CHAPTER I.

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CONINGSBY

OR THE NEW GENERATION

By Benjamin Disraeli

Earl Of Beaconsfield

PUBLISHERS’ NOTE

As a novelist, Benjamin Disraeli belongs to the early part of the

nineteenth century. “Vivian Grey” (1826-27) and “Sybil” (1845) mark

the beginning and the end of his truly creative period; for the two

productions of his latest years, “Lothair” (1870) and “Endymion” (1880),

add nothing to the characteristics of his earlier volumes except the

changes of feeling and power which accompany old age. His period, thus,

is that of Bulwer, Dickens, and Thackeray, and of the later years of Sir

Walter Scott--a fact which his prominence as a statesman during the last

decade of his life, as well as the vogue of “Lothair” and “Endymion,”

has tended to obscure. His style, his material, and his views of English

character and life all date from that earlier time. He was born in 1804

and died in 1881.

“Coningsby; or, The New Generation,” published in 1844, is the best

of his novels, not as a story, but as a study of men, manners, and

principles. The plot is slight--little better than a device for

stringing together sketches of character and statements of political and

economic opinions; but these are always interesting and often brilliant.

The motive which underlies the book is political. It is, in brief, an

attempt to show that the political salvation of England was to be sought

in its aristocracy, but that this aristocracy was morally weak and

socially ineffective, and that it must mend its ways before its duty to

the state could be fulfilled. Interest in this aspect of the book has,

of course, to a large extent passed away with the political conditions

which it reflected. As a picture of aristocratic life in England in

the first part of the nineteenth century it has, however, enduring

significance and charm. Disraeli does not rank with the great writers

of English realistic fiction, but in this special field none of them

has surpassed him. From this point of view, accordingly, “Coningsby” is

appropriately included in this series.

TO HENRY HOPE

It is not because this work was conceived and partly executed amid the

glades and galleries of the DEEPDENE that I have inscribed it with your

name. Nor merely because I was desirous to avail myself of the most

graceful privilege of an author, and dedicate my work to the friend

whose talents I have always appreciated, and whose virtues I have ever

admired.

But because in these pages I have endeavoured to picture something of

that development of the new and, as I believe, better mind of England,

that has often been the subject of our converse and speculation.

In this volume you will find many a thought illustrated and many a

principle attempted to be established that we have often together

partially discussed and canvassed.

Doubtless you may encounter some opinions with which you may not

agree, and some conclusions the accuracy of which you may find cause

to question. But if I have generally succeeded in my object, to scatter

some suggestions that may tend to elevate the tone of public life,

ascertain the true character of political parties, and induce us for

the future more carefully to distinguish between facts and phrases,

realities and phantoms, I believe that I shall gain your sympathy, for

I shall find a reflex to their efforts in your own generous spirit and

enlightened mind.

GROSVENOR GATE: May Day 1844.

PREFACE

‘CONINGSBY’ was published in the year 1844. The main purpose of its

writer was to vindicate the just claims of the Tory party to be the

popular political confederation of the country; a purpose which he had,

more or less, pursued from a very early period of life. The occasion

was favourable to the attempt. The youthful mind of England had just

recovered from the inebriation of the great Conservative triumph of

1841, and was beginning to inquire what, after all, they had conquered

to preserve. It was opportune, therefore, to show that Toryism was not

a phrase, but a fact; and that our political institutions were the

embodiment of our popular necessities. This the writer endeavoured to do

without prejudice, and to treat of events and characters of which he had

some personal experience, not altogether without the impartiality of the

future.

It was not originally the intention of the writer to adopt the form

of fiction as the instrument to scatter his suggestions, but, after

reflection, he resolved to avail himself of a method which, in the

temper of the times, offered the best chance of influencing opinion.

In considering the Tory scheme, the author recognised in the CHURCH the

most powerful agent in the previous development of England, and the most

efficient means of that renovation of the national spirit at which

he aimed. The Church is a sacred corporation for the promulgation and

maintenance in Europe of certain Asian principles, which, although

local in their birth, are of divine origin, and of universal and eternal

application.

In asserting the paramount character of the ecclesiastical polity and

the majesty of the theocratic principle, it became necessary to ascend

to the origin of the Christian Church, and to meet in a spirit worthy

of a critical and comparatively enlightened age, the position of the

descendants of that race who were the founders of Christianity. The

modern Jews had long laboured under the odium and stigma of mediaeval

malevolence. In the dark ages, when history was unknown, the passions

of societies, undisturbed by traditionary experience, were strong, and

their convictions, unmitigated by criticism, were necessarily fanatical.

The Jews were looked upon in the middle ages as an accursed race, the

enemies of God and man, the especial foes of Christianity. No one in

those days paused to reflect that Christianity was founded by the Jews;

that its Divine Author, in his human capacity, was a descendant of King

David; that his doctrines avowedly were the completion, not the change,

of Judaism; that the Apostles and the Evangelists, whose names men daily

invoked, and whose volumes they embraced with reverence, were all Jews;

that the infallible throne of Rome itself was established by a Jew; and

that a Jew was the founder of the Christian Churches of Asia.

The European nations, relatively speaking, were then only recently

converted to a belief in Moses and in Christ; and, as it were, still

ashamed of the wild deities whom they had deserted, they thought they

atoned for their past idolatry by wreaking their vengeance on a race to

whom, and to whom alone, they were indebted for the Gospel they adored.

In vindicating the sovereign right of the Church of Christ to be the

perpetual regenerator of man, the writer thought the time had arrived

when some attempt should be made to do justice to the race which had

founded Christianity.

The writer has developed in another work [‘Tancred’) the views

respecting the great house of Israel which he first intimated in

‘Coningsby.’ No one has attempted to refute them, nor is refutation

possible; since all he has done is to examine certain facts in the truth

of which all agree, and to draw from them irresistible conclusions which

prejudice for a moment may shrink from, but which reason cannot refuse

to admit.

D.

GROSVENOR GATE: May 1894.

CONINGSBY

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

It was a bright May morning some twelve years ago, when a youth of still

tender age, for he had certainly not entered his teens by more than two

years, was ushered into the waiting-room of a house in the vicinity

of St. James’s Square, which, though with the general appearance of

a private residence, and that too of no very ambitious character,

exhibited at this period symptoms of being occupied for some public

purpose.

The house-door was constantly open, and frequent guests even at this

early hour crossed the threshold. The hall-table was covered with sealed

letters; and the hall-porter inscribed in a book the name of every

individual who entered.

The young gentleman we have mentioned found himself in a room which

offered few resources for his amusement. A large table amply covered

with writing materials, and a few chairs, were its sole furniture,

except the grey drugget that covered the floor, and a muddy mezzotinto

of the Duke of Wellington that adorned its cold walls. There was not

even a newspaper; and the only books were the Court Guide and the London

Directory. For some time he remained with patient endurance planted

against the wall, with his feet resting on the rail of his chair; but

at length in his shifting posture he gave evidence of his restlessness,

rose from his seat, looked out of the window into a small side court of

the house surrounded with dead walls, paced the room, took up the Court

Guide, changed it for the London Directory, then wrote his name over

several sheets of foolscap paper, drew various landscapes and faces of

his friends; and then, splitting up a pen or two, delivered himself of a

yawn which seemed the climax of his weariness.

And yet the youth’s appearance did not betoken a character that, if

the opportunity had offered, could not have found amusement and even

instruction. His countenance, radiant with health and the lustre of

innocence, was at the same time thoughtful and resolute. The expression

of his deep blue eyes was serious. Without extreme regularity of

features, the face was one that would never have passed unobserved. His

short upper lip indicated a good breed; and his chestnut curls clustered

over his open brow, while his shirt-collar thrown over his shoulders

was unrestrained by handkerchief or ribbon. Add to this, a limber and

graceful figure, which the jacket of his boyish dress exhibited to great

advantage.

Just as the youth, mounted on a chair, was adjusting the portrait of the

Duke, which he had observed to be awry, the gentleman for whom he had

been all this time waiting entered the room.

‘Floreat Etona!’ hastily exclaimed the gentleman, in a sharp voice; ‘you

are setting the Duke to rights. I have left you a long time a prisoner;

but I found them so busy here, that I made my escape with some

difficulty.’

He who uttered these words was a man of middle size and age, originally

in all probability of a spare habit, but now a little inclined to

corpulency. Baldness, perhaps, contributed to the spiritual expression

of a brow, which was, however, essentially intellectual, and gave some

character of openness to a countenance which, though not ill-favoured,

was unhappily stamped by a sinister cast that was not to be mistaken.

His manner was easy, but rather audacious than well-bred. Indeed, while

a visage which might otherwise be described as handsome was spoilt by

a dishonest glance, so a demeanour that was by no means deficient in

self-possession and facility, was tainted by an innate vulgarity, which

in the long run, though seldom, yet surely developed itself.

The youth had jumped off his chair on the entrance of the gentleman, and

then taking up his hat, said:

‘Shall we go to grandpapa now, sir?’

‘By all means, my dear boy,’ said the gentleman, putting his arm within

that of the youth; and they were just on the point of leaving

the waiting-room, when the door was suddenly thrown open, and two

individuals, in a state of great excitement, rushed into the apartment.

‘Rigby! Rigby!’ they both exclaimed at the same moment. ‘By G----

they’re out!’

‘Who told you?’

‘The best authority; one of themselves.’

‘Who? who?’

‘Paul Evelyn; I met him as I passed Brookes’, and he told me that Lord

Grey had resigned, and the King had accepted his resignation.’

But Mr. Rigby, who, though very fond of news, and much interested in the

present, was extremely jealous of any one giving him information, was

sceptical. He declared that Paul Evelyn was always wrong; that it was

morally impossible that Paul Evelyn ever could be right; that he knew,

from the highest authority, that Lord Grey had been twice yesterday with

the King; that on the last visit nothing was settled; that if he had

been at the palace again to-day, he could not have been there before

twelve o’clock; that it was only now a quarter to one; that Lord Grey

would have called his colleagues together on his return; that at

least an hour must have elapsed before anything could possibly have

transpired. Then he compared and criticised the dates of every rumoured

incident of the last twenty-four hours, and nobody was stronger in dates

than Mr. Rigby; counted even the number of stairs which the minister

had to ascend and descend in his visit to the palace, and the time their

mountings and dismountings must have consumed, detail was Mr. Rigby’s

forte; and finally, what with his dates, his private information, his

knowledge of palace localities, his contempt for Paul Evelyn, and his

confidence in himself, he succeeded in persuading his downcast and

disheartened friends that their comfortable intelligence had not the

slightest foundation.

They all left the room together; they were in the hall; the gentlemen

who brought the news looked somewhat depressed, but Mr. Rigby gay, even

amid the prostration of his party, from the consciousness that he had

most critically demolished a piece of political gossip and conveyed a

certain degree of mortification to a couple of his companions; when a

travelling carriage and four with a ducal coronet drove up to the house.

The door was thrown open, the steps dashed down, and a youthful noble

sprang from his chariot into the hall.

‘Good morning, Rigby,’ said the Duke.

‘I see your Grace well, I am sure,’ said Mr. Rigby, with a softened

manner.

‘You have heard the news, gentlemen?’ the Duke continued.

‘What news? Yes; no; that is to say, Mr. Rigby thinks--’

‘You know, of course, that Lord Lyndhurst is with the King?’

‘It is impossible,’ said Mr. Rigby.

‘I don’t think I can be mistaken,’ said the Duke, smiling.

‘I will show your Grace that it is impossible,’ said Mr. Rigby, ‘Lord

Lyndhurst slept at Wimbledon. Lord Grey could not have seen the King

until twelve o’clock; it is now five minutes to one. It is impossible,

therefore, that any message from the King could have reached Lord

Lyndhurst in time for his Lordship to be at the palace at this moment.’

‘But my authority is a high one,’ said the Duke.

‘Authority is a phrase,’ said Mr. Rigby; ‘we must look to time and

place, dates and localities, to discover the truth.’

‘Your Grace was saying that your authority--’ ventured to observe Mr.

Tadpole, emboldened by the presence of a duke, his patron, to struggle

against the despotism of a Rigby, his tyrant.

‘Was the highest,’ rejoined the Duke, smiling, ‘for it was Lord

Lyndhurst himself. I came up from Nuneham this morning, passed his

Lordship’s house in Hyde Park Place as he was getting into his carriage

in full dress, stopped my own, and learned in a breath that the Whigs

were out, and that the King had sent for the Chief Baron. So I came on

here at once.’

‘I always thought the country was sound at bottom,’ exclaimed Mr. Taper,

who, under the old system, had sneaked into the Treasury Board.

Tadpole and Taper were great friends. Neither of them ever despaired

of the Commonwealth. Even if the Reform Bill were passed, Taper was

convinced that the Whigs would never prove men of business; and when his

friends confessed among themselves that a Tory Government was for the

future impossible, Taper would remark, in a confidential whisper, that

for his part he believed before the year was over the Whigs would be

turned out by the clerks.

‘There is no doubt that there is considerable reaction,’ said Mr.

Tadpole. The infamous conduct of the Whigs in the Amersham case has

opened the public mind more than anything.’

‘Aldborough was worse,’ said Mr. Taper.

‘Terrible,’ said Tadpole. ‘They said there was no use discussing the

Reform Bill in our House. I believe Rigby’s great speech on Aldborough

has done more towards the reaction than all the violence of the

Political Unions put together.’

‘Let us hope for the best,’ said the Duke, mildly. ‘’Tis a bold step on

the part of the Sovereign, and I am free to say I could have wished it

postponed; but we must support the King like men. What say you, Rigby?

You are silent.’

‘I am thinking how very unfortunate it was that I did not breakfast with

Lyndhurst this morning, as I was nearly doing, instead of going down to

Eton.’

‘To Eton! and why to Eton?’

‘For the sake of my young friend here, Lord Monmouth’s grandson. By the

bye, you are kinsmen. Let me present to your Grace, MR. CONINGSBY.’

CHAPTER II.

The political agitation which for a year and a half had shaken England

to its centre, received, if possible, an increase to its intensity and

virulence, when it was known, in the early part of the month of May,

1832, that the Prime Minister had tendered his resignation to the King,

which resignation had been graciously accepted.

The amendment carried by the Opposition in the House of Lords on the

evening of the 7th of May, that the enfranchising clauses of the

Reform Bill should be considered before entering into the question of

disfranchisement, was the immediate cause of this startling event. The

Lords had previously consented to the second reading of the Bill with

the view of preventing that large increase of their numbers with which

they had been long menaced; rather, indeed, by mysterious rumours than

by any official declaration; but, nevertheless, in a manner which had

carried conviction to no inconsiderable portion of the Opposition that

the threat was not without foundation.

During the progress of the Bill through the Lower House, the journals

which were looked upon as the organs of the ministry had announced with

unhesitating confidence, that Lord Grey was armed with what was then

called a ‘carte blanche’ to create any number of peers necessary to

insure its success. But public journalists who were under the control of

the ministry, and whose statements were never contradicted, were not

the sole authorities for this prevailing belief. Members of the House of

Commons, who were strong supporters of the cabinet, though not connected

with it by any official tie, had unequivocally stated in their places

that the Sovereign had not resisted the advice of his counsellors to

create peers, if such creation were required to carry into effect what

was then styled ‘the great national measure.’ In more than one instance,

ministers had been warned, that if they did not exercise that power with

prompt energy, they might deserve impeachment. And these intimations and

announcements had been made in the presence of leading members of the

Government, and had received from them, at least, the sanction of their

silence.

It did not subsequently appear that the Reform ministers had been

invested with any such power; but a conviction of the reverse, fostered

by these circumstances, had successfully acted upon the nervous

temperament, or the statesman-like prudence, of a certain section of the

peers, who consequently hesitated in their course; were known as being

no longer inclined to pursue their policy of the preceding session; had

thus obtained a title at that moment in everybody’s mouth, the title of

‘THE WAVERERS.’

Notwithstanding, therefore, the opposition of the Duke of Wellington and

of Lord Lyndhurst, the Waverers carried the second reading of the Reform

Bill; and then, scared at the consequences of their own headstrong

timidity, they went in a fright to the Duke and his able adviser to

extricate them from the inevitable result of their own conduct.

The ultimate device of these distracted counsels, where daring and

poltroonery, principle and expediency, public spirit and private

intrigue, each threw an ingredient into the turbulent spell, was the

celebrated and successful amendment to which we have referred.

But the Whig ministers, who, whatever may have been their faults, were

at least men of intellect and courage, were not to be beaten by ‘the

Waverers.’ They might have made terms with an audacious foe; they

trampled on a hesitating opponent. Lord Grey hastened to the palace.

Before the result of this appeal to the Sovereign was known, for its

effects were not immediate, on the second morning after the vote in the

House of Lords, Mr. Rigby had made that visit to Eton which had summoned

very unexpectedly the youthful Coningsby to London. He was the orphan

child of the youngest of the two sons of the Marquess of Monmouth. It

was a family famous for its hatreds. The eldest son hated his father;

and, it was said, in spite had married a lady to whom that father was

attached, and with whom Lord Monmouth then meditated a second alliance.

This eldest son lived at Naples, and had several children, but

maintained no connection either with his parent or his native country.

On the other hand, Lord Monmouth hated his younger son, who had married,

against his consent, a woman to whom that son was devoted. A system of

domestic persecution, sustained by the hand of a master, had eventually

broken up the health of its victim, who died of a fever in a foreign

country, where he had sought some refuge from his creditors.

His widow returned to England with her child; and, not having a

relation, and scarcely an acquaintance in the world, made an appeal to

her husband’s father, the wealthiest noble in England and a man who was

often prodigal, and occasionally generous. After some time, and

more trouble, after urgent and repeated, and what would have seemed

heart-rending, solicitations, the attorney of Lord Monmouth called

upon the widow of his client’s son, and informed her of his Lordship’s

decision. Provided she gave up her child, and permanently resided in

one of the remotest counties, he was authorised to make her, in four

quarterly payments, the yearly allowance of three hundred pounds, that

being the income that Lord Monmouth, who was the shrewdest accountant in

the country, had calculated a lone woman might very decently exist upon

in a small market town in the county of Westmoreland.

Desperate necessity, the sense of her own forlornness, the utter

impossibility to struggle with an omnipotent foe, who, her husband had

taught her, was above all scruples, prejudices, and fears, and who,

though he respected law, despised opinion, made the victim yield. But

her sufferings were not long; the separation from her child, the bleak

clime, the strange faces around her, sharp memory, and the dull routine

of an unimpassioned life, all combined to wear out a constitution

originally frail, and since shattered by many sorrows. Mrs. Coningsby

died the same day that her father-in-law was made a Marquess. He

deserved his honours. The four votes he had inherited in the House of

Commons had been increased, by his intense volition and unsparing means,

to ten; and the very day he was raised to his Marquisate, he commenced

sapping fresh corporations, and was working for the strawberry leaf. His

honours were proclaimed in the London Gazette, and her decease was not

even noticed in the County Chronicle; but the altars of Nemesis are

beneath every outraged roof, and the death of this unhappy lady,

apparently without an earthly friend or an earthly hope, desolate and

deserted, and dying in obscure poverty, was not forgotten.

Coningsby was not more than nine years of age when he lost his last

parent; and he had then been separated from her for nearly three years.

But he remembered the sweetness of his nursery days. His mother,

too, had written to him frequently since he quitted her, and her fond

expressions had cherished the tenderness of his heart. He wept bitterly

when his schoolmaster broke to him the news of his mother’s death. True

it was they had been long parted, and their prospect of again meeting

was vague and dim; but his mother seemed to him his only link to human

society. It was something to have a mother, even if he never saw her.

Other boys went to see their mothers! he, at least, could talk of his.

Now he was alone. His grandfather was to him only a name. Lord Monmouth

resided almost constantly abroad, and during his rare visits to England

had found no time or inclination to see the orphan, with whom he felt

no sympathy. Even the death of the boy’s mother, and the consequent

arrangements, were notified to his master by a stranger. The letter

which brought the sad intelligence was from Mr. Rigby. It was the first

time that name had been known to Coningsby.

Mr. Rigby was member for one of Lord Monmouth’s boroughs. He was the

manager of Lord Monmouth’s parliamentary influence, and the auditor of

his vast estates. He was more; he was Lord Monmouth’s companion when in

England, his correspondent when abroad; hardly his counsellor, for Lord

Monmouth never required advice; but Mr. Rigby could instruct him

in matters of detail, which Mr. Rigby made amusing. Rigby was not a

professional man; indeed, his origin, education, early pursuits, and

studies, were equally obscure; but he had contrived in good time to

squeeze himself into parliament, by means which no one could ever

comprehend, and then set up to be a perfect man of business. The world

took him at his word, for he was bold, acute, and voluble; with no

thought, but a good deal of desultory information; and though destitute

of all imagination and noble sentiment, was blessed with a vigorous,

mendacious fancy, fruitful in small expedients, and never happier than

when devising shifts for great men’s scrapes.

They say that all of us have one chance in this life, and so it was with

Rigby. After a struggle of many years, after a long series of the

usual alternatives of small successes and small failures, after a

few cleverish speeches and a good many cleverish pamphlets, with a

considerable reputation, indeed, for pasquinades, most of which he

never wrote, and articles in reviews to which it was whispered he had

contributed, Rigby, who had already intrigued himself into a subordinate

office, met with Lord Monmouth.

He was just the animal that Lord Monmouth wanted, for Lord Monmouth

always looked upon human nature with the callous eye of a jockey. He

surveyed Rigby; and he determined to buy him. He bought him; with his

clear head, his indefatigable industry, his audacious tongue, and his

ready and unscrupulous pen; with all his dates, all his lampoons; all

his private memoirs, and all his political intrigues. It was a good

purchase. Rigby became a great personage, and Lord Monmouth’s man.

Mr. Rigby, who liked to be doing a great many things at the same time,

and to astonish the Tadpoles and Tapers with his energetic versatility,

determined to superintend the education of Coningsby. It was a relation

which identified him with the noble house of his pupil, or, properly

speaking, his charge: for Mr. Rigby affected rather the graceful dignity

of the governor than the duties of a tutor. The boy was recalled

from his homely, rural school, where he had been well grounded by

a hard-working curate, and affectionately tended by the curate’s

unsophisticated wife. He was sent to a fashionable school preparatory

to Eton, where he found about two hundred youths of noble families

and connections, lodged in a magnificent villa, that had once been

the retreat of a minister, superintended by a sycophantic Doctor of

Divinity, already well beneficed, and not despairing of a bishopric by

favouring the children of the great nobles. The doctor’s lady, clothed

in cashmeres, sometimes inquired after their health, and occasionally

received a report as to their linen.

Mr. Rigby had a classical retreat, not distant from this establishment,

which he esteemed a Tusculum. There, surrounded by his busts and books,

he wrote his lampoons and articles; massacred a she liberal (it was

thought that no one could lash a woman like Rigby), cut up a rising

genius whose politics were different from his own, or scarified some

unhappy wretch who had brought his claims before parliament, proving,

by garbled extracts from official correspondence that no one could refer

to, that the malcontent instead of being a victim, was, on the contrary,

a defaulter. Tadpole and Taper would back Rigby for a ‘slashing reply’

against the field. Here, too, at the end of a busy week, he found it

occasionally convenient to entertain a clever friend or two of equivocal

reputation, with whom he had become acquainted in former days of equal

brotherhood. No one was more faithful to his early friends than Mr.

Rigby, particularly if they could write a squib.

It was in this refined retirement that Mr. Rigby found time enough,

snatched from the toils of official life and parliamentary struggles,

to compose a letter on the study of History, addressed to Coningsby.

The style was as much like that of Lord Bolingbroke as if it had been

written by the authors of the ‘Rejected Addresses,’ and it began, ‘My

dear young friend.’ This polished composition, so full of good feeling

and comprehensive views, and all in the best taste, was not published.

It was only privately printed, and a few thousand copies were

distributed among select personages as an especial favour and mark

of high consideration. Each copy given away seemed to Rigby like a

certificate of character; a property which, like all men of dubious

repute, he thoroughly appreciated. Rigby intrigued very much that the

headmaster of Eton should adopt his discourse as a class-book. For this

purpose he dined with the Doctor, told him several anecdotes of the

King, which intimated personal influence at Windsor; but the headmaster

was inflexible, and so Mr. Rigby was obliged to be content with

having his Letter on History canonized as a classic in the Preparatory

Seminary, where the individual to whom it was addressed was a scholar.

This change in the life of Coningsby contributed to his happiness. The

various characters which a large school exhibited interested a young

mind whose active energies were beginning to stir. His previous

acquirements made his studies light; and he was fond of sports, in which

he was qualified to excel. He did not particularly like Mr. Rigby. There

was something jarring and grating in that gentleman’s voice and modes,

from which the chords of the young heart shrank. He was not tender,

though perhaps he wished to be; scarcely kind: but he was good-natured,

at least to children. However, this connection was, on the whole, an

agreeable one for Coningsby. He seemed suddenly to have friends: he

never passed his holydays again at school. Mr. Rigby was so clever that

he contrived always to quarter Coningsby on the father of one of his

school-fellows, for Mr. Rigby knew all his school-fellows and all their

fathers. Mr. Rigby also called to see him, not unfrequently would give

him a dinner at the Star and Garter, or even have him up to town for

a week to Whitehall. Compared with his former forlorn existence, these

were happy days, when he was placed under the gallery as a member’s son,

or went to the play with the butler!

When Coningsby had attained his twelfth year, an order was received from

Lord Monmouth, who was at Rome, that he should go at once to Eton.

This was the first great epoch of his life. There never was a youth

who entered into that wonderful little world with more eager zest than

Coningsby. Nor was it marvellous.

That delicious plain, studded with every creation of graceful

culture; hamlet and hall and grange; garden and grove and park; that

castle-palace, grey with glorious ages; those antique spires, hoar with

faith and wisdom, the chapel and the college; that river winding through

the shady meads; the sunny glade and the solemn avenue; the room in the

Dame’s house where we first order our own breakfast and first feel we

are free; the stirring multitude, the energetic groups, the individual

mind that leads, conquers, controls; the emulation and the affection;

the noble strife and the tender sentiment; the daring exploit and the

dashing scrape; the passion that pervades our life, and breathes in

everything, from the aspiring study to the inspiring sport: oh! what

hereafter can spur the brain and touch the heart like this; can give us

a world so deeply and variously interesting; a life so full of quick and

bright excitement, passed in a scene so fair?

CHAPTER III.

Lord Monmouth, who detested popular tumults as much as he despised

public opinion, had remained during the agitating year of 1831 in his

luxurious retirement in Italy, contenting himself with opposing the

Reform Bill by proxy. But when his correspondent, Mr. Rigby, had

informed him, in the early part of the spring of 1832, of the

probability of a change in the tactics of the Tory party, and that

an opinion was becoming prevalent among their friends, that the great

scheme must be defeated in detail rather than again withstood on

principle, his Lordship, who was never wanting in energy when his own

interests were concerned, immediately crossed the Alps, and travelled

rapidly to England. He indulged a hope that the weight of his presence

and the influence of his strong character, which was at once shrewd and

courageous, might induce his friends to relinquish their half measure,

a course to which his nature was repugnant. At all events, if they

persisted in their intention, and the Bill went into committee, his

presence was indispensable, for in that stage of a parliamentary

proceeding proxies become ineffective.

The counsels of Lord Monmouth, though they coincided with those of the

Duke of Wellington, did not prevail with the Waverers. Several of these

high-minded personages had had their windows broken, and they were of

opinion that a man who lived at Naples was not a competent judge of the

state of public feeling in England. Besides, the days are gone by for

senates to have their beards plucked in the forum. We live in an age of

prudence. The leaders of the people, now, generally follow. The truth

is, the peers were in a fright. ‘Twas a pity; there is scarcely a less

dignified entity than a patrician in a panic.

Among the most intimate companions of Coningsby at Eton, was Lord Henry

Sydney, his kinsman. Coningsby had frequently passed his holydays of

late at Beaumanoir, the seat of the Duke, Lord Henry’s father. The

Duke sat next to Lord Monmouth during the debate on the enfranchising

question, and to while away the time, and from kindness of disposition,

spoke, and spoke with warmth and favour, of his grandson. The polished

Lord Monmouth bowed as if he were much gratified by this notice of one

so dear to him. He had too much tact to admit that he had never yet

seen his grandchild; but he asked some questions as to his progress

and pursuits, his tastes and habits, which intimated the interest of an

affectionate relative.

Nothing, however, was ever lost upon Lord Monmouth. No one had a more

retentive memory, or a more observant mind. And the next day, when he

received Mr. Rigby at his morning levee, Lord Monmouth performed this

ceremony in the high style of the old court, and welcomed his visitors

in bed, he said with imperturbable calmness, and as if he had been

talking of trying a new horse, ‘Rigby, I should like to see the boy at

Eton.’

There might be some objection to grant leave to Coningsby at this

moment; but it was a rule with Mr. Rigby never to make difficulties, or

at least to persuade his patron that he, and he only, could remove

them. He immediately undertook that the boy should be forthcoming, and

notwithstanding the excitement of the moment, he went off next morning

to fetch him.

They arrived in town rather early; and Rigby, wishing to know how

affairs were going on, ordered the servant to drive immediately to the

head-quarters of the party; where a permanent committee watched every

phasis of the impending revolution; and where every member of the

Opposition, of note and trust, was instantly admitted to receive or to

impart intelligence.

It was certainly not without emotion that Coningsby contemplated his

first interview with his grandfather. All his experience of the ties of

relationship, however limited, was full of tenderness and rapture. His

memory often dwelt on his mother’s sweet embrace; and ever and anon a

fitful phantom of some past passage of domestic love haunted his gushing

heart. The image of his father was less fresh in his mind; but still

it was associated with a vague sentiment of kindness and joy; and the

allusions to her husband in his mother’s letters had cherished these

impressions. To notice lesser sources of influence in his estimate of

the domestic tie, he had witnessed under the roof of Beaumanoir the

existence of a family bound together by the most beautiful affections.

He could not forget how Henry Sydney was embraced by his sisters when he

returned home; what frank and fraternal love existed between his kinsman

and his elder brother; how affectionately the kind Duke had welcomed his

son once more to the house where they had both been born; and the dim

eyes, and saddened brows, and tones of tenderness, which rather looked

than said farewell, when they went back to Eton.

And these rapturous meetings and these mournful adieus were occasioned

only by a separation at the most of a few months, softened by constant

correspondence and the communication of mutual sympathy. But Coningsby

was to meet a relation, his near, almost his only, relation, for the

first time; the relation, too, to whom he owed maintenance, education;

it might be said, existence. It was a great incident for a great drama;

something tragical in the depth and stir of its emotions. Even the

imagination of the boy could not be insensible to its materials; and

Coningsby was picturing to himself a beneficent and venerable gentleman

pressing to his breast an agitated youth, when his reverie was broken by

the carriage stopping before the gates of Monmouth House.

The gates were opened by a gigantic Swiss, and the carriage rolled into

a huge court-yard. At its end Coningsby beheld a Palladian palace, with

wings and colonnades encircling the court.

A double flight of steps led into a circular and marble hall, adorned

with colossal busts of the Caesars; the staircase in fresco by Sir James

Thornhill, breathed with the loves and wars of gods and heroes. It led

into a vestibule, painted in arabesques, hung with Venetian girandoles,

and looking into gardens. Opening a door in this chamber, and proceeding

some little way down a corridor, Mr. Rigby and his companion arrived at

the base of a private staircase. Ascending a few steps, they reached a

landing-place hung with tapestry. Drawing this aside, Mr. Rigby opened a

door, and ushered Coningsby through an ante-chamber into a small saloon,

of beautiful proportions, and furnished in a brilliant and delicate

taste.

‘You will find more to amuse you here than where you were before,’ said

Mr. Rigby, ‘and I shall not be nearly so long absent.’ So saying, he

entered into an inner apartment.

The walls of the saloon, which were covered with light blue satin, held,

in silver panels, portraits of beautiful women, painted by Boucher.

Couches and easy chairs of every shape invited in every quarter to

luxurious repose; while amusement was afforded by tables covered with

caricatures, French novels, and endless miniatures of foreign dancers,

princesses, and sovereigns.

But Coningsby was so impressed with the impending interview with his

grandfather, that he neither sought nor required diversion. Now that the

crisis was at hand, he felt agitated and nervous, and wished that he was

again at Eton. The suspense was sickening, yet he dreaded still more the

summons. He was not long alone; the door opened; he started, grew pale;

he thought it was his grandfather; it was not even Mr. Rigby. It was

Lord Monmouth’s valet.

‘Monsieur Konigby?’

‘My name is Coningsby,’ said the boy.

‘Milor is ready to receive you,’ said the valet.

Coningsby sprang forward with that desperation which the scaffold

requires. His face was pale; his hand was moist; his heart beat with

tumult. He had occasionally been summoned by Dr. Keate; that, too,

was awful work, but compared with the present, a morning visit. Music,

artillery, the roar of cannon, and the blare of trumpets, may urge a man

on to a forlorn hope; ambition, one’s constituents, the hell of previous

failure, may prevail on us to do a more desperate thing; speak in the

House of Commons; but there are some situations in life, such, for

instance, as entering the room of a dentist, in which the prostration of

the nervous system is absolute.

The moment had at length arrived when the desolate was to find a

benefactor, the forlorn a friend, the orphan a parent; when the youth,

after a childhood of adversity, was to be formally received into the

bosom of the noble house from which he had been so long estranged, and

at length to assume that social position to which his lineage entitled

him. Manliness might support, affection might soothe, the happy anguish

of such a meeting; but it was undoubtedly one of those situations

which stir up the deep fountains of our nature, and before which the

conventional proprieties of our ordinary manners instantaneously vanish.

Coningsby with an uncertain step followed his guide through a

bed-chamber, the sumptuousness of which he could not notice, into

the dressing-room of Lord Monmouth. Mr. Rigby, facing Coningsby as

he entered, was leaning over the back of a large chair, from which as

Coningsby was announced by the valet, the Lord of the house slowly rose,

for he was suffering slightly from the gout, his left hand resting on

an ivory stick. Lord Monmouth was in height above the middle size, but

somewhat portly and corpulent. His countenance was strongly marked;

sagacity on the brow, sensuality in the mouth and jaw. His head was

bald, but there were remains of the rich brown locks on which he once

prided himself. His large deep blue eye, madid and yet piercing,

showed that the secretions of his brain were apportioned, half to

voluptuousness, half to common sense. But his general mien was truly

grand; full of a natural nobility, of which no one was more sensible

than himself. Lord Monmouth was not in dishabille; on the contrary, his

costume was exact, and even careful. Rising as we have mentioned when

his grandson entered, and leaning with his left hand on his ivory cane,

he made Coningsby such a bow as Louis Quatorze might have bestowed on

the ambassador of the United Provinces. Then extending his right hand,

which the boy tremblingly touched, Lord Monmouth said:

‘How do you like Eton?’

This contrast to the reception which he had imagined, hoped, feared,

paralysed the reviving energies of young Coningsby. He felt stupefied;

he looked almost aghast. In the chaotic tumult of his mind, his memory

suddenly seemed to receive some miraculous inspiration. Mysterious

phrases heard in his earliest boyhood, unnoticed then, long since

forgotten, rose to his ear. Who was this grandfather, seen not before,

seen now for the first time? Where was the intervening link of blood

between him and this superb and icy being? The boy sank into the chair

which had been placed for him, and leaning on the table burst into

tears.

Here was a business! If there were one thing which would have made Lord

Monmouth travel from London to Naples at four-and-twenty hours’ notice,

it was to avoid a scene. He hated scenes. He hated feelings. He saw

instantly the mistake he had made in sending for his grandchild. He

was afraid that Coningsby was tender-hearted like his father. Another

tender-hearted Coningsby! Unfortunate family! Degenerate race! He

decided in his mind that Coningsby must be provided for in the Church,

and looked at Mr. Rigby, whose principal business it always was to

disembarrass his patron from the disagreeable.

Mr. Rigby instantly came forward and adroitly led the boy into the

adjoining apartment, Lord Monmouth’s bedchamber, closing the door of the

dressing-room behind him.

‘My dear young friend,’ said Mr. Rigby, ‘what is all this?’

A sob the only answer.

‘What can be the matter?’ said Mr. Rigby.

‘I was thinking,’ said Coningsby, ‘of poor mamma!’

‘Hush!’ said Mr. Rigby; ‘Lord Monmouth never likes to hear of people

who are dead; so you must take care never to mention your mother or your

father.’

In the meantime Lord Monmouth had decided on the fate of Coningsby. The

Marquis thought he could read characters by a glance, and in general

he was successful, for his natural sagacity had been nurtured by great

experience. His grandson was not to his taste; amiable no doubt, but

spooney.

We are too apt to believe that the character of a boy is easily read.

‘Tis a mystery the most profound. Mark what blunders parents constantly

make as to the nature of their own offspring, bred, too, under their

eyes, and displaying every hour their characteristics. How often in the

nursery does the genius count as a dunce because he is pensive; while a

rattling urchin is invested with almost supernatural qualities because

his animal spirits make him impudent and flippant! The school-boy, above

all others, is not the simple being the world imagines. In that young

bosom are often stirring passions as strong as our own, desires not less

violent, a volition not less supreme. In that young bosom what burning

love, what intense ambition, what avarice, what lust of power; envy that

fiends might emulate, hate that man might fear!

CHAPTER IV.

‘Come,’ said Mr. Rigby, when Coningsby was somewhat composed, ‘come with

me and we will see the house.’

So they descended once more the private staircase, and again entered the

vestibule.

‘If you had seen these gardens when they were illuminated for a fête to

George IV.,’ said Rigby, as crossing the chamber he ushered his charge

into the state apartments. The splendour and variety of the surrounding

objects soon distracted the attention of the boy, for the first time in

the palace of his fathers. He traversed saloon after saloon hung with

rare tapestry and the gorgeous products of foreign looms; filled with

choice pictures and creations of curious art; cabinets that sovereigns

might envy, and colossal vases of malachite presented by emperors.

Coningsby alternately gazed up to ceilings glowing with color and with

gold, and down upon carpets bright with the fancies and vivid with the

tints of Aubusson and of Axminster.

‘This grandfather of mine is a great prince,’ thought Coningsby, as

musing he stood before a portrait in which he recognised the features of

the being from whom he had so recently and so strangely parted. There

he stood, Philip Augustus, Marquess of Monmouth, in his robes of state,

with his new coronet on a table near him, a despatch lying at hand that

indicated the special mission of high ceremony of which he had been the

illustrious envoy, and the garter beneath his knee.

‘You will have plenty of opportunities to look at the pictures,’ said

Rigby, observing that the boy had now quite recovered himself. ‘Some

luncheon will do you no harm after our drive;’ and he opened the door of

another apartment.

It was a pretty room adorned with a fine picture of the chase; at a

round table in the centre sat two ladies interested in the meal to which

Rigby had alluded.

‘Ah, Mr. Rigby!’ said the eldest, yet young and beautiful, and speaking,

though with fluency, in a foreign accent, ‘come and tell me some news.

Have you seen Milor?’ and then she threw a scrutinizing glance from a

dark flashing eye at his companion.

‘Let me present to your Highness,’ said Rigby, with an air of some

ceremony, ‘Mr. Coningsby.’

‘My dear young friend,’ said the lady, extending her white hand with

an air of joyous welcome, ‘this is Lucretia, my daughter. We love you

already. Lord Monmouth will be so charmed to see you. What beautiful

eyes he has, Mr. Rigby. Quite like Milor.’

The young lady, who was really more youthful than Coningsby, but of a

form and stature so developed that she appeared almost a woman, bowed

to the guest with some ceremony, and a faint sullen smile, and then

proceeded with her Perigord pie.

‘You must be so hungry after your drive,’ said the elder lady, placing

Coningsby at her side, and herself filling his plate.

This was true enough; and while Mr. Rigby and the lady talked an

infinite deal about things which he did not understand, and persons

of whom he had never heard, our little hero made his first meal in his

paternal house with no ordinary zest; and renovated by the pasty and

a glass of sherry, felt altogether a different being from what he

was, when he had undergone the terrible interview in which he began to

reflect he had considerably exposed himself. His courage revived,

his senses rallied, he replied to the interrogations of the lady with

calmness, but with promptness and propriety. It was evident that he had

made a favourable impression on her Highness, for ever and anon she put

a truffle or some delicacy in his plate, and insisted upon his taking

some particular confectionery, because it was a favourite of her own.

When she rose, she said,--

‘In ten minutes the carriage will be at the door; and if you like, my

dear young friend, you shall be our beau.’

‘There is nothing I should like so much,’ said Coningsby.

‘Ah!’ said the lady, with the sweetest smile, ‘he is frank.’

The ladies bowed and retired; Mr. Rigby returned to the Marquess, and

the groom of the chambers led Coningsby to his room.

This lady, so courteous to Coningsby, was the Princess Colonna, a Roman

dame, the second wife of Prince Paul Colonna. The prince had first

married when a boy, and into a family not inferior to his own. Of this

union, in every respect unhappy, the Princess Lucretia was the sole

offspring. He was a man dissolute and devoted to play; and cared for

nothing much but his pleasures and billiards, in which latter he was

esteemed unrivalled. According to some, in a freak of passion, according

to others, to cancel a gambling debt, he had united himself to his

present wife, whose origin was obscure; but with whom he contrived to

live on terms of apparent cordiality, for she was much admired, and

made the society of her husband sought by those who contributed to his

enjoyment. Among these especially figured the Marquess of Monmouth,

between whom and Prince Colonna the world recognised as existing the

most intimate and entire friendship, so that his Highness and his family

were frequent guests under the roof of the English nobleman, and now

accompanied him on a visit to England.

CHAPTER V.

In the meantime, while ladies are luncheoning on Perigord pie, or

coursing in whirling britskas, performing all the singular ceremonies of

a London morning in the heart of the season; making visits where nobody

is seen, and making purchases which are not wanted; the world is in

agitation and uproar. At present the world and the confusion are limited

to St. James’s Street and Pall Mall; but soon the boundaries and the

tumult will be extended to the intended metropolitan boroughs; to-morrow

they will spread over the manufacturing districts. It is perfectly

evident, that before eight-and-forty hours have passed, the country will

be in a state of fearful crisis. And how can it be otherwise? Is it not

a truth that the subtle Chief Baron has been closeted one whole hour

with the King; that shortly after, with thoughtful brow and compressed

lip, he was marked in his daring chariot entering the courtyard of

Apsley House? Great was the panic at Brookes’, wild the hopes of

Carlton Terrace; all the gentlemen who expected to have been made peers

perceived that the country was going to be given over to a rapacious

oligarchy.

In the meantime Tadpole and Taper, who had never quitted for an instant

the mysterious head-quarters of the late Opposition, were full of

hopes and fears, and asked many questions, which they chiefly answered

themselves.

‘I wonder what Lord Lyndhurst will say to the king,’ said Taper.

‘He has plenty of pluck,’ said Tadpole.

‘I almost wish now that Rigby had breakfasted with him this morning,’

said Taper.

‘If the King be firm, and the country sound,’ said Tadpole, ‘and Lord

Monmouth keep his boroughs, I should not wonder to see Rigby made a

privy councillor.’

‘There is no precedent for an under-secretary being a privy councillor,’

said Taper.

‘But we live in revolutionary times,’ said Tadpole.

‘Gentlemen,’ said the groom of the chambers, in a loud voice, entering

the room, ‘I am desired to state that the Duke of Wellington is with the

King.’

‘There _is_ a Providence!’ exclaimed an agitated gentleman, the patent

of whose intended peerage had not been signed the day that the Duke had

quited office in 1830.

‘I always thought the King would be firm,’ said Mr. Tadpole.

‘I wonder who will have the India Board,’ said Taper.

At this moment three or four gentlemen entered the room in a state of

great bustle and excitement; they were immediately surrounded.

‘Is it true?’ ‘Quite true; not the slightest doubt. Saw him myself. Not

at all hissed; certainly not hooted. Perhaps a little hissed. One

fellow really cheered him. Saw him myself. Say what they like, there is

reaction.’ ‘But Constitution Hill, they say?’ ‘Well, there was a sort

of inclination to a row on Constitution Hill; but the Duke quite firm;

pistols, and carriage doors bolted.’

Such may give a faint idea of the anxious inquiries and the satisfactory

replies that were occasioned by the entrance of this group.

‘Up, guards, and at them!’ exclaimed Tadpole, rubbing his hands in a fit

of patriotic enthusiasm.

Later in the afternoon, about five o’clock, the high change of political

gossip, when the room was crowded, and every one had his rumour, Mr.

Rigby looked in again to throw his eye over the evening papers, and

catch in various chit-chat the tone of public or party feeling on the

‘crisis.’ Then it was known that the Duke had returned from the

King, having accepted the charge of forming an administration. An

administration to do what? Portentous question! Were concessions to

be made? And if so, what? Was it altogether impossible, and too late,

‘stare super vias antiquas?’ Questions altogether above your Tadpoles

and your Tapers, whose idea of the necessities of the age was that they

themselves should be in office.

Lord Eskdale came up to Mr. Rigby. This peer was a noble Croesus,

acquainted with all the gradations of life; a voluptuary who could be a

Spartan; clear-sighted, unprejudiced, sagacious; the best judge in the

world of a horse or a man; he was the universal referee; a quarrel about

a bet or a mistress was solved by him in a moment, and in a manner which

satisfied both parties. He patronised and appreciated the fine arts,

though a jockey; respected literary men, though he only read French

novels; and without any affectation of tastes which he did not possess,

was looked upon by every singer and dancer in Europe as their natural

champion. The secret of his strong character and great influence was his

self-composure, which an earthquake or a Reform Bill could not disturb,

and which in him was the result of temperament and experience. He was

an intimate acquaintance of Lord Monmouth, for they had many tastes

in common; were both men of considerable, and in some degree similar

abilities; and were the two greatest proprietors of close boroughs in

the country.

‘Do you dine at Monmouth House to-day?’ inquired Lord Eskdale of Mr.

Rigby.

‘Where I hope to meet your lordship. The Whig papers are very subdued,’

continued Mr. Rigby.

‘Ah! they have not the cue yet,’ said Lord Eskdale.

‘And what do you think of affairs?’ inquired his companion.

‘I think the hounds are too hot to hark off now,’ said Lord Eskdale.

‘There is one combination,’ said Rigby, who seemed meditating an attack

on Lord Eskdale’s button.

‘Give it us at dinner,’ said Lord Eskdale, who knew his man, and made an

adroit movement forwards, as if he were very anxious to see the _Globe_

newspaper.

In the course of two or three hours these gentlemen met again in the

green drawing-room of Monmouth House. Mr. Rigby was sitting on a sofa

by Lord Monmouth, detailing in whispers all his gossip of the morn:

Lord Eskdale murmuring quaint inquiries into the ear of the Princess

Lucretia.

Madame Colonna made remarks alternately to two gentlemen, who paid her

assiduous court. One of these was Mr. Ormsby; the school, the college,

and the club crony of Lord Monmouth, who had been his shadow through

life; travelled with him in early days, won money with him at play, had

been his colleague in the House of Commons; and was still one of his

nominees. Mr. Ormsby was a millionaire, which Lord Monmouth liked. He

liked his companions to be very rich or very poor; be his equals, able

to play with him at high stakes, or join him in a great speculation; or

to be his tools, and to amuse and serve him. There was nothing which he

despised and disliked so much as a moderate fortune.

The other gentleman was of a different class and character. Nature had

intended Lucian Gay for a scholar and a wit; necessity had made him a

scribbler and a buffoon. He had distinguished himself at the University;

but he had no patrimony, nor those powers of perseverance which success

in any learned profession requires. He was good-looking, had great

animal spirits, and a keen sense of enjoyment, and could not drudge.

Moreover he had a fine voice, and sang his own songs with considerable

taste; accomplishments which made his fortune in society and completed

his ruin. In due time he extricated himself from the bench and merged

into journalism, by means of which he chanced to become acquainted with

Mr. Rigby. That worthy individual was not slow in detecting the treasure

he had lighted on; a wit, a ready and happy writer, a joyous and

tractable being, with the education, and still the feelings and manners,

of a gentleman. Frequent were the Sunday dinners which found Gay a

guest at Mr. Rigby’s villa; numerous the airy pasquinades which he

left behind, and which made the fortune of his patron. Flattered by

the familiar acquaintance of a man of station, and sanguine that he had

found the link which would sooner or later restore him to the polished

world that he had forfeited, Gay laboured in his vocation with

enthusiasm and success. Willingly would Rigby have kept his treasure

to himself; and truly he hoarded it for a long time, but it oozed out.

Rigby loved the reputation of possessing the complete art of

society. His dinners were celebrated at least for their guests. Great

intellectual illustrations were found there blended with rank and high

station. Rigby loved to patronise; to play the minister unbending and

seeking relief from the cares of council in the society of authors,

artists, and men of science. He liked dukes to dine with him and hear

him scatter his audacious criticisms to Sir Thomas or Sir Humphry.

They went away astounded by the powers of their host, who, had he not

fortunately devoted those powers to their party, must apparently have

rivalled Vandyke, or discovered the safety-lamp.

Now in these dinners, Lucian Gay, who had brilliant conversational

powers, and who possessed all the resources of boon companionship, would

be an invaluable ally. He was therefore admitted, and inspired both

by the present enjoyment, and the future to which it might lead, his

exertions were untiring, various, most successful. Rigby’s dinners

became still, more celebrated. It, however, necessarily followed that

the guests who were charmed by Gay, wished Gay also to be their guest.

Rigby was very jealous of this, but it was inevitable; still by constant

manoeuvre, by intimations of some exercise, some day or other, of

substantial patronage in his behalf, by a thousand little arts by

which he carved out work for Gay which often prevented him accepting

invitations to great houses in the country, by judicious loans of

small sums on Lucian’s notes of hand and other analogous devices, Rigby

contrived to keep the wit in a fair state of bondage and dependence.

One thing Rigby was resolved on: Gay should never get into Monmouth

House. That was an empyrean too high for his wing to soar in. Rigby kept

that social monopoly distinctively to mark the relation that subsisted

between them as patron and client. It was something to swagger about

when they were together after their second bottle of claret. Rigby kept

his resolution for some years, which the frequent and prolonged absence

of the Marquess rendered not very difficult. But we are the creatures

of circumstances; at least the Rigby race particularly. Lord Monmouth

returned to England one year, and wanted to be amused. He wanted a

jester: a man about him who would make him, not laugh, for that was

impossible, but smile more frequently, tell good stories, say good

things, and sing now and then, especially French songs. Early in life

Rigby would have attempted all this, though he had neither fun, voice,

nor ear. But his hold on Lord Monmouth no longer depended on the mere

exercise of agreeable qualities, he had become indispensable to his

lordship, by more serious if not higher considerations. And what with

auditing his accounts, guarding his boroughs, writing him, when absent,

gossip by every post and when in England deciding on every question and

arranging every matter which might otherwise have ruffled the sublime

repose of his patron’s existence, Rigby might be excused if he shrank a

little from the minor part of table wit, particularly when we remember

all his subterranean journalism, his acid squibs, and his malicious

paragraphs, and, what Tadpole called, his ‘slashing articles.’

These ‘slashing articles’ were, indeed, things which, had they appeared

as anonymous pamphlets, would have obtained the contemptuous reception

which in an intellectual view no compositions more surely deserved; but

whispered as the productions of one behind the scenes, and appearing in

the pages of a party review, they were passed off as genuine coin, and

took in great numbers of the lieges, especially in the country. They

were written in a style apparently modelled on the briefs of those sharp

attorneys who weary advocates with their clever commonplace; teasing

with obvious comment, and torturing with inevitable inference. The

affectation of order in the statement of facts had all the lucid method

of an adroit pettifogger. They dealt much in extracts from newspapers,

quotations from the _Annual Register_, parallel passages in forgotten

speeches, arranged with a formidable array of dates rarely accurate.

When the writer was of opinion he had made a point, you may be sure

the hit was in italics, that last resource of the Forcible Feebles. He

handled a particular in chronology as if he were proving an alibi at

the Criminal Court. The censure was coarse without being strong, and

vindictive when it would have been sarcastic. Now and then there was

a passage which aimed at a higher flight, and nothing can be conceived

more unlike genuine feeling, or more offensive to pure taste. And

yet, perhaps, the most ludicrous characteristic of these facetious

gallimaufreys was an occasional assumption of the high moral and

admonitory tone, which when we recurred to the general spirit of

the discourse, and were apt to recall the character of its writer,

irresistibly reminded one of Mrs. Cole and her prayer-book.

To return to Lucian Gay. It was a rule with Rigby that no one, if

possible, should do anything for Lord Monmouth but himself; and as a

jester must be found, he was determined that his Lordship should have

the best in the market, and that he should have the credit of furnishing

the article. As a reward, therefore, for many past services, and a fresh

claim to his future exertions, Rigby one day broke to Gay that the hour

had at length arrived when the highest object of reasonable ambition

on his part, and the fulfilment of one of Rigby’s long-cherished and

dearest hopes, were alike to be realised. Gay was to be presented to

Lord Monmouth and dine at Monmouth House.

The acquaintance was a successful one; very agreeable to both parties.

Gay became an habitual guest of Lord Monmouth when his patron was in

England; and in his absence received frequent and substantial marks

of his kind recollection, for Lord Monmouth was generous to those who

amused him.

In the meantime the hour of dinner is at hand. Coningsby, who had lost

the key of his carpet-bag, which he finally cut open with a penknife

that he found on his writing-table, and the blade of which he broke

in the operation, only reached the drawing-room as the figure of his

grandfather, leaning on his ivory cane, and following his guests,

was just visible in the distance. He was soon overtaken. Perceiving

Coningsby, Lord Monmouth made him a bow, not so formal a one as in the

morning, but still a bow, and said, ‘I hope you liked your drive.’

CHAPTER VI.

A little dinner, not more than the Muses, with all the guests clever,

and some pretty, offers human life and human nature under very

favourable circumstances. In the present instance, too, every one was

anxious to please, for the host was entirely well-bred, never selfish in

little things, and always contributed his quota to the general fund of

polished sociability.

Although there was really only one thought in every male mind present,

still, regard for the ladies, and some little apprehension of the

servants, banished politics from discourse during the greater part

of the dinner, with the occasional exception of some rapid and flying

allusion which the initiated understood, but which remained a mystery

to the rest. Nevertheless an old story now and then well told by Mr.

Ormsby, a new joke now and then well introduced by Mr. Gay, some

dashing assertion by Mr. Rigby, which, though wrong, was startling;

this agreeable blending of anecdote, jest, and paradox, kept everything

fluent, and produced that degree of mild excitation which is desirable.

Lord Monmouth sometimes summed up with an epigrammatic sentence, and

turned the conversation by a question, in case it dwelt too much on the

same topic. Lord Eskdale addressed himself principally to the ladies;

inquired after their morning drive and doings, spoke of new fashions,

and quoted a letter from Paris. Madame Colonna was not witty, but she

had that sweet Roman frankness which is so charming. The presence of

a beautiful woman, natural and good-tempered, even if she be not a

L’Espinasse or a De Stael, is animating.

Nevertheless, owing probably to the absorbing powers of the forbidden

subject, there were moments when it seemed that a pause was impending,

and Mr. Ormsby, an old hand, seized one of these critical instants to

address a good-natured question to Coningsby, whose acquaintance he had

already cultivated by taking wine with him.

‘And how do you like Eton?’ asked Mr. Ormsby.

It was the identical question which had been presented to Coningsby in

the memorable interview of the morning, and which had received no reply;

or rather had produced on his part a sentimental ebullition that had

absolutely destined or doomed him to the Church.

‘I should like to see the fellow who did not like Eton,’ said Coningsby,

briskly, determined this time to be very brave.

‘Gad I must go down and see the old place,’ said Mr. Ormsby, touched by

a pensive reminiscence. ‘One can get a good bed and bottle of port at

the Christopher, still?’

‘You had better come and try, sir,’ said Coningsby. ‘If you will come

some day and dine with me at the Christopher, I will give you such a

bottle of champagne as you never tasted yet.’

The Marquess looked at him, but said nothing.

‘Ah! I liked a dinner at the Christopher,’ said Mr. Ormsby; ‘after

mutton, mutton, mutton, every day, it was not a bad thing.’

‘We had venison for dinner every week last season,’ said Coningsby;

‘Buckhurst had it sent up from his park. But I don’t care for dinner.

Breakfast is my lounge.’

‘Ah! those little rolls and pats of butter!’ said Mr. Ormsby. ‘Short

commons, though. What do you think we did in my time? We used to send

over the way to get a mutton-chop.’

‘I wish you could see Buckhurst and me at breakfast,’ said Coningsby,

‘with a pound of Castle’s sausages!’

‘What Buckhurst is that, Harry?’ inquired Lord Monmouth, in a tone of

some interest, and for the first time calling him by his Christian name.

‘Sir Charles Buckhurst, sir, a Berkshire man: Shirley Park is his

place.’

‘Why, that must be Charley’s son, Eskdale,’ said Lord Monmouth; ‘I had

no idea he could be so young.’

‘He married late, you know, and had nothing but daughters for a long

time.’

‘Well, I hope there will be no Reform Bill for Eton,’ said Lord

Monmouth, musingly.

The servants had now retired.

‘I think, Lord Monmouth,’ said Mr. Rigby, ‘we must ask permission to

drink one toast to-day.’

‘Nay, I will myself give it,’ he replied. ‘Madame Colonna, you will, I

am sure, join us when we drink, THE DUKE!’

‘Ah! what a man!’ exclaimed the Princess. ‘What a pity it is you have

a House of Commons here! England would be the greatest country in

the world if it were not for that House of Commons. It makes so much

confusion!’

‘Don’t abuse our property,’ said Lord Eskdale; ‘Lord Monmouth and I have

still twenty votes of that same body between us.’

‘And there is a combination,’ said Rigby, ‘by which you may still keep

them.’

‘Ah! now for Rigby’s combination,’ said Lord Eskdale.

‘The only thing that can save this country,’ said Rigby, ‘is a coalition

on a sliding scale.’

‘You had better buy up the Birmingham Union and the other bodies,’ said

Lord Monmouth; ‘I believe it might all be done for two or three hundred

thousand pounds; and the newspapers too. Pitt would have settled this

business long ago.’

‘Well, at any rate, we are in,’ said Rigby, ‘and we must do something.’

‘I should like to see Grey’s list of new peers,’ said Lord Eskdale.

‘They say there are several members of our club in it.’

‘And the claims to the honour are so opposite,’ said Lucian Gay; ‘one,

on account of his large estate; another, because he has none; one,

because he has a well-grown family to perpetuate the title; another,

because he has no heir, and no power of ever obtaining one.’

‘I wonder how he will form his cabinet,’ said Lord Monmouth; ‘the old

story won’t do.’

‘I hear that Baring is to be one of the new cards; they say it will

please the city,’ said Lord Eskdale. ‘I suppose they will pick out

of hedge and ditch everything that has ever had the semblance of

liberalism.’

‘Affairs in my time were never so complicated,’ said Mr. Ormsby.

‘Nay, it appears to me to lie in a nutshell,’ said Lucian Gay; ‘one

party wishes to keep their old boroughs, and the other to get their new

peers.’

CHAPTER VII.

The future historian of the country will be perplexed to ascertain what

was the distinct object which the Duke of Wellington proposed to himself

in the political manoeuvres of May, 1832. It was known that the passing

of the Reform Bill was a condition absolute with the King; it was

unquestionable, that the first general election under the new law must

ignominiously expel the Anti-Reform Ministry from power; who would then

resume their seats on the Opposition benches in both Houses with the

loss not only of their boroughs, but of that reputation for political

consistency, which might have been some compensation for the

parliamentary influence of which they had been deprived. It is difficult

to recognise in this premature effort of the Anti-Reform leader to

thrust himself again into the conduct of public affairs, any indications

of the prescient judgment which might have been expected from such a

quarter. It savoured rather of restlessness than of energy; and, while

it proved in its progress not only an ignorance on his part of the

public mind, but of the feelings of his own party, it terminated

under circumstances which were humiliating to the Crown, and painfully

significant of the future position of the House of Lords in the new

constitutional scheme.

The Duke of Wellington has ever been the votary of circumstances. He

cares little for causes. He watches events rather than seeks to produce

them. It is a characteristic of the military mind. Rapid combinations,

the result of quick, vigilant, and comprehensive glance, are generally

triumphant in the field: but in civil affairs, where results are

not immediate; in diplomacy and in the management of deliberative

assemblies, where there is much intervening time and many counteracting

causes, this velocity of decision, this fitful and precipitate action,

are often productive of considerable embarrassment, and sometimes of

terrible discomfiture. It is remarkable that men celebrated for military

prudence are often found to be headstrong statesmen. In civil life

a great general is frequently and strangely the creature of impulse;

influenced in his political movements by the last snatch of information;

and often the creature of the last aide-de-camp who has his ear.

We shall endeavour to trace in another chapter the reasons which on

this as on previous and subsequent occasions, induced Sir Robert Peel to

stand aloof, if possible, from official life, and made him reluctant

to re-enter the service of his Sovereign. In the present instance, even

temporary success could only have been secured by the utmost decision,

promptness, and energy. These were all wanting: some were afraid to

follow the bold example of their leader; many were disinclined. In

eight-and-forty hours it was known there was a ‘hitch.’

The Reform party, who had been rather stupefied than appalled by the

accepted mission of the Duke of Wellington, collected their scattered

senses, and rallied their forces. The agitators harangued, the mobs

hooted. The City of London, as if the King had again tried to seize the

five members, appointed a permanent committee of the Common Council to

watch the fortunes of the ‘great national measure,’ and to report daily.

Brookes’, which was the only place that at first was really frightened

and talked of compromise, grew valiant again; while young Whig heroes

jumped upon club-room tables, and delivered fiery invectives. Emboldened

by these demonstrations, the House of Commons met in great force, and

passed a vote which struck, without disguise, at all rival powers in the

State; virtually announced its supremacy; revealed the forlorn position

of the House of Lords under the new arrangement; and seemed to lay for

ever the fluttering phantom of regal prerogative.

It was on the 9th of May that Lord Lyndhurst was with the King, and on

the 15th all was over. Nothing in parliamentary history so humiliating

as the funeral oration delivered that day by the Duke of Wellington

over the old constitution, that, modelled on the Venetian, had governed

England since the accession of the House of Hanover. He described his

Sovereign, when his Grace first repaired to his Majesty, as in a

state of the greatest ‘difficulty and distress,’ appealing to his

never-failing loyalty to extricate him from his trouble and vexation.

The Duke of Wellington, representing the House of Lords, sympathises

with the King, and pledges his utmost efforts for his Majesty’s

relief. But after five days’ exertion, this man of indomitable will and

invincible fortunes, resigns the task in discomfiture and despair, and

alleges as the only and sufficient reason for his utter and hopeless

defeat, that the House of Commons had come to a vote which ran counter

to the contemplated exercise of the prerogative.

From that moment power passed from the House of Lords to another

assembly. But if the peers have ceased to be magnificoes, may it

not also happen that the Sovereign may cease to be a Doge? It is not

impossible that the political movements of our time, which seem on

the surface to have a tendency to democracy, may have in reality a

monarchical bias.

In less than a fortnight’s time the House of Lords, like James II.,

having abdicated their functions by absence, the Reform Bill passed; the

ardent monarch, who a few months before had expressed his readiness to

go down to Parliament, in a hackney coach if necessary, to assist its

progress, now declining personally to give his assent to its provisions.

