_IN IRELAND_
_To MISS REAY._
+Ireland+, _March 26, 1776_.
Ireland! England! good heavens! that Martha should be in one part of
the world and her H. in another! Will not our destinies suffer us to
breathe the same air? Mine will not, I most firmly believe, let me
rest, till they have hunted me to death.
Will you not give me your approbation for obeying you thus?
Approbation! And is that the coin to pass between _us?_
Yet, I will obey you further. I will restrain my pen as much as
possible. I will scratch the word love out of my dictionary. I will
forget: I lie—I never _can_, nor ever _will_ forget you, or any thing
which belongs to you. But I will, as you wisely advise, and kindly
desire me, write as much as possible on other subjects. Everything
entertaining that I can procure I will. I will _Twissify_, and write
Tours—or anything but love-letters. This morning pardon me: I am unable
to trifle; I _must_ be allowed to talk of love, of Martha.
And, when I _am_ able, you must allow me to put in a word or two
sometimes for myself. To-day, however, I will not make _you_ unhappy by
telling you how truly so _I_ am.
The truth is—my heart is full; and though I thought, when I took up
my pen, I could have filled a quire of paper with it, I now have not
a word to say. Were I sitting by your side now (oh, that I were!) I
should only have power to recline my cheek upon your shoulder, and to
wet your handkerchief with my tears.
My own safety, but for your sake, is the last of my considerations.
Our passage was rather boisterous, but not dangerous. Mrs. F. (whom I
mentioned to you, I believe, in the letter that I wrote just before
we embarked) has enabled me to make you laugh with an account of her
behaviour, were either of us in a humour to laugh.
Why did you cheat me so about that box?
Had I known I should find, upon opening it, that the things were for
me, I would never have brought it. But that _you_ knew. Was it kind, my
Martha, to give me so many _daily_ memorandums of you, when I was to
be at such a distance from you? Oh, yes, it was, it was, _most_ kind.
And that, and you, and all your thousand and ten thousand kindnesses I
never will forget. The purse shall be my constant companion, the shirts
I will wear by night, one of the handkerchiefs I was obliged to use in
drying my eyes as soon as I opened the box, the——
God, God bless you in this world—that is, give you your H., and grant
you an easy passage to eternal blessings in a better.
If you go before me, may the stroke be so instantaneous that you may
not have time to cast one longing, lingering look on H.!
_To MISS REAY._
+Ireland+, _April 8, 1776_.
Yours, dated April the first, would have diverted me had I been some
leagues nearer to you. It contained true wit and humour. I truly thank
you for it, because I know with how much difficulty you study for any
thing like wit or humour in the present situation of your mind. But
you do it to divert me; and it is done for one, who, though he cannot
laugh at it, as he ought, will remember it, as he ought. Yet, with what
a melancholy tenderness it concluded! _There_ spoke your heart.
Your situation, when you wrote it, was something like that of an
actress, who should be obliged to play a part in a comedy, on the
evening of a day, which, by some real catastrophe, had marked her out
for the capital figure of a _real_ tragedy.
Perhaps I have said something like this in the long letter that I have
written since. Never mind.
Pray be careful how you seal your letters. The wax always robs me of
five or six words. Leave a space for your seal. Suppose that should
be the part of your letter which tells me you still love me. If the
wax cover it, I see it not—I find no such expression in your letter—I
grow distracted—and immediately set out for Charing Cross, to ask you
whether you do indeed still love me.
In the hospitality of this country I was not deceived. They have a
curse in their language, strongly descriptive of it—“May the grass
grow at your door!” The women, if I knew not _you_, I should find
sensible and pretty. But I am deaf, dumb, blind, to everything, and
to every person but _you_. If I write any more this morning, I shall
certainly sin against your commands.
Why do you say nothing of your dear children? I insist upon it that you
buy my friend a taw, and two dozen of marbles; and place them to the
account of
Your humble servant.
_To MISS REAY._
+Ireland+, _May 3, 1776_.
My last, I hope, did not offend you. The bank note I was obliged to
return; although I thank you for it, more than words can tell.
Shall I, whom you will not marry, because you will not load me with
your debts, increase those debts; at least prevent you from diminishing
them, by robbing you of fifty pounds? Were I capable of it, I should be
unworthy of your love. But be not offended that I returned it. Heaven
knows how willingly a quire of such things should have accompanied it,
had heaven made me so rich.
Be not anxious about me. Talk not of the postage which your dear
letters cost me. Will you refuse to make your H. happy? And think you
that I can pay too dear for happiness?
But, Lord! you rave. I am rich—as rich as a Jew; and without taking
into the calculation the treasure I possess in your love. Why, you talk
of what I allow _that relation_, poor soul! That does not swallow up
all my lands and hereditaments at Gosport. Then there’s my pay, and
twenty other ways and means besides, I dare say, could I but recollect
them. Go to—I tell you I _am_ rich. So, let me know you got the silver
paper safe, and that I am a good boy.
