away the belle from all competitors; the hunt, the ball, the theatre,
and the card-party all owned his sovereign sway; although it must be
admitted, that, in the latter amusement, he seldom or ever hazarded
enough to disturb his financial recollections on the morrow. But time
works wonders--notoriety is of two complexions, and what may render a
man a very agreeable companion to foxhunters and frolicsome lordlings,
is not always the best calculated to recommend him in the eyes of the
accomplished and the rigid in matters of moral propriety. But other
equally celebrated and less worthy predilections have been trumpeted
forth in courts and newspapers, until the fame of the colonel has spread
itself through every grade of society, and, unlike that wreath which
usually decks the gallant soldier's brow, a cypress chaplet binds the
early gray, and makes admonitory signal of the ill-spent past. The
wrongs of an injured ~227~~and confiding husband, whose fortunes,
wrecked by the false seducer, have left him a prey to shattered ruin,
yet live in the remembrance of some honest Cheltenham hearts; and
although these may feel for the now abandoned object of his illicit
passion, there are but few who, while they drop a tear of pity as she
passes them daily in the street, do not invoke a nobler feeling of
indignation upon the ruthless head of him who forged the shafts of
misery, and pierced at one fell blow the hearts of husband, wife, and
children! What father that has read Maria's hapless tale of woe,
and marked the progress of deceptive vice, will hereafter hazard the
reputation of his daughters by suffering them to mix in Cheltenham
society with the branded seducer and his profligate associates?
Gallantry, an unrestricted love of the fair sex, and a predilection
for variety, may all be indulged in this country to any extent, without
betraying confidence on the one hand or innocence upon the other,
without outraging decency, or violating the established usages of
society. While the profligate confines his sensual pleasures with such
objects as I allude to within the walls of his harem, the moralist has
no right to trespass upon his privacy; it is only when they are blazoned
forth to public view, and daringly opposed to public scorn, that the
lash of the satirist is essentially useful, if not in correcting, at
least in exposing the systematic seducer, and putting the inexperienced
and the virtuous on their guard against the practice of profligacy. It
is the frequency and notoriety of such scenes that has at last alarmed
the Chelts, who, fearing more for their suffering interests than for
their suffering fellow-creatures, begin to murmur rather loudly against
the Berkeley Adonis, representing that the town itself suffers in
respectability and increase of visitors, by its being known as the
rendezvous of the bloods and blacks of Berkeley. The truth of this
assertion may be gathered from the ~228~~following _jeu d' esprit_, only
one among a hundred of such squibs that have been very freely circulated
in Cheltenham and the neighbourhood within the last year.
'NEWS FROM CHELTENHAM.
'The season runs smartly in Cheltenham's town,
The gossips are up, and the colonel is down;
He has taken the place of the famous Old Gun {1}
That exploded last year, and created some fun.
Were no lives then lost? some say, Yes! and some, No!
The report even shook the old walls of Glasgow.{2}
And the Bushe was found out to be no safe retreat,
For in love, as in war, you may chance to be beat;
And a hell-shaming fellow can never be reckon'd,
Whate'er he may publish, a capital second.'
"But now having had our fling at his vices, let us speak of him more
agreeably; for the fellow hath some qualifications which, if humour
suit, enables him to shine forth a star of the first magnitude among
_bons vivants_ and sporting characters, who ride, amble, and vegetate
upon the banks of the Chelt. Such is his love of hunting, a pleasure in
which he not only indulges himself, but enables others, his friends,
to participate with him, by keeping up a numerous stud of thirty well
trained horses, and a double pack of fox-hounds, that no appropriate day
may be lost, nor any opportunity missed, of pursuing the sports of the
chase. This is as it should be, and smacks of that glorious spirit
which animated his ancestors; although the violence of his temper will
sometimes break out even here, in the field, when some young and forward
Nimrod, unable to restrain his fiery steed, _o'er-caps_ the hounds, or
crosses the scent. As the Chelts are, or have been, greatly benefited by
the hounds being kept alternately during the hunting months between
1 A good-morrow to you, Captain Gun.
2 Miss Glasgow, divine perfection of antique virgin purity!
what could the poet mean by this allusion?
