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-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

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 51964 ***
+
+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 THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 51964 ***
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-      A Georgian Pageant, by Frank Frankfort Moore

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-

-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

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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GEORGIAN PAGEANT ***

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-

-Produced by David Widger from page images generously

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-</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 &amp; 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 &ldquo;romance&rdquo; of the Gunnings, and the &ldquo;elopement&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;regulation&rdquo;

-       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&mdash;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&mdash;not quite, but almost&mdash;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&mdash;her closest observers were her greatest admirers&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;waving arms, frantically beckoning to her while he

-      shouted:

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Miss Burney! Miss Burney!&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;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>

-      &ldquo;Madam, madam, the doctor begs you to stop!&rdquo; She glanced over her

-      shoulder, still flying.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;No, no, I cannot&mdash;I dare not!&rdquo; she gasped.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Madam, you must&mdash;you must: it hurts the King to run!&rdquo; 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>

-      &ldquo;The doctor, madam,&rdquo; he faltered, &ldquo;'twas the doctor&mdash;he thought at

-      first that His Majesty was&mdash;was&mdash;but that was at first&mdash;now

-      he says you must please not lead His Majesty on&mdash;'tis all too much

-      for him. Save us! How you did go, madam! Who would ha' thought it?&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;not Physicians in Ordinary;

-      just the contrary&mdash;the two physicians who had been summoned from

-      Lincolnshire by some person in authority who possessed intelligence&mdash;it

-      should surely be easy to identify such a man at the Court of George III&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;Dresser.&rdquo;) But when they met, after

-      the King had cried, &ldquo;Why did you run away from me, Miss Burney?&rdquo; 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&mdash;though they had doubtless heard something of the

-      practices that prevailed at the Courts of His Majesty's lamented

-      grandfather and great-grandfather&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;it

-      must have been largely in monologue&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;hurled by the Almighty from his throne&rdquo; (in order

-      to give the Opposition a chance of jumping into place and power over his

-      prostrate body)&mdash;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 &ldquo;case,&rdquo; 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>&mdash;that

-      was what he was hungering for&mdash;the trivial things in which he

-      delighted&mdash;the confidences on simple matters&mdash;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&mdash;respectful in some cases, almost

-      passionate in others&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;Keeper

-      of the Robes was the stately designation of a very humble service&mdash;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&mdash;the

-      others were not brilliant, only mothers&mdash;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>&mdash;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&mdash;the Reynoldses, the Burkes, and even the frigid

-      Walpole&mdash;when it became known that Miss Burney's health was breaking

-      down under the strain of her duties at the Court&mdash;she had about two

-      hours' daily attendance of the most ordinary nature upon the Queen&mdash;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&mdash;the incomparable Diary which she kept during

-      her five years at Court&mdash;an excuse for turning the vials of his wrath

-      upon her father, whose obstinacy gave her a chance of writing the most

-      interesting chapter&mdash;the most accurate chapter&mdash;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 &ldquo;written up&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;the

-      airs of mystery, the head-shakings, and she is capable of drawing her own

-      conclusions. &ldquo;Heaven preserve him!&rdquo; 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&mdash;unnatural volubility&mdash;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&mdash;his

-      health&mdash;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&mdash;his consideration for the people

-      around him&mdash;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: &ldquo;Nobody

-      speaks of his illness, nor what they think of it.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;more than his sons could do&mdash;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. &ldquo;The Queen,&rdquo; she writes,

-      &ldquo;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&mdash;these seemed to me

-      the threats awaiting her; and great and grievous enough, yet how short of

-      the fact!&rdquo;...

-    </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. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;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 &ldquo;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&mdash;no one could

-      conjecture the event.&rdquo; 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>

-      &ldquo;My poor Royal Mistress!&rdquo; she writes. &ldquo;Never can I forget her countenance&mdash;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.&rdquo;

-     </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 &ldquo;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,&rdquo; she adds. &ldquo;Harshness, tyranny,

-      dissension, and even insult seemed personified. I cut short details upon

-      this subject&mdash;they would but make you sick.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;in spite, too, of

-      Mrs. Schwellenberg's having locked herself into her room, forbidding any

-      one to disturb her&mdash;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&mdash;adopting

-      exactly the strain that he knew would be most effective with Miss Burney.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Never mind her&mdash;never mind her! Don't be oppressed! I am your

-      friend! Don't let her cast you down&mdash;I know that you have a hard time

-      of it&mdash;but don't mind her!&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      The advice and the tone in which it was given&mdash;with a pleasant laugh&mdash;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&mdash;perhaps such trifles as &ldquo;All we like Sheep,&rdquo; or

-      &ldquo;Lift up your Heads,&rdquo; or the &ldquo;Hallelujah&rdquo;&mdash;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&mdash;the Mastership of the King's Band: &ldquo;Your father

-      ought to have had the post, and not that little poor musician Parsons, who

-      was not fit for it,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;I will do it

-      myself!&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;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&mdash;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. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; Miss Burney writes. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;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

-      &ldquo;transparency&rdquo; had been painted by the Queen's order, representing the

-      King, Providence, Health, and Britannia&mdash;a truly British tableau&mdash;and

-      when this was hung out and illuminated the little Princess &ldquo;went to lead

-      her papa to the front window.&rdquo; Then she dropped on her knees and gave him

-      the &ldquo;copy of verses,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;dear papa&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;command&rdquo; party at his house in St. Martin's Street, Leicester

-      Fields&mdash;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&mdash;who,

-      by the way, was Fanny Burney's godmother&mdash;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 &ldquo;principals&rdquo; in the comedy of this entertainment; and

-      for the subordinates he selected his married daughter and her husband&mdash;both

-      admirable musicians&mdash;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 &ldquo;Alfred&rdquo;

-       the rousing anthem known as &ldquo;Rule Britannia,&rdquo; for the cancelling of

-      Burney's indentures as an apprentice to the &ldquo;art of musick,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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, &ldquo;What is that, sir&mdash;pray,

-      what is that? Is it a hiss?&rdquo; To which Colman replied, &ldquo;Psha! sir, what

-      signifies a squib when we have been sitting on a barrel of gunpowder all

-      night?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      These were among the notabilities; and the &ldquo;curiosities&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;gentle savage&rdquo; 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&mdash;a marvellous performer, who got fifty pounds for every

-      song she sang at the Pantheon&mdash;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&mdash;who undoubtedly became

-      attached to Fanny Burney&mdash;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 &ldquo;command&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;half joke whole

-      earnest&rdquo; way:

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Because, madam, you have no ear yourself for music, will you destroy the

-      attention of all who, in that one point, are otherwise gifted?&rdquo;

-     </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, &ldquo;the irony of fate,&rdquo;

-       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&mdash;whom she nicknamed &ldquo;Mr. Gruel&rdquo;&mdash;assumed

-      &ldquo;his most supercilious air of distant superiority&rdquo; and &ldquo;planted himself

-      immovable as a noble statue upon the hearth, as if a stranger to the whole

-      set.&rdquo;

-     </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 &ldquo;were so kind

-      and considerate as to divert themselves by making a fire-screen to the

-      whole room.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;if he was not ashamed he would keep the fire from the

-      ladies too.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;This reproof (for a reproof it certainly was, although given in a very

-      comical, dry way) was productive,&rdquo; Charlotte adds, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      A more perfect description of the &ldquo;curtain&rdquo; to the first act of this, &ldquo;as

-      good as a comedy,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;whom? Dr. Johnson, the man who has studied

-      boorishness and advanced it to a place among the arts&mdash;the man who

-      calls those who differ from him dolts and fools and rascals&mdash;the man

-      whose manners at the dinner table are those of the sty and trough&mdash;the

-      man who walks about the streets ungartered and unclean&mdash;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 &ldquo;sopha,&rdquo;

-       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&mdash;which it is

-      scarcely necessary to say was Johnson's view&mdash;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. &ldquo;Oh,

-      no,&rdquo; said Goldsmith, &ldquo;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&rdquo;&mdash;a cur,

-      and an ape and a spy and a Branghton&mdash;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&mdash;at the sacrifice of Johnson's reputation for

-      humanity&mdash;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 &ldquo;honest Dr.

-      Goldsmith&rdquo; 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.

-      &ldquo;When I recapitulate the debate,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; This was published after the second marriage. What would be

-      thought of a modern biographer who should borrow a little of Boswell's

-      &ldquo;delicacy,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;an inoffensive

-      Quaker&mdash;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, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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>

-      &ldquo;Madam,&mdash;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!&rdquo;

-     </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>

-      &ldquo;The birth of my second husband is not meaner than that of my first,&rdquo; she

-      wrote; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;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&mdash;he would not relinquish his room

-      in her house and his place at her table without a struggle&mdash;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&mdash;a fact that revealed itself

-      almost daily in his life&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;not necessarily refinements&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;the Borough.&rdquo;

-     </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>

-      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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>

-      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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>

-      &ldquo;Perkins has behaved like an Emperor,&rdquo; she wrote, &ldquo;and it is my earnest

-      wish and desire&mdash;command, if you please to call it so&mdash;that you

-      will go over to the brew-house and express <i>your</i> sense of his good

-      behaviour.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;though this was double the amount authorised by

-      the &ldquo;master.&rdquo; 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&mdash;even to improve upon the auctioneer's style in appraising

-      the value of the whole concern. &ldquo;Beyond the dreams of avarice&rdquo; 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&mdash;her

-      thirteenth&mdash;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. &ldquo;The men were reconciled,&rdquo; she wrote, &ldquo;and my

-      danger accelerated their reconcilement.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;the parent of a peeress in her

-      own right, and an uncommonly shrewd Irishwoman into the bargain&mdash;&ldquo;smoaked,&rdquo;

-       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&mdash;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&mdash;&ldquo;gored,&rdquo; 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>, &ldquo;sufficient for twelve,&rdquo; as the

-      cookery book says:

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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&mdash;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 &ldquo;skate, pudding, goose, and

-      green asparagus, and could have eaten more but was prudent.&rdquo; He adds,

-      &ldquo;Pray for me, dear Madam,&rdquo;&mdash;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,

-      &ldquo;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!&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      Quite so; beyond a doubt Johnson spoke from the bottom of his heart&mdash;nay,

-      from a deeper depth still.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      Boswell was amazed to find that Garrick's &ldquo;sensibility&rdquo; as a writer was

-      irritated when he related the story to him, and in Mrs. Thrale's copy of

-      Johnson she made a note&mdash;&ldquo;How odd to go and tell the man!&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;Johnson

-      of the swollen forehead and the tokens of his submission to the primeval

-      curse in the eating of his bread&mdash;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 &ldquo;blooded.&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;Sir, after the denunciation of your physicians this morning, such

-      eating is little better than suicide.&rdquo; 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&mdash;once again at the sacrifice of her infant&mdash;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&mdash;more of the irony of Fate&mdash;in 1787, affirmed

-      that the great Lichfield man &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Mitre,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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>

-      &ldquo;He has killed the man&mdash;stabbed him with a dagger to the very heart!&rdquo;

-       was the cry that came from those of the crowd who were kneeling beside the

-      wretch in the gutter.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;And a woman&mdash;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!&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      A sufficiency of advice was given by the excited onlookers to the men who

-      had encircled Baretti&mdash;one of them was clinging to him with his arms

-      clasped around his body&mdash;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>

-      &ldquo;'Tis more than a street brawl&mdash;a man has been slain&mdash;some say a

-      woman also,&rdquo; 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>

-      &ldquo;A swinging matter this,&rdquo; one of them remarked. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Friends, I was attacked by three bullies, and I defended myself&mdash;that

-      is all,&rdquo; said Baretti. He spoke English perfectly.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;You will need to tell that to Sir John in the morning,&rdquo; said one of the

-      watchmen. &ldquo;You are apprehended in the King's name. Where is the poor

-      victim?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;There must be some of the crowd who saw how I was attacked,&rdquo; said

-      Baretti. &ldquo;They will testify that I acted in self-defence. Sirs, hear me

-      make an appeal to you. Out of your sense of justice&mdash;you will not see

-      an innocent man apprehended.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;The knife&mdash;who carries a bare knife in the streets unless with

-      intent?&rdquo; said a man.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;'Twas my fruit-knife. I never go abroad without it. I eat my fruit like a

-      Christian, not like a pig or an Englishman,&rdquo; 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>

-      &ldquo;Hear him! A pig of an Englishman. Those were his words! A foreign hound.

-      Frenchie, I'll be bound.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;A spy&mdash;most like a Papist. He has the hanging brow of a born

-      Papist.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;He'll hang like a dog at Tyburn&mdash;he may be sure o' that.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;'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.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;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. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; 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>

-      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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 &ldquo;patron's weakness or

-      insensibility will finally do you little hurt, if he is not assisted by

-      your own passions.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Of your love,&rdquo; continued Johnson, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; He

-      then hastens to add that &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      The pleasant little cynical bark in the phrase &ldquo;those that are to suffer

-      the evils together,&rdquo; as if it referred to love and marriage, is, Malone

-      thinks, not Johnson's, but Baretti's. It is suggested that Johnson really

-      wrote &ldquo;those that are to suffer the evils <i>of life</i> together,&rdquo; and

-      that Baretti in transcribing the letter for Boswell, purposely omitted the

-      words &ldquo;<i>of life</i>.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;love and

-      marriage,&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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 &ldquo;when you are hanged, sir.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;You rascal!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;If I were not in my own room, I would

-      kick you downstairs directly.&rdquo;

-     </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

-      &ldquo;shut up&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;Is he like Burke who winds into a

-      subject like a serpent?&rdquo; asked Goldsmith.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;But&rdquo; (said I) &ldquo;Dr. Johnson is the Hercules that strangled serpents in his

-      cradle.&rdquo;

-     </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 &ldquo;Bab Ballads&rdquo; to say

-      if he wrote &ldquo;the lovely cracker mottoes my Elvira pulls at supper.&rdquo; It

-      will be remembered that the poet whose name rhymes with &ldquo;supper&rdquo; replied:

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      <br />

-    </p>

-    <p class="indent10">

-      &ldquo;'A fool is bent upon a twig, but wise men dread a bandit,'

-    </p>

-    <p class="indent10">

-      Which&rdquo; (the earnest inquirer said) &ldquo;I felt was very wise,

-    </p>

-    <p class="indent20">

-      but I didn't understand it.&rdquo;

-     </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. &ldquo;Burke and I,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;should have been of one

-      opinion if we had had no audience.&rdquo; Such a confession! There was the life

-      of his friend Baretti trembling in the balance, and yet Johnson, solely

-      for the sake of &ldquo;showing off,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;consultations&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;What need a man fear who holds two

-      such hands?&rdquo; 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&mdash;himself an aspirant to the profession of law

-      in which he subsequently displayed a conspicuous lack of distinction&mdash;had

-      anything to do with the instruction either of solicitors or barristers on

-      his behalf.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      At any rate, the &ldquo;consultations&rdquo; 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&mdash;if we are to believe one of the wittiest of his associates&mdash;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 &ldquo;this sad affair of Baretti,&rdquo; 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>

-      &ldquo;Ay, sir, here you have a specimen of human sympathy,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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>

-      &ldquo;As for his not sleeping,&rdquo; said Dr. Johnson, &ldquo;sir, Tom Davies is a very

-      great man&mdash;Tom has been on the stage, and knows how to do those

-      things.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      Boswell: &ldquo;I have often blamed myself, sir, for not feeling for others as

-      sensibly as many say they do.&rdquo; Johnson: &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;the rugged Russian bear,&rdquo; but also of &ldquo;the armed

-      rhinoceros and the Hyrcan tiger.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Sir, it is not a talent: it is a vice; it is what others abstain from,&rdquo;

-       he growled.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Did not he think of exhibiting you, sir?&rdquo; inquired the tactful Mr.

-      Boswell, though he knew all about Foote and Johnson long before.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Sir, fear restrained him,&rdquo; said Johnson. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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>

-      &ldquo;Pray, sir, is not Foote an infidel?&rdquo; 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>

-      &ldquo;I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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.&mdash;&ldquo;Why, there's Baretti, who is to

-      be tried for his life to-morrow,&rdquo; he added; &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;It took place,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;at the

-      awful Sessions House, emphatically called Justice Hall,&rdquo; and he affirms

-      that &ldquo;never did such a constellation of genius enlighten the Old Bailey.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;say

-      Mr. Augustine Birrell&mdash;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&mdash;not even a

-      Conservative Attorney-General&mdash;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 &ldquo;awful Sessions House&rdquo;

-       by such &ldquo;a constellation of genius&rdquo; as had never before assembled in that

-      &ldquo;Hall of Justice&rdquo;?

-    </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&mdash;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 &ldquo;emphatically called Justice Hall&rdquo; 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&mdash;or, for that matter, a sense of the

-      ridiculous. He was the Needy Knife Grinder&mdash;with an occasional axe of

-      his own&mdash;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&mdash;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>

-      &ldquo;I have known Mr. Baretti a long time. He is a man of literature&mdash;a

-      very studious man&mdash;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.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;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 &ldquo;awful Sessions House.&rdquo; 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&mdash;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 &ldquo;leave it to your honour&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      Assuredly Mrs. Thrale &ldquo;let him down&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;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&mdash;his wife. She gulped the pill very prettily. So much

-      for Baretti!&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;I ran a race in the rain this

-      day, and beat Baretti. Baretti is a fine fellow.&rdquo; This is Johnson on

-      Baretti. Here is Baretti on Johnson; on a copy of the <i>Piozzi Letters</i>

-      he wrote: &ldquo;Johnson was often fond of saying silly things in strong terms,

-      and the silly madam&rdquo;&mdash;meaning Mrs. Thrale&mdash;&ldquo;never failed to echo

-      that beastly kind of wit.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;we have Baretti's own confession for it&mdash;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 &ldquo;his honour's honour&rdquo;

-       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>

-      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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 &ldquo;awful

-      Sessions House&rdquo; 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&mdash;and he was.

-      Without waiting to catch her eye, he raised his glass and, bowing in her

-      direction, said:

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;My Lady Duchess, I have the honour to drink Your Grace's good health.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;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&mdash;sometimes with glee and occasionally

-      with pride&mdash;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&mdash;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: &ldquo;Mr. Boswell, won't you have some tea?&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;The Duke,&rdquo; he records, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he continues, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;not the one who was now so obliging&mdash;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: &ldquo;And

-      Mr. Boswell, the son of auld Auchinleck, was there too.&rdquo;

-     </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. &ldquo;I was in fine spirits,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; Later on he drank Her Grace's health, although, he adds, &ldquo;I

-      knew it was the rule of modern high life not to drink to anybody.&rdquo; Thus he

-      achieved the snub he sought; but he acknowledges that he thought the

-      Duchess rather too severe when she said: &ldquo;I know nothing of Mr. Boswell.&rdquo;

-       On reflection, however, he received &ldquo;that kind of consolation which a man

-      would feel who is strangled by a silken cord.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      It seems strange that no great painter has been inspired by the theme and

-      the scene. The days of &ldquo;subject pictures&rdquo; are, we are frequently told,

-      gone by. This may be so, generally speaking, but every one knows that a

-      &ldquo;subject picture,&rdquo; if its &ldquo;subject&rdquo; 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&mdash;practical art&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;only

-      uncomfortable&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;from which Mr. Boswell has just

-      replenished his glass! Why, the figure of Dr. Johnson alone should make

-      the picture a success&mdash;i.e. susceptible of being reproduced as an

-      effective poster in four printings. &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said Dr. Johnson, &ldquo;claret for

-      boys, port for men, but brandy for heroes.&rdquo; Yes, but whose brandy? There

-      is a hint for a great modern art patron&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;romantic.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;scarce gentlewomen.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;inferior tap&rdquo; 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&mdash;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 &ldquo;tidy estate,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;settlement&rdquo; 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&mdash;as one did in

-      the very county of Roscommon the other day&mdash;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&mdash;and it usually was&mdash;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

-      &ldquo;settlements&rdquo; 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&mdash;such as remained on their estates&mdash;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 &ldquo;gentry&rdquo; 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&mdash;the eldest was eight years and the

-      youngest three months&mdash;and here he tried to support them off the

-      &ldquo;estate.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;heavy father&rdquo; 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&mdash;a sorry household it must have been at Castle Coote&mdash;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&mdash;with the &ldquo;lashings and leavings&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;settlements&rdquo; 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

-      &ldquo;English accent&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;brogue&rdquo; being

-      far less corrupt than the &ldquo;burr.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;billet&rdquo;&mdash;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 &ldquo;lessons&rdquo; than the average young woman of their own day who had been

-      &ldquo;neglected.&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;the exaggerated expressions of

-      appreciation uttered by a fervent peasantry&mdash;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&mdash;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

-      &ldquo;The Castle.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      When the eldest of her three daughters was scarcely nineteen the

-      aggregation of savings and credit&mdash;the latter predominant&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;it will be remembered that

-      she was one of that delightful little supper party at Ranelagh which he

-      describes&mdash;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&mdash;assuming that social advancement

-      is an act of friendship&mdash;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, &ldquo;upon the Irish Establishment.&rdquo; The

-      &ldquo;Irish Establishment&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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&mdash;even by Walpole&mdash;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&mdash;the most notorious&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;except in a

-      distant way&mdash;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. &ldquo;'Tis a warm day,&rdquo; wrote

-      George Selwyn to Lord Carlisle, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;The famous beauties are more talked of than the change in the Ministry,&rdquo;

-       wrote Walpole. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      This mobbing must have caused the girls much delightful inconvenience, and

-      one can see their mother acting the part&mdash;and overdoing it, after the

-      manner of her kind&mdash;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&mdash;that would have been his word&mdash;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. &ldquo;Oh, I should dearly like to see a coronation!&rdquo; 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&mdash;his

-      titles were Hamilton and Brandon&mdash;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. &ldquo;When her mother and sister

-      were at Bedford House,&rdquo; he wrote to Mann, &ldquo;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!&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;impossibility&mdash;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 &ldquo;summer setting in with its

-      customary severity,&rdquo; 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&mdash;the

-      dream of every budding dramatist. There is every likelihood that it was

-      this highly accomplished and successful &ldquo;gentleman-adventurer&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;mainly of the

-      opposite sex&mdash;were greatly interested. Of this fact he seems to have

-      been fully aware. A good many people&mdash;mainly of the opposite sex&mdash;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 &ldquo;<i>Nunc dimittis</i>&rdquo; 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&mdash;but

-      not too notable&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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. &ldquo;Lady Betty might have taken the name of Stanley

-      long ago if she had chose it,&rdquo; she wrote, adding: &ldquo;A very sincere

-      attachment on his side has at last produced the same on hers.&rdquo; 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&mdash;no

-      particular extravagance one would fancy&mdash;and that the hay-cocks would

-      be of straw-coloured riband. George Selwyn thought it far from diverting.

