemed to him to argue a -coolness and premeditation incompatible with such insanity as he -described. - -The result was, as might have been anticipated, the jury, without -leaving the box, found Hackman guilty, and he was sentenced to be -hanged. - -Mr. Boswell, who was nearly as fond of hearing death-sentences -pronounced as he was of seeing them carried out, was present in the -court during the trial, and to him Mr. Booth, the brother-in-law of the -prisoner, applied--he himself had been too greatly agitated to be able -to remain in the court--for information as to how Hackman had deported -himself, and Boswell was able to assure him that he had behaved "as -well, sir, as you or any of his friends could wish; with decency, -propriety, and in such a manner as to interest every one present. He -might have pleaded that he shot Miss Reay by accident, but he fairly -told the truth that in a moment of frenzy he did intend it." - -While he was in the condemned cell at Newgate he received a message from -Lord Sandwich to the effect that if he wished for his life, he (Lord -Sandwich) had influence with the King, and might succeed in obtaining -a commutation of his sentence. Hackman replied that he had no wish to -live, but he implored his lordship to give him such assurance that those -whom Miss Reay had left behind her would be carefully looked after, as -would, on meeting her in another world, enable him to make this pleasing -communication to her. - -He spent the few days that remained to him in writing fervid letters to -his friends and in penning moralisings, in a style which was just the -smallest degree more pronounced than that which was fashionable at his -period--the style of the sentimental hero of Richardson and his inferior -followers. - -His execution at Tyburn attracted the most enormous crowds ever seen -upon such an occasion. The carriage in which the wretched man was -conveyed to the gibbet could only proceed at a walking pace; but still, -the vehicle which followed it, containing the Earl of Carlisle and -James Boswell, arrived in good time for the final scene of this singular -tragedy, which for weeks, as the Countess of Ossory wrote to George -Selwyn, was the sole topic of conversation. - -And, as a matter of course, Horace Walpole had something to communicate -to one of his carefully-selected correspondents. Oddly enough it was -to a parson he wrote to express the opinion that he was still uncertain -"whether our clergy are growing Mahometans or not"; adding sagely, "they -certainly are not what they profess themselves; but as you and I should -not agree, perhaps, in assigning the same defects to them, I will not -enter on a subject which I have promised you to drop, all I allude to -now is the shocking murder of Miss Reay by a divine. In my own opinion -we are growing more fit for Bedlam than for Mahomet's paradise. The poor -criminal, I am persuaded, is mad, and the misfortune is the law does -not know how to define the shades of madness; and thus there are twenty -out-pensioners of Bedlam for one that is confined." - -Most persons will come to the conclusion that the judge who tried -Hackman made a most successful attempt to expound to the jury exactly -where the law drew a line in differentiating between the man who should -be sent to Bedlam and the man who should be sent to Tyburn, and will -agree with the justice of the law that condemned to the gallows this -divine of three weeks' standing for committing an atrocious crime, even -though the chances are that Hackman spoke the truth when he affirmed -that he had brought his pistols down to the theatre with no more -felonious intent than to blow out his own brains in the presence of the -lady and to fall dead at her feet. At the same time one is not precluded -from agreeing with Walpole's opinion that the people of his period were -growing more fit for Bedlam than for Eblis. - -The truth is that an extraordinary wave of what was called -"sensibility" was passing over England at that time. It was a wave of -sentimentality--that maudlin sentimentality which was the exquisite -characteristic of the hero and heroine of almost every novel that -attained to any degree of success. To people who have formed their ideas -of the latter half of the eighteenth century from studying Boswell's -_Life of Johnson_, every page of which shows a healthy common sense; -or from the plates of Hogarth--robust even to a point of vulgarity--it -would seem incredible that there should exist in England at practically -the same time a cult of the maudlin and the lachrymose. Such a cult had, -however, obtained so great a hold on a large section of society that all -the satire of Smollett, Sterne, and Goldsmith, was unable to ridicule it -out of existence. - -And the worst of the matter was that the types of these weeping -sentimentalists were not unreal. They began by being unreal, but in the -course of a short time they became real, the fact being that people in -all directions began to frame their conduct and their conversation upon -these flaccid creatures of the unhealthy fancy of third-rate novelists -and fourth-rate poetasters. More than once, it may be remarked, even -in our own time "movements" have had their origin in the fancy of a -painter--in one case of a subtle caricaturist. An artist possessed of -a distorted sense of what is beautiful in woman has been able to set -a certain fashion in the unreal, until people were well-nigh persuaded -that it was the painter who had taken the figures in his pictures from -the persons who had simply sought a cheap notoriety by adopting the -pose and the dress of the scraggy posturantes for whose anatomy he was -responsible. - -So it was that, when certain novel-writers in the eighteenth century, -having no experience of the life which they attempted to depict, brought -forth creatures out of their own unhealthy imaginations, and placed them -before their readers as types of heroes and heroines, the public never -failed to include quite a number of readers who were ready to live up to -all those essentials that constituted the personages of the fiction. - -And not alone over England had the sighs of a perpetually sighing hero -and heroine sent a lachrymose flood; France and Germany, if not actually -inundated, were at least rendered humid by its influence. _The Sorrows -of Werther_ was only one of the many books which helped on the cult of -the sentimental, and it was as widely read in England as in Germany. -Gessner's _Death of Abel_ had an enormous vogue in its English -translation. The boarding-school version of the tale of Abelard and -Heloise was also much wept over both in France and Germany; and the -true story of James Hackman and Martha Reay, as recorded by the -correspondence of the pair, published shortly after the last scene in -the tragedy had been enacted, and reissued with connecting notes some -twelve years ago, might pass only as a somewhat crude attempt to surpass -these masterpieces of fancy-woven woes. James and Martha might have been -as happy as thousands of other Jameses and Marthas have been, but they -chose to believe that the Fates were bothering themselves with this -particular case of James and Martha--they chose to feel that they were -doomed to a life of sorrowful love--at any rate, this was Martha's -notion--and they kept on exchanging emotional sentiments until James's -poor head gave way, and he sought to end up their romance in accordance -with the mode of the best models, stretching himself a pallid corpse at -the feet of his Martha; but then it was that Fate put out a meddlesome -finger, and so caused the scene of the last chapter to take place at -Tyburn. - -The romance of Mr. Hackman and Miss Reay would never have taken place, -if Lord Sandwich had been as exemplary a husband as George III or Dr. -Johnson or Edmund Burke--the only exemplary husbands of the eighteenth -century that one can recall at a moment's notice. Unhappily his lordship -was one of the many examples of the unexemplary husband of that period. -If the Earl of Chesterfield advanced the ill-treatment of a wife to one -of the fine arts, it may be said that the Earl of Sandwich made it one -of the coarse. He was brutal in his treatment of the Countess, and never -more so than when he purchased the pretty child that Miss Reay must have -been at the age of thirteen, and had her educated to suit his tastes. -He went about the transaction with the same deliberation as a gourmand -might display in ordering his dinner. He was extremely fond of music, -so he had the child's education in this direction carefully attended -to. His place at Hinchinbrook had been the scene of the performance of -several oratorios, his lordship taking his place in the orchestra at the -kettledrums; and he hoped that by the time he should have his purchase -sent home, her voice would be equal to the demands put upon it by the -most exacting of the sacred soprano music of Handel or Gluck. - -As it turned out he was not disappointed. Martha Reay, when she went to -live at Hinchinbrook at the age of eighteen, showed herself to be a most -accomplished young lady, as she certainly was a very charming one. She -was found to possess a lovely voice, and was quite fitted to take -her place, not merely in his lordship's music-room, but also in his -drawing-room to which he advanced her. To say that she was treated as -one of his lordship's family would be to convey a wrong impression, -considering how he treated the principal member of his family, but -certainly he introduced her to his guests, and she took her place at his -table at dinner parties. He even put her next to the wife of a bishop -upon one occasion, feeling sure that she would captivate that lady, -and as it turned out, his anticipations were fully realised; only the -bishop's lady, on making inquiries later on, protested that she was -scandalised by being placed in such a position as permitted of her -yielding to the fascinations of a young person occupying a somewhat -equivocal position in the household. - -It was when she was at Hinchinbrook, in October, 1775, that Miss Reay -met the man who was to play so important a part in her life--and death. -Cradock, the "country gentleman," tells in his _Memoirs_ the story of -the first meeting of the two. Lord Sandwich was anxious that a friend of -his own should be elected to a professorship at Cambridge, and Cradock, -having a vote, was invited to use it on behalf of his lordship's -candidate, and to stay for a night at Hinchinbrook on his way back to -London. He travelled in Lord Sandwich's coach, and when in the act of -driving through the gateway at Hinchinbrook, it overtook a certain Major -Reynolds and another officer who was stationed on recruiting duty in the -neighbourhood. Lord Sandwich, being acquainted with Reynolds, dismounted -and invited him and his friend to a family dinner at his lordship's -place that evening. Major Reynolds expressed his appreciation of this -act of courtesy, and introduced his friend as Captain Hackman. The party -was a simple affair. - -It consisted of Lord Sandwich, Miss Reay, another lady, the two -officers, and Mr. Cradock. After coffee had been served two rubbers of -whist were played, and the party broke up. - -This was the first meeting of Hackman and Miss Reay. They seem to have -fallen in love immediately, each with the other, for the first letter in -the correspondence, written in December, 1775, contains a good deal that -suggests the adolescence of a passion. Hackman was a man of education and -some culture, and he showed few signs of developing into that maudlin -sentimentalist who corresponded with the lady a year or two later. He -was but twenty-three years of age, the son of a retired officer in the -navy, who had sent him to St. John's College, Cambridge, and afterwards -bought him a commission in the 68th Foot. He was probably only an -ensign when he was stationed at Huntingdon, but being in charge of the -recruiting party, enjoyed the temporary rank of captain. - -He must have had a pretty fair conceit of his own ability as a -correspondent, for he kept a copy of his love letters. Of course, there -is no means of ascertaining if he kept copies of all that he ever wrote; -he may have sent off some in the hot passion of the moment, but those -which passed into the hands of his brother-in-law and were afterwards -published, were copies which he had retained. Miss Reay was doubtless -discreet enough to destroy the originals before they had a chance of -falling into the hands of Lord Sandwich. It is difficult for us who -live in this age of scrawls and "correspondence cards" to imagine the -existence of that enormous army of letter-writers who flourished -their quills in the eighteenth century, for the entertainment of their -descendants in the nineteenth and twentieth; but still more difficult -is it to understand how, before the invention of any mechanical means -of reproducing manuscript, these voluminous correspondents first made -a rough draft of every letter, then corrected and afterwards copied -it, before sending it--securing a frank from a friendly Member of -Parliament--to its destination. - -Superlatively difficult is it to imagine an ardent lover sitting down to -transcribe into the pages of a notebook the outpourings of his passion. -But this is what Ensign Hackman did, although so far as the consequences -of his love-making were concerned, he is deserving of a far higher place -among great lovers than Charlotte's Werther, or Mr. Swinburne's Dolores. -Charlotte we know "went on cutting bread and butter" after the death of -her honourable lover; but poor little Miss Reay was the victim of the -passion which she undoubtedly fanned into a flame of madness. Ensign -Hackman made copies of his love-letters, and we are grateful to him, for -by their aid we can perceive the progress of his disease. They are -like the successive pictures in a biograph series lately exhibited at a -conversazione of the Royal Society, showing the development of a blossom -into a perfect flower. We see by the aid of these letters how he gave -way under the attack of what we should now call the bacillus of that -maudlin sentimentality which was in the air in his day. - -He began his love-letters like a gallant officer, but ended them in the -strain of the distracted curate who had been jilted just when he has -laid down the cork lino in the new study and got rid of the plumbers. He -wrote merrily of his "Corporal Trim," who was the bearer of a "billet" -from her. "He will be as good a soldier to Cupid as to Mars, I dare say. -And Mars and Cupid are not now to begin their acquaintance, you know." -Then he goes on to talk in a fine soldierly strain of the drum "beating -for volunteers to Bacchus. In plain English, the drum tells me dinner is -ready, for a drum gives us bloody-minded heroes an appetite for eating -as well as for fighting.... Adieu--whatever hard service I may have -after dinner, no quantity of wine shall make me let drop or forget my -appointment with you tomorrow. We certainly were not seen yesterday, for -reasons I will give you." - -This letter was written on December 7th, and it was followed by another -the next day, and a still longer one the day following. In fact, -Corporal Trim must have been kept as busy as his original in the service -of Uncle Toby, during the month of December, his duty being to receive -the lady's letters, as well as to deliver the gentleman's, and he seems -to have been equally a pattern of fidelity. - -Hackman's letters at this time were models of good taste, with only -the smallest amount of swagger in them. His intentions were strictly -honourable, and they were not concealed within any cocoon of sentimental -phraseology. One gathers from his first letters that he was a simple and -straightforward gentleman, who, having fallen pretty deeply in love -with a young woman, seeks to make her his wife at the earliest possible -moment. Unfortunately however, the lady had fallen under the influence -of the prevailing affectation, and her scheme of life did not include a -commonplace marriage with a subaltern in a marching regiment. One might -be disposed to say that she knew when she was well off. The aspiration -to be made "a respectable woman" by marriage in a church was not -sufficiently strong in her to compel her to sacrifice the many good -things with which she was surrounded, in order to realise it. But, of -course, she was ready to pose as a miserable woman, linked to a man -whom she did not love, but too honourable to leave him, and far too -thoughtful for the career of the man whom she did love with all her soul -ever to become a burden to him. She had read the ballad of "Auld Robin -Gray"--she quoted it in full in one of her letters--and she was greatly -interested to find how closely her case resembled that of the wife in -the poem. She had brought herself to think of the man who had bought her -just as he would buy a peach tree, or a new tulip, as her "benefactor." -Did she not owe to him the blessing of a good education, and the culture -of her voice, her knowledge of painting--nay, her "keep" for several -years, and her introduction to the people of quality who visited at -Hinchinbrook and at the Admiralty? She seemed to think it impossible -for any one to doubt that Lord Sandwich had acted toward her with -extraordinary generosity, and that she would be showing the most -contemptible ingratitude were she to forsake so noble a benefactor. But -all the same she found Hinchinbrook intolerably dull at times, and she -was so pleased at the prospect of having a lover, that she came to fancy -that she loved the first one who turned up. - -She was undoubtedly greatly impressed by the ballad of "Auld Robin -Gray," and she at once accepted the rle of the unhappy wife, only she -found it convenient to modify one rather important line-- - -"I fain would think o' Jamie, but that would be a sin." - -She was fain to think on her Jamie whether it was a sin or not, but she -did so without having the smallest intention of leaving her Auld Robin -Gray. So whimsical an interpretation of the poem could scarcely occur -to any one not under the influence of the sentimental malady of the day; -but it served both for Miss Reay and her Jamie. They accepted it, and -became deeply sensible of its pathos as applied to themselves. Ensign -Hackman assured her that he was too high-minded to dream of making love -to her under the roof of Lord Sandwich, her "benefactor." - -"Our love, the inexorable tyrant of our hearts," he wrote, "claims his -sacrifices, but does not bid us insult his lordship's walls with it. -How civilly did he invite me to Hinchinbrook in October last, though an -unknown recruiting officer. How politely himself first introduced me to -himself! Often has the recollection made me struggle with my passion. -Still it shall restrain it on this side honour." - -This was in reply to her remonstrance, and probably she regretted that -she had been so strenuous in pointing out to him how dreadful it would -be were she to show herself wanting in gratitude to Lord Sandwich. She -wanted to play the part of Jenny, the lawful wife of Robin Gray, with -as few sacrifices as possible, and she had no idea of sacrificing -young Jamie, the lover, any more than she had of relinquishing the many -privileges she enjoyed at Hinchinbrook by making Jamie the lover into -Jamie the husband. - -It is very curious to find Hackman protesting to her all this time that -his passions are "wild as the torrent's roar," apologising for making -his simile water when the element most congenial to his nature was fire. -"Swift had water in his brain. I have a burning coal of fire; your hand -can light it up to rapture, rage, or madness. Men, real men, have never -been wild enough for my admiration, it has wandered into the ideal world -of fancy. Othello (but he should have put himself to death in his wife's -sight, not his wife), Zanga are my heroes. Milk-and-water passions are -like sentimental comedy." - -Read in the light of future events this letter has a peculiar -significance. Although he became more sentimental than the hero of any -of the comedies at which he was sneering, he was still able to make an -honest attempt to act up to his ideal of Othello. "_He should have put -himself to death in his wife's sight_." It will be remembered that he -pleaded at his trial that he had no design upon the life of Miss Reay, -but only aimed at throwing himself dead at her feet. - -Equally significant are some of the passages in the next letters which -he wrote to her. They show that even within the first month of his -acquaintance with his Martha his mind had a peculiar bent. He was giving -his attention to Hervey's _Meditations_, and takes pains to point out to -her two passages which he affirms to be as fine as they are natural. Did -ever love-letter contain anything so grisly? "A beam or two finds its -way through the grates (of the vault), and reflects a feeble glimness -from the nails of the coffins." This is one passage--ghastly enough -in all conscience. But it is surpassed by the others which he quotes: -"Should the haggard skeleton lift a clattering hand." Respecting the -latter he remarks, "I know not whether the epithet 'haggard' might -not be spared." It is possible that the lady on receiving this curious -love-letter was under the impression that the whole passage might have -been spared her. - -But he seems to have been supping off horrors at this time, for he goes -on to tell a revolting story about the black hole of Calcutta; and then -he returns with zest to his former theme of murder and suicide. He had -been reading the poem of "Faldoni and Teresa," by Jerningham, and he -criticises it quite admirably. "The melancholy tale will not take up -three words, though Mr. J. has bestowed upon it 335 melancholy lines," -he tells the young lady. "Two lovers, meeting with an invincible -object to their union, determined to put an end to their existence -with pistols. The place they chose for the execution of their terrible -project was a chapel that stood at a little distance from the house. -They even decorated the altar for the occasion, they paid a particular -attention to their own dress. Teresa was dressed in white with -rose-coloured ribbands. The same coloured ribbands were tied to the -pistols. Each held the ribband that was fastened to the other's trigger, -which they drew at a certain signal." His criticism of the poem includes -the remark that Faldoni and Teresa might be prevented from making -proselytes by working up their affecting story so as to take off the -edge of the dangerous example they offer. This, he says, the author has -failed to do, and he certainly proves his point later by affirming that -"while I talk of taking off the dangerous edge of their example, they -have almost listed me under their bloody banners." - -This shows the morbid tendency of the man's mind, though it must be -confessed that nearly all the remarks which he makes on ordinary topics -are eminently sane and well considered. - -A few days later we find him entering with enthusiasm into a scheme, -suggested by her, of meeting while she was on her way to London, and it -is plain from the rapturous letter which he wrote to her that their plot -was successful; but when she reached town she had a great deal to occupy -her, so that it is not strange she should neglect him for a time. The -fact was, as Cradock states in his _Memoirs_, that the unpopularity of -Lord Sandwich and Miss Reay had increased during the winter to such a -point that it became dangerous for them to show themselves together in -public. Ribald ballads were sung under the windows of the Admiralty, and -Cradock more than once heard some strange insults shouted out by -people in the park. It was at this time that she spoke to Cradock about -appearing in opera, and he states that it reached his ears that she had -been offered three thousand pounds and a free benefit (a possible extra -five hundred) for one season's performances. - -Now if she had really been in love with Hackman this was surely the -moment when she should have gone to him, suffered him to marry her, and -thus made up by a few years on the lyric stage for any deficiency in his -fortune or for the forfeiture of any settlement her "benefactor" might -have been disposed to make in her favour. But she seems to have shown a -remarkable amount of prudence throughout the whole of her intrigue, and -she certainly had a premonition of the danger to which she was exposed -by her connection with him. "Fate stands between us," she wrote in -reply to one of his impetuous upbraiding letters. "We are doomed to be -wretched. And I, every now and then, think some terrible catastrophe -will be the result of our connection. 'Some dire event,' as Storge -prophetically says in _Jephtha_, 'hangs over our heads.' Oh, that it -were no crime to quit this world like Faldoni and Teresa... by your hand -I could even die with pleasure. I know I could." - -An extraordinary premonition, beyond doubt, to write thus, and one is -tempted to believe that she had ceased for a moment merely to play the -part of the afflicted heroine. But her allusion to Jephtha and, later in -the same letter, to a vow which she said she had made never to marry -him so long as she was encumbered with debts, alleging that this was -the "insuperable reason" at which she had hinted on a previous occasion, -makes one suspicious. One feels that if she had not been practising the -music of _Jephtha_ she would not have thought about her vow not to marry -him until she could go to him free from debt. Why, she had only to sing -three times to release herself from that burden. - -Some time afterwards she seems to have suggested such a way of getting -over her difficulties, but it is pretty certain she knew that he would -never listen to her. Her position at this time was undoubtedly one -of great difficulty. Hackman was writing to her almost every day, and -becoming more high-minded and imperious in every communication, and she -was in terror lest some of his letters should fall into the hands of -Lord Sandwich. She was ready to testify to his lordship's generosity in -educating her to suit his own tastes, but she suspected its strength to -withstand such a strain as would be put on it if he came upon one of Mr. -Hackman's impetuous letters. - -She thought that when she had induced her lover to join his regiment -in Ireland she had extricated herself from one of the difficulties that -surrounded her; and had she been strong enough to refrain from -writing to the man, she might have been saved from the result of her -indiscretion. Unhappily for herself, however, she felt it incumbent on -her to resume her correspondence with him. Upon one occasion she sent -him a bank-note for fifty pounds, but this he promptly returned with -a very proper letter. Indeed, all his letters from Ireland are -interesting, being far less impassioned than those which she wrote to -him. Again she mentioned having read _Werther_, and he promptly begged -of her to send the book to him. "If you do not," he adds, "I positively -never will forgive you. Nonsense, to say it will make me unhappy, or -that I shall not be able to read it! Must I pistol myself because a -thick-blooded German has been fool enough to set the example, or because -a German novelist has feigned such a story?" - -But it would appear that she knew the man's nature better than he -himself did, for she quickly replied: "The book you mention is just the -only book you should never read. On my knees I beg that you will never, -never read it!" But if he never read _Werther_ he was never without some -story of the same type to console him for its absence, and he seems to -have gloated over the telling of all to her. One day he is giving her -the particulars of a woman who committed suicide in Enniskillen because -she married one man while she was in love with another. His comment is, -"She, too, was _Jenny_ and had her _Robin Gray_." His last letter from -Ireland was equally morbid. In it he avowed his intention, if he were -not granted leave of absence for the purpose of visiting her, of selling -out of his regiment. He kept his promise but too faithfully. He sold out -and crossed to England without delay, arriving in London only to find -Miss Reay extremely ill. - -His attempts to cheer her convalescence cannot possibly be thought very -happy. He describes his attendance upon the occasion of the hanging of -Dr. Dodd, the clergyman who had committed forgery; and this reminds -him that he was unfortunately out of England when one Peter Tolosa was -hanged for killing his sweetheart, so that he had no chance of taking -part in this ceremony as well, although, he says, unlike George -S.--meaning Selwyn--he does not make a profession of attending -executions; adding that "the friend and historian of Paoli hired a -window by the year, looking out on the Grass Market in Edinburgh, -where malefactors were hanged." This reference to Boswell is somewhat -sinister. All this letter is devoted to a minute account of the -execution of Dodd, and another deals with the revolting story of the -butchery of Monmouth, which he suggests to her as an appropriate subject -for a picture. - -At this time he was preparing for ordination, and, incidentally, for -the culmination of the tragedy of his life. He had undoubtedly become a -monomaniac, his "subject" being murder and suicide. His last lurid story -was of a footman who, "having in vain courted for some time a servant -belonging to Lord Spencer, at last caused the banns to be put up at -church without her consent, which she forbad. Being thus disappointed -he meditated revenge, and, having got a person to write a letter to her -appointing a meeting, he contrived to waylay her, and surprise her in -Lord Spencer's park. On her screaming he discharged a pistol at her and -made his escape." - -"Oh love, love, canst thou not be content to make fools of thy slaves," -he wrote, "to make them miserable, to make them what thou pleasest? Must -thou also goad them on to crimes?" - -Only two more letters did he write to his victim. He took Orders and -received the living of Wiveton, in Norfolk, seeming to take it for -granted that, in spite of her repeated refusals to marry him, she -would relent when she heard of the snug parsonage. This was acting on -precisely the same lines as the butler of whom he wrote. When he found -that Miss Reay was determined to play the part taken by the servant in -the same story, the wretched man hurried up to London and bought his -pistols. - -The whole story is a pitiful one. That the man was mad no one except a -judge and jury could doubt. That his victim was amply punished for her -indiscretion in leading him on even the strictest censor of conduct must -allow. - - - - -THE COMEDY AT DOWNING STREET - -IT was possibly because she was still conscious of having occupied the -commanding position of one of the royal bridesmaids, in spite of the -two years that had elapsed since King George III married his homely -Mecklenburg princess, that Lady Susan Fox-Strangways, the daughter of -the first Earl of Ilchester, became so autocratic during the rehearsal -of the Downing Street Comedy. A pretty fair amount of comedy as well -as tragedy--with a preponderance of farce--has been played in the same -street from time to time, but the special piece in which Lady Susan -was interesting herself was to be played at the house of Sir Francis -Dlavai, and its name was _The School for Lovers_. It had been -originally produced by Mr. David Garrick at Drury Lane Theatre, an -occasion upon which a young Irish gentleman called O'Brien, who had -disgraced himself by becoming an actor, had attained great distinction. -The piece had drawn the town during its protracted run of eight nights, -and Sir Francis Delaval's company of amateurs perceived that it was just -the play for them. It was said by the critics that, for the first time -for many years, an actor had been found capable of playing the part of -a gentleman of fashion as if to the manner born. They referred to the -acting of Mr. O'Brien, about whose gentlemanly qualities there could -be no doubt. Even his own brother actors affirmed that no such perfect -gentleman as that of O'Brien's creating had ever been seen on the stage. -So said Lee Lewes. Another excellent judge, named Oliver Goldsmith, -declared that William O'Brien was an elegant and accomplished actor. - -Of course this was the character, every aspiring amateur affirmed, to -which a gentleman-born would do ample justice. When O'Brien, who was an -actor, had represented the part with distinction, how much better -would it not be played by the real thing--the real gentleman who might -undertake it? - -That was the very plausible reasoning of the "real gentleman" who hoped -to win applause by appearing in O'Brien's part in the comedy at Downing -Street. But when the piece was rehearsed with the young Viscount -B-------- in the character, Lady Susan threw up her hands, and -threatened to throw up her part as well. - -"Lud!" she cried to her associates in the temporary green-room, "Lud! -you would fancy that he had never seen a gentleman of fashion in his -life! Why cannot he act himself instead of somebody else? When he comes -from rehearsal he is the very character itself, but the moment he begins -to speak his part he is no more the part than the link-boy." - -Every one present agreed with her--the young gentlemen who were anxious -to have the reversion of the part were especially hearty in their -acquiescence. - -But there could be no doubt about the matter, Lord B------ was -deplorably incompetent. He was not even consistently incompetent, for -in one scene in the second act, where there was an element of boisterous -humour, he was tame and spiritless; but in the love-making scene, which -brought the third act to a close, he was awkward, and so anxious to show -his spirit that he became as vulgar as any country clown making advances -to his Meg or Polly. - -And of course he felt all the time that he was doing amazingly well. - -Lady Susan was angry at first, and then she became witty. Her sallies, -directed against him in every scene, were, however, lost upon him, no -matter how calculated they were to sting him; he was too self-satisfied -to be affected by any criticism that might be offered to him by man or -woman. - -And then Lady Susan was compelled to abandon her wit and to become -natural. She flounced off the stage when her lover (in the play) was -more than commonly loutish, and burst into tears of vexation in the arms -of her dear friend Lady Sarah Lennox. - -"I never had such a chance until now," she cried. "Never, oh, never! -The part might have been written for me; and I implore of you, Sarah, to -tell me candidly if Mrs. Abington or Mrs. Clive could act it with more -sprightliness than I have shown in that last scene?" - -"Impossible, my sweet Sue!" cried her friend. "I vow that I have never -seen anything more arch than your mock rejection of your lover, only to -draw him on." - -"You dear creature!" cried Lady Sue. "You are a true friend and a -competent critic, Sarah. But what signifies my acting, perfect though -it be, when that--that idiot fails to respond in any way to the spirit -which I display? The whole play will be damned, and people who know -nothing of the matter will spread the report that 'twas my lack of power -that brought about the disaster." - -"They cannot be so vile," said Lady Sarah soothingly. - -"But they will. I know how vile some of our friends can be when it suits -them, and when they are jealous of the acquirements of another. They -will sneer at my best scenes--oh, the certainty that they will do so -will be enough to make my best scenes fail. But no! they shall not have -the chance of maligning me. I will go to Sir Francis and resign my part. -Yes, I will! I tell you I shall!" - -The indignant young lady, with something of the stage atmosphere still -clinging to her, flung herself with the gesture of a tortured heroine, -proud and passionate, toward the door of the room to which the two -ladies had retired. But before she had her fingers on the handle the -door opened and Sir Francis Dlavai entered. - -"A thousand pardons, my dear ladies," he cried, bowing to the carpet. "I -had forgot for the moment that when a man turns his house into a theatre -he can call no room in it his own. But I should be a churl to suggest -that any room in my poor house would not be made beautiful by the -presence of your ladyships. After all, this is only my library, and a -library is only a polite name for a dormitory, and a--but what is this? -I said not a lacrymatory." - -He was looking curiously into Lady Susan's face, which retained the -marks of her recent tears. - -"Dear Sir Francis, you have come in good time," said Lady Sarah boldly. -"Here is this poor child weeping her heart out because she is condemned -to play the part of--of what's her name?--the lady in the play who had -to make love to an ass?" - -"Oh, sir, mine is a far worse plight," said Lady Susan, pouting. "It -were bad enough for one to have to make love to an ass, but how much -worse is't not for one to be made love to by--by--my Lord B------?" - -"That were a calculation far above my powers," said Sir Francis. "My -lord has never made love to me, but if rumour and the gossip at White's -speak even a soupon of truth, his lordship is well practised in the -art--if love-making is an art." - -"Sir, 'tis a combination of all the arts," said Lady Susan; "and yet -my lord cannot simulate the least of them, which is that of being a -gentleman, when he makes love to me on the stage, through the character -of Captain Bellaire in our play." - -"To be plain, Sir Francis," said Lady Sarah, as though the other had not -been plain enough in her explanation, "To be plain, Lady Susan, -rather than be associated in any measure with such a failure as your -theatricals are bound to be if my Lord B------ remains in the part of -her lover, has made up her mind to relinquish her part. But believe me, -sir, she does so with deep regret." - -"Hence these tears," said Sir Francis. "My poor child, you are indeed in -a pitiable state if you are so deeply chagrined at a clumsy love-making -merely on the stage." - -"Merely on the stage?" cried Lady Susan. "Lud, Sir Francis, have you not -the wit to see that to be made love to indifferently on the stage is far -more unendurable than it would be in private, since in the one case you -have the eyes of all the people upon you, whereas in the other case you -are as a rule alone?" - -"As a rule," said Sir Francis. "Yes, I perceive the difference, and I -mingle mine own turgid tears with your limpid drops. But we cannot spare -you from our play." - -"No, you cannot, Sir Francis, but you can spare Lord B------, and so can -the play," suggested Lady Sarah. - -"What, you would have me turn him out of the part?" said Sir Francis. - -"Even so--but with politeness," said Lady Sarah. - -"Perhaps your ladyship has solved the problem how to kick a man out of -your house politely. If so, I would willingly pay you for the recipe; I -have been in search of it all my life," said Sir Francis. - -"Surely, sir, if you kick a man hard enough with your slippers on he -will leave your house as surely as if you wear the boots of a Life -Guardsman," said Lady Susan timidly. - -"I doubt it not, madam; but before trying such an experiment it would be -well to make sure that the fellow does not wear boots himself." - -"Psha! Sir Francis. If a man were to beg leave to measure the thickness -of his enemy's soles before offering to kick him there would be very few -cases of assault and battery," cried Lady Susan. - -"That is good philosophy--see what we have come to--philosophy, when we -started talking of lovemaking," said Sir Francis. - -"However we have digressed in conversation, sir, our minds remain -steadfast on the point round which we have been circling," said Lady -Sarah. - -"And that is------" - -"That Lord B------must go." - -The door was thrown open and Lord B------ entered. - -"A good preliminary--one must come before one goes," whispered Sir -Francis to the ladies. - -His lordship was evidently perturbed. He scarcely bowed either to Sir -Francis or the ladies. - -"I was told that you had come hither, Sir Francis," he said, "so I -followed you." - -"You do me honour, my lord," said Sir Francis. - -"I took a liberty, sir; but this is not a time for punctilio. I have -come to resign my part in your play, sir," said his lordship. - -"Oh, surely not, my lord," cried Sir Francis. "What would the _School -for Lovers_ be without Bellaire, my lord? Why only now Lady Susan was -saying--what is it that your ladyship said?" - -"It had something to do with philosophy and the sole of a grenadier," -said Lady Sarah interposing. - -"Nay, was it not that his lordship's impersonation made you think of -a scene from _Midsummer Night's Dream?_" said Sir Francis. "One of -the most beautiful of Shakespeare's plays, is't not, my lord?--fantasy -mingled with irony, an oasis of fairyland in the midst of a desert of -daily life." - -"I know nothing about your fairyland, sir, but I have been told -within the hour that her ladyship"--he bowed in the direction of Lady -Susan--"has, during the three rehearsals which we have had of the play, -been sneering in a covert way at my acting of the part of Bellaire, -although to my face she seemed delighted, and thus----" - -"Are you sure that your informant was right in his interpretation of her -ladyship's words? Surely your lordship--a man of the world--would have -been sensible of every shade of her ladyship's meaning?" - -"I have been told by one on whose judgment I can rely that Lady Susan -was speaking in sarcasm when she complimented me before the rest of the -company. I did not take her as doing so for myself, I must confess. I -have always believed--on insufficient evidence, I begin to fear--that -her ladyship was a discriminating critic--even now if she were to assure -me that she was not speaking in sarcasm----" - -"Oh, lud! he is relenting," whispered Lady Sarah. - -"Did you speak, madam?" said his lordship. - -"I was protesting against a too early exercise of your lordship's -well-known spirit of forgiveness," said her ladyship. - -"I thank you, Lady Sarah; I am, I know, too greatly inclined to take a -charitable view of--of--Why, sink me if she, too, is not trying to -make me look ridiculous!" cried his lordship. - -"Nay, my lord, I cannot believe that Lady Sarah would be at the pains to -do for you what you can so well do for yourself," remarked Lady Susan. - -His lordship looked at her--his mouth was slightly open--then he gazed -at the smiling features of the beautiful Lady Sarah, lastly at the -perfectly expressionless features of Sir Francis. - -"A plot--a plot!" he murmured. Then he struck a commonplace theatrical -attitude, the "exit attitude" of the man who tells you that his time -will come, though appearances are against him for the moment. He pointed -a firm forefinger at Lady Susan, saying: "I wash my hands clear of you -all. I have done with you and your plays. Get another man to fill my -place if you can." - -Then he rushed out through the open door. He seemed to have a shrewd -suspicion that if he were to wait another moment one at least of the -girls would have an effective answer to his challenge, and it is quite -likely that his suspicion was well founded. As it was, however, owing -to his wise precipitancy he heard no more than the pleasant laughter--it -really was pleasant laughter, though it did not sound so to him--of the -two girls. - -But when the sound of the slamming of the hall-door reached the library -the laughter in that apartment suddenly ceased. Sir Francis Dlavai -looked at each of the ladies, and both of them looked at him. For -some moments no word was exchanged between them. At last one of them -spoke--it was, strange to say, the man. - -"This is vastly fine, ladies," he remarked. "You have got rid of your -_bte-noire_, Lady Susan; that, I say, is vastly fine, but where are you -to find a _bte-blanche_ to take his place?" - -"Surely we can find some gentleman willing to act the part of Bellaire?" -said Lady Sarah. - -"Oh, there is not like to be a lack of young gentlemen willing to take -the part, but we want not merely willingness, but competence as well; -and the piece must be played on Wednesday, even though the part of -Bellaire be left out," said Sir Francis. - -Lady Susan looked blankly at the floor. She seemed ready to renew the -tears which she had wept on the shoulder of her friend a short time -before. - -"Have I been too hasty?" she said. "Alas! I fear that I have been -selfish. I thought only of the poor figure that I should cut with such a -lover--and with all the world looking on, too! I should have given more -thought to your distress, Sir Francis." - -"Say no more, I pray of you; better have no play at all than one that -all our kind friends will damn with the utmost cordiality and good -breeding," said Sir Francis. - -"True, sir, but think of the ladies' dresses!" said Lady Sarah. "What -the ladies say is, 'Better produce a play that will be cordially damned -rather than deprive us of our chance of displaying our new dresses.'" - -"Heavens!" cried Sir Francis, "I had not thought of the new dresses. -Lady Susan, you will e'en have to face the anger of your sisters--'tis -not I that will tarry for such an event. I mean to fly to Bath -or Brighthelmstone, or perchance to Timbuctoo, until the storm be -overpast." - -"Nay, nay,'tis not a time for jesting, sir; let us not look at the -matter from the standpoint of men, who do not stand but run away, let us -be women for once, and scheme," said Lady Susan. - -"That is woman's special province," said Sir Francis. "Pray begin, my -lady--'twill be strange if your ladyship and Lady Sarah do not succeed -in----" - -"Psha! there is but one man in England who could play the part of -Bellaire on Wednesday," cried Lady Sarah. "Ay, sir, and he is the only -one in England capable of playing it." - -"Then we shall have him on our stage if I should have to pay a thousand -pounds for his services," said Sir Francis. "But where is he to be -found?" - -"Cannot you guess, sir?" asked Lady Sarah, smiling. - -Sir Francis looked puzzled, but Lady Sue started and caught her friend -by the wrist. - -"You do not mean----" she began. - -"Lud! these girls! Here's a scheme if you will!" muttered Sir Francis. - -"Ay, if you will, Sir Francis. You know that I mean Mr. O'Brien himself -and none other," cried Lady Sarah. - -"Impossible!" cried Lady Susan. "My father would never consent to my -acting in a play with a real actor--no, not even if he were Mr. Garrick -himself. How could you suggest such a thing, Sarah?" - -"What, do you mean to tell me that you would refuse to act with Mr. -O'Brien?" asked Lady Sarah. - -"Oh, hear the child!" cried Lady Susan. "She asks me a question to which -she knows only one answer is possible, and looks all the time as though -she expected just the opposite answer!" - -"I know well that there are a good many ladies who would give all that -they possess for the chance of acting with Mr. O'Brien, and you are -among the number, my dear," laughed Lady Sarah. - -"I dare not--I dare not. And yet----" murmured the other girl. - -Sir Francis had been lost in thought while the two had been bickering -over the body of O'Brien. He had walked across the room and seated -himself for some moments. Now he rose and held up a finger. - -"Ladies, this is a serious matter for all of us," he said. And he spoke -the truth to a greater depth than he was aware of. "'Tis a very serious -matter. If we get Mr. O'Brien to play the part, the piece will be the -greatest success of the day. If we fail to get him, our theatricals will -be damned to a certainty. Lady Susan, will you consent to play with him -if his name does not appear upon the bill?" - -"But every one would know Mr. O'Brien," she faltered, after a pause that -was overcharged with excitement. - -"Yes, in fact; but no one will have official cognizance of him, and, -as you must know, in these matters of etiquette everything depends upon -official cognizance." - -"My father--" - -"His lordship will have no _locus standi_ in the case. He cannot take -notice of an act that is not officially recognisable," suggested Sir -Francis, the sophist. - -"If you assure me---- But is't true that Mr. O'Brien only ceased to -become a gentleman when he became an actor?" said Lady Susan. - -"I have not heard that he relinquished the one part when he took up the -other," said Sir Francis. "I wonder that you have not met him at the -houses of some of our friends--he is more popular even than Mr. Garrick. -The family of O'Brien----" - -"All kings, I doubt not," said Lady Susan. "There were a good many -kings in Ireland in the old days, I believe. I read somewhere that -ninety-seven kings were killed in one battle, and still there were quite -enough left to carry on the quarrels of the country. Oh, yes, there -were plenty of kings, and their descendants have--well, descended. Mr. -O'Brien descended pretty far when he became a play-actor." - -"If he condescends to take up the part of Bellaire at the eleventh hour -to pluck our theatricals out of the fire we shall have every reason to -be grateful to him," said Sir Francis with a severe air of reproof. He -was beginning to be tired--as others in his place have been from time to -time--of the capriciousness of his company of amateurs. - -"You are right, sir," said Lady Sarah. "Come, my dear Sue, cease to give -yourself the airs of those ladies who, Mr. Garrick affirms, have been -the plague of his life. If Mr. O'Brien agrees to come to our rescue you -should have no feeling but of gratitude to him. Surely 'twere churlish -on the part of a damsel when a gallant knight rides up to her rescue to -look at his horse in the mouth." - -"I am thinking of my father," said the other. "But I am disposed to -accept the risk of the situation. You will promise that his name will -not appear in the bills, Sir Francis?" - -"I will promise to do my best to save you from the contamination of -having your name made as immortal as Mr. O'Brien's," said Sir Francis. - -Lady Sarah laughed, and so did her friend--after a pause sufficient to -allow the colour that had come to her face at the stinging reproof to -die away. - -"I hope that you may catch your bird, sir--your eagle--your Irish -eagle." - -"If I could tell him that Lady Sarah Lennox was to be in the cast of the -play I should need no further lure for him," said Sir Francis, making -his most exquisite bow to her. - -"Oh, sir, you overwhelm me," said Lady Sarah, sinking in her most -ravishing courtesy. - -Lady Susan coloured once more, and her foot played a noiseless tattoo on -the floor, for she perceived all that Sir Francis's compliment implied. -Lady Sarah was the most beautiful girl in England, while Lady Susan was -not even second to her, a fact of which she was as well aware as her -friends. - -This was how Lady Susan Fox-Strangways first met Mr. O'Brien, the -actor whom Garrick had brought from Ireland in the year 1762. He -good-naturedly agreed to help Sir Francis Dlavai in his extremity, and -his ready Irish tact enabled him to be the first to stipulate that his -name should not appear in the bills--a condition with which Sir Francis -complied, drawing a long breath. - -"Mr. O'Brien," he said, "should the stage ever fail you, a fortune -awaits you if you undertake the duty of teaching gentlemen the art of -being a gentleman." - -"Ah, sir, the moment that art enters the door the gentleman flies out -by the window," said the actor. "It is Nature, not art, that makes a -gentleman." - -One can well believe that Lady Susan Fox-Strangways, with all the pride -of her connection with a peerage nearly ten years old, treated Mr. -O'Brien's accession to a place in the company of amateurs with some -hauteur, though it was said that she fell in love with him at once. On -consideration, her bearing of hauteur which we have ventured to assign -to her, so far from being incompatible with her having fallen in love -with him, would really be a natural consequence of such an accident, and -the deeper she felt herself falling the more she would feel it necessary -to assert her position, if only for the sake of convincing herself that -it was impossible for her to forget herself so far as to think of an -Irish play-actor as occupying any other position in regard to her than -that of a diversion for the moment. - -It was equally a matter of course that Lady Sarah should have an -instinct of what was taking place. She had attended several of the -rehearsals previously in the capacity of adviser to her friend, for Lady -Susan had a high opinion of her critical capacity; but not until two -rehearsals had taken place with O'Brien as Bellaire was she able to -resume her attendance at Downing Street. Before half an hour had passed -this astute lady had seen, first, that O'Brien made every other man in -the cast seem a lout; and, secondly, that Lady Susan felt that every man -in the world was a lout by the side of O'Brien. - -She hoped to discover what were the impressions of O'Brien, but she -found herself foiled: the man was too good an actor to betray himself. -The fervour which he threw into the character when making love to Lady -Susan had certainly the semblance of a real passion, but what did this -mean more than that Mr. O'Brien was a convincing actor? - -When she arrived at this point in her consideration of the situation -Lady Sarah lost herself, and began to long with all her heart that the -actor were making love to her--taking her hand with that incomparable -devotion to--was it his art?--which he showed when Lady Susan's hand was -raised, with a passionate glance into her eyes, to his lips; putting his -arm about her waist, while his lips, trembling under the force of the -protestations of undying devotion which they were uttering, were almost -touching Lady Susan's ear. Before the love scene was over Lady Sarah was -in love with the actor, if not with the man, O'Brien. - -So was every lady in the cast. O'Brien was the handsomest actor of the -day. He had been careful of his figure at a time when men of fashion -lived in such a way as made the preservation of a figure well-nigh -impossible. Every movement was grace itself with him, and the period -was one in which the costume of a man gave him every chance of at least -imitating a graceful man. All the others in the cast of the play seemed -imitating the gracefulness of O'Brien, and every man of them seemed -a clown beside him. They gave themselves countless graces, but he was -grace itself. - -Lady Sarah saw everything that was to be seen and said nothing. She was -wise. She knew that in due time her friend would tell her all there was -to be told. - -She was not disappointed. The play was produced, and of course every -one recognised O'Brien in the part, although the bill--printed in gold -letters on a satin ground, with a charming allegorical design by Lady -Diana Spencer, showing a dozen dainty cupids going to school with -satchels--stated that Bellaire would be represented by "a gentleman." - -Equally as a matter of course a good many of the spectators affirmed -that it was intolerable that a play-actor should be smuggled into a -company of amateurs, some of them belonging to the best families. And -then to attempt a deception of the audience by suggesting that O'Brien -was a gentleman--oh, the thing was unheard of! So said some of the -ladies, adding that they thought it rather sad that Lady Susan was not -better-looking. - -But of the success of the entertainment there could not be a doubt. It -was the talk of the town for a month, and every one noticed--even her -own father--that Lady Susan was looking extremely thin and very pale. - -Lady Sarah said that she had taken the diversion of the theatricals too -seriously. - -"I saw it from the first, my dear Sue," she said. - -Sue sprang from her chair, and it would be impossible for any one to say -now that she was over pale. - -"You saw it--you--what was it that you saw from the first?" she cried. - -Lady Sarah looked at her and laughed. - -"Ah, that is it--what was it that I saw from the first?" she said. "What -I was going to say that I saw was simply that you were throwing yourself -too violently into the production of the play. That was why you insisted -on poor Lord B------'s getting his _cong_. It was a mistake--I saw that -also." - -"When did you see that?" - -"When I saw you taking part in that love scene with Mr. O'Brien." - -"What mean you by that, Lady Sarah?" - -"Exactly what you fancy I mean, Lady Susan." - -Lady Susan gazed at her blankly at first, then very pitifully. In -another moment she had flung herself on her knees at the feet of her -friend and was weeping in her lap. - -The friend was full of sympathy. - -"You poor child!" she murmured, "how could you help it? I vow that I -myself--yes, for some minutes--I was as deep in love with the fellow as -you yourself were. But, of course, you were with him longer--every day. -Lud! what a handsome rascal he is, to be sure. His lordship must take -you to the country without delay. Has the fellow tried to transfer the -character in the play beyond the footlights?" - -"Never--never!" cried Susan. "Sir Francis was right--he is a gentleman. -That is the worst of it!" - -"Oh, lud! the worst of it? Are you mad, girl?" - -"I am not mad now, but I know that I shall be if he remains a -gentleman--if he refrains from telling me that he loves me--or at least -of giving me a chance of telling him that I love him. That would be -better than nothing--'twould be such a relief. I really do not think -that I want anything more than to be able to confess to him that I love -him--that 'tis impossible that I should love another." - -"The sooner you go to the country the better 'twill be for yourself and -all of us--his lordship especially. Good heavens, child, you must be -mad! Do you fancy that his lordship would give his consent to your -marriage with a strolling player, let him be as handsome as Beelzebub?" - -"He is not a strolling player. Mr. O'Brien is in Mr. Garrick's company, -and every one knows that he is of good family. I have been searching it -out for the past week--all about the O'Briens--there were a great many -of them, all of them distinguished. If it had not been that King James -was defeated by William, in Ireland, Mr. O'Brien's grandfather would -have been made a duke. They were all heroes, the O'Briens. And they were -just too sincere in their devotion to the losing side--that was it--the -losing side was always the one they took up. And yet you call him a -strolling player!" - -"I take back the insinuation and offer him my apologies; he is not a -strolling player because he doesn't stroll--would to Heaven he did! Oh, -my poor Sue, take a stroll into the country yourself as soon as possible -and try to forget this dreadfully handsome wretch. You would not, I am -sure, force me to tell his lordship what a goose his daughter is like to -make of herself." - -At this point there was a dramatic scene, one that was far more deeply -charged with comedy of a sort than any to be found in Mr. Whitehead's -play. Lady Susan accused her dear friend of being a spy, of extorting -a confession from her under the guise of friendship, which in other -circumstances--the rack, the wheel, the thumbscrew, in fact the entire -mechanism of persuasion employed by the Spanish Inquisition--would have -been powerless to obtain. Lady Sarah on her side entreated her friend -not to show herself to be even a greater goose than her confession -would make her out to be. For several minutes there was reproach and -counter-reproach, many home truths followed home thrusts; then some -tears, self-accusation, expressions of sympathy and tenderness, followed -by promises of friendship beyond the dreams of Damon and Pythias; -lastly, a promise on the part of Sue that she would take the advice of -her devoted Sarah and fly to the country without delay. - -Strange to say, she fled to the country, and, stranger still, the result -was not to cure her of her infatuation for the handsome actor. For close -upon a year she did not see him, but she was as devoted to him as she -had been at first, and no day passed on which she failed to think of -him, or to spend some hours writing romantic verses, sometimes in the -style of Waller in his lyrics, sometimes in the style (distant) of Mr. -Dryden in his pastorals: she was Lesbia, and Mr. O'Brien was Strephon. - -But in the meantime she had improved so much in her acting that when -Lady Sarah, who had within the year married Sir Thomas Bunbury, ventured -to rally her upon her infatuation of the previous spring, she was -able to disarm her suspicions by a flush and a shrug, and a little -contemptuous exclamation or two. - -"Ah, my dear one, did not I give you good advice?" cried Lady Sarah. "I -was well assured that my beloved Sue would never persevere in a passion -that could only end in unhappiness. But indeed, child, I never had the -heart to blame you greatly, the fellow is handsome as Apollo and as -proud as Apolyon. He has broken many hearts not accounted particularly -fragile, during the year." - -"Is't possible? For example?--I vow that I shall keep their names -secret." - -Lady Sarah shook her head at first, but on being importuned whispered a -name or two of ladies of their acquaintance, all of whom--according to -Lady Sarah--had fallen as deep as was possible in love with O'Brien. Her -ladyship was so intent on her narration of the scandals that she quite -failed to see the strange light that gleamed in her friend's eyes at the -mention of every name--a rather fierce gleam, with a flash of green in -it. She did not notice this phenomenon, nor did she detect the false -note in the tribute of laughter which her friend paid to her powers of -narration. - -But Lady Sue, when the other had left her, rushed to her room and flung -herself on her bed in a paroxysm of jealousy. She beat her innocent -pillow wildly, crying in the whisper that the clenching of her teeth -made imperative--"The hussies! Shameless creatures! Do they hope that he -will be attracted to them? Fools!--they are fools! They do not know him -as I know him. They think that he is nothing but a vain actor--Garrick, -or Barry, or Lewes. Oh, they do not know him!" - -She lay there in her passion for an hour, and if it was her maid who -discovered her at the end of that time, it is safe to assume that -the young woman's flesh was black and blue in places for several -days afterwards. The pinch and the slipper were among the most highly -approved forms of torture inflicted upon their maids at that robust -period of English history. The French Revolution was still some way off. - -A few weeks later Lady Susan was sitting to Sir Joshua Reynolds for a -group, in which he painted her with her friend Lady Sarah Bunbury and -Mr. Henry Fox; and it was the carrying out of this scheme that put quite -another scheme into the quick brain of the first-named lady. Painting -was in the air. She possessed a poor print of Mr. O'Brien, and she had -found an immense consolation in gazing upon it--frequently at midnight, -under the light of her bedroom candle. The sight of the life-like -portraits in Sir Joshua's studio induced her to ask herself if she might -not possess a picture of her lover that would show him as he really was -in life, without demanding so many allowances as were necessary to be -made for the shortcomings of the engraver of a print. Why should she not -get Sir Joshua Reynolds to paint for her the portrait of Mr. O'Brien? - -[Illustration: 0379] - -The thought was a stimulating one, and it took possession of her for a -week. At the end of that time, however, she came to the conclusion that -it would be unwise for her to employ Sir Joshua on a commission that -might possibly excite some comment on the part of her friends should -they come to learn--and the work of this particular painter was rather -inclined to be assertive--that it had been executed to her order. But -she was determined not to live any longer without a portrait of the man; -and, hearing some one mention at Sir Joshua's house the name of Miss -Catherine Read, who was described as an excellent portrait painter, she -made further inquiry, and the result was that she begged her father, -the Earl of Ilchester, who was devoted to her, to allow her to have her -portrait done by Miss Read, to present to Lady Sarah on her birthday. - -Of course Miss Read was delighted to have the patronage of so great -a family--she had not yet done her famous pastel of the Duchess of -Argyll--and Susan, accompanied by her footman, lost no time in beginning -her series of sittings to the artist to whom Horace Walpole referred as -"the painteress." - -She was both patient and discreet, for three whole days elapsed before -she produced a mezzotint of Mr. O'Brien. - -"I wonder if you would condescend to draw a miniature portrait of his -lordship's favourite actor from so poor a copy as this, Miss Read?" she -said. "Have you ever seen this Mr. O'Brien--an Irishman, I believe he -is?" - -Miss Read assured her that Mr. O'Brien was her favourite actor also. The -print produced was indeed a poor one; it quite failed to do justice to -the striking features of the original, she said. - -"I felt certain that it could bear but a meagre resemblance to Mr. -O'Brien if all that I hear of the man be true," said Lady Susan. "His -lordship swears that there has never been so great an actor in England, -and I should like to give him a surprise by presenting to him a -miniature portrait of his favourite, done by the cunning pencil of Miss -Read, on his birthday. I protest that 'tis a vast kindness you are doing -me in undertaking such a thing. But mind, I would urge of you to keep -the affair a profound secret. I wish it as a surprise to my father, and -its effect would be spoilt were it to become known to any of his friends -that I had this intention." - -"Your ladyship may rest assured that no living creature will hear of the -affair through me," said the painteress. "But I heartily wish that your -ladyship could procure for me a better copy than this print from which -to work," she added. - -"I fear that I cannot promise you that; I found two other prints of the -same person, but they are worse even than this," said Lady Susan. "You -must do your best with the material at your disposal." - -"Your ladyship may depend on my doing my best," replied Miss Read. "When -does his lordship's birthday take place?" - -Her ladyship was somewhat taken aback by the sudden question. It took -her some time to recollect that her father's birthday was to be within -a month. She felt that she could not live for longer than another month -without a portrait of the man whom she loved. - -While she was going home in her chair she could not but feel that she -had hitherto been an undutiful daughter, never having taken any interest -in her father's birthday, and being quite unacquainted with its date. -She hoped fervently that Miss Read would not put herself to the trouble -to find out exactly on what day of what month it took place. The result -of such an investigation might be a little awkward. - -It so happened that Miss Read took no trouble in this direction. All her -attention was turned upon the task of making a presentable miniature out -of the indifferent material with which she had been supplied for this -purpose. She began wondering if it might not be possible to get O'Brien -to sit to her half a dozen times in order to give her a chance of doing -credit to herself and to the gentleman's fine features. - -She was still pondering over this question when her attendant entered -with a card, saying that a gentleman had come to wait on her. - -She read the name on the card, and uttered an exclamation of surprise, -for the name was that of the man of whom she was thinking--Mr. O'Brien, -of Drury Lane Theatre. - -She had wholly failed to recover herself before he entered the studio, -and advanced to her, making his most respectful bow. He politely -ignored her flutter-ings--he was used to see her sex overwhelmed when he -appeared. - -"Madam, I beg that you will pardon this intrusion," he said. "I have -taken the liberty of waiting upon you, knowing of your great capacity as -an artist." - -"Oh, sir!" cried the fluttered little lady, making her courtesy. - -"Nay, madam, I have no intention of flattering one to whom compliments -must be as customary as they are well deserved," said the actor. "I come -not to confer a favour, madam, but to entreat one. In short, Miss Read, -I am desirous of presenting a valued friend of mine with the portrait of -a lady for whom he entertains a sincere devotion. For certain reasons, -which I need not specify, the lady cannot sit to you; but I have here -a picture of her poorly done in chalks, from which I hope it may be -in your power to make a good--a good---- Good heavens! what do I -behold?'Tis she--she--Lady Susan herself!" - -He had glanced round the studio in the course of his speech, and his -eyes had alighted upon the newly-begun portrait of Lady Susan. It -represented only a few days' work, but the likeness to the original had -been ably caught, and no one could fail to recognise the features. - -He took a hurried step to the easel, and the air made by his motion -dislodged a print which the artist had laid on the little ledge that -supported the stretcher of the canvas. The print fluttered to the floor; -he picked it up, and gave another exclamation on recognising his own -portrait in the mezzotint. - -Looking from the print to the picture and then at Miss Read, he said in -a low voice, after a pause--"Madam, I am bewildered. Unless you come -to my assistance I protest I shall feel that I am dreaming and asleep. -Pray, madam, enlighten me--for Heaven's sake tell me how this"--he held -up the print--"came into such close juxtaposition with that"--he pointed -to the portrait on the easel. - -"'Tis easily told, sir," said Miss Read, smiling archly. "But I must -leave it to your sense of honour to keep the matter a profound secret." - -"Madam," said Mr. O'Brien with dignity, "Madam, I am an Irishman." - -"That is enough, sir; I know that I can trust you. The truth is, Mr. -O'Brien, that Lady Susan is sitting to me for her portrait--that -portrait. 'Twas marvellous that you should recognise it so soon. I have -not worked at it for many hours." - -"Madam, your art is beyond that of the magician. 'Tis well known that -every form depicted by Miss Read not only breathes but speaks." - -"Oh, sir, I vow that you are a flatterer; still, you did recognise the -portrait--'tis to be presented to Lady Sarah Bunbury." - -"Her ladyship will be the most fortunate of womankind." - -"Which ladyship, sir--Lady Susan or Lady Sarah?" - -"Both, madam." The Irishman was bowing with his hand on his heart. "But -the print--my poor likeness?" - -"That is the secret, sir; but you will not betray it when I tell you -that Lady Susan entrusted that print to me in order that I might make a -copy in miniature for her to present to her father, Lord Ilchester. You -are his favourite actor, Mr. O'Brien, as no doubt you are aware." - -"'Tis the first I heard of it, madam." There was a suggestion of -mortification in the actor's tone. - -"Ah, 'twould be impossible for Mr. O'Brien to keep an account of all his -conquests. But now you can understand how it is that her ladyship wishes -her intention to be kept a secret: she means to add to the acceptability -of her gift by presenting it as a surprise. But her secret is safe in -your keeping, sir?" - -"I swear to it, madam." Mr. O'Brien spoke mechanically. His hand was on -his chin: he was clearly musing upon some question that perplexed him. -He took a turn up and down the studio, and then said: - -"Madam, it has just occurred to me that you, as a great artist----" - -"Nay, sir," interposed the blushing painteress. - -"I will not take back a word, madam," said the actor, holding up one -inexorable hand. "I say that surely so great an artist as you should -disdain to do the work of a mere copyist. Why should not you confer upon -me the honour of sitting to you for the miniature portrait?" - -"Oh, sir, that is the one favour which I meant to ask of you, if my -courage had not failed me." - -"Madam, you will confer immortality upon a simple man through that magic -wand which you wield." He swept his hand with inimitable grace over the -mahl-stick which lay against the easel. "I am all impatient to begin my -sitting, Miss Read. Pray let me come to-morrow." - -"Her ladyship comes to-morrow." - -"I shall precede her ladyship. Name the hour, madam." - -Without the least demur Miss Read named an hour which could enable him -to be far away from the studio before Lady Susan's arrival. - -And yet the next day Lady Susan entered the studio quite half an hour -before Mr. O'Brien had left it. Of course she was surprised. Had not -Miss Read received a letter, making her aware of the fact that she, Lady -Susan, would be forced, owing to circumstances over which she had -no control, to sit for her portrait an hour earlier than that of her -appointment? - -When Miss Read said she had received no such letter, Lady Susan said -some very severe things about her maid. Miss Read was greatly fluttered, -but she explained in as few words as possible how it was that Mr. -O'Brien had come forward in the cause of art, and was sitting for the -miniature. Lady Susan quickly got over her surprise. (Had Miss Read seen -the letter which her ladyship had received the previous evening from -Mr. O'Brien she would not have marvelled as she did at the rapidity -with which her ladyship recovered her self-possession.) Her ladyship -was quite friendly with the actor, and thanked him for his courtesy -in offering to give up so much of his time solely for the sake of -increasing the value of her gift to her father. - -A few minutes later, while they were discussing some point in the design -of the picture, Miss Read was called out of the studio, and in a second -Lady Susan was in his arms. - -"Fate is on our side, darling girl!" he whispered. - -"I could not live without you, my charmer. But I was bold! I took my -fate in both hands when I wrote you that letter." - -"Dear one, 'twas the instinct of true love that made you guess the -truth--that I wanted the portrait because I loved the original. Oh, dear -one, what have I not suffered during the year that has parted us!" said -Lady Susan, with her head upon his shoulder. - -The Irishman found it necessary to fall back upon the seductive tongue -of his country for words of endearment to bestow upon her. He called her -"Sheila," "a cushla machree," "mavourneen," and also "aroon." But when -Miss Read returned to the studio they were still discussing a purely -artistic point in connection with the portrait. - -Of course now that O'Brien knew the secret of the miniature there was no -reason that Miss Read could see why he and Lady Susan should not meet at -her studio. To do her justice, neither could her ladyship perceive why -they should not come together at this place. They came every day, and -every day Lady Susan begged that Miss Read would allow her to rest in -her ante-room after the fatigue of the sitting. She rested in that -room, and in the company of O'Brien, until at last Miss Read became -frightened; and one day told her friend Lord Cathcart something of her -fears. Lord Cathcart, in his turn, told Lord Ilchester. His lordship was -furious, but cautious. - -He wanted evidence of his daughter's infatuation. He got it the next -morning, for he insisted on seeing a letter which arrived for Lady -Susan, addressed in the handwriting of Lady Sarah. This letter turned -out to be from O'Brien, and Susan confessed that her father's surmise -was correct--all the letters which she had recently received in Lady -Sarah's hand had come from O'Brien. - -Her father was foolish enough to grant her permission to say farewell -to her lover, and thus the two were allowed to come together once more. -They had a long talk, in the course of which O'Brien communicated to her -a secret of the theatre, which was that Mr. Garrick and Mr. Colman were -engaged in the construction of a comedy to be called _The Clandestine -Marriage_, and that Mr. Garrick told him that he, O'Brien, was to play -the part of the lover--the gentleman who had married the lady in secret. - -Lady Susan parted from her lover, not in tears, but in laughter. - -The conclusion of the story is told by Horace Walpole, writing to Lord -Hertford. - -"You will have heard of the sad misfortune that has happened to Lord -Ilchester by his daughter's marriage with O'Brien, the actor," wrote -Walpole; and then went on to tell how Lady Susan had made her confession -to her father, vowing to have nothing more to do with her lover if she -were but permitted to bid him good-bye. "You will be amazed," continued -Walpole, "even this was granted. The parting scene happened the -beginning of the week. On Friday she came of age, and on Saturday -morning--instead of being under lock and key in the country--walked -downstairs, took her footman, said she was going to breakfast with -Lady Sarah, but would call at Miss Read's; in the street pretended -to recollect a particular cap in which she was to be drawn, sent the -footman back for it, whipped into a hackney chair, was married at Covent -Garden Church, and set out for Mr. O'Brien's villa at Dunstable." - -Unlike many other alliances of a similar type, this marriage turned out -a happy one. O'Brien was induced to leave the stage and to depart with -his wife for America. He obtained a grant of some forty thousand acres -in the province of New York, and had he retained this property and taken -the right side during the Revolution his descendants would to-day be -the richest people in the world. A few years later he was given a -good appointment in Bermuda; and finally, in 1770, he was made -Receiver-General of the County of Dorset, and became popular as a -country squire. He died in 1815, and Lady Susan survived him by twelve -years. - -It was Lady Sarah who had made the imprudent marriage. She submitted to -the cruelties of her husband for fourteen years, and on her leaving his -roof he obtained a divorce. - -In 1781, nineteen years after her first marriage, she wedded the Hon. -George Napier, and became the mother of three of the greatest Englishmen -of the nineteenth century. She lived until she was eighty. Her friend -Lady Susan followed her to the grave a year later, at the age of -eighty-four. - - -THE END - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's A Georgian Pageant, by Frank Frankfort Moore - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GEORGIAN PAGEANT *** - -***** This file should be named 51964-8.txt or 51964-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/6/51964/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - diff --git a/old/51964-8.zip b/old/51964-8.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 17f3cd8..0000000 --- a/old/51964-8.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/51964-h.zip b/old/51964-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 6d46069..0000000 --- a/old/51964-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/51964-h/51964-h.htm b/old/51964-h/51964-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 6d9a6a1..0000000 --- a/old/51964-h/51964-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9742 +0,0 @@ -<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> - -<!DOCTYPE html - PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > - -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> - <title> - A Georgian Pageant, by Frank Frankfort Moore - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> - - body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} - P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } - H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } - hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} - .foot { margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; text-align: justify; font-size: 80%; font-style: italic;} - blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} - .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} - .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} - .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} - .xx-small {font-size: 60%;} - .x-small {font-size: 75%;} - .small {font-size: 85%;} - .large {font-size: 115%;} - .x-large {font-size: 130%;} - .indent5 { margin-left: 5%;} - .indent10 { margin-left: 10%;} - .indent15 { margin-left: 15%;} - .indent20 { margin-left: 20%;} - .indent30 { margin-left: 30%;} - .indent40 { margin-left: 40%;} - div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } - div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } - .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} - .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} - .pagenum {position: absolute; right: 1%; font-size: 0.6em; - font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; - text-align: right; background-color: #FFFACD; - border: 1px solid; padding: 0.3em;text-indent: 0em;} - .side { float: left; font-size: 75%; width: 15%; padding-left: 0.8em; - border-left: dashed thin; text-align: left; - text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; - font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} - .head { float: left; font-size: 90%; width: 98%; padding-left: 0.8em; - border-left: dashed thin; text-align: center; - text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; - font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} - p.pfirst, p.noindent {text-indent: 0} - span.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 0.8 } - pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} - -</style> - </head> - <body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Georgian Pageant, by Frank Frankfort Moore - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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 -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: A Georgian Pageant - -Author: Frank Frankfort Moore - -Illustrator: Various - -Release Date: May 2, 2016 [EBook #51964] -Last Updated: March 13, 2018 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GEORGIAN PAGEANT *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - -</pre> - - <div style="height: 8em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h1> - A GEORGIAN PAGEANT - </h1> - <h2> - By Frank Frankfort Moore - </h2> - <h3> - With Illustrations - </h3> - <h4> - London: Hutchinson & Co. Paternoster Row - </h4> - <h3> - 1908 - </h3> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0001.jpg" alt="0001 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0001.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0008.jpg" alt="0008 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0008.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0009.jpg" alt="0009 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0009.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - <b>CONTENTS</b> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE WRITER'S APOLOGY </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> THE MONARCH OF THE PAGEANT </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> A COMEDY IN ST. MARTIN'S STREET </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> A TRAGEDY IN THE HAYMARKET </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> THE FATAL GIFT </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> THE FÊTE-CHAMPÊTRE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> THE PLOT OF A LADY NOVELIST </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> TRAGEDY WITH A TWINKLE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> THE BEST COMEDY OF THE CENTURY </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> THE JESSAMY BRIDE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> THE AMAZING ELOPEMENT </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> THE AMAZING DUELS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> A MELODRAMA AT COVENT GARDEN </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> THE COMEDY AT DOWNING STREET </a> - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE WRITER'S APOLOGY - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE greater number - of the papers in this series, dealing with some well-known persons and - incidents of the latter half of the Eighteenth Century, are the practical - result of a long conversation which the writer had with the late Professor - J. Churton Collins upon a very memorable occasion. The writer ventured to - contend that the existing views respecting the personality of Oliver - Goldsmith, of Henry Thrale, of James Boswell, of Samuel Johnson, and of - some others whom he named, were grossly erroneous; as were also the - prevalent notions respecting such matters as Fanny Burney's attendance - upon the Queen, the “romance” of the Gunnings, and the “elopement” of - Richard Brinsley Sheridan with Elizabeth Linley. If Professor Churton - Collins had not urged upon the writer the possible interest attaching to - the expression of some opinions unbiassed by those conservators of the - conventional who have dealt with the same period, every one of them being - as careful as Indians on the warpath to tread in the footsteps of the man - preceding him, he would not have the courage to set forth his views in the - form they now assume. - </p> - <p> - The non-controversial papers in the series may increase the light and - shade in the sketches of this very humble Georgian Pageant. The romance of - Lady Susan Fox-Strangways naturally took the shape of a “regulation” - story. The details are absolutely correct. - </p> - <p> - On the very day the writer meant to keep the promise he made to Professor - Churton Collins, by sending him the completed proofs of this book, the - melancholy news of his death was published—an irreparable loss to - the Literature of English Criticism. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE MONARCH OF THE PAGEANT - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>n the morning of - February 2nd, 1789, a lady was taking a solitary stroll in Kew Gardens. - She was a small person, of dainty features, with a dimple on each side of - her mouth that suggested a smile, varying, perhaps out of compliment to - the variations of the people with whom she came in contact in her daily - life, and shifting doubtless with the movements of the folk of her fancy - through her quick brain, but remaining a smile all the time. There was - about her a good deal of that doll-like primness which is so pretty an - accompaniment of a person of small stature; but with this particular - person it had—not quite, but almost—the additional charm of - dignity. One could at all times see that she was making a highly - intellectual attempt to be dignified; but that she was not really - dignified at heart. One could see that she had too fine a sense of humour - to be thoroughly dignified; and it may be that some of her closest - observers—her closest observers were her greatest admirers—perceived - now and again that she had a full sense of the humour of her efforts in - the direction of dignity. She had large eyes, but being very - short-sighted, she had a habit of half closing them when looking at - anything or any one further away from her than ten feet. But somehow it - was never suggested that the falling of her lids brought a frown to her - face. - </p> - <p> - She was a quick walker at all times; but on this winter day the slowest - would have had little temptation to dawdle. The usual river mist was - thrusting up a quivering cold hand among the gaunt trees of the water - boundary of the Gardens, and here and there it flitted like a lean spectre - among the clipped evergreens of the shrubberies. There was a maze of yew - hedges, in the intricacies of which one mist-spectre had clearly got lost; - and the lady, who had some imagination, could see, as she hurried past, - the poor thing's wispy head and shoulders flitting about among the - baffling central walks. (A defective eyesight is sometimes a good friend - to the imagination.) And all the while she was hurrying along the broad - track she was looking with some measure of uneasiness through her - half-closed eyes down every tributary walk that ran into the main one, and - peering uneasily down every long artificial vista that Sir Thomas - Chambers, the Swedish knight and landscape gardener, had planned, through - the well-regulated boskage, with an imitation Greek temple or Roman villa - at the end. Approaching the widening entrance to each of these, she went - cautiously for a few moments until she had assured herself on some point. - Once she started and took a step backward, but raising the lorgnette which - she carried, and satisfying herself that the group of men a hundred yards - down one of the vistas was composed wholly of gardeners, she resumed her - stroll. - </p> - <p> - Whatever slight apprehension may have been on her mind had vanished by the - time she had half completed the circuit made by the main walk. She had - reached one of the mounds which at that time were covered with - rhododendrons, and paused for a moment to see if there was sign of a bud. - A blackbird flew out from among the dense leafage, and she followed it - with her eyes as well as she could while she walked on, crossing the - narrow path that led to the seats on the mound. But at the moment of - crossing she was startled out of her senses by the sound of a shout from - some distance down this path—a loud shout followed by several others - rather less imperative. She gave a little exclamation of terror, raising - her muff to her face. Glancing in the direction whence the commotion was - coming, she gave another cry, seeing a tall man rush toward her with - outstretched arms—waving arms, frantically beckoning to her while he - shouted: - </p> - <p> - “Miss Burney! Miss Burney!” - </p> - <p> - She waited no longer. She turned and fled along the broad walk, making for - one of the many labyrinths not so very far away, and after her ran the - man, still shouting and gesticulating. She could hear the sound of his - feet and his voice behind her, as well as the cries of the other men who - were endeavouring to keep pace with him. On they came, and there flashed - through her active brain, in spite of the horrible apprehension which - thrilled through every nerve in her body, as she doubled back upon the - path which she had just traversed, the lines written by Dr. Goldsmith and - often quoted by her friend Dr. Johnson: - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - A hare whom hounds and horns pursue, - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - Pants to the place from whence at first he flew. - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - She realised, all too painfully, the feelings of the poor hare at that - moment. She longed for a friendly earth to open up before her. They were - behind her—those wild huntsmen, one hoarsely yelling to her she knew - not what, the others, more shrill, shouting to her to stop. - </p> - <p> - She was too frightened to think of obeying any of them. On she ran, and it - seemed that she was increasing the distance between her and her panting - pursuers, until one of them, having better wind, managed to shoot ahead of - the others, and to get close enough to say in a voice that was not all - gasps: - </p> - <p> - “Madam, madam, the doctor begs you to stop!” She glanced over her - shoulder, still flying. - </p> - <p> - “No, no, I cannot—I dare not!” she gasped. - </p> - <p> - “Madam, you must—you must: it hurts the King to run!” cried the man. - </p> - <p> - Then she stopped. The man, an ordinary attendant, stood in front of her. - He was more breathless than Miss Burney. - </p> - <p> - “The doctor, madam,” he faltered, “'twas the doctor—he thought at - first that His Majesty was—was—but that was at first—now - he says you must please not lead His Majesty on—'tis all too much - for him. Save us! How you did go, madam! Who would ha' thought it?” - </p> - <p> - She was paying no attention to him. Her eyes were fixed upon the group of - men who were recovering their breath while they walked slowly toward her. - The King was between his two physicians—not Physicians in Ordinary; - just the contrary—the two physicians who had been summoned from - Lincolnshire by some person in authority who possessed intelligence—it - should surely be easy to identify such a man at the Court of George III—when, - some months earlier, His Majesty gave signs of losing his mental balance. - They were the Willises, father and son, the former a clergyman, who was - therefore all the more fully qualified to deal with a mind diseased—such - a case as was defined as needing more the divine than the physician. The - King was between the father and his son, but neither of them was - exercising any ostentatious or officious restraint upon him. One of them - was smiling while he said some reassuring words to the Royal patient; the - other was endeavouring to reassure little Miss Burney from a distance. - </p> - <p> - And it seemed that the intentions of both were realised, for His Majesty - was smiling as benignly as was ever his wont, and little Miss Burney took - her courage in both hands and boldly advanced to meet her Sovereign. (She - had been for three years the Queen's “Dresser.”) But when they met, after - the King had cried, “Why did you run away from me, Miss Burney?” it - appeared that the process of reassuring the King had been but too - effectually accomplished, for before the lady could frame a diplomatic - reply to his inquiry, he had enwound her in his paternal arms and kissed - her heartily on the cheek, greatly to her confusion and (she pretends) to - her horror. The two doctors stood placidly by. They, poor things, being - quite unaccustomed to the ways of the immediate entourage of the Court of - George III—though they had doubtless heard something of the - practices that prevailed at the Courts of His Majesty's lamented - grandfather and great-grandfather—seemed under the impression that - there was nothing unusual in this form of salutation. For all they knew it - might be regarded as <i>de rigueur</i> between a monarch and the ladies of - his consort's retinue. Even Dr. Willis, the divine, took a tolerant view - of the transaction. He, as Miss Burney afterwards recorded, actually - looked pleased! - </p> - <p> - But, of course, the prim little lady herself was overwhelmed—yes, at - first; but soon her good sense came to her rescue. She seems to have come - with extraordinary rapidity to the conclusion that the King was not so mad - as she had believed him to be. Her train of reasoning was instinctive, and - therefore correct: the King had put his arms about her and kissed her when - he had the chance, therefore he could not be so mad after all. - </p> - <p> - In truth, however, Fanny Burney took the view of her treatment that any - sensible modest young woman would take of it. She knew that the King, who - had been separated for several months from the people whom he had been - daily in the habit of meeting, had shown in the most natural way possible - his delight at coming once more in contact with one of them. - </p> - <p> - And undoubtedly the homely old gentleman was delighted beyond measure to - meet with some one belonging to his happy years—a pleasanter face - than that of Mrs. Schwellenberg, the dreadful creature who had made Fanny - Burney's life miserable. It is not conceivable that the King would have - kissed Mrs. Schwellenberg if he had come upon her suddenly as he had upon - Miss Burney. People prefer silver rather than iron links with a happy - past. He was so overjoyed, that the divine and the physician in attendance - soon became anxious. They could not know much of all that he talked about - to Miss Burney. They were in the position of strangers suddenly introduced - to a family circle, and understanding nothing of the little homely secrets—homely - topics upon which all the members of the circle have laughed together for - years. - </p> - <p> - They possibly could not see much sense in his long and rambling chat—it - must have been largely in monologue—but they must have observed the - face of the lady who was listening to him, and known from the expression - which it wore that their patient was making himself intelligible. Only now - and again they thought it prudent to check his exuberance. They must have - been the most intelligent of men; and their names deserve to stand high in - the annals of their country. At a time when the scientific treatment of - the insane had not even begun to be formulated—when to be mentally - afflicted meant to be on a level with felons and to be subjected to such - repressive treatment as was afforded by the iron of the fetters and the - hiss of the whipcord—at a time when a lust for office could make a - statesman like Burke (a statesman who caused multitudes to weep in - sympathy with his harangue on the sufferings of Marie Antoinette) refer to - the King as having been “hurled by the Almighty from his throne” (in order - to give the Opposition a chance of jumping into place and power over his - prostrate body)—at such a time as this Dr. Willis and his two sons - undertook the treatment of the King, and in the face of much opposition - from the place-hunters in the Prince of Wales's pack, succeeded in - restoring their patient to the palace which his happy nature had - transformed into a home for every one dwelling under its roof. - </p> - <p> - They stood by for some time after the King had greeted Miss Burney; and - when he began to speak to her of topics that had a purely domestic ring - they showed their good taste, as well as their knowledge of the - peculiarities of their “case,” by moving away to a little distance, - signalling to their attendants to do the same. Their discrimination must - have been highly appreciated by the King. The poor restless mind had long - wanted such a good long talk with a sympathetic listener, who, he knew, - could understand every allusion that he might make to the past. He yearned - to talk and to hear of such things as some one living in a distant land - looks forward to finding in a letter from home. The <i>res angusta domi</i>—that - was what he was hungering for—the trivial things in which he - delighted—the confidences on simple matters—the sly everyday - jests, never acutely pointed even to the family circle, but absolutely - pointless to every one outside, yet sounding so delightfully witty when - repeated as a sign of a happy intimacy of the past! - </p> - <p> - Little Miss Burney had never imagined a scene like that in which she - played an insignificant part at the moment, but one of enormous importance - for posterity. She had, a few years before, been placed upon the porphyry - pedestal which is reserved in England for the greatest woman writer of the - generation. Seated there quite complacently, without reflecting upon the - possibility of her pedestal becoming a trifle rickety, she had clasped her - novel <i>Evelina</i> to her bosom, and received, without her head being in - the least turned, the adulation—respectful in some cases, almost - passionate in others—of the most notable men and women in the most - intellectual and artistic society in England. Dr. Samuel Johnson, who was - not disposed to overrate the merits of any writer whom the world had - praised, was kissing her hands, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan was kissing - her feet; Sir Joshua Reynolds was kissing the hem of her garments; while - Edmund Burke was weaving a tinsel crown of rhetoric for her shapely head; - but there were others equally great at that time who seemed to think that - only a nimbus could give the appropriate finish to the little personage on - the pedestal. The marvellous story of her success has been often told. It - is more easily told than understood in the present day, the fact being - that fashion in fiction is the most ephemeral of all human caprices, and - Fanny Burney was essentially a fashion. She followed up the marvellous - success of <i>Evelina</i>, after an interval of four years, with the - natural success of <i>Cecilia</i>, and, after another four years, she - retired from the brilliant world into the obscurity of the palace—the - palace wardrobe. She had visited Mrs. Delany, and had been introduced (not - presented) to the King and Queen, and the office of Queen's Dresser—Keeper - of the Robes was the stately designation of a very humble service—becoming - vacant, it was offered to Fanny Burney and accepted by her, acting on the - advice of her father, who most certainly hoped that his own interests as a - musician, fully qualified to become leader of the Royal Band, would be - materially advanced when his daughter should become one of the Household. - </p> - <p> - Reams of indignation have been published from time to time in respect of - Dr. Burney's conduct in urging on his one brilliant daughter—the - others were not brilliant, only mothers—to accept a post the duties - of which could be discharged by any lady's maid with far more advantage to - the Royal Consort than could possibly result from the ministrations of - Fanny Burney. The world has been called on to bemoan the prudent - indiscretion of the father, who did not hesitate to fling his gifted - daughter's pen out of the window, so to speak, and thereby deprive the - waiting world of some such masterpiece as <i>Camilla</i>—the novel - which she published five years after her release from the burden of the - Robes. There can be no doubt that the feeling which prevailed among the - circle of the elect—the Reynoldses, the Burkes, and even the frigid - Walpole—when it became known that Miss Burney's health was breaking - down under the strain of her duties at the Court—she had about two - hours' daily attendance of the most ordinary nature upon the Queen—was - on the border of indignation. Every one affirmed that it was a disgrace - for so lively a genius to be kept at the duties of a lady's maid. It was - like turning the winner of the Oaks out to the plough. Edmund Burke, - recalling his early approbation of the intentions of Dr. Burney in regard - to his daughter, declared that he had never made so great a mistake in all - his life; and we know that he made a few. These excellent people had no - reason to speak otherwise than they did on this matter. All they knew was - that the pen of the novelist who had given them so much pleasure had been - (as they believed) idle for nearly nine years, five of which had been - passed at the Court. That reflection was quite enough to rouse their - indignation. But what can one say of the indignation on this point of a - writer who actually made the fact of his being engaged on a review of the - Diary of Fanny Burney—the incomparable Diary which she kept during - her five years at Court—an excuse for turning the vials of his wrath - upon her father, whose obstinacy gave her a chance of writing the most - interesting chapter—the most accurate chapter—of History that - was ever penned by man or woman? - </p> - <p> - Macaulay wrote in all the fullness of his knowledge of what Fanny Burney - had written. He knew that for four years after she had published <i>Cecilia</i> - her pen had been idle so far as fiction was concerned. He knew that for - five years after her release from the thraldom of the Queen's closet she - had published nothing; he himself felt it to be his duty to point out the - comparative worthlessness of <i>Camilla</i>, the novel which she then gave - to the world, not because she felt upon her the impulse of a woman of - genius, but simply because she found herself in great need of some ready - money. Macaulay does not disdain to go into the money question, showing - (he fancies) how Dr. Burney had by his obstinacy deprived his gifted - daughter of earning the large sum which she would assuredly have obtained - by the writing of a novel in the time that she was compelled to devote to - the Queen's <i>toilette</i>. He found it convenient to ignore the fact - that of the fourteen years that elapsed between the publication of <i>Cecilia</i> - and that of <i>Camilla</i> only five were spent at Court. Surely any born - novelist could, without running a chance of imperilling a well-earned - reputation by undue haste in the dialogue or by scamping the descriptive - passages, contrive by dint of hard, but not over-hard, work to produce - more than one complete romance within a space of nine years. Many ladies - who are not born novelists have succeeded in surpassing this task without - physical suffering. - </p> - <p> - But even assuming that the author of <i>Evelina, Cecilia, and Camilla</i> - lost not only time but money while she was at Court, how much money did - she lose? She received at least the equivalent of £2000 for her five - years' service, and she was granted a pension of £100 a year, which she - drew for forty-nine years; so that for her enforced seclusion she was - remunerated to the extent of close upon £7000! This sum represents more - than all Fanny Burney's literary works yielded to her from the joyous - youthful days of <i>Evelina</i> down to the somewhat sordid middle age of - <i>Camilla</i>. - </p> - <p> - But what has the world gained by the lamentable short-sightedness - attributed to Dr. Burney? How is one to estimate the value of that - incomparable Diary so admirably “written up” during her tedious five years - at Court? How many <i>Cecilias</i>, how many <i>Camillas</i> would one not - give in exchange for a single year of that part of the Diary which deals - with the approach of the King's malady? In no work of fiction that ever - came from her pen did she ever show such power of observation, not only of - incident, but of character as well; nor is there apparent on any page - produced by her imagination such perfect artistic effects as appeal to a - reader on every page of this Diary of a disease. - </p> - <p> - At the outset of her account of these dreadful days we are conscious of - the vague approach of a shadow—we feel as if we were led into the - darkened chamber of a haunted house. Our attendant pauses by our side, - listening for strange noises; she lays a hand upon our arm, as it were, - and speaks to us in a whisper. We feel that the dread Thing is coming. The - King is indisposed—he has not been quite in his usual health for - some time past; but of course nothing very alarming has been announced by - Sir George Barker, the Physician in Ordinary, although there is an - uncertainty as to His Majesty's complaint. But Miss Burney has seen the - faces of the people about her who have come more closely in contact with - the Sovereign; she has doubtless noticed the solemnity of some—the - airs of mystery, the head-shakings, and she is capable of drawing her own - conclusions. “Heaven preserve him!” she whispers in her Diary for October - 19th, 1788. She is very much with the Queen, and she perceives that Her - Majesty is extremely uneasy, though saying nothing. There is great alarm - during the night. Possibly some one has heard the delirious voice of the - King coming from his apartments in that tumbledown palace of his at Kew. - The fright is general, and every one is wondering what the morning will - bring forth. Hope comes with the light. The bulletin is that the King was - ill, but is now so very much better that his physician believes the move - to Windsor, to which the Court was looking forward, may be taken. The move - is made on the 25th, and then Miss Burney has a chance meeting with the - King that causes her to suspect the truth. He talks to her with unnatural - vehemence—unnatural volubility—and without cessation for a - long time; all is exaggerated, and his graciousness most of all. She has - never met with anything like this before, but having heard of the delirium - accompanying a high fever, she believes that His Majesty is in the throes - of a fever. - </p> - <p> - The next day is Sunday, and she meets him again in one of the passages, - and she finds him rather more coherent in his talk, but still it is the - talk of a man in the delirium of a fever. It is all about himself—his - health—his dreadful sleeplessness. He keeps at it for half an hour - without making the slightest pause; and yet he manages to convey to her an - impression of his benevolence—his consideration for the people - around him—his hopes that he may not cause them any uneasiness. When - he leaves her she doubtless tells of the meeting to some of her friends in - the apartments where the equerries are accustomed to meet, and doubtless - there are more head-shakings and airs of mystery; but she records: “Nobody - speaks of his illness, nor what they think of it.” - </p> - <p> - Apparently, too, no one felt it to be necessary to subject His Majesty to - any course of treatment, although, a few days later, he became so weak - that he, who at the beginning of the year thought nothing of walking - twelve miles at a stretch—more than his sons could do—hobbled - along like a gouty man. Gradually, very gradually, the horror approaches; - and nothing that has ever been done in fiction equals in effect the simple - record of all that Fanny Burney noticed from day to day. Most touching of - all her entries are those relating to the Queen. “The Queen,” she writes, - “is almost overpowered with some secret terror. I am affected beyond all - expression in her presence to see what struggles she makes to support her - serenity. To-day she gave up the conflict when I was alone with her; and - burst into a violent fit of tears. It was very, very terrible to see!... - something horrible seemed impending... I was still wholly unsuspicious of - the greatness of the cause she had for dread. Illness, a breaking up of - the constitution, the payment of sudden infirmity and premature old age - for the waste of unguarded health and strength—these seemed to me - the threats awaiting her; and great and grievous enough, yet how short of - the fact!”... - </p> - <p> - At last the terrible truth was revealed. Miss Burney was dining with one - of the Queen's ladies; but there was little conversation between them. It - was clear that both had their suspicions of the nature of the dread shadow - that was hovering over the castle. They remained together, waiting for the - worst. “A stillness the most uncommon reigned over the whole house. Nobody - stirred; not a voice was heard; not a motion. I could do nothing but - watch, without knowing for what; there seemed a strangeness in the house - most extraordinary.” - </p> - <p> - To talk of such passages as these as examples of literary art would be - ridiculous. They are transcripts from life itself made by some one with a - genius for observation, not merely for recording. Boswell had a genius for - recording; but his powers of observation were on a level with those of a - sheep. We know perfectly well what his treatment of the scenes leading up - to the tragedy of the King would have been. But Fanny Burney had the - artist's instinct for collecting only such incidents as heighten the - effect. - </p> - <p> - When she is still sitting in the dim silence of that November evening with - her friend some one enters to whisper that there was to be no playing of - the after-dinner music in which the King usually took so much pleasure. - Later on the equerries come slowly into the room. There is more whispering—more - head-shaking. What was it all about? Had anything happened? What had - happened? No one wishes to be the first to speak. But the suspense! The - strain upon the nerves of the two ladies! At last it can be borne no - longer. The dreadful revelation is made. The King is a madman! - </p> - <p> - At dinner, the Prince of Wales being present, His Majesty had “broken - forth into positive delirium, which long had been menacing all who saw him - most closely; and the Queen was so overpowered as to fall into violent - hysterics. All the princesses were in misery, and the Prince of Wales had - burst into tears. No one knew what was to follow—no one could - conjecture the event.” Nothing could be more pathetic than the concern of - the King for his wife. His delusion is that she is the sufferer. When - Fanny Burney went to her room, where she was accustomed to await her - nightly summons to attend Her Majesty, she remained there alone for two - hours. At midnight she can stand the suspense no longer. She opens the - door and listens in the passage. Not a sound is to be heard. Not even a - servant crossed the stairs on the corridor off which her apartment opened. - After another hour's suspense a page knocks at her door with the message - that she is to go at once to her Royal mistress. - </p> - <p> - “My poor Royal Mistress!” she writes. “Never can I forget her countenance—pale, - ghastly pale she looked... her whole frame was disordered, yet she was - still and quiet. And the poor King is dreadfully uneasy about her. Nothing - was the matter with himself, he affirmed, except nervousness on her - account. He insisted on having a bed made up for himself in her - dressing-room in order that he might be at hand should she become worse - through the night. He had given orders that Miss Goldsworthy was to remain - with her; but it seemed that he had no great confidence in the vigilance - of any one but himself, for some hours after the Queen had retired he - appeared before the eyes of the horrified lady-in-waiting, at the door, - bearing a lighted candle. He opened the bed curtains and satisfied himself - that his dread of her being carried out of the palace was unfounded; but - he did not leave the room for another half-hour, and the terror of the - scene completely overwhelmed the unhappy lady.” - </p> - <p> - Truly when this terror was walking by night Fanny Burney's stipend was - well earned. But worse was in store for her when it was decided that the - King should be removed to Kew Palace, which he detested and which was - certainly the most miserable of all the miserable dwelling-places of the - Royal Family. It seemed to be nobody's business to make any preparation - for the reception of the Queen and her entourage. The rooms were dirty and - unwarmed, and the corridors were freezing. And to the horrors of this - damp, unsavoury barrack was added Mrs. Schwellenberg, the German - she-dragon who had done her best to make Fanny Burney's life unendurable - during the previous three years. Formerly Fanny had dwelt upon the - ill-treatment she had received at the hands of this old harridan; but now - she only refers to her as an additional element of casual discomfort. The - odious creature is “so oppressed between her spasms and the house's - horrors, that the oppression she inflicted ought perhaps to be pardoned. - It was, however, difficult enough to bear,” she adds. “Harshness, tyranny, - dissension, and even insult seemed personified. I cut short details upon - this subject—they would but make you sick.” - </p> - <p> - Truly little Miss Burney earned her wages at this time. The dilapidated - palace was only rendered habitable by the importation of a cartload of - sandbags, which were as strategically distributed for the exclusion of the - draughts as if they were the usual defensive supply of a siege. But even - this ingenious device failed to neutralise the Arctic rigours of the - place. The providing of carpets for some of the bare floors of the - bedrooms and passages was a startling innovation; but eventually it was - carried out. An occasional set of curtains also was smuggled into this - frozen fairy palace, and a sofa came now and again. - </p> - <p> - But in spite of all these auxiliaries to luxury—in spite, too, of - Mrs. Schwellenberg's having locked herself into her room, forbidding any - one to disturb her—the dreariness and desolation of the December at - Kew must have caused Miss Burney to think with longing of the comforts of - her father's home in St. Martin's Street and of the congenial atmosphere - which she breathed during her numerous visits to the Thrales' solid - mansion at Streatham. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0035.jpg" alt="0035 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0035.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - The condition of the King was becoming worse, and early whispers of the - necessity for a Regency grew louder. It was understood that Mrs. - Fitzherbert would be made a duchess! Everybody outside the palace sought - to stand well in the estimation of the Prince of Wales, and Pitt was - pointed out as a traitor to his country because he did his best to - postpone the Comus orgy which every one knew would follow the establishing - of a Regency. The appointment of the Doctors Willis was actually referred - to as a shocking impiety, suggesting as it did a wicked rebellion against - the decree of the Almighty, Who, according to Burke, had hurled the - monarch from his throne. There were, however, some who did not regard Mr. - Burke as an infallible judge on such a point, and no one was more - indignant at the mouthings of the rhetorician than Miss Burney. But it - seemed as if the approach of the Regency could no longer be retarded. The - Willises were unable to certify to any improvement in the condition of the - King during the month of January, 1789. It was really not until he had - that chase after Fanny Burney in Kew Gardens that a change for the better - came about. - </p> - <p> - Though she was greatly terrified by his affectionate salutation, she could - not but have been surprised at the sanity displayed in the monologue that - followed; for one of the first of his innumerable questions revealed to - her the fact that he was perfectly well aware of what a trial to her - patience was the odious Mrs. Schwellenberg. He asked how she was getting - on with Mrs. Schwellenberg, and he did so with a laugh that showed her how - well he appreciated her difficulties in this direction in the past. Before - she could say a word he was making light of the Schwellenberg—adopting - exactly the strain that he knew would be most effective with Miss Burney. - </p> - <p> - “Never mind her—never mind her! Don't be oppressed! I am your - friend! Don't let her cast you down—I know that you have a hard time - of it—but don't mind her!” - </p> - <p> - The advice and the tone in which it was given—with a pleasant laugh—did - not seem very consistent with what she expected from a madman. Fanny - Burney appears up to that moment to have been under the impression that - the King and Queen had known nothing of the tyranny and the insults to - which she had been subjected by Mrs. Schwellenberg. But now it was made - plain to her that the eyes of the Royal couple had been open all the time. - If Macaulay had noticed the passage touching upon this point he would have - had still stronger grounds for his attack upon their Majesties for their - want of consideration for the tire-woman who was supposed never to be - tired. - </p> - <p> - But how much more surprised must Fanny Burney have been when the King went - on to talk to her in the most cordially confidential way about her father! - It must have been another revelation to her when he showed how fully he - realised the ambitions of Dr. Burney. He asked her regarding the progress - of the <i>History of Music</i>, at which Dr. Burney had been engaged for - several years, and this gave him a chance of getting upon his favourite - topic, the music of Handel. But when he began to illustrate some of his - impressions on this fruitful theme by singing over the choruses of an - oratorio or two—perhaps such trifles as “All we like Sheep,” or - “Lift up your Heads,” or the “Hallelujah”—he must have gone far - toward neutralising the good opinion she had formed as to his sanity. - Fortunately the attendant doctors interposed at this point; but the fact - that the distinguished amateur suffered their adverse criticism proves to - posterity that the King was even more good-natured than he had been - painted by Miss Burney. - </p> - <p> - On then he went to talk of the subject which must never have been far from - Dr. Burney's heart—the Mastership of the King's Band: “Your father - ought to have had the post, and not that little poor musician Parsons, who - was not fit for it,” he cried. “But Lord Salisbury used your father very - ill in that business, and so he did me! However, I have dashed out his - name, and I shall put your father's in—as soon as I get loose again. - What has your father got at last? Nothing but that poor thing at Chelsea! - Oh, fie! fie! But never mind! I will take care of him—I will do it - myself!” - </p> - <p> - Could he have given the devoted daughter of Dr. Burney a more emphatic - proof of his complete recovery to sanity than this? Why, it would have - convinced Dr. Burney himself! - </p> - <p> - Alas! although the King may have been very resolute at the moment—he - had just been making out a list of new officers of State, and was ready to - show her that the name of her father's enemy, Lord Salisbury, was not to - be found in it, and he assured her that in future he would rule with a rod - of iron—yet before he returned to his ordinary way of life he must - have mislaid his list, for poor Dr. Burney remained at his post of - organist of Chelsea Hospital. He never attained to the place which he - coveted and for which his daughter was sent to five years' Royal - servitude, and (incidentally) to achieve for herself that immortality as a - chronicler which would certainly never have been won by her as a novelist. - </p> - <p> - But the King did not confine his conversation to the one topic which he - knew was of greatest interest to her. He spoke of Mrs. Delany, who had - been the means of introducing Fanny to the Royal circle; and he referred - to the ill-treatment which he had received at the hands of one of his - pages; but this was the only passage that savoured of unkindness, and the - chronicler is unable to do more than hope that the conduct of the pages - was one of His Majesty's delusions. Then, with what seems to us to be - consummate adroitness, he put some questions to her which she could not - but answer. “They referred to information given to him in his illness from - various motives, but which he suspected to be false, and which I knew he - had reason to suspect,” Miss Burney writes. “Yet was it most dangerous to - set anything right, as I was not aware what might be the views of their - having been stated wrong. I was as discreet as I knew how to be, and I - hope I did no mischief: but this was the worst part of the dialogue.” - </p> - <p> - We can quite believe that it was, and considering that it was the part of - the dialogue which was most interesting to the King, we think that Miss - Burney was to be congratulated upon the tact she displayed in her answers. - She did not cause the King to be more perturbed than he was when waxing - indignant over the conduct of his pages; and there was no need for Dr. - Willis to interfere at this point, though he did a little later on. Then - submitting with the utmost docility to the control of his excellent - attendant, and with another exhortation not to pay any attention to the - whims of the Schwellenberg, the gracious gentleman kissed her once more on - the cheek and allowed her to take her departure. - </p> - <p> - So ended this remarkable adventure in Kew Gardens. One can picture Fanny - Burney flying to tell the Queen all that had occurred—to repeat - everything that her discretion permitted her of the conversation; and one - has no difficulty in imagining the effect upon Queen Charlotte of all that - she narrated; but it seems rather hard that from Mrs. Schwellenberg should - have been withheld the excellent advice given by the King to Miss Burney - respecting the German virago. - </p> - <p> - It would have been impossible either for Fanny Burney or the Queen to come - to any conclusion from all that happened except one that was entirely - satisfactory to both. King George III was undoubtedly on the high road to - recovery, and subsequent events confirmed this opinion. It really seemed - that the interview with the author of <i>Evelina</i> marked the - turning-point in his malady at this time. Every day brought its record of - improvement, and within a fortnight the dreaded Regency Bill, which had - been sent up to the Lords, was abandoned. On March 1st there were public - thanksgivings in all the churches, followed by such an illumination of - London as had not been seen since the great fire. The scene at Kew is - admirably described by Miss Burney, who had written some congratulatory - lines to be offered by the Princess Amelia to the King. A great - “transparency” had been painted by the Queen's order, representing the - King, Providence, Health, and Britannia—a truly British tableau—and - when this was hung out and illuminated the little Princess “went to lead - her papa to the front window.” Then she dropped on her knees and gave him - the “copy of verses,” with the postscript: - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - The little bearer begs a kiss - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - From dear papa for bringing this. - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - The “dear papa” took his dear child in his arms, and held her close to him - for some time. Nothing could have been more charmingly natural and - affecting. For such a picture of Royalty at home we are indebted to Fanny - Burney, and, face to face with it, we are selfish enough to feel grateful - to Dr. Burney for having given his daughter for five years to discharge a - humble duty to her Sovereign and an immortal one to her fellow-countrymen, - who have read her Diary and placed it on a shelf between Pepys and de - Gramont. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - A COMEDY IN ST. MARTIN'S STREET - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>R BURNEY was - giving a “command” party at his house in St. Martin's Street, Leicester - Fields—the house which Sir Isaac Newton did once inhabit, and which - was still crowned with the most celebrated observatory in Europe. In the - early years of his musical career he had had a patron, Mr. Fulk Greville, - who had done a great deal for him, and in later days he had never quite - forgotten this fact, although Dr. Burney had climbed high on the - professional as well as the social ladder, and was better known in the - world than Mr. Greville himself. He had become quite intimate with many - great persons and several curious ones. It is uncertain whether Mr. - Greville regarded Dr. Johnson as belonging to the former or the latter - class, but at any rate he had heard a great deal about Dr. Johnson, and - did not think that, provided he took every reasonable precaution, any harm - could come to himself from meeting such a notability. He accordingly - instructed Dr. Burney to bring him and Johnson together, and Burney - promised to do so. Before the day for this meeting was fixed Mrs. Greville—who, - by the way, was Fanny Burney's godmother—had signified her intention - of viewing the huge person also, and of bringing her daughter, the - exquisite Mrs. Crewe, to attend the promised exhibition of genius in bulk. - </p> - <p> - Of course Dr. Johnson was ready to lend himself to any plan that might be - devised to increase the circumference of his circle of admirers, and - besides, this Mr. Fulk Greville was a descendant of the friend of Sir - Philip Sidney, and had large possessions, as well as a magnificent country - seat, and altogether he would make a most desirable listener; so he agreed - to come to the party to be inspected by the Greville family. Burney, - however, wishing, as every responsible proprietor of a menagerie should - wish, to be on the safe side and exhibit his bear under the eye and the - controlling influence of his favourite keeper, invited Mr. and Mrs. Thrale - to the party. - </p> - <p> - These were to be the “principals” in the comedy of this entertainment; and - for the subordinates he selected his married daughter and her husband—both - admirable musicians—Mr. Davenant, Mr. Seward, and a certain Italian - musician, a vocalist as well as a performer on the violin and that new - instrument which was at first called the fortepiano, then the pianoforte, - and later on simply the piano. This person's name was Gabrielli Piozzi. - </p> - <p> - Such were the harmonious elements which Dr. Burney proposed to bring - together for the gratification of Mr. Fulk Greville and his wife. Mr. - Greville was an amateur of some little capacity, and he had certainly at - one time been greatly interested in music. He had paid £300 to Burney's - master, the celebrated Dr. Arne, who composed in the masque of “Alfred” - the rousing anthem known as “Rule Britannia,” for the cancelling of - Burney's indentures as an apprentice to the “art of musick,” and had taken - the young man into his own house in a capacity which may best be described - as that of entertaining secretary. Dr. Burney may therefore have thought - in his wisdom that, should Johnson be in one of his bearish moods and feel - disinclined to exhibit his parts of speech to Mr. Greville, the latter - would be certain of entertainment from the musicians. This showed - forethought and a good working knowledge of Dr. Johnson. But in spite of - the second string to the musician's bow the party was a fiasco—that - is, from the standpoint of a social entertainment; it included one - incident, however, which made it the most notable of the many of the - Burney parties of which a record remains. - </p> - <p> - And what records there are available to any one interested in the - entertainments given by Dr. Burney and his charming family at that modest - house of theirs, just round the corner from Sir Joshua Reynolds' larger - establishment in Leicester Fields! Hundreds of people who contributed to - make the second half of the eighteenth century the most notable of any - period so far as literature and the arts were concerned, since the - spacious days of Elizabeth, were accustomed to meet together informally at - this house, and to have their visits recorded for all ages to muse upon. - To that house came Garrick, not to exhibit his brilliance as a talker - before a crowd of admirers, but to entertain the children of the household - with the buffooning that never flagged, and that never fell short of - genius in any exhibition. He was the delight of the schoolroom. Edmund - Burke and his brother, both fond of conversation when oratory was not - available, were frequently here; Reynolds came with many of his sitters, - and found fresh faces for his canvas among his fellow-guests; and with him - came his maiden sister, feeling herself more at home with the simple - Burney circle than she ever did with the company who assembled almost - daily under her brother's roof. Nollekens, the sculptor; Colman, the - dramatist and theatre manager, who was obliged to run away from London to - escape the gibes which were flung at him from every quarter when - Goldsmith's <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i>, which he had done his best to - make a failure, became the greatest success of the year; Cumberland, the - embittered rival of Goldsmith, who was the person who gave the solitary - hiss during the first performance of the same play, causing the timid - author to say to the manager on entering the playhouse, “What is that, sir—pray, - what is that? Is it a hiss?” To which Colman replied, “Psha! sir, what - signifies a squib when we have been sitting on a barrel of gunpowder all - night?” - </p> - <p> - These were among the notabilities; and the “curiosities” were quite as - numerous. The earliest of Arctic voyagers, Sir Constantine Phipps, who - later became Lord Mulgrave, put in an appearance at more than one of the - parties; and so did Omai, the “gentle savage” of the poet Cowper, who was - brought by Captain Cook from the South Seas in the ship on which young - Burney was an officer. The sisters, who, of course, idolised the sailor, - sat open-mouthed with wonder to hear their brother chatting away to Omai - in his native language. Upon another occasion came Bruce, the Abyssinian - traveller, who told the story of how steaks were cut from the live ox when - needed by the inhabitants of one region. He was immensely tall, as were - some of his stories; but though extremely dignified, he did not object to - a practical joke. Another person of great stature who visited the Burneys - was the notorious Count Orloff, the favourite of the Empress Catherine of - Russia; and from the letters of one of the young people of the household - one has no difficulty in perceiving with what interest he was regarded by - the girls, especially since the report reached them that he had personally - strangled his imperial master at the instigation of his imperial mistress. - </p> - <p> - These are but, a few names out of the many on the Burneys' visiting list. - Of course, as regards musical artists, the house was the rendezvous of the - greatest in London. While the opera-house in the Haymarket was open there - was a constant flow of brilliant vocalists to these shores, and the young - people had many opportunities of becoming acquainted with the ignorance, - the capriciousness, the affectations, and the abilities which were to be - found associated with the lyric stage in the eighteenth century, as they - are in the twentieth. Among the prime donne who sang for the Burneys were - the Agujari—a marvellous performer, who got fifty pounds for every - song she sang at the Pantheon—and her great but uncertain rival, - Gabrielli. The former, according to Mozart, who may possibly be allowed to - be something of a judge, had a vocal range which was certainly never - equalled by any singer before or after his time. She won all hearts and a - great deal of money during her visit to London, and she left with the - reputation of being the most marvellous and most rapacious of Italians. - Gabrielli seems to have tried to make up by capriciousness what she lacked - in expression. Her voice was, so far as can be gathered from contemporary - accounts, small and thin. But by judiciously disappointing the public she - became the most widely talked of vocalist in the country. Then among the - men were the simple and gracious Pacchierotti—who undoubtedly became - attached to Fanny Burney—Rauzzini, and Piozzi. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0049.jpg" alt="0049 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0049.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - The Burneys' house was for years the centre of the highest intellectual - entertainment to be found in London, and the tact of the head of the - household, and the simple, natural manners of his daughters, usually - succeeded in preventing the intrusion of a single inharmonious note, in - spite of the fact that a Welsh harpist named Jones had once been among the - visitors. - </p> - <p> - But upon the occasion of this “command” party, when Greville was to meet - Johnson, and the latter had dressed himself with that extreme care which - we suspect meant that he tied up his hose, and put on a wig the front of - which had not yet been burnt away by coming in contact with his lighted - candle, Burney's tact overreached itself. Mr. Greville may have felt that - the Thrales had no business to be of the party, or Johnson may have gained - the impression that Burney's old patron was anxious to play the same part, - in an honorary sort of way, in regard to himself. At any rate, he refused - to be drawn out to exhibit his conversational powers to a supercilious - visitor; and after a brief space of time he turned his back upon every one - and his face to the fire, and there he sat, greatly to the discomfiture, - no doubt, of his host. In a very short time a gloom settled down upon the - whole party. Mr. Thrale, stiff and reserved, was not the man to pull - things together. He sat mute on his chair, making no advance toward Mr. - Greville, and Mr. Greville had probably his chin in the air, having come - to the conclusion that Dr. Johnson's powers as a conversationalist had - been greatly overrated by rumour. - </p> - <p> - It was when all hope of sociability had vanished that Dr. Burney, who, - when a church organist, may have had occasion to cover up the shortcomings - of the clergyman by a timely voluntary, begged Signor Piozzi to oblige the - company with a song. But Piozzi was a forlorn hope. He was the last man in - the world to save the situation. Had he been a vocalist of the calibre of - Pacchierotti he could have made no headway against the funereal gloom that - had settled down upon the party. - </p> - <p> - Piozzi had a sweet and highly trained voice, though some years earlier he - had lost its best notes, and he sang with exquisite expression; but when - playing his own accompaniment, with his back turned to his audience, he - was prone to exaggerate the sentiment of the music until sentiment became - lost in an exuberance of sentimentality. - </p> - <p> - This style of singing is not that to which any one would resort in order - to dissipate a sudden social gloom. As the singer went on the gloom - deepened. - </p> - <p> - It was just at this moment that one of those ironic little imps that lurk - in wainscot nooks looking out for an opportunity to influence an - unconscious human being to an act which the little demon, seeing the end - of a scene of which mortals only see the beginning, regards with sardonic - glee, whispered something in the ear of Mrs. Thrale, and in an instant, in - obedience to its prompting, she had left her chair and stolen behind the - singer at the piano. Raising her hands and turning up her eyes in - imitation of Piozzi, she indulged in a piece of mimicry which must have - shocked every one in the room except the singer, who had his back to her, - and Dr. Johnson, who, besides being too short-sighted to be able to see - her, was gazing into the grate. - </p> - <p> - No doubt the flippant little lady felt that a touch of farcical fun was - the very thing needed to make the party go with a snap; but such flagrant - bad taste as was involved in the transaction was more than Dr. Burney - could stand. Keeping his temper marvellously well in hand, considering his - provocation, he went gently behind the gesticulating woman and put a stop - to her fooling. Shaking his head, he whispered in a “half joke whole - earnest” way: - </p> - <p> - “Because, madam, you have no ear yourself for music, will you destroy the - attention of all who, in that one point, are otherwise gifted?” - </p> - <p> - Or words to that effect, it might be safe to add, for the phrases as - recorded in the diary of one of his daughters are a trifle too academic - for even Dr. Burney to have whispered on the spur of the moment. But he - certainly reproved the lady, and she took his remonstrance in good part, - and showed herself to be admirably appreciative of the exact pose to - assume in order to save the situation. She went demurely to her chair and - sat there stiffly, and with the affectation of a schoolgirl who has been - admonished for a fault and commanded to take a seat in silence and apart - from the rest of the class. It must be apparent to every one that this was - the precise attitude for her to strike in the circumstances, and that she - was able to perceive this in a rather embarrassing moment shows that Mrs. - Thrale was quite as clever as her friends made her out to be. - </p> - <p> - But regarding the incident itself, surely the phrase, “the irony of fate,” - was invented to describe it. A better illustration of the sport of - circumstance could not be devised, for in the course of time the lively - little lady, who had gone as far as any one could go in making a mock of - another, had fallen as deep in love with the man whom she mocked as ever - Juliet did with her Romeo. She found that she could not live without him, - and, sacrificing friends, position, and fortune, she threw herself into - his arms, and lived happy ever after. - </p> - <p> - The conclusion of the first scene in this saturnine comedy which was being - enacted in the drawing-room in that house in St. Martin's Street, was in - perfect keeping with the <i>mise-en-scène</i> constructed by Fate, taking - the rôle of Puck. It is admirably described in the diary of Charlotte - Burney. She wrote that Mr. Greville—whom she nicknamed “Mr. Gruel”—assumed - “his most supercilious air of distant superiority” and “planted himself - immovable as a noble statue upon the hearth, as if a stranger to the whole - set.” - </p> - <p> - By this time Dr. Johnson must have had enough of the fire at which he had - been sitting, and we at once see how utterly hopeless were the social - relations at this miserable party when we hear that the men “were so kind - and considerate as to divert themselves by making a fire-screen to the - whole room.” But Dr. Johnson, having thoroughly warmed himself, was now in - a position to administer a rebuke to the less fortunate ones, and, when - nobody would have imagined that he had known the gentlemen were in the - room, he said that “if he was not ashamed he would keep the fire from the - ladies too.” - </p> - <p> - “This reproof (for a reproof it certainly was, although given in a very - comical, dry way) was productive,” Charlotte adds, “of a scene as good as - a comedy, for Mr. Suard tumbled on to a sopha directly, Mr. Thrale on to a - chair, Mr. Davenant sneaked off the premises, seemingly in as great a - fright and as much confounded as if he had done any bad action, and Mr. - Gruel being left solus, was obliged to stalk off.” - </p> - <p> - A more perfect description of the “curtain” to the first act of this, “as - good as a comedy,” could not be imagined. In every scene of this memorable - evening the mocking figure of an impish Fate can be discerned. There was - the tactful and urbane Dr. Burney anxious to gratify his old patron by - presenting to him the great Dr. Johnson, and at the same time to show on - what excellent terms he himself was with the family of the wealthy brewer, - Mr. Thrale. Incidentally he has caused Johnson to put himself to the - inconvenience of a clean shirt and a respectable wig; and, like a - thoughtful general, lest any of his plans should fall short of fulfilment, - he has invited an interesting vocalist to cover up the retreat and make - failure almost impossible! - </p> - <p> - Dr. Burney could do wonders by the aid of his tact and urbanity, but he is - no match for Fate playing the part of Puck. Within an hour Johnson has - disappointed him and become grumpy—the old bear has found the buns - to be stale; Mr. Greville, the patron, is in a patronising mood, and - becomes stiff and aloof because Johnson, secure with his pension, resents - it; Mrs. Thrale, anxious to do her best for Burney, and at the same time - to show Mrs. Greville and her fine daughter how thoroughly at home she is - in the house and how delicate is her sense of humour, strikes an - appallingly false note, and only saves herself by a touch of cleverness - from appearing wholly ridiculous. This is pretty well for the opening - scenes, but the closing catastrophe is not long delayed. The men huddle - themselves together in stony silence; and they are reproved for - impoliteness by—whom? Dr. Johnson, the man who has studied - boorishness and advanced it to a place among the arts—the man who - calls those who differ from him dolts and fools and rascals—the man - whose manners at the dinner table are those of the sty and trough—the - man who walks about the streets ungartered and unclean—this is the - man who has the effrontery to rebuke for their rudeness such gentlemen as - Mr. Fulk Greville, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Thrale! Puck can go no further. - Down comes the curtain when one gentleman collapses upon a “sopha,” - another into a chair, a third sneaks off like a culprit, and the fourth - stalks off with an air of offended dignity! - </p> - <p> - It might be thought that the imp of mischief who had assumed the control - of this evening's entertainment would be satisfied at the result of his - pranks so far. Nothing of the sort. He was only satisfied when he had made - a match between the insignificant figure who was playing the musical - accompaniment to his pranks and the lady who thought that his presence in - the room was only justifiable on the ground that he made an excellent butt - for her mockery! - </p> - <p> - And the funniest part of the whole comedy is to be found in the fact that - the pair lived happy ever after! - </p> - <p> - The extraordinary influence which Boswell has had upon almost every - student of the life of the latter half of the eighteenth century is shown - in a marked way by the general acceptance of his view—which it is - scarcely necessary to say was Johnson's view—of the second marriage - of Mrs. Thrale. We are treating Boswell much more fairly than he treated - Mrs. Thrale when we acknowledge at once that his opinion was shared by a - considerable number of the lady's friends, including Dr. Burney and his - family. They were all shocked when they heard that the widow of the - Southwark brewer had married the Italian musician, Signor Gabrielli - Piozzi. Even in the present day, when one might reasonably expect that, - the miserable pettiness of Boswell's character having been made apparent, - his judgment on most points would be received with a smile, he is taken - very seriously by a good many people. It has long ago been made plain that - Boswell was quite unscrupulous in his treatment of every one that crossed - his path or made an attempt to interfere with the aim of his life, which - was to become the biographer of Johnson. The instances of his petty - malevolence which have come to light within recent years are innumerable. - They show that the opinion which his contemporaries formed of him was - absolutely correct. We know that he was regarded as a cur who was ever at - Johnson's heels, and took the insults of the great man with a fawning - complacency that was pathetically canine. He was daily called a cur. “Oh, - no,” said Goldsmith, “he is not a cur, only a burr; Tom Davies flung him - at Johnson one day as a joke, and he stuck to him ever since”—a cur, - and an ape and a spy and a Branghton—the last by Dr. Johnson himself - in the presence of a large company, that included the creator of the - contemptible Mr. Branghton. (The incident was not, however, recorded by - Mr. Boswell himself.) But as the extraordinary interest in his <i>Life of - Johnson</i> began to be acknowledged, the force of contemporary opinion - gradually dwindled away, until Boswell's verdicts and Boswell's inferences - found general acceptance; and even now Goldsmith is regarded as an Irish - <i>omadhaum</i>, because Boswell did his best to make him out to be one, - and Mrs. Thrale is thought to have forfeited her claims to respect because - she married Signor Piozzi. - </p> - <p> - People forget the origin of Boswell's malevolence in both cases. He - detested Goldsmith because Goldsmith was a great writer, who was capable - of writing a great biography of Johnson, with whom he had been on the most - intimate terms long before Tom Davies flung his burr at Johnson; he hated - Baretti and recorded—at the sacrifice of Johnson's reputation for - humanity—Johnson's cynical belittling of him, because he feared that - Baretti would write <i>the</i> biography; he was spiteful in regard to - Mrs. Thrale because she actually did write something biographical about - Johnson. - </p> - <p> - The impudence of such a man as Boswell writing about “honest Dr. - Goldsmith” is only surpassed by his allusions to the second marriage of - Mrs. Thrale. He was a fellow-guest with Johnson at the Thrales' house in - 1775, and he records something of a conversation which he says occurred on - the subject of a woman's marrying some one greatly beneath her socially. - “When I recapitulate the debate,” he says, “and recollect what has since - happened, I cannot but be struck in a manner that delicacy forbids me to - express! While I contended that she ought to be treated with inflexible - steadiness of displeasure, Mrs. Thrale was all for mildness and - forgiveness and, according to the vulgar phrase, making the best of a bad - bargain.” This was published after the second marriage. What would be - thought of a modern biographer who should borrow a little of Boswell's - “delicacy,” and refer to a similar incident in the same style? - </p> - <p> - In his own inimitable small way Boswell was for ever sneering at Mrs. - Thrale. Sometimes he did it with that scrupulous delicacy of which an - example has just been given; but he called her a liar more than once with - considerable indelicacy, and his readers will without much trouble come to - the conclusion that his indelicacy was preferable to his delicacy—it - certainly came more natural to him. He was small and mean in all his ways, - and never smaller or meaner than in his references to Mrs. Thrale's second - marriage. - </p> - <p> - But, it must be repeated, he did not stand alone in regarding her union - with Piozzi as a <i>mésalliance</i>. Dr. Burney was shocked at the thought - that any respectable woman would so far forget herself as to marry a - musician, and his daughter Fanny wept remorseful tears when she reflected - that she had once been the friend of a lady who did not shrink from - marrying a foreigner and a Roman Catholic—more of the irony of Fate, - for Fanny Burney was herself guilty of the same indiscretion later on: she - made a happy marriage with a Roman Catholic foreigner, who lived on her - pension and her earnings. Dr. Johnson was brutal when the conviction was - forced upon him that he would no longer have an opportunity of insulting a - lady who had treated him with incredible kindness, or the guests whom he - met at her table. Upon one of the last occasions of his dining at Mrs. - Thrale's house at Streatham, a gentleman present—an inoffensive - Quaker—ventured to make a remark respecting the accuracy with which - the red-hot cannon-balls were fired at the Siege of Gibraltar. Johnson - listened for some time, and then with a cold sneer said, “I would advise - you, sir, never to relate this story again. You really can scarce imagine - how very poor a figure you make in the telling of it.” Later on he took - credit to himself for not quarrelling with his victim when the latter - chose to talk to his brother rather than to the man who had insulted him. - Yes, it can quite easily be understood that Johnson should look on the - marriage as a sad <i>mésalliance</i>, and possibly it is fair to assume - from the letter which he wrote to the lady that he felt hurt when he heard - that it was to take place. - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Thrale wrote to tell him that she meant to marry Piozzi, and received - the following reply: - </p> - <p> - “Madam,—If I interpret your letter right, you are ignominiously - married; if it is yet undone, let us once more talk together. If you have - abandoned your children and your religion, God forgive your wickedness; if - you have forfeited your fame and your country, may your folly do no - further mischief!” - </p> - <p> - Possibly the lady may have gathered from the hint or two conveyed to her, - with Boswellian delicacy, in this letter, that Johnson was displeased with - her. At any rate, she replied, declining to continue the correspondence. - </p> - <p> - In her letter she summed up the situation exactly as a reasonable person, - acquainted with all the facts, and knowing something of the first husband, - would do. - </p> - <p> - “The birth of my second husband is not meaner than that of my first,” she - wrote; “his sentiments are not meaner; his profession is not meaner; and - his superiority in what he professes acknowledged by all mankind. It is - want of fortune, then, that is ignominious; the character of the man I - have chosen has no other claim to such an epithet. The religion to which - he has always been a zealous adherent, will, I hope, teach him to forgive - insults he has not deserved; mine will, I hope, enable [me] to bear them - at once with dignity and patience. To hear that I have forfeited my fame - is indeed the greatest insult I ever yet received. My fame is as unsullied - as snow, or I should think it unworthy of him who must henceforth protect - it.” - </p> - <p> - This brought the surly burly mass of offended dignity to his proper level; - but still he would not offer the lady who had been his benefactress for - twenty years an apology for his brutality. He had the presumption to offer - his advice instead—advice and the story (highly appropriate from his - point of view) of Mary Queen of Scots and the Archbishop of St. Andrews. - He advised her to remain in England—he would not relinquish his room - in her house and his place at her table without a struggle—as her - rank would be higher in England than in Italy, and her fortune would be - under her own eye. The latter suggestion was a delicate insult to Piozzi. - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Piozzi, as she then became, showed that she esteemed this piece of - presumption, under the guise of advice, at its true value. Immediately - after her marriage she went abroad with her husband, though eventually she - settled with him in England. - </p> - <p> - Now, most modern readers will, we think, when they have become acquainted - with the whole story of Mrs. Thrale's life, arrive at the conclusion that - it was her first marriage that was the <i>mésalliance</i>, not her second. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0003" id="linkimage-0003"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0065.jpg" alt="0065 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0065.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - Henry Thrale was a man of humble origin—a fact that revealed itself - almost daily in his life—and he was incapable of loving any one - except himself. He certainly never made a pretence of devotion to his - wife, and it is equally certain that, although she did more for him than - any other woman would have done, she never loved him. It might be going - too far, considering the diversity of temperament existing among - womankind, to assert that he was incapable of being loved by any woman; - but beyond a doubt he was not a lovable man. He was a stiff, dignified, - morose, uncongenial man, and he was a Member of Parliament into the - bargain. What could a pretty, lively, brilliant girl of good family see in - such a man as Thrale to make her love him? She never did love him—at - times she must have detested him. But she married him, and it was a lucky - day for him that she did so. Twice she saved him from bankruptcy, and - three times she induced his constituents, who thoroughly hated him, to - return him to Parliament as their representative. He never did anything in - Parliament, and he did little out of it that was worth remembering. It is - customary to make large allowances for a man of business who finds that - his wealth and a charming wife serve as a passport into what is called - society, though latterly such men do not stand in need of such a favour - being shown to them. But if a man betrays his ignorance of certain social - usages—not necessarily refinements—his friends excuse him on - the ground that he is a first-rate business man. Thrale, however, was - unworthy of such a title. He inherited a great scientific business, but he - showed himself so incapable of appreciating the methods by which it had - been built up, that he brought himself within a week or two of absolute - ruin by listening to a clumsy adventurer who advocated the adoption of a - system of adulteration of his beer that even a hundred and fifty years ago - would have brought him within sight of a criminal prosecution. - </p> - <p> - His literary wife, by her clever management, aided by the money of her - mother and of sundry of her own, not her husband's, friends, succeeded in - staving off the threatened disaster. But the pig-headed man did not accept - the lesson which one might imagine he would have learned. Seeing the - success that crowned other enterprises of the same character as his own, - he endeavoured to emulate this success, not by the legitimate way of - increasing his customers, but by the idiotic plan of over-production. He - had an idea that in the multiplying of the article which he had to sell he - was increasing his business. Once again he was helped from the verge of - ruin by his literary wife. - </p> - <p> - He must have been a dreadful trial to her, and to a far-seeing manager - whom he had—a man named Perkins. Of course it was inevitable that - the force of character possessed by this Mr. Perkins must eventually - prevail against the dignified incompetence of the proprietor. The - inevitable happened, and the name of Perkins has for more than a hundred - years been bracketed with Barclay as a going concern, while the name of - Thrale has vanished for ever from “the Borough.” - </p> - <p> - It was this Mr. Perkins who, when the brewery was within five minutes of - absolute disaster, displayed the tactics of a great general in the face of - an implacable enemy, and saved the property. As a reward for his services - his master authorised the presentation to him of the sum of a hundred - pounds. His master's wife, however, being a more generous assessor of the - value of the man's ability, ventured to present double the sum, together - with a silver tea-service for Mrs. Perkins; but she did so in fear and - trembling, failing to summon up sufficient courage to acquaint her husband - with her extravagance until further concealment was impossible. She was so - overjoyed at his sanctioning the increase that she at once wrote to her - friends acquainting them with this evidence of his generosity. - </p> - <p> - This episode was certainly the most stirring in the history of Thrale's - brewery. The Gordon rioters had been terrorising London for several days, - burning houses in every direction, as well as Newgate and another prison, - and looting street after street. They had already overthrown one brewery, - and they found the incident so fascinating that they marched across the - bridge to the Southwark concern, raising the cry that Thrale was a Papist. - The Thrales were at this time sojourning at Bath, and were in an agony of - suspense regarding their property. They had left Dr. Johnson comfortably - ensconced at their Streatham house in order that they might learn in - dignified language how things were going on. - </p> - <p> - This is Johnson's thrilling account of the incident: - </p> - <p> - “What has happened to your house you all know. The harm is only a few - butts of beer, and I think you may be sure that the danger is over. Pray - tell Mr. Thrale that I live here, and have no fruit, and if he does not - interpose am not likely to have much; but I think he might as well give me - a little as give all to the gardener.” - </p> - <p> - There was a double catastrophe threatening, it would appear: the burning - of the brewery and the shortage in the supply of Dr. Johnson's peaches. - </p> - <p> - This is how Mrs. Thrale describes the situation: - </p> - <p> - “Nothing but the astonishing presence of mind shewed by Perkins in amusing - the mob, with meat and drink and huzzas, till Sir Philip Jennings Clerke - could get the troops, and pack up the counting-house, bills, bonds etc. - and carry them, which he did, to Chelsea College for safety, could have - saved us from actual undoing. The villains <i>had</i> broke in, and our - brew-house would have blazed in ten minutes, when a property of £150,000 - would have been utterly lost, and its once flourishing possessors quite - undone.” - </p> - <p> - It seems almost incredible that Johnson, living at Streatham as the - guardian of Mr. Thrale's interests, should require the lady to write to - him, begging him to thank Perkins for his heroism. But so it was. - </p> - <p> - “Perkins has behaved like an Emperor,” she wrote, “and it is my earnest - wish and desire—command, if you please to call it so—that you - will go over to the brew-house and express <i>your</i> sense of his good - behaviour.” - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Thrale was unreasonable. How could Johnson be expected to take any - action when he was deprived of his peaches? - </p> - <p> - It will strike a good many modern readers of the account of this and other - transactions that if it was Perkins who saved the brewery for Mr. Thrale, - it was Mrs. Thrale who saved Perkins for the brewery. Possibly it was her - prompt gift of the silver plate to Mrs. Perkins that induced this splendid - manager to pocket the insult of the beggarly two hundred guineas given to - him by Mrs. Thrale—though this was double the amount authorised by - the “master.” Thrale never sufficiently valued the services of Perkins. If - he had had any gratitude in his composition he would never have made - Johnson one of his executors. What a trial it must have been to the - competent man of business to see Johnson lumbering about the place with a - pen behind his ear and an ink-pot suspended from a button of his coat, - getting in the way of everybody, and yet feeling himself quite equal to - any business emergency that might crop up. He felt himself equal to - anything—even to improve upon the auctioneer's style in appraising - the value of the whole concern. “Beyond the dreams of avarice” remains as - the sole classic phrase born beneath the shadow of a brew-house. - </p> - <p> - In the matter of the premium to Perkins, Thrale should have felt that he - had a treasure in his wife, to say nothing of all that she had done for - him upon another occasion, involving a terrible sacrifice. A quarrel had - broken out among the clerks at the brewery, which even the generalship of - Perkins was unable to mollify. Had Mrs. Thrale been an ordinary woman she - would not have jeopardised her own life and the life of her child—her - thirteenth—in her husband's interests. As it was, however, she felt - that the duty was imposed on her to settle the difficulties in the - counting-house, and she did so; but only after many sleepless nights and - the sacrifice of her child. “The men were reconciled,” she wrote, “and my - danger accelerated their reconcilement.” - </p> - <p> - If Henry Thrale was deficient in the best characteristics of a business - man, his qualifications to shine socially can scarcely be regarded as - abundant. There were stories of his having been a gay dog in his youth, - but assuredly he and gaiety had long been strangers when he married his - wife, and upon no occasion afterwards could he be so described even by the - most indulgent of his friends; so that one rather inclines to the belief - that the dull dog must have been a dull puppy. We know what his eldest - daughter was, and we are convinced that the nature of that priggish, - dignified, and eminently disagreeable young lady was inherited from her - father. In Miss Thrale as a girl one feels that one is looking at Henry - Thrale as a boy. The only story that survives of those mythical gay days - with which he was accredited is that relating to the arrival of the - Gunnings to take London by storm. It was said that he and Murphy thought - to make these exquisite creatures the laughing-stock of the town by - introducing them to a vulgar hanger-on of Murphy, in the character of a - wealthy man of title and distinction. Possibly the two young men were put - up to play this disgraceful prank upon the Gunnings by some jealous female - associate; but however this may be, it not only failed most ignominiously, - it recoiled upon the jesters themselves, for Mrs. Gunning, herself the - sister of a nobleman, and destined to become the mother-in-law of two - dukes and the grandmother of two more—the parent of a peeress in her - own right, and an uncommonly shrewd Irishwoman into the bargain—“smoaked,” - as the slang of the period had it, the trick, and her footman bundled the - trio into the street. - </p> - <p> - The story may be true; but as both the Gunning girls were married in 1752, - and Thrale did not meet Hester Lynch Salusbury till 1763, it was an old - story then, and it was not remembered against him except by the Duchess of - Hamilton. If it represents the standard of his adolescent wildness, we - cannot but think that his youth was less meteoric than his wife believed - it to be. At any rate, we do not know much about his early life, but we do - know a great deal about his latter years, and it is impossible to believe - that his nature underwent a radical change within a year or two of his - marriage. - </p> - <p> - He became the host of a large number of the most notable people of that - brilliant period at which he lived, and we perceive from the copious - accounts that survive of the Streatham gatherings that he was greatly - respected by all his visitors. He never said anything that was worth - recording, and he never did anything memorable beyond stopping Johnson - when the latter was becoming more than usually offensive to his - fellow-guests. He had no ear for music any more than Johnson had, and it - does not appear that he cared any more for painting, although he became a - splendid patron of Sir Joshua Reynolds, whom he commissioned to paint - several portraits of his distinguished friends for the decoration of the - library at Streatham. To his munificence in this respect the world owes - its finest portraits of Goldsmith, Burke, Garrick, the painter himself, - and Mrs. Thrale. - </p> - <p> - The debt which we feel we owe to Thrale on this account is, however, - somewhat discounted when we learn that this enthusiastic patron of art - never paid the painter for his work. He left the pictures and the - obligation to pay for them as a legacy to his widow—and to pay for - them at more than the current rate for each into the bargain. Sir Joshua - Reynolds was as good a man of business as Thrale was an indifferent one. - At the time of his painting the portraits his price for a - three-quarter-length picture was £35, but in the course of a year or two - he felt it necessary to charge £50 for the same size, and this was the - price which the unfortunate widow had to pay for her husband's pose as the - munificent patron of the Arts. - </p> - <p> - Men of the stamp of Thrale usually have no vices. - </p> - <p> - They are highly respected. If they had a vice or two they would be - beloved. He had a solitary failing, but it did not win for him the - affection of any one: it was gluttony. For years of his life he gave - himself up to the coarsest form of indulgence. He was not a gourmet: he - did not aim at the refinements of the table or at those daintinesses of - cuisine which in the days of intemperate eaters and drinkers proved so - fatally fascinating to men of many virtues; no, his was the vice of the - trough. He ate for the sake of eating, unmindful of the nature of the dish - so long as it was plentiful enough to keep him employed for an hour or - two. - </p> - <p> - The dinner-table of the famous Streatham Park must have been a spectacle - for some of the philosophers who sat round it. We know what was the food - that Johnson's soul loved, and we know how he was accustomed to partake of - it. He rioted in pork, and in veal baked with raisins, and when he sat - down to some such dainty he fed like a wild animal. He used his fingers as - though they were claws, tearing the flesh from the bone in his teeth, and - swallowing it not wholly without sound. It is not surprising to learn that - his exertions caused the veins in his forehead to swell and the beads of - perspiration to drop from his scholarly brow, nor can any one who has - survived this account of his muscular feat at the dinner-table reasonably - be amazed to hear that when so engaged, he devoted himself to the work - before him to the exclusion of every other interest in life. He was - oblivious of anything that was going on around him. He was deaf to any - remark made by a neighbour, and for himself articulation was suspended. - Doubtless the feeble folk on whom he had been trampling in the - drawing-room felt that his peculiarities of feeding, though revolting to - the squeamish, were not without a bright side. They had a chance of making - a remark at such intervals without being gored—“gored,” it will be - remembered, was the word employed by Boswell in playful allusion to the - effect of his argumentative powers. - </p> - <p> - Thanks to the careful habits of some of the guests at this famous house we - know what fare was placed before the Gargantuan geniuses at one of these - dinners. Here is the <i>carte du jour</i>, “sufficient for twelve,” as the - cookery book says: - </p> - <p> - “First course, soups at head and foot, removed by fish and a saddle of - mutton; second course, a fowl they call galena at head and a capon larger - than some of our Irish turkeys at foot; third course, four different sorts - of ices, pine-apple, grape, raspberry and a fourth; in each remove there - were fourteen dishes.” The world is indebted to an Irish clergyman for - these details. It will be seen that they did not include much that could - be sneered at as bordering on the kickshaw. All was good solid English - fare—just the sort to make the veins in a gormandiser's forehead to - swell and to induce the lethargy from which Thrale suffered. He usually - fell asleep after dinner; one day he failed to awake, and he has not - awakened since. - </p> - <p> - Of course Johnson, being invariably in delicate health, was compelled to - put himself on an invalid's diet when at home. He gives us a sample of a - <i>diner maigre</i> at Bolt Court. Feeling extremely ill, he wrote to Mrs. - Thrale that he could only take for dinner “skate, pudding, goose, and - green asparagus, and could have eaten more but was prudent.” He adds, - “Pray for me, dear Madam,”—by no means an unnecessary injunction, - some people will think, when they become aware of the details of the meal - of an invalid within a year or two of seventy. - </p> - <p> - It was after one of the Streatham dinners that Mrs. Thrale ventured to say - a word or two in favour of Garrick's talent for light gay poetry, and as a - specimen repeated his song in <i>Florizel and Perdita</i>, and dwelt with - peculiar pleasure on this line: - </p> - <p> - <i>I'd smile with the simple and dine with the poor.</i> - </p> - <p> - This is Boswell's account of the matter, and he adds that Johnson cried, - “Nay, my dear lady, this will never do. Poor David! Smile with the simple! - What folly is that? And who would feed with the poor that can help it? No, - no; let me smile with the wise and feed with the rich!” - </p> - <p> - Quite so; beyond a doubt Johnson spoke from the bottom of his heart—nay, - from a deeper depth still. - </p> - <p> - Boswell was amazed to find that Garrick's “sensibility” as a writer was - irritated when he related the story to him, and in Mrs. Thrale's copy of - Johnson she made a note—“How odd to go and tell the man!” - </p> - <p> - It was not at all odd that Boswell, being a professional tale-bearer and - mischief-maker, should tell the man; but it is odd that Garrick should be - irritated, the fact being that the sally was directed against a line which - he did not write. What Garrick did write was something very different. The - verse, which was misquoted, runs thus: - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - That giant Ambition we never can dread; - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - Our roofs are too low for so lofty a head; - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - Content and sweet Cheerfulness open our door, - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - They smile with the simple and feed with the poor. - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - Such a muddle as was made of the whole thing can only be attributed to the - solidity of the Streatham fare. - </p> - <p> - It was inevitable that Thrale could not continue over-eating himself with - impunity. He was warned more than once by his doctors that he was killing - himself, and yet when he had his first attack every one was shocked. He - recovered temporarily, and all his friends implored him to cultivate - moderation at the dinner-table. A touch of humour is to be found among the - details of the sordid story, in his wife's begging Johnson—Johnson - of the swollen forehead and the tokens of his submission to the primeval - curse in the eating of his bread—to try to reason the unhappy man - out of his dreadful vice. After wiping from the front of his coat the - remains of the eighth peach which he had eaten before breakfast, or the - dregs of his nineteenth cup of tea from his waistcoat, Johnson may have - felt equal to the duty. He certainly remonstrated with Thrale. It was all - to no purpose, however; he had a second attack of apoplexy in the spring - of 1780, and we hear that he was copiously “blooded.” He recovered and - went to Bath to recruit. It was during this visit to Bath that the brewery - was attacked by the Gordon rioters. On returning to London he failed to - induce his constituents to remain faithful to him, and he continued eating - voraciously for another year. He began a week of gorging on April 1st, - 1781. His wife implored him to be more moderate, and Johnson said very - wisely, “Sir, after the denunciation of your physicians this morning, such - eating is little better than suicide.” It was all to no purpose. He - survived the gorge of Sunday and Monday, but that of Tuesday was too much - for him. He was found by his daughter on the floor in a fit of apoplexy, - and died the next morning. - </p> - <p> - Such was the man whose memory was outraged by the marriage of his widow - with Piozzi, an Italian musician, whose ability was so highly appreciated - that his earnings, even when he had lost his voice, amounted to £1200 a - year, a sum equal to close upon £2500 of our money. And yet Johnson had - the effrontery to suggest in that letter of his to Mrs. Thrale, which we - have quoted, that she would do well to live in England, so that her money - might be under her own eye! - </p> - <p> - The truth is that Mrs. Thrale was in embarrassed circumstances when she - married Signor Piozzi. Her worthy husband left her an annuity of £2000, - which was to be reduced by £800 in the event of her marrying again; and - also £500 for her immediate expenses. Johnson wrote to her, making her - acquainted with this fact, in order, it would seem, to allay any unworthy - suspicion which she might entertain as to the extent of her husband's - generosity. But his last will and testament cannot have wholly dispersed - the doubt into which her experience of Mr. Thrale may have led her. For a - man who had been making from £16,000 to £20,000 a year to leave his wife - only £2000 a year, with a possibility of its being reduced to £1200, would - not strike any one as being generous to a point of recklessness. When, - however, it is remembered that Thrale's wife plucked him and his business - from the verge of bankruptcy more than once, that she bore him fourteen - children, and that she lived with him for eighteen years, all question as - to the generosity of his bequest to her vanishes. But when, in addition, - it is remembered that the lady's fortune at her marriage to Thrale - amounted to £10,000, all of which he pocketed, and that later on she - brought him another £500 a year, that it was her mother's money, added to - the sum which she herself collected personally, which saved the brewery - from collapse—once again at the sacrifice of her infant—all - question even of common fairness disappears, and the meanness of the man - stands revealed. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0004" id="linkimage-0004"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0083.jpg" alt="0083 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0083.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - It was through the exertions and by the business capacity of his widow - that the brewery was sold for £135,000. She was the only one of the - trustees who knew anything definite about the value of the property, and - had she not been on the spot, that astute Mr. Perkins could have so worked - the concern that he might have been able to buy it in a year or two for - the value of the building materials. And yet when she became involved in a - lawsuit that involved the paying of £7000, she had difficulty in - persuading her daughters' trustees to advance her the money, although the - security of the mortgage which she offered for the accommodation would - have satisfied any bankers. A wretch named Crutchley, who was one of this - precious band of incompetents, on the completion of the deed bade her - thank her daughters for keeping her out of gaol. It is not recorded that - the lady replied, though she certainly might have done so, and with truth - on her side, that if her daughters had kept her out of a gaol she had kept - her daughters out of a workhouse. She would have done much better to have - gone to her friends the Barclays, whose bank had a hundred and fifty years - ago as high a reputation for probity combined with liberality as the same - concern enjoys to-day. - </p> - <p> - Enough of the business side of Mrs. Thrale's second marriage has been - revealed to make it plain that Piozzi was not influenced by any mercenary - motives in the transaction. On the contrary, it was he who came to her - assistance when she was in an extremity, and by the prompt loan of £1000 - extricated her from her embarrassment, and left the next day for Italy, - without having any hope of marrying her. - </p> - <p> - Johnson's verdict on Piozzi, communicated to Miss Seward, was that he was - an ugly dog, without particular skill in his profession. Unfortunately for - this musical enthusiast and devotee to beauty, Miss Seward met Piozzi on - his return from Italy with his wife. (His excellent control of her money - had resulted in every penny of the mortgage being paid, and of the - lodgment of £1500 to their credit in the bank). And Miss Seward, writing - from Lichfield—more of the irony of Fate—in 1787, affirmed - that the great Lichfield man “did not tell me the truth when he asserted - that Piozzi was an ugly dog, without particular skill in his profession. - M. Piozzi is a handsome man in middle life, with gentle, pleasing, - unaffected manners, and with very eminent skill in his profession. Though - he has not a powerful or fine-toned voice, he sings with transcending - grace and expression. I was charmed with his perfect expression on his - instrument. Surely the finest sensibilities must vibrate through his - frame, since they breathe so sweetly through his song.” From this verdict - no person who was acquainted with Signor Piozzi differed. Mrs. Thrale's - marriage with Piozzi was as fortunate for her as her first marriage was - for Thrale. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - A TRAGEDY IN THE HAYMARKET - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>BOUT half-past - nine o'clock on the night of October 6th, 1769, a tall, middle-aged - gentleman named Joseph Baretti was walking up the Hay-market. The street - was probably as well lighted as any other in London, and this is - equivalent to saying that a foot passenger, by keeping close to the - windows of the shops and taking cross bearings of the economically - distributed oil lamps hung out at the corners of the many lanes, might be - able to avoid the deep channel of filth that slunk along the margin of - cobble stones. But just at this time the Haymarket must have been - especially well illuminated, for the Opera House was in the act of - discharging its audience, and quite a number of these fashionable folk - went home in their chairs, with link boys walking by the side of the burly - Irish chairmen, showing a flaring flame which left behind it a long trail - of suffocating smoke, and spluttered resin and bitumen into the faces and - upon the garments of all who were walking within range of the illuminant. - Then there was the little theatre higher up the street, and its lamps were - not yet extinguished; so that Mr. Baretti may have felt that on the whole - he was fortunate in the hour he had chosen for his stroll to the - coffee-house where he meant to sup. He may have thought that he had a - chance of coming across his friend Sir Joshua Reynolds leaving one of the - playhouses, and of being invited by that hospitable gentleman to his house - in Leicester Fields; or his still more intimate friend Dr. Samuel Johnson, - who would certainly insist on carrying him off to the “Mitre,” unless the - great man were accompanied by that little Scotch person, James Boswell, - who usually wanted him all to himself, after he had given people a chance - of seeing him in the company of his distinguished friend, and envying him - his position of intimacy—the same position of intimacy that exists - between a Duke and his doormat. Mr. Baretti was too short-sighted to have - any chance of recognising Sir Joshua Reynolds unless he chanced to be - standing under the lamp in the portico of the playhouse, but he felt that - he would have no trouble in recognising Dr. Johnson. The latter had - characteristics that appealed to other senses than the sense of seeing, - and made the act of recognition easy enough to his intimates. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Baretti, however, passed along the dispersing crowd, and was soon in - the dim regions of Panton Street, where pedestrians were few. But before - he had turned down this street he found his way barred by a couple of - half-drunken women. His infirmity of sight prevented his being aware of - their presence until he was almost in the arms of one of them, and the - very second that he made his sudden stop she made a change in the details - of the accident that seemed imminent and threw herself into his arms with - a yell. - </p> - <p> - The good man was staggered for a moment, but, recovering himself, he flung - her off with an expressive word or two in the Italian tongue. She went - limply back and, being adroitly avoided by her companion, gave a circular - stagger or two and fell into the gutter with a screech. - </p> - <p> - Baretti was hurrying on when out of the darkness of Panton Street a big - man sprang, followed quickly by two others. The first seized him by the - right arm with the oath of a bully, the others tried to trip him up, - shouting that he had killed a lady. Baretti was a powerful man and - decidedly tough. He struck at the fellow who had closed with him, and used - his feet against the attack of the others with considerable effect. He - managed to free his arm, but before he could draw his sword he was pulled - backward and would have fallen upon his head if he had not clutched the - coat of the man from whom he had freed himself. There was a pause of a few - seconds, filled up by the wild street yell of the women. The most - aggressive of the three men leapt upon the unfortunate Baretti, but before - their bodies met, gave a guttural shriek, then a groan. He staggered past, - his fingers tearing like talons at his ribs; he whirled twice round and, - gasping, fell on his knees, motionless only for a few seconds; his hands - dropped limply from his side, and he pitched forward on his head into the - gutter. - </p> - <p> - Baretti was standing, awaiting a further attack, with a knife in his hand, - when he was seized by some of the crowd. He offered no resistance. He - seemed to be so amazed at finding himself alive as to be incapable of - taking any further action. - </p> - <p> - “He has killed the man—stabbed him with a dagger to the very heart!” - was the cry that came from those of the crowd who were kneeling beside the - wretch in the gutter. - </p> - <p> - “And a woman—he had slain a woman at the outset. Hold him fast. None - of us are safe this night. Have a care for the dagger, friends!” - </p> - <p> - A sufficiency of advice was given by the excited onlookers to the men who - had encircled Baretti—one of them was clinging to him with his arms - clasped around his body—until two of the Haymarket watch hurried up, - striking right and left with their staves after the wholesome manner of - the period, and so making a way for their approach through the crowd. - </p> - <p> - “'Tis more than a street brawl—a man has been slain—some say a - woman also,” a shopkeeper explained to them, having run bareheaded out of - his shop; his apprentice had just put up the last of the shutters. - </p> - <p> - They had Baretti by the collar in a second, cautiously disarming him, - holding the weapon up to the nearest lamp. The blade was still wet with - blood. - </p> - <p> - “A swinging matter this,” one of them remarked. “I can swear to the blood. - No dagger, but a knife. What man walks the streets at night with a naked - knife unless slaughter is his intent?” - </p> - <p> - “Friends, I was attacked by three bullies, and I defended myself—that - is all,” said Baretti. He spoke English perfectly. - </p> - <p> - “You will need to tell that to Sir John in the morning,” said one of the - watchmen. “You are apprehended in the King's name. Where is the poor - victim?” - </p> - <p> - “There must be some of the crowd who saw how I was attacked,” said - Baretti. “They will testify that I acted in self-defence. Sirs, hear me - make an appeal to you. Out of your sense of justice—you will not see - an innocent man apprehended.” - </p> - <p> - “The knife—who carries a bare knife in the streets unless with - intent?” said a man. - </p> - <p> - “'Twas my fruit-knife. I never go abroad without it. I eat my fruit like a - Christian, not like a pig or an Englishman,” was the defence offered by - Baretti, who had now quite lost his temper and was speaking with his - accustomed bitterness. He usually sought to pass as an Englishman, but he - was now being arrested by the minions of the law as it was in England. - </p> - <p> - “Hear him! A pig of an Englishman. Those were his words! A foreign hound. - Frenchie, I'll be bound.” - </p> - <p> - “A spy—most like a Papist. He has the hanging brow of a born - Papist.” - </p> - <p> - “He'll hang like a dog at Tyburn—he may be sure o' that.” - </p> - <p> - “'Tis the mercy o' Heaven that the rascal was caught red-handed! Sirs, - this may be the beginning of a dreadful massacring plot against the lives - of honest and peaceful people.” - </p> - <p> - The comments of a crowd of the period upon such an incident as the - stabbing of an Englishman by a foreigner in the streets of London can - easily be imagined. - </p> - <p> - Even when Baretti was put into a hackney coach and driven off to Bow - Street the crowd doubtless remained talking in groups of the menace to - English freedom and true religion by the arrival of pestilent foreigners, - every man of them carrying a knife. It would be a sad day for England when - Jesuitical fruit-knives took the place of good wholesome British bludgeons - in the settlement of the ordinary differences incidental to a Protestant - people. - </p> - <p> - It is certain that this was one of the comments of the disintegrating - crowd, and it is equally certain that Baretti commented pretty freely to - his custodians in the hackney coach upon the place occupied in the comity - of nations of that State, the social conditions of whose metropolis made - possible so gross a scandal as the arrest of a gentleman and a scholar, - solely by reason of his success in snatching his life out of the talons of - a ruffian and a bully. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Baretti was a gentleman and a scholar whose name appears pretty - frequently in the annals of the eighteenth century, but seldom with any - great credit to himself. As a matter of fact, this dramatic episode of the - stabbing of the man in the Haymarket is the happiest with which his name - is associated. He made his most creditable appearance in the chronicles of - the period as the chief actor in this sordid drama. He cuts a very poor - figure indeed upon every other occasion when he appears in the pages of - his contemporaries, though they all meant to be kind to him. - </p> - <p> - He never could bear people to be kind to him, and certainly, so far as he - himself was concerned, it cannot be said that any blame attaches to him - for the persistence of his friends in this direction. He did all that - mortal man could do to discourage them, and if after the lapse of a year - or two he was still treated by some with cordiality or respect, assuredly - it was not owing to his display of any qualities that justified their - maintenance of such an attitude. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Baretti was an eminently detestable scholar of many parts. He was as - detestable as he was learned—perhaps even more so. Learned men are - not invariably horrid, unless they are men of genius as well, and this - rarely happens. - </p> - <p> - Baretti had no such excuse, though it must be acknowledged that his - capacity for being disagreeable almost amounted to genius. Such a - character as his is now and again met with in daily life. A man who feels - himself to be, in point of scholarly attainment, far above the majority of - men, and who sees inferiority occupying a place of distinction while he - remains neglected and, to his thinking, unappreciated, is not an uncommon - figure in learned or artistic circles. Baretti was a disappointed man, and - he showed himself to be such. He had a grievance against the world for - being constituted as it is. He had a grievance against society. He had a - grievance against his friends who got on in the world. But the only people - against whom he was really malevolent were those who were signally and - unaccountably kind to him. He accepted their kindness, and then turned and - rent them. - </p> - <p> - Dr. Johnson met him when they were both working for the booksellers, and - when the great dictionary scheme was floated his co-operation was - welcomed. Johnson's success in life was largely due to his faculty for - discovering people who could be useful to him. It can easily be believed - that, knowing something of the scholarship of Baretti, he should be - delighted to avail himself of his help. Baretti had an intimate knowledge - of several languages and their literature; as a philologist he was - probably far superior to Johnson; and possibly Johnson knew this, though - he was doubtless too wise ever to acknowledge so much openly. We do not - hear that the relations between the two ever became strained while the - great work was in course of progress. Shortly after it was completed - Baretti returned to his native Italy, and began to reproach Johnson for - not writing to him more frequently. We have several examples of the - cheerfulness with which Johnson set about exculpating himself from such - reproaches. The letters which he wrote to him at Italy are among the most - natural that ever came from his pen. They are models of the gossipy style - which Johnson could assume without once deviating from that dignity which - so frequently became ponderous, suggesting the dignity of the elephant - rather than that of the lion. Walpole was a master of the art of being - gossipy without being dignified. But Johnson's style was not flexible. We - have not Baretti's letters to Johnson, but the references made by the - latter to some matters communicated to him by his correspondent let us - know something of how Baretti was getting on in the land of his birth. He - seems to have set his heart upon obtaining some appointment in Italy, and - his aspirations included marriage. He was disappointed in both directions; - and it would be too much to expect that his temper was improved by these - rebuffs. - </p> - <p> - It may well be believed that he quarrelled his way through Italy. “I have - lately seen Mr. Stratico, Professor of Padua, who has told me of your - quarrel with an abbot of the Celestine Order, but had not the particulars - very ready in his memory,” Johnson wrote to him at Milan. Any one who - could quarrel with an abbot of the Celestine Order would, we fancy, be <i>capable - de tout</i>, like the prophet Habakkuk, according to the witty Frenchman. - One is not disposed to be hard upon Professor Stratico for his shortness - of memory in regard to this particular quarrel; the strain of remembering - the details of all the quarrels of Mr. Baretti would be too great for any - man. - </p> - <p> - Of course, Dr. Johnson gave him some excellent advice. It seems that poor - Baretti had been at first so well received on his return to Italy that he - became sanguine of success in all his enterprises, and when they - miscarried he wrote very bitterly to Johnson, who replied as follows: - </p> - <p> - “I am sorry for your disappointment, with which you seem more touched than - I should expect a man of your resolution and experience to have been, did - I not know that general truths are seldom applied to particular occasions; - and that the fallacy of our selflove extends itself as wide as our - interests or affections. Every man believes that mistresses are unfaithful - and patrons capricious; but he excepts his own mistress and his own - patron. We have all learned that greatness is negligent and contemptuous, - and that in Courts life is often languished away in ungratified - expectation; but he that approaches greatness or glitters in a Court, - imagines that destiny has at last exempted him from the common lot.” - </p> - <p> - It is doubtful if this excellent philosophy made the person to whom it was - addressed more amiable to his immediate entourage; nor is it likely that - he was soothed by the assurance that his “patron's weakness or - insensibility will finally do you little hurt, if he is not assisted by - your own passions.” - </p> - <p> - “Of your love,” continued Johnson, “I know not the propriety; we can - estimate the power, but in love, as in every other passion of which hope - is the essence, we ought always to remember the uncertainty of events.” He - then hastens to add that “love and marriage are different states. Those - who are to suffer the evils together, and to suffer often for the sake of - one another, soon lose that tenderness of look, and that benevolence of - mind which arose from the participation of unmingled pleasure and success - in amusement.” - </p> - <p> - The pleasant little cynical bark in the phrase “those that are to suffer - the evils together,” as if it referred to love and marriage, is, Malone - thinks, not Johnson's, but Baretti's. It is suggested that Johnson really - wrote “those that are to suffer the evils <i>of life</i> together,” and - that Baretti in transcribing the letter for Boswell, purposely omitted the - words “<i>of life</i>.” It would be quite like Baretti to do this; for he - would thereby work off part of his spite against Johnson for having given - him the advice, and he would have had his own sneer against “love and - marriage,” the <i>fons et origo</i> of his disappointment. - </p> - <p> - But of Dr. Johnson's esteem for the attainments of Baretti there can be no - doubt. He thought that the book on Italy which he published on his return - to England was very entertaining, adding: “Sir, I know no man who carries - his head higher in conversation than Baretti. There are strong powers in - his mind. He has not, indeed, many hooks; but with what hooks he has he - grapples very forcibly.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0005" id="linkimage-0005"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0099.jpg" alt="0099 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0099.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - It may seem rather strange after this that Baretti was never admitted to - the membership of the celebrated club. He was intimate with nearly all the - original members, but the truth remained that he was not what Johnson - called a clubbable man: he had too many hooks, not too few. - </p> - <p> - Such was the man who was brought before Sir John Fielding, the magistrate - at Bow Street, on the morning after the tragedy, charged with murder; and - then it was that he found the value of the friendships which he had formed - in England. The first person to hasten to his side in his extremity was - Oliver Goldsmith, the man whom he had so frequently made the object of his - sarcasm, whose peculiarities he had mimicked, not in the playful manner of - Garrick or Foote, but in his own spiteful style, with the grim humour of - the disappointed man. Goldsmith it was who opened his purse for him and - got a coach for him when he was remanded until the next day, riding by his - side to the place of his incarceration. Goldsmith was by his side when the - question of bail was discussed before Lord Mansfield. For some reason - which does not require any particular explanation, it was not thought that - Goldsmith as a bailsman would appeal irresistibly to the authorities, but - the names of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Edmund Burke, Mr. David Garrick, and - Mr. H. Fitzherbert were submitted to Lord Mansfield, and immediately - accepted. An amusing anecdote was current regarding the few days of - Baretti's incarceration. One morning he was visited by a teacher of - languages, who begged a trifling favour of him. This was merely a letter - of recommendation to Baretti's pupils, so that the applicant might have a - chance of taking them over “when you are hanged, sir.” The fact that this - sympathetic visitor was allowed to depart without molestation makes people - doubt whether Baretti was so bad-tempered after all. He did not assault - the man. “You rascal!” he cried. “If I were not in my own room, I would - kick you downstairs directly.” - </p> - <p> - The trial was fixed for October 20th at the Old Bailey, and a few days - before this date a number of the prisoner's friends met together to - consult as to the line which should be taken for his defence. It seems - that they were not all agreed on some points; this was only to be - expected, considering what an array of wisdom was brought together upon - the occasion of these consultations, and considering also the course which - was adopted by Dr. Johnson, who thought that the interests of the prisoner - would be advanced by getting up an academical discussion with Burke. - Johnson and Burke were notorious rivals in conversation in those days when - conversation was regarded as an art, and men and women seemed to have - plenty of leisure to talk together for the sake of talking, and to argue - together for the sake of argument, and to be rude to one another for the - sake of wit. Boswell was for ever extolling Johnson at the expense of - Burke; and indeed, so far as one can gather from his pages, Johnson was - the ruder man. - </p> - <p> - The example that Boswell gives of his own readiness in making Goldsmith - “shut up” when he questioned Johnson's superiority to Burke in discussion - is one of the best instances of the little Scotsman's incapacity to - perceive the drift of an argument. “Is he like Burke who winds into a - subject like a serpent?” asked Goldsmith. - </p> - <p> - “But” (said I) “Dr. Johnson is the Hercules that strangled serpents in his - cradle.” - </p> - <p> - This repartee which Boswell gleefully records is about equal to the reply - made by one of the poets who was appealed to in the “Bab Ballads” to say - if he wrote “the lovely cracker mottoes my Elvira pulls at supper.” It - will be remembered that the poet whose name rhymes with “supper” replied: - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent10"> - “'A fool is bent upon a twig, but wise men dread a bandit,' - </p> - <p class="indent10"> - Which” (the earnest inquirer said) “I felt was very wise, - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - but I didn't understand it.” - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - It was in regard to this consultation as to the best defence to be made - out for Baretti that Johnson admitted to have opposed Burke simply for the - sake of showing the rest of the company that he could get the better of - Burke in an argument. “Burke and I,” he said, “should have been of one - opinion if we had had no audience.” Such a confession! There was the life - of his friend Baretti trembling in the balance, and yet Johnson, solely - for the sake of “showing off,” opposed the wisdom and ingenuity Burke - exercised to save from the gallows a man whom Johnson professed to admire! - </p> - <p> - But if we are to believe Boswell, Johnson cared very little whether his - friend was hanged or not. As for Boswell himself, he always detested - Baretti, and is reported to have expressed the earnest hope that the man - would be hanged. However, the “consultations” went merrily on, and - doubtless contributed in some measure to a satisfactory solution of the - vexed question as to whether Johnson or Burke was the more brilliant - talker. They formed a tolerably valid excuse for the uncorking of several - bottles, and perhaps these friends of Baretti felt that even though he - should die, yet the exchange of wit in the course of these happy evenings - would live for ever in the memory of those present, so that after all, let - the worst come to the worst, Baretti should have little cause for - complaint. - </p> - <p> - It is reported that the prisoner, upon the occasion of his receiving a - visit from Johnson and Burke, cried: “What need a man fear who holds two - such hands?” It may here be mentioned, however, that although it was - asserted that Johnson and Murphy were responsible for the line of defence - adopted at the trial, yet in after years Baretti was most indignant that - it should be suggested that credit should be given to any one but himself - for his defence; and he ridiculed the notion that Johnson or Burke or - Murphy or even Boswell—himself an aspirant to the profession of law - in which he subsequently displayed a conspicuous lack of distinction—had - anything to do with the instruction either of solicitors or barristers on - his behalf. - </p> - <p> - At any rate, the “consultations” came to an end, and the friends of the - accused awaited the trial with exemplary patience. Mr. Boswell seems - suddenly to have become the most sympathetic of the friends; for three - days before the event he took a journey to Tyburn to witness the hanging - of several men at that place, and though it is known that the spectacle of - a hanging never lost its charm for him, yet it is generous to assume that - upon this occasion he went to Tyburn in order to qualify himself more - fully for sympathising with Baretti, should the defence assigned to him - break down. - </p> - <p> - Another ardent sympathiser was Mr. Thomas Davies the bookseller, a - gentleman whose chief distinction in the eyes of his contemporaries - consisted—if we are to believe one of the wittiest of his associates—in - the fact that he had an exceedingly pretty wife; but whose claim to the - gratitude of coming generations lies in the circumstance of his having - introduced Boswell to Johnson. Tom Davies was terribly cut up at the - thought of the possibility of Baretti's being sentenced to be hanged. - Boswell, on the day before the trial, after telling Johnson how he had - witnessed the executions at Tyburn, and expressing his surprise that none - of the wretches seemed to think anything of the matter, mentioned that - Foote, the actor, had shown him a letter which he had received from Tom - Davies, and in which the writer affirmed that he had not had a wink of - sleep owing to his anxiety in respect of “this sad affair of Baretti,” and - begging Foote to suggest some way by which he could be of service to the - accused, adding that should Mr. Foote be in need of anything in the pickle - line, he could strongly recommend him to an industrious young man who had - lately set up in that business. - </p> - <p> - Strange to say, Johnson was not impressed with this marked evidence of Mr. - Davies' kind heart. - </p> - <p> - “Ay, sir, here you have a specimen of human sympathy,” he cried. “A friend - hanged and a cucumber pickled! We know not whether Baretti or the pickle - man has kept Davies from sleep; nor does he know himself.” - </p> - <p> - This was rather sweeping, but his dictum showed that he was rather a poor - analyser of human emotion. In the minds of the people of to-day who read - of Tom Davies' bad nights there is no manner of doubt whatever that the - sequence of his emotions was to be attributed to his intimacy with the - industrious young pickle maker. Tom had indulged rather too freely in some - of the specimens of his art presented to him by the pickler, and the - result was a melancholy night; and, being melancholy, he was led to think - of the most melancholy incident that had recently come under his notice. - When a man is full of mixed pickles he is liable to get a little mixed, - and so in the morning he attributed his miserable night to his thoughts - about Baretti, instead of knowing that his thoughts about Baretti were the - natural result of his miserable night. If he had been acquainted with an - industrious young onion merchant he might have passed the night in tears. - </p> - <p> - “As for his not sleeping,” said Dr. Johnson, “sir, Tom Davies is a very - great man—Tom has been on the stage, and knows how to do those - things.” - </p> - <p> - Boswell: “I have often blamed myself, sir, for not feeling for others as - sensibly as many say they do.” Johnson: “Sir, don't be duped by them any - more. You will find those very feeling people are not very ready to do you - good. They pay you by feeling.” Mr. Boswell thought that he would do well - to turn his friend from the subject under discussion, so he made the - apparently harmless remark that Foote had a great deal of humour and that - he had a singular talent of exhibiting character. But Johnson had on him - the mood not only of “the rugged Russian bear,” but also of “the armed - rhinoceros and the Hyrcan tiger.” - </p> - <p> - “Sir, it is not a talent: it is a vice; it is what others abstain from,” - he growled. - </p> - <p> - “Did not he think of exhibiting you, sir?” inquired the tactful Mr. - Boswell, though he knew all about Foote and Johnson long before. - </p> - <p> - “Sir, fear restrained him,” said Johnson. “He knew I would have broken his - bones. I would have saved him the trouble of cutting off a leg: I would - not have left him a leg to cut off.” - </p> - <p> - This brutal reference to the fact that Foote's recent accident had - compelled him to have a leg amputated should surely have suggested to his - inquisitor that he had probably been paying a visit to an industrious - young pickle maker without Tom Davies' recommendation, or that he had - partaken of too generous a helping of his favourite veal, baked with - plums, and so that he would do well to leave him alone for a while. But - no, Mr. Boswell was not to be denied. - </p> - <p> - “Pray, sir, is not Foote an infidel?” he inquired. But as he himself had - been dining with Foote the previous day, and as he possessed no more - delicacy than a polecat, he could easily have put the question to Foote - himself. - </p> - <p> - But Johnson would not even give the man credit for his infidelity. - </p> - <p> - “I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel,” he said; “but if he - is an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel, that is to say, he - has never thought on the subject.” - </p> - <p> - In another second he was talking of Buchanan, a poet, whom he praised, and - of Shakespeare, another poet, whom he condemned, winding up by saying that - there were some very fine things in Dr. Young's <i>Night Thoughts</i>. But - the most remarkable of his deliverances on this rather memorable evening - had reference to Baretti's fate. After declaring that if one of his - friends had just been hanged he would eat his dinner every bit as heartily - as if his friend were still alive.—“Why, there's Baretti, who is to - be tried for his life to-morrow,” he added; “friends have risen up for him - on every side; yet if he should be hanged, none of them will eat a slice - of plum pudding the less.” Happily the accuracy of this tender-hearted - scholar's prediction had no chance of being put to the test. Baretti was - tried and acquitted. - </p> - <p> - Boswell gives only a few lines to an account of the trial, and fails to - mention that the prisoner declined the privilege of being tried by a jury - one half of whom should be foreigners. “It took place,” he said, “at the - awful Sessions House, emphatically called Justice Hall,” and he affirms - that “never did such a constellation of genius enlighten the Old Bailey.” - </p> - <p> - He mentions that Mr. Burke, Mr. Garrick, Mr. Beauclerk, and Dr. Johnson - gave evidence, the last-named being especially impressive, speaking in a - slow, deliberate, and distinct tone of voice. It seems strange that - Boswell, who was (nominally) a lawyer, when he wrote his life of Johnson, - should say nothing whatever respecting the line of defence adopted by the - friends of the prisoner upon this interesting occasion. It might have been - expected that he would dwell lovingly, as a lawyer would certainly be - pardoned for doing, upon the technical points involved in the trial, even - though he hated Baretti. For instance, it would be interesting to learn - why it was thought that the result of the trial might mean the hanging of - Baretti, when from the first it was perfectly plain that he had acted in - self-defence: not merely was he protecting his purse, he had actually to - fight for his life against an acknowledged ruffian of the most - contemptible type. In the present day if a short-sighted man of letters—say - Mr. Augustine Birrell—were to be attacked in a dark street by three - notorious scoundrels and to manage to kill one of them by poking the - ferrule end of an umbrella into his eye, no one—not even a - Conservative Attorney-General—would fancy that a grand jury at the - New Old Bailey would return a true bill against him for the act, putting - aside all question of his being found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. - And yet in Baretti's time swords were commonly worn, and they were by no - means toy weapons. Why should poor Tom Davies have a sleepless night, - owing (as he believed) to his apprehension that his friend would be hanged - in a day or two? Why was it necessary to dazzle the “awful Sessions House” - by such “a constellation of genius” as had never before assembled in that - “Hall of Justice”? - </p> - <p> - Mr. Boswell might certainly have told us something of the actual scene in - the court, when he has devoted so much space to the ridiculous dialogues - between himself and Johnson, having more or less bearing upon the case. - The course he adopted is like laying a dinner-table with four knives and - forks and five wineglasses for every guest—in having a constellation - of genii in plush behind every chair, and then serving a dinner of hashed - mutton only. A great number of people believe that whatever Boswell may - have been, he was invariably accurate. But in this case he does not even - give a true account of the constellation of genius to which he refers. He - only says that Burke, Garrick, Beauclerk, and Johnson were called as - witnesses. He omits to say a word about Goldsmith, who was something of a - genius; or Reynolds, who was quite a tolerable painter; or Fitzherbert, - who had a wide reputation as a politician; or Dr. Halifax, whose evidence - carried certainly as much weight as Johnson's. He does not even say a word - respecting the evidence which Johnson and the others were called on to - give on behalf of the prisoner at the bar. What is the good of telling us - that the constellation of genius had never been paralleled within the - precincts of the “emphatically called Justice Hall” if we are not made - aware of some of the flashes of their genius when they were put into the - witness-box? - </p> - <p> - The truth is that Boswell had no sense of proportion any more than a sense - of the sublime and beautiful—or, for that matter, a sense of the - ridiculous. He was the Needy Knife Grinder—with an occasional axe of - his own—of the brilliant circle into which he crawled, holding on to - Johnson's skirts and half concealing himself beneath their capacious - flaps. He had constant stories suggested to him, but he failed to see - their possibilities. He was a knife grinder and nothing more; but at his - own trade he was admirable; he ground away patiently at his trivialities - respecting the man whom he never was within leagues of understanding, and - it is scarcely fair to reproach him for not throwing away his grindstone, - which he knew how to use, and taking to that of a diamond cutter, which he - was incapable of manipulating. But surely he might have told us something - more of the actual trial of Baretti instead of giving us page after page - leading up to the trial. - </p> - <p> - From other sources we learn that what all the geniuses were called on to - testify to was the pacific character of Baretti, and this they were all - able to do in an emphatic manner. It would seem that it was assumed that - the prisoner, a short-sighted, middle-aged man of letters, was possessed - of all the dangerous qualities of a bloodthirsty brigand of his own - country—that he was a fierce and ungovernable desperado, who was in - the habit of prowling about the purlieus of the Haymarket to do to death - with a fruit-knife the peaceful citizens whom he might encounter. He was a - foreigner, and he had killed an Englishman with an outlandish weapon. That - seems to have been the reason there was for the apprehension, which was - very general in respect of the fate of Baretti, for it was upon these - points that his witnesses were most carefully examined. - </p> - <p> - Goldsmith, Reynolds, and Garrick were very useful witnesses regarding the - knife. They affirmed that in carrying a fruit-knife the prisoner was in no - way departing from the recognised custom of his fellow-countrymen. He, in - common with them, was in the habit of eating a great deal of fruit, so - that the knife was a necessity with him. - </p> - <p> - Johnson's evidence was as follows: - </p> - <p> - “I have known Mr. Baretti a long time. He is a man of literature—a - very studious man—a man of great intelligence. He gets his living by - study. I have no reason to think he was ever disordered with liquor in his - life. A man that I have never known to be otherwise than peaceable and a - man that I take to be rather timorous. As to his eyesight, he does not see - me now, nor do I see him. I do not believe he would be capable of - assaulting anybody in the street without great provocation.” - </p> - <p> - It cannot be denied that the reference to Baretti's imperfect sight told - upon the jury, and uttered as the words were by Johnson in his dignified - way, they could scarcely fail to produce a profound effect upon the court. - </p> - <p> - Baretti was acquitted, and no one could presume to refer to him for the - rest of his life except as a quiet, inoffensive, frugivorous gentleman, - since these were the qualities with which he was endowed by a - constellation of geniuses on their oath. He was acquitted by the jury; but - the judge thought it well to say a few words to him before allowing him to - leave the dock, and the drift of his discourse amounted to a severe - censure upon his impetuosity, and the expression of a hope that the - inconvenience to which he was put upon this occasion would act as a - warning to him in future. - </p> - <p> - Really one could hardly imagine that in those days, when every week Mr. - Boswell had a chance of going to such an entertainment at Tyburn as he had - attended forty-eight hours before the opening of the Sessions, the taking - of the life of a human being was regarded with such horror. One cannot - help recalling the remark made by Walpole a few years later, that, owing - to the severity of the laws, England had been turned into one vast - shambles; nor can one quite forget the particulars of the case which was - quoted as having an intimate bearing upon this contention—the case - in which a young wife whose husband had been impressed to serve in His - Majesty's Fleet, and who had consequently been left without any means of - support, had stolen a piece of bread to feed her starving children, and - had been hanged at Tyburn for the crime. - </p> - <p> - Reading the judge's censure of Baretti, who had, in preventing a - contemptible ruffian from killing him, decreased by a unit the criminality - of London, the only conclusion that one can come to is that the courts of - law were very jealous of their precious prerogative to kill. Looking at - the matter in this light, the bombastic phrase of Boswell does not seem so - ridiculous after all; the Old Bailey had certainly good reason to be - regarded as the “awful Sessions House.” But we are not so fully convinced - that it had any right to be referred to as emphatically the Hall of - Justice. In the Georgian Pageant the common hangman played too conspicuous - a part. - </p> - <p> - But the unfortunate, if impetuous, Baretti left the court a free man, and - we cannot doubt that in the company of his friends who had stood by him in - his hour of trial he was a good deal harder upon the judge than the judge - had been upon him; and probably he was reproved in a grave and dignified - manner by Dr. Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds standing by with his ear - trumpet, fearful lest a single word of Johnson's wisdom should escape him. - Doubtless Mr. Garrick, the moment Johnson's back was turned, gave an - inimitable imitation of both Johnson and Baretti—perhaps of the - judge as well, and most likely the usher of the court. - </p> - <p> - Later on, when the avaricious Reynolds had hastened back to his studio in - Leicester Fields to daub on canvas the figures of some of his sitters at - the extortionate price of thirty-five guineas for a three-quarter length, - he and Johnson put their heads together to devise what could be done for - Baretti. - </p> - <p> - For about a year Baretti resumed his old way of living, working for the - booksellers and completing his volume of travel through Europe, by which - it is said he made £500. It would appear, however, that all his pupils had - transferred themselves to the enterprising gentleman who had appealed to - him at an inopportune moment for his recommendation, or to some of his - other brethren, for by the end of the year he was in needy circumstances. - Meantime he had been made by Sir Joshua Reynolds Honorary Secretary for - Foreign Correspondence to the Royal Academy, and then Johnson recommended - him to the husband of Mrs. Thrale as tutor to her girls at Streatham. This - was very kind to Baretti, but it was rather hard on the Thrales. - Apparently from the first day he went to Streatham his attitude in regard - to the Thrale family was one of spite and malevolence; and there can be no - doubt that Johnson bitterly regretted his patronage of a man who seemed - never to forgive any one who had done him a good turn. - </p> - <p> - The agreement made by him with the Thrales was that he should practically - be his own master, only residing at Streatham as a member of the family - with no fixed salary. He was as artful as an Irish cabman in suggesting - this “leave it to your honour” contract. He had heard on all hands of the - liberality of Mr. Thrale, and he knew that, in addition to being provided - with a luxurious home, he would receive presents from him far in excess of - what he could earn. He was extremely well treated for the next three - years, though he was for ever grumbling when he had a moment's leisure - from insulting the Thrales and their guests. Mrs. Thrale said more in his - favour than any one with whom he came in contact. She wrote: “His lofty - consciousness of his own superiority which made him tenacious of every - position, and drew him into a thousand distresses, did not, I must own, - ever disgust me, till he began to exercise it against myself, and resolve - to reign in our house by fairly defying the mistress of it. Pride, - however, though shocking enough, is never despicable; but vanity, which he - possessed too, in an eminent degree, will sometimes make a man near sixty - ridiculous.” - </p> - <p> - Assuredly Mrs. Thrale “let him down” very gently. Dr. Thomas Campbell, a - clergyman from Ireland, gives us a glimpse of Baretti's bearing at - Streatham. It is clear that Baretti was anxious to impress him with the - nature of his position in the house. “He told me he had several families - both in town and country with whom he could go at any time and spend a - month; he is at this time on these terms at Mr. Thrale's, and he knows how - to keep his ground. Talking, as we were at tea, of the magnitude of the - beer vessels, he said there was one thing at Mr. Thrale's house still more - extraordinary—his wife. She gulped the pill very prettily. So much - for Baretti!” wrote the clergyman in a very illuminating account of his - visit to Streatham. - </p> - <p> - But not only did Mrs. Thrale bear with this detestable person for nearly - two more years, but she and her husband took him with them and Johnson to - Paris, where they lived in a magnificent way, the Thrales paying for - everything. It was in a letter to Frank Levet, his domestic apothecary, - that Johnson, writing from Paris, said: “I ran a race in the rain this - day, and beat Baretti. Baretti is a fine fellow.” This is Johnson on - Baretti. Here is Baretti on Johnson; on a copy of the <i>Piozzi Letters</i> - he wrote: “Johnson was often fond of saying silly things in strong terms, - and the silly madam”—meaning Mrs. Thrale—“never failed to echo - that beastly kind of wit.” - </p> - <p> - It was not, however, until an Italian tour, projected by Mr. Thrale, was - postponed, that Baretti became quite unendurable. He had been presented by - Mr. Thrale with £100 within a few months, and on the abandonment of the - longer tour he received another £100 by way of compensation for the - satisfaction he had been compelled to forgo in showing his countrymen the - position to which he had attained in England. This was another act of - generosity which he could not forgive. He became sullen and more - cantankerous than ever, and neglected his duties in an intolerable way. In - fact, he treated Streatham as if it were an hotel, turning up to give Miss - Thrale a lesson at the most inconvenient hours, and then devoting the most - of his time to poisoning the girl's mind against her mother. Upon one - occasion he expressed the hope to her that if her mother died Mr. Thrale - would marry Miss Whitbred, who would, he said, be a pretty companion for - her, not tyrannical and overbearing as he affirmed her own mother was! - Truly a nice remark for a young lady's tutor to make to her under her - mother's roof. - </p> - <p> - The fact was, however—we have Baretti's own confession for it—that - he had been led to believe that after being with the Thrales for a year or - two, an annuity would be settled on him by the wealthy brewer, and he grew - impatient at his services to the family not obtaining recognition in this - way. It is extremely unlikely that Johnson ever even so much as hinted at - this annuity, though Baretti says his expectations were due to what - Johnson had told him; but it is certain that he had so exalted an opinion - of himself, he believed that after a year or two of desultory teaching he - should receive a handsome pension. And there the old story of the - car-driver who left the nomination of the fare to “his honour's honour” - was repeated. Baretti one morning packed up his bag and left Streatham - without a word of farewell. - </p> - <p> - Johnson's account of his departure and his comments thereupon are worth - notice. He wrote to Boswell: - </p> - <p> - “Baretti went away from Thrales in some whimsical fit of disgust or - ill-nature without taking any leave. It is well if he finds in any other - place as good an habitation and as many conveniences.” - </p> - <p> - On the whole it is likely that a good many of Baretti's friends felt - rather sorry than otherwise that the jury at the Old Bailey had taken so - merciful a view of his accident. If Johnson and Murphy were really - responsible for the line of defence which prevailed at the trial, one can - quite believe that the Thrales and a good many of their associates bore - them a secret grudge for their pains. - </p> - <p> - In the year 1782 he was granted by the Government the pension which he had - failed to extort from the Thrales. It amounted to £80 per annum, and we - may take it for granted that he had nothing but the most copious abuse for - the Prime Minister who had only given him £80 when Sheridan was receiving - £200 and Johnson £300. He drew his pension for seven years. - </p> - <p> - Baretti's portrait, painted by Reynolds for the Streatham gallery, fetched - £31 10s., the smallest price of any in the whole collection, on its - dispersal, years after the principal actors in the scene in the “awful - Sessions House” had gone to another world. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE FATAL GIFT - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HEN Mr. Boswell - had been snubbed, and very soundly snubbed too, by a Duchess, one might - fancy that his ambition was fully satisfied. But he was possibly the most - persevering of the order of <i>Pachydermata</i> at that time extant; and - in the matter of snubs he had the appetite of a leviathan. He was fired - with the desire to be snubbed once more by Her Grace—and he was. - Without waiting to catch her eye, he raised his glass and, bowing in her - direction, said: - </p> - <p> - “My Lady Duchess, I have the honour to drink Your Grace's good health.” - </p> - <p> - The Duchess did not allow her conversation with Dr. Johnson to be - interrupted by so flagrant a piece of politeness; she continued chatting - quite pleasantly to the great man, ignoring the little one. That was how - she had got on in life; and, indeed, a better epitome of the whole art of - getting on in life could scarcely be compiled even by the cynical nobleman - who wrote letters to his son instructing him in this and other forms of - progress—including the Rake's. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Boswell, who, as usual, is the pitiless narrator of the incident, - records his satisfaction at having attained to the distinction of a snub - from the beautiful creature at whose table he was sitting, and we are, as - usual, deeply indebted to him for giving us an illuminating glimpse of the - Duchess of whom at one time all England and the greater part of Ireland - were talking. He also mentions that Her Grace made use of an idiom by - which her Irish upbringing revealed itself. If we had not Mr. Boswell's - account of his visit to Inveraray to refer to we might be tempted to - believe that Horace Walpole deviated into accuracy when he attributed to - the Duchess of Argyll, as well as her sister, the Countess of Coventry, - the brogue of a bog-trotter. It was only by her employment of an idiom - common to the south and west of Ireland and a few other parts of the - kingdom, that Her Grace made him know that she had not been educated in - England, or for that matter in Scotland, where doubtless Mr. Boswell - fondly believed the purest English in the world was spoken. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0006" id="linkimage-0006"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0121.jpg" alt="0121 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0121.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - Mr. Boswell faithfully records—sometimes with glee and occasionally - with pride—many snubs which he received in the course of a lifetime - of great pertinacity, and some that he omitted to note, his contemporaries - were obliging enough to record; but on none did he reflect with more - satisfaction than that, or those, which he suffered in the presence of the - Duchess of Argyll. - </p> - <p> - It happened during that memorable tour to the Hebrides to which he lured - Johnson in order to show his countrymen how great was his intimacy with - the man who traduced them once in his Dictionary and daily in his life. It - was like Boswell to expect that he would impress the Scottish nation by - leading Johnson to view their fine prospects—he certainly was never - foolish enough to hope to impress Johnson by introducing the Scottish - nation to him. In due time, however, the exploiter and the exploited found - themselves in the neighbourhood of Inveraray, the Duke of Argyll's Castle, - and the stronghold of the Clan Campbell. - </p> - <p> - It chanced that the head of the great family was in residence at this - time, and Mr. Boswell hastened to apprise him of the fact that the great - Dr. Johnson was at hand. He called at the Castle very artfully shortly - after the dinner hour, when he believed the Duchess and her daughter would - have retired to a drawing-room. He was successful in finding the Duke - still at the dinner-table, the ladies having retired. In the course of the - interview the Duke said: “Mr. Boswell, won't you have some tea?” and Mr. - Boswell, feeling sure that the Duchess could not go very far in insulting - him when other people were present, followed his host into the - drawing-room. “The Duke,” he records, “announced my name, but the Duchess, - who was sitting with her daughter, Lady Betty Hamilton, and some other - ladies, took not the least notice of me. I should,” he continues, “have - been mortified at being thus coldly received by a lady of whom I, with the - rest of the world, have always entertained a very high admiration, had I - not been consoled by the obliging attention of the Duke.” - </p> - <p> - The Duke was, indeed, obliging enough to invite Johnson to dinner the next - day, and Mr. Boswell was included in the invitation. (So it is that the - nursery governess gets invited to the table in the great house to which - she is asked to bring the pretty children in her charge.) Of course, - Boswell belonged to a good family, and his father was a judge. It was to a - Duke of Argyll—not the one who was now so obliging—that the - Laird of Auchinleck brought his son, James Boswell, to be examined in - order to find out whether he should be put into the army or some other - profession. Still, he would never have been invited to Inveraray at this - time or any other unless he had had charge of Johnson. No one was better - aware of this fact than Boswell; but did he therefore decline the - invitation? Not he. Mr. Boswell saw an opportunity ahead of him. He had - more than once heard Johnson give an account of how he had behaved when - the King came upon him in the Royal Library; and probably he had felt - melancholy at the reflection that he himself had had no part or lot in the - incident. It was all Dr. Johnson and the King. But now he was quick to - perceive that when, in after years, people should speak with bated breath - of Dr. Johnson's visit to Inveraray they would be compelled to say: “And - Mr. Boswell, the son of auld Auchinleck, was there too.” - </p> - <p> - He knew very well that there were good reasons why Mr. Boswell could not - hope to be a <i>persona grata</i> to the Duchess of Argyll. In the great - Douglas lawsuit the issue of which was of considerable importance to the - Duke of Hamilton, the son of Her Grace, the Boswells were on the side of - the opposition, and had been very active on this side into the bargain. - James Boswell himself narrowly escaped being committed for contempt of - court for publishing a novel founded on the Douglas cause and anticipating - in an impudent way the finding of the judges. Had the difference been - directly with the Duke of Argyll some years earlier, no doubt every man in - the Clan Campbell would have sharpened his skene when it became known that - a friend of an opponent of the MacCallein More was coming, and have - awaited his approach with complacency; but now the great chief tossed - Boswell his invitation when he was asking Johnson, and Boswell jumped at - it as a terrier jumps for a biscuit, and he accompanied his friend to the - Castle. - </p> - <p> - The picture which he paints of his second snubbing is done in his best - manner. “I was in fine spirits,” he wrote, “and though sensible that I had - the misfortune of not being in favour with the Duchess, I was not in the - least disconcerted, and offered Her Grace some of the dish which was - before me.” Later on he drank Her Grace's health, although, he adds, “I - knew it was the rule of modern high life not to drink to anybody.” Thus he - achieved the snub he sought; but he acknowledges that he thought the - Duchess rather too severe when she said: “I know nothing of Mr. Boswell.” - On reflection, however, he received “that kind of consolation which a man - would feel who is strangled by a silken cord.” - </p> - <p> - It seems strange that no great painter has been inspired by the theme and - the scene. The days of “subject pictures” are, we are frequently told, - gone by. This may be so, generally speaking, but every one knows that a - “subject picture,” if its “subject” lends itself in any measure to the - advertising of an article of commerce, will find a ready purchaser, so - fine a perception of the aspirations of art—practical art—exists - in England, and even in Scotland, in the present day. - </p> - <p> - Now, are not the elements of success apparent to any one of imagination in - this picture of the party sitting round the table in the great hall of - Inveraray—Dr. Johnson chatting to the beautiful Duchess and her - daughter at one side, the Duke looking uncomfortable at the other, when he - sees Mr. Boswell on his feet with his glass in his hand bowing toward Her - Grace? No doubt Her Grace had acquainted His Grace with the attitude she - meant to assume in regard to Mi. Boswell, so that he was not astonished—only - uncomfortable—when Mr. Boswell fished for his snub. Surely - arrangements could be made between the art patron and the artist to paint - a name and a certain brand upon the bottle—a bottle must, of course, - be on the table; but if this is thought too realistic the name could - easily be put on the decanter—from which Mr. Boswell has just - replenished his glass! Why, the figure of Dr. Johnson alone should make - the picture a success—i.e. susceptible of being reproduced as an - effective poster in four printings. “Sir,” said Dr. Johnson, “claret for - boys, port for men, but brandy for heroes.” Yes, but whose brandy? There - is a hint for a great modern art patron—a twentieth-century art - patron is a man who loves art for what he can make out of it. - </p> - <p> - Dr. Johnson was unmistakably the honoured guest this day at Inveraray; and - perhaps, while the lovely Duchess hung upon his words of wisdom, his - memory may have gone back to a day when he was not so well known, and yet - by some accident found himself in a room with the then Duchess of Argyll. - Upon that occasion he had thought it due to himself to be rude to the - great lady, in response to some fancied remissness on her part. He had - nothing to complain of now. The Duchess with whom he was conversing on - terms of perfect equality—if Her Grace made any distinction between - them it was, we may rest assured, only in a way that would be flattering - to his learning—was at the head of the peerage for beauty, and there - was no woman in the kingdom more honoured than she had been. He may have - been among the crowds who hung about the Mall in St. James's Park - twenty-two years before, waiting patiently until the two lovely Miss - Gunnings should come forth from their house in Westminster to take the - air. The Duchess of Argyll was the younger of the two sisters. - </p> - <p> - The story of the capture of the town by the pair of young Irish girls has - been frequently told, and never without the word <i>romantic</i> being - applied to it. But really there was very little that can be called - romantic in the story of their success. There is far more of this element - in many of the marriages affecting the peerage in these unromantic days. - There is real romance in the story of a young duke's crossing the Atlantic - with a single introduction, but that to the daughter of a millionaire with - whom he falls madly in love and whom he marries as soon as the lawyers can - make out the settlements. There is real romance in the idyll of the young - marquis who is fortunate enough to win the affection of an ordinary chorus - girl; and every year witnesses such-like alliances—they used to be - called <i>mésalliances</i> long ago. There have also been instances of the - daughters of English tradesmen marrying foreign nobles, whom they - sometimes divorce as satisfactorily as if they were the daughters of - wealthy swindlers on the other side of the Atlantic. In such cases there - are portraits and paragraphs in some of the newspapers, and then people - forget that anything unusual has happened. As a matter of fact, nothing - unusual has happened. - </p> - <p> - In the romantic story of the Gunnings we have no elements of that romance - which takes the form of a <i>mésalliance</i>. Two girls, the - granddaughters of one viscount and the nieces of another, came to London - with their parents one year, and early the next married peers—the - elder an earl, the younger a duke. Like thousands of other girls, they had - no money; but, unlike hundreds of other girls who marry into the peerage, - they were exceptionally good-looking. - </p> - <p> - Where is there an element of romance in all this? The girls wedded men in - their own station in life, and, considering their good looks, they should - have done very much better for themselves. The duke was a wretched <i>roué</i>, - notable for his excesses even in the days when excess was not usually - regarded as noteworthy. He had ruined his constitution before he was - twenty, and he remained enfeebled until, in a year or two, he made her a - widow. The earl was a conceited, ill-mannered prig—a solemn, - contentious, and self-opinionated person who was deservedly disliked in - the town as well as the country. - </p> - <p> - Not a very brilliant marriage either of these. With the modern chorus girl - the earl is on his knees at one side, and the gas man on the other. But - with the Miss Gunnings it was either one peer or another. They were - connected on their mother's side with at least two families of nobility, - and on their father's side with the spiritual aristocracy of some - generations back: they were collateral descendants of the great Peter - Gunning, Chancellor of Oxford and Bishop of Ely, and he was able to trace - his lineage back to the time of Henry VIII. From a brother of this great - man was directly descended the father of the two girls and also Sir Robert - Gunning, Baronet, who held such a high post in the diplomatic service as - Minister Plenipotentiary to Berlin, and afterwards to St. Petersburg. - Members of such families might marry into the highest order of the peerage - without the alliance being criticised as “romantic.” The girls did not do - particularly well for themselves. They were by birth entitled to the best, - and by beauty to the best of the best. As it was, the one only became the - wife of a contemptible duke, the other of a ridiculous earl. It may really - be said that they threw themselves away. - </p> - <p> - Of course, it was Walpole's gossip that is accountable for much of the - false impression which prevailed in respect of the Gunnings. From the - first he did his best to disparage them. He wrote to Mann that they were - penniless, and “scarce gentlewomen.” He could not ignore the fact that - their mother was the Honourable Bridget Gunning; but, without knowing - anything of the matter, he undertook to write about the “inferior tap” on - their father's side. In every letter that he wrote at this time he tried - to throw ridicule upon them, alluding to them as if they were nothing - better than the barefooted colleens of an Irish mountain-side who had come - to London to seek their fortunes. As usual, he made all his letters - interesting to his correspondents by introducing the latest stories - respecting them; he may not have invented all of these, but some - undoubtedly bear the Strawberry Hill mark, and we know that Walpole never - suppressed a good tale simply because it possessed no grain of truth. - </p> - <p> - Now, the true story of the Gunnings can be ascertained without any - reference to Walpole's correspondence. Both girls were born in England—the - elder, Maria, in 1731, the younger in 1732. When they were still young - their father, a member of the English Bar, inherited his brother's Irish - property. It had once been described as a “tidy estate,” but it was now in - a condition of great untidiness. In this respect it did not differ - materially from the great majority of estates in Ireland. Ever since the - last “settlement” the country had been in a most unsettled condition, and - no part of it was worse than the County Roscommon, where Castle Coote, the - residence of the Gunning family, was situated. It might perhaps be going - too far to say that the wilds of Connaught were as bad as the wilds of - Yorkshire at the same date, but from all the information that can be - gathered on the subject there does not seem to have been very much to - choose between Roscommon and the wilder parts of Yorkshire. The peasantry - were little better than savages; the gentry were little worse. Few of the - elements of civilized life were to be found among the inhabitants. The - nominal owners of the land were content to receive tribute from their - tenantry in the form of the necessaries of life, for money as a standard - of exchange was rarely available. Even in the present day in many - districts in the west of Ireland cattle occupy the same place in the - imagination of the inhabitants as they do in Zululand. The Irish bride is - bargained away with so many cows; and for a man to say—as one did in - the very county of Roscommon the other day—that he never could see - the difference of two cows between one girl and another, may be reckoned - somewhat cynical, but it certainly is intelligible. - </p> - <p> - But if rent was owing—and it usually was—and if it was not - paid in the form of geese, or eggs, or pork, or some other products of low - farming and laziness, it remained unpaid; for the landlord had no means of - enforcing his claims by any law except the law of the jungle. He might - muster his followers and plunder his debtors, and no doubt this system of - rent-collecting prevailed for several years after one of the many - “settlements” of the country had taken place, yet by intermarriage with - the natives, and a general assimilation to their condition of life by the - newcomers, these raids for rent became unpopular and impracticable. The - consequence was that the landlords—such as remained on their estates—were - living from hand to mouth. - </p> - <p> - But if the fact that the King's writ failed to run in these parts was of - disadvantage to the landlords in one respect, it was of no inconsiderable - advantage to them in another; for it enabled them with a light heart to - contract debts in Dublin and in the chief towns. They knew that the - rascally process server, should he have the hardihood to make any attempt - to present them with the usual summons, would do so at the risk of his - life; and a knowledge of this fact made the “gentry” at once reckless and - lawless. The consequence was that Ireland was regarded as no place for a - man with any respect for his neighbours or for himself to live in. It - became the country of the agent and the squireen. - </p> - <p> - It was to one of the worst parts of this country that John Gunning brought - his wife and four children—the eldest was eight years and the - youngest three months—and here he tried to support them off the - “estate.” He might possibly have succeeded if his aspirations had been - humble and his property unencumbered. It so happened, however, that his - father had been the parent of sixteen children, and the estate was still - charged with the maintenance of ten of these. Thus hampered, Mr. Gunning - and the Honourable Bridget Gunning were compelled to adopt the mode of - life of the other gentry who were too poor to live out of Ireland, and - they allowed the education of their family to become a minor consideration - to that of feeding them. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Gunning and his wife were undoubtedly the originals of the type of - Irish lady and gentleman to be found in so many novels and plays of the - latter part of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth - centuries. He was the original “heavy father” who, with the addition of a - ridiculous nondescript brogue, was so effectively dealt with by numerous - writers until Thackeray took him in hand; and Mrs. Gunning was the first - of the tradition of Irish mothers with daughters to dispose of by the aid - of grand manners and a great deal of contriving. True to this tradition, - which originated with them, the lady was certainly the head of the - household—a sorry household it must have been at Castle Coote—during - the ten years that elapsed before the migration to England. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Gunning was a fine figure of a gentleman, a handsome, loquacious - person with a great sense of his own dignity and an everlasting - consciousness of the necessity to maintain it at something approximate to - its proper level, and, like other persons of the same stamp, never - particularly successful in the means employed to effect this object. It is - doubtful if a loud conversational style, with repeated references to the - brilliant past of his family and predictions as to the still more - brilliant future that would have been achieved by its representative but - for the outrageous fortune that flung him into the bogs of Roscommon, - produced a more vivid impression upon his associates in Ireland than it - would be likely to do among a more credulous community. In Ireland he - resembled the young gentleman who went to educate the French, but was - discouraged at the outset when he found that even the children in the - streets spoke better French than he did. Mr. Gunning could teach the Irish - squireens nothing in the way of boasting; and he soon found that they were - capable of giving him some valuable instruction as to the acquiring of - creditors and their subsequent evasion. Whatever their educational - deficiencies may have been, it must be admitted that they had mastered - these arts. Much as he despised his ancestral home, he found, after - repeated visits to Dublin, that his heart was, after all, in Castle Coote, - and that, for avoiding arrest for debt, there was no place like home. - </p> - <p> - The Honourable Mrs. Gunning must have become dreadfully tired of this - florid person and of the constant worry incidental to the control of such - a household as his must have been. Her life must have been spent - contriving how the recurrent crises could be averted, and so long as she - was content to remain in the seclusion of the Irish village her efforts - were successful. We do not hear that the bailiffs ever got so far as the - hall door of their ramshackle mansion; there was a bog very handy, and the - holes which served as a rudimentary system of natural drainage were both - deep and dark. The topography of the district was notoriously puzzling to - the officers from the Dublin courts. - </p> - <p> - But with all her success in this direction one maybe pretty sure that her - life must have been very burthensome to the Honourable Mrs. Gunning. She - had social ambitions, as befitted a daughter of a noble house, and on this - account she never allowed herself to sink to the level of the wives of the - squireens around her, who were quite content with the rude jollity of an - Irish household—with the “lashings and leavings” to eat, and with - the use of tumblers instead of wineglasses at table. She was the daughter - of a peer, and she never forgot this fact; and here it must be mentioned - that, however culpably she may have neglected the education of her - children in some respects, she took care that they avoided the provincial - brogue of their Irish neighbours. - </p> - <p> - Perhaps it was because Walpole knew nothing of the tradition of the - English settlers in Ireland that he referred in his letters to various - correspondents to the appalling brogue of both the Gunning girls; or - perhaps he, as usual, aimed only at making his correspondence more amusing - by this device. But every one who knows something of the “settlements” is - aware of the fact that the new-comers had such a contempt for the native - way of pronouncing English that they were most strenuous in their efforts - to hand down to their children the tradition of pronunciation which they - brought into the country. They were not always so successful as they - wished to be; but within our own times the aspiration after a pure - “English accent” is so great that even in the National Schools the - teachers, the larger number of whom bear Celtic names, have been most - industrious both in getting rid of their native brogue and in compelling - their pupils to do the same; and yet it is certain that people have been - much more tolerant in this respect in Ireland during the past half-century - than they were a hundred years earlier. - </p> - <p> - Of course, a scientific analysis of the pronunciation of the English - language by, say, a native of the wilds of Yorkshire and by a native of - the wilds of Connemara would reveal the fact that fewer corruptions of the - speech are habitual to the latter than to the former, the “brogue” being - far less corrupt than the “burr.” It was not enough for the settlers, - however, that their children should speak English in Ireland more - correctly than their forefathers did in England; they insisted on the - maintenance of the English tradition of pronunciation, erroneous though it - might be. So that the suggestion that the daughters of the Gunning family, - who had never heard English spoken with the brogue of the native Irish - until they were eight or nine years of age, spoke the tongue of the stage - Irish peasant would seem quite ridiculous to any one who had given even - the smallest amount of study to the conditions of speech prevailing in - Ireland even in the present tolerant age, when employment is not denied to - any one speaking with the broadest of brogues. Some years ago such an - applicant would have had no chance of a “billet”—unless, in a - literal sense, to hew, with the alternative of the drawing of water. - </p> - <p> - The truth, then, is that the Gunning girls had practically neither more - nor less of that form of education to be acquired from the study of books - or “lessons” than the average young woman of their own day who had been - “neglected.” Between the years 1750 and 1800 there were in England - hundreds of young ladies who were as highly educated as a junior-grade - lady clerk in the Post Office Department is to-day; but there were also - thousands who were as illiterate as the Gunnings without any one thinking - that it mattered much one way or another. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0007" id="linkimage-0007"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0139.jpg" alt="0139 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0139.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - And it really did not matter much that Maria Gunning spelt as vaguely as - did Shakespere, or Shakspere, or Shakespeare, or Shakspear, or whatever he - chose to write himself at the moment. Correctness of orthography is - absolutely necessary for any young lady who wishes to be a success in the - Postal Department, but Miss Gunning possessed some qualifications of - infinitely greater importance in the estimation of the world. She was of - good family and she was beautiful exceedingly. Moreover, she possessed the - supreme grace of naturalness—the supreme grace and that which - includes all other graces, which, like butterflies, hover over womankind, - but seldom descend in a bevy upon any one of the race. She was as natural - as a lily flower, and for the same reason. To be natural il came to her by - Nature, and that was how she won the admiration of more people than the - beauty of Helen of Troy brought to their death. She was not wise. But had - she been wise she would never have left Ireland. She would have known that - obscurity is the best friend that any young woman so beautiful as she was - could have. She would have remained in Roscommon, and she would have been - one of those women who are happy because they have no story. But, of - course, had she been wise she would not have been natural, and so there - her beauty goes by the board in a moment. - </p> - <p> - The Honourable Mrs. Gunning could not have been startled when the - knowledge came to her that she was the mother of two girls of exceptional - beauty. The same knowledge comes to every mother of two girls in the - world, though this knowledge is sometimes withheld from the rest of the - world; but even then the mother's faith is not shaken—except in - regard to the eyesight of the rest of the world. Doubtless Mrs. Gunning - thought much better of Ireland when she found that her judgment on the - beauty of her daughters was shared by all the people who saw the girls. - From the daily exclamation of wonder—the exaggerated expressions of - appreciation uttered by a fervent peasantry—when the girls were seen - in their own kitchen or on the roadside, the mother's ambition must have - received a fresh stimulus. And given an ambitious mother, whose life has - been one of contriving to do things that seem out of her power to - accomplish, the achievement of her object is only a matter of time—provided - that the father does not become an obstruction. Mrs. Gunning was not - extravagant in her longings. Her Delectable Mountains were those which - surround the City of Dublin. Her social ambitions did not extend beyond - “The Castle.” - </p> - <p> - When the eldest of her three daughters was scarcely nineteen the - aggregation of savings and credit—the latter predominant—seemed - sufficient to justify the expedition. A house was taken in a fashionable - street, close to the most splendid Mall in Europe, and furnished by some - credulous tradesmen, and the social campaign was begun by a parade of the - two girls and their mother. Alas! the young beauties attracted only too - much attention. The inquiries as to their style and title were - unfortunately not limited. In Dublin for generations the tradespeople have - been accustomed to take an intelligent and quite intelligible interest in - the aristocracy and beauty dwelling in their midst; and it took only a few - days for the report to go round that the exquisite young ladies were the - daughters of Mr. John Gunning, of Castle Coote. - </p> - <p> - This information meant much more to some of the least desirable of the - inquirers than it did to the wealthy and well connected of the population; - and among the least desirable of all were some tradesmen who for years had - had decrees waiting to be executed against Mr. Gunning at a more - convenient place for such services than Castle Coote. The result was that - within a week the beauty of his daughters had made such a stir in Dublin - that bailiffs were in the house and Mr. Gunning was out of it. - </p> - <p> - It is at this point in the history that the Troubadour unslings his lute, - feeling the potentialities of Romance in the air; and, given the - potentialities of Romance and the wandering minstrel, one may be sure that - the atmosphere will resound with Romance. We are told on such high - authority as is regarded quite satisfactory (by the Troubadour), that the - weeping of the mother and the beautiful girls under the coarse stare of - the bailiffs attracted the attention of a charming and sympathetic young - actress who was taking the air in the street, and that, as might only be - expected, she hastened to enter the house to offer consolation to those - who were in trouble—this being unquestionably the mission which is - most congenial to the spirit of the <i>soubrette</i>. On being at once - informed of all by the communicative mother—the Troubadour is not - such a fool as to lay down his lute to inquire if it was likely that a - lady who possessed her full share of Irish pride would open her heart to a - stranger and an actress—the young visitor showed her sympathy by - laying herself open to prosecution and imprisonment through helping in a - scheme to make away with all the valuables she could lay her hands on. But - she went still further, and invited the young ladies to stay at her house - so long as it suited them to do so. - </p> - <p> - We are told that this young actress was George Ann Bellamy, but the - information comes from no better source than George Ann Bellamy herself, - and the statements of this young person, made when she was no longer young - or reputable, do not carry conviction to all hearers. Romance, however, - like youth, will not be denied, though the accuracy of an actress may, and - people have always been pleased to believe that Miss Bellamy and Mr. - Thomas Sheridan, the much-harassed lessee of the Smock Alley Theatre in - Dublin, were the means of obtaining for the Honourable Mrs. Gunning and - her daughters the invitation to the ball at the Castle which resulted in - the recognition of the girls' beauty by the great world of fashion. The - suggestion that their aunt, Miss Bourke, or their uncle, Viscount Mayo, - might have been quite as potent a factor in solving the problem of how the - invitation to a ball given by the Viceroy to the people of Dublin came - into the hands of the Miss Gunnings, may, however, be worth a moment's - consideration. - </p> - <p> - At any rate, the success made by the girls upon this occasion was - immediate. Before a day had passed all Dublin and Dublin Castle were - talking of their beauty, and the splendid Mall was crowded with people - anxious to catch a glimpse of the lovely pair when they took their walks - abroad. Lady Caroline Petersham, the charming lady whose name figures - frequently in Walpole's correspondence—it will be remembered that - she was one of that delightful little supper party at Ranelagh which he - describes—was in the entourage of the Viceroy, and quickly perceived - the possibilities of social prestige accruing to the hostess who might be - the means of introducing them to St. James's. There a new face meant a new - sensation lasting sometimes well into a second month, and Lady Caroline - had her ambitions as a hostess. - </p> - <p> - She was the Gunnings' best friend—assuming that social advancement - is an act of friendship—and it may safely be assumed that she was - mainly responsible for the extension of the area of the campaign entered - on by Mrs. Gunning, and that it was her influence which obtained for them - the passage to Chester in the Lord Lieutenant's yacht, and a bonus of £150 - charged, as so many other jobs were, “upon the Irish Establishment.” The - “Irish Establishment” was the convenient Treasury out of which money could - be paid without the chance of unpleasant questions being asked in - Parliament respecting such disbursements. - </p> - <p> - Of course, it is not to be believed that such success as the young girls - encompassed in Dublin was reached without a word or two of detraction - being heard in regard to their behaviour. Mrs. Delany, amiable as a moral - gossip, or perhaps, a gossipy moralist, wrote to her sister respecting - them: “All that you have heard of the Gunnings is true, except their - having a fortune, but I am afraid they have a greater want than that, - which is discretion.” No doubt Mrs. Delany had heard certain whispers of - the girlish fun in which the elder of the sisters delighted; but there has - never been the smallest suggestion that her want of discreetness ever - approached an actual indiscretion. It may be assumed, without doing an - injustice to either of the girls, that their standard of demeanour was not - quite so elevated as that which the wife of Dean Delany was disposed to - regard as essential to be reached by any young woman hoping to be thought - well of by her pastors and masters. But the steelyard measure was never - meant to be applied to a high-spirited young girl who has grown up among - bogs and then finds herself the centre of the most distinguished circle in - the land, every person in which is eagerly striving for the distinction of - a word from her lips. Maria Gunning may not have had much discretion, but - she had enough to serve her turn. She arrived in London with her sister, - and no suggestion was ever made—even by Walpole—that their - mother had not taken enough care of them. - </p> - <p> - In London they at once found their place in the centre of the most - fashionable—the most notorious—set; but while we hear of the - many indiscreet things that were done by certain of their associates, - nothing worse is attributed to either of the girls than an Irish brogue or - an Irish idiom—perhaps a word or two that sounded unmusical to - fastidious ears. Walpole began by ridiculing them, and, as has already - been noted, sneering at their birth; but when he found they were becoming - the greatest social success that his long day had known, he thought it - prudent to trim his sails and refer to them more reasonably: they were - acquiring too many friends for it to be discreet for him to continue - inventing gossip respecting them. - </p> - <p> - But what a triumph they achieved in town! Nothing had ever been known like - it in England, nor has anything approaching to it been known during the - century and a half that has elapsed since the beauty of these two girls - captured London. The opening of Parliament by the King in State never - attracted such crowds as thronged the Park when they walked in the Mall. - Never before had the guards to turn out at the Palace to disperse the - crowds who mobbed two young ladies who did not belong—except in a - distant way—to a Royal House. Upon one occasion the young Lord - Clermont and his friend were compelled to draw their swords to protect - them from the exuberant attentions of the crowd. “'Tis a warm day,” wrote - George Selwyn to Lord Carlisle, “and some one proposes a stroll to Betty's - fruit shop; suddenly the cry is raised, 'The Gunnings are coming,' and we - all tumble out to gaze and to criticise.” - </p> - <p> - “The famous beauties are more talked of than the change in the Ministry,” - wrote Walpole. “They make more noise than any one of their predecessors - since Helen of Troy; a crowd follows them wherever they walk, and at - Vauxhall they were driven away.” - </p> - <p> - This mobbing must have caused the girls much delightful inconvenience, and - one can see their mother acting the part—and overdoing it, after the - manner of her kind—of the distracted parent whose daughters have - just been restored to her arms. One can hear the grandiloquent thanks of - the father to the eligible young man with titles whose bravery has - protected his offspring—that would have been his word—from the - violence of the mob. The parents must have been very trying to the young - men in those days. But the mother showed herself to be rather more than a - match for one young man who hoped to win great fame as a jocular fellow by - playing a trick upon the family. Having heard of the simplicity and - credulousness of the girls, this gentleman, with another of his kind, - asked leave of Mrs. Gunning to bring to her house a certain duke who was - one of the greatest <i>partis</i> of the day. On her complying, he hired a - common man, and, dressing him splendidly, conveyed him in a coach to the - Gunnings' house and presented him to the family as the duke. But the man - knew as little of the matter as did Walpole; he assumed that she was - nothing more than the adventurous wife of an Irish squireen. He soon found - out that he had made a mistake. Mrs. Gunning rang the bell, and ordered - the footman to turn the visitors out of the house. But the family were - soon consoled for this incident of the impostor duke by the arrival of a - real one, to say nothing of another consolation prize in the form of an - earl. In the meantime, however, their popularity-had been increasing - rather than diminishing. As a matter of fact, although beauty may be - reproached for being only skin deep, it is very tenacious of life. A - reputation for beauty is perhaps the most enduring of all forms of - notoriety. The renown that attaches to the man who has painted a great - picture, or to one who has made a great scientific discovery, or to one - who has been an eminent churchman or a distinguished statesman, is, in - point of popularity and longevity, quite insignificant in comparison with - that which is associated with the name of a very beautiful woman. The - crowds still surrounded the Miss Gunnings, and the visit which they paid - by command to King George II gave them a position in the world of fashion - that was consolidated by the report of the charming <i>naivete</i> of the - reply made by Maria when the King inquired if they had seen all the sights - of London and if there was any in particular which they would like to be - shown. “Oh, I should dearly like to see a coronation!” the girl is said to - have cried. And as that was just the sight for which the people of England - were most eager, she was acclaimed as their mouthpiece. - </p> - <p> - So they progressed in the career that had been laid out for them. Duels - were fought about them, and bets were made about them and their future. - For nearly a year there was no topic of the first order save only the - Progress of Beauty. The Duke had come boldly forward. He was a double duke—his - titles were Hamilton and Brandon—and he had sounded such depths of - depravity that he was possibly sincere in his desire to convince the world - that his taste in one direction had not become depraved. Elizabeth Gunning - may have accepted his service from a hope of being the means of reforming - him. But even if she were not to succeed in doing so, her mother would - have reminded her that her failure would not make her the less a duchess. - It is open, however, for one to believe that this girl cared something for - the man and was anxious to amend his life. - </p> - <p> - Then we hear of her being with him at Lord Chesterfield's ball given at - the opening of his new mansion, her fancy dress being that of a Quakeress. - Three days later the world in which they lived awoke to learn the - astounding news that the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon had married - Elizabeth Gunning the previous night. - </p> - <p> - Here was romance beyond a precedent; and Walpole romanced about it as - usual. In his account of the nuptials he succeeds in making more - misstatements than one would believe it possible even for such a worker in - the art to encompass in half a dozen lines. “When her mother and sister - were at Bedford House,” he wrote to Mann, “a sudden ardour, either of wine - or love, seized upon him (the Duke); a parson was promptly sent for, but - on arriving, refused to officiate without the important essentials of - licence or ring. The Duke swore and talked of calling in the Archbishop. - Finally the parson's scruples gave way, the licence was overlooked, and - the lack of the traditional gold ring was supplied by the ring of a bed - curtain!” - </p> - <p> - This is very amusing, but it is not history. It is a clumsy fiction, - unworthy of the resources of the inventor. Sir Horace Mann must have felt - that his friend had a poor opinion of his intelligence if he meant him to - accept the assurance that the household of the Gunnings and the fingers of - His Grace were incapable of yielding to the fastidious parson a better - substitute for the traditional gold ring than the thing he introduced. The - facts of the incident were quite romantic enough without the need for - Walpole's embellishments. It was Valentine's Day, and what more likely - than that the suggestion should be made by the ardent lover that so - appropriate a date for a wedding would not come round for another year! To - suggest difficulties—impossibility—would only be to spur him - on to show that he was a true lover. However this may be, it has long ago - been proved that the midnight marriage took place in due form at the - Curzon Street Chapel in the presence of several witnesses. - </p> - <p> - And then Walpole went on to say that the wedding of Lord Coventry and the - elder sister took place at the same time. It so happened, however, that a - fortnight elapsed between the two ceremonies, and in the case of the - second, the ceremony took place in the full light of day. - </p> - <p> - The subsequent history of the two ladies is not without a note of - melancholy. The elder, pursued to the end by the malevolent slanders of - the man with the leer of the satyr perpetually on his face, died of - consumption after eight years of wedded life. The younger became a widow - two years earlier, and after being wooed by the Duke of Bridgewater, whom - she refused, sending him to his canal for consolation, married Colonel - Campbell, who in 1770 became the Fifth Duke of Argyll. Six years later she - was created a peeress in her own right, her title being Baroness Hamilton - of Hameldon in Leicestershire. In 1778 she was appointed Mistress of the - Robes. She attained to the additional distinction of making the good Queen - jealous, so that Her Majesty upon one occasion overlooked her in favour of - Lady Egremont. The Duchess at once resigned, and only with difficulty was - persuaded to withdraw her resignation. She died in 1790. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE FÊTE-CHAMPÊTRE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">N</span>O one knows to-day - with whom the idea of having an English <i>fête-champêtre</i> at The Oaks - upon the occasion of the marriage of the young Lord Stanley to Lady Betty - Hamilton originated. The secret was well kept; and it can be easily - understood that in case of this innovation proving a fiasco, no one would - show any particular desire to accept the responsibility of having started - the idea. But turning out as it did, a great success, it might have been - expected that many notable persons would lay claim to be regarded as its - parents. A considerable number of distinguished people had something to do - with it, and any one of them had certainly sufficient imagination, backed - up by an acquaintance with some of the exquisite pieces of MM. Watteau and - Fragonard, to suggest the possibility of perfecting such an enterprise - even in an English June. It was the most diligent letter-writer of that - age of letter-writing who had referred to the “summer setting in with its - customary severity,” so that the trifling of the month of June with the - assumption of the poets who have rhymed of its sunshine with rapture, was - not an experience that was reserved for the century that followed. But in - spite of this, the idea of a <i>fête-champêtre</i>, after the most - approved French traditions, in an English demesne found favour in the eyes - of Lord Stanley and his advisers, and the latter were determined that, - whatever price might have to be paid for it, they would not run the chance - of being blamed for carrying it out in a niggardly spirit. - </p> - <p> - The young Lord Stanley had as many advisers as any young nobleman with a - large immediate allowance and prospects of a splendid inheritance may hope - to secure. There was his <i>fiancée's</i> mother, now the Duchess of - Argyll, who was never disposed to frown down an undertaking that would - place a member of one of her families in the forefront of the battle of - the beauties for the most desirable <i>parti</i> of the year. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0008" id="linkimage-0008"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0155.jpg" alt="0155 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0155.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - The Duchess had both taste and imagination, so that people called her an - Irishwoman, although she was born in England. Then there was Mr. George - Selwyn, who said witty things occasionally and never missed a hanging. He - was fully qualified to prompt a wealthy companion as to the best means to - become notorious for a day. There was also young Mr. Conway, the gentleman - who originated the diverting spectacle when Mrs. Baddeley and Mrs. - Abington were escorted to the Pantheon. Any one of these, to say nothing - of Lady Betty herself, who had some love for display, might have been - inclined to trust an English June so far as to believe an <i>al fresco</i> - entertainment on a splendid scale quite possible. - </p> - <p> - On the whole, however, one is inclined to believe that it was Colonel - Burgoyne who was responsible for the whole scheme at The Oaks. In addition - to having become Lord Stanley's uncle by running away with his father's - sister, he was a budding dramatist, and as such must have perceived his - opportunity for exploiting himself at the expense of some one else—the - dream of every budding dramatist. There is every likelihood that it was - this highly accomplished and successful “gentleman-adventurer” who brought - Lord Stanley up to the point of embarking upon his design for an - entertainment such as had never been seen in England before—an - entertainment that should include the production of a masque devised by - Colonel Burgoyne and entitled <i>The Maid of The Oaks</i>. The fête came - off, and it was pronounced the most brilliant success of the year 1774. - </p> - <p> - Lord Stanley was a very interesting young man; that is to say, he was a - young man in whom no inconsiderable number of persons—mainly of the - opposite sex—were greatly interested. Of this fact he seems to have - been fully aware. A good many people—mainly of the opposite sex—felt - very strongly on the subject of his marrying: it was quite time that he - married, they said. His grandfather, the Earl of Derby, was eighty-four - years of age, and it would be absurd to believe that he could live much - longer. Lord Stanley being his heir, it was agreed that it was the young - man's duty not to procrastinate in the matter of marriage. It is always - understood that a patriarchal nobleman sings “<i>Nunc dimittis</i>” when - he holds in his arms the second in direct succession to the title, and - this happy consummation could, in the case of the aged Lord Derby, only be - realised by the marriage of Lord Stanley. - </p> - <p> - He was small in stature, and extremely plain of countenance; still this - did not prevent his name from being coupled with that of several notable—but - not too notable—young women of his acquaintance. But as it was well - known that he was greatly interested in the stage, it was thought that, - perhaps, he might not be so complaisant as his best friends hoped to find - him in regard to marrying. An ardent interest in the progress of the - drama, especially in its lighter forms, has been known to turn a young - man's attention from marriage, when it does not do what is far worse—turn - his attention to it with too great zest. Before long, however, it became - apparent that his lordship recognised in what direction his duty lay. - There was a young lady connected with the Ducal House of Bedford—a - niece of that old Duchess who played so conspicuous a part in the social - and political history of the middle of the eighteenth century—and to - her Lord Stanley became devoted. But just when every one assumed that the - matter was settled, no one thinking it possible that the young lady would - be mad enough to refuse such a <i>parti</i>, the news came that she had - done so; and before people had done discussing how very eccentric were the - Bedford connections, the announcement was made that Lord Stanley was to - marry Lady Betty Hamilton, the beautiful daughter of a beautiful mother, - the Duchess of Argyll. - </p> - <p> - There is in existence a letter written by the Duchess to Sir William - Hamilton, in which she hints that Lord Stanley was an old suitor for the - hand of her daughter. “Lady Betty might have taken the name of Stanley - long ago if she had chose it,” she wrote, adding: “A very sincere - attachment on his side has at last produced the same on hers.” This being - so, it would perhaps be unsafe to assume that Lord Stanley proposed to - Lady Betty out of pique at having been rejected by the other lady, though - one might be disposed to take this view of the engagement. - </p> - <p> - The alternative view is that Lady Betty had been advised by her - accomplished mother that if she played her cards well there was no reason - why she should not so attract Lord Stanley as to lead him to be a suitor - for her hand, and that the girl at last came to see that the idea was - worth her consideration. Her portrait, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in - the year of her marriage, shows her to have been a graceful, girlish young - creature; but her beauty could never have been comparable with that of her - mother at the same age, or with that of her aunt, Lady Coventry, whom it - is certain she closely resembled in character. Her mother, in her letter - to Sir William Hamilton, apologises in a way for her liveliness, assuring - him that such a disposition was not incompatible with serious thought upon - occasions; and this gives us a hint that the reputation for vivacity which - she always enjoyed was closely akin to that which made the life of Lady - Coventry so very serious. - </p> - <p> - This was the young lady in whose honour the first English <i>fête - champêtre</i> was organised. To be more exact, or to get more into touch - with the view of the Derby family, perhaps one should say that the <i>fête</i> - was set on foot in consideration of the honour the young lady was doing - herself in becoming a member of the great house of Stanley. Different - people look at a question of honour from different standpoints. Probably - Colonel Burgoyne, although a member of the Derby family by marriage, left - honour out of the question altogether, and only thought of his masque - being produced at his nephew's expense. - </p> - <p> - And produced the masque was, and on a scale as expensive as the most - ambitious author could desire. It was described, with comments, by all the - great letter-writers of the time. Walpole has his leer and his sneer at - its expense (literally). It was to cost no less than £5000, he said, and - he ventured to suppose that in order to account for this enormous outlay - Lord Stanley had bought up all the orange trees near London—no - particular extravagance one would fancy—and that the hay-cocks would - be of straw-coloured riband. George Selwyn thought it far from diverting. - The Dowager Lady Gower affirmed that “all the world was there,” only she - makes an exception of her relations the Bedfords—she called them - “the Bloomsbury lot”—and said that the Duchess would not let any of - them go because Her Grace thought that Lord Stanley should have taken his - recent rejection by Her Grace's niece more to heart. Lady Betty's - stepfather, the Duke of Argyll, said that the whole day was so long and - fatiguing that only Lady Betty could have stood it all. - </p> - <p> - But did Lady Betty stand it all? It was rumoured in the best-informed - circles that she had broken off the match the next day; and when one - becomes acquainted with the programme of the day's doings one cannot but - acknowledge that the rumour was plausible. She probably made an attempt in - this direction; but on her fiancé's promising never to repeat the offence, - withdrew her resolution. - </p> - <p> - The famous brothers Adam, whose genius was equally ready to build an - Adelphi or to design a fanlight, had been commissioned to plan an - entertainment on the most approved French models and to carry it out on - the noblest scale, taking care, of course, that the central idea should be - the masque of <i>The Maid of The Oaks</i>, and these large-minded artists - accepted the order without demur. The pseudo-classical feeling entered, - largely through the influence of the Adams, into every form of art at this - period, though the famous brothers cannot be accused of originating the - movement. Sir Joshua Reynolds painted his most charming ladies in the - costume of Greeks, and Angelica Kauffmann depicted many of her early - English episodes with the personages clad in togas which seemed greatly - beyond their control. But for that matter every battle piece up to the - date of Benjamin West's “Death of Wolfe” showed the combatants in - classical armour; and Dr. Johnson was more than usually loud in his - protests against the suggestion that a sculptor should put his statues of - modern men into modern clothing. - </p> - <p> - But the Adams were wise enough to refrain from issuing any order as to the - costume to be worn by the shepherds and shepherdesses who were to roam the - mead at The Oaks, Epsom, upon the occasion of this <i>fête champêtre</i>; - and they were also wise enough to distrust the constancy of an English - June. The result was (1) a charming medley of costume, though the - pseudo-pastoral peasants, farmers, gardeners, and shepherds were in the - majority, and (2) the most interesting part of the entertainments took - place indoors, the octagonal hall lending itself nobly—when improved - by Messrs. Adam—to the show. The “transparencies” which constituted - so important a part of the ordinary birthday celebrations of the time, - took the form of painted windows, and, later, of a device showing two of - the conventional torches of Hymen in full blaze, supporting a shield with - the Oak of the Hamiltons' crest and the usual “gules.” - </p> - <p> - This design occupied the place of the “set piece” which winds up a modern - display of fireworks and sets the band playing “God save the King.” It - could not have been brought on until the morning sunlight was flooding the - landscape outside; for supper was not served until half-past eleven, and - the company had to witness the representation of an intolerably long - masque—the second of the day—after supper, with a procession - of Druids, fauns, cupids, and nymphs, all in suitable, but it is to be - hoped not traditional, costume. - </p> - <p> - The entertainment began quite early in the afternoon, when there was a - long procession of shepherds and shepherdesses through the lanes to where - a pastoral play was produced and syllabub drunk under the trees. But this - was only an <i>hors d'ouvre</i>; it was not Colonel Burgoyne's - masterpiece. This was not produced in the open air. Only when further - refreshments had been served and evening was closing in did the guests, - who had been sauntering through the sylvan scenes, repair to the great - hall, which they found superbly decorated and, in fact, remodelled, for - colonnades after the type of those in the pictures of Claude had been - built around the great ballroom, the shafts being festooned with roses, - and the drapery of crimson satin with heavy gold fringes. There were not - enough windows to make excuses for so much drapery, but this was no - insuperable obstacle to the artful designers; they so disposed of the - material as to make it appear that it was the legitimate hanging for six - windows. - </p> - <p> - For the procession through the colonnades the young host changed his - costume and his fiancée changed hers. He had appeared as Rubens and she as - Rubens' wife, from the well-known picture. But now she was dressed as - Iphigenia. They led the first minuet before supper, and it was thought - that they looked very fine. No one who has seen the two pictures of the - scene, for which Zucchi was commissioned, can question this judgment. Lady - Betty's portrait in one of these panels makes her even more beautiful than - she appears on Sir Joshua's canvas. - </p> - <p> - With a display of fireworks of a detonating and discomposing type—the - explosion, it was said, affected the nerves of nearly all the guests—and - the illumination of the “transparency” already alluded to, this memorable - fête came to no premature conclusion. Every one was bored to death by so - much festivity coming all at once. The idea of twelve hours of masques and - minuets is enough to make one's blood run cold. Its realisation may have - had this effect upon the heroine of the day, hence the rumour that she - found she had had enough of the Derby family to last her for the rest of - her life without marrying the young heir. Unfortunately, however, if this - was the case, she failed to justify the accuracy of the report; and she - was married to Lord Stanley on the 23rd of the same month. - </p> - <p> - The union of Maria Gunning with the Earl of Coventry was a miserable one, - but this of her niece and Lord Stanley was infinitely worse. Lady Betty - soon found out that she had made a mistake in marrying a man so incapable - of appreciating her charm of manner as was Lord Stanley. The likelihood is - that if she had married any other man she would have made the same - discovery. The vivacity for which her mother apologised to Sir William - Hamilton was, after her marriage, much more apparent than the - thoughtfulness which the Duchess assured her correspondent was one of her - daughter's traits. She showed herself to be appallingly vivacious upon - more than one occasion. Just at that time there was a vivacious “set” in - Lady Betty's world, and every member of it seemed striving for leadership. - Few of the ladies knew exactly where the border line lay between vivacity - and indiscretion. If Lady Betty was one of the better informed on this - delicate question of delimitation, all that can be said is that she - overstepped the line upon several occasions. It is not to be thought that - her lightness ever bordered into actual vice, but it rarely fell short of - being indiscreet. - </p> - <p> - She was always being talked about—always having curious escapades, - none of them quite compromising, but all calculated to make the judicious - grieve. But it is one thing to be subjected to the censure of the - judicious and quite another to come before a judicial authority, and it is - pretty certain that if Lady Derby—her husband succeeded to the title - two years after his marriage—had incriminated herself, she would - have been forced to defend a divorce suit. - </p> - <p> - It is, however, likewise certain that for some time she kept hovering like - a butterfly about the portals of the Court, and a good deal of the bloom - was blown off her wings by the breath of rumour. She had accepted the - devotion of the Duke of Dorset, and, considering the number of eyes that - were upon her and the devotion of His Grace, this was a very dangerous - thing to do. They were constantly seen together and at all hours. This was - in the second year of her marriage, but even in the first her desire to - achieve notoriety by some means made itself apparent. But her escapade - that was most talked about was really not worthy of the gossip of a Gower. - She was at a ball at the house of Mrs. Onslow in St. James's Square, and - her chair not arriving in good time to take her back to Grosvenor Square, - it was suggested by Lord Lindsay and Mr. Storer that they should borrow - Mrs. Onslow's chair and carry her between them to her home. She agreed to - this gallant proposal, and off they set together. The young men bore her - to her very door in spite of the fact that they had met her own chair soon - after they had left Mrs. Onslow's porch. - </p> - <p> - There was surely not much of an escapade in this transaction. The truth - was probably that the chair did not arrive owing to the condition of the - bearers, and when the young gentlemen met it they refused to jeopardise - the safety of the lady by transferring her from Mrs. Onslow's chair to her - own. - </p> - <p> - Rumour, however, was only too anxious to put the worst construction upon - every act of the merry Countess, and it was doubtless because of this, and - of her own knowledge of her daughter's thoughtlessness, that the Duchess - of Argyll appeared upon the scene and endeavoured by her presence and - advice to avert the catastrophe that seemed imminent. The Duchess insisted - on accompanying her to every entertainment, and succeeded in keeping a - watchful eye on her, though the Duke, who was at Inveraray, and was - doubtless tired of hearing of the vivacity of his stepdaughter, wrote - rather peremptorily for Her Grace to return to Scotland. She did not obey - the summons, the fact being that she was devoted to this daughter of hers, - who must have daily reminded her of her own sister Maria, to whom she had - been so deeply attached. * - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - * It was said that she had refused the offer of the Duke of - Bridgewater, because of his suggestion that she should break - off all intercourse with Lady Coventry. -</pre> - <p> - Seeing, however, that she could not continue to look after this lively - young matron, and being well aware of the fact that Lord Derby would never - consent to live with her again, the Duchess could do no more than condone - the separation which was inevitable. The deed was drawn up in 1779, five - years after Lady Betty had been so inauspiciously bored by the <i>fête - champêtre</i>. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0009" id="linkimage-0009"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0171.jpg" alt="0171 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0171.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - In the meantime there was a good deal of talk about the Earl of Derby - himself. A young nobleman who takes a lively, or even a grave, interest in - the personnel of the theatre is occasionally made the subject of vulgar - gossip. Lord Derby had a reputation as an amateur actor, and he seemed to - think that it would be increased by association with professional - actresses. It is doubtful if he was justified in his views on this - delicate question. At any rate, rightly or wrongly, on his estrangement - from his wife, but two years before the final separation, he showed a - greater devotion than ever to dramatic performances and dramatic - performers. His uncle by marriage, now General Burgoyne, had written a - play that turned out an extraordinary success. This was <i>The Heiress</i>, - and it had received extravagant praise in many influential quarters. It - was while it was still being talked of in society that a company of - distinguished amateurs undertook to produce it at Richmond House, in - Whitehall Place. In order that the representation might be as perfect as - possible, the Duchess of Richmond engaged the actress who had taken the - chief part in the original production, to superintend the rehearsals of - her amateurs. Miss Farren was a young person of considerable beauty, and - more even than an actress's share of discretion. She was in George - Colman's company at the Haymarket, and was rapidly taking the place of - Mrs. Abington in the affections of playgoers. She was the daughter of a - surgeon in a small way—he may have been one of the barber surgeons - of the eighteenth century. Marrying an actress (also in a small way), he - adopted the stage as a profession, and became a strolling actor-manager, - whenever he got the chance, and died before his drinking habits had quite - demoralised his family. - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Farren was a wise woman—wise enough to know that she was a bad - actress, but that there were possibilities in her two daughters. It was - after only a brief season of probation that Colman engaged one of the - girls to do small parts, promoting her in an emergency to be a - “principal.” Miss Farren proved herself capable of making the most of her - opportunity, and the result was that within a year she was taking Mrs. - Abington's parts in the best comedies. - </p> - <p> - Her mother was sensible enough to perceive that there was room in the best - society for an actress of ability as well as respectability—up to - that time the two qualities had seldom been found associated—and - Mrs. Farren was right. No whisper had ever been heard against the young - lady, and a judicious introduction or two brought her into many - drawing-rooms of those leaders of society who were also respectable, and - this was of advantage to her not only socially, but professionally. Horace - Walpole was able to write of her: “In distinction of manner and refinement - she excelled Mrs. Abington, who could never go beyond Lady Teazle, which - is a second-rate character.” Again, in a letter to Lady Ossory, he - ascribed the ability of Miss Farren to the fact that she was accustomed to - mingle with the best society. - </p> - <p> - This theory of Walpole's has been frequently controverted since his day, - and now no one will venture to assert that there is really anything in it, - although it sounds plausible enough. Miss Farren had, however, ample - opportunity of studying “the real thing” and of profiting by her study. - She found herself on the most intimate footing with duchesses—not of - the baser sort like her of Ancaster, or of the eccentric sort like her of - Bedford, but of the most exalted. The Duchess of Richmond and the Duchess - of Leinster were among her friends, and thus it was that her appearance at - the rehearsals of <i>The Heiress</i> of Whitehall Place was not wholly - professional. Upon this occasion she met Lord Derby and also Charles James - Fox, the latter having accepted the rather onerous duties of stage - manager. Before any of the performers were letter perfect in their - dialogue, Miss Farren had captured the hearts of both these men. Having - some of the qualities necessary to success as a statesman, including - caution and an instinct as to the right moment to retire from a contest - that must end in some one being made a fool of, Mr. Fox soon withdrew from - a position of rivalry with Lord Derby. It was rumoured by the malicious, - who had at heart the maintenance of the good name of Miss Farren, that Mr. - Fox had been dismissed by the lady with great indignation on his making a - proposition to her that did not quite meet her views in regard to the - ceremony of marriage. Miss Farren they asserted to be a paragon of virtue, - and so she undoubtedly was. Her virtue was of the most ostentatious type. - She would never admit a gentleman to an audience unless some witness of - her virtue was present. She accepted the devotion of Lord Derby, but gave - him to understand quite plainly that so long as his wife was alive she - could only agree to be his <i>fiancée</i>. Truly a very dragon of virtue - was Miss Farren! - </p> - <p> - The Earl, previous to his meeting the actress, had been a dutiful if not a - very devoted husband. But as soon as he fell in love with this paragon of - virtue he became careless, and made no attempt to restrain his wife in her - thoughtless behaviour. He allowed her to go her own way, and he went his - way. His way led him almost every evening to the green room at the - Haymarket and Drury Lane, where Miss Farren was to be found. The - estrangement between himself and his wife that resulted in the final - separation was the result not of his infatuation for the actress, but of - her virtuous acceptance of him as her moral lover. She took care never to - compromise herself with him or any one else, but she did not mind taking - the man away from his wife and home in order that she might be accredited - with occupying an absolutely unique position in the annals of the English - stage. - </p> - <p> - If Miss Farren had been a little less virtuous and a little more human she - would run a better chance of obtaining the sympathy of such people as are - capable of differentiating between a woman's virtue and the virtues of - womankind. She seemed to think that the sole duty of a woman is to be - discreet in regard to herself—to give no one a chance of pointings - finger of scorn at her; and it really seemed as if this was also the creed - of the noble people with whom she associated. Every one seemed to be so - paralysed by her propriety as to be incapable of perceiving how - contemptible a part she was playing. An honest woman, with the instincts - of goodness and with some sense of her duty, would, the moment a married - man offers her his devotion, send him pretty quickly about his business. - The most elementary sense of duty must suggest the adoption of such a - course of treatment in regard to an illicit admirer. But Miss Farren had - no such sense. She met the philandering of her lover with smiles and a - virtuous handshake. She accepted his offer of an adoring friendship for - the present with a reversion of the position of Countess of Derby on the - death of the existing holder of the title and its appurtenances; and - people held her up, and continue to hold her up, as an example of all that - is virtuous and amiable in life! - </p> - <p> - She was also commended for her patience, as Lord Derby was for his - constancy. They had both great need of these qualities, for the unhappy - barrier to their union showed no signs of getting out of their way, either - by death or divorce. She became strangely discreet, taking, in fact, a - leaf out of Miss Farren's book of deportment, and never giving her husband - a chance of freeing himself from the tie that bound him nominally to her. - It must have been very gratifying to the actress to perceive how effective - was the example she set to the Countess in regard to the adherence to the - path of rectitude. - </p> - <p> - What was the exact impression produced upon Lord Derby by all this decorum - it would be difficult to say. He may have been pleased to discover that he - was married to a lady to whom his honour was more precious than he had any - reason or any right to believe it to be. But assuredly a less placid - gentleman would have found himself wishing now and again that—well, - that matters had arranged themselves differently. - </p> - <p> - The years went by without bringing about a more satisfactory <i>modus - vivendi</i> than was in existence when Lord Derby originally offered his - heart and hand (the latter when it should become vacant) to the actress. - Lady Derby was in wretched health, but still showed no more inclination to - die than does a chronic invalid. Miss Farren continued to drive her - splendid chariot, with its coachmen on the hammer-cloth and its footmen - clinging on to the straps behind, down to the stage-door of the theatre, - and to fill the house every night that she played. Her popularity seemed - to grow with years, and she appeared in a wide range of characters, making - her audiences accept as correct her reading of every part, though the best - critics—Walpole was about the worst—of her art had a good deal - to say that was not quite favourable to her style. Only once, however, did - she make a flagrant error on the stage, and this was when she was - misguided enough to put on men's garments in representing the part of - Tracy Lovell in Colman's play, <i>The Suicide</i>. - </p> - <p> - By this unhappy exhibition which she made of herself she disillusioned - those of her admirers who fancied that she was a model of grace from the - sole of her feet to the crown of her head. She never repeated this - performance. Had she done so in Lord Derby's presence, his constancy would - have been put to a severer test than any to which he had been previously - subjected. The best judges of what constitutes grace in a woman were - unanimous in their advice to the lady never to forsake the friendly - habiliments which she was accustomed to wear, and never to allow her - emulation of the perpetually chaste goddess to lead her to adopt even for - an hour the convenient garb in which she went a-hunting. - </p> - <p> - And while his fiancée was moving from triumph to triumph, putting every - other actress in the shade, the Earl of Derby was putting on flesh. But as - his flesh became more visible so did his faith. He was a model of - fidelity. His name was never associated with the name of any other lady—not - even that of his wife—during his long years of probation, and twenty - years form a rather protracted period for a man to wait in order to marry - an actress. It was not to be wondered if the spectacle of the devoted - young peer waiting for the beautiful girl in the green room, which was - allowed to the habitués of that fascinating apartment during the earlier - years of this strange attachment, produced quite a different effect upon - people from that which was the result of witnessing a somewhat obese, - elderly gentleman panting along by the side of a chaste lady of forty. Nor - was it remarkable that, on seeing one day by the side of Miss Farren, a - gallant young man whose walk and bearing suggested to elderly spectators a - rejuvenated Lord Stanley, they should rub their eyes and ask what miracle - was this that time and true love had wrought. - </p> - <p> - The only miracle that time had wrought was to make the son of the Earl of - Derby twenty-one years of age and rather interested in the personnel of - green rooms. He had been introduced to Miss Farren by his father; but to - his honour be it said, he made no attempt to take his father's place in - regard to the lady, except as her escort to her house in Green Street. The - gossip that suggested such a possibility was just what one might expect to - find in one of Walpole's letters. - </p> - <p> - At last the shameful, if virtuous, devotion of twenty years was rewarded - by the announcement of the death of the wretched Countess whose desertion - dated from the day her husband met the actress. Miss Farren, with that - extraordinary bad taste which characterised every period of her intimacy - with Lord Derby, took an ostentatious farewell of the stage, and proved by - the faltering of her voice, her emotion, and her final outburst in tears, - that time had not diminished from the arts of her art. Of course, there - was a scene of intense emotion in the theatre, which was increased when - King led her forward and Wroughton spoke a rhymed and stagey farewell in - her presence. Four of its lines were these: - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - But ah! this night adieu the joyous mien, - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - When Mirth's lov'd fav'rite quits the mimic scene, - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - Startled Thalia would th'assent refuse, - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - But Truth and Virtue sued and won the Muse. - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - Truth and Virtue—these were the patrons of the compact by which Miss - Farren waited for twenty years for the death of the wife of the man whom - she had promised to marry—when she could. - </p> - <p> - The scene in the green room when the actress came off the stage was an - unqualified success. Tears flowed freely, making channels as they - meandered down the paint; sobs came from the actresses who hoped to get a - chance of doing some of her parts now that she had left the stage; and - Miss Farren herself showed that she knew what were the elements of a - proper climax, by fainting with a shriek, in the midst of which she made - an exit supported by all the actors who were not already supporting some - of the hysterical ladies in the background. They all deserved to have - their salaries raised. The whole scene was a triumph—of art. - </p> - <p> - The exact chronology of the crisis is worth noting. Lady Derby died on - March 4th, and was buried on April 2nd. On April 8th Miss Farren took her - farewell of the stage, and on May 1st she was married to the Earl of - Derby. A satisfactory explanation of the indecent delay in the celebration - of the marriage was forthcoming: his lordship had been suffering from an - attack of gout. - </p> - <p> - But if no one ventured to cast an aspersion upon his character or to - accuse him of shilly-shallying in regard to the postponement of his - nuptials until his wife had been nearly a whole month in her grave, there - was a good deal of funny gossip set loose when, after a honeymoon of two - days, the Earl and the Countess returned to London. This also was - satisfactorily explained: the Countess was devoted to her mother! - </p> - <p> - The marriage proved a very happy one, and thirty-two years passed before - the Countess died. Her husband survived her by five years. He died in - 1834, fifty-seven years after his first meeting with the actress, and - forty-seven since he instituted “The Derby” race meeting, winning the - first cup by his horse Sir Peter Teazle. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE PLOT OF A LADY NOVELIST - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>N the year 1790-1 - there was played in real life a singularly poor adaptation of an unwritten - novel by one of the Minifie sisters—those sentimental ladies who, - during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, provided the - circulating libraries with several volumes of high-flown fiction. The - adaptation of this unwritten novel possessed a good many of the most - prominent features of the original, so that when it was brought to light - there could be very little doubt as to the brain out of which it had been - evolved. The result of the performance was so unsatisfactory as to compel - one to believe that the worst possible way of producing a novel is to - adapt it to suit the requirements of one's relations, forcing them to play - in real life and in all earnest the parts assigned to them by the inventor - of the plot. - </p> - <p> - Miss Minifie, the second of the sentimental sisters, had married in the - year 1769 Colonel John Gunning, the brother of the two beautiful girls one - of whom became Duchess of Hamilton, and later Duchess of Argyll, and the - other Countess of Coventry. The result of the union was a daughter of - considerable plainness, and people said that in this respect she resembled - her mother's rather than her father's family. It seems that while the - Gunning tradition was beauty, the Minifie tradition was a nose, and it - soon became apparent that it was impossible to combine the two with any - satisfactory artistic results. The young lady had made an honest attempt - to do so, but her failure was emphatic. She had eyes that suggested in a - far-off way the long-lashed orbs of her aunts, but that unlucky Minifie - nose was so prominent a feature that it caused the attention of even the - most indulgent critic to be riveted upon it, to the exclusion of the rest - of her face. The charitably-disposed among her friends affirmed that she - would be passably good-looking if it were not for her nose; the others - said that she would be positively plain if it were not for her eyes. - </p> - <p> - Her father was probably that member of his family who had least brains: - they made a soldier of him, and he married a lady novelist, closing an - inglorious career by running off with his tailor's wife and having a writ - issued against him for £5000. He took care to be at Naples, outside the - jurisdiction of the English court, when it was issued, and he died before - it could be served on him, which suggests that he may not have been so - devoid of brains after all. - </p> - <p> - Her mother (<i>née</i> Minifie) seems to have entertained the idea of - making the girl work out a “plot” for her when she arrived at the - regulation age of the sentimental heroine of those days, and this plot she - invented with all her accustomed absence of skill. Her materials were a - “glorious child”—this was how she described her daughter—with - a gifted mother; a young cousin, heir to a dukedom and a large estate; - and, lastly, the Gunning tradition. Could any novelist ask for more? A - short time afterwards she did, however, and this was just where her art - failed her. She did much to discourage the writers of fiction from - endeavouring to work out their plots in real life. - </p> - <p> - Catherine Gunning, the “glorious child,” being the niece of the Duchess of - Argyll, her cousin was, of course, the Marquis of Lome; and as the Duchess - had always kept up an intimate connection with the members of her father's - family, even to the second generation, her son, Lord Lome, and Catherine - Gunning had been a good deal together, not only when they were children, - but also when they had reached the age when the novel-writer's hero and - heroine begin to blossom. The girl's mother, doubtless having an idea that - these very live young people were as plastic as the creatures of her - fancy, thought to hasten on the <i>dénouement</i> of her story by - whispering it to her friends. She whispered into more than one ear that - Lord Lome and her daughter were betrothed, and such friends as received - this information, strictly <i>sub rosa</i>, took care to spread it abroad—strictly - <i>sub rosa</i> also. Now the aggregation of many confidential reports of - this sort is what is termed “news,” so that in the course of a short time - it was common property that Lord Lome was to marry his cousin, Catherine - Gunning. - </p> - <p> - Congratulations reached the young lady, which she neither quite accepted - nor altogether rejected. She seems to have learned from her mother's - novels that in such matters it is wisest for a young woman to be silent - but pensive. And on the whole her behaviour was fairly consistent with - that of the heroine which her mother meant her to be. Indeed, all that was - needed to enable her to take the place of the heroine of a pleasant little - love story was the proposal of the hero; and unhappily this formality had - still to be reckoned with. Lord Lome had so paltry an appreciation of what - was due to the art of the fiction-writer that he declined to play the part - of the young hero of the story, and when people approached him on the - subject he said that he had heard nothing about being accepted by Miss - Gunning, and that he could not possibly be accepted until he had proposed - to her. He seems to have acted with the discretion one would have looked - for from the son of the Duchess of Argyll, and in the course of the year - the reports of the possible union dwindled away, and people began to feel - that their friends were untrustworthy gossips to have circulated a report - solely on the evidence of a young lady's pensiveness. - </p> - <p> - This was, however, as it turned out, but the opening chapter in the - romance which the novelist-mother was working out. Indeed, it scarcely - bears to be considered as a regular chapter, it was rather the prologue to - the comedy which was played two years later with the same heroine, but for - obvious reasons with a different hero. In the prologue there was scarcely - visible any of the art of the novelist; in the comedy itself, however, her - hand is constantly apparent, controlling the movements of at least one of - her puppets; and very jerkily, too, that hand pulled the strings. The - clumsiness in the construction of the plot prevented any one from - sympathising with the authoress and stage-manager of the piece when its - failure became known to the world in general, and to Horace Walpole in - particular. Walpole could pretend a good deal. He pretended, for instance, - that he knew at once that the Rowley poems, sent to him by Chatterton, - were forgeries; and he pretended that he knew nothing of the marriage of - his niece to the Duke of Gloucester until the public were apprised of the - fact. He could not, however, even pretend that he sympathised with the - failure of the Minifie plot. On the contrary, he gloats over the disgrace - which, he declared, on this account fell upon the Gunning family. He hated - the whole Gunning family, and he was plainly in ecstasies of delight when - he believed that ruin had come upon them. “The two beautiful sisters were - exalted almost as high as they could go,” he wrote. “Countessed and double - duchessed, and now the family have dragged themselves down into the very - dirt.” - </p> - <p> - The “family” had of course done nothing of the sort. One member of the - family had allowed herself to be made a fool of at the suggestion of her - very foolish mother; her father had also been indiscreet, but there is a - wide difference between all this and the family of Gunning “dragging - themselves into the very dirt.” The result of the tricks of the lady - novelist to marry her daughter to the heir to a dukedom was only to make - every one roar with laughter, and no doubt the fatuous ladies felt greatly - annoyed. But the Marquis of Lome did not seem to take the matter greatly - to heart, and he was a member of the Gunning family; nor did the Duke of - Hamilton show himself to be greatly perturbed, though he must have been - somewhat jealous of the honour of the family to which his mother belonged. - The position that the Gunning family had taken among the greatest families - in the land rested upon too solid a foundation to be shaken by the - foolishness of a lady novelist, who had married a Gunning. And now people - who read the story of the “dragging in the dirt” only shrug their - shoulders at the ridiculous figure cut by the actors in the shallow and - sordid comedy, and laugh at the spiteful gibe of the prince of gossips, - who played a congenial part in damning the product of the Minifie brain. - </p> - <p> - Two years after the failure of the Lome plot startling whispers were once - again heard in regard to Miss Gunning and the heir to another dukedom. - This time it was the Marquis of Blandford who attracted the Minifie fancy. - He was the Duke of Marlborough's heir, and was twenty-three years of age. - Of course it was Mrs. Gunning (<i>née</i> Minifie) who was the first to - make the announcement that the young people were greatly attached; and - then followed—after the interval of a chapter or two—the lady - novelist's declaration to her niece, a Mrs. Bowen, that Lord Blandford had - proposed, and had been accepted by Miss Gunning. The date of the marriage - had been fixed, and the draft deed of the settlements signed; but, as in - the former “case,” the recipient of the news was told that she must regard - the communication as strictly confidential, the fact being that although - the arrangements for the match were so fully matured, yet General Gunning—he - had recently been made a general—had not been let into the secret. - </p> - <p> - It must have seemed a little queer to Mrs. Bowen to learn that her uncle - had not been made acquainted with the good luck that was in store for his - daughter. The signing of marriage deeds in the absence of the bride's - father must surely have struck her as being a trifle irregular. However - this may be, she seems to have treated the communication as strictly - confidential by at once proceeding to spread abroad the news that it - contained. It reached the ears of several people of distinction before - long. General Conway heard of it, and from a quarter that seemed to him - absolutely trustworthy. He passed it round to Walpole and the Court - circle. The Duke of Argyll, as the uncle of the young lady most interested - in the match, was apprised of it in due course, and on appealing to - headquarters—that is to say, to Mrs. Gunning—for confirmation - or denial of the report, learned that the marriage had indeed been - “arranged,” but the question of settlements remained in abeyance. - </p> - <p> - Shortly afterwards there came rumours that there were obstacles in the way - of the marriage, and Miss Gunning, on being questioned by some of her - friends, confessed that it was the parents of her lover who were unkind: - young Lord Blandford was burning with anxiety to call her his own, but the - Duke and Duchess belonged unfortunately to that type of parent to be found - in so many novels in which the course of true love runs anything but - smooth. - </p> - <p> - Strange to say, it was just at this point that a letter appeared in the <i>Advertiser</i>, - signed by General Gunning, apprising the world of the fact that the - Gunnings were one of the noblest families in existence, the writer - actually being able to trace his ancestry up to Charlemagne. - </p> - <p> - It was while people were so laughing over this letter as to cause him to - declare it to be a forgery, that the General became suspicious of the - genuineness of his daughter's statements in regard to her <i>affaire de - cour</i>. When a blunt old soldier finds a letter bearing his signature in - the papers, well knowing that he never wrote such a letter, he is apt to - question the good faith even of his nearest and dearest. It is certain, at - any rate, that the descendant of Charlemagne had an uneasy feeling that - any woman who wrote novels was not to be implicitly trusted in the affairs - of daily life. His mind running on forged letters, he commanded his - daughter to submit to him her correspondence with her lover. - </p> - <p> - Miss Gunning at once complied, and he sat down to read the lot. The result - was not to allay his suspicions. The letters read remarkably well, and - contained the conventional outpourings of an ardent lover to the object of - his affections. But to the simple soldier's mind they read just too well: - some of them were in the style of a novel-writer with whom he was - acquainted—imperfectly, it would appear, or he would have suspected - something long before. Retaining the precious “pacquet” he awaited - developments. - </p> - <p> - He had not long to wait. Another contribution to the correspondence which - he had in his hand came to his daughter, and was passed on to him. - Noticing in it some doubtful features, he came to the conclusion that it - was necessary to get to the bottom of the affair in the most - straightforward way. He leapt to the bottom of it by sending the whole - “pacquet” to the young Marquis of Blandford, asking him peremptorily if he - had written the letters. - </p> - <p> - He got a reply to the effect that a few of the letters were his—they - were the ordinary ones, courteous, but in no way effusive—but that - the greater number had not come from him. His lordship did not seem to - think that common politeness demanded his expressing his hearty - concurrence with the tone and sentiments contained in these same letters. - Now in the judgment of a novelist of the intellectual calibre of the - Minifie sisters this is exactly what a young gentleman would do when - playing the part of the hero of a romance, so that it would appear that - General Gunning was fully justified in coming to the conclusion that the - whole scheme—the whole piece of scheming—was the design of his - wife—that it represented an attempt on her part to force one of her - “plots” upon some real personages. Dull-minded man though he certainly - was, he must have perceived that his wife's plan was to compel Lord - Blandford to act the part of the hero of her sentimental imagination, and - when confronted with a parcel of forged letters, in every one of which - there was a confession of love for Miss Gunning, to bow his head meekly, - as any gentleman (of her imagination) would, and say, “Those are my - letters, and they express nothing but the most honourable sentiments of my - heart.” - </p> - <p> - But as it so happened the young Lord Blandford was not a young gentleman - of this particular stamp. He seems to have been almost as practical as his - great ancestor, who, out of the proceeds of his first love intrigue, - bought an annuity for himself. Hence the fiasco of the Minifie plot. - </p> - <p> - The Minifie plot, however, was not worked out in one act only, and an - insignificant prologue. The resources of the lady's imagination were by no - means exhausted by the failure of Lord Blandford to act up to the heroic - part assigned to him. He seems to have talked a good deal to his friends - about the forged letters, and the Duke of Argyll, the young lady's uncle, - took the matter up as an important member by marriage of the family. He - applied to his niece for an explanation of the whole affair; and her - father seems to have agreed with him in thinking that if the girl was ever - to hold up her head again it would be necessary for her to bring forward - some evidence to prove what she still asserted, namely, that the letters - had been written to her by Lord Blandford—this “pacquet” of letters - played as important a part in the story of Miss Gunning as the “Casquet - Letters” did in the history of Queen Mary—and that they were written - with the concurrence and approbation of the Duke and Duchess of - Marlborough. The Duke and Duchess had, she affirmed, encouraged her by the - most unmistakable means to believe that they were extremely anxious to see - her married to their son. - </p> - <p> - It was then suggested—Horace Walpole, who gloats over the whole - story in a letter to one of the Berrys, does not say by whom—that - the young woman should draw up a narrative of the progress of the - attachment professed for her by Lord Blandford, and of the particular acts - of encouragement for which she alleged the Duke and Duchess were - responsible, leading her to feel sure that she was a <i>persona grata</i> - with them. It was hoped by the Duke of Argyll and General Gunning that the - girl would be rehabilitated in the eyes of society by the production of - the Duke of Marlborough's formal assent to the statements made by Miss - Gunning in endeavouring to exculpate herself. Miss Gunning assenting—after - a consultation with her mother, we may be sure—a “narrative” was - accordingly prepared by the young lady, and in it there was the ingenuous - confession that although she had been unable to resist so dazzling an - offer as that of Lord Blandford, she had not wavered in her affection for - her cousin, the Marquis of Lome. - </p> - <p> - Here we have the true Minifie touch of sentimentality, and we cannot doubt - that the remaining portion of the plot was due to her clumsy ingenuity. - </p> - <p> - This narrative was sent to the Duke of Marlborough, with the following - letter from General Gunning: - </p> - <p> - “St. James's Place, - </p> - <p> - “<i>3 rd February</i>, 1791. - </p> - <p> - “My Lord,—I have the honour of addressing this letter to your Grace - not with the smallest wish after what has passed of having a marriage - established between Lord Blandford and my daughter, or of claiming any - promise or proposal to that effect, but merely to know whether your Grace - or the Duchess of Marlborough have it in recollection that your Graces or - Lord Blandford ever gave my daughter reason to think a marriage was once - intended. - </p> - <p> - “My motive for giving this trouble arises merely from a desire of removing - any imputation from my daughter's character, as if she had entertained an - idea of such importance without any reasonable foundation. - </p> - <p> - “For my own satisfaction, and that of my particular friends who have been - induced to believe the reports of the intended marriage, I have desired my - daughter to draw up an accurate narrative of every material circumstance - on which that belief was founded. - </p> - <p> - “This narrative I have the honour of transmitting to your Grace for your - own perusal, and that of the Duchess of Marlborough and Lord Blandford, - thinking it highly suitable that you should have an early opportunity of - examining it—and I beg leave to request that your Grace will, after - examination, correct or alter such passages as may appear either to your - Grace, the Duchess of Marlborough, or Lord Blandford, to be erroneously - stated. - </p> - <p> - “I have the honour to be, - </p> - <p> - “With the greatest respect, my Lord, - </p> - <p> - “Your Grace's most humble and - </p> - <p> - “Most obedient servant, - </p> - <p> - “John Gunning.” - </p> - <p> - This letter was dispatched by a groom to its destination at Blenheim, and - within half an hour of his delivering it, His Grace, according to the - groom, had handed him a reply for General Gunning. This document, which - the groom said he had received from the Duke, was forwarded, with a copy - of the letter to which it constituted a most satisfactory reply, to a - small and very select committee that had, it would seem, been appointed to - investigate and report upon the whole story. It must also be quoted in - full, in order that its point may be fully appreciated by any one - interested in this very remarkable story. - </p> - <p> - “Blenheim. - </p> - <p> - “Sir,—I take the earliest opportunity to acknowledge the receipt of - your letter, and to answer it with that explicitness you are so much - entitled to. From the first of the acquaintance of the D———s - of Marlborough and myself had with Miss Gunning, we were charmed with her, - and it was with infinite satisfaction we discovered <i>Blanford's</i> - sentiments similar to our own. It had long been the wish of both to see - him married to some amiable woman. Your daughter was the one we had fixed - on, and we had every reason to suppose the object of his tenderest - affections, and, from the conduct of both himself and his family, yourself - and Miss Gunning had undoubtedly every right to look on a marriage as - certain. Indeed when I left town last summer, I regarded her as my future - daughter, and I must say it is with sorrow I relinquish the idea. The - actions of young men are not always to be accounted for; and it is with - regret that I acknowledge my son has been particularly unaccountable in - his. I beg that you will do me the justice to believe that I shall ever - think myself your debtor for the manner in which you have conducted - yourself in this affair, and that I must always take an interest in the - happiness of Miss Gunning. I beg, if she has not conceived a disgust for - the whole of my family, she will accept the sincerest good wishes of the - Duchess and my daughters. - </p> - <p> - “I have the honour to remain, - </p> - <p> - “Sir, - </p> - <p> - “Your much obliged and - </p> - <p> - “Most obedient, humble servant, - </p> - <p> - “Marlborough.” - </p> - <p> - Now be it remembered that both these letters were forwarded to the - committee with the young lady's narrative, to be considered by them in the - same connection, at Argyll House, where their sittings were to be held. - </p> - <p> - What was to be said in the face of such documentary evidence as this? - Those members of the committee who hoped that the girl's statement of her - case would be in some measure borne out by the Duke of Marlborough could - never have hoped for so triumphant a confirmation of her story as was - contained in His Grace's letter. It seemed as if the investigation of the - committee would be of the simplest character; handing them such a letter, - accompanying her own ingenuous narrative, it was felt that she had - completely vindicated her position. - </p> - <p> - But suddenly one member of the committee—Walpole in the letter to - Miss Berry affirms that he was this one—ventured to point out that - in the Duke's letter the name <i>Blandford</i> was spelt without the - middle letter <i>d</i>. “That was possible in the hurry of doing justice,” - wrote Walpole. But the moment that this pin-puncture of suspicion appeared - in the fabric of the lady's defence it was not thought any sacrilege to - try to pick another hole in it. The wax with which the letter was sealed - was black, and the members of the council asked one another whom the - Marlborough family were in mourning for, that they should seal their - letter in this fashion. No information on this point was forthcoming. (It - is strange if Walpole did not suggest that they were in mourning over the - defunct reputation of the young lady.) If the Duke of Argyll was present, - it can well be believed that, after the members of the council had looked - at each other, there should be silence in that room, on one wall of which - we may believe there was hanging the splendid portrait of Elizabeth, - Duchess of Argyll and Baroness Hamilton of Hameldon, in her own right, - painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. The lady was dying at her Scotch home when - this investigation into the conduct of her niece was being conducted. - </p> - <p> - It was probably a relief to every one present when the suggestion was made - that the Duke of Marlborough's second son was in town, and if sent for he - might be able to throw some light upon the subject of the mourning wax or - some other questionable point in the same connection. Although it was now - close upon midnight a messenger was dispatched for the young man—probably - his whereabouts at midnight would be known with greater certainty than at - midday. At any rate he was quickly found, and repaired in all haste to - Argyll House. He was brought before the committee and shown the letter - with the black wax. He burst out laughing, and declared that the writing - bore not the least resemblance to that of his father, the Duke of - Marlborough. - </p> - <p> - There was nothing more to be said. The council adjourned <i>sine die</i> - without drawing up any report, so far as can be ascertained. - </p> - <p> - But the full clumsiness of the Minifie “plot” was revealed the next day, - for General Gunning received a letter from the Captain Bowen whose name - has already entered into this narrative, telling him that his wife, the - General's niece, had a short time before received from Miss Gunning a - letter purporting to be a copy of one which had come to her from the Duke - of Marlborough, and begging her to get her husband to make a fair copy of - it, and return it by the groom. Captain Bowen added that he had complied - with his wife's request to this effect, but he had written “<i>copy</i>” - at the top and “<i>signed M</i>.” at the bottom, as is usual in engrossing - copies of documents, to prevent the possibility of a charge of forgery - being brought against the copyist. - </p> - <p> - The letter which the girl wrote to Mrs. Bowen was made the subject of an - affidavit shortly afterwards, and so became public property. It is so - badly composed that one cannot but believe it was dictated by her mother, - though the marvellous spelling must have been Miss Gunning's own. The fact - that, after making up a story of her love for Lord Lome, and of the - encouragement she received from the Marlborough family in respect of Lord - Blandford, she instructed Mrs. Bowen to keep the matter secret from her - mother, confirms one's impression as to the part the lady must have played - in the transaction. Miss Gunning wrote: “Neither papa or I have courage to - tell mama, for she detests the person dearest to me on earth.” - </p> - <p> - But however deficient in courage her papa was in the matter of acquainting - his wife with so ordinary an incident as was referred to in this letter, - he did not shrink from what he believed to be his duty when it was made - plain to him that his daughter and his wife had been working out a “plot” - in real life that necessitated the forging of a letter. He promptly - bundled both wife and daughter out of his house, doubtless feeling that - although the other personages in the romance which his wife was hoping to - weave, had by no means acted up to the parts she had meant them to play, - there was no reason why he should follow their example. It must be - acknowledged that as a type of the bluff old soldier, simple enough to be - deceived by the inartistic machinations of a foolish wife, but inexorable - when finding his credulity imposed upon, he played his part extremely - well. At the same time such people as called him a ridiculous old fool for - adopting so harsh a measure toward his erring child, whose tricks he had - long winked at, were perhaps not to be greatly blamed. - </p> - <p> - The old Duchess of Bedford at once received the outcasts and provided them - with a home; and then Mrs. Gunning had leisure to concoct a manifesto in - form of an open letter to the Duke of Argyll, in which, after exhorting - His Grace to devote the remainder of his life to unravelling the mystery - which she affirmed (though no one else could have done so) enshrouded the - whole affair of the letter, she went on to denounce the simple-hearted - General for his meanness—and worse—in matters domestic. He had - never been a true husband to her, she declared, and he was even more - unnatural as a father. As for Captain Bowen and his wife, the writer of - the manifesto showed herself to be upon the brink of delirium when she - endeavoured to find words severe enough to describe their treachery. They - were inhuman in their persecution of her “glorious child,” she said, and - then she went on to affirm her belief that the incriminating letters had - been forged by the Bowens, and the rest of the story invented by them with - the aid of the General to ruin her and her “glorious child.” - </p> - <p> - Captain Bowen thought fit to reply to this amazing production. He did so - through the prosaic form of a number of affidavits. The most important of - these was that sworn by one William Pearce, groom to General Gunning. In - this document he deposed that when he was about to start for Blenheim with - the “pacquet” for the Duke of Marlborough, Miss Gunning had caught him and - compelled him to hand over the “pacquet” to her, and that she had then - given him another letter, sealed with black, bearing the Marlborough arms, - instructing him to deliver it to her father, pretending that he had - received it at Blenheim. - </p> - <p> - In spite of all this Miss Gunning continued to affirm her entire - innocence, and even went the length—according to Walpole—of - swearing before a London magistrate that she was innocent. “It is but a - burlesque part of this wonderful tale,” adds Walpole, “that old crazy - Bedford exhibits Miss every morning on the Causeway in Hyde Park and - declares her <i>protégée</i> some time ago refused General Trevelyan.” But - “crazy old Bedford” went much further in her craziness than this, for she - actually wrote to the Marquis of Lome trying to patch up a match between - Miss Gunning and himself. Immediately afterwards the town was startled by - the report that a duel was impending between Lord Lome and Lord Blandford, - the former maintaining that it was his duty to uphold the honour of his - cousin, which had been somewhat shaken by the course adopted by the - Marlborough heir. Of course no duel took place, and the young men simply - laughed when their attention was called to the statement in print. - </p> - <p> - How much further these alarums and excursions (on the Causeway) would have - proceeded it would be impossible to tell, the fact being that Captain - Bowen and his wife gave notice of their intention to institute proceedings - against the Gunnings, mother and daughter, for libel. This brought <i>l'affaire - Gunning</i> to a legitimate conclusion, for the ladies thought it - advisable to fly to France. - </p> - <p> - “The town is very dull without them,” wrote Walpole to one of the Berrys, - enclosing a copy of a really clever skit in verse, after the style of “The - House that Jack Built,” ridiculing the whole affair. When Mrs. Gunning and - her daughter returned, after the lapse of several months, the old Duchess - of Bedford took them up once more; but the town declined to take any - further notice of them. It was not until her father and mother had been - dead for some years that Miss Gunning married Major Plunkett, an Irish - rebel, who fled after the rising in 1798. She lived with him happily - enough for twenty years, endeavouring to atone for the indiscretion of her - girlhood by writing novels. It is doubtful if many of her readers - considered such expiation wholly adequate, considering how foolish she had - been. One act of folly can hardly be atoned for by another. But her - intention was good, and her faults, including her novels, have long ago - been forgiven her by being forgotten. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - TRAGEDY WITH A TWINKLE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>N the summer of - 1770 there arrived at the town of Lisle a coach containing three ladies - and one man, followed by a travelling chaise with servants and luggage. Of - the ladies, one was approaching middle age, handsome and elegant; the - other two were her daughters, and both were extremely beautiful and - graceful girls, under twenty years of age. The man was a small, - middle-aged person, with a face which one would have called plain if it - had not been that the protruding of his upper lip and the twinkle in his - eyes suggested not plainness, but comedy. The very soul of comedy was in - the gravity of his face; but it was that sort which is not apparent to all - the world. It was the soul of comedy, not the material part; and most - people are disposed to deny the possibility of comedy's existing except in - juxtaposition with the grin through the horse-collar. Solemnity in a face, - with a twinkle in the eye—that is an expression which comedy may - wear without arousing the curiosity—certainly without exciting the - laughter—of the multitude. And this was exactly the form that the - drama of this man's life assumed; only it was tragedy with a twinkle. - Tragedy with a twinkle—that was Oliver Goldsmith. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0010" id="linkimage-0010"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0203.jpg" alt="0203 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0203.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - The vehicles drew up in the courtyard of the hotel in the square, and Dr. - Goldsmith, after dismounting and helping the ladies to dismount, gave - orders in French to the landlord in respect of the luggage, and made - inquiries as to the table d'hôte. Shown to their respective rooms, the - members of the party did not meet again for some time, and then it was in - the private <i>salle</i> which they had engaged, looking out upon the - square. The two girls were seated at a window, and their mother was - writing letters at a table at one side. - </p> - <p> - When Dr. Goldsmith entered we may be pretty sure that he had exchanged his - travelling dress for a more imposing toilet, and we may be equally certain - that these two girls had something merry to say about the cut or the - colour of his garments—we have abundant record of their <i>badinage</i> - bearing upon his flamboyant liking for colour, and of his retorts in the - same spirit. We have seen him strutting to and fro in gay apparel, - obtrusively calling attention to the beauty of his waistcoat and speaking - in solemn exaggeration of its importance. The girls were well aware of - this form of his humour; they appreciated it to the full, and responded to - it in their merriment. - </p> - <p> - Then there came the sound of martial music from the square, and the elder - of the girls, opening the window on its hinges, looked out. A regiment of - soldiers was turning into the square and would pass the hotel, she said. - The two girls stood at one window and Goldsmith at another while the march - past took place. It was not surprising that, glancing up and seeing the - beautiful pair at the window, the mounted officers at the head of the - regiment should feel flattered by the attention, nor was it unlikely that - the others, taking the <i>pas</i> from their superiors, should look up and - exchange expressions in admiration of the beauty of the young ladies. It - is recorded that they did so, and that, when the soldiers had marched off, - the little man at the other window walked up and down the room in anger - “that more attention had been paid to them than to him.” - </p> - <p> - These are the words of Boswell in concluding his account of the episode, - which, by the way, he printed with several other stories in illustration - of the overwhelming vanity and extraordinary envy in Goldsmith's nature. - As if any human being hearing such a story of the most complete curmudgeon - would accept the words as spoken seriously! And yet Boswell printed it in - all solemnity, and hoped that every one who read it would believe that - Goldsmith, the happy-go-lucky Irishman, was eaten up with envy of the - admiration given to the two exquisite girls on whom, by the way, be - conferred immortality; for so long as English literature remains the names - of the Jessamy Bride and Little Comedy will live. Yes, and so long as - discriminating people read the story of Goldsmith's envious outburst they - will not fail to see the true picture of what did actually take place in - that room in the Lisle hotel—they will see the little man stalking - up and down, that solemn face of his more solemn than ever, but the - twinkle in his eyes revealing itself all the more brightly on this - account, while he shakes his fists at the ladies and affirms that the - officers were dolts and idiots to waste their time gazing at them when - they had a chance “of seeing me, madam, me—<i>me!</i>” Surely every - human being with the smallest amount of imagination will see the little - man thumping his waistcoat, while the Miss Hornecks hold up their hands - and go into fits of laughter at that whimsical Dr. Goldsmith, whom they - had chosen to be their companion on that tour of theirs through France - with their mother. - </p> - <p> - And surely every one must see them in precisely the same attitude, when - they read the story in Boswell's <i>Life of Johnson</i>, and notice what - interpretation has been put upon it by the Scotsman—hands uplifted - in amazement and faces “o'er-running with laughter” at the thought of how - Mr. Boswell has, for the thousandth time, been made a fool of by some one - who had picked up the story from themselves and had solemnly narrated it - to Boswell. But in those days following the publication of the first - edition of the <i>Life</i>, people were going about with uplifted hands, - wondering if any man since the world began had ever been so befooled as - Boswell. - </p> - <p> - When the story appeared in <i>Johnson's Life</i> the two girls had been - married for several years; but one of them at least had not forgotten the - incident upon which it was founded; and upon its being repeated in - Northcote's <i>Life of Reynolds</i>, she wrote to the biographer, assuring - him that in this, as well as in other stories of the same nature, the - expression on Goldsmith's face when he professed to be overcome by envy - was such as left no one in doubt that he was jesting. But Croker, in spite - of this, had the impudence to sneer at the explanation, and to attribute - it to the good-nature of the lady. Mr. Croker seems to have had a special - smile of his own for the weaknesses of ladies. This was the way he smiled - when he was searching up old registries of their birth in his endeavour to - prove that they had made themselves out to be six months younger than they - really were. (Quite different, however, must his smile have been when he - read Macaulay's Essay on Croker's edition of Boswell's <i>Life of Johnson</i>). - But, unhappily for poor Goldsmith, Mr. Boswell was able to bring forward - much stronger evidence of the consuming Vanity, the parent of Envy, with - which his “honest Dr. Goldsmith” was afflicted. There was once an - exhibition of puppets in Panton Street, and on some member of the - distinguished company in which he, curiously enough for such a - contemptible lout, constantly found himself, admiring the dexterity with - which the wooden figure tossed a halbert, Goldsmith, we are gravely told, - appeared annoyed and said: “Pshaw! I could do it as well myself!” - Supposing that some one had said to Boswell, “After all, sir, perhaps Dr. - Goldsmith could have done it as well himself,” would the man have tried to - explain that the question was not whether Goldsmith or the puppet was the - more dexterous, but whether it was possible to put any other construction - upon Goldsmith's exclamation than that assumed by Mr. Boswell? - </p> - <p> - Yet another instance is given of Goldsmith's envy, and this time the - object of it is not a wooden figure, but Shakespeare himself. He could not - bear, Dr. Beattie tells us, that so much admiration should be given to - Shakespeare. Hearing this, we feel that we are on quite a different level. - There is no jealousy rankling this time in Goldsmith's heart against a - mere puppet. It is now a frantic passion of chagrin that Shakespeare - should still receive the admiration of a chosen few! - </p> - <p> - But such vanity as that so strikingly illustrated by this last told story, - is, one must confess with feelings of melancholy, not yet wholly extinct - among literary men. It would scarcely be believed—unless by Boswell - or Beattie—that even in America a man with some reputation as a - writer should deliberately ask people to assume that he himself was worthy - of a place in a group that included not merely Shakespeare, but also - Milton and Homer. “Gentlemen,” said this egregious person at a public - dinner, “Gentlemen, think of the great writers who are dead and gone. - There was Shakespeare, he is dead and gone; and Milton, alas! is no longer - in the land of the living; Homer has been deceased for a considerable - time, and I myself, gentlemen, am not feeling very well to-night.” - </p> - <p> - What a pity it is that Beattie has gone the way of so many other great - writers. If he could only have been laid on to Mark Twain we should have - the most comic biography ever written. - </p> - <p> - Goldsmith was, according to the great Boswell and the many lesser Boswells - of his day, the most contemptible wretch that ever wrote the finest poem - of the century, the finest comedy of the century, the finest romance of - the century. He was a silly man, an envious man, an empty-headed man, a - stuttering fool, an idiot (of the inspired variety), an awkward lout, a - shallow pedant, and a generally ridiculous person; and yet here we find - him the chosen companion of two of the most beautiful and charming young - ladies in England on their tour through France, and on terms of such - intimacy with them and their brother, an officer in the Guards and the - son-in-law of a peer, that nicknames are exchanged between them. A - singular position for an Irish lout to find himself in! - </p> - <p> - Even before he is known to fame, and familiar only with famine, he is - visited in his garret by Dr. Percy, a member of the great Northumberland - family at whose town house he lived. So much for the empty-headed fool who - never opened his mouth except to put his foot in it, as a countryman of - his said about quite another person. He was a shallow prig, and yet when - “the Club” was started not one of the original members questioned his - right to a place among the most fastidious of the community, although - Garrick—to the shame of Johnson be it spoken—was not admitted - for nine years. Boswell—to the shame of Johnson be it spoken—was - allowed to crawl in after an exclusion of ten. According to his numerous - detractors, this Goldsmith was one of the most objectionable persons - possible to imagine, and yet we find him the closest friend of the - greatest painter of the day and the greatest actor of the day. He - associates with peers on the friendliest terms, and is the idol of their - daughters. He is accused, on the one hand, of aiming at being accounted a - Macaroni and being extravagant in his dress, and yet he has such a - reputation for slovenliness in this respect that it is recorded that Dr. - Johnson, who certainly never was accused of harbouring unworthy - aspirations to be accounted a beau, made it a point of putting on his best - garments—he may even have taken the extreme step of fastening up his - garters—before visiting Goldsmith, in order, as he explained, that - the latter might have no excuse for his slovenliness. We are also told - that Goldsmith made a fool of himself when he got on his feet to make a - speech, and yet it is known that he travelled through Europe, winning the - hospitality of more than one university by the display of his skill as a - disputant. Again, none of his innumerable traits of awkwardness is so - widely acknowledged as his conversational, and yet the examples which - survive of his impromptu wit are of the most finished type; and (even when - the record is made by Boswell), when he set himself out to take opposite - sides to Johnson, he certainly spoke better sense than his antagonist, - though he was never so loud. It is worth noting that nearly all the hard - things which Johnson is reported to have said respecting Goldsmith were - spoken almost immediately after one of these disputes. Further, we are - assured that Goldsmith's learning was of the shallowest order, and yet - when he was appointed Professor of History to the Royal Academy we do not - hear that any voice was raised in protest. - </p> - <p> - What is a simple reader to think when brought face to face with such - contradictory accounts of the man and his attainments? Well, possibly the - best one can do is to say, as Fanny Burney did, that Goldsmith was an - extraordinary man. - </p> - <p> - Of course, so far as his writings are concerned there is no need for one - to say much. They speak for themselves, and readers can form their own - opinion on every line and every sentence that has come from his pen. There - is no misunderstanding the character of <i>The Traveller</i> or <i>The - Deserted Village</i> or <i>The Vicar of Wakefield</i>. These are - acknowledged by the whole world to be among the most precious legacies of - the eighteenth century to posterity. Who reads nowadays, except out of - curiosity, such classics as <i>Tristram Shandy, Clarissa Harlow, Evelina, - or Rasselas?</i> But who has not read, and who does not still read for - pleasure, <i>The Vicar of Wakefield?</i> Johnson's laborious poem, <i>The - Vanity of Human Wishes</i>, now only exists as an example of the last gasp - of the didactic in verse; but we cannot converse without quoting—sometimes - unconsciously—from <i>The Deserted Village</i> When the - actor-manager of a theatre wishes to show how accomplished a company he - has at his disposal he produces <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i>, and he would - do so more frequently only he is never quite able to make up his mind - whether he himself should play the part of old Hardcastle, Tony Lumpkin, - Young Marlow, or Diggory. But what other eighteenth-century comedy of all - produced previous to the death of Goldsmith can any manager revive - nowadays with any hope of success? Colman of the eighteenth century is as - dead as Congreve of the seventeenth; and what about the masterpieces of - Cumberland, and Kelly, and Whitehead, and the rest? What about the Rev. - Mr. Home's <i>Douglas</i>, which, according to Dr. Johnson, was equal to - Shakespeare at his best? They have all gone to the worms, and these not - even bookworms—their very graves are neglected. But <i>She Stoops to - Conquer</i> is never revived without success—never without a modern - audience recognising the fact that its characters are not the puppets of - the playwright, but the creations of Nature. It is worthy of mention, too, - that the play which first showed the capacity of an actress whose name was - ever at the head of the list of actresses of the last generation, was - founded on <i>The Vicar of Wakefield.</i> It was Miss Ellen Terry's - appearance in <i>Olivia</i> in 1878 that brought about her connection with - the ever memorable Lyceum management as an associate of the greatest actor - of our day. - </p> - <p> - These things speak for themselves, and prove incontestably that Goldsmith - was head and shoulders above all those writers with whom he was on - intimate terms. But the mystery of the contradictory accounts which we - have of the man himself and his ways remains as unsolved as ever. - </p> - <p> - Yes, unless we assume one thing, namely—that the majority of the - people about him were incapable of understanding him. Is it going too far - to suggest that, as Daniel Defoe was sent to the pillory because his - ironic jest in <i>The Shortest Way with the Dissenters</i> was taken in - earnest, and as good people shuddered at the horrible proposal of Swift - that Irish babies should be cooked and eaten, so Goldsmith's peculiarities - of humour were too subtle to be in any degree appreciated by most of the - people with whom he came in contact in England? - </p> - <p> - In Ireland there would be no chance of his being misunderstood; for there - no form that his humour assumed would be regarded as peculiar. Irony is a - figure of speech so largely employed by the inhabitants in some parts that - people who have lived there for any length of time have heard whole - conversations carried on by two or three men without the slightest - divergence from this tortuous form of expression into the straight path of - commonplace English. And all this time there was no expression but one of - complete gravity on the faces of the speakers; a stranger had no clue - whatsoever to the game of words that was being played before him. - </p> - <p> - Another fully recognised form of humour which prevails in Ireland is even - more difficult for a stranger to follow; its basis consists in mystifying - another person, not for the sake of getting a laugh from a third who has - been let into the secret, but simply for the satisfaction of the mystifier - himself. The forms that such a scheme of humour may assume are various. - One of the most common is an affectation of extraordinary stupidity. It is - usually provoked by the deliverance of a platitude by a stranger. The - humourist pretends that he never heard such a statement before, and asks - to have it repeated. When this is done, there is usually a pause in which - the profoundest thought is suggested; then the clouds are seen to clear - away, and the perplexity on the man's face gives way to intelligence; he - has grasped the meaning of the phrase at last, and he announces his - victory with sparkling eyes, and forthwith puts quite a wrong construction - upon the simplest words. His chuckling is brought to a sudden stop by the - amazed protest of the victim against the suggested solution of the - obvious. Thus, with consummate art, the man is led on to explain at - length, with ridiculous emphasis, the exact meaning of his platitude; but - it is all to no purpose. The humourist shakes his head; he pretends that - the cleverness of the other is too much for him to grasp all in a moment; - it's a fine thing to have learning, to be sure, but these things may be - best not meddled with by ignorant creatures like himself; and so he goes - off murmuring his admiration for the fine display of wisdom that comes so - easy-like from the man whom he has been fooling. - </p> - <p> - This form of humour is indulged in by some Irishmen simply for the - satisfaction it gives them to indulge in it. They never hurry off to - acquaint a neighbour with what they have done, and they are quite pleased - with the thought that the person on whom they have been imposing will tell - the whole story of their extraordinary obtuseness to some one else; it - never strikes them that that some one else may fail to see through the - trick, and actually be convinced of the existence of their obtuseness. But - if such a possibility did occur to them, they would be all the better - pleased: they would feel that they had fooled two instead of one. - </p> - <p> - But, of course, the most widely recognised form of Irish humour is that - known as the “bull.” This is the delivery of a paradox so obvious as to be - detected—after a brief consideration—by an Englishman or even—after - an additional space for thought—by a Scotsman. But where the fun - comes in is (in the Irishman's eyes) when the others assume that the - humour of the bull is involuntary; and this is just what the Englishman - has been doing, and what the Irishman has been encouraging him to do, for - centuries. The Englishman is so busy trying to make it appear that he is - cleverer than he really is, he cannot see the humour of any man trying to - make out that he is more stupid than he really is. Let no one fancy for a - moment that the humour of an Irish bull is involuntary. It is a form of - expression that may be due to a peculiar twist in the Irishman's mind—indeed, - every form of humour may be said to be due to a peculiar twist of the mind—but - it is as much a figure of speech as irony or satire. “Blarney” and - “palaver” are other forms of speech in which the Irish of some generations - ago indulged with great freedom, and both are essentially Irish and - essentially humorous, though occasionally borrowed and clumsily worn on - the other side of the Channel, just as the bernous of the Moor is worn by - an English missionary when lecturing in the village schoolroom (with a - magic-lantern) on The Progress of Christianity in Morocco. - </p> - <p> - It would be interesting to make a scientific inquiry into the origin and - the maintenance of all these forms of expression among the Irish; but it - is unnecessary to do so in this place. It is enough if we remind English - readers of the existence of such forms even in the present day, when there - is so little need for their display. It can without difficulty be - understood by any one, however superficially acquainted with the history - of Ireland for the past thousand years, that “blarney” and “palaver” were - as necessary to the existence of the natives of the island as suspicion - and vigilance were to the existence of the invaders. But it is not so - apparent why Irishmen should be given to rush into the extremes of - bragging on the one hand, and self-depreciation on the other. Bragging is, - however, as much an endowment of Nature for the protection of a species or - a race as is imitation or mimicry. The Irishman who was able by the - exercise of this gift to intimidate the invaders, escaped a violent death - and transmitted his art to his children. The practice of the art of - self-depreciation was quite as necessary for the existence of the Irish - race up to the time of the passing of the first Land Act. For several - generations an Irishman was not allowed to own a horse of greater value - than five pounds; and every Irish agriculturist who improved the miserable - cabin which he was supposed to share with his pigs and his fowl, might - rest certain that his rent would be raised out of all proportion to his - improvements. In these circumstances it can easily be understood that it - was accounted a successful joke for a man who was doing tolerably well to - put on a poor face when in the presence of an inquiry agent of the absent - landlord—to run down all his own efforts and to depreciate generally - his holding, and thus to save himself from the despicable treatment which - was meted out to the unfortunate people by the conquerors of their - country. - </p> - <p> - It is not necessary to do more than make these suggestions to a scientific - investigator who may be disposed to devote some time to the question of - the origin of certain forms of Irish humour; it is enough for us, in - considering the mystery of that typical Irishman, Oliver Goldsmith, to - know that such forms of humour as we have specified have an actual - existence. Such knowledge is a powerful illuminant to a reader of - Boswell's and Beattie's stories of the stupidity of Goldsmith. A fine - flood of light is thrown upon the apparent mystery of the inspiration of - this idiot—of this man “who wrote like an angel and talked like poor - poll.” - </p> - <p> - Goldsmith was just too successful in maintaining that gravity which is the - very essence of those forms of humour in which he was constantly indulging - for his own satisfaction; the mask of gravity was such a good fit that the - short-sighted people who were around him never penetrated it. He was - making fools of the people about him, never giving a thought to the - possibility that they would transmit to posterity the impression which his - attitude conveyed to them, which was that he was a shallow fool. - </p> - <p> - Of course, it would be as absurd to contend that Goldsmith never made a - fool of himself as it would be to assume that Johnson never made a fool of - himself, or that Boswell ever failed to do so. The occasions upon which he - made himself ridiculous must have been numerous, but out of the many - incidents which Boswell and Beattie and Cooke and the others bring forward - as proofs of his stupidity there are few that will not bear to be - interpreted as instances of his practice of a form of humour well known in - Ireland. If his affectation of chagrin at the admiration given to the - Panton Street puppets, followed by the boast, “I could do it as well - myself,” was not humorous, then indeed there is nothing humorous under the - sun. If his object of setting the room roaring with laughter was not - achieved the night when at the club he protested that the oratory of Burke - was nothing—that all oratory, as a matter of fact, was only a knack—and - forthwith stood upon a chair and began to stutter, all that can be said is - that the famous club at Gerrard Street was more stolid than could be - believed. If his strutting about the room where he and his friends were - awaiting a late-comer to dinner, entreating Johnson and the rest to pay - particular attention to the cut of his new peach-bloom coat, and declaring - that Filby, his tailor, had told him that when any one asked him who had - made the garment he was not to forget Filby's address, did not help - materially to enliven the tedium of that annoying wait, all that can be - said is that Thrale, as well as Boswell, must have been of the party. - </p> - <p> - If a novelist, anxious to depict a typical humorous Irishman, were to show - his hero acting as Boswell says Goldsmith acted, would not every reader - acknowledge that he was true to the character of a comical Irishman? If a - playwriter were to put the scene on the stage, would any one in the - audience fail to see that the Goldsmith of the piece was fooling? Every - one in the club—Boswell best of all—was aware of the fact that - Goldsmith had the keenest admiration for Burke, and that he would be the - last man in the world to decry his powers. As for the peach-bloom coat, it - had been the butt of much jesting on the part of his friends; the elder of - the Miss Hornecks had written him a letter of pretty “chaff” about it, all - of which he took in good part. He may have bought the coat originally - because he liked the tint of the velvet; but assuredly when he found that - it could be made the subject of a jest he did not hesitate to jest upon it - himself. How many times have we not seen in Ireland a man behave in - exactly the same way under similar conditions—a boisterous young - huntsman who had put on pink for the first time, and was strutting with - much pride before an admiring group of servants, every one of whom had - some enthusiastic remark to make about the fit of the coat, until at last - the youth, pointing out the perfection of the gilt buttons, murmured: “Oh, - but isn't this a great day for Ireland!” - </p> - <p> - What a pity it was that Mr. Boswell had not been present at such a scene! - Can we not hear his comments upon the character of the young man who had - actually been so carried away by his vanity that he was heard to express - the opinion that the fortunes of his country would be materially affected - by the fact of the buttons of his new coat being gilt? (It was this same - Mr. Boswell, the critic of Goldsmith's all too attractive costume, who, - when going to see Pitt for the first time, put on Corsican native dress, - pretending that he did so in order to interest Pitt in General Paoli.) - </p> - <p> - In reading these accounts of Goldsmith's ways and the remarks of his - associates it must be noticed that some of these gentlemen had now and - again an uneasy impression that there was more in the poet's stupidity - than met the eye. Sir Joshua Reynolds was his closest friend, and it was - the business of the painter to endeavour to get below the surface of his - sitters. The general idea that prevails in the world is that he was rather - successful in his attempts to reproduce, not merely their features, but - their characters as well; and Sir Joshua saw enough beneath the rude - exterior of the man to cause him to feel toward Goldsmith as he felt for - none of his other friends. When the news of his death was brought to the - painter, he laid down his brushes and spent the day in seclusion. When it - is remembered that he spent every day of the week, not even excepting - Sunday, in his studio, the depth of his grief for the loss of his friend - will be understood. Upon more than one occasion Reynolds asserted that - Goldsmith was diverting himself by trying to make himself out to be more - stupid than he really was. Malone, whose judgment was rarely at fault, - whether it was exercised in the detection of fraud or in the discovery of - genius, was in perfect agreement with Reynolds on this point, and was - always ready to affirm that Boswell was unjust in his remarks upon - Goldsmith and the conclusions to which he came in respect of his - character. It is not necessary for one to have an especially vivid - imagination to enable one to see what was the expression on Malone's face - when he came upon the patronising passage in the <i>Life of Johnson</i> in - which Boswell stated that for his part he was always glad to hear “honest - Dr. Goldsmith” converse. “Puppy!” cried Johnson upon one occasion when a - certain commentator had patronised a text out of all recognition. What - would he have said had he heard Goldsmith patronised by Boswell? - </p> - <p> - So far as Goldsmith's actual vanity is concerned, all that can be said at - this time is that had it existed in the offensive form which it assumes in - some of Boswell's stories, Goldsmith would never have won the friendship - of those men and women who were his friends before he had made a - reputation for himself by the publication of <i>The 'Traveller</i>. If he - had had an extravagant opinion of his own capacity as a poet, he would - certainly never have suffered Johnson to make an attempt to improve upon - one of his poems; but Goldsmith not only allowed him to do so, but - actually included the lines written by Johnson when he published the poem. - Had he been eaten up by vanity, he would not have gone wandering down the - Mall in St. James's Park while his comedy was being played for the first - time before a delighted house. The really vain man was the author of The - Vanity of Human Wishes, who bought the showiest set of garments he could - find and sat in all their glory in the front row of the boxes on the night - when Garrick produced his tragedy of <i>Irene</i>—Garrick whom he - kept out of the Club for nine years simply because the actor had expressed - a wish to become one of the original members. The really vain man was the - one who made his stock story his account of his conversation with the King - in the Royal Library. Every one sees this now, and every one saw it, - except Boswell, when the <i>Life</i> was flung in the face of a convulsed - public, for the public of the year 1791 were as little aware of the real - value of the book as the author was of the true character of his hero and - his hero's friend Goldsmith. - </p> - <p> - After all, there would be no better way of arriving at a just conclusion - on the subject of Goldsmith's stupidity than by submitting the whole of - the case to an ordinary man accustomed to the many peculiarities of - Irishmen, especially in the exercise of their doubtful gift of humour. - “Here is a man,” we must say, “who became the most intimate friend of - people of title and the dearest friend of many men of brains. When the - most exclusive Club of the day was started his place as a member was not - disputed, even by the man who invented the word 'clubbable,' and knew what - it meant into the bargain; when the Royal Academy of Arts was started he - was invited to become one of its professors. Some of the wittiest things - recorded by the most diligent recorder of witty things that the world has - ever known, were uttered by him. Upon one occasion when walking among the - busts of the poets in Westminster Abbey with a friend, the latter pointing - around said: - </p> - <p> - “'<i>Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis</i>.' - </p> - <p> - “Leaving the Abbey and walking down the Strand to Temple Bar they saw the - heads of the men who had been captured and decapitated for taking part in - the Rebellion of the year 1745, bleaching in the winds in accordance with - the terms of the sentence for high treason. - </p> - <p> - “'<i>Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis</i>,' murmured the man of - whom we speak. Upon another occasion this same friend of his, who had a - unique reputation for speaking in the most ponderous language, even when - dealing with the simplest matters, asserted that the writing of the - dialogue in some recently published fables where fish were represented as - conversing, was very simple. 'Not so simple at all,' said the other, 'for - were you to write them, you would make every minnow talk like a whale.' - </p> - <p> - “In the course of a few years, in addition to compiling histories, which - remained standard educational works for more than a century, and several - other books, he wrote a novel which received the highest praise from the - greatest intellects in Europe, and which is still read with delight by - thousands of people of all nationalities; a poem of which almost every - line is quoted daily in conversation—a poem which contains metaphors - that have been repeated for generations in the Senate, in the Court of - Law, and in the Church; and a play which has been pronounced the truest - comedy in the English language. He died at an early age, and a memorial of - his genius was given a place in Westminster Abbey. The inscription was - written by the most distinguished man of letters in England, and although - highly eulogistic, was considered by the greatest painter in the world and - the greatest orator in the world to fall short of doing justice to the - subject. - </p> - <p> - “But, on the other hand, the man of whom we speak was said by a Scotchman, - who himself was occasionally referred to as a cur and sometimes as an ape, - and more than once as a coxcomb, to have been roused to a frenzy of envy, - because some officers, passing through a square in a French town, looked - admiringly at two lovely girls who were at a window, ignoring him at - another window; and again because his friends spoke with favour of the - dexterity of a wooden figure dressed as a soldier, and yet again (on - another authority) because one of his friends read a passage from - Shakespeare, and affirmed that it was magnificent. Now, would you say,” we - should ask the authority to whom we are supposed to be stating a case—“would - you say that this man was in earnest when, in the first of the instances - quoted, he walked up and down the room in the French hotel asserting 'that - although the young ladies, of whom he was extremely fond, might have their - admirers, there were places where he, too, was given admiration'? Would - you say that he showed ill-temper or wit when, in the second instance, he - declared with warmth that he could toss a halbert quite as well as any - wooden figure? Would you say that——” - </p> - <p> - But we should not get any further than this in stating our case to a man - acquainted with the Irish and their humour: he would think that we were - taking a leaf out of the book of Irish humour, and endeavouring to fool - him by asking him to pronounce a grave opinion upon the obvious; he would - not stay to give us a chance of asking him whether he thought that the - temptation of making “Noll” rhyme with “Poll,” was not too great to be - resisted by the greatest farceur of his time, in the presence of a - humorous colleague called Oliver; and whether an impecunious but witty - Irishman begged his greatest friend not to give him the nickname of Goldy, - because his dignity was hurt thereby, or simply because it was tantalising - for one to be called “Goldy,” whose connection with gold was usually so - transitory. - </p> - <p> - If people will only read the stories told of poor Goldsmith's vanity, and - envy, and coxcombry, with a handbook of Irish humour beside them, the - conclusion to which they will come must, we think, be that Goldsmith was - an Irishman, and that, on the whole, he made very good fun of Boswell, who - was a Scotsman, but that in the long run Boswell got very much the better - of him. Scotsmen usually laugh last. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE BEST COMEDY OF THE CENTURY - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>E occupied one - room in the farmhouse—the guest-chamber it had probably been called - when the farm was young. It was a pretty spacious apartment up one pair of - stairs and to the right of the landing, and from its window there was a - pleasing prospect of a paddock with wheat-fields beyond; there was a drop - in the landscape in the direction of Hendon, and here was a little wood. - The farmer's name was Selby, a married man with a son of sixteen, and - younger children, and the farmhouse was the nearest building to the sixth - milestone on the Edgware Road in the year 1771. - </p> - <p> - He was invariably alluded to as “The Gentleman,” and the name did very - well for him, situated as he was in the country; in the town and among his - acquaintances it would serve badly as a means of identification. He was - never referred to as “The Gentleman” of his circle. In his room in the - farmhouse there was his bed and table—a large table littered with - books; it took two chaises to carry his books hither from his rooms in the - Temple. Here he sat and wrote the greater part of the day, and when he was - very busy he would scarcely be able to touch the meals which were sent up - to him from the kitchen. But he was by no means that dignified type of the - man of letters who would shrink from fellowship with the farmer or his - family. He would frequently come down his stairs into the kitchen and - stand with his back to the fire, conversing with the housewife, and - offering her his sympathy when she had made him aware of the fact that the - privilege of being the wife of a substantial farmer, though undoubtedly - fully recognised by the world, carried many troubles in its train, not - only in connection with the vicissitudes of churning, but in regard to the - feeding of the calves, which no man could attend to properly, and the - making of the damson and cowslip wine. He told her that the best maker of - cowslip wine whom he had ever met was a Mrs. Primrose; her husband had at - one time occupied the Vicarage of Wakefield—he wondered if Mrs. - Selby had ever heard of her. Mrs. Selby's knowledge did not go so far, but - she thought that Mrs. Primrose's recipe must be a good one indeed if it - brought forth better results than her own; and the gentleman said that - although he had never tasted Mrs. Selby's he would still have no - hesitation in backing it for flavour, body, headiness, and all other - qualities associated with the distillation of the cowslip, against the - Primrose brand. - </p> - <p> - And then he would stare at the gammon in the rafter and mutter some words, - burst into a roar of laughter, and stumble upstairs to his writing, - leaving the good woman to thank Heaven that she was the wife of a - substantial farmer and not of an unsubstantial gentleman of letters, who - could not carry on a simple conversation without having some queer thought - fly across his brain for all the world like one of the swallows on the - water at Hendon, only maybe a deal harder to catch. She knew that the - gentleman had hurried to his paper and ink to complete the capture of that - fleet-flitting thought which had come to him when he had cast his eyes - toward the gammon, though how an idea worth putting on paper—after a - few muttered words and a laugh—could lurk about a common piece of - hog's-flesh was a mystery to her. - </p> - <p> - And then upon occasions the gentleman would take a walk abroad; the - farmer's son had more than once come upon him strolling about the fields - with his hands in his pockets and his head bent toward the ground, still - muttering fitfully and occasionally giving a laugh that made the grey pad - in the paddock look up slowly, still munching the grass. Now and again he - paid a visit to his friend Mr. Hugh Boyd at the village of Kenton, and - once he returned late at night from such a visit, without his shoes. He - had left them in a quagmire, he said, and it was only with a struggle that - he saved himself from being engulfed as well. That was the story of his - shoes which young Selby remembered when he was no longer young. And there - was another story which he remembered, but it related to his slippers. The - fact was that the gentleman had acquired the bad habit of reading in bed, - and the table on which his candlestick stood being several feet away from - his pillow, he saved himself the trouble of rising to extinguish it by - flinging a slipper at it. In the morning the overturned candle was usually - found side by side on the floor with an unaccountably greasy slipper. This - method of discharging an important domestic duty differed considerably - from Johnson's way of compassing the same end. Johnson, being extremely - short-sighted, was compelled to hold the candle close to the book when - reading in bed, so that he had no need to use his slipper as an - extinguisher. No, but he found his pillow very handy for this purpose. - When he had finished his reading he threw away the book and went asleep - with his candle under his pillow. - </p> - <p> - The gentleman at the farm went about a good deal in his slippers, and with - his shirt loose at the collar—the latter must have been but one of - his very customary negligences, or Sir Joshua Reynolds would not have - painted him thus. Doubtless the painter had for long recognised the - interpretative value of this loosened collar above that of the velvet and - silk raiment in which the man sometimes appeared before the wondering eyes - of his friends. - </p> - <p> - But if the painter had never had an opportunity of studying the - picturesqueness of his negligence, he had more than one chance of doing so - within the farmhouse. - </p> - <p> - Young Selby recollected that upon at least one occasion Sir Joshua, his - friend Sir William Chambers, and Dr. Johnson had paid a visit to the - gentleman who lodged at the farm. He remembered that for that reception of - so distinguished a company the farmhouse parlour had been opened and tea - provided. There must have been a good deal of pleasant talk between the - gentleman and his friends at this time, and probably young Selby heard an - astonishingly loud laugh coming from the enormous visitor with the brown - coat and the worsted stockings, as the gentleman endeavoured to tell his - guests something of the strange scenes which he was introducing in the - comedy he was writing in that room upstairs. It was then a comedy without - a name, but young Selby heard that it was produced the following year in - London and that it was called <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i>. - </p> - <p> - This was the second year that the gentleman had spent at the farm. The - previous summer he had been engaged on another work which was certainly as - comical as the comedy. It was called <i>Animated Nature</i>, and it - comprised some of the most charmingly narrated errors in Natural History - ever offered to the public, and the public have always been delighted to - read pages of fiction if it is only called “Natural History.” This is one - of the best-established facts in the history of the race. After all, <i>Animated - Nature</i> was true to half its title: every page was animated. - </p> - <p> - It was while he was so engaged, with one eye on Buffon and another on his - MS., that he found Farmer Selby very useful to him. Farmer Selby knew a - great deal about animals—the treatment of horses under various - conditions, and the way to make pigs pay; he had probably his theories - respecting the profit to be derived from keeping sheep, and how to feed - oxen that are kept for the plough. All such knowledge he must have placed - at the disposal of the author, though the farmer was possibly too careless - an observer of the simple incidents of the fields to be able to verify - Buffon's statement, reproduced in Animated Nature, to the effect that cows - shed their horns every two years; he was probably also too deficient in - the spirit in which a poet sets about the work of compilation to be able - to assent to the belief that a great future was in store for the zebra - when it should become tame and perform the ordinary duties of a horse. But - if the author was somewhat discouraged in his speculations now and again - by Farmer Selby, he did not allow his fancy as a naturalist to be wholly - repressed. He had heard a story of an ostrich being ridden horsewise in - some regions, and of long journeys being accomplished in this way in - incredibly short spaces of time, and forthwith his imagination enabled him - to see the day when this bird would become as amenable to discipline as - the barn-door fowl, though discharging the tasks of a horse, carrying its - rider across England with the speed of a racer! - </p> - <p> - It was while he was engaged on this pleasant work of fancy and imagination - that Mr. Boswell paid him a visit, bringing with him as a witness Mr. - Mickle, the translator of the Lusiad. “The Gentleman” had gone away for - the day, Mrs. Selby explained; but she did not know Mr. Boswell. She could - not prevent him from satisfying his curiosity in respect of Dr. Goldsmith. - He went upstairs to his room, and he was fully satisfied. He found the - walls all scrawled over with outline drawings of quite a number of - animals. Having thus satisfied himself that the author of <i>Animated - Nature</i> was working in a thoroughly conscientious manner he came away. - He records the incident himself, but he does not say whether or not he was - able to recognise any of the animals from their pictures. - </p> - <p> - But now it was a professed and not an unconscious comedy that occupied Dr. - Goldsmith. Whatever disappointment he may have felt at the indifferent - success of the first performance of <i>The Good-Natured Man</i>—and - he undoubtedly felt some—had been amply redeemed by the money which - accrued to him from the “author's rights” and the sale of the play; and he - had only awaited a little encouragement from the managers to enable him to - begin another comedy. But the managers were not encouraging, and he was - found by his friends one day to be full of a scheme for the building of a - new theatre for the production of new plays, in order that the existing - managers might not be able to carry on their tyranny any longer. Such a - scheme has been revived every decade since Goldsmith's time, but never - with the least success. Johnson, whose sound sense was rarely at fault, - laughed at the poet's project for bringing down the mighty from their - seats, upon which Goldsmith cried: “Ay, sir, this matter may be nothing to - you who can now shelter yourself behind the corner of your pension,” and - he doubtless went on to describe the condition of the victims of the - tyranny of which he complained; but it is questionable if his doing so - effected more than to turn Johnson's laughter into another and a wider - channel. - </p> - <p> - But Goldsmith spoke feelingly. He was certainly one of the ablest writers - of the day, but no pension was ever offered to him, though on every hand - bounties were freely bestowed on the most indifferent and least deserving - of authors—men whose names were forgotten before the end of the - century, and during the lifetime of the men themselves remembered only by - the pay clerk to the almoner. - </p> - <p> - Of course, the scheme for bringing the managers to their senses never - reached a point of serious consideration; and forthwith Goldsmith began to - illustrate, for the benefit of posterity, the depths to which the - stupidity of the manager of a play-house can occasionally fall. The public - have always had abundant proofs of the managers' stupidity afforded them - in the form of the plays which they produce; but the history of the - production of the most brilliant comedy of the eighteenth century is - practically unique; for it is the history of the stupidity of a manager - doing his best to bring about the failure of a play which he was producing - at his own theatre. He had predicted the failure of the piece, and it must - strike most people that the manager of a theatre who produces for a - failure will be as successful in compassing his end as a jockey who rides - for a fall. Colman believed that he was in the fortunate position of those - prophets who had the realisation of their predictions in their own hands. - He was mistaken in this particular case. Although he was justified on - general principles in assuming his possession of this power, yet he had - made no allowance for the freaks of genius. He was frustrated in his - amiable designs by this incalculable force—this power which he had - treated as a <i>quantité négligeable</i>. A man who has been accustomed - all his life to count only on simple ability in the people about him, is, - on suddenly being brought face to face with genius, like an astronomer who - makes out his tables of a new object on the assumption that it is a fixed - star, when all the time it is a comet, upsetting by its erratic course all - his calculations, and demanding to be reckoned with from a standpoint that - applies to itself alone. - </p> - <p> - The stars of Colman's theatrical firmament were such as might safely be - counted on; but Goldsmith's genius was not of this order. The manager's - stupidity lay in his blunt refusal to recognise a work of genius when it - was brought to him by a man of genius. - </p> - <p> - It has been said that the central idea of the plot of <i>She Stoops to - Conquer</i> was suggested by an incident that came under Goldsmith's - notice before he left Ireland. However this may be, it cannot be denied - that the playing of the practical joke of Tony Lumpkin upon the two - travellers is “very Irish.” It would take a respectable place in the list - of practical jokes of the eighteenth century played in Ireland. In that - island a collector of incidents for a comedy during the past two centuries - would require to travel with a fat notebook—so would the collector - of incidents for a tragedy. Goldsmith's task may not have been to invent - the central idea, but to accomplish the much more difficult duty of making - that incident seem plausible, surrounding it with convincing scenery and - working it out by the aid of the only characters by which it could be - worked out with a semblance of being natural. This was a task which genius - only could fulfil. The room whose walls bore ample testimony to its - occupant's sense of the comedy of a writer's life, witnessed the supreme - achievement in the “animated nature” of <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i>. It - contains the two chief essentials to a true comedy—animation and - nature. - </p> - <p> - It is certain that the play was constructed and written by Goldsmith - without an adviser. He was possibly shrewd enough to know that if he were - to take counsel with any of his friends—Garrick, Johnson, Reynolds, - or Colman—he would not be able to write the play which he had a mind - to write. The artificial comedy had a vogue that year, and though it may - have been laughed at in private by people of judgment, yet few of those - within the literary circle of which Johnson was the acknowledged centre, - would have had the courage to advise a poet writing a piece in hopes of - making some money, to start upon a plot as farcical as Nature herself. At - that period of elegance in art everything that was natural was pronounced - vulgar. Shakespeare himself had to be made artificial before he could be - played by Garrick. Goldsmith must have known that his play would be called - vulgar, and that its chances of being accepted and produced by either of - the managers in London would be doubtful; but, all the same, he wrote the - piece in accordance with his own personal views, and many a time during - the next two years he must have felt that he was a fool for doing so. - </p> - <p> - However this may be, the play was finished some time in the summer of - 1771; and on September 7th the author was back at his rooms in the Temple - and writing to his friend Bennet Langton, whom he had promised to visit at - his place in Lincolnshire. “I have been almost wholly in the country at a - farmer's house, quite alone, trying to write a comedy. It is now finished, - but when or how it will be acted, or whether it will be acted at all, are - questions I cannot resolve,” he told Langton. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0011" id="linkimage-0011"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0241.jpg" alt="0241 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0241.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - The misgivings which he had at this time were well founded. He considered - that the fact of his having obtained from Colman a promise to read any - play that he might write constituted an obligation on his part to submit - this piece to Colman rather than to Garrick. He accordingly placed it in - Colman's hands; but it is impossible to say if the work of elaborate - revision which Goldsmith began in the spring of 1772 was due to the - comments made by this manager on the first draft or to the author's - reconsideration of his work as a whole. But the amended version was - certainly in Colman's hands in the summer of this year (1772). The - likelihood is that Colman would have refused point-blank to have anything - to do with the comedy after he had read the first draft had it not been - that just at this time Goldsmith's reputation was increased to a - remarkable extent by the publication of his Histories. It would be - difficult to believe how this could be, but, as usual, we are indebted to - Mr. Boswell for what information we have on this point. Boswell had been - for some time out of London, and on returning he expressed his amazement - at the celebrity which Goldsmith had attained. “Sir,” he cried to Johnson, - “Goldsmith has acquired more fame than all the officers last war who were - not generals!” - </p> - <p> - “Why, sir,” said Johnson, “you will find ten thousand fit to do what they - did before you find one who does what Goldsmith has done”—a bit of - dialogue that reminds one of the reply of the avaricious <i>prima donna</i> - when the Emperor refused to accede to her terms on the plea that were he - to pay her her price she would be receiving more than any of his marshals. - “Eh bien, mon sire. Let your marshals sing to you.” - </p> - <p> - At any rate, Colman got the play—and kept it. He would give the - author no straightforward opinion as to its prospects in his hands. He - refused to say when he would produce it—nay, he declined to promise - that he would produce it at all. Goldsmith was thus left in torment for - month after month, and the effect of the treatment that he received was to - bring on an illness, and the effect of his illness was to sink him to a - depth of despondency that even Goldsmith had never before sounded. The - story told by Cooke of his coming upon the unhappy man in a coffeehouse, - and of the latter's attempt to give him some of the details of the plot of - the comedy, speaks for itself. “I shook my head,” wrote Cooke, “and said - that I was afraid the audience, under their then sentimental impressions, - would think it too broad and farcical for comedy.” This was poor comfort - for the author; but after a pause he shook the man by the hand, saying - piteously: “I am much obliged to you, my dear friend, for the candour of - your opinion, but it is all I can do; for alas! I find that my genius, if - ever I had any, has of late totally deserted me.” - </p> - <p> - This exclamation is the most piteous that ever came from a man of genius; - and there can be no doubt of the sincerity of its utterance, for it was - during these miserable months that he began a new novel, but found himself - unable to get further than a few chapters. And all this time, when, in - order to recover his health, he should have had no worries of a lesser - nature, he was being harassed by the trivial cares of a poor, generous - man's life—those mosquito vexations which, accumulating, become more - intolerable than a great calamity. - </p> - <p> - He had once had great hopes of good resulting from Colman's taking up the - management of Covent Garden, and had written congratulations to him within - the first week of his entering into possession of the theatre. A very - different letter he had now to write to the same man. Colman had - endeavoured to evade the responsibility of giving him a direct answer - about the play. He clearly meant that the onus of refusing it should lie - at the door of some one else. - </p> - <p> - “Dear Sir,” wrote the author in January, 1773, “I entreat you'll release - me from that state of suspense in which I have been kept for a long time. - Whatever objections you have made or shall make to my play I will - endeavour to remove and not argue about them. To bring in any new judges - either of its merits or faults I can never submit to. Upon a former - occasion when my other play was before Mr. Garrick he offered to bring me - before Mr. Whitehead's tribunal, but I refused the proposal with - indignation. I hope I shall not experience as hard treatment from you as - from him.... For God's sake take the play and let us make the best of it, - and let me have the same measure at least which you have given as bad - plays as mine.” - </p> - <p> - Upon receiving this letter, Colman at once returned to him the manuscript - of the play, and on the author's unfolding it he found that on the back of - almost every page, on the blank space reserved for the prompter's - hieroglyphs, some sneering criticism was scrawled. To emphasise this - insult Colman had enclosed a letter to the effect that if the author was - still unconvinced that the piece would be a failure, he, Colman, would - produce it. - </p> - <p> - Immediately on receipt of this contemptible effort at contempt Goldsmith - packed up the play and sent it to Garrick at Drury Lane. That same - evening, however, he met Johnson and told him what he had done; and - Johnson, whose judgment on the practical side of authorship was rarely at - fault, assured him that he had done wrong and that he must get the - manuscript back without delay, and submit to Colman's sneers for the sake - of having the comedy produced. Upon Johnson's promising to visit Colman, - and to urge upon him the claims of Goldsmith to his consideration, the - distracted author wrote to Drury Lane: - </p> - <p> - “Upon more mature deliberation and the advice of a sensible friend, I - begin to think it indelicate in me to throw upon you the odium of - confirming Mr. Colman's sentence. I therefore request that you will send - my play by my servant back; for having been assured of having it acted at - the other house, though I confess yours in every respect more to my wish, - yet it would be folly in me to forgo an advantage which lies in my power - of appealing from Mr. Colman's opinion to the judgment of the town.” - </p> - <p> - Goldsmith got back the play, and Johnson explained to him, as he did some - years later to Reynolds, that the solicitations which he had made to - Colman to put it in rehearsal without delay amounted almost to force. At - any rate, the play was announced and the parts distributed to the - excellent company which Colman controlled. It was soon proved that he - controlled some members of this company only too well. The spirit in, - which he set about the discharge of his duties as a manager was apparent - to every one during the earliest rehearsals. Johnson, writing to an - American correspondent, mentioned that Colman made no secret of his belief - that the play would be a failure. Far from it. He seems to have taken the - most extraordinary trouble to spread his belief far and wide; and when a - manager adopts such a course, what chance, one may ask, has the play? What - chance, the players could not but ask, have the players? - </p> - <p> - This was possibly the only occasion in the history of the English drama on - which such questions could be asked. If managers have a fault at all—a - question which is not yet ripe for discussion—it has never been in - the direction of depreciating a play which they are about to produce—that - is, of course, outside the author's immediate circle. It is only when the - play has failed that they sometimes allow that it was a bad one, and - incapable of being saved even by the fine acting of the company and the - sumptuous mounting. - </p> - <p> - But Colman controlled his company all too well, and after a day or two it - was announced that the leading lady, the accomplished Mrs. Abington, had - retired from the part of Miss Hardcastle; that Smith, known as Gentleman - Smith, had refused to play Young Marlow; and that Woodward, the most - popular comedian in the company, had thrown up the part of Tony Lumpkin. - </p> - <p> - Here, in one day, it seemed that Colman had achieved his aims, and the - piece would have to be withdrawn by the author. This was undoubtedly the - managerial view of the situation which had been precipitated by the - manager, and it was shared by those of the author's friends who understood - his character as indifferently as did Colman. They must all have been - somewhat amazed when the author quietly accepted the situation and - affirmed that he would rather that his play were damned by bad players - than merely saved by good acting. One of the company who had the sense to - perceive the merits of the piece, Shuter, the comedian, who was cast for - the part of old Hardcastle, advised Goldsmith to give Lewes, the - harlequin, the part of Young Marlow; Quick, a great favourite with the - public, was to act Tony Lumpkin; and, after a considerable amount of - wrangling, Mrs. Bulkley, lately Miss Wilford, who had been the Miss - Richland of <i>The Good-Natured Man</i>, accepted the part which the - capricious Mrs. Abington resigned. - </p> - <p> - Another start was made with the rehearsals of the piece, and further - efforts were made by Colman to bring about the catastrophe which he had - predicted. He refused to let a single scene be painted for the production, - or to supply a single new dress; his ground being that the money spent in - this way would be thrown away, for the audience would never allow the - piece to proceed beyond the second act. - </p> - <p> - But happily Dr. Johnson had his reputation as a prophet at stake as well - as Colman, and he was singularly well equipped by Nature for enforcing his - views on any subject. He could not see anything of what was going on upon - the stage; but his laugh at the succession of humorous things spoken by - the company must have had an inspiring effect upon every one, except - Colman. Johnson's laugh was the strongest expression of appreciation of - humour of which the century has a record. It was epic. To say that - Johnson's laugh at the rehearsals of <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i> saved - the piece would perhaps be going too far. But can any one question its - value as a counteracting agent to Colman's depressing influence on the - stage? Johnson was the only man in England who could make Colman (and - every one else) tremble, and his laugh had the same effect upon the - building in which it was delivered. It was the Sirocco against a wet - blanket. When one thinks of the feeling of awe which was inspired by the - name of Dr. Johnson, not only during the last forty years of the - eighteenth century, but well into the nineteenth, one begins to appreciate - the value of his vehement expression of satisfaction upon the people on - the stage. Goldsmith dedicated his play to Johnson, and assuredly the - compliment was well earned. Johnson it was who compelled Colman to produce - the piece, and Johnson it was who encouraged the company to do their best - for it, in spite of the fact that they were all aware that their doing - their best for it would be resented by their manager. - </p> - <p> - Reynolds also, another valuable friend to the author, sacrificed several - of his busiest hours in order to attend the rehearsals. His sister's - sacrifices to the same end were perhaps not quite so impressive, nor were - those made by that ingenious “country gentleman,” Mr. Cradock, referred to - by Walpole. Miss Horneck, his beautiful “Jessamy Bride,” and her sister, - lately married to Mr. Bunbury, bore testimony to the strength of their - friendship for the poet, by accompanying him daily to the theatre. - </p> - <p> - But, after all, these good friends had not many opportunities of showing - their regard for him in the same way; for the play must have had - singularly few rehearsals. Scarcely a month elapsed between the date of - Colman's receiving the manuscript on its being returned by Garrick and the - production of the piece. It is doubtful if more than ten rehearsals took - place after the parts were recast. If the manager kept the author in - suspense for eighteen months respecting the fate of his play, he - endeavoured to make up for his dilatoriness now. It was announced for - Monday, March 15th, and, according to Northcote, it was only on the - morning of that day that the vexed question of what the title should be - was settled. For some time the author and his friends had been talking the - matter over. “We are all in labour for a name to Goldy's play,” wrote - Johnson. <i>The Mistakes of a Night, The Old House a New Inn, and The - Belle's Stratagem</i> were suggested in turn. It was Goldsmith himself who - gave it the title under which it was produced. - </p> - <p> - On the afternoon of this day, March 15th, the author was the guest at a - dinner-party organised in his honour. It is easy to picture this - particular function. The truth was that Colman's behaviour had broken the - spirit not only of the author, but of the majority of his friends as well. - They would all make an effort to cheer up poor Goldsmith; but every one - knows how cheerless a function is one that is organised with such - charitable intentions. It is not necessary that one should have been in a - court of law watching the face of the prisoner in the dock when the jury - have retired to consider their verdict in order to appreciate the feelings - of Goldsmith when his friends made their attempt to cheer him up. The last - straw added on to the cheerlessness of the banquet was surely to be found - in the accident that every one wore black! The King of Sardinia had died a - short time before, and the Court had ordered mourning to be worn for some - weeks for this potentate. Johnson was very nearly outraging propriety by - appearing in coloured raiment, but George Steevens, who called for him to - go to the dinner, was fortunately in time to prevent such a breach of - etiquette. “I would not for ten pounds have seemed so retrograde to any - general observance,” cried Johnson in offering his thanks to his - benefactor. Happily the proprieties were saved; but what must have been - the effect of the appearance of these gentlemen in black upon the person - whom they meant to cheer up! - </p> - <p> - Reynolds told his pupil, Northcote, what effect these resources of gaiety - had upon Goldsmith. His mouth became so parched that he could neither eat - nor drink, nor could he so much as speak in acknowledgment of the - well-meant act of his friends. When the party after this entertainment set - out for the theatre they must have suggested, all being in black, a more - sombre procession than one is accustomed to imagine when conjuring up a - picture of an eighteenth-century theatre party. - </p> - <p> - And Goldsmith was missing! - </p> - <p> - Unfortunately Boswell was not present, or we should not be left in doubt - as to how it happened that no one thought of taking charge of Goldsmith. - But no one seemed to think of him, and so his disappearance was never - noticed. His friends arrived at the theatre and found their places, - Johnson in the front row of the boxes; and the curtain was rung up, and - Goldsmith was forgotten under the influence of that comedy which - constitutes his greatest claim to be remembered by theatre-goers of - to-day. - </p> - <p> - He was found by an acquaintance a couple of hours later wandering in the - Mall of St. James's Park, and was only persuaded to go to the theatre by - its being represented to him that his services might be required should it - be found necessary to alter something at the last moment. - </p> - <p> - Now, among the members of that distinguished audience there was a man - named Cumberland. He was the author of <i>The West Indian</i> and several - other plays, and he was regarded as one of the leaders of the sentimental - school, the demise of which was satirised in the prologue to this very - play which was being performed. Cumberland was a man who could never see a - particle of good in anything that was written by another. It was a - standing entertainment with Garrick to “draw him on” by suggesting that - some one had written a good scene in a play, or was about to produce an - interesting book. In a moment Cumberland was up, protesting against the - assumption that the play or the book could be worth anything. So wide a - reputation had he for decrying every other author that when Sheridan - produced <i>The Critic; or, the Tragedy Rehearsed</i>, his portrait was - immediately recognised in Sir Fretful Plagiary. - </p> - <p> - What must have been the feelings of this man when, from the first, the - play, which he had come to wreck, was received by the whole house with - uproarious applause? Well, we don't know what he felt like, but we know - what he looked like. One of the newspapers described him as “looking - glum,” and another contained a rhymed epigram describing him as weeping. - Goldsmith entered the theatre by the stage door at the beginning of the - fifth act, where Tony Lumpkin and his mother appear close to their own - house, and the former pretends that the chaise has broken down on - Crackscull Common. He had no sooner got into the “wings” than he heard a - hiss. “What's that, sir?” he whispered to Colman, who was beside him. - “Psha, sir! what signifies a squib when we have been sitting on a barrel - of gunpowder all night?” was the reply. The story is well known; and its - accuracy has never been im peached. And the next day it was well known - that that solitary hiss came from Cumberland, the opinion that it was due - to the malevolence of Macpherson, whose pretensions to the discovery of <i>Ossian</i> - were exposed by Johnson, being discredited. - </p> - <p> - But the effect of Colman's brutality and falsehood into the bargain had - not a chance of lasting long. The hiss was received with cries of “Turn - him out!” and, with an addition to the tumultuous applause of all the - house, Goldsmith must have been made aware in another instant of the fact - that he had written the best comedy of the day and that Colman had lied to - him. From the first there had been no question of sitting on a barrel of - gunpowder. Such applause could never greet the last act of a play the - first four acts of which had been doubtful. He must have felt that at last - he had conquered—that he had by one more achievement proved to his - own satisfaction—and he was hard to satisfy—that those friends - of his who had attributed genius to him had not been mistaken; that those - who, like Johnson and Percy and Reynolds, had believed in him before he - had written the work that made him famous, had not been misled. - </p> - <p> - The next day all London was talking of <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i> and of - Colman. Horace Walpole, who detested Goldsmith, and who found when he went - to see the play that it was deplorably vulgar, mentioned in a letter which - he wrote to Lady Ossory on the morning after the production that it had - “succeeded prodigiously,” and the newspapers were full of epigrams at the - expense of the manager. If Colman had had the sense to keep to himself his - forebodings of the failure of the piece, he would not have left himself - open to these attacks; but, as has been said, he took as much pains to - decry the coming production as he usually did to “puff” other pieces. It - would seem that every one had for several days been talking about nothing - else save the coming failure of Dr. Goldsmith's comedy. Only on this - assumption can one now understand the poignancy of the “squibs”—some - of them partook largely of the character of his own barrel of gunpowder—levelled - against Colman. He must have been quite amazed at the clamour that arose - against him; it became too much for his delicate skin, and he fled to Bath - to get out of the way of the scurrilous humourists who were making him a - target for their pop-guns. But even at Bath he failed to find a refuge. - Writing to Mrs. Thrale, Johnson said: “Colman is so distressed with abuse - that he has solicited Goldsmith to take him off the rack of the - newspapers.” - </p> - <p> - It was characteristic of Goldsmith that he should do all that was asked of - him and that he should make no attempt, either in public or in private, to - exult in his triumph over the manager. The only reference which he made to - his sufferings while Colman was keeping him on the rack was in a letter - which he wrote to his friend Cradock, who had written an epilogue for the - play, to explain how it was that this epilogue was not used at the first - representation. After saying simply, “The play has met with a success - beyond your expectation or mine,” he makes his explanation, and concludes - thus: “Such is the history of my stage adventure, and which I have at last - done with. I cannot help saying that I am very sick of the stage, and - though I believe I shall get three tolerable benefits, yet I shall on the - whole be a loser, even in a pecuniary light; my ease and comfort I - certainly lost while it was in agitation.” - </p> - <p> - Goldsmith showed that he bore no grudge against Colman; but the English - stage should bear him a grudge for his treatment of one of the few authors - of real genius who have contributed to it for the benefit of posterity. If - <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i> had been produced when it first came into the - manager's hands, Goldsmith would certainly not have written the words just - quoted. What would have been the result of his accepting the encouragement - of its production it is, of course, impossible to tell; but it is not - going too far to assume that the genius which gave the world <i>The - Good-Natured Man</i> and <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i> would have been - equal to the task of writing a third comedy equal in merit to either of - these. Yes, posterity owes Colman a grudge. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE JESSAMY BRIDE - </h2> - <h3> - A PERSONAL NOTE - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>OR some time after - the publication of my novel <i>The Jessamy Bride</i> my time was fully - occupied by replying to correspondents—strangers to me—who - were good enough to take an interest in Mary Horneck, the younger of the - two charming sisters with whom Goldsmith associated for several years of - his life on terms of the warmest affection. The majority of these - communications were of a very interesting character. Only one - correspondent told me I should not have allowed Oliver Goldsmith to die so - young, though two expressed the opinion that I should have made Goldsmith - marry Mary Horneck; nearly all the remaining communications which were - addressed to me contained inquiries as to the origin of the sobriquet - applied to Mary Horneck in Goldsmith's epistle. To each and to all such - inquiries I have, alas! been compelled to return the humiliating reply - that I have not yet succeeded in finding out what was the origin of the - family joke which made Goldsmith's allusions to “The Jessamy Bride” and - “Little Comedy” intelligible to the “Devonshire Crew” of Hornecks and - Reynoldses. I have searched volume after volume in the hope of having even - the smallest ray of light thrown upon this matter, but I have met with no - success. I began to feel, as every post brought me a sympathetic inquiry - as to the origin of the pet name, that I should take the bold step of - confessing my ignorance to the one gentleman who, I was confident, could - enlighten it. “If Dr. Brewer does not know why Mary Horneck was called - 'The Jessamy Bride,' no one alive can know it,” was what I said to myself. - Before I could write to Dr. Brewer the melancholy new's came of his death; - and very shortly afterwards I got a letter from his daughter, Mrs. Brewer - Hayman, in which she mentioned that her lamented father had been greatly - interested in my story, and asked if I could tell her what was the meaning - of the phrase. - </p> - <p> - It does certainly seem extraordinary that no biographer of Goldsmith, of - Reynolds, or of Burke, should have thought it worth while writing a letter - to the “Jessamy Bride” herself to ask her why she was so called by - Goldsmith. The biographers of Goldsmith and the editors of Boswell seem to - have had no hesitation in stating that Mary Horneck was the “Jessamy - Bride,” and that her elder sister was “Little Comedy”; but they do not - appear to have taken a wider view of their duties than was comprised in - this bare statement. The gossipy Northcote was surely in the secret, and - he might have revealed the truth without detracting from the interest of - the many inaccuracies in his volume. Northcote had an opportunity of - seeing daily the portrait of Mary which Sir Joshua painted, and which hung - in his studio until the day of his death, when it passed into the - possession of the original, who had become Mrs. Gwyn, having married - Colonel, afterwards General, Gwyn. - </p> - <p> - But although up to the present I have not obtained even as much evidence - as would be termed a clue by the sanguine officers of Scotland Yard, as to - the origin of the sobriquet, I am not without hope that some day one of my - sympathetic correspondents will be able to clear up the matter for me. I - am strengthened in this hope by the fact that among those who were kind - enough to write to me, was a lady who can claim relationship to Mary - Horneck, and who did not hesitate to send to me a bundle of letters, - written in the early part of the century by the “Jessamy Bride” herself, - with permission to copy and print any portion of the correspondence that I - might consider of interest. Of this privilege I gladly avail myself, - feeling sure that the interest which undoubtedly attaches to many portions - of the letters will exculpate me for the intrusion of a personal note into - these papers. - </p> - <p> - The grandfather of my correspondent (Mrs. Cor-ballis, of Ratrath, co. - Meath, Ireland) was first cousin to the Hornecks. He was the Rev. George - Mangles, chaplain to George III when Mrs. Gwyn (Mary Horneck) was Woman of - the Bedchamber to the Queen. As General Gwyn was Equerry to the King it - can easily be understood that the two families should be on terms of the - most intimate friendship. My correspondent mentions that her mother, who - only died thirteen years ago, was almost every year a visitor at the house - of Mrs. Gwyn, at Kew, and said that she retained her beauty up to the very - last. Confirmation of this statement is to be found in a passage in the - “Jerningham Letters.” Lady Bedingfeld's Journal contains the following - entry opposite the date “September 19th, 1833”: - </p> - <p> - “When the Queen returned to the drawing-room we found several ladies - there. I observed a very old lady with striking remains of beauty, and - whose features seemed very familiar to me. I felt to know her features by - heart, and at last I heard her name, Mrs. Gwyn, the widow of a General, - and near ninety! I had never seen her before, but when I was a girl my - uncle the Poet, gave me a portrait of her, copied from Sir Jos. Reynolds, - small size in a Turkish costume and attitude. This picture is still at - Cossey, and of course must be very like her since it led me to find her - out.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0012" id="linkimage-0012"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0261.jpg" alt="0261 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0261.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - The picture referred to must certainly have been “very like” the original, - for it was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1772, sixty-one years before. - The engraving of it cannot but make one feel how exquisite must have been - the charm of Goldsmith's young friend, who survived him by sixty-six - years; for Mrs. Gywn did not die until 1840. - </p> - <p> - Very pathetic indeed it is to look at the sweet girlish face, which - appears in this portrait and also in that of the two sisters done in chalk - by the same master-hand, and then to read some of the passages in the - letters in which the writer refers to her old age and feebleness. Happily, - with Lady Bedingfeld's diary before us, our imagination is not largely - drawn on for a picture of the “Jessamy Bride” broken down by age and - infirmity. The woman who can be easily recognised by a stranger at - seventy-nine by her likeness to a portrait painted at the age of eighteen, - would make Ninon de l'Enclos envious. - </p> - <p> - The letters are written to Mrs. Mangles, the widow of the Chaplain to - George III, and the majority touch upon private matters with - sprightliness, and occasionally a delicate humour, such as Goldsmith would - certainly have appreciated. We seem to hear, while reading these passages, - faint echoes of the girlish laughter which must have rung through that - room in the inn at Calais, when Goldsmith paced up and down in a mock fury - because two officers passing the window looked more eagerly at the girls - than at him. - </p> - <p> - It is obvious, however, that the Queen's Woman of the Bedchamber would - write occasionally to her friend on some topic of public interest; - consequently we find, in the course of the correspondence, many passages - which throw a flood of light upon the incidents of the day. In a letter - dated April 10th, 1818, - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Gwyn describes with great sprightliness the wedding of the Princess - Elizabeth, the third daughter of George III, with Prince Hesse-Hombourgh, - which took place three days before: - </p> - <p> - “I delayed to write till after the marriage to tell you about it, as you - seemed to wish it. We were all appointed at seven o'clock in the evening, - when I went as smart as I could make myself. I wore the lavender sattin - robe, the same you saw me wear at Court, as the shape was the same, and it - <i>saved buying</i>, trimmed with silver, a new white sattin petticoat, - with a white net and silver over it, no hoop, but a Court head dress, and - lappets down. The Company consisting of the great officers of state, and - ambassadors and their wives, and the different households were the - Company. - </p> - <p> - “At 8 all were assembled when the Royal family in procession according to - their rank, went into the great drawing-room in the Queen's house. The - Duke of York led the Queen, the Prince Regent not being quite recovered of - his gout, and it is said the remembrance of his poor daughter's marriage - was too painful to him to undertake it. Before the state canopy was set a - fine communion table, red velvet and gold, all the gold plate belonging to - that service arranged behind it, and 3 Bishops and other clergymen - standing behind the table, it looked very magnificent. Then came the <i>Hero</i>, - the Prince Hesse Hombourgh, he went up to the table and stood there, I - believe 10 minutes alone, he looked well a manly unembarassed figure, then - walked in the Bride glittering with silver and diamonds, and really looked - very handsome, and her behaviour and manner was as well as possible, grace - and quiet, when she knelt she wept, and then he approached nearer her in - case her emotion would require his care, which happily was not the case. - The Duke of York gave her away, and behaved very bad. The Prince Hombourgh - thought when he had said I will very loud and distinct, all was done, but - the Arch Bishop desired him to repeat after him, which he was therefore - obliged to do. He cannot speak English and made such works of it, it was - then the Duke of York laughed so, he was obliged to stuff his handkerchief - in his mouth to conceal it. He promised to love her. When all was over he - saluted his bride on each side the face, and then her hand, with a - good-natured frank manner, then led her to the Queen, whose hand only he - kissed, the rest of the Royal family he embraced after his own fashion, - and he led her off with a very good air, and did not seem to trouble his - head about his <i>English performance</i>.” The Princess Elizabeth—the - shy young bride who was so overcome with emotion—had scarcely more - than passed her forty-ninth year when she was borne to the altar, and the - hero of the hour was, we learn from other sources than Mrs. Gwyn's - letters, most unheroically sick when driving away in a close carriage with - his bride. - </p> - <p> - The Prince Regent's daughter, the Princess Charlotte, had died the - previous year, hence the marrying panic which seized all the other members - of the Royal Family, lest the dynasty should become extinct. It is - pleasing to reflect that such gloomy apprehensions have since been amply - averted. - </p> - <p> - Regarding the death of the Princess Charlotte Mrs. Gwyn writes: - </p> - <p> - “... While I was at Oatlands the Prince Leopold came to see the Duchess - and staid there 3 hours, no one but the Duchess saw him—she told me - he is more composed in his manners now when seen by people in general but - with her alone his grief seems the same and he is gratified by being - allowed to vent it to one who feels for him and knows how to soothe his - mind. I can not doubt the Princess's life and his child's were thrown - away, by mismanagement—she was so bled and starved she had no - strength left—her own fortitude and energy supported her till nature - could no more. I could tell you much on the subject but it would take up - too much in a letter and besides <i>it is over</i>. Dr. Crofts thought he - was doing for the best no doubt—It comes to what <i>I</i> always say - of them—they can't do much and are very often wrong in their - opinions as you can vouch....” - </p> - <p> - In another letter Mrs. Gywn's adopted daughter was her amanuensis. It - contains many paragraphs of interest, especially to present-day readers. - The girl writes: - </p> - <p> - “Mamma was of course summoned to attend the Duke of Cambridge's Wedding, - but she was not in the room when the Ceremony was performed as before, on - account of the Queen having been ill. Mamma admires the Duchess of - Cambridge very much: though she is not exactly handsome, she is very - pleasing, and a pretty figure, but I understand she must have a new stay - maker to set her up etc. The Duke of Kent and his bride are now expected. - The Duke of Clarence it is expected will be married shortly afterwards. We - hear the Duchess of Kent is a little woman with a handsome face, and the - Duchess of Clarence uncommonly ugly. We went to Windsor about a month ago - to see Princess Sophia as the Queen was not there, and Princess Sophia has - a small party every night. We were there three days, and Mamma went to the - party every evening, and indeed it was very very dull for her as they play - one pool of Commerce, and then they go to a game called Snip, Snap, - Snorum, and which Mamma could not play at well without a great deal of - trouble to herself, therefore she was obliged to look on for perhaps an - hour and half which you may imagine was terrible for her not hearing a - word. I was much pleased in one respect while I was there by seeing Dear - Prince Leopold whom I had never seen before, and who must be to every body - an object of so much interest. He looked to me the picture of grief and - melancholy, but those who have seen him repeatedly since his misfortune - say he improves every time they see him. Mrs. C.... went one day to see - Claremont and was very much pleased. All remains as Princess Charlotte - left it, but nobody sees her room in which she died but himself, even her - combs and brushes are untouched, and her hat and cloak are where she laid - them the day before she died. There are models of her hand and arm one in - particular as it is his hand clasped in hers. I suppose you have often - heard she had a very beautiful hand and arm, but I will not go on, on so - melancholy a subject; yet I am sure it must interest you.” - </p> - <p> - The Princess Sophia, who instituted the fascinating game referred to in - this letter, was, of course, the fifth daughter of George III. - </p> - <p> - In another letter reference is made to a certain scandal, which Mrs. Gwyn - contradicts most vehemently. Even nowadays this particular bit of gossip - is remembered by some persons; but at the risk of depriving these pages of - the piquancy which attaches to a Court scandal, I will not quote it, but - conclude this Personal Note with what seems to me a most pathetic account - of the dying king: - </p> - <p> - “We continue in a state of great anxiety about our dear King, whose state - is distressing. Certainly no hope of recovery, and the chances of his - continuance very doubtful. His death may be any day, any hour, or he may - continue some <i>little</i> time longer, it depends on nature holding out - against sore disease, which afflicts him universally, and occasions great - suffering, this is heartbreaking to hear! and his patience and courage and - sweet and kind behaviour to all about him is most touching, so - affectionate to his friends and attendants, and thankful for their - attention and feeling for him. He will hold the hand of the Duchess of - Gloster or S. H. Halford for an hour at a time out of tenderness, till - excessive suffering ends it. He wishes to die in peace and charity with - all the world, and has reconciled himself to the Duke of Sussex. He hopes - his people have found him a merciful King. He says he never hurt anyone, - and that, he may truly say as his first wish to <i>all</i> was good and - benevolent, and ever ready to forgive.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE AMAZING ELOPEMENT - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>N a certain - evening in March, 1772, the fashionable folk of Bath were as earnestly on - pleasure bent as they were wont to be at this season—and every - other. The Assembly Rooms were open, a performance was going on at the - theatre, the Cave of Harmony was as musical as Pyrrha's Grotto, a - high-class concert was taking place under the conductorship of the - well-known Mr. Linley, and the Countess of Huntingdon was holding a prayer - meeting. For people who took their diversions <i>à la carte</i>, there was - a varied and an abundant menu. Chairs containing precious structures of - feathers, lace, and jewels towering over long faces powdered and patched - and painted <i>à la mode</i>, were swinging along the streets in every - direction, some with a brace of gold-braided lackeys by each of the - windows, but others in charge only of the burly chairmen. - </p> - <p> - Unobtrusive among the latter class of conveyance was one that a young - gentleman, a tall and handsome lad, called from its rank between - Pierrepont Street and the South Parade. He gave the bearers instructions - to hasten to the house of Mr. Linley in the Crescent, and to inquire if - Miss Linley were ready. - </p> - <p> - If she were not, he told them that they were to wait for her and carry out - her directions. The fellows touched their hats and swung off with their - empty chair. - </p> - <p> - The young man then went to a livery stable, and putting a few confidential - inquiries to the proprietor, received a few confidential replies, - accentuated by a wink or two, and a certain quick uplifting of a knuckly - forefinger that had an expression of secretiveness of its own. - </p> - <p> - “Mum's the word, sir, and mum it shall be,” whispered the man. “I stowed - away the trunk, leaving plenty of room for the genuine luggage—lady's - luggage, Mr. Sheridan. You know as well as I can tell you, sir, being - young but with as shrewd knowingness of affairs in general as might be - looked for in the son of Tom Sheridan, to say nought of a lady like your - mother, meaning to take no liberty in the world, Mr. Dick, as they call - you.” - </p> - <p> - “I'm obliged to you, Denham, and I'll not forget you when this little - affair is happily over. The turn by the 'Bear' on the London Road, we - agreed.” - </p> - <p> - “And there you'll find the chaise, sir, and as good a pair as ever left my - stable, and good luck to you, sir!” said the man. - </p> - <p> - Young Mr. Sheridan then hastened to his father's house in King's Mead - Street, and was met by an anxious sister in the hall. - </p> - <p> - “Good news, I hope, Dick?” she whispered. - </p> - <p> - “I have been waiting for you all the evening. She has not changed her - mind, I hope.” - </p> - <p> - “She is as steadfast as I am,” said he. “If I could not swear that she - would be steadfast, I would not undertake this business on her behalf. - When I think of our father——” - </p> - <p> - “Don't think of him except as applauding your action,” said the girl. - “Surely every one with the least spark of generosity will applaud your - action, Dick.” - </p> - <p> - “I wouldn't like to say so much,” said Dick, shaking his head. “Mathews - has his friends. No man could know so much about whist as he does without - having many friends, even though he be a contemptible scoundrel when he is - not employed over a rubber.” - </p> - <p> - “Who will dare to take the part of Mr. Mathews against you, Dick?” cried - his sister, looking at him proudly as the parlour candles shone upon him. - “I would that I could go with you as far as London, dear, but that would - be impossible.” - </p> - <p> - “Quite impossible; and where would be the merit in the end?” said Dick, - pacing the room as he believed a man of adventure and enterprise would in - the circumstances. “You may trust to me to place her in safety without the - help of any one.” - </p> - <p> - “I know it, Dick, I know it, dear, and I am proud of you,” said she, - putting her arms about his neck and kissing him. “And look you here, - Dick,” she added, in a more practical tone. “Look you here—I find - that I can spare another five pounds out of the last bill that came from - Ireland. We shall live modestly in this house until you return to us.” - </p> - <p> - He took the coins which she offered to him wrapped up in a twist of - newspaper; but he showed some hesitation—she had to go through a - form of forcing it upon him. - </p> - <p> - “I hope to bring it back to you unbroken,” he murmured; “but in affairs of - this sort it is safest to have a pound or two over, rather than under, - what is barely needful. That is why I take your coins,—a loan—a - sacred loan. Good-bye, I returned only to say good-bye to you, my dearest - sister.” - </p> - <p> - “I knew your good heart, Dick, that was why I was waiting for you. - Good-bye, Dick, and God bless you.” - </p> - <p> - He was putting on his cloak in the hall. He saw that the pistols were in - its pockets, and then he suffered his sister to give him another kiss - before he passed into the dark street. - </p> - <p> - He felt for his pistols, and with a hand on each he felt that he was - indeed fairly launched upon a great adventure. - </p> - <p> - He made his way to the London road, and all the time he was wondering if - the girl would really come to him in the Sedan chair which he had sent for - her. To be sure she had promised to come upon this evening, but he knew - enough of the great affairs of this world to be well aware of the fact - that the sincerest promise of a maid may be rendered worthless by the - merest freak of Fate. Therefore, he knew that he did well to be doubtful - respecting the realisation of her promise. She was the beautiful Miss - Linley—every one in Bath knew her, and this being so, was it not - likely that some one—some prying person—some impudent fellow - like that Mathews who had been making love to her, although he had a wife - of his own in Wales—might catch a glimpse of her face through the - glass of the chair when passing a lamp or a link, and be sufficiently - curious to follow her chair to see whither she was going? - </p> - <p> - That was a likely enough thing to happen, and if it did happen and the - alarm of his flight with her were given, what chance would he have of - carrying out his purpose? Why, the chaise would be followed, and even if - it was not overtaken before London was reached, the resting-place of the - fugitives would certainly be discovered in London, and they should be - ignominiously brought back to Bath. Yes, unless Mathews were the pursuer, - in which case—— - </p> - <p> - Mr. Richard Brinsley Sheridan grasped more firmly the butt of the pistol - in the right-hand pocket of his cloak. He felt at that moment that should - Mathews overtake them, the going back to Bath would be on the part only of - Mathews. - </p> - <p> - But how would it be if Mr. Linley had become apprised of his daughter's - intention to fly from Bath? He knew very well that Mr. Linley had the best - of reasons for objecting to his daughter's leaving Bath. Mr. Linley's - income was increased by several hundred pounds by reason of the payments - made to him on account of his daughter's singing in public, and he was—very - properly, considering his large family—fond of money. Before he had - to provide for his family, he took good care that his family—his - eldest daughter particularly—helped to provide for him. - </p> - <p> - Doubtless these eventualities were suggested to him—for young Mr. - Sheridan was not without imagination—while on his way through the - dark outskirts of the beautiful city to the London Road. The Bear Inn was - just beyond the last of the houses. It stood at the junction of the London - Road and a narrower one leading past a couple of farms. It was here that - he had given instructions for the chaise to wait for him, and here he - meant to wait for the young lady who had promised to accompany him to - London—and further. - </p> - <p> - He found the chaise without trouble. It was under the trees not more than - a hundred yards down the lane, but the chair, with Miss Linley, had not - yet arrived, so he returned to the road and began to retrace his steps, - hoping to meet it, yet with some doubts in his mind. Of course, he was - impatient. Young gentlemen under twenty-one are usually impatient when - awaiting the arrival of the ladies who have promised to run away with - them. He was not, however, kept in suspense for an unconscionably long - time. He met the chair which he was expecting just when he had reached the - last of the lamps of Bath, and out of it stepped the muffled form of Miss - Linley. The chairmen were paid with a lavish hand, and Dick Sheridan and - Betsy Linley walked on to the chaise without exchanging any but a friendly - greeting—there was nothing lover-like in their meeting or their - greeting. The elopement was not that of a young woman with her lover; it - was, we are assured, that of a young woman anxious to escape from the - intolerable position of being the most popular person in the most - fashionable city in England, to the peaceful retreat of a convent; and the - young man who was to take charge of her was one whom she had chosen for - her guardian, not for her lover. Dick Sheridan seems to have been the only - young man in Bath who had never made love to Elizabeth Linley. His elder - brother, Charles by name, had discharged this duty on behalf of the - Sheridan family, and he was now trying to live down his disappointment at - being refused, at a farmhouse a mile or two away. The burden was greater - than he could bear when surrounded by his sisters in their father's house - in King's Mead Street. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0013" id="linkimage-0013"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0277.jpg" alt="0277 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0277.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - Elizabeth Linley was certainly the most popular young woman in Bath; she - certainly was the most beautiful. The greatest painters of her day made - masterpieces of her portrait, and for once, posterity acknowledges that - the fame of her beauty was well founded. So spiritual a face as hers is to - be seen in no eighteenth-century picture except that of Miss Linley; one - has need to go back to the early Italian painters to find such - spirituality in a human face, and then one finds it combined with absolute - inanity, and the face is called Divine. Reynolds painted her as Saint - Cecilia drawing down angels, and blessedly unconscious of her own powers, - thinking only of raising herself among angels on the wings of song. His - genius was never better employed and surely never more apparent than in - the achievement of this picture. Gainsborough painted her by the side of - her younger brother, and one feels that if Reynolds painted a saint, - Gainsborough painted a girl. It was Bishop O'Beirne, an old friend of her - family and acquainted with her since her childhood, who said: “She is a - link between an angel and a woman.” - </p> - <p> - And this exquisite creature had a voice of so sympathetic a quality that - no one could hear it unmoved. Her father had made her technique perfect. - He was a musician who was something more than painstaking. He had taste of - the highest order, and it is possible to believe that in the training of - his eldest daughter he was wise enough to limit his instruction to the - technicalities of his art, leaving her to the inspiration of her own - genius in regard to the treatment of any theme which he brought before - her. - </p> - <p> - At any rate her success in the sublimest of all oratorios was far beyond - anything that could be achieved by an exhibition of the finest technical - qualities; and Mr. Linley soon became aware of the fact that he was the - father of the most beautiful and the most highly gifted creature that ever - made a father miserable. - </p> - <p> - Incidentally she made a great many other men miserable, but that was only - because each of them wanted her to make him happy at the expense of the - others, and this she was too kind-hearted to do. But the cause of her - father's grief was something different. It was due to the fact that the - girl was so sensitive that she shrank from every exhibition of herself and - her ability on a public platform. It was an agony to her to hear the - tumultuous applause that greeted her singing at a concert or in an - oratorio. She seemed to feel—let any one look at the face which is - to be seen in her portrait, and one will understand how this could be—that - music was something too spiritual to be made the medium only for the - entertainment of the multitude. Taking the highest imaginable view of the - scope and value and meaning of music, it can be understood that this girl - should shrink from such an ordeal as the concert platform offered to her - every time she was announced to sing. No more frivolous and fashionable a - population than that of Bath in the second half of the eighteenth century - was to be found in any city in the world; and Elizabeth Linley felt that - she was regarded by the concert-goers as no more than one of the numerous - agents they employed to lessen the ennui of an empty day. The music which - she worshipped—the spirit with which her soul communed in secret—was, - she felt, degraded by being sold to the crowd and subjected to the - patronage of their applause. - </p> - <p> - Of course when she spoke to her father in this strain he sympathised with - her, and bemoaned the fate that made it necessary for him to have her - assistance to save her mother and brothers and sisters from starvation. - And so for several years she was an obedient child, but very weary of the - rôle. She sang and enchanted thousands. She did not, however, think of - them; her mind dwelt daily upon the tens of thousands who regarded her - (she thought) as fulfilling no nobler purpose than to divert them for half - an hour between taking the waters and sitting down to faro or quadrille. - </p> - <p> - But it was not alone her distaste for the publicity of the platform that - made her miserable. The fact was that she was distracted by suitors. She - had, it was said, accepted the offer of an elderly gentleman named Long, - the wealthy head of a county family in the neighbourhood; and Foote, with - his usual vulgarity, which took the form of personality, wrote a play—a - wretched thing even for Foote—in which he dealt with an imaginarily - comic and a certainly sordid situation, with Miss Linley on the one side - and Mr. Long on the other. Serious biographers have not hesitated to - accept this situation invented by the notorious <i>farceur</i>, who was no - greater a respecter of persons than he was of truth, as a valuable - contribution to the history of the Linley family, especially in regard to - the love affair of the lovely girl by whose help they were made famous. - They have never thought of the possibility of her having accepted Mr. Long - in order to escape from her horror of the concert platform. They have - never suggested the possibility of Mr. Long's settling a sum of money on - her out of his generosity when he found out that Miss Linley did not love - him. - </p> - <p> - It was not Mr. Long, however, but a man named Mathews—sometimes - referred to as Captain, occasionally as Major—who was the immediate - cause of her running away with young Sheridan. This man Mathews was known - to be married, and to be in love with Elizabeth Linley, and yet he was - allowed to be constantly in her company, pestering her with his - attentions, and there was no one handy to horsewhip him. Sheridan's - sister, who afterwards married Mr. Lefanu, wrote an account of this - curious matter for the guidance of Thomas Moore, who was preparing his - biography of her brother. She stated that Miss Linley was afraid to tell - her father of Major Mathews and his impossible suit, and so she was “at - length induced to consult Richard Sheridan, whose intimacy with Major - Mathews, at the time, she thought might warrant his interference.” And - then we are told that “R. B. Sheridan sounded Mathews on the subject and - at length prevailed on him to give up the pursuit.” - </p> - <p> - That is how the adoring sister of “R. B. Sheridan,” who had been talking - to Elizabeth Linley of him as of a knight-errant, eager to redress the - wrongs of maidens in distress, wrote of her brother! He “sounded Mathews - on the subject.” On what subject? The subject was the pursuit of an - innocent girl by a contemptible scoundrel. How does the knight-errant - “sound” such a person when he sets out to redress the maiden's - ill-treatment? One R. B. Sheridan, a dramatist, gives us a suggestion as - to what were his ideas on this point: “Do you think that Achilles or my - little Alexander the Great ever enquired where the right lay? No, sir, - they drew their broadswords and left the lazy sons of peace to settle the - rights of the matter.” Now young Sheridan, who is reported by his sister - as “sounding” Mathews, was no coward. He proved himself to be anything but - afraid of Mathews, so that one must, out of justice to him, assume that - the only attempt he would have made to “sound” the scoundrel at this time - would be through the medium of a sound hiding. - </p> - <p> - It is at such a point as this in the biography of an interesting man that - one blesses the memory—and the notebook—of the faithful - Boswell. Thomas Moore was quite intimate with Richard Brinsley Sheridan, - but he never thought of asking him for some information on this particular - incident in his life, the fact being that he had no definite intention of - becoming his biographer. We know perfectly well how Boswell would have - plied Johnson with questions on the subject, had it ever come to his ears - that Johnson had undertaken to play the rôle of a knight-errant. - </p> - <p> - “Pray, sir, what did you say to Mathews when you sounded him?” - </p> - <p> - “Do you think, sir, that in any circumstances a married gentleman who is - showing marked attentions to a virtuous young lady should be sounded by a - young gentleman who has been entrusted with the duty of protecting the - lady?” - </p> - <p> - Alas! instead of the unblushing indelicacy of Boswell, who hunted for - trifles as a pig hunts for truffles, we are obliged to be content with the - vagueness of a sister, whose memory, we have an uneasy feeling, was not - quite so good as she thought it was. - </p> - <p> - And from the memory of this sister we have an account of the amazing - elopement of Richard Sheridan with Elizabeth Linley. - </p> - <p> - When the young gentleman put her into the chaise that was waiting for them - on the London road, Miss Linley had never thought of him except as a kind - friend. She had accepted his services upon this occasion as she would - those of a courier to conduct her to London, and thence to France, where - she intended to enter a convent. The Miss Sheridans had lived in France, - and had some friends at St. - </p> - <p> - Quentin, who knew of a very nice clean convent—an establishment - which they could strongly recommend, and where she could find that - complete seclusion which Miss Linley longed for, and their brother Dick - was thought to be a very suitable companion for her on her way thither. - Mrs. Lefanu (<i>née</i> Sheridan), who wrote out the whole story in after - years, mentioned that her chivalrous brother was to provide a woman to act - as her maid in the chaise; but as not the least reference to this chaperon - is to be found in the rest of the story, we fear that it must be assumed - either that her brother forgot this unimportant detail, or that the detail - was unavoidably detained in Bath. What is most likely of all is that the - solitary reference to this mysterious female was dovetailed, somewhat - clumsily, into the narrative, at the suggestion of some Mrs. Grundy, who - shook her head at the narrative of so much chivalry unsupported by a - responsible chaperon. However this may be, the shadowy chaperon is never - alluded to again; she may have faded away into the mists of morning and - London, or she may have vanished at the first turnpike. Nothing was seen - or heard of her subsequently. - </p> - <p> - The boy and the girl reached London in safety, and drove to the house of a - Mr. Ewart, a relation of the Sheridans, to whom Dick offered the - explanation of his unconventional visit on the very plausible grounds of - his being engaged to the young lady, a great heiress, whom he was - hastening to France to marry. Of course the Ewart family were perfectly - satisfied with this explanation; and another friend, who had indisputable - claims to consideration, being, we are told, “the son of a respectable - brandy merchant in the City,” suggested that they should sail from London - to Dunkirk, “in order to make pursuit more difficult.” How such an end - could be compassed by such means is left to the imagination of a reader. - The young pair, however, jumped at the suggestion, and reached Dunkirk - after an uneventful crossing. - </p> - <p> - It is at this point in the sister's account of the itinerary of this - interesting enterprise that she mentions that Richard suddenly threw away - the disguise of the chivalrous and disinterested protector of the young - lady, and declared that he would not consent to conduct her to the convent - unless she agreed to marry him immediately. Mrs. Lefanu's exact words are - as follows: “After quitting Dunkirk Mr. Sheridan was more explicit with - Miss Linley as to his views on accompanying her to France.” - </p> - <p> - This is certainly a very lawyer-like way of condoning the conduct of a - mean scoundrel; but, happily for the credit of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, - it is the easiest thing in the world to discredit his sister's narrative, - although she adds that he urged on the girl what would seem to a casual - observer of society in general to be perfectly true—“she must be - aware that after the step she had taken, she could not appear in England - but as his wife.” As the sequel proved this alleged statement was quite - untrue! She did appear in England, and not as his wife, and no one seemed - to think anything the worse of her on account of her escapade. But to - suggest that Sheridan took advantage of the trust which the innocent girl - had reposed in him to compel her to marry him, a penniless minor with no - profession and very little education, is scarcely consistent with an - account of his high-mindedness and his sense of what was chivalrous. - </p> - <p> - And then the sister pleasantly remarks that “Miss Linley, who really - preferred him greatly to any person, was not difficult to persuade, and at - a village not far from Calais the marriage ceremony was performed by a - priest who was known to be often employed upon such occasions.” Whoever - this clergyman may have been, it is impossible for any one to believe that - in the discharge of his office he was kept in constant employment; for - “such occasions” as answered to the account given by the Sheridan sister - of the nuptials of the young couple, must have been extremely rare. - </p> - <p> - And yet Moore, on whom the responsibilities of a biographer rested very - lightly, was quite content to accept as strictly accurate the narrative of - Mrs. Lefanu, contradicted though it was by subsequent events in which both - her brother and Miss Linley were concerned. Moore does not seem to have - troubled himself over any attempt to obtain confirmation of one of the - most important incidents in the life of the man of whom he was writing. - </p> - <p> - He made no attempt to discover if the accommodating priest at the village - near Calais was still alive when he was compiling his biography of - Sheridan, and it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that he was - still alive; nor did this easy-going Irish master of melodies consider - that it devolved on him to try to find some record of the marriage in - question. - </p> - <p> - Now what happened after this remarkable union? The narrative of the sister - is quite as circumstantial as one could wish it to be, and even more - imaginative. But whatever qualities of excellence it possesses, it - certainly does not carry to a reader any conviction of accuracy. It states - that the interesting young couple went to Lille instead of carrying out - their original intention of going to St. Quentin, and that Miss Linley—now - Mrs. Sheridan, of course—“immediately secured an apartment in a - convent, where it was settled she was to remain either till Sheridan came - of age or till he was in a situation to support a wife. He remained a few - days at Lille to be satisfied that she was settled to her satisfaction; - but, whether from agitation of mind or fatigue, she was taken ill, and an - English physician, Dr. Dolman, of York, was called in to attend her. From - what he perceived of her case he wished to have her more immediately under - his care than he could in the convent, and he and Mrs. Dolman most kindly - invited her to their house.” - </p> - <p> - This would seem to have been very kind indeed on the part of the doctor - and his wife, but it so happened that a letter turned up some years ago - which the late Mr. Fraser Rae was able to print in the first volume of his - admirable <i>Life of Sheridan</i>, and this letter makes it plain that - wherever Mrs. Sheridan (<i>née</i> Linley) may have been, she was not - sojourning with the Dolmans. It is from Dr. Dolman himself, and it was - addressed to “Monsieur Sherridan, Gentilhomme Anglois, à l'Hôtel de - Bourbon, Sur la Grande Place.” It recommends the administering of certain - powders in a glass of white wine twice daily, and sends “compliments and - wishes of health to your lady.” - </p> - <p> - The question then remains: Was the lady at this time an inmate of the - convent, and did the doctor expect “Monsieur Sherridan” to go to this - institution twice a day in order to administer the powders to his lady? - Would not the doctor think it somewhat peculiar that the husband should be - at the Hôtel de Bourbon and his lady an inmate of the convent? - </p> - <p> - These questions must be left to be answered according to the experience of - life of any one interested in the matter. But it is worth noticing that, - on the very day that he received the missive from Dr. Dolman, Sheridan - wrote to his brother at Bath and mentioned that Miss Linley—he - continued to call her Miss Linley—was now “fixing in a convent, - where she has been entered some time.” Does the first phrase mean that she - was already in the convent, or only about to take up her residence there? - However this question may be answered, it is clear that Sheridan expected - to leave her behind him at Lille, for he adds, “Everything is now so - happily settled here I will delay no longer giving you that information, - though probably I shall set out for England without knowing a syllable of - what has happened with you.” - </p> - <p> - So far, then, as his emprise in regard to the lady was concerned, he - considered the incident to be closed. “Though you may have been ignorant - for some time of our proceedings, you could never have been uneasy,” he - continues hopefully, “lest anything should tempt me to depart, even in a - thought, from the honour and consistency which engaged me at first.” - </p> - <p> - Some people have suggested that Sheridan, when he drew the character of - Charles Surface, meant it to be something of an excuse for his own casual - way of life. But it must strike a good many persons who believe that he - induced the innocent girl, whom he set forth to protect on her way to a - refuge from the infamous designs of Mathews, to marry him, that Sheridan - approached much more closely to the character of Joseph in this - correspondence with his brother. A more hypocritical passage than that - just quoted could hardly have been uttered by Joseph Surface. As a matter - of fact, one of Joseph's sentiments is only a paraphrase of this unctuous - assumption of honour and consistency. - </p> - <p> - But this criticism is only true if one can believe his sister's story of - the marriage. If it is true that Sheridan set out from England with Miss - Linley with the intention of so compromising her that she should be - compelled to marry him, at the same time pretending to her and to his - brother to be actuated by the highest motives in respect of the ill-used - girl, it is impossible to think of him except with contempt. - </p> - <p> - Happily the weight of evidence is overpoweringly in Sheridan's favour. We - may think of him as a rash, an inconsiderate, and a culpably careless boy - to take it upon him to be the girl's companion to the French convent, but - we refuse to believe that he was ever capable of acting the grossly - disingenuous part attributed to him by his sister, and accepted without - question by his melodious biographer. There are many people, however, who - believe that when a man marries a woman, no matter in what circumstances, - he has “acted the part of a gentleman” in regard to her, and must be held - to be beyond reproach on any account whatsoever so far as the woman is - concerned. In the eyes of such censors of morality, as in the eyes of the - law, the act of marriage renders null and void all ante-nuptial deeds; and - it was probably some impression of this type which was acquired by - Sheridan's sister, inducing her to feel sure (after a time) that her - brother's memory would suffer if his biographer were to tell the story of - his inconsiderate conduct in running away with Elizabeth Linley, unless it - was made clear that he married her the first moment he had to spare. She - tried to save her brother's memory by persuading her own to accommodate - itself to what she believed to be her brother's emergency. She was a good - sister, and she kept her memory well under control. - </p> - <p> - But what did the father of the young lady think of the matter? What did - the people of Bath, who were well acquainted with all the actors engaged - in this little comedy, think of the matter? Happily these questions can be - answered by appealing to facts rather than to the well-considered - recollections of a discreet lady. - </p> - <p> - We know for certain that Mr. Linley, who was, as one might suppose, fully - equipped to play the part of the enraged father of the runaway girl, - turned up at the place of her retreat—he had no trouble in learning - in what direction to look for her—and having found her and the young - gentleman who had run away with her, did he, under the impulse of his - anger, fanned by his worldly knowledge, insist with an uplifted horsewhip - upon his marrying her without a moment's delay? Mr. Linley knew Bath, and - to know Bath was to know the world. Was he, then, of the same opinion as - that expressed (according to his sister's narrative) by young Sheridan to - persuade Miss Linley to be his bride—namely, that it would be - impossible for her to show her face in Bath unless as the wife of Richard - Brinsley Sheridan? - </p> - <p> - Nothing of the sort. Whatever reproaches he may have flung at his - daughter, however strong may have been his denunciation of the conduct of - the man who had run away with her, they had not the effect either of - inducing his daughter or her companion to reveal to him the fact that they - had been married for several days, or of interrupting the friendly - relations that had existed for nearly two years between himself and young - Sheridan. The dutiful memory of Miss Sheridan records that Mr. Linley, - “after some private conversation with Mr. Sheridan, appeared quite - reconciled to his daughter, but insisted on her returning to England with - him (Mr. Linley) to fulfil several engagements he had entered into on her - account. The whole party set out together the next day, Mr. Linley having - previously promised to allow his daughter to return to Lille when her - engagements were over.” - </p> - <p> - The comedy of the elopement had become a farce of the “whimsical” type. - Nothing more amusing or amazing has ever been seen on the vaudeville - stage. The boy and the girl run off together and get married. The - infuriated father follows them, ruthlessly invades their place of refuge, - and then, “after some private conversation” with his daughter's husband, - who does not tell him that he is her husband, says to the young woman, “My - dear, you must come home with me to sing at a concert.” - </p> - <p> - “Certainly, papa,” replies the girl. “Wait a minute, and I'll go too,” - cries the unconfused husband of the daughter. “All right, come along,” - says the father, and they all take hands and sing the ridiculous trio - which winds up the vaudeville after it has run on inconsequentially for a - merry forty minutes—there is a <i>pas de trois</i>, and the curtain - falls! - </p> - <p> - Alas, for the difference between Boswell the bald and Moore the melodious! - The bald prose of Boswell's diaries may have made many of the personages - with whom he dealt seem silly, but that was because he himself was silly, - and, being aware of this fact, the more discriminating of his readers have - no great difficulty in arriving at the truth of any matter with which he - deals. He would never have accepted unreservedly such a narrative as that - which Moore received from Mrs. Lefanu (<i>née</i> Sheridan), and put into - his own language, or as nearly into his own language as he could. But - Moore found it “so hard to narrate familiar events eloquently,” he - complained. He actually thought that Mrs. Lefanu's narrative erred on the - side of plausibility! The mysterious elopement, the still more mysterious - marriage, and the superlatively mysterious return of the fugitives and the - irate father hand-in-hand, he regarded as events so commonplace as not to - be susceptible of lyrical treatment. But the most farcical of the doings - of his own <i>Fudge Family</i> were rational in comparison with the - familiar events associated with the flight to France of his hero and - heroine. The <i>Trip to Scarborough</i> of Sheridan the farce-writer was - founded on much more “familiar events” than this extraordinary trip to - Lille, as narrated for the benefit of the biographer by Mrs. Lefanu. - </p> - <p> - What seems to be the truth of the whole matter is simply that Sheridan - undertook to be a brother to Elizabeth Linley, and carried out his compact - faithfully, without allowing anything to tempt him to depart, as he wrote - to Charles, “even in thought from the honour and consistency which engaged - [him] at first.” It must be remembered that he was a romantic boy of - twenty, and this is just the age at which nearly every boy—especially - a boy in love—is a Sir Galahad. As for Miss Linley, one has only to - look at her portrait to know what she was. She was not merely innocent, - she was innocence itself. - </p> - <p> - When Mr. Linley appeared at Lille he accepted without reserve the - explanation offered to him by his daughter and by Sheridan; and, moreover, - he knew that although there was a school for scandal located at Bath, yet - so highly was his daughter thought of in all circles, and so greatly was - young Sheridan liked, that no voice of calumny would be raised against - either of them when they returned with him. And even if it were possible - that some whisper, with its illuminating smile above the arch of a painted - fan, might be heard in the Assembly Rooms when some one mentioned the name - of Miss Linley in connection with that of young Sheridan and with the trip - to Lille, he felt convinced that such a whisper would be robbed of its - sting when every one knew that the girl and the boy and the father all - returned together and on the best terms to Bath. - </p> - <p> - As the events proved, he had every right to take even so sanguine a view - of the limitations of the range of the Pump Room gossips. On the return of - the three from Lille no one suggested that Sheridan and Miss Linley should - get married. No one except the scoundrel Mathews suggested that Sheridan - had acted badly or even unwisely, though undoubtedly he had given grounds - for such implications. The little party returned to Bath, and Miss Linley - fulfilled her concert and oratorio engagements, went into society as - before, and had at her feet more eligible suitors than had ever knelt - there. We have it on the authority of Charles Sheridan, the elder brother, - that in Bath the feeling was that Richard had acted as a man of honour in - taking the girl to the convent at Lille. Writing to their uncle, Mr. - Chamberlaine, he expressed surprise that “in this age when the world does - not abound in Josephs, most people are (notwithstanding the general - tendency of mankind to judge unfavourably) inclined to think that he - (Richard) acted with the strictest honour in his late expedition with Miss - L., when the circumstances might allow of their being very dubious on this - head without incurring the imputation of being censorious.” - </p> - <p> - This testimony as to what was the opinion in Bath regarding the expedition - is extremely valuable, coming as it does from one who was never greatly - disposed to take a brotherly or even a friendly view of Richard's conduct - at any time—coming as it does also from a man who had been in love - with Miss Linley. - </p> - <p> - At any rate this escapade of young Mr. Sheridan was the most fortunate for - him of any in which he ever engaged, and he was a man of many escapades, - for it caused Elizabeth Linley to fall in love with him, and never was a - man beloved by a sweeter or more faithful woman. To know how beautiful was - her nature one has only to look at her face in either of the great - portraits of her which are before us to-day. No characteristic of all that - is held to be good and gracious and sympathetic—in one word, that is - held to be womanly, is absent from her face. No man that ever lived was - worthy of such a woman; but if only men who are worthy of such women were - beloved by them, mankind would be the losers. She loved Sheridan with the - truest devotion—such devotion as might be expected from such a - nature as hers—and she died in the act of writing to him the - love-letter of a wife to her dearly loved husband. - </p> - <p> - They did not get married until a year after the date of their flight to - the Continent, and then they were described as bachelor and spinster. - Neither of them ever gave a hint, even in any of the numerous letters - which they exchanged during this period, that they had gone through the - ceremony of marriage at that village near Calais. More than once a - strained situation would have been relieved had it been possible to make - such a suggestion, for now and again each of the lovers grew jealous of - the other for a day or two. But neither said, “Pray remember that you are - not free to think of marrying any one. We are husband and wife, although - we were married in secret.” Neither of them could make such an assertion. - It would not have been true. What seems to us to be the truth is that it - was Sir Galahad who acted as protector to his sister when Richard Brinsley - Sheridan went with Elizabeth Linley to France. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE AMAZING DUELS - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HEN young Mr. - Sheridan returned to Bath after his happy little journey to France with - Miss Linley and back with Mr. Linley, he may have believed that the - incident was closed. He had done all that—and perhaps a little more - than—the most chivalrous man of experience and means could be - expected to do for the young woman toward whom he had stood in the - position of a protecting brother. He had conducted her to the convent at - Lille, on which she had set her heart, and he had been able to explain - satisfactorily to her father on his arrival at the hotel where he and Miss - Linley were sojourning in the meantime, what his intentions had been when - he had eloped with her from Bath. No doubt he had also acted as Miss - Linley's adviser in respect of those negotiations with her father which - resulted in the happy return of the whole family party to London. - </p> - <p> - In London he heard that Mathews, the scoundrel who had been pursuing Miss - Linley in the most disreputable fashion, was in town also, and that, - previous to leaving Bath, he had inserted in the Chronicle a defamatory - advertisement regarding him (Sheridan); and on this information coming to - his ears he put his pistols into his pocket and went in search of Mathews - at the lodgings of the latter. - </p> - <p> - Miss Sheridan tells us about the pistols in the course of her lucid - narrative, and states on her own responsibility that when he came upon - Mathews the latter was dreadfully frightened at the sight of one of the - pistols protruding from Sheridan's pocket. Mr. Fraser Rae, the competent - biographer of Sheridan, smiles at the lady's statement. “The sight of the - pistols would have alarmed Sheridan's sisters,” he says, “but it is in - accordance with probability that he (Mathews) expected a hostile meeting - to follow as a matter of course. He must have been prepared for it, and he - would have been strangely ignorant of the world in which he lived if he - had deemed it unusual.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0014" id="linkimage-0014"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0301.jpg" alt="0301 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0301.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - But Mr. Fraser Rae was not so strangely ignorant of the world in which - Sheridan and Mathews lived as to fancy that there was nothing unusual in a - gentleman's going to ask another gentleman whom he believed to have - affronted him, for an explanation, with a pair of pistols in his pocket. - In the circumstances a duel would have been nothing unusual; but surely - Mr. Fraser Rae could not have fancied that Sheridan set out with the - pistols in his pocket in order to fight a duel with Mathews in the man's - lodgings, without preliminaries and without seconds. If Mathews caught - sight of the butt of a pistol sticking out of Sheridan's pocket he had - every reason to be as frightened as Miss Sheridan declared he was, for he - must have believed that his visitor had come to murder him. - </p> - <p> - At any rate, frightened or not frightened, pistols or no pistols, Mathews, - on being interrogated by Sheridan as to the advertisement in the <i>Bath - Chronicle</i>, assured him that he had been grossly misinformed as to the - character of the advertisement. It was, he affirmed, nothing more than an - inquiry after Sheridan, which the family of the latter had sanctioned. He - then, according to Miss Sheridan, expressed the greatest friendship for - his visitor, and said that he would be made extremely unhappy if any - difference should arise between them. - </p> - <p> - So young Mr. Sheridan, balked of his murderous intentions, returned with - unsullied pistols to his hotel, and set out for Bath with Miss Linley and - her father. - </p> - <p> - But if he fancied that Mathews had passed out of his life he was quickly - undeceived. Before he had time to take his seat at the family table he had - got a copy of the newspaper containing the advertisement, of the tenor of - which Mathews had told him in London he had been misinformed; and now his - sisters made him fully aware of the action taken by the same man on - learning of the flight of Sheridan and Elizabeth Linley. The result was - that he now perceived what every one should have known long before—namely, - that Mathews was a scoundrel, who should never have been allowed to obtain - the footing to which he had been admitted in the Sheridan and Linley - families. - </p> - <p> - It appears that the moment Mathews heard that Miss Linley had been carried - beyond his reach, he rushed to the Sheridans' house, and there found the - girls and their elder brother, who had been wisely communicated with by - the landlord, and had left his retirement in the farmhouse in the country - to take charge of the sisters in the absence of their brother Richard. - Mathews behaved like a madman—no unusual <i>rôle</i> for him—heaping - reproaches upon the absent member of the family, and demanding to be told - of his whereabouts. He seems to have been encouraged by Charles Sheridan, - who had unwisely said something in disparagement of his brother. Mathews - had the effrontery to avow his passion for Elizabeth Linley, and in the - bitterest terms to accuse Richard Sheridan of having acted basely in - taking her beyond his reach. - </p> - <p> - Then he hastened to Richard Sheridan's friend and confidant, a young man - named Brereton, and to him he sent messages of friendship and, possibly, - condolence to Mr. Linley, though his object in paying this visit was - undoubtedly not to endeavour to exculpate himself as regards Mr. Linley, - but to find out where the fugitives were to be found. He may have had - visions of pursuing them, of fighting a duel with Richard Sheridan, and if - he succeeded in killing him, of getting the girl at last into his power. - </p> - <p> - But Mr. Brereton not only did not reveal the whereabouts of his friend—he - knew that Sheridan meant to go to Lille, for he wrote to him there—but - he also refused to give his interrogator any sympathy for having failed to - accomplish the destruction of the girl. Brereton, indeed, seems to have - convinced him that the best thing he could do was to leave Bath as quickly - as possible. Mathews had probably by this time discovered, as Brereton - certainly had, that the feeling against him in Bath was profound. There - can be little doubt that in the course of the day Charles Sheridan became - aware of this fact also; he had only a few months before confessed himself - to be deeply in love with Elizabeth Linley, and when he heard that his - brother had run away with her he could not but have been somewhat incensed - against him, for Richard had not taken him into his confidence. By the - time his brother returned, however, any ill-feeling that Charles may have - felt had disappeared, and as Charles always showed himself to be a cool - and calculating gentleman—one who always kept an eye on the jumping - cat—it is not going too far to assume that his change of tone in - respect of his rather impetuous brother was due to his perception of the - trend of public opinion on the subject of the elopement. - </p> - <p> - Brereton had persuaded Mathews that there was nothing left for him but to - quit Bath; but before taking this step the latter had inserted in the <i>Bath - Chronicle</i> the advertisement of which Richard had heard, but which he - had not read when in London, thus leaving himself in no position to - contradict Mathews' assertion as to its amicable wording. - </p> - <p> - But now the newspaper was put into his hands by Charles, and he had an - opportunity of pronouncing an opinion on this point. It was dated - Wednesday, April the 8th, 1772, and it ran as follows: - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Richard S———— having attempted in a letter - left behind him for that purpose, to account for his scandalous method of - running away from this place by insinuations derogating from my character - and that of a young lady, innocent as far as relates to me, or my - knowledge, since which he has neither taken any notice of letters or even - informed his own family of the place where he has hid himself; I cannot - longer think he deserves the treatment of a gentleman, and in this public - method, to post him as a L———, and a treacherous S————. - </p> - <p> - “And as I am convinced there have been many malevolent incendiaries - concerned in the propagation of this infamous lie, if any of them, - unprotected by age, <i>infirmities</i>, or profession, they are to - acknowledge the part they have acted, and affirm <i>to</i> what they have - said <i>of</i> me, they may depend on receiving the proper reward of their - villainy, in the most public manner. The world will be candid enough to - judge properly (I make no doubt) of any private abuse on this subject for - the future, as nobody can defend himself from an accusation he is ignorant - of Thomas Mathews.” Such a piece of maundering imbecility as this had - probably never before appeared in a newspaper. It must have been read in - Bath with roars of laughter. But we do not hear that any of the ready - writers of the time and the town yielded to the temptation of commenting - upon the “malevolent incendiarism” of the composition. A man of the world, - had it been written about himself, would possibly have thought that its - illiteracy spoke for itself, and so would have refrained from making any - move in regard to it or its author. But one can imagine what effect - reading it would have upon a boy of Sheridan's spirit. For a youth of - twenty to find himself posted as a Liar and a Scoundrel, to say nothing of - a “malevolent incendiary,” and remain indifferent would be impossible. - Sheridan did not take long to make up his mind what he should do in the - circumstances. - </p> - <p> - The dramatic touch which his sister introduces in writing of Richard's - perusal of the paragraph is intensely true to nature. He simply put a word - or two to Charles relative to what Mathews had told him in London about - his, Sheridan's, family sanctioning the insertion of the advertisement. - Charles had no difficulty in vindicating his integrity on this point. - Richard knew perfectly well that it is one thing to say that a man has - acted too hastily, but quite another to suggest that that man is “a L——— - and a S————.” - </p> - <p> - So apparently the matter ended, and Richard continued chatting with his - sisters, giving no sign of what was in his mind. The girls went to their - beds, suspecting nothing. The next morning their two brothers were - missing! - </p> - <p> - Of course the girls were dreadfully alarmed. Some people in the house told - them that they had heard high words being exchanged between the brothers - after the girls had retired, and shortly afterwards the two former had - gone out together. The sister, in her narrative, mentions that she - received a hint or two of a duel between Richard and Charles, but she at - once put these suggestions aside. The poor girls must have been nearly - distracted. Certainly the house of Sheridan was passing through a period - of great excitement. The estimable head of the family was himself - expecting a crisis in his affairs as manager of the theatre in Dublin—Mr. - Thomas Sheridan was never far removed from a crisis—and in his - absence his young people were doing pretty much as they pleased. He had no - power of controlling them; all that he had to do with them was to pay - their bills. Neither of the sons was earning anything, and while one of - them was living as a man of fashion, the other had thought it well to cut - himself off from his sisters, taking lodgings at a farm some way out of - Bath It is the girls of the house for whom one feels most. Alicia, the - elder, was seventeen, Elizabeth was but twelve. They must have been - distracted. So would their father have been if he had had a chance of - learning all that was going on at Bath. - </p> - <p> - But, of course, when young gentlemen of spirit are falling in love with - beauteous maidens, and retiring to cure themselves by mingling with - pastoral scenes reminiscent of the gentle melancholy of Mr. Alexander - Pope's shepherds and shepherdesses (done in Dresden), every one of whom - murmurs mournfully and melodiously of a rejected suit—when young - gentlemen are running away with afflicted damsels and returning to fight - their enemies, they cannot be expected to think of the incidental expenses - of the business, which are to be defrayed by their father, any more than - of the distraction which takes possession of their sisters. - </p> - <p> - The two young gentlemen were missing, and had left for their sisters no - explanation of their absence—no hint as to the direction of their - flight. And there were other people in the house talking about the high - words that had been exchanged between the brothers at midnight. It is not - surprising that the poor girls should be distressed and distracted. - </p> - <p> - Considering that Miss Linley was the first cause of the excitement in the - midst of which the family had been living for some weeks, it was only - natural that the elder of the girls should send for her with a view to - have some light thrown on this new development of the heroic incident in - which Miss Linley had assisted. But Miss Linley, on being applied to, - affirmed that she knew nothing of the disappearance of the brothers, that - she had heard of nothing that should cause them to leave Bath at a - moment's notice. She was, unfortunately, a young woman of imagination. In - a crisis such a one is either very helpful, or very helpless. Poor Miss - Linley was the latter. She had just come through a great crisis in her own - life, and she had not emerged from it without suffering. It was too much - to ask her to face another in the family of her friends. She went off in a - fainting fit on hearing the news of the disappearance of the young men, - and her father left her in the hands of a medical man, and turned his - attention to the condition of Miss Sheridan, who was unable to walk back - to her home, and had to be put into a chair, Mr. Linley walking beside her - with her young sister. It is more than possible that Mr. Linley was - beginning to feel that he had had quite enough of the Sheridan family to - last him for the remainder of his life. - </p> - <p> - For two days nothing whatever was heard of the missing brothers. We have - no means of knowing if Miss Sheridan communicated to their father in - Dublin the mysterious story she had to tell; the chances are that she was - advised by Mr. Linley to refrain from doing so until she might have - something definite to tell him. Mr. Linley never had any particular regard - for the elder Sheridan, and he had no wish to have him summoned from his - theatre at Dublin to make his remarks about the dangerous attractiveness - of Elizabeth Linley, and the culpable carelessness of her father in - allowing her to be carried off to France by a young man without a penny - except what he got from his own father. - </p> - <p> - At any rate, Tom Sheridan did not leave his theatre or his pupils in - elocution, and there was no need for him to do so, for on Tuesday evening—they - had been missing on the Sunday morning—Dick and his brother - returned. They were both greatly fatigued, and said that they had not been - in bed since they had left Bath. This meant that Dick had actually not - slept in Bath since he had originally left the city in the company of Miss - Linley. Between the Friday and the Tuesday he had posted from London to - Bath with the Linleys, and had forthwith returned to London with his - brother and then back once more to Bath without a pause. He, at least, had - very good reason for feeling fatigued. - </p> - <p> - His first act was to hand his sister an apology which had been made to him - by Mathews. This document is worthy of being reprinted. It ran thus: - </p> - <p> - “Being convinced that the expressions I made use of to Mr. Sheridan's - disadvantage, were the effects of passion and misrepresentation, I intreat - what I have said to that gentleman's disadvantage, and particularly beg - his pardon for my advertisement in the <i>Bath Chronicle</i>. Th. - Mathews.” - </p> - <p> - He handed this document to his sister, and then it may be supposed that he - went to bed. He had certainly good need of a sleep. - </p> - <p> - Such is the drift of the story up to this point, as told by Mrs. Lefanu - (Elizabeth Sheridan), and it differs in some particulars from that told by - her brother Charles in a letter to their uncle, and, in a lesser degree, - from the account given of the whole transaction by Richard Sheridan - himself, who was surely in the best position to know exactly what happened - upon the occasion of his first visit to Mathews in London, as well as upon - the occasion of his second, made so hurriedly in the company of his - brother. - </p> - <p> - His second visit was, as might have been expected, the more exciting. It - included the fighting of a duel with Mathews. The humours of duelling have - been frequently dealt with in prose and comedy, and, assuredly the most - amusing of all is to be found in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's <i>The Rivals</i>. - One must confess, however, that the serious account given by the same - writer of his hostile meeting with Mathews, on his return from Bath, - suggests a much more ludicrous series of situations than are to be found - in his play. - </p> - <p> - In Sheridan's account he mentions that while still in France he received - “several abusive threats” from Mathews, and these had such an effect upon - him that he wrote to Mathews, swearing that he would not close his eyes in - sleep in England till he had treated Mathews as he deserved. In order to - carry out this vow he had actually sat up all night at Canterbury, where - his party halted on their way from Dover to London. He called upon Mathews - on arriving in London, at the latter's lodging in Crutched Friars; this - was at midnight, and the key of the door being mislaid, he had to wait two - hours before he was admitted. He found Mathews in bed, but he induced him - to rise and dress, though, in spite of his compliance as regards his - raiment, he complained bitterly of the cold. There does not seem to have - been any great suffering on Sheridan's part through a lack of heat. Then, - as his sister's narrative put it, the man declared that his visitor had - been grossly misinformed in regard to the libel in the Chronicle; and so - he left for Bath, as has already been stated. - </p> - <p> - And now comes the account given by Sheridan of the return visit, and, told - in his own laconic style, it suggests such comic situations as border on - farce. - </p> - <p> - “Mr. S.,” he wrote, “staid but three hours in Bath. He returned to London. - He sent to Mr. M. from Hyde Parck. He came with Captain Knight his second. - He objected frequently to the ground. They adjourned to the Hercules - Pillars. They returned to Hyde Parck. Mr. M. objected to the observation - of an officer. They returned to Hercules Pillars. They adjourned to the - Bedford Coffee house by agreement. Mr. M. was gone to the Castel Tavern. - Mr. S. followed with Mr. E. Mr. M. made many declarations in favour of Mr. - S. They engaged. Mr. M. was disarmed, Captain Knight ran in. Mr. M. begged - his life and afterwards denied the advantage. Mr. S. was provoked by the - (really well-meant) interposition of Captain Knight and the illusion of - Mr. M. He insisted since Mr. M. denied the advantage, that he should give - up his sword. Mr. M. denied, but sooner than return to his ground he gave - it up. It was broke, and Mr. M. offered another. He was then called on to - retract his abuse and beg Mr. S.'s pardon. With much altercation and much - ill grace he complied.” - </p> - <p> - The remainder of this remarkably succinct composition is devoted to the - subsequent misrepresentations of the transaction by Mathews, and by the - writer's appeal to the seconds to say if his version of the encounter was - not correct. - </p> - <p> - But whatever Mathews' account may have been it could scarcely be more - ludicrous than Sheridan's. The marching and countermarching of the four - gentlemen—it appears that brother Charles, although accompanying - Richard to London, thought it more prudent to remain under cover during - the actual engagement; he waited at Brereton's lodgings—the excuses - made by Mathews in order to get away without fighting, and then at the - last moment, the carrying out (by agreement) of a manouvre which landed - Mathews in one tavern and the rest of the party in another—the - set-to of the principals immediately after the “declarations” of one of - them in favour of the other, and the final catastrophe could hardly be - surpassed by the actions of a pair of burlesque duellists in what is - technically known as a “knockabout” entertainment. - </p> - <p> - And after all this scrupulousness of detail one is left in doubt as to the - exact <i>locale</i> of the encounter. Did it take place in the coffee-room - of the Castell Inn, or did the eager combatants retrace their steps to the - “parck”? The document written by Sheridan, though dealing very fully with - the forced marches of the army in the field, throws no light upon this - question of the scene of the battle. In respect of the signing of the - treaty of peace, and the payment of the indemnity, it is, however, - moderately lucid. Sheridan must have told his sister that Mathews signed - the apology immediately after the encounter; she states this in her - narrative. But Mathews did not merely sign the apology, he wrote every - word of it, as one may see by referring to the facsimile, thoughtfully - given in Mr. Fraser Rae's <i>Life of Sheridan</i>, and it would be - impossible to say that the caligraphy of the apology shows the least sign - of that perturbation from which one must believe the writer was suffering - at the moment. Its characteristic is neatness. It is in the fine - old-fashioned Italian hand. Even an expert, who sees possibilities—when - paid for it—in handwriting which would never occur to less - imaginative observers, would scarcely venture to say that this neat little - document was written by a man with another's sword at his throat. - </p> - <p> - This is another element in the mystery of the duel, and it cannot be said - that when we read the letter which the elder of the brothers wrote to his - uncle, giving his account of the whole business, we feel ourselves in a - clearer atmosphere. It really seems a pity that Mr. Browning did not make - another <i>Ring and the Book</i> series of studies out of this amazing - duel. Charles Sheridan told his uncle that an apology was given to Richard - by Mathews as a result of Richard's first visit to him in London, but when - Richard read the advertisement in the Chronicle, which was the original - casus belli, he considered this apology so inadequate that he set off for - London to demand another. Charles also mentions, what neither his brother - nor his sister had stated, that he himself, on reaching London on the - Sunday evening, went to Mathews to endeavour to get a suitable apology—according - to Richard's narrative Charles had good grounds for sending a challenge to - Mathews on his own account—but “after two hours' altercation” he - found that he had made no impression upon the man, so that his brother had - no alternative but to call him out. - </p> - <p> - But however the accounts of the lesser details of this affair of honour - may differ, there can be no question that public opinion in Bath was all - in favour of young Mr. Sheridan. It was acknowledged on every hand that he - had acted from the first—that is, from the moment he assumed the - duties of the protector of Miss Linley—with admirable courage, and - with a full sense of what honour demanded of him. In short he came back - from London, after so many sleepless nights, covered with glory. He was a - tall, handsome fellow of twenty, with brilliant eyes; he had run away with - the most beautiful girl in the world to save her from the clutches of a - scoundrel; he had had four nights without sleep, and then he had fought a - duel with the scoundrel and had obtained from him an apology for insertion - in the newspapers. Few young gentlemen starting life wholly without means - attain to so proud a position of achievement before they reach their - majority. - </p> - <p> - But of course all these feats of errantry and arms run up a bill. Young - Mr. Sheridan's posting account must have been by itself pretty formidable, - and, knowing that his father had never looked on him with the favour which - he gave to his brother, Richard may now and again have felt a trifle - uneasy at the prospect of meeting Mr. Sheridan. If his sister's memory is - to be trusted, however, this meeting took place within a week or two of - his duel, and no bones were broken. Mr. Sheridan had a few chiding words - to say respecting the debts which his son had incurred, but these he paid, - after obtaining from the boy the usual promise made under similar - conditions before a like tribunal. The prodigal invariably acts up to his - character for prodigality in the matter of promises of reform. - </p> - <p> - Richard Sheridan, being something of a wit, though we do not get many - examples of his faculty in the accounts extant of his early life, and - assuredly not a single example in any of his letters that came into the - hands of his biographers, may have sworn to his father never to run away - with a girl who might be anxious to enter upon a conventual life. At any - rate, his father did not show any great displeasure when he was made aware - of the boy's conduct, though it is worth noting that Mr. Sheridan took - exception to the general conviction that his son's act had been prompted - by the most chivalrous aspirations. - </p> - <p> - Mathews, however, had not yet been shaken off. He was back in Bath almost - as soon as the Sheridans, and “malevolent incendiarism” was in the air. No - slander was too base for him to use against Richard Sheridan, no - insinuation too vile. But the popularity of the object of his calumny was - now too firmly established in Bath to be shaken by the vaporous - malevolence of his enemy. Mathews, finding himself thoroughly discredited - in every quarter, did the only sensible thing recorded in his squalid - history—he ran away to his home in Wales. - </p> - <p> - He was here unfortunate enough to meet with a man named Barnard, or - Barnett, who acted upon him pretty much as Sir Lucius O'Trigger did upon - Squire Acres, explaining to him that it was quite impossible that the - affair between him and Sheridan should remain as it was. It was absolutely - necessary, he said, that another duel should take place. All the - “incendiarism” in Mathews' nature was aroused by the fiery words of this - man, and the precious pair hurried to Bath, where a challenge was sent to - Sheridan through the hands of his eldest sister, under the guise of an - invitation to some festivity. - </p> - <p> - Sheridan was foolish enough to accept the challenge apparently without - consulting with any one competent to advise him. According to his father - the challenge had been preceded by several letters of the most scurrilous - abuse. His wiser brother, who had just received an appointment as - Secretary to the British Legation in Sweden, had gone to London with their - father to make preparations for his departure for Stockholm, and - immediately on hearing of the duel he wrote to Richard a typical elder - brother's letter. It is dated July 3rd, 1772, so that, as the duel had - only taken place the previous day, it cannot be said that he lost much - time in expressing his deep sense of his brother's foolishness in meeting - so great a scoundrel for the second time. “All your friends have condemned - you,” he wrote. “You risked everything, where you had nothing to gain, to - give your antagonist the thing he wished, a chance for recovering his - reputation; he wanted to get rid of the contemptible opinion he was held - in, and you were good-natured enough to let him do it at your expense. It - is not a time to scold, but all your friends were of opinion you could, - with the greatest propriety, have refused to meet him.” - </p> - <p> - Without going into the question as to whether this sort of letter was the - ideal one for one brother to write to another who was lying on his bed - with several wounds in his throat, it is impossible to question the - soundness of the opinion expressed by Charles Sheridan in respect of - Richard's acceptance of Mathews' challenge. The challenge was, however, - accepted, and the duel took place on King's Down, at three o'clock in the - morning. Mathews' friend was Barnett, and Sheridan's a young gentleman - named Paumier, who, it was said, was quite unacquainted with the rules of - the game, and had never even seen a duel being fought. The accounts which - survive of this second meeting of Sheridan and Mathews make it apparent - that, if the first was a scene of comedy, this one was a tragic burlesque. - It is said that Sheridan, on the signal being given, at once rushed in on - his antagonist, endeavouring to disarm him as he had done upon the former - occasion of their meeting, but, tripping over something, he literally, and - not figuratively, fell upon the other, knocking him down with such - violence that he was not only disarmed, but his sword was broken as well. - Sheridan's own sword was also broken, so that one might fancy that the - meeting would have terminated here. It did nothing of the sort. The - encounter was only beginning, and anything more savagely burlesque than - the sequel could not be imagined. - </p> - <p> - The combatants must have rolled over, after the manner of the negro - duellists on the variety stage, and when they had settled themselves each - made a grab for the most serviceable fragment of his sword. Mathews being - the heavier man contrived to keep uppermost in the scuffle, and, what gave - him a decided advantage over his opponent, he managed to get his fingers - on the hilt of his broken weapon. An appeal at this stage was made by the - lad who was acting as Sheridan's second to put a stop to the fight; but - the second ruffian, or the ruffian's second—either description - applies to Barnett—declared that as both the antagonists were on the - ground one could not be said to have any advantage over the other. This - delicate question being settled, Mathews held the jagged, saw-like end—point - it had none—of the broken sword at the other's throat and told him - to beg for his life. Sheridan replied that he should refuse to beg his - life from such a scoundrel, and forthwith the scoundrel began jabbing at - his throat and face with the fragment of his weapon, a method of attack - which was not robbed of its butchery by the appeal that it makes to a - reader's sense of its comical aspect. - </p> - <p> - It is doubtful, however, if the comic side of the transaction appealed - very forcibly to the unfortunate boy who was being lacerated to death. He - just managed to put aside a thrust or two before the end of the blade - penetrated the flesh of his throat and pinned him to the ground. With a - chuckle and, according to Tom Sheridan's account, an oath, Mathews got - upon his feet, and, entering the coach which was waiting for him, drove - away from the scene of his butchery. Sheridan was thereupon raised from - the ground, and driven in his chaise with his second to the White Hart - Inn. Two surgeons were immediately in attendance, and it was found that - his wounds, though numerous, were not such as placed his life in jeopardy. - They were, however, sufficiently serious to prevent his removal to his - home that day. - </p> - <p> - It does not appear that young Paumier told the sisters of the occurrence; - but an account of the duel having appeared in the <i>Bath Chronicle</i> - the same afternoon, every one in the town must have been talking of it, - though Mrs. Lefanu says neither she nor her sister heard a word of the - matter until the next day. Then they hastened to the White Hart, and - prevailed upon the surgeons to allow them to take their brother home. In a - surprisingly short time he had quite recovered. Indeed, although there was - a report that Sheridan's life was despaired of, there was no excuse for - any one taking so gloomy a view of his hurts, for the exact truth was - known to Charles Sheridan and his father in London early on the day - following that of the fight. - </p> - <p> - The pathetic part of the story of this ludicrous encounter is to be found - in the story of the reception of the news by Elizabeth Linley. Her father - had read in some of the papers that Sheridan was at the point of death, - but, like the worldly-wise man that Mr. Linley was, he kept the news from - his daughter. They were at Oxford together, and she was announced to sing - at a concert, and he knew that had she learned all that the newspapers - published, she might possibly not be able to do herself—and her - father—justice. But, as one of the audience told his sister - afterwards, the fact that every one who had come to hear Miss Linley sing - was aware of the serious condition (as the papers alleged) of young - Sheridan, and of her attachment to him, a feeling of sympathy for the - lovely young creature added immeasurably to the interest of her - performance. - </p> - <p> - At the conclusion of the concert her father set out with her for Bath; and - it was not until they had almost reached their home that their chaise was - met by a clergyman named Pauton, and he summoned all his tact to enable - him to prepare Elizabeth Linley for the news which he was entrusted to - communicate to her. It is said that under the stress of her emotion the - girl declared that Richard Sheridan was her husband, and that her place - was by his side. - </p> - <p> - Whatever truth there may be in this story it is certain that if she - believed at that moment that Sheridan was her husband, she gave no sign of - continuing in that belief, for though her numerous letters to him show - that she was devoted to him, there is no suggestion in any of them that - she believed herself to be his wife. On the contrary, there are many - passages which prove that no idea of the sort was entertained by her. - </p> - <p> - The exertions of the heads of the two families were for long directed - against the union of the lovers. Mr. Linley felt more forcibly than ever - that he had had quite enough of the Sheridans, and Tom Sheridan doubtless - wished never to hear again the name of Linley. The one made his daughter - promise on her knees to give up Richard Sheridan, and Mr. Sheridan - compelled his son to forswear any association with Elizabeth Linley. Jove - must have been convulsed with laughter. Richard Brinsley Sheridan and - Elizabeth Ann Linley were married on the 13th of April, 1773. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - A MELODRAMA AT COVENT GARDEN - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>N an evening in - April, 1779, the play, “<i>Love in a Village</i>” was being performed at - Covent Garden Theatre before a large audience. In the front row of the - boxes sat two ladies, one of them young and handsome, the other not so - young and not so beautiful—a dark-faced, dark-eyed woman whom no one - could mistake for any nationality except Italian. Three gentlemen who sat - behind them were plainly of their party—elegant gentlemen of - fashion, one of them an Irish peer. Every person of quality in the theatre - and a good many others without such a claim to distinction, were aware of - the fact that the most attractive member of the group was Miss Reay, a - lady whose name had been for several years closely associated—very - closely indeed—with that of Lord Sandwich, the First Lord of the - Admiralty, and one of the most unpopular men in England. She had driven to - the theatre in his lordship's carriage, and two of the gentlemen with whom - she conversed freely in the box were high officials of the department over - which his lordship presided. - </p> - <p> - Almost from the moment of her arrival, Miss Reay and her friends were - watched eagerly by a hollow-eyed, morose gentleman in black. He looked as - if he had not slept for many nights; and no one observing him could have - failed to perceive that he had come to the theatre not for the sake of the - play which was being performed, but to watch the lady. He kept his fierce - eyes fixed upon her, and he frowned every time that she turned to make a - remark to one of her friends; his eyes blazed every time that one of her - friends smiled over her shoulder, and his hands clenched if she smiled in - return. Several times it seemed as if he found it impossible to remain in - his place in the upper side box, where his seat was, for he started up and - hurried out to the great lobby, walking to and fro in great agitation. - More than once he strode away from the lobby into the Bedford Coffee House - just outside the theatre, and there partook of brandy and water, returning - after brief intervals to stare at Miss Reay and her companions in the - front row of the boxes. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0015" id="linkimage-0015"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0327.jpg" alt="0327 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0327.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - At the conclusion of the play, he went hastily into the vestibule, - standing to one side, not far from the exit from the boxes; but if he - intended to be close to Miss Reay while she walked to the main exit, his - object was defeated by reason of the crush of people congregating in the - vestibule, the people of quality waiting for their carriages to be - announced, the others waiting for the satisfaction of being in such close - proximity to people of quality. - </p> - <p> - Among the crowd there was a lady who had recently become the wife of a - curious gentleman named Lewis, who some years later wrote a grisly book - entitled <i>The Monk</i>, bringing him such great fame as cancelled for - posterity the names of Matthew Gregory, given to him by his parents, and - caused him to be identified by the name of his book only. This lady made a - remark to her neighbour in respect of a lovely rose which Miss Reay was - wearing when she left the box exit and stood in the vestibule—a - beautiful rose early in the month of April might have excited remark in - those days; at any rate, Mrs. Lewis has left the record that at the very - moment of her speaking, the rose fell to the floor, and Miss Reay appeared - to be profoundly affected by this trifling incident, and said in a - faltering voice, “I trust that I am not to consider this as an evil omen!” - So Mrs. Lewis stated. - </p> - <p> - A few moments later Lord Sandwich's carriage was announced, and Miss Reay - and her companion made a move in the direction of the door. The gentlemen - of the party seem to have left earlier, for on the ladies being impeded by - the crush in the vestibule, a stranger, named Mr. Macnamara, of Lincoln's - Inn, proffered his services to help them to get to the carriage. Miss Reay - thanked him, took his arm, and the crowd opened for them in some measure. - It quickly opened wider under a more acute persuasion a few seconds later, - when the morose gentleman in black pushed his way among the people until - he was within a few feet of the lady and her escort. Only for a second did - he pause—certainly he spoke no word to Miss Reay or any one else—before - he pulled a pistol from his pocket and fired almost point-blank at her - before any one could knock up his hand. Immediately afterwards he turned a - second pistol against his own forehead and pulled the trigger, and fell to - the ground. - </p> - <p> - The scene that followed can easily be imagined. Every woman present - shrieked, except Miss Reay, who was supported by Mr. Macnamara. The - ghastly effects of the bullet were apparent not only upon the forehead of - the lady where it lodged, but upon the bespattered garments of every one - about the door, and upon the columns of the hall. Above the shrieks of the - terror-stricken people were heard the yells of the murderer, who lay on - the ground, hammering at his head with the butt end of his weapon, and - crying, “Kill me! Kill me!” - </p> - <p> - A Mr. Mahon, of Russell Street, who was said to be an apothecary, was the - first to lay a hand upon the wretched man. He wrested the pistol from his - grasp and prevented him from doing further mischief to himself. He was - quickly handed over to the police, and, with his unfortunate victim, was - removed to the Shakespeare Tavern, a surgeon named Bond being in prompt - attendance. It did not take long to find that Miss Reay had never breathed - after the shot had been fired at her; the bullet had smashed the skull and - passed through the brain. The man remained for some time unconscious, but - even before he recovered he was identified as James Hackman, a gentleman - who had been an officer in the army, and on retiring had taken Orders, - being admitted a priest of the Church of England scarcely a month before - his crime. There were rumours respecting his infatuation for Miss Reay, - and in a surprisingly short space of time, owing most likely to the - exertions of Signora Galli, the Italian whom Lord Sandwich had hired to be - her companion, the greater part of the romantic story of the wretched - man's life, as far as it related to Miss Reay, was revealed. - </p> - <p> - It formed a nine days' wonder during the spring of the same year (1779). - The grief displayed by Lord Sandwich on being made acquainted with the - circumstances of the murder was freely commented on, and the sympathy - which was felt for him may have diminished in some measure from his - unpopularity. The story told by Croker of the reception of the news by - Lord Sandwich is certainly not deficient in detail. “He stood as it were - petrified,” we are told, “till suddenly, seizing a candle, he ran upstairs - and threw himself on the bed, and in agony exclaimed, 'Leave me for a - while to myself, I could have borne anything but this!' The attendants - remained for a considerable time at the top of the staircase, till his - lordship rang the bell and ordered that they should all go to bed.” - </p> - <p> - Before his lordship left the scene of his grief in the morning Sir John - Fielding, the Bow Street magistrate, had arrived at the Shakespeare Tavern - from his house at Brompton, and, after a brief inquiry, ordered Hackman to - be taken to Tothill Fields Prison. In due course he was committed to - Newgate, and on April 16th his trial took place before Blackstone, the - Recorder. The facts of the tragedy were deposed to by several witnesses, - and the cause of the lady's death was certified by Mr. Bond, the surgeon. - The prisoner was then called on for his defence. He made a brief speech, - explaining that he would have pleaded guilty at once had he not felt that - doing so “would give an indication of contemning death, not suitable to my - present condition, and would in some measure make me accessory to a second - peril of my life. And I likewise thought,” he added, “that the justice of - my country ought to be satisfied by suffering my offence to be proved, and - the fact to be established by evidence.” - </p> - <p> - This curious affectation of a finer perception of the balance of justice - than is possessed by most men was quite characteristic of this man, as was - also his subsequent expression of his willingness to submit to the - sentence of the court. His counsel endeavoured to show that he had been - insane from the moment of his purchasing his pistols until he had - committed the deed for which he was being tried—he did not say - anything about “a wave of insanity,” however, though that picturesque - phrase would have aptly described the nature of his plea. He argued that a - letter which was found in the prisoner's pocket, and in which suicide only - was threatened, should be accepted as proof that he had no intention of - killing Miss Reay when he went to the theatre. - </p> - <p> - The Recorder, of course, made short work of such a plea. He explained to - the jury that “for a plea of insanity to be successful it must be shown - not merely that it was a matter of fits and starts, but that it was a - definite thing—a total loss of reason and incapability of reason.” - Referring to the letter, he said that it seemed to him to argue a coolness - and premeditation incompatible with such insanity as he described. - </p> - <p> - The result was, as might have been anticipated, the jury, without leaving - the box, found Hackman guilty, and he was sentenced to be hanged. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Boswell, who was nearly as fond of hearing death-sentences pronounced - as he was of seeing them carried out, was present in the court during the - trial, and to him Mr. Booth, the brother-in-law of the prisoner, applied—he - himself had been too greatly agitated to be able to remain in the court—for - information as to how Hackman had deported himself, and Boswell was able - to assure him that he had behaved “as well, sir, as you or any of his - friends could wish; with decency, propriety, and in such a manner as to - interest every one present. He might have pleaded that he shot Miss Reay - by accident, but he fairly told the truth that in a moment of frenzy he - did intend it.” - </p> - <p> - While he was in the condemned cell at Newgate he received a message from - Lord Sandwich to the effect that if he wished for his life, he (Lord - Sandwich) had influence with the King, and might succeed in obtaining a - commutation of his sentence. Hackman replied that he had no wish to live, - but he implored his lordship to give him such assurance that those whom - Miss Reay had left behind her would be carefully looked after, as would, - on meeting her in another world, enable him to make this pleasing - communication to her. - </p> - <p> - He spent the few days that remained to him in writing fervid letters to - his friends and in penning moralisings, in a style which was just the - smallest degree more pronounced than that which was fashionable at his - period—the style of the sentimental hero of Richardson and his - inferior followers. - </p> - <p> - His execution at Tyburn attracted the most enormous crowds ever seen upon - such an occasion. The carriage in which the wretched man was conveyed to - the gibbet could only proceed at a walking pace; but still, the vehicle - which followed it, containing the Earl of Carlisle and James Boswell, - arrived in good time for the final scene of this singular tragedy, which - for weeks, as the Countess of Ossory wrote to George Selwyn, was the sole - topic of conversation. - </p> - <p> - And, as a matter of course, Horace Walpole had something to communicate to - one of his carefully-selected correspondents. Oddly enough it was to a - parson he wrote to express the opinion that he was still uncertain - “whether our clergy are growing Mahometans or not”; adding sagely, “they - certainly are not what they profess themselves; but as you and I should - not agree, perhaps, in assigning the same defects to them, I will not - enter on a subject which I have promised you to drop, all I allude to now - is the shocking murder of Miss Reay by a divine. In my own opinion we are - growing more fit for Bedlam than for Mahomet's paradise. The poor - criminal, I am persuaded, is mad, and the misfortune is the law does not - know how to define the shades of madness; and thus there are twenty - out-pensioners of Bedlam for one that is confined.” - </p> - <p> - Most persons will come to the conclusion that the judge who tried Hackman - made a most successful attempt to expound to the jury exactly where the - law drew a line in differentiating between the man who should be sent to - Bedlam and the man who should be sent to Tyburn, and will agree with the - justice of the law that condemned to the gallows this divine of three - weeks' standing for committing an atrocious crime, even though the chances - are that Hackman spoke the truth when he affirmed that he had brought his - pistols down to the theatre with no more felonious intent than to blow out - his own brains in the presence of the lady and to fall dead at her feet. - At the same time one is not precluded from agreeing with Walpole's opinion - that the people of his period were growing more fit for Bedlam than for - Eblis. - </p> - <p> - The truth is that an extraordinary wave of what was called “sensibility” - was passing over England at that time. It was a wave of sentimentality—that - maudlin sentimentality which was the exquisite characteristic of the hero - and heroine of almost every novel that attained to any degree of success. - To people who have formed their ideas of the latter half of the eighteenth - century from studying Boswell's <i>Life of Johnson</i>, every page of - which shows a healthy common sense; or from the plates of Hogarth—robust - even to a point of vulgarity—it would seem incredible that there - should exist in England at practically the same time a cult of the maudlin - and the lachrymose. Such a cult had, however, obtained so great a hold on - a large section of society that all the satire of Smollett, Sterne, and - Goldsmith, was unable to ridicule it out of existence. - </p> - <p> - And the worst of the matter was that the types of these weeping - sentimentalists were not unreal. They began by being unreal, but in the - course of a short time they became real, the fact being that people in all - directions began to frame their conduct and their conversation upon these - flaccid creatures of the unhealthy fancy of third-rate novelists and - fourth-rate poetasters. More than once, it may be remarked, even in our - own time “movements” have had their origin in the fancy of a painter—in - one case of a subtle caricaturist. An artist possessed of a distorted - sense of what is beautiful in woman has been able to set a certain fashion - in the unreal, until people were well-nigh persuaded that it was the - painter who had taken the figures in his pictures from the persons who had - simply sought a cheap notoriety by adopting the pose and the dress of the - scraggy posturantes for whose anatomy he was responsible. - </p> - <p> - So it was that, when certain novel-writers in the eighteenth century, - having no experience of the life which they attempted to depict, brought - forth creatures out of their own unhealthy imaginations, and placed them - before their readers as types of heroes and heroines, the public never - failed to include quite a number of readers who were ready to live up to - all those essentials that constituted the personages of the fiction. - </p> - <p> - And not alone over England had the sighs of a perpetually sighing hero and - heroine sent a lachrymose flood; France and Germany, if not actually - inundated, were at least rendered humid by its influence. <i>The Sorrows - of Werther</i> was only one of the many books which helped on the cult of - the sentimental, and it was as widely read in England as in Germany. - Gessner's <i>Death of Abel</i> had an enormous vogue in its English - translation. The boarding-school version of the tale of Abelard and - Heloise was also much wept over both in France and Germany; and the true - story of James Hackman and Martha Reay, as recorded by the correspondence - of the pair, published shortly after the last scene in the tragedy had - been enacted, and reissued with connecting notes some twelve years ago, - might pass only as a somewhat crude attempt to surpass these masterpieces - of fancy-woven woes. James and Martha might have been as happy as - thousands of other Jameses and Marthas have been, but they chose to - believe that the Fates were bothering themselves with this particular case - of James and Martha—they chose to feel that they were doomed to a - life of sorrowful love—at any rate, this was Martha's notion—and - they kept on exchanging emotional sentiments until James's poor head gave - way, and he sought to end up their romance in accordance with the mode of - the best models, stretching himself a pallid corpse at the feet of his - Martha; but then it was that Fate put out a meddlesome finger, and so - caused the scene of the last chapter to take place at Tyburn. - </p> - <p> - The romance of Mr. Hackman and Miss Reay would never have taken place, if - Lord Sandwich had been as exemplary a husband as George III or Dr. Johnson - or Edmund Burke—the only exemplary husbands of the eighteenth - century that one can recall at a moment's notice. Unhappily his lordship - was one of the many examples of the unexemplary husband of that period. If - the Earl of Chesterfield advanced the ill-treatment of a wife to one of - the fine arts, it may be said that the Earl of Sandwich made it one of the - coarse. He was brutal in his treatment of the Countess, and never more so - than when he purchased the pretty child that Miss Reay must have been at - the age of thirteen, and had her educated to suit his tastes. He went - about the transaction with the same deliberation as a gourmand might - display in ordering his dinner. He was extremely fond of music, so he had - the child's education in this direction carefully attended to. His place - at Hinchinbrook had been the scene of the performance of several - oratorios, his lordship taking his place in the orchestra at the - kettledrums; and he hoped that by the time he should have his purchase - sent home, her voice would be equal to the demands put upon it by the most - exacting of the sacred soprano music of Handel or Gluck. - </p> - <p> - As it turned out he was not disappointed. Martha Reay, when she went to - live at Hinchinbrook at the age of eighteen, showed herself to be a most - accomplished young lady, as she certainly was a very charming one. She was - found to possess a lovely voice, and was quite fitted to take her place, - not merely in his lordship's music-room, but also in his drawing-room to - which he advanced her. To say that she was treated as one of his - lordship's family would be to convey a wrong impression, considering how - he treated the principal member of his family, but certainly he introduced - her to his guests, and she took her place at his table at dinner parties. - He even put her next to the wife of a bishop upon one occasion, feeling - sure that she would captivate that lady, and as it turned out, his - anticipations were fully realised; only the bishop's lady, on making - inquiries later on, protested that she was scandalised by being placed in - such a position as permitted of her yielding to the fascinations of a - young person occupying a somewhat equivocal position in the household. - </p> - <p> - It was when she was at Hinchinbrook, in October, 1775, that Miss Reay met - the man who was to play so important a part in her life—and death. - Cradock, the “country gentleman,” tells in his <i>Memoirs</i> the story of - the first meeting of the two. Lord Sandwich was anxious that a friend of - his own should be elected to a professorship at Cambridge, and Cradock, - having a vote, was invited to use it on behalf of his lordship's - candidate, and to stay for a night at Hinchinbrook on his way back to - London. He travelled in Lord Sandwich's coach, and when in the act of - driving through the gateway at Hinchinbrook, it overtook a certain Major - Reynolds and another officer who was stationed on recruiting duty in the - neighbourhood. Lord Sandwich, being acquainted with Reynolds, dismounted - and invited him and his friend to a family dinner at his lordship's place - that evening. Major Reynolds expressed his appreciation of this act of - courtesy, and introduced his friend as Captain Hackman. The party was a - simple affair. - </p> - <p> - It consisted of Lord Sandwich, Miss Reay, another lady, the two officers, - and Mr. Cradock. After coffee had been served two rubbers of whist were - played, and the party broke up. - </p> - <p> - This was the first meeting of Hackman and Miss Reay. They seem to have - fallen in love immediately, each with the other, for the first letter in - the correspondence, written in December, 1775, contains a good deal that - suggests the adolescence of a passion. Hackman was a man of education and - some culture, and he showed few signs of developing into that maudlin - sentimentalist who corresponded with the lady a year or two later. He was - but twenty-three years of age, the son of a retired officer in the navy, - who had sent him to St. John's College, Cambridge, and afterwards bought - him a commission in the 68th Foot. He was probably only an ensign when he - was stationed at Huntingdon, but being in charge of the recruiting party, - enjoyed the temporary rank of captain. - </p> - <p> - He must have had a pretty fair conceit of his own ability as a - correspondent, for he kept a copy of his love letters. Of course, there is - no means of ascertaining if he kept copies of all that he ever wrote; he - may have sent off some in the hot passion of the moment, but those which - passed into the hands of his brother-in-law and were afterwards published, - were copies which he had retained. Miss Reay was doubtless discreet enough - to destroy the originals before they had a chance of falling into the - hands of Lord Sandwich. It is difficult for us who live in this age of - scrawls and “correspondence cards” to imagine the existence of that - enormous army of letter-writers who flourished their quills in the - eighteenth century, for the entertainment of their descendants in the - nineteenth and twentieth; but still more difficult is it to understand - how, before the invention of any mechanical means of reproducing - manuscript, these voluminous correspondents first made a rough draft of - every letter, then corrected and afterwards copied it, before sending it—securing - a frank from a friendly Member of Parliament—to its destination. - </p> - <p> - Superlatively difficult is it to imagine an ardent lover sitting down to - transcribe into the pages of a notebook the outpourings of his passion. - But this is what Ensign Hackman did, although so far as the consequences - of his love-making were concerned, he is deserving of a far higher place - among great lovers than Charlotte's Werther, or Mr. Swinburne's Dolores. - Charlotte we know “went on cutting bread and butter” after the death of - her honourable lover; but poor little Miss Reay was the victim of the - passion which she undoubtedly fanned into a flame of madness. Ensign - Hackman made copies of his love-letters, and we are grateful to him, for - by their aid we can perceive the progress of his disease. They are like - the successive pictures in a biograph series lately exhibited at a - conversazione of the Royal Society, showing the development of a blossom - into a perfect flower. We see by the aid of these letters how he gave way - under the attack of what we should now call the bacillus of that maudlin - sentimentality which was in the air in his day. - </p> - <p> - He began his love-letters like a gallant officer, but ended them in the - strain of the distracted curate who had been jilted just when he has laid - down the cork lino in the new study and got rid of the plumbers. He wrote - merrily of his “Corporal Trim,” who was the bearer of a “billet” from her. - “He will be as good a soldier to Cupid as to Mars, I dare say. And Mars - and Cupid are not now to begin their acquaintance, you know.” Then he goes - on to talk in a fine soldierly strain of the drum “beating for volunteers - to Bacchus. In plain English, the drum tells me dinner is ready, for a - drum gives us bloody-minded heroes an appetite for eating as well as for - fighting.... Adieu—whatever hard service I may have after dinner, no - quantity of wine shall make me let drop or forget my appointment with you - tomorrow. We certainly were not seen yesterday, for reasons I will give - you.” - </p> - <p> - This letter was written on December 7th, and it was followed by another - the next day, and a still longer one the day following. In fact, Corporal - Trim must have been kept as busy as his original in the service of Uncle - Toby, during the month of December, his duty being to receive the lady's - letters, as well as to deliver the gentleman's, and he seems to have been - equally a pattern of fidelity. - </p> - <p> - Hackman's letters at this time were models of good taste, with only the - smallest amount of swagger in them. His intentions were strictly - honourable, and they were not concealed within any cocoon of sentimental - phraseology. One gathers from his first letters that he was a simple and - straightforward gentleman, who, having fallen pretty deeply in love with a - young woman, seeks to make her his wife at the earliest possible moment. - Unfortunately however, the lady had fallen under the influence of the - prevailing affectation, and her scheme of life did not include a - commonplace marriage with a subaltern in a marching regiment. One might be - disposed to say that she knew when she was well off. The aspiration to be - made “a respectable woman” by marriage in a church was not sufficiently - strong in her to compel her to sacrifice the many good things with which - she was surrounded, in order to realise it. But, of course, she was ready - to pose as a miserable woman, linked to a man whom she did not love, but - too honourable to leave him, and far too thoughtful for the career of the - man whom she did love with all her soul ever to become a burden to him. - She had read the ballad of “Auld Robin Gray”—she quoted it in full - in one of her letters—and she was greatly interested to find how - closely her case resembled that of the wife in the poem. She had brought - herself to think of the man who had bought her just as he would buy a - peach tree, or a new tulip, as her “benefactor.” Did she not owe to him - the blessing of a good education, and the culture of her voice, her - knowledge of painting—nay, her “keep” for several years, and her - introduction to the people of quality who visited at Hinchinbrook and at - the Admiralty? She seemed to think it impossible for any one to doubt that - Lord Sandwich had acted toward her with extraordinary generosity, and that - she would be showing the most contemptible ingratitude were she to forsake - so noble a benefactor. But all the same she found Hinchinbrook intolerably - dull at times, and she was so pleased at the prospect of having a lover, - that she came to fancy that she loved the first one who turned up. - </p> - <p> - She was undoubtedly greatly impressed by the ballad of “Auld Robin Gray,” - and she at once accepted the rôle of the unhappy wife, only she found it - convenient to modify one rather important line— - </p> - <p> - “I fain would think o' Jamie, but that would be a sin.” - </p> - <p> - She was fain to think on her Jamie whether it was a sin or not, but she - did so without having the smallest intention of leaving her Auld Robin - Gray. So whimsical an interpretation of the poem could scarcely occur to - any one not under the influence of the sentimental malady of the day; but - it served both for Miss Reay and her Jamie. They accepted it, and became - deeply sensible of its pathos as applied to themselves. Ensign Hackman - assured her that he was too high-minded to dream of making love to her - under the roof of Lord Sandwich, her “benefactor.” - </p> - <p> - “Our love, the inexorable tyrant of our hearts,” he wrote, “claims his - sacrifices, but does not bid us insult his lordship's walls with it. How - civilly did he invite me to Hinchinbrook in October last, though an - unknown recruiting officer. How politely himself first introduced me to - himself! Often has the recollection made me struggle with my passion. - Still it shall restrain it on this side honour.” - </p> - <p> - This was in reply to her remonstrance, and probably she regretted that she - had been so strenuous in pointing out to him how dreadful it would be were - she to show herself wanting in gratitude to Lord Sandwich. She wanted to - play the part of Jenny, the lawful wife of Robin Gray, with as few - sacrifices as possible, and she had no idea of sacrificing young Jamie, - the lover, any more than she had of relinquishing the many privileges she - enjoyed at Hinchinbrook by making Jamie the lover into Jamie the husband. - </p> - <p> - It is very curious to find Hackman protesting to her all this time that - his passions are “wild as the torrent's roar,” apologising for making his - simile water when the element most congenial to his nature was fire. - “Swift had water in his brain. I have a burning coal of fire; your hand - can light it up to rapture, rage, or madness. Men, real men, have never - been wild enough for my admiration, it has wandered into the ideal world - of fancy. Othello (but he should have put himself to death in his wife's - sight, not his wife), Zanga are my heroes. Milk-and-water passions are - like sentimental comedy.” - </p> - <p> - Read in the light of future events this letter has a peculiar - significance. Although he became more sentimental than the hero of any of - the comedies at which he was sneering, he was still able to make an honest - attempt to act up to his ideal of Othello. “<i>He should have put himself - to death in his wife's sight</i>.” It will be remembered that he pleaded - at his trial that he had no design upon the life of Miss Reay, but only - aimed at throwing himself dead at her feet. - </p> - <p> - Equally significant are some of the passages in the next letters which he - wrote to her. They show that even within the first month of his - acquaintance with his Martha his mind had a peculiar bent. He was giving - his attention to Hervey's <i>Meditations</i>, and takes pains to point out - to her two passages which he affirms to be as fine as they are natural. - Did ever love-letter contain anything so grisly? “A beam or two finds its - way through the grates (of the vault), and reflects a feeble glimness from - the nails of the coffins.” This is one passage—ghastly enough in all - conscience. But it is surpassed by the others which he quotes: “Should the - haggard skeleton lift a clattering hand.” Respecting the latter he - remarks, “I know not whether the epithet 'haggard' might not be spared.” - It is possible that the lady on receiving this curious love-letter was - under the impression that the whole passage might have been spared her. - </p> - <p> - But he seems to have been supping off horrors at this time, for he goes on - to tell a revolting story about the black hole of Calcutta; and then he - returns with zest to his former theme of murder and suicide. He had been - reading the poem of “Faldoni and Teresa,” by Jerningham, and he criticises - it quite admirably. “The melancholy tale will not take up three words, - though Mr. J. has bestowed upon it 335 melancholy lines,” he tells the - young lady. “Two lovers, meeting with an invincible object to their union, - determined to put an end to their existence with pistols. The place they - chose for the execution of their terrible project was a chapel that stood - at a little distance from the house. They even decorated the altar for the - occasion, they paid a particular attention to their own dress. Teresa was - dressed in white with rose-coloured ribbands. The same coloured ribbands - were tied to the pistols. Each held the ribband that was fastened to the - other's trigger, which they drew at a certain signal.” His criticism of - the poem includes the remark that Faldoni and Teresa might be prevented - from making proselytes by working up their affecting story so as to take - off the edge of the dangerous example they offer. This, he says, the - author has failed to do, and he certainly proves his point later by - affirming that “while I talk of taking off the dangerous edge of their - example, they have almost listed me under their bloody banners.” - </p> - <p> - This shows the morbid tendency of the man's mind, though it must be - confessed that nearly all the remarks which he makes on ordinary topics - are eminently sane and well considered. - </p> - <p> - A few days later we find him entering with enthusiasm into a scheme, - suggested by her, of meeting while she was on her way to London, and it is - plain from the rapturous letter which he wrote to her that their plot was - successful; but when she reached town she had a great deal to occupy her, - so that it is not strange she should neglect him for a time. The fact was, - as Cradock states in his <i>Memoirs</i>, that the unpopularity of Lord - Sandwich and Miss Reay had increased during the winter to such a point - that it became dangerous for them to show themselves together in public. - Ribald ballads were sung under the windows of the Admiralty, and Cradock - more than once heard some strange insults shouted out by people in the - park. It was at this time that she spoke to Cradock about appearing in - opera, and he states that it reached his ears that she had been offered - three thousand pounds and a free benefit (a possible extra five hundred) - for one season's performances. - </p> - <p> - Now if she had really been in love with Hackman this was surely the moment - when she should have gone to him, suffered him to marry her, and thus made - up by a few years on the lyric stage for any deficiency in his fortune or - for the forfeiture of any settlement her “benefactor” might have been - disposed to make in her favour. But she seems to have shown a remarkable - amount of prudence throughout the whole of her intrigue, and she certainly - had a premonition of the danger to which she was exposed by her connection - with him. “Fate stands between us,” she wrote in reply to one of his - impetuous upbraiding letters. “We are doomed to be wretched. And I, every - now and then, think some terrible catastrophe will be the result of our - connection. 'Some dire event,' as Storge prophetically says in <i>Jephtha</i>, - 'hangs over our heads.' Oh, that it were no crime to quit this world like - Faldoni and Teresa... by your hand I could even die with pleasure. I know - I could.” - </p> - <p> - An extraordinary premonition, beyond doubt, to write thus, and one is - tempted to believe that she had ceased for a moment merely to play the - part of the afflicted heroine. But her allusion to Jephtha and, later in - the same letter, to a vow which she said she had made never to marry him - so long as she was encumbered with debts, alleging that this was the - “insuperable reason” at which she had hinted on a previous occasion, makes - one suspicious. One feels that if she had not been practising the music of - <i>Jephtha</i> she would not have thought about her vow not to marry him - until she could go to him free from debt. Why, she had only to sing three - times to release herself from that burden. - </p> - <p> - Some time afterwards she seems to have suggested such a way of getting - over her difficulties, but it is pretty certain she knew that he would - never listen to her. Her position at this time was undoubtedly one of - great difficulty. Hackman was writing to her almost every day, and - becoming more high-minded and imperious in every communication, and she - was in terror lest some of his letters should fall into the hands of Lord - Sandwich. She was ready to testify to his lordship's generosity in - educating her to suit his own tastes, but she suspected its strength to - withstand such a strain as would be put on it if he came upon one of Mr. - Hackman's impetuous letters. - </p> - <p> - She thought that when she had induced her lover to join his regiment in - Ireland she had extricated herself from one of the difficulties that - surrounded her; and had she been strong enough to refrain from writing to - the man, she might have been saved from the result of her indiscretion. - Unhappily for herself, however, she felt it incumbent on her to resume her - correspondence with him. Upon one occasion she sent him a bank-note for - fifty pounds, but this he promptly returned with a very proper letter. - Indeed, all his letters from Ireland are interesting, being far less - impassioned than those which she wrote to him. Again she mentioned having - read <i>Werther</i>, and he promptly begged of her to send the book to - him. “If you do not,” he adds, “I positively never will forgive you. - Nonsense, to say it will make me unhappy, or that I shall not be able to - read it! Must I pistol myself because a thick-blooded German has been fool - enough to set the example, or because a German novelist has feigned such a - story?” - </p> - <p> - But it would appear that she knew the man's nature better than he himself - did, for she quickly replied: “The book you mention is just the only book - you should never read. On my knees I beg that you will never, never read - it!” But if he never read <i>Werther</i> he was never without some story - of the same type to console him for its absence, and he seems to have - gloated over the telling of all to her. One day he is giving her the - particulars of a woman who committed suicide in Enniskillen because she - married one man while she was in love with another. His comment is, “She, - too, was <i>Jenny</i> and had her <i>Robin Gray</i>.” His last letter from - Ireland was equally morbid. In it he avowed his intention, if he were not - granted leave of absence for the purpose of visiting her, of selling out - of his regiment. He kept his promise but too faithfully. He sold out and - crossed to England without delay, arriving in London only to find Miss - Reay extremely ill. - </p> - <p> - His attempts to cheer her convalescence cannot possibly be thought very - happy. He describes his attendance upon the occasion of the hanging of Dr. - Dodd, the clergyman who had committed forgery; and this reminds him that - he was unfortunately out of England when one Peter Tolosa was hanged for - killing his sweetheart, so that he had no chance of taking part in this - ceremony as well, although, he says, unlike George S.—meaning Selwyn—he - does not make a profession of attending executions; adding that “the - friend and historian of Paoli hired a window by the year, looking out on - the Grass Market in Edinburgh, where malefactors were hanged.” This - reference to Boswell is somewhat sinister. All this letter is devoted to a - minute account of the execution of Dodd, and another deals with the - revolting story of the butchery of Monmouth, which he suggests to her as - an appropriate subject for a picture. - </p> - <p> - At this time he was preparing for ordination, and, incidentally, for the - culmination of the tragedy of his life. He had undoubtedly become a - monomaniac, his “subject” being murder and suicide. His last lurid story - was of a footman who, “having in vain courted for some time a servant - belonging to Lord Spencer, at last caused the banns to be put up at church - without her consent, which she forbad. Being thus disappointed he - meditated revenge, and, having got a person to write a letter to her - appointing a meeting, he contrived to waylay her, and surprise her in Lord - Spencer's park. On her screaming he discharged a pistol at her and made - his escape.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh love, love, canst thou not be content to make fools of thy slaves,” he - wrote, “to make them miserable, to make them what thou pleasest? Must thou - also goad them on to crimes?” - </p> - <p> - Only two more letters did he write to his victim. He took Orders and - received the living of Wiveton, in Norfolk, seeming to take it for granted - that, in spite of her repeated refusals to marry him, she would relent - when she heard of the snug parsonage. This was acting on precisely the - same lines as the butler of whom he wrote. When he found that Miss Reay - was determined to play the part taken by the servant in the same story, - the wretched man hurried up to London and bought his pistols. - </p> - <p> - The whole story is a pitiful one. That the man was mad no one except a - judge and jury could doubt. That his victim was amply punished for her - indiscretion in leading him on even the strictest censor of conduct must - allow. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE COMEDY AT DOWNING STREET - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T was possibly - because she was still conscious of having occupied the commanding position - of one of the royal bridesmaids, in spite of the two years that had - elapsed since King George III married his homely Mecklenburg princess, - that Lady Susan Fox-Strangways, the daughter of the first Earl of - Ilchester, became so autocratic during the rehearsal of the Downing Street - Comedy. A pretty fair amount of comedy as well as tragedy—with a - preponderance of farce—has been played in the same street from time - to time, but the special piece in which Lady Susan was interesting herself - was to be played at the house of Sir Francis Délavai, and its name was <i>The - School for Lovers</i>. It had been originally produced by Mr. David - Garrick at Drury Lane Theatre, an occasion upon which a young Irish - gentleman called O'Brien, who had disgraced himself by becoming an actor, - had attained great distinction. The piece had drawn the town during its - protracted run of eight nights, and Sir Francis Delaval's company of - amateurs perceived that it was just the play for them. It was said by the - critics that, for the first time for many years, an actor had been found - capable of playing the part of a gentleman of fashion as if to the manner - born. They referred to the acting of Mr. O'Brien, about whose gentlemanly - qualities there could be no doubt. Even his own brother actors affirmed - that no such perfect gentleman as that of O'Brien's creating had ever been - seen on the stage. So said Lee Lewes. Another excellent judge, named - Oliver Goldsmith, declared that William O'Brien was an elegant and - accomplished actor. - </p> - <p> - Of course this was the character, every aspiring amateur affirmed, to - which a gentleman-born would do ample justice. When O'Brien, who was an - actor, had represented the part with distinction, how much better would it - not be played by the real thing—the real gentleman who might - undertake it? - </p> - <p> - That was the very plausible reasoning of the “real gentleman” who hoped to - win applause by appearing in O'Brien's part in the comedy at Downing - Street. But when the piece was rehearsed with the young Viscount B———— - in the character, Lady Susan threw up her hands, and threatened to throw - up her part as well. - </p> - <p> - “Lud!” she cried to her associates in the temporary green-room, “Lud! you - would fancy that he had never seen a gentleman of fashion in his life! Why - cannot he act himself instead of somebody else? When he comes from - rehearsal he is the very character itself, but the moment he begins to - speak his part he is no more the part than the link-boy.” - </p> - <p> - Every one present agreed with her—the young gentlemen who were - anxious to have the reversion of the part were especially hearty in their - acquiescence. - </p> - <p> - But there could be no doubt about the matter, Lord B——— - was deplorably incompetent. He was not even consistently incompetent, for - in one scene in the second act, where there was an element of boisterous - humour, he was tame and spiritless; but in the love-making scene, which - brought the third act to a close, he was awkward, and so anxious to show - his spirit that he became as vulgar as any country clown making advances - to his Meg or Polly. - </p> - <p> - And of course he felt all the time that he was doing amazingly well. - </p> - <p> - Lady Susan was angry at first, and then she became witty. Her sallies, - directed against him in every scene, were, however, lost upon him, no - matter how calculated they were to sting him; he was too self-satisfied to - be affected by any criticism that might be offered to him by man or woman. - </p> - <p> - And then Lady Susan was compelled to abandon her wit and to become - natural. She flounced off the stage when her lover (in the play) was more - than commonly loutish, and burst into tears of vexation in the arms of her - dear friend Lady Sarah Lennox. - </p> - <p> - “I never had such a chance until now,” she cried. “Never, oh, never! The - part might have been written for me; and I implore of you, Sarah, to tell - me candidly if Mrs. Abington or Mrs. Clive could act it with more - sprightliness than I have shown in that last scene?” - </p> - <p> - “Impossible, my sweet Sue!” cried her friend. “I vow that I have never - seen anything more arch than your mock rejection of your lover, only to - draw him on.” - </p> - <p> - “You dear creature!” cried Lady Sue. “You are a true friend and a - competent critic, Sarah. But what signifies my acting, perfect though it - be, when that—that idiot fails to respond in any way to the spirit - which I display? The whole play will be damned, and people who know - nothing of the matter will spread the report that 'twas my lack of power - that brought about the disaster.” - </p> - <p> - “They cannot be so vile,” said Lady Sarah soothingly. - </p> - <p> - “But they will. I know how vile some of our friends can be when it suits - them, and when they are jealous of the acquirements of another. They will - sneer at my best scenes—oh, the certainty that they will do so will - be enough to make my best scenes fail. But no! they shall not have the - chance of maligning me. I will go to Sir Francis and resign my part. Yes, - I will! I tell you I shall!” - </p> - <p> - The indignant young lady, with something of the stage atmosphere still - clinging to her, flung herself with the gesture of a tortured heroine, - proud and passionate, toward the door of the room to which the two ladies - had retired. But before she had her fingers on the handle the door opened - and Sir Francis Délavai entered. - </p> - <p> - “A thousand pardons, my dear ladies,” he cried, bowing to the carpet. “I - had forgot for the moment that when a man turns his house into a theatre - he can call no room in it his own. But I should be a churl to suggest that - any room in my poor house would not be made beautiful by the presence of - your ladyships. After all, this is only my library, and a library is only - a polite name for a dormitory, and a—but what is this? I said not a - lacrymatory.” - </p> - <p> - He was looking curiously into Lady Susan's face, which retained the marks - of her recent tears. - </p> - <p> - “Dear Sir Francis, you have come in good time,” said Lady Sarah boldly. - “Here is this poor child weeping her heart out because she is condemned to - play the part of—of what's her name?—the lady in the play who - had to make love to an ass?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, sir, mine is a far worse plight,” said Lady Susan, pouting. “It were - bad enough for one to have to make love to an ass, but how much worse is't - not for one to be made love to by—by—my Lord B———?” - </p> - <p> - “That were a calculation far above my powers,” said Sir Francis. “My lord - has never made love to me, but if rumour and the gossip at White's speak - even a soupçon of truth, his lordship is well practised in the art—if - love-making is an art.” - </p> - <p> - “Sir, 'tis a combination of all the arts,” said Lady Susan; “and yet my - lord cannot simulate the least of them, which is that of being a - gentleman, when he makes love to me on the stage, through the character of - Captain Bellaire in our play.” - </p> - <p> - “To be plain, Sir Francis,” said Lady Sarah, as though the other had not - been plain enough in her explanation, “To be plain, Lady Susan, rather - than be associated in any measure with such a failure as your theatricals - are bound to be if my Lord B——— remains in the part of - her lover, has made up her mind to relinquish her part. But believe me, - sir, she does so with deep regret.” - </p> - <p> - “Hence these tears,” said Sir Francis. “My poor child, you are indeed in a - pitiable state if you are so deeply chagrined at a clumsy love-making - merely on the stage.” - </p> - <p> - “Merely on the stage?” cried Lady Susan. “Lud, Sir Francis, have you not - the wit to see that to be made love to indifferently on the stage is far - more unendurable than it would be in private, since in the one case you - have the eyes of all the people upon you, whereas in the other case you - are as a rule alone?” - </p> - <p> - “As a rule,” said Sir Francis. “Yes, I perceive the difference, and I - mingle mine own turgid tears with your limpid drops. But we cannot spare - you from our play.” - </p> - <p> - “No, you cannot, Sir Francis, but you can spare Lord B———, - and so can the play,” suggested Lady Sarah. - </p> - <p> - “What, you would have me turn him out of the part?” said Sir Francis. - </p> - <p> - “Even so—but with politeness,” said Lady Sarah. - </p> - <p> - “Perhaps your ladyship has solved the problem how to kick a man out of - your house politely. If so, I would willingly pay you for the recipe; I - have been in search of it all my life,” said Sir Francis. - </p> - <p> - “Surely, sir, if you kick a man hard enough with your slippers on he will - leave your house as surely as if you wear the boots of a Life Guardsman,” - said Lady Susan timidly. - </p> - <p> - “I doubt it not, madam; but before trying such an experiment it would be - well to make sure that the fellow does not wear boots himself.” - </p> - <p> - “Psha! Sir Francis. If a man were to beg leave to measure the thickness of - his enemy's soles before offering to kick him there would be very few - cases of assault and battery,” cried Lady Susan. - </p> - <p> - “That is good philosophy—see what we have come to—philosophy, - when we started talking of lovemaking,” said Sir Francis. - </p> - <p> - “However we have digressed in conversation, sir, our minds remain - steadfast on the point round which we have been circling,” said Lady - Sarah. - </p> - <p> - “And that is———” - </p> - <p> - “That Lord B———must go.” - </p> - <p> - The door was thrown open and Lord B——— entered. - </p> - <p> - “A good preliminary—one must come before one goes,” whispered Sir - Francis to the ladies. - </p> - <p> - His lordship was evidently perturbed. He scarcely bowed either to Sir - Francis or the ladies. - </p> - <p> - “I was told that you had come hither, Sir Francis,” he said, “so I - followed you.” - </p> - <p> - “You do me honour, my lord,” said Sir Francis. - </p> - <p> - “I took a liberty, sir; but this is not a time for punctilio. I have come - to resign my part in your play, sir,” said his lordship. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, surely not, my lord,” cried Sir Francis. “What would the <i>School - for Lovers</i> be without Bellaire, my lord? Why only now Lady Susan was - saying—what is it that your ladyship said?” - </p> - <p> - “It had something to do with philosophy and the sole of a grenadier,” said - Lady Sarah interposing. - </p> - <p> - “Nay, was it not that his lordship's impersonation made you think of a - scene from <i>Midsummer Night's Dream?</i>” said Sir Francis. “One of the - most beautiful of Shakespeare's plays, is't not, my lord?—fantasy - mingled with irony, an oasis of fairyland in the midst of a desert of - daily life.” - </p> - <p> - “I know nothing about your fairyland, sir, but I have been told within the - hour that her ladyship”—he bowed in the direction of Lady Susan—“has, - during the three rehearsals which we have had of the play, been sneering - in a covert way at my acting of the part of Bellaire, although to my face - she seemed delighted, and thus——” - </p> - <p> - “Are you sure that your informant was right in his interpretation of her - ladyship's words? Surely your lordship—a man of the world—would - have been sensible of every shade of her ladyship's meaning?” - </p> - <p> - “I have been told by one on whose judgment I can rely that Lady Susan was - speaking in sarcasm when she complimented me before the rest of the - company. I did not take her as doing so for myself, I must confess. I have - always believed—on insufficient evidence, I begin to fear—that - her ladyship was a discriminating critic—even now if she were to - assure me that she was not speaking in sarcasm——” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, lud! he is relenting,” whispered Lady Sarah. - </p> - <p> - “Did you speak, madam?” said his lordship. - </p> - <p> - “I was protesting against a too early exercise of your lordship's - well-known spirit of forgiveness,” said her ladyship. - </p> - <p> - “I thank you, Lady Sarah; I am, I know, too greatly inclined to take a - charitable view of—of—Why, sink me if she, too, is not trying - to make me look ridiculous!” cried his lordship. - </p> - <p> - “Nay, my lord, I cannot believe that Lady Sarah would be at the pains to - do for you what you can so well do for yourself,” remarked Lady Susan. - </p> - <p> - His lordship looked at her—his mouth was slightly open—then he - gazed at the smiling features of the beautiful Lady Sarah, lastly at the - perfectly expressionless features of Sir Francis. - </p> - <p> - “A plot—a plot!” he murmured. Then he struck a commonplace - theatrical attitude, the “exit attitude” of the man who tells you that his - time will come, though appearances are against him for the moment. He - pointed a firm forefinger at Lady Susan, saying: “I wash my hands clear of - you all. I have done with you and your plays. Get another man to fill my - place if you can.” - </p> - <p> - Then he rushed out through the open door. He seemed to have a shrewd - suspicion that if he were to wait another moment one at least of the girls - would have an effective answer to his challenge, and it is quite likely - that his suspicion was well founded. As it was, however, owing to his wise - precipitancy he heard no more than the pleasant laughter—it really - was pleasant laughter, though it did not sound so to him—of the two - girls. - </p> - <p> - But when the sound of the slamming of the hall-door reached the library - the laughter in that apartment suddenly ceased. Sir Francis Délavai looked - at each of the ladies, and both of them looked at him. For some moments no - word was exchanged between them. At last one of them spoke—it was, - strange to say, the man. - </p> - <p> - “This is vastly fine, ladies,” he remarked. “You have got rid of your <i>bête-noire</i>, - Lady Susan; that, I say, is vastly fine, but where are you to find a <i>bête-blanche</i> - to take his place?” - </p> - <p> - “Surely we can find some gentleman willing to act the part of Bellaire?” - said Lady Sarah. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, there is not like to be a lack of young gentlemen willing to take the - part, but we want not merely willingness, but competence as well; and the - piece must be played on Wednesday, even though the part of Bellaire be - left out,” said Sir Francis. - </p> - <p> - Lady Susan looked blankly at the floor. She seemed ready to renew the - tears which she had wept on the shoulder of her friend a short time - before. - </p> - <p> - “Have I been too hasty?” she said. “Alas! I fear that I have been selfish. - I thought only of the poor figure that I should cut with such a lover—and - with all the world looking on, too! I should have given more thought to - your distress, Sir Francis.” - </p> - <p> - “Say no more, I pray of you; better have no play at all than one that all - our kind friends will damn with the utmost cordiality and good breeding,” - said Sir Francis. - </p> - <p> - “True, sir, but think of the ladies' dresses!” said Lady Sarah. “What the - ladies say is, 'Better produce a play that will be cordially damned rather - than deprive us of our chance of displaying our new dresses.'” - </p> - <p> - “Heavens!” cried Sir Francis, “I had not thought of the new dresses. Lady - Susan, you will e'en have to face the anger of your sisters—'tis not - I that will tarry for such an event. I mean to fly to Bath or - Brighthelmstone, or perchance to Timbuctoo, until the storm be overpast.” - </p> - <p> - “Nay, nay, 'tis not a time for jesting, sir; let us not look at the matter - from the standpoint of men, who do not stand but run away, let us be women - for once, and scheme,” said Lady Susan. - </p> - <p> - “That is woman's special province,” said Sir Francis. “Pray begin, my lady—'twill - be strange if your ladyship and Lady Sarah do not succeed in——” - </p> - <p> - “Psha! there is but one man in England who could play the part of Bellaire - on Wednesday,” cried Lady Sarah. “Ay, sir, and he is the only one in - England capable of playing it.” - </p> - <p> - “Then we shall have him on our stage if I should have to pay a thousand - pounds for his services,” said Sir Francis. “But where is he to be found?” - </p> - <p> - “Cannot you guess, sir?” asked Lady Sarah, smiling. - </p> - <p> - Sir Francis looked puzzled, but Lady Sue started and caught her friend by - the wrist. - </p> - <p> - “You do not mean——” she began. - </p> - <p> - “Lud! these girls! Here's a scheme if you will!” muttered Sir Francis. - </p> - <p> - “Ay, if you will, Sir Francis. You know that I mean Mr. O'Brien himself - and none other,” cried Lady Sarah. - </p> - <p> - “Impossible!” cried Lady Susan. “My father would never consent to my - acting in a play with a real actor—no, not even if he were Mr. - Garrick himself. How could you suggest such a thing, Sarah?” - </p> - <p> - “What, do you mean to tell me that you would refuse to act with Mr. - O'Brien?” asked Lady Sarah. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, hear the child!” cried Lady Susan. “She asks me a question to which - she knows only one answer is possible, and looks all the time as though - she expected just the opposite answer!” - </p> - <p> - “I know well that there are a good many ladies who would give all that - they possess for the chance of acting with Mr. O'Brien, and you are among - the number, my dear,” laughed Lady Sarah. - </p> - <p> - “I dare not—I dare not. And yet——” murmured the other - girl. - </p> - <p> - Sir Francis had been lost in thought while the two had been bickering over - the body of O'Brien. He had walked across the room and seated himself for - some moments. Now he rose and held up a finger. - </p> - <p> - “Ladies, this is a serious matter for all of us,” he said. And he spoke - the truth to a greater depth than he was aware of. “'Tis a very serious - matter. If we get Mr. O'Brien to play the part, the piece will be the - greatest success of the day. If we fail to get him, our theatricals will - be damned to a certainty. Lady Susan, will you consent to play with him if - his name does not appear upon the bill?” - </p> - <p> - “But every one would know Mr. O'Brien,” she faltered, after a pause that - was overcharged with excitement. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, in fact; but no one will have official cognizance of him, and, as - you must know, in these matters of etiquette everything depends upon - official cognizance.” - </p> - <p> - “My father—” - </p> - <p> - “His lordship will have no <i>locus standi</i> in the case. He cannot take - notice of an act that is not officially recognisable,” suggested Sir - Francis, the sophist. - </p> - <p> - “If you assure me—— But is't true that Mr. O'Brien only ceased - to become a gentleman when he became an actor?” said Lady Susan. - </p> - <p> - “I have not heard that he relinquished the one part when he took up the - other,” said Sir Francis. “I wonder that you have not met him at the - houses of some of our friends—he is more popular even than Mr. - Garrick. The family of O'Brien——” - </p> - <p> - “All kings, I doubt not,” said Lady Susan. “There were a good many kings - in Ireland in the old days, I believe. I read somewhere that ninety-seven - kings were killed in one battle, and still there were quite enough left to - carry on the quarrels of the country. Oh, yes, there were plenty of kings, - and their descendants have—well, descended. Mr. O'Brien descended - pretty far when he became a play-actor.” - </p> - <p> - “If he condescends to take up the part of Bellaire at the eleventh hour to - pluck our theatricals out of the fire we shall have every reason to be - grateful to him,” said Sir Francis with a severe air of reproof. He was - beginning to be tired—as others in his place have been from time to - time—of the capriciousness of his company of amateurs. - </p> - <p> - “You are right, sir,” said Lady Sarah. “Come, my dear Sue, cease to give - yourself the airs of those ladies who, Mr. Garrick affirms, have been the - plague of his life. If Mr. O'Brien agrees to come to our rescue you should - have no feeling but of gratitude to him. Surely 'twere churlish on the - part of a damsel when a gallant knight rides up to her rescue to look at - his horse in the mouth.” - </p> - <p> - “I am thinking of my father,” said the other. “But I am disposed to accept - the risk of the situation. You will promise that his name will not appear - in the bills, Sir Francis?” - </p> - <p> - “I will promise to do my best to save you from the contamination of having - your name made as immortal as Mr. O'Brien's,” said Sir Francis. - </p> - <p> - Lady Sarah laughed, and so did her friend—after a pause sufficient - to allow the colour that had come to her face at the stinging reproof to - die away. - </p> - <p> - “I hope that you may catch your bird, sir—your eagle—your - Irish eagle.” - </p> - <p> - “If I could tell him that Lady Sarah Lennox was to be in the cast of the - play I should need no further lure for him,” said Sir Francis, making his - most exquisite bow to her. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, sir, you overwhelm me,” said Lady Sarah, sinking in her most - ravishing courtesy. - </p> - <p> - Lady Susan coloured once more, and her foot played a noiseless tattoo on - the floor, for she perceived all that Sir Francis's compliment implied. - Lady Sarah was the most beautiful girl in England, while Lady Susan was - not even second to her, a fact of which she was as well aware as her - friends. - </p> - <p> - This was how Lady Susan Fox-Strangways first met Mr. O'Brien, the actor - whom Garrick had brought from Ireland in the year 1762. He good-naturedly - agreed to help Sir Francis Délavai in his extremity, and his ready Irish - tact enabled him to be the first to stipulate that his name should not - appear in the bills—a condition with which Sir Francis complied, - drawing a long breath. - </p> - <p> - “Mr. O'Brien,” he said, “should the stage ever fail you, a fortune awaits - you if you undertake the duty of teaching gentlemen the art of being a - gentleman.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, sir, the moment that art enters the door the gentleman flies out by - the window,” said the actor. “It is Nature, not art, that makes a - gentleman.” - </p> - <p> - One can well believe that Lady Susan Fox-Strangways, with all the pride of - her connection with a peerage nearly ten years old, treated Mr. O'Brien's - accession to a place in the company of amateurs with some hauteur, though - it was said that she fell in love with him at once. On consideration, her - bearing of hauteur which we have ventured to assign to her, so far from - being incompatible with her having fallen in love with him, would really - be a natural consequence of such an accident, and the deeper she felt - herself falling the more she would feel it necessary to assert her - position, if only for the sake of convincing herself that it was - impossible for her to forget herself so far as to think of an Irish - play-actor as occupying any other position in regard to her than that of a - diversion for the moment. - </p> - <p> - It was equally a matter of course that Lady Sarah should have an instinct - of what was taking place. She had attended several of the rehearsals - previously in the capacity of adviser to her friend, for Lady Susan had a - high opinion of her critical capacity; but not until two rehearsals had - taken place with O'Brien as Bellaire was she able to resume her attendance - at Downing Street. Before half an hour had passed this astute lady had - seen, first, that O'Brien made every other man in the cast seem a lout; - and, secondly, that Lady Susan felt that every man in the world was a lout - by the side of O'Brien. - </p> - <p> - She hoped to discover what were the impressions of O'Brien, but she found - herself foiled: the man was too good an actor to betray himself. The - fervour which he threw into the character when making love to Lady Susan - had certainly the semblance of a real passion, but what did this mean more - than that Mr. O'Brien was a convincing actor? - </p> - <p> - When she arrived at this point in her consideration of the situation Lady - Sarah lost herself, and began to long with all her heart that the actor - were making love to her—taking her hand with that incomparable - devotion to—was it his art?—which he showed when Lady Susan's - hand was raised, with a passionate glance into her eyes, to his lips; - putting his arm about her waist, while his lips, trembling under the force - of the protestations of undying devotion which they were uttering, were - almost touching Lady Susan's ear. Before the love scene was over Lady - Sarah was in love with the actor, if not with the man, O'Brien. - </p> - <p> - So was every lady in the cast. O'Brien was the handsomest actor of the - day. He had been careful of his figure at a time when men of fashion lived - in such a way as made the preservation of a figure well-nigh impossible. - Every movement was grace itself with him, and the period was one in which - the costume of a man gave him every chance of at least imitating a - graceful man. All the others in the cast of the play seemed imitating the - gracefulness of O'Brien, and every man of them seemed a clown beside him. - They gave themselves countless graces, but he was grace itself. - </p> - <p> - Lady Sarah saw everything that was to be seen and said nothing. She was - wise. She knew that in due time her friend would tell her all there was to - be told. - </p> - <p> - She was not disappointed. The play was produced, and of course every one - recognised O'Brien in the part, although the bill—printed in gold - letters on a satin ground, with a charming allegorical design by Lady - Diana Spencer, showing a dozen dainty cupids going to school with satchels—stated - that Bellaire would be represented by “a gentleman.” - </p> - <p> - Equally as a matter of course a good many of the spectators affirmed that - it was intolerable that a play-actor should be smuggled into a company of - amateurs, some of them belonging to the best families. And then to attempt - a deception of the audience by suggesting that O'Brien was a gentleman—oh, - the thing was unheard of! So said some of the ladies, adding that they - thought it rather sad that Lady Susan was not better-looking. - </p> - <p> - But of the success of the entertainment there could not be a doubt. It was - the talk of the town for a month, and every one noticed—even her own - father—that Lady Susan was looking extremely thin and very pale. - </p> - <p> - Lady Sarah said that she had taken the diversion of the theatricals too - seriously. - </p> - <p> - “I saw it from the first, my dear Sue,” she said. - </p> - <p> - Sue sprang from her chair, and it would be impossible for any one to say - now that she was over pale. - </p> - <p> - “You saw it—you—what was it that you saw from the first?” she - cried. - </p> - <p> - Lady Sarah looked at her and laughed. - </p> - <p> - “Ah, that is it—what was it that I saw from the first?” she said. - “What I was going to say that I saw was simply that you were throwing - yourself too violently into the production of the play. That was why you - insisted on poor Lord B———'s getting his <i>congé</i>. - It was a mistake—I saw that also.” - </p> - <p> - “When did you see that?” - </p> - <p> - “When I saw you taking part in that love scene with Mr. O'Brien.” - </p> - <p> - “What mean you by that, Lady Sarah?” - </p> - <p> - “Exactly what you fancy I mean, Lady Susan.” - </p> - <p> - Lady Susan gazed at her blankly at first, then very pitifully. In another - moment she had flung herself on her knees at the feet of her friend and - was weeping in her lap. - </p> - <p> - The friend was full of sympathy. - </p> - <p> - “You poor child!” she murmured, “how could you help it? I vow that I - myself—yes, for some minutes—I was as deep in love with the - fellow as you yourself were. But, of course, you were with him longer—every - day. Lud! what a handsome rascal he is, to be sure. His lordship must take - you to the country without delay. Has the fellow tried to transfer the - character in the play beyond the footlights?” - </p> - <p> - “Never—never!” cried Susan. “Sir Francis was right—he is a - gentleman. That is the worst of it!” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, lud! the worst of it? Are you mad, girl?” - </p> - <p> - “I am not mad now, but I know that I shall be if he remains a gentleman—if - he refrains from telling me that he loves me—or at least of giving - me a chance of telling him that I love him. That would be better than - nothing—'twould be such a relief. I really do not think that I want - anything more than to be able to confess to him that I love him—that - 'tis impossible that I should love another.” - </p> - <p> - “The sooner you go to the country the better 'twill be for yourself and - all of us—his lordship especially. Good heavens, child, you must be - mad! Do you fancy that his lordship would give his consent to your - marriage with a strolling player, let him be as handsome as Beelzebub?” - </p> - <p> - “He is not a strolling player. Mr. O'Brien is in Mr. Garrick's company, - and every one knows that he is of good family. I have been searching it - out for the past week—all about the O'Briens—there were a - great many of them, all of them distinguished. If it had not been that - King James was defeated by William, in Ireland, Mr. O'Brien's grandfather - would have been made a duke. They were all heroes, the O'Briens. And they - were just too sincere in their devotion to the losing side—that was - it—the losing side was always the one they took up. And yet you call - him a strolling player!” - </p> - <p> - “I take back the insinuation and offer him my apologies; he is not a - strolling player because he doesn't stroll—would to Heaven he did! - Oh, my poor Sue, take a stroll into the country yourself as soon as - possible and try to forget this dreadfully handsome wretch. You would not, - I am sure, force me to tell his lordship what a goose his daughter is like - to make of herself.” - </p> - <p> - At this point there was a dramatic scene, one that was far more deeply - charged with comedy of a sort than any to be found in Mr. Whitehead's - play. Lady Susan accused her dear friend of being a spy, of extorting a - confession from her under the guise of friendship, which in other - circumstances—the rack, the wheel, the thumbscrew, in fact the - entire mechanism of persuasion employed by the Spanish Inquisition—would - have been powerless to obtain. Lady Sarah on her side entreated her friend - not to show herself to be even a greater goose than her confession would - make her out to be. For several minutes there was reproach and - counter-reproach, many home truths followed home thrusts; then some tears, - self-accusation, expressions of sympathy and tenderness, followed by - promises of friendship beyond the dreams of Damon and Pythias; lastly, a - promise on the part of Sue that she would take the advice of her devoted - Sarah and fly to the country without delay. - </p> - <p> - Strange to say, she fled to the country, and, stranger still, the result - was not to cure her of her infatuation for the handsome actor. For close - upon a year she did not see him, but she was as devoted to him as she had - been at first, and no day passed on which she failed to think of him, or - to spend some hours writing romantic verses, sometimes in the style of - Waller in his lyrics, sometimes in the style (distant) of Mr. Dryden in - his pastorals: she was Lesbia, and Mr. O'Brien was Strephon. - </p> - <p> - But in the meantime she had improved so much in her acting that when Lady - Sarah, who had within the year married Sir Thomas Bunbury, ventured to - rally her upon her infatuation of the previous spring, she was able to - disarm her suspicions by a flush and a shrug, and a little contemptuous - exclamation or two. - </p> - <p> - “Ah, my dear one, did not I give you good advice?” cried Lady Sarah. “I - was well assured that my beloved Sue would never persevere in a passion - that could only end in unhappiness. But indeed, child, I never had the - heart to blame you greatly, the fellow is handsome as Apollo and as proud - as Apolyon. He has broken many hearts not accounted particularly fragile, - during the year.” - </p> - <p> - “Is't possible? For example?—I vow that I shall keep their names - secret.” - </p> - <p> - Lady Sarah shook her head at first, but on being importuned whispered a - name or two of ladies of their acquaintance, all of whom—according - to Lady Sarah—had fallen as deep as was possible in love with - O'Brien. Her ladyship was so intent on her narration of the scandals that - she quite failed to see the strange light that gleamed in her friend's - eyes at the mention of every name—a rather fierce gleam, with a - flash of green in it. She did not notice this phenomenon, nor did she - detect the false note in the tribute of laughter which her friend paid to - her powers of narration. - </p> - <p> - But Lady Sue, when the other had left her, rushed to her room and flung - herself on her bed in a paroxysm of jealousy. She beat her innocent pillow - wildly, crying in the whisper that the clenching of her teeth made - imperative—“The hussies! Shameless creatures! Do they hope that he - will be attracted to them? Fools!—they are fools! They do not know - him as I know him. They think that he is nothing but a vain actor—Garrick, - or Barry, or Lewes. Oh, they do not know him!” - </p> - <p> - She lay there in her passion for an hour, and if it was her maid who - discovered her at the end of that time, it is safe to assume that the - young woman's flesh was black and blue in places for several days - afterwards. The pinch and the slipper were among the most highly approved - forms of torture inflicted upon their maids at that robust period of - English history. The French Revolution was still some way off. - </p> - <p> - A few weeks later Lady Susan was sitting to Sir Joshua Reynolds for a - group, in which he painted her with her friend Lady Sarah Bunbury and Mr. - Henry Fox; and it was the carrying out of this scheme that put quite - another scheme into the quick brain of the first-named lady. Painting was - in the air. She possessed a poor print of Mr. O'Brien, and she had found - an immense consolation in gazing upon it—frequently at midnight, - under the light of her bedroom candle. The sight of the life-like - portraits in Sir Joshua's studio induced her to ask herself if she might - not possess a picture of her lover that would show him as he really was in - life, without demanding so many allowances as were necessary to be made - for the shortcomings of the engraver of a print. Why should she not get - Sir Joshua Reynolds to paint for her the portrait of Mr. O'Brien? - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0016" id="linkimage-0016"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0379.jpg" alt="0379 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0379.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - The thought was a stimulating one, and it took possession of her for a - week. At the end of that time, however, she came to the conclusion that it - would be unwise for her to employ Sir Joshua on a commission that might - possibly excite some comment on the part of her friends should they come - to learn—and the work of this particular painter was rather inclined - to be assertive—that it had been executed to her order. But she was - determined not to live any longer without a portrait of the man; and, - hearing some one mention at Sir Joshua's house the name of Miss Catherine - Read, who was described as an excellent portrait painter, she made further - inquiry, and the result was that she begged her father, the Earl of - Ilchester, who was devoted to her, to allow her to have her portrait done - by Miss Read, to present to Lady Sarah on her birthday. - </p> - <p> - Of course Miss Read was delighted to have the patronage of so great a - family—she had not yet done her famous pastel of the Duchess of - Argyll—and Susan, accompanied by her footman, lost no time in - beginning her series of sittings to the artist to whom Horace Walpole - referred as “the painteress.” - </p> - <p> - She was both patient and discreet, for three whole days elapsed before she - produced a mezzotint of Mr. O'Brien. - </p> - <p> - “I wonder if you would condescend to draw a miniature portrait of his - lordship's favourite actor from so poor a copy as this, Miss Read?” she - said. “Have you ever seen this Mr. O'Brien—an Irishman, I believe he - is?” - </p> - <p> - Miss Read assured her that Mr. O'Brien was her favourite actor also. The - print produced was indeed a poor one; it quite failed to do justice to the - striking features of the original, she said. - </p> - <p> - “I felt certain that it could bear but a meagre resemblance to Mr. O'Brien - if all that I hear of the man be true,” said Lady Susan. “His lordship - swears that there has never been so great an actor in England, and I - should like to give him a surprise by presenting to him a miniature - portrait of his favourite, done by the cunning pencil of Miss Read, on his - birthday. I protest that 'tis a vast kindness you are doing me in - undertaking such a thing. But mind, I would urge of you to keep the affair - a profound secret. I wish it as a surprise to my father, and its effect - would be spoilt were it to become known to any of his friends that I had - this intention.” - </p> - <p> - “Your ladyship may rest assured that no living creature will hear of the - affair through me,” said the painteress. “But I heartily wish that your - ladyship could procure for me a better copy than this print from which to - work,” she added. - </p> - <p> - “I fear that I cannot promise you that; I found two other prints of the - same person, but they are worse even than this,” said Lady Susan. “You - must do your best with the material at your disposal.” - </p> - <p> - “Your ladyship may depend on my doing my best,” replied Miss Read. “When - does his lordship's birthday take place?” - </p> - <p> - Her ladyship was somewhat taken aback by the sudden question. It took her - some time to recollect that her father's birthday was to be within a - month. She felt that she could not live for longer than another month - without a portrait of the man whom she loved. - </p> - <p> - While she was going home in her chair she could not but feel that she had - hitherto been an undutiful daughter, never having taken any interest in - her father's birthday, and being quite unacquainted with its date. She - hoped fervently that Miss Read would not put herself to the trouble to - find out exactly on what day of what month it took place. The result of - such an investigation might be a little awkward. - </p> - <p> - It so happened that Miss Read took no trouble in this direction. All her - attention was turned upon the task of making a presentable miniature out - of the indifferent material with which she had been supplied for this - purpose. She began wondering if it might not be possible to get O'Brien to - sit to her half a dozen times in order to give her a chance of doing - credit to herself and to the gentleman's fine features. - </p> - <p> - She was still pondering over this question when her attendant entered with - a card, saying that a gentleman had come to wait on her. - </p> - <p> - She read the name on the card, and uttered an exclamation of surprise, for - the name was that of the man of whom she was thinking—Mr. O'Brien, - of Drury Lane Theatre. - </p> - <p> - She had wholly failed to recover herself before he entered the studio, and - advanced to her, making his most respectful bow. He politely ignored her - flutter-ings—he was used to see her sex overwhelmed when he - appeared. - </p> - <p> - “Madam, I beg that you will pardon this intrusion,” he said. “I have taken - the liberty of waiting upon you, knowing of your great capacity as an - artist.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, sir!” cried the fluttered little lady, making her courtesy. - </p> - <p> - “Nay, madam, I have no intention of flattering one to whom compliments - must be as customary as they are well deserved,” said the actor. “I come - not to confer a favour, madam, but to entreat one. In short, Miss Read, I - am desirous of presenting a valued friend of mine with the portrait of a - lady for whom he entertains a sincere devotion. For certain reasons, which - I need not specify, the lady cannot sit to you; but I have here a picture - of her poorly done in chalks, from which I hope it may be in your power to - make a good—a good—— Good heavens! what do I behold? 'Tis - she—she—Lady Susan herself!” - </p> - <p> - He had glanced round the studio in the course of his speech, and his eyes - had alighted upon the newly-begun portrait of Lady Susan. It represented - only a few days' work, but the likeness to the original had been ably - caught, and no one could fail to recognise the features. - </p> - <p> - He took a hurried step to the easel, and the air made by his motion - dislodged a print which the artist had laid on the little ledge that - supported the stretcher of the canvas. The print fluttered to the floor; - he picked it up, and gave another exclamation on recognising his own - portrait in the mezzotint. - </p> - <p> - Looking from the print to the picture and then at Miss Read, he said in a - low voice, after a pause—“Madam, I am bewildered. Unless you come to - my assistance I protest I shall feel that I am dreaming and asleep. Pray, - madam, enlighten me—for Heaven's sake tell me how this”—he - held up the print—“came into such close juxtaposition with that”—he - pointed to the portrait on the easel. - </p> - <p> - “'Tis easily told, sir,” said Miss Read, smiling archly. “But I must leave - it to your sense of honour to keep the matter a profound secret.” - </p> - <p> - “Madam,” said Mr. O'Brien with dignity, “Madam, I am an Irishman.” - </p> - <p> - “That is enough, sir; I know that I can trust you. The truth is, Mr. - O'Brien, that Lady Susan is sitting to me for her portrait—that - portrait. 'Twas marvellous that you should recognise it so soon. I have - not worked at it for many hours.” - </p> - <p> - “Madam, your art is beyond that of the magician. 'Tis well known that - every form depicted by Miss Read not only breathes but speaks.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, sir, I vow that you are a flatterer; still, you did recognise the - portrait—'tis to be presented to Lady Sarah Bunbury.” - </p> - <p> - “Her ladyship will be the most fortunate of womankind.” - </p> - <p> - “Which ladyship, sir—Lady Susan or Lady Sarah?” - </p> - <p> - “Both, madam.” The Irishman was bowing with his hand on his heart. “But - the print—my poor likeness?” - </p> - <p> - “That is the secret, sir; but you will not betray it when I tell you that - Lady Susan entrusted that print to me in order that I might make a copy in - miniature for her to present to her father, Lord Ilchester. You are his - favourite actor, Mr. O'Brien, as no doubt you are aware.” - </p> - <p> - “'Tis the first I heard of it, madam.” There was a suggestion of - mortification in the actor's tone. - </p> - <p> - “Ah, 'twould be impossible for Mr. O'Brien to keep an account of all his - conquests. But now you can understand how it is that her ladyship wishes - her intention to be kept a secret: she means to add to the acceptability - of her gift by presenting it as a surprise. But her secret is safe in your - keeping, sir?” - </p> - <p> - “I swear to it, madam.” Mr. O'Brien spoke mechanically. His hand was on - his chin: he was clearly musing upon some question that perplexed him. He - took a turn up and down the studio, and then said: - </p> - <p> - “Madam, it has just occurred to me that you, as a great artist——” - </p> - <p> - “Nay, sir,” interposed the blushing painteress. - </p> - <p> - “I will not take back a word, madam,” said the actor, holding up one - inexorable hand. “I say that surely so great an artist as you should - disdain to do the work of a mere copyist. Why should not you confer upon - me the honour of sitting to you for the miniature portrait?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, sir, that is the one favour which I meant to ask of you, if my - courage had not failed me.” - </p> - <p> - “Madam, you will confer immortality upon a simple man through that magic - wand which you wield.” He swept his hand with inimitable grace over the - mahl-stick which lay against the easel. “I am all impatient to begin my - sitting, Miss Read. Pray let me come to-morrow.” - </p> - <p> - “Her ladyship comes to-morrow.” - </p> - <p> - “I shall precede her ladyship. Name the hour, madam.” - </p> - <p> - Without the least demur Miss Read named an hour which could enable him to - be far away from the studio before Lady Susan's arrival. - </p> - <p> - And yet the next day Lady Susan entered the studio quite half an hour - before Mr. O'Brien had left it. Of course she was surprised. Had not Miss - Read received a letter, making her aware of the fact that she, Lady Susan, - would be forced, owing to circumstances over which she had no control, to - sit for her portrait an hour earlier than that of her appointment? - </p> - <p> - When Miss Read said she had received no such letter, Lady Susan said some - very severe things about her maid. Miss Read was greatly fluttered, but - she explained in as few words as possible how it was that Mr. O'Brien had - come forward in the cause of art, and was sitting for the miniature. Lady - Susan quickly got over her surprise. (Had Miss Read seen the letter which - her ladyship had received the previous evening from Mr. O'Brien she would - not have marvelled as she did at the rapidity with which her ladyship - recovered her self-possession.) Her ladyship was quite friendly with the - actor, and thanked him for his courtesy in offering to give up so much of - his time solely for the sake of increasing the value of her gift to her - father. - </p> - <p> - A few minutes later, while they were discussing some point in the design - of the picture, Miss Read was called out of the studio, and in a second - Lady Susan was in his arms. - </p> - <p> - “Fate is on our side, darling girl!” he whispered. - </p> - <p> - “I could not live without you, my charmer. But I was bold! I took my fate - in both hands when I wrote you that letter.” - </p> - <p> - “Dear one, 'twas the instinct of true love that made you guess the truth—that - I wanted the portrait because I loved the original. Oh, dear one, what - have I not suffered during the year that has parted us!” said Lady Susan, - with her head upon his shoulder. - </p> - <p> - The Irishman found it necessary to fall back upon the seductive tongue of - his country for words of endearment to bestow upon her. He called her - “Sheila,” “a cushla machree,” “mavourneen,” and also “aroon.” But when - Miss Read returned to the studio they were still discussing a purely - artistic point in connection with the portrait. - </p> - <p> - Of course now that O'Brien knew the secret of the miniature there was no - reason that Miss Read could see why he and Lady Susan should not meet at - her studio. To do her justice, neither could her ladyship perceive why - they should not come together at this place. They came every day, and - every day Lady Susan begged that Miss Read would allow her to rest in her - ante-room after the fatigue of the sitting. She rested in that room, and - in the company of O'Brien, until at last Miss Read became frightened; and - one day told her friend Lord Cathcart something of her fears. Lord - Cathcart, in his turn, told Lord Ilchester. His lordship was furious, but - cautious. - </p> - <p> - He wanted evidence of his daughter's infatuation. He got it the next - morning, for he insisted on seeing a letter which arrived for Lady Susan, - addressed in the handwriting of Lady Sarah. This letter turned out to be - from O'Brien, and Susan confessed that her father's surmise was correct—all - the letters which she had recently received in Lady Sarah's hand had come - from O'Brien. - </p> - <p> - Her father was foolish enough to grant her permission to say farewell to - her lover, and thus the two were allowed to come together once more. They - had a long talk, in the course of which O'Brien communicated to her a - secret of the theatre, which was that Mr. Garrick and Mr. Colman were - engaged in the construction of a comedy to be called <i>The Clandestine - Marriage</i>, and that Mr. Garrick told him that he, O'Brien, was to play - the part of the lover—the gentleman who had married the lady in - secret. - </p> - <p> - Lady Susan parted from her lover, not in tears, but in laughter. - </p> - <p> - The conclusion of the story is told by Horace Walpole, writing to Lord - Hertford. - </p> - <p> - “You will have heard of the sad misfortune that has happened to Lord - Ilchester by his daughter's marriage with O'Brien, the actor,” wrote - Walpole; and then went on to tell how Lady Susan had made her confession - to her father, vowing to have nothing more to do with her lover if she - were but permitted to bid him good-bye. “You will be amazed,” continued - Walpole, “even this was granted. The parting scene happened the beginning - of the week. On Friday she came of age, and on Saturday morning—instead - of being under lock and key in the country—walked downstairs, took - her footman, said she was going to breakfast with Lady Sarah, but would - call at Miss Read's; in the street pretended to recollect a particular cap - in which she was to be drawn, sent the footman back for it, whipped into a - hackney chair, was married at Covent Garden Church, and set out for Mr. - O'Brien's villa at Dunstable.” - </p> - <p> - Unlike many other alliances of a similar type, this marriage turned out a - happy one. O'Brien was induced to leave the stage and to depart with his - wife for America. He obtained a grant of some forty thousand acres in the - province of New York, and had he retained this property and taken the - right side during the Revolution his descendants would to-day be the - richest people in the world. A few years later he was given a good - appointment in Bermuda; and finally, in 1770, he was made Receiver-General - of the County of Dorset, and became popular as a country squire. He died - in 1815, and Lady Susan survived him by twelve years. - </p> - <p> - It was Lady Sarah who had made the imprudent marriage. She submitted to - the cruelties of her husband for fourteen years, and on her leaving his - roof he obtained a divorce. - </p> - <p> - In 1781, nineteen years after her first marriage, she wedded the Hon. - George Napier, and became the mother of three of the greatest Englishmen - of the nineteenth century. She lived until she was eighty. Her friend Lady - Susan followed her to the grave a year later, at the age of eighty-four. - </p> - <h3> - THE END - </h3> - <div style="height: 6em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's A Georgian Pageant, by Frank Frankfort Moore - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GEORGIAN PAGEANT *** - -***** This file should be named 51964-h.htm or 51964-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/6/51964/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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-Title: A Georgian Pageant
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-Author: Frank Frankfort Moore
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-Illustrator: Various
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-Release Date: May 2, 2016 [EBook #51964]
-Last Updated: March 13, 2018
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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GEORGIAN PAGEANT ***
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- <div style="height: 8em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h1>
- A GEORGIAN PAGEANT
- </h1>
- <h2>
- By Frank Frankfort Moore
- </h2>
- <h3>
- With Illustrations
- </h3>
- <h4>
- London: Hutchinson & Co. Paternoster Row
- </h4>
- <h3>
- 1908
- </h3>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0001.jpg" alt="0001 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0001.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0008.jpg" alt="0008 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0008.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0009.jpg" alt="0009 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0009.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- <b>CONTENTS</b>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE WRITER'S APOLOGY </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> THE MONARCH OF THE PAGEANT </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> A COMEDY IN ST. MARTIN'S STREET </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> A TRAGEDY IN THE HAYMARKET </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> THE FATAL GIFT </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> THE FÊTE-CHAMPÊTRE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> THE PLOT OF A LADY NOVELIST </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> TRAGEDY WITH A TWINKLE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> THE BEST COMEDY OF THE CENTURY </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> THE JESSAMY BRIDE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> THE AMAZING ELOPEMENT </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> THE AMAZING DUELS </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> A MELODRAMA AT COVENT GARDEN </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> THE COMEDY AT DOWNING STREET </a>
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- THE WRITER'S APOLOGY
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE greater number
- of the papers in this series, dealing with some well-known persons and
- incidents of the latter half of the Eighteenth Century, are the practical
- result of a long conversation which the writer had with the late Professor
- J. Churton Collins upon a very memorable occasion. The writer ventured to
- contend that the existing views respecting the personality of Oliver
- Goldsmith, of Henry Thrale, of James Boswell, of Samuel Johnson, and of
- some others whom he named, were grossly erroneous; as were also the
- prevalent notions respecting such matters as Fanny Burney's attendance
- upon the Queen, the “romance” of the Gunnings, and the “elopement” of
- Richard Brinsley Sheridan with Elizabeth Linley. If Professor Churton
- Collins had not urged upon the writer the possible interest attaching to
- the expression of some opinions unbiassed by those conservators of the
- conventional who have dealt with the same period, every one of them being
- as careful as Indians on the warpath to tread in the footsteps of the man
- preceding him, he would not have the courage to set forth his views in the
- form they now assume.
