REMINISCENCES--A FRIEND FOUND AND A LINE LOST--RALPH MAKES A NEW
ACQUAINTANCE AND A HEARTY SUPPER, BOTH OF WHICH DO HIM MUCH GOOD.
Openly admired abroad, and secretly cherished by a love, the more
intense because concealed, at home, the course of my days was as happy
as the improvement in the various branches of my education was rapid.
Nor was I wholly unnoticed by men who have since stood forward, honoured
characters, in the van of those who have so nobly upheld the fame of
England. The bard who began his career in the brightest fields of Hope,
and whose after-fame has so well responded to his auspicious
commencement, read many portions of my boyish attempts, and pronounced
them full of promise, and the author possessed of _nous_. It was the
term he himself used, and that is the only reason why I have recorded
it. Indeed, this deservedly great man was, in some sense, my
schoolfellow, for he came in the evening to learn French of Monsieur
Cherfeuil. He was then engaged to translate an epic, written by one of
the Buonapartes, into English verse. I believe that engagement never
was carried into effect, notwithstanding the erudite pains Mr --- took
to qualify himself to perform it successfully. No man could have
laboured more to make himself master of the niceties of the Gallic
idiom, and the right use of its very doubtful subjunctive.
At the time to which I allude, the inspired author wore a wig--not that
his then age required one. Perhaps, the fervid state of his brain, like
a hidden volcano, burnt up the herbage above--perhaps, his hair was
falling off from the friction of his laurels--perhaps growing
prematurely grey from the workings of his spirit; but without venturing
upon any more conjectures, we may safely come to the conclusion, that
the hair that God gave him did not please him so well as that which he
bought of the perruquiers. Since we cannot be satisfied with the
causes, we must be satisfied with the fact--he wore a wig; and, in the
distraction of mental perplexity, when Monsieur Cherfeuil was essaying
to get the poet out of the absent into the conditional mood, the man of
verse, staring abstractedly upon the man of tense, would thrust his hand
under his peruke, and rub, rub, rub his polished scalp, which all the
while effused a divine ichor--(poets never perspire)--and, when he was
gently reminded that his wig was a little awry towards the left side, he
would pluck it, resentfully, equally as much awry on the right; and
then, to punish the offending and displacing hand, he would commence
gnawing off the nails of his fingers, rich with the moisture from above.
We have recorded this little personal trait, because it may be valuable
to the gentleman's future biographers; and also because it is a
convincing proof to the illiterate and the leveller, that head-work is
not such easy, sofa-enjoyed labour, as is commonly supposed; and,
finally, that the great writer's habit, _vivos ungues rodere_, proves
him to be, tooth and nail, _homo ad unguem factus_.
I feel, also, that there are many other persons to whom I ought to pay a
passing tribute of gratitude for much kindness shown to me; but as my
first duty is to my readers, I must not run the risk of wearying them
even by the performance of a virtue. But there was one, to omit the
mention of whom would be, on my part, the height of ingratitude, and, as
concerns the public, something very like approaching to a fraud; for by
the implied contract between it and me, I am, in this my autobiography,
bound to supply them with the very best materials, served up to them in
my very best manner. The gentleman whom I am going to introduce to the
notice of my readers was the purest personation of benevolence that
perhaps ever existed. His countenance was a glowing index of peace with
himself, good-will to man, and confidence in the love of God. There was
within him that divine sympathy for all around him, that brings man, in
what man can alone emulate the angels, so near to his Creator. But with
all this goodness of soul there was nothing approaching to weakness, or
even misjudging softness; he had seen, had known, and had struggled with
the world. He left the sordid strife triumphantly, and bore away with
him, if not a large fortune, a competence; and what also was of
infinitely more value; that "peace of mind which passeth all
understanding."
Mr R--- was, in his person, stout, tall, florid in his countenance,
and, for a man past fifty, the handsomest that I have ever beheld. I do
not mean to say that his features possessed a classical regularity, but
that soul of benevolence transpired through, and was bound up with them,
that had a marble bust fitly representing them been handed down to
posterity from some master-hand of antiquity, we should have reverenced
it with awe as something beyond human nature, and gazed on it at the
same time with love, as being so dearly and sweetly human. These are
not the words of enthusiasm, but a mere narrative of fact. He wore his
own white and thin hair, that was indeed so thin, that the top of his
head was quite bald. A snuff-coloured coat, cut in the olden fashion,
knee-breeches, white lamb's-wool stockings, and shoes of rather high
quarters, gave a little of the primitive to his highly respectable
appearance.
