CHAPTER LXXX. In which the Colonel says “Adsum” when his Name is called

THE NEWCOMES

CHAPTER I.

The Overture—After which the Curtain rises upon a Drinking Chorus

A crow, who had flown away with a cheese from a dairy-window, sate

perched on a tree looking down at a great big frog in a pool underneath

him. The frog’s hideous large eyes were goggling out of his head in a

manner which appeared quite ridiculous to the old blackamoor, who

watched the splay-footed slimy wretch with that peculiar grim humour

belonging to crows. Not far from the frog a fat ox was browsing; whilst

a few lambs frisked about the meadow, or nibbled the grass and

buttercups there.

Who should come in to the farther end of the field but a wolf? He was

so cunningly dressed up in sheep’s clothing, that the very lambs did

not know Master Wolf; nay, one of them, whose dam the wolf had just

eaten, after which he had thrown her skin over his shoulders, ran up

innocently towards the devouring monster, mistaking him for her mamma.

“He, he!” says a fox, sneaking round the hedge-paling, over which the

tree grew, whereupon the crow was perched looking down on the frog, who

was staring with his goggle eyes fit to burst with envy, and croaking

abuse at the ox. “How absurd those lambs are! Yonder silly little

knock-kneed baah-ling does not know the old wolf dressed in the sheep’s

fleece. He is the same old rogue who gobbled up little Red Riding

Hood’s grandmother for lunch, and swallowed little Red Riding Hood for

supper. _Tirez la bobinette et la chevillette cherra_. He, he!”

An owl that was hidden in the hollow of the tree woke up. “Oho, Master

Fox,” says she, “I cannot see you, but I smell you! If some folks like

lambs, other folks like geese,” says the owl.

“And your ladyship is fond of mice,” says the fox.

“The Chinese eat them,” says the owl, “and I have read that they are

very fond of dogs,” continued the old lady.

“I wish they would exterminate every cur of them off the face of the

earth,” said the fox.

“And I have also read, in works of travel, that the French eat frogs,”

continued the owl. “Aha, my friend Crapaud! are you there? That was a

very pretty concert we sang together last night!”

“If the French devour my brethren, the English eat beef,” croaked out

the frog,—“great, big, brutal, bellowing oxen.”

“Ho, whoo!” says the owl, “I have heard that the English are

toad-eaters too!”

“But who ever heard of them eating an owl or a fox, madam?” says

Reynard, “or their sitting down and taking a crow to pick?” adds the

polite rogue, with a bow to the old crow who was perched above them

with the cheese in his mouth. “We are privileged animals, all of us; at

least, we never furnish dishes for the odious orgies of man.”

“I am the bird of wisdom,” says the owl; “I was the companion of Pallas

Minerva: I am frequently represented in the Egyptian monuments.”

“I have seen you over the British barn-doors,” said the fox, with a

grin. “You have a deal of scholarship, Mrs. Owl. I know a thing or two

myself; but am, I confess it, no scholar—a mere man of the world—a

fellow that lives by his wits—a mere country gentleman.”

“You sneer at scholarship,” continues the owl, with a sneer on her

venerable face. “I read a good deal of a night.”

“When I am engaged deciphering the cocks and hens at roost,” says the

fox.

“It’s a pity for all that you can’t read; that board nailed over my

head would give you some information.”

“What does it say?” says the fox.

“I can’t spell in the daylight,” answered the owl; and, giving a yawn,

went back to sleep till evening in the hollow of her tree.

“A fig for her hieroglyphics!” said the fox, looking up at the crow in

the tree. “What airs our slow neighbour gives herself! She pretends to

all the wisdom; whereas, your reverences, the crows, are endowed with

gifts far superior to these benighted old big-wigs of owls, who blink

in the darkness, and call their hooting singing. How noble it is to

hear a chorus of crows! There are twenty-four brethren of the Order of

St. Corvinus, who have builded themselves a convent near a wood which I

frequent; what a droning and a chanting they keep up! I protest their

reverences’ singing is nothing to yours! You sing so deliciously in

parts, do for the love of harmony favour me with a solo!”

While this conversation was going on, the ox was thumping the grass;

the frog was eyeing him in such a rage at his superior proportions,

that he would have spurted venom at him if he could, and that he would

have burst, only that is impossible, from sheer envy; the little

lambkin was lying unsuspiciously at the side of the wolf in fleecy

hosiery, who did not as yet molest her, being replenished with the

mutton her mamma. But now the wolf’s eyes began to glare, and his sharp

white teeth to show, and he rose up with a growl, and began to think he

should like lamb for supper.

“What large eyes you have got!” bleated out the lamb, with rather a

timid look.

“The better to see you with, my dear.”

“What large teeth you have got!”

“The better to——”

At this moment such a terrific yell filled the field, that all its

inhabitants started with terror. It was from a donkey, who had somehow

got a lion’s skin, and now came in at the hedge, pursued by some men

and boys with sticks and guns.

When the wolf in sheep’s clothing heard the bellow of the ass in the

lion’s skin, fancying that the monarch of the forest was near, he ran

away as fast as his disguise would let him. When the ox heard the noise

he dashed round the meadow-ditch, and with one trample of his hoof

squashed the frog who had been abusing him. When the crow saw the

people with guns coming, he instantly dropped the cheese out of his

mouth, and took to wing. When the fox saw the cheese drop, he

immediately made a jump at it (for he knew the donkey’s voice, and that

his asinine bray was not a bit like his royal master’s roar), and

making for the cheese, fell into a steel trap, which snapped off his

tail; without which he was obliged to go into the world, pretending,

forsooth, that it was the fashion not to wear tails any more; and that

the fox-party were better without ’em.

Meanwhile, a boy with a stick came up, and belaboured Master Donkey

until he roared louder than ever. The wolf, with the sheep’s clothing

draggling about his legs, could not run fast, and was detected and shot

by one of the men. The blind old owl, whirring out of the hollow tree,

quite amazed at the disturbance, flounced into the face of a ploughboy,

who knocked her down with a pitchfork. The butcher came and quietly led

off the ox and the lamb; and the farmer, finding the fox’s brush in the

trap, hung it up over his mantelpiece, and always bragged that he had

been in at his death.

“What a farrago of old fables is this! What a dressing up in old

clothes!” says the critic. (I think I see such a one—a Solomon that

sits in judgment over us authors and chops up our children.) “As sure

as I am just and wise, modest, learned, and religious, so surely I have

read something very like this stuff and nonsense about jackasses and

foxes before. That wolf in sheep’s clothing?—do I not know him? That

fox discoursing with the crow?—have I not previously heard of him? Yes,

in Lafontaine’s fables: let us get the Dictionary and the Fable and the

Biographie Universelle, article Lafontaine, and confound the impostor.”

“Then in what a contemptuous way,” may Solomon go on to remark, “does

this author speak of human nature! There is scarce one of these

characters he represents but is a villain. The fox is a flatterer; the

frog is an emblem of impotence and envy; the wolf in sheep’s clothing a

bloodthirsty hypocrite, wearing the garb of innocence; the ass in the

lion’s skin a quack trying to terrify, by assuming the appearance of a

forest monarch (does the writer, writhing under merited castigation,

mean to sneer at critics in this character? We laugh at the impertinent

comparison); the ox, a stupid commonplace; the only innocent being in

the writer’s (stolen) apologue is a fool—the idiotic lamb, who does not

know his own mother!” And then the critic, if in a virtuous mood, may

indulge in some fine writing regarding the holy beauteousness of

maternal affection.

Why not? If authors sneer, it is the critic’s business to sneer at them

for sneering. He must pretend to be their superior, or who would care

about his opinion? And his livelihood is to find fault. Besides, he is

right sometimes; and the stories he reads, and the characters drawn in

them, are old, sure enough. What stories are new? All types of all

characters march through all fables: tremblers and boasters; victims

and bullies; dupes and knaves; long-eared Neddies, giving themselves

leonine airs; Tartuffes wearing virtuous clothing; lovers and their

trials, their blindness, their folly and constancy. With the very first

page of the human story do not love and lies too begin? So the tales

were told ages before Aesop; and asses under lions’ manes roared in

Hebrew; and sly foxes flattered in Etruscan; and wolves in sheep’s

clothing gnashed their teeth in Sanskrit, no doubt. The sun shines

to-day as he did when he first began shining; and the birds in the tree

overhead, while I am writing, sing very much the same note they have

sung ever since there were finches. Nay, since last he besought

good-natured friends to listen once a month to his talking, a friend of

the writer has seen the New World, and found the (featherless) birds

there exceedingly like their brethren of Europe. There may be nothing

new under and including the sun; but it looks fresh every morning, and

we rise with it to toil, hope, scheme, laugh, struggle, love, suffer,

until the night comes and quiet. And then will wake Morrow and the eyes

that look on it; and so _da capo_.

This, then, is to be a story, may it please you, in which jackdaws will

wear peacocks’ feathers, and awaken the just ridicule of the peacocks;

in which, while every justice is done to the peacocks themselves, the

splendour of their plumage, the gorgeousness of their dazzling necks,

and the magnificence of their tails, exception will yet be taken to the

absurdity of their rickety strut, and the foolish discord of their pert

squeaking; in which lions in love will have their claws pared by sly

virgins; in which rogues will sometimes triumph, and honest folks, let

us hope, come by their own; in which there will be black crape and

white favours; in which there will be tears under orange-flower

wreaths, and jokes in mourning-coaches; in which there will be dinners

of herbs with contentment and without, and banquets of stalled oxen

where there is care and hatred—ay, and kindness and friendship too,

along with the feast. It does not follow that all men are honest

because they are poor; and I have known some who were friendly and

generous, although they had plenty of money. There are some great

landlords who do not grind down their tenants; there are actually

bishops who are not hypocrites; there are liberal men even among the

Whigs, and the Radicals themselves are not all aristocrats at heart.

But who ever heard of giving the Moral before the Fable? Children are

only led to accept the one after their delectation over the other: let

us take care lest our readers skip both; and so let us bring them on

quickly—our wolves and lambs, our foxes and lions, our roaring donkeys,

our billing ringdoves, our motherly partlets, and crowing chanticleers.

There was once a time when the sun used to shine brighter than it

appears to do in this latter half of the nineteenth century; when the

zest of life was certainly keener; when tavern wines seemed to be

delicious, and tavern dinners the perfection of cookery; when the

perusal of novels was productive of immense delight, and the monthly

advent of magazine-day was hailed as an exciting holiday; when to know

Thompson, who had written a magazine-article, was an honour and a

privilege; and to see Brown, the author of the last romance, in the

flesh, and actually walking in the Park with his umbrella and Mrs.

Brown, was an event remarkable, and to the end of life to be perfectly

well remembered; when the women of this world were a thousand times

more beautiful than those of the present time; and the houris of the

theatres especially so ravishing and angelic, that to see them was to

set the heart in motion, and to see them again was to struggle for half

an hour previously at the door of the pit; when tailors called at a

man’s lodgings to dazzle him with cards of fancy waistcoats; when it

seemed necessary to purchase a grand silver dressing-case, so as to be

ready for the beard which was not yet born (as yearling brides provide

lace caps, and work rich clothes, for the expected darling); when to

ride in the Park on a ten-shilling hack seemed to be the height of

fashionable enjoyment, and to splash your college tutor as you were

driving down Regent Street in a hired cab the triumph of satire; when

the acme of pleasure seemed to be to meet Jones of Trinity at the

Bedford, and to make an arrangement with him, and with King of Corpus

(who was staying at the Colonnade), and Martin of Trinity Hall (who was

with his family in Bloomsbury Square), to dine at the Piazza, go to the

play and see Braham in Fra Diavolo, and end the frolic evening by

partaking of supper and a song at the “Cave of Harmony.”—It was in the

days of my own youth, then, that I met one or two of the characters who

are to figure in this history, and whom I must ask leave to accompany

for a short while, and until, familiarised with the public, they can

make their own way. As I recall them the roses bloom again, and the

nightingales sing by the calm Bendemeer.

Going to the play, then, and to the pit, as was the fashion in those

honest days, with some young fellows of my own age, having listened

delighted to the most cheerful and brilliant of operas, and laughed

enthusiastically at the farce, we became naturally hungry at twelve

o’clock at night, and a desire for welsh-rabbits and good old

glee-singing led us to the “Cave of Harmony,” then kept by the

celebrated Hoskins, among whose friends we were proud to count.

We enjoyed such intimacy with Mr. Hoskins that he never failed to greet

us with a kind nod; and John the waiter made room for us near the

President of the convivial meeting. We knew the three admirable

glee-singers, and many a time they partook of brandy-and-water at our

expense. One of us gave his call dinner at Hoskins’s, and a merry time

we had of it. Where are you, O Hoskins, bird of the night? Do you

warble your songs by Acheron, or troll your choruses by the banks of

black Avernus?

