Thus does a false ambition rule us,
Thus pomp delude, and folly fool us.
--Shenstone.
An open house, haunted with great resort.
--Bishop Hall's Satires.
I left Cambridge in a very weak state of health; and as nobody had yet
come to London, I accepted the invitation of Sir Lionel Garrett to pay
him a visit at his country seat. Accordingly, one raw winter's day, full
of the hopes of the reviving influence of air and exercise, I found
myself carefully packed up in three great coats, and on the high road to
Garrett Park.
Sir Lionel Garrett was a character very common in England, and, in
describing him, I describe the whole species. He was of an ancient
family, and his ancestors had for centuries resided on their estates in
Norfolk. Sir Lionel, who came to his majority and his fortune at the same
time, went up to London at the age of twenty-one, a raw, uncouth sort of
young man, in a green coat and lank hair. His friends in town were of
that set whose members are above ton, whenever they do not grasp at its
possession, but who, whenever they do, lose at once their aim and their
equilibrium, and fall immeasurably below it. I mean that set which I call
"the respectable," consisting of old peers of an old school; country
gentlemen, who still disdain not to love their wine and to hate the
French; generals who have served in the army; elder brothers who succeed
to something besides a mortgage; and younger brothers who do not mistake
their capital for their income. To this set you may add the whole of the
baronetage--for I have remarked that baronets hang together like bees or
Scotchmen; and if I go to a baronet's house, and speak to some one whom I
have not the happiness to know, I always say "Sir John--."
It was no wonder, then, that to this set belonged Sir Lionel Garrett--no
more the youth in a green coat and lank hair, but pinched in, and curled
out--abounding in horses and whiskers--dancing all night--lounging all
day--the favourite of the old ladies, the Philander of the young.
One unfortunate evening Sir Lionel Garrett was introduced to the
celebrated Duchess of D. From that moment his head was turned. Before
then, he had always imagined that he was somebody--that he was Sir Lionel
Garrett, with a good-looking person and eight thousand a-year; he now
knew that he was nobody unless he went to Lady G.'s and unless he bowed
to Lady S. Disdaining all importance derived from himself, it became
absolutely necessary to his happiness, that all his importance should be
derived solely from his acquaintance with others. He cared not a straw
that he was a man of fortune, of family, of consequence; he must be a man
of ton; or he was an atom, a nonentity, a very worm, and no man. No
lawyer at Gray's Inn, no galley slave at the oar, ever worked so hard at
his task as Sir Lionel Garrett at his. Ton, to a single man, is a thing
attainable enough. Sir Lionel was just gaining the envied distinction,
when he saw, courted, and married Lady Harriett Woodstock.
His new wife was of a modern and not very rich family, and striving like
Sir Lionel for the notoriety of fashion; but of this struggle he was
ignorant. He saw her admitted into good society--he imagined she
commanded it; she was a hanger on--he believed she was a leader. Lady
Harriett was crafty and twenty-four--had no objection to be married, nor
to change the name of Woodstock for Garrett. She kept up the baronet's
mistake till it was too late to repair it.
Marriage did not bring Sir Lionel wisdom. His wife was of the same turn
of mind as himself: they might have been great people in the country--
they preferred being little people in town. They might have chosen
friends among persons of respectability and rank--they preferred being
chosen as acquaintance by persons of ton. Society was their being's end
and aim, and the only thing which brought them pleasure was the pain of
attaining it. Did I not say truly that I would describe individuals of a
common species? Is there one who reads this, who does not recognize that
overflowing class of the English population, whose members would conceive
it an insult to be thought of sufficient rank to be respectable for what
they are?--who take it as an honour that they are made by their
acquaintance?--who renounce the ease of living for themselves, for the
trouble of living for persons who care not a pin for their existence--who
are wretched if they are not dictated to by others--and who toil, groan,
travail, through the whole course of life, in order to forfeit their
independence?
I arrived at Garrett Park just time enough to dress for dinner. As I was
descending the stairs after having performed that ceremony, I heard my
own name pronounced by a very soft, lisping voice, "Henry Pelham! dear,
what a pretty name. Is he handsome?"
"Rather distingue than handsome," was the unsatisfactory reply, couched
in a slow, pompous accent, which I immediately recognized to belong to
Lady Harriett Garrett.
"Can we make something of him?" resumed the first voice.
"Something!" said Lady Harriett, indignantly; "he will be Lord
Glenmorris! and he is son to Lady Frances Pelham."
"Ah," said the lisper, carelessly; "but can he write poetry, and play
proverbes?"
"No, Lady Harriett," said I, advancing; "but permit me, through you, to
assure Lady Nelthorpe that he can admire those who do."
"So you know me then?" said the lisper: "I see we shall be excellent
friends;" and disengaging herself from Lady Harriett, she took my arm,
and began discussing persons and things, poetry and china, French plays
and music, till I found myself beside her at dinner, and most assiduously
endeavouring to silence her by the superior engrossments of a bechamelle
de poisson.
I took the opportunity of the pause, to survey the little circle of which
Lady Harriett was the centre. In the first place, there was Mr. Davison,
a great political economist, a short, dark, corpulent gentleman, with a
quiet, serene, sleepy countenance, which put me exceedingly in mind of my
grandmother's arm-chair; beside him was a quick, sharp little woman, all
sparkle and bustle, glancing a small, grey, prying eye round the table,
with a most restless activity: this, as Lady Nelthorpe afterwards
informed me, was a Miss Trafford, an excellent person for a Christmas in
the country, whom every body was dying to have: she was an admirable
mimic, an admirable actress, and an admirable reciter; made poetry and
shoes, and told fortunes by the cards, which came actually true.
There was also Mr. Wormwood, the noli-me-tangere of literary lions--an
author who sowed his conversation not with flowers but thorns. Nobody
could accuse him of the flattery generally imputed to his species;
through the course of a long and varied life, he had never once been
known to say a civil thing. He was too much disliked not to be recherche;
whatever is once notorious, even for being disagreeable, is sure to be
courted in England. Opposite to him sat the really clever, and affectedly
pedantic Lord Vincent, one of those persons who have been "promising
young men" all their lives; who are found till four o'clock in the
afternoon in a dressing-gown, with a quarto before them; who go down into
the country for six weeks every session, to cram an impromptu reply; and
who always have a work in the press which is never to be published.
Lady Nelthorpe herself I had frequently seen. She had some reputation for
talent, was exