But this piece of scandal I cannot help. My aunt used to tell it with

infinite gusto; for, to do her justice, she hated your would-be good

people, and sniggered over the faults of the self-styled righteous with

uncommon satisfaction. In her later days she had no hypocrisy, at least;

and in so far was better than some whitewashed... Well, to the story.

My Lady Warrington, one of the tallest and the most virtuous of her sex,

who had goodness for ever on her lips and “Heaven in her eye,” like the

woman in Mr. Addison's tedious tragedy (which has kept the stage, from

which some others, which shall be nameless, have disappeared), had the

world in her other eye, and an exceedingly shrewd desire of pushing

herself in it. What does she do, when my marriage with your ladyship

yonder was supposed to be broken off, but attempt to play off on me

those arts which she had tried on my poor Harry with such signal ill

success, and which failed with me likewise! It was not the Beauty--Miss

Flora was for my master--(and what a master! I protest I take off my hat

at the idea of such an illustrious connexion!)--it was Dora, the Muse,

was set upon me to languish at me and to pity me, and to read even my

godless tragedy, and applaud me and console me. Meanwhile, how was the

Beauty occupied? Will it be believed that my severe aunt gave a great

entertainment to my Lady Yarmouth, presented her boy to her, and placed

poor little Miles under her ladyship's august protection? That, so

far, is certain; but can it be that she sent her daughter to stay at my

lady's house, which our gracious lord and master daily visited, and with

the views which old Aunt Bernstein attributed to her? “But for that

fit of apoplexy, my dear,” Bernstein said, “that aunt of yours intended

there should have been a Countess in her own right in the Warrington

family!” [Compare Walpole's letters in Mr. Cunningham's excellent new

edition. See the story of the supper at N. House, to show what great

noblemen would do for a king's mistress, and the pleasant account of

the waiting for the Prince of Wales before Holland House.-EDITOR.] My

neighbour and kinswoman, my Lady Claypole, is dead and buried. Grow

white, ye daisies, upon Flora's tomb! I can see my pretty Miles, in a

gay little uniform of the Norfolk Militia, led up by his parent to the

lady whom the King delighted to honour, and the good-natured old Jezebel

laying her hand upon the boy's curly pate. I am accused of being but a

lukewarm royalist; but sure I can contrast those times with ours, and

acknowledge the difference between the late sovereign and the present,

who, born a Briton, has given to every family in the empire an example

of decorum and virtuous life. [The Warrington MS. is dated 1793.-ED.]

Thus my life sped in the pleasantest of all occupation; and, being so

happy myself, I could afford to be reconciled to those who, after all,

had done me no injury, but rather added to the zest of my happiness by

the brief obstacle which they had placed in my way. No specific plans

were formed, but Theo and I knew that a day would come when we need

say Farewell no more. Should the day befall a year hence--ten years

hence--we were ready to wait. Day after day we discussed our little

plans, with Hetty for our confidante. On our drives we spied out pretty

cottages that we thought might suit young people of small means; we

devised all sorts of delightful schemes and childish economies. We were

Strephon and Chloe to be sure. A cot and a brown loaf should content us!

Gumbo and Molly should wait upon us (as indeed they have done from that

day until this). At twenty, who is afraid of being poor? Our trials

would only confirm our attachment. The “sweet sorrow” of every day's

parting but made the morrow's meeting more delightful; and when we

separated we ran home and wrote each other those precious letters which

we and other young gentlemen and ladies write under such circumstances;

but though my wife has them all in a great tin sugar-box in the closet

in her bedroom, and, I own, I myself have looked at them once, and even

thought some of them pretty,--I hereby desire my heirs and executors

to burn them all, unread, at our demise; specially desiring my son the

Captain (to whom I know the perusal of MSS. is not pleasant) to perform

this duty. Those secrets whispered to the penny-post, or delivered

between Molly and Gumbo, were intended for us alone, and no ears of our

descendants shall overhear them.

We heard in successive brief letters how our dear Harry continued with

the army, as Mr. General Amherst's aide-de-camp, after the death of his

own glorious general. By the middle of October there came news of the

Capitulation of Montreal and the whole of Canada, and a brief postscript

in which Hal said he would ask for leave now, and must go and see the

old lady at home, who wrote as sulky as a bare, Captain Warrington

remarked. I could guess why, though the claws could not reach me. I had

written pretty fully to my brother how affairs were standing with me in

England.

Then, on the 25th October, comes the news that his Majesty has fallen

down dead at Kensington, and that George III. reigned over us. I fear we

grieved but little. What do those care for the Atridae whose hearts are

strung only to erota mounon? A modest, handsome, brave new Prince, we

gladly accept the common report that he is endowed with every virtue;

and we cry huzzay with the loyal crowd that hails his accession:

it could make little difference to us, as we thought, simple young

sweethearts, whispering our little love-stories in our corner.

But who can say how great events affect him? Did not our little Charley,

at the Chartreux, wish impiously for a new king immediately, because on

his gracious Majesty's accession Doctor Crusius gave his boys a holiday?

He and I, and Hetty, and Theo (Miss Theo was strong enough to walk

many a delightful mile now), heard the Heralds proclaim his new Majesty

before Savile House in Leicester Fields, and a pickpocket got the watch

and chain of a gentleman hard by us, and was caught and carried to

Bridewell, all on account of his Majesty's accession. Had the king not

died, the gentleman would not have been in the crowd; the chain would

not have been seized; the thief would not have been caught and soundly

whipped: in this way many of us, more or less remotely, were implicated

in the great change which ensued, and even we humble folks were affected

by it presently.

As thus. My Lord Wrotham was a great friend of the august family of

Savile House, who knew and esteemed his many virtues. Now, of all

living men, my Lord Wrotham knew and loved best his neighbour and old

fellow-soldier, Martin Lambert, declaring that the world contained few

better gentlemen. And my Lord Bute, being all potent, at first, with his

Majesty, and a nobleman, as I believe, very eager at the commencement of

his brief and luckless tenure of power, to patronise merit wherever he

could find it, was strongly prejudiced in Mr. Lambert's favour by the

latter's old and constant friend.

My (and Harry's) old friend Parson Sampson, who had been in and out

of gaol I don't know how many times of late years, and retained an

ever-enduring hatred for the Esmonds of Castlewood, and as lasting a

regard for me and my brother, was occupying poor Hal's vacant bed at

my lodgings at this time (being, in truth, hunted out of his own by

the bailiffs). I liked to have Sampson near me, for a more amusing

Jack-friar never walked in cassock; and, besides, he entered into all my

rhapsodies about Miss Theo; was never tired (so he vowed) of hearing

me talk of her; admired Pocahontas and Carpezan with, I do believe, an

honest enthusiasm; and could repeat whole passages of those tragedies

with an emphasis and effect that Barry or cousin Hagan himself could not

surpass. Sampson was the go-between between Lady Maria and such of her

relations as had not disowned her; and, always in debt himself, was

never more happy than in drinking a pot, or mingling his tears with his

friends in similar poverty. His acquaintance with pawnbrokers' shops was

prodigious. He could procure more money, he boasted, on an article than

any gentleman of his cloth. He never paid his own debts, to be sure,

but he was ready to forgive his debtors. Poor as he was, he always found

means to love and help his needy little sister, and a more prodigal,

kindly, amiable rogue never probably grinned behind bars. They say that

I love to have parasites about me. I own to have had a great liking for

Sampson, and to have esteemed him much better than probably much better

men.

When he heard how my Lord Bute was admitted into the cabinet, Sampson

vowed and declared that his lordship--a great lover of the drama, who

had been to see Carpezan, who had admired it, and who would act the part

of the king very finely in it--he vowed, by George! that my lord must

give me a place worthy of my birth and merits. He insisted upon it that

I should attend his lordship's levee. I wouldn't? The Esmonds were all

as proud as Lucifer; and, to be sure, my birth was as good as that of

any man in Europe. Demmy! Where was my lord himself when the Esmonds

were lords of great counties, warriors, and Crusaders? Where were they?

Beggarly Scotchmen, without a rag to their backs--by George! tearing

raw fish in their islands. But now the times were changed. The Scotchmen

were in luck. Mum's the word! “I don't envy him,” says Sampson, “but he

shall provide for you and my dearest, noblest, heroic captain! He SHALL,

by George!” would my worthy parson roar out. And when, in the month

after his accession, his Majesty ordered the play of Richard III. at

Drury Lane, my chaplain cursed, vowed, swore, but he would have him to

Covent Garden to see Carpezan too. And now, one morning, he bursts into

my apartment, where I happened to lie rather late, waving the newspaper

in his hand, and singing “Huzza!” with all his might.

“What is it, Sampson?” says I. “Has my brother got his promotion?”

“No, in truth: but some one else has. Huzzay! huzzay! His Majesty

has appointed Major-General Martin Lambert to be Governor and

Commander-in-Chief of the Island of Jamaica.”

I started up. Here was news, indeed! Mr. Lambert would go to his

government: and who would go with him? I had been supping with some

genteel young fellows at the Cocoa-Tree. The rascal Gumbo had a note for

me from my dear mistress on the night previous, conveying the same news

to me, and had delayed to deliver it. Theo begged me to see her at the

old place at midday the next day without fail. [In the Warrington

MS. there is not a word to say what the “old place” was. Perhaps some

obliging reader of Notes and Queries will be able to inform me, and who

Mrs. Goodison was.-ED.]

There was no little trepidation in our little council when we reached

our place of meeting. Papa had announced his acceptance of the

appointment, and his speedy departure. He would have a frigate given

him, and take his family with him. Merciful powers! and were we to be

parted? My Theo's old deathly paleness returned to her. Aunt Lambert

thought she would have swooned; one of Mrs. Goodison's girls had a

bottle of salts, and ran up with it from the workroom. “Going away?

Going away in a frigate, Aunt Lambert? Going to tear her away from me?

Great God! Aunt Lambert, I shall die!” She was better when mamma came

up from the workroom with the young lady's bottle of salts. You see the

women used to meet me: knowing dear Theo's delicate state, how could

they refrain from compassionating her! But the General was so busy

with his levees and his waiting on Ministers, and his outfit, and the

settlement of his affairs at home, that they never happened to tell him

about our little walks and meetings; and even when orders for the outfit

of the ladies were given, Mrs. Goodison, who had known and worked

for Miss Molly Benson as a schoolgirl (she remembered Miss Esmond of

Virginia perfectly, the worthy lady told me, and a dress she made for

the young lady to be presented at her Majesty's Ball)--“even when the

outfit was ordered for the three ladies,” says Mrs. Goodison, demurely,

“why, I thought I could do no harm in completing the order.”

Now I need not say in what perturbation of mind Mr. Warrington went home

in the evening to his lodgings, after the discussion with the ladies of

the above news. No, or at least a very few, more walks; no more rides to

dear, dear Hampstead or beloved Islington; no more fetching and carrying

of letters for Gumbo and Molly! The former blubbered so, that Mr.

Warrington was quite touched by his fidelity, and gave him a crown-piece

to go to supper with the poor girl, who turned out to be his sweetheart.

What, you too unhappy, Gumbo, and torn from the maid you love? I was

ready to mingle with him tear for tear.

What a solemn conference I had with Sampson that evening! He knew my

affairs, my expectations, my mother's anger. Psha! that was far off, and

he knew some excellent liberal people (of the order of Melchizedek)

who would discount the other. The General would not give his consent?

Sampson shrugged his broad shoulders and swore a great roaring oath. My

mother would not relent? What then? A man was a man, and to make his

own way in the world? he supposed. He is only a churl who won't play for

such a stake as that, and lose or win, by George! shouts the chaplain,

over a bottle of Burgundy at the Bedford Head, where he dined. I need

not put down our conversation. We were two of us, and I think there was

only one mind between us. Our talk was of a Saturday night....

I did not tell Theo, nor any relative of hers, what was being done.

But when the dear child faltered and talked, trembling, of the

coming departure, I bade her bear up, and vowed all would be well, so

confidently, that she, who ever has taken her alarms and joys from my

face (I wish, my dear, it were sometimes not so gloomy), could not but

feel confidence; and placed (with many fond words that need not here be

repeated) her entire trust in me--murmuring those sweet words of Ruth

that must have comforted myriads of tender hearts in my dearest maiden's

plight; that whither I would go she would go, and that my people should

be hers. At last, one day, the General's preparations being made, the

trunks encumbering the passages of the dear old Dean Street lodging,

which I shall love as long as I shall remember at all--one day, almost

the last of his stay, when the good man (his Excellency we called him

now) came home to his dinner--a comfortless meal enough it was in the

present condition of the family--he looked round the table at the place

where I had used to sit in happy old days, and sighed out: “I wish,

Molly, George was here.”