-      The Dowager Lady Gower affirmed that &ldquo;all the world was there,&rdquo; only she

-      makes an exception of her relations the Bedfords&mdash;she called them

-      &ldquo;the Bloomsbury lot&rdquo;&mdash;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 &ldquo;Death of Wolfe&rdquo; 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&mdash;when improved

-      by Messrs. Adam&mdash;to the show. The &ldquo;transparencies&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;gules.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      This design occupied the place of the &ldquo;set piece&rdquo; which winds up a modern

-      display of fireworks and sets the band playing &ldquo;God save the King.&rdquo; 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&mdash;the second of the day&mdash;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&mdash;the

-      explosion, it was said, affected the nerves of nearly all the guests&mdash;and

-      the illumination of the &ldquo;transparency&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;set&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;her husband succeeded to the title

-      two years after his marriage&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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

-      &ldquo;principal.&rdquo; 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&mdash;up to

-      that time the two qualities had seldom been found associated&mdash;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: &ldquo;In distinction of manner and refinement

-      she excelled Mrs. Abington, who could never go beyond Lady Teazle, which

-      is a second-rate character.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;the real thing&rdquo; and of profiting by her study.

-      She found herself on the most intimate footing with duchesses&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;Walpole was about the worst&mdash;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&mdash;not

-      even that of his wife&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;The Derby&rdquo; 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&mdash;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 &ldquo;plot&rdquo; 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

-      &ldquo;glorious child&rdquo;&mdash;this was how she described her daughter&mdash;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 &ldquo;glorious child,&rdquo; 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&mdash;strictly

-      <i>sub rosa</i> also. Now the aggregation of many confidential reports of

-      this sort is what is termed &ldquo;news,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;The two beautiful sisters were

-      exalted almost as high as they could go,&rdquo; he wrote. &ldquo;Countessed and double

-      duchessed, and now the family have dragged themselves down into the very

-      dirt.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      The &ldquo;family&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;dragging

-      themselves into the very dirt.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;dragging in the dirt&rdquo; 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&mdash;after the interval of a chapter or two&mdash;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 &ldquo;case,&rdquo; 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&mdash;he

-      had recently been made a general&mdash;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&mdash;that is to say, to Mrs. Gunning&mdash;for confirmation

-      or denial of the report, learned that the marriage had indeed been

-      &ldquo;arranged,&rdquo; 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&mdash;imperfectly, it would appear, or he would have suspected

-      something long before. Retaining the precious &ldquo;pacquet&rdquo; 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

-      &ldquo;pacquet&rdquo; 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&mdash;they

-      were the ordinary ones, courteous, but in no way effusive&mdash;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&mdash;the whole piece of scheming&mdash;was the design of his

-      wife&mdash;that it represented an attempt on her part to force one of her

-      &ldquo;plots&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;Those are my

-      letters, and they express nothing but the most honourable sentiments of my

-      heart.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;this &ldquo;pacquet&rdquo; of letters

-      played as important a part in the story of Miss Gunning as the &ldquo;Casquet

-      Letters&rdquo; did in the history of Queen Mary&mdash;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&mdash;Horace Walpole, who gloats over the whole

-      story in a letter to one of the Berrys, does not say by whom&mdash;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&mdash;after

-      a consultation with her mother, we may be sure&mdash;a &ldquo;narrative&rdquo; 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>

-      &ldquo;St. James's Place,

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;<i>3 rd February</i>, 1791.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;My Lord,&mdash;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>

-      &ldquo;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>

-      &ldquo;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>

-      &ldquo;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&mdash;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>

-      &ldquo;I have the honour to be,

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;With the greatest respect, my Lord,

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Your Grace's most humble and

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Most obedient servant,

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;John Gunning.&rdquo;

-     </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>

-      &ldquo;Blenheim.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Sir,&mdash;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&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;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>

-      &ldquo;I have the honour to remain,

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Sir,

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Your much obliged and

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Most obedient, humble servant,

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Marlborough.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;Walpole in the letter to

-      Miss Berry affirms that he was this one&mdash;ventured to point out that

-      in the Duke's letter the name <i>Blandford</i> was spelt without the

-      middle letter <i>d</i>. &ldquo;That was possible in the hurry of doing justice,&rdquo;

-       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&mdash;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 &ldquo;plot&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;<i>copy</i>&rdquo;

-       at the top and &ldquo;<i>signed M</i>.&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;Neither papa or I have courage to

-      tell mama, for she detests the person dearest to me on earth.&rdquo;

-     </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 &ldquo;plot&rdquo;

-       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&mdash;and worse&mdash;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 &ldquo;glorious child,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;glorious child.&rdquo;

-     </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 &ldquo;pacquet&rdquo; for the Duke of Marlborough, Miss Gunning had caught him and

-      compelled him to hand over the &ldquo;pacquet&rdquo; 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&mdash;according to Walpole&mdash;of

-      swearing before a London magistrate that she was innocent. &ldquo;It is but a

-      burlesque part of this wonderful tale,&rdquo; adds Walpole, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; But

-      &ldquo;crazy old Bedford&rdquo; 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>

-      &ldquo;The town is very dull without them,&rdquo; wrote Walpole to one of the Berrys,

-      enclosing a copy of a really clever skit in verse, after the style of &ldquo;The

-      House that Jack Built,&rdquo; 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&mdash;that is an expression which comedy may

-      wear without arousing the curiosity&mdash;certainly without exciting the

-      laughter&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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

-      &ldquo;that more attention had been paid to them than to him.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;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 &ldquo;of seeing me, madam, me&mdash;<i>me!</i>&rdquo; 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&mdash;hands uplifted

-      in amazement and faces &ldquo;o'er-running with laughter&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;honest Dr. Goldsmith&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;Pshaw! I could do it as well myself!&rdquo;

-       Supposing that some one had said to Boswell, &ldquo;After all, sir, perhaps Dr.

-      Goldsmith could have done it as well himself,&rdquo; 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&mdash;unless by Boswell

-      or Beattie&mdash;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. &ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; said this egregious person at a public

-      dinner, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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

-      &ldquo;the Club&rdquo; was started not one of the original members questioned his

-      right to a place among the most fastidious of the community, although

-      Garrick&mdash;to the shame of Johnson be it spoken&mdash;was not admitted

-      for nine years. Boswell&mdash;to the shame of Johnson be it spoken&mdash;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&mdash;he may even have taken the extreme step of fastening up his

-      garters&mdash;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&mdash;sometimes

-      unconsciously&mdash;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&mdash;their very graves are neglected. But <i>She Stoops to

-      Conquer</i> is never revived without success&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;bull.&rdquo; This is the delivery of a paradox so obvious as to be

-      detected&mdash;after a brief consideration&mdash;by an Englishman or even&mdash;after

-      an additional space for thought&mdash;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&mdash;indeed,

-      every form of humour may be said to be due to a peculiar twist of the mind&mdash;but

-      it is as much a figure of speech as irony or satire. &ldquo;Blarney&rdquo; and

-      &ldquo;palaver&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;blarney&rdquo; and &ldquo;palaver&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;of this man &ldquo;who wrote like an angel and talked like poor

-      poll.&rdquo;

-     </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, &ldquo;I could do it as well

-      myself,&rdquo; 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&mdash;that all oratory, as a matter of fact, was only a knack&mdash;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&mdash;Boswell best of all&mdash;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 &ldquo;chaff&rdquo; 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&mdash;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: &ldquo;Oh,

-      but isn't this a great day for Ireland!&rdquo;

-     </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 &ldquo;honest

-      Dr. Goldsmith&rdquo; converse. &ldquo;Puppy!&rdquo; 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>&mdash;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.

-      &ldquo;Here is a man,&rdquo; we must say, &ldquo;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>

-      &ldquo;'<i>Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis</i>.'

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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>

-      &ldquo;'<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>

-      &ldquo;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&mdash;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>

-      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; we

-      should ask the authority to whom we are supposed to be stating a case&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;

-     </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 &ldquo;Noll&rdquo; rhyme with &ldquo;Poll,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Goldy,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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 &ldquo;The Gentleman,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;The Gentleman&rdquo; of his circle. In his room in the

-      farmhouse there was his bed and table&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;after a

-      few muttered words and a laugh&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;Natural History.&rdquo; 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&mdash;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. &ldquo;The Gentleman&rdquo; 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>&mdash;and

-      he undoubtedly felt some&mdash;had been amply redeemed by the money which

-      accrued to him from the &ldquo;author's rights&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;Ay, sir, this matter may be nothing to

-      you who can now shelter yourself behind the corner of your pension,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;very Irish.&rdquo; 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&mdash;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 &ldquo;animated nature&rdquo; of <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i>. It

-      contains the two chief essentials to a true comedy&mdash;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&mdash;Garrick, Johnson, Reynolds,

-      or Colman&mdash;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. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; he cried to Johnson,

-      &ldquo;Goldsmith has acquired more fame than all the officers last war who were

-      not generals!&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Why, sir,&rdquo; said Johnson, &ldquo;you will find ten thousand fit to do what they

-      did before you find one who does what Goldsmith has done&rdquo;&mdash;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.

-      &ldquo;Eh bien, mon sire. Let your marshals sing to you.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      At any rate, Colman got the play&mdash;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&mdash;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. &ldquo;I shook my head,&rdquo; wrote Cooke, &ldquo;and said

-      that I was afraid the audience, under their then sentimental impressions,

-      would think it too broad and farcical for comedy.&rdquo; This was poor comfort

-      for the author; but after a pause he shook the man by the hand, saying

-      piteously: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;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>

-      &ldquo;Dear Sir,&rdquo; wrote the author in January, 1773, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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>

-      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;a

-      question which is not yet ripe for discussion&mdash;it has never been in

-      the direction of depreciating a play which they are about to produce&mdash;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 &ldquo;country gentleman,&rdquo; Mr. Cradock, referred to

-      by Walpole. Miss Horneck, his beautiful &ldquo;Jessamy Bride,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;We are all in labour for a name to Goldy's play,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;I would not for ten pounds have seemed so retrograde to any

-      general observance,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;draw him on&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;looking

-      glum,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;wings&rdquo; than he heard a

-      hiss. &ldquo;What's that, sir?&rdquo; he whispered to Colman, who was beside him.

-      &ldquo;Psha, sir! what signifies a squib when we have been sitting on a barrel

-      of gunpowder all night?&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Turn

-      him out!&rdquo; 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&mdash;that he had by one more achievement proved to his

-      own satisfaction&mdash;and he was hard to satisfy&mdash;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

-      &ldquo;succeeded prodigiously,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;puff&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;squibs&rdquo;&mdash;some

-      of them partook largely of the character of his own barrel of gunpowder&mdash;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: &ldquo;Colman is so distressed with abuse

-      that he has solicited Goldsmith to take him off the rack of the

-      newspapers.&rdquo;

-     </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, &ldquo;The play has met with a success

-      beyond your expectation or mine,&rdquo; he makes his explanation, and concludes

-      thus: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;strangers to me&mdash;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 &ldquo;The Jessamy Bride&rdquo; and

-      &ldquo;Little Comedy&rdquo; intelligible to the &ldquo;Devonshire Crew&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;If Dr. Brewer does not know why Mary Horneck was called

-      'The Jessamy Bride,' no one alive can know it,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Jessamy Bride&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Jessamy

-      Bride,&rdquo; and that her elder sister was &ldquo;Little Comedy&rdquo;; 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 &ldquo;Jessamy Bride&rdquo; 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

-      &ldquo;Jerningham Letters.&rdquo; Lady Bedingfeld's Journal contains the following

-      entry opposite the date &ldquo;September 19th, 1833&rdquo;:

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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 &ldquo;very like&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Jessamy Bride&rdquo; 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>

-      &ldquo;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>

-      &ldquo;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>.&rdquo; The Princess Elizabeth&mdash;the

-      shy young bride who was so overcome with emotion&mdash;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>

-      &ldquo;... 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&mdash;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&mdash;she was so bled and starved she had no

-      strength left&mdash;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&mdash;It comes to what <i>I</i> always say

-      of them&mdash;they can't do much and are very often wrong in their

-      opinions as you can vouch....&rdquo;

-     </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>

-      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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>

-      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;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>

-      &ldquo;Mum's the word, sir, and mum it shall be,&rdquo; whispered the man. &ldquo;I stowed

-      away the trunk, leaving plenty of room for the genuine luggage&mdash;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;And there you'll find the chaise, sir, and as good a pair as ever left my

-      stable, and good luck to you, sir!&rdquo; 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>

-      &ldquo;Good news, I hope, Dick?&rdquo; she whispered.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;I have been waiting for you all the evening. She has not changed her

-      mind, I hope.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;She is as steadfast as I am,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;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&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Don't think of him except as applauding your action,&rdquo; said the girl.

-      &ldquo;Surely every one with the least spark of generosity will applaud your

-      action, Dick.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;I wouldn't like to say so much,&rdquo; said Dick, shaking his head. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Who will dare to take the part of Mr. Mathews against you, Dick?&rdquo; cried

-      his sister, looking at him proudly as the parlour candles shone upon him.

-      &ldquo;I would that I could go with you as far as London, dear, but that would

-      be impossible.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Quite impossible; and where would be the merit in the end?&rdquo; said Dick,

-      pacing the room as he believed a man of adventure and enterprise would in

-      the circumstances. &ldquo;You may trust to me to place her in safety without the

-      help of any one.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;I know it, Dick, I know it, dear, and I am proud of you,&rdquo; said she,

-      putting her arms about his neck and kissing him. &ldquo;And look you here,

-      Dick,&rdquo; she added, in a more practical tone. &ldquo;Look you here&mdash;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      He took the coins which she offered to him wrapped up in a twist of

-      newspaper; but he showed some hesitation&mdash;she had to go through a

-      form of forcing it upon him.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;I hope to bring it back to you unbroken,&rdquo; he murmured; &ldquo;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,&mdash;a loan&mdash;a

-      sacred loan. Good-bye, I returned only to say good-bye to you, my dearest

-      sister.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;I knew your good heart, Dick, that was why I was waiting for you.

-      Good-bye, Dick, and God bless you.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;every one in Bath knew her, and this being so, was it not

-      likely that some one&mdash;some prying person&mdash;some impudent fellow

-      like that Mathews who had been making love to her, although he had a wife

-      of his own in Wales&mdash;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&mdash;&mdash;

-    </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&mdash;very

-      properly, considering his large family&mdash;fond of money. Before he had

-      to provide for his family, he took good care that his family&mdash;his

-      eldest daughter particularly&mdash;helped to provide for him.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      Doubtless these eventualities were suggested to him&mdash;for young Mr.

-      Sheridan was not without imagination&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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: &ldquo;She is a

-      link between an angel and a woman.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;let any one look at the face which is

-      to be seen in her portrait, and one will understand how this could be&mdash;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&mdash;the spirit with which her soul communed in secret&mdash;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&mdash;a

-      wretched thing even for Foote&mdash;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&mdash;sometimes

-      referred to as Captain, occasionally as Major&mdash;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 &ldquo;at

-      length induced to consult Richard Sheridan, whose intimacy with Major

-      Mathews, at the time, she thought might warrant his interference.&rdquo; And

-      then we are told that &ldquo;R. B. Sheridan sounded Mathews on the subject and

-      at length prevailed on him to give up the pursuit.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      That is how the adoring sister of &ldquo;R. B. Sheridan,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;sounded Mathews

-      on the subject.&rdquo; On what subject? The subject was the pursuit of an

-      innocent girl by a contemptible scoundrel. How does the knight-errant

-      &ldquo;sound&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo; Now young Sheridan, who is reported by his sister

-      as &ldquo;sounding&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;sound&rdquo; 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&mdash;and the notebook&mdash;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>

-      &ldquo;Pray, sir, what did you say to Mathews when you sounded him?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;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, &ldquo;the son of a respectable

-      brandy merchant in the City,&rdquo; suggested that they should sail from London

-      to Dunkirk, &ldquo;in order to make pursuit more difficult.&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;After quitting Dunkirk Mr. Sheridan was more explicit with

-      Miss Linley as to his views on accompanying her to France.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;&ldquo;she must be

-      aware that after the step she had taken, she could not appear in England

-      but as his wife.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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

-      &ldquo;such occasions&rdquo; 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&mdash;now

-      Mrs. Sheridan, of course&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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 &ldquo;Monsieur Sherridan, Gentilhomme Anglois, à l'Hôtel de

-      Bourbon, Sur la Grande Place.&rdquo; It recommends the administering of certain

-      powders in a glass of white wine twice daily, and sends &ldquo;compliments and

-      wishes of health to your lady.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      The question then remains: Was the lady at this time an inmate of the

-      convent, and did the doctor expect &ldquo;Monsieur Sherridan&rdquo; 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&mdash;he

-      continued to call her Miss Linley&mdash;was now &ldquo;fixing in a convent,

-      where she has been entered some time.&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      So far, then, as his emprise in regard to the lady was concerned, he

-      considered the incident to be closed. &ldquo;Though you may have been ignorant

-      for some time of our proceedings, you could never have been uneasy,&rdquo; he

-      continues hopefully, &ldquo;lest anything should tempt me to depart, even in a

-      thought, from the honour and consistency which engaged me at first.&rdquo;

-     </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 &ldquo;acted the part of a gentleman&rdquo; 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&mdash;he had no trouble in learning

-      in what direction to look for her&mdash;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&mdash;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,

-      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      The comedy of the elopement had become a farce of the &ldquo;whimsical&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;after some private conversation&rdquo; with his daughter's husband,

-      who does not tell him that he is her husband, says to the young woman, &ldquo;My

-      dear, you must come home with me to sing at a concert.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Certainly, papa,&rdquo; replies the girl. &ldquo;Wait a minute, and I'll go too,&rdquo;

-       cries the unconfused husband of the daughter. &ldquo;All right, come along,&rdquo;

-       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&mdash;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 &ldquo;so hard to narrate familiar events eloquently,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;familiar events&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;even in thought from the honour and consistency which engaged

-      [him] at first.&rdquo; It must be remembered that he was a romantic boy of

-      twenty, and this is just the age at which nearly every boy&mdash;especially

-      a boy in love&mdash;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 &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;such devotion as might be expected from such a

-      nature as hers&mdash;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, &ldquo;Pray remember that you are

-      not free to think of marrying any one. We are husband and wife, although

-      we were married in secret.&rdquo; 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&mdash;and perhaps a little more

-      than&mdash;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. &ldquo;The sight of the

-      pistols would have alarmed Sheridan's sisters,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;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&mdash;no unusual <i>rôle</i> for him&mdash;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&mdash;he

-      knew that Sheridan meant to go to Lille, for he wrote to him there&mdash;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&mdash;one who always kept an eye on the jumping

-      cat&mdash;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>

-      &ldquo;Mr. Richard S&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash; 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&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;, and a treacherous S&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;malevolent incendiarism&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;malevolent incendiary,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;a L&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;

-      and a S&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;Mr.

-      Thomas Sheridan was never far removed from a crisis&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;they

-      had been missing on the Sunday morning&mdash;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>

-      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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

-      &ldquo;several abusive threats&rdquo; 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>

-      &ldquo;Mr. S.,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;the

-      set-to of the principals immediately after the &ldquo;declarations&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;knockabout&rdquo; 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

-      &ldquo;parck&rdquo;? 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&mdash;when

-      paid for it&mdash;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&mdash;according

-      to Richard's narrative Charles had good grounds for sending a challenge to

-      Mathews on his own account&mdash;but &ldquo;after two hours' altercation&rdquo; 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&mdash;that is, from the moment he assumed the

-      duties of the protector of Miss Linley&mdash;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 &ldquo;malevolent incendiarism&rdquo; 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&mdash;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

-      &ldquo;incendiarism&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;All your friends have condemned

-      you,&rdquo; he wrote. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;either description

-      applies to Barnett&mdash;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&mdash;point

-      it had none&mdash;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&mdash;and her

-      father&mdash;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, &ldquo;<i>Love in a Village</i>&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;very

-      closely indeed&mdash;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&mdash;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, &ldquo;I trust that I am not to consider this as an evil omen!&rdquo;

-       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&mdash;certainly he spoke no word to Miss Reay or any one else&mdash;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, &ldquo;Kill me! Kill me!&rdquo;

-     </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. &ldquo;He stood as it were

-      petrified,&rdquo; we are told, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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 &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;he did not say

-      anything about &ldquo;a wave of insanity,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;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&mdash;a total loss of reason and incapability of reason.&rdquo;

-       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&mdash;he

-      himself had been too greatly agitated to be able to remain in the court&mdash;for

-      information as to how Hackman had deported himself, and Boswell was able

-      to assure him that he had behaved &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;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

-      &ldquo;whether our clergy are growing Mahometans or not&rdquo;; adding sagely, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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 &ldquo;sensibility&rdquo;

-       was passing over England at that time. It was a wave of sentimentality&mdash;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&mdash;robust

-      even to a point of vulgarity&mdash;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 &ldquo;movements&rdquo; have had their origin in the fancy of a painter&mdash;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&mdash;they chose to feel that they were doomed to a

-      life of sorrowful love&mdash;at any rate, this was Martha's notion&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;and death.

-      Cradock, the &ldquo;country gentleman,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;correspondence cards&rdquo; 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&mdash;securing

-      a frank from a friendly Member of Parliament&mdash;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 &ldquo;went on cutting bread and butter&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Corporal Trim,&rdquo; who was the bearer of a &ldquo;billet&rdquo; from her.

-      &ldquo;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.&rdquo; Then he goes

-      on to talk in a fine soldierly strain of the drum &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;

-     </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 &ldquo;a respectable woman&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Auld Robin Gray&rdquo;&mdash;she quoted it in full

-      in one of her letters&mdash;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 &ldquo;benefactor.&rdquo; Did she not owe to him

-      the blessing of a good education, and the culture of her voice, her

-      knowledge of painting&mdash;nay, her &ldquo;keep&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Auld Robin Gray,&rdquo;

-       and she at once accepted the rôle of the unhappy wife, only she found it

-      convenient to modify one rather important line&mdash;

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;I fain would think o' Jamie, but that would be a sin.&rdquo;

-     </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 &ldquo;benefactor.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Our love, the inexorable tyrant of our hearts,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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 &ldquo;wild as the torrent's roar,&rdquo; apologising for making his

-      simile water when the element most congenial to his nature was fire.

-      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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. &ldquo;<i>He should have put himself

-      to death in his wife's sight</i>.&rdquo; 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? &ldquo;A beam or two finds its

-      way through the grates (of the vault), and reflects a feeble glimness from

-      the nails of the coffins.&rdquo; This is one passage&mdash;ghastly enough in all

-      conscience. But it is surpassed by the others which he quotes: &ldquo;Should the

-      haggard skeleton lift a clattering hand.&rdquo; Respecting the latter he

-      remarks, &ldquo;I know not whether the epithet 'haggard' might not be spared.&rdquo;

-       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 &ldquo;Faldoni and Teresa,&rdquo; by Jerningham, and he criticises

-      it quite admirably. &ldquo;The melancholy tale will not take up three words,

-      though Mr. J. has bestowed upon it 335 melancholy lines,&rdquo; he tells the

-      young lady. &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;while I talk of taking off the dangerous edge of their

-      example, they have almost listed me under their bloody banners.&rdquo;

-     </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 &ldquo;benefactor&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;Fate stands between us,&rdquo; she wrote in reply to one of his

-      impetuous upbraiding letters. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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

-      &ldquo;insuperable reason&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;If you do not,&rdquo; he adds, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      But it would appear that she knew the man's nature better than he himself

-      did, for she quickly replied: &ldquo;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!&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;She,

-      too, was <i>Jenny</i> and had her <i>Robin Gray</i>.&rdquo; 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.&mdash;meaning Selwyn&mdash;he

-      does not make a profession of attending executions; adding that &ldquo;the

-      friend and historian of Paoli hired a window by the year, looking out on

-      the Grass Market in Edinburgh, where malefactors were hanged.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;subject&rdquo; being murder and suicide. His last lurid story

-      was of a footman who, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Oh love, love, canst thou not be content to make fools of thy slaves,&rdquo; he

-      wrote, &ldquo;to make them miserable, to make them what thou pleasest? Must thou

-      also goad them on to crimes?&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;with a

-      preponderance of farce&mdash;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&mdash;the real gentleman who might

-      undertake it?

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      That was the very plausible reasoning of the &ldquo;real gentleman&rdquo; 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&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;

-      in the character, Lady Susan threw up her hands, and threatened to throw

-      up her part as well.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Lud!&rdquo; she cried to her associates in the temporary green-room, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      Every one present agreed with her&mdash;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&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;

-      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>

-      &ldquo;I never had such a chance until now,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Impossible, my sweet Sue!&rdquo; cried her friend. &ldquo;I vow that I have never

-      seen anything more arch than your mock rejection of your lover, only to

-      draw him on.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;You dear creature!&rdquo; cried Lady Sue. &ldquo;You are a true friend and a

-      competent critic, Sarah. But what signifies my acting, perfect though it

-      be, when that&mdash;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;They cannot be so vile,&rdquo; said Lady Sarah soothingly.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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&mdash;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!&rdquo;

-     </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>

-      &ldquo;A thousand pardons, my dear ladies,&rdquo; he cried, bowing to the carpet. &ldquo;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&mdash;but what is this? I said not a

-      lacrymatory.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      He was looking curiously into Lady Susan's face, which retained the marks

-      of her recent tears.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Dear Sir Francis, you have come in good time,&rdquo; said Lady Sarah boldly.

-      &ldquo;Here is this poor child weeping her heart out because she is condemned to

-      play the part of&mdash;of what's her name?&mdash;the lady in the play who

-      had to make love to an ass?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Oh, sir, mine is a far worse plight,&rdquo; said Lady Susan, pouting. &ldquo;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&mdash;by&mdash;my Lord B&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;That were a calculation far above my powers,&rdquo; said Sir Francis. &ldquo;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&mdash;if

-      love-making is an art.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Sir, 'tis a combination of all the arts,&rdquo; said Lady Susan; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;To be plain, Sir Francis,&rdquo; said Lady Sarah, as though the other had not

-      been plain enough in her explanation, &ldquo;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&mdash;&mdash;&mdash; 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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Hence these tears,&rdquo; said Sir Francis. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Merely on the stage?&rdquo; cried Lady Susan. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;As a rule,&rdquo; said Sir Francis. &ldquo;Yes, I perceive the difference, and I

-      mingle mine own turgid tears with your limpid drops. But we cannot spare

-      you from our play.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;No, you cannot, Sir Francis, but you can spare Lord B&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;,

-      and so can the play,&rdquo; suggested Lady Sarah.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;What, you would have me turn him out of the part?&rdquo; said Sir Francis.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Even so&mdash;but with politeness,&rdquo; said Lady Sarah.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said Sir Francis.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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,&rdquo;

-       said Lady Susan timidly.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; cried Lady Susan.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;That is good philosophy&mdash;see what we have come to&mdash;philosophy,

-      when we started talking of lovemaking,&rdquo; said Sir Francis.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;However we have digressed in conversation, sir, our minds remain

-      steadfast on the point round which we have been circling,&rdquo; said Lady

-      Sarah.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;And that is&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;That Lord B&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;must go.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      The door was thrown open and Lord B&mdash;&mdash;&mdash; entered.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;A good preliminary&mdash;one must come before one goes,&rdquo; 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>

-      &ldquo;I was told that you had come hither, Sir Francis,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;so I

-      followed you.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;You do me honour, my lord,&rdquo; said Sir Francis.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;I took a liberty, sir; but this is not a time for punctilio. I have come

-      to resign my part in your play, sir,&rdquo; said his lordship.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Oh, surely not, my lord,&rdquo; cried Sir Francis. &ldquo;What would the <i>School

-      for Lovers</i> be without Bellaire, my lord? Why only now Lady Susan was

-      saying&mdash;what is it that your ladyship said?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;It had something to do with philosophy and the sole of a grenadier,&rdquo; said

-      Lady Sarah interposing.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Nay, was it not that his lordship's impersonation made you think of a

-      scene from <i>Midsummer Night's Dream?</i>&rdquo; said Sir Francis. &ldquo;One of the

-      most beautiful of Shakespeare's plays, is't not, my lord?&mdash;fantasy

-      mingled with irony, an oasis of fairyland in the midst of a desert of

-      daily life.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;I know nothing about your fairyland, sir, but I have been told within the

-      hour that her ladyship&rdquo;&mdash;he bowed in the direction of Lady Susan&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Are you sure that your informant was right in his interpretation of her

-      ladyship's words? Surely your lordship&mdash;a man of the world&mdash;would

-      have been sensible of every shade of her ladyship's meaning?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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&mdash;on insufficient evidence, I begin to fear&mdash;that

-      her ladyship was a discriminating critic&mdash;even now if she were to

-      assure me that she was not speaking in sarcasm&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Oh, lud! he is relenting,&rdquo; whispered Lady Sarah.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Did you speak, madam?&rdquo; said his lordship.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;I was protesting against a too early exercise of your lordship's

-      well-known spirit of forgiveness,&rdquo; said her ladyship.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;I thank you, Lady Sarah; I am, I know, too greatly inclined to take a

-      charitable view of&mdash;of&mdash;Why, sink me if she, too, is not trying

-      to make me look ridiculous!&rdquo; cried his lordship.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; remarked Lady Susan.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      His lordship looked at her&mdash;his mouth was slightly open&mdash;then he

-      gazed at the smiling features of the beautiful Lady Sarah, lastly at the

-      perfectly expressionless features of Sir Francis.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;A plot&mdash;a plot!&rdquo; he murmured. Then he struck a commonplace

-      theatrical attitude, the &ldquo;exit attitude&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;it really

-      was pleasant laughter, though it did not sound so to him&mdash;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&mdash;it was,

-      strange to say, the man.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;This is vastly fine, ladies,&rdquo; he remarked. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Surely we can find some gentleman willing to act the part of Bellaire?&rdquo;

-       said Lady Sarah.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; 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>

-      &ldquo;Have I been too hasty?&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Alas! I fear that I have been selfish.

-      I thought only of the poor figure that I should cut with such a lover&mdash;and

-      with all the world looking on, too! I should have given more thought to

-      your distress, Sir Francis.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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,&rdquo;

-       said Sir Francis.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;True, sir, but think of the ladies' dresses!&rdquo; said Lady Sarah. &ldquo;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.'&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Heavens!&rdquo; cried Sir Francis, &ldquo;I had not thought of the new dresses. Lady

-      Susan, you will e'en have to face the anger of your sisters&mdash;'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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said Lady Susan.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;That is woman's special province,&rdquo; said Sir Francis. &ldquo;Pray begin, my lady&mdash;'twill

-      be strange if your ladyship and Lady Sarah do not succeed in&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Psha! there is but one man in England who could play the part of Bellaire

-      on Wednesday,&rdquo; cried Lady Sarah. &ldquo;Ay, sir, and he is the only one in

-      England capable of playing it.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Then we shall have him on our stage if I should have to pay a thousand

-      pounds for his services,&rdquo; said Sir Francis. &ldquo;But where is he to be found?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Cannot you guess, sir?&rdquo; asked Lady Sarah, smiling.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      Sir Francis looked puzzled, but Lady Sue started and caught her friend by

-      the wrist.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;You do not mean&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; she began.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Lud! these girls! Here's a scheme if you will!&rdquo; muttered Sir Francis.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Ay, if you will, Sir Francis. You know that I mean Mr. O'Brien himself

-      and none other,&rdquo; cried Lady Sarah.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Impossible!&rdquo; cried Lady Susan. &ldquo;My father would never consent to my

-      acting in a play with a real actor&mdash;no, not even if he were Mr.

-      Garrick himself. How could you suggest such a thing, Sarah?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;What, do you mean to tell me that you would refuse to act with Mr.

-      O'Brien?&rdquo; asked Lady Sarah.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Oh, hear the child!&rdquo; cried Lady Susan. &ldquo;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!&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; laughed Lady Sarah.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;I dare not&mdash;I dare not. And yet&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; 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>

-      &ldquo;Ladies, this is a serious matter for all of us,&rdquo; he said. And he spoke

-      the truth to a greater depth than he was aware of. &ldquo;'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?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;But every one would know Mr. O'Brien,&rdquo; she faltered, after a pause that

-      was overcharged with excitement.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;My father&mdash;&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;His lordship will have no <i>locus standi</i> in the case. He cannot take

-      notice of an act that is not officially recognisable,&rdquo; suggested Sir

-      Francis, the sophist.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;If you assure me&mdash;&mdash; But is't true that Mr. O'Brien only ceased

-      to become a gentleman when he became an actor?&rdquo; said Lady Susan.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;I have not heard that he relinquished the one part when he took up the

-      other,&rdquo; said Sir Francis. &ldquo;I wonder that you have not met him at the

-      houses of some of our friends&mdash;he is more popular even than Mr.

-      Garrick. The family of O'Brien&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;All kings, I doubt not,&rdquo; said Lady Susan. &ldquo;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&mdash;well, descended. Mr. O'Brien descended

-      pretty far when he became a play-actor.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said Sir Francis with a severe air of reproof. He was

-      beginning to be tired&mdash;as others in his place have been from time to

-      time&mdash;of the capriciousness of his company of amateurs.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;You are right, sir,&rdquo; said Lady Sarah. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;I am thinking of my father,&rdquo; said the other. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said Sir Francis.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      Lady Sarah laughed, and so did her friend&mdash;after a pause sufficient

-      to allow the colour that had come to her face at the stinging reproof to

-      die away.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;I hope that you may catch your bird, sir&mdash;your eagle&mdash;your

-      Irish eagle.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said Sir Francis, making his

-      most exquisite bow to her.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Oh, sir, you overwhelm me,&rdquo; 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&mdash;a condition with which Sir Francis complied,

-      drawing a long breath.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Mr. O'Brien,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;should the stage ever fail you, a fortune awaits

-      you if you undertake the duty of teaching gentlemen the art of being a

-      gentleman.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Ah, sir, the moment that art enters the door the gentleman flies out by

-      the window,&rdquo; said the actor. &ldquo;It is Nature, not art, that makes a

-      gentleman.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;taking her hand with that incomparable

-      devotion to&mdash;was it his art?&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;stated

-      that Bellaire would be represented by &ldquo;a gentleman.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;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&mdash;even her own

-      father&mdash;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>

-      &ldquo;I saw it from the first, my dear Sue,&rdquo; 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>

-      &ldquo;You saw it&mdash;you&mdash;what was it that you saw from the first?&rdquo; she

-      cried.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      Lady Sarah looked at her and laughed.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Ah, that is it&mdash;what was it that I saw from the first?&rdquo; she said.

-      &ldquo;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&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;'s getting his <i>congé</i>.

-      It was a mistake&mdash;I saw that also.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;When did you see that?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;When I saw you taking part in that love scene with Mr. O'Brien.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;What mean you by that, Lady Sarah?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Exactly what you fancy I mean, Lady Susan.&rdquo;

-     </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>

-      &ldquo;You poor child!&rdquo; she murmured, &ldquo;how could you help it? I vow that I

-      myself&mdash;yes, for some minutes&mdash;I was as deep in love with the

-      fellow as you yourself were. But, of course, you were with him longer&mdash;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?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Never&mdash;never!&rdquo; cried Susan. &ldquo;Sir Francis was right&mdash;he is a

-      gentleman. That is the worst of it!&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Oh, lud! the worst of it? Are you mad, girl?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;I am not mad now, but I know that I shall be if he remains a gentleman&mdash;if

-      he refrains from telling me that he loves me&mdash;or at least of giving

-      me a chance of telling him that I love him. That would be better than

-      nothing&mdash;'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&mdash;that

-      'tis impossible that I should love another.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;The sooner you go to the country the better 'twill be for yourself and

-      all of us&mdash;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?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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&mdash;all about the O'Briens&mdash;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&mdash;that was

-      it&mdash;the losing side was always the one they took up. And yet you call

-      him a strolling player!&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;I take back the insinuation and offer him my apologies; he is not a

-      strolling player because he doesn't stroll&mdash;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.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;the rack, the wheel, the thumbscrew, in fact the

-      entire mechanism of persuasion employed by the Spanish Inquisition&mdash;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>

-      &ldquo;Ah, my dear one, did not I give you good advice?&rdquo; cried Lady Sarah. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Is't possible? For example?&mdash;I vow that I shall keep their names

-      secret.&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;according

-      to Lady Sarah&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;&ldquo;The hussies! Shameless creatures! Do they hope that he

-      will be attracted to them? Fools!&mdash;they are fools! They do not know

-      him as I know him. They think that he is nothing but a vain actor&mdash;Garrick,

-      or Barry, or Lewes. Oh, they do not know him!&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;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&mdash;and the work of this particular painter was rather inclined

-      to be assertive&mdash;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&mdash;she had not yet done her famous pastel of the Duchess of

-      Argyll&mdash;and Susan, accompanied by her footman, lost no time in

-      beginning her series of sittings to the artist to whom Horace Walpole

-      referred as &ldquo;the painteress.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      She was both patient and discreet, for three whole days elapsed before she

-      produced a mezzotint of Mr. O'Brien.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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?&rdquo; she

-      said. &ldquo;Have you ever seen this Mr. O'Brien&mdash;an Irishman, I believe he

-      is?&rdquo;

-     </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>

-      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said Lady Susan. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Your ladyship may rest assured that no living creature will hear of the

-      affair through me,&rdquo; said the painteress. &ldquo;But I heartily wish that your

-      ladyship could procure for me a better copy than this print from which to

-      work,&rdquo; she added.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;I fear that I cannot promise you that; I found two other prints of the

-      same person, but they are worse even than this,&rdquo; said Lady Susan. &ldquo;You

-      must do your best with the material at your disposal.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Your ladyship may depend on my doing my best,&rdquo; replied Miss Read. &ldquo;When

-      does his lordship's birthday take place?&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;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&mdash;he was used to see her sex overwhelmed when he

-      appeared.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Madam, I beg that you will pardon this intrusion,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I have taken

-      the liberty of waiting upon you, knowing of your great capacity as an

-      artist.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Oh, sir!&rdquo; cried the fluttered little lady, making her courtesy.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Nay, madam, I have no intention of flattering one to whom compliments

-      must be as customary as they are well deserved,&rdquo; said the actor. &ldquo;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&mdash;a good&mdash;&mdash; Good heavens! what do I behold? 'Tis

-      she&mdash;she&mdash;Lady Susan herself!&rdquo;

-     </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&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;for Heaven's sake tell me how this&rdquo;&mdash;he

-      held up the print&mdash;&ldquo;came into such close juxtaposition with that&rdquo;&mdash;he

-      pointed to the portrait on the easel.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;'Tis easily told, sir,&rdquo; said Miss Read, smiling archly. &ldquo;But I must leave

-      it to your sense of honour to keep the matter a profound secret.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; said Mr. O'Brien with dignity, &ldquo;Madam, I am an Irishman.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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&mdash;that

-      portrait. 'Twas marvellous that you should recognise it so soon. I have

-      not worked at it for many hours.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Madam, your art is beyond that of the magician. 'Tis well known that

-      every form depicted by Miss Read not only breathes but speaks.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Oh, sir, I vow that you are a flatterer; still, you did recognise the

-      portrait&mdash;'tis to be presented to Lady Sarah Bunbury.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Her ladyship will be the most fortunate of womankind.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Which ladyship, sir&mdash;Lady Susan or Lady Sarah?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Both, madam.&rdquo; The Irishman was bowing with his hand on his heart. &ldquo;But

-      the print&mdash;my poor likeness?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;'Tis the first I heard of it, madam.&rdquo; There was a suggestion of

-      mortification in the actor's tone.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;I swear to it, madam.&rdquo; 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>

-      &ldquo;Madam, it has just occurred to me that you, as a great artist&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Nay, sir,&rdquo; interposed the blushing painteress.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;I will not take back a word, madam,&rdquo; said the actor, holding up one

-      inexorable hand. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Oh, sir, that is the one favour which I meant to ask of you, if my

-      courage had not failed me.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Madam, you will confer immortality upon a simple man through that magic

-      wand which you wield.&rdquo; He swept his hand with inimitable grace over the

-      mahl-stick which lay against the easel. &ldquo;I am all impatient to begin my

-      sitting, Miss Read. Pray let me come to-morrow.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Her ladyship comes to-morrow.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;I shall precede her ladyship. Name the hour, madam.&rdquo;

-     </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>

-      &ldquo;Fate is on our side, darling girl!&rdquo; he whispered.

-    </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;

-     </p>

-    <p>

-      &ldquo;Dear one, 'twas the instinct of true love that made you guess the truth&mdash;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!&rdquo; 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

-      &ldquo;Sheila,&rdquo; &ldquo;a cushla machree,&rdquo; &ldquo;mavourneen,&rdquo; and also &ldquo;aroon.&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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>

-      &ldquo;You will have heard of the sad misfortune that has happened to Lord

-      Ilchester by his daughter's marriage with O'Brien, the actor,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;You will be amazed,&rdquo; continued

-      Walpole, &ldquo;even this was granted. The parting scene happened the beginning

-      of the week. On Friday she came of age, and on Saturday morning&mdash;instead

-      of being under lock and key in the country&mdash;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.&rdquo;

