People were still very busy in Harry Warrington's time (not that our
young gentleman took much heed of the controversy) in determining
the relative literary merits of the ancients and the moderns; and the
learned, and the world with them, indeed, pretty generally pronounced in
favour of the former. The moderns of that day are the ancients of
ours, and we speculate upon them in the present year of grace, as our
grandchildren, a hundred years hence, will give their judgment about us.
As for your book-learning, O respectable ancestors (though, to be sure,
you have the mighty Gibbon with you), I think you will own that you
are beaten, and could point to a couple of professors at Cambridge and
Glasgow who know more Greek than was to be had in your time in all
the universities of Europe, including that of Athens, if such an one
existed. As for science, you were scarce more advanced than those
heathen to whom in literature you owned yourselves inferior. And in
public and private morality? Which is the better, this actual year 1858,
or its predecessor a century back? Gentlemen of Mr. Disraeli's House of
Commons! has every one of you his price, as in Walpole's or Newcastle's
time,--or (and that is the delicate question) have you almost all of you
had it? Ladies, I do not say that you are a society of Vestals--but the
chronicle of a hundred years since contains such an amount of scandal,
that you may be thankful you did not live in such dangerous times. No:
on my conscience, I believe that men and women are both better; not only
that the Susannas are more numerous, but that the Elders are not nearly
so wicked. Did you ever hear of such books as Clarissa, Tom Jones,
Roderick Random; paintings by contemporary artists, of the men and
women, the life and society, of their day? Suppose we were to describe
the doings of such a person as Mr. Lovelace or my Lady Bellaston, or
that wonderful “Lady of Quality” who lent her memoirs to the author of
Peregrine Pickle. How the pure and outraged Nineteenth Century would
blush, scream, run out of the room, call away the young ladies, and
order Mr. Mudie never to send one of that odious author's books again!
You are fifty-eight years old, madam, and it may be that you are too
squeamish, that you cry out before you are hurt, and when nobody had
any intention of offending your ladyship. Also, it may be that the
novelist's art is injured by the restraints put upon him as many an
honest, harmless statue at St. Peter's and the Vatican is spoiled by the
tin draperies in which ecclesiastical old women have swaddled the fair
limbs of the marble. But in your prudery there is reason. So there is in
the state censorship of the Press. The page may contain matter dangerous
to bonos mores. Out with your scissors, censor, and clip off the
prurient paragraph! We have nothing for it but to submit. Society, the
despot, has given his imperial decree. We may think the statue had been
seen to greater advantage without the tin drapery; we may plead that the
moral were better might we recite the whole fable. Away with him--not a
word! I never saw the pianofortes in the United States with the frilled
muslin trousers on their legs; but, depend on it, the muslin covered
some of the notes as well as the mahogany, muffled the music, and
stopped the player.
To what does this prelude introduce us? I am thinking of Harry
Warrington, Esquire, in his lodgings in Bond Street, London, and of the
life which he and many of the young bucks of fashion led in those times,
and how I can no more take my faire young reader into them, than
Lady Squeams can take her daughter to Cremorne Gardens on an ordinary
evening. My dear Miss Diana (psha! I know you are eight-and-thirty,
although you are so wonderfully shy, and want to make us believe
you have just left off schoolroom dinners and a pinafore), when your
grandfather was a young man about town, and a member of one of the clubs
at White's, and dined at Pontac's off the feasts provided by Braund and
Lebeck, and rode to Newmarket with March and Rockingham, and toasted
the best in England with Gilly Williams and George Selwyn (and didn't
understand George's jokes, of which, indeed, the flavour has very much
evaporated since the bottling)--the old gentleman led a life of which
your noble aunt (author of Legends of the Squeams's; or, Fair Fruits of
a Family Tree) has not given you the slightest idea.