“Do you, Martin?” says Aunt Lambert, flinging into his arms.

“Yes, I do; but I don't wish you to choke me, Molly,” he says. “I love

him dearly. I may go away and never see him again, and take his foolish

little sweetheart along with me. I suppose you will write to each other,

children? I can't prevent that, you know; and until he changes his mind,

I suppose Miss Theo won't obey papa's orders, and get him out of her

foolish little head. Wilt thou, Theo?”

“No, dearest, dearest, best papa!”

“What! more embraces and kisses! What does all this mean?”

“It means that--that George is in the drawing-room,” says mamma.

“Is he! My dearest boy!” cries the General. “Come to me--come in!” And

when I entered he held me to his heart, and kissed me.

I confess at this I was so overcome that I fell down on my knees before

the dear, good man, and sobbed on his own.

“God bless you, my dearest boy!” he mutters hurriedly. “Always loved you

as a son--haven't I, Molly? Broke my heart nearly when I quarrelled with

you about this little--What!--odds marrowbones!--all down on your knees!

Mrs. Lambert, pray what is the meaning of all this?”

“Dearest, dearest papa! I will go with you all the same!” whimpers one

of the kneeling party. “And I will wait--oh!--as long as ever my dearest

father wants me!”

“In Heaven's name!” roars the General, “tell me what has happened?”

What had happened was, that George Esmond Warrington and Theodosia

Lambert had been married in Southwark that morning, their banns having

been duly called in the church of a certain friend of the Reverend Mr.

Sampson.

CHAPTER LXXIX. Containing both Comedy and Tragedy

We, who had been active in the guilty scene of the morning, felt trebly

guilty when we saw the effect which our conduct had produced upon him,

who, of all others, we loved and respected. The shock to the good man

was strange, and pitiful to us to witness who had administered it. The

child of his heart had deceived and disobeyed him--I declare I think, my

dear, now, we would not or could not do it over again; his whole family

had entered into a league against him. Dear, kind friend and father!

We know thou hast pardoned our wrong--in the Heaven where thou dwellest

amongst purified spirits who learned on earth how to love and pardon! To

love and forgive were easy duties with that man. Beneficence was natural

to him, and a sweet, smiling humility; and to wound either was to be

savage and brutal, as to torture a child, or strike blows at a nursing

woman. The deed done, all we guilty ones grovelled in the earth, before

the man we had injured. I pass over the scenes of forgiveness, of

reconciliation, of common worship together, of final separation when the

good man departed to his government, and the ship sailed away before us,

leaving me and Theo on the shore. We stood there hand in hand, horribly

abashed, silent, and guilty. My wife did not come to me till her father

went: in the interval between the ceremony of our marriage and his

departure, she had remained at home, occupying her old place by her

father, and bed by her sister's side: he as kind as ever, but the women

almost speechless among themselves; Aunt Lambert, for once, unkind

and fretful in her temper; and little Hetty feverish and strange, and

saying, “I wish we were gone. I wish we were gone.” Though admitted to

the house, and forgiven, I slunk away during those last days, and only

saw my wife for a minute or two in the street, or with her family. She

was not mine till they were gone. We went to Winchester and Hampton

for what may be called our wedding. It was but a dismal business. For a

while we felt utterly lonely: and of our dear father as if we had buried

him, or drove him to the grave by our undutifulness.

I made Sampson announce our marriage in the papers. (My wife used to

hang down her head before the poor fellow afterwards.) I took Mrs.

Warrington back to my old lodgings in Bloomsbury, where there was plenty

of room for us, and our modest married life began. I wrote home a letter

to my mother in Virginia, informing her of no particulars, but only

that Mr. Lambert being about to depart for his government, I considered

myself bound in honour to fulfil my promise towards his dearest

daughter; and stated that I intended to carry out my intention of

completing my studies for the Bar, and qualifying myself for employment

at home, or in our own or any other colony. My good Mrs. Mountain

answered this letter, by desire of Madam Esmond, she said, who thought

that for the sake of peace my communications had best be conducted

that way. I found my relatives in a fury which was perfectly amusing

to witness. The butler's face, as he said, “Not at home,” at my uncle's

house in Hill Street, was a blank tragedy that might have been studied

by Garrick when he sees Banque. My poor little wife was on my arm, and

we were tripping away, laughing at the fellow's accueil, when we came

upon my lady in a street stoppage in her chair. I took off my hat and

made her the lowest possible bow. I affectionately asked after my dear

cousins. “I--I wonder you dare look me in the face!” Lady Warrington

gasped out. “Nay, don't deprive me of that precious privilege!” says I.

“Move on, Peter,” she screams to her chairman. “Your ladyship would not

impale your own husband's flesh and blood!” says I. She rattles up

the glass of her chair in a fury. I kiss my hand, take off my hat, and

perform another of my very finest bows.

Walking shortly afterwards in Hyde Park with my dearest companion, I

met my little cousin exercising on horseback with a groom behind him. As

soon as he sees us, he gallops up to us, the groom powdering afterwards

and bawling out, “Stop, Master Miles, stop!”

“I am not to speak to my cousin,” says Miles, “but telling you to send

my love to Harry is not speaking to you, is it? Is that my new

cousin? I'm not told not to speak to her. I'm Miles, cousin, Sir Miles

Warrington Baronet's son, and you are very pretty!” “Now, duee now,

Master Miles,” says the groom, touching his hat to us; and the boy

trots away laughing and looking at us over his shoulder. “You see how

my relations have determined to treat me,” I say to my partner. “As if

I married you for your relations!” says Theo, her eyes beaming joy

and love into mine. Ah, how happy we were! how brisk and pleasant the

winter! How snug the kettle by the fire (where the abashed Sampson

sometimes came and made the punch); how delightful the night at the

theatre, for which our friends brought us tickets of admission, and

where we daily expected our new play of Pocahontas would rival the

successes of all former tragedies.

The fickle old aunt of Clarges Street, who received me, on my first

coming to London with my wife, with a burst of scorn, mollified

presently, and as soon as she came to know Theo (who she had pronounced

to be an insignificant little country-faced chit), fell utterly in love

with her, and would have her to tea and supper every day when there was

no other company. “As for company, my dears,” she would say, “I don't

ask you. You are no longer du monde. Your marriage has put that entirely

out of the question.” So she would have had us come to amuse her, and go

in and out by the back-stairs. My wife was fine lady enough to feel only

amused at this reception; and, I must do the Baroness's domestics the

justice to say that, had we been duke and duchess, we could not have

been received with more respect. Madame de Bernstein was very much

tickled and amused with my story of Lady Warrington and the chair. I

acted it for her, and gave her anecdotes of the pious Baronet's lady and

her daughters, which pleased the mischievous, lively old woman.

The Dowager Countess of Castlewood, now established in her house at

Kensington, gave us that kind of welcome which genteel ladies extend to

their poorer relatives. We went once or twice to her ladyship's drums at

Kensington; but, losing more money at cards, and spending more money

in coach-hire than I liked to afford, we speedily gave up those

entertainments, and, I dare say, were no more missed or regretted than

other people in the fashionable world, who are carried by death, debt,

or other accident out of the polite sphere. My Theo did not in the

least regret this exclusion. She had made her appearance at one of these

drums, attired in some little ornaments which her mother left behind

her, and by which the good lady set some store; but I thought her own

white neck was a great deal prettier than these poor twinkling stones;

and there were dowagers, whose wrinkled old bones blazed with rubies

and diamonds, which, I am sure, they would gladly have exchanged for her

modest parure of beauty and freshness. Not a soul spoke to her--except,

to be sure, Beau Lothair, a friend of Mr. Will's, who prowled about

Bloomsbury afterwards, and even sent my wife a billet. I met him in

Covent Garden shortly after, and promised to break his ugly face if

ever I saw it in the neighbourhood of my lodgings, and Madam Theo was

molested no further.

The only one of our relatives who came to see us (Madame de Bernstein

never came; she sent her coach for us sometimes, or made inquiries

regarding us by her woman or her major-domo) was our poor Maria, who,

with her husband, Mr. Hagan, often took a share of our homely dinner.

Then we had friend Spencer from the Temple, who admired our Arcadian

felicity, and gently asked our sympathy for his less fortunate loves;

and twice or thrice the famous Doctor Johnson came in for a dish of

Theo's tea. A dish? a pailful! “And a pail the best thing to feed him,

sar!” says Mr. Gumbo, indignantly: for the Doctor's appearance was not

pleasant, nor his linen particularly white. He snorted, he grew red,

and sputtered in feeding; he flung his meat about, and bawled out in

contradicting people: and annoyed my Theo, whom he professed to admire

greatly, by saying, every time he saw her, “Madam, you do not love me;

I see by your manner you do not love me; though I admire you, and come

here for your sake. Here is my friend Mr. Reynolds that shall paint

you: he has no ceruse in his paint-box that is as brilliant as

your complexion.” And so Mr. Reynolds, a most perfect and agreeable

gentleman, would have painted my wife; but I knew what his price was,

and did not choose to incur that expense. I wish I had now, for the

sake of the children, that they might see what yonder face was like some

five-and-thirty years ago. To me, madam, 'tis the same now as ever; and

your ladyship is always young!

What annoyed Mrs. Warrington with Dr. Johnson more than his

contradictions, his sputterings, and his dirty nails, was, I think,

an unfavourable opinion which he formed of my new tragedy. Hagan once

proposed that he should read some scenes from it after tea.

“Nay, sir, conversation is better,” says the Doctor. “I can read for

myself, or hear you at the theatre. I had rather hear Mrs. Warrington's

artless prattle than your declamation of Mr. Warrington's decasyllables.

Tell us about your household affairs, madam, and whether his Excellency

your father is well, and whether you made the pudden and the butter

sauce. The butter sauce was delicious!” (He loved it so well that he had

kept a large quantity in the bosom of a very dingy shirt.) “You made it

as though you loved me. You helped me as though you loved me, though you

don't.”

“Faith, sir, you are taking some of the present away with you in your

waistcoat,” says Hagan, with much spirit.

“Sir, you are rude!” bawls the Doctor. “You are unacquainted with the

first principles of politeness, which is courtesy before ladies. Having

received an university education, I am surprised that you have not

learned the rudiments of politeness. I respect Mrs. Warrington. I should

never think of making personal remarks about her guests before her!”

“Then, sir,” says Hagan, fiercely, “why did you speak of my theatre?”

“Sir, you are saucy!” roars the Doctor.

“De te fabula,” says the actor. “I think it is your waistcoat that is

saucy. Madam, shall I make some punch in the way we make it in Ireland?”

The Doctor, puffing, and purple in the face, was wiping the dingy shirt

with a still more dubious pocket-handkerchief, which he then applied to

his forehead. After this exercise, he blew a hyperborean whistle, as

if to blow his wrath away. “It is de me, sir--though, as a young man,

perhaps you need not have told me so.”

“I drop my point, sir! If you have been wrong, I am sure I am bound to

ask your pardon for setting you so!” says Mr. Hagan, with a fine bow.

“Doesn't he look like a god?” says Maria, clutching my wife's hand: and

indeed Mr. Hagan did look like a handsome young gentleman. His colour

had risen; he had put his hand to his breast with a noble air: Chamont

or Castalio could not present himself better.

“Let me make you some lemonade, sir; my papa has sent us a box of fresh

limes. May we send you some to the Temple?”

“Madam, if they stay in your house, they will lose their quality and

turn sweet,” says the Doctor. “Mr. Hagan, you are a young sauce-box,

that's what you are! Ho! ho! It is I have been wrong.”

“Oh, my lord, my Polidore!” bleats Lady Maria, when she was alone in my

wife's drawing-room:

“'Oh, I could hear thee talk for ever thus,

Eternally admiring,--fix and gaze

On those dear eyes, for every glance they send

Darts through my soul, and fills my heart with rapture!'

“Thou knowest not, my Theo, what a pearl and paragon of a man my

Castalio is; my Chamont, my--oh, dear me, child, what a pity it is that

in your husband's tragedy he should have to take the horrid name of

Captain Smith!”