-     </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

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-</pre>

-

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+<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}
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+    .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%;}
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+    .head      { float: left; font-size: 90%; width: 98%; padding-left: 0.8em;
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+               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>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 51964 ***</div>
+
+    <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 &amp; 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 &ldquo;romance&rdquo; of the Gunnings, and the &ldquo;elopement&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;regulation&rdquo;
+       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&mdash;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&mdash;not quite, but almost&mdash;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&mdash;her closest observers were her greatest admirers&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;waving arms, frantically beckoning to her while he
+      shouted:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Burney! Miss Burney!&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;Madam, madam, the doctor begs you to stop!&rdquo; She glanced over her
+      shoulder, still flying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, I cannot&mdash;I dare not!&rdquo; she gasped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam, you must&mdash;you must: it hurts the King to run!&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;The doctor, madam,&rdquo; he faltered, &ldquo;'twas the doctor&mdash;he thought at
+      first that His Majesty was&mdash;was&mdash;but that was at first&mdash;now
+      he says you must please not lead His Majesty on&mdash;'tis all too much
+      for him. Save us! How you did go, madam! Who would ha' thought it?&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;not Physicians in Ordinary;
+      just the contrary&mdash;the two physicians who had been summoned from
+      Lincolnshire by some person in authority who possessed intelligence&mdash;it
+      should surely be easy to identify such a man at the Court of George III&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;Dresser.&rdquo;) But when they met, after
+      the King had cried, &ldquo;Why did you run away from me, Miss Burney?&rdquo; 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&mdash;though they had doubtless heard something of the
+      practices that prevailed at the Courts of His Majesty's lamented
+      grandfather and great-grandfather&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;it
+      must have been largely in monologue&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;hurled by the Almighty from his throne&rdquo; (in order
+      to give the Opposition a chance of jumping into place and power over his
+      prostrate body)&mdash;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 &ldquo;case,&rdquo; 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>&mdash;that
+      was what he was hungering for&mdash;the trivial things in which he
+      delighted&mdash;the confidences on simple matters&mdash;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&mdash;respectful in some cases, almost
+      passionate in others&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;Keeper
+      of the Robes was the stately designation of a very humble service&mdash;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&mdash;the
+      others were not brilliant, only mothers&mdash;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>&mdash;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&mdash;the Reynoldses, the Burkes, and even the frigid
+      Walpole&mdash;when it became known that Miss Burney's health was breaking
+      down under the strain of her duties at the Court&mdash;she had about two
+      hours' daily attendance of the most ordinary nature upon the Queen&mdash;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&mdash;the incomparable Diary which she kept during
+      her five years at Court&mdash;an excuse for turning the vials of his wrath
+      upon her father, whose obstinacy gave her a chance of writing the most
+      interesting chapter&mdash;the most accurate chapter&mdash;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 &ldquo;written up&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;the
+      airs of mystery, the head-shakings, and she is capable of drawing her own
+      conclusions. &ldquo;Heaven preserve him!&rdquo; 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&mdash;unnatural volubility&mdash;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&mdash;his
+      health&mdash;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&mdash;his consideration for the people
+      around him&mdash;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: &ldquo;Nobody
+      speaks of his illness, nor what they think of it.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;more than his sons could do&mdash;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. &ldquo;The Queen,&rdquo; she writes,
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;these seemed to me
+      the threats awaiting her; and great and grievous enough, yet how short of
+      the fact!&rdquo;...
+    </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. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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 &ldquo;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&mdash;no one could
+      conjecture the event.&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;My poor Royal Mistress!&rdquo; she writes. &ldquo;Never can I forget her countenance&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;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,&rdquo; she adds. &ldquo;Harshness, tyranny,
+      dissension, and even insult seemed personified. I cut short details upon
+      this subject&mdash;they would but make you sick.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;in spite, too, of
+      Mrs. Schwellenberg's having locked herself into her room, forbidding any
+      one to disturb her&mdash;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&mdash;adopting
+      exactly the strain that he knew would be most effective with Miss Burney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind her&mdash;never mind her! Don't be oppressed! I am your
+      friend! Don't let her cast you down&mdash;I know that you have a hard time
+      of it&mdash;but don't mind her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The advice and the tone in which it was given&mdash;with a pleasant laugh&mdash;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&mdash;perhaps such trifles as &ldquo;All we like Sheep,&rdquo; or
+      &ldquo;Lift up your Heads,&rdquo; or the &ldquo;Hallelujah&rdquo;&mdash;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&mdash;the Mastership of the King's Band: &ldquo;Your father
+      ought to have had the post, and not that little poor musician Parsons, who
+      was not fit for it,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;I will do it
+      myself!&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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&mdash;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. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; Miss Burney writes. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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
+      &ldquo;transparency&rdquo; had been painted by the Queen's order, representing the
+      King, Providence, Health, and Britannia&mdash;a truly British tableau&mdash;and
+      when this was hung out and illuminated the little Princess &ldquo;went to lead
+      her papa to the front window.&rdquo; Then she dropped on her knees and gave him
+      the &ldquo;copy of verses,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;dear papa&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;command&rdquo; party at his house in St. Martin's Street, Leicester
+      Fields&mdash;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&mdash;who,
+      by the way, was Fanny Burney's godmother&mdash;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 &ldquo;principals&rdquo; in the comedy of this entertainment; and
+      for the subordinates he selected his married daughter and her husband&mdash;both
+      admirable musicians&mdash;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 &ldquo;Alfred&rdquo;
+       the rousing anthem known as &ldquo;Rule Britannia,&rdquo; for the cancelling of
+      Burney's indentures as an apprentice to the &ldquo;art of musick,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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, &ldquo;What is that, sir&mdash;pray,
+      what is that? Is it a hiss?&rdquo; To which Colman replied, &ldquo;Psha! sir, what
+      signifies a squib when we have been sitting on a barrel of gunpowder all
+      night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These were among the notabilities; and the &ldquo;curiosities&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;gentle savage&rdquo; 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&mdash;a marvellous performer, who got fifty pounds for every
+      song she sang at the Pantheon&mdash;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&mdash;who undoubtedly became
+      attached to Fanny Burney&mdash;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 &ldquo;command&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;half joke whole
+      earnest&rdquo; way:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because, madam, you have no ear yourself for music, will you destroy the
+      attention of all who, in that one point, are otherwise gifted?&rdquo;
+     </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, &ldquo;the irony of fate,&rdquo;
+       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&mdash;whom she nicknamed &ldquo;Mr. Gruel&rdquo;&mdash;assumed
+      &ldquo;his most supercilious air of distant superiority&rdquo; and &ldquo;planted himself
+      immovable as a noble statue upon the hearth, as if a stranger to the whole
+      set.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;were so kind
+      and considerate as to divert themselves by making a fire-screen to the
+      whole room.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;if he was not ashamed he would keep the fire from the
+      ladies too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This reproof (for a reproof it certainly was, although given in a very
+      comical, dry way) was productive,&rdquo; Charlotte adds, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A more perfect description of the &ldquo;curtain&rdquo; to the first act of this, &ldquo;as
+      good as a comedy,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;whom? Dr. Johnson, the man who has studied
+      boorishness and advanced it to a place among the arts&mdash;the man who
+      calls those who differ from him dolts and fools and rascals&mdash;the man
+      whose manners at the dinner table are those of the sty and trough&mdash;the
+      man who walks about the streets ungartered and unclean&mdash;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 &ldquo;sopha,&rdquo;
+       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&mdash;which it is
+      scarcely necessary to say was Johnson's view&mdash;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. &ldquo;Oh,
+      no,&rdquo; said Goldsmith, &ldquo;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&rdquo;&mdash;a cur,
+      and an ape and a spy and a Branghton&mdash;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&mdash;at the sacrifice of Johnson's reputation for
+      humanity&mdash;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 &ldquo;honest Dr.
+      Goldsmith&rdquo; 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.
+      &ldquo;When I recapitulate the debate,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; This was published after the second marriage. What would be
+      thought of a modern biographer who should borrow a little of Boswell's
+      &ldquo;delicacy,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;an inoffensive
+      Quaker&mdash;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, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;Madam,&mdash;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!&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;The birth of my second husband is not meaner than that of my first,&rdquo; she
+      wrote; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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&mdash;he would not relinquish his room
+      in her house and his place at her table without a struggle&mdash;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&mdash;a fact that revealed itself
+      almost daily in his life&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;not necessarily refinements&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;the Borough.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;Perkins has behaved like an Emperor,&rdquo; she wrote, &ldquo;and it is my earnest
+      wish and desire&mdash;command, if you please to call it so&mdash;that you
+      will go over to the brew-house and express <i>your</i> sense of his good
+      behaviour.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;though this was double the amount authorised by
+      the &ldquo;master.&rdquo; 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&mdash;even to improve upon the auctioneer's style in appraising
+      the value of the whole concern. &ldquo;Beyond the dreams of avarice&rdquo; 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&mdash;her
+      thirteenth&mdash;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. &ldquo;The men were reconciled,&rdquo; she wrote, &ldquo;and my
+      danger accelerated their reconcilement.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;the parent of a peeress in her
+      own right, and an uncommonly shrewd Irishwoman into the bargain&mdash;&ldquo;smoaked,&rdquo;
+       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&mdash;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&mdash;&ldquo;gored,&rdquo; 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>, &ldquo;sufficient for twelve,&rdquo; as the
+      cookery book says:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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&mdash;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 &ldquo;skate, pudding, goose, and
+      green asparagus, and could have eaten more but was prudent.&rdquo; He adds,
+      &ldquo;Pray for me, dear Madam,&rdquo;&mdash;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,
+      &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Quite so; beyond a doubt Johnson spoke from the bottom of his heart&mdash;nay,
+      from a deeper depth still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Boswell was amazed to find that Garrick's &ldquo;sensibility&rdquo; as a writer was
+      irritated when he related the story to him, and in Mrs. Thrale's copy of
+      Johnson she made a note&mdash;&ldquo;How odd to go and tell the man!&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;Johnson
+      of the swollen forehead and the tokens of his submission to the primeval
+      curse in the eating of his bread&mdash;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 &ldquo;blooded.&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;Sir, after the denunciation of your physicians this morning, such
+      eating is little better than suicide.&rdquo; 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&mdash;once again at the sacrifice of her infant&mdash;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&mdash;more of the irony of Fate&mdash;in 1787, affirmed
+      that the great Lichfield man &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Mitre,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;He has killed the man&mdash;stabbed him with a dagger to the very heart!&rdquo;
+       was the cry that came from those of the crowd who were kneeling beside the
+      wretch in the gutter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a woman&mdash;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A sufficiency of advice was given by the excited onlookers to the men who
+      had encircled Baretti&mdash;one of them was clinging to him with his arms
+      clasped around his body&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;'Tis more than a street brawl&mdash;a man has been slain&mdash;some say a
+      woman also,&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;A swinging matter this,&rdquo; one of them remarked. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Friends, I was attacked by three bullies, and I defended myself&mdash;that
+      is all,&rdquo; said Baretti. He spoke English perfectly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will need to tell that to Sir John in the morning,&rdquo; said one of the
+      watchmen. &ldquo;You are apprehended in the King's name. Where is the poor
+      victim?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There must be some of the crowd who saw how I was attacked,&rdquo; said
+      Baretti. &ldquo;They will testify that I acted in self-defence. Sirs, hear me
+      make an appeal to you. Out of your sense of justice&mdash;you will not see
+      an innocent man apprehended.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The knife&mdash;who carries a bare knife in the streets unless with
+      intent?&rdquo; said a man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Twas my fruit-knife. I never go abroad without it. I eat my fruit like a
+      Christian, not like a pig or an Englishman,&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;Hear him! A pig of an Englishman. Those were his words! A foreign hound.
+      Frenchie, I'll be bound.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A spy&mdash;most like a Papist. He has the hanging brow of a born
+      Papist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He'll hang like a dog at Tyburn&mdash;he may be sure o' that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;patron's weakness or
+      insensibility will finally do you little hurt, if he is not assisted by
+      your own passions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of your love,&rdquo; continued Johnson, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; He
+      then hastens to add that &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The pleasant little cynical bark in the phrase &ldquo;those that are to suffer
+      the evils together,&rdquo; as if it referred to love and marriage, is, Malone
+      thinks, not Johnson's, but Baretti's. It is suggested that Johnson really
+      wrote &ldquo;those that are to suffer the evils <i>of life</i> together,&rdquo; and
+      that Baretti in transcribing the letter for Boswell, purposely omitted the
+      words &ldquo;<i>of life</i>.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;love and
+      marriage,&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;when you are hanged, sir.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;You rascal!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;If I were not in my own room, I would
+      kick you downstairs directly.&rdquo;
+     </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
+      &ldquo;shut up&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;Is he like Burke who winds into a
+      subject like a serpent?&rdquo; asked Goldsmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&rdquo; (said I) &ldquo;Dr. Johnson is the Hercules that strangled serpents in his
+      cradle.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;Bab Ballads&rdquo; to say
+      if he wrote &ldquo;the lovely cracker mottoes my Elvira pulls at supper.&rdquo; It
+      will be remembered that the poet whose name rhymes with &ldquo;supper&rdquo; replied:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="indent10">
+      &ldquo;'A fool is bent upon a twig, but wise men dread a bandit,'
+    </p>
+    <p class="indent10">
+      Which&rdquo; (the earnest inquirer said) &ldquo;I felt was very wise,
+    </p>
+    <p class="indent20">
+      but I didn't understand it.&rdquo;
+     </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. &ldquo;Burke and I,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;should have been of one
+      opinion if we had had no audience.&rdquo; Such a confession! There was the life
+      of his friend Baretti trembling in the balance, and yet Johnson, solely
+      for the sake of &ldquo;showing off,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;consultations&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;What need a man fear who holds two
+      such hands?&rdquo; 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&mdash;himself an aspirant to the profession of law
+      in which he subsequently displayed a conspicuous lack of distinction&mdash;had
+      anything to do with the instruction either of solicitors or barristers on
+      his behalf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At any rate, the &ldquo;consultations&rdquo; 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&mdash;if we are to believe one of the wittiest of his associates&mdash;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 &ldquo;this sad affair of Baretti,&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;Ay, sir, here you have a specimen of human sympathy,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;As for his not sleeping,&rdquo; said Dr. Johnson, &ldquo;sir, Tom Davies is a very
+      great man&mdash;Tom has been on the stage, and knows how to do those
+      things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Boswell: &ldquo;I have often blamed myself, sir, for not feeling for others as
+      sensibly as many say they do.&rdquo; Johnson: &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;the rugged Russian bear,&rdquo; but also of &ldquo;the armed
+      rhinoceros and the Hyrcan tiger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, it is not a talent: it is a vice; it is what others abstain from,&rdquo;
+       he growled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did not he think of exhibiting you, sir?&rdquo; inquired the tactful Mr.
+      Boswell, though he knew all about Foote and Johnson long before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, fear restrained him,&rdquo; said Johnson. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;Pray, sir, is not Foote an infidel?&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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.&mdash;&ldquo;Why, there's Baretti, who is to
+      be tried for his life to-morrow,&rdquo; he added; &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;It took place,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;at the
+      awful Sessions House, emphatically called Justice Hall,&rdquo; and he affirms
+      that &ldquo;never did such a constellation of genius enlighten the Old Bailey.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;say
+      Mr. Augustine Birrell&mdash;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&mdash;not even a
+      Conservative Attorney-General&mdash;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 &ldquo;awful Sessions House&rdquo;
+       by such &ldquo;a constellation of genius&rdquo; as had never before assembled in that
+      &ldquo;Hall of Justice&rdquo;?
+    </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&mdash;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 &ldquo;emphatically called Justice Hall&rdquo; 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&mdash;or, for that matter, a sense of the
+      ridiculous. He was the Needy Knife Grinder&mdash;with an occasional axe of
+      his own&mdash;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&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;I have known Mr. Baretti a long time. He is a man of literature&mdash;a
+      very studious man&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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 &ldquo;awful Sessions House.&rdquo; 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&mdash;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 &ldquo;leave it to your honour&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Assuredly Mrs. Thrale &ldquo;let him down&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;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&mdash;his wife. She gulped the pill very prettily. So much
+      for Baretti!&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;I ran a race in the rain this
+      day, and beat Baretti. Baretti is a fine fellow.&rdquo; This is Johnson on
+      Baretti. Here is Baretti on Johnson; on a copy of the <i>Piozzi Letters</i>
+      he wrote: &ldquo;Johnson was often fond of saying silly things in strong terms,
+      and the silly madam&rdquo;&mdash;meaning Mrs. Thrale&mdash;&ldquo;never failed to echo
+      that beastly kind of wit.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;we have Baretti's own confession for it&mdash;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 &ldquo;his honour's honour&rdquo;
+       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>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;awful
+      Sessions House&rdquo; 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&mdash;and he was.
+      Without waiting to catch her eye, he raised his glass and, bowing in her
+      direction, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Lady Duchess, I have the honour to drink Your Grace's good health.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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&mdash;sometimes with glee and occasionally
+      with pride&mdash;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&mdash;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: &ldquo;Mr. Boswell, won't you have some tea?&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;The Duke,&rdquo; he records, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he continues, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;not the one who was now so obliging&mdash;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: &ldquo;And
+      Mr. Boswell, the son of auld Auchinleck, was there too.&rdquo;
+     </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. &ldquo;I was in fine spirits,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; Later on he drank Her Grace's health, although, he adds, &ldquo;I
+      knew it was the rule of modern high life not to drink to anybody.&rdquo; Thus he
+      achieved the snub he sought; but he acknowledges that he thought the
+      Duchess rather too severe when she said: &ldquo;I know nothing of Mr. Boswell.&rdquo;
+       On reflection, however, he received &ldquo;that kind of consolation which a man
+      would feel who is strangled by a silken cord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It seems strange that no great painter has been inspired by the theme and
+      the scene. The days of &ldquo;subject pictures&rdquo; are, we are frequently told,
+      gone by. This may be so, generally speaking, but every one knows that a
+      &ldquo;subject picture,&rdquo; if its &ldquo;subject&rdquo; 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&mdash;practical art&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;only
+      uncomfortable&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;from which Mr. Boswell has just
+      replenished his glass! Why, the figure of Dr. Johnson alone should make
+      the picture a success&mdash;i.e. susceptible of being reproduced as an
+      effective poster in four printings. &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said Dr. Johnson, &ldquo;claret for
+      boys, port for men, but brandy for heroes.&rdquo; Yes, but whose brandy? There
+      is a hint for a great modern art patron&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;romantic.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;scarce gentlewomen.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;inferior tap&rdquo; 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&mdash;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 &ldquo;tidy estate,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;settlement&rdquo; 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&mdash;as one did in
+      the very county of Roscommon the other day&mdash;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&mdash;and it usually was&mdash;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
+      &ldquo;settlements&rdquo; 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&mdash;such as remained on their estates&mdash;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 &ldquo;gentry&rdquo; 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&mdash;the eldest was eight years and the
+      youngest three months&mdash;and here he tried to support them off the
+      &ldquo;estate.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;heavy father&rdquo; 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&mdash;a sorry household it must have been at Castle Coote&mdash;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&mdash;with the &ldquo;lashings and leavings&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;settlements&rdquo; 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
+      &ldquo;English accent&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;brogue&rdquo; being
+      far less corrupt than the &ldquo;burr.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;billet&rdquo;&mdash;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 &ldquo;lessons&rdquo; than the average young woman of their own day who had been
+      &ldquo;neglected.&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;the exaggerated expressions of
+      appreciation uttered by a fervent peasantry&mdash;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&mdash;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
+      &ldquo;The Castle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When the eldest of her three daughters was scarcely nineteen the
+      aggregation of savings and credit&mdash;the latter predominant&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;it will be remembered that
+      she was one of that delightful little supper party at Ranelagh which he
+      describes&mdash;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&mdash;assuming that social advancement
+      is an act of friendship&mdash;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, &ldquo;upon the Irish Establishment.&rdquo; The
+      &ldquo;Irish Establishment&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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&mdash;even by Walpole&mdash;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&mdash;the most notorious&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;except in a
+      distant way&mdash;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. &ldquo;'Tis a warm day,&rdquo; wrote
+      George Selwyn to Lord Carlisle, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The famous beauties are more talked of than the change in the Ministry,&rdquo;
+       wrote Walpole. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This mobbing must have caused the girls much delightful inconvenience, and
+      one can see their mother acting the part&mdash;and overdoing it, after the
+      manner of her kind&mdash;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&mdash;that would have been his word&mdash;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. &ldquo;Oh, I should dearly like to see a coronation!&rdquo; 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&mdash;his
+      titles were Hamilton and Brandon&mdash;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. &ldquo;When her mother and sister
+      were at Bedford House,&rdquo; he wrote to Mann, &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;impossibility&mdash;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 &ldquo;summer setting in with its
+      customary severity,&rdquo; 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&mdash;the
+      dream of every budding dramatist. There is every likelihood that it was
+      this highly accomplished and successful &ldquo;gentleman-adventurer&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;mainly of the
+      opposite sex&mdash;were greatly interested. Of this fact he seems to have
+      been fully aware. A good many people&mdash;mainly of the opposite sex&mdash;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 &ldquo;<i>Nunc dimittis</i>&rdquo; 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&mdash;but
+      not too notable&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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. &ldquo;Lady Betty might have taken the name of Stanley
+      long ago if she had chose it,&rdquo; she wrote, adding: &ldquo;A very sincere
+      attachment on his side has at last produced the same on hers.&rdquo; 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&mdash;no
+      particular extravagance one would fancy&mdash;and that the hay-cocks would
+      be of straw-coloured riband. George Selwyn thought it far from diverting.
+      The Dowager Lady Gower affirmed that &ldquo;all the world was there,&rdquo; only she
+      makes an exception of her relations the Bedfords&mdash;she called them
+      &ldquo;the Bloomsbury lot&rdquo;&mdash;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 &ldquo;Death of Wolfe&rdquo; 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&mdash;when improved
+      by Messrs. Adam&mdash;to the show. The &ldquo;transparencies&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;gules.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This design occupied the place of the &ldquo;set piece&rdquo; which winds up a modern
+      display of fireworks and sets the band playing &ldquo;God save the King.&rdquo; 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&mdash;the second of the day&mdash;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&mdash;the
+      explosion, it was said, affected the nerves of nearly all the guests&mdash;and
+      the illumination of the &ldquo;transparency&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;set&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;her husband succeeded to the title
+      two years after his marriage&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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
+      &ldquo;principal.&rdquo; 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&mdash;up to
+      that time the two qualities had seldom been found associated&mdash;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: &ldquo;In distinction of manner and refinement
+      she excelled Mrs. Abington, who could never go beyond Lady Teazle, which
+      is a second-rate character.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;the real thing&rdquo; and of profiting by her study.
+      She found herself on the most intimate footing with duchesses&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;Walpole was about the worst&mdash;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&mdash;not
+      even that of his wife&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;The Derby&rdquo; 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&mdash;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 &ldquo;plot&rdquo; 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
+      &ldquo;glorious child&rdquo;&mdash;this was how she described her daughter&mdash;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 &ldquo;glorious child,&rdquo; 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&mdash;strictly
+      <i>sub rosa</i> also. Now the aggregation of many confidential reports of
+      this sort is what is termed &ldquo;news,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;The two beautiful sisters were
+      exalted almost as high as they could go,&rdquo; he wrote. &ldquo;Countessed and double
+      duchessed, and now the family have dragged themselves down into the very
+      dirt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;family&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;dragging
+      themselves into the very dirt.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;dragging in the dirt&rdquo; 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&mdash;after the interval of a chapter or two&mdash;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 &ldquo;case,&rdquo; 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&mdash;he
+      had recently been made a general&mdash;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&mdash;that is to say, to Mrs. Gunning&mdash;for confirmation
+      or denial of the report, learned that the marriage had indeed been
+      &ldquo;arranged,&rdquo; 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&mdash;imperfectly, it would appear, or he would have suspected
+      something long before. Retaining the precious &ldquo;pacquet&rdquo; 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
+      &ldquo;pacquet&rdquo; 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&mdash;they
+      were the ordinary ones, courteous, but in no way effusive&mdash;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&mdash;the whole piece of scheming&mdash;was the design of his
+      wife&mdash;that it represented an attempt on her part to force one of her
+      &ldquo;plots&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;Those are my
+      letters, and they express nothing but the most honourable sentiments of my
+      heart.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;this &ldquo;pacquet&rdquo; of letters
+      played as important a part in the story of Miss Gunning as the &ldquo;Casquet
+      Letters&rdquo; did in the history of Queen Mary&mdash;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&mdash;Horace Walpole, who gloats over the whole
+      story in a letter to one of the Berrys, does not say by whom&mdash;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&mdash;after