~229~~Cheltenham and Gloucester, they must at least feel some little
gratitude to be due to the man who is the cause of such an increase of
society, and consequent expenditure of cash. But, say they, we lose in
a fourfold degree; for the respectable portion of the fashionable
visitants have of late cut us entirely, to save their sons and daughters
from pollution and ruin, by association or the force of example. 'Tis
not in the nature of the English Spy rudely to draw aside the curtain,
even to expose the midnight revelries and debaucheries, of which he
possesses some extraordinary anecdotes; events, which, if recorded here,
would, in the language of the poet,
'Give ample room, and verge enough,
The characters of hell to trace;
How through each circling year, on many a night,
Have Severn's waves re-echoed with affright
The shrieks of (maids) through Berkeley's roofs that ring.'
"But let these tales be told hereafter, as no doubt they will be, by the
creatures who now pander to vice, when the satiated and the sullen
chief sinks into decay, or cuts from his emaciated trunk the filthy
excrescences which, like poisonous fungus, suck the sap of honour and of
life. The colonel hath had many trials in this life, and much to
break down a noble and a proud spirit. In earlier days, a question
of birthright, while it cut off one entail, brought on another, which
entailed a name, not the ancient gift of a monarch, but one still more
ancient, and, according to Dodsley's Chronology of the Kings of England,
the origin of British sovereignty itself--a '_filius nullius,_' a title
that left it open to the wearer to have established his own fame, and to
have been the architect of a nobler fortune; for
'Who nobly acts may hold to scorn
The man who is but nobly born.'
"Had the colonel acted thus, there is little doubt but long ere this the
kind heart of his Majesty would have ~230~~warmed into graciousness
as he reflected upon the untoward circumstances which removed from the
eldest born of an ancient house the honours of its armorial bearings;
the _engrailed bar_ might have been erased from the shield, and the
coronet of nobility have graced the elder brother, without invading the
legal designation or claims of the legitimate younger; but
I sing of a day that is gone and past,
Of a chance that is lost, and a die that's cast.
And even now, while I am sermonizing on late events but too notorious,
the busy hum of many voices buzzes a tale upon the ear that sickens with
its unparalleled profligacy; but the English Spy, the faithful historian
of the present times, refuses to stain his pages by giving credit to,
or recording, the imputed profligate connexion. Adieu, _monsieur_ the
colonel; fain would I have passed you by without this comment; but your
association with the black spirits of the 'Age'{3} has placed you upon a
pedestal, the proper mark for satire to shoot her barbed arrows at.
"But let us take a turn down the High Street; and as I live here comes
an old flame of the colonel's, Miss R*g*rs, who is now turned into Mrs.
E***n, and who, it is said, most wickedly turned her pen, and pointed
the following _jeu d'esprit_ against her late protector, when he was
laid up by a serious accident, which happened to his knee after the more
serious loss of a--_Foote_.
3 "A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind" says Pope; and
it would appear so from the intimacy which subsists between
the colonel and his jackall Bunn, the would-be captain, who
it is said is the _filius nullius_ of old Ben Bunn the
_conveyancer_, not of legal title or estate by roll of
parchment, but of the very soil itself. Lord W. Lennox, too,
no doubt, prides himself upon the illegitimate origin of his
ancestry; and the publisher of the infamous scandals
manufactured in the Quadrant is also of the same kidney,
being the reputed natural son of jolly old Bardolph Jennyns.
What the remaining portion of the coterie spring from, the
Gents and Bs., the sensitive nose of a sensible man will
very easily discover.
~231~~
'To Cupid's colonel help, ye people all;
He's missed his _Footing_, 'Pride has had a fall;'
The knee's uncapp'd, the calf laid open quite,
The Foote presents the most distressing sight;
Its form so perfect, pity none were nigh,
With warning voice to guard from injury.
Waltzers! your peerless partner view,
The gallant gay Lothario quite _perdu;
Sans Foote_ to rest upon, his claims deny'd
To take a birth by English nobles' side.
Let him to Cheltenham, 'tis not to go far;
He's sure to find a _seat--on Irish car_.'
"I am told, but I cannot discover the allusion myself, that Miss B*g*rs
was prompted to this effusion of the satiric muse by the green-eyed
monster, Jealousy, Observe that machine yonder, rumbling up the street
like an Irish jaunting-car, that contains the numerous family of M***r,
the vinegar merchant, whose lady being considered by the Chelts as
lineally descended from the Tartar race, they have very facetiously
nicknamed muriatic acid. The mad wag with the sandy whiskers yonder, and
somewhat pleasant-looking countenance, is a second-hand friend of the
colonel's; mark how he is ogling the young thing in the milliner's shop
through the window: his daily occupation, making assignations, and his
nightly amusement, a new favourite. A story is told of his father, a
highly respected legal character in the Emerald Isle, that, on being
asked by a friend why his son had left the country, replied, 'By Jasus,
sir, it was high time: sure I am there's enough of the family left
behind. Is not his lady in a _promising_ way, and both his female
servants, and those of two or three of his friends, and are not both
mine in a similar situation? Zounds, sir, if he had remained here much
longer, there would not have been a single female in the whole country.
