_By the Author of "Granby,"_
Is not the most striking novel of the season. This may by some readers
be attributed to the absence of that dashing _caricatura_ style and
constant aiming at antitheses, which, if it relieve the vapidness of the
story, does not add to its natural attractions. Nevertheless, there are
pictures of life and manners in these volumes which have the easy and
unconstrained air of an author who is not writing for mere effect, but
for the purpose of "holding the mirror up to nature," and correcting the
follies and vices of the age without attempting to exaggerate them.
We do not attempt to unravel the story of Arlington, but quote a few
flying extracts. First is a
_Scandal-loving Letter_
from Sir Gerald Denbigh to Lady Ulverston, a lady distinguished by a
congenial love of _tracasserie_, and a congenial idolization of social
distinctions; an address which passed for cleverness; unimpeachable
taste in self-adornment; and who was courted by the ball-going part of
London as a dispenser of tickets for Almack's.
"Do you know you are paying us all a very undeserved compliment in being
curious about our proceedings; and I will not turn the head of any one
here, by imparting a syllable touching your inquiries. You ask what the
party is composed of--a sign that you don't consume your invaluable time
in spelling newspapers--for Berwick announces the accessions to his
menagerie as diligently as Pidcock. Our last arrivals were those Polar
bears, the Rochdales, with their pretty youngest daughter, who is
surprisingly little, chilly and frozen for a creature that has always
been living among icebergs. We are doomed to them for a week, Lord
Rochdale having promised to stay so long; and he is one of those
patterns of inconvenient precision, who, having once promised, will
certainly pay the heavy debt of visitation to the uttermost minute.
Arlington is here--brought expressly to play suitor, and looking
affectingly conscious of his _rôle_. Berwick, I believe, has told him
that he shall die of disappointment, or, what is as bad, shut up his
house, if he quits them unaccepted. What an alternative for the poor
youth--to be forced to marry at one-and-twenty, or deprive the world of
the fortunate master of the best cook in Christendom.
"There is a strange heterogeneous medley here. Fancy, of all living
creatures, the Bolsovers being brought hither to meet the Rochdales,
whom they suit like point ruffles with a shooting-jacket. Either Berwick
has acquired a taste for contrasts, or, in assorting his party, has
overlooked every thing but the prospective match, and drawn the rest of
the company by lot. His only other considerate arrangement is having
Charles Theobald here to swain Lady Bolsover, and talk 'Turf' with her
Lord. This is one of Berwick's 'good-natured things.' To do him justice,
nobody knows better how to place _chacun avec sa chacune_; but it is a
pity that in this case it contributes so little to the general
amusement; for really Theobald's intense flirtation with Lady Bolsover,
is the flattest piece of dull indecorum that ever met my virtuous eyes.
They are dull, these people--keep him from quadrupeds, and Theobald is a
cipher; and Lady B. has little more than the few ideas which she gets
sent over with her dresses from Paris. I know it is _mauvais ton_ to cry
them down--but I cannot help it. My sincerity will ruin me some fine
day.
"The Hartlands are here: he talks parliament, and she talks strong
sense, and tells every body how to do every thing, and seems to say,
like Madame de Sevigné's candid Frenchwoman, _Il n'y a que moi qui ai
toujours raison_. To close the list, we have that good-looking puppy,
young Leighton, an underbred youth, spoiled by premature immersion in a
dandy regiment, who goes about saying the same things to every body, and
labouring to reward the inconsiderate benevolence of you soft-hearted
patronesses, by talking as if London lay packed in Willis's rooms, and
nobody existed but on Wednesday nights. Forgive my impertinence; you
know how, in my heart, I revere your oligarchy.
"You will wonder how I amuse myself in the midst of this curious
specimen of a social _Macedoine_--quite well--and am acquiring a taste
for that true epicurean apathy which one enjoys in perfection, among
people whom one expects neither to interest, nor to be interested by;
and I sit down among them as calmly comfortable as I can conceive a
growing cabbage to be in wet weather. I hold my tongue and watch the
chaos as gravely as I can, while Berwick labours to make the jarring
elements of his party harmonize, and offends every one in turn by trying
to talk to him in his own way. I observe this generally irritates
people; nobody likes to be so well understood.
"I can hardly judge at present, but I don't think Arlington's suit will
prosper, and you will laugh when I tell you why: it is not that the
youth is too shy and the maiden too cold; it is not the officiousness of
the Berwicks;--it is because Lord Arlington has some thirty or forty
thousand a-year. He is so rich, and the Rochdales so poor, and so
stiffly disinterested withal; and it is such a mortal sin to think of
money in this dirty world, where we cannot live without it, that they
actually discourage him, and make it a point of honour to snub him
daily, to prove their superiority to mercenary considerations. What weak
things your strong-minded people sometimes do! and what horrors arise
from acting upon principle! I, who have none, fancy I sometimes stumble
into right by just doing what I please, and letting others do the same.
