it is not remembered that he lost popularity even with the worst boys in
the school; the whole secret of which was _specie minus quam vi_. He
was better than he seemed. There was no pride, no offending wish at
seclusion.
Though not so remarkable for book knowledge as his brother Sir James,
who thus, indeed, was nothing less than a prodigy, yet was M'Donald
extremely well and very variously read. In miscellaneous information,
far more accomplished than any boy of his time.
Markham, the master, had a high opinion of him; and once, in the midst
of strong and favourable prognostics, said, "There was nothing against
him but what was for him; rank and connections, and the too probable
event of thence advancing into life too forward and too early."
Markham spoke with much sagacity. The _rosa sera_ is the thing, for
safe and spreading efflorescence. Well as the wreath might be about
M'Donald's brow, it had probably been better, if gathered less eagerly,
if put on later.
Cock Langford was the son of the auctioneer--
And there never was an inheritance of qualities like it. He would have
made as good an auctioneer as his father; a better could not bo.
Cock Langford, so called, from the other auctioneer Cock, very early in
the school discovered great talents for ways and means; and, by private
contract, could do business as much and as well as his father.
His exercises were not noted for any excess of merit, or the want of it.
He certainly had parts, if they had been put in their proper direction:
that was trade. In that he might have been conspicuously useful.
As he was in college, and nothing loath in any occasion that led
to notice, in spite of a lisp in his speech, he played Davus in the
Phormio; which he opened with singidar absurdity, as the four first
words terminate in the letter s, which he, from the imperfection in his
speech, could not help mangling.
From the patronage of Lord Orford, Mr. Langford had one of the best
livings in Norfolk, L1000 a year; and afterwards, I understand, very
well exemplified the useful and honourable duties of a clergyman
resident on his benefice.
Hamilton. Every thing is the creature of accident; as that ~81~~works
upon time and place, so are the vicissitudes which follow; vicissitudes
that reach through the whole allotment of man, even to the charm of
character, and the qualities which produce it.
Physically speaking, human nature can redress itself of climate, can
generate warmth in high latitudes, and cold at the equator; but in
respect to mind and manners, from the law of latitude there is no
appeal. Man, like the plants that grow for him, has a proper sky and
soil: with them to flourish, without them to fade; through either
kingdom, vegetable and moral, in situations that are aquatic, the alpine
nature cannot live.
All this applies to Hamilton wasting himself at Westminster. "Wild
nature's vigour working at his root;"
his situation should have been accordingly; where he might have spread
wide and struck deep.
With more than boyish aptitudes and abilities, he should not thus have
been lost among boys. His incessant intrepidity, his restless curiosity,
his undertaking spirit, all indicated early maturity; all should have
led to pursuits, if not better, at least of more pith and moment than
the mere mechanism of dead language!
This by Hamilton (disdaining as a business what as an amusement perhaps
might have delighted him) was deemed a dead letter, and as such,
neglected; while he bestowed himself on other mechanism, presenting more
material objects to the mind.
[Illustration: page081]
Exercises out of school took place of exercises within. Not that like
Sackville or Hawkins, he had a ball at every leisure moment in his
hand; but, preferably to fives or cricket, he would amuse himself in
mechanical pursuits; little in themselves, but great as to what they
might have been convertible.
In the fourth form, he produced a red shoe of his own making. And though
he never made a pocket watch, and probably might mar many, yet all the
interior machinery he knew and could name. The whole movement he took to
pieces, and replaced.
The man who is to find out the longitude, cannot have beginnings; better
than these. Count Bruhl, since Madge's death, the best watch-maker of
his time, did not raise more early wonder.
Besides this, Hamilton was to be found in every daring oddity. Lords
Burlington and Kent, in all their rage for porticos, were nothing to him
in a rage for pediments.
For often has the morning caught him scaling the high pediments of the
school-door, and at peril of Ins life clambering down, opening the door
within, before the boy who kept the gate could come with the key. His
evenings set upon no less perils; in pranks with gunpowder; in leaping
from unusual heights into the ~82~~Thames. As a practical geographer
of London, and Heaven only knows how many miles round it, omniscient
Jackson himself could not know more.