Upon this tragedy not only my literary hopes, but much of my financial

prospects were founded. My brother's debts discharged, my mother's

drafts from home duly honoured, my own expenses paid, which, though

moderate, were not inconsiderable,--pretty nearly the whole of my

patrimony had been spent, and this auspicious moment I must choose

for my marriage! I could raise money on my inheritance: that was not

impossible, though certainly costly. My mother could not leave her

eldest son without a maintenance, whatever our quarrels might be. I had

health, strength, good wits, some friends, and reputation--above all, my

famous tragedy, which the manager had promised to perform, and upon the

proceeds of this I counted for my present support. What becomes of the

arithmetic of youth? How do we then calculate that a hundred pounds is

a maintenance, and a thousand a fortune? How did I dare play against

Fortune with such odds? I succeeded, I remember, in convincing my dear

General, and he left home convinced that his son-in-law had for the

present necessity at least a score of hundred pounds at his command. He

and his dear Molly had begun life with less, and the ravens had somehow

always fed them. As for the women, the question of poverty was one of

pleasure to those sentimental souls, and Aunt Lambert, for her part,

declared it would be wicked and irreligious to doubt of a provision

being made for her children. Was the righteous ever forsaken? Did the

just man ever have to beg his bread? She knew better than that! “No, no,

my dears! I am not going to be afraid on that account, I warrant you!

Look at me and my General!”

Theo believed all I said and wished to believe myself. So we actually

began life upon a capital of Five Acts, and about three hundred pounds

of ready money in hand!

Well, the time of the appearance of the famous tragedy drew near, and my

friends canvassed the town to get a body of supporters for the opening

night. I am ill at asking favours from the great; but when my Lord

Wrotham came to London, I went, with Theo in my hand, to wait on his

lordship, who received us kindly, out of regard for his old friend,

her father--though he good-naturedly shook a finger at me (at which my

little wife hung down her head), for having stole a march on the good

General. However, he would do his best for her father's daughter; hoped

for a success; said he had heard great things of the piece; and engaged

a number of places for himself and his friends. But this patron secured,

I had no other. “Mon cher, at my age,” says the Baroness, “I should

bore myself to death at a tragedy: but I will do my best; and I will

certainly send my people to the boxes. Yes! Case in his best black looks

like a nobleman; and Brett in one of my gowns has a faux air de moi

which is quite distinguished. Put down my name for two in the front

boxes. Good-bye, my dear. Bonne chance!” The Dowager Countess presented

compliments (on the back of the nine of clubs), had a card-party that

night, and was quite sorry she and Fanny could not go to my tragedy. As

for my uncle and Lady Warrington, they were out of the question. After

the affair of the sedan-chair I might as well have asked Queen

Elizabeth to go to Drury Lane. These were all my friends--that host of

aristocratic connexions about whom poor Sampson had bragged; and on

the strength of whom, the manager, as he said, had given Mr. Hagan his

engagement! “Where was my Lord Bute? Had I not promised his lordship

should come?” he asks, snappishly, taking snuff (how different from

the brisk, and engaging, and obsequious little manager of six months

ago!)--“I promised Lord Bute should come?”

“Yes,” says Mr. Garrick, “and her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales,

and his Majesty too.”

Poor Sampson owned that he, buoyed up by vain hopes, had promised the

appearance of these august personages.

The next day, at rehearsal, matters were worse still, and the manager in

a fury.

“Great heavens, sir!” says he, “into what a pretty guet-a-pens have you

led me! Look at that letter, sir!--read that letter!” And he hands me

one:

“MY DEAR SIR” (said the letter)--“I have seen his lordship, and conveyed

to him Mr. Warrington's request that he would honour the tragedy of

Pocahontas by his presence. His lordship is a patron of the drama, and

a magnificent friend of all the liberal arts; but he desires me to

say that he cannot think of attending himself, much less of asking his

Gracious Master to witness the performance of a play, a principal part

in which is given to an actor who has made a clandestine marriage with

a daughter of one of his Majesty's nobility.--Your well-wisher, SAUNDERS

MCDUFF.”

“Mr. D. Garrick, at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.”

My poor Theo had a nice dinner waiting for me after the rehearsal. I

pleaded fatigue as the reason for looking so pale: I did not dare to

convey to her this dreadful news.

CHAPTER LXXX. Pocahontas

The English public not being so well acquainted with the history of

Pocahontas as we of Virginia, who still love the memory of that simple

and kindly creature, Mr. Warrington, at the suggestion of his friends,

made a little ballad about this Indian princess, which was printed in

the magazines a few days before the appearance of the tragedy. This

proceeding Sampson and I considered to be very artful and ingenious. “It

is like ground-bait, sir,” says the enthusiastic parson, “and you will

see the fish rise in multitudes, on the great day!” He and Spencer

declared that the poem was discussed and admired at several

coffee-houses in their hearing, and that it had been attributed to Mr.

Mason, Mr. Cowper of the Temple, and even to the famous Mr. Gray.

I believe poor Sam had himself set abroad these reports; and, if

Shakspeare had been named as the author of the tragedy, would have

declared Pocahontas to be one of the poet's best performances. I made

acquaintance with brave Captain Smith, as a boy in my grandfather's

library at home, where I remember how I would sit at the good old man's

knees, with my favourite volume on my own, spelling out the exploits

of our Virginian hero. I loved to read of Smith's travels, sufferings,

captivities, escapes, not only in America but Europe. I become a child

again almost as I take from the shelf before me in England the familiar

volume, and all sorts of recollections of my early home come crowding

over my mind. The old grandfather would make pictures for me of Smith

doing battle with the Turks on the Danube, or led out by our Indian

savages to death. Ah, what a terrific fight was that in which he was

engaged with the three Turkish champions, and how I used to delight over

the story of his combat with Bonny Molgro, the last and most dreadful

of the three! What a name Bonny Molgro was, and with what a prodigious

turban, scimitar, and whiskers we represented him! Having slain and

taken off the heads of his first two enemies, Smith and Bonny Molgro

met, falling to (says my favourite old book) “with their battle-axes,

whose piercing bills made sometimes the one, sometimes the other,

to have scarce sense to keep their saddles: especially the Christian

received such a wound that he lost his battle-axe, whereat the supposed

conquering Turke had a great shout from the rampires. Yet, by the

readinesse of his horse, and his great judgment and dexteritie, he

not only avoided the Turke's blows, but, having drawn his falchion, so

pierced the Turke under the cutlets, through back and body, that though

hee alighted from his horse, he stood not long ere hee lost his head as

the rest had done. In reward for which deed, Duke Segismundus gave him

3 Turke's head in a shield for armes and 300 Duckats yeerely for a

pension.” Disdaining time and place (with that daring which is the

privilege of poets) in my tragedy, Smith is made to perform

similar exploits on the banks of our Potomac and James's river. Our

“ground-bait” verses, ran thus:--

“POCAHONTAS

“Wearied arm and broken sword

Wage in vain the desperate fight

Round him press the countless horde,

He is but a single knight.

Hark! a cry of triumph shrill

Through the wilderness resounds,

As, with twenty bleeding wounds,

Sinks the warrior, fighting still.

“Now they heap the fatal pyre,

And the torch of death they light

Ah! 'tis hard to die of fire!

Who will shield the captive knight?

Round the stake with fiendish cry

Wheel and dance the savage crowd,

Cold the victim's mien and proud,

And his breast is bared to die.

“Who will shield the fearless heart?

Who avert the murderous blade?

From the throng, with sudden start,

See, there springs an Indian maid.

Quick she stands before the knight,

'Loose the chain, unbind the ring,

I am daughter of the king,

And I claim the Indian right!'

“Dauntlessly aside she flings

Lifted axe and thirsty knife;

Fondly to his heart she clings,

And her bosom guards his life!

In the woods of Powhattan,

Still 'tis told, by Indian fires,

How a daughter of their sires

Saved the captive Englishman.”

I need not describe at length the plot of my tragedy, as my children can

take it down from the shelves any day and peruse it for themselves. Nor

shall I, let me add, be in a hurry to offer to read it again to my young

folks, since Captain Miles and the parson both chose to fall asleep last

Christmas, when, at mamma's request, I read aloud a couple of acts.

But any person having a moderate acquaintance with plays and novels

can soon, out of the above sketch, fill out a picture to his liking.

An Indian king; a loving princess, and her attendant, in love with the

British captain's servant; a traitor in the English fort; a brave Indian

warrior, himself entertaining an unhappy passion for Pocahontas; a

medicine-man and priest of the Indians (very well played by Palmer),

capable of every treason, stratagem, and crime, and bent upon the

torture and death of the English prisoner;--these, with the accidents

of the wilderness, the war-dances and cries (which Gumbo had learned to

mimic very accurately from the red people at home), and the arrival

of the English fleet, with allusions to the late glorious victories in

Canada, and the determination of Britons ever to rule and conquer in

America, some of us not unnaturally thought might contribute to the

success of our tragedy.

But I have mentioned the ill omens which preceded the day: the

difficulties which a peevish, and jealous, and timid management threw in

the way of the piece, and the violent prejudice which was felt against

it in certain high quarters. What wonder then, I ask, that Pocahontas

should have turned out not to be a victory? I laugh to scorn the

malignity of the critics who found fault with the performance. Pretty

critics, forsooth, who said that Carpezan was a masterpiece, whilst

a far superior and more elaborate work received only their sneers! I

insist on it that Hagan acted his part so admirably that a certain actor

and manager of the theatre might well be jealous of him; and that, but

for the cabal made outside, the piece would have succeeded. The order

had been given that the play should not succeed; so at least Sampson

declared to me. “The house swarmed with Macs, by George, and they should

have the galleries washed with brimstone,” the honest fellow swore,

and always vowed that Mr. Garrick himself would not have had the piece

succeed for the world; and was never in such a rage as during that grand

scene in the second act, where Smith (poor Hagan) being bound to the

stake, Pocahontas comes and saves him, and when the whole house was

thrilling with applause and sympathy.

Anybody who has curiosity sufficient, may refer to the published tragedy

(in the octavo form, or in the subsequent splendid quarto edition of my

Collected Works, and Poems Original and Translated), and say whether the

scene is without merit, whether the verses are not elegant, the language

rich and noble? One of the causes of the failure was my actual fidelity

to history. I had copied myself at the Museum, and tinted neatly, a

figure of Sir Walter Raleigh in a frill and beard; and (my dear Theo

giving some of her mother's best lace for the ruff) we dressed Hagan

accurately after this drawing, and no man could look better. Miss

Pritchard as Pocahontas, I dressed too as a Red Indian, having seen

enough of that costume in my own experience at home. Will it be believed

the house tittered when she first appeared? They got used to her,

however, but just at the moment when she rushes into the prisoner's

arms, and a number of people were actually in tears, a fellow in the pit

bawls out, “Bedad! here's the Belle Savage kissing the Saracen's Head;”

on which an impertinent roar of laughter sprang up in the pit, breaking

out with fitful explosions during the remainder of the performance.

As the wag in Mr. Sheridan's amusing Critic admirably says about the

morning guns, the playwrights were not content with one of them, but

must fire two or three; so with this wretched pothouse joke of the Belle

Savage (the ignorant people not knowing that Pocahontas herself was the

very Belle Sauvage from whom the tavern took its name!). My friend of

the pit repeated it ad nauseam during the performance, and as each

new character appeared, saluted him by the name of some tavern--for

instance, the English governor (with a long beard) he called the Goat

and Boots; his lieutenant (Barker), whose face certainly was broad, the

Bull and Mouth, and so on! And the curtain descended amidst a shrill

storm of whistles and hisses, which especially assailed poor Hagan every

time he opened his lips. Sampson saw Master Will in the green boxes,

with some pretty acquaintances of his, and has no doubt that the

treacherous scoundrel was one of the ringleaders in the conspiracy. “I

would have flung him over into the pit,” the faithful fellow said (and

Sampson was man enough to execute his threat), “but I saw a couple of

Mr. Nadab's followers prowling about the lobby, and was obliged to sheer

off.” And so the eggs we had counted on selling at market were broken,

and our poor hopes lay shattered before us!

I looked in at the house from the stage before the curtain was lifted,

and saw it pretty well filled, especially remarking Mr. Johnson in the

front boxes, in a laced waistcoat, having his friend Mr. Reynolds by his

side; the latter could not hear, and the former could not see, and so

they came good-naturedly A deux to form an opinion of my poor tragedy.

I could see Lady Maria (I knew the hood she wore) in the lower gallery,

where she once more had the opportunity of sitting and looking at her

beloved actor performing a principal character in a piece. As for Theo,

she fairly owned that, unless I ordered her, she had rather not be

present, nor had I any such command to give, for, if things went wrong,

I knew that to see her suffer would be intolerable pain to myself, and

so acquiesced in her desire to keep away.