"Pray be bountiful, and send me some news, true or false--only if the
latter, tell me the inventors. I have had nothing of the kind save a
letter from Neville, full of comfortable lies, which I have already
re-told, and now dearth is staring us in the face--not five minutes
consumption in the house--and we are reduced to talk about each other,
Berwick excepted, who falls back upon himself, and tells one again and
again the 'very good thing' he said ten years ago. Tell me something
about your intimates--what are their high mightinesses, Ladies Crawford
and Cheadle, now doing for the edification of the world? Has the former
forgiven his Majesty of ----? or is she _brouillée_ with any other
potentate! Has the latter made peace with the Cabinet? or are Ministers
still doomed to exclusion from her parties unless they will be good
boys, and do as she bids them? and is she still chattering party gossip,
and thinks all the while she is talking politics? Send me our dear
friend's last silly thing; and if you don't know which is the last, do,
pray do, go to her house and gather one.
"I know nothing of Beauchamp but that he is now in Scotland, chin-deep
in heather, killing grouse against time for a bet of some hundreds,
which he has persuaded some simpleton to make with him. No man knows
better than Beauchamp how to get paid for amusing himself. I had never
heard, and don't believe, that Beauchamp is going to take a wife.
Whatever you know of this, pray tell me; and say _whose_ wife--not Sir
Robert Ridware's, I hope; that would be so illiberal, and so
unnecessary! I hate monopolies; and, moreover, I have always admired,
the example of the poet Thomson, who ate his peaches off the tree.
Forgive this pedantry, and any other sins in my letter; or if you are to
scold me, let it be in person. Addio! fair lady. Yours,--not
unalterably, for that is tiresome,--but as long as it pleaseth you.
"G.D."
A pleasant anecdote follows, by Sir James Berwick, "a busy, meddling,
vain, good-humoured man, whose chief ambition it was to be considered
thoroughly 'a man of the world,' and 'a good member of society.'"
"I was asked to dine with a Sir Dixie Hickson, a stiff, bluff,
beef-eating sort of man, who was under some obligation to me, or I to
him, I don't know which. Well, I forgot name, residence all but the
day--came home in a hurry, looked into the Court Guide, found a Sir
Hicks Dixon, drove to his house, found a party assembled, bowed to a fat
woman in a turban who sailed forward _â la maitresse de maison_, and
simpered an apology, for Sir Hicks', or Sir Dicks', or whatever he might
be, 'unavoidable absence;' I forget why, 'but did not like to put off
the party, and hoped to look in in the evening.' (Mind I had never seen
the _femme_ Hickson.) Down we went to dinner; a guest had failed, so
there was a place for me; did not know a soul of the party; such a set
of creatures were never before assembled on God's earth! Well, I ate,
drank, and talked with the savages, told them some of my best lies, and
was growing immensely popular, when in drops Sir Hicks from the country.
You should have seen us! we set each other like two pointers backing in
a stubble, with a covey between them, while the _femme_ Dixon kept
fussing with an introduction--'Sir Hicks, Sir James,--Sir James, Sir
Hicks!' At last the light broke in, and I explained, and we laughed
about it for a whole hour. I was afraid when all was over I should have
had to pay my debt of dinner to Sir Dixie; but the best of it is, I have
not seen or heard more of either him or Sir Hicks. It would have served
me right if they had asked me to dinner once a week for ever visiting
such people. It is not likely that you should know them."
There is much truth in the following satire upon fashionable travelling;
though persons of fashion are not the only unimproved tourists. In
travelling, a man must carry half the entertainment along with him.
"'Listen,' said he, 'and you will hear more of the uses and advantages
of travel.'
"Mr. Theobald at that instant was speaking to Lord Bolsover.
"'I will just tell you what I did. Brussels, Frankfort, Berlin, Vienna,
Munich, Milan, Naples and Paris; and all that in two months. No man has
ever done it in less.'
"'That's a fast thing; but I think I could have done it,' said Lord
Bolsover, 'with a good courier. I had a fellow once, who could ride a
hundred miles a day for a fortnight.'
"'I came from Vienna to Calais,' said young Leighton, 'in less time than
the Government courier. No other Englishman ever did that.'
"'Hem! I am not sure of that,' said Lord Bolsover; 'but I'll just tell
you what I have done--from Rome to Naples in nineteen hours; a fact,
upon my honour--and from Naples to Paris in six days.'
"'Partly by sea?'
"'No! all by land;' replied Lord Bolsover, with a look of proud
satisfaction.
"'I'll just tell you what I did,' Mr. Leighton chimed in again, 'and I
think it is a devilish good plan--it shows what one can do. I went
straight an end, as fast as I could, to what was to be the end of my
journey. This was Sicily; so straight away I went there at the devil's
own rate, and never stopped any where by the way; changed horses at Rome
and all those places, and landed in safety in ---- I forget exactly how
long from the time of starting, but I have got it down to an odd minute.
As for the places I left behind, I saw them all on my way back, except
the Rhine, and I _steamed_ down that in the nighttime.'
"'I have travelled a good deal by night,' said Theobald. 'With a
_dormeuse_ and travelling lamp I think it is pleasant, and a good plan
of getting on.'
"'And you can honestly say, I suppose,' said Denbigh, 'that you have
slept successfully through as much fine country as any man living?'
"'Oh, I did see the country--that is, all that was worth seeing. My
courier knew all about that, and used to stop and wake me whenever we
came to any thing remarkable. Gad! I have reason to remember it, too,
for I caught an infernal bad cold one night when I turned out by
lamp-light to look at a waterfall. I never looked at another.'"
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