Rich! To be sure I am; why, I can afford to go to plays. I saw Catley
last night, in your favourite character. By the way, I will tell you a
story of her, when she was on your side the water.
Names do not immortalise praiseworthy anecdotes; _they_ immortalise
names. Some difference had arisen between Miss Catley and the managers,
concerning the terms upon which she was to be engaged for the season.
One of the managers called upon her, at her little lodgings in Drury
Lane, to settle them. The maid was going to show the gentleman
upstairs, and to call her mistress. “No, no,” cries the actress,
who was in the kitchen, and heard the manager’s voice, “there is no
occasion to show the gentleman into a room. I am busy below [to the
manager] making apple-dumplings for my brats. You know whether you
have a mind to give me the money I ask, or not. I am none of your fine
ladies, who get a cold or the tooth-ache, and cannot sing. If you have
a mind to give me the money, say so; my mouth shall not open for a
farthing less. So good morning to you, and do not keep the girl there
in the passage; for I want her to put the dumplings in the pot, while
I nurse the child.” The turnips of Fabricius, and Andrew Marvel’s cold
leg of mutton are worthy to be served up on the same day with Nan
Catley’s apple-dumplings.
Come; I am not unhappy, or I could not talk of other people and write
thus gaily. Nothing can make me truly unhappy but a change in your
sentiments of me. By the Almighty God of heaven, I know my own feeling
so thoroughly, that I do not think I could survive such a thing.
As you love me, scold me not about the poplin which you will receive
next week. It cost me nothing; I may surely give what was given to me!
_To MISS REAY._
+Ireland+, _May 29, 1776_.
Do you think that to make such proposals, as your last contained, is
the way to reconcile me to this worse than banishment? You refused to
come into my scheme of marriage. Nothing shall tempt me to come into
_your_ scheme. Persist in your idea of going on the stage, and, as I
live, I will come over and make a party to damn you the first night of
your appearance. Since you will not share my fortunes, I will not share
your earnings.
The story which you mention at Flamborough, of Boardingham, who was
murdered by his wife and her lover, is most shocking. The reflections
you draw from it are most just, and what you say of our situation most
true. The woman must have been beyond a savage. Yet their feelings,
when she and Aikney were at the gallows together (supposing anything
like love remained), must have been exquisite. I protest I would
willingly embrace with M. the cruellest death which torture could
invent (provided she were on a bed of roses) than lead the happiest
life without her. What visions have I conjured up! My pen drops from my
hand. Well, I must not think.
_To MISS REAY._
+Ireland+, _June 18, 1776_.
My Laura is not angry with me, I hope, for the three or four _tender_
letters I have written to her since the beginning of this month. And
yet, yours of yesterday seems to say you are. If I bear my situation
like a man, will you not allow me to feel it like a man?
Misfortune, like a creditor severe,
But rises in demand for her delay.
She makes a scourge of past prosperity,
To sting me more and double my distress.
But you say I must not write thus. If I can help it, I will not.
Shall I write about the weather or politics? The sun shines to-day,
yesterday it rained. If you wish to appear learned, tell the next
company you go into that the distresses of this country will soon
oblige England to grant her a free trade or something very much like
it; and add, that her grievances are more real now than when in 1601
she complained to Elizabeth of the introduction of trials by jury.
Another slice of politics. Assert boldly that “Junius” was written by
Grenville’s secretary. This is a _fact_, notwithstanding what Wilkes
relates of Lord Germaine’s bishop.
Is this the style of letter-writing you allow me? Try again, then.
The favours I have received from the worthy man I mentioned in a letter
or two ago are by his goodness every day increased. Some superior souls
have affected to hate mankind. Here is one who, with an understanding
and an experience inferior to none, never loses an opportunity of
befriending a fellow-creature. I am afraid sometimes that misfortune
will one day or other play him some confounded dog’s trick, because he
takes such pleasure in thwarting every scheme that she lays for any
one’s ruin.
Yet even this amiable character is not without his defects. The
following lines I sent him this morning after playing at vingtun in
company with him last night:
To Hackman, says a certain friend
(Both idle, rhyming bards),
“——, with good manners and best sense,
Can’t bear to lose at cards.
With such a head”—“And such a heart,”
Adds Hackman, “’tis high treason.
But I, who knew that heart so well,
Have found, I think, the reason.
Friend to the poor, his purse their box,
He always would be winner;
For then they win. But, should he lose,
The poor, too, lose a dinner.”
This country’s facetious Dean said, that his friend Arbuthnot could do
everything but walk. My friend can do everything but lose at cards.