Being of a pretty equanimous disposition, and, as I flatter myself, able

to bear good or evil fortune without disturbance, I myself, after taking

a light dinner at the Bedford, went to the theatre a short while before

the commencement of the play, and proposed to remain there, until the

defeat or victory was decided. I own now, I could not help seeing which

way the fate of the day was likely to turn. There was something

gloomy and disastrous in the general aspect of all things around. Miss

Pritchard had the headache: the barber who brought home Hagan's wig

had powdered it like a wretch: amongst the gentlemen and ladies in

the greenroom, I saw none but doubtful faces: and the manager (a very

flippant, not to say impertinent gentleman, in my opinion, and who

himself on that night looked as dismal as a mute at a funeral) had the

insolence to say to me, “For Heaven's sake, Mr. Warrington, go and get

a glass of punch at the Bedford, and don't frighten us all here by your

dismal countenance!”

“Sir,” says I, “I have a right, for five shillings, to comment upon your

face, but I never gave you any authority to make remarks upon mine.”

“Sir,” says he in a pet, “I most heartily wish I had never seen your

face at all!” “Yours, sir!” said I, “has often amused me greatly; and

when painted for Abel Drugger is exceedingly comic”--and indeed I

have always done Mr. G. the justice to think that in low comedy he was

unrivalled. I made him a bow, and walked off to the coffee-house,

and for five years after never spoke a word to the gentleman, when he

apologised to me, at a nobleman's house where we chanced to meet. I said

I had utterly forgotten the circumstance to which he alluded, and that,

on the first night of a play, no doubt author and manager were flurried

alike. And added, “After all, there is no shame in not being made for

the theatre. Mr. Garrick--you were.” A compliment with which he appeared

to be as well pleased as I intended he should.

Fidus Achates ran over to me at the end of the first act to say that all

things were going pretty well; though he confessed to the titter in the

house upon Miss Pritchard's first appearance, dressed exactly like an

Indian princess.

“I cannot help it, Sampson,” said I (filling him a bumper of good

punch), “if Indians are dressed so.”

“Why,” says he, “would you have had Caractacus painted blue like an

ancient Briton, or Bonduca with nothing but a cow-skin?” And indeed it

may be that the fidelity to history was the cause of the ridicule cast

on my tragedy, in which case I, for one, am not ashamed of its defeat.

After the second act, my aide-de-camp came from the field with dismal

news indeed. I don't know how it is that, nervous before action,

in disaster I become pretty cool and cheerful. [The writer seems to

contradict himself here, having just boasted of possessing a pretty

equanimous disposition. He was probably mistaken in his own estimate of

himself, as other folks have been besides.-ED.] “Are things going ill?”

says I. I call for my reckoning, put on my hat, and march to the theatre

as calmly as if I was going to dine at the Temple; fidus Achates walking

by my side, pressing my elbow, kicking the link-boys out of the way, and

crying, “By George, Mr. Warrington, you are a man of spirit--a Trojan,

sir!” So, there were men of spirit in Troy; but alas! fate was too

strong for them.

At any rate, no man can say that I did not bear my misfortune with

calmness: I could no more help the clamour and noise of the audience

than a captain can help the howling and hissing of the storm in which

his ship goes down. But I was determined that the rushing waves and

broken masts should impavidum ferient, and flatter myself that I bore my

calamity without flinching. “Not Regulus, my dear madam, could step into

his barrel more coolly,” Sampson said to my wife. 'Tis unjust to say

of men of the parasitic nature that they are unfaithful in misfortune.

Whether I was prosperous or poor, the wild parson was equally true and

friendly, and shared our crust as eagerly as ever he had partaken of our

better fortune.

I took my place on the stage, whence I could see the actors of my poor

piece, and a portion of the audience who condemned me. I suppose the

performers gave me a wide berth out of pity for me. I must say that I

think I was as little moved as any spectator; and that no one would have

judged from my mien that I was the unlucky hero of the night.

But my dearest Theo, when I went home, looked so pale and white, that

I saw from the dear creature's countenance that the knowledge of my

disaster had preceded my return. Spencer, Sampson, cousin Hagan, and

Lady Maria were to come after the play, and congratulate the author, God

wot! (Poor Miss Pritchard was engaged to us likewise, but sent word

that I must understand that she was a great deal too unwell to sup that

night.) My friend the gardener of Bedford House had given my wife his

best flowers to decorate her little table. There they were; the poor

little painted standards--and the battle lost! I had borne the defeat

well enough, but as I looked at the sweet pale face of the wife across

the table, and those artless trophies of welcome which she had set up

for her hero, I confess my courage gave way, and my heart felt a pang

almost as keen as any that ever has smitten it.

Our meal, it may be imagined, was dismal enough, nor was it rendered

much gayer by the talk we strove to carry on. Old Mrs. Hagan was,

luckily, very ill at this time; and her disease, and the incidents

connected with it, a great blessing to us. Then we had his Majesty's

approaching marriage, about which there was a talk. (How well I remember

the most futile incidents of the day down to a tune which a carpenter

was whistling by my side at the playhouse, just before the dreary

curtain fell!) Then we talked about the death of good Mr. Richardson,

the author of Pamela and Clarissa, whose works we all admired

exceedingly. And as we talked about Clarissa, my wife took on herself to

wipe her eyes once or twice, and say, faintly, “You know, my love,

mamma and I could never help crying over that dear book. Oh, my dearest,

dearest mother” (she adds), “how I wish she could be with me now!” This

was an occasion for more open tears, for of course a young lady may

naturally weep for her absent mother. And then we mixed a gloomy bowl

with Jamaica limes, and drank to the health of his Excellency the

Governor: and then, for a second toast, I filled a bumper, and, with a

smiling face, drank to “our better fortune!”

This was too much. The two women flung themselves into each other's

arms, and irrigated each other's neck-handkerchiefs with tears. “Oh,

Maria! Is not--is not my George good and kind?” sobs Theo. “Look at my

Hagan--how great, how godlike he was in his part!” gasps Maria. “It was

a beastly cabal which threw him over--and I could plunge this knife into

Mr. Garrick's black heart--the odious little wretch!” and she grasps

a weapon at her side. But throwing it presently down, the enthusiastic

creature rushes up to her lord and master, flings her arms round him,

and embraces him in the presence of the little company.

I am not sure whether some one else did not do likewise. We were all

in a state of extreme excitement and enthusiasm. In the midst of grief,

Love the consoler appears amongst us, and soothes us with such fond

blandishments and tender caresses, that one scarce wishes the calamity

away. Two or three days afterwards, on our birthday, a letter was

brought me in my study, which contained the following lines:--

“FROM POCAHONTAS

“Returning from the cruel fight

How pale and faint appears my knight!

He sees me anxious at his side;

'Why seek, my love, your wounds to hide?

Or deem your English girl afraid

To emulate the Indian maid?'

“Be mine my husband's grief to cheer,

In peril to be ever near;

Whate'er of ill or woe betide,

To bear it clinging at his side;

The poisoned stroke of fate to ward,

His bosom with my own to guard;

Ah! could it spare a pang to his,

It could not know a purer bliss!

'Twould gladden as it felt the smart,

And thank the hand that flung the dart!”

I do not say the verses are very good, but that I like them as well as

if they were--and that the face of the writer (whose sweet young voice I

fancy I can hear as I hum the lines), when I went into her drawing-room

after getting the letter, and when I saw her blushing and blessing

me--seemed to me more beautiful than any I can fancy out of Heaven.

CHAPTER LXXXI. Res Angusta Domi

I have already described my present feelings as an elderly gentleman,

regarding that rash jump into matrimony, which I persuaded my dear

partner to take with me when we were both scarce out of our teens. As a

man and a father--with a due sense of the necessity of mutton chops, and

the importance of paying the baker--with a pack of rash children round

about us who might be running off to Scotland to-morrow, and pleading

papa's and mamma's example for their impertinence,--I know that I ought

to be very cautious in narrating this early part of the married life

of George Warrington, Esquire, and Theodosia his wife--to call out

mea culpa, and put on a demure air, and, sitting in my comfortable

easy-chair here, profess to be in a white sheet and on the stool of

repentance, offering myself up as a warning to imprudent and hot-headed

youth.

But, truth to say, that married life, regarding which my dear relatives

prophesied so gloomily, has disappointed all those prudent and

respectable people. It has had its trials; but I can remember them

without bitterness--its passionate griefs, of which time, by God's kind

ordinance, has been the benign consoler--its days of poverty, which

we bore, who endured it, to the wonder of our sympathising relatives

looking on--its precious rewards and blessings, so great that I scarce

dare to whisper them to this page; to speak of them, save with awful

respect and to One Ear, to which are offered up the prayers and thanks

of all men. To marry without a competence is wrong and dangerous,

no doubt, and a crime against our social codes; but do not scores of

thousands of our fellow-beings commit the crime every year with no

other trust but in, Heaven, health, and their labour? Are young people

entering into the married life not to take hope into account, nor dare

to begin their housekeeping until the cottage is completely furnished,

the cellar and larder stocked, the cupboard full of plate, and the

strong-box of money? The increase and multiplication of the world would

stop, were the laws which regulate the genteel part of it to be made

universal. Our gentlefolks tremble at the brink in their silk stockings

and pumps, and wait for whole years, until they find a bridge or a gilt

barge to carry them across; our poor do not fear to wet their bare feet,

plant them in the brook, and trust to fate and strength to bear them

over. Who would like to consign his daughter to poverty? Who would

counsel his son to undergo the countless risks of poor married life, to

remove the beloved girl from comfort and competence, and subject her

to debt, misery, privation, friendlessness, sickness, and the hundred

gloomy consequences of the res angusta domi? I look at my own wife and

ask her pardon for having imposed a task so fraught with pain and danger

upon one so gentle. I think of the trials she endured, and am thankful

for them and for that unfailing love and constancy with which God

blessed her and strengthened her to bear them all. On this question of

marriage, I am not a fair judge: my own was so imprudent--and has been

so happy, that I must not dare to give young people counsel. I have

endured poverty, but scarcely ever found it otherwise than tolerable:

had I not undergone it, I never could have known the kindness of

friends, the delight of gratitude, the surprising joys and consolations

which sometimes accompany the scanty meal and narrow fire, and cheer the

long day's labour. This at least is certain, in respect of the lot of

the decent poor, that a great deal of superfluous pity is often thrown

away upon it. Good-natured fine folks, who sometimes stepped out of the

sunshine of their riches into a narrow obscurity, were blinded as it

were, whilst we could see quite cheerfully and clearly: they stumbled

over obstacles which were none to us: they were surprised at the

resignation with which we drank small beer, and that we could heartily

say grace over such very cold mutton.

The good General, my father-in-law, had married his Molly, when he was a

subaltern of a foot regiment, and had a purse scarce better filled than

my own. They had had their ups and downs of fortune. I think (though my

wife will never confess to this point) they had married, as people could

do in their young time, without previously asking papa's and mamma's

leave. [The Editor has looked through Burn's Registers of Fleet

Marriages without finding the names of Martin Lambert and Mary Benson.]

At all events, they were so well pleased with their own good luck in

matrimony, that they did not grudge their children's, and were by no

means frightened at the idea of any little hardships which we in the

course of our married life might be called upon to undergo. And I

suppose when I made my own pecuniary statements to Mr. Lambert, I was

anxious to deceive both of us. Believing me to be master of a couple

of thousand pounds, he went to Jamaica quite easy in his mind as to his

darling daughter's comfort and maintenance, at least for some years to

come. After paying the expenses of his family's outfit, the worthy man

went away not much richer than his son-in-law; and a few trinkets, and

some lace of Aunt Lambert's, with twenty new guineas in a purse which

her mother and sisters made for her, were my Theo's marriage portion.

But in valuing my stock, I chose to count as a good debt a sum which my

honoured mother never could be got to acknowledge up to the day when the

resolute old lady was called to pay the last debt of all. The sums I

had disbursed for her, she argued, were spent for the improvement and

maintenance of the estate which was to be mine at her decease. What

money she could spare was to be for my poor brother, who had nothing,

who would never have spent his own means had he not imagined himself to

be sole heir of the Virginian property, as he would have been--the good

lady took care to emphasise this point in many of her letters--but for a

half-hour's accident of birth. He was now distinguishing himself in

the service of his king and country. To purchase his promotion was his

mother's, she should suppose his brother's duty! When I had finished my

bar-studies and my dramatic amusements, Madam Esmond informed me that I

was welcome to return home and take that place in our colony to which my

birth entitled me. This statement she communicated to me more than once

through Mountain, and before the news of my marriage had reached her.