However, 'Good wine, they say, needs no Bushe,' so I shall leave him
unmarked by his family cognomen, lest this ~232~~should be taken as
a puff-card of his capabilities, and thereby add to the list of his
Cytherean exploits. In a late affair, when the colonel was called
out (but did not come), Sir Patrick beat about the Bushe for him very
judiciously, and by great skill in diplomacy enabled his friend to come
off second best. But here comes one who stands at odds with description,
and attracts more notice in Cheltenham than even the colonel, his
companions, and all the metropolitan visitory put together. If I was to
lend myself to the circulation of half the strange tales related of him
by the Chelts, I could fill a small-sized volume; but brevity is the
soul of wit, and the eccentric Mackey, with all his peculiarities and
strange fancies for midnight mastications, has a soul superior to the
common herd, and a 'heart and hand, open as day, to melting charity.'
It is strange, 'passing strange,' that one so rich and fond of society,
and well-descended withal, should choose thus to ape the ridiculous; a
man, too, if report speaks truly, of no ordinary talents as a writer
on finance, and an expounder of the solar system. Vanity! vanity! what
strange fantasies and eccentric fooleries dost thou sometimes fill the
brain of the biped with, confining thy freaks, however, to that strange
animal--man. The countenance of our eccentric is placid and agreeable,
and, provided it was cleared of a load of snuff, which weighs down the
upper lip, might be said to be, although in the sear o' the leaf, highly
intellectual; but the old Scotch cloak, the broad-brimmed hat of the
covenanter, the loose under vest, the thread-bare coat shaking in
the wind, like the unmeasured garment of the scarecrow, and the
colour-driven nankeens, grown short by age and frequent hard rubbings;
then, too, the flowing locks of iron gray straggling over the shoulders
like the withered tendrils of a blighted vine--all conspire to arrest
the attention of an inquisitive eye; yet the Chelts know but little
~233~~about his history, beyond his being a man of good property, the
proprietor of the Vittoria boarding-house, inoffensive in manners,
obliging in disposition, and intelligent in conversation. His great
penchant is a midnight supper, stewed chicken and mushrooms, or any
other choice and highly-seasoned dish; to enjoy which in perfection,
he hath a maiden sleeping at the foot of his bed ready to attend his
commands, which, it is said, are communicated to her in a very singular
way; no particle of speech being used to disturb the solemn silence of
the night, but a long cane reaching downwards to the slumbering maid, by
certain horizontal taps against her side, propelled forward by the
hand of the craving _gourmand_, wakes her to action, and the banquet,
piping-hot from the stew-pan, smokes upon the board, unlike a vision,
sending up real and enchanting odoriferous perfumes beneath his
olfactory organs. Extraordinary as this account may appear, it is, I
believe, strictly true, and is the great feature of the eccentric's
peculiarities, all the minor whims and fancies being of a subordinate
and uninteresting nature. I shall conclude my notice of him by relating
an action that would do honour to a king, and will excuse the eccentric
with the world, although his follies were ten times more remarkable.
During the suspension of payments by one of the Cheltenham banks, and
when all the poorer class of mechanics and labourers were in a most
piteous situation from the unprecedented number of one pound provincial
notes then in circulation, Mr. Mackey, to his eternal-honour be it
related, and without the remotest interest in the bank, stepped nobly
forward, unsolicited and unsupported, gave to all the poor people
who held the one pound notes the full value for them, reserving to
himself only the chance of the dividend. Ye Berkeleys, Ducies, Lennoxes,
Cravens, Hammonds, Bushes, Molineauxes, and Coventrys, and all the
long list of Cheltenham gay! ~234~~show me an action like this ye
have done--a spirit so noble, when did you display?--Do you see that
rosy-gilled fellow coming this way, with a hunting-whip in his hand? in
costume, more like a country horse-dealer than a country clergyman;
yet such he was, until the bishop of the diocese removed the clerical
incumbrance of the cassock, to give the wearer freer license to indulge
his vein for hunting, coursing, cock-fighting, and the unrestricted
pleasures of the table and the bottle. A good story is told of him and
his friend, the colonel, who, having invited some unsophisticated farmer
to partake of the festivities of the castle, laid him low with strong
potations of _black strap_, and in that state had him carried forth to
the stable-yard, where he was immured up to his neck in warm horse-dung,
the pious ex-chaplain reading the burial-service over him in presence of
the surviving members of the hunt."
"Who the deuce is that pleasant-looking fellow," said Bob, "who appears
to give and gain the _quid pro quo_ from every body that passes him?"
"That, my dear fellow, is the Grand Marshal of all the merry meetings
here, and a very gentlemanly, jovial, and witty fellow; just such a man
as should fill the office of master of the ceremonies, having both seen
and experienced enough of the world to know how to estimate character
almost at a first interview; he is highly and deservedly respected.
There is a very affecting anecdote in circulation respecting his
predecessor, the detail of which I much regret that I have lost; but
the spirit of the affair was too strongly imprinted upon my memory to be
easily obliterated. He had, it appears, loved a beauteous girl in
early life, and met with a reciprocal return; but the stern mandate
of parental authority prevented their union. The lover, almost
broken-hearted, sought a distant clime, and, after years of peril,
returned to England, bringing with him a wife. The match had been one
~235~~of interest, and they are seldom those of domestic bliss. It
proved so here--he became dissipated, and squandered away the property
he had possessed himself of by marriage. In this situation, he collected
together the wreck of his fortunes, and retired to Cheltenham, where his
amiable qualities and gentlemanly conduct endeared him to a large circle
of acquaintance, and, in the end, he was induced to accept the situation
of master of the ceremonies. Time rolled on, and his former partner
being dead, he was, from his volatile and thoughtless disposition,
again plunged in difficulties, and imprisoned for debt. The circumstance
became known to her at whose shrine in early life he had vowed eternal
devotion: with a still fond recollection of him, who alone had ever
shared her heart, she hastened to the spot, and, being now a wealthy
spinster, paid all his debts and released him from durance. Gratitude
and love both pointed out the course for the obliged M. c. to pursue;
but, alas! there is nothing certain in the anticipations of complete
happiness in this life. The lady fell suddenly sick, and died on the
very day they were to have been married, leaving him sole executor of
her property. The calamitous event made such a deep impression upon a
feeling mind, already shaken by trouble and disease, that finding his
prospects of bliss again blighted without a chance of recovery, he fell
into a state of despondency, and was, within a week, laid a corpse by
the side of his first love. At the post-office,--purposely placed out of
the way by the sagacious Chelts to give strangers the trouble of making
inquiries,--I received the following whim from the same witty pen who
wrote me, anonymously, an inauguration ode to commence my second volume
with." "Who is this whimsical spirit in the clouds?" said Bob. "Ay,
lad," I retorted, "that's just the inquiry I have been making for
the last eight months: ~236~~although it would appear we have--_ad
interim_--been running, riding, racing, rowing, and sailing together in
various parts of the kingdom, you perceive, Bob, there are more Spies
than ourselves at work. However, this must be some protecting geni
who hovers over our heads and fans the air on silken wing, wafting
zephyr-like the ambrosial breeze, where'er our merry fancies stray.
Anon, 'we'll drink a measure the table round;' and if we forget the
'Honest Reviewer,' may we lose all relish for a racy joke, and be
forgotten ourselves by the lovers of good fellowship and good things."
"Which we never shall be," said Bob; "for those eccentric _tomes_ of
ours must and will continue to amuse a laughter-loving age, when we
are booked inside and bound for t'other world." There was not a little
egotism, methought, about friend Transit's eulogy; but as every
parent has a sort of poetical licence allowed him in praising his own
bantlings, perhaps the patronage bestowed by the public upon the English
Spy may excuse a little vanity in either the author or the artist. "But
you are the great magician o' the south yourself, Bernard," continued
Transit, "and will you not use your power, you who can 'call spirits
from the vasty deep'" "True, Bob; I can call, but will they come when I
shall command? However, let us retire to our inn, and after dinner we'll
chant his lay; and if he dances not to the music of his own metre, then
hath he no true inspiration in him, and is a poet without vanity, a
_vara avis_ who delighteth not in receiving the reward of merit; so on,
old fellow, to our quarters, where we will
'Carve the goose, and quaff the wine,'
And wish our sprite were here to dine--
We'd give him hearty cheer;
A welcome such as hand and heart
To kindred spirits should impart,
Where friendship reigns sincere.'