I first saw him as he was pretending to angle in the river that runs
through the village. Immediately I had gazed upon his benignant
countenance, I went and sat down by him. I could not help it. At once
I understood the urbanity and the gentlemanliness that must have existed
in the patriarchal times. There was no need of forms between us. He
made room for me as a son, and I looked up to him as to a father. He
smiled upon me so encouragingly, and so confidently, that I found myself
resting my arm upon his knee, with all the loving familiarity of
long-tried affection. From that first moment of meeting until his heart
lay cold in the grave--and cold the grave alone could make it--a
singular, unswerving, and, on my part, an absorbing love was between us.
We remained for a space in this caressing position, in silence; my eyes
now drinking in the rich hues of the evening, now the mental expression
of the "good old man." "Oh! it is very beautiful," said I, thinking as
much of his mild face as of the gorgeousness of the sky above me.
"And do you _feel it_?" said he. "Yes, I see you do; by your glistening
eyes and heightened colour."
"I feel very happy," I replied; "and have just now two very, very
strange wishes, and I don't know which I wish for most."
"What are they, my little friend?"
"O! you will laugh at me so if I tell you."
"No, I will not, indeed. I never laugh at anybody."
"Ah, I was almost sure of that. Well, I was wishing when I looked up
into the sky, that I could fly through and through those beautiful
clouds like an eagle; and when I looked at you, I wished that I were
just such a good-natured old gentleman."
"Come, come, there is more flattery than good sense in your wishes.
Your first is unreasonable, and your second will come upon you but too
soon."
"I did not mean to flatter you," I replied, looking proudly; "for, I
would neither be an eagle nor an old man, longer than those beautiful
clouds last, and the warm sunset makes your face look so-so--"
"Never mind--you shall save your fine speeches for the young ladies."
"But I've got some for the gentlemen, too: and there's one running in my
head just now."
"I should like to hear it."
"Should you? Well, this fine evening put me in mind of it; it is Mrs
Barbauld's Ode." And then putting myself into due attitude, I mouthed
it through, much to my own, and still more to Mr R's satisfaction.
That was a curious, a simple, and yet a cheering scene. My listener was
swaying to and fro, with the cadences of the poetry; I with passionate
fervour ranting before him; and, in the meantime, his rod and line,
unnoticed by either, were navigating peacefully, yet rapidly, down the
river. When I had concluded, his tackle was just turning an eddy far
down below us, and the next moment was out of sight.
Without troubling ourselves much about the loss, shortly after we were
seen hand in hand, walking down the village in earnest conversation. I
went home with him--I shared with him and his amiable daughters a light
and early supper of fruit and pastry; and such was the simultaneous
affection that sprang up between us--so confiding was it in its nature,
and so little worldly, that I had gained the threshold, and was about
taking my leave, ere it occurred to him to ask, or myself to say, who I
was, and where I resided.
From that evening, excepting when employed in my studies, we were almost
inseparable. I told him my strange story; and he seemed to love me for
it a hundred-fold more. He laid all the nobility, and even the princes
of the blood, under contribution, to procure me a father. He came to
the conclusion firmly, and at once, that Mrs Cherfeuil was my mother.
Oh! this mystery made him superlatively happy. And when he came to the
knowledge of my poetical talents, he was really in an ecstasy of
delight. He rhymed himself. He gave me subjects--he gave me advice--he
gave me emendations and interpolations. He re-youthed himself. In many
a sequestered nook in the beautiful vicinity of the village, we have
sat, each with his pencil and paper in his hand--now ranting, now
conversing--and in his converse the instruction I received was
invaluable. He has confirmed me in the doctrine of the innate goodness
of human nature. Since the period to which I am alluding, I have seen
much of villainy. I have been the victim, as well as the witness of
treachery. I have been oftentimes forced to associate with vice in
every shape; and yet when in misery, when oppressed, when writhing under
tyranny, I have been sometimes tempted to curse my race, the thought of
the kind, the good old man, has come over me like a visitation from
heaven, and my malediction has been changed into a prayer, if not into a
blessing.