All this, surely, was intrinsically right, wrong only in its direction.
Had he been sent to Woolwich, he might have come out, if not a rival of
the Duke of Richmond, then master of the ordnance, at least a first-rate
engineer. In economical arts and improvements, nothing less than
national, he might have been the Duke of Bridgewater of Ireland. Had the
sea been his profession, Lord Mulgrave might have been less alone in the
rare union of science and enterprise.
But all this capability of usefulness and fair fame, was brought to
nought by the obstinate absurdity of the people about him; nothing could
wean them from Westminster. His grandfather Roan, or Rohan, an old man
who saved much money in Rathbone-place, and spent but little of it
every evening at Slaughter's coffee-house, holding out large promise to
property, so became absolute; and absolute nonsense was his conduct to
his grandson. He persevered in the school; where, if a boy disaffects
book-knowledge, his books are only bought and sold. And after
Westminster, when the old man died, as if solicitous that every thing
about his grave, but poppy and mandragora, should grow downwards,
his will declared his grandson the heir, but not to inherit till he
graduated at Cambridge.
To Cambridge therefore he went; where having pursued his studies, as it
is called, in a ratio inverse and descending, he might have gone on from
bad to worse; and so, as many do, putting a grave face upon it, he might
have had his degree. But his animal spirits, and love of bustle, could
not go off thus undistinguished; and so, after coolly attempting
to throw a tutor into the Cam--after shaking all Cambridge from its
propriety by a night's frolic, in which he climbed the sign-posts, and
changed the principal signs, he was rusticated; till the good-humour of
the university returning, he was re-admitted, and enabled to satisfy his
grandfather's will!
After that, he behaved with much gallantry in America; and with good
address in that very disagreeable affair, the contested marriage of his
sister with Mr. Beresford the clergyman.
Indeed, through the intercourse of private life he was very amiable. The
same suavity of speech, courteous attentions, and general good-nature,
he had when a boy, continued and improved: good qualities the more to be
prized, as the less probable, from his bold and eager temper, from the
turbulence of his wishes, and the hurry of his pursuits.
~83~~Jekyl had in part, when a boy, the same happy qualities which
afterwards distinguished him so entirely: in his economy of time, in his
arts of arranging life, and distributing it exactly, between what was
pleasant and what was grave.
With vigorous powers and fair pursuits, the doing one thing at a time is
the mode to do every thing. Had Jekyl no other excellence than this, I
could not be surprised when he became attorney-general.
"When you got into the place of your ancestor, Sir Joseph," said the
tutor of Jekyl to him, "let this be your motto:
_Et properare loco, et Cesare_."
"Jekyl," said Mrs. Hobart one day, struck with the same address and
exactness, "do you know, if you were a painter, Poussin would be nothing
to you in the balance of a scene."
Several of his English exercises, and his verses, will not easily be
forgotten. And it will be remembered also, in a laughable way, that he
was as mischievous as a gentleman need be; the mobbing a vulgar, the
hoaxing a quiz, all the dialect of the Thames below Chelsea-reach, and
the whole reach of every thing, pleasant but wrong, which the school
statutes put out of reach, but what are the practice of the wits, and
of every gentleman who would live by the statutes. All these were among
Jekyl's early peculiarities, and raised his fame very high for spirit
and cleverness.
"So sweet and voluble was his discourse."
He was very popular among all the boys of his time. And he had a knack
yet more gratifying, of recommending himself to the sisters and cousins
of the boys he visited.
And he well held up in theory what he afterwards exemplified in fact.
For in one of the best themes of the time on this subject,
"_Non formosus erat, sod erat facundus Ulysses_,"
he was much distinguished.
~84~~"But the grave has closed upon most of the gay spirits of my
earlier time," said Crony; "and I alone remain the sad historian. Yonder
porch leads to the dormitory and school-room.{15}
'There Busby's awful picture decks the place,
Shining where once he shone a living grace.'