- </p>
- <p>
- The non-controversial papers in the series may increase the light and
- shade in the sketches of this very humble Georgian Pageant. The romance of
- Lady Susan Fox-Strangways naturally took the shape of a “regulation”
- story. The details are absolutely correct.
- </p>
- <p>
- On the very day the writer meant to keep the promise he made to Professor
- Churton Collins, by sending him the completed proofs of this book, the
- melancholy news of his death was published—an irreparable loss to
- the Literature of English Criticism.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- THE MONARCH OF THE PAGEANT
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>n the morning of
- February 2nd, 1789, a lady was taking a solitary stroll in Kew Gardens.
- She was a small person, of dainty features, with a dimple on each side of
- her mouth that suggested a smile, varying, perhaps out of compliment to
- the variations of the people with whom she came in contact in her daily
- life, and shifting doubtless with the movements of the folk of her fancy
- through her quick brain, but remaining a smile all the time. There was
- about her a good deal of that doll-like primness which is so pretty an
- accompaniment of a person of small stature; but with this particular
- person it had—not quite, but almost—the additional charm of
- dignity. One could at all times see that she was making a highly
- intellectual attempt to be dignified; but that she was not really
- dignified at heart. One could see that she had too fine a sense of humour
- to be thoroughly dignified; and it may be that some of her closest
- observers—her closest observers were her greatest admirers—perceived
- now and again that she had a full sense of the humour of her efforts in
- the direction of dignity. She had large eyes, but being very
- short-sighted, she had a habit of half closing them when looking at
- anything or any one further away from her than ten feet. But somehow it
- was never suggested that the falling of her lids brought a frown to her
- face.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was a quick walker at all times; but on this winter day the slowest
- would have had little temptation to dawdle. The usual river mist was
- thrusting up a quivering cold hand among the gaunt trees of the water
- boundary of the Gardens, and here and there it flitted like a lean spectre
- among the clipped evergreens of the shrubberies. There was a maze of yew
- hedges, in the intricacies of which one mist-spectre had clearly got lost;
- and the lady, who had some imagination, could see, as she hurried past,
- the poor thing's wispy head and shoulders flitting about among the
- baffling central walks. (A defective eyesight is sometimes a good friend
- to the imagination.) And all the while she was hurrying along the broad
- track she was looking with some measure of uneasiness through her
- half-closed eyes down every tributary walk that ran into the main one, and
- peering uneasily down every long artificial vista that Sir Thomas
- Chambers, the Swedish knight and landscape gardener, had planned, through
- the well-regulated boskage, with an imitation Greek temple or Roman villa
- at the end. Approaching the widening entrance to each of these, she went
- cautiously for a few moments until she had assured herself on some point.
- Once she started and took a step backward, but raising the lorgnette which
- she carried, and satisfying herself that the group of men a hundred yards
- down one of the vistas was composed wholly of gardeners, she resumed her
- stroll.
- </p>
- <p>
- Whatever slight apprehension may have been on her mind had vanished by the
- time she had half completed the circuit made by the main walk. She had
- reached one of the mounds which at that time were covered with
- rhododendrons, and paused for a moment to see if there was sign of a bud.
- A blackbird flew out from among the dense leafage, and she followed it
- with her eyes as well as she could while she walked on, crossing the
- narrow path that led to the seats on the mound. But at the moment of
- crossing she was startled out of her senses by the sound of a shout from
- some distance down this path—a loud shout followed by several others
- rather less imperative. She gave a little exclamation of terror, raising
- her muff to her face. Glancing in the direction whence the commotion was
- coming, she gave another cry, seeing a tall man rush toward her with
- outstretched arms—waving arms, frantically beckoning to her while he
- shouted:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Miss Burney! Miss Burney!”
- </p>
- <p>
- She waited no longer. She turned and fled along the broad walk, making for
- one of the many labyrinths not so very far away, and after her ran the
- man, still shouting and gesticulating. She could hear the sound of his
- feet and his voice behind her, as well as the cries of the other men who
- were endeavouring to keep pace with him. On they came, and there flashed
- through her active brain, in spite of the horrible apprehension which
- thrilled through every nerve in her body, as she doubled back upon the
- path which she had just traversed, the lines written by Dr. Goldsmith and
- often quoted by her friend Dr. Johnson:
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p class="indent20">
- A hare whom hounds and horns pursue,
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- Pants to the place from whence at first he flew.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p>
- She realised, all too painfully, the feelings of the poor hare at that
- moment. She longed for a friendly earth to open up before her. They were
- behind her—those wild huntsmen, one hoarsely yelling to her she knew
- not what, the others, more shrill, shouting to her to stop.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was too frightened to think of obeying any of them. On she ran, and it
- seemed that she was increasing the distance between her and her panting
- pursuers, until one of them, having better wind, managed to shoot ahead of
- the others, and to get close enough to say in a voice that was not all
- gasps:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Madam, madam, the doctor begs you to stop!” She glanced over her
- shoulder, still flying.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, no, I cannot—I dare not!” she gasped.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Madam, you must—you must: it hurts the King to run!” cried the man.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then she stopped. The man, an ordinary attendant, stood in front of her.
- He was more breathless than Miss Burney.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The doctor, madam,” he faltered, “'twas the doctor—he thought at
- first that His Majesty was—was—but that was at first—now
- he says you must please not lead His Majesty on—'tis all too much
- for him. Save us! How you did go, madam! Who would ha' thought it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- She was paying no attention to him. Her eyes were fixed upon the group of
- men who were recovering their breath while they walked slowly toward her.
- The King was between his two physicians—not Physicians in Ordinary;
- just the contrary—the two physicians who had been summoned from
- Lincolnshire by some person in authority who possessed intelligence—it
- should surely be easy to identify such a man at the Court of George III—when,
- some months earlier, His Majesty gave signs of losing his mental balance.
- They were the Willises, father and son, the former a clergyman, who was
- therefore all the more fully qualified to deal with a mind diseased—such
- a case as was defined as needing more the divine than the physician. The
- King was between the father and his son, but neither of them was
- exercising any ostentatious or officious restraint upon him. One of them
- was smiling while he said some reassuring words to the Royal patient; the
- other was endeavouring to reassure little Miss Burney from a distance.
- </p>
- <p>
- And it seemed that the intentions of both were realised, for His Majesty
- was smiling as benignly as was ever his wont, and little Miss Burney took
- her courage in both hands and boldly advanced to meet her Sovereign. (She
- had been for three years the Queen's “Dresser.”) But when they met, after
- the King had cried, “Why did you run away from me, Miss Burney?” it
- appeared that the process of reassuring the King had been but too
- effectually accomplished, for before the lady could frame a diplomatic
- reply to his inquiry, he had enwound her in his paternal arms and kissed
- her heartily on the cheek, greatly to her confusion and (she pretends) to
- her horror. The two doctors stood placidly by. They, poor things, being
- quite unaccustomed to the ways of the immediate entourage of the Court of
- George III—though they had doubtless heard something of the
- practices that prevailed at the Courts of His Majesty's lamented
- grandfather and great-grandfather—seemed under the impression that
- there was nothing unusual in this form of salutation. For all they knew it
- might be regarded as <i>de rigueur</i> between a monarch and the ladies of
- his consort's retinue. Even Dr. Willis, the divine, took a tolerant view
- of the transaction. He, as Miss Burney afterwards recorded, actually
- looked pleased!
- </p>
- <p>
- But, of course, the prim little lady herself was overwhelmed—yes, at
- first; but soon her good sense came to her rescue. She seems to have come
- with extraordinary rapidity to the conclusion that the King was not so mad
- as she had believed him to be. Her train of reasoning was instinctive, and
- therefore correct: the King had put his arms about her and kissed her when
- he had the chance, therefore he could not be so mad after all.
- </p>
- <p>
- In truth, however, Fanny Burney took the view of her treatment that any
- sensible modest young woman would take of it. She knew that the King, who
- had been separated for several months from the people whom he had been
- daily in the habit of meeting, had shown in the most natural way possible
- his delight at coming once more in contact with one of them.
- </p>
- <p>
- And undoubtedly the homely old gentleman was delighted beyond measure to
- meet with some one belonging to his happy years—a pleasanter face
- than that of Mrs. Schwellenberg, the dreadful creature who had made Fanny
- Burney's life miserable. It is not conceivable that the King would have
- kissed Mrs. Schwellenberg if he had come upon her suddenly as he had upon
- Miss Burney. People prefer silver rather than iron links with a happy
- past. He was so overjoyed, that the divine and the physician in attendance
- soon became anxious. They could not know much of all that he talked about
- to Miss Burney. They were in the position of strangers suddenly introduced
- to a family circle, and understanding nothing of the little homely secrets—homely
- topics upon which all the members of the circle have laughed together for
- years.
- </p>
- <p>
- They possibly could not see much sense in his long and rambling chat—it
- must have been largely in monologue—but they must have observed the
- face of the lady who was listening to him, and known from the expression
- which it wore that their patient was making himself intelligible. Only now
- and again they thought it prudent to check his exuberance. They must have
- been the most intelligent of men; and their names deserve to stand high in
- the annals of their country. At a time when the scientific treatment of
- the insane had not even begun to be formulated—when to be mentally
- afflicted meant to be on a level with felons and to be subjected to such
- repressive treatment as was afforded by the iron of the fetters and the
- hiss of the whipcord—at a time when a lust for office could make a
- statesman like Burke (a statesman who caused multitudes to weep in
- sympathy with his harangue on the sufferings of Marie Antoinette) refer to
- the King as having been “hurled by the Almighty from his throne” (in order
- to give the Opposition a chance of jumping into place and power over his
- prostrate body)—at such a time as this Dr. Willis and his two sons
- undertook the treatment of the King, and in the face of much opposition
- from the place-hunters in the Prince of Wales's pack, succeeded in
- restoring their patient to the palace which his happy nature had
- transformed into a home for every one dwelling under its roof.
- </p>
- <p>
- They stood by for some time after the King had greeted Miss Burney; and
- when he began to speak to her of topics that had a purely domestic ring
- they showed their good taste, as well as their knowledge of the
- peculiarities of their “case,” by moving away to a little distance,
- signalling to their attendants to do the same. Their discrimination must
- have been highly appreciated by the King. The poor restless mind had long
- wanted such a good long talk with a sympathetic listener, who, he knew,
- could understand every allusion that he might make to the past. He yearned
- to talk and to hear of such things as some one living in a distant land
- looks forward to finding in a letter from home. The <i>res angusta domi</i>—that
- was what he was hungering for—the trivial things in which he
- delighted—the confidences on simple matters—the sly everyday
- jests, never acutely pointed even to the family circle, but absolutely
- pointless to every one outside, yet sounding so delightfully witty when
- repeated as a sign of a happy intimacy of the past!
- </p>
- <p>
- Little Miss Burney had never imagined a scene like that in which she
- played an insignificant part at the moment, but one of enormous importance
- for posterity. She had, a few years before, been placed upon the porphyry
- pedestal which is reserved in England for the greatest woman writer of the
- generation. Seated there quite complacently, without reflecting upon the
- possibility of her pedestal becoming a trifle rickety, she had clasped her
- novel <i>Evelina</i> to her bosom, and received, without her head being in
- the least turned, the adulation—respectful in some cases, almost
- passionate in others—of the most notable men and women in the most
- intellectual and artistic society in England. Dr. Samuel Johnson, who was
- not disposed to overrate the merits of any writer whom the world had
- praised, was kissing her hands, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan was kissing
- her feet; Sir Joshua Reynolds was kissing the hem of her garments; while
- Edmund Burke was weaving a tinsel crown of rhetoric for her shapely head;
- but there were others equally great at that time who seemed to think that
- only a nimbus could give the appropriate finish to the little personage on
- the pedestal. The marvellous story of her success has been often told. It
- is more easily told than understood in the present day, the fact being
- that fashion in fiction is the most ephemeral of all human caprices, and
- Fanny Burney was essentially a fashion. She followed up the marvellous
- success of <i>Evelina</i>, after an interval of four years, with the
- natural success of <i>Cecilia</i>, and, after another four years, she
- retired from the brilliant world into the obscurity of the palace—the
- palace wardrobe. She had visited Mrs. Delany, and had been introduced (not
- presented) to the King and Queen, and the office of Queen's Dresser—Keeper
- of the Robes was the stately designation of a very humble service—becoming
- vacant, it was offered to Fanny Burney and accepted by her, acting on the
- advice of her father, who most certainly hoped that his own interests as a
- musician, fully qualified to become leader of the Royal Band, would be
- materially advanced when his daughter should become one of the Household.
- </p>
- <p>
- Reams of indignation have been published from time to time in respect of
- Dr. Burney's conduct in urging on his one brilliant daughter—the
- others were not brilliant, only mothers—to accept a post the duties
- of which could be discharged by any lady's maid with far more advantage to
- the Royal Consort than could possibly result from the ministrations of
- Fanny Burney. The world has been called on to bemoan the prudent
- indiscretion of the father, who did not hesitate to fling his gifted
- daughter's pen out of the window, so to speak, and thereby deprive the
- waiting world of some such masterpiece as <i>Camilla</i>—the novel
- which she published five years after her release from the burden of the
- Robes. There can be no doubt that the feeling which prevailed among the
- circle of the elect—the Reynoldses, the Burkes, and even the frigid
- Walpole—when it became known that Miss Burney's health was breaking
- down under the strain of her duties at the Court—she had about two
- hours' daily attendance of the most ordinary nature upon the Queen—was
- on the border of indignation. Every one affirmed that it was a disgrace
- for so lively a genius to be kept at the duties of a lady's maid. It was
- like turning the winner of the Oaks out to the plough. Edmund Burke,
- recalling his early approbation of the intentions of Dr. Burney in regard
- to his daughter, declared that he had never made so great a mistake in all
- his life; and we know that he made a few. These excellent people had no
- reason to speak otherwise than they did on this matter. All they knew was
- that the pen of the novelist who had given them so much pleasure had been
- (as they believed) idle for nearly nine years, five of which had been
- passed at the Court. That reflection was quite enough to rouse their
- indignation. But what can one say of the indignation on this point of a
- writer who actually made the fact of his being engaged on a review of the
- Diary of Fanny Burney—the incomparable Diary which she kept during
- her five years at Court—an excuse for turning the vials of his wrath
- upon her father, whose obstinacy gave her a chance of writing the most
- interesting chapter—the most accurate chapter—of History that
- was ever penned by man or woman?
- </p>
- <p>
- Macaulay wrote in all the fullness of his knowledge of what Fanny Burney
- had written. He knew that for four years after she had published <i>Cecilia</i>
- her pen had been idle so far as fiction was concerned. He knew that for
- five years after her release from the thraldom of the Queen's closet she
- had published nothing; he himself felt it to be his duty to point out the
- comparative worthlessness of <i>Camilla</i>, the novel which she then gave
- to the world, not because she felt upon her the impulse of a woman of
- genius, but simply because she found herself in great need of some ready
- money. Macaulay does not disdain to go into the money question, showing
- (he fancies) how Dr. Burney had by his obstinacy deprived his gifted
- daughter of earning the large sum which she would assuredly have obtained
- by the writing of a novel in the time that she was compelled to devote to
- the Queen's <i>toilette</i>. He found it convenient to ignore the fact
- that of the fourteen years that elapsed between the publication of <i>Cecilia</i>
- and that of <i>Camilla</i> only five were spent at Court. Surely any born
- novelist could, without running a chance of imperilling a well-earned
- reputation by undue haste in the dialogue or by scamping the descriptive
- passages, contrive by dint of hard, but not over-hard, work to produce
- more than one complete romance within a space of nine years. Many ladies
- who are not born novelists have succeeded in surpassing this task without
- physical suffering.
- </p>
- <p>
- But even assuming that the author of <i>Evelina, Cecilia, and Camilla</i>
- lost not only time but money while she was at Court, how much money did
- she lose? She received at least the equivalent of £2000 for her five
- years' service, and she was granted a pension of £100 a year, which she
- drew for forty-nine years; so that for her enforced seclusion she was
- remunerated to the extent of close upon £7000! This sum represents more
- than all Fanny Burney's literary works yielded to her from the joyous
- youthful days of <i>Evelina</i> down to the somewhat sordid middle age of
- <i>Camilla</i>.
- </p>
- <p>
- But what has the world gained by the lamentable short-sightedness
- attributed to Dr. Burney? How is one to estimate the value of that
- incomparable Diary so admirably “written up” during her tedious five years
- at Court? How many <i>Cecilias</i>, how many <i>Camillas</i> would one not
- give in exchange for a single year of that part of the Diary which deals
- with the approach of the King's malady? In no work of fiction that ever
- came from her pen did she ever show such power of observation, not only of
- incident, but of character as well; nor is there apparent on any page
- produced by her imagination such perfect artistic effects as appeal to a
- reader on every page of this Diary of a disease.
- </p>
- <p>
- At the outset of her account of these dreadful days we are conscious of
- the vague approach of a shadow—we feel as if we were led into the
- darkened chamber of a haunted house. Our attendant pauses by our side,
- listening for strange noises; she lays a hand upon our arm, as it were,
- and speaks to us in a whisper. We feel that the dread Thing is coming. The
- King is indisposed—he has not been quite in his usual health for
- some time past; but of course nothing very alarming has been announced by
- Sir George Barker, the Physician in Ordinary, although there is an
- uncertainty as to His Majesty's complaint. But Miss Burney has seen the
- faces of the people about her who have come more closely in contact with
- the Sovereign; she has doubtless noticed the solemnity of some—the
- airs of mystery, the head-shakings, and she is capable of drawing her own
- conclusions. “Heaven preserve him!” she whispers in her Diary for October
- 19th, 1788. She is very much with the Queen, and she perceives that Her
- Majesty is extremely uneasy, though saying nothing. There is great alarm
- during the night. Possibly some one has heard the delirious voice of the
- King coming from his apartments in that tumbledown palace of his at Kew.
- The fright is general, and every one is wondering what the morning will
- bring forth. Hope comes with the light. The bulletin is that the King was
- ill, but is now so very much better that his physician believes the move
- to Windsor, to which the Court was looking forward, may be taken. The move
- is made on the 25th, and then Miss Burney has a chance meeting with the
- King that causes her to suspect the truth. He talks to her with unnatural
- vehemence—unnatural volubility—and without cessation for a
- long time; all is exaggerated, and his graciousness most of all. She has
- never met with anything like this before, but having heard of the delirium
- accompanying a high fever, she believes that His Majesty is in the throes
- of a fever.
- </p>
- <p>
- The next day is Sunday, and she meets him again in one of the passages,
- and she finds him rather more coherent in his talk, but still it is the
- talk of a man in the delirium of a fever. It is all about himself—his
- health—his dreadful sleeplessness. He keeps at it for half an hour
- without making the slightest pause; and yet he manages to convey to her an
- impression of his benevolence—his consideration for the people
- around him—his hopes that he may not cause them any uneasiness. When
- he leaves her she doubtless tells of the meeting to some of her friends in
- the apartments where the equerries are accustomed to meet, and doubtless
- there are more head-shakings and airs of mystery; but she records: “Nobody
- speaks of his illness, nor what they think of it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Apparently, too, no one felt it to be necessary to subject His Majesty to
- any course of treatment, although, a few days later, he became so weak
- that he, who at the beginning of the year thought nothing of walking
- twelve miles at a stretch—more than his sons could do—hobbled
- along like a gouty man. Gradually, very gradually, the horror approaches;
- and nothing that has ever been done in fiction equals in effect the simple
- record of all that Fanny Burney noticed from day to day. Most touching of
- all her entries are those relating to the Queen. “The Queen,” she writes,
- “is almost overpowered with some secret terror. I am affected beyond all
- expression in her presence to see what struggles she makes to support her
- serenity. To-day she gave up the conflict when I was alone with her; and
- burst into a violent fit of tears. It was very, very terrible to see!...
- something horrible seemed impending... I was still wholly unsuspicious of
- the greatness of the cause she had for dread. Illness, a breaking up of
- the constitution, the payment of sudden infirmity and premature old age
- for the waste of unguarded health and strength—these seemed to me
- the threats awaiting her; and great and grievous enough, yet how short of
- the fact!”...
- </p>
- <p>
- At last the terrible truth was revealed. Miss Burney was dining with one
- of the Queen's ladies; but there was little conversation between them. It
- was clear that both had their suspicions of the nature of the dread shadow
- that was hovering over the castle. They remained together, waiting for the
- worst. “A stillness the most uncommon reigned over the whole house. Nobody
- stirred; not a voice was heard; not a motion. I could do nothing but
- watch, without knowing for what; there seemed a strangeness in the house
- most extraordinary.”
- </p>
- <p>
- To talk of such passages as these as examples of literary art would be
- ridiculous. They are transcripts from life itself made by some one with a
- genius for observation, not merely for recording. Boswell had a genius for
- recording; but his powers of observation were on a level with those of a
- sheep. We know perfectly well what his treatment of the scenes leading up
- to the tragedy of the King would have been. But Fanny Burney had the
- artist's instinct for collecting only such incidents as heighten the
- effect.
- </p>
- <p>
- When she is still sitting in the dim silence of that November evening with
- her friend some one enters to whisper that there was to be no playing of
- the after-dinner music in which the King usually took so much pleasure.
- Later on the equerries come slowly into the room. There is more whispering—more
- head-shaking. What was it all about? Had anything happened? What had
- happened? No one wishes to be the first to speak. But the suspense! The
- strain upon the nerves of the two ladies! At last it can be borne no
- longer. The dreadful revelation is made. The King is a madman!
- </p>
- <p>
- At dinner, the Prince of Wales being present, His Majesty had “broken
- forth into positive delirium, which long had been menacing all who saw him
- most closely; and the Queen was so overpowered as to fall into violent
- hysterics. All the princesses were in misery, and the Prince of Wales had
- burst into tears. No one knew what was to follow—no one could
- conjecture the event.” Nothing could be more pathetic than the concern of
- the King for his wife. His delusion is that she is the sufferer. When
- Fanny Burney went to her room, where she was accustomed to await her
- nightly summons to attend Her Majesty, she remained there alone for two
- hours. At midnight she can stand the suspense no longer. She opens the
- door and listens in the passage. Not a sound is to be heard. Not even a
- servant crossed the stairs on the corridor off which her apartment opened.
- After another hour's suspense a page knocks at her door with the message
- that she is to go at once to her Royal mistress.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My poor Royal Mistress!” she writes. “Never can I forget her countenance—pale,
- ghastly pale she looked... her whole frame was disordered, yet she was
- still and quiet. And the poor King is dreadfully uneasy about her. Nothing
- was the matter with himself, he affirmed, except nervousness on her
- account. He insisted on having a bed made up for himself in her
- dressing-room in order that he might be at hand should she become worse
- through the night. He had given orders that Miss Goldsworthy was to remain
- with her; but it seemed that he had no great confidence in the vigilance
- of any one but himself, for some hours after the Queen had retired he
- appeared before the eyes of the horrified lady-in-waiting, at the door,
- bearing a lighted candle. He opened the bed curtains and satisfied himself
- that his dread of her being carried out of the palace was unfounded; but
- he did not leave the room for another half-hour, and the terror of the
- scene completely overwhelmed the unhappy lady.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Truly when this terror was walking by night Fanny Burney's stipend was
- well earned. But worse was in store for her when it was decided that the
- King should be removed to Kew Palace, which he detested and which was
- certainly the most miserable of all the miserable dwelling-places of the
- Royal Family. It seemed to be nobody's business to make any preparation
- for the reception of the Queen and her entourage. The rooms were dirty and
- unwarmed, and the corridors were freezing. And to the horrors of this
- damp, unsavoury barrack was added Mrs. Schwellenberg, the German
- she-dragon who had done her best to make Fanny Burney's life unendurable
- during the previous three years. Formerly Fanny had dwelt upon the
- ill-treatment she had received at the hands of this old harridan; but now
- she only refers to her as an additional element of casual discomfort. The
- odious creature is “so oppressed between her spasms and the house's
- horrors, that the oppression she inflicted ought perhaps to be pardoned.
- It was, however, difficult enough to bear,” she adds. “Harshness, tyranny,
- dissension, and even insult seemed personified. I cut short details upon
- this subject—they would but make you sick.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Truly little Miss Burney earned her wages at this time. The dilapidated
- palace was only rendered habitable by the importation of a cartload of
- sandbags, which were as strategically distributed for the exclusion of the
- draughts as if they were the usual defensive supply of a siege. But even
- this ingenious device failed to neutralise the Arctic rigours of the
- place. The providing of carpets for some of the bare floors of the
- bedrooms and passages was a startling innovation; but eventually it was
- carried out. An occasional set of curtains also was smuggled into this
- frozen fairy palace, and a sofa came now and again.
- </p>
- <p>
- But in spite of all these auxiliaries to luxury—in spite, too, of
- Mrs. Schwellenberg's having locked herself into her room, forbidding any
- one to disturb her—the dreariness and desolation of the December at
- Kew must have caused Miss Burney to think with longing of the comforts of
- her father's home in St. Martin's Street and of the congenial atmosphere
- which she breathed during her numerous visits to the Thrales' solid
- mansion at Streatham.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0035.jpg" alt="0035 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0035.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- The condition of the King was becoming worse, and early whispers of the
- necessity for a Regency grew louder. It was understood that Mrs.
- Fitzherbert would be made a duchess! Everybody outside the palace sought
- to stand well in the estimation of the Prince of Wales, and Pitt was
- pointed out as a traitor to his country because he did his best to
- postpone the Comus orgy which every one knew would follow the establishing
- of a Regency. The appointment of the Doctors Willis was actually referred
- to as a shocking impiety, suggesting as it did a wicked rebellion against
- the decree of the Almighty, Who, according to Burke, had hurled the
- monarch from his throne. There were, however, some who did not regard Mr.
- Burke as an infallible judge on such a point, and no one was more
- indignant at the mouthings of the rhetorician than Miss Burney. But it
- seemed as if the approach of the Regency could no longer be retarded. The
- Willises were unable to certify to any improvement in the condition of the
- King during the month of January, 1789. It was really not until he had
- that chase after Fanny Burney in Kew Gardens that a change for the better
- came about.
- </p>
- <p>
- Though she was greatly terrified by his affectionate salutation, she could
- not but have been surprised at the sanity displayed in the monologue that
- followed; for one of the first of his innumerable questions revealed to
- her the fact that he was perfectly well aware of what a trial to her
- patience was the odious Mrs. Schwellenberg. He asked how she was getting
- on with Mrs. Schwellenberg, and he did so with a laugh that showed her how
- well he appreciated her difficulties in this direction in the past. Before
- she could say a word he was making light of the Schwellenberg—adopting
- exactly the strain that he knew would be most effective with Miss Burney.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Never mind her—never mind her! Don't be oppressed! I am your
- friend! Don't let her cast you down—I know that you have a hard time
- of it—but don't mind her!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The advice and the tone in which it was given—with a pleasant laugh—did
- not seem very consistent with what she expected from a madman. Fanny
- Burney appears up to that moment to have been under the impression that
- the King and Queen had known nothing of the tyranny and the insults to
- which she had been subjected by Mrs. Schwellenberg. But now it was made
- plain to her that the eyes of the Royal couple had been open all the time.
- If Macaulay had noticed the passage touching upon this point he would have
- had still stronger grounds for his attack upon their Majesties for their
- want of consideration for the tire-woman who was supposed never to be
- tired.
- </p>
- <p>
- But how much more surprised must Fanny Burney have been when the King went
- on to talk to her in the most cordially confidential way about her father!
- It must have been another revelation to her when he showed how fully he
- realised the ambitions of Dr. Burney. He asked her regarding the progress
- of the <i>History of Music</i>, at which Dr. Burney had been engaged for
- several years, and this gave him a chance of getting upon his favourite
- topic, the music of Handel. But when he began to illustrate some of his
- impressions on this fruitful theme by singing over the choruses of an
- oratorio or two—perhaps such trifles as “All we like Sheep,” or
- “Lift up your Heads,” or the “Hallelujah”—he must have gone far
- toward neutralising the good opinion she had formed as to his sanity.
- Fortunately the attendant doctors interposed at this point; but the fact
- that the distinguished amateur suffered their adverse criticism proves to
- posterity that the King was even more good-natured than he had been
- painted by Miss Burney.
- </p>
- <p>
- On then he went to talk of the subject which must never have been far from
- Dr. Burney's heart—the Mastership of the King's Band: “Your father
- ought to have had the post, and not that little poor musician Parsons, who
- was not fit for it,” he cried. “But Lord Salisbury used your father very
- ill in that business, and so he did me! However, I have dashed out his
- name, and I shall put your father's in—as soon as I get loose again.
- What has your father got at last? Nothing but that poor thing at Chelsea!
- Oh, fie! fie! But never mind! I will take care of him—I will do it
- myself!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Could he have given the devoted daughter of Dr. Burney a more emphatic
- proof of his complete recovery to sanity than this? Why, it would have
- convinced Dr. Burney himself!
- </p>
- <p>
- Alas! although the King may have been very resolute at the moment—he
- had just been making out a list of new officers of State, and was ready to
- show her that the name of her father's enemy, Lord Salisbury, was not to
- be found in it, and he assured her that in future he would rule with a rod
- of iron—yet before he returned to his ordinary way of life he must
- have mislaid his list, for poor Dr. Burney remained at his post of
- organist of Chelsea Hospital. He never attained to the place which he
- coveted and for which his daughter was sent to five years' Royal
- servitude, and (incidentally) to achieve for herself that immortality as a
- chronicler which would certainly never have been won by her as a novelist.
- </p>
- <p>
- But the King did not confine his conversation to the one topic which he
- knew was of greatest interest to her. He spoke of Mrs. Delany, who had
- been the means of introducing Fanny to the Royal circle; and he referred
- to the ill-treatment which he had received at the hands of one of his
- pages; but this was the only passage that savoured of unkindness, and the
- chronicler is unable to do more than hope that the conduct of the pages
- was one of His Majesty's delusions. Then, with what seems to us to be
- consummate adroitness, he put some questions to her which she could not
- but answer. “They referred to information given to him in his illness from
- various motives, but which he suspected to be false, and which I knew he
- had reason to suspect,” Miss Burney writes. “Yet was it most dangerous to
- set anything right, as I was not aware what might be the views of their
- having been stated wrong. I was as discreet as I knew how to be, and I
- hope I did no mischief: but this was the worst part of the dialogue.”
- </p>
- <p>
- We can quite believe that it was, and considering that it was the part of
- the dialogue which was most interesting to the King, we think that Miss
- Burney was to be congratulated upon the tact she displayed in her answers.
- She did not cause the King to be more perturbed than he was when waxing
- indignant over the conduct of his pages; and there was no need for Dr.
- Willis to interfere at this point, though he did a little later on. Then
- submitting with the utmost docility to the control of his excellent
- attendant, and with another exhortation not to pay any attention to the
- whims of the Schwellenberg, the gracious gentleman kissed her once more on
- the cheek and allowed her to take her departure.
- </p>
- <p>
- So ended this remarkable adventure in Kew Gardens. One can picture Fanny
- Burney flying to tell the Queen all that had occurred—to repeat
- everything that her discretion permitted her of the conversation; and one
- has no difficulty in imagining the effect upon Queen Charlotte of all that
- she narrated; but it seems rather hard that from Mrs. Schwellenberg should
- have been withheld the excellent advice given by the King to Miss Burney
- respecting the German virago.
- </p>
- <p>
- It would have been impossible either for Fanny Burney or the Queen to come
- to any conclusion from all that happened except one that was entirely
- satisfactory to both. King George III was undoubtedly on the high road to
- recovery, and subsequent events confirmed this opinion. It really seemed
- that the interview with the author of <i>Evelina</i> marked the
- turning-point in his malady at this time. Every day brought its record of
- improvement, and within a fortnight the dreaded Regency Bill, which had
- been sent up to the Lords, was abandoned. On March 1st there were public
- thanksgivings in all the churches, followed by such an illumination of
- London as had not been seen since the great fire. The scene at Kew is
- admirably described by Miss Burney, who had written some congratulatory
- lines to be offered by the Princess Amelia to the King. A great
- “transparency” had been painted by the Queen's order, representing the
- King, Providence, Health, and Britannia—a truly British tableau—and
- when this was hung out and illuminated the little Princess “went to lead
- her papa to the front window.” Then she dropped on her knees and gave him
- the “copy of verses,” with the postscript:
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p class="indent20">
- The little bearer begs a kiss
- </p>
- <p class="indent20">
- From dear papa for bringing this.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p>
- The “dear papa” took his dear child in his arms, and held her close to him
- for some time. Nothing could have been more charmingly natural and
- affecting. For such a picture of Royalty at home we are indebted to Fanny
- Burney, and, face to face with it, we are selfish enough to feel grateful
- to Dr. Burney for having given his daughter for five years to discharge a
- humble duty to her Sovereign and an immortal one to her fellow-countrymen,
- who have read her Diary and placed it on a shelf between Pepys and de
- Gramont.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- A COMEDY IN ST. MARTIN'S STREET
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>R BURNEY was
- giving a “command” party at his house in St. Martin's Street, Leicester
- Fields—the house which Sir Isaac Newton did once inhabit, and which
- was still crowned with the most celebrated observatory in Europe. In the
- early years of his musical career he had had a patron, Mr. Fulk Greville,
- who had done a great deal for him, and in later days he had never quite
- forgotten this fact, although Dr. Burney had climbed high on the
- professional as well as the social ladder, and was better known in the
- world than Mr. Greville himself. He had become quite intimate with many
- great persons and several curious ones. It is uncertain whether Mr.
- Greville regarded Dr. Johnson as belonging to the former or the latter
- class, but at any rate he had heard a great deal about Dr. Johnson, and
- did not think that, provided he took every reasonable precaution, any harm
- could come to himself from meeting such a notability. He accordingly
- instructed Dr. Burney to bring him and Johnson together, and Burney
- promised to do so. Before the day for this meeting was fixed Mrs. Greville—who,
- by the way, was Fanny Burney's godmother—had signified her intention
- of viewing the huge person also, and of bringing her daughter, the
- exquisite Mrs. Crewe, to attend the promised exhibition of genius in bulk.
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course Dr. Johnson was ready to lend himself to any plan that might be
- devised to increase the circumference of his circle of admirers, and
- besides, this Mr. Fulk Greville was a descendant of the friend of Sir
- Philip Sidney, and had large possessions, as well as a magnificent country
- seat, and altogether he would make a most desirable listener; so he agreed
- to come to the party to be inspected by the Greville family. Burney,
- however, wishing, as every responsible proprietor of a menagerie should
- wish, to be on the safe side and exhibit his bear under the eye and the
- controlling influence of his favourite keeper, invited Mr. and Mrs. Thrale
- to the party.
- </p>
- <p>
- These were to be the “principals” in the comedy of this entertainment; and
- for the subordinates he selected his married daughter and her husband—both
- admirable musicians—Mr. Davenant, Mr. Seward, and a certain Italian
- musician, a vocalist as well as a performer on the violin and that new
- instrument which was at first called the fortepiano, then the pianoforte,
- and later on simply the piano. This person's name was Gabrielli Piozzi.
- </p>
- <p>
- Such were the harmonious elements which Dr. Burney proposed to bring
- together for the gratification of Mr. Fulk Greville and his wife. Mr.
- Greville was an amateur of some little capacity, and he had certainly at
- one time been greatly interested in music. He had paid £300 to Burney's
- master, the celebrated Dr. Arne, who composed in the masque of “Alfred”
- the rousing anthem known as “Rule Britannia,” for the cancelling of
- Burney's indentures as an apprentice to the “art of musick,” and had taken
- the young man into his own house in a capacity which may best be described
- as that of entertaining secretary. Dr. Burney may therefore have thought
- in his wisdom that, should Johnson be in one of his bearish moods and feel
- disinclined to exhibit his parts of speech to Mr. Greville, the latter
- would be certain of entertainment from the musicians. This showed
- forethought and a good working knowledge of Dr. Johnson. But in spite of
- the second string to the musician's bow the party was a fiasco—that
- is, from the standpoint of a social entertainment; it included one
- incident, however, which made it the most notable of the many of the
- Burney parties of which a record remains.
- </p>
- <p>
- And what records there are available to any one interested in the
- entertainments given by Dr. Burney and his charming family at that modest
- house of theirs, just round the corner from Sir Joshua Reynolds' larger
- establishment in Leicester Fields! Hundreds of people who contributed to
- make the second half of the eighteenth century the most notable of any
- period so far as literature and the arts were concerned, since the
- spacious days of Elizabeth, were accustomed to meet together informally at
- this house, and to have their visits recorded for all ages to muse upon.
- To that house came Garrick, not to exhibit his brilliance as a talker
- before a crowd of admirers, but to entertain the children of the household
- with the buffooning that never flagged, and that never fell short of
- genius in any exhibition. He was the delight of the schoolroom. Edmund
- Burke and his brother, both fond of conversation when oratory was not
- available, were frequently here; Reynolds came with many of his sitters,
- and found fresh faces for his canvas among his fellow-guests; and with him
- came his maiden sister, feeling herself more at home with the simple
- Burney circle than she ever did with the company who assembled almost
- daily under her brother's roof. Nollekens, the sculptor; Colman, the
- dramatist and theatre manager, who was obliged to run away from London to
- escape the gibes which were flung at him from every quarter when
- Goldsmith's <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i>, which he had done his best to
- make a failure, became the greatest success of the year; Cumberland, the
- embittered rival of Goldsmith, who was the person who gave the solitary
- hiss during the first performance of the same play, causing the timid
- author to say to the manager on entering the playhouse, “What is that, sir—pray,
- what is that? Is it a hiss?” To which Colman replied, “Psha! sir, what
- signifies a squib when we have been sitting on a barrel of gunpowder all
- night?”
- </p>
- <p>
- These were among the notabilities; and the “curiosities” were quite as
- numerous. The earliest of Arctic voyagers, Sir Constantine Phipps, who
- later became Lord Mulgrave, put in an appearance at more than one of the
- parties; and so did Omai, the “gentle savage” of the poet Cowper, who was
- brought by Captain Cook from the South Seas in the ship on which young
- Burney was an officer. The sisters, who, of course, idolised the sailor,
- sat open-mouthed with wonder to hear their brother chatting away to Omai
- in his native language. Upon another occasion came Bruce, the Abyssinian
- traveller, who told the story of how steaks were cut from the live ox when
- needed by the inhabitants of one region. He was immensely tall, as were
- some of his stories; but though extremely dignified, he did not object to
- a practical joke. Another person of great stature who visited the Burneys
- was the notorious Count Orloff, the favourite of the Empress Catherine of
- Russia; and from the letters of one of the young people of the household
- one has no difficulty in perceiving with what interest he was regarded by
- the girls, especially since the report reached them that he had personally
- strangled his imperial master at the instigation of his imperial mistress.
- </p>
- <p>
- These are but, a few names out of the many on the Burneys' visiting list.
- Of course, as regards musical artists, the house was the rendezvous of the
- greatest in London. While the opera-house in the Haymarket was open there
- was a constant flow of brilliant vocalists to these shores, and the young
- people had many opportunities of becoming acquainted with the ignorance,
- the capriciousness, the affectations, and the abilities which were to be
- found associated with the lyric stage in the eighteenth century, as they
- are in the twentieth. Among the prime donne who sang for the Burneys were
- the Agujari—a marvellous performer, who got fifty pounds for every
- song she sang at the Pantheon—and her great but uncertain rival,
- Gabrielli. The former, according to Mozart, who may possibly be allowed to
- be something of a judge, had a vocal range which was certainly never
- equalled by any singer before or after his time. She won all hearts and a
- great deal of money during her visit to London, and she left with the
- reputation of being the most marvellous and most rapacious of Italians.
- Gabrielli seems to have tried to make up by capriciousness what she lacked
- in expression. Her voice was, so far as can be gathered from contemporary
- accounts, small and thin. But by judiciously disappointing the public she
- became the most widely talked of vocalist in the country. Then among the
- men were the simple and gracious Pacchierotti—who undoubtedly became
- attached to Fanny Burney—Rauzzini, and Piozzi.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0049.jpg" alt="0049 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0049.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- The Burneys' house was for years the centre of the highest intellectual
- entertainment to be found in London, and the tact of the head of the
- household, and the simple, natural manners of his daughters, usually
- succeeded in preventing the intrusion of a single inharmonious note, in
- spite of the fact that a Welsh harpist named Jones had once been among the
- visitors.
- </p>
- <p>
- But upon the occasion of this “command” party, when Greville was to meet
- Johnson, and the latter had dressed himself with that extreme care which
- we suspect meant that he tied up his hose, and put on a wig the front of
- which had not yet been burnt away by coming in contact with his lighted
- candle, Burney's tact overreached itself. Mr. Greville may have felt that
- the Thrales had no business to be of the party, or Johnson may have gained
- the impression that Burney's old patron was anxious to play the same part,
- in an honorary sort of way, in regard to himself. At any rate, he refused
- to be drawn out to exhibit his conversational powers to a supercilious
- visitor; and after a brief space of time he turned his back upon every one
- and his face to the fire, and there he sat, greatly to the discomfiture,
- no doubt, of his host. In a very short time a gloom settled down upon the
- whole party. Mr. Thrale, stiff and reserved, was not the man to pull
- things together. He sat mute on his chair, making no advance toward Mr.
- Greville, and Mr. Greville had probably his chin in the air, having come
- to the conclusion that Dr. Johnson's powers as a conversationalist had
- been greatly overrated by rumour.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was when all hope of sociability had vanished that Dr. Burney, who,
- when a church organist, may have had occasion to cover up the shortcomings
- of the clergyman by a timely voluntary, begged Signor Piozzi to oblige the
- company with a song. But Piozzi was a forlorn hope. He was the last man in
- the world to save the situation. Had he been a vocalist of the calibre of
- Pacchierotti he could have made no headway against the funereal gloom that
- had settled down upon the party.
- </p>
- <p>
- Piozzi had a sweet and highly trained voice, though some years earlier he
- had lost its best notes, and he sang with exquisite expression; but when
- playing his own accompaniment, with his back turned to his audience, he
- was prone to exaggerate the sentiment of the music until sentiment became
- lost in an exuberance of sentimentality.
- </p>
- <p>
- This style of singing is not that to which any one would resort in order
- to dissipate a sudden social gloom. As the singer went on the gloom
- deepened.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was just at this moment that one of those ironic little imps that lurk
- in wainscot nooks looking out for an opportunity to influence an
- unconscious human being to an act which the little demon, seeing the end
- of a scene of which mortals only see the beginning, regards with sardonic
- glee, whispered something in the ear of Mrs. Thrale, and in an instant, in
- obedience to its prompting, she had left her chair and stolen behind the
- singer at the piano. Raising her hands and turning up her eyes in
- imitation of Piozzi, she indulged in a piece of mimicry which must have
- shocked every one in the room except the singer, who had his back to her,
- and Dr. Johnson, who, besides being too short-sighted to be able to see
- her, was gazing into the grate.
- </p>
- <p>
- No doubt the flippant little lady felt that a touch of farcical fun was
- the very thing needed to make the party go with a snap; but such flagrant
- bad taste as was involved in the transaction was more than Dr. Burney
- could stand. Keeping his temper marvellously well in hand, considering his
- provocation, he went gently behind the gesticulating woman and put a stop
- to her fooling. Shaking his head, he whispered in a “half joke whole
- earnest” way:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Because, madam, you have no ear yourself for music, will you destroy the
- attention of all who, in that one point, are otherwise gifted?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Or words to that effect, it might be safe to add, for the phrases as
- recorded in the diary of one of his daughters are a trifle too academic
- for even Dr. Burney to have whispered on the spur of the moment. But he
- certainly reproved the lady, and she took his remonstrance in good part,
- and showed herself to be admirably appreciative of the exact pose to
- assume in order to save the situation. She went demurely to her chair and
- sat there stiffly, and with the affectation of a schoolgirl who has been
- admonished for a fault and commanded to take a seat in silence and apart
- from the rest of the class. It must be apparent to every one that this was
- the precise attitude for her to strike in the circumstances, and that she
- was able to perceive this in a rather embarrassing moment shows that Mrs.
- Thrale was quite as clever as her friends made her out to be.
- </p>
- <p>
- But regarding the incident itself, surely the phrase, “the irony of fate,”
- was invented to describe it. A better illustration of the sport of
- circumstance could not be devised, for in the course of time the lively
- little lady, who had gone as far as any one could go in making a mock of
- another, had fallen as deep in love with the man whom she mocked as ever
- Juliet did with her Romeo. She found that she could not live without him,
- and, sacrificing friends, position, and fortune, she threw herself into
- his arms, and lived happy ever after.
- </p>
- <p>
- The conclusion of the first scene in this saturnine comedy which was being
- enacted in the drawing-room in that house in St. Martin's Street, was in
- perfect keeping with the <i>mise-en-scène</i> constructed by Fate, taking
- the rôle of Puck. It is admirably described in the diary of Charlotte
- Burney. She wrote that Mr. Greville—whom she nicknamed “Mr. Gruel”—assumed
- “his most supercilious air of distant superiority” and “planted himself
- immovable as a noble statue upon the hearth, as if a stranger to the whole
- set.”
- </p>
- <p>
- By this time Dr. Johnson must have had enough of the fire at which he had
- been sitting, and we at once see how utterly hopeless were the social
- relations at this miserable party when we hear that the men “were so kind
- and considerate as to divert themselves by making a fire-screen to the
- whole room.” But Dr. Johnson, having thoroughly warmed himself, was now in
- a position to administer a rebuke to the less fortunate ones, and, when
- nobody would have imagined that he had known the gentlemen were in the
- room, he said that “if he was not ashamed he would keep the fire from the
- ladies too.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “This reproof (for a reproof it certainly was, although given in a very
- comical, dry way) was productive,” Charlotte adds, “of a scene as good as
- a comedy, for Mr. Suard tumbled on to a sopha directly, Mr. Thrale on to a
- chair, Mr. Davenant sneaked off the premises, seemingly in as great a
- fright and as much confounded as if he had done any bad action, and Mr.
- Gruel being left solus, was obliged to stalk off.”
- </p>
- <p>
- A more perfect description of the “curtain” to the first act of this, “as
- good as a comedy,” could not be imagined. In every scene of this memorable
- evening the mocking figure of an impish Fate can be discerned. There was
- the tactful and urbane Dr. Burney anxious to gratify his old patron by
- presenting to him the great Dr. Johnson, and at the same time to show on
- what excellent terms he himself was with the family of the wealthy brewer,
- Mr. Thrale. Incidentally he has caused Johnson to put himself to the
- inconvenience of a clean shirt and a respectable wig; and, like a
- thoughtful general, lest any of his plans should fall short of fulfilment,
- he has invited an interesting vocalist to cover up the retreat and make
- failure almost impossible!
- </p>
- <p>
- Dr. Burney could do wonders by the aid of his tact and urbanity, but he is
- no match for Fate playing the part of Puck. Within an hour Johnson has
- disappointed him and become grumpy—the old bear has found the buns
- to be stale; Mr. Greville, the patron, is in a patronising mood, and
- becomes stiff and aloof because Johnson, secure with his pension, resents
- it; Mrs. Thrale, anxious to do her best for Burney, and at the same time
- to show Mrs. Greville and her fine daughter how thoroughly at home she is
- in the house and how delicate is her sense of humour, strikes an
- appallingly false note, and only saves herself by a touch of cleverness
- from appearing wholly ridiculous. This is pretty well for the opening
- scenes, but the closing catastrophe is not long delayed. The men huddle
- themselves together in stony silence; and they are reproved for
- impoliteness by—whom? Dr. Johnson, the man who has studied
- boorishness and advanced it to a place among the arts—the man who
- calls those who differ from him dolts and fools and rascals—the man
- whose manners at the dinner table are those of the sty and trough—the
- man who walks about the streets ungartered and unclean—this is the
- man who has the effrontery to rebuke for their rudeness such gentlemen as
- Mr. Fulk Greville, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Thrale! Puck can go no further.
- Down comes the curtain when one gentleman collapses upon a “sopha,”
- another into a chair, a third sneaks off like a culprit, and the fourth
- stalks off with an air of offended dignity!
- </p>
- <p>
- It might be thought that the imp of mischief who had assumed the control
- of this evening's entertainment would be satisfied at the result of his
- pranks so far. Nothing of the sort. He was only satisfied when he had made
- a match between the insignificant figure who was playing the musical
- accompaniment to his pranks and the lady who thought that his presence in
- the room was only justifiable on the ground that he made an excellent butt
- for her mockery!
- </p>
- <p>
- And the funniest part of the whole comedy is to be found in the fact that
- the pair lived happy ever after!
- </p>
- <p>
- The extraordinary influence which Boswell has had upon almost every
- student of the life of the latter half of the eighteenth century is shown
- in a marked way by the general acceptance of his view—which it is
- scarcely necessary to say was Johnson's view—of the second marriage
- of Mrs. Thrale. We are treating Boswell much more fairly than he treated
- Mrs. Thrale when we acknowledge at once that his opinion was shared by a
- considerable number of the lady's friends, including Dr. Burney and his
- family. They were all shocked when they heard that the widow of the
- Southwark brewer had married the Italian musician, Signor Gabrielli
- Piozzi. Even in the present day, when one might reasonably expect that,
- the miserable pettiness of Boswell's character having been made apparent,
- his judgment on most points would be received with a smile, he is taken
- very seriously by a good many people. It has long ago been made plain that
- Boswell was quite unscrupulous in his treatment of every one that crossed
- his path or made an attempt to interfere with the aim of his life, which
- was to become the biographer of Johnson. The instances of his petty
- malevolence which have come to light within recent years are innumerable.
- They show that the opinion which his contemporaries formed of him was
- absolutely correct. We know that he was regarded as a cur who was ever at
- Johnson's heels, and took the insults of the great man with a fawning
- complacency that was pathetically canine. He was daily called a cur. “Oh,
- no,” said Goldsmith, “he is not a cur, only a burr; Tom Davies flung him
- at Johnson one day as a joke, and he stuck to him ever since”—a cur,
- and an ape and a spy and a Branghton—the last by Dr. Johnson himself
- in the presence of a large company, that included the creator of the
- contemptible Mr. Branghton. (The incident was not, however, recorded by
- Mr. Boswell himself.) But as the extraordinary interest in his <i>Life of
- Johnson</i> began to be acknowledged, the force of contemporary opinion
- gradually dwindled away, until Boswell's verdicts and Boswell's inferences
- found general acceptance; and even now Goldsmith is regarded as an Irish
- <i>omadhaum</i>, because Boswell did his best to make him out to be one,
- and Mrs. Thrale is thought to have forfeited her claims to respect because
- she married Signor Piozzi.
- </p>
- <p>
- People forget the origin of Boswell's malevolence in both cases. He
- detested Goldsmith because Goldsmith was a great writer, who was capable
- of writing a great biography of Johnson, with whom he had been on the most
- intimate terms long before Tom Davies flung his burr at Johnson; he hated
- Baretti and recorded—at the sacrifice of Johnson's reputation for
- humanity—Johnson's cynical belittling of him, because he feared that
- Baretti would write <i>the</i> biography; he was spiteful in regard to
- Mrs. Thrale because she actually did write something biographical about
- Johnson.
- </p>
- <p>
- The impudence of such a man as Boswell writing about “honest Dr.
- Goldsmith” is only surpassed by his allusions to the second marriage of
- Mrs. Thrale. He was a fellow-guest with Johnson at the Thrales' house in
- 1775, and he records something of a conversation which he says occurred on
- the subject of a woman's marrying some one greatly beneath her socially.
- “When I recapitulate the debate,” he says, “and recollect what has since
- happened, I cannot but be struck in a manner that delicacy forbids me to
- express! While I contended that she ought to be treated with inflexible
- steadiness of displeasure, Mrs. Thrale was all for mildness and
- forgiveness and, according to the vulgar phrase, making the best of a bad
- bargain.” This was published after the second marriage. What would be
- thought of a modern biographer who should borrow a little of Boswell's
- “delicacy,” and refer to a similar incident in the same style?
- </p>
- <p>
- In his own inimitable small way Boswell was for ever sneering at Mrs.
- Thrale. Sometimes he did it with that scrupulous delicacy of which an
- example has just been given; but he called her a liar more than once with
- considerable indelicacy, and his readers will without much trouble come to
- the conclusion that his indelicacy was preferable to his delicacy—it
- certainly came more natural to him. He was small and mean in all his ways,
- and never smaller or meaner than in his references to Mrs. Thrale's second
- marriage.
- </p>
- <p>
- But, it must be repeated, he did not stand alone in regarding her union
- with Piozzi as a <i>mésalliance</i>. Dr. Burney was shocked at the thought
- that any respectable woman would so far forget herself as to marry a
- musician, and his daughter Fanny wept remorseful tears when she reflected
- that she had once been the friend of a lady who did not shrink from
- marrying a foreigner and a Roman Catholic—more of the irony of Fate,
- for Fanny Burney was herself guilty of the same indiscretion later on: she
- made a happy marriage with a Roman Catholic foreigner, who lived on her
- pension and her earnings. Dr. Johnson was brutal when the conviction was
- forced upon him that he would no longer have an opportunity of insulting a
- lady who had treated him with incredible kindness, or the guests whom he
- met at her table. Upon one of the last occasions of his dining at Mrs.
- Thrale's house at Streatham, a gentleman present—an inoffensive
- Quaker—ventured to make a remark respecting the accuracy with which
- the red-hot cannon-balls were fired at the Siege of Gibraltar. Johnson
- listened for some time, and then with a cold sneer said, “I would advise
- you, sir, never to relate this story again. You really can scarce imagine
- how very poor a figure you make in the telling of it.” Later on he took
- credit to himself for not quarrelling with his victim when the latter
- chose to talk to his brother rather than to the man who had insulted him.
- Yes, it can quite easily be understood that Johnson should look on the
- marriage as a sad <i>mésalliance</i>, and possibly it is fair to assume
- from the letter which he wrote to the lady that he felt hurt when he heard
- that it was to take place.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs. Thrale wrote to tell him that she meant to marry Piozzi, and received
- the following reply:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Madam,—If I interpret your letter right, you are ignominiously
- married; if it is yet undone, let us once more talk together. If you have
- abandoned your children and your religion, God forgive your wickedness; if
- you have forfeited your fame and your country, may your folly do no
- further mischief!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Possibly the lady may have gathered from the hint or two conveyed to her,
- with Boswellian delicacy, in this letter, that Johnson was displeased with
- her. At any rate, she replied, declining to continue the correspondence.
- </p>
- <p>
- In her letter she summed up the situation exactly as a reasonable person,
- acquainted with all the facts, and knowing something of the first husband,
- would do.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The birth of my second husband is not meaner than that of my first,” she
- wrote; “his sentiments are not meaner; his profession is not meaner; and
- his superiority in what he professes acknowledged by all mankind. It is
- want of fortune, then, that is ignominious; the character of the man I
- have chosen has no other claim to such an epithet. The religion to which
- he has always been a zealous adherent, will, I hope, teach him to forgive
- insults he has not deserved; mine will, I hope, enable [me] to bear them
- at once with dignity and patience. To hear that I have forfeited my fame
- is indeed the greatest insult I ever yet received. My fame is as unsullied
- as snow, or I should think it unworthy of him who must henceforth protect
- it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This brought the surly burly mass of offended dignity to his proper level;
- but still he would not offer the lady who had been his benefactress for
- twenty years an apology for his brutality. He had the presumption to offer
- his advice instead—advice and the story (highly appropriate from his
- point of view) of Mary Queen of Scots and the Archbishop of St. Andrews.
- He advised her to remain in England—he would not relinquish his room
- in her house and his place at her table without a struggle—as her
- rank would be higher in England than in Italy, and her fortune would be
- under her own eye. The latter suggestion was a delicate insult to Piozzi.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs. Piozzi, as she then became, showed that she esteemed this piece of
- presumption, under the guise of advice, at its true value. Immediately
- after her marriage she went abroad with her husband, though eventually she
- settled with him in England.
- </p>
- <p>
- Now, most modern readers will, we think, when they have become acquainted
- with the whole story of Mrs. Thrale's life, arrive at the conclusion that
- it was her first marriage that was the <i>mésalliance</i>, not her second.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0003" id="linkimage-0003"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0065.jpg" alt="0065 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0065.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- Henry Thrale was a man of humble origin—a fact that revealed itself
- almost daily in his life—and he was incapable of loving any one
- except himself. He certainly never made a pretence of devotion to his
- wife, and it is equally certain that, although she did more for him than
- any other woman would have done, she never loved him. It might be going
- too far, considering the diversity of temperament existing among
- womankind, to assert that he was incapable of being loved by any woman;
- but beyond a doubt he was not a lovable man. He was a stiff, dignified,
- morose, uncongenial man, and he was a Member of Parliament into the
- bargain. What could a pretty, lively, brilliant girl of good family see in
- such a man as Thrale to make her love him? She never did love him—at
- times she must have detested him. But she married him, and it was a lucky
- day for him that she did so. Twice she saved him from bankruptcy, and
- three times she induced his constituents, who thoroughly hated him, to
- return him to Parliament as their representative. He never did anything in
- Parliament, and he did little out of it that was worth remembering. It is
- customary to make large allowances for a man of business who finds that
- his wealth and a charming wife serve as a passport into what is called
- society, though latterly such men do not stand in need of such a favour
- being shown to them. But if a man betrays his ignorance of certain social
- usages—not necessarily refinements—his friends excuse him on
- the ground that he is a first-rate business man. Thrale, however, was
- unworthy of such a title. He inherited a great scientific business, but he
- showed himself so incapable of appreciating the methods by which it had
- been built up, that he brought himself within a week or two of absolute
- ruin by listening to a clumsy adventurer who advocated the adoption of a
- system of adulteration of his beer that even a hundred and fifty years ago
- would have brought him within sight of a criminal prosecution.
- </p>
- <p>
- His literary wife, by her clever management, aided by the money of her
- mother and of sundry of her own, not her husband's, friends, succeeded in
- staving off the threatened disaster. But the pig-headed man did not accept
- the lesson which one might imagine he would have learned. Seeing the
- success that crowned other enterprises of the same character as his own,
- he endeavoured to emulate this success, not by the legitimate way of
- increasing his customers, but by the idiotic plan of over-production. He
- had an idea that in the multiplying of the article which he had to sell he
- was increasing his business. Once again he was helped from the verge of
- ruin by his literary wife.
- </p>
- <p>
- He must have been a dreadful trial to her, and to a far-seeing manager
- whom he had—a man named Perkins. Of course it was inevitable that
- the force of character possessed by this Mr. Perkins must eventually
- prevail against the dignified incompetence of the proprietor. The
- inevitable happened, and the name of Perkins has for more than a hundred
- years been bracketed with Barclay as a going concern, while the name of
- Thrale has vanished for ever from “the Borough.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was this Mr. Perkins who, when the brewery was within five minutes of
- absolute disaster, displayed the tactics of a great general in the face of
- an implacable enemy, and saved the property. As a reward for his services
- his master authorised the presentation to him of the sum of a hundred
- pounds. His master's wife, however, being a more generous assessor of the
- value of the man's ability, ventured to present double the sum, together
- with a silver tea-service for Mrs. Perkins; but she did so in fear and
- trembling, failing to summon up sufficient courage to acquaint her husband
- with her extravagance until further concealment was impossible. She was so
- overjoyed at his sanctioning the increase that she at once wrote to her
- friends acquainting them with this evidence of his generosity.
- </p>
- <p>
- This episode was certainly the most stirring in the history of Thrale's
- brewery. The Gordon rioters had been terrorising London for several days,
- burning houses in every direction, as well as Newgate and another prison,
- and looting street after street. They had already overthrown one brewery,
- and they found the incident so fascinating that they marched across the
- bridge to the Southwark concern, raising the cry that Thrale was a Papist.
- The Thrales were at this time sojourning at Bath, and were in an agony of
- suspense regarding their property. They had left Dr. Johnson comfortably
- ensconced at their Streatham house in order that they might learn in
- dignified language how things were going on.
- </p>
- <p>
- This is Johnson's thrilling account of the incident:
- </p>
- <p>
- “What has happened to your house you all know. The harm is only a few
- butts of beer, and I think you may be sure that the danger is over. Pray
- tell Mr. Thrale that I live here, and have no fruit, and if he does not
- interpose am not likely to have much; but I think he might as well give me
- a little as give all to the gardener.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There was a double catastrophe threatening, it would appear: the burning
- of the brewery and the shortage in the supply of Dr. Johnson's peaches.
- </p>
- <p>
- This is how Mrs. Thrale describes the situation:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing but the astonishing presence of mind shewed by Perkins in amusing
- the mob, with meat and drink and huzzas, till Sir Philip Jennings Clerke
- could get the troops, and pack up the counting-house, bills, bonds etc.
- and carry them, which he did, to Chelsea College for safety, could have
- saved us from actual undoing. The villains <i>had</i> broke in, and our
- brew-house would have blazed in ten minutes, when a property of £150,000
- would have been utterly lost, and its once flourishing possessors quite
- undone.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It seems almost incredible that Johnson, living at Streatham as the
- guardian of Mr. Thrale's interests, should require the lady to write to
- him, begging him to thank Perkins for his heroism. But so it was.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Perkins has behaved like an Emperor,” she wrote, “and it is my earnest
- wish and desire—command, if you please to call it so—that you
- will go over to the brew-house and express <i>your</i> sense of his good
- behaviour.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs. Thrale was unreasonable. How could Johnson be expected to take any
- action when he was deprived of his peaches?
- </p>
- <p>
- It will strike a good many modern readers of the account of this and other
- transactions that if it was Perkins who saved the brewery for Mr. Thrale,
- it was Mrs. Thrale who saved Perkins for the brewery. Possibly it was her
- prompt gift of the silver plate to Mrs. Perkins that induced this splendid
- manager to pocket the insult of the beggarly two hundred guineas given to
- him by Mrs. Thrale—though this was double the amount authorised by
- the “master.” Thrale never sufficiently valued the services of Perkins. If
- he had had any gratitude in his composition he would never have made
- Johnson one of his executors. What a trial it must have been to the
- competent man of business to see Johnson lumbering about the place with a
- pen behind his ear and an ink-pot suspended from a button of his coat,
- getting in the way of everybody, and yet feeling himself quite equal to
- any business emergency that might crop up. He felt himself equal to
- anything—even to improve upon the auctioneer's style in appraising
- the value of the whole concern. “Beyond the dreams of avarice” remains as
- the sole classic phrase born beneath the shadow of a brew-house.
- </p>
- <p>
- In the matter of the premium to Perkins, Thrale should have felt that he
- had a treasure in his wife, to say nothing of all that she had done for
- him upon another occasion, involving a terrible sacrifice. A quarrel had
- broken out among the clerks at the brewery, which even the generalship of
- Perkins was unable to mollify. Had Mrs. Thrale been an ordinary woman she
- would not have jeopardised her own life and the life of her child—her
- thirteenth—in her husband's interests. As it was, however, she felt
- that the duty was imposed on her to settle the difficulties in the
- counting-house, and she did so; but only after many sleepless nights and
- the sacrifice of her child. “The men were reconciled,” she wrote, “and my
- danger accelerated their reconcilement.”
- </p>
- <p>
- If Henry Thrale was deficient in the best characteristics of a business
- man, his qualifications to shine socially can scarcely be regarded as
- abundant. There were stories of his having been a gay dog in his youth,
- but assuredly he and gaiety had long been strangers when he married his
- wife, and upon no occasion afterwards could he be so described even by the
- most indulgent of his friends; so that one rather inclines to the belief
- that the dull dog must have been a dull puppy. We know what his eldest
- daughter was, and we are convinced that the nature of that priggish,
- dignified, and eminently disagreeable young lady was inherited from her
- father. In Miss Thrale as a girl one feels that one is looking at Henry
- Thrale as a boy. The only story that survives of those mythical gay days
- with which he was accredited is that relating to the arrival of the
- Gunnings to take London by storm. It was said that he and Murphy thought
- to make these exquisite creatures the laughing-stock of the town by
- introducing them to a vulgar hanger-on of Murphy, in the character of a
- wealthy man of title and distinction. Possibly the two young men were put
- up to play this disgraceful prank upon the Gunnings by some jealous female
- associate; but however this may be, it not only failed most ignominiously,
- it recoiled upon the jesters themselves, for Mrs. Gunning, herself the
- sister of a nobleman, and destined to become the mother-in-law of two
- dukes and the grandmother of two more—the parent of a peeress in her
- own right, and an uncommonly shrewd Irishwoman into the bargain—“smoaked,”
- as the slang of the period had it, the trick, and her footman bundled the
- trio into the street.
- </p>
- <p>
- The story may be true; but as both the Gunning girls were married in 1752,
- and Thrale did not meet Hester Lynch Salusbury till 1763, it was an old
- story then, and it was not remembered against him except by the Duchess of
- Hamilton. If it represents the standard of his adolescent wildness, we
- cannot but think that his youth was less meteoric than his wife believed
- it to be. At any rate, we do not know much about his early life, but we do
- know a great deal about his latter years, and it is impossible to believe
- that his nature underwent a radical change within a year or two of his
- marriage.
- </p>
- <p>
- He became the host of a large number of the most notable people of that
- brilliant period at which he lived, and we perceive from the copious
- accounts that survive of the Streatham gatherings that he was greatly
- respected by all his visitors. He never said anything that was worth
- recording, and he never did anything memorable beyond stopping Johnson
- when the latter was becoming more than usually offensive to his
- fellow-guests. He had no ear for music any more than Johnson had, and it
- does not appear that he cared any more for painting, although he became a
- splendid patron of Sir Joshua Reynolds, whom he commissioned to paint
- several portraits of his distinguished friends for the decoration of the
- library at Streatham. To his munificence in this respect the world owes
- its finest portraits of Goldsmith, Burke, Garrick, the painter himself,
- and Mrs. Thrale.
- </p>
- <p>
- The debt which we feel we owe to Thrale on this account is, however,
- somewhat discounted when we learn that this enthusiastic patron of art
- never paid the painter for his work. He left the pictures and the
- obligation to pay for them as a legacy to his widow—and to pay for
- them at more than the current rate for each into the bargain. Sir Joshua
- Reynolds was as good a man of business as Thrale was an indifferent one.
- At the time of his painting the portraits his price for a
- three-quarter-length picture was £35, but in the course of a year or two
- he felt it necessary to charge £50 for the same size, and this was the
- price which the unfortunate widow had to pay for her husband's pose as the
- munificent patron of the Arts.
- </p>
- <p>
- Men of the stamp of Thrale usually have no vices.
- </p>
- <p>
- They are highly respected. If they had a vice or two they would be
- beloved. He had a solitary failing, but it did not win for him the
- affection of any one: it was gluttony. For years of his life he gave
- himself up to the coarsest form of indulgence. He was not a gourmet: he
- did not aim at the refinements of the table or at those daintinesses of
- cuisine which in the days of intemperate eaters and drinkers proved so
- fatally fascinating to men of many virtues; no, his was the vice of the
- trough. He ate for the sake of eating, unmindful of the nature of the dish
- so long as it was plentiful enough to keep him employed for an hour or
- two.
- </p>
- <p>
- The dinner-table of the famous Streatham Park must have been a spectacle
- for some of the philosophers who sat round it. We know what was the food
- that Johnson's soul loved, and we know how he was accustomed to partake of
- it. He rioted in pork, and in veal baked with raisins, and when he sat
- down to some such dainty he fed like a wild animal. He used his fingers as
- though they were claws, tearing the flesh from the bone in his teeth, and
- swallowing it not wholly without sound. It is not surprising to learn that
- his exertions caused the veins in his forehead to swell and the beads of
- perspiration to drop from his scholarly brow, nor can any one who has
- survived this account of his muscular feat at the dinner-table reasonably
- be amazed to hear that when so engaged, he devoted himself to the work
- before him to the exclusion of every other interest in life. He was
- oblivious of anything that was going on around him. He was deaf to any
- remark made by a neighbour, and for himself articulation was suspended.
- Doubtless the feeble folk on whom he had been trampling in the
- drawing-room felt that his peculiarities of feeding, though revolting to
- the squeamish, were not without a bright side. They had a chance of making
- a remark at such intervals without being gored—“gored,” it will be
- remembered, was the word employed by Boswell in playful allusion to the
- effect of his argumentative powers.
- </p>
- <p>
- Thanks to the careful habits of some of the guests at this famous house we
- know what fare was placed before the Gargantuan geniuses at one of these
- dinners. Here is the <i>carte du jour</i>, “sufficient for twelve,” as the
- cookery book says:
- </p>
- <p>
- “First course, soups at head and foot, removed by fish and a saddle of
- mutton; second course, a fowl they call galena at head and a capon larger
- than some of our Irish turkeys at foot; third course, four different sorts
- of ices, pine-apple, grape, raspberry and a fourth; in each remove there
- were fourteen dishes.” The world is indebted to an Irish clergyman for
- these details. It will be seen that they did not include much that could
- be sneered at as bordering on the kickshaw. All was good solid English
- fare—just the sort to make the veins in a gormandiser's forehead to
- swell and to induce the lethargy from which Thrale suffered. He usually
- fell asleep after dinner; one day he failed to awake, and he has not
- awakened since.
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course Johnson, being invariably in delicate health, was compelled to
- put himself on an invalid's diet when at home. He gives us a sample of a
- <i>diner maigre</i> at Bolt Court. Feeling extremely ill, he wrote to Mrs.
- Thrale that he could only take for dinner “skate, pudding, goose, and
- green asparagus, and could have eaten more but was prudent.” He adds,
- “Pray for me, dear Madam,”—by no means an unnecessary injunction,
- some people will think, when they become aware of the details of the meal
- of an invalid within a year or two of seventy.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was after one of the Streatham dinners that Mrs. Thrale ventured to say
- a word or two in favour of Garrick's talent for light gay poetry, and as a
- specimen repeated his song in <i>Florizel and Perdita</i>, and dwelt with
- peculiar pleasure on this line:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>I'd smile with the simple and dine with the poor.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- This is Boswell's account of the matter, and he adds that Johnson cried,
- “Nay, my dear lady, this will never do. Poor David! Smile with the simple!
- What folly is that? And who would feed with the poor that can help it? No,
- no; let me smile with the wise and feed with the rich!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Quite so; beyond a doubt Johnson spoke from the bottom of his heart—nay,
- from a deeper depth still.
- </p>
- <p>
- Boswell was amazed to find that Garrick's “sensibility” as a writer was
- irritated when he related the story to him, and in Mrs. Thrale's copy of
- Johnson she made a note—“How odd to go and tell the man!”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was not at all odd that Boswell, being a professional tale-bearer and
- mischief-maker, should tell the man; but it is odd that Garrick should be
- irritated, the fact being that the sally was directed against a line which
- he did not write. What Garrick did write was something very different. The
- verse, which was misquoted, runs thus:
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- That giant Ambition we never can dread;
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- Our roofs are too low for so lofty a head;
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- Content and sweet Cheerfulness open our door,
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- They smile with the simple and feed with the poor.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p>
- Such a muddle as was made of the whole thing can only be attributed to the
- solidity of the Streatham fare.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was inevitable that Thrale could not continue over-eating himself with
- impunity. He was warned more than once by his doctors that he was killing
- himself, and yet when he had his first attack every one was shocked. He
- recovered temporarily, and all his friends implored him to cultivate
- moderation at the dinner-table. A touch of humour is to be found among the
- details of the sordid story, in his wife's begging Johnson—Johnson
- of the swollen forehead and the tokens of his submission to the primeval
- curse in the eating of his bread—to try to reason the unhappy man
- out of his dreadful vice. After wiping from the front of his coat the
- remains of the eighth peach which he had eaten before breakfast, or the
- dregs of his nineteenth cup of tea from his waistcoat, Johnson may have
- felt equal to the duty. He certainly remonstrated with Thrale. It was all
- to no purpose, however; he had a second attack of apoplexy in the spring
- of 1780, and we hear that he was copiously “blooded.” He recovered and
- went to Bath to recruit. It was during this visit to Bath that the brewery
- was attacked by the Gordon rioters. On returning to London he failed to
- induce his constituents to remain faithful to him, and he continued eating
- voraciously for another year. He began a week of gorging on April 1st,
- 1781. His wife implored him to be more moderate, and Johnson said very
- wisely, “Sir, after the denunciation of your physicians this morning, such
- eating is little better than suicide.” It was all to no purpose. He
- survived the gorge of Sunday and Monday, but that of Tuesday was too much
- for him. He was found by his daughter on the floor in a fit of apoplexy,
- and died the next morning.
- </p>
- <p>
- Such was the man whose memory was outraged by the marriage of his widow
- with Piozzi, an Italian musician, whose ability was so highly appreciated
- that his earnings, even when he had lost his voice, amounted to £1200 a
- year, a sum equal to close upon £2500 of our money. And yet Johnson had
- the effrontery to suggest in that letter of his to Mrs. Thrale, which we
- have quoted, that she would do well to live in England, so that her money
- might be under her own eye!
- </p>
- <p>
- The truth is that Mrs. Thrale was in embarrassed circumstances when she
- married Signor Piozzi. Her worthy husband left her an annuity of £2000,
- which was to be reduced by £800 in the event of her marrying again; and
- also £500 for her immediate expenses. Johnson wrote to her, making her
- acquainted with this fact, in order, it would seem, to allay any unworthy
- suspicion which she might entertain as to the extent of her husband's
- generosity. But his last will and testament cannot have wholly dispersed
- the doubt into which her experience of Mr. Thrale may have led her. For a
- man who had been making from £16,000 to £20,000 a year to leave his wife
- only £2000 a year, with a possibility of its being reduced to £1200, would
- not strike any one as being generous to a point of recklessness. When,
- however, it is remembered that Thrale's wife plucked him and his business
- from the verge of bankruptcy more than once, that she bore him fourteen
- children, and that she lived with him for eighteen years, all question as
- to the generosity of his bequest to her vanishes. But when, in addition,
- it is remembered that the lady's fortune at her marriage to Thrale
- amounted to £10,000, all of which he pocketed, and that later on she
- brought him another £500 a year, that it was her mother's money, added to
- the sum which she herself collected personally, which saved the brewery
- from collapse—once again at the sacrifice of her infant—all
- question even of common fairness disappears, and the meanness of the man
- stands revealed.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0004" id="linkimage-0004"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0083.jpg" alt="0083 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0083.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- It was through the exertions and by the business capacity of his widow
- that the brewery was sold for £135,000. She was the only one of the
- trustees who knew anything definite about the value of the property, and
- had she not been on the spot, that astute Mr. Perkins could have so worked
- the concern that he might have been able to buy it in a year or two for
- the value of the building materials. And yet when she became involved in a
- lawsuit that involved the paying of £7000, she had difficulty in
- persuading her daughters' trustees to advance her the money, although the
- security of the mortgage which she offered for the accommodation would
- have satisfied any bankers. A wretch named Crutchley, who was one of this
- precious band of incompetents, on the completion of the deed bade her
- thank her daughters for keeping her out of gaol. It is not recorded that
- the lady replied, though she certainly might have done so, and with truth
- on her side, that if her daughters had kept her out of a gaol she had kept
- her daughters out of a workhouse. She would have done much better to have
- gone to her friends the Barclays, whose bank had a hundred and fifty years
- ago as high a reputation for probity combined with liberality as the same
- concern enjoys to-day.
- </p>
- <p>
- Enough of the business side of Mrs. Thrale's second marriage has been
- revealed to make it plain that Piozzi was not influenced by any mercenary
- motives in the transaction. On the contrary, it was he who came to her
- assistance when she was in an extremity, and by the prompt loan of £1000
- extricated her from her embarrassment, and left the next day for Italy,
- without having any hope of marrying her.
- </p>
- <p>
- Johnson's verdict on Piozzi, communicated to Miss Seward, was that he was
- an ugly dog, without particular skill in his profession. Unfortunately for
- this musical enthusiast and devotee to beauty, Miss Seward met Piozzi on
- his return from Italy with his wife. (His excellent control of her money
- had resulted in every penny of the mortgage being paid, and of the
- lodgment of £1500 to their credit in the bank). And Miss Seward, writing
- from Lichfield—more of the irony of Fate—in 1787, affirmed
- that the great Lichfield man “did not tell me the truth when he asserted
- that Piozzi was an ugly dog, without particular skill in his profession.
- M. Piozzi is a handsome man in middle life, with gentle, pleasing,
- unaffected manners, and with very eminent skill in his profession. Though
- he has not a powerful or fine-toned voice, he sings with transcending
- grace and expression. I was charmed with his perfect expression on his
- instrument. Surely the finest sensibilities must vibrate through his
- frame, since they breathe so sweetly through his song.” From this verdict
- no person who was acquainted with Signor Piozzi differed. Mrs. Thrale's
- marriage with Piozzi was as fortunate for her as her first marriage was
- for Thrale.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- A TRAGEDY IN THE HAYMARKET
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>BOUT half-past
- nine o'clock on the night of October 6th, 1769, a tall, middle-aged
- gentleman named Joseph Baretti was walking up the Hay-market. The street
- was probably as well lighted as any other in London, and this is
- equivalent to saying that a foot passenger, by keeping close to the
- windows of the shops and taking cross bearings of the economically
- distributed oil lamps hung out at the corners of the many lanes, might be
- able to avoid the deep channel of filth that slunk along the margin of
- cobble stones. But just at this time the Haymarket must have been
- especially well illuminated, for the Opera House was in the act of
- discharging its audience, and quite a number of these fashionable folk
- went home in their chairs, with link boys walking by the side of the burly
- Irish chairmen, showing a flaring flame which left behind it a long trail
- of suffocating smoke, and spluttered resin and bitumen into the faces and
- upon the garments of all who were walking within range of the illuminant.
- Then there was the little theatre higher up the street, and its lamps were
- not yet extinguished; so that Mr. Baretti may have felt that on the whole
- he was fortunate in the hour he had chosen for his stroll to the
- coffee-house where he meant to sup. He may have thought that he had a
- chance of coming across his friend Sir Joshua Reynolds leaving one of the
- playhouses, and of being invited by that hospitable gentleman to his house
- in Leicester Fields; or his still more intimate friend Dr. Samuel Johnson,
- who would certainly insist on carrying him off to the “Mitre,” unless the
- great man were accompanied by that little Scotch person, James Boswell,
- who usually wanted him all to himself, after he had given people a chance
- of seeing him in the company of his distinguished friend, and envying him
- his position of intimacy—the same position of intimacy that exists
- between a Duke and his doormat. Mr. Baretti was too short-sighted to have
- any chance of recognising Sir Joshua Reynolds unless he chanced to be
- standing under the lamp in the portico of the playhouse, but he felt that
- he would have no trouble in recognising Dr. Johnson. The latter had
- characteristics that appealed to other senses than the sense of seeing,
- and made the act of recognition easy enough to his intimates.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Baretti, however, passed along the dispersing crowd, and was soon in
- the dim regions of Panton Street, where pedestrians were few. But before
- he had turned down this street he found his way barred by a couple of
- half-drunken women. His infirmity of sight prevented his being aware of
- their presence until he was almost in the arms of one of them, and the
- very second that he made his sudden stop she made a change in the details
- of the accident that seemed imminent and threw herself into his arms with
- a yell.
- </p>
- <p>
- The good man was staggered for a moment, but, recovering himself, he flung
- her off with an expressive word or two in the Italian tongue. She went
- limply back and, being adroitly avoided by her companion, gave a circular
- stagger or two and fell into the gutter with a screech.
- </p>
- <p>
- Baretti was hurrying on when out of the darkness of Panton Street a big
- man sprang, followed quickly by two others. The first seized him by the
- right arm with the oath of a bully, the others tried to trip him up,
- shouting that he had killed a lady. Baretti was a powerful man and
- decidedly tough. He struck at the fellow who had closed with him, and used
- his feet against the attack of the others with considerable effect. He
- managed to free his arm, but before he could draw his sword he was pulled
- backward and would have fallen upon his head if he had not clutched the
- coat of the man from whom he had freed himself. There was a pause of a few
- seconds, filled up by the wild street yell of the women. The most
- aggressive of the three men leapt upon the unfortunate Baretti, but before
- their bodies met, gave a guttural shriek, then a groan. He staggered past,
- his fingers tearing like talons at his ribs; he whirled twice round and,
- gasping, fell on his knees, motionless only for a few seconds; his hands
- dropped limply from his side, and he pitched forward on his head into the
- gutter.
- </p>
- <p>
- Baretti was standing, awaiting a further attack, with a knife in his hand,
- when he was seized by some of the crowd. He offered no resistance. He
- seemed to be so amazed at finding himself alive as to be incapable of
- taking any further action.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He has killed the man—stabbed him with a dagger to the very heart!”
- was the cry that came from those of the crowd who were kneeling beside the
- wretch in the gutter.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And a woman—he had slain a woman at the outset. Hold him fast. None
- of us are safe this night. Have a care for the dagger, friends!”