In the protracted discussions to which this celebrated measure gave

rise, nothing is more remarkable than the perplexities into which the

speakers of both sides are thrown, when they touch upon the nature of

the representative principle. On one hand it was maintained, that, under

the old system, the people were virtually represented; while on the

other, it was triumphantly urged, that if the principle be conceded, the

people should not be virtually, but actually, represented. But who are

the people? And where are you to draw a line? And why should there

be any? It was urged that a contribution to the taxes was the

constitutional qualification for the suffrage. But we have established

a system of taxation in this country of so remarkable a nature, that the

beggar who chews his quid as he sweeps a crossing, is contributing

to the imposts! Is he to have a vote? He is one of the people, and he

yields his quota to the public burthens.

Amid these conflicting statements, and these confounding conclusions, it

is singular that no member of either House should have recurred to

the original character of these popular assemblies, which have always

prevailed among the northern nations. We still retain in the antique

phraseology of our statutes the term which might have beneficially

guided a modern Reformer in his reconstructive labours.

When the crowned Northman consulted on the welfare of his kingdom, he

assembled the ESTATES of his realm. Now an estate is a class of the

nation invested with political rights. There appeared the estate of the

clergy, of the barons, of other classes. In the Scandinavian kingdoms

to this day, the estate of the peasants sends its representatives to the

Diet. In England, under the Normans, the Church and the Baronage were

convoked, together with the estate of the Community, a term which then

probably described the inferior holders of land, whose tenure was

not immediate of the Crown. This Third Estate was so numerous, that

convenience suggested its appearance by representation; while the

others, more limited, appeared, and still appear, personally. The Third

Estate was reconstructed as circumstances developed themselves. It was a

Reform of Parliament when the towns were summoned.

In treating the House of the Third Estate as the House of the People,

and not as the House of a privileged class, the Ministry and Parliament

of 1831 virtually conceded the principle of Universal Suffrage. In this

point of view the ten-pound franchise was an arbitrary, irrational, and

impolitic qualification. It had, indeed, the merit of simplicity, and so

had the constitutions of Abbé Siéyès. But its immediate and inevitable

result was Chartism.

But if the Ministry and Parliament of 1831 had announced that the time

had arrived when the Third Estate should be enlarged and reconstructed,

they would have occupied an intelligible position; and if, instead of

simplicity of elements in its reconstruction, they had sought, on the

contrary, various and varying materials which would have neutralised the

painful predominance of any particular interest in the new scheme, and

prevented those banded jealousies which have been its consequences, the

nation would have found itself in a secure condition. Another class not

less numerous than the existing one, and invested with privileges not

less important, would have been added to the public estates of the

realm; and the bewildering phrase ‘the People’ would have remained,

what it really is, a term of natural philosophy, and not of political

science.

During this eventful week of May, 1832, when an important revolution

was effected in the most considerable of modern kingdoms, in a manner

so tranquil, that the victims themselves were scarcely conscious at

the time of the catastrophe, Coningsby passed his hours in unaccustomed

pleasures, and in novel excitement. Although he heard daily from the

lips of Mr. Rigby and his friends that England was for ever lost, the

assembled guests still contrived to do justice to his grandfather’s

excellent dinners; nor did the impending ruin that awaited them

prevent the Princess Colonna from going to the Opera, whither she

very good-naturedly took Coningsby. Madame Colonna, indeed, gave such

gratifying accounts of her dear young friend, that Coningsby became

daily a greater favourite with Lord Monmouth, who cherished the idea

that his grandson had inherited not merely the colour of his eyes, but

something of his shrewd and fearless spirit.

With Lucretia, Coningsby did not much advance. She remained silent and

sullen. She was not beautiful; pallid, with a lowering brow, and an eye

that avoided meeting another’s. Madame Colonna, though good-natured,

felt for her something of the affection for which step-mothers are

celebrated. Lucretia, indeed, did not encourage her kindness, which

irritated her step-mother, who seemed seldom to address her but to rate

and chide; Lucretia never replied, but looked dogged. Her father, the

Prince, did not compensate for this treatment. The memory of her mother,

whom he had greatly disliked, did not soften his heart. He was a man

still young; slender, not tall; very handsome, but worn; a haggard

Antinous; his beautiful hair daily thinning; his dress rich and

effeminate; many jewels, much lace. He seldom spoke, but was polished,

though moody.

At the end of the week, Coningsby returned to Eton. On the eve of

his departure, Lord Monmouth desired his grandson to meet him in his

apartments on the morrow, before quitting his roof. This farewell visit

was as kind and gracious as the first one had been repulsive. Lord

Monmouth gave Coningsby his blessing and ten pounds; desired that he

would order a dress, anything he liked, for the approaching Montem,

which Lord Monmouth meant to attend; and informed his grandson that he

should order that in future a proper supply of game and venison should

be forwarded to Eton for the use of himself and his friends.

CHAPTER VIII.

After eight o’clock school, the day following the return of Coningsby,

according to custom, he repaired to Buckhurst’s room, where Henry

Sydney, Lord Vere, and our hero held with him their breakfast mess. They

were all in the fifth form, and habitual companions, on the river or on

the Fives’ Wall, at cricket or at foot-ball. The return of Coningsby,

their leader alike in sport and study, inspired them to-day with unusual

spirits, which, to say the truth, were never particularly depressed.

Where he had been, what he had seen, what he had done, what sort of

fellow his grandfather was, whether the visit had been a success; here

were materials for almost endless inquiry. And, indeed, to do them

justice, the last question was not the least exciting to them; for the

deep and cordial interest which all felt in Coningsby’s welfare far

outweighed the curiosity which, under ordinary circumstances, they

would have experienced on the return of one of their companions from

an unusual visit to London. The report of their friend imparted to

them unbounded satisfaction, when they learned that his relative was a

splendid fellow; that he had been loaded with kindness and favours; that

Monmouth House, the wonders of which he rapidly sketched, was hereafter

to be his home; that Lord Monmouth was coming down to Montem; that

Coningsby was to order any dress he liked, build a new boat if he chose;

and, finally, had been pouched in a manner worthy of a Marquess and a

grandfather.

‘By the bye,’ said Buckhurst, when the hubbub had a little subsided, ‘I

am afraid you will not half like it, Coningsby; but, old fellow, I

had no idea you would be back this morning; I have asked Millbank to

breakfast here.’

A cloud stole over the clear brow of Coningsby.

‘It was my fault,’ said the amiable Henry Sydney; ‘but I really wanted

to be civil to Millbank, and as you were not here, I put Buckhurst up to

ask him.’

‘Well,’ said Coningsby, as if sullenly resigned, ‘never mind; but why

should you ask an infernal manufacturer?’

‘Why, the Duke always wished me to pay him some attention,’ said

Lord Henry, mildly. ‘His family were so civil to us when we were at

Manchester.’

‘Manchester, indeed!’ said Coningsby; ‘if you knew what I do about

Manchester! A pretty state we have been in in London this week past with

your Manchesters and Birminghams!’

‘Come, come, Coningsby,’ said Lord Vere, the son of a Whig minister; ‘I

am all for Manchester and Birmingham.’

‘It is all up with the country, I can tell you,’ said Coningsby, with

the air of one who was in the secret.

‘My father says it will all go right now,’ rejoined Lord Vere. ‘I had a

letter from my sister yesterday.’

‘They say we shall all lose our estates, though,’ said Buckhurst; ‘I

know I shall not give up mine without a fight. Shirley was besieged, you

know, in the civil wars; and the rebels got infernally licked.’

‘I think that all the people about Beaumanoir would stand by the Duke,’

said Lord Henry, pensively.

‘Well, you may depend upon it you will have it very soon,’ said

Coningsby. ‘I know it from the best authority.’

‘It depends on whether my father remains in,’ said Lord Vere. ‘He is the

only man who can govern the country now. All say that.’

At this moment Millbank entered. He was a good looking boy, somewhat

shy, and yet with a sincere expression in his countenance. He was

evidently not extremely intimate with those who were now his companions.

Buckhurst, and Henry Sydney, and Vere, welcomed him cordially. He looked

at Coningsby with some constraint, and then said:

‘You have been in London, Coningsby?’

‘Yes, I have been there during all the row.’

‘You must have had a rare lark.’

‘Yes, if having your windows broken by a mob be a rare lark. They could

not break my grandfather’s, though. Monmouth House is in a court-yard.

All noblemen’s houses should be in court-yards.’

‘I was glad to see it all ended very well,’ said Millbank.

‘It has not begun yet,’ said Coningsby.

‘What?’ said Millbank.

‘Why, the revolution.’

‘The Reform Bill will prevent a revolution, my father says,’ said

Millbank.

‘By Jove! here’s the goose,’ said Buckhurst.

At this moment there entered the room a little boy, the scion of a noble

house, bearing a roasted goose, which he had carried from the kitchen of

the opposite inn, the Christopher. The lower boy or fag, depositing

his burthen, asked his master whether he had further need of him; and

Buckhurst, after looking round the table, and ascertaining that he had

not, gave him permission to retire; but he had scarcely disappeared,

when his master singing out, ‘Lower boy, St. John!’ he immediately

re-entered, and demanded his master’s pleasure, which was, that he

should pour some water in the teapot. This being accomplished, St. John

really made his escape, and retired to a pupil-room, where the bullying

of a tutor, because he had no derivations, exceeded in all probability

the bullying of his master, had he contrived in his passage from the

Christopher to have upset the goose or dropped the sausages.

In their merry meal, the Reform Bill was forgotten. Their thoughts were

soon concentrated in their little world, though it must be owned that

visions of palaces and beautiful ladies did occasionally flit over the

brain of one of the company. But for him especially there was much of

interest and novelty. So much had happened in his absence! There was a

week’s arrears for him of Eton annals. They were recounted in so fresh

a spirit, and in such vivid colours, that Coningsby lost nothing by his

London visit. All the bold feats that had been done, and all the bright

things that had been said; all the triumphs, and all the failures,

and all the scrapes; how popular one master had made himself, and how

ridiculous another; all was detailed with a liveliness, a candour, and

a picturesque ingenuousness, which would have made the fortune of a

Herodotus or a Froissart.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Buckhurst, ‘I move that after twelve we five

go up to Maidenhead.’

‘Agreed; agreed!’

CHAPTER IX.

Millbank was the son of one of the wealthiest manufacturers in

Lancashire. His father, whose opinions were of a very democratic bent,

sent his son to Eton, though he disapproved of the system of education

pursued there, to show that he had as much right to do so as any duke in

the land. He had, however, brought up his only boy with a due prejudice

against every sentiment or institution of an aristocratic character,

and had especially impressed upon him in his school career, to avoid the

slightest semblance of courting the affections or society of any member

of the falsely-held superior class.

The character of the son as much as the influence of the father, tended

to the fulfilment of these injunctions. Oswald Millbank was of a

proud and independent nature; reserved, a little stern. The early and

constantly-reiterated dogma of his father, that he belonged to a class

debarred from its just position in the social system, had aggravated the

grave and somewhat discontented humour of his blood. His talents were

considerable, though invested with no dazzling quality. He had not that

quick and brilliant apprehension, which, combined with a memory of rare

retentiveness, had already advanced Coningsby far beyond his age,

and made him already looked to as the future hero of the school. But

Millbank possessed one of those strong, industrious volitions whose

perseverance amounts almost to genius, and nearly attains its results.

Though Coningsby was by a year his junior, they were rivals. This

circumstance had no tendency to remove the prejudice which Coningsby

entertained against him, but its bias on the part of Millbank had a

contrary effect.

The influence of the individual is nowhere so sensible as at school.

There the personal qualities strike without any intervening and

counteracting causes. A gracious presence, noble sentiments, or a happy

talent, make their way there at once, without preliminary inquiries as

to what set they are in, or what family they are of, how much they

have a-year, or where they live. Now, on no spirit had the influence of

Coningsby, already the favourite, and soon probably to become the idol,

of the school, fallen more effectually than on that of Millbank, though

it was an influence that no one could suspect except its votary or its

victim.

At school, friendship is a passion. It entrances the being; it tears

the soul. All loves of after-life can never bring its rapture, or its

wretchedness; no bliss so absorbing, no pangs of jealousy or despair

so crushing and so keen! What tenderness and what devotion; what

illimitable confidence; infinite revelations of inmost thoughts; what

ecstatic present and romantic future; what bitter estrangements and what

melting reconciliations; what scenes of wild recrimination, agitating

explanations, passionate correspondence; what insane sensitiveness, and

what frantic sensibility; what earthquakes of the heart and whirlwinds

of the soul are confined in that simple phrase, a schoolboy’s

friendship! Tis some indefinite recollection of these mystic passages of

their young emotion that makes grey-haired men mourn over the memory

of their schoolboy days. It is a spell that can soften the acerbity of

political warfare, and with its witchery can call forth a sigh even amid

the callous bustle of fashionable saloons.

The secret of Millbank’s life was a passionate admiration and affection

for Coningsby. Pride, his natural reserve, and his father’s injunctions,

had, however, hitherto successfully combined to restrain the slightest

demonstration of these sentiments. Indeed, Coningsby and himself

were never companions, except in school, or in some public game. The

demeanour of Coningsby gave no encouragement to intimacy to one, who,

under any circumstances, would have required considerable invitation to

open himself. So Millbank fed in silence on a cherished idea. It was

his happiness to be in the same form, to join in the same sport, with

Coningsby; occasionally to be thrown in unusual contact with him,

to exchange slight and not unkind words. In their division they were

rivals; Millbank sometimes triumphed, but to be vanquished by Coningsby

was for him not without a degree of mild satisfaction. Not a gesture,

not a phrase from Coningsby, that he did not watch and ponder over and

treasure up. Coningsby was his model, alike in studies, in manners,

or in pastimes; the aptest scholar, the gayest wit, the most graceful

associate, the most accomplished playmate: his standard of excellent.

Yet Millbank was the very last boy in the school who would have had

credit given him by his companions for profound and ardent feeling. He

was not indeed unpopular. The favourite of the school like Coningsby, he

could, under no circumstances, ever have become; nor was he qualified

to obtain that general graciousness among the multitude, which the sweet

disposition of Henry Sydney, or the gay profusion of Buckhurst, acquired

without any effort. Millbank was not blessed with the charm of manner.

He seemed close and cold; but he was courageous, just, and inflexible;

never bullied, and to his utmost would prevent tyranny. The little boys

looked up to him as a stern protector; and his word, too, throughout the

school was a proverb: and truth ranks a great quality among boys. In

a word, Millbank was respected by those among whom he lived; and

school-boys scan character more nicely than men suppose.

A brother of Henry Sydney, quartered in Lancashire, had been wounded

recently in a riot, and had received great kindness from the Millbank

family, in whose immediate neighbourhood the disturbance had occurred.

The kind Duke had impressed on Henry Sydney to acknowledge with

cordiality to the younger Millbank at Eton, the sense which his family

entertained of these benefits; but though Henry lost neither time nor

opportunity in obeying an injunction, which was grateful to his own

heart, he failed in cherishing, or indeed creating, any intimacy

with the object of his solicitude. A companionship with one who was

Coningsby’s relative and most familiar friend, would at the first

glance have appeared, independently of all other considerations, a most

desirable result for Millbank to accomplish. But, perhaps, this

very circumstance afforded additional reasons for the absence of all

encouragement with which he received the overtures of Lord Henry.

Millbank suspected that Coningsby was not affected in his favour, and

his pride recoiled from gaining, by any indirect means, an intimacy

which to have obtained in a plain and express manner would have deeply

gratified him. However, the urgent invitation of Buckhurst and

Henry Sydney, and the fear that a persistence in refusal might be

misinterpreted into churlishness, had at length brought Millbank to

their breakfast-mess, though, when he accepted their invitation, he did

not apprehend that Coningsby would have been present.

It was about an hour before sunset, the day of this very breakfast, and

a good number of boys, in lounging groups, were collected in the

Long Walk. The sports and matches of the day were over. Criticism had

succeeded to action in sculling and in cricket. They talked over the

exploits of the morning; canvassed the merits of the competitors, marked

the fellow whose play or whose stroke was improving; glanced at another,

whose promise had not been fulfilled; discussed the pretensions, and

adjudged the palm. Thus public opinion is formed. Some, too, might

be seen with their books and exercises, intent on the inevitable

and impending tasks. Among these, some unhappy wight in the remove,

wandering about with his hat, after parochial fashion, seeking relief

in the shape of a verse. A hard lot this, to know that you must be

delivered of fourteen verses at least in the twenty-four hours, and to

be conscious that you are pregnant of none. The lesser boys, urchins of

tender years, clustered like flies round the baskets of certain vendors

of sugary delicacies that rested on the Long Walk wall. The pallid

countenance, the lacklustre eye, the hoarse voice clogged with

accumulated phlegm, indicated too surely the irreclaimable and hopeless

votary of lollypop, the opium-eater of schoolboys.

‘It is settled, the match to-morrow shall be between Aquatics and

Drybobs,’ said a senior boy; who was arranging a future match at

cricket.

‘But what is to be done about Fielding major?’ inquired another. ‘He has

not paid his boating money, and I say he has no right to play among the

Aquatics before he has paid his money.’

‘Oh! but we must have Fielding major, he is such a devil of a swipe.’

‘I declare he shall not play among the Aquatics if he does not pay his

boating money. It is an infernal shame.’

‘Let us ask Buckhurst. Where is Buckhurst?’

‘Have you got any toffy?’ inquired a dull looking little boy, in a

hoarse voice, of one of the vendors of scholastic confectionery.

‘Tom Trot, sir.’

‘No; I want toffy.’

‘Very nice Tom Trot, sir.’

‘No, I want toffy; I have been eating Tom Trot all day.’

‘Where is Buckhurst? We must settle about the Aquatics.’

‘Well, I for one will not play if Fielding major plays amongst the

Aquatics. That is settled.’

‘Oh! nonsense; he will pay his money if you ask him.’

‘I shall not ask him again. The captain duns us every day. It is an

infernal shame.’

‘I say, Burnham, where can one get some toffy? This fellow never has

any.’

‘I will tell you; at Barnes’ on the bridge. The best toffy in the

world.’

‘I will go at once. I must have some toffy.’

‘Just help me with this verse, Collins,’ said one boy to another, in an

imploring tone, ‘that’s a good fellow.’

‘Well, give it us: first syllable in _fabri_ is short; three false

quantities in the two first lines! You’re a pretty one. There, I have

done it for you.’

‘That’s a good fellow.’

‘Any fellow seen Buckhurst?’

‘Gone up the river with Coningsby and Henry Sydney.’

‘But he must be back by this time. I want him to make the list for the

match to-morrow. Where the deuce can Buckhurst be?’

And now, as rumours rise in society we know not how, so there was

suddenly a flying report in this multitude, the origin of which no one

in his alarm stopped to ascertain, that a boy was drowned.

Every heart was agitated.

What boy? When, where, how? Who was absent? Who had been on the river

to-day? Buckhurst. The report ran that Buckhurst was drowned. Great were

the trouble and consternation. Buckhurst was ever much liked; and now no

one remembered anything but his good qualities.

‘Who heard it was Buckhurst?’ said Sedgwick, captain of the school,

coming forward.

‘I heard Bradford tell Palmer it was Buckhurst,’ said a little boy.

‘Where is Bradford?’

‘Here.’

‘What do you know about Buckhurst?’

‘Wentworth told me that he was afraid Buckhurst was drowned. He heard it

at the Brocas; a bargeman told him about a quarter of an hour ago.’

‘Here is Wentworth! Here is Wentworth!’ a hundred voices exclaimed, and

they formed a circle round him.

‘Well, what did you hear, Wentworth?’ asked Sedgwick.

‘I was at the Brocas, and a bargee told me that an Eton fellow had been

drowned above Surley, and the only Eton boat above Surley to-day, as I

can learn, is Buckhurst’s four-oar. That is all.’

There was a murmur of hope.

‘Oh! come, come,’ said Sedgwick, ‘there is come chance. Who is with

Buckhurst; who knows?’

‘I saw him walk down to the Brocas with Vere,’ said a boy.

‘I hope it is not Vere,’ said a little boy, with a tearful eye; ‘he

never lets any fellow bully me.’

‘Here is Maltravers,’ halloed out a boy; ‘he knows something.’

‘Well, what do you know, Maltravers?’

‘I heard Boots at the Christopher say that an Eton fellow was drowned,

and that he had seen a person who was there.’

‘Bring Boots here,’ said Sedgwick.

Instantly a band of boys rushed over the way, and in a moment the

witness was produced.

‘What have you heard, Sam, about this accident?’ said Sedgwick.

‘Well, sir, I heard a young gentleman was drowned above Monkey Island,’

said Boots.

‘And no name mentioned?’

‘Well, sir, I believe it was Mr. Coningsby.’

A general groan of horror.

‘Coningsby, Coningsby! By Heavens I hope not,’ said Sedgwick.

‘I very much fear so,’ said Boots; ‘as how the bargeman who told me saw

Mr. Coningsby in the Lock House laid out in flannels.’

‘I had sooner any fellow had been drowned than Coningsby,’ whispered one

boy to another.

‘I liked him, the best fellow at Eton,’ responded his companion, in a

smothered tone.

‘What a clever fellow he was!’

‘And so deuced generous!’

‘He would have got the medal if he had lived.’

‘And how came he to be drowned? for he was such a fine swimmer!’

‘I heerd Mr. Coningsby was saving another’s life,’ continued Boots in

his evidence, ‘which makes it in a manner more sorrowful.’

‘Poor Coningsby!’ exclaimed a boy, bursting into tears: ‘I move the

whole school goes into mourning.’

‘I wish we could get hold of this bargeman,’ said Sedgwick. ‘Now stop,

stop, don’t all run away in that mad manner; you frighten the people.

Charles Herbert and Palmer, you two go down to the Brocas and inquire.’

But just at this moment, an increased stir and excitement were evident

in the Long Walk; the circle round Sedgwick opened, and there appeared

Henry Sydney and Buckhurst.

There was a dead silence. It was impossible that suspense could be

strained to a higher pitch. The air and countenance of Sydney and

Buckhurst were rather excited than mournful or alarmed. They needed no

inquiries, for before they had penetrated the circle they had become

aware of its cause.

Buckhurst, the most energetic of beings, was of course the first to

speak. Henry Sydney indeed looked pale and nervous; but his companion,

flushed and resolute, knew exactly how to hit a popular assembly, and at

once came to the point.

‘It is all a false report, an infernal lie; Coningsby is quite safe, and

nobody is drowned.’

There was a cheer that might have been heard at Windsor Castle. Then,

turning to Sedgwick, in an undertone Buckhurst added,

‘It _is_ all right, but, by Jove! we have had a shaver. I will tell you

all in a moment, but we want to keep the thing quiet, and so let the

fellows disperse, and we will talk afterwards.’

In a few moments the Long Walk had resumed its usual character; but

Sedgwick, Herbert, and one or two others turned into the playing fields,

where, undisturbed and unnoticed by the multitude, they listened to the

promised communication of Buckhurst and Henry Sydney.

‘You know we went up the river together,’ said Buckhurst. ‘Myself, Henry

Sydney, Coningsby, Vere, and Millbank. We had breakfasted together, and

after twelve agreed to go up to Maidenhead. Well, we went up much higher

than we had intended. About a quarter of a mile before we had got to the

Lock we pulled up; Coningsby was then steering. Well, we fastened the

boat to, and were all of us stretched out on the meadow, when Millbank

and Vere said they should go and bathe in the Lock Pool. The rest of us

were opposed; but after Millbank and Vere had gone about ten minutes,

Coningsby, who was very fresh, said he had changed his mind and should

go and bathe too. So he left us. He had scarcely got to the pool when he

heard a cry. There was a fellow drowning. He threw off his clothes and

was in in a moment. The fact is this, Millbank had plunged in the pool

and found himself in some eddies, caused by the meeting of two currents.

He called out to Vere not to come, and tried to swim off. But he was

beat, and seeing he was in danger, Vere jumped in. But the stream was

so strong, from the great fall of water from the lasher above, that Vere

was exhausted before he could reach Millbank, and nearly sank himself.

Well, he just saved himself; but Millbank sank as Coningsby jumped in.

What do you think of that?’

‘By Jove!’ exclaimed Sedgwick, Herbert, and all. The favourite oath of

schoolboys perpetuates the divinity of Olympus.

‘And now comes the worst. Coningsby caught Millbank when he rose, but

he found himself in the midst of the same strong current that had before

nearly swamped Vere. What a lucky thing that he had taken into his head

not to pull to-day! Fresher than Vere, he just managed to land Millbank

and himself. The shouts of Vere called us, and we arrived to find the

bodies of Millbank and Coningsby apparently lifeless, for Millbank was

quite gone, and Coningsby had swooned on landing.’

‘If Coningsby had been lost,’ said Henry Sydney, ‘I never would have

shown my face at Eton again.’

‘Can you conceive a position more terrible?’ said Buckhurst. ‘I declare

I shall never forget it as long as I live. However, there was the Lock

House at hand; and we got blankets and brandy. Coningsby was soon all

right; but Millbank, I can tell you, gave us some trouble. I thought it

was all up. Didn’t you, Henry Sydney?’

‘The most fishy thing I ever saw,’ said Henry Sydney.

‘Well, we were fairly frightened here,’ said Sedgwick. ‘The first

report was, that you had gone, but that seemed without foundation; but

Coningsby was quite given up. Where are they now?’

‘They are both at their tutors’. I thought they had better keep quiet.

Vere is with Millbank, and we are going back to Coningsby directly; but

we thought it best to show, finding on our arrival that there were all

sorts of rumours about. I think it will be best to report at once to my

tutor, for he will be sure to hear something.’

‘I would if I were you.’

CHAPTER X.

What wonderful things are events! The least are of greater importance

than the most sublime and comprehensive speculations! In what fanciful

schemes to obtain the friendship of Coningsby had Millbank in his

reveries often indulged! What combinations that were to extend over

years and influence their lives! But the moment that he entered the

world of action, his pride recoiled from the plans and hopes which his

sympathy had inspired. His sensibility and his inordinate self-respect

were always at variance. And he seldom exchanged a word with the being

whose idea engrossed his affection.

And now, suddenly, an event had occurred, like all events, unforeseen,

which in a few, brief, agitating, tumultuous moments had singularly and

utterly changed the relations that previously subsisted between him and

the former object of his concealed tenderness. Millbank now stood with

respect to Coningsby in the position of one who owes to another the

greatest conceivable obligation; a favour which time could permit him

neither to forget nor to repay. Pride was a sentiment that could no

longer subsist before the preserver of his life. Devotion to that being,

open, almost ostentatious, was now a duty, a paramount and absorbing

tie. The sense of past peril, the rapture of escape, a renewed relish

for the life so nearly forfeited, a deep sentiment of devout gratitude

to the providence that had guarded over him, for Millbank was an

eminently religious boy, a thought of home, and the anguish that might

have overwhelmed his hearth; all these were powerful and exciting

emotions for a young and fervent mind, in addition to the peculiar

source of sensibility on which we have already touched. Lord Vere, who

lodged in the same house as Millbank, and was sitting by his bedside,

observed, as night fell, that his mind wandered.

The illness of Millbank, the character of which soon transpired, and was

soon exaggerated, attracted the public attention with increased interest

to the circumstances out of which it had arisen, and from which the

parties principally concerned had wished to have diverted notice. The

sufferer, indeed, had transgressed the rules of the school by bathing at

an unlicensed spot, where there were no expert swimmers in attendance,

as is customary, to instruct the practice and to guard over the lives of

the young adventurers. But the circumstances with which this violation

of rules had been accompanied, and the assurance of several of the party

that they had not themselves infringed the regulations, combined with

the high character of Millbank, made the authorities not over anxious

to visit with penalties a breach of observance which, in the case of

the only proved offender, had been attended with such impressive

consequences. The feat of Coningsby was extolled by all as an act

of high gallantry and skill. It confirmed and increased the great

reputation which he already enjoyed.

‘Millbank is getting quite well,’ said Buckhurst to Coningsby a few days

after the accident. ‘Henry Sydney and I are going to see him. Will you

come?’

‘I think we shall be too many. I will go another day,’ replied

Coningsby.

So they went without him. They found Millbank up and reading.

‘Well, old fellow,’ said Buckhurst, ‘how are you? We should have come up

before, but they would not let us. And you are quite right now, eh?’

‘Quite. Has there been any row about it?’

‘All blown over,’ said Henry Sydney; ‘C*******y behaved like a trump.’

‘I have seen nobody yet,’ said Millbank; ‘they would not let me till

to-day. Vere looked in this morning and left me this book, but I was

asleep. I hope they will let me out in a day or two. I want to thank

Coningsby; I never shall rest till I have thanked Coningsby.’

‘Oh, he will come to see you,’ said Henry Sydney; ‘I asked him just now

to come with us.’

‘Yes!’ said Millbank, eagerly; ‘and what did he say?’

‘He thought we should be too many.’

‘I hope I shall see him soon,’ said Millbank, ‘somehow or other.’

‘I will tell him to come,’ said Buckhurst.

‘Oh! no, no, don’t tell him to come,’ said Millbank. ‘Don’t bore him.’

‘I know he is going to play a match at fives this afternoon,’ said

Buckhurst, ‘for I am one.’

‘And who are the others?’ inquired Millbank.

‘Herbert and Campbell.’

‘Herbert is no match for Coningsby,’ said Millbank.

And then they talked over all that had happened since his absence; and

Buckhurst gave him a graphic report of the excitement on the afternoon

of the accident; at last they were obliged to leave him.

‘Well, good-bye, old fellow; we will come and see you every day. What

can we do for you? Any books, or anything?’

‘If any fellow asks after me,’ said Millbank, ‘tell him I shall be glad

to see him. It is very dull being alone. But do not tell any fellow to

come if he does not ask after me.’

Notwithstanding the kind suggestions of Buckhurst and Henry Sydney,

Coningsby could not easily bring himself to call on Millbank. He felt a

constraint. It seemed as if he went to receive thanks. He would rather

have met Millbank again in school, or in the playing fields. Without

being able then to analyse his feelings, he shrank unconsciously from

that ebullition of sentiment, which in more artificial circles is

described as a scene. Not that any dislike of Millbank prompted him to

this reserve. On the contrary, since he had conferred a great obligation

on Millbank, his prejudice against him had sensibly decreased. How it

would have been had Millbank saved Coningsby’s life, is quite another

affair. Probably, as Coningsby was by nature generous, his sense of

justice might have struggled successfully with his painful sense of the

overwhelming obligation. But in the present case there was no element

to disturb his fair self-satisfaction. He had greatly distinguished

himself; he had conferred on his rival an essential service; and the

whole world rang with his applause. He began rather to like Millbank;

we will not say because Millbank was the unintentional cause of his

pleasurable sensations. Really it was that the unusual circumstances had

prompted him to a more impartial judgment of his rival’s character.

In this mood, the day after the visit of Buckhurst and Henry Sydney,

Coningsby called on Millbank, but finding his medical attendant with

him, Coningsby availed himself of that excuse for going away without

seeing him.

The next day he left Millbank a newspaper on his way to school, time not

permitting a visit. Two days after, going into his room, he found on his

table a letter addressed to ‘Harry Coningsby, Esq.’

ETON, May--, 1832.

‘DEAR CONINGSBY, I very much fear that you must think me a very

ungrateful fellow, because you have not heard from me before; but I was

in hopes that I might get out and say to you what I feel; but whether I

speak or write, it is quite impossible for me to make you understand the

feelings of my heart to you. Now, I will say at once, that I have always

liked you better than any fellow in the school, and always thought you

the cleverest; indeed, I always thought that there was no one like you;

but I never would say this or show this, because you never seemed to

care for me, and because I was afraid you would think I merely wanted to

con with you, as they used to say of some other fellows, whose names I

will not mention, because they always tried to do so with Henry Sydney

and you. I do not want this at all; but I want, though we may not speak

to each other more than before, that we may be friends; and that you

will always know that there is nothing I will not do for you, and that

I like you better than any fellow at Eton. And I do not mean that this

shall be only at Eton, but afterwards, wherever we may be, that you will

always remember that there is nothing I will not do for you. Not because

you saved my life, though that is a great thing, but because before that

I would have done anything for you; only, for the cause above mentioned,

I would not show it. I do not expect that we shall be more together than

before; nor can I ever suppose that you could like me as you like Henry

Sydney and Buckhurst, or even as you like Vere; but still I hope you

will always think of me with kindness now, and let me sign myself, if

ever I do write to you, ‘Your most attached, affectionate, and devoted

friend,

‘OSWALD MILLBANK.’