15 This school was founded by Queen Elizabeth in 1560, for
the education of forty boys, denominated king's scholars
from the royalty of their founders; besides which, the
nobility and gentry send their sons thither for instruction,
so that this establishment vies with Eton in celebrity and
respectability. The school is not endowed with lands and
possessions specifically appropriated to its own
maintenance, but is attached to the general foundation of
the collegiate church of Westminster, as far as relates to
the support of the king's scholars. It is under the care of
the dean and chapter of Westminster, conjointly with the
dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and the master of Trinity,
Cambridge, respect-ing the election of scholars to their
respective colleges. The foundation scholars sleep in the
dormitory, a building erected from the design and under the
superintendence of the celebrated Earl of Burlington, in the
reign of George the First; and in this place the annual
theatrical exhibitions take place; the scenery and
arrangements having been contrived under the direction of
Mr. Garrick, were presented by Archbishop Markham, the
former master of the school. The king's scholars are distin-
guished from the town-boys, or independents, by a gown, cap,
and college waistcoat; they have their dinner in the hall,
but seldom take any other meal in college; they pay for
education and accommodation as the town-boys; eight of them
are generally elected at the end of the fourth year to the
colleges above-named; they have studentships at Oxford, and
scholarships at Cambridge; the former worth from forty to
sixty pounds per annum, but the latter of small beneficial
consideration. The scholars propose themselves for the
foundation by challenge, and contend with each other in
Latin and Greek every day for eight weeks successively, when
the eight at the head of the number are chosen according to
vacancies. This contest occasions the king's scholarships to
be much sought after, as it becomes the ground-work of
reputation, and incites desire to excel. There are four boys
who are called Bishop's boys, from their being established
by Williams, Bishop of Lincoln; they have a gratuitous
education, and a small allowance which is suffered to
accumulate till the period of their admission into St.
John's College, Cambridge; they are distinguished by wearing
a purple gown, and are nominated by the dean and head-
master.
What a cloud of recollections, studded with bright and variegated
lights, passes before my inward vision! Stars of eminence in every
branch of learning, science, and public duties, who received their
education within those walls; old Westminsters, whose fame will last as
long as old England's records, and who shall doubt ~85~~that will be to
the end of time? Here grew into manhood and renown the Lord Burleigh,
King, Bishop of London, the poet Cowley, the great Dryden, Charles
Montague, Earl of Halifax, Dr. South, Matthew Prior, the tragedian
Rowe, Bishop Hooper, Kennet, Bishop of Peterborough, Dr. Friend, the
physician, King, Archbishop of Dublin, the philosopher Locke, Atterbury,
Bishop of Rochester, Bourne, the Latin poet, Hawkins Browne, Boyle, Earl
of Cork and Orrery, Carteret, Earl of Granville, Charles Churchill, the
English satirist, Frank Nicholls, the anatomist, Gibbon, the historian,
George Colman, Bonnel Thornton, the great Earl of Mansfield, Clayton
Mordaunt Cracherode, Richard Cumberland, the poet Cowper. These are only
a few of the great names which occur to me at this moment; but here is
enough to immortalize the memory of the old Westminsters."
ON FEASTERS AND FEASTING.
On the Attachment of the Moderns to Good Eating and
Drinking--Its Consequences and Operation upon Society--
Different Description of Dinner Parties--Royal--Noble--
Parliamentary--Clerical--Methodistical--Charitable--
Theatrical--Legal--Parochial--Literary--Commercial and
Civil Gourmands--Sketches at a Side-table, by Bernard
Blackmantle.
~86~~
"There are, while human miseries abound,
A thousand ways to waste superfluous wealth,
Without one fool or flatterer at your board,
Without one hour of sickness or disgust."
--Armstrong.
