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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b0d50f4 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #66891 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66891) diff --git a/old/66891-0.txt b/old/66891-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index df2b61c..0000000 --- a/old/66891-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8571 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of In and About Drury Lane and Other Papers, -Vol. II (of 2), by Dr. John Doran - -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 -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: In and About Drury Lane and Other Papers, Vol. II (of 2) - Reprinted from the pages of the 'Temple Bar' Magazine - -Author: Dr. John Doran - -Release Date: December 6, 2021 [eBook #66891] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Susan Skinner, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The Internet - Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN AND ABOUT DRURY LANE AND OTHER -PAPERS, VOL. II (OF 2) *** - -+-------------------------------------------------+ -|Transcriber’s note: | -| | -|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. | -| | -+-------------------------------------------------+ - - -DRURY LANE - -VOL. II. - - -LONDON: PRINTED BY -SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE -AND PARLIAMENT STREET - - - - -IN AND ABOUT - -DRURY LANE - -_AND OTHER PAPERS_ - -REPRINTED FROM THE PAGES OF THE ‘TEMPLE BAR’ MAGAZINE - -BY - -DR DORAN - -AUTHOR OF ‘TABLE TRAITS AND SOMETHING ON THEM’ ‘JACOBITE LONDON’ -‘QUEENS OF ENGLAND OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER’ - -IN TWO VOLUMES - -VOL. II. - -[Illustration: Logo FIDE·ET·FIDUCIA RB] - -LONDON -RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET -Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen -1881 - -_All rights reserved_ - - - - -CONTENTS - -OF - -THE SECOND VOLUME. - - PAGE -LIFE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 1 - -THE POSTMAN’S KNOCK 26 - -THE TWENTY-THOUSAND-POUND WIDOW 53 - -TO BRIGHTON AND BACK AGAIN 78 - -ON SOME CLUBS, AND THEIR ENDS 105 - -THROUGH THE PARKS 134 - -SOME SCOTSWOMEN 160 - -THE DIBDINS 190 - -HORATIO NELSON AND EMMA HAMILTON 222 - -EDWARD WORTLEY MONTAGU 285 - -ROYAL AND IMPERIAL JOKERS 327 - - - - -_LIFE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY._ - - -But for Pepys and Evelyn we should know but little of the social life -of the seventeenth century. A host of letter writers--Walpole, Mrs. -Delany, and Mrs. Montagu, at the head of them--may be said to have -photographed the next century for us. Lord Malmesbury, Lord Auckland, -and some others succeeded; and now we are beginning to have revelations -exclusively of the first years of the nineteenth century. The most -important contributor to our knowledge in this respect is the late Sir -George Jackson, whose volumes, ably edited by his widow, will afford -us samples of the times in which our grandmothers were young and had -swains at their feet--unless war called them away. - -Gay people on the Continent had a bad time of it when war broke out -in 1803, and the French government issued orders for the arrest of -all English persons on whom hands could be laid. Bath expected to be -more brilliant than ever by the return of the absentees; but their -difficulty was _how_ to return. All who were in France were made -prisoners. A precipitate flight of crowds of English travellers from -Geneva took place. They were not safe on any part of the Continent; -but some, in disguise and on foot, reached Berlin, others got to the -sea and arrived in England; but Bath was not sensible of any increase -in numbers or gaiety, for the times were out of joint, though dowagers -still played whist and young couples danced minuets. - -Many of those who were shut up at Verdun chafed under the restraint as -intolerable. Some, however, bore it philosophically, others gaily. A -few took to French mistresses; other few to French wives. The French -officials made ‘a good thing’ out of those who had money, granting -them partial liberty for so many days or hours, according to the -‘consideration.’ Two or three, having spent hundreds of pounds in -their bribes, at last took ‘French leave,’ and were lucky in not being -recaptured. Their course is not to be commended. We have a higher -opinion of Sir Sidney Smith, who, when a prisoner in the Temple, -refused to have his parole, used to tell the governor to be vigilant, -as he would be off on the first opportunity, and ultimately kept his -word, broke prison, and found his painful way to England. - -The seriousness of the times and their events little affected the -Prince of Wales. He was indeed thought to be ill in the early part -of 1804; but the illness arose, it was said, from the fact that the -Prince and the Duke of Norfolk had been so drunk, for three whole -days, that the former at last fell like a pig, and would have died -like one, but for prompt and copious bleeding. How rude the ‘first -gentleman’ could be, when he chose, to his wife, is well-known. At a -drawing-room, held by Queen Charlotte in June 1807, when the Prince -and Princess of Wales were present, he took no notice of the Princess. -Turning his back upon her, he stood between her and the Queen, and -as long as the Princess remained he kept up a conversation with his -sisters, thereby preventing them from addressing a word to his wife. -This feeling against his wife he paraded everywhere. He was jealous of -her popularity--quite unnecessarily, for she made herself ridiculous, -and the subject of scornful criticism, by her lavish display at -evening parties of her protuberant beauties. At these parties, the -Prince would stare at ladies whom he knew, without speaking to them. -His condescending speech was addressed only to his first wife, Mrs. -Fitzherbert, and her sister, Lady Haggerstone. The first of these -ladies lived at Brighton with the state of a queen and the spirit -of a goddess of mirth. Meanwhile, his Royal Highness flirted with -his ‘future Duchess,’ the Marchioness of Hertford. One of Queen -Fitzherbert’s merriest tales related how a man had sent to her some -lemonade powders he had invented, on the ground that they were highly -approved and constantly used by the Marchioness in question. - -In 1802 Bath was surprised by a visit from the Duke of York. He brought -the Duchess with him, and left her there next day. Her friends reported -that she had been bitten in the hand by one of her numerous pet dogs, -and that the wound was privately pumped upon daily. But the public -story was, that his Royal Highness had lost 200,000_l._ at play, and -had been compelled to break up his town establishment. The scandalous -story of the Duke and Mrs. Clarke, a mistress, who sold places and -commissions, is pleasantly balanced by an incident respecting a son -of the Duke of Clarence and his mistress, Mrs. Jordan--Lieutenant -Fitzclarence, in 1809. He was in Spain with our army in that year, and -he reversed La Fontaine’s fable of the mule who was always talking -of his mother the mare, but said little of his father the ass. The -lieutenant was the foolish aide-de-camp of a foolish General Shaw, who -was always showing him about to the Spaniards as the King of England’s -grandson. - -That grandson was about to be despatched on a mission to the Continent -in 1813, but ministers changed their minds. They were afraid he would -write every thing to his father, who would publish it in Bond Street; -and so the gentleman was kept at home to sun himself in the bow window -at White’s. - -The grandest fête of sixty years since was the one given by the Prince, -at Carlton House, in 1811. The King was in such ill health and the -Princess Amelia in such a precarious condition that it was often -deferred; and Jekyll remarked that no one could ever again say, ‘Fixed -as fate!’ At length it came off, and, for one happy invited guest, -made a hundred mad who were not invited. The Queen and Princesses -declined to be present; but Louis XVIII. and the sad-looking Duchess -of Angoulême appeared there, and the Prince received the former as -a sovereign _de facto_. ‘I am only a Comte de Lille,’ said Louis -modestly. ‘Sire,’ said the Prince, ‘you are the King of France and -Navarre;’ and he treated his guest accordingly. Both the Prince’s wives -(Mrs. Fitzherbert and the Princess of Wales) sat at home by themselves; -but the ‘favourite’ was honoured by a command to attend the festival. -One of the Prince’s ideas was to divorce his second wife and shut her -up in Holyrood House for ever. This grand fête, it may be added, was -soon forgotten in the excitement caused by the fight that was to come -off between the Baltimore negro, Molyneux, and the chief of English -boxers, Tom Cribb! It was a time, moreover, when later hours began to -be fashionable. We hear of a ball lasting from twelve till eight; and -of another at which the majority of dancers kept it up till ten in the -morning. - -We go back a couple of years, in order to remark that in 1809, while -there was no lack of enjoyment among optimists, the press saw the worst -side of everything; and the ‘Times’ especially denied or explained -away our victories generally, and that of Talavera in particular. The -public seem to have been almost as ill-informed as to what was being -done abroad as they are now by ‘our own correspondents,’ who are -sent to describe battle-fields or other troublesome matters, and who -write columns on the boiling of their eggs and the obstinacy of their -laundresses. ‘It is too much,’ says Jackson, ‘to hear the victory of -Talavera called in question by the “Times;” a victory as honourable to -British arms and British generalship as any they ever achieved. That -paper should be offered up as a sacrifice to the manes of the heroes -who fell on the Alberche. I have not patience to read it.’ - -In 1814 the Prince Regent had a narrow escape for his life. On one of -his evenings of _ennui_ he sent for George Colman to come from the -King’s Bench, where he was a prisoner, to amuse him. Court jester and -prince, they passed the night, drinking and fooling, till six o’clock, -when his Highness was carried to bed in an apoplexy, from which he -only recovered at the cost of seven and twenty ounces of blood! He -was as near death at this critical juncture as a man could be and yet -live. His constitution, however, carried him through. When the allied -sovereigns entered London he was ready for all the duties and eager for -all the pleasures that the occasion offered; but he shocked some people -on one occasion by presiding at a public dinner on a Sunday. - -That English society wanted refinement in the first decade of the -present century is not to be disputed. When Mr. Jackson returned from -long diplomatic service abroad in 1806, he dined one day at Lord -Westmoreland’s. The guests were chiefly Russians. They were as much out -of their element in English society as the young diplomatist says _he_ -was after the sociability, ease, and elegance of the society at foreign -courts to which he had so long been accustomed. - -Some of that foreign society was quite as free as it was easy. Jackson -and other Englishmen at the Prussian court were admitted to the morning -toilette of Madame de Vos, the King of Prussia’s _grande maîtresse_. -While under the hands of her hairdresser she laughed and flirted with -the English lords and gentlemen, who paid tribute to her beauty by -making her presents of wine and tea, and other English matters, which -she greedily accepted. There are three things, says the Welsh proverb, -which always swallow and are never satisfied--the grave, the sea, and a -king’s concubine. - -Austerlitz killed Pitt as surely as Trafalgar killed Nelson. Each died -for his country, but that country mourned more deeply for the great -admiral, stricken down in the battle where he was the victor, than it -did for the great minister who died of a broken heart. The last book -he read, at Bath, was Miss Owenson’s (Lady Morgan’s) ‘Novice of St. -Dominic.’ That now unreadable romance, Pitt said, he could not lay down -till he had finished it, and thence did the ‘Novice’ come to be the -rage for a time. People almost fought to obtain it at the libraries, -and nothing in literature was talked of but a book which has long since -fallen out of literature and of memory altogether. People, too, fought -for another novel, ‘A Winter in London,’ in which fashionable life was -illustrated by an incapable whose name and whose work are equally wrapt -in oblivion. - -Fox did not long survive his great rival Pitt. He died on the 13th -of September, 1806. A week previously, when he was already dying, he -transacted public business. He gave an audience in his bedroom to -George Jackson, with instructions as to how the latter was to act on -his new mission to Germany. There was a mixture of the solemn and -the ludicrous in the scene. When Jackson was announced Mrs. Fox, in -complete deshabille, was in the room. In her flurry she slipped into a -closet, and, as the interview was prolonged, the lightly-draped lady -kept signalling to Mr. Fox, as if he alone could hear her, by little -coughs and murmurs, to warn him not to over-exert himself, or to -dismiss the envoy, that she might be set free. At a moment when there -was a pause in the conversation between the minister and his agent the -fair captive tapped at the panel, asked if the young gentleman was -not gone, and complained of being cold. The dying statesman looked -at Jackson with a languid smile, and with friendly wishes bade him -farewell--as it proved, for ever. - -Descending to minor legislators, we meet with an Irish M.P., who, -being told that the favour he asked would be granted on condition -of his supporting government, replied that he would not give his -_constant_ support for so paltry a favour. The Irish member obtained -the favour, and voted twice for government in payment for it. This was -better diplomacy than Sir Charles Stuart’s (Marquis of Londonderry), -who, when named to a post in Germany, told people that he was going -to Spain, by way of being diplomatic. We were unlucky in our leading -diplomatists generally at that time. Lord Aberdeen may serve as an -example. He went to Toplitz, as English ambassador, and had the bad -taste and idiotic indiscretion to say one day, openly at dinner, that -he could not bear the undertaking, and would not go on with it to keep -the crowns on the allied heads! One qualification was necessary to even -a decently moderate success, namely, the ability to speak French; but -Lord Aberdeen not only could not speak two words of French, but had -the folly to tell everybody who addressed him in that language that he -hated it. There was in some persons as much bad taste in acts as there -was in others in words; and it is not without surprise that we hear of -gentlemen sightseers who would pass the morning amid the horrors of a -field of recent battle, and the evening at the play, philandering with -ladies and talking an infinite deal of nothing. On another occasion, we -hear of the gayest and most gigantic of picnics, where luxury abounded, -while, within a few miles, French soldiers were dropping dead with -hunger as they slowly retreated. - -Mrs. Fitzherbert was in the early part of the century the Queen of -Brighton, if not of England, and she was popularly called ‘Mrs. -Prince.’ She certainly was one of the most queen-like women that -ever lived; and stood in favourable contrast with Lady Holland, who -is justly described as fussy, almost rude, straining at effect, and -losing it in the very effort. There was another lady then in England -striving to be effective, Madame de Staël; and she (who horrified Henry -Brougham) was pronounced by female critics as ‘too anxious to glitter -to be intrinsically good.’ A still more remarkable woman of that day -was Lady Caroline Lamb. She was at a party at Lady Heathcote’s, had -been flirting and quarrelling with Lord Byron, and therefore ‘stabbed -herself with a knife at supper, so that the blood flew about her -neighbours.’ When she came to, after a faint, a glass of water was -handed to her, but she smashed the glass and cut herself with the -pieces. ‘A little discipline,’ said Francis Jackson, ‘will bring these -school-girl fancies into order.’ A good deal of disorder was to be -found at breakfast as well as at supper-tables. Lady Caroline Hood was, -probably, counselled not to go to the Regent’s ‘breakfast’; but ladies -will, under certain circumstances, disregard friends and doctors also. -Lady Caroline went, and had only herself to blame when she had to be -carried away wrapped up in blankets. - -Mrs. Fitzherbert’s conduct at Brighton was not always in the best -taste. Mrs. Gunn, the bathing-woman, invariably addressed her as ‘Mrs. -Prince’; but the latter did not live at the level of that dignity. She -held afternoon gossips in her little drawing room, hung with black -profiles (her _salon aux silhouettes_). Only guests of distinction were -admitted here to exchange the stories of the day for piquant anecdotes -and a cup of tea. There, too, M. le Prince was a subject of discussion. -His sayings and doings were pretty freely handled. It was all done -with gusto and elicited much mirth; but some visitors, who were glad to -be there, professed to think it all very naughty and in the worst taste. - -The fair one who had the reputation of being fairest where all were -fair--the reigning queen of beauty in fact--was Miss Rumbold, daughter -of Sir George. She was a ‘dashing’ beauty; but if to be beautiful was -not common, to be dashing was to be fashionable. Accordingly, we find -Miss Rumbold attended so little to the hints and admonitions of the -Bishop of Durham, that the love of showing off an amazingly fine ankle -prevented more than one offer from among the crowd of her adorers. The -same pretty vanity was strong in the Princess Charlotte, at a later -period, but Prince Leopold was not kept thereby from being a suitor. -It may be concluded that gentlemen were, after all, not so particular -as the adorers of Miss Rumbold, if Texier truly said of his daughter -(whose beauty he was always praising in her presence) that there were -five hundred lords, any one of whom would have been the happiest of men -to have her for his own. - -The utmost regularity was not incompatible with much eccentricity in -many of the foremost individuals of the time. One of them, the Duke of -Bedford, arranged his movements for a whole year in advance; and if one -went wrong, his Grace was put out for six or eight months together. -The silent Duke was under the thumb of his rattling Duchess, who used -to laugh at his announcement, on starting for a long journey, of the -precise moment of his return, and what dishes were to be ready for him -on his arrival. He would be there, D.V., of course; but in any case, -there he would be. The Duchess was as irregular as the Duke was the -opposite. His obedience to her was that of Jerry Sneak. She would cry -out in a room full of people, Johnny, do this; Johnny, do that; Johnny, -I did not see you bow to such a person! Speak to him directly, and -speak German, Johnny--and Duke Johnny answered not, but like a good -boy, unhesitatingly obeyed. - -Lady Holland, fanciful, sharp, and impertinent, did not attract -Jackson’s brother Francis. Clever, he allowed that wayward lady to be, -but not a wit of the quality she would fain have been thought. ‘There -is too much effort--a straining after effect in all she says and does; -and the effect is not always what she wishes or imagines it to be.’ - -In behalf of some of the fine ladies of the time, government officials -cheated their own revenue department without scruple. Jackson was, -one day in 1810, amused to find the ‘subs’ at the Foreign Office very -anxious, at Lord Wellesley’s suggestion, to devise means of getting -a box of shoes which had been sent from Spain, for Lady Holland, but -which had been seized by the Custom House officers. Lady Holland was -capricious, and as often insolent as civil; but she was not mean, like -Lady Hyde Parker, who gave a ball to a crowd of guests and sent them -home without supper. By the way, when there was a ball at Buckingham -House, in the opening years of the century, no guests under the rank of -earls’ sons and daughters were invited; but this exclusiveness had to -be laid aside. - -Nearly sixty years ago there was a queen of hearts in London who broke -as many as she could, voluntarily or involuntarily. She was a Miss -Acklom, daughter of a Nottinghamshire squire. Down at Exmouth, amid -the loveliness and the idleness of the place, the nymph and a gallant -officer named Tilson fell in love, or seemed to do so, with each other. -The warrior, at all events, was deeply smitten, and marriage was to -plunge him still deeper in love; but, almost at the church door, the -cruel nymph declined to go further. The lover went straightway abroad. -After a while, Miss Acklom was subdued by another wooer, Mr. Maddox; -the beauty consented to become his wife. As the time of the nuptials -drew near the lady’s grandfather died. She went into mourning, and -came out of it with an announcement of a quality to put her lover -into it; namely, that she had changed her mind. Like Tilson, Maddox -sought solace in going to the stirring scenes abroad. Jackson wrote -from his quarters at Dijon, in 1814, that the swain so ill-treated by -Venus was ‘trying his luck with Mars, as an amateur.... From being a -very handsome and lively-tempered young man, he has become quite the -reverse.’ While two lovers were despairing a third presented himself. -He was no other than that Lord Althorpe, who became so distinguished -in the House of Commons as a statesman and a minister. My lord was -accepted. Just as the marriage was about to take place this third -lover’s grandmother died; whereupon the nymph put on mourning and went -down to Bath to live in retirement. Old Mrs. Jackson prophesied that -Miss Acklom would, on coming out of mourning, jilt the heir to an -earldom as she had done ‘poor Maddox.’ George replied that Tilson had -recently returned to England, a general, and ‘this perhaps may win her -smiles again.’ Lord Althorpe proved to be a successful swain. Esther -Acklom married him, about a month after Mrs. Jackson had presaged that -she would play this lover false. The wedding was celebrated in April -1815, and in little more than three years the once volatile nymph was -carried to her grave, leaving a childless widower to mourn a good -wife’s loss. - -The great scandal in high life within the first ten years of this -century was the elopement of Lord Paget, afterwards the celebrated -Marquis of Anglesea, with Lady Charlotte, wife of Henry Wellesley, -nephew of the subsequently famous Arthur, and better known to us as the -first Lord Cowley. All the world of fashion had seen what was going on -except the lady’s husband. The guilty parties pleaded uncontrollable -passion. The seducer abandoned his wife and eight children, the lady -left a husband and four children; but she asked Mr. Arbuthnot to break -the matter gently to their father. Lord Paget, who had told _his_ -father that he had sought death in battle in order to avoid the social -catastrophe, was challenged by Colonel Cadogan, Lady Charlotte’s -brother. The Colonel declared that one of them must die; but Lord -Paget declined the chance on the ground that his life was devoted to -the Colonel’s sister. To this lady he was married in 1810, in which -year his union with his first wife was dissolved, and that lady became -Duchess of Argyll. - -Provincial fine society was somewhat rough but hearty; ‘all very -friendly and hospitable; but as regards stuffing it would be difficult, -I confess, to excel them.’ The allusion is to a Northumbrian high -sheriff’s dinner party. At Brighton, described in 1809 as a dangerous -rival to Bath, we are at a ball given by a Mr. and Mrs. Parker, ‘good -people who have more money than sense or acquaintances, but who made -up for the latter deficiency by giving balls to all whom they did not -know and the few whom they did.’ Illustrious strangers went to dance, -eat suppers, and drink champagne, and perhaps laugh at Mrs. Parker, -who told everybody on coming in, and by way of compliment, that she -had been disappointed of _the flower_ of her party--some three or -four personages who could not come. The lady was, after all, not such -a fool as she looked. There was good satirical humour (when she went -up to Lady Boyne, who was then in deep mourning for her daughter) in -her request to the exemplary mother to open the ball! And apropos -to Brighton, now so rich in vehicles, we smile at the record of the -extortion of Brighton chairmen in 1809, and how they were brought to -their senses by an ex-coachman to a gentleman. Jehu bought the old -blue coach of the Blackburns, with the cock and trumpet upon it, which -had been the glory of Bath; putting a pair of horses to it, the owner -conveyed people all over the town at a shilling per person for the -trip, before midnight, and one-and-sixpence after. While the chairmen -stood upon their rights, earning nothing, this clever coachman whipped -up a very pretty little fortune. - -One of the most pushing and successful men in Bath in 1809 was Sigmond, -who, after being a footman in Germany, set up as a dentist in the -City of Hot Waters. His wife had been his mistress. The two together -made more dash and lived at more expense than almost anybody in that -city. They once invited the Duke of Gloucester to a grand supper, and -he so far accepted the invitation as to send one of his gentlemen to -represent him. People of better standing than the footman-dentist and -his married mistress hardly behaved better. The mother of Sir George -Jackson remembered Mrs. Piozzi and Dr. Johnson at Bath, and she could -not imagine how Mrs. Piozzi could tolerate so coarse and bear-like a -person as the Doctor; though the Doctor’s coarseness was matched by the -lady’s levity. ‘Their manners,’ Mrs. Jackson wrote to her son, ‘were -more disgusting than pleasing to most persons ... they both ought to -have been ashamed of themselves.’ - -Sixty or seventy years ago locomotion was considered rapid when the -Newcastle mail left that northern town on a Monday morning and reached -London on the ensuing Wednesday at 5 A.M. In these days of electric -cables and telegraphs, it is amusing to read of the method taken by a -Rothschild to obtain news. We had not then got so far as sending or -receiving news by carrier pigeons. In February 1807 Jackson arrived in -London from Munich. The head of the Rothschild firm, hearing of the -arrival, waited on the diplomatist, and, as the latter said, probed him -dexterously to elicit any secrets he might possess relative to Prussian -financial difficulties and state affairs generally. The Government was -as ill off occasionally as the financier. They at one time depended -on the French papers for news from abroad, and for the loan of these, -ministers were indebted to the charity of the editor of the ‘Times.’ - -Looking into private life, we find various illustrations of its -character. While war was raging abroad the waltz conquered the prudes -of Bath, who, after gracefully battling against it, embraced it and -their partners therein with a sort of ecstasy. Those were the days of -heavy postage; and we read of a lady who thought to cheat the revenue -by stuffing a hare sent to a friend, with letters, which that friend -was to hand over according to the addresses. The ingenious method -failed, inasmuch as the cook who received the hare tossed all the -rumpled and blood-stained letters with which it was lined into the fire. - -While Mr. Jackson had the affairs of the world to set down on paper, -and often rose from the table where he was writing despatches only -to catch a hasty glance at a battle, or to be off in a hurry, hardly -pressed by a victorious foe, he was overwhelmed with commissions from -thoughtless people. Some asked him to purchase for them carriages and -horses, others hammers and nails; and, wrote his mother, ‘If in the -course of your rambles through Saxony or Silesia you can meet with -a piece of fine cambric for handkerchiefs pray secure it for me, as -cambric is now of an exorbitant price in this country.’ Thousands of -men were bleeding to death for want of bandages, and the easy-going old -lady at Bath could think only of cheap handkerchiefs for herself. - -One incident of the times reads like a page or two from Fielding. -It refers to the Irish servant, Pat O’Raffer, who was with George -Jackson in Bohemia. Pat was as lean as if he had lived for a month at a -French _table d’hôte_. In Bath, when his master fell in love with Miss -Rumbold, Pat fell in love with Miss Rumbold’s maid. In his absence, -however, the abigail gave her company to another young man, but Pat -continued to write to her ‘a very pretty letter’ all the same. As one -of these letters especially contained a good deal of political and -personal gossip, which began to spread through Bath, old Mrs. Jackson -thought it would be well to secure it, and to stop the writing of -similar epistles for the future; and she sent for the damsel, with the -success narrated below. - - - The good, stupid wench mentioned regretfully that the postage - was two shillings and ninepence. I said, ‘Susan, this long story - about things that you know nothing of, and can take no interest - in, my good girl, has cost you, it seems, far more than it is - worth.’ ‘Yes, indeed, ma’am,’ she answered, ‘it has. I like very - well to hear from Mr. Raffer, but I do wish he would pay the - postage.’ ‘Has this thoughtless man often put you to the expense?’ - I inquired. ‘Oh, no, ma’am; it’s the first since he went; but - he says he shall write again.’ ‘Shall you answer it, Susan?’ I - asked. ‘Lor, ma’am,’ she said, ‘I should never know where to find - a place to begin upon. Doesn’t you think, ma’am, it’s more like a - piece of reading in the newspaper than a letter? Then I shouldn’t - like to pay another two-and-ninepence.’ ‘Then, Susan,’ I said, - ‘as my son’s name is mentioned in this letter, suppose I give you - five shillings for it--that will pay the postage, and buy you a - nice frilled neckerchief.’ Susan blushed and smiled with delight. - The bargain was struck at once for this and any other despatch - Mr. Raffer may send, silence on the subject being promised.... My - only qualm of conscience in getting hold of the letter was, that I - suggested to Susan to buy a _frilled_ neckerchief, never allowing - my own maids to wear any but plain ones. - - -In those days mistresses could rule the costume of their maids. In ours -the latter dress in the same ill-taste adopted by their mistresses. But -chignons, at last, have gone out, and with them the abominable smell -which ‘pervaded’ the atmosphere. - -By 1813 the minuet, a knowledge of dancing which Mrs. Montagu thought -of more importance than a knowledge of French, ceased to be known in -the ball-room. It fingered on the stage. The Coburg Theatre audiences -looked upon the Minuet de la Cour and Gavotte, danced by M. and Mdme. -Le Clercq, with a sort of wondering delight, and Taglioni and Fanny -Elsler danced it on our opera stage, forty years ago, as a lady and -cavalier of the time of Louis the Fourteenth. When the waltz first -attempted (with its vulgar familiarity and an intimacy which made an -Oriental ambassador almost faint) to supplant the minuet, in which the -gentleman scarcely touched the tips of the lady’s fingers, and seemed -abashed at his own audacity, there was a general outcry of fie upon -it. But young ladies soon learned to laugh at the objections of their -mothers, and flung themselves on the shirt-fronts of their partners -with alacrity. Fashion sanctified it, and the youthful world thought -it ill-bred prudery to set its face against what fashionable people of -good taste considered innocent and amusing. - -The actors of the first half of the century come pleasantly to the -memories of some survivors, and to the knowledge of others who will be -glad to become acquainted with them. Graceful Elliston, in Octavian, -is said to have been superior to John Kemble. George Frederick Cooke -was always fine, but never sober; ‘_often_ so drunk as not to be able -to come on the stage at all, and _generally_ as not to be able to -stand when on.’ We sit with Cooke’s exasperated audience, kept half -an hour beyond time, when he was to play Mr. Oakley, and we join in -the hissing when he does appear, and enjoy the mingled surprise and -indignation that light up his countenance. ‘He, however, recollected -himself, and after one violent effort, in which every feature of his -speaking countenance had its peculiar expression, made a sort of -half-disdainful half-respectful bow, and an exit steadier than his -entrée, though hardly steady enough for dignity.’ Cooke’s Oakley, in -its way, was as good as Emery’s Tyke, which, as a bit of tragi-comedy, -was inexpressibly grand. - -In 1809 Kemble was declining. In reference to his Hamlet, Jackson -says, ‘Kemble was, of course, great, and his triumph, I believe, -complete; but, in my humble opinion, he has gone off a good deal.’ -Of the then new Covent Garden (burnt down in 1808), he writes; ‘It -appears to me small, and the prevailing colour--brick red--very common -and ineffective. The doors too, though they cost a large sum, and -will, if they last as long, be very handsome some years hence, have -a mean appearance, the mahogany being so very pale.’ Kemble lingered -too long upon the stage. In 1801 we read, in reference to his Hotspur, -‘In some parts he warmed up to the situation and was very good; but -he is too old for such a character, and the dress only shows off his -unfitness the more. It made him appear decidedly aged, and thus, in -a great measure, rendered all he had to say ineffective.’ But in -those last years of his career Kemble flashed forth gleams of his old -glory. In the year last named he and Mrs. Siddons played inimitably in -‘Isabella,’ in which Charles Kemble played Carlos, and showed signs -that he was not going to remain the mere ‘stick’ which he had been for -many years. Mrs. Siddons was, on the other hand, deteriorating. She -had grown enormously large. When she killed herself, in ‘Isabella,’ -and fell to the ground, the stage groaned beneath her; and if, in any -character, she knelt, it took two good men to get her comfortably on -her legs again. The greatest theatrical novelty of the day was when -Kemble appeared at court to take leave on his intended departure for -America, where he was to play twenty-two nights for six thousand pounds -and his expenses paid. After all, Kemble did not go; his appearance at -court, ‘a player,’ made some people think the world was coming to an -end. But there was a worse sign of the times. When Bellingham, after -shooting Mr. Percival, was conveyed in a coach to Newgate, the mob -escorted and cheered him, shook hands with him, and congratulated him -on having murdered a minister. - -It is startling to find Mrs. Siddons accused of want of feeling when -she took leave of the stage. As John Kemble continued to linger on it, -his power of attracting audiences grew less. In 1812 it is said of his -King John, ‘his conception of the character remains, of course, as -excellent as ever; but his voice is gone, and I am told when the play -is ended he is so exhausted as hardly to be able to speak or move.’ - -We conclude these desultory samples of by-gone life with an example of -the remuneration of a leading barrister of the first years of this -century, namely, Garrow. It is said of him that ‘he went into court one -morning at York, made a speech of about twenty minutes, then doffed his -wig and gown, pocketed four hundred pounds, besides one hundred pounds -for his expenses, and drove off again to London.’ - -Those who have examined these grains from a full measure may find more -perfect enjoyment by perusing ‘The Diaries and Letters of Sir George -Jackson,’ and the interesting second series of the work known as ‘The -Bath Archives.’ - - - - -_THE POSTMAN’S KNOCK._ - - -‘A foot post doth come from Bury, in Suffolk, to the Green Dragon, in -Bishopsgate Street, every Wednesday, by whom letters may be conveyed -to and fro.’ So writes the water poet, John Taylor, in his ‘Carrier’s -Cosmography,’ A.D. 1637. In like manner we learn that a foot post from -Wasingham came every second Thursday to the Cross Keys, Holborn; and -one from York, to the Rose and Crown, in St. John Street. Letters, -however, could be sent every Monday to Scotland, ‘by the post that -doth lodge at the King’s Arms, at the upper end of Cheapside.’ Letters -did not travel then as fast as a certain general made one travel, by -enclosing it in a cannon ball and firing it into a besieged town, for -the purpose of conveying a message. Between the time when the first -letter was written and that signalled by the postman’s knock this -morning there never was a more singular mode of despatch. - -The first letter ever written! Where is it? Let us be content to know, -as beyond dispute, that the earliest sample we have of a letter is -that of David to Joab. When we remember the contents and the purpose -of that letter we may be honestly ashamed of the writer. We could have -wished this letter had not been preserved; and we turn from it readily -to consider the letters of more recent and less sacred kings. - -The earliest royal sign manual existing of our own kings is that of -Richard II. The grandest and firmest is that of Richard III. There -exists a document of this king’s which was begun under dictation. -Richard seems to have grown impatient with his secretary, snatched -the pen from his hand, and finished the document with his own hand. -His signature, _Ricardus Rex_, is written with wonderful boldness. -The cross line of the ‘x’ looks like a pike-staff, and has a wickedly -threatening air with it. There are letters of a far more interesting -quality than the above, also written by Richard, in the collection -of letters of the time of that king, with others of the later time -of Henry VII. The work is one of the series published under the -sanction of the Master of the Rolls. Richard’s letters are those of -a kind-hearted man, who considers no subject to be too trifling for -consideration. Several letters prove that he was an affectionate -husband to Lady Anne. When she was Richard’s queen and had fallen -sick, her husband wrote to Louis XI., civilly requesting him to send -over some Burgundy and wines of Haute France, for the comforting and -strengthening of that august lady’s stomach. On another occasion, when -the governess of his little son Edward (that boy-prince of Wales whose -unexpected death at Middleham nearly drove his father mad) was likely -to lose some property through the dishonesty of a kinsman, Richard -looked into her affairs and energetically set about seeing her righted. -In details like these he comes before us, like a good-natured head of -a family, sympathising with all who live under his roof. It is quite -curious, too, to see that matters of dress were not beneath his notice. -One of his many Irish favourites--favourites because they had supported -the cause of Richard’s noble father, the Duke of York--was the Earl of -Desmond. Richard was not only generous to the earl, he was desirous of -seeing him dressed in the fashion which prevailed in England, but which -had not yet reached Ireland. Richard requests Desmond to ‘renounce the -wearing and usage of the Irish array, and to use the manner of apparel -for his person after the English guise.’ The king sent patterns of -dress to Ireland by the hands of a bishop. The right reverend _modiste_ -carried with him samples of ‘gowns, doublets, hose, and bonnets,’ of -the latest taste, with a fac-simile of the king’s livery, a collar of -gold of Richard’s device, and, finally, a neat assortment of ‘hats, -kerchiefs, tippets, and shirts.’ In connection with such articles, and -with the above household details, we hardly recognise the dark Richard -of history and the drama. But light and shade prevail throughout. -Richard could stoop to invent the fashion of a coat, and could climb -through murder to a throne. Whatever may be his guilt with regard to -the young princes in the Tower, he showed his wisdom when he took for -wife Lady Anne, the daughter of the fierce Countess of Warwick, by -immediately locking up his uncomfortable mother-in-law! - -This series of letters is worthy of being studied. Richard appears -quite another manner of man than we have been accustomed to take him -to be. Henry VII., on the other hand, remains unaltered--mean, cruel, -treacherous, and crafty. We will only allude to a letter of James IV. -of Scotland to show his intelligence. In one of them, written to the -King of Denmark, James announces that a band of Gipsies, pretending to -be Christian pilgrims, had been in Scotland, and that he had sent them -to Denmark, the latter country being, as he believed, in the vicinity -of Egypt, from whence the wanderers had started. - -In dealing with old letters, as much caution is necessary as in dealing -with old pictures. All are not ancient masters that are called so. Some -years ago there was an aged man in a German capital, who, throughout a -long life, had made a decent income by painting pictures by any great -artist of any time or place. If a rich amateur, travelling that way, -wanted a work by some renowned painter of the early times he went to a -dealer, and the dealer, undertaking to find him one, went to the old -painter of other men’s pictures, who in a week produced a Da Vinci, -a Raffaelle, or a Del Sarto, a Rubens, a Claude, or a Wouvermans--it -mattered not what; and each party was satisfied. Once the old fellow -tried to paint a picture of his own, but there was such a confusion -of styles in it he could not offer it for sale, and in order to live -respectably he was obliged once more to resort to forgery. - -As for forged letters, they are thick as leaves in Vallambrosa. A few -years ago a writer in the ‘Athenæum,’ referring to this fact, remarked, -‘In no age has literature been free from the intrusion of spurious -records into the domain of truth. One man forges for the pure love -of sport, throws his forged papers into a collection, to be found a -hundred years later, merely to perplex the pundits. Another forges to -sustain a crotchet or a principle. But the most industrious and the -most facile are those who forge for profit. Everyone familiar with old -papers is aware that the publication of historical documents--letters, -plays, poems, maps, charts, and cylinders--has now ceased to be a -learned profession, and has become a manufacture. As the Old Bailey -had its tribes of rascals ready to witness against anybody and anything -for money, so literature has its race of outcasts ready to furnish any -document that may be wanted, from a Wardour Street pedigree, derived -from scrolls in a Cheshire muniment room, up to a copy of Homer from -a monastery at the summit of Mount Athos.’ Of the above there is no -doubt. We may add that, in some cases, letters have been authentic and -yet have been no more genuine than if they had been forged. That is to -say, they misrepresented the feelings of the writers themselves. We -have one sample of something intended in this way, though not carried -out, by Crebillon and Sterne. Fun, profit, and mystification were at -the bottom of it. Sterne, writing to Garrick in April 1762, says: -‘Crebillon has made a convention with me, which, if he be not too lazy, -will be no bad persiflage. As soon as I get to Toulouse he has agreed -to write me an expostulatory letter upon the indecorums of “Tristram -Shandy,” which is to be answered by recriminations upon the coarseness -of his own works. These are to be printed together--Crebillon against -Sterne: Sterne against Crebillon. The copy to be sold, and the money to -be equally divided. This is good Swiss policy!’ Nothing came of this -design, but it illustrates how a letter may be authentic and yet not be -genuine. - -Widows’ letters are rudely said to be sometimes of this quality. This -is, no doubt, untrue. The idea, however, is as old as Massinger. That -dramatic poet makes his Hilario, in ‘The Picture,’ remark: - - - There be some - That in their husband’s sicknesses have wept - Their pottle of tears a day; but, being once certain, - At midnight, he was dead, have in the morning - Dried up their handkerchiefs, and thought no more on’t! - - -But Hilario, who says this, is the fool of the piece. - -There are historical personages, whose letters and manuscripts -generally we should expect would have disappeared altogether; voluntary -destruction having been applied to them. On the other hand, there are -personages whose manuscripts and whose letters, we should suppose, -would have been preserved with a reverential affection. In each case -the expectation is contrary to fact. We will instance Margaret of -Anjou and William Shakespeare. When Edward IV. was on the throne he -was so desirous to secure every letter or despatch written by that -heroic wife of an unheroic king, that the penalty of death was awarded -against any person who, receiving a letter, or being in possession of -a letter from Queen Margaret, delayed in surrendering the same to the -government. One would suppose that such a penalty would lead every -individual holding such documents, if not to surrender at least to -destroy them. But human nature is perverse, as well as bold, courageous -and defiant. Many of Margaret’s correspondents hid the letters she -had written to them; some of these have lately been published by the -Camden Society. The volume is one of the most interesting of the series -published by that Society, and the letters themselves are creditable -to the writer. They show her less as a fiercely struggling, deeply -sorrowing, terribly avenging queen, than as a sympathising woman, not -so busy in her own affairs as to lack time for being interested in the -affairs of others. She is ever ready to say a good word for a worthy -man seeking advancement, and her heart responds to appeals from young -maidens with whom the course of true love does not run smooth. For -them, Queen Margaret writes with affectionate urgency to that sort of -sire who is apt to say of a suitor to his daughter, who is unwelcome to -himself, ‘I can’t imagine what the girl can see in such a fellow, to -like him!’ To such stern fathers Margaret of Anjou writes like a wise -and affectionate woman. She may be called a ‘matchmaker,’ for she seems -to have gone to the work of coupling with great alacrity, but we are -sure that many a young couple, in those turbulent times, owed to her a -happiness and a harmony in their married life which poor Margaret never -enjoyed in her own. - -But Shakespeare! It is nothing less than marvellous that a man who -wrote as he wrote--and, altogether, no other man ever wrote like -him--that a poet, the author of such plays and such poems; that a man -possessing so many friends and admirers, with whom his correspondence -must have been extensive, should not have left a single line behind -him traced by his own hand. Of all his poems and plays there does not -exist a page, a line, a single word, in manuscript. _All_ Shakespeare’s -manuscript plays could not have perished in the fire which destroyed -the Globe Theatre. The author must have made little account of them -himself; but how great would our estimation be of a single act of any -one of Shakespeare’s plays, in his own handwriting! We have just now -got among us a parallel to the tulip mania. Thousands of pounds are -willingly paid for a picture which the same number of shillings would -once have purchased. Rather, let us say that the shillings were given -for the picture, and that the pounds by thousands are given for the -painter’s name. Well, what would not be willingly paid (for the sake of -Shakespeare’s name) for the original manuscript, say of ‘Hamlet’? There -would be a fierce fight among competitors for even a single passage. -We fancy that the lines beginning with ‘The quality of mercy is not -strained,’ or those that open with ‘Canst thou not minister to a mind -diseased?’ or with ‘She never told her love,’ and hundreds of others, -would not be had for guineas covering each letter. What a contention -there would be for the first love-letter or for any love-letter which -the poet wrote to Anne Hathaway; or indeed for any letter, addressed to -anyone. A costly holograph! Alas! there are neither lines nor letters. -All that has been saved of Shakespeare’s handwriting is confined to -a couple of signatures of his name to certain deeds, and in those -subscriptions the name is spelt differently. Even the forgers have not -dared to produce a letter by Shakespeare. - -There seems to have been at one time a regular manufactory for the -production of letters by Shelley, Keats, and Byron. The market was -swamped by cleverly forged documents. About twenty years ago, Robert -Browning, the poet, edited a volume of letters by Shelley, and critics -said that they would prove useful to all future biographers of that -wayward genius. These letters turned out to be forgeries. One epistle -was found to be a ‘crib’ from an article by Sir Francis Palgrave, in -the ‘Quarterly Review.’ Another was slightly altered from a paper -in a literary annual. When research was made, the discovery ensued -that the supposed originals had been purchased by Mr. Moxon, the -publisher, at an auction. The auctioneer had had them consigned to -him by a bookseller in Pall Mall, and the bookseller had bought them -from two unknown women, who looked as much like ladies as the letters -looked like genuine productions. If Mr. Moxon had not sent a copy of -the volume to Mr. Tennyson a long time might have elapsed before the -fraud could have been discovered. But Mr. Palgrave, on a visit to the -Laureate, happened to open the book, and his eye fell on a letter from -Shelley to Godwin, written from Florence. Mr. Palgrave recognised in -it a portion of an article on Florence, in the ‘Quarterly,’ written by -his father, Sir Francis. Mr. Moxon called in all the copies of this -volume of pseudo-epistles, and suppressed the publication altogether. -A curious result has followed. The volume is worthless, but it is -rare; and simply on account of its rarity it is set down in a London -bookseller’s catalogue now before us at the price of 1_l._ 10_s._ - -Stray letters of Shelley continued to turn up in the market. Letters -to his wife, of the most confidential nature, containing aspersions on -his father, were bought by Sir Percy Shelley, the poet’s son. These too -proved to be forgeries and were destroyed. Another letter, addressed to -Byron, and bearing Shelley’s signature, contained an assertion against -the fidelity of ‘Harriet.’ Whoever bought it paid six guineas for a -calumny against a dead and defenceless woman, to which was appended -the forged signature of her dead and defenceless husband. Forged -letters purporting to be from Byron are, as it were, to be had at every -turn. Also books with his alleged manuscript notes in the margin. Good -judges assert that these notes and letters are written with a thorough -knowledge of Byron’s life and feelings, and that the books are chosen -with the most perfect knowledge of his tastes and peculiarities. - -There was once a dreadful fashion of writing romances and novels in -letters. Nothing seems more wearisome now, but they delighted the -age in which they were written, and _that_ says much for the patient -endurance of the readers of the period. There is, however, _one_ story -told in letters, the humour of which will never grow old, namely, -‘Humphrey Clinker.’ Smollett never showed more ability, or humour, -or power in delineating and discriminating character than in that -admirable work. For humour, commend us to the letters of Mrs. Tabitha -Bramble. The preciseness of that lady, who is satisfied if a suitable -reason be given for things she complains of, and who is drolly serious -in her logic, is charmingly illustrated in the following passage in -one of her various letters addressed to the housekeeper, Mrs. Gwyllym, -in the country, at Brambleton Hall: ‘You tell me the thunder has -soured two barrels of beer in the seller, but how the thunder should -get there, when the seller was double-locked, I can’t comprehend. -Howsomever, I won’t have the beer thrown out till I have seen it with -my own eyes. Perhaps it will recover. At least it will serve for -vinegar for the servants.’ - -This pretended letter is not beyond the reality of much letter-writing -of the last century. Southey, when collecting materials for -‘Espriella,’ came into possession of a letter from a farmer’s daughter. -It was written towards the close of the century, and it runs thus: - - - Dear Miss,--The energy of the races prompts me to assure you - that my request is forbidden, the idea of which I had awkwardly - nourished, notwithstanding my propensity to reserve. M. T. will - be there. Let me with confidence assure you that him and brothers - will be very happy to meet you and brothers. Us girls cannot go, - for reasons. The attention of the cows claims our assistance in - the evening. - - UNALTERABLY YOURS. - - -In the days of heavy postage no one had the slightest scruple in -cheating the revenue. Persons leaving home, whether for inland or -foreign travel, were importuned by friends to carry letters for them -to other friends. An idea prevailed that, if the letters were carried -‘open’--that is, unsealed--there was no infraction of the law, and -that consequently no penalty could be exacted. This was a popular -error. The law, moreover, was evaded in another way. A newspaper was -sent by post in an envelope; inside the latter a long epistle was -often written in invisible ink, generally milk. When this was dry the -writing could not be seen. By holding the paper to the fire the writing -came out in a sepia colour, and the law was broken. The Post Office -authorities discovered this pretty trick, and parties were threatened -with prosecution; but as the receivers invariably protested that they -did not know who the senders were it was almost impossible to obtain -a conviction. Senders indeed grew a little nervous, and many changed -their method of conveying information in spite of the law. In place of -writing in milk on the covers of the newspapers they made slight dots -in ordinary ink under such printed letters as suited their purpose -for conveying intelligence. This was troublesome for both sender and -receiver, and it was therefore used only for brief messages. The postal -tax pressed most heavily on the poor, but the ingenious poor discovered -means to evade it. For instance, a son or daughter in town despatched a -letter to parents in the country who were too poor to pay the postage. -The parents declined to take such letter in, which they had legal right -to do. Returned to the General Post Office, the letter on being opened -was found to be a blank sheet of paper. The fact is that parents and -children had agreed to send these blank sheets as indications that -all was well with the sender; the receiver got that much of news and -had nothing to pay for it. The letter was never taken in unless a -particular mark was on the cover, which intimated that something of -importance was to be read within. - -Although a high rate of postage fell most heavily upon the poor -there was scarcely anyone who did not feel it. Everyone wished to be -relieved from it. We can hardly realise how peers, who could frank -a large number of letters daily, and how members of Parliament, who -could frank, every day except Sunday, a few, were beset by friends for -franks for themselves, or for _their_ friends, or for their friends’ -friends. We have an illustration of this fact in the ‘Diary, Letters, -and Journals of Sir George Jackson.’ Writing to his mother at Bath, in -1802, the then apprentice diplomatist says: ‘My sister tells me Bath -was never so thin. I sympathise with her, knowing how voluminous her -correspondence is, and that the thinness of Bath means “a dearth of -_frank_ men,” there being, she says, only Lords Rosslyn and Harcourt to -fly to.’ - -In those old days heavy postage made long letters. As the receivers -paid the postage they naturally expected their money’s worth. Often a -sheet of Bath post, or even of foolscap, was crossed and recrossed, -and not a hair’s breadth of the paper was left without its line. A -letter then was written bit by bit, day after day, till the whole was -completed. It was, in its way, a newspaper or a book; it was sent all -through the branches of a family; it was lent to friends; it even went -to mere acquaintances, and strangers made extracts from the choicest -parts of it. In the second series of Miss Mitford’s ‘Letters and -Correspondence’ she refers to one of these epistles. It was written by -a lord who had been travelling on the Continent, and it was a clever, -sensible, and instructive document. Miss Mitford borrowed it for the -purpose of copying the contents, to accomplish which cost her six -mortal hours, which the lady did not think were ill-spent. - -When postage was high, letters were luxuries in which persons, far -above the condition of those who are called poor, could not often -indulge. We cannot give a better illustration of this than one we find -in a letter addressed by Mr. Collins, the artist, to his brother, in -1816, when the landscape painter was twenty-eight years of age. Collins -was then at Hastings sketching, and had invited his brother to come -down from Saturday to Monday. ‘The whole amount of the expense would be -the coach, provided you put two biscuits in your pocket, which would -answer as a lunch; and I would have dinner for you, which would not -increase _my_ expenditure _above tenpence_. I shall be at the place -where the coach stops for you, should you be able to come. Write me -nothing about it unless you have other business, _for a letter costs a -dinner_.’ This was the artist who was overjoyed to receive fifty pounds -for his ‘Cromer Sands,’ the picture for which, at the sale of the -Gillott collection, a purchaser was found to give, quite as joyously, -three thousand seven hundred and eighty guineas. - -It has been said that, if heavy postage produced essays, cheap postage -makes epigrams. But the latter were not wanting in the very earliest -days. Nothing could be more epigrammatic than the note sent by one -Irish chief to another: ‘Pay me tribute, or else ----’ To which the -equally epigrammatic answer was: ‘I owe you none, and if ----’ Of this -sort were the notes between Foote’s mother and Foote. ‘Dear Sam,--I’m -in prison. Yours, E. FOOTE.’ The old lady was under arrest for debt. -The son’s answer was: ‘Dear Mother,--So am I. Yours, S. FOOTE.’ And -again, the letters between old Mrs. Garrick and young Edmund Kean: -‘Dear Mr. Kean,--You can’t play Abel Drugger. Yours, &c.’ To which -intimation Edmund wrote back: ‘Dear Madam,--I know it. Yours, E. K.’ -Instances occur now and then where a joke has been played, the fun -of which was to make a man pay heavy postage for very unnecessary -information. When Collins, the artist, was once with some friends -around him, one of them resisted every attempt to induce him to stay -to supper. He withdrew, and the friends in council over their banquet -resolved that the sulky guest should be punished. Accordingly on the -following day Collins sent him a folded sheet of foolscap, in which -was written: ‘After you left we had stout and oysters.’ The receiver -understood what was meant, but he was equally resolved to have his -revenge. Accordingly, biding his time, he transmitted, in a feigned -hand, to Collins, a letter in which the painter read only, ‘_Had_ you?’ -Therewith the joke seemed at an end; but Collins would have the last -word. He waited and waited till the thing was almost forgotten, and -then the writer of the last query opened a letter one morning in which -he had the satisfaction of finding an answer to it in the words, ‘Yes, -we had.’ We cannot dismiss this part of the subject without expressing -our regret that we are unable to remember the name of that British -admiral who, after achieving a glorious victory at sea, despatched a -letter to the Admiralty, in which there were only these or similar -words: ‘ ... Beat the enemy; took, sunk, burned, and destroyed ships -named in the margin.’ Tersest of admirals! - -The publication of the letters of deceased persons first arose, or -began to be so common, about the middle of the last century, that Dr. -Arbuthnot declared the knowledge of such a fact added a new terror to -death. In 1781 the custom had not improved. ‘It has become so much the -fashion to publish letters,’ said Dr. Johnson, ‘that I put as little -into mine as I can.’ Nevertheless, when Boswell subsequently asked -him if it would be proper to publish any of his letters after death, -Johnson contented himself by remarking: ‘Nay, sir, when I am dead you -may do as you will with mine.’ - -There has been no little affectation in some notable persons, and a -remarkable candour in others, with respect to the publication of these -documents. Pope addressed his letters to his friends, but he carefully -and elaborately wrote and re-wrote them for posterity, and he was not -sorry to see some of them get into print (he rather helping them to -that end than obstructing them), that he might have a foretaste of the -enjoyment which was more especially intended for after ages. Every -line in Walpole’s letters reads as if it were as much intended for -_us_ of any year to come as for the happy friend to whom the letter -was directed; but this diminishes neither Walpole’s credit nor our -appreciation. Pepys never intended his ‘Diary’ to be perused by any -mortal eye but his own. The Rev. Mr. Smith, however, deciphered the -shorthand, and the best social history of Pepys’ time fell into the -hands of a delighted and grateful public. Evelyn wrote _his_ ‘Diary’ -for his own satisfaction, indifferent, as Dr. Johnson about his -letters, whether it were published or not after his death. Evelyn’s -descendants were ignorant of its value, and it is to a stranger we -owe those sketches of contemporary men and things which now enrich -our literature. Pepys, Evelyn, Walpole--diaries and letters; of how -many exquisite stories we should have known nothing but for those -three individuals! It matters little whether they intended we should -enjoy that knowledge or not; sufficient for us that we _do_. And let -us note in passing another letter-writer--Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. -Her letters are not quite so popular, so much read, or so well known, -perhaps, as they used to be; they may have had their day, but the -writer was well assured they would at least have _that_. ‘Keep my -letters,’ she once wrote to a friend; ‘they will be as good as Madame -de Sévigné’s forty years hence.’ - -They certainly contain many things worth the knowing. The writer’s -descriptions of foreign scenes and incidents are full of life and -spirit, generally truthful, and always effective without marring the -truth. There is one passage in one of her ladyship’s letters which -illustrates the writer’s power in a particularly delicate matter, which -is well deserving notice. Mr. Montagu’s sister died. She had been Lady -Mary Pierrepont’s dearest friend. Young Montagu had to communicate -the news of his sister’s death to the young Lady Mary. In her reply -the latter said: ‘I know it is not acting in form, but I do not look -upon you as I do upon the rest of the world. You are brother to a woman -whom I tenderly loved.’ The young fellow excused the informality; he -was proud of being looked upon by the young beauty in a different way -from the rest of the world. As that young beauty reminded him that he -was brother to the woman she so tenderly loved, he was not dull, and -had no difficulty in persuading her to love the brother even better -than she had done the sister. The marriage, however, was not made in -heaven. The lady herself had some suspicion about the consequences. ‘I -tremble,’ she wrote to her intended husband, ‘for what we are doing. -Shall we never repent?... I shall come to you only with a nightgown and -petticoat, and that is all you will get by me.’ She adds significantly: -‘I had rather die than return to a dependency upon relations I have -disobliged.’ In her first letter to her (absent) husband after marriage -she alludes to the children of the family in which she was residing, -and says: ‘It furnishes my imagination with agreeable pictures of our -future life, and I flatter myself with the hopes of one day enjoying -with you the same satisfaction ... when the noise of a nursery may have -more charms for us than the music of the opera.’ - -While on the subject of the publication of posthumous letters, we may -add that other men besides Johnson have written their own so as to -gratify posterity as little as possible. Some are as cautious with -respect to contemporaries. One of the most venerable of our peers was -once told that several of his letters were catalogued for sale in a -London auction room. ‘It is a matter of indifference to me,’ said the -noble lord; ‘from the day I became a public man I never wrote a line -worth the reading by anyone except the person to whom my letter was -addressed.’ - -The assertion that a lady puts the essence, nay, the very purpose and -import of her letter, in the postscript, has had many an ingenious but -invented illustration. One of the best is that of a young lady in India -to her friends at home, viz.:--‘P.S. You will see by my signature that -I am married.’ Cobbett hated writing across already written lines, -and declared that it was of French origin. The earliest letter by a -lady, in this country, of which a copy exists, is one from Matilda, -Queen of Henry I., to Archbishop Anselm. In this she styles him her -‘worthily reverenced lord,’ and herself ‘the lowest of the handmaidens -of his holiness;’ phrases which show the mind and hand of some reverend -secretary. Anne Boleyn’s last cry of love and anguish to her lord is -worth a ream of the letters of earlier date written at second hand. It -is genuineness that gives all the interest to the Paston Letters (once -so disputed); Agnes Paston’s to her son may be said to be admirable for -detail and simplicity. ‘God’s blessing and mine,’ is a fitting double -benediction from a mother to her son. How picturesquely descriptive is -the passage, ‘On Tuesday last Sir John Heveningham went to his church -and heard three masses, and came home again, never merrier, and said -to his wife that he would go say a little devotion in his garden and -then he would dine; and forthwith he felt a fainting in his legs and -slid down. This was at nine of the clock and he was dead ere noon.’ -Such were life and death in the middle of the fifteenth century in the -county of Norfolk. We may notice, after the above illustration of a -letter from a mother to her son, one from a wife to her husband, but -of the seventeenth century. In a letter from Susan Montague to her -husband Edward, who has announced his being about to leave Madrid for -England, the sprightly Susan replied to her ‘sweetheart’ that she fears -she may weary his eyes with her ‘tedious scribblement,’ and after many -allusions to herself and two ladies, with matters of confidence, Susan -Montague concludes by saying: ‘So being very late, as a matter of ten -o’clock, I bid you good night, going into the little bed, which I find -less than ever it was, and never have no mind to go into it because I -cannot find my sweeting there. But when I am there I sleep as little -as may be, for I am still riding post to Madrid, which I hope doth -presage that you will shortly post from there and come to the little -chamber again, which I heartily pray for. So, dear heart, farewell. -Your truly loving wife--SU. MONTAGUE.’ The orthography of ladies became -rather worse than better in the times after Susan Montague wrote. In -the last century ladies spelt ‘physician’ with a capital F, and in the -old game of ‘loving’ would not be conscious of wrong in saying, ‘I -love my love with a G, because he’s a Gustus!’ There are some curious -samples of ill spelling in the Delany correspondence. Cacography seemed -to be intermittent like the ague. The wrong thing came with the east -wind or epidemics. Sometimes an odd word or two would baffle a lady. -At the beginning of the present century the exquisite Alison Cockburn -referred in one of her letters to some ‘unpareleled boon.’ The word -caught her eye, and she gaily added as a postscript, ‘Cannot spell -unparaleled.’ - -The letters of fine gentlemen are written in a fine gentlemanly way. -If the fine gentleman be a wit and a poet it does not always improve -the style of the letter. Much nonsense has been written upon Waller -and his Sacharissa (Lady Dorothy Sidney). The facts of their supposed -love passages have grown up out of the imaginations of sentimental -writers. When Lady Dorothy married Lord Spencer, Waller wrote to her -sister, Lady Lucy, a letter which would now be considered much more -impudent than witty. But the poet’s hand is in it as well as the -impudent wit’s. After sympathising with Lady Lucy on the loss of her -sister ‘bedfellow,’ and expressing a hope that the latter would soon -‘taste of the first curse imposed on woman,’ and often; in due course -of time, the poet wishes, ‘May she then arrive at that great curse so -much declined by fair ladies, old age. May she live to be very old and -yet seem young, be told so by her glass, and have no aches to inform -her of the truth. And when she shall appear to be mortal, may her lord -not mourn for her, but go hand in hand with her to that place where we -are told there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage, that being -there divorced we may all have an equal interest in her again.’ - -Letters _to_ children are as difficult to write as books _for_ -children. Crabb Robinson stands at the head of all inditers of little -epistles to little folk. He is not in the vein of Jeffrey to his -granddaughter, as in ‘I send you my blessing and wish I was kissing -your sweet rosy lips or your fat finger tips.’ Robinson comes nearer -to Hood, only that he could not stoop to use old jokes as well as make -new. The two are together in the following paragraph in Hood’s letter -to May, one of Dr. Elliot’s daughters: ‘Tell Dunnie that Tom has set -his trap in the balcony, and has caught a cold; and tell Jeanie that -Fanny has set her foot in the garden, but it has not come up yet.... -The other night, when I came from Stratford, the cold shrivelled me up -so that when I got home I thought I was my own child.’ The best thing -Crabb Robinson did in this way was by surprising a little girl, who -said she did not know how to write a letter to her little brother, by -proving to her that she was a perfect letter-writer. She had asked -Robinson to suggest all the subjects. He proposed purposely something -untrue, then something silly, but both were rejected by the child on -the ground of their untruthfulness and silliness. This process went on -till the child adopted such subjects as were adapted to her purpose, -and she found she was a good letter-writer without knowing it. - -We conclude with an unpublished letter, from an American lady we -believe, who some quarter of a century ago aspired to be the instructor -of children. The quaintness and simplicity, for it is all sober -earnestness, are worthy of being preserved: ‘DEAR SIR,--Having heard -that you are in want of a governess for your children, I write to offer -myself as a candidate for that post. My acquirements are English in -all its branches, French, German, music, which I play well, singing, -painting, drawing, and dancing. My age is just 28. I am a lady by -birth, high-spirited, and I am sorry to say slightly quick-tempered, -but still very fond of children, likewise of gentlemen’s society; I am -rather delicate, and when not as well as usual require a few tempting -viands. I hope, if you decide in having me for your children as their -governess, that you will allow me the _entrée_ of your drawing-room at -all times, and that you will also allow me to join in all your domestic -amusements. I wish to inform you that I have been in the habit of -receiving 60_l._ (sixty pounds) per annum, or fifty pounds (50_l._) -with laundress, and all travelling expenses paid. You may be glad to -hear that I have an elegant figure, small hands and feet, and am, if my -friends and admirers are to be believed, engaging.’ - -With this sample we may leave our readers to pass on to fresh woods and -pastures new. - - - - -_THE TWENTY-THOUSAND-POUND WIDOW._ - - -In the reign of Charles I. the Old Jewry, which runs from Cheapside to -Cateaton Street, was a fashionable locality. Merchant princes lived -and died there. The old church, St. Olave Jewry, or St. Olave Upwell, -was a fashionable church. Merchant princesses worshipped there, and -their daughters were worshipped by the undevout apprentices. The Jewry -had its fashionable old hostelry in the Windmill. It lives in Ben -Jonson’s drama. It was there that Captain Bobadil told of his heroism -at the siege of Strigonium, and there he pished at the idea of Master -Stephen’s Provant rapier passing for a Toledo blade. One May morning, -A.D. 1628, George Newman, the rich widow Bennett’s first serving-man, -was taking his early draught at the Windmill. His master, the rich -mercer, a Bennett of the stock from which the Tankerville earls have -sprung, was then lying, a month old in his tenantcy, in a grave in -St. Olave’s, next to another mercer, Robert Large, the master of one -who came to be more famous, namely, Caxton, the father of English -printing. Bennett’s widow was then sitting behind her rich curtains -in Jewry Street meditating on a world of speculative subjects. ‘She’s -a twenty-thousand-pound widow,’ said Newman, as he wiped his lips with -the sleeve of his coat. ‘She’ll be a bride, and a lady to boot, before -long. She has as many suitors as she has thousands.’ ‘And,’ said a -bystander, ‘will maybe marry the biggest knave or the most perfect -fool of the lot.’ ‘Not so,’ rejoined the serving-man. ‘Do you see Mr. -Recorder passing by from his court? He is a friend of the family, and -will see that neither rogue nor ass carries off the wealthy widow.’ -‘Ay!’ cried the host of the Windmill, ‘Mistress Bennett is in safe -hands, with Sir Heneage Finch for her guardian and her little son’s -guardian.’ And so said all who stood within hearing. - -The scene now changes to the widow’s best room, in her mansion in Old -Jewry. If you can fancy the three slim Graces rolled into one, with no -other result but delicious increase of beauty in form, motion, look, -and expression, you may have a very fair idea of this most blooming -and best endowed of widows. Physically, morally, materially, she was -not to be equalled throughout the realm of mature womanhood. Fair of -face, frank of speech, with an inheritance of two-thirds of her late -husband’s property, a prosperous business, plate, diamonds, cash, the -mansion in which she lived, a coach, six horses, and all things that -tend to make life enjoyable, Mistress Bennett took her widowhood with -that sort of resignation which is denoted by an air of calm content -with providential dispensations. She was in such esteem that at least a -score of lovers were contending for the honour of rendering her happy. -Even the ladies were busy in commending certain of the suitors. The -widow would not be persuaded. The lady advisers were frivolous. She -would rely on the grave counsel of a grave man. Mr. Recorder would be -her truest support if she ever found herself in any perplexity on the -subject of marrying again. At the moment it was a subject that was not -in her thoughts. - -‘The subject is in the thoughts of young Butler, of Bramfield,’ said -Lady Skinner. ‘He is a gentleman----’ - -‘He is a black, blunt-nosed one,’ interrupted the widow. And indeed -Butler was not an Adonis. - -‘I pity poor Sir Peter Temple,’ said another of Love’s messengers that -morning. ‘Stowe does not make him happy; _you_ might.’ - -‘Eleanor Tirrell _will_,’ replied the widow. ‘I wish they were all as -well provided for.’ - -‘All!’ exclaimed Sir Peter’s friend. ‘Why, to what tune does the list -run?’ - -‘First,’ answered the widow, ‘there is Sir Henry Mainwaring, a poor -old battered knight, who is not master of as much land as his shoes -can cover; and yet he is as proud as if he were a Mainwaring of Over -Pecover. His worship was brought hither by the hand of the Countess of -Bridgwater, but I speedily rid myself civilly of both. There have been -other silly knights, and lords too, who have come and gone, and some -of whom come and come again. Lord Bruce took a frank answer, and did -not present himself twice. Lord Lumley, all in the glitter of his new -title, will not take _nay_. Dr. Raven has even dared to offer himself -without first feeling my pulse, and he swears his daring has not come -to an end. Only the other day Sir Sackville Crowe beset me; and, heaven -help me! I believed, for a moment, that Sir Heneage Finch himself had -views towards me. But Sir Heneage _could_ take an answer, and he besets -me with hints of his aspirations no longer.’ - -‘Crow, Finch, Raven!’ exclaimed the group of ladies who were gathered -round the twenty-thousand-pounder in her best room at St. Olave’s. -‘What a singular gathering of birds! You will be flown away with, -widow, in spite of yourself.’ - -Mr. Recorder Finch, erst Speaker of the House of Commons, came into -London to perform his legal duties, and returned in the evening to his -house at Kensington. The house still stands. It is the kernel round -which has grown the shell called Kensington Palace. Heneage Finch’s -gardens extended only to what is now called the Broad Walk. The latter -was then a pathway through Hyde Park from Kensington to Bayswater. The -wicked public loved to connect his name with those of Crowe and Raven -as ‘birds of a feather.’ The truth is, that Raven was the real, daring, -and most persistent lover. Sir Sackville Crowe, indeed, had been the -more serious in his pretensions, as he most needed the widow’s money. -He was ‘a thief on the wrong side of Newgate;’ that is, he outspent -his income and ruined his tradesmen. He paid them by agreement just -a quarter of what he owed those poor fellows, and thus he submitted -to be three-quarters kept by his butcher, baker, and tailor. He made -an ‘appearance,’ which it was an easy thing to do at other people’s -expense. He had been the official keeper of public funds, of which he -unluckily failed to give satisfactory account. He alleged that his -book-keeping had been done by deputy, and his deputy seems to have -been loose in his arithmetic. Altogether, this Crowe was a supreme -rogue, but he was one of a very large family. The widow’s fortune would -have saved his post, if not his credit, at the Navy Treasury Office. -The widow, however, scornfully refused to sit on the same branch with -Crowe, and Sir Sackville, thoroughly plucked, was ejected from the -office in question. - -But, Dr. Raven! The doctor was of another quality. The physician would -not be said _nay_. The _nay_ was _decies repetita_, but it was not -heeded. Still, he was not the nearer to his object by being impeded. -One evening he took up a copy of Green’s ‘Quip,’ which was then a work -of some thirty years old. His eye fell on these words: ‘Lawyers are -troubled with the heat of the liver, which makes the palms of their -hands so hot that they cannot be cooled unless they be rubbed with oil -of angels.’ Forthwith Dr. Raven bethought him that Abigails were very -like lawyers, and that he would try a few angels on the palms of Widow -Bennett’s waiting-woman, to gain access to whom, however, he had to -oil many a serving-man’s palm also. Abigail was willing to betray her -mistress for a consideration, and it was made worth her while to admit -Raven (like Iachimo into the chamber of the sleeping Imogen) into the -apartment where the widow lay in a lapse of loveliness, buried in lace -and rosy slumbers. Raven awoke the sleeping dove with all gentleness; -as she did not scream he pressed his suit, craftily pointing out to her -that as his presence compromised her reputation, the latter could only -be saved by an immediate marriage. Then the thoroughly awakened goddess -lifted up her voice to tremendous purpose. ‘Reputation,’ indeed! She -knew hers to be safe, and she lustily screamed ‘Thieves!’ and ‘Murder;’ -in order to bring in her household to keep it so. The men-servants, -seeing no further chance of angels or marks from the physician, flung -themselves upon Raven, as if he had really been more intent upon murder -than marriage. They held him till the august parish constable arrived, -and the constable ‘run him in’ to the Compter for the night. On the -following morning Raven was brought up before Mr. Recorder Finch. -That impartial judge, sympathising with the insulted widow, whom he -so highly respected, committed Dr. Raven for trial at the ensuing -sessions. It was not at all likely that Sir Heneage Finch would be slow -in protecting the beautiful widow of his deceased friend from such -saucy rogues as Dr. Raven, who was subsequently imprisoned for half a -year. - -The dramatists certainly had their eye upon this escapade of Raven’s. -Rowley, especially, adopted the bed-room incident in his ‘City Match,’ -where Alexander Bloodhound gets into the Widow Wagge’s chamber. -Alexander half-undresses himself, and so frightens the widow that she -consents to marry him to save her credit; but she disappoints the -audacious wooer at last. Mr. Planché reproduced this scene in 1828 in -his ‘Merchant’s Wedding.’ The daring suitor there was Frank Plotwell -(C. Kemble); the lady was Aurelia, a wealthy heiress, played by Miss -Chester, who was as superb a beauty as Widow Bennett herself. How -glorious, too, Charles Kemble looked in his King Charles suit, and how -like a jockey in his silks when he half-stripped, are things only to be -remembered by old play-goers with good memories. - -At this time there was a Kentish knight keeping lonely state in -London. He was a widower twice over; but loving matrimony so well -from his sweet experience of it that he was dying to find another -mate. The Derings were of a very old stock, and Sir Edward, thirty -years of age in 1628, might have looked high in search of the mate in -question. He was of Magdalen College, Oxford, and was a sound scholar. -In religion rather austere, but with an anti-episcopalian bias. His -tastes would have made him a very acceptable member of the Society of -Antiquaries. In person he was a handsome fellow, was gifted with kindly -dispositions, of good carriage and expression in speaking, was fond of -applause, and was unaffectedly conscious that he deserved all he could -get of it. Some ladies thought so too. Elizabeth Tufton, one of the -nine muses--daughters, we should say--of Sir Nicholas, put her hand in -his as frankly as he asked for it; and King James made a knight of the -bridegroom, who was none the more a gentleman for the dignity conferred -on him. The bride died after the birth of a son, and therewith ended -a brief day-dream of married happiness. They carried the young mother -to the grave when she was little more than twenty, nor was the young -widower much older. - -That young widower found consolation, however, at a pretty early period -of his mourning time. He took to his home a new bride from Sussex, Ann -Ashburnham, whose mother was connected with the family of the great -Buckingham. Thenceforward, for a season, Sir Edward Dering became a -public man. He was busier in Kent than his father, Sir Anthony (a -baronet), and he was to be seen about court, a gentleman of the Privy -Chamber, attending more closely upon the Duke than upon Charles the -First, and hoping to get into Parliament under Buckingham’s favour. -But fate was against him. The Duke was assassinated in 1626, and Sir -Edward was called from court by the sickness of his fair young wife. -In one of her letters to him, while he was at Whitehall, she wrote, ‘I -cannot send any good news of my couge’s going away, yet I eat joyes -of lecarich.’ The ‘couge’s’ signified ‘cough’s.’ The futile remedy -was ‘juice of liquorice.’ At the age of twenty-three this second Lady -Dering was laid by the side of the first, leaving a son and daughter -too young to remember their mother. - -Sir Edward was again solitary, and was bearing his solitude -impatiently, when chance brought him acquainted with the story of the -fair widow in the Jewry. A new act in the City comedy opens, and to -gay music ‘enter Sir Edward Dering.’ It is St. Edmund’s day. Raven is -in limbo. The widow is alone. The new lover calls in St. Olave’s. Mrs. -Bennett, however, declines to receive him. He sends in a letter to her -by her servant, who brings it back, but the maid tells him that her -mistress _had read_ it. Read it! Then there was hope. Within the next -four days Sir Edward had oiled the palms of men-servants and clerks -to the tune of eighty shillings. He called again, but was denied. He -wrote again, and she kept the letter. Kept the letter! Here was a hint -to proceed further. Sir Edward ‘oiled’ more palms, and moved cousins -of his own and cousins of the widow--being of his acquaintance--to -stir her to be gracious to so handsome and hopeful a lover. He had the -widow’s cash-keeper to sup with him; and, perhaps at the cash-keeper’s -suggestion, on the last day in November, 1628, Sir Edward was to be -seen twice at the Old Jewry Church, near enough to the handsome widow -for her to see him without appearing to turn her eyes expressly for -that purpose. Reckoning on having made a favourable impression, he, on -the following day, wrote a third letter. This Mistress Bennett deigned -to keep, which was favour enough for the present. Presuming on that -favour the ardent lover (who had lodged himself at a house opposite the -widow’s), at the end of two or three days, rang thrice in one forenoon -at the widow’s bell. ‘Mrs. Bennett was not at home.’ She was abroad, -prosecuting the over-zealous lover, Dr. Raven. A friend, and not a -servant of the widow, on Dering repeating his call next day, one Mr. -George Loe, brought a very cautious message to the wooer. It was made -up of what _she_ said, and what _he_ thought. What she said was to this -effect: that a Mr. Steward, from whom she wished to buy the wardship he -had had conferred on him of her own child, but who wished, on his side, -to have legal marital wardship of the child’s mother, was ‘testy,’ and -‘she could give admittance to none till she had concluded all matters -of business with _him_.’ What Loe added was, ‘She has a good opinion -of you. I have spoken nobly of you. You shall hear from me as soon as -Steward is disposed of, and,’ said Loe (probably the sly widow had -told him to say it), ‘don’t refrain from going to the church where -she prays unless you think it disparages yourself.’ Disparagement! -It was an honour. On the very first Sunday in December Dering paid -double worship at St. Olave’s, Old Jewry. He went as parishioner and -lover, uniting, as Mr. Bruce says, in his preface to ‘Proceedings in -Kent,’ ‘the worship of Mrs. Bennett with that ordinarily offered at St. -Olave’s.’ The interference of servants in the affair here curiously -manifests itself. As Sir Edward left the church George Newman, whom he -had ‘oiled,’ whispered in Dering’s ear, ‘Good news!’ As Sir Edward was -sitting after dinner at his own table Newman entered, and the fellow -bade the cavalier be of good cheer. ‘My mistress,’ he said, ‘likes well -your carriage, and, if your land is not settled on your eldest son, -there is good hope for you.’ The news, true or false, was paid for at -the cost of a pound sterling. If he smiled as he went out so also does -Sir Edward, as he leans back in his chair, and murmurs to himself, -‘This evening I will seek counsel of Heneage Finch.’ - -At the Recorder’s house you may see, in the next scene of the drama, -Finch and Dering at supper. The friends and kinsmen take their claret -and talk of love. The two suitors to the widow were on terms of -unlimited confidence and frankness. ‘Ned,’ said Sir Heneage, ‘I wend no -more to the widow’s house. I have done. I have no success to look for. -I have no desire to go further. I will do or say anything you ask me -in this or any other matter.’ Nothing could be kinder than Sir Heneage -Finch. - -Meanwhile Mr. Steward was at the widow’s feet; or, rather, he stood -upright on his own, dictating, rather than asking, terms. The widow’s -heart was set, she said, upon having her child’s wardship in her own -hands. She was willing to pay fifteen hundred pounds for it. As the -words fell from her beautiful lips, Edmund Aspull, Mrs. Bennett’s -cash-keeper, advanced, with the amount all ready. If Steward said -anything gallant it has not reached the audience. He seems to have had -an ‘_aside_,’ in which he murmured that for nothing less than four -thousand pounds would he ever release his right in the ward. ‘With my -good will,’ said the widow, ‘I will never look upon that fellow again!’ -But, in legal matters she, of course, would consult her good friend, -Sir Heneage. To do him justice, Finch was always ready to give prudent -counsel whenever he was asked for it. - -‘Madam,’ said George Newman, entering the room, ‘Sir Edward Dering is -at the door; he prays of your kindness leave to present himself.’ - -‘Desire Sir Edward,’ replied the widow, ‘to excuse me. I am not willing -to entertain discourse of that kind.’ - -Newman went to the outer door, where Aspull, the cashier, was talking -with Sir Edward, and delivered the reply. - -The lover stood in sad contemplation, and then he remarked, ‘I am in a -wilderness of uncertainty.’ - -Aspull carried the ‘pretty phrase’ upstairs to his mistress. - -‘Tell Sir Edward that I will see him,’ said Mrs. Bennett. - -When serving-man and cash-keeper had left the wooer and the wooed to -themselves, the latter went methodically to matters of business and -matters of sentiment. Sir Edward had the privilege which custom gave -a lover, on declaring himself; he ‘saluted’ the lady. He then went -into details as to his state and estate, to all of which the widow -listened with interest. When he touched on the question of affection, -the handsome widow looked at the handsome widower, but she answered -neither _yea_ nor _nay_. She kept him as he was. Indeed, the knight -begged her to defer her answer till he again presented himself to her. -She consented, but therewith she remarked, ‘I have no present purpose -of marrying.’ She would name a second day for the meeting, after her -cousin Cradock (a friend of Sir Edward’s) should come to town. Dering -saw that she was desirous he should then leave her to herself. He -respectfully kissed the formally offered cheek, and bowing, withdrew. -He, no doubt, went and told all to Sir Heneage. - -Mistress Bennett said of Dering, soon after he had retired, ‘He comes -not as boisterous as Steward and Sir Peter come. Steward! As soon as I -get from him the broad seal which releases my child, he may be hanged -ere I have anything more to do with him.’ What she said of both these -suitors was duly reported to the third. Whereupon he pressed his suit -and he got friends to press it for him. The widow, however, could not -be hurried. Her cousin Cradock was a man it behoved her to consult -upon a family question like the present; and the Recorder, being not -only her friend but her suitor’s, would be indispensable authority on -matters both of law and of property. - -Day after day Dering’s patience waned till there was none left. On New -Year’s day, 1629, the scene was of the liveliest at the widow’s house. -Sir Edward had thought to frighten her into favouring his suit by -courteously asking for the returning to him of his letters. The widow -sent them back without a word of comment. Her friends standing round -her wondered at her decision, and, if the lady and cavalier told their -respective stories to Finch he probably looked as wise as a judge while -he listened. - -The scene is still at the widow’s house, and there again Sir Edward -treads the stage. He cannot call on Mistress Bennett, but he can on -Mistress Norton, who is his good friend, and the widow’s companion. -From her and other household sources he hears that the widow is often -sad and silent. If she breaks silence, it is only to remark that she -will never marry at all. If Mrs. Norton commends Sir Edward the widow -beshrews her companion, and protests that she hears so much of him all -day long, she ‘can’t sleep all night for dreaming of him.’ Perhaps in -one of those night visions she confounded Dering with Raven, for she -dreamed that she ran away from him in her nightgear, out of the bedroom -into her great parlour, whereby she caught catarrh. However, Sir Edward -could not push his renewed suit to a happy termination. He sat for -an hour with Mrs. Norton, talking of the widow, when he would have -preferred to be talking with the widow herself. The latter was reported -to be sad, in perplexity, and not likely to marry at all--just yet. -This did not render Sir Edward’s suit desperate; but he wrote himself -‘fool’ for having asked for the return of his letters, when Newman told -him that she had double services of plate, for town and country use, -and that she had that glory of all proudly furnished houses of the -olden time, beds, worth one hundred pounds the bed. - -Again, the scene shifts to the street before Sir George Croke’s house. -The lady is about to descend from her chariot, and lo! the lover is -there with a petition to be allowed to assist her. He does more, of -course; he escorts her into the parlour, where the judge and many -ladies are assembled. While general conversation went on, Sir Edward -assiduously courted the widow from behind her chair. They talk in -whispers, and are let alone. It is all prayer on one side, fencing -prettily on the other. Prettily made accusations are humbly answered; -she will not be pressed, not she. Her final reply should be made -through her cousin, Cradock. - -‘Pray,’ said Dering, ‘sweeten the answer with your own breath.’ And -then Sir George drank to him in a glass of muscado while Sir Edward -kissed the lady’s cheek. As the judge and the lover parted at the door, -the former did not hesitate to declare his conviction that the widow -was not to be won. - -‘Won she must be,’ thought Sir Edward, ‘by one means or another.’ He -rather stooped to find them. For instance, on a certain morning the -widow’s four-year-old son was walking with his nursemaid, Susan, in -Finsbury Fields; Susan was induced by a friend to take the boy to Sir -Edward’s lodging, where Dering regaled him with cake, gave him an amber -box, treated the maid to a glass of wine, hoped her mistress would not -be angry with him, and put in the maid’s hand a five-shilling piece. - -‘Lor, sir!’ exclaimed Susan, ‘I, and all the house, pray for you; and -young Master Simon here does ever call you Father!’ - -The widow did not seem to be in haste to ratify the relationship. -Viscount Lumley’s chariot was at her door five times in one week. My -Lord went to St. Olave’s, and escorted her home after service. All -London began to take part in the comedy. New lovers again went to the -Old Jewry only to meet denial. Lumley himself, who was but a ragged -sort of viscount, was constrained, at last, to take reluctant leave, -after his hopes had been buoyed up by interference in his favour by no -less a person than the Earl of Dorset, the Queen’s Lord Chamberlain. -Sir Edward did not benefit by the withdrawal of the Viscount. Reports -reached him that the widow had expressed some liking for him, but -not enough to induce her to marry with him. Driven to the extreme of -perplexity, Sir Edward engaged another supporter, namely, the Cheapside -mercer, Izaak Walton. Izaak celebrated Dering’s praises; mutual friends -reported small incidents with much exaggeration. Cousin Cradock knew -how Sir Edward might win her; another knew that she was already won, -but was coy to confess it. One Master Catesby swore that Dering should -both ‘win and wear.’ Lady Cleere told Dering’s father, Sir Anthony, -that such a capricious widow was hardly worth the wearing; but Lady -Wroth stood up for her as a good and wise gentlewoman, whom any lover -might be proud to make his wife. - -The grand scene of the comedy occurred when Sir Edward was admitted to -see the widow, on condition that he made no reference to the subject -of marrying. The interview was a scene for Frith to paint. Sir Edward, -with formal low bow, acknowledged the graciousness which admitted -him to this interview; but he hoped it would not be the last of that -sort of happiness which he might enjoy. Mistress Bennett murmured that -chance might still bring them within sight of one another. Then the -lover stretched the contract a little, without breaking it. He touched -upon his love, her happiness, and cleverly thanked her for forbidding -him to pursue making further proposals, as therein might lie the fact -that she need not forbid what she, perhaps, had resolved to grant. Some -more word-fencing went on; but it ended with a denial on the lady’s -part, and a request from the gentleman that she would authorise him to -give a public reason for the denial. - -‘Say,’ she replied, ‘that you left me, and take the glory of it.’ - -‘Nay!’ said Sir Edward; ‘I will never withdraw my affection nor my -respect till I see you give your hand to another.’ - -We fear the widow was a dreadful coquette, for subsequent to the above -‘last sight,’ as the interview was called, Mistress Bennett granted -an audience to Lord Lumley, when she went so far as to accept a ring -from him--a step which almost implied a contract. But this roused the -anxiety of her friends, and particularly of Viscount Campden, whose -viscountship was just as new as Lumley’s. Lord Lumley, however, -was an older member of the peerage. Lord Campden, like the deceased -Bennett, had been a mercer; his name then was Baptist Hicks. Even -after he had been knighted, Sir Baptist served customers in his open -shop in Cheapside. He was now a peer, and people who were unable to -attain the same dignity laughed at him. What was the use of Sir Baptist -Hicks being a peer, when he had no son to inherit the title? But Lord -Campden had a daughter; and the Cheapside mercer’s fair daughter (she -was his eldest) was married to Edward, Baron Noel, of Ridlington. -The mercer was resolved that Baron Edward should not dream of having -derogated by such a match. Accordingly, the ex-shopkeeper succeeded in -having the ‘remainder,’ that is, succession to the title, settled in -the said son-in-law. In due time, Lord Noel became Viscount Campden, -and then gained a step in the peerage by wedding with Juliana, the -richest heiress of Cheapside. From them is descended the present Earl -of Gainsborough, one of whose daughters, Lady Blanche Noel, made that -romantic marriage two years ago with her father’s organist, Mr. Murphy. - -But, we have to get back to the first ennobled of the Hickses and -his friend, the widow. Lord Campden and Sir George Croke united in -insisting that she should return to Lord Lumley the ring she had -accepted, and therewith give him his _coup de grâce_. Ring and letter -were despatched on St. Valentine’s Day, and Lord Lumley made his final -exit. All London was busy with wondering what the next move would -be. It seemed in favour of Sir Edward. Sir Henry Wotton met him in -the presence chamber, and wished him ‘full sail.’ The mother of Sir -Edward’s late wife, accompanied by that deceased wife’s sister, were -indefatigable in lauding Dering’s conjugal virtues in the widow’s ear. -Beneficed clergymen, church dignitaries, London gentlemen, country -squires, met in the best room in the widow’s house and sang the chorus -of his praise. The provoking beauty could not be brought to a decision. -She had made a selection, she said, but she really could not say of -whom. All in good time. And so this singular love affair proceeded, -till the widow consented to grant one more interview, positively for -the last time, to her pertinacious suitor, and failed to perform her -promise. - -‘I will go to Sir Heneage Finch,’ cried the perplexed wooer. - -It is very clear that all along Finch perplexed Dering quite as much -as the widow did. The Recorder spoke well of Sir Edward to himself and -to his friends, and promised to speak well of him to the widow. And -perhaps he did; but at the same time Sir Heneage did not neglect his -own interests. One morning the bells of St. Dunstan’s in the West, -the fashionable church for marriages, rang out a merry wedding peal. -Dr. Raven came out of prison, where he was some time in durance for -his silly assault, just in time to hear the peal. Sir Edward may be -supposed to have put his head out inquiringly from his window. If so, -he must have enjoyed a pretty sight--that of Sir Heneage Finch, in -holiday array, leading into the beautiful widow Bennett’s house that -most tantalising of fair women, as his bride--Lady Finch! Bow bells -took up the peal, as if to announce to all Cocagne that they had all -the while known what was going on. Cockneydom protested that it had -never expected any other issue to the City comedy. Indeed there was a -double marriage. While the widow had been playing with her suitors, her -niece, pretty Mary Croke, daughter of Sir George, had been indulging -in pretty love passages with Harbottle, afterwards Sir Harbottle -Grimstone, Master of the Rolls. On April 16, 1629, aunt and niece, with -their respective lovers, met at St. Dunstan’s, and were then and there -happily married. - -The marriage of Sir Heneage with the fair widow was productive of -two daughters,[1] of whom one, Anne, married that Earl of Conway -so celebrated by Burnet for his ignorance. When a foreign minister -once spoke to him of the Circles of Germany, my lord laughed, and -asked, ‘What have circles to do with affairs of state?’ We may -appropriately add that Mrs. Bennett’s son, Simon, became a man of -immense wealth--wealth which his three daughters carried into as many -noble families, very much to the satisfaction of the latter. But what -of the disappointed lover in this comedy? Well, the curtain went down -merrily for him also. He happened to see pretty Unton Gibbes, daughter -of the Warwickshire Sir Ralph, and Sir Edward, having an alacrity -in falling in love, was ‘over head and ears’ immediately. The lady -went straightway to the same depths. They came up together, happy man -and wife, and lived like young lovers. He was passionately attached -to her to the last; but she survived him full thirty years, finding -solace at the affectionate hands of two sons and two daughters. For -Unton, Sir Edward had one of those pet names which, outside the circle -of love, sound so unlovely. It was NUMPS! ‘My ever dear Numps,’ he -says, in a letter addressed to her from London, in 1640, full of -political intelligence, ‘thy pretious and hearty letter I received -with that ardor that it was written.... I shall not see thee so soon -as I wish.... God preserve my pretty children and send thee ease of -thy troublesome cough.... I thank thee for the length of thy welcome -letters, wherein I confess that I cannot equal thy love;’ and he -ends with ‘Thine, more and more, if possibly,’ &c. One passage of -public news in this letter brings a well-known incident before us. -‘The scaffolds are up in Westminster Hall, and Strafford comes to the -barre on Monday morning.’ Some of Sir Edward’s letters to his wife are -subscribed ‘to thy best self the heart of thine own Edward Dering.’ -And if he writes ‘thine in haste,’ he adds, ‘but heartily,’ and writes -outside, ‘To my best and dearest friend the Lady Dering,’ while my -lady endorses them, ‘From my dearest.’ One letter quaintly begins with -‘My dear and my comfortable Numps, my happiness is (for the greatest -part of it in this world) circuited in the same sphere with thine. -Love and cheerfulness are blessings invaluable, and if perchance some -excentricke motion interpose, all at last (as in the sphaeres) helpe -to make up the harmony. So I hope with us every motion shall helpe the -tune.’ It would seem that, in absence, they encouraged one another from -Scripture. ‘I did presently, as you wished,’ he writes, ‘read over -the 91 Spalme (as you call it). I did think to return you a text, but -am in haste;’ and ‘Thine own, as ever, for ever.’ The same tone makes -musical all his letters, and her own seem to have been attuned to the -same melody. The former are full moreover of most interesting public -intelligence. - -For a troubled time Sir Edward was the much perplexed and ill-requited -Lieutenant of Dover Castle. Released from that charge, he was the -happy, intellectual, Kentish squire. Next, his county returned him to -the Long Parliament, and he commenced his career with fierce opposition -to Laud, hoping that ‘His Grace would have more grace, or no Grace at -all.’ Sir Edward was what would now be called an Ultra-Radical. He -was for abolishing bishops and was ill-affected towards royalty. He -took up with the ‘Root and Branch’ party, and they pushed him forward -to the proposing of revolutionary measures; and when he withdrew from -the course which they had forced him to take they loaded him with -execration, and succeeded in turning him out of Parliament for breach -of privilege. Subsequently, he lay hid from the pursuit of Parliament, -and he is said to have disguised himself as a parson and to have -read prayers in a village church. He joined the King. His estate was -sequestered, his house at Surrenden was plundered. At a later period -the Parliament allowed him to enter on signing the Covenant and paying -a composition; but before the affair was concluded the erst lover of -the twenty-thousand-pound widow was, in 1644, laid to rest in Pluckley -churchyard, which neither covenanting nor compounding can ever disturb. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[1] It was his son, by a former marriage, who became Lord Chancellor -and Earl of Nottingham. - - - - -_TO BRIGHTON AND BACK AGAIN._ - - -Some few years ago, philosophers were jostling excursionists in -once gay Brighthelmstone; they discussed the prospects of science, -and united archæology with a considerable amount of picnicking and -claret-cup. We here submit for the general recreation a paper that was -not read at the meeting of the British Association in that town, but -which will be perused in the larger Elsewhere. Its staple commodity -will consist of the anecdotal waifs and strays connected with old -Brighton, which philosophers do not regard, but which have an especial -value and interest of their own. Accordingly we pass by the Druidical -mistletoe, British barrows, Roman coins, and Saxons, Danes, and -Normans, and we come at once to the Brighton of the middle of the last -century, when rumours of wars from abroad connected themselves with a -literary question and song-writing at home. - -About the year 1758 fears of invasion caused several camps to be -established on our south coast. There was one at Brighton. Martial -spirit attuned the popular lyre to both warlike and sentimental -strains. One of the airs then composed has remained popular to this -day. ‘The Girl I left behind me’ was originally known by that and also -by a second name, ‘Brighton Camp,’ to which reference is made in the -following verse:-- - - - Oh, ne’er shall I forget the night, - The stars were bright above me, - And gaily lent their silv’ry light, - When first she vow’d to love me. - But now I’m bound to Brighton Camp, - Kind Heaven then pray guide me, - And send me safely back again - To the girl I’ve left behind me. - - -This air has been claimed as Irish by Moore and by Bunting. The former -took great liberties with the air. Bunting left it as he found it. But -he did not find it till the year 1800, when he heard it played by an -Irish harper named O’Neile. The harper had probably picked it up from -some regimental band leaving their quarters; but it was popular in -England nearly half a century before the date of its first being known -in Ireland. - -Let those who throng Brighton now just consider what it was about a -century ago. In 1761 we read that ‘the men of the town were wholly -employed in fishing, and the women in mending their nets.’ There was, -however, a free school in Brighton; and boys of twelve years of age, -who had learned navigation there, obtained very fair wages in the -‘fishery.’ There was a population, fixed and movable, even at that -period. Many of the houses are described as ‘of flint, with windows -and doors frequently adorned with very good brick.’ When Brighton took -its first step forward for the purpose of attracting visitors we may -learn from a contemporary chronicle of 1761, in which we read that -‘Of late the town has become a resort for the drinking of salt water -and for bathing. If the town grows in the next seven years as it has -done in the last seven, there will be no better in England.’ Brighton -then boasted of ‘one or two public rooms that could be equalled only -by those of York.’ People could then put up with what was called -‘accommodation,’ which was of a very uncomfortable character; but -everything was of a free-and-easy quality, and most visitors were -content to take things as they found them. - -To this rule, however, there was one notable exception, just where we -should expect to find it. - -Nearly a hundred years have elapsed since Dr. Johnson wrote to Boswell, -in November of the year 1776, ‘I was some weeks this autumn at -Brighthelmstone. The place was very dull, and I was not well.’ The fact -is, that Johnson cared little for the beauties of nature. He was like -Charles Lamb, who once being at the summit of a mountain from which -there was a prospect of unsurpassable grandeur, saw nothing but with -his mind’s eye, and that was at the moment directed to the ham and -beef shop at the corner of St. Martin’s Court. In like manner, Johnson -hated prospects and views. We have the authority of Mrs. Piozzi for -recording that Johnson used to say the best garden was the one which -produced the most roots and fruits, and the river most to be prized was -the one which produced the most fish. The Doctor unmercifully laughed -at Shenstone for valuing a stream according to its picturesqueness, and -not its productiveness. Mrs. Piozzi believed that a walk in a wood when -it rained was the only rural image which pleased Johnson. The pleasure -then was perhaps derived from the thought that the rain would swell -the peas, or make the turnips grow, or in some way or other tend to -the comforting of the inward man. The feeling was akin to that of the -epicurean who dwelt fondly on the orient gale which prospered the ship -freighted with sugar for his gooseberry pie. It was that of Southey’s -philosopher, who reverenced pig, and who, feeling a certain amount of -poetry in a fragrant breeze, exclaimed, - - - O’er yon blossom’d field - Of beans it came, and thoughts of bacon rise. - - -Johnson detested the very sight of Brighton Downs, ‘because it was a -country so truly desolate,’ he said, ‘that if one had a mind to hang -oneself for desperation at being obliged to live there, it would be -difficult to find a tree on which to fasten the rope.’ When the sage -uttered this dictum he had certainly overlooked the subject of mutton. -He forgot how admirable Sussex land was for turnip husbandry, and that -even where the flints lay thickest the corn crops were all the more -luxuriant. He did love forest trees, and might have remembered that -the Sussex oak has no superior. He was fond of milk, and might have -respected the Sussex cows which keep themselves almost beef, while they -give rich milk, if so little of it. Hate the Downs! Let all such people -remember, especially if they have a liking for a haunch of mutton, -that the rot was never known to be caught upon the South Downs; reason -sufficient to authorise an epicure’s respect. We see poetry even in a -Brighton fish shop. Was it not Sir Wilfred himself who made first-rate -fishermen of the primitive Brighton bunglers? - -Johnson and Lamb are not the only intellectual persons whose minds -could turn from the contemplation of great to the consideration of -smaller things. When Charles James Fox was with a party viewing the -old master-pieces in the Louvre, he turned from them to bewail the -too great effulgence of the sun. ‘This heat,’ he remarked, ‘will burn -up all my turnips at St. Anne’s.’ So, Thomas Granville, replying to -Rogers, who was referring to the overpowering glory of a sunset at -which they were looking, observed that it was ‘handsome.’ - -Half a century ago, Brighton was as destitute of trees as it was in -Johnson’s time. But now, if the Doctor were alive and had a halter, -he would find no difficulty in searching for a branch from which he -might hang, the very bulkiest of acorns. Where formerly only the hardy -tamarisk grew, we may now see, as a local historian (Erredge) points -out, that ‘belts and copses of thriving trees have reared their heads, -and the elm, fir, sycamore, horse-chestnut, larch, beech, hazel, birch, -hawthorn, and the holly, and other evergreens, having, by culture, -become acclimatised, thrive so well as to induce the belief that they -are indigenous to the south-east coast.’ - -That Brighton should have changed in a certain number of years is a -matter for no surprise at all. The sea rolls its waves over the site -on which the primitive village stood exposed to its fury. The cliffs -which from behind the village looked proudly over the waves have been -in part destroyed by the assailing waters which, it was once thought, -were too remote ever to do them harm. But all this has been the work of -time, and of a very long time. Yet change quite as remarkable has been -accomplished within the lives of many persons still living. They must -be old persons indeed, and must have suffered fourscore years at least -of change of themselves, in order to have been within the periods of -what Brighthelmstone _was_ and what Brighton _is_. What it was towards -the close of the last century, about 1790, when it had ceased to be -the secluded fishing village it once had been, can scarcely now be -realised. It was no uncommon thing for the town to be then visited by -unlicensed rovers of the deep. These thieves, who ranged from Beachy -Head to Selsey Bill, would drop anchor after dark, and send a company -of rascals on shore in a boat, whose mission it was to break into some -rich farmer’s house, or some well-endowed mansion near the coast, and -carry off thence every article of value that was portable and could be -turned to pirate’s use. There was such terror of these water-rats, that -wherever they broke in their coming paralysed honest people, who were -powerless through terror. They bound and gagged the inmates of houses -which they intended to despoil, caroused without limit, and having -plundered the dwelling, staggered down to the beach, and carried on -board their burglarious freight. They would then lift anchor and drop -down along the coast on their way to a place of refuge, or to attack -some other house where there was promise of booty and good cheer. Their -audacity is explicable only on the ground that they had confederates -among the police authorities, if such things were in those early days. -In ancient times, when the French landed there and attacked the town, -the Sussex men turned out with alacrity, and often gave the invaders a -tremendous thrashing. The sons of those Sussex men quailed in presence -of the native rascalry, which was often cruel, but generally avoided -murder. - -If any archæologist care about the Druidical name for Brighton--if -indeed there ever was one--or sigh to learn by what classic term the -Romans designated their station on the sea, the care and the sigh are -expended in vain. Let such antiquary console himself by laughing at the -explanation of its later name, handed down from one local historian -to another. Brighthelmstone, as it was called, has not puzzled the -easily-satisfied etymologists. To explain it they invent a Saxon -bishop who never existed, Brighthelm. They both beatify and canonise -him under the title of St. Brighthelm, and having raised him to this -dignity, they erect a _stone_ to commemorate him, or a ‘ton,’ i.e., -‘town,’ in which he may dwell, and thus we arrive at ‘Brighthelmstone.’ -Some etymologists pooh-poohed this derivation altogether, and they -put forth something worse of their own. With them ‘Brighthelmstone’ -is born of the shining helms of the Saxon galleys which used (or did -not use) to be off the town! Another party sees in the name simply the -indication that the town once belonged to a warrior whose family name -was Brighthelm. We must frankly confess that one theory is quite as -reasonable as the other. - -But, whatever the meaning of the name and whencesoever it came, -there was a universal outcry of alarm and disgust when people in a -hurry, or not much observant of orthography, cut the name down from -a stately three- to a little two-decker. When Brighthelmstone began, -in 1787, to be called Brighton, and _that_ even in print, there was a -howl of reprobation and a general demand to ‘give us back our three -syllables!’ Even Sylvanus Urban in that year moved out of his old ways -into the new-fangled groove, and talked of ‘Brighton’ as if he were a -fashionable young fop wearing a round hat and his own hair, instead of -cocked hat and powder. Sylvanus had announced that a certain Mr. Norman -of Bromley had recently died at ‘Brighton!’ Instantly Mr. Urban was -assailed with an _et tu Brute_ sort of assault. Afflicted archæologists -never thought such a blow could come from St. John’s Gate. One -gentleman remonstrated in a tone of the deepest suffering. He argued -that, if this abbreviating custom be carried on, Brighthelmstone will -not only be wronged, but the world at large, and universal in geography -particular, will be thrown into utter confusion. Foreign nations, -potentates, governments, scholars, foreign humanity generally, we are -told, will be bewildered, and will no longer be able to distinguish -between Brighthelmstone in Sussex and Brighton a village in Yorkshire! -Brighton in Yorkshire seems to have withdrawn itself modestly from the -world; and if the Emperor of Germany reads of the demise of Brown, -Jones, or Robinson at Brighton, that august person will not be troubled -as to its local whereabout. - -If Brighton Camps had their picturesque aspect and a certain connection -with poetry, they had occasional deep shadows to contrast with their -lights. The camp of 1795 is especially remarkable for its dark -colouring. The defenders of the country were left by the circumlocution -office of that day with an insufficient quantity of bread, and with -nasty flour to make it. The hungry Oxford militia plundered a mill, -and having got all they wanted for their own stomachs, they seized -a quantity of corn at Newhaven, not for their half-starved comrades -in camp, but for the pleasure of throwing the whole of it into the -river at that place. Eight of the mutineers were tried, of whom two, -Cooke (called ‘Captain’) and Parish, were sentenced to be shot, the -rest to be flogged. During the eight days of trial the circumlocution -office gave them as little food as when the office drove them to -mutiny through hunger. If it had not been for the morning and evening -supplies passed to them through the bars of their airing ground by -Samaritans of Russell Street, the accused militiamen would not have -lived through the trial to be shot or flogged. The last ceremony was -carried out with much lugubrious pomp. Three of the six men received -an instalment of 300 strokes, equivalent to 2,700 lashes, and the -other three were respited for future punishment. Then came the more -merciful act of putting quickly to death the two men condemned to be -shot. There was indeed much slow circumstance before the two culprits -were fairly in face of the company of their fellow-militiamen selected -to carry out the sentence. For the support and encouragement of the -firing party not to shirk their duty and attempt to run, there was -drawn up behind them a company of artillery, with shotted cannon and -lighted matches, ready to blow the firing party to atoms if they showed -any reluctance to destroy their two comrades. They showed nothing but -alacrity under the circumstances. Cooke and Parish, kneeling composedly -on their own coffins, were shot by what was curiously described as ‘a -delinquent platoon of twelve of their own regiment at the distance -of only six paces,’ and then did not kill both! One, as he lay on -the ground, had to be ‘finished’ by a pistol-shot through the head. -Perhaps the ‘delinquent platoon’ were too hungry to aim steadily. One -thing is sure, namely, that nobody at the circumlocution office was -flogged for famishing the soldiers, nor was the rascal who supplied -the filthy so-called flour hanged. Probably he held the plate at the -next Brighton Charity Sermons, and sneered at the poor folk who only -contributed ‘coppers.’ - -In the first year of the present century the ‘Crown and Anchor’ in -East Street was proudly known as ‘The Hotel’; but the ‘Ship’ soon -endeavoured to attract fashionable visitors by a dining-room decorated -with ‘The Story of Telemachus’ in bronze on blue. At that time coaches -had not learned to run between Brighton and London in five hours. -In summer the earliest coach left Brighton at 7 A.M., and arrived -in London at 5 P.M. The night coach left at 10 P.M. and was due in -London at 7 the next morning, keeping its time when it could. Then -for crossing ‘the streak of liquid silver,’ there were ‘pacquets’ -advertised to run ‘in time of peace’ three times a week, always setting -sail, weather permitting, in the evening. One of these ‘pacquets’ -manifested Napoleonic ideas, for it was called the _Buonaparte_ -schooner, and it made a great boast of having two cabins, a state room, -and the means of making up twenty beds. - -At this period it is amusing to read in a local record that ‘literature -is not neglected in this town; for in Middle Street there is an academy -where young gentlemen are boarded and educated.’ The idea that a -boarding-school necessarily implies literary cultivation has long since -expired. - -While our pulpits, in the early part of the present century were -denouncing the stage, and persuading people to leave theatres to the -devil, and to brace up their minds and bodies at the seaside, the -marine pulpits were busy in bidding people to avoid the coast and to -get back to London and their business as speedily as possible. In -‘Their Majesties’ Servants,’ I have alluded to the audiences who ‘were -preached down to the coast, and especially to Brighton, and to the -zealous pastors in the latter place who preached them back again. One -of these, the Rev. Dr. Styles, of Union Street, Brighton, did his best -to stop the progress of London on Sea. He left the question of the -stage for others to deal with; but he strictly enjoined all virtuously -minded people to avoid watering-places generally and Brighton in -particular, unless they wished to play into the devil’s hands. He -denounced the breaking up of homes, the mischief of minds at rest, and -the consequences of flirting and philandering. He looked upon a brief -holiday as a long sin at the seaside; and with prophecy of dire results -attending on neglect of his counsel, he drove or sought to drive all -the hard workers in search of health and in the enjoyment of that idle -repose which helps them in their search, back to London. Then, as -now, England stood shamefully distinguished for the indecorum of its -sea-coast bathers; but, with certain religious principles whereby to -hold firmly, the good doctor does not think that much ill may befal -therefrom, and he sends all erring sheep with their faces towards -London, and with a reference to Solomon’s Song (above all things!) -bidding them to wait for a south wind of the Holy Spirit to blow over -their spices!’ - -The list of Brighton notabilities is not a long one, but it invariably -contains the name of Phœbe Hassell, who served in the army as a man and -who died at an age which is calculated to make Mr. Thoms shake the head -of incredulity. But there is a Brighton woman far worthier of being -remembered than old Phœbe Hassell. We allude to the mother of James -Rooke, a simple young fellow who had been drawn in by a crafty tailor, -named Howell, to rob the mail, as it was then carried on horseback, -between Brighton and Shoreham. On Phœbe Hassell’s information, the -two were hanged and gibbeted. In course of time, the clothes and -flesh of the culprits had utterly wasted away. When nothing remained -but the skeletons, the aged mother of Rooke, who had often been a -pilgrim to the mournful shrine of her son, went nightly to the gibbets -in all weathers. Nothing prevented her from performing that sacred -duty; and when her object became known it was sacredly respected. It -was to collect the bones of her unhappy son, and of the companion in -his sad fate, as time, wind, and tempest shook them apart and out of -the respective skeletons till nothing was left in the chains. She -gathered them, and carried them reverently and affectionately to her -poor home; and when there were no more to gather, she deposited all -in a little box, and perhaps with some sad memories of the hour when -she had rejoiced at the birth of her son, she, all alone, save those -memories, buried them in what she considered the hallowed ground of old -Shoreham churchyard. Poor mother! Many a woman has been canonised for -the performance of duties not half so holy. - -The widow Rooke is forgotten, while the annals of fashion still keep -warm the memory of people less worthy of being remembered. There was -a time when Mrs. Prince, as old Dame Gunn, the bathing woman, used to -call Mrs. Fitzherbert, _reigned_ in Brighton. She was one of those -women who justify the old saying that beauty is of every age. She was -exquisite when young. There are some among us who may remember that she -was queenly, when crowned by years. Like a queen, she was surrounded -by duchesses at Brighton; the most august dandies worshipped at her -shrine in Castle Square; and among those idolaters were the Prince’s -own brothers, with men of less degree, yet perhaps higher fame. In -the number of the latter must be reckoned Colonel Hanger (late Lord -Coleraine), whose first freak was to join a gang of gipsies, and take -a dusky bride from among the daughters in the tents. Hanger led such a -rollicking life, that when he grew old and tired of it, the new and -enforced quiet came upon him like a novel enjoyment. - -There were some singular specimens of ladies in the old Brighton days. -None more singular than Lady Clermont, who used to take a tea-spoonful -of brandy in her tea, by first pouring the brandy over the back of the -spoon and then correcting the mistake, which she attributed to defect -of sight, by filling the spoon in the ordinary way. Of a different -temper was the fair and ambitious Lady Haggerstone. My lady invited the -Prince to a rural festival at her villa near the Spa. She received him -in character, as a milkmaid, ready to concoct a syllabub for the royal -guest. She carried in one hand a silver pail, in the other a milking -stool, such as the most ingenious of artistic upholsterers could alone -invent. A characteristic hat, with long cherry-coloured ribbons, -adorned her head; and the milkmaid’s apron would have fetched hundreds -of pounds for its lace. The syllabub, however, was never accomplished. -Some absurd accident brought the attempt to an end, which after brief -laughter was altogether forgotten. In contrast with this gentle -masquerade, was the bold, loudly-brogued, but beautiful Lady Nagle, -with her husband Sir Edmund’s miniature suspended from the longest of -chains, flinging about as she moved, but always, as she said, near -her heart. The Prince loved to have these and other fair ones about -him. They made up his table at whist; brought him all sorts of gossip, -home and foreign, and made themselves conspicuous in a hundred ways, -as they figured on the Steyne and excited the wonder of simple-minded -spectators. - -Sir Benjamin Bloomfield was another of the old Brighton celebrities. -He owed his position as Master of the Household to the Prince of Wales -to an accident. ‘Slade,’ said his Royal Highness to the Colonel of -that name, ‘do you know any gentleman who plays the violoncello?’ ‘I -only know one, sir,’ replied the Colonel, ‘Captain Bloomfield, of the -Artillery.’ ‘Bring him here to dinner,’ rejoined the Prince, ‘and tell -him to bring his violoncello with him; we’ll play something together -after dinner.’ The Captain played to good purpose. The Prince again -invited him as a guest; subsequently he attached the violoncello player -to his household, and Sir Benjamin became as well-known a figure on and -about the Steyne as the Prince himself was. - -The story of the Pavilion will be found more amusing in Cobbett’s -satirical chronicle of its rise and progress than in any of the local -histories. The history of its decline and fall is within the memory -of him who never remembers anything--the oldest inhabitant. The noble -eccentrics who figured in the Pavilion circle have been stereotyped. -But there were eccentrics without, whose eccentricity amused those -within that circle. One of these was well known on the Brighton stage. - -An ignorant impatience of taxation was manifested at Brighton, -especially when the heavy impost was laid on hair-powder. By nearly -general resolve people avoided the tax by leaving off the powder. -Anyone who ventured to appear in public, powdered, incurred the peril -of being pelted. Even on the stage, when genteel comedy required the -sword by the side and the powder on the hair, there was a difference -of opinion as to the wearing of it, and the actor _portant épée et -poudre_ was both hissed and applauded, as sentiment prevailed among the -audience. At Brighton, Mr. Fox, the manager’s son, had to appear in a -character of the sword and powder period. He took a singular course. He -powdered one half of his hair, and left the other _au naturel_. People -laughed at his droll aspect, and also at his reason for putting it on. -Mr. Fox explained that he had taken that course in order to please both -parties--the powderers and the anti-powderers. It was accepted for wit. - -As far less has been said and written of Brighton just as royalty began -to tire of its old love, than of the town when it seemed a seventh -heaven to the King, George IV., we will look into one year of its -sayings and doings--A.D. 1825--when it was learning to go alone. - -Brighton had long rejoiced in the sunshine of royalty. It veiled its -head, and wore sackcloth, and cast ashes upon itself, when royalty -was absent. At least, it would have done all this, but for certain -consolatory circumstances. Nevertheless, it affected a very decent -horror. This is especially manifested in the fashionable intelligence -in the local papers. The first thing thought of there is the condition -and prospects of the Pavilion. That shrine of _haut ton_ is spoken -of as a most interesting invalid, who is sick only because the sun -is absent, and all Brighton is therefore sick with it. Yet will the -invalid be convalescent if Hope is the physician, and then sympathetic -Brighton will feel itself also ‘very much better, thank you.’ _But_ -‘should the King’--for we now speak of the time when George IV. had -grown tired of his gew-gaw--should ‘his most sacred Majesty’ nothing -less than ‘graciously condescend to inhabit’ for awhile the ‘marine -palace’ which he once both well and wisely loved--in such case Brighton -would not only be restored to health, but would enjoy a sensation of -stalwart youth and ecstatic immortality. - -It is distressing to read the expression of sorrow at the idea that the -King, so to speak, continually went on not coming. With the new year -(1825) the wail opens to its old solemn tune. ‘There is no change at -the Pavilion.’ ‘We hope that the desire to see his Majesty again among -us may speedily be realised.’ Alas! the realisation does not speedily -come, and the ‘Fashionable Intelligencer’ wept in its imitation lawn -handkerchief, and then wiped its loyal eyes and exclaimed, ‘The gloom -of silence and desertion continues to envelop the Pavilion.’ Double -envelopes of desertion and of silence. Then followed reports that the -King was coming soon. The _soon_ was succeeded by ‘a period not yet -determined.’ Finally, it was said that his Majesty would visit Brighton -and take up his residence there during the Christmas holidays. But -before that time and its event arrived, ‘Fashionable Intelligencer’ -discovered that, instead of the King coming, his best wine was going. -It did not require much logic to enable observers to come to the -conclusion that if the best vintage were taking its departure, Sacred -Majesty would not be among speedy arrivals. The town could hardly find -consolation in the assurance that wherever the monarch might be, his -heart was certainly at Brighton. The King never came. The local banks -could not bear it. They unanimously broke. - -A royal duke and duchess were scarcely equivalent to a king; yet the -appearance of the Duke of York relieved in some degree the heart of -Brighton from some of its heavings. There was a burst of joy when -it was announced that H.R.H. ‘purposed to give an entertainment to -his tonish friends.’ Everyone uninvited must henceforth consider -himself to be _mauvais ton_. What a flutter there was when ‘tonish -reporters’ proclaimed in the newspapers that the Duke would give a -public breakfast at Ireland’s Royal Gardens, and that ‘the whole -fashionable world would partake of the repast.’ Meanwhile ‘Fashionable -Intelligencer’ watched the Duke and noted his ducal ways. We read with -infinite emotion that his royal princeliness not only entered several -shops, but that he purchased various articles in the most unassuming -manner. The grand breakfast at last came off, and a very jolly affair -it was; but Snob, who was not invited, and who felt his ‘fashionable’ -honour very much ruffled in consequence, declared that the thing was -low, and that the company were vulgar. - -The Duchess of Gloucester did not put herself so prominently forward as -the Duke of York; but the local observer did not fail to chronicle the -proud circumstance, namely, that ‘The Duchess gives importance by her -presence to the Steyne.’ Her condescension, too, was eulogised in lofty -terms; but in the practice of proud humility the Duchess was nothing in -comparison with the Bishop of Chichester. Robert James Carr was then, -as prelate, only a year old. In the bloom of his official age the Right -Rev. Father, &c., visited Brighton, and on his first Sunday there he -repaired to the Royal Chapel. There was the ordinary congregation, but -there was no clergyman. He had been taken ill and was unable to attend. -But the diocesan was not proud. The fashionable chronicler tells us -that the Bishop performed divine worship himself, ‘with his usual -kindness and condescension.’ - -Sometimes high-born and ill-bred personages condescended to much -stranger performances. Thus we find Jeames the Chronicler setting down -a record of the fact that Sir Godfrey Webster, one of the fastest -of the very rapid men of the day, had left the town, and that the -regret was universal; but that the baronet would soon return, in -order to take the chair of a free-and-easy at the ‘Swan Inn.’ It is -to be observed, that whenever a ‘tonish’ person took his departure, -all Brighton was filled with the most poignant regret. Also, that -when a family or individual of the _haut ton_ or _beau monde_ (nice -distinctions!) arrived, all Brighton was stirred with an indescribable -sort of happiness. If Mrs. Fitzherbert left the town drowned in tears, -the arrival of Lady Berwick brought it again to life and laughter. Sir -Matthew Tierney’s post-carriage, galloping out of Brighton, pierced the -hearts of all beholders; but there was balm in Gilead. How sympathetic -must have been the fashionable reporter of 1825 when he wrote down -the fact that, ‘Grateful rumour states that the esteemed Dukes of -Richmond and Argyle, and the Marquis of Anglesea, again propose to -add to the importance of the “Royal York Hotel” by residing there -before the end of the present year.’ Mark the new and original figure, -‘grateful rumour.’ But to indulge in strange figures was the old -Brighton reporter’s dearest delight. ‘The Marquis of Granby,’ says our -friend, ‘without any feeling of indisposition, enjoys good spirits in -Regency Square.’ This might astonish Mark Tapley, whose spirits were -highest under prostration, but to us it seems natural enough. Another -fashionable record, this time full of simplicity, is to the effect that -‘Lady William Gordon confesses the salutary influence of the coast -air.’ Occasionally an unexpected arrival makes the reporter of it -facetious. For example, the local chronicler states how the ‘Barossa,’ -homeward bound from St. Helena, had dropped her anchor off the town -the previous night, without any idea of her being there, and how her -gallant captain, Hutchenson, went ashore, and gave joyous surprise to -his lady and family, and how he was on board again, and on his way to -the Downs, by five in the morning. - -Speaking of ladies as well as of captains, let us not forget--indeed it -is impossible to overlook--that incarnation of gaiety and beauty, the -Lady Berwick of that day. Before her marriage, she was a Miss Sophia -Dubouchet. This young lady was married to the second Lord Berwick in -1812. In some peerages she is styled plain ‘Sophia Dubouchet,’ with -no more account of her family than if she had been, like Melchizedek, -without father and without mother. It is clear that this lady, who died -childless, was not of illustrious descent. How she looked at Brighton, -in 1825, and what were ‘pretty Fanny’s ways’ in that year, at that -place, we may gather from another of the scraps of intelligence. ‘_A la -mode_ Lady Berwick,’ says a contemporary local journal, ‘formerly Miss -Sophia de Bouchez’ (the chroniclers were not particular as to names), -‘has been the source of attraction for our fashionable promenades -during the week. It afforded us much pleasure to observe that the -late abuse of the press has in no degree diminished the vivacity so -characteristic of her ladyship and family.’ There were two other ladies -at Brighton at that time who were of a quieter quality, and whose -wealth was the least of their charms. They are thus registered in -the fashionable column: ‘We have two of the richest heiresses in the -country now with us, Miss Wykeham and Miss Pleydell.’ How little did -the chronicler conjecture that the former lady, who died so recently -as 1870, was the heroine of a romance, and might have been Queen of -England if she had chosen to bear that magnificent title. When Miss -Wykeham was at Brighton, at a much earlier period than 1825, she -attracted the attention of the Duke of Clarence. She was then the much -honoured heiress of an Oxfordshire squire, Wykeham of Swalcliffe, a -member of the family of William of Wykeham. The royal Duke had other -opportunities of seeing this beautiful and accomplished heiress; and, -overcome by her beauty, her intellectual qualities, and her account -at her banker’s, he made her the offer of his hand. With good common -sense, Miss Wykeham declined the offer. The Duke subsequently married -a German princess, but he never ceased to esteem the heiress, whose -presence made Brighton so happy nearly half a century ago. As soon -as the Duke became William IV., King of England, he, with the glad -sanction of Queen Adelaide, prevailed on the lady whom he had once -sought to make his wife, to accept a peerage. Miss Wykeham took the -title of Baroness Wenman, whereby she revived an old title in her -family. Her grandfather had married the sister and heiress of the -Viscount Wenman, in the Irish peerage. The Viscount having died -childless, in 1800, the dignity became extinct; but Wenman, as an -English baronial title, was conferred on Miss Wykeham in 1834. For six -and thirty years she wore it with dignity, and when she died, in 1870, -there was not a memory more honoured in the three kingdoms than that of -Sophia Elizabeth Wykeham, Baroness Wenman, of Thame Park, county Oxon. - -When William IV. took up his residence at Brighton, he played the -citizen king. He walked and talked in the streets, and knocked at the -doors of his personal friends, paying morning visits, and speedily -discovering that, altogether, ‘it wouldn’t do.’ Queen Victoria went -down to look at the place, to give it a trial, and to come to the same -conclusion, that ‘it wouldn’t do.’ When cabmen or their customers -stood on the roofs of their cabs to gaze at the Queen over the garden -walls, royalty quietly withdrew, and Brighton took good heart, and has -since contrived to get on handsomely alone, but she is ever glad, and -naturally so, when a prince or princess is to be reckoned among her -visitors. Only now the inhabitants do not go out to meet them, as they -did in 1815 to meet Queen Charlotte. Large bodies of them then received -permission to welcome the Queen at Patcham. They were dressed in buff, -and mounted. As they cantered by the side of the Queen’s carriage, -as her escort, she smiled and bowed to such of them as were ‘getting -a look at her,’ as if she liked it. The Prince Regent, the Duke of -Clarence, and a bright array of nobility, waited in the open space -before the Pavilion to do honour to her on her arrival. ‘The present,’ -says a contemporary historian, ‘is beyond all doubt the most brilliant -period in the annals of Brighton.’ - -Fitting period wherewith to close these remarks. What a contrast is -the fuss to get a sovereign into Brighton with the anxiety to get -Charles II. out of it! For effecting the escape of the King, Captain -Tattersall was rewarded with a pension of 100_l._ a year to himself and -his descendants. We suppose that the most democratic of politicians -would not object to a pension being paid which was originally earned by -getting his most ‘religious majesty’ out of the kingdom. - - - - -_ON SOME CLUBS, AND THEIR ENDS._ - - -Of all historical parallels, there are few more curious than the one -between the first club ever established and any similar association -of modern times. We must go as far back as the reign of Philip of -Macedon (B.C. 320) for that original club. It consisted of Greek -gentlemen, who, from their number, called themselves ‘The Sixty.’ They -met once a week, not at a tavern, but in a temple--that of Hercules, -at Athens. Their secretary was a sprightly young Achaian, named -Callimedes--so sprightly, indeed, that the jolly Sixty nicknamed him -the _Grasshopper_. They must have had the highest opinion of their own -wit, for every good thing that was uttered was entered in a book, and -any member who had a repartee on the tip of his tongue was obliged to -keep it there till what had provoked it had been written down! This -book of wit, wisdom, and joking was in such repute that it was lent out -to princes and other potentialities, on depositing a security for its -return. Thus Athens furnished not only the first club, but the first -idea of a circulating library. - -One of the most singular features of some of the social gatherings of -Roman gentlemen consists in the fact, that if a member did not consider -himself ‘clubbable,’ or was not considered so by his colleagues, he -might bring with him some one who was. If he possessed an extremely -witty slave, and chose to bring him to the meeting, in such case -Libanus was as welcome as Demenætus. There are clubs of the present -day where dulness so prevails among the associates, where Sir Rayleigh -D’Istressin is such a nonentity, and Mr. Hugh Doane Nohoo is so -overflowing with nonsense, that it is a pity they cannot be represented -by capable substitutes. The latter might be found among the public -office clerks. How well many of these persons have discovered what they -are especially fitted for is to be seen in the little companies that -club together and exhibit themselves with alacrity as Nigger Serenaders! - -In England here, although the name of _club_ for a society was not -known till the seventeenth century, the thing itself was in active -practice three hundred years before. The first English club of which -we know anything has a French name--_La Cour de Bonne Compagnie_. -It was founded in the reign of Henry the Fourth, and we may take it -that _bonne compagnie_ was understood to signify, in English, _good -fellows_. They met, like ‘The Sixty’ in Athens, once a week. The -club was what would now be called a dining club--that is, meeting -periodically in order to dine together, and to enjoy the ‘feast of -reason and the flow of soul’ which come of good cheer, safe digestion, -happy humour, and undying wit. - -We may be very sure that at the meetings which took place at ‘The -Mermaid,’ and at those where Ben Jonson’s sons sat around him in ‘The -Apollo,’ the English language ripened into mellowness, beauty, and -strength. Shakespeare, Raleigh, and the men whose sympathies were -attuned to those of the soldier and the poet, must have done especially -good work to that end during their joyous discussions at ‘The Mermaid.’ -Politics do not seem to have been touched upon. The first club founded -in London with a political purpose among its other objects was the Rota -Club. More than two centuries have elapsed since the Rota saw its table -and coffee-cups surrounded by such men as Milton, Cyriac Skinner (to -whom Milton addressed the sonnet which urges play as well as work), -Marvel, Harrington, Nevill, and very many others. They advocated a -going-out of Members of Parliament by _rotation_, and used a ballot-box -for the settlement of club questions--that is to say, they affirmed or -negatived by that means the conclusions arrived at by the lecturer for -the evening. They also supported the ballot, as the simplest and truest -method of voting, generally. To this end we are only on the point of -now coming partially. - -There were some clubs that, meeting only for recreation, fell into -a fixed purpose by accident. Small clubs they were, but they were -the beginnings of great consequences. From the meeting together of a -few ‘city gentlemen,’ members of the Wednesday Club, in the reign of -William III., arose certain discussions on financial matters which -led to the ‘Conferences’ of 1695, in which William Paterson took a -leading part. From this club, its discussions and conferences, sprang a -gigantic result--‘The Old Lady in Threadneedle Street;’ in other words, -the Bank of England. - -A dozen years later, the first germs of the Royal Society of -Antiquaries, long enthroned in Somerset House, were planted in the -modest room of ‘The Bear Tavern,’ in the Strand. Three individuals, to -whom the past was dearer than the present or the future, there met to -talk over the condition of the ancient monuments of the kingdom, while -they smoked their pipes and sipped their ale. One of them was Humphrey -Wanley, the well-known archæologist, and librarian to Harley, Earl of -Oxford. They agreed to add to their numbers, meet every Friday night, -and confine themselves to the consideration of matters and monuments -which illustrated English history not later than the reign of James the -First. The weekly business was to begin at six, and every absentee was -to be fined sixpence. The club or society migrated from the parlour -of one public-house to another before it found royal patronage, and -a home in the palace which occupies the site of the one built by the -Protector Somerset. After a brief sojourn of a month at ‘The Bear,’ -they went, in 1708, to the ‘Young Devil’ tavern close by, and there -they seem to have been housed for above a quarter of a century. In 1739 -they moved to more commodious apartments in ‘The Mitre,’ Fleet Street, -and they talked no more of sixpences. They numbered a hundred members. -Each of them paid a guinea entrance-fee, and twelve shillings annual -subscription. In 1770 they commenced the ‘Archæologia’; and in the -following year George III. gave them the abiding-place beneath the roof -of Somerset House, where, till the removal to Burlington House, they -met weekly, on Thursdays, during six or seven months of the year, and -sometimes, like Gratiano, spoke an infinite deal of nothing. At other -times the meetings are full of interest, and emperors themselves have -been glad to be enrolled among the Antiquaries, who began their career -as a modest club in a Strand tavern of no great repute. - -A more ancient society than the Antiquaries had also a home within -Somerset House. The Royal Society is of much older date, but it began -in a little club-gathering, in 1645, at Dr. Goddard’s lodgings in -Wood Street, and for some time where it could, in Cheapside. After it -rose from a club to an incorporated society, it first met in Gresham -College, but afterwards occupied rooms in Somerset House for upwards of -ninety years, when it migrated to Burlington House. Its first avowed -object--the establishing of facts by successive experiments--was highly -ridiculed, and _that_ most wittily, by Butler, in ‘The Elephant in the -Moon.’ One of the members is described as one who - - - ---- had lately undertook - To prove and publish in a book - That men, whose natural eyes are out, - May, by more pow’rful art, be brought - To see with th’ empty holes as plain - As if their eyes were in again. - - -Another philosopher is said to be renowned - - - ---- for his excellence - In height’ning words and shad’wing sense. - - -A third experimentalist and chatterer is transported with the ‘twang of -his own trills.’ Collectively they are men who are satisfied, - - - As men are wont, o’ th’ bias’d side. - - -The society set up a telescope to make discoveries in the moon. They -detect armies fighting, and an elephant moving among them. Delighted -with what they had discovered, they drew up a narrative, to be -published in the ‘Transactions.’ By the time this had been done, idle -explorers have made out that the armies are gnats and flies on the -lens, and that the elephant is a mouse that had got imprisoned in the -tube. The philosophers are disconcerted, and the satirical poet rides -over them roughshod, with a moral which is intended to make them as -comfortable as a toad under a harrow. Butler flew at them again, in -prose, in ‘An Occasional Reflection upon Dr. Charlton’s feeling a Dog’s -Pulse at Gresham College.’ This is exquisite fooling. The paper is -supposed to be written by Robert Boyle, Esq., and never was imitation -so hard to be distinguished from an original. It is far superior in -this respect to the prose imitations, in ‘Rejected Addresses,’ of -the styles of Dr. Johnson and of Cobbett. We will not conclude this -reference to the Wood-street Club, which has grown to such dignity and -usefulness as the present Royal Society, without recording that, a -little more than a hundred years ago, a Latin paper, on ‘Volcanoes,’ -was read before it by a German, one Raspe. Whether it faithfully -narrated Raspe’s experiences, who can tell?--for Raspe subsequently -wrote that amusingly serious lie called ‘Baron Munchausen.’ - -In the early part of the last century, a body of ladies constituted -themselves as ‘The Shakespeare Club.’ They met in rooms in Covent -Garden, and their object was to raise funds to supply the managers of -the two theatres, to enable them to act with appropriate splendour the -plays of the national poet strictly according to his text; in other -words, the end was to annihilate the adapters of the bard. How even -the ladies themselves were divided in opinion and into clubs, is seen -in the closing words to Fielding’s ‘Historical Register for 1736.’ The -piece closes with a deprecatory appeal to the fair sex present, to whom -an actor says: ‘And you ladies, whether you be Shakespeare’s ladies, or -Beaumont and Fletcher’s ladies, I hope you will make allowance for a -rehearsal.’ - -There was another club in the last century whose purpose was one which -deserves for it everlasting respect and admiration. The excellent -object it had in view was the suppression of wearisome preachers, or -the putting down of silly and interminable sermons. Whether the means -taken to arrive at the ends aimed at could be equally respected and -admired, is a matter on which a certain difference of opinion may be -justly allowed. It was the fashion of the time for ladies to carry -fans, and for gentlemen to be inseparable from their canes. These -weapons were turned to church uses by the ladies and gentlemen who -were members of the Rattling Club. They were vagrant Christians, who -attended such churches as possessed congregations who sat in need of -relief from a great oppression--that of being bored by a preacher who -(as Voltaire says of them all) stood five feet above contradiction. The -Rattlers were perfectly unobtrusive during service, and indeed they -were perfectly decorous during sermon, unless they were provoked by -absurdity or tediousness. As soon as any provocation of that sort was -felt, a Lady-Rattler began to agitate her fan, or a Gentleman-Rattler -tapped his cane against the floor or the panelling of his pew. The -signal was followed by the other members, and the interruption was -continued, gradually increasing till there was such a fluttering of -fans and a rattling of canes as to produce conviction on the mind -of the preacher that the sooner he pronounced the word ‘finally’ -the sooner there would be peace in the church. It would not be very -unreasonable to call such conduct unseemly--even vulgar. The Rattling -Club, however, had very august precedent for their proceedings. In as -far as the eccentric young Queen Christina of Sweden set the example, -she may be fairly looked upon as the founder of the Rattlers. In her -own royal chapel, as well as in any ordinary church where she happened -to be present before she passed over to the Church of Rome, Christina -used to give decent attention to the sermon till she thought she had -taken as much as would do her good. At that point she would slightly -rap with her fan on the top of the back of the chair which always -stood before her own in the Chapel Royal, or on any hard substance -which happened to be near her, when she was being sermon-vexed in -other places. If the preacher neglected to attend to this signal, her -Majesty declared open warfare against him, and rattled away with her -fan with increasing intensity till she had silenced the pulpit, or -(if the preacher continued to pour forth his volleys) till she raised -the siege and retreated in vexation. Let us mention here, by the way, -that in the early intolerant age of the Reformation which followed the -intolerable era of Popery in England, people were compelled (under -serious penalties) to go to church whether they were Reformers or -Romanists. Many of the latter attended the Protestant service rather -than pay the fine, and yet preserved their consistency; and you may -fancy the mirth in some old country-house, when the solemn knight and -his lady, and the laughing daughters with their haughty brothers, as -soon as they heard the church-bells ring, proceeded to stuff wool into -their ears, and then went to a sermon with a joyous conviction of being -unable to hear a word of it. - -Let us now fancy ourselves standing in Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s -Inn Fields, in the year 1711. We are in front of the Land Bank, which -had lately come to grief, and the street was not of the high estate -it had been when lords smoked their pipes at its windows, and could -smell the haycocks that were in St. Pancras Fields. Let us describe -what took place. There was a going in and out, and a standing on -the steps, and a gathering of increased numbers, and an universal -cheerful gossiping, save on the part of Mr. Ferrers, who was dumb. -Passengers stopped to look at these men, and were not slow to recognise -the most eminent among the wellnigh five dozen standing or moving -about the door, or going in and out. People from Drury Lane knew -their neighbour Mr. Vertue, who was talking apart to a little knot of -listeners--engravers like himself. There was Michael Dahl, talking a -good deal about his Swedish patroness Queen Christina, and still more -about his claims to be director of an Academy of Painting. At these -claims his hearers may be taken to have smiled, especially if their eye -happened to fall on a well-dressed, courteous gentleman, who passed -into the house bowing to all who greeted him. There was not a child -in Queen Street who could not recognise in him the great Sir Godfrey -Kneller. Sir Godfrey was probably greeted most warmly by Laguerre, who -had glorified the knight’s house at Whitton with more simple taste than -usually distinguished Laguerre. Thornhill stood near the latter, and -looked on him with no more perceptible air of triumph than a modest -artist could help, who had been substituted for the other in the task -of painting the Life of St. Paul within the dome of the metropolitan -church. Richardson too was there, and his colleagues respected him -as an artist who, if Kneller and Dahl were but away, would be at -the head of portraiture in England. A laughing group stood round -Richardson; he was narrating to them his own great story, which has -been so often retold with other heroes of the tale: ‘_The gentleman -was singularly annoyed that his friend should declare that his Rubens -was only a copy. He said to me: “I will knock any man’s brains out who -will call it a copy! My dear Mr. Richardson, come down to my house, -and give me your candid opinion!”_’ We may fancy that merry and wise -Richardson tripping up the steps laughingly, stopping, perhaps, in -the hall to talk with two gentlemen, brothers, one of whom exhibits -to him, and to smiling Laptist Monnoyer, some paintings on fans which -excite his generous unreserved admiration. It is Mr. Godfrey, behind -whose marvellously-decorated fans--on which figured landscapes created -to make love in--the beauties of the time of Anne and the first two -Georges used to feign to blush and hide confusion which they did not -feel. - -When these and others were assembled in the old bank, they numbered -sixty-two. Every man came with his guinea ready for the treasurer. It -was to be the annual subscription. Each member had also with him a list -of twelve names, whom he voted for as directors for one year. Michael -Dahl insinuated his right to be governor, but, saving Dahl’s vote, -Kneller was unanimously elected; and with his quietly moving into the -chair of that club, was the first Academy of Painting established in -England. - -The jealousy of Dahl, and a few individual affectations, marred some -of the good that the Academy might have accomplished. In the second -year, the Swedish favourite of Queen Anne and her husband, Prince -George of Denmark, withdrew, because Kneller was still preferred to him -as governor or president. The Academy Club elected new members, with -or without their consent. At that time there was a French painter in -London, named Berchet. He had painted panels and ceilings in England -from the time of the latter years of Charles II.; and when De la Fosse -was over here, he must have been proud, if he was not jealous, of his -pupil. If there be an old painted panel yet in the house that was the -Duke of Schomberg’s, in Pall Mall, it is possibly a portion of the -decoration of the house, and is, in such case, Berchet’s work. The -belles and gallants of the day flocked to Ranelagh, to gaze at the -summer-house so daintily tricked out by Berchet’s delicate pencil. -_Now_, he was painting small mythological pieces, in oils; and the -‘Academicians,’ deeming him worthy of being a member, elected him. -Berchet (by letter) ‘excused himself, being not well and tysicky, and -could not bear the smoke of the lamp.’ His infirmity did not leave him, -neither did his industry. He had just put his name at the foot of ‘A -Bacchanalian,’ his last work, when the pencil dropped for ever from his -hand, and Berchet’s occupation was gone. - -We pass from Art to Fashionable Eccentricity. When squires were -_squires_ in England, and came up to London to see a little life, a -club was founded for them in St. James’s Street, which was (and is) -called Boodle’s, but which was long familiarly known as ‘The Topboot -and Worsted Stocking Club.’ To rival Boodle’s dinners, or Almack’s, was -not a difficult matter, since they seem to have consisted of uncouth -legs of mutton, roasted geese, and buttered apple-pies. Something -better than mere squirearchy must have been among the members, for -Gibbon was one, and a hundred years ago the great historian wrote his -letters there. It was the poor cookery of Boodle’s that probably gave -rise to the ‘Sçavoir Vivre Club,’ the palates of whose members could -not bear, nor their stomachs digest, the mutton, geese, and apple-pies -of the club, which still exists. The ‘Sçavoir Vivre’ showed that they -knew how to live, by composing or importing new dishes, and they -showed that they knew how to dress, by creating the most eccentric of -costumes. Among their imported dishes was macaroni. It become such a -favourite dish at the club, and was so invariably brought to table, -that the clubbists themselves became celebrated as ‘Macaronies.’ In -dress they wore a toy cocked hat, gold-laced, buttoned and tasseled -over hair fashioned into a foretop above the head, side-curls, and -a clubbed tail. Tight striped silk breeches, and an equally tight -coat and waistcoat, kept them together. Their tasseled canes were as -long as those still carried by state footmen when they ride behind a -carriage going to court on a drawing-room day. Like Tiddy Bob, they -had a watch in each fob, with cable-chains, and a pound of seals at -the end of them. Their white neck-cloths displayed a front bow as -large as a cauliflower; and they daintily walked about in white silk -stockings and diamond-buckled shoes, in all weathers. In any sense, -for a Macaroni to wear a greatcoat was to confess his unworthiness of -being a member of the august brotherhood. As equestrians, they figured -in the park on little ponies, and looked as if they lacked strength to -get on anything higher. The female Macaronies carried heads top-heavy -with hair of their own and other peoples--hat, feathers, and a world -of knicknackery. Their dress clung almost as closely to the body as -the gentlemen’s to theirs. But they dragged after them a long, long -gold-embroidered train, the very thought of which reminds us of the -poet’s line:-- - - - Hæc nunc auratâ cyclade verret humum. - - -The Macaronies and the Macaroniesses, as they were called, turned days, -nights, hours, and seasons, topsy-turvy; and the former, to show that -they were men, ran foot-races on Sundays in Kensington Gardens, very -lightly clad, and putting in peril their little lives, by exhaustion -of the little breath they carried in their little bodies. Having -established macaroni as a dish to be thenceforward known in every -household of taste, they died out, and men knew them no more. - -The Eccentrics entered into the present century. The Keep-the-Line -Club was one of the brilliant, fashionable, and shortlived clubs of -the first quarter of the present century. Its members consisted of -wits, artists, actors, authors, gentlemen, and peers. It had two -purposes--enjoyment and preservation of temper, by putting it to the -hardest trials. One of the rules was, that whenever a member was -insulted by another, however grossly, the insulted person should rise -and offer his best thanks to the offender. A witty fellow might here -find good opportunity for his wit, if he only knew how to avail himself -of opportunity. Another rule imposed a fine of a dozen of claret to the -club, on the member who published any literary composition of his own. -Samuel Rogers, Topham, Miles Peter Andrews, Merry, Morton, Reynolds, -Fitzgerald, Horace Smith, Boaden, Kenney, and others, paid the fine -willingly whenever it was fairly due. The penalty was once demanded -of Wilson (the surgeon), and of John Tufton. The first had issued an -advertisement announcing a course of lectures; Tufton had addressed -an electioneering handbill to his constituents. Both publications were -pronounced to be literary. The authors had not only to pay the penalty -in claret, but to profess their unfeigned delight at its being imposed -on them. - -While the Keep-the-Line loved fun, others loved athletics. The -Mary-le-bone Cricket Club of the olden days did not at all resemble -what it afterwards became when known as Lord’s. In its early age, there -was as much difficulty in passing a ballot successfully, as in the -most exclusive clubs of the present day. The members included players -from every degree in the peerage, members of the House of Commons, -and gentlemen of large landed property. The costume of the club was -_skyblue_! and their chief object--even before cricketing--was the -performance of practical jokes. One of the latter was played by the -bacchanalian Duke of Richmond on Fred Reynolds the dramatist. The Duke -put Reynolds on horseback, and rode with him to a match on Moulsey -Hurst. The steed ridden by Reynolds was from Astley’s, and the Duke led -the way to where a body of soldiers were exercising with gun, drum, -and trumpet. The circus war-horse immediately became dramatic, going -through a course of unparalleled performances, which he concluded by -flinging his sky-blue rider. But there were, besides the practical -jokers, serious and accomplished cricketers. For bowling, David Harris; -for batting, Tom Walker; and for wicket-keeping, sharp-eyed Hammond, -had no equal except in Lord Frederick Beauclerc, who excelled, each in -his speciality, and could beat everybody at all three. - -In those days, the Mary-le-bone Club had no particular ground. From -May to September they moved from place to place, encamping here and -bivouacking there by day, and taking their ease in their inn by night. -Hospitality varied this course very pleasantly. Sir Horace Mann, -the King of Cricket, kept open house for the club at his seat near -Maidstone, or at his marine residence at Margate. This hospitality -did not cause him to be respected by the practical jokers. Some of -the jokes lacked decency; and we do not see much fun in the emptying -a man’s box of its snuff and filling it with hellebore, to make him -sneeze a hundred times for one! It was a rule that no offence was to -be taken at the roughest of these jokes, but it was not always in -the power of a man to seem delighted at them. We quite sympathise -with Miles Peter Andrews, who, being asked why he looked serious -when everybody was laughing loudly at a jest perpetrated by the most -convivial of the members, answered--‘My dear sir, I can see no fun in a -man who owes me three guineas!’ - -The hospitality of Mann to the club was, if possible, exceeded by -that of Richard Leigh, whose welcomes to the members at Wilmington -were feudal in their sumptuousness. His good taste and liberality -were manifested in many ways. His musical gatherings were exquisite -treats. His love for athletic sports was shown in his zeal at getting -up cricket matches. The eccentric Duchess of Gordon, who had married -two dukes and a marquis to her three daughters, once said aloud to -Richard Leigh: ‘I am the _first_, but you are the second, match-maker -in England, Mr. Leigh.’ - -One of the droller incidents of the club-matches was long remembered. -Reynolds, who was but an amateur, was one day called upon to go in for -a member who was too ill to play. He went to the wicket with a feeling -of fright, as if he stood in front of a loaded pistol levelled at him, -when he saw that the formidable Harris was about to bowl. In his own -words, he says: ‘My terrors were so much increased, by the mock pity -and sympathy of Hammond, Beldam, and others round the wicket, that when -this mighty bowler--the _Jupiter Tonans_--hurled his bolt at me, I shut -my eyes in the intensity of my panic, and mechanically gave a random -desperate blow, which, to my utter astonishment, was followed by a loud -cry all over the ring of “Run! run!” I did run, and with all my force; -and getting three notches, the Duke of Richmond, John Tufton, Leigh, -Anguish, and other arch-wags, advanced and formally presented to me -twenty-five sixpences in a hat, collected from the bystanders as “the -reward of merit.” Even Lord Winchilsea and Sir Horace Mann contributed -to this, and then all playfully commenced promoting a new subscription, -which only stopped because I could not stop the next ball. To my great -joy, up went my stumps and out I walked--certainly with some little -_éclat_, being the first member of the club who had been considered a -_regular player_--_i.e._, _paid_ for his services.’ - -We have now to say a few words of some other clubs and their purposes. -In the last century, Benjamin Franklin was in the chair at a private -club which used to meet weekly at ‘The Prince of Wales’ in Conduit -Street. A proposal was made to do something for starving authors. -The members murmured over their pipes, stared at the punch-bowl, and -thought authors were vulgar people, who were not worth being thought -about. The matter, however, was not allowed to drop. Year after year -some kind soul or another brought it hot upon the anvil, hammered at it -till he was weary, and then passed the hammer to another and another, -and he to another, till at last the _something_ was beaten into shape, -and shape into substance, till there was fashioned that excellent and -praiseworthy institution, the Literary Fund. In its first year only a -few shillings could be spared for one hungry author, but _now_ it sends -forth welcome relief by hundreds of pounds. - -This Literary Fund brings to our mind a literary club which we must not -pass over--namely, ‘The Syncretics.’ The worthy gentleman who invented -the name has never been discovered; but, dignified as the title looked, -it sorely troubled some of the members, particularly those who had -looked into a dictionary for the interpretation, yet who, on being -asked for the meaning of ‘Syncretic,’ had forgotten the dictionary -definition. The object of this united body was the encouragement of the -dramatic element among the members. They were to write plays, which -managers were to put on the stage for them; and as each play was acted, -the Syncretics were bound, or were supposed to be bound, to support -the drama of their brother-member by enthusiastic demonstrations of -applause. Their motto seemed to be: ‘_Hors nous et nos amis nul n’aura -de l’esprit_.’ - -When the amiable society had furnished nearly as many new dramas as -there were members, the difficulty arose as to which play should have -the precedence. It was a delicate matter. Each writer saw peculiar -claims and merits in his own play, and those members whose pieces -were as yet only on the stocks thought that the club should not be -in too great a hurry, lest, by failing in their first venture, they -should discourage the possible or probable new Shakespeares who as yet -lacked time to bring about their dramatic _dénouements_. At length -a decision was arrived at, and a play called ‘Martinuzzi’ had the -good or evil fortune to be selected for representation. The public -expectation had been stimulated to a high degree, but disappointment -followed. ‘Martinuzzi’ was a lugubrious failure; but an ill-natured -world would have it that it was most violently hissed by the author’s -fellow-clubbists, the Syncretics. What will not a censorious world -assert? The scandal-mongers affirmed that it was a Syncretic rule -for each member, except the author, to hiss the play in course of -representation, as each sibilant member hoped, by damning his brother’s -play, to obtain a better chance of bringing his own forward earlier. - -Is there anyone surviving whose pantomimic memories can flash -vividly back half a generation? If so, how joyous yet sad must be -his remembrance of another literary club--‘The Fielding’--and the -pantomime of ‘Harlequin Guy Fawkes,’ acted by the members, at Covent -Garden, in 1855! If the set purpose of that society at its formation -was to found a school of mimes, the success was undoubted. It was -a strange ambition, thought Smelfungus, for professional men and -clerks in public offices to attempt to rival--nay, excel--the clowns, -harlequins, lovers, and pantaloons who were imbued with the traditions -of the times of Grimaldi and Bologna, Barnes and Parsloe. The amateurs -were quite up to the regular business. Who that was there will forget -the marvellous delivery of the patter song which Albert Smith rattled -out as ‘Catesby’? Was ever stage-fight at the old Coburg (where -Messrs. Blanchard and Bradley used to slay and be slain nightly with -broad-swords, that hacked and hewed to orchestral accompaniments) equal -to the terrific combat which was maintained between the awfully savage -Catesby and the resolute assassin Guy Fawkes, who had Mr. Holmes under -his mask? The latter seemed like a boneless unvertebrated acrobat -who could throw his limbs anywhere he pleased out of his own way, or -very much in the way of his adversary. The murderous earnestness of -his fighting was in strong contrast with the hilarious humour of his -burlesque-singing; and Mr. Holmes’s solemn humour was equally well -illustrated in the part he took, with three other amateurs, in the -performance of acrobatic feats in the scene of the Epsom Racecourse. -They executed the easiest of feats with an admirable air of having -achieved the impossible. The laughing spectators were almost deceived -by the mock seriousness of the pseudo-acrobats; and, when the latter -bowed to the applause, with an air of being exhausted by their -seemingly laborious efforts, the applause grew louder, and the laughter -shook the very house. - -There were other members of the club who took part in this celebrated -pantomime, and who were quite as effective as their fellows. Spectators -calculated in vain the number of government-office windows Mr. Bidwell, -the inimitable harlequin, must have leapt through, the government -tables he must have vaulted over, and the government chairs he must -have waltzed with for supposititious columbines, before he arrived -at the perfection which he then displayed. One could not but wonder -whether he went down to his office in Whitehall in his spangles -covered by a greatcoat, from which he suddenly emerged to stir the -often-manifested delight of the porter. Did he go to his desk by a hop, -step, and a jump? Did he ever awe a reproving ‘Head of Department’ by -shaking his ruler above him, as on the stage he shook his wand and -paralysed the clown? Then there was Arthur Smith, who slipped about in -Pantaloon as if he had never known boots, and heels to them, since he -was born. Nor let us pass over Joe Robins, that airy medical student, -who, we suppose, made the dissecting-room funny by his skeleton songs, -if he chaunted the scraps of minstrelsy as farcically as he sang ‘Hot -Codlins’ in the character of Clown. Horace Walpole said of some -amateur actors at whose playing he was present, that they played so -well it was a pity they had not sense enough not to play at all. He -would not have been epigrammatic in that style had he witnessed the -burlesquers and pantomimists of the Fielding Club. It was because -of their sense and intelligence that they were so efficient. In -their strength and buoyant spirits and exuberant health, they looked -immortal. Alas! some of them have passed from the stage-manager to the -sexton. One or two, having the alternative put before them, quitted -motley and pantomime for ever, and took permanently to their office -duties. Two or three went in an opposite direction; they stuck to the -stage, and more or less adorn it now, under their proper or under -stage-names. An odd fellow or so ‘got up a tree,’ as if that feat -belonged to the harlequinade of life; but it is believed that their -creditors saw less fun in the reality than in the pantomimic effect. In -short, to quote Hood’s ‘Ode on a Distant Prospect of Clapham College’-- - - - Alack! They’re gone a thousand ways! - And some are serving in ‘The Greys,’ - And some have perish’d young!-- - Jack Harris weds his second wife, - Hal Baylis drives the _wane_ of life, - And blithe Carew is hung! - - -We can only briefly refer to a few other clubs, some still, others -till lately, existing. We may suppose that a member of the ‘Early -Rising Association’ has no affinity with the ‘Owls.’ The ‘One-o’-clock -Club’ would no more understand a cricket-club than the members of the -one could look like the members of the other. ‘The Early Risers’ are -members of one of those cricket-clubs. During the season they pitch -their wickets at four o’clock in the morning, and play till seven, and -then to business--pleasure with them taking the precedence. But work is -their business of the day. Put the ‘Owls’ by their side, the foul birds -would certainly bear no resemblance to a man and a brother. The ‘Owls’ -used to meet at ‘The Sheridan Knowles,’ Bridge Street, Covent Garden. -They sat without ever rising. Day and night some blinking member was -to be found there making sacrifice of his faculties. It was not much -to offer up; but, by one saddened victim or another, the sacrifice was -being continually made. The smoke of their sacrifice ascended from -their pipes, and their libations were made in the very hottest of mixed -liquors. We believe that all the ‘Owls’ were utterly consumed--to -the great relief of their friends. Aspiring young imbeciles who call -themselves by that name are probably only the much-shattered wrecks -of the ‘One-o’clock Club,’ an association which was established for -the lofty purpose of late drinking! The ‘One-o’clock’ made ghosts of -a good many of its members. If any of its paralysed survivors could -bear being taken down to the Serpentine at daybreak on one of these -winter mornings, we should like to show them the club of hardy bathers -there who take their plunge, though they break the ice for it, and then -run across the park to breakfast at a pace that would take all the -poor breath out of the poorer body of any survivor of a club like the -‘One-o’clocks.’ - -We must say for the ‘Owls’ that they did not originally intend to -be permanently drinking. They fell into bad ways. Sheridan Knowles -himself was, probably, never anything more than the honorary patron -of the club. Poor musical Augustine Wade, the composer of ‘Meet me by -Moonlight alone,’ and the disposer of Mrs. Waylett, who gave melodious -utterance to his ballads, was chairman of the club of ‘Owls’ in its -best days. These were when it met upstairs at the ‘Shakespeare’s Head’ -in Wych Street--sacred ground, nevertheless, for it was the home of -genius, and, according to some authorities, the cradle of _Punch_. - -We will say nothing of ‘The Sublime Society of Beefsteaks,’ for -Brother Arnold has written its history and sung its requiem. What a -host of great people, home and foreign, used to assemble in a French -eating-house in a dirty little street near Leicester Square, where the -Foreigners’ Club was held, and Mallet du Pau, Pozzo di Borgo, and -our Vansittart were among the best talkers! We may wonder if ‘The Y. -Z.’s’ of Liverpool have seen as _wise heads_ among them as once met -at ‘The Foreigners.’ Gone are the ‘Fabs,’ the ‘Fortnightly Associated -Book Society’; ‘The Jelly Bags’ in nightcaps are as extinct as Barham’s -‘Wigs.’ ‘Our Club,’ whose number was once that of the ‘Forty Thieves,’ -has never recovered the prestige it had in the days of Douglas Jerrold, -while the ‘Cocked Hats,’ select in number, grow in hilarity as well as -in ‘Archæo-knowledgy.’ The ‘Arts,’ or the _Upst-Arts_, as some wild -wit called that club at its foundation, is, at least, existing. The -‘Civil Service’ has a cheerful home--and a hospitable--at ‘The Thatched -House.’ Then there is a club so mysterious that we cannot learn whether -its name is ‘The Sentry,’ or ‘The Century’; but its purposes are said -to be very ‘advanced,’ in the well-understood political meaning of that -word. By-and-by we shall probably hear a good deal of them. Meanwhile, -we will close this paper with a quotation from Lord Campbell’s Life of -Lord Thurlow. It will serve, at least, to show that modern club-ways -were not the ways of the clubs of former days: ‘A.D. 1769. At that -time, and indeed when I myself first began the study of the law, the -modern club-system was unknown, and (as in the time of Swift and -Addison) men went in the evenings for society to coffee-houses, in -which they expected to encounter a particular set of acquaintance, but -which were open to all who chose to enter and offer to join in the -conversation, at the risk of meeting cold looks and mortifying rebuffs.’ - - - - -_THROUGH THE PARKS._ - - -It cannot be said that we are a very grateful people to our kings--to -such of them, that is, as have claims on our gratitude. Richard III., -when he was yet but a young prince, flying his hawks over his manor -at what is now called Notting Hill (an estate which fell to him on -the attainder of its old possessor, De Vere, Earl of Oxford), had a -great love for the drama. He was the first prince of the blood royal -of England that ever formed a company of comedians in his pay, and we -all know in what sort of light this Richard is represented on the stage -of which he was such a noble patron. Again, take Charles I. Before his -time Hyde Park was a royal inclosure. It was a sacred possession of the -crown, into which no man dared venture who cared to continue to wear -his ears. By special permission of sacred majesty an English nobleman -or a foreign ambassador might be allowed to kill a buck there, but if a -commoner man only ventured to look over the wall he ran great risk of -paying for it in Newgate. Charles I., one bright May-day, threw open -Hyde Park to the people. The people cut off his head, and made May-day -a Hyde Park festival on many recurring anniversaries. They who were -present enjoyed the glory of it; all who were absent envied them, and -few had a thought to spend upon the king. - -The popular history of Hyde Park really dates from the time when -unlucky Charles made a gift of the place to his people. Previous to -that circumstance the locality belongs to history of another sort. -Druids once sang ‘Derry Down’--a phrase said to be druidical--in its -groves, and nightingales once made its evening foliage melodious. -It would be impossible for the one or for the other to exist there -now. For our own parts, we would rather hear the nightingales than -see the Druids, but it would not be for long. London boys would soon -silence the birds; and the metropolitan police would probably take -the Druids by the beard, and ‘run ’em in.’ Then, does it ever occur -to the equestrians in the Row, or to those who charioteer it around -the drive, or to the modest pedestrian who looks on at both as a part -of the London Summer Exhibition, that through the parks once ran that -ancient British or Roman road which began at Chester and ended at -Dover? We all know till lately where it crossed the Thames, namely, -at Stangate, opposite Horseferry Road. We can only fancy what the -wayfarers looked like. We may be sure that they did not in the least -resemble any of the groups or individuals who now lounge in or hurry -through the park in these later days. The land passed from Briton to -Saxon, from Saxon to Norman. William the ‘Conquistor’ gave much of it, -in which the present parks were included, to the Abbey of Westminster. -The ecclesiastical lords made the most of that part of the gift which -comprised the manor of Eia (thence Hythe and Hyde); they enclosed -it, but did not keep it solely for purposes of venison, although on -questions of game they were excessively jealous. They recognised -the salubrity of the place, and sent not only sick and convalescent -monks, but nobles and rich merchants to recover their digestions, by -drinking the waters of springs which flow now as copiously as ever. -The leper house, on the site of which stands Knightsbridge Chapel, -abutting on Hyde Park, was a sanatorium for patients so dreadfully -afflicted. In other respects, the place was strictly private. There -were no steel traps or spring guns, but intruders were kept off by -equally efficacious means. It was a preserve, to break into which was -almost a capital crime. Ultimately the Reformation dispossessed the -ecclesiastics, and the land passed into the hands of the crown. Henry -VIII. had no scruples. From St. James’s up to Highgate and Hampstead -all (saving a few paths), was made hunting-ground for the king and his -friends, native and foreign. The enclosed places were as sacred as the -king’s private chamber, and no man, without special permission, or in -course of rendering some duty to the king, could pass through the gate -of the park any more than he dared step over the threshold of the royal -sleeping-chamber, without warrant. Gradually, however, the exclusive -sacredness of the place passed away. St. James’s was yet for the most -part a palace garden, when Hyde Park was the convenient stage on which -hot-headed young gallants and love-stricken court pages privately -fought for nothing or their mistresses. People began to murmur at not -being allowed to even look into that for the maintenance of which they -paid pretty dearly. Then permissions were given to persons of quality -to shoot a buck or to take the air. Men of lesser note subsequently -gained admission; and at last, but not altogether without restriction, -Charles I. opened the park, and invited the citizens to enter. From -this point begins, as we have said, the popular history of Hyde Park. - -Let us turn here, for a moment, to the other Park of St. James, -including the Green, or Little St. James’s, Park. All this was -enclosed by Henry VIII. Queen Elizabeth loved to walk in it. One of -her appearances there is little known, but it is worth the telling, -as it also illustrates her love for art. In 1561 one Vergetius was -commissioned by the Queen to procure objects of art for her abroad, -which Throckmorton, her envoy in Paris, forwarded to her. In the above -year the envoy sent by the hands of a Mr. Sommers ‘the images of the -twelve emperors.’ These were alleged to be medals of great antiquity. -Throckmorton, however, informed Elizabeth that he had employed expert -Italians to look into this matter, and they suspected the medals ‘to be -counterfeit.’ Such as they were, their price was ‘six hundred crowns -of the sun’--to be delivered in good condition within two months. By -the same messenger Throckmorton informed Cecil that an experienced -person had assured him that the medals were made of common copper and -cunningly gilt. - -Sommers, having delivered his despatches to Cecil, exhibited the images -of the Cæsars. Cautious Cecil merely observed that ‘he liked them very -well, but was not skilful of their antiquity;’ he would refer the -question, he said, ‘to some cunning body,’ but ‘would not yet believe -that it was _æs Corinthium_. He had seen such works of ancient art, in -gold, silver, and brass, but not in such metal as this. He thought, -moreover, that 600 crowns would be far too high a price to expect the -Queen to disburse for them. - -The loyal Sommers, anxious that Elizabeth should not be suspected of -meanness, suggested that Cecil should invent any excuse for returning -them rather than let Vergetius suppose ‘that the Queen would stick for -600 crowns to have such a thing of price.’ - -Thereupon Cecil took Sommers to the Park at St. James’s, where he -knew the Queen was walking, and there the messenger, with the box of -‘images’ under his cloak, was presented to Elizabeth, who gave him her -hand to kiss, asked how Lady Throckmorton ‘could away with France?’ -glanced at his despatches, said she would read them in her chamber, and -then, perceiving that Sommers had something under his cloak, ended with -a ‘What have ye there?’ - -Sommers informed her; but when he named the price she protested with a -‘Marry!’ that she had the same set already in silver, but she bade him, -as it was growing late, to bring them for inspection on the morrow. -Accordingly, Sommers attended on her at the palace, and she laughed at -seeing them so daintily handled, all curiously arranged in a gilt box, -‘in the holes made for that purpose,’ and covered over with a piece -of crimson velvet. Then she told over the names as she looked at each -portrait, and scanned as many of the devices as she, with Sommers’ aid, -could decipher. She would come to no terms, however. He must leave them -with Cecil for a while. She would consider of it. - -Cecil kept the medallion portraits, waiting in vain for a chymist or -artificer with skill enough to ‘touch’ them and tell him of what metal -they were fashioned. Chaloner looked at them, and did not bring the -matter nearer to a solution by remarking, ‘If I were rich, I would give -a hundred crowns for them myself.’ - -The queen wrote with her own hand to Throckmorton. She has seen, she -says, ‘the twelve medallions of the emperors, whereof she does not make -such estimation as the price assigned. She returns them, and wills -him to thank Vergetius for the same, telling him that she has caused -certain closets and cabinets of her father to be searched, wherein a -great number of such monuments in gold, silver, and copper have been -found, and amongst them very fair monuments of the said emperors.’ And -so ends this picturesque episode of the imperial ‘images.’ The park -scene might suggest a picture to Frith or Ward, if either should ever -happen to be in want of a subject. - -And now, let us return to Hyde Park, and mark its progress to the end -of the seventeenth century. Many a letter has been printed to show how -speedily Hyde Park became the sacred ground of fashion. We will add to -these illustrations one that has never been quoted. - -In January, 1639, the fashionable world was looking out with -pleasurable anticipation to the park season; so early in the year -Madame Anne Merrick wrote to fair Mrs. Lyddall (both ladies were in -the country) to entreat her ladyship to come up to town ‘in Hyde Park -time.’ Madame Merrick adds: ‘The fear of a war with the Scots doth -not a little trouble me, lest all the young gallants should go for -soldiers, and the ladies should want servants to accompany them to that -place of pleasure which both of us so zealously affect. I long to see -those French ladies, Mme. Mornay and Mme. Darcy, and the new stars of -the English court, Mrs. Harrison and Mrs. Vaughan.’ The lady inquires -whether sleeves are still worn down to the wrist--the mode brought in -by the Duchess de Chevreuse. ‘Do they wear their necks up?’ she asks, -meaning covered, not as Herrick says, with ‘a lawn about the shoulders, -thrown into a sweet distraction.’ Mistress Merrick does not love the -fashion of the gown coming up to the throat, and boldly says, ‘I do not -hold any one worthy of a fair neck, or any other good part, that is -not free to show it.’ How she looked, head upon pillow, and afterwards -saucily erect in the park, may be seen in the modest lady’s request to -fair Mrs. Lyddall to buy for her ‘half a dozen white night coifs which -tie under the chin, and as many white hoods to wear over them a-days.’ -Thus the park beauties of Charles’s time clapt their hoods over their -night coifs, and exhibited in the park - - - The sleepy eye that speaks the melting soul. - - -Charles I., in opening the parks for free ingress and egress, reserved -the crown rights over them as crown lands. Thirteen years after -Mrs. Merrick wrote so fondly about it, that is to say, in 1652, the -Parliament ordered Hyde Park to be sold for ready money. More than -600 acres fetched a little over 17,000_l._ The Protectorate did not -exclude the people, but everyone who was aristocratic enough to appear -in a carriage or on horseback was compelled to pay, each horseman a -shilling, a coach half-a-crown, for admission. The fee was roughly -levied by fellows armed with sticks, who were the agents of the -purchasers of the land, and therefore were empowered by the state to -levy the toll. One would like to know if Oliver, when he drove his own -coach so awkwardly through the gate, had to pull up, and fumble under -his doublet for a shilling. The higher classes grumbled. They could -formerly take the air _gratis_, while Charles and his queen walked -on the grass, looked on at the races, or affected to taste the milk -offered them by the daintiest of maids. The nightingales and cuckoos -never visited the park after it became ‘common.’ Cromwell and his -friends, however, made a pretty show in the park, and were ‘mobbed,’ -as our manner is. Not every man who stood near and shouted loudest -was a Commonwealth man. Assassins watched their opportunity when he -rode, or drove, or witnessed military pageants, or was a spectator of -the horse-racing or of the hurling by Cornish gentlemen. They never -had heart to draw trigger. Even when Cromwell tumbled from his own -coach-box, no pistol was discharged save the one which he carried, -and that went off by accident. The scene was entirely changed when, -after the tap of Monk’s drums was heard coming up the then rural and -sweet-savoured Gray’s Inn Lane, the troops by whom monarchy was to -be restored encamped in Hyde Park, and all the world went thither -to welcome them. Charles II. resumed the possession of the parks, -reserving as before the crown rights. He bought the meadows which -skirted the Reading Room (Piccadilly) and out of them made what is now -called the Green Park. It was added to the land which Henry VIII., when -he lived in Whitehall, honestly acquired. It was marshy land, with a -hospital for female lepers upon it. Henry removed the leprous ladies, -built a palace, and enclosed the park, to which Charles II. added the -Upper St. James’s or Green Park, a portion of which was built over at -a later period. Hyde Park felt the Restoration. It had become a field: -Charles made it a pleasaunce. Fashion went to it rather than to the -Mall. There was enjoyment within it all the year through, with high -festival on May-day. When it became formal, the gayer pedestrians took -possession of St. James’s and the Mall. But formality was not to be -seen in the ride or the drive. Coach as well as horse-racing drew -crowds of delighted spectators; but this was nothing to the joyous -excitement which stirred the hearts and voices of the gazers when saucy -Miss Stewart swept into the Park in that wonderful vehicle belonging -to the king, the newly-invented ‘calash.’ The other royal mistress -had wept and sworn in vain in order to have this triumph. The king’s -wife, Queen Catherine, had mildly expressed a wish that she might be -the first to enter the park in her husband’s novel carriage; but, poor -woman! what was she that she should be heeded when two of the king’s -concubines had expressed the same wish? And the gratification was -accorded to the saucier of the two--if it can be said that the Stewart -_could_ be saucier than the Castlemaine. After Charles’s brother had -taken refuge in France there was a recognised Jacobite walk in Hyde -Park. The police would sometimes fling their net into the stream of -plotters and promenaders with more or less success. The Jacobites were -truculent in their joy as the news spread among them, as they walked, -that Mons had fallen (A.D. 1691). Queen Mary happened to be walking, -not far from them, on that Broad Walk which is now included within -Kensington Gardens. Most of the Tory gentlemen paid her the courtesy -due to a lady and a queen; but Sir John Fenwick assumed an insulting -air, and cocked his hat rudely instead of raising it like a gentleman. -Six years after, King William caught Sir John on the hip. The Jacobite -was convicted of treason, and William had the greatest pleasure in -courteously having him beheaded by act of attainder, as if the man who -had insulted his wife had been a peer of the realm. - -It is a singular circumstance that, after Hyde Park--the park which -had been opened to the people by King Charles--had been sold and -divided under Cromwell, ‘James’s Park’ was preserved. The latter was -open only to members of Cromwell’s court and to a few other privileged -persons who lived in Petty France, on the south-east side of the -park. Milton was one of these. Later on a wider permission was given. -Commonwealth ladies ruffled it there, and Cromwell himself paced it -in serious converse with serious men. His wife kept her cows there, -and talked of them with mild congenial spirits. With Charles II. came -courtiers, swains, nymphs, lovers. Some took the Mall, and practised -gallantry openly; others--_chacun avec sa chacune_--resorted to the -welcome shades round Rosamond’s Pond, in the south-west corner of the -park. Under the elms in what is now Pall Mall, or under the limes -which skirted the Mall in the park, all that was gay, and light, and -frivolous, frisked and frolicked; but thoughtful men threaded their -way among them too, and shook their heads at much which some people -would have shut their eyes at. Charles, standing under the park wall -to exchange light talk with Nell Gwynne, who looked down and laughed -upon him from her garden on the other side, was a sight which made -Evelyn groan aloud. It was a type of the general naughtiness which -prevailed. Half the graceless fops and hussies of the comedy of the -period play out their impudent drama in St. James’s Park. In the -comedies of that time the manners of people of quality are reflected. -As has been remarked, how they dressed, talked, and thought; what they -did, and how they did it; what they hoped for, and how they pursued -it: all may be learnt from contemporary comedy. We fully agree with -the judgment which says of the personages, that the fine gentlemen are -such unmitigated rascals, and the women, girls, and matrons are such -unlovely hussies--in rascality and unseemliness quite a match for the -men--that one escapes from their wretched society, and a knowledge -of their one object, and the confidences of the abominable creatures -engaged therein, with a feeling of strong want of purification and of -that ounce of civet by which the imagination may be sweetened. - -With all this there was a leaven of what was respectable or harmless. -Charles himself may not seem heroic, but he is at least harmless as we -see him, playing with his dogs, feeding his various birds, large and -small, in Birdcage Walk, or walking to Whitehall, looking fresh from -the dip we are told he had just taken in the canal. Occasionally a -thief who admired the king’s breed of puppies would steal a favourite -as it trotted at the very heels of majesty. ‘Will they never leave -robbing his Majesty?’ is the query at the close of an advertisement, -the opening of which implies how often the king was despoiled: ‘We must -call upon you again for a black dog,’ &c. - -When we remember that Charles often walked alone in both the parks, and -that plotters were abroad, we may wonder that he was never molested by -anyone worse than an enthusiast. It was a time when promenading ladies -in the park took no offence at being accosted by gentlemen who were -strangers. On the other hand, ladies saw nothing wrong in taking with -them, in their drives in Hyde Park, some handsome boy who acted as -girl on the stage, or walking with him in the Mall in his histrionic -costume. The great glory of St. James’s was during Charles II.’s reign. -His figure always has the park for a background. When he passed away -the park was seldom visited by a sovereign; but William occasionally -shut himself up on Duck Island, and smoked his pipe as he sat amid -the all but stagnant waters. When the seventeenth century closed St. -James’s belonged to the public, the lower classes of which went thither -to contemplate the leaders of fashion and the gaudiest flowers of -husseydom. - -In the last century it was ‘the thing’ for promenaders in Hyde Park -to gaze through the railings, and watch Queen Anne and her ladies -airing their nobility within Kensington Gardens. The most important -park incident of that Queen’s reign was the murderous duel between -the Tory Duke of Hamilton and the Whig Lord Mohun. Their quarrel was -personal and political, and it was embittered by a question as to right -of property. On a gloomy November morning of 1712 they fought with -swords, before it was quite daylight, and with such ferocity--hacking -and rolling over each other on the ground--that, when Mohun dealt the -Duke a mortal stab he himself fell dead on the grass. All the world -went in crowds to the spot, to moralise, eat cakes, drink ale, and cut -poor jokes on the scene of the butchery. No other park duel of the -last century was so sanguinary. It was there that Martin, M.P. for -Camelford, nearly killed Wilkes by shooting him through and through. -‘It would have been all over with me,’ said Wilkes, ‘only that Martin -used government powder.’ It was in Hyde Park that George Garrick and -Baddeley went out to pistol one another at instigation of a Jewish -lover of Mrs. Baddeley, who hoped that George would kill the lady’s -husband; but the affair ended by the parties dining together. A later -fight was more serious; it occurred in December 1773. One Hugh -Williamson managed to steal the despatches sent by the governors of the -American colonies to Whately, one of the under-secretaries in England. -Dr. Franklin received the stolen property, and sent the documents to -America, where their publication caused the greatest indignation. -Whately’s brother, a banker, expressed his suspicion of an American, -one Temple, being the thief. Temple called Whately out, and the two -pelted each other with shot, and then hacked and thrust at each other -with swords, till Whately was removed in an almost dying state. At that -time neither the thief nor the receiver was known. It was not till -after the fight that Franklin acknowledged that he was the receiver, -and it was not till much later that Hugh Williamson was discovered to -be the thief. In 1780 the popular Lord Shelburne was hit in the groin -in a duel with Colonel Fullarton, of whom, as an _attaché_ to the -English Embassy in Paris, the minister had spoken with great contempt. -The City of London sent every day a ‘How d’ye do?’ to the leader of the -Opposition. Subsequently parsons were not ashamed to do their bit of -murder here, or run the risk of being murdered by another. Parson Bate -fought his co-proprietor of the ‘Morning Post’ without much harm to -either; and Parson Allen stretched his man, Dulany, dead on the turf. -For this feat he suffered half-a-year’s imprisonment in Newgate. But -this penalty did not prevent the Hon. Cosmo Gordon from killing Colonel -Thomas on the same spot, nor weaken the arm of General Stewart in -running his sword into Lord Macartney. When people of quality thought -butchering one another a salve for wounded honour, fools of lower -degree soon followed the example. In June, 1792, one Frizell, weary -of a night’s debauch with other Irish law students, was sarcastically -rebuked for his comparative sobriety by his friend Clarke. The whole -party resorted to Hyde Park, in the beautiful summer dawn, to settle -the question with pistols. In five minutes poor Frizell was lying stark -dead among the buttercups and daisies. His tipsy companions tumbled -the body into a hackney-coach, which was afterwards found standing -in Piccadilly, without coachman or any passenger except the dead law -student, who was beyond giving any account of himself. In August, -1796, Mr. Pride, an American, killed his countryman, Mr. Carpenter, in -the park. In 1797 Colonel King exchanged six shots ineffectually with -Colonel Fitzgerald, a married man, from whom King had only recently -recovered his sister whom Fitzgerald had seduced from her home. Some -time after this duel in the park Fitzgerald went over to Kilworth, -Ireland, in order to gain possession again of the unhappy young lady. -Her brother, who had become Lord Kingsborough, broke into Fitzgerald’s -room for the purpose of chastising him. He would probably have been -slain by the stalwart ruffian but for the timely arrival of his -father, the Earl of Kingston, who, seeing his son’s danger, fired at -Fitzgerald, and killed the rascal on the spot. - -But people found life in Hyde Park as well as death. Frost could not -keep them from it in February, nor dust and heat in June. Fashion rode -round and round the Ring, as equestrians do in a circus, to attract -the admiration of spectators. Since hackney-coaches had been forbidden -to enter the park, at the close of William’s reign, because their -crowded inmates used to indulge in loud and rude comments on such -public characters as passed them, the place had become more delightful -to exclusive fashionables. Rogues and hussies, however, had the most -dashing equipages. Camps and reviews--particularly in the Jacobite -period--varied the grand spectacle; and there were crowds who went, -as to a festival, to see a soldier nearly flogged to death or shot -outright. The fine people, with less curiosity, walked meanwhile, -with well-bred indifference, beneath the five rows of walnut trees -which flourished there till 1814, when, by the exigencies of war, they -were all cut down to be converted into gun-stocks. After the West -Bourn was converted into the ‘Serpentine River,’ by order of Queen -Caroline, there was boating on it, as now, but the yachts were ‘for -the diversion of the royal family.’ That good queen, having taken -300 acres of the park, added them to Kensington Gardens. The good -lady would fain have undone the gracious act of Charles I., and would -have made the parks private; but she changed her mind on hearing the -probable cost: Walpole estimated it at _three crowns_. The roads at -this time were a disgrace to the authorities; and when ducal carriages -broke down in the ruts, and commonplace chariots drove through the -panels behind which royalty was seated, the public were comforted, for -they thought that improvement must ensue. Gallantry, meanwhile, did -not care for roads. The sight of Molly Nisbett’s ankle, as she walked -by the Serpentine, so moved Lord Macclesfield’s heart that he ‘fell in -love’ with her, as the phrase goes; but happening to meet her sister -Dorothy when he expected to meet Molly, he fell still more in love with -_her_, and at last married her. Walpole epigrammatically says that the -Countess Dolly was my lord’s mistress--or at least other people’s. - -Just a hundred and eleven years ago, George II. reviewed, in the park, -Colonel Burgoyne’s troop of light horse; and the Colonel’s son, Sir -John Burgoyne, died only recently, in his ninetieth year. The review -was as nothing compared with a spectacle afforded at a later period -by the Ranger of the park, Lord Orford, who drove a four-in-hand of -reindeer instead of horses. Deer-hunting in the park by the royal -family and privileged persons was not uncommon as late as the latter -half of the last century. There, too, might be seen, on his little -Welsh pony, great Chatham--he who first called the parks the ‘lungs of -London.’ Ugly Wilkes there found willing listeners among the handsomest -of women. The beaux about to make the _grand tour_ took leave of home -by a display in the park, and probably dined with the Sçavoir Vivre -Club, partaking of their favourite dish, from which beaux generally -acquired the name of ‘macaronies.’ The headdresses of the latter were -something like those of women very recently, and were almost as nasty. -The women of that day sailed through the park in head-gear that made -them look top-heavy, and long skirts which might be described in the -words which Scripture applies to the skirts of Jerusalem. Thieves of -every degree were busy among the thoughtless crowd; but gentlemanly -young fellows would gallantly protect strange young ladies across the -park when it grew dusk, and strip them of everything valuable before -they were half across it. A detected thief, however, might think -himself lucky if he escaped undrowned from the Serpentine water and -unsuffocated from the Serpentine mud. Other dangers came from the park. -Rifle practice went on there very actively--so actively that at last -the landlord of the King’s Arms, Paddington, naturally complained at -a ball, intended for the target, having crashed through his windows, -and lodged in the wood of one of the boxes in his tap-room. At this -exercise and at the reviews, the belles of the day used to muster in -Amazonian uniforms corresponding with those of the regiments they -intended to compliment. Blind Lord Derehurst used to ride through the -old grass-road full gallop, but with a friend at his side, whereby he -once came into collision with a furious rider who _could_ see his way. -Both were half killed by the shock; but when the blind lord recovered -the use of his limbs he terrified everybody by galloping about the park -more furiously than ever. When the men took to four-in-hand driving -it was done with a perfection which may be still equalled, but also -with a splendour of appointments which is not followed. The ladies, -too, took up the reins, and condescended even ‘to whistle sweet their -diuretic strains.’ The lady drivers had above a fifty years’ reign, -from the days of Young’s Delia, who, in 1728, smacked the silken thong, -‘graceful as Jehu,’ to the period when Lady Archer ‘tooled’ her four -white horses through the park, and Mrs. Gordon, in 1783, drove her -phaeton and bays almost as rashly as Phaeton himself drove his father’s -chariot and broke down before he got to the end of his course. - -In the last century, while the charioteers exhibited themselves in -Hyde Park, the promenaders took possession of that part of St. James’s -known as the Mall. Along a portion of the road, Charles I., had walked -his dolorous way to the scaffold at Whitehall; but he walked it like a -true gentleman. The gay throng that succeeded remembered little of that -King, in connection with the Park. They had lighter things to think -of. At one time the scene was as animated as that of Venice in the old -Carnival time, especially as long as visor-masks were in fashion. The -Mall was the first place in which a newly-appointed chaplain to a lord -fluttered his new black silk scarf, the sign and symbol of his dignity. -His quality was known by the flag he hung out. The scarf had just -been handed to him by my lord’s butler, who kept one or two samples -of the article by him, ready to be delivered to any new chaplain -named by my lord, in return for which the reverend gentleman was -expected to drop into the butler’s hand at least a half-guinea. Even -young officers in the Mall had little, if any, advantage of the young -chaplain, as long as his scarf bore its new lustre, and his address -had the necessary audacity. Old and young men of pleasure lounged in -the Mall and idled in the chocolate houses. The ladies were there in -beautiful, patched, painted, and scented crowds, the soft evening hours -being their particular season. They criticised each other, and each -admired herself. There Prior took the air to make himself fat, and -Swift to make himself thin. There were walks to suit all tastes. That -by Rosamond’s Pond for lovers, sentimental persons, and elegiac poets. -The Green Walk had its scandal-mongers and beaux with their hats, -not on their heads, but under their arms. Now and then a French or a -Frenchified fop was to be seen, as Tom Brown has etched him, with both -his hands in his pockets, carrying all his plaited coat before to show -his silk breeches. Other figures grouped in the park picture included -senators talking, or seeming to talk, of state affairs; milk-people -crying ‘A can of milk, ladies! a can of red cow’s milk, sir!’ St. -James’s Park had also its Close Walk, at the head of Rosamond’s -Pond, in the south-west corner of the park. This got the name of the -Jacobites’ Walk before there was one in Hyde Park. It was the resort -of Tories in the latter years of William’s reign, whereas the Jacobite -Walk in Hyde Park was the favourite conversing ground of the friends -of the old and young Pretenders. The park was manifestly losing its -fashionable aspect when Warburton ridiculed, while pretending to -praise it. What could be more pastoral than the cows and milk-women -near Spring Gardens? Comedy, Farce, Satire, were in all the walks. -Rosamond’s Pond was the resource of hearts ill at ease. Madrigals and -sonnets might best be composed in Birdcage Walk. Georgics and didactic -poetry would find inspiration on Duck Island, for which, however, -Warburton gives the very poor reason, that ‘the governor of it, Stephen -Duck, can both instruct our friend (Mason) in the breed of the wild -fowl and lend him of his genius to sing their generations.’ St. James’s -has grown common, without lacking any people of the high quality that -used to gather there in animated groups. King Charles loitered there -for hours amid his birds, to the great delight of the crowds who -watched him, killing time. Queen Caroline, George II.’s queen, would -fain have had the park to herself, as Elizabeth had, but failing that, -she only visited it in her sedan. But where those great personages -tarried, for pleasure, personages equally great only hurry along, bent -on business. A sovereign drives in the centre of the Mall, to open or -close Parliament, or passes along the side of it on her way to hold a -levee. But even this is a rare sight now. As for peers and senators of -less degree, whichever way they go, they seem bent upon getting out of -the park in the quickest way possible. - -On the other hand, it is and almost always has been the business -of pleasure-seekers to linger in Hyde Park. They go thither with -alacrity; tarry with delight; wend their way homeward with regret, -and return to the park with renewed zest. It has ever been so. The -last century ended a long season of park joys; the present century -added to them. People of the highest rank took the dust there, and -seemed to enjoy it. The park had not been desecrated in their eyes -by footmen fighting duels in it, like their masters. Ladies, indeed, -not nicer than jockeys, were lauded for nothing but their riding. -One Amazon of the Row was complimented by being likened to Diana, in -everything but chastity. The greatest beau of the park at the end of -the last century was also the greatest, among a hundred eccentrics, -long after the beginning of this: namely, Beau Brummell. He is more -familiar to us than Colonel Hanger, who spent 900_l._ a year on his -dress--if he really paid his tailor. Republican France influenced Hyde -Park to this extent, that ladies were nearest the French fashion who -wore the least amount of dress. They needed only to show their faces -to be the most attractive, as was often told them, but they heeded it -not, except when they mounted the box to drive four in hand, and even -then they looked as much like young coachmen as dress could make them. -For years, on succeeding Sundays, Martin Von Butchell, the eccentric -doctor, was there, beard and all, on his painted pony, a very good -advertisement for the doctor. When death overtook the old man, who had -an idea he was immortal, he was more missed than Romeo Coates, with -his lofty phaeton, in shape and colour of a sea-shell, and his crest -of a cock, with its motto, ‘While I live I’ll crow.’ The park, without -Von Butchell and his variously painted pony, may be compared to the -Haymarket stage without Compton. - -All sorts of oddities were to be seen there, on the old-fashioned -Sundays. A Polish countess proved to be a Drury Lane ballet-girl; -a magnificent lady turned out to be a lady’s maid; and real ladies -stooped to copy the fashions set by the counterfeits. But space fails -to permit us to do more than refer to the dainty Petersham, the curled -Geramb, the Four-in-hand and the Tandem clubs, the dandies who ruled -when the _men_ were at the wars, and the men who came back with the -Don Cossacks and the allied sovereigns, and showed themselves in Hyde -Park, as a proof that heroes were again upon the throne of fashion. -The throne still exists and a full and splendid gathering is around -it, on court days. In its way, Hyde Park is one of the most attractive -of sights, when the season is at its brightest, and the Somebodies -are there, with their kinsfolk eager to admire and imitate them. From -royalty downwards, indeed, every class is to be seen in that moving -panorama. Princes and mechanics, princesses and flower-girls, every -grade is there, and not the least remarkable are those Anonymas, who -dress with such exquisite propriety lest they should be mistaken for -modest women. - - - - -_SOME SCOTSWOMEN._ - - -In the poetry of no nation are the ‘lasses’ more exquisitely courted -than in that of Scotland. But old women, with one or two exceptions -only, come off with ungallant treatment. This incivility may perhaps -have been born of the suspicion that old women had a strong tendency -towards growing into witches. On the other hand, witchery was common -enough with the younger wenches. There are few things more remarkable -in social history than the existence of women in Scotland who professed -to be witches, and the cruel punishments inflicted, not only on women -who were professed, but on those also who were suspected witches. - -There was a grossly immoral side to this story, and the immorality was -just the attractive part to individuals who could but practise it under -the character of warlocks and witches. The latter, combined with the -devil, established a reign of licentiousness in spite of all laws. We -believe that the women and the devil did really, in a certain sense, -come together, that is, in some cases. The fiend usually went abroad by -night. He had a strong kindness for young witches only. Take all as -merely human elements, and we know what wicked human nature could make -of them. It cannot be doubted that many a licentious scoundrel passed -himself off as the devil, and promised supernatural powers to all young -witches who would obey him. Hallucinations would come of it; and desire -to be witches, with power to severely punish all enemies, would spread -among people of diseased minds. The fact that this devil was a worse -sort of Don Giovanni, a hard drinker, and that he often piped while the -young witches danced, in cutty sarks, or without sarks at all, were -circumstances which tend to show a depraved humanity taking advantage -of a humanity too weak to resist. Moreover, generally speaking, the -devil had little regard for old witches. Nevertheless, these hags -sometimes went to the stake asserting their might of sorcery. When -they recanted, or urged their complete guiltlessness, they were not -believed. In some instances they were proud of belonging to the Amazons -of Hell. - -The supernatural hags were long in dying out. Even Norna of the -Fitful Head was not the last of the mystic queens of storm and rulers -of the winds. _’Tis sixty years since_, and a woman was then living -in Stromness, an old weird woman, who sold winds to mariners at a -remarkably low figure. For the small charge of sixpence, ‘awfu’ -Bessie Miller’ would sell a wind to a skipper from any point of the -compass he chose to have it. One relic of youthful beauty added dread -fascination to this storm-witch. The bright blue eyes, that in their -time had been the lode-stars of many a laddie’s heart, were bright and -blue as ever. All else was old age in its most withered aspect, and the -eyes were as two dazzling lights in a skull. The calm or storm vendors -have ceased to be; but in the Orkneys there are old women who still -earn an ‘honest penny’ by controlling nature; there is not a pain--from -the first that a child can cause, to the last a mortal endures in -getting well-rid of his mortality--but these crones profess to relieve. -We learn too, on competent authority, that old Orkney women still -retain an unaccountable aversion to turbot, and avoid naming it when -crossing sounds and bays in boats. - -Midnight courtships were quite as injurious as midnight meetings of -young witches and rattling warlocks. Among the agricultural classes the -ordinary time for courting is still, in many parts of Scotland--as it -used to be universally--the middle of the night. A farmer’s swain--with -an all-overishness about him for a particular lass, with whom he may -have had a _crack_ ‘’twixt the gloaming an’ the murk, when the kye -comes hame’--will rise at midnight, walk over to his lady’s bower, and -find her ready and willing to let him in, as the lady did Finlay, in -the ballad, or go down to him, and walk and talk and enjoy ‘courtship,’ -till the dawn, if it be summer-time, bids the rustic Romeo and Juliet -depart. The report of the Royal Commissioners may be studied for the -prose as well as the poetical side of this strange method of wooing--a -method sanctioned by parents and not ill-thought of by friends, seeing -that such was the course of their wooing an’ wedding, an a’. This -custom is, doubtless, referred to in Joanna Baillie’s ballad--‘It fell -on a morn when we were thrang’-- - - - When the clocksy laird o’ the warlock glen, - Wha waited without, half blate, half cheery, - And lang’d for a sight o’ his winsome deary, - Raised up the lattice an’ cam’ crousely ben. - - His coat was new an’ his o’erlay was white; - His mittens an’ hose were cozie and bien; - But a wooer that comes in braid daylight - Is no like a wooer that comes at e’en. - - -We may conclude, on other ballad evidence, that it was right unseemly -for the lassie to make the first step in this owl-like courtship. The -ballad of ‘The Maid gaed to the Mill’ is a warning. She pretended to go -merely to get her corn ground, but really that the miller might make -love to her-- - - - The maid’s gane to the mill by night, - Hech hey, sae wanton! - The maid’s gane to the mill by night, - Hey, sae wanton she! - - -In connection with midnight courtship may be noticed the clandestine -‘Ruglen marriages,’ which were so called because in Rutherglen it -was more easy to get legally married in spite of law than elsewhere. -A couple of centuries ago an Act of Parliament visited clandestine -marriages (that is, without banns) with heavy penalties and -imprisonment, but it did not invalidate the marriage itself. The -Rutherglen justices broke the law while professing to maintain it, made -money thereby, and gave especial delight to the lasses. For example: a -lad and lass wish to be quietly married; they got a friend to denounce -them to a ‘Ruglen magistrate’ for having broken the law. The offenders -were summoned before him; they of course acknowledged, in the presence -of the court, that they were man and wife, which acknowledgment made -them so legally. They were fined five shillings, and were given a copy -of the sentence, which they signed; and this was universally taken -as a legal certificate of the union. Other magistrates followed this -lucrative business. When they told the young offenders that as to the -statute penalty of three months’ imprisonment the court would take time -to consider, the lad, lass, court, and assistants all laughed aloud, -and the Ruglen marriage was a legal one. - -In earlier days than those just referred to great evil arose from the -fact that girls of twelve years of age could legally effect a marriage -of their own will. We might suppose that the lovers could afford to -patiently wait for the nymphs till then. Manœuvring mothers, however, -frequently sacrificed lovers content to wait, for others whom the -mothers preferred to favour. In 1659 the Countess of Buccleuch (in -her own right) was married, when only eleven years of age, to Scott -of High Chester, a lad of fourteen. This was the evil work of the -bride’s mother, the Countess of Wemyss. The validity of the marriage -was disputed, but meanwhile the bride finished her twelfth year, and -then married the lad of her own accord. She died very early in her -teens, and then her successor (for she was a great heiress), her sister -Annie, was married, while still a child, to the natural son of Charles -II.--the Duke of Monmouth. Parents and guardians were heavily fined for -allowing these marriages when the parties were under age; but as they -gained more by selling an heiress than they lost in paying the penalty, -this did not deter them. On some occasions a gallant would carry off a -child-heiress and keep her till she reached the lawful age. Towards the -end of the seventeenth century this freak was looked upon as a crime. -When Carnagie, the Earl of Northesk’s brother, thus ran off with Mary -Gray of Baledgarnie, men said if he could be got, he deserved hanging, -for an example to secure men’s children from such attempts. - -This practice had died out, but in 1728, we hear of an ‘abduction -in the old style.’ The offender was a Highlander. The damsel was a -wright’s niece, named Mowbray. Her ‘gouvernante had betrayed her upon -a promise of a thousand marks, the young lady having 3,000_l._ of -fortune.’ The uncle luckily caught them near to Queensferry, as they -were coming to town to be married. The newspapers add, ‘The gouvernante -is committed to prison, as is also the gentleman.’ There were some -illegitimate marriages that were severely punished. In the reign of -Charles I., a tailor in Currie was beheaded for marrying his deceased -wife’s half-brother’s daughter. As late as the reign of William and -Mary, we hear of a certain Margaret Paterson, one of the beauties of -the then prevailing husseydom. She had drawn into her irresistible -toils the two young sons of a kirk minister named Kennedy. For this -offence Margaret stood an hour in the ‘jougs,’ was whipped the whole -length of the city, and was then transported to the plantations for the -term of her natural life. - -We have more gentle reminiscences of some Scotswomen, through both -poetry and romance--both founded on history. Few maidens are better -known in ballad lore than Bessy Bell and Mary Gray. Their true history -is not so familiarly known. They were living at the time of the last -plague that ever devastated Scotland, A.D. 1645. Bessy was daughter of -the Laird of Kincaid: Mary, of the Laird of Lednoch. At the last place, -near Perth, Bessy was on a visit to Mary. The plague broke out in the -neighbourhood, and raged so fearfully that the young ladies built them -a bower, about a quarter of a mile from the mansion, and there dwelt, -apart from their family, but not from all human companionship. They -were visited and whatever they required was brought to them by a swain -who is said to have been equally deeply in love with both--which was a -very aggravated symptom of a common sort of plague. Tradition says that -death came of it. The lover with two mistresses brought the infection -with him. The ladies caught the disease, died, and were buried near -where the present mansion stands--a mansion, the name of which has been -changed from Lednoch to the more familiar Lynedoch. The gallant soldier -who bore that name, built a bower over the graves of a couple of whom -we know nothing surely, except that they lived and died. - -In legend--one which was born of sad truth, and has passed into -Italian opera--there is no maiden more famous than the Bride of -Lammermoor. In melancholy prose, the lady was the Honourable Janet -Dalrymple, daughter of the first Lord Stair. She and young Lord -Rutherford had plighted their troth, had broken a silver coin between -them, and had invoked malediction on whichever of the two should -be false to the compact. The parents of Lady Janet insisted on her -marrying Dunbar of Baldoon. The mother, Lady Stair, was most cruel -in forcing her daughter to this match. Janet, broken-hearted and -helpless, had an interview with her lover, and sobbed out a text from -Numbers xxx. 2, 3, 4, 5, as an excuse for her obedience to her mother’s -commands. The lovers parted in sorrow; Rutherford in anger. He had not -in him the spirit of young Lochinvar, nor Janet the wit to run away -with him herself. The poor thing was, in fact, scared. She was carried -to church to be wed, in a semi-crazed and more than half-dead state. At -night a hurricane of shrieks came from the bridal chamber, where the -bridegroom was found on the ground, profusely bleeding from a stab, and -the bride sat near him in her night-gear, bidding them ‘Take up your -bonny bridegroom!’ She died insane in less than three weeks. Dunbar -of Baldoon recovered, but he was never known to open his lips on the -causes which led to the catastrophe. Baldoon evidently took things as -they came; after his death, some thirteen years later, in 1682, Andrew -Simpson wrote an elegy upon him, in which the romantic adventurer upon -marriage with another man’s love was described as a respectable country -gentleman who had introduced many improvements into agriculture! Lord -Rutherford, the lover, died childless, in 1685. As Dunbar would never -suffer the catastrophe to be alluded to, good-natured people invented a -story that Rutherford himself was in the chamber before Baldoon reached -it, and had stabbed him as soon as he entered it. There is no shadow -of the slightest grain of substance for _this_ part of a sufficiently -calamitous history. - -Janet Dalrymple was a strong-minded woman. She and her contemporaries -descended from mothers and grandmothers who were both strong-minded -and wrong-headed. Among the Scotswomen who may be so designated may be -reckoned those who were accustomed in the latter half of the 16th and -beginning of the 17th centuries to go about in men’s attire. Indeed the -sexes would often change clothes. This was done sometimes at bridals, -sometime at burials, always in a spirit of jollification, and there is -an instance of women and men making this travesty and rioting through -Aberdeen, in celebration of their recovery from the plague, but while -the foul stigmata of the disease were still upon them! The magistrates -had infinite trouble with the women. Fines did not frighten the -offenders. Other means were adopted. In March, 1576, certain women -‘tryit presently as dancers in men’s claiths, under silence of night, -in houses and through the town;’ the magistrates inform them that if -they are caught ‘they shall be debarrit fra all benefit of the kirk and -openly proclaimit in the pulpit.’ This masquerading was not confined to -women of low degree. Queen Mary Stuart and her ladies, once at least, -frolicked through Edinburgh in disguise--that is to say, they went -their joyous way as young market-women; this unseemly frolic occurred -when weak and ill-starred Darnley was on the point of wedding with the -widowed but then light-hearted queen. - -Of all the wilful Scotswomen of whom Scottish records make mention, -one of the most singular was the Hon. Susan Cochrane, daughter of -John, the fourth Earl of Dundonald. At fifteen, she married the Earl -of Strathmore, who was accidentally killed three years later, A.D. -1728. Twenty years after this the childless widow married her groom, -according to the Rev. Mr. Roger--her ‘factor,’ or bailiff, according to -the peerage books. The second husband’s name was Forbes. ‘The groom,’ -says Mr. Roger, ‘at first (when she offered herself in marriage to him) -thought that the countess had become mentally disordered, but when he -perceived she was serious he gladly embraced the good fortune which -had so unexpectedly fallen in his way.’ There was a daughter of this -marriage. The mother ultimately carried the girl with her to France, -when Forbes made the home unfit for a commonly decent woman to live in. -Lady Strathmore died in that country in 1754, leaving her daughter, -Miss Forbes, in a convent at Rouen. Forbes married again, and then -sent for his daughter, who returned to his house. She was so cruelly -treated that at last she ran away, wandered through the country, and, -when nearly irrecoverably exhausted, was taken into a farm-house, in -Fifeshire, by a family named Lauder. The fugitive told her tale, and -the Lauders gave her a permanent home. After a while, the eldest son -fell in love with and married her. Happiness seemed secured to her at -last, but it did not continue long. Her husband fell into adversity, -and the honest fellow died under the crushing pressure of it. What -the daughter of Lady Strathmore suffered it would be too painful only -to conjecture. In 1821 she was found living in a miserable cottage -near Stirling, and her influential neighbours took up her case. They -represented it to the families of Dundonald and Strathmore, to whom the -appeal was not made in vain. They contributed to furnish her with an -annuity of 100_l._ a year. It was thankfully received, and it proved -all-sufficient for the wants of the granddaughter of two earls. - -Returning to days before the Reformation, it seems to have been then -a sort of practical joke on the part of leaders of military bands to -quarter their officers and men in convents, which were also places -where young ladies of quality were educated and lodged. There were -generally means available to get rid of this unmanly intrusion. Similar -circumstances, with similar results, occurred in Scotland after the -Reformation. The first notice of a regular professional governess in -Scotland occurs under the date of 1685. In a petition to the Privy -Council this lady, Isabel Cumming, describes herself as a widow and -stranger, who has been invited to Edinburgh (in which place she -considered that the centre of the virtue of the whole kingdom was to -be found!) to instruct young gentlewomen in all sorts of needlework, -playing, singing, and several other excellent pieces of work, becoming -ladies of honour. She had not only succeeded, but, she says, she was -continually improving herself for the advantage of young ladies of -quality. This exemplary Isabel petitioned to be made exempt from the -affliction of having soldiers quartered upon her; otherwise, what -would become of all her young ladies? Their heads would be turned from -study, and their hearts would be beating to nought but military airs. -The Lords of the Council, who had young kinswomen, perhaps, among the -pupils, prudently and promptly granted Mrs. Cumming’s request. - -These young ladies, grown into wives, often sorely troubled their lords -by going to conventicle instead of to church, as the Act of Charles -II., the religious head of that church, ordered them to do, under -severe penalty, which, of course, the husband had to pay. The wife of -Balcanqui of that ilk so often offended in this way, that her lord at -last grew tired of paying her fines. He protested to the king’s council -that he conformed himself, but that his wife stoutly refused. He was -therefore, desirous, he said, to deliver her up to the council, to be -disposed of at their pleasure. The considerate council declared that -men like Balcanqui were not to be ruined by the mad and wilful opinions -of fanatical wives; and they agreed to remit the fine, if he would send -them the lady. - -On the other hand, there was at least one lady who was willing, not -only to give up her lord for conventicle-haunting, but to see him -hanged as a Nonconformist. Her name has not lived in history, but -Wodrow records the fact. She was a graceless virago. She mocked him -in family prayer, cursed him when he went to conventicle, and flung -stools at him when he returned. She had him up to the court at Glasgow, -and entreated my lords ‘to hang him.’ They refused, on the ground that -hanging could be nothing compared with having to live with _her_. This -fearful sort of woman constantly comes to the front in Scottish annals. -Indeed, the question as to woman’s rights was settled in Scotland -before it was thought of in England. Take, for example, the ladies who -mobbed the Chancellor Stair and Archbishop Sharpe, in Charles’s reign. -They cried out that the Gospel was starving in Scotland through rampant -prelacy. One of the ladies struck the prelate on the back of the -neck as he passed into the Parliament House, crying out, at the same -time, that _that_ (his neck) should pay for it ere all was done! The -prelate’s life was said to have been in danger. The whole scene, with -the beautiful furies pelting the archbishop with epithets of ‘Judas’ -and ‘Traitor,’ and hinting at murder, is almost inconceivable now. We -should have something like it if the Mrs. Fitzhighflyers were to mob -the Dean of Westminster in his own cloisters, and try to hang him from -one of his own gargoyles. - -If a minister took a wife from women of the temper indicated above, he -must have soon felt that the same temper would always regulate home -affairs. Very fearful bodies were some of those ministers’ wives. -James Fraser, of Ross-shire, who wrote a work on Sanctification during -the first half of the last century, had about the worst of them. She -kept him tightly up to the collar, worked him hard, and starved him -outright. She gloried in her tyranny. It might be said of her, as some -say of Bismark, human anguish was a sensual delight. The good man’s -neighbours put food in his way when he was permitted to walk abroad, -or they treated him hospitably in their houses, where he dared tarry, -however, very briefly. In winter, his Fury allowed him neither light -nor fire in his study. He worked in it by day and meditated in it by -night, when not at a scanty meal. At a ministers’ festival meeting ‘Our -Wives’ was one of the toasts. Fraser, on being sportively asked if he -would drink it, exclaimed, ‘Aye, heartily! Mine brings me to my knees -in prayer a dozen times daily, which is more than any of you can say of -yours!’ On the day of Fraser’s death, several ministers, on a formal -visit of condolence, waited on her, and found her gaily busy among the -poultry which she reared and sold. ‘Oh aye, he’s gane!’ said the widow. -‘Ye can gang in, if ye will, and look at the body!’ and she scattered -corn the while, crying, ‘Chick! chick! chick!’ The sentiment of Mrs. -Fraser towards her husband was very like that of the Scotswoman in the -old song:-- - - - I wish that you were dead, goodman, - An’ a green sod on your head, goodman, - That I might wear my widowhood - Upon a ranting Highlandman. - - There’s sax eggs in the pan, goodman, - There’s sax eggs in the pan, goodman. - There’s ane to you, and twa to me, - An’ three to our John Highlandman! - - -Another Scottish widow reminds us of the widow in Voltaire’s ‘Zadig’ -for delicate fidelity towards a deceased husband. The relict in -question was one day in spring seen by the clerk of her parish crossing -the churchyard with a watering-pot and a bundle. ‘Ah, Mistress -Mactavish,’ said the clerk, ‘what’s yer bus’ness, wi’ sic like gear as -that y’are carryin’?’ ‘Ah, weel, Mr. Maclachlan,’ replied the widow, -‘I’m just goin’ to my gudeman’s grave. I’ve got some hay-seeds in my -bundle, the which I’m goin’ to sow upon it; and the water in the can is -just to gi’e ’em a spring like!’ ‘The seeds winna want the watering,’ -rejoined the clerk, ‘they’ll spring finely o’ themselves.’ ‘That may -well be,’ rejoined the widow; ‘but ye dinna ken that my gudeman, as he -lay a-deeing, just got me to make promise that I’d never marry agin -till the grass had grown aboon his grave. And, as I’ve had a good offer -made me but yestreen, ye see, I dinna like to break my promise, or -to be kept a lone widow, as ye see me!’ The minister’s aide-de-camp -looked on the widow, indeed, with a mirthful expression. ‘Water him -weel, widow,’ said the clerk; ‘Mactavish aye was drouthy!’ The above -took place within the Georgian era, when both old and young ladies in -Scotland broadly called things by their names. We are not sure that -it was not the same everywhere. As a Scottish sample, we take the last -duchess of the house of Douglas, who was a ‘jolly’ lady in manner -and matter; broad in figure and in speech, and not to be offended by -word or innuendo. When the duchess was in Paris with several Scottish -gentlemen, in the reign of George III., 1762, the language and ideas -of the whole party were of a sort, it is said, to make the hair of the -fastest of our day to stand on end. One of the gentlemen suggested -that when the duchess went to court she should claim the right to -occupy a _tabouret_, or low seat, in the royal presence, by virtue of -her late husband’s ancestors having held a French dukedom (Touraine). -Robert Chambers, who had the story from Sir James Stuart of Coltness, -one of the party, says that the old lady made all sorts of excuses -in her homely way; but when Boysock started the theory that the real -objection lay in her grace’s fears as to the disproportioned size of -the _tabouret_ for the correlative part of her figure, he was declared, -amidst shouts of laughter, to have divined the true difficulty--her -grace enjoying the joke as much as any of them. The story may remind -some readers of the assembly at Mrs. Montague’s, when that bluntest of -ladies asked Dr. Johnson to take a chair, and how that learned savage, -in the coarsest way, intimated that there were fewer seats than -persons to be seated. - -Other ladies of ducal families had their peculiarities--which even in -those days excited remark. A very few years have elapsed since there -died the old soldier Duncan Mackenzie. He could remember when he kissed -the Duchess of Gordon in taking the shilling from betwixt her teeth to -become one of her regiment, the Gordon Highlanders. Ladies of rank in -England at that time, when elections were hotly contested, bought votes -with their kisses. A few years ago there passed away from society, -almost unnoticed, a Scottish lady who had made no little noise in her -time. We allude to the beautiful Lady Charlotte C., daughter of the -Duke of A----. In 1796 she married her namesake, ‘Handsome Jack’ C., -of the Guards. At that time the bride was perhaps unequalled for her -beauty, and she was not shy of showing it. Indeed, after Lady Charlotte -first went to court as a wife, Queen Charlotte sent her word that if -she ever came there again she must first take a tuck or two out of -her skirts. In Glasgow crowds used to follow this audacious beauty; -and no wonder, for local historians say she would walk down the most -fashionable street in petticoats almost as short as a Highlander’s -kilt. On one occasion, when thus lightly attired, and walking with a -lady and a young gentleman, the whole city seemed to gather about -them, wondering, admiring, and criticising. Finding themselves mobbed, -they took shelter in a shop, whose owner, further to protect them, -put up his shutters and locked his door. Instead of dispersing, the -mob increased. The shopkeeper, fearing an attack on his premises, by -which his goods and his guests would alike suffer, jumped out of a -back-window and ran for the guard. A sergeant and three or four men -were sent down and posted in front of the premises. Meanwhile, Lady -Charlotte C. followed the shopkeeper’s example. She lightly leapt from -the back-window into an unfrequented lane, made her way into a decent -house, told her story, sent for a coach, and quietly rode to her inn -unrecognised. During this flight and escape the mob grew denser and -more impatient. At length the shop-door was opened. The tradesman -informed the people how Lady Charlotte had got away, and asked -undisturbed passage for the young lady and gentleman who remained. This -was granted, for there was nothing eccentric about this couple, who -were civilly allowed to ‘gang their gait.’ The reigning beauty lived to -a great age--between eighty and ninety. Age did not bring wisdom with -it, if the story be true that when she was old she went to court in a -dress every way as objectionable as that with which, in her youth, she -ruffled the plumes of Queen Charlotte’s propriety. In her declining -years she had not only lost the once handsome Jack, but his estates -too: Islay and Woodhall had gone to creditors. The old lady, however, -married a clergyman named Bury, turned to literary pursuits, and, among -other books, produced in 1839 the Diary illustrative of the times of -George IV., which was edited by Galt. - -Lady Grisell Baillie has been called ‘the bravest of all Scotch -heroines.’ Her career lasted from 1665 to 1746. In that life of -fourscore years and one she wrote one famous song, ‘Were my Heart -licht I wad dee,’ and rendered a million good services to her -fellow-creatures. One of the eighteen children of Sir Patrick Home, -afterwards Earl of Marchmont, she learned the trick of serving her -kindred so early and so well that she could not give it up when she was -a fine old lady. Till her eighty-first year she rose the earliest of -her family, and managed the most difficult of their affairs. When her -father was in hiding from the scaffold, and Grisell was eighteen, she -walked alone every night, over a dark road, and through an ill-reputed -churchyard, to carry food to the fugitive, who was concealed in the -family vault. Sir Patrick is described as lying on a mattress wrapped -in a Kilmarnock cloak, among the mouldering bones of his ancestors, -with nothing to help to spend the time but repeating some of Buchanan’s -Latin psalms. Grisell had to be cautious, for there were hostile -soldiers in her father’s house ever on the watch. One night, when she -was providing the rations for her parent, she contrived to take a -sheep’s head from the table. She was nearly betrayed to the soldiers -by the remark of a sister, who, suddenly missing the head, gave loud -expressions to her wonder at Grisell having so quickly eaten the -whole of it. When in exile in Holland, before the Great Revolution, -Sir Patrick wrote home as to how the young people should be brought -up. He enjoined dancing every day. ‘Lost estates,’ he said, ‘can be -recovered again, but health once lost by a habit of melancholy can -never be recovered.’ After Grisell married young Baillie of Jerviswood, -‘he never went abroad but she went to the window to look after him (so -she did that very day he fell ill, the last time he was abroad), never -taking her eyes from him so long as he was in sight.’ Grisell ranks -among Scottish songstresses. Some of her tuneful sisters are worthy of -notice. - -The world does not know much of Alison Rutherford of Fairnalee, but she -is familiar to us under her married name of Mrs. Cockburn, authoress -of one of the versions of ‘Flowers of the Forest.’ Her period was a -long one, within the limits of the last century, 1712-1794. One of the -biographers of this Queen of Edinburgh describes the Scotswomen of -the early part of that century as highly cultivated. ‘The daughters -of the country houses were educated by their fathers’ chaplains and -their brothers’ tutors’ (the Dominie Sampsons of the House), ‘when they -had brothers, as well as by their mothers’ waiting-women; and when -the family happened to be of more than ordinary intelligence, or to -be decidedly of a studious turn, the daughters were fairly well-read -and well-informed women. Not only were Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, -Prior, and Addison on many bookshelves in lairds’ and ladies’ closets, -but, though the women of the nobility and gentry had not a classical -education, they frequently learnt French and Italian, and were very -conversant with the former. This was not so much because of the -obsolete national alliances which have scattered French words broadcast -over the field of the Scottish language, as because of the influence of -the _vieille cour_ of the great Louis on manners, and the effects of -its _beaux esprits_ on literature, which were felt as far as Scotland. -The number of soldiers of fortune belonging to the upper classes who -served campaigns abroad and came home with foreign polish increased -the influence. Corneille, Racine, and Molière, La Fontaine and La -Bruyère were as much the fashion in the Scotch rank that pretended to -fashion when Alison Rutherford was young, as they were in English high -society when Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Mrs. Delany grew up.’ The -above must be taken with some reserve. Scottish governesses of the -period were, for the most part, ill-educated, and they were as much -servants as teachers. When Jean Adam, the reputed author of ‘There’s -nae Luck about the House’ (she was born in 1710), went as governess -into the family of a clergyman, Mr. Turner of Greenock, she had to -live on pease-brose, nettle-kail, and barley-meal scones. She knitted -the minister’s stockings, helped to make the clothes of his wife, his -girls, and his boys, worked at the spinning-wheel, nursed the baby, -and tended the sick. In the manse of Crawfurdsdyke this governess -wore a woollen petticoat and a short gown of striped linen within -the house. Her Indian cotton gown and her _bon grâce_, or straw hat, -were for gala trips to Glasgow. The education of Mrs. Cockburn, as we -will call her, was defective in spelling, at all events. In one of -her notes she complains of the ‘rheumatiz.’ In another she uses the -word ‘unparaleled,’ sees the mistake, can’t correct it, and then gaily -writes in a postscript, ‘cannot spell unparaleled.’ She was a beauty -throughout life--supremely beautiful in her youth. She says prettily -of herself: ‘I was a prude when young, and remarkably grave. It was -owing to a consciousness that I could not pass unobserved, and a fear -of giving offence or incurring censure. I loved dancing extremely, -because I danced well.’ She loved it to the end of her days, and would -dance with men whose grandfathers had been her partners in days of -yore. Mrs. Cockburn also preferred men’s society to that of women. A -company without a clever man in it was to her worse than no company -at all. The sterling stuff that was in her is to be seen in what she -curiously says of the early years of her marriage with young Cockburn, -son of the Lord Justice Clerk: ‘I was married, properly speaking, to -a man of seventy-five, my father-in-law. I lived with him four years, -and as the ambition had seized me to make him fond of me, knowing -also that nothing could please his son so much, I bestowed all my -time and trouble to gain his approbation.’ Of her husband she wrote, -three-and-thirty years after she had become a widow: ‘I was twenty -years united to a lover and a friend.’ Perhaps it was the happiness -of her own married life that gave her a decided partiality for making -matches. ‘She was the _confidante_,’ her biographers remark, ‘of all -lovesick hearts.’ When speaking of a widow ‘being consoled by one who -had been longer in that state,’ Mrs. Cockburn contemptuously asked, -‘What’s a woman to a woman?’ That any woman should prefer a single -to a married life was a fact she could not account for. ‘The girls -are all set agog,’ she writes, ‘in seeking the ideal man, and will -have none of God’s corrupted creatures.... Even as a good housewife -I would choose my lord and master should have many faults, because -there’s so much glory in mending them. One is prouder of darning an old -table-cloth than of sewing a new one.’ The sentiment is happier than -the simile. To the next sentiment universal mankind would say a loud -Amen: ‘It’s a pity woman does not mend with age as wine does.’ There -was a rough side to female Scottish character in those days. Among the -friends of Mrs. Cockburn, when she was queen of Edinburgh society, -was a Miss Suff Johnstone. She is thus sketched in ‘The Songstresses -of Scotland,’ of whom Miss Suff was not one: ‘Miss Suff, before -women’s rights were mooted, took the law into her own hand, and wore a -man’s greatcoat, hat, and square-buckled shoes, practising, with the -habiliments, a man’s habit of striding, spitting, and swearing. She -shod a horse better than a smith, had a private forge in her bedroom, -played on a fiddle, and sang a man’s song in a man’s bass voice.’ -Gentle Anne Scott’s foot happening to tread upon the space appropriated -by the Amazon, Anne was punished by a rough kick on the shins, and the -fierce challenge, ‘What are ye wab-wabstering there for?’ The innocent -offender was overwhelmed, and the rest of the party electrified. A -contemporary of Mrs. Cockburn, Miss Jean Elliot, whose life ran between -the limits of 1727 and 1805, and who was also the author of a version -of the song, ‘Flowers of the Forest,’ had a very indifferent opinion of -the Scotswomen of her time. ‘The misses,’ she wrote to a friend, ‘are, -I am afraid, the most rotten part of the society. Envy and jealousy of -their rivals have, I fear, a possession in their minds, especially the -old part of the young ladies, who grow perfect beldames in that small -society.’ At that period, the lady leaders of fashion of the faster -sort frequented the Edinburgh oyster-cellars, exercised the license -of men, and had such promising pupils as Miss Suff Johnstone. In an -indirect way we owe to this last lady the song of ‘Auld Robin Gray.’ -She was in the habit of singing words far from choice to the old tune. -Lady Anne Barnard (while she was the yet unmarried daughter of the Earl -of Balcarres) took the tune, and supplied it with the words which tell -the well-known tale of virtuous distress. The author was forty years of -age when she married Mr. Barnard, son of the Bishop of Limerick. She is -almost as celebrated for this one song as the Baroness Nairne (by birth -an Oliphant of Gask) was for the ‘Laird o’ Cockpen,’ ‘Caller Herrin,’ -and a dozen of Jacobite and other songs, in some of which there are -indications of great humour, in others of great pathos. In one verse of -‘Caller Herrin,’ she sketches a picture, as George Cruikshank used to -do, with two or three strokes:-- - - - When the creel o’ herrin’ passes - Ladies, clad in silk and laces, - Gather in their braw pelisses, - Cast their heads and screw their faces. - - -In the last century there was a Scottish home discipline, compared with -which that of school must have appeared amiable. Take the Lanarkshire -home of Joanna Baillie, who passed away just twenty years ago at the -venerable age of ninety. She and the other children of the family had -parents whose hearts were full of affection, which their principles -would not permit them to show. The father never kissed his children. -Joanna, hungering for a caress, once clasped her mother’s knee, and was -gently chided. ‘But,’ Joanna used to say, ‘I know she liked it.’ It is -curious to mark the contrast of Joanna Baillie, who could hardly read -at eleven, running wild by the banks of the Clyde or on the braes of -Calder, and of Joanna Baillie writing songs and plays in the house of -her brother, the physician, in Windmill Street, Haymarket--the site of -the house now occupied by the Argyll Dancing-rooms. Byron’s daughter, -Ada, Countess of Lovelace, had a wonderful knowledge of mathematics, -but she cared nothing for her father’s nor any other person’s poetry. -Joanna Baillie had not a poet for her sire, but the numbers came. -Therewith she acquired the paternal affection for Euclid, and was -great in the demonstration of problems. In her unrestrained Scottish -girlhood she knew as little of fear as Nelson ever did. She was not -only supreme in all girlish sports, but she rushed into audacious deeds -that boys stopped short at. She ran unbonneted and high-kilted, along -the parapets of bridges and the tops of walls as deftly as Mazurier -or Gouffe over theatrical representations of them. She once induced -her brother to mount a horse on which she was seated. The steed, -waxing angry, bolted, and flung the brother, whose arm was broken. Her -equestrianism was the admiration of the countryside. ‘Look at Miss -Jack!’ cried a farmer, who saw her pass, riding at the head of a party -on a country excursion. ‘Look at Miss Jack! she sits her horse as if -it was a bit of herself.’ Not the least singular thing connected with -this Scottish lady is that when, after a long residence in London she -returned to Scotland, her Scottish accent was stronger than ever. Her -Scottish songs, original or adapted, will probably live longer than her -‘Plays of the Passions,’ with all their unquestionable merits. - -We may here put readers on their guard against concluding that even a -very Scottish song must necessarily be by a Scottish author. Mrs. John -Hunter, who wrote ‘My Mother bids me,’ and a version of ‘Flowers of the -Forest,’ was a Yorkshirewoman. Mrs. Grant, famous for ‘Roy’s Wife,’ -was Irish. Mrs. Ogilvy, who has given so many samples of Highland -minstrelsy, was born in India. Miss Blamire wrote ‘An ye shall walk in -Silk Attire,’ but she was a Cumberland lass; and Mrs. Hamilton, of ‘My -ain Fireside,’ was, like Mrs. Grant, of Carron, an Irish lady. They are -all held to be virtually Scottish by men who deny that Wallace was a -Welshman and that Robert Bruce was a native of Yorkshire. - - - - -_THE DIBDINS._ - - -For about a hundred years the name of Dibdin was a pleasant name in -the ears and eyes of the English people. The Dibdin proper, son of -a silversmith, was born at Southampton in the year of the Scotch -Rebellion, 1745. The event belongs almost to ancient history, but there -are men not yet so very old who can remember in their childhood the -once ‘tuneful Charley,’ who became for ever mute in the year 1814. - -The name is a local one. There is a place called Dibden (originally -Deep Dene), a place of some importance at the time of the Conquest, -situated in a thickly wooded dell in Southampton Water. Charles Dibdin -was Hampshire born and Hampshire bred. His father, silversmith and -parish clerk, sent him to Winchester School, but he was more especially -of the Winchester Cathedral choir. He was ‘intended for the Church,’ -as the phrase goes, but instead of a bishop writing charges, he became -a composer arranging musical scores. In the Church he probably would -have written a few indifferent sermons. On and for the stage, and the -world, he penned and melodised hundreds of popular songs. Some of these -are as good as sermons; others are as unintelligible; there are many -of them that are infinitely better. Dibdin knew as much about a ship -as many curates know about religion; and now and then he got into the -same sort of mess accordingly. On the whole, however, he pulled through -successfully. The backbone of all his songs was ‘loyalty.’ It was like -insisting on ‘faith’ in sermons. He perhaps would have been a popular -preacher, had he not preferred being a popular song-writer--Tyrtæus -instead of Calchas. - -Charles Dibdin was neither sailor nor parson, but the family was -destined to contribute both to the wide-apart professions respectively. -Charles had an elder brother who took to sea and became captain of -an East Indiaman. Years after, but in the same year, 1775, a son was -born to each, and each son was named Thomas. The captain’s son was -born at Calcutta. He was put to the law with the object of making a -Lord Chancellor of him, but the young fellow turned to the Church, -and did not become an archbishop. Nevertheless, he is well remembered -as the Rev. Thomas Frognal Dibdin, author of the ‘Bibliomania,’ the -‘Biographical Decameron,’ and many other works of a similar nature. The -Rev. Thomas died, a popular preacher, rector of St. Mary’s, Bryanstone -Square, in 1847. - -The Rev. Thomas’s cousin, Tom, was born in Peter Street, Holborn. You -will look for street or house in vain. New Oxford Street has swept -it all down. Peter Street was the third of a street which had three -names. At the Holborn end it was Bow Street; at the Montague House, -or Museum, end, it was Queen Street. The middle portion was Peter -Street, which New Oxford Street has knocked out of existence. But for -this, you might yourself have knocked at the very house door, as Mr. -Garrick did, on the day of Master Tom’s christening, when Roscius was -godfather, and he brought with him a hamper of wine, and Frank Aickin, -as second godfather. This was ‘Tyrant Aickin,’ as Frank was called, -from his having always to play the swaggering, low-mouthed Maximinus -of the drama. The godson of the two actors never had the good luck in -life of either of his godfathers. He never had a _living_ that made him -socially equal with his cousin the rector. The cousins were alike in -one point only. Each wrote his own biography, both of which are worth -the reading. Thomas Frognal Dibdin, D.D., became one of the founders of -the Roxburgh Club. Tom Dibdin of Peter Street was often a guest at the -Sublime Society of Beef Steaks. T. F. D. was a popular lecturer, but no -lecture of his had such vogue as his cousin Tom’s song, ‘When Vulcan -forged the bolts of Jove.’ Tom’s father never wrote a better. - -But Tom’s father is waiting, and it is his story that has to be -briefly told. After all, Charles Dibdin the elder began life, or would -have begun it, with the Church--as organist. He was a candidate for -the office at Bishop’s Waltham, in his native county. He was then -only fourteen years of age. He was self-taught, save some elementary -instruction from Mr. Fussel, the organist of Winchester Cathedral. The -village judges, finding him competent, duly rejected him on account of -his youth! He was looking at the ruins of the episcopal palace with -a humble church officer, who told him it was built by King Stephen’s -brother Henry de Blois. ‘And you are a descendant of his,’ said -Charles. ‘That’s more than I ever knew before,’ replied his companion. -‘It’s quite true though,’ rejoined Dibdin; ‘are you not Henry the -_organ-blower_?’ - -The outlines of Dibdin’s career are soon told. He came up to London as -poor as Whittington, but with little of his luck. He earned a couple -of guineas by composing ballads for music-sellers, by which they made -hundreds; and he tuned pianos, and taught how to play on them. At -length, wearied with this, he made his first appearance on the stage -(he says) at the Richmond Theatre, on the Hill, in 1762, when he was -seventeen years of age. Dibdin, however, also states that he first -appeared at Birmingham, and Jesse records that Dibdin and Bannister -came out originally at Marylebone Gardens. Dibdin speaks of the old -Richmond house as the ‘Academy’ and the ‘Histrionic Academy.’ This -was one of the names given to the theatre by Theophilus Cibber before -a licence had been got to open it. Theophilus called it at first the -Cephalic Snuff Warehouse. Snuff, in minute quantities, was sold at -the various entrances, and admission followed _gratis_. It was on -this stage that Dibdin is said to have made his _début_, as Damætas, -in ‘Midas’; a thing the more difficult to believe, as ‘Midas’ was not -produced in England till 1764, namely, at Covent Garden, and then -Damætas was played by Fawcett. - -Victor pronounced Charles Dibdin’s Mungo to be ‘as complete a low -character as was ever exhibited.’ Isaac Bickerstaffe as highly praised -the musical composer as Victor did the actor. ‘The music of this -piece,’ he wrote in the preface to it, ‘being extremely admired by -persons of the first state and distinction, it would be injustice to -the extraordinary talents of the young man who assisted me in it, was I -not to declare that it is, under my direction, the entire composition -of Mr. Dibdin, whose admirable performance in the character of Mungo -does so much credit to himself and me, as well as to the gentleman -whose penetration could distinguish neglected genius, and who has -taken pleasure in producing it to the public.’ Dibdin’s elder son was -named after his father, the character he played, and the author of -‘The Padlock’--Charles Isaac Mungo Dibdin. The author of ‘The Thespian -Dictionary,’ writing of the second son, Thomas Dibdin, adds to the -fact, ‘but not acknowledged by his father!’ - -Dibdin’s success as an actor was so complete, that we can only wonder -at his leaving it so soon for authorship, musical composition, and -entertainments in which he was the sole performer. He was the original -Ralph, in ‘The Maid of the Mill,’ and straightway London fluttered -with ‘Ralph handkerchiefs.’ Dibdin’s Mungo, in ‘The Padlock,’ another -creation, was so naturally and thoroughly to the purpose, it was said -that the performer had gone to Jamaica and spent weeks there in order -to study the manners and speech of the negroes! The fact is, that he -combined impulse with intelligence, and never lost an opportunity. The -very first sea-song of his which took the national ear and the national -heart, was ‘Blow high, blow low!’ and this, if he did not compose, he -imagined, not in the open stormy ocean, on board a man-of-war, but on -board a Calais packet which took thirteen hours on a stormy passage -across the Straits of Dover. - -In nearly all cases of composition, with Dibdin, his method was most -singular. In his musical entertainments, he introduced hundreds of -songs, words and music by himself. But when he seated himself at the -piano, before the public, not a note of the accompaniment was written. -He improvised, and never thought of putting a single note down on paper -till the music-sellers wanted copy for the engravers. - -Dibdin went abroad in the early part of his career to study music; but -he merely practised by himself, and noted little but the manners and -morals of the people amongst whom he was thrown. The English society at -Calais, during his sojourn there, he describes as consisting of three -or four fraudulent bankrupts, two or three too successful duellists, a -few rich smugglers under strong suspicion of having committed murder, -which was the most likely thing in the world, and a high official -personage, guilty of forgery, and ‘the father of a nobleman who was -afterwards singularly remarkable for having publicly exhibited the hand -and head of Struensee.’ - -Dibdin exchanged Calais for ever pleasant, and _then_ especially -pleasant, Nancy. He makes a very curious observation on one incident of -his sojourn there. He saw the Emperor of Germany, Joseph, brother of -Marie Antoinette, pass through the old capital of the province which -had once belonged to the imperial house of Hapsburg Lorraine. There was -an outburst of the old affection of the Lorrainers at the sight of the -descendant of their old dukes; and such expression was given to this -manifestation that Dibdin states his conviction that if the Emperor of -Germany were once resolved to relieve Lorraine from the oppression of -the French yoke, the inhabitants of the old duchy would give him their -enthusiastic support. - -We will not follow out Dibdin’s professional career. The biographical -dictionaries and his own works tell of his struggles, his ups and -downs, his reverses and his triumphs. We rather care to look at him in -some of his picturesque moments. We seem to see and to hear him when -we look in at St. Bride’s--a mere lad, playing the congregation out -with such exquisite power, that instead of departing, they remained -to listen. We seem to see the young fellow’s enraptured look when he -first heard the crash of an overture. What emotion there must have -been in the young soul when he discovered that from simply hearing the -combination and working of sounds in that overture, he had grasped the -secret of composition; and later, on returning home from some grand -musical banquet, he could write out the whole score from memory, with -very few errors indeed. It was only natural after Dibdin had composed -a great part of the music to ‘Love in the City,’ and to ‘Lionel and -Clarissa’--as we write the words, Tom Cooke’s manly voice seems to fill -the house with ‘I’ll love thee ever dearly!‘--it is natural, we say, -that ‘Charley’ should find himself growing famous. We find him in -strange company the year after ‘Lionel and Clarissa’ was produced. - -Perhaps the last place in which one would expect to find Dibdin is, not -indeed with Dr. Johnson, but in Boswell’s life of the erudite savage. -Boswell had composed a ‘little epigrammatical song’ which, he says, he -was ‘volatile enough’ to repeat to Johnson, adding, ‘that Garrick had, -a few days before, got it set to music by the ingenious Mr. Dibdin.’ -This was in 1769, when Charles was four-and-twenty; and this is what he -had to go to work upon:-- - - - A MATRIMONIAL THOUGHT. - - In the blithe days of honeymoon, - With Kate’s allurements smitten, - I lov’d her late, I lov’d her soon, - And call’d her, ‘dearest kitten!’ - - But now my kitten’s grown a cat, - And cross, like other wives; - Oh, by my soul, my honest Mat, - I fear she has nine lives! - - -Doubtless, Dibdin’s music was better than Boswell’s words--it could not -be worse. Johnson confined himself simply to literary criticism. ‘My -illustrious friend,’ Boswell remarks, said, “It is very well, sir, but -you should not swear.” Upon which, I altered “Oh by my soul” to “Alas, -alas!”’ - -It was in this year, 1769, that Dibdin lifted Sedaine’s ‘Deserter’ -to the English stage, after which all the sweet throats in town were -warbling ‘Somehow, my spindle I mislaid.’ Just ninety-nine years ago -this last month of August, Dibdin produced ‘The Waterman,’ which -has now entered its hundredth year, and which is as fresh as a pure -flood-tide on a bright morning. Many of us may remember having seen -in our childhood the original Tom Tug, for Bannister lived half a -century after he created the part. And what a whole crew of Tom -Tugs have warbled on the boards and concert-room since then! Do you -remember, on Edmund Kean’s benefit, June 3rd, 1822, how touchingly he -sang ‘Farewell, my trim-built wherry’? Can you not see Braham, so like -an amateur waterman? Can you not hear him so like something sweetly -superhuman, trilling forth, ‘And have you not heard of a jolly young -waterman?’ Only a few nights ago we saw the piece and heard the songs, -and were tempted to say as Ophelia says about the things that had been -and the things that be. It is ninety-eight years since Dibdin himself, -as Solomon, sang his own song, ‘The lads of the village shall merrily, -ha!’ in ‘The Quaker,’ and it remains an exquisite song still, but it -demands an exquisite voice and tact in the singer. - -Charles had a way of his own in adapting French musical pieces to the -English stage. He took the pieces, but he fitted them with music by -himself. After all, this sort of thing has been done by composers -with reference to other composers of the same country. There was, -for instance, a ‘Barber of Seville,’ by Paisiello. Well, Rossini -appropriated the story, composed his own fresh and immortal music for -it, and extinguished Paisiello’s barber for ever. When Dibdin brought -out ‘Rose and Colin,’ a piece which had been ‘set’ by Philidor, he -was asked why he had not retained the clever Frenchman’s sparkling -music. ‘Because,’ answered Charles, ‘Philidor is famous enough, and -I have a reputation of my own to make!’ Philidor’s reputation is now -more connected with chess (for he was _the_ Philidor) than with music. -Nevertheless, he is bracketed with Duni and Monsigny as one of the -founders of modern comic French opera; and the song for Medusa, in his -opera of ‘Persée,’ ‘_J’ai perdu la beauté qui me rendait si vaine_,’ -remains a masterpiece of harmony. Philidor was better known than Dibdin -himself, in London, where he died, indifferent that Charles and others -were ‘stealing his thunder,’ with the reputation of being one of the -best-tempered, most upright, and most disinterested men that ever lived. - -From 1765 to 1775 was Dibdin’s best time in connection with the drama. -Subsequently he became erratic. He was proprietor, manager, at the -head of a company, or constituting a whole company in himself, now -with audiences, now sadly in want of them: now flourishing like a -prince, living like three, and falling into bankruptcy and rheumatic -gout. He has given an account of his wanderings, in which there is -an incident or two worth the telling, when they refer to musical or -to theatrical matters. From this book we learn that Shuter had an -amusingly sententious critical way with him. When Reddish (George -Canning’s stepfather) first played Posthumus (in ‘Cymbeline’), Shuter -simply remarked, ‘Henceforth, let every villain be called Posthumus -Leonatus.’ And, being asked what he thought of Macklin’s Macbeth, he -solemnly replied: ‘The time has been that when the brains were out the -man would die, and there an end!’ - -One day, when Dibdin was near the Land’s End, he passed through a -village where he saw several men carrying books and instruments to -church. To his questions, they replied that they were going to practise -for the Sunday service. ‘Very good,’ said sympathising Charley; ‘and -whose music do you sing?’ ‘Oh, Handel, Handel!’ was the rather bold -answer of the leader of the choir. ‘Handel!’ rejoined Dibdin, in much -amazement; ‘don’t you find him a _leetle_ difficult?’ ‘Well,’ replied -the Cornish minstrel, ‘we did at first; but, you see, we altered him, -and so we get on very well with him now.’ Charles, who hated Garrick -and despised Handel, changed the scene of his dramatic incident to -Bath; but it was originally told of the Cornish singers. - -It was principally for Dibdin’s own entertainments, not for ‘Dibdin at -Home,’ that he wrote and composed his famous sea-songs. How Dibdin came -to write and compose sea-songs is accounted for by a tradition. Among -the crew of a ship which came into Southampton Water was a cabin-boy -who, disgusted with the tyranny of which he was daily the subject, took -the first opportunity to escape. The boy remained hid in Southampton -till his ship had sailed, and then he appeared in the streets singing -naval ditties for bread. The lad sang so sweetly that people got -interested in him. His name, he said, was Incledon, and he came from -near the Land’s End, Cornwall. Dibdin and Incledon became known to each -other, and the Cornish cabin-boy furnished the naval properties which -the Hampshire poet put into his naval songs. - -But this yarn won’t hold water. Incledon, the silvery-toned son of -a Cornish doctor, was articled to the celebrated composer, Jackson -of Exeter, at eight years of age. The boy was the petted favourite -of the musical people of Exeter for about seven years. At the end of -that time, weary of the cathedral choir discipline, for which town -popularity could not compensate, Incledon, in 1779, entered as a common -sailor on board the _Formidable_. He served in the West Indies, took -part in hard fighting, and, after the lapse of about four years, he -determined to go upon the stage as a singer. It was about the year -1783 that Incledon made his first appearance in Southampton and on -its stage, at which time some of the best of Dibdin’s sea-songs had -long been familiar in the public ear. In 1790 Incledon first appeared -in London, as Dermot in ‘The Poor Soldier,’ and for thirty subsequent -years he shared with Braham the glory of being the first of English -melodists. No one ever did, or ever will, sing Stevens’s ‘Storm,’ or -Andrew Cherry’s ‘Bay of Biscay,’ as Incledon sang them and other manly -songs; and no couple of vocalists ever did or ever will sing as Braham -(Valentine) and Incledon (Fitzwalter) sang the former’s important duet, -‘All’s Well’ to Tom Dibdin’s words. There was so much of the sea in -Tom’s songs that some of the best have been frequently attributed to -his father. - -It was lucky for that father and the nation that he quarrelled with -managers, wrote, sang, and played on his own hook, and composed the -naval ditties especially, that will make his name last till the New -Zealander seats himself on the ruined arch of London Bridge. These -songs caused Dibdin to be a power in the country, and his services were -not altogether without acknowledgment. Pitt encouraged and paid him to -write, sing, publish, and give away loyal war-songs in the old fighting -time--testimony enough of the minstrel’s value. George III. rewarded -his loyalty by granting him a pension, of which a succeeding Addington -ministry deprived him. The bust of the skilled son of song was -appropriately placed in Greenwich Hospital, where the singer himself -might as appropriately have found a home. Lord Minto patronised an -edition of Dibdin’s songs for the use of the navy. They have not been -quite slap-banged out of use by the crapulous music-halls. At public -dinners far better than the meat is it to hear Ransford sing ‘Yeo heave -ho!’ or Donald King ‘Tom Bowling’--the touching monody to the author’s -good brother the captain of an East Indiaman. It is said that our -Queen conferred a small pension on Dibdin’s suffering daughter, a lady -honourably connected with literature. If this be true, let us be glad -that all literary annuities, if we may so speak, are not granted to -persons far too well off to require them--or to receive them, one would -suppose, without a sense of humiliation. - -The religion of Charles Dibdin’s sailors ebbs and flows like the sea, -and that even in one song. Take, for instance, ‘Poor Jack,’ which has -been praised on the very ground of its religious beauty. In the first -verse Jack has more comfort than faith. He is careless, on the chance -of others caring for him:-- - - - Avast! nor don’t think me a milksop so soft - To be taken for trifles a-back; - For they say there’s a Providence sits up aloft, - To keep watch for the life of poor Jack! - - -In the second verse Jack has heard the chaplain palaver one day, ‘about -souls, heaven, mercy, and such.’ It was, Jack says, as unintelligible -to him as high Dutch. Nevertheless, Jack got at some instruction from -the reverend gentleman:-- - - - For, he said, how a sparrow can’t founder, d’ye see, - Without orders that come down below; - And a many fine things that prov’d clearly to me - That Providence takes us in tow. - - For, says he, d’ye mind me, let storms e’er so oft - Take the topsails o’ sailors a-back, - There’s a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft - To keep watch for the life of poor Jack. - - -In the next verse Jack is worldly again. When Poll is ‘sniv’ling and -piping her eye’ at the idea of parting from him, he says tenderly--and -we can hear the voice of T. P. Cooke saying it--‘Why, what a damn’d -fool you must be!’ Then comes the change in his religious philosophy:-- - - - Can’t you see the world’s wide, and there’s room for us all, - Both for seamen, and lubbers ashore? - And if to Old Davy I _should_ go, dear Poll! - You never will hear of me more. - What then? all’s a hazard!... &c. - - -Perhaps he ‘may laughing come back,’ and he supports this doctrine of -chances by means of the doctrine of election, in the figure of the -cherub up aloft with his protective power over Jack; and which cherub, -in the last verse, is commissioned, at the end of all things, to ‘look -out a good berth’ for the same theological sailor. - -To be sure, such loose theology was to be expected in sailors who had -such chaplains to teach them, as Dibdin delineates in another of his -songs, ‘There’s nothing like grog’:-- - - - T’other day, as the chaplain was preaching, - Behind him I curiously slunk; - And while he our duty was teaching, - As how we should never get drunk, - I show’d him the stuff, and he twigg’d it, - And it soon set his rev’rence agog; - And he swigg’d, and Nick swigg’d, - And Ben swigg’d, and Dick swigg’d, - And I swigg’d, and all of us swigg’d it, - And swore there was nothing like grog! - - -At a time when old English ballads are supposed to portray English -history, we may point to the above as untruly reflecting naval manners -in England in the last century. It is more of a caricature than a -naval scene in a pantomime, and the morality is as ‘shaky’ as that in -another ballad, ‘When faintly gleams the doubtful day,’ where humanity -in hunting matters is illustrated by hunting the hare to the point of -death, but then protecting ‘the defenceless creature’ by calling off -‘the well-taught hounds:’-- - - - For cruelty should ne’er disgrace - The well-earn’d pleasures of the chase! - - -Again, of the fox it is said, ‘Unpitied shall the culprit die’:-- - - - To quell his cruel, artful race, - Is labour worthy of the chase; - - -as if the quelling was not the last thought of squires who breed foxes. -It was very good policy of Dibdin to teach that ‘Every bullet has its -billet,’ but in ‘A sailor and an honest heart’ war’s dangers are the -sailor’s chances, and his philosophy is to ask no more than ‘grog -aboard and girl ashore.’ - -Ben Backstay and Anna piping their eyes at parting are but sickly -sentimentalities. Bill Bobstay, with his purse always open and his -veins to the same tune, shedding his blood for the king, is like the -stagiest of stage sailors; and Jack Rattlin heaving a sigh as he sits -on the ‘pendant yard,’ and dying for love, with his eyes uplifted, -when he comes down from it, is not the man who could hand, reef, and -steer better than any mate afloat. Indeed Dibdin’s sailors in love are -generally great spooneys; in ‘The Boatswain calls’ there is a whole -shipload of them. Fancy an entire crew heaving ‘fervent sighs’ as -they leave looking at the girls ashore, to turn for consolation to -the windlass with ‘Yo heave ho!’ But even these soft ones are to be -preferred to the tipplers who declare that ‘the best sort of sounding -is sounding the bowl.’ The best side of Dibdin’s philosophy is where he -metrically teaches that ‘a brave British sailor should never despair,’ -and pays a compliment to the bold royal tar, the Duke of Clarence, who -got it made into a law that ‘each tar of his rhino should have his -full share,’ and should no more be cheated of his pay, as he used to -be. But there was a lack of sincerity in most of Dibdin’s sentimental -sea-maxims for sailors, and for one who is cheered in dying for love -there are a dozen who are encouraged to find in every port a wife:-- - - - I’ve a spanking wife at Portsmouth Gates, - A pigmy at Goree, - An orange-tawny up the Straits, - A black at St. Lucie; - Thus, whatsomdever course I bend, - I leads a jovial life; - In ev’ry mess I finds a friend, - In ev’ry port a wife. - - -To our thinking, Charles Dibdin, celebrated as he was for his sea -songs, deserves far higher praise for quite another sort of country -song, of which we will give an example. His sailors are too much -addicted, when storms rage and billows roll, to sling the flowing -bowl; landsmen might fancy that Jack’s life consisted of thinking of -Nancy afloat, hugging her ashore, drinking to her health unceasingly, -and taking a turn of duty with a hornpipe sort of air, as if the -galleries were clapping him enthusiastically. It is all good and -picturesque in its way, but tuneful Charley is more to our liking when -he gets into an English corn-field, strolls down an English lane, -or sits at the door of an English cottage. He is then as natural as -Moreland treating the same subjects on canvas. The fragrance of the -fields comes on the wings of his song, and his English home and peasant -are still more truly English than his English ships and sailors. Take, -for example:-- - - - THE LABOURER’S WELCOME HOME. - - The ploughman whistles o’er the furrow, - The hedger joins the vacant strain, - The woodman sings the woodland thorough, - The shepherd’s pipe delights the plain. - Where’er the anxious eye can roam, - Or ear receive the jocund pleasure, - Myriads of beings thronging, flock, - Of Nature’s song to join the measure; - Till, to keep time, the village clock - Sounds sweet the lab’rer’s welcome home! - - The hearth swept clean, his partner smiling; - Upon the dining-table smokes - The frugal meal--which, time beguiling, - The ale the harmless jest provokes. - Ye inmates of the lofty dome, - Admire his lot. His children playing, - To share his smiles around him flock, - And faithful Tray, since morn, that straying, - Trudged with him, till the village clock - Proclaim’d the lab’rer’s welcome home. - - The cheering faggot burnt to embers, - While lares around their vigils keep, - That Power that poor and rich remembers, - Each thanks, and then retires to sleep. - And now the lark climbs Heav’n’s high dome, - Fresh from repose, toil’s kind reliever; - And furnish’d with his daily stock-- - His dog, his staff, his keg, his beaver-- - He travels till the village clock - Sounds sweet the lab’rer’s welcome home! - - -Here the pictures are perfect; each is in its way a little Bewick. If -there is once or twice a slight roughness in the metre, it is such -as may be met with in Cowley; and if the introduction of ‘lares’ at -an English hearth startles us a little, it is just such surprises as -come upon us in Cowley and the poets of his time. The charm of the -above song is greatly enhanced by the music. We have no such songs nor -any such music for English people generally in these days. Music-hall -ruffianism woos the public ear with beastly innuendo, worse than -downright speaking, and the Hurlingham husseydoms, after assisting -at the butchery of doves, talk music-hall slang and play Champagne -Charley quadrilles. - -Let us now add a word respecting another child of song, born in -Southampton, and still living when Charles Dibdin came there into the -world--Isaac Watts. Isaac Watts and Charles Dibdin! Why not? They are -not so far apart as you may think. Isaac, the Southampton Nonconformist -schoolmaster’s son, lived from 1674, reign of Charles the Second, to -1748, reign of the second George. Charles Dibdin was, at the latter -period, three years old. The piety of Watts is no more questionable -than the loyalty of Dibdin. Watts upheld piety by simple means in an -impious age. Dibdin sustained loyalty at a time when revolutionary -ideas were struggling into activity at home, and when there were -enemies abroad who found moral support in such a struggle. If Dibdin’s -allegiance found occasionally exaggerated expression, so Watts’s -piety sometimes found a rather arrogant utterance. Dibdin, however, -was--strange as it may appear--more humble and contented than Watts. -In a ballad in ‘The Old Woman of Eighty,’ Dibdin makes a crowd of poor -unlearned country folk sing:-- - - - Come here, ye rich; come here, ye great; - Come here, ye grave: come here, ye gay; - Behold our blest, though humble fate, - Who, while the sun shines, make our hay. - - -Therein is Christian philosophy with content. Watts makes his well-born -Christian child an insufferable prig, who would have scorned Dibdin’s -half-starved wretch; for example, in the ‘Praise for Mercies’:-- - - - While some poor wretches scarce can tell - Where they may lay their head, - I have a home wherein to dwell - And rest upon my bed. - - -In Dibdin’s ‘True Courage’ Bob Bounce is ready to eat an enemy alive, -but the minstrel humanises him, and inculcates the maxim that all men -are brothers:-- - - - That my friend Jack or Tom I should rescue from danger, - Or lay my life down for each lad in the mess, - Is nothing at all; ’tis the poor wounded stranger, - And the poorer the more I shall succour distress. - - -This may be rough morality, but it is of better quality than the -following selfish sample in Watts: - - - Lord, I ascribe it to thy grace, - And not to chance, _as others do_, - That I was born of Christian race, - And not a heathen or a Jew. - - -While Dibdin’s Tom or Jack is for ever seeing, after his fashion, a -merciful Providence, Watts’s model child can discern only one armed -with terrors and tortures. Isaac had no idea of one of Charley’s -‘sweet little cherubs’ sitting aloft watchful to preserve; the -Nonconformist’s feverish eye beheld only a demon:-- - - - ’Tis dangerous to provoke a god! - His power and vengeance none can tell: - One stroke of his Almighty rod - Shall send young sinners quick to hell. - - -In the sailor’s philosophy all is harmony; but Watts finds discord -where other men find none. Jack does not believe that ‘dogs delight to -bark and bite,’ nor that ‘God hath made them so.’ A pat on the head -from a master’s hand is the supreme delight of the ever-faithful dog. -And if ‘bears and lions growl and fight,’ it is not that ‘it is their -nature to;’ any more, at least, than it is the nature of man. It was -Nelson who told the young midshipman, as part of his duties, to ‘hate a -Frenchman like the devil!’ Dibdin only allowed such feeling in the heat -and fury of battle:-- - - - ’Tis a furious lion in battle, so let it! - But, fury appeased, ’tis in mercy a lamb! - - -Watts is always readiest with unpleasant figures. Ordinary parents -forgive lovingly the faults of children, but Watts tells each little -angelic rebel that-- - - - The ravens shall pick out their eyes, - And eagles eat the same! - - -Moreover, Watts forgets grace, occasionally, for chance, as in the -couplet:-- - - - If we had been ducks, we might dabble in mud, - Or dogs, we might play till it ended in blood, - So foul and so fierce are their natures. - But Thomas and William, and such pretty names, - Should be cleanly and harmless, as doves or as lambs, - Those lovely, sweet, innocent creatures. - - -Watts’s intentions were as honest as Dibdin’s, and both, no doubt, -often erred; but the silversmith’s son was never so loose in logic, -philosophy, truth, and metre, as the dwarfish son of the schoolmaster -is in the sample just given. It must have been some such sample that -soured the spirit of ‘bold Bradbury,’ another dissenting minister, -who suspected Watts of not being a good Trinitarian. Once Bradbury’s -clerk gave out one of Watts’s hymns, to be sung before the sermon. -The minister looked down from the pulpit and said: ‘No, sir, none of -Watts’s whims here, if you please.’ In one of the anniversaries of 1688 -Bradbury sang, at a public dinner, ‘The Roast Beef of Old England!’ Had -he lived long enough he would have sung with equally loyal zest, Tom -Dibdin’s famous anti-invasion song, ‘The tight little Island.’ - -We are not disposed to touch upon Dibdin’s domestic story. A good deal -is said in the words that his children loved, honoured, and reverenced -their mother. His life led him too much, too far, and too long away -from home for the fine domestic sympathies to have ardent play. Even -before his melancholy death in 1814, his sons, Charles and Thomas, -had distinguished themselves, but they lacked the grace and power -of musical composition so remarkable in the father. But in dramatic -composition they were his equals, and Tom especially was nearly equal -with, though not so prolific as, his father in song-writing. - -How Charles the younger caught the ‘trick’ of his father may be seen in -a song (published as his in ‘My Spouse and I’), of which here is one -stanza:-- - - - We tars have a maxim, your honours, d’ye see, - To live in the same way we fight; - We never give in, and when running a-lee, - We pipe hands the vessel to right. - It may do for a lubber to snivel and that, - If by chance on a shoal he be cast, - But a tar among breakers, or thrown on a flat, - Pull away, tug and tug, to the last; - With a yeo, yeo, yeo, &c. - - -It was the old Dibdin philosophy of ‘Never say die.’ - -Tom Dibdin is generally supposed to have adopted the stage for a -profession only after he had tried another calling--apprentice -to an upholsterer. This is not quite correct. Tom made his first -appearance on the stage before he went to school. He acted, or, rather, -represented, Cupid in a pageant in which Mrs. Siddons sat as the -goddess Venus. As the great actress took him in hand to rectify his -dress, little Tom heard the first words from her lips that ever fell on -his ear. They were directed to a female dresser, and they were solemnly -enunciated: ‘Ma’am, could you favour me with a pin?’ Tom, as he sat at -her feet in the pageant, felt a sort of stage-fright, but Sarah kept -him under control by repeated murmured promises that if he were a good -boy there was barley-sugar in store for him. - -As an upholsterer’s apprentice Tom vexed his master’s soul and injured -all his materials. The lad was barely eighteen when he made his plunge -into the drama. Only the other day, we looked with interest on the -front of the old Eastbourne Theatre, in the centre of the village, away -from the modern sea-town. It has still, or had a little while ago, -a dramatic-looking exterior. Richland, one of the managing partners -of the house, had a nephew, a handsome lad of fourteen years of age, -who printed the bills, did general business, and was called ‘Little -Jerrold.’ When little Jerrold got to York as a manager, he put a fine -handle to his name, and was thenceforth known for some time as Mr. -Fitz-Jerrold. Tom Dibdin proposed to come out at the Eastbourne Theatre -as Norval. Jerrold, on preparing the play-bill, asked him in what name -Tom intended to appear. Dibdin replied, ‘My name is Norval!’ ‘I know it -is,’ said Jerrold, ‘on the Grampian hills, but what is it in Sussex?’ -The name adopted was Merchant. After all, instead of ‘journeying with -this intent,’ and playing Norval, Dibdin ‘gilded his humble name’ by -playing Valentine, in one of his father’s numerous musical pieces, and -singing ‘Poor Jack,’ to the delight of the Eastbourne audience. The -handsome Jerrold above alluded to was the father of Douglas Jerrold, -whom John Kemble, as Rolla, once carried on his shoulder as Cora’s -child, and who ended his career too early, leaving behind him a -reputation for wit second to none. - -The most amusing portion of Tom Dibdin’s reminiscences are the -illustrations of social as well as dramatic life with which it abounds. - -Tom belonged to one of those Beef Steak Clubs (this one was theatrical) -which seem never to have had the dish on the table from which the name -was supposed to be derived. One of their intellectual sports consisted -in a member naming an actor, and then calling on another member for a -quotation which should be applicable to the actor named. In this way -some one named Incledon, whose talk was a bubbling talk, interlarded -with ‘my boy,’ and ‘my dear boy,’ as is the traditionary manner with -familiar players still. Incledon being named, Const, the magistrate, -being called upon, instantly quoted the line ‘Gratiano speaks an -infinite deal of nothing.’ Nothing could be apter. Then another -member, naming George Frederick Cooke, called on Irish Johnstone for -the illustration, and Jack, without hesitation, enunciated ‘Load o’ -whisky,’ giving this appropriate turn to the name of an operatic drama -then in vogue--‘Lodoiska.’ Emery was once called upon in connection -with his own name; but he was tired and embarrassed, and at length -he stammered forth, apologetically, ‘Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this -troubles me!’ unconscious that he had fulfilled all conditions, and had -illustrated himself in a line from Shakespeare. - -These intellectual exercises were not confined to the ‘Beef Steaks.’ -There was in Tom Dibdin’s days a certain ‘Ad Libitum Club,’ where the -intellect was as much exercised as the more sensual appetites were -liberally gratified by supper and punch. At these jovial meetings, some -one happening to name an individual in course of conversation, would be -met by a cry of ‘Skull!’ which implied that the member was to consider -the individual dead, if he were not so already; at all events, he was -to furnish on the instant that individual’s rhymed epitaph. Tom Dibdin -once chanced to refer to Isaac Read, the scholar and antiquary. The cry -of ‘Skull’ was immediately raised, and Tom as instantaneously replied -to it as follows:-- - - - Reader! by these four lines take heed, - And mend your life, for _my_ sake! - For you must die, like Isaac Read, - Though you _read_ till your _eyes ache_. - - -On another occasion Tom, without thinking of the consequences, made -some allusion to the materials for writing his own life. He was, in -one breath, pronounced to be dead, and with the cry of ‘Skull!’ he was -challenged to recite his own epitaph. It was furnished in the lively -style that follows:-- - - - Longing, while living, for laurel and bays, - Under this willow a poor poet _lays_. - With little to censure and less to praise, - He wrote twelve dozen and threescore plays, - He finished his ‘Life’ and went his ways. - - -While on the subject of epitaphs we may as well give a sample of Tom’s -father in this department of literature. The following, penned in all -seriousness, is to be found in Lee churchyard, near Blackheath, the -tribute of Charley to Parsons, the comic actor:-- - - - Here Parsons lies! Oft on life’s busy stage, - With nature, reader, hast thou seen him vie. - He science knew; knew manners, knew the age, - Respected knew to live--lamented, die. - - -Thomas Frognall Dibdin, son of ‘Tom Bowling,’ seems to have been early -influenced by a desire to show that the Dibdin power of rhyming was in -him as well as in his cousins. In 1797 Booker published his ‘Poems.’ - -Two years after this mild flirtation of the reverend cousin with the -Muses, Tom Dibdin made an adaptation from ‘Kotzebue,’ and brought it -out with songs, as ‘Of Age To-morrow.’ Our then young grandmothers were -soon singing Miss de Camp’s song, ‘Oh no, my Love, no!’ and juvenile -actors were all longing to come out in Bannister’s part of Frederick, -Baron Willmhurst. Miss de Camp had come from the sawdust of the Surrey -Circus, to charm the town; and when she was Mrs. Charles Kemble she -became the mother of Fanny Kemble. - -They are all gone, these Dibdins, of whom Charles of Southampton was -the one whose fame will be the most lasting. Like all men, he is to -be judged by his best. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link; -a boiler is only as thick as its thinnest part; but a poet is to be -measured by his best--the best teachings of the best of his poetry. By -this standard the oldest of the Dibdins will rank foremost among those -bards and minstrels who have swept the harp and raised the voice to -quicken human trust in God, to fan into flame the slumbering but never -dead fire of patriotism, and to inculcate loyalty to the powers that -be. Dibdin taught perseverance in well-doing with the fervour of a St. -Paul, and if he allowed a little too much of the bowl, he was earnest -in upholding, when serious, courage and honesty in man, and undying -fidelity to woman. - -When the youngest of the vocal, musical, and dramatic Dibdins died, -in 1841, some one was found to fling, as it were, a stanza or two of -sympathy on his tomb. From some lines, called ‘Poor Tom,’ dated from -Vienna and printed in the ‘Bath Journal,’ we take the last eight to -close our article:-- - - - Poor Tom! As late I wander’d by the Rhine, - I saw its banks in Winter’s mantle clad, - Gaunt, grim, and naked stood each shiv’ring vine-- - It was a sight to make the soul feel sad. - ‘How many a heart,’ I said, ‘is now made warm - By the bright produce of the joyous tree, - Here left by man to struggle with the storm!’ - I sigh’d, Tom; went my way; and thought of thee! - - - - -_HORATIO NELSON AND EMMA HAMILTON._ - - -On Michaelmas-day in the year 1758, the wife of the rector of Burnham -Thorpe was delivered of a sickly boy. At that moment Anson was in -command of the Channel fleet, and there were old men then in England -who had seen Prince Rupert. Exactly a quarter of a century had elapsed -since Admiral Byng had surrendered life. Russell, who beat Tourville -at La Hogue, had been asleep in the grave for more than thirty years. -Churchill, and Dilkes, the terror of Frenchmen and Spaniards in his -day, had been at rest for just half a century. These were great men; -but in 1758 a greater than all was born in the quiet rectory of -Burnham Thorpe. That feeble boy, accepted and tolerated rather than -welcomed and cherished, grew up in the possession of all the virtues -of the above heroes and with but few of their failings: he had the -dashing spirit of Rupert without his imprudence: he possessed the -wisdom and valour of Byng without his cold-heartedness: he was as -persevering as Anson and in no wise so foolish--as rapid as Russell, -but not so rapacious: he was even more enterprising and successful -than Dilkes; and, as with the gallant brother of Marlborough, his -services claimed high honours long before he obtained them. This puny -fragile child, born to achieve such greatness--this almost neglected -son of a Norfolk parson, and, by his mother, grandson of a Westminster -prebendary--designed, as it were, by nature to be a student, ‘sicklied -o’er with the pale cast of thought,’ and to cultivate learned leisure -in trim gardens--this feeble instrument was born with a great mission: -let the splendour of its fulfilment make us forgetful of his very few -errors! - -Yes: when he first saw the light there were old men in England who had -seen Prince Rupert beneath the beeches at Windsor. It was but the other -day that Nelson’s sister died. Thus is he connected with two periods -when the people were at issue with sovereigns: his figure stands -half-way between the time, when Roundheads were assailing cavaliers and -royalty; and the present period, when democracy, more despotic than -any aristocracy, is again howling at palace gates and the hearths of -nobles. In his own days the same struggle was going on; but the scene -of the struggle was not now within our boundary of home. He was the -great champion of royalty, and never had crowned king so unconquerable -a champion as he. There was not a democrat abroad who did not hate -his name as much as he feared it. For the French democrats his own -hatred was in equal measure intense; and, if it be suggested that his -contempt was not less intense for French aristocrats, we answer that -he lived at a period when the vices, the selfishness, and the tyranny -of that aristocracy justified the insurrection, which annihilated one -bad system to give temporary life to a worse. He did not despise the -dissolute men and the more dissolute women of Naples less than he -despised the French; but, in supporting the one and destroying the -other, he was the great antagonist of anarchy, and the great promoter -of order at home. Loyalty _here_ flourished by the blood of his -victories. The veriest would-be rebel in England was proud of the pale -warrior whose feeble arm upheld a world of thrones; a defeat at Aboukir -might have made him a Republican. But we are hurried from Nelson’s -cradle to his glories and his grave. Let us sketch his wondrous career -in a more orderly spirit. - -She who bore the perils of his birth did not survive to be glad at -his greatness. At nine, Nelson was motherless--at twelve he quitted -school--and some of his playfellows were yet launching their paper -galleons on Norfolk ponds when Nelson had gained respect and reputation -for his name. A trip of a few brief months’ duration with his maternal -uncle, Captain Suckling, just introduced him to naval life without -affording him instruction. The latter he derived under Captain John -Rathborn, a naval officer, engaged for the time in the West India -trade, under whom Nelson acquired a thorough acquaintance with -practical seamanship, and was ever ready to acknowledge his obligation. -The writer of this acknowledges his pride, too, in telling his son -that his mother is the granddaughter of Nelson’s tutor. Horatio began -his real service in the royal navy by entering the _Triumph_, rated -as ‘captain’s servant.’ In a year or so he became midshipman, the -duties of which office he efficiently performed during four or five -years on board the same vessel, and in the _Carcass_, the _Seahorse_, -and the _Dolphin_. During this period, he saw active service in every -climate, from the North Pole to Bagdad and Bussorah. We next find him -as lieutenant on board the _Worcester_ and the _Lowestoft_. While on -board the last-mentioned vessel he made his first prize, gallantly -boarding and capturing an American privateer, from an attempt at -which the first lieutenant had retired unsuccessful; and this was -accomplished when he was only nineteen years of age! So fond was he -of this branch of his profession that he changed to the schooner -_Lucy_, with a sort of roving commission, of which the American traders -soon became tremblingly conscious. He subsequently served in the -_Bristol_ (the flag-ship of Sir Peter Parker), in the three degrees of -lieutenancy; and, in 1778, ere he was yet twenty, the boy was captain -of the _Badger_ brig, and with men eager to obey him. But his just -ambition was not yet satisfied; and when in his twenty-first year -he had the delight of finding himself posted, and in command of the -_Hinchinbrook_, his whole course of daring and dangerous service in -the Gulf of Mexico plainly manifested that he was ever keeping in view -that ‘top of the tree,’ whose leafy honours first invited him from his -father’s rectory. The service alluded to seriously affected his own -health and cost the lives of one hundred and ninety out of his crew -of two hundred men. On his return home he rested at Bath for a year. -He had no long leisure to be ill, for the following year saw him in -the old French _Albemarle_, carrying terror along the Spanish main. -In 1782, he was employed in convoy service; and, having occasionally -some idle time on shore at Quebec, the young commander got into -mischief--that is, he fell most imprudently into love. His friends -carried him by violence on board: the sea air cured his passion; and -his lucky joining with Hood’s fleet and his subsequent busy time in the -West Indies effectually kept his thoughts from any lady then on land. -It was at this period that he became known to the Duke of Clarence. The -royal sailor thought him the merest boy of a captain that had ever been -seen, and could not but laugh at the gigantic and endless queue that -hung down his back and seemed to be pulling all the lank unpowdered -hair off his head after it. But this plain-looking and youthful -commander was then remarkable for being as well acquainted with all -naval matters as the oldest and most experienced captain in the fleet. -The piping time of peace put him for a season on half-pay. A portion of -1783, and of the year following it, was passed in France. With idleness -came evil; and, having nothing better to do, Nelson fell desperately in -love with the dowerless daughter of an English clergyman, who, there is -some reason to believe, was little affected by the magic he could offer -her of half-pay and love in a cottage. The sea again stood his friend. -In 1784, the _Boreas_ carried him to the Leeward Islands, where, at -great risk of purse and person, he was actively engaged in supporting -those Navigation Laws which our modern Whigs have so ruthlessly -abolished. - - - In this matter (says Dr. Pettigrew) he was also opposed by - Major-General Sir T. Shirly, the governor of the Leeward Islands, - who took in dudgeon the advice of Nelson, and assured him that - old generals were not in the habit of taking advice from young - gentlemen. Upon which Nelson, with much promptitude and ingenuity, - replied--‘Sir, I am as old as the Prime Minister of England, and - think myself as capable of commanding one of his Majesty’s ships - as that Minister is of governing the State.’ - - -He was engaged in putting down the illicit traffic sought to be carried -on by the Americans (whom successful rebellion had made foreigners) in -the West Indies, and also in dragging into light the frauds practised -by some English officials of no inconsiderable dignity in the islands. -He succeeded in all he undertook, but got small thanks and no profit -for any service which, in this respect, he rendered to his country. -He was much on shore, too; and it is a fact that his foot no sooner -touched the land than his good genius left him. He fell in love with a -widow; and, what is much worse, married her. In the island of Nevis he -became acquainted with Mrs. Nisbet, the widow of a surgeon who had died -insane a year and a half after their marriage, leaving her with one -son, Josiah, who subsequently owed so much to Nelson and thanked him so -little for it. At this time the captain of the _Boreas_ was a man at -whom Fame held her finger; he never drank wine save to the healths of -his sovereign, the royal family, and his admiral, and these were always -bumper toasts to him. He was reserved, grave, and silent; and it was -only occasional flashes that gave evidence of the brilliancy within. -The narrow-minded people of Nevis could not make him out; and Mrs. -Nisbet was set at him, as she was expected to make something of him, -because ‘she had been in the habit of attending to such odd sort of -people.’ Unfortunately she made a husband of him. She, perhaps, thought -it a condescension to marry a man who was of ‘puny constitution--who -was reduced to a skeleton--and who put his hopes of recovery in -asses’ milk and doctors.’ However this may be, she never looked upon -him as a hero, nor was she worthy of being a hero’s wife. She would -have been exemplary as the spouse of a village apothecary: she was -highly virtuous, very respectable, and exceedingly ill-tempered. The -ill-assorted pair were united in 1786: they reached England in 1787, in -which year Nelson was kept for months on board his ship at Sheerness, -merely taking in slops and lodging pressed seamen. And then ensued the -quietest six years of his life: they were passed at Burnham Thorpe, and -they were got through with tolerably good success. As a quiet country -couple, there was nothing to disturb their stagnant felicity. Nelson -busied himself in gardening, getting birds’ nests, and fretting for -employment. - -It came in 1793; when in place of capturing birds’ nests, Nelson, in -the _Agamemnon_, was with the fleet at the capture of Toulon, its -forts, and its navy. But other things came in 1793, too. Nelson was -sent to Naples with despatches for our Minister, Sir William Hamilton. -He was much on shore, and mischief came of it, of course. Sir William -told his wife, the too famous, too erring, and yet much sinned-against -Lady Hamilton, that a little man was coming to dine with him who was -infirm and ill-looking, but who had in him the stuff of a hero, and -who was undoubtedly destined to be _the_ man for the difficulties -coming. If Emma Hamilton loved a virtue it was that of courage and -ability in man: she loved heroes, and her ardent feelings were soon -interested in Nelson. - -From this period we must speak more generally of Nelson’s great deeds -that we may have fuller space to treat of matters less known, and in -the revealing of which lie the chief merit and the chief recommendation -of Dr. Pettigrew’s excellent volumes. Lord Howe appointed him (over -five senior captains) to blockade Genoa. In 1794 he was active against -the French in Corsica, and his men so entered into his own spirit that, -as he said himself, they minded shot no more than peas. But for him, -Bastia would not have been taken, nor perhaps Calvi, where he received -the injury to his right eye which ultimately deprived it of sight. -His labour was incessant and his health most wretched; but he was too -busy to be invalided. ‘The plan I pursue (said he) is never to employ -a doctor;’ and, consequently, though he was ill, he kept himself from -the peril of growing worse. In 1795 he had his first ‘_brush_’ with the -French _fleet_. He thus modestly calls a battle, in which he laid the -_Agamemnon_ between the _Ça Ira_ and the _Censeur_ and forced both to -yield. The former was large enough to put the _Agamemnon_ in her hold. -He was now fully in that vein of conquest which never left him when a -French vessel was before him as an antagonist. He now dared to disobey -orders when he judged that circumstances authorised him, and he was no -bad judge. He had by this time been engaged one hundred times--he was -literally the hero of a hundred fights. His ship when docked, in order -to be refitted, had neither mast, yard, sail, or rigging, that did not -need repair in consequence of the shot she had received: her hull had -long been secured by cables sewed around her. Nelson exhibited such -discretion in disobeying orders, and success so invariably followed -action that resulted from judgment of his own, that at length his -admirals ceased to give him any close orders at all. Sir John Jervis -left him to act as he thought best: the result was that, in two years, -Nelson captured fifty French vessels; and the navy itself, under -Jervis and his pale captain, became perfectly invincible. Up to 1797 -victory followed victory: there was abundance of honour and salt-beef; -but neither prize-money nor even notice in the ‘Gazette.’ He consoled -himself by saying that he would one day have a ‘Gazette’ of his own and -all to himself. He had well-nigh deserved it for the crowning fight -at St. Vincent: he was in the thickest of the struggle where the odds -against us were twenty-seven to fifteen. It made Jervis an earl and -Nelson a knight, and it opened a new era in naval strategy; for never -from that day has British captain bent upon victory paused to count his -enemy, or deferred his triumph in calculating the disparity of power -except Lord Gambier at Aix. - -Honours were both lavished on, and conferred by, the frail conqueror -of the _San Josef_ and the _San Nicolas_. Corporations flung their -municipal freedoms at his feet, and gave him endless invitations to -dinner. The only thing that he ever designated as _dreadful_ was -meeting a provincial mayor and alderman! They voted him more swords -than he could ever hope to employ; but they were all outweighed by -that which he himself presented to the Corporation of Norwich--the -sword which had been surrendered to him by his gallant but vanquished -foe on board the _San Josef_. Norwich will be proud of her trophy -when no memory remains of her crapes and bombazeens or of the fair -forms that wore them. The Government, too, made him rear-admiral of -the blue. He was not an idle one: he went to sea in the _Theseus_ -surrounded by men whose hearts, though turbulent, beat in unison -with the pulsations of his own: he twice bombarded Cadiz--lost his -right arm before Teneriffe--reposed awhile at Bath to recruit his -strength--received some pecuniary reward for the loss of it; and, after -publicly thanking the Almighty for all His mercies and acknowledging -the lightness of His visitations, was again entrusted to save his -country by destroying the then enemies of all mankind. With a squadron -of observation he scoured the Mediterranean, and after a search -unparalleled in its nature, and carrying despair to every heart but -his own, he came upon the French at Aboukir and made 1798 for ever -memorable in England by the well-won victory which he achieved at -the Nile. If honours poured on him after the affair at St. Vincent, -they descended now in an avalanche. His king made _him_ a peer who -among men was peerless. Parliament thanked him: the nation adored -him. Russia endowed him with coloured ribbands--the Sultana stuffed -his mouth with sugar-candy--public companies enrolled him among their -members. ‘Nelson-squares,’ and ‘streets,’ and ‘terraces,’ arose without -number; and curates were weary of christening an endless succession of -Horatios. As for Naples, which country he had saved from the very jaws -of the French, the people there when he landed nearly killed him with -kindness, and did all but devour him. The king, queen, and the entire -court, kissed his very feet. He turned with something like disgust from -all their homage, and his honest tongue confessed that he despised -those whom it was his duty to save, and that he loathed in his very -soul the entire court, if not the universal people. He designated the -men as scoundrels: the women were what the author of the old ballad of -‘Nancy Dawson’ says that well-known lady was, and they cared as little -to keep it from their neighbours; and he brushed away the imprecation -on his lips, launched against the Neapolitan ladies, to kiss the hand -of Emma Hamilton! But there _was_ a distinction, though we are not -going to show where it lay. - -From the same year to that which closed the century, 1800, his presence -was all but ubiquitous in the Mediterranean, and his name was uttered -with awe and reverence all over the world. Within this period he -became rear-admiral of the red, and Naples made him Duke of Bronté, -in return for his having saved the nation from entire destruction. -Within the same period is on record that dark event connected with the -name of Carracciolo, to which we will hereafter allude: let it suffice -to say here that after sweeping the Mediterranean of the enemies of -England, and doing a world of good to those who were not worthy of -being reckoned her friends--after executing all entrusted to him to -accomplish, and rendering the name of England a tower of strength and -pride throughout the world--Nelson returned home across Europe. He did -not set out without first writing a sensible letter to the Pope, whom -he had restored to Rome, in better fashion than Oudinot lately followed -in behalf of Pio Nono. According to the prophecy of honest old Father -M’Cormick, Nelson may be said to have taken Rome with his ships--a feat -of which he reminds the Pope and remains his ‘very obedient servant.’ -That his progress from Leghorn to Hamburgh was one of such triumph -as the world had never seen may be readily believed; for no human -being had ever deserved such ovation. When he landed at Yarmouth the -earth seemed to heave to salute him. Myriads of men blessed him, wept -over him, hailed him with shouts--in the warmth of their welcome they -did all but pay him divine honours. And his wife--how did she spring -forward in exultation and enduring love, impatient to meet the boat -that bore her heroic husband? Alas! Lady Nelson was quietly awaiting -his arrival at Nerot’s hotel in town, and so cold and unsatisfactory -was her greeting when the idol of the nation stepped into her presence -that the incense of London adulation must have proved savoury by -comparison. - -Ere he had leisure to sun his laurels he was again afloat, and in -the first year of the present century he passed the wild and stormy -steep of Elsinore. The battle was a Titanic struggle, and giants of -the same blood grappled with each other. Equal was the valour, and if -our compelled rather than willing foes had the advantage in means of -assault the better wisdom was ours, without which prowess is but a -flail apt to wound the skull of him who wields it. The battle of the -Baltic, so gigantically fought and inimitably won, placed on Nelson’s -brow the coronet of a viscount; but he did not quit the Baltic until -he had fluttered the Russian fleet at Revel, and, when he returned to -give a report of his mission accomplished, England already needed him -for the fulfilment of another. Napoleon was at Boulogne, and, with a -French army, threatening invasion. What the feeling of the times was in -the parsonages on the Sussex coast--is it not written in the letters -of Peter Plimley? What Nelson’s feelings were may be divined from that -saying of his, that the French might come any way they pleased, but -that they should _not_ come by sea! England trusted him, and he kept -his word as far as in him lay. If he did not destroy the Boulogne -flotilla, he at least demonstrated that it could not issue from harbour -without his permission nor put out to sea without being destroyed. -Boulogne has, in some degree, benefited by the rough messengers which -he flung into the port as visiting cards to intimate that he and his -followers were outside. Some hundred weights of good English iron were -projected into the town, and out of them are the gaspipes constructed -which are now laid down in the Bassa Ville and the suburb of Capecure! - -While thus giving peace to innumerable homes in England, he was -ever, amidst war’s loudest thunder, endeavouring to found a home -of peace for himself: that home was at Merton, in Surrey, where it -was vouchsafed to him for a very brief season. The name of Merton is -more closely connected with great men and great acts than many of -our readers may be aware, and it was the fitting resting-place for a -man who desired to gain breathing time between his heroic deeds. It -was the birthplace of that Walter de Merton to whose liberality some -of our readers may possibly be indebted for the instruction they may -have received at Oxford--not that Merton College has been very famous -for turning out good, at least great, scholars. According to a witty -master of that College, it ought to have possessed more learning than -any other in the University; for, said he, ‘many scholars brought much -knowledge there and left it all behind them.’ Their founder, however, -possessed both legal learning and religious wisdom. The law boasts of -him as one of the great Chancellors, and the Church approvingly points -to him as an exemplary Bishop of Rochester. For much of his learning, -and something of his wisdom, he is indebted to the accomplished -Augustine canons who cultivated both in the old convent founded by -Gilbert Norman in 1115, and the prior of which sat in Parliament as a -mitred abbot. It was at Merton that the early French invasion under -Louis the Dauphin, made with the intent of driving Henry III. from -his inheritance, was compensated for in 1217, by the treaty of peace -forced upon the French prince. It was at Merton that the able De Burgh -found refuge from his insatiable enemies; above all, it was here that -were enacted the famous statutes of Merton. The Parliament of Henry -III., which enacted those statutes, will be further ever-memorable for -the unshakable firmness with which the barons--those reformers before -the Reformation--withstood the insidious overtures of the ambitious -prelates for the introduction of the imperial and canon laws. It was -at Merton that was uttered a cry as famous, as significant, and as -important in its result as the battle signal of Trafalgar. It was -there that the barons shouted that famous shout--‘Nolumus leges Angliæ -mutari!’ - -Of all these things which have conferred undying celebrity on the -banks of the little river Wandle, Nelson probably knew nothing, and, -if possible, cared less. But, notwithstanding this, we repeat that -the locality which had been illustrated by humanity, by patriotism, -by liberality, and by love of freedom, was a becoming spot whereon to -spread the carpet of repose for him whose humanity was as great as his -courage--whose patriotism was without a stain--whose liberality was -ever extended without selfishness, and whose love of freedom made him -the invincible foe of the nation that was endeavouring to enslave the -world. - -Had he been less liberal and more considerate for himself than for -others he might have preserved Merton for his daughter--he would not -have been compelled to sell his diamonds--and Merton itself need -not have passed to those inheritors of other men’s patrimony--the -money-lending Israelites. - -For the fearful fight at Copenhagen, in which never were greater perils -of navigation overcome, nor had there ever been in sea-fight more -of English blood profusely shed--for this fight and victory Nelson -received a token of honour from the Sultan; but his own Government -granted no medals to the victors. They were permitted to wear the -orders sent them by foreign princes, but no such honours awaited them -at the hands of those who interpreted, and, perhaps, influenced, the -will of King George. The people gave what the Ministry denied; and -when the father of Nelson calmly closed his eyes on this world, in -the year 1802, almost the last sounds that fell upon his ear were -sounds of praise for his noble son. Nelson’s brother, the Rev. Dr. -William Nelson, thought Lord Walpole cared little for his connection -with the Nelson family, or he would have conferred Burnham Thorpe -on the son of the late incumbent--that is to say, on himself. This -reverend gentleman certainly does little credit to his profession, -even taking him by his own description. When there was a report of -his becoming successor to the yet living, but indisposed, Dean of -Exeter, he wrote to his brother--‘I wish it may be so. If you see -Mr. Addington soon, you may offer my vote for the University of -Cambridge for members of Parliament, and for the county of Norfolk to -any candidate he may wish.’ ‘The dean’ (adds Dr. Pettigrew) ‘died on -July 15, and Nelson applied to Mr. Addington, but Dr. Nelson was not -appointed. Exeter failing, in a short time he directed his views to -Durham,’ and he hinted his wishes in a letter to Lady Hamilton. After -reminding her that he is a Doctor of Divinity of the University of -Cambridge, and that such a dignified personage is as much superior -to a mere Scottish M.D. ‘as an arch-angel is to an arch-fiend,’ this -man, who had little in him of the angelic and still less of the -arch-angelic, offers the lady a bribe of Norfolk beafins; and, having -thus impressed her with his dignity, and purchased as he thought her -good will for ‘half-a-dozen apple-trees,’ thus concludes his very -undignified epistle:--‘I see by the papers that there is a stall -vacant at Durham--I suppose worth a thousand a year--in the gift of -the Bishop (Barrington). I remember some years ago, when the Duke -of Portland was Prime Minister, he secured one for Dr. Poyntz, at -Durham. There is another vacant at York (if not filled up), in the -gift of the archbishop; but I don’t know the value--no very great sum, -I believe.’ So very illogical a person was as unsuccessful as he -deserved to be. Lord Nelson’s chaplain on board the _Vanguard_ at the -Nile fared better, and merited so to fare. On Nelson’s application, -Lord Eldon thought himself bound in public duty to pass over his own -personal wishes and also the strong claims which individuals had upon -him to be attentive to their welfare. Nelson’s chaplain at the Nile -had a prior claim: and the Rev. Mr. Comyn received his appointment -accordingly to the living asked for--that of Bridgham. While treating -of the clerical connections of Nelson, we cannot omit noticing another -trait in the brother who so little resembled him. He thus writes to -Lady Hamilton:--‘The election for the University took place yesterday -(July 5, 1802): the whole was over in five minutes: Mr. Pitt and Lord -Euston are re-elected. I had a bow this morning from Billy in the -Senate-house--_so I made up to him and said a word or two to him_.’ - -Soon after this, Lord Nelson was made a D.C.L. by the University of -Oxford. The hero was with the Hamiltons and a party of relatives on -a tour to Wales: they took Blenheim in their way. The duke was at -home--he declined receiving them; but he sent them out something to -eat! The descendant of Marlborough _had not been introduced_ to the man -as great as he from whom alone the duke possessed the only greatness -he enjoyed, and, _therefore_, he would not shake hands with him! His -grace, with the spirit of a Frenchman, kept himself as secure from the -defender of his country as he well could; he rolled himself up like a -hedgehog and kept his prickles erect. Had it not been for Nelson, he -might not then have had Blenheim wherein to nurture his absurd shyness -or absurder pride. Blenheim was the only hearth in England at which -Nelson was churlishly received, and its master the only man in the -kingdom who did not feel on speaking terms with the hero of the Nile. -Nelson paid no fee, touched no food, and turned from the dwelling of -him who owned none of his great ancestor’s characteristics, save his -meanness, with calm contempt. - -In 1802 hostilities were again renewed, and, as a matter of course, -all eyes were turned to the defender of his country. His eyesight was -failing: he had actual fears of becoming blind, but all his fears -were suppressed in his eagerness to be of use to his native land. It -may be noticed that, in this year, Sir William Hamilton died; and the -fact that Nelson’s continued correspondence with the graceful widow -is, from this time, no longer addressed to her as ‘dear friend,’ but -‘dearest Emma,’ plainly, perhaps too plainly, denotes the nature of -the connection by which they were now bound. To judge of him by what -he effected and what he endured during this year, we might assert that -he never took rest nor thought of anything save the welfare of his -country and the fighting condition of his fleet; but he had leisure -devoted to further the welfare of private friends and other deserving -individuals, and he could turn from devising plans for crushing the -French to the arrangement of a paddock. All that he immediately cared -for was lest his sight should entirely leave him before he could fall -upon the French, who had a design upon Naples and Egypt. After he had -beaten them, he felt almost certain that his eyes would be in total -eclipse: he was resigned to the prospective fate, and contemplated it -with a grave but manly resignation. - -In a note on a paragraph in a letter written at this time by Lord -Nelson, in which he says to Lady Hamilton that she will be sorry but -not surprised to hear of Lord Bristol’s death, Dr. Pettigrew informs us -that-- - - - ---- this nobleman was fourth Earl of Bristol and was also Bishop - of Derry. He died on July 8, 1803. To avoid any superstitious - exhibition on the part of sailors, who entertain a dread of having - a corpse on board, his lordship’s body was packed up in a case and - shipped as an antique statue. Could he have anticipated such a - circumstance, it would have offered him a capital subject to have - written upon. - - -In 1804, his harassing life in the Mediterranean received something to -make it tolerable by his triumph in his case for prize-money against -Lord St. Vincent. It was money fairly won after St. Vincent gave up -the command; and his award was 13,000_l._ The sum rescued him from -debt and from anxiety; but the enjoyment of it could not relieve him -of his most anxious desire to destroy the French fleet, which wanted -no inducement to leave Toulon, only that Nelson was waiting outside to -receive them. His vigilance had to be doubled, but he had enough for -the emergency, and to spare. Suspicions existed that Spain was about -to enter into an armed coalition with France against England, and, -without increase to his force, Nelson was ready to meet and confident -of annihilating both. With all their advantage of superior strength, -the French not only lingered in Toulon, but spread forged intelligence -all over Europe that, on their making preparations for sea, Nelson had -precipitately fled; but the avenger was still there; and, as now and -then a French vessel would occasionally show her bowsprit outside of -the harbour and retire in all speed at the sight of the flaunting Jack -defying them from seaward, Nelson would say that, if the whole fleet -did not soon come out and stand a contest, he should go in and try the -effect of putting salt upon their tails! - -But his own countrymen, or rather the Government which did _not_ -represent the feelings of his countrymen, wounded him more deeply -than his worst enemies. Nelson was poor, considering the rank he had -to maintain and the heavy charges, some voluntarily assumed and all -honourably acquitted, on his income. The Ministry knew he was poor; -but, because he was not ashamed of his poverty, they kept him plunged -in it. In the Mediterranean, with war declared against Spain, there was -a prospect of rich prizes being made and some substantial reward being -given to him and his gallant band for their labours, their devotedness, -and their blood. But between these deserving men and their right, -evil influences interposed: unknown to Nelson, another admiral and a -small squadron were stationed off Cadiz: their office was to capture -all the commercial vessels they could: they performed the office to -its uttermost letter--hurried to England with the golden argosies, -and divided the proceeds so easily and bloodlessly won. When the fact -became known to Nelson it severely shook his manly heart: he continued -as steadfast as ever in the fulfilment of his duty, endured reiterated -disappointment at not meeting with the French, and sealing his course -of victory by a final triumph ere he found refuge in his home from -the ingratitude of man, and at length returned to England, on leave, -determined to enjoy his sweet reward at Merton, since he was denied any -by an ungrateful Ministry. - -He arrived at Merton on August 20, 1805. On the 13th of the following -month, Captain Blackwood called on Nelson at five in the morning -with news that the French and Spanish fleets were in the harbour of -Cadiz: Nelson got up, dressed, and was ready to start to ‘give Monsieur -Villeneuve a drubbing.’ The two proceeded to the Admiralty, the lords -of which were now all eager to grant whatever Nelson asked. The latter -knew he must rest satisfied with fifteen or sixteen sail of the line -less than his enemies would have in array against him; but with these -odds, backed by God’s blessing, he only knew of a full victory as the -glorious result. He made some arrangements for those who depended on -his bounty--some preparations in case of the sorrowful event that -_did_ cloud the general triumph--and, between ten and eleven at night, -took his last farewell of Merton and of her who had so long kept him -in sweet bonds--gazed once on his sleeping child, breathed a prayer -over her, and went forth to death--to death the most glorious that was -ever accorded to mortal man whereby to make his passage from time into -eternity. - -On October 21, he went into battle after fervent prayer to God. How, -under fearful odds, he beat his enemy, is known to every schoolboy. -Since that day Spain has almost ceased to be a naval power, and France -is only now recovering the position from which the hero of that day -flung her down. It was a day, the issues of which were left humbly to -God, but which were struggled for as though they depended on the arm -of mortal man alone. The triumphant result was purchased at a costly -rate--the life of England’s dearest son; his mission was fulfilled: he -had destroyed the last coalition made to enslave the world, and he died -at the fitting moment of certain victory, leaving all dear to him on -earth as a legacy to his native country. May his name live for ever! - -Almost the last words uttered by Nelson were the expression of a hope -that his country would provide for Lady Hamilton and for his adopted -daughter. Nelson’s wife was alive, and the marriage had been without -issue. Who, then, was this stranger that so closely occupied the last -thoughts of the hero--and who the ‘adopted daughter’?--for such was the -designation that engaged so engrossing a share of his love. - -As for Lady Nelson, she was indeed alive, but she had long been dead -to _him_. The pair, from the first, had been ill-matched; and what -began ill begot no happy consequences. Nelson himself had warmth enough -of temperament for two: his wife had none. She was, if we may judge -by what is written, unmoved at his great triumphs, without pride in -his great fame, and she was the last to welcome him when he came home -crowned with great deeds: she was the last woman in the world fitted -to be the wife of a hero, and perfectly incapable of controlling a -hero’s weaknesses. When Nelson on one occasion was speaking warmly in -his wife’s presence of the talents and beauty of Lady Hamilton, and -of the immense services she had rendered his king and country through -him, the hot Creole blood fired up: she rose in a whirlwind of passion, -exclaiming that she was sick at hearing the name and praises of Lady -Hamilton, and that Nelson must either desist from eulogising her or -cease to live with his wife. Nelson defended his favourite with good -humour; but from that hour utter estrangement ensued between himself -and Lady Nelson, resulting in a separation which, once determined on, -was never followed by opportunity or inclination for a reconciliation. - -The remarkable individual--as remarkable for her great sufferings and -great sorrows as for her great errors--who was in a certain degree the -cause of breaking up the indifferent home which Nelson found in the -companionship of his wife, may be said to have been the last of a race -proverbial for bewitching and irresistible beauty--viz., the Lancashire -witches. She was born at Preston, in 1764; her father’s name was Lyon, -and her parents were of menial condition. The child, named Emma, was, -on the early death of her father, taken by her mother to Hawarden, -in Flintshire, where her remaining parent sought to support both by -industry, and where Emma grew every day in beauty and ignorance. -When old enough she was sent forth to earn her own livelihood. She -commenced life in the humble condition of a nursery-maid in a family -at Hawarden: subsequently she was engaged in the same capacity in the -family of Dr. Budd, Chatham-place, Blackfriars. The good doctor little -suspected that he possessed two servants in his house destined to -achieve celebrity for themselves, and thus lend something of perpetuity -to his own name. The nursemaid was Emma Lyons: the housemaid was Jane -Powell, who, in her after career as an actress, was a fine interpreter -of Shakespeare, could give interest to the bombast of Nat Lee, and -make endurable the platitudes of Rowe--just as Rachel, in our own -day, interpreted Racine and endowed with life the metrical dulness -of Merope and Chimène. From Dr. Budd’s to the family of a dealer in -St. James’s Market was a change from the east to the court end of the -town, and it had its consequences. She attracted the attention and won -the good-will of a lady of fashion, who withdrew her from servitude -and elevated her to what is often more degrading and worse paid, the -dignity of a companion. The education she received here was such as -might be expected at the hands of a fine lady of the last century. -She read all the stilted and not too delicate romances of the day--a -course of reading which not only kills time, but which generally -destroys the student. It at least did not improve the spelling of the -now ‘young lady’; for to the last, though she talked like Aspasia, -she spelled as badly as Caroline of Brunswick--a light fault in a day -when countesses spelt _Physician_ with an _F_, and thought _G_ was -the first letter of _Augustus_! The house of Emma’s patroness was the -resort of all the great players, poets, and literati of the day. It was -the ‘Gore House’ of its time: perhaps, its glories ended as ignobly. -As a home and an asylum for a young girl full of beauty, and given to -impulses which she knew not how to govern, it deserved not the name. -The poor thing was made the Cynthia of the minute: the _Trissotins_ -dedicated sonnets to her; her beauty was deified; incense was daily -offered to her by fools and knaves, and even by those who were neither: -but yesterday she was toiling for wages, and perhaps complacently -receiving the coarse compliments of liveried worshippers: to-day she -was tended on by delicate hands, her smiles eagerly sought after, her -presence acknowledged by a buzz of admiration, her wit celebrated -by the ecstatic praises of the witty, and her intellect directed to -everything save to the study of divine things. She loved the refinement -which concealed the vice yet unknown to her: what was so pleasant could -hardly be sinful, for it brought no remorse. The foolish virgin lacked -a _man_ at hand to tell her that she was neglecting her lamp; and it -was only in after life, when intellect was superseded by cleverness -and reflection made her matured beauty all the more radiant, that -she sorrowingly acknowledged that to her first patroness had been -sacrificed the morning of her youth, and that every opportunity -neglected had been fruitful in a multitude of after sorrows. - -The first public sin, if we may so express it, was the consequence of -the exercise of a great virtue. It was the time of the first American -war. The press-gangs were in active pursuit of their terrible calling, -and by one of these a humble acquaintance had been captured, and was -confined on board a tender in the Thames. She personally interceded -to procure his liberty: the officer to whom the application was made -was Captain, afterwards Admiral, Willet Payne, the companion of the -Prince of Wales. This man drove a bargain and became what is cruelly -called the ‘protector’ of the friendless Emma. The first false step -made, the descent was rapid. From the dissolute seaman she was won -by a profligate squire, Sir Harry Fetherstonehaugh; and she speedily -enraptured a whole shire of country gentlemen by her bold and graceful -riding, subdued them by her wit, and charmed them, they knew not -wherefore, by the refinement of her manners. It is a curious trait -marking such a career that, though the baronet was nearly ruined by -the extravagant profusion into which he plunged for her sake, to -the end of life he spoke of her and wrote to her in terms of the -profoundest respect. It was a period when provincial squires were not -noted for much delicacy of manner: they had not yet adopted the advice -of Lord Chesterfield, and become gentlemanlike in their vices; but -nevertheless, like the Athenians of old, they could praise a virtue -which they did not practise: not decent themselves, they could admire -decency in others. - -The unfortunate and fallen woman, on her separation from her ruined -admirer, soon learned a deeper misery than she had endured in her -native home and early privations. She was at length on the point of -being turned into the street by her landlord, who had no admiration -for penniless tenants, however greatly endowed with beauty, when -she fell in the way of the most stupendous quack that ever gulled -the most gullible of patient publics. We need hardly name the once -famous Dr. Graham,[2] who, with his mysterious chambers, golden -beds, seraphic music, and impudent medical lectures, for some time -persuaded the people that he could lead them to the fountain where -played the waters endowing man with eternal and vigorous youth. That -he was mysterious only proved that he had a secret, and that it was -well worth knowing and richly worth paying for. This quack hired the -hungry and heart-broken beauty, exhibited her as the ‘Goddess of -Health,’ lectured upon her as the result of his system, and made half -the fashionable women of his day mad to become like her, glowing with -health and splendid with beauty. This public exhibition gave her a -particular fame among artists: she became the eagerly sought after -and highly purchased model of the day. In Romney’s pictures more -especially she is constantly repeated, and the eternal sameness is -ever varied and charming: she was, indeed, Romney’s inspiration rather -than model: he had but to state what he desired or dreamed of, and the -vision stood a breathing reality before him. Heroic, as Joan of Arc; -crushed by her grief, as a Magdalene; joyous, as a Bacchante; sublime, -as Cassandra; winning, as a Wood Nymph; making sorrow graceful, as -Calypso; giving rapture double interpretation--first as the Pythian -priestess on her tripod, and next as St. Cecilia--gentle, as Serena; -lovely, as Sensibility; and perhaps more intellectually lovely still, -as Miranda--we can hardly wonder, as we look on these characters, that -Hayley, who saw the original stand for them all, rushed into rhyme to -immortalise them, and perpetrated verse that was almost tolerable and -very nearly worth reading. - -We do not know that we may say that she was _rescued_ from this sort -of life by meeting with Mr. Charles Fulke Greville. He was not a mere -squire, but a gentleman and a connoisseur: he so loved beauty that -when he beheld Romney’s model he longed to possess it as he would -have longed to possess a Grecian statue. In this case the matter was -negotiable: she passed from the studio to the bower. Mr. Greville -discovered her mental powers as well as admired her material beauty, -and he was humane enough to do--what no human being had ever thought of -doing--educate her. It came of the latest, when the tares had choked -the wheat. She progressed, indeed, rapidly in all she studied, and in -music she attained a wonderful perfection: her voice, even in speaking, -was one to melt the heart: in singing it fairly carried it off by -magic. If vanity accompanied the possession of powers such as no one -has since possessed--not even our now silent Nightingale--her apology -is in her course of life, for much of which others were responsible. -This vanity reached its culmination one night at Ranelagh, when, -intoxicated by the remarks flung in her way like flowers as she passed, -she electrified the entire crowd by breaking forth into song, and, -by the exercise of her unequalled vocalisation, flung uncontrollable -ecstasy over the idle public of the place. ‘Mr. Greville’ (says Dr. -Pettigrew, in his interesting ‘Sketch of Lady Hamilton’) ‘had gone -farther than he intended, and became alarmed at her fondness for -admiration, and ventured to reproach her for her indiscretion. She -retired to her room, threw off the elegant attire in which she was -clothed, and, presenting herself before him in a plain cottage dress, -proposed to relieve him of her presence. This act, however, served -only the more securely to bind him in his chains, and a reconciliation -took place.’ It is reported that three children were the fruit of -this connection; but there is a letter from Nelson to Lady Hamilton -extant, which, if it does not prove the contrary, shows at least that -Nelson knew nothing of it--a not likely circumstance if the alleged -fact were one in reality. However this may be, Dr. Pettigrew adds, ‘In -the splendid misery in which she lived she hastened to call to her her -mother, to whom she was through life most affectionate and attentive.’ - -In 1789, the year of many sorrows, Mr. Greville found himself, by the -French Revolution and other accidents, a nearly ruined man. His uncle, -Sir William Hamilton, our minister at Naples, stepped in to relieve -him of many of his embarrassments--among them of the lady to whom -perhaps some of them might be traced. Dr. Pettigrew says:--‘It is only -charitable to suppose Sir William to have been ignorant of his nephew’s -connection with Emma, but there have not been wanting reports that the -condition of the engagement between Sir William and the lady was the -payment of the nephew’s debts.’ At this time Sir William was within a -year of threescore. He was neither the Pericles of his age, nor was -Emma quite the Aspasia; but when we remember the bond which bound the -great statesman and refined lover of refined art to the most beautiful -and most accomplished woman in Greece--when we remember that in his -home intellect and skill were almost deified--that to it her presence, -her powers, and even her virtues (for all were not wanting because one -was absent) gave its chiefest charm--that without her the war against -Samos would not have been a matter of history--that she inspired great -commanders, and that but for her, much eloquence would have been mute, -which, through her, fired Greece to deeds of noble daring--with these -memories about us, we say, there is much in the persons and lives of -Sir William Hamilton and his wife that reminds us of Pericles and -Aspasia, even down to the very circumstance that the great lawgiver -took the courtesan to wife after she had been his mistress. - -Dr. Pettigrew thus describes Sir William himself:-- - - - Sir William Hamilton was a native of Scotland, born in 1730, and - was Minister at Naples for the long period of thirty-six years. - He was a distinguished antiquary, remarkable for his taste in, - and appreciation of, the fine arts. He possessed also scientific - acquirements, and had some knowledge of mineralogy: he was a - Trustee of the British Museum, Fellow of the Royal Society, and - a Vice-President of the Society of Antiquaries: he was also a - distinguished member of the Dillettanti Club, and appears among - their portraits in their meeting-room at the Thatched House - Tavern. A portrait of him, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, one of his - intimate friends, may be seen in the National Gallery. He is known - as an author by his works. With the King of Naples he was a great - favourite, and largely shared with him the enjoyment of the chase - and other sports, to which the sovereign is well known to have - been egregiously addicted. - - -Such was the sexagenarian philosopher. At this period the Aspasia -of his affections, if we may indeed use such a word, was just -five-and-twenty. She is thus limned by her biographer:-- - - - Already familiarised to the studies of the painter, and, according - to Romney and his biographer, no mean judge of the arts, with - Sir William she had in Italy many opportunities of enjoying her - taste, of improving herself, and also of imparting knowledge. - This she is said to have practically evinced; for with a common - piece of stuff she could so arrange it and clothe herself as - to offer the most appropriate representations of a Jewess, a - Roman matron, a Helen, Penelope, or Aspasia. No character seemed - foreign to her, and the grace she was in the habit of displaying - under such representations excited the admiration of all who - were fortunate enough to have been present on such occasions. - The celebrated ‘Shawl Dance’ owes its origin to her invention; - but it is admitted to have been executed by her with a grace and - elegance far surpassing that with which it has ever been rendered - on the stage of any of our theatres. Under the tuition and - government of Sir William she improved so greatly, and obtained - such complete sway over him, that he resolved upon making her - his wife. They came to England, and on September 6, 1791, she, - writing the name of Emma Harte (an assumed name under which she - had long been known), he married her at the Church of St. George, - Hanover Square, resolving to return with her to Naples that she - might there be recognised by the Neapolitan Court. But prior to - quitting London to return to Naples she was doomed to experience - disappointment; for although she had, through the position of Sir - William Hamilton and his high connections, together with her own - attractions and accomplishments, gained admission into a very high - circle of society, she was very properly refused admission into - the Court of St. James’s, which Sir William in vain endeavoured - most assiduously to effect. In the society, however, in which she - now moved, she became distinguished for her great accomplishments; - and the dulness of fashionable life was greatly relieved by her - displays as a singer and as an actress. The admiration she excited - was universal. It is said that at first, upon the return of Sir - William Hamilton to Naples, there was some difficulty in the way - of her introduction to the Queen, not having been received at the - Court of her own country; that, however, was soon removed, and in - a short time she maintained the confidential intercourse with her - Majesty. That the Queen of Naples should have become intimately - attached to Lady Hamilton cannot be a matter of surprise when we - recollect the calamities her family had sustained by the French - Revolution. To seek consolation in the bosom of the wife of the - English Minister--the Minister of that country which almost stood - alone in its opposition to the principles and conduct of the - French Revolution--seems natural. Friendship is often created - by sympathetic associations called forth under the pressure of - affliction, and is sustained by the consolations of hope derived - from them. There are many letters in my possession from the - Queen of Naples to the Lady Hamilton breathing the most ardent - attachment, the most unbounded friendship, and expressing eternal - gratitude to her. - - -It was in the year 1793 that Nelson first saw this dangerous beauty. -From the period of her arrival up to this time, she appears to have -been the only source of joy and admiration to the Neapolitan Court. -The Duke of Sussex retained to the last lively recollections of her -charms, and of the effect she produced when singing with the famous -Mrs. Billington. In the eventful year last named Nelson landed at -Naples with despatches from Lord Hood. Sir William, as we have said, -on returning home after his interview with Nelson, told Lady Hamilton -that he was about to introduce to her a little man who could not boast -of being very handsome, but who would be the greatest man that England -ever produced. ‘I know it’ (said Sir William) ‘from the very few -words of conversation I have already had with him. I pronounce’ (said -the Minister) ‘that he will one day astonish the world. I have never -entertained any officer in my house, but I am determined to bring him -here: let him be put in the room prepared for Prince Augustus.’ Nelson -is stated to have been equally impressed with Sir William Hamilton’s -merits. ‘You are’ (he said) ‘a man after my own heart: you do business -in my own way. I am now only captain; but, if I live, I will be -at the top of the tree.’ The impression produced upon him by Lady -Hamilton, and her kindness towards the son of Nelson’s’ wife by her -first marriage, he thus simply describes in one of his letters:--‘Lady -Hamilton has been wonderfully kind and good to Josiah. She is a young -woman of amiable manners, and who does honour to the station to which -she is raised.’ - -The early attachment entertained by the Queen of Naples for Lady -Hamilton admits of ready and natural explanation. Sir William after his -marriage conducted his young bride to Naples by way of Paris, where she -was received by the ill-fated Marie-Antoinette. This unhappy queen was -sister to the Queen of Naples; and to Lady Hamilton she entrusted the -last letter she ever wrote to her scarcely less unhappy relative. The -wife of the British Minister became at once the personal friend of the -Neapolitan Queen, and her influence so great that the King himself said -of her that she had de-Bourbonised them and made them all English. It -was from this period that her patriotic mission commenced--a mission -which she carried out regardless of personal expense or personal peril, -and for the performance of which, though so great in its results, she -obtained slight acknowledgment and no recompense. - -It was for no individual, but for her country solely, that she -exercised her unbounded influence when at Naples. Sir John Jervis named -her the ‘patroness of the navy;’ and when he was engaged upon the -reduction of Corsica he depended upon Lady Hamilton for despatching -to him all the necessaries he required from Naples: he subsequently -confessed that the reduction of the island was facilitated and -expedited by her aid and energy. At a time when British interests were -at stake and nearly all Europe was engaged in destroying them, she was -unceasingly wakeful to maintain and strengthen them. We had about this -time a most uncertain ally in Spain. It came to the knowledge of Lady -Hamilton that a Spanish courier had arrived at Naples with a letter -for the King: she forthwith repaired to the Queen, and so exercised -the power she possessed over even the powerful mind of that Sovereign -that she induced her to repair to the King’s cabinet and abstract -the important document from the monarch’s possession. The letter was -obtained: it was from the King of Spain himself, and it announced his -determination to break up his old alliance and to unite with France -against England. Sir William Hamilton was sick and incapable of action; -but ‘our General’s wife was now the General;’ and she further prevailed -on the Queen to allow her to take a copy of the document. This copy -she transmitted by a secure but costly method to Lord Grenville. To -effect its safe arrival cost her out of her own private purse not less -than four hundred pounds sterling. She was hardly thanked and was never -remunerated. - -But ingratitude did not render her patriotism weary or unwilling: year -after year the British flag in the Mediterranean was indebted to her -for triumphs which it achieved, because without her aid the English -could not have profited even by opportunity. It must be remembered, -too, as Dr. Pettigrew justly remarks, ‘that at this period so high were -French ascendency and revolutionary principles in Naples that it was -absolutely dangerous for the British Minister to go to court.’ - -Her greatest service, though not her last, remains to be mentioned. It -is of that importance that it merits being mentioned in detail, and -the details are so clearly and concisely told by Dr. Pettigrew that -we cannot do better than adopt them. Never was service more greatly -needed: its having been rendered saved England, changed the aspect of -European politics, and gave to Lady Hamilton a branch of the showers of -laurel that fell to the victors at the Nile:-- - - - In June, 1798, about three days after the French fleet had passed - by for Malta, Sir William and Lady Hamilton were awakened one - morning about six o’clock by the arrival of Captain Trowbridge - with a letter from Sir Horatio Nelson, then with the fleet lying - off the bay near to Capri, ‘requesting that the ambassador would - procure him permission to enter with his fleet into Naples or - any of the Sicilian ports to provision, water, &c., as otherwise - he must run for Gibraltar, being in urgent want; and that, - consequently, he would be obliged to give up all further pursuit - of the French fleet which he had missed at Egypt on account of - their having put into Malta.’ At this time Naples had made peace - with France, and an ambassador was resident then at Naples. One - of the stipulations of the treaty which had been entered into was - to the effect that _no more than two English ships of war should - enter into any of the Neapolitan or Sicilian ports_. However, - Sir William Hamilton called up Sir John Acton, the Minister, who - immediately convened a council at which the King was present. This - was about half-past six. Lady Hamilton went immediately to the - Queen, who received her in her bed-room: she represented to her - Majesty that the safety of the two Sicilies now depended upon her - conduct, and that should the council, as she feared that under the - circumstances they must do, decide on negative or half measures, - the Sicilies must be lost if Nelson were not supplied agreeably - to his request, by which he would be enabled to follow the great - French force which had passed in that direction only a few days - before. Nothing could exceed the alarm with which the Queen - received this intelligence: she urged that the King was in council - and would decide with his Ministers. Lady Hamilton dictated, and - the Queen wrote a positive order, ‘directed to all governors of - the two Sicilies to receive with hospitality the British fleet to - water, victual, and aid them.’ In every way this order, as Lady - Hamilton well knew, would be more respected than that which might - emanate from the King. The council did not break up until eight - o’clock, and Lady Hamilton attended Captain Trowbridge and her - husband to their residence! The faces of the King, of Acton, and - Sir William too plainly told the determination at which they had - arrived, and that _they could not then break with France_. On the - way home Lady Hamilton told Sir William and Captain Trowbridge - that she had anticipated the result and provided against it; - that, whilst they were in council debating on the application, - she had been with the Queen and had not without effect implored - her Majesty to render the aid required: she then, to his great - astonishment and delight, produced the order in question. Nothing - could exceed the gladness this occasioned. Trowbridge declared - that it would ‘cheer Nelson to ecstasy;’ and that by this means - they should be enabled to pursue and conquer the French fleet, - otherwise they must have gone for Gibraltar. Sir William Hamilton - wrote to Sir Horatio Nelson, communicating to him the formal - decision of the council; but added, ‘You will receive from Emma - herself what will do the business and procure all your wants.’ - Lady Hamilton enclosed to the admiral the order, praying him ‘that - the Queen might be as little committed in the use of it as the - glory and service of the country would admit of.’ To this Nelson - replied that he received the precious order, and that if he gained - the battle it should be called hers and the Queen’s; for to Lady - Hamilton he should owe his success, as without the order their - return to Gibraltar was decided upon; but, he added, ‘I will now - come back to you crowned with laurels or covered with cypress.’ - - -It was more especially for this service rendered when he was in his -utmost need that Nelson, while dying, recommended Lady Hamilton to -the memory and gratitude of his country. The effect of this service -we need not repeat. The British ships watered and victualled at -Syracuse, spread their huge wings in pursuit of their foe, and at -the Nile launched their heavy thunder to his destruction. On the -20th of September the triumphant squadron arrived at Naples, where -ships, officers, and men found every want supplied and every wish -anticipated. ‘But especially’ (says Dr. Pettigrew) ‘were the broken -health and wounded body of the valorous chief regarded. Nelson was -taken into the British Minister’s house, and there personally tended by -her whose sympathies had been so awakened, and by whose attentions he -was after a time restored to health.’ Her services did not terminate -here. While all at Naples were at the very high top-gallant of their -joy, Lady Hamilton induced the court to break altogether with the -French. The ambassador of the Republic was consequently dismissed with -scanty courtesy and in considerable haste. When, at a later period, -a French army marched on Naples itself and the royal family were -reduced to fly to Palermo, the chief arrangements for the safety of -the lives and properties of others were made or carried out by Lady -Hamilton: she privately removed from the palace the royal jewels and -thirty-six barrels of gold. These were marked ‘Stores for Nelson,’ and -under that device were safely shipped. Indeed, it was not till the -treasure was secured that the King consented to embark. In a despatch -to the Admiralty Lord Nelson says, ‘Lady Hamilton seemed to be an -angel dropped from heaven for the preservation of the royal family.’ -To effect that preservation she was regardless of her own. On the -night in which she personally assisted the King, Queen, and children -to escape, she attended a party given by Kelim Effendi: she withdrew -from this party on foot, leaving her equipage in front of the house, -hastened to the place of meeting, conducted the royal family by a -subterranean passage to Nelson’s boat waiting to receive them, embarked -with the fugitives, and with them went before the storm that blew them -to Palermo. To accomplish this Sir William and his wife voluntarily -abandoned their entire possessions in their house at Naples: they did -not convey away one single article. The whole of their private property -was thus left behind in order to prevent discovery of their proceedings -in behalf of the royal family. The value of Lady Hamilton’s portion -thus abandoned amounted to 9,000_l._; not less than 30,000_l._’s worth -of property was sacrificed which belonged to Sir William. The virtue of -this sacrifice was the sole reward gained by those who made it. - -It was in this year (1799) that Sir Alexander Ball, who held a part of -Malta, the French occupying another part, sent despatches to Nelson -at Palermo for provisions, without which he would be compelled to -surrender. Nelson was absent at his old occupation looking after the -enemies of England. Lady Hamilton opened the despatches, purchased -several entire cargoes of corn at her own risk, and forwarded them to -the half-starved English in Malta. She expended 5,000_l._, of which -not one shilling was ever returned to her. All that she profited -thereby was in receiving the order of St. John of Jerusalem from the -Emperor Paul, Grand Master of the Knights. England owed her much and -acknowledged nothing. The Queen of Naples acted with more generosity: -she put into the hands of Lady Hamilton, on parting from her -subsequently at Vienna, a conveyance of 1,000_l._ per annum; but the -latter magnanimously destroyed the deed, remarking that ‘England was -just, and to her faithful servants generous, and that she should feel -it unbecoming to her own beloved and magnanimous Sovereign to accept of -meed or reward from any other hand.’ - -But the same year is also marked by an occurrence the very mention of -which seems to obscure the brightness of Nelson’s name and to fling an -additional lurid hue round that of the wife of a British Minister. We -say seems; for in truth there is more of seeming than of reality in it, -and yet all is not seeming and there is something real. We allude, of -course, to the case of Admiral Prince Carracciolo. According to some -he was murdered by Nelson at the instigation of Lady Hamilton, who -was so fiercely Royalist that, if we may believe partial writers, the -blood of a Jacobin was to her of marvellous sweet savour. Divested of -exaggeration the story of old Carracciolo is simply this--He was a -rich, valiant, and aged seaman, and warmly attached to Royalty until -the triumph of Republicanism endangered those who had a distaste for -Commonwealths. When the Neapolitan royal family fled from Naples to -Sicily their hitherto faithful old servant followed them thither: -when the heads of the party who had proclaimed a Republic at Naples -threatened to confiscate the property of absentees, Carracciolo -returned to protect his own. In thinking over-much of himself he -forgot fealty to his Sovereign, and in a brief period he became as hot -a Republican as ever he had been an eager Royalist. He took up arms -against his King, opposed his restoration, and fired upon his flag. -After the principal body of rebels had capitulated to the force in arms -to give the King his own again, he was captured in open rebellion, -taken on board the _Foudroyant_, Lord Nelson’s own ship, and there -given up to be tried by a court-martial. Nelson, as chief of the united -Sicilian and English squadrons, ordered this court-martial to be held: -it was formed exclusively of Sicilian officers, but it was held on -board the English admiral’s ship. The trial did not exactly exhibit a -specimen of Jedburgh justice, by which a man is hung first and tried -afterwards, but there was a spirit manifested that was very much akin -to it. The president of the court, Count Thurn, was a personal enemy -though an old shipmate of Carracciolo. The case for the prosecution -was soon gone through: the facts were clear, patent, and undeniable; -but the brave and misguided old seaman made a most gallant, fearless, -and almost irresistible defence. Probably, the worst enemy of the crown -of Naples was the King himself: he was worthless, selfish, weak, vain, -and pompous. Carracciolo asserted that _he_ had not deserted the royal -cause, but that in fact the King himself had betrayed it: when there -was no longer a royalty to defend that was worth the keeping, then -alone had he joined the Republicans. Thus far the defence was, perhaps, -founded on truth. It was not less true when Carracciolo alluded to his -property and the risk he ran of rendering his posterity beggars if he -had not taken office under the Republican flag; but this was a sort of -truth that was even less valid as an apology for rebellion than the -former. The court unanimously found him guilty and sentenced him to -be hung by the neck at the yard-arm of his own flag-ship. ‘Hereafter’ -(said the undaunted old man with some emotion)--‘hereafter, when you -shall be called to your great account, you will weep for this unjust -sentence in tears of blood. I take shame to myself for asking for any -favour from such men; but, if possible, I wish to be shot as becomes -my rank, and not hung up like a felon and a dog.’ ‘It is inadmissible’ -(was the curt and savage reply of the court), ‘and the court is hereby -dissolved.’ What followed is ever to be deplored. Dr. Pettigrew -struggles ably and manfully to defend Nelson from all blame, but he -struggles unsuccessfully. The facts are these--even by Dr. Pettigrew’s -admission. The sentence was no sooner made known than Nelson issued -an order for the immediate execution. The guilty man was to be hung -from six o’clock till sunset, ‘when you will have his body cut down -and thrown into the sea.’ So run the words to which the name of Nelson -is affixed. Lieutenant Parkinson, at the request of the doomed man, -interceded with the admiral; but to the prayer of Carracciolo, that he -might die the death of a man and not that of a dog, Nelson refused to -interfere, and harshly bade the poor lieutenant to go and attend to his -duty. The result was that Carracciolo was ignominiously run up to the -yard-arm, not of his own flag-ship, but to that of Lord Nelson. The -English admiral not only refused the mercy that he unquestionably might -have granted, but he, in some sort, became the executioner: he not only -insisted that the sentence of hanging should be carried into effect, -but he lent a gallows for the purpose. - -The sentence was just, and the unfortunate old warrior merited death; -but justice would have been satisfied had the great criminal been -allowed the melancholy privilege of falling as he might have done -in battle. At all events, the yard-arm of a British ship ought not -to have been lent for the purpose of hanging a foreigner who had -betrayed his trust to a foreign king. In thus much does blame appear -attributable to Nelson. That any is due to Lady Hamilton, or that -Nelson was in the least degree influenced by her on this occasion, -we disbelieve, simply for the reason that such an assertion is -unsusceptible of proof. - -But the _Foudroyant_ was the scene of other disgraces. We come to -the mention of them with reluctance, and will narrate them with all -possible brevity. In 1800, Sir William Hamilton was superseded as -British Minister at Naples: he and Lady Hamilton, with the Queen -of Naples, were on board Nelson’s ship. Nelson himself was now a -Neapolitan duke. The whole party were about to leave the Mediterranean, -and, with the exception of the Queen, whose destination was Vienna, to -return to England by land through Germany. It was during the passage -from Palermo to Malta that the intimacy took place which resulted -in the birth of that little Horatia who was long thought to be the -daughter of the Queen of Naples, but whom Dr. Pettigrew, under Nelson’s -own hand, proves to be the child of Lady Hamilton. That Nelson was the -child’s father no one ever doubted. The strange party--husband, wife, -and friend--reached London in November, 1800. Lady Nelson was not -among those who stood first to greet the arrival of the hero or who -at meeting greeted him with any warmth of feeling. She had, possibly, -heard through her son, Captain Nisbet, of the too friendly terms which -existed between her husband and the wife of another. His home was, in -consequence, an unhappy one, and he left it to proceed on an excursion -with Sir William and his lady. This excursion was an ovation which -reached its highest point at Fonthill. Here the celebrities in art, -rather than the noble by birth, were assembled to meet the illustrious -party: here Banti, the Pasta of her day, joined her voice with the -ex-ambassadress; and here West looked on and smiled. - - - In the gallery of the Abbey, after the repast, the company - assembled, and Lady Hamilton enchanted them with one of her - remarkable personations--that of Agrippina bearing the ashes of - Germanicus in a golden urn, and as presenting herself before the - Roman people with the design of exciting them to revenge the death - of her husband, who, after having been declared joint Emperor - by Tiberius, fell a victim to his envy, and is supposed to have - been poisoned by his order at the head of the forces which he - was leading against the rebellious Arminians ... Lady Hamilton - displayed with truth and energy every gesture, attitude, and - expression of countenance, which could be conceived in Agrippina - herself, best calculated to have roused the passions of the Romans - in behalf of their favourite general. The action of her head, - of her hands and arms, in the various positions of the urn, in - her manner of presenting it to the Romans, or of raising it up - to the gods in the act of supplication, was most classically - graceful. Every change of dress, principally of the head, to suit - the different situations in which she successively presented - herself, was performed instantaneously with the most perfect - ease, and without retiring or scarcely turning aside a moment - from the spectators. In the last scene of this beautiful piece of - pantomime, she appeared with a young lady of the company who was - to personate a daughter. Her action in this part was so perfectly - just and natural, and so pathetically addressed to the spectators - as to draw tears from several of the company. - - -When the character of the Roman dress is remembered, it is difficult -to believe that the representative of Agrippina was in the condition -noticed by Dr. Pettigrew. - -The final separation between Nelson and his wife took place in the -January of 1801. The last scene between the latter is thus described by -a yet living witness, Mr. Haslewood:-- - - - In the winter of 1800-1, I was breakfasting with Lord and Lady - Nelson at their lodgings in Arlington Street, and a cheerful - conversation was passing on indifferent subjects when Lord - Nelson spoke of something which had been done or said by ‘dear - Lady Hamilton,’ upon which Lady Nelson rose from her chair and - exclaimed, with much vehemence--‘I am sick of hearing of dear - Lady Hamilton, and am resolved that you shall give up either her - or me.’ Lord Nelson, with perfect calmness, said--‘Take care, - Fanny, what you say; I love you sincerely, but I cannot forget my - obligations to Lady Hamilton, or speak of her otherwise than with - affection and admiration.’ Without one soothing word or gesture, - but muttering something about her mind being made up, Lady Nelson - left the room, and, shortly after, drove from the house. They - never lived together afterwards. I believe that Lord Nelson took - a formal leave of her ladyship before joining the fleet under Sir - Hyde Parker. - - -Dr. Pettigrew cites this letter of Mr. Haslewood to show that the -separation was unavoidable on Lord Nelson’s part: it appears to us -to have been inevitable and necessary. Perhaps the strangest part of -this incident is that Nelson’s family closely attached themselves -to Lady Hamilton. We must make exception, however, of the still -stranger incident--namely, the birth of Lady Hamilton’s daughter at -her residence in Piccadilly, the absence of all attempt to confer the -honours of paternity on Sir William, and the consequent mystification. -The birth took place about the last day of January 1801. The child was -conveyed to a nurse about a week or ten days afterwards, and was not -the home companion of its guilty parents until 1803, after the death -of Sir William Hamilton. Nelson’s daughter was recently alive, and was -formerly married to Captain Ward, late of the 81st regiment. - -Before the death of Sir William Hamilton, Lord Nelson had made his -house their common residence. At the death of the former, he, with -something of an affected decency, quitted it for private lodgings. Sir -William left his widow totally unprovided for. He thought, as Nelson -thought, that the Government would not hesitate to make her an ample -provision for her services. In the meantime, waiting for an event that -was never to occur, Lord Nelson purchased Merton. It is yet the object -of many a sailor’s pilgrimage, and is about ten minutes’ walk from the -Wimbledon station. Here he offered the deserted widow and the mother of -his child a refuge--nay, more, a home. It was such to her; for there -she enjoyed the homage and respect not only of every member of Nelson’s -family, but also of the great and good of the exterior world. Never was -woman placed in so anomalous a condition, in which the anomaly was so -carefully concealed from herself and unheeded by the world. - -It should have had the realities of the virtue of which it bore so well -the semblance. That it had not was, perhaps, one of the causes why -it endured so brief a space. It is most touching to read the letters -of Nelson, cited by Dr. Pettigrew, and written to his child’s mother -_at home_. The heavy responsibilities connected with Trafalgar, the -anxieties coming thick and fast, the duties he had to fulfil--none of -these things rendered him forgetful of his treasure. For the safety of -one little life his heart beat as only a parent’s heart _can_ beat; -and while meditating the array of battle, in which his own life was -to cloud the splendour of the victory, he found leisure to send home -detailed instructions how a substantial netting should be raised in -the grounds of Merton to preserve little Horatia from falling into a -pond ambitiously called the _Nile_. There wanted but one thing to give -holiness to Nelson’s character as a father. - -To this, as to all his worldly glory, and to all the felicity that had -hitherto rested upon Merton, a sudden termination was given by the -fatal ball which struck him, when his glory was greatest, on the deck -of the _Victory_, at Trafalgar. The last request of such a man, made -in such an hour, and amid such a triumph, purchased by him with his -heart’s blood--the dying request of such a man ought to have been held -sacred by his country. For five years Lady Hamilton struggled on at -Merton: she made application to every source, but she applied in vain. -The recompense justly due to her for services rendered was withheld or -denied under the most shabby and futile pretences. The worst of all, -perhaps, was the pretence, or the plea, of the length of time that had -expired since the service itself was rendered! - -In a codicil annexed to his will, and made by Nelson as he was about to -enter into action at Trafalgar, the Admiral, with a strong feeling that -death was near him, asked two favours of his King and Country in whose -defence he was about to offer up his own life--one was, protection -and provision for Lady Hamilton, whose late husband was the King’s -foster-brother; the other, goodwill for his ‘adopted daughter.’ He -solemnly bequeathed both to his sovereign and his fellow-countrymen. -When the will was proved, this codicil was held back by the Rev. -William Nelson, although he and his family had been partaking of Lady -Hamilton’s hospitality for months. Indeed, during six years, she was -a second mother to his children, to whom he recommended Lady Hamilton -as an example and enjoined obedience to her as an instructress. ‘The -Earl (says Dr. Pettigrew--for the reverend gentleman was created an -earl) fearful that Lady Hamilton should be provided for in the sum -Parliament was expected to grant to uphold the hero’s name and family, -kept the codicil in his pocket until the day 120,000_l._ was voted -for that purpose. On that day he dined with Lady Hamilton in Clarges -Street, and, hearing at table what had been done, he brought forward -the codicil, and, throwing it to Lady Hamilton, coarsely said she might -now do with it as she pleased. She had it registered the next day at -Doctors’ Commons, where it is now to be seen.’ - -With insufficient means to live in her old dignity at Merton, and with -little knowledge of how to make the best of those means, accustomed to -find others her stewards and unused to provide for hours of necessity, -she at length found herself compelled to make an assignment of the -home which Nelson had established for her and their child. She removed -to Richmond, and, subsequently, had lodgings in Bond Street. Pursued -by creditors, without her child for whom she had no home--and for -whom such protection as she could give was not that which a child -most needed--she led a miserable life, which was hardly rendered more -miserable by her incarceration, in 1813, in the King’s Bench. She -passed ten months in this captivity, and was only relieved at last -by the humanity of Alderman Smith. With freedom came no measure of -happiness: utterly destitute, and abandoned by those who in the days of -her prosperity professed to be her slaves, she fled the country that -would not aid her, and sought succour in a foreign land. She found -shelter, and nothing more, in Calais, in a miserable house, kindly lent -her, however, by a Monsieur de Rheims. That it was only shelter, and -nothing else, may be inferred from the following account handed to Dr. -Pettigrew by the lady who enacts in it so graceful a part:-- - - - Mrs. Hunter was in the habit of ordering meat daily at a butcher’s - for a little dog, and on one of these occasions was met by - Monsieur de Rheims, who followed her exclaiming, ‘Ah, Madam!--ah, - Madam! I know you to be good to the English. There is a lady here - who would be glad of the worst bit of meat you provide for your - dog.’ When questioned as to who the lady was, and promising that - she should not want for anything, he declined telling, saying - that she was too proud to see anyone, and that besides he had - promised her secrecy. Mrs. Hunter begged him to provide her with - everything she required, &c., as if coming from himself, and she - would pay for it. This he did for some time, until she became very - ill, when he pressed her to see the lady who had been so kind to - her; and, upon hearing that her benefactress was not a person of - title, she consented, saw her, thanked her, and blessed her. - - -Shortly after this her infirmities increased, and ultimately she died -at Calais of water on the chest, on January 15, 1815. Dr. Pettigrew -gives no credence to the report of an anonymous foreign writer that she -had been converted to the Romish faith, and had received the sacrament -from a Romish priest as long before as during her confinement in the -King’s Bench. That she died, as the same anonymous author reported, in -the bosom of the Catholic Church, and received its sacraments on her -death-bed, can be as little confirmed. The Romish Church would have -buried a convert with willing ceremony: as it was, the method of the -sad solemnity was thus ordered for one who, even in death, remained, as -described by Mrs. Hunter, exceedingly beautiful:-- - - - Mrs. Hunter was anxious to have her interred according to English - custom, for which, however, she was only laughed at; and poor - Emma was put into a deal-box without any inscription. All that - this good lady states that she was permitted to do was to make a - kind of pall out of her black silk petticoat stitched on a white - curtain. Not an English Protestant clergyman was to be found in - all Calais or its vicinity; and, so distressed was this lady to - find some one to read the burial service over her remains, that - she went to an Irish half-pay officer in the Rue du Havre, whose - wife was a well-informed Irish lady. He was absent at the time; - but, being sent for, most kindly went and read the service over - the body. Lady Hamilton was buried in a piece of ground in a spot - just outside the town, formerly called the gardens of the Duchess - of Kingston, which had been consecrated and was used as a public - cemetery till 1816. The ground, which had neither wall nor fence - to protect it, was some years since converted into a timber-yard, - and no traces of the graves now remain. Mrs. Hunter wished to have - placed a head or foot-stone, but was refused. She, therefore, - placed a piece of wood in the shape, as she describes it to me, - of a battledore, handle downwards, on which was inscribed ‘Emma - Hamilton, England’s friend.’ This was speedily removed--another - placed and also removed; and the good lady at length threatened - to be shot by the sentinel if she persisted in those offices of - charity. A small tombstone was, however, afterwards placed there, - and was existing in 1833. - - -To the latter assertion we may remark that no tombstone was existing -there in the month of August of the latter year. We searched the field -very narrowly for the purpose, and found but one record of the decease -of an English sojourner. The grave itself was pointed out to us by a -Calaisian, but its locality was only traditionary. About nine pounds’ -worth of effects, twelve shillings in money, a few clothes, and some -duplicates of pawned plate were all that was left by the companion and -friend of queens. Little as it was, the Reverend Earl Nelson hastened -to Calais to claim it. He expected more, and in his cupidity wished to -take the pledged trinkets without paying the necessary expenses for -getting them out of pawn; he would not even discharge the few debts -incurred by her death. These were discharged by Mr. Cadogan, to whom -Horatia was entrusted (Mrs. Matcham, Nelson’s sister, receiving her -after Lady Hamilton’s decease), and to whom, as to Alderman Smith, the -forlorn creature was indebted for much aid ere death placed her beyond -the need of requiring it. - -This tale bears with it its own moral: retribution followed offence: -the commission of sin reaped its usual reward; the wanderer from -virtue was visited with terrible affliction; and the penalty awaited -not its commencement till the knell of the offender had summoned -her to judgment. Thus much man knows, but with thus much he has not -condescended to rest satisfied; and the sons of the seducers have been -eager to cast stones at her whom their fathers enticed to sin. In the -remembrance of her faults they make no account of her services, of her -suffering, or of her sorrows; they have no idea that, if there was -guilt, there might have been reconciliation, and that the dark season -of her long last agony might have been passed in - - - Owning her weakness, - Her evil behaviour, - And leaving with meekness, - Her sins to her Saviour. - - -No: man who bore part in the offence constituted himself the judge of -this poor daughter of frailty, and she met with such mercy at his hands -as man is accustomed to give. - -Do not let it be supposed that we are advocates or even apologists in -this case: our only anxiety is that, in the sacrifice of one, impunity -may not be gained by, perhaps, greater offenders. Let not the man who -flung her beauty and her virtue into ruin be allowed to escape. Her -sins were of man’s making: if these are to be remembered, let his share -in them form part of the example we are taught to avoid. By man she -was ruined in body and perilled in soul. Throughout the course of her -life she does not appear to have met with one who acted by her in a -spirit of Christian charity and anxiety: she was born with qualities -that should have led her heavenward: she was early pushed from the -path thither tending; nor amid all her royal, her noble, and alas! -her clerical companions, was there one who persuaded her that she was -erring--nay, but the contrary. The whole correspondence, now for the -first time divulged in these volumes, shows the wickedness of men -who could seduce to sin--their guilt in maintaining such terms with -her who had fallen as to make her feel assured that she had neither -incurred sin nor merited disgrace--and their baseness in making her in -her helplessness feel with double weight the penalty of a crime which -they had in the days of her greatness held to be none. Let us, indeed, -learn wisdom from a tale, the heroine of which does not afford the -sole example that is to be avoided; but be it also ours to remember -her services rather than her sins. The latter, with those of the first -seducer who made of her very charity a means to destroy her for ever, -may be left to Him who will render an unerring sentence when seducer -and victim are in presence together at the tribunal of truth. At all -events, let not the hardest blows of humanity fall on the weakest -offender. She would have been better but for man--that she was not much -worse was for no lack of energy on his part to make her so. - - - Who made the heart, ’tis He alone - Decidedly can try us: - He knows each chord, its various tone-- - Each spring, its various bias. - Then at the balance let’s be mute, - We never can adjust it. - What’s _done_ we partly can compute, - But know not what’s resisted. - - -FOOTNOTE: - -[2] Graham first appeared in London in 1782. He was a graduate of -Edinburgh, wrote in a bombastic style, and possessed a great fluency -of elocution. He opened in Pall Mall a mansion which he called the -‘Temple of Health.’ The front was ornamented with an enormous gilt -sun, a statue of Hygeia, &c. The rooms were superbly furnished, and -the decorations, mirrors, &c., gave to the whole the appearance of an -enchanted palace. Single admission to his lectures on health and the -birth of children cost two guineas--a sum readily given. The Goddess -of Health usually delivered a supplementary lecture when the doctor -concluded. When two guinea auditors were exhausted, his two gigantic -porters, decked in gorgeous liveries, deluged the town with bills -stating that the lectures would be delivered at one guinea each. The -descending scale ultimately reached half-a-crown, and at last he -exhibited the Temple of Health itself at one shilling per head. Its -chief attraction was a ‘celestial bed,’ with rich hangings and glass -legs. The quack promised such results from merely sleeping on this -enchanted couch that married persons of high rank and respectability -were known to have given one hundred pounds for the accommodation. -Persons more foolish still and as highly exalted were found who gave -him one thousand pounds for a supply of his ‘elixir of life.’ He -then, when dupes were not grown scarce, but required variety in the -means of imposition, took to the practice and public exhibition of -earth-bathing. He and his goddess stood an hour each day immersed to -the chin in earth, above which their heads appeared, dressed in the -extravagant fashion of the day. In this position he delivered a lecture -on the salubrity of the practice at sums for single admissions which -commenced at a guinea and ended at a shilling. When all London had -heard and seen him he made a provincial tour; but, in spite of his -elixir of life, he died at the early age of fifty-two; and, in spite -of the facility with which he gained money, he died in poverty. The -famous Mrs. Macaulay married his brother, and Dr. Arnold, of Leicester, -the author of an able treatise on insanity, married his sister. In the -profession of the most impudent quackery Dr. Graham has never been -equalled, either for impudence or the success which attended it. - - - - -_EDWARD WORTLEY MONTAGU._ - - -Lady Mary Pierrepont, when she wrote to Mr. Wortley touching the -death of his sister, said she had lost what she loved most, and could -thenceforth only love those who were nearest and dearest to her -departed friend. Out of this hint, it may be, came the marriage of Lady -Mary and Mr. Wortley. It seemed a disinterested match on both sides, -but it was not fruitful in happiness. Of this union were born a son and -daughter; the mother reserved all her love for the latter. - -The son was born in May 1713. Within two months from that date Lady -Mary had left her firstborn to mercenary, but perhaps efficient and -kindly care. In July she wrote to her husband, ‘I heard from your -little boy yesterday, who is in good health.’ In that phrase, so cold -in its unmotherly temper, may perhaps be found the cause why that -‘little boy’ became so wayward, and why he developed into a man so -wilful and so irreclaimable. In 1717 the boy was taken by his parents -to Constantinople, where Mr. Wortley acted, for a few months, as -English representative. On the return from this embassy, Lady Mary -tarried for a while at Belgrade. At that time the small-pox was a -deadly scourge in England. In Turkey it was less mortal. The infidel -Turk anticipated and modified the disease by inoculation. Lady Mary had -the courage to submit her child to the novel system of ‘engrafting,’ as -it was called. In a letter written at Belgrade in March 1718 she says: -‘The boy was engrafted last Tuesday, and is at this time singing and -playing, very impatient for his supper. I pray God my next may give as -good an account of him.’ For society at large the step which Lady Mary -took was most beneficial; but few mothers, however courageous, would -have had the heart, in a foreign land too, to suffer such an experiment -to be made on an only son, not yet five years of age. She had, however, -full confidence in the efficacy of the proceeding: and she remarked -that she would have imparted the matter to the doctors generally, only -that they were too selfish to sanction a course which would diminish -their incomes! - -In the following year commenced the daring escapades of this young -gentleman. In 1719 he became a Westminster Scholar. Within six months -he was missing from the school, and his friends had such knowledge -of his tastes that they searched for him in the lowest purlieus of -London. They sought for this mere child in vain; till after some time -a Mr. Foster and a servant of Mr. Wortley, being in the neighbourhood -of Blackwall, heard a boy crying ‘Fish!’ The voice was familiar, the -boy, on being seen, was recognised, and his master, a fisherman, to -whom the child--so it is said--had bound himself to help to sell the -fish which they had caught together, parted from him with a regret that -was felt on both sides. The truant was reinstated at school, if not at -home, but in a brief time the bird was flown and left no trace behind -him. A year or two, perhaps more, had elapsed when the Quaker captain -of a ship trading to Oporto, and the British consul in that city, were -looking at a young fellow driving some laden asses from the vineyards -through the city gates. The captain saw in the lad a sailor who had -come on board in the Thames, and run away from his ship on its arrival -at Oporto. He had gone up country and found employment, although he was -ignorant of the language. The consul knew him in his real personality, -and the adventurous hero was shipped for home, where he was kept not -so strictly as if the keepers would be sorry at his again escaping. -Edward Wortley took a convenient opportunity to do so, and when he was -next recognised he was acting diligently, as he had always done, this -time as a common sailor in the Mediterranean. There was the making -of a hero in this resolute boy, if he had only been allowed to follow -his inclinations. On the contrary, he was exiled to the West Indies, -with Foster to attend him as teacher and guardian. They spent several -years there; and the boy, who preferred to battle with and for life, -to spending it in ease and luxury, had nothing to do but to study -the classics, which he did, as he did most things, with energy and a -certain success. How he failed, or neglected to leave Foster in the -lurch, is not explained. Neither do we know anything of his actual life -after his return to England, for many years. Had he been left at sea, -Edward Wortley would probably have distinguished himself. As it was he -abused life, but only as other ‘young sparks’ did in England; and he -filled up the measure of his offences by marrying a handsome honest -laundress, older than himself, of whom he got tired in a few weeks. A -small annuity reconciled her to living comfortably by herself. After -this, all is dark, and we cannot come again upon the trail but by the -help of Lady Mary’s letters. - -There are few references made to her son by Lady Mary, except in -letters to her husband when she was living abroad, ranging from 1741 -to 1752. In a letter from Genoa, in 1741, she regrets having to bring -before her husband ‘so disagreeable a subject as our son.’ The son -was then anxious to procure a dissolution of his marriage with the -laundress, but the laundress was a decent woman, living a blameless -life, and she could defy Parliament to pass an Act annulling her -marriage, even if the father had been willing to help the son to such -purpose, which he was not. The mother was unmotherly severe on the son. -‘Time,’ she writes, ‘has no effect, and it’s impossible to convince him -of his true situation.’ The son then passed by an assumed name. The -name being mentioned to Lady Mary by a stranger, with reference to the -responsibility of the bearer of it, she replied, ‘the person was, to my -knowledge, not worth a groat, which was all I thought proper to say on -the subject.’ - -In 1742 this ‘fool of quality’ was now wandering, now tarrying on the -Continent, under the name of M. de Durand. In the June of that year -his mother encountered him, and passed two days with him at Valence, -an ancient city on the Rhone. In various letters to her husband, -she speaks of ‘our son’ as altered almost beyond recognition, with -beauty gone, a look of age not warranted by his years, and, though -submissive, with an increase of the old wildness in his eyes that -shocked her, as it suggested some fatal termination. He had grown fat, -but was still genteel and agreeably polite. She was charmed with his -fluently-expressed French, but she noted a general volubility, yet -without enthusiasm, of speech, which inconsiderate people took for -wit; and a weakness of understanding and of purpose, exposing him to be -led by more resolute spirits. ‘With his head,’ she says, ‘I believe it -is possible to make him a monk one day and a Turk three days after.’ -Flattering and insinuating, he caught the favour of strangers, ‘but,’ -says the not too-indulgent lady, ‘he began to talk to me in the usual -silly cant I have so often heard from him, which I shortened by telling -him I desired not to be troubled with it; and that the only thing that -could give me hopes of good conduct was regularity and truth.’ She -credited him with ‘a superficial universal knowledge,’ as the result of -what he had seen. His acquaintance with modern languages was undoubted, -but she did not believe that he knew Arabic and Hebrew. He promised to -proceed to Flanders, and there wait his father’s orders; adding, that -he would keep secret the interview with his mother; but M. de Durand -‘rode straight to Montélimart, where he told at the Assembly that he -came into this country purely on my orders ... talking much of my -kindness to him, and insinuating that he had another name, much more -considerable than that he appeared with.’ - -Edward Wortley was in England in the early part of the above year. -In the latter part he went to Holland, where he resided, a sort of -prisoner at large, by desire of his father, who allowed him a small -income on condition of submission to the paternal will. ‘I hear,’ wrote -Lady Mary, ‘he avoided coming near the sharpers, and is grown a good -manager of his money. I incline to think he will, for the future, avoid -thieves and other persons of good credit.’ When persons of really ‘good -credit’ spoke well of him, as Lord Carteret did, the mother rather -doubted than accepted the testimony. ‘Whenever,’ she wrote to her -husband, ‘he kept much company, it would be right to get him confined, -to prevent his going to the pillory or the gallows;’ and she described -his excuses for his conduct as ‘those of murderers and robbers!’ Young -Wortley was desirous of joining the army in Flanders; his mother -doubted his sincerity, and insisted that he should go as a volunteer. -If his father bought him a commission, she was sure it would be ‘pawned -or sold in a twelvemonth.’ Whether as volunteer or commissioned -officer, he did serve in Flanders. No news to grieve a parent’s heart -came thence; upon which circumstance Lady Mary wrote to her husband in -1744: ‘I think it is an ill sign you have had no letters from Sir John -Cope concerning him. I have no doubt he would be glad to commend his -conduct if there were any room for it;’ and she was inclined to blame -the father for over-indulgence to his son. She had no sympathy even for -the amiable weaknesses of the latter; and yet she was so sentimentally -affected by the tragedy of ‘George Barnwell,’ the rascal hero of which -murders his real uncle in order to gratify the rapacity of a harlot, -that she said, whoever could read the story or see the play without -crying, deserved to be hanged. - -Edward Wortley’s countrymen did not think so ill of Lady Mary’s son; -for in 1747 the electors of Huntingdonshire returned him, with Mr. -Coulson Fellowes, member for the county. He was a silent but highly -respectable member. In the year 1748 Mr. Wortley, the father, wrote -to his wife some pleasant news he had heard of their son. The mother -coldly replied, ‘I should be extremely pleased if I could depend on -Lord Sandwich’s account of our son. As I am wholly unacquainted with -him, I cannot judge how far he may be either deceived or interested.’ -This singular mother cultivated her antipathies rather than her -sympathies. The father seems to have considered his paternal duty was -discharged by, wisely perhaps, keeping his son on a small allowance. -The son lived as if he had already his inheritance in hand, and for a -year or two he found society in London quite to his mind. - -Among the ladies who figured on the Mall by day, who drew crowds around -them at Vauxhall by night, and who were never out of the ‘Scandalous -Chronicle’ of the period, was the ‘Pollard Ashe,’ as she was called. -This miniature beauty was in some measure a mysterious individual. She -was the daughter of a high personage, it was said, and such affinity -was all she had to boast of in the way of family. In the June of 1750, -Walpole thus wrote of her to George Montagu: - - - I had a card from Lady Caroline Petersham, to go with her to - Vauxhall. I went accordingly to her house, and found her and the - little Ashe ... they had just finished their last layer of red, - and looked as handsome as crimson could make them.... We issued - into the Mall to assemble our company, which was all the town.... - We mustered the Duke of Kingston, Lord March (the old Second - Duke of Queensbury of later years), Mr. Whitehead, a pretty Miss - Beauclerc, and a very foolish Miss Sparre.... We got into the best - order we could, and marched to our barge, with a boat of French - horns attending and little Ashe singing. We paraded some time up - the river, and at last debarked at Vauxhall.... A Mrs. Lloyd, - seeing the two girls following Lady Petersham and Miss Ashe, said - aloud, ‘Poor girls! I am sorry to see them in such bad company!’ - Miss Sparre, who desired nothing so much as the fun of seeing a - duel--a thing which, though she is fifteen, she has never been so - lucky to see--took due pains to make Lord March resent this ... - but he laughed her out of this charming frolic. Here we picked up - Lord Granby ... very drunk.... He would fain have made love to - Miss Beauclerc, who is very modest; and did not know what to do - at all with his whispers or his hands. He then addressed himself - to the Sparre, who was very well disposed to receive both.... At - last, we assembled in our booth, Lady Caroline in our front, - with the vizor of her hat erect, and looking gloriously jolly - and handsome.... We turned some chicken into a china dish, which - Lady Caroline stewed over a lamp, with three pats of butter and a - flagon of water, stirring, and rattling, and laughing, and were - every minute expecting to have the dish fly about our ears.... - The whole air of our party was sufficient to take up the whole - attention of the garden.... It was three o’clock before we got - home. - - -Very early in the year 1751 our hero made love to Miss Ashe, and at the -same time appeared in public as the first ‘macaroni’ of the day, but -with science and philosophy enough to render him worthy of being taken -into brotherhood by the Royal Society. On February 9, 1751, Walpole -writes: - - - Our greatest miracle is Lady Mary Wortley’s son, whose adventures - have made so much noise; his parts are not proportionate, but his - expense is incredible. His father scarce allows him anything; yet - he plays, dresses, diamonds himself, even to distinct shoe-buckles - for a frock, and has more snuff-boxes than would suffice a Chinese - idol with a hundred noses. But the most curious part of his dress, - which he has brought from Paris, is an iron wig; you literally - would not know it from hair; I believe it is on this account that - the Royal Society have just chosen him of their body. - - -His father, however, made no complaint of his son in his letters to his -wife. The anxious mother invariably concluded that when nothing was -said there was something to be dreaded. Accordingly, in a letter to -her husband, dated May 1751, Lady Mary writes: - -(May 24, 1751.) ‘I can no longer resist the desire I have to know what -is become of my son. I have long suppressed it, from a belief that, -if there was anything good to be told, you would not fail to give me -the pleasure of hearing it. I find it now grows so much upon me, that -whatever I am to know, I think it would be easier for me to support -than the anxiety I suffer from my doubts. I beg to be informed, and -prepare myself for the worst with all the philosophy I have.’ - -Her son was not in such a desperate condition as his mother supposed. -The new Fellow of the Royal Society was simply making love to ‘the -Pollard Ashe.’ In the summer of this year, 1751, Vauxhall and the -Mall missed her; but the world knew very well whither she had wended, -and with whom. In September 1751 Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu wrote to -her husband: ‘Young Wortley is gone to France with Miss Ashe. He is -certainly a gentleman of infinite vivacity; but methinks he might as -well have deferred this exploit till the death of his father.’ Walpole -wrote to Mann that ‘Wortley, who, you know, has been a perfect Gil -Blas, is thought to have added the famous Miss Ashe to the number of -his wives.’ - -While London was busy with the story of the elopement of Miss Ashe -with Edward Wortley Montagu, and this rather airy couple were on -their amorous way to Paris, there was a young Mr. Roberts, not yet -quite twenty-one years of age, sojourning at the _Hôtel d’Orléans_ in -that city, with a Miss Rose for a companion, Miss Rose’s sister for a -friend, and various servants to wait on all three. Roberts lived like -a _milor_, and he gave out that he was about to make the grand tour to -Italy and back. Montagu’s quarters were at the _Hôtel de Saxe_. Roberts -was a stranger to him, but Montagu not only called upon the wealthy -traveller, on September 23, but sent him an invitation to dinner. The -company consisted of Roberts, Lord Southwell, Mr. Taafe, M.P., and -Montagu, who was also a member of the House of Commons. After coffee -the party adjourned to Montagu’s room. Taafe produced dice and proposed -play. Roberts declined, on the ground of being without money; but this -and other pleas were overruled, and, ‘flustered with wine,’ which he -said he had been made to drink, he sat down to tempt fortune. Fortune -used this gambler ill; when he rose to return to his hotel he had lost -870 louis d’ors--400 to Taafe, 350 to Southwell, and 120 to Montagu. -Taafe speedily demanded the amount he had won, and not finding it -forthcoming the British legislator, with Lord Southwell, broke into -his room about midnight, and under dreadful threats, made with swords -drawn, compelled him to give drafts for the entire sum. The crafty -Roberts, however, drew upon bankers with whom he had no effects; and, -probably that he might be out of reach of arrest till he could give an -explanation, he hurriedly set off for Lyons. - -The bird had just flown when the three more fortunate gamblers, their -drafts having been dishonoured, forcibly entered Roberts’s rooms and -rifled them of everything valuable--a large sum in gold and silver, a -very valuable assortment of jewellery and precious stones, and the two -Miss Roses. There was 40,000 livres’ worth in all, not including the -sisters. One of these ladies consented with alacrity to accompany Mr. -Taafe, with his other booty, to his quarters at the _Hôtel de Pérou_. -The sister went thither also, for society’s sake, and after a three -days’ sojourn Taafe kissed their hands and sent them to England under -the guardianship of another gentleman. - -Perfect tranquillity prevailed among those who remained in Paris, but -on Sunday night, October 25, just before one o’clock, as Montagu was -stepping into bed with, as he says, ‘that security that ought to attend -innocence,’ a commissary of police, backed by an armed force, entered -his room, and, despite all protest, carried him off to the Châtelet. -Before they locked him up for the night, the gaolers would scarcely -utter a word save a rough one, and he could not get even a cup of -water. The night was cold, and a small bit of candle enabled him the -better to see the horrors of his cell. ‘The walls were scrawled over,’ -he says in the memoir he published, ‘with the vows and prayers of the -vilest malefactors before they went to the axe or the gibbet.’ Under -one of the inscriptions were the words: ‘These verses were written by -the priest who was hanged and burned, in the year 1717, for stealing a -chalice of the Holy Sacrament.’ - -On November 2 the charge made by Roberts--namely, that Montagu’s party -had made him half drunk, the better to cheat him at dice, and had -subsequently plundered his rooms--was made known to him. ‘I answered,’ -he says, ‘in a manner that ought to have cleared my own innocence, and -to have covered my antagonist with confusion.’ But he was remanded -to prison. Some amelioration of his condition was permitted, and he -was allowed to be visited. Consequently it was the fashion to go and -look at him, but the solaces of his friends could not compensate for -the cruel wit, jeers, and sarcasms cast at him by curious strangers. -Influential persons interested themselves in this notorious case. The -English ambassador interfered with effect. The king, on being moved, -replied that he could not meddle in a private case; but a king can do -many things without appearing to meddle. The charge was again looked -into, and the method of examination may be seen in the result. The -sentence of the court, delivered on January 25, 1752, was to the -effect that the accused be discharged; that Roberts be compelled to -confess the accusation to be false, also to pay 20,000 livres damages -to Montagu and Taafe; and pay all the costs of suit on both sides, -including the expense of publishing the judgment. - -As soon as Montagu was free, he published a memoir, explanatory and -defensive. It was not so much a denial as an evasion. It was made up of -assertions that he had ‘never deviated from the sentiments and conduct -of a man of honour;’ that regard ought to be had to ‘the probability -of the charges, the rank of the accused, and the character of the -prosecutor;’ that he was of ‘distinguished condition,’ and that his -accuser was infamous in character and inconsistent in his evidence; -that Lord Albemarle, the English ambassador, had told him that he was -as convinced of his innocence as he was of his own. Montagu protested -that the whole thing was a conspiracy ‘against his Honour and Person,’ -at the head of which was the so-called Roberts, whom he had discovered -to be a fraudulent bankrupt Jew, Payba by name, who had fled from -England to avoid the gallows. Montagu acknowledged that he had invited -this ‘infamous bankrupt’ to dinner, but that, instead of winning 120 -louis d’ors of him, he had formerly lent that sum to the Jew, who had -‘trumped up this story in order to evade payment.’ He had made the -first call on the _soi-disant_ Mr. Roberts, taking him for a man of -fashion, and it was the custom for the last comer to make such calls -in his neighbourhood, and not to wait to be called upon; and the visit -having been returned the invitation to dinner naturally followed. As -to playing after dinner, Montagu does not deny it; but he says that -the imputation of playing with loaded dice filled him with horror. The -conclusion of the so-named defence is that, as the judgment of the -court was so completely in favour of Montagu and Taafe, the innocence -of those two gentlemen was perfectly established. - -Before we see if this was exactly the case, let us see what was thought -of the affair in England. The public press barely alluded to the -scandal, and were not at all grieved at the locking up of a couple of -British senators in a French prison. Private individuals noticed the -scandal in their letters. - -In October 1751, Mrs. Montagu wrote to Gilbert West some details of -the gambling affair and its consequences. She described the offence -of Montagu and Taafe as ‘playing with a Jew at Pharaoh, with too much -_finesse_.’ - - - _Finesse_ (she adds) is a pretty improvement in modern life and - modern language. It is something people may do without being - hanged, and speak of without being challenged. It is a point just - beyond fair skill and just short of downright knavery; but as the - medium is ever hard to hit, the very professors of finesse do - sometimes deviate into paths that lead to prisons and the galleys, - and such is the case of those unhappy heroes. The Speaker of the - House of Commons will be grieved to see two illustrious senators - chained at the ignoble oar. The King of France has been applied - to, but says he does not interpose in private matters. So how it - will go with them no one can tell. In the meantime, poor Miss Ashe - weeps like the forsaken Ariadne on a foreign shore. - - -The conduct of Edward Wortley in England was noticed by his father, in -a letter to Lady Mary, who, replying to it in a letter from Louveres -(November 10, 1751), when the Paris scandal was known, says:--‘I will -not make any reflections on the conduct of the person you mention; ’tis -a subject too melancholy to us both. I am of opinion that tallying at -bassette is a certain revenue (even without cheating) to those who -can get constant punters and are able to submit to the drudgery of -it; but I never knew any one pursue it long and preserve a tolerable -reputation.’ Therewith, the mother dismissed further notice of her -wayward son to talk of an old woman at the baths of Louveres, who -in her hundredth year had recovered sight, teeth, and hair, and who -had died ten years later, not of age, but of tumbling down a stone -staircase; something like the apocryphal Countess of Desmond:-- - - - Who lived to the age of a hundred and ten, - And died of a fall from a cherry-tree then. - - -Even after the son had escaped the galleys, the mother made no -references to the circumstance in a letter to her daughter, the -Countess of Bute (February 1752), but was full of ‘Peregrine Pickle’ -and of the rather lively sayings and doings of Lady Vane. - -As the maternal susceptibilities were not much ruffled, the sympathy -of the public was not to be expected. We learn more from Walpole than -from Lady Mary. In November 1751, Walpole, writing to Mann, remarks -that all the letters from Paris were very ‘cautious of relating the -circumstances.’ He styles Montagu and Taafe as the ‘two _gentlemen_ -who were pharaoh-bankers to Madame de Mirepoix’ in England, and ‘who -had travelled to France to exercise the same profession.’ Walpole -adds that they had ‘been released on excessive bail, are still to -be tried, and may be sent to the galleys or dismissed home, where -they will be reduced to keep the best company; for,’ says Walpole, -‘I suppose nobody else will converse with them.’ The letter-writer -describes Montagu as having been a ‘perfect Gil Blas,’ and as having -added ‘the famous Miss Ashe to the number of his wives.’ Walpole says -of Taafe, ‘He is an Irishman, who changed his religion to fight a -duel, as you know in Ireland a Catholic may not wear a sword.’ But as -Taafe was M.P. for Arundel when Catholics could not sit in Parliament, -it is quite as probable that Taafe changed, or professed to change, -his religion--if he had any religion--that he might become a borough -member. ‘He is,’ writes Walpole, ‘a gamester, usurer, adventurer, -and of late has divided his attentions between the Duke of Newcastle -and Madame de Pompadour; travelling with turtles and pineapples in -post-chaises to the latter, flying back to the former for Lewes races -and smuggling burgundy at the same time.’ The Speaker was railing at -gaming and White’s apropos to these two prisoners. Lord Coke, to whom -the conversation was addressed, replied: ‘Sir, all I can say is, that -they are both members of the House of Commons, and neither of them of -White’s.’ - -While ‘society’ was discussing this matter, Miss Ashe reappeared in -England and reassumed her former distinguished position. In December -1751, the town witnessed the happy reconciliation of Miss Ashe with -the gay Lady Petersham, who had been offended at the indiscretion of -the younger nymph. Lady Petersham’s principles were very elastic: -she pardoned the Pollard Ashe on her own assurances that she was ‘as -good as married’ to Mr. Wortley Montagu, who, according to Lord -Chesterfield, seemed ‘so puzzled between the _châtelet_ in France and -his wife in England, that it is not yet known in favour of which he -will determine.’ - -Soon after Lord Chesterfield’s flying comment on the Ariadne who had -really abandoned her Theseus, ‘society’ received her to its arms as -readily as Lady Petersham. The example of both was followed by one -individual. A certain naval officer, named Falconer, made an honest -woman of the Pollard Ashe; and with this marriage ends our interest in -one of the many ‘wives’ of the English Gil Blas. - -If some surprise was raised by the judgment given in favour of Montagu -and Taafe, none need exist at present. The two gentlemen who were such -useful friends at the pharaoh tables of Madame de Mirepoix, the French -ambassadress in England, and one of whom supplied Madame de Pompadour, -the French King’s mistress, with turtle and pineapples, could dispense -with the good offices of Louis the Fifteenth, or perhaps obtained them -through the mistress and the ambassadress. But Abraham Payba, _alias_ -James Roberts, possessed as influential friends as Taafe and Montagu. -Payba appealed against the judgment, his appeal was successful, and -the two English members of Parliament stood very much in danger of the -galleys. In their turn, however, they appealed against the legality of -quashing the judgment given in their favour. The question came once or -twice before the courts, and then it ceased to be argued. It would seem -as if powerful friends on both sides had interfered. Each party could -claim a decision in its favour and could boast of honour being saved, -but the public feeling was that they were all rogues alike. - -After the lapse of a few years, Wortley Montagu came into the -possession of a fixed income by the death of his father in 1755. He had -sold a reversion of 800_l._ a-year. His father now left him an annuity -of 1,000_l._ The disgrace of the Paris adventure was not altogether -forgotten, but Taafe was in favour at Versailles (by what lucky chance -nobody could tell), and Montagu, after a few years of pleasure, took to -better ways than of old. There seems to have come over the half-outcast -a determination to show the better side of his nature and his ability. -In 1759, he published his ‘Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the -Ancient Republics; adapted to the present State of Great Britain.’ In -this work--an able and spirited review of the republics of Greece, -Rome, and Carthage--the author probably stated his own idea of religion -in the words, ‘To search out and adore the Creator in all his works is -our primary duty, and claims the first place in every rational mind.’ -Two years subsequent to the publication of this most creditable work, -certain Cornish men thought that Edward Wortley would be their most -fitting representative. In 1761, he was elected member for the borough -of Bossiney. But he was weary of England and the legislature, and he -resolved to leave both for ever. - -Before Mr. Montagu left England ‘for good’ in 1762, he made necessary -preparations for at least a long residence abroad. Among those -preparations the most curious may be said to be indicated in the -following copy of a bill of articles purchased at an optician’s. -Moses’s gross of green spectacles sinks into insignificance by the side -of the assortment of spectacles, reading-glasses, pocket telescopes, -&c., with which Mr. Montagu provided himself to meet the exigencies of -foreign travel. The bill is now in the possession of Lord Wharncliffe, -as are some of the articles enumerated. I am greatly indebted to -his lordship for a sight of both, and to the prompt courtesy of his -permission to copy and reproduce this very singular bill. - - -‘EDWD. WORTLEY MONTAGU, Esq. _Dr._ to G. ADAMS. - -1761 £ _s._ _d._ -_Dec. 23_ Six Ellis’s Microscopes at £2, in the Box - marked A 12 1 0 - -- 12 Reading Glasses, in horn boxes, at 4_s._ - each, in the Box marked B. 2 8 0 - -- 24 Reading Glasses, Ruff Shell and Silver, - at 18/_s._ in the Box C 22 16 0? - -- The large Reading glass in Ruff Shell and Silver, - in the Box C 2 2 0 - -- 12 Concave glasses in Ruff Shell and Silver, - at 9/_s._ in the Box C 5 8 0 - -- A Silver case inlaid with pearl 2 2 0 - With a pair of Silver Temple Spectacles, in - the Box C 0 13 0 - -- 12 Pockett Tellescopes, Nurse Cases, 4 - glasses mounted in Brass, at 16/_s._, in the - Box D 9 12 0 - -- 24 Dozen of Concaves in horn boxes, at 18/_s._ - per Dozn, in the Box E 21 12 0 - -- 10 Dozn of Steel Temple Spectacles, at 2/_s._ - each, in the Box F 12 0 0 - -- 10 Dozn of paper cases to Do, at 4/_s._ per - Doz., in the Box G 2 0 0 - -- 6 pair of the Best Steel Temple Spectacles, - in Black Fish Cases, at 7/_s._, in the Box H 2 2 0 - -- 6 pair Do, in Nurse Cases, at 7/13 = 20/_s._, - in the Box H 6 0 0 - -- Six pair of Silver Temple Spectacles, in best - Nurse Cases, at 13/16 = 29/_s._, in the Box - marked H 8 16 0 - -- Six pair Steel Temple Spec., at 2/_s._ 0 12 0 - -- Six paper cases to Do, Box H 0 2 0 - -- 12 Camp Tellescopes, at 16/_s._ in the Box - marked K 9 12 0 - -- 6 Two foot Achromatic Tellescopes, at £2, - in the Box L 12 0 0 - -- 12 Ring Dials, at 10/6, in the Box M 6 6 0 - -- 2 12-inch Reflecting Tellescopes 9 9 0 - -- Six metallic Cones, with Six Setts of - Deformed pictures, at £2 2 0, in the Box N 12 12 0 - -- Six pair of goglars, Box 1 10 0 - -- 12 Reading glasses, in Mahogany frames - with handles, in the Box marked, - at 14/_s._ 8 8 0 - -- 12 Leather purses to Do 0 4 0 - 6 Treble Magnifiers, in Ruff Shell and - Silver, at 25/s., in the Box marked H 7 10 0 - -- 24 Black Skin prospects, at 1/6 1 16 0 - -- 24 Do, at 2/_s._ 2 8 0 - -- Two thermometers to Boiling Water 3 0 0 - -- Two Brass Box Steering Compasses, with - Muscovy Tale Cards, 11 Inch. 1 10 0 - -- One Do, 10 Inches 0 13 6 - -------------- - 187 1 6 - -- 14 Small Deal Boxes 0 12 0 - -- 2 Strong Packing Cases 0 14 0 - -------------- - 188 7 6 - - ‘_Dec. 30, 1761._ Recd of Edwd Wortley Montagu, Esq., the full - contents of this Bill and all Demands. - - J. GEO. ADAMS & CO.’ - - -The bill being duly discharged, Edward Wortley took, as it proved, a -final farewell of England. But his friends there soon heard of his -whereabout. He proved that he was not a mere ignorant traveller, by -addressing to the Earl of Macclesfield two letters on an ancient bust -at Turin, the quality of which is warranted by the fact that they were -thought of sufficient importance to be read before the Royal Society. -Wortley Montagu was in a fair way to be a votary of science, but he -might have said with Southwell, - - - Tho’ Wisdom woo me to the saint, - Yet Sense would win me to the shrine. - - -He had some reason, perhaps, to feel careless and embittered, for in -this year, 1762, his mother died, showing her cruel contempt for him -by leaving him a guinea, which he gave to Mr. Davison, a friend and -companion in his wayfaring. It was from his mother, said Mrs. Piozzi, -that the ‘learned’ and accomplished Edward Wortley Montagu inherited -all his ‘tastes and talents for sensual delights.’ - -In the same year, 1762, the English consul at Alexandria was a -Scandinavian, a native either of Denmark or Sweden, named Feroe. His -wife was a beautiful young woman, born at Leghorn in 1741. Her father -(sometimes said to be an innkeeper) was English, or of English descent. -His name was Dormer, the name of a family that had once given a duchess -to one of the Italian states, and that has given a line of barons to -the English peerage since the year 1615 to the present day. The mother -of the lady in question was an Italian; her maiden name was Maria -Sciale. There were several children of this marriage, but we have only -to notice the beautiful Caroline Dormer, who married Consul Feroe, of -Alexandria. This Caroline is said to have been as much distinguished -for her virtue as for her beauty. The Dormer family record (in Lord -Wharncliffe’s possession), in which this double distinction is -chronicled, perhaps, ‘doth protest too much’ with respect to the -virtue, as that quality would now be understood; but of this the reader -may judge for himself. - -The consul and his wife were happily settled at Alexandria, when -Wortley Montagu was sojourning in that city. Her beauty, as the -Scripture phrase expresses it, took his mind prisoner. The object -he had in view--that of carrying her off from her husband--seemed -unattainable; but Montagu did not allow himself to be deterred by -difficulties, and he found a way to surmount them. It was the way of -a very unscrupulous man, but he had few scruples in compassing any -end. He appeared as the friend of the family. He made no advances -to the lady, but he manifested great interest in the welfare of her -husband. Egypt was too dull a place for a man of such abilities. -Montagu succeeded in inducing Feroe to leave it for a while on some -pretended mission to Europe, which was to prove very lucrative to -the poor consul, who took men and things for what they seemed to -be. After Feroe’s departure there came news of his sudden illness. -A little additional time elapsed, and then came intelligence of his -death. The decease of the consul in Holland was officially attested, -and in 1763 Montagu presented the mournful document to the beautiful -young widow. After she had made herself mistress of its contents, -and saw herself left alone in a strange land, he took pity on her -exquisite grief, made love to her at once, and proposed a remedy for -her loneliness by her taking him for husband. The fair young widow was -not hard to woo. She did not indeed yield at once. She suggested some -becoming objections. She, a Roman Catholic, had erred, she thought, in -marrying Mr. Feroe, who was a Protestant. She could not bring herself -to repeat the error, but she intimated that she might be won if her -handsome lover would turn from his heretical ways and become a true -son of the true church. As nothing more than this trifle stood as an -obstacle to his success, Montagu resolved to become Roman Catholic. -Perhaps he reflected long enough on the matter to persuade himself -that he had a true call to that church. At all events, he professed -to be somewhat divinely driven. He repaired to Jerusalem, and made -his profession at the fountain-head of Christianity. In October 1764 -Montagu presented himself in the Holy City to Father Paul, prefect of -the missions in Egypt and Cyprus. The traveller said that he had come -to Jerusalem rather out of curiosity than devotion, but that the hand -of God had fallen upon him. From his youth up, he stated (truly enough) -that he had been the dupe of the devil. He made the statement with -manifestations of grief, especially as he had obstinately resisted the -impulses of the Holy Spirit, for which he now expressed penitence and -humbly sought pardon. Father Paul gave heed to the repentant sinner’s -statement, and finding him cleansed from all heretical depravity, -freed him from all pains and penalties decreed by the church against -heretics, gave him plenary absolution, and received him into communion -with Rome. Father Paul thought much of his convert, whom he styles, in -the official certificate of Montagu’s conversion, ‘Dominus Comes de -Montagu’ (as every Englishman abroad in those days used to be called -‘mi lord,’) and the good father bids all the faithful to refrain from -snubbing the convert, but on the contrary, to rejoice and be merry over -him, as they would be over the unexpected finding of a treasure. A copy -of the original document, which still sparkles with the silver dust -showered over the finely written Italian letters, was printed in ‘Notes -and Queries,’ January 4, 1873. - -There is no reason to doubt that soon after this act was accomplished -Mr. Wortley Montagu and Madame Feroe _née_ Dormer, were duly married. -Their conjugal felicity, however, was slightly disturbed by the -reappearance of the consul Feroe, who very naturally expressed the -greatest surprise at the household arrangements which had taken place -in his absence, and he laid claim to his beautiful wife. The Catholic -lady was persuaded that her first marriage with the Protestant consul -was null and void, the validity of such a union not being recognised -by her church. At the same time she looked with some doubt, or she -affected so to look, on the contract with her second husband. Appeal -was made to the law tribunals of Tuscany, and pending the appeal, -the wife of two husbands retired to a religious house at Antoura, -in Syria. Montagu solaced himself with travel: he possibly knew that -Italian judges were tardy in coming to conclusions. Whither he wended -is quite easy to tell, for in 1765 Mr. Montagu was encountered at -Venice. Mr. Sharp, in his Letters from Italy, has one dated Venice, -September 1765, in which he gives the following account: - - - One of the most curious sights we saw among these curiosities, - was the famous Mr. Montagu, who was performing quarantine at - the Lazaretto. All the English made a point of paying him their - compliments in that place, and he seemed not a little pleased with - their attention. It may be supposed that visitors are not suffered - to approach the person of any who is performing quarantine. They - are divided by a passage of about seven or eight feet wide. - Mr. Montagu was just arrived from the East; he had travelled - through the Holy Land, Egypt, Armenia, &c., with the Old and New - Testaments in his hands for his direction, which, he told us, - had proved unerring guides. He had particularly taken the road - of the Israelites through the Wilderness, and had observed that - part of the Red Sea which they had passed through. He had visited - Mount Sinai, and flattered himself he had been on the very part - of the rock where Moses spake face to face with God Almighty. His - beard reached down to his breast, being of two years and a half - growth; and the dress of his head was Armenian. He was in the most - enthusiastic raptures with Arabia and the Arabs. Like theirs, - his bed was the ground, his food rice, his beverage, water, his - luxury, a pipe and coffee. His purpose was to return once more - among that virtuous people, whose morals and hospitality, he - said, were such, that were you to drop your cloak in the highway, - you would find it there six months afterwards, an Arab being too - honest a man to pick up what he knows belongs to another; and, - were you to offer money for the provision you meet with, he would - ask you, with concern, why you had so mean an opinion of his - benevolence, to suppose him capable of accepting a gratification. - ‘Therefore, money,’ said he, ‘in that country, is of very little - use, as it is only necessary for the purchase of garments, which, - in so warm a climate, are very few and of very little value.’ He - distinguishes, however, between the wild and the civilised Arab, - and proposes to publish an account of all that I have written. - - -In 1765, Wortley Montagu (while sojourning at Pisa), wrote his -well-known account of his journey to ‘The Written Mountains’ in the -East. It is a clever and modest record; his conclusion being that -the rock inscriptions were undecipherable, and probably would not, -if interpreted, be worth the outlay of means. This account was read -before the Royal Society. In March 1766 he was still at Pisa, whence -he wrote to M. Varsy, a merchant from Marseilles, established at -Rosetta, and married to a sister of Mrs. Feroe, or Mrs. Montagu, as -the Tuscan judges might decide. The letter in French (now, with others -quoted below, in Lord Wharncliffe’s possession,) contains the following -personal matter:-- - - - ... On my way back I shall go through Alexandria and Rosetta to - see you, and also to see whether I cannot establish myself at - Rosetta rather than in Syria. As my father-in-law sets out for - Syria next week, I shall not be obliged to take the shortest road; - my wife will be at ease, and I shall have at least time to assure - you how charmed I shall be to find opportunities of testifying to - you my gratitude, and of renewing our old and dear friendship--a - friendship which will always be dear to me, and with which I shall - never cease to be, &c., &c. - - D. MONTAIGU. - - -I have before me the original ‘dispensation,’ to enable him to -neglect keeping Lent in the usual abstinent way. That he should take -the trouble to procure such a power would seem to be warrant for a -sincerity for which we can hardly credit him. It is dated ‘March 6, -1767,’ and he is styled ‘Excellentissimus Dominus Eduardus de Comitibus -Montagu.’ Meanwhile the question of the marriage was still undecided. -The ecclesiastical and civil judges were perhaps not long in forming, -but they were very slow in delivering judgment. Mrs. Montagu, however, -or ‘the Countess,’ as she was sometimes called, seems to have formed a -judgment of her own; or, at all events, to have accepted that of her -second husband. They lived together at Smyrna, where for two years both -applied themselves to the study of Turkish, in which language, as in -others of the East, Montagu became a proficient scholar. On New Year’s -day, 1769, he addressed a joyous letter to his brother-in-law Varsy. -The Tuscan and the Roman tribunals had at length pronounced on the -great question. The rich and orthodox second husband was declared to -be the legal possessor of the lady, and her previous marriage with the -poor heretical consul was decreed to be no marriage at all. - - - You cannot imagine, thus runs the letter, the great joy I feel at - being able to tell you that Mr. Feroe has the final decree of the - Court of the Nuncio at Florence. Accordingly, as Madame is already - here (Smyrna), we reckon on being as soon as possible at Rosetta. - But prudence requires that we should first write to you to beg you - to find us a suitable house. That in which we were before would - be good enough, but I think and fear that the consul may have it. - Without the servants, there are myself, my wife, and her father - (_monsieur son père_). We live more in the Turkish fashion than - ever. Accordingly, the women’s apartments must be comfortable - and convenient for the _salamlike_ (_sic_), and there must be a - chamber for my father-in-law. You know what is necessary. The - quarter in which we live must be free from disturbance, from - plague, and from robbers. Have the kindness to inform me if - the country is tranquil, and if you believe that there is no - danger from the government; for here no end of stories is being - circulated. Write by the first ship. Be convinced of the constant - friendship with which I am, my very dear friend, entirely yours, - - D. MONTAIGU. - - -There seems to have been some obstruction to impede the desired -settlement in Egypt. In a letter, dated ‘Antoura’ (Syria), ‘January, -1771,’ there is the following passage:-- - - - Many accidents have prevented me from following my design and my - inclination for Rosetta; and indeed it seems more prudent to wait - till the government (in Egypt) is authorised (_affirmé_) by the - consent of the Ottoman Porte, before we establish ourselves in - Egypt. However, here I am nearer to you, and I shall not fail to - follow my first plan as soon as circumstances will allow. Madame - thanks you for your _souvenir_, and sends many compliments. Keep - yourself well, continue to love me, and be assured of the constant - and perfect friendship of your very humble servant, - - CHEV. DE MONTAIGU. - - -It may be mentioned by the way, that Wortley Montagu reckoned among -his friends men not at all likely to entertain respect for worthless -individuals. ‘My learned friend, the Bishop of Ossory,’ is a phrase -which bears one of these indications. It was written at Cairo. -Meanwhile, here is another characteristic note from Cyprus. The writer -speaks of his wife, as if the laundress of old no longer existed. - - - À. M. JOSEPH VARSY, négociant français, à Rosette. - - Chipre, 24 juin 1771. - - MONSIEUR,--Enfin, mon très-cher ami, je touche au moment de vous - embrasser. Cette lettre vous sera envoyée d’Alexandrie par ma - femme, qui va à Rosette avec M. son père et Mademoiselle sa sœur. - Je vous supplie de leur procurer ou une maison commode, ou un - appartement suffisant dans l’oquel (?), où ils attendront jusqu’à - ce que je leur écrive du Caire, où je vais par voie de Damiette. - - CHEV. DE MONTAIGU. - - -In July, he writes thus from Damietta:-- - - - À M. JOSEPH VARSY, négociant français, à Rosette. - - Damiette, 14 juillet 1771. - - Me voici, mon tres-chèr ami, arrivé proche de vous; aussi je me - flatte que dans peu j’aurai l’honneur de vous embrasser. Ma femme - doit être arrivée à Alexandrie, et elle m’attendra à Rosette. Ayez - la bonté de lui faire avoir un appartement, ou deux, s’il le faut, - et de l’assister en ce dont elle aura besoin pour la maison. Je - crois être assez assuré de votre amitié pour être persuadé que - vous ne me refuserez pas ce service. Je vous écrirai du Caire le - moment que j’arriverai. En attendant soyez assuré que je serai - toujours, comme vous m’avez toujours connu, - - Votre très-humble serviteur et véritable ami, - - CHEV. DE MONTAIGU. - - -Five days later, he acknowledges, from Alexandria, the arrival of -a box of pipes, from Constantinople. Soon after, the Egyptian home -was established. It was on a thoroughly Eastern footing, and the two -chief inmates seem to have devoted themselves to the study of Eastern -languages and literature. But in August 1772 the home seems to have -been abandoned by Montagu. There was a report that he had embraced -Mohammedanism, in order to visit Mecca in safety, and that his wife -having refused to follow his example, or to recognise a negro boy who -was with him as his heir, he separated from her. The following note -shows that he was again roaming, but also that he was careful for his -wife’s comforts and on friendly terms with her family. - - - (À VARSY.) - - Alexandrette, août 4, 1772. - - Nous voici, mon très-cher ami, après une heureuse navigation de - trois jours, arrivés à Alexandrette. C’est un village précisément - comme Tor. Nous y avons trouvé des chevaux et un domestique de M. - Belleville. Ainsi, nous partons ce soir pour Aleppe, sans attendre - l’escorte. Les gens que l’on dit obsèdent le chemin ne sont que - cinq ou six; et nous sommes trois, bien armés, sans compter M. - Belleville: ainsi nous n’avons rien à craindre. Il n’y a pas - de peste, ni rien de semblable. Le Pacha est à Aleppe et non à - Damas; assez loin de votre maison. Je vous prie d’avoir toutes les - attentions que vous pouvez pour ma femme. Mes complemens à ce que - vous avez de plus cher. M. Raymond vous enverra ... une pellisse - neuve; il vous en dira aussi le prix; si ma femme la trouve belle - et le prix honnête elle la prendra, et M. Raymond vous la passera - avec compte; si non, vous en disposerez selon les ordres de M. R. - Adieu. Je monte à cheval. - - -Similar notes tell of his progress, of certain inconveniences from -being too long in the saddle, exposed to the sun; and in the autumn, of -his approaching return home. In September he writes to Varsy: - - - I am well persuaded of the care you take of our house, and I - beg you to hurry on the workmen, and that everything be done - absolutely in accordance with my wife’s inclinations. Let the men - put up the paper as she orders it, but let no one touch my room - below, unless he can paint it perfectly in the Arab fashion. - - -After expressing surprise that Mohammed Kiaja, a supposed friend, is -intriguing against him, and stating that if his return to Rosetta -should create any difficulties or perils, it would be better to have -them smoothed away while he is at a distance, he writes: - - - ... J’ai dépensé ici 800 piastres; il est vrai que je les ai - dépensés en des choses qui valent plus chez nous, et quand les - dames auront pris ce qui les accommode, nous ferons faire de - l’argent du reste; mais en attendant cela vous incommode; il faut - en ce cas-là prendre de l’argent à intérêt pour mon compte, et - disant que c’est pour moi pour ne pas prodiguer mon nom. Quand la - cuisine est finie, il faut blanchir toute l’ancienne cuisine et - autres endroits qui sont sur son niveau.... - - -In a letter from Latackia, October 1, 1772, he speaks of projects -promising great results; ‘broad rivers’ (he says) ‘are the sum of -narrow streams.’ In a still later letter the project seems to refer to -pearls and rich stuffs. The letter concludes thus: - - - Je vous prie de me faire faire, par Schieck Ali, un catalogue de - tous mes livres arabes, turcs, et persans, qui sont manuscrits, et - qu’il mette vis-à-vis de chacun le prix suivant qu’il les estime. - - -This indicates an approaching break up. The cause of it does not -appear, except as far as can be made out in a letter from - - - Alexandrie, 13 oct. 1772. - - ... Je vois que M. Dormer veut rester à Rosette, et en ce cas je - n’y resterai pas. J’ai dit autant à Madame, pour lui donner le - tems de se retirer à Alexandrie avant mon arrivée. Je coucherai - demain à Raimhé; dimanche à Aboukir, lundi à Etikon, et mardi, - s’il plaît à Dieu, je serai à Rosette, et si j’y trouve M. Dormer - je n’y resterai qu’autant qu’il faudra pour empaqueter quelques - livres, car je ne veux pas rester dans la même ville avec M. - Dormer. J’aurais été charmé de le voir ici, mais je ne veux - pas le voir à Rosette; ainsi, mon cher, persuadez-le de partir - immédiatement; car si je le trouve je n’y coucherai pas; cela est - certain. - - -What the ground of dissension was that induced Montagu to declare -that he would not remain in the same city with Dormer is not known. -Whatever it was, the Egyptian home was broken up. The wife and her -sister subsequently established themselves, temporarily, at Marseilles, -definitively at Nancy. Montagu moved about the Continent in moody -restlessness. In 1773 and the following year he settled for awhile in -Venice. He lived in frequent retirement, and to all outward appearance -in as truly a Turkish fashion as if he were a faithful child of Islam. - -While Mr. Montagu was residing at Venice an illustrious traveller, -the Duke of Hamilton, arrived in that city, under the care of his -physician, Dr. John Moore, afterwards the author of ‘Zeluco,’ and the -father of a glorious son, Sir John Moore the hero of Corunna. The -Doctor had probably talked with his patron or ward about the more -eccentric traveller, of whom he had more to say than most people -as to the affair between Montagu and the Jew Payba, Moore having -been official medical man at the English Embassy in France, when -Lord Albemarle was ambassador, and Montagu was appealing to him for -aid and protection. At Venice, the Duke, according to Moore, ‘had -the curiosity’ (he does not say the _courtesy_) ‘to wait on this -extraordinary man.’ ‘Montagu,’ says the Doctor, in his published -letters, - - - met his Grace at the stair-head, and led us through some - apartments furnished in the Venetian manner, into an inner room in - quite a different style. There were no chairs, but he desired us - to seat ourselves on a sofa, whilst he placed himself on a cushion - on the floor, with his legs crossed in the Turkish fashion. A - young black slave sat by him, and a venerable old man, with a - long beard, served us with coffee. After this collation some - aromatic gums were brought, and burnt in a little silver vessel. - Mr. Montagu held his nose over the steam for some minutes, and - sniffed up the perfume with peculiar satisfaction; he afterwards - endeavoured to collect the smoke with his hands, spreading and - rubbing it carefully along his beard, which hung in hoary ringlets - to his girdle.... We had a great deal of conversation with this - venerable looking person, who is, to the last degree, acute, - communicative, and entertaining, and in whose discourse and - manners are blended the vivacity of a Frenchman with the gravity - of a Turk. - - -Moore does not say that Montagu had assumed the Mohammedan faith, -but simply that he considered the Turkish way of life to surpass -that of all other nations. Indeed they deserved to be ‘the happiest -of mankind,’ if they were, as Montagu held them to be, distinguished -for integrity, hospitality, and most other virtues. Egypt was, in his -eyes, ‘a perfect paradise,’ to which he was longing to return; and he -was convinced that if the Israelites of old could have had their own -way they would have stuck to the land and the flesh-pots and driven -the Egyptians into Canaan. But he added, with a fine sense of what -the occasion required, that ‘it had been otherwise ordered, for wise -purposes, of which it did not become us to judge.’ - -Subsequently Montagu returned the visit of the Duke and his medical -guardian. He seated himself on a sofa with his legs drawn up under -him, as the most natural and convenient position that a gentleman -could take. Moore, in the course of the conversation which ensued, -slily adverted to the Mohammedan views with regard to women. The -quasi Turk became Oriental to the very ends of his fingers, and grew -eloquent on this delicate question. Of course, he defended polygamy -and concubinage, even as Solomon had wisely observed it. Women liked -neither, and but for this foolish objection they would have had -influence enough to have spread Islam as one religion throughout -Europe. The men hated Christianity on more valid ground. Auricular -confession they abhorred. ‘No Turk of any delicacy would ever allow his -wife (particularly if he had but one) to hold private conference with -a man on any pretext whatever.’ When the Doctor (for the Duke seems to -have been generally silent) insinuated that the Turks had not the same -grounds to hate Protestantism, Montagu remarked that the Turks could -not tolerate the Christian idea of the equality of women and men, nor -accept the Christian view of an exceedingly dull heaven, where the -souls of ordinary women were to be assembled, instead of the graceful -bodies of Houris, who were to welcome the sons of Islam to a joyous -paradise. - -The self-exile continued to be the observed of all curious travellers; -but he directed his steps at last in the direction of home, if with -no decided resolution to return thither. The cause, perhaps, is found -in a phrase of a letter from Mrs. Delany, written in February 1776: -‘Mr. Wortley Montagu’s wife is dead.’ This was the laundress, his only -legitimate wife, who had married him in his youthful time. Her husband -had recently been entertaining Romney, and Romney had painted the -portrait of his friend in Turkish costume, which bespeaks the talent -of the artist and the sad yet manly beauty of the friend. The latter -had been the victim of more lies and jests than any man of his time, -and these were multiplied now, but they are not worth repeating. The -wanderer himself was near the end of his course. Two months subsequent -to his lawful wife’s decease he died, after a brief illness, at Padua. -He is said to have expressed a hope that he should die as a good -Moslem; but that he was held to have died in the Roman Catholic faith -is best proved by the fact that he lies beneath a church roof in Padua, -and with a Latin inscription over him, which describes him as ‘ubique -civis,’ and which credits him with nearly all the qualities that can -dignify humanity. If much eccentricity has been ascribed to him by -the world, it is because his acts and words gave some warrant for it. -There was scarcely any condition in life but in some country or another -he had assumed it. He used to boast that he had never committed a -_small_ folly; and his gambling was certainly, at one time, of gigantic -proportions. A memoir of him, published in Dublin two years after -his death, reckoned among his boyish assumptions those of link-boy, -chimney-sweep, and shoe-black! The same veracious volume numbered among -his wives, with the English laundress, a Dutch Jewess, a Turkish lady, -a Greek girl, a Circassian damsel, and an Arabian maiden. Even to the -English laundress he is said to have been married by an official of -the Fleet prison. His old tutor, Forster, claimed the merit of having -written the work on Ancient Republics, but this claim, made when -the author could not answer it, was universally scouted, as was the -contemptible pretender. Lady Louisa Stuart, referring to the various -ladies who assumed a right to bear his name, remarks:-- - - - More than one lady took the title of his wife, with or without - the pretext of a ceremony which, it is to be feared, he would - not scruple to go through any number of times, if requisite - for the accomplishment of his wishes. But the last person so - circumstanced, and the loudest in asserting her claims, met him - upon equal ground, having herself a husband living, from whom - she had eloped; therefore, she at least could not complain of - deception. - - -The above lady was the _ci-devant_ Miss Dormer. She appeared in London -soon after Edward Wortley Montagu’s death; and in her family papers it -is stated that she received one hundred pounds annually from Coutts’s -out of her alleged husband’s estate. For a long period she resided -at Nancy, and she may yet live in the recollection of not very old -persons, English and others, who dwelt in that pleasant city in their -youth, for the last of the wives of Wortley Montagu survived till -January 1821. She lived and died as Countess of Montagu, and her death -finally closed a romance of real life, the unfortunate hero of which -would probably have won honourable fame if he had been blessed with a -mother of a different quality. - - - - -_ROYAL AND IMPERIAL JOKERS._ - - -In that marvellous work of history, the ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman -Empire,’ Gibbon somewhere remarks, in reference to sovereign ladies -in love, that they are by their social position, or rather by their -position above society, placed at a manifest disadvantage, inasmuch as -the first advances must come from themselves. If this was the case in -the olden time, it is not exactly so now--though, of course, the outer -world knows little about the matter. Many princesses have not been -at all troubled at the idea of having to speak, or look, first; and -the great Russian Czarina had as little embarrassment in choosing her -lovers as she had in murdering that holy and august madman, her husband. - -The well-favoured individuals on whom high and mighty princesses have -been ready to smile had a delicate task to perform. They had to look -more than twice before they leaped, and were compelled to feel their -way very cautiously lest a false step or a too boldly ventured word -should cost them their head. But after all this perilous condition of -aspiring lovers was as nothing compared with the dangers of too wittily -endowed courtiers who should indulge in jesting with a king, especially -of the olden type and of mediæval and morose temper. When the courtiers -of Amarose, King of Little Britain, gently awoke him with the glee-- - - - ‘Awake, awake your royal nob, - The kettle boils upon the hob’-- - - -his surly and too suddenly aroused majesty descended to his tea, toast, -and eggs, entered the breakfast-room with the gracious greeting, ‘My -lords and gentlemen, get out!’ King Arthur, in ‘Tom Thumb,’ returns -homage in much the same civil humour. These, however, are but stage -kings--kings of shreds and patches. The flesh-and-blood, genuine, -despotic monarch was a far more dreadful animal. - -Jesting with kings, particularly uninvited--why, it was as if a -swimmer, however experienced, should venture within the smooth but -death-bearing current of Niagara, which inevitably carries all within -its power over the Falls. People have played little teasing jokes with -elephants, and when the jokers have forgotten all about it the gravely -majestic beast has put his foot upon the offender, and crushed the -humour out of him for ever. It has been just so with malice-bearing -monarchs, and with courtiers who thought they might joke with them. -The incarnation of all such monarchs existed in the person of an -African king named Chaka. He was given to joking at others, and woe -betide them if they did not burst with ecstacy at the joke; but if -a ‘fellow of infinite humour’ happened to cap the royal joke with a -better, Chaka broke into hilarity, which he ended by exclaiming, ‘Cut -off that wretch’s head; he has made me laugh.’ - -The Cæsars must have been almost as dreadfully dangerous men to joke -with as Chaka. The great Julius, indeed, after he became great, had no -leisure for jesting, but was the object of some popular jokes which he -took with indifference. The guests of Augustus were afraid to ‘crack -a joke’ in his presence. They would whisper one to a neighbour, and -then turn pale if the emperor invited them to ‘speak up.’ The imperial -table was as grand and dull as that of the copper Augustus, Louis -the Fourteenth, and the emperor had recourse to merryandrews, just -as the Grand Monarque had to harlequins. But the harlequins of those -days were gentlemen and scholars. The grim Tiberius, on the other -hand, was remarkably facetious. His delight was to puzzle his learned -guests with unanswerable questions, such as, ‘What was the name of the -song the Syrens sang?’ and the like. Fancy half a dozen members of -the Society of Antiquaries dining with her Majesty and being gravely -asked who built the marble halls the Bohemian girl dreamt she dwelt -in? or what was the Christian name of the ‘Minstrel Boy?’ and at what -period ‘Auld lang syne’ had been young? Nevertheless, Tiberius was a -nicer man to deal with than Caligula, all of whose jests were brutally -cruel, in words, and oftener in deeds. What a serious joke was that -when, having nothing on but the linen apron of a victim-slayer, he -raised the mallet, and instead of slaying the beast, knocked out the -brains of the sacrificing priest! Claudius was too huge a feeder to -have appetite for wit; but he would have eaten the whole beast that -his predecessor should have killed. Yet Claudius, half beast himself, -had a good deal of the scholar in him; as Nero had, who loved science, -admired art, was mildly witty, and therewith as savage as an insane -hyæna. We must except the occasions of his visiting the theatre, when -he sat in an upper seat, and found delight in flinging nuts down upon -the bald head of the prætor below. That official was as proud of the -attention as if every nut had been an especial honour. Joyless Galba -had none of the Neronic fun in him. But though not mirthful himself, -Galba could smile when he heard the popular slang name, in allusion to -his flat nose, ‘Simius.’ His successor, Otho, was just such a wit as -a man might be expected to be who washed his face in asses’ milk. If -witty men went away from him feeling dull and heavy, it was the result -of their exchanging ideas with their imperial master. He had his wit at -second-hand, as Vitellius had, who got his jokes from a stage-player -and charioteer. In more modern times, when Astley’s was in its glory, -and the clown of the ring a joker that people went to listen to, that -circus clown got his jokes, not from his own brains, but from the -Westminster boys. Jokes used to be made at Westminster as they now are -at the Stock Exchange, where fresh batches are served each morning, -like hot rolls. But to return to the Cæsars. Perhaps Vespasian was a -greater joker than any of them, but his jokes were often broad and -scurrilous. Titus was rather gracious than given to jesting, though he -enjoyed one sorry joke, in promising to every suitor that his request -should be granted. They went away radiant. ‘Every one,’ he said, -‘ought to depart joyfully from the presence of his prince;’ and then, -‘the delight of mankind’ thought no more of his promise. The chief -recreation of the gloomy Domitian was in playing dice; but he always -won. Every antagonist knew what the joke would cost him if he beat the -emperor. - -Altogether, those Twelve Cæsars were men compounded of the most -opposite qualities, with a small modicum of what is called wit among -the whole of them. Out of all those who followed, one alone, Hadrian, -made a standing and a sterling joke--a joke which has descended to us -and added a slang phrase to our vulgar tongue. To ‘scrape acquaintance’ -comes to us from Hadrian. He was at the public baths one day when he -saw one of his veteran soldiers scraping his body with a tile. That was -such poor luxury that Hadrian ordered that his old comrade should be -supplied with more suitable cleansing materials, and also with money. -On a subsequent occasion when the emperor again went to the bath, the -spectacle before him was highly amusing. A score of old soldiers who -had fought under Hadrian were standing in the water, and each was -currying himself with a tile and wincing at the self-inflicted rubbing. -The emperor perfectly understood what he saw and what was the purpose -of the sight. ‘Ha! ha!’ he exclaimed, ‘you had better scrape one -another, my good fellows!’ He added, ‘You certainly shall not scrape -acquaintance with me!’ - -Heliogabalus was perhaps the most practical joker among the imperial -jesters. We have seen at the Surrey Oval, in old days, eleven -one-legged Greenwich pensioners playing cricket against eleven -pensioners with only one arm. By the way, the one-legged men had the -advantage, as the one-armed men often fell in stooping for the ball, -wanting the missing arm to balance themselves withal. It was the -humour of Heliogabalus to get together companies of individuals all -marked by the same peculiarity. He would now have at dinner a dozen -baldheaded men, or twelve ladies with one eye each; he would have -been delighted to have got hold of triple assortments of the three -famous sisters who had but one eye and one tooth between them! Failing -that, the ‘lord of the sun,’ as he called himself, was content to -have a score of hunchbacks, or of flat-nosed men, or squinting women. -He is said on one occasion to have put into a very small chamber, -where dinner was prepared, so many excessively fat and hungry men -that they had no room for anything but to perspire, and not much for -that. Heliogabalus was an expensive joker, but then his good people -paid for the fun, and he might therefore indulge his humour without -restraint at the time, or remorse after it. His supremely imperial joke -lay in placing a number of guests on table-couches (guests reclined, -and did not sit down to dinner) which were blown up with air instead -of being stuffed with wool. At a moment when the cups were filled to -the brim with the choicest wine, and the guests were lifting them -to their lips with anticipations of liquid Elysium, a tap was drawn -beneath the carpet, which suddenly emptied the couches of their air, -and consequently tumbled all the recliners on to the floor, where they -lay pell-mell, with wine spilt, goblets lost, and utter confusion -prevailing, except on the face of Heliogabalus, who looked on and -indulged in laughter inextinguishable. Having but indifferent appetite -himself, he was fond of sauces, and he highly rewarded any inventor of -a sauce that was to the imperial liking. But if it failed to tickle -his very sacred majesty’s palate he had recourse to a joke of a very -practical character indeed; that is to say, he condemned the unlucky -candidate for his favour to live upon nothing else but the sauce in -question until he had discovered another more successful in its object. -Fancy having to live on anchovy, without fish, for a twelvemonth, or -catsup and a little bread, from the Ides of March to the Kalends of -December! Think of what your palate and liver would be had you nothing -to sit down to but pickled walnuts without the chop, or mustard without -the beef, from Christmas to Easter, even if your wits enabled you to -make deliverance then. - -There was grim but honest joking in the Emperor Carus. The frugal man -was once seated, as was his wont, on the grass, supping on dry bread, -grey peas, and stale bacon. He gave audience at the same time to -Persian ambassadors who came to sue for peace. As the emperor was about -to reply, he opened his mouth for the reception of a huge spoonful of -peas, but he paused to say--at the same time taking off his skull-cap -with his disengaged hand--‘Look here! If your master does not confess -the superiority of Rome, I will render Persia as destitute of trees -as my head is of hair.’ Having said which, he swallowed his shovelful -of peas, and chuckled as the Persian legates went homeward with that -significant message. - -After all, this joke was made up of the rudest boasting. There is -something in it and its attending circumstances which remind one of the -last war in Europe. Rome declared war against Persia, and the Roman -cry was ‘The Tigris for a boundary!’ ‘To Susa!’ ‘To Ecbatana!’ and so -forth. The later cry of the enraptured Gauls, ‘Le Rhin! le Rhin!’ ‘À -Berlin! à Berlin!’ seem like Irish echoes of the old cry. What disaster -came of it Gibbon tells and readers of history remember, but even among -the degenerate Romans there was no one ignoble enough to set an example -to the poor French _feuilletonist_, who said of the brave German -officers that they would be too proud to brush French boots with their -blonde moustaches. Brave Frenchmen must have shuddered at this wretched -jest, and Louis Napoleon, who loved a good joke though he never made -one, must have curled his lip with indignation if he read the piece of -miserable wit over his coffee at Metz. - -In Prussia, which dates as a kingdom from the year 1702, there is not -one of its seven kings who can be called a wit, though more than one -had what is far better, strong, far-seeing, uncommon sense. Unclean in -their vagaries the Prussian royal jokers have assuredly been, and one -or two admitted of no liberty whatever being taken with them, as far -as repartee went. So stern were the most of the Prussian margraves, -electors, and dukes, that, to express the peril of joking with them, -there arose the well-known popular proverb, ‘It is advisable not to -eat cherries with princes.’ The queens of Prussia, on the other hand, -brought their own wit with them into the royal family, and there was -not a sharper lady among them than Queen Sophia Charlotte, the first -queen of Prussia. Leibnitz, whom she delighted to honour as a man and a -philosopher, once asked her if she could imagine the infinitely little? -‘Why, of course I can!’ exclaimed the hilarious queen. ‘What a question -to ask the wife of Frederick the First!’ - -There was good common sense in the humour of Frederick the Great of -Prussia. In his hours of joviality with his boon companions, smoking -and drinking around a table, in a cottage specially devoted to such -recreation, the king was understood to be absent. Frederick gave the -loosest rein to his own spirit of jesting, and took the roughest jokes -of his guests with perfect good temper. He has been immoderately -praised for this control over himself; but in truth there was none. He -could always escape from raillery that was tinged with bitterness. At -critical moments, when an ordinary mortal, hard pressed by satirical -assailants, would lose his equanimity and fly into a rage, Fritz -could quietly remark, ‘Friends, the king has come back;’ after which -observation he neither joked himself nor was attacked by the jokers. -Neither did the king bear any ill-will if his own jesting was turned -roughly against him, and he was made to smart by a repartee more -stinging than the royal sarcasm which gave it birth. - -There was often a childlike simplicity about the old soldier-king. He -would joke and laugh with the children in the streets of Potsdam, as he -slowly rode along on his veteran Molwitz gray. He loved to have them -at his stirrup, and watch them struggling to kiss his boot or pat the -proud old horse; and he would laugh joyously if their young throats set -up the famous chorus: - - - Victoria! with us is God! - The haughty foe lies there! - - -One Saturday afternoon they carried the matter further than his -patience would tolerate, and Fritz, raising his crutched cane -menacingly, cried out in affected anger, ‘Young rascals! to school -with you all! to school!’ The cry was met by a counter-shout from -the ragamuffins of ‘Ha! ha! Papa Fritz don’t know that there’s no -school on Saturday afternoon!’ At which the absolute king rode away -rebuked. His humour, however, made such rebuffs welcome. He took truths -from the popular tongue with alacrity. After the Seven Years’ War, -riding towards Sans Souci, he recognised an old fruit-woman near the -Brandenburg Gate, whom he remembered to have seen there before the war -broke out. Fritz at once greeted her with a ‘Well, mother, how have the -times been treating you?’ ‘Middling,’ was the concise reply; ‘but where -have you been for this ever so long?’ ‘Don’t you know, mother, I have -been making war for these seven years past?’ ‘How should I know?’ asked -the venerable Pomona, ‘and why should I care? - - - “Rabble fight, and rabble slay; - And rabble are friends another day.”’ - - -Fritz laughed aloud, and rode away in high good humour. Do you think it -would be safe, say, for a prince of the blood to enter into colloquy -with the apple women at the Marble Arch or the fruit-sellers at St. -James’s Gate, when the guard is being relieved? Frederick William the -Third had a quiet humour of his own. There is one sample of it which -reminds one of what Henry the Fourth said to the mayor of a town whose -speech the king could hardly hear for the accompanying braying of a -donkey: ‘One at a time, gentlemen, if you please!’ When Frederick -William visited one of his provincial towns for the first time, the -chief clerical official of the district read to him a bombastically -inflated address. The king grew uneasy as the flattery was piled, -and at length he cut it all short, with an angry observation to his -adjutant, Colonel von Witzleben, ‘Can’t stand any more of it! The man -is pelting me with untruths.’ The king and the crown prince were good -mimics, and both brought their powers into play at a moment when a -farce was being acted in Berlin, which attracted all play-goers who -loved a laugh, king and court included. There was a favourite scene -in this farce, wherein a workman and his master quarrelled and were -reconciled. Great fun was caused by the way in which the workman -propitiated his wrathful master, by awkwardly holding out his hand, -and saying, in _dialect_, ‘Now, measter, nevertheless, no animosity -on no account!’ To this, said again and again, the master invariably -replied, ‘You know me better; am I not always that one which’---- -In the expression given to these phrases by the two low comedians -there was a world of stage humour which delighted their audience, the -sovereign and his family, as much as any there. It happened at this -time that the king was kept waiting for his dinner by the tardiness -of the crown prince to appear. Now if we common mortals can bear only -with impatience being kept so waiting, you may judge if a king with -an appetite considers such an offence to be much below high treason. -Frederick William at last sat down in dudgeon; all his family sat down -too, in silence, looking at the crown prince’s vacant chair, with -a feeling that there was a storm coming. When his majesty had just -concluded his soup, his tardy royal highness entered the room. Seeing -how matters stood, he put on the sheepish look of the actor who played -the workman in the farce, approached the king in a loutish fashion, -extended his hand awkwardly, and exclaimed with country accent, ‘Now, -measter, nevertheless, no animosity on no account!’ Frederick William -took up the joke immediately. He put on the look of the other actor, -assumed his air and accent, and answered in his very voice, squeezing -his son’s hand the while, ‘Fritz, thou knowest me better; am I not -always that one which’---- You may suppose what a satisfied audience -listened to that bit of dialogue; and may lose yourself in conjecture -as to how a similar scene might be gone through with H.R.H. the Prince -of Wales and H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh giving imitations of Mr. -Compton and Mr. Buckstone in ‘Box and Cox.’ - -Kings of England in the olden time seldom made jokes, and more seldom -allowed them to be made by others, excepting professional jesters. -When we come to the Norman time we find the Conquistor so little able -to digest a joke that he declared war against the King of France for -making one at the expense of William’s obesity. The latter, indeed, -did try to answer the jest, but the answer missed its aim, and -William lost his life because he could not understand humour. Rufus, -on the contrary, indulged in such jesting as one might expect in an -ill-bred bachelor king of loose principles and looser companions. The -first Henry is handed down to us by successive historians as a man -of very facetious humour, but they afford no samples of the humorous -expression. Stephen had little leisure for anything but to keep his -seat in the saddle into which he had leaped after a severe struggle. -The humour of Henry the Second was of a sad-coloured hue; as it well -might be. It was sardonically indulged when he caused to be painted -on the wall of a chamber at Windsor and on the ceiling of a room at -Winchester a singular picture. The artist is nameless, but he must -have been the Landseer or the Ansdell of his day. The subject was an -old eagle attacked by his four eaglets. The youngest and fiercest of -the four was savagely picking at the parent eagle’s eyes. The king -used to smile a melancholy smile as courtiers gazed at this picture, -and did not penetrate, or seemed not to penetrate, the allegory which -it presented. Probably when they were beyond royal sight and hearing -they made good guesses at it, or the king interpreted it, and then it -was no treason to give circulation to Henry’s interpretation. The old -eagle was the monarch himself. The four eaglets were his obstinately -rebellious sons. The ruffianly youngest bird savagely trying to peck -the parent’s eyes out was the youngest and most ruffianly of his sons, -John. In that form the half-mad and most melancholy Henry manifested -his humour with regard to family affairs--an example which has not -been generally followed. In one of his sons, Richard the First, there -was much readiness of wit; and he especially loved to turn it against -the priests. To make a joke at the cost of an ecclesiastic was as good -to him as slaying an infidel. John’s jokes took a cruel form, drawing -Jews’ teeth to accelerate their disposition to lend money, and behaving -noisily at divine worship with an idea of humiliating some priest or -bishop who had offended him. His son Henry loved the arts and good -company. Of the three Edwards not one has come to our knowledge as -a joker, but the son of the last, the Black Prince, did once so far -stoop from his dignity as to, half jocularly, half angrily, call an -archbishop an ass. The second Richard never had an opportunity for -joking; and of the next three kings, Henry the Fifth alone, when Prince -of Wales, is said to have aired his wit a-nights about Eastcheap. But -what Shakespeare has made witty in relation never took place in point -of fact. All the Eastcheap doings are apocryphal, and the _Boar’s -Head_ never had beneath its roof-tree those joyous princely spirits in -whom we shall nevertheless continue to believe. Again, of the third -Richard’s jesting humour we have no other example than what Shakespeare -and Colley Cibber have invented for him. The seventh Henry was a dull -deep man; the eighth, one to laugh with if you felt especially sure -it would not shake your head off your shoulders. His son and his -daughters are not recorded in the annals of wit, and such stories as -have descended to us of James the First are of an unclean tendency, and -the best of them in point of mirth are by far the uncleanest. His son -Charles was too gentlemanlike and too grave to be such a joker as his -unkingly sire. His refinement of manner did not admit of coarseness, -with whatever wit it might be gilded, and the royal martyr is but -known, in respect of humour, for ‘King Charles’s Golden Rules,’ of -which, of course, he was _not_ the author. - -If ever there was a man in whom we should not expect to find the -jesting spirit, that man is Oliver Cromwell. At the wedding festival, -however, of his daughter Frances with Mr. Rich, Oliver entered joyously -into all the jesting; so joyously that, in a moment of excitement, the -Protector whipt off his son Richard’s wig and pretended to throw it -into the fire. This he appeared to have done, but he had dexterously -conveyed it under him, and was sitting upon it, when the company were -looking for the wig upon the top of the coals. No clown, not even thou, -oh Joseph Grimaldi!--not even thou who wast an artist, true actor, in -whose every look there was a purpose, in every movement a meaning--not -even thou, oh best and greatest of the old pantomime clowns! couldst -have executed this trick with more rapidity, cleverness, and impudent -imperturbability than Oliver Cromwell exhibited on that occasion. -It was an occasion, by the way, when spilling of blood had like to -have happened through immoderate excess of the spirit of fun. Old Sir -Thomas Hillingsby was solemnly dancing, according to the fashion of -his younger days. He looked so like an insensible statue in motion, -that some daring young Puritan lads thought they might molest him -with impunity. They tried, as he slowly moved to and fro in measured -pace, to blacken his lips with burnt cork. They roused the old lion to -fury. The ex-gentleman usher to the Queen of Bohemia pulled out his -dagger, which he would have plunged between the ribs of the fellow most -actively concerned but for general interference. Some time elapsed -before harmony was restored. - -It may be here objected that Cromwell was neither a royal nor an -imperial joker. He was nevertheless sovereign master of England, and -as despotic as any of them. We place him among them for much the same -reason which Richardson, the painter, gave to Queen Caroline, when she -went to see Richardson’s series of portraits of English kings, and -seeing Cromwell’s portrait among them, angrily asked how _he_, who was -no king, was placed in such company. ‘He was no king, indeed, madam,’ -said Richardson, ‘but it is good for kings to have him among them.’ - -George the Second was not a humourist, but he would have made a -first-rate actor of ‘genteel comedy’ had not fate cast him for another -line of characters in the drama of life. Shortly after his accession -he commanded a play at the theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The house -was full, but as the king kept it waiting, the murmurs of their -displeasure fell upon his ear as he entered his box, three-quarters -of an hour behind time. As he caught the unwelcome sounds he turned -to Mr. Rich, the manager, who waited on him, as if he might gather -from that official some explanation of the phenomenon. The greatest -of the intellectual harlequins of England honestly told the king that -his majesty was late, and that the audience did not seem to like it. -Whereupon the sovereign assumed the air of an unrighteously suspected -prince. He advanced to the front of his box, took out his watch with -the apparent conviction that it was an arbitrator which would render -him justice, and looking upon it, saw that it showed the time which he -knew it to be. _Then_ he appeared in a change of character. He gazed -at the audience with an expression bespeaking a guilty but a repentant -prince. He put himself as much outside of his box as the laws of -balancing would allow, and shaking his wigged head and very much powder -out of it, he laid his jewelled hand on the heart side of his sky-blue -velvet coat, and made a bow to the house, so superb in its apologetic -pantomime that the audience burst forth into hilarious hurrahing and -applauding, and all other possible symptoms, to demonstrate their -gladness and to express their consent to a full reconciliation of -prince and people. - -The Thespian element was very strong too in the eldest son of George -the Third. If the first gentleman in Europe had not been born a -prince he might have made a very good livelihood as an actor. High -or low comedy, it would have been all the same to a player of such -versatility. He could have played Rover like Elliston, and his -imitations were as good as Mr. Toole’s. The best-wigged prince in -Christendom has, fortunately, had an historian who makes record of -his royal hero in the histrionic part of his profession. Raikes -is the chronicler, but the Duke of Wellington was the fountain of -intelligence. - -‘When the king sent for me,’ said F.M. the Duke of Wellington to -Raikes, ‘to form a new Administration in 1828, he was then seriously -ill, though he would never allow it. I found him in bed, dressed in -a dirty silk jacket and a turban night-cap, one as greasy as the -other; for, notwithstanding his coquetry about dress in public, he was -extremely slovenly and dirty in private. The first words he said to me -were, “Arthur, the Cabinet is defunct;” and then he began to describe -the manner in which the late Ministers had taken leave of him on giving -in their resignations. This was accompanied by the most ludicrous -mimicry of the voice and manner of each individual, so strikingly like -that it was quite impossible to refrain from fits of laughter.’ - -This exhibition has been considered a proof of the king’s bad taste; -which it may be allowed to be. But there was equal bad taste on -the part of the Duke. If he had looked grave, the old bedridden -prince-actor would have been rebuked. Moreover, the king was quite as -capable and quite as willing to give an imitation of Arthur. Inimitable -as the latter was in certain respects, there were certain peculiarities -about him which the king would have hit off with as intense delight as -he felt when mimicking his majesty’s servants, Viscounts Goderich and -Palmerston. - -With George the Fourth’s successor there was no indisposition to -joke, but the royal humour was of an ordinary quality. And yet it was -eccentric too. King William would not, like his brother of Cambridge, -have said to a chaplain at a public dinner, ‘Come, d---- it, do say -_grace_, and let us begin!’ but he could not resist heightening a -jest by a strong expletive; as, for instance, in the case of Captain -and Mrs. Marryat, who were at a royal reception at the Pavilion, in -King William’s time, and from which they were anxious to get away at -a certain hour, in order to fulfil another engagement. Mrs. Marryat -looked anxiously at the clock, and King William, catching her more -than once in the fact, good-humouredly asked her the cause of her -uneasiness. The lady frankly replied. ‘Well,’ said his majesty, ‘then -why do you not leave at once?’ Mrs. Marryat had to inform him that it -would be a breach of etiquette to leave the room while their majesties -were still there. ‘Oh, d---- it!’ said the bluff monarch; ‘if that’s -the case, come along o’ me; I’ll smuggle you out.’ On state occasions, -however, a breach of etiquette would fairly take the king’s breath -away. This is exemplified by what occurred at one of his first levées. -Seeing an admiral, with whom he had been shipmate, bowing before him, -the king cordially expressed his gladness at seeing his old comrade; -adding, ‘and I hope you are quite well?’ The proper course would have -been to simply answer the remark made. But the over-polite admiral -replied, ‘Quite well, your majesty. I hope your majesty is well?’ -The breach of etiquette was in making a remark to the king which -implied the necessity of an answer. King William quite blushed with -confusion, and did not recover himself till dinner-time. One of his -own jokes he enjoyed amazingly; and notably one which he played off -soon after his accession. After his arrival at St. James’s Palace the -populace summoned him again and again to the window to offer him the -congratulations of their sweet voices. King William presented himself -again and again, till twilight came on and he was tired of it. As -the ‘gloaming’ thickened, and identity was a matter of difficulty, -the king sent an old naval officer to bow for him at the window. At -every summons the officer stepped forward and acted king, bowing and -retiring, till it became too dark to make out whether any one was at -the window or not. Then the loyal _mobile_ dispersed, and the affair -was a joke for the remainder of the night at the jovial monarch’s table. - -And now we are called upon to pause, just as we had finished only the -prologue to our drama. 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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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: In and About Drury Lane and Other Papers, Vol. II (of 2)</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:0;'>Reprinted from the pages of the 'Temple Bar' Magazine</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Dr. John Doran</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 6, 2021 [eBook #66891]</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Susan Skinner, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</div> - -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN AND ABOUT DRURY LANE AND OTHER PAPERS, VOL. II (OF 2) ***</div> - -<div class="mynote"><p class="center">Transcriber’s Note:<br /><br /> -Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.<br /></p></div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/front.jpg" alt="front" /></div> - -<hr /> - -<h1>DRURY LANE</h1> - -<p class="bold">VOL. II.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="center">LONDON: PRINTED BY<br />SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE<br />AND PARLIAMENT STREET</p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/title.jpg" alt="title page" /></div> - -<hr /> - -<p class="bold">IN AND ABOUT</p> - -<p class="bold2">DRURY LANE</p> - -<p class="bold"><i>AND OTHER PAPERS</i></p> - -<p class="bold">REPRINTED FROM THE PAGES OF THE ‘TEMPLE BAR’ MAGAZINE</p> - -<p class="bold">BY</p> - -<p class="bold2">D<sup>R</sup> DORAN</p> - -<p class="bold">AUTHOR OF ‘TABLE TRAITS AND SOMETHING ON THEM’ ‘JACOBITE LONDON’<br /> -‘QUEENS OF ENGLAND OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER’</p> - -<p class="bold">IN TWO VOLUMES</p> - -<p class="bold">VOL. II.</p> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/logo.jpg" alt="logo" /></div> - -<p class="bold">LONDON<br />RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET<br /> -Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen<br />1881</p> - -<p class="bold"><i>All rights reserved</i></p> - -<hr /> - -<h2>CONTENTS</h2> - -<p class="bold">OF</p> - -<p class="bold">THE SECOND VOLUME.</p> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/line.jpg" alt="line" /></div> - -<table summary="CONTENTS"> - <tr> - <td></td> - <td><span class="smaller">PAGE</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Life in the Nineteenth Century</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Postman’s Knock</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Twenty-thousand-pound Widow</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">To Brighton and back again</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">On some Clubs, and their ends</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Through the Parks</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Some Scotswomen</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_160">160</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Dibdins</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_190">190</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Horatio Nelson and Emma Hamilton</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_222">222</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Edward Wortley Montagu</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_285">285</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Royal and Imperial Jokers</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_327">327</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>LIFE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.</i></h2> - -<p>But for Pepys and Evelyn we should know but little of the social life -of the seventeenth century. A host of letter writers—Walpole, Mrs. -Delany, and Mrs. Montagu, at the head of them—may be said to have -photographed the next century for us. Lord Malmesbury, Lord Auckland, -and some others succeeded; and now we are beginning to have revelations -exclusively of the first years of the nineteenth century. The most -important contributor to our knowledge in this respect is the late Sir -George Jackson, whose volumes, ably edited by his widow, will afford -us samples of the times in which our grandmothers were young and had -swains at their feet—unless war called them away.</p> - -<p>Gay people on the Continent had a bad time of it when war broke out -in 1803, and the French government issued orders for the arrest of -all English persons on whom hands could be laid. Bath expected to be -more brilliant than ever by the return of the absentees; but their -difficulty was <i>how</i> to return. All who were in France were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> made -prisoners. A precipitate flight of crowds of English travellers from -Geneva took place. They were not safe on any part of the Continent; -but some, in disguise and on foot, reached Berlin, others got to the -sea and arrived in England; but Bath was not sensible of any increase -in numbers or gaiety, for the times were out of joint, though dowagers -still played whist and young couples danced minuets.</p> - -<p>Many of those who were shut up at Verdun chafed under the restraint as -intolerable. Some, however, bore it philosophically, others gaily. A -few took to French mistresses; other few to French wives. The French -officials made ‘a good thing’ out of those who had money, granting -them partial liberty for so many days or hours, according to the -‘consideration.’ Two or three, having spent hundreds of pounds in -their bribes, at last took ‘French leave,’ and were lucky in not being -recaptured. Their course is not to be commended. We have a higher -opinion of Sir Sidney Smith, who, when a prisoner in the Temple, -refused to have his parole, used to tell the governor to be vigilant, -as he would be off on the first opportunity, and ultimately kept his -word, broke prison, and found his painful way to England.</p> - -<p>The seriousness of the times and their events little affected the -Prince of Wales. He was indeed thought to be ill in the early part -of 1804; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> the illness arose, it was said, from the fact that the -Prince and the Duke of Norfolk had been so drunk, for three whole -days, that the former at last fell like a pig, and would have died -like one, but for prompt and copious bleeding. How rude the ‘first -gentleman’ could be, when he chose, to his wife, is well-known. At a -drawing-room, held by Queen Charlotte in June 1807, when the Prince -and Princess of Wales were present, he took no notice of the Princess. -Turning his back upon her, he stood between her and the Queen, and -as long as the Princess remained he kept up a conversation with his -sisters, thereby preventing them from addressing a word to his wife. -This feeling against his wife he paraded everywhere. He was jealous of -her popularity—quite unnecessarily, for she made herself ridiculous, -and the subject of scornful criticism, by her lavish display at -evening parties of her protuberant beauties. At these parties, the -Prince would stare at ladies whom he knew, without speaking to them. -His condescending speech was addressed only to his first wife, Mrs. -Fitzherbert, and her sister, Lady Haggerstone. The first of these -ladies lived at Brighton with the state of a queen and the spirit -of a goddess of mirth. Meanwhile, his Royal Highness flirted with -his ‘future Duchess,’ the Marchioness of Hertford. One of Queen -Fitzherbert’s merriest tales related how a man had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> sent to her some -lemonade powders he had invented, on the ground that they were highly -approved and constantly used by the Marchioness in question.</p> - -<p>In 1802 Bath was surprised by a visit from the Duke of York. He brought -the Duchess with him, and left her there next day. Her friends reported -that she had been bitten in the hand by one of her numerous pet dogs, -and that the wound was privately pumped upon daily. But the public -story was, that his Royal Highness had lost 200,000<i>l.</i> at play, and -had been compelled to break up his town establishment. The scandalous -story of the Duke and Mrs. Clarke, a mistress, who sold places and -commissions, is pleasantly balanced by an incident respecting a son -of the Duke of Clarence and his mistress, Mrs. Jordan—Lieutenant -Fitzclarence, in 1809. He was in Spain with our army in that year, and -he reversed La Fontaine’s fable of the mule who was always talking -of his mother the mare, but said little of his father the ass. The -lieutenant was the foolish aide-de-camp of a foolish General Shaw, who -was always showing him about to the Spaniards as the King of England’s -grandson.</p> - -<p>That grandson was about to be despatched on a mission to the Continent -in 1813, but ministers changed their minds. They were afraid he would -write every thing to his father, who would publish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> it in Bond Street; -and so the gentleman was kept at home to sun himself in the bow window -at White’s.</p> - -<p>The grandest fête of sixty years since was the one given by the Prince, -at Carlton House, in 1811. The King was in such ill health and the -Princess Amelia in such a precarious condition that it was often -deferred; and Jekyll remarked that no one could ever again say, ‘Fixed -as fate!’ At length it came off, and, for one happy invited guest, -made a hundred mad who were not invited. The Queen and Princesses -declined to be present; but Louis XVIII. and the sad-looking Duchess -of Angoulême appeared there, and the Prince received the former as -a sovereign <i>de facto</i>. ‘I am only a Comte de Lille,’ said Louis -modestly. ‘Sire,’ said the Prince, ‘you are the King of France and -Navarre;’ and he treated his guest accordingly. Both the Prince’s wives -(Mrs. Fitzherbert and the Princess of Wales) sat at home by themselves; -but the ‘favourite’ was honoured by a command to attend the festival. -One of the Prince’s ideas was to divorce his second wife and shut her -up in Holyrood House for ever. This grand fête, it may be added, was -soon forgotten in the excitement caused by the fight that was to come -off between the Baltimore negro, Molyneux, and the chief of English -boxers, Tom Cribb! It was a time, moreover, when later hours began to -be fashionable.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> We hear of a ball lasting from twelve till eight; and -of another at which the majority of dancers kept it up till ten in the -morning.</p> - -<p>We go back a couple of years, in order to remark that in 1809, while -there was no lack of enjoyment among optimists, the press saw the worst -side of everything; and the ‘Times’ especially denied or explained -away our victories generally, and that of Talavera in particular. The -public seem to have been almost as ill-informed as to what was being -done abroad as they are now by ‘our own correspondents,’ who are -sent to describe battle-fields or other troublesome matters, and who -write columns on the boiling of their eggs and the obstinacy of their -laundresses. ‘It is too much,’ says Jackson, ‘to hear the victory of -Talavera called in question by the “Times;” a victory as honourable to -British arms and British generalship as any they ever achieved. That -paper should be offered up as a sacrifice to the manes of the heroes -who fell on the Alberche. I have not patience to read it.’</p> - -<p>In 1814 the Prince Regent had a narrow escape for his life. On one of -his evenings of <i>ennui</i> he sent for George Colman to come from the -King’s Bench, where he was a prisoner, to amuse him. Court jester and -prince, they passed the night, drinking and fooling, till six o’clock, -when his Highness was carried to bed in an apoplexy, from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> which he -only recovered at the cost of seven and twenty ounces of blood! He -was as near death at this critical juncture as a man could be and yet -live. His constitution, however, carried him through. When the allied -sovereigns entered London he was ready for all the duties and eager for -all the pleasures that the occasion offered; but he shocked some people -on one occasion by presiding at a public dinner on a Sunday.</p> - -<p>That English society wanted refinement in the first decade of the -present century is not to be disputed. When Mr. Jackson returned from -long diplomatic service abroad in 1806, he dined one day at Lord -Westmoreland’s. The guests were chiefly Russians. They were as much out -of their element in English society as the young diplomatist says <i>he</i> -was after the sociability, ease, and elegance of the society at foreign -courts to which he had so long been accustomed.</p> - -<p>Some of that foreign society was quite as free as it was easy. Jackson -and other Englishmen at the Prussian court were admitted to the morning -toilette of Madame de Vos, the King of Prussia’s <i>grande maîtresse</i>. -While under the hands of her hairdresser she laughed and flirted with -the English lords and gentlemen, who paid tribute to her beauty by -making her presents of wine and tea, and other English matters, which -she greedily accepted. There are three things, says the Welsh<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> proverb, -which always swallow and are never satisfied—the grave, the sea, and a -king’s concubine.</p> - -<p>Austerlitz killed Pitt as surely as Trafalgar killed Nelson. Each died -for his country, but that country mourned more deeply for the great -admiral, stricken down in the battle where he was the victor, than it -did for the great minister who died of a broken heart. The last book -he read, at Bath, was Miss Owenson’s (Lady Morgan’s) ‘Novice of St. -Dominic.’ That now unreadable romance, Pitt said, he could not lay down -till he had finished it, and thence did the ‘Novice’ come to be the -rage for a time. People almost fought to obtain it at the libraries, -and nothing in literature was talked of but a book which has long since -fallen out of literature and of memory altogether. People, too, fought -for another novel, ‘A Winter in London,’ in which fashionable life was -illustrated by an incapable whose name and whose work are equally wrapt -in oblivion.</p> - -<p>Fox did not long survive his great rival Pitt. He died on the 13th -of September, 1806. A week previously, when he was already dying, he -transacted public business. He gave an audience in his bedroom to -George Jackson, with instructions as to how the latter was to act on -his new mission to Germany. There was a mixture of the solemn and -the ludicrous in the scene. When Jackson<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> was announced Mrs. Fox, in -complete deshabille, was in the room. In her flurry she slipped into a -closet, and, as the interview was prolonged, the lightly-draped lady -kept signalling to Mr. Fox, as if he alone could hear her, by little -coughs and murmurs, to warn him not to over-exert himself, or to -dismiss the envoy, that she might be set free. At a moment when there -was a pause in the conversation between the minister and his agent the -fair captive tapped at the panel, asked if the young gentleman was -not gone, and complained of being cold. The dying statesman looked -at Jackson with a languid smile, and with friendly wishes bade him -farewell—as it proved, for ever.</p> - -<p>Descending to minor legislators, we meet with an Irish M.P., who, -being told that the favour he asked would be granted on condition -of his supporting government, replied that he would not give his -<i>constant</i> support for so paltry a favour. The Irish member obtained -the favour, and voted twice for government in payment for it. This was -better diplomacy than Sir Charles Stuart’s (Marquis of Londonderry), -who, when named to a post in Germany, told people that he was going -to Spain, by way of being diplomatic. We were unlucky in our leading -diplomatists generally at that time. Lord Aberdeen may serve as an -example. He went to Toplitz, as English ambassador, and had the bad -taste and idiotic indiscretion to say one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> day, openly at dinner, that -he could not bear the undertaking, and would not go on with it to keep -the crowns on the allied heads! One qualification was necessary to even -a decently moderate success, namely, the ability to speak French; but -Lord Aberdeen not only could not speak two words of French, but had -the folly to tell everybody who addressed him in that language that he -hated it. There was in some persons as much bad taste in acts as there -was in others in words; and it is not without surprise that we hear of -gentlemen sightseers who would pass the morning amid the horrors of a -field of recent battle, and the evening at the play, philandering with -ladies and talking an infinite deal of nothing. On another occasion, we -hear of the gayest and most gigantic of picnics, where luxury abounded, -while, within a few miles, French soldiers were dropping dead with -hunger as they slowly retreated.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Fitzherbert was in the early part of the century the Queen of -Brighton, if not of England, and she was popularly called ‘Mrs. -Prince.’ She certainly was one of the most queen-like women that -ever lived; and stood in favourable contrast with Lady Holland, who -is justly described as fussy, almost rude, straining at effect, and -losing it in the very effort. There was another lady then in England -striving to be effective, Madame de Staël; and she (who horrified Henry -Brougham) was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> pronounced by female critics as ‘too anxious to glitter -to be intrinsically good.’ A still more remarkable woman of that day -was Lady Caroline Lamb. She was at a party at Lady Heathcote’s, had -been flirting and quarrelling with Lord Byron, and therefore ‘stabbed -herself with a knife at supper, so that the blood flew about her -neighbours.’ When she came to, after a faint, a glass of water was -handed to her, but she smashed the glass and cut herself with the -pieces. ‘A little discipline,’ said Francis Jackson, ‘will bring these -school-girl fancies into order.’ A good deal of disorder was to be -found at breakfast as well as at supper-tables. Lady Caroline Hood was, -probably, counselled not to go to the Regent’s ‘breakfast’; but ladies -will, under certain circumstances, disregard friends and doctors also. -Lady Caroline went, and had only herself to blame when she had to be -carried away wrapped up in blankets.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Fitzherbert’s conduct at Brighton was not always in the best -taste. Mrs. Gunn, the bathing-woman, invariably addressed her as ‘Mrs. -Prince’; but the latter did not live at the level of that dignity. She -held afternoon gossips in her little drawing room, hung with black -profiles (her <i>salon aux silhouettes</i>). Only guests of distinction were -admitted here to exchange the stories of the day for piquant anecdotes -and a cup of tea. There, too, M. le Prince was a subject of discussion. -His <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>sayings and doings were pretty freely handled. It was all done -with gusto and elicited much mirth; but some visitors, who were glad to -be there, professed to think it all very naughty and in the worst taste.</p> - -<p>The fair one who had the reputation of being fairest where all were -fair—the reigning queen of beauty in fact—was Miss Rumbold, daughter -of Sir George. She was a ‘dashing’ beauty; but if to be beautiful was -not common, to be dashing was to be fashionable. Accordingly, we find -Miss Rumbold attended so little to the hints and admonitions of the -Bishop of Durham, that the love of showing off an amazingly fine ankle -prevented more than one offer from among the crowd of her adorers. The -same pretty vanity was strong in the Princess Charlotte, at a later -period, but Prince Leopold was not kept thereby from being a suitor. -It may be concluded that gentlemen were, after all, not so particular -as the adorers of Miss Rumbold, if Texier truly said of his daughter -(whose beauty he was always praising in her presence) that there were -five hundred lords, any one of whom would have been the happiest of men -to have her for his own.</p> - -<p>The utmost regularity was not incompatible with much eccentricity in -many of the foremost individuals of the time. One of them, the Duke of -Bedford, arranged his movements for a whole year in advance; and if one -went wrong, his Grace was put out for six or eight months together. -The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> silent Duke was under the thumb of his rattling Duchess, who used -to laugh at his announcement, on starting for a long journey, of the -precise moment of his return, and what dishes were to be ready for him -on his arrival. He would be there, D.V., of course; but in any case, -there he would be. The Duchess was as irregular as the Duke was the -opposite. His obedience to her was that of Jerry Sneak. She would cry -out in a room full of people, Johnny, do this; Johnny, do that; Johnny, -I did not see you bow to such a person! Speak to him directly, and -speak German, Johnny—and Duke Johnny answered not, but like a good -boy, unhesitatingly obeyed.</p> - -<p>Lady Holland, fanciful, sharp, and impertinent, did not attract -Jackson’s brother Francis. Clever, he allowed that wayward lady to be, -but not a wit of the quality she would fain have been thought. ‘There -is too much effort—a straining after effect in all she says and does; -and the effect is not always what she wishes or imagines it to be.’</p> - -<p>In behalf of some of the fine ladies of the time, government officials -cheated their own revenue department without scruple. Jackson was, -one day in 1810, amused to find the ‘subs’ at the Foreign Office very -anxious, at Lord Wellesley’s suggestion, to devise means of getting -a box of shoes which had been sent from Spain, for Lady Holland, but -which had been seized by the Custom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> House officers. Lady Holland was -capricious, and as often insolent as civil; but she was not mean, like -Lady Hyde Parker, who gave a ball to a crowd of guests and sent them -home without supper. By the way, when there was a ball at Buckingham -House, in the opening years of the century, no guests under the rank of -earls’ sons and daughters were invited; but this exclusiveness had to -be laid aside.</p> - -<p>Nearly sixty years ago there was a queen of hearts in London who broke -as many as she could, voluntarily or involuntarily. She was a Miss -Acklom, daughter of a Nottinghamshire squire. Down at Exmouth, amid -the loveliness and the idleness of the place, the nymph and a gallant -officer named Tilson fell in love, or seemed to do so, with each other. -The warrior, at all events, was deeply smitten, and marriage was to -plunge him still deeper in love; but, almost at the church door, the -cruel nymph declined to go further. The lover went straightway abroad. -After a while, Miss Acklom was subdued by another wooer, Mr. Maddox; -the beauty consented to become his wife. As the time of the nuptials -drew near the lady’s grandfather died. She went into mourning, and -came out of it with an announcement of a quality to put her lover -into it; namely, that she had changed her mind. Like Tilson, Maddox -sought solace in going to the stirring scenes abroad. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>Jackson wrote -from his quarters at Dijon, in 1814, that the swain so ill-treated by -Venus was ‘trying his luck with Mars, as an amateur.... From being a -very handsome and lively-tempered young man, he has become quite the -reverse.’ While two lovers were despairing a third presented himself. -He was no other than that Lord Althorpe, who became so distinguished -in the House of Commons as a statesman and a minister. My lord was -accepted. Just as the marriage was about to take place this third -lover’s grandmother died; whereupon the nymph put on mourning and went -down to Bath to live in retirement. Old Mrs. Jackson prophesied that -Miss Acklom would, on coming out of mourning, jilt the heir to an -earldom as she had done ‘poor Maddox.’ George replied that Tilson had -recently returned to England, a general, and ‘this perhaps may win her -smiles again.’ Lord Althorpe proved to be a successful swain. Esther -Acklom married him, about a month after Mrs. Jackson had presaged that -she would play this lover false. The wedding was celebrated in April -1815, and in little more than three years the once volatile nymph was -carried to her grave, leaving a childless widower to mourn a good -wife’s loss.</p> - -<p>The great scandal in high life within the first ten years of this -century was the elopement of Lord Paget, afterwards the celebrated -Marquis of Anglesea, with Lady Charlotte, wife of Henry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> Wellesley, -nephew of the subsequently famous Arthur, and better known to us as the -first Lord Cowley. All the world of fashion had seen what was going on -except the lady’s husband. The guilty parties pleaded uncontrollable -passion. The seducer abandoned his wife and eight children, the lady -left a husband and four children; but she asked Mr. Arbuthnot to break -the matter gently to their father. Lord Paget, who had told <i>his</i> -father that he had sought death in battle in order to avoid the social -catastrophe, was challenged by Colonel Cadogan, Lady Charlotte’s -brother. The Colonel declared that one of them must die; but Lord -Paget declined the chance on the ground that his life was devoted to -the Colonel’s sister. To this lady he was married in 1810, in which -year his union with his first wife was dissolved, and that lady became -Duchess of Argyll.</p> - -<p>Provincial fine society was somewhat rough but hearty; ‘all very -friendly and hospitable; but as regards stuffing it would be difficult, -I confess, to excel them.’ The allusion is to a Northumbrian high -sheriff’s dinner party. At Brighton, described in 1809 as a dangerous -rival to Bath, we are at a ball given by a Mr. and Mrs. Parker, ‘good -people who have more money than sense or acquaintances, but who made -up for the latter deficiency by giving balls to all whom they did not -know and the few whom they did.’ Illustrious strangers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> went to dance, -eat suppers, and drink champagne, and perhaps laugh at Mrs. Parker, -who told everybody on coming in, and by way of compliment, that she -had been disappointed of <i>the flower</i> of her party—some three or -four personages who could not come. The lady was, after all, not such -a fool as she looked. There was good satirical humour (when she went -up to Lady Boyne, who was then in deep mourning for her daughter) in -her request to the exemplary mother to open the ball! And apropos -to Brighton, now so rich in vehicles, we smile at the record of the -extortion of Brighton chairmen in 1809, and how they were brought to -their senses by an ex-coachman to a gentleman. Jehu bought the old -blue coach of the Blackburns, with the cock and trumpet upon it, which -had been the glory of Bath; putting a pair of horses to it, the owner -conveyed people all over the town at a shilling per person for the -trip, before midnight, and one-and-sixpence after. While the chairmen -stood upon their rights, earning nothing, this clever coachman whipped -up a very pretty little fortune.</p> - -<p>One of the most pushing and successful men in Bath in 1809 was Sigmond, -who, after being a footman in Germany, set up as a dentist in the -City of Hot Waters. His wife had been his mistress. The two together -made more dash and lived at more expense than almost anybody in that -city.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> They once invited the Duke of Gloucester to a grand supper, and -he so far accepted the invitation as to send one of his gentlemen to -represent him. People of better standing than the footman-dentist and -his married mistress hardly behaved better. The mother of Sir George -Jackson remembered Mrs. Piozzi and Dr. Johnson at Bath, and she could -not imagine how Mrs. Piozzi could tolerate so coarse and bear-like a -person as the Doctor; though the Doctor’s coarseness was matched by the -lady’s levity. ‘Their manners,’ Mrs. Jackson wrote to her son, ‘were -more disgusting than pleasing to most persons ... they both ought to -have been ashamed of themselves.’</p> - -<p>Sixty or seventy years ago locomotion was considered rapid when the -Newcastle mail left that northern town on a Monday morning and reached -London on the ensuing Wednesday at 5 <span class="smaller">A.M.</span> In these days of -electric cables and telegraphs, it is amusing to read of the method -taken by a Rothschild to obtain news. We had not then got so far as -sending or receiving news by carrier pigeons. In February 1807 Jackson -arrived in London from Munich. The head of the Rothschild firm, hearing -of the arrival, waited on the diplomatist, and, as the latter said, -probed him dexterously to elicit any secrets he might possess relative -to Prussian financial difficulties and state affairs generally. The -Government was as ill off occasionally as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> financier. They at one -time depended on the French papers for news from abroad, and for the -loan of these, ministers were indebted to the charity of the editor of -the ‘Times.’</p> - -<p>Looking into private life, we find various illustrations of its -character. While war was raging abroad the waltz conquered the prudes -of Bath, who, after gracefully battling against it, embraced it and -their partners therein with a sort of ecstasy. Those were the days of -heavy postage; and we read of a lady who thought to cheat the revenue -by stuffing a hare sent to a friend, with letters, which that friend -was to hand over according to the addresses. The ingenious method -failed, inasmuch as the cook who received the hare tossed all the -rumpled and blood-stained letters with which it was lined into the fire.</p> - -<p>While Mr. Jackson had the affairs of the world to set down on paper, -and often rose from the table where he was writing despatches only -to catch a hasty glance at a battle, or to be off in a hurry, hardly -pressed by a victorious foe, he was overwhelmed with commissions from -thoughtless people. Some asked him to purchase for them carriages and -horses, others hammers and nails; and, wrote his mother, ‘If in the -course of your rambles through Saxony or Silesia you can meet with -a piece of fine cambric for handkerchiefs pray secure it for me, as -cambric is now of an exorbitant price<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> in this country.’ Thousands of -men were bleeding to death for want of bandages, and the easy-going old -lady at Bath could think only of cheap handkerchiefs for herself.</p> - -<p>One incident of the times reads like a page or two from Fielding. -It refers to the Irish servant, Pat O’Raffer, who was with George -Jackson in Bohemia. Pat was as lean as if he had lived for a month at a -French <i>table d’hôte</i>. In Bath, when his master fell in love with Miss -Rumbold, Pat fell in love with Miss Rumbold’s maid. In his absence, -however, the abigail gave her company to another young man, but Pat -continued to write to her ‘a very pretty letter’ all the same. As one -of these letters especially contained a good deal of political and -personal gossip, which began to spread through Bath, old Mrs. Jackson -thought it would be well to secure it, and to stop the writing of -similar epistles for the future; and she sent for the damsel, with the -success narrated below.</p> - -<blockquote><p>The good, stupid wench mentioned regretfully that the postage -was two shillings and ninepence. I said, ‘Susan, this long story -about things that you know nothing of, and can take no interest -in, my good girl, has cost you, it seems, far more than it is -worth.’ ‘Yes, indeed, ma’am,’ she answered, ‘it has. I like very -well to hear from Mr. Raffer, but I do wish he would pay the -postage.’ ‘Has this thoughtless man often put you to the expense?’ -I inquired. ‘Oh, no, ma’am; it’s the first since he went; but -he says he shall write again.’ ‘Shall you answer it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> Susan?’ I -asked. ‘Lor, ma’am,’ she said, ‘I should never know where to find -a place to begin upon. Doesn’t you think, ma’am, it’s more like a -piece of reading in the newspaper than a letter? Then I shouldn’t -like to pay another two-and-ninepence.’ ‘Then, Susan,’ I said, -‘as my son’s name is mentioned in this letter, suppose I give you -five shillings for it—that will pay the postage, and buy you a -nice frilled neckerchief.’ Susan blushed and smiled with delight. -The bargain was struck at once for this and any other despatch -Mr. Raffer may send, silence on the subject being promised.... My -only qualm of conscience in getting hold of the letter was, that I -suggested to Susan to buy a <i>frilled</i> neckerchief, never allowing -my own maids to wear any but plain ones.</p></blockquote> - -<p>In those days mistresses could rule the costume of their maids. In ours -the latter dress in the same ill-taste adopted by their mistresses. But -chignons, at last, have gone out, and with them the abominable smell -which ‘pervaded’ the atmosphere.</p> - -<p>By 1813 the minuet, a knowledge of dancing which Mrs. Montagu thought -of more importance than a knowledge of French, ceased to be known in -the ball-room. It fingered on the stage. The Coburg Theatre audiences -looked upon the Minuet de la Cour and Gavotte, danced by M. and Mdme. -Le Clercq, with a sort of wondering delight, and Taglioni and Fanny -Elsler danced it on our opera stage, forty years ago, as a lady and -cavalier of the time of Louis the Fourteenth. When the waltz<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> first -attempted (with its vulgar familiarity and an intimacy which made an -Oriental ambassador almost faint) to supplant the minuet, in which the -gentleman scarcely touched the tips of the lady’s fingers, and seemed -abashed at his own audacity, there was a general outcry of fie upon -it. But young ladies soon learned to laugh at the objections of their -mothers, and flung themselves on the shirt-fronts of their partners -with alacrity. Fashion sanctified it, and the youthful world thought -it ill-bred prudery to set its face against what fashionable people of -good taste considered innocent and amusing.</p> - -<p>The actors of the first half of the century come pleasantly to the -memories of some survivors, and to the knowledge of others who will be -glad to become acquainted with them. Graceful Elliston, in Octavian, -is said to have been superior to John Kemble. George Frederick Cooke -was always fine, but never sober; ‘<i>often</i> so drunk as not to be able -to come on the stage at all, and <i>generally</i> as not to be able to -stand when on.’ We sit with Cooke’s exasperated audience, kept half -an hour beyond time, when he was to play Mr. Oakley, and we join in -the hissing when he does appear, and enjoy the mingled surprise and -indignation that light up his countenance. ‘He, however, recollected -himself, and after one violent effort, in which every feature of his -speaking countenance had its peculiar <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>expression, made a sort of -half-disdainful half-respectful bow, and an exit steadier than his -entrée, though hardly steady enough for dignity.’ Cooke’s Oakley, in -its way, was as good as Emery’s Tyke, which, as a bit of tragi-comedy, -was inexpressibly grand.</p> - -<p>In 1809 Kemble was declining. In reference to his Hamlet, Jackson -says, ‘Kemble was, of course, great, and his triumph, I believe, -complete; but, in my humble opinion, he has gone off a good deal.’ -Of the then new Covent Garden (burnt down in 1808), he writes; ‘It -appears to me small, and the prevailing colour—brick red—very common -and ineffective. The doors too, though they cost a large sum, and -will, if they last as long, be very handsome some years hence, have -a mean appearance, the mahogany being so very pale.’ Kemble lingered -too long upon the stage. In 1801 we read, in reference to his Hotspur, -‘In some parts he warmed up to the situation and was very good; but -he is too old for such a character, and the dress only shows off his -unfitness the more. It made him appear decidedly aged, and thus, in -a great measure, rendered all he had to say ineffective.’ But in -those last years of his career Kemble flashed forth gleams of his old -glory. In the year last named he and Mrs. Siddons played inimitably in -‘Isabella,’ in which Charles Kemble played Carlos, and showed signs -that he was not going to remain the mere ‘stick’ which he had been for -many years. Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> Siddons was, on the other hand, deteriorating. She -had grown enormously large. When she killed herself, in ‘Isabella,’ -and fell to the ground, the stage groaned beneath her; and if, in any -character, she knelt, it took two good men to get her comfortably on -her legs again. The greatest theatrical novelty of the day was when -Kemble appeared at court to take leave on his intended departure for -America, where he was to play twenty-two nights for six thousand pounds -and his expenses paid. After all, Kemble did not go; his appearance at -court, ‘a player,’ made some people think the world was coming to an -end. But there was a worse sign of the times. When Bellingham, after -shooting Mr. Percival, was conveyed in a coach to Newgate, the mob -escorted and cheered him, shook hands with him, and congratulated him -on having murdered a minister.</p> - -<p>It is startling to find Mrs. Siddons accused of want of feeling when -she took leave of the stage. As John Kemble continued to linger on it, -his power of attracting audiences grew less. In 1812 it is said of his -King John, ‘his conception of the character remains, of course, as -excellent as ever; but his voice is gone, and I am told when the play -is ended he is so exhausted as hardly to be able to speak or move.’</p> - -<p>We conclude these desultory samples of by-gone life with an example of -the remuneration of a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>leading barrister of the first years of this -century, namely, Garrow. It is said of him that ‘he went into court one -morning at York, made a speech of about twenty minutes, then doffed his -wig and gown, pocketed four hundred pounds, besides one hundred pounds -for his expenses, and drove off again to London.’</p> - -<p>Those who have examined these grains from a full measure may find more -perfect enjoyment by perusing ‘The Diaries and Letters of Sir George -Jackson,’ and the interesting second series of the work known as ‘The -Bath Archives.’</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>THE POSTMAN’S KNOCK.</i></h2> - -<p>‘A foot post doth come from Bury, in Suffolk, to the Green Dragon, in -Bishopsgate Street, every Wednesday, by whom letters may be conveyed -to and fro.’ So writes the water poet, John Taylor, in his ‘Carrier’s -Cosmography,’ <span class="smaller">A.D.</span> 1637. In like manner we learn that a foot -post from Wasingham came every second Thursday to the Cross Keys, -Holborn; and one from York, to the Rose and Crown, in St. John Street. -Letters, however, could be sent every Monday to Scotland, ‘by the post -that doth lodge at the King’s Arms, at the upper end of Cheapside.’ -Letters did not travel then as fast as a certain general made one -travel, by enclosing it in a cannon ball and firing it into a besieged -town, for the purpose of conveying a message. Between the time when the -first letter was written and that signalled by the postman’s knock this -morning there never was a more singular mode of despatch.</p> - -<p>The first letter ever written! Where is it? Let us be content to know, -as beyond dispute, that the earliest sample we have of a letter is -that of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> David to Joab. When we remember the contents and the purpose -of that letter we may be honestly ashamed of the writer. We could have -wished this letter had not been preserved; and we turn from it readily -to consider the letters of more recent and less sacred kings.</p> - -<p>The earliest royal sign manual existing of our own kings is that of -Richard II. The grandest and firmest is that of Richard III. There -exists a document of this king’s which was begun under dictation. -Richard seems to have grown impatient with his secretary, snatched -the pen from his hand, and finished the document with his own hand. -His signature, <i>Ricardus Rex</i>, is written with wonderful boldness. -The cross line of the ‘x’ looks like a pike-staff, and has a wickedly -threatening air with it. There are letters of a far more interesting -quality than the above, also written by Richard, in the collection -of letters of the time of that king, with others of the later time -of Henry VII. The work is one of the series published under the -sanction of the Master of the Rolls. Richard’s letters are those of -a kind-hearted man, who considers no subject to be too trifling for -consideration. Several letters prove that he was an affectionate -husband to Lady Anne. When she was Richard’s queen and had fallen -sick, her husband wrote to Louis XI., civilly requesting him to send -over some Burgundy and wines of Haute<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> France, for the comforting and -strengthening of that august lady’s stomach. On another occasion, when -the governess of his little son Edward (that boy-prince of Wales whose -unexpected death at Middleham nearly drove his father mad) was likely -to lose some property through the dishonesty of a kinsman, Richard -looked into her affairs and energetically set about seeing her righted. -In details like these he comes before us, like a good-natured head of -a family, sympathising with all who live under his roof. It is quite -curious, too, to see that matters of dress were not beneath his notice. -One of his many Irish favourites—favourites because they had supported -the cause of Richard’s noble father, the Duke of York—was the Earl of -Desmond. Richard was not only generous to the earl, he was desirous of -seeing him dressed in the fashion which prevailed in England, but which -had not yet reached Ireland. Richard requests Desmond to ‘renounce the -wearing and usage of the Irish array, and to use the manner of apparel -for his person after the English guise.’ The king sent patterns of -dress to Ireland by the hands of a bishop. The right reverend <i>modiste</i> -carried with him samples of ‘gowns, doublets, hose, and bonnets,’ of -the latest taste, with a fac-simile of the king’s livery, a collar of -gold of Richard’s device, and, finally, a neat assortment of ‘hats, -kerchiefs, tippets, and shirts.’ In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> connection with such articles, and -with the above household details, we hardly recognise the dark Richard -of history and the drama. But light and shade prevail throughout. -Richard could stoop to invent the fashion of a coat, and could climb -through murder to a throne. Whatever may be his guilt with regard to -the young princes in the Tower, he showed his wisdom when he took for -wife Lady Anne, the daughter of the fierce Countess of Warwick, by -immediately locking up his uncomfortable mother-in-law!</p> - -<p>This series of letters is worthy of being studied. Richard appears -quite another manner of man than we have been accustomed to take him -to be. Henry VII., on the other hand, remains unaltered—mean, cruel, -treacherous, and crafty. We will only allude to a letter of James IV. -of Scotland to show his intelligence. In one of them, written to the -King of Denmark, James announces that a band of Gipsies, pretending to -be Christian pilgrims, had been in Scotland, and that he had sent them -to Denmark, the latter country being, as he believed, in the vicinity -of Egypt, from whence the wanderers had started.</p> - -<p>In dealing with old letters, as much caution is necessary as in dealing -with old pictures. All are not ancient masters that are called so. Some -years ago there was an aged man in a German capital, who, throughout a -long life, had made a decent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> income by painting pictures by any great -artist of any time or place. If a rich amateur, travelling that way, -wanted a work by some renowned painter of the early times he went to a -dealer, and the dealer, undertaking to find him one, went to the old -painter of other men’s pictures, who in a week produced a Da Vinci, -a Raffaelle, or a Del Sarto, a Rubens, a Claude, or a Wouvermans—it -mattered not what; and each party was satisfied. Once the old fellow -tried to paint a picture of his own, but there was such a confusion -of styles in it he could not offer it for sale, and in order to live -respectably he was obliged once more to resort to forgery.</p> - -<p>As for forged letters, they are thick as leaves in Vallambrosa. A few -years ago a writer in the ‘Athenæum,’ referring to this fact, remarked, -‘In no age has literature been free from the intrusion of spurious -records into the domain of truth. One man forges for the pure love -of sport, throws his forged papers into a collection, to be found a -hundred years later, merely to perplex the pundits. Another forges to -sustain a crotchet or a principle. But the most industrious and the -most facile are those who forge for profit. Everyone familiar with old -papers is aware that the publication of historical documents—letters, -plays, poems, maps, charts, and cylinders—has now ceased to be a -learned profession, and has become a manufacture.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> As the Old Bailey -had its tribes of rascals ready to witness against anybody and anything -for money, so literature has its race of outcasts ready to furnish any -document that may be wanted, from a Wardour Street pedigree, derived -from scrolls in a Cheshire muniment room, up to a copy of Homer from -a monastery at the summit of Mount Athos.’ Of the above there is no -doubt. We may add that, in some cases, letters have been authentic and -yet have been no more genuine than if they had been forged. That is to -say, they misrepresented the feelings of the writers themselves. We -have one sample of something intended in this way, though not carried -out, by Crebillon and Sterne. Fun, profit, and mystification were at -the bottom of it. Sterne, writing to Garrick in April 1762, says: -‘Crebillon has made a convention with me, which, if he be not too lazy, -will be no bad persiflage. As soon as I get to Toulouse he has agreed -to write me an expostulatory letter upon the indecorums of “Tristram -Shandy,” which is to be answered by recriminations upon the coarseness -of his own works. These are to be printed together—Crebillon against -Sterne: Sterne against Crebillon. The copy to be sold, and the money to -be equally divided. This is good Swiss policy!’ Nothing came of this -design, but it illustrates how a letter may be authentic and yet not be -genuine.</p> - -<p>Widows’ letters are rudely said to be sometimes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> of this quality. This -is, no doubt, untrue. The idea, however, is as old as Massinger. That -dramatic poet makes his Hilario, in ‘The Picture,’ remark:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i12">There be some</div> -<div>That in their husband’s sicknesses have wept</div> -<div>Their pottle of tears a day; but, being once certain,</div> -<div>At midnight, he was dead, have in the morning</div> -<div>Dried up their handkerchiefs, and thought no more on’t!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>But Hilario, who says this, is the fool of the piece.</p> - -<p>There are historical personages, whose letters and manuscripts -generally we should expect would have disappeared altogether; voluntary -destruction having been applied to them. On the other hand, there are -personages whose manuscripts and whose letters, we should suppose, -would have been preserved with a reverential affection. In each case -the expectation is contrary to fact. We will instance Margaret of -Anjou and William Shakespeare. When Edward IV. was on the throne he -was so desirous to secure every letter or despatch written by that -heroic wife of an unheroic king, that the penalty of death was awarded -against any person who, receiving a letter, or being in possession of -a letter from Queen Margaret, delayed in surrendering the same to the -government. One would suppose that such a penalty would lead every -individual holding such documents, if not to surrender at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> least to -destroy them. But human nature is perverse, as well as bold, courageous -and defiant. Many of Margaret’s correspondents hid the letters she -had written to them; some of these have lately been published by the -Camden Society. The volume is one of the most interesting of the series -published by that Society, and the letters themselves are creditable -to the writer. They show her less as a fiercely struggling, deeply -sorrowing, terribly avenging queen, than as a sympathising woman, not -so busy in her own affairs as to lack time for being interested in the -affairs of others. She is ever ready to say a good word for a worthy -man seeking advancement, and her heart responds to appeals from young -maidens with whom the course of true love does not run smooth. For -them, Queen Margaret writes with affectionate urgency to that sort of -sire who is apt to say of a suitor to his daughter, who is unwelcome to -himself, ‘I can’t imagine what the girl can see in such a fellow, to -like him!’ To such stern fathers Margaret of Anjou writes like a wise -and affectionate woman. She may be called a ‘matchmaker,’ for she seems -to have gone to the work of coupling with great alacrity, but we are -sure that many a young couple, in those turbulent times, owed to her a -happiness and a harmony in their married life which poor Margaret never -enjoyed in her own. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> - -<p>But Shakespeare! It is nothing less than marvellous that a man who -wrote as he wrote—and, altogether, no other man ever wrote like -him—that a poet, the author of such plays and such poems; that a man -possessing so many friends and admirers, with whom his correspondence -must have been extensive, should not have left a single line behind -him traced by his own hand. Of all his poems and plays there does not -exist a page, a line, a single word, in manuscript. <i>All</i> Shakespeare’s -manuscript plays could not have perished in the fire which destroyed -the Globe Theatre. The author must have made little account of them -himself; but how great would our estimation be of a single act of any -one of Shakespeare’s plays, in his own handwriting! We have just now -got among us a parallel to the tulip mania. Thousands of pounds are -willingly paid for a picture which the same number of shillings would -once have purchased. Rather, let us say that the shillings were given -for the picture, and that the pounds by thousands are given for the -painter’s name. Well, what would not be willingly paid (for the sake of -Shakespeare’s name) for the original manuscript, say of ‘Hamlet’? There -would be a fierce fight among competitors for even a single passage. -We fancy that the lines beginning with ‘The quality of mercy is not -strained,’ or those that open with ‘Canst thou not minister to a mind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> -diseased?’ or with ‘She never told her love,’ and hundreds of others, -would not be had for guineas covering each letter. What a contention -there would be for the first love-letter or for any love-letter which -the poet wrote to Anne Hathaway; or indeed for any letter, addressed to -anyone. A costly holograph! Alas! there are neither lines nor letters. -All that has been saved of Shakespeare’s handwriting is confined to -a couple of signatures of his name to certain deeds, and in those -subscriptions the name is spelt differently. Even the forgers have not -dared to produce a letter by Shakespeare.</p> - -<p>There seems to have been at one time a regular manufactory for the -production of letters by Shelley, Keats, and Byron. The market was -swamped by cleverly forged documents. About twenty years ago, Robert -Browning, the poet, edited a volume of letters by Shelley, and critics -said that they would prove useful to all future biographers of that -wayward genius. These letters turned out to be forgeries. One epistle -was found to be a ‘crib’ from an article by Sir Francis Palgrave, in -the ‘Quarterly Review.’ Another was slightly altered from a paper -in a literary annual. When research was made, the discovery ensued -that the supposed originals had been purchased by Mr. Moxon, the -publisher, at an auction. The auctioneer had had them consigned to -him by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> a bookseller in Pall Mall, and the bookseller had bought them -from two unknown women, who looked as much like ladies as the letters -looked like genuine productions. If Mr. Moxon had not sent a copy of -the volume to Mr. Tennyson a long time might have elapsed before the -fraud could have been discovered. But Mr. Palgrave, on a visit to the -Laureate, happened to open the book, and his eye fell on a letter from -Shelley to Godwin, written from Florence. Mr. Palgrave recognised in -it a portion of an article on Florence, in the ‘Quarterly,’ written by -his father, Sir Francis. Mr. Moxon called in all the copies of this -volume of pseudo-epistles, and suppressed the publication altogether. -A curious result has followed. The volume is worthless, but it is -rare; and simply on account of its rarity it is set down in a London -bookseller’s catalogue now before us at the price of 1<i>l.</i> 10<i>s.</i></p> - -<p>Stray letters of Shelley continued to turn up in the market. Letters -to his wife, of the most confidential nature, containing aspersions on -his father, were bought by Sir Percy Shelley, the poet’s son. These too -proved to be forgeries and were destroyed. Another letter, addressed to -Byron, and bearing Shelley’s signature, contained an assertion against -the fidelity of ‘Harriet.’ Whoever bought it paid six guineas for a -calumny against a dead and defenceless woman, to which was appended -the forged signature of her dead and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> defenceless husband. Forged -letters purporting to be from Byron are, as it were, to be had at every -turn. Also books with his alleged manuscript notes in the margin. Good -judges assert that these notes and letters are written with a thorough -knowledge of Byron’s life and feelings, and that the books are chosen -with the most perfect knowledge of his tastes and peculiarities.</p> - -<p>There was once a dreadful fashion of writing romances and novels in -letters. Nothing seems more wearisome now, but they delighted the -age in which they were written, and <i>that</i> says much for the patient -endurance of the readers of the period. There is, however, <i>one</i> story -told in letters, the humour of which will never grow old, namely, -‘Humphrey Clinker.’ Smollett never showed more ability, or humour, -or power in delineating and discriminating character than in that -admirable work. For humour, commend us to the letters of Mrs. Tabitha -Bramble. The preciseness of that lady, who is satisfied if a suitable -reason be given for things she complains of, and who is drolly serious -in her logic, is charmingly illustrated in the following passage in -one of her various letters addressed to the housekeeper, Mrs. Gwyllym, -in the country, at Brambleton Hall: ‘You tell me the thunder has -soured two barrels of beer in the seller, but how the thunder should -get there, when the seller was double-locked, I can’t comprehend.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> -Howsomever, I won’t have the beer thrown out till I have seen it with -my own eyes. Perhaps it will recover. At least it will serve for -vinegar for the servants.’</p> - -<p>This pretended letter is not beyond the reality of much letter-writing -of the last century. Southey, when collecting materials for -‘Espriella,’ came into possession of a letter from a farmer’s daughter. -It was written towards the close of the century, and it runs thus:</p> - -<blockquote><p>Dear Miss,—The energy of the races prompts me to assure you -that my request is forbidden, the idea of which I had awkwardly -nourished, notwithstanding my propensity to reserve. M. T. will -be there. Let me with confidence assure you that him and brothers -will be very happy to meet you and brothers. Us girls cannot go, -for reasons. The attention of the cows claims our assistance in -the evening.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Unalterably yours.</span></p></blockquote> - -<p>In the days of heavy postage no one had the slightest scruple in -cheating the revenue. Persons leaving home, whether for inland or -foreign travel, were importuned by friends to carry letters for them -to other friends. An idea prevailed that, if the letters were carried -‘open’—that is, unsealed—there was no infraction of the law, and -that consequently no penalty could be exacted. This was a popular -error. The law, moreover, was evaded in another way. A newspaper was -sent by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> post in an envelope; inside the latter a long epistle was -often written in invisible ink, generally milk. When this was dry the -writing could not be seen. By holding the paper to the fire the writing -came out in a sepia colour, and the law was broken. The Post Office -authorities discovered this pretty trick, and parties were threatened -with prosecution; but as the receivers invariably protested that they -did not know who the senders were it was almost impossible to obtain -a conviction. Senders indeed grew a little nervous, and many changed -their method of conveying information in spite of the law. In place of -writing in milk on the covers of the newspapers they made slight dots -in ordinary ink under such printed letters as suited their purpose -for conveying intelligence. This was troublesome for both sender and -receiver, and it was therefore used only for brief messages. The postal -tax pressed most heavily on the poor, but the ingenious poor discovered -means to evade it. For instance, a son or daughter in town despatched a -letter to parents in the country who were too poor to pay the postage. -The parents declined to take such letter in, which they had legal right -to do. Returned to the General Post Office, the letter on being opened -was found to be a blank sheet of paper. The fact is that parents and -children had agreed to send these blank sheets as indications that -all was well<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> with the sender; the receiver got that much of news and -had nothing to pay for it. The letter was never taken in unless a -particular mark was on the cover, which intimated that something of -importance was to be read within.</p> - -<p>Although a high rate of postage fell most heavily upon the poor -there was scarcely anyone who did not feel it. Everyone wished to be -relieved from it. We can hardly realise how peers, who could frank -a large number of letters daily, and how members of Parliament, who -could frank, every day except Sunday, a few, were beset by friends for -franks for themselves, or for <i>their</i> friends, or for their friends’ -friends. We have an illustration of this fact in the ‘Diary, Letters, -and Journals of Sir George Jackson.’ Writing to his mother at Bath, in -1802, the then apprentice diplomatist says: ‘My sister tells me Bath -was never so thin. I sympathise with her, knowing how voluminous her -correspondence is, and that the thinness of Bath means “a dearth of -<i>frank</i> men,” there being, she says, only Lords Rosslyn and Harcourt to -fly to.’</p> - -<p>In those old days heavy postage made long letters. As the receivers -paid the postage they naturally expected their money’s worth. Often a -sheet of Bath post, or even of foolscap, was crossed and recrossed, -and not a hair’s breadth of the paper was left without its line. A -letter then was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> written bit by bit, day after day, till the whole was -completed. It was, in its way, a newspaper or a book; it was sent all -through the branches of a family; it was lent to friends; it even went -to mere acquaintances, and strangers made extracts from the choicest -parts of it. In the second series of Miss Mitford’s ‘Letters and -Correspondence’ she refers to one of these epistles. It was written by -a lord who had been travelling on the Continent, and it was a clever, -sensible, and instructive document. Miss Mitford borrowed it for the -purpose of copying the contents, to accomplish which cost her six -mortal hours, which the lady did not think were ill-spent.</p> - -<p>When postage was high, letters were luxuries in which persons, far -above the condition of those who are called poor, could not often -indulge. We cannot give a better illustration of this than one we find -in a letter addressed by Mr. Collins, the artist, to his brother, in -1816, when the landscape painter was twenty-eight years of age. Collins -was then at Hastings sketching, and had invited his brother to come -down from Saturday to Monday. ‘The whole amount of the expense would be -the coach, provided you put two biscuits in your pocket, which would -answer as a lunch; and I would have dinner for you, which would not -increase <i>my</i> expenditure <i>above tenpence</i>. I shall be at the place -where the coach stops for you, should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> you be able to come. Write me -nothing about it unless you have other business, <i>for a letter costs a -dinner</i>.’ This was the artist who was overjoyed to receive fifty pounds -for his ‘Cromer Sands,’ the picture for which, at the sale of the -Gillott collection, a purchaser was found to give, quite as joyously, -three thousand seven hundred and eighty guineas.</p> - -<p>It has been said that, if heavy postage produced essays, cheap postage -makes epigrams. But the latter were not wanting in the very earliest -days. Nothing could be more epigrammatic than the note sent by one -Irish chief to another: ‘Pay me tribute, or else ——’ To which the -equally epigrammatic answer was: ‘I owe you none, and if ——’ Of this -sort were the notes between Foote’s mother and Foote. ‘Dear Sam,—I’m -in prison. Yours, <span class="smcap">E. Foote</span>.’ The old lady was under arrest -for debt. The son’s answer was: ‘Dear Mother,—So am I. Yours, <span class="smcap">S. -Foote</span>.’ And again, the letters between old Mrs. Garrick and young -Edmund Kean: ‘Dear Mr. Kean,—You can’t play Abel Drugger. Yours, &c.’ -To which intimation Edmund wrote back: ‘Dear Madam,—I know it. Yours, -E. K.’ Instances occur now and then where a joke has been played, the -fun of which was to make a man pay heavy postage for very unnecessary -information. When Collins, the artist, was once with some friends -around him, one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> of them resisted every attempt to induce him to stay -to supper. He withdrew, and the friends in council over their banquet -resolved that the sulky guest should be punished. Accordingly on the -following day Collins sent him a folded sheet of foolscap, in which -was written: ‘After you left we had stout and oysters.’ The receiver -understood what was meant, but he was equally resolved to have his -revenge. Accordingly, biding his time, he transmitted, in a feigned -hand, to Collins, a letter in which the painter read only, ‘<i>Had</i> you?’ -Therewith the joke seemed at an end; but Collins would have the last -word. He waited and waited till the thing was almost forgotten, and -then the writer of the last query opened a letter one morning in which -he had the satisfaction of finding an answer to it in the words, ‘Yes, -we had.’ We cannot dismiss this part of the subject without expressing -our regret that we are unable to remember the name of that British -admiral who, after achieving a glorious victory at sea, despatched a -letter to the Admiralty, in which there were only these or similar -words: ‘ ... Beat the enemy; took, sunk, burned, and destroyed ships -named in the margin.’ Tersest of admirals!</p> - -<p>The publication of the letters of deceased persons first arose, or -began to be so common, about the middle of the last century, that Dr. -Arbuthnot declared the knowledge of such a fact<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> added a new terror to -death. In 1781 the custom had not improved. ‘It has become so much the -fashion to publish letters,’ said Dr. Johnson, ‘that I put as little -into mine as I can.’ Nevertheless, when Boswell subsequently asked -him if it would be proper to publish any of his letters after death, -Johnson contented himself by remarking: ‘Nay, sir, when I am dead you -may do as you will with mine.’</p> - -<p>There has been no little affectation in some notable persons, and a -remarkable candour in others, with respect to the publication of these -documents. Pope addressed his letters to his friends, but he carefully -and elaborately wrote and re-wrote them for posterity, and he was not -sorry to see some of them get into print (he rather helping them to -that end than obstructing them), that he might have a foretaste of the -enjoyment which was more especially intended for after ages. Every -line in Walpole’s letters reads as if it were as much intended for -<i>us</i> of any year to come as for the happy friend to whom the letter -was directed; but this diminishes neither Walpole’s credit nor our -appreciation. Pepys never intended his ‘Diary’ to be perused by any -mortal eye but his own. The Rev. Mr. Smith, however, deciphered the -shorthand, and the best social history of Pepys’ time fell into the -hands of a delighted and grateful public. Evelyn wrote <i>his</i> ‘Diary’ -for his own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> satisfaction, indifferent, as Dr. Johnson about his -letters, whether it were published or not after his death. Evelyn’s -descendants were ignorant of its value, and it is to a stranger we -owe those sketches of contemporary men and things which now enrich -our literature. Pepys, Evelyn, Walpole—diaries and letters; of how -many exquisite stories we should have known nothing but for those -three individuals! It matters little whether they intended we should -enjoy that knowledge or not; sufficient for us that we <i>do</i>. And let -us note in passing another letter-writer—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. -Her letters are not quite so popular, so much read, or so well known, -perhaps, as they used to be; they may have had their day, but the -writer was well assured they would at least have <i>that</i>. ‘Keep my -letters,’ she once wrote to a friend; ‘they will be as good as Madame -de Sévigné’s forty years hence.’</p> - -<p>They certainly contain many things worth the knowing. The writer’s -descriptions of foreign scenes and incidents are full of life and -spirit, generally truthful, and always effective without marring the -truth. There is one passage in one of her ladyship’s letters which -illustrates the writer’s power in a particularly delicate matter, which -is well deserving notice. Mr. Montagu’s sister died. She had been Lady -Mary Pierrepont’s dearest friend. Young Montagu had to communicate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> -the news of his sister’s death to the young Lady Mary. In her reply -the latter said: ‘I know it is not acting in form, but I do not look -upon you as I do upon the rest of the world. You are brother to a woman -whom I tenderly loved.’ The young fellow excused the informality; he -was proud of being looked upon by the young beauty in a different way -from the rest of the world. As that young beauty reminded him that he -was brother to the woman she so tenderly loved, he was not dull, and -had no difficulty in persuading her to love the brother even better -than she had done the sister. The marriage, however, was not made in -heaven. The lady herself had some suspicion about the consequences. ‘I -tremble,’ she wrote to her intended husband, ‘for what we are doing. -Shall we never repent?... I shall come to you only with a nightgown and -petticoat, and that is all you will get by me.’ She adds significantly: -‘I had rather die than return to a dependency upon relations I have -disobliged.’ In her first letter to her (absent) husband after marriage -she alludes to the children of the family in which she was residing, -and says: ‘It furnishes my imagination with agreeable pictures of our -future life, and I flatter myself with the hopes of one day enjoying -with you the same satisfaction ... when the noise of a nursery may have -more charms for us than the music of the opera.’ </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> - -<p>While on the subject of the publication of posthumous letters, we may -add that other men besides Johnson have written their own so as to -gratify posterity as little as possible. Some are as cautious with -respect to contemporaries. One of the most venerable of our peers was -once told that several of his letters were catalogued for sale in a -London auction room. ‘It is a matter of indifference to me,’ said the -noble lord; ‘from the day I became a public man I never wrote a line -worth the reading by anyone except the person to whom my letter was -addressed.’</p> - -<p>The assertion that a lady puts the essence, nay, the very purpose and -import of her letter, in the postscript, has had many an ingenious -but invented illustration. One of the best is that of a young lady -in India to her friends at home, viz.:—‘P.S. You will see by my -signature that I am married.’ Cobbett hated writing across already -written lines, and declared that it was of French origin. The earliest -letter by a lady, in this country, of which a copy exists, is one from -Matilda, Queen of Henry I., to Archbishop Anselm. In this she styles -him her ‘worthily reverenced lord,’ and herself ‘the lowest of the -handmaidens of his holiness;’ phrases which show the mind and hand of -some reverend secretary. Anne Boleyn’s last cry of love and anguish -to her lord is worth a ream of the letters of earlier date written at -second hand. It is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> genuineness that gives all the interest to the -Paston Letters (once so disputed); Agnes Paston’s to her son may be -said to be admirable for detail and simplicity. ‘God’s blessing and -mine,’ is a fitting double benediction from a mother to her son. How -picturesquely descriptive is the passage, ‘On Tuesday last Sir John -Heveningham went to his church and heard three masses, and came home -again, never merrier, and said to his wife that he would go say a -little devotion in his garden and then he would dine; and forthwith -he felt a fainting in his legs and slid down. This was at nine of the -clock and he was dead ere noon.’ Such were life and death in the middle -of the fifteenth century in the county of Norfolk. We may notice, after -the above illustration of a letter from a mother to her son, one from -a wife to her husband, but of the seventeenth century. In a letter -from Susan Montague to her husband Edward, who has announced his being -about to leave Madrid for England, the sprightly Susan replied to her -‘sweetheart’ that she fears she may weary his eyes with her ‘tedious -scribblement,’ and after many allusions to herself and two ladies, with -matters of confidence, Susan Montague concludes by saying: ‘So being -very late, as a matter of ten o’clock, I bid you good night, going into -the little bed, which I find less than ever it was, and never have no -mind to go into it because I cannot find my sweeting there. But when I -am there I sleep as little as may be,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> for I am still riding post to -Madrid, which I hope doth presage that you will shortly post from there -and come to the little chamber again, which I heartily pray for. So, -dear heart, farewell. Your truly loving wife—<span class="smcap">Su. Montague</span>.’ -The orthography of ladies became rather worse than better in the -times after Susan Montague wrote. In the last century ladies spelt -‘physician’ with a capital F, and in the old game of ‘loving’ would not -be conscious of wrong in saying, ‘I love my love with a G, because he’s -a Gustus!’ There are some curious samples of ill spelling in the Delany -correspondence. Cacography seemed to be intermittent like the ague. The -wrong thing came with the east wind or epidemics. Sometimes an odd word -or two would baffle a lady. At the beginning of the present century -the exquisite Alison Cockburn referred in one of her letters to some -‘unpareleled boon.’ The word caught her eye, and she gaily added as a -postscript, ‘Cannot spell unparaleled.’</p> - -<p>The letters of fine gentlemen are written in a fine gentlemanly way. -If the fine gentleman be a wit and a poet it does not always improve -the style of the letter. Much nonsense has been written upon Waller -and his Sacharissa (Lady Dorothy Sidney). The facts of their supposed -love passages have grown up out of the imaginations of sentimental -writers. When Lady Dorothy married Lord Spencer, Waller wrote to her -sister,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> Lady Lucy, a letter which would now be considered much more -impudent than witty. But the poet’s hand is in it as well as the -impudent wit’s. After sympathising with Lady Lucy on the loss of her -sister ‘bedfellow,’ and expressing a hope that the latter would soon -‘taste of the first curse imposed on woman,’ and often; in due course -of time, the poet wishes, ‘May she then arrive at that great curse so -much declined by fair ladies, old age. May she live to be very old and -yet seem young, be told so by her glass, and have no aches to inform -her of the truth. And when she shall appear to be mortal, may her lord -not mourn for her, but go hand in hand with her to that place where we -are told there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage, that being -there divorced we may all have an equal interest in her again.’</p> - -<p>Letters <i>to</i> children are as difficult to write as books <i>for</i> -children. Crabb Robinson stands at the head of all inditers of little -epistles to little folk. He is not in the vein of Jeffrey to his -granddaughter, as in ‘I send you my blessing and wish I was kissing -your sweet rosy lips or your fat finger tips.’ Robinson comes nearer -to Hood, only that he could not stoop to use old jokes as well as make -new. The two are together in the following paragraph in Hood’s letter -to May, one of Dr. Elliot’s daughters: ‘Tell Dunnie that Tom has set -his trap in the balcony, and has caught a cold;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> and tell Jeanie that -Fanny has set her foot in the garden, but it has not come up yet.... -The other night, when I came from Stratford, the cold shrivelled me up -so that when I got home I thought I was my own child.’ The best thing -Crabb Robinson did in this way was by surprising a little girl, who -said she did not know how to write a letter to her little brother, by -proving to her that she was a perfect letter-writer. She had asked -Robinson to suggest all the subjects. He proposed purposely something -untrue, then something silly, but both were rejected by the child on -the ground of their untruthfulness and silliness. This process went on -till the child adopted such subjects as were adapted to her purpose, -and she found she was a good letter-writer without knowing it.</p> - -<p>We conclude with an unpublished letter, from an American lady we -believe, who some quarter of a century ago aspired to be the instructor -of children. The quaintness and simplicity, for it is all sober -earnestness, are worthy of being preserved: ‘<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—Having -heard that you are in want of a governess for your children, I write to -offer myself as a candidate for that post. My acquirements are English -in all its branches, French, German, music, which I play well, singing, -painting, drawing, and dancing. My age is just 28. I am a lady by -birth, high-spirited, and I am<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> sorry to say slightly quick-tempered, -but still very fond of children, likewise of gentlemen’s society; I am -rather delicate, and when not as well as usual require a few tempting -viands. I hope, if you decide in having me for your children as their -governess, that you will allow me the <i>entrée</i> of your drawing-room at -all times, and that you will also allow me to join in all your domestic -amusements. I wish to inform you that I have been in the habit of -receiving 60<i>l.</i> (sixty pounds) per annum, or fifty pounds (50<i>l.</i>) -with laundress, and all travelling expenses paid. You may be glad to -hear that I have an elegant figure, small hands and feet, and am, if my -friends and admirers are to be believed, engaging.’</p> - -<p>With this sample we may leave our readers to pass on to fresh woods and -pastures new.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>THE TWENTY-THOUSAND-POUND WIDOW.</i></h2> - -<p>In the reign of Charles I. the Old Jewry, which runs from Cheapside to -Cateaton Street, was a fashionable locality. Merchant princes lived -and died there. The old church, St. Olave Jewry, or St. Olave Upwell, -was a fashionable church. Merchant princesses worshipped there, and -their daughters were worshipped by the undevout apprentices. The Jewry -had its fashionable old hostelry in the Windmill. It lives in Ben -Jonson’s drama. It was there that Captain Bobadil told of his heroism -at the siege of Strigonium, and there he pished at the idea of Master -Stephen’s Provant rapier passing for a Toledo blade. One May morning, -<span class="smaller">A.D.</span> 1628, George Newman, the rich widow Bennett’s first -serving-man, was taking his early draught at the Windmill. His master, -the rich mercer, a Bennett of the stock from which the Tankerville -earls have sprung, was then lying, a month old in his tenantcy, in -a grave in St. Olave’s, next to another mercer, Robert Large, the -master of one who came to be more famous, namely, Caxton, the father -of English printing. Bennett’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> widow was then sitting behind her rich -curtains in Jewry Street meditating on a world of speculative subjects. -‘She’s a twenty-thousand-pound widow,’ said Newman, as he wiped his -lips with the sleeve of his coat. ‘She’ll be a bride, and a lady to -boot, before long. She has as many suitors as she has thousands.’ -‘And,’ said a bystander, ‘will maybe marry the biggest knave or the -most perfect fool of the lot.’ ‘Not so,’ rejoined the serving-man. ‘Do -you see Mr. Recorder passing by from his court? He is a friend of the -family, and will see that neither rogue nor ass carries off the wealthy -widow.’ ‘Ay!’ cried the host of the Windmill, ‘Mistress Bennett is in -safe hands, with Sir Heneage Finch for her guardian and her little -son’s guardian.’ And so said all who stood within hearing.</p> - -<p>The scene now changes to the widow’s best room, in her mansion in Old -Jewry. If you can fancy the three slim Graces rolled into one, with no -other result but delicious increase of beauty in form, motion, look, -and expression, you may have a very fair idea of this most blooming -and best endowed of widows. Physically, morally, materially, she was -not to be equalled throughout the realm of mature womanhood. Fair of -face, frank of speech, with an inheritance of two-thirds of her late -husband’s property, a prosperous business, plate, diamonds, cash, the -mansion in which she lived, a coach, six horses, and all things that -tend<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> to make life enjoyable, Mistress Bennett took her widowhood with -that sort of resignation which is denoted by an air of calm content -with providential dispensations. She was in such esteem that at least a -score of lovers were contending for the honour of rendering her happy. -Even the ladies were busy in commending certain of the suitors. The -widow would not be persuaded. The lady advisers were frivolous. She -would rely on the grave counsel of a grave man. Mr. Recorder would be -her truest support if she ever found herself in any perplexity on the -subject of marrying again. At the moment it was a subject that was not -in her thoughts.</p> - -<p>‘The subject is in the thoughts of young Butler, of Bramfield,’ said -Lady Skinner. ‘He is a gentleman——’</p> - -<p>‘He is a black, blunt-nosed one,’ interrupted the widow. And indeed -Butler was not an Adonis.</p> - -<p>‘I pity poor Sir Peter Temple,’ said another of Love’s messengers that -morning. ‘Stowe does not make him happy; <i>you</i> might.’</p> - -<p>‘Eleanor Tirrell <i>will</i>,’ replied the widow. ‘I wish they were all as -well provided for.’</p> - -<p>‘All!’ exclaimed Sir Peter’s friend. ‘Why, to what tune does the list -run?’</p> - -<p>‘First,’ answered the widow, ‘there is Sir Henry Mainwaring, a poor -old battered knight, who is not master of as much land as his shoes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> -can cover; and yet he is as proud as if he were a Mainwaring of Over -Pecover. His worship was brought hither by the hand of the Countess of -Bridgwater, but I speedily rid myself civilly of both. There have been -other silly knights, and lords too, who have come and gone, and some -of whom come and come again. Lord Bruce took a frank answer, and did -not present himself twice. Lord Lumley, all in the glitter of his new -title, will not take <i>nay</i>. Dr. Raven has even dared to offer himself -without first feeling my pulse, and he swears his daring has not come -to an end. Only the other day Sir Sackville Crowe beset me; and, heaven -help me! I believed, for a moment, that Sir Heneage Finch himself had -views towards me. But Sir Heneage <i>could</i> take an answer, and he besets -me with hints of his aspirations no longer.’</p> - -<p>‘Crow, Finch, Raven!’ exclaimed the group of ladies who were gathered -round the twenty-thousand-pounder in her best room at St. Olave’s. -‘What a singular gathering of birds! You will be flown away with, -widow, in spite of yourself.’</p> - -<p>Mr. Recorder Finch, erst Speaker of the House of Commons, came into -London to perform his legal duties, and returned in the evening to his -house at Kensington. The house still stands. It is the kernel round -which has grown the shell called Kensington Palace. Heneage Finch’s -gardens extended only to what is now called the Broad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> Walk. The latter -was then a pathway through Hyde Park from Kensington to Bayswater. The -wicked public loved to connect his name with those of Crowe and Raven -as ‘birds of a feather.’ The truth is, that Raven was the real, daring, -and most persistent lover. Sir Sackville Crowe, indeed, had been the -more serious in his pretensions, as he most needed the widow’s money. -He was ‘a thief on the wrong side of Newgate;’ that is, he outspent -his income and ruined his tradesmen. He paid them by agreement just -a quarter of what he owed those poor fellows, and thus he submitted -to be three-quarters kept by his butcher, baker, and tailor. He made -an ‘appearance,’ which it was an easy thing to do at other people’s -expense. He had been the official keeper of public funds, of which he -unluckily failed to give satisfactory account. He alleged that his -book-keeping had been done by deputy, and his deputy seems to have -been loose in his arithmetic. Altogether, this Crowe was a supreme -rogue, but he was one of a very large family. The widow’s fortune would -have saved his post, if not his credit, at the Navy Treasury Office. -The widow, however, scornfully refused to sit on the same branch with -Crowe, and Sir Sackville, thoroughly plucked, was ejected from the -office in question.</p> - -<p>But, Dr. Raven! The doctor was of another quality. The physician would -not be said <i>nay</i>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> The <i>nay</i> was <i>decies repetita</i>, but it was not -heeded. Still, he was not the nearer to his object by being impeded. -One evening he took up a copy of Green’s ‘Quip,’ which was then a work -of some thirty years old. His eye fell on these words: ‘Lawyers are -troubled with the heat of the liver, which makes the palms of their -hands so hot that they cannot be cooled unless they be rubbed with oil -of angels.’ Forthwith Dr. Raven bethought him that Abigails were very -like lawyers, and that he would try a few angels on the palms of Widow -Bennett’s waiting-woman, to gain access to whom, however, he had to -oil many a serving-man’s palm also. Abigail was willing to betray her -mistress for a consideration, and it was made worth her while to admit -Raven (like Iachimo into the chamber of the sleeping Imogen) into the -apartment where the widow lay in a lapse of loveliness, buried in lace -and rosy slumbers. Raven awoke the sleeping dove with all gentleness; -as she did not scream he pressed his suit, craftily pointing out to her -that as his presence compromised her reputation, the latter could only -be saved by an immediate marriage. Then the thoroughly awakened goddess -lifted up her voice to tremendous purpose. ‘Reputation,’ indeed! She -knew hers to be safe, and she lustily screamed ‘Thieves!’ and ‘Murder;’ -in order to bring in her household to keep it so. The men-servants, -seeing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> no further chance of angels or marks from the physician, flung -themselves upon Raven, as if he had really been more intent upon murder -than marriage. They held him till the august parish constable arrived, -and the constable ‘run him in’ to the Compter for the night. On the -following morning Raven was brought up before Mr. Recorder Finch. -That impartial judge, sympathising with the insulted widow, whom he -so highly respected, committed Dr. Raven for trial at the ensuing -sessions. It was not at all likely that Sir Heneage Finch would be slow -in protecting the beautiful widow of his deceased friend from such -saucy rogues as Dr. Raven, who was subsequently imprisoned for half a -year.</p> - -<p>The dramatists certainly had their eye upon this escapade of Raven’s. -Rowley, especially, adopted the bed-room incident in his ‘City Match,’ -where Alexander Bloodhound gets into the Widow Wagge’s chamber. -Alexander half-undresses himself, and so frightens the widow that she -consents to marry him to save her credit; but she disappoints the -audacious wooer at last. Mr. Planché reproduced this scene in 1828 in -his ‘Merchant’s Wedding.’ The daring suitor there was Frank Plotwell -(C. Kemble); the lady was Aurelia, a wealthy heiress, played by Miss -Chester, who was as superb a beauty as Widow Bennett herself. How -glorious, too, Charles Kemble looked in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> King Charles suit, and how -like a jockey in his silks when he half-stripped, are things only to be -remembered by old play-goers with good memories.</p> - -<p>At this time there was a Kentish knight keeping lonely state in -London. He was a widower twice over; but loving matrimony so well -from his sweet experience of it that he was dying to find another -mate. The Derings were of a very old stock, and Sir Edward, thirty -years of age in 1628, might have looked high in search of the mate in -question. He was of Magdalen College, Oxford, and was a sound scholar. -In religion rather austere, but with an anti-episcopalian bias. His -tastes would have made him a very acceptable member of the Society of -Antiquaries. In person he was a handsome fellow, was gifted with kindly -dispositions, of good carriage and expression in speaking, was fond of -applause, and was unaffectedly conscious that he deserved all he could -get of it. Some ladies thought so too. Elizabeth Tufton, one of the -nine muses—daughters, we should say—of Sir Nicholas, put her hand in -his as frankly as he asked for it; and King James made a knight of the -bridegroom, who was none the more a gentleman for the dignity conferred -on him. The bride died after the birth of a son, and therewith ended -a brief day-dream of married happiness. They carried the young mother -to the grave when she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> was little more than twenty, nor was the young -widower much older.</p> - -<p>That young widower found consolation, however, at a pretty early period -of his mourning time. He took to his home a new bride from Sussex, Ann -Ashburnham, whose mother was connected with the family of the great -Buckingham. Thenceforward, for a season, Sir Edward Dering became a -public man. He was busier in Kent than his father, Sir Anthony (a -baronet), and he was to be seen about court, a gentleman of the Privy -Chamber, attending more closely upon the Duke than upon Charles the -First, and hoping to get into Parliament under Buckingham’s favour. -But fate was against him. The Duke was assassinated in 1626, and Sir -Edward was called from court by the sickness of his fair young wife. -In one of her letters to him, while he was at Whitehall, she wrote, ‘I -cannot send any good news of my couge’s going away, yet I eat joyes -of lecarich.’ The ‘couge’s’ signified ‘cough’s.’ The futile remedy -was ‘juice of liquorice.’ At the age of twenty-three this second Lady -Dering was laid by the side of the first, leaving a son and daughter -too young to remember their mother.</p> - -<p>Sir Edward was again solitary, and was bearing his solitude -impatiently, when chance brought him acquainted with the story of the -fair widow in the Jewry. A new act in the City comedy opens, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> to -gay music ‘enter Sir Edward Dering.’ It is St. Edmund’s day. Raven is -in limbo. The widow is alone. The new lover calls in St. Olave’s. Mrs. -Bennett, however, declines to receive him. He sends in a letter to her -by her servant, who brings it back, but the maid tells him that her -mistress <i>had read</i> it. Read it! Then there was hope. Within the next -four days Sir Edward had oiled the palms of men-servants and clerks -to the tune of eighty shillings. He called again, but was denied. He -wrote again, and she kept the letter. Kept the letter! Here was a hint -to proceed further. Sir Edward ‘oiled’ more palms, and moved cousins -of his own and cousins of the widow—being of his acquaintance—to -stir her to be gracious to so handsome and hopeful a lover. He had the -widow’s cash-keeper to sup with him; and, perhaps at the cash-keeper’s -suggestion, on the last day in November, 1628, Sir Edward was to be -seen twice at the Old Jewry Church, near enough to the handsome widow -for her to see him without appearing to turn her eyes expressly for -that purpose. Reckoning on having made a favourable impression, he, on -the following day, wrote a third letter. This Mistress Bennett deigned -to keep, which was favour enough for the present. Presuming on that -favour the ardent lover (who had lodged himself at a house opposite the -widow’s), at the end of two or three days, rang thrice in one forenoon -at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> widow’s bell. ‘Mrs. Bennett was not at home.’ She was abroad, -prosecuting the over-zealous lover, Dr. Raven. A friend, and not a -servant of the widow, on Dering repeating his call next day, one Mr. -George Loe, brought a very cautious message to the wooer. It was made -up of what <i>she</i> said, and what <i>he</i> thought. What she said was to this -effect: that a Mr. Steward, from whom she wished to buy the wardship he -had had conferred on him of her own child, but who wished, on his side, -to have legal marital wardship of the child’s mother, was ‘testy,’ and -‘she could give admittance to none till she had concluded all matters -of business with <i>him</i>.’ What Loe added was, ‘She has a good opinion -of you. I have spoken nobly of you. You shall hear from me as soon as -Steward is disposed of, and,’ said Loe (probably the sly widow had -told him to say it), ‘don’t refrain from going to the church where -she prays unless you think it disparages yourself.’ Disparagement! -It was an honour. On the very first Sunday in December Dering paid -double worship at St. Olave’s, Old Jewry. He went as parishioner and -lover, uniting, as Mr. Bruce says, in his preface to ‘Proceedings in -Kent,’ ‘the worship of Mrs. Bennett with that ordinarily offered at St. -Olave’s.’ The interference of servants in the affair here curiously -manifests itself. As Sir Edward left the church George Newman, whom he -had ‘oiled,’ whispered in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> Dering’s ear, ‘Good news!’ As Sir Edward was -sitting after dinner at his own table Newman entered, and the fellow -bade the cavalier be of good cheer. ‘My mistress,’ he said, ‘likes well -your carriage, and, if your land is not settled on your eldest son, -there is good hope for you.’ The news, true or false, was paid for at -the cost of a pound sterling. If he smiled as he went out so also does -Sir Edward, as he leans back in his chair, and murmurs to himself, -‘This evening I will seek counsel of Heneage Finch.’</p> - -<p>At the Recorder’s house you may see, in the next scene of the drama, -Finch and Dering at supper. The friends and kinsmen take their claret -and talk of love. The two suitors to the widow were on terms of -unlimited confidence and frankness. ‘Ned,’ said Sir Heneage, ‘I wend no -more to the widow’s house. I have done. I have no success to look for. -I have no desire to go further. I will do or say anything you ask me -in this or any other matter.’ Nothing could be kinder than Sir Heneage -Finch.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile Mr. Steward was at the widow’s feet; or, rather, he stood -upright on his own, dictating, rather than asking, terms. The widow’s -heart was set, she said, upon having her child’s wardship in her own -hands. She was willing to pay fifteen hundred pounds for it. As the -words fell from her beautiful lips, Edmund<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> Aspull, Mrs. Bennett’s -cash-keeper, advanced, with the amount all ready. If Steward said -anything gallant it has not reached the audience. He seems to have had -an ‘<i>aside</i>,’ in which he murmured that for nothing less than four -thousand pounds would he ever release his right in the ward. ‘With my -good will,’ said the widow, ‘I will never look upon that fellow again!’ -But, in legal matters she, of course, would consult her good friend, -Sir Heneage. To do him justice, Finch was always ready to give prudent -counsel whenever he was asked for it.</p> - -<p>‘Madam,’ said George Newman, entering the room, ‘Sir Edward Dering is -at the door; he prays of your kindness leave to present himself.’</p> - -<p>‘Desire Sir Edward,’ replied the widow, ‘to excuse me. I am not willing -to entertain discourse of that kind.’</p> - -<p>Newman went to the outer door, where Aspull, the cashier, was talking -with Sir Edward, and delivered the reply.</p> - -<p>The lover stood in sad contemplation, and then he remarked, ‘I am in a -wilderness of uncertainty.’</p> - -<p>Aspull carried the ‘pretty phrase’ upstairs to his mistress.</p> - -<p>‘Tell Sir Edward that I will see him,’ said Mrs. Bennett.</p> - -<p>When serving-man and cash-keeper had left the wooer and the wooed to -themselves, the latter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> went methodically to matters of business and -matters of sentiment. Sir Edward had the privilege which custom gave -a lover, on declaring himself; he ‘saluted’ the lady. He then went -into details as to his state and estate, to all of which the widow -listened with interest. When he touched on the question of affection, -the handsome widow looked at the handsome widower, but she answered -neither <i>yea</i> nor <i>nay</i>. She kept him as he was. Indeed, the knight -begged her to defer her answer till he again presented himself to her. -She consented, but therewith she remarked, ‘I have no present purpose -of marrying.’ She would name a second day for the meeting, after her -cousin Cradock (a friend of Sir Edward’s) should come to town. Dering -saw that she was desirous he should then leave her to herself. He -respectfully kissed the formally offered cheek, and bowing, withdrew. -He, no doubt, went and told all to Sir Heneage.</p> - -<p>Mistress Bennett said of Dering, soon after he had retired, ‘He comes -not as boisterous as Steward and Sir Peter come. Steward! As soon as I -get from him the broad seal which releases my child, he may be hanged -ere I have anything more to do with him.’ What she said of both these -suitors was duly reported to the third. Whereupon he pressed his suit -and he got friends to press it for him. The widow, however, could not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> -be hurried. Her cousin Cradock was a man it behoved her to consult -upon a family question like the present; and the Recorder, being not -only her friend but her suitor’s, would be indispensable authority on -matters both of law and of property.</p> - -<p>Day after day Dering’s patience waned till there was none left. On New -Year’s day, 1629, the scene was of the liveliest at the widow’s house. -Sir Edward had thought to frighten her into favouring his suit by -courteously asking for the returning to him of his letters. The widow -sent them back without a word of comment. Her friends standing round -her wondered at her decision, and, if the lady and cavalier told their -respective stories to Finch he probably looked as wise as a judge while -he listened.</p> - -<p>The scene is still at the widow’s house, and there again Sir Edward -treads the stage. He cannot call on Mistress Bennett, but he can on -Mistress Norton, who is his good friend, and the widow’s companion. -From her and other household sources he hears that the widow is often -sad and silent. If she breaks silence, it is only to remark that she -will never marry at all. If Mrs. Norton commends Sir Edward the widow -beshrews her companion, and protests that she hears so much of him all -day long, she ‘can’t sleep all night for dreaming of him.’ Perhaps in -one of those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> night visions she confounded Dering with Raven, for she -dreamed that she ran away from him in her nightgear, out of the bedroom -into her great parlour, whereby she caught catarrh. However, Sir Edward -could not push his renewed suit to a happy termination. He sat for -an hour with Mrs. Norton, talking of the widow, when he would have -preferred to be talking with the widow herself. The latter was reported -to be sad, in perplexity, and not likely to marry at all—just yet. -This did not render Sir Edward’s suit desperate; but he wrote himself -‘fool’ for having asked for the return of his letters, when Newman told -him that she had double services of plate, for town and country use, -and that she had that glory of all proudly furnished houses of the -olden time, beds, worth one hundred pounds the bed.</p> - -<p>Again, the scene shifts to the street before Sir George Croke’s house. -The lady is about to descend from her chariot, and lo! the lover is -there with a petition to be allowed to assist her. He does more, of -course; he escorts her into the parlour, where the judge and many -ladies are assembled. While general conversation went on, Sir Edward -assiduously courted the widow from behind her chair. They talk in -whispers, and are let alone. It is all prayer on one side, fencing -prettily on the other. Prettily made accusations are humbly answered; -she will not be pressed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> not she. Her final reply should be made -through her cousin, Cradock.</p> - -<p>‘Pray,’ said Dering, ‘sweeten the answer with your own breath.’ And -then Sir George drank to him in a glass of muscado while Sir Edward -kissed the lady’s cheek. As the judge and the lover parted at the door, -the former did not hesitate to declare his conviction that the widow -was not to be won.</p> - -<p>‘Won she must be,’ thought Sir Edward, ‘by one means or another.’ He -rather stooped to find them. For instance, on a certain morning the -widow’s four-year-old son was walking with his nursemaid, Susan, in -Finsbury Fields; Susan was induced by a friend to take the boy to Sir -Edward’s lodging, where Dering regaled him with cake, gave him an amber -box, treated the maid to a glass of wine, hoped her mistress would not -be angry with him, and put in the maid’s hand a five-shilling piece.</p> - -<p>‘Lor, sir!’ exclaimed Susan, ‘I, and all the house, pray for you; and -young Master Simon here does ever call you Father!’</p> - -<p>The widow did not seem to be in haste to ratify the relationship. -Viscount Lumley’s chariot was at her door five times in one week. My -Lord went to St. Olave’s, and escorted her home after service. All -London began to take part in the comedy. New lovers again went to the -Old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> Jewry only to meet denial. Lumley himself, who was but a ragged -sort of viscount, was constrained, at last, to take reluctant leave, -after his hopes had been buoyed up by interference in his favour by no -less a person than the Earl of Dorset, the Queen’s Lord Chamberlain. -Sir Edward did not benefit by the withdrawal of the Viscount. Reports -reached him that the widow had expressed some liking for him, but -not enough to induce her to marry with him. Driven to the extreme of -perplexity, Sir Edward engaged another supporter, namely, the Cheapside -mercer, Izaak Walton. Izaak celebrated Dering’s praises; mutual friends -reported small incidents with much exaggeration. Cousin Cradock knew -how Sir Edward might win her; another knew that she was already won, -but was coy to confess it. One Master Catesby swore that Dering should -both ‘win and wear.’ Lady Cleere told Dering’s father, Sir Anthony, -that such a capricious widow was hardly worth the wearing; but Lady -Wroth stood up for her as a good and wise gentlewoman, whom any lover -might be proud to make his wife.</p> - -<p>The grand scene of the comedy occurred when Sir Edward was admitted to -see the widow, on condition that he made no reference to the subject -of marrying. The interview was a scene for Frith to paint. Sir Edward, -with formal low bow,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> acknowledged the graciousness which admitted -him to this interview; but he hoped it would not be the last of that -sort of happiness which he might enjoy. Mistress Bennett murmured that -chance might still bring them within sight of one another. Then the -lover stretched the contract a little, without breaking it. He touched -upon his love, her happiness, and cleverly thanked her for forbidding -him to pursue making further proposals, as therein might lie the fact -that she need not forbid what she, perhaps, had resolved to grant. Some -more word-fencing went on; but it ended with a denial on the lady’s -part, and a request from the gentleman that she would authorise him to -give a public reason for the denial.</p> - -<p>‘Say,’ she replied, ‘that you left me, and take the glory of it.’</p> - -<p>‘Nay!’ said Sir Edward; ‘I will never withdraw my affection nor my -respect till I see you give your hand to another.’</p> - -<p>We fear the widow was a dreadful coquette, for subsequent to the above -‘last sight,’ as the interview was called, Mistress Bennett granted -an audience to Lord Lumley, when she went so far as to accept a ring -from him—a step which almost implied a contract. But this roused the -anxiety of her friends, and particularly of Viscount Campden, whose -viscountship was just as new as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> Lumley’s. Lord Lumley, however, -was an older member of the peerage. Lord Campden, like the deceased -Bennett, had been a mercer; his name then was Baptist Hicks. Even -after he had been knighted, Sir Baptist served customers in his open -shop in Cheapside. He was now a peer, and people who were unable to -attain the same dignity laughed at him. What was the use of Sir Baptist -Hicks being a peer, when he had no son to inherit the title? But Lord -Campden had a daughter; and the Cheapside mercer’s fair daughter (she -was his eldest) was married to Edward, Baron Noel, of Ridlington. -The mercer was resolved that Baron Edward should not dream of having -derogated by such a match. Accordingly, the ex-shopkeeper succeeded in -having the ‘remainder,’ that is, succession to the title, settled in -the said son-in-law. In due time, Lord Noel became Viscount Campden, -and then gained a step in the peerage by wedding with Juliana, the -richest heiress of Cheapside. From them is descended the present Earl -of Gainsborough, one of whose daughters, Lady Blanche Noel, made that -romantic marriage two years ago with her father’s organist, Mr. Murphy.</p> - -<p>But, we have to get back to the first ennobled of the Hickses and -his friend, the widow. Lord Campden and Sir George Croke united in -insisting that she should return to Lord Lumley the ring she had -accepted, and therewith give him his <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span><i>coup de grâce</i>. Ring and letter -were despatched on St. Valentine’s Day, and Lord Lumley made his final -exit. All London was busy with wondering what the next move would -be. It seemed in favour of Sir Edward. Sir Henry Wotton met him in -the presence chamber, and wished him ‘full sail.’ The mother of Sir -Edward’s late wife, accompanied by that deceased wife’s sister, were -indefatigable in lauding Dering’s conjugal virtues in the widow’s ear. -Beneficed clergymen, church dignitaries, London gentlemen, country -squires, met in the best room in the widow’s house and sang the chorus -of his praise. The provoking beauty could not be brought to a decision. -She had made a selection, she said, but she really could not say of -whom. All in good time. And so this singular love affair proceeded, -till the widow consented to grant one more interview, positively for -the last time, to her pertinacious suitor, and failed to perform her -promise.</p> - -<p>‘I will go to Sir Heneage Finch,’ cried the perplexed wooer.</p> - -<p>It is very clear that all along Finch perplexed Dering quite as much -as the widow did. The Recorder spoke well of Sir Edward to himself and -to his friends, and promised to speak well of him to the widow. And -perhaps he did; but at the same time Sir Heneage did not neglect his -own interests. One morning the bells of St. Dunstan’s in the West,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> -the fashionable church for marriages, rang out a merry wedding peal. -Dr. Raven came out of prison, where he was some time in durance for -his silly assault, just in time to hear the peal. Sir Edward may be -supposed to have put his head out inquiringly from his window. If so, -he must have enjoyed a pretty sight—that of Sir Heneage Finch, in -holiday array, leading into the beautiful widow Bennett’s house that -most tantalising of fair women, as his bride—Lady Finch! Bow bells -took up the peal, as if to announce to all Cocagne that they had all -the while known what was going on. Cockneydom protested that it had -never expected any other issue to the City comedy. Indeed there was a -double marriage. While the widow had been playing with her suitors, her -niece, pretty Mary Croke, daughter of Sir George, had been indulging -in pretty love passages with Harbottle, afterwards Sir Harbottle -Grimstone, Master of the Rolls. On April 16, 1629, aunt and niece, with -their respective lovers, met at St. Dunstan’s, and were then and there -happily married.</p> - -<p>The marriage of Sir Heneage with the fair widow was productive of -two daughters,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" >[1]</a> of whom one, Anne, married that Earl of Conway -so celebrated by Burnet for his ignorance. When a foreign minister -once spoke to him of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> Circles of Germany, my lord laughed, and -asked, ‘What have circles to do with affairs of state?’ We may -appropriately add that Mrs. Bennett’s son, Simon, became a man of -immense wealth—wealth which his three daughters carried into as many -noble families, very much to the satisfaction of the latter. But what -of the disappointed lover in this comedy? Well, the curtain went down -merrily for him also. He happened to see pretty Unton Gibbes, daughter -of the Warwickshire Sir Ralph, and Sir Edward, having an alacrity in -falling in love, was ‘over head and ears’ immediately. The lady went -straightway to the same depths. They came up together, happy man and -wife, and lived like young lovers. He was passionately attached to her -to the last; but she survived him full thirty years, finding solace -at the affectionate hands of two sons and two daughters. For Unton, -Sir Edward had one of those pet names which, outside the circle of -love, sound so unlovely. It was <span class="smcap">Numps</span>! ‘My ever dear Numps,’ -he says, in a letter addressed to her from London, in 1640, full of -political intelligence, ‘thy pretious and hearty letter I received -with that ardor that it was written.... I shall not see thee so soon -as I wish.... God preserve my pretty children and send thee ease of -thy troublesome cough.... I thank thee for the length of thy welcome -letters, wherein I confess that I cannot equal thy love;’ and he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> -ends with ‘Thine, more and more, if possibly,’ &c. One passage of -public news in this letter brings a well-known incident before us. -‘The scaffolds are up in Westminster Hall, and Strafford comes to the -barre on Monday morning.’ Some of Sir Edward’s letters to his wife are -subscribed ‘to thy best self the heart of thine own Edward Dering.’ -And if he writes ‘thine in haste,’ he adds, ‘but heartily,’ and writes -outside, ‘To my best and dearest friend the Lady Dering,’ while my -lady endorses them, ‘From my dearest.’ One letter quaintly begins with -‘My dear and my comfortable Numps, my happiness is (for the greatest -part of it in this world) circuited in the same sphere with thine. -Love and cheerfulness are blessings invaluable, and if perchance some -excentricke motion interpose, all at last (as in the sphaeres) helpe -to make up the harmony. So I hope with us every motion shall helpe the -tune.’ It would seem that, in absence, they encouraged one another from -Scripture. ‘I did presently, as you wished,’ he writes, ‘read over -the 91 Spalme (as you call it). I did think to return you a text, but -am in haste;’ and ‘Thine own, as ever, for ever.’ The same tone makes -musical all his letters, and her own seem to have been attuned to the -same melody. The former are full moreover of most interesting public -intelligence.</p> - -<p>For a troubled time Sir Edward was the much perplexed and ill-requited -Lieutenant of Dover<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> Castle. Released from that charge, he was the -happy, intellectual, Kentish squire. Next, his county returned him to -the Long Parliament, and he commenced his career with fierce opposition -to Laud, hoping that ‘His Grace would have more grace, or no Grace at -all.’ Sir Edward was what would now be called an Ultra-Radical. He -was for abolishing bishops and was ill-affected towards royalty. He -took up with the ‘Root and Branch’ party, and they pushed him forward -to the proposing of revolutionary measures; and when he withdrew from -the course which they had forced him to take they loaded him with -execration, and succeeded in turning him out of Parliament for breach -of privilege. Subsequently, he lay hid from the pursuit of Parliament, -and he is said to have disguised himself as a parson and to have -read prayers in a village church. He joined the King. His estate was -sequestered, his house at Surrenden was plundered. At a later period -the Parliament allowed him to enter on signing the Covenant and paying -a composition; but before the affair was concluded the erst lover of -the twenty-thousand-pound widow was, in 1644, laid to rest in Pluckley -churchyard, which neither covenanting nor compounding can ever disturb.</p> - -<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1">[1]</a> It was his son, by a former marriage, who became Lord -Chancellor and Earl of Nottingham.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>TO BRIGHTON AND BACK AGAIN.</i></h2> - -<p>Some few years ago, philosophers were jostling excursionists in -once gay Brighthelmstone; they discussed the prospects of science, -and united archæology with a considerable amount of picnicking and -claret-cup. We here submit for the general recreation a paper that was -not read at the meeting of the British Association in that town, but -which will be perused in the larger Elsewhere. Its staple commodity -will consist of the anecdotal waifs and strays connected with old -Brighton, which philosophers do not regard, but which have an especial -value and interest of their own. Accordingly we pass by the Druidical -mistletoe, British barrows, Roman coins, and Saxons, Danes, and -Normans, and we come at once to the Brighton of the middle of the last -century, when rumours of wars from abroad connected themselves with a -literary question and song-writing at home.</p> - -<p>About the year 1758 fears of invasion caused several camps to be -established on our south coast. There was one at Brighton. Martial -spirit attuned the popular lyre to both warlike and sentimental<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> -strains. One of the airs then composed has remained popular to this -day. ‘The Girl I left behind me’ was originally known by that and also -by a second name, ‘Brighton Camp,’ to which reference is made in the -following verse:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>Oh, ne’er shall I forget the night,</div> -<div class="i1">The stars were bright above me,</div> -<div>And gaily lent their silv’ry light,</div> -<div class="i1">When first she vow’d to love me.</div> -<div>But now I’m bound to Brighton Camp,</div> -<div class="i1">Kind Heaven then pray guide me,</div> -<div>And send me safely back again</div> -<div class="i1">To the girl I’ve left behind me.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>This air has been claimed as Irish by Moore and by Bunting. The former -took great liberties with the air. Bunting left it as he found it. But -he did not find it till the year 1800, when he heard it played by an -Irish harper named O’Neile. The harper had probably picked it up from -some regimental band leaving their quarters; but it was popular in -England nearly half a century before the date of its first being known -in Ireland.</p> - -<p>Let those who throng Brighton now just consider what it was about a -century ago. In 1761 we read that ‘the men of the town were wholly -employed in fishing, and the women in mending their nets.’ There was, -however, a free school in Brighton; and boys of twelve years of age, -who had learned navigation there, obtained very fair<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> wages in the -‘fishery.’ There was a population, fixed and movable, even at that -period. Many of the houses are described as ‘of flint, with windows -and doors frequently adorned with very good brick.’ When Brighton took -its first step forward for the purpose of attracting visitors we may -learn from a contemporary chronicle of 1761, in which we read that -‘Of late the town has become a resort for the drinking of salt water -and for bathing. If the town grows in the next seven years as it has -done in the last seven, there will be no better in England.’ Brighton -then boasted of ‘one or two public rooms that could be equalled only -by those of York.’ People could then put up with what was called -‘accommodation,’ which was of a very uncomfortable character; but -everything was of a free-and-easy quality, and most visitors were -content to take things as they found them.</p> - -<p>To this rule, however, there was one notable exception, just where we -should expect to find it.</p> - -<p>Nearly a hundred years have elapsed since Dr. Johnson wrote to Boswell, -in November of the year 1776, ‘I was some weeks this autumn at -Brighthelmstone. The place was very dull, and I was not well.’ The fact -is, that Johnson cared little for the beauties of nature. He was like -Charles Lamb, who once being at the summit of a mountain from which -there was a prospect of unsurpassable grandeur, saw nothing but with -his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> mind’s eye, and that was at the moment directed to the ham and -beef shop at the corner of St. Martin’s Court. In like manner, Johnson -hated prospects and views. We have the authority of Mrs. Piozzi for -recording that Johnson used to say the best garden was the one which -produced the most roots and fruits, and the river most to be prized was -the one which produced the most fish. The Doctor unmercifully laughed -at Shenstone for valuing a stream according to its picturesqueness, and -not its productiveness. Mrs. Piozzi believed that a walk in a wood when -it rained was the only rural image which pleased Johnson. The pleasure -then was perhaps derived from the thought that the rain would swell -the peas, or make the turnips grow, or in some way or other tend to -the comforting of the inward man. The feeling was akin to that of the -epicurean who dwelt fondly on the orient gale which prospered the ship -freighted with sugar for his gooseberry pie. It was that of Southey’s -philosopher, who reverenced pig, and who, feeling a certain amount of -poetry in a fragrant breeze, exclaimed,</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i6">O’er yon blossom’d field</div> -<div>Of beans it came, and thoughts of bacon rise.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Johnson detested the very sight of Brighton Downs, ‘because it was a -country so truly desolate,’ he said, ‘that if one had a mind to hang<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> -oneself for desperation at being obliged to live there, it would be -difficult to find a tree on which to fasten the rope.’ When the sage -uttered this dictum he had certainly overlooked the subject of mutton. -He forgot how admirable Sussex land was for turnip husbandry, and that -even where the flints lay thickest the corn crops were all the more -luxuriant. He did love forest trees, and might have remembered that -the Sussex oak has no superior. He was fond of milk, and might have -respected the Sussex cows which keep themselves almost beef, while they -give rich milk, if so little of it. Hate the Downs! Let all such people -remember, especially if they have a liking for a haunch of mutton, -that the rot was never known to be caught upon the South Downs; reason -sufficient to authorise an epicure’s respect. We see poetry even in a -Brighton fish shop. Was it not Sir Wilfred himself who made first-rate -fishermen of the primitive Brighton bunglers?</p> - -<p>Johnson and Lamb are not the only intellectual persons whose minds -could turn from the contemplation of great to the consideration of -smaller things. When Charles James Fox was with a party viewing the -old master-pieces in the Louvre, he turned from them to bewail the -too great effulgence of the sun. ‘This heat,’ he remarked, ‘will burn -up all my turnips at St. Anne’s.’ So, Thomas Granville, replying to -Rogers, who was referring to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> the overpowering glory of a sunset at -which they were looking, observed that it was ‘handsome.’</p> - -<p>Half a century ago, Brighton was as destitute of trees as it was in -Johnson’s time. But now, if the Doctor were alive and had a halter, -he would find no difficulty in searching for a branch from which he -might hang, the very bulkiest of acorns. Where formerly only the hardy -tamarisk grew, we may now see, as a local historian (Erredge) points -out, that ‘belts and copses of thriving trees have reared their heads, -and the elm, fir, sycamore, horse-chestnut, larch, beech, hazel, birch, -hawthorn, and the holly, and other evergreens, having, by culture, -become acclimatised, thrive so well as to induce the belief that they -are indigenous to the south-east coast.’</p> - -<p>That Brighton should have changed in a certain number of years is a -matter for no surprise at all. The sea rolls its waves over the site -on which the primitive village stood exposed to its fury. The cliffs -which from behind the village looked proudly over the waves have been -in part destroyed by the assailing waters which, it was once thought, -were too remote ever to do them harm. But all this has been the work of -time, and of a very long time. Yet change quite as remarkable has been -accomplished within the lives of many persons still living. They must -be old persons indeed, and must have suffered fourscore years at least -of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> change of themselves, in order to have been within the periods of -what Brighthelmstone <i>was</i> and what Brighton <i>is</i>. What it was towards -the close of the last century, about 1790, when it had ceased to be -the secluded fishing village it once had been, can scarcely now be -realised. It was no uncommon thing for the town to be then visited by -unlicensed rovers of the deep. These thieves, who ranged from Beachy -Head to Selsey Bill, would drop anchor after dark, and send a company -of rascals on shore in a boat, whose mission it was to break into some -rich farmer’s house, or some well-endowed mansion near the coast, and -carry off thence every article of value that was portable and could be -turned to pirate’s use. There was such terror of these water-rats, that -wherever they broke in their coming paralysed honest people, who were -powerless through terror. They bound and gagged the inmates of houses -which they intended to despoil, caroused without limit, and having -plundered the dwelling, staggered down to the beach, and carried on -board their burglarious freight. They would then lift anchor and drop -down along the coast on their way to a place of refuge, or to attack -some other house where there was promise of booty and good cheer. Their -audacity is explicable only on the ground that they had confederates -among the police authorities, if such things were in those early days. -In ancient times, when the French landed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> there and attacked the town, -the Sussex men turned out with alacrity, and often gave the invaders a -tremendous thrashing. The sons of those Sussex men quailed in presence -of the native rascalry, which was often cruel, but generally avoided -murder.</p> - -<p>If any archæologist care about the Druidical name for Brighton—if -indeed there ever was one—or sigh to learn by what classic term the -Romans designated their station on the sea, the care and the sigh are -expended in vain. Let such antiquary console himself by laughing at the -explanation of its later name, handed down from one local historian -to another. Brighthelmstone, as it was called, has not puzzled the -easily-satisfied etymologists. To explain it they invent a Saxon -bishop who never existed, Brighthelm. They both beatify and canonise -him under the title of St. Brighthelm, and having raised him to this -dignity, they erect a <i>stone</i> to commemorate him, or a ‘ton,’ i.e., -‘town,’ in which he may dwell, and thus we arrive at ‘Brighthelmstone.’ -Some etymologists pooh-poohed this derivation altogether, and they -put forth something worse of their own. With them ‘Brighthelmstone’ -is born of the shining helms of the Saxon galleys which used (or did -not use) to be off the town! Another party sees in the name simply the -indication that the town once belonged to a warrior whose family name -was Brighthelm.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> We must frankly confess that one theory is quite as -reasonable as the other.</p> - -<p>But, whatever the meaning of the name and whencesoever it came, -there was a universal outcry of alarm and disgust when people in a -hurry, or not much observant of orthography, cut the name down from -a stately three- to a little two-decker. When Brighthelmstone began, -in 1787, to be called Brighton, and <i>that</i> even in print, there was a -howl of reprobation and a general demand to ‘give us back our three -syllables!’ Even Sylvanus Urban in that year moved out of his old ways -into the new-fangled groove, and talked of ‘Brighton’ as if he were a -fashionable young fop wearing a round hat and his own hair, instead of -cocked hat and powder. Sylvanus had announced that a certain Mr. Norman -of Bromley had recently died at ‘Brighton!’ Instantly Mr. Urban was -assailed with an <i>et tu Brute</i> sort of assault. Afflicted archæologists -never thought such a blow could come from St. John’s Gate. One -gentleman remonstrated in a tone of the deepest suffering. He argued -that, if this abbreviating custom be carried on, Brighthelmstone will -not only be wronged, but the world at large, and universal in geography -particular, will be thrown into utter confusion. Foreign nations, -potentates, governments, scholars, foreign humanity generally, we are -told, will be bewildered, and will no longer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> be able to distinguish -between Brighthelmstone in Sussex and Brighton a village in Yorkshire! -Brighton in Yorkshire seems to have withdrawn itself modestly from the -world; and if the Emperor of Germany reads of the demise of Brown, -Jones, or Robinson at Brighton, that august person will not be troubled -as to its local whereabout.</p> - -<p>If Brighton Camps had their picturesque aspect and a certain connection -with poetry, they had occasional deep shadows to contrast with their -lights. The camp of 1795 is especially remarkable for its dark -colouring. The defenders of the country were left by the circumlocution -office of that day with an insufficient quantity of bread, and with -nasty flour to make it. The hungry Oxford militia plundered a mill, -and having got all they wanted for their own stomachs, they seized -a quantity of corn at Newhaven, not for their half-starved comrades -in camp, but for the pleasure of throwing the whole of it into the -river at that place. Eight of the mutineers were tried, of whom two, -Cooke (called ‘Captain’) and Parish, were sentenced to be shot, the -rest to be flogged. During the eight days of trial the circumlocution -office gave them as little food as when the office drove them to -mutiny through hunger. If it had not been for the morning and evening -supplies passed to them through the bars of their airing ground by -Samaritans of Russell Street, the accused <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>militiamen would not have -lived through the trial to be shot or flogged. The last ceremony was -carried out with much lugubrious pomp. Three of the six men received -an instalment of 300 strokes, equivalent to 2,700 lashes, and the -other three were respited for future punishment. Then came the more -merciful act of putting quickly to death the two men condemned to be -shot. There was indeed much slow circumstance before the two culprits -were fairly in face of the company of their fellow-militiamen selected -to carry out the sentence. For the support and encouragement of the -firing party not to shirk their duty and attempt to run, there was -drawn up behind them a company of artillery, with shotted cannon and -lighted matches, ready to blow the firing party to atoms if they showed -any reluctance to destroy their two comrades. They showed nothing but -alacrity under the circumstances. Cooke and Parish, kneeling composedly -on their own coffins, were shot by what was curiously described as ‘a -delinquent platoon of twelve of their own regiment at the distance -of only six paces,’ and then did not kill both! One, as he lay on -the ground, had to be ‘finished’ by a pistol-shot through the head. -Perhaps the ‘delinquent platoon’ were too hungry to aim steadily. One -thing is sure, namely, that nobody at the circumlocution office was -flogged for famishing the soldiers, nor was the rascal who supplied -the filthy so-called flour hanged. Probably he held<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> the plate at the -next Brighton Charity Sermons, and sneered at the poor folk who only -contributed ‘coppers.’</p> - -<p>In the first year of the present century the ‘Crown and Anchor’ in -East Street was proudly known as ‘The Hotel’; but the ‘Ship’ soon -endeavoured to attract fashionable visitors by a dining-room decorated -with ‘The Story of Telemachus’ in bronze on blue. At that time coaches -had not learned to run between Brighton and London in five hours. In -summer the earliest coach left Brighton at 7 <span class="smaller">A.M.</span>, and arrived -in London at 5 <span class="smaller">P.M.</span> The night coach left at 10 <span class="smaller">P.M.</span> -and was due in London at 7 the next morning, keeping its time when -it could. Then for crossing ‘the streak of liquid silver,’ there -were ‘pacquets’ advertised to run ‘in time of peace’ three times a -week, always setting sail, weather permitting, in the evening. One of -these ‘pacquets’ manifested Napoleonic ideas, for it was called the -<i>Buonaparte</i> schooner, and it made a great boast of having two cabins, -a state room, and the means of making up twenty beds.</p> - -<p>At this period it is amusing to read in a local record that ‘literature -is not neglected in this town; for in Middle Street there is an academy -where young gentlemen are boarded and educated.’ The idea that a -boarding-school necessarily implies literary cultivation has long since -expired.</p> - -<p>While our pulpits, in the early part of the present century were -denouncing the stage, and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>persuading people to leave theatres to the -devil, and to brace up their minds and bodies at the seaside, the -marine pulpits were busy in bidding people to avoid the coast and to -get back to London and their business as speedily as possible. In -‘Their Majesties’ Servants,’ I have alluded to the audiences who ‘were -preached down to the coast, and especially to Brighton, and to the -zealous pastors in the latter place who preached them back again. One -of these, the Rev. Dr. Styles, of Union Street, Brighton, did his best -to stop the progress of London on Sea. He left the question of the -stage for others to deal with; but he strictly enjoined all virtuously -minded people to avoid watering-places generally and Brighton in -particular, unless they wished to play into the devil’s hands. He -denounced the breaking up of homes, the mischief of minds at rest, and -the consequences of flirting and philandering. He looked upon a brief -holiday as a long sin at the seaside; and with prophecy of dire results -attending on neglect of his counsel, he drove or sought to drive all -the hard workers in search of health and in the enjoyment of that idle -repose which helps them in their search, back to London. Then, as -now, England stood shamefully distinguished for the indecorum of its -sea-coast bathers; but, with certain religious principles whereby to -hold firmly, the good doctor does not think that much ill may befal -therefrom, and he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> sends all erring sheep with their faces towards -London, and with a reference to Solomon’s Song (above all things!) -bidding them to wait for a south wind of the Holy Spirit to blow over -their spices!’</p> - -<p>The list of Brighton notabilities is not a long one, but it invariably -contains the name of Phœbe Hassell, who served in the army as a man and -who died at an age which is calculated to make Mr. Thoms shake the head -of incredulity. But there is a Brighton woman far worthier of being -remembered than old Phœbe Hassell. We allude to the mother of James -Rooke, a simple young fellow who had been drawn in by a crafty tailor, -named Howell, to rob the mail, as it was then carried on horseback, -between Brighton and Shoreham. On Phœbe Hassell’s information, the -two were hanged and gibbeted. In course of time, the clothes and -flesh of the culprits had utterly wasted away. When nothing remained -but the skeletons, the aged mother of Rooke, who had often been a -pilgrim to the mournful shrine of her son, went nightly to the gibbets -in all weathers. Nothing prevented her from performing that sacred -duty; and when her object became known it was sacredly respected. It -was to collect the bones of her unhappy son, and of the companion in -his sad fate, as time, wind, and tempest shook them apart and out of -the respective skeletons till nothing was left in the chains. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> -gathered them, and carried them reverently and affectionately to her -poor home; and when there were no more to gather, she deposited all -in a little box, and perhaps with some sad memories of the hour when -she had rejoiced at the birth of her son, she, all alone, save those -memories, buried them in what she considered the hallowed ground of old -Shoreham churchyard. Poor mother! Many a woman has been canonised for -the performance of duties not half so holy.</p> - -<p>The widow Rooke is forgotten, while the annals of fashion still keep -warm the memory of people less worthy of being remembered. There was -a time when Mrs. Prince, as old Dame Gunn, the bathing woman, used to -call Mrs. Fitzherbert, <i>reigned</i> in Brighton. She was one of those -women who justify the old saying that beauty is of every age. She was -exquisite when young. There are some among us who may remember that she -was queenly, when crowned by years. Like a queen, she was surrounded -by duchesses at Brighton; the most august dandies worshipped at her -shrine in Castle Square; and among those idolaters were the Prince’s -own brothers, with men of less degree, yet perhaps higher fame. In -the number of the latter must be reckoned Colonel Hanger (late Lord -Coleraine), whose first freak was to join a gang of gipsies, and take -a dusky bride from among the daughters in the tents. Hanger led such a -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>rollicking life, that when he grew old and tired of it, the new and -enforced quiet came upon him like a novel enjoyment.</p> - -<p>There were some singular specimens of ladies in the old Brighton days. -None more singular than Lady Clermont, who used to take a tea-spoonful -of brandy in her tea, by first pouring the brandy over the back of the -spoon and then correcting the mistake, which she attributed to defect -of sight, by filling the spoon in the ordinary way. Of a different -temper was the fair and ambitious Lady Haggerstone. My lady invited the -Prince to a rural festival at her villa near the Spa. She received him -in character, as a milkmaid, ready to concoct a syllabub for the royal -guest. She carried in one hand a silver pail, in the other a milking -stool, such as the most ingenious of artistic upholsterers could alone -invent. A characteristic hat, with long cherry-coloured ribbons, -adorned her head; and the milkmaid’s apron would have fetched hundreds -of pounds for its lace. The syllabub, however, was never accomplished. -Some absurd accident brought the attempt to an end, which after brief -laughter was altogether forgotten. In contrast with this gentle -masquerade, was the bold, loudly-brogued, but beautiful Lady Nagle, -with her husband Sir Edmund’s miniature suspended from the longest of -chains, flinging about as she moved, but always, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> she said, near -her heart. The Prince loved to have these and other fair ones about -him. They made up his table at whist; brought him all sorts of gossip, -home and foreign, and made themselves conspicuous in a hundred ways, -as they figured on the Steyne and excited the wonder of simple-minded -spectators.</p> - -<p>Sir Benjamin Bloomfield was another of the old Brighton celebrities. -He owed his position as Master of the Household to the Prince of Wales -to an accident. ‘Slade,’ said his Royal Highness to the Colonel of -that name, ‘do you know any gentleman who plays the violoncello?’ ‘I -only know one, sir,’ replied the Colonel, ‘Captain Bloomfield, of the -Artillery.’ ‘Bring him here to dinner,’ rejoined the Prince, ‘and tell -him to bring his violoncello with him; we’ll play something together -after dinner.’ The Captain played to good purpose. The Prince again -invited him as a guest; subsequently he attached the violoncello player -to his household, and Sir Benjamin became as well-known a figure on and -about the Steyne as the Prince himself was.</p> - -<p>The story of the Pavilion will be found more amusing in Cobbett’s -satirical chronicle of its rise and progress than in any of the local -histories. The history of its decline and fall is within the memory -of him who never remembers anything—the oldest inhabitant. The noble -eccentrics who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> figured in the Pavilion circle have been stereotyped. -But there were eccentrics without, whose eccentricity amused those -within that circle. One of these was well known on the Brighton stage.</p> - -<p>An ignorant impatience of taxation was manifested at Brighton, -especially when the heavy impost was laid on hair-powder. By nearly -general resolve people avoided the tax by leaving off the powder. -Anyone who ventured to appear in public, powdered, incurred the peril -of being pelted. Even on the stage, when genteel comedy required the -sword by the side and the powder on the hair, there was a difference -of opinion as to the wearing of it, and the actor <i>portant épée et -poudre</i> was both hissed and applauded, as sentiment prevailed among the -audience. At Brighton, Mr. Fox, the manager’s son, had to appear in a -character of the sword and powder period. He took a singular course. He -powdered one half of his hair, and left the other <i>au naturel</i>. People -laughed at his droll aspect, and also at his reason for putting it on. -Mr. Fox explained that he had taken that course in order to please both -parties—the powderers and the anti-powderers. It was accepted for wit.</p> - -<p>As far less has been said and written of Brighton just as royalty began -to tire of its old love, than of the town when it seemed a seventh -heaven to the King, George IV., we will look into one year of its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> -sayings and doings—<span class="smaller">A.D.</span> 1825—when it was learning to go -alone.</p> - -<p>Brighton had long rejoiced in the sunshine of royalty. It veiled its -head, and wore sackcloth, and cast ashes upon itself, when royalty -was absent. At least, it would have done all this, but for certain -consolatory circumstances. Nevertheless, it affected a very decent -horror. This is especially manifested in the fashionable intelligence -in the local papers. The first thing thought of there is the condition -and prospects of the Pavilion. That shrine of <i>haut ton</i> is spoken -of as a most interesting invalid, who is sick only because the sun -is absent, and all Brighton is therefore sick with it. Yet will the -invalid be convalescent if Hope is the physician, and then sympathetic -Brighton will feel itself also ‘very much better, thank you.’ <i>But</i> -‘should the King’—for we now speak of the time when George IV. had -grown tired of his gew-gaw—should ‘his most sacred Majesty’ nothing -less than ‘graciously condescend to inhabit’ for awhile the ‘marine -palace’ which he once both well and wisely loved—in such case Brighton -would not only be restored to health, but would enjoy a sensation of -stalwart youth and ecstatic immortality.</p> - -<p>It is distressing to read the expression of sorrow at the idea that the -King, so to speak, continually went on not coming. With the new year -(1825) the wail opens to its old solemn tune. ‘There is no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> change at -the Pavilion.’ ‘We hope that the desire to see his Majesty again among -us may speedily be realised.’ Alas! the realisation does not speedily -come, and the ‘Fashionable Intelligencer’ wept in its imitation lawn -handkerchief, and then wiped its loyal eyes and exclaimed, ‘The gloom -of silence and desertion continues to envelop the Pavilion.’ Double -envelopes of desertion and of silence. Then followed reports that the -King was coming soon. The <i>soon</i> was succeeded by ‘a period not yet -determined.’ Finally, it was said that his Majesty would visit Brighton -and take up his residence there during the Christmas holidays. But -before that time and its event arrived, ‘Fashionable Intelligencer’ -discovered that, instead of the King coming, his best wine was going. -It did not require much logic to enable observers to come to the -conclusion that if the best vintage were taking its departure, Sacred -Majesty would not be among speedy arrivals. The town could hardly find -consolation in the assurance that wherever the monarch might be, his -heart was certainly at Brighton. The King never came. The local banks -could not bear it. They unanimously broke.</p> - -<p>A royal duke and duchess were scarcely equivalent to a king; yet the -appearance of the Duke of York relieved in some degree the heart of -Brighton from some of its heavings. There was a burst of joy when -it was announced that H.R.H.