Miss Hendy had formerly kept a school, and her portrait would have
done very well for a frontispiece to Mrs Trimmer. She was what is
called prim in her manner, and as delicate as an American. She always
called the legs of a table its props--for the word legs was highly
unfeminine. She admired talent, and gave it vast quantities of tea and
toast. Her drawing-room was a temple of the Muses, and only open to
those who were bountifully endowed with the gifts of nature or of
fortune; for she considered it a great part of her duty to act as a
kind of link between Plutus and Minerva. In the effort to discover
objects worthy of her recommendation, she was mainly aided by the
celebrated Mr Bristles. Every month whole troops of Herschels and
Wordsworths, and Humes and Gibbons, were presented to her by the great
critic; and with a devout faith in all he told her, she listened
enraptured to the praises of those astonishing geniuses, till she had
begun to enter into Mr Bristles's own feelings of contempt for every
body except the favoured few. And to-night was the grand debut of a
more remarkable phenomenon than any of the others. A youth of
twenty-three, tall, modest, intellectual, and long-haired--in short,
the "Ticket"--was to read the opening of a tragedy; and sculptors,
painters, mechanicians, and city Croesuses, were invited to be present
at the display. Among these last shone our friend Mr Pitskiver,
radiant in white waistcoat and gold chains, two rings on each finger,
and a cameo the size of a cheese-cake on his neckcloth. The other
critic, in right of his account at the bank, was a tall silent
gentleman, a wood-merchant from the Boro', who nodded his head in an
oracular manner when any thing was said above his comprehension; and
who was a patron of rising talent, on the same enlightened principles
as his friend Mr Pitskiver. Mr Whalley also showed his patronage in
the same economical manner as the other, and expected immortality at
the expense of a few roasts of beef and bottles of new wine.
Mr Bristles was also of the dinner party--an arrangement made by the
provident Miss Hendy, that the two _millionaires_ might receive a
little preliminary information on the merits of the rest of the
company, who were only invited to tea. Four maiden ladies (who had
pulled on blue stockings in order to hide the increasing thickness of
their ankles, and considered Miss Hendy the legitimate successor of
Madame de Staël, and Mr Pitskiver in Harley Street the beau-ideal of
love in a cottage) relieved the monotony of a gentleman party by as
profuse a display of female charms as low gowns and short sleeves
would allow. And about six o'clock there was a highly interesting and
superior party of eight, to whom Miss Hendy administered cod's-head
and shoulders, aphorisms and oyster sauce, in almost equal proportion;
while Mr Pitskiver, like a "sweet seducer, blandly smiling," made
polite enquiries whether he should not relieve her of the
trouble.--"Oh no!--it degrades woman from the lofty sphere of equal
usefulness with the rougher sex. Why shouldn't a lady help fish?--Why
should she confess her inferiority? The post assigned to her by
nature--though usurped by man--is to elevate by her example, to
enlighten by her precepts, and to add to the great aggregate of human
felicity by a manifestation of all the virtues;" saying this, she
inserted her knife with astonishing dexterity just under the
gills--and looked round for approbation.
Mr Pitskiver had recourse to his usual expedient, and said something
about the feast of reason; Mr Whalley shook his head in a way that
would have made his fortune in a grocer's window in the character of
Howqua; and Mr Bristles prepared himself to reply--while the four
literary maidens turned their eyes on Aristarchus in expectation of
hearing something fine. "I decidedly am of opinion," said that great
man, "that woman's sphere is greatly misunderstood, and that you
maintain the dignity of your glorious sex by carving the fish.--Yet on
being further interrogated, I should be inclined to proceed with my
statement, and assert that you deprive us of pleasure, in debarring us
from giving you our assistance."
"Then, why don't you help us with our samplers? why don't you aid us
in our knitting? why don't you assist us in hemming garments?"--exclaimed
Miss Hendy, digging her spoon into the oyster-boat.
"This is what I call the feast and flow," said Mr Pitskiver; while Mr
Whalley nearly shook his head off his shoulders on to the table-cloth.
The young ladies looked slyly at Mr Pitskiver, and laughed.
"It would be rather undignified," said Mr Bristles, "to see the Lord
Chancellor darning a stocking."
"Dignity! the very thing I complain of. Why more undignified in a Lord
Chancellor, or a Bishop, than in his wife? Oh, will the time never
come when society will be so regenerated, that man will know his own
position, and woman--noble, elevating, surprising woman--will assume
the rank to which her powers and virtues entitle her!"