In such esteem is good eating held by the moderns, that the only way in
which Englishmen think they can celebrate any important event, or effect
any charitable purpose, is by a good dinner. From the palace to the
pot-house, the same affection for good eating and drinking pervades all
classes of mankind. The sovereign, when he would graciously condescend
to bestow on any individual some mark of his special favour, invites
him to the royal banquet, seats him _tete-a-tete_ with the most polished
prince in Europe; by this act of royal notice exalts him in the
public eye, and by the suavity and elegance of his manners rivets his
affections and secures his zeal for the remainder of his life. The
ministers too have their state dinners, where all important questions
are considered before they are submitted to the grand council of the
nation. The bishops dine in holy ~87~~conclave to benefit Christianity,
and moralize over Champagne on the immorality of mankind. The judges
dine with the lord chancellor on the first day of term, and try their
powers of mastication before they proceed to try the merits of their
fellow citizens' causes. A lawyer must eat his way to the bar, labouring
most voraciously through his commons dinners in the Temple or Lincoln's
Inn Halls, before he has any chance of success in common law, common
pleas, or common causes in the court of King's Bench or Chancery. The
Speaker's parliamentary dinners are splendid spreads for poor senators;
but sometimes the feast is infested with rats, whom his majesty's royal
rat-catcher immediately cages, and contrives, by the aid of a blue
or red ribband, to render extremely useful and docile. Your orthodox
ministers dine on tithes, turtle, and Easter offerings, until they
become as sleek as their own velvet cushions, and eke from charity to
mankind almost as red in the face from the ruby tint of red port,
and the sorrowful recollections of sin and death. The methodist and
sectarians have their pious love feasts--bachelor's fare, bread and
butter and kisses, with a dram of comfort at parting, I suppose. The
deaf, the dumb, the lame, the blind, all have their annual charitable
dinnerings; and even the Actor's Fund is almost entirely dependent on
the fund of amusement they contrive to offer to their friends at their
annual fund dinner. The church-wardens dine upon a child, and the
overseers too often upon the mite extorted from the poor. Even modern
literature is held in thraldom by the banquetings of modern booksellers
and publishers, who by this method contrive to cram the critics with
their crudities, and direct the operation of their servile pens in the
cutting up of poor authors. At the Publisher's Club, held at the Albion,
Dr. Kitchener and Will Jerdau rule the roast; here these worthies may be
heard commenting with ~88~~profound critical consistency on culinaries
and the classics, gurgling down heavy potations of black strap, and
making still heavier remarks upon black letter bibliomania, until all
the party are found labouring "_Dare pondus idonea fumo_," or, in the
language of Cicero, it may be justly said of them, "_Damnant quod non
intelligent_." The magnifico Murray has his merry meetings, where new
books are made palatable to certain tastes by sumptuous feastings, and
a choice supply of old wines. Colburn brings his books into notice by
first bringing his dinner _coteries_ into close conclave; and Longman's
monthly melange of authors and critics is a literary statute dinner,
where every guest is looking out for a liberal engagement.
[Illustration: page089]
Even the booksellers themselves feast one another before they buy and
sell; and a trade sale, without a trade dinner to precede it, would be
a very poor concern indeed. Fire companies and water companies, bubble
companies and banking companies, all must be united and consolidated by
a good dinner company. Your fat citizen, with a paunch that will scarce
allow him to pass through the side avenue of Temple Bar, marks his feast
days upon his sheet almanack, as a lawyer marks his term list with a
double dash, thus =, and shakes in his easy chair like a sack of blubber
as lie recapitulates the names of all the glorious good things of which
he has partaken at the annual civic banquet at Fishmonger's Hall, or the
Bible Association dinner at the City of London Tavern: at the mention
of white bait, his lips smack together with joy, and he lisps out
instinctively Blackwall: talk of a rump steak and Dolly's, his eyes grow
wild with delight; and just hint at the fine green fat of a fresh
killed turtle dressed at Birch's, and his whole soul's in arms for a
corporation dinner. Reader, I have been led into this strain of thinking
by an excursion I am about to make with Alderman Marigold and family,
~89~~to enjoy the pleasures of a Sunday ordinary in the suburbs of
the metropolis; an old fashioned custom that is now fast giving way
to modern notions of refinement, and is therefore the more worthy of
characteristic record.
Bernard Blackmantle.
[Illustration: page89b]
A SUNDAY RAMBLE TO HIGHGATE,
OR, THE CITS ORDINARY.
Bernard Blackmantle's first Excursion with the Marigold
Family--Lucubrations of the Alderman on the Alterations of
the Times--Sketches and Recollections on the Road--The Past
and the Present--Arrival at the Gate House, Highgate--The
Cit's Ordinary--Traits of Character--The Water Drinker, the
Vegetable Eater, and the Punster--Tom Cornish, the
Gourmand--Anecdote of old Tattersall and his Beef Eater--
Young Tat. and the Turnpike Man.
~90~~"May I never be merry more," said the alderman, "if we don't go a
Maying on Sunday next, and you must accompany us, Master Blackmantle: I
always make a country excursion once a year, to wit, on the first Sunday
in May, when we join a very jolly party at the Gate House, Highgate, and
partake of an excellent ordinary."
"I thought, Pa, you would have given up that vulgar custom when we
removed westward, and you were elected alderman of the ward of Cheap."
"Ay," said Mrs. Marigold, "if you wish to act politely to your wife and
daughter write to the Star and Garter at Richmond, or the Toy at Hampton
Court, and order a choice dinner beforehand for a select party; then we
should be thought something of, and be able to dine in comfort, without
being ~91~~_scrowged_ up in a corner by a Leadenhall landlady, or
elbowed out of every mouthful by a Smithfield salesman."
"There it is, Mr. Blackmantle, that's the evil of a man having a few
pounds more in his purse than his neighbours--it makes him miserable
with his family at home, and prevents him associating with old friends
abroad. If you marry my Biddy, make these conditions with her--to
dispense with all Mrs. Marigold's maxims on modern manners, and be at
liberty to smoke your pipe where, and with whom you please."
"I declare, Pa, one would imagine you wished Mr. Blackmantle to lose all
his manners directly after marriage, and all respect for his intended
bride beforehand."
"Nothing of the sort, Miss Sharpwit; but, ever since I made the
last fortunate contract, you and your mother have contracted a most
determined dislike to every thing social and comfortable--haven't I
cut the Coger's Society in Bride Lane, and the Glee Club at the Ram in
Smithfield? don't I restrain myself to one visit a week to the Jolly Old
Scugs{1} Society in Abchurch Lane? haven't I declined the chair of the
Free and Easy Johns, and given up my command in the Lumber Troop?--are
these no sacrifices? is it nothing to have converted my ancestors' large
estate in Thames Street into warehouses, and emigrated westward to be
confined in one of your kickshaw cages in Tavistock Square? Don't I keep
a chariot and a chaise for your comfort, and consent to be crammed up
in a corner at a concert party to hear some foreign stuff I don't
understand? Plague take your drives in Hyde Park and promenades in
Kensington Gardens! give me the society where I can eat, drink, laugh,
joke, and smoke
1 Blue coat boys. The others are all well-known anacreontic
meetings held in the city.
~92~~as I like, without being obliged to watch every word and action,
as if my tongue was a traitor to my head, and my stomach a tyrant of
self-destruction."
The alderman's remonstrance was delivered with so much energy and good
temper, that there was no withstanding his argument; a hearty laugh,
at the conclusion, from Miss Biddy and myself, accompanied by an
ejaculation of "Poor man, how ill you are used!" from his lady, restored
all to good-humour, and obtained the "_quid pro quo_," a consent on
their parts to yield to old customs, and, for once in a way, to allow
the alderman to have a day of his own. The next morning early an open
barouche received our party, the coachman being particularly cautioned
not to drive too fast, to afford the alderman an opportunity of
_luxuriating_ upon the reminiscences of olden time.
As the carriage rolled down the hill turning out of the New Road the
alderman was particularly eloquent in pointing out and describing the
once celebrated tea gardens, Bagnigge Wells.