The goes of stout, the “Chough and Crow,” the welsh-rabbit, the

“Red-Cross Knight,” the hot brandy-and-water (the brown, the strong!),

the “Bloom is on the Rye” (the bloom isn’t on the rye any more!)—the

song and the cup, in a word, passed round merrily; and, I daresay, the

songs and bumpers were encored. It happened that there was a very small

attendance at the “Cave” that night, and we were all more sociable and

friendly because the company was select. The songs were chiefly of the

sentimental class; such ditties were much in vogue at the time of which

I speak.

There came into the “Cave” a gentleman with a lean brown face and long

black mustachios, dressed in very loose clothes, and evidently a

stranger to the place. At least he had not visited it for a long time.

He was pointing out changes to a lad who was in his company; and,

calling for sherry-and-water, he listened to the music, and twirled his

mustachios with great enthusiasm.

At the very first glimpse of me the boy jumped up from the table,

bounded across the room, ran to me with his hands out, and, blushing,

said, “Don’t you know me?”

It was little Newcome, my school-fellow, whom I had not seen for six

years, grown a fine tall young stripling now, with the same bright blue

eyes which I remembered when he was quite a little boy.

“What the deuce brings you here?” said I.

He laughed and looked roguish. “My father—that’s my father—would come.

He’s just come back from India. He says all the wits used to come

here,—Mr. Sheridan, Captain Morris, Colonel Hanger, Professor Porson. I

told him your name, and that you used to be very kind to me when I

first went to Smithfield. I’ve left now; I’m to have a private tutor. I

say, I’ve got such a jolly pony. It’s better fun than old Smile.”

Here the whiskered gentleman, Newcome’s father, pointing to a waiter to

follow him with his glass of sherry-and-water, strode across the room

twirling his mustachios, and came up to the table where we sate, making

a salutation with his hat in a very stately and polite manner, so that

Hoskins himself was, as it were, obliged to bow; the glee-singers

murmured among themselves (their eyes rolling over their glasses

towards one another as they sucked brandy-and water), and that

mischievous little wag, little Nadab the Improvisatore (who had just

come in), began to mimic him, feeling his imaginary whiskers, after the

manner of the stranger, and flapping about his pocket-handkerchief in

the most ludicrous manner. Hoskins checked this ribaldry by sternly

looking towards Nadab, and at the same time called upon the gents to

give their orders, the waiter being in the room, and Mr. Bellew about

to sing a song.

Newcome’s father came up and held out his hand to me. I dare say I

blushed, for I had been comparing him to the admirable Harley in the

Critic, and had christened him Don Ferolo Whiskerandos.

He spoke in a voice exceedingly soft and pleasant, and with a

cordiality so simple and sincere, that my laughter shrank away ashamed,

and gave place to a feeling much more respectful and friendly. In

youth, you see, one is touched by kindness. A man of the world may, of

course, be grateful or not as he chooses.

“I have heard of your kindness, sir,” says he, “to my boy. And whoever

is kind to him is kind to me. Will you allow me to sit down by you? and

may I beg you to try my cheroots?” We were friends in a minute—young

Newcome snuggling by my side, his father opposite, to whom, after a

minute or two of conversation, I presented my three college friends.

“You have come here, gentlemen, to see the wits,” says the Colonel.

“Are there any celebrated persons in the room? I have been

five-and-thirty years from home, and want to see all that is to be

seen.”

King of Corpus (who was an incorrigible wag) was on the point of

pulling some dreadful long-bow, and pointing out a halfdozen of people

in the room, as R. and H. and L., etc., the most celebrated wits of

that day; but I cut King’s shins under the table, and got the fellow to

hold his tongue.

“_Maxima debetur pueris_,” says Jones (a fellow of very kind feeling,

who has gone into the Church since), and, writing on his card to

Hoskins, hinted to him that a boy was in the room, and a gentleman, who

was quite a greenhorn: hence that the songs had better be carefully

selected.

And so they were. A ladies’ school might have come in, and, but for the

smell of the cigars and brandy-and-water, have taken no harm by what

happened. Why should it not always be so? If there are any “Caves of

Harmony” now, I warrant Messieurs the landlords, their interests would

be better consulted by keeping their singers within bounds. The very

greatest scamps like pretty songs, and are melted by them; so are

honest people. It was worth a guinea to see the simple Colonel, and his

delight at the music. He forgot all about the distinguished wits whom

he had expected to see in his ravishment over the glees.

“I say, Clive, this is delightful. This is better than your aunt’s

concert with all the Squallinis, hey? I shall come here often.

Landlord, may I venture to ask those gentlemen if they will take any

refreshment? What are their names?” (to one of his neighbours). “I was

scarcely allowed to hear any singing before I went out, except an

oratorio, where I fell asleep; but this, by George, is as fine as

Incledon!” He became quite excited over his sherry-and-water—(“I’m

sorry to see you, gentlemen, drinking brandy-pawnee,” says he; “it

plays the deuce with our young men in India.”) He joined in all the

choruses with an exceedingly sweet voice. He laughed at “The Derby Ram”

so that it did you good to hear him; and when Hoskins sang (as he did

admirably) “The Old English Gentleman,” and described, in measured

cadence, the death of that venerable aristocrat, tears trickled down

the honest warrior’s cheek, while he held out his hand to Hoskins and

said, “Thank you, sir, for that song; it is an honour to human nature.”

On which Hoskins began to cry too.

And now young Nadab, having been cautioned, commenced one of those

surprising feats of improvisation with which he used to charm

audiences. He took us all off, and had rhymes pat about all the

principal persons in the room: King’s pins (which he wore very

splendid), Martin’s red waistcoat, etc. The Colonel was charmed with

each feat, and joined delighted with the chorus—“Ritolderol ritolderol

ritolderolderay” (_bis_). And when, coming to the Colonel himself, he

burst out—

“A military gent I see—And while his face I scan,

I think you’ll all agree with me—He came from Hindostan.

And by his side sits laughing free—A youth with curly head,

I think you’ll all agree with me—That he was best in bed.

Ritolderol,” etc.

—the Colonel laughed immensely at this sally, and clapped his son,

young Clive, on the shoulder. “Hear what he says of you, sir? Clive,

best be off to bed, my boy—ho, ho! No, no. We know a trick worth two of

that. ‘We won’t go home till morning, till daylight does appear.’ Why

should we? Why shouldn’t my boy have innocent pleasure? I was allowed

none when I was a young chap, and the severity was nearly the ruin of

me. I must go and speak with that young man—the most astonishing thing

I ever heard in my life. What’s his name? Mr. Nadab? Mr. Nadab, sir,

you have delighted me. May I make so free as to ask you to come and

dine with me to-morrow at six? Colonel Newcome, if you please, Nerot’s

Hotel, Clifford Street. I am always proud to make the acquaintance of

men of genius, and you are one, or my name is not Newcome!”

“Sir, you do me hhonour,” says Mr. Nadab, pulling up his shirt-collar,

“and perhaps the day will come when the world will do me justice,—may I

put down your hhonoured name for my book of poems?”

“Of course, my dear sir,” says the enthusiastic Colonel; “I’ll send

them all over India. Put me down for six copies, and do me the favour

to bring them to-morrow when you come to dinner.”

And now Mr. Hoskins asking if any gentleman would volunteer a song,

what was our amazement when the simple Colonel offered to sing himself,

at which the room applauded vociferously; whilst methought poor Clive

Newcome hung down his head, and blushed as red as a peony. I felt for

the young lad, and thought what my own sensations would have been if,

in that place, my own uncle, Major Pendennis, had suddenly proposed to

exert his lyrical powers.

The Colonel selected the ditty of “Wapping Old Stairs” (a ballad so

sweet and touching that surely any English poet might be proud to be

the father of it), and he sang this quaint and charming old song in an

exceedingly pleasant voice, with flourishes and roulades in the old

Incledon manner, which has pretty nearly passed away. The singer gave

his heart and soul to the simple ballad, and delivered Molly’s gentle

appeal so pathetically that even the professional gentlemen hummed and

buzzed—a sincere applause; and some wags who were inclined to jeer at

the beginning of the performance, clinked their glasses and rapped

their sticks with quite a respectful enthusiasm. When the song was

over, Clive held up his head too; after the shock of the first verse,

looked round with surprise and pleasure in his eyes; and we, I need not

say, backed our friend, delighted to see him come out of his queer

scrape so triumphantly. The Colonel bowed and smiled with very pleasant

good-nature at our plaudits. It was like Dr. Primrose preaching his

sermon in the prison. There was something touching in the naivete and

kindness of the placid and simple gentleman.

Great Hoskins, placed on high, amidst the tuneful choir, was pleased to

signify his approbation, and gave his guest’s health in his usual

dignified manner. “I am much obliged to you, sir,” says Mr. Hoskins;

“the room ought to be much obliged to you: I drink your ’ealth and

song, sir;” and he bowed to the Colonel politely over his glass of

brandy-and-water, of which he absorbed a little in his customer’s

honour. “I have not heard that song,” he was kind enough to say,

“better performed since Mr. Incledon sung it. He was a great singer,

sir, and I may say, in the words of our immortal Shakspeare, that, take

him for all in all, we shall not look upon his like again.”

The Colonel blushed in his turn, and turning round to his boy with an

arch smile, said, “I learnt it from Incledon. I used to slip out from

Grey Friars to hear him, Heaven bless me, forty years ago; and I used

to be flogged afterwards, and serve me right too. Lord! Lord! how the

time passes!” He drank off his sherry-and-water, and fell back in his

chair; we could see he was thinking about his youth—the golden time—the

happy, the bright, the unforgotten. I was myself nearly two-and-twenty

years of age at that period, and felt as old as, ay, older than the

Colonel.

Whilst he was singing his ballad, there had walked, or rather reeled,

into the room, a gentleman in a military frock-coat and duck trousers

of dubious hue, with whose name and person some of my readers are

perhaps already acquainted. In fact it was my friend Captain Costigan,

in his usual condition at this hour of the night.

Holding on by various tables, the Captain had sidled up, without

accident to himself or any of the jugs and glasses round about him, to

the table where we sat, and had taken his place near the writer, his

old acquaintance. He warbled the refrain of the Colonel’s song, not

inharmoniously; and saluted its pathetic conclusion with a subdued

hiccup and a plentiful effusion of tears. “Bedad, it is a beautiful

song,” says he, “and many a time I heard poor Harry Incledon sing it.”

“He’s a great character,” whispered that unlucky King of Corpus to his

neighbour the Colonel; “was a Captain in the army. We call him the

General. Captain Costigan, will you take something to drink?”

“Bedad, I will,” says the Captain, “and I’ll sing ye a song tu.”

And, having procured a glass of whisky-and-water from the passing

waiter, the poor old man, settling his face into a horrid grin, and

leering, as he was wont when he gave what he called one of his prime

songs, began his music.

The unlucky wretch, who scarcely knew what he was doing or saying,

selected one of the most outrageous performances of his _répertoire_,

fired off a tipsy howl by way of overture, and away he went. At the end

of the second verse the Colonel started up, clapping on his hat,

seizing his stick, and looking as ferocious as though he had been going

to do battle with a Pindaree.

“Silence!” he roared out.

“Hear, hear!” cried certain wags at a farther table. “Go on, Costigan!”

said others.

“Go on!” cries the Colonel, in his high voice trembling with anger.

“Does any gentleman say ‘Go On?’ Does any man who has a wife and

sisters, or children at home, say ‘Go on’ to such disgusting ribaldry

as this? Do you dare, sir, to call yourself a gentleman, and to say

that you hold the King’s commission, and to sit down amongst Christians

and men of honour, and defile the ears of young boys with this wicked

balderdash?”

“Why do you bring young boys here, old boy?” cries a voice of the

malcontents.

“Why? Because I thought I was coming to a society of gentlemen,” cried

out the indignant Colonel. “Because I never could have believed that

Englishmen could meet together and allow a man, and an old man, so to

disgrace himself. For shame, you old wretch! Go home to your bed, you

hoary old sinner! And for my part, I’m not sorry that my son should

see, for once in his life, to what shame and degradation and dishonour,

drunkenness and whisky may bring a man. Never mind the change,

sir!—Curse the change!” says the Colonel, facing the amazed waiter.

“Keep it till you see me in this place again; which will be never—by

George, never!” And shouldering his stick, and scowling round at the

company of scared bacchanalians, the indignant gentleman stalked away,

his boy after him.

Clive seemed rather shamefaced; but I fear the rest of the company

looked still more foolish.

“Aussi que diable venait—il faire dans cette galere?” says King of

Corpus to Jones of Trinity; and Jones gave a shrug of his shoulders,

which were smarting, perhaps; for that uplifted cane of the Colonel’s

had somehow fallen on the back of every man in the room.

CHAPTER II.

Colonel Newcome’s Wild Oats

As the young gentleman who has just gone to bed is to be the hero of

the following pages, we had best begin our account of him with his

family history, which luckily is not very long.