- </p>
- <p>
- A sufficiency of advice was given by the excited onlookers to the men who
- had encircled Baretti—one of them was clinging to him with his arms
- clasped around his body—until two of the Haymarket watch hurried up,
- striking right and left with their staves after the wholesome manner of
- the period, and so making a way for their approach through the crowd.
- </p>
- <p>
- “'Tis more than a street brawl—a man has been slain—some say a
- woman also,” a shopkeeper explained to them, having run bareheaded out of
- his shop; his apprentice had just put up the last of the shutters.
- </p>
- <p>
- They had Baretti by the collar in a second, cautiously disarming him,
- holding the weapon up to the nearest lamp. The blade was still wet with
- blood.
- </p>
- <p>
- “A swinging matter this,” one of them remarked. “I can swear to the blood.
- No dagger, but a knife. What man walks the streets at night with a naked
- knife unless slaughter is his intent?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Friends, I was attacked by three bullies, and I defended myself—that
- is all,” said Baretti. He spoke English perfectly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will need to tell that to Sir John in the morning,” said one of the
- watchmen. “You are apprehended in the King's name. Where is the poor
- victim?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There must be some of the crowd who saw how I was attacked,” said
- Baretti. “They will testify that I acted in self-defence. Sirs, hear me
- make an appeal to you. Out of your sense of justice—you will not see
- an innocent man apprehended.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The knife—who carries a bare knife in the streets unless with
- intent?” said a man.
- </p>
- <p>
- “'Twas my fruit-knife. I never go abroad without it. I eat my fruit like a
- Christian, not like a pig or an Englishman,” was the defence offered by
- Baretti, who had now quite lost his temper and was speaking with his
- accustomed bitterness. He usually sought to pass as an Englishman, but he
- was now being arrested by the minions of the law as it was in England.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hear him! A pig of an Englishman. Those were his words! A foreign hound.
- Frenchie, I'll be bound.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A spy—most like a Papist. He has the hanging brow of a born
- Papist.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He'll hang like a dog at Tyburn—he may be sure o' that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “'Tis the mercy o' Heaven that the rascal was caught red-handed! Sirs,
- this may be the beginning of a dreadful massacring plot against the lives
- of honest and peaceful people.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The comments of a crowd of the period upon such an incident as the
- stabbing of an Englishman by a foreigner in the streets of London can
- easily be imagined.
- </p>
- <p>
- Even when Baretti was put into a hackney coach and driven off to Bow
- Street the crowd doubtless remained talking in groups of the menace to
- English freedom and true religion by the arrival of pestilent foreigners,
- every man of them carrying a knife. It would be a sad day for England when
- Jesuitical fruit-knives took the place of good wholesome British bludgeons
- in the settlement of the ordinary differences incidental to a Protestant
- people.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is certain that this was one of the comments of the disintegrating
- crowd, and it is equally certain that Baretti commented pretty freely to
- his custodians in the hackney coach upon the place occupied in the comity
- of nations of that State, the social conditions of whose metropolis made
- possible so gross a scandal as the arrest of a gentleman and a scholar,
- solely by reason of his success in snatching his life out of the talons of
- a ruffian and a bully.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Baretti was a gentleman and a scholar whose name appears pretty
- frequently in the annals of the eighteenth century, but seldom with any
- great credit to himself. As a matter of fact, this dramatic episode of the
- stabbing of the man in the Haymarket is the happiest with which his name
- is associated. He made his most creditable appearance in the chronicles of
- the period as the chief actor in this sordid drama. He cuts a very poor
- figure indeed upon every other occasion when he appears in the pages of
- his contemporaries, though they all meant to be kind to him.
- </p>
- <p>
- He never could bear people to be kind to him, and certainly, so far as he
- himself was concerned, it cannot be said that any blame attaches to him
- for the persistence of his friends in this direction. He did all that
- mortal man could do to discourage them, and if after the lapse of a year
- or two he was still treated by some with cordiality or respect, assuredly
- it was not owing to his display of any qualities that justified their
- maintenance of such an attitude.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Baretti was an eminently detestable scholar of many parts. He was as
- detestable as he was learned—perhaps even more so. Learned men are
- not invariably horrid, unless they are men of genius as well, and this
- rarely happens.
- </p>
- <p>
- Baretti had no such excuse, though it must be acknowledged that his
- capacity for being disagreeable almost amounted to genius. Such a
- character as his is now and again met with in daily life. A man who feels
- himself to be, in point of scholarly attainment, far above the majority of
- men, and who sees inferiority occupying a place of distinction while he
- remains neglected and, to his thinking, unappreciated, is not an uncommon
- figure in learned or artistic circles. Baretti was a disappointed man, and
- he showed himself to be such. He had a grievance against the world for
- being constituted as it is. He had a grievance against society. He had a
- grievance against his friends who got on in the world. But the only people
- against whom he was really malevolent were those who were signally and
- unaccountably kind to him. He accepted their kindness, and then turned and
- rent them.
- </p>
- <p>
- Dr. Johnson met him when they were both working for the booksellers, and
- when the great dictionary scheme was floated his co-operation was
- welcomed. Johnson's success in life was largely due to his faculty for
- discovering people who could be useful to him. It can easily be believed
- that, knowing something of the scholarship of Baretti, he should be
- delighted to avail himself of his help. Baretti had an intimate knowledge
- of several languages and their literature; as a philologist he was
- probably far superior to Johnson; and possibly Johnson knew this, though
- he was doubtless too wise ever to acknowledge so much openly. We do not
- hear that the relations between the two ever became strained while the
- great work was in course of progress. Shortly after it was completed
- Baretti returned to his native Italy, and began to reproach Johnson for
- not writing to him more frequently. We have several examples of the
- cheerfulness with which Johnson set about exculpating himself from such
- reproaches. The letters which he wrote to him at Italy are among the most
- natural that ever came from his pen. They are models of the gossipy style
- which Johnson could assume without once deviating from that dignity which
- so frequently became ponderous, suggesting the dignity of the elephant
- rather than that of the lion. Walpole was a master of the art of being
- gossipy without being dignified. But Johnson's style was not flexible. We
- have not Baretti's letters to Johnson, but the references made by the
- latter to some matters communicated to him by his correspondent let us
- know something of how Baretti was getting on in the land of his birth. He
- seems to have set his heart upon obtaining some appointment in Italy, and
- his aspirations included marriage. He was disappointed in both directions;
- and it would be too much to expect that his temper was improved by these
- rebuffs.
- </p>
- <p>
- It may well be believed that he quarrelled his way through Italy. “I have
- lately seen Mr. Stratico, Professor of Padua, who has told me of your
- quarrel with an abbot of the Celestine Order, but had not the particulars
- very ready in his memory,” Johnson wrote to him at Milan. Any one who
- could quarrel with an abbot of the Celestine Order would, we fancy, be <i>capable
- de tout</i>, like the prophet Habakkuk, according to the witty Frenchman.
- One is not disposed to be hard upon Professor Stratico for his shortness
- of memory in regard to this particular quarrel; the strain of remembering
- the details of all the quarrels of Mr. Baretti would be too great for any
- man.
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course, Dr. Johnson gave him some excellent advice. It seems that poor
- Baretti had been at first so well received on his return to Italy that he
- became sanguine of success in all his enterprises, and when they
- miscarried he wrote very bitterly to Johnson, who replied as follows:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am sorry for your disappointment, with which you seem more touched than
- I should expect a man of your resolution and experience to have been, did
- I not know that general truths are seldom applied to particular occasions;
- and that the fallacy of our selflove extends itself as wide as our
- interests or affections. Every man believes that mistresses are unfaithful
- and patrons capricious; but he excepts his own mistress and his own
- patron. We have all learned that greatness is negligent and contemptuous,
- and that in Courts life is often languished away in ungratified
- expectation; but he that approaches greatness or glitters in a Court,
- imagines that destiny has at last exempted him from the common lot.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It is doubtful if this excellent philosophy made the person to whom it was
- addressed more amiable to his immediate entourage; nor is it likely that
- he was soothed by the assurance that his “patron's weakness or
- insensibility will finally do you little hurt, if he is not assisted by
- your own passions.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of your love,” continued Johnson, “I know not the propriety; we can
- estimate the power, but in love, as in every other passion of which hope
- is the essence, we ought always to remember the uncertainty of events.” He
- then hastens to add that “love and marriage are different states. Those
- who are to suffer the evils together, and to suffer often for the sake of
- one another, soon lose that tenderness of look, and that benevolence of
- mind which arose from the participation of unmingled pleasure and success
- in amusement.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The pleasant little cynical bark in the phrase “those that are to suffer
- the evils together,” as if it referred to love and marriage, is, Malone
- thinks, not Johnson's, but Baretti's. It is suggested that Johnson really
- wrote “those that are to suffer the evils <i>of life</i> together,” and
- that Baretti in transcribing the letter for Boswell, purposely omitted the
- words “<i>of life</i>.” It would be quite like Baretti to do this; for he
- would thereby work off part of his spite against Johnson for having given
- him the advice, and he would have had his own sneer against “love and
- marriage,” the <i>fons et origo</i> of his disappointment.
- </p>
- <p>
- But of Dr. Johnson's esteem for the attainments of Baretti there can be no
- doubt. He thought that the book on Italy which he published on his return
- to England was very entertaining, adding: “Sir, I know no man who carries
- his head higher in conversation than Baretti. There are strong powers in
- his mind. He has not, indeed, many hooks; but with what hooks he has he
- grapples very forcibly.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0005" id="linkimage-0005"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0099.jpg" alt="0099 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0099.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- It may seem rather strange after this that Baretti was never admitted to
- the membership of the celebrated club. He was intimate with nearly all the
- original members, but the truth remained that he was not what Johnson
- called a clubbable man: he had too many hooks, not too few.
- </p>
- <p>
- Such was the man who was brought before Sir John Fielding, the magistrate
- at Bow Street, on the morning after the tragedy, charged with murder; and
- then it was that he found the value of the friendships which he had formed
- in England. The first person to hasten to his side in his extremity was
- Oliver Goldsmith, the man whom he had so frequently made the object of his
- sarcasm, whose peculiarities he had mimicked, not in the playful manner of
- Garrick or Foote, but in his own spiteful style, with the grim humour of
- the disappointed man. Goldsmith it was who opened his purse for him and
- got a coach for him when he was remanded until the next day, riding by his
- side to the place of his incarceration. Goldsmith was by his side when the
- question of bail was discussed before Lord Mansfield. For some reason
- which does not require any particular explanation, it was not thought that
- Goldsmith as a bailsman would appeal irresistibly to the authorities, but
- the names of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Edmund Burke, Mr. David Garrick, and
- Mr. H. Fitzherbert were submitted to Lord Mansfield, and immediately
- accepted. An amusing anecdote was current regarding the few days of
- Baretti's incarceration. One morning he was visited by a teacher of
- languages, who begged a trifling favour of him. This was merely a letter
- of recommendation to Baretti's pupils, so that the applicant might have a
- chance of taking them over “when you are hanged, sir.” The fact that this
- sympathetic visitor was allowed to depart without molestation makes people
- doubt whether Baretti was so bad-tempered after all. He did not assault
- the man. “You rascal!” he cried. “If I were not in my own room, I would
- kick you downstairs directly.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The trial was fixed for October 20th at the Old Bailey, and a few days
- before this date a number of the prisoner's friends met together to
- consult as to the line which should be taken for his defence. It seems
- that they were not all agreed on some points; this was only to be
- expected, considering what an array of wisdom was brought together upon
- the occasion of these consultations, and considering also the course which
- was adopted by Dr. Johnson, who thought that the interests of the prisoner
- would be advanced by getting up an academical discussion with Burke.
- Johnson and Burke were notorious rivals in conversation in those days when
- conversation was regarded as an art, and men and women seemed to have
- plenty of leisure to talk together for the sake of talking, and to argue
- together for the sake of argument, and to be rude to one another for the
- sake of wit. Boswell was for ever extolling Johnson at the expense of
- Burke; and indeed, so far as one can gather from his pages, Johnson was
- the ruder man.
- </p>
- <p>
- The example that Boswell gives of his own readiness in making Goldsmith
- “shut up” when he questioned Johnson's superiority to Burke in discussion
- is one of the best instances of the little Scotsman's incapacity to
- perceive the drift of an argument. “Is he like Burke who winds into a
- subject like a serpent?” asked Goldsmith.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But” (said I) “Dr. Johnson is the Hercules that strangled serpents in his
- cradle.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This repartee which Boswell gleefully records is about equal to the reply
- made by one of the poets who was appealed to in the “Bab Ballads” to say
- if he wrote “the lovely cracker mottoes my Elvira pulls at supper.” It
- will be remembered that the poet whose name rhymes with “supper” replied:
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p class="indent10">
- “'A fool is bent upon a twig, but wise men dread a bandit,'
- </p>
- <p class="indent10">
- Which” (the earnest inquirer said) “I felt was very wise,
- </p>
- <p class="indent20">
- but I didn't understand it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p>
- It was in regard to this consultation as to the best defence to be made
- out for Baretti that Johnson admitted to have opposed Burke simply for the
- sake of showing the rest of the company that he could get the better of
- Burke in an argument. “Burke and I,” he said, “should have been of one
- opinion if we had had no audience.” Such a confession! There was the life
- of his friend Baretti trembling in the balance, and yet Johnson, solely
- for the sake of “showing off,” opposed the wisdom and ingenuity Burke
- exercised to save from the gallows a man whom Johnson professed to admire!
- </p>
- <p>
- But if we are to believe Boswell, Johnson cared very little whether his
- friend was hanged or not. As for Boswell himself, he always detested
- Baretti, and is reported to have expressed the earnest hope that the man
- would be hanged. However, the “consultations” went merrily on, and
- doubtless contributed in some measure to a satisfactory solution of the
- vexed question as to whether Johnson or Burke was the more brilliant
- talker. They formed a tolerably valid excuse for the uncorking of several
- bottles, and perhaps these friends of Baretti felt that even though he
- should die, yet the exchange of wit in the course of these happy evenings
- would live for ever in the memory of those present, so that after all, let
- the worst come to the worst, Baretti should have little cause for
- complaint.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is reported that the prisoner, upon the occasion of his receiving a
- visit from Johnson and Burke, cried: “What need a man fear who holds two
- such hands?” It may here be mentioned, however, that although it was
- asserted that Johnson and Murphy were responsible for the line of defence
- adopted at the trial, yet in after years Baretti was most indignant that
- it should be suggested that credit should be given to any one but himself
- for his defence; and he ridiculed the notion that Johnson or Burke or
- Murphy or even Boswell—himself an aspirant to the profession of law
- in which he subsequently displayed a conspicuous lack of distinction—had
- anything to do with the instruction either of solicitors or barristers on
- his behalf.
- </p>
- <p>
- At any rate, the “consultations” came to an end, and the friends of the
- accused awaited the trial with exemplary patience. Mr. Boswell seems
- suddenly to have become the most sympathetic of the friends; for three
- days before the event he took a journey to Tyburn to witness the hanging
- of several men at that place, and though it is known that the spectacle of
- a hanging never lost its charm for him, yet it is generous to assume that
- upon this occasion he went to Tyburn in order to qualify himself more
- fully for sympathising with Baretti, should the defence assigned to him
- break down.
- </p>
- <p>
- Another ardent sympathiser was Mr. Thomas Davies the bookseller, a
- gentleman whose chief distinction in the eyes of his contemporaries
- consisted—if we are to believe one of the wittiest of his associates—in
- the fact that he had an exceedingly pretty wife; but whose claim to the
- gratitude of coming generations lies in the circumstance of his having
- introduced Boswell to Johnson. Tom Davies was terribly cut up at the
- thought of the possibility of Baretti's being sentenced to be hanged.
- Boswell, on the day before the trial, after telling Johnson how he had
- witnessed the executions at Tyburn, and expressing his surprise that none
- of the wretches seemed to think anything of the matter, mentioned that
- Foote, the actor, had shown him a letter which he had received from Tom
- Davies, and in which the writer affirmed that he had not had a wink of
- sleep owing to his anxiety in respect of “this sad affair of Baretti,” and
- begging Foote to suggest some way by which he could be of service to the
- accused, adding that should Mr. Foote be in need of anything in the pickle
- line, he could strongly recommend him to an industrious young man who had
- lately set up in that business.
- </p>
- <p>
- Strange to say, Johnson was not impressed with this marked evidence of Mr.
- Davies' kind heart.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ay, sir, here you have a specimen of human sympathy,” he cried. “A friend
- hanged and a cucumber pickled! We know not whether Baretti or the pickle
- man has kept Davies from sleep; nor does he know himself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This was rather sweeping, but his dictum showed that he was rather a poor
- analyser of human emotion. In the minds of the people of to-day who read
- of Tom Davies' bad nights there is no manner of doubt whatever that the
- sequence of his emotions was to be attributed to his intimacy with the
- industrious young pickle maker. Tom had indulged rather too freely in some
- of the specimens of his art presented to him by the pickler, and the
- result was a melancholy night; and, being melancholy, he was led to think
- of the most melancholy incident that had recently come under his notice.
- When a man is full of mixed pickles he is liable to get a little mixed,
- and so in the morning he attributed his miserable night to his thoughts
- about Baretti, instead of knowing that his thoughts about Baretti were the
- natural result of his miserable night. If he had been acquainted with an
- industrious young onion merchant he might have passed the night in tears.
- </p>
- <p>
- “As for his not sleeping,” said Dr. Johnson, “sir, Tom Davies is a very
- great man—Tom has been on the stage, and knows how to do those
- things.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Boswell: “I have often blamed myself, sir, for not feeling for others as
- sensibly as many say they do.” Johnson: “Sir, don't be duped by them any
- more. You will find those very feeling people are not very ready to do you
- good. They pay you by feeling.” Mr. Boswell thought that he would do well
- to turn his friend from the subject under discussion, so he made the
- apparently harmless remark that Foote had a great deal of humour and that
- he had a singular talent of exhibiting character. But Johnson had on him
- the mood not only of “the rugged Russian bear,” but also of “the armed
- rhinoceros and the Hyrcan tiger.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir, it is not a talent: it is a vice; it is what others abstain from,”
- he growled.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Did not he think of exhibiting you, sir?” inquired the tactful Mr.
- Boswell, though he knew all about Foote and Johnson long before.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir, fear restrained him,” said Johnson. “He knew I would have broken his
- bones. I would have saved him the trouble of cutting off a leg: I would
- not have left him a leg to cut off.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This brutal reference to the fact that Foote's recent accident had
- compelled him to have a leg amputated should surely have suggested to his
- inquisitor that he had probably been paying a visit to an industrious
- young pickle maker without Tom Davies' recommendation, or that he had
- partaken of too generous a helping of his favourite veal, baked with
- plums, and so that he would do well to leave him alone for a while. But
- no, Mr. Boswell was not to be denied.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Pray, sir, is not Foote an infidel?” he inquired. But as he himself had
- been dining with Foote the previous day, and as he possessed no more
- delicacy than a polecat, he could easily have put the question to Foote
- himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- But Johnson would not even give the man credit for his infidelity.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel,” he said; “but if he
- is an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel, that is to say, he
- has never thought on the subject.”
- </p>
- <p>
- In another second he was talking of Buchanan, a poet, whom he praised, and
- of Shakespeare, another poet, whom he condemned, winding up by saying that
- there were some very fine things in Dr. Young's <i>Night Thoughts</i>. But
- the most remarkable of his deliverances on this rather memorable evening
- had reference to Baretti's fate. After declaring that if one of his
- friends had just been hanged he would eat his dinner every bit as heartily
- as if his friend were still alive.—“Why, there's Baretti, who is to
- be tried for his life to-morrow,” he added; “friends have risen up for him
- on every side; yet if he should be hanged, none of them will eat a slice
- of plum pudding the less.” Happily the accuracy of this tender-hearted
- scholar's prediction had no chance of being put to the test. Baretti was
- tried and acquitted.
- </p>
- <p>
- Boswell gives only a few lines to an account of the trial, and fails to
- mention that the prisoner declined the privilege of being tried by a jury
- one half of whom should be foreigners. “It took place,” he said, “at the
- awful Sessions House, emphatically called Justice Hall,” and he affirms
- that “never did such a constellation of genius enlighten the Old Bailey.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He mentions that Mr. Burke, Mr. Garrick, Mr. Beauclerk, and Dr. Johnson
- gave evidence, the last-named being especially impressive, speaking in a
- slow, deliberate, and distinct tone of voice. It seems strange that
- Boswell, who was (nominally) a lawyer, when he wrote his life of Johnson,
- should say nothing whatever respecting the line of defence adopted by the
- friends of the prisoner upon this interesting occasion. It might have been
- expected that he would dwell lovingly, as a lawyer would certainly be
- pardoned for doing, upon the technical points involved in the trial, even
- though he hated Baretti. For instance, it would be interesting to learn
- why it was thought that the result of the trial might mean the hanging of
- Baretti, when from the first it was perfectly plain that he had acted in
- self-defence: not merely was he protecting his purse, he had actually to
- fight for his life against an acknowledged ruffian of the most
- contemptible type. In the present day if a short-sighted man of letters—say
- Mr. Augustine Birrell—were to be attacked in a dark street by three
- notorious scoundrels and to manage to kill one of them by poking the
- ferrule end of an umbrella into his eye, no one—not even a
- Conservative Attorney-General—would fancy that a grand jury at the
- New Old Bailey would return a true bill against him for the act, putting
- aside all question of his being found guilty and sentenced to be hanged.
- And yet in Baretti's time swords were commonly worn, and they were by no
- means toy weapons. Why should poor Tom Davies have a sleepless night,
- owing (as he believed) to his apprehension that his friend would be hanged
- in a day or two? Why was it necessary to dazzle the “awful Sessions House”
- by such “a constellation of genius” as had never before assembled in that
- “Hall of Justice”?
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Boswell might certainly have told us something of the actual scene in
- the court, when he has devoted so much space to the ridiculous dialogues
- between himself and Johnson, having more or less bearing upon the case.
- The course he adopted is like laying a dinner-table with four knives and
- forks and five wineglasses for every guest—in having a constellation
- of genii in plush behind every chair, and then serving a dinner of hashed
- mutton only. A great number of people believe that whatever Boswell may
- have been, he was invariably accurate. But in this case he does not even
- give a true account of the constellation of genius to which he refers. He
- only says that Burke, Garrick, Beauclerk, and Johnson were called as
- witnesses. He omits to say a word about Goldsmith, who was something of a
- genius; or Reynolds, who was quite a tolerable painter; or Fitzherbert,
- who had a wide reputation as a politician; or Dr. Halifax, whose evidence
- carried certainly as much weight as Johnson's. He does not even say a word
- respecting the evidence which Johnson and the others were called on to
- give on behalf of the prisoner at the bar. What is the good of telling us
- that the constellation of genius had never been paralleled within the
- precincts of the “emphatically called Justice Hall” if we are not made
- aware of some of the flashes of their genius when they were put into the
- witness-box?
- </p>
- <p>
- The truth is that Boswell had no sense of proportion any more than a sense
- of the sublime and beautiful—or, for that matter, a sense of the
- ridiculous. He was the Needy Knife Grinder—with an occasional axe of
- his own—of the brilliant circle into which he crawled, holding on to
- Johnson's skirts and half concealing himself beneath their capacious
- flaps. He had constant stories suggested to him, but he failed to see
- their possibilities. He was a knife grinder and nothing more; but at his
- own trade he was admirable; he ground away patiently at his trivialities
- respecting the man whom he never was within leagues of understanding, and
- it is scarcely fair to reproach him for not throwing away his grindstone,
- which he knew how to use, and taking to that of a diamond cutter, which he
- was incapable of manipulating. But surely he might have told us something
- more of the actual trial of Baretti instead of giving us page after page
- leading up to the trial.
- </p>
- <p>
- From other sources we learn that what all the geniuses were called on to
- testify to was the pacific character of Baretti, and this they were all
- able to do in an emphatic manner. It would seem that it was assumed that
- the prisoner, a short-sighted, middle-aged man of letters, was possessed
- of all the dangerous qualities of a bloodthirsty brigand of his own
- country—that he was a fierce and ungovernable desperado, who was in
- the habit of prowling about the purlieus of the Haymarket to do to death
- with a fruit-knife the peaceful citizens whom he might encounter. He was a
- foreigner, and he had killed an Englishman with an outlandish weapon. That
- seems to have been the reason there was for the apprehension, which was
- very general in respect of the fate of Baretti, for it was upon these
- points that his witnesses were most carefully examined.
- </p>
- <p>
- Goldsmith, Reynolds, and Garrick were very useful witnesses regarding the
- knife. They affirmed that in carrying a fruit-knife the prisoner was in no
- way departing from the recognised custom of his fellow-countrymen. He, in
- common with them, was in the habit of eating a great deal of fruit, so
- that the knife was a necessity with him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Johnson's evidence was as follows:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have known Mr. Baretti a long time. He is a man of literature—a
- very studious man—a man of great intelligence. He gets his living by
- study. I have no reason to think he was ever disordered with liquor in his
- life. A man that I have never known to be otherwise than peaceable and a
- man that I take to be rather timorous. As to his eyesight, he does not see
- me now, nor do I see him. I do not believe he would be capable of
- assaulting anybody in the street without great provocation.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It cannot be denied that the reference to Baretti's imperfect sight told
- upon the jury, and uttered as the words were by Johnson in his dignified
- way, they could scarcely fail to produce a profound effect upon the court.
- </p>
- <p>
- Baretti was acquitted, and no one could presume to refer to him for the
- rest of his life except as a quiet, inoffensive, frugivorous gentleman,
- since these were the qualities with which he was endowed by a
- constellation of geniuses on their oath. He was acquitted by the jury; but
- the judge thought it well to say a few words to him before allowing him to
- leave the dock, and the drift of his discourse amounted to a severe
- censure upon his impetuosity, and the expression of a hope that the
- inconvenience to which he was put upon this occasion would act as a
- warning to him in future.
- </p>
- <p>
- Really one could hardly imagine that in those days, when every week Mr.
- Boswell had a chance of going to such an entertainment at Tyburn as he had
- attended forty-eight hours before the opening of the Sessions, the taking
- of the life of a human being was regarded with such horror. One cannot
- help recalling the remark made by Walpole a few years later, that, owing
- to the severity of the laws, England had been turned into one vast
- shambles; nor can one quite forget the particulars of the case which was
- quoted as having an intimate bearing upon this contention—the case
- in which a young wife whose husband had been impressed to serve in His
- Majesty's Fleet, and who had consequently been left without any means of
- support, had stolen a piece of bread to feed her starving children, and
- had been hanged at Tyburn for the crime.
- </p>
- <p>
- Reading the judge's censure of Baretti, who had, in preventing a
- contemptible ruffian from killing him, decreased by a unit the criminality
- of London, the only conclusion that one can come to is that the courts of
- law were very jealous of their precious prerogative to kill. Looking at
- the matter in this light, the bombastic phrase of Boswell does not seem so
- ridiculous after all; the Old Bailey had certainly good reason to be
- regarded as the “awful Sessions House.” But we are not so fully convinced
- that it had any right to be referred to as emphatically the Hall of
- Justice. In the Georgian Pageant the common hangman played too conspicuous
- a part.
- </p>
- <p>
- But the unfortunate, if impetuous, Baretti left the court a free man, and
- we cannot doubt that in the company of his friends who had stood by him in
- his hour of trial he was a good deal harder upon the judge than the judge
- had been upon him; and probably he was reproved in a grave and dignified
- manner by Dr. Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds standing by with his ear
- trumpet, fearful lest a single word of Johnson's wisdom should escape him.
- Doubtless Mr. Garrick, the moment Johnson's back was turned, gave an
- inimitable imitation of both Johnson and Baretti—perhaps of the
- judge as well, and most likely the usher of the court.
- </p>
- <p>
- Later on, when the avaricious Reynolds had hastened back to his studio in
- Leicester Fields to daub on canvas the figures of some of his sitters at
- the extortionate price of thirty-five guineas for a three-quarter length,
- he and Johnson put their heads together to devise what could be done for
- Baretti.
- </p>
- <p>
- For about a year Baretti resumed his old way of living, working for the
- booksellers and completing his volume of travel through Europe, by which
- it is said he made £500. It would appear, however, that all his pupils had
- transferred themselves to the enterprising gentleman who had appealed to
- him at an inopportune moment for his recommendation, or to some of his
- other brethren, for by the end of the year he was in needy circumstances.
- Meantime he had been made by Sir Joshua Reynolds Honorary Secretary for
- Foreign Correspondence to the Royal Academy, and then Johnson recommended
- him to the husband of Mrs. Thrale as tutor to her girls at Streatham. This
- was very kind to Baretti, but it was rather hard on the Thrales.
- Apparently from the first day he went to Streatham his attitude in regard
- to the Thrale family was one of spite and malevolence; and there can be no
- doubt that Johnson bitterly regretted his patronage of a man who seemed
- never to forgive any one who had done him a good turn.
- </p>
- <p>
- The agreement made by him with the Thrales was that he should practically
- be his own master, only residing at Streatham as a member of the family
- with no fixed salary. He was as artful as an Irish cabman in suggesting
- this “leave it to your honour” contract. He had heard on all hands of the
- liberality of Mr. Thrale, and he knew that, in addition to being provided
- with a luxurious home, he would receive presents from him far in excess of
- what he could earn. He was extremely well treated for the next three
- years, though he was for ever grumbling when he had a moment's leisure
- from insulting the Thrales and their guests. Mrs. Thrale said more in his
- favour than any one with whom he came in contact. She wrote: “His lofty
- consciousness of his own superiority which made him tenacious of every
- position, and drew him into a thousand distresses, did not, I must own,
- ever disgust me, till he began to exercise it against myself, and resolve
- to reign in our house by fairly defying the mistress of it. Pride,
- however, though shocking enough, is never despicable; but vanity, which he
- possessed too, in an eminent degree, will sometimes make a man near sixty
- ridiculous.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Assuredly Mrs. Thrale “let him down” very gently. Dr. Thomas Campbell, a
- clergyman from Ireland, gives us a glimpse of Baretti's bearing at
- Streatham. It is clear that Baretti was anxious to impress him with the
- nature of his position in the house. “He told me he had several families
- both in town and country with whom he could go at any time and spend a
- month; he is at this time on these terms at Mr. Thrale's, and he knows how
- to keep his ground. Talking, as we were at tea, of the magnitude of the
- beer vessels, he said there was one thing at Mr. Thrale's house still more
- extraordinary—his wife. She gulped the pill very prettily. So much
- for Baretti!” wrote the clergyman in a very illuminating account of his
- visit to Streatham.
- </p>
- <p>
- But not only did Mrs. Thrale bear with this detestable person for nearly
- two more years, but she and her husband took him with them and Johnson to
- Paris, where they lived in a magnificent way, the Thrales paying for
- everything. It was in a letter to Frank Levet, his domestic apothecary,
- that Johnson, writing from Paris, said: “I ran a race in the rain this
- day, and beat Baretti. Baretti is a fine fellow.” This is Johnson on
- Baretti. Here is Baretti on Johnson; on a copy of the <i>Piozzi Letters</i>
- he wrote: “Johnson was often fond of saying silly things in strong terms,
- and the silly madam”—meaning Mrs. Thrale—“never failed to echo
- that beastly kind of wit.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was not, however, until an Italian tour, projected by Mr. Thrale, was
- postponed, that Baretti became quite unendurable. He had been presented by
- Mr. Thrale with £100 within a few months, and on the abandonment of the
- longer tour he received another £100 by way of compensation for the
- satisfaction he had been compelled to forgo in showing his countrymen the
- position to which he had attained in England. This was another act of
- generosity which he could not forgive. He became sullen and more
- cantankerous than ever, and neglected his duties in an intolerable way. In
- fact, he treated Streatham as if it were an hotel, turning up to give Miss
- Thrale a lesson at the most inconvenient hours, and then devoting the most
- of his time to poisoning the girl's mind against her mother. Upon one
- occasion he expressed the hope to her that if her mother died Mr. Thrale
- would marry Miss Whitbred, who would, he said, be a pretty companion for
- her, not tyrannical and overbearing as he affirmed her own mother was!
- Truly a nice remark for a young lady's tutor to make to her under her
- mother's roof.
- </p>
- <p>
- The fact was, however—we have Baretti's own confession for it—that
- he had been led to believe that after being with the Thrales for a year or
- two, an annuity would be settled on him by the wealthy brewer, and he grew
- impatient at his services to the family not obtaining recognition in this
- way. It is extremely unlikely that Johnson ever even so much as hinted at
- this annuity, though Baretti says his expectations were due to what
- Johnson had told him; but it is certain that he had so exalted an opinion
- of himself, he believed that after a year or two of desultory teaching he
- should receive a handsome pension. And there the old story of the
- car-driver who left the nomination of the fare to “his honour's honour”
- was repeated. Baretti one morning packed up his bag and left Streatham
- without a word of farewell.
- </p>
- <p>
- Johnson's account of his departure and his comments thereupon are worth
- notice. He wrote to Boswell:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Baretti went away from Thrales in some whimsical fit of disgust or
- ill-nature without taking any leave. It is well if he finds in any other
- place as good an habitation and as many conveniences.”
- </p>
- <p>
- On the whole it is likely that a good many of Baretti's friends felt
- rather sorry than otherwise that the jury at the Old Bailey had taken so
- merciful a view of his accident. If Johnson and Murphy were really
- responsible for the line of defence which prevailed at the trial, one can
- quite believe that the Thrales and a good many of their associates bore
- them a secret grudge for their pains.
- </p>
- <p>
- In the year 1782 he was granted by the Government the pension which he had
- failed to extort from the Thrales. It amounted to £80 per annum, and we
- may take it for granted that he had nothing but the most copious abuse for
- the Prime Minister who had only given him £80 when Sheridan was receiving
- £200 and Johnson £300. He drew his pension for seven years.
- </p>
- <p>
- Baretti's portrait, painted by Reynolds for the Streatham gallery, fetched
- £31 10s., the smallest price of any in the whole collection, on its
- dispersal, years after the principal actors in the scene in the “awful
- Sessions House” had gone to another world.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- THE FATAL GIFT
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HEN Mr. Boswell
- had been snubbed, and very soundly snubbed too, by a Duchess, one might
- fancy that his ambition was fully satisfied. But he was possibly the most
- persevering of the order of <i>Pachydermata</i> at that time extant; and
- in the matter of snubs he had the appetite of a leviathan. He was fired
- with the desire to be snubbed once more by Her Grace—and he was.
- Without waiting to catch her eye, he raised his glass and, bowing in her
- direction, said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “My Lady Duchess, I have the honour to drink Your Grace's good health.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Duchess did not allow her conversation with Dr. Johnson to be
- interrupted by so flagrant a piece of politeness; she continued chatting
- quite pleasantly to the great man, ignoring the little one. That was how
- she had got on in life; and, indeed, a better epitome of the whole art of
- getting on in life could scarcely be compiled even by the cynical nobleman
- who wrote letters to his son instructing him in this and other forms of
- progress—including the Rake's.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Boswell, who, as usual, is the pitiless narrator of the incident,
- records his satisfaction at having attained to the distinction of a snub
- from the beautiful creature at whose table he was sitting, and we are, as
- usual, deeply indebted to him for giving us an illuminating glimpse of the
- Duchess of whom at one time all England and the greater part of Ireland
- were talking. He also mentions that Her Grace made use of an idiom by
- which her Irish upbringing revealed itself. If we had not Mr. Boswell's
- account of his visit to Inveraray to refer to we might be tempted to
- believe that Horace Walpole deviated into accuracy when he attributed to
- the Duchess of Argyll, as well as her sister, the Countess of Coventry,
- the brogue of a bog-trotter. It was only by her employment of an idiom
- common to the south and west of Ireland and a few other parts of the
- kingdom, that Her Grace made him know that she had not been educated in
- England, or for that matter in Scotland, where doubtless Mr. Boswell
- fondly believed the purest English in the world was spoken.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0006" id="linkimage-0006"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0121.jpg" alt="0121 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0121.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- Mr. Boswell faithfully records—sometimes with glee and occasionally
- with pride—many snubs which he received in the course of a lifetime
- of great pertinacity, and some that he omitted to note, his contemporaries
- were obliging enough to record; but on none did he reflect with more
- satisfaction than that, or those, which he suffered in the presence of the
- Duchess of Argyll.
- </p>
- <p>
- It happened during that memorable tour to the Hebrides to which he lured
- Johnson in order to show his countrymen how great was his intimacy with
- the man who traduced them once in his Dictionary and daily in his life. It
- was like Boswell to expect that he would impress the Scottish nation by
- leading Johnson to view their fine prospects—he certainly was never
- foolish enough to hope to impress Johnson by introducing the Scottish
- nation to him. In due time, however, the exploiter and the exploited found
- themselves in the neighbourhood of Inveraray, the Duke of Argyll's Castle,
- and the stronghold of the Clan Campbell.
- </p>
- <p>
- It chanced that the head of the great family was in residence at this
- time, and Mr. Boswell hastened to apprise him of the fact that the great
- Dr. Johnson was at hand. He called at the Castle very artfully shortly
- after the dinner hour, when he believed the Duchess and her daughter would
- have retired to a drawing-room. He was successful in finding the Duke
- still at the dinner-table, the ladies having retired. In the course of the
- interview the Duke said: “Mr. Boswell, won't you have some tea?” and Mr.
- Boswell, feeling sure that the Duchess could not go very far in insulting
- him when other people were present, followed his host into the
- drawing-room. “The Duke,” he records, “announced my name, but the Duchess,
- who was sitting with her daughter, Lady Betty Hamilton, and some other
- ladies, took not the least notice of me. I should,” he continues, “have
- been mortified at being thus coldly received by a lady of whom I, with the
- rest of the world, have always entertained a very high admiration, had I
- not been consoled by the obliging attention of the Duke.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Duke was, indeed, obliging enough to invite Johnson to dinner the next
- day, and Mr. Boswell was included in the invitation. (So it is that the
- nursery governess gets invited to the table in the great house to which
- she is asked to bring the pretty children in her charge.) Of course,
- Boswell belonged to a good family, and his father was a judge. It was to a
- Duke of Argyll—not the one who was now so obliging—that the
- Laird of Auchinleck brought his son, James Boswell, to be examined in
- order to find out whether he should be put into the army or some other
- profession. Still, he would never have been invited to Inveraray at this
- time or any other unless he had had charge of Johnson. No one was better
- aware of this fact than Boswell; but did he therefore decline the
- invitation? Not he. Mr. Boswell saw an opportunity ahead of him. He had
- more than once heard Johnson give an account of how he had behaved when
- the King came upon him in the Royal Library; and probably he had felt
- melancholy at the reflection that he himself had had no part or lot in the
- incident. It was all Dr. Johnson and the King. But now he was quick to
- perceive that when, in after years, people should speak with bated breath
- of Dr. Johnson's visit to Inveraray they would be compelled to say: “And
- Mr. Boswell, the son of auld Auchinleck, was there too.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He knew very well that there were good reasons why Mr. Boswell could not
- hope to be a <i>persona grata</i> to the Duchess of Argyll. In the great
- Douglas lawsuit the issue of which was of considerable importance to the
- Duke of Hamilton, the son of Her Grace, the Boswells were on the side of
- the opposition, and had been very active on this side into the bargain.
- James Boswell himself narrowly escaped being committed for contempt of
- court for publishing a novel founded on the Douglas cause and anticipating
- in an impudent way the finding of the judges. Had the difference been
- directly with the Duke of Argyll some years earlier, no doubt every man in
- the Clan Campbell would have sharpened his skene when it became known that
- a friend of an opponent of the MacCallein More was coming, and have
- awaited his approach with complacency; but now the great chief tossed
- Boswell his invitation when he was asking Johnson, and Boswell jumped at
- it as a terrier jumps for a biscuit, and he accompanied his friend to the
- Castle.
- </p>
- <p>
- The picture which he paints of his second snubbing is done in his best
- manner. “I was in fine spirits,” he wrote, “and though sensible that I had
- the misfortune of not being in favour with the Duchess, I was not in the
- least disconcerted, and offered Her Grace some of the dish which was
- before me.” Later on he drank Her Grace's health, although, he adds, “I
- knew it was the rule of modern high life not to drink to anybody.” Thus he
- achieved the snub he sought; but he acknowledges that he thought the
- Duchess rather too severe when she said: “I know nothing of Mr. Boswell.”
- On reflection, however, he received “that kind of consolation which a man
- would feel who is strangled by a silken cord.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It seems strange that no great painter has been inspired by the theme and
- the scene. The days of “subject pictures” are, we are frequently told,
- gone by. This may be so, generally speaking, but every one knows that a
- “subject picture,” if its “subject” lends itself in any measure to the
- advertising of an article of commerce, will find a ready purchaser, so
- fine a perception of the aspirations of art—practical art—exists
- in England, and even in Scotland, in the present day.
- </p>
- <p>
- Now, are not the elements of success apparent to any one of imagination in
- this picture of the party sitting round the table in the great hall of
- Inveraray—Dr. Johnson chatting to the beautiful Duchess and her
- daughter at one side, the Duke looking uncomfortable at the other, when he
- sees Mr. Boswell on his feet with his glass in his hand bowing toward Her
- Grace? No doubt Her Grace had acquainted His Grace with the attitude she
- meant to assume in regard to Mi. Boswell, so that he was not astonished—only
- uncomfortable—when Mr. Boswell fished for his snub. Surely
- arrangements could be made between the art patron and the artist to paint
- a name and a certain brand upon the bottle—a bottle must, of course,
- be on the table; but if this is thought too realistic the name could
- easily be put on the decanter—from which Mr. Boswell has just
- replenished his glass! Why, the figure of Dr. Johnson alone should make
- the picture a success—i.e. susceptible of being reproduced as an
- effective poster in four printings. “Sir,” said Dr. Johnson, “claret for
- boys, port for men, but brandy for heroes.” Yes, but whose brandy? There
- is a hint for a great modern art patron—a twentieth-century art
- patron is a man who loves art for what he can make out of it.
- </p>
- <p>
- Dr. Johnson was unmistakably the honoured guest this day at Inveraray; and
- perhaps, while the lovely Duchess hung upon his words of wisdom, his
- memory may have gone back to a day when he was not so well known, and yet
- by some accident found himself in a room with the then Duchess of Argyll.
- Upon that occasion he had thought it due to himself to be rude to the
- great lady, in response to some fancied remissness on her part. He had
- nothing to complain of now. The Duchess with whom he was conversing on
- terms of perfect equality—if Her Grace made any distinction between
- them it was, we may rest assured, only in a way that would be flattering
- to his learning—was at the head of the peerage for beauty, and there
- was no woman in the kingdom more honoured than she had been. He may have
- been among the crowds who hung about the Mall in St. James's Park
- twenty-two years before, waiting patiently until the two lovely Miss
- Gunnings should come forth from their house in Westminster to take the
- air. The Duchess of Argyll was the younger of the two sisters.
- </p>
- <p>
- The story of the capture of the town by the pair of young Irish girls has
- been frequently told, and never without the word <i>romantic</i> being
- applied to it. But really there was very little that can be called
- romantic in the story of their success. There is far more of this element
- in many of the marriages affecting the peerage in these unromantic days.
- There is real romance in the story of a young duke's crossing the Atlantic
- with a single introduction, but that to the daughter of a millionaire with
- whom he falls madly in love and whom he marries as soon as the lawyers can
- make out the settlements. There is real romance in the idyll of the young
- marquis who is fortunate enough to win the affection of an ordinary chorus
- girl; and every year witnesses such-like alliances—they used to be
- called <i>mésalliances</i> long ago. There have also been instances of the
- daughters of English tradesmen marrying foreign nobles, whom they
- sometimes divorce as satisfactorily as if they were the daughters of
- wealthy swindlers on the other side of the Atlantic. In such cases there
- are portraits and paragraphs in some of the newspapers, and then people
- forget that anything unusual has happened. As a matter of fact, nothing
- unusual has happened.
- </p>
- <p>
- In the romantic story of the Gunnings we have no elements of that romance
- which takes the form of a <i>mésalliance</i>. Two girls, the
- granddaughters of one viscount and the nieces of another, came to London
- with their parents one year, and early the next married peers—the
- elder an earl, the younger a duke. Like thousands of other girls, they had
- no money; but, unlike hundreds of other girls who marry into the peerage,
- they were exceptionally good-looking.
- </p>
- <p>
- Where is there an element of romance in all this? The girls wedded men in
- their own station in life, and, considering their good looks, they should
- have done very much better for themselves. The duke was a wretched <i>roué</i>,
- notable for his excesses even in the days when excess was not usually
- regarded as noteworthy. He had ruined his constitution before he was
- twenty, and he remained enfeebled until, in a year or two, he made her a
- widow. The earl was a conceited, ill-mannered prig—a solemn,
- contentious, and self-opinionated person who was deservedly disliked in
- the town as well as the country.
- </p>
- <p>
- Not a very brilliant marriage either of these. With the modern chorus girl
- the earl is on his knees at one side, and the gas man on the other. But
- with the Miss Gunnings it was either one peer or another. They were
- connected on their mother's side with at least two families of nobility,
- and on their father's side with the spiritual aristocracy of some
- generations back: they were collateral descendants of the great Peter
- Gunning, Chancellor of Oxford and Bishop of Ely, and he was able to trace
- his lineage back to the time of Henry VIII. From a brother of this great
- man was directly descended the father of the two girls and also Sir Robert
- Gunning, Baronet, who held such a high post in the diplomatic service as
- Minister Plenipotentiary to Berlin, and afterwards to St. Petersburg.
- Members of such families might marry into the highest order of the peerage
- without the alliance being criticised as “romantic.” The girls did not do
- particularly well for themselves. They were by birth entitled to the best,
- and by beauty to the best of the best. As it was, the one only became the
- wife of a contemptible duke, the other of a ridiculous earl. It may really
- be said that they threw themselves away.
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course, it was Walpole's gossip that is accountable for much of the
- false impression which prevailed in respect of the Gunnings. From the
- first he did his best to disparage them. He wrote to Mann that they were
- penniless, and “scarce gentlewomen.” He could not ignore the fact that
- their mother was the Honourable Bridget Gunning; but, without knowing
- anything of the matter, he undertook to write about the “inferior tap” on
- their father's side. In every letter that he wrote at this time he tried
- to throw ridicule upon them, alluding to them as if they were nothing
- better than the barefooted colleens of an Irish mountain-side who had come
- to London to seek their fortunes. As usual, he made all his letters
- interesting to his correspondents by introducing the latest stories
- respecting them; he may not have invented all of these, but some
- undoubtedly bear the Strawberry Hill mark, and we know that Walpole never
- suppressed a good tale simply because it possessed no grain of truth.
- </p>
- <p>
- Now, the true story of the Gunnings can be ascertained without any
- reference to Walpole's correspondence. Both girls were born in England—the
- elder, Maria, in 1731, the younger in 1732. When they were still young
- their father, a member of the English Bar, inherited his brother's Irish
- property. It had once been described as a “tidy estate,” but it was now in
- a condition of great untidiness. In this respect it did not differ
- materially from the great majority of estates in Ireland. Ever since the
- last “settlement” the country had been in a most unsettled condition, and
- no part of it was worse than the County Roscommon, where Castle Coote, the
- residence of the Gunning family, was situated. It might perhaps be going
- too far to say that the wilds of Connaught were as bad as the wilds of
- Yorkshire at the same date, but from all the information that can be
- gathered on the subject there does not seem to have been very much to
- choose between Roscommon and the wilder parts of Yorkshire. The peasantry
- were little better than savages; the gentry were little worse. Few of the
- elements of civilized life were to be found among the inhabitants. The
- nominal owners of the land were content to receive tribute from their
- tenantry in the form of the necessaries of life, for money as a standard
- of exchange was rarely available. Even in the present day in many
- districts in the west of Ireland cattle occupy the same place in the
- imagination of the inhabitants as they do in Zululand. The Irish bride is
- bargained away with so many cows; and for a man to say—as one did in
- the very county of Roscommon the other day—that he never could see
- the difference of two cows between one girl and another, may be reckoned
- somewhat cynical, but it certainly is intelligible.
- </p>
- <p>
- But if rent was owing—and it usually was—and if it was not
- paid in the form of geese, or eggs, or pork, or some other products of low
- farming and laziness, it remained unpaid; for the landlord had no means of
- enforcing his claims by any law except the law of the jungle. He might
- muster his followers and plunder his debtors, and no doubt this system of
- rent-collecting prevailed for several years after one of the many
- “settlements” of the country had taken place, yet by intermarriage with
- the natives, and a general assimilation to their condition of life by the
- newcomers, these raids for rent became unpopular and impracticable. The
- consequence was that the landlords—such as remained on their estates—were
- living from hand to mouth.
- </p>
- <p>
- But if the fact that the King's writ failed to run in these parts was of
- disadvantage to the landlords in one respect, it was of no inconsiderable
- advantage to them in another; for it enabled them with a light heart to
- contract debts in Dublin and in the chief towns. They knew that the
- rascally process server, should he have the hardihood to make any attempt
- to present them with the usual summons, would do so at the risk of his
- life; and a knowledge of this fact made the “gentry” at once reckless and
- lawless. The consequence was that Ireland was regarded as no place for a
- man with any respect for his neighbours or for himself to live in. It
- became the country of the agent and the squireen.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was to one of the worst parts of this country that John Gunning brought
- his wife and four children—the eldest was eight years and the
- youngest three months—and here he tried to support them off the
- “estate.” He might possibly have succeeded if his aspirations had been
- humble and his property unencumbered. It so happened, however, that his
- father had been the parent of sixteen children, and the estate was still
- charged with the maintenance of ten of these. Thus hampered, Mr. Gunning
- and the Honourable Bridget Gunning were compelled to adopt the mode of
- life of the other gentry who were too poor to live out of Ireland, and
- they allowed the education of their family to become a minor consideration
- to that of feeding them.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Gunning and his wife were undoubtedly the originals of the type of
- Irish lady and gentleman to be found in so many novels and plays of the
- latter part of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth
- centuries. He was the original “heavy father” who, with the addition of a
- ridiculous nondescript brogue, was so effectively dealt with by numerous
- writers until Thackeray took him in hand; and Mrs. Gunning was the first
- of the tradition of Irish mothers with daughters to dispose of by the aid
- of grand manners and a great deal of contriving. True to this tradition,
- which originated with them, the lady was certainly the head of the
- household—a sorry household it must have been at Castle Coote—during
- the ten years that elapsed before the migration to England.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Gunning was a fine figure of a gentleman, a handsome, loquacious
- person with a great sense of his own dignity and an everlasting
- consciousness of the necessity to maintain it at something approximate to
- its proper level, and, like other persons of the same stamp, never
- particularly successful in the means employed to effect this object. It is
- doubtful if a loud conversational style, with repeated references to the
- brilliant past of his family and predictions as to the still more
- brilliant future that would have been achieved by its representative but
- for the outrageous fortune that flung him into the bogs of Roscommon,
- produced a more vivid impression upon his associates in Ireland than it
- would be likely to do among a more credulous community. In Ireland he
- resembled the young gentleman who went to educate the French, but was
- discouraged at the outset when he found that even the children in the
- streets spoke better French than he did. Mr. Gunning could teach the Irish
- squireens nothing in the way of boasting; and he soon found that they were
- capable of giving him some valuable instruction as to the acquiring of
- creditors and their subsequent evasion. Whatever their educational
- deficiencies may have been, it must be admitted that they had mastered
- these arts. Much as he despised his ancestral home, he found, after
- repeated visits to Dublin, that his heart was, after all, in Castle Coote,
- and that, for avoiding arrest for debt, there was no place like home.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Honourable Mrs. Gunning must have become dreadfully tired of this
- florid person and of the constant worry incidental to the control of such
- a household as his must have been. Her life must have been spent
- contriving how the recurrent crises could be averted, and so long as she
- was content to remain in the seclusion of the Irish village her efforts
- were successful. We do not hear that the bailiffs ever got so far as the
- hall door of their ramshackle mansion; there was a bog very handy, and the
- holes which served as a rudimentary system of natural drainage were both
- deep and dark. The topography of the district was notoriously puzzling to
- the officers from the Dublin courts.
- </p>
- <p>
- But with all her success in this direction one maybe pretty sure that her
- life must have been very burthensome to the Honourable Mrs. Gunning. She
- had social ambitions, as befitted a daughter of a noble house, and on this
- account she never allowed herself to sink to the level of the wives of the
- squireens around her, who were quite content with the rude jollity of an
- Irish household—with the “lashings and leavings” to eat, and with
- the use of tumblers instead of wineglasses at table. She was the daughter
- of a peer, and she never forgot this fact; and here it must be mentioned
- that, however culpably she may have neglected the education of her
- children in some respects, she took care that they avoided the provincial
- brogue of their Irish neighbours.
- </p>
- <p>
- Perhaps it was because Walpole knew nothing of the tradition of the
- English settlers in Ireland that he referred in his letters to various
- correspondents to the appalling brogue of both the Gunning girls; or
- perhaps he, as usual, aimed only at making his correspondence more amusing
- by this device. But every one who knows something of the “settlements” is
- aware of the fact that the new-comers had such a contempt for the native
- way of pronouncing English that they were most strenuous in their efforts
- to hand down to their children the tradition of pronunciation which they
- brought into the country. They were not always so successful as they
- wished to be; but within our own times the aspiration after a pure
- “English accent” is so great that even in the National Schools the
- teachers, the larger number of whom bear Celtic names, have been most
- industrious both in getting rid of their native brogue and in compelling
- their pupils to do the same; and yet it is certain that people have been
- much more tolerant in this respect in Ireland during the past half-century
- than they were a hundred years earlier.
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course, a scientific analysis of the pronunciation of the English
- language by, say, a native of the wilds of Yorkshire and by a native of
- the wilds of Connemara would reveal the fact that fewer corruptions of the
- speech are habitual to the latter than to the former, the “brogue” being
- far less corrupt than the “burr.” It was not enough for the settlers,
- however, that their children should speak English in Ireland more
- correctly than their forefathers did in England; they insisted on the
- maintenance of the English tradition of pronunciation, erroneous though it
- might be. So that the suggestion that the daughters of the Gunning family,
- who had never heard English spoken with the brogue of the native Irish
- until they were eight or nine years of age, spoke the tongue of the stage
- Irish peasant would seem quite ridiculous to any one who had given even
- the smallest amount of study to the conditions of speech prevailing in
- Ireland even in the present tolerant age, when employment is not denied to
- any one speaking with the broadest of brogues. Some years ago such an
- applicant would have had no chance of a “billet”—unless, in a
- literal sense, to hew, with the alternative of the drawing of water.
- </p>
- <p>
- The truth, then, is that the Gunning girls had practically neither more
- nor less of that form of education to be acquired from the study of books
- or “lessons” than the average young woman of their own day who had been
- “neglected.” Between the years 1750 and 1800 there were in England
- hundreds of young ladies who were as highly educated as a junior-grade
- lady clerk in the Post Office Department is to-day; but there were also
- thousands who were as illiterate as the Gunnings without any one thinking
- that it mattered much one way or another.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0007" id="linkimage-0007"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0139.jpg" alt="0139 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0139.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- And it really did not matter much that Maria Gunning spelt as vaguely as
- did Shakespere, or Shakspere, or Shakespeare, or Shakspear, or whatever he
- chose to write himself at the moment. Correctness of orthography is
- absolutely necessary for any young lady who wishes to be a success in the
- Postal Department, but Miss Gunning possessed some qualifications of
- infinitely greater importance in the estimation of the world. She was of
- good family and she was beautiful exceedingly. Moreover, she possessed the
- supreme grace of naturalness—the supreme grace and that which
- includes all other graces, which, like butterflies, hover over womankind,
- but seldom descend in a bevy upon any one of the race. She was as natural
- as a lily flower, and for the same reason. To be natural il came to her by
- Nature, and that was how she won the admiration of more people than the
- beauty of Helen of Troy brought to their death. She was not wise. But had
- she been wise she would never have left Ireland. She would have known that
- obscurity is the best friend that any young woman so beautiful as she was
- could have. She would have remained in Roscommon, and she would have been
- one of those women who are happy because they have no story. But, of
- course, had she been wise she would not have been natural, and so there
- her beauty goes by the board in a moment.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Honourable Mrs. Gunning could not have been startled when the
- knowledge came to her that she was the mother of two girls of exceptional
- beauty. The same knowledge comes to every mother of two girls in the
- world, though this knowledge is sometimes withheld from the rest of the
- world; but even then the mother's faith is not shaken—except in
- regard to the eyesight of the rest of the world. Doubtless Mrs. Gunning
- thought much better of Ireland when she found that her judgment on the
- beauty of her daughters was shared by all the people who saw the girls.
- From the daily exclamation of wonder—the exaggerated expressions of
- appreciation uttered by a fervent peasantry—when the girls were seen
- in their own kitchen or on the roadside, the mother's ambition must have
- received a fresh stimulus. And given an ambitious mother, whose life has
- been one of contriving to do things that seem out of her power to
- accomplish, the achievement of her object is only a matter of time—provided
- that the father does not become an obstruction. Mrs. Gunning was not
- extravagant in her longings. Her Delectable Mountains were those which
- surround the City of Dublin. Her social ambitions did not extend beyond
- “The Castle.”
- </p>
- <p>
- When the eldest of her three daughters was scarcely nineteen the
- aggregation of savings and credit—the latter predominant—seemed
- sufficient to justify the expedition. A house was taken in a fashionable
- street, close to the most splendid Mall in Europe, and furnished by some
- credulous tradesmen, and the social campaign was begun by a parade of the
- two girls and their mother. Alas! the young beauties attracted only too
- much attention. The inquiries as to their style and title were
- unfortunately not limited. In Dublin for generations the tradespeople have
- been accustomed to take an intelligent and quite intelligible interest in
- the aristocracy and beauty dwelling in their midst; and it took only a few
- days for the report to go round that the exquisite young ladies were the
- daughters of Mr. John Gunning, of Castle Coote.
- </p>
- <p>
- This information meant much more to some of the least desirable of the
- inquirers than it did to the wealthy and well connected of the population;
- and among the least desirable of all were some tradesmen who for years had
- had decrees waiting to be executed against Mr. Gunning at a more
- convenient place for such services than Castle Coote. The result was that
- within a week the beauty of his daughters had made such a stir in Dublin
- that bailiffs were in the house and Mr. Gunning was out of it.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is at this point in the history that the Troubadour unslings his lute,
- feeling the potentialities of Romance in the air; and, given the
- potentialities of Romance and the wandering minstrel, one may be sure that
- the atmosphere will resound with Romance. We are told on such high
- authority as is regarded quite satisfactory (by the Troubadour), that the
- weeping of the mother and the beautiful girls under the coarse stare of
- the bailiffs attracted the attention of a charming and sympathetic young
- actress who was taking the air in the street, and that, as might only be
- expected, she hastened to enter the house to offer consolation to those
- who were in trouble—this being unquestionably the mission which is
- most congenial to the spirit of the <i>soubrette</i>. On being at once
- informed of all by the communicative mother—the Troubadour is not
- such a fool as to lay down his lute to inquire if it was likely that a
- lady who possessed her full share of Irish pride would open her heart to a
- stranger and an actress—the young visitor showed her sympathy by
- laying herself open to prosecution and imprisonment through helping in a
- scheme to make away with all the valuables she could lay her hands on. But
- she went still further, and invited the young ladies to stay at her house
- so long as it suited them to do so.
- </p>
- <p>
- We are told that this young actress was George Ann Bellamy, but the
- information comes from no better source than George Ann Bellamy herself,
- and the statements of this young person, made when she was no longer young
- or reputable, do not carry conviction to all hearers. Romance, however,
- like youth, will not be denied, though the accuracy of an actress may, and
- people have always been pleased to believe that Miss Bellamy and Mr.
- Thomas Sheridan, the much-harassed lessee of the Smock Alley Theatre in
- Dublin, were the means of obtaining for the Honourable Mrs. Gunning and
- her daughters the invitation to the ball at the Castle which resulted in
- the recognition of the girls' beauty by the great world of fashion. The
- suggestion that their aunt, Miss Bourke, or their uncle, Viscount Mayo,
- might have been quite as potent a factor in solving the problem of how the
- invitation to a ball given by the Viceroy to the people of Dublin came
- into the hands of the Miss Gunnings, may, however, be worth a moment's
- consideration.
- </p>
- <p>
- At any rate, the success made by the girls upon this occasion was
- immediate. Before a day had passed all Dublin and Dublin Castle were
- talking of their beauty, and the splendid Mall was crowded with people
- anxious to catch a glimpse of the lovely pair when they took their walks
- abroad. Lady Caroline Petersham, the charming lady whose name figures
- frequently in Walpole's correspondence—it will be remembered that
- she was one of that delightful little supper party at Ranelagh which he
- describes—was in the entourage of the Viceroy, and quickly perceived
- the possibilities of social prestige accruing to the hostess who might be
- the means of introducing them to St. James's. There a new face meant a new
- sensation lasting sometimes well into a second month, and Lady Caroline
- had her ambitions as a hostess.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was the Gunnings' best friend—assuming that social advancement
- is an act of friendship—and it may safely be assumed that she was
- mainly responsible for the extension of the area of the campaign entered
- on by Mrs. Gunning, and that it was her influence which obtained for them
- the passage to Chester in the Lord Lieutenant's yacht, and a bonus of £150
- charged, as so many other jobs were, “upon the Irish Establishment.” The
- “Irish Establishment” was the convenient Treasury out of which money could
- be paid without the chance of unpleasant questions being asked in
- Parliament respecting such disbursements.
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course, it is not to be believed that such success as the young girls
- encompassed in Dublin was reached without a word or two of detraction
- being heard in regard to their behaviour. Mrs. Delany, amiable as a moral
- gossip, or perhaps, a gossipy moralist, wrote to her sister respecting
- them: “All that you have heard of the Gunnings is true, except their
- having a fortune, but I am afraid they have a greater want than that,
- which is discretion.” No doubt Mrs. Delany had heard certain whispers of
- the girlish fun in which the elder of the sisters delighted; but there has
- never been the smallest suggestion that her want of discreetness ever
- approached an actual indiscretion. It may be assumed, without doing an
- injustice to either of the girls, that their standard of demeanour was not
- quite so elevated as that which the wife of Dean Delany was disposed to
- regard as essential to be reached by any young woman hoping to be thought
- well of by her pastors and masters. But the steelyard measure was never
- meant to be applied to a high-spirited young girl who has grown up among
- bogs and then finds herself the centre of the most distinguished circle in
- the land, every person in which is eagerly striving for the distinction of
- a word from her lips. Maria Gunning may not have had much discretion, but
- she had enough to serve her turn. She arrived in London with her sister,
- and no suggestion was ever made—even by Walpole—that their
- mother had not taken enough care of them.
- </p>
- <p>
- In London they at once found their place in the centre of the most
- fashionable—the most notorious—set; but while we hear of the
- many indiscreet things that were done by certain of their associates,
- nothing worse is attributed to either of the girls than an Irish brogue or
- an Irish idiom—perhaps a word or two that sounded unmusical to
- fastidious ears. Walpole began by ridiculing them, and, as has already
- been noted, sneering at their birth; but when he found they were becoming
- the greatest social success that his long day had known, he thought it
- prudent to trim his sails and refer to them more reasonably: they were
- acquiring too many friends for it to be discreet for him to continue
- inventing gossip respecting them.
- </p>
- <p>
- But what a triumph they achieved in town! Nothing had ever been known like
- it in England, nor has anything approaching to it been known during the
- century and a half that has elapsed since the beauty of these two girls
- captured London. The opening of Parliament by the King in State never
- attracted such crowds as thronged the Park when they walked in the Mall.
- Never before had the guards to turn out at the Palace to disperse the
- crowds who mobbed two young ladies who did not belong—except in a
- distant way—to a Royal House. Upon one occasion the young Lord
- Clermont and his friend were compelled to draw their swords to protect
- them from the exuberant attentions of the crowd. “'Tis a warm day,” wrote
- George Selwyn to Lord Carlisle, “and some one proposes a stroll to Betty's
- fruit shop; suddenly the cry is raised, 'The Gunnings are coming,' and we
- all tumble out to gaze and to criticise.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The famous beauties are more talked of than the change in the Ministry,”
- wrote Walpole. “They make more noise than any one of their predecessors
- since Helen of Troy; a crowd follows them wherever they walk, and at
- Vauxhall they were driven away.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This mobbing must have caused the girls much delightful inconvenience, and
- one can see their mother acting the part—and overdoing it, after the
- manner of her kind—of the distracted parent whose daughters have
- just been restored to her arms. One can hear the grandiloquent thanks of
- the father to the eligible young man with titles whose bravery has
- protected his offspring—that would have been his word—from the
- violence of the mob. The parents must have been very trying to the young
- men in those days. But the mother showed herself to be rather more than a
- match for one young man who hoped to win great fame as a jocular fellow by
- playing a trick upon the family. Having heard of the simplicity and
- credulousness of the girls, this gentleman, with another of his kind,
- asked leave of Mrs. Gunning to bring to her house a certain duke who was
- one of the greatest <i>partis</i> of the day. On her complying, he hired a
- common man, and, dressing him splendidly, conveyed him in a coach to the
- Gunnings' house and presented him to the family as the duke. But the man
- knew as little of the matter as did Walpole; he assumed that she was
- nothing more than the adventurous wife of an Irish squireen. He soon found
- out that he had made a mistake. Mrs. Gunning rang the bell, and ordered
- the footman to turn the visitors out of the house. But the family were
- soon consoled for this incident of the impostor duke by the arrival of a
- real one, to say nothing of another consolation prize in the form of an
- earl. In the meantime, however, their popularity-had been increasing
- rather than diminishing. As a matter of fact, although beauty may be
- reproached for being only skin deep, it is very tenacious of life. A
- reputation for beauty is perhaps the most enduring of all forms of
- notoriety. The renown that attaches to the man who has painted a great
- picture, or to one who has made a great scientific discovery, or to one
- who has been an eminent churchman or a distinguished statesman, is, in
- point of popularity and longevity, quite insignificant in comparison with
- that which is associated with the name of a very beautiful woman. The
- crowds still surrounded the Miss Gunnings, and the visit which they paid
- by command to King George II gave them a position in the world of fashion
- that was consolidated by the report of the charming <i>naivete</i> of the
- reply made by Maria when the King inquired if they had seen all the sights
- of London and if there was any in particular which they would like to be
- shown. “Oh, I should dearly like to see a coronation!” the girl is said to
- have cried. And as that was just the sight for which the people of England
- were most eager, she was acclaimed as their mouthpiece.
- </p>
- <p>
- So they progressed in the career that had been laid out for them. Duels
- were fought about them, and bets were made about them and their future.
- For nearly a year there was no topic of the first order save only the
- Progress of Beauty. The Duke had come boldly forward. He was a double duke—his
- titles were Hamilton and Brandon—and he had sounded such depths of
- depravity that he was possibly sincere in his desire to convince the world
- that his taste in one direction had not become depraved. Elizabeth Gunning
- may have accepted his service from a hope of being the means of reforming
- him. But even if she were not to succeed in doing so, her mother would
- have reminded her that her failure would not make her the less a duchess.
- It is open, however, for one to believe that this girl cared something for
- the man and was anxious to amend his life.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then we hear of her being with him at Lord Chesterfield's ball given at
- the opening of his new mansion, her fancy dress being that of a Quakeress.
- Three days later the world in which they lived awoke to learn the
- astounding news that the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon had married
- Elizabeth Gunning the previous night.
- </p>
- <p>
- Here was romance beyond a precedent; and Walpole romanced about it as
- usual. In his account of the nuptials he succeeds in making more
- misstatements than one would believe it possible even for such a worker in
- the art to encompass in half a dozen lines. “When her mother and sister
- were at Bedford House,” he wrote to Mann, “a sudden ardour, either of wine
- or love, seized upon him (the Duke); a parson was promptly sent for, but
- on arriving, refused to officiate without the important essentials of
- licence or ring. The Duke swore and talked of calling in the Archbishop.
- Finally the parson's scruples gave way, the licence was overlooked, and
- the lack of the traditional gold ring was supplied by the ring of a bed
- curtain!”
- </p>
- <p>
- This is very amusing, but it is not history. It is a clumsy fiction,
- unworthy of the resources of the inventor. Sir Horace Mann must have felt
- that his friend had a poor opinion of his intelligence if he meant him to
- accept the assurance that the household of the Gunnings and the fingers of
- His Grace were incapable of yielding to the fastidious parson a better
- substitute for the traditional gold ring than the thing he introduced. The
- facts of the incident were quite romantic enough without the need for
- Walpole's embellishments. It was Valentine's Day, and what more likely
- than that the suggestion should be made by the ardent lover that so
- appropriate a date for a wedding would not come round for another year! To
- suggest difficulties—impossibility—would only be to spur him
- on to show that he was a true lover. However this may be, it has long ago
- been proved that the midnight marriage took place in due form at the
- Curzon Street Chapel in the presence of several witnesses.
- </p>
- <p>
- And then Walpole went on to say that the wedding of Lord Coventry and the
- elder sister took place at the same time. It so happened, however, that a
- fortnight elapsed between the two ceremonies, and in the case of the
- second, the ceremony took place in the full light of day.
- </p>
- <p>
- The subsequent history of the two ladies is not without a note of
- melancholy. The elder, pursued to the end by the malevolent slanders of
- the man with the leer of the satyr perpetually on his face, died of
- consumption after eight years of wedded life. The younger became a widow
- two years earlier, and after being wooed by the Duke of Bridgewater, whom
- she refused, sending him to his canal for consolation, married Colonel
- Campbell, who in 1770 became the Fifth Duke of Argyll. Six years later she
- was created a peeress in her own right, her title being Baroness Hamilton
- of Hameldon in Leicestershire. In 1778 she was appointed Mistress of the
- Robes. She attained to the additional distinction of making the good Queen
- jealous, so that Her Majesty upon one occasion overlooked her in favour of
- Lady Egremont. The Duchess at once resigned, and only with difficulty was
- persuaded to withdraw her resignation. She died in 1790.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- THE FÊTE-CHAMPÊTRE
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">N</span>O one knows to-day
- with whom the idea of having an English <i>fête-champêtre</i> at The Oaks
- upon the occasion of the marriage of the young Lord Stanley to Lady Betty
- Hamilton originated. The secret was well kept; and it can be easily
- understood that in case of this innovation proving a fiasco, no one would
- show any particular desire to accept the responsibility of having started
- the idea. But turning out as it did, a great success, it might have been
- expected that many notable persons would lay claim to be regarded as its
- parents. A considerable number of distinguished people had something to do
- with it, and any one of them had certainly sufficient imagination, backed
- up by an acquaintance with some of the exquisite pieces of MM. Watteau and
- Fragonard, to suggest the possibility of perfecting such an enterprise
- even in an English June. It was the most diligent letter-writer of that
- age of letter-writing who had referred to the “summer setting in with its
- customary severity,” so that the trifling of the month of June with the
- assumption of the poets who have rhymed of its sunshine with rapture, was
- not an experience that was reserved for the century that followed. But in
- spite of this, the idea of a <i>fête-champêtre</i>, after the most
- approved French traditions, in an English demesne found favour in the eyes
- of Lord Stanley and his advisers, and the latter were determined that,
- whatever price might have to be paid for it, they would not run the chance
- of being blamed for carrying it out in a niggardly spirit.
- </p>
- <p>
- The young Lord Stanley had as many advisers as any young nobleman with a
- large immediate allowance and prospects of a splendid inheritance may hope
- to secure. There was his <i>fiancée's</i> mother, now the Duchess of
- Argyll, who was never disposed to frown down an undertaking that would
- place a member of one of her families in the forefront of the battle of
- the beauties for the most desirable <i>parti</i> of the year.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0008" id="linkimage-0008"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0155.jpg" alt="0155 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0155.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- The Duchess had both taste and imagination, so that people called her an
- Irishwoman, although she was born in England. Then there was Mr. George
- Selwyn, who said witty things occasionally and never missed a hanging. He
- was fully qualified to prompt a wealthy companion as to the best means to
- become notorious for a day. There was also young Mr. Conway, the gentleman
- who originated the diverting spectacle when Mrs. Baddeley and Mrs.
- Abington were escorted to the Pantheon. Any one of these, to say nothing
- of Lady Betty herself, who had some love for display, might have been
- inclined to trust an English June so far as to believe an <i>al fresco</i>
- entertainment on a splendid scale quite possible.
- </p>
- <p>
- On the whole, however, one is inclined to believe that it was Colonel
- Burgoyne who was responsible for the whole scheme at The Oaks. In addition
- to having become Lord Stanley's uncle by running away with his father's
- sister, he was a budding dramatist, and as such must have perceived his
- opportunity for exploiting himself at the expense of some one else—the
- dream of every budding dramatist. There is every likelihood that it was
- this highly accomplished and successful “gentleman-adventurer” who brought
- Lord Stanley up to the point of embarking upon his design for an
- entertainment such as had never been seen in England before—an
- entertainment that should include the production of a masque devised by
- Colonel Burgoyne and entitled <i>The Maid of The Oaks</i>. The fête came
- off, and it was pronounced the most brilliant success of the year 1774.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lord Stanley was a very interesting young man; that is to say, he was a
- young man in whom no inconsiderable number of persons—mainly of the
- opposite sex—were greatly interested. Of this fact he seems to have
- been fully aware. A good many people—mainly of the opposite sex—felt
- very strongly on the subject of his marrying: it was quite time that he
- married, they said. His grandfather, the Earl of Derby, was eighty-four
- years of age, and it would be absurd to believe that he could live much
- longer. Lord Stanley being his heir, it was agreed that it was the young
- man's duty not to procrastinate in the matter of marriage. It is always
- understood that a patriarchal nobleman sings “<i>Nunc dimittis</i>” when
- he holds in his arms the second in direct succession to the title, and
- this happy consummation could, in the case of the aged Lord Derby, only be
- realised by the marriage of Lord Stanley.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was small in stature, and extremely plain of countenance; still this
- did not prevent his name from being coupled with that of several notable—but
- not too notable—young women of his acquaintance. But as it was well
- known that he was greatly interested in the stage, it was thought that,
- perhaps, he might not be so complaisant as his best friends hoped to find
- him in regard to marrying. An ardent interest in the progress of the
- drama, especially in its lighter forms, has been known to turn a young
- man's attention from marriage, when it does not do what is far worse—turn
- his attention to it with too great zest. Before long, however, it became
- apparent that his lordship recognised in what direction his duty lay.
- There was a young lady connected with the Ducal House of Bedford—a
- niece of that old Duchess who played so conspicuous a part in the social
- and political history of the middle of the eighteenth century—and to
- her Lord Stanley became devoted. But just when every one assumed that the
- matter was settled, no one thinking it possible that the young lady would
- be mad enough to refuse such a <i>parti</i>, the news came that she had
- done so; and before people had done discussing how very eccentric were the
- Bedford connections, the announcement was made that Lord Stanley was to
- marry Lady Betty Hamilton, the beautiful daughter of a beautiful mother,
- the Duchess of Argyll.
- </p>
- <p>
- There is in existence a letter written by the Duchess to Sir William
- Hamilton, in which she hints that Lord Stanley was an old suitor for the
- hand of her daughter. “Lady Betty might have taken the name of Stanley
- long ago if she had chose it,” she wrote, adding: “A very sincere
- attachment on his side has at last produced the same on hers.” This being
- so, it would perhaps be unsafe to assume that Lord Stanley proposed to
- Lady Betty out of pique at having been rejected by the other lady, though
- one might be disposed to take this view of the engagement.
- </p>
- <p>
- The alternative view is that Lady Betty had been advised by her
- accomplished mother that if she played her cards well there was no reason
- why she should not so attract Lord Stanley as to lead him to be a suitor
- for her hand, and that the girl at last came to see that the idea was
- worth her consideration. Her portrait, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in
- the year of her marriage, shows her to have been a graceful, girlish young
- creature; but her beauty could never have been comparable with that of her
- mother at the same age, or with that of her aunt, Lady Coventry, whom it
- is certain she closely resembled in character. Her mother, in her letter
- to Sir William Hamilton, apologises in a way for her liveliness, assuring
- him that such a disposition was not incompatible with serious thought upon
- occasions; and this gives us a hint that the reputation for vivacity which
- she always enjoyed was closely akin to that which made the life of Lady
- Coventry so very serious.
- </p>
- <p>
- This was the young lady in whose honour the first English <i>fête
- champêtre</i> was organised. To be more exact, or to get more into touch
- with the view of the Derby family, perhaps one should say that the <i>fête</i>
- was set on foot in consideration of the honour the young lady was doing
- herself in becoming a member of the great house of Stanley. Different
- people look at a question of honour from different standpoints. Probably
- Colonel Burgoyne, although a member of the Derby family by marriage, left
- honour out of the question altogether, and only thought of his masque
- being produced at his nephew's expense.
- </p>
- <p>
- And produced the masque was, and on a scale as expensive as the most
- ambitious author could desire. It was described, with comments, by all the
- great letter-writers of the time. Walpole has his leer and his sneer at
- its expense (literally). It was to cost no less than £5000, he said, and
- he ventured to suppose that in order to account for this enormous outlay
- Lord Stanley had bought up all the orange trees near London—no
- particular extravagance one would fancy—and that the hay-cocks would
- be of straw-coloured riband. George Selwyn thought it far from diverting.
- The Dowager Lady Gower affirmed that “all the world was there,” only she
- makes an exception of her relations the Bedfords—she called them
- “the Bloomsbury lot”—and said that the Duchess would not let any of
- them go because Her Grace thought that Lord Stanley should have taken his
- recent rejection by Her Grace's niece more to heart. Lady Betty's
- stepfather, the Duke of Argyll, said that the whole day was so long and
- fatiguing that only Lady Betty could have stood it all.
- </p>
- <p>
- But did Lady Betty stand it all? It was rumoured in the best-informed
- circles that she had broken off the match the next day; and when one
- becomes acquainted with the programme of the day's doings one cannot but
- acknowledge that the rumour was plausible. She probably made an attempt in
- this direction; but on her fiancé's promising never to repeat the offence,
- withdrew her resolution.
- </p>
- <p>
- The famous brothers Adam, whose genius was equally ready to build an
- Adelphi or to design a fanlight, had been commissioned to plan an
- entertainment on the most approved French models and to carry it out on
- the noblest scale, taking care, of course, that the central idea should be
- the masque of <i>The Maid of The Oaks</i>, and these large-minded artists
- accepted the order without demur. The pseudo-classical feeling entered,
- largely through the influence of the Adams, into every form of art at this
- period, though the famous brothers cannot be accused of originating the
- movement. Sir Joshua Reynolds painted his most charming ladies in the
- costume of Greeks, and Angelica Kauffmann depicted many of her early
- English episodes with the personages clad in togas which seemed greatly
- beyond their control. But for that matter every battle piece up to the
- date of Benjamin West's “Death of Wolfe” showed the combatants in
- classical armour; and Dr. Johnson was more than usually loud in his
- protests against the suggestion that a sculptor should put his statues of
- modern men into modern clothing.
- </p>
- <p>
- But the Adams were wise enough to refrain from issuing any order as to the
- costume to be worn by the shepherds and shepherdesses who were to roam the
- mead at The Oaks, Epsom, upon the occasion of this <i>fête champêtre</i>;
- and they were also wise enough to distrust the constancy of an English
- June. The result was (1) a charming medley of costume, though the
- pseudo-pastoral peasants, farmers, gardeners, and shepherds were in the
- majority, and (2) the most interesting part of the entertainments took
- place indoors, the octagonal hall lending itself nobly—when improved
- by Messrs. Adam—to the show. The “transparencies” which constituted
- so important a part of the ordinary birthday celebrations of the time,
- took the form of painted windows, and, later, of a device showing two of
- the conventional torches of Hymen in full blaze, supporting a shield with
- the Oak of the Hamiltons' crest and the usual “gules.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This design occupied the place of the “set piece” which winds up a modern
- display of fireworks and sets the band playing “God save the King.” It
- could not have been brought on until the morning sunlight was flooding the
- landscape outside; for supper was not served until half-past eleven, and
- the company had to witness the representation of an intolerably long
- masque—the second of the day—after supper, with a procession
- of Druids, fauns, cupids, and nymphs, all in suitable, but it is to be
- hoped not traditional, costume.
- </p>
- <p>
- The entertainment began quite early in the afternoon, when there was a
- long procession of shepherds and shepherdesses through the lanes to where
- a pastoral play was produced and syllabub drunk under the trees. But this
- was only an <i>hors d'ouvre</i>; it was not Colonel Burgoyne's
- masterpiece. This was not produced in the open air. Only when further
- refreshments had been served and evening was closing in did the guests,
- who had been sauntering through the sylvan scenes, repair to the great
- hall, which they found superbly decorated and, in fact, remodelled, for
- colonnades after the type of those in the pictures of Claude had been
- built around the great ballroom, the shafts being festooned with roses,
- and the drapery of crimson satin with heavy gold fringes. There were not
- enough windows to make excuses for so much drapery, but this was no
- insuperable obstacle to the artful designers; they so disposed of the
- material as to make it appear that it was the legitimate hanging for six
- windows.
- </p>
- <p>
- For the procession through the colonnades the young host changed his
- costume and his fiancée changed hers. He had appeared as Rubens and she as
- Rubens' wife, from the well-known picture. But now she was dressed as
- Iphigenia. They led the first minuet before supper, and it was thought
- that they looked very fine. No one who has seen the two pictures of the
- scene, for which Zucchi was commissioned, can question this judgment. Lady
- Betty's portrait in one of these panels makes her even more beautiful than
- she appears on Sir Joshua's canvas.
- </p>
- <p>
- With a display of fireworks of a detonating and discomposing type—the
- explosion, it was said, affected the nerves of nearly all the guests—and
- the illumination of the “transparency” already alluded to, this memorable
- fête came to no premature conclusion. Every one was bored to death by so
- much festivity coming all at once. The idea of twelve hours of masques and
- minuets is enough to make one's blood run cold. Its realisation may have
- had this effect upon the heroine of the day, hence the rumour that she
- found she had had enough of the Derby family to last her for the rest of
- her life without marrying the young heir. Unfortunately, however, if this
- was the case, she failed to justify the accuracy of the report; and she
- was married to Lord Stanley on the 23rd of the same month.
- </p>
- <p>
- The union of Maria Gunning with the Earl of Coventry was a miserable one,
- but this of her niece and Lord Stanley was infinitely worse. Lady Betty
- soon found out that she had made a mistake in marrying a man so incapable
- of appreciating her charm of manner as was Lord Stanley. The likelihood is
- that if she had married any other man she would have made the same
- discovery. The vivacity for which her mother apologised to Sir William
- Hamilton was, after her marriage, much more apparent than the
- thoughtfulness which the Duchess assured her correspondent was one of her
- daughter's traits. She showed herself to be appallingly vivacious upon
- more than one occasion. Just at that time there was a vivacious “set” in
- Lady Betty's world, and every member of it seemed striving for leadership.
- Few of the ladies knew exactly where the border line lay between vivacity
- and indiscretion. If Lady Betty was one of the better informed on this
- delicate question of delimitation, all that can be said is that she
- overstepped the line upon several occasions. It is not to be thought that
- her lightness ever bordered into actual vice, but it rarely fell short of
- being indiscreet.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was always being talked about—always having curious escapades,
- none of them quite compromising, but all calculated to make the judicious
- grieve. But it is one thing to be subjected to the censure of the
- judicious and quite another to come before a judicial authority, and it is
- pretty certain that if Lady Derby—her husband succeeded to the title
- two years after his marriage—had incriminated herself, she would
- have been forced to defend a divorce suit.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is, however, likewise certain that for some time she kept hovering like
- a butterfly about the portals of the Court, and a good deal of the bloom
- was blown off her wings by the breath of rumour. She had accepted the
- devotion of the Duke of Dorset, and, considering the number of eyes that
- were upon her and the devotion of His Grace, this was a very dangerous
- thing to do. They were constantly seen together and at all hours. This was
- in the second year of her marriage, but even in the first her desire to
- achieve notoriety by some means made itself apparent. But her escapade
- that was most talked about was really not worthy of the gossip of a Gower.
- She was at a ball at the house of Mrs. Onslow in St. James's Square, and
- her chair not arriving in good time to take her back to Grosvenor Square,
- it was suggested by Lord Lindsay and Mr. Storer that they should borrow
- Mrs. Onslow's chair and carry her between them to her home. She agreed to
- this gallant proposal, and off they set together. The young men bore her
- to her very door in spite of the fact that they had met her own chair soon
- after they had left Mrs. Onslow's porch.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was surely not much of an escapade in this transaction. The truth
- was probably that the chair did not arrive owing to the condition of the
- bearers, and when the young gentlemen met it they refused to jeopardise
- the safety of the lady by transferring her from Mrs. Onslow's chair to her
- own.
- </p>
- <p>
- Rumour, however, was only too anxious to put the worst construction upon
- every act of the merry Countess, and it was doubtless because of this, and
- of her own knowledge of her daughter's thoughtlessness, that the Duchess
- of Argyll appeared upon the scene and endeavoured by her presence and
- advice to avert the catastrophe that seemed imminent. The Duchess insisted
- on accompanying her to every entertainment, and succeeded in keeping a
- watchful eye on her, though the Duke, who was at Inveraray, and was
- doubtless tired of hearing of the vivacity of his stepdaughter, wrote
- rather peremptorily for Her Grace to return to Scotland. She did not obey
- the summons, the fact being that she was devoted to this daughter of hers,
- who must have daily reminded her of her own sister Maria, to whom she had
- been so deeply attached. *
- </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
- * It was said that she had refused the offer of the Duke of
- Bridgewater, because of his suggestion that she should break
- off all intercourse with Lady Coventry.
-</pre>
- <p>
- Seeing, however, that she could not continue to look after this lively
- young matron, and being well aware of the fact that Lord Derby would never
- consent to live with her again, the Duchess could do no more than condone
- the separation which was inevitable. The deed was drawn up in 1779, five
- years after Lady Betty had been so inauspiciously bored by the <i>fête
- champêtre</i>.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0009" id="linkimage-0009"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0171.jpg" alt="0171 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0171.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- In the meantime there was a good deal of talk about the Earl of Derby
- himself. A young nobleman who takes a lively, or even a grave, interest in
- the personnel of the theatre is occasionally made the subject of vulgar
- gossip. Lord Derby had a reputation as an amateur actor, and he seemed to
- think that it would be increased by association with professional
- actresses. It is doubtful if he was justified in his views on this
- delicate question. At any rate, rightly or wrongly, on his estrangement
- from his wife, but two years before the final separation, he showed a
- greater devotion than ever to dramatic performances and dramatic
- performers. His uncle by marriage, now General Burgoyne, had written a
- play that turned out an extraordinary success. This was <i>The Heiress</i>,
- and it had received extravagant praise in many influential quarters. It
- was while it was still being talked of in society that a company of
- distinguished amateurs undertook to produce it at Richmond House, in
- Whitehall Place. In order that the representation might be as perfect as
- possible, the Duchess of Richmond engaged the actress who had taken the
- chief part in the original production, to superintend the rehearsals of
- her amateurs. Miss Farren was a young person of considerable beauty, and
- more even than an actress's share of discretion. She was in George
- Colman's company at the Haymarket, and was rapidly taking the place of
- Mrs. Abington in the affections of playgoers. She was the daughter of a
- surgeon in a small way—he may have been one of the barber surgeons
- of the eighteenth century. Marrying an actress (also in a small way), he
- adopted the stage as a profession, and became a strolling actor-manager,
- whenever he got the chance, and died before his drinking habits had quite
- demoralised his family.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs. Farren was a wise woman—wise enough to know that she was a bad
- actress, but that there were possibilities in her two daughters. It was
- after only a brief season of probation that Colman engaged one of the
- girls to do small parts, promoting her in an emergency to be a
- “principal.” Miss Farren proved herself capable of making the most of her
- opportunity, and the result was that within a year she was taking Mrs.
- Abington's parts in the best comedies.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her mother was sensible enough to perceive that there was room in the best
- society for an actress of ability as well as respectability—up to
- that time the two qualities had seldom been found associated—and
- Mrs. Farren was right. No whisper had ever been heard against the young
- lady, and a judicious introduction or two brought her into many
- drawing-rooms of those leaders of society who were also respectable, and
- this was of advantage to her not only socially, but professionally. Horace
- Walpole was able to write of her: “In distinction of manner and refinement
- she excelled Mrs. Abington, who could never go beyond Lady Teazle, which
- is a second-rate character.” Again, in a letter to Lady Ossory, he
- ascribed the ability of Miss Farren to the fact that she was accustomed to
- mingle with the best society.
- </p>
- <p>
- This theory of Walpole's has been frequently controverted since his day,
- and now no one will venture to assert that there is really anything in it,
- although it sounds plausible enough. Miss Farren had, however, ample
- opportunity of studying “the real thing” and of profiting by her study.
- She found herself on the most intimate footing with duchesses—not of
- the baser sort like her of Ancaster, or of the eccentric sort like her of
- Bedford, but of the most exalted. The Duchess of Richmond and the Duchess
- of Leinster were among her friends, and thus it was that her appearance at
- the rehearsals of <i>The Heiress</i> of Whitehall Place was not wholly
- professional. Upon this occasion she met Lord Derby and also Charles James
- Fox, the latter having accepted the rather onerous duties of stage
- manager. Before any of the performers were letter perfect in their
- dialogue, Miss Farren had captured the hearts of both these men. Having
- some of the qualities necessary to success as a statesman, including
- caution and an instinct as to the right moment to retire from a contest
- that must end in some one being made a fool of, Mr. Fox soon withdrew from
- a position of rivalry with Lord Derby. It was rumoured by the malicious,
- who had at heart the maintenance of the good name of Miss Farren, that Mr.
- Fox had been dismissed by the lady with great indignation on his making a
- proposition to her that did not quite meet her views in regard to the
- ceremony of marriage. Miss Farren they asserted to be a paragon of virtue,
- and so she undoubtedly was. Her virtue was of the most ostentatious type.
- She would never admit a gentleman to an audience unless some witness of
- her virtue was present. She accepted the devotion of Lord Derby, but gave
- him to understand quite plainly that so long as his wife was alive she
- could only agree to be his <i>fiancée</i>. Truly a very dragon of virtue
- was Miss Farren!
- </p>
- <p>
- The Earl, previous to his meeting the actress, had been a dutiful if not a
- very devoted husband. But as soon as he fell in love with this paragon of
- virtue he became careless, and made no attempt to restrain his wife in her
- thoughtless behaviour. He allowed her to go her own way, and he went his
- way. His way led him almost every evening to the green room at the
- Haymarket and Drury Lane, where Miss Farren was to be found. The
- estrangement between himself and his wife that resulted in the final
- separation was the result not of his infatuation for the actress, but of
- her virtuous acceptance of him as her moral lover. She took care never to
- compromise herself with him or any one else, but she did not mind taking
- the man away from his wife and home in order that she might be accredited
- with occupying an absolutely unique position in the annals of the English
- stage.
- </p>
- <p>
- If Miss Farren had been a little less virtuous and a little more human she
- would run a better chance of obtaining the sympathy of such people as are
- capable of differentiating between a woman's virtue and the virtues of
- womankind. She seemed to think that the sole duty of a woman is to be
- discreet in regard to herself—to give no one a chance of pointings
- finger of scorn at her; and it really seemed as if this was also the creed
- of the noble people with whom she associated. Every one seemed to be so
- paralysed by her propriety as to be incapable of perceiving how
- contemptible a part she was playing. An honest woman, with the instincts
- of goodness and with some sense of her duty, would, the moment a married
- man offers her his devotion, send him pretty quickly about his business.
- The most elementary sense of duty must suggest the adoption of such a
- course of treatment in regard to an illicit admirer. But Miss Farren had
- no such sense. She met the philandering of her lover with smiles and a
- virtuous handshake. She accepted his offer of an adoring friendship for
- the present with a reversion of the position of Countess of Derby on the
- death of the existing holder of the title and its appurtenances; and
- people held her up, and continue to hold her up, as an example of all that
- is virtuous and amiable in life!
- </p>
- <p>
- She was also commended for her patience, as Lord Derby was for his
- constancy. They had both great need of these qualities, for the unhappy
- barrier to their union showed no signs of getting out of their way, either
- by death or divorce. She became strangely discreet, taking, in fact, a
- leaf out of Miss Farren's book of deportment, and never giving her husband
- a chance of freeing himself from the tie that bound him nominally to her.
- It must have been very gratifying to the actress to perceive how effective
- was the example she set to the Countess in regard to the adherence to the
- path of rectitude.
- </p>
- <p>
- What was the exact impression produced upon Lord Derby by all this decorum
- it would be difficult to say. He may have been pleased to discover that he
- was married to a lady to whom his honour was more precious than he had any
- reason or any right to believe it to be. But assuredly a less placid
- gentleman would have found himself wishing now and again that—well,
- that matters had arranged themselves differently.
- </p>
- <p>
- The years went by without bringing about a more satisfactory <i>modus
- vivendi</i> than was in existence when Lord Derby originally offered his
- heart and hand (the latter when it should become vacant) to the actress.
- Lady Derby was in wretched health, but still showed no more inclination to
- die than does a chronic invalid. Miss Farren continued to drive her
- splendid chariot, with its coachmen on the hammer-cloth and its footmen
- clinging on to the straps behind, down to the stage-door of the theatre,
- and to fill the house every night that she played. Her popularity seemed
- to grow with years, and she appeared in a wide range of characters, making
- her audiences accept as correct her reading of every part, though the best
- critics—Walpole was about the worst—of her art had a good deal
- to say that was not quite favourable to her style. Only once, however, did
- she make a flagrant error on the stage, and this was when she was
- misguided enough to put on men's garments in representing the part of
- Tracy Lovell in Colman's play, <i>The Suicide</i>.
- </p>
- <p>
- By this unhappy exhibition which she made of herself she disillusioned
- those of her admirers who fancied that she was a model of grace from the
- sole of her feet to the crown of her head. She never repeated this
- performance. Had she done so in Lord Derby's presence, his constancy would
- have been put to a severer test than any to which he had been previously
- subjected. The best judges of what constitutes grace in a woman were
- unanimous in their advice to the lady never to forsake the friendly
- habiliments which she was accustomed to wear, and never to allow her
- emulation of the perpetually chaste goddess to lead her to adopt even for
- an hour the convenient garb in which she went a-hunting.
- </p>
- <p>
- And while his fiancée was moving from triumph to triumph, putting every
- other actress in the shade, the Earl of Derby was putting on flesh. But as
- his flesh became more visible so did his faith. He was a model of
- fidelity. His name was never associated with the name of any other lady—not
- even that of his wife—during his long years of probation, and twenty
- years form a rather protracted period for a man to wait in order to marry
- an actress. It was not to be wondered if the spectacle of the devoted
- young peer waiting for the beautiful girl in the green room, which was
- allowed to the habitués of that fascinating apartment during the earlier
- years of this strange attachment, produced quite a different effect upon
- people from that which was the result of witnessing a somewhat obese,
- elderly gentleman panting along by the side of a chaste lady of forty. Nor
- was it remarkable that, on seeing one day by the side of Miss Farren, a
- gallant young man whose walk and bearing suggested to elderly spectators a
- rejuvenated Lord Stanley, they should rub their eyes and ask what miracle
- was this that time and true love had wrought.
- </p>
- <p>
- The only miracle that time had wrought was to make the son of the Earl of
- Derby twenty-one years of age and rather interested in the personnel of
- green rooms. He had been introduced to Miss Farren by his father; but to
- his honour be it said, he made no attempt to take his father's place in
- regard to the lady, except as her escort to her house in Green Street. The
- gossip that suggested such a possibility was just what one might expect to
- find in one of Walpole's letters.
- </p>
- <p>
- At last the shameful, if virtuous, devotion of twenty years was rewarded
- by the announcement of the death of the wretched Countess whose desertion
- dated from the day her husband met the actress. Miss Farren, with that
- extraordinary bad taste which characterised every period of her intimacy
- with Lord Derby, took an ostentatious farewell of the stage, and proved by
- the faltering of her voice, her emotion, and her final outburst in tears,
- that time had not diminished from the arts of her art. Of course, there
- was a scene of intense emotion in the theatre, which was increased when
- King led her forward and Wroughton spoke a rhymed and stagey farewell in
- her presence. Four of its lines were these:
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- But ah! this night adieu the joyous mien,
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- When Mirth's lov'd fav'rite quits the mimic scene,
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- Startled Thalia would th'assent refuse,
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- But Truth and Virtue sued and won the Muse.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p>
- Truth and Virtue—these were the patrons of the compact by which Miss
- Farren waited for twenty years for the death of the wife of the man whom
- she had promised to marry—when she could.
- </p>
- <p>
- The scene in the green room when the actress came off the stage was an
- unqualified success. Tears flowed freely, making channels as they
- meandered down the paint; sobs came from the actresses who hoped to get a
- chance of doing some of her parts now that she had left the stage; and
- Miss Farren herself showed that she knew what were the elements of a
- proper climax, by fainting with a shriek, in the midst of which she made
- an exit supported by all the actors who were not already supporting some
- of the hysterical ladies in the background. They all deserved to have
- their salaries raised. The whole scene was a triumph—of art.
- </p>
- <p>
- The exact chronology of the crisis is worth noting. Lady Derby died on
- March 4th, and was buried on April 2nd. On April 8th Miss Farren took her
- farewell of the stage, and on May 1st she was married to the Earl of
- Derby. A satisfactory explanation of the indecent delay in the celebration
- of the marriage was forthcoming: his lordship had been suffering from an
- attack of gout.
- </p>
- <p>
- But if no one ventured to cast an aspersion upon his character or to
- accuse him of shilly-shallying in regard to the postponement of his
- nuptials until his wife had been nearly a whole month in her grave, there
- was a good deal of funny gossip set loose when, after a honeymoon of two
- days, the Earl and the Countess returned to London. This also was
- satisfactorily explained: the Countess was devoted to her mother!
- </p>
- <p>
- The marriage proved a very happy one, and thirty-two years passed before
- the Countess died. Her husband survived her by five years. He died in
- 1834, fifty-seven years after his first meeting with the actress, and
- forty-seven since he instituted “The Derby” race meeting, winning the
- first cup by his horse Sir Peter Teazle.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- THE PLOT OF A LADY NOVELIST
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>N the year 1790-1
- there was played in real life a singularly poor adaptation of an unwritten
- novel by one of the Minifie sisters—those sentimental ladies who,
- during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, provided the
- circulating libraries with several volumes of high-flown fiction. The
- adaptation of this unwritten novel possessed a good many of the most
- prominent features of the original, so that when it was brought to light
- there could be very little doubt as to the brain out of which it had been
- evolved. The result of the performance was so unsatisfactory as to compel
- one to believe that the worst possible way of producing a novel is to
- adapt it to suit the requirements of one's relations, forcing them to play
- in real life and in all earnest the parts assigned to them by the inventor
- of the plot.
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Minifie, the second of the sentimental sisters, had married in the
- year 1769 Colonel John Gunning, the brother of the two beautiful girls one
- of whom became Duchess of Hamilton, and later Duchess of Argyll, and the
- other Countess of Coventry. The result of the union was a daughter of
- considerable plainness, and people said that in this respect she resembled
- her mother's rather than her father's family. It seems that while the
- Gunning tradition was beauty, the Minifie tradition was a nose, and it
- soon became apparent that it was impossible to combine the two with any
- satisfactory artistic results. The young lady had made an honest attempt
- to do so, but her failure was emphatic. She had eyes that suggested in a
- far-off way the long-lashed orbs of her aunts, but that unlucky Minifie
- nose was so prominent a feature that it caused the attention of even the
- most indulgent critic to be riveted upon it, to the exclusion of the rest
- of her face. The charitably-disposed among her friends affirmed that she
- would be passably good-looking if it were not for her nose; the others
- said that she would be positively plain if it were not for her eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her father was probably that member of his family who had least brains:
- they made a soldier of him, and he married a lady novelist, closing an
- inglorious career by running off with his tailor's wife and having a writ
- issued against him for £5000. He took care to be at Naples, outside the
- jurisdiction of the English court, when it was issued, and he died before
- it could be served on him, which suggests that he may not have been so
- devoid of brains after all.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her mother (<i>née</i> Minifie) seems to have entertained the idea of
- making the girl work out a “plot” for her when she arrived at the
- regulation age of the sentimental heroine of those days, and this plot she
- invented with all her accustomed absence of skill. Her materials were a
- “glorious child”—this was how she described her daughter—with
- a gifted mother; a young cousin, heir to a dukedom and a large estate;
- and, lastly, the Gunning tradition. Could any novelist ask for more? A
- short time afterwards she did, however, and this was just where her art
- failed her. She did much to discourage the writers of fiction from
- endeavouring to work out their plots in real life.
- </p>
- <p>
- Catherine Gunning, the “glorious child,” being the niece of the Duchess of
- Argyll, her cousin was, of course, the Marquis of Lome; and as the Duchess
- had always kept up an intimate connection with the members of her father's
- family, even to the second generation, her son, Lord Lome, and Catherine
- Gunning had been a good deal together, not only when they were children,
- but also when they had reached the age when the novel-writer's hero and
- heroine begin to blossom. The girl's mother, doubtless having an idea that
- these very live young people were as plastic as the creatures of her
- fancy, thought to hasten on the <i>dénouement</i> of her story by
- whispering it to her friends. She whispered into more than one ear that
- Lord Lome and her daughter were betrothed, and such friends as received
- this information, strictly <i>sub rosa</i>, took care to spread it abroad—strictly
- <i>sub rosa</i> also. Now the aggregation of many confidential reports of
- this sort is what is termed “news,” so that in the course of a short time
- it was common property that Lord Lome was to marry his cousin, Catherine
- Gunning.
- </p>
- <p>
- Congratulations reached the young lady, which she neither quite accepted
- nor altogether rejected. She seems to have learned from her mother's
- novels that in such matters it is wisest for a young woman to be silent
- but pensive. And on the whole her behaviour was fairly consistent with
- that of the heroine which her mother meant her to be. Indeed, all that was
- needed to enable her to take the place of the heroine of a pleasant little
- love story was the proposal of the hero; and unhappily this formality had
- still to be reckoned with. Lord Lome had so paltry an appreciation of what
- was due to the art of the fiction-writer that he declined to play the part
- of the young hero of the story, and when people approached him on the
- subject he said that he had heard nothing about being accepted by Miss
- Gunning, and that he could not possibly be accepted until he had proposed
- to her. He seems to have acted with the discretion one would have looked
- for from the son of the Duchess of Argyll, and in the course of the year
- the reports of the possible union dwindled away, and people began to feel
- that their friends were untrustworthy gossips to have circulated a report
- solely on the evidence of a young lady's pensiveness.
- </p>
- <p>
- This was, however, as it turned out, but the opening chapter in the
- romance which the novelist-mother was working out. Indeed, it scarcely
- bears to be considered as a regular chapter, it was rather the prologue to
- the comedy which was played two years later with the same heroine, but for
- obvious reasons with a different hero. In the prologue there was scarcely
- visible any of the art of the novelist; in the comedy itself, however, her
- hand is constantly apparent, controlling the movements of at least one of
- her puppets; and very jerkily, too, that hand pulled the strings. The
- clumsiness in the construction of the plot prevented any one from
- sympathising with the authoress and stage-manager of the piece when its
- failure became known to the world in general, and to Horace Walpole in
- particular. Walpole could pretend a good deal. He pretended, for instance,
- that he knew at once that the Rowley poems, sent to him by Chatterton,
- were forgeries; and he pretended that he knew nothing of the marriage of
- his niece to the Duke of Gloucester until the public were apprised of the
- fact. He could not, however, even pretend that he sympathised with the
- failure of the Minifie plot. On the contrary, he gloats over the disgrace
- which, he declared, on this account fell upon the Gunning family. He hated
- the whole Gunning family, and he was plainly in ecstasies of delight when
- he believed that ruin had come upon them. “The two beautiful sisters were
- exalted almost as high as they could go,” he wrote. “Countessed and double
- duchessed, and now the family have dragged themselves down into the very
- dirt.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The “family” had of course done nothing of the sort. One member of the
- family had allowed herself to be made a fool of at the suggestion of her
- very foolish mother; her father had also been indiscreet, but there is a
- wide difference between all this and the family of Gunning “dragging
- themselves into the very dirt.” The result of the tricks of the lady
- novelist to marry her daughter to the heir to a dukedom was only to make
- every one roar with laughter, and no doubt the fatuous ladies felt greatly
- annoyed. But the Marquis of Lome did not seem to take the matter greatly
- to heart, and he was a member of the Gunning family; nor did the Duke of
- Hamilton show himself to be greatly perturbed, though he must have been
- somewhat jealous of the honour of the family to which his mother belonged.
- The position that the Gunning family had taken among the greatest families
- in the land rested upon too solid a foundation to be shaken by the
- foolishness of a lady novelist, who had married a Gunning. And now people
- who read the story of the “dragging in the dirt” only shrug their
- shoulders at the ridiculous figure cut by the actors in the shallow and
- sordid comedy, and laugh at the spiteful gibe of the prince of gossips,
- who played a congenial part in damning the product of the Minifie brain.
- </p>
- <p>
- Two years after the failure of the Lome plot startling whispers were once
- again heard in regard to Miss Gunning and the heir to another dukedom.
- This time it was the Marquis of Blandford who attracted the Minifie fancy.
- He was the Duke of Marlborough's heir, and was twenty-three years of age.
- Of course it was Mrs. Gunning (<i>née</i> Minifie) who was the first to
- make the announcement that the young people were greatly attached; and
- then followed—after the interval of a chapter or two—the lady
- novelist's declaration to her niece, a Mrs. Bowen, that Lord Blandford had
- proposed, and had been accepted by Miss Gunning. The date of the marriage
- had been fixed, and the draft deed of the settlements signed; but, as in
- the former “case,” the recipient of the news was told that she must regard
- the communication as strictly confidential, the fact being that although
- the arrangements for the match were so fully matured, yet General Gunning—he
- had recently been made a general—had not been let into the secret.
- </p>
- <p>
- It must have seemed a little queer to Mrs. Bowen to learn that her uncle
- had not been made acquainted with the good luck that was in store for his
- daughter. The signing of marriage deeds in the absence of the bride's
- father must surely have struck her as being a trifle irregular. However
- this may be, she seems to have treated the communication as strictly
- confidential by at once proceeding to spread abroad the news that it
- contained. It reached the ears of several people of distinction before
- long. General Conway heard of it, and from a quarter that seemed to him
- absolutely trustworthy. He passed it round to Walpole and the Court
- circle. The Duke of Argyll, as the uncle of the young lady most interested
- in the match, was apprised of it in due course, and on appealing to
- headquarters—that is to say, to Mrs. Gunning—for confirmation
- or denial of the report, learned that the marriage had indeed been
- “arranged,” but the question of settlements remained in abeyance.
- </p>
- <p>
- Shortly afterwards there came rumours that there were obstacles in the way
- of the marriage, and Miss Gunning, on being questioned by some of her
- friends, confessed that it was the parents of her lover who were unkind:
- young Lord Blandford was burning with anxiety to call her his own, but the
- Duke and Duchess belonged unfortunately to that type of parent to be found
- in so many novels in which the course of true love runs anything but
- smooth.
- </p>
- <p>
- Strange to say, it was just at this point that a letter appeared in the <i>Advertiser</i>,
- signed by General Gunning, apprising the world of the fact that the
- Gunnings were one of the noblest families in existence, the writer
- actually being able to trace his ancestry up to Charlemagne.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was while people were so laughing over this letter as to cause him to
- declare it to be a forgery, that the General became suspicious of the
- genuineness of his daughter's statements in regard to her <i>affaire de
- cour</i>. When a blunt old soldier finds a letter bearing his signature in
- the papers, well knowing that he never wrote such a letter, he is apt to
- question the good faith even of his nearest and dearest. It is certain, at
- any rate, that the descendant of Charlemagne had an uneasy feeling that
- any woman who wrote novels was not to be implicitly trusted in the affairs
- of daily life. His mind running on forged letters, he commanded his
- daughter to submit to him her correspondence with her lover.
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Gunning at once complied, and he sat down to read the lot. The result
- was not to allay his suspicions. The letters read remarkably well, and
- contained the conventional outpourings of an ardent lover to the object of
- his affections. But to the simple soldier's mind they read just too well:
- some of them were in the style of a novel-writer with whom he was
- acquainted—imperfectly, it would appear, or he would have suspected
- something long before. Retaining the precious “pacquet” he awaited
- developments.
- </p>
- <p>
- He had not long to wait. Another contribution to the correspondence which
- he had in his hand came to his daughter, and was passed on to him.
- Noticing in it some doubtful features, he came to the conclusion that it
- was necessary to get to the bottom of the affair in the most
- straightforward way. He leapt to the bottom of it by sending the whole
- “pacquet” to the young Marquis of Blandford, asking him peremptorily if he
- had written the letters.
- </p>
- <p>
- He got a reply to the effect that a few of the letters were his—they
- were the ordinary ones, courteous, but in no way effusive—but that
- the greater number had not come from him. His lordship did not seem to
- think that common politeness demanded his expressing his hearty
- concurrence with the tone and sentiments contained in these same letters.
- Now in the judgment of a novelist of the intellectual calibre of the
- Minifie sisters this is exactly what a young gentleman would do when
- playing the part of the hero of a romance, so that it would appear that
- General Gunning was fully justified in coming to the conclusion that the
- whole scheme—the whole piece of scheming—was the design of his
- wife—that it represented an attempt on her part to force one of her
- “plots” upon some real personages. Dull-minded man though he certainly
- was, he must have perceived that his wife's plan was to compel Lord
- Blandford to act the part of the hero of her sentimental imagination, and
- when confronted with a parcel of forged letters, in every one of which
- there was a confession of love for Miss Gunning, to bow his head meekly,
- as any gentleman (of her imagination) would, and say, “Those are my
- letters, and they express nothing but the most honourable sentiments of my
- heart.”
- </p>
- <p>
- But as it so happened the young Lord Blandford was not a young gentleman
- of this particular stamp. He seems to have been almost as practical as his
- great ancestor, who, out of the proceeds of his first love intrigue,
- bought an annuity for himself. Hence the fiasco of the Minifie plot.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Minifie plot, however, was not worked out in one act only, and an
- insignificant prologue. The resources of the lady's imagination were by no
- means exhausted by the failure of Lord Blandford to act up to the heroic
- part assigned to him. He seems to have talked a good deal to his friends
- about the forged letters, and the Duke of Argyll, the young lady's uncle,
- took the matter up as an important member by marriage of the family. He
- applied to his niece for an explanation of the whole affair; and her
- father seems to have agreed with him in thinking that if the girl was ever
- to hold up her head again it would be necessary for her to bring forward
- some evidence to prove what she still asserted, namely, that the letters
- had been written to her by Lord Blandford—this “pacquet” of letters
- played as important a part in the story of Miss Gunning as the “Casquet
- Letters” did in the history of Queen Mary—and that they were written
- with the concurrence and approbation of the Duke and Duchess of
- Marlborough. The Duke and Duchess had, she affirmed, encouraged her by the
- most unmistakable means to believe that they were extremely anxious to see
- her married to their son.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was then suggested—Horace Walpole, who gloats over the whole
- story in a letter to one of the Berrys, does not say by whom—that
- the young woman should draw up a narrative of the progress of the
- attachment professed for her by Lord Blandford, and of the particular acts
- of encouragement for which she alleged the Duke and Duchess were
- responsible, leading her to feel sure that she was a <i>persona grata</i>
- with them. It was hoped by the Duke of Argyll and General Gunning that the
- girl would be rehabilitated in the eyes of society by the production of
- the Duke of Marlborough's formal assent to the statements made by Miss
- Gunning in endeavouring to exculpate herself. Miss Gunning assenting—after
- a consultation with her mother, we may be sure—a “narrative” was
- accordingly prepared by the young lady, and in it there was the ingenuous
- confession that although she had been unable to resist so dazzling an
- offer as that of Lord Blandford, she had not wavered in her affection for
- her cousin, the Marquis of Lome.
