Veteres revocavit artes.
--Horace.
Since I came hither I have heard strange news.
--King Lear.
Two days after my long conversation with Tyrrell, I called again upon
that worthy. To my great surprise he had left Cheltenham. I then strolled
to Vincent: I found him lolling on his sofa, surrounded, as usual, with
books and papers.
"Come in, Pelham," said he, as I hesitated at the threshold--"come in. I
have been delighting myself with Plato all the morning; I scarcely know
what it is that enchants us so much with the ancients. I rather believe,
with Schlegel, that it is that air of perfect repose--the stillness of a
deep soul, which rests over their writings. Whatever would appear common-
place amongst us, has with them I know not what of sublimity and pathos.
Triteness seems the profundity of truth--wildness the daring of a
luxuriant imagination. The fact is, that in spite of every fault, you see
through all the traces of original thought; there is a contemplative
grandeur in their sentiments, which seems to have nothing borrowed in its
meaning or its dress. Take, for instance, this fragment of Mimnermus, on
the shortness of life,--what subject can seem more tame?--what less
striking than the feelings he expresses?--and yet, throughout every line,
there is a melancholy depth and tenderness, which it is impossible to
define. Of all English writers who partake the most of this spirit of
conveying interest and strength to sentiments, subjects, and language,
neither novel in themselves, nor adorned in their arrangement, I know
none that equal Byron; it is indeed the chief beauty of that
extraordinary poet. Examine Childe Harold accurately, and you will be
surprised to discover how very little of real depth or novelty there
often is in the reflections which seem most deep and new. You are
enchained by the vague but powerful beauty of the style; the strong
impress of originality which breathes throughout. Like the oracle of
Dodona, he makes the forest his tablets, and writes his inspirations upon
the leaves of the trees: but the source of that inspiration you cannot
tell; it is neither the truth nor the beauty of his sayings which you
admire, though you fancy that it is: it is the mystery which accompanies
them."
"Pray," said I, stretching myself listlessly on the opposite sofa to
Vincent, "do you not imagine that one great cause of this spirit of which
you speak, and which seems to be nothing more than a thoughtful method of
expressing all things, even to trifles, was the great loneliness to which
the ancient poets and philosophers were attached? I think (though I have
not your talent for quoting) that Cicero calls the consideratio naturae,
the pabulum animi; and the mind which, in solitude, is confined
necessarily to a few objects, meditates more closely upon those it
embraces: the habit of this meditation enters and pervades the system,
and whatever afterwards emanates from it is tinctured with the thoughtful
and contemplative colours it has received."
"Heus Domine!" cried Vincent: "how long have you learnt to read Cicero,
and talk about the mind?"
"Ah," said I, "I am perhaps less ignorant than I affect to be: it is now
my object to be a dandy; hereafter I may aspire to be an orator--a wit, a
scholar, or a Vincent. You will see then that there have been many odd
quarters of an hour in my life less unprofitably wasted than you
imagine."
Vincent rose in a sort of nervous excitement, and then reseating himself,
fixed his dark bright eyes steadfastly upon me for some moments; his
countenance all the while assuming a higher and graver expression than I
had ever before seen it wear.
"Pelham," said he, at last, "it is for the sake of moments like these,
when your better nature flashes out, that I have sought your society and
your friendship. I, too, am not wholly what I appear: the world may yet
see that Halifax was not the only statesman whom the pursuits of
literature had only formed the better for the labours of business.
Meanwhile, let me pass for the pedant, and the bookworm: like a sturdier
adventurer than myself, 'I bide my time.'--Pelham--this will be a busy
session! shall you prepare for it?"
"Nay," answered I, relapsing into my usual tone of languid affectation;
"I shall have too much to do in attending to Stultz, and Nugee, and
Tattersall and Baxter, and a hundred other occupiers of spare time.
Remember, this is my first season in London since my majority."