When pigtails still grew on the backs of the British gentry, and their

wives wore cushions on their heads, over which they tied their own

hair, and disguised it with powder and pomatum: when Ministers went in

their stars and orders to the House of Commons, and the orators of the

Opposition attacked nightly the noble lord in the blue ribbon: when Mr.

Washington was heading the American rebels with a courage, it must be

confessed, worthy of a better cause: there came up to London, out of a

northern county, Mr. Thomas Newcome, afterwards Thomas Newcome, Esq.,

and sheriff of London, afterwards Mr. Alderman Newcome, the founder of

the family whose name has given the title to this history. It was but

in the reign of George III. that Mr. Newcome first made his appearance

in Cheapside; having made his entry into London on a waggon, which

landed him and some bales of cloth, all his fortune, in Bishopsgate

Street; though if it could be proved that the Normans wore pigtails

under William the Conqueror, and Mr. Washington fought against the

English under King Richard in Palestine, I am sure some of the present

Newcomes would pay the Heralds’ Office handsomely, living, as they do,

amongst the noblest of the land, and giving entertainments to none but

the very highest nobility and _élite_ of the fashionable and diplomatic

world, as you may read any day in the newspapers. For though these

Newcomes have got a pedigree from the College, which is printed in

Budge’s Landed Aristocracy of Great Britain, and which proves that the

Newcome of Cromwell’s army, the Newcome who was among the last six who

were hanged by Queen Mary for Protestantism, were ancestors of this

house; of which a member distinguished himself at Bosworth Field; and

the founder, slain by King Harold’s side at Hastings, had been

surgeon-barber to King Edward the Confessor; yet, between ourselves, I

think that Sir Brian Newcome, of Newcome, does not believe a word of

the story, any more than the rest of the world does, although a number

of his children bear names out of the Saxon Calendar.

Was Thomas Newcome a foundling—a workhouse child out of that village

which has now become a great manufacturing town, and which bears his

name? Such was the report set about at the last election, when Sir

Brian, in the Conservative interest contested the borough; and Mr.

Yapp, the out-and-out Liberal candidate, had a picture of the old

workhouse placarded over the town as the birthplace of the Newcomes;

with placards ironically exciting freemen to vote for Newcome and

_union_—Newcome and the _parish_ interests, etc. Who cares for these

local scandals? It matters very little to those who have the good

fortune to be invited to Lady Ann Newcome’s parties whether her

beautiful daughters can trace their pedigrees no higher than to the

alderman their grandfather; or whether, through the mythic ancestral

barber-surgeon, they hang on to the chin of Edward, Confessor and King.

Thomas Newcome, who had been a weaver in his native village, brought

the very best character for honesty, thrift, and ingenuity with him to

London, where he was taken into the house of Hobson Brothers,

cloth-factors; afterwards Hobson and Newcome. This fact may suffice to

indicate Thomas Newcome’s story. Like Whittington and many other London

apprentices, he began poor and ended by marrying his master’s daughter,

and becoming sheriff and alderman of the City of London.

But it was only _en secondes noces_ that he espoused the wealthy, and

religious, and eminent (such was the word applied to certain professing

Christians in those days) Sophia Alethea Hobson—a woman who,

considerably older than Mr. Newcome, had the advantage of surviving him

many years. Her mansion at Clapham was long the resort of the most

favoured amongst the religious world. The most eloquent expounders; the

most gifted missionaries, the most interesting converts from foreign

islands, were to be found at her sumptuous table, spread with the

produce of her magnificent gardens. Heaven indeed blessed those gardens

with plenty, as many reverend gentlemen remarked; there were no finer

grapes, peaches, or pineapples in all England. Mr. Whitfield himself

christened her; and it was said generally in the City, and by her

friends, that Miss Hobson’s two Christian names, Sophia and Alethea,

were two Greek words, which, being interpreted, meant wisdom and truth.

She, her villa and gardens, are now no more; but Sophia Terrace, Upper

and Lower Alethea Road, and Hobson’s Buildings, Square, etc., show

every quarter-day that the ground sacred to her (and freehold) still

bears plenteous fruit for the descendants of this eminent woman.

We are, however, advancing matters. When Thomas Newcome had been some

time in London, he quitted the house of Hobson, finding an opening,

though in a much smaller way, for himself. And no sooner did his

business prosper, than he went down into the north, like a man, to a

pretty girl whom he had left there, and whom he had promised to marry.

What seemed an imprudent match (for his wife had nothing but a pale

face, that had grown older and paler with long waiting) turned out a

very lucky one for Newcome. The whole countryside was pleased to think

of the prosperous London tradesman returning to keep his promise to the

penniless girl whom he had loved in the days of his own poverty; the

great country clothiers, who knew his prudence and honesty, gave him

much of their business when he went back to London. Susan Newcome would

have lived to be a rich woman had not fate ended her career within a

year after her marriage, when she died giving birth to a son.

Newcome had a nurse for the child, and a cottage at Clapham, hard by

Mr. Hobson’s house, where he had often walked in the garden of a

Sunday, and been invited to sit down to take a glass of wine. Since he

had left their service, the house had added a banking business, which

was greatly helped by the Quakers and their religious connection; and

Newcome, keeping his account there, and gradually increasing his

business, was held in very good esteem by his former employers, and

invited sometimes to tea at the Hermitage; for which entertainments he

did not, in truth, much care at first, being a City man, a good deal

tired with his business during the day, and apt to go to sleep over the

sermons, expoundings, and hymns, with which the gifted preachers,

missionaries, etc., who were always at the Hermitage, used to wind up

the evening, before supper. Nor was he a supping man (in which case he

would have found the parties pleasanter, for in Egypt itself there were

not more savoury fleshpots than at Clapham); he was very moderate in

his meals, of a bilious temperament, and, besides, obliged to be in

town early in the morning, always setting off to walk an hour before

the first coach.

But when his poor Susan died, Miss Hobson, by her father’s demise,

having now become a partner in the house, as well as heiress to the

pious and childless Zachariah Hobson, her uncle: Mr. Newcome, with his

little boy in his hand, met Miss Hobson as she was coming out of

meeting one Sunday; and the child looked so pretty (Mr. N. was a very

personable, fresh-coloured man himself; he wore powder to the end, and

top-boots and brass buttons, in his later days, after he had been

sheriff indeed, one of the finest specimens of the old London

merchant); Miss Hobson, I say, invited him and little Tommy into the

grounds of the Hermitage; did not quarrel with the innocent child for

frisking about in the hay on the lawn, which lay basking in the Sabbath

sunshine, and at the end of the visit gave him a large piece of

pound-cake, a quantity of the finest hothouse grapes, and a tract in

one syllable. Tommy was ill the next day; but on the next Sunday his

father was at meeting.

He became very soon after this an awakened man; and the tittling and

tattling, and the sneering and gossiping, all over Clapham, and the

talk on ’Change, and the pokes in the waistcoat administered by the

wags to Newcome,—“Newcome, give you joy, my boy;” “Newcome, new partner

in Hobson’s;” “Newcome, just take in this paper to Hobson’s, they’ll do

it, I warrant,” etc. etc.; and the groans of the Rev. Gideon Bawls, of

the Rev. Athanasius O’Grady, that eminent convert from Popery, who,

quarrelling with each other, yea, striving one against another, had yet

two sentiments in common, their love for Miss Hobson, their dread,

their hatred of the worldly Newcome; all these squabbles and jokes, and

pribbles and prabbles, look you, may be omitted. As gallantly as he had

married a woman without a penny, as gallantly as he had conquered his

poverty and achieved his own independence, so bravely he went in and

won the great City prize with a fortune of a quarter of a million. And

every one of his old friends, and every honest-hearted fellow who likes

to see shrewdness, and honesty, and courage succeed, was glad of his

good fortune, and said, “Newcome, my boy” (or “Newcome, my buck,” if

they were old City cronies, and very familiar), “I give you joy.”

Of course Mr. Newcome might have gone into Parliament: of course before

the close of his life he might have been made a baronet: but he

eschewed honours senatorial or blood-red hands. “It wouldn’t do,” with

his good sense he said; “the Quaker connection wouldn’t like it.” His

wife never cared about being called Lady Newcome. To manage the great

house of Hobson Brothers and Newcome; to attend to the interests of the

enslaved negro; to awaken the benighted Hottentot to a sense of the

truth; to convert Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Papists; to arouse the

indifferent and often blasphemous mariner; to guide the washerwoman in

the right way; to head all the public charities of her sect, and do a

thousand secret kindnesses that none knew of; to answer myriads of

letters, pension endless ministers, and supply their teeming wives with

continuous baby-linen; to hear preachers daily bawling for hours, and

listen untired on her knees after a long day’s labour, while florid

rhapsodists belaboured cushions above her with wearisome benedictions;

all these things had this woman to do, and for near fourscore years she

fought her fight womanfully: imperious but deserving to rule, hard but

doing her duty, severe but charitable, and untiring in generosity as in

labour; unforgiving in one instance—in that of her husband’s eldest

son, Thomas Newcome; the little boy who had played on the hay, and whom

at first she had loved very sternly and fondly.

Mr. Thomas Newcome, the father of his wife’s twin boys, the junior

partner of the house of Hobson Brothers and Co., lived several years

after winning the great prize about which all his friends so

congratulated him. But he was, after all, only the junior partner of

the house. His wife was manager in Threadneedle Street and at home—when

the clerical gentlemen prayed they importuned Heaven for that sainted

woman a long time before they thought of asking any favour for her

husband. The gardeners touched their hats, the clerks at the bank

brought him the books, but they took their orders from her, not from

him. I think he grew weary of the prayer-meetings, he yawned over the

sufferings of the negroes, and wished the converted Jews at Jericho.

About the time the French Emperor was meeting with his Russian reverses

Mr. Newcome died: his mausoleum is in Clapham Churchyard, near the

modest grave where his first wife reposes.

When his father married, Mr. Thomas Newcome, jun., and Sarah his nurse

were transported from the cottage where they had lived in great comfort

to the palace hard by, surrounded by lawns and gardens, pineries,

graperies, aviaries, luxuries of all kinds. This paradise, five miles

from the Standard at Cornhill, was separated from the outer world by a

thick hedge of tall trees, and an ivy-covered porter’s-gate, through

which they who travelled to London on the top of the Clapham coach

could only get a glimpse of the bliss within. It was a serious

paradise. As you entered at the gate, gravity fell on you; and decorum

wrapped you in a garment of starch. The butcher-boy who galloped his

horse and cart madly about the adjoining lanes and common, whistled

wild melodies (caught up in abominable playhouse galleries), and joked

with a hundred cook-maids, on passing that lodge fell into an

undertaker’s pace, and delivered his joints and sweetbreads silently at

the servants’ entrance. The rooks in the elms cawed sermons at morning

and evening; the peacocks walked demurely on the terraces; the

guinea-fowls looked more Quaker-like than those savoury birds usually

do. The lodge-keeper was serious, and a clerk at a neighbouring chapel.

The pastors who entered at the gate, and greeted his comely wife and

children, fed the little lambkins with tracts. The head-gardener was a

Scotch Calvinist, after the strictest order, only occupying himself

with the melons and pines provisionally, and until the end of the

world, which event, he could prove by infallible calculations, was to

come off in two or three years at farthest. Wherefore, he asked, should

the butler brew strong ale to be drunken three years hence; or the

housekeeper (a follower of Joanna Southcote) make provisions of fine

linen and lay up stores of jams? On a Sunday (which good old Saxon word

was scarcely known at the Hermitage) the household marched away in

separate couples or groups to at least half a dozen of religious

edifices, each to sit under his or her favourite minister, the only man

who went to church being Thomas Newcome, accompanied by Tommy his

little son, and Sarah his nurse, who was, I believe, also his aunt, or

at least his mother’s first cousin. Tommy was taught hymns, very soon

after he could speak, appropriate to his tender age, pointing out to

him the inevitable fate of wicked children, and giving him the earliest

possible warning and description of the punishment of little sinners.

He repeated these poems to his stepmother after dinner, before a great

shining mahogany table, covered with grapes, pineapples, plum-cake,

port wine, and Madeira, and surrounded by stout men in black, with

baggy white neckcloths, who took the little man between their knees,

and questioned him as to his right understanding of the place whither

naughty boys were bound. They patted his head with their fat hands if

he said well, or rebuked him if he was bold, as he often was.

Nurse Sarah or Aunt Sarah would have died had she remained many years

in that stifling garden of Eden. She could not bear to part from the

child whom her mistress and kinswoman had confided to her (the women

had worked in the same room at Newcome’s, and loved each other always,

when Susan became a merchant’s lady, and Sarah her servant). She was

nobody in the pompous new household but Master Tommy’s nurse. The

honest soul never mentioned her relationship to the boy’s mother, nor

indeed did Mr. Newcome acquaint his new family with that circumstance.