Feeling, and all the commanding powers of the mind, were never perhaps
before so mixed together. A tale of sorrow will make his little eyes
wink, wink, wink, like a green girl’s. Before the company came last
night, I showed him “Auld Robin Gray,” and, though he had seen it
before, he could not get over “My mother could na speak,” without
winking For the credit of your side of the water, he is an Englishman.
His agreeable wife, by her beauty and accomplishments, does credit
to this country. She is remarkable also for her feeling, though in
a different way. You shall relate an anecdote of distress, or read
a story of ill-usage, and while his eyes are winking for the object
of ill-usage or the distress, hers shall be striking fire with rage
against the author of it. “Good God!” she exclaims, “if that villain
was but in my power!” And I sometimes think she is going to ring for
her hat and cloak, that she may sally forth, and pull his house about
his ears. Bound up together (as they are, and as I hope they will long
continue) they form a complete system of humanity.
It would have gratified me much to have been with you when Garrick
took his farewell of the stage. Do you remember the last paper in the
_Idler_ upon its being the _last?_ The reflection that it was the
_last_ time Garrick would ever play, was, in itself, painful. How, my
Laura, my Martha, my life, shall I bear it, if I ever should be doomed
to take my last leave, my last look of you!
_To MR. HACKMAN._
+England+, _June 25, 1776_.
Let me give you joy of having found such kind and agreeable friends
in a strange land. The account you sent of the gentleman and lady,
especially of the latter, quite charmed me. Neither am I without my
friends. A lady, from whom I have received particular favours, is
uncommonly kind to me. _For the credit of your side of the water,
she is an Irishwoman. Her agreeable husband, by his beauty and
accomplishments, does credit to this country. He is remarkable also for
his feelings._
Adieu! This will affect you, I dare say, in the same manner your
account affected me.
_To MISS REAY._
+Ireland+, _July 1, 1776_.
Your little billet, of the 25th of last month, was a proper reproof for
the contents of one of mine. Until I saw the joke I was truly unhappy.
If you had not written the long and kind letter the next day, which
came in the same packet, I should have been miserable. Yet, I wish you
happy, _most_ happy; but I cannot bear the thoughts of your receiving
happiness from any hands (man, woman, or child) but mine. Had my
affections not been fixed, as they are unalterably elsewhere, the wife
of my _friend_, with all her charms, would never fix them. I have but
two masters, Love and Honour. If I did not consider you as my wife, I
would add, you know I have but _one_ mistress.
A friend of mine is going to England (happy fellow I shall think
him, to be in the same country with you). He will call at the Cannon
Coffee House for me. Do send me, thither, the French book you mention,
_Werther_. If you do not, I positively never will forgive you.
Nonsense, to say it will make me unhappy, or that I shall not be able
to read it! Must I pistol myself, because a thick-blooded German has
been fool enough to set the example, or because a German novelist has
feigned such a story? If _you_ do not lend it me, I will most assuredly
procure it some time or another; so, you may as well have the merit of
obliging me. My friend will send a small parcel for you to D. Street.
The books I send you, because I know you have not got them, and because
they are so much cheaper here. If you are afraid of emptying my purse
(which, by the way, is almost worn out), you shall be my debtor for
them. So send me a note of hand, _value received_. The other things are
surely not worth mentioning.
_To MR. HACKMAN._
+England+, _August 20, 1776_.
For God’s sake! where are you? What is the matter? Why don’t you write?
Are you ill? God forbid! Am I not with you to nurse you? If you are,
why don’t you let somebody else write to me? Better that all should be
discovered, than suffer what I suffer. It is more than a month since I
heard from you. A month used to bring me eight or ten letters. When I
grew uneasy, it was in vain, as I said in my last, that I endeavoured
to find your friend who brought the parcel (for I would certainly have
seen him, and asked him about you). What is become of all my letters
for this last month? Did you get what I returned by your friend? Do
you like the purse? The book you mentioned is just the only book you
should never read. On my knees I beg that you will never, never read
it! Perhaps you _have_ read it. Perhaps!—I am distracted. Heaven only
knows to whom I may be writing this letter!
Madam, or Sir,
If you are a woman, I _think_ you will, if you are a man, and ever
loved, I am _sure_ you will, oblige me with one line to say what is
become of Mr. Hackman, of the 68th Regiment. Direct to Mrs. ——, D.
Street, London. Any person whose hands my letter may fall into, will
not think this much trouble; and, if they send me good news, heaven
knows how a woman, who loves, if possible, too well, will thank them.
_To MISS REAY._
+Ireland+, _Sept. 10, 1776_.
As I am no sportsman, there is no merit, you may think, in devoting a
morning to this employment. Nor do I claim any merit. It is only making
myself happy.