~237~~We would punish him for sending his odes to us without sending his
family cognomen therewith. Have we not done him immortal honour--placed
him in front of our second volume like a golden dedication, and what is
more, selected him from many a pleasant whim, to stand by our side; the
only associate who can claim one line engrafted on to the never-ending
fame of the English Spy?--But to the 'Preachment;' let us have another
taste of his quality."
A SECOND ODE TO BERNARD BLACKMANTLE, ESQ.
or A MICHAELMAS-DAY PREACHMENT.
BY AN HONEST REVIEWER.
"_Iterumque, iterumque vocabo_."--Ancient Classics.
"'Tis a lucky day, boy, and we'll do goods on't."
--Winter's Tale.
"Ours is the skie,
Where at what fowle we please our hawks shall flie."
--Anon.
Ay, here I come once more, great sir,
Out of pure love to minister
Some golden truths to thee;
Faustus ye're not, nor Frankenstein,
Yet, being up to trap, I ween
You'll need a sprite like me.
Eve watch'd you closely, my young squire,
Since at vol. two I cool'd the ire
That left a little stain;
And therefore wonder not, sweet Spy,
Since both of us at follies fly,
Your "Tonson comes again."
~238~~
This is the day of Michaelmas.
Many would say, ay, "let that pass"
As a forgotten thing.
Not so with us, our rent we pay,
And do we not, on quarter-day,
Our taxes to the king?
Since, then, "our withers are unwrung,"
And we need wish no blister'd tongue
To creditors and duns,
Let's carve the goose, and quaff the wine,
And toast September twenty-nine,
Nor mark how fast time runs.
We've clone the same; that is, we've quaffd,
And sung, and danced, and drunk, and laugh'd,
When we were half seas over;
I don't mean tipsy, bless you, no!
But when we pass'd, like dart from bow,
Cowes Roads on board the Rover.
So pipe all hands; for though no gale
From sea-wash'd shores distend our sail,
We'll man a vessel here.
This room's our ship; this wine's our tide;
And the good friends we sit beside,
The messmates of our cheer.
Ay, this looks well; now till the glass
To king, to country, and our lass,
And all of pluck and feather;
That done around, and nothing loth,
Since we are "learned Thebans" both,
We'll have some talk together.
You've been to Cheltenham, I find,
And, zounds! you really ride the wind,
To Bath and Worcester too;
To South'ton and the Isle of Wight,
As if increase of appetite
With every new dish grew.
~239
But it was really _infra dig_.
Spite of your old horse and new gig,
You did not, some fine morn,
Drive up to Malcolm Ghur, d'ye see,{4}
And leave two pretty cards for me
And Sir John Barleycorn.
We would have been your chorus, sir,
Or, an' you pleased, your trumpeter,
And _lioned_ you about;
Have shown you every pretty girl,
And every _nouvelle_ quadrille twirl,
And every crowded rout.
At eight o' morns have call'd you down,
(What would they say of that in town?)
To swallow pump-room water;
At eight o' nights have call'd you up,
(Our grandams used just then to sup),
To 'gin the dinner slaughter.
Have whisk'd you o'er to Colonel B's,
Or drove you up to Captain P's,
Dons unto Cheltenham steady.
But I forget the world, good lack,
Have play'd enough with such a pack
Of great court-cards already.
4 Malcolm Ghur, one of the very prettiest of the many pretty
newly-erected mansions that give a character to the environs
of Cheltenham. To its proprietor do I owe much for
hospitality; a merrier man, withal, dwells not in my
remembrance; he is of your first-rate whist players, though
he rarely now joins in the game. As the chaplain of the
county-lodge of F. M. he is much distinguished; and, at the
dinners of the Friendly Brothers--which are luxurious
indeed, and all for the "immortal memory" of William, king
of that name, and whose portrait ornaments their reading-
room--who better than he can "set the table in a roar"?
~240~~
Have set you down at ten pound whist
With A-------y, and the _au fait_ list,{5}
Turning your nights to days;
Or, somewhat wiser, bid you mix
Where less expensive are odd tricks,
And where friend R-------n plays.{6}
Have made you try a double trade,
By clapping you in masquerade,
To jaunt at fancy-balls;
You would have seen some merry sights
On two or three particular nights,
In good Miss-----------'s halls.{7}