The housekeeper called her an Erastian: Mrs. Newcome’s own serious maid

informed against her for telling Tommy stories of Lancashire witches,

and believing in the same. The black footman (madam’s maid and the

butler were of course privately united) persecuted her with his

addresses, and was even encouraged by his mistress, who thought of

sending him as a missionary to the Niger. No little love, and fidelity,

and constancy did honest Sarah show and use during the years she passed

at the Hermitage, and until Tommy went to school. Her master, with many

private prayers and entreaties, in which he passionately recalled his

former wife’s memory and affection, implored his friend to stay with

him; and Tommy’s fondness for her and artless caresses, and the scrapes

he got into, and the howls he uttered over the hymns and catechisms

which he was bidden to learn (by Rev. T. Clack,, of Highbury College,

his daily tutor, who was commissioned to spare not the rod, neither to

spoil the child), all these causes induced Sarah to remain with her

young master until such time as he was sent to school.

Meanwhile an event of prodigious importance, a wonderment, a blessing

and a delight, had happened at the Hermitage. About two years after

Mrs. Newcome’s marriage, the lady being then forty-three years of age,

no less than two little cherubs appeared in the Clapham Paradise—the

twins, Hobson Newcome and Brian Newcome, called after their uncle and

late grandfather, whose name and rank they were destined to perpetuate.

And now there was no reason why young Newcome should not go to school.

Old Mr. Hobson and his brother had been educated at that school of Grey

Friars, of which mention has been made in former works and to Grey

Friars Thomas Newcome was accordingly sent, exchanging—O ye Gods! with

what delight!—the splendour of Clapham for the rough, plentiful fare of

the place, blacking his master’s shoes with perfect readiness, till he

rose in the school, and the time came when he should have a fag of his

own: tibbing out and receiving the penalty therefore: bartering a black

eye, per bearer, against a bloody nose drawn at sight, with a

schoolfellow, and shaking hands the next day; playing at cricket,

hockey, prisoners’ base, and football, according to the season; and

gorging himself and friends with tarts when he had money (and of this

he had plenty) to spend. I have seen his name carved upon the Gown

Boys’ arch: but he was at school long before my time; his son showed me

the name when we were boys together, in some year when George the

Fourth was king.

The pleasures of this school-life were such to Tommy Newcome, that he

did not care to go home for a holiday: and indeed, by insubordination

and boisterousness; by playing tricks and breaking windows; by

marauding upon the gardener’s peaches and the housekeeper’s jam; by

upsetting his two little brothers in a go-cart (of which wanton and

careless injury the present Baronet’s nose bears marks to this very

day); by going to sleep during the sermons, and treating reverend

gentlemen with levity, he drew down on himself the merited wrath of his

stepmother; and many punishments in this present life, besides those of

a future and much more durable kind, which the good lady did not fail

to point out that he must undoubtedly inherit. His father, at Mrs.

Newcome’s instigation, certainly whipped Tommy for upsetting his little

brothers in the go-cart; but upon being pressed to repeat the whipping

for some other peccadillo performed soon after, Mr. Newcome refused at

once, using a wicked, worldly expression, which well might shock any

serious lady; saying, in fact, that he would be deed if he beat the boy

any more, and that he got flogging enough at school, in which opinion

Master Tommy fully coincided.

The undaunted woman, his stepmother, was not to be made to forgo her

plans for the boy’s reform by any such vulgar ribaldries; and Mr.

Newcome being absent in the City on his business, and Tommy refractory

as usual, she summoned the serious butler and the black footman (for

the lashings of whose brethren she felt an unaffected pity) to operate

together in the chastisement of this young criminal. But he dashed so

furiously against the butler’s shins as to draw blood from his comely

limbs, and to cause that serious and overfed menial to limp and suffer

for many days after; and, seizing the decanter, he swore he would

demolish blacky’s ugly face with it: nay, he threatened to discharge it

at Mrs. Newcome’s own head before he would submit to the coercion which

she desired her agents to administer.

High words took place between Mr. and Mrs. Newcome that night on the

gentleman’s return home from the City, and on his learning the events

of the morning. It is to be feared he made use of further oaths, which

hasty ejaculations need not be set down in this place; at any rate, he

behaved with spirit and manliness as master of the house, vowed that if

any servant laid a hand on the child, he would thrash him first and

then discharge him; and I dare say expressed himself with bitterness

and regret that he had married a wife who would not be obedient to her

husband, and had entered a house of which he was not suffered to be the

master. Friends were called in—the interference, the supplications, of

the Clapham clergy, some of whom dined constantly at the Hermitage,

prevailed to allay this domestic quarrel; and no doubt the good sense

of Mrs. Newcome—who, though imperious, was yet not unkind; and who,

excellent as she was, yet could be brought to own that she was

sometimes in fault—induced her to make at least a temporary submission

to the man whom she had placed at the head of her house, and whom it

must be confessed she had vowed to love and honour. When Tommy fell ill

of the scarlet fever, which afflicting event occurred presently after

the above dispute, his own nurse, Sarah, could not have been more

tender, watchful, and affectionate than his stepmother showed herself

to be. She nursed him through his illness; allowed his food and

medicine to be administered by no other hand; sat up with the boy

through a night of his fever, and uttered not one single reproach to

her husband (who watched with her) when the twins took the disease

(from which we need not say they happily recovered); and though young

Tommy, in his temporary delirium, mistaking her for Nurse Sarah,

addressed her as his dear Fat Sally—whereas no whipping-post to which

she ever would have tied him could have been leaner than Mrs.

Newcome—and, under this feverish delusion, actually abused her to her

face; calling her an old cat, an old Methodist, and, jumping up in his

little bed, forgetful of his previous fancy, vowing that he would put

on his clothes and run away to Sally. Sally was at her northern home by

this time, with a liberal pension which Mr. Newcome gave her, and which

his son and his son’s son after him, through all their difficulties and

distresses, always found means to pay.

What the boy threatened in his delirium he had thought of, no doubt,

more than once in his solitary and unhappy holidays. A year after he

actually ran away, not from school, but from home; and appeared one

morning, gaunt and hungry, at Sarah’s cottage two hundred miles away

from Clapham, who housed the poor prodigal, and killed her calf for

him—washed him, with many tears and kisses, and put him to bed and to

sleep; from which slumber he was aroused by the appearance of his

father, whose sure instinct, backed by Mrs. Newcome’s own quick

intelligence, had made him at once aware whither the young runaway had

fled. The poor father came horsewhip in hand—he knew of no other law or

means to maintain his authority; many and many a time had his own

father, the old weaver, whose memory he loved and honoured, strapped

and beaten him. Seeing this instrument in the parent’s hand, as Mr.

Newcome thrust out the weeping trembling Sarah and closed the door upon

her, Tommy, scared out of a sweet sleep and a delightful dream of

cricket, knew his fate; and, getting up out of bed, received his

punishment without a word. Very likely the father suffered more than

the child; for when the punishment was over, the little man, yet

trembling and quivering with the pain, held out his little bleeding

hand and said, “I can—I can take it from you, sir;” saying which his

face flushed, and his eyes filled, for the first time; whereupon the

father burst into a passion of tears, and embraced the boy and kissed

him, besought and prayed him to be rebellious no more—flung the whip

away from him and swore, come what would, he would never strike him

again. The quarrel was the means of a great and happy reconciliation.

The three dined together in Sarah’s cottage. Perhaps the father would

have liked to walk that evening in the lanes and fields where he had

wandered as a young fellow: where he had first courted and first kissed

the young girl he loved—poor child—who had waited for him so faithfully

and fondly, who had passed so many a day of patient want and meek

expectance, to be repaid by such a scant holiday and brief fruition.

Mrs. Newcome never made the slightest allusion to Tom’s absence after

his return, but was quite gentle and affectionate with him, and that

night read the parable of the Prodigal in a very low and quiet voice.

This, however, was only a temporary truce. War very soon broke out

again between the impetuous lad and his rigid domineering

mother-in-law. It was not that he was very bad, or she perhaps more

stern than other ladies, but the two could not agree. The boy sulked

and was miserable at home. He fell to drinking with the grooms in the

stables. I think he went to Epsom races, and was discovered after that

act of rebellion. Driving from a most interesting breakfast at

Roehampton (where a delightful Hebrew convert had spoken, oh! so

graciously!), Mrs. Newcome—in her state-carriage, with her bay

horses—met Tom, her son-in-law, in a tax-cart, excited by drink, and

accompanied by all sorts of friends, male and female. John the black

man was bidden to descend from the carriage and bring him to Mrs.

Newcome. He came; his voice was thick with drink. He laughed wildly: he

described a fight at which he had been present. It was not possible

that such a castaway as this should continue in a house where her two

little cherubs were growing up in innocence and grace.

The boy had a great fancy for India; and Orme’s History, containing the

exploits of Clive and Lawrence, was his favourite book of all in his

father’s library. Being offered a writership, he scouted the idea of a

civil appointment, and would be contented with nothing but a uniform. A

cavalry cadetship was procured for Thomas Newcome; and the young man’s

future career being thus determined, and his stepmother’s unwilling

consent procured, Mr. Newcome thought fit to send his son to a tutor

for military instruction, and removed him from the London school, where

in truth he had made but very little progress in the humaner letters.

The lad was placed with a professor who prepared young men for the

army, and received rather a better professional education than fell to

the lot of most young soldiers of his day. He cultivated the

mathematics and fortification with more assiduity than he had ever

bestowed on Greek and Latin, and especially made such a progress in the

French tongue as was very uncommon among the British youth his

contemporaries.

In the study of this agreeable language, over which young Newcome spent

a great deal of his time, he unluckily had some instructors who were

destined to bring the poor lad into yet further trouble at home. His

tutor, an easy gentleman, lived at Blackheath, and, not far from

thence, on the road to Woolwich, dwelt the little Chevalier de Blois,

at whose house the young man much preferred to take his French lessons

rather than to receive them under his tutor’s own roof.

For the fact was that the little Chevalier de Blois had two pretty

young daughters, with whom he had fled from his country along with

thousands of French gentlemen at the period of revolution and

emigration. He was a cadet of a very ancient family, and his brother,

the Marquis de Blois, was a fugitive like himself, but with the army of

the princes on the Rhine, or with his exiled sovereign at Mittau. The

Chevalier had seen the wars of the great Frederick: what man could be

found better to teach young Newcome the French language and the art

military? It was surprising with what assiduity he pursued his studies.

Mademoiselle Léonore, the Chevalier’s daughter, would carry on her

little industry very undisturbedly in the same parlour with her father

and his pupil. She painted card-racks: laboured at embroidery; was

ready to employ her quick little brain or fingers in any way by which

she could find means to add a few shillings to the scanty store on

which this exiled family supported themselves in their day of

misfortune. I suppose the Chevalier was not in the least unquiet about

her, because she was promised in marriage to the Comte de Florac, also

of the emigration—a distinguished officer like the Chevalier, than whom

he was a year older—and, at the time of which we speak, engaged in

London in giving private lessons on the fiddle. Sometimes on a Sunday

he would walk to Blackheath with that instrument in his hand, and pay

his court to his young _fiancée_, and talk over happier days with his

old companion-in-arms. Tom Newcome took no French lessons on a Sunday.

He passed that day at Clapham generally, where, strange to say, he

never said a word about Mademoiselle de Blois.

What happens when two young folks of eighteen, handsome and ardent,

generous and impetuous, alone in the world, or without strong

affections to bind them elsewhere,—what happens when they meet daily

over French dictionaries, embroidery frames, or indeed upon any

business whatever? No doubt Mademoiselle Léonore was a young lady

perfectly _bien élevée_, and ready, as every well-elevated young

Frenchwoman should be, to accept a husband of her parents’ choosing;

but while the elderly M. de Florac was fiddling in London, there was

that handsome young Tom Newcome ever present at Blackheath. To make a

long matter short, Tom declared his passion, and was for marrying

Léonore off hand, if she would but come with him to the little Catholic

chapel at Woolwich. Why should they not go out to India together and be

happy ever after?

The innocent little amour may have been several months in transaction,

and was discovered by Mrs. Newcome, whose keen spectacles nothing could

escape. It chanced that she drove to Blackheath to Tom’s tutor’s. Tom

was absent taking his French and drawing lesson of M. de Blois. Thither

Tom’s stepmother followed him, and found the young man sure enough with

his instructor over his books and plans of fortification. Mademoiselle

and her card-screens were in the room, but behind those screens she

could not hide her blushes and confusion from Mrs. Newcome’s sharp

glances. In one moment the banker’s wife saw the whole affair—the whole

mystery which had been passing for months under poor M. de Blois’ nose,

without his having the least notion of the truth.

Mrs. Newcome said she wanted her son to return home with her upon

private affairs; and before they had reached the Hermitage a fine

battle had ensued between them. His mother had charged him with being a

wretch and a monster, and he had replied fiercely, denying the

accusation with scorn, and announcing his wish instantly to marry the

most virtuous, the most beautiful of her sex. To marry a Papist! This

was all that was wanted to make poor Tom’s cup of bitterness run over.

Mr. Newcome was called in, and the two elders passed a great part of

the night in an assault upon the lad. He was grown too tall for the

cane; but Mrs. Newcome thonged him with the lash of her indignation for

many an hour that evening.

He was forbidden to enter, M. de Blois’ house, a prohibition at which

the spirited young fellow snapped his fingers, and laughed in scorn.

Nothing, he swore, but death should part him from the young lady. On

the next day his father came to him alone and plied him with

entreaties, but he was as obdurate as before. He would have her;

nothing should prevent him. He cocked his hat and walked out of the

lodge-gate, as his father, quite beaten by the young man’s obstinacy,

with haggard face and tearful eyes, went his own way into town. He was

not very angry himself: in the course of their talk overnight the boy

had spoken bravely and honestly, and Newcome could remember how, in his

own early life, he too had courted and loved a young lass. It was Mrs.

Newcome the father was afraid of. Who shall depict her wrath at the

idea that a child of her house was about to marry a Popish girl?

So young Newcome went his way to Blackheath, bent upon falling

straightway down upon his knees before Léonore, and having the

Chevalier’s blessing. That old fiddler in London scarcely seemed to him

to be an obstacle: it seemed monstrous that a young creature should be

given away to a man older than her own father. He did not know the law

of honour, as it obtained amongst French gentlemen of those days, or

how religiously their daughters were bound by it.

But Mrs. Newcome had been beforehand with him, and had visited the

Chevalier de Blois almost at cockcrow. She charged him insolently with

being privy to the attachment between the young people; pursued him

with vulgar rebukes about beggary, Popery, and French adventurers. Her

husband had to make a very contrite apology afterwards for the language

which his wife had thought fit to employ. “You forbid me,” said the

Chevalier, “you forbid Mademoiselle de Blois to marry your son, Mr.

Thomas! No, madam, she comes of a race which is not accustomed to ally

itself with persons of your class; and is promised to a gentleman whose

ancestors were dukes and peers when Mr. Newcome’s were blacking shoes!”

Instead of finding his pretty blushing girl on arriving at Woolwich,

poor Tom only found his French master, livid with rage and quivering

under his _ailes de pigeon_. We pass over the scenes that followed; the

young man’s passionate entreaties, and fury and despair. In his own

defence, and to prove his honour to the world, M. de Blois determined

that his daughter should instantly marry the Count. The poor girl

yielded without a word, as became her; and it was with this marriage

effected almost before his eyes, and frantic with wrath and despair,

that young Newcome embarked for India, and quitted the parents whom he

was never more to see.

Tom’s name was no more mentioned at Clapham. His letters to his father

were written to the City; very pleasant they were, and comforting to

the father’s heart. He sent Tom liberal private remittances to India,

until the boy wrote to say that he wanted no more. Mr. Newcome would

have liked to leave Tom all his private fortune, for the twins were

only too well cared for; but he dared not on account of his terror of

Sophia Alethea, his wife; and he died, and poor Tom was only secretly

forgiven.

CHAPTER III.

Colonel Newcome’s Letter-box

I.

“With the most heartfelt joy, my dear Major, I take up my pen to

announce to you the happy arrival of the Ramchunder, and the _dearest

and handsomest_ little boy who, I am sure, ever came from India. Little

Clive is in _perfect health_. He speaks English _wonderfully_ well. He

cried when he parted from Mr. Sneid, the supercargo, who most kindly

brought him from Southampton in a postchaise, but these tears in

childhood are _of very brief duration!_ The voyage, Mr. Sneid states,

was most favourable, occupying only four months and eleven days. How

different from that more lengthened and dangerous passage of eight

months, and almost perpetual sea-sickness, in which my poor dear sister

Emma went to Bengal, to become the wife of the best of husbands and the

mother of the dearest of little boys, and to enjoy these inestimable

blessings for so brief an interval! She has quitted this wicked and

wretched world for one where all is peace. The misery and ill-treatment

which she endured from Captain Case her first odious husband, were, I

am sure, amply repaid, my dear Colonel, by your subsequent affection.

If the most sumptuous dresses which London, even Paris, could supply,

jewellery the most costly, and elegant lace, and _everything lovely and

fashionable_, could content a woman, these, I am sure, during the last

four years of her life, the poor girl had. Of what avail are they when

this scene of vanity is closed?

“Mr. Sneid announces that the passage was most favourable. They stayed

a week at the Cape, and three days at St. Helena, where they visited

Bonaparte’s tomb (another instance of the vanity of all things!), and

their voyage was enlivened off Ascension by the taking of some

delicious turtle!

“You may be sure that _the most liberal sum_ which you have placed to

my credit with the Messrs. Hobson and Co. shall be faithfully expended

on my dear little charge. Mrs. Newcome can scarcely be called his

grandmamma, I suppose; and I daresay her Methodistical ladyship will

not care to see the daughter and grandson of a clergyman of the Church

of England! My brother Charles took leave to wait upon her when he

presented your last _most generous_ bill at the bank. She received him

_most rudely_, and said a fool and his money are soon parted; and when

Charles said, ‘Madam, I am the brother of the late Mrs. Major Newcome,’

‘Sir,’ says she, ‘I judge nobody; but from all accounts, you are the

brother of a very vain, idle, thoughtless, extravagant woman; and

Thomas Newcome was as foolish about his wife as about his money.’ Of

course, unless Mrs. N. writes to invite dear Clive, I shall not think

of sending him to Clapham.

“It is such hot weather that I cannot wear the _beautiful shawl_ you

have sent me, and shall keep it _in lavender_ till next winter! My

brother, who thanks you for your continuous bounty, will write next

month, and report progress as to his dear pupil. Clive will add a

postscript of his own, and I am, my dear Major, with a thousand thanks

for your kindness to me,—Your grateful and affectionate Martha

Honeyman.”

In a round hand and on lines ruled with pencil:—

“Dearest Papa i am very well i hope you are Very Well. M Sneed brought

me in a postchaise i like Mr. Sneed very much. i like Aunt Martha i

like Hannah. There are no ships here i am your affectionate son Clive

Newcome.”

II.

Rue St. Dominique, St. Germain, Paris,

Nov. 15, 1820,

“Long separated from the country which was the home of my youth, I

carried from her tender recollections, and bear her always a lively

gratitude. The Heaven has placed me in a position very different from

that in which I knew you. I have been the mother of many children. My

husband has recovered a portion of the property which the Revolution

tore from us; and France, in returning to its legitimate sovereign,

received once more the nobility which accompanied his august house into

exile. We, however, preceded His Majesty, more happy than many of our

companions. Believing further resistance to be useless; dazzled,

perhaps, by the brilliancy of that genius which restored order,

submitted Europe, and governed France; M. de Florac, in the first days,

was reconciled to the Conqueror of Marengo and Austerlitz, and held a

position in his Imperial Court. This submission, at first attributed to

infidelity, has subsequently been pardoned to my husband. His

sufferings during the Hundred Days made to pardon his adhesion to him

who was Emperor. My husband is now an old man. He was of the disastrous

campaign of Moscow, as one of the chamberlains of Napoleon. Withdrawn

from the world, he gives his time to his feeble health—to his family—to

Heaven.

“I have not forgotten a time before those days, when, according to

promises given by my father, I became the wife of M. de Florac.

Sometimes I have heard of your career. One of my parents, M. de F., who

took service in the English India, has entertained me of you; he

informed me how yet a young man you won laurels at Argom and Bhartpour;

how you escaped to death at Laswari. I have followed them, sir, on the

map. I have taken part in your victories and your glory. Ah! I am not

so cold, but my heart has trembled for your dangers; not so aged, but I

remember the young man who learned from the pupil of Frederick the

first rudiments of war. Your great heart, your love of truth, your

courage were your own. None had to teach you those qualities, of which

a good God had endowed you, My good father is dead since many years.

He, too, was permitted to see France before to die.

“I have read in the English journals not only that you are married, but

that you have a son. Permit me to send to your wife, to your child,

these accompanying tokens of an old friendship. I have seen that

Mistress Newcome was widow, and am not sorry of it. My friend, I hope

there was not that difference of age between your wife and you that I

have known in other unions. I pray the good God to bless yours. I hold

you always in my memory. As I write, the past comes back to me. I see a

noble young man, who has a soft voice, and brown eyes. I see the

Thames, and the smiling plains of Blackheath. I listen and pray at my

chamber-door as my father talks to you in our little cabinet of

studies. I look from my window, and see you depart.

“My son’s are men: one follows the profession of arms, one has embraced

the ecclesiastical state; my daughter is herself a mother. I remember

this was your birthday; I have made myself a little _fête_ in

celebrating it, after how many years of absence, of silence! Comtesse

De Florac. (_Née L. de Blois._)”

III.

“My Dear Thomas,—Mr. Sneid, supercargo of the Ramchunder, East

Indiaman, handed over to us yesterday your letter, and, to-day, I have

purchased three thousand three hundred and twenty-three pounds 6 and

8d. three per cent Consols, in our joint names (H. and B. Newcome),

held for your little boy. Mr. S. gives a very favourable account of the

little man, and left him in perfect health two days since, at the house

of his aunt, Miss Honeyman. We have placed 200 pounds to that lady’s

credit, at your desire.

“Lady Anne is charmed with the present which she received yesterday,

and says the white shawl is a great deal too handsome. My mother is

also greatly pleased with hers, and has forwarded, by the coach to

Brighton, to-day, a packet of books, tracts, etc., suited for his

tender age, for your little boy. She heard of you lately from the Rev.

T. Sweatenham on his return from India. He spoke of your kindness,—and

of the hospitable manner in which you had received him at your house,

and alluded to you in a very handsome way in the course of the

thanksgiving that evening. I dare say my mother will ask your little

boy to the Hermitage; and when we have a house of our own, I am sure

Anne and I will be very happy to see him. Yours affectionately, B.

Newcome. _Major Newcome_.”

IV.

“My Dear Colonel,—Did I not know the generosity of your heart, and the

bountiful means which Heaven has put at your disposal in order to

gratify that noble disposition; were I not certain that the small sum I

required will permanently place me beyond the reach of the difficulties

of life, and will infallibly be repaid before six months are over,

believe me I never would have ventured upon that bold step which our

friendship (carried on epistolarily as it has been), our relationship,

and your admirable disposition, have induced me to venture to take.

“That elegant and commodious chapel, known as Lady Whittlesea’s,

Denmark Street, Mayfair, being for sale, I have determined on venturing

my all in its acquisition, and in laying, as I hope, the foundation of

a competence for myself and excellent sister. What is a lodging-house

at Brighton but an uncertain maintenance? The mariner on the sea before

those cliffs is no more sure of wind and wave, or of fish to his

laborious net, than the Brighton house-owner (bred in affluence she may

have been, and used to unremitting plenty) to the support of the casual

travellers who visit the city. On one day they come in shoals, it is

true, but where are they on the next? For many months my poor sister’s

first floor was a desert, until occupied by your noble little boy, my

nephew and pupil. Clive is everything that a father’s, an uncle’s (who

loves him as a father), a pastor’s, a teacher’s affections could

desire. He is not one of those premature geniuses whose much-vaunted

infantine talents disappear along with adolescence; he is not, I

frankly own, more advanced in his classical and mathematical studies

than some children even younger than himself; but he has acquired the

rudiments of health; he has laid in a store of honesty and good-humour,

which are not less likely to advance him in life than mere science and

language, than the _as in præsenti_, or the _pons asinorum_.

“But I forget, in thinking of my dear little friend and pupil, the

subject of this letter—namely, the acquisition of the proprietary

chapel to which I have alluded, and the hopes, nay, certainty of a

fortune, if aught below is certain, which that acquisition holds out.

What is a curacy, but a synonym for starvation? If we accuse the

Eremites of old of wasting their lives in unprofitable wildernesses,

what shall we say to many a hermit of Protestant, and so-called

civilised times, who hides his head in a solitude in Yorkshire, and

buries his probably fine talents in a Lincolnshire fen? Have I genius?

Am I blessed with gifts of eloquence to thrill and soothe, to arouse

the sluggish, to terrify the sinful, to cheer and convince the timid,

to lead the blind groping in darkness, and to trample the audacious

sceptic in the dust? My own conscience, besides a hundred testimonials

from places of popular, most popular worship, from reverend prelates,

from distinguished clergy, tells me I have these gifts. A voice within

me cries, ‘Go forth, Charles Honeyman, fight the good fight; wipe the

tears of the repentant sinner; sing of hope to the agonised criminal;

whisper courage, brother, courage, at the ghastly deathbed, and strike

down the infidel with the lance of evidence and the shield of reason!’