- </p>
- <p>
- Here we have the true Minifie touch of sentimentality, and we cannot doubt
- that the remaining portion of the plot was due to her clumsy ingenuity.
- </p>
- <p>
- This narrative was sent to the Duke of Marlborough, with the following
- letter from General Gunning:
- </p>
- <p>
- “St. James's Place,
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>3 rd February</i>, 1791.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My Lord,—I have the honour of addressing this letter to your Grace
- not with the smallest wish after what has passed of having a marriage
- established between Lord Blandford and my daughter, or of claiming any
- promise or proposal to that effect, but merely to know whether your Grace
- or the Duchess of Marlborough have it in recollection that your Graces or
- Lord Blandford ever gave my daughter reason to think a marriage was once
- intended.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My motive for giving this trouble arises merely from a desire of removing
- any imputation from my daughter's character, as if she had entertained an
- idea of such importance without any reasonable foundation.
- </p>
- <p>
- “For my own satisfaction, and that of my particular friends who have been
- induced to believe the reports of the intended marriage, I have desired my
- daughter to draw up an accurate narrative of every material circumstance
- on which that belief was founded.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This narrative I have the honour of transmitting to your Grace for your
- own perusal, and that of the Duchess of Marlborough and Lord Blandford,
- thinking it highly suitable that you should have an early opportunity of
- examining it—and I beg leave to request that your Grace will, after
- examination, correct or alter such passages as may appear either to your
- Grace, the Duchess of Marlborough, or Lord Blandford, to be erroneously
- stated.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have the honour to be,
- </p>
- <p>
- “With the greatest respect, my Lord,
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your Grace's most humble and
- </p>
- <p>
- “Most obedient servant,
- </p>
- <p>
- “John Gunning.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This letter was dispatched by a groom to its destination at Blenheim, and
- within half an hour of his delivering it, His Grace, according to the
- groom, had handed him a reply for General Gunning. This document, which
- the groom said he had received from the Duke, was forwarded, with a copy
- of the letter to which it constituted a most satisfactory reply, to a
- small and very select committee that had, it would seem, been appointed to
- investigate and report upon the whole story. It must also be quoted in
- full, in order that its point may be fully appreciated by any one
- interested in this very remarkable story.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Blenheim.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir,—I take the earliest opportunity to acknowledge the receipt of
- your letter, and to answer it with that explicitness you are so much
- entitled to. From the first of the acquaintance of the D———s
- of Marlborough and myself had with Miss Gunning, we were charmed with her,
- and it was with infinite satisfaction we discovered <i>Blanford's</i>
- sentiments similar to our own. It had long been the wish of both to see
- him married to some amiable woman. Your daughter was the one we had fixed
- on, and we had every reason to suppose the object of his tenderest
- affections, and, from the conduct of both himself and his family, yourself
- and Miss Gunning had undoubtedly every right to look on a marriage as
- certain. Indeed when I left town last summer, I regarded her as my future
- daughter, and I must say it is with sorrow I relinquish the idea. The
- actions of young men are not always to be accounted for; and it is with
- regret that I acknowledge my son has been particularly unaccountable in
- his. I beg that you will do me the justice to believe that I shall ever
- think myself your debtor for the manner in which you have conducted
- yourself in this affair, and that I must always take an interest in the
- happiness of Miss Gunning. I beg, if she has not conceived a disgust for
- the whole of my family, she will accept the sincerest good wishes of the
- Duchess and my daughters.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have the honour to remain,
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir,
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your much obliged and
- </p>
- <p>
- “Most obedient, humble servant,
- </p>
- <p>
- “Marlborough.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Now be it remembered that both these letters were forwarded to the
- committee with the young lady's narrative, to be considered by them in the
- same connection, at Argyll House, where their sittings were to be held.
- </p>
- <p>
- What was to be said in the face of such documentary evidence as this?
- Those members of the committee who hoped that the girl's statement of her
- case would be in some measure borne out by the Duke of Marlborough could
- never have hoped for so triumphant a confirmation of her story as was
- contained in His Grace's letter. It seemed as if the investigation of the
- committee would be of the simplest character; handing them such a letter,
- accompanying her own ingenuous narrative, it was felt that she had
- completely vindicated her position.
- </p>
- <p>
- But suddenly one member of the committee—Walpole in the letter to
- Miss Berry affirms that he was this one—ventured to point out that
- in the Duke's letter the name <i>Blandford</i> was spelt without the
- middle letter <i>d</i>. “That was possible in the hurry of doing justice,”
- wrote Walpole. But the moment that this pin-puncture of suspicion appeared
- in the fabric of the lady's defence it was not thought any sacrilege to
- try to pick another hole in it. The wax with which the letter was sealed
- was black, and the members of the council asked one another whom the
- Marlborough family were in mourning for, that they should seal their
- letter in this fashion. No information on this point was forthcoming. (It
- is strange if Walpole did not suggest that they were in mourning over the
- defunct reputation of the young lady.) If the Duke of Argyll was present,
- it can well be believed that, after the members of the council had looked
- at each other, there should be silence in that room, on one wall of which
- we may believe there was hanging the splendid portrait of Elizabeth,
- Duchess of Argyll and Baroness Hamilton of Hameldon, in her own right,
- painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. The lady was dying at her Scotch home when
- this investigation into the conduct of her niece was being conducted.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was probably a relief to every one present when the suggestion was made
- that the Duke of Marlborough's second son was in town, and if sent for he
- might be able to throw some light upon the subject of the mourning wax or
- some other questionable point in the same connection. Although it was now
- close upon midnight a messenger was dispatched for the young man—probably
- his whereabouts at midnight would be known with greater certainty than at
- midday. At any rate he was quickly found, and repaired in all haste to
- Argyll House. He was brought before the committee and shown the letter
- with the black wax. He burst out laughing, and declared that the writing
- bore not the least resemblance to that of his father, the Duke of
- Marlborough.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was nothing more to be said. The council adjourned <i>sine die</i>
- without drawing up any report, so far as can be ascertained.
- </p>
- <p>
- But the full clumsiness of the Minifie “plot” was revealed the next day,
- for General Gunning received a letter from the Captain Bowen whose name
- has already entered into this narrative, telling him that his wife, the
- General's niece, had a short time before received from Miss Gunning a
- letter purporting to be a copy of one which had come to her from the Duke
- of Marlborough, and begging her to get her husband to make a fair copy of
- it, and return it by the groom. Captain Bowen added that he had complied
- with his wife's request to this effect, but he had written “<i>copy</i>”
- at the top and “<i>signed M</i>.” at the bottom, as is usual in engrossing
- copies of documents, to prevent the possibility of a charge of forgery
- being brought against the copyist.
- </p>
- <p>
- The letter which the girl wrote to Mrs. Bowen was made the subject of an
- affidavit shortly afterwards, and so became public property. It is so
- badly composed that one cannot but believe it was dictated by her mother,
- though the marvellous spelling must have been Miss Gunning's own. The fact
- that, after making up a story of her love for Lord Lome, and of the
- encouragement she received from the Marlborough family in respect of Lord
- Blandford, she instructed Mrs. Bowen to keep the matter secret from her
- mother, confirms one's impression as to the part the lady must have played
- in the transaction. Miss Gunning wrote: “Neither papa or I have courage to
- tell mama, for she detests the person dearest to me on earth.”
- </p>
- <p>
- But however deficient in courage her papa was in the matter of acquainting
- his wife with so ordinary an incident as was referred to in this letter,
- he did not shrink from what he believed to be his duty when it was made
- plain to him that his daughter and his wife had been working out a “plot”
- in real life that necessitated the forging of a letter. He promptly
- bundled both wife and daughter out of his house, doubtless feeling that
- although the other personages in the romance which his wife was hoping to
- weave, had by no means acted up to the parts she had meant them to play,
- there was no reason why he should follow their example. It must be
- acknowledged that as a type of the bluff old soldier, simple enough to be
- deceived by the inartistic machinations of a foolish wife, but inexorable
- when finding his credulity imposed upon, he played his part extremely
- well. At the same time such people as called him a ridiculous old fool for
- adopting so harsh a measure toward his erring child, whose tricks he had
- long winked at, were perhaps not to be greatly blamed.
- </p>
- <p>
- The old Duchess of Bedford at once received the outcasts and provided them
- with a home; and then Mrs. Gunning had leisure to concoct a manifesto in
- form of an open letter to the Duke of Argyll, in which, after exhorting
- His Grace to devote the remainder of his life to unravelling the mystery
- which she affirmed (though no one else could have done so) enshrouded the
- whole affair of the letter, she went on to denounce the simple-hearted
- General for his meanness—and worse—in matters domestic. He had
- never been a true husband to her, she declared, and he was even more
- unnatural as a father. As for Captain Bowen and his wife, the writer of
- the manifesto showed herself to be upon the brink of delirium when she
- endeavoured to find words severe enough to describe their treachery. They
- were inhuman in their persecution of her “glorious child,” she said, and
- then she went on to affirm her belief that the incriminating letters had
- been forged by the Bowens, and the rest of the story invented by them with
- the aid of the General to ruin her and her “glorious child.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Captain Bowen thought fit to reply to this amazing production. He did so
- through the prosaic form of a number of affidavits. The most important of
- these was that sworn by one William Pearce, groom to General Gunning. In
- this document he deposed that when he was about to start for Blenheim with
- the “pacquet” for the Duke of Marlborough, Miss Gunning had caught him and
- compelled him to hand over the “pacquet” to her, and that she had then
- given him another letter, sealed with black, bearing the Marlborough arms,
- instructing him to deliver it to her father, pretending that he had
- received it at Blenheim.
- </p>
- <p>
- In spite of all this Miss Gunning continued to affirm her entire
- innocence, and even went the length—according to Walpole—of
- swearing before a London magistrate that she was innocent. “It is but a
- burlesque part of this wonderful tale,” adds Walpole, “that old crazy
- Bedford exhibits Miss every morning on the Causeway in Hyde Park and
- declares her <i>protégée</i> some time ago refused General Trevelyan.” But
- “crazy old Bedford” went much further in her craziness than this, for she
- actually wrote to the Marquis of Lome trying to patch up a match between
- Miss Gunning and himself. Immediately afterwards the town was startled by
- the report that a duel was impending between Lord Lome and Lord Blandford,
- the former maintaining that it was his duty to uphold the honour of his
- cousin, which had been somewhat shaken by the course adopted by the
- Marlborough heir. Of course no duel took place, and the young men simply
- laughed when their attention was called to the statement in print.
- </p>
- <p>
- How much further these alarums and excursions (on the Causeway) would have
- proceeded it would be impossible to tell, the fact being that Captain
- Bowen and his wife gave notice of their intention to institute proceedings
- against the Gunnings, mother and daughter, for libel. This brought <i>l'affaire
- Gunning</i> to a legitimate conclusion, for the ladies thought it
- advisable to fly to France.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The town is very dull without them,” wrote Walpole to one of the Berrys,
- enclosing a copy of a really clever skit in verse, after the style of “The
- House that Jack Built,” ridiculing the whole affair. When Mrs. Gunning and
- her daughter returned, after the lapse of several months, the old Duchess
- of Bedford took them up once more; but the town declined to take any
- further notice of them. It was not until her father and mother had been
- dead for some years that Miss Gunning married Major Plunkett, an Irish
- rebel, who fled after the rising in 1798. She lived with him happily
- enough for twenty years, endeavouring to atone for the indiscretion of her
- girlhood by writing novels. It is doubtful if many of her readers
- considered such expiation wholly adequate, considering how foolish she had
- been. One act of folly can hardly be atoned for by another. But her
- intention was good, and her faults, including her novels, have long ago
- been forgiven her by being forgotten.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- TRAGEDY WITH A TWINKLE
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>N the summer of
- 1770 there arrived at the town of Lisle a coach containing three ladies
- and one man, followed by a travelling chaise with servants and luggage. Of
- the ladies, one was approaching middle age, handsome and elegant; the
- other two were her daughters, and both were extremely beautiful and
- graceful girls, under twenty years of age. The man was a small,
- middle-aged person, with a face which one would have called plain if it
- had not been that the protruding of his upper lip and the twinkle in his
- eyes suggested not plainness, but comedy. The very soul of comedy was in
- the gravity of his face; but it was that sort which is not apparent to all
- the world. It was the soul of comedy, not the material part; and most
- people are disposed to deny the possibility of comedy's existing except in
- juxtaposition with the grin through the horse-collar. Solemnity in a face,
- with a twinkle in the eye—that is an expression which comedy may
- wear without arousing the curiosity—certainly without exciting the
- laughter—of the multitude. And this was exactly the form that the
- drama of this man's life assumed; only it was tragedy with a twinkle.
- Tragedy with a twinkle—that was Oliver Goldsmith.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0010" id="linkimage-0010"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0203.jpg" alt="0203 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0203.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- The vehicles drew up in the courtyard of the hotel in the square, and Dr.
- Goldsmith, after dismounting and helping the ladies to dismount, gave
- orders in French to the landlord in respect of the luggage, and made
- inquiries as to the table d'hôte. Shown to their respective rooms, the
- members of the party did not meet again for some time, and then it was in
- the private <i>salle</i> which they had engaged, looking out upon the
- square. The two girls were seated at a window, and their mother was
- writing letters at a table at one side.
- </p>
- <p>
- When Dr. Goldsmith entered we may be pretty sure that he had exchanged his
- travelling dress for a more imposing toilet, and we may be equally certain
- that these two girls had something merry to say about the cut or the
- colour of his garments—we have abundant record of their <i>badinage</i>
- bearing upon his flamboyant liking for colour, and of his retorts in the
- same spirit. We have seen him strutting to and fro in gay apparel,
- obtrusively calling attention to the beauty of his waistcoat and speaking
- in solemn exaggeration of its importance. The girls were well aware of
- this form of his humour; they appreciated it to the full, and responded to
- it in their merriment.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then there came the sound of martial music from the square, and the elder
- of the girls, opening the window on its hinges, looked out. A regiment of
- soldiers was turning into the square and would pass the hotel, she said.
- The two girls stood at one window and Goldsmith at another while the march
- past took place. It was not surprising that, glancing up and seeing the
- beautiful pair at the window, the mounted officers at the head of the
- regiment should feel flattered by the attention, nor was it unlikely that
- the others, taking the <i>pas</i> from their superiors, should look up and
- exchange expressions in admiration of the beauty of the young ladies. It
- is recorded that they did so, and that, when the soldiers had marched off,
- the little man at the other window walked up and down the room in anger
- “that more attention had been paid to them than to him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- These are the words of Boswell in concluding his account of the episode,
- which, by the way, he printed with several other stories in illustration
- of the overwhelming vanity and extraordinary envy in Goldsmith's nature.
- As if any human being hearing such a story of the most complete curmudgeon
- would accept the words as spoken seriously! And yet Boswell printed it in
- all solemnity, and hoped that every one who read it would believe that
- Goldsmith, the happy-go-lucky Irishman, was eaten up with envy of the
- admiration given to the two exquisite girls on whom, by the way, be
- conferred immortality; for so long as English literature remains the names
- of the Jessamy Bride and Little Comedy will live. Yes, and so long as
- discriminating people read the story of Goldsmith's envious outburst they
- will not fail to see the true picture of what did actually take place in
- that room in the Lisle hotel—they will see the little man stalking
- up and down, that solemn face of his more solemn than ever, but the
- twinkle in his eyes revealing itself all the more brightly on this
- account, while he shakes his fists at the ladies and affirms that the
- officers were dolts and idiots to waste their time gazing at them when
- they had a chance “of seeing me, madam, me—<i>me!</i>” Surely every
- human being with the smallest amount of imagination will see the little
- man thumping his waistcoat, while the Miss Hornecks hold up their hands
- and go into fits of laughter at that whimsical Dr. Goldsmith, whom they
- had chosen to be their companion on that tour of theirs through France
- with their mother.
- </p>
- <p>
- And surely every one must see them in precisely the same attitude, when
- they read the story in Boswell's <i>Life of Johnson</i>, and notice what
- interpretation has been put upon it by the Scotsman—hands uplifted
- in amazement and faces “o'er-running with laughter” at the thought of how
- Mr. Boswell has, for the thousandth time, been made a fool of by some one
- who had picked up the story from themselves and had solemnly narrated it
- to Boswell. But in those days following the publication of the first
- edition of the <i>Life</i>, people were going about with uplifted hands,
- wondering if any man since the world began had ever been so befooled as
- Boswell.
- </p>
- <p>
- When the story appeared in <i>Johnson's Life</i> the two girls had been
- married for several years; but one of them at least had not forgotten the
- incident upon which it was founded; and upon its being repeated in
- Northcote's <i>Life of Reynolds</i>, she wrote to the biographer, assuring
- him that in this, as well as in other stories of the same nature, the
- expression on Goldsmith's face when he professed to be overcome by envy
- was such as left no one in doubt that he was jesting. But Croker, in spite
- of this, had the impudence to sneer at the explanation, and to attribute
- it to the good-nature of the lady. Mr. Croker seems to have had a special
- smile of his own for the weaknesses of ladies. This was the way he smiled
- when he was searching up old registries of their birth in his endeavour to
- prove that they had made themselves out to be six months younger than they
- really were. (Quite different, however, must his smile have been when he
- read Macaulay's Essay on Croker's edition of Boswell's <i>Life of Johnson</i>).
- But, unhappily for poor Goldsmith, Mr. Boswell was able to bring forward
- much stronger evidence of the consuming Vanity, the parent of Envy, with
- which his “honest Dr. Goldsmith” was afflicted. There was once an
- exhibition of puppets in Panton Street, and on some member of the
- distinguished company in which he, curiously enough for such a
- contemptible lout, constantly found himself, admiring the dexterity with
- which the wooden figure tossed a halbert, Goldsmith, we are gravely told,
- appeared annoyed and said: “Pshaw! I could do it as well myself!”
- Supposing that some one had said to Boswell, “After all, sir, perhaps Dr.
- Goldsmith could have done it as well himself,” would the man have tried to
- explain that the question was not whether Goldsmith or the puppet was the
- more dexterous, but whether it was possible to put any other construction
- upon Goldsmith's exclamation than that assumed by Mr. Boswell?
- </p>
- <p>
- Yet another instance is given of Goldsmith's envy, and this time the
- object of it is not a wooden figure, but Shakespeare himself. He could not
- bear, Dr. Beattie tells us, that so much admiration should be given to
- Shakespeare. Hearing this, we feel that we are on quite a different level.
- There is no jealousy rankling this time in Goldsmith's heart against a
- mere puppet. It is now a frantic passion of chagrin that Shakespeare
- should still receive the admiration of a chosen few!
- </p>
- <p>
- But such vanity as that so strikingly illustrated by this last told story,
- is, one must confess with feelings of melancholy, not yet wholly extinct
- among literary men. It would scarcely be believed—unless by Boswell
- or Beattie—that even in America a man with some reputation as a
- writer should deliberately ask people to assume that he himself was worthy
- of a place in a group that included not merely Shakespeare, but also
- Milton and Homer. “Gentlemen,” said this egregious person at a public
- dinner, “Gentlemen, think of the great writers who are dead and gone.
- There was Shakespeare, he is dead and gone; and Milton, alas! is no longer
- in the land of the living; Homer has been deceased for a considerable
- time, and I myself, gentlemen, am not feeling very well to-night.”
- </p>
- <p>
- What a pity it is that Beattie has gone the way of so many other great
- writers. If he could only have been laid on to Mark Twain we should have
- the most comic biography ever written.
- </p>
- <p>
- Goldsmith was, according to the great Boswell and the many lesser Boswells
- of his day, the most contemptible wretch that ever wrote the finest poem
- of the century, the finest comedy of the century, the finest romance of
- the century. He was a silly man, an envious man, an empty-headed man, a
- stuttering fool, an idiot (of the inspired variety), an awkward lout, a
- shallow pedant, and a generally ridiculous person; and yet here we find
- him the chosen companion of two of the most beautiful and charming young
- ladies in England on their tour through France, and on terms of such
- intimacy with them and their brother, an officer in the Guards and the
- son-in-law of a peer, that nicknames are exchanged between them. A
- singular position for an Irish lout to find himself in!
- </p>
- <p>
- Even before he is known to fame, and familiar only with famine, he is
- visited in his garret by Dr. Percy, a member of the great Northumberland
- family at whose town house he lived. So much for the empty-headed fool who
- never opened his mouth except to put his foot in it, as a countryman of
- his said about quite another person. He was a shallow prig, and yet when
- “the Club” was started not one of the original members questioned his
- right to a place among the most fastidious of the community, although
- Garrick—to the shame of Johnson be it spoken—was not admitted
- for nine years. Boswell—to the shame of Johnson be it spoken—was
- allowed to crawl in after an exclusion of ten. According to his numerous
- detractors, this Goldsmith was one of the most objectionable persons
- possible to imagine, and yet we find him the closest friend of the
- greatest painter of the day and the greatest actor of the day. He
- associates with peers on the friendliest terms, and is the idol of their
- daughters. He is accused, on the one hand, of aiming at being accounted a
- Macaroni and being extravagant in his dress, and yet he has such a
- reputation for slovenliness in this respect that it is recorded that Dr.
- Johnson, who certainly never was accused of harbouring unworthy
- aspirations to be accounted a beau, made it a point of putting on his best
- garments—he may even have taken the extreme step of fastening up his
- garters—before visiting Goldsmith, in order, as he explained, that
- the latter might have no excuse for his slovenliness. We are also told
- that Goldsmith made a fool of himself when he got on his feet to make a
- speech, and yet it is known that he travelled through Europe, winning the
- hospitality of more than one university by the display of his skill as a
- disputant. Again, none of his innumerable traits of awkwardness is so
- widely acknowledged as his conversational, and yet the examples which
- survive of his impromptu wit are of the most finished type; and (even when
- the record is made by Boswell), when he set himself out to take opposite
- sides to Johnson, he certainly spoke better sense than his antagonist,
- though he was never so loud. It is worth noting that nearly all the hard
- things which Johnson is reported to have said respecting Goldsmith were
- spoken almost immediately after one of these disputes. Further, we are
- assured that Goldsmith's learning was of the shallowest order, and yet
- when he was appointed Professor of History to the Royal Academy we do not
- hear that any voice was raised in protest.
- </p>
- <p>
- What is a simple reader to think when brought face to face with such
- contradictory accounts of the man and his attainments? Well, possibly the
- best one can do is to say, as Fanny Burney did, that Goldsmith was an
- extraordinary man.
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course, so far as his writings are concerned there is no need for one
- to say much. They speak for themselves, and readers can form their own
- opinion on every line and every sentence that has come from his pen. There
- is no misunderstanding the character of <i>The Traveller</i> or <i>The
- Deserted Village</i> or <i>The Vicar of Wakefield</i>. These are
- acknowledged by the whole world to be among the most precious legacies of
- the eighteenth century to posterity. Who reads nowadays, except out of
- curiosity, such classics as <i>Tristram Shandy, Clarissa Harlow, Evelina,
- or Rasselas?</i> But who has not read, and who does not still read for
- pleasure, <i>The Vicar of Wakefield?</i> Johnson's laborious poem, <i>The
- Vanity of Human Wishes</i>, now only exists as an example of the last gasp
- of the didactic in verse; but we cannot converse without quoting—sometimes
- unconsciously—from <i>The Deserted Village</i> When the
- actor-manager of a theatre wishes to show how accomplished a company he
- has at his disposal he produces <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i>, and he would
- do so more frequently only he is never quite able to make up his mind
- whether he himself should play the part of old Hardcastle, Tony Lumpkin,
- Young Marlow, or Diggory. But what other eighteenth-century comedy of all
- produced previous to the death of Goldsmith can any manager revive
- nowadays with any hope of success? Colman of the eighteenth century is as
- dead as Congreve of the seventeenth; and what about the masterpieces of
- Cumberland, and Kelly, and Whitehead, and the rest? What about the Rev.
- Mr. Home's <i>Douglas</i>, which, according to Dr. Johnson, was equal to
- Shakespeare at his best? They have all gone to the worms, and these not
- even bookworms—their very graves are neglected. But <i>She Stoops to
- Conquer</i> is never revived without success—never without a modern
- audience recognising the fact that its characters are not the puppets of
- the playwright, but the creations of Nature. It is worthy of mention, too,
- that the play which first showed the capacity of an actress whose name was
- ever at the head of the list of actresses of the last generation, was
- founded on <i>The Vicar of Wakefield.</i> It was Miss Ellen Terry's
- appearance in <i>Olivia</i> in 1878 that brought about her connection with
- the ever memorable Lyceum management as an associate of the greatest actor
- of our day.
- </p>
- <p>
- These things speak for themselves, and prove incontestably that Goldsmith
- was head and shoulders above all those writers with whom he was on
- intimate terms. But the mystery of the contradictory accounts which we
- have of the man himself and his ways remains as unsolved as ever.
- </p>
- <p>
- Yes, unless we assume one thing, namely—that the majority of the
- people about him were incapable of understanding him. Is it going too far
- to suggest that, as Daniel Defoe was sent to the pillory because his
- ironic jest in <i>The Shortest Way with the Dissenters</i> was taken in
- earnest, and as good people shuddered at the horrible proposal of Swift
- that Irish babies should be cooked and eaten, so Goldsmith's peculiarities
- of humour were too subtle to be in any degree appreciated by most of the
- people with whom he came in contact in England?
- </p>
- <p>
- In Ireland there would be no chance of his being misunderstood; for there
- no form that his humour assumed would be regarded as peculiar. Irony is a
- figure of speech so largely employed by the inhabitants in some parts that
- people who have lived there for any length of time have heard whole
- conversations carried on by two or three men without the slightest
- divergence from this tortuous form of expression into the straight path of
- commonplace English. And all this time there was no expression but one of
- complete gravity on the faces of the speakers; a stranger had no clue
- whatsoever to the game of words that was being played before him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Another fully recognised form of humour which prevails in Ireland is even
- more difficult for a stranger to follow; its basis consists in mystifying
- another person, not for the sake of getting a laugh from a third who has
- been let into the secret, but simply for the satisfaction of the mystifier
- himself. The forms that such a scheme of humour may assume are various.
- One of the most common is an affectation of extraordinary stupidity. It is
- usually provoked by the deliverance of a platitude by a stranger. The
- humourist pretends that he never heard such a statement before, and asks
- to have it repeated. When this is done, there is usually a pause in which
- the profoundest thought is suggested; then the clouds are seen to clear
- away, and the perplexity on the man's face gives way to intelligence; he
- has grasped the meaning of the phrase at last, and he announces his
- victory with sparkling eyes, and forthwith puts quite a wrong construction
- upon the simplest words. His chuckling is brought to a sudden stop by the
- amazed protest of the victim against the suggested solution of the
- obvious. Thus, with consummate art, the man is led on to explain at
- length, with ridiculous emphasis, the exact meaning of his platitude; but
- it is all to no purpose. The humourist shakes his head; he pretends that
- the cleverness of the other is too much for him to grasp all in a moment;
- it's a fine thing to have learning, to be sure, but these things may be
- best not meddled with by ignorant creatures like himself; and so he goes
- off murmuring his admiration for the fine display of wisdom that comes so
- easy-like from the man whom he has been fooling.
- </p>
- <p>
- This form of humour is indulged in by some Irishmen simply for the
- satisfaction it gives them to indulge in it. They never hurry off to
- acquaint a neighbour with what they have done, and they are quite pleased
- with the thought that the person on whom they have been imposing will tell
- the whole story of their extraordinary obtuseness to some one else; it
- never strikes them that that some one else may fail to see through the
- trick, and actually be convinced of the existence of their obtuseness. But
- if such a possibility did occur to them, they would be all the better
- pleased: they would feel that they had fooled two instead of one.
- </p>
- <p>
- But, of course, the most widely recognised form of Irish humour is that
- known as the “bull.” This is the delivery of a paradox so obvious as to be
- detected—after a brief consideration—by an Englishman or even—after
- an additional space for thought—by a Scotsman. But where the fun
- comes in is (in the Irishman's eyes) when the others assume that the
- humour of the bull is involuntary; and this is just what the Englishman
- has been doing, and what the Irishman has been encouraging him to do, for
- centuries. The Englishman is so busy trying to make it appear that he is
- cleverer than he really is, he cannot see the humour of any man trying to
- make out that he is more stupid than he really is. Let no one fancy for a
- moment that the humour of an Irish bull is involuntary. It is a form of
- expression that may be due to a peculiar twist in the Irishman's mind—indeed,
- every form of humour may be said to be due to a peculiar twist of the mind—but
- it is as much a figure of speech as irony or satire. “Blarney” and
- “palaver” are other forms of speech in which the Irish of some generations
- ago indulged with great freedom, and both are essentially Irish and
- essentially humorous, though occasionally borrowed and clumsily worn on
- the other side of the Channel, just as the bernous of the Moor is worn by
- an English missionary when lecturing in the village schoolroom (with a
- magic-lantern) on The Progress of Christianity in Morocco.
- </p>
- <p>
- It would be interesting to make a scientific inquiry into the origin and
- the maintenance of all these forms of expression among the Irish; but it
- is unnecessary to do so in this place. It is enough if we remind English
- readers of the existence of such forms even in the present day, when there
- is so little need for their display. It can without difficulty be
- understood by any one, however superficially acquainted with the history
- of Ireland for the past thousand years, that “blarney” and “palaver” were
- as necessary to the existence of the natives of the island as suspicion
- and vigilance were to the existence of the invaders. But it is not so
- apparent why Irishmen should be given to rush into the extremes of
- bragging on the one hand, and self-depreciation on the other. Bragging is,
- however, as much an endowment of Nature for the protection of a species or
- a race as is imitation or mimicry. The Irishman who was able by the
- exercise of this gift to intimidate the invaders, escaped a violent death
- and transmitted his art to his children. The practice of the art of
- self-depreciation was quite as necessary for the existence of the Irish
- race up to the time of the passing of the first Land Act. For several
- generations an Irishman was not allowed to own a horse of greater value
- than five pounds; and every Irish agriculturist who improved the miserable
- cabin which he was supposed to share with his pigs and his fowl, might
- rest certain that his rent would be raised out of all proportion to his
- improvements. In these circumstances it can easily be understood that it
- was accounted a successful joke for a man who was doing tolerably well to
- put on a poor face when in the presence of an inquiry agent of the absent
- landlord—to run down all his own efforts and to depreciate generally
- his holding, and thus to save himself from the despicable treatment which
- was meted out to the unfortunate people by the conquerors of their
- country.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is not necessary to do more than make these suggestions to a scientific
- investigator who may be disposed to devote some time to the question of
- the origin of certain forms of Irish humour; it is enough for us, in
- considering the mystery of that typical Irishman, Oliver Goldsmith, to
- know that such forms of humour as we have specified have an actual
- existence. Such knowledge is a powerful illuminant to a reader of
- Boswell's and Beattie's stories of the stupidity of Goldsmith. A fine
- flood of light is thrown upon the apparent mystery of the inspiration of
- this idiot—of this man “who wrote like an angel and talked like poor
- poll.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Goldsmith was just too successful in maintaining that gravity which is the
- very essence of those forms of humour in which he was constantly indulging
- for his own satisfaction; the mask of gravity was such a good fit that the
- short-sighted people who were around him never penetrated it. He was
- making fools of the people about him, never giving a thought to the
- possibility that they would transmit to posterity the impression which his
- attitude conveyed to them, which was that he was a shallow fool.
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course, it would be as absurd to contend that Goldsmith never made a
- fool of himself as it would be to assume that Johnson never made a fool of
- himself, or that Boswell ever failed to do so. The occasions upon which he
- made himself ridiculous must have been numerous, but out of the many
- incidents which Boswell and Beattie and Cooke and the others bring forward
- as proofs of his stupidity there are few that will not bear to be
- interpreted as instances of his practice of a form of humour well known in
- Ireland. If his affectation of chagrin at the admiration given to the
- Panton Street puppets, followed by the boast, “I could do it as well
- myself,” was not humorous, then indeed there is nothing humorous under the
- sun. If his object of setting the room roaring with laughter was not
- achieved the night when at the club he protested that the oratory of Burke
- was nothing—that all oratory, as a matter of fact, was only a knack—and
- forthwith stood upon a chair and began to stutter, all that can be said is
- that the famous club at Gerrard Street was more stolid than could be
- believed. If his strutting about the room where he and his friends were
- awaiting a late-comer to dinner, entreating Johnson and the rest to pay
- particular attention to the cut of his new peach-bloom coat, and declaring
- that Filby, his tailor, had told him that when any one asked him who had
- made the garment he was not to forget Filby's address, did not help
- materially to enliven the tedium of that annoying wait, all that can be
- said is that Thrale, as well as Boswell, must have been of the party.
- </p>
- <p>
- If a novelist, anxious to depict a typical humorous Irishman, were to show
- his hero acting as Boswell says Goldsmith acted, would not every reader
- acknowledge that he was true to the character of a comical Irishman? If a
- playwriter were to put the scene on the stage, would any one in the
- audience fail to see that the Goldsmith of the piece was fooling? Every
- one in the club—Boswell best of all—was aware of the fact that
- Goldsmith had the keenest admiration for Burke, and that he would be the
- last man in the world to decry his powers. As for the peach-bloom coat, it
- had been the butt of much jesting on the part of his friends; the elder of
- the Miss Hornecks had written him a letter of pretty “chaff” about it, all
- of which he took in good part. He may have bought the coat originally
- because he liked the tint of the velvet; but assuredly when he found that
- it could be made the subject of a jest he did not hesitate to jest upon it
- himself. How many times have we not seen in Ireland a man behave in
- exactly the same way under similar conditions—a boisterous young
- huntsman who had put on pink for the first time, and was strutting with
- much pride before an admiring group of servants, every one of whom had
- some enthusiastic remark to make about the fit of the coat, until at last
- the youth, pointing out the perfection of the gilt buttons, murmured: “Oh,
- but isn't this a great day for Ireland!”
- </p>
- <p>
- What a pity it was that Mr. Boswell had not been present at such a scene!
- Can we not hear his comments upon the character of the young man who had
- actually been so carried away by his vanity that he was heard to express
- the opinion that the fortunes of his country would be materially affected
- by the fact of the buttons of his new coat being gilt? (It was this same
- Mr. Boswell, the critic of Goldsmith's all too attractive costume, who,
- when going to see Pitt for the first time, put on Corsican native dress,
- pretending that he did so in order to interest Pitt in General Paoli.)
- </p>
- <p>
- In reading these accounts of Goldsmith's ways and the remarks of his
- associates it must be noticed that some of these gentlemen had now and
- again an uneasy impression that there was more in the poet's stupidity
- than met the eye. Sir Joshua Reynolds was his closest friend, and it was
- the business of the painter to endeavour to get below the surface of his
- sitters. The general idea that prevails in the world is that he was rather
- successful in his attempts to reproduce, not merely their features, but
- their characters as well; and Sir Joshua saw enough beneath the rude
- exterior of the man to cause him to feel toward Goldsmith as he felt for
- none of his other friends. When the news of his death was brought to the
- painter, he laid down his brushes and spent the day in seclusion. When it
- is remembered that he spent every day of the week, not even excepting
- Sunday, in his studio, the depth of his grief for the loss of his friend
- will be understood. Upon more than one occasion Reynolds asserted that
- Goldsmith was diverting himself by trying to make himself out to be more
- stupid than he really was. Malone, whose judgment was rarely at fault,
- whether it was exercised in the detection of fraud or in the discovery of
- genius, was in perfect agreement with Reynolds on this point, and was
- always ready to affirm that Boswell was unjust in his remarks upon
- Goldsmith and the conclusions to which he came in respect of his
- character. It is not necessary for one to have an especially vivid
- imagination to enable one to see what was the expression on Malone's face
- when he came upon the patronising passage in the <i>Life of Johnson</i> in
- which Boswell stated that for his part he was always glad to hear “honest
- Dr. Goldsmith” converse. “Puppy!” cried Johnson upon one occasion when a
- certain commentator had patronised a text out of all recognition. What
- would he have said had he heard Goldsmith patronised by Boswell?
- </p>
- <p>
- So far as Goldsmith's actual vanity is concerned, all that can be said at
- this time is that had it existed in the offensive form which it assumes in
- some of Boswell's stories, Goldsmith would never have won the friendship
- of those men and women who were his friends before he had made a
- reputation for himself by the publication of <i>The 'Traveller</i>. If he
- had had an extravagant opinion of his own capacity as a poet, he would
- certainly never have suffered Johnson to make an attempt to improve upon
- one of his poems; but Goldsmith not only allowed him to do so, but
- actually included the lines written by Johnson when he published the poem.
- Had he been eaten up by vanity, he would not have gone wandering down the
- Mall in St. James's Park while his comedy was being played for the first
- time before a delighted house. The really vain man was the author of The
- Vanity of Human Wishes, who bought the showiest set of garments he could
- find and sat in all their glory in the front row of the boxes on the night
- when Garrick produced his tragedy of <i>Irene</i>—Garrick whom he
- kept out of the Club for nine years simply because the actor had expressed
- a wish to become one of the original members. The really vain man was the
- one who made his stock story his account of his conversation with the King
- in the Royal Library. Every one sees this now, and every one saw it,
- except Boswell, when the <i>Life</i> was flung in the face of a convulsed
- public, for the public of the year 1791 were as little aware of the real
- value of the book as the author was of the true character of his hero and
- his hero's friend Goldsmith.
- </p>
- <p>
- After all, there would be no better way of arriving at a just conclusion
- on the subject of Goldsmith's stupidity than by submitting the whole of
- the case to an ordinary man accustomed to the many peculiarities of
- Irishmen, especially in the exercise of their doubtful gift of humour.
- “Here is a man,” we must say, “who became the most intimate friend of
- people of title and the dearest friend of many men of brains. When the
- most exclusive Club of the day was started his place as a member was not
- disputed, even by the man who invented the word 'clubbable,' and knew what
- it meant into the bargain; when the Royal Academy of Arts was started he
- was invited to become one of its professors. Some of the wittiest things
- recorded by the most diligent recorder of witty things that the world has
- ever known, were uttered by him. Upon one occasion when walking among the
- busts of the poets in Westminster Abbey with a friend, the latter pointing
- around said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “'<i>Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis</i>.'
- </p>
- <p>
- “Leaving the Abbey and walking down the Strand to Temple Bar they saw the
- heads of the men who had been captured and decapitated for taking part in
- the Rebellion of the year 1745, bleaching in the winds in accordance with
- the terms of the sentence for high treason.
- </p>
- <p>
- “'<i>Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis</i>,' murmured the man of
- whom we speak. Upon another occasion this same friend of his, who had a
- unique reputation for speaking in the most ponderous language, even when
- dealing with the simplest matters, asserted that the writing of the
- dialogue in some recently published fables where fish were represented as
- conversing, was very simple. 'Not so simple at all,' said the other, 'for
- were you to write them, you would make every minnow talk like a whale.'
- </p>
- <p>
- “In the course of a few years, in addition to compiling histories, which
- remained standard educational works for more than a century, and several
- other books, he wrote a novel which received the highest praise from the
- greatest intellects in Europe, and which is still read with delight by
- thousands of people of all nationalities; a poem of which almost every
- line is quoted daily in conversation—a poem which contains metaphors
- that have been repeated for generations in the Senate, in the Court of
- Law, and in the Church; and a play which has been pronounced the truest
- comedy in the English language. He died at an early age, and a memorial of
- his genius was given a place in Westminster Abbey. The inscription was
- written by the most distinguished man of letters in England, and although
- highly eulogistic, was considered by the greatest painter in the world and
- the greatest orator in the world to fall short of doing justice to the
- subject.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But, on the other hand, the man of whom we speak was said by a Scotchman,
- who himself was occasionally referred to as a cur and sometimes as an ape,
- and more than once as a coxcomb, to have been roused to a frenzy of envy,
- because some officers, passing through a square in a French town, looked
- admiringly at two lovely girls who were at a window, ignoring him at
- another window; and again because his friends spoke with favour of the
- dexterity of a wooden figure dressed as a soldier, and yet again (on
- another authority) because one of his friends read a passage from
- Shakespeare, and affirmed that it was magnificent. Now, would you say,” we
- should ask the authority to whom we are supposed to be stating a case—“would
- you say that this man was in earnest when, in the first of the instances
- quoted, he walked up and down the room in the French hotel asserting 'that
- although the young ladies, of whom he was extremely fond, might have their
- admirers, there were places where he, too, was given admiration'? Would
- you say that he showed ill-temper or wit when, in the second instance, he
- declared with warmth that he could toss a halbert quite as well as any
- wooden figure? Would you say that——”
- </p>
- <p>
- But we should not get any further than this in stating our case to a man
- acquainted with the Irish and their humour: he would think that we were
- taking a leaf out of the book of Irish humour, and endeavouring to fool
- him by asking him to pronounce a grave opinion upon the obvious; he would
- not stay to give us a chance of asking him whether he thought that the
- temptation of making “Noll” rhyme with “Poll,” was not too great to be
- resisted by the greatest farceur of his time, in the presence of a
- humorous colleague called Oliver; and whether an impecunious but witty
- Irishman begged his greatest friend not to give him the nickname of Goldy,
- because his dignity was hurt thereby, or simply because it was tantalising
- for one to be called “Goldy,” whose connection with gold was usually so
- transitory.
- </p>
- <p>
- If people will only read the stories told of poor Goldsmith's vanity, and
- envy, and coxcombry, with a handbook of Irish humour beside them, the
- conclusion to which they will come must, we think, be that Goldsmith was
- an Irishman, and that, on the whole, he made very good fun of Boswell, who
- was a Scotsman, but that in the long run Boswell got very much the better
- of him. Scotsmen usually laugh last.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- THE BEST COMEDY OF THE CENTURY
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>E occupied one
- room in the farmhouse—the guest-chamber it had probably been called
- when the farm was young. It was a pretty spacious apartment up one pair of
- stairs and to the right of the landing, and from its window there was a
- pleasing prospect of a paddock with wheat-fields beyond; there was a drop
- in the landscape in the direction of Hendon, and here was a little wood.
- The farmer's name was Selby, a married man with a son of sixteen, and
- younger children, and the farmhouse was the nearest building to the sixth
- milestone on the Edgware Road in the year 1771.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was invariably alluded to as “The Gentleman,” and the name did very
- well for him, situated as he was in the country; in the town and among his
- acquaintances it would serve badly as a means of identification. He was
- never referred to as “The Gentleman” of his circle. In his room in the
- farmhouse there was his bed and table—a large table littered with
- books; it took two chaises to carry his books hither from his rooms in the
- Temple. Here he sat and wrote the greater part of the day, and when he was
- very busy he would scarcely be able to touch the meals which were sent up
- to him from the kitchen. But he was by no means that dignified type of the
- man of letters who would shrink from fellowship with the farmer or his
- family. He would frequently come down his stairs into the kitchen and
- stand with his back to the fire, conversing with the housewife, and
- offering her his sympathy when she had made him aware of the fact that the
- privilege of being the wife of a substantial farmer, though undoubtedly
- fully recognised by the world, carried many troubles in its train, not
- only in connection with the vicissitudes of churning, but in regard to the
- feeding of the calves, which no man could attend to properly, and the
- making of the damson and cowslip wine. He told her that the best maker of
- cowslip wine whom he had ever met was a Mrs. Primrose; her husband had at
- one time occupied the Vicarage of Wakefield—he wondered if Mrs.
- Selby had ever heard of her. Mrs. Selby's knowledge did not go so far, but
- she thought that Mrs. Primrose's recipe must be a good one indeed if it
- brought forth better results than her own; and the gentleman said that
- although he had never tasted Mrs. Selby's he would still have no
- hesitation in backing it for flavour, body, headiness, and all other
- qualities associated with the distillation of the cowslip, against the
- Primrose brand.
- </p>
- <p>
- And then he would stare at the gammon in the rafter and mutter some words,
- burst into a roar of laughter, and stumble upstairs to his writing,
- leaving the good woman to thank Heaven that she was the wife of a
- substantial farmer and not of an unsubstantial gentleman of letters, who
- could not carry on a simple conversation without having some queer thought
- fly across his brain for all the world like one of the swallows on the
- water at Hendon, only maybe a deal harder to catch. She knew that the
- gentleman had hurried to his paper and ink to complete the capture of that
- fleet-flitting thought which had come to him when he had cast his eyes
- toward the gammon, though how an idea worth putting on paper—after a
- few muttered words and a laugh—could lurk about a common piece of
- hog's-flesh was a mystery to her.
- </p>
- <p>
- And then upon occasions the gentleman would take a walk abroad; the
- farmer's son had more than once come upon him strolling about the fields
- with his hands in his pockets and his head bent toward the ground, still
- muttering fitfully and occasionally giving a laugh that made the grey pad
- in the paddock look up slowly, still munching the grass. Now and again he
- paid a visit to his friend Mr. Hugh Boyd at the village of Kenton, and
- once he returned late at night from such a visit, without his shoes. He
- had left them in a quagmire, he said, and it was only with a struggle that
- he saved himself from being engulfed as well. That was the story of his
- shoes which young Selby remembered when he was no longer young. And there
- was another story which he remembered, but it related to his slippers. The
- fact was that the gentleman had acquired the bad habit of reading in bed,
- and the table on which his candlestick stood being several feet away from
- his pillow, he saved himself the trouble of rising to extinguish it by
- flinging a slipper at it. In the morning the overturned candle was usually
- found side by side on the floor with an unaccountably greasy slipper. This
- method of discharging an important domestic duty differed considerably
- from Johnson's way of compassing the same end. Johnson, being extremely
- short-sighted, was compelled to hold the candle close to the book when
- reading in bed, so that he had no need to use his slipper as an
- extinguisher. No, but he found his pillow very handy for this purpose.
- When he had finished his reading he threw away the book and went asleep
- with his candle under his pillow.
- </p>
- <p>
- The gentleman at the farm went about a good deal in his slippers, and with
- his shirt loose at the collar—the latter must have been but one of
- his very customary negligences, or Sir Joshua Reynolds would not have
- painted him thus. Doubtless the painter had for long recognised the
- interpretative value of this loosened collar above that of the velvet and
- silk raiment in which the man sometimes appeared before the wondering eyes
- of his friends.
- </p>
- <p>
- But if the painter had never had an opportunity of studying the
- picturesqueness of his negligence, he had more than one chance of doing so
- within the farmhouse.
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Selby recollected that upon at least one occasion Sir Joshua, his
- friend Sir William Chambers, and Dr. Johnson had paid a visit to the
- gentleman who lodged at the farm. He remembered that for that reception of
- so distinguished a company the farmhouse parlour had been opened and tea
- provided. There must have been a good deal of pleasant talk between the
- gentleman and his friends at this time, and probably young Selby heard an
- astonishingly loud laugh coming from the enormous visitor with the brown
- coat and the worsted stockings, as the gentleman endeavoured to tell his
- guests something of the strange scenes which he was introducing in the
- comedy he was writing in that room upstairs. It was then a comedy without
- a name, but young Selby heard that it was produced the following year in
- London and that it was called <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i>.
- </p>
- <p>
- This was the second year that the gentleman had spent at the farm. The
- previous summer he had been engaged on another work which was certainly as
- comical as the comedy. It was called <i>Animated Nature</i>, and it
- comprised some of the most charmingly narrated errors in Natural History
- ever offered to the public, and the public have always been delighted to
- read pages of fiction if it is only called “Natural History.” This is one
- of the best-established facts in the history of the race. After all, <i>Animated
- Nature</i> was true to half its title: every page was animated.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was while he was so engaged, with one eye on Buffon and another on his
- MS., that he found Farmer Selby very useful to him. Farmer Selby knew a
- great deal about animals—the treatment of horses under various
- conditions, and the way to make pigs pay; he had probably his theories
- respecting the profit to be derived from keeping sheep, and how to feed
- oxen that are kept for the plough. All such knowledge he must have placed
- at the disposal of the author, though the farmer was possibly too careless
- an observer of the simple incidents of the fields to be able to verify
- Buffon's statement, reproduced in Animated Nature, to the effect that cows
- shed their horns every two years; he was probably also too deficient in
- the spirit in which a poet sets about the work of compilation to be able
- to assent to the belief that a great future was in store for the zebra
- when it should become tame and perform the ordinary duties of a horse. But
- if the author was somewhat discouraged in his speculations now and again
- by Farmer Selby, he did not allow his fancy as a naturalist to be wholly
- repressed. He had heard a story of an ostrich being ridden horsewise in
- some regions, and of long journeys being accomplished in this way in
- incredibly short spaces of time, and forthwith his imagination enabled him
- to see the day when this bird would become as amenable to discipline as
- the barn-door fowl, though discharging the tasks of a horse, carrying its
- rider across England with the speed of a racer!
- </p>
- <p>
- It was while he was engaged on this pleasant work of fancy and imagination
- that Mr. Boswell paid him a visit, bringing with him as a witness Mr.
- Mickle, the translator of the Lusiad. “The Gentleman” had gone away for
- the day, Mrs. Selby explained; but she did not know Mr. Boswell. She could
- not prevent him from satisfying his curiosity in respect of Dr. Goldsmith.
- He went upstairs to his room, and he was fully satisfied. He found the
- walls all scrawled over with outline drawings of quite a number of
- animals. Having thus satisfied himself that the author of <i>Animated
- Nature</i> was working in a thoroughly conscientious manner he came away.
- He records the incident himself, but he does not say whether or not he was
- able to recognise any of the animals from their pictures.
- </p>
- <p>
- But now it was a professed and not an unconscious comedy that occupied Dr.
- Goldsmith. Whatever disappointment he may have felt at the indifferent
- success of the first performance of <i>The Good-Natured Man</i>—and
- he undoubtedly felt some—had been amply redeemed by the money which
- accrued to him from the “author's rights” and the sale of the play; and he
- had only awaited a little encouragement from the managers to enable him to
- begin another comedy. But the managers were not encouraging, and he was
- found by his friends one day to be full of a scheme for the building of a
- new theatre for the production of new plays, in order that the existing
- managers might not be able to carry on their tyranny any longer. Such a
- scheme has been revived every decade since Goldsmith's time, but never
- with the least success. Johnson, whose sound sense was rarely at fault,
- laughed at the poet's project for bringing down the mighty from their
- seats, upon which Goldsmith cried: “Ay, sir, this matter may be nothing to
- you who can now shelter yourself behind the corner of your pension,” and
- he doubtless went on to describe the condition of the victims of the
- tyranny of which he complained; but it is questionable if his doing so
- effected more than to turn Johnson's laughter into another and a wider
- channel.
- </p>
- <p>
- But Goldsmith spoke feelingly. He was certainly one of the ablest writers
- of the day, but no pension was ever offered to him, though on every hand
- bounties were freely bestowed on the most indifferent and least deserving
- of authors—men whose names were forgotten before the end of the
- century, and during the lifetime of the men themselves remembered only by
- the pay clerk to the almoner.
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course, the scheme for bringing the managers to their senses never
- reached a point of serious consideration; and forthwith Goldsmith began to
- illustrate, for the benefit of posterity, the depths to which the
- stupidity of the manager of a play-house can occasionally fall. The public
- have always had abundant proofs of the managers' stupidity afforded them
- in the form of the plays which they produce; but the history of the
- production of the most brilliant comedy of the eighteenth century is
- practically unique; for it is the history of the stupidity of a manager
- doing his best to bring about the failure of a play which he was producing
- at his own theatre. He had predicted the failure of the piece, and it must
- strike most people that the manager of a theatre who produces for a
- failure will be as successful in compassing his end as a jockey who rides
- for a fall. Colman believed that he was in the fortunate position of those
- prophets who had the realisation of their predictions in their own hands.
- He was mistaken in this particular case. Although he was justified on
- general principles in assuming his possession of this power, yet he had
- made no allowance for the freaks of genius. He was frustrated in his
- amiable designs by this incalculable force—this power which he had
- treated as a <i>quantité négligeable</i>. A man who has been accustomed
- all his life to count only on simple ability in the people about him, is,
- on suddenly being brought face to face with genius, like an astronomer who
- makes out his tables of a new object on the assumption that it is a fixed
- star, when all the time it is a comet, upsetting by its erratic course all
- his calculations, and demanding to be reckoned with from a standpoint that
- applies to itself alone.
- </p>
- <p>
- The stars of Colman's theatrical firmament were such as might safely be
- counted on; but Goldsmith's genius was not of this order. The manager's
- stupidity lay in his blunt refusal to recognise a work of genius when it
- was brought to him by a man of genius.
- </p>
- <p>
- It has been said that the central idea of the plot of <i>She Stoops to
- Conquer</i> was suggested by an incident that came under Goldsmith's
- notice before he left Ireland. However this may be, it cannot be denied
- that the playing of the practical joke of Tony Lumpkin upon the two
- travellers is “very Irish.” It would take a respectable place in the list
- of practical jokes of the eighteenth century played in Ireland. In that
- island a collector of incidents for a comedy during the past two centuries
- would require to travel with a fat notebook—so would the collector
- of incidents for a tragedy. Goldsmith's task may not have been to invent
- the central idea, but to accomplish the much more difficult duty of making
- that incident seem plausible, surrounding it with convincing scenery and
- working it out by the aid of the only characters by which it could be
- worked out with a semblance of being natural. This was a task which genius
- only could fulfil. The room whose walls bore ample testimony to its
- occupant's sense of the comedy of a writer's life, witnessed the supreme
- achievement in the “animated nature” of <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i>. It
- contains the two chief essentials to a true comedy—animation and
- nature.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is certain that the play was constructed and written by Goldsmith
- without an adviser. He was possibly shrewd enough to know that if he were
- to take counsel with any of his friends—Garrick, Johnson, Reynolds,
- or Colman—he would not be able to write the play which he had a mind
- to write. The artificial comedy had a vogue that year, and though it may
- have been laughed at in private by people of judgment, yet few of those
- within the literary circle of which Johnson was the acknowledged centre,
- would have had the courage to advise a poet writing a piece in hopes of
- making some money, to start upon a plot as farcical as Nature herself. At
- that period of elegance in art everything that was natural was pronounced
- vulgar. Shakespeare himself had to be made artificial before he could be
- played by Garrick. Goldsmith must have known that his play would be called
- vulgar, and that its chances of being accepted and produced by either of
- the managers in London would be doubtful; but, all the same, he wrote the
- piece in accordance with his own personal views, and many a time during
- the next two years he must have felt that he was a fool for doing so.
- </p>
- <p>
- However this may be, the play was finished some time in the summer of
- 1771; and on September 7th the author was back at his rooms in the Temple
- and writing to his friend Bennet Langton, whom he had promised to visit at
- his place in Lincolnshire. “I have been almost wholly in the country at a
- farmer's house, quite alone, trying to write a comedy. It is now finished,
- but when or how it will be acted, or whether it will be acted at all, are
- questions I cannot resolve,” he told Langton.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0011" id="linkimage-0011"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0241.jpg" alt="0241 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0241.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- The misgivings which he had at this time were well founded. He considered
- that the fact of his having obtained from Colman a promise to read any
- play that he might write constituted an obligation on his part to submit
- this piece to Colman rather than to Garrick. He accordingly placed it in
- Colman's hands; but it is impossible to say if the work of elaborate
- revision which Goldsmith began in the spring of 1772 was due to the
- comments made by this manager on the first draft or to the author's
- reconsideration of his work as a whole. But the amended version was
- certainly in Colman's hands in the summer of this year (1772). The
- likelihood is that Colman would have refused point-blank to have anything
- to do with the comedy after he had read the first draft had it not been
- that just at this time Goldsmith's reputation was increased to a
- remarkable extent by the publication of his Histories. It would be
- difficult to believe how this could be, but, as usual, we are indebted to
- Mr. Boswell for what information we have on this point. Boswell had been
- for some time out of London, and on returning he expressed his amazement
- at the celebrity which Goldsmith had attained. “Sir,” he cried to Johnson,
- “Goldsmith has acquired more fame than all the officers last war who were
- not generals!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, sir,” said Johnson, “you will find ten thousand fit to do what they
- did before you find one who does what Goldsmith has done”—a bit of
- dialogue that reminds one of the reply of the avaricious <i>prima donna</i>
- when the Emperor refused to accede to her terms on the plea that were he
- to pay her her price she would be receiving more than any of his marshals.
- “Eh bien, mon sire. Let your marshals sing to you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- At any rate, Colman got the play—and kept it. He would give the
- author no straightforward opinion as to its prospects in his hands. He
- refused to say when he would produce it—nay, he declined to promise
- that he would produce it at all. Goldsmith was thus left in torment for
- month after month, and the effect of the treatment that he received was to
- bring on an illness, and the effect of his illness was to sink him to a
- depth of despondency that even Goldsmith had never before sounded. The
- story told by Cooke of his coming upon the unhappy man in a coffeehouse,
- and of the latter's attempt to give him some of the details of the plot of
- the comedy, speaks for itself. “I shook my head,” wrote Cooke, “and said
- that I was afraid the audience, under their then sentimental impressions,
- would think it too broad and farcical for comedy.” This was poor comfort
- for the author; but after a pause he shook the man by the hand, saying
- piteously: “I am much obliged to you, my dear friend, for the candour of
- your opinion, but it is all I can do; for alas! I find that my genius, if
- ever I had any, has of late totally deserted me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This exclamation is the most piteous that ever came from a man of genius;
- and there can be no doubt of the sincerity of its utterance, for it was
- during these miserable months that he began a new novel, but found himself
- unable to get further than a few chapters. And all this time, when, in
- order to recover his health, he should have had no worries of a lesser
- nature, he was being harassed by the trivial cares of a poor, generous
- man's life—those mosquito vexations which, accumulating, become more
- intolerable than a great calamity.
- </p>
- <p>
- He had once had great hopes of good resulting from Colman's taking up the
- management of Covent Garden, and had written congratulations to him within
- the first week of his entering into possession of the theatre. A very
- different letter he had now to write to the same man. Colman had
- endeavoured to evade the responsibility of giving him a direct answer
- about the play. He clearly meant that the onus of refusing it should lie
- at the door of some one else.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dear Sir,” wrote the author in January, 1773, “I entreat you'll release
- me from that state of suspense in which I have been kept for a long time.
- Whatever objections you have made or shall make to my play I will
- endeavour to remove and not argue about them. To bring in any new judges
- either of its merits or faults I can never submit to. Upon a former
- occasion when my other play was before Mr. Garrick he offered to bring me
- before Mr. Whitehead's tribunal, but I refused the proposal with
- indignation. I hope I shall not experience as hard treatment from you as
- from him.... For God's sake take the play and let us make the best of it,
- and let me have the same measure at least which you have given as bad
- plays as mine.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Upon receiving this letter, Colman at once returned to him the manuscript
- of the play, and on the author's unfolding it he found that on the back of
- almost every page, on the blank space reserved for the prompter's
- hieroglyphs, some sneering criticism was scrawled. To emphasise this
- insult Colman had enclosed a letter to the effect that if the author was
- still unconvinced that the piece would be a failure, he, Colman, would
- produce it.
- </p>
- <p>
- Immediately on receipt of this contemptible effort at contempt Goldsmith
- packed up the play and sent it to Garrick at Drury Lane. That same
- evening, however, he met Johnson and told him what he had done; and
- Johnson, whose judgment on the practical side of authorship was rarely at
- fault, assured him that he had done wrong and that he must get the
- manuscript back without delay, and submit to Colman's sneers for the sake
- of having the comedy produced. Upon Johnson's promising to visit Colman,
- and to urge upon him the claims of Goldsmith to his consideration, the
- distracted author wrote to Drury Lane:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Upon more mature deliberation and the advice of a sensible friend, I
- begin to think it indelicate in me to throw upon you the odium of
- confirming Mr. Colman's sentence. I therefore request that you will send
- my play by my servant back; for having been assured of having it acted at
- the other house, though I confess yours in every respect more to my wish,
- yet it would be folly in me to forgo an advantage which lies in my power
- of appealing from Mr. Colman's opinion to the judgment of the town.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Goldsmith got back the play, and Johnson explained to him, as he did some
- years later to Reynolds, that the solicitations which he had made to
- Colman to put it in rehearsal without delay amounted almost to force. At
- any rate, the play was announced and the parts distributed to the
- excellent company which Colman controlled. It was soon proved that he
- controlled some members of this company only too well. The spirit in,
- which he set about the discharge of his duties as a manager was apparent
- to every one during the earliest rehearsals. Johnson, writing to an
- American correspondent, mentioned that Colman made no secret of his belief
- that the play would be a failure. Far from it. He seems to have taken the
- most extraordinary trouble to spread his belief far and wide; and when a
- manager adopts such a course, what chance, one may ask, has the play? What
- chance, the players could not but ask, have the players?
- </p>
- <p>
- This was possibly the only occasion in the history of the English drama on
- which such questions could be asked. If managers have a fault at all—a
- question which is not yet ripe for discussion—it has never been in
- the direction of depreciating a play which they are about to produce—that
- is, of course, outside the author's immediate circle. It is only when the
- play has failed that they sometimes allow that it was a bad one, and
- incapable of being saved even by the fine acting of the company and the
- sumptuous mounting.
- </p>
- <p>
- But Colman controlled his company all too well, and after a day or two it
- was announced that the leading lady, the accomplished Mrs. Abington, had
- retired from the part of Miss Hardcastle; that Smith, known as Gentleman
- Smith, had refused to play Young Marlow; and that Woodward, the most
- popular comedian in the company, had thrown up the part of Tony Lumpkin.
- </p>
- <p>
- Here, in one day, it seemed that Colman had achieved his aims, and the
- piece would have to be withdrawn by the author. This was undoubtedly the
- managerial view of the situation which had been precipitated by the
- manager, and it was shared by those of the author's friends who understood
- his character as indifferently as did Colman. They must all have been
- somewhat amazed when the author quietly accepted the situation and
- affirmed that he would rather that his play were damned by bad players
- than merely saved by good acting. One of the company who had the sense to
- perceive the merits of the piece, Shuter, the comedian, who was cast for
- the part of old Hardcastle, advised Goldsmith to give Lewes, the
- harlequin, the part of Young Marlow; Quick, a great favourite with the
- public, was to act Tony Lumpkin; and, after a considerable amount of
- wrangling, Mrs. Bulkley, lately Miss Wilford, who had been the Miss
- Richland of <i>The Good-Natured Man</i>, accepted the part which the
- capricious Mrs. Abington resigned.
- </p>
- <p>
- Another start was made with the rehearsals of the piece, and further
- efforts were made by Colman to bring about the catastrophe which he had
- predicted. He refused to let a single scene be painted for the production,
- or to supply a single new dress; his ground being that the money spent in
- this way would be thrown away, for the audience would never allow the
- piece to proceed beyond the second act.
- </p>
- <p>
- But happily Dr. Johnson had his reputation as a prophet at stake as well
- as Colman, and he was singularly well equipped by Nature for enforcing his
- views on any subject. He could not see anything of what was going on upon
- the stage; but his laugh at the succession of humorous things spoken by
- the company must have had an inspiring effect upon every one, except
- Colman. Johnson's laugh was the strongest expression of appreciation of
- humour of which the century has a record. It was epic. To say that
- Johnson's laugh at the rehearsals of <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i> saved
- the piece would perhaps be going too far. But can any one question its
- value as a counteracting agent to Colman's depressing influence on the
- stage? Johnson was the only man in England who could make Colman (and
- every one else) tremble, and his laugh had the same effect upon the
- building in which it was delivered. It was the Sirocco against a wet
- blanket. When one thinks of the feeling of awe which was inspired by the
- name of Dr. Johnson, not only during the last forty years of the
- eighteenth century, but well into the nineteenth, one begins to appreciate
- the value of his vehement expression of satisfaction upon the people on
- the stage. Goldsmith dedicated his play to Johnson, and assuredly the
- compliment was well earned. Johnson it was who compelled Colman to produce
- the piece, and Johnson it was who encouraged the company to do their best
- for it, in spite of the fact that they were all aware that their doing
- their best for it would be resented by their manager.
- </p>
- <p>
- Reynolds also, another valuable friend to the author, sacrificed several
- of his busiest hours in order to attend the rehearsals. His sister's
- sacrifices to the same end were perhaps not quite so impressive, nor were
- those made by that ingenious “country gentleman,” Mr. Cradock, referred to
- by Walpole. Miss Horneck, his beautiful “Jessamy Bride,” and her sister,
- lately married to Mr. Bunbury, bore testimony to the strength of their
- friendship for the poet, by accompanying him daily to the theatre.
- </p>
- <p>
- But, after all, these good friends had not many opportunities of showing
- their regard for him in the same way; for the play must have had
- singularly few rehearsals. Scarcely a month elapsed between the date of
- Colman's receiving the manuscript on its being returned by Garrick and the
- production of the piece. It is doubtful if more than ten rehearsals took
- place after the parts were recast. If the manager kept the author in
- suspense for eighteen months respecting the fate of his play, he
- endeavoured to make up for his dilatoriness now. It was announced for
- Monday, March 15th, and, according to Northcote, it was only on the
- morning of that day that the vexed question of what the title should be
- was settled. For some time the author and his friends had been talking the
- matter over. “We are all in labour for a name to Goldy's play,” wrote
- Johnson. <i>The Mistakes of a Night, The Old House a New Inn, and The
- Belle's Stratagem</i> were suggested in turn. It was Goldsmith himself who
- gave it the title under which it was produced.
- </p>
- <p>
- On the afternoon of this day, March 15th, the author was the guest at a
- dinner-party organised in his honour. It is easy to picture this
- particular function. The truth was that Colman's behaviour had broken the
- spirit not only of the author, but of the majority of his friends as well.
- They would all make an effort to cheer up poor Goldsmith; but every one
- knows how cheerless a function is one that is organised with such
- charitable intentions. It is not necessary that one should have been in a
- court of law watching the face of the prisoner in the dock when the jury
- have retired to consider their verdict in order to appreciate the feelings
- of Goldsmith when his friends made their attempt to cheer him up. The last
- straw added on to the cheerlessness of the banquet was surely to be found
- in the accident that every one wore black! The King of Sardinia had died a
- short time before, and the Court had ordered mourning to be worn for some
- weeks for this potentate. Johnson was very nearly outraging propriety by
- appearing in coloured raiment, but George Steevens, who called for him to
- go to the dinner, was fortunately in time to prevent such a breach of
- etiquette. “I would not for ten pounds have seemed so retrograde to any
- general observance,” cried Johnson in offering his thanks to his
- benefactor. Happily the proprieties were saved; but what must have been
- the effect of the appearance of these gentlemen in black upon the person
- whom they meant to cheer up!
- </p>
- <p>
- Reynolds told his pupil, Northcote, what effect these resources of gaiety
- had upon Goldsmith. His mouth became so parched that he could neither eat
- nor drink, nor could he so much as speak in acknowledgment of the
- well-meant act of his friends. When the party after this entertainment set
- out for the theatre they must have suggested, all being in black, a more
- sombre procession than one is accustomed to imagine when conjuring up a
- picture of an eighteenth-century theatre party.
- </p>
- <p>
- And Goldsmith was missing!
- </p>
- <p>
- Unfortunately Boswell was not present, or we should not be left in doubt
- as to how it happened that no one thought of taking charge of Goldsmith.
- But no one seemed to think of him, and so his disappearance was never
- noticed. His friends arrived at the theatre and found their places,
- Johnson in the front row of the boxes; and the curtain was rung up, and
- Goldsmith was forgotten under the influence of that comedy which
- constitutes his greatest claim to be remembered by theatre-goers of
- to-day.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was found by an acquaintance a couple of hours later wandering in the
- Mall of St. James's Park, and was only persuaded to go to the theatre by
- its being represented to him that his services might be required should it
- be found necessary to alter something at the last moment.
- </p>
- <p>
- Now, among the members of that distinguished audience there was a man
- named Cumberland. He was the author of <i>The West Indian</i> and several
- other plays, and he was regarded as one of the leaders of the sentimental
- school, the demise of which was satirised in the prologue to this very
- play which was being performed. Cumberland was a man who could never see a
- particle of good in anything that was written by another. It was a
- standing entertainment with Garrick to “draw him on” by suggesting that
- some one had written a good scene in a play, or was about to produce an
- interesting book. In a moment Cumberland was up, protesting against the
- assumption that the play or the book could be worth anything. So wide a
- reputation had he for decrying every other author that when Sheridan
- produced <i>The Critic; or, the Tragedy Rehearsed</i>, his portrait was
- immediately recognised in Sir Fretful Plagiary.
- </p>
- <p>
- What must have been the feelings of this man when, from the first, the
- play, which he had come to wreck, was received by the whole house with
- uproarious applause? Well, we don't know what he felt like, but we know
- what he looked like. One of the newspapers described him as “looking
- glum,” and another contained a rhymed epigram describing him as weeping.
- Goldsmith entered the theatre by the stage door at the beginning of the
- fifth act, where Tony Lumpkin and his mother appear close to their own
- house, and the former pretends that the chaise has broken down on
- Crackscull Common. He had no sooner got into the “wings” than he heard a
- hiss. “What's that, sir?” he whispered to Colman, who was beside him.
- “Psha, sir! what signifies a squib when we have been sitting on a barrel
- of gunpowder all night?” was the reply. The story is well known; and its
- accuracy has never been im peached. And the next day it was well known
- that that solitary hiss came from Cumberland, the opinion that it was due
- to the malevolence of Macpherson, whose pretensions to the discovery of <i>Ossian</i>
- were exposed by Johnson, being discredited.
- </p>
- <p>
- But the effect of Colman's brutality and falsehood into the bargain had
- not a chance of lasting long. The hiss was received with cries of “Turn
- him out!” and, with an addition to the tumultuous applause of all the
- house, Goldsmith must have been made aware in another instant of the fact
- that he had written the best comedy of the day and that Colman had lied to
- him. From the first there had been no question of sitting on a barrel of
- gunpowder. Such applause could never greet the last act of a play the
- first four acts of which had been doubtful. He must have felt that at last
- he had conquered—that he had by one more achievement proved to his
- own satisfaction—and he was hard to satisfy—that those friends
- of his who had attributed genius to him had not been mistaken; that those
- who, like Johnson and Percy and Reynolds, had believed in him before he
- had written the work that made him famous, had not been misled.
- </p>
- <p>
- The next day all London was talking of <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i> and of
- Colman. Horace Walpole, who detested Goldsmith, and who found when he went
- to see the play that it was deplorably vulgar, mentioned in a letter which
- he wrote to Lady Ossory on the morning after the production that it had
- “succeeded prodigiously,” and the newspapers were full of epigrams at the
- expense of the manager. If Colman had had the sense to keep to himself his
- forebodings of the failure of the piece, he would not have left himself
- open to these attacks; but, as has been said, he took as much pains to
- decry the coming production as he usually did to “puff” other pieces. It
- would seem that every one had for several days been talking about nothing
- else save the coming failure of Dr. Goldsmith's comedy. Only on this
- assumption can one now understand the poignancy of the “squibs”—some
- of them partook largely of the character of his own barrel of gunpowder—levelled
- against Colman. He must have been quite amazed at the clamour that arose
- against him; it became too much for his delicate skin, and he fled to Bath
- to get out of the way of the scurrilous humourists who were making him a
- target for their pop-guns. But even at Bath he failed to find a refuge.
- Writing to Mrs. Thrale, Johnson said: “Colman is so distressed with abuse
- that he has solicited Goldsmith to take him off the rack of the
- newspapers.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was characteristic of Goldsmith that he should do all that was asked of
- him and that he should make no attempt, either in public or in private, to
- exult in his triumph over the manager. The only reference which he made to
- his sufferings while Colman was keeping him on the rack was in a letter
- which he wrote to his friend Cradock, who had written an epilogue for the
- play, to explain how it was that this epilogue was not used at the first
- representation. After saying simply, “The play has met with a success
- beyond your expectation or mine,” he makes his explanation, and concludes
- thus: “Such is the history of my stage adventure, and which I have at last
- done with. I cannot help saying that I am very sick of the stage, and
- though I believe I shall get three tolerable benefits, yet I shall on the
- whole be a loser, even in a pecuniary light; my ease and comfort I
- certainly lost while it was in agitation.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Goldsmith showed that he bore no grudge against Colman; but the English
- stage should bear him a grudge for his treatment of one of the few authors
- of real genius who have contributed to it for the benefit of posterity. If
- <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i> had been produced when it first came into the
- manager's hands, Goldsmith would certainly not have written the words just
- quoted. What would have been the result of his accepting the encouragement
- of its production it is, of course, impossible to tell; but it is not
- going too far to assume that the genius which gave the world <i>The
- Good-Natured Man</i> and <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i> would have been
- equal to the task of writing a third comedy equal in merit to either of
- these. Yes, posterity owes Colman a grudge.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- THE JESSAMY BRIDE
- </h2>
- <h3>
- A PERSONAL NOTE
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>OR some time after
- the publication of my novel <i>The Jessamy Bride</i> my time was fully
- occupied by replying to correspondents—strangers to me—who
- were good enough to take an interest in Mary Horneck, the younger of the
- two charming sisters with whom Goldsmith associated for several years of
- his life on terms of the warmest affection. The majority of these
- communications were of a very interesting character. Only one
- correspondent told me I should not have allowed Oliver Goldsmith to die so
- young, though two expressed the opinion that I should have made Goldsmith
- marry Mary Horneck; nearly all the remaining communications which were
- addressed to me contained inquiries as to the origin of the sobriquet
- applied to Mary Horneck in Goldsmith's epistle. To each and to all such
- inquiries I have, alas! been compelled to return the humiliating reply
- that I have not yet succeeded in finding out what was the origin of the
- family joke which made Goldsmith's allusions to “The Jessamy Bride” and
- “Little Comedy” intelligible to the “Devonshire Crew” of Hornecks and
- Reynoldses. I have searched volume after volume in the hope of having even
- the smallest ray of light thrown upon this matter, but I have met with no
- success. I began to feel, as every post brought me a sympathetic inquiry
- as to the origin of the pet name, that I should take the bold step of
- confessing my ignorance to the one gentleman who, I was confident, could
- enlighten it. “If Dr. Brewer does not know why Mary Horneck was called
- 'The Jessamy Bride,' no one alive can know it,” was what I said to myself.
- Before I could write to Dr. Brewer the melancholy new's came of his death;
- and very shortly afterwards I got a letter from his daughter, Mrs. Brewer
- Hayman, in which she mentioned that her lamented father had been greatly
- interested in my story, and asked if I could tell her what was the meaning
- of the phrase.
- </p>
- <p>
- It does certainly seem extraordinary that no biographer of Goldsmith, of
- Reynolds, or of Burke, should have thought it worth while writing a letter
- to the “Jessamy Bride” herself to ask her why she was so called by
- Goldsmith. The biographers of Goldsmith and the editors of Boswell seem to
- have had no hesitation in stating that Mary Horneck was the “Jessamy
- Bride,” and that her elder sister was “Little Comedy”; but they do not
- appear to have taken a wider view of their duties than was comprised in
- this bare statement. The gossipy Northcote was surely in the secret, and
- he might have revealed the truth without detracting from the interest of
- the many inaccuracies in his volume. Northcote had an opportunity of
- seeing daily the portrait of Mary which Sir Joshua painted, and which hung
- in his studio until the day of his death, when it passed into the
- possession of the original, who had become Mrs. Gwyn, having married
- Colonel, afterwards General, Gwyn.
- </p>
- <p>
- But although up to the present I have not obtained even as much evidence
- as would be termed a clue by the sanguine officers of Scotland Yard, as to
- the origin of the sobriquet, I am not without hope that some day one of my
- sympathetic correspondents will be able to clear up the matter for me. I
- am strengthened in this hope by the fact that among those who were kind
- enough to write to me, was a lady who can claim relationship to Mary
- Horneck, and who did not hesitate to send to me a bundle of letters,
- written in the early part of the century by the “Jessamy Bride” herself,
- with permission to copy and print any portion of the correspondence that I
- might consider of interest. Of this privilege I gladly avail myself,
- feeling sure that the interest which undoubtedly attaches to many portions
- of the letters will exculpate me for the intrusion of a personal note into
- these papers.
- </p>
- <p>
- The grandfather of my correspondent (Mrs. Cor-ballis, of Ratrath, co.
- Meath, Ireland) was first cousin to the Hornecks. He was the Rev. George
- Mangles, chaplain to George III when Mrs. Gwyn (Mary Horneck) was Woman of
- the Bedchamber to the Queen. As General Gwyn was Equerry to the King it
- can easily be understood that the two families should be on terms of the
- most intimate friendship. My correspondent mentions that her mother, who
- only died thirteen years ago, was almost every year a visitor at the house
- of Mrs. Gwyn, at Kew, and said that she retained her beauty up to the very
- last. Confirmation of this statement is to be found in a passage in the
- “Jerningham Letters.” Lady Bedingfeld's Journal contains the following
- entry opposite the date “September 19th, 1833”:
- </p>
- <p>
- “When the Queen returned to the drawing-room we found several ladies
- there. I observed a very old lady with striking remains of beauty, and
- whose features seemed very familiar to me. I felt to know her features by
- heart, and at last I heard her name, Mrs. Gwyn, the widow of a General,
- and near ninety! I had never seen her before, but when I was a girl my
- uncle the Poet, gave me a portrait of her, copied from Sir Jos. Reynolds,
- small size in a Turkish costume and attitude. This picture is still at
- Cossey, and of course must be very like her since it led me to find her
- out.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0012" id="linkimage-0012"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0261.jpg" alt="0261 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0261.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- The picture referred to must certainly have been “very like” the original,
- for it was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1772, sixty-one years before.
- The engraving of it cannot but make one feel how exquisite must have been
- the charm of Goldsmith's young friend, who survived him by sixty-six
- years; for Mrs. Gywn did not die until 1840.
- </p>
- <p>
- Very pathetic indeed it is to look at the sweet girlish face, which
- appears in this portrait and also in that of the two sisters done in chalk
- by the same master-hand, and then to read some of the passages in the
- letters in which the writer refers to her old age and feebleness. Happily,
- with Lady Bedingfeld's diary before us, our imagination is not largely
- drawn on for a picture of the “Jessamy Bride” broken down by age and
- infirmity. The woman who can be easily recognised by a stranger at
- seventy-nine by her likeness to a portrait painted at the age of eighteen,
- would make Ninon de l'Enclos envious.
- </p>
- <p>
- The letters are written to Mrs. Mangles, the widow of the Chaplain to
- George III, and the majority touch upon private matters with
- sprightliness, and occasionally a delicate humour, such as Goldsmith would
- certainly have appreciated. We seem to hear, while reading these passages,
- faint echoes of the girlish laughter which must have rung through that
- room in the inn at Calais, when Goldsmith paced up and down in a mock fury
- because two officers passing the window looked more eagerly at the girls
- than at him.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is obvious, however, that the Queen's Woman of the Bedchamber would
- write occasionally to her friend on some topic of public interest;
- consequently we find, in the course of the correspondence, many passages
- which throw a flood of light upon the incidents of the day. In a letter
- dated April 10th, 1818,
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs. Gwyn describes with great sprightliness the wedding of the Princess
- Elizabeth, the third daughter of George III, with Prince Hesse-Hombourgh,
- which took place three days before:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I delayed to write till after the marriage to tell you about it, as you
- seemed to wish it. We were all appointed at seven o'clock in the evening,
- when I went as smart as I could make myself. I wore the lavender sattin
- robe, the same you saw me wear at Court, as the shape was the same, and it
- <i>saved buying</i>, trimmed with silver, a new white sattin petticoat,
- with a white net and silver over it, no hoop, but a Court head dress, and
- lappets down. The Company consisting of the great officers of state, and
- ambassadors and their wives, and the different households were the
- Company.
- </p>
- <p>
- “At 8 all were assembled when the Royal family in procession according to
- their rank, went into the great drawing-room in the Queen's house. The
- Duke of York led the Queen, the Prince Regent not being quite recovered of
- his gout, and it is said the remembrance of his poor daughter's marriage
- was too painful to him to undertake it. Before the state canopy was set a
- fine communion table, red velvet and gold, all the gold plate belonging to
- that service arranged behind it, and 3 Bishops and other clergymen
- standing behind the table, it looked very magnificent. Then came the <i>Hero</i>,
- the Prince Hesse Hombourgh, he went up to the table and stood there, I
- believe 10 minutes alone, he looked well a manly unembarassed figure, then
- walked in the Bride glittering with silver and diamonds, and really looked
- very handsome, and her behaviour and manner was as well as possible, grace
- and quiet, when she knelt she wept, and then he approached nearer her in
- case her emotion would require his care, which happily was not the case.
- The Duke of York gave her away, and behaved very bad. The Prince Hombourgh
- thought when he had said I will very loud and distinct, all was done, but
- the Arch Bishop desired him to repeat after him, which he was therefore
- obliged to do. He cannot speak English and made such works of it, it was
- then the Duke of York laughed so, he was obliged to stuff his handkerchief
- in his mouth to conceal it. He promised to love her. When all was over he
- saluted his bride on each side the face, and then her hand, with a
- good-natured frank manner, then led her to the Queen, whose hand only he
- kissed, the rest of the Royal family he embraced after his own fashion,
- and he led her off with a very good air, and did not seem to trouble his
- head about his <i>English performance</i>.” The Princess Elizabeth—the
- shy young bride who was so overcome with emotion—had scarcely more
- than passed her forty-ninth year when she was borne to the altar, and the
- hero of the hour was, we learn from other sources than Mrs. Gwyn's
- letters, most unheroically sick when driving away in a close carriage with
- his bride.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Prince Regent's daughter, the Princess Charlotte, had died the
- previous year, hence the marrying panic which seized all the other members
- of the Royal Family, lest the dynasty should become extinct. It is
- pleasing to reflect that such gloomy apprehensions have since been amply
- averted.
- </p>
- <p>
- Regarding the death of the Princess Charlotte Mrs. Gwyn writes:
- </p>
- <p>
- “... While I was at Oatlands the Prince Leopold came to see the Duchess
- and staid there 3 hours, no one but the Duchess saw him—she told me
- he is more composed in his manners now when seen by people in general but
- with her alone his grief seems the same and he is gratified by being
- allowed to vent it to one who feels for him and knows how to soothe his
- mind. I can not doubt the Princess's life and his child's were thrown
- away, by mismanagement—she was so bled and starved she had no
- strength left—her own fortitude and energy supported her till nature
- could no more. I could tell you much on the subject but it would take up
- too much in a letter and besides <i>it is over</i>. Dr. Crofts thought he
- was doing for the best no doubt—It comes to what <i>I</i> always say
- of them—they can't do much and are very often wrong in their
- opinions as you can vouch....”
- </p>
- <p>
- In another letter Mrs. Gywn's adopted daughter was her amanuensis. It
- contains many paragraphs of interest, especially to present-day readers.
- The girl writes:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mamma was of course summoned to attend the Duke of Cambridge's Wedding,
- but she was not in the room when the Ceremony was performed as before, on
- account of the Queen having been ill. Mamma admires the Duchess of
- Cambridge very much: though she is not exactly handsome, she is very
- pleasing, and a pretty figure, but I understand she must have a new stay
- maker to set her up etc. The Duke of Kent and his bride are now expected.
- The Duke of Clarence it is expected will be married shortly afterwards. We
- hear the Duchess of Kent is a little woman with a handsome face, and the
- Duchess of Clarence uncommonly ugly. We went to Windsor about a month ago
- to see Princess Sophia as the Queen was not there, and Princess Sophia has
- a small party every night. We were there three days, and Mamma went to the
- party every evening, and indeed it was very very dull for her as they play
- one pool of Commerce, and then they go to a game called Snip, Snap,
- Snorum, and which Mamma could not play at well without a great deal of
- trouble to herself, therefore she was obliged to look on for perhaps an
- hour and half which you may imagine was terrible for her not hearing a
- word. I was much pleased in one respect while I was there by seeing Dear
- Prince Leopold whom I had never seen before, and who must be to every body
- an object of so much interest. He looked to me the picture of grief and
- melancholy, but those who have seen him repeatedly since his misfortune
- say he improves every time they see him. Mrs. C.... went one day to see
- Claremont and was very much pleased. All remains as Princess Charlotte
- left it, but nobody sees her room in which she died but himself, even her
- combs and brushes are untouched, and her hat and cloak are where she laid
- them the day before she died. There are models of her hand and arm one in
- particular as it is his hand clasped in hers. I suppose you have often
- heard she had a very beautiful hand and arm, but I will not go on, on so
- melancholy a subject; yet I am sure it must interest you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Princess Sophia, who instituted the fascinating game referred to in
- this letter, was, of course, the fifth daughter of George III.
- </p>
- <p>
- In another letter reference is made to a certain scandal, which Mrs. Gwyn
- contradicts most vehemently. Even nowadays this particular bit of gossip
- is remembered by some persons; but at the risk of depriving these pages of
- the piquancy which attaches to a Court scandal, I will not quote it, but
- conclude this Personal Note with what seems to me a most pathetic account
- of the dying king:
- </p>
- <p>
- “We continue in a state of great anxiety about our dear King, whose state
- is distressing. Certainly no hope of recovery, and the chances of his
- continuance very doubtful. His death may be any day, any hour, or he may
- continue some <i>little</i> time longer, it depends on nature holding out
- against sore disease, which afflicts him universally, and occasions great
- suffering, this is heartbreaking to hear! and his patience and courage and
- sweet and kind behaviour to all about him is most touching, so
- affectionate to his friends and attendants, and thankful for their
- attention and feeling for him. He will hold the hand of the Duchess of
- Gloster or S. H. Halford for an hour at a time out of tenderness, till
- excessive suffering ends it. He wishes to die in peace and charity with
- all the world, and has reconciled himself to the Duke of Sussex. He hopes
- his people have found him a merciful King. He says he never hurt anyone,
- and that, he may truly say as his first wish to <i>all</i> was good and
- benevolent, and ever ready to forgive.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- THE AMAZING ELOPEMENT
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>N a certain
- evening in March, 1772, the fashionable folk of Bath were as earnestly on
- pleasure bent as they were wont to be at this season—and every
- other. The Assembly Rooms were open, a performance was going on at the
- theatre, the Cave of Harmony was as musical as Pyrrha's Grotto, a
- high-class concert was taking place under the conductorship of the
- well-known Mr. Linley, and the Countess of Huntingdon was holding a prayer
- meeting. For people who took their diversions <i>à la carte</i>, there was
- a varied and an abundant menu. Chairs containing precious structures of
- feathers, lace, and jewels towering over long faces powdered and patched
- and painted <i>à la mode</i>, were swinging along the streets in every
- direction, some with a brace of gold-braided lackeys by each of the
- windows, but others in charge only of the burly chairmen.
- </p>
- <p>
- Unobtrusive among the latter class of conveyance was one that a young
- gentleman, a tall and handsome lad, called from its rank between
- Pierrepont Street and the South Parade. He gave the bearers instructions
- to hasten to the house of Mr. Linley in the Crescent, and to inquire if
- Miss Linley were ready.
- </p>
- <p>
- If she were not, he told them that they were to wait for her and carry out
- her directions. The fellows touched their hats and swung off with their
- empty chair.
- </p>
- <p>
- The young man then went to a livery stable, and putting a few confidential
- inquiries to the proprietor, received a few confidential replies,
- accentuated by a wink or two, and a certain quick uplifting of a knuckly
- forefinger that had an expression of secretiveness of its own.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mum's the word, sir, and mum it shall be,” whispered the man. “I stowed
- away the trunk, leaving plenty of room for the genuine luggage—lady's
- luggage, Mr. Sheridan. You know as well as I can tell you, sir, being
- young but with as shrewd knowingness of affairs in general as might be
- looked for in the son of Tom Sheridan, to say nought of a lady like your
- mother, meaning to take no liberty in the world, Mr. Dick, as they call
- you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm obliged to you, Denham, and I'll not forget you when this little
- affair is happily over. The turn by the 'Bear' on the London Road, we
- agreed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And there you'll find the chaise, sir, and as good a pair as ever left my
- stable, and good luck to you, sir!” said the man.
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Mr. Sheridan then hastened to his father's house in King's Mead
- Street, and was met by an anxious sister in the hall.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good news, I hope, Dick?” she whispered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have been waiting for you all the evening. She has not changed her
- mind, I hope.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “She is as steadfast as I am,” said he. “If I could not swear that she
- would be steadfast, I would not undertake this business on her behalf.
- When I think of our father——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't think of him except as applauding your action,” said the girl.
- “Surely every one with the least spark of generosity will applaud your
- action, Dick.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wouldn't like to say so much,” said Dick, shaking his head. “Mathews
- has his friends. No man could know so much about whist as he does without
- having many friends, even though he be a contemptible scoundrel when he is
- not employed over a rubber.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who will dare to take the part of Mr. Mathews against you, Dick?” cried
- his sister, looking at him proudly as the parlour candles shone upon him.
- “I would that I could go with you as far as London, dear, but that would
- be impossible.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Quite impossible; and where would be the merit in the end?” said Dick,
- pacing the room as he believed a man of adventure and enterprise would in
- the circumstances. “You may trust to me to place her in safety without the
- help of any one.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know it, Dick, I know it, dear, and I am proud of you,” said she,
- putting her arms about his neck and kissing him. “And look you here,
- Dick,” she added, in a more practical tone. “Look you here—I find
- that I can spare another five pounds out of the last bill that came from
- Ireland. We shall live modestly in this house until you return to us.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He took the coins which she offered to him wrapped up in a twist of
- newspaper; but he showed some hesitation—she had to go through a
- form of forcing it upon him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I hope to bring it back to you unbroken,” he murmured; “but in affairs of
- this sort it is safest to have a pound or two over, rather than under,
- what is barely needful. That is why I take your coins,—a loan—a
- sacred loan. Good-bye, I returned only to say good-bye to you, my dearest
- sister.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I knew your good heart, Dick, that was why I was waiting for you.
- Good-bye, Dick, and God bless you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He was putting on his cloak in the hall. He saw that the pistols were in
- its pockets, and then he suffered his sister to give him another kiss
- before he passed into the dark street.
- </p>
- <p>
- He felt for his pistols, and with a hand on each he felt that he was
- indeed fairly launched upon a great adventure.
- </p>
- <p>
- He made his way to the London road, and all the time he was wondering if
- the girl would really come to him in the Sedan chair which he had sent for
- her. To be sure she had promised to come upon this evening, but he knew
- enough of the great affairs of this world to be well aware of the fact
- that the sincerest promise of a maid may be rendered worthless by the
- merest freak of Fate. Therefore, he knew that he did well to be doubtful
- respecting the realisation of her promise. She was the beautiful Miss
- Linley—every one in Bath knew her, and this being so, was it not
- likely that some one—some prying person—some impudent fellow
- like that Mathews who had been making love to her, although he had a wife
- of his own in Wales—might catch a glimpse of her face through the
- glass of the chair when passing a lamp or a link, and be sufficiently
- curious to follow her chair to see whither she was going?
- </p>
- <p>
- That was a likely enough thing to happen, and if it did happen and the
- alarm of his flight with her were given, what chance would he have of
- carrying out his purpose? Why, the chaise would be followed, and even if
- it was not overtaken before London was reached, the resting-place of the
- fugitives would certainly be discovered in London, and they should be
- ignominiously brought back to Bath. Yes, unless Mathews were the pursuer,
- in which case——
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Richard Brinsley Sheridan grasped more firmly the butt of the pistol
- in the right-hand pocket of his cloak. He felt at that moment that should
- Mathews overtake them, the going back to Bath would be on the part only of
- Mathews.
- </p>
- <p>
- But how would it be if Mr. Linley had become apprised of his daughter's
- intention to fly from Bath? He knew very well that Mr. Linley had the best
- of reasons for objecting to his daughter's leaving Bath. Mr. Linley's
- income was increased by several hundred pounds by reason of the payments
- made to him on account of his daughter's singing in public, and he was—very
- properly, considering his large family—fond of money. Before he had
- to provide for his family, he took good care that his family—his
- eldest daughter particularly—helped to provide for him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doubtless these eventualities were suggested to him—for young Mr.
- Sheridan was not without imagination—while on his way through the
- dark outskirts of the beautiful city to the London Road. The Bear Inn was
- just beyond the last of the houses. It stood at the junction of the London
- Road and a narrower one leading past a couple of farms. It was here that
- he had given instructions for the chaise to wait for him, and here he
- meant to wait for the young lady who had promised to accompany him to
- London—and further.
- </p>
- <p>
- He found the chaise without trouble. It was under the trees not more than
- a hundred yards down the lane, but the chair, with Miss Linley, had not
- yet arrived, so he returned to the road and began to retrace his steps,
- hoping to meet it, yet with some doubts in his mind. Of course, he was
- impatient. Young gentlemen under twenty-one are usually impatient when
- awaiting the arrival of the ladies who have promised to run away with
- them. He was not, however, kept in suspense for an unconscionably long
- time. He met the chair which he was expecting just when he had reached the
- last of the lamps of Bath, and out of it stepped the muffled form of Miss
- Linley. The chairmen were paid with a lavish hand, and Dick Sheridan and
- Betsy Linley walked on to the chaise without exchanging any but a friendly
- greeting—there was nothing lover-like in their meeting or their
- greeting. The elopement was not that of a young woman with her lover; it
- was, we are assured, that of a young woman anxious to escape from the
- intolerable position of being the most popular person in the most
- fashionable city in England, to the peaceful retreat of a convent; and the
- young man who was to take charge of her was one whom she had chosen for
- her guardian, not for her lover. Dick Sheridan seems to have been the only
- young man in Bath who had never made love to Elizabeth Linley. His elder
- brother, Charles by name, had discharged this duty on behalf of the
- Sheridan family, and he was now trying to live down his disappointment at
- being refused, at a farmhouse a mile or two away. The burden was greater
- than he could bear when surrounded by his sisters in their father's house
- in King's Mead Street.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0013" id="linkimage-0013"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0277.jpg" alt="0277 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0277.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- Elizabeth Linley was certainly the most popular young woman in Bath; she
- certainly was the most beautiful. The greatest painters of her day made
- masterpieces of her portrait, and for once, posterity acknowledges that
- the fame of her beauty was well founded. So spiritual a face as hers is to
- be seen in no eighteenth-century picture except that of Miss Linley; one
- has need to go back to the early Italian painters to find such
- spirituality in a human face, and then one finds it combined with absolute
- inanity, and the face is called Divine. Reynolds painted her as Saint
- Cecilia drawing down angels, and blessedly unconscious of her own powers,
- thinking only of raising herself among angels on the wings of song. His
- genius was never better employed and surely never more apparent than in
- the achievement of this picture. Gainsborough painted her by the side of
- her younger brother, and one feels that if Reynolds painted a saint,
- Gainsborough painted a girl. It was Bishop O'Beirne, an old friend of her
- family and acquainted with her since her childhood, who said: “She is a
- link between an angel and a woman.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And this exquisite creature had a voice of so sympathetic a quality that
- no one could hear it unmoved. Her father had made her technique perfect.
- He was a musician who was something more than painstaking. He had taste of
- the highest order, and it is possible to believe that in the training of
- his eldest daughter he was wise enough to limit his instruction to the
- technicalities of his art, leaving her to the inspiration of her own
- genius in regard to the treatment of any theme which he brought before
- her.
- </p>
- <p>
- At any rate her success in the sublimest of all oratorios was far beyond
- anything that could be achieved by an exhibition of the finest technical
- qualities; and Mr. Linley soon became aware of the fact that he was the
- father of the most beautiful and the most highly gifted creature that ever
- made a father miserable.
- </p>
- <p>
- Incidentally she made a great many other men miserable, but that was only
- because each of them wanted her to make him happy at the expense of the
- others, and this she was too kind-hearted to do. But the cause of her
- father's grief was something different. It was due to the fact that the
- girl was so sensitive that she shrank from every exhibition of herself and
- her ability on a public platform. It was an agony to her to hear the
- tumultuous applause that greeted her singing at a concert or in an
- oratorio. She seemed to feel—let any one look at the face which is
- to be seen in her portrait, and one will understand how this could be—that
- music was something too spiritual to be made the medium only for the
- entertainment of the multitude. Taking the highest imaginable view of the
- scope and value and meaning of music, it can be understood that this girl
- should shrink from such an ordeal as the concert platform offered to her
- every time she was announced to sing. No more frivolous and fashionable a
- population than that of Bath in the second half of the eighteenth century
- was to be found in any city in the world; and Elizabeth Linley felt that
- she was regarded by the concert-goers as no more than one of the numerous
- agents they employed to lessen the ennui of an empty day. The music which
- she worshipped—the spirit with which her soul communed in secret—was,
- she felt, degraded by being sold to the crowd and subjected to the
- patronage of their applause.
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course when she spoke to her father in this strain he sympathised with
- her, and bemoaned the fate that made it necessary for him to have her
- assistance to save her mother and brothers and sisters from starvation.
- And so for several years she was an obedient child, but very weary of the
- rôle. She sang and enchanted thousands. She did not, however, think of
- them; her mind dwelt daily upon the tens of thousands who regarded her
- (she thought) as fulfilling no nobler purpose than to divert them for half
- an hour between taking the waters and sitting down to faro or quadrille.
- </p>
- <p>
- But it was not alone her distaste for the publicity of the platform that
- made her miserable. The fact was that she was distracted by suitors. She
- had, it was said, accepted the offer of an elderly gentleman named Long,
- the wealthy head of a county family in the neighbourhood; and Foote, with
- his usual vulgarity, which took the form of personality, wrote a play—a
- wretched thing even for Foote—in which he dealt with an imaginarily
- comic and a certainly sordid situation, with Miss Linley on the one side
- and Mr. Long on the other. Serious biographers have not hesitated to
- accept this situation invented by the notorious <i>farceur</i>, who was no
- greater a respecter of persons than he was of truth, as a valuable
- contribution to the history of the Linley family, especially in regard to
- the love affair of the lovely girl by whose help they were made famous.
- They have never thought of the possibility of her having accepted Mr. Long
- in order to escape from her horror of the concert platform. They have
- never suggested the possibility of Mr. Long's settling a sum of money on
- her out of his generosity when he found out that Miss Linley did not love
- him.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was not Mr. Long, however, but a man named Mathews—sometimes
- referred to as Captain, occasionally as Major—who was the immediate
- cause of her running away with young Sheridan. This man Mathews was known
- to be married, and to be in love with Elizabeth Linley, and yet he was
- allowed to be constantly in her company, pestering her with his
- attentions, and there was no one handy to horsewhip him. Sheridan's
- sister, who afterwards married Mr. Lefanu, wrote an account of this
- curious matter for the guidance of Thomas Moore, who was preparing his
- biography of her brother. She stated that Miss Linley was afraid to tell
- her father of Major Mathews and his impossible suit, and so she was “at
- length induced to consult Richard Sheridan, whose intimacy with Major
- Mathews, at the time, she thought might warrant his interference.” And
- then we are told that “R. B. Sheridan sounded Mathews on the subject and
- at length prevailed on him to give up the pursuit.”
- </p>
- <p>
- That is how the adoring sister of “R. B. Sheridan,” who had been talking
- to Elizabeth Linley of him as of a knight-errant, eager to redress the
- wrongs of maidens in distress, wrote of her brother! He “sounded Mathews
- on the subject.” On what subject? The subject was the pursuit of an
- innocent girl by a contemptible scoundrel. How does the knight-errant
- “sound” such a person when he sets out to redress the maiden's
- ill-treatment? One R. B. Sheridan, a dramatist, gives us a suggestion as
- to what were his ideas on this point: “Do you think that Achilles or my
- little Alexander the Great ever enquired where the right lay? No, sir,
- they drew their broadswords and left the lazy sons of peace to settle the
- rights of the matter.” Now young Sheridan, who is reported by his sister
- as “sounding” Mathews, was no coward. He proved himself to be anything but
- afraid of Mathews, so that one must, out of justice to him, assume that
- the only attempt he would have made to “sound” the scoundrel at this time
- would be through the medium of a sound hiding.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is at such a point as this in the biography of an interesting man that
- one blesses the memory—and the notebook—of the faithful
- Boswell. Thomas Moore was quite intimate with Richard Brinsley Sheridan,
- but he never thought of asking him for some information on this particular
- incident in his life, the fact being that he had no definite intention of
- becoming his biographer. We know perfectly well how Boswell would have
- plied Johnson with questions on the subject, had it ever come to his ears
- that Johnson had undertaken to play the rôle of a knight-errant.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Pray, sir, what did you say to Mathews when you sounded him?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you think, sir, that in any circumstances a married gentleman who is
- showing marked attentions to a virtuous young lady should be sounded by a
- young gentleman who has been entrusted with the duty of protecting the
- lady?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Alas! instead of the unblushing indelicacy of Boswell, who hunted for
- trifles as a pig hunts for truffles, we are obliged to be content with the
- vagueness of a sister, whose memory, we have an uneasy feeling, was not
- quite so good as she thought it was.
- </p>
- <p>
- And from the memory of this sister we have an account of the amazing
- elopement of Richard Sheridan with Elizabeth Linley.
- </p>
- <p>
- When the young gentleman put her into the chaise that was waiting for them
- on the London road, Miss Linley had never thought of him except as a kind
- friend. She had accepted his services upon this occasion as she would
- those of a courier to conduct her to London, and thence to France, where
- she intended to enter a convent. The Miss Sheridans had lived in France,
- and had some friends at St.
- </p>
- <p>
- Quentin, who knew of a very nice clean convent—an establishment
- which they could strongly recommend, and where she could find that
- complete seclusion which Miss Linley longed for, and their brother Dick
- was thought to be a very suitable companion for her on her way thither.
- Mrs. Lefanu (<i>née</i> Sheridan), who wrote out the whole story in after
- years, mentioned that her chivalrous brother was to provide a woman to act
- as her maid in the chaise; but as not the least reference to this chaperon
- is to be found in the rest of the story, we fear that it must be assumed
- either that her brother forgot this unimportant detail, or that the detail
- was unavoidably detained in Bath. What is most likely of all is that the
- solitary reference to this mysterious female was dovetailed, somewhat
- clumsily, into the narrative, at the suggestion of some Mrs. Grundy, who
- shook her head at the narrative of so much chivalry unsupported by a
- responsible chaperon. However this may be, the shadowy chaperon is never
- alluded to again; she may have faded away into the mists of morning and
- London, or she may have vanished at the first turnpike. Nothing was seen
- or heard of her subsequently.
- </p>
- <p>
- The boy and the girl reached London in safety, and drove to the house of a
- Mr. Ewart, a relation of the Sheridans, to whom Dick offered the
- explanation of his unconventional visit on the very plausible grounds of
- his being engaged to the young lady, a great heiress, whom he was
- hastening to France to marry. Of course the Ewart family were perfectly
- satisfied with this explanation; and another friend, who had indisputable
- claims to consideration, being, we are told, “the son of a respectable
- brandy merchant in the City,” suggested that they should sail from London
- to Dunkirk, “in order to make pursuit more difficult.” How such an end
- could be compassed by such means is left to the imagination of a reader.
- The young pair, however, jumped at the suggestion, and reached Dunkirk
- after an uneventful crossing.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is at this point in the sister's account of the itinerary of this
- interesting enterprise that she mentions that Richard suddenly threw away
- the disguise of the chivalrous and disinterested protector of the young
- lady, and declared that he would not consent to conduct her to the convent
- unless she agreed to marry him immediately. Mrs. Lefanu's exact words are
- as follows: “After quitting Dunkirk Mr. Sheridan was more explicit with
- Miss Linley as to his views on accompanying her to France.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This is certainly a very lawyer-like way of condoning the conduct of a
- mean scoundrel; but, happily for the credit of Richard Brinsley Sheridan,
- it is the easiest thing in the world to discredit his sister's narrative,
- although she adds that he urged on the girl what would seem to a casual
- observer of society in general to be perfectly true—“she must be
- aware that after the step she had taken, she could not appear in England
- but as his wife.” As the sequel proved this alleged statement was quite
- untrue! She did appear in England, and not as his wife, and no one seemed
- to think anything the worse of her on account of her escapade. But to
- suggest that Sheridan took advantage of the trust which the innocent girl
- had reposed in him to compel her to marry him, a penniless minor with no
- profession and very little education, is scarcely consistent with an
- account of his high-mindedness and his sense of what was chivalrous.
- </p>
- <p>
- And then the sister pleasantly remarks that “Miss Linley, who really
- preferred him greatly to any person, was not difficult to persuade, and at
- a village not far from Calais the marriage ceremony was performed by a
- priest who was known to be often employed upon such occasions.” Whoever
- this clergyman may have been, it is impossible for any one to believe that
- in the discharge of his office he was kept in constant employment; for
- “such occasions” as answered to the account given by the Sheridan sister
- of the nuptials of the young couple, must have been extremely rare.
- </p>
- <p>
- And yet Moore, on whom the responsibilities of a biographer rested very
- lightly, was quite content to accept as strictly accurate the narrative of
- Mrs. Lefanu, contradicted though it was by subsequent events in which both
- her brother and Miss Linley were concerned. Moore does not seem to have
- troubled himself over any attempt to obtain confirmation of one of the
- most important incidents in the life of the man of whom he was writing.
- </p>
- <p>
- He made no attempt to discover if the accommodating priest at the village
- near Calais was still alive when he was compiling his biography of
- Sheridan, and it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that he was
- still alive; nor did this easy-going Irish master of melodies consider
- that it devolved on him to try to find some record of the marriage in
- question.
- </p>
- <p>
- Now what happened after this remarkable union? The narrative of the sister
- is quite as circumstantial as one could wish it to be, and even more
- imaginative. But whatever qualities of excellence it possesses, it
- certainly does not carry to a reader any conviction of accuracy. It states
- that the interesting young couple went to Lille instead of carrying out
- their original intention of going to St. Quentin, and that Miss Linley—now
- Mrs. Sheridan, of course—“immediately secured an apartment in a
- convent, where it was settled she was to remain either till Sheridan came
- of age or till he was in a situation to support a wife. He remained a few
- days at Lille to be satisfied that she was settled to her satisfaction;
- but, whether from agitation of mind or fatigue, she was taken ill, and an
- English physician, Dr. Dolman, of York, was called in to attend her. From
- what he perceived of her case he wished to have her more immediately under
- his care than he could in the convent, and he and Mrs. Dolman most kindly
- invited her to their house.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This would seem to have been very kind indeed on the part of the doctor
- and his wife, but it so happened that a letter turned up some years ago
- which the late Mr. Fraser Rae was able to print in the first volume of his
- admirable <i>Life of Sheridan</i>, and this letter makes it plain that
- wherever Mrs. Sheridan (<i>née</i> Linley) may have been, she was not
- sojourning with the Dolmans. It is from Dr. Dolman himself, and it was
- addressed to “Monsieur Sherridan, Gentilhomme Anglois, à l'Hôtel de
- Bourbon, Sur la Grande Place.” It recommends the administering of certain
- powders in a glass of white wine twice daily, and sends “compliments and
- wishes of health to your lady.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The question then remains: Was the lady at this time an inmate of the
- convent, and did the doctor expect “Monsieur Sherridan” to go to this
- institution twice a day in order to administer the powders to his lady?
- Would not the doctor think it somewhat peculiar that the husband should be
- at the Hôtel de Bourbon and his lady an inmate of the convent?
- </p>
- <p>
- These questions must be left to be answered according to the experience of
- life of any one interested in the matter. But it is worth noticing that,
- on the very day that he received the missive from Dr. Dolman, Sheridan
- wrote to his brother at Bath and mentioned that Miss Linley—he
- continued to call her Miss Linley—was now “fixing in a convent,
- where she has been entered some time.” Does the first phrase mean that she
- was already in the convent, or only about to take up her residence there?
- However this question may be answered, it is clear that Sheridan expected
- to leave her behind him at Lille, for he adds, “Everything is now so
- happily settled here I will delay no longer giving you that information,
- though probably I shall set out for England without knowing a syllable of
- what has happened with you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- So far, then, as his emprise in regard to the lady was concerned, he
- considered the incident to be closed. “Though you may have been ignorant
- for some time of our proceedings, you could never have been uneasy,” he
- continues hopefully, “lest anything should tempt me to depart, even in a
- thought, from the honour and consistency which engaged me at first.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Some people have suggested that Sheridan, when he drew the character of
- Charles Surface, meant it to be something of an excuse for his own casual
- way of life. But it must strike a good many persons who believe that he
- induced the innocent girl, whom he set forth to protect on her way to a
- refuge from the infamous designs of Mathews, to marry him, that Sheridan
- approached much more closely to the character of Joseph in this
- correspondence with his brother. A more hypocritical passage than that
- just quoted could hardly have been uttered by Joseph Surface. As a matter
- of fact, one of Joseph's sentiments is only a paraphrase of this unctuous
- assumption of honour and consistency.
- </p>
- <p>
- But this criticism is only true if one can believe his sister's story of
- the marriage. If it is true that Sheridan set out from England with Miss
- Linley with the intention of so compromising her that she should be
- compelled to marry him, at the same time pretending to her and to his
- brother to be actuated by the highest motives in respect of the ill-used
- girl, it is impossible to think of him except with contempt.
- </p>
- <p>
- Happily the weight of evidence is overpoweringly in Sheridan's favour. We
- may think of him as a rash, an inconsiderate, and a culpably careless boy
- to take it upon him to be the girl's companion to the French convent, but
- we refuse to believe that he was ever capable of acting the grossly
- disingenuous part attributed to him by his sister, and accepted without
- question by his melodious biographer. There are many people, however, who
- believe that when a man marries a woman, no matter in what circumstances,
- he has “acted the part of a gentleman” in regard to her, and must be held
- to be beyond reproach on any account whatsoever so far as the woman is
- concerned. In the eyes of such censors of morality, as in the eyes of the
- law, the act of marriage renders null and void all ante-nuptial deeds; and
- it was probably some impression of this type which was acquired by
- Sheridan's sister, inducing her to feel sure (after a time) that her
- brother's memory would suffer if his biographer were to tell the story of
- his inconsiderate conduct in running away with Elizabeth Linley, unless it
- was made clear that he married her the first moment he had to spare. She
- tried to save her brother's memory by persuading her own to accommodate
- itself to what she believed to be her brother's emergency. She was a good
- sister, and she kept her memory well under control.
- </p>
- <p>
- But what did the father of the young lady think of the matter? What did
- the people of Bath, who were well acquainted with all the actors engaged
- in this little comedy, think of the matter? Happily these questions can be
- answered by appealing to facts rather than to the well-considered
- recollections of a discreet lady.
- </p>
- <p>
- We know for certain that Mr. Linley, who was, as one might suppose, fully
- equipped to play the part of the enraged father of the runaway girl,
- turned up at the place of her retreat—he had no trouble in learning
- in what direction to look for her—and having found her and the young
- gentleman who had run away with her, did he, under the impulse of his
- anger, fanned by his worldly knowledge, insist with an uplifted horsewhip
- upon his marrying her without a moment's delay? Mr. Linley knew Bath, and
- to know Bath was to know the world. Was he, then, of the same opinion as
- that expressed (according to his sister's narrative) by young Sheridan to
- persuade Miss Linley to be his bride—namely, that it would be
- impossible for her to show her face in Bath unless as the wife of Richard
- Brinsley Sheridan?