There is no need to recall her expressions of maternal indignation when

she was informed of the step I had taken. On the pacification of Canada,

my dear Harry asked for leave of absence, and dutifully paid a visit to

Virginia. He wrote, describing his reception at home, and the splendid

entertainments which my mother made in honour of her son. Castlewood,

which she had not inhabited since our departure for Europe, was thrown

open again to our friends of the colony; and the friend of Wolfe, and

the soldier of Quebec, was received by all our acquaintance with every

becoming honour. Some dismal quarrels, to be sure, ensued, because my

brother persisted in maintaining his friendship with Colonel Washington,

of Mount Vernon, whose praises Harry never was tired of singing.

Indeed I allow the gentleman every virtue; and in the struggles which

terminated so fatally for England a few years since, I can admire as

well as his warmest friends, General Washington's glorious constancy and

success.

If these battles between Harry and our mother were frequent, as, in his

letters, he described them to be, I wondered, for my part, why he should

continue at home? One reason naturally suggested itself to my mind,

which I scarcely liked to communicate to Mrs. Warrington; for we had

both talked over our dear little Hetty's romantic attachment for my

brother, and wondered that he had never discovered it. I need not say, I

suppose, that my gentleman had found some young lady at home more to his

taste than our dear Hester, and hence accounted for his prolonged stay

in Virginia.

Presently there came, in a letter from him, not a full confession but an

admission of this interesting fact. A person was described, not named--a

Being all beauty and perfection, like other young ladies under similar

circumstances. My wife asked to see the letter: I could not help showing

it, and handed it to her, with a very sad face. To my surprise she read

it, without exhibiting any corresponding sorrow of her own.

“I have thought of this before, my love,” I said. “I feel with you for

your disappointment regarding poor Hetty.”

“Ah! poor Hetty,” says Theo, looking down at the carpet.

“It would never have done,” says I.

“No--they would not have been happy,” sighs Theo.

“How strange he never should have found out her secret!” I continued.

She looked me full in the face with an odd expression. “Pray, what does

that look mean?” I asked.

“Nothing, my dear--nothing! only I am not surprised!” says Theo,

blushing.

“What,” I ask, “can there be another?”

“I am sure I never said so, George,” says the lady, hurriedly. “But if

Hetty has overcome her childish folly, ought we not all to be glad? Do

you gentlemen suppose that you only are to fall in love and grow tired,

indeed?”

“What!” I say, with a strange commotion of my mind. “Do you mean to tell

me, Theo, that you ever cared for any one but me?”

“Oh, George,” she whimpers, “when I was at school, there was--there was

one of the boys of Doctor Backhouse's school, who sate in the loft next

to us; and I thought he had lovely eyes, and I was so shocked when I

recognised him behind the counter at Mr. Grigg's the mercer's, when I

went to buy a cloak for baby, and I wanted to tell you, my dear, and I

didn't know how!”

I went to see this creature with the lovely eyes, having made my wife

describe the fellow's dress to me, and I saw a little bandy-legged

wretch in a blue camlet coat, with his red hair tied with a dirty

ribbon, about whom I forbore generously even to reproach my wife; nor

will she ever know that I have looked at the fellow, until she reads the

confession in this page. If our wives saw us as we are, I thought, would

they love us as they do? Are we as much mistaken in them, as they in us?

I look into one candid face at least, and think it never has deceived

me.

Lest I should encourage my young people to an imitation of my own

imprudence, I will not tell them with how small a capital Mrs. Theo and

I commenced life. The unfortunate tragedy brought us nothing; though the

reviewers, since its publication of late, have spoken not unfavourably

as to its merits, and Mr. Kemble himself has done me the honour to

commend it. Our kind friend Lord Wrotham was for having the piece

published by subscription, and sent me a bank-note, with a request that

I would let him have a hundred copies for his friends; but I was always

averse to that method of levying money, and, preferring my poverty sine

dote, locked up my manuscript, with my poor girl's verses inserted at

the first page. I know not why the piece should have given such offence

at court, except for the fact that an actor who had run off with an

earl's daughter, performed a principal part in the play; but I was told

that sentiments which I had put into the mouths of some of the Indian

characters (who were made to declaim against ambition, the British

desire of rule, and so forth), were pronounced dangerous and

unconstitutional; so that the little hope of royal favour, which I might

have had, was quite taken away from me.

What was to be done? A few months after the failure of the tragedy, as

I counted up the remains of my fortune (the calculation was not long or

difficult), I came to the conclusion that I must beat a retreat out

of my pretty apartments in Bloomsbury, and so gave warning to our good

landlady, informing her that my wife's health required that we should

have lodgings in the country. But we went no farther than Lambeth, our

faithful Gumbo and Molly following us; and here, though as poor as might

be, we were waited on by a maid and a lackey in livery, like any folks

of condition. You may be sure kind relatives cried out against our

extravagance; indeed, are they not the people who find our faults out

for us, and proclaim them to the rest of the world?

Returning home from London one day, whither I had been on a visit to

some booksellers, I recognised the family arms and livery on a grand

gilt chariot which stood before a public-house near to our lodgings. A

few loitering inhabitants were gathered round the splendid vehicle, and

looking with awe at the footmen, resplendent in the sun, and quaffing

blazing pots of beer. I found my Lady Castlewood seated opposite to

my wife in our little apartment (whence we had a very bright, pleasant

prospect of the river, covered with barges and wherries, and the ancient

towers and trees of the Archbishop's palace and gardens), and Mrs. Theo,

who has a very droll way of describing persons and scenes, narrated to

me all the particulars of her ladyship's conversation, when she took her

leave.

“I have been here this ever-so-long,” says the Countess, “gossiping with

cousin Theo, while you have been away at the coffee-house, I dare say,

making merry with your friends, and drinking your punch and coffee.

Guess she must find it rather lonely here, with nothing to do but work

them little caps and hem them frocks. Never mind, dear; reckon you'll

soon have a companion who will amuse you when cousin George is away at

his coffee-house! What a nice lodging you have got here, I do declare!

Our new house which we have took is twenty times as big, and covered

with gold from top to bottom; but I like this quite as well. Bless you

being rich is no better than being poor. When we lived to Albany, and

I did most all the work myself, scoured the rooms, biled the kettle,

helped the wash, and all, I was just as happy as I am now. We only

had one old negro to keep the store. Why don't you sell Gumbo, cousin

George? He ain't no use here idling and dawdling about, and making love

to the servant-girl. Fogh! guess they ain't particular, these English

people!” So she talked, rattling on with perfect good-humour, until her

hour for departure came; when she produced a fine repeating watch, and

said it was time for her to pay a call upon her Majesty at Buckingham

House. “And mind you come to us, George,” says her ladyship, waving a

little parting hand out of the gilt coach. “Theo and I have settled all

about it.”

“Here, at least,” said I, when the laced footmen had clambered up behind

the carriage, and our magnificent little patroness had left us;--“here

is one who is not afraid of our poverty, nor ashamed to remember her

own.”

“Ashamed!” said Theo, resuming her lilliputian needlework. “To do her

justice, she would make herself at home in any kitchen or palace in the

world. She has given me and Molly twenty lessons in housekeeping. She

says, when she was at home to Albany, she roasted, baked, swept the

house, and milked the cow.” (Madam Theo pronounced the word cow

archly in our American way, and imitated her ladyship's accent very

divertingly.)

“And she has no pride,” I added. “It was good-natured of her to ask us

to dine with her and my lord. When will Uncle Warrington ever think of

offering us a crust again, or a glass of his famous beer?”

“Yes, it was not ill-natured to invite us,” says Theo, slily. “But,

my dear, you don't know all the conditions!” And then my wife, still

imitating the Countess's manner, laughingly informed me what these

conditions were. “She took out her pocket-book, and told me,” says Theo,

“what days she was engaged abroad and at home. On Monday she received a

Duke and a Duchess, with several other members of my lord's house,

and their ladies. On Tuesday came more earls, two bishops, and an

ambassador. 'Of course you won't come on them days?' says the Countess.

'Now you are so poor, you know, that fine company ain't no good for you.

Lord bless you! father never dines on our company days! he don't

like it; he takes a bit of cold meat anyways.' On which,” says Theo,

laughing, “I told her that Mr. Warrington did not care for any but the

best of company, and proposed that she should ask us on some day when

the Archbishop of Canterbury dined with her, and his Grace must give

us a lift home in his coach to Lambeth. And she is an economical little

person, too,” continues Theo. “'I thought of bringing with me some of

my baby's caps and things, which his lordship has outgrown 'em, but they

may be wanted again, you know, my dear.' And so we lose that addition

to our wardrobe,” says Theo, smiling, “and Molly and I must do our best

without her ladyship's charity. 'When people are poor, they are poor,'

the Countess said, with her usual outspokenness, 'and must get on the

best they can. What we shall do for that poor Maria, goodness only

knows! we can't ask her to see us as we can you, though you are so

poor: but an earl's daughter to marry a play-actor! La, my dear, it's

dreadful: his Majesty and the Princess have both spoken of it! Every

other noble family in this kingdom as has ever heard of it pities us;

though I have a plan for helping those poor unhappy people, and have

sent down Simons, my groom of the chambers, to tell them on it.' This

plan was, that Hagan, who had kept almost all his terms at Dublin

College, should return thither and take his degree, and enter into holy

orders, 'when we will provide him with a chaplaincy at home, you know,'

Lady Castlewood added.” And I may mention here, that this benevolent

plan was executed a score of months later; when I was enabled myself to

be of service to Mr. Hagan, who was one of the kindest and best of

our friends during our own time of want and distress. Castlewood

then executed his promise loyally enough, got orders and a colonial

appointment for Hagan, who distinguished himself both as soldier and

preacher, as we shall presently hear; but not a guinea did his lordship

spare to aid either his sister or his kinsman in their trouble. I never

asked him, thank Heaven, to assist me in my own; though, to do him

justice, no man could express himself more amiably, and with a joy which

I believe was quite genuine, when my days of poverty were ended.

As for my Uncle Warrington, and his virtuous wife and daughters, let

me do them justice likewise, and declare that throughout my period of

trial, their sorrow at my poverty was consistent and unvarying. I still

had a few acquaintances who saw them, and of course (as friends will)

brought me a report of their opinions and conversation; and I never

could hear that my relatives had uttered one single good word about me

or my wife. They spoke even of my tragedy as a crime--I was accustomed

to hear that sufficiently maligned--of the author as a miserable

reprobate, for ever reeling about Grub Street, in rags and squalor. They

held me out no hand of help. My poor wife might cry in her pain,

but they had no twopence to bestow upon her. They went to church a

half-dozen times in the week. They subscribed to many public charities.

Their tribe was known eighteen hundred years ago, and will flourish as

long as men endure. They will still thank Heaven that they are not as

other folks are; and leave the wounded and miserable to other succour.

I don't care to recall the dreadful doubts and anxieties which began to

beset me; the plan after plan which I tried, and in which I failed, for

procuring work and adding to our dwindling stock of money. I bethought

me of my friend Mr. Johnson, and when I think of the eager kindness with

which he received me, am ashamed of some pert speeches which I own

to have made regarding his manners and behaviour. I told my story and

difficulties to him, the circumstance of my marriage, and the prospects

before me. He would not for a moment admit they were gloomy, or, si male

nunc, that they would continue to be so. I had before me the chances,

certainly very slender, of a place in England; the inheritance which

must be mine in the course of nature, or at any rate would fall to the

heir I was expecting. I had a small stock of money for present actual

necessity--a possibility, “though, to be free with you, sir” (says

he), “after the performance of your tragedy, I doubt whether nature

has endowed you with those peculiar qualities which are necessary for

achieving a remarkable literary success”--and finally a submission to

the maternal rule, and a return to Virginia, where plenty and a home

were always ready for me. “Why, sir!” he cried, “such a sum as you

mention would have been a fortune to me when I began the world, and my

friend Mr. Goldsmith would set up a coach-and-six on it. With youth,

hope, to-day, and a couple of hundred pounds in cash--no young fellow

need despair. Think, sir, you have a year at least before you, and who

knows what may chance between now and then. Why, sir, your relatives

here may provide for you, or you may succeed to your Virginian property,

or you may come into a fortune!” I did not in the course of that year,

but he did. My Lord Bute gave Mr. Johnson a pension, which set all Grub

Street in a fury against the recipient, who, to be sure, had published

his own not very flattering opinion upon pensions and pensioners.