Now, I hope, you are quite at ease about me. My health, upon my honour,
upon our love, is almost re-established. Were I not determined to keep
on _this_ side the truth, I would say _quite_. The four letters I have
written to you, since I received your frantic sheet of paper, have
explained and made up everything. How can I sufficiently thank you for
all your letters? Especially for that of this week? Never did you pen a
better. Did I know anybody employed in a work, where that letter could
properly appear, he should insert it in your own words.
Excuse me, I am unwillingly called away.
What I said this morning about your letter, brings to my recollection
something of that sort. Shall I tell it you? I will.
James Hirst, in the year 1711, lived servant with the Honourable Edward
Wortley. It happened, one day, in re-delivering a parcel of letters
to his master, by mistake he gave him one which he had written to his
sweetheart, and kept back one of Mr. Wortley’s. He soon discovered
the mistake, and hurried back to his master; but unfortunately for
poor James, it happened to be the first that presented itself to Mr.
Wortley, and, before James returned, he had given way to a curiosity
which led him to open it, and read the love-told story of an enamoured
footman. It was in vain that James begged to have it returned. “No,”
says Mr. Wortley, “James, you shall be a great man, this letter shall
appear in the _Spectator_.”
Mr. Wortley communicated the letter to his friend, Sir Richard Steel.
It was accordingly published in his own words, and is that letter, No.
71, volume the first of the _Spectator_, beginning “Dear Betty.”
James found means to remove that unkindness of which he complains in
his letter; but, alas! before their wishes were completed, a speedy end
was put to a passion, which would not discredit much superior rank, by
the unexpected death of Betty. James, out of the great regard and love
of Betty, after her death, married the sister. He dies, not many years
since, in the neighbourhood of Wortley, near Leeds, Yorkshire.
To marry you is the utmost of my wishes; but, remember, I do not engage
to marry your sister, in case of your death.... Death! How can I think
of such a thing, though it be but in joke.
_To MISS REAY._
+Ireland+, _September 15, 1776_.
The commands of your last letter, for the reasons you give, I have
immediately obeyed. My enquiries about the young Englishman you
mention amount to this. He is liked tolerably well here. He would be
liked more, if he took more pains to be liked. His contempt for some
people in the world, whom others despise perhaps as well as himself,
is sometimes too conspicuous. Accident has given me an opportunity to
see and know a great deal of him; and with certainty. His heart is
certainly not bad. His abilities are as certainly not equal to what he
once confesses to have thought them; perhaps they are superior to the
opinion he now entertains of them. He has ambition and emulation enough
to have almost supplied any want of genius, and to have made him almost
anything, had he fallen into proper hands. But his schoolmasters knew
nothing of his human heart, nor over much of the head. Though indolent
to a degree, a keen eye might have discovered, may still discover,
industry at the bottom; a good cultivator might have turned it, may
still turn it, to good account. His friendships are warm, sincere,
decided—his enmities the same. He complains now and then, that some of
his friends will pretend to know him better than they know themselves,
and better than they know anything else. “They would play upon him;
they would seem to know his stops; they pretend to be able to sound
him from his lowest note to the top of his compass; and there is much
music, excellent voice, in a little pipe, yet cannot they make it
speak. Do they think,” he demands, “that he is easier to be played upon
than a pipe?” Why, really, I do not think this is the case at present,
whatever it may have been. Secrecy is not brought _into_ the world,
it is acquired _in_ the world. An honest heart can only acquire it by
experience. The character which he had certainly gotten among some of
his intimates has been of service both to them and to himself. They
made a point of secrecy, after they chose to discover a want of it
in him; and now he has made a point of it himself. My dearest secret
(_you_ know what that is) should now sooner be trusted to him than to
any of his former accusers. The loudest of them, to my knowledge, was
little calculated to judge; for though he might not absolutely think
him a coward, he certainly did not suspect his friend of courage,
till sufficient proof of it was given under his own eye. Now, in my
opinion, true courage and resolution are this gentleman’s marking
characteristics. This is no great compliment; for, without them, I
would not give a farthing for any man.
Such, in my judgment, is the young gentleman about whom you wished me
to inquire, and with whom I have happened to live a good deal. His
principal merit is that my amiable friend (the mention of whose wife
just jogged your jealousy) sincerely loves him. That worthy man seldom
threw away his attachment where it is not deserved. Nor do I know
anything in the gentleman whose character I have been sketching which
gives me more pleasure, or which it would give him more pleasure to
have noticed, than the love and respect which I am sure he feels for my
friend; unless perhaps, his affectionate sense of the obligations which
I believe I have told you he lies under to a Mr. B——.
