THE HERO IN LONDON.--PLEASURE IS OFTEN THE SHORTEST, AS IT IS THE
EARLIEST ROAD TO WISDOM, AND WE MAY SAY OF THE WORLD WHAT
ZEAL-OF-THE-LAND-BUSY SAYS OF THE PIG-BOOTH, "WE ESCAPE SO MUCH OF THE
OTHER VANITIES BY OUR EARLY ENTERING."
IT had, when I first went to town, just become the fashion for young men
of fortune to keep house, and to give their bachelor establishments the
importance hitherto reserved for the household of a Benedict.
Let the reader figure to himself a suite of apartments, magnificently
furnished, in the vicinity of the court. An anteroom is crowded with
divers persons, all messengers in the various negotiations of pleasure.
There, a French valet,--that inestimable valet, Jean Desmarais,--sitting
over a small fire, was watching the operations of a coffee-pot, and
conversing, in a mutilated attempt at the language of our nation, though
with the enviable fluency of his own, with the various loiterers who
were beguiling the hours they were obliged to wait for an audience of
the master himself, by laughing at the master's Gallic representative.
There stood a tailor with his books of patterns just imported from
Paris,--that modern Prometheus, who makes a man what he is! Next to him
a tall, gaunt fellow, in a coat covered with tarnished lace, a night-cap
wig, and a large whip in his hands, comes to vouch for the pedigree and
excellence of the three horses he intends to dispose of, out of pure
love and amity for the buyer. By the window stood a thin starveling
poet, who, like the grammarian of Cos, might have put lead in his
pockets to prevent being blown away, had he not, with a more paternal
precaution, put so much in his works that he had left none to spare.
Excellent trick of the times, when ten guineas can purchase every virtue
under the sun, and when an author thinks to vindicate the sins of his
book by proving the admirable qualities of the paragon to whom it is
dedicated.* There with an air of supercilious contempt upon his smooth
cheeks, a page, in purple and silver, sat upon the table, swinging his
legs to and fro, and big with all the reflected importance of a
/billet-doux/. There stood the pert haberdasher, with his box of
silver-fringed gloves, and lace which Diana might have worn. At that
time there was indeed no enemy to female chastity like the former
article of man-millinery: the delicate whiteness of the glove, the
starry splendour of the fringe, were irresistible, and the fair Adorna,
in poor Lee's tragedy of "Caesar Borgia," is far from the only lady who
has been killed by a pair of gloves.
* Thank Heaven, for the honour of literature, /nous avons change tout
cela!--ED.
Next to the haberdasher, dingy and dull of aspect, a book-hunter bent
beneath the load of old works gathered from stall and shed, and about to
be re-sold according to the price exacted from all literary gallants who
affect to unite the fine gentleman with the profound scholar. A little
girl, whose brazen face and voluble tongue betrayed the growth of her
intellectual faculties, leaned against the wainscot, and repeated, in
the anteroom, the tart repartees which her mistress (the most celebrated
actress of the day) uttered on the stage; while a stout, sturdy,
bull-headed gentleman, in a gray surtout and a black wig, mingled with
the various voices of the motley group the gentle phrases of
Hockley-in-the-Hole, from which place of polite merriment he came
charged with a message of invitation. While such were the inmates of
the anteroom, what picture shall we draw of the /salon/ and its
occupant?
A table was covered with books, a couple of fencing foils, a woman's
mask, and a profusion of letters; a scarlet cloak, richly laced, hung
over, trailing on the ground. Upon a slab of marble lay a hat, looped
with diamonds, a sword, and a lady's lute. Extended upon a sofa,
loosely robed in a dressing-gown of black velvet, his shirt collar
unbuttoned, his stockings ungartered, his own hair (undressed and
released for a brief interval from the false locks universally worn)
waving from his forehead in short yet dishevelled curls, his whole
appearance stamped with the morning negligence which usually follows
midnight dissipation, lay a young man of about nineteen years. His
features were neither handsome nor ill-favoured, and his stature was
small, slight, and somewhat insignificant, but not, perhaps, ill-formed
either for active enterprise or for muscular effort. Such, reader, is
the picture of the young prodigal who occupied the apartments I have
described, and such (though somewhat flattered by partiality) is a
portrait of Morton Devereux, six months after his arrival in town.
The door was suddenly thrown open with that unhesitating rudeness by
which our friends think it necessary to signify the extent of their
familiarity; and a young man of about eight-and-twenty, richly dressed,
and of a countenance in which a dissipated /nonchalance/ and an
aristocratic /hauteur/ seemed to struggle for mastery, abruptly entered.
"What! ho, my noble royster," cried he, flinging himself upon a chair,
"still suffering from St. John's Burgundy! Fie, fie, upon your
apprenticeship!--why, before I had served half your time, I could take
my three bottles as easily as the sea took the good ship 'Revolution,'
swallow them down with a gulp, and never show the least sign of them the
next morning!"