CHAPTER XI.

About a fortnight after this nearly fatal adventure on the river, it was

Montem. One need hardly remind the reader that this celebrated

ceremony, of which the origin is lost in obscurity, and which now occurs

triennially, is the tenure by which Eton College holds some of its

domains. It consists in the waving of a flag by one of the scholars, on

a mount near the village of Salt Hill, which, without doubt, derives its

name from the circumstance that on this day every visitor to Eton, and

every traveller in its vicinity, from the monarch to the peasant, are

stopped on the road by youthful brigands in picturesque costume, and

summoned to contribute ‘salt,’ in the shape of coin of the realm, to

the purse collecting for the Captain of Eton, the senior scholar on the

Foundation, who is about to repair to King’s College, Cambridge.

On this day the Captain of Eton appears in a dress as martial as his

title: indeed, each sixth-form boy represents in his uniform, though not

perhaps according to the exact rules of the Horse Guards, an officer of

the army. One is a marshal, another an ensign. There is a lieutenant,

too; and the remainder are sergeants. Each of those who are intrusted

with these ephemeral commissions has one or more attendants, the number

of these varying according to his rank. These servitors are selected

according to the wishes of the several members of the sixth form, out of

the ranks of the lower boys, that is, those boys who are below the

fifth form; and all these attendants are arrayed in a variety of fancy

dresses. The Captain of the Oppidans and the senior Colleger next to

the Captain of the school, figure also in fancy costume, and are called

‘Saltbearers.’ It is their business, together with the twelve senior

Collegers of the fifth form, who are called ‘Runners,’ and whose

costume is also determined by the taste of the wearers, to levy the

contributions. And all the Oppidans of the fifth form, among whom ranked

Coningsby, class as ‘Corporals;’ and are severally followed by one or

more lower boys, who are denominated ‘Polemen,’ but who appear in their

ordinary dress.

It was a fine, bright morning; the bells of Eton and Windsor rang

merrily; everybody was astir, and every moment some gay equipage

drove into the town. Gaily clustering in the thronged precincts of

the College, might be observed many a glistening form: airy Greek or

sumptuous Ottoman, heroes of the Holy Sepulchre, Spanish Hidalgos who

had fought at Pavia, Highland Chiefs who had charged at Culloden, gay in

the tartan of Prince Charlie. The Long Walk was full of busy groups in

scarlet coats or fanciful uniforms; some in earnest conversation, some

criticising the arriving guests; others encircling some magnificent

hero, who astounded them with his slashed doublet or flowing plume.

A knot of boys, sitting on the Long Walk wall, with their feet swinging

in the air, watched the arriving guests of the Provost.

‘I say, Townshend,’ said one, ‘there’s Grobbleton; he _was_ a bully. I

wonder if that’s his wife? Who’s this? The Duke of Agincourt. He wasn’t

an Eton fellow? Yes, he was. He was called Poictiers then. Oh! ah!

his name is in the upper school, very large, under Charles Fox. I say,

Townshend, did you see Saville’s turban? What was it made of? He says

his mother brought it from Grand Cairo. Didn’t he just look like the

Saracen’s Head? Here are some Dons. That’s Hallam! We’ll give him a

cheer. I say, Townshend, look at this fellow. He doesn’t think small

beer of himself. I wonder who he is? The Duke of Wellington’s valet come

to say his master is engaged. Oh! by Jove, he heard you! I wonder if the

Duke will come? Won’t we give him a cheer!’

‘By Jove! who is this?’ exclaimed Townshend, and he jumped from the

wall, and, followed by his companions, rushed towards the road.

Two britskas, each drawn by four grey horses of mettle, and each

accompanied by outriders as well mounted, were advancing at a rapid

pace along the road that leads from Slough to the College. But they were

destined to an irresistible check. About fifty yards before they had

reached the gate that leads into Weston’s Yard, a ruthless but splendid

Albanian, in crimson and gold embroidered jacket, and snowy camise,

started forward, and holding out his silver-sheathed yataghan commanded

the postilions to stop. A Peruvian Inca on the other side of the road

gave a simultaneous command, and would infallibly have transfixed the

outriders with an arrow from his unerring bow, had they for an instant

hesitated. The Albanian Chief then advanced to the door of the carriage,

which he opened, and in a tone of great courtesy, announced that he was

under the necessity of troubling its inmates for ‘salt.’ There was no

delay. The Lord of the equipage, with the amiable condescension of a

‘grand monarque,’ expressed his hope that the collection would be an

ample one, and as an old Etonian, placed in the hands of the Albanian

his contribution, a magnificent purse, furnished for the occasion, and

heavy with gold.

‘Don’t be alarmed, ladies,’ said a very handsome young officer,

laughing, and taking off his cocked hat.

‘Ah!’ exclaimed one of the ladies, turning at the voice, and starting a

little. ‘Ah! it is Mr. Coningsby.’

Lord Eskdale paid the salt for the next carriage. ‘Do they come down

pretty stiff?’ he inquired, and then, pulling forth a roll of bank-notes

from the pocket of his pea-jacket, he wished them good morning.

The courtly Provost, then the benignant Goodall, a man who, though his

experience of life was confined to the colleges in which he had passed

his days, was naturally gifted with the rarest of all endowments, the

talent of reception; and whose happy bearing and gracious manner,

a smile ever in his eye and a lively word ever on his lip, must be

recalled by all with pleasant recollections, welcomed Lord Monmouth

and his friends to an assemblage of the noble, the beautiful, and the

celebrated gathered together in rooms not unworthy of them, as you

looked upon their interesting walls, breathing with the portraits of the

heroes whom Eton boasts, from Wotton to Wellesley. Music sounded in

the quadrangle of the College, in which the boys were already quickly

assembling. The Duke of Wellington had arrived, and the boys were

cheering a hero, who was an Eton field-marshal. From an oriel window

in one of the Provost’s rooms, Lord Monmouth, surrounded by every

circumstance that could make life delightful, watched with some

intentness the scene in the quadrangle beneath.

‘I would give his fame,’ said Lord Monmouth, ‘if I had it, and my

wealth, to be sixteen.’

Five hundred of the youth of England, sparkling with health, high

spirits, and fancy dresses, were now assembled in the quadrangle.

They formed into rank, and headed by a band of the Guards, thrice they

marched round the court. Then quitting the College, they commenced their

progress ‘ad Montem.’ It was a brilliant spectacle to see them defiling

through the playing fields, those bowery meads; the river sparkling

in the sun, the castled heights of Windsor, their glorious landscape;

behind them, the pinnacles of their College.

The road from Eton to Salt Hill was clogged with carriages; the broad

fields as far as eye could range were covered with human beings. Amid

the burst of martial music and the shouts of the multitude, the band of

heroes, as if they were marching from Athens, or Thebes, or Sparta, to

some heroic deed, encircled the mount; the ensign reaches its summit,

and then, amid a deafening cry of ‘Floreat Etona!’ he unfurls, and

thrice waves the consecrated standard.

‘Lord Monmouth,’ said Mr. Rigby to Coningsby, ‘wishes that you should

beg your friends to dine with him. Of course you will ask Lord Henry and

your friend Sir Charles Buckhurst; and is there any one else that you

would like to invite?’

‘Why, there is Vere,’ said Coningsby, hesitating, ‘and--’

‘Vere! What Lord Vere?’ said Rigby. ‘Hum! He is one of your friends, is

he? His father has done a great deal of mischief, but still he is Lord

Vere. Well, of course, you can invite Vere.’

‘There is another fellow I should like to ask very much,’ said

Coningsby, ‘if Lord Monmouth would not think I was asking too many.’

‘Never fear that; he sent me particularly to tell you to invite as many

as you liked.’

‘Well, then, I should like to ask Millbank.’

‘Millbank!’ said Mr. Rigby, a little excited, and then he added, ‘Is

that a son of Lady Albinia Millbank?’

‘No; his mother is not a Lady Albinia, but he is a great friend of mine.

His father is a Lancashire manufacturer.’

‘By no means,’ exclaimed Mr. Rigby, quite agitated. ‘There is nothing

in the world that Lord Monmouth dislikes so much as Manchester

manufacturers, and particularly if they bear the name of Millbank. It

must not be thought of, my dear Harry. I hope you have not spoken to

the young man on the subject. I assure you it is out of the question.

It would make Lord Monmouth quite ill. It would spoil everything, quite

upset him.’

It was, of course, impossible for Coningsby to urge his wishes against

such representations. He was disappointed, rather amazed; but Madame

Colonna having sent for him to introduce her to some of the scenes and

details of Eton life, his vexation was soon absorbed in the pride of

acting in the face of his companions as the cavalier of a beautiful

lady, and becoming the cicerone of the most brilliant party that had

attended Montem. He presented his friends, too, to Lord Monmouth, who

gave them a cordial invitation to dine with him at his hotel at Windsor,

which they warmly accepted. Buckhurst delighted the Marquess by his

reckless genius. Even Lucretia deigned to appear amused; especially

when, on visiting the upper school, the name of CARDIFF, the title Lord

Monmouth bore in his youthful days, was pointed out to her by Coningsby,

cut with his grandfather’s own knife on the classic panels of that

memorable wall in which scarcely a name that has flourished in our

history, since the commencement of the eighteenth century, may not be

observed with curious admiration.

It was the humour of Lord Monmouth that the boys should be entertained

with the most various and delicious banquet that luxury could devise or

money could command. For some days beforehand orders had been given for

the preparation of this festival. Our friends did full justice to their

Lucullus; Buckhurst especially, who gave his opinion on the most refined

dishes with all the intrepidity of saucy ignorance, and occasionally

shook his head over a glass of Hermitage or Côte Rôtie with a

dissatisfaction which a satiated Sybarite could not have exceeded.

Considering all things, Coningsby and his friends exhibited a great deal

of self-command; but they were gay, even to the verge of frolic. But

then the occasion justified it, as much as their youth. All were in high

spirits. Madame Colonna declared that she had met nothing in England

equal to Montem; that it was a Protestant Carnival; and that its only

fault was that it did not last forty days. The Prince himself was all

animation, and took wine with every one of the Etonians several times.

All went on flowingly until Mr. Rigby contradicted Buckhurst on some

point of Eton discipline, which Buckhurst would not stand. He rallied

Mr. Rigby roundly, and Coningsby, full of champagne, and owing Rigby

several years of contradiction, followed up the assault. Lord Monmouth,

who liked a butt, and had a weakness for boisterous gaiety, slily

encouraged the boys, till Rigby began to lose his temper and get noisy.

The lads had the best of it; they said a great many funny things,

and delivered themselves of several sharp retorts; whereas there was

something ridiculous in Rigby putting forth his ‘slashing’ talents

against such younkers. However, he brought the infliction on himself by

his strange habit of deciding on subjects of which he knew nothing, and

of always contradicting persons on the very subjects of which they were

necessarily masters.

To see Rigby baited was more amusement to Lord Monmouth even than

Montem. Lucian Gay, however, when the affair was getting troublesome,

came forward as a diversion. He sang an extemporaneous song on the

ceremony of the day, and introduced the names of all the guests at the

dinner, and of a great many other persons besides. This was capital! The

boys were in raptures, but when the singer threw forth a verse about Dr.

Keate, the applause became uproarious.

‘Good-bye, my dear Harry,’ said Lord Monmouth, when he bade his

grandson farewell. ‘I am going abroad again; I cannot remain in this

Radical-ridden country. Remember, though I am away, Monmouth House is

your home, at least so long as it belongs to me. I understand my tailor

has turned Liberal, and is going to stand for one of the metropolitan

districts, a friend of Lord Durham; perhaps I shall find him in it when

I return. I fear there are evil days for the NEW GENERATION!’

END OF BOOK I.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

It was early in November, 1834, and a large shooting party was assembled

at Beaumanoir, the seat of that great nobleman, who was the father

of Henry Sydney. England is unrivalled for two things, sporting and

politics. They were combined at Beaumanoir; for the guests came not

merely to slaughter the Duke’s pheasants, but to hold council on the

prospects of the party, which it was supposed by the initiated, began at

this time to indicate some symptoms of brightening.

The success of the Reform Ministry on their first appeal to the new

constituency which they had created, had been fatally complete. But the

triumph was as destructive to the victors as to the vanquished.

‘We are too strong,’ prophetically exclaimed one of the fortunate

cabinet, which found itself supported by an inconceivable majority of

three hundred. It is to be hoped that some future publisher of private

memoirs may have preserved some of the traits of that crude and

short-lived parliament, when old Cobbett insolently thrust Sir Robert

from the prescriptive seat of the chief of opposition, and treasury

understrappers sneered at the ‘queer lot’ that had arrived from Ireland,

little foreseeing what a high bidding that ‘queer lot’ would eventually

command. Gratitude to Lord Grey was the hustings-cry at the end of 1832,

the pretext that was to return to the new-modelled House of Commons

none but men devoted to the Whig cause. The successful simulation,

like everything that is false, carried within it the seeds of its

own dissolution. Ingratitude to Lord Grey was more the fashion at the

commencement of 1834, and before the close of that eventful year, the

once popular Reform Ministry was upset, and the eagerly-sought Reformed

Parliament dissolved!

It can scarcely be alleged that the public was altogether unprepared for

this catastrophe. Many deemed it inevitable; few thought it imminent.

The career of the Ministry, and the existence of the Parliament, had

indeed from the first been turbulent and fitful. It was known, from

authority, that there were dissensions in the cabinet, while a House

of Commons which passed votes on subjects not less important than

the repeal of a tax, or the impeachment of a judge, on one night, and

rescinded its resolutions on the following, certainly established

no increased claims to the confidence of its constituents in its

discretion. Nevertheless, there existed at this period a prevalent

conviction that the Whig party, by a great stroke of state, similar in

magnitude and effect to that which in the preceding century had changed

the dynasty, had secured to themselves the government of this country

for, at least, the lives of the present generation. And even the

well-informed in such matters were inclined to look upon the perplexing

circumstances to which we have alluded rather as symptoms of a want

of discipline in a new system of tactics, than as evidences of any

essential and deeply-rooted disorder.

The startling rapidity, however, of the strange incidents of 1834; the

indignant, soon to become vituperative, secession of a considerable

section of the cabinet, some of them esteemed too at that time among

its most efficient members; the piteous deprecation of ‘pressure from

without,’ from lips hitherto deemed too stately for entreaty, followed

by the Trades’ Union, thirty thousand strong, parading in procession

to Downing-street; the Irish negotiations of Lord Hatherton, strange

blending of complex intrigue and almost infantile ingenuousness; the

still inexplicable resignation of Lord Althorp, hurriedly followed by

his still more mysterious resumption of power, the only result of his

precipitate movements being the fall of Lord Grey himself, attended by

circumstances which even a friendly historian could scarcely describe

as honourable to his party or dignified to himself; latterly, the

extemporaneous address of King William to the Bishops; the vagrant

and grotesque apocalypse of the Lord Chancellor; and the fierce

recrimination and memorable defiance of the Edinburgh banquet, all these

impressive instances of public affairs and public conduct had

combined to create a predominant opinion that, whatever might be the

consequences, the prolonged continuance of the present party in power

was a clear impossibility.

It is evident that the suicidal career of what was then styled the

Liberal party had been occasioned and stimulated by its unnatural excess

of strength. The apoplectic plethora of 1834 was not less fatal than

the paralytic tenuity of 1841. It was not feasible to gratify so many

ambitions, or to satisfy so many expectations. Every man had his double;

the heels of every placeman were dogged by friendly rivals ready to trip

them up. There were even two cabinets; the one that met in council, and

the one that met in cabal. The consequence of destroying the legitimate

Opposition of the country was, that a moiety of the supporters of

Government had to discharge the duties of Opposition.

Herein, then, we detect the real cause of all that irregular and

unsettled carriage of public men which so perplexed the nation after the

passing of the Reform Act. No government can be long secure without a

formidable Opposition. It reduces their supporters to that tractable

number which can be managed by the joint influences of fruition and of

hope. It offers vengeance to the discontented, and distinction to the

ambitious; and employs the energies of aspiring spirits, who otherwise

may prove traitors in a division or assassins in a debate.

The general election of 1832 abrogated the Parliamentary Opposition of

England, which had practically existed for more than a century and

a half. And what a series of equivocal transactions and mortifying

adventures did the withdrawal of this salutary restraint entail on the

party which then so loudly congratulated themselves and the country that

they were at length relieved from its odious repression! In the hurry of

existence one is apt too generally to pass over the political history

of the times in which we ourselves live. The two years that followed the

Reform of the House of Commons are full of instruction, on which a young

man would do well to ponder. It is hardly possible that he could rise

from the study of these annals without a confirmed disgust for political

intrigue; a dazzling practice, apt at first to fascinate youth, for it

appeals at once to our invention and our courage, but one which really

should only be the resource of the second-rate. Great minds must trust

to great truths and great talents for their rise, and nothing else.

While, however, as the autumn of 1834 advanced, the people of this

country became gradually sensible of the necessity of some change in the

councils of their Sovereign, no man felt capable of predicting by what

means it was to be accomplished, or from what quarry the new materials

were to be extracted. The Tory party, according to those perverted views

of Toryism unhappily too long prevalent in this country, was held to

be literally defunct, except by a few old battered crones of office,

crouched round the embers of faction which they were fanning, and

muttering ‘reaction’ in mystic whispers. It cannot be supposed indeed

for a moment, that the distinguished personage who had led that party in

the House of Commons previously to the passing of the act of 1832, ever

despaired in consequence of his own career. His then time of life, the

perfection, almost the prime, of manhood; his parliamentary practice,

doubly estimable in an inexperienced assembly; his political knowledge;

his fair character and reputable position; his talents and tone as a

public speaker, which he had always aimed to adapt to the habits and

culture of that middle class from which it was concluded the benches of

the new Parliament were mainly to be recruited, all these were qualities

the possession of which must have assured a mind not apt to be disturbed

in its calculations by any intemperate heats, that with time and

patience the game was yet for him.

Unquestionably, whatever may have been insinuated, this distinguished

person had no inkling that his services in 1834 might be claimed by

his Sovereign. At the close of the session of that year he had quitted

England with his family, and had arrived at Rome, where it was his

intention to pass the winter. The party charges that have imputed to him

a previous and sinister knowledge of the intentions of the Court, appear

to have been made not only in ignorance of the personal character, but

of the real position, of the future minister.

It had been the misfortune of this eminent gentleman when he first

entered public life, to become identified with a political connection

which, having arrogated to itself the name of an illustrious historical

party, pursued a policy which was either founded on no principle

whatever, or on principles exactly contrary to those which had always

guided the conduct of the great Tory leaders. The chief members of this

official confederacy were men distinguished by none of the conspicuous

qualities of statesmen. They had none of the divine gifts that govern

senates and guide councils. They were not orators; they were not men of

deep thought or happy resource, or of penetrative and sagacious minds.

Their political ken was essentially dull and contracted. They expended

some energy in obtaining a defective, blundering acquaintance with

foreign affairs; they knew as little of the real state of their own

country as savages of an approaching eclipse. This factious league had

shuffled themselves into power by clinging to the skirts of a great

minister, the last of Tory statesmen, but who, in the unparalleled

and confounding emergencies of his latter years, had been forced,

unfortunately for England, to relinquish Toryism. His successors

inherited all his errors without the latent genius, which in him might

have still rallied and extricated him from the consequences of his

disasters. His successors did not merely inherit his errors; they

exaggerated, they caricatured them. They rode into power on a springtide

of all the rampant prejudices and rancorous passions of their time.

From the King to the boor their policy was a mere pandering to

public ignorance. Impudently usurping the name of that party of

which nationality, and therefore universality, is the essence,

these pseudo-Tories made Exclusion the principle of their political

constitution, and Restriction the genius of their commercial code.

The blind goddess that plays with human fortunes has mixed up the memory

of these men with traditions of national glory. They conducted to a

prosperous conclusion the most renowned war in which England has ever

been engaged. Yet every military conception that emanated from their

cabinet was branded by their characteristic want of grandeur. Chance,

however, sent them a great military genius, whom they treated for a long

time with indifference, and whom they never heartily supported until

his career had made him their master. His transcendent exploits, and

European events even greater than his achievements, placed in the

manikin grasp of the English ministry, the settlement of Europe.

The act of the Congress of Vienna remains the eternal monument of their

diplomatic knowledge and political sagacity. Their capital feats were

the creation of two kingdoms, both of which are already erased from

the map of Europe. They made no single preparation for the inevitable,

almost impending, conjunctures of the East. All that remains of

the pragmatic arrangements of the mighty Congress of Vienna is the

mediatisation of the petty German princes.

But the settlement of Europe by the pseudo-Tories was the dictate of

inspiration compared with their settlement of England. The peace of

Paris found the government of this country in the hands of a body of men

of whom it is no exaggeration to say that they were ignorant of every

principle of every branch of political science. So long as our domestic

administration was confined merely to the raising of a revenue, they

levied taxes with gross facility from the industry of a country too busy

to criticise or complain. But when the excitement and distraction of

war had ceased, and they were forced to survey the social elements

that surrounded them, they seemed, for the first time, to have become

conscious of their own incapacity. These men, indeed, were the mere

children of routine. They prided themselves on being practical men. In

the language of this defunct school of statesmen, a practical man is a

man who practises the blunders of his predecessors.

Now commenced that Condition-of-England Question of which our generation

hears so much. During five-and-twenty years every influence that can

develop the energies and resources of a nation had been acting with

concentrated stimulation on the British Isles. National peril and

national glory; the perpetual menace of invasion, the continual triumph

of conquest; the most extensive foreign commerce that was ever conducted

by a single nation; an illimitable currency; an internal trade supported

by swarming millions whom manufacturers and inclosure-bills summoned

into existence; above all, the supreme control obtained by man over

mechanic power, these are some of the causes of that rapid advance of

material civilisation in England, to which the annals of the world can

afford no parallel. But there was no proportionate advance in our moral

civilisation. In the hurry-skurry of money-making, men-making, and

machine-making, we had altogether outgrown, not the spirit, but the

organisation, of our institutions.

The peace came; the stimulating influences suddenly ceased; the people,

in a novel and painful position, found themselves without guides.

They went to the ministry; they asked to be guided; they asked to be

governed. Commerce requested a code; trade required a currency; the

unfranchised subject solicited his equal privilege; suffering labour

clamoured for its rights; a new race demanded education. What did the

ministry do?

They fell into a panic. Having fulfilled during their lives the duties

of administration, they were frightened because they were called upon,

for the first time, to perform the functions of government. Like all

weak men, they had recourse to what they called strong measures. They

determined to put down the multitude. They thought they were imitating

Mr. Pitt, because they mistook disorganisation for sedition.

Their projects of relief were as ridiculous as their system of coercion

was ruthless; both were alike founded in intense ignorance. When we

recall Mr. Vansittart with his currency resolutions; Lord Castlereagh

with his plans for the employment of labour; and Lord Sidmouth with his

plots for ensnaring the laborious; we are tempted to imagine that the

present epoch has been one of peculiar advances in political ability,

and marvel how England could have attained her present pitch under a

series of such governors.

We should, however, be labouring under a very erroneous impression. Run

over the statesmen that have figured in England since the accession

of the present family, and we may doubt whether there be one, with the

exception perhaps of the Duke of Newcastle, who would have been a worthy

colleague of the council of Mr. Perceval, or the early cabinet of Lord

Liverpool. Assuredly the genius of Bolingbroke and the sagacity of

Walpole would have alike recoiled from such men and such measures. And

if we take the individuals who were governing England immediately before

the French Revolution, one need only refer to the speeches of Mr. Pitt,

and especially to those of that profound statesman and most instructed

man, Lord Shelburne, to find that we can boast no remarkable superiority

either in political justice or in political economy. One must attribute

this degeneracy, therefore, to the long war and our insular position,

acting upon men naturally of inferior abilities, and unfortunately, in

addition, of illiterate habits.

In the meantime, notwithstanding all the efforts of the political

Panglosses who, in evening Journals and Quarterly Reviews were

continually proving that this was the best of all possible governments,

it was evident to the ministry itself that the machine must stop. The

class of Rigbys indeed at this period, one eminently favourable to that

fungous tribe, greatly distinguished themselves. They demonstrated in a

manner absolutely convincing, that it was impossible for any person to

possess any ability, knowledge, or virtue, any capacity of reasoning,

any ray of fancy or faculty of imagination, who was not a supporter of

the existing administration. If any one impeached the management of a

department, the public was assured that the accuser had embezzled;

if any one complained of the conduct of a colonial governor, the

complainant was announced as a returned convict. An amelioration of

the criminal code was discountenanced because a search in the parish

register of an obscure village proved that the proposer had not been

born in wedlock. A relaxation of the commercial system was denounced

because one of its principal advocates was a Socinian. The inutility of

Parliamentary Reform was ever obvious since Mr. Rigby was a member of

the House of Commons.

To us, with our _Times_ newspaper every morning on our breakfast-table,

bringing, on every subject which can interest the public mind, a degree

of information and intelligence which must form a security against

any prolonged public misconception, it seems incredible that only

five-and-twenty years ago the English mind could have been so ridden

and hoodwinked, and that, too, by men of mean attainments and moderate

abilities. But the war had directed the energies of the English people

into channels by no means favourable to political education. Conquerors

of the world, with their ports filled with the shipping of every clime,

and their manufactories supplying the European continent, in the art

of self-government, that art in which their fathers excelled, they had

become literally children; and Rigby and his brother hirelings were the

nurses that frightened them with hideous fables and ugly words.

Notwithstanding, however, all this successful mystification, the

Arch-Mediocrity who presided, rather than ruled, over this Cabinet

of Mediocrities, became hourly more conscious that the inevitable

transition from fulfilling the duties of an administration to performing

the functions of a government could not be conducted without talents and

knowledge. The Arch-Mediocrity had himself some glimmering traditions

of political science. He was sprung from a laborious stock, had received

some training, and though not a statesman, might be classed among

those whom the Lord Keeper Williams used to call ‘statemongers.’ In a

subordinate position his meagre diligence and his frigid method might

not have been without value; but the qualities that he possessed were

misplaced; nor can any character be conceived less invested with the

happy properties of a leader. In the conduct of public affairs his

disposition was exactly the reverse of that which is the characteristic

of great men. He was peremptory in little questions, and great ones he

left open.

In the natural course of events, in 1819 there ought to have been a

change of government, and another party in the state should have entered

into office; but the Whigs, though they counted in their ranks at that

period an unusual number of men of great ability, and formed, indeed, a

compact and spirited opposition, were unable to contend against the new

adjustment of borough influence which had occurred during the war,

and under the protracted administration by which that war had been

conducted. New families had arisen on the Tory side that almost rivalled

old Newcastle himself in their electioneering management; and it was

evident that, unless some reconstruction of the House of Commons could

be effected, the Whig party could never obtain a permanent hold of

official power. Hence, from that period, the Whigs became Parliamentary

Reformers.

It was inevitable, therefore, that the country should be governed by the

same party; indispensable that the ministry should be renovated by new

brains and blood. Accordingly, a Mediocrity, not without repugnance, was

induced to withdraw, and the great name of Wellington supplied his place

in council. The talents of the Duke, as they were then understood, were

not exactly of the kind most required by the cabinet, and his colleagues

were careful that he should not occupy too prominent a post; but

still it was an impressive acquisition, and imparted to the ministry a

semblance of renown.

There was an individual who had not long entered public life, but who

had already filled considerable, though still subordinate offices.

Having acquired a certain experience of the duties of administration,

and distinction for his mode of fulfilling them, he had withdrawn

from his public charge; perhaps because he found it a barrier to the

attainment of that parliamentary reputation for which he had already

shown both a desire and a capacity; perhaps because, being young and

independent, he was not over-anxious irremediably to identify his career

with a school of politics of the infallibility of which his experience

might have already made him a little sceptical. But he possessed the

talents that were absolutely wanted, and the terms were at his own

dictation. Another, and a very distinguished Mediocrity, who would not

resign, was thrust out, and Mr. Peel became Secretary of State.

From this moment dates that intimate connection between the Duke

of Wellington and the present First Minister, which has exercised a

considerable influence over the career of individuals and the course of

affairs. It was the sympathetic result of superior minds placed among

inferior intelligences, and was, doubtless, assisted by a then mutual

conviction, that the difference of age, the circumstance of sitting in

different houses, and the general contrast of their previous pursuits

and accomplishments, rendered personal rivalry out of the question. From

this moment, too, the domestic government of the country assumed a new

character, and one universally admitted to have been distinguished by a

spirit of enlightened progress and comprehensive amelioration.

A short time after this, a third and most distinguished Mediocrity died;

and Canning, whom they had twice worried out of the cabinet, where they

had tolerated him some time in an obscure and ambiguous position, was

recalled just in time from his impending banishment, installed in the

first post in the Lower House, and intrusted with the seals of the

Foreign Office. The Duke of Wellington had coveted them, nor could Lord

Liverpool have been insensible to his Grace’s peculiar fitness for such

duties; but strength was required in the House of Commons, where they

had only one Secretary of State, a young man already distinguished, yet

untried as a leader, and surrounded by colleagues notoriously incapable

to assist him in debate.

The accession of Mr. Canning to the cabinet, in a position, too, of

surpassing influence, soon led to a further weeding of the Mediocrities,

and, among other introductions, to the memorable entrance of Mr.

Huskisson. In this wise did that cabinet, once notable only for the

absence of all those qualities which authorise the possession of power,

come to be generally esteemed as a body of men, who, for parliamentary

eloquence, official practice, political information, sagacity in

council, and a due understanding of their epoch, were inferior to none

that had directed the policy of the empire since the Revolution.

If we survey the tenor of the policy of the Liverpool Cabinet during the

latter moiety of its continuance, we shall find its characteristic to be

a partial recurrence to those frank principles of government which

Mr. Pitt had revived during the latter part of the last century from

precedents that had been set us, either in practice or in dogma, during

its earlier period, by statesmen who then not only bore the title,

but professed the opinions, of Tories. Exclusive principles in the

constitution, and restrictive principles in commerce, have grown up

together; and have really nothing in common with the ancient character

of our political settlement, or the manners and customs of the English

people. Confidence in the loyalty of the nation, testified by munificent

grants of rights and franchises, and favour to an expansive system of

traffic, were distinctive qualities of the English sovereignty, until

the House of Commons usurped the better portion of its prerogatives. A

widening of our electoral scheme, great facilities to commerce, and the

rescue of our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects from the Puritanic yoke,

from fetters which have been fastened on them by English Parliaments in

spite of the protests and exertions of English Sovereigns; these were

the three great elements and fundamental truths of the real Pitt system,

a system founded on the traditions of our monarchy, and caught from the

writings, the speeches, the councils of those who, for the sake of these

and analogous benefits, had ever been anxious that the Sovereign of

England should never be degraded into the position of a Venetian Doge.

It is in the plunder of the Church that we must seek for the primary

cause of our political exclusion, and our commercial restraint. That

unhallowed booty created a factitious aristocracy, ever fearful that

they might be called upon to regorge their sacrilegious spoil. To

prevent this they took refuge in political religionism, and paltering

with the disturbed consciences, or the pious fantasies, of a portion of

the people, they organised them into religious sects. These became the

unconscious Praetorians of their ill-gotten domains. At the head

of these religionists, they have continued ever since to govern, or

powerfully to influence this country. They have in that time pulled

down thrones and churches, changed dynasties, abrogated and remodelled

parliaments; they have disfranchised Scotland and confiscated Ireland.