In a pecuniary point of view I am confident, nay, the calculations may

be established as irresistibly as an algebraic equation, that I can

realise, as incumbent of Lady Whittlesea’s chapel, the sum of _not

less_ than one thousand pounds per annum. Such a sum, with economy (and

without it what sum were sufficient?), will enable me to provide amply

for my wants, to discharge my obligations to you, to my sister, and

some other creditors, very, very unlike you, and to place Miss Honeyman

in a home more worthy of her than that which she now occupies, only to

vacate it at the beck of every passing stranger!

“My sister does not disapprove of my plan, into which enter some

modifications which I have not, as yet, submitted to her, being anxious

at first that they should be sanctioned by you. From the income of the

Whittlesea chapel I propose to allow Miss Honeyman the sum of two

hundred pounds per annum, _paid quarterly_. This, with her private

property, which she has kept more thriftily than her unfortunate and

confiding brother guarded his (for whenever I had a guinea a tale of

distress would melt it into half a sovereign), will enable Miss

Honeyman to live in a way becoming my father’s daughter.

“Comforted with this provision as my sister will be, I would suggest

that our dearest young Clive should be transferred from her petticoat

government, and given up to the care of his affectionate uncle and

tutor. His present allowance will most liberally suffice for his

expenses, board, lodging, and education while under my roof, and I

shall be able to exert a paternal, a pastoral influence over his

studies, his conduct, and his _highest welfare_, which I cannot so

conveniently exercise at Brighton, where I am but Miss Honeyman’s

stipendiary, and where I often have to submit in cases where I know,

for dearest Clive’s own welfare, it is I, and not my sister, should be

paramount.

“I have given then to a friend, the Rev. Marcus Flather a draft for two

hundred and fifty pounds sterling, drawn upon you at your agent’s in

Calcutta, which sum will go in liquidation of dear Clive’s first year’s

board with me, or, upon my word of honour as a gentleman and clergyman,

shall be paid back at three months after sight, if you will draw upon

me. As I never—no, were it my last penny in the world—would dishonour

your draft, I implore you, my dear Colonel, not to refuse mine. My

credit in this city, where credit is _everything_, and the awful future

so little thought of, my engagements to Mr. Flather, my own prospects

in life, and the comfort of my dear sister’s declining years, all—all

depend upon this bold, this _eventful_ measure. My ruin or my earthly

happiness lies entirely in your hands. Can I doubt which way your kind

heart will lead you, and that you will come to the aid of your

affectionate brother-in-law? Charles Honeyman.”

“_P.S._—Our little Clive has been to London on a visit to his uncles

and to the Hermitage, Clapham, to pay his duty to his step-grandmother,

the wealthy Mrs. Newcome. I pass over words disparaging of myself which

the child in his artless prattles subsequently narrated. She was very

gracious to _him_, and presented him with a five-pound note, a copy of

Kirk White’s Poems, and a work called ‘Little Henry and his Bearer,’

relating to India, and the excellent Catechism of our Church. Clive is

full of humour, and I enclose you a rude scrap representing the

bishopess of Clapham, as she is called,—the other figure is a rude

though entertaining sketch of some other droll personage.

“_Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome, &c._”

V.

“My Dear Colonel;—The Rev. Marcus Flather has just written me a letter

at which I am greatly shocked and perplexed, informing me that my

brother Charles has given him a draft upon you for two hundred and

fifty pounds, when goodness knows it is not you but we who are many,

many hundred pounds debtors to you. Charles has explained that he drew

the bill at your desire, that you wrote to say you would be glad to

serve him in any way, and that the money is wanted to make his fortune.

Yet I don’t know—poor Charles is always going to make his fortune and

has never done it. That school which he bought, and for which you and

me between us paid the purchase-money, turned out no good, and the only

pupils left at the end of the first half-year were two woolly-headed

poor little mulattos, whose father was in gaol at St. Kitt’s, and whom

I kept actually in my own second-floor back room whilst the lawyers

were settling things, and Charles was away in France, and until my

dearest little Clive came to live with me.

“Then, as he was too small for a great school, I thought Clive could

not do better than stay with his old aunt and have his Uncle Charles

for a tutor, who is one of the finest scholars in the world. I wish you

could hear him in the pulpit. His delivery is grander and more

impressive than any divine now in England. His sermons you have

subscribed for, and likewise his book of elegant poems, which are

pronounced to be _very fine_.

“When he returned from Calais, and those horrid lawyers had left off

worriting him, I thought as his frame was much shattered and he was too

weak to take a curacy, that he could not do better than become Clive’s

tutor, and agreed to pay him out of your handsome donation of £250 for

Clive, a sum of one hundred pounds per year, so that, when the board of

the two and Clive’s clothing are taken into consideration, I think you

will see that no great profit is left to Miss Martha Honeyman.

“Charles talks to me of his new church in London, and of making me some

grand allowance. The poor boy is very affectionate, and always building

castles in the air, and of having Clive to live with him in London.

_Now this mustn’t be, and I won’t hear of it._ Charles is too kind to

be a schoolmaster, and Master Clive laughs at him. It was only the

other day, after his return from his grandmamma’s, regarding which I

wrote you, per Burrampooter, the 23rd ult., that I found a picture of

Mrs. Newcome and Charles too, and of both their spectacles, quite like.

I put it away, but some rogue, I suppose, has stolen it. He has done me

and Hannah too. Mr. Speck, the artist, laughed and took it home, and

says he is a wonder at drawing.

“Instead, then, of allowing Clive to go with Charles to London next

month, where my brother is bent on going, I shall send Clivey to Dr.

Timpany’s school, Marine Parade, of which I hear the best account, but

I hope you will think of soon sending him to a great school. My father

always said it was the best place for boys, and I have a brother to

whom my poor mother spared the rod, and who, I fear, has turned out but

a spoilt child.

“I am, dear Colonel, your most faithful servant, Martha Honeyman.”

“_Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome, C. B._”

VI.

“My Dear Brother,—I hasten to inform you of a calamity which, though it

might be looked for in the course of nature, has occasioned deep grief

not only in our family but in this city. This morning, at half-past

four o’clock, our beloved and respected mother, Sophia Alethea Newcome,

expired, at the advanced age of eighty-three years. On the night of

Tuesday-Wednesday, the 12–13th, having been engaged reading and writing

in her library until a late hour, and having dismissed the servants,

whom she never would allow to sit up for her, as well as my brother and

his wife, who always are in the habit of retiring early, Mrs. Newcome

extinguished the lamps, took a bedchamber candle to return to her room,

and must have fallen on the landing, where she was discovered by the

maids, sitting with her head reclining against the balustrades, and

endeavouring to staunch a wound in her forehead, which was bleeding

profusely, having struck in a fall against the stone step of the stair.

“When Mrs. Newcome was found she was speechless, but still sensible,

and medical aid being sent for, she was carried to bed. Mr. Newcome and

Lady Anne both hurried to her apartment, and she knew them, and took

the hands of each, but paralysis had probably ensued in consequence of

the shock of the fall; nor was her voice ever heard, except in

inarticulate moanings, since the hour on the previous evening when she

gave them her blessing and bade them good-night. Thus perished this

good and excellent woman, the truest Christian, the most charitable

friend to the poor and needful, the head of this great house of

business, the best and most affectionate of mothers.

“The contents of her will have long been known to us, and that document

was dated one month after our lamented father’s death. Mr. Thomas

Newcome’s property being divided equally amongst his three sons, the

property of his second wife naturally devolves upon her own issue, my

brother Brian and myself. There are very heavy legacies to servants and

to charitable and religious institutions, of which, in life, she was

the munificent patroness; and I regret, my dear brother, that no

memorial to you should have been left by my mother, because she often

spoke of you latterly in terms of affection, and on the very day on

which she died, commenced a letter to your little boy, which was left

unfinished on the library table. My brother said that on that same day,

at breakfast, she pointed to a volume of Orme’s Hindostan, the book,

she said, which set poor dear Tom wild to go to India, I know you will

be pleased to hear of these proofs of returning goodwill and affection

in one who often spoke latterly of her early regard for you. I have no

more time, under the weight of business which this present affliction

entails, than to say that I am yours, dear brother, very sincerely, H.

Newcome.”

“_Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome, etc._”

CHAPTER IV.

In which the Author and the Hero resume their Acquaintance

If we are to narrate the youthful history not only of the hero of this

tale, but of the hero’s father, we shall never have done with nursery

biography. A gentleman’s grandmother may delight in fond recapitulation

of her darling’s boyish frolics and early genius; but shall we weary

our kind readers by this infantile prattle, and set down the revered

British public for an old woman? Only to two or three persons in all

the world are the reminiscences of a man’s early youth interesting: to

the parent who nursed him; to the fond wife or child mayhap afterwards

who loves him; to himself always and supremely—whatever may be his

actual prosperity or ill-fortune, his present age, illness,

difficulties, renown, or disappointments, the dawn of his life still

shines brightly for him, the early griefs and delights and attachments

remain with him ever faithful and dear. I shall ask leave to say,

regarding the juvenile biography of Mr. Clive Newcome, of whose history

I am the chronicler, only so much as is sufficient to account for some

peculiarities of his character, and for his subsequent career in the

world.

Although we were schoolfellows, my acquaintance with young Newcome at

the seat of learning where we first met was very brief and casual. He

had the advantage of being six years the junior of his present

biographer, and such a difference of age between lads at a public

school puts intimacy out of the question—a junior ensign being no more

familiar with the Commander-in-Chief at the Horse Guards, or a

barrister on his first circuit with my Lord Chief Justice on the bench,

than the newly breeched infant in the Petties with a senior boy in a

tailed coat. As we “knew each other at home,” as our school phrase was,

and our families being somewhat acquainted, Newcome’s maternal uncle,

the Rev. Charles Honeyman (the highly gifted preacher, and incumbent of

Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel, Denmark Street, Mayfair), when he brought the

child, after the Christmas vacation of 182-, to the Grey Friars’

school, recommended him in a neat complimentary speech to my

superintendence and protection. My uncle, Major Pendennis, had for a

while a seat in the chapel of this sweet and popular preacher, and

professed, as a great number of persons of fashion did, a great

admiration for him—an admiration which I shared in my early youth, but

which has been modified by maturer judgment.

Mr. Honeyman told me, with an air of deep respect, that his young

nephew’s father, Colonel Thomas Newcome, C.B., was a most gallant and

distinguished officer in the Bengal establishment of the Honourable

East India Company;—and that his uncles, the Colonel’s half-brothers,

were the eminent bankers, heads of the firm of Hobson Brothers and

Newcome, Hobson Newcome, Esquire, Bryanstone Square, and Marblehead,

Sussex, and Sir Brian Newcome, of Newcome and Park Lane, “whom to

name,” says Mr. Honeyman, with the fluent eloquence with which he

decorated the commonest circumstances of life, “is to designate two of

the merchant princes of the wealthiest city the world has ever known;

and one, if not two, of the leaders of that aristocracy which rallies

round the throne of the most elegant and refined of European

sovereigns.” I promised Mr. Honeyman to do what I could for the boy;

and he proceeded to take leave of his little nephew in my presence in

terms equally eloquent, pulling out a long and very slender green

purse, from which he extracted the sum of two-and-sixpence, which he

presented to the child, who received the money with rather a queer

twinkle in his blue eyes.

After that day’s school, I met my little _protégé_ in the neighbourhood

of the pastrycook’s, regaling himself with raspberry-tarts. “You must

not spend all that money, sir, which your uncle gave you,” said I

(having perhaps even at that early age a slightly satirical turn), “in

tarts and ginger-beer.”

The urchin rubbed the raspberry-jam off his mouth, and said, “It don’t

matter, sir, for I’ve got lots more.”

“How much?” says the Grand Inquisitor: for the formula of interrogation

used to be, when a new boy came to the school, “What’s your name? Who’s

your father? and how much money have you got?”

The little fellow pulled such a handful of sovereigns out of his pocket

as might have made the tallest scholar feel a pang of envy. “Uncle

Hobson,” says he, “gave me two; Aunt Hobson gave me one—no, Aunt Hobson

gave me thirty shillings; Uncle Newcome gave me three pound; and Aunt

Anne gave me one pound five; and Aunt Honeyman sent me ten shillings in

a letter. And Ethel wanted to give me a pound, only I wouldn’t have it,

you know; because Ethel’s younger than me, and I have plenty.”

“And who is Ethel?” asks the senior boy, smiling at the artless youth’s

confessions.

“Ethel is my cousin,” replies little Newcome; “Aunt Anne’s daughter.

There’s Ethel and Alice, and Aunt Anne wanted the baby to be called

Boadicea, only uncle wouldn’t; and there’s Barnes and Egbert and little

Alfred; only he don’t count, he’s quite a baby you know. Egbert and me

was at school at Timpany’s; he’s going to Eton next half. He’s older

than me, but I can lick him.”

