We understand the respectful indignation of all loyal Britons when they
come to read of Mr. George Warrington's conduct towards a gallant
and gracious Prince, the beloved son of the best of monarchs, and the
Captain-General of the British army. What an inestimable favour has not
the young man slighted! What a chance of promotion had he not thrown
away! Will Esmond, whose language was always rich in blasphemies,
employed his very strongest curses in speaking of his cousin's
behaviour, and expressed his delight that the confounded young Mohock
was cutting his own throat. Cousin Castlewood said that a savage
gentleman had a right to scalp himself if he liked; or perhaps, he added
charitably, our cousin Mr. Warrington heard enough of the war-whoop
in Braddock's affair, and has no more stomach for fighting. Mr. Will
rejoiced that the younger brother had gone to the deuce, and he rejoiced
to think that the elder was following him. The first time he met the
fellow, Will said, he should take care to let Mr. George know what he
thought of him.
“If you intend to insult George, at least you had best take care that
his brother Harry is out of hearing!” cried Lady Maria--on which we may
fancy more curses uttered by Mr. Will, with regard to his twin kinsfolk.
“Ta, ta, ta!” says my lord. “No more of this squabbling! We can't be all
warriors in the family!”
“I never heard your lordship laid claim to be one!” says Maria.
“Never, my dear; quite the contrary! Will is our champion, and one is
quite enough in the house. So I dare say with the two Mohocks;--George
is the student, and Harry is the fighting man. When you intended
to quarrel, Will, what a pity it was you had not George, instead of
t'other, to your hand!”
“Your lordship's hand is famous--at piquet,” says Will's mother.
“It is a pretty one,” says my lord, surveying his fingers, with a
simper. “My Lord Hervey's glove and mine were of a size. Yes, my hand,
as you say, is more fitted for cards than for war. Yours, my Lady
Castlewood, is pretty dexterous, too. How I bless the day when you
bestowed it on my lamented father!” In this play of sarcasm, as in some
other games of skill, his lordship was not sorry to engage, having a
cool head, and being able to beat his family all round.
Madame de Bernstein, when she heard of Mr. Warrington's bevue, was
exceedingly angry, stormed, and scolded her immediate household; and
would have scolded George but she was growing old, and had not the
courage of her early days. Moreover, she was a little afraid of her
nephew, and respectful in her behaviour to him. “You will never make
your fortune at court, nephew!” she groaned, when, soon after his
discomfiture, the young gentleman went to wait upon her.
“It was never my wish, madam,” said Mr. George, in a very stately
manner.
“Your wish was to help Harry? You might hereafter have been of service
to your brother, had you accepted the Duke's offer. Princes do not
love to have their favours refused, and I don't wonder that his Royal
Highness was offended.”
“General Lambert said the same thing,” George confessed, turning rather
red; “and I see now that I was wrong. But you must please remember that
I had never seen a court before, and I suppose I am scarce likely to
shine in one.”
“I think possibly not, my good nephew,” says the aunt, taking snuff.
“And what then?” asked George. “I never had ambition for that kind
of glory, and can make myself quite easy without it. When his Royal
Highness spoke to me--most kindly, as I own--my thought was, I shall
make a very bad soldier, and my brother would be a very good one. He has
a hundred good qualities for the profession, in which I am deficient;
and would have served a Commanding Officer far better than I ever could.
Say the Duke is in battle, and his horse is shot, as my poor chief's
was at home, would he not be better for a beast that had courage and
strength to bear him anywhere, than with one that could not carry his
weight?”
“Au fait. His Royal Highness's charger must be a strong one, my dear!”
says the old lady.
“Expende Hannibalem,” mutters George, with a shrug. “Our Hannibal weighs
no trifle.”
“I don't quite follow you, sir, and your Hannibal,” the Baroness
remarks.
“When Mr. Wolfe and Mr. Lambert remonstrated with me as you have done,
madam,” George rejoins, with a laugh, “I made this same defence which I
am making to you. I said I offered to the Prince the best soldier in the
family, and the two gentlemen allowed that my blunder at least had
some excuse. Who knows but that they may set me right with his Royal
Highness? The taste I have had of battles has shown me how little my
genius inclines that way. We saw the Scotch play which everybody is
talking about t'other night. And when the hero, young Norval, said how
he longed to follow to the field some warlike lord, I thought to myself,
'how like my Harry is to him, except that he doth not brag.' Harry is
pining now for a red coat, and if we don't mind, will take the shilling.