Vincent took up the newspaper with evident chagrin; however, he was too
theoretically the man of the world, long to shew his displeasure. "Parr--
Parr--again," said he; "how they stuff the journals with that name. God
knows, I venerate learning as much as any man; but I respect it for its
uses, and not for itself. However, I will not quarrel with his
reputation--it is but for a day. Literary men, who leave nothing but
their name to posterity, have but a short twilight of posthumous renown.
Apropos, do you know my pun upon Parr and the Major?"
"Not I," said I, "Majora canamus!"
"Why, Parr and I, and two or three more were dining once at poor T. M--
's, the author of 'The Indian Antiquities.'Major--, a great traveller,
entered into a dispute with Parr about Babylon; the Doctor got into a
violent passion, and poured out such a heap of quotations on his
unfortunate antagonist, that the latter, stunned by the clamour, and
terrified by the Greek, was obliged to succumb. Parr turned triumphantly
to me: "What is your opinion, my lord," said he; "who is in the right?"
"Adversis major--par secundis," answered I.
"Vincent," I said, after I had expressed sufficient admiration at his
pun--"Vincent, I begin to be weary of this life; I shall accordingly pack
up my books and myself, and go to Malvern Wells, to live quietly till I
think it time for London. After to-day, you will, therefore, see me no
more."
"I cannot," answered Vincent, "contravene so laudable a purpose, however
I may be the loser." And after a short and desultory conversation, I left
him once more to the tranquil enjoyment of his Plato. That evening I went
to Malvern, and there I remained in a monotonous state of existence,
dividing my time equally between my mind and my body, and forming myself
into that state of contemplative reflection, which was the object of
Vincent's admiration in the writings of the ancients.
Just when I was on the point of leaving my retreat, I received an
intelligence which most materially affected my future prospects. My
uncle, who had arrived to the sober age of fifty, without any apparent
designs of matrimony, fell suddenly in love with a lady in his immediate
neighbourhood, and married her, after a courtship of three weeks.
"I should not," said my poor mother, very generously, in a subsequent
letter, "so much have minded his marriage, if the lady had not thought
proper to become in the family way; a thing which I do and always shall
consider a most unwarrantable encroachment on your rights."
I will confess that, on first hearing this news, I experienced a bitter
pang; but I reasoned it away. I was already under great obligations to my
uncle, and I felt it a very unjust and ungracious assumption on my part,
to affect anger at conduct I had no right to question, or mortification
at the loss of pretensions I had so equivocal a privilege to form. A man
of fifty has, perhaps, a right to consult his own happiness, almost as
much as a man of thirty; and if he attracts by his choice the ridicule of
those whom he has never obliged, it is at least from those persons he has
obliged, that he is to look for countenance and defence.
Fraught with these ideas, I wrote to my uncle a sincere and warm letter
of congratulation. His answer was, like himself, kind, affectionate, and
generous: it informed me that he had already made over to me the annual
sum of one thousand pounds; and that in case of his having a lineal heir,
he had, moreover, settled upon me, after his death, two thousand a-year.
He ended by assuring me, that his only regret at marrying a lady who, in
all respects, was above all women, calculated to make him happy, was his
unfeigned reluctance to deprive me of a station, which (he was pleased to
say), I not only deserved, but should adorn.
Upon receiving this letter, I was sensibly affected with my uncle's
kindness; and so far from repining at his choice, I most heartily wished
him every blessing it could afford him, even though an heir to the titles
of Glenmorris were one of them.
I protracted my stay at Malvern some weeks longer than I had intended;
the circumstance which had wrought so great a change in my fortune,
wrought no less powerfully on my character. I became more thoughtfully
and solidly ambitious. Instead of wasting my time in idle regrets at the
station I had lost, I rather resolved to carve out for myself one still
loftier and more universally acknowledged. I determined to exercise, to
their utmost, the little ability and knowledge I possessed; and while the
increase of income, derived from my uncle's generosity, furnished me with
what was necessary for my luxury, I was resolved that it should not
encourage me in the indulgence of my indolence.
In this mood, and with these intentions, I repaired to the metropolis.