+      a consultation with her mother, we may be sure&mdash;a &ldquo;narrative&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;St. James's Place,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>3 rd February</i>, 1791.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Lord,&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;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>
+      &ldquo;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>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;I have the honour to be,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With the greatest respect, my Lord,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Grace's most humble and
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most obedient servant,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;John Gunning.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;Blenheim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&mdash;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&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;I have the honour to remain,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your much obliged and
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most obedient, humble servant,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Marlborough.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;Walpole in the letter to
+      Miss Berry affirms that he was this one&mdash;ventured to point out that
+      in the Duke's letter the name <i>Blandford</i> was spelt without the
+      middle letter <i>d</i>. &ldquo;That was possible in the hurry of doing justice,&rdquo;
+       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&mdash;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 &ldquo;plot&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;<i>copy</i>&rdquo;
+       at the top and &ldquo;<i>signed M</i>.&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;Neither papa or I have courage to
+      tell mama, for she detests the person dearest to me on earth.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;plot&rdquo;
+       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&mdash;and worse&mdash;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 &ldquo;glorious child,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;glorious child.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;pacquet&rdquo; for the Duke of Marlborough, Miss Gunning had caught him and
+      compelled him to hand over the &ldquo;pacquet&rdquo; 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&mdash;according to Walpole&mdash;of
+      swearing before a London magistrate that she was innocent. &ldquo;It is but a
+      burlesque part of this wonderful tale,&rdquo; adds Walpole, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; But
+      &ldquo;crazy old Bedford&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;The town is very dull without them,&rdquo; wrote Walpole to one of the Berrys,
+      enclosing a copy of a really clever skit in verse, after the style of &ldquo;The
+      House that Jack Built,&rdquo; 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&mdash;that is an expression which comedy may
+      wear without arousing the curiosity&mdash;certainly without exciting the
+      laughter&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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
+      &ldquo;that more attention had been paid to them than to him.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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 &ldquo;of seeing me, madam, me&mdash;<i>me!</i>&rdquo; 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&mdash;hands uplifted
+      in amazement and faces &ldquo;o'er-running with laughter&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;honest Dr. Goldsmith&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;Pshaw! I could do it as well myself!&rdquo;
+       Supposing that some one had said to Boswell, &ldquo;After all, sir, perhaps Dr.
+      Goldsmith could have done it as well himself,&rdquo; 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&mdash;unless by Boswell
+      or Beattie&mdash;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. &ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; said this egregious person at a public
+      dinner, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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
+      &ldquo;the Club&rdquo; was started not one of the original members questioned his
+      right to a place among the most fastidious of the community, although
+      Garrick&mdash;to the shame of Johnson be it spoken&mdash;was not admitted
+      for nine years. Boswell&mdash;to the shame of Johnson be it spoken&mdash;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&mdash;he may even have taken the extreme step of fastening up his
+      garters&mdash;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&mdash;sometimes
+      unconsciously&mdash;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&mdash;their very graves are neglected. But <i>She Stoops to
+      Conquer</i> is never revived without success&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;bull.&rdquo; This is the delivery of a paradox so obvious as to be
+      detected&mdash;after a brief consideration&mdash;by an Englishman or even&mdash;after
+      an additional space for thought&mdash;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&mdash;indeed,
+      every form of humour may be said to be due to a peculiar twist of the mind&mdash;but
+      it is as much a figure of speech as irony or satire. &ldquo;Blarney&rdquo; and
+      &ldquo;palaver&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;blarney&rdquo; and &ldquo;palaver&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;of this man &ldquo;who wrote like an angel and talked like poor
+      poll.&rdquo;
+     </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, &ldquo;I could do it as well
+      myself,&rdquo; 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&mdash;that all oratory, as a matter of fact, was only a knack&mdash;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&mdash;Boswell best of all&mdash;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 &ldquo;chaff&rdquo; 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&mdash;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: &ldquo;Oh,
+      but isn't this a great day for Ireland!&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;honest
+      Dr. Goldsmith&rdquo; converse. &ldquo;Puppy!&rdquo; 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>&mdash;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.
+      &ldquo;Here is a man,&rdquo; we must say, &ldquo;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>
+      &ldquo;'<i>Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis</i>.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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>
+      &ldquo;'<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>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; we
+      should ask the authority to whom we are supposed to be stating a case&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;Noll&rdquo; rhyme with &ldquo;Poll,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Goldy,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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 &ldquo;The Gentleman,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;The Gentleman&rdquo; of his circle. In his room in the
+      farmhouse there was his bed and table&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;after a
+      few muttered words and a laugh&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;Natural History.&rdquo; 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&mdash;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. &ldquo;The Gentleman&rdquo; 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>&mdash;and
+      he undoubtedly felt some&mdash;had been amply redeemed by the money which
+      accrued to him from the &ldquo;author's rights&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;Ay, sir, this matter may be nothing to
+      you who can now shelter yourself behind the corner of your pension,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;very Irish.&rdquo; 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&mdash;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 &ldquo;animated nature&rdquo; of <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i>. It
+      contains the two chief essentials to a true comedy&mdash;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&mdash;Garrick, Johnson, Reynolds,
+      or Colman&mdash;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. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; he cried to Johnson,
+      &ldquo;Goldsmith has acquired more fame than all the officers last war who were
+      not generals!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, sir,&rdquo; said Johnson, &ldquo;you will find ten thousand fit to do what they
+      did before you find one who does what Goldsmith has done&rdquo;&mdash;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.
+      &ldquo;Eh bien, mon sire. Let your marshals sing to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At any rate, Colman got the play&mdash;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&mdash;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. &ldquo;I shook my head,&rdquo; wrote Cooke, &ldquo;and said
+      that I was afraid the audience, under their then sentimental impressions,
+      would think it too broad and farcical for comedy.&rdquo; This was poor comfort
+      for the author; but after a pause he shook the man by the hand, saying
+      piteously: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;Dear Sir,&rdquo; wrote the author in January, 1773, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;a
+      question which is not yet ripe for discussion&mdash;it has never been in
+      the direction of depreciating a play which they are about to produce&mdash;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 &ldquo;country gentleman,&rdquo; Mr. Cradock, referred to
+      by Walpole. Miss Horneck, his beautiful &ldquo;Jessamy Bride,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;We are all in labour for a name to Goldy's play,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;I would not for ten pounds have seemed so retrograde to any
+      general observance,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;draw him on&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;looking
+      glum,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;wings&rdquo; than he heard a
+      hiss. &ldquo;What's that, sir?&rdquo; he whispered to Colman, who was beside him.
+      &ldquo;Psha, sir! what signifies a squib when we have been sitting on a barrel
+      of gunpowder all night?&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Turn
+      him out!&rdquo; 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&mdash;that he had by one more achievement proved to his
+      own satisfaction&mdash;and he was hard to satisfy&mdash;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
+      &ldquo;succeeded prodigiously,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;puff&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;squibs&rdquo;&mdash;some
+      of them partook largely of the character of his own barrel of gunpowder&mdash;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: &ldquo;Colman is so distressed with abuse
+      that he has solicited Goldsmith to take him off the rack of the
+      newspapers.&rdquo;
+     </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, &ldquo;The play has met with a success
+      beyond your expectation or mine,&rdquo; he makes his explanation, and concludes
+      thus: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;strangers to me&mdash;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 &ldquo;The Jessamy Bride&rdquo; and
+      &ldquo;Little Comedy&rdquo; intelligible to the &ldquo;Devonshire Crew&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;If Dr. Brewer does not know why Mary Horneck was called
+      'The Jessamy Bride,' no one alive can know it,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Jessamy Bride&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Jessamy
+      Bride,&rdquo; and that her elder sister was &ldquo;Little Comedy&rdquo;; 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 &ldquo;Jessamy Bride&rdquo; 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
+      &ldquo;Jerningham Letters.&rdquo; Lady Bedingfeld's Journal contains the following
+      entry opposite the date &ldquo;September 19th, 1833&rdquo;:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;very like&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Jessamy Bride&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;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>
+      &ldquo;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>.&rdquo; The Princess Elizabeth&mdash;the
+      shy young bride who was so overcome with emotion&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;... 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&mdash;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&mdash;she was so bled and starved she had no
+      strength left&mdash;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&mdash;It comes to what <i>I</i> always say
+      of them&mdash;they can't do much and are very often wrong in their
+      opinions as you can vouch....&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;Mum's the word, sir, and mum it shall be,&rdquo; whispered the man. &ldquo;I stowed
+      away the trunk, leaving plenty of room for the genuine luggage&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And there you'll find the chaise, sir, and as good a pair as ever left my
+      stable, and good luck to you, sir!&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;Good news, I hope, Dick?&rdquo; she whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been waiting for you all the evening. She has not changed her
+      mind, I hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is as steadfast as I am,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;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&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't think of him except as applauding your action,&rdquo; said the girl.
+      &ldquo;Surely every one with the least spark of generosity will applaud your
+      action, Dick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wouldn't like to say so much,&rdquo; said Dick, shaking his head. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who will dare to take the part of Mr. Mathews against you, Dick?&rdquo; cried
+      his sister, looking at him proudly as the parlour candles shone upon him.
+      &ldquo;I would that I could go with you as far as London, dear, but that would
+      be impossible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite impossible; and where would be the merit in the end?&rdquo; said Dick,
+      pacing the room as he believed a man of adventure and enterprise would in
+      the circumstances. &ldquo;You may trust to me to place her in safety without the
+      help of any one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it, Dick, I know it, dear, and I am proud of you,&rdquo; said she,
+      putting her arms about his neck and kissing him. &ldquo;And look you here,
+      Dick,&rdquo; she added, in a more practical tone. &ldquo;Look you here&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took the coins which she offered to him wrapped up in a twist of
+      newspaper; but he showed some hesitation&mdash;she had to go through a
+      form of forcing it upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope to bring it back to you unbroken,&rdquo; he murmured; &ldquo;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,&mdash;a loan&mdash;a
+      sacred loan. Good-bye, I returned only to say good-bye to you, my dearest
+      sister.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew your good heart, Dick, that was why I was waiting for you.
+      Good-bye, Dick, and God bless you.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;every one in Bath knew her, and this being so, was it not
+      likely that some one&mdash;some prying person&mdash;some impudent fellow
+      like that Mathews who had been making love to her, although he had a wife
+      of his own in Wales&mdash;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&mdash;&mdash;
+    </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&mdash;very
+      properly, considering his large family&mdash;fond of money. Before he had
+      to provide for his family, he took good care that his family&mdash;his
+      eldest daughter particularly&mdash;helped to provide for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Doubtless these eventualities were suggested to him&mdash;for young Mr.
+      Sheridan was not without imagination&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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: &ldquo;She is a
+      link between an angel and a woman.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;let any one look at the face which is
+      to be seen in her portrait, and one will understand how this could be&mdash;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&mdash;the spirit with which her soul communed in secret&mdash;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&mdash;a
+      wretched thing even for Foote&mdash;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&mdash;sometimes
+      referred to as Captain, occasionally as Major&mdash;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 &ldquo;at
+      length induced to consult Richard Sheridan, whose intimacy with Major
+      Mathews, at the time, she thought might warrant his interference.&rdquo; And
+      then we are told that &ldquo;R. B. Sheridan sounded Mathews on the subject and
+      at length prevailed on him to give up the pursuit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That is how the adoring sister of &ldquo;R. B. Sheridan,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;sounded Mathews
+      on the subject.&rdquo; On what subject? The subject was the pursuit of an
+      innocent girl by a contemptible scoundrel. How does the knight-errant
+      &ldquo;sound&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo; Now young Sheridan, who is reported by his sister
+      as &ldquo;sounding&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;sound&rdquo; 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&mdash;and the notebook&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;Pray, sir, what did you say to Mathews when you sounded him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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, &ldquo;the son of a respectable
+      brandy merchant in the City,&rdquo; suggested that they should sail from London
+      to Dunkirk, &ldquo;in order to make pursuit more difficult.&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;After quitting Dunkirk Mr. Sheridan was more explicit with
+      Miss Linley as to his views on accompanying her to France.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;&ldquo;she must be
+      aware that after the step she had taken, she could not appear in England
+      but as his wife.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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
+      &ldquo;such occasions&rdquo; 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&mdash;now
+      Mrs. Sheridan, of course&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;Monsieur Sherridan, Gentilhomme Anglois, à l'Hôtel de
+      Bourbon, Sur la Grande Place.&rdquo; It recommends the administering of certain
+      powders in a glass of white wine twice daily, and sends &ldquo;compliments and
+      wishes of health to your lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The question then remains: Was the lady at this time an inmate of the
+      convent, and did the doctor expect &ldquo;Monsieur Sherridan&rdquo; 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&mdash;he
+      continued to call her Miss Linley&mdash;was now &ldquo;fixing in a convent,
+      where she has been entered some time.&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So far, then, as his emprise in regard to the lady was concerned, he
+      considered the incident to be closed. &ldquo;Though you may have been ignorant
+      for some time of our proceedings, you could never have been uneasy,&rdquo; he
+      continues hopefully, &ldquo;lest anything should tempt me to depart, even in a
+      thought, from the honour and consistency which engaged me at first.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;acted the part of a gentleman&rdquo; 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&mdash;he had no trouble in learning
+      in what direction to look for her&mdash;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&mdash;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,
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The comedy of the elopement had become a farce of the &ldquo;whimsical&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;after some private conversation&rdquo; with his daughter's husband,
+      who does not tell him that he is her husband, says to the young woman, &ldquo;My
+      dear, you must come home with me to sing at a concert.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, papa,&rdquo; replies the girl. &ldquo;Wait a minute, and I'll go too,&rdquo;
+       cries the unconfused husband of the daughter. &ldquo;All right, come along,&rdquo;
+       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&mdash;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 &ldquo;so hard to narrate familiar events eloquently,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;familiar events&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;even in thought from the honour and consistency which engaged
+      [him] at first.&rdquo; It must be remembered that he was a romantic boy of
+      twenty, and this is just the age at which nearly every boy&mdash;especially
+      a boy in love&mdash;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 &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;such devotion as might be expected from such a
+      nature as hers&mdash;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, &ldquo;Pray remember that you are
+      not free to think of marrying any one. We are husband and wife, although
+      we were married in secret.&rdquo; 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&mdash;and perhaps a little more
+      than&mdash;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. &ldquo;The sight of the
+      pistols would have alarmed Sheridan's sisters,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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&mdash;no unusual <i>rôle</i> for him&mdash;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&mdash;he
+      knew that Sheridan meant to go to Lille, for he wrote to him there&mdash;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&mdash;one who always kept an eye on the jumping
+      cat&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Richard S&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash; 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&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;, and a treacherous S&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;malevolent incendiarism&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;malevolent incendiary,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;a L&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;
+      and a S&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;Mr.
+      Thomas Sheridan was never far removed from a crisis&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;they
+      had been missing on the Sunday morning&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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
+      &ldquo;several abusive threats&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;Mr. S.,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;the
+      set-to of the principals immediately after the &ldquo;declarations&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;knockabout&rdquo; 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
+      &ldquo;parck&rdquo;? 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&mdash;when
+      paid for it&mdash;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&mdash;according
+      to Richard's narrative Charles had good grounds for sending a challenge to
+      Mathews on his own account&mdash;but &ldquo;after two hours' altercation&rdquo; 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&mdash;that is, from the moment he assumed the
+      duties of the protector of Miss Linley&mdash;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 &ldquo;malevolent incendiarism&rdquo; 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&mdash;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
+      &ldquo;incendiarism&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;All your friends have condemned
+      you,&rdquo; he wrote. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;either description
+      applies to Barnett&mdash;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&mdash;point
+      it had none&mdash;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&mdash;and her
+      father&mdash;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, &ldquo;<i>Love in a Village</i>&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;very
+      closely indeed&mdash;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&mdash;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, &ldquo;I trust that I am not to consider this as an evil omen!&rdquo;
+       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&mdash;certainly he spoke no word to Miss Reay or any one else&mdash;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, &ldquo;Kill me! Kill me!&rdquo;
+     </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. &ldquo;He stood as it were
+      petrified,&rdquo; we are told, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;he did not say
+      anything about &ldquo;a wave of insanity,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;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&mdash;a total loss of reason and incapability of reason.&rdquo;
+       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&mdash;he
+      himself had been too greatly agitated to be able to remain in the court&mdash;for
+      information as to how Hackman had deported himself, and Boswell was able
+      to assure him that he had behaved &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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
+      &ldquo;whether our clergy are growing Mahometans or not&rdquo;; adding sagely, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;sensibility&rdquo;
+       was passing over England at that time. It was a wave of sentimentality&mdash;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&mdash;robust
+      even to a point of vulgarity&mdash;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 &ldquo;movements&rdquo; have had their origin in the fancy of a painter&mdash;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&mdash;they chose to feel that they were doomed to a
+      life of sorrowful love&mdash;at any rate, this was Martha's notion&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;and death.
+      Cradock, the &ldquo;country gentleman,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;correspondence cards&rdquo; 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&mdash;securing
+      a frank from a friendly Member of Parliament&mdash;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 &ldquo;went on cutting bread and butter&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Corporal Trim,&rdquo; who was the bearer of a &ldquo;billet&rdquo; from her.
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo; Then he goes
+      on to talk in a fine soldierly strain of the drum &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;a respectable woman&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Auld Robin Gray&rdquo;&mdash;she quoted it in full
+      in one of her letters&mdash;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 &ldquo;benefactor.&rdquo; Did she not owe to him
+      the blessing of a good education, and the culture of her voice, her
+      knowledge of painting&mdash;nay, her &ldquo;keep&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Auld Robin Gray,&rdquo;
+       and she at once accepted the rôle of the unhappy wife, only she found it
+      convenient to modify one rather important line&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fain would think o' Jamie, but that would be a sin.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;benefactor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our love, the inexorable tyrant of our hearts,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;wild as the torrent's roar,&rdquo; apologising for making his
+      simile water when the element most congenial to his nature was fire.
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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. &ldquo;<i>He should have put himself
+      to death in his wife's sight</i>.&rdquo; 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? &ldquo;A beam or two finds its
+      way through the grates (of the vault), and reflects a feeble glimness from
+      the nails of the coffins.&rdquo; This is one passage&mdash;ghastly enough in all
+      conscience. But it is surpassed by the others which he quotes: &ldquo;Should the
+      haggard skeleton lift a clattering hand.&rdquo; Respecting the latter he
+      remarks, &ldquo;I know not whether the epithet 'haggard' might not be spared.&rdquo;
+       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 &ldquo;Faldoni and Teresa,&rdquo; by Jerningham, and he criticises
+      it quite admirably. &ldquo;The melancholy tale will not take up three words,
+      though Mr. J. has bestowed upon it 335 melancholy lines,&rdquo; he tells the
+      young lady. &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;while I talk of taking off the dangerous edge of their
+      example, they have almost listed me under their bloody banners.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;benefactor&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;Fate stands between us,&rdquo; she wrote in reply to one of his
+      impetuous upbraiding letters. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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
+      &ldquo;insuperable reason&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;If you do not,&rdquo; he adds, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But it would appear that she knew the man's nature better than he himself
+      did, for she quickly replied: &ldquo;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!&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;She,
+      too, was <i>Jenny</i> and had her <i>Robin Gray</i>.&rdquo; 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.&mdash;meaning Selwyn&mdash;he
+      does not make a profession of attending executions; adding that &ldquo;the
+      friend and historian of Paoli hired a window by the year, looking out on
+      the Grass Market in Edinburgh, where malefactors were hanged.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;subject&rdquo; being murder and suicide. His last lurid story
+      was of a footman who, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh love, love, canst thou not be content to make fools of thy slaves,&rdquo; he
+      wrote, &ldquo;to make them miserable, to make them what thou pleasest? Must thou
+      also goad them on to crimes?&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;with a
+      preponderance of farce&mdash;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&mdash;the real gentleman who might
+      undertake it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That was the very plausible reasoning of the &ldquo;real gentleman&rdquo; 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&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;
+      in the character, Lady Susan threw up her hands, and threatened to throw
+      up her part as well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lud!&rdquo; she cried to her associates in the temporary green-room, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Every one present agreed with her&mdash;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&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;
+      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>
+      &ldquo;I never had such a chance until now,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Impossible, my sweet Sue!&rdquo; cried her friend. &ldquo;I vow that I have never
+      seen anything more arch than your mock rejection of your lover, only to
+      draw him on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You dear creature!&rdquo; cried Lady Sue. &ldquo;You are a true friend and a
+      competent critic, Sarah. But what signifies my acting, perfect though it
+      be, when that&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They cannot be so vile,&rdquo; said Lady Sarah soothingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;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!&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;A thousand pardons, my dear ladies,&rdquo; he cried, bowing to the carpet. &ldquo;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&mdash;but what is this? I said not a
+      lacrymatory.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was looking curiously into Lady Susan's face, which retained the marks
+      of her recent tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Sir Francis, you have come in good time,&rdquo; said Lady Sarah boldly.
+      &ldquo;Here is this poor child weeping her heart out because she is condemned to
+      play the part of&mdash;of what's her name?&mdash;the lady in the play who
+      had to make love to an ass?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, sir, mine is a far worse plight,&rdquo; said Lady Susan, pouting. &ldquo;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&mdash;by&mdash;my Lord B&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That were a calculation far above my powers,&rdquo; said Sir Francis. &ldquo;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&mdash;if
+      love-making is an art.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, 'tis a combination of all the arts,&rdquo; said Lady Susan; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be plain, Sir Francis,&rdquo; said Lady Sarah, as though the other had not
+      been plain enough in her explanation, &ldquo;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&mdash;&mdash;&mdash; 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hence these tears,&rdquo; said Sir Francis. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Merely on the stage?&rdquo; cried Lady Susan. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As a rule,&rdquo; said Sir Francis. &ldquo;Yes, I perceive the difference, and I
+      mingle mine own turgid tears with your limpid drops. But we cannot spare
+      you from our play.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, you cannot, Sir Francis, but you can spare Lord B&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;,
+      and so can the play,&rdquo; suggested Lady Sarah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, you would have me turn him out of the part?&rdquo; said Sir Francis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even so&mdash;but with politeness,&rdquo; said Lady Sarah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said Sir Francis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo;
+       said Lady Susan timidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; cried Lady Susan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is good philosophy&mdash;see what we have come to&mdash;philosophy,
+      when we started talking of lovemaking,&rdquo; said Sir Francis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;However we have digressed in conversation, sir, our minds remain
+      steadfast on the point round which we have been circling,&rdquo; said Lady
+      Sarah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that is&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That Lord B&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;must go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The door was thrown open and Lord B&mdash;&mdash;&mdash; entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A good preliminary&mdash;one must come before one goes,&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;I was told that you had come hither, Sir Francis,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;so I
+      followed you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do me honour, my lord,&rdquo; said Sir Francis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I took a liberty, sir; but this is not a time for punctilio. I have come
+      to resign my part in your play, sir,&rdquo; said his lordship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, surely not, my lord,&rdquo; cried Sir Francis. &ldquo;What would the <i>School
+      for Lovers</i> be without Bellaire, my lord? Why only now Lady Susan was
+      saying&mdash;what is it that your ladyship said?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It had something to do with philosophy and the sole of a grenadier,&rdquo; said
+      Lady Sarah interposing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, was it not that his lordship's impersonation made you think of a
+      scene from <i>Midsummer Night's Dream?</i>&rdquo; said Sir Francis. &ldquo;One of the
+      most beautiful of Shakespeare's plays, is't not, my lord?&mdash;fantasy
+      mingled with irony, an oasis of fairyland in the midst of a desert of
+      daily life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know nothing about your fairyland, sir, but I have been told within the
+      hour that her ladyship&rdquo;&mdash;he bowed in the direction of Lady Susan&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you sure that your informant was right in his interpretation of her
+      ladyship's words? Surely your lordship&mdash;a man of the world&mdash;would