It was before your grandmother adopted those serious views for which
she was distinguished during her last long residence at Bath, and after
Colonel Tibbalt married Miss Lye, the rich soap-boiler's heiress, that
her ladyship's wild oats were sown. When she was young, she was as giddy
as the rest of the genteel world. At her house in Hill Street, she had
ten card-tables on Wednesdays and Sunday evenings, except for a short
time when Ranelagh was open on Sundays. Every night of her life she
gambled for eight, nine, ten hours. Everybody else in society did the
like. She lost; she won; she cheated; she pawned her jewels; who knows
what else she was not ready to pawn, so as to find funds to supply her
fury for play? What was that after-supper duel at the Shakspeare's Head
in Covent Garden, between your grandfather and Colonel Tibbalt: where
they drew swords and engaged only in the presence of Sir John Screwby,
who was drunk under the table? They were interrupted by Mr. John
Fielding's people, and your grandfather was carried home to Hill Street
wounded in a chair. I tell you those gentlemen in powder and ruffles,
who turned out the toes of their buckled pumps so delicately, were
terrible fellows. Swords were perpetually being drawn; bottles
after bottles were drunk; oaths roared unceasingly in conversation;
tavern-drawers and watchmen were pinked and maimed; chairmen belaboured;
citizens insulted by reeling pleasure-hunters. You have been to Cremorne
with proper “vouchers” of course? Do you remember our great theatres
thirty years ago? You were too good to go to a play. Well, you have
no idea what the playhouses were, or what the green boxes were, when
Garrick and Mrs. Pritchard were playing before them! And I, for my
children's sake, thank that good Actor in his retirement who was
the first to banish that shame from the theatre. No, madam, you are
mistaken; I do not plume myself on my superior virtue. I do not say you
are naturally better than your ancestress in her wild, rouged, gambling,
flaring tearing days; or even than poor Polly Fogle, who is just taken
up for shoplifting, and would have been hung for it a hundred years ago.
Only, I am heartily thankful that my temptations are less, having quite
enough to do with those of the present century.
So, if Harry Warrington rides down to Newmarket to the October meeting,
and loses or wins his money there; if he makes one of a party at the
Shakspeare or Bedford Head; if he dines at White's ordinary, and sits
down to macco and lansquenet afterwards; if he boxes the watch, and
makes his appearance at the Roundhouse; if he turns out for a short
space a wild dissipated, harum-scarum young Harry Warrington; I, knowing
the weakness of human nature, am not going to be surprised; and, quite
aware of my own shortcomings, don't intend to be very savage at my
neighbour's. Mr. Sampson was: in his chapel in Long Acre he whipped Vice
tremendously; gave Sin no quarter; out-cursed Blasphemy with superior
Anathemas; knocked Drunkenness down, and trampled on the prostrate brute
wallowing in the gutter; dragged out conjugal Infidelity, and pounded
her with endless stones of rhetoric--and, after service, came to dinner
at the Star and Garter, made a bowl of punch for Harry and his friends
at the Bedford Head, or took a hand at whist at Mr. Warrington's
lodgings or my Lord March's, or wherever there was a supper and good
company for him.
I often think, however, in respect of Mr. Warrington's doings at this
period of his coming to London, that I may have taken my usual degrading
and uncharitable views of him--for, you see, I have not uttered a single
word of virtuous indignation against his conduct, and if it was not
reprehensible, have certainly judged him most cruelly. O the Truthful,
O the Beautiful, O Modesty, O Benevolence, O Pudor, O Mores, O Blushing
Shame, O Namby Pamby--each with your respective capital letters to your
honoured names! O Niminy, O Piminy! how shall I dare for to go for to
say that a young man ever was a young man?
No doubt, dear young lady, I am calumniating Mr. Warrington according to
my heartless custom. As a proof here is a letter out of the Warrington
collection, from Harry to his mother in which there is not a single word
that would lead you to suppose he was leading a wild life. And such a
letter from an only son to a fond and exemplary parent, we know must be
true:--
“BOND STREET, LONDON, October 25, 1756.
“HONORD MADAM--I take up my pen to acknowledge your honored favor of 10
July per Lively Virginia packet, which has duly come to hand, forwarded
by our Bristol agent, and rejoice to hear that the prospect of the crops
is so good. 'Tis Tully who says that agriculture is the noblest pursuit;
how delightful when that pursuit is also prophetable!
“Since my last, dated from Tunbridge Wells, one or two insadence have
occurred of which it is nessasery [This word has been much operated
upon with the penknife, but is left sic, no doubt to the writer's
satisfaction.] I should advise my honored Mother. Our party there broke
up end of August: the partridge-shooting commencing. Baroness Bernstein,
whose kindness to me has been most invariable, has been to Bath, her
usual winter resort, and has made me a welcome present of a fifty-pound
bill. I rode back with Rev. Mr. Sampson, whose instruction I find
most valluble, and my cousin, Lady Maria, to Castlewood. [Could Parson
Sampson have been dictating the above remarks to Mr. Warrington?] I paid
a flying visit on the way to my dear kind friends Col. and Mrs. Lambert,
Oakhurst House, who send my honored mother their most affectionate
remembrances. The youngest Miss Lambert, I grieve to say, was dellicate;
and her parents in some anxiety.
