Full many a lady I have eyed with best regard, and many a time The
harmony of their tongues hath unto bondage Drawn my too diligent eyes.
But you, oh! you, So perfect and so peerless, are created Of every
creature’s best.--Shakspeare.
Thou wilt easily conceive, my dear reader, who hast been in my
confidence throughout the whole of this history, and whom, though as yet
thou hast cause to esteem me but lightly, I already love as my familiar
and my friend--thou wilt easily conceive my surprise at meeting so
unexpectedly with my old hero of the gambling house. I felt indeed
perfectly stunned at the shock of so singular a change in his
circumstances since I had last met him. My thoughts reverted immediately
to that scene, and to the mysterious connection between Tyrrell and
Glanville. How would the latter receive the intelligence of his enemy’s
good fortune? was his vengeance yet satisfied, or through what means
could it now find vent?
A thousand thoughts similar to these occupied and distracted my
attention till morning, when I summoned Bedos into the room to read me
to sleep. He opened a play of Monsieur Delavigne’s, and at the beginning
of the second scene I was in the land of dreams.
I woke about two o’clock; dressed, sipped my chocolate, and was on the
point of arranging my hat to the best advantage, when I received the
following note:
“My Dear Pelham,
“Me tibi commendo. I heard this morning, at your hotel, that you were
here; my heart was a house of joy at the intelligence. I called upon you
two hours ago; but, like Antony, ‘you revel long o’ nights.’ Ah, that
I could add with Shakspeare, that you were ‘notwithstanding up.’ I have
just come from Paris, that umbilicus terrae, and my adventures since I
saw you, for your private satisfaction, ‘because I love you, I will let
you know;’ but you must satisfy me with a meeting. Till you do, ‘the
mighty gods defend you!’
“Vincent.”
The hotel from which Vincent dated this epistle, was in the same street
as my own caravansera, and to this hotel I immediately set off. I found
my friend sitting before a huge folio, which he in vain endeavoured to
persuade me that he seriously intended to read. We greeted each other
with the greatest cordiality.
“But how,” said Vincent, after the first warmth of welcome had subsided,
“how shall I congratulate you upon your new honours? I was not prepared
to find you grown from a roue into a senator.
“‘In gathering votes you were not slack, Now stand as tightly by your
tack, Ne’er show your lug an’ fidge your back, An’ hum an’ haw; But
raise your arm, an’ tell your crack Before them a’.’
“So saith Burns; advice which, being interpreted, meaneth, that you must
astonish the rats of St. Stephen’s.”
“Alas!” said I, “all one’s clap-traps in that house must be baited.”
“Nay, but a rat bites at any cheese, from Gloucester to Parmasan, and
you can easily scrape up a bit of some sort. Talking of the House,
do you see, by the paper, that the civic senator, Alderman W--, is at
Cheltenham?”
“I was not aware of it. I suppose he’s cramming speeches and turtle for
the next season.”
“How wonderfully,” said Vincent, “your city dignities unloose the
tongue: directly a man has been a mayor, he thinks himself qualified for
a Tully at least. Faith, Venables asked me one day, what was the
Latin for spouting? and I told him, ‘hippomanes, or a raging humour in
mayors.’”
After I had paid, through the medium of my risible muscles, due homage
to this witticism of Vincent’s, he shut up his folio, called for his
hat, and we sauntered down into the street. As we passed by one of the
libraries, a whole mob of the dandies of the last night were lounging
about the benches placed before the shop windows.
“Pray, Vincent,” said I, “remark those worthies, and especially that
tall meagre youth in the blue frock-coat, and the buff waistcoat; he is
Mr. Ritson, the De Rous (viz. the finished gentleman) of the place.”
“I see him,” answered Vincent: “he seems a most happy mixture of native
coarseness and artificial decoration. He puts me in mind of the picture
of the great ox set in a gilt frame.”
“Or a made dish in Bloomsbury-square, garnished with cut carrots, by way
of adornment,” said I.
“Or a flannel petticoat, with a fine crape over it,” added Vincent.
“Well, well, these imitators are, after all, not worse than the
originals. When do you go up to town?”
“Not till my senatorial duties require me.”
“Do you stay here till then?”
“As it pleases the gods. But, good Heavens! Vincent, what a beautiful
girl!”
Vincent turned. “O Dea certe,” murmured he, and stopped.
The object of our exclamations was standing by a corner shop, apparently
waiting for some one within. Her face, at the moment I first saw her,
was turned full towards me. Never had I seen any countenance half so
lovely. She was apparently about twenty; her hair was of the richest
chesnut, and a golden light played through its darkness, as if a sunbeam
had been caught in those luxuriant tresses, and was striving in vain
to escape. Her eyes were of a light hazel, large, deep, and shaded into
softness (to use a modern expression) by long and very dark lashes. Her
complexion alone would have rendered her beautiful, it was so clear--so
pure; the blood blushed beneath it, like roses under a clear stream; if,
in order to justify my simile, roses would have the complacency to grow
in such a situation. Her nose was of that fine and accurate mould that
one so seldom sees, except in the Grecian statues, which unites the
clearest and most decided outline with the most feminine delicacy and
softness; and the short curved arch which descended from thence to her
mouth, was so fine--so airily and exquisitely formed, that it seemed as
if Love himself had modelled the bridge which led to his most beautiful
and fragrant island. On the right side of the mouth was one dimple,
which corresponded so exactly with every smile and movement of those
rosy lips, that you might have sworn the shadow of each passed there; it
was like the rapid changes of an April heaven reflected upon a valley.
She was somewhat, but not much, taller that the ordinary height; and her
figure, which united all the first freshness and youth of the girl with
the more luxuriant graces of the woman, was rounded and finished so
justly, so minutely, that the eye could glance over the whole, without
discovering the least harshness or unevenness, or atom, to be added or
subtracted. But over all these was a light, a glow, a pervading spirit,
of which it is impossible to convey the faintest idea. You should have
seen her by the side of a shaded fountain on a summer’s day. You should
have watched her amidst music and flowers, and she might have seemed
to you like the fairy that presided over both. So much for poetical
description.
“What think you of her, Vincent?” said I.
“I say, with Theocritus, in his epithalamium of Helen--”
“Say no such thing,” said I: “I will not have her presence profaned by
any helps from your memory.”
At that moment the girl turned round abruptly, and re-entered the shop,
at the door of which she had been standing. It was a small perfumer’s
shop. “Thank Heaven,” said I, “that she does use perfumes. What scents
can she now be hesitating between?--the gentle bouquet du roi, the
cooling esprit de Portugal, the mingled treasures des mellifleurs, the
less distinct but agreeably adulterated miel, the sweet May-recalling
esprit des violets, or the--”
“Omnis copia narium,” said Vincent: “let us enter; I want some eau de
Cologne.”
I desired no second invitation: we marched into the shop. My Armida was
leaning on the arm of an old lady. She blushed deeply when she saw
us enter; and, as ill-luck would have it, the old lady concluded her
purchases the moment after, and they withdrew.
“‘Who had thought this clime had held A deity so unparallel’d!’”
justly observed my companion.
I made no reply. All the remainder of that day I was absent and
reserved; and Vincent, perceiving that I no longer laughed at his jokes,
nor smiled at his quotations, told me I was sadly changed for the worse,
and pretended an engagement, to rid himself of an auditor so obtuse.