+      have been sensible of every shade of her ladyship's meaning?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;on insufficient evidence, I begin to fear&mdash;that
+      her ladyship was a discriminating critic&mdash;even now if she were to
+      assure me that she was not speaking in sarcasm&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, lud! he is relenting,&rdquo; whispered Lady Sarah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you speak, madam?&rdquo; said his lordship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was protesting against a too early exercise of your lordship's
+      well-known spirit of forgiveness,&rdquo; said her ladyship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you, Lady Sarah; I am, I know, too greatly inclined to take a
+      charitable view of&mdash;of&mdash;Why, sink me if she, too, is not trying
+      to make me look ridiculous!&rdquo; cried his lordship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; remarked Lady Susan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His lordship looked at her&mdash;his mouth was slightly open&mdash;then he
+      gazed at the smiling features of the beautiful Lady Sarah, lastly at the
+      perfectly expressionless features of Sir Francis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A plot&mdash;a plot!&rdquo; he murmured. Then he struck a commonplace
+      theatrical attitude, the &ldquo;exit attitude&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;it really
+      was pleasant laughter, though it did not sound so to him&mdash;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&mdash;it was,
+      strange to say, the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is vastly fine, ladies,&rdquo; he remarked. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely we can find some gentleman willing to act the part of Bellaire?&rdquo;
+       said Lady Sarah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;Have I been too hasty?&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Alas! I fear that I have been selfish.
+      I thought only of the poor figure that I should cut with such a lover&mdash;and
+      with all the world looking on, too! I should have given more thought to
+      your distress, Sir Francis.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo;
+       said Sir Francis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True, sir, but think of the ladies' dresses!&rdquo; said Lady Sarah. &ldquo;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.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heavens!&rdquo; cried Sir Francis, &ldquo;I had not thought of the new dresses. Lady
+      Susan, you will e'en have to face the anger of your sisters&mdash;'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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said Lady Susan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is woman's special province,&rdquo; said Sir Francis. &ldquo;Pray begin, my lady&mdash;'twill
+      be strange if your ladyship and Lady Sarah do not succeed in&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Psha! there is but one man in England who could play the part of Bellaire
+      on Wednesday,&rdquo; cried Lady Sarah. &ldquo;Ay, sir, and he is the only one in
+      England capable of playing it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we shall have him on our stage if I should have to pay a thousand
+      pounds for his services,&rdquo; said Sir Francis. &ldquo;But where is he to be found?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cannot you guess, sir?&rdquo; asked Lady Sarah, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Francis looked puzzled, but Lady Sue started and caught her friend by
+      the wrist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not mean&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; she began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lud! these girls! Here's a scheme if you will!&rdquo; muttered Sir Francis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, if you will, Sir Francis. You know that I mean Mr. O'Brien himself
+      and none other,&rdquo; cried Lady Sarah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Impossible!&rdquo; cried Lady Susan. &ldquo;My father would never consent to my
+      acting in a play with a real actor&mdash;no, not even if he were Mr.
+      Garrick himself. How could you suggest such a thing, Sarah?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, do you mean to tell me that you would refuse to act with Mr.
+      O'Brien?&rdquo; asked Lady Sarah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, hear the child!&rdquo; cried Lady Susan. &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; laughed Lady Sarah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dare not&mdash;I dare not. And yet&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;Ladies, this is a serious matter for all of us,&rdquo; he said. And he spoke
+      the truth to a greater depth than he was aware of. &ldquo;'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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But every one would know Mr. O'Brien,&rdquo; she faltered, after a pause that
+      was overcharged with excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His lordship will have no <i>locus standi</i> in the case. He cannot take
+      notice of an act that is not officially recognisable,&rdquo; suggested Sir
+      Francis, the sophist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you assure me&mdash;&mdash; But is't true that Mr. O'Brien only ceased
+      to become a gentleman when he became an actor?&rdquo; said Lady Susan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not heard that he relinquished the one part when he took up the
+      other,&rdquo; said Sir Francis. &ldquo;I wonder that you have not met him at the
+      houses of some of our friends&mdash;he is more popular even than Mr.
+      Garrick. The family of O'Brien&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All kings, I doubt not,&rdquo; said Lady Susan. &ldquo;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&mdash;well, descended. Mr. O'Brien descended
+      pretty far when he became a play-actor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said Sir Francis with a severe air of reproof. He was
+      beginning to be tired&mdash;as others in his place have been from time to
+      time&mdash;of the capriciousness of his company of amateurs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right, sir,&rdquo; said Lady Sarah. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am thinking of my father,&rdquo; said the other. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said Sir Francis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Sarah laughed, and so did her friend&mdash;after a pause sufficient
+      to allow the colour that had come to her face at the stinging reproof to
+      die away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope that you may catch your bird, sir&mdash;your eagle&mdash;your
+      Irish eagle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said Sir Francis, making his
+      most exquisite bow to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, sir, you overwhelm me,&rdquo; 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&mdash;a condition with which Sir Francis complied,
+      drawing a long breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. O'Brien,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;should the stage ever fail you, a fortune awaits
+      you if you undertake the duty of teaching gentlemen the art of being a
+      gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, sir, the moment that art enters the door the gentleman flies out by
+      the window,&rdquo; said the actor. &ldquo;It is Nature, not art, that makes a
+      gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;taking her hand with that incomparable
+      devotion to&mdash;was it his art?&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;stated
+      that Bellaire would be represented by &ldquo;a gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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&mdash;even her own
+      father&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;I saw it from the first, my dear Sue,&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;You saw it&mdash;you&mdash;what was it that you saw from the first?&rdquo; she
+      cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Sarah looked at her and laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, that is it&mdash;what was it that I saw from the first?&rdquo; she said.
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;'s getting his <i>congé</i>.
+      It was a mistake&mdash;I saw that also.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When did you see that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I saw you taking part in that love scene with Mr. O'Brien.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What mean you by that, Lady Sarah?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly what you fancy I mean, Lady Susan.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;You poor child!&rdquo; she murmured, &ldquo;how could you help it? I vow that I
+      myself&mdash;yes, for some minutes&mdash;I was as deep in love with the
+      fellow as you yourself were. But, of course, you were with him longer&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never&mdash;never!&rdquo; cried Susan. &ldquo;Sir Francis was right&mdash;he is a
+      gentleman. That is the worst of it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, lud! the worst of it? Are you mad, girl?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not mad now, but I know that I shall be if he remains a gentleman&mdash;if
+      he refrains from telling me that he loves me&mdash;or at least of giving
+      me a chance of telling him that I love him. That would be better than
+      nothing&mdash;'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&mdash;that
+      'tis impossible that I should love another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The sooner you go to the country the better 'twill be for yourself and
+      all of us&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;all about the O'Briens&mdash;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&mdash;that was
+      it&mdash;the losing side was always the one they took up. And yet you call
+      him a strolling player!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I take back the insinuation and offer him my apologies; he is not a
+      strolling player because he doesn't stroll&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;the rack, the wheel, the thumbscrew, in fact the
+      entire mechanism of persuasion employed by the Spanish Inquisition&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;Ah, my dear one, did not I give you good advice?&rdquo; cried Lady Sarah. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is't possible? For example?&mdash;I vow that I shall keep their names
+      secret.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;according
+      to Lady Sarah&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;&ldquo;The hussies! Shameless creatures! Do they hope that he
+      will be attracted to them? Fools!&mdash;they are fools! They do not know
+      him as I know him. They think that he is nothing but a vain actor&mdash;Garrick,
+      or Barry, or Lewes. Oh, they do not know him!&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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&mdash;and the work of this particular painter was rather inclined
+      to be assertive&mdash;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&mdash;she had not yet done her famous pastel of the Duchess of
+      Argyll&mdash;and Susan, accompanied by her footman, lost no time in
+      beginning her series of sittings to the artist to whom Horace Walpole
+      referred as &ldquo;the painteress.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was both patient and discreet, for three whole days elapsed before she
+      produced a mezzotint of Mr. O'Brien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo; she
+      said. &ldquo;Have you ever seen this Mr. O'Brien&mdash;an Irishman, I believe he
+      is?&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said Lady Susan. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your ladyship may rest assured that no living creature will hear of the
+      affair through me,&rdquo; said the painteress. &ldquo;But I heartily wish that your
+      ladyship could procure for me a better copy than this print from which to
+      work,&rdquo; she added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fear that I cannot promise you that; I found two other prints of the
+      same person, but they are worse even than this,&rdquo; said Lady Susan. &ldquo;You
+      must do your best with the material at your disposal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your ladyship may depend on my doing my best,&rdquo; replied Miss Read. &ldquo;When
+      does his lordship's birthday take place?&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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&mdash;he was used to see her sex overwhelmed when he
+      appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam, I beg that you will pardon this intrusion,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I have taken
+      the liberty of waiting upon you, knowing of your great capacity as an
+      artist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, sir!&rdquo; cried the fluttered little lady, making her courtesy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, madam, I have no intention of flattering one to whom compliments
+      must be as customary as they are well deserved,&rdquo; said the actor. &ldquo;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&mdash;a good&mdash;&mdash; Good heavens! what do I behold? 'Tis
+      she&mdash;she&mdash;Lady Susan herself!&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;for Heaven's sake tell me how this&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      held up the print&mdash;&ldquo;came into such close juxtaposition with that&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      pointed to the portrait on the easel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis easily told, sir,&rdquo; said Miss Read, smiling archly. &ldquo;But I must leave
+      it to your sense of honour to keep the matter a profound secret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; said Mr. O'Brien with dignity, &ldquo;Madam, I am an Irishman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;that
+      portrait. 'Twas marvellous that you should recognise it so soon. I have
+      not worked at it for many hours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam, your art is beyond that of the magician. 'Tis well known that
+      every form depicted by Miss Read not only breathes but speaks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, sir, I vow that you are a flatterer; still, you did recognise the
+      portrait&mdash;'tis to be presented to Lady Sarah Bunbury.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her ladyship will be the most fortunate of womankind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which ladyship, sir&mdash;Lady Susan or Lady Sarah?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Both, madam.&rdquo; The Irishman was bowing with his hand on his heart. &ldquo;But
+      the print&mdash;my poor likeness?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis the first I heard of it, madam.&rdquo; There was a suggestion of
+      mortification in the actor's tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I swear to it, madam.&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;Madam, it has just occurred to me that you, as a great artist&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, sir,&rdquo; interposed the blushing painteress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not take back a word, madam,&rdquo; said the actor, holding up one
+      inexorable hand. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, sir, that is the one favour which I meant to ask of you, if my
+      courage had not failed me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam, you will confer immortality upon a simple man through that magic
+      wand which you wield.&rdquo; He swept his hand with inimitable grace over the
+      mahl-stick which lay against the easel. &ldquo;I am all impatient to begin my
+      sitting, Miss Read. Pray let me come to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her ladyship comes to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall precede her ladyship. Name the hour, madam.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;Fate is on our side, darling girl!&rdquo; he whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear one, 'twas the instinct of true love that made you guess the truth&mdash;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!&rdquo; 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
+      &ldquo;Sheila,&rdquo; &ldquo;a cushla machree,&rdquo; &ldquo;mavourneen,&rdquo; and also &ldquo;aroon.&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;You will have heard of the sad misfortune that has happened to Lord
+      Ilchester by his daughter's marriage with O'Brien, the actor,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;You will be amazed,&rdquo; continued
+      Walpole, &ldquo;even this was granted. The parting scene happened the beginning
+      of the week. On Friday she came of age, and on Saturday morning&mdash;instead
+      of being under lock and key in the country&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 51964 ***</div>
+  </body>
+</html>
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+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
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diff --git a/51964-0.zip b/old/51964-0.zip
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+++ b/old/51964-0.zip
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+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-sc�ne_ constructed by Fate,
+taking the r�le 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 _m�salliance_. 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 _m�salliance_, 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 _m�salliance_,
+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 _m�salliances_
+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 _m�salliance_. 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 F�TE-CHAMP�TRE
+
+NO one knows to-day with whom the idea of having an English
+_f�te-champ�tre_ 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 _f�te-champ�tre_, 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 _fianc�e'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 f�te 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 _f�te
+champ�tre_ 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
+_f�te_ 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 _f�te
+champ�tre_; 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 fianc�e 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 f�te 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 _f�te champ�tre_.
+
+[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 _fianc�e_. 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 fianc�e 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 habitu�s 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 (_n�e_ 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
+_d�nouement_ 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 (_n�e_ 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 _prot�g�e_ 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'h�te. 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� n�gligeable_. 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 r�le. 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 r�le 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 (_n�e_ 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 (_n�e_ 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'H�tel 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 H�tel 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 (_n�e_ 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 _r�le_
+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 r�le 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
+D�lavai, 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 D�lavai 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 soup�on 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 D�lavai
+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
+_b�te-noire_, Lady Susan; that, I say, is vastly fine, but where are you
+to find a _b�te-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 D�lavai 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
+
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diff --git a/old/51964-8.zip b/old/51964-8.zip
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+
+<!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;
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+               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 &amp; 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 &ldquo;romance&rdquo; of the Gunnings, and the &ldquo;elopement&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;regulation&rdquo;
+       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&mdash;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&mdash;not quite, but almost&mdash;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&mdash;her closest observers were her greatest admirers&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;waving arms, frantically beckoning to her while he
+      shouted:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Burney! Miss Burney!&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;Madam, madam, the doctor begs you to stop!&rdquo; She glanced over her
+      shoulder, still flying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, I cannot&mdash;I dare not!&rdquo; she gasped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam, you must&mdash;you must: it hurts the King to run!&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;The doctor, madam,&rdquo; he faltered, &ldquo;'twas the doctor&mdash;he thought at
+      first that His Majesty was&mdash;was&mdash;but that was at first&mdash;now
+      he says you must please not lead His Majesty on&mdash;'tis all too much
+      for him. Save us! How you did go, madam! Who would ha' thought it?&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;not Physicians in Ordinary;
+      just the contrary&mdash;the two physicians who had been summoned from
+      Lincolnshire by some person in authority who possessed intelligence&mdash;it
+      should surely be easy to identify such a man at the Court of George III&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;Dresser.&rdquo;) But when they met, after
+      the King had cried, &ldquo;Why did you run away from me, Miss Burney?&rdquo; 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&mdash;though they had doubtless heard something of the
+      practices that prevailed at the Courts of His Majesty's lamented
+      grandfather and great-grandfather&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;it
+      must have been largely in monologue&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;hurled by the Almighty from his throne&rdquo; (in order
+      to give the Opposition a chance of jumping into place and power over his
+      prostrate body)&mdash;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 &ldquo;case,&rdquo; 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>&mdash;that
+      was what he was hungering for&mdash;the trivial things in which he
+      delighted&mdash;the confidences on simple matters&mdash;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&mdash;respectful in some cases, almost
+      passionate in others&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;Keeper
+      of the Robes was the stately designation of a very humble service&mdash;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&mdash;the
+      others were not brilliant, only mothers&mdash;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>&mdash;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&mdash;the Reynoldses, the Burkes, and even the frigid
+      Walpole&mdash;when it became known that Miss Burney's health was breaking
+      down under the strain of her duties at the Court&mdash;she had about two
+      hours' daily attendance of the most ordinary nature upon the Queen&mdash;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&mdash;the incomparable Diary which she kept during
+      her five years at Court&mdash;an excuse for turning the vials of his wrath
+      upon her father, whose obstinacy gave her a chance of writing the most
+      interesting chapter&mdash;the most accurate chapter&mdash;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 &ldquo;written up&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;the
+      airs of mystery, the head-shakings, and she is capable of drawing her own
+      conclusions. &ldquo;Heaven preserve him!&rdquo; 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&mdash;unnatural volubility&mdash;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&mdash;his
+      health&mdash;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&mdash;his consideration for the people
+      around him&mdash;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: &ldquo;Nobody
+      speaks of his illness, nor what they think of it.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;more than his sons could do&mdash;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. &ldquo;The Queen,&rdquo; she writes,
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;these seemed to me
+      the threats awaiting her; and great and grievous enough, yet how short of
+      the fact!&rdquo;...
+    </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. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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 &ldquo;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&mdash;no one could
+      conjecture the event.&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;My poor Royal Mistress!&rdquo; she writes. &ldquo;Never can I forget her countenance&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;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,&rdquo; she adds. &ldquo;Harshness, tyranny,
+      dissension, and even insult seemed personified. I cut short details upon
+      this subject&mdash;they would but make you sick.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;in spite, too, of
+      Mrs. Schwellenberg's having locked herself into her room, forbidding any
+      one to disturb her&mdash;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&mdash;adopting
+      exactly the strain that he knew would be most effective with Miss Burney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind her&mdash;never mind her! Don't be oppressed! I am your
+      friend! Don't let her cast you down&mdash;I know that you have a hard time
+      of it&mdash;but don't mind her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The advice and the tone in which it was given&mdash;with a pleasant laugh&mdash;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&mdash;perhaps such trifles as &ldquo;All we like Sheep,&rdquo; or
+      &ldquo;Lift up your Heads,&rdquo; or the &ldquo;Hallelujah&rdquo;&mdash;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&mdash;the Mastership of the King's Band: &ldquo;Your father
+      ought to have had the post, and not that little poor musician Parsons, who
+      was not fit for it,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;I will do it
+      myself!&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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&mdash;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. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; Miss Burney writes. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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
+      &ldquo;transparency&rdquo; had been painted by the Queen's order, representing the
+      King, Providence, Health, and Britannia&mdash;a truly British tableau&mdash;and
+      when this was hung out and illuminated the little Princess &ldquo;went to lead
+      her papa to the front window.&rdquo; Then she dropped on her knees and gave him
+      the &ldquo;copy of verses,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;dear papa&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;command&rdquo; party at his house in St. Martin's Street, Leicester
+      Fields&mdash;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&mdash;who,
+      by the way, was Fanny Burney's godmother&mdash;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 &ldquo;principals&rdquo; in the comedy of this entertainment; and
+      for the subordinates he selected his married daughter and her husband&mdash;both
+      admirable musicians&mdash;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 &ldquo;Alfred&rdquo;
+       the rousing anthem known as &ldquo;Rule Britannia,&rdquo; for the cancelling of
+      Burney's indentures as an apprentice to the &ldquo;art of musick,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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, &ldquo;What is that, sir&mdash;pray,
+      what is that? Is it a hiss?&rdquo; To which Colman replied, &ldquo;Psha! sir, what
+      signifies a squib when we have been sitting on a barrel of gunpowder all
+      night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These were among the notabilities; and the &ldquo;curiosities&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;gentle savage&rdquo; 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&mdash;a marvellous performer, who got fifty pounds for every
+      song she sang at the Pantheon&mdash;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&mdash;who undoubtedly became
+      attached to Fanny Burney&mdash;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 &ldquo;command&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;half joke whole
+      earnest&rdquo; way:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because, madam, you have no ear yourself for music, will you destroy the
+      attention of all who, in that one point, are otherwise gifted?&rdquo;
+     </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, &ldquo;the irony of fate,&rdquo;
+       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&mdash;whom she nicknamed &ldquo;Mr. Gruel&rdquo;&mdash;assumed
+      &ldquo;his most supercilious air of distant superiority&rdquo; and &ldquo;planted himself
+      immovable as a noble statue upon the hearth, as if a stranger to the whole
+      set.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;were so kind
+      and considerate as to divert themselves by making a fire-screen to the
+      whole room.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;if he was not ashamed he would keep the fire from the
+      ladies too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This reproof (for a reproof it certainly was, although given in a very
+      comical, dry way) was productive,&rdquo; Charlotte adds, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A more perfect description of the &ldquo;curtain&rdquo; to the first act of this, &ldquo;as
+      good as a comedy,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;whom? Dr. Johnson, the man who has studied
+      boorishness and advanced it to a place among the arts&mdash;the man who
+      calls those who differ from him dolts and fools and rascals&mdash;the man
+      whose manners at the dinner table are those of the sty and trough&mdash;the
+      man who walks about the streets ungartered and unclean&mdash;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 &ldquo;sopha,&rdquo;
+       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&mdash;which it is
+      scarcely necessary to say was Johnson's view&mdash;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. &ldquo;Oh,
+      no,&rdquo; said Goldsmith, &ldquo;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&rdquo;&mdash;a cur,
+      and an ape and a spy and a Branghton&mdash;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&mdash;at the sacrifice of Johnson's reputation for
+      humanity&mdash;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 &ldquo;honest Dr.
+      Goldsmith&rdquo; 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.
+      &ldquo;When I recapitulate the debate,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; This was published after the second marriage. What would be
+      thought of a modern biographer who should borrow a little of Boswell's
+      &ldquo;delicacy,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;an inoffensive
+      Quaker&mdash;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, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;Madam,&mdash;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!&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;The birth of my second husband is not meaner than that of my first,&rdquo; she
+      wrote; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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&mdash;he would not relinquish his room
+      in her house and his place at her table without a struggle&mdash;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&mdash;a fact that revealed itself
+      almost daily in his life&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;not necessarily refinements&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;the Borough.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;Perkins has behaved like an Emperor,&rdquo; she wrote, &ldquo;and it is my earnest
+      wish and desire&mdash;command, if you please to call it so&mdash;that you
+      will go over to the brew-house and express <i>your</i> sense of his good
+      behaviour.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;though this was double the amount authorised by
+      the &ldquo;master.&rdquo; 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&mdash;even to improve upon the auctioneer's style in appraising
+      the value of the whole concern. &ldquo;Beyond the dreams of avarice&rdquo; 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&mdash;her
+      thirteenth&mdash;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. &ldquo;The men were reconciled,&rdquo; she wrote, &ldquo;and my
+      danger accelerated their reconcilement.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;the parent of a peeress in her
+      own right, and an uncommonly shrewd Irishwoman into the bargain&mdash;&ldquo;smoaked,&rdquo;
+       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&mdash;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&mdash;&ldquo;gored,&rdquo; 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>, &ldquo;sufficient for twelve,&rdquo; as the
+      cookery book says:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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&mdash;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 &ldquo;skate, pudding, goose, and
+      green asparagus, and could have eaten more but was prudent.&rdquo; He adds,
+      &ldquo;Pray for me, dear Madam,&rdquo;&mdash;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,
+      &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Quite so; beyond a doubt Johnson spoke from the bottom of his heart&mdash;nay,
+      from a deeper depth still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Boswell was amazed to find that Garrick's &ldquo;sensibility&rdquo; as a writer was
+      irritated when he related the story to him, and in Mrs. Thrale's copy of
+      Johnson she made a note&mdash;&ldquo;How odd to go and tell the man!&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;Johnson
+      of the swollen forehead and the tokens of his submission to the primeval
+      curse in the eating of his bread&mdash;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 &ldquo;blooded.&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;Sir, after the denunciation of your physicians this morning, such
+      eating is little better than suicide.&rdquo; 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&mdash;once again at the sacrifice of her infant&mdash;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&mdash;more of the irony of Fate&mdash;in 1787, affirmed
+      that the great Lichfield man &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Mitre,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;He has killed the man&mdash;stabbed him with a dagger to the very heart!&rdquo;
+       was the cry that came from those of the crowd who were kneeling beside the
+      wretch in the gutter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a woman&mdash;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A sufficiency of advice was given by the excited onlookers to the men who
+      had encircled Baretti&mdash;one of them was clinging to him with his arms
+      clasped around his body&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;'Tis more than a street brawl&mdash;a man has been slain&mdash;some say a
+      woman also,&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;A swinging matter this,&rdquo; one of them remarked. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Friends, I was attacked by three bullies, and I defended myself&mdash;that
+      is all,&rdquo; said Baretti. He spoke English perfectly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will need to tell that to Sir John in the morning,&rdquo; said one of the
+      watchmen. &ldquo;You are apprehended in the King's name. Where is the poor
+      victim?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There must be some of the crowd who saw how I was attacked,&rdquo; said
+      Baretti. &ldquo;They will testify that I acted in self-defence. Sirs, hear me
+      make an appeal to you. Out of your sense of justice&mdash;you will not see
+      an innocent man apprehended.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The knife&mdash;who carries a bare knife in the streets unless with
+      intent?&rdquo; said a man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Twas my fruit-knife. I never go abroad without it. I eat my fruit like a
+      Christian, not like a pig or an Englishman,&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;Hear him! A pig of an Englishman. Those were his words! A foreign hound.