Nevertheless, he did not altogether discourage my literary projects,

promised to procure me work from the booksellers, and faithfully

performed that kind promise. “But,” says he, “sir, you must not appear

amongst them in forma pauperis.--Have you never a friend's coach, in

which we can ride to see them? You must put on your best laced hat and

waistcoat; and we must appear, sir, as if we were doing them a favour.”

This stratagem answered, and procured me respect enough at the first

visit or two; but when the booksellers knew that I wanted to be paid for

my work, their backs refused to bend any more, and they treated me with

a familiarity which I could ill stomach. I overheard one of them, who

had been a footman, say, “Oh, it's Pocahontas, is it? let him wait.” And

he told his boy to say as much to me. “Wait, sir?” says I, fuming

with rage and putting my head into his parlour, “I'm not accustomed to

waiting, but I have heard you are.” And I strode out of the shop into

Pall Mall in a mighty fluster.

And yet Mr. D. was in the right. I came to him, if not to ask a favour,

at any rate to propose a bargain, and surely it was my business to wait

his time and convenience. In more fortunate days I asked the gentleman's

pardon, and the kind author of the Muse in Livery was instantly

appeased.

I was more prudent, or Mr. Johnson more fortunate, in an application

elsewhere, and Mr. Johnson procured me a little work from the

booksellers in translating from foreign languages, of which I happen to

know two or three. By a hard day's labour I could earn a few shillings;

so few that a week's work would hardly bring me a guinea: and that was

flung to me with insolent patronage by the low hucksters who employed

me. I can put my finger upon two or three magazine articles written at

this period, and paid for with a few wretched shillings, which papers as

I read them awaken in me the keenest pangs of bitter remembrance.

[Mr. George Warrington, of the Upper Temple, says he remembers a book,

containing his grandfather's book-plate, in which were pasted various

extracts from reviews and newspapers in an old type, and lettered

outside Les Chains de l'Esclavage. These were no doubt the contributions

above mentioned; but the volume has not been found, either in the

town-house or in the library at Warrington Manor. The Editor, by

the way, is not answerable for a certain inconsistency, which may be

remarked in the narrative. The writer says earlier, that he speaks

without bitterness of past times, and presently falls into a fury with

them. The same manner of forgiving our enemies is not uncommon in the

present century.] I recall the doubts and fears which agitated me,

see the dear wife nursing her infant and looking up into my face with

hypocritical smiles that vainly try to mask her alarm: the struggles of

pride are fought over again: the wounds under which I smarted re-open.

There are some acts of injustice committed against me which I don't know

how to forgive; and which, whenever I think of them, awaken in me the

same feelings of revolt and indignation. The gloom and darkness gather

over me--till they are relieved by a reminiscence of that love and

tenderness which through all gloom and darkness have been my light and

consolation.

CHAPTER LXXXII. Miles's Moidore

Little Miles made his appearance in this world within a few days of the

gracious Prince who commands his regiment. Illuminations and cannonading

saluted the Royal George's birth, multitudes were admitted to see him

as he lay behind a gilt railing at the Palace with noble nurses watching

over him. Few nurses guarded the cradle of our little Prince; no

courtiers, no faithful retainers saluted it, except our trusty Gumbo

and kind Molly, who to be sure loved and admired the little heir of my

poverty as loyally as our hearts could desire. Why was our boy not named

George like the other paragon just mentioned, and like his father? I

gave him the name of a little scapegrace of my family, a name which

many generations of Warringtons had borne likewise; but my poor little

Miles's love and kindness touched me at a time when kindness and love

were rare from those of my own blood, and Theo and I agreed that our

child should be called after that single little friend of my paternal

race.

We wrote to acquaint our royal parents with the auspicious event, and

bravely inserted the child's birth in the Daily Advertiser, and the

place, Church Street, Lambeth, where he was born. “My dear,” says Aunt

Bernstein, writing to me in reply to my announcement, “how could you

point out to all the world that you live in such a trou as that in

which you have buried yourself? I kiss the little mamma, and send a

remembrance for the child.” This remembrance was a fine silk coverlid,

with a lace edging fit for a prince. It was not very useful: the price

of the lace would have served us much better, but Theo and Molly were

delighted with the present, and my eldest son's cradle had a cover as

fine as any nobleman's.

Good Dr. Heberden came over several times to visit my wife, and see that

all things went well. He knew and recommended to us a surgeon in the

vicinage, who took charge of her; luckily, my dear patient needed little

care, beyond that which our landlady and her own trusty attendant could

readily afford her. Again our humble precinct was adorned with the

gilded apparition of Lady Castlewood's chariot wheels; she brought a pot

of jelly, which she thought Theo might like, and which, no doubt, had

been served at one of her ladyship's banquets on a previous day. And

she told us of all the ceremonies at court, and of the splendour and

festivities attending the birth of the august heir to the crown; Our

good Mr. Johnson happened to pay me a visit on one of those days when

my lady countess's carriage flamed up to our little gate. He was not a

little struck by her magnificence, and made her some bows, which were

more respectful than graceful. She called me cousin very affably, and

helped to transfer the present of jelly from her silver dish into our

crockery pan with much benignity. The Doctor tasted the sweetmeat, and

pronounced it to be excellent. “The great, sir,” says he, “are fortunate

in every way. They can engage the most skilful practitioners of the

culinary art, as they can assemble the most amiable wits round their

table. If, as you think, sir, and, from the appearance of the dish,

your suggestion at least is plausible, this sweetmeat may have appeared

already at his lordship's table, it has been there in good company. It

has quivered under the eyes of celebrated beauties, it has been tasted

by ruby lips, it has divided the attention of the distinguished company,

with fruits, tarts, and creams, which I make no doubt were like itself

delicious.” And so saying, the good Doctor absorbed a considerable

portion of Lady Castlewood's benefaction; though as regards the epithet

delicious I am bound to say, that my poor wife, after tasting the jelly,

put it away from her as not to her liking; and Molly, flinging up her

head, declared it was mouldy.

My boy enjoyed at least the privilege of having an earl's daughter for

his godmother; for this office was performed by his cousin, our poor

Lady Maria, whose kindness and attention to the mother and the infant

were beyond all praise; and who, having lost her own solitary chance

for maternal happiness, yearned over our child in a manner not a little

touching to behold. Captain Miles is a mighty fine gentleman, and his

uniforms of the Prince's Hussars as splendid as any that ever bedizened

a soldier of fashion; but he hath too good a heart, and is too true a

gentleman, let us trust, not to be thankful when he remembers that his

own infant limbs were dressed in some of the little garments which had

been prepared for the poor player's child. Sampson christened him in

that very chapel in Southwark, where our marriage ceremony had been

performed. Never were the words of the Prayer-book more beautifully and

impressively read than by the celebrant of the service; except at

its end, when his voice failed him, and he and the rest of the little

congregation were fain to wipe their eyes. “Mr. Garrick himself, sir,”

says Hagan, “could not have read those words so nobly. I am sure little

innocent never entered the world accompanied by wishes and benedictions

more tender and sincere.”

And now I have not told how it chanced that the Captain came by his name

of Miles. A couple of days before his christening, when as yet I believe

it was intended that our firstborn should bear his father's name, a

little patter of horse's hoofs comes galloping up to our gate; and

who should pull at the bell but young Miles, our cousin? I fear he had

disobeyed his parents when he galloped away on that undutiful journey.

“You know,” says he, “cousin Harry gave me my little horse; and I can't

help liking you, because you are so like Harry, and because they're

always saying things of you at home, and it's a shame; and I have

brought my whistle and coral that my godmamma Lady Suckling gave me, for

your little boy; and if you're so poor, cousin George, here's my gold

moidore, and it's worth ever so much, and it's no use to me, because I

mayn't spend it, you know.”

We took the boy up to Theo in her room (he mounted the stair in his

little tramping boots, of which he was very proud); and Theo kissed him,

and thanked him; and his moidore has been in her purse from that day.

My mother, writing through her ambassador as usual, informed me of

her royal surprise and displeasure on learning that my son had been

christened Miles--a name not known, at least in the Esmond family. I

did not care to tell the reason at the time; but when, in after years,

I told Madam Esmond how my boy came by his name, I saw a tear roll down

her wrinkled cheek, and I heard afterwards that she had asked Gumbo

many questions about the boy who gave his name to our Miles--our Miles

Gloriosus of Pall Mall, Valenciennes, Almack's, Brighton.

CHAPTER LXXXIII. Troubles and Consolations

In our early days at home, when Harry and I used to be so undutiful to

our tutor, who would have thought that Mr. Esmond Warrington of Virginia

would turn Bearleader himself? My mother (when we came together again)

never could be got to speak directly of this period of my life; but

would allude to it as “that terrible time, my love, which I can't bear

to think of,” “those dreadful years when there was difference between

us,” and so forth; and though my pupil, a worthy and grateful man, sent

me out to Jamestown several barrels of that liquor by which his great

fortune was made, Madam Esmond spoke of him as “your friend in England,”

“your wealthy Lambeth friend,” etc., but never by his name; nor did she

ever taste a drop of his beer. We brew our own too at Warrington Manor,

but our good Mr. Foker never fails to ship to Ipswich every year a

couple of butts of his entire. His son is a young sprig of fashion, and

has married an earl's daughter; the father is a very worthy and kind

gentleman, and it is to the luck of making his acquaintance that I owe

the receipt of some of the most welcome guineas that ever I received in

my life.

It was not so much the sum, as the occupation and hope given me by the

office of Governor, which I took on myself, which were then so precious

to me. Mr. F.'s Brewery (the site has since been changed) then stood

near to Pedlar's Acre in Lambeth and the surgeon who attended my wife in

her confinement, likewise took care of the wealthy brewer's family.

He was a Bavarian, originally named Voelker. Mr. Lance, the surgeon, I

suppose, made him acquainted with my name and history. The worthy doctor

would smoke many a pipe of Virginia in my garden, and had conceived an

attachment for me and my family. He brought his patron to my house; and

when Mr. F. found that I had a smattering of his language, and could

sing “Prinz Eugen the noble Ritter” (a song that my grandfather had

brought home from the Marlborough wars), the German conceived a great

friendship for me: his lady put her chair and her chariot at Mrs.

Warrington's service: his little daughter took a prodigious fancy to our

baby (and to do him justice, the Captain, who is as ugly a fellow now

as ever wore a queue, was beautiful as an infant) [The very image of the

Squire at 30, everybody says so. M. W. (Note in the MS.)]: and his son

and heir, Master Foker, being much maltreated at Westminster School

because of his father's profession of brewer, the parents asked if

I would take charge of him; and paid me a not insufficient sum for

superintending his education.

Mr. F. was a shrewd man of business, and as he and his family really

interested themselves in me and mine, I laid all my pecuniary affairs

pretty unreservedly before him; and my statement, he was pleased to say,

augmented the respect and regard which he felt for me. He laughed at

our stories of the aid which my noble relatives had given me--my

aunt's coverlid, my Lady Castlewood's mouldy jelly, Lady Warrington's

contemptuous treatment of us. But he wept many tears over the story of

little Miles's moidore; and as for Sampson and Hagan, “I wow,” says he,

“dey shall have so much beer als ever dey can drink.” He sent his wife

to call upon Lady Maria, and treated her with the utmost respect and

obsequiousness, whenever she came to visit him. It was with Mr. Foker

that Lady Maria stayed when Hagan went to Dublin to complete his college

terms; and the good brewer's purse also ministered to our friend's wants

and supplied his outfit.

When Mr. Foker came fully to know my own affairs and position, he was

pleased to speak of me with terms of enthusiasm, and as if my conduct

showed some extraordinary virtue. I have said how my mother saved money

for Harry, and how the two were in my debt. But when Harry spent money,

he spent it fancying it to be his; Madam Esmond never could be made to

understand she was dealing hardly with me--the money was paid and gone,

and there was an end of it. Now, at the end of '62, I remember Harry

sent over a considerable remittance for the purchase of his promotion,

begging me at the same time to remember that he was in my debt, and to

draw on his agents if I had any need. He did not know how great the need

was, or how my little capital had been swallowed.

Well, to take my brother's money would delay his promotion, and I

naturally did not draw on him, though I own I was tempted; nor, knowing

my dear General Lambert's small means, did I care to impoverish him by

asking for supplies. These simple acts of forbearance my worthy brewer

must choose to consider as instances of exalted virtue. And what does

my gentleman do but write privately to my brother in America, lauding me

and my wife as the most admirable of human beings, and call upon

Madame de Bernstein, who never told me of his visit indeed, but who,

I perceived, about this time treated us with singular respect and

gentleness, that surprised me in one whom I could not but consider as

selfish and worldly. In after days I remember asking him how he had

gained admission to the Baroness? He laughed: “De Baroness!” says he.