So much for business. Now for an article of news. The latter end of
last month a lady and her servant, as they were riding in Phœnix Park,
were stopped by a man on foot, very genteelly dressed in white clothes
and a gold-laced hat. He demanded the lady’s money, which she gave
him, amounting to twenty-six guineas. The person put the cash into one
of his pockets, and took from the other a small diamond hoop-ring,
which he presented to the lady, desiring her to wear it for the sake
of an extraordinary robber who made it a point of honour to take no
more from a beautiful lady than he could make a return for in value. He
then, with great agility, vaulted over the wall and disappeared.
This you may perhaps call an Irish way of robbing. There certainly was
something original in it. The gentleman seems clearly to imagine that
an exchange is no robbery.
As to your threat, I will answer it in the same style. “I _will_ love
you—and, if——!” But neither my answer, nor your threat is original.
Reading this morning a history of this country, I found the following
anecdote: In 1487, a dreadful war was carried on in Ulster, between the
chieftain O’Neal, and the neighbouring chieftain of Tirconnel. This war
had nothing more considerable for its immediate cause than the pride
of O’Neal, who demanded that his enemy should recognise his authority
by paying tribute. The laconic style, in which the demand was made
and rejected, would not have disgraced a nobler contest. “Send me
tribute—or _else!_——” was the message of O’Neal. To which was returned,
with the same princely brevity, “I owe you none—and _if——!_” But I talk
nonsense, this does not prove _your threat_ to have been borrowed; for
I dare say, you never heard of O’Neal till this moment. It only proves
that two people may express themselves alike.
Should any man who loved like me (if any man ever did love like me)
have spoke of his love in terms like those I used to speak of mine,
follows it therefore that I have borrowed either his passion or his
language? Were it possible for you to think so, I never would forgive
you. Pray copy the music you mention in your next.
_To MISS REAY._
+Ireland+, _September 18, 1776_.
How happens it that I have not sooner noticed what you say, in a letter
the beginning of last month, about the new punishment of working upon
the Thames? Politicians may write more learnedly upon the matter,
but I will defy Beccaria to write more feelingly or humanely. There
certainly is much truth in what you say. Experience, however, will be
the best test. Perhaps my true reason for noticing your sensible letter
thus late, was to introduce a scene which passed in the quicksilver
mines of Idra, a still more unpleasant abode than Mr. Campbell’s
academy. This used to be Colonel G.’s method, you remember, of
introducing his home-made jokes. Not that my story is home-made. I take
it from some Italian letters which a brother officer lent me, written
by Mr. Everard, and I give it you almost in his own words, except
in one or two passages, where I think he has lost an opportunity of
surprising the reader.
“The pleasure I always take in writing to you, wherever I am, and
whatever I am doing, in some measure dispels my present uneasiness,
and uneasiness caused at once by the disagreeable aspect of everything
around me, and the more disagreeable scene to which I have been witness.
“Something, too, I have to tell you of Count Alberti. You remember him
one of the gayest, most agreeable persons at the Court of Vienna, at
once the example of the men and the favourite of the fair sex. I often
heard you repeat his name with esteem as one of the few that did honour
to the present age; as possessed of generosity and pity in the highest
degree; as one who made no other use of fortune but to alleviate the
distress of mankind. But first of all, the scene I mentioned.
“After passing several parts of the Alps, and having visited Germany, I
thought I could not well return home without visiting the quicksilver
mines at Idra, and seeing those dreadful subterranean caverns where
thousands are condemned to reside, shut out from all hopes of ever
again beholding the cheerful light of the sun, and obliged to toil out
a miserable life under the whips of imperious taskmasters. Imagine to
yourself a hole in the side of a mountain of about five yards over.
Down this you are let in a kind of a bucket more than an hundred
fathom, the prospect growing still more gloomy, yet still widening, as
you descend. At length, after swinging in terrible suspense for some
time in this precarious situation you at length reach the bottom and
tread on the ground, which, by its hollow sound under your feet and
the reverberations of the echo, seems thundering at every step you
take. In this gloomy and frightful solitude you are enlightened by the
feeble gleam of lamps here and there disposed, so that the wretched
inhabitants of these mansions cannot go from one part to another
without a guide. And yet, let me assure you, that though they by custom
could see objects very distinctly by these lights, I could scarce
discern for some time anything, not even the person who came with me to
show me these scenes of horror.
“From this description, I suppose, you have but a disagreeable idea
of the place; yet let me assure you that it is a palace if we compare
the habitation with the inhabitants. Such wretches mine eyes never yet
beheld. The blackness of their visages only serves to cover an horrid
paleness caused by the noxious qualities of the mineral which they
are employed to procure. As they in general consist of malefactors
condemned for life to this task, they are fed at the public expense,
but they seldom consume much provision. They lose their appetites in
a short time, and commonly, in about two years, expire from a total
contraction of the joints of the body.