+      Frenchie, I'll be bound.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A spy&mdash;most like a Papist. He has the hanging brow of a born
+      Papist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He'll hang like a dog at Tyburn&mdash;he may be sure o' that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;patron's weakness or
+      insensibility will finally do you little hurt, if he is not assisted by
+      your own passions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of your love,&rdquo; continued Johnson, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; He
+      then hastens to add that &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The pleasant little cynical bark in the phrase &ldquo;those that are to suffer
+      the evils together,&rdquo; as if it referred to love and marriage, is, Malone
+      thinks, not Johnson's, but Baretti's. It is suggested that Johnson really
+      wrote &ldquo;those that are to suffer the evils <i>of life</i> together,&rdquo; and
+      that Baretti in transcribing the letter for Boswell, purposely omitted the
+      words &ldquo;<i>of life</i>.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;love and
+      marriage,&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;when you are hanged, sir.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;You rascal!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;If I were not in my own room, I would
+      kick you downstairs directly.&rdquo;
+     </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
+      &ldquo;shut up&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;Is he like Burke who winds into a
+      subject like a serpent?&rdquo; asked Goldsmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&rdquo; (said I) &ldquo;Dr. Johnson is the Hercules that strangled serpents in his
+      cradle.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;Bab Ballads&rdquo; to say
+      if he wrote &ldquo;the lovely cracker mottoes my Elvira pulls at supper.&rdquo; It
+      will be remembered that the poet whose name rhymes with &ldquo;supper&rdquo; replied:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="indent10">
+      &ldquo;'A fool is bent upon a twig, but wise men dread a bandit,'
+    </p>
+    <p class="indent10">
+      Which&rdquo; (the earnest inquirer said) &ldquo;I felt was very wise,
+    </p>
+    <p class="indent20">
+      but I didn't understand it.&rdquo;
+     </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. &ldquo;Burke and I,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;should have been of one
+      opinion if we had had no audience.&rdquo; Such a confession! There was the life
+      of his friend Baretti trembling in the balance, and yet Johnson, solely
+      for the sake of &ldquo;showing off,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;consultations&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;What need a man fear who holds two
+      such hands?&rdquo; 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&mdash;himself an aspirant to the profession of law
+      in which he subsequently displayed a conspicuous lack of distinction&mdash;had
+      anything to do with the instruction either of solicitors or barristers on
+      his behalf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At any rate, the &ldquo;consultations&rdquo; 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&mdash;if we are to believe one of the wittiest of his associates&mdash;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 &ldquo;this sad affair of Baretti,&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;Ay, sir, here you have a specimen of human sympathy,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;As for his not sleeping,&rdquo; said Dr. Johnson, &ldquo;sir, Tom Davies is a very
+      great man&mdash;Tom has been on the stage, and knows how to do those
+      things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Boswell: &ldquo;I have often blamed myself, sir, for not feeling for others as
+      sensibly as many say they do.&rdquo; Johnson: &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;the rugged Russian bear,&rdquo; but also of &ldquo;the armed
+      rhinoceros and the Hyrcan tiger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, it is not a talent: it is a vice; it is what others abstain from,&rdquo;
+       he growled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did not he think of exhibiting you, sir?&rdquo; inquired the tactful Mr.
+      Boswell, though he knew all about Foote and Johnson long before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, fear restrained him,&rdquo; said Johnson. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;Pray, sir, is not Foote an infidel?&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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.&mdash;&ldquo;Why, there's Baretti, who is to
+      be tried for his life to-morrow,&rdquo; he added; &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;It took place,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;at the
+      awful Sessions House, emphatically called Justice Hall,&rdquo; and he affirms
+      that &ldquo;never did such a constellation of genius enlighten the Old Bailey.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;say
+      Mr. Augustine Birrell&mdash;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&mdash;not even a
+      Conservative Attorney-General&mdash;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 &ldquo;awful Sessions House&rdquo;
+       by such &ldquo;a constellation of genius&rdquo; as had never before assembled in that
+      &ldquo;Hall of Justice&rdquo;?
+    </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&mdash;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 &ldquo;emphatically called Justice Hall&rdquo; 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&mdash;or, for that matter, a sense of the
+      ridiculous. He was the Needy Knife Grinder&mdash;with an occasional axe of
+      his own&mdash;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&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;I have known Mr. Baretti a long time. He is a man of literature&mdash;a
+      very studious man&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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 &ldquo;awful Sessions House.&rdquo; 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&mdash;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 &ldquo;leave it to your honour&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Assuredly Mrs. Thrale &ldquo;let him down&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;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&mdash;his wife. She gulped the pill very prettily. So much
+      for Baretti!&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;I ran a race in the rain this
+      day, and beat Baretti. Baretti is a fine fellow.&rdquo; This is Johnson on
+      Baretti. Here is Baretti on Johnson; on a copy of the <i>Piozzi Letters</i>
+      he wrote: &ldquo;Johnson was often fond of saying silly things in strong terms,
+      and the silly madam&rdquo;&mdash;meaning Mrs. Thrale&mdash;&ldquo;never failed to echo
+      that beastly kind of wit.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;we have Baretti's own confession for it&mdash;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 &ldquo;his honour's honour&rdquo;
+       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>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;awful
+      Sessions House&rdquo; 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&mdash;and he was.
+      Without waiting to catch her eye, he raised his glass and, bowing in her
+      direction, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Lady Duchess, I have the honour to drink Your Grace's good health.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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&mdash;sometimes with glee and occasionally
+      with pride&mdash;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&mdash;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: &ldquo;Mr. Boswell, won't you have some tea?&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;The Duke,&rdquo; he records, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he continues, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;not the one who was now so obliging&mdash;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: &ldquo;And
+      Mr. Boswell, the son of auld Auchinleck, was there too.&rdquo;
+     </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. &ldquo;I was in fine spirits,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; Later on he drank Her Grace's health, although, he adds, &ldquo;I
+      knew it was the rule of modern high life not to drink to anybody.&rdquo; Thus he
+      achieved the snub he sought; but he acknowledges that he thought the
+      Duchess rather too severe when she said: &ldquo;I know nothing of Mr. Boswell.&rdquo;
+       On reflection, however, he received &ldquo;that kind of consolation which a man
+      would feel who is strangled by a silken cord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It seems strange that no great painter has been inspired by the theme and
+      the scene. The days of &ldquo;subject pictures&rdquo; are, we are frequently told,
+      gone by. This may be so, generally speaking, but every one knows that a
+      &ldquo;subject picture,&rdquo; if its &ldquo;subject&rdquo; 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&mdash;practical art&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;only
+      uncomfortable&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;from which Mr. Boswell has just
+      replenished his glass! Why, the figure of Dr. Johnson alone should make
+      the picture a success&mdash;i.e. susceptible of being reproduced as an
+      effective poster in four printings. &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said Dr. Johnson, &ldquo;claret for
+      boys, port for men, but brandy for heroes.&rdquo; Yes, but whose brandy? There
+      is a hint for a great modern art patron&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;romantic.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;scarce gentlewomen.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;inferior tap&rdquo; 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&mdash;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 &ldquo;tidy estate,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;settlement&rdquo; 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&mdash;as one did in
+      the very county of Roscommon the other day&mdash;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&mdash;and it usually was&mdash;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
+      &ldquo;settlements&rdquo; 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&mdash;such as remained on their estates&mdash;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 &ldquo;gentry&rdquo; 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&mdash;the eldest was eight years and the
+      youngest three months&mdash;and here he tried to support them off the
+      &ldquo;estate.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;heavy father&rdquo; 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&mdash;a sorry household it must have been at Castle Coote&mdash;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&mdash;with the &ldquo;lashings and leavings&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;settlements&rdquo; 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
+      &ldquo;English accent&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;brogue&rdquo; being
+      far less corrupt than the &ldquo;burr.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;billet&rdquo;&mdash;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 &ldquo;lessons&rdquo; than the average young woman of their own day who had been
+      &ldquo;neglected.&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;the exaggerated expressions of
+      appreciation uttered by a fervent peasantry&mdash;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&mdash;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
+      &ldquo;The Castle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When the eldest of her three daughters was scarcely nineteen the
+      aggregation of savings and credit&mdash;the latter predominant&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;it will be remembered that
+      she was one of that delightful little supper party at Ranelagh which he
+      describes&mdash;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&mdash;assuming that social advancement
+      is an act of friendship&mdash;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, &ldquo;upon the Irish Establishment.&rdquo; The
+      &ldquo;Irish Establishment&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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&mdash;even by Walpole&mdash;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&mdash;the most notorious&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;except in a
+      distant way&mdash;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. &ldquo;'Tis a warm day,&rdquo; wrote
+      George Selwyn to Lord Carlisle, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The famous beauties are more talked of than the change in the Ministry,&rdquo;
+       wrote Walpole. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This mobbing must have caused the girls much delightful inconvenience, and
+      one can see their mother acting the part&mdash;and overdoing it, after the
+      manner of her kind&mdash;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&mdash;that would have been his word&mdash;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. &ldquo;Oh, I should dearly like to see a coronation!&rdquo; 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&mdash;his
+      titles were Hamilton and Brandon&mdash;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. &ldquo;When her mother and sister
+      were at Bedford House,&rdquo; he wrote to Mann, &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;impossibility&mdash;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 &ldquo;summer setting in with its
+      customary severity,&rdquo; 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&mdash;the
+      dream of every budding dramatist. There is every likelihood that it was
+      this highly accomplished and successful &ldquo;gentleman-adventurer&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;mainly of the
+      opposite sex&mdash;were greatly interested. Of this fact he seems to have
+      been fully aware. A good many people&mdash;mainly of the opposite sex&mdash;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 &ldquo;<i>Nunc dimittis</i>&rdquo; 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&mdash;but
+      not too notable&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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. &ldquo;Lady Betty might have taken the name of Stanley
+      long ago if she had chose it,&rdquo; she wrote, adding: &ldquo;A very sincere
+      attachment on his side has at last produced the same on hers.&rdquo; 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&mdash;no
+      particular extravagance one would fancy&mdash;and that the hay-cocks would
+      be of straw-coloured riband. George Selwyn thought it far from diverting.
+      The Dowager Lady Gower affirmed that &ldquo;all the world was there,&rdquo; only she
+      makes an exception of her relations the Bedfords&mdash;she called them
+      &ldquo;the Bloomsbury lot&rdquo;&mdash;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 &ldquo;Death of Wolfe&rdquo; 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&mdash;when improved
+      by Messrs. Adam&mdash;to the show. The &ldquo;transparencies&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;gules.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This design occupied the place of the &ldquo;set piece&rdquo; which winds up a modern
+      display of fireworks and sets the band playing &ldquo;God save the King.&rdquo; 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&mdash;the second of the day&mdash;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&mdash;the
+      explosion, it was said, affected the nerves of nearly all the guests&mdash;and
+      the illumination of the &ldquo;transparency&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;set&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;her husband succeeded to the title
+      two years after his marriage&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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
+      &ldquo;principal.&rdquo; 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&mdash;up to
+      that time the two qualities had seldom been found associated&mdash;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: &ldquo;In distinction of manner and refinement
+      she excelled Mrs. Abington, who could never go beyond Lady Teazle, which
+      is a second-rate character.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;the real thing&rdquo; and of profiting by her study.
+      She found herself on the most intimate footing with duchesses&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;Walpole was about the worst&mdash;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&mdash;not
+      even that of his wife&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;The Derby&rdquo; 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&mdash;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 &ldquo;plot&rdquo; 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
+      &ldquo;glorious child&rdquo;&mdash;this was how she described her daughter&mdash;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 &ldquo;glorious child,&rdquo; 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&mdash;strictly
+      <i>sub rosa</i> also. Now the aggregation of many confidential reports of
+      this sort is what is termed &ldquo;news,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;The two beautiful sisters were
+      exalted almost as high as they could go,&rdquo; he wrote. &ldquo;Countessed and double
+      duchessed, and now the family have dragged themselves down into the very
+      dirt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;family&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;dragging
+      themselves into the very dirt.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;dragging in the dirt&rdquo; 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&mdash;after the interval of a chapter or two&mdash;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 &ldquo;case,&rdquo; 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&mdash;he
+      had recently been made a general&mdash;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&mdash;that is to say, to Mrs. Gunning&mdash;for confirmation
+      or denial of the report, learned that the marriage had indeed been
+      &ldquo;arranged,&rdquo; 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&mdash;imperfectly, it would appear, or he would have suspected
+      something long before. Retaining the precious &ldquo;pacquet&rdquo; 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
+      &ldquo;pacquet&rdquo; 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&mdash;they
+      were the ordinary ones, courteous, but in no way effusive&mdash;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&mdash;the whole piece of scheming&mdash;was the design of his
+      wife&mdash;that it represented an attempt on her part to force one of her
+      &ldquo;plots&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;Those are my
+      letters, and they express nothing but the most honourable sentiments of my
+      heart.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;this &ldquo;pacquet&rdquo; of letters
+      played as important a part in the story of Miss Gunning as the &ldquo;Casquet
+      Letters&rdquo; did in the history of Queen Mary&mdash;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&mdash;Horace Walpole, who gloats over the whole
+      story in a letter to one of the Berrys, does not say by whom&mdash;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&mdash;after
+      a consultation with her mother, we may be sure&mdash;a &ldquo;narrative&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;St. James's Place,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>3 rd February</i>, 1791.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Lord,&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;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>
+      &ldquo;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>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;I have the honour to be,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With the greatest respect, my Lord,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Grace's most humble and
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most obedient servant,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;John Gunning.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;Blenheim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&mdash;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&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;I have the honour to remain,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your much obliged and
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most obedient, humble servant,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Marlborough.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;Walpole in the letter to
+      Miss Berry affirms that he was this one&mdash;ventured to point out that
+      in the Duke's letter the name <i>Blandford</i> was spelt without the
+      middle letter <i>d</i>. &ldquo;That was possible in the hurry of doing justice,&rdquo;
+       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&mdash;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 &ldquo;plot&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;<i>copy</i>&rdquo;
+       at the top and &ldquo;<i>signed M</i>.&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;Neither papa or I have courage to
+      tell mama, for she detests the person dearest to me on earth.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;plot&rdquo;
+       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&mdash;and worse&mdash;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 &ldquo;glorious child,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;glorious child.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;pacquet&rdquo; for the Duke of Marlborough, Miss Gunning had caught him and
+      compelled him to hand over the &ldquo;pacquet&rdquo; 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&mdash;according to Walpole&mdash;of
+      swearing before a London magistrate that she was innocent. &ldquo;It is but a
+      burlesque part of this wonderful tale,&rdquo; adds Walpole, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; But
+      &ldquo;crazy old Bedford&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;The town is very dull without them,&rdquo; wrote Walpole to one of the Berrys,
+      enclosing a copy of a really clever skit in verse, after the style of &ldquo;The
+      House that Jack Built,&rdquo; 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&mdash;that is an expression which comedy may
+      wear without arousing the curiosity&mdash;certainly without exciting the
+      laughter&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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
+      &ldquo;that more attention had been paid to them than to him.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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 &ldquo;of seeing me, madam, me&mdash;<i>me!</i>&rdquo; 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&mdash;hands uplifted
+      in amazement and faces &ldquo;o'er-running with laughter&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;honest Dr. Goldsmith&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;Pshaw! I could do it as well myself!&rdquo;
+       Supposing that some one had said to Boswell, &ldquo;After all, sir, perhaps Dr.
+      Goldsmith could have done it as well himself,&rdquo; 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&mdash;unless by Boswell
+      or Beattie&mdash;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. &ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; said this egregious person at a public
+      dinner, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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
+      &ldquo;the Club&rdquo; was started not one of the original members questioned his
+      right to a place among the most fastidious of the community, although
+      Garrick&mdash;to the shame of Johnson be it spoken&mdash;was not admitted
+      for nine years. Boswell&mdash;to the shame of Johnson be it spoken&mdash;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&mdash;he may even have taken the extreme step of fastening up his
+      garters&mdash;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&mdash;sometimes
+      unconsciously&mdash;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&mdash;their very graves are neglected. But <i>She Stoops to
+      Conquer</i> is never revived without success&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;bull.&rdquo; This is the delivery of a paradox so obvious as to be
+      detected&mdash;after a brief consideration&mdash;by an Englishman or even&mdash;after
+      an additional space for thought&mdash;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&mdash;indeed,
+      every form of humour may be said to be due to a peculiar twist of the mind&mdash;but
+      it is as much a figure of speech as irony or satire. &ldquo;Blarney&rdquo; and
+      &ldquo;palaver&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;blarney&rdquo; and &ldquo;palaver&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;of this man &ldquo;who wrote like an angel and talked like poor
+      poll.&rdquo;
+     </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, &ldquo;I could do it as well
+      myself,&rdquo; 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&mdash;that all oratory, as a matter of fact, was only a knack&mdash;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&mdash;Boswell best of all&mdash;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 &ldquo;chaff&rdquo; 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&mdash;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: &ldquo;Oh,
+      but isn't this a great day for Ireland!&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;honest
+      Dr. Goldsmith&rdquo; converse. &ldquo;Puppy!&rdquo; 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>&mdash;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.
+      &ldquo;Here is a man,&rdquo; we must say, &ldquo;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>
+      &ldquo;'<i>Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis</i>.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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>
+      &ldquo;'<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>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; we
+      should ask the authority to whom we are supposed to be stating a case&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;Noll&rdquo; rhyme with &ldquo;Poll,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Goldy,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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 &ldquo;The Gentleman,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;The Gentleman&rdquo; of his circle. In his room in the
+      farmhouse there was his bed and table&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;after a
+      few muttered words and a laugh&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;Natural History.&rdquo; 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&mdash;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. &ldquo;The Gentleman&rdquo; 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>&mdash;and
+      he undoubtedly felt some&mdash;had been amply redeemed by the money which
+      accrued to him from the &ldquo;author's rights&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;Ay, sir, this matter may be nothing to
+      you who can now shelter yourself behind the corner of your pension,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;very Irish.&rdquo; 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&mdash;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 &ldquo;animated nature&rdquo; of <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i>. It
+      contains the two chief essentials to a true comedy&mdash;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&mdash;Garrick, Johnson, Reynolds,
+      or Colman&mdash;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. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; he cried to Johnson,
+      &ldquo;Goldsmith has acquired more fame than all the officers last war who were
+      not generals!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, sir,&rdquo; said Johnson, &ldquo;you will find ten thousand fit to do what they
+      did before you find one who does what Goldsmith has done&rdquo;&mdash;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.
+      &ldquo;Eh bien, mon sire. Let your marshals sing to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At any rate, Colman got the play&mdash;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&mdash;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. &ldquo;I shook my head,&rdquo; wrote Cooke, &ldquo;and said
+      that I was afraid the audience, under their then sentimental impressions,
+      would think it too broad and farcical for comedy.&rdquo; This was poor comfort
+      for the author; but after a pause he shook the man by the hand, saying
+      piteously: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;Dear Sir,&rdquo; wrote the author in January, 1773, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;a
+      question which is not yet ripe for discussion&mdash;it has never been in
+      the direction of depreciating a play which they are about to produce&mdash;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 &ldquo;country gentleman,&rdquo; Mr. Cradock, referred to
+      by Walpole. Miss Horneck, his beautiful &ldquo;Jessamy Bride,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;We are all in labour for a name to Goldy's play,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;I would not for ten pounds have seemed so retrograde to any
+      general observance,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;draw him on&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;looking
+      glum,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;wings&rdquo; than he heard a
+      hiss. &ldquo;What's that, sir?&rdquo; he whispered to Colman, who was beside him.
+      &ldquo;Psha, sir! what signifies a squib when we have been sitting on a barrel
+      of gunpowder all night?&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Turn
+      him out!&rdquo; 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&mdash;that he had by one more achievement proved to his
+      own satisfaction&mdash;and he was hard to satisfy&mdash;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
+      &ldquo;succeeded prodigiously,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;puff&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;squibs&rdquo;&mdash;some
+      of them partook largely of the character of his own barrel of gunpowder&mdash;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: &ldquo;Colman is so distressed with abuse
+      that he has solicited Goldsmith to take him off the rack of the
+      newspapers.&rdquo;
+     </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, &ldquo;The play has met with a success
+      beyond your expectation or mine,&rdquo; he makes his explanation, and concludes
+      thus: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;strangers to me&mdash;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 &ldquo;The Jessamy Bride&rdquo; and
+      &ldquo;Little Comedy&rdquo; intelligible to the &ldquo;Devonshire Crew&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;If Dr. Brewer does not know why Mary Horneck was called
+      'The Jessamy Bride,' no one alive can know it,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Jessamy Bride&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Jessamy
+      Bride,&rdquo; and that her elder sister was &ldquo;Little Comedy&rdquo;; 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 &ldquo;Jessamy Bride&rdquo; 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
+      &ldquo;Jerningham Letters.&rdquo; Lady Bedingfeld's Journal contains the following
+      entry opposite the date &ldquo;September 19th, 1833&rdquo;:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;very like&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Jessamy Bride&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;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>
+      &ldquo;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>.&rdquo; The Princess Elizabeth&mdash;the
+      shy young bride who was so overcome with emotion&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;... 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&mdash;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&mdash;she was so bled and starved she had no
+      strength left&mdash;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&mdash;It comes to what <i>I</i> always say
+      of them&mdash;they can't do much and are very often wrong in their
+      opinions as you can vouch....&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;Mum's the word, sir, and mum it shall be,&rdquo; whispered the man. &ldquo;I stowed
+      away the trunk, leaving plenty of room for the genuine luggage&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And there you'll find the chaise, sir, and as good a pair as ever left my
+      stable, and good luck to you, sir!&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;Good news, I hope, Dick?&rdquo; she whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been waiting for you all the evening. She has not changed her
+      mind, I hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is as steadfast as I am,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;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&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't think of him except as applauding your action,&rdquo; said the girl.
+      &ldquo;Surely every one with the least spark of generosity will applaud your
+      action, Dick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wouldn't like to say so much,&rdquo; said Dick, shaking his head. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who will dare to take the part of Mr. Mathews against you, Dick?&rdquo; cried
+      his sister, looking at him proudly as the parlour candles shone upon him.
+      &ldquo;I would that I could go with you as far as London, dear, but that would
+      be impossible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite impossible; and where would be the merit in the end?&rdquo; said Dick,
+      pacing the room as he believed a man of adventure and enterprise would in
+      the circumstances. &ldquo;You may trust to me to place her in safety without the
+      help of any one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it, Dick, I know it, dear, and I am proud of you,&rdquo; said she,
+      putting her arms about his neck and kissing him. &ldquo;And look you here,
+      Dick,&rdquo; she added, in a more practical tone. &ldquo;Look you here&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took the coins which she offered to him wrapped up in a twist of
+      newspaper; but he showed some hesitation&mdash;she had to go through a
+      form of forcing it upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope to bring it back to you unbroken,&rdquo; he murmured; &ldquo;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,&mdash;a loan&mdash;a
+      sacred loan. Good-bye, I returned only to say good-bye to you, my dearest
+      sister.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew your good heart, Dick, that was why I was waiting for you.
+      Good-bye, Dick, and God bless you.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;every one in Bath knew her, and this being so, was it not
+      likely that some one&mdash;some prying person&mdash;some impudent fellow
+      like that Mathews who had been making love to her, although he had a wife
+      of his own in Wales&mdash;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&mdash;&mdash;
+    </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&mdash;very
+      properly, considering his large family&mdash;fond of money. Before he had
+      to provide for his family, he took good care that his family&mdash;his
+      eldest daughter particularly&mdash;helped to provide for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Doubtless these eventualities were suggested to him&mdash;for young Mr.
+      Sheridan was not without imagination&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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: &ldquo;She is a
+      link between an angel and a woman.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;let any one look at the face which is
+      to be seen in her portrait, and one will understand how this could be&mdash;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&mdash;the spirit with which her soul communed in secret&mdash;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&mdash;a
+      wretched thing even for Foote&mdash;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&mdash;sometimes
+      referred to as Captain, occasionally as Major&mdash;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 &ldquo;at
+      length induced to consult Richard Sheridan, whose intimacy with Major
+      Mathews, at the time, she thought might warrant his interference.&rdquo; And
+      then we are told that &ldquo;R. B. Sheridan sounded Mathews on the subject and
+      at length prevailed on him to give up the pursuit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That is how the adoring sister of &ldquo;R. B. Sheridan,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;sounded Mathews