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> ‘purposed to give an entertainment to -his tonish friends.’ Everyone uninvited must henceforth consider -himself to be <i>mauvais ton</i>. What a flutter there was when ‘tonish -reporters’ proclaimed in the newspapers that the Duke would give a -public breakfast at Ireland’s Royal Gardens, and that ‘the whole -fashionable world would partake of the repast.’ Meanwhile ‘Fashionable -Intelligencer’ watched the Duke and noted his ducal ways. We read with -infinite emotion that his royal princeliness not only entered several -shops, but that he purchased various articles in the most unassuming -manner. The grand breakfast at last came off, and a very jolly affair -it was; but Snob, who was not invited, and who felt his ‘fashionable’ -honour very much ruffled in consequence, declared that the thing was -low, and that the company were vulgar.</p> - -<p>The Duchess of Gloucester did not put herself so prominently forward as -the Duke of York; but the local observer did not fail to chronicle the -proud circumstance, namely, that ‘The Duchess gives importance by her -presence to the Steyne.’ Her condescension, too, was eulogised in lofty -terms; but in the practice of proud humility the Duchess was nothing in -comparison with the Bishop of Chichester. Robert James Carr was then, -as prelate, only a year old. In the bloom of his official age the Right -Rev. Father, &c., visited Brighton, and on his first Sunday there he -repaired to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> Royal Chapel. There was the ordinary congregation, but -there was no clergyman. He had been taken ill and was unable to attend. -But the diocesan was not proud. The fashionable chronicler tells us -that the Bishop performed divine worship himself, ‘with his usual -kindness and condescension.’</p> - -<p>Sometimes high-born and ill-bred personages condescended to much -stranger performances. Thus we find Jeames the Chronicler setting down -a record of the fact that Sir Godfrey Webster, one of the fastest -of the very rapid men of the day, had left the town, and that the -regret was universal; but that the baronet would soon return, in -order to take the chair of a free-and-easy at the ‘Swan Inn.’ It is -to be observed, that whenever a ‘tonish’ person took his departure, -all Brighton was filled with the most poignant regret. Also, that -when a family or individual of the <i>haut ton</i> or <i>beau monde</i> (nice -distinctions!) arrived, all Brighton was stirred with an indescribable -sort of happiness. If Mrs. Fitzherbert left the town drowned in tears, -the arrival of Lady Berwick brought it again to life and laughter. Sir -Matthew Tierney’s post-carriage, galloping out of Brighton, pierced the -hearts of all beholders; but there was balm in Gilead. How sympathetic -must have been the fashionable reporter of 1825 when he wrote down -the fact that, ‘Grateful rumour states that the esteemed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> Dukes of -Richmond and Argyle, and the Marquis of Anglesea, again propose to -add to the importance of the “Royal York Hotel” by residing there -before the end of the present year.’ Mark the new and original figure, -‘grateful rumour.’ But to indulge in strange figures was the old -Brighton reporter’s dearest delight. ‘The Marquis of Granby,’ says our -friend, ‘without any feeling of indisposition, enjoys good spirits in -Regency Square.’ This might astonish Mark Tapley, whose spirits were -highest under prostration, but to us it seems natural enough. Another -fashionable record, this time full of simplicity, is to the effect that -‘Lady William Gordon confesses the salutary influence of the coast -air.’ Occasionally an unexpected arrival makes the reporter of it -facetious. For example, the local chronicler states how the ‘Barossa,’ -homeward bound from St. Helena, had dropped her anchor off the town -the previous night, without any idea of her being there, and how her -gallant captain, Hutchenson, went ashore, and gave joyous surprise to -his lady and family, and how he was on board again, and on his way to -the Downs, by five in the morning.</p> - -<p>Speaking of ladies as well as of captains, let us not forget—indeed it -is impossible to overlook—that incarnation of gaiety and beauty, the -Lady Berwick of that day. Before her marriage, she was a Miss Sophia -Dubouchet. This young lady<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> was married to the second Lord Berwick in -1812. In some peerages she is styled plain ‘Sophia Dubouchet,’ with -no more account of her family than if she had been, like Melchizedek, -without father and without mother. It is clear that this lady, who died -childless, was not of illustrious descent. How she looked at Brighton, -in 1825, and what were ‘pretty Fanny’s ways’ in that year, at that -place, we may gather from another of the scraps of intelligence. ‘<i>A la -mode</i> Lady Berwick,’ says a contemporary local journal, ‘formerly Miss -Sophia de Bouchez’ (the chroniclers were not particular as to names), -‘has been the source of attraction for our fashionable promenades -during the week. It afforded us much pleasure to observe that the -late abuse of the press has in no degree diminished the vivacity so -characteristic of her ladyship and family.’ There were two other ladies -at Brighton at that time who were of a quieter quality, and whose -wealth was the least of their charms. They are thus registered in -the fashionable column: ‘We have two of the richest heiresses in the -country now with us, Miss Wykeham and Miss Pleydell.’ How little did -the chronicler conjecture that the former lady, who died so recently -as 1870, was the heroine of a romance, and might have been Queen of -England if she had chosen to bear that magnificent title. When Miss -Wykeham was at Brighton, at a much earlier period than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> 1825, she -attracted the attention of the Duke of Clarence. She was then the much -honoured heiress of an Oxfordshire squire, Wykeham of Swalcliffe, a -member of the family of William of Wykeham. The royal Duke had other -opportunities of seeing this beautiful and accomplished heiress; and, -overcome by her beauty, her intellectual qualities, and her account -at her banker’s, he made her the offer of his hand. With good common -sense, Miss Wykeham declined the offer. The Duke subsequently married -a German princess, but he never ceased to esteem the heiress, whose -presence made Brighton so happy nearly half a century ago. As soon -as the Duke became William IV., King of England, he, with the glad -sanction of Queen Adelaide, prevailed on the lady whom he had once -sought to make his wife, to accept a peerage. Miss Wykeham took the -title of Baroness Wenman, whereby she revived an old title in her -family. Her grandfather had married the sister and heiress of the -Viscount Wenman, in the Irish peerage. The Viscount having died -childless, in 1800, the dignity became extinct; but Wenman, as an -English baronial title, was conferred on Miss Wykeham in 1834. For six -and thirty years she wore it with dignity, and when she died, in 1870, -there was not a memory more honoured in the three kingdoms than that of -Sophia Elizabeth Wykeham, Baroness Wenman, of Thame Park, county Oxon.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p> - -<p>When William IV. took up his residence at Brighton, he played the -citizen king. He walked and talked in the streets, and knocked at the -doors of his personal friends, paying morning visits, and speedily -discovering that, altogether, ‘it wouldn’t do.’ Queen Victoria went -down to look at the place, to give it a trial, and to come to the same -conclusion, that ‘it wouldn’t do.’ When cabmen or their customers -stood on the roofs of their cabs to gaze at the Queen over the garden -walls, royalty quietly withdrew, and Brighton took good heart, and has -since contrived to get on handsomely alone, but she is ever glad, and -naturally so, when a prince or princess is to be reckoned among her -visitors. Only now the inhabitants do not go out to meet them, as they -did in 1815 to meet Queen Charlotte. Large bodies of them then received -permission to welcome the Queen at Patcham. They were dressed in buff, -and mounted. As they cantered by the side of the Queen’s carriage, -as her escort, she smiled and bowed to such of them as were ‘getting -a look at her,’ as if she liked it. The Prince Regent, the Duke of -Clarence, and a bright array of nobility, waited in the open space -before the Pavilion to do honour to her on her arrival. ‘The present,’ -says a contemporary historian, ‘is beyond all doubt the most brilliant -period in the annals of Brighton.’</p> - -<p>Fitting period wherewith to close these <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>remarks. What a contrast is -the fuss to get a sovereign into Brighton with the anxiety to get -Charles II. out of it! For effecting the escape of the King, Captain -Tattersall was rewarded with a pension of 100<i>l.</i> a year to himself and -his descendants. We suppose that the most democratic of politicians -would not object to a pension being paid which was originally earned by -getting his most ‘religious majesty’ out of the kingdom.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>ON SOME CLUBS, AND THEIR ENDS.</i></h2> - -<p>Of all historical parallels, there are few more curious than the one -between the first club ever established and any similar association -of modern times. We must go as far back as the reign of Philip of -Macedon (<span class="smaller">B.C.</span> 320) for that original club. It consisted -of Greek gentlemen, who, from their number, called themselves ‘The -Sixty.’ They met once a week, not at a tavern, but in a temple—that -of Hercules, at Athens. Their secretary was a sprightly young Achaian, -named Callimedes—so sprightly, indeed, that the jolly Sixty nicknamed -him the <i>Grasshopper</i>. They must have had the highest opinion of their -own wit, for every good thing that was uttered was entered in a book, -and any member who had a repartee on the tip of his tongue was obliged -to keep it there till what had provoked it had been written down! This -book of wit, wisdom, and joking was in such repute that it was lent out -to princes and other potentialities, on depositing a security for its -return. Thus Athens furnished not only the first club, but the first -idea of a circulating library. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p> - -<p>One of the most singular features of some of the social gatherings of -Roman gentlemen consists in the fact, that if a member did not consider -himself ‘clubbable,’ or was not considered so by his colleagues, he -might bring with him some one who was. If he possessed an extremely -witty slave, and chose to bring him to the meeting, in such case -Libanus was as welcome as Demenætus. There are clubs of the present -day where dulness so prevails among the associates, where Sir Rayleigh -D’Istressin is such a nonentity, and Mr. Hugh Doane Nohoo is so -overflowing with nonsense, that it is a pity they cannot be represented -by capable substitutes. The latter might be found among the public -office clerks. How well many of these persons have discovered what they -are especially fitted for is to be seen in the little companies that -club together and exhibit themselves with alacrity as Nigger Serenaders!</p> - -<p>In England here, although the name of <i>club</i> for a society was not -known till the seventeenth century, the thing itself was in active -practice three hundred years before. The first English club of which -we know anything has a French name—<i>La Cour de Bonne Compagnie</i>. -It was founded in the reign of Henry the Fourth, and we may take it -that <i>bonne compagnie</i> was understood to signify, in English, <i>good -fellows</i>. They met, like ‘The Sixty’ in Athens, once a week. The -club was what would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> now be called a dining club—that is, meeting -periodically in order to dine together, and to enjoy the ‘feast of -reason and the flow of soul’ which come of good cheer, safe digestion, -happy humour, and undying wit.</p> - -<p>We may be very sure that at the meetings which took place at ‘The -Mermaid,’ and at those where Ben Jonson’s sons sat around him in ‘The -Apollo,’ the English language ripened into mellowness, beauty, and -strength. Shakespeare, Raleigh, and the men whose sympathies were -attuned to those of the soldier and the poet, must have done especially -good work to that end during their joyous discussions at ‘The Mermaid.’ -Politics do not seem to have been touched upon. The first club founded -in London with a political purpose among its other objects was the Rota -Club. More than two centuries have elapsed since the Rota saw its table -and coffee-cups surrounded by such men as Milton, Cyriac Skinner (to -whom Milton addressed the sonnet which urges play as well as work), -Marvel, Harrington, Nevill, and very many others. They advocated a -going-out of Members of Parliament by <i>rotation</i>, and used a ballot-box -for the settlement of club questions—that is to say, they affirmed or -negatived by that means the conclusions arrived at by the lecturer for -the evening. They also supported the ballot, as the simplest and truest -method of voting, generally. To this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> end we are only on the point of -now coming partially.</p> - -<p>There were some clubs that, meeting only for recreation, fell into -a fixed purpose by accident. Small clubs they were, but they were -the beginnings of great consequences. From the meeting together of a -few ‘city gentlemen,’ members of the Wednesday Club, in the reign of -William III., arose certain discussions on financial matters which -led to the ‘Conferences’ of 1695, in which William Paterson took a -leading part. From this club, its discussions and conferences, sprang a -gigantic result—‘The Old Lady in Threadneedle Street;’ in other words, -the Bank of England.</p> - -<p>A dozen years later, the first germs of the Royal Society of -Antiquaries, long enthroned in Somerset House, were planted in the -modest room of ‘The Bear Tavern,’ in the Strand. Three individuals, to -whom the past was dearer than the present or the future, there met to -talk over the condition of the ancient monuments of the kingdom, while -they smoked their pipes and sipped their ale. One of them was Humphrey -Wanley, the well-known archæologist, and librarian to Harley, Earl of -Oxford. They agreed to add to their numbers, meet every Friday night, -and confine themselves to the consideration of matters and monuments -which illustrated English history not later than the reign of James the -First. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> weekly business was to begin at six, and every absentee was -to be fined sixpence. The club or society migrated from the parlour -of one public-house to another before it found royal patronage, and -a home in the palace which occupies the site of the one built by the -Protector Somerset. After a brief sojourn of a month at ‘The Bear,’ -they went, in 1708, to the ‘Young Devil’ tavern close by, and there -they seem to have been housed for above a quarter of a century. In 1739 -they moved to more commodious apartments in ‘The Mitre,’ Fleet Street, -and they talked no more of sixpences. They numbered a hundred members. -Each of them paid a guinea entrance-fee, and twelve shillings annual -subscription. In 1770 they commenced the ‘Archæologia’; and in the -following year George III. gave them the abiding-place beneath the roof -of Somerset House, where, till the removal to Burlington House, they -met weekly, on Thursdays, during six or seven months of the year, and -sometimes, like Gratiano, spoke an infinite deal of nothing. At other -times the meetings are full of interest, and emperors themselves have -been glad to be enrolled among the Antiquaries, who began their career -as a modest club in a Strand tavern of no great repute.</p> - -<p>A more ancient society than the Antiquaries had also a home within -Somerset House. The Royal Society is of much older date, but it began -in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> little club-gathering, in 1645, at Dr. Goddard’s lodgings in -Wood Street, and for some time where it could, in Cheapside. After it -rose from a club to an incorporated society, it first met in Gresham -College, but afterwards occupied rooms in Somerset House for upwards of -ninety years, when it migrated to Burlington House. Its first avowed -object—the establishing of facts by successive experiments—was highly -ridiculed, and <i>that</i> most wittily, by Butler, in ‘The Elephant in the -Moon.’ One of the members is described as one who</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>—— had lately undertook</div> -<div>To prove and publish in a book</div> -<div>That men, whose natural eyes are out,</div> -<div>May, by more pow’rful art, be brought</div> -<div>To see with th’ empty holes as plain</div> -<div>As if their eyes were in again.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Another philosopher is said to be renowned</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>—— for his excellence</div> -<div>In height’ning words and shad’wing sense.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>A third experimentalist and chatterer is transported with the ‘twang of -his own trills.’ Collectively they are men who are satisfied,</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>As men are wont, o’ th’ bias’d side.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The society set up a telescope to make discoveries in the moon. They -detect armies fighting, and an elephant moving among them. Delighted -with what they had discovered, they drew up a narrative, to be -published in the ‘Transactions.’ By the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> time this had been done, idle -explorers have made out that the armies are gnats and flies on the -lens, and that the elephant is a mouse that had got imprisoned in the -tube. The philosophers are disconcerted, and the satirical poet rides -over them roughshod, with a moral which is intended to make them as -comfortable as a toad under a harrow. Butler flew at them again, in -prose, in ‘An Occasional Reflection upon Dr. Charlton’s feeling a Dog’s -Pulse at Gresham College.’ This is exquisite fooling. The paper is -supposed to be written by Robert Boyle, Esq., and never was imitation -so hard to be distinguished from an original. It is far superior in -this respect to the prose imitations, in ‘Rejected Addresses,’ of -the styles of Dr. Johnson and of Cobbett. We will not conclude this -reference to the Wood-street Club, which has grown to such dignity and -usefulness as the present Royal Society, without recording that, a -little more than a hundred years ago, a Latin paper, on ‘Volcanoes,’ -was read before it by a German, one Raspe. Whether it faithfully -narrated Raspe’s experiences, who can tell?—for Raspe subsequently -wrote that amusingly serious lie called ‘Baron Munchausen.’</p> - -<p>In the early part of the last century, a body of ladies constituted -themselves as ‘The Shakespeare Club.’ They met in rooms in Covent -Garden, and their object was to raise funds to supply the managers of -the two theatres, to enable them to act with appropriate splendour the -plays of the national<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> poet strictly according to his text; in other -words, the end was to annihilate the adapters of the bard. How even -the ladies themselves were divided in opinion and into clubs, is seen -in the closing words to Fielding’s ‘Historical Register for 1736.’ The -piece closes with a deprecatory appeal to the fair sex present, to whom -an actor says: ‘And you ladies, whether you be Shakespeare’s ladies, or -Beaumont and Fletcher’s ladies, I hope you will make allowance for a -rehearsal.’</p> - -<p>There was another club in the last century whose purpose was one which -deserves for it everlasting respect and admiration. The excellent -object it had in view was the suppression of wearisome preachers, or -the putting down of silly and interminable sermons. Whether the means -taken to arrive at the ends aimed at could be equally respected and -admired, is a matter on which a certain difference of opinion may be -justly allowed. It was the fashion of the time for ladies to carry -fans, and for gentlemen to be inseparable from their canes. These -weapons were turned to church uses by the ladies and gentlemen who -were members of the Rattling Club. They were vagrant Christians, who -attended such churches as possessed congregations who sat in need of -relief from a great oppression—that of being bored by a preacher who -(as Voltaire says of them all) stood five feet above contradiction. The -Rattlers were perfectly unobtrusive during<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> service, and indeed they -were perfectly decorous during sermon, unless they were provoked by -absurdity or tediousness. As soon as any provocation of that sort was -felt, a Lady-Rattler began to agitate her fan, or a Gentleman-Rattler -tapped his cane against the floor or the panelling of his pew. The -signal was followed by the other members, and the interruption was -continued, gradually increasing till there was such a fluttering of -fans and a rattling of canes as to produce conviction on the mind -of the preacher that the sooner he pronounced the word ‘finally’ -the sooner there would be peace in the church. It would not be very -unreasonable to call such conduct unseemly—even vulgar. The Rattling -Club, however, had very august precedent for their proceedings. In as -far as the eccentric young Queen Christina of Sweden set the example, -she may be fairly looked upon as the founder of the Rattlers. In her -own royal chapel, as well as in any ordinary church where she happened -to be present before she passed over to the Church of Rome, Christina -used to give decent attention to the sermon till she thought she had -taken as much as would do her good. At that point she would slightly -rap with her fan on the top of the back of the chair which always -stood before her own in the Chapel Royal, or on any hard substance -which happened to be near her, when she was being sermon-vexed in -other places. If the preacher<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> neglected to attend to this signal, her -Majesty declared open warfare against him, and rattled away with her -fan with increasing intensity till she had silenced the pulpit, or -(if the preacher continued to pour forth his volleys) till she raised -the siege and retreated in vexation. Let us mention here, by the way, -that in the early intolerant age of the Reformation which followed the -intolerable era of Popery in England, people were compelled (under -serious penalties) to go to church whether they were Reformers or -Romanists. Many of the latter attended the Protestant service rather -than pay the fine, and yet preserved their consistency; and you may -fancy the mirth in some old country-house, when the solemn knight and -his lady, and the laughing daughters with their haughty brothers, as -soon as they heard the church-bells ring, proceeded to stuff wool into -their ears, and then went to a sermon with a joyous conviction of being -unable to hear a word of it.</p> - -<p>Let us now fancy ourselves standing in Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s -Inn Fields, in the year 1711. We are in front of the Land Bank, which -had lately come to grief, and the street was not of the high estate -it had been when lords smoked their pipes at its windows, and could -smell the haycocks that were in St. Pancras Fields. Let us describe -what took place. There was a going in and out, and a standing on -the steps, and a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>gathering of increased numbers, and an universal -cheerful gossiping, save on the part of Mr. Ferrers, who was dumb. -Passengers stopped to look at these men, and were not slow to recognise -the most eminent among the wellnigh five dozen standing or moving -about the door, or going in and out. People from Drury Lane knew -their neighbour Mr. Vertue, who was talking apart to a little knot of -listeners—engravers like himself. There was Michael Dahl, talking a -good deal about his Swedish patroness Queen Christina, and still more -about his claims to be director of an Academy of Painting. At these -claims his hearers may be taken to have smiled, especially if their eye -happened to fall on a well-dressed, courteous gentleman, who passed -into the house bowing to all who greeted him. There was not a child -in Queen Street who could not recognise in him the great Sir Godfrey -Kneller. Sir Godfrey was probably greeted most warmly by Laguerre, who -had glorified the knight’s house at Whitton with more simple taste than -usually distinguished Laguerre. Thornhill stood near the latter, and -looked on him with no more perceptible air of triumph than a modest -artist could help, who had been substituted for the other in the task -of painting the Life of St. Paul within the dome of the metropolitan -church. Richardson too was there, and his colleagues respected him -as an artist who, if Kneller and Dahl were but away, would be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> at -the head of portraiture in England. A laughing group stood round -Richardson; he was narrating to them his own great story, which has -been so often retold with other heroes of the tale: ‘<i>The gentleman -was singularly annoyed that his friend should declare that his Rubens -was only a copy. He said to me: “I will knock any man’s brains out who -will call it a copy! My dear Mr. Richardson, come down to my house, -and give me your candid opinion!”</i>’ We may fancy that merry and wise -Richardson tripping up the steps laughingly, stopping, perhaps, in -the hall to talk with two gentlemen, brothers, one of whom exhibits -to him, and to smiling Laptist Monnoyer, some paintings on fans which -excite his generous unreserved admiration. It is Mr. Godfrey, behind -whose marvellously-decorated fans—on which figured landscapes created -to make love in—the beauties of the time of Anne and the first two -Georges used to feign to blush and hide confusion which they did not -feel.</p> - -<p>When these and others were assembled in the old bank, they numbered -sixty-two. Every man came with his guinea ready for the treasurer. It -was to be the annual subscription. Each member had also with him a list -of twelve names, whom he voted for as directors for one year. Michael -Dahl insinuated his right to be governor, but, saving Dahl’s vote, -Kneller was unanimously elected; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> with his quietly moving into the -chair of that club, was the first Academy of Painting established in -England.</p> - -<p>The jealousy of Dahl, and a few individual affectations, marred some -of the good that the Academy might have accomplished. In the second -year, the Swedish favourite of Queen Anne and her husband, Prince -George of Denmark, withdrew, because Kneller was still preferred to him -as governor or president. The Academy Club elected new members, with -or without their consent. At that time there was a French painter in -London, named Berchet. He had painted panels and ceilings in England -from the time of the latter years of Charles II.; and when De la Fosse -was over here, he must have been proud, if he was not jealous, of his -pupil. If there be an old painted panel yet in the house that was the -Duke of Schomberg’s, in Pall Mall, it is possibly a portion of the -decoration of the house, and is, in such case, Berchet’s work. The -belles and gallants of the day flocked to Ranelagh, to gaze at the -summer-house so daintily tricked out by Berchet’s delicate pencil. -<i>Now</i>, he was painting small mythological pieces, in oils; and the -‘Academicians,’ deeming him worthy of being a member, elected him. -Berchet (by letter) ‘excused himself, being not well and tysicky, and -could not bear the smoke of the lamp.’ His infirmity did not leave him, -neither did his industry. He had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> just put his name at the foot of ‘A -Bacchanalian,’ his last work, when the pencil dropped for ever from his -hand, and Berchet’s occupation was gone.</p> - -<p>We pass from Art to Fashionable Eccentricity. When squires were -<i>squires</i> in England, and came up to London to see a little life, a -club was founded for them in St. James’s Street, which was (and is) -called Boodle’s, but which was long familiarly known as ‘The Topboot -and Worsted Stocking Club.’ To rival Boodle’s dinners, or Almack’s, was -not a difficult matter, since they seem to have consisted of uncouth -legs of mutton, roasted geese, and buttered apple-pies. Something -better than mere squirearchy must have been among the members, for -Gibbon was one, and a hundred years ago the great historian wrote his -letters there. It was the poor cookery of Boodle’s that probably gave -rise to the ‘Sçavoir Vivre Club,’ the palates of whose members could -not bear, nor their stomachs digest, the mutton, geese, and apple-pies -of the club, which still exists. The ‘Sçavoir Vivre’ showed that they -knew how to live, by composing or importing new dishes, and they -showed that they knew how to dress, by creating the most eccentric of -costumes. Among their imported dishes was macaroni. It become such a -favourite dish at the club, and was so invariably brought to table, -that the clubbists themselves became celebrated as ‘Macaronies.’ In -dress they wore a toy cocked hat, gold-laced,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> buttoned and tasseled -over hair fashioned into a foretop above the head, side-curls, and -a clubbed tail. Tight striped silk breeches, and an equally tight -coat and waistcoat, kept them together. Their tasseled canes were as -long as those still carried by state footmen when they ride behind a -carriage going to court on a drawing-room day. Like Tiddy Bob, they -had a watch in each fob, with cable-chains, and a pound of seals at -the end of them. Their white neck-cloths displayed a front bow as -large as a cauliflower; and they daintily walked about in white silk -stockings and diamond-buckled shoes, in all weathers. In any sense, -for a Macaroni to wear a greatcoat was to confess his unworthiness of -being a member of the august brotherhood. As equestrians, they figured -in the park on little ponies, and looked as if they lacked strength to -get on anything higher. The female Macaronies carried heads top-heavy -with hair of their own and other peoples—hat, feathers, and a world -of knicknackery. Their dress clung almost as closely to the body as -the gentlemen’s to theirs. But they dragged after them a long, long -gold-embroidered train, the very thought of which reminds us of the -poet’s line:—</p> - -<p class="center">Hæc nunc auratâ cyclade verret humum.</p> - -<p>The Macaronies and the Macaroniesses, as they were called, turned days, -nights, hours, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> seasons, topsy-turvy; and the former, to show that -they were men, ran foot-races on Sundays in Kensington Gardens, very -lightly clad, and putting in peril their little lives, by exhaustion -of the little breath they carried in their little bodies. Having -established macaroni as a dish to be thenceforward known in every -household of taste, they died out, and men knew them no more.</p> - -<p>The Eccentrics entered into the present century. The Keep-the-Line -Club was one of the brilliant, fashionable, and shortlived clubs of -the first quarter of the present century. Its members consisted of -wits, artists, actors, authors, gentlemen, and peers. It had two -purposes—enjoyment and preservation of temper, by putting it to the -hardest trials. One of the rules was, that whenever a member was -insulted by another, however grossly, the insulted person should rise -and offer his best thanks to the offender. A witty fellow might here -find good opportunity for his wit, if he only knew how to avail himself -of opportunity. Another rule imposed a fine of a dozen of claret to the -club, on the member who published any literary composition of his own. -Samuel Rogers, Topham, Miles Peter Andrews, Merry, Morton, Reynolds, -Fitzgerald, Horace Smith, Boaden, Kenney, and others, paid the fine -willingly whenever it was fairly due. The penalty was once demanded -of Wilson (the surgeon), and of John Tufton. The first had issued an -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>advertisement announcing a course of lectures; Tufton had addressed -an electioneering handbill to his constituents. Both publications were -pronounced to be literary. The authors had not only to pay the penalty -in claret, but to profess their unfeigned delight at its being imposed -on them.</p> - -<p>While the Keep-the-Line loved fun, others loved athletics. The -Mary-le-bone Cricket Club of the olden days did not at all resemble -what it afterwards became when known as Lord’s. In its early age, there -was as much difficulty in passing a ballot successfully, as in the -most exclusive clubs of the present day. The members included players -from every degree in the peerage, members of the House of Commons, -and gentlemen of large landed property. The costume of the club was -<i>skyblue</i>! and their chief object—even before cricketing—was the -performance of practical jokes. One of the latter was played by the -bacchanalian Duke of Richmond on Fred Reynolds the dramatist. The Duke -put Reynolds on horseback, and rode with him to a match on Moulsey -Hurst. The steed ridden by Reynolds was from Astley’s, and the Duke led -the way to where a body of soldiers were exercising with gun, drum, -and trumpet. The circus war-horse immediately became dramatic, going -through a course of unparalleled performances, which he concluded by -flinging his sky-blue rider. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> there were, besides the practical -jokers, serious and accomplished cricketers. For bowling, David Harris; -for batting, Tom Walker; and for wicket-keeping, sharp-eyed Hammond, -had no equal except in Lord Frederick Beauclerc, who excelled, each in -his speciality, and could beat everybody at all three.</p> - -<p>In those days, the Mary-le-bone Club had no particular ground. From -May to September they moved from place to place, encamping here and -bivouacking there by day, and taking their ease in their inn by night. -Hospitality varied this course very pleasantly. Sir Horace Mann, -the King of Cricket, kept open house for the club at his seat near -Maidstone, or at his marine residence at Margate. This hospitality -did not cause him to be respected by the practical jokers. Some of -the jokes lacked decency; and we do not see much fun in the emptying -a man’s box of its snuff and filling it with hellebore, to make him -sneeze a hundred times for one! It was a rule that no offence was to -be taken at the roughest of these jokes, but it was not always in -the power of a man to seem delighted at them. We quite sympathise -with Miles Peter Andrews, who, being asked why he looked serious -when everybody was laughing loudly at a jest perpetrated by the most -convivial of the members, answered—‘My dear sir, I can see no fun in a -man who owes me three guineas!’ </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> - -<p>The hospitality of Mann to the club was, if possible, exceeded by -that of Richard Leigh, whose welcomes to the members at Wilmington -were feudal in their sumptuousness. His good taste and liberality -were manifested in many ways. His musical gatherings were exquisite -treats. His love for athletic sports was shown in his zeal at getting -up cricket matches. The eccentric Duchess of Gordon, who had married -two dukes and a marquis to her three daughters, once said aloud to -Richard Leigh: ‘I am the <i>first</i>, but you are the second, match-maker -in England, Mr. Leigh.’</p> - -<p>One of the droller incidents of the club-matches was long remembered. -Reynolds, who was but an amateur, was one day called upon to go in for -a member who was too ill to play. He went to the wicket with a feeling -of fright, as if he stood in front of a loaded pistol levelled at him, -when he saw that the formidable Harris was about to bowl. In his own -words, he says: ‘My terrors were so much increased, by the mock pity -and sympathy of Hammond, Beldam, and others round the wicket, that when -this mighty bowler—the <i>Jupiter Tonans</i>—hurled his bolt at me, I shut -my eyes in the intensity of my panic, and mechanically gave a random -desperate blow, which, to my utter astonishment, was followed by a loud -cry all over the ring of “Run! run!” I did run, and with all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> my force; -and getting three notches, the Duke of Richmond, John Tufton, Leigh, -Anguish, and other arch-wags, advanced and formally presented to me -twenty-five sixpences in a hat, collected from the bystanders as “the -reward of merit.” Even Lord Winchilsea and Sir Horace Mann contributed -to this, and then all playfully commenced promoting a new subscription, -which only stopped because I could not stop the next ball. To my great -joy, up went my stumps and out I walked—certainly with some little -<i>éclat</i>, being the first member of the club who had been considered a -<i>regular player</i>—<i>i.e.</i>, <i>paid</i> for his services.’</p> - -<p>We have now to say a few words of some other clubs and their purposes. -In the last century, Benjamin Franklin was in the chair at a private -club which used to meet weekly at ‘The Prince of Wales’ in Conduit -Street. A proposal was made to do something for starving authors. -The members murmured over their pipes, stared at the punch-bowl, and -thought authors were vulgar people, who were not worth being thought -about. The matter, however, was not allowed to drop. Year after year -some kind soul or another brought it hot upon the anvil, hammered at it -till he was weary, and then passed the hammer to another and another, -and he to another, till at last the <i>something</i> was beaten into shape, -and shape into substance, till there was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> fashioned that excellent and -praiseworthy institution, the Literary Fund. In its first year only a -few shillings could be spared for one hungry author, but <i>now</i> it sends -forth welcome relief by hundreds of pounds.</p> - -<p>This Literary Fund brings to our mind a literary club which we must not -pass over—namely, ‘The Syncretics.’ The worthy gentleman who invented -the name has never been discovered; but, dignified as the title looked, -it sorely troubled some of the members, particularly those who had -looked into a dictionary for the interpretation, yet who, on being -asked for the meaning of ‘Syncretic,’ had forgotten the dictionary -definition. The object of this united body was the encouragement of the -dramatic element among the members. They were to write plays, which -managers were to put on the stage for them; and as each play was acted, -the Syncretics were bound, or were supposed to be bound, to support -the drama of their brother-member by enthusiastic demonstrations of -applause. Their motto seemed to be: ‘<i>Hors nous et nos amis nul n’aura -de l’esprit</i>.’</p> - -<p>When the amiable society had furnished nearly as many new dramas as -there were members, the difficulty arose as to which play should have -the precedence. It was a delicate matter. Each writer saw peculiar -claims and merits in his own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> play, and those members whose pieces -were as yet only on the stocks thought that the club should not be -in too great a hurry, lest, by failing in their first venture, they -should discourage the possible or probable new Shakespeares who as yet -lacked time to bring about their dramatic <i>dénouements</i>. At length -a decision was arrived at, and a play called ‘Martinuzzi’ had the -good or evil fortune to be selected for representation. The public -expectation had been stimulated to a high degree, but disappointment -followed. ‘Martinuzzi’ was a lugubrious failure; but an ill-natured -world would have it that it was most violently hissed by the author’s -fellow-clubbists, the Syncretics. What will not a censorious world -assert? The scandal-mongers affirmed that it was a Syncretic rule -for each member, except the author, to hiss the play in course of -representation, as each sibilant member hoped, by damning his brother’s -play, to obtain a better chance of bringing his own forward earlier.</p> - -<p>Is there anyone surviving whose pantomimic memories can flash -vividly back half a generation? If so, how joyous yet sad must be -his remembrance of another literary club—‘The Fielding’—and the -pantomime of ‘Harlequin Guy Fawkes,’ acted by the members, at Covent -Garden, in 1855! If the set purpose of that society at its formation -was to found a school of mimes, the success was undoubted.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> It was -a strange ambition, thought Smelfungus, for professional men and -clerks in public offices to attempt to rival—nay, excel—the clowns, -harlequins, lovers, and pantaloons who were imbued with the traditions -of the times of Grimaldi and Bologna, Barnes and Parsloe. The amateurs -were quite up to the regular business. Who that was there will forget -the marvellous delivery of the patter song which Albert Smith rattled -out as ‘Catesby’? Was ever stage-fight at the old Coburg (where -Messrs. Blanchard and Bradley used to slay and be slain nightly with -broad-swords, that hacked and hewed to orchestral accompaniments) equal -to the terrific combat which was maintained between the awfully savage -Catesby and the resolute assassin Guy Fawkes, who had Mr. Holmes under -his mask? The latter seemed like a boneless unvertebrated acrobat -who could throw his limbs anywhere he pleased out of his own way, or -very much in the way of his adversary. The murderous earnestness of -his fighting was in strong contrast with the hilarious humour of his -burlesque-singing; and Mr. Holmes’s solemn humour was equally well -illustrated in the part he took, with three other amateurs, in the -performance of acrobatic feats in the scene of the Epsom Racecourse. -They executed the easiest of feats with an admirable air of having -achieved the impossible. The laughing spectators were almost deceived -by the mock seriousness of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> the pseudo-acrobats; and, when the latter -bowed to the applause, with an air of being exhausted by their -seemingly laborious efforts, the applause grew louder, and the laughter -shook the very house.</p> - -<p>There were other members of the club who took part in this celebrated -pantomime, and who were quite as effective as their fellows. Spectators -calculated in vain the number of government-office windows Mr. Bidwell, -the inimitable harlequin, must have leapt through, the government -tables he must have vaulted over, and the government chairs he must -have waltzed with for supposititious columbines, before he arrived -at the perfection which he then displayed. One could not but wonder -whether he went down to his office in Whitehall in his spangles -covered by a greatcoat, from which he suddenly emerged to stir the -often-manifested delight of the porter. Did he go to his desk by a hop, -step, and a jump? Did he ever awe a reproving ‘Head of Department’ by -shaking his ruler above him, as on the stage he shook his wand and -paralysed the clown? Then there was Arthur Smith, who slipped about in -Pantaloon as if he had never known boots, and heels to them, since he -was born. Nor let us pass over Joe Robins, that airy medical student, -who, we suppose, made the dissecting-room funny by his skeleton songs, -if he chaunted the scraps of minstrelsy as farcically as he sang ‘Hot -Codlins’ in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> the character of Clown. Horace Walpole said of some -amateur actors at whose playing he was present, that they played so -well it was a pity they had not sense enough not to play at all. He -would not have been epigrammatic in that style had he witnessed the -burlesquers and pantomimists of the Fielding Club. It was because -of their sense and intelligence that they were so efficient. In -their strength and buoyant spirits and exuberant health, they looked -immortal. Alas! some of them have passed from the stage-manager to the -sexton. One or two, having the alternative put before them, quitted -motley and pantomime for ever, and took permanently to their office -duties. Two or three went in an opposite direction; they stuck to the -stage, and more or less adorn it now, under their proper or under -stage-names. An odd fellow or so ‘got up a tree,’ as if that feat -belonged to the harlequinade of life; but it is believed that their -creditors saw less fun in the reality than in the pantomimic effect. In -short, to quote Hood’s ‘Ode on a Distant Prospect of Clapham College’—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>Alack! They’re gone a thousand ways!</div> -<div>And some are serving in ‘The Greys,’</div> -<div class="i1">And some have perish’d young!—</div> -<div>Jack Harris weds his second wife,</div> -<div>Hal Baylis drives the <i>wane</i> of life,</div> -<div class="i1">And blithe Carew is hung!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>We can only briefly refer to a few other clubs,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> some still, others -till lately, existing. We may suppose that a member of the ‘Early -Rising Association’ has no affinity with the ‘Owls.’ The ‘One-o’-clock -Club’ would no more understand a cricket-club than the members of the -one could look like the members of the other. ‘The Early Risers’ are -members of one of those cricket-clubs. During the season they pitch -their wickets at four o’clock in the morning, and play till seven, and -then to business—pleasure with them taking the precedence. But work is -their business of the day. Put the ‘Owls’ by their side, the foul birds -would certainly bear no resemblance to a man and a brother. The ‘Owls’ -used to meet at ‘The Sheridan Knowles,’ Bridge Street, Covent Garden. -They sat without ever rising. Day and night some blinking member was -to be found there making sacrifice of his faculties. It was not much -to offer up; but, by one saddened victim or another, the sacrifice was -being continually made. The smoke of their sacrifice ascended from -their pipes, and their libations were made in the very hottest of mixed -liquors. We believe that all the ‘Owls’ were utterly consumed—to -the great relief of their friends. Aspiring young imbeciles who call -themselves by that name are probably only the much-shattered wrecks -of the ‘One-o’clock Club,’ an association which was established for -the lofty purpose of late drinking! The ‘One-o’clock’ made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> ghosts of -a good many of its members. If any of its paralysed survivors could -bear being taken down to the Serpentine at daybreak on one of these -winter mornings, we should like to show them the club of hardy bathers -there who take their plunge, though they break the ice for it, and then -run across the park to breakfast at a pace that would take all the -poor breath out of the poorer body of any survivor of a club like the -‘One-o’clocks.’</p> - -<p>We must say for the ‘Owls’ that they did not originally intend to -be permanently drinking. They fell into bad ways. Sheridan Knowles -himself was, probably, never anything more than the honorary patron -of the club. Poor musical Augustine Wade, the composer of ‘Meet me by -Moonlight alone,’ and the disposer of Mrs. Waylett, who gave melodious -utterance to his ballads, was chairman of the club of ‘Owls’ in its -best days. These were when it met upstairs at the ‘Shakespeare’s Head’ -in Wych Street—sacred ground, nevertheless, for it was the home of -genius, and, according to some authorities, the cradle of <i>Punch</i>.</p> - -<p>We will say nothing of ‘The Sublime Society of Beefsteaks,’ for -Brother Arnold has written its history and sung its requiem. What a -host of great people, home and foreign, used to assemble in a French -eating-house in a dirty little street near Leicester Square, where the -Foreigners’ Club<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> was held, and Mallet du Pau, Pozzo di Borgo, and -our Vansittart were among the best talkers! We may wonder if ‘The Y. -Z.’s’ of Liverpool have seen as <i>wise heads</i> among them as once met -at ‘The Foreigners.’ Gone are the ‘Fabs,’ the ‘Fortnightly Associated -Book Society’; ‘The Jelly Bags’ in nightcaps are as extinct as Barham’s -‘Wigs.’ ‘Our Club,’ whose number was once that of the ‘Forty Thieves,’ -has never recovered the prestige it had in the days of Douglas Jerrold, -while the ‘Cocked Hats,’ select in number, grow in hilarity as well as -in ‘Archæo-knowledgy.’ The ‘Arts,’ or the <i>Upst-Arts</i>, as some wild -wit called that club at its foundation, is, at least, existing. The -‘Civil Service’ has a cheerful home—and a hospitable—at ‘The Thatched -House.’ Then there is a club so mysterious that we cannot learn whether -its name is ‘The Sentry,’ or ‘The Century’; but its purposes are said -to be very ‘advanced,’ in the well-understood political meaning of that -word. By-and-by we shall probably hear a good deal of them. Meanwhile, -we will close this paper with a quotation from Lord Campbell’s Life of -Lord Thurlow. It will serve, at least, to show that modern club-ways -were not the ways of the clubs of former days: ‘<span class="smaller">A.D.</span> 1769. -At that time, and indeed when I myself first began the study of the -law, the modern club-system was unknown, and (as in the time of Swift -and Addison) men went in the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>evenings for society to coffee-houses, -in which they expected to encounter a particular set of acquaintance, -but which were open to all who chose to enter and offer to join in the -conversation, at the risk of meeting cold looks and mortifying rebuffs.’</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>THROUGH THE PARKS.</i></h2> - -<p>It cannot be said that we are a very grateful people to our kings—to -such of them, that is, as have claims on our gratitude. Richard III., -when he was yet but a young prince, flying his hawks over his manor -at what is now called Notting Hill (an estate which fell to him on -the attainder of its old possessor, De Vere, Earl of Oxford), had a -great love for the drama. He was the first prince of the blood royal -of England that ever formed a company of comedians in his pay, and we -all know in what sort of light this Richard is represented on the stage -of which he was such a noble patron. Again, take Charles I. Before his -time Hyde Park was a royal inclosure. It was a sacred possession of the -crown, into which no man dared venture who cared to continue to wear -his ears. By special permission of sacred majesty an English nobleman -or a foreign ambassador might be allowed to kill a buck there, but if a -commoner man only ventured to look over the wall he ran great risk of -paying for it in Newgate. Charles I., one bright May-day, threw open -Hyde Park to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> people. The people cut off his head, and made May-day -a Hyde Park festival on many recurring anniversaries. They who were -present enjoyed the glory of it; all who were absent envied them, and -few had a thought to spend upon the king.</p> - -<p>The popular history of Hyde Park really dates from the time when -unlucky Charles made a gift of the place to his people. Previous to -that circumstance the locality belongs to history of another sort. -Druids once sang ‘Derry Down’—a phrase said to be druidical—in its -groves, and nightingales once made its evening foliage melodious. -It would be impossible for the one or for the other to exist there -now. For our own parts, we would rather hear the nightingales than -see the Druids, but it would not be for long. London boys would soon -silence the birds; and the metropolitan police would probably take -the Druids by the beard, and ‘run ’em in.’ Then, does it ever occur -to the equestrians in the Row, or to those who charioteer it around -the drive, or to the modest pedestrian who looks on at both as a part -of the London Summer Exhibition, that through the parks once ran that -ancient British or Roman road which began at Chester and ended at -Dover? We all know till lately where it crossed the Thames, namely, -at Stangate, opposite Horseferry Road. We can only fancy what the -wayfarers looked like. We may be sure that they did not in the least -resemble any of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> the groups or individuals who now lounge in or hurry -through the park in these later days. The land passed from Briton to -Saxon, from Saxon to Norman. William the ‘Conquistor’ gave much of it, -in which the present parks were included, to the Abbey of Westminster. -The ecclesiastical lords made the most of that part of the gift which -comprised the manor of Eia (thence Hythe and Hyde); they enclosed -it, but did not keep it solely for purposes of venison, although on -questions of game they were excessively jealous. They recognised -the salubrity of the place, and sent not only sick and convalescent -monks, but nobles and rich merchants to recover their digestions, by -drinking the waters of springs which flow now as copiously as ever. -The leper house, on the site of which stands Knightsbridge Chapel, -abutting on Hyde Park, was a sanatorium for patients so dreadfully -afflicted. In other respects, the place was strictly private. There -were no steel traps or spring guns, but intruders were kept off by -equally efficacious means. It was a preserve, to break into which was -almost a capital crime. Ultimately the Reformation dispossessed the -ecclesiastics, and the land passed into the hands of the crown. Henry -VIII. had no scruples. From St. James’s up to Highgate and Hampstead -all (saving a few paths), was made hunting-ground for the king and his -friends, native and foreign. The enclosed places<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> were as sacred as the -king’s private chamber, and no man, without special permission, or in -course of rendering some duty to the king, could pass through the gate -of the park any more than he dared step over the threshold of the royal -sleeping-chamber, without warrant. Gradually, however, the exclusive -sacredness of the place passed away. St. James’s was yet for the most -part a palace garden, when Hyde Park was the convenient stage on which -hot-headed young gallants and love-stricken court pages privately -fought for nothing or their mistresses. People began to murmur at not -being allowed to even look into that for the maintenance of which they -paid pretty dearly. Then permissions were given to persons of quality -to shoot a buck or to take the air. Men of lesser note subsequently -gained admission; and at last, but not altogether without restriction, -Charles I. opened the park, and invited the citizens to enter. From -this point begins, as we have said, the popular history of Hyde Park.</p> - -<p>Let us turn here, for a moment, to the other Park of St. James, -including the Green, or Little St. James’s, Park. All this was -enclosed by Henry VIII. Queen Elizabeth loved to walk in it. One of -her appearances there is little known, but it is worth the telling, -as it also illustrates her love for art. In 1561 one Vergetius was -commissioned by the Queen to procure objects of art for her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> abroad, -which Throckmorton, her envoy in Paris, forwarded to her. In the above -year the envoy sent by the hands of a Mr. Sommers ‘the images of the -twelve emperors.’ These were alleged to be medals of great antiquity. -Throckmorton, however, informed Elizabeth that he had employed expert -Italians to look into this matter, and they suspected the medals ‘to be -counterfeit.’ Such as they were, their price was ‘six hundred crowns -of the sun’—to be delivered in good condition within two months. By -the same messenger Throckmorton informed Cecil that an experienced -person had assured him that the medals were made of common copper and -cunningly gilt.</p> - -<p>Sommers, having delivered his despatches to Cecil, exhibited the images -of the Cæsars. Cautious Cecil merely observed that ‘he liked them very -well, but was not skilful of their antiquity;’ he would refer the -question, he said, ‘to some cunning body,’ but ‘would not yet believe -that it was <i>æs Corinthium</i>. He had seen such works of ancient art, in -gold, silver, and brass, but not in such metal as this. He thought, -moreover, that 600 crowns would be far too high a price to expect the -Queen to disburse for them.</p> - -<p>The loyal Sommers, anxious that Elizabeth should not be suspected of -meanness, suggested that Cecil should invent any excuse for returning -them rather than let Vergetius suppose ‘that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> Queen would stick for -600 crowns to have such a thing of price.’</p> - -<p>Thereupon Cecil took Sommers to the Park at St. James’s, where he -knew the Queen was walking, and there the messenger, with the box of -‘images’ under his cloak, was presented to Elizabeth, who gave him her -hand to kiss, asked how Lady Throckmorton ‘could away with France?’ -glanced at his despatches, said she would read them in her chamber, and -then, perceiving that Sommers had something under his cloak, ended with -a ‘What have ye there?’</p> - -<p>Sommers informed her; but when he named the price she protested with a -‘Marry!’ that she had the same set already in silver, but she bade him, -as it was growing late, to bring them for inspection on the morrow. -Accordingly, Sommers attended on her at the palace, and she laughed at -seeing them so daintily handled, all curiously arranged in a gilt box, -‘in the holes made for that purpose,’ and covered over with a piece -of crimson velvet. Then she told over the names as she looked at each -portrait, and scanned as many of the devices as she, with Sommers’ aid, -could decipher. She would come to no terms, however. He must leave them -with Cecil for a while. She would consider of it.</p> - -<p>Cecil kept the medallion portraits, waiting in vain for a chymist or -artificer with skill enough to ‘touch’ them and tell him of what metal -they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> were fashioned. Chaloner looked at them, and did not bring the -matter nearer to a solution by remarking, ‘If I were rich, I would give -a hundred crowns for them myself.’</p> - -<p>The queen wrote with her own hand to Throckmorton. She has seen, she -says, ‘the twelve medallions of the emperors, whereof she does not make -such estimation as the price assigned. She returns them, and wills -him to thank Vergetius for the same, telling him that she has caused -certain closets and cabinets of her father to be searched, wherein a -great number of such monuments in gold, silver, and copper have been -found, and amongst them very fair monuments of the said emperors.’ And -so ends this picturesque episode of the imperial ‘images.’ The park -scene might suggest a picture to Frith or Ward, if either should ever -happen to be in want of a subject.</p> - -<p>And now, let us return to Hyde Park, and mark its progress to the end -of the seventeenth century. Many a letter has been printed to show how -speedily Hyde Park became the sacred ground of fashion. We will add to -these illustrations one that has never been quoted.</p> - -<p>In January, 1639, the fashionable world was looking out with -pleasurable anticipation to the park season; so early in the year -Madame Anne Merrick wrote to fair Mrs. Lyddall (both ladies were in -the country) to entreat her ladyship to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> come up to town ‘in Hyde Park -time.’ Madame Merrick adds: ‘The fear of a war with the Scots doth -not a little trouble me, lest all the young gallants should go for -soldiers, and the ladies should want servants to accompany them to that -place of pleasure which both of us so zealously affect. I long to see -those French ladies, Mme. Mornay and Mme. Darcy, and the new stars of -the English court, Mrs. Harrison and Mrs. Vaughan.’ The lady inquires -whether sleeves are still worn down to the wrist—the mode brought in -by the Duchess de Chevreuse. ‘Do they wear their necks up?’ she asks, -meaning covered, not as Herrick says, with ‘a lawn about the shoulders, -thrown into a sweet distraction.’ Mistress Merrick does not love the -fashion of the gown coming up to the throat, and boldly says, ‘I do not -hold any one worthy of a fair neck, or any other good part, that is -not free to show it.’ How she looked, head upon pillow, and afterwards -saucily erect in the park, may be seen in the modest lady’s request to -fair Mrs. Lyddall to buy for her ‘half a dozen white night coifs which -tie under the chin, and as many white hoods to wear over them a-days.’ -Thus the park beauties of Charles’s time clapt their hoods over their -night coifs, and exhibited in the park</p> - -<p class="center">The sleepy eye that speaks the melting soul.</p> - -<p>Charles I., in opening the parks for free ingress<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> and egress, reserved -the crown rights over them as crown lands. Thirteen years after -Mrs. Merrick wrote so fondly about it, that is to say, in 1652, the -Parliament ordered Hyde Park to be sold for ready money. More than -600 acres fetched a little over 17,000<i>l.</i> The Protectorate did not -exclude the people, but everyone who was aristocratic enough to appear -in a carriage or on horseback was compelled to pay, each horseman a -shilling, a coach half-a-crown, for admission. The fee was roughly -levied by fellows armed with sticks, who were the agents of the -purchasers of the land, and therefore were empowered by the state to -levy the toll. One would like to know if Oliver, when he drove his own -coach so awkwardly through the gate, had to pull up, and fumble under -his doublet for a shilling. The higher classes grumbled. They could -formerly take the air <i>gratis</i>, while Charles and his queen walked -on the grass, looked on at the races, or affected to taste the milk -offered them by the daintiest of maids. The nightingales and cuckoos -never visited the park after it became ‘common.’ Cromwell and his -friends, however, made a pretty show in the park, and were ‘mobbed,’ -as our manner is. Not every man who stood near and shouted loudest -was a Commonwealth man. Assassins watched their opportunity when he -rode, or drove, or witnessed military pageants, or was a spectator of -the horse-racing or of the hurling by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> Cornish gentlemen. They never -had heart to draw trigger. Even when Cromwell tumbled from his own -coach-box, no pistol was discharged save the one which he carried, -and that went off by accident. The scene was entirely changed when, -after the tap of Monk’s drums was heard coming up the then rural and -sweet-savoured Gray’s Inn Lane, the troops by whom monarchy was to -be restored encamped in Hyde Park, and all the world went thither -to welcome them. Charles II. resumed the possession of the parks, -reserving as before the crown rights. He bought the meadows which -skirted the Reading Room (Piccadilly) and out of them made what is now -called the Green Park. It was added to the land which Henry VIII., when -he lived in Whitehall, honestly acquired. It was marshy land, with a -hospital for female lepers upon it. Henry removed the leprous ladies, -built a palace, and enclosed the park, to which Charles II. added the -Upper St. James’s or Green Park, a portion of which was built over at -a later period. Hyde Park felt the Restoration. It had become a field: -Charles made it a pleasaunce. Fashion went to it rather than to the -Mall. There was enjoyment within it all the year through, with high -festival on May-day. When it became formal, the gayer pedestrians took -possession of St. James’s and the Mall. But formality was not to be -seen in the ride or the drive. Coach as well as horse-racing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> drew -crowds of delighted spectators; but this was nothing to the joyous -excitement which stirred the hearts and voices of the gazers when saucy -Miss Stewart swept into the Park in that wonderful vehicle belonging -to the king, the newly-invented ‘calash.’ The other royal mistress -had wept and sworn in vain in order to have this triumph. The king’s -wife, Queen Catherine, had mildly expressed a wish that she might be -the first to enter the park in her husband’s novel carriage; but, poor -woman! what was she that she should be heeded when two of the king’s -concubines had expressed the same wish? And the gratification was -accorded to the saucier of the two—if it can be said that the Stewart -<i>could</i> be saucier than the Castlemaine. After Charles’s brother had -taken refuge in France there was a recognised Jacobite walk in Hyde -Park. The police would sometimes fling their net into the stream of -plotters and promenaders with more or less success. The Jacobites were -truculent in their joy as the news spread among them, as they walked, -that Mons had fallen (<span class="smaller">A.D.</span> 1691). Queen Mary happened to be -walking, not far from them, on that Broad Walk which is now included -within Kensington Gardens. Most of the Tory gentlemen paid her the -courtesy due to a lady and a queen; but Sir John Fenwick assumed an -insulting air, and cocked his hat rudely instead of raising it like a -gentleman. Six years after, King William caught<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> Sir John on the hip. -The Jacobite was convicted of treason, and William had the greatest -pleasure in courteously having him beheaded by act of attainder, as if -the man who had insulted his wife had been a peer of the realm.</p> - -<p>It is a singular circumstance that, after Hyde Park—the park which -had been opened to the people by King Charles—had been sold and -divided under Cromwell, ‘James’s Park’ was preserved. The latter was -open only to members of Cromwell’s court and to a few other privileged -persons who lived in Petty France, on the south-east side of the -park. Milton was one of these. Later on a wider permission was given. -Commonwealth ladies ruffled it there, and Cromwell himself paced it -in serious converse with serious men. His wife kept her cows there, -and talked of them with mild congenial spirits. With Charles II. came -courtiers, swains, nymphs, lovers. Some took the Mall, and practised -gallantry openly; others—<i>chacun avec sa chacune</i>—resorted to the -welcome shades round Rosamond’s Pond, in the south-west corner of the -park. Under the elms in what is now Pall Mall, or under the limes -which skirted the Mall in the park, all that was gay, and light, and -frivolous, frisked and frolicked; but thoughtful men threaded their -way among them too, and shook their heads at much which some people -would have shut their eyes at. Charles, standing under the park wall -to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> exchange light talk with Nell Gwynne, who looked down and laughed -upon him from her garden on the other side, was a sight which made -Evelyn groan aloud. It was a type of the general naughtiness which -prevailed. Half the graceless fops and hussies of the comedy of the -period play out their impudent drama in St. James’s Park. In the -comedies of that time the manners of people of quality are reflected. -As has been remarked, how they dressed, talked, and thought; what they -did, and how they did it; what they hoped for, and how they pursued -it: all may be learnt from contemporary comedy. We fully agree with -the judgment which says of the personages, that the fine gentlemen are -such unmitigated rascals, and the women, girls, and matrons are such -unlovely hussies—in rascality and unseemliness quite a match for the -men—that one escapes from their wretched society, and a knowledge -of their one object, and the confidences of the abominable creatures -engaged therein, with a feeling of strong want of purification and of -that ounce of civet by which the imagination may be sweetened.</p> - -<p>With all this there was a leaven of what was respectable or harmless. -Charles himself may not seem heroic, but he is at least harmless as we -see him, playing with his dogs, feeding his various birds, large and -small, in Birdcage Walk, or walking to Whitehall, looking fresh from -the dip we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> are told he had just taken in the canal. Occasionally a -thief who admired the king’s breed of puppies would steal a favourite -as it trotted at the very heels of majesty. ‘Will they never leave -robbing his Majesty?’ is the query at the close of an advertisement, -the opening of which implies how often the king was despoiled: ‘We must -call upon you again for a black dog,’ &c.</p> - -<p>When we remember that Charles often walked alone in both the parks, and -that plotters were abroad, we may wonder that he was never molested by -anyone worse than an enthusiast. It was a time when promenading ladies -in the park took no offence at being accosted by gentlemen who were -strangers. On the other hand, ladies saw nothing wrong in taking with -them, in their drives in Hyde Park, some handsome boy who acted as -girl on the stage, or walking with him in the Mall in his histrionic -costume. The great glory of St. James’s was during Charles II.’s reign. -His figure always has the park for a background. When he passed away -the park was seldom visited by a sovereign; but William occasionally -shut himself up on Duck Island, and smoked his pipe as he sat amid -the all but stagnant waters. When the seventeenth century closed St. -James’s belonged to the public, the lower classes of which went thither -to contemplate the leaders of fashion and the gaudiest flowers of -husseydom. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p> - -<p>In the last century it was ‘the thing’ for promenaders in Hyde Park -to gaze through the railings, and watch Queen Anne and her ladies -airing their nobility within Kensington Gardens. The most important -park incident of that Queen’s reign was the murderous duel between -the Tory Duke of Hamilton and the Whig Lord Mohun. Their quarrel was -personal and political, and it was embittered by a question as to right -of property. On a gloomy November morning of 1712 they fought with -swords, before it was quite daylight, and with such ferocity—hacking -and rolling over each other on the ground—that, when Mohun dealt the -Duke a mortal stab he himself fell dead on the grass. All the world -went in crowds to the spot, to moralise, eat cakes, drink ale, and cut -poor jokes on the scene of the butchery. No other park duel of the -last century was so sanguinary. It was there that Martin, M.P. for -Camelford, nearly killed Wilkes by shooting him through and through. -‘It would have been all over with me,’ said Wilkes, ‘only that Martin -used government powder.’ It was in Hyde Park that George Garrick and -Baddeley went out to pistol one another at instigation of a Jewish -lover of Mrs. Baddeley, who hoped that George would kill the lady’s -husband; but the affair ended by the parties dining together. A later -fight was more serious; it occurred in December 1773. One<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> Hugh -Williamson managed to steal the despatches sent by the governors of the -American colonies to Whately, one of the under-secretaries in England. -Dr. Franklin received the stolen property, and sent the documents to -America, where their publication caused the greatest indignation. -Whately’s brother, a banker, expressed his suspicion of an American, -one Temple, being the thief. Temple called Whately out, and the two -pelted each other with shot, and then hacked and thrust at each other -with swords, till Whately was removed in an almost dying state. At that -time neither the thief nor the receiver was known. It was not till -after the fight that Franklin acknowledged that he was the receiver, -and it was not till much later that Hugh Williamson was discovered to -be the thief. In 1780 the popular Lord Shelburne was hit in the groin -in a duel with Colonel Fullarton, of whom, as an <i>attaché</i> to the -English Embassy in Paris, the minister had spoken with great contempt. -The City of London sent every day a ‘How d’ye do?’ to the leader of the -Opposition. Subsequently parsons were not ashamed to do their bit of -murder here, or run the risk of being murdered by another. Parson Bate -fought his co-proprietor of the ‘Morning Post’ without much harm to -either; and Parson Allen stretched his man, Dulany, dead on the turf. -For this feat he suffered half-a-year’s imprisonment in Newgate.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> But -this penalty did not prevent the Hon. Cosmo Gordon from killing Colonel -Thomas on the same spot, nor weaken the arm of General Stewart in -running his sword into Lord Macartney. When people of quality thought -butchering one another a salve for wounded honour, fools of lower -degree soon followed the example. In June, 1792, one Frizell, weary -of a night’s debauch with other Irish law students, was sarcastically -rebuked for his comparative sobriety by his friend Clarke. The whole -party resorted to Hyde Park, in the beautiful summer dawn, to settle -the question with pistols. In five minutes poor Frizell was lying stark -dead among the buttercups and daisies. His tipsy companions tumbled -the body into a hackney-coach, which was afterwards found standing -in Piccadilly, without coachman or any passenger except the dead law -student, who was beyond giving any account of himself. In August, -1796, Mr. Pride, an American, killed his countryman, Mr. Carpenter, in -the park. In 1797 Colonel King exchanged six shots ineffectually with -Colonel Fitzgerald, a married man, from whom King had only recently -recovered his sister whom Fitzgerald had seduced from her home. Some -time after this duel in the park Fitzgerald went over to Kilworth, -Ireland, in order to gain possession again of the unhappy young lady. -Her brother, who had become Lord Kingsborough, broke into Fitzgerald’s -room for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> the purpose of chastising him. He would probably have been -slain by the stalwart ruffian but for the timely arrival of his -father, the Earl of Kingston, who, seeing his son’s danger, fired at -Fitzgerald, and killed the rascal on the spot.</p> - -<p>But people found life in Hyde Park as well as death. Frost could not -keep them from it in February, nor dust and heat in June. Fashion rode -round and round the Ring, as equestrians do in a circus, to attract -the admiration of spectators. Since hackney-coaches had been forbidden -to enter the park, at the close of William’s reign, because their -crowded inmates used to indulge in loud and rude comments on such -public characters as passed them, the place had become more delightful -to exclusive fashionables. Rogues and hussies, however, had the most -dashing equipages. Camps and reviews—particularly in the Jacobite -period—varied the grand spectacle; and there were crowds who went, -as to a festival, to see a soldier nearly flogged to death or shot -outright. The fine people, with less curiosity, walked meanwhile, -with well-bred indifference, beneath the five rows of walnut trees -which flourished there till 1814, when, by the exigencies of war, they -were all cut down to be converted into gun-stocks. After the West -Bourn was converted into the ‘Serpentine River,’ by order of Queen -Caroline, there was boating on it, as now, but the yachts were ‘for -the diversion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> of the royal family.’ That good queen, having taken -300 acres of the park, added them to Kensington Gardens. The good -lady would fain have undone the gracious act of Charles I., and would -have made the parks private; but she changed her mind on hearing the -probable cost: Walpole estimated it at <i>three crowns</i>. The roads at -this time were a disgrace to the authorities; and when ducal carriages -broke down in the ruts, and commonplace chariots drove through the -panels behind which royalty was seated, the public were comforted, for -they thought that improvement must ensue. Gallantry, meanwhile, did -not care for roads. The sight of Molly Nisbett’s ankle, as she walked -by the Serpentine, so moved Lord Macclesfield’s heart that he ‘fell in -love’ with her, as the phrase goes; but happening to meet her sister -Dorothy when he expected to meet Molly, he fell still more in love with -<i>her</i>, and at last married her. Walpole epigrammatically says that the -Countess Dolly was my lord’s mistress—or at least other people’s.</p> - -<p>Just a hundred and eleven years ago, George II. reviewed, in the park, -Colonel Burgoyne’s troop of light horse; and the Colonel’s son, Sir -John Burgoyne, died only recently, in his ninetieth year. The review -was as nothing compared with a spectacle afforded at a later period -by the Ranger of the park, Lord Orford, who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> drove a four-in-hand of -reindeer instead of horses. Deer-hunting in the park by the royal -family and privileged persons was not uncommon as late as the latter -half of the last century. There, too, might be seen, on his little -Welsh pony, great Chatham—he who first called the parks the ‘lungs of -London.’ Ugly Wilkes there found willing listeners among the handsomest -of women. The beaux about to make the <i>grand tour</i> took leave of home -by a display in the park, and probably dined with the Sçavoir Vivre -Club, partaking of their favourite dish, from which beaux generally -acquired the name of ‘macaronies.’ The headdresses of the latter were -something like those of women very recently, and were almost as nasty. -The women of that day sailed through the park in head-gear that made -them look top-heavy, and long skirts which might be described in the -words which Scripture applies to the skirts of Jerusalem. Thieves of -every degree were busy among the thoughtless crowd; but gentlemanly -young fellows would gallantly protect strange young ladies across the -park when it grew dusk, and strip them of everything valuable before -they were half across it. A detected thief, however, might think -himself lucky if he escaped undrowned from the Serpentine water and -unsuffocated from the Serpentine mud. Other dangers came from the park. -Rifle practice went on there very <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>actively—so actively that at last -the landlord of the King’s Arms, Paddington, naturally complained at -a ball, intended for the target, having crashed through his windows, -and lodged in the wood of one of the boxes in his tap-room. At this -exercise and at the reviews, the belles of the day used to muster in -Amazonian uniforms corresponding with those of the regiments they -intended to compliment. Blind Lord Derehurst used to ride through the -old grass-road full gallop, but with a friend at his side, whereby he -once came into collision with a furious rider who <i>could</i> see his way. -Both were half killed by the shock; but when the blind lord recovered -the use of his limbs he terrified everybody by galloping about the park -more furiously than ever. When the men took to four-in-hand driving -it was done with a perfection which may be still equalled, but also -with a splendour of appointments which is not followed. The ladies, -too, took up the reins, and condescended even ‘to whistle sweet their -diuretic strains.’ The lady drivers had above a fifty years’ reign, -from the days of Young’s Delia, who, in 1728, smacked the silken thong, -‘graceful as Jehu,’ to the period when Lady Archer ‘tooled’ her four -white horses through the park, and Mrs. Gordon, in 1783, drove her -phaeton and bays almost as rashly as Phaeton himself drove his father’s -chariot and broke down before he got to the end of his course. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> - -<p>In the last century, while the charioteers exhibited themselves in -Hyde Park, the promenaders took possession of that part of St. James’s -known as the Mall. Along a portion of the road, Charles I., had walked -his dolorous way to the scaffold at Whitehall; but he walked it like a -true gentleman. The gay throng that succeeded remembered little of that -King, in connection with the Park. They had lighter things to think -of. At one time the scene was as animated as that of Venice in the old -Carnival time, especially as long as visor-masks were in fashion. The -Mall was the first place in which a newly-appointed chaplain to a lord -fluttered his new black silk scarf, the sign and symbol of his dignity. -His quality was known by the flag he hung out. The scarf had just -been handed to him by my lord’s butler, who kept one or two samples -of the article by him, ready to be delivered to any new chaplain -named by my lord, in return for which the reverend gentleman was -expected to drop into the butler’s hand at least a half-guinea. Even -young officers in the Mall had little, if any, advantage of the young -chaplain, as long as his scarf bore its new lustre, and his address -had the necessary audacity. Old and young men of pleasure lounged in -the Mall and idled in the chocolate houses. The ladies were there in -beautiful, patched, painted, and scented crowds, the soft evening hours -being their particular season.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> They criticised each other, and each -admired herself. There Prior took the air to make himself fat, and -Swift to make himself thin. There were walks to suit all tastes. That -by Rosamond’s Pond for lovers, sentimental persons, and elegiac poets. -The Green Walk had its scandal-mongers and beaux with their hats, -not on their heads, but under their arms. Now and then a French or a -Frenchified fop was to be seen, as Tom Brown has etched him, with both -his hands in his pockets, carrying all his plaited coat before to show -his silk breeches. Other figures grouped in the park picture included -senators talking, or seeming to talk, of state affairs; milk-people -crying ‘A can of milk, ladies! a can of red cow’s milk, sir!’ St. -James’s Park had also its Close Walk, at the head of Rosamond’s -Pond, in the south-west corner of the park. This got the name of the -Jacobites’ Walk before there was one in Hyde Park. It was the resort -of Tories in the latter years of William’s reign, whereas the Jacobite -Walk in Hyde Park was the favourite conversing ground of the friends -of the old and young Pretenders. The park was manifestly losing its -fashionable aspect when Warburton ridiculed, while pretending to -praise it. What could be more pastoral than the cows and milk-women -near Spring Gardens? Comedy, Farce, Satire, were in all the walks. -Rosamond’s Pond was the resource of hearts ill at ease. Madrigals and -sonnets might best be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> composed in Birdcage Walk. Georgics and didactic -poetry would find inspiration on Duck Island, for which, however, -Warburton gives the very poor reason, that ‘the governor of it, Stephen -Duck, can both instruct our friend (Mason) in the breed of the wild -fowl and lend him of his genius to sing their generations.’ St. James’s -has grown common, without lacking any people of the high quality that -used to gather there in animated groups. King Charles loitered there -for hours amid his birds, to the great delight of the crowds who -watched him, killing time. Queen Caroline, George II.’s queen, would -fain have had the park to herself, as Elizabeth had, but failing that, -she only visited it in her sedan. But where those great personages -tarried, for pleasure, personages equally great only hurry along, bent -on business. A sovereign drives in the centre of the Mall, to open or -close Parliament, or passes along the side of it on her way to hold a -levee. But even this is a rare sight now. As for peers and senators of -less degree, whichever way they go, they seem bent upon getting out of -the park in the quickest way possible.</p> - -<p>On the other hand, it is and almost always has been the business -of pleasure-seekers to linger in Hyde Park. They go thither with -alacrity; tarry with delight; wend their way homeward with regret, -and return to the park with renewed zest. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> has ever been so. The -last century ended a long season of park joys; the present century -added to them. People of the highest rank took the dust there, and -seemed to enjoy it. The park had not been desecrated in their eyes -by footmen fighting duels in it, like their masters. Ladies, indeed, -not nicer than jockeys, were lauded for nothing but their riding. -One Amazon of the Row was complimented by being likened to Diana, in -everything but chastity. The greatest beau of the park at the end of -the last century was also the greatest, among a hundred eccentrics, -long after the beginning of this: namely, Beau Brummell. He is more -familiar to us than Colonel Hanger, who spent 900<i>l.</i> a year on his -dress—if he really paid his tailor. Republican France influenced Hyde -Park to this extent, that ladies were nearest the French fashion who -wore the least amount of dress. They needed only to show their faces -to be the most attractive, as was often told them, but they heeded it -not, except when they mounted the box to drive four in hand, and even -then they looked as much like young coachmen as dress could make them. -For years, on succeeding Sundays, Martin Von Butchell, the eccentric -doctor, was there, beard and all, on his painted pony, a very good -advertisement for the doctor. When death overtook the old man, who had -an idea he was immortal, he was more missed than Romeo Coates, with -his lofty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> phaeton, in shape and colour of a sea-shell, and his crest -of a cock, with its motto, ‘While I live I’ll crow.’ The park, without -Von Butchell and his variously painted pony, may be compared to the -Haymarket stage without Compton.</p> - -<p>All sorts of oddities were to be seen there, on the old-fashioned -Sundays. A Polish countess proved to be a Drury Lane ballet-girl; -a magnificent lady turned out to be a lady’s maid; and real ladies -stooped to copy the fashions set by the counterfeits. But space fails -to permit us to do more than refer to the dainty Petersham, the curled -Geramb, the Four-in-hand and the Tandem clubs, the dandies who ruled -when the <i>men</i> were at the wars, and the men who came back with the -Don Cossacks and the allied sovereigns, and showed themselves in Hyde -Park, as a proof that heroes were again upon the throne of fashion. -The throne still exists and a full and splendid gathering is around -it, on court days. In its way, Hyde Park is one of the most attractive -of sights, when the season is at its brightest, and the Somebodies -are there, with their kinsfolk eager to admire and imitate them. From -royalty downwards, indeed, every class is to be seen in that moving -panorama. Princes and mechanics, princesses and flower-girls, every -grade is there, and not the least remarkable are those Anonymas, who -dress with such exquisite propriety lest they should be mistaken for -modest women.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>SOME SCOTSWOMEN.</i></h2> - -<p>In the poetry of no nation are the ‘lasses’ more exquisitely courted -than in that of Scotland. But old women, with one or two exceptions -only, come off with ungallant treatment. This incivility may perhaps -have been born of the suspicion that old women had a strong tendency -towards growing into witches. On the other hand, witchery was common -enough with the younger wenches. There are few things more remarkable -in social history than the existence of women in Scotland who professed -to be witches, and the cruel punishments inflicted, not only on women -who were professed, but on those also who were suspected witches.</p> - -<p>There was a grossly immoral side to this story, and the immorality was -just the attractive part to individuals who could but practise it under -the character of warlocks and witches. The latter, combined with the -devil, established a reign of licentiousness in spite of all laws. We -believe that the women and the devil did really, in a certain sense, -come together, that is, in some cases. The fiend usually went abroad by -night. He had a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> strong kindness for young witches only. Take all as -merely human elements, and we know what wicked human nature could make -of them. It cannot be doubted that many a licentious scoundrel passed -himself off as the devil, and promised supernatural powers to all young -witches who would obey him. Hallucinations would come of it; and desire -to be witches, with power to severely punish all enemies, would spread -among people of diseased minds. The fact that this devil was a worse -sort of Don Giovanni, a hard drinker, and that he often piped while the -young witches danced, in cutty sarks, or without sarks at all, were -circumstances which tend to show a depraved humanity taking advantage -of a humanity too weak to resist. Moreover, generally speaking, the -devil had little regard for old witches. Nevertheless, these hags -sometimes went to the stake asserting their might of sorcery. When -they recanted, or urged their complete guiltlessness, they were not -believed. In some instances they were proud of belonging to the Amazons -of Hell.</p> - -<p>The supernatural hags were long in dying out. Even Norna of the -Fitful Head was not the last of the mystic queens of storm and rulers -of the winds. <i>’Tis sixty years since</i>, and a woman was then living -in Stromness, an old weird woman, who sold winds to mariners at a -remarkably low figure. For the small charge of sixpence, ‘awfu’ -Bessie Miller’<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> would sell a wind to a skipper from any point of the -compass he chose to have it. One relic of youthful beauty added dread -fascination to this storm-witch. The bright blue eyes, that in their -time had been the lode-stars of many a laddie’s heart, were bright and -blue as ever. All else was old age in its most withered aspect, and the -eyes were as two dazzling lights in a skull. The calm or storm vendors -have ceased to be; but in the Orkneys there are old women who still -earn an ‘honest penny’ by controlling nature; there is not a pain—from -the first that a child can cause, to the last a mortal endures in -getting well-rid of his mortality—but these crones profess to relieve. -We learn too, on competent authority, that old Orkney women still -retain an unaccountable aversion to turbot, and avoid naming it when -crossing sounds and bays in boats.</p> - -<p>Midnight courtships were quite as injurious as midnight meetings of -young witches and rattling warlocks. Among the agricultural classes the -ordinary time for courting is still, in many parts of Scotland—as it -used to be universally—the middle of the night. A farmer’s swain—with -an all-overishness about him for a particular lass, with whom he may -have had a <i>crack</i> ‘’twixt the gloaming an’ the murk, when the kye -comes hame’—will rise at midnight, walk over to his lady’s bower, and -find her ready and willing to let<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> him in, as the lady did Finlay, in -the ballad, or go down to him, and walk and talk and enjoy ‘courtship,’ -till the dawn, if it be summer-time, bids the rustic Romeo and Juliet -depart. The report of the Royal Commissioners may be studied for the -prose as well as the poetical side of this strange method of wooing—a -method sanctioned by parents and not ill-thought of by friends, seeing -that such was the course of their wooing an’ wedding, an a’. This -custom is, doubtless, referred to in Joanna Baillie’s ballad—‘It fell -on a morn when we were thrang’—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>When the clocksy laird o’ the warlock glen,</div> -<div class="i1">Wha waited without, half blate, half cheery,</div> -<div class="i1">And lang’d for a sight o’ his winsome deary,</div> -<div>Raised up the lattice an’ cam’ crousely ben.</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div>His coat was new an’ his o’erlay was white;</div> -<div class="i1">His mittens an’ hose were cozie and bien;</div> -<div>But a wooer that comes in braid daylight</div> -<div class="i1">Is no like a wooer that comes at e’en.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>We may conclude, on other ballad evidence, that it was right unseemly -for the lassie to make the first step in this owl-like courtship. The -ballad of ‘The Maid gaed to the Mill’ is a warning. She pretended to go -merely to get her corn ground, but really that the miller might make -love to her— </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>The maid’s gane to the mill by night,</div> -<div class="i1">Hech hey, sae wanton!</div> -<div>The maid’s gane to the mill by night,</div> -<div class="i1">Hey, sae wanton she!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>In connection with midnight courtship may be noticed the clandestine -‘Ruglen marriages,’ which were so called because in Rutherglen it -was more easy to get legally married in spite of law than elsewhere. -A couple of centuries ago an Act of Parliament visited clandestine -marriages (that is, without banns) with heavy penalties and -imprisonment, but it did not invalidate the marriage itself. The -Rutherglen justices broke the law while professing to maintain it, made -money thereby, and gave especial delight to the lasses. For example: a -lad and lass wish to be quietly married; they got a friend to denounce -them to a ‘Ruglen magistrate’ for having broken the law. The offenders -were summoned before him; they of course acknowledged, in the presence -of the court, that they were man and wife, which acknowledgment made -them so legally. They were fined five shillings, and were given a copy -of the sentence, which they signed; and this was universally taken -as a legal certificate of the union. Other magistrates followed this -lucrative business. When they told the young offenders that as to the -statute penalty of three months’ imprisonment the court would take time -to consider, the lad, lass, court, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> assistants all laughed aloud, -and the Ruglen marriage was a legal one.</p> - -<p>In earlier days than those just referred to great evil arose from the -fact that girls of twelve years of age could legally effect a marriage -of their own will. We might suppose that the lovers could afford to -patiently wait for the nymphs till then. Manœuvring mothers, however, -frequently sacrificed lovers content to wait, for others whom the -mothers preferred to favour. In 1659 the Countess of Buccleuch (in -her own right) was married, when only eleven years of age, to Scott -of High Chester, a lad of fourteen. This was the evil work of the -bride’s mother, the Countess of Wemyss. The validity of the marriage -was disputed, but meanwhile the bride finished her twelfth year, and -then married the lad of her own accord. She died very early in her -teens, and then her successor (for she was a great heiress), her sister -Annie, was married, while still a child, to the natural son of Charles -II.—the Duke of Monmouth. Parents and guardians were heavily fined for -allowing these marriages when the parties were under age; but as they -gained more by selling an heiress than they lost in paying the penalty, -this did not deter them. On some occasions a gallant would carry off a -child-heiress and keep her till she reached the lawful age. Towards the -end of the seventeenth century this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> freak was looked upon as a crime. -When Carnagie, the Earl of Northesk’s brother, thus ran off with Mary -Gray of Baledgarnie, men said if he could be got, he deserved hanging, -for an example to secure men’s children from such attempts.</p> - -<p>This practice had died out, but in 1728, we hear of an ‘abduction -in the old style.’ The offender was a Highlander. The damsel was a -wright’s niece, named Mowbray. Her ‘gouvernante had betrayed her upon -a promise of a thousand marks, the young lady having 3,000<i>l.</i> of -fortune.’ The uncle luckily caught them near to Queensferry, as they -were coming to town to be married. The newspapers add, ‘The gouvernante -is committed to prison, as is also the gentleman.’ There were some -illegitimate marriages that were severely punished. In the reign of -Charles I., a tailor in Currie was beheaded for marrying his deceased -wife’s half-brother’s daughter. As late as the reign of William and -Mary, we hear of a certain Margaret Paterson, one of the beauties of -the then prevailing husseydom. She had drawn into her irresistible -toils the two young sons of a kirk minister named Kennedy. For this -offence Margaret stood an hour in the ‘jougs,’ was whipped the whole -length of the city, and was then transported to the plantations for the -term of her natural life. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> - -<p>We have more gentle reminiscences of some Scotswomen, through both -poetry and romance—both founded on history. Few maidens are better -known in ballad lore than Bessy Bell and Mary Gray. Their true history -is not so familiarly known. They were living at the time of the last -plague that ever devastated Scotland, <span class="smaller">A.D.</span> 1645. Bessy was -daughter of the Laird of Kincaid: Mary, of the Laird of Lednoch. At -the last place, near Perth, Bessy was on a visit to Mary. The plague -broke out in the neighbourhood, and raged so fearfully that the young -ladies built them a bower, about a quarter of a mile from the mansion, -and there dwelt, apart from their family, but not from all human -companionship. They were visited and whatever they required was brought -to them by a swain who is said to have been equally deeply in love with -both—which was a very aggravated symptom of a common sort of plague. -Tradition says that death came of it. The lover with two mistresses -brought the infection with him. The ladies caught the disease, died, -and were buried near where the present mansion stands—a mansion, -the name of which has been changed from Lednoch to the more familiar -Lynedoch. The gallant soldier who bore that name, built a bower over -the graves of a couple of whom we know nothing surely, except that they -lived and died.</p> - -<p>In legend—one which was born of sad truth,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> and has passed into -Italian opera—there is no maiden more famous than the Bride of -Lammermoor. In melancholy prose, the lady was the Honourable Janet -Dalrymple, daughter of the first Lord Stair. She and young Lord -Rutherford had plighted their troth, had broken a silver coin between -them, and had invoked malediction on whichever of the two should -be false to the compact. The parents of Lady Janet insisted on her -marrying Dunbar of Baldoon. The mother, Lady Stair, was most cruel -in forcing her daughter to this match. Janet, broken-hearted and -helpless, had an interview with her lover, and sobbed out a text from -Numbers xxx. 2, 3, 4, 5, as an excuse for her obedience to her mother’s -commands. The lovers parted in sorrow; Rutherford in anger. He had not -in him the spirit of young Lochinvar, nor Janet the wit to run away -with him herself. The poor thing was, in fact, scared. She was carried -to church to be wed, in a semi-crazed and more than half-dead state. At -night a hurricane of shrieks came from the bridal chamber, where the -bridegroom was found on the ground, profusely bleeding from a stab, and -the bride sat near him in her night-gear, bidding them ‘Take up your -bonny bridegroom!’ She died insane in less than three weeks. Dunbar -of Baldoon recovered, but he was never known to open his lips on the -causes which led to the catastrophe. Baldoon evidently took<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> things as -they came; after his death, some thirteen years later, in 1682, Andrew -Simpson wrote an elegy upon him, in which the romantic adventurer upon -marriage with another man’s love was described as a respectable country -gentleman who had introduced many improvements into agriculture! Lord -Rutherford, the lover, died childless, in 1685. As Dunbar would never -suffer the catastrophe to be alluded to, good-natured people invented a -story that Rutherford himself was in the chamber before Baldoon reached -it, and had stabbed him as soon as he entered it. There is no shadow -of the slightest grain of substance for <i>this</i> part of a sufficiently -calamitous history.</p> - -<p>Janet Dalrymple was a strong-minded woman. She and her contemporaries -descended from mothers and grandmothers who were both strong-minded -and wrong-headed. Among the Scotswomen who may be so designated may be -reckoned those who were accustomed in the latter half of the 16th and -beginning of the 17th centuries to go about in men’s attire. Indeed the -sexes would often change clothes. This was done sometimes at bridals, -sometime at burials, always in a spirit of jollification, and there is -an instance of women and men making this travesty and rioting through -Aberdeen, in celebration of their recovery from the plague, but while -the foul stigmata of the disease were still upon them! The magistrates -had infinite trouble with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> the women. Fines did not frighten the -offenders. Other means were adopted. In March, 1576, certain women -‘tryit presently as dancers in men’s claiths, under silence of night, -in houses and through the town;’ the magistrates inform them that if -they are caught ‘they shall be debarrit fra all benefit of the kirk and -openly proclaimit in the pulpit.’ This masquerading was not confined to -women of low degree. Queen Mary Stuart and her ladies, once at least, -frolicked through Edinburgh in disguise—that is to say, they went -their joyous way as young market-women; this unseemly frolic occurred -when weak and ill-starred Darnley was on the point of wedding with the -widowed but then light-hearted queen.</p> - -<p>Of all the wilful Scotswomen of whom Scottish records make mention, -one of the most singular was the Hon. Susan Cochrane, daughter of -John, the fourth Earl of Dundonald. At fifteen, she married the -Earl of Strathmore, who was accidentally killed three years later, -<span class="smaller">A.D.</span> 1728. Twenty years after this the childless widow married -her groom, according to the Rev. Mr. Roger—her ‘factor,’ or bailiff, -according to the peerage books. The second husband’s name was Forbes. -‘The groom,’ says Mr. Roger, ‘at first (when she offered herself -in marriage to him) thought that the countess had become mentally -disordered, but when he perceived she was serious he gladly embraced -the good<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> fortune which had so unexpectedly fallen in his way.’ There -was a daughter of this marriage. The mother ultimately carried the girl -with her to France, when Forbes made the home unfit for a commonly -decent woman to live in. Lady Strathmore died in that country in 1754, -leaving her daughter, Miss Forbes, in a convent at Rouen. Forbes -married again, and then sent for his daughter, who returned to his -house. She was so cruelly treated that at last she ran away, wandered -through the country, and, when nearly irrecoverably exhausted, was -taken into a farm-house, in Fifeshire, by a family named Lauder. The -fugitive told her tale, and the Lauders gave her a permanent home. -After a while, the eldest son fell in love with and married her. -Happiness seemed secured to her at last, but it did not continue long. -Her husband fell into adversity, and the honest fellow died under -the crushing pressure of it. What the daughter of Lady Strathmore -suffered it would be too painful only to conjecture. In 1821 she was -found living in a miserable cottage near Stirling, and her influential -neighbours took up her case. They represented it to the families of -Dundonald and Strathmore, to whom the appeal was not made in vain. They -contributed to furnish her with an annuity of 100<i>l.</i> a year. It was -thankfully received, and it proved all-sufficient for the wants of the -granddaughter of two earls. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> - -<p>Returning to days before the Reformation, it seems to have been then -a sort of practical joke on the part of leaders of military bands to -quarter their officers and men in convents, which were also places -where young ladies of quality were educated and lodged. There were -generally means available to get rid of this unmanly intrusion. Similar -circumstances, with similar results, occurred in Scotland after the -Reformation. The first notice of a regular professional governess in -Scotland occurs under the date of 1685. In a petition to the Privy -Council this lady, Isabel Cumming, describes herself as a widow and -stranger, who has been invited to Edinburgh (in which place she -considered that the centre of the virtue of the whole kingdom was to -be found!) to instruct young gentlewomen in all sorts of needlework, -playing, singing, and several other excellent pieces of work, becoming -ladies of honour. She had not only succeeded, but, she says, she was -continually improving herself for the advantage of young ladies of -quality. This exemplary Isabel petitioned to be made exempt from the -affliction of having soldiers quartered upon her; otherwise, what -would become of all her young ladies? Their heads would be turned from -study, and their hearts would be beating to nought but military airs. -The Lords of the Council, who had young kinswomen, perhaps, among the -pupils,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> prudently and promptly granted Mrs. Cumming’s request.</p> - -<p>These young ladies, grown into wives, often sorely troubled their lords -by going to conventicle instead of to church, as the Act of Charles -II., the religious head of that church, ordered them to do, under -severe penalty, which, of course, the husband had to pay. The wife of -Balcanqui of that ilk so often offended in this way, that her lord at -last grew tired of paying her fines. He protested to the king’s council -that he conformed himself, but that his wife stoutly refused. He was -therefore, desirous, he said, to deliver her up to the council, to be -disposed of at their pleasure. The considerate council declared that -men like Balcanqui were not to be ruined by the mad and wilful opinions -of fanatical wives; and they agreed to remit the fine, if he would send -them the lady.</p> - -<p>On the other hand, there was at least one lady who was willing, not -only to give up her lord for conventicle-haunting, but to see him -hanged as a Nonconformist. Her name has not lived in history, but -Wodrow records the fact. She was a graceless virago. She mocked him -in family prayer, cursed him when he went to conventicle, and flung -stools at him when he returned. She had him up to the court at Glasgow, -and entreated my lords ‘to hang him.’ They refused, on the ground that -hanging<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> could be nothing compared with having to live with <i>her</i>. This -fearful sort of woman constantly comes to the front in Scottish annals. -Indeed, the question as to woman’s rights was settled in Scotland -before it was thought of in England. Take, for example, the ladies who -mobbed the Chancellor Stair and Archbishop Sharpe, in Charles’s reign. -They cried out that the Gospel was starving in Scotland through rampant -prelacy. One of the ladies struck the prelate on the back of the -neck as he passed into the Parliament House, crying out, at the same -time, that <i>that</i> (his neck) should pay for it ere all was done! The -prelate’s life was said to have been in danger. The whole scene, with -the beautiful furies pelting the archbishop with epithets of ‘Judas’ -and ‘Traitor,’ and hinting at murder, is almost inconceivable now. We -should have something like it if the Mrs. Fitzhighflyers were to mob -the Dean of Westminster in his own cloisters, and try to hang him from -one of his own gargoyles.</p> - -<p>If a minister took a wife from women of the temper indicated above, he -must have soon felt that the same temper would always regulate home -affairs. Very fearful bodies were some of those ministers’ wives. -James Fraser, of Ross-shire, who wrote a work on Sanctification during -the first half of the last century, had about the worst of them. She -kept him tightly up to the collar, worked him hard, and starved him -outright. She gloried in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> her tyranny. It might be said of her, as some -say of Bismark, human anguish was a sensual delight. The good man’s -neighbours put food in his way when he was permitted to walk abroad, -or they treated him hospitably in their houses, where he dared tarry, -however, very briefly. In winter, his Fury allowed him neither light -nor fire in his study. He worked in it by day and meditated in it by -night, when not at a scanty meal. At a ministers’ festival meeting ‘Our -Wives’ was one of the toasts. Fraser, on being sportively asked if he -would drink it, exclaimed, ‘Aye, heartily! Mine brings me to my knees -in prayer a dozen times daily, which is more than any of you can say of -yours!’ On the day of Fraser’s death, several ministers, on a formal -visit of condolence, waited on her, and found her gaily busy among the -poultry which she reared and sold. ‘Oh aye, he’s gane!’ said the widow. -‘Ye can gang in, if ye will, and look at the body!’ and she scattered -corn the while, crying, ‘Chick! chick! chick!’ The sentiment of Mrs. -Fraser towards her husband was very like that of the Scotswoman in the -old song:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>I wish that you were dead, goodman,</div> -<div>An’ a green sod on your head, goodman,</div> -<div>That I might wear my widowhood</div> -<div>Upon a ranting Highlandman.</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div>There’s sax eggs in the pan, goodman,</div> -<div>There’s sax eggs in the pan, goodman.</div> -<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>There’s ane to you, and twa to me,</div> -<div>An’ three to our John Highlandman!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Another Scottish widow reminds us of the widow in Voltaire’s ‘Zadig’ -for delicate fidelity towards a deceased husband. The relict in -question was one day in spring seen by the clerk of her parish crossing -the churchyard with a watering-pot and a bundle. ‘Ah, Mistress -Mactavish,’ said the clerk, ‘what’s yer bus’ness, wi’ sic like gear as -that y’are carryin’?’ ‘Ah, weel, Mr. Maclachlan,’ replied the widow, -‘I’m just goin’ to my gudeman’s grave. I’ve got some hay-seeds in my -bundle, the which I’m goin’ to sow upon it; and the water in the can is -just to gi’e ’em a spring like!’ ‘The seeds winna want the watering,’ -rejoined the clerk, ‘they’ll spring finely o’ themselves.’ ‘That may -well be,’ rejoined the widow; ‘but ye dinna ken that my gudeman, as he -lay a-deeing, just got me to make promise that I’d never marry agin -till the grass had grown aboon his grave. And, as I’ve had a good offer -made me but yestreen, ye see, I dinna like to break my promise, or -to be kept a lone widow, as ye see me!’ The minister’s aide-de-camp -looked on the widow, indeed, with a mirthful expression. ‘Water him -weel, widow,’ said the clerk; ‘Mactavish aye was drouthy!’ The above -took place within the Georgian era, when both old and young ladies in -Scotland broadly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> called things by their names. We are not sure that -it was not the same everywhere. As a Scottish sample, we take the last -duchess of the house of Douglas, who was a ‘jolly’ lady in manner -and matter; broad in figure and in speech, and not to be offended by -word or innuendo. When the duchess was in Paris with several Scottish -gentlemen, in the reign of George III., 1762, the language and ideas -of the whole party were of a sort, it is said, to make the hair of the -fastest of our day to stand on end. One of the gentlemen suggested -that when the duchess went to court she should claim the right to -occupy a <i>tabouret</i>, or low seat, in the royal presence, by virtue of -her late husband’s ancestors having held a French dukedom (Touraine). -Robert Chambers, who had the story from Sir James Stuart of Coltness, -one of the party, says that the old lady made all sorts of excuses -in her homely way; but when Boysock started the theory that the real -objection lay in her grace’s fears as to the disproportioned size of -the <i>tabouret</i> for the correlative part of her figure, he was declared, -amidst shouts of laughter, to have divined the true difficulty—her -grace enjoying the joke as much as any of them. The story may remind -some readers of the assembly at Mrs. Montague’s, when that bluntest of -ladies asked Dr. Johnson to take a chair, and how that learned savage, -in the coarsest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> way, intimated that there were fewer seats than -persons to be seated.</p> - -<p>Other ladies of ducal families had their peculiarities—which even in -those days excited remark. A very few years have elapsed since there -died the old soldier Duncan Mackenzie. He could remember when he kissed -the Duchess of Gordon in taking the shilling from betwixt her teeth to -become one of her regiment, the Gordon Highlanders. Ladies of rank in -England at that time, when elections were hotly contested, bought votes -with their kisses. A few years ago there passed away from society, -almost unnoticed, a Scottish lady who had made no little noise in her -time. We allude to the beautiful Lady Charlotte C., daughter of the -Duke of A——. In 1796 she married her namesake, ‘Handsome Jack’ C., -of the Guards. At that time the bride was perhaps unequalled for her -beauty, and she was not shy of showing it. Indeed, after Lady Charlotte -first went to court as a wife, Queen Charlotte sent her word that if -she ever came there again she must first take a tuck or two out of -her skirts. In Glasgow crowds used to follow this audacious beauty; -and no wonder, for local historians say she would walk down the most -fashionable street in petticoats almost as short as a Highlander’s -kilt. On one occasion, when thus lightly attired, and walking with a -lady and a young gentleman, the whole city seemed to gather about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> -them, wondering, admiring, and criticising. Finding themselves mobbed, -they took shelter in a shop, whose owner, further to protect them, -put up his shutters and locked his door. Instead of dispersing, the -mob increased. The shopkeeper, fearing an attack on his premises, by -which his goods and his guests would alike suffer, jumped out of a -back-window and ran for the guard. A sergeant and three or four men -were sent down and posted in front of the premises. Meanwhile, Lady -Charlotte C. followed the shopkeeper’s example. She lightly leapt from -the back-window into an unfrequented lane, made her way into a decent -house, told her story, sent for a coach, and quietly rode to her inn -unrecognised. During this flight and escape the mob grew denser and -more impatient. At length the shop-door was opened. The tradesman -informed the people how Lady Charlotte had got away, and asked -undisturbed passage for the young lady and gentleman who remained. This -was granted, for there was nothing eccentric about this couple, who -were civilly allowed to ‘gang their gait.’ The reigning beauty lived to -a great age—between eighty and ninety. Age did not bring wisdom with -it, if the story be true that when she was old she went to court in a -dress every way as objectionable as that with which, in her youth, she -ruffled the plumes of Queen Charlotte’s propriety. In her declining -years she had not only lost the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> once handsome Jack, but his estates -too: Islay and Woodhall had gone to creditors. The old lady, however, -married a clergyman named Bury, turned to literary pursuits, and, among -other books, produced in 1839 the Diary illustrative of the times of -George IV., which was edited by Galt.</p> - -<p>Lady Grisell Baillie has been called ‘the bravest of all Scotch -heroines.’ Her career lasted from 1665 to 1746. In that life of -fourscore years and one she wrote one famous song, ‘Were my Heart -licht I wad dee,’ and rendered a million good services to her -fellow-creatures. One of the eighteen children of Sir Patrick Home, -afterwards Earl of Marchmont, she learned the trick of serving her -kindred so early and so well that she could not give it up when she was -a fine old lady. Till her eighty-first year she rose the earliest of -her family, and managed the most difficult of their affairs. When her -father was in hiding from the scaffold, and Grisell was eighteen, she -walked alone every night, over a dark road, and through an ill-reputed -churchyard, to carry food to the fugitive, who was concealed in the -family vault. Sir Patrick is described as lying on a mattress wrapped -in a Kilmarnock cloak, among the mouldering bones of his ancestors, -with nothing to help to spend the time but repeating some of Buchanan’s -Latin psalms. Grisell had to be cautious, for there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> were hostile -soldiers in her father’s house ever on the watch. One night, when she -was providing the rations for her parent, she contrived to take a -sheep’s head from the table. She was nearly betrayed to the soldiers -by the remark of a sister, who, suddenly missing the head, gave loud -expressions to her wonder at Grisell having so quickly eaten the -whole of it. When in exile in Holland, before the Great Revolution, -Sir Patrick wrote home as to how the young people should be brought -up. He enjoined dancing every day. ‘Lost estates,’ he said, ‘can be -recovered again, but health once lost by a habit of melancholy can -never be recovered.’ After Grisell married young Baillie of Jerviswood, -‘he never went abroad but she went to the window to look after him (so -she did that very day he fell ill, the last time he was abroad), never -taking her eyes from him so long as he was in sight.’ Grisell ranks -among Scottish songstresses. Some of her tuneful sisters are worthy of -notice.</p> - -<p>The world does not know much of Alison Rutherford of Fairnalee, but she -is familiar to us under her married name of Mrs. Cockburn, authoress -of one of the versions of ‘Flowers of the Forest.’ Her period was a -long one, within the limits of the last century, 1712-1794. One of the -biographers of this Queen of Edinburgh describes the Scotswomen of -the early part of that century<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> as highly cultivated. ‘The daughters -of the country houses were educated by their fathers’ chaplains and -their brothers’ tutors’ (the Dominie Sampsons of the House), ‘when they -had brothers, as well as by their mothers’ waiting-women; and when -the family happened to be of more than ordinary intelligence, or to -be decidedly of a studious turn, the daughters were fairly well-read -and well-informed women. Not only were Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, -Prior, and Addison on many bookshelves in lairds’ and ladies’ closets, -but, though the women of the nobility and gentry had not a classical -education, they frequently learnt French and Italian, and were very -conversant with the former. This was not so much because of the -obsolete national alliances which have scattered French words broadcast -over the field of the Scottish language, as because of the influence of -the <i>vieille cour</i> of the great Louis on manners, and the effects of -its <i>beaux esprits</i> on literature, which were felt as far as Scotland. -The number of soldiers of fortune belonging to the upper classes who -served campaigns abroad and came home with foreign polish increased -the influence. Corneille, Racine, and Molière, La Fontaine and La -Bruyère were as much the fashion in the Scotch rank that pretended to -fashion when Alison Rutherford was young, as they were in English high -society when Lady Mary Wortley<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> Montagu and Mrs. Delany grew up.’ The -above must be taken with some reserve. Scottish governesses of the -period were, for the most part, ill-educated, and they were as much -servants as teachers. When Jean Adam, the reputed author of ‘There’s -nae Luck about the House’ (she was born in 1710), went as governess -into the family of a clergyman, Mr. Turner of Greenock, she had to -live on pease-brose, nettle-kail, and barley-meal scones. She knitted -the minister’s stockings, helped to make the clothes of his wife, his -girls, and his boys, worked at the spinning-wheel, nursed the baby, -and tended the sick. In the manse of Crawfurdsdyke this governess -wore a woollen petticoat and a short gown of striped linen within -the house. Her Indian cotton gown and her <i>bon grâce</i>, or straw hat, -were for gala trips to Glasgow. The education of Mrs. Cockburn, as we -will call her, was defective in spelling, at all events. In one of -her notes she complains of the ‘rheumatiz.’ In another she uses the -word ‘unparaleled,’ sees the mistake, can’t correct it, and then gaily -writes in a postscript, ‘cannot spell unparaleled.’ She was a beauty -throughout life—supremely beautiful in her youth. She says prettily -of herself: ‘I was a prude when young, and remarkably grave. It was -owing to a consciousness that I could not pass unobserved, and a fear -of giving<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> offence or incurring censure. I loved dancing extremely, -because I danced well.’ She loved it to the end of her days, and would -dance with men whose grandfathers had been her partners in days of -yore. Mrs. Cockburn also preferred men’s society to that of women. A -company without a clever man in it was to her worse than no company -at all. The sterling stuff that was in her is to be seen in what she -curiously says of the early years of her marriage with young Cockburn, -son of the Lord Justice Clerk: ‘I was married, properly speaking, to -a man of seventy-five, my father-in-law. I lived with him four years, -and as the ambition had seized me to make him fond of me, knowing -also that nothing could please his son so much, I bestowed all my -time and trouble to gain his approbation.’ Of her husband she wrote, -three-and-thirty years after she had become a widow: ‘I was twenty -years united to a lover and a friend.’ Perhaps it was the happiness -of her own married life that gave her a decided partiality for making -matches. ‘She was the <i>confidante</i>,’ her biographers remark, ‘of all -lovesick hearts.’ When speaking of a widow ‘being consoled by one who -had been longer in that state,’ Mrs. Cockburn contemptuously asked, -‘What’s a woman to a woman?’ That any woman should prefer a single -to a married life was a fact she could not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> account for. ‘The girls -are all set agog,’ she writes, ‘in seeking the ideal man, and will -have none of God’s corrupted creatures.... Even as a good housewife -I would choose my lord and master should have many faults, because -there’s so much glory in mending them. One is prouder of darning an old -table-cloth than of sewing a new one.’ The sentiment is happier than -the simile. To the next sentiment universal mankind would say a loud -Amen: ‘It’s a pity woman does not mend with age as wine does.’ There -was a rough side to female Scottish character in those days. Among the -friends of Mrs. Cockburn, when she was queen of Edinburgh society, -was a Miss Suff Johnstone. She is thus sketched in ‘The Songstresses -of Scotland,’ of whom Miss Suff was not one: ‘Miss Suff, before -women’s rights were mooted, took the law into her own hand, and wore a -man’s greatcoat, hat, and square-buckled shoes, practising, with the -habiliments, a man’s habit of striding, spitting, and swearing. She -shod a horse better than a smith, had a private forge in her bedroom, -played on a fiddle, and sang a man’s song in a man’s bass voice.’ -Gentle Anne Scott’s foot happening to tread upon the space appropriated -by the Amazon, Anne was punished by a rough kick on the shins, and the -fierce challenge, ‘What are ye wab-wabstering there for?’ The innocent -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>offender was overwhelmed, and the rest of the party electrified. A -contemporary of Mrs. Cockburn, Miss Jean Elliot, whose life ran between -the limits of 1727 and 1805, and who was also the author of a version -of the song, ‘Flowers of the Forest,’ had a very indifferent opinion of -the Scotswomen of her time. ‘The misses,’ she wrote to a friend, ‘are, -I am afraid, the most rotten part of the society. Envy and jealousy of -their rivals have, I fear, a possession in their minds, especially the -old part of the young ladies, who grow perfect beldames in that small -society.’ At that period, the lady leaders of fashion of the faster -sort frequented the Edinburgh oyster-cellars, exercised the license -of men, and had such promising pupils as Miss Suff Johnstone. In an -indirect way we owe to this last lady the song of ‘Auld Robin Gray.’ -She was in the habit of singing words far from choice to the old tune. -Lady Anne Barnard (while she was the yet unmarried daughter of the Earl -of Balcarres) took the tune, and supplied it with the words which tell -the well-known tale of virtuous distress. The author was forty years of -age when she married Mr. Barnard, son of the Bishop of Limerick. She is -almost as celebrated for this one song as the Baroness Nairne (by birth -an Oliphant of Gask) was for the ‘Laird o’ Cockpen,’ ‘Caller Herrin,’ -and a dozen of Jacobite and other songs, in some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> of which there are -indications of great humour, in others of great pathos. In one verse of -‘Caller Herrin,’ she sketches a picture, as George Cruikshank used to -do, with two or three strokes:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>When the creel o’ herrin’ passes</div> -<div>Ladies, clad in silk and laces,</div> -<div>Gather in their braw pelisses,</div> -<div>Cast their heads and screw their faces.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>In the last century there was a Scottish home discipline, compared with -which that of school must have appeared amiable. Take the Lanarkshire -home of Joanna Baillie, who passed away just twenty years ago at the -venerable age of ninety. She and the other children of the family had -parents whose hearts were full of affection, which their principles -would not permit them to show. The father never kissed his children. -Joanna, hungering for a caress, once clasped her mother’s knee, and was -gently chided. ‘But,’ Joanna used to say, ‘I know she liked it.’ It is -curious to mark the contrast of Joanna Baillie, who could hardly read -at eleven, running wild by the banks of the Clyde or on the braes of -Calder, and of Joanna Baillie writing songs and plays in the house of -her brother, the physician, in Windmill Street, Haymarket—the site of -the house now occupied by the Argyll Dancing-rooms. Byron’s daughter, -Ada, Countess of Lovelace, had a wonderful knowledge of mathematics, -but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> she cared nothing for her father’s nor any other person’s poetry. -Joanna Baillie had not a poet for her sire, but the numbers came. -Therewith she acquired the paternal affection for Euclid, and was -great in the demonstration of problems. In her unrestrained Scottish -girlhood she knew as little of fear as Nelson ever did. She was not -only supreme in all girlish sports, but she rushed into audacious deeds -that boys stopped short at. She ran unbonneted and high-kilted, along -the parapets of bridges and the tops of walls as deftly as Mazurier -or Gouffe over theatrical representations of them. She once induced -her brother to mount a horse on which she was seated. The steed, -waxing angry, bolted, and flung the brother, whose arm was broken. Her -equestrianism was the admiration of the countryside. ‘Look at Miss -Jack!’ cried a farmer, who saw her pass, riding at the head of a party -on a country excursion. ‘Look at Miss Jack! she sits her horse as if -it was a bit of herself.’ Not the least singular thing connected with -this Scottish lady is that when, after a long residence in London she -returned to Scotland, her Scottish accent was stronger than ever. Her -Scottish songs, original or adapted, will probably live longer than her -‘Plays of the Passions,’ with all their unquestionable merits.</p> - -<p>We may here put readers on their guard<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> against concluding that even a -very Scottish song must necessarily be by a Scottish author. Mrs. John -Hunter, who wrote ‘My Mother bids me,’ and a version of ‘Flowers of the -Forest,’ was a Yorkshirewoman. Mrs. Grant, famous for ‘Roy’s Wife,’ -was Irish. Mrs. Ogilvy, who has given so many samples of Highland -minstrelsy, was born in India. Miss Blamire wrote ‘An ye shall walk in -Silk Attire,’ but she was a Cumberland lass; and Mrs. Hamilton, of ‘My -ain Fireside,’ was, like Mrs. Grant, of Carron, an Irish lady. They are -all held to be virtually Scottish by men who deny that Wallace was a -Welshman and that Robert Bruce was a native of Yorkshire.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>THE DIBDINS.</i></h2> - -<p>For about a hundred years the name of Dibdin was a pleasant name in -the ears and eyes of the English people. The Dibdin proper, son of -a silversmith, was born at Southampton in the year of the Scotch -Rebellion, 1745. The event belongs almost to ancient history, but there -are men not yet so very old who can remember in their childhood the -once ‘tuneful Charley,’ who became for ever mute in the year 1814.</p> - -<p>The name is a local one. There is a place called Dibden (originally -Deep Dene), a place of some importance at the time of the Conquest, -situated in a thickly wooded dell in Southampton Water. Charles Dibdin -was Hampshire born and Hampshire bred. His father, silversmith and -parish clerk, sent him to Winchester School, but he was more especially -of the Winchester Cathedral choir. He was ‘intended for the Church,’ -as the phrase goes, but instead of a bishop writing charges, he became -a composer arranging musical scores. In the Church he probably would -have written a few indifferent sermons. On and for the stage, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> -world, he penned and melodised hundreds of popular songs. Some of these -are as good as sermons; others are as unintelligible; there are many -of them that are infinitely better. Dibdin knew as much about a ship -as many curates know about religion; and now and then he got into the -same sort of mess accordingly. On the whole, however, he pulled through -successfully. The backbone of all his songs was ‘loyalty.’ It was like -insisting on ‘faith’ in sermons. He perhaps would have been a popular -preacher, had he not preferred being a popular song-writer—Tyrtæus -instead of Calchas.</p> - -<p>Charles Dibdin was neither sailor nor parson, but the family was -destined to contribute both to the wide-apart professions respectively. -Charles had an elder brother who took to sea and became captain of -an East Indiaman. Years after, but in the same year, 1775, a son was -born to each, and each son was named Thomas. The captain’s son was -born at Calcutta. He was put to the law with the object of making a -Lord Chancellor of him, but the young fellow turned to the Church, -and did not become an archbishop. Nevertheless, he is well remembered -as the Rev. Thomas Frognal Dibdin, author of the ‘Bibliomania,’ the -‘Biographical Decameron,’ and many other works of a similar nature. The -Rev. Thomas died, a popular preacher, rector of St. Mary’s, Bryanstone -Square, in 1847. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p> - -<p>The Rev. Thomas’s cousin, Tom, was born in Peter Street, Holborn. You -will look for street or house in vain. New Oxford Street has swept -it all down. Peter Street was the third of a street which had three -names. At the Holborn end it was Bow Street; at the Montague House, -or Museum, end, it was Queen Street. The middle portion was Peter -Street, which New Oxford Street has knocked out of existence. But for -this, you might yourself have knocked at the very house door, as Mr. -Garrick did, on the day of Master Tom’s christening, when Roscius was -godfather, and he brought with him a hamper of wine, and Frank Aickin, -as second godfather. This was ‘Tyrant Aickin,’ as Frank was called, -from his having always to play the swaggering, low-mouthed Maximinus -of the drama. The godson of the two actors never had the good luck in -life of either of his godfathers. He never had a <i>living</i> that made him -socially equal with his cousin the rector. The cousins were alike in -one point only. Each wrote his own biography, both of which are worth -the reading. Thomas Frognal Dibdin, D.D., became one of the founders of -the Roxburgh Club. Tom Dibdin of Peter Street was often a guest at the -Sublime Society of Beef Steaks. T. F. D. was a popular lecturer, but no -lecture of his had such vogue as his cousin Tom’s song, ‘When Vulcan -forged the bolts of Jove.’ Tom’s father never wrote a better. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> - -<p>But Tom’s father is waiting, and it is his story that has to be -briefly told. After all, Charles Dibdin the elder began life, or would -have begun it, with the Church—as organist. He was a candidate for -the office at Bishop’s Waltham, in his native county. He was then -only fourteen years of age. He was self-taught, save some elementary -instruction from Mr. Fussel, the organist of Winchester Cathedral. The -village judges, finding him competent, duly rejected him on account of -his youth! He was looking at the ruins of the episcopal palace with -a humble church officer, who told him it was built by King Stephen’s -brother Henry de Blois. ‘And you are a descendant of his,’ said -Charles. ‘That’s more than I ever knew before,’ replied his companion. -‘It’s quite true though,’ rejoined Dibdin; ‘are you not Henry the -<i>organ-blower</i>?’</p> - -<p>The outlines of Dibdin’s career are soon told. He came up to London as -poor as Whittington, but with little of his luck. He earned a couple -of guineas by composing ballads for music-sellers, by which they made -hundreds; and he tuned pianos, and taught how to play on them. At -length, wearied with this, he made his first appearance on the stage -(he says) at the Richmond Theatre, on the Hill, in 1762, when he was -seventeen years of age. Dibdin, however, also states that he first -appeared at Birmingham, and Jesse records<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> that Dibdin and Bannister -came out originally at Marylebone Gardens. Dibdin speaks of the old -Richmond house as the ‘Academy’ and the ‘Histrionic Academy.’ This -was one of the names given to the theatre by Theophilus Cibber before -a licence had been got to open it. Theophilus called it at first the -Cephalic Snuff Warehouse. Snuff, in minute quantities, was sold at -the various entrances, and admission followed <i>gratis</i>. It was on -this stage that Dibdin is said to have made his <i>début</i>, as Damætas, -in ‘Midas’; a thing the more difficult to believe, as ‘Midas’ was not -produced in England till 1764, namely, at Covent Garden, and then -Damætas was played by Fawcett.</p> - -<p>Victor pronounced Charles Dibdin’s Mungo to be ‘as complete a low -character as was ever exhibited.’ Isaac Bickerstaffe as highly praised -the musical composer as Victor did the actor. ‘The music of this -piece,’ he wrote in the preface to it, ‘being extremely admired by -persons of the first state and distinction, it would be injustice to -the extraordinary talents of the young man who assisted me in it, was I -not to declare that it is, under my direction, the entire composition -of Mr. Dibdin, whose admirable performance in the character of Mungo -does so much credit to himself and me, as well as to the gentleman -whose penetration could distinguish neglected genius, and who has -taken pleasure in producing it to the public.’ Dibdin’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> elder son was -named after his father, the character he played, and the author of -‘The Padlock’—Charles Isaac Mungo Dibdin. The author of ‘The Thespian -Dictionary,’ writing of the second son, Thomas Dibdin, adds to the -fact, ‘but not acknowledged by his father!’</p> - -<p>Dibdin’s success as an actor was so complete, that we can only wonder -at his leaving it so soon for authorship, musical composition, and -entertainments in which he was the sole performer. He was the original -Ralph, in ‘The Maid of the Mill,’ and straightway London fluttered -with ‘Ralph handkerchiefs.’ Dibdin’s Mungo, in ‘The Padlock,’ another -creation, was so naturally and thoroughly to the purpose, it was said -that the performer had gone to Jamaica and spent weeks there in order -to study the manners and speech of the negroes! The fact is, that he -combined impulse with intelligence, and never lost an opportunity. The -very first sea-song of his which took the national ear and the national -heart, was ‘Blow high, blow low!’ and this, if he did not compose, he -imagined, not in the open stormy ocean, on board a man-of-war, but on -board a Calais packet which took thirteen hours on a stormy passage -across the Straits of Dover.</p> - -<p>In nearly all cases of composition, with Dibdin, his method was most -singular. In his musical entertainments, he introduced hundreds of -songs, words and music by himself. But when he seated <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>himself at the -piano, before the public, not a note of the accompaniment was written. -He improvised, and never thought of putting a single note down on paper -till the music-sellers wanted copy for the engravers.</p> - -<p>Dibdin went abroad in the early part of his career to study music; but -he merely practised by himself, and noted little but the manners and -morals of the people amongst whom he was thrown. The English society at -Calais, during his sojourn there, he describes as consisting of three -or four fraudulent bankrupts, two or three too successful duellists, a -few rich smugglers under strong suspicion of having committed murder, -which was the most likely thing in the world, and a high official -personage, guilty of forgery, and ‘the father of a nobleman who was -afterwards singularly remarkable for having publicly exhibited the hand -and head of Struensee.’</p> - -<p>Dibdin exchanged Calais for ever pleasant, and <i>then</i> especially -pleasant, Nancy. He makes a very curious observation on one incident of -his sojourn there. He saw the Emperor of Germany, Joseph, brother of -Marie Antoinette, pass through the old capital of the province which -had once belonged to the imperial house of Hapsburg Lorraine. There was -an outburst of the old affection of the Lorrainers at the sight of the -descendant of their old dukes; and such expression was given to this -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>manifestation that Dibdin states his conviction that if the Emperor of -Germany were once resolved to relieve Lorraine from the oppression of -the French yoke, the inhabitants of the old duchy would give him their -enthusiastic support.</p> - -<p>We will not follow out Dibdin’s professional career. The biographical -dictionaries and his own works tell of his struggles, his ups and -downs, his reverses and his triumphs. We rather care to look at him in -some of his picturesque moments. We seem to see and to hear him when -we look in at St. Bride’s—a mere lad, playing the congregation out -with such exquisite power, that instead of departing, they remained -to listen. We seem to see the young fellow’s enraptured look when he -first heard the crash of an overture. What emotion there must have -been in the young soul when he discovered that from simply hearing the -combination and working of sounds in that overture, he had grasped the -secret of composition; and later, on returning home from some grand -musical banquet, he could write out the whole score from memory, with -very few errors indeed. It was only natural after Dibdin had composed -a great part of the music to ‘Love in the City,’ and to ‘Lionel and -Clarissa’—as we write the words, Tom Cooke’s manly voice seems to fill -the house with ‘I’ll love thee ever dearly!‘—it is natural, we say, -that ‘Charley’ should find himself growing famous. We find him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> in -strange company the year after ‘Lionel and Clarissa’ was produced.</p> - -<p>Perhaps the last place in which one would expect to find Dibdin is, not -indeed with Dr. Johnson, but in Boswell’s life of the erudite savage. -Boswell had composed a ‘little epigrammatical song’ which, he says, he -was ‘volatile enough’ to repeat to Johnson, adding, ‘that Garrick had, -a few days before, got it set to music by the ingenious Mr. Dibdin.’ -This was in 1769, when Charles was four-and-twenty; and this is what he -had to go to work upon:—</p> - -<p class="center">A MATRIMONIAL THOUGHT.</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>In the blithe days of honeymoon,</div> -<div class="i1">With Kate’s allurements smitten,</div> -<div>I lov’d her late, I lov’d her soon,</div> -<div class="i1">And call’d her, ‘dearest kitten!’</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div>But now my kitten’s grown a cat,</div> -<div class="i1">And cross, like other wives;</div> -<div>Oh, by my soul, my honest Mat,</div> -<div class="i1">I fear she has nine lives!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Doubtless, Dibdin’s music was better than Boswell’s words—it could not -be worse. Johnson confined himself simply to literary criticism. ‘My -illustrious friend,’ Boswell remarks, said, “It is very well, sir, but -you should not swear.” Upon which, I altered “Oh by my soul” to “Alas, -alas!”’</p> - -<p>It was in this year, 1769, that Dibdin lifted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> Sedaine’s ‘Deserter’ -to the English stage, after which all the sweet throats in town were -warbling ‘Somehow, my spindle I mislaid.’ Just ninety-nine years ago -this last month of August, Dibdin produced ‘The Waterman,’ which -has now entered its hundredth year, and which is as fresh as a pure -flood-tide on a bright morning. Many of us may remember having seen -in our childhood the original Tom Tug, for Bannister lived half a -century after he created the part. And what a whole crew of Tom -Tugs have warbled on the boards and concert-room since then! Do you -remember, on Edmund Kean’s benefit, June 3rd, 1822, how touchingly he -sang ‘Farewell, my trim-built wherry’? Can you not see Braham, so like -an amateur waterman? Can you not hear him so like something sweetly -superhuman, trilling forth, ‘And have you not heard of a jolly young -waterman?’ Only a few nights ago we saw the piece and heard the songs, -and were tempted to say as Ophelia says about the things that had been -and the things that be. It is ninety-eight years since Dibdin himself, -as Solomon, sang his own song, ‘The lads of the village shall merrily, -ha!’ in ‘The Quaker,’ and it remains an exquisite song still, but it -demands an exquisite voice and tact in the singer.</p> - -<p>Charles had a way of his own in adapting French musical pieces to the -English stage. He took the pieces, but he fitted them with music by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> -himself. After all, this sort of thing has been done by composers -with reference to other composers of the same country. There was, -for instance, a ‘Barber of Seville,’ by Paisiello. Well, Rossini -appropriated the story, composed his own fresh and immortal music for -it, and extinguished Paisiello’s barber for ever. When Dibdin brought -out ‘Rose and Colin,’ a piece which had been ‘set’ by Philidor, he -was asked why he had not retained the clever Frenchman’s sparkling -music. ‘Because,’ answered Charles, ‘Philidor is famous enough, and -I have a reputation of my own to make!’ Philidor’s reputation is now -more connected with chess (for he was <i>the</i> Philidor) than with music. -Nevertheless, he is bracketed with Duni and Monsigny as one of the -founders of modern comic French opera; and the song for Medusa, in his -opera of ‘Persée,’ ‘<i>J’ai perdu la beauté qui me rendait si vaine</i>,’ -remains a masterpiece of harmony. Philidor was better known than Dibdin -himself, in London, where he died, indifferent that Charles and others -were ‘stealing his thunder,’ with the reputation of being one of the -best-tempered, most upright, and most disinterested men that ever lived.</p> - -<p>From 1765 to 1775 was Dibdin’s best time in connection with the drama. -Subsequently he became erratic. He was proprietor, manager, at the -head of a company, or constituting a whole company in himself, now -with audiences, now sadly in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> want of them: now flourishing like a -prince, living like three, and falling into bankruptcy and rheumatic -gout. He has given an account of his wanderings, in which there is -an incident or two worth the telling, when they refer to musical or -to theatrical matters. From this book we learn that Shuter had an -amusingly sententious critical way with him. When Reddish (George -Canning’s stepfather) first played Posthumus (in ‘Cymbeline’), Shuter -simply remarked, ‘Henceforth, let every villain be called Posthumus -Leonatus.’ And, being asked what he thought of Macklin’s Macbeth, he -solemnly replied: ‘The time has been that when the brains were out the -man would die, and there an end!’</p> - -<p>One day, when Dibdin was near the Land’s End, he passed through a -village where he saw several men carrying books and instruments to -church. To his questions, they replied that they were going to practise -for the Sunday service. ‘Very good,’ said sympathising Charley; ‘and -whose music do you sing?’ ‘Oh, Handel, Handel!’ was the rather bold -answer of the leader of the choir. ‘Handel!’ rejoined Dibdin, in much -amazement; ‘don’t you find him a <i>leetle</i> difficult?’ ‘Well,’ replied -the Cornish minstrel, ‘we did at first; but, you see, we altered him, -and so we get on very well with him now.’ Charles, who hated Garrick -and despised Handel, changed the scene of his dramatic incident<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> to -Bath; but it was originally told of the Cornish singers.</p> - -<p>It was principally for Dibdin’s own entertainments, not for ‘Dibdin at -Home,’ that he wrote and composed his famous sea-songs. How Dibdin came -to write and compose sea-songs is accounted for by a tradition. Among -the crew of a ship which came into Southampton Water was a cabin-boy -who, disgusted with the tyranny of which he was daily the subject, took -the first opportunity to escape. The boy remained hid in Southampton -till his ship had sailed, and then he appeared in the streets singing -naval ditties for bread. The lad sang so sweetly that people got -interested in him. His name, he said, was Incledon, and he came from -near the Land’s End, Cornwall. Dibdin and Incledon became known to each -other, and the Cornish cabin-boy furnished the naval properties which -the Hampshire poet put into his naval songs.</p> - -<p>But this yarn won’t hold water. Incledon, the silvery-toned son of -a Cornish doctor, was articled to the celebrated composer, Jackson -of Exeter, at eight years of age. The boy was the petted favourite -of the musical people of Exeter for about seven years. At the end of -that time, weary of the cathedral choir discipline, for which town -popularity could not compensate, Incledon, in 1779, entered as a common -sailor on board the <i>Formidable</i>. He served in the West Indies, took<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> -part in hard fighting, and, after the lapse of about four years, he -determined to go upon the stage as a singer. It was about the year -1783 that Incledon made his first appearance in Southampton and on -its stage, at which time some of the best of Dibdin’s sea-songs had -long been familiar in the public ear. In 1790 Incledon first appeared -in London, as Dermot in ‘The Poor Soldier,’ and for thirty subsequent -years he shared with Braham the glory of being the first of English -melodists. No one ever did, or ever will, sing Stevens’s ‘Storm,’ or -Andrew Cherry’s ‘Bay of Biscay,’ as Incledon sang them and other manly -songs; and no couple of vocalists ever did or ever will sing as Braham -(Valentine) and Incledon (Fitzwalter) sang the former’s important duet, -‘All’s Well’ to Tom Dibdin’s words. There was so much of the sea in -Tom’s songs that some of the best have been frequently attributed to -his father.</p> - -<p>It was lucky for that father and the nation that he quarrelled with -managers, wrote, sang, and played on his own hook, and composed the -naval ditties especially, that will make his name last till the New -Zealander seats himself on the ruined arch of London Bridge. These -songs caused Dibdin to be a power in the country, and his services were -not altogether without acknowledgment. Pitt encouraged and paid him to -write, sing, publish, and give away loyal war-songs in the old fighting -time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>—testimony enough of the minstrel’s value. George III. rewarded -his loyalty by granting him a pension, of which a succeeding Addington -ministry deprived him. The bust of the skilled son of song was -appropriately placed in Greenwich Hospital, where the singer himself -might as appropriately have found a home. Lord Minto patronised an -edition of Dibdin’s songs for the use of the navy. They have not been -quite slap-banged out of use by the crapulous music-halls. At public -dinners far better than the meat is it to hear Ransford sing ‘Yeo heave -ho!’ or Donald King ‘Tom Bowling’—the touching monody to the author’s -good brother the captain of an East Indiaman. It is said that our -Queen conferred a small pension on Dibdin’s suffering daughter, a lady -honourably connected with literature. If this be true, let us be glad -that all literary annuities, if we may so speak, are not granted to -persons far too well off to require them—or to receive them, one would -suppose, without a sense of humiliation.</p> - -<p>The religion of Charles Dibdin’s sailors ebbs and flows like the sea, -and that even in one song. Take, for instance, ‘Poor Jack,’ which has -been praised on the very ground of its religious beauty. In the first -verse Jack has more comfort than faith. He is careless, on the chance -of others caring for him:— </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>Avast! nor don’t think me a milksop so soft</div> -<div class="i1">To be taken for trifles a-back;</div> -<div>For they say there’s a Providence sits up aloft,</div> -<div class="i1">To keep watch for the life of poor Jack!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>In the second verse Jack has heard the chaplain palaver one day, ‘about -souls, heaven, mercy, and such.’ It was, Jack says, as unintelligible -to him as high Dutch. Nevertheless, Jack got at some instruction from -the reverend gentleman:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>For, he said, how a sparrow can’t founder, d’ye see,</div> -<div class="i1">Without orders that come down below;</div> -<div>And a many fine things that prov’d clearly to me</div> -<div class="i1">That Providence takes us in tow.</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div>For, says he, d’ye mind me, let storms e’er so oft</div> -<div class="i1">Take the topsails o’ sailors a-back,</div> -<div>There’s a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft</div> -<div class="i1">To keep watch for the life of poor Jack.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>In the next verse Jack is worldly again. When Poll is ‘sniv’ling and -piping her eye’ at the idea of parting from him, he says tenderly—and -we can hear the voice of T. P. Cooke saying it—‘Why, what a damn’d -fool you must be!’ Then comes the change in his religious philosophy:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>Can’t you see the world’s wide, and there’s room for us all,</div> -<div class="i1">Both for seamen, and lubbers ashore?</div> -<div>And if to Old Davy I <i>should</i> go, dear Poll!</div> -<div class="i1">You never will hear of me more.</div> -<div>What then? all’s a hazard!... &c.</div> -</div></div></div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p> -<p>Perhaps he ‘may laughing come back,’ and he supports this doctrine of -chances by means of the doctrine of election, in the figure of the -cherub up aloft with his protective power over Jack; and which cherub, -in the last verse, is commissioned, at the end of all things, to ‘look -out a good berth’ for the same theological sailor.</p> - -<p>To be sure, such loose theology was to be expected in sailors who had -such chaplains to teach them, as Dibdin delineates in another of his -songs, ‘There’s nothing like grog’:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>T’other day, as the chaplain was preaching,</div> -<div class="i1">Behind him I curiously slunk;</div> -<div>And while he our duty was teaching,</div> -<div class="i1">As how we should never get drunk,</div> -<div>I show’d him the stuff, and he twigg’d it,</div> -<div class="i1">And it soon set his rev’rence agog;</div> -<div class="i2">And he swigg’d, and Nick swigg’d,</div> -<div class="i2">And Ben swigg’d, and Dick swigg’d,</div> -<div>And I swigg’d, and all of us swigg’d it,</div> -<div class="i1">And swore there was nothing like grog!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>At a time when old English ballads are supposed to portray English -history, we may point to the above as untruly reflecting naval manners -in England in the last century. It is more of a caricature than a -naval scene in a pantomime, and the morality is as ‘shaky’ as that in -another ballad, ‘When faintly gleams the doubtful day,’ where humanity -in hunting matters is illustrated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> by hunting the hare to the point of -death, but then protecting ‘the defenceless creature’ by calling off -‘the well-taught hounds:’—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>For cruelty should ne’er disgrace</div> -<div>The well-earn’d pleasures of the chase!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Again, of the fox it is said, ‘Unpitied shall the culprit die’:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>To quell his cruel, artful race,</div> -<div>Is labour worthy of the chase;</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>as if the quelling was not the last thought of squires who breed foxes. -It was very good policy of Dibdin to teach that ‘Every bullet has its -billet,’ but in ‘A sailor and an honest heart’ war’s dangers are the -sailor’s chances, and his philosophy is to ask no more than ‘grog -aboard and girl ashore.’</p> - -<p>Ben Backstay and Anna piping their eyes at parting are but sickly -sentimentalities. Bill Bobstay, with his purse always open and his -veins to the same tune, shedding his blood for the king, is like the -stagiest of stage sailors; and Jack Rattlin heaving a sigh as he sits -on the ‘pendant yard,’ and dying for love, with his eyes uplifted, -when he comes down from it, is not the man who could hand, reef, and -steer better than any mate afloat. Indeed Dibdin’s sailors in love are -generally great spooneys; in ‘The Boatswain calls’ there is a whole -shipload of them. Fancy an entire crew heaving<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> ‘fervent sighs’ as -they leave looking at the girls ashore, to turn for consolation to -the windlass with ‘Yo heave ho!’ But even these soft ones are to be -preferred to the tipplers who declare that ‘the best sort of sounding -is sounding the bowl.’ The best side of Dibdin’s philosophy is where he -metrically teaches that ‘a brave British sailor should never despair,’ -and pays a compliment to the bold royal tar, the Duke of Clarence, who -got it made into a law that ‘each tar of his rhino should have his -full share,’ and should no more be cheated of his pay, as he used to -be. But there was a lack of sincerity in most of Dibdin’s sentimental -sea-maxims for sailors, and for one who is cheered in dying for love -there are a dozen who are encouraged to find in every port a wife:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>I’ve a spanking wife at Portsmouth Gates,</div> -<div class="i1">A pigmy at Goree,</div> -<div>An orange-tawny up the Straits,</div> -<div class="i1">A black at St. Lucie;</div> -<div>Thus, whatsomdever course I bend,</div> -<div class="i1">I leads a jovial life;</div> -<div>In ev’ry mess I finds a friend,</div> -<div class="i1">In ev’ry port a wife.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>To our thinking, Charles Dibdin, celebrated as he was for his sea -songs, deserves far higher praise for quite another sort of country -song, of which we will give an example. His sailors are too much -addicted, when storms rage and billows roll, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> sling the flowing -bowl; landsmen might fancy that Jack’s life consisted of thinking of -Nancy afloat, hugging her ashore, drinking to her health unceasingly, -and taking a turn of duty with a hornpipe sort of air, as if the -galleries were clapping him enthusiastically. It is all good and -picturesque in its way, but tuneful Charley is more to our liking when -he gets into an English corn-field, strolls down an English lane, -or sits at the door of an English cottage. He is then as natural as -Moreland treating the same subjects on canvas. The fragrance of the -fields comes on the wings of his song, and his English home and peasant -are still more truly English than his English ships and sailors. Take, -for example:—</p> - -<p class="center">THE LABOURER’S WELCOME HOME.</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>The ploughman whistles o’er the furrow,</div> -<div class="i1">The hedger joins the vacant strain,</div> -<div>The woodman sings the woodland thorough,</div> -<div class="i1">The shepherd’s pipe delights the plain.</div> -<div>Where’er the anxious eye can roam,</div> -<div class="i1">Or ear receive the jocund pleasure,</div> -<div class="i2">Myriads of beings thronging, flock,</div> -<div class="i1">Of Nature’s song to join the measure;</div> -<div class="i2">Till, to keep time, the village clock</div> -<div>Sounds sweet the lab’rer’s welcome home!</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div>The hearth swept clean, his partner smiling;</div> -<div class="i1">Upon the dining-table smokes</div> -<div>The frugal meal—which, time beguiling,</div> -<div class="i1">The ale the harmless jest provokes.</div> -<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>Ye inmates of the lofty dome,</div> -<div class="i1">Admire his lot. His children playing,</div> -<div class="i2">To share his smiles around him flock,</div> -<div class="i1">And faithful Tray, since morn, that straying,</div> -<div class="i2">Trudged with him, till the village clock</div> -<div>Proclaim’d the lab’rer’s welcome home.</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div>The cheering faggot burnt to embers,</div> -<div class="i1">While lares around their vigils keep,</div> -<div>That Power that poor and rich remembers,</div> -<div class="i1">Each thanks, and then retires to sleep.</div> -<div>And now the lark climbs Heav’n’s high dome,</div> -<div class="i1">Fresh from repose, toil’s kind reliever;</div> -<div class="i2">And furnish’d with his daily stock—</div> -<div class="i1">His dog, his staff, his keg, his beaver—</div> -<div class="i2">He travels till the village clock</div> -<div>Sounds sweet the lab’rer’s welcome home!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Here the pictures are perfect; each is in its way a little Bewick. If -there is once or twice a slight roughness in the metre, it is such -as may be met with in Cowley; and if the introduction of ‘lares’ at -an English hearth startles us a little, it is just such surprises as -come upon us in Cowley and the poets of his time. The charm of the -above song is greatly enhanced by the music. We have no such songs nor -any such music for English people generally in these days. Music-hall -ruffianism woos the public ear with beastly innuendo, worse than -downright speaking, and the Hurlingham husseydoms, after assisting -at the butchery of doves, talk<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> music-hall slang and play Champagne -Charley quadrilles.</p> - -<p>Let us now add a word respecting another child of song, born in -Southampton, and still living when Charles Dibdin came there into the -world—Isaac Watts. Isaac Watts and Charles Dibdin! Why not? They are -not so far apart as you may think. Isaac, the Southampton Nonconformist -schoolmaster’s son, lived from 1674, reign of Charles the Second, to -1748, reign of the second George. Charles Dibdin was, at the latter -period, three years old. The piety of Watts is no more questionable -than the loyalty of Dibdin. Watts upheld piety by simple means in an -impious age. Dibdin sustained loyalty at a time when revolutionary -ideas were struggling into activity at home, and when there were -enemies abroad who found moral support in such a struggle. If Dibdin’s -allegiance found occasionally exaggerated expression, so Watts’s -piety sometimes found a rather arrogant utterance. Dibdin, however, -was—strange as it may appear—more humble and contented than Watts. -In a ballad in ‘The Old Woman of Eighty,’ Dibdin makes a crowd of poor -unlearned country folk sing:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>Come here, ye rich; come here, ye great;</div> -<div class="i1">Come here, ye grave: come here, ye gay;</div> -<div>Behold our blest, though humble fate,</div> -<div class="i1">Who, while the sun shines, make our hay.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p> - -<p>Therein is Christian philosophy with content. Watts makes his well-born -Christian child an insufferable prig, who would have scorned Dibdin’s -half-starved wretch; for example, in the ‘Praise for Mercies’:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>While some poor wretches scarce can tell</div> -<div class="i1">Where they may lay their head,</div> -<div>I have a home wherein to dwell</div> -<div class="i1">And rest upon my bed.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>In Dibdin’s ‘True Courage’ Bob Bounce is ready to eat an enemy alive, -but the minstrel humanises him, and inculcates the maxim that all men -are brothers:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>That my friend Jack or Tom I should rescue from danger,</div> -<div class="i1">Or lay my life down for each lad in the mess,</div> -<div>Is nothing at all; ’tis the poor wounded stranger,</div> -<div class="i1">And the poorer the more I shall succour distress.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>This may be rough morality, but it is of better quality than the -following selfish sample in Watts:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>Lord, I ascribe it to thy grace,</div> -<div class="i1">And not to chance, <i>as others do</i>,</div> -<div>That I was born of Christian race,</div> -<div class="i1">And not a heathen or a Jew.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>While Dibdin’s Tom or Jack is for ever seeing, after his fashion, a -merciful Providence, Watts’s model child can discern only one armed -with terrors and tortures. Isaac had no idea of one of Charley’s -‘sweet little cherubs’ sitting aloft <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>watchful to preserve; the -Nonconformist’s feverish eye beheld only a demon:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>’Tis dangerous to provoke a god!</div> -<div class="i1">His power and vengeance none can tell:</div> -<div>One stroke of his Almighty rod</div> -<div class="i1">Shall send young sinners quick to hell.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>In the sailor’s philosophy all is harmony; but Watts finds discord -where other men find none. Jack does not believe that ‘dogs delight to -bark and bite,’ nor that ‘God hath made them so.’ A pat on the head -from a master’s hand is the supreme delight of the ever-faithful dog. -And if ‘bears and lions growl and fight,’ it is not that ‘it is their -nature to;’ any more, at least, than it is the nature of man. It was -Nelson who told the young midshipman, as part of his duties, to ‘hate a -Frenchman like the devil!’ Dibdin only allowed such feeling in the heat -and fury of battle:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>’Tis a furious lion in battle, so let it!</div> -<div>But, fury appeased, ’tis in mercy a lamb!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Watts is always readiest with unpleasant figures. Ordinary parents -forgive lovingly the faults of children, but Watts tells each little -angelic rebel that—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>The ravens shall pick out their eyes,</div> -<div class="i2">And eagles eat the same!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Moreover, Watts forgets grace, occasionally, for chance, as in the -couplet:— </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>If we had been ducks, we might dabble in mud,</div> -<div>Or dogs, we might play till it ended in blood,</div> -<div class="i1">So foul and so fierce are their natures.</div> -<div>But Thomas and William, and such pretty names,</div> -<div>Should be cleanly and harmless, as doves or as lambs,</div> -<div class="i1">Those lovely, sweet, innocent creatures.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Watts’s intentions were as honest as Dibdin’s, and both, no doubt, -often erred; but the silversmith’s son was never so loose in logic, -philosophy, truth, and metre, as the dwarfish son of the schoolmaster -is in the sample just given. It must have been some such sample that -soured the spirit of ‘bold Bradbury,’ another dissenting minister, -who suspected Watts of not being a good Trinitarian. Once Bradbury’s -clerk gave out one of Watts’s hymns, to be sung before the sermon. -The minister looked down from the pulpit and said: ‘No, sir, none of -Watts’s whims here, if you please.’ In one of the anniversaries of 1688 -Bradbury sang, at a public dinner, ‘The Roast Beef of Old England!’ Had -he lived long enough he would have sung with equally loyal zest, Tom -Dibdin’s famous anti-invasion song, ‘The tight little Island.’</p> - -<p>We are not disposed to touch upon Dibdin’s domestic story. A good deal -is said in the words that his children loved, honoured, and reverenced -their mother. His life led him too much, too far, and too long away -from home for the fine domestic sympathies to have ardent play. Even -before his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> melancholy death in 1814, his sons, Charles and Thomas, -had distinguished themselves, but they lacked the grace and power -of musical composition so remarkable in the father. But in dramatic -composition they were his equals, and Tom especially was nearly equal -with, though not so prolific as, his father in song-writing.</p> - -<p>How Charles the younger caught the ‘trick’ of his father may be seen in -a song (published as his in ‘My Spouse and I’), of which here is one -stanza:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>We tars have a maxim, your honours, d’ye see,</div> -<div class="i1">To live in the same way we fight;</div> -<div>We never give in, and when running a-lee,</div> -<div class="i1">We pipe hands the vessel to right.</div> -<div>It may do for a lubber to snivel and that,</div> -<div class="i1">If by chance on a shoal he be cast,</div> -<div>But a tar among breakers, or thrown on a flat,</div> -<div class="i1">Pull away, tug and tug, to the last;</div> -<div class="i3">With a yeo, yeo, yeo, &c.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>It was the old Dibdin philosophy of ‘Never say die.’</p> - -<p>Tom Dibdin is generally supposed to have adopted the stage for a -profession only after he had tried another calling—apprentice -to an upholsterer. This is not quite correct. Tom made his first -appearance on the stage before he went to school. He acted, or, rather, -represented, Cupid in a pageant in which Mrs. Siddons sat as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> -goddess Venus. As the great actress took him in hand to rectify his -dress, little Tom heard the first words from her lips that ever fell on -his ear. They were directed to a female dresser, and they were solemnly -enunciated: ‘Ma’am, could you favour me with a pin?’ Tom, as he sat at -her feet in the pageant, felt a sort of stage-fright, but Sarah kept -him under control by repeated murmured promises that if he were a good -boy there was barley-sugar in store for him.</p> - -<p>As an upholsterer’s apprentice Tom vexed his master’s soul and injured -all his materials. The lad was barely eighteen when he made his plunge -into the drama. Only the other day, we looked with interest on the -front of the old Eastbourne Theatre, in the centre of the village, away -from the modern sea-town. It has still, or had a little while ago, -a dramatic-looking exterior. Richland, one of the managing partners -of the house, had a nephew, a handsome lad of fourteen years of age, -who printed the bills, did general business, and was called ‘Little -Jerrold.’ When little Jerrold got to York as a manager, he put a fine -handle to his name, and was thenceforth known for some time as Mr. -Fitz-Jerrold. Tom Dibdin proposed to come out at the Eastbourne Theatre -as Norval. Jerrold, on preparing the play-bill, asked him in what name -Tom intended to appear. Dibdin replied, ‘My name is Norval!’ ‘I know it -is,’ said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> Jerrold, ‘on the Grampian hills, but what is it in Sussex?’ -The name adopted was Merchant. After all, instead of ‘journeying with -this intent,’ and playing Norval, Dibdin ‘gilded his humble name’ by -playing Valentine, in one of his father’s numerous musical pieces, and -singing ‘Poor Jack,’ to the delight of the Eastbourne audience. The -handsome Jerrold above alluded to was the father of Douglas Jerrold, -whom John Kemble, as Rolla, once carried on his shoulder as Cora’s -child, and who ended his career too early, leaving behind him a -reputation for wit second to none.</p> - -<p>The most amusing portion of Tom Dibdin’s reminiscences are the -illustrations of social as well as dramatic life with which it abounds.</p> - -<p>Tom belonged to one of those Beef Steak Clubs (this one was theatrical) -which seem never to have had the dish on the table from which the name -was supposed to be derived. One of their intellectual sports consisted -in a member naming an actor, and then calling on another member for a -quotation which should be applicable to the actor named. In this way -some one named Incledon, whose talk was a bubbling talk, interlarded -with ‘my boy,’ and ‘my dear boy,’ as is the traditionary manner with -familiar players still. Incledon being named, Const, the magistrate, -being called upon, instantly quoted the line ‘Gratiano speaks an -infinite deal of nothing.’ Nothing could be apter. Then another -member,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> naming George Frederick Cooke, called on Irish Johnstone for -the illustration, and Jack, without hesitation, enunciated ‘Load o’ -whisky,’ giving this appropriate turn to the name of an operatic drama -then in vogue—‘Lodoiska.’ Emery was once called upon in connection -with his own name; but he was tired and embarrassed, and at length -he stammered forth, apologetically, ‘Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this -troubles me!’ unconscious that he had fulfilled all conditions, and had -illustrated himself in a line from Shakespeare.</p> - -<p>These intellectual exercises were not confined to the ‘Beef Steaks.’ -There was in Tom Dibdin’s days a certain ‘Ad Libitum Club,’ where the -intellect was as much exercised as the more sensual appetites were -liberally gratified by supper and punch. At these jovial meetings, some -one happening to name an individual in course of conversation, would be -met by a cry of ‘Skull!’ which implied that the member was to consider -the individual dead, if he were not so already; at all events, he was -to furnish on the instant that individual’s rhymed epitaph. Tom Dibdin -once chanced to refer to Isaac Read, the scholar and antiquary. The cry -of ‘Skull’ was immediately raised, and Tom as instantaneously replied -to it as follows:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>Reader! by these four lines take heed,</div> -<div class="i1">And mend your life, for <i>my</i> sake!</div> -<div>For you must die, like Isaac Read,</div> -<div class="i1">Though you <i>read</i> till your <i>eyes ache</i>.</div> -</div></div></div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p> -<p>On another occasion Tom, without thinking of the consequences, made -some allusion to the materials for writing his own life. He was, in -one breath, pronounced to be dead, and with the cry of ‘Skull!’ he was -challenged to recite his own epitaph. It was furnished in the lively -style that follows:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>Longing, while living, for laurel and bays,</div> -<div>Under this willow a poor poet <i>lays</i>.</div> -<div>With little to censure and less to praise,</div> -<div>He wrote twelve dozen and threescore plays,</div> -<div>He finished his ‘Life’ and went his ways.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>While on the subject of epitaphs we may as well give a sample of Tom’s -father in this department of literature. The following, penned in all -seriousness, is to be found in Lee churchyard, near Blackheath, the -tribute of Charley to Parsons, the comic actor:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>Here Parsons lies! Oft on life’s busy stage,</div> -<div class="i1">With nature, reader, hast thou seen him vie.</div> -<div>He science knew; knew manners, knew the age,</div> -<div class="i1">Respected knew to live—lamented, die.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Thomas Frognall Dibdin, son of ‘Tom Bowling,’ seems to have been early -influenced by a desire to show that the Dibdin power of rhyming was in -him as well as in his cousins. In 1797 Booker published his ‘Poems.’</p> - -<p>Two years after this mild flirtation of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> reverend cousin with the -Muses, Tom Dibdin made an adaptation from ‘Kotzebue,’ and brought it -out with songs, as ‘Of Age To-morrow.’ Our then young grandmothers were -soon singing Miss de Camp’s song, ‘Oh no, my Love, no!’ and juvenile -actors were all longing to come out in Bannister’s part of Frederick, -Baron Willmhurst. Miss de Camp had come from the sawdust of the Surrey -Circus, to charm the town; and when she was Mrs. Charles Kemble she -became the mother of Fanny Kemble.</p> - -<p>They are all gone, these Dibdins, of whom Charles of Southampton was -the one whose fame will be the most lasting. Like all men, he is to -be judged by his best. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link; -a boiler is only as thick as its thinnest part; but a poet is to be -measured by his best—the best teachings of the best of his poetry. By -this standard the oldest of the Dibdins will rank foremost among those -bards and minstrels who have swept the harp and raised the voice to -quicken human trust in God, to fan into flame the slumbering but never -dead fire of patriotism, and to inculcate loyalty to the powers that -be. Dibdin taught perseverance in well-doing with the fervour of a St. -Paul, and if he allowed a little too much of the bowl, he was earnest -in upholding, when serious, courage and honesty in man, and undying -fidelity to woman.</p> - -<p>When the youngest of the vocal, musical, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> dramatic Dibdins died, -in 1841, some one was found to fling, as it were, a stanza or two of -sympathy on his tomb. From some lines, called ‘Poor Tom,’ dated from -Vienna and printed in the ‘Bath Journal,’ we take the last eight to -close our article:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>Poor Tom! As late I wander’d by the Rhine,</div> -<div class="i1">I saw its banks in Winter’s mantle clad,</div> -<div>Gaunt, grim, and naked stood each shiv’ring vine—</div> -<div class="i1">It was a sight to make the soul feel sad.</div> -<div>‘How many a heart,’ I said, ‘is now made warm</div> -<div class="i1">By the bright produce of the joyous tree,</div> -<div>Here left by man to struggle with the storm!’</div> -<div class="i1">I sigh’d, Tom; went my way; and thought of thee!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>HORATIO NELSON AND EMMA HAMILTON.</i></h2> - -<p>On Michaelmas-day in the year 1758, the wife of the rector of Burnham -Thorpe was delivered of a sickly boy. At that moment Anson was in -command of the Channel fleet, and there were old men then in England -who had seen Prince Rupert. Exactly a quarter of a century had elapsed -since Admiral Byng had surrendered life. Russell, who beat Tourville -at La Hogue, had been asleep in the grave for more than thirty years. -Churchill, and Dilkes, the terror of Frenchmen and Spaniards in his -day, had been at rest for just half a century. These were great men; -but in 1758 a greater than all was born in the quiet rectory of -Burnham Thorpe. That feeble boy, accepted and tolerated rather than -welcomed and cherished, grew up in the possession of all the virtues -of the above heroes and with but few of their failings: he had the -dashing spirit of Rupert without his imprudence: he possessed the -wisdom and valour of Byng without his cold-heartedness: he was as -persevering as Anson and in no wise so foolish—as rapid as Russell, -but not so rapacious: he was even more <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>enterprising and successful -than Dilkes; and, as with the gallant brother of Marlborough, his -services claimed high honours long before he obtained them. This puny -fragile child, born to achieve such greatness—this almost neglected -son of a Norfolk parson, and, by his mother, grandson of a Westminster -prebendary—designed, as it were, by nature to be a student, ‘sicklied -o’er with the pale cast of thought,’ and to cultivate learned leisure -in trim gardens—this feeble instrument was born with a great mission: -let the splendour of its fulfilment make us forgetful of his very few -errors!</p> - -<p>Yes: when he first saw the light there were old men in England who had -seen Prince Rupert beneath the beeches at Windsor. It was but the other -day that Nelson’s sister died. Thus is he connected with two periods -when the people were at issue with sovereigns: his figure stands -half-way between the time, when Roundheads were assailing cavaliers and -royalty; and the present period, when democracy, more despotic than -any aristocracy, is again howling at palace gates and the hearths of -nobles. In his own days the same struggle was going on; but the scene -of the struggle was not now within our boundary of home. He was the -great champion of royalty, and never had crowned king so unconquerable -a champion as he. There was not a democrat abroad who did not hate -his name as much as he feared it. For the French democrats<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> his own -hatred was in equal measure intense; and, if it be suggested that his -contempt was not less intense for French aristocrats, we answer that -he lived at a period when the vices, the selfishness, and the tyranny -of that aristocracy justified the insurrection, which annihilated one -bad system to give temporary life to a worse. He did not despise the -dissolute men and the more dissolute women of Naples less than he -despised the French; but, in supporting the one and destroying the -other, he was the great antagonist of anarchy, and the great promoter -of order at home. Loyalty <i>here</i> flourished by the blood of his -victories. The veriest would-be rebel in England was proud of the pale -warrior whose feeble arm upheld a world of thrones; a defeat at Aboukir -might have made him a Republican. But we are hurried from Nelson’s -cradle to his glories and his grave. Let us sketch his wondrous career -in a more orderly spirit.</p> - -<p>She who bore the perils of his birth did not survive to be glad at -his greatness. At nine, Nelson was motherless—at twelve he quitted -school—and some of his playfellows were yet launching their paper -galleons on Norfolk ponds when Nelson had gained respect and reputation -for his name. A trip of a few brief months’ duration with his maternal -uncle, Captain Suckling, just introduced him to naval life without -affording him instruction. The latter he derived under Captain John -Rathborn,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> a naval officer, engaged for the time in the West India -trade, under whom Nelson acquired a thorough acquaintance with -practical seamanship, and was ever ready to acknowledge his obligation. -The writer of this acknowledges his pride, too, in telling his son -that his mother is the granddaughter of Nelson’s tutor. Horatio began -his real service in the royal navy by entering the <i>Triumph</i>, rated -as ‘captain’s servant.’ In a year or so he became midshipman, the -duties of which office he efficiently performed during four or five -years on board the same vessel, and in the <i>Carcass</i>, the <i>Seahorse</i>, -and the <i>Dolphin</i>. During this period, he saw active service in every -climate, from the North Pole to Bagdad and Bussorah. We next find him -as lieutenant on board the <i>Worcester</i> and the <i>Lowestoft</i>. While on -board the last-mentioned vessel he made his first prize, gallantly -boarding and capturing an American privateer, from an attempt at -which the first lieutenant had retired unsuccessful; and this was -accomplished when he was only nineteen years of age! So fond was he -of this branch of his profession that he changed to the schooner -<i>Lucy</i>, with a sort of roving commission, of which the American traders -soon became tremblingly conscious. He subsequently served in the -<i>Bristol</i> (the flag-ship of Sir Peter Parker), in the three degrees of -lieutenancy; and, in 1778, ere he was yet twenty, the boy was captain -of the <i>Badger</i> brig, and with men eager<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> to obey him. But his just -ambition was not yet satisfied; and when in his twenty-first year -he had the delight of finding himself posted, and in command of the -<i>Hinchinbrook</i>, his whole course of daring and dangerous service in -the Gulf of Mexico plainly manifested that he was ever keeping in view -that ‘top of the tree,’ whose leafy honours first invited him from his -father’s rectory. The service alluded to seriously affected his own -health and cost the lives of one hundred and ninety out of his crew -of two hundred men. On his return home he rested at Bath for a year. -He had no long leisure to be ill, for the following year saw him in -the old French <i>Albemarle</i>, carrying terror along the Spanish main. -In 1782, he was employed in convoy service; and, having occasionally -some idle time on shore at Quebec, the young commander got into -mischief—that is, he fell most imprudently into love. His friends -carried him by violence on board: the sea air cured his passion; and -his lucky joining with Hood’s fleet and his subsequent busy time in the -West Indies effectually kept his thoughts from any lady then on land. -It was at this period that he became known to the Duke of Clarence. The -royal sailor thought him the merest boy of a captain that had ever been -seen, and could not but laugh at the gigantic and endless queue that -hung down his back and seemed to be pulling all the lank unpowdered -hair off his head after it. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> this plain-looking and youthful -commander was then remarkable for being as well acquainted with all -naval matters as the oldest and most experienced captain in the fleet. -The piping time of peace put him for a season on half-pay. A portion of -1783, and of the year following it, was passed in France. With idleness -came evil; and, having nothing better to do, Nelson fell desperately in -love with the dowerless daughter of an English clergyman, who, there is -some reason to believe, was little affected by the magic he could offer -her of half-pay and love in a cottage. The sea again stood his friend. -In 1784, the <i>Boreas</i> carried him to the Leeward Islands, where, at -great risk of purse and person, he was actively engaged in supporting -those Navigation Laws which our modern Whigs have so ruthlessly -abolished.</p> - -<blockquote><p>In this matter (says Dr. Pettigrew) he was also opposed by -Major-General Sir T. Shirly, the governor of the Leeward Islands, -who took in dudgeon the advice of Nelson, and assured him that -old generals were not in the habit of taking advice from young -gentlemen. Upon which Nelson, with much promptitude and ingenuity, -replied—‘Sir, I am as old as the Prime Minister of England, and -think myself as capable of commanding one of his Majesty’s ships -as that Minister is of governing the State.’</p></blockquote> - -<p>He was engaged in putting down the illicit traffic sought to be carried -on by the Americans<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> (whom successful rebellion had made foreigners) in -the West Indies, and also in dragging into light the frauds practised -by some English officials of no inconsiderable dignity in the islands. -He succeeded in all he undertook, but got small thanks and no profit -for any service which, in this respect, he rendered to his country. -He was much on shore, too; and it is a fact that his foot no sooner -touched the land than his good genius left him. He fell in love with a -widow; and, what is much worse, married her. In the island of Nevis he -became acquainted with Mrs. Nisbet, the widow of a surgeon who had died -insane a year and a half after their marriage, leaving her with one -son, Josiah, who subsequently owed so much to Nelson and thanked him so -little for it. At this time the captain of the <i>Boreas</i> was a man at -whom Fame held her finger; he never drank wine save to the healths of -his sovereign, the royal family, and his admiral, and these were always -bumper toasts to him. He was reserved, grave, and silent; and it was -only occasional flashes that gave evidence of the brilliancy within. -The narrow-minded people of Nevis could not make him out; and Mrs. -Nisbet was set at him, as she was expected to make something of him, -because ‘she had been in the habit of attending to such odd sort of -people.’ Unfortunately she made a husband of him. She, perhaps, thought -it a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>condescension to marry a man who was of ‘puny constitution—who -was reduced to a skeleton—and who put his hopes of recovery in -asses’ milk and doctors.’ However this may be, she never looked upon -him as a hero, nor was she worthy of being a hero’s wife. She would -have been exemplary as the spouse of a village apothecary: she was -highly virtuous, very respectable, and exceedingly ill-tempered. The -ill-assorted pair were united in 1786: they reached England in 1787, in -which year Nelson was kept for months on board his ship at Sheerness, -merely taking in slops and lodging pressed seamen. And then ensued the -quietest six years of his life: they were passed at Burnham Thorpe, and -they were got through with tolerably good success. As a quiet country -couple, there was nothing to disturb their stagnant felicity. Nelson -busied himself in gardening, getting birds’ nests, and fretting for -employment.</p> - -<p>It came in 1793; when in place of capturing birds’ nests, Nelson, in -the <i>Agamemnon</i>, was with the fleet at the capture of Toulon, its -forts, and its navy. But other things came in 1793, too. Nelson was -sent to Naples with despatches for our Minister, Sir William Hamilton. -He was much on shore, and mischief came of it, of course. Sir William -told his wife, the too famous, too erring, and yet much sinned-against -Lady Hamilton, that a little man was coming to dine with him who was -infirm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> and ill-looking, but who had in him the stuff of a hero, and -who was undoubtedly destined to be <i>the</i> man for the difficulties -coming. If Emma Hamilton loved a virtue it was that of courage and -ability in man: she loved heroes, and her ardent feelings were soon -interested in Nelson.</p> - -<p>From this period we must speak more generally of Nelson’s great deeds -that we may have fuller space to treat of matters less known, and in -the revealing of which lie the chief merit and the chief recommendation -of Dr. Pettigrew’s excellent volumes. Lord Howe appointed him (over -five senior captains) to blockade Genoa. In 1794 he was active against -the French in Corsica, and his men so entered into his own spirit that, -as he said himself, they minded shot no more than peas. But for him, -Bastia would not have been taken, nor perhaps Calvi, where he received -the injury to his right eye which ultimately deprived it of sight. -His labour was incessant and his health most wretched; but he was too -busy to be invalided. ‘The plan I pursue (said he) is never to employ -a doctor;’ and, consequently, though he was ill, he kept himself from -the peril of growing worse. In 1795 he had his first ‘<i>brush</i>’ with the -French <i>fleet</i>. He thus modestly calls a battle, in which he laid the -<i>Agamemnon</i> between the <i>Ça Ira</i> and the <i>Censeur</i> and forced both to -yield. The former was large enough to put the <i>Agamemnon</i> in her hold.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> -He was now fully in that vein of conquest which never left him when a -French vessel was before him as an antagonist. He now dared to disobey -orders when he judged that circumstances authorised him, and he was no -bad judge. He had by this time been engaged one hundred times—he was -literally the hero of a hundred fights. His ship when docked, in order -to be refitted, had neither mast, yard, sail, or rigging, that did not -need repair in consequence of the shot she had received: her hull had -long been secured by cables sewed around her. Nelson exhibited such -discretion in disobeying orders, and success so invariably followed -action that resulted from judgment of his own, that at length his -admirals ceased to give him any close orders at all. Sir John Jervis -left him to act as he thought best: the result was that, in two years, -Nelson captured fifty French vessels; and the navy itself, under -Jervis and his pale captain, became perfectly invincible. Up to 1797 -victory followed victory: there was abundance of honour and salt-beef; -but neither prize-money nor even notice in the ‘Gazette.’ He consoled -himself by saying that he would one day have a ‘Gazette’ of his own and -all to himself. He had well-nigh deserved it for the crowning fight -at St. Vincent: he was in the thickest of the struggle where the odds -against us were twenty-seven to fifteen. It made Jervis an earl and -Nelson a knight, and it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> opened a new era in naval strategy; for never -from that day has British captain bent upon victory paused to count his -enemy, or deferred his triumph in calculating the disparity of power -except Lord Gambier at Aix.</p> - -<p>Honours were both lavished on, and conferred by, the frail conqueror -of the <i>San Josef</i> and the <i>San Nicolas</i>. Corporations flung their -municipal freedoms at his feet, and gave him endless invitations to -dinner. The only thing that he ever designated as <i>dreadful</i> was -meeting a provincial mayor and alderman! They voted him more swords -than he could ever hope to employ; but they were all outweighed by -that which he himself presented to the Corporation of Norwich—the -sword which had been surrendered to him by his gallant but vanquished -foe on board the <i>San Josef</i>. Norwich will be proud of her trophy -when no memory remains of her crapes and bombazeens or of the fair -forms that wore them. The Government, too, made him rear-admiral of -the blue. He was not an idle one: he went to sea in the <i>Theseus</i> -surrounded by men whose hearts, though turbulent, beat in unison -with the pulsations of his own: he twice bombarded Cadiz—lost his -right arm before Teneriffe—reposed awhile at Bath to recruit his -strength—received some pecuniary reward for the loss of it; and, after -publicly thanking the Almighty for all His mercies and acknowledging -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> lightness of His visitations, was again entrusted to save his -country by destroying the then enemies of all mankind. With a squadron -of observation he scoured the Mediterranean, and after a search -unparalleled in its nature, and carrying despair to every heart but -his own, he came upon the French at Aboukir and made 1798 for ever -memorable in England by the well-won victory which he achieved at -the Nile. If honours poured on him after the affair at St. Vincent, -they descended now in an avalanche. His king made <i>him</i> a peer who -among men was peerless. Parliament thanked him: the nation adored -him. Russia endowed him with coloured ribbands—the Sultana stuffed -his mouth with sugar-candy—public companies enrolled him among their -members. ‘Nelson-squares,’ and ‘streets,’ and ‘terraces,’ arose without -number; and curates were weary of christening an endless succession of -Horatios. As for Naples, which country he had saved from the very jaws -of the French, the people there when he landed nearly killed him with -kindness, and did all but devour him. The king, queen, and the entire -court, kissed his very feet. He turned with something like disgust from -all their homage, and his honest tongue confessed that he despised -those whom it was his duty to save, and that he loathed in his very -soul the entire court, if not the universal people. He designated the -men as scoundrels: the women<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> were what the author of the old ballad of -‘Nancy Dawson’ says that well-known lady was, and they cared as little -to keep it from their neighbours; and he brushed away the imprecation -on his lips, launched against the Neapolitan ladies, to kiss the hand -of Emma Hamilton! But there <i>was</i> a distinction, though we are not -going to show where it lay.</p> - -<p>From the same year to that which closed the century, 1800, his presence -was all but ubiquitous in the Mediterranean, and his name was uttered -with awe and reverence all over the world. Within this period he -became rear-admiral of the red, and Naples made him Duke of Bronté, -in return for his having saved the nation from entire destruction. -Within the same period is on record that dark event connected with the -name of Carracciolo, to which we will hereafter allude: let it suffice -to say here that after sweeping the Mediterranean of the enemies of -England, and doing a world of good to those who were not worthy of -being reckoned her friends—after executing all entrusted to him to -accomplish, and rendering the name of England a tower of strength and -pride throughout the world—Nelson returned home across Europe. He did -not set out without first writing a sensible letter to the Pope, whom -he had restored to Rome, in better fashion than Oudinot lately followed -in behalf of Pio Nono. According to the prophecy of honest old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> Father -M’Cormick, Nelson may be said to have taken Rome with his ships—a feat -of which he reminds the Pope and remains his ‘very obedient servant.’ -That his progress from Leghorn to Hamburgh was one of such triumph -as the world had never seen may be readily believed; for no human -being had ever deserved such ovation. When he landed at Yarmouth the -earth seemed to heave to salute him. Myriads of men blessed him, wept -over him, hailed him with shouts—in the warmth of their welcome they -did all but pay him divine honours. And his wife—how did she spring -forward in exultation and enduring love, impatient to meet the boat -that bore her heroic husband? Alas! Lady Nelson was quietly awaiting -his arrival at Nerot’s hotel in town, and so cold and unsatisfactory -was her greeting when the idol of the nation stepped into her presence -that the incense of London adulation must have proved savoury by -comparison.</p> - -<p>Ere he had leisure to sun his laurels he was again afloat, and in -the first year of the present century he passed the wild and stormy -steep of Elsinore. The battle was a Titanic struggle, and giants of -the same blood grappled with each other. Equal was the valour, and if -our compelled rather than willing foes had the advantage in means of -assault the better wisdom was ours, without which prowess is but a -flail apt to wound the skull of him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> who wields it. The battle of the -Baltic, so gigantically fought and inimitably won, placed on Nelson’s -brow the coronet of a viscount; but he did not quit the Baltic until -he had fluttered the Russian fleet at Revel, and, when he returned to -give a report of his mission accomplished, England already needed him -for the fulfilment of another. Napoleon was at Boulogne, and, with a -French army, threatening invasion. What the feeling of the times was in -the parsonages on the Sussex coast—is it not written in the letters -of Peter Plimley? What Nelson’s feelings were may be divined from that -saying of his, that the French might come any way they pleased, but -that they should <i>not</i> come by sea! England trusted him, and he kept -his word as far as in him lay. If he did not destroy the Boulogne -flotilla, he at least demonstrated that it could not issue from harbour -without his permission nor put out to sea without being destroyed. -Boulogne has, in some degree, benefited by the rough messengers which -he flung into the port as visiting cards to intimate that he and his -followers were outside. Some hundred weights of good English iron were -projected into the town, and out of them are the gaspipes constructed -which are now laid down in the Bassa Ville and the suburb of Capecure!</p> - -<p>While thus giving peace to innumerable homes in England, he was -ever, amidst war’s loudest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> thunder, endeavouring to found a home -of peace for himself: that home was at Merton, in Surrey, where it -was vouchsafed to him for a very brief season. The name of Merton is -more closely connected with great men and great acts than many of -our readers may be aware, and it was the fitting resting-place for a -man who desired to gain breathing time between his heroic deeds. It -was the birthplace of that Walter de Merton to whose liberality some -of our readers may possibly be indebted for the instruction they may -have received at Oxford—not that Merton College has been very famous -for turning out good, at least great, scholars. According to a witty -master of that College, it ought to have possessed more learning than -any other in the University; for, said he, ‘many scholars brought much -knowledge there and left it all behind them.’ Their founder, however, -possessed both legal learning and religious wisdom. The law boasts of -him as one of the great Chancellors, and the Church approvingly points -to him as an exemplary Bishop of Rochester. For much of his learning, -and something of his wisdom, he is indebted to the accomplished -Augustine canons who cultivated both in the old convent founded by -Gilbert Norman in 1115, and the prior of which sat in Parliament as a -mitred abbot. It was at Merton that the early French invasion under -Louis the Dauphin, made with the intent of driving<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> Henry III. from -his inheritance, was compensated for in 1217, by the treaty of peace -forced upon the French prince. It was at Merton that the able De Burgh -found refuge from his insatiable enemies; above all, it was here that -were enacted the famous statutes of Merton. The Parliament of Henry -III., which enacted those statutes, will be further ever-memorable for -the unshakable firmness with which the barons—those reformers before -the Reformation—withstood the insidious overtures of the ambitious -prelates for the introduction of the imperial and canon laws. It was -at Merton that was uttered a cry as famous, as significant, and as -important in its result as the battle signal of Trafalgar. It was -there that the barons shouted that famous shout—‘Nolumus leges Angliæ -mutari!’</p> - -<p>Of all these things which have conferred undying celebrity on the -banks of the little river Wandle, Nelson probably knew nothing, and, -if possible, cared less. But, notwithstanding this, we repeat that -the locality which had been illustrated by humanity, by patriotism, -by liberality, and by love of freedom, was a becoming spot whereon to -spread the carpet of repose for him whose humanity was as great as his -courage—whose patriotism was without a stain—whose liberality was -ever extended without selfishness, and whose love of freedom made him -the invincible foe of the nation that was endeavouring to enslave the -world. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p> - -<p>Had he been less liberal and more considerate for himself than for -others he might have preserved Merton for his daughter—he would not -have been compelled to sell his diamonds—and Merton itself need -not have passed to those inheritors of other men’s patrimony—the -money-lending Israelites.</p> - -<p>For the fearful fight at Copenhagen, in which never were greater perils -of navigation overcome, nor had there ever been in sea-fight more -of English blood profusely shed—for this fight and victory Nelson -received a token of honour from the Sultan; but his own Government -granted no medals to the victors. They were permitted to wear the -orders sent them by foreign princes, but no such honours awaited them -at the hands of those who interpreted, and, perhaps, influenced, the -will of King George. The people gave what the Ministry denied; and -when the father of Nelson calmly closed his eyes on this world, in -the year 1802, almost the last sounds that fell upon his ear were -sounds of praise for his noble son. Nelson’s brother, the Rev. Dr. -William Nelson, thought Lord Walpole cared little for his connection -with the Nelson family, or he would have conferred Burnham Thorpe -on the son of the late incumbent—that is to say, on himself. This -reverend gentleman certainly does little credit to his profession, -even taking him by his own description. When there was a report of -his becoming<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> successor to the yet living, but indisposed, Dean of -Exeter, he wrote to his brother—‘I wish it may be so. If you see -Mr. Addington soon, you may offer my vote for the University of -Cambridge for members of Parliament, and for the county of Norfolk to -any candidate he may wish.’ ‘The dean’ (adds Dr. Pettigrew) ‘died on -July 15, and Nelson applied to Mr. Addington, but Dr. Nelson was not -appointed. Exeter failing, in a short time he directed his views to -Durham,’ and he hinted his wishes in a letter to Lady Hamilton. After -reminding her that he is a Doctor of Divinity of the University of -Cambridge, and that such a dignified personage is as much superior -to a mere Scottish M.D. ‘as an arch-angel is to an arch-fiend,’ this -man, who had little in him of the angelic and still less of the -arch-angelic, offers the lady a bribe of Norfolk beafins; and, having -thus impressed her with his dignity, and purchased as he thought her -good will for ‘half-a-dozen apple-trees,’ thus concludes his very -undignified epistle:—‘I see by the papers that there is a stall -vacant at Durham—I suppose worth a thousand a year—in the gift of -the Bishop (Barrington). I remember some years ago, when the Duke -of Portland was Prime Minister, he secured one for Dr. Poyntz, at -Durham. There is another vacant at York (if not filled up), in the -gift of the archbishop; but I don’t know the value—no very great sum, -I believe.’ So very illogical a person<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> was as unsuccessful as he -deserved to be. Lord Nelson’s chaplain on board the <i>Vanguard</i> at the -Nile fared better, and merited so to fare. On Nelson’s application, -Lord Eldon thought himself bound in public duty to pass over his own -personal wishes and also the strong claims which individuals had upon -him to be attentive to their welfare. Nelson’s chaplain at the Nile -had a prior claim: and the Rev. Mr. Comyn received his appointment -accordingly to the living asked for—that of Bridgham. While treating -of the clerical connections of Nelson, we cannot omit noticing another -trait in the brother who so little resembled him. He thus writes to -Lady Hamilton:—‘The election for the University took place yesterday -(July 5, 1802): the whole was over in five minutes: Mr. Pitt and Lord -Euston are re-elected. I had a bow this morning from Billy in the -Senate-house—<i>so I made up to him and said a word or two to him</i>.’</p> - -<p>Soon after this, Lord Nelson was made a D.C.L. by the University of -Oxford. The hero was with the Hamiltons and a party of relatives on -a tour to Wales: they took Blenheim in their way. The duke was at -home—he declined receiving them; but he sent them out something to -eat! The descendant of Marlborough <i>had not been introduced</i> to the man -as great as he from whom alone the duke possessed the only greatness -he enjoyed, and, <i>therefore</i>, he would not shake hands with him!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> His -grace, with the spirit of a Frenchman, kept himself as secure from the -defender of his country as he well could; he rolled himself up like a -hedgehog and kept his prickles erect. Had it not been for Nelson, he -might not then have had Blenheim wherein to nurture his absurd shyness -or absurder pride. Blenheim was the only hearth in England at which -Nelson was churlishly received, and its master the only man in the -kingdom who did not feel on speaking terms with the hero of the Nile. -Nelson paid no fee, touched no food, and turned from the dwelling of -him who owned none of his great ancestor’s characteristics, save his -meanness, with calm contempt.</p> - -<p>In 1802 hostilities were again renewed, and, as a matter of course, -all eyes were turned to the defender of his country. His eyesight was -failing: he had actual fears of becoming blind, but all his fears -were suppressed in his eagerness to be of use to his native land. It -may be noticed that, in this year, Sir William Hamilton died; and the -fact that Nelson’s continued correspondence with the graceful widow -is, from this time, no longer addressed to her as ‘dear friend,’ but -‘dearest Emma,’ plainly, perhaps too plainly, denotes the nature of -the connection by which they were now bound. To judge of him by what -he effected and what he endured during this year, we might assert that -he never took rest nor thought of anything<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> save the welfare of his -country and the fighting condition of his fleet; but he had leisure -devoted to further the welfare of private friends and other deserving -individuals, and he could turn from devising plans for crushing the -French to the arrangement of a paddock. All that he immediately cared -for was lest his sight should entirely leave him before he could fall -upon the French, who had a design upon Naples and Egypt. After he had -beaten them, he felt almost certain that his eyes would be in total -eclipse: he was resigned to the prospective fate, and contemplated it -with a grave but manly resignation.</p> - -<p>In a note on a paragraph in a letter written at this time by Lord -Nelson, in which he says to Lady Hamilton that she will be sorry but -not surprised to hear of Lord Bristol’s death, Dr. Pettigrew informs us -that—</p> - -<blockquote><p>—— this nobleman was fourth Earl of Bristol and was also Bishop -of Derry. He died on July 8, 1803. To avoid any superstitious -exhibition on the part of sailors, who entertain a dread of having -a corpse on board, his lordship’s body was packed up in a case and -shipped as an antique statue. Could he have anticipated such a -circumstance, it would have offered him a capital subject to have -written upon.</p></blockquote> - -<p>In 1804, his harassing life in the Mediterranean received something to -make it tolerable by his triumph in his case for prize-money against -Lord<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> St. Vincent. It was money fairly won after St. Vincent gave up -the command; and his award was 13,000<i>l.</i> The sum rescued him from -debt and from anxiety; but the enjoyment of it could not relieve him -of his most anxious desire to destroy the French fleet, which wanted -no inducement to leave Toulon, only that Nelson was waiting outside to -receive them. His vigilance had to be doubled, but he had enough for -the emergency, and to spare. Suspicions existed that Spain was about -to enter into an armed coalition with France against England, and, -without increase to his force, Nelson was ready to meet and confident -of annihilating both. With all their advantage of superior strength, -the French not only lingered in Toulon, but spread forged intelligence -all over Europe that, on their making preparations for sea, Nelson had -precipitately fled; but the avenger was still there; and, as now and -then a French vessel would occasionally show her bowsprit outside of -the harbour and retire in all speed at the sight of the flaunting Jack -defying them from seaward, Nelson would say that, if the whole fleet -did not soon come out and stand a contest, he should go in and try the -effect of putting salt upon their tails!</p> - -<p>But his own countrymen, or rather the Government which did <i>not</i> -represent the feelings of his countrymen, wounded him more deeply -than his worst enemies. Nelson was poor, considering the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> rank he had -to maintain and the heavy charges, some voluntarily assumed and all -honourably acquitted, on his income. The Ministry knew he was poor; -but, because he was not ashamed of his poverty, they kept him plunged -in it. In the Mediterranean, with war declared against Spain, there was -a prospect of rich prizes being made and some substantial reward being -given to him and his gallant band for their labours, their devotedness, -and their blood. But between these deserving men and their right, -evil influences interposed: unknown to Nelson, another admiral and a -small squadron were stationed off Cadiz: their office was to capture -all the commercial vessels they could: they performed the office to -its uttermost letter—hurried to England with the golden argosies, -and divided the proceeds so easily and bloodlessly won. When the fact -became known to Nelson it severely shook his manly heart: he continued -as steadfast as ever in the fulfilment of his duty, endured reiterated -disappointment at not meeting with the French, and sealing his course -of victory by a final triumph ere he found refuge in his home from -the ingratitude of man, and at length returned to England, on leave, -determined to enjoy his sweet reward at Merton, since he was denied any -by an ungrateful Ministry.</p> - -<p>He arrived at Merton on August 20, 1805. On the 13th of the following -month, Captain <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>Blackwood called on Nelson at five in the morning -with news that the French and Spanish fleets were in the harbour of -Cadiz: Nelson got up, dressed, and was ready to start to ‘give Monsieur -Villeneuve a drubbing.’ The two proceeded to the Admiralty, the lords -of which were now all eager to grant whatever Nelson asked. The latter -knew he must rest satisfied with fifteen or sixteen sail of the line -less than his enemies would have in array against him; but with these -odds, backed by God’s blessing, he only knew of a full victory as the -glorious result. He made some arrangements for those who depended on -his bounty—some preparations in case of the sorrowful event that -<i>did</i> cloud the general triumph—and, between ten and eleven at night, -took his last farewell of Merton and of her who had so long kept him -in sweet bonds—gazed once on his sleeping child, breathed a prayer -over her, and went forth to death—to death the most glorious that was -ever accorded to mortal man whereby to make his passage from time into -eternity.</p> - -<p>On October 21, he went into battle after fervent prayer to God. How, -under fearful odds, he beat his enemy, is known to every schoolboy. -Since that day Spain has almost ceased to be a naval power, and France -is only now recovering the position from which the hero of that day -flung her down. It was a day, the issues of which were left humbly to -God, but which were struggled for as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> though they depended on the arm -of mortal man alone. The triumphant result was purchased at a costly -rate—the life of England’s dearest son; his mission was fulfilled: he -had destroyed the last coalition made to enslave the world, and he died -at the fitting moment of certain victory, leaving all dear to him on -earth as a legacy to his native country. May his name live for ever!</p> - -<p>Almost the last words uttered by Nelson were the expression of a hope -that his country would provide for Lady Hamilton and for his adopted -daughter. Nelson’s wife was alive, and the marriage had been without -issue. Who, then, was this stranger that so closely occupied the last -thoughts of the hero—and who the ‘adopted daughter’?—for such was the -designation that engaged so engrossing a share of his love.</p> - -<p>As for Lady Nelson, she was indeed alive, but she had long been dead -to <i>him</i>. The pair, from the first, had been ill-matched; and what -began ill begot no happy consequences. Nelson himself had warmth enough -of temperament for two: his wife had none. She was, if we may judge -by what is written, unmoved at his great triumphs, without pride in -his great fame, and she was the last to welcome him when he came home -crowned with great deeds: she was the last woman in the world fitted -to be the wife of a hero, and perfectly incapable of controlling a -hero’s weaknesses. When<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> Nelson on one occasion was speaking warmly in -his wife’s presence of the talents and beauty of Lady Hamilton, and -of the immense services she had rendered his king and country through -him, the hot Creole blood fired up: she rose in a whirlwind of passion, -exclaiming that she was sick at hearing the name and praises of Lady -Hamilton, and that Nelson must either desist from eulogising her or -cease to live with his wife. Nelson defended his favourite with good -humour; but from that hour utter estrangement ensued between himself -and Lady Nelson, resulting in a separation which, once determined on, -was never followed by opportunity or inclination for a reconciliation.</p> - -<p>The remarkable individual—as remarkable for her great sufferings and -great sorrows as for her great errors—who was in a certain degree the -cause of breaking up the indifferent home which Nelson found in the -companionship of his wife, may be said to have been the last of a race -proverbial for bewitching and irresistible beauty—viz., the Lancashire -witches. She was born at Preston, in 1764; her father’s name was Lyon, -and her parents were of menial condition. The child, named Emma, was, -on the early death of her father, taken by her mother to Hawarden, -in Flintshire, where her remaining parent sought to support both by -industry, and where Emma grew every day in beauty and ignorance. -When old enough she was sent forth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> to earn her own livelihood. She -commenced life in the humble condition of a nursery-maid in a family -at Hawarden: subsequently she was engaged in the same capacity in the -family of Dr. Budd, Chatham-place, Blackfriars. The good doctor little -suspected that he possessed two servants in his house destined to -achieve celebrity for themselves, and thus lend something of perpetuity -to his own name. The nursemaid was Emma Lyons: the housemaid was Jane -Powell, who, in her after career as an actress, was a fine interpreter -of Shakespeare, could give interest to the bombast of Nat Lee, and -make endurable the platitudes of Rowe—just as Rachel, in our own -day, interpreted Racine and endowed with life the metrical dulness -of Merope and Chimène. From Dr. Budd’s to the family of a dealer in -St. James’s Market was a change from the east to the court end of the -town, and it had its consequences. She attracted the attention and won -the good-will of a lady of fashion, who withdrew her from servitude -and elevated her to what is often more degrading and worse paid, the -dignity of a companion. The education she received here was such as -might be expected at the hands of a fine lady of the last century. -She read all the stilted and not too delicate romances of the day—a -course of reading which not only kills time, but which generally -destroys the student. It at least did not improve the spelling of the -now ‘young<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> lady’; for to the last, though she talked like Aspasia, -she spelled as badly as Caroline of Brunswick—a light fault in a day -when countesses spelt <i>Physician</i> with an <i>F</i>, and thought <i>G</i> was -the first letter of <i>Augustus</i>! The house of Emma’s patroness was the -resort of all the great players, poets, and literati of the day. It was -the ‘Gore House’ of its time: perhaps, its glories ended as ignobly. -As a home and an asylum for a young girl full of beauty, and given to -impulses which she knew not how to govern, it deserved not the name. -The poor thing was made the Cynthia of the minute: the <i>Trissotins</i> -dedicated sonnets to her; her beauty was deified; incense was daily -offered to her by fools and knaves, and even by those who were neither: -but yesterday she was toiling for wages, and perhaps complacently -receiving the coarse compliments of liveried worshippers: to-day she -was tended on by delicate hands, her smiles eagerly sought after, her -presence acknowledged by a buzz of admiration, her wit celebrated -by the ecstatic praises of the witty, and her intellect directed to -everything save to the study of divine things. She loved the refinement -which concealed the vice yet unknown to her: what was so pleasant could -hardly be sinful, for it brought no remorse. The foolish virgin lacked -a <i>man</i> at hand to tell her that she was neglecting her lamp; and it -was only in after life, when intellect was superseded by cleverness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> -and reflection made her matured beauty all the more radiant, that -she sorrowingly acknowledged that to her first patroness had been -sacrificed the morning of her youth, and that every opportunity -neglected had been fruitful in a multitude of after sorrows.</p> - -<p>The first public sin, if we may so express it, was the consequence of -the exercise of a great virtue. It was the time of the first American -war. The press-gangs were in active pursuit of their terrible calling, -and by one of these a humble acquaintance had been captured, and was -confined on board a tender in the Thames. She personally interceded -to procure his liberty: the officer to whom the application was made -was Captain, afterwards Admiral, Willet Payne, the companion of the -Prince of Wales. This man drove a bargain and became what is cruelly -called the ‘protector’ of the friendless Emma. The first false step -made, the descent was rapid. From the dissolute seaman she was won -by a profligate squire, Sir Harry Fetherstonehaugh; and she speedily -enraptured a whole shire of country gentlemen by her bold and graceful -riding, subdued them by her wit, and charmed them, they knew not -wherefore, by the refinement of her manners. It is a curious trait -marking such a career that, though the baronet was nearly ruined by -the extravagant profusion into which he plunged for her sake, to -the end of life he spoke of her and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> wrote to her in terms of the -profoundest respect. It was a period when provincial squires were not -noted for much delicacy of manner: they had not yet adopted the advice -of Lord Chesterfield, and become gentlemanlike in their vices; but -nevertheless, like the Athenians of old, they could praise a virtue -which they did not practise: not decent themselves, they could admire -decency in others.</p> - -<p>The unfortunate and fallen woman, on her separation from her ruined -admirer, soon learned a deeper misery than she had endured in her -native home and early privations. She was at length on the point of -being turned into the street by her landlord, who had no admiration -for penniless tenants, however greatly endowed with beauty, when -she fell in the way of the most stupendous quack that ever gulled -the most gullible of patient publics. We need hardly name the once -famous Dr. Graham,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" >[2]</a> who, with his mysterious chambers,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> golden -beds, seraphic music, and impudent medical lectures, for some time -persuaded the people that he could lead them to the fountain where -played the waters endowing man with eternal and vigorous youth. That -he was mysterious only proved that he had a secret, and that it was -well worth knowing and richly worth paying for. This quack hired the -hungry and heart-broken beauty, exhibited her as the ‘Goddess of -Health,’ lectured upon her as the result of his system, and made half -the fashionable women of his day mad to become like her, glowing with -health and splendid with beauty. This public exhibition gave her a -particular fame among artists:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> she became the eagerly sought after -and highly purchased model of the day. In Romney’s pictures more -especially she is constantly repeated, and the eternal sameness is -ever varied and charming: she was, indeed, Romney’s inspiration rather -than model: he had but to state what he desired or dreamed of, and the -vision stood a breathing reality before him. Heroic, as Joan of Arc; -crushed by her grief, as a Magdalene; joyous, as a Bacchante; sublime, -as Cassandra; winning, as a Wood Nymph; making sorrow graceful, as -Calypso; giving rapture double interpretation—first as the Pythian -priestess on her tripod, and next as St. Cecilia—gentle, as Serena; -lovely, as Sensibility; and perhaps more intellectually lovely still, -as Miranda—we can hardly wonder, as we look on these characters, that -Hayley, who saw the original stand for them all, rushed into rhyme to -immortalise them, and perpetrated verse that was almost tolerable and -very nearly worth reading.</p> - -<p>We do not know that we may say that she was <i>rescued</i> from this sort -of life by meeting with Mr. Charles Fulke Greville. He was not a mere -squire, but a gentleman and a connoisseur: he so loved beauty that -when he beheld Romney’s model he longed to possess it as he would -have longed to possess a Grecian statue. In this case the matter was -negotiable: she passed from the studio to the bower. Mr. Greville -discovered her mental powers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> as well as admired her material beauty, -and he was humane enough to do—what no human being had ever thought of -doing—educate her. It came of the latest, when the tares had choked -the wheat. She progressed, indeed, rapidly in all she studied, and in -music she attained a wonderful perfection: her voice, even in speaking, -was one to melt the heart: in singing it fairly carried it off by -magic. If vanity accompanied the possession of powers such as no one -has since possessed—not even our now silent Nightingale—her apology -is in her course of life, for much of which others were responsible. -This vanity reached its culmination one night at Ranelagh, when, -intoxicated by the remarks flung in her way like flowers as she passed, -she electrified the entire crowd by breaking forth into song, and, -by the exercise of her unequalled vocalisation, flung uncontrollable -ecstasy over the idle public of the place. ‘Mr. Greville’ (says Dr. -Pettigrew, in his interesting ‘Sketch of Lady Hamilton’) ‘had gone -farther than he intended, and became alarmed at her fondness for -admiration, and ventured to reproach her for her indiscretion. She -retired to her room, threw off the elegant attire in which she was -clothed, and, presenting herself before him in a plain cottage dress, -proposed to relieve him of her presence. This act, however, served -only the more securely to bind him in his chains, and a reconciliation -took<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> place.’ It is reported that three children were the fruit of -this connection; but there is a letter from Nelson to Lady Hamilton -extant, which, if it does not prove the contrary, shows at least that -Nelson knew nothing of it—a not likely circumstance if the alleged -fact were one in reality. However this may be, Dr. Pettigrew adds, ‘In -the splendid misery in which she lived she hastened to call to her her -mother, to whom she was through life most affectionate and attentive.’</p> - -<p>In 1789, the year of many sorrows, Mr. Greville found himself, by the -French Revolution and other accidents, a nearly ruined man. His uncle, -Sir William Hamilton, our minister at Naples, stepped in to relieve -him of many of his embarrassments—among them of the lady to whom -perhaps some of them might be traced. Dr. Pettigrew says:—‘It is only -charitable to suppose Sir William to have been ignorant of his nephew’s -connection with Emma, but there have not been wanting reports that the -condition of the engagement between Sir William and the lady was the -payment of the nephew’s debts.’ At this time Sir William was within a -year of threescore. He was neither the Pericles of his age, nor was -Emma quite the Aspasia; but when we remember the bond which bound the -great statesman and refined lover of refined art to the most beautiful -and most accomplished woman in Greece—when we remember that in his -home<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> intellect and skill were almost deified—that to it her presence, -her powers, and even her virtues (for all were not wanting because one -was absent) gave its chiefest charm—that without her the war against -Samos would not have been a matter of history—that she inspired great -commanders, and that but for her, much eloquence would have been mute, -which, through her, fired Greece to deeds of noble daring—with these -memories about us, we say, there is much in the persons and lives of -Sir William Hamilton and his wife that reminds us of Pericles and -Aspasia, even down to the very circumstance that the great lawgiver -took the courtesan to wife after she had been his mistress.</p> - -<p>Dr. Pettigrew thus describes Sir William himself:—</p> - -<blockquote><p>Sir William Hamilton was a native of Scotland, born in 1730, and -was Minister at Naples for the long period of thirty-six years. -He was a distinguished antiquary, remarkable for his taste in, -and appreciation of, the fine arts. He possessed also scientific -acquirements, and had some knowledge of mineralogy: he was a -Trustee of the British Museum, Fellow of the Royal Society, and -a Vice-President of the Society of Antiquaries: he was also a -distinguished member of the Dillettanti Club, and appears among -their portraits in their meeting-room at the Thatched House -Tavern. A portrait of him, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, one of his -intimate friends, may be seen in the National Gallery. He is known -as an author by his works. With the King of Naples he was a great -favourite, and largely shared with him the enjoyment of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> the chase -and other sports, to which the sovereign is well known to have -been egregiously addicted.</p></blockquote> - -<p>Such was the sexagenarian philosopher. At this period the Aspasia -of his affections, if we may indeed use such a word, was just -five-and-twenty. She is thus limned by her biographer:—</p> - -<blockquote><p>Already familiarised to the studies of the painter, and, according -to Romney and his biographer, no mean judge of the arts, with -Sir William she had in Italy many opportunities of enjoying her -taste, of improving herself, and also of imparting knowledge. -This she is said to have practically evinced; for with a common -piece of stuff she could so arrange it and clothe herself as -to offer the most appropriate representations of a Jewess, a -Roman matron, a Helen, Penelope, or Aspasia. No character seemed -foreign to her, and the grace she was in the habit of displaying -under such representations excited the admiration of all who -were fortunate enough to have been present on such occasions. -The celebrated ‘Shawl Dance’ owes its origin to her invention; -but it is admitted to have been executed by her with a grace and -elegance far surpassing that with which it has ever been rendered -on the stage of any of our theatres. Under the tuition and -government of Sir William she improved so greatly, and obtained -such complete sway over him, that he resolved upon making her -his wife. They came to England, and on September 6, 1791, she, -writing the name of Emma Harte (an assumed name under which she -had long been known), he married her at the Church of St. George, -Hanover Square, resolving to return with her to Naples that she -might there be recognised by the Neapolitan Court. But prior to -quitting London to return to Naples she was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> doomed to experience -disappointment; for although she had, through the position of Sir -William Hamilton and his high connections, together with her own -attractions and accomplishments, gained admission into a very high -circle of society, she was very properly refused admission into -the Court of St. James’s, which Sir William in vain endeavoured -most assiduously to effect. In the society, however, in which she -now moved, she became distinguished for her great accomplishments; -and the dulness of fashionable life was greatly relieved by her -displays as a singer and as an actress. The admiration she excited -was universal. It is said that at first, upon the return of Sir -William Hamilton to Naples, there was some difficulty in the way -of her introduction to the Queen, not having been received at the -Court of her own country; that, however, was soon removed, and in -a short time she maintained the confidential intercourse with her -Majesty. That the Queen of Naples should have become intimately -attached to Lady Hamilton cannot be a matter of surprise when we -recollect the calamities her family had sustained by the French -Revolution. To seek consolation in the bosom of the wife of the -English Minister—the Minister of that country which almost stood -alone in its opposition to the principles and conduct of the -French Revolution—seems natural. Friendship is often created -by sympathetic associations called forth under the pressure of -affliction, and is sustained by the consolations of hope derived -from them. There are many letters in my possession from the -Queen of Naples to the Lady Hamilton breathing the most ardent -attachment, the most unbounded friendship, and expressing eternal -gratitude to her.</p></blockquote> - -<p>It was in the year 1793 that Nelson first saw this dangerous beauty. -From the period of her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> arrival up to this time, she appears to have -been the only source of joy and admiration to the Neapolitan Court. -The Duke of Sussex retained to the last lively recollections of her -charms, and of the effect she produced when singing with the famous -Mrs. Billington. In the eventful year last named Nelson landed at -Naples with despatches from Lord Hood. Sir William, as we have said, -on returning home after his interview with Nelson, told Lady Hamilton -that he was about to introduce to her a little man who could not boast -of being very handsome, but who would be the greatest man that England -ever produced. ‘I know it’ (said Sir William) ‘from the very few -words of conversation I have already had with him. I pronounce’ (said -the Minister) ‘that he will one day astonish the world. I have never -entertained any officer in my house, but I am determined to bring him -here: let him be put in the room prepared for Prince Augustus.’ Nelson -is stated to have been equally impressed with Sir William Hamilton’s -merits. ‘You are’ (he said) ‘a man after my own heart: you do business -in my own way. I am now only captain; but, if I live, I will be -at the top of the tree.’ The impression produced upon him by Lady -Hamilton, and her kindness towards the son of Nelson’s’ wife by her -first marriage, he thus simply describes in one of his letters:—‘Lady -Hamilton has been wonderfully kind and good to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> Josiah. She is a young -woman of amiable manners, and who does honour to the station to which -she is raised.’</p> - -<p>The early attachment entertained by the Queen of Naples for Lady -Hamilton admits of ready and natural explanation. Sir William after his -marriage conducted his young bride to Naples by way of Paris, where she -was received by the ill-fated Marie-Antoinette. This unhappy queen was -sister to the Queen of Naples; and to Lady Hamilton she entrusted the -last letter she ever wrote to her scarcely less unhappy relative. The -wife of the British Minister became at once the personal friend of the -Neapolitan Queen, and her influence so great that the King himself said -of her that she had de-Bourbonised them and made them all English. It -was from this period that her patriotic mission commenced—a mission -which she carried out regardless of personal expense or personal peril, -and for the performance of which, though so great in its results, she -obtained slight acknowledgment and no recompense.</p> - -<p>It was for no individual, but for her country solely, that she -exercised her unbounded influence when at Naples. Sir John Jervis named -her the ‘patroness of the navy;’ and when he was engaged upon the -reduction of Corsica he depended upon Lady Hamilton for despatching -to him all the necessaries he required from Naples: he <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>subsequently -confessed that the reduction of the island was facilitated and -expedited by her aid and energy. At a time when British interests were -at stake and nearly all Europe was engaged in destroying them, she was -unceasingly wakeful to maintain and strengthen them. We had about this -time a most uncertain ally in Spain. It came to the knowledge of Lady -Hamilton that a Spanish courier had arrived at Naples with a letter -for the King: she forthwith repaired to the Queen, and so exercised -the power she possessed over even the powerful mind of that Sovereign -that she induced her to repair to the King’s cabinet and abstract -the important document from the monarch’s possession. The letter was -obtained: it was from the King of Spain himself, and it announced his -determination to break up his old alliance and to unite with France -against England. Sir William Hamilton was sick and incapable of action; -but ‘our General’s wife was now the General;’ and she further prevailed -on the Queen to allow her to take a copy of the document. This copy -she transmitted by a secure but costly method to Lord Grenville. To -effect its safe arrival cost her out of her own private purse not less -than four hundred pounds sterling. She was hardly thanked and was never -remunerated.</p> - -<p>But ingratitude did not render her patriotism weary or unwilling: year -after year the British<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> flag in the Mediterranean was indebted to her -for triumphs which it achieved, because without her aid the English -could not have profited even by opportunity. It must be remembered, -too, as Dr. Pettigrew justly remarks, ‘that at this period so high were -French ascendency and revolutionary principles in Naples that it was -absolutely dangerous for the British Minister to go to court.’</p> - -<p>Her greatest service, though not her last, remains to be mentioned. It -is of that importance that it merits being mentioned in detail, and -the details are so clearly and concisely told by Dr. Pettigrew that -we cannot do better than adopt them. Never was service more greatly -needed: its having been rendered saved England, changed the aspect of -European politics, and gave to Lady Hamilton a branch of the showers of -laurel that fell to the victors at the Nile:—</p> - -<blockquote><p>In June, 1798, about three days after the French fleet had passed -by for Malta, Sir William and Lady Hamilton were awakened one -morning about six o’clock by the arrival of Captain Trowbridge -with a letter from Sir Horatio Nelson, then with the fleet lying -off the bay near to Capri, ‘requesting that the ambassador would -procure him permission to enter with his fleet into Naples or -any of the Sicilian ports to provision, water, &c., as otherwise -he must run for Gibraltar, being in urgent want; and that, -consequently, he would be obliged to give up all further pursuit -of the French fleet which he had missed at Egypt on account of -their having put into Malta.’ At this time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> Naples had made peace -with France, and an ambassador was resident then at Naples. One -of the stipulations of the treaty which had been entered into was -to the effect that <i>no more than two English ships of war should -enter into any of the Neapolitan or Sicilian ports</i>. However, -Sir William Hamilton called up Sir John Acton, the Minister, who -immediately convened a council at which the King was present. This -was about half-past six. Lady Hamilton went immediately to the -Queen, who received her in her bed-room: she represented to her -Majesty that the safety of the two Sicilies now depended upon her -conduct, and that should the council, as she feared that under the -circumstances they must do, decide on negative or half measures, -the Sicilies must be lost if Nelson were not supplied agreeably -to his request, by which he would be enabled to follow the great -French force which had passed in that direction only a few days -before. Nothing could exceed the alarm with which the Queen -received this intelligence: she urged that the King was in council -and would decide with his Ministers. Lady Hamilton dictated, and -the Queen wrote a positive order, ‘directed to all governors of -the two Sicilies to receive with hospitality the British fleet to -water, victual, and aid them.’ In every way this order, as Lady -Hamilton well knew, would be more respected than that which might -emanate from the King. The council did not break up until eight -o’clock, and Lady Hamilton attended Captain Trowbridge and her -husband to their residence! The faces of the King, of Acton, and -Sir William too plainly told the determination at which they had -arrived, and that <i>they could not then break with France</i>. On the -way home Lady Hamilton told Sir William and Captain Trowbridge -that she had anticipated the result and provided against<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> it; -that, whilst they were in council debating on the application, -she had been with the Queen and had not without effect implored -her Majesty to render the aid required: she then, to his great -astonishment and delight, produced the order in question. Nothing -could exceed the gladness this occasioned. Trowbridge declared -that it would ‘cheer Nelson to ecstasy;’ and that by this means -they should be enabled to pursue and conquer the French fleet, -otherwise they must have gone for Gibraltar. Sir William Hamilton -wrote to Sir Horatio Nelson, communicating to him the formal -decision of the council; but added, ‘You will receive from Emma -herself what will do the business and procure all your wants.’ -Lady Hamilton enclosed to the admiral the order, praying him ‘that -the Queen might be as little committed in the use of it as the -glory and service of the country would admit of.’ To this Nelson -replied that he received the precious order, and that if he gained -the battle it should be called hers and the Queen’s; for to Lady -Hamilton he should owe his success, as without the order their -return to Gibraltar was decided upon; but, he added, ‘I will now -come back to you crowned with laurels or covered with cypress.’</p></blockquote> - -<p>It was more especially for this service rendered when he was in his -utmost need that Nelson, while dying, recommended Lady Hamilton to -the memory and gratitude of his country. The effect of this service -we need not repeat. The British ships watered and victualled at -Syracuse, spread their huge wings in pursuit of their foe, and at -the Nile launched their heavy thunder to his destruction.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> On the -20th of September the triumphant squadron arrived at Naples, where -ships, officers, and men found every want supplied and every wish -anticipated. ‘But especially’ (says Dr. Pettigrew) ‘were the broken -health and wounded body of the valorous chief regarded. Nelson was -taken into the British Minister’s house, and there personally tended by -her whose sympathies had been so awakened, and by whose attentions he -was after a time restored to health.’ Her services did not terminate -here. While all at Naples were at the very high top-gallant of their -joy, Lady Hamilton induced the court to break altogether with the -French. The ambassador of the Republic was consequently dismissed with -scanty courtesy and in considerable haste. When, at a later period, -a French army marched on Naples itself and the royal family were -reduced to fly to Palermo, the chief arrangements for the safety of -the lives and properties of others were made or carried out by Lady -Hamilton: she privately removed from the palace the royal jewels and -thirty-six barrels of gold. These were marked ‘Stores for Nelson,’ and -under that device were safely shipped. Indeed, it was not till the -treasure was secured that the King consented to embark. In a despatch -to the Admiralty Lord Nelson says, ‘Lady Hamilton seemed to be an -angel dropped from heaven for the preservation of the royal family.’ -To effect<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> that preservation she was regardless of her own. On the -night in which she personally assisted the King, Queen, and children -to escape, she attended a party given by Kelim Effendi: she withdrew -from this party on foot, leaving her equipage in front of the house, -hastened to the place of meeting, conducted the royal family by a -subterranean passage to Nelson’s boat waiting to receive them, embarked -with the fugitives, and with them went before the storm that blew them -to Palermo. To accomplish this Sir William and his wife voluntarily -abandoned their entire possessions in their house at Naples: they did -not convey away one single article. The whole of their private property -was thus left behind in order to prevent discovery of their proceedings -in behalf of the royal family. The value of Lady Hamilton’s portion -thus abandoned amounted to 9,000<i>l.</i>; not less than 30,000<i>l.</i>’s worth -of property was sacrificed which belonged to Sir William. The virtue of -this sacrifice was the sole reward gained by those who made it.</p> - -<p>It was in this year (1799) that Sir Alexander Ball, who held a part of -Malta, the French occupying another part, sent despatches to Nelson -at Palermo for provisions, without which he would be compelled to -surrender. Nelson was absent at his old occupation looking after the -enemies of England. Lady Hamilton opened the despatches, purchased -several entire cargoes of corn at her own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> risk, and forwarded them to -the half-starved English in Malta. She expended 5,000<i>l.</i>, of which -not one shilling was ever returned to her. All that she profited -thereby was in receiving the order of St. John of Jerusalem from the -Emperor Paul, Grand Master of the Knights. England owed her much and -acknowledged nothing. The Queen of Naples acted with more generosity: -she put into the hands of Lady Hamilton, on parting from her -subsequently at Vienna, a conveyance of 1,000<i>l.</i> per annum; but the -latter magnanimously destroyed the deed, remarking that ‘England was -just, and to her faithful servants generous, and that she should feel -it unbecoming to her own beloved and magnanimous Sovereign to accept of -meed or reward from any other hand.’</p> - -<p>But the same year is also marked by an occurrence the very mention of -which seems to obscure the brightness of Nelson’s name and to fling an -additional lurid hue round that of the wife of a British Minister. We -say seems; for in truth there is more of seeming than of reality in it, -and yet all is not seeming and there is something real. We allude, of -course, to the case of Admiral Prince Carracciolo. According to some -he was murdered by Nelson at the instigation of Lady Hamilton, who -was so fiercely Royalist that, if we may believe partial writers, the -blood of a Jacobin was to her of marvellous sweet savour. Divested of -exaggeration the story of old <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>Carracciolo is simply this—He was a -rich, valiant, and aged seaman, and warmly attached to Royalty until -the triumph of Republicanism endangered those who had a distaste for -Commonwealths. When the Neapolitan royal family fled from Naples to -Sicily their hitherto faithful old servant followed them thither: -when the heads of the party who had proclaimed a Republic at Naples -threatened to confiscate the property of absentees, Carracciolo -returned to protect his own. In thinking over-much of himself he -forgot fealty to his Sovereign, and in a brief period he became as hot -a Republican as ever he had been an eager Royalist. He took up arms -against his King, opposed his restoration, and fired upon his flag. -After the principal body of rebels had capitulated to the force in arms -to give the King his own again, he was captured in open rebellion, -taken on board the <i>Foudroyant</i>, Lord Nelson’s own ship, and there -given up to be tried by a court-martial. Nelson, as chief of the united -Sicilian and English squadrons, ordered this court-martial to be held: -it was formed exclusively of Sicilian officers, but it was held on -board the English admiral’s ship. The trial did not exactly exhibit a -specimen of Jedburgh justice, by which a man is hung first and tried -afterwards, but there was a spirit manifested that was very much akin -to it. The president of the court, Count Thurn, was a personal enemy -though an old shipmate of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> Carracciolo. The case for the prosecution -was soon gone through: the facts were clear, patent, and undeniable; -but the brave and misguided old seaman made a most gallant, fearless, -and almost irresistible defence. Probably, the worst enemy of the crown -of Naples was the King himself: he was worthless, selfish, weak, vain, -and pompous. Carracciolo asserted that <i>he</i> had not deserted the royal -cause, but that in fact the King himself had betrayed it: when there -was no longer a royalty to defend that was worth the keeping, then -alone had he joined the Republicans. Thus far the defence was, perhaps, -founded on truth. It was not less true when Carracciolo alluded to his -property and the risk he ran of rendering his posterity beggars if he -had not taken office under the Republican flag; but this was a sort of -truth that was even less valid as an apology for rebellion than the -former. The court unanimously found him guilty and sentenced him to -be hung by the neck at the yard-arm of his own flag-ship. ‘Hereafter’ -(said the undaunted old man with some emotion)—‘hereafter, when you -shall be called to your great account, you will weep for this unjust -sentence in tears of blood. I take shame to myself for asking for any -favour from such men; but, if possible, I wish to be shot as becomes -my rank, and not hung up like a felon and a dog.’ ‘It is inadmissible’ -(was the curt and savage reply of the court), ‘and the court is hereby<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> -dissolved.’ What followed is ever to be deplored. Dr. Pettigrew -struggles ably and manfully to defend Nelson from all blame, but he -struggles unsuccessfully. The facts are these—even by Dr. Pettigrew’s -admission. The sentence was no sooner made known than Nelson issued -an order for the immediate execution. The guilty man was to be hung -from six o’clock till sunset, ‘when you will have his body cut down -and thrown into the sea.’ So run the words to which the name of Nelson -is affixed. Lieutenant Parkinson, at the request of the doomed man, -interceded with the admiral; but to the prayer of Carracciolo, that he -might die the death of a man and not that of a dog, Nelson refused to -interfere, and harshly bade the poor lieutenant to go and attend to his -duty. The result was that Carracciolo was ignominiously run up to the -yard-arm, not of his own flag-ship, but to that of Lord Nelson. The -English admiral not only refused the mercy that he unquestionably might -have granted, but he, in some sort, became the executioner: he not only -insisted that the sentence of hanging should be carried into effect, -but he lent a gallows for the purpose.</p> - -<p>The sentence was just, and the unfortunate old warrior merited death; -but justice would have been satisfied had the great criminal been -allowed the melancholy privilege of falling as he might have done -in battle. At all events, the yard-arm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> of a British ship ought not -to have been lent for the purpose of hanging a foreigner who had -betrayed his trust to a foreign king. In thus much does blame appear -attributable to Nelson. That any is due to Lady Hamilton, or that -Nelson was in the least degree influenced by her on this occasion, -we disbelieve, simply for the reason that such an assertion is -unsusceptible of proof.</p> - -<p>But the <i>Foudroyant</i> was the scene of other disgraces. We come to -the mention of them with reluctance, and will narrate them with all -possible brevity. In 1800, Sir William Hamilton was superseded as -British Minister at Naples: he and Lady Hamilton, with the Queen -of Naples, were on board Nelson’s ship. Nelson himself was now a -Neapolitan duke. The whole party were about to leave the Mediterranean, -and, with the exception of the Queen, whose destination was Vienna, to -return to England by land through Germany. It was during the passage -from Palermo to Malta that the intimacy took place which resulted -in the birth of that little Horatia who was long thought to be the -daughter of the Queen of Naples, but whom Dr. Pettigrew, under Nelson’s -own hand, proves to be the child of Lady Hamilton. That Nelson was the -child’s father no one ever doubted. The strange party—husband, wife, -and friend—reached London in November, 1800. Lady Nelson was not -among those who stood first to greet the arrival of the hero<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> or who -at meeting greeted him with any warmth of feeling. She had, possibly, -heard through her son, Captain Nisbet, of the too friendly terms which -existed between her husband and the wife of another. His home was, in -consequence, an unhappy one, and he left it to proceed on an excursion -with Sir William and his lady. This excursion was an ovation which -reached its highest point at Fonthill. Here the celebrities in art, -rather than the noble by birth, were assembled to meet the illustrious -party: here Banti, the Pasta of her day, joined her voice with the -ex-ambassadress; and here West looked on and smiled.</p> - -<blockquote><p>In the gallery of the Abbey, after the repast, the company -assembled, and Lady Hamilton enchanted them with one of her -remarkable personations—that of Agrippina bearing the ashes of -Germanicus in a golden urn, and as presenting herself before the -Roman people with the design of exciting them to revenge the death -of her husband, who, after having been declared joint Emperor -by Tiberius, fell a victim to his envy, and is supposed to have -been poisoned by his order at the head of the forces which he -was leading against the rebellious Arminians ... Lady Hamilton -displayed with truth and energy every gesture, attitude, and -expression of countenance, which could be conceived in Agrippina -herself, best calculated to have roused the passions of the Romans -in behalf of their favourite general. The action of her head, -of her hands and arms, in the various positions of the urn, in -her manner of presenting it to the Romans, or of raising it up -to the gods in the act of supplication, was most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> classically -graceful. Every change of dress, principally of the head, to suit -the different situations in which she successively presented -herself, was performed instantaneously with the most perfect -ease, and without retiring or scarcely turning aside a moment -from the spectators. In the last scene of this beautiful piece of -pantomime, she appeared with a young lady of the company who was -to personate a daughter. Her action in this part was so perfectly -just and natural, and so pathetically addressed to the spectators -as to draw tears from several of the company.</p></blockquote> - -<p>When the character of the Roman dress is remembered, it is difficult -to believe that the representative of Agrippina was in the condition -noticed by Dr. Pettigrew.</p> - -<p>The final separation between Nelson and his wife took place in the -January of 1801. The last scene between the latter is thus described by -a yet living witness, Mr. Haslewood:—</p> - -<blockquote><p>In the winter of 1800-1, I was breakfasting with Lord and Lady -Nelson at their lodgings in Arlington Street, and a cheerful -conversation was passing on indifferent subjects when Lord -Nelson spoke of something which had been done or said by ‘dear -Lady Hamilton,’ upon which Lady Nelson rose from her chair and -exclaimed, with much vehemence—‘I am sick of hearing of dear -Lady Hamilton, and am resolved that you shall give up either her -or me.’ Lord Nelson, with perfect calmness, said—‘Take care, -Fanny, what you say; I love you sincerely, but I cannot forget my -obligations to Lady Hamilton, or speak of her otherwise than with -affection and admiration.’ Without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> one soothing word or gesture, -but muttering something about her mind being made up, Lady Nelson -left the room, and, shortly after, drove from the house. They -never lived together afterwards. I believe that Lord Nelson took -a formal leave of her ladyship before joining the fleet under Sir -Hyde Parker.</p></blockquote> - -<p>Dr. Pettigrew cites this letter of Mr. Haslewood to show that the -separation was unavoidable on Lord Nelson’s part: it appears to us -to have been inevitable and necessary. Perhaps the strangest part of -this incident is that Nelson’s family closely attached themselves -to Lady Hamilton. We must make exception, however, of the still -stranger incident—namely, the birth of Lady Hamilton’s daughter at -her residence in Piccadilly, the absence of all attempt to confer the -honours of paternity on Sir William, and the consequent mystification. -The birth took place about the last day of January 1801. The child was -conveyed to a nurse about a week or ten days afterwards, and was not -the home companion of its guilty parents until 1803, after the death -of Sir William Hamilton. Nelson’s daughter was recently alive, and was -formerly married to Captain Ward, late of the 81st regiment.</p> - -<p>Before the death of Sir William Hamilton, Lord Nelson had made his -house their common residence. At the death of the former, he, with -something of an affected decency, quitted it for private lodgings. Sir -William left his widow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> totally unprovided for. He thought, as Nelson -thought, that the Government would not hesitate to make her an ample -provision for her services. In the meantime, waiting for an event that -was never to occur, Lord Nelson purchased Merton. It is yet the object -of many a sailor’s pilgrimage, and is about ten minutes’ walk from the -Wimbledon station. Here he offered the deserted widow and the mother of -his child a refuge—nay, more, a home. It was such to her; for there -she enjoyed the homage and respect not only of every member of Nelson’s -family, but also of the great and good of the exterior world. Never was -woman placed in so anomalous a condition, in which the anomaly was so -carefully concealed from herself and unheeded by the world.</p> - -<p>It should have had the realities of the virtue of which it bore so well -the semblance. That it had not was, perhaps, one of the causes why -it endured so brief a space. It is most touching to read the letters -of Nelson, cited by Dr. Pettigrew, and written to his child’s mother -<i>at home</i>. The heavy responsibilities connected with Trafalgar, the -anxieties coming thick and fast, the duties he had to fulfil—none of -these things rendered him forgetful of his treasure. For the safety of -one little life his heart beat as only a parent’s heart <i>can</i> beat; -and while meditating the array of battle, in which his own life was -to cloud the splendour of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> victory, he found leisure to send home -detailed instructions how a substantial netting should be raised in -the grounds of Merton to preserve little Horatia from falling into a -pond ambitiously called the <i>Nile</i>. There wanted but one thing to give -holiness to Nelson’s character as a father.</p> - -<p>To this, as to all his worldly glory, and to all the felicity that had -hitherto rested upon Merton, a sudden termination was given by the -fatal ball which struck him, when his glory was greatest, on the deck -of the <i>Victory</i>, at Trafalgar. The last request of such a man, made -in such an hour, and amid such a triumph, purchased by him with his -heart’s blood—the dying request of such a man ought to have been held -sacred by his country. For five years Lady Hamilton struggled on at -Merton: she made application to every source, but she applied in vain. -The recompense justly due to her for services rendered was withheld or -denied under the most shabby and futile pretences. The worst of all, -perhaps, was the pretence, or the plea, of the length of time that had -expired since the service itself was rendered!</p> - -<p>In a codicil annexed to his will, and made by Nelson as he was about to -enter into action at Trafalgar, the Admiral, with a strong feeling that -death was near him, asked two favours of his King and Country in whose -defence he was about to offer up his own life—one was, protection -and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> provision for Lady Hamilton, whose late husband was the King’s -foster-brother; the other, goodwill for his ‘adopted daughter.’ He -solemnly bequeathed both to his sovereign and his fellow-countrymen. -When the will was proved, this codicil was held back by the Rev. -William Nelson, although he and his family had been partaking of Lady -Hamilton’s hospitality for months. Indeed, during six years, she was -a second mother to his children, to whom he recommended Lady Hamilton -as an example and enjoined obedience to her as an instructress. ‘The -Earl (says Dr. Pettigrew—for the reverend gentleman was created an -earl) fearful that Lady Hamilton should be provided for in the sum -Parliament was expected to grant to uphold the hero’s name and family, -kept the codicil in his pocket until the day 120,000<i>l.</i> was voted -for that purpose. On that day he dined with Lady Hamilton in Clarges -Street, and, hearing at table what had been done, he brought forward -the codicil, and, throwing it to Lady Hamilton, coarsely said she might -now do with it as she pleased. She had it registered the next day at -Doctors’ Commons, where it is now to be seen.’</p> - -<p>With insufficient means to live in her old dignity at Merton, and with -little knowledge of how to make the best of those means, accustomed to -find others her stewards and unused to provide for hours of necessity, -she at length found herself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> compelled to make an assignment of the -home which Nelson had established for her and their child. She removed -to Richmond, and, subsequently, had lodgings in Bond Street. Pursued -by creditors, without her child for whom she had no home—and for -whom such protection as she could give was not that which a child -most needed—she led a miserable life, which was hardly rendered more -miserable by her incarceration, in 1813, in the King’s Bench. She -passed ten months in this captivity, and was only relieved at last -by the humanity of Alderman Smith. With freedom came no measure of -happiness: utterly destitute, and abandoned by those who in the days of -her prosperity professed to be her slaves, she fled the country that -would not aid her, and sought succour in a foreign land. She found -shelter, and nothing more, in Calais, in a miserable house, kindly lent -her, however, by a Monsieur de Rheims. That it was only shelter, and -nothing else, may be inferred from the following account handed to Dr. -Pettigrew by the lady who enacts in it so graceful a part:—</p> - -<blockquote><p>Mrs. Hunter was in the habit of ordering meat daily at a butcher’s -for a little dog, and on one of these occasions was met by -Monsieur de Rheims, who followed her exclaiming, ‘Ah, Madam!—ah, -Madam! I know you to be good to the English. There is a lady here -who would be glad of the worst bit of meat you provide for your -dog.’ When questioned as to who the lady was, and promising that -she should not want for anything, he declined telling,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> saying -that she was too proud to see anyone, and that besides he had -promised her secrecy. Mrs. Hunter begged him to provide her with -everything she required, &c., as if coming from himself, and she -would pay for it. This he did for some time, until she became very -ill, when he pressed her to see the lady who had been so kind to -her; and, upon hearing that her benefactress was not a person of -title, she consented, saw her, thanked her, and blessed her.</p></blockquote> - -<p>Shortly after this her infirmities increased, and ultimately she died -at Calais of water on the chest, on January 15, 1815. Dr. Pettigrew -gives no credence to the report of an anonymous foreign writer that she -had been converted to the Romish faith, and had received the sacrament -from a Romish priest as long before as during her confinement in the -King’s Bench. That she died, as the same anonymous author reported, in -the bosom of the Catholic Church, and received its sacraments on her -death-bed, can be as little confirmed. The Romish Church would have -buried a convert with willing ceremony: as it was, the method of the -sad solemnity was thus ordered for one who, even in death, remained, as -described by Mrs. Hunter, exceedingly beautiful:—</p> - -<blockquote><p>Mrs. Hunter was anxious to have her interred according to English -custom, for which, however, she was only laughed at; and poor -Emma was put into a deal-box without any inscription. All that -this good lady states that she was permitted to do was to make a -kind of pall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> out of her black silk petticoat stitched on a white -curtain. Not an English Protestant clergyman was to be found in -all Calais or its vicinity; and, so distressed was this lady to -find some one to read the burial service over her remains, that -she went to an Irish half-pay officer in the Rue du Havre, whose -wife was a well-informed Irish lady. He was absent at the time; -but, being sent for, most kindly went and read the service over -the body. Lady Hamilton was buried in a piece of ground in a spot -just outside the town, formerly called the gardens of the Duchess -of Kingston, which had been consecrated and was used as a public -cemetery till 1816. The ground, which had neither wall nor fence -to protect it, was some years since converted into a timber-yard, -and no traces of the graves now remain. Mrs. Hunter wished to have -placed a head or foot-stone, but was refused. She, therefore, -placed a piece of wood in the shape, as she describes it to me, -of a battledore, handle downwards, on which was inscribed ‘Emma -Hamilton, England’s friend.’ This was speedily removed—another -placed and also removed; and the good lady at length threatened -to be shot by the sentinel if she persisted in those offices of -charity. A small tombstone was, however, afterwards placed there, -and was existing in 1833.</p></blockquote> - -<p>To the latter assertion we may remark that no tombstone was existing -there in the month of August of the latter year. We searched the field -very narrowly for the purpose, and found but one record of the decease -of an English sojourner. The grave itself was pointed out to us by a -Calaisian, but its locality was only traditionary.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> About nine pounds’ -worth of effects, twelve shillings in money, a few clothes, and some -duplicates of pawned plate were all that was left by the companion and -friend of queens. Little as it was, the Reverend Earl Nelson hastened -to Calais to claim it. He expected more, and in his cupidity wished to -take the pledged trinkets without paying the necessary expenses for -getting them out of pawn; he would not even discharge the few debts -incurred by her death. These were discharged by Mr. Cadogan, to whom -Horatia was entrusted (Mrs. Matcham, Nelson’s sister, receiving her -after Lady Hamilton’s decease), and to whom, as to Alderman Smith, the -forlorn creature was indebted for much aid ere death placed her beyond -the need of requiring it.</p> - -<p>This tale bears with it its own moral: retribution followed offence: -the commission of sin reaped its usual reward; the wanderer from -virtue was visited with terrible affliction; and the penalty awaited -not its commencement till the knell of the offender had summoned -her to judgment. Thus much man knows, but with thus much he has not -condescended to rest satisfied; and the sons of the seducers have been -eager to cast stones at her whom their fathers enticed to sin. In the -remembrance of her faults they make no account of her services, of her -suffering, or of her sorrows; they have no idea that, if there was -guilt, there might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> have been reconciliation, and that the dark season -of her long last agony might have been passed in</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>Owning her weakness,</div> -<div class="i1">Her evil behaviour,</div> -<div>And leaving with meekness,</div> -<div class="i1">Her sins to her Saviour.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>No: man who bore part in the offence constituted himself the judge of -this poor daughter of frailty, and she met with such mercy at his hands -as man is accustomed to give.</p> - -<p>Do not let it be supposed that we are advocates or even apologists in -this case: our only anxiety is that, in the sacrifice of one, impunity -may not be gained by, perhaps, greater offenders. Let not the man who -flung her beauty and her virtue into ruin be allowed to escape. Her -sins were of man’s making: if these are to be remembered, let his share -in them form part of the example we are taught to avoid. By man she -was ruined in body and perilled in soul. Throughout the course of her -life she does not appear to have met with one who acted by her in a -spirit of Christian charity and anxiety: she was born with qualities -that should have led her heavenward: she was early pushed from the -path thither tending; nor amid all her royal, her noble, and alas! -her clerical companions, was there one who persuaded her that she was -erring—nay, but the contrary.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> The whole correspondence, now for the -first time divulged in these volumes, shows the wickedness of men -who could seduce to sin—their guilt in maintaining such terms with -her who had fallen as to make her feel assured that she had neither -incurred sin nor merited disgrace—and their baseness in making her in -her helplessness feel with double weight the penalty of a crime which -they had in the days of her greatness held to be none. Let us, indeed, -learn wisdom from a tale, the heroine of which does not afford the -sole example that is to be avoided; but be it also ours to remember -her services rather than her sins. The latter, with those of the first -seducer who made of her very charity a means to destroy her for ever, -may be left to Him who will render an unerring sentence when seducer -and victim are in presence together at the tribunal of truth. At all -events, let not the hardest blows of humanity fall on the weakest -offender. She would have been better but for man—that she was not much -worse was for no lack of energy on his part to make her so.</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>Who made the heart, ’tis He alone</div> -<div class="i1">Decidedly can try us:</div> -<div>He knows each chord, its various tone—</div> -<div class="i1">Each spring, its various bias.</div> -<div>Then at the balance let’s be mute,</div> -<div class="i1">We never can adjust it.</div> -<div>What’s <i>done</i> we partly can compute,</div> -<div class="i1">But know not what’s resisted.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2">[2]</a> Graham first appeared in London in 1782. He was a graduate -of Edinburgh, wrote in a bombastic style, and possessed a great fluency -of elocution. He opened in Pall Mall a mansion which he called the -‘Temple of Health.’ The front was ornamented with an enormous gilt -sun, a statue of Hygeia, &c. The rooms were superbly furnished, and -the decorations, mirrors, &c., gave to the whole the appearance of an -enchanted palace. Single admission to his lectures on health and the -birth of children cost two guineas—a sum readily given. The Goddess -of Health usually delivered a supplementary lecture when the doctor -concluded. When two guinea auditors were exhausted, his two gigantic -porters, decked in gorgeous liveries, deluged the town with bills -stating that the lectures would be delivered at one guinea each. The -descending scale ultimately reached half-a-crown, and at last he -exhibited the Temple of Health itself at one shilling per head. Its -chief attraction was a ‘celestial bed,’ with rich hangings and glass -legs. The quack promised such results from merely sleeping on this -enchanted couch that married persons of high rank and respectability -were known to have given one hundred pounds for the accommodation. -Persons more foolish still and as highly exalted were found who gave -him one thousand pounds for a supply of his ‘elixir of life.’ He -then, when dupes were not grown scarce, but required variety in the -means of imposition, took to the practice and public exhibition of -earth-bathing. He and his goddess stood an hour each day immersed to -the chin in earth, above which their heads appeared, dressed in the -extravagant fashion of the day. In this position he delivered a lecture -on the salubrity of the practice at sums for single admissions which -commenced at a guinea and ended at a shilling. When all London had -heard and seen him he made a provincial tour; but, in spite of his -elixir of life, he died at the early age of fifty-two; and, in spite -of the facility with which he gained money, he died in poverty. The -famous Mrs. Macaulay married his brother, and Dr. Arnold, of Leicester, -the author of an able treatise on insanity, married his sister. In the -profession of the most impudent quackery Dr. Graham has never been -equalled, either for impudence or the success which attended it.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>EDWARD WORTLEY MONTAGU.</i></h2> - -<p>Lady Mary Pierrepont, when she wrote to Mr. Wortley touching the -death of his sister, said she had lost what she loved most, and could -thenceforth only love those who were nearest and dearest to her -departed friend. Out of this hint, it may be, came the marriage of Lady -Mary and Mr. Wortley. It seemed a disinterested match on both sides, -but it was not fruitful in happiness. Of this union were born a son and -daughter; the mother reserved all her love for the latter.</p> - -<p>The son was born in May 1713. Within two months from that date Lady -Mary had left her firstborn to mercenary, but perhaps efficient and -kindly care. In July she wrote to her husband, ‘I heard from your -little boy yesterday, who is in good health.’ In that phrase, so cold -in its unmotherly temper, may perhaps be found the cause why that -‘little boy’ became so wayward, and why he developed into a man so -wilful and so irreclaimable. In 1717 the boy was taken by his parents -to Constantinople, where Mr. Wortley<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> acted, for a few months, as -English representative. On the return from this embassy, Lady Mary -tarried for a while at Belgrade. At that time the small-pox was a -deadly scourge in England. In Turkey it was less mortal. The infidel -Turk anticipated and modified the disease by inoculation. Lady Mary had -the courage to submit her child to the novel system of ‘engrafting,’ as -it was called. In a letter written at Belgrade in March 1718 she says: -‘The boy was engrafted last Tuesday, and is at this time singing and -playing, very impatient for his supper. I pray God my next may give as -good an account of him.’ For society at large the step which Lady Mary -took was most beneficial; but few mothers, however courageous, would -have had the heart, in a foreign land too, to suffer such an experiment -to be made on an only son, not yet five years of age. She had, however, -full confidence in the efficacy of the proceeding: and she remarked -that she would have imparted the matter to the doctors generally, only -that they were too selfish to sanction a course which would diminish -their incomes!</p> - -<p>In the following year commenced the daring escapades of this young -gentleman. In 1719 he became a Westminster Scholar. Within six months -he was missing from the school, and his friends had such knowledge -of his tastes that they searched for him in the lowest purlieus of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> -London. They sought for this mere child in vain; till after some time -a Mr. Foster and a servant of Mr. Wortley, being in the neighbourhood -of Blackwall, heard a boy crying ‘Fish!’ The voice was familiar, the -boy, on being seen, was recognised, and his master, a fisherman, to -whom the child—so it is said—had bound himself to help to sell the -fish which they had caught together, parted from him with a regret that -was felt on both sides. The truant was reinstated at school, if not at -home, but in a brief time the bird was flown and left no trace behind -him. A year or two, perhaps more, had elapsed when the Quaker captain -of a ship trading to Oporto, and the British consul in that city, were -looking at a young fellow driving some laden asses from the vineyards -through the city gates. The captain saw in the lad a sailor who had -come on board in the Thames, and run away from his ship on its arrival -at Oporto. He had gone up country and found employment, although he was -ignorant of the language. The consul knew him in his real personality, -and the adventurous hero was shipped for home, where he was kept not -so strictly as if the keepers would be sorry at his again escaping. -Edward Wortley took a convenient opportunity to do so, and when he was -next recognised he was acting diligently, as he had always done, this -time as a common sailor in the Mediterranean. There<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> was the making -of a hero in this resolute boy, if he had only been allowed to follow -his inclinations. On the contrary, he was exiled to the West Indies, -with Foster to attend him as teacher and guardian. They spent several -years there; and the boy, who preferred to battle with and for life, -to spending it in ease and luxury, had nothing to do but to study -the classics, which he did, as he did most things, with energy and a -certain success. How he failed, or neglected to leave Foster in the -lurch, is not explained. Neither do we know anything of his actual life -after his return to England, for many years. Had he been left at sea, -Edward Wortley would probably have distinguished himself. As it was he -abused life, but only as other ‘young sparks’ did in England; and he -filled up the measure of his offences by marrying a handsome honest -laundress, older than himself, of whom he got tired in a few weeks. A -small annuity reconciled her to living comfortably by herself. After -this, all is dark, and we cannot come again upon the trail but by the -help of Lady Mary’s letters.</p> - -<p>There are few references made to her son by Lady Mary, except in -letters to her husband when she was living abroad, ranging from 1741 -to 1752. In a letter from Genoa, in 1741, she regrets having to bring -before her husband ‘so disagreeable a subject as our son.’ The son -was then anxious to procure a dissolution of his marriage with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> -laundress, but the laundress was a decent woman, living a blameless -life, and she could defy Parliament to pass an Act annulling her -marriage, even if the father had been willing to help the son to such -purpose, which he was not. The mother was unmotherly severe on the son. -‘Time,’ she writes, ‘has no effect, and it’s impossible to convince him -of his true situation.’ The son then passed by an assumed name. The -name being mentioned to Lady Mary by a stranger, with reference to the -responsibility of the bearer of it, she replied, ‘the person was, to my -knowledge, not worth a groat, which was all I thought proper to say on -the subject.’</p> - -<p>In 1742 this ‘fool of quality’ was now wandering, now tarrying on the -Continent, under the name of M. de Durand. In the June of that year -his mother encountered him, and passed two days with him at Valence, -an ancient city on the Rhone. In various letters to her husband, -she speaks of ‘our son’ as altered almost beyond recognition, with -beauty gone, a look of age not warranted by his years, and, though -submissive, with an increase of the old wildness in his eyes that -shocked her, as it suggested some fatal termination. He had grown fat, -but was still genteel and agreeably polite. She was charmed with his -fluently-expressed French, but she noted a general volubility, yet -without enthusiasm, of speech, which <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>inconsiderate people took for -wit; and a weakness of understanding and of purpose, exposing him to be -led by more resolute spirits. ‘With his head,’ she says, ‘I believe it -is possible to make him a monk one day and a Turk three days after.’ -Flattering and insinuating, he caught the favour of strangers, ‘but,’ -says the not too-indulgent lady, ‘he began to talk to me in the usual -silly cant I have so often heard from him, which I shortened by telling -him I desired not to be troubled with it; and that the only thing that -could give me hopes of good conduct was regularity and truth.’ She -credited him with ‘a superficial universal knowledge,’ as the result of -what he had seen. His acquaintance with modern languages was undoubted, -but she did not believe that he knew Arabic and Hebrew. He promised to -proceed to Flanders, and there wait his father’s orders; adding, that -he would keep secret the interview with his mother; but M. de Durand -‘rode straight to Montélimart, where he told at the Assembly that he -came into this country purely on my orders ... talking much of my -kindness to him, and insinuating that he had another name, much more -considerable than that he appeared with.’</p> - -<p>Edward Wortley was in England in the early part of the above year. -In the latter part he went to Holland, where he resided, a sort of -prisoner at large, by desire of his father, who allowed him a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> small -income on condition of submission to the paternal will. ‘I hear,’ wrote -Lady Mary, ‘he avoided coming near the sharpers, and is grown a good -manager of his money. I incline to think he will, for the future, avoid -thieves and other persons of good credit.’ When persons of really ‘good -credit’ spoke well of him, as Lord Carteret did, the mother rather -doubted than accepted the testimony. ‘Whenever,’ she wrote to her -husband, ‘he kept much company, it would be right to get him confined, -to prevent his going to the pillory or the gallows;’ and she described -his excuses for his conduct as ‘those of murderers and robbers!’ Young -Wortley was desirous of joining the army in Flanders; his mother -doubted his sincerity, and insisted that he should go as a volunteer. -If his father bought him a commission, she was sure it would be ‘pawned -or sold in a twelvemonth.’ Whether as volunteer or commissioned -officer, he did serve in Flanders. No news to grieve a parent’s heart -came thence; upon which circumstance Lady Mary wrote to her husband in -1744: ‘I think it is an ill sign you have had no letters from Sir John -Cope concerning him. I have no doubt he would be glad to commend his -conduct if there were any room for it;’ and she was inclined to blame -the father for over-indulgence to his son. She had no sympathy even for -the amiable weaknesses of the latter; and yet she was so sentimentally -affected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> by the tragedy of ‘George Barnwell,’ the rascal hero of which -murders his real uncle in order to gratify the rapacity of a harlot, -that she said, whoever could read the story or see the play without -crying, deserved to be hanged.</p> - -<p>Edward Wortley’s countrymen did not think so ill of Lady Mary’s son; -for in 1747 the electors of Huntingdonshire returned him, with Mr. -Coulson Fellowes, member for the county. He was a silent but highly -respectable member. In the year 1748 Mr. Wortley, the father, wrote -to his wife some pleasant news he had heard of their son. The mother -coldly replied, ‘I should be extremely pleased if I could depend on -Lord Sandwich’s account of our son. As I am wholly unacquainted with -him, I cannot judge how far he may be either deceived or interested.’ -This singular mother cultivated her antipathies rather than her -sympathies. The father seems to have considered his paternal duty was -discharged by, wisely perhaps, keeping his son on a small allowance. -The son lived as if he had already his inheritance in hand, and for a -year or two he found society in London quite to his mind.</p> - -<p>Among the ladies who figured on the Mall by day, who drew crowds around -them at Vauxhall by night, and who were never out of the ‘Scandalous -Chronicle’ of the period, was the ‘Pollard Ashe,’ as she was called. -This miniature beauty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> was in some measure a mysterious individual. She -was the daughter of a high personage, it was said, and such affinity -was all she had to boast of in the way of family. In the June of 1750, -Walpole thus wrote of her to George Montagu:</p> - -<blockquote><p>I had a card from Lady Caroline Petersham, to go with her to -Vauxhall. I went accordingly to her house, and found her and the -little Ashe ... they had just finished their last layer of red, -and looked as handsome as crimson could make them.... We issued -into the Mall to assemble our company, which was all the town.... -We mustered the Duke of Kingston, Lord March (the old Second -Duke of Queensbury of later years), Mr. Whitehead, a pretty Miss -Beauclerc, and a very foolish Miss Sparre.... We got into the best -order we could, and marched to our barge, with a boat of French -horns attending and little Ashe singing. We paraded some time up -the river, and at last debarked at Vauxhall.... A Mrs. Lloyd, -seeing the two girls following Lady Petersham and Miss Ashe, said -aloud, ‘Poor girls! I am sorry to see them in such bad company!’ -Miss Sparre, who desired nothing so much as the fun of seeing a -duel—a thing which, though she is fifteen, she has never been so -lucky to see—took due pains to make Lord March resent this ... -but he laughed her out of this charming frolic. Here we picked up -Lord Granby ... very drunk.... He would fain have made love to -Miss Beauclerc, who is very modest; and did not know what to do -at all with his whispers or his hands. He then addressed himself -to the Sparre, who was very well disposed to receive both.... At -last, we assembled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> in our booth, Lady Caroline in our front, -with the vizor of her hat erect, and looking gloriously jolly -and handsome.... We turned some chicken into a china dish, which -Lady Caroline stewed over a lamp, with three pats of butter and a -flagon of water, stirring, and rattling, and laughing, and were -every minute expecting to have the dish fly about our ears.... -The whole air of our party was sufficient to take up the whole -attention of the garden.... It was three o’clock before we got -home.</p></blockquote> - -<p>Very early in the year 1751 our hero made love to Miss Ashe, and at the -same time appeared in public as the first ‘macaroni’ of the day, but -with science and philosophy enough to render him worthy of being taken -into brotherhood by the Royal Society. On February 9, 1751, Walpole -writes:</p> - -<blockquote><p>Our greatest miracle is Lady Mary Wortley’s son, whose adventures -have made so much noise; his parts are not proportionate, but his -expense is incredible. His father scarce allows him anything; yet -he plays, dresses, diamonds himself, even to distinct shoe-buckles -for a frock, and has more snuff-boxes than would suffice a Chinese -idol with a hundred noses. But the most curious part of his dress, -which he has brought from Paris, is an iron wig; you literally -would not know it from hair; I believe it is on this account that -the Royal Society have just chosen him of their body.</p></blockquote> - -<p>His father, however, made no complaint of his son in his letters to his -wife. The anxious mother invariably concluded that when nothing was -said there was something to be dreaded. Accordingly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> in a letter to -her husband, dated May 1751, Lady Mary writes:</p> - -<p>(May 24, 1751.) ‘I can no longer resist the desire I have to know what -is become of my son. I have long suppressed it, from a belief that, -if there was anything good to be told, you would not fail to give me -the pleasure of hearing it. I find it now grows so much upon me, that -whatever I am to know, I think it would be easier for me to support -than the anxiety I suffer from my doubts. I beg to be informed, and -prepare myself for the worst with all the philosophy I have.’</p> - -<p>Her son was not in such a desperate condition as his mother supposed. -The new Fellow of the Royal Society was simply making love to ‘the -Pollard Ashe.’ In the summer of this year, 1751, Vauxhall and the -Mall missed her; but the world knew very well whither she had wended, -and with whom. In September 1751 Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu wrote to -her husband: ‘Young Wortley is gone to France with Miss Ashe. He is -certainly a gentleman of infinite vivacity; but methinks he might as -well have deferred this exploit till the death of his father.’ Walpole -wrote to Mann that ‘Wortley, who, you know, has been a perfect Gil -Blas, is thought to have added the famous Miss Ashe to the number of -his wives.’</p> - -<p>While London was busy with the story of the elopement of Miss Ashe -with Edward Wortley<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> Montagu, and this rather airy couple were on -their amorous way to Paris, there was a young Mr. Roberts, not yet -quite twenty-one years of age, sojourning at the <i>Hôtel d’Orléans</i> in -that city, with a Miss Rose for a companion, Miss Rose’s sister for a -friend, and various servants to wait on all three. Roberts lived like -a <i>milor</i>, and he gave out that he was about to make the grand tour to -Italy and back. Montagu’s quarters were at the <i>Hôtel de Saxe</i>. Roberts -was a stranger to him, but Montagu not only called upon the wealthy -traveller, on September 23, but sent him an invitation to dinner. The -company consisted of Roberts, Lord Southwell, Mr. Taafe, M.P., and -Montagu, who was also a member of the House of Commons. After coffee -the party adjourned to Montagu’s room. Taafe produced dice and proposed -play. Roberts declined, on the ground of being without money; but this -and other pleas were overruled, and, ‘flustered with wine,’ which he -said he had been made to drink, he sat down to tempt fortune. Fortune -used this gambler ill; when he rose to return to his hotel he had lost -870 louis d’ors—400 to Taafe, 350 to Southwell, and 120 to Montagu. -Taafe speedily demanded the amount he had won, and not finding it -forthcoming the British legislator, with Lord Southwell, broke into -his room about midnight, and under dreadful threats, made with swords -drawn, compelled him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> to give drafts for the entire sum. The crafty -Roberts, however, drew upon bankers with whom he had no effects; and, -probably that he might be out of reach of arrest till he could give an -explanation, he hurriedly set off for Lyons.</p> - -<p>The bird had just flown when the three more fortunate gamblers, their -drafts having been dishonoured, forcibly entered Roberts’s rooms and -rifled them of everything valuable—a large sum in gold and silver, a -very valuable assortment of jewellery and precious stones, and the two -Miss Roses. There was 40,000 livres’ worth in all, not including the -sisters. One of these ladies consented with alacrity to accompany Mr. -Taafe, with his other booty, to his quarters at the <i>Hôtel de Pérou</i>. -The sister went thither also, for society’s sake, and after a three -days’ sojourn Taafe kissed their hands and sent them to England under -the guardianship of another gentleman.</p> - -<p>Perfect tranquillity prevailed among those who remained in Paris, but -on Sunday night, October 25, just before one o’clock, as Montagu was -stepping into bed with, as he says, ‘that security that ought to attend -innocence,’ a commissary of police, backed by an armed force, entered -his room, and, despite all protest, carried him off to the Châtelet. -Before they locked him up for the night, the gaolers would scarcely -utter a word save a rough one, and he could not get even a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> cup of -water. The night was cold, and a small bit of candle enabled him the -better to see the horrors of his cell. ‘The walls were scrawled over,’ -he says in the memoir he published, ‘with the vows and prayers of the -vilest malefactors before they went to the axe or the gibbet.’ Under -one of the inscriptions were the words: ‘These verses were written by -the priest who was hanged and burned, in the year 1717, for stealing a -chalice of the Holy Sacrament.’</p> - -<p>On November 2 the charge made by Roberts—namely, that Montagu’s party -had made him half drunk, the better to cheat him at dice, and had -subsequently plundered his rooms—was made known to him. ‘I answered,’ -he says, ‘in a manner that ought to have cleared my own innocence, and -to have covered my antagonist with confusion.’ But he was remanded -to prison. Some amelioration of his condition was permitted, and he -was allowed to be visited. Consequently it was the fashion to go and -look at him, but the solaces of his friends could not compensate for -the cruel wit, jeers, and sarcasms cast at him by curious strangers. -Influential persons interested themselves in this notorious case. The -English ambassador interfered with effect. The king, on being moved, -replied that he could not meddle in a private case; but a king can do -many things without appearing to meddle. The charge was again looked -into, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> the method of examination may be seen in the result. The -sentence of the court, delivered on January 25, 1752, was to the -effect that the accused be discharged; that Roberts be compelled to -confess the accusation to be false, also to pay 20,000 livres damages -to Montagu and Taafe; and pay all the costs of suit on both sides, -including the expense of publishing the judgment.</p> - -<p>As soon as Montagu was free, he published a memoir, explanatory and -defensive. It was not so much a denial as an evasion. It was made up of -assertions that he had ‘never deviated from the sentiments and conduct -of a man of honour;’ that regard ought to be had to ‘the probability -of the charges, the rank of the accused, and the character of the -prosecutor;’ that he was of ‘distinguished condition,’ and that his -accuser was infamous in character and inconsistent in his evidence; -that Lord Albemarle, the English ambassador, had told him that he was -as convinced of his innocence as he was of his own. Montagu protested -that the whole thing was a conspiracy ‘against his Honour and Person,’ -at the head of which was the so-called Roberts, whom he had discovered -to be a fraudulent bankrupt Jew, Payba by name, who had fled from -England to avoid the gallows. Montagu acknowledged that he had invited -this ‘infamous bankrupt’ to dinner, but that, instead of winning 120 -louis d’ors of him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> he had formerly lent that sum to the Jew, who had -‘trumped up this story in order to evade payment.’ He had made the -first call on the <i>soi-disant</i> Mr. Roberts, taking him for a man of -fashion, and it was the custom for the last comer to make such calls -in his neighbourhood, and not to wait to be called upon; and the visit -having been returned the invitation to dinner naturally followed. As -to playing after dinner, Montagu does not deny it; but he says that -the imputation of playing with loaded dice filled him with horror. The -conclusion of the so-named defence is that, as the judgment of the -court was so completely in favour of Montagu and Taafe, the innocence -of those two gentlemen was perfectly established.</p> - -<p>Before we see if this was exactly the case, let us see what was thought -of the affair in England. The public press barely alluded to the -scandal, and were not at all grieved at the locking up of a couple of -British senators in a French prison. Private individuals noticed the -scandal in their letters.</p> - -<p>In October 1751, Mrs. Montagu wrote to Gilbert West some details of -the gambling affair and its consequences. She described the offence -of Montagu and Taafe as ‘playing with a Jew at Pharaoh, with too much -<i>finesse</i>.’</p> - -<blockquote><p><i>Finesse</i> (she adds) is a pretty improvement in modern life and -modern language. It is something people may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> do without being -hanged, and speak of without being challenged. It is a point just -beyond fair skill and just short of downright knavery; but as the -medium is ever hard to hit, the very professors of finesse do -sometimes deviate into paths that lead to prisons and the galleys, -and such is the case of those unhappy heroes. The Speaker of the -House of Commons will be grieved to see two illustrious senators -chained at the ignoble oar. The King of France has been applied -to, but says he does not interpose in private matters. So how it -will go with them no one can tell. In the meantime, poor Miss Ashe -weeps like the forsaken Ariadne on a foreign shore.</p></blockquote> - -<p>The conduct of Edward Wortley in England was noticed by his father, in -a letter to Lady Mary, who, replying to it in a letter from Louveres -(November 10, 1751), when the Paris scandal was known, says:—‘I will -not make any reflections on the conduct of the person you mention; ’tis -a subject too melancholy to us both. I am of opinion that tallying at -bassette is a certain revenue (even without cheating) to those who -can get constant punters and are able to submit to the drudgery of -it; but I never knew any one pursue it long and preserve a tolerable -reputation.’ Therewith, the mother dismissed further notice of her -wayward son to talk of an old woman at the baths of Louveres, who -in her hundredth year had recovered sight, teeth, and hair, and who -had died ten years later, not of age, but of tumbling down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> a stone -staircase; something like the apocryphal Countess of Desmond:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>Who lived to the age of a hundred and ten,</div> -<div>And died of a fall from a cherry-tree then.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Even after the son had escaped the galleys, the mother made no -references to the circumstance in a letter to her daughter, the -Countess of Bute (February 1752), but was full of ‘Peregrine Pickle’ -and of the rather lively sayings and doings of Lady Vane.</p> - -<p>As the maternal susceptibilities were not much ruffled, the sympathy -of the public was not to be expected. We learn more from Walpole than -from Lady Mary. In November 1751, Walpole, writing to Mann, remarks -that all the letters from Paris were very ‘cautious of relating the -circumstances.’ He styles Montagu and Taafe as the ‘two <i>gentlemen</i> -who were pharaoh-bankers to Madame de Mirepoix’ in England, and ‘who -had travelled to France to exercise the same profession.’ Walpole -adds that they had ‘been released on excessive bail, are still to -be tried, and may be sent to the galleys or dismissed home, where -they will be reduced to keep the best company; for,’ says Walpole, -‘I suppose nobody else will converse with them.’ The letter-writer -describes Montagu as having been a ‘perfect Gil Blas,’ and as having -added ‘the famous Miss Ashe to the number of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> his wives.’ Walpole says -of Taafe, ‘He is an Irishman, who changed his religion to fight a -duel, as you know in Ireland a Catholic may not wear a sword.’ But as -Taafe was M.P. for Arundel when Catholics could not sit in Parliament, -it is quite as probable that Taafe changed, or professed to change, -his religion—if he had any religion—that he might become a borough -member. ‘He is,’ writes Walpole, ‘a gamester, usurer, adventurer, -and of late has divided his attentions between the Duke of Newcastle -and Madame de Pompadour; travelling with turtles and pineapples in -post-chaises to the latter, flying back to the former for Lewes races -and smuggling burgundy at the same time.’ The Speaker was railing at -gaming and White’s apropos to these two prisoners. Lord Coke, to whom -the conversation was addressed, replied: ‘Sir, all I can say is, that -they are both members of the House of Commons, and neither of them of -White’s.’</p> - -<p>While ‘society’ was discussing this matter, Miss Ashe reappeared in -England and reassumed her former distinguished position. In December -1751, the town witnessed the happy reconciliation of Miss Ashe with -the gay Lady Petersham, who had been offended at the indiscretion of -the younger nymph. Lady Petersham’s principles were very elastic: -she pardoned the Pollard Ashe on her own assurances that she was ‘as -good as married’ to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> Mr. Wortley Montagu, who, according to Lord -Chesterfield, seemed ‘so puzzled between the <i>châtelet</i> in France and -his wife in England, that it is not yet known in favour of which he -will determine.’</p> - -<p>Soon after Lord Chesterfield’s flying comment on the Ariadne who had -really abandoned her Theseus, ‘society’ received her to its arms as -readily as Lady Petersham. The example of both was followed by one -individual. A certain naval officer, named Falconer, made an honest -woman of the Pollard Ashe; and with this marriage ends our interest in -one of the many ‘wives’ of the English Gil Blas.</p> - -<p>If some surprise was raised by the judgment given in favour of Montagu -and Taafe, none need exist at present. The two gentlemen who were such -useful friends at the pharaoh tables of Madame de Mirepoix, the French -ambassadress in England, and one of whom supplied Madame de Pompadour, -the French King’s mistress, with turtle and pineapples, could dispense -with the good offices of Louis the Fifteenth, or perhaps obtained them -through the mistress and the ambassadress. But Abraham Payba, <i>alias</i> -James Roberts, possessed as influential friends as Taafe and Montagu. -Payba appealed against the judgment, his appeal was successful, and -the two English members of Parliament stood very much in danger of the -galleys. In their turn,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> however, they appealed against the legality of -quashing the judgment given in their favour. The question came once or -twice before the courts, and then it ceased to be argued. It would seem -as if powerful friends on both sides had interfered. Each party could -claim a decision in its favour and could boast of honour being saved, -but the public feeling was that they were all rogues alike.</p> - -<p>After the lapse of a few years, Wortley Montagu came into the -possession of a fixed income by the death of his father in 1755. He had -sold a reversion of 800<i>l.</i> a-year. His father now left him an annuity -of 1,000<i>l.</i> The disgrace of the Paris adventure was not altogether -forgotten, but Taafe was in favour at Versailles (by what lucky chance -nobody could tell), and Montagu, after a few years of pleasure, took to -better ways than of old. There seems to have come over the half-outcast -a determination to show the better side of his nature and his ability. -In 1759, he published his ‘Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the -Ancient Republics; adapted to the present State of Great Britain.’ In -this work—an able and spirited review of the republics of Greece, -Rome, and Carthage—the author probably stated his own idea of religion -in the words, ‘To search out and adore the Creator in all his works is -our primary duty, and claims the first place in every rational mind.’ -Two years subsequent to the publication of this most <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>creditable work, -certain Cornish men thought that Edward Wortley would be their most -fitting representative. In 1761, he was elected member for the borough -of Bossiney. But he was weary of England and the legislature, and he -resolved to leave both for ever.</p> - -<p>Before Mr. Montagu left England ‘for good’ in 1762, he made necessary -preparations for at least a long residence abroad. Among those -preparations the most curious may be said to be indicated in the -following copy of a bill of articles purchased at an optician’s. -Moses’s gross of green spectacles sinks into insignificance by the side -of the assortment of spectacles, reading-glasses, pocket telescopes, -&c., with which Mr. Montagu provided himself to meet the exigencies of -foreign travel. The bill is now in the possession of Lord Wharncliffe, -as are some of the articles enumerated. I am greatly indebted to -his lordship for a sight of both, and to the prompt courtesy of his -permission to copy and reproduce this very singular bill.</p> - -<table summary="bill"> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="left">‘<span class="smcap">Edwd. Wortley Montagu</span>, Esq.</td> - <td><i>Dr.</i> to <span class="smcap">G. Adams.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="left">1761</td> - <td>£ <i>s.</i> <i>d.</i></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><i>Dec. 23</i></td> - <td class="left">Six Ellis’s Microscopes at £2, in the Box<br /> -marked A</td> - <td>12 1 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">12 Reading Glasses, in horn boxes, at 4<i>s.</i><br /> -each, in the Box marked B.</td> - <td> 2 8 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">24 Reading Glasses, Ruff Shell and Silver,<br /> -at 18/<i>s.</i> in the Box C</td> - <td>22 16 0?</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">The large Reading glass in Ruff Shell and Silver,<br /> -in the Box C</td> - <td> 2 2 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>—</td> - <td class="left">12 Concave glasses in Ruff Shell and Silver,<br /> -at 9/<i>s.</i> in the Box C</td> - <td> 5 8 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">A Silver case inlaid with pearl</td> - <td> 2 2 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">With a pair of Silver Temple Spectacles, in<br /> -the Box C</td> - <td> 0 13 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">12 Pockett Tellescopes, Nurse Cases, 4<br /> -glasses mounted in Brass, at 16/<i>s.</i>, in the Box D </td> - <td> 9 12 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">24 Dozen of Concaves in horn boxes, at 18/<i>s.</i><br /> -per Doz<sup>n</sup>, in the Box E</td> - <td> 21 12 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">10 Doz<sup>n</sup> of Steel Temple Spectacles, at 2/<i>s.</i><br /> -each, in the Box F</td> - <td> 12 0 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">10 Doz<sup>n</sup> of paper cases to D<sup>o</sup>, at 4/<i>s.</i> per<br /> -Doz., in the Box G</td> - <td> 2 0 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">6 pair of the Best Steel Temple Spectacles,<br /> -in Black Fish Cases, at 7/<i>s.</i>, in the Box H</td> - <td> 2 2 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">6 pair D<sup>o</sup>, in Nurse Cases, at 7/13 = 20/<i>s.</i>,<br /> -in the Box H</td> - <td> 6 0 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">Six pair of Silver Temple Spectacles, in best<br /> -Nurse Cases, at 13/16 = 29/<i>s.</i>, in the Box marked H</td> - <td> 8 16 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">Six pair Steel Temple Spec., at 2/<i>s.</i></td> - <td> 0 12 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">Six paper cases to D<sup>o</sup>, Box H</td> - <td> 0 2 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">12 Camp Tellescopes, at 16/<i>s.</i> in the Box marked K</td> - <td> 9 12 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">6 Two foot Achromatic Tellescopes, at £2, in the Box L</td> - <td> 12 0 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">12 Ring Dials, at 10/6, in the Box M</td> - <td> 6 6 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">2 12-inch Reflecting Tellescopes</td> - <td> 9 9 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">Six metallic Cones, with Six Setts of<br /> -Deformed pictures, at £2 2 0, in the Box N</td> - <td> 12 12 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">Six pair of goglars, Box </td> - <td> 1 10 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">12 Reading glasses, in Mahogany frames<br /> -with handles, in the Box marked, at 14/<i>s.</i></td> - <td> 8 8 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">12 Leather purses to D<sup>o</sup></td> - <td> 0 4 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">6 Treble Magnifiers, in Ruff Shell and<br /> -Silver, at 25/s., in the Box marked H</td> - <td> 7 10 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">24 Black Skin prospects, at 1/6</td> - <td> 1 16 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>—</td> - <td class="left">24 D<sup>o</sup>, at 2/<i>s.</i></td> - <td> 2 8 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">Two thermometers to Boiling Water</td> - <td> 3 0 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">Two Brass Box Steering Compasses, with<br /> -Muscovy Tale Cards, 11 Inch.</td> - <td> 1 10 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">One D<sup>o</sup>, 10 Inches</td> - <td> 0 13 6</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center"></td> - <td class="left"></td> - <td>————</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center"></td> - <td class="left"></td> - <td>187 1 6</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">14 Small Deal Boxes</td> - <td> 0 12 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center">—</td> - <td class="left">2 Strong Packing Cases</td> - <td> 0 14 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center"></td> - <td class="left"></td> - <td>————</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="center"></td> - <td class="left"></td> - <td>188 7 6</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left" colspan="3">‘<i>Dec. 30, 1761.</i> Rec<sup>d</sup> of Edw<sup>d</sup> Wortley Montagu, Esq., the full -contents of this Bill and all Demands.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td></td> - <td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">J. Geo. Adams & Co.</span>’</td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p>The bill being duly discharged, Edward Wortley took, as it proved, a -final farewell of England. But his friends there soon heard of his -whereabout. He proved that he was not a mere ignorant traveller, by -addressing to the Earl of Macclesfield two letters on an ancient bust -at Turin, the quality of which is warranted by the fact that they were -thought of sufficient importance to be read before the Royal Society. -Wortley Montagu was in a fair way to be a votary of science, but he -might have said with Southwell,</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>Tho’ Wisdom woo me to the saint,</div> -<div>Yet Sense would win me to the shrine.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>He had some reason, perhaps, to feel careless and embittered, for in -this year, 1762, his mother died, showing her cruel contempt for him -by leaving him a guinea, which he gave to Mr. Davison, a friend and -companion in his wayfaring. It was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> from his mother, said Mrs. Piozzi, -that the ‘learned’ and accomplished Edward Wortley Montagu inherited -all his ‘tastes and talents for sensual delights.’</p> - -<p>In the same year, 1762, the English consul at Alexandria was a -Scandinavian, a native either of Denmark or Sweden, named Feroe. His -wife was a beautiful young woman, born at Leghorn in 1741. Her father -(sometimes said to be an innkeeper) was English, or of English descent. -His name was Dormer, the name of a family that had once given a duchess -to one of the Italian states, and that has given a line of barons to -the English peerage since the year 1615 to the present day. The mother -of the lady in question was an Italian; her maiden name was Maria -Sciale. There were several children of this marriage, but we have only -to notice the beautiful Caroline Dormer, who married Consul Feroe, of -Alexandria. This Caroline is said to have been as much distinguished -for her virtue as for her beauty. The Dormer family record (in Lord -Wharncliffe’s possession), in which this double distinction is -chronicled, perhaps, ‘doth protest too much’ with respect to the -virtue, as that quality would now be understood; but of this the reader -may judge for himself.</p> - -<p>The consul and his wife were happily settled at Alexandria, when -Wortley Montagu was sojourning in that city. Her beauty, as the -Scripture<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> phrase expresses it, took his mind prisoner. The object -he had in view—that of carrying her off from her husband—seemed -unattainable; but Montagu did not allow himself to be deterred by -difficulties, and he found a way to surmount them. It was the way of -a very unscrupulous man, but he had few scruples in compassing any -end. He appeared as the friend of the family. He made no advances -to the lady, but he manifested great interest in the welfare of her -husband. Egypt was too dull a place for a man of such abilities. -Montagu succeeded in inducing Feroe to leave it for a while on some -pretended mission to Europe, which was to prove very lucrative to -the poor consul, who took men and things for what they seemed to -be. After Feroe’s departure there came news of his sudden illness. -A little additional time elapsed, and then came intelligence of his -death. The decease of the consul in Holland was officially attested, -and in 1763 Montagu presented the mournful document to the beautiful -young widow. After she had made herself mistress of its contents, -and saw herself left alone in a strange land, he took pity on her -exquisite grief, made love to her at once, and proposed a remedy for -her loneliness by her taking him for husband. The fair young widow was -not hard to woo. She did not indeed yield at once. She suggested some -becoming objections. She, a Roman Catholic, had erred,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> she thought, in -marrying Mr. Feroe, who was a Protestant. She could not bring herself -to repeat the error, but she intimated that she might be won if her -handsome lover would turn from his heretical ways and become a true -son of the true church. As nothing more than this trifle stood as an -obstacle to his success, Montagu resolved to become Roman Catholic. -Perhaps he reflected long enough on the matter to persuade himself -that he had a true call to that church. At all events, he professed -to be somewhat divinely driven. He repaired to Jerusalem, and made -his profession at the fountain-head of Christianity. In October 1764 -Montagu presented himself in the Holy City to Father Paul, prefect of -the missions in Egypt and Cyprus. The traveller said that he had come -to Jerusalem rather out of curiosity than devotion, but that the hand -of God had fallen upon him. From his youth up, he stated (truly enough) -that he had been the dupe of the devil. He made the statement with -manifestations of grief, especially as he had obstinately resisted the -impulses of the Holy Spirit, for which he now expressed penitence and -humbly sought pardon. Father Paul gave heed to the repentant sinner’s -statement, and finding him cleansed from all heretical depravity, -freed him from all pains and penalties decreed by the church against -heretics, gave him plenary absolution, and received him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> into communion -with Rome. Father Paul thought much of his convert, whom he styles, in -the official certificate of Montagu’s conversion, ‘Dominus Comes de -Montagu’ (as every Englishman abroad in those days used to be called -‘mi lord,’) and the good father bids all the faithful to refrain from -snubbing the convert, but on the contrary, to rejoice and be merry over -him, as they would be over the unexpected finding of a treasure. A copy -of the original document, which still sparkles with the silver dust -showered over the finely written Italian letters, was printed in ‘Notes -and Queries,’ January 4, 1873.</p> - -<p>There is no reason to doubt that soon after this act was accomplished -Mr. Wortley Montagu and Madame Feroe <i>née</i> Dormer, were duly married. -Their conjugal felicity, however, was slightly disturbed by the -reappearance of the consul Feroe, who very naturally expressed the -greatest surprise at the household arrangements which had taken place -in his absence, and he laid claim to his beautiful wife. The Catholic -lady was persuaded that her first marriage with the Protestant consul -was null and void, the validity of such a union not being recognised -by her church. At the same time she looked with some doubt, or she -affected so to look, on the contract with her second husband. Appeal -was made to the law tribunals of Tuscany, and pending the appeal, -the wife of two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> husbands retired to a religious house at Antoura, -in Syria. Montagu solaced himself with travel: he possibly knew that -Italian judges were tardy in coming to conclusions. Whither he wended -is quite easy to tell, for in 1765 Mr. Montagu was encountered at -Venice. Mr. Sharp, in his Letters from Italy, has one dated Venice, -September 1765, in which he gives the following account:</p> - -<blockquote><p>One of the most curious sights we saw among these curiosities, -was the famous Mr. Montagu, who was performing quarantine at -the Lazaretto. All the English made a point of paying him their -compliments in that place, and he seemed not a little pleased with -their attention. It may be supposed that visitors are not suffered -to approach the person of any who is performing quarantine. They -are divided by a passage of about seven or eight feet wide. -Mr. Montagu was just arrived from the East; he had travelled -through the Holy Land, Egypt, Armenia, &c., with the Old and New -Testaments in his hands for his direction, which, he told us, -had proved unerring guides. He had particularly taken the road -of the Israelites through the Wilderness, and had observed that -part of the Red Sea which they had passed through. He had visited -Mount Sinai, and flattered himself he had been on the very part -of the rock where Moses spake face to face with God Almighty. His -beard reached down to his breast, being of two years and a half -growth; and the dress of his head was Armenian. He was in the most -enthusiastic raptures with Arabia and the Arabs. Like theirs, -his bed was the ground, his food rice, his beverage, water, his -luxury, a pipe and coffee. His purpose was to return once more -among that virtuous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> people, whose morals and hospitality, he -said, were such, that were you to drop your cloak in the highway, -you would find it there six months afterwards, an Arab being too -honest a man to pick up what he knows belongs to another; and, -were you to offer money for the provision you meet with, he would -ask you, with concern, why you had so mean an opinion of his -benevolence, to suppose him capable of accepting a gratification. -‘Therefore, money,’ said he, ‘in that country, is of very little -use, as it is only necessary for the purchase of garments, which, -in so warm a climate, are very few and of very little value.’ He -distinguishes, however, between the wild and the civilised Arab, -and proposes to publish an account of all that I have written.</p></blockquote> - -<p>In 1765, Wortley Montagu (while sojourning at Pisa), wrote his -well-known account of his journey to ‘The Written Mountains’ in the -East. It is a clever and modest record; his conclusion being that -the rock inscriptions were undecipherable, and probably would not, -if interpreted, be worth the outlay of means. This account was read -before the Royal Society. In March 1766 he was still at Pisa, whence -he wrote to M. Varsy, a merchant from Marseilles, established at -Rosetta, and married to a sister of Mrs. Feroe, or Mrs. Montagu, as -the Tuscan judges might decide. The letter in French (now, with others -quoted below, in Lord Wharncliffe’s possession,) contains the following -personal matter:—</p> - -<blockquote><p>... On my way back I shall go through Alexandria and Rosetta to -see you, and also to see whether I cannot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> establish myself at -Rosetta rather than in Syria. As my father-in-law sets out for -Syria next week, I shall not be obliged to take the shortest road; -my wife will be at ease, and I shall have at least time to assure -you how charmed I shall be to find opportunities of testifying to -you my gratitude, and of renewing our old and dear friendship—a -friendship which will always be dear to me, and with which I shall -never cease to be, &c., &c.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">D. Montaigu.</span></p></blockquote> - -<p>I have before me the original ‘dispensation,’ to enable him to -neglect keeping Lent in the usual abstinent way. That he should take -the trouble to procure such a power would seem to be warrant for a -sincerity for which we can hardly credit him. It is dated ‘March 6, -1767,’ and he is styled ‘Excellentissimus Dominus Eduardus de Comitibus -Montagu.’ Meanwhile the question of the marriage was still undecided. -The ecclesiastical and civil judges were perhaps not long in forming, -but they were very slow in delivering judgment. Mrs. Montagu, however, -or ‘the Countess,’ as she was sometimes called, seems to have formed a -judgment of her own; or, at all events, to have accepted that of her -second husband. They lived together at Smyrna, where for two years both -applied themselves to the study of Turkish, in which language, as in -others of the East, Montagu became a proficient scholar. On New Year’s -day, 1769, he addressed a joyous letter to his brother-in-law Varsy. -The Tuscan and the Roman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> tribunals had at length pronounced on the -great question. The rich and orthodox second husband was declared to -be the legal possessor of the lady, and her previous marriage with the -poor heretical consul was decreed to be no marriage at all.</p> - -<blockquote><p>You cannot imagine, thus runs the letter, the great joy I feel at -being able to tell you that Mr. Feroe has the final decree of the -Court of the Nuncio at Florence. Accordingly, as Madame is already -here (Smyrna), we reckon on being as soon as possible at Rosetta. -But prudence requires that we should first write to you to beg you -to find us a suitable house. That in which we were before would -be good enough, but I think and fear that the consul may have it. -Without the servants, there are myself, my wife, and her father -(<i>monsieur son père</i>). We live more in the Turkish fashion than -ever. Accordingly, the women’s apartments must be comfortable -and convenient for the <i>salamlike</i> (<i>sic</i>), and there must be a -chamber for my father-in-law. You know what is necessary. The -quarter in which we live must be free from disturbance, from -plague, and from robbers. Have the kindness to inform me if -the country is tranquil, and if you believe that there is no -danger from the government; for here no end of stories is being -circulated. Write by the first ship. Be convinced of the constant -friendship with which I am, my very dear friend, entirely yours,</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">D. Montaigu.</span></p></blockquote> - -<p>There seems to have been some obstruction to impede the desired -settlement in Egypt. In a letter, dated ‘Antoura’ (Syria), ‘January, -1771,’ there is the following passage:— </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span></p> - -<blockquote><p>Many accidents have prevented me from following my design and my -inclination for Rosetta; and indeed it seems more prudent to wait -till the government (in Egypt) is authorised (<i>affirmé</i>) by the -consent of the Ottoman Porte, before we establish ourselves in -Egypt. However, here I am nearer to you, and I shall not fail to -follow my first plan as soon as circumstances will allow. Madame -thanks you for your <i>souvenir</i>, and sends many compliments. Keep -yourself well, continue to love me, and be assured of the constant -and perfect friendship of your very humble servant,</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Chev. De Montaigu</span>.</p></blockquote> - -<p>It may be mentioned by the way, that Wortley Montagu reckoned among -his friends men not at all likely to entertain respect for worthless -individuals. ‘My learned friend, the Bishop of Ossory,’ is a phrase -which bears one of these indications. It was written at Cairo. -Meanwhile, here is another characteristic note from Cyprus. The writer -speaks of his wife, as if the laundress of old no longer existed.</p> - -<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">À. M. Joseph Varsy</span>, négociant français, à Rosette.</p> - -<p class="right">Chipre, 24 juin 1771.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Monsieur</span>,—Enfin, mon très-cher ami, je touche au moment -de vous embrasser. Cette lettre vous sera envoyée d’Alexandrie -par ma femme, qui va à Rosette avec M. son père et Mademoiselle -sa sœur. Je vous supplie de leur procurer ou une maison commode, -ou un appartement suffisant dans l’oquel (?), où ils attendront -jusqu’à ce que je leur écrive du Caire, où je vais par voie de -Damiette.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Chev. De Montaigu.</span></p></blockquote> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span></p> -<p>In July, he writes thus from Damietta:—</p> - -<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">À M. Joseph Varsy</span>, négociant français, à Rosette.</p> - -<p class="right">Damiette, 14 juillet 1771.</p> - -<p>Me voici, mon tres-chèr ami, arrivé proche de vous; aussi je me -flatte que dans peu j’aurai l’honneur de vous embrasser. Ma femme -doit être arrivée à Alexandrie, et elle m’attendra à Rosette. Ayez -la bonté de lui faire avoir un appartement, ou deux, s’il le faut, -et de l’assister en ce dont elle aura besoin pour la maison. Je -crois être assez assuré de votre amitié pour être persuadé que -vous ne me refuserez pas ce service. Je vous écrirai du Caire le -moment que j’arriverai. En attendant soyez assuré que je serai -toujours, comme vous m’avez toujours connu,</p> - -<p class="right">Votre très-humble serviteur et véritable ami,<span class="s3"> </span><br /> -<span class="smcap">Chev. De Montaigu</span>.</p></blockquote> - -<p>Five days later, he acknowledges, from Alexandria, the arrival of -a box of pipes, from Constantinople. Soon after, the Egyptian home -was established. It was on a thoroughly Eastern footing, and the two -chief inmates seem to have devoted themselves to the study of Eastern -languages and literature. But in August 1772 the home seems to have -been abandoned by Montagu. There was a report that he had embraced -Mohammedanism, in order to visit Mecca in safety, and that his wife -having refused to follow his example, or to recognise a negro boy who -was with him as his heir, he separated from her. The following note -shows that he was again<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> roaming, but also that he was careful for his -wife’s comforts and on friendly terms with her family.</p> - -<blockquote><p class="center">(<span class="smcap">À Varsy.</span>)</p> - -<p class="right">Alexandrette, août 4, 1772.</p> - -<p>Nous voici, mon très-cher ami, après une heureuse navigation de -trois jours, arrivés à Alexandrette. C’est un village précisément -comme Tor. Nous y avons trouvé des chevaux et un domestique de M. -Belleville. Ainsi, nous partons ce soir pour Aleppe, sans attendre -l’escorte. Les gens que l’on dit obsèdent le chemin ne sont que -cinq ou six; et nous sommes trois, bien armés, sans compter M. -Belleville: ainsi nous n’avons rien à craindre. Il n’y a pas -de peste, ni rien de semblable. Le Pacha est à Aleppe et non à -Damas; assez loin de votre maison. Je vous prie d’avoir toutes les -attentions que vous pouvez pour ma femme. Mes complemens à ce que -vous avez de plus cher. M. Raymond vous enverra ... une pellisse -neuve; il vous en dira aussi le prix; si ma femme la trouve belle -et le prix honnête elle la prendra, et M. Raymond vous la passera -avec compte; si non, vous en disposerez selon les ordres de M. R. -Adieu. Je monte à cheval.</p></blockquote> - -<p>Similar notes tell of his progress, of certain inconveniences from -being too long in the saddle, exposed to the sun; and in the autumn, of -his approaching return home. In September he writes to Varsy:</p> - -<blockquote><p>I am well persuaded of the care you take of our house, and I -beg you to hurry on the workmen, and that everything be done -absolutely in accordance with my wife’s inclinations. Let the men -put up the paper as she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> orders it, but let no one touch my room -below, unless he can paint it perfectly in the Arab fashion.</p></blockquote> - -<p>After expressing surprise that Mohammed Kiaja, a supposed friend, is -intriguing against him, and stating that if his return to Rosetta -should create any difficulties or perils, it would be better to have -them smoothed away while he is at a distance, he writes:</p> - -<blockquote><p>... J’ai dépensé ici 800 piastres; il est vrai que je les ai -dépensés en des choses qui valent plus chez nous, et quand les -dames auront pris ce qui les accommode, nous ferons faire de -l’argent du reste; mais en attendant cela vous incommode; il faut -en ce cas-là prendre de l’argent à intérêt pour mon compte, et -disant que c’est pour moi pour ne pas prodiguer mon nom. Quand la -cuisine est finie, il faut blanchir toute l’ancienne cuisine et -autres endroits qui sont sur son niveau....</p></blockquote> - -<p>In a letter from Latackia, October 1, 1772, he speaks of projects -promising great results; ‘broad rivers’ (he says) ‘are the sum of -narrow streams.’ In a still later letter the project seems to refer to -pearls and rich stuffs. The letter concludes thus:</p> - -<blockquote><p>Je vous prie de me faire faire, par Schieck Ali, un catalogue de -tous mes livres arabes, turcs, et persans, qui sont manuscrits, et -qu’il mette vis-à-vis de chacun le prix suivant qu’il les estime.</p></blockquote> - -<p>This indicates an approaching break up. The cause of it does not -appear, except as far as can be made out in a letter from </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span></p> - -<blockquote><p class="right">Alexandrie, 13 oct. 1772.</p> - -<p>... Je vois que M. Dormer veut rester à Rosette, et en ce cas je -n’y resterai pas. J’ai dit autant à Madame, pour lui donner le -tems de se retirer à Alexandrie avant mon arrivée. Je coucherai -demain à Raimhé; dimanche à Aboukir, lundi à Etikon, et mardi, -s’il plaît à Dieu, je serai à Rosette, et si j’y trouve M. Dormer -je n’y resterai qu’autant qu’il faudra pour empaqueter quelques -livres, car je ne veux pas rester dans la même ville avec M. -Dormer. J’aurais été charmé de le voir ici, mais je ne veux -pas le voir à Rosette; ainsi, mon cher, persuadez-le de partir -immédiatement; car si je le trouve je n’y coucherai pas; cela est -certain.</p></blockquote> - -<p>What the ground of dissension was that induced Montagu to declare -that he would not remain in the same city with Dormer is not known. -Whatever it was, the Egyptian home was broken up. The wife and her -sister subsequently established themselves, temporarily, at Marseilles, -definitively at Nancy. Montagu moved about the Continent in moody -restlessness. In 1773 and the following year he settled for awhile in -Venice. He lived in frequent retirement, and to all outward appearance -in as truly a Turkish fashion as if he were a faithful child of Islam.</p> - -<p>While Mr. Montagu was residing at Venice an illustrious traveller, -the Duke of Hamilton, arrived in that city, under the care of his -physician, Dr. John Moore, afterwards the author of ‘Zeluco,’ and the -father of a glorious son, Sir John Moore<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> the hero of Corunna. The -Doctor had probably talked with his patron or ward about the more -eccentric traveller, of whom he had more to say than most people -as to the affair between Montagu and the Jew Payba, Moore having -been official medical man at the English Embassy in France, when -Lord Albemarle was ambassador, and Montagu was appealing to him for -aid and protection. At Venice, the Duke, according to Moore, ‘had -the curiosity’ (he does not say the <i>courtesy</i>) ‘to wait on this -extraordinary man.’ ‘Montagu,’ says the Doctor, in his published -letters,</p> - -<blockquote><p>met his Grace at the stair-head, and led us through some -apartments furnished in the Venetian manner, into an inner room in -quite a different style. There were no chairs, but he desired us -to seat ourselves on a sofa, whilst he placed himself on a cushion -on the floor, with his legs crossed in the Turkish fashion. A -young black slave sat by him, and a venerable old man, with a -long beard, served us with coffee. After this collation some -aromatic gums were brought, and burnt in a little silver vessel. -Mr. Montagu held his nose over the steam for some minutes, and -sniffed up the perfume with peculiar satisfaction; he afterwards -endeavoured to collect the smoke with his hands, spreading and -rubbing it carefully along his beard, which hung in hoary ringlets -to his girdle.... We had a great deal of conversation with this -venerable looking person, who is, to the last degree, acute, -communicative, and entertaining, and in whose discourse and -manners are blended the vivacity of a Frenchman with the gravity -of a Turk.</p></blockquote> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p> - -<p>Moore does not say that Montagu had assumed the Mohammedan faith, -but simply that he considered the Turkish way of life to surpass -that of all other nations. Indeed they deserved to be ‘the happiest -of mankind,’ if they were, as Montagu held them to be, distinguished -for integrity, hospitality, and most other virtues. Egypt was, in his -eyes, ‘a perfect paradise,’ to which he was longing to return; and he -was convinced that if the Israelites of old could have had their own -way they would have stuck to the land and the flesh-pots and driven -the Egyptians into Canaan. But he added, with a fine sense of what -the occasion required, that ‘it had been otherwise ordered, for wise -purposes, of which it did not become us to judge.’</p> - -<p>Subsequently Montagu returned the visit of the Duke and his medical -guardian. He seated himself on a sofa with his legs drawn up under -him, as the most natural and convenient position that a gentleman -could take. Moore, in the course of the conversation which ensued, -slily adverted to the Mohammedan views with regard to women. The -quasi Turk became Oriental to the very ends of his fingers, and grew -eloquent on this delicate question. Of course, he defended polygamy -and concubinage, even as Solomon had wisely observed it. Women liked -neither, and but for this foolish objection they would have had -influence enough<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> to have spread Islam as one religion throughout -Europe. The men hated Christianity on more valid ground. Auricular -confession they abhorred. ‘No Turk of any delicacy would ever allow his -wife (particularly if he had but one) to hold private conference with -a man on any pretext whatever.’ When the Doctor (for the Duke seems to -have been generally silent) insinuated that the Turks had not the same -grounds to hate Protestantism, Montagu remarked that the Turks could -not tolerate the Christian idea of the equality of women and men, nor -accept the Christian view of an exceedingly dull heaven, where the -souls of ordinary women were to be assembled, instead of the graceful -bodies of Houris, who were to welcome the sons of Islam to a joyous -paradise.</p> - -<p>The self-exile continued to be the observed of all curious travellers; -but he directed his steps at last in the direction of home, if with -no decided resolution to return thither. The cause, perhaps, is found -in a phrase of a letter from Mrs. Delany, written in February 1776: -‘Mr. Wortley Montagu’s wife is dead.’ This was the laundress, his only -legitimate wife, who had married him in his youthful time. Her husband -had recently been entertaining Romney, and Romney had painted the -portrait of his friend in Turkish costume, which bespeaks the talent -of the artist and the sad yet manly beauty of the friend. The latter -had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> been the victim of more lies and jests than any man of his time, -and these were multiplied now, but they are not worth repeating. The -wanderer himself was near the end of his course. Two months subsequent -to his lawful wife’s decease he died, after a brief illness, at Padua. -He is said to have expressed a hope that he should die as a good -Moslem; but that he was held to have died in the Roman Catholic faith -is best proved by the fact that he lies beneath a church roof in Padua, -and with a Latin inscription over him, which describes him as ‘ubique -civis,’ and which credits him with nearly all the qualities that can -dignify humanity. If much eccentricity has been ascribed to him by -the world, it is because his acts and words gave some warrant for it. -There was scarcely any condition in life but in some country or another -he had assumed it. He used to boast that he had never committed a -<i>small</i> folly; and his gambling was certainly, at one time, of gigantic -proportions. A memoir of him, published in Dublin two years after -his death, reckoned among his boyish assumptions those of link-boy, -chimney-sweep, and shoe-black! The same veracious volume numbered among -his wives, with the English laundress, a Dutch Jewess, a Turkish lady, -a Greek girl, a Circassian damsel, and an Arabian maiden. Even to the -English laundress he is said to have been married by an official of -the Fleet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> prison. His old tutor, Forster, claimed the merit of having -written the work on Ancient Republics, but this claim, made when -the author could not answer it, was universally scouted, as was the -contemptible pretender. Lady Louisa Stuart, referring to the various -ladies who assumed a right to bear his name, remarks:—</p> - -<blockquote><p>More than one lady took the title of his wife, with or without -the pretext of a ceremony which, it is to be feared, he would -not scruple to go through any number of times, if requisite -for the accomplishment of his wishes. But the last person so -circumstanced, and the loudest in asserting her claims, met him -upon equal ground, having herself a husband living, from whom -she had eloped; therefore, she at least could not complain of -deception.</p></blockquote> - -<p>The above lady was the <i>ci-devant</i> Miss Dormer. She appeared in London -soon after Edward Wortley Montagu’s death; and in her family papers it -is stated that she received one hundred pounds annually from Coutts’s -out of her alleged husband’s estate. For a long period she resided -at Nancy, and she may yet live in the recollection of not very old -persons, English and others, who dwelt in that pleasant city in their -youth, for the last of the wives of Wortley Montagu survived till -January 1821. She lived and died as Countess of Montagu, and her death -finally closed a romance of real life, the unfortunate hero of which -would probably have won honourable fame if he had been blessed with a -mother of a different quality.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>ROYAL AND IMPERIAL JOKERS.</i></h2> - -<p>In that marvellous work of history, the ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman -Empire,’ Gibbon somewhere remarks, in reference to sovereign ladies -in love, that they are by their social position, or rather by their -position above society, placed at a manifest disadvantage, inasmuch as -the first advances must come from themselves. If this was the case in -the olden time, it is not exactly so now—though, of course, the outer -world knows little about the matter. Many princesses have not been -at all troubled at the idea of having to speak, or look, first; and -the great Russian Czarina had as little embarrassment in choosing her -lovers as she had in murdering that holy and august madman, her husband.</p> - -<p>The well-favoured individuals on whom high and mighty princesses have -been ready to smile had a delicate task to perform. They had to look -more than twice before they leaped, and were compelled to feel their -way very cautiously lest a false step or a too boldly ventured word -should cost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> them their head. But after all this perilous condition of -aspiring lovers was as nothing compared with the dangers of too wittily -endowed courtiers who should indulge in jesting with a king, especially -of the olden type and of mediæval and morose temper. When the courtiers -of Amarose, King of Little Britain, gently awoke him with the glee—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>‘Awake, awake your royal nob,</div> -<div>The kettle boils upon the hob’—</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>his surly and too suddenly aroused majesty descended to his tea, toast, -and eggs, entered the breakfast-room with the gracious greeting, ‘My -lords and gentlemen, get out!’ King Arthur, in ‘Tom Thumb,’ returns -homage in much the same civil humour. These, however, are but stage -kings—kings of shreds and patches. The flesh-and-blood, genuine, -despotic monarch was a far more dreadful animal.</p> - -<p>Jesting with kings, particularly uninvited—why, it was as if a -swimmer, however experienced, should venture within the smooth but -death-bearing current of Niagara, which inevitably carries all within -its power over the Falls. People have played little teasing jokes with -elephants, and when the jokers have forgotten all about it the gravely -majestic beast has put his foot upon the offender, and crushed the -humour out of him for ever. It has been just so with malice-bearing -monarchs, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> with courtiers who thought they might joke with them. -The incarnation of all such monarchs existed in the person of an -African king named Chaka. He was given to joking at others, and woe -betide them if they did not burst with ecstacy at the joke; but if -a ‘fellow of infinite humour’ happened to cap the royal joke with a -better, Chaka broke into hilarity, which he ended by exclaiming, ‘Cut -off that wretch’s head; he has made me laugh.’</p> - -<p>The Cæsars must have been almost as dreadfully dangerous men to joke -with as Chaka. The great Julius, indeed, after he became great, had no -leisure for jesting, but was the object of some popular jokes which he -took with indifference. The guests of Augustus were afraid to ‘crack -a joke’ in his presence. They would whisper one to a neighbour, and -then turn pale if the emperor invited them to ‘speak up.’ The imperial -table was as grand and dull as that of the copper Augustus, Louis -the Fourteenth, and the emperor had recourse to merryandrews, just -as the Grand Monarque had to harlequins. But the harlequins of those -days were gentlemen and scholars. The grim Tiberius, on the other -hand, was remarkably facetious. His delight was to puzzle his learned -guests with unanswerable questions, such as, ‘What was the name of the -song the Syrens sang?’ and the like. Fancy half a dozen members of -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> Society of Antiquaries dining with her Majesty and being gravely -asked who built the marble halls the Bohemian girl dreamt she dwelt -in? or what was the Christian name of the ‘Minstrel Boy?’ and at what -period ‘Auld lang syne’ had been young? Nevertheless, Tiberius was a -nicer man to deal with than Caligula, all of whose jests were brutally -cruel, in words, and oftener in deeds. What a serious joke was that -when, having nothing on but the linen apron of a victim-slayer, he -raised the mallet, and instead of slaying the beast, knocked out the -brains of the sacrificing priest! Claudius was too huge a feeder to -have appetite for wit; but he would have eaten the whole beast that -his predecessor should have killed. Yet Claudius, half beast himself, -had a good deal of the scholar in him; as Nero had, who loved science, -admired art, was mildly witty, and therewith as savage as an insane -hyæna. We must except the occasions of his visiting the theatre, when -he sat in an upper seat, and found delight in flinging nuts down upon -the bald head of the prætor below. That official was as proud of the -attention as if every nut had been an especial honour. Joyless Galba -had none of the Neronic fun in him. But though not mirthful himself, -Galba could smile when he heard the popular slang name, in allusion to -his flat nose, ‘Simius.’ His successor, Otho, was just such a wit as -a man might be expected to be who washed his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> face in asses’ milk. If -witty men went away from him feeling dull and heavy, it was the result -of their exchanging ideas with their imperial master. He had his wit at -second-hand, as Vitellius had, who got his jokes from a stage-player -and charioteer. In more modern times, when Astley’s was in its glory, -and the clown of the ring a joker that people went to listen to, that -circus clown got his jokes, not from his own brains, but from the -Westminster boys. Jokes used to be made at Westminster as they now are -at the Stock Exchange, where fresh batches are served each morning, -like hot rolls. But to return to the Cæsars. Perhaps Vespasian was a -greater joker than any of them, but his jokes were often broad and -scurrilous. Titus was rather gracious than given to jesting, though he -enjoyed one sorry joke, in promising to every suitor that his request -should be granted. They went away radiant. ‘Every one,’ he said, -‘ought to depart joyfully from the presence of his prince;’ and then, -‘the delight of mankind’ thought no more of his promise. The chief -recreation of the gloomy Domitian was in playing dice; but he always -won. Every antagonist knew what the joke would cost him if he beat the -emperor.</p> - -<p>Altogether, those Twelve Cæsars were men compounded of the most -opposite qualities, with a small modicum of what is called wit among -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> whole of them. Out of all those who followed, one alone, Hadrian, -made a standing and a sterling joke—a joke which has descended to us -and added a slang phrase to our vulgar tongue. To ‘scrape acquaintance’ -comes to us from Hadrian. He was at the public baths one day when he -saw one of his veteran soldiers scraping his body with a tile. That was -such poor luxury that Hadrian ordered that his old comrade should be -supplied with more suitable cleansing materials, and also with money. -On a subsequent occasion when the emperor again went to the bath, the -spectacle before him was highly amusing. A score of old soldiers who -had fought under Hadrian were standing in the water, and each was -currying himself with a tile and wincing at the self-inflicted rubbing. -The emperor perfectly understood what he saw and what was the purpose -of the sight. ‘Ha! ha!’ he exclaimed, ‘you had better scrape one -another, my good fellows!’ He added, ‘You certainly shall not scrape -acquaintance with me!’</p> - -<p>Heliogabalus was perhaps the most practical joker among the imperial -jesters. We have seen at the Surrey Oval, in old days, eleven -one-legged Greenwich pensioners playing cricket against eleven -pensioners with only one arm. By the way, the one-legged men had the -advantage, as the one-armed men often fell in stooping for the ball, -wanting the missing arm to balance themselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> withal. It was the -humour of Heliogabalus to get together companies of individuals all -marked by the same peculiarity. He would now have at dinner a dozen -baldheaded men, or twelve ladies with one eye each; he would have -been delighted to have got hold of triple assortments of the three -famous sisters who had but one eye and one tooth between them! Failing -that, the ‘lord of the sun,’ as he called himself, was content to -have a score of hunchbacks, or of flat-nosed men, or squinting women. -He is said on one occasion to have put into a very small chamber, -where dinner was prepared, so many excessively fat and hungry men -that they had no room for anything but to perspire, and not much for -that. Heliogabalus was an expensive joker, but then his good people -paid for the fun, and he might therefore indulge his humour without -restraint at the time, or remorse after it. His supremely imperial joke -lay in placing a number of guests on table-couches (guests reclined, -and did not sit down to dinner) which were blown up with air instead -of being stuffed with wool. At a moment when the cups were filled to -the brim with the choicest wine, and the guests were lifting them -to their lips with anticipations of liquid Elysium, a tap was drawn -beneath the carpet, which suddenly emptied the couches of their air, -and consequently tumbled all the recliners on to the floor, where they -lay pell-mell, with wine spilt,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> goblets lost, and utter confusion -prevailing, except on the face of Heliogabalus, who looked on and -indulged in laughter inextinguishable. Having but indifferent appetite -himself, he was fond of sauces, and he highly rewarded any inventor of -a sauce that was to the imperial liking. But if it failed to tickle -his very sacred majesty’s palate he had recourse to a joke of a very -practical character indeed; that is to say, he condemned the unlucky -candidate for his favour to live upon nothing else but the sauce in -question until he had discovered another more successful in its object. -Fancy having to live on anchovy, without fish, for a twelvemonth, or -catsup and a little bread, from the Ides of March to the Kalends of -December! Think of what your palate and liver would be had you nothing -to sit down to but pickled walnuts without the chop, or mustard without -the beef, from Christmas to Easter, even if your wits enabled you to -make deliverance then.</p> - -<p>There was grim but honest joking in the Emperor Carus. The frugal man -was once seated, as was his wont, on the grass, supping on dry bread, -grey peas, and stale bacon. He gave audience at the same time to -Persian ambassadors who came to sue for peace. As the emperor was about -to reply, he opened his mouth for the reception of a huge spoonful of -peas, but he paused to say—at the same time taking off his skull-cap -with his <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>disengaged hand—‘Look here! If your master does not confess -the superiority of Rome, I will render Persia as destitute of trees -as my head is of hair.’ Having said which, he swallowed his shovelful -of peas, and chuckled as the Persian legates went homeward with that -significant message.</p> - -<p>After all, this joke was made up of the rudest boasting. There is -something in it and its attending circumstances which remind one of the -last war in Europe. Rome declared war against Persia, and the Roman -cry was ‘The Tigris for a boundary!’ ‘To Susa!’ ‘To Ecbatana!’ and so -forth. The later cry of the enraptured Gauls, ‘Le Rhin! le Rhin!’ ‘À -Berlin! à Berlin!’ seem like Irish echoes of the old cry. What disaster -came of it Gibbon tells and readers of history remember, but even among -the degenerate Romans there was no one ignoble enough to set an example -to the poor French <i>feuilletonist</i>, who said of the brave German -officers that they would be too proud to brush French boots with their -blonde moustaches. Brave Frenchmen must have shuddered at this wretched -jest, and Louis Napoleon, who loved a good joke though he never made -one, must have curled his lip with indignation if he read the piece of -miserable wit over his coffee at Metz.</p> - -<p>In Prussia, which dates as a kingdom from the year 1702, there is not -one of its seven kings who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> can be called a wit, though more than one -had what is far better, strong, far-seeing, uncommon sense. Unclean in -their vagaries the Prussian royal jokers have assuredly been, and one -or two admitted of no liberty whatever being taken with them, as far -as repartee went. So stern were the most of the Prussian margraves, -electors, and dukes, that, to express the peril of joking with them, -there arose the well-known popular proverb, ‘It is advisable not to -eat cherries with princes.’ The queens of Prussia, on the other hand, -brought their own wit with them into the royal family, and there was -not a sharper lady among them than Queen Sophia Charlotte, the first -queen of Prussia. Leibnitz, whom she delighted to honour as a man and a -philosopher, once asked her if she could imagine the infinitely little? -‘Why, of course I can!’ exclaimed the hilarious queen. ‘What a question -to ask the wife of Frederick the First!’</p> - -<p>There was good common sense in the humour of Frederick the Great of -Prussia. In his hours of joviality with his boon companions, smoking -and drinking around a table, in a cottage specially devoted to such -recreation, the king was understood to be absent. Frederick gave the -loosest rein to his own spirit of jesting, and took the roughest jokes -of his guests with perfect good temper. He has been immoderately -praised for this control over himself; but in truth there was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> none. He -could always escape from raillery that was tinged with bitterness. At -critical moments, when an ordinary mortal, hard pressed by satirical -assailants, would lose his equanimity and fly into a rage, Fritz -could quietly remark, ‘Friends, the king has come back;’ after which -observation he neither joked himself nor was attacked by the jokers. -Neither did the king bear any ill-will if his own jesting was turned -roughly against him, and he was made to smart by a repartee more -stinging than the royal sarcasm which gave it birth.</p> - -<p>There was often a childlike simplicity about the old soldier-king. He -would joke and laugh with the children in the streets of Potsdam, as he -slowly rode along on his veteran Molwitz gray. He loved to have them -at his stirrup, and watch them struggling to kiss his boot or pat the -proud old horse; and he would laugh joyously if their young throats set -up the famous chorus:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>Victoria! with us is God!</div> -<div>The haughty foe lies there!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>One Saturday afternoon they carried the matter further than his -patience would tolerate, and Fritz, raising his crutched cane -menacingly, cried out in affected anger, ‘Young rascals! to school -with you all! to school!’ The cry was met by a counter-shout from -the ragamuffins of ‘Ha! ha! Papa Fritz don’t know that there’s no -school on Saturday<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> afternoon!’ At which the absolute king rode away -rebuked. His humour, however, made such rebuffs welcome. He took truths -from the popular tongue with alacrity. After the Seven Years’ War, -riding towards Sans Souci, he recognised an old fruit-woman near the -Brandenburg Gate, whom he remembered to have seen there before the war -broke out. Fritz at once greeted her with a ‘Well, mother, how have the -times been treating you?’ ‘Middling,’ was the concise reply; ‘but where -have you been for this ever so long?’ ‘Don’t you know, mother, I have -been making war for these seven years past?’ ‘How should I know?’ asked -the venerable Pomona, ‘and why should I care?</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>“Rabble fight, and rabble slay;</div> -<div>And rabble are friends another day.”’</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Fritz laughed aloud, and rode away in high good humour. Do you think it -would be safe, say, for a prince of the blood to enter into colloquy -with the apple women at the Marble Arch or the fruit-sellers at St. -James’s Gate, when the guard is being relieved? Frederick William the -Third had a quiet humour of his own. There is one sample of it which -reminds one of what Henry the Fourth said to the mayor of a town whose -speech the king could hardly hear for the accompanying braying of a -donkey: ‘One at a time, gentlemen, if you please!’ When Frederick -William visited one of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> his provincial towns for the first time, the -chief clerical official of the district read to him a bombastically -inflated address. The king grew uneasy as the flattery was piled, -and at length he cut it all short, with an angry observation to his -adjutant, Colonel von Witzleben, ‘Can’t stand any more of it! The man -is pelting me with untruths.’ The king and the crown prince were good -mimics, and both brought their powers into play at a moment when a -farce was being acted in Berlin, which attracted all play-goers who -loved a laugh, king and court included. There was a favourite scene -in this farce, wherein a workman and his master quarrelled and were -reconciled. Great fun was caused by the way in which the workman -propitiated his wrathful master, by awkwardly holding out his hand, -and saying, in <i>dialect</i>, ‘Now, measter, nevertheless, no animosity -on no account!’ To this, said again and again, the master invariably -replied, ‘You know me better; am I not always that one which’—— -In the expression given to these phrases by the two low comedians -there was a world of stage humour which delighted their audience, the -sovereign and his family, as much as any there. It happened at this -time that the king was kept waiting for his dinner by the tardiness -of the crown prince to appear. Now if we common mortals can bear only -with impatience being kept so waiting, you may judge if a king with -an <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span>appetite considers such an offence to be much below high treason. -Frederick William at last sat down in dudgeon; all his family sat down -too, in silence, looking at the crown prince’s vacant chair, with -a feeling that there was a storm coming. When his majesty had just -concluded his soup, his tardy royal highness entered the room. Seeing -how matters stood, he put on the sheepish look of the actor who played -the workman in the farce, approached the king in a loutish fashion, -extended his hand awkwardly, and exclaimed with country accent, ‘Now, -measter, nevertheless, no animosity on no account!’ Frederick William -took up the joke immediately. He put on the look of the other actor, -assumed his air and accent, and answered in his very voice, squeezing -his son’s hand the while, ‘Fritz, thou knowest me better; am I not -always that one which’—— You may suppose what a satisfied audience -listened to that bit of dialogue; and may lose yourself in conjecture -as to how a similar scene might be gone through with H.R.H. the Prince -of Wales and H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh giving imitations of Mr. -Compton and Mr. Buckstone in ‘Box and Cox.’</p> - -<p>Kings of England in the olden time seldom made jokes, and more seldom -allowed them to be made by others, excepting professional jesters. -When we come to the Norman time we find the Conquistor so little able -to digest a joke that he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> declared war against the King of France for -making one at the expense of William’s obesity. The latter, indeed, -did try to answer the jest, but the answer missed its aim, and -William lost his life because he could not understand humour. Rufus, -on the contrary, indulged in such jesting as one might expect in an -ill-bred bachelor king of loose principles and looser companions. The -first Henry is handed down to us by successive historians as a man -of very facetious humour, but they afford no samples of the humorous -expression. Stephen had little leisure for anything but to keep his -seat in the saddle into which he had leaped after a severe struggle. -The humour of Henry the Second was of a sad-coloured hue; as it well -might be. It was sardonically indulged when he caused to be painted -on the wall of a chamber at Windsor and on the ceiling of a room at -Winchester a singular picture. The artist is nameless, but he must -have been the Landseer or the Ansdell of his day. The subject was an -old eagle attacked by his four eaglets. The youngest and fiercest of -the four was savagely picking at the parent eagle’s eyes. The king -used to smile a melancholy smile as courtiers gazed at this picture, -and did not penetrate, or seemed not to penetrate, the allegory which -it presented. Probably when they were beyond royal sight and hearing -they made good guesses at it, or the king interpreted it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> and then it -was no treason to give circulation to Henry’s interpretation. The old -eagle was the monarch himself. The four eaglets were his obstinately -rebellious sons. The ruffianly youngest bird savagely trying to peck -the parent’s eyes out was the youngest and most ruffianly of his sons, -John. In that form the half-mad and most melancholy Henry manifested -his humour with regard to family affairs—an example which has not -been generally followed. In one of his sons, Richard the First, there -was much readiness of wit; and he especially loved to turn it against -the priests. To make a joke at the cost of an ecclesiastic was as good -to him as slaying an infidel. John’s jokes took a cruel form, drawing -Jews’ teeth to accelerate their disposition to lend money, and behaving -noisily at divine worship with an idea of humiliating some priest or -bishop who had offended him. His son Henry loved the arts and good -company. Of the three Edwards not one has come to our knowledge as -a joker, but the son of the last, the Black Prince, did once so far -stoop from his dignity as to, half jocularly, half angrily, call an -archbishop an ass. The second Richard never had an opportunity for -joking; and of the next three kings, Henry the Fifth alone, when Prince -of Wales, is said to have aired his wit a-nights about Eastcheap. But -what Shakespeare has made witty in relation never took place in point -of fact. All<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> the Eastcheap doings are apocryphal, and the <i>Boar’s -Head</i> never had beneath its roof-tree those joyous princely spirits in -whom we shall nevertheless continue to believe. Again, of the third -Richard’s jesting humour we have no other example than what Shakespeare -and Colley Cibber have invented for him. The seventh Henry was a dull -deep man; the eighth, one to laugh with if you felt especially sure -it would not shake your head off your shoulders. His son and his -daughters are not recorded in the annals of wit, and such stories as -have descended to us of James the First are of an unclean tendency, and -the best of them in point of mirth are by far the uncleanest. His son -Charles was too gentlemanlike and too grave to be such a joker as his -unkingly sire. His refinement of manner did not admit of coarseness, -with whatever wit it might be gilded, and the royal martyr is but -known, in respect of humour, for ‘King Charles’s Golden Rules,’ of -which, of course, he was <i>not</i> the author.</p> - -<p>If ever there was a man in whom we should not expect to find the -jesting spirit, that man is Oliver Cromwell. At the wedding festival, -however, of his daughter Frances with Mr. Rich, Oliver entered joyously -into all the jesting; so joyously that, in a moment of excitement, the -Protector whipt off his son Richard’s wig and pretended to throw it -into the fire. This he appeared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> to have done, but he had dexterously -conveyed it under him, and was sitting upon it, when the company were -looking for the wig upon the top of the coals. No clown, not even thou, -oh Joseph Grimaldi!—not even thou who wast an artist, true actor, in -whose every look there was a purpose, in every movement a meaning—not -even thou, oh best and greatest of the old pantomime clowns! couldst -have executed this trick with more rapidity, cleverness, and impudent -imperturbability than Oliver Cromwell exhibited on that occasion. -It was an occasion, by the way, when spilling of blood had like to -have happened through immoderate excess of the spirit of fun. Old Sir -Thomas Hillingsby was solemnly dancing, according to the fashion of -his younger days. He looked so like an insensible statue in motion, -that some daring young Puritan lads thought they might molest him -with impunity. They tried, as he slowly moved to and fro in measured -pace, to blacken his lips with burnt cork. They roused the old lion to -fury. The ex-gentleman usher to the Queen of Bohemia pulled out his -dagger, which he would have plunged between the ribs of the fellow most -actively concerned but for general interference. Some time elapsed -before harmony was restored.</p> - -<p>It may be here objected that Cromwell was neither a royal nor an -imperial joker. He was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> nevertheless sovereign master of England, and -as despotic as any of them. We place him among them for much the same -reason which Richardson, the painter, gave to Queen Caroline, when she -went to see Richardson’s series of portraits of English kings, and -seeing Cromwell’s portrait among them, angrily asked how <i>he</i>, who was -no king, was placed in such company. ‘He was no king, indeed, madam,’ -said Richardson, ‘but it is good for kings to have him among them.’</p> - -<p>George the Second was not a humourist, but he would have made a -first-rate actor of ‘genteel comedy’ had not fate cast him for another -line of characters in the drama of life. Shortly after his accession -he commanded a play at the theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The house -was full, but as the king kept it waiting, the murmurs of their -displeasure fell upon his ear as he entered his box, three-quarters -of an hour behind time. As he caught the unwelcome sounds he turned -to Mr. Rich, the manager, who waited on him, as if he might gather -from that official some explanation of the phenomenon. The greatest -of the intellectual harlequins of England honestly told the king that -his majesty was late, and that the audience did not seem to like it. -Whereupon the sovereign assumed the air of an unrighteously suspected -prince. He advanced to the front of his box, took out his watch with -the apparent conviction that it was an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> arbitrator which would render -him justice, and looking upon it, saw that it showed the time which he -knew it to be. <i>Then</i> he appeared in a change of character. He gazed -at the audience with an expression bespeaking a guilty but a repentant -prince. He put himself as much outside of his box as the laws of -balancing would allow, and shaking his wigged head and very much powder -out of it, he laid his jewelled hand on the heart side of his sky-blue -velvet coat, and made a bow to the house, so superb in its apologetic -pantomime that the audience burst forth into hilarious hurrahing and -applauding, and all other possible symptoms, to demonstrate their -gladness and to express their consent to a full reconciliation of -prince and people.</p> - -<p>The Thespian element was very strong too in the eldest son of George -the Third. If the first gentleman in Europe had not been born a -prince he might have made a very good livelihood as an actor. High -or low comedy, it would have been all the same to a player of such -versatility. He could have played Rover like Elliston, and his -imitations were as good as Mr. Toole’s. The best-wigged prince in -Christendom has, fortunately, had an historian who makes record of -his royal hero in the histrionic part of his profession. Raikes -is the chronicler, but the Duke of Wellington was the fountain of -intelligence. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span></p> - -<p>‘When the king sent for me,’ said F.M. the Duke of Wellington to -Raikes, ‘to form a new Administration in 1828, he was then seriously -ill, though he would never allow it. I found him in bed, dressed in -a dirty silk jacket and a turban night-cap, one as greasy as the -other; for, notwithstanding his coquetry about dress in public, he was -extremely slovenly and dirty in private. The first words he said to me -were, “Arthur, the Cabinet is defunct;” and then he began to describe -the manner in which the late Ministers had taken leave of him on giving -in their resignations. This was accompanied by the most ludicrous -mimicry of the voice and manner of each individual, so strikingly like -that it was quite impossible to refrain from fits of laughter.’</p> - -<p>This exhibition has been considered a proof of the king’s bad taste; -which it may be allowed to be. But there was equal bad taste on -the part of the Duke. If he had looked grave, the old bedridden -prince-actor would have been rebuked. Moreover, the king was quite as -capable and quite as willing to give an imitation of Arthur. Inimitable -as the latter was in certain respects, there were certain peculiarities -about him which the king would have hit off with as intense delight as -he felt when mimicking his majesty’s servants, Viscounts Goderich and -Palmerston.</p> - -<p>With George the Fourth’s successor there was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> no indisposition to -joke, but the royal humour was of an ordinary quality. And yet it was -eccentric too. King William would not, like his brother of Cambridge, -have said to a chaplain at a public dinner, ‘Come, d—— it, do say -<i>grace</i>, and let us begin!’ but he could not resist heightening a -jest by a strong expletive; as, for instance, in the case of Captain -and Mrs. Marryat, who were at a royal reception at the Pavilion, in -King William’s time, and from which they were anxious to get away at -a certain hour, in order to fulfil another engagement. Mrs. Marryat -looked anxiously at the clock, and King William, catching her more -than once in the fact, good-humouredly asked her the cause of her -uneasiness. The lady frankly replied. ‘Well,’ said his majesty, ‘then -why do you not leave at once?’ Mrs. Marryat had to inform him that it -would be a breach of etiquette to leave the room while their majesties -were still there. ‘Oh, d—— it!’ said the bluff monarch; ‘if that’s -the case, come along o’ me; I’ll smuggle you out.’ On state occasions, -however, a breach of etiquette would fairly take the king’s breath -away. This is exemplified by what occurred at one of his first levées. -Seeing an admiral, with whom he had been shipmate, bowing before him, -the king cordially expressed his gladness at seeing his old comrade; -adding, ‘and I hope you are quite well?’ The proper course would have -been to simply<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> answer the remark made. But the over-polite admiral -replied, ‘Quite well, your majesty. I hope your majesty is well?’ -The breach of etiquette was in making a remark to the king which -implied the necessity of an answer. King William quite blushed with -confusion, and did not recover himself till dinner-time. One of his -own jokes he enjoyed amazingly; and notably one which he played off -soon after his accession. After his arrival at St. James’s Palace the -populace summoned him again and again to the window to offer him the -congratulations of their sweet voices. King William presented himself -again and again, till twilight came on and he was tired of it. As -the ‘gloaming’ thickened, and identity was a matter of difficulty, -the king sent an old naval officer to bow for him at the window. At -every summons the officer stepped forward and acted king, bowing and -retiring, till it became too dark to make out whether any one was at -the window or not. Then the loyal <i>mobile</i> dispersed, and the affair -was a joke for the remainder of the night at the jovial monarch’s table.</p> - -<p>And now we are called upon to pause, just as we had finished only the -prologue to our drama. But if people <i>will</i> make prologues as long as -plays, editors will call out, <i>Lusisti satis!</i> and the play is deferred -to a more convenient opportunity. </p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p> - -<p class="center">LONDON: PRINTED BY<br />SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE<br />AND PARLIAMENT STREET</p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/ad1.jpg" alt="STANDARD WORKS 1" /></div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/ad2.jpg" alt="STANDARD WORKS 2" /></div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/backcover.jpg" alt="back" /></div> - -<hr /> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN AND ABOUT DRURY LANE AND OTHER PAPERS, VOL. 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