“I knew de Baron when he was a walet at Munich, and I was a

brewer-apprentice.” I think our family had best not be too curious about

our uncle the Baron.

Thus, the part of my life which ought to have been most melancholy was

in truth made pleasant by many friends, happy circumstances, and strokes

of lucky fortune. The bear I led was a docile little cub, and danced

to my piping very readily. Better to lead him about, than to hang round

booksellers' doors, or wait the pleasure or caprice of managers! My wife

and I, during our exile, as we may call it, spent very many pleasant

evenings with these kind friends and benefactors. Nor were we without

intellectual enjoyments; Mrs. Foker and Mrs. Warrington sang finely

together; and sometimes when I was in the mood, I read my own play of

Pocahontas, to this friendly audience, in a manner better than Hagan's

own, Mr. Foker was pleased to say.

After that little escapade of Miles Warrington, junior, I saw nothing

of him, and heard of my paternal relatives but rarely. Sir Miles was

assiduous at court (as I believe he would have been at Nero's), and

I laughed one day when Mr. Foker told me that he had heard on 'Change

“that they were going to make my uncle a Beer.”--“A Beer?” says I in

wonder. “Can't you understand de vort, ven I say it?” says the testy

old gentleman. “Vell, veil, a Lort!” Sir, Miles indeed was the obedient

humble servant of the Minister, whoever he might be. I am surprised he

did not speak English with a Scotch accent during the first favourite's

brief reign. I saw him and his wife coming from court, when Mrs.

Claypool was presented to her Majesty on her marriage. I had my little

boy on my shoulder. My uncle and aunt stared resolutely at me from their

gilt coach window. The footmen looked blank over their nosegays. Had I

worn the Fairy's cap and been invisible, my father's brother could not

have passed me with less notice.

We did not avail ourselves much, or often, of that queer invitation

of Lady Castlewood, to go and drink tea and sup with her ladyship

when there was no other company. Old Van den Bosch, however shrewd his

intellect, and great his skill in making a fortune, was not amusing

in conversation, except to his daughter, who talked household and City

matters, bulling and bearing, raising and selling farming-stock, and

so forth, quite as keenly and shrewdly as her father. Nor was my Lord

Castlewood often at home, or much missed by his wife when absent, or

very much at ease in the old father's company. The Countess told all

this to my wife in her simple way. “Guess,” says she, “my lord and

father don't pull well together nohow. Guess my lord is always wanting

money, and father keeps the key of the box and quite right, too. If he

could have the fingering of all our money, my lord would soon make

away with it, and then what's to become of our noble family? We pay

everything, my dear (except play-debts, and them we won't have nohow).

We pay cooks, horses, wine-merchants, tailors, and everybody--and lucky

for them too--reckon my lord wouldn't pay 'em! And we always take care

that he has a guinea in his pocket, and goes out like a real nobleman.

What that man do owe to us: what he did before we come--gracious

goodness only knows! Me and father does our best to make him

respectable: but it's no easy job, my dear. Law! he'd melt the plate,

only father keeps the key of the strong-room; and when we go to

Castlewood, my father travels with me, and papa is armed too, as well as

the people.”

“Gracious heavens!” cries my wife, “your ladyship does not mean to say

you suspect your own husband of a desire to----”

“To what?--Oh no, nothing, of course! And I would trust our brother Will

with untold money, wouldn't I? As much as I'd trust the cat with the

cream-pan! I tell you, my dear, it's not all pleasure being a woman of

rank and fashion: and if I have bought a countess's coronet, I have paid

a good price for it--that I have!”

And so had my Lord Castlewood paid a large price for having his estate

freed from incumbrances, his houses and stables furnished, and his

debts discharged. He was the slave of the little wife and her father.

No wonder the old man's society was not pleasant to the poor victim, and

that he gladly slunk away from his own fine house, to feast at the club

when he had money, or at least to any society save that which he found

at home. To lead a bear, as I did, was no very pleasant business, to

be sure: to wait in a bookseller's anteroom until it should please his

honour to finish his dinner and give me audience, was sometimes a hard

task for a man of my name and with my pride; but would I have exchanged

my poverty against Castlewood's ignominy, or preferred his miserable

dependence to my own? At least I earned my wage, such as it was; and no

man can say that I ever flattered my patrons, or was servile to them; or

indeed, in my dealings with them, was otherwise than sulky, overbearing,

and, in a word, intolerable.

Now there was a certain person with whom Fate had thrown me into a

life-partnership, who bore her poverty with such a smiling sweetness

and easy grace, that niggard Fortune relented before her, and, like

some savage Ogre in the fairy tales, melted at the constant goodness and

cheerfulness of that uncomplaining, artless, innocent creature. However

poor she was, all who knew her saw that here was a fine lady; and the

little tradesmen and humble folks round about us treated her with as

much respect as the richest of our neighbours. “I think, my dear,” says

good-natured Mrs. Foker, when they rode out in the latter's chariot,

“you look like the mistress of the carriage, and I only as your maid.”

Our landladies adored her; the tradesfolk executed her little orders

as eagerly as if a duchess gave them, or they were to make a fortune

by waiting on her. I have thought often of the lady in Comus, and how,

through all the rout and rabble, she moves, entirely serene and pure.

Several times, as often as we chose indeed, the good-natured parents of

my young bear lent us their chariot to drive abroad or to call on the

few friends we had. If I must tell the truth, we drove once to the

Protestant Hero and had a syllabub in the garden there: and the

hostess would insist upon calling my wife her ladyship during the whole

afternoon. We also visited Mr. Johnson, and took tea with him (the

ingenious Mr. Goldsmith was of the company); the Doctor waited upon my

wife to her coach. But our most frequent visits were to Aunt Bernstein,

and I promise you I was not at all jealous because my aunt presently

professed to have a wonderful liking for Theo.

This liking grew so that she would have her most days in the week, or to

stay altogether with her, and thought that Theo's child and husband

were only plagues to be sure, and hated us in the most amusing way

for keeping her favourite from her. Not that my wife was unworthy

of anybody's favour; but her many forced absences, and the constant

difficulty of intercourse with her, raised my aunt's liking for a while

to a sort of passion. She poured in notes like love-letters; and her

people were ever about our kitchen. If my wife did not go to her, she

wrote heartrending appeals, and scolded me severely when I saw her; and,

the child being ill once (it hath pleased Fate to spare our Captain to

be a prodigious trouble to us, and a wholesome trial for our tempers),

Madame Bernstein came three days running to Lambeth; vowed there was

nothing the matter with the baby;--nothing at all;--and that we only

pretended his illness, in order to vex her.

The reigning Countess of Castlewood was just as easy and affable with

her old aunt, as with other folks great and small. “What air you all

about, scraping and bowing to that old woman, I can't tell, noways!” her

ladyship would say. “She a fine lady! Nonsense! She ain't no more fine

than any other lady: and I guess I'm as good as any of 'em with their

high heels and their grand airs! She a beauty once! Take away her wig,

and her rouge, and her teeth; and what becomes of your beauty, I'd like

to know? Guess you'd put it all in a bandbox, and there would be nothing

left but a shrivelled old woman!” And indeed the little homilist only

spoke too truly. All beauty must at last come to this complexion; and

decay, either underground or on the tree. Here was old age, I fear,

without reverence. Here were grey hairs, that were hidden or painted.

The world was still here, and she tottering on it, and clinging to it

with her crutch. For fourscore years she had moved on it, and eaten

of the tree, forbidden and permitted. She had had beauty, pleasure,

flattery: but what secret rages, disappointments, defeats, humiliations!

what thorns under the roses! what stinging bees in the fruit! “You are

not a beauty, my dear,” she would say to my wife: “and may thank your

stars that you are not.” (If she contradicted herself in her talk, I

suppose the rest of us occasionally do the like.) “Don't tell me that

your husband is pleased with your face, and you want no one else's

admiration! We all do. Every woman would rather be beautiful than be

anything else in the world--ever so rich, or ever so good, or have all

the gifts of the fairies! Look at that picture, though I know 'tis but a

bad one, and that stupid vapouring Kneller could not paint my eyes, nor

my hair, nor my complexion. What a shape I had then--and look at me now,

and this wrinkled old neck! Why have we such a short time of our beauty?

I remember Mademoiselle de l'Enclos at a much greater age than mine,

quite fresh and well-conserved. We can't hide our ages. They are wrote

in Mr. Collins's books for us. I was born in the last year of King

James's reign. I am not old yet. I am but seventy-six. But what a wreck,

my dear: and isn't it cruel that our time should be so short?”

Here my wife has to state the incontrovertible proposition, that the

time of all of us is short here below.

“Ha!” cries the Baroness. “Did not Adam live near a thousand years, and

was not Eve beautiful all the time? I used to perplex Mr. Tusher with

that--poor creature! What have we done since, that our lives are so much

lessened, I say?”

“Has your life been so happy that you would prolong it ever so much

more?” asks the Baroness's auditor. “Have you, who love wit, never read

Dean Swift's famous description of the deathless people in Gulliver? My

papa and my husband say 'tis one of the finest and most awful sermons

ever wrote. It were better not to live at all, than to live without

love; and I'm sure,” says my wife, putting her handkerchief to her eyes,

“should anything happen to my dearest George, I would wish to go to

Heaven that moment.”

“Who loves me in Heaven? I am quite alone, child--that is why I had

rather stay here,” says the Baroness, in a frightened and rather piteous

tone. “You are kind to me, God bless your sweet face! Though I scold,

and have a frightful temper, my servants will do anything to make me

comfortable, and get up at any hour of the night, and never say a cross

word in answer. I like my cards still. Indeed, life would be a blank

without 'em. Almost everything is gone except that. I can't eat my

dinner now, since I lost those last two teeth. Everything goes away from

us in old age. But I still have my cards--thank Heaven, I still have my

cards!” And here she would begin to doze: waking up, however, if my wife

stirred or rose, and imagining that Theo was about to leave her. “Don't

go away, I can't bear to be alone. I don't want you to talk. But I like

to see your face, my dear! It is much pleasanter than that horrid old

Brett's, that I have had scowling about my bedroom these ever so long

years.”

“Well, Baroness! still at your cribbage?” (We may fancy a noble Countess

interrupting a game at cards between Theo and Aunt Bernstein.) “Me and

my Lord Esmond have come to see you! Go and shake hands with grandaunt,

Esmond! and tell her ladyship that your lordship's a good boy!”

“My lordship's a good boy,” says the child. (Madam Theo used to act

these scenes for me in a very lively way.)

“And if he is, I guess he don't take after his father,” shrieks out Lady

Castlewood. She chose to fancy that Aunt Bernstein was deaf, and always

bawled at the old lady.

“Your ladyship chose my nephew for better or for worse,” says Aunt

Bernstein, who was now always very much flurried in the presence of the

young Countess.

“But he is a precious deal worse than ever I thought he was. I am

speaking of your Pa, Ezzy. If it wasn't for your mother, my son, Lord

knows what would become of you! We are a-going to see his little Royal

Highness. Sorry to see your ladyship not looking quite so well to-day.

We can't always remain young and law! how we do change as we grow old!

Go up and kiss that lady, Ezzy. She has got a little boy, too. Why,

bless us! have you got the child downstairs?” Indeed, Master Miles was

down below, for special reasons accompanying his mother on her visits to

Aunt Bernstein sometimes; and our aunt desired the mother's company so

much, that she was actually fain to put up with the child. “So you have

got the child here? Oh, you slyboots!” says the Countess. “Guess

you come after the old lady's money! Law bless you! Don't look so

frightened. She can't hear a single word I say. Come, Ezzy. Good-bye,

aunt!” And my lady Countess rustles out of the room.