+      on the subject.&rdquo; On what subject? The subject was the pursuit of an
+      innocent girl by a contemptible scoundrel. How does the knight-errant
+      &ldquo;sound&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo; Now young Sheridan, who is reported by his sister
+      as &ldquo;sounding&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;sound&rdquo; 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&mdash;and the notebook&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;Pray, sir, what did you say to Mathews when you sounded him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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, &ldquo;the son of a respectable
+      brandy merchant in the City,&rdquo; suggested that they should sail from London
+      to Dunkirk, &ldquo;in order to make pursuit more difficult.&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;After quitting Dunkirk Mr. Sheridan was more explicit with
+      Miss Linley as to his views on accompanying her to France.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;&ldquo;she must be
+      aware that after the step she had taken, she could not appear in England
+      but as his wife.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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
+      &ldquo;such occasions&rdquo; 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&mdash;now
+      Mrs. Sheridan, of course&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;Monsieur Sherridan, Gentilhomme Anglois, à l'Hôtel de
+      Bourbon, Sur la Grande Place.&rdquo; It recommends the administering of certain
+      powders in a glass of white wine twice daily, and sends &ldquo;compliments and
+      wishes of health to your lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The question then remains: Was the lady at this time an inmate of the
+      convent, and did the doctor expect &ldquo;Monsieur Sherridan&rdquo; 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&mdash;he
+      continued to call her Miss Linley&mdash;was now &ldquo;fixing in a convent,
+      where she has been entered some time.&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So far, then, as his emprise in regard to the lady was concerned, he
+      considered the incident to be closed. &ldquo;Though you may have been ignorant
+      for some time of our proceedings, you could never have been uneasy,&rdquo; he
+      continues hopefully, &ldquo;lest anything should tempt me to depart, even in a
+      thought, from the honour and consistency which engaged me at first.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;acted the part of a gentleman&rdquo; 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&mdash;he had no trouble in learning
+      in what direction to look for her&mdash;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&mdash;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,
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The comedy of the elopement had become a farce of the &ldquo;whimsical&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;after some private conversation&rdquo; with his daughter's husband,
+      who does not tell him that he is her husband, says to the young woman, &ldquo;My
+      dear, you must come home with me to sing at a concert.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, papa,&rdquo; replies the girl. &ldquo;Wait a minute, and I'll go too,&rdquo;
+       cries the unconfused husband of the daughter. &ldquo;All right, come along,&rdquo;
+       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&mdash;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 &ldquo;so hard to narrate familiar events eloquently,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;familiar events&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;even in thought from the honour and consistency which engaged
+      [him] at first.&rdquo; It must be remembered that he was a romantic boy of
+      twenty, and this is just the age at which nearly every boy&mdash;especially
+      a boy in love&mdash;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 &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;such devotion as might be expected from such a
+      nature as hers&mdash;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, &ldquo;Pray remember that you are
+      not free to think of marrying any one. We are husband and wife, although
+      we were married in secret.&rdquo; 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&mdash;and perhaps a little more
+      than&mdash;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. &ldquo;The sight of the
+      pistols would have alarmed Sheridan's sisters,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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&mdash;no unusual <i>rôle</i> for him&mdash;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&mdash;he
+      knew that Sheridan meant to go to Lille, for he wrote to him there&mdash;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&mdash;one who always kept an eye on the jumping
+      cat&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Richard S&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash; 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&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;, and a treacherous S&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;malevolent incendiarism&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;malevolent incendiary,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;a L&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;
+      and a S&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;Mr.
+      Thomas Sheridan was never far removed from a crisis&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;they
+      had been missing on the Sunday morning&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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
+      &ldquo;several abusive threats&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;Mr. S.,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;the
+      set-to of the principals immediately after the &ldquo;declarations&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;knockabout&rdquo; 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
+      &ldquo;parck&rdquo;? 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&mdash;when
+      paid for it&mdash;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&mdash;according
+      to Richard's narrative Charles had good grounds for sending a challenge to
+      Mathews on his own account&mdash;but &ldquo;after two hours' altercation&rdquo; 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&mdash;that is, from the moment he assumed the
+      duties of the protector of Miss Linley&mdash;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 &ldquo;malevolent incendiarism&rdquo; 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&mdash;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
+      &ldquo;incendiarism&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;All your friends have condemned
+      you,&rdquo; he wrote. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;either description
+      applies to Barnett&mdash;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&mdash;point
+      it had none&mdash;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&mdash;and her
+      father&mdash;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, &ldquo;<i>Love in a Village</i>&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;very
+      closely indeed&mdash;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&mdash;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, &ldquo;I trust that I am not to consider this as an evil omen!&rdquo;
+       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&mdash;certainly he spoke no word to Miss Reay or any one else&mdash;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, &ldquo;Kill me! Kill me!&rdquo;
+     </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. &ldquo;He stood as it were
+      petrified,&rdquo; we are told, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;he did not say
+      anything about &ldquo;a wave of insanity,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;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&mdash;a total loss of reason and incapability of reason.&rdquo;
+       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&mdash;he
+      himself had been too greatly agitated to be able to remain in the court&mdash;for
+      information as to how Hackman had deported himself, and Boswell was able
+      to assure him that he had behaved &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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
+      &ldquo;whether our clergy are growing Mahometans or not&rdquo;; adding sagely, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;sensibility&rdquo;
+       was passing over England at that time. It was a wave of sentimentality&mdash;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&mdash;robust
+      even to a point of vulgarity&mdash;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 &ldquo;movements&rdquo; have had their origin in the fancy of a painter&mdash;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&mdash;they chose to feel that they were doomed to a
+      life of sorrowful love&mdash;at any rate, this was Martha's notion&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;and death.
+      Cradock, the &ldquo;country gentleman,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;correspondence cards&rdquo; 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&mdash;securing
+      a frank from a friendly Member of Parliament&mdash;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 &ldquo;went on cutting bread and butter&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Corporal Trim,&rdquo; who was the bearer of a &ldquo;billet&rdquo; from her.
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo; Then he goes
+      on to talk in a fine soldierly strain of the drum &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;a respectable woman&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Auld Robin Gray&rdquo;&mdash;she quoted it in full
+      in one of her letters&mdash;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 &ldquo;benefactor.&rdquo; Did she not owe to him
+      the blessing of a good education, and the culture of her voice, her
+      knowledge of painting&mdash;nay, her &ldquo;keep&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Auld Robin Gray,&rdquo;
+       and she at once accepted the rôle of the unhappy wife, only she found it
+      convenient to modify one rather important line&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fain would think o' Jamie, but that would be a sin.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;benefactor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our love, the inexorable tyrant of our hearts,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;wild as the torrent's roar,&rdquo; apologising for making his
+      simile water when the element most congenial to his nature was fire.
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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. &ldquo;<i>He should have put himself
+      to death in his wife's sight</i>.&rdquo; 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? &ldquo;A beam or two finds its
+      way through the grates (of the vault), and reflects a feeble glimness from
+      the nails of the coffins.&rdquo; This is one passage&mdash;ghastly enough in all
+      conscience. But it is surpassed by the others which he quotes: &ldquo;Should the
+      haggard skeleton lift a clattering hand.&rdquo; Respecting the latter he
+      remarks, &ldquo;I know not whether the epithet 'haggard' might not be spared.&rdquo;
+       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 &ldquo;Faldoni and Teresa,&rdquo; by Jerningham, and he criticises
+      it quite admirably. &ldquo;The melancholy tale will not take up three words,
+      though Mr. J. has bestowed upon it 335 melancholy lines,&rdquo; he tells the
+      young lady. &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;while I talk of taking off the dangerous edge of their
+      example, they have almost listed me under their bloody banners.&rdquo;
+     </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 &ldquo;benefactor&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;Fate stands between us,&rdquo; she wrote in reply to one of his
+      impetuous upbraiding letters. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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
+      &ldquo;insuperable reason&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;If you do not,&rdquo; he adds, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But it would appear that she knew the man's nature better than he himself
+      did, for she quickly replied: &ldquo;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!&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;She,
+      too, was <i>Jenny</i> and had her <i>Robin Gray</i>.&rdquo; 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.&mdash;meaning Selwyn&mdash;he
+      does not make a profession of attending executions; adding that &ldquo;the
+      friend and historian of Paoli hired a window by the year, looking out on
+      the Grass Market in Edinburgh, where malefactors were hanged.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;subject&rdquo; being murder and suicide. His last lurid story
+      was of a footman who, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh love, love, canst thou not be content to make fools of thy slaves,&rdquo; he
+      wrote, &ldquo;to make them miserable, to make them what thou pleasest? Must thou
+      also goad them on to crimes?&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;with a
+      preponderance of farce&mdash;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&mdash;the real gentleman who might
+      undertake it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That was the very plausible reasoning of the &ldquo;real gentleman&rdquo; 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&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;
+      in the character, Lady Susan threw up her hands, and threatened to throw
+      up her part as well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lud!&rdquo; she cried to her associates in the temporary green-room, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Every one present agreed with her&mdash;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&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;
+      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>
+      &ldquo;I never had such a chance until now,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Impossible, my sweet Sue!&rdquo; cried her friend. &ldquo;I vow that I have never
+      seen anything more arch than your mock rejection of your lover, only to
+      draw him on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You dear creature!&rdquo; cried Lady Sue. &ldquo;You are a true friend and a
+      competent critic, Sarah. But what signifies my acting, perfect though it
+      be, when that&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They cannot be so vile,&rdquo; said Lady Sarah soothingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;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!&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;A thousand pardons, my dear ladies,&rdquo; he cried, bowing to the carpet. &ldquo;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&mdash;but what is this? I said not a
+      lacrymatory.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was looking curiously into Lady Susan's face, which retained the marks
+      of her recent tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Sir Francis, you have come in good time,&rdquo; said Lady Sarah boldly.
+      &ldquo;Here is this poor child weeping her heart out because she is condemned to
+      play the part of&mdash;of what's her name?&mdash;the lady in the play who
+      had to make love to an ass?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, sir, mine is a far worse plight,&rdquo; said Lady Susan, pouting. &ldquo;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&mdash;by&mdash;my Lord B&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That were a calculation far above my powers,&rdquo; said Sir Francis. &ldquo;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&mdash;if
+      love-making is an art.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, 'tis a combination of all the arts,&rdquo; said Lady Susan; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be plain, Sir Francis,&rdquo; said Lady Sarah, as though the other had not
+      been plain enough in her explanation, &ldquo;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&mdash;&mdash;&mdash; 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hence these tears,&rdquo; said Sir Francis. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Merely on the stage?&rdquo; cried Lady Susan. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As a rule,&rdquo; said Sir Francis. &ldquo;Yes, I perceive the difference, and I
+      mingle mine own turgid tears with your limpid drops. But we cannot spare
+      you from our play.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, you cannot, Sir Francis, but you can spare Lord B&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;,
+      and so can the play,&rdquo; suggested Lady Sarah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, you would have me turn him out of the part?&rdquo; said Sir Francis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even so&mdash;but with politeness,&rdquo; said Lady Sarah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said Sir Francis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo;
+       said Lady Susan timidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; cried Lady Susan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is good philosophy&mdash;see what we have come to&mdash;philosophy,
+      when we started talking of lovemaking,&rdquo; said Sir Francis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;However we have digressed in conversation, sir, our minds remain
+      steadfast on the point round which we have been circling,&rdquo; said Lady
+      Sarah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that is&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That Lord B&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;must go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The door was thrown open and Lord B&mdash;&mdash;&mdash; entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A good preliminary&mdash;one must come before one goes,&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;I was told that you had come hither, Sir Francis,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;so I
+      followed you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do me honour, my lord,&rdquo; said Sir Francis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I took a liberty, sir; but this is not a time for punctilio. I have come
+      to resign my part in your play, sir,&rdquo; said his lordship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, surely not, my lord,&rdquo; cried Sir Francis. &ldquo;What would the <i>School
+      for Lovers</i> be without Bellaire, my lord? Why only now Lady Susan was
+      saying&mdash;what is it that your ladyship said?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It had something to do with philosophy and the sole of a grenadier,&rdquo; said
+      Lady Sarah interposing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, was it not that his lordship's impersonation made you think of a
+      scene from <i>Midsummer Night's Dream?</i>&rdquo; said Sir Francis. &ldquo;One of the
+      most beautiful of Shakespeare's plays, is't not, my lord?&mdash;fantasy
+      mingled with irony, an oasis of fairyland in the midst of a desert of
+      daily life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know nothing about your fairyland, sir, but I have been told within the
+      hour that her ladyship&rdquo;&mdash;he bowed in the direction of Lady Susan&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you sure that your informant was right in his interpretation of her
+      ladyship's words? Surely your lordship&mdash;a man of the world&mdash;would
+      have been sensible of every shade of her ladyship's meaning?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;on insufficient evidence, I begin to fear&mdash;that
+      her ladyship was a discriminating critic&mdash;even now if she were to
+      assure me that she was not speaking in sarcasm&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, lud! he is relenting,&rdquo; whispered Lady Sarah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you speak, madam?&rdquo; said his lordship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was protesting against a too early exercise of your lordship's
+      well-known spirit of forgiveness,&rdquo; said her ladyship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you, Lady Sarah; I am, I know, too greatly inclined to take a
+      charitable view of&mdash;of&mdash;Why, sink me if she, too, is not trying
+      to make me look ridiculous!&rdquo; cried his lordship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; remarked Lady Susan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His lordship looked at her&mdash;his mouth was slightly open&mdash;then he
+      gazed at the smiling features of the beautiful Lady Sarah, lastly at the
+      perfectly expressionless features of Sir Francis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A plot&mdash;a plot!&rdquo; he murmured. Then he struck a commonplace
+      theatrical attitude, the &ldquo;exit attitude&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;it really
+      was pleasant laughter, though it did not sound so to him&mdash;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&mdash;it was,
+      strange to say, the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is vastly fine, ladies,&rdquo; he remarked. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely we can find some gentleman willing to act the part of Bellaire?&rdquo;
+       said Lady Sarah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;Have I been too hasty?&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Alas! I fear that I have been selfish.
+      I thought only of the poor figure that I should cut with such a lover&mdash;and
+      with all the world looking on, too! I should have given more thought to
+      your distress, Sir Francis.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo;
+       said Sir Francis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True, sir, but think of the ladies' dresses!&rdquo; said Lady Sarah. &ldquo;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.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heavens!&rdquo; cried Sir Francis, &ldquo;I had not thought of the new dresses. Lady
+      Susan, you will e'en have to face the anger of your sisters&mdash;'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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said Lady Susan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is woman's special province,&rdquo; said Sir Francis. &ldquo;Pray begin, my lady&mdash;'twill
+      be strange if your ladyship and Lady Sarah do not succeed in&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Psha! there is but one man in England who could play the part of Bellaire
+      on Wednesday,&rdquo; cried Lady Sarah. &ldquo;Ay, sir, and he is the only one in
+      England capable of playing it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we shall have him on our stage if I should have to pay a thousand
+      pounds for his services,&rdquo; said Sir Francis. &ldquo;But where is he to be found?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cannot you guess, sir?&rdquo; asked Lady Sarah, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Francis looked puzzled, but Lady Sue started and caught her friend by
+      the wrist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not mean&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; she began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lud! these girls! Here's a scheme if you will!&rdquo; muttered Sir Francis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, if you will, Sir Francis. You know that I mean Mr. O'Brien himself
+      and none other,&rdquo; cried Lady Sarah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Impossible!&rdquo; cried Lady Susan. &ldquo;My father would never consent to my
+      acting in a play with a real actor&mdash;no, not even if he were Mr.
+      Garrick himself. How could you suggest such a thing, Sarah?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, do you mean to tell me that you would refuse to act with Mr.
+      O'Brien?&rdquo; asked Lady Sarah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, hear the child!&rdquo; cried Lady Susan. &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; laughed Lady Sarah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dare not&mdash;I dare not. And yet&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;Ladies, this is a serious matter for all of us,&rdquo; he said. And he spoke
+      the truth to a greater depth than he was aware of. &ldquo;'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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But every one would know Mr. O'Brien,&rdquo; she faltered, after a pause that
+      was overcharged with excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His lordship will have no <i>locus standi</i> in the case. He cannot take
+      notice of an act that is not officially recognisable,&rdquo; suggested Sir
+      Francis, the sophist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you assure me&mdash;&mdash; But is't true that Mr. O'Brien only ceased
+      to become a gentleman when he became an actor?&rdquo; said Lady Susan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not heard that he relinquished the one part when he took up the
+      other,&rdquo; said Sir Francis. &ldquo;I wonder that you have not met him at the
+      houses of some of our friends&mdash;he is more popular even than Mr.
+      Garrick. The family of O'Brien&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All kings, I doubt not,&rdquo; said Lady Susan. &ldquo;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&mdash;well, descended. Mr. O'Brien descended
+      pretty far when he became a play-actor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said Sir Francis with a severe air of reproof. He was
+      beginning to be tired&mdash;as others in his place have been from time to
+      time&mdash;of the capriciousness of his company of amateurs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right, sir,&rdquo; said Lady Sarah. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am thinking of my father,&rdquo; said the other. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said Sir Francis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Sarah laughed, and so did her friend&mdash;after a pause sufficient
+      to allow the colour that had come to her face at the stinging reproof to
+      die away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope that you may catch your bird, sir&mdash;your eagle&mdash;your
+      Irish eagle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said Sir Francis, making his
+      most exquisite bow to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, sir, you overwhelm me,&rdquo; 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&mdash;a condition with which Sir Francis complied,
+      drawing a long breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. O'Brien,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;should the stage ever fail you, a fortune awaits
+      you if you undertake the duty of teaching gentlemen the art of being a
+      gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, sir, the moment that art enters the door the gentleman flies out by
+      the window,&rdquo; said the actor. &ldquo;It is Nature, not art, that makes a
+      gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;taking her hand with that incomparable
+      devotion to&mdash;was it his art?&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;stated
+      that Bellaire would be represented by &ldquo;a gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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&mdash;even her own
+      father&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;I saw it from the first, my dear Sue,&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;You saw it&mdash;you&mdash;what was it that you saw from the first?&rdquo; she
+      cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Sarah looked at her and laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, that is it&mdash;what was it that I saw from the first?&rdquo; she said.
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;'s getting his <i>congé</i>.
+      It was a mistake&mdash;I saw that also.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When did you see that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I saw you taking part in that love scene with Mr. O'Brien.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What mean you by that, Lady Sarah?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly what you fancy I mean, Lady Susan.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;You poor child!&rdquo; she murmured, &ldquo;how could you help it? I vow that I
+      myself&mdash;yes, for some minutes&mdash;I was as deep in love with the
+      fellow as you yourself were. But, of course, you were with him longer&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never&mdash;never!&rdquo; cried Susan. &ldquo;Sir Francis was right&mdash;he is a
+      gentleman. That is the worst of it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, lud! the worst of it? Are you mad, girl?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not mad now, but I know that I shall be if he remains a gentleman&mdash;if
+      he refrains from telling me that he loves me&mdash;or at least of giving
+      me a chance of telling him that I love him. That would be better than
+      nothing&mdash;'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&mdash;that
+      'tis impossible that I should love another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The sooner you go to the country the better 'twill be for yourself and
+      all of us&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;all about the O'Briens&mdash;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&mdash;that was
+      it&mdash;the losing side was always the one they took up. And yet you call
+      him a strolling player!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I take back the insinuation and offer him my apologies; he is not a
+      strolling player because he doesn't stroll&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;the rack, the wheel, the thumbscrew, in fact the
+      entire mechanism of persuasion employed by the Spanish Inquisition&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;Ah, my dear one, did not I give you good advice?&rdquo; cried Lady Sarah. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is't possible? For example?&mdash;I vow that I shall keep their names
+      secret.&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;according
+      to Lady Sarah&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;&ldquo;The hussies! Shameless creatures! Do they hope that he
+      will be attracted to them? Fools!&mdash;they are fools! They do not know
+      him as I know him. They think that he is nothing but a vain actor&mdash;Garrick,
+      or Barry, or Lewes. Oh, they do not know him!&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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&mdash;and the work of this particular painter was rather inclined
+      to be assertive&mdash;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&mdash;she had not yet done her famous pastel of the Duchess of
+      Argyll&mdash;and Susan, accompanied by her footman, lost no time in
+      beginning her series of sittings to the artist to whom Horace Walpole
+      referred as &ldquo;the painteress.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was both patient and discreet, for three whole days elapsed before she
+      produced a mezzotint of Mr. O'Brien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo; she
+      said. &ldquo;Have you ever seen this Mr. O'Brien&mdash;an Irishman, I believe he
+      is?&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said Lady Susan. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your ladyship may rest assured that no living creature will hear of the
+      affair through me,&rdquo; said the painteress. &ldquo;But I heartily wish that your
+      ladyship could procure for me a better copy than this print from which to
+      work,&rdquo; she added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fear that I cannot promise you that; I found two other prints of the
+      same person, but they are worse even than this,&rdquo; said Lady Susan. &ldquo;You
+      must do your best with the material at your disposal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your ladyship may depend on my doing my best,&rdquo; replied Miss Read. &ldquo;When
+      does his lordship's birthday take place?&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;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&mdash;he was used to see her sex overwhelmed when he
+      appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam, I beg that you will pardon this intrusion,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I have taken
+      the liberty of waiting upon you, knowing of your great capacity as an
+      artist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, sir!&rdquo; cried the fluttered little lady, making her courtesy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, madam, I have no intention of flattering one to whom compliments
+      must be as customary as they are well deserved,&rdquo; said the actor. &ldquo;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&mdash;a good&mdash;&mdash; Good heavens! what do I behold? 'Tis
+      she&mdash;she&mdash;Lady Susan herself!&rdquo;
+     </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&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;for Heaven's sake tell me how this&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      held up the print&mdash;&ldquo;came into such close juxtaposition with that&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      pointed to the portrait on the easel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis easily told, sir,&rdquo; said Miss Read, smiling archly. &ldquo;But I must leave
+      it to your sense of honour to keep the matter a profound secret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; said Mr. O'Brien with dignity, &ldquo;Madam, I am an Irishman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;that
+      portrait. 'Twas marvellous that you should recognise it so soon. I have
+      not worked at it for many hours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam, your art is beyond that of the magician. 'Tis well known that
+      every form depicted by Miss Read not only breathes but speaks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, sir, I vow that you are a flatterer; still, you did recognise the
+      portrait&mdash;'tis to be presented to Lady Sarah Bunbury.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her ladyship will be the most fortunate of womankind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which ladyship, sir&mdash;Lady Susan or Lady Sarah?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Both, madam.&rdquo; The Irishman was bowing with his hand on his heart. &ldquo;But
+      the print&mdash;my poor likeness?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis the first I heard of it, madam.&rdquo; There was a suggestion of
+      mortification in the actor's tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I swear to it, madam.&rdquo; 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>
+      &ldquo;Madam, it has just occurred to me that you, as a great artist&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, sir,&rdquo; interposed the blushing painteress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not take back a word, madam,&rdquo; said the actor, holding up one
+      inexorable hand. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, sir, that is the one favour which I meant to ask of you, if my
+      courage had not failed me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam, you will confer immortality upon a simple man through that magic
+      wand which you wield.&rdquo; He swept his hand with inimitable grace over the
+      mahl-stick which lay against the easel. &ldquo;I am all impatient to begin my
+      sitting, Miss Read. Pray let me come to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her ladyship comes to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall precede her ladyship. Name the hour, madam.&rdquo;
+     </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>
+      &ldquo;Fate is on our side, darling girl!&rdquo; he whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear one, 'twas the instinct of true love that made you guess the truth&mdash;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!&rdquo; 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
+      &ldquo;Sheila,&rdquo; &ldquo;a cushla machree,&rdquo; &ldquo;mavourneen,&rdquo; and also &ldquo;aroon.&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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>
+      &ldquo;You will have heard of the sad misfortune that has happened to Lord
+      Ilchester by his daughter's marriage with O'Brien, the actor,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;You will be amazed,&rdquo; continued
+      Walpole, &ldquo;even this was granted. The parting scene happened the beginning
+      of the week. On Friday she came of age, and on Saturday morning&mdash;instead
+      of being under lock and key in the country&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </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
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+</pre>
+
+  </body>
+</html>
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