- </p>
- <p>
- Nothing of the sort. Whatever reproaches he may have flung at his
- daughter, however strong may have been his denunciation of the conduct of
- the man who had run away with her, they had not the effect either of
- inducing his daughter or her companion to reveal to him the fact that they
- had been married for several days, or of interrupting the friendly
- relations that had existed for nearly two years between himself and young
- Sheridan. The dutiful memory of Miss Sheridan records that Mr. Linley,
- “after some private conversation with Mr. Sheridan, appeared quite
- reconciled to his daughter, but insisted on her returning to England with
- him (Mr. Linley) to fulfil several engagements he had entered into on her
- account. The whole party set out together the next day, Mr. Linley having
- previously promised to allow his daughter to return to Lille when her
- engagements were over.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The comedy of the elopement had become a farce of the “whimsical” type.
- Nothing more amusing or amazing has ever been seen on the vaudeville
- stage. The boy and the girl run off together and get married. The
- infuriated father follows them, ruthlessly invades their place of refuge,
- and then, “after some private conversation” with his daughter's husband,
- who does not tell him that he is her husband, says to the young woman, “My
- dear, you must come home with me to sing at a concert.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly, papa,” replies the girl. “Wait a minute, and I'll go too,”
- cries the unconfused husband of the daughter. “All right, come along,”
- says the father, and they all take hands and sing the ridiculous trio
- which winds up the vaudeville after it has run on inconsequentially for a
- merry forty minutes—there is a <i>pas de trois</i>, and the curtain
- falls!
- </p>
- <p>
- Alas, for the difference between Boswell the bald and Moore the melodious!
- The bald prose of Boswell's diaries may have made many of the personages
- with whom he dealt seem silly, but that was because he himself was silly,
- and, being aware of this fact, the more discriminating of his readers have
- no great difficulty in arriving at the truth of any matter with which he
- deals. He would never have accepted unreservedly such a narrative as that
- which Moore received from Mrs. Lefanu (<i>née</i> Sheridan), and put into
- his own language, or as nearly into his own language as he could. But
- Moore found it “so hard to narrate familiar events eloquently,” he
- complained. He actually thought that Mrs. Lefanu's narrative erred on the
- side of plausibility! The mysterious elopement, the still more mysterious
- marriage, and the superlatively mysterious return of the fugitives and the
- irate father hand-in-hand, he regarded as events so commonplace as not to
- be susceptible of lyrical treatment. But the most farcical of the doings
- of his own <i>Fudge Family</i> were rational in comparison with the
- familiar events associated with the flight to France of his hero and
- heroine. The <i>Trip to Scarborough</i> of Sheridan the farce-writer was
- founded on much more “familiar events” than this extraordinary trip to
- Lille, as narrated for the benefit of the biographer by Mrs. Lefanu.
- </p>
- <p>
- What seems to be the truth of the whole matter is simply that Sheridan
- undertook to be a brother to Elizabeth Linley, and carried out his compact
- faithfully, without allowing anything to tempt him to depart, as he wrote
- to Charles, “even in thought from the honour and consistency which engaged
- [him] at first.” It must be remembered that he was a romantic boy of
- twenty, and this is just the age at which nearly every boy—especially
- a boy in love—is a Sir Galahad. As for Miss Linley, one has only to
- look at her portrait to know what she was. She was not merely innocent,
- she was innocence itself.
- </p>
- <p>
- When Mr. Linley appeared at Lille he accepted without reserve the
- explanation offered to him by his daughter and by Sheridan; and, moreover,
- he knew that although there was a school for scandal located at Bath, yet
- so highly was his daughter thought of in all circles, and so greatly was
- young Sheridan liked, that no voice of calumny would be raised against
- either of them when they returned with him. And even if it were possible
- that some whisper, with its illuminating smile above the arch of a painted
- fan, might be heard in the Assembly Rooms when some one mentioned the name
- of Miss Linley in connection with that of young Sheridan and with the trip
- to Lille, he felt convinced that such a whisper would be robbed of its
- sting when every one knew that the girl and the boy and the father all
- returned together and on the best terms to Bath.
- </p>
- <p>
- As the events proved, he had every right to take even so sanguine a view
- of the limitations of the range of the Pump Room gossips. On the return of
- the three from Lille no one suggested that Sheridan and Miss Linley should
- get married. No one except the scoundrel Mathews suggested that Sheridan
- had acted badly or even unwisely, though undoubtedly he had given grounds
- for such implications. The little party returned to Bath, and Miss Linley
- fulfilled her concert and oratorio engagements, went into society as
- before, and had at her feet more eligible suitors than had ever knelt
- there. We have it on the authority of Charles Sheridan, the elder brother,
- that in Bath the feeling was that Richard had acted as a man of honour in
- taking the girl to the convent at Lille. Writing to their uncle, Mr.
- Chamberlaine, he expressed surprise that “in this age when the world does
- not abound in Josephs, most people are (notwithstanding the general
- tendency of mankind to judge unfavourably) inclined to think that he
- (Richard) acted with the strictest honour in his late expedition with Miss
- L., when the circumstances might allow of their being very dubious on this
- head without incurring the imputation of being censorious.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This testimony as to what was the opinion in Bath regarding the expedition
- is extremely valuable, coming as it does from one who was never greatly
- disposed to take a brotherly or even a friendly view of Richard's conduct
- at any time—coming as it does also from a man who had been in love
- with Miss Linley.
- </p>
- <p>
- At any rate this escapade of young Mr. Sheridan was the most fortunate for
- him of any in which he ever engaged, and he was a man of many escapades,
- for it caused Elizabeth Linley to fall in love with him, and never was a
- man beloved by a sweeter or more faithful woman. To know how beautiful was
- her nature one has only to look at her face in either of the great
- portraits of her which are before us to-day. No characteristic of all that
- is held to be good and gracious and sympathetic—in one word, that is
- held to be womanly, is absent from her face. No man that ever lived was
- worthy of such a woman; but if only men who are worthy of such women were
- beloved by them, mankind would be the losers. She loved Sheridan with the
- truest devotion—such devotion as might be expected from such a
- nature as hers—and she died in the act of writing to him the
- love-letter of a wife to her dearly loved husband.
- </p>
- <p>
- They did not get married until a year after the date of their flight to
- the Continent, and then they were described as bachelor and spinster.
- Neither of them ever gave a hint, even in any of the numerous letters
- which they exchanged during this period, that they had gone through the
- ceremony of marriage at that village near Calais. More than once a
- strained situation would have been relieved had it been possible to make
- such a suggestion, for now and again each of the lovers grew jealous of
- the other for a day or two. But neither said, “Pray remember that you are
- not free to think of marrying any one. We are husband and wife, although
- we were married in secret.” Neither of them could make such an assertion.
- It would not have been true. What seems to us to be the truth is that it
- was Sir Galahad who acted as protector to his sister when Richard Brinsley
- Sheridan went with Elizabeth Linley to France.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- THE AMAZING DUELS
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HEN young Mr.
- Sheridan returned to Bath after his happy little journey to France with
- Miss Linley and back with Mr. Linley, he may have believed that the
- incident was closed. He had done all that—and perhaps a little more
- than—the most chivalrous man of experience and means could be
- expected to do for the young woman toward whom he had stood in the
- position of a protecting brother. He had conducted her to the convent at
- Lille, on which she had set her heart, and he had been able to explain
- satisfactorily to her father on his arrival at the hotel where he and Miss
- Linley were sojourning in the meantime, what his intentions had been when
- he had eloped with her from Bath. No doubt he had also acted as Miss
- Linley's adviser in respect of those negotiations with her father which
- resulted in the happy return of the whole family party to London.
- </p>
- <p>
- In London he heard that Mathews, the scoundrel who had been pursuing Miss
- Linley in the most disreputable fashion, was in town also, and that,
- previous to leaving Bath, he had inserted in the Chronicle a defamatory
- advertisement regarding him (Sheridan); and on this information coming to
- his ears he put his pistols into his pocket and went in search of Mathews
- at the lodgings of the latter.
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Sheridan tells us about the pistols in the course of her lucid
- narrative, and states on her own responsibility that when he came upon
- Mathews the latter was dreadfully frightened at the sight of one of the
- pistols protruding from Sheridan's pocket. Mr. Fraser Rae, the competent
- biographer of Sheridan, smiles at the lady's statement. “The sight of the
- pistols would have alarmed Sheridan's sisters,” he says, “but it is in
- accordance with probability that he (Mathews) expected a hostile meeting
- to follow as a matter of course. He must have been prepared for it, and he
- would have been strangely ignorant of the world in which he lived if he
- had deemed it unusual.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0014" id="linkimage-0014"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0301.jpg" alt="0301 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0301.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- But Mr. Fraser Rae was not so strangely ignorant of the world in which
- Sheridan and Mathews lived as to fancy that there was nothing unusual in a
- gentleman's going to ask another gentleman whom he believed to have
- affronted him, for an explanation, with a pair of pistols in his pocket.
- In the circumstances a duel would have been nothing unusual; but surely
- Mr. Fraser Rae could not have fancied that Sheridan set out with the
- pistols in his pocket in order to fight a duel with Mathews in the man's
- lodgings, without preliminaries and without seconds. If Mathews caught
- sight of the butt of a pistol sticking out of Sheridan's pocket he had
- every reason to be as frightened as Miss Sheridan declared he was, for he
- must have believed that his visitor had come to murder him.
- </p>
- <p>
- At any rate, frightened or not frightened, pistols or no pistols, Mathews,
- on being interrogated by Sheridan as to the advertisement in the <i>Bath
- Chronicle</i>, assured him that he had been grossly misinformed as to the
- character of the advertisement. It was, he affirmed, nothing more than an
- inquiry after Sheridan, which the family of the latter had sanctioned. He
- then, according to Miss Sheridan, expressed the greatest friendship for
- his visitor, and said that he would be made extremely unhappy if any
- difference should arise between them.
- </p>
- <p>
- So young Mr. Sheridan, balked of his murderous intentions, returned with
- unsullied pistols to his hotel, and set out for Bath with Miss Linley and
- her father.
- </p>
- <p>
- But if he fancied that Mathews had passed out of his life he was quickly
- undeceived. Before he had time to take his seat at the family table he had
- got a copy of the newspaper containing the advertisement, of the tenor of
- which Mathews had told him in London he had been misinformed; and now his
- sisters made him fully aware of the action taken by the same man on
- learning of the flight of Sheridan and Elizabeth Linley. The result was
- that he now perceived what every one should have known long before—namely,
- that Mathews was a scoundrel, who should never have been allowed to obtain
- the footing to which he had been admitted in the Sheridan and Linley
- families.
- </p>
- <p>
- It appears that the moment Mathews heard that Miss Linley had been carried
- beyond his reach, he rushed to the Sheridans' house, and there found the
- girls and their elder brother, who had been wisely communicated with by
- the landlord, and had left his retirement in the farmhouse in the country
- to take charge of the sisters in the absence of their brother Richard.
- Mathews behaved like a madman—no unusual <i>rôle</i> for him—heaping
- reproaches upon the absent member of the family, and demanding to be told
- of his whereabouts. He seems to have been encouraged by Charles Sheridan,
- who had unwisely said something in disparagement of his brother. Mathews
- had the effrontery to avow his passion for Elizabeth Linley, and in the
- bitterest terms to accuse Richard Sheridan of having acted basely in
- taking her beyond his reach.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then he hastened to Richard Sheridan's friend and confidant, a young man
- named Brereton, and to him he sent messages of friendship and, possibly,
- condolence to Mr. Linley, though his object in paying this visit was
- undoubtedly not to endeavour to exculpate himself as regards Mr. Linley,
- but to find out where the fugitives were to be found. He may have had
- visions of pursuing them, of fighting a duel with Richard Sheridan, and if
- he succeeded in killing him, of getting the girl at last into his power.
- </p>
- <p>
- But Mr. Brereton not only did not reveal the whereabouts of his friend—he
- knew that Sheridan meant to go to Lille, for he wrote to him there—but
- he also refused to give his interrogator any sympathy for having failed to
- accomplish the destruction of the girl. Brereton, indeed, seems to have
- convinced him that the best thing he could do was to leave Bath as quickly
- as possible. Mathews had probably by this time discovered, as Brereton
- certainly had, that the feeling against him in Bath was profound. There
- can be little doubt that in the course of the day Charles Sheridan became
- aware of this fact also; he had only a few months before confessed himself
- to be deeply in love with Elizabeth Linley, and when he heard that his
- brother had run away with her he could not but have been somewhat incensed
- against him, for Richard had not taken him into his confidence. By the
- time his brother returned, however, any ill-feeling that Charles may have
- felt had disappeared, and as Charles always showed himself to be a cool
- and calculating gentleman—one who always kept an eye on the jumping
- cat—it is not going too far to assume that his change of tone in
- respect of his rather impetuous brother was due to his perception of the
- trend of public opinion on the subject of the elopement.
- </p>
- <p>
- Brereton had persuaded Mathews that there was nothing left for him but to
- quit Bath; but before taking this step the latter had inserted in the <i>Bath
- Chronicle</i> the advertisement of which Richard had heard, but which he
- had not read when in London, thus leaving himself in no position to
- contradict Mathews' assertion as to its amicable wording.
- </p>
- <p>
- But now the newspaper was put into his hands by Charles, and he had an
- opportunity of pronouncing an opinion on this point. It was dated
- Wednesday, April the 8th, 1772, and it ran as follows:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Richard S———— having attempted in a letter
- left behind him for that purpose, to account for his scandalous method of
- running away from this place by insinuations derogating from my character
- and that of a young lady, innocent as far as relates to me, or my
- knowledge, since which he has neither taken any notice of letters or even
- informed his own family of the place where he has hid himself; I cannot
- longer think he deserves the treatment of a gentleman, and in this public
- method, to post him as a L———, and a treacherous S————.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And as I am convinced there have been many malevolent incendiaries
- concerned in the propagation of this infamous lie, if any of them,
- unprotected by age, <i>infirmities</i>, or profession, they are to
- acknowledge the part they have acted, and affirm <i>to</i> what they have
- said <i>of</i> me, they may depend on receiving the proper reward of their
- villainy, in the most public manner. The world will be candid enough to
- judge properly (I make no doubt) of any private abuse on this subject for
- the future, as nobody can defend himself from an accusation he is ignorant
- of Thomas Mathews.” Such a piece of maundering imbecility as this had
- probably never before appeared in a newspaper. It must have been read in
- Bath with roars of laughter. But we do not hear that any of the ready
- writers of the time and the town yielded to the temptation of commenting
- upon the “malevolent incendiarism” of the composition. A man of the world,
- had it been written about himself, would possibly have thought that its
- illiteracy spoke for itself, and so would have refrained from making any
- move in regard to it or its author. But one can imagine what effect
- reading it would have upon a boy of Sheridan's spirit. For a youth of
- twenty to find himself posted as a Liar and a Scoundrel, to say nothing of
- a “malevolent incendiary,” and remain indifferent would be impossible.
- Sheridan did not take long to make up his mind what he should do in the
- circumstances.
- </p>
- <p>
- The dramatic touch which his sister introduces in writing of Richard's
- perusal of the paragraph is intensely true to nature. He simply put a word
- or two to Charles relative to what Mathews had told him in London about
- his, Sheridan's, family sanctioning the insertion of the advertisement.
- Charles had no difficulty in vindicating his integrity on this point.
- Richard knew perfectly well that it is one thing to say that a man has
- acted too hastily, but quite another to suggest that that man is “a L———
- and a S————.”
- </p>
- <p>
- So apparently the matter ended, and Richard continued chatting with his
- sisters, giving no sign of what was in his mind. The girls went to their
- beds, suspecting nothing. The next morning their two brothers were
- missing!
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course the girls were dreadfully alarmed. Some people in the house told
- them that they had heard high words being exchanged between the brothers
- after the girls had retired, and shortly afterwards the two former had
- gone out together. The sister, in her narrative, mentions that she
- received a hint or two of a duel between Richard and Charles, but she at
- once put these suggestions aside. The poor girls must have been nearly
- distracted. Certainly the house of Sheridan was passing through a period
- of great excitement. The estimable head of the family was himself
- expecting a crisis in his affairs as manager of the theatre in Dublin—Mr.
- Thomas Sheridan was never far removed from a crisis—and in his
- absence his young people were doing pretty much as they pleased. He had no
- power of controlling them; all that he had to do with them was to pay
- their bills. Neither of the sons was earning anything, and while one of
- them was living as a man of fashion, the other had thought it well to cut
- himself off from his sisters, taking lodgings at a farm some way out of
- Bath It is the girls of the house for whom one feels most. Alicia, the
- elder, was seventeen, Elizabeth was but twelve. They must have been
- distracted. So would their father have been if he had had a chance of
- learning all that was going on at Bath.
- </p>
- <p>
- But, of course, when young gentlemen of spirit are falling in love with
- beauteous maidens, and retiring to cure themselves by mingling with
- pastoral scenes reminiscent of the gentle melancholy of Mr. Alexander
- Pope's shepherds and shepherdesses (done in Dresden), every one of whom
- murmurs mournfully and melodiously of a rejected suit—when young
- gentlemen are running away with afflicted damsels and returning to fight
- their enemies, they cannot be expected to think of the incidental expenses
- of the business, which are to be defrayed by their father, any more than
- of the distraction which takes possession of their sisters.
- </p>
- <p>
- The two young gentlemen were missing, and had left for their sisters no
- explanation of their absence—no hint as to the direction of their
- flight. And there were other people in the house talking about the high
- words that had been exchanged between the brothers at midnight. It is not
- surprising that the poor girls should be distressed and distracted.
- </p>
- <p>
- Considering that Miss Linley was the first cause of the excitement in the
- midst of which the family had been living for some weeks, it was only
- natural that the elder of the girls should send for her with a view to
- have some light thrown on this new development of the heroic incident in
- which Miss Linley had assisted. But Miss Linley, on being applied to,
- affirmed that she knew nothing of the disappearance of the brothers, that
- she had heard of nothing that should cause them to leave Bath at a
- moment's notice. She was, unfortunately, a young woman of imagination. In
- a crisis such a one is either very helpful, or very helpless. Poor Miss
- Linley was the latter. She had just come through a great crisis in her own
- life, and she had not emerged from it without suffering. It was too much
- to ask her to face another in the family of her friends. She went off in a
- fainting fit on hearing the news of the disappearance of the young men,
- and her father left her in the hands of a medical man, and turned his
- attention to the condition of Miss Sheridan, who was unable to walk back
- to her home, and had to be put into a chair, Mr. Linley walking beside her
- with her young sister. It is more than possible that Mr. Linley was
- beginning to feel that he had had quite enough of the Sheridan family to
- last him for the remainder of his life.
- </p>
- <p>
- For two days nothing whatever was heard of the missing brothers. We have
- no means of knowing if Miss Sheridan communicated to their father in
- Dublin the mysterious story she had to tell; the chances are that she was
- advised by Mr. Linley to refrain from doing so until she might have
- something definite to tell him. Mr. Linley never had any particular regard
- for the elder Sheridan, and he had no wish to have him summoned from his
- theatre at Dublin to make his remarks about the dangerous attractiveness
- of Elizabeth Linley, and the culpable carelessness of her father in
- allowing her to be carried off to France by a young man without a penny
- except what he got from his own father.
- </p>
- <p>
- At any rate, Tom Sheridan did not leave his theatre or his pupils in
- elocution, and there was no need for him to do so, for on Tuesday evening—they
- had been missing on the Sunday morning—Dick and his brother
- returned. They were both greatly fatigued, and said that they had not been
- in bed since they had left Bath. This meant that Dick had actually not
- slept in Bath since he had originally left the city in the company of Miss
- Linley. Between the Friday and the Tuesday he had posted from London to
- Bath with the Linleys, and had forthwith returned to London with his
- brother and then back once more to Bath without a pause. He, at least, had
- very good reason for feeling fatigued.
- </p>
- <p>
- His first act was to hand his sister an apology which had been made to him
- by Mathews. This document is worthy of being reprinted. It ran thus:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Being convinced that the expressions I made use of to Mr. Sheridan's
- disadvantage, were the effects of passion and misrepresentation, I intreat
- what I have said to that gentleman's disadvantage, and particularly beg
- his pardon for my advertisement in the <i>Bath Chronicle</i>. Th.
- Mathews.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He handed this document to his sister, and then it may be supposed that he
- went to bed. He had certainly good need of a sleep.
- </p>
- <p>
- Such is the drift of the story up to this point, as told by Mrs. Lefanu
- (Elizabeth Sheridan), and it differs in some particulars from that told by
- her brother Charles in a letter to their uncle, and, in a lesser degree,
- from the account given of the whole transaction by Richard Sheridan
- himself, who was surely in the best position to know exactly what happened
- upon the occasion of his first visit to Mathews in London, as well as upon
- the occasion of his second, made so hurriedly in the company of his
- brother.
- </p>
- <p>
- His second visit was, as might have been expected, the more exciting. It
- included the fighting of a duel with Mathews. The humours of duelling have
- been frequently dealt with in prose and comedy, and, assuredly the most
- amusing of all is to be found in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's <i>The Rivals</i>.
- One must confess, however, that the serious account given by the same
- writer of his hostile meeting with Mathews, on his return from Bath,
- suggests a much more ludicrous series of situations than are to be found
- in his play.
- </p>
- <p>
- In Sheridan's account he mentions that while still in France he received
- “several abusive threats” from Mathews, and these had such an effect upon
- him that he wrote to Mathews, swearing that he would not close his eyes in
- sleep in England till he had treated Mathews as he deserved. In order to
- carry out this vow he had actually sat up all night at Canterbury, where
- his party halted on their way from Dover to London. He called upon Mathews
- on arriving in London, at the latter's lodging in Crutched Friars; this
- was at midnight, and the key of the door being mislaid, he had to wait two
- hours before he was admitted. He found Mathews in bed, but he induced him
- to rise and dress, though, in spite of his compliance as regards his
- raiment, he complained bitterly of the cold. There does not seem to have
- been any great suffering on Sheridan's part through a lack of heat. Then,
- as his sister's narrative put it, the man declared that his visitor had
- been grossly misinformed in regard to the libel in the Chronicle; and so
- he left for Bath, as has already been stated.
- </p>
- <p>
- And now comes the account given by Sheridan of the return visit, and, told
- in his own laconic style, it suggests such comic situations as border on
- farce.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. S.,” he wrote, “staid but three hours in Bath. He returned to London.
- He sent to Mr. M. from Hyde Parck. He came with Captain Knight his second.
- He objected frequently to the ground. They adjourned to the Hercules
- Pillars. They returned to Hyde Parck. Mr. M. objected to the observation
- of an officer. They returned to Hercules Pillars. They adjourned to the
- Bedford Coffee house by agreement. Mr. M. was gone to the Castel Tavern.
- Mr. S. followed with Mr. E. Mr. M. made many declarations in favour of Mr.
- S. They engaged. Mr. M. was disarmed, Captain Knight ran in. Mr. M. begged
- his life and afterwards denied the advantage. Mr. S. was provoked by the
- (really well-meant) interposition of Captain Knight and the illusion of
- Mr. M. He insisted since Mr. M. denied the advantage, that he should give
- up his sword. Mr. M. denied, but sooner than return to his ground he gave
- it up. It was broke, and Mr. M. offered another. He was then called on to
- retract his abuse and beg Mr. S.'s pardon. With much altercation and much
- ill grace he complied.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The remainder of this remarkably succinct composition is devoted to the
- subsequent misrepresentations of the transaction by Mathews, and by the
- writer's appeal to the seconds to say if his version of the encounter was
- not correct.
- </p>
- <p>
- But whatever Mathews' account may have been it could scarcely be more
- ludicrous than Sheridan's. The marching and countermarching of the four
- gentlemen—it appears that brother Charles, although accompanying
- Richard to London, thought it more prudent to remain under cover during
- the actual engagement; he waited at Brereton's lodgings—the excuses
- made by Mathews in order to get away without fighting, and then at the
- last moment, the carrying out (by agreement) of a manouvre which landed
- Mathews in one tavern and the rest of the party in another—the
- set-to of the principals immediately after the “declarations” of one of
- them in favour of the other, and the final catastrophe could hardly be
- surpassed by the actions of a pair of burlesque duellists in what is
- technically known as a “knockabout” entertainment.
- </p>
- <p>
- And after all this scrupulousness of detail one is left in doubt as to the
- exact <i>locale</i> of the encounter. Did it take place in the coffee-room
- of the Castell Inn, or did the eager combatants retrace their steps to the
- “parck”? The document written by Sheridan, though dealing very fully with
- the forced marches of the army in the field, throws no light upon this
- question of the scene of the battle. In respect of the signing of the
- treaty of peace, and the payment of the indemnity, it is, however,
- moderately lucid. Sheridan must have told his sister that Mathews signed
- the apology immediately after the encounter; she states this in her
- narrative. But Mathews did not merely sign the apology, he wrote every
- word of it, as one may see by referring to the facsimile, thoughtfully
- given in Mr. Fraser Rae's <i>Life of Sheridan</i>, and it would be
- impossible to say that the caligraphy of the apology shows the least sign
- of that perturbation from which one must believe the writer was suffering
- at the moment. Its characteristic is neatness. It is in the fine
- old-fashioned Italian hand. Even an expert, who sees possibilities—when
- paid for it—in handwriting which would never occur to less
- imaginative observers, would scarcely venture to say that this neat little
- document was written by a man with another's sword at his throat.
- </p>
- <p>
- This is another element in the mystery of the duel, and it cannot be said
- that when we read the letter which the elder of the brothers wrote to his
- uncle, giving his account of the whole business, we feel ourselves in a
- clearer atmosphere. It really seems a pity that Mr. Browning did not make
- another <i>Ring and the Book</i> series of studies out of this amazing
- duel. Charles Sheridan told his uncle that an apology was given to Richard
- by Mathews as a result of Richard's first visit to him in London, but when
- Richard read the advertisement in the Chronicle, which was the original
- casus belli, he considered this apology so inadequate that he set off for
- London to demand another. Charles also mentions, what neither his brother
- nor his sister had stated, that he himself, on reaching London on the
- Sunday evening, went to Mathews to endeavour to get a suitable apology—according
- to Richard's narrative Charles had good grounds for sending a challenge to
- Mathews on his own account—but “after two hours' altercation” he
- found that he had made no impression upon the man, so that his brother had
- no alternative but to call him out.
- </p>
- <p>
- But however the accounts of the lesser details of this affair of honour
- may differ, there can be no question that public opinion in Bath was all
- in favour of young Mr. Sheridan. It was acknowledged on every hand that he
- had acted from the first—that is, from the moment he assumed the
- duties of the protector of Miss Linley—with admirable courage, and
- with a full sense of what honour demanded of him. In short he came back
- from London, after so many sleepless nights, covered with glory. He was a
- tall, handsome fellow of twenty, with brilliant eyes; he had run away with
- the most beautiful girl in the world to save her from the clutches of a
- scoundrel; he had had four nights without sleep, and then he had fought a
- duel with the scoundrel and had obtained from him an apology for insertion
- in the newspapers. Few young gentlemen starting life wholly without means
- attain to so proud a position of achievement before they reach their
- majority.
- </p>
- <p>
- But of course all these feats of errantry and arms run up a bill. Young
- Mr. Sheridan's posting account must have been by itself pretty formidable,
- and, knowing that his father had never looked on him with the favour which
- he gave to his brother, Richard may now and again have felt a trifle
- uneasy at the prospect of meeting Mr. Sheridan. If his sister's memory is
- to be trusted, however, this meeting took place within a week or two of
- his duel, and no bones were broken. Mr. Sheridan had a few chiding words
- to say respecting the debts which his son had incurred, but these he paid,
- after obtaining from the boy the usual promise made under similar
- conditions before a like tribunal. The prodigal invariably acts up to his
- character for prodigality in the matter of promises of reform.
- </p>
- <p>
- Richard Sheridan, being something of a wit, though we do not get many
- examples of his faculty in the accounts extant of his early life, and
- assuredly not a single example in any of his letters that came into the
- hands of his biographers, may have sworn to his father never to run away
- with a girl who might be anxious to enter upon a conventual life. At any
- rate, his father did not show any great displeasure when he was made aware
- of the boy's conduct, though it is worth noting that Mr. Sheridan took
- exception to the general conviction that his son's act had been prompted
- by the most chivalrous aspirations.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mathews, however, had not yet been shaken off. He was back in Bath almost
- as soon as the Sheridans, and “malevolent incendiarism” was in the air. No
- slander was too base for him to use against Richard Sheridan, no
- insinuation too vile. But the popularity of the object of his calumny was
- now too firmly established in Bath to be shaken by the vaporous
- malevolence of his enemy. Mathews, finding himself thoroughly discredited
- in every quarter, did the only sensible thing recorded in his squalid
- history—he ran away to his home in Wales.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was here unfortunate enough to meet with a man named Barnard, or
- Barnett, who acted upon him pretty much as Sir Lucius O'Trigger did upon
- Squire Acres, explaining to him that it was quite impossible that the
- affair between him and Sheridan should remain as it was. It was absolutely
- necessary, he said, that another duel should take place. All the
- “incendiarism” in Mathews' nature was aroused by the fiery words of this
- man, and the precious pair hurried to Bath, where a challenge was sent to
- Sheridan through the hands of his eldest sister, under the guise of an
- invitation to some festivity.
- </p>
- <p>
- Sheridan was foolish enough to accept the challenge apparently without
- consulting with any one competent to advise him. According to his father
- the challenge had been preceded by several letters of the most scurrilous
- abuse. His wiser brother, who had just received an appointment as
- Secretary to the British Legation in Sweden, had gone to London with their
- father to make preparations for his departure for Stockholm, and
- immediately on hearing of the duel he wrote to Richard a typical elder
- brother's letter. It is dated July 3rd, 1772, so that, as the duel had
- only taken place the previous day, it cannot be said that he lost much
- time in expressing his deep sense of his brother's foolishness in meeting
- so great a scoundrel for the second time. “All your friends have condemned
- you,” he wrote. “You risked everything, where you had nothing to gain, to
- give your antagonist the thing he wished, a chance for recovering his
- reputation; he wanted to get rid of the contemptible opinion he was held
- in, and you were good-natured enough to let him do it at your expense. It
- is not a time to scold, but all your friends were of opinion you could,
- with the greatest propriety, have refused to meet him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Without going into the question as to whether this sort of letter was the
- ideal one for one brother to write to another who was lying on his bed
- with several wounds in his throat, it is impossible to question the
- soundness of the opinion expressed by Charles Sheridan in respect of
- Richard's acceptance of Mathews' challenge. The challenge was, however,
- accepted, and the duel took place on King's Down, at three o'clock in the
- morning. Mathews' friend was Barnett, and Sheridan's a young gentleman
- named Paumier, who, it was said, was quite unacquainted with the rules of
- the game, and had never even seen a duel being fought. The accounts which
- survive of this second meeting of Sheridan and Mathews make it apparent
- that, if the first was a scene of comedy, this one was a tragic burlesque.
- It is said that Sheridan, on the signal being given, at once rushed in on
- his antagonist, endeavouring to disarm him as he had done upon the former
- occasion of their meeting, but, tripping over something, he literally, and
- not figuratively, fell upon the other, knocking him down with such
- violence that he was not only disarmed, but his sword was broken as well.
- Sheridan's own sword was also broken, so that one might fancy that the
- meeting would have terminated here. It did nothing of the sort. The
- encounter was only beginning, and anything more savagely burlesque than
- the sequel could not be imagined.
- </p>
- <p>
- The combatants must have rolled over, after the manner of the negro
- duellists on the variety stage, and when they had settled themselves each
- made a grab for the most serviceable fragment of his sword. Mathews being
- the heavier man contrived to keep uppermost in the scuffle, and, what gave
- him a decided advantage over his opponent, he managed to get his fingers
- on the hilt of his broken weapon. An appeal at this stage was made by the
- lad who was acting as Sheridan's second to put a stop to the fight; but
- the second ruffian, or the ruffian's second—either description
- applies to Barnett—declared that as both the antagonists were on the
- ground one could not be said to have any advantage over the other. This
- delicate question being settled, Mathews held the jagged, saw-like end—point
- it had none—of the broken sword at the other's throat and told him
- to beg for his life. Sheridan replied that he should refuse to beg his
- life from such a scoundrel, and forthwith the scoundrel began jabbing at
- his throat and face with the fragment of his weapon, a method of attack
- which was not robbed of its butchery by the appeal that it makes to a
- reader's sense of its comical aspect.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is doubtful, however, if the comic side of the transaction appealed
- very forcibly to the unfortunate boy who was being lacerated to death. He
- just managed to put aside a thrust or two before the end of the blade
- penetrated the flesh of his throat and pinned him to the ground. With a
- chuckle and, according to Tom Sheridan's account, an oath, Mathews got
- upon his feet, and, entering the coach which was waiting for him, drove
- away from the scene of his butchery. Sheridan was thereupon raised from
- the ground, and driven in his chaise with his second to the White Hart
- Inn. Two surgeons were immediately in attendance, and it was found that
- his wounds, though numerous, were not such as placed his life in jeopardy.
- They were, however, sufficiently serious to prevent his removal to his
- home that day.
- </p>
- <p>
- It does not appear that young Paumier told the sisters of the occurrence;
- but an account of the duel having appeared in the <i>Bath Chronicle</i>
- the same afternoon, every one in the town must have been talking of it,
- though Mrs. Lefanu says neither she nor her sister heard a word of the
- matter until the next day. Then they hastened to the White Hart, and
- prevailed upon the surgeons to allow them to take their brother home. In a
- surprisingly short time he had quite recovered. Indeed, although there was
- a report that Sheridan's life was despaired of, there was no excuse for
- any one taking so gloomy a view of his hurts, for the exact truth was
- known to Charles Sheridan and his father in London early on the day
- following that of the fight.
- </p>
- <p>
- The pathetic part of the story of this ludicrous encounter is to be found
- in the story of the reception of the news by Elizabeth Linley. Her father
- had read in some of the papers that Sheridan was at the point of death,
- but, like the worldly-wise man that Mr. Linley was, he kept the news from
- his daughter. They were at Oxford together, and she was announced to sing
- at a concert, and he knew that had she learned all that the newspapers
- published, she might possibly not be able to do herself—and her
- father—justice. But, as one of the audience told his sister
- afterwards, the fact that every one who had come to hear Miss Linley sing
- was aware of the serious condition (as the papers alleged) of young
- Sheridan, and of her attachment to him, a feeling of sympathy for the
- lovely young creature added immeasurably to the interest of her
- performance.
- </p>
- <p>
- At the conclusion of the concert her father set out with her for Bath; and
- it was not until they had almost reached their home that their chaise was
- met by a clergyman named Pauton, and he summoned all his tact to enable
- him to prepare Elizabeth Linley for the news which he was entrusted to
- communicate to her. It is said that under the stress of her emotion the
- girl declared that Richard Sheridan was her husband, and that her place
- was by his side.
- </p>
- <p>
- Whatever truth there may be in this story it is certain that if she
- believed at that moment that Sheridan was her husband, she gave no sign of
- continuing in that belief, for though her numerous letters to him show
- that she was devoted to him, there is no suggestion in any of them that
- she believed herself to be his wife. On the contrary, there are many
- passages which prove that no idea of the sort was entertained by her.
- </p>
- <p>
- The exertions of the heads of the two families were for long directed
- against the union of the lovers. Mr. Linley felt more forcibly than ever
- that he had had quite enough of the Sheridans, and Tom Sheridan doubtless
- wished never to hear again the name of Linley. The one made his daughter
- promise on her knees to give up Richard Sheridan, and Mr. Sheridan
- compelled his son to forswear any association with Elizabeth Linley. Jove
- must have been convulsed with laughter. Richard Brinsley Sheridan and
- Elizabeth Ann Linley were married on the 13th of April, 1773.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- A MELODRAMA AT COVENT GARDEN
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>N an evening in
- April, 1779, the play, “<i>Love in a Village</i>” was being performed at
- Covent Garden Theatre before a large audience. In the front row of the
- boxes sat two ladies, one of them young and handsome, the other not so
- young and not so beautiful—a dark-faced, dark-eyed woman whom no one
- could mistake for any nationality except Italian. Three gentlemen who sat
- behind them were plainly of their party—elegant gentlemen of
- fashion, one of them an Irish peer. Every person of quality in the theatre
- and a good many others without such a claim to distinction, were aware of
- the fact that the most attractive member of the group was Miss Reay, a
- lady whose name had been for several years closely associated—very
- closely indeed—with that of Lord Sandwich, the First Lord of the
- Admiralty, and one of the most unpopular men in England. She had driven to
- the theatre in his lordship's carriage, and two of the gentlemen with whom
- she conversed freely in the box were high officials of the department over
- which his lordship presided.
- </p>
- <p>
- Almost from the moment of her arrival, Miss Reay and her friends were
- watched eagerly by a hollow-eyed, morose gentleman in black. He looked as
- if he had not slept for many nights; and no one observing him could have
- failed to perceive that he had come to the theatre not for the sake of the
- play which was being performed, but to watch the lady. He kept his fierce
- eyes fixed upon her, and he frowned every time that she turned to make a
- remark to one of her friends; his eyes blazed every time that one of her
- friends smiled over her shoulder, and his hands clenched if she smiled in
- return. Several times it seemed as if he found it impossible to remain in
- his place in the upper side box, where his seat was, for he started up and
- hurried out to the great lobby, walking to and fro in great agitation.
- More than once he strode away from the lobby into the Bedford Coffee House
- just outside the theatre, and there partook of brandy and water, returning
- after brief intervals to stare at Miss Reay and her companions in the
- front row of the boxes.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0015" id="linkimage-0015"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0327.jpg" alt="0327 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0327.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- At the conclusion of the play, he went hastily into the vestibule,
- standing to one side, not far from the exit from the boxes; but if he
- intended to be close to Miss Reay while she walked to the main exit, his
- object was defeated by reason of the crush of people congregating in the
- vestibule, the people of quality waiting for their carriages to be
- announced, the others waiting for the satisfaction of being in such close
- proximity to people of quality.
- </p>
- <p>
- Among the crowd there was a lady who had recently become the wife of a
- curious gentleman named Lewis, who some years later wrote a grisly book
- entitled <i>The Monk</i>, bringing him such great fame as cancelled for
- posterity the names of Matthew Gregory, given to him by his parents, and
- caused him to be identified by the name of his book only. This lady made a
- remark to her neighbour in respect of a lovely rose which Miss Reay was
- wearing when she left the box exit and stood in the vestibule—a
- beautiful rose early in the month of April might have excited remark in
- those days; at any rate, Mrs. Lewis has left the record that at the very
- moment of her speaking, the rose fell to the floor, and Miss Reay appeared
- to be profoundly affected by this trifling incident, and said in a
- faltering voice, “I trust that I am not to consider this as an evil omen!”
- So Mrs. Lewis stated.
- </p>
- <p>
- A few moments later Lord Sandwich's carriage was announced, and Miss Reay
- and her companion made a move in the direction of the door. The gentlemen
- of the party seem to have left earlier, for on the ladies being impeded by
- the crush in the vestibule, a stranger, named Mr. Macnamara, of Lincoln's
- Inn, proffered his services to help them to get to the carriage. Miss Reay
- thanked him, took his arm, and the crowd opened for them in some measure.
- It quickly opened wider under a more acute persuasion a few seconds later,
- when the morose gentleman in black pushed his way among the people until
- he was within a few feet of the lady and her escort. Only for a second did
- he pause—certainly he spoke no word to Miss Reay or any one else—before
- he pulled a pistol from his pocket and fired almost point-blank at her
- before any one could knock up his hand. Immediately afterwards he turned a
- second pistol against his own forehead and pulled the trigger, and fell to
- the ground.
- </p>
- <p>
- The scene that followed can easily be imagined. Every woman present
- shrieked, except Miss Reay, who was supported by Mr. Macnamara. The
- ghastly effects of the bullet were apparent not only upon the forehead of
- the lady where it lodged, but upon the bespattered garments of every one
- about the door, and upon the columns of the hall. Above the shrieks of the
- terror-stricken people were heard the yells of the murderer, who lay on
- the ground, hammering at his head with the butt end of his weapon, and
- crying, “Kill me! Kill me!”
- </p>
- <p>
- A Mr. Mahon, of Russell Street, who was said to be an apothecary, was the
- first to lay a hand upon the wretched man. He wrested the pistol from his
- grasp and prevented him from doing further mischief to himself. He was
- quickly handed over to the police, and, with his unfortunate victim, was
- removed to the Shakespeare Tavern, a surgeon named Bond being in prompt
- attendance. It did not take long to find that Miss Reay had never breathed
- after the shot had been fired at her; the bullet had smashed the skull and
- passed through the brain. The man remained for some time unconscious, but
- even before he recovered he was identified as James Hackman, a gentleman
- who had been an officer in the army, and on retiring had taken Orders,
- being admitted a priest of the Church of England scarcely a month before
- his crime. There were rumours respecting his infatuation for Miss Reay,
- and in a surprisingly short space of time, owing most likely to the
- exertions of Signora Galli, the Italian whom Lord Sandwich had hired to be
- her companion, the greater part of the romantic story of the wretched
- man's life, as far as it related to Miss Reay, was revealed.
- </p>
- <p>
- It formed a nine days' wonder during the spring of the same year (1779).
- The grief displayed by Lord Sandwich on being made acquainted with the
- circumstances of the murder was freely commented on, and the sympathy
- which was felt for him may have diminished in some measure from his
- unpopularity. The story told by Croker of the reception of the news by
- Lord Sandwich is certainly not deficient in detail. “He stood as it were
- petrified,” we are told, “till suddenly, seizing a candle, he ran upstairs
- and threw himself on the bed, and in agony exclaimed, 'Leave me for a
- while to myself, I could have borne anything but this!' The attendants
- remained for a considerable time at the top of the staircase, till his
- lordship rang the bell and ordered that they should all go to bed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Before his lordship left the scene of his grief in the morning Sir John
- Fielding, the Bow Street magistrate, had arrived at the Shakespeare Tavern
- from his house at Brompton, and, after a brief inquiry, ordered Hackman to
- be taken to Tothill Fields Prison. In due course he was committed to
- Newgate, and on April 16th his trial took place before Blackstone, the
- Recorder. The facts of the tragedy were deposed to by several witnesses,
- and the cause of the lady's death was certified by Mr. Bond, the surgeon.
- The prisoner was then called on for his defence. He made a brief speech,
- explaining that he would have pleaded guilty at once had he not felt that
- doing so “would give an indication of contemning death, not suitable to my
- present condition, and would in some measure make me accessory to a second
- peril of my life. And I likewise thought,” he added, “that the justice of
- my country ought to be satisfied by suffering my offence to be proved, and
- the fact to be established by evidence.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This curious affectation of a finer perception of the balance of justice
- than is possessed by most men was quite characteristic of this man, as was
- also his subsequent expression of his willingness to submit to the
- sentence of the court. His counsel endeavoured to show that he had been
- insane from the moment of his purchasing his pistols until he had
- committed the deed for which he was being tried—he did not say
- anything about “a wave of insanity,” however, though that picturesque
- phrase would have aptly described the nature of his plea. He argued that a
- letter which was found in the prisoner's pocket, and in which suicide only
- was threatened, should be accepted as proof that he had no intention of
- killing Miss Reay when he went to the theatre.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Recorder, of course, made short work of such a plea. He explained to
- the jury that “for a plea of insanity to be successful it must be shown
- not merely that it was a matter of fits and starts, but that it was a
- definite thing—a total loss of reason and incapability of reason.”
- Referring to the letter, he said that it seemed to him to argue a coolness
- and premeditation incompatible with such insanity as he described.
- </p>
- <p>
- The result was, as might have been anticipated, the jury, without leaving
- the box, found Hackman guilty, and he was sentenced to be hanged.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Boswell, who was nearly as fond of hearing death-sentences pronounced
- as he was of seeing them carried out, was present in the court during the
- trial, and to him Mr. Booth, the brother-in-law of the prisoner, applied—he
- himself had been too greatly agitated to be able to remain in the court—for
- information as to how Hackman had deported himself, and Boswell was able
- to assure him that he had behaved “as well, sir, as you or any of his
- friends could wish; with decency, propriety, and in such a manner as to
- interest every one present. He might have pleaded that he shot Miss Reay
- by accident, but he fairly told the truth that in a moment of frenzy he
- did intend it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- While he was in the condemned cell at Newgate he received a message from
- Lord Sandwich to the effect that if he wished for his life, he (Lord
- Sandwich) had influence with the King, and might succeed in obtaining a
- commutation of his sentence. Hackman replied that he had no wish to live,
- but he implored his lordship to give him such assurance that those whom
- Miss Reay had left behind her would be carefully looked after, as would,
- on meeting her in another world, enable him to make this pleasing
- communication to her.
- </p>
- <p>
- He spent the few days that remained to him in writing fervid letters to
- his friends and in penning moralisings, in a style which was just the
- smallest degree more pronounced than that which was fashionable at his
- period—the style of the sentimental hero of Richardson and his
- inferior followers.
- </p>
- <p>
- His execution at Tyburn attracted the most enormous crowds ever seen upon
- such an occasion. The carriage in which the wretched man was conveyed to
- the gibbet could only proceed at a walking pace; but still, the vehicle
- which followed it, containing the Earl of Carlisle and James Boswell,
- arrived in good time for the final scene of this singular tragedy, which
- for weeks, as the Countess of Ossory wrote to George Selwyn, was the sole
- topic of conversation.
- </p>
- <p>
- And, as a matter of course, Horace Walpole had something to communicate to
- one of his carefully-selected correspondents. Oddly enough it was to a
- parson he wrote to express the opinion that he was still uncertain
- “whether our clergy are growing Mahometans or not”; adding sagely, “they
- certainly are not what they profess themselves; but as you and I should
- not agree, perhaps, in assigning the same defects to them, I will not
- enter on a subject which I have promised you to drop, all I allude to now
- is the shocking murder of Miss Reay by a divine. In my own opinion we are
- growing more fit for Bedlam than for Mahomet's paradise. The poor
- criminal, I am persuaded, is mad, and the misfortune is the law does not
- know how to define the shades of madness; and thus there are twenty
- out-pensioners of Bedlam for one that is confined.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Most persons will come to the conclusion that the judge who tried Hackman
- made a most successful attempt to expound to the jury exactly where the
- law drew a line in differentiating between the man who should be sent to
- Bedlam and the man who should be sent to Tyburn, and will agree with the
- justice of the law that condemned to the gallows this divine of three
- weeks' standing for committing an atrocious crime, even though the chances
- are that Hackman spoke the truth when he affirmed that he had brought his
- pistols down to the theatre with no more felonious intent than to blow out
- his own brains in the presence of the lady and to fall dead at her feet.
- At the same time one is not precluded from agreeing with Walpole's opinion
- that the people of his period were growing more fit for Bedlam than for
- Eblis.
- </p>
- <p>
- The truth is that an extraordinary wave of what was called “sensibility”
- was passing over England at that time. It was a wave of sentimentality—that
- maudlin sentimentality which was the exquisite characteristic of the hero
- and heroine of almost every novel that attained to any degree of success.
- To people who have formed their ideas of the latter half of the eighteenth
- century from studying Boswell's <i>Life of Johnson</i>, every page of
- which shows a healthy common sense; or from the plates of Hogarth—robust
- even to a point of vulgarity—it would seem incredible that there
- should exist in England at practically the same time a cult of the maudlin
- and the lachrymose. Such a cult had, however, obtained so great a hold on
- a large section of society that all the satire of Smollett, Sterne, and
- Goldsmith, was unable to ridicule it out of existence.
- </p>
- <p>
- And the worst of the matter was that the types of these weeping
- sentimentalists were not unreal. They began by being unreal, but in the
- course of a short time they became real, the fact being that people in all
- directions began to frame their conduct and their conversation upon these
- flaccid creatures of the unhealthy fancy of third-rate novelists and
- fourth-rate poetasters. More than once, it may be remarked, even in our
- own time “movements” have had their origin in the fancy of a painter—in
- one case of a subtle caricaturist. An artist possessed of a distorted
- sense of what is beautiful in woman has been able to set a certain fashion
- in the unreal, until people were well-nigh persuaded that it was the
- painter who had taken the figures in his pictures from the persons who had
- simply sought a cheap notoriety by adopting the pose and the dress of the
- scraggy posturantes for whose anatomy he was responsible.
- </p>
- <p>
- So it was that, when certain novel-writers in the eighteenth century,
- having no experience of the life which they attempted to depict, brought
- forth creatures out of their own unhealthy imaginations, and placed them
- before their readers as types of heroes and heroines, the public never
- failed to include quite a number of readers who were ready to live up to
- all those essentials that constituted the personages of the fiction.
- </p>
- <p>
- And not alone over England had the sighs of a perpetually sighing hero and
- heroine sent a lachrymose flood; France and Germany, if not actually
- inundated, were at least rendered humid by its influence. <i>The Sorrows
- of Werther</i> was only one of the many books which helped on the cult of
- the sentimental, and it was as widely read in England as in Germany.
- Gessner's <i>Death of Abel</i> had an enormous vogue in its English
- translation. The boarding-school version of the tale of Abelard and
- Heloise was also much wept over both in France and Germany; and the true
- story of James Hackman and Martha Reay, as recorded by the correspondence
- of the pair, published shortly after the last scene in the tragedy had
- been enacted, and reissued with connecting notes some twelve years ago,
- might pass only as a somewhat crude attempt to surpass these masterpieces
- of fancy-woven woes. James and Martha might have been as happy as
- thousands of other Jameses and Marthas have been, but they chose to
- believe that the Fates were bothering themselves with this particular case
- of James and Martha—they chose to feel that they were doomed to a
- life of sorrowful love—at any rate, this was Martha's notion—and
- they kept on exchanging emotional sentiments until James's poor head gave
- way, and he sought to end up their romance in accordance with the mode of
- the best models, stretching himself a pallid corpse at the feet of his
- Martha; but then it was that Fate put out a meddlesome finger, and so
- caused the scene of the last chapter to take place at Tyburn.
- </p>
- <p>
- The romance of Mr. Hackman and Miss Reay would never have taken place, if
- Lord Sandwich had been as exemplary a husband as George III or Dr. Johnson
- or Edmund Burke—the only exemplary husbands of the eighteenth
- century that one can recall at a moment's notice. Unhappily his lordship
- was one of the many examples of the unexemplary husband of that period. If
- the Earl of Chesterfield advanced the ill-treatment of a wife to one of
- the fine arts, it may be said that the Earl of Sandwich made it one of the
- coarse. He was brutal in his treatment of the Countess, and never more so
- than when he purchased the pretty child that Miss Reay must have been at
- the age of thirteen, and had her educated to suit his tastes. He went
- about the transaction with the same deliberation as a gourmand might
- display in ordering his dinner. He was extremely fond of music, so he had
- the child's education in this direction carefully attended to. His place
- at Hinchinbrook had been the scene of the performance of several
- oratorios, his lordship taking his place in the orchestra at the
- kettledrums; and he hoped that by the time he should have his purchase
- sent home, her voice would be equal to the demands put upon it by the most
- exacting of the sacred soprano music of Handel or Gluck.
- </p>
- <p>
- As it turned out he was not disappointed. Martha Reay, when she went to
- live at Hinchinbrook at the age of eighteen, showed herself to be a most
- accomplished young lady, as she certainly was a very charming one. She was
- found to possess a lovely voice, and was quite fitted to take her place,
- not merely in his lordship's music-room, but also in his drawing-room to
- which he advanced her. To say that she was treated as one of his
- lordship's family would be to convey a wrong impression, considering how
- he treated the principal member of his family, but certainly he introduced
- her to his guests, and she took her place at his table at dinner parties.
- He even put her next to the wife of a bishop upon one occasion, feeling
- sure that she would captivate that lady, and as it turned out, his
- anticipations were fully realised; only the bishop's lady, on making
- inquiries later on, protested that she was scandalised by being placed in
- such a position as permitted of her yielding to the fascinations of a
- young person occupying a somewhat equivocal position in the household.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was when she was at Hinchinbrook, in October, 1775, that Miss Reay met
- the man who was to play so important a part in her life—and death.
- Cradock, the “country gentleman,” tells in his <i>Memoirs</i> the story of
- the first meeting of the two. Lord Sandwich was anxious that a friend of
- his own should be elected to a professorship at Cambridge, and Cradock,
- having a vote, was invited to use it on behalf of his lordship's
- candidate, and to stay for a night at Hinchinbrook on his way back to
- London. He travelled in Lord Sandwich's coach, and when in the act of
- driving through the gateway at Hinchinbrook, it overtook a certain Major
- Reynolds and another officer who was stationed on recruiting duty in the
- neighbourhood. Lord Sandwich, being acquainted with Reynolds, dismounted
- and invited him and his friend to a family dinner at his lordship's place
- that evening. Major Reynolds expressed his appreciation of this act of
- courtesy, and introduced his friend as Captain Hackman. The party was a
- simple affair.
- </p>
- <p>
- It consisted of Lord Sandwich, Miss Reay, another lady, the two officers,
- and Mr. Cradock. After coffee had been served two rubbers of whist were
- played, and the party broke up.
- </p>
- <p>
- This was the first meeting of Hackman and Miss Reay. They seem to have
- fallen in love immediately, each with the other, for the first letter in
- the correspondence, written in December, 1775, contains a good deal that
- suggests the adolescence of a passion. Hackman was a man of education and
- some culture, and he showed few signs of developing into that maudlin
- sentimentalist who corresponded with the lady a year or two later. He was
- but twenty-three years of age, the son of a retired officer in the navy,
- who had sent him to St. John's College, Cambridge, and afterwards bought
- him a commission in the 68th Foot. He was probably only an ensign when he
- was stationed at Huntingdon, but being in charge of the recruiting party,
- enjoyed the temporary rank of captain.
- </p>
- <p>
- He must have had a pretty fair conceit of his own ability as a
- correspondent, for he kept a copy of his love letters. Of course, there is
- no means of ascertaining if he kept copies of all that he ever wrote; he
- may have sent off some in the hot passion of the moment, but those which
- passed into the hands of his brother-in-law and were afterwards published,
- were copies which he had retained. Miss Reay was doubtless discreet enough
- to destroy the originals before they had a chance of falling into the
- hands of Lord Sandwich. It is difficult for us who live in this age of
- scrawls and “correspondence cards” to imagine the existence of that
- enormous army of letter-writers who flourished their quills in the
- eighteenth century, for the entertainment of their descendants in the
- nineteenth and twentieth; but still more difficult is it to understand
- how, before the invention of any mechanical means of reproducing
- manuscript, these voluminous correspondents first made a rough draft of
- every letter, then corrected and afterwards copied it, before sending it—securing
- a frank from a friendly Member of Parliament—to its destination.
- </p>
- <p>
- Superlatively difficult is it to imagine an ardent lover sitting down to
- transcribe into the pages of a notebook the outpourings of his passion.
- But this is what Ensign Hackman did, although so far as the consequences
- of his love-making were concerned, he is deserving of a far higher place
- among great lovers than Charlotte's Werther, or Mr. Swinburne's Dolores.
- Charlotte we know “went on cutting bread and butter” after the death of
- her honourable lover; but poor little Miss Reay was the victim of the
- passion which she undoubtedly fanned into a flame of madness. Ensign
- Hackman made copies of his love-letters, and we are grateful to him, for
- by their aid we can perceive the progress of his disease. They are like
- the successive pictures in a biograph series lately exhibited at a
- conversazione of the Royal Society, showing the development of a blossom
- into a perfect flower. We see by the aid of these letters how he gave way
- under the attack of what we should now call the bacillus of that maudlin
- sentimentality which was in the air in his day.
- </p>
- <p>
- He began his love-letters like a gallant officer, but ended them in the
- strain of the distracted curate who had been jilted just when he has laid
- down the cork lino in the new study and got rid of the plumbers. He wrote
- merrily of his “Corporal Trim,” who was the bearer of a “billet” from her.
- “He will be as good a soldier to Cupid as to Mars, I dare say. And Mars
- and Cupid are not now to begin their acquaintance, you know.” Then he goes
- on to talk in a fine soldierly strain of the drum “beating for volunteers
- to Bacchus. In plain English, the drum tells me dinner is ready, for a
- drum gives us bloody-minded heroes an appetite for eating as well as for
- fighting.... Adieu—whatever hard service I may have after dinner, no
- quantity of wine shall make me let drop or forget my appointment with you
- tomorrow. We certainly were not seen yesterday, for reasons I will give
- you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This letter was written on December 7th, and it was followed by another
- the next day, and a still longer one the day following. In fact, Corporal
- Trim must have been kept as busy as his original in the service of Uncle
- Toby, during the month of December, his duty being to receive the lady's
- letters, as well as to deliver the gentleman's, and he seems to have been
- equally a pattern of fidelity.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hackman's letters at this time were models of good taste, with only the
- smallest amount of swagger in them. His intentions were strictly
- honourable, and they were not concealed within any cocoon of sentimental
- phraseology. One gathers from his first letters that he was a simple and
- straightforward gentleman, who, having fallen pretty deeply in love with a
- young woman, seeks to make her his wife at the earliest possible moment.
- Unfortunately however, the lady had fallen under the influence of the
- prevailing affectation, and her scheme of life did not include a
- commonplace marriage with a subaltern in a marching regiment. One might be
- disposed to say that she knew when she was well off. The aspiration to be
- made “a respectable woman” by marriage in a church was not sufficiently
- strong in her to compel her to sacrifice the many good things with which
- she was surrounded, in order to realise it. But, of course, she was ready
- to pose as a miserable woman, linked to a man whom she did not love, but
- too honourable to leave him, and far too thoughtful for the career of the
- man whom she did love with all her soul ever to become a burden to him.
- She had read the ballad of “Auld Robin Gray”—she quoted it in full
- in one of her letters—and she was greatly interested to find how
- closely her case resembled that of the wife in the poem. She had brought
- herself to think of the man who had bought her just as he would buy a
- peach tree, or a new tulip, as her “benefactor.” Did she not owe to him
- the blessing of a good education, and the culture of her voice, her
- knowledge of painting—nay, her “keep” for several years, and her
- introduction to the people of quality who visited at Hinchinbrook and at
- the Admiralty? She seemed to think it impossible for any one to doubt that
- Lord Sandwich had acted toward her with extraordinary generosity, and that
- she would be showing the most contemptible ingratitude were she to forsake
- so noble a benefactor. But all the same she found Hinchinbrook intolerably
- dull at times, and she was so pleased at the prospect of having a lover,
- that she came to fancy that she loved the first one who turned up.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was undoubtedly greatly impressed by the ballad of “Auld Robin Gray,”
- and she at once accepted the rôle of the unhappy wife, only she found it
- convenient to modify one rather important line—
- </p>
- <p>
- “I fain would think o' Jamie, but that would be a sin.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She was fain to think on her Jamie whether it was a sin or not, but she
- did so without having the smallest intention of leaving her Auld Robin
- Gray. So whimsical an interpretation of the poem could scarcely occur to
- any one not under the influence of the sentimental malady of the day; but
- it served both for Miss Reay and her Jamie. They accepted it, and became
- deeply sensible of its pathos as applied to themselves. Ensign Hackman
- assured her that he was too high-minded to dream of making love to her
- under the roof of Lord Sandwich, her “benefactor.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Our love, the inexorable tyrant of our hearts,” he wrote, “claims his
- sacrifices, but does not bid us insult his lordship's walls with it. How
- civilly did he invite me to Hinchinbrook in October last, though an
- unknown recruiting officer. How politely himself first introduced me to
- himself! Often has the recollection made me struggle with my passion.
- Still it shall restrain it on this side honour.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This was in reply to her remonstrance, and probably she regretted that she
- had been so strenuous in pointing out to him how dreadful it would be were
- she to show herself wanting in gratitude to Lord Sandwich. She wanted to
- play the part of Jenny, the lawful wife of Robin Gray, with as few
- sacrifices as possible, and she had no idea of sacrificing young Jamie,
- the lover, any more than she had of relinquishing the many privileges she
- enjoyed at Hinchinbrook by making Jamie the lover into Jamie the husband.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is very curious to find Hackman protesting to her all this time that
- his passions are “wild as the torrent's roar,” apologising for making his
- simile water when the element most congenial to his nature was fire.
- “Swift had water in his brain. I have a burning coal of fire; your hand
- can light it up to rapture, rage, or madness. Men, real men, have never
- been wild enough for my admiration, it has wandered into the ideal world
- of fancy. Othello (but he should have put himself to death in his wife's
- sight, not his wife), Zanga are my heroes. Milk-and-water passions are
- like sentimental comedy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Read in the light of future events this letter has a peculiar
- significance. Although he became more sentimental than the hero of any of
- the comedies at which he was sneering, he was still able to make an honest
- attempt to act up to his ideal of Othello. “<i>He should have put himself
- to death in his wife's sight</i>.” It will be remembered that he pleaded
- at his trial that he had no design upon the life of Miss Reay, but only
- aimed at throwing himself dead at her feet.
- </p>
- <p>
- Equally significant are some of the passages in the next letters which he
- wrote to her. They show that even within the first month of his
- acquaintance with his Martha his mind had a peculiar bent. He was giving
- his attention to Hervey's <i>Meditations</i>, and takes pains to point out
- to her two passages which he affirms to be as fine as they are natural.
- Did ever love-letter contain anything so grisly? “A beam or two finds its
- way through the grates (of the vault), and reflects a feeble glimness from
- the nails of the coffins.” This is one passage—ghastly enough in all
- conscience. But it is surpassed by the others which he quotes: “Should the
- haggard skeleton lift a clattering hand.” Respecting the latter he
- remarks, “I know not whether the epithet 'haggard' might not be spared.”
- It is possible that the lady on receiving this curious love-letter was
- under the impression that the whole passage might have been spared her.
- </p>
- <p>
- But he seems to have been supping off horrors at this time, for he goes on
- to tell a revolting story about the black hole of Calcutta; and then he
- returns with zest to his former theme of murder and suicide. He had been
- reading the poem of “Faldoni and Teresa,” by Jerningham, and he criticises
- it quite admirably. “The melancholy tale will not take up three words,
- though Mr. J. has bestowed upon it 335 melancholy lines,” he tells the
- young lady. “Two lovers, meeting with an invincible object to their union,
- determined to put an end to their existence with pistols. The place they
- chose for the execution of their terrible project was a chapel that stood
- at a little distance from the house. They even decorated the altar for the
- occasion, they paid a particular attention to their own dress. Teresa was
- dressed in white with rose-coloured ribbands. The same coloured ribbands
- were tied to the pistols. Each held the ribband that was fastened to the
- other's trigger, which they drew at a certain signal.” His criticism of
- the poem includes the remark that Faldoni and Teresa might be prevented
- from making proselytes by working up their affecting story so as to take
- off the edge of the dangerous example they offer. This, he says, the
- author has failed to do, and he certainly proves his point later by
- affirming that “while I talk of taking off the dangerous edge of their
- example, they have almost listed me under their bloody banners.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This shows the morbid tendency of the man's mind, though it must be
- confessed that nearly all the remarks which he makes on ordinary topics
- are eminently sane and well considered.
- </p>
- <p>
- A few days later we find him entering with enthusiasm into a scheme,
- suggested by her, of meeting while she was on her way to London, and it is
- plain from the rapturous letter which he wrote to her that their plot was
- successful; but when she reached town she had a great deal to occupy her,
- so that it is not strange she should neglect him for a time. The fact was,
- as Cradock states in his <i>Memoirs</i>, that the unpopularity of Lord
- Sandwich and Miss Reay had increased during the winter to such a point
- that it became dangerous for them to show themselves together in public.
- Ribald ballads were sung under the windows of the Admiralty, and Cradock
- more than once heard some strange insults shouted out by people in the
- park. It was at this time that she spoke to Cradock about appearing in
- opera, and he states that it reached his ears that she had been offered
- three thousand pounds and a free benefit (a possible extra five hundred)
- for one season's performances.
- </p>
- <p>
- Now if she had really been in love with Hackman this was surely the moment
- when she should have gone to him, suffered him to marry her, and thus made
- up by a few years on the lyric stage for any deficiency in his fortune or
- for the forfeiture of any settlement her “benefactor” might have been
- disposed to make in her favour. But she seems to have shown a remarkable
- amount of prudence throughout the whole of her intrigue, and she certainly
- had a premonition of the danger to which she was exposed by her connection
- with him. “Fate stands between us,” she wrote in reply to one of his
- impetuous upbraiding letters. “We are doomed to be wretched. And I, every
- now and then, think some terrible catastrophe will be the result of our
- connection. 'Some dire event,' as Storge prophetically says in <i>Jephtha</i>,
- 'hangs over our heads.' Oh, that it were no crime to quit this world like
- Faldoni and Teresa... by your hand I could even die with pleasure. I know
- I could.”
- </p>
- <p>
- An extraordinary premonition, beyond doubt, to write thus, and one is
- tempted to believe that she had ceased for a moment merely to play the
- part of the afflicted heroine. But her allusion to Jephtha and, later in
- the same letter, to a vow which she said she had made never to marry him
- so long as she was encumbered with debts, alleging that this was the
- “insuperable reason” at which she had hinted on a previous occasion, makes
- one suspicious. One feels that if she had not been practising the music of
- <i>Jephtha</i> she would not have thought about her vow not to marry him
- until she could go to him free from debt. Why, she had only to sing three
- times to release herself from that burden.
- </p>
- <p>
- Some time afterwards she seems to have suggested such a way of getting
- over her difficulties, but it is pretty certain she knew that he would
- never listen to her. Her position at this time was undoubtedly one of
- great difficulty. Hackman was writing to her almost every day, and
- becoming more high-minded and imperious in every communication, and she
- was in terror lest some of his letters should fall into the hands of Lord
- Sandwich. She was ready to testify to his lordship's generosity in
- educating her to suit his own tastes, but she suspected its strength to
- withstand such a strain as would be put on it if he came upon one of Mr.
- Hackman's impetuous letters.
- </p>
- <p>
- She thought that when she had induced her lover to join his regiment in
- Ireland she had extricated herself from one of the difficulties that
- surrounded her; and had she been strong enough to refrain from writing to
- the man, she might have been saved from the result of her indiscretion.
- Unhappily for herself, however, she felt it incumbent on her to resume her
- correspondence with him. Upon one occasion she sent him a bank-note for
- fifty pounds, but this he promptly returned with a very proper letter.
- Indeed, all his letters from Ireland are interesting, being far less
- impassioned than those which she wrote to him. Again she mentioned having
- read <i>Werther</i>, and he promptly begged of her to send the book to
- him. “If you do not,” he adds, “I positively never will forgive you.
- Nonsense, to say it will make me unhappy, or that I shall not be able to
- read it! Must I pistol myself because a thick-blooded German has been fool
- enough to set the example, or because a German novelist has feigned such a
- story?”
- </p>
- <p>
- But it would appear that she knew the man's nature better than he himself
- did, for she quickly replied: “The book you mention is just the only book
- you should never read. On my knees I beg that you will never, never read
- it!” But if he never read <i>Werther</i> he was never without some story
- of the same type to console him for its absence, and he seems to have
- gloated over the telling of all to her. One day he is giving her the
- particulars of a woman who committed suicide in Enniskillen because she
- married one man while she was in love with another. His comment is, “She,
- too, was <i>Jenny</i> and had her <i>Robin Gray</i>.” His last letter from
- Ireland was equally morbid. In it he avowed his intention, if he were not
- granted leave of absence for the purpose of visiting her, of selling out
- of his regiment. He kept his promise but too faithfully. He sold out and
- crossed to England without delay, arriving in London only to find Miss
- Reay extremely ill.
- </p>
- <p>
- His attempts to cheer her convalescence cannot possibly be thought very
- happy. He describes his attendance upon the occasion of the hanging of Dr.
- Dodd, the clergyman who had committed forgery; and this reminds him that
- he was unfortunately out of England when one Peter Tolosa was hanged for
- killing his sweetheart, so that he had no chance of taking part in this
- ceremony as well, although, he says, unlike George S.—meaning Selwyn—he
- does not make a profession of attending executions; adding that “the
- friend and historian of Paoli hired a window by the year, looking out on
- the Grass Market in Edinburgh, where malefactors were hanged.” This
- reference to Boswell is somewhat sinister. All this letter is devoted to a
- minute account of the execution of Dodd, and another deals with the
- revolting story of the butchery of Monmouth, which he suggests to her as
- an appropriate subject for a picture.
- </p>
- <p>
- At this time he was preparing for ordination, and, incidentally, for the
- culmination of the tragedy of his life. He had undoubtedly become a
- monomaniac, his “subject” being murder and suicide. His last lurid story
- was of a footman who, “having in vain courted for some time a servant
- belonging to Lord Spencer, at last caused the banns to be put up at church
- without her consent, which she forbad. Being thus disappointed he
- meditated revenge, and, having got a person to write a letter to her
- appointing a meeting, he contrived to waylay her, and surprise her in Lord
- Spencer's park. On her screaming he discharged a pistol at her and made
- his escape.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh love, love, canst thou not be content to make fools of thy slaves,” he
- wrote, “to make them miserable, to make them what thou pleasest? Must thou
- also goad them on to crimes?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Only two more letters did he write to his victim. He took Orders and
- received the living of Wiveton, in Norfolk, seeming to take it for granted
- that, in spite of her repeated refusals to marry him, she would relent
- when she heard of the snug parsonage. This was acting on precisely the
- same lines as the butler of whom he wrote. When he found that Miss Reay
- was determined to play the part taken by the servant in the same story,
- the wretched man hurried up to London and bought his pistols.
- </p>
- <p>
- The whole story is a pitiful one. That the man was mad no one except a
- judge and jury could doubt. That his victim was amply punished for her
- indiscretion in leading him on even the strictest censor of conduct must
- allow.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- THE COMEDY AT DOWNING STREET
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T was possibly
- because she was still conscious of having occupied the commanding position
- of one of the royal bridesmaids, in spite of the two years that had
- elapsed since King George III married his homely Mecklenburg princess,
- that Lady Susan Fox-Strangways, the daughter of the first Earl of
- Ilchester, became so autocratic during the rehearsal of the Downing Street
- Comedy. A pretty fair amount of comedy as well as tragedy—with a
- preponderance of farce—has been played in the same street from time
- to time, but the special piece in which Lady Susan was interesting herself
- was to be played at the house of Sir Francis Délavai, and its name was <i>The
- School for Lovers</i>. It had been originally produced by Mr. David
- Garrick at Drury Lane Theatre, an occasion upon which a young Irish
- gentleman called O'Brien, who had disgraced himself by becoming an actor,
- had attained great distinction. The piece had drawn the town during its
- protracted run of eight nights, and Sir Francis Delaval's company of
- amateurs perceived that it was just the play for them. It was said by the
- critics that, for the first time for many years, an actor had been found
- capable of playing the part of a gentleman of fashion as if to the manner
- born. They referred to the acting of Mr. O'Brien, about whose gentlemanly
- qualities there could be no doubt. Even his own brother actors affirmed
- that no such perfect gentleman as that of O'Brien's creating had ever been
- seen on the stage. So said Lee Lewes. Another excellent judge, named
- Oliver Goldsmith, declared that William O'Brien was an elegant and
- accomplished actor.
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course this was the character, every aspiring amateur affirmed, to
- which a gentleman-born would do ample justice. When O'Brien, who was an
- actor, had represented the part with distinction, how much better would it
- not be played by the real thing—the real gentleman who might
- undertake it?
- </p>
- <p>
- That was the very plausible reasoning of the “real gentleman” who hoped to
- win applause by appearing in O'Brien's part in the comedy at Downing
- Street. But when the piece was rehearsed with the young Viscount B————
- in the character, Lady Susan threw up her hands, and threatened to throw
- up her part as well.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Lud!” she cried to her associates in the temporary green-room, “Lud! you
- would fancy that he had never seen a gentleman of fashion in his life! Why
- cannot he act himself instead of somebody else? When he comes from
- rehearsal he is the very character itself, but the moment he begins to
- speak his part he is no more the part than the link-boy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Every one present agreed with her—the young gentlemen who were
- anxious to have the reversion of the part were especially hearty in their
- acquiescence.
- </p>
- <p>
- But there could be no doubt about the matter, Lord B———
- was deplorably incompetent. He was not even consistently incompetent, for
- in one scene in the second act, where there was an element of boisterous
- humour, he was tame and spiritless; but in the love-making scene, which
- brought the third act to a close, he was awkward, and so anxious to show
- his spirit that he became as vulgar as any country clown making advances
- to his Meg or Polly.
- </p>
- <p>
- And of course he felt all the time that he was doing amazingly well.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lady Susan was angry at first, and then she became witty. Her sallies,
- directed against him in every scene, were, however, lost upon him, no
- matter how calculated they were to sting him; he was too self-satisfied to
- be affected by any criticism that might be offered to him by man or woman.
- </p>
- <p>
- And then Lady Susan was compelled to abandon her wit and to become
- natural. She flounced off the stage when her lover (in the play) was more
- than commonly loutish, and burst into tears of vexation in the arms of her
- dear friend Lady Sarah Lennox.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I never had such a chance until now,” she cried. “Never, oh, never! The
- part might have been written for me; and I implore of you, Sarah, to tell
- me candidly if Mrs. Abington or Mrs. Clive could act it with more
- sprightliness than I have shown in that last scene?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Impossible, my sweet Sue!” cried her friend. “I vow that I have never
- seen anything more arch than your mock rejection of your lover, only to
- draw him on.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You dear creature!” cried Lady Sue. “You are a true friend and a
- competent critic, Sarah. But what signifies my acting, perfect though it
- be, when that—that idiot fails to respond in any way to the spirit
- which I display? The whole play will be damned, and people who know
- nothing of the matter will spread the report that 'twas my lack of power
- that brought about the disaster.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “They cannot be so vile,” said Lady Sarah soothingly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But they will. I know how vile some of our friends can be when it suits
- them, and when they are jealous of the acquirements of another. They will
- sneer at my best scenes—oh, the certainty that they will do so will
- be enough to make my best scenes fail. But no! they shall not have the
- chance of maligning me. I will go to Sir Francis and resign my part. Yes,
- I will! I tell you I shall!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The indignant young lady, with something of the stage atmosphere still
- clinging to her, flung herself with the gesture of a tortured heroine,
- proud and passionate, toward the door of the room to which the two ladies
- had retired. But before she had her fingers on the handle the door opened
- and Sir Francis Délavai entered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “A thousand pardons, my dear ladies,” he cried, bowing to the carpet. “I
- had forgot for the moment that when a man turns his house into a theatre
- he can call no room in it his own. But I should be a churl to suggest that
- any room in my poor house would not be made beautiful by the presence of
- your ladyships. After all, this is only my library, and a library is only
- a polite name for a dormitory, and a—but what is this? I said not a
- lacrymatory.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He was looking curiously into Lady Susan's face, which retained the marks
- of her recent tears.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dear Sir Francis, you have come in good time,” said Lady Sarah boldly.
- “Here is this poor child weeping her heart out because she is condemned to
- play the part of—of what's her name?—the lady in the play who
- had to make love to an ass?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, sir, mine is a far worse plight,” said Lady Susan, pouting. “It were
- bad enough for one to have to make love to an ass, but how much worse is't
- not for one to be made love to by—by—my Lord B———?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That were a calculation far above my powers,” said Sir Francis. “My lord
- has never made love to me, but if rumour and the gossip at White's speak
- even a soupçon of truth, his lordship is well practised in the art—if
- love-making is an art.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir, 'tis a combination of all the arts,” said Lady Susan; “and yet my
- lord cannot simulate the least of them, which is that of being a
- gentleman, when he makes love to me on the stage, through the character of
- Captain Bellaire in our play.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “To be plain, Sir Francis,” said Lady Sarah, as though the other had not
- been plain enough in her explanation, “To be plain, Lady Susan, rather
- than be associated in any measure with such a failure as your theatricals
- are bound to be if my Lord B——— remains in the part of
- her lover, has made up her mind to relinquish her part. But believe me,
- sir, she does so with deep regret.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hence these tears,” said Sir Francis. “My poor child, you are indeed in a
- pitiable state if you are so deeply chagrined at a clumsy love-making
- merely on the stage.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Merely on the stage?” cried Lady Susan. “Lud, Sir Francis, have you not
- the wit to see that to be made love to indifferently on the stage is far
- more unendurable than it would be in private, since in the one case you
- have the eyes of all the people upon you, whereas in the other case you
- are as a rule alone?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “As a rule,” said Sir Francis. “Yes, I perceive the difference, and I
- mingle mine own turgid tears with your limpid drops. But we cannot spare
- you from our play.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, you cannot, Sir Francis, but you can spare Lord B———,
- and so can the play,” suggested Lady Sarah.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What, you would have me turn him out of the part?” said Sir Francis.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Even so—but with politeness,” said Lady Sarah.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Perhaps your ladyship has solved the problem how to kick a man out of
- your house politely. If so, I would willingly pay you for the recipe; I
- have been in search of it all my life,” said Sir Francis.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Surely, sir, if you kick a man hard enough with your slippers on he will
- leave your house as surely as if you wear the boots of a Life Guardsman,”
- said Lady Susan timidly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I doubt it not, madam; but before trying such an experiment it would be
- well to make sure that the fellow does not wear boots himself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Psha! Sir Francis. If a man were to beg leave to measure the thickness of
- his enemy's soles before offering to kick him there would be very few
- cases of assault and battery,” cried Lady Susan.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is good philosophy—see what we have come to—philosophy,
- when we started talking of lovemaking,” said Sir Francis.
- </p>
- <p>
- “However we have digressed in conversation, sir, our minds remain
- steadfast on the point round which we have been circling,” said Lady
- Sarah.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And that is———”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That Lord B———must go.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The door was thrown open and Lord B——— entered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “A good preliminary—one must come before one goes,” whispered Sir
- Francis to the ladies.
- </p>
- <p>
- His lordship was evidently perturbed. He scarcely bowed either to Sir
- Francis or the ladies.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I was told that you had come hither, Sir Francis,” he said, “so I
- followed you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You do me honour, my lord,” said Sir Francis.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I took a liberty, sir; but this is not a time for punctilio. I have come
- to resign my part in your play, sir,” said his lordship.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, surely not, my lord,” cried Sir Francis. “What would the <i>School
- for Lovers</i> be without Bellaire, my lord? Why only now Lady Susan was
- saying—what is it that your ladyship said?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It had something to do with philosophy and the sole of a grenadier,” said
- Lady Sarah interposing.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nay, was it not that his lordship's impersonation made you think of a
- scene from <i>Midsummer Night's Dream?</i>” said Sir Francis. “One of the
- most beautiful of Shakespeare's plays, is't not, my lord?—fantasy
- mingled with irony, an oasis of fairyland in the midst of a desert of
- daily life.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know nothing about your fairyland, sir, but I have been told within the
- hour that her ladyship”—he bowed in the direction of Lady Susan—“has,
- during the three rehearsals which we have had of the play, been sneering
- in a covert way at my acting of the part of Bellaire, although to my face
- she seemed delighted, and thus——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you sure that your informant was right in his interpretation of her
- ladyship's words? Surely your lordship—a man of the world—would
- have been sensible of every shade of her ladyship's meaning?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have been told by one on whose judgment I can rely that Lady Susan was
- speaking in sarcasm when she complimented me before the rest of the
- company. I did not take her as doing so for myself, I must confess. I have
- always believed—on insufficient evidence, I begin to fear—that
- her ladyship was a discriminating critic—even now if she were to
- assure me that she was not speaking in sarcasm——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, lud! he is relenting,” whispered Lady Sarah.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Did you speak, madam?” said his lordship.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I was protesting against a too early exercise of your lordship's
- well-known spirit of forgiveness,” said her ladyship.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I thank you, Lady Sarah; I am, I know, too greatly inclined to take a
- charitable view of—of—Why, sink me if she, too, is not trying
- to make me look ridiculous!” cried his lordship.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nay, my lord, I cannot believe that Lady Sarah would be at the pains to
- do for you what you can so well do for yourself,” remarked Lady Susan.
- </p>
- <p>
- His lordship looked at her—his mouth was slightly open—then he
- gazed at the smiling features of the beautiful Lady Sarah, lastly at the
- perfectly expressionless features of Sir Francis.
- </p>
- <p>
- “A plot—a plot!” he murmured. Then he struck a commonplace
- theatrical attitude, the “exit attitude” of the man who tells you that his
- time will come, though appearances are against him for the moment. He
- pointed a firm forefinger at Lady Susan, saying: “I wash my hands clear of
- you all. I have done with you and your plays. Get another man to fill my
- place if you can.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Then he rushed out through the open door. He seemed to have a shrewd
- suspicion that if he were to wait another moment one at least of the girls
- would have an effective answer to his challenge, and it is quite likely
- that his suspicion was well founded. As it was, however, owing to his wise
- precipitancy he heard no more than the pleasant laughter—it really
- was pleasant laughter, though it did not sound so to him—of the two
- girls.
- </p>
- <p>
- But when the sound of the slamming of the hall-door reached the library
- the laughter in that apartment suddenly ceased. Sir Francis Délavai looked
- at each of the ladies, and both of them looked at him. For some moments no
- word was exchanged between them. At last one of them spoke—it was,
- strange to say, the man.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This is vastly fine, ladies,” he remarked. “You have got rid of your <i>bête-noire</i>,
- Lady Susan; that, I say, is vastly fine, but where are you to find a <i>bête-blanche</i>
- to take his place?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Surely we can find some gentleman willing to act the part of Bellaire?”
- said Lady Sarah.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, there is not like to be a lack of young gentlemen willing to take the
- part, but we want not merely willingness, but competence as well; and the
- piece must be played on Wednesday, even though the part of Bellaire be
- left out,” said Sir Francis.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lady Susan looked blankly at the floor. She seemed ready to renew the
- tears which she had wept on the shoulder of her friend a short time
- before.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have I been too hasty?” she said. “Alas! I fear that I have been selfish.
- I thought only of the poor figure that I should cut with such a lover—and
- with all the world looking on, too! I should have given more thought to
- your distress, Sir Francis.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Say no more, I pray of you; better have no play at all than one that all
- our kind friends will damn with the utmost cordiality and good breeding,”
- said Sir Francis.
- </p>
- <p>
- “True, sir, but think of the ladies' dresses!” said Lady Sarah. “What the
- ladies say is, 'Better produce a play that will be cordially damned rather
- than deprive us of our chance of displaying our new dresses.'”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Heavens!” cried Sir Francis, “I had not thought of the new dresses. Lady
- Susan, you will e'en have to face the anger of your sisters—'tis not
- I that will tarry for such an event. I mean to fly to Bath or
- Brighthelmstone, or perchance to Timbuctoo, until the storm be overpast.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nay, nay, 'tis not a time for jesting, sir; let us not look at the matter
- from the standpoint of men, who do not stand but run away, let us be women
- for once, and scheme,” said Lady Susan.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is woman's special province,” said Sir Francis. “Pray begin, my lady—'twill
- be strange if your ladyship and Lady Sarah do not succeed in——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Psha! there is but one man in England who could play the part of Bellaire
- on Wednesday,” cried Lady Sarah. “Ay, sir, and he is the only one in
- England capable of playing it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then we shall have him on our stage if I should have to pay a thousand
- pounds for his services,” said Sir Francis. “But where is he to be found?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Cannot you guess, sir?” asked Lady Sarah, smiling.
- </p>
- <p>
- Sir Francis looked puzzled, but Lady Sue started and caught her friend by
- the wrist.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You do not mean——” she began.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Lud! these girls! Here's a scheme if you will!” muttered Sir Francis.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ay, if you will, Sir Francis. You know that I mean Mr. O'Brien himself
- and none other,” cried Lady Sarah.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Impossible!” cried Lady Susan. “My father would never consent to my
- acting in a play with a real actor—no, not even if he were Mr.
- Garrick himself. How could you suggest such a thing, Sarah?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What, do you mean to tell me that you would refuse to act with Mr.
- O'Brien?” asked Lady Sarah.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, hear the child!” cried Lady Susan. “She asks me a question to which
- she knows only one answer is possible, and looks all the time as though
- she expected just the opposite answer!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know well that there are a good many ladies who would give all that
- they possess for the chance of acting with Mr. O'Brien, and you are among
- the number, my dear,” laughed Lady Sarah.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I dare not—I dare not. And yet——” murmured the other
- girl.
- </p>
- <p>
- Sir Francis had been lost in thought while the two had been bickering over
- the body of O'Brien. He had walked across the room and seated himself for
- some moments. Now he rose and held up a finger.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ladies, this is a serious matter for all of us,” he said. And he spoke
- the truth to a greater depth than he was aware of. “'Tis a very serious
- matter. If we get Mr. O'Brien to play the part, the piece will be the
- greatest success of the day. If we fail to get him, our theatricals will
- be damned to a certainty. Lady Susan, will you consent to play with him if
- his name does not appear upon the bill?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But every one would know Mr. O'Brien,” she faltered, after a pause that
- was overcharged with excitement.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, in fact; but no one will have official cognizance of him, and, as
- you must know, in these matters of etiquette everything depends upon
- official cognizance.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My father—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “His lordship will have no <i>locus standi</i> in the case. He cannot take
- notice of an act that is not officially recognisable,” suggested Sir
- Francis, the sophist.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you assure me—— But is't true that Mr. O'Brien only ceased
- to become a gentleman when he became an actor?” said Lady Susan.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have not heard that he relinquished the one part when he took up the
- other,” said Sir Francis. “I wonder that you have not met him at the
- houses of some of our friends—he is more popular even than Mr.
- Garrick. The family of O'Brien——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “All kings, I doubt not,” said Lady Susan. “There were a good many kings
- in Ireland in the old days, I believe. I read somewhere that ninety-seven
- kings were killed in one battle, and still there were quite enough left to
- carry on the quarrels of the country. Oh, yes, there were plenty of kings,
- and their descendants have—well, descended. Mr. O'Brien descended
- pretty far when he became a play-actor.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If he condescends to take up the part of Bellaire at the eleventh hour to
- pluck our theatricals out of the fire we shall have every reason to be
- grateful to him,” said Sir Francis with a severe air of reproof. He was
- beginning to be tired—as others in his place have been from time to
- time—of the capriciousness of his company of amateurs.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are right, sir,” said Lady Sarah. “Come, my dear Sue, cease to give
- yourself the airs of those ladies who, Mr. Garrick affirms, have been the
- plague of his life. If Mr. O'Brien agrees to come to our rescue you should
- have no feeling but of gratitude to him. Surely 'twere churlish on the
- part of a damsel when a gallant knight rides up to her rescue to look at
- his horse in the mouth.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am thinking of my father,” said the other. “But I am disposed to accept
- the risk of the situation. You will promise that his name will not appear
- in the bills, Sir Francis?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will promise to do my best to save you from the contamination of having
- your name made as immortal as Mr. O'Brien's,” said Sir Francis.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lady Sarah laughed, and so did her friend—after a pause sufficient
- to allow the colour that had come to her face at the stinging reproof to
- die away.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I hope that you may catch your bird, sir—your eagle—your
- Irish eagle.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If I could tell him that Lady Sarah Lennox was to be in the cast of the
- play I should need no further lure for him,” said Sir Francis, making his
- most exquisite bow to her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, sir, you overwhelm me,” said Lady Sarah, sinking in her most
- ravishing courtesy.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lady Susan coloured once more, and her foot played a noiseless tattoo on
- the floor, for she perceived all that Sir Francis's compliment implied.
- Lady Sarah was the most beautiful girl in England, while Lady Susan was
- not even second to her, a fact of which she was as well aware as her
- friends.
- </p>
- <p>
- This was how Lady Susan Fox-Strangways first met Mr. O'Brien, the actor
- whom Garrick had brought from Ireland in the year 1762. He good-naturedly
- agreed to help Sir Francis Délavai in his extremity, and his ready Irish
- tact enabled him to be the first to stipulate that his name should not
- appear in the bills—a condition with which Sir Francis complied,
- drawing a long breath.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. O'Brien,” he said, “should the stage ever fail you, a fortune awaits
- you if you undertake the duty of teaching gentlemen the art of being a
- gentleman.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, sir, the moment that art enters the door the gentleman flies out by
- the window,” said the actor. “It is Nature, not art, that makes a
- gentleman.”
- </p>
- <p>
- One can well believe that Lady Susan Fox-Strangways, with all the pride of
- her connection with a peerage nearly ten years old, treated Mr. O'Brien's
- accession to a place in the company of amateurs with some hauteur, though
- it was said that she fell in love with him at once. On consideration, her
- bearing of hauteur which we have ventured to assign to her, so far from
- being incompatible with her having fallen in love with him, would really
- be a natural consequence of such an accident, and the deeper she felt
- herself falling the more she would feel it necessary to assert her
- position, if only for the sake of convincing herself that it was
- impossible for her to forget herself so far as to think of an Irish
- play-actor as occupying any other position in regard to her than that of a
- diversion for the moment.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was equally a matter of course that Lady Sarah should have an instinct
- of what was taking place. She had attended several of the rehearsals
- previously in the capacity of adviser to her friend, for Lady Susan had a
- high opinion of her critical capacity; but not until two rehearsals had
- taken place with O'Brien as Bellaire was she able to resume her attendance
- at Downing Street. Before half an hour had passed this astute lady had
- seen, first, that O'Brien made every other man in the cast seem a lout;
- and, secondly, that Lady Susan felt that every man in the world was a lout
- by the side of O'Brien.
- </p>
- <p>
- She hoped to discover what were the impressions of O'Brien, but she found
- herself foiled: the man was too good an actor to betray himself. The
- fervour which he threw into the character when making love to Lady Susan
- had certainly the semblance of a real passion, but what did this mean more
- than that Mr. O'Brien was a convincing actor?
- </p>
- <p>
- When she arrived at this point in her consideration of the situation Lady
- Sarah lost herself, and began to long with all her heart that the actor
- were making love to her—taking her hand with that incomparable
- devotion to—was it his art?—which he showed when Lady Susan's
- hand was raised, with a passionate glance into her eyes, to his lips;
- putting his arm about her waist, while his lips, trembling under the force
- of the protestations of undying devotion which they were uttering, were
- almost touching Lady Susan's ear. Before the love scene was over Lady
- Sarah was in love with the actor, if not with the man, O'Brien.
- </p>
- <p>
- So was every lady in the cast. O'Brien was the handsomest actor of the
- day. He had been careful of his figure at a time when men of fashion lived
- in such a way as made the preservation of a figure well-nigh impossible.
- Every movement was grace itself with him, and the period was one in which
- the costume of a man gave him every chance of at least imitating a
- graceful man. All the others in the cast of the play seemed imitating the
- gracefulness of O'Brien, and every man of them seemed a clown beside him.
- They gave themselves countless graces, but he was grace itself.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lady Sarah saw everything that was to be seen and said nothing. She was
- wise. She knew that in due time her friend would tell her all there was to
- be told.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was not disappointed. The play was produced, and of course every one
- recognised O'Brien in the part, although the bill—printed in gold
- letters on a satin ground, with a charming allegorical design by Lady
- Diana Spencer, showing a dozen dainty cupids going to school with satchels—stated
- that Bellaire would be represented by “a gentleman.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Equally as a matter of course a good many of the spectators affirmed that
- it was intolerable that a play-actor should be smuggled into a company of
- amateurs, some of them belonging to the best families. And then to attempt
- a deception of the audience by suggesting that O'Brien was a gentleman—oh,
- the thing was unheard of! So said some of the ladies, adding that they
- thought it rather sad that Lady Susan was not better-looking.
- </p>
- <p>
- But of the success of the entertainment there could not be a doubt. It was
- the talk of the town for a month, and every one noticed—even her own
- father—that Lady Susan was looking extremely thin and very pale.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lady Sarah said that she had taken the diversion of the theatricals too
- seriously.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I saw it from the first, my dear Sue,” she said.
- </p>
- <p>
- Sue sprang from her chair, and it would be impossible for any one to say
- now that she was over pale.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You saw it—you—what was it that you saw from the first?” she
- cried.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lady Sarah looked at her and laughed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, that is it—what was it that I saw from the first?” she said.
- “What I was going to say that I saw was simply that you were throwing
- yourself too violently into the production of the play. That was why you
- insisted on poor Lord B———'s getting his <i>congé</i>.
- It was a mistake—I saw that also.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “When did you see that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “When I saw you taking part in that love scene with Mr. O'Brien.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What mean you by that, Lady Sarah?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Exactly what you fancy I mean, Lady Susan.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Lady Susan gazed at her blankly at first, then very pitifully. In another
- moment she had flung herself on her knees at the feet of her friend and
- was weeping in her lap.
- </p>
- <p>
- The friend was full of sympathy.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You poor child!” she murmured, “how could you help it? I vow that I
- myself—yes, for some minutes—I was as deep in love with the
- fellow as you yourself were. But, of course, you were with him longer—every
- day. Lud! what a handsome rascal he is, to be sure. His lordship must take
- you to the country without delay. Has the fellow tried to transfer the
- character in the play beyond the footlights?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Never—never!” cried Susan. “Sir Francis was right—he is a
- gentleman. That is the worst of it!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, lud! the worst of it? Are you mad, girl?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am not mad now, but I know that I shall be if he remains a gentleman—if
- he refrains from telling me that he loves me—or at least of giving
- me a chance of telling him that I love him. That would be better than
- nothing—'twould be such a relief. I really do not think that I want
- anything more than to be able to confess to him that I love him—that
- 'tis impossible that I should love another.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The sooner you go to the country the better 'twill be for yourself and
- all of us—his lordship especially. Good heavens, child, you must be
- mad! Do you fancy that his lordship would give his consent to your
- marriage with a strolling player, let him be as handsome as Beelzebub?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He is not a strolling player. Mr. O'Brien is in Mr. Garrick's company,
- and every one knows that he is of good family. I have been searching it
- out for the past week—all about the O'Briens—there were a
- great many of them, all of them distinguished. If it had not been that
- King James was defeated by William, in Ireland, Mr. O'Brien's grandfather
- would have been made a duke. They were all heroes, the O'Briens. And they
- were just too sincere in their devotion to the losing side—that was
- it—the losing side was always the one they took up. And yet you call
- him a strolling player!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I take back the insinuation and offer him my apologies; he is not a
- strolling player because he doesn't stroll—would to Heaven he did!
- Oh, my poor Sue, take a stroll into the country yourself as soon as
- possible and try to forget this dreadfully handsome wretch. You would not,
- I am sure, force me to tell his lordship what a goose his daughter is like
- to make of herself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- At this point there was a dramatic scene, one that was far more deeply
- charged with comedy of a sort than any to be found in Mr. Whitehead's
- play. Lady Susan accused her dear friend of being a spy, of extorting a
- confession from her under the guise of friendship, which in other
- circumstances—the rack, the wheel, the thumbscrew, in fact the
- entire mechanism of persuasion employed by the Spanish Inquisition—would
- have been powerless to obtain. Lady Sarah on her side entreated her friend
- not to show herself to be even a greater goose than her confession would
- make her out to be. For several minutes there was reproach and
- counter-reproach, many home truths followed home thrusts; then some tears,
- self-accusation, expressions of sympathy and tenderness, followed by
- promises of friendship beyond the dreams of Damon and Pythias; lastly, a
- promise on the part of Sue that she would take the advice of her devoted
- Sarah and fly to the country without delay.
- </p>
- <p>
- Strange to say, she fled to the country, and, stranger still, the result
- was not to cure her of her infatuation for the handsome actor. For close
- upon a year she did not see him, but she was as devoted to him as she had
- been at first, and no day passed on which she failed to think of him, or
- to spend some hours writing romantic verses, sometimes in the style of
- Waller in his lyrics, sometimes in the style (distant) of Mr. Dryden in
- his pastorals: she was Lesbia, and Mr. O'Brien was Strephon.
- </p>
- <p>
- But in the meantime she had improved so much in her acting that when Lady
- Sarah, who had within the year married Sir Thomas Bunbury, ventured to
- rally her upon her infatuation of the previous spring, she was able to
- disarm her suspicions by a flush and a shrug, and a little contemptuous
- exclamation or two.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, my dear one, did not I give you good advice?” cried Lady Sarah. “I
- was well assured that my beloved Sue would never persevere in a passion
- that could only end in unhappiness. But indeed, child, I never had the
- heart to blame you greatly, the fellow is handsome as Apollo and as proud
- as Apolyon. He has broken many hearts not accounted particularly fragile,
- during the year.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is't possible? For example?—I vow that I shall keep their names
- secret.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Lady Sarah shook her head at first, but on being importuned whispered a
- name or two of ladies of their acquaintance, all of whom—according
- to Lady Sarah—had fallen as deep as was possible in love with
- O'Brien. Her ladyship was so intent on her narration of the scandals that
- she quite failed to see the strange light that gleamed in her friend's
- eyes at the mention of every name—a rather fierce gleam, with a
- flash of green in it. She did not notice this phenomenon, nor did she
- detect the false note in the tribute of laughter which her friend paid to
- her powers of narration.
- </p>
- <p>
- But Lady Sue, when the other had left her, rushed to her room and flung
- herself on her bed in a paroxysm of jealousy. She beat her innocent pillow
- wildly, crying in the whisper that the clenching of her teeth made
- imperative—“The hussies! Shameless creatures! Do they hope that he
- will be attracted to them? Fools!—they are fools! They do not know
- him as I know him. They think that he is nothing but a vain actor—Garrick,
- or Barry, or Lewes. Oh, they do not know him!”
- </p>
- <p>
- She lay there in her passion for an hour, and if it was her maid who
- discovered her at the end of that time, it is safe to assume that the
- young woman's flesh was black and blue in places for several days
- afterwards. The pinch and the slipper were among the most highly approved
- forms of torture inflicted upon their maids at that robust period of
- English history. The French Revolution was still some way off.
- </p>
- <p>
- A few weeks later Lady Susan was sitting to Sir Joshua Reynolds for a
- group, in which he painted her with her friend Lady Sarah Bunbury and Mr.
- Henry Fox; and it was the carrying out of this scheme that put quite
- another scheme into the quick brain of the first-named lady. Painting was
- in the air. She possessed a poor print of Mr. O'Brien, and she had found
- an immense consolation in gazing upon it—frequently at midnight,
- under the light of her bedroom candle. The sight of the life-like
- portraits in Sir Joshua's studio induced her to ask herself if she might
- not possess a picture of her lover that would show him as he really was in
- life, without demanding so many allowances as were necessary to be made
- for the shortcomings of the engraver of a print. Why should she not get
- Sir Joshua Reynolds to paint for her the portrait of Mr. O'Brien?
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0016" id="linkimage-0016"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0379.jpg" alt="0379 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0379.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- The thought was a stimulating one, and it took possession of her for a
- week. At the end of that time, however, she came to the conclusion that it
- would be unwise for her to employ Sir Joshua on a commission that might
- possibly excite some comment on the part of her friends should they come
- to learn—and the work of this particular painter was rather inclined
- to be assertive—that it had been executed to her order. But she was
- determined not to live any longer without a portrait of the man; and,
- hearing some one mention at Sir Joshua's house the name of Miss Catherine
- Read, who was described as an excellent portrait painter, she made further
- inquiry, and the result was that she begged her father, the Earl of
- Ilchester, who was devoted to her, to allow her to have her portrait done
- by Miss Read, to present to Lady Sarah on her birthday.
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course Miss Read was delighted to have the patronage of so great a
- family—she had not yet done her famous pastel of the Duchess of
- Argyll—and Susan, accompanied by her footman, lost no time in
- beginning her series of sittings to the artist to whom Horace Walpole
- referred as “the painteress.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She was both patient and discreet, for three whole days elapsed before she
- produced a mezzotint of Mr. O'Brien.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wonder if you would condescend to draw a miniature portrait of his
- lordship's favourite actor from so poor a copy as this, Miss Read?” she
- said. “Have you ever seen this Mr. O'Brien—an Irishman, I believe he
- is?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Read assured her that Mr. O'Brien was her favourite actor also. The
- print produced was indeed a poor one; it quite failed to do justice to the
- striking features of the original, she said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I felt certain that it could bear but a meagre resemblance to Mr. O'Brien
- if all that I hear of the man be true,” said Lady Susan. “His lordship
- swears that there has never been so great an actor in England, and I
- should like to give him a surprise by presenting to him a miniature
- portrait of his favourite, done by the cunning pencil of Miss Read, on his
- birthday. I protest that 'tis a vast kindness you are doing me in
- undertaking such a thing. But mind, I would urge of you to keep the affair
- a profound secret. I wish it as a surprise to my father, and its effect
- would be spoilt were it to become known to any of his friends that I had
- this intention.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your ladyship may rest assured that no living creature will hear of the
- affair through me,” said the painteress. “But I heartily wish that your
- ladyship could procure for me a better copy than this print from which to
- work,” she added.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I fear that I cannot promise you that; I found two other prints of the
- same person, but they are worse even than this,” said Lady Susan. “You
- must do your best with the material at your disposal.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your ladyship may depend on my doing my best,” replied Miss Read. “When
- does his lordship's birthday take place?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Her ladyship was somewhat taken aback by the sudden question. It took her
- some time to recollect that her father's birthday was to be within a
- month. She felt that she could not live for longer than another month
- without a portrait of the man whom she loved.
- </p>
- <p>
- While she was going home in her chair she could not but feel that she had
- hitherto been an undutiful daughter, never having taken any interest in
- her father's birthday, and being quite unacquainted with its date. She
- hoped fervently that Miss Read would not put herself to the trouble to
- find out exactly on what day of what month it took place. The result of
- such an investigation might be a little awkward.
- </p>
- <p>
- It so happened that Miss Read took no trouble in this direction. All her
- attention was turned upon the task of making a presentable miniature out
- of the indifferent material with which she had been supplied for this
- purpose. She began wondering if it might not be possible to get O'Brien to
- sit to her half a dozen times in order to give her a chance of doing
- credit to herself and to the gentleman's fine features.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was still pondering over this question when her attendant entered with
- a card, saying that a gentleman had come to wait on her.
- </p>
- <p>
- She read the name on the card, and uttered an exclamation of surprise, for
- the name was that of the man of whom she was thinking—Mr. O'Brien,
- of Drury Lane Theatre.
- </p>
- <p>
- She had wholly failed to recover herself before he entered the studio, and
- advanced to her, making his most respectful bow. He politely ignored her
- flutter-ings—he was used to see her sex overwhelmed when he
- appeared.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Madam, I beg that you will pardon this intrusion,” he said. “I have taken
- the liberty of waiting upon you, knowing of your great capacity as an
- artist.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, sir!” cried the fluttered little lady, making her courtesy.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nay, madam, I have no intention of flattering one to whom compliments
- must be as customary as they are well deserved,” said the actor. “I come
- not to confer a favour, madam, but to entreat one. In short, Miss Read, I
- am desirous of presenting a valued friend of mine with the portrait of a
- lady for whom he entertains a sincere devotion. For certain reasons, which
- I need not specify, the lady cannot sit to you; but I have here a picture
- of her poorly done in chalks, from which I hope it may be in your power to
- make a good—a good—— Good heavens! what do I behold? 'Tis
- she—she—Lady Susan herself!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He had glanced round the studio in the course of his speech, and his eyes
- had alighted upon the newly-begun portrait of Lady Susan. It represented
- only a few days' work, but the likeness to the original had been ably
- caught, and no one could fail to recognise the features.
- </p>
- <p>
- He took a hurried step to the easel, and the air made by his motion
- dislodged a print which the artist had laid on the little ledge that
- supported the stretcher of the canvas. The print fluttered to the floor;
- he picked it up, and gave another exclamation on recognising his own
- portrait in the mezzotint.
- </p>
- <p>
- Looking from the print to the picture and then at Miss Read, he said in a
- low voice, after a pause—“Madam, I am bewildered. Unless you come to
- my assistance I protest I shall feel that I am dreaming and asleep. Pray,
- madam, enlighten me—for Heaven's sake tell me how this”—he
- held up the print—“came into such close juxtaposition with that”—he
- pointed to the portrait on the easel.
- </p>
- <p>
- “'Tis easily told, sir,” said Miss Read, smiling archly. “But I must leave
- it to your sense of honour to keep the matter a profound secret.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Madam,” said Mr. O'Brien with dignity, “Madam, I am an Irishman.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is enough, sir; I know that I can trust you. The truth is, Mr.
- O'Brien, that Lady Susan is sitting to me for her portrait—that
- portrait. 'Twas marvellous that you should recognise it so soon. I have
- not worked at it for many hours.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Madam, your art is beyond that of the magician. 'Tis well known that
- every form depicted by Miss Read not only breathes but speaks.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, sir, I vow that you are a flatterer; still, you did recognise the
- portrait—'tis to be presented to Lady Sarah Bunbury.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Her ladyship will be the most fortunate of womankind.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Which ladyship, sir—Lady Susan or Lady Sarah?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Both, madam.” The Irishman was bowing with his hand on his heart. “But
- the print—my poor likeness?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is the secret, sir; but you will not betray it when I tell you that
- Lady Susan entrusted that print to me in order that I might make a copy in
- miniature for her to present to her father, Lord Ilchester. You are his
- favourite actor, Mr. O'Brien, as no doubt you are aware.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “'Tis the first I heard of it, madam.” There was a suggestion of
- mortification in the actor's tone.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, 'twould be impossible for Mr. O'Brien to keep an account of all his
- conquests. But now you can understand how it is that her ladyship wishes
- her intention to be kept a secret: she means to add to the acceptability
- of her gift by presenting it as a surprise. But her secret is safe in your
- keeping, sir?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I swear to it, madam.” Mr. O'Brien spoke mechanically. His hand was on
- his chin: he was clearly musing upon some question that perplexed him. He
- took a turn up and down the studio, and then said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Madam, it has just occurred to me that you, as a great artist——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nay, sir,” interposed the blushing painteress.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will not take back a word, madam,” said the actor, holding up one
- inexorable hand. “I say that surely so great an artist as you should
- disdain to do the work of a mere copyist. Why should not you confer upon
- me the honour of sitting to you for the miniature portrait?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, sir, that is the one favour which I meant to ask of you, if my
- courage had not failed me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Madam, you will confer immortality upon a simple man through that magic
- wand which you wield.” He swept his hand with inimitable grace over the
- mahl-stick which lay against the easel. “I am all impatient to begin my
- sitting, Miss Read. Pray let me come to-morrow.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Her ladyship comes to-morrow.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall precede her ladyship. Name the hour, madam.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Without the least demur Miss Read named an hour which could enable him to
- be far away from the studio before Lady Susan's arrival.
- </p>
- <p>
- And yet the next day Lady Susan entered the studio quite half an hour
- before Mr. O'Brien had left it. Of course she was surprised. Had not Miss
- Read received a letter, making her aware of the fact that she, Lady Susan,
- would be forced, owing to circumstances over which she had no control, to
- sit for her portrait an hour earlier than that of her appointment?
- </p>
- <p>
- When Miss Read said she had received no such letter, Lady Susan said some
- very severe things about her maid. Miss Read was greatly fluttered, but
- she explained in as few words as possible how it was that Mr. O'Brien had
- come forward in the cause of art, and was sitting for the miniature. Lady
- Susan quickly got over her surprise. (Had Miss Read seen the letter which
- her ladyship had received the previous evening from Mr. O'Brien she would
- not have marvelled as she did at the rapidity with which her ladyship
- recovered her self-possession.) Her ladyship was quite friendly with the
- actor, and thanked him for his courtesy in offering to give up so much of
- his time solely for the sake of increasing the value of her gift to her
- father.
- </p>
- <p>
- A few minutes later, while they were discussing some point in the design
- of the picture, Miss Read was called out of the studio, and in a second
- Lady Susan was in his arms.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Fate is on our side, darling girl!” he whispered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I could not live without you, my charmer. But I was bold! I took my fate
- in both hands when I wrote you that letter.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dear one, 'twas the instinct of true love that made you guess the truth—that
- I wanted the portrait because I loved the original. Oh, dear one, what
- have I not suffered during the year that has parted us!” said Lady Susan,
- with her head upon his shoulder.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Irishman found it necessary to fall back upon the seductive tongue of
- his country for words of endearment to bestow upon her. He called her
- “Sheila,” “a cushla machree,” “mavourneen,” and also “aroon.” But when
- Miss Read returned to the studio they were still discussing a purely
- artistic point in connection with the portrait.
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course now that O'Brien knew the secret of the miniature there was no
- reason that Miss Read could see why he and Lady Susan should not meet at
- her studio. To do her justice, neither could her ladyship perceive why
- they should not come together at this place. They came every day, and
- every day Lady Susan begged that Miss Read would allow her to rest in her
- ante-room after the fatigue of the sitting. She rested in that room, and
- in the company of O'Brien, until at last Miss Read became frightened; and
- one day told her friend Lord Cathcart something of her fears. Lord
- Cathcart, in his turn, told Lord Ilchester. His lordship was furious, but
- cautious.
- </p>
- <p>
- He wanted evidence of his daughter's infatuation. He got it the next
- morning, for he insisted on seeing a letter which arrived for Lady Susan,
- addressed in the handwriting of Lady Sarah. This letter turned out to be
- from O'Brien, and Susan confessed that her father's surmise was correct—all
- the letters which she had recently received in Lady Sarah's hand had come
- from O'Brien.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her father was foolish enough to grant her permission to say farewell to
- her lover, and thus the two were allowed to come together once more. They
- had a long talk, in the course of which O'Brien communicated to her a
- secret of the theatre, which was that Mr. Garrick and Mr. Colman were
- engaged in the construction of a comedy to be called <i>The Clandestine
- Marriage</i>, and that Mr. Garrick told him that he, O'Brien, was to play
- the part of the lover—the gentleman who had married the lady in
- secret.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lady Susan parted from her lover, not in tears, but in laughter.
- </p>
- <p>
- The conclusion of the story is told by Horace Walpole, writing to Lord
- Hertford.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will have heard of the sad misfortune that has happened to Lord
- Ilchester by his daughter's marriage with O'Brien, the actor,” wrote
- Walpole; and then went on to tell how Lady Susan had made her confession
- to her father, vowing to have nothing more to do with her lover if she
- were but permitted to bid him good-bye. “You will be amazed,” continued
- Walpole, “even this was granted. The parting scene happened the beginning
- of the week. On Friday she came of age, and on Saturday morning—instead
- of being under lock and key in the country—walked downstairs, took
- her footman, said she was going to breakfast with Lady Sarah, but would
- call at Miss Read's; in the street pretended to recollect a particular cap
- in which she was to be drawn, sent the footman back for it, whipped into a
- hackney chair, was married at Covent Garden Church, and set out for Mr.
- O'Brien's villa at Dunstable.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Unlike many other alliances of a similar type, this marriage turned out a
- happy one. O'Brien was induced to leave the stage and to depart with his
- wife for America. He obtained a grant of some forty thousand acres in the
- province of New York, and had he retained this property and taken the
- right side during the Revolution his descendants would to-day be the
- richest people in the world. A few years later he was given a good
- appointment in Bermuda; and finally, in 1770, he was made Receiver-General
- of the County of Dorset, and became popular as a country squire. He died
- in 1815, and Lady Susan survived him by twelve years.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was Lady Sarah who had made the imprudent marriage. She submitted to
- the cruelties of her husband for fourteen years, and on her leaving his
- roof he obtained a divorce.
- </p>
- <p>
- In 1781, nineteen years after her first marriage, she wedded the Hon.
- George Napier, and became the mother of three of the greatest Englishmen
- of the nineteenth century. She lived until she was eighty. Her friend Lady
- Susan followed her to the grave a year later, at the age of eighty-four.
- </p>
- <h3>
- THE END
- </h3>
- <div style="height: 6em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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