“And how old is Egbert?” asks the smiling senior.

“Egbert’s ten, and I’m nine, and Ethel’s seven,” replies the little

chubby-faced hero, digging his hands deep into his trousers’ pockets,

and jingling all the sovereigns there. I advised him to let me be his

banker; and, keeping one out of his many gold pieces, he handed over

the others, on which he drew with great liberality till his whole stock

was expended. The school hours of the upper and under boys were

different at that time; the little fellows coming out of their hall

half an hour before the Fifth and Sixth Forms; and many a time I used

to find my little blue jacket in waiting, with his honest square face,

and white hair, and bright blue eyes, and I knew that he was come to

draw on his bank. Ere long one of the pretty blue eyes was shut up, and

a fine black one substituted in its place. He had been engaged, it

appeared, in a pugilistic encounter with a giant of his own Form, whom

he had worsted in the combat. “Didn’t I pitch into him, that’s all?”

says he in the elation of victory; and when I asked whence the quarrel

arose, he stoutly informed me that “Wolf minor, his opponent, had been

bullying a little boy, and that he (the gigantic Newcome) wouldn’t

stand it.”

So, being called away from the school, I said farewell and God bless

you to the brave little man, who remained a while at the Grey Friars,

where his career and troubles had only just begun.

Nor did we meet again until I was myself a young man occupying chambers

in the Temple, when our rencontre took place in the manner already

described.

Poor Costigan’s outrageous behaviour had caused my meeting with my

schoolfellow of early days to terminate so abruptly and unpleasantly,

that I scarce expected to see Clive again, or at any rate to renew my

acquaintance with the indignant East Indian warrior who had quitted our

company in such a huff. Breakfast, however, was scarcely over in my

chambers the next morning, when there came a knock at the outer door,

and my clerk introduced “Colonel Newcome and Mr. Newcome.”

Perhaps the (joint) occupant of the chambers in Lamb Court, Temple,

felt a little pang of shame at hearing the name of the visitors; for,

if the truth must be told, I was engaged pretty much as I had been

occupied on the night previous, and was smoking a cigar over the

_Times_ newspaper. How many young men in the Temple smoke a cigar after

breakfast as they read the _Times?_ My friend and companion of those

days, and all days, Mr. George Warrington, was employed with his short

pipe, and was not in the least disconcerted at the appearance of the

visitors, as he would not have been had the Archbishop of Canterbury

stepped in.

Little Clive looked curiously about our queer premises, while the

Colonel shook me cordially by the hand. No traces of yesterday’s wrath

were visible on his face, but a friendly smile lighted his bronzed

countenance, as he too looked round the old room with its dingy

curtains and prints and bookcases, its litter of proof-sheets, blotted

manuscripts, and books for review, empty soda-water bottles,

cigar-boxes, and what not.

“I went off in a flame of fire last night,” says the Colonel, “and

being cooled this morning, thought it but my duty to call on Mr.

Pendennis and apologise for my abrupt behaviour. The conduct of that

tipsy old Captain—what is his name?—was so abominable, that I could not

bear that Clive should be any longer in the same room with him, and I

went off without saying a word of thanks or good-night to my son’s old

friend. I owe you a shake of the hand for last night, Mr. Pendennis.”

And, so saying, he was kind enough to give me his hand a second time.

“And this is the abode of the Muses, is it, sir?” our guest went on. “I

know your writings very well. Clive here used to send me the _Pall Mall

Gazette_ every month.”

“We took it at Smiffle, regular,” says Clive. “Always patronise Grey

Friars men.” “Smiffle,” it must be explained, is a fond abbreviation

for Smithfield, near to which great mart of mutton and oxen our school

is situated, and old Cistercians often playfully designate their place

of education by the name of the neighbouring market.

“Clive sent me the _Gazette_ every month; and I read your romance of

‘Walter Lorraine’ in my boat as I was coming down the river to

Calcutta.”

“Have Pen’s immortal productions made their appearance on board

Bengalee budgerows; and are their leaves floating on the yellow banks

of Jumna?” asks Warrington, that sceptic, who respects no work of

modern genius.

“I gave your book to Mrs. Timmins, at Calcutta,” says the Colonel

simply. “I daresay you have heard of _her_. She is one of the most

dashing women in all India. She was delighted with your work; and I can

tell you it is not with every man’s writing that Mrs. Timmins is

pleased,” he added, with a knowing air.

“It’s capital,” broke in Clive. “I say, that part, you know, where

Walter runs away with Neæra, and the General can’t pursue them, though

he has got the postchaise at the door, because Tim O’Toole has hidden

his wooden leg! By Jove, it’s capital!—All the funny part—I don’t like

the sentimental stuff, and suicide, and that; and as for poetry, I hate

poetry.”

“Pen’s is not first chop,” says Warrington. “I am obliged to take the

young man down from time to time, Colonel Newcome. Otherwise he would

grow so conceited there would be no bearing him.”

“I say,” says Clive.

“What were you about to remark?” asks Mr. Warrington, with an air of

great interest.

“I say, Pendennis,” continued the artless youth, “I thought you were a

great swell. When we used to read about the grand parties in the _Pall

Mall Gazette_, the fellows used to say you were at every one of them,

and you see, I thought you must have chambers in the Albany, and lots

of horses to ride, and a valet and a groom, and a cab at the very

least.”

“Sir,” says the Colonel, “I hope it is not your practice to measure and

estimate gentlemen by such paltry standards as those. A man of letters

follows the noblest calling which any man can pursue. I would rather be

the author of a work of genius, than be Governor-General of India. I

admire genius. I salute it wherever I meet it. I like my own profession

better than any in the world, but then it is because I am suited to it.

I couldn’t write four lines in verse, no, not to save me from being

shot. A man cannot have all the advantages of life. Who would not be

poor if he could be sure of possessing genius, and winning fame and

immortality, sir? Think of Dr. Johnson, what a genius he had, and where

did he live? In apartments that, I daresay, were no better than these,

which, I am sure, gentlemen, are most cheerful and pleasant,” says the

Colonel, thinking he had offended us. “One of the great pleasures and

delights which I had proposed to myself on coming home was to be

allowed to have the honour of meeting with men of learning and genius,

with wits, poets, and historians, if I may be so fortunate; and of

benefiting by their conversation. I left England too young to have that

privilege. In my father’s house money was thought of, I fear, rather

than intellect; neither he nor I had the opportunities which I wish you

to have; and I am surprised you should think of reflecting upon Mr.

Pendennis’s poverty, or of feeling any sentiment but respect and

admiration when you enter the apartments of the poet and the literary

man. I have never been in the rooms of a literary man before,” the

Colonel said, turning away from his son to us: “excuse me, is that—that

paper really a proof-sheet?” We handed over to him that curiosity,

smiling at the enthusiasm of the honest gentleman who could admire what

to us was as unpalatable as a tart to a pastrycook.

Being with men of letters, he thought proper to make his conversation

entirely literary; and in the course of my subsequent more intimate

acquaintance with him, though I knew he had distinguished himself in

twenty actions, he never could be brought to talk of his military feats

or experience, but passed them by, as if they were subjects utterly

unworthy of notice.

I found he believed Dr. Johnson to be the greatest of men: the Doctor’s

words were constantly in his mouth; and he never travelled without

Boswell’s Life. Besides these, he read Cæsar and Tacitus, “with

translations, sir, with translations—I’m thankful that I kept some of

my Latin from Grey Friars;” and he quoted sentences from the Latin

Grammar, _à propos_ of a hundred events of common life, and with

perfect simplicity and satisfaction to himself. Besides the above-named

books, the Spectator, Don Quixote, and Sir Charles Grandison formed a

part of his travelling library. “I read these, sir,” he used to say,

“because I like to be in the company of gentlemen; and Sir Roger de

Coverley, and Sir Charles Grandison, and Don Quixote are the finest

gentlemen in the world.” And when we asked him his opinion of

Fielding,—

“Tom Jones, sir; Joseph Andrews, sir!” he cried, twirling his

mustachios. “I read them when I was a boy, when I kept other bad

company, and did other low and disgraceful things, of which I’m ashamed

now. Sir, in my father’s library I happened to fall in with those

books; and I read them in secret, just as I used to go in private and

drink beer, and fight cocks, and smoke pipes with Jack and Tom, the

grooms in the stables. Mrs. Newcome found me, I recollect, with one of

those books; and thinking it might be by Mrs. Hannah More, or some of

that sort, for it was a grave-looking volume: and though I wouldn’t lie

about that or anything else—never did, sir; never, before heaven, have

I told more than three lies in my life—I kept my own counsel; I say,

she took it herself to read one evening; and read on gravely—for she

had no more idea of a joke than I have of Hebrew—until she came to the

part about Lady B—— and Joseph Andrews; and then she shut the book,

sir; and you should have seen the look she gave me! I own I burst out

a-laughing, for I was a wild young rebel, sir. But she was in the

right, sir, and I was in the wrong. A book, sir, that tells the story

of a parcel of servants, of a pack of footmen and ladies’-maids

fuddling in alehouses! Do you suppose I want to know what my kitmutgars

and cousomahs are doing? I am as little proud as any man in the world:

but there must be distinction, sir; and as it is my lot and Clive’s lot

to be a gentleman, I won’t sit in the kitchen and boose in the

servants’-hall. As for that Tom Jones—that fellow that sells himself,

sir—by heavens, my blood boils when I think of him! I wouldn’t sit down

in the same room with such a fellow, sir. If he came in at that door, I

would say, ‘How dare you, you hireling ruffian, to sully with your

presence an apartment where my young friend and I are conversing

together? where two gentlemen, I say, are taking their wine after

dinner? How dare you, you degraded villain?’ I don’t mean you, sir.

I—I—I beg your pardon.”

The Colonel was striding about the room in his loose garments, puffing

his cigar fiercely anon, and then waving his yellow bandana; and it was

by the arrival of Larkins, my clerk, that his apostrophe to Tom Jones

was interrupted; he, Larkins, taking care not to show his amazement,

having been schooled not to show or feel surprise at anything he might

see or hear in our chambers.

“What is it, Larkins?” said I. Larkins’ other master had taken his

leave some time before, having business which called him away, and

leaving me with the honest Colonel, quite happy with his talk and

cigar.

“It’s Brett’s man,” says Larkins.

I confounded Brett’s man, and told the boy to bid him call again. Young

Larkins came grinning back in a moment, and said:

“Please, sir, he says his orders is not to go away without the money.”

“Confound him again,” I cried. “Tell him I have no money in the house.

He must come to-morrow.”

As I spoke, Clive was looking in wonder, and the Colonel’s countenance

assumed an appearance of the most dolorous sympathy. Nevertheless, as

with a great effort, he fell to talking about Tom Jones again, and

continued:

“No, sir, I have no words to express my indignation against such a

fellow as Tom Jones. But I forgot that I need not speak. The great and

good Dr. Johnson has settled that question. You remember what he said

to Mr. Boswell about Fielding?”

“And yet Gibbon praises him, Colonel,” said the Colonel’s interlocutor,

“and that is no small praise. He says that Mr. Fielding was of the

family that drew its origin from the Counts of Hapsburg; but——”

“Gibbon! Gibbon was an infidel, and I would not give the end of this

cigar for such a man’s opinion. If Mr. Fielding was a gentleman by

birth, he ought to have known better; and so much the worse for him

that he did not. But what am I talking of, wasting your valuable time?

No more smoke, thank you. I must away into the City, but would not pass

the Temple without calling on you, and thanking my boy’s old protector.

You will have the kindness to come and dine with us—to-morrow, the next

day, your own day? Your friend is going out of town? I hope, on his

return, to have the pleasure of making his further acquaintance. Come,

Clive.”

Clive, who had been deep in a volume of Hogarth’s engravings during the

above discussion, or rather oration of his father’s, started up and

took leave, beseeching me, at the same time, to come soon and see his

pony; and so, with renewed greetings, we parted.

I was scarcely returned to my newspaper again, when the knocker of our

door was again agitated, and the Colonel ran back, looking very much

agitated and confused.

“I beg pardon,” says he; “I think I left my—my——” Larkins had quitted

the room by this time, and then he began more unreservedly. “My dear

young friend,” says he, “a thousand pardons for what I am going to say,

but, as Clive’s friend, I know I may take that liberty. I have left the

boy in the court. I know the fate of men of letters and genius: when we

were here just now, there came a single knock—a demand—that, that you

did not seem to be momentarily able to meet. Now do, do pardon the

liberty, and let me be your banker. You said you were engaged in a new

work: it will be a masterpiece, I am sure, if it’s like the last. Put

me down for twenty copies, and allow me to settle with you in advance.

I may be off, you know. I’m a bird of passage—a restless old soldier.”

“My dear Colonel,” said I, quite touched and pleased by this extreme

kindness, “my dun was but the washerwoman’s boy, and Mrs. Brett is in

my debt, if I am not mistaken. Besides, I already have a banker in your

family.”