One may admire the vigour and consistency of the Whig party, and

recognise in their career that unity of purpose that can only spring

from a great principle; but the Whigs introduced sectarian religion,

sectarian religion led to political exclusion, and political exclusion

was soon accompanied by commercial restraint.

It would be fanciful to assume that the Liverpool Cabinet, in their

ameliorating career, was directed by any desire to recur to the

primordial tenets of the Tory party. That was not an epoch when

statesmen cared to prosecute the investigation of principles. It was

a period of happy and enlightened practice. A profounder policy is the

offspring of a time like the present, when the original postulates of

institutions are called in question. The Liverpool Cabinet unconsciously

approximated to these opinions, because from careful experiment they

were convinced of their beneficial tendency, and they thus bore an

unintentional and impartial testimony to their truth. Like many men, who

think they are inventors, they were only reproducing ancient wisdom.

But one must ever deplore that this ministry, with all their talents and

generous ardour, did not advance to principles. It is always perilous to

adopt expediency as a guide; but the choice may be sometimes imperative.

These statesmen, however, took expediency for their director, when

principle would have given them all that expediency ensured, and much

more.

This ministry, strong in the confidence of the sovereign, the

parliament, and the people, might, by the courageous promulgation of

great historical truths, have gradually formed a public opinion, that

would have permitted them to organise the Tory party on a broad, a

permanent, and national basis. They might have nobly effected a complete

settlement of Ireland, which a shattered section of this very cabinet

was forced a few years after to do partially, and in an equivocating

and equivocal manner. They might have concluded a satisfactory

reconstruction of the third estate, without producing that convulsion

with which, from its violent fabrication, our social system still

vibrates. Lastly, they might have adjusted the rights and properties

of our national industries in a manner which would have prevented that

fierce and fatal rivalry that is now disturbing every hearth of the

United Kingdom.

We may, therefore, visit on the _laches_ of this ministry the

introduction of that new principle and power into our constitution which

ultimately may absorb all, AGITATION. This cabinet, then, with so much

brilliancy on its surface, is the real parent of the Roman Catholic

Association, the Political Unions, the Anti-Corn-Law League.

There is no influence at the same time so powerful and so singular as

that of individual character. It arises as often from the weakness of

the character as from its strength. The dispersion of this clever and

showy ministry is a fine illustration of this truth. One morning the

Arch-Mediocrity himself died. At the first blush, it would seem that

little difficulties could be experienced in finding his substitute. His

long occupation of the post proved, at any rate, that the qualification

was not excessive. But this cabinet, with its serene and blooming

visage, had been all this time charged with fierce and emulous

ambitions. They waited the signal, but they waited in grim repose.

The death of the nominal leader, whose formal superiority, wounding no

vanity, and offending no pride, secured in their councils equality among

the able, was the tocsin of their anarchy. There existed in this cabinet

two men, who were resolved immediately to be prime ministers; a third

who was resolved eventually to be prime minister, but would at any rate

occupy no ministerial post without the lead of a House of Parliament;

and a fourth, who felt himself capable of being prime minister, but

despaired of the revolution which could alone make him one; and who

found an untimely end when that revolution had arrived.

Had Mr. Secretary Canning remained leader of the House of Commons under

the Duke of Wellington, all that he would have gained by the death of

Lord Liverpool was a master. Had the Duke of Wellington become Secretary

of State under Mr. Canning he would have materially advanced his

political position, not only by holding the seals of a high department

in which he was calculated to excel, but by becoming leader of the

House of Lords. But his Grace was induced by certain court intriguers to

believe that the King would send for him, and he was also aware that Mr.

Peel would no longer serve under any ministry in the House of Commons.

Under any circumstances it would have been impossible to keep the

Liverpool Cabinet together. The struggle, therefore, between the Duke of

Wellington and ‘my dear Mr. Canning’ was internecine, and ended somewhat

unexpectedly.

And here we must stop to do justice to our friend Mr. Rigby, whose

conduct on this occasion was distinguished by a bustling dexterity which

was quite charming. He had, as we have before intimated, on the credit

of some clever lampoons written during the Queen’s trial, which were,

in fact, the effusions of Lucian Gay, wriggled himself into a sort of

occasional unworthy favour at the palace, where he was half butt and

half buffoon. Here, during the interregnum occasioned by the death, or

rather inevitable retirement, of Lord Liverpool, Mr. Rigby contrived

to scrape up a conviction that the Duke was the winning horse, and in

consequence there appeared a series of leading articles in a notorious

evening newspaper, in which it was, as Tadpole and Taper declared, most

‘slashingly’ shown, that the son of an actress could never be tolerated

as a Prime Minister of England. Not content with this, and never

doubting for a moment the authentic basis of his persuasion, Mr. Rigby

poured forth his coarse volubility on the subject at several of the new

clubs which he was getting up in order to revenge himself for having

been black-balled at White’s.

What with arrangements about Lord Monmouth’s boroughs, and the lucky

bottling of some claret which the Duke had imported on Mr. Rigby’s

recommendation, this distinguished gentleman contrived to pay almost

hourly visits at Apsley House, and so bullied Tadpole and Taper that

they scarcely dared address him. About four-and-twenty hours before the

result, and when it was generally supposed that the Duke was in, Mr.

Rigby, who had gone down to Windsor to ask his Majesty the date of some

obscure historical incident, which Rigby, of course, very well knew,

found that audiences were impossible, that Majesty was agitated, and

learned, from an humble but secure authority, that in spite of all his

slashing articles, and Lucian Gay’s parodies of the Irish melodies,

Canning was to be Prime Minister.

This would seem something of a predicament! To common minds; there are

no such things as scrapes for gentlemen with Mr. Rigby’s talents for

action. He had indeed, in the world, the credit of being an adept in

machinations, and was supposed ever to be involved in profound and

complicated contrivances. This was quite a mistake. There was nothing

profound about Mr. Rigby; and his intellect was totally incapable of

devising or sustaining an intricate or continuous scheme. He was, in

short, a man who neither felt nor thought; but who possessed, in a

very remarkable degree, a restless instinct for adroit baseness. On the

present occasion he got into his carriage, and drove at the utmost speed

from Windsor to the Foreign Office. The Secretary of State was engaged

when he arrived; but Mr. Rigby would listen to no difficulties. He

rushed upstairs, flung open the door, and with agitated countenance, and

eyes suffused with tears, threw himself into the arms of the astonished

Mr. Canning.

‘All is right,’ exclaimed the devoted Rigby, in broken tones; ‘I have

convinced the King that the First Minister must be in the House of

Commons. No one knows it but myself; but it is certain.’

We have seen that at an early period of his career, Mr. Peel withdrew

from official life. His course had been one of unbroken prosperity; the

hero of the University had become the favourite of the House of Commons.

His retreat, therefore, was not prompted by chagrin. Nor need it have

been suggested by a calculating ambition, for the ordinary course of

events was fast bearing to him all to which man could aspire. One

might rather suppose, that he had already gained sufficient experience,

perhaps in his Irish Secretaryship, to make him pause in that career of

superficial success which education and custom had hitherto chalked out

for him, rather than the creative energies of his own mind. A thoughtful

intellect may have already detected elements in our social system which

required a finer observation, and a more unbroken study, than the gyves

and trammels of office would permit. He may have discovered that the

representation of the University, looked upon in those days as the

blue ribbon of the House of Commons, was a sufficient fetter without

unnecessarily adding to its restraint. He may have wished to reserve

himself for a happier occasion, and a more progressive period. He may

have felt the strong necessity of arresting himself in his rapid career

of felicitous routine, to survey his position in calmness, and to

comprehend the stirring age that was approaching.

For that, he could not but be conscious that the education which he had

consummated, however ornate and refined, was not sufficient. That age

of economical statesmanship which Lord Shelburne had predicted in 1787,

when he demolished, in the House of Lords, Bishop Watson and the

Balance of Trade, which Mr. Pitt had comprehended; and for which he was

preparing the nation when the French Revolution diverted the public mind

into a stronger and more turbulent current, was again impending, while

the intervening history of the country had been prolific in events which

had aggravated the necessity of investigating the sources of the wealth

of nations. The time had arrived when parliamentary preeminence could no

longer be achieved or maintained by gorgeous abstractions borrowed from

Burke, or shallow systems purloined from De Lolme, adorned with Horatian

points, or varied with Virgilian passages. It was to be an age of

abstruse disquisition, that required a compact and sinewy intellect,

nurtured in a class of learning not yet honoured in colleges, and which

might arrive at conclusions conflicting with predominant prejudices.

Adopting this view of the position of Mr. Peel, strengthened as it is by

his early withdrawal for a while from the direction of public affairs,

it may not only be a charitable but a true estimate of the motives which

influenced him in his conduct towards Mr. Canning, to conclude that he

was not guided in that transaction by the disingenuous rivalry

usually imputed to him. His statement in Parliament of the determining

circumstances of his conduct, coupled with his subsequent and almost

immediate policy, may perhaps always leave this a painful and ambiguous

passage in his career; but in passing judgment on public men, it behoves

us ever to take large and extended views of their conduct; and previous

incidents will often satisfactorily explain subsequent events, which,

without their illustrating aid, are involved in misapprehension or

mystery.

It would seem, therefore, that Sir Robert Peel, from an early period,

meditated his emancipation from the political confederacy in which

he was implicated, and that he has been continually baffled in this

project. He broke loose from Lord Liverpool; he retired from Mr.

Canning. Forced again into becoming the subordinate leader of the

weakest government in parliamentary annals, he believed he had at length

achieved his emancipation, when he declared to his late colleagues,

after the overthrow of 1830, that he would never again accept a

secondary position in office. But the Duke of Wellington was too old a

tactician to lose so valuable an ally. So his Grace declared after the

Reform Bill was passed, as its inevitable result, that thenceforth

the Prime Minister must be a member of the House of Commons; and this

aphorism, cited as usual by the Duke’s parasites as demonstration of his

supreme sagacity, was a graceful mode of resigning the preeminence which

had been productive of such great party disasters. It is remarkable

that the party who devised and passed the Reform Bill, and who, in

consequence, governed the nation for ten years, never once had their

Prime Minister in the House of Commons: but that does not signify; the

Duke’s maxim is still quoted as an oracle almost equal in prescience

to his famous query, ‘How is the King’s government to be carried on?’

a question to which his Grace by this time has contrived to give a

tolerably practical answer.

Sir Robert Peel, who had escaped from Lord Liverpool, escaped from Mr.

Canning, escaped even from the Duke of Wellington in 1832, was at

length caught in 1834; the victim of ceaseless intriguers, who neither

comprehended his position, nor that of their country.

CHAPTER II.

Beaumanoir was one of those Palladian palaces, vast and ornate, such

as the genius of Kent and Campbell delighted in at the beginning of the

eighteenth century. Placed on a noble elevation, yet screened from the

northern blast, its sumptuous front, connected with its far-spreading

wings by Corinthian colonnades, was the boast and pride of the midland

counties. The surrounding gardens, equalling in extent the size of

ordinary parks, were crowded with temples dedicated to abstract virtues

and to departed friends. Occasionally a triumphal arch celebrated a

general whom the family still esteemed a hero; and sometimes a votive

column commemorated the great statesman who had advanced the family a

step in the peerage. Beyond the limits of this pleasance the hart and

hind wandered in a wilderness abounding in ferny coverts and green and

stately trees.

The noble proprietor of this demesne had many of the virtues of his

class; a few of their failings. He had that public spirit which became

his station. He was not one of those who avoided the exertions and the

sacrifices which should be inseparable from high position, by the hollow

pretext of a taste for privacy, and a devotion to domestic joys. He

was munificent, tender, and bounteous to the poor, and loved a flowing

hospitality. A keen sportsman, he was not untinctured by letters,

and had indeed a cultivated taste for the fine arts. Though an ardent

politician, he was tolerant to adverse opinions, and full of amenity

to his opponents. A firm supporter of the corn-laws, he never refused

a lease. Notwithstanding there ran through his whole demeanour and the

habit of his mind, a vein of native simplicity that was full of charm,

his manner was finished. He never offended any one’s self-love. His good

breeding, indeed, sprang from the only sure source of gentle manners,

a kind heart. To have pained others would have pained himself. Perhaps,

too, this noble sympathy may have been in some degree prompted by the

ancient blood in his veins, an accident of lineage rather rare with the

English nobility. One could hardly praise him for the strong affections

that bound him to his hearth, for fortune had given him the most

pleasing family in the world; but, above all, a peerless wife.

The Duchess was one of those women who are the delight of existence. She

was sprung from a house not inferior to that with which she had blended,

and was gifted with that rare beauty which time ever spares, so that she

seemed now only the elder sister of her own beautiful daughters. She,

too, was distinguished by that perfect good breeding which is the result

of nature and not of education: for it may be found in a cottage, and

may be missed in a palace. ‘Tis a genial regard for the feelings of

others that springs from an absence of selfishness. The Duchess, indeed,

was in every sense a fine lady; her manners were refined and full of

dignity; but nothing in the world could have induced her to appear bored

when another was addressing or attempting to amuse her. She was not one

of those vulgar fine ladies who meet you one day with a vacant stare, as

if unconscious of your existence, and address you on another in a tone

of impertinent familiarity. Her temper, perhaps, was somewhat quick,

which made this consideration for the feelings of others still more

admirable, for it was the result of a strict moral discipline acting

on a good heart. Although the best of wives and mothers, she had some

charity for her neighbours. Needing herself no indulgence, she could be

indulgent; and would by no means favour that strait-laced morality

that would constrain the innocent play of the social body. She was

accomplished, well read, and had a lively fancy. Add to this that

sunbeam of a happy home, a gay and cheerful spirit in its mistress, and

one might form some faint idea of this gracious personage.

The eldest son of this house was now on the continent; of his

two younger brothers, one was with his regiment and the other was

Coningsby’s friend at Eton, our Henry Sydney. The two eldest daughters

had just married, on the same day, and at the same altar; and the

remaining one, Theresa, was still a child.

The Duke had occupied a chief post in the Household under the late

administration, and his present guests chiefly consisted of his former

colleagues in office. There were several members of the late cabinet,

several members for his Grace’s late boroughs, looking very much like

martyrs, full of suffering and of hope. Mr. Tadpole and Mr. Taper were

also there; they too had lost their seats since 1832; but being men of

business, and accustomed from early life to look about them, they had

already commenced the combinations which on a future occasion were to

bear them back to the assembly where they were so missed.

Taper had his eye on a small constituency which had escaped the fatal

schedules, and where he had what they called a ‘connection;’ that is to

say, a section of the suffrages who had a lively remembrance of Treasury

favours once bestowed by Mr. Taper, and who had not been so liberally

dealt with by the existing powers. This connection of Taper was in time

to leaven the whole mass of the constituent body, and make it rise in

full rebellion against its present liberal representative, who being

one of a majority of three hundred, could get nothing when he called at

Whitehall or Downing Street.

Tadpole, on the contrary, who was of a larger grasp of mind than

Taper, with more of imagination and device but not so safe a man, was

coquetting with a manufacturing town and a large constituency, where he

was to succeed by the aid of the Wesleyans, of which pious body he had

suddenly become a fervent admirer. The great Mr. Rigby, too, was a guest

out of Parliament, nor caring to be in; but hearing that his friends had

some hopes, he thought he would just come down to dash them.

The political grapes were sour for Mr. Rigby; a prophet of evil, he

preached only mortification and repentance and despair to his late

colleagues. It was the only satisfaction left Mr. Rigby, except assuring

the Duke that the finest pictures in his gallery were copies, and

recommending him to pull down Beaumanoir, and rebuild it on a design

with which Mr. Rigby would furnish him.

The battue and the banquet were over; the ladies had withdrawn; and the

butler placed fresh claret on the table.

‘And you really think you could give us a majority, Tadpole?’ said the

Duke.

Mr. Tadpole, with some ceremony, took a memorandum-book out of his

pocket, amid the smiles and the faint well-bred merriment of his

friends.

‘Tadpole is nothing without his book,’ whispered Lord Fitz-Booby.

‘It is here,’ said Mr. Tadpole, emphatically patting his volume, ‘a

clear working majority of twenty-two.’

‘Near sailing that!’ cried the Duke.

‘A far better majority than the present Government have,’ said Mr.

Tadpole.

‘There is nothing like a good small majority,’ said Mr. Taper, ‘and a

good registration.’

‘Ay! register, register, register!’ said the Duke. ‘Those were immortal

words.’

‘I can tell your Grace three far better ones,’ said Mr. Tadpole, with a

self-complacent air. ‘Object, object, object!’

‘You may register, and you may object,’ said Mr. Rigby, ‘but you will

never get rid of Schedule A and Schedule B.’

‘But who could have supposed two years ago that affairs would be in

their present position?’ said Mr. Taper, deferentially.

‘I foretold it,’ said Mr. Rigby. ‘Every one knows that no government now

can last twelve months.’

‘We may make fresh boroughs,’ said Taper. ‘We have reduced Shabbyton at

the last registration under three hundred.’

‘And the Wesleyans!’ said Tadpole. ‘We never counted on the Wesleyans!’

‘I am told these Wesleyans are really a respectable body,’ said Lord

Fitz-Booby. ‘I believe there is no material difference between their

tenets and those of the Establishment. I never heard of them much till

lately. We have too long confounded them with the mass of Dissenters,

but their conduct at several of the later elections proves that they are

far from being unreasonable and disloyal individuals. When we come in,

something should be done for the Wesleyans, eh, Rigby?’

‘All that your Lordship can do for the Wesleyans is what they will very

shortly do for themselves, appropriate a portion of the Church Revenues

to their own use.’

‘Nay, nay,’ said Mr. Tadpole with a chuckle, ‘I don’t think we shall

find the Church attacked again in a hurry. I only wish they would try! A

good Church cry before a registration,’ he continued, rubbing his hands;

‘eh, my Lord, I think that would do.’

‘But how are we to turn them out?’ said the Duke.

‘Ah!’ said Mr. Taper, ‘that is a great question.’

‘What do you think of a repeal of the Malt Tax?’ said Lord Fitz-Booby.

‘They have been trying it on in ----shire, and I am told it goes down

very well.’

‘No repeal of any tax,’ said Taper, sincerely shocked, and shaking his

head; ‘and the Malt Tax of all others. I am all against that.’

‘It is a very good cry though, if there be no other,’ said Tadpole.

‘I am all for a religious cry,’ said Taper. ‘It means nothing, and, if

successful, does not interfere with business when we are in.’

‘You will have religious cries enough in a short time,’ said Mr. Rigby,

rather wearied of any one speaking but himself, and thereat he commenced

a discourse, which was, in fact, one of his ‘slashing’ articles in petto

on Church Reform, and which abounded in parallels between the present

affairs and those of the reign of Charles I. Tadpole, who did not

pretend to know anything but the state of the registration, and Taper,

whose political reading was confined to an intimate acquaintance with

the Red Book and Beatson’s Political Index, which he could repeat

backwards, were silenced. The Duke, who was well instructed and liked

to be talked to, sipped his claret, and was rather amused by Rigby’s

lecture, particularly by one or two statements characterised by Rigby’s

happy audacity, but which the Duke was too indolent to question. Lord

Fitz-Booby listened with his mouth open, but rather bored. At length,

when there was a momentary pause, he said:

‘In my time, the regular thing was to move an amendment on the address.’

‘Quite out of the question,’ exclaimed Tadpole, with a scoff.

‘Entirely given up,’ said Taper, with a sneer.

‘If you will drink no more claret, we will go and hear some music,’ said

the Duke.

CHAPTER III.

A breakfast at Beaumanoir was a meal of some ceremony. Every guest was

expected to attend, and at a somewhat early hour. Their host and hostess

set them the example of punctuality. ‘Tis an old form rigidly adhered to

in some great houses, but, it must be confessed, does not contrast

very agreeably with the easier arrangements of establishments of less

pretension and of more modern order.

The morning after the dinner to which we have been recently introduced,

there was one individual absent from the breakfast-table whose

non-appearance could scarcely be passed over without notice; and several

inquired with some anxiety, whether their host were indisposed.

‘The Duke has received some letters from London which detain him,’

replied the Duchess. ‘He will join us.’

‘Your Grace will be glad to hear that your son Henry is very well,’ said

Mr. Rigby; ‘I heard of him this morning. Harry Coningsby enclosed me a

letter for his grandfather, and tells me that he and Henry Sydney had

just had a capital run with the King’s hounds.’

‘It is three years since we have seen Mr. Coningsby,’ said the Duchess.

‘Once he was often here. He was a great favourite of mine. I hardly ever

knew a more interesting boy.’

‘Yes, I have done a great deal for him,’ said Mr. Rigby. ‘Lord Monmouth

is fond of him, and wishes that he should make a figure; but how any one

is to distinguish himself now, I am really at a loss to comprehend.’

‘But are affairs so very bad?’ said the Duchess, smiling. ‘I thought

that we were all regaining our good sense and good temper.’

‘I believe all the good sense and all the good temper in England are

concentrated in your Grace,’ said Mr. Rigby, gallantly.

‘I should be sorry to be such a monopolist. But Lord Fitz-Booby was

giving me last night quite a glowing report of Mr. Tadpole’s prospects

for the nation. We were all to have our own again; and Percy to carry

the county.’

‘My dear Madam, before twelve months are past, there will not be

a county in England. Why should there be? If boroughs are to be

disfranchised, why should not counties be destroyed?’

At this moment the Duke entered, apparently agitated. He bowed to his

guests, and apologised for his unusual absence. ‘The truth is,’ he

continued, ‘I have just received a very important despatch. An event has

occurred which may materially affect affairs. Lord Spencer is dead.’

A thunderbolt in a summer sky, as Sir William Temple says, could not

have produced a greater sensation. The business of the repast ceased in

a moment. The knives and forks were suddenly silent. All was still.

‘It is an immense event,’ said Tadpole.

‘I don’t see my way,’ said Taper.

‘When did he die?’ said Lord Fitz-Booby.

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Mr. Rigby.

‘They have got their man ready,’ said Tadpole.

‘It is impossible to say what will happen,’ said Taper.

‘Now is the time for an amendment on the address,’ said Fitz-Booby.

‘There are two reasons which convince me that Lord Spencer is not dead,’

said Mr. Rigby.

‘I fear there is no doubt of it,’ said the Duke, shaking his head.

‘Lord Althorp was the only man who could keep them together,’ said Lord

Fitz-Booby.

‘On the contrary,’ said Tadpole. ‘If I be right in my man, and I have

no doubt of it, you will have a radical programme, and they will be

stronger than ever.’

‘Do you think they can get the steam up again?’ said Taper, musingly.

‘They will bid high,’ replied Tadpole. ‘Nothing could be more

unfortunate than this death. Things were going on so well and so

quietly! The Wesleyans almost with us!’

‘And Shabbyton too!’ mournfully exclaimed Taper. ‘Another registration

and quiet times, and I could have reduced the constituency to two

hundred and fifty.’

‘If Lord Spencer had died on the 10th,’ said Rigby, ‘it must have been

known to Henry Rivers. And I have a letter from Henry Rivers by this

post. Now, Althorp is in Northamptonshire, mark that, and Northampton is

a county--’

‘My dear Rigby,’ said the Duke, ‘pardon me for interrupting you.

Unhappily, there is no doubt Lord Spencer is dead, for I am one of his

executors.’

This announcement silenced even Mr. Rigby, and the conversation now

entirely merged in speculations on what would occur. Numerous were

the conjectures hazarded, but the prevailing impression was, that this

unforeseen event might embarrass those secret expectations of Court

succour in which a certain section of the party had for some time reason

to indulge.

From the moment, however, of the announcement of Lord Spencer’s death, a

change might be visibly observed in the tone of the party at Beaumanoir.

They became silent, moody, and restless. There seemed a general, though

not avowed, conviction that a crisis of some kind or other was at hand.

The post, too, brought letters every day from town teeming with fanciful

speculations, and occasionally mysterious hopes.

‘I kept this cover for Peel,’ said the Duke pensively, as he loaded his

gun on the morning of the 14th. ‘Do you know, I was always against his

going to Rome.’

‘It is very odd,’ said Tadpole, ‘but I was thinking of the very same

thing.’

‘It will be fifteen years before England will see a Tory Government,’

said Mr. Rigby, drawing his ramrod, ‘and then it will only last five

months.’

‘Melbourne, Althorp, and Durham, all in the Lords,’ said Taper. ‘Three

leaders! They must quarrel.’

‘If Durham come in, mark me, he will dissolve on Household Suffrage and

the Ballot,’ said Tadpole.

‘Not nearly so good a cry as Church,’ replied Taper.

‘With the Malt Tax,’ said Tadpole. ‘Church, without the Malt Tax, will

not do against Household Suffrage and Ballot.’

‘Malt Tax is madness,’ said Taper. ‘A good farmer’s friend cry without

Malt Tax would work just as well.’

‘They will never dissolve,’ said the Duke. ‘They are so strong.’

‘They cannot go on with three hundred majority,’ said Taper. ‘Forty is

as much as can be managed with open constituencies.’

‘If he had only gone to Paris instead of Rome!’ said the Duke.

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Rigby, ‘I could have written to him then by every post,

and undeceived him as to his position.’

‘After all he is the only man,’ said the Duke; ‘and I really believe the

country thinks so.’

‘Pray, what is the country?’ inquired Mr. Rigby. ‘The country is

nothing; it is the constituency you have to deal with.’

‘And to manage them you must have a good cry,’ said Taper. ‘All now

depends upon a good cry.’

‘So much for the science of politics,’ said the Duke, bringing down a

pheasant. ‘How Peel would have enjoyed this cover!’

‘He will have plenty of time for sport during his life,’ said Mr. Rigby.

On the evening of the 15th of November, a despatch arrived at

Beaumanoir, informing his Grace that the King had dismissed the Whig

Ministry, and sent for the Duke of Wellington. Thus the first agitating

suspense was over; to be succeeded, however, by expectation still more

anxious. It was remarkable that every individual suddenly found that he

had particular business in London which could not be neglected. The Duke

very properly pleaded his executorial duties; but begged his guests on

no account to be disturbed by his inevitable absence. Lord Fitz-Booby

had just received a letter from his daughter, who was indisposed at

Brighton, and he was most anxious to reach her. Tadpole had to receive

deputations from Wesleyans, and well-registered boroughs anxious to

receive well-principled candidates. Taper was off to get the first job

at the contingent Treasury, in favour of the Borough of Shabbyton.

Mr. Rigby alone was silent; but he quietly ordered a post-chaise at

daybreak, and long before his fellow guests were roused from their

slumbers, he was halfway to London, ready to give advice, either at the

pavilion or at Apsley House.

CHAPTER IV.

Although it is far from improbable that, had Sir Robert Peel been in

England in the autumn of 1834, the Whig government would not have been

dismissed; nevertheless, whatever may now be the opinion of the policy

of that measure; whether it be looked on as a premature movement which

necessarily led to the compact reorganisation of the Liberal party,

or as a great stroke of State, which, by securing at all events a

dissolution of the Parliament of 1832, restored the healthy balance of

parties in the Legislature, questions into which we do not now wish

to enter, it must be generally admitted, that the conduct of every

individual eminently concerned in that great historical transaction was

characterised by the rarest and most admirable quality of public

life, moral courage. The Sovereign who dismissed a Ministry apparently

supported by an overwhelming majority in the Parliament and the nation,

and called to his councils the absent chief of a parliamentary section,

scarcely numbering at that moment one hundred and forty individuals, and

of a party in the country supposed to be utterly discomfited by a

recent revolution; the two ministers who in this absence provisionally

administered the affairs of the kingdom in the teeth of an enraged

and unscrupulous Opposition, and perhaps themselves not sustained by

a profound conviction, that the arrival of their expected leader would

convert their provisional into a permanent position; above all

the statesman who accepted the great charge at a time and under

circumstances which marred probably the deep projects of his own

prescient sagacity and maturing ambition; were all men gifted with a

high spirit of enterprise, and animated by that active fortitude which

is the soul of free governments.

It was a lively season, that winter of 1834! What hopes, what fears, and

what bets! From the day on which Mr. Hudson was to arrive at Rome to the

election of the Speaker, not a contingency that was not the subject of

a wager! People sprang up like mushrooms; town suddenly became full.

Everybody who had been in office, and everybody who wished to be in

office; everybody who had ever had anything, and everybody who ever

expected to have anything, were alike visible. All of course by mere

accident; one might meet the same men regularly every day for a month,

who were only ‘passing through town.’

Now was the time for men to come forward who had never despaired of

their country. True they had voted for the Reform Bill, but that was to

prevent a revolution. And now they were quite ready to vote against the

Reform Bill, but this was to prevent a dissolution. These are the true

patriots, whose confidence in the good sense of their countrymen and in

their own selfishness is about equal. In the meantime, the hundred and

forty threw a grim glance on the numerous waiters on Providence, and

amiable trimmers, who affectionately enquired every day when news might

be expected of Sir Robert. Though too weak to form a government, and

having contributed in no wise by their exertions to the fall of the

late, the cohort of Parliamentary Tories felt all the alarm of men who

have accidentally stumbled on some treasure-trove, at the suspicious

sympathy of new allies. But, after all, who were to form the government,

and what was the government to be? Was it to be a Tory government, or an

Enlightened-Spirit-of-the-Age Liberal-Moderate-Reform government; was it

to be a government of high philosophy or of low practice; of principle

or of expediency; of great measures or of little men? A government of

statesmen or of clerks? Of Humbug or of Humdrum? Great questions these,

but unfortunately there was nobody to answer them. They tried the Duke;

but nothing could be pumped out of him. All that he knew, which he

told in his curt, husky manner, was, that he had to carry on the King’s

government. As for his solitary colleague, he listened and smiled, and

then in his musical voice asked them questions in return, which is the

best possible mode of avoiding awkward inquiries. It was very unfair

this; for no one knew what tone to take; whether they should go down to

their public dinners and denounce the Reform Act or praise it; whether

the Church was to be re-modelled or only admonished; whether Ireland was

to be conquered or conciliated.

‘This can’t go on much longer,’ said Taper to Tadpole, as they reviewed

together their electioneering correspondence on the 1st of December; ‘we

have no cry.’

‘He is half way by this time,’ said Tadpole; ‘send an extract from a

private letter to the _Standard_, dated Augsburg, and say he will be

here in four days.’

At last he came; the great man in a great position, summoned from Rome

to govern England. The very day that he arrived he had his audience with

the King.

It was two days after this audience; the town, though November, in a

state of excitement; clubs crowded, not only morning rooms, but halls

and staircases swarming with members eager to give and to receive

rumours equally vain; streets lined with cabs and chariots, grooms and

horses; it was two days after this audience that Mr. Ormsby, celebrated

for his political dinners, gave one to a numerous party. Indeed his

saloons to-day, during the half-hour of gathering which precedes dinner,

offered in the various groups, the anxious countenances, the inquiring

voices, and the mysterious whispers, rather the character of an Exchange

or Bourse than the tone of a festive society.

Here might be marked a murmuring knot of greyheaded privy-councillors,

who had held fat offices under Perceval and Liverpool, and who looked

back to the Reform Act as to a hideous dream; there some middle-aged

aspirants might be observed who had lost their seats in the convulsion,

but who flattered themselves they had done something for the party

in the interval, by spending nothing except their breath in fighting

hopeless boroughs, and occasionally publishing a pamphlet, which really

produced less effect than chalking the walls. Light as air, and proud as

a young peacock, tripped on his toes a young Tory, who had contrived to

keep his seat in a Parliament where he had done nothing, but who thought

an Under-Secretaryship was now secure, particularly as he was the son of

a noble Lord who had also in a public capacity plundered and blundered

in the good old time. The true political adventurer, who with dull

desperation had stuck at nothing, had never neglected a treasury note,

had been present at every division, never spoke when he was asked to be

silent, and was always ready on any subject when they wanted him to open

his mouth; who had treated his leaders with servility even behind their

backs, and was happy for the day if a future Secretary of the Treasury

bowed to him; who had not only discountenanced discontent in the party,

but had regularly reported in strict confidence every instance of

insubordination which came to his knowledge; might there too be detected

under all the agonies of the crisis; just beginning to feel the

dread misgiving, whether being a slave and a sneak were sufficient

qualifications for office, without family or connection. Poor fellow!

half the industry he had wasted on his cheerless craft might have made

his fortune in some decent trade!