“At Castlewood I lament to state my stay was short, owing to a quarrel
with my cousin William. He is a young man of violent passions, and alas!
addicted to liquor, when he has no controul over them. In a triffling
dispute about a horse, high words arose between us, and he aymed a blow
at me or its equivulent--which my Grandfathers my honored mothers child
could not brook. I rejoyned, and feld him to the ground, whents he was
carried almost sencelis to bed. I sent to enquire after his health in
the morning: but having no further news of him, came away to London
where I have been ever since with brief intavles of absence.
“Knowing you would wish me to see my dear Grandfathers University of
Cambridge, I rode thither lately in company with some friends, passing
through part of Harts, and lying at the famous bed of Ware. The October
meeting was just begun at Cambridge when I went. I saw the students in
their gownds and capps, and rode over to the famous Newmarket Heath,
where there happened to be some races--my friend Lord Marchs horse
Marrowbones by Cleaver coming off winner of a large steak. It was an
amusing day--the jockeys, horses, etc., very different to our poor races
at home--the betting awful--the richest noblemen here mix with the jox,
and bett all round. Cambridge pleased me: especially King's College
Chapel, of a rich but elegant Gothick.
“I have been out into the world, and am made member of the Club
at White's, where I meet gentlemen of the first fashion. My Lords
Rockingham, Carlisle, Orford, Bolingbroke, Coventry are of my friends,
introduced to me by my Lord March, of whom I have often wrote before.
Lady Coventry is a fine woman, but thinn. Every lady paints here, old
and young; so, if you and Mountain and Fanny wish to be in fashion,
I must send you out some roogepots: everybody plays--eight, ten,
card-tables at every house on every receiving-night. I am sorry to say
all do not play fair, and some do not pay fair. I have been obliged
to sit down, and do as Rome does, and have actually seen ladies whom I
could name take my counters from before my face!
“One day, his regiment the 20th being paraded in St. James's Park, a
friend of mine, Mr. Wolfe, did me the honour to present me to his
Royal Highness the Captain-General, who was most gracious; a fat, jolly
Prince, if I may speak so without disrespect, reminding me in his manner
of that unhappy General Braddock; whom we knew to our sorrow last year.
When he heard my name, and how dearest George had served and fallen in
Braddock's unfortunate campaign, he talked a great deal with me; asked
why a young fellow like me did not serve too; why I did not go to the
King of Prussia, who was a great General, and see a campaign or two;
and whether that would not be better than dawdling about at routs and
card-parties in London? I said, I would like to go with all my heart,
but was an only son now, on leave from my mother, and belonged to our
estate in Virginia. His Royal Highness said, Mr. Braddock had wrote home
accounts of Mrs. Esmond's loyalty, and that he would gladly serve me.
Mr. Wolfe and I have waited on him since, at his Royal Highness's house
in Pall Mall. The latter, who is still quite a young man, made the Scots
campaign with his Highness, whom Mr. Dempster loves so much at home. To
be sure, he was too severe: if anything can be top severe against rebels
in arms.
“Mr. Draper has had half the Stock, my late Papa's property, transferred
to my name. Until there can be no doubt of that painful loss in our
family which I would give my right hand to replace, the remaining stock
must remain in the trustees' name in behalf of him who inherited it.
Ah, dear mother! There is no day, scarce any hour, when I don't think of
him. I wish he were by me often. I feel like as if I was better when I
am thinking of him, and would like, for the honour of my family, that he
was representing of it here instead of--Honored madam, your dutiful and
affectionate son, HENRY ESMOND WARRINGTON.”
“P.S.--I am like your sex, who always, they say, put their chief news in
a poscrip. I had something to tell you about a person to whom my heart
is engaged. I shall write more about it, which there is no hurry. Safice
she is a nobleman's daughter, and her family as good as our own.”
“CLARGIS STREET, LONDON, October 23, 1756.
“I think, my good sister, we have been all our lives a little more than
kin and less than kind, to use the words of a poet whom your dear father
loved dearly. When you were born in our Western Principallitie, my
mother was not as old as Isaac's; but even then I was much more than old
enough to be yours. And though she gave you all she could leave or give,
including the little portion of love that ought to have been my share,
yet, if we can have good will for one another, we may learn to do
without affection: and some little kindness you owe me, for your son's
sake; as well as your father's, whom I loved and admired more than any
man I think ever I knew in this world: he was greater than almost all,
though he made no noyse in it. I have seen very many who have, and,
believe me, have found but few with such good heads and good harts as
Mr. Esmond.