He has the map of Germany for ever under his eyes, and follows the King
of Prussia everywhere. He is not afraid of men or gods. As for me, I
love my books and quiet best, and to read about battles in Homer or
Lucan.”
“Then what made a soldier of you at all, my dear? And why did you not
send Harry with Mr. Braddock, instead of going yourself?” asked Madame
de Bernstein.
“My mother loved her younger son the best,” said George, darkly.
“Besides, with the enemy invading our country, it was my duty, as the
head of our family, to go on the campaign. Had I been a Scotchman twelve
years ago, I should have been a----”
“Hush, sir! or I shall be more angry than ever!” said the old lady, with
a perfectly pleased face.
George's explanation might thus appease Madame de Bernstein, an old
woman whose principles we fear were but loose: but to the loyal heart of
Sir Miles Warrington and his lady, the young man's conduct gave a severe
blow indeed! “I should have thought,” her ladyship said, “from my sister
Esmond Warrington's letter, that my brother's widow was a woman of good
sense and judgment, and that she had educated her sons in a becoming
manner. But what, Sir Miles, what, my dear Thomas Claypool, can we think
of an education which has resulted so lamentably for both these young
men?”
“The elder seems to know a power of Latin, though, and speaks the
French and the German too. I heard him with the Hanover Envoy, at the
Baroness's rout,” says Mr. Claypool. “The French he jabbered quite easy:
and when he was at a loss for the High Dutch, he and the Envoy began in
Latin, and talked away till all the room stared.”
“It is not language, but principles, Thomas Claypool!” exclaims the
virtuous matron. “What must Mr. Warrington's principles be, when he
could reject an offer made him by his Prince? Can he speak the High
Dutch? So much the more ought he to have accepted his Royal Highness's
condescension, and made himself useful in the campaign! Look at our son,
look at Miles!”
“Hold up thy head, Miley, my boy!” says papa.
“I trust, Sir Miles, that, as a member of the House of Commons, as an
English gentleman, you will attend his Royal Highness's levee to-morrow,
and say, if such an offer had been made to us for that child, we would
have taken it, though our boy is but ten years of age.”
“Faith, Miley, thou wouldst make a good little drummer or fifer!” says
papa. “Shouldst like to be a little soldier, Miley?”
“Anything, sir, anything! a Warrington ought to be ready at any moment
to have himself cut in pieces for his sovereign!” cries the matron,
pointing to the boy; who, as soon as he comprehended his mother's
proposal, protested against it by a loud roar, in the midst of which he
was removed by Screwby. In obedience to the conjugal orders, Sir Miles
went to his Royal Highness's levee the next day, and made a protest of
his love and duty, which the Prince deigned to accept, saying:
“Nobody ever supposed that Sir Miles Warrington would ever refuse any
place offered to him.”
A compliment gracious indeed, and repeated everywhere by Lady
Warrington, as showing how implicitly the august family on the throne
could rely on the loyalty of the Warringtons.
Accordingly, when this worthy couple saw George, they received him with
a ghastly commiseration, such as our dear relatives or friends will
sometimes extend to us when we have done something fatal or clumsy in
life; when we have come badly out of our lawsuit; when we enter the room
just as the company has been abusing us; when our banker has broke; or
we for our sad part have had to figure in the commercial columns of the
London Gazette;--when, in a word, we are guilty of some notorious fault,
or blunder, or misfortune. Who does not know that face of pity? Whose
dear relations have not so deplored him, not dead, but living? Not
yours? Then, sir, if you have never been in scrapes; if you have never
sowed a handful of wild oats or two; if you have always been fortunate,
and good, and careful, and butter has never melted in your mouth, and
an imprudent word has never come out of it; if you have never sinned and
repented, and been a fool and been sorry--then, sir, you are a wiseacre
who won't waste your time over an idle novel, and it is not de te that
the fable is narrated at all.
Not that it was just on Sir Miles's part to turn upon George, and be
angry with his nephew for refusing the offer of promotion made by his
Royal Highness, for Sir Miles himself had agreed in George's view of
pursuing quite other than a military career, and it was in respect to
this plan of her son's that Madam Esmond had written from Virginia
to Sir Miles Warrington. George had announced to her his intention of
entering at the Temple, and qualifying himself for the magisterial
and civil duties which, in the course of nature, he would be called to
fulfil; nor could any one applaud his resolution more cordially than his
uncle Sir Miles, who introduced George to a lawyer of reputation, under
whose guidance we may fancy the young gentleman reading leisurely.