In dazzling contrast with these throes of low ambition, were some

brilliant personages who had just scampered up from Melton, thinking it

probable that Sir Robert might want some moral lords of the bed-chamber.

Whatever may have been their private fears or feelings, all however

seemed smiling and significant, as if they knew something if they chose

to tell it, and that something very much to their own satisfaction.

The only grave countenance that was occasionally ushered into the room

belonged to some individual whose destiny was not in doubt, and who was

already practising the official air that was in future to repress the

familiarity of his former fellow-stragglers.

‘Do you hear anything?’ said a great noble who wanted something in the

general scramble, but what he knew not; only he had a vague feeling he

ought to have something, having made such great sacrifices.

‘There is a report that Clifford is to be Secretary to the Board of

Control,’ said Mr. Earwig, whose whole soul was in this subaltern

arrangement, of which the Minister of course had not even thought; ‘but

I cannot trace it to any authority.’

‘I wonder who will be their Master of the Horse,’ said the great noble,

loving gossip though he despised the gossiper.

‘Clifford has done nothing for the party,’ said Mr. Earwig.

‘I dare say Rambrooke will have the Buckhounds,’ said the great noble,

musingly.

‘Your Lordship has not heard Clifford’s name mentioned?’ continued Mr.

Earwig.

‘I should think they had not come to that sort of thing,’ said the great

noble, with ill-disguised contempt.’ The first thing after the Cabinet

is formed is the Household: the things you talk of are done last;’ and

he turned upon his heel, and met the imperturbable countenance and clear

sarcastic eye of Lord Eskdale.

‘You have not heard anything?’ asked the great noble of his brother

patrician.

‘Yes, a great deal since I have been in this room; but unfortunately it

is all untrue.’

‘There is a report that Rambrooke is to have the Buck-hounds; but I

cannot trace it to any authority.’

‘Pooh!’ said Lord Eskdale.

‘I don’t see that Rambrooke should have the Buckhounds any more than

anybody else. What sacrifices has he made?’

‘Past sacrifices are nothing,’ said Lord Eskdale. ‘Present sacrifices

are the thing we want: men who will sacrifice their principles and join

us.’

‘You have not heard Rambrooke’s name mentioned?’

‘When a Minister has no Cabinet, and only one hundred and forty

supporters in the House of Commons, he has something else to think of

than places at Court,’ said Lord Eskdale, as he slowly turned away to

ask Lucian Gay whether it were true that Jenny Colon was coming over.

Shortly after this, Henry Sydney’s father, who dined with Mr. Ornisby,

drew Lord Eskdale into a window, and said in an undertone:

‘So there is to be a kind of programme: something is to be written.’

‘Well, we want a cue,’ said Lord Eskdale. ‘I heard of this last night:

Rigby has written something.’

The Duke shook his head.

‘No; Peel means to do it himself.’

But at this moment Mr. Ornisby begged his Grace to lead them to dinner.

‘Something is to be written.’ It is curious to recall the vague terms

in which the first projection of documents, that are to exercise a vast

influence on the course of affairs or the minds of nations, is often

mentioned. This ‘something to be written’ was written; and speedily; and

has ever since been talked of.

We believe we may venture to assume that at no period during the

movements of 1834-5 did Sir Robert Peel ever believe in the success

of his administration. Its mere failure could occasion him little

dissatisfaction; he was compensated for it by the noble opportunity

afforded to him for the display of those great qualities, both moral and

intellectual, which the swaddling-clothes of a routine prosperity had

long repressed, but of which his opposition to the Reform Bill had

given to the nation a significant intimation. The brief administration

elevated him in public opinion, and even in the eye of Europe; and it

is probable that a much longer term of power would not have contributed

more to his fame.

The probable effect of the premature effort of his party on his future

position as a Minister was, however, far from being so satisfactory. At

the lowest ebb of his political fortunes, it cannot be doubted that Sir

Robert Peel looked forward, perhaps through the vista of many years, to

a period when the national mind, arrived by reflection and experience

at certain conclusions, would seek in him a powerful expositor of its

convictions. His time of life permitted him to be tranquil in adversity,

and to profit by its salutary uses. He would then have acceded to power

as the representative of a Creed, instead of being the leader of a

Confederacy, and he would have been supported by earnest and enduring

enthusiasm, instead of by that churlish sufferance which is the

result of a supposed balance of advantages in his favour. This is

the consequence of the tactics of those short-sighted intriguers, who

persisted in looking upon a revolution as a mere party struggle, and

would not permit the mind of the nation to work through the inevitable

phases that awaited it. In 1834, England, though frightened at the

reality of Reform, still adhered to its phrases; it was inclined,

as practical England, to maintain existing institutions; but, as

theoretical England, it was suspicious that they were indefensible.

No one had arisen either in Parliament, the Universities, or the Press,

to lead the public mind to the investigation of principles; and not

to mistake, in their reformations, the corruption of practice for

fundamental ideas. It was this perplexed, ill-informed, jaded, shallow

generation, repeating cries which they did not comprehend, and wearied

with the endless ebullitions of their own barren conceit, that Sir

Robert Peel was summoned to govern. It was from such materials, ample

in quantity, but in all spiritual qualities most deficient; with

great numbers, largely acred, consoled up to their chins, but without

knowledge, genius, thought, truth, or faith, that Sir Robert Peel was to

form a ‘great Conservative party on a comprehensive basis.’ That he

did this like a dexterous politician, who can deny? Whether he realised

those prescient views of a great statesman in which he had doubtless

indulged, and in which, though still clogged by the leadership of 1834,

he may yet find fame for himself and salvation for his country, is

altogether another question. His difficult attempt was expressed in

an address to his constituents, which now ranks among state papers.

We shall attempt briefly to consider it with the impartiality of the

future.

CHAPTER V.

The Tamworth Manifesto of 1834 was an attempt to construct a

party without principles; its basis therefore was necessarily

Latitudinarianism; and its inevitable consequence has been Political

Infidelity.

At an epoch of political perplexity and social alarm, the confederation

was convenient, and was calculated by aggregation to encourage the timid

and confused. But when the perturbation was a little subsided, and

men began to inquire why they were banded together, the difficulty of

defining their purpose proved that the league, however respectable, was

not a party. The leaders indeed might profit by their eminent position

to obtain power for their individual gratification, but it was

impossible to secure their followers that which, after all, must be the

great recompense of a political party, the putting in practice of their

opinions; for they had none.

There was indeed a considerable shouting about what they called

Conservative principles; but the awkward question naturally arose, what

will you conserve? The prerogatives of the Crown, provided they are not

exercised; the independence of the House of Lords, provided it is not

asserted; the Ecclesiastical estate, provided it is regulated by a

commission of laymen. Everything, in short, that is established, as long

as it is a phrase and not a fact.

In the meantime, while forms and phrases are religiously cherished in

order to make the semblance of a creed, the rule of practice is to

bend to the passion or combination of the hour. Conservatism assumes in

theory that everything established should be maintained; but adopts

in practice that everything that is established is indefensible. To

reconcile this theory and this practice, they produce what they call

‘the best bargain;’ some arrangement which has no principle and no

purpose, except to obtain a temporary lull of agitation, until the mind

of the Conservatives, without a guide and without an aim, distracted,

tempted, and bewildered, is prepared for another arrangement, equally

statesmanlike with the preceding one.

Conservatism was an attempt to carry on affairs by substituting the

fulfilment of the duties of office for the performance of the functions

of government; and to maintain this negative system by the mere

influence of property, reputable private conduct, and what are called

good connections. Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from

Principle, disavows Progress; having rejected all respect for Antiquity,

it offers no redress for the Present, and makes no preparation for the

Future. It is obvious that for a time, under favourable circumstances,

such a confederation might succeed; but it is equally clear, that on

the arrival of one of those critical conjunctures that will periodically

occur in all states, and which such an unimpassioned system is even

calculated ultimately to create, all power of resistance will be

wanting: the barren curse of political infidelity will paralyse all

action; and the Conservative Constitution will be discovered to be a

Caput Mortuum.

CHAPTER VI.

In the meantime, after dinner, Tadpole and Taper, who were among the

guests of Mr. Ormsby, withdrew to a distant sofa, out of earshot, and

indulged in confidential talk.

‘Such a strength in debate was never before found on a Treasury bench,’

said Mr. Tadpole; ‘the other side will be dumbfounded.’

‘And what do you put our numbers at now?’ inquired Mr. Taper.

‘Would you take fifty-five for our majority?’ rejoined Mr. Tadpole.

‘It is not so much the tail they have, as the excuse their junction will

be for the moderate, sensible men to come over,’ said Taper. ‘Our friend

Sir Everard for example, it would settle him.’

‘He is a solemn impostor,’ rejoined Mr. Tadpole; ‘but he is a baronet

and a county member, and very much looked up to by the Wesleyans. The

other men, I know, have refused him a peerage.’

‘And we might hold out judicious hopes,’ said Taper.

‘No one can do that better than you,’ said Tadpole. ‘I am apt to say too

much about those things.’

‘I make it a rule never to open my mouth on such subjects,’ said Taper.

‘A nod or a wink will speak volumes. An affectionate pressure of the

hand will sometimes do a great deal; and I have promised many a peerage

without committing myself, by an ingenious habit of deference which

cannot be mistaken by the future noble.’

‘I wonder what they will do with Rigby,’ said Tadpole.

‘He wants a good deal,’ said Taper.

‘I tell you what, Mr. Taper, the time is gone by when a Marquess of

Monmouth was Letter A, No. 1.’

‘Very true, Mr. Tadpole. A wise man would do well now to look to

the great middle class, as I said the other day to the electors of

Shabbyton.’

‘I had sooner be supported by the Wesleyans,’ said Mr. Tadpole, ‘than by

all the marquesses in the peerage.’

‘At the same time,’ said Mr. Taper, ‘Rigby is a considerable man. If we

want a slashing article--’

‘Pooh!’ said Mr. Tadpole. ‘He is quite gone by. He takes three months

for his slashing articles. Give me the man who can write a leader. Rigby

can’t write a leader.’

‘Very few can,’ said Mr. Taper. ‘However, I don’t think much of the

press. Its power is gone by. They overdid it.’

‘There is Tom Chudleigh,’ said Tadpole. ‘What is he to have?’

‘Nothing, I hope,’ said Taper. ‘I hate him. A coxcomb! Cracking his

jokes and laughing at us.’

‘He has done a good deal for the party, though,’ said Tadpole. ‘That,

to be sure, is only an additional reason for throwing him over, as he

is too far committed to venture to oppose us. But I am afraid from

something that dropped to-day, that Sir Robert thinks he has claims.’

‘We must stop them,’ said Taper, growing pale. ‘Fellows like Chudleigh,

when they once get in, are always in one’s way. I have no objection to

young noblemen being put forward, for they are preferred so rapidly,

and then their fathers die, that in the long run they do not practically

interfere with us.’

‘Well, his name was mentioned,’ said Tadpole. ‘There is no concealing

that.’

‘I will speak to Earwig,’ said Taper. ‘He shall just drop into

Sir Robert’s ear by chance, that Chudleigh used to quiz him in the

smoking-room. Those little bits of information do a great deal of good.’

‘Well, I leave him to you,’ said Tadpole. ‘I am heartily with you

in keeping out all fellows like Chudleigh. They are very well for

opposition; but in office we don’t want wits.’

‘And when shall we have the answer from Knowsley?’ inquired Taper. ‘You

anticipate no possible difficulty?’

‘I tell you it is “carte blanche,”’ replied Tadpole. ‘Four places in

the cabinet. Two secretaryships at the least. Do you happen to know any

gentleman of your acquaintance, Mr. Taper, who refuses Secretaryships

of State so easily, that you can for an instant doubt of the present

arrangement?’

‘I know none indeed,’ said Mr. Taper, with a grim smile.

‘The thing is done,’ said Mr. Tadpole.

‘And now for our cry,’ said Mr. Taper.

‘It is not a Cabinet for a good cry,’ said Tadpole; ‘but then, on the

other hand, it is a Cabinet that will sow dissension in the opposite

ranks, and prevent them having a good cry.’

‘Ancient institutions and modern improvements, I suppose, Mr. Tadpole?’

‘Ameliorations is the better word, ameliorations. Nobody knows exactly

what it means.’

‘We go strong on the Church?’ said Mr. Taper.

‘And no repeal of the Malt Tax; you were right, Taper. It can’t be

listened to for a moment.’

‘Something might be done with prerogative,’ said Mr. Taper; ‘the King’s

constitutional choice.’

‘Not too much,’ replied Mr. Tadpole. ‘It is a raw time yet for

prerogative.’

‘Ah! Tadpole,’ said Mr. Taper, getting a little maudlin; ‘I often think,

if the time should ever come, when you and I should be joint Secretaries

of the Treasury!’

‘We shall see, we shall see. All we have to do is to get into

Parliament, work well together, and keep other men down.’

‘We will do our best,’ said Taper. ‘A dissolution you hold inevitable?’

‘How are you and I to get into Parliament if there be not one? We must

make it inevitable. I tell you what, Taper, the lists must prove a

dissolution inevitable. You understand me? If the present Parliament

goes on, where shall we be? We shall have new men cropping up every

session.’

‘True, terribly true,’ said Mr. Taper. ‘That we should ever live to see

a Tory government again! We have reason to be very thankful.’

‘Hush!’ said Mr. Tadpole. ‘The time has gone by for Tory governments;

what the country requires is a sound Conservative government.’

‘A sound Conservative government,’ said Taper, musingly. ‘I understand:

Tory men and Whig measures.’

CHAPTER VII.

Amid the contentions of party, the fierce struggles of ambition, and the

intricacies of political intrigue, let us not forget our Eton friends.

During the period which elapsed from the failure of the Duke of

Wellington to form a government in 1832, to the failure of Sir Robert

Peel to carry on a government in 1835, the boys had entered, and

advanced in youth. The ties of friendship which then united several of

them had only been confirmed by continued companionship. Coningsby

and Henry Sydney, and Buckhurst and Vere, were still bound together by

entire sympathy, and by the affection of which sympathy is the only

sure spring. But their intimacies had been increased by another familiar

friend. There had risen up between Coningsby and Millbank mutual

sentiments of deep, and even ardent, regard. Acquaintance had developed

the superior qualities of Millbank. His thoughtful and inquiring mind,

his inflexible integrity, his stern independence, and yet the engaging

union of extreme tenderness of heart with all this strength of

character, had won the goodwill, and often excited the admiration, of

Coningsby. Our hero, too, was gratified by the affectionate deference

that was often shown to him by one who condescended to no other

individual; he was proud of having saved the life of a member of their

community whom masters and boys alike considered; and he ended by loving

the being on whom he had conferred a great obligation.

The friends of Coningsby, the sweet-tempered and intelligent Henry

Sydney, the fiery and generous Buckhurst, and the calm and sagacious

Vere, had ever been favourably inclined to Millbank, and had they not

been, the example of Coningsby would soon have influenced them. He had

obtained over his intimates the ascendant power, which is the destiny

of genius. Nor was this submission of such spirits to be held cheap.

Although they were willing to take the colour of their minds from him,

they were in intellect and attainments, in personal accomplishments and

general character, the leaders of the school; an authority not to be

won from five hundred high-spirited boys without the possession of great

virtues and great talents.

As for the dominion of Coningsby himself, it was not limited to the

immediate circle of his friends. He had become the hero of Eton; the

being of whose existence everybody was proud, and in whose career every

boy took an interest. They talked of him, they quoted him, they imitated

him. Fame and power are the objects of all men. Even their partial

fruition is gained by very few; and that too at the expense of social

pleasure, health, conscience, life. Yet what power of manhood in

passionate intenseness, appealing at the same time to the subject and

the votary, can rival that which is exercised by the idolised chieftain

of a great public school? What fame of after days equals the rapture of

celebrity that thrills the youthful poet, as in tones of rare emotion he

recites his triumphant verses amid the devoted plaudits of the flower

of England? That’s fame, that’s power; real, unquestioned, undoubted,

catholic. Alas! the schoolboy, when he becomes a man, finds that power,

even fame, like everything else, is an affair of party.

Coningsby liked very much to talk politics with Millbank. He heard

things from Millbank which were new to him. Himself, as he supposed, a

high Tory, which he was according to the revelation of the Rigbys, he

was also sufficiently familiar with the hereditary tenets of his Whig

friend, Lord Vere. Politics had as yet appeared to him a struggle

whether the country was to be governed by Whig nobles or Tory nobles;

and he thought it very unfortunate that he should probably have to enter

life with his friends out of power, and his family boroughs destroyed.

But in conversing with Millbank, he heard for the first time of

influential classes in the country who were not noble, and were yet

determined to acquire power. And although Millbank’s views, which were

of course merely caught up from his father, without the intervention of

his own intelligence, were doubtless crude enough, and were often very

acutely canvassed and satisfactorily demolished by the clever prejudices

of another school, which Coningsby had at command, still they were,

unconsciously to the recipient, materials for thought, and insensibly

provoked in his mind a spirit of inquiry into political questions, for

which he had a predisposition.

It may be said, indeed, that generally among the upper boys there might

be observed at this time, at Eton, a reigning inclination for political

discussion. The school truly had at all times been proud of its

statesmen and its parliamentary heroes, but this was merely a

superficial feeling in comparison with the sentiment which now first

became prevalent. The great public questions that were the consequence

of the Reform of the House of Commons, had also agitated their young

hearts. And especially the controversies that were now rife respecting

the nature and character of ecclesiastical establishments, wonderfully

addressed themselves to their excited intelligence. They read their

newspapers with a keen relish, canvassed debates, and criticised

speeches; and although in their debating society, which had been

instituted more than a quarter of a century, discussion on topics of

the day was prohibited, still by fixing on periods of our history when

affairs were analogous to the present, many a youthful orator contrived

very effectively to reply to Lord John, or to refute the fallacies of

his rival.

As the political opinions predominant in the school were what in

ordinary parlance are styled Tory, and indeed were far better entitled

to that glorious epithet than the flimsy shifts which their fathers were

professing in Parliament and the country; the formation and the fall

of Sir Robert Peel’s government had been watched by Etonians with great

interest, and even excitement. The memorable efforts which the Minister

himself made, supported only by the silent votes of his numerous

adherents, and contending alone against the multiplied assaults of his

able and determined foes, with a spirit equal to the great occasion, and

with resources of parliamentary contest which seemed to increase

with every exigency; these great and unsupported struggles alone were

calculated to gain the sympathy of youthful and generous spirits. The

assault on the revenues of the Church; the subsequent crusade against

the House of Lords; the display of intellect and courage exhibited

by Lord Lyndhurst in that assembly, when all seemed cowed and

faint-hearted; all these were incidents or personal traits apt to stir

the passions, and create in breasts not yet schooled to repress emotion,

a sentiment even of enthusiasm. It is the personal that interests

mankind, that fires their imagination, and wins their hearts. A cause is

a great abstraction, and fit only for students; embodied in a party, it

stirs men to action; but place at the head of that party a leader who

can inspire enthusiasm, he commands the world. Divine faculty! Rare and

incomparable privilege! A parliamentary leader who possesses it, doubles

his majority; and he who has it not, may shroud himself in artificial

reserve, and study with undignified arrogance an awkward haughtiness,

but he will nevertheless be as far from controlling the spirit as from

captivating the hearts of his sullen followers.

However, notwithstanding this general feeling at Eton, in 1835, in

favour of ‘Conservative principles,’ which was, in fact, nothing more

than a confused and mingled sympathy with some great political truths,

which were at the bottom of every boy’s heart, but nowhere else; and

with the personal achievements and distinction of the chieftains of

the party; when all this hubbub had subsided, and retrospection, in the

course of a year, had exercised its moralising influence over the

more thoughtful part of the nation, inquiries, at first faint and

unpretending, and confined indeed for a long period to limited, though

inquisitive, circles, began gently to circulate, what Conservative

principles were.

These inquiries, urged indeed with a sort of hesitating scepticism,

early reached Eton. They came, no doubt, from the Universities. They

were of a character, however, far too subtile and refined to exercise

any immediate influence over the minds of youth. To pursue them required

previous knowledge and habitual thought. They were not yet publicly

prosecuted by any school of politicians, or any section of the public

press. They had not a local habitation or a name. They were whispered in

conversation by a few. A tutor would speak of them in an esoteric vein

to a favourite pupil, in whose abilities he had confidence, and whose

future position in life would afford him the opportunity of influencing

opinion. Among others, they fell upon the ear of Coningsby. They were

addressed to a mind which was prepared for such researches.

There is a Library at Eton formed by the boys and governed by the boys;

one of those free institutions which are the just pride of that noble

school, which shows the capacity of the boys for self-government, and

which has sprung from the large freedom that has been wisely conceded

them, the prudence of which confidence has been proved by their rarely

abusing it. This Library has been formed by subscriptions of the present

and still more by the gifts of old Etonians. Among the honoured names of

these donors may be remarked those of the Grenvilles and Lord Wellesley;

nor should we forget George IV., who enriched the collection with a

magnificent copy of the Delphin Classics. The Institution is governed

by six directors, the three first Collegers and the three first Oppidans

for the time being; and the subscribers are limited to the one hundred

senior members of the school.

It is only to be regretted that the collection is not so extensive at

it is interesting and choice. Perhaps its existence is not so generally

known as it deserves to be. One would think that every Eton man would

be as proud of his name being registered as a donor in the Catalogue of

this Library, as a Venetian of his name being inscribed in the Golden

Book. Indeed an old Etonian, who still remembers with tenderness the

sacred scene of youth, could scarcely do better than build a Gothic

apartment for the reception of the collection. It cannot be doubted that

the Provost and fellows would be gratified in granting a piece of ground

for the purpose.

Great were the obligations of Coningsby to this Eton Library. It

introduced him to that historic lore, that accumulation of facts and

incidents illustrative of political conduct, for which he had imbibed an

early relish. His study was especially directed to the annals of his

own country, in which youth, and not youth alone, is frequently so

deficient. This collection could afford him Clarendon and Burnet, and

the authentic volumes of Coxe: these were rich materials for one anxious

to be versed in the great parliamentary story of his country. During

the last year of his stay at Eton, when he had completed his eighteenth

year, Coningsby led a more retired life than previously; he read much,

and pondered with all the pride of acquisition over his increasing

knowledge.

And now the hour has come when this youth is to be launched into a world

more vast than that in which he has hitherto sojourned, yet for which

this microcosm has been no ill preparation. He will become more wise;

will he remain as generous? His ambition may be as great; will it be as

noble? What, indeed, is to be the future of this existence that is now

to be sent forth into the great aggregate of entities? Is it an ordinary

organisation that will jostle among the crowd, and be jostled? Is it a

finer temperament, susceptible of receiving the impressions and imbibing

the inspirations of superior yet sympathising spirits? Or is it a

primordial and creative mind; one that will say to his fellows, ‘Behold,

God has given me thought; I have discovered truth, and you shall

believe?’

The night before Coningsby left Eton, alone in his room, before he

retired to rest, he opened the lattice and looked for the last time upon

the landscape before him; the stately keep of Windsor, the bowery meads

of Eton, soft in the summer moon and still in the summer night. He gazed

upon them; his countenance had none of the exultation, that under such

circumstances might have distinguished a more careless glance, eager

for fancied emancipation and passionate for a novel existence. Its

expression was serious, even sad; and he covered his brow with his hand.

END OF BOOK II.

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I.

There are few things more full of delight and splendour, than to travel

during the heat of a refulgent summer in the green district of some

ancient forest.

In one of our midland counties there is a region of this character,

to which, during a season of peculiar lustre, we would introduce the

reader.

It was a fragment of one of those vast sylvan tracts wherein Norman

kings once hunted, and Saxon outlaws plundered; and although the plough

had for centuries successfully invaded brake and bower, the relics

retained all their original character of wildness and seclusion.

Sometimes the green earth was thickly studded with groves of huge and

vigorous oaks, intersected with those smooth and sunny glades, that seem

as if they must be cut for dames and knights to saunter on. Then again

the undulating ground spread on all sides, far as the eye could range,

covered with copse and fern of immense growth. Anon you found yourself

in a turfy wilderness, girt in apparently by dark woods. And when you

had wound your way a little through this gloomy belt, the landscape

still strictly sylvan, would beautifully expand with every combination

and variety of woodland; while in its centre, the wildfowl covered the

waters of a lake, and the deer basked on the knolls that abounded on its

banks.

It was in the month of August, some six or seven years ago, that a

traveller on foot, touched, as he emerged from the dark wood, by the

beauty of this scene, threw himself under the shade of a spreading tree,

and stretched his limbs on the turf for enjoyment rather than repose.

The sky was deep-coloured and without a cloud, save here and there

a minute, sultry, burnished vapour, almost as glossy as the heavens.

Everything was still as it was bright; all seemed brooding and basking;

the bee upon its wing was the only stirring sight, and its song the only

sound.

The traveller fell into a reverie. He was young, and therefore his

musings were of the future. He had felt the pride of learning, so

ennobling to youth; he was not a stranger to the stirring impulses of a

high ambition, though the world to him was as yet only a world of books,

and all that he knew of the schemes of statesmen and the passions of

the people, were to be found in their annals. Often had his fitful fancy

dwelt with fascination on visions of personal distinction, of future

celebrity, perhaps even of enduring fame. But his dreams were of another

colour now. The surrounding scene, so fair, so still, and sweet; so

abstracted from all the tumult of the world, its strife, its passions,

and its cares: had fallen on his heart with its soft and subduing

spirit; had fallen on a heart still pure and innocent, the heart of

one who, notwithstanding all his high resolves and daring thoughts, was

blessed with that tenderness of soul which is sometimes linked with an

ardent imagination and a strong will. The traveller was an orphan, more

than that, a solitary orphan. The sweet sedulousness of a mother’s

love, a sister’s mystical affection, had not cultivated his early

susceptibility. No soft pathos of expression had appealed to his

childish ear. He was alone, among strangers calmly and coldly kind.

It must indeed have been a truly gentle disposition that could have

withstood such hard neglect. All that he knew of the power of the softer

passions might be found in the fanciful and romantic annals of schoolboy

friendship.

And those friends too, so fond, so sympathising, so devoted, where were

they now? Already they were dispersed; the first great separation of

life had been experienced; the former schoolboy had planted his foot on

the threshold of manhood. True, many of them might meet again; many of

them the University must again unite, but never with the same feelings.

The space of time, passed in the world before they again met, would be

an age of sensation, passion, experience to all of them. They would meet

again with altered mien, with different manners, different voices. Their

eyes would not shine with the same light; they would not speak the same

words. The favourite phrases of their intimacy, the mystic sounds that

spoke only to their initiated ear, they would be ashamed to use them.

Yes, they might meet again, but the gushing and secret tenderness was

gone for ever.

Nor could our pensive youth conceal it from himself that it was

affection, and mainly affection, that had bound him to these dear

companions. They could not be to him what he had been to them. His had

been the inspiring mind that had guided their opinions, formed their

tastes, directed the bent and tenor of their lives and thoughts.

Often, indeed, had he needed, sometimes he had even sighed for,

the companionship of an equal or superior mind; one who, by the

comprehension of his thought, and the richness of his knowledge, and the

advantage of his experience, might strengthen and illuminate and guide

his obscure or hesitating or unpractised intelligence. He had scarcely

been fortunate in this respect, and he deeply regretted it; for he was

one of those who was not content with excelling in his own circle, if

he thought there was one superior to it. Absolute, not relative

distinction, was his noble aim.

Alone, in a lonely scene, he doubly felt the solitude of his life and

mind. His heart and his intellect seemed both to need a companion.

Books, and action, and deep thought, might in time supply the want of

that intellectual guide; but for the heart, where was he to find solace?

Ah! if she would but come forth from that shining lake like a beautiful

Ondine! Ah, if she would but step out from the green shade of that

secret grove like a Dryad of sylvan Greece! O mystery of mysteries, when

youth dreams his first dream over some imaginary heroine!

Suddenly the brooding wildfowl rose from the bosom of the lake, soared

in the air, and, uttering mournful shrieks, whirled in agitated tumult.

The deer started from their knolls, no longer sunny, stared around, and

rushed into the woods. Coningsby raised his eyes from the turf on which

they had been long fixed in abstraction, and he observed that the azure

sky had vanished, a thin white film had suddenly spread itself over the

heavens, and the wind moaned with a sad and fitful gust.

He had some reason to believe that on the other side of the opposite

wood the forest was intersected by a public road, and that there were

some habitations. Immediately rising, he descended at a rapid pace into

the valley, passed the lake, and then struck into the ascending wood on

the bank opposite to that on which he had mused away some precious time.

The wind howled, the branches of the forest stirred, and sent forth

sounds like an incantation. Soon might be distinguished the various

voices of the mighty trees, as they expressed their terror or their

agony. The oak roared, the beech shrieked, the elm sent forth its deep

and long-drawn groan; while ever and anon, amid a momentary pause, the

passion of the ash was heard in moans of thrilling anguish.

Coningsby hurried on, the forest became less close. All that he aspired

to was to gain more open country. Now he was in a rough flat land,

covered only here and there with dwarf underwood; the horizon bounded at

no great distance by a barren hill of moderate elevation. He gained its

height with ease. He looked over a vast open country like a wild common;

in the extreme distance hills covered with woods; the plain intersected

by two good roads: the sky entirely clouded, but in the distance black

as ebony.

A place of refuge was at hand: screened from his first glance by some

elm-trees, the ascending smoke now betrayed a roof, which Coningsby

reached before the tempest broke. The forest-inn was also a farmhouse.

There was a comfortable-enough looking kitchen; but the ingle nook was

full of smokers, and Coningsby was glad to avail himself of the only

private room for the simple meal which they offered him, only eggs and

bacon; but very welcome to a pedestrian, and a hungry one.

As he stood at the window of his little apartment, watching the large

drops that were the heralds of a coming hurricane, and waiting for his

repast, a flash of lightning illumined the whole country, and a horseman

at full speed, followed by his groom, galloped up to the door.

The remarkable beauty of the animal so attracted Coningsby’s attention

that it prevented him catching even a glimpse of the rider, who rapidly

dismounted and entered the inn. The host shortly after came in and asked

Coningsby whether he had any objection to a gentleman, who was driven

there by the storm, sharing his room until it subsided. The consequence

of the immediate assent of Coningsby was, that the landlord retired and

soon returned, ushering in an individual, who, though perhaps ten years

older than Coningsby, was still, according to Hippocrates, in the period

of lusty youth. He was above the middle height, and of a distinguished

air and figure; pale, with an impressive brow, and dark eyes of great

intelligence.

‘I am glad that we have both escaped the storm,’ said the stranger;

‘and I am greatly indebted to you for your courtesy.’ He slightly and

graciously bowed, as he spoke in a voice of remarkable clearness; and

his manner, though easy, was touched with a degree of dignity that was

engaging.

‘The inn is a common home,’ replied Coningsby, returning his salute.

‘And free from cares,’ added the stranger. Then, looking through

the window, he said, ‘A strange storm this. I was sauntering in the

sunshine, when suddenly I found I had to gallop for my life. ‘Tis more

like a white squall in the Mediterranean than anything else.’

‘I never was in the Mediterranean,’ said Coningsby. ‘There is nothing I

should like so much as to travel.’

‘You are travelling,’ rejoined his companion. ‘Every moment is travel,

if understood.’

‘Ah! but the Mediterranean!’ exclaimed Coningsby. ‘What would I not give

to see Athens!’