Mr Bristles was very hungry, and at that moment received his
plate.--"Really, Miss Hendy," he said, with his mouth prodigiously
distended with codfish--"there's no arguing against such eloquence. I
must give in." But Miss Hendy, who had probably lunched, determined to
accept no surrender.--"No," she cried--"you shall _not_ give in, till
I have overwhelmed you with reasons for your submission. A great move
is in progress--woman's rights and duties are becoming every day more
widely appreciated. The old-fashioned scale must be re-adjusted, and
woman--noble, elevating, surprising woman--ascend to the loftiest
eminence, and sit superior on the topmost branch of the social tree."
Mr Whalley, whose professional ear was caught by the last word, broke
through his usual rule of only nodding his remarks, and ventured to
say--"Uncommon bad climbers, for the most part in general, is women.
Their clothes isn't adapted for it.--I minds once I see a woman climb
a pole after a leg of mutting."
If looks could have killed Mr Whalley, Mr Pitskiver's eyes would
certainly have been tried for murder; but that matter-of-fact
individual was impervious to the most impassioned glances. Miss Hendy
sank her face in horror over her plate, and celestial rosy red
overspread her countenance; while a look of the most extraordinary
nature rewarded Mr Pitskiver for all his efforts in her behalf. A
look!--it went quite through his waistcoat, and if it had gone
straight on, must have reached his heart. Mr Pitskiver was amazed at
the expression of the look; for he little knew that his labours under
the table, in attempting to check Mr Whalley's oratory by pressing his
toes, had unfortunately been bestowed on the delicate foot of his
hostess; and what less could she do than respond to the gentle
courtesy by a glance of gratitude for what she considered a movement
of sympathy and condolence under the atrocious reminiscences of the
wood-merchant? Mr Whalley, however, was struck with the mournful
silence that followed his observation.
"That was a thing as happing'd on a pole," he said. "In cooss it would
be wery different on a tree--because of the branches, as I think you
was a-saying, Miss Hendy?"
Mr Pitskiver grew desperate. "Bristles," he cried, "any thing new in
sculpture? By the by, you haven't sent me Stickleback's jack-ass as
you promised. Is it a fine work?"
"I have no hesitation," replied the critic, "with a perfect
recollection of Canova's Venus, and even Moggs's Pandean Piper, which
I reviewed in last number of the _Universal_, in declaring that
Stickleback's work (it is a female, not a jack-ass) is the noblest
effort of the English chisel; there is life about it--a power--a
feeling--a sentiment--it is overwhelming! I shall express these ideas
in print. Stickleback's fame is secured by a stupendous ass, at once
so simple and so grand."
"A female, I think you said?" enquired Miss Hendy.
"A jeanie--miraculously soft, yet full of graceful dignity," replied
Bristles bowing to the enquirer, as if the description applied to her.
"I honour the sculptor for breaking through the prejudices of sex in
this splendid instance!" exclaimed the lady. "The feminine star is in
the ascendant. How much more illustrious the triumph! How greater the
difficulty to express in visible types, the soft, subduing, humanizing
graces of the female disposition, than to imprint the coarse outline
of masculine strength! How rough the contour of an Irish hodman to the
sweet flexibilities of the Venus of Canova!"
"Canova was by no means equal to Stickleback," said Mr Bristles
magisterially. "I have devoted much time to the study of the fine
arts--I have seen many statues--I have frequently been in sculptors'
studios; I prefer Stickleback to Canova."
"I honour his moral elevation," observed Miss Hendy, "in stamping on
eternal marble the femininity of the subject of his chisel."
"I must really have the first view," whispered Mr Pitskiver. "Can't
you remind him, Bristles? Don't send it to Whalley on my account."
But Mr Whalley, who was a rival Mæcenas, put in a word for himself,
"Mr Bristles," he said, "this must be a uncomming statty of a she-ass.
I oncet was recommended to drink a she-ass's milk myself, and liked it
uncomming. I must have the private sight you promised; and, if you'll
fix a day, I vill ask you and the artist to dine."
"Certainly, my dear sir--but Mr Pitskiver and Stickleback, they are
friends, you know, Mr Whalley, and perhaps Mr P.'s interest may be
useful in getting the great artist an order to ornament some of the
new buildings. I have some thoughts of recommending him to offer the
very statue we talk of for the front of the Mansion-house. A hint on
the subject has already appeared in the _Universal_."
"Miss Hendy," said Mr Pitskiver for the tenth time, "this is the
regular feast and flow; and nothing pleases me so much in my good
friend Bristles as his candid praise of other men's talents. You
seldom find clever people allowing each other's merits."