"I really believe you, most magnanimous Tarleton. Providence gives to
each of its creatures different favours,--to one wit, to the other a
capacity for drinking. A thousand pities that they are never united!"
"So bitter, Count!--ah, what will ever cure you of sarcasm?"
"A wise man by conversation, or fools by satiety."
"Well, I dare say that is witty enough, but I never admire fine things
of a morning. I like letting my faculties live till night in a
deshabille; let us talk easily and sillily of the affairs of the day.
/Imprimis/, will you stroll to the New Exchange? There is a black eye
there that measures out ribbons, and my green ones long to flirt with
it."
"With all my heart--and in return you shall accompany me to Master
Powell's puppet-show."
"You speak as wisely as Solomon himself in the puppet-show. I own that
I love that sight: 'tis a pleasure to the littleness of human nature to
see great things abased by mimicry; kings moved by bobbins, and the
pomps of the earth personated by Punch."
"But how do you like sharing the mirth of the groundlings, the filthy
plebeians, and letting them see how petty are those distinctions which
you value so highly, by showing them how heartily you can laugh at such
distinctions yourself? Allow, my superb Coriolanus, that one purchases
pride by the loss of consistency."
"Ah, Devereux, you poison my enjoyment by the mere word 'plebeian'! Oh,
what a beastly thing is a common person!--a shape of the trodden clay
without any alloy; a compound of dirty clothes, bacon breaths, villanous
smells, beggarly cowardice, and cattish ferocity. Pah, Devereux! rub
civet on the very thought!"
"Yet they will laugh to-day at the same things you will, and
consequently there would be a most flattering congeniality between you.
Emotion, whether of ridicule, anger, or sorrow; whether raised at a
puppet-show, a funeral, or a battle,--is your grandest of levellers.
The man who would be always superior should be always apathetic."
"Oracular, as usual, Count,--but, hark, the clock gives tongue. One, by
the Lord!--will you not dress?"
And I rose and dressed. We passed through the anteroom; my attendant
assistants in the art of wasting money drew up in a row.
"Pardon me, gentlemen," said I ("gentlemen, indeed!" cried Tarleton),
"for keeping you so long. Mr. Snivelship, your waistcoats are
exquisite: favour me by conversing with my valet on the width of the
lace for my liveries; he has my instructions. Mr. Jockelton, your
horses shall be tried to-morrow at one. Ay, Mr. Rymer, I beg you a
thousand pardons; I beseech you to forgive the ignorance of my rascals
in suffering a gentleman of your merit to remain for a moment unattended
to. I have read your ode; it is splendid,--the ease of Horace with the
fire of Pindar; your Pegasus never touches the earth, and yet in his
wildest excesses you curb him with equal grace and facility: I object,
sir, only to your dedication; it is too flattering."
"By no means, my Lord Count, it fits you to a hair."
"Pardon me," interrupted I, "and allow me to transfer the honour to Lord
Halifax; he loves men of merit; he loves also their dedications. I will
mention it to him to-morrow: everything you say of me will suit him
exactly. You will oblige me with a copy of your poem directly it is
printed, and suffer me to pay your bookseller for it now, and through
your friendly mediation; adieu!"
"Oh, Count, this is too generous."
"A letter for me, my pretty page? Ah! tell her ladyship I shall wait
upon her commands at Powell's: time will move with a tortoise speed till
I kiss her hands. Mr. Fribbleden, your gloves would fit the giants at
Guildhall: my valet will furnish you with my exact size; you will see to
the legitimate breadth of the fringe. My little beauty, you are from
Mrs. Bracegirdle: the play /shall/ succeed; I have taken seven boxes;
Mr. St. John promised his influence. Say, therefore, my Hebe, that the
thing is certain, and let me kiss thee: thou hast dew on thy lip
already. Mr. Thumpen, you are a fine fellow, and deserve to be
encouraged; I will see that the next time your head is broken it shall
be broken fairly: but I will not patronize the bear; consider that
peremptory. What, Mr. Bookworm, again! I hope you have succeeded
better this time: the old songs had an autumn fit upon them, and had
lost the best part of their /leaves/; and Plato had mortgaged one half
his "Republic," to pay, I suppose, the exorbitant sum you thought proper
to set upon the other. As for Diogenes Laertius, and his
philosophers--"
"Pish!" interrupted Tarleton; "are you going, by your theoretical
treatises on philosophy, to make me learn the practical part of it, and
prate upon learning while I am supporting myself with patience?"
"Pardon me! Mr. Bookworm; you will deposit your load, and visit me
to-morrow at an earlier hour. And now, Tarleton, I am at your service."