“In my family, my dear Sir?”

“Messrs. Newcome, in Threadneedle Street, are good enough to keep my

money for me when I have any, and I am happy to say they have some of

mine in hand now. I am almost sorry that I am not in want, in order

that I might have the pleasure of receiving a kindness from you.” And

we shook hands for the fourth time that morning, and the kind gentleman

left me to rejoin his son.

CHAPTER V.

Clive’s Uncles

The dinner so hospitably offered by the Colonel was gladly accepted,

and followed by many more entertainments at the cost of that

good-natured friend. He and an Indian chum of his lived at this time at

Nerot’s Hotel, in Clifford Street, where Mr. Clive, too, found the good

cheer a great deal more to his taste than the homely, though plentiful,

fare at Grey Friars, at which, of course, when boys, we all turned up

our noses, though many a poor fellow, in the struggles of after-life,

has looked back with regret very likely to that well-spread youthful

table. Thus my intimacy with the father and the son grew to be

considerable, and a great deal more to my liking than my relations with

Clive’s City uncles, which have been mentioned in the last chapter, and

which were, in truth, exceedingly distant and awful.

If all the private accounts kept by those worthy bankers were like

mine, where would have been Newcome Hall and Park Lane, Marblehead and

Bryanstone Square? I used, by strong efforts of self-denial, to

maintain a balance of two or three guineas untouched at the bank, so

that my account might still remain open; and fancied the clerks and

cashiers grinned when I went to draw for money. Rather than face that

awful counter, I would send Larkins, the clerk, or Mrs. Flanagan, the

laundress. As for entering the private parlour at the back, wherein

behind the glazed partition I could see the bald heads of Newcome

Brothers engaged with other capitalists or peering over the newspaper,

I would as soon have thought of walking into the Doctor’s own library

at Grey Friars, or of volunteering to take an armchair in a dentist’s

studio, and have a tooth out, as of entering into that awful precinct.

My good uncle, on the other hand, the late Major Pendennis, who kept

naturally but a very small account with Hobsons’, would walk into the

parlour and salute the two magnates who governed there with the ease

and gravity of a Rothschild. “My good fellow,” the kind old gentleman

would say to his nephew and pupil, “_il faut se faire valoir_. I tell

you, sir, your bankers like to keep every gentleman’s account. And it’s

a mistake to suppose they are only civil to their great moneyed

clients. Look at me. I go in to them and talk to them whenever I am in

the City. I hear the news of ’Change, and carry it to our end of the

town. It looks well, sir, to be well with your banker; and at our end

of London, perhaps, I can do a good turn for the Newcomes.”

It is certain that in his own kingdom of Mayfair and St. James’s my

revered uncle was at least the bankers’ equal. On my coming to London,

he was kind enough to procure me invitations to some of Lady Anne

Newcome’s evening parties in Park Lane, as likewise to Mrs. Newcome’s

entertainments in Bryanstone Square; though, I confess, of these

latter, after a while, I was a lax and negligent attendant. “Between

ourselves, my good fellow,” the shrewd old Mentor of those days would

say, “Mrs. Newcome’s parties are not altogether select; nor is she a

lady of the very highest breeding; but it gives a man a good air to be

seen at his banker’s house. I recommend you to go for a few minutes

whenever you are asked.” And go I accordingly did sometimes, though I

always fancied, rightly or wrongly, from Mrs. Newcome’s manner to me,

that she knew I had but thirty shillings left at the bank. Once and

again, in two or three years, Mr. Hobson Newcome would meet me, and ask

me to fill a vacant place that day or the next evening at his table;

which invitation I might accept or otherwise. But one does not eat a

man’s salt, as it were, at these dinners. There is nothing sacred in

this kind of London hospitality. Your white waistcoat fills a gap in a

man’s table, and retires filled for its service of the evening. “Gad,”

the dear old Major used to say, “if we were not to talk freely of those

we dine with, how mum London would be! Some of the pleasantest evenings

I have ever spent have been when we have sate after a great dinner, _en

petit comité_, and abused the people who are gone. You have your turn,

_mon cher;_ but why not? Do you suppose I fancy my friends haven’t

found out _my_ little faults and peculiarities? And as I can’t help it,

I let myself be executed, and offer up my oddities _de bonne grâce.

Entre nous_, Brother Hobson Newcome is a good fellow, but a vulgar

fellow; and his wife—his wife exactly suits him.”

Once a year Lady Anne Newcome (about whom my Mentor was much more

circumspect; for I somehow used to remark that as the rank of persons

grew higher, Major Pendennis spoke of them with more caution and

respect)—once or twice in a year Lady Anne Newcome opened her saloons

for a concert and a ball, at both of which the whole street was crowded

with carriages, and all the great world, and some of the small, were

present. Mrs. Newcome had her ball too, and her concert of English

music, in opposition to the Italian singers of her sister-in-law. The

music of her country, Mrs. N. said, was good enough for _her_.

The truth must be told, that there was no love lost between the two

ladies. Bryanstone Square could not forget the superiority of Park

Lane’s rank; and the catalogue of grandees at dear Anne’s parties

filled dear Maria’s heart with envy. There are people upon whom rank

and worldly goods make such an impression, that they naturally fall

down on their knees and worship the owners; there are others to whom

the sight of Prosperity is offensive, and who never see Dives’ chariot

but to growl and hoot at it. Mrs. Newcome, as far as my humble

experience would lead me to suppose, is not only envious, but proud of

her envy. She mistakes it for honesty and public spirit. _She_ will not

bow down to kiss the hand of a haughty aristocracy. She is a merchant’s

wife and an attorney’s daughter. There is no pride about her. Her

brother-in-law, poor dear Brian—considering everybody knows everything

in London, was there ever such a delusion as his?—was welcome, after

banking-hours, to forsake his own friends for his wife’s fine

relations, and to dangle after lords and ladies in Mayfair. She had no

such absurd vanity—not she. She imparted these opinions pretty

liberally to all her acquaintances in almost all her conversations. It

was clear that the two ladies were best apart. There are some folks who

will see insolence in persons of rank, as there are others who will

insist; that all clergymen are hypocrites, all reformers villains, all

placemen plunderers, and so forth; and Mrs. Newcome never, I am sure,

imagined that she had a prejudice, or that she was other than an

honest, independent, high-spirited woman. Both of the ladies had

command over their husbands, who were of soft natures easily led by

woman, as, in truth, are all the males of this family. Accordingly,

when Sir Brian Newcome voted for the Tory candidate in the City, Mr.

Hobson Newcome plumped for the Reformer. While Brian, in the House of

Commons, sat among the mild Conservatives, Hobson unmasked traitors and

thundered at aristocratic corruption, so as to make the Marylebone

Vestry thrill with enthusiasm. When Lady Anne, her husband, and her

flock of children fasted in Lent, and declared for the High Church

doctrines, Mrs. Hobson had paroxysms of alarm regarding the progress of

Popery, and shuddered out of the chapel where she had a pew, because

the clergyman there, for a very brief season, appeared to preach in a

surplice.

Poor bewildered Honeyman! it was a sad day for you, when you appeared

in your neat pulpit with your fragrant pocket-handkerchief (and your

sermon likewise all millefleurs), in a trim, prim, freshly mangled

surplice, which you thought became you! How did you look aghast, and

pass your jewelled hand through your curls, as you saw Mrs. Newcome,

who had been as good as five-and-twenty pounds a year to you, look up

from her pew, seize hold of Mr. Newcome, fling open the pew-door, drive

out with her parasol her little flock of children, bewildered but not

ill-pleased to get away from the sermon, and summon John from the back

seats to bring away the bag of prayer-books! Many a good dinner did

Charles Honeyman lose by assuming that unlucky ephod. Why did the

high-priest of his diocese order him to put it on? It was delightful to

view him afterwards, and the airs of martyrdom which he assumed. Had

they been going to tear him to pieces with wild beasts next day, he

could scarcely have looked more meek, or resigned himself more

pathetically to the persecutors. But I am advancing matters. At this

early time of which I write, a period not twenty years since, surplices

were not even thought of in conjunction with sermons: clerical

gentlemen have appeared in them, and under the heavy hand of

persecution have sunk down in their pulpits again, as Jack pops back

into his box. Charles Honeyman’s elegant discourses were at this time

preached in a rich silk Master of Arts’ gown, presented to him, along

with a teapot full of sovereigns, by his affectionate congregation at

Leatherhead.

But that I may not be accused of prejudice in describing Mrs. Newcome

and her family, and lest the reader should suppose that some slight

offered to the writer by this wealthy and virtuous banker’s lady was

the secret reason for this unfavourable sketch of her character, let me

be allowed to report, as accurately as I can remember them, the words

of a kinsman of her own, —— Giles, Esquire, whom I had the honour of

meeting at her table, and who, as we walked away from Bryanstone

Square, was kind enough to discourse very freely about the relatives

whom he had just left.

“That was a good dinner, sir,” said Mr. Giles, puffing the cigar which

I offered to him, and disposed to be very social and communicative.

“Hobson Newcome’s table is about as good a one as any I ever put my

legs under. You didn’t have twice of turtle, sir, I remarked that—I

always do, at that house especially, for I know where Newcome gets it.

We belong to the same livery in the City, Hobson and I, the

Oystermongers’ Company, sir, and we like our turtle good, I can tell

you—good, and a great deal of it, you say. Hay, hay, not so bad!

“I suppose you’re a young barrister, sucking lawyer, or that sort of

thing. Because you was put at the end of the table and nobody took

notice of you. That’s my place too; I’m a relative and Newcome asks me

if he has got a place to spare. He met me in the City to-day, and says,

‘Tom,’ says he, ‘there’s some dinner in the Square at half-past seven:

I wish you would go and fetch Louisa, whom we haven’t seen this ever so

long.’ Louisa is my wife, sir—Maria’s sister—Newcome married that gal

from my house. ‘No, no,’ says I, ‘Hobson; Louisa’s engaged nursing

number eight’—that’s our number, sir. The truth is, between you and me,

sir, my missis won’t come any more at no price. She can’t stand it;

Mrs. Newcome’s dam patronising airs is enough to choke off anybody.

‘Well, Hobson, my boy,’ says I, ‘a good dinner’s a good dinner; and

I’ll come though Louisa won’t, that is, can’t.’”

While Mr. Giles, who was considerably enlivened by claret, was

discoursing thus candidly, his companion was thinking how he, Mr.

Arthur Pendennis, had been met that very afternoon on the steps of the

Megatherium Club by Mr. Newcome, and had accepted that dinner which

Mrs. Giles, with more spirit, had declined. Giles continued

talking—“I’m an old stager, I am. I don’t mind the rows between the

women. I believe Mrs. Newcome and Lady Newcome’s just as bad too; I

know Maria is always driving at her one way or the other, and calling

her proud and aristocratic, and that; and yet my wife says Maria, who

pretends to be such a Radical, never asks us to meet the Baronet and

his lady. ‘And why should she, Loo, my dear?’ says I. ‘I don’t want to

meet Lady Newcome, nor Lord Kew, nor any of ’em.’ Lord Kew, ain’t it an

odd name? Tearing young swell, that Lord Kew: tremendous wild fellow.”

“I was a clerk in that house, sir, as a young man; I was there in the

old woman’s time, and Mr. Newcome’s—the father of these young men—as

good a man as ever stood on ’Change.” And then Mr. Giles, warming with

his subject, enters at large into the history of the house. “You see,

sir,” says he, “the banking-house of Hobson Brothers, or Newcome

Brothers, as the partners of the firm really are, is not one of the

leading banking firms of the City of London, but a most respectable

house of many years’ standing, and doing a most respectable business,

especially in the Dissenting connection.” After the business came into

the hands of the Newcome Brothers, Hobson Newcome, Esq., and Sir Brian

Newcome, Bart., M.P., Mr. Giles shows how a considerable West End

connection was likewise established, chiefly through the aristocratic

friends and connections of the above-named Bart.

But the best man of business, according to Mr. Giles, whom the firm of

Hobson Brothers ever knew, better than her father and uncle, better

than her husband Sir T. Newcome, better than her sons and successors

above mentioned, was the famous Sophia Alethea Hobson, afterwards

Newcome—of whom might be said what Frederick the Great said of his

sister, that she was _sexu fœmina, vir ingenio_—in sex a woman, and in

mind a man. Nor was she, my informant told me, without even manly

personal characteristics: she had a very deep and gruff voice, and in

her old age a beard which many a young man might envy; and as she came

into the bank out of her carriage from Clapham, in her dark green

pelisse with fur trimmings, in her grey beaver hat, beaver gloves, and

great gold spectacles, not a clerk in that house did not tremble before

her, and it was said she only wanted a pipe in her mouth considerably

to resemble the late Field-Marshal Prince Blucher.