"Or stupid ones either"--replied Mr Bristles before the lady had time
to answer; "the fact is, we are much improved since former days. Our
great men don't quarrel as they used to do--conscious of one's own
dignity, why refuse a just appreciation of others? Stickleback has
often told me, that Chantrey was not altogether without merit--I
myself pronounce Macauley far from stupid; and my intellectual friend,
young Sidsby, who will read us the first act of his tragedy to-night,
allows a very respectable degree of dramatic power to Lord Byron.
Surely this is a far better state of things than the perpetual
carpings of Popes and Addisons, Smiths and Johnsons, Foxes and Pitts."
"And all owing to the rising influence of the female sex," interposed
Miss Hendy. "But woman has not yet received her full development. The
time will come when her influence is universal; when, softened,
subdued, purified, and elevated, the animal now called Man will be
unknown. You will be all women--can the world look for higher
destiny?"
"In cooss," observed Mr Whalley--"if we are all turned into woming,
the world will come to a end. For 'spose a case;--'spose it had been
my sister as married Mrs Whalley instead of me--it's probable there
wouldn't have been no great fambly; wich in cooss, if there was no
poppleation"--
But what the fearful result of this supposed case would have been, has
never been discovered; for Miss Hendy, making a signal to the four
representatives of the female sex started out of the room as if she
had heard Mr Whalley had the plague, and left the gentlemen to
themselves.
"De Staël was no match for that wonderful woman," said Mr Bristles,
resuming his chair. "I don't believe so noble an intellect was ever
enshrined in so beautiful a form before."
"Do you think her pretty?" enquired Mr Pitskiver.
"Pretty? no, sir--beautiful! Here is the finest sort of
loveliness--the light blazing from within, that years cannot
extinguish. I consider Miss Hendy the finest woman in England; and
decidedly the most intellectual."
The fact of Miss Hendy's beauty had never struck Mr Pitskiver before.
But he knew that Bristles was a judge, and took it at once for
granted. The finest woman in England had looked in a most marvellous
manner into his face, and the small incident of the foot under the
table was not forgotten.
Mr Pitskiver was inspired by the subject of his contemplations, and
proposed her health in a strain of eloquence which produced a
wonderful amount of head-shaking from Mr Whalley, and frequent
exclamations of "Demosthenes," "Cicero," "Burke all over!" from the
more enraptured Mr Bristles.
"I'm horrible afear'd," observed the elder gentleman putting down his
empty glass, "as my son Bill Whalley is a reg'lar fool."
"Oh, pardon me!" exclaimed Bristles--"I haven't the, honour of his
intimacy, but--" "Only think the liberties he allows himself in
regard to this here intellectual lady, Miss Hendy. He never hears her
name without a putting of his thumb on the top of his nose, and a
shaking of his fingers in my face, and a crying out for a friend of
his'n of the name of Walker. Its uncomming provoking--and sich a
steady good business hand there ain't in the Boro'. I can't fadom it."
"Some people have positively no souls," chimed in Mr Pitskiver,
looking complacently down his beautiful waistcoat, as if he felt that
souls were in some sort of proportion to the tenements they inhabited,
and that his was of gigantic size; "but I did not think that your son
William was so totally void of ideas. I shall talk to him next
Sunday's dinner."
"If you talks to him about Memel and Dantzic, you'll find there ain't
such a judge of timber in London," said the father, who was evidently
proud of his son's mercantile qualifications; "but with regard to this
here pottery, and scupshire, and other things as I myself delights in,
he don't care nothin about 'em. He wouldn't give twopence to see
Stickleback's statty."
"Then he had better not have the honour," said Pitskiver. "Bristles,
you'll send it to Harley Street. First view is every thing."
"Really, gentlemen, you are both such exquisite judges of the arts,
and such discriminating patrons of artists, that I find it difficult
to determine between you. Shall we let Stickleback settle the point
himself?"
Both the Mæcenases consented, each at the same time making resolutions
in his own mind to make the unhappy artist suffer, if by any chance
his rival should get the preference. After another glass or two of the
dark-coloured liquid which wore the label of port, and which Bristles
maintained was the richest wine he had ever tasted, as it was
furnished by a particular friend of his, who, in addition to being a
wine merchant, was one of the most talented men in Europe, and a
regular contributor to the _Universal_ under the signature
"Squirk,"--after another glass or two of this bepraised beverage,
which, at the same time, did not seem altogether to suit the taste of
the two patrons of the arts and sciences, the gentlemen adjourned to
the drawing-room, from which music had been sounding for a
considerable time.