Madam Esmond from home signified her approval of her son's course, fully
agreeing with Sir Miles (to whom and his lady she begged to send her
grateful remembrances) that the British Constitution was the envy of
the world, and the proper object of every English gentleman's admiring
study. The chief point to which George's mother objected was the notion
that Mr. Warrington should have to sit down in the Temple dinner-ball,
and cut at a shoulder of mutton, and drink small-beer out of tin
pannikins, by the side of rough students who wore gowns like the
parish-clerk. George's loyal younger brother shared too this repugnance.
Anything was good enough for him, Harry said; he was a younger son, and
prepared to rough it; but George, in a gown, and dining in a mess with
three nobody's sons off dirty pewter platters! Harry never could relish
this condescension on his brother's part, or fancy George in his proper
place at any except the high table; and was sorry that a plan Madam
Esmond hinted at in her letters was not feasible--viz., that an
application should be made to the Master of the Temple, who should be
informed that Mr. George Warrington was a gentleman of most noble birth,
and of great property in America, and ought only to sit with the very
best company in the Hall. Rather to Harry's discomfiture, when he
communicated his own and his mother's ideas to the gentlemen's new
coffee-house friend, Mr. Spencer, Mr. Spencer received the proposal with
roars of laughter; and I cannot learn, from the Warrington papers, that
any application was made to the Master of the Temple on this subject.
Besides his literary and historical pursuits, which were those he
most especially loved, Mr. Warrington studied the laws of his country,
attended the courts at Westminster, where he heard a Henley, a Pratt,
a Murray, and those other great famous schools of eloquence and
patriotism, the two houses of parliament.
Gradually Mr. Warrington made acquaintance with some of the members of
the House and the Bar; who, when they came to know him, spoke of him
as a young gentleman of good parts and good breeding, and in terms so
generally complimentary, that his good uncle's heart relented towards
him, and Dora and Flora began once more to smile upon him. This
reconciliation dated from the time when his Royal Highness the Duke,
after having been defeated by the French, in the affair of Hastenbeck,
concluded the famous capitulation with the French, which his Majesty
George II. refused to ratify. His Royal Highness, as 'tis well known,
flung up his commissions after this disgrace, laid down his commander's
baton--which, it must be confessed, he had not wielded with much luck or
dexterity--and never again appeared at the head of armies or in public
life. The stout warrior would not allow a word of complaint against his
father and sovereign to escape his lips; but, as he retired with his
wounded honour, and as he would have no interest or authority more, nor
any places to give, it may be supposed that Sir Miles Warrington's anger
against his nephew diminished as his respect for his Royal Highness
diminished.
As our two gentlemen were walking in St. James's Park, one day, with
their friend Mr. Lambert, they met his Royal Highness in plain clothes
and without a star, and made profound bows to the Prince, who was
pleased to stop and speak to them.
He asked Mr. Lambert how he liked my Lord Ligonier, his new chief at
the Horse Guards, and the new duties there in which he was engaged? And,
recognising the young men, with that fidelity of memory for which his
Royal race hath ever been remarkable, he said to Mr. Warrington:
“You did well, sir, not to come with me when I asked you in the spring.”
“I was sorry, then, sir,” Mr. Warrington said, making a very low
reverence, “but I am more sorry now.”
On which the Prince said, “Thank you, sir,” and, touching his hat,
walked away. And the circumstances of this interview, and the discourse
which passed at it, being related to Mrs. Esmond Warrington in a letter
from her younger son, created so deep an impression in that lady's mind,
that she narrated the anecdote many hundreds of times until all her
friends and acquaintances knew and, perhaps, were tired of it.
Our gentlemen went through the Park, and so towards the Strand, where
they had business. And Mr. Lambert, pointing to the lion on the top of
the Earl of Northumberland's house at Charing Cross, says:
“Harry Warrington! your brother is like yonder lion.”
“Because he is as brave as one,” says Harry.
“Because I respect virgins!” says George, laughing.
“Because you are a stupid lion. Because you turn your back on the East,
and absolutely salute the setting sun. Why, child, what earthly good can
you get by being civil to a man in hopeless dudgeon and disgrace? Your
uncle will be more angry with you than ever--and so am I, sir.” But Mr.
Lambert was always laughing in his waggish way, and, indeed, he did not
look the least angry.