“In this horrid mansion I walked after my guide for some time,
pondering on the strange tyranny and avarice of mankind, when I was
accosted by a voice behind me, calling me by name, and enquiring after
my health with the most cordial affection. I turned and saw a creature
all black and hideous, who approached me with a most piteous accent,
demanding, ‘Ah! Mr. Everard, do not you know me?’ Good God! what was
my surprise, when, through the veil of his wretchedness, I discovered
the features of my old and dear friend, Count Alberti! I flew to him
with affection, and, after a tear of condolence, asked how he came
there? To this he replied that, having fought a duel with a General of
the Austrian infantry against the Emperor’s command, and having left
him for dead, he was obliged to fly into one of the forests of Istria,
where he was first taken, and afterwards sheltered by some banditti,
who had long infested that quarter. With these he had lived nine
months, till, by a close investiture of the place in which they were
concealed, and after a very obstinate resistance, in which the greatest
part of them fell, he was secured and carried to Vienna, in order to
be broken alive on the wheel. When he arrived at the capital, he was
quickly known, and several of the associates of his accusation and
danger witnessing his innocence, his punishment of the rack was changed
into that of perpetual confinement and labour in the mines of Idra. A
sentence, in my opinion, a thousand times worse than death.
“As Alberti was giving me this account, a young woman came up to him,
who, at once I saw, had been born for better fortune. The dreadful
situation of the place was not able to destroy her beauty, and even in
this scene of wretchedness she seemed to have charms to grace the most
brilliant assembly.
“This lady was daughter to one of the first families in Germany,
and, having tried every means to procure her lover’s pardon without
effect, was at last resolved to share his miseries, as she could not
relieve them. With him she accordingly descended into these mansions,
from which few ever return; and with him she is contented to live,
forgetting the gaieties of life; with him to toil, despising the
splendours of opulence, and contented with the consciousness of her own
constancy.
“I am, dear Sir,
“Yours, &c.”
Now can I tell all the feelings of your dear heart. Now see I your
fancy busy with her magic pencil; and affecting is the picture it has
begun. Begun; for your weeping eyes will not suffer you to finish it.
Can not you, through all your tears, distinguish Alberti and his wife
dying in each other’s arms after about half a year? What a scene!
Is there any sum of money you would not give to have this tragedy end
happily? That, of course, is impossible. But Everard speaks of the poor
souls in his next letter, which I may perhaps send you in _my next_.
Come, Martha, be a good girl, and you shall have it now, though it will
not give you _much_ consolation.
“My last to you was expressive, and perhaps too much so, of the gloomy
situation of my mind. I own the deplorable condition of the worthy
man described in it was enough to add double severity to the hideous
mansions. At present, however, I have the happiness to inform you,
that I was spectator of the most affecting scene I ever yet beheld.
Nine days after I had written my last a person came post from Vienna
to the little village near the mouth of the greater shaft. He was also
followed by a second, and he by a third. The first enquiry was after
the unfortunate Count; and I, happening to overhear the demand, gave
them the best information. Two of these were the brother and cousin
of the lady, the third was an intimate friend and fellow-soldier of
the Count. They came with his pardon, which had been procured by the
General with whom the duel had been fought, who was perfectly recovered
from his wounds. I led them with all the expedition of joy down to
his dreary abode, and presented to him his friends, and informed him
of the happy change in his circumstances. It would be impossible to
describe the joy that brightened up his grief-worn countenance; nor
was the young lady’s emotion less vivid at seeing her friends, and
hearing of her husband’s freedom: some hours were employed in mending
the appearance of this faithful couple, nor could I without a tear
behold him taking leave of the former wretched companions of his toil.
To one he left his mattock; to another his working clothes; to a third
his little household utensils, such as were necessary for him in that
situation. We soon emerged from the mine, and he once again revisited
the sight of the sun, which he had totally despaired of ever seeing. A
post-chaise was ready the next morning to take them to Vienna, whither,
I am since informed by a letter from himself, they are returned. The
Empress has taken them into favour; his fortune and rank are restored;
and he and his fair partner now have the pleasing satisfaction of
feeling happiness with double relish, because they once knew what it
was to be miserable.”
Says not our friend Sterne, that the circumstance of his being at
Rennes at the very time the Marquis reclaimed his forfeited nobility
and his sword, was an incident of good fortune which will never happen
to any traveller but a sentimental one? I believe it; and may every
other incident of good fortune befall all such travellers.
Did I not say this second part of the story would not afford you
_much_ consolation? Excuse me for such a falsity. That was only to
surprise you. Well I knew what would be my Martha’s feelings.
Are you as deep in astrology as when you wrote last to me? On the page
I have to spare I will send you some hasty lines which I scribbled
the other day to ridicule the weakness of a Dr. W., who is as great
a—fool at least as Dryden, and never fails to cast the nativity of his
children:
Kind heaven has heard the parent’s prayer,
Each gossip hails the son and heir.
“Pray let the Doctor see,”
“My master, ma’am? Your labour past;
He’s got among the stars, to cast
His son’s nativity.”
Three hours elaps’d, our sage descends,
With “Well, and how’s the child, my friend?”
“He’s happy, sir, ere this.”
“Happy! why yonder stars ne’er shed
Benigner influence on the head
Of happier, I guess.
“Worth, virtue, wisdom, honour, wealth,
Man’s best and only riches, health,
Assuredly await
Heav’n’s favour’d child—or never more
Say I have knowledge to explore
The secret page of fate.
“’Twas there I read my happy boy
Full seventy summers should enjoy,
“Ere”—when nurse sobb’d and said,
“Good lack! the babe to whom kind heaven
So many bounteous gifts hath given,
_These two hours hath been—Dead_.”
_To MISS REAY._
+Ireland+, _January 26, 1777_.
One of Lord Harcourt’s suite will carry this to England. His lordship
was relieved from guard yesterday by the arrival of a new Lord
Lieutenant. As politics have not much to do with love, I shall not
trouble you with a history of the late reign, or with a prophecy of
what will be the present. Only let our great actors take care they do
not play the farce of America in Ireland. My spirits, I thank you, are
now tolerable well. But you know I am, at least I know I have been ever
since you have known me, a strange comical fellow. Neither one thing
nor t’other. Sometimes in the garret, but, much oftener, down in the
cellar. If Salvator Rosa, or Rousseau, wanted to draw a particular
character, I am their man. But you and I shall yet be happy together,
I know; and then my spirits and passions will return into their usual
channels. Why do you complain of the language of my letters? Suppose
they were not tender. What would you say, what would you think, then?
Must not love speak the language of love? Nay, do not we see every day
that love and religion have mutual obligations, and continually borrow
phrases from each other? Put Jamie or Jenny, instead of Christ, and see
what you will make of Mr. Rowe’s most solemn poems, or of Dr. Watts’
hymns. Let me transcribe you a letter written by another person to a
lady.
“Sir Benjamin telling me you were not come to town at three o’clock
makes me in pain to know how your son does, and I can’t help inquiring
after him and dear Mrs. Freeman. The Bishop of Worcester was with me
this morning before I was dressed. I gave him my letter to the Queen,
and he has promised to second it, and seemed to undertake it very
willingly: though, by all the discourse I had with him (of which I will
give you a particular account when I see you) I find him very partial
to her. The last time he was here, I told him you had several times
desired you might go from me, and I have repeated the same thing again
to him. For you may easily imagine I would not neglect doing you right
on all occasions. But I beg it again, for Christ Jesus’s sake, that
you would never name it any more to me; for, be assured, if you should
ever do so cruel a thing as to leave me, from that moment I shall never
enjoy one quiet hour. And, should you do it without asking my consent
(which if I ever give you, may I never see the face of heaven) I will
shut myself up, and never see the world more, but live where I may be
forgotten by human kind.”
What think you of this letter? If it should have been written by a
woman to a woman, surely you will allow H. to write a little tenderly
to his own Martha! This was really the case. It is transcribed from
“An Account of the Conduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough,”
printed for W. Smith, Dame Street, Dublin, 1742, which I bought at
Wilson’s in Dane Street yesterday. This pamphlet contains others as
loving. This I find, page 40. It was written to Lady Marlborough by her
mistress (one would have thought the word _mistress_ in one sense did
belong to one of the parties) when she was only Princess of Denmark.
It refers to the quarrel between the Princess and her royal sister and
brother-in-law, because she would not part with her favourite, upon
Lord Marlborough’s having displeased the king. These two female lovers
always corresponded, under the names of Mrs. Freeman and Mrs. Morley,
at the particular desire of the Princess, who fixed upon the names. And
this, after she was Queen Anne. Be assured, my Martha, that, although
I write to you with almost the same madness of affection, I will never
imitate her example, for all its royalty, and exchange you for a
mushroom of your own raising.
* * * * *
From this date Hackman’s letters have a morbid vein running through
them. He mentions that he has received several letters from Miss Reay,
but none of them, however, seem to have been preserved.
* * * * *
_To MISS REAY_,
+Ireland+, _Feb. 6, 1777_.
_My_ last was merry, you know. I cannot say as much for _your_ last.
To-day you must suffer me to indulge my present turn of mind in
transcribing something which was left behind her by a Mrs. Dixon, who
poisoned herself not long since at Inniskillen. It was communicated to
me by a gentleman, after a dinner yesterday, who is come hither about
business, and lives in the neighbourhood of Inniskillen.
The unhappy woman was not above nineteen years of age. She had been
married about two years, and lived with her husband all that time with
seeming ease and cheerfulness.
She was remarkably cheerful all the fatal day, had company to dine with
her, made tea for them, in the evening set them down to cards, retired
to her chamber, and drank her cup of arsenic.