Did Aunt Bernstein hear her or not? Where was the wit for which the old

lady had been long famous? and was that fire put out, as well as the

brilliancy of her eyes? With other people--she was still ready enough,

and unsparing of her sarcasms. When the Dowager of Castlewood and Lady

Fanny visited her (these exalted ladies treated my wife with perfect

indifference and charming good breeding),--the Baroness, in their

society, was stately, easy, and even commanding. She would mischievously

caress Mrs. Warrington before them; in her absence, vaunt my wife's good

breeding; say that her nephew had made a foolish match, perhaps, but

that I certainly had taken a charming wife. “In a word, I praise you so

to them, my dear,” says she, “that I think they would like to tear your

eyes out.” But, before the little American, 'tis certain that she was

uneasy and trembled. She was so afraid, that she actually did not dare

to deny her door; and, the Countess's back turned, did not even abuse

her. However much they might dislike her, my ladies did not tear out

Theo's eyes. Once--they drove to our cottage at Lambeth, where my wife

happened to be sitting at the open window, holding her child on her

knee, and in full view of her visitors. A gigantic footman strutted

through our little garden, and delivered their ladyships' visiting

tickets at our door. Their hatred hurt us no more than their visit

pleased us. When next we had the loan of our friend the Brewer's

carriage Mrs. Warrington drove to Kensington, and Gumbo handed over to

the giant our cards in return for those which his noble mistresses had

bestowed on us.

The Baroness had a coach, but seldom thought of giving it to us: and

would let Theo and her maid and baby start from Clarges Street in the

rain, with a faint excuse that she was afraid to ask her coachman

to take his horses out. But, twice on her return home, my wife was

frightened by rude fellows on the other side of Westminster Bridge; and

I fairly told my aunt that I should forbid Mrs. Warrington to go to her,

unless she could be brought home in safety; so grumbling Jehu had to

drive his horses through the darkness. He grumbled at my shillings: he

did not know how few I had. Our poverty wore a pretty decent face. My

relatives never thought of relieving it, nor I of complaining before

them. I don't know how Sampson got a windfall of guineas; but, I

remember, he brought me six once; and they were more welcome than any

money I ever had in my life. He had been looking into Mr. Miles's crib,

as the child lay asleep; and, when the parson went away, I found the

money in the baby's little rosy hand. Yes, Love is best of all. I

have many such benefactions registered in my heart--precious welcome

fountains springing up in desert places, kind, friendly lights cheering

our despondency and gloom.

This worthy divine was willing enough to give as much of his company as

she chose to Madame de Bernstein, whether for cards or theology. Having

known her ladyship for many years now, Sampson could see, and averred

to us, that she was breaking fast; and as he spoke of her evidently

increasing infirmities, and of the probability of their fatal

termination, Mr. S. would discourse to us in a very feeling manner of

the necessity for preparing for a future world; of the vanities of

this, and of the hope that in another there might be happiness for all

repentant sinners.

“I have been a sinner for one,” says the chaplain, bowing his head. “God

knoweth, and I pray Him to pardon me. I fear, sir, your aunt, the Lady

Baroness, is not in such a state of mind as will fit her very well

for the change which is imminent. I am but a poor weak wretch, and no

prisoner in Newgate could confess that more humbly and heartily. Once or

twice of late, I have sought to speak on this matter with her ladyship,

but she has received me very roughly. 'Parson,' says she, 'if you come

for cards, 'tis mighty well, but I will thank you to spare me your

sermons.' What can I do, sir? I have called more than once of late, and

Mr. Case hath told me his lady was unable to see me.” In fact Madame

Bernstein told my wife, whom she never refused, as I said, that the poor

chaplain's ton was unendurable, and as for his theology, “Haven't I been

a Bishop's wife?” says she, “and do I want this creature to teach me?”

The old lady was as impatient of doctors as of divines; pretending that

my wife was ailing, and that it was more convenient for our good Doctor

Heberden to visit her in Clarges Street than to travel all the way to

our Lambeth lodgings, we got Dr. H. to see Theo at our aunt's house, and

prayed him if possible to offer his advice to the Baroness: we made Mrs.

Brett, her woman, describe her ailments, and the doctor confirmed our

opinion that they were most serious, and might speedily end. She would

rally briskly enough of some evenings, and entertain a little company;

but of late she scarcely went abroad at all. A somnolence, which we had

remarked in her, was attributable in part to opiates which she was in

the habit of taking; and she used these narcotics to smother habitual

pain. One night, as we two sat with her (Mr. Miles was weaned by this

time, and his mother could leave him to the charge of our faithful

Molly), she fell asleep over her cards. We hushed the servants who came

to lay out the supper-table (she would always have this luxurious, nor

could any injunction of ours or the Doctor's teach her abstinence), and

we sat a while as we had often done before, waiting in silence till she

should arouse from her doze.

When she awoke, she looked fixedly at me for a while, fumbled with the

cards, and dropt them again in her lap, and said, “Henry, have I been

long asleep?” I thought at first that it was for my brother she mistook

me; but she went on quickly, and with eyes fixed as upon some very far

distant object, and said, “My dear, 'tis of no use, I am not good enough

for you. I love cards, and play, and court; and oh, Harry, you don't

know all!” Here her voice changed, and she flung her head up. “His

father married Anne Hyde, and sure the Esmond blood is as good as any

that's not royal. Mamma, you must please to treat me with more respect.

Vos sermons me fatiguent; entendez-vous?--faites place a mon Altesse

royale: mesdames, me connaissez-vous? je suis la----” Here she broke out

into frightful hysterical shrieks and laughter, and as we ran up to her,

alarmed, “Oui, Henri,” she says, “il a jure de m'epouser et les princes

tiennent parole--n'est-ce pas? O oui! ils tiennent parole; si non, tu le

tueras, cousin; tu le--ah! que je suis folle!” And the pitiful shrieks

and laughter recommenced. Ere her frightened people had come up to her

summons, the poor thing had passed out of this mood into another; but

always labouring under the same delusion--that I was the Henry of past

times, who had loved her and had been forsaken by her, whose bones were

lying far away by the banks of the Potomac.

My wife and the women put the poor lady to bed as I ran myself for

medical aid. She rambled, still talking wildly, through the night, with

her nurses and the surgeon sitting by her. Then she fell into a sleep,

brought on by more opiate. When she awoke, her mind did not actually

wander; but her speech was changed, and one arm and side were paralysed.

'Tis needless to relate the progress and termination of her malady, or

watch that expiring flame of life as it gasps and flickers. Her senses

would remain with her for a while (and then she was never satisfied

unless Theo was by her bedside), or again her mind would wander, and the

poor decrepit creature, lying upon her bed, would imagine herself young

again, and speak incoherently of the scenes and incidents of her early

days. Then she would address me as Henry again, and call upon me to

revenge some insult or slight, of which (whatever my suspicions might

be) the only record lay in her insane memory. “They have always been

so,” she would murmur: “they never loved man or woman but they forsook

them. Je me vengerai, O oui, je me vengerai! I know them all: I know

them all: and I will go to my Lord Stair with the list. Don't tell

me! His religion can't be the right one. I will go back to my mother's

though she does not love me. She never did. Why don't you, mother? Is

it because I am too wicked? Ah! Pitie, pitie. O mon pere! I will make

my confession”--and here the unhappy paralysed lady made as if she would

move in her bed.

Let us draw the curtain round it. I think with awe still, of those rapid

words, uttered in the shadow of the canopy, as my pallid wife sits by

her, her Prayer-book on her knee; as the attendants move to and fro

noiselessly; as the clock ticks without, and strikes the fleeting hours;

as the sun falls upon the Kneller picture of Beatrix in her beauty, with

the blushing cheeks, the smiling lips, the waving auburn tresses, and

the eyes which seem to look towards the dim figure moaning in the bed.

I could not for a while understand why our aunt's attendants were so

anxious that we should quit it. But towards evening, a servant stole

in, and whispered her woman; and then Brett, looking rather disturbed,

begged us to go downstairs, as the--as the Doctor was come to visit the

Baroness. I did not tell my wife, at the time, who “the Doctor” was; but

as the gentleman slid by us, and passed upstairs, I saw at once that he

was a Catholic ecclesiastic. When Theo next saw our poor lady, she

was speechless; she never recognised any one about her, and so passed

unconsciously out of life. During her illness her relatives had called

assiduously enough, though she would see none of them save us. But when

she was gone, and we descended to the lower rooms after all was over, we

found Castlewood with his white face, and my lady from Kensington, and

Mr. Will already assembled in the parlour. They looked greedily at us as

we appeared. They were hungry for the prey.

When our aunt's will was opened, we found it dated five years back, and

everything she had was left to her dear nephew, Henry Esmond Warrington,

of Castlewood, in Virginia, “in affectionate love and remembrance of the

name which he bore.” The property was not great. Her revenue had been

derived from pensions from the Crown as it appeared (for what services

I cannot say), but the pension of course died with her, and there were

only a few hundred pounds, besides jewels, trinkets, and the furniture

of the house in Clarges Street, of which all London came to the sale.

Mr. Walpole bid for her portrait, but I made free with Harry's money so

far as to buy the picture in: and it now hangs over the mantelpiece of

the chamber in which I write. What with jewels, laces, trinkets, and old

china which she had gathered--Harry became possessed of more than four

thousand pounds by his aunt's legacy. I made so free as to lay my hand

upon a hundred, which came, just as my stock was reduced to twenty

pounds; and I procured bills for the remainder, which I forwarded to

Captain Henry Esmond in Virginia. Nor should I have scrupled to take

more (for my brother was indebted to me in a much greater sum), but he

wrote me there was another wonderful opportunity for buying an estate

and negroes in our neighbourhood at home; and Theo and I were only

too glad to forgo our little claim, so as to establish our brother's

fortune. As to mine, poor Harry at this time did not know the state of

it. My mother had never informed him that she had ceased remitting to

me. She helped him with a considerable sum, the result of her savings,

for the purchase of his new estate; and Theo and I were most heartily

thankful at his prosperity.

And how strange ours was! By what curious good fortune, as our purse

was emptied, was it filled again! I had actually come to the end of our

stock, when poor Sampson brought me his six pieces--and with these I was

enabled to carry on, until my half-year's salary, as young Mr. Foker's

Governor, was due: then Harry's hundred, on which I laid main basse,

helped us over three months (we were behindhand with our rent, or the

money would have lasted six good weeks longer): and when this was pretty

near expended, what should arrive but a bill of exchange for a couple of

hundred pounds from Jamaica, with ten thousand blessings, from the dear

friends there, and fond scolding from the General that we had not

sooner told him of our necessity--of which he had only heard through our

friend, Mr. Foker, who spoke in such terms of Theo and myself as to make

our parents more than ever proud of their children. Was my quarrel with

my mother irreparable? Let me go to Jamaica. There was plenty there for

all, and employment which his Excellency as Governor would immediately

procure for me. “Come to us!” writes Hetty. “Come to us!” writes Aunt

Lambert. “Have my children been suffering poverty, and we rolling in

our Excellency's coach, with guards to turn out whenever we pass? Has

Charley been home to you for ever so many holidays, from the Chartreux,

and had ever so many of my poor George's half-crowns in his pocket,

I dare say?” (this was indeed the truth, for where was he to go for

holidays but to his sister? and was there any use in telling the child

how scarce half-crowns were with us?). “And you always treating him with

such goodness, as his letters tell me, which are brimful of love for

George and little Miles! Oh, how we long to see Miles!” wrote Hetty and

her mother; “and as for his godfather” (writes Het), “who has been good

to my dearest and her child, I promise him a kiss whenever I see him!”

Our young benefactor was never to hear of our family's love and

gratitude to him. That glimpse of his bright face over the railings

before our house at Lambeth, as he rode away on his little horse, was

the last we ever were to have of him. At Christmas a basket comes to us,

containing a great turkey, and three brace of partridges, with a

card, and “shot by M. W.” wrote on one of them. And on receipt of this

present, we wrote to thank the child and gave him our sister's message.

To this letter, there came a reply from Lady Warrington, who said she

was bound to inform me, that in visiting me her child had been guilty

of disobedience, and that she learned his visit to me now for the

first time. Knowing my views regarding duty to my parents (which I had

exemplified in my marriage), she could not wish her son to adopt them.

And fervently hoping that I might be brought to see the errors of

my present course, she took leave of this most unpleasant subject,

subscribing herself, etc. etc. And we got this pretty missive as sauce

for poor Miles's turkey, which was our family feast for New Year's Day.

My Lady Warrington's letter choked our meal, though Sampson and Charley

rejoiced over it.

Ah me! Ere the month was over, our little friend was gone from amongst

us. Going out shooting, and dragging his gun through a hedge after him,

the trigger caught in a bush, and the poor little man was brought home

to his father's house, only to live a few days and expire in pain and

torture. Under the yew-trees yonder, I can see the vault which covers

him, and where my bones one day no doubt will be laid. And over our pew

at church, my children have often wistfully spelt the touching epitaph

in which Miles's heartbroken father has inscribed his grief and love for

his only son.

CHAPTER LXXXIV. In which Harry submits to the Common Lot