‘I have seen it,’ said the stranger, slightly shrugging his shoulders;

‘and more wonderful things. Phantoms and spectres!’

‘The Age of Ruins is past. Have you seen Manchester?’

‘I have seen nothing,’ said Coningsby; ‘this is my first wandering. I am

about to visit a friend who lives in this county, and I have sent on

my baggage as I could. For myself, I determined to trust to a less

common-place conveyance.’

‘And seek adventures,’ said the stranger, smiling, ‘Well, according to

Cervantes, they should begin in an inn.’

‘I fear that the age of adventures is past, as well as that of ruins,’

replied Coningsby.

‘Adventures are to the adventurous,’ said the stranger.

At this moment a pretty serving-maid entered the room. She laid the

dapper cloth and arranged the table with a self-possession quite

admirable. She seemed unconscious that any being was in the chamber

except herself, or that there were any other duties to perform in life

beyond filling a saltcellar or folding a napkin.

‘She does not even look at us,’ said Coningsby, when she had quitted the

room; ‘and I dare say is only a prude.’

‘She is calm,’ said the stranger, ‘because she is mistress of her

subject; ‘tis the secret of self-possession. She is here as a duchess at

court.’

They brought in Coningsby’s meal, and he invited the stranger to join

him. The invitation was accepted with cheerfulness.

‘’Tis but simple fare,’ said Coningsby, as the maiden uncovered the

still hissing bacon and the eggs, that looked like tufts of primroses.

‘Nay, a national dish,’ said the stranger, glancing quickly at the

table, ‘whose fame is a proverb. And what more should we expect under

a simple roof! How much better than an omelette or a greasy olla, that

they would give us in a posada! ‘Tis a wonderful country this England!

What a napkin! How spotless! And so sweet; I declare ‘tis a perfume.

There is not a princess throughout the South of Europe served with the

cleanliness that meets us in this cottage.’

‘An inheritance from our Saxon fathers?’ said Coningsby. ‘I apprehend

the northern nations have a greater sense of cleanliness, of propriety,

of what we call comfort?’

‘By no means,’ said the stranger; ‘the East is the land of the Bath.

Moses and Mahomet made cleanliness religion.’

‘You will let me help you?’ said Coningsby, offering him a plate which

he had filled.

‘I thank you,’ said the stranger, ‘but it is one of my bread days. With

your permission this shall be my dish;’ and he cut from the large loaf a

supply of crusts.

‘’Tis but unsavoury fare after a gallop,’ said Coningsby.

‘Ah! you are proud of your bacon and your eggs,’ said the stranger,

smiling, ‘but I love corn and wine. They are our chief and our oldest

luxuries. Time has brought us substitutes, but how inferior! Man has

deified corn and wine! but not even the Chinese or the Irish have raised

temples to tea and potatoes.’

‘But Ceres without Bacchus,’ said Coningsby, ‘how does that do? Think

you, under this roof, we could Invoke the god?’

‘Let us swear by his body that we will try,’ said the stranger.

Alas! the landlord was not a priest to Bacchus. But then these inquiries

led to the finest perry in the world. The young men agreed they had

seldom tasted anything more delicious; they sent for another bottle.

Coningsby, who was much interested by his new companion, enjoyed himself

amazingly.

A cheese, such as Derby alone can produce, could not induce the stranger

to be even partially inconstant to his crusts. But his talk was as

vivacious as if the talker had been stimulated by the juices of the

finest banquet. Coningsby had never met or read of any one like this

chance companion. His sentences were so short, his language so racy, his

voice rang so clear, his elocution was so complete. On all subjects his

mind seemed to be instructed, and his opinions formed. He flung out a

result in a few words; he solved with a phrase some deep problem that

men muse over for years. He said many things that were strange, yet

they immediately appeared to be true. Then, without the slightest air of

pretension or parade, he seemed to know everybody as well as everything.

Monarchs, statesmen, authors, adventurers, of all descriptions and of

all climes, if their names occurred in the conversation, he described

them in an epigrammatic sentence, or revealed their precise position,

character, calibre, by a curt dramatic trait. All this, too, without any

excitement of manner; on the contrary, with repose amounting almost

to nonchalance. If his address had any fault in it, it was rather a

deficiency of earnestness. A slight spirit of mockery played over his

speech even when you deemed him most serious; you were startled by his

sudden transitions from profound thought to poignant sarcasm. A very

singular freedom from passion and prejudice on every topic on which

they treated, might be some compensation for this want of earnestness,

perhaps was its consequence. Certainly it was difficult to ascertain his

precise opinions on many subjects, though his manner was frank even to

abandonment. And yet throughout his whole conversation, not a stroke of

egotism, not a word, not a circumstance escaped him, by which you could

judge of his position or purposes in life. As little did he seem to care

to discover those of his companion. He did not by any means monopolise

the conversation. Far from it; he continually asked questions, and

while he received answers, or had engaged his fellow-traveller in any

exposition of his opinion or feelings, he listened with a serious and

fixed attention, looking Coningsby in the face with a steadfast glance.

‘I perceive,’ said Coningsby, pursuing a strain of thought which the

other had indicated, ‘that you have great confidence in the influence

of individual character. I also have some confused persuasions of that

kind. But it is not the Spirit of the Age.’

‘The age does not believe in great men, because it does not possess

any,’ replied the stranger. ‘The Spirit of the Age is the very thing

that a great man changes.’

‘But does he not rather avail himself of it?’ inquired Coningsby.

‘Parvenus do,’ rejoined his companion; ‘but not prophets, great

legislators, great conquerors. They destroy and they create.’

‘But are these times for great legislators and great conquerors?’ urged

Coningsby.

‘When were they wanted more?’ asked the stranger. ‘From the throne to

the hovel all call for a guide. You give monarchs constitutions to

teach them sovereignty, and nations Sunday-schools to inspire them with

faith.’

‘But what is an individual,’ exclaimed Coningsby, ‘against a vast public

opinion?’

‘Divine,’ said the stranger. ‘God made man in His own image; but the

Public is made by Newspapers, Members of Parliament, Excise Officers,

Poor Law Guardians. Would Philip have succeeded if Epaminondas had not

been slain? And if Philip had not succeeded? Would Prussia have existed

had Frederick not been born? And if Frederick had not been born? What

would have been the fate of the Stuarts if Prince Henry had not died,

and Charles I., as was intended, had been Archbishop of Canterbury?’

‘But when men are young they want experience,’ said Coningsby; ‘and when

they have gained experience, they want energy.’

‘Great men never want experience,’ said the stranger.

‘But everybody says that experience--’

‘Is the best thing in the world, a treasure for you, for me, for

millions. But for a creative mind, less than nothing. Almost everything

that is great has been done by youth.’

‘It is at least a creed flattering to our years,’ said Coningsby, with a

smile.

‘Nay,’ said the stranger; ‘for life in general there is but one decree.

Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old Age a regret. Do not

suppose,’ he added, smiling, ‘that I hold that youth is genius; all that

I say is, that genius, when young, is divine. Why, the greatest captains

of ancient and modern times both conquered Italy at five-and-twenty!

Youth, extreme youth, overthrew the Persian Empire. Don John of Austria

won Lepanto at twenty-five, the greatest battle of modern time; had it

not been for the jealousy of Philip, the next year he would have been

Emperor of Mauritania. Gaston de Foix was only twenty-two when he stood

a victor on the plain of Ravenna. Every one remembers Condé and Rocroy

at the same age. Gustavus Adolphus died at thirty-eight. Look at his

captains: that wonderful Duke of Weimar, only thirty-six when he died.

Banier himself, after all his miracles, died at forty-five. Cortes was

little more than thirty when he gazed upon the golden cupolas of Mexico.

When Maurice of Saxony died at thirty-two, all Europe acknowledged the

loss of the greatest captain and the profoundest statesman of the age.

Then there is Nelson, Clive; but these are warriors, and perhaps you may

think there are greater things than war. I do not: I worship the Lord

of Hosts. But take the most illustrious achievements of civil prudence.

Innocent III., the greatest of the Popes, was the despot of Christendom

at thirty-seven. John de Medici was a Cardinal at fifteen, and according

to Guicciardini, baffled with his statecraft Ferdinand of Arragon

himself. He was Pope as Leo X. at thirty-seven. Luther robbed even him

of his richest province at thirty-five. Take Ignatius Loyola and John

Wesley, they worked with young brains. Ignatius was only thirty when he

made his pilgrimage and wrote the “Spiritual Exercises.” Pascal wrote

a great work at sixteen, and died at thirty-seven, the greatest of

Frenchmen.

‘Ah! that fatal thirty-seven, which reminds me of Byron, greater even as

a man than a writer. Was it experience that guided the pencil of Raphael

when he painted the palaces of Rome? He, too, died at thirty-seven.

Richelieu was Secretary of State at thirty-one. Well then, there were

Bolingbroke and Pitt, both ministers before other men left off cricket.

Grotius was in great practice at seventeen, and Attorney-General at

twenty-four. And Acquaviva; Acquaviva was General of the Jesuits,

ruled every cabinet in Europe, and colonised America before he was

thirty-seven. What a career!’ exclaimed the stranger; rising from his

chair and walking up and down the room; ‘the secret sway of Europe! That

was indeed a position! But it is needless to multiply instances! The

history of Heroes is the history of Youth.’

‘Ah!’ said Coningsby, ‘I should like to be a great man.’

The stranger threw at him a scrutinising glance. His countenance was

serious. He said in a voice of almost solemn melody:

‘Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes

heroes.’

‘You seem to me a hero,’ said Coningsby, in a tone of real feeling,

which, half ashamed of his emotion, he tried to turn into playfulness.

‘I am and must ever be,’ said the stranger, ‘but a dreamer of dreams.’

Then going towards the window, and changing into a familiar tone as if

to divert the conversation, he added, ‘What a delicious afternoon! I

look forward to my ride with delight. You rest here?’

‘No; I go on to Nottingham, where I shall sleep.’

‘And I in the opposite direction.’ And he rang the bell, and ordered his

horse.

‘I long to see your mare again,’ said Coningsby. ‘She seemed to me so

beautiful.’

‘She is not only of pure race,’ said the stranger, ‘but of the highest

and rarest breed in Arabia. Her name is “the Daughter of the Star.”

She is a foal of that famous mare, which belonged to the Prince of the

Wahabees; and to possess which, I believe, was one of the principal

causes of war between that tribe and the Egyptians. The Pacha of Egypt

gave her to me, and I would not change her for her statue in pure gold,

even carved by Lysippus. Come round to the stable and see her.’

They went out together. It was a soft sunny afternoon; the air fresh

from the rain, but mild and exhilarating.

The groom brought forth the mare. ‘The Daughter of the Star’ stood

before Coningsby with her sinewy shape of matchless symmetry; her

burnished skin, black mane, legs like those of an antelope, her little

ears, dark speaking eye, and tail worthy of a Pacha. And who was her

master, and whither was she about to take him?

Coningsby was so naturally well-bred, that we may be sure it was not

curiosity; no, it was a finer feeling that made him hesitate and think a

little, and then say:

‘I am sorry to part.’

‘I also,’ said the stranger. ‘But life is constant separation.’

‘I hope we may meet again,’ said Coningsby.

‘If our acquaintance be worth preserving,’ said the stranger, ‘you may

be sure it will not be lost.’

‘But mine is not worth preserving,’ said Coningsby, earnestly. ‘It is

yours that is the treasure. You teach me things of which I have long

mused.’

The stranger took the bridle of ‘the Daughter of the Star,’ and turning

round with a faint smile, extended his hand to his companion.

‘Your mind at least is nurtured with great thoughts,’ said Coningsby;

‘your actions should be heroic.’

‘Action is not for me,’ said the stranger; ‘I am of that faith that the

Apostles professed before they followed their master.’

He vaulted into his saddle, ‘the Daughter of the Star’ bounded away as

if she scented the air of the Desert from which she and her rider had

alike sprung, and Coningsby remained in profound meditation.

CHAPTER II.

The day after his adventure at the Forest Inn, Coningsby arrived at

Beaumanoir. It was several years since he had visited the family of his

friend, who were indeed also his kin; and in his boyish days had often

proved that they were not unmindful of the affinity. This was a visit

that had been long counted on, long promised, and which a variety of

circumstances had hitherto prevented. It was to have been made by the

schoolboy; it was to be fulfilled by the man. For no less a character

could Coningsby under any circumstances now consent to claim, since he

was closely verging to the completion of his nineteenth year; and it

appeared manifest that if it were his destiny to do anything great,

he had but few years to wait before the full development of his power.

Visions of Gastons de Foix and Maurices of Saxony, statesmen giving

up cricket to govern nations, beardless Jesuits plunged in profound

abstraction in omnipotent cabinets, haunted his fancy from the moment he

had separated from his mysterious and deeply interesting companion. To

nurture his mind with great thoughts had ever been Coningsby’s inspiring

habit. Was it also destined that he should achieve the heroic?

There are some books, when we close them; one or two in the course of

our life, difficult as it may be to analyse or ascertain the cause; our

minds seem to have made a great leap. A thousand obscure things receive

light; a multitude of indefinite feelings are determined. Our intellect

grasps and grapples with all subjects with a capacity, a flexibility,

and a vigour, before unknown to us. It masters questions hitherto

perplexing, which are not even touched or referred to in the volume just

closed. What is this magic? It is the spirit of the supreme author, by

a magentic influence blending with our sympathising intelligence, that

directs and inspires it. By that mysterious sensibility we extend to

questions which he has not treated, the same intellectual force which he

has exercised over those which he has expounded. His genius for a time

remains in us. ‘Tis the same with human beings as with books. All of us

encounter, at least once in our life, some individual who utters words

that make us think for ever.

There are men whose phrases are oracles; who condense in a sentence the

secrets of life; who blurt out an aphorism that forms a character or

illustrates an existence. A great thing is a great book; but greater

than all is the talk of a great man.

And what is a great man? Is it a Minister of State? Is it a victorious

General? A gentleman in the Windsor uniform? A Field Marshal covered

with stars? Is it a Prelate, or a Prince? A King, even an Emperor?

It may be all these; yet these, as we must all daily feel, are not

necessarily great men. A great man is one who affects the mind of his

generation: whether he be a monk in his cloister agitating Christendom,

or a monarch crossing the Granicus, and giving a new character to the

Pagan World.

Our young Coningsby reached Beaumanoir in a state of meditation. He also

desired to be great. Not from the restless vanity that sometimes

impels youth to momentary exertion, by which they sometimes obtain a

distinction as evanescent as their energy. The ambition of our hero was

altogether of a different character. It was, indeed, at present not a

little vague, indefinite, hesitating, inquiring, sometimes desponding.

What were his powers? what should be his aim? were often to him, as to

all young aspirants, questions infinitely perplexing and full of pain.

But, on the whole, there ran through his character, notwithstanding his

many dazzling qualities and accomplishments, and his juvenile celebrity,

which has spoiled so much promise, a vein of grave simplicity that was

the consequence of an earnest temper, and of an intellect that would be

content with nothing short of the profound.

His was a mind that loved to pursue every question to the centre. But

it was not a spirit of scepticism that impelled this habit; on the

contrary, it was the spirit of faith. Coningsby found that he was born

in an age of infidelity in all things, and his heart assured him that a

want of faith was a want of nature. But his vigorous intellect could not

take refuge in that maudlin substitute for belief which consists in

a patronage of fantastic theories. He needed that deep and enduring

conviction that the heart and the intellect, feeling and reason united,

can alone supply. He asked himself why governments were hated,

and religions despised? Why loyalty was dead, and reverence only a

galvanised corpse?

These were indeed questions that had as yet presented themselves to his

thought in a crude and imperfect form; but their very occurrence showed

the strong predisposition of his mind. It was because he had not found

guides among his elders, that his thoughts had been turned to the

generation that he himself represented. The sentiment of veneration was

so developed in his nature, that he was exactly the youth that would

have hung with enthusiastic humility on the accents of some sage of old

in the groves of Academus, or the porch of Zeno. But as yet he had found

age only perplexed and desponding; manhood only callous and desperate.

Some thought that systems would last their time; others, that something

would turn up. His deep and pious spirit recoiled with disgust and

horror from such lax, chance-medley maxims, that would, in their

consequences, reduce man to the level of the brutes. Notwithstanding

a prejudice which had haunted him from his childhood, he had, when

the occasion offered, applied to Mr. Rigby for instruction, as one

distinguished in the republic of letters, as well as the realm of

politics; who assumed the guidance of the public mind, and, as the

phrase runs, was looked up to. Mr. Rigby listened at first to the

inquiries of Coningsby, urged, as they ever were, with a modesty and

deference which do not always characterise juvenile investigations, as

if Coningsby were speaking to him of the unknown tongues. But Mr.

Rigby was not a man who ever confessed himself at fault. He caught

up something of the subject as our young friend proceeded, and was

perfectly prepared, long before he had finished, to take the whole

conversation into his own hands.

Mr. Rigby began by ascribing everything to the Reform Bill, and then

referred to several of his own speeches on Schedule A. Then he told

Coningsby that want of religious Faith was solely occasioned by want of

churches; and want of Loyalty, by George IV. having shut himself up too

much at the cottage in Windsor Park, entirely against the advice of Mr.

Rigby. He assured Coningsby that the Church Commission was operating

wonders, and that with private benevolence, he had himself subscribed

1,000_l._, for Lord Monmouth, we should soon have churches enough. The

great question now was their architecture. Had George IV. lived all

would have been right. They would have been built on the model of the

Budhist pagoda. As for Loyalty, if the present King went regularly to

Ascot races, he had no doubt all would go right. Finally, Mr. Rigby

impressed on Coningsby to read the Quarterly Review with great

attention; and to make himself master of Mr. Wordy’s History of the late

War, in twenty volumes, a capital work, which proves that Providence was

on the side of the Tories.

Coningsby did not reply to Mr. Rigby again; but worked on with his own

mind, coming often enough to sufficiently crude conclusions, and often

much perplexed and harassed. He tried occasionally his inferences on his

companions, who were intelligent and full of fervour. Millbank was more

than this. He was of a thoughtful mood; had also caught up from a new

school some principles, which were materials for discussion. One way or

other, however, before he quitted Eton there prevailed among this circle

of friends, the initial idea doubtless emanating from Coningsby, an

earnest, though a rather vague, conviction that the present state of

feeling in matters both civil and religious was not healthy; that there

must be substituted for this latitudinarianism something sound and deep,

fervent and well defined, and that the priests of this new faith must be

found among the New Generation; so that when the bright-minded rider

of ‘the Daughter of the Star’ descanted on the influence of individual

character, of great thoughts and heroic actions, and the divine power of

youth and genius, he touched a string that was the very heart-chord of

his companion, who listened with fascinated enthusiasm as he introduced

him to his gallery of inspiring models.

Coningsby arrived at Beaumanoir at a season when men can neither hunt

nor shoot. Great internal resources should be found in a country family

under such circumstances. The Duke and Duchess had returned from London

only a few days with their daughter, who had been presented this year.

They were all glad to find themselves again in the country, which they

loved and which loved them. One of their sons-in-law and his wife, and

Henry Sydney, completed the party.

There are few conjunctures in life of a more startling interest, than to

meet the pretty little girl that we have gambolled with in our boyhood,

and to find her changed in the lapse of a very few years, which in some

instances may not have brought a corresponding alteration in our own

appearance, into a beautiful woman. Something of this flitted over

Coningsby’s mind, as he bowed, a little agitated from his surprise, to

Lady Theresa Sydney. All that he remembered had prepared him for beauty;

but not for the degree or character of beauty that he met. It was a

rich, sweet face, with blue eyes and dark lashes, and a nose that we

have no epithet in English to describe, but which charmed in Roxalana.

Her brown hair fell over her white and well turned shoulders in long and

luxuriant tresses. One has met something as brilliant and dainty in a

medallion of old Sèvres, or amid the terraces and gardens of Watteau.

Perhaps Lady Theresa, too, might have welcomed him with more freedom

had his appearance also more accorded with the image which he had left

behind. Coningsby was a boy then, as we described him in our first

chapter. Though only nineteen now, he had attained his full stature,

which was above the middle height, and time had fulfilled that promise

of symmetry in his figure, and grace in his mien, then so largely

intimated. Time, too, which had not yet robbed his countenance of any

of its physical beauty, had strongly developed the intellectual charm

by which it had ever been distinguished. As he bowed lowly before the

Duchess and her daughter, it would have been difficult to imagine a

youth of a mien more prepossessing and a manner more finished.

A manner that was spontaneous; nature’s pure gift, the reflex of his

feeling. No artifice prompted that profound and polished homage. Not one

of those influences, the aggregate of whose sway produces, as they tell

us, the finished gentleman, had ever exercised its beneficent power on

our orphan, and not rarely forlorn, Coningsby. No clever and refined

woman, with her quick perception, and nice criticism that never offends

our self-love, had ever given him that education that is more precious

than Universities. The mild suggestions of a sister, the gentle raillery

of some laughing cousin, are also advantages not always appreciated at

the time, but which boys, when they have become men, often think over

with gratitude, and a little remorse at the ungracious spirit in

which they were received. Not even the dancing-master had afforded his

mechanical aid to Coningsby, who, like all Eton boys of his generation,

viewed that professor of accomplishments with frank repugnance. But even

in the boisterous life of school, Coningsby, though his style was free

and flowing, was always well-bred. His spirit recoiled from that gross

familiarity that is the characteristic of modern manners, and which

would destroy all forms and ceremonies merely because they curb and

control their own coarse convenience and ill-disguised selfishness. To

women, however, Coningsby instinctively bowed, as to beings set apart

for reverence and delicate treatment. Little as his experience was

of them, his spirit had been fed with chivalrous fancies, and he

entertained for them all the ideal devotion of a Surrey or a Sydney.

Instructed, if not learned, as books and thought had already made him in

men, he could not conceive that there were any other women in the world

than fair Geraldines and Countesses of Pembroke.

There was not a country-house in England that had so completely the air

of habitual residence as Beaumanoir. It is a charming trait, and

very rare. In many great mansions everything is as stiff, formal, and

tedious, as if your host were a Spanish grandee in the days of the

Inquisition. No ease, no resources; the passing life seems a solemn

spectacle in which you play a part. How delightful was the morning room

at Beaumanoir; from which gentlemen were not excluded with that assumed

suspicion that they can never enter it but for felonious purposes.

Such a profusion of flowers! Such a multitude of books! Such a various

prodigality of writing materials! So many easy chairs too, of so many

shapes; each in itself a comfortable home; yet nothing crowded. Woman

alone can organise a drawing-room; man succeeds sometimes in a library.

And the ladies’ work! How graceful they look bending over their

embroidery frames, consulting over the arrangement of a group, or the

colour of a flower. The panniers and fanciful baskets, overflowing with

variegated worsted, are gay and full of pleasure to the eye, and give an

air of elegant business that is vivifying. Even the sight of employment

interests.

Then the morning costume of English women is itself a beautiful work of

art. At this period of the day they can find no rivals in other climes.

The brilliant complexions of the daughters of the north dazzle in

daylight; the illumined saloon levels all distinctions. One should see

them in their well-fashioned muslin dresses. What matrons, and what

maidens! Full of graceful dignity, fresher than the morn! And the

married beauty in her little lace cap. Ah, she is a coquette! A charming

character at all times; in a country-house an invaluable one.

A coquette is a being who wishes to please. Amiable being! If you do not

like her, you will have no difficulty in finding a female companion of

a different mood. Alas! coquettes are but too rare. ‘Tis a career that

requires great abilities, infinite pains, a gay and airy spirit. ‘Tis

the coquette that provides all amusement; suggests the riding party,

plans the picnic, gives and guesses charades, acts them. She is the

stirring element amid the heavy congeries of social atoms; the soul of

the house, the salt of the banquet. Let any one pass a very agreeable

week, or it may be ten days, under any roof, and analyse the cause of

his satisfaction, and one might safely make a gentle wager that his

solution would present him with the frolic phantom of a coquette.

‘It is impossible that Mr. Coningsby can remember me!’ said a clear

voice; and he looked round, and was greeted by a pair of sparkling eyes

and the gayest smile in the world.

It was Lady Everingham, the Duke’s married daughter.

CHAPTER III.

‘And you walked here!’ said Lady Everingham to Coningsby, when the stir

of arranging themselves at dinner had subsided. ‘Only think, papa, Mr.

Coningsby walked here! I also am a great walker.’

‘I had heard much of the forest,’ said Coningsby.

‘Which I am sure did not disappoint you,’ said the Duke.

‘But forests without adventures!’ said Lady Everingham, a little

shrugging her pretty shoulders.

‘But I had an adventure,’ said Coningsby.

‘Oh! tell it us by all means!’ said the Lady, with great animation.

‘Adventures are my weakness. I have had more adventures than any one.

Have I not had, Augustus?’ she added, addressing her husband.

‘But you make everything out to be an adventure, Isabel,’ said Lord

Everingham. I dare say that Mr. Coningsby’s was more substantial.’ And

looking at our young friend, he invited him to inform them.

‘I met a most extraordinary man,’ said Coningsby.

‘It should have been a heroine,’ exclaimed Lady Everingham.

‘Do you know anybody in this neighbourhood who rides the finest Arab in

the world?’ asked Coningsby. ‘She is called “the Daughter of the Star,”

and was given to her rider by the Pacha of Egypt.’

‘This is really an adventure,’ said Lady Everingham, interested.

‘The Daughter of the Star!’ said Lady Theresa. ‘What a pretty name!

Percy has a horse called “Sunbeam.”’

‘A fine Arab, the finest in the world!’ said the Duke, who was fond of

horse. ‘Who can it be?’

‘Can you throw any light on this, Mr. Lyle?’ asked the Duchess of a

young man who sat next her.

He was a neighbour who had joined their dinner-party, Eustace Lyle,

a Roman Catholic, and the richest commoner in the county; for he had

succeeded to a great estate early in his minority, which had only this

year terminated.

‘I certainly do not know the horse,’ said Mr. Lyle; ‘but if Mr.

Coningsby would describe the rider, perhaps--’

‘He is a man something under thirty,’ said Coningsby, ‘pale, with dark

hair. We met in a sort of forest-inn during a storm. A most singular

man! Indeed, I never met any one who seemed to me so clever, or to say

such remarkable things.’

‘He must have been the spirit of the storm,’ said Lady Everingham.

‘Charles Verney has a great deal of dark hair,’ said Lady Theresa. ‘But

then he is anything but pale, and his eyes are blue.’

‘And certainly he keeps his wonderful things for your ear, Theresa,’

said her sister.

‘I wish that Mr. Coningsby would tell us some of the wonderful things he

said,’ said the Duchess, smiling.

‘Take a glass of wine first with my mother, Coningsby,’ said Henry

Sydney, who had just finished helping them all to fish.

Coningsby had too much tact to be entrapped into a long story. He

already regretted that he had been betrayed into any allusion to the

stranger. He had a wild, fanciful notion, that their meeting ought to

have been preserved as a sacred secret. But he had been impelled to

refer to it in the first instance by the chance observation of Lady

Everingham; and he had pursued his remark from the hope that the

conversation might have led to the discovery of the unknown. When he

found that his inquiry in this respect was unsuccessful, he was willing

to turn the conversation. In reply to the Duchess, then, he generally

described the talk of the stranger as full of lively anecdote and

epigrammatic views of life; and gave them, for example, a saying of an

illustrious foreign Prince, which was quite new and pointed, and which

Coningsby told well. This led to a new train of discourse. The Duke also

knew this illustrious foreign Prince, and told another story of him; and

Lord Everingham had played whist with this illustrious foreign Prince

often at the Travellers’, and this led to a third story; none of them

too long. Then Lady Everingham came in again, and sparkled agreeably.

She, indeed, sustained throughout dinner the principal weight of the

conversation; but, as she asked questions of everybody, all seemed to

contribute. Even the voice of Mr. Lyle, who was rather bashful, was

occasionally heard in reply. Coningsby, who had at first unintentionally

taken a more leading part than he aspired to, would have retired

into the background for the rest of the dinner, but Lady Everingham

continually signalled him out for her questions, and as she sat opposite

to him, he seemed the person to whom they were principally addressed.

At length the ladies rose to retire. A very great personage in a

foreign, but not remote country, once mentioned to the writer of these

pages, that he ascribed the superiority of the English in political

life, in their conduct of public business and practical views of

affairs, in a great measure to ‘that little half-hour’ that separates,

after dinner, the dark from the fair sex. The writer humbly submitted,

that if the period of disjunction were strictly limited to a ‘little

half-hour,’ its salutary consequences for both sexes need not be

disputed, but that in England the ‘little half-hour’ was too apt

to swell into a term of far more awful character and duration. Lady

Everingham was a disciple of the ‘very little half-hour’ school; for, as

she gaily followed her mother, she said to Coningsby, whose gracious lot

it was to usher them from the apartment:

‘Pray do not be too long at the Board of Guardians to-day.’

These were prophetic words; for no sooner were they all again seated,

than the Duke, filling his glass and pushing the claret to Coningsby,

observed,

‘I suppose Lord Monmouth does not trouble himself much about the New

Poor Law?’

‘Hardly,’ said Coningsby. ‘My grandfather’s frequent absence from

England, which his health, I believe, renders quite necessary, deprives

him of the advantage of personal observation on a subject, than which I

can myself conceive none more deeply interesting.’

‘I am glad to hear you say so,’ said the Duke, ‘and it does you great

credit, and Henry too, whose attention, I observe, is directed very much

to these subjects. In my time, the young men did not think so much of

such things, and we suffer consequently. By the bye, Everingham,

you, who are a Chairman of a Board of Guardians, can give me some

information. Supposing a case of out-door relief--’

‘I could not suppose anything so absurd,’ said the son-in-law.

‘Well,’ rejoined the Duke, ‘I know your views on that subject, and it

certainly is a question on which there is a good deal to be said. But

would you under any circumstances give relief out of the Union, even if

the parish were to save a considerable sum?’

‘I wish I knew the Union where such a system was followed,’ said Lord

Everingham; and his Grace seemed to tremble under his son-in-law’s

glance.

The Duke had a good heart, and not a bad head. If he had not made in

his youth so many Latin and English verses, he might have acquired

considerable information, for he had a natural love of letters, though

his pack were the pride of England, his barrel seldom missed, and his

fortune on the turf, where he never betted, was a proverb. He was good,

and he wished to do good; but his views were confused from want of

knowledge, and his conduct often inconsistent because a sense of duty

made him immediately active; and he often acquired in the consequent

experience a conviction exactly contrary to that which had prompted his

activity.

His Grace had been a great patron and a zealous administrator of the New

Poor Law. He had been persuaded that it would elevate the condition of

the labouring class. His son-in-law, Lord Everingham, who was a Whig,

and a clearheaded, cold-blooded man, looked upon the New Poor Law as

another Magna Charta. Lord Everingham was completely master of the

subject. He was himself the Chairman of one of the most considerable

Unions of the kingdom. The Duke, if he ever had a misgiving, had no

chance in argument with his son-in-law. Lord Everingham overwhelmed

him with quotations from Commissioners’ rules and Sub-commissioners’

reports, statistical tables, and references to dietaries. Sometimes with

a strong case, the Duke struggled to make a fight; but Lord Everingham,

when he was at fault for a reply, which was very rare, upbraided his

father-in-law with the abuses of the old system, and frightened him with

visions of rates exceeding rentals.

Of late, however, a considerable change had taken place in the Duke’s

feelings on this great question. His son Henry entertained strong

opinions upon it, and had combated his father with all the fervour of a

young votary. A victory over his Grace, indeed, was not very difficult.