She left a writing on her table, in which is obscurely hinted the sad
circumstance which urged her impatience to this desperate act.
Enclosed is an exact copy even to the spelling.
“This is to let all the world know, that hears of me, that it is no
crime I ever committed occasions this my untimely end; but despair of
ever being happy in this world, as I have sufficient reasons to think
so. I own it is a sinful remedy, and very uncertain to seek happiness,
but I hope that God will forgive my poor soul; Lord have mercy on it!
But all I beg is to let none reproach my friends with it, or suspect my
virtue or my honour in the least, though I am to be no more.
“Comfort my poor unhappy mother, and brothers and sisters, and let
all mothers take care, and never force a child as mine did me; but I
forgive her, and hopes God will forgive me, as I believe she meant my
good by my marriage.
“Oh! that unfortunate day I gave my hand to one, whilst my heart was
another’s, but hoping that time and prudence would at length return my
former peace and tranquillity of mind, which I wanted for a long time;
but oh, it grieves me to think of the length of eternity; and the Lord
save me from eternal damnation! Let no one blame Martin Dixon (her
husband), for he is in no fault of it.
“I have a few articles which I have a greater regard for than anything
else that’s mine, on account of him that gave them to me (but _he_ is
not to be mentioned), and I have some well-wishers that I think proper
to give them to.
“First, to Betty Balfour, my silver buckles; to Polly Deeryn, my
diamond ring; to Betty Mulligan, my laced suit, cap, handkerchief, and
ruffles; to Peggy Delap, a new muslin handkerchief not yet hemmed,
which is in my drawer, and hope for my sake those persons will accept
of these trifles as a testimony of my regard for them.
“I would advise Jack Watson [her brother] to behave himself in an
honest and obedient manner in respect to his mother and family, as he
is all she has to depend upon now.
“I now go in God’s name, though against His commands, without wrath or
spleen to any one upon earth. The very person I die for, I love him
more than ever, and forgive him. I pray God grant him more content
and happiness than he ever had, and hope he will forgive me, only to
remember such a one died for him.
“There was, not long ago, some persons pleased to talk something
against my reputation, as to a man in this town; but now, when I ought
to tell the truth, I may be believed. If ever I knew him, or any other
but my husband, may I never enter into glory; and them I forgive who
said so; but let that man’s wife take care of them that told her so;
for they meant her no good by it.
“With love to one, friendship to few, and goodwill to all the world, I
die, saying, Lord have mercy on my soul; with _an advice to all people
never to suffer a passion of any sort to command them as mine did in
spite of me_. I pray God to bless all my friends and acquaintance,
and begs them all to comfort my mother, who is unhappy in having such
a child as I, who is ashamed to subscribe myself an unworthy and
disgraceful member of the Church of Scotland.
“+Jane Watson+, otherwise +Dixon+.”
My pen shall not interrupt your meditations hereon by making a single
reflection. We both of us have made, I dare say, too many on it. She,
too, was _Jenny_ and had her _Robin Gray_.
_To MISS REAY._
+Ireland+, _April 20, 1777_.
Now you see there is something in dreams. But why is not your alarming
letter more particular about your complaint? Do they nurse you as
tenderly as I would? Are they careful about your medicines? For God’s
sake tell them all round what happened lately here to Sir William
Yorke, the Chief Justice.
Sir William was grievously afflicted with the stone. In his severe fits
he used to take a certain quantity of laudanum drops. On calling for
his usual remedy, during the most racking pains of his distemper, the
drops could not be found. The servant was despatched to his apothecary;
but, instead of laudanum drops, he asked for laudanum. A quantity of
laudanum was accordingly sent, with a special charge not to give Sir
William more than twenty-four drops. But the fellow, forgetting the
caution, gave the bottle into his master’s hand, who, in his agony,
drank up the whole contents, and expired in less than an hour.
Why, my dearest love, did you conceal your illness from me so long?
Now, you may have revealed the situation of your health to me too late.
God forbid! If I write more, I shall write like a madman. A gentleman
takes this who sails for England to-day. To-morrow or next day the
Colonel will be here. If Lord Sandwich, as I have reason to expect, has
influenced him to refuse me leave of absence, I will most certainly
sell out directly, which I have an opportunity to do. At any rate, I
will be with you in a few days. If I come without a commission you must
not be angry. To find you both displeased and ill, will be too much
for your poor H. For my sake, be careful. Dr. —— I insist upon your
not having any longer. His experience and humanity are upon a par.
Positively you must contrive some method for me to see you. How can
love like mine support existence if you should be ill, and I should not
be permitted to see you. But I can neither think nor write any more.
* * * * *
Hackman then sold out and left at once for England, arriving in London
in the beginning of May 1777.