“Had we been better acquainted, I might have given you some advice
regarding your young gentleman's introduction to Europe, which you would
have taken or not, as people do in this world. At least you would have
sed afterwards, 'What she counselled me was right, and had Harry done as
Madam Beatrix wisht, it had been better for him.' My good sister, it was
not for you to know, or for me to whom you never wrote to tell you,
but your boy in coming to England and Castlewood found but ill friends
there; except one, an old aunt, of whom all kind of evil hath been
spoken and sed these fifty years past--and not without cawse too,
perhaps.
“Now, I must tell Harry's mother what will doubtless scarce astonish
her, that almost everybody who knows him loves him. He is prudent of
his tongue, generous of his money, as bold as a lyon, with an imperious
domineering way that sets well upon him; you know whether he is handsome
or not: my dear, I like him none the less for not being over witty or
wise, and never cared for your sett-the-Thames afire gentlemen, who are
so much more clever than their neighbours. Your father's great friend,
Mr. Addison, seemed to me but a supercillious prig, and his follower,
Sir Dick Steele, was not pleasant in his cupps, nor out of 'em. And
(revenons a luy) your Master Harry will certainly, pot burn the river
up with his wits. Of book-learning he is as ignorant as any lord in
England, and for this I hold him none the worse. If Heaven have not
given him a turn that way, 'tis of no use trying to bend him.
“Considering the place he is to hold in his own colony when he returns,
and the stock he comes from, let me tell you, that he hath not means
enough allowed him to support his station, and is likely to make the
more depence from the narrowness of his income--from sheer despair
breaking out of all bounds, and becoming extravagant, which is not his
turn. But he likes to live as well as the rest of his company, and,
between ourselves, has fell into some of the finist and most rakish in
England. He thinks 'tis for the honour of the family not to go back, and
many a time calls for ortolans and champaign when he would as leaf dine
with a stake and a mugg of beer. And in this kind of spirit I have no
doubt from what he hath told me in his talk (which is very naif, as the
French say), that his mamma hath encouraged him in his high opinion of
himself. We women like our belongings to have it, however little we love
to pay the cost. Will you have your ladd make a figar in London? Trebble
his allowance at the very least, and his Aunt Bernstein (with his
honored mamma's permission) will add a little more on to whatever summ
you give him. Otherwise he will be spending the little capital I learn
he has in this country, which, when a ladd once begins to manger, there
is very soon an end to the loaf. Please God, I shall be able to leave
Henry Esmond's grandson something at my death; but my savings are small,
and the pension with which my gracious Sovereign hath endowed me dies
with me. As for feu M. de Bernstein, he left only debt at his decease:
the officers of his Majesty's Electoral Court of Hannover are but
scantily paid.
“A lady who is at present very high in his Majesty's confidence hath
taken a great phancy to your ladd, and will take an early occasion to
bring him to the Sovereign's favorable notice. His Royal Highness the
Duke he hath seen. If live in America he must, why should not Mr. Esmond
Warrington return as Governor of Virginia, and with a title to his name?
That is what I hope for him.
“Meanwhile, I must be candid with you, and tell you I fear he hath
entangled himself here in a very silly engagement. Even to marry an
old woman for money is scarce pardonable--the game ne valant gueres la
chandelle--Mr. Bernstein, when alive, more than once assured me of this
fact, and I believe him, poor gentleman! to engage yourself to an old
woman without money, and to marry her merely because you have promised
her, this seems to me a follie which only very young lads fall into,
and I fear Mr. Warrington is one. How, or for what consideration, I know
not, but my niece Maria Esmond hath escamote a promise from Harry. He
knows nothing of her antecedens, which I do. She hath laid herself out
for twenty husbands these twenty years past. I care not how she hath
got the promise from him. 'Tis a sin and a shame that a woman more than
forty years old should surprize the honour of a child like that, and
hold him to his word. She is not the woman she pretends to be. A horse
jockey (he saith) cannot take him in--but a woman!
“I write this news to you advisedly, displeasant as it must be. Perhaps
'twill bring you to England: but I would be very cautious, above all,
very gentle, for the bitt will instantly make his high spirit restive.
I fear the property is entailed, so that threats of cutting him off from
it will not move Maria. Otherwise I know her to be so mercenary that
(though she really hath a great phancy for this handsome ladd) without
money she would not hear of him. All I could, and more than I ought, I
have done to prevent the match. What and more I will not say in writing;
but that I am, for Henry Esmond's sake, his grandson's sincerest friend,
and madam,--Your faithful sister and servant, BEATRIX BARONESS DE
BERNSTEIN.
“To Mrs. Esmond Warrington of Castlewood, in Virginia.”
On the back of this letter is written, in Madam Esmond's hand, “My
sister Bernstein's letter, received with Henry's December 24 on receipt
of which it was determined my son should instantly go home.”