His natural impulse would have enlisted him on the side, if not of

opposition to the new system, at least of critical suspicion of its

spirit and provisions. It was only the statistics and sharp acuteness

of his son-in-law that had, indeed, ever kept him to his colours. Lord

Henry would not listen to statistics, dietary tables, Commissioners’

rides, Sub-commissioners’ reports. He went far higher than his father;

far deeper than his brother-in-law. He represented to the Duke that the

order of the peasantry was as ancient, legal, and recognised an order as

the order of the nobility; that it had distinct rights and privileges,

though for centuries they had been invaded and violated, and permitted

to fall into desuetude. He impressed upon the Duke that the parochial

constitution of this country was more important than its political

constitution; that it was more ancient, more universal in its influence;

and that this parochial constitution had already been shaken to its

centre by the New Poor Law. He assured his father that it would never be

well for England until this order of the peasantry was restored to its

pristine condition; not merely in physical comfort, for that must vary

according to the economical circumstances of the time, like that of

every class; but to its condition in all those moral attributes which

make a recognised rank in a nation; and which, in a great degree, are

independent of economics, manners, customs, ceremonies, rights, and

privileges.

‘Henry thinks,’ said Lord Everingham, ‘that the people are to be fed by

dancing round a May-pole.’

‘But will the people be more fed because they do not dance round a

May-pole?’ urged Lord Henry.

‘Obsolete customs!’ said Lord Everingham.

‘And why should dancing round a May-pole be more obsolete than holding a

Chapter of the Garter?’ asked Lord Henry.

The Duke, who was a blue ribbon, felt this a home thrust. ‘I must say,’

said his Grace, ‘that I for one deeply regret that our popular customs

have been permitted to fall so into desuetude.’

‘The Spirit of the Age is against such things,’ said Lord Everingham.

‘And what is the Spirit of the Age?’ asked Coningsby.

‘The Spirit of Utility,’ said Lord Everingham.

‘And you think then that ceremony is not useful?’ urged Coningsby,

mildly.

‘It depends upon circumstances,’ said Lord Everingham. ‘There are some

ceremonies, no doubt, that are very proper, and of course very useful.

But the best thing we can do for the labouring classes is to provide

them with work.’

‘But what do you mean by the labouring classes, Everingham?’ asked Lord

Henry. ‘Lawyers are a labouring class, for instance, and by the bye

sufficiently provided with work. But would you approve of Westminster

Hall being denuded of all its ceremonies?’

‘And the long vacation being abolished?’ added Coningsby.

‘Theresa brings me terrible accounts of the sufferings of the poor about

us,’ said the Duke, shaking his head.

‘Women think everything to be suffering!’ said Lord Everingham.

‘How do you find them about you, Mr. Lyle?’ continued the Duke.

‘I have revived the monastic customs at St. Genevieve,’ said the young

man, blushing. ‘There is an almsgiving twice a-week.’

‘I am sure I wish I could see the labouring classes happy,’ said the

Duke.

‘Oh! pray do not use, my dear father, that phrase, the labouring

classes!’ said Lord Henry. ‘What do you think, Coningsby, the other day

we had a meeting in this neighbourhood to vote an agricultural petition

that was to comprise all classes. I went with my father, and I was

made chairman of the committee to draw up the petition. Of course, I

described it as the petition of the nobility, clergy, gentry, yeomanry,

and peasantry of the county of ----; and, could you believe it,

they struck out _peasantry_ as a word no longer used, and inserted

_labourers_.’

‘What can it signify,’ said Lord Everingham, ‘whether a man be called a

labourer or a peasant?’

‘And what can it signify,’ said his brother-in-law, ‘whether a man be

called Mr. Howard or Lord Everingham?’

They were the most affectionate family under this roof of Beaumanoir,

and of all members of it, Lord Henry the sweetest tempered, and yet it

was astonishing what sharp skirmishes every day arose between him and

his brother-in-law, during that ‘little half-hour’ that forms so happily

the political character of the nation. The Duke, who from experience

felt that a guerilla movement was impending, asked his guests whether

they would take any more claret; and on their signifying their dissent,

moved an adjournment to the ladies.

They joined the ladies in the music-room. Coningsby, not experienced

in feminine society, and who found a little difficulty from want

of practice in maintaining conversation, though he was desirous

of succeeding, was delighted with Lady Everingham, who, instead of

requiring to be amused, amused him; and suggested so many subjects,

and glanced at so many topics, that there never was that cold, awkward

pause, so common with sullen spirits and barren brains. Lady Everingham

thoroughly understood the art of conversation, which, indeed, consists

of the exercise of two fine qualities. You must originate, and you must

sympathise; you must possess at the same time the habit of communicating

and the habit of listening. The union is rather rare, but irresistible.

Lady Everingham was not a celebrated beauty, but she was something

infinitely more delightful, a captivating woman. There were combined,

in her, qualities not commonly met together, great vivacity of mind with

great grace of manner. Her words sparkled and her movements charmed.

There was, indeed, in all she said and did, that congruity that

indicates a complete and harmonious organisation. It was the same just

proportion which characterised her form: a shape slight and undulating

with grace; the most beautifully shaped ear; a small, soft hand; a foot

that would have fitted the glass slipper; and which, by the bye, she

lost no opportunity of displaying; and she was right, for it was a

model.

Then there was music. Lady Theresa sang like a seraph: a rich voice, a

grand style. And her sister could support her with grace and sweetness.

And they did not sing too much. The Duke took up a review, and looked

at Rigby’s last slashing article. The country seemed ruined, but it

appeared that the Whigs were still worse off than the Tories. The

assassins had committed suicide. This poetical justice is pleasing. Lord

Everingham, lounging in an easy chair, perused with great satisfaction

his _Morning Chronicle_, which contained a cutting reply to Mr. Rigby’s

article, not quite so ‘slashing’ as the Right Honourable scribe’s

manifesto, but with some searching mockery, that became the subject and

the subject-monger.

Mr. Lyle seated himself by the Duchess, and encouraged by her amenity,

and speaking in whispers, became animated and agreeable, occasionally

patting the lap-dog. Coningsby stood by the singers, or talked with

them when the music had ceased: and Henry Sydney looked over a volume

of Strutt’s _Sports and Pastimes_, occasionally, without taking his eyes

off the volume, calling the attention of his friends to his discoveries.

Mr. Lyle rose to depart, for he had some miles to return; he came

forward with some hesitation, to hope that Coningsby would visit his

bloodhounds, which Lord Henry had told him Coningsby had expressed

a wish to do. Lady Everingham remarked that she had not been at St.

Genevieve since she was a girl, and it appeared Lady Theresa had never

visited it. Lady Everingham proposed that they should all ride over

on the morrow, and she appealed to her husband for his approbation,

instantly given, for though she loved admiration, and he apparently was

an iceberg, they were really devoted to each other. Then there was a

consultation as to their arrangements. The Duchess would drive over in

her pony chair with Theresa. The Duke, as usual, had affairs that

would occupy him. The rest were to ride. It was a happy suggestion, all

anticipated pleasure; and the evening terminated with the prospect of

what Lady Everingham called an adventure.

The ladies themselves soon withdrew; the gentlemen lingered for a

while; the Duke took up his candle, and bid his guests good night; Lord

Everingham drank a glass of Seltzer water, nodded, and vanished. Lord

Henry and his friend sat up talking over the past. They were too young

to call them old times; and yet what a life seemed to have elapsed since

they had quitted Eton, dear old Eton! Their boyish feelings, and still

latent boyish character, developed with their reminiscences.

‘Do you remember Bucknall? Which Bucknall? The eldest: I saw him the

other day at Nottingham; he is in the Rifles. Do you remember that day

at Sirly Hall, that Paulet had that row with Dickinson? Did you like

Dickinson? Hum! Paulet was a good fellow. I tell you who was a good

fellow, Paulet’s little cousin. What! Augustus Le Grange? Oh! I liked

Augustus Le Grange. I wonder where Buckhurst is? I had a letter from him

the other day. He has gone with his uncle to Paris. We shall find him at

Cambridge in October. I suppose you know Millbank has gone to Oriel. Has

he, though! I wonder who will have our room at Cookesley’s? Cookesley

was a good fellow! Oh, capital! How well he behaved when there was that

row about our going out with the hounds? Do you remember Vere’s face? It

makes me laugh now when I think of it. I tell you who was a good fellow,

Kangaroo Gray; I liked him. I don’t know any fellow who sang a better

song!’

‘By the bye,’ said Coningsby, ‘what sort of fellow is Eustace Lyle? I

rather liked his look.’

‘Oh! I will tell you all about him,’ said Lord Henry. ‘He is a great

ally of mine, and I think you will like him very much. It is a Roman

Catholic family, about the oldest we have in the county, and the

wealthiest. You see, Lyle’s father was the most violent ultra Whig,

and so were all Eustace’s guardians; but the moment he came of age, he

announced that he should not mix himself up with either of the parties

in the county, and that his tenantry might act exactly as they thought

fit. My father thinks, of course, that Lyle is a Conservative, and that

he only waits the occasion to come forward; but he is quite wrong. I

know Lyle well, and he speaks to me without disguise. You see ‘tis an

old Cavalier family, and Lyle has all the opinions and feelings of his

race. He will not ally himself with anti-monarchists, and democrats,

and infidels, and sectarians; at the same time, why should he support a

party who pretend to oppose these, but who never lose an opportunity

of insulting his religion, and would deprive him, if possible, of

the advantages of the very institutions which his family assisted in

establishing?’

‘Why, indeed? I am glad to have made his acquaintance,’ said Coningsby.

‘Is he clever?’

‘I think so,’ said Lord Henry. ‘He is the most shy fellow, especially

among women, that I ever knew, but he is very popular in the county. He

does an amazing deal of good, and is one of the best riders we have. My

father says, the very best; bold, but so very certain.’

‘He is older than we are?’

‘My senior by a year: he is just of age.’

‘Oh, ah! twenty-one. A year younger than Gaston de Foix when he won

Ravenna, and four years younger than John of Austria when he won

Lepanto,’ observed Coningsby, musingly. ‘I vote we go to bed, old

fellow!’

CHAPTER IV.

In a valley, not far from the margin of a beautiful river, raised on a

lofty and artificial terrace at the base of a range of wooded heights,

was a pile of modern building in the finest style of Christian

architecture. It was of great extent and richly decorated. Built of

a white and glittering stone, it sparkled with its pinnacles in the

sunshine as it rose in strong relief against its verdant background.

The winding valley, which was studded, but not too closely studded, with

clumps of old trees, formed for a great extent on either side of the

mansion a grassy demesne, which was called the Lower Park; but it was

a region bearing the name of the Upper Park, that was the peculiar and

most picturesque feature of this splendid residence. The wooded heights

that formed the valley were not, as they appeared, a range of hills.

Their crest was only the abrupt termination of a vast and enclosed

tableland, abounding in all the qualities of the ancient chase: turf and

trees, a wilderness of underwood, and a vast spread of gorse and fern.

The deer, that abounded, lived here in a world as savage as themselves:

trooping down in the evening to the river. Some of them, indeed, were

ever in sight of those who were in the valley, and you might often

observe various groups clustered on the green heights above the mansion,

the effect of which was most inspiriting and graceful. Sometimes in the

twilight, a solitary form, magnified by the illusive hour, might be seen

standing on the brink of the steep, large and black against the clear

sky.

We have endeavoured slightly to sketch St. Geneviève as it appeared to

our friends from Beaumanoir, winding into the valley the day after

Mr. Lyle had dined with them. The valley opened for about half-a-mile

opposite the mansion, which gave to the dwellers in it a view over an

extensive and richly-cultivated country. It was through this district

that the party from Beaumanoir had pursued their way. The first glance

at the building, its striking situation, its beautiful form, its

brilliant colour, its great extent, a gathering as it seemed of

galleries, halls, and chapels, mullioned windows, portals of clustered

columns, and groups of airy pinnacles and fretwork spires, called forth

a general cry of wonder and of praise.

The ride from Beaumanoir had been delightful; the breath of summer in

every breeze, the light of summer on every tree. The gay laugh of

Lady Everingham rang frequently in the air; often were her sunny eyes

directed to Coningsby, as she called his attention to some fair object

or some pretty effect. She played the hostess of Nature, and introduced

him to all the beauties.

Mr. Lyle had recognised them. He cantered forward with greetings on a

fat little fawn-coloured pony, with a long white mane and white flowing

tail, and the wickedest eye in the world. He rode by the side of the

Duchess, and indicated their gently-descending route.

They arrived, and the peacocks, who were sunning themselves on the

turrets, expanded their plumage to welcome them.

‘I can remember the old house,’ said the Duchess, as she took Mr. Lyle’s

arm; ‘and I am happy to see the new one. The Duke had prepared me for

much beauty, but the reality exceeds his report.’

They entered by a short corridor into a large hall. They would have

stopped to admire its rich roof, its gallery and screen; but their host

suggested that they should refresh themselves after their ride, and they

followed him through several apartments into a spacious chamber, its

oaken panels covered with a series of interesting pictures, representing

the siege of St. Geneviève by the Parliament forces in 1643: the various

assaults and sallies, and the final discomfiture of the rebels. In all

these figured a brave and graceful Sir Eustace Lyle, in cuirass and

buff jerkin, with gleaming sword and flowing plume. The sight of these

pictures was ever a source of great excitement to Henry Sydney, who

always lamented his ill-luck in not living in such days; nay, would

insist that all others must equally deplore their evil destiny.

‘See, Coningsby, this battery on the Upper Park,’ said Lord Henry.

‘This did the business: how it rakes up the valley; Sir Eustace works it

himself. Mother, what a pity Beaumanoir was not besieged!’

‘It may be,’ said Coningsby.

‘I always fancy a siege must be so interesting,’ said Lady Everingham.

‘It must be so exciting.’

‘I hope the next siege may be at Beaumanoir, instead of St.

Geneviève,’ said Lyle, laughing; ‘as Henry Sydney has such a military

predisposition. Duchess, you said the other day that you liked

Malvoisie, and here is some.

‘Now broach me a cask of Malvoisie,

Bring pasty from the doe;’

said the Duchess. ‘That has been my luncheon.’

‘A poetic repast,’ said Lady Theresa.

‘Their breeds of sheep must have been very inferior in old days,’ said

Lord Everingham, ‘as they made such a noise about their venison. For my

part I consider it a thing as much gone by as tilts and tournaments.’

‘I am sorry that they have gone by,’ said Lady Theresa.

‘Everything has gone by that is beautiful,’ said Lord Henry.

‘Life is much easier,’ said Lord Everingham.

‘Life easy!’ said Lord Henry. ‘Life appears to me to be a fierce

struggle.’

‘Manners are easy,’ said Coningsby, ‘and life is hard.’

‘And I wish to see things exactly the reverse,’ said Lord Henry. ‘The

means and modes of subsistence less difficult; the conduct of life more

ceremonious.’

‘Civilisation has no time for ceremony,’ said Lord Everingham.

‘How very sententious you all are!’ said his wife. ‘I want to see the

hall and many other things.’ And they all rose.

There were indeed many other things to see: a long gallery, rich in

ancestral portraits, specimens of art and costume from Holbein to

Lawrence; courtiers of the Tudors, and cavaliers of the Stuarts,

terminating in red-coated squires fresh from the field, and gentlemen

buttoned up in black coats, and sitting in library chairs, with their

backs to a crimson curtain. Woman, however, is always charming; and the

present generation may view their mothers painted by Lawrence, as if

they were patronesses of Almack’s; or their grandmothers by Reynolds,

as Robinettas caressing birds, with as much delight as they gaze on

the dewy-eyed matrons of Lely, and the proud bearing of the heroines

of Vandyke. But what interested them more than the gallery, or the rich

saloons, or even the baronial hall, was the chapel, in which art had

exhausted all its invention, and wealth offered all its resources.

The walls and vaulted roofs entirely painted in encaustic by the first

artists of Germany, and representing the principal events of the second

Testament, the splendour of the mosaic pavement, the richness of

the painted windows, the sumptuousness of the altar, crowned by a

masterpiece of Carlo Dolce and surrounded by a silver rail, the tone

of rich and solemn light that pervaded all, and blended all the various

sources of beauty into one absorbing and harmonious whole: all combined

to produce an effect which stilled them into a silence that lasted for

some minutes, until the ladies breathed their feelings in an almost

inarticulate murmur of reverence and admiration; while a tear stole to

the eye of the enthusiastic Henry Sydney.

Leaving the chapel, they sauntered through the gardens, until, arriving

at their limit, they were met by the prettiest sight in the world; a

group of little pony chairs, each drawn by a little fat fawn-coloured

pony, like the one that Mr. Lyle had been riding. Lord Henry drove his

mother; Lord Everingham, Lady Theresa; Lady Everingham was attended by

Coningsby. Their host cantered by the Duchess’s side, and along winding

roads of easy ascent, leading through beautiful woods, and offering

charming landscapes, they reached in due time the Upper Park.

‘One sees our host to great advantage in his own house,’ said Lady

Everingham. ‘He is scarcely the same person. I have not observed him

once blush. He speaks and moves with ease. It is a pity that he is not

more graceful. Above all things I like a graceful man.’

‘That chapel,’ said Coningsby, ‘was a fine thing.’

‘Very!’ said Lady Everingham. ‘Did you observe the picture over the

altar, the Virgin with blue eyes? I never observed blue eyes before in

such a picture. What is your favourite colour for eyes?’

Coningsby felt embarrassed: he said something rather pointless about

admiring everything that was beautiful.

‘But every one has a favourite style; I want to know yours. Regular

features, do you like regular features? Or is it expression that pleases

you?’

‘Expression; I think I like expression. Expression must be always

delightful.’

‘Do you dance?’

‘No; I am no great dancer. I fear I have few accomplishments. I am fond

of fencing.’

‘I don’t fence,’ said Lady Everingham, with a smile. ‘But I think you

are right not to dance. It is not in your way. You are ambitious, I

believe?’ she added.

‘I was not aware of it; everybody is ambitious.’

‘You see I know something of your character. Henry has spoken of you to

me a great deal; long before we met,--met again, I should say, for we

are old friends, remember. Do you know your career much interests me? I

like ambitious men.’

There is something fascinating in the first idea that your career

interests a charming woman. Coningsby felt that he was perhaps driving

a Madame de Longueville. A woman who likes ambitious men must be no

ordinary character; clearly a sort of heroine. At this moment they

reached the Upper Park, and the novel landscape changed the current of

their remarks.

Far as the eye could reach there spread before them a savage sylvan

scene. It wanted, perhaps, undulation of surface, but that deficiency

was greatly compensated for by the multitude and prodigious size of the

trees; they were the largest, indeed, that could well be met with in

England; and there is no part of Europe where the timber is so huge.

The broad interminable glades, the vast avenues, the quantity of deer

browsing or bounding in all directions, the thickets of yellow gorse and

green fern, and the breeze that even in the stillness of summer was ever

playing over this table-land, all produced an animated and renovating

scene. It was like suddenly visiting another country, living among other

manners, and breathing another air. They stopped for a few minutes at

a pavilion built for the purposes of the chase, and then returned, all

gratified by this visit to what appeared to be the higher regions of the

earth.

As they approached the brow of the hill that hung over St. Geneviève,

they heard the great bell sound.

‘What is that?’ asked the Duchess.

‘It is almsgiving day,’ replied Mr. Lyle, looking a little embarrassed,

and for the first time blushing. ‘The people of the parishes with which

I am connected come to St. Geneviève twice a-week at this hour.’

‘And what is your system?’ inquired Lord Everingham, who had stopped,

interested by the scene. ‘What check have you?’

‘The rectors of the different parishes grant certificates to those

who in their belief merit bounty according to the rules which I have

established. These are again visited by my almoner, who countersigns

the certificate, and then they present it at the postern-gate. The

certificate explains the nature of their necessities, and my steward

acts on his discretion.

‘Mamma, I see them!’ exclaimed Lady Theresa.

‘Perhaps your Grace may think that they might be relieved without all

this ceremony,’ said Mr. Lyle, extremely confused. ‘But I agree with

Henry and Mr. Coningsby, that Ceremony is not, as too commonly supposed,

an idle form. I wish the people constantly and visibly to comprehend

that Property is their protector and their friend.’

‘My reason is with you, Mr. Lyle,’ said the Duchess, ‘as well as my

heart.’

They came along the valley, a procession of Nature, whose groups an

artist might have studied. The old man, who loved the pilgrimage too

much to avail himself of the privilege of a substitute accorded to his

grey hairs, came in person with his grandchild and his staff. There also

came the widow with her child at the breast, and others clinging to her

form; some sorrowful faces, and some pale; many a serious one, and

now and then a frolic glance; many a dame in her red cloak, and many a

maiden with her light basket; curly-headed urchins with demure looks,

and sometimes a stalwart form baffled for a time of the labour which he

desired. But not a heart there that did not bless the bell that sounded

from the tower of St. Geneviève!

CHAPTER V.

‘My fathers perilled their blood and fortunes for the cause of the

Sovereignty and Church of England,’ said Lyle to Coningsby, as they were

lying stretched out on the sunny turf in the park of Beaumanoir,’ and

I inherit their passionate convictions. They were Catholics, as their

descendant. No doubt they would have been glad to see their ancient

faith predominant in their ancient land; but they bowed, as I bow, to an

adverse and apparently irrevocable decree. But if we could not have the

Church of our fathers, we honoured and respected the Church of their

children. It was at least a Church; a ‘Catholic and Apostolic Church,’

as it daily declares itself. Besides, it was our friend. When we were

persecuted by Puritanic Parliaments, it was the Sovereign and the Church

of England that interposed, with the certainty of creating against

themselves odium and mistrust, to shield us from the dark and relentless

bigotry of Calvinism.’

‘I believe,’ said Coningsby, ‘that if Charles I. had hanged all the

Catholic priests that Parliament petitioned him to execute, he would

never have lost his crown.’

‘You were mentioning my father,’ continued Lyle. ‘He certainly was a

Whig. Galled by political exclusion, he connected himself with that

party in the State which began to intimate emancipation. After all, they

did not emancipate us. It was the fall of the Papacy in England that

founded the Whig aristocracy; a fact that must always lie at the bottom

of their hearts, as, I assure you, it does of mine.

‘I gathered at an early age,’ continued Lyle, ‘that I was expected to

inherit my father’s political connections with the family estates. Under

ordinary circumstances this would probably have occurred. In times that

did not force one to ponder, it is not likely I should have recoiled

from uniting myself with a party formed of the best families in England,

and ever famous for accomplished men and charming women. But I enter

life in the midst of a convulsion in which the very principles of our

political and social systems are called in question. I cannot unite

myself with the party of destruction. It is an operative cause alien

to my being. What, then, offers itself? The Duke talks to me of

Conservative principles; but he does not inform me what they are. I

observe indeed a party in the State whose rule it is to consent to no

change, until it is clamorously called for, and then instantly to yield;

but those are Concessionary, not Conservative principles. This party

treats institutions as we do our pheasants, they preserve only to

destroy them. But is there a statesman among these Conservatives who

offers us a dogma for a guide, or defines any great political truth

which we should aspire to establish? It seems to me a barren thing,

this Conservatism, an unhappy cross-breed; the mule of politics that

engenders nothing. What do you think of all this, Coningsby? I assure

you I feel confused, perplexed, harassed. I know I have public duties to

perform; I am, in fact, every day of my life solicited by all parties

to throw the weight of my influence in one scale or another; but I am

paralysed. I often wish I had no position in the country. The sense

of its responsibility depresses me; makes me miserable. I speak to you

without reserve; with a frankness which our short acquaintance scarcely

authorises; but Henry Sydney has so often talked to me of you, and

I have so long wished to know you, that I open my heart without

restraint.’

‘My dear fellow,’ said Coningsby, ‘you have but described my feelings

when you depicted your own. My mind on these subjects has long been

a chaos. I float in a sea of troubles, and should long ago have

been wrecked had I not been sustained by a profound, however vague,

conviction, that there are still great truths, if we could but work them

out; that Government, for instance, should be loved and not hated, and

that Religion should be a faith and not a form.’

The moral influence of residence furnishes some of the most interesting

traits of our national manners. The presence of this power was very

apparent throughout the district that surrounded Beaumanoir. The ladies

of that house were deeply sensible of the responsibility of their

position; thoroughly comprehending their duties, they fulfilled them

without affectation, with earnestness, and with that effect which

springs from a knowledge of the subject. The consequences were visible

in the tone of the peasantry being superior to that which we too often

witness. The ancient feudal feeling that lingers in these sequestered

haunts is an instrument which, when skilfully wielded, may be productive

of vast social benefit. The Duke understood this well; and his family

had imbibed all his views, and seconded them. Lady Everingham, once more

in the scene of her past life, resumed the exercise of gentle offices,

as if she had never ceased to be a daughter of the house, and as if

another domain had not its claims upon her solicitude. Coningsby was

often the companion of herself and her sister in their pilgrimages

of charity and kindness. He admired the graceful energy, and thorough

acquaintance with details, with which Lady Everingham superintended

schools, organised societies of relief, and the discrimination which she

brought to bear upon individual cases of suffering or misfortune. He was

deeply interested as he watched the magic of her manner, as she melted

the obdurate, inspired the slothful, consoled the afflicted, and

animated with her smiles and ready phrase the energetic and the dutiful.

Nor on these occasions was Lady Theresa seen under less favourable

auspices. Without the vivacity of her sister, there was in her demeanour

a sweet seriousness of purpose that was most winning; and sometimes a

burst of energy, a trait of decision, which strikingly contrasted with

the somewhat over-controlled character of her life in drawing-rooms.

In the society of these engaging companions, time for Coningsby glided

away in a course which he sometimes wished nothing might disturb. Apart

from them, he frequently felt himself pensive and vaguely disquieted.

Even the society of Henry Sydney or Eustace Lyle, much as under

ordinary circumstances they would have been adapted to his mood, did not

compensate for the absence of that indefinite, that novel, that strange,

yet sweet excitement, which he felt, he knew not exactly how or why,

stealing over his senses. Sometimes the countenance of Theresa Sydney

flitted over his musing vision; sometimes the merry voice of Lady

Everingham haunted his ear. But to be their companion in ride or ramble;

to avoid any arrangement which for many hours should deprive him of

their presence; was every day with Coningsby a principal object.

One day he had been out shooting rabbits with Lyle and Henry Sydney, and

returned with them late to Beaumanoir to dinner. He had not enjoyed his

sport, and he had not shot at all well. He had been dreamy, silent, had

deeply felt the want of Lady Everingham’s conversation, that was ever so

poignant and so interestingly personal to himself; one of the secrets of

her sway, though Coningsby was not then quite conscious of it. Talk to a

man about himself, and he is generally captivated. That is the real way

to win him. The only difference between men and women in this respect

is, that most women are vain, and some men are not. There are some men

who have no self-love; but if they have, female vanity is but a trifling

and airy passion compared with the vast voracity of appetite which in

the sterner sex can swallow anything, and always crave for more.

When Coningsby entered the drawing-room, there seemed a somewhat unusual

bustle in the room, but as the twilight had descended, it was at first

rather difficult to distinguish who was present. He soon perceived that

there were strangers. A gentleman of pleasing appearance was near a sofa

on which the Duchess and Lady Everingham were seated, and discoursing

with some volubility. His phrases seemed to command attention; his

audience had an animated glance, eyes sparkling with intelligence and

interest; not a word was disregarded. Coningsby did not advance as was

his custom; he had a sort of instinct, that the stranger was discoursing

of matters of which he knew nothing. He turned to a table, he took up a

book, which he began to read upside downwards. A hand was lightly placed

on his shoulder. He looked round, it was another stranger; who said,

however, in a tone of familiar friendliness,

‘How do you do, Coningsby?’

It was a young man about four-and-twenty years of age, tall,

good-looking. Old recollections, his intimate greeting, a strong family

likeness, helped Coningsby to conjecture correctly who was the person

who addressed him. It was, indeed, the eldest son of the Duke, the

Marquis of Beaumanoir, who had arrived at his father’s unexpectedly with

his friend, Mr. Melton, on their way to the north.

Mr. Melton was a gentleman of the highest fashion, and a great favourite

in society. He was about thirty, good-looking, with an air that

commanded attention, and manners, though facile, sufficiently finished.

He was communicative, though calm, and without being witty, had at his

service a turn of phrase, acquired by practice and success, which was,

or which always seemed to be, poignant. The ladies seemed especially to

be delighted at his arrival. He knew everything of everybody they cared

about; and Coningsby listened in silence to names which for the first

time reached his ears, but which seemed to excite great interest. Mr.

Melton frequently addressed his most lively observations and his most

sparkling anecdotes to Lady Everingham, who evidently relished all that

he said, and returned him in kind.

Throughout the dinner Lady Everingham and Mr. Melton maintained what

appeared a most entertaining conversation, principally about things and

persons which did not in any way interest our hero; who, however, had

the satisfaction of hearing Lady Everingham, in the drawing-room, say in

a careless tone to the Duchess.

‘I am so glad, mamma, that Mr. Melton has come; we wanted some

amusement.’

What a confession! What a revelation to Coningsby of his infinite

insignificance! Coningsby entertained a great aversion for Mr. Melton,

but felt his spirit unequal to the social contest. The genius of

the untutored, inexperienced youth quailed before that of the

long-practised, skilful man of the world. What was the magic of this

man? What was the secret of this ease, that nothing could disturb, and

yet was not deficient in deference and good taste? And then his dress,

it seemed fashioned by some unearthly artist; yet it was impossible

to detect the unobtrusive causes of the general effect that was

irresistible. Coningsby’s coat was made by Stultz; almost every fellow

in the sixth form had his coats made by Stultz; yet Coningsby fancied

that his own garment looked as if it had been furnished by some rustic

slopseller. He began to wonder where Mr. Melton got his boots from, and

glanced at his own, which, though made in St. James’s Street, seemed to

him to have a cloddish air.

Lady Everingham was determined that Mr. Melton should see Beaumanoir to

the greatest advantage. Mr. Melton had never been there before, except

at Christmas, with the house full of visitors and factitious gaiety. Now

he was to see the country. Accordingly, there were long rides every day,

which Lady Everingham called expeditions, and which generally produced

some slight incident which she styled an adventure. She was kind to

Coningsby, but had no time to indulge in the lengthened conversations

which he had previously found so magical. Mr. Melton was always on

the scene, the monopolising hero, it would seem, of every thought, and

phrase, and plan. Coningsby began to think that Beaumanoir was not so

delightful a place as he had imagined. He began to think that he had

stayed there perhaps too long. He had received a letter from Mr. Rigby,

to inform him that he was expected at Coningsby Castle at the beginning

of September, to meet Lord Monmouth, who had returned to England, and

for grave and special reasons was about to reside at his chief seat,

which he had not visited for many years. Coningsby had intended to have

remained at Beaumanoir until that time; but suddenly it occurred to

him, that the Age of Ruins was past, and that he ought to seize the

opportunity of visiting Manchester, which was in the same county as the

castle of his grandfather. So difficult is it to speculate upon

events! Muse as we may, we are the creatures of circumstances; and the

unexpected arrival of a London dandy at the country-seat of an English

nobleman sent this representative of the New Generation, fresh from

Eton, nursed in prejudices, yet with a mind predisposed to inquiry

and prone to meditation, to a scene apt to stimulate both intellectual

processes; which demanded investigation and induced thought, the great

METROPOLIS OF LABOUR.

END OF BOOK III.

BOOK IV

CHAPTER I.

A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of

some great idea. Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers

of Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique

world, Art.

In modern ages, Commerce has created London; while Manners, in the most

comprehensive sense of the word, have long found a supreme capital in

the airy and bright-minded city of the Seine.

Art was to the ancient world, Science is to the modern: the distinctive

faculty. In the minds of men the useful has succeeded to the beautiful.

Instead of the city of the Violet Crown, a Lancashire village has

expanded into a mighty region of factories and warehouses. Yet, rightly

understood, Manchester is as great a human exploit as Athens.

The inhabitants, indeed, are not so impressed with their idiosyncrasy as

the countrymen of Pericles and Phidias. They do not fully comprehend the

position which they occupy. It is the philosopher alone who can conceive

the grandeur of Manchester, and the immensity of its future. There are

yet great truths to tell, if we had either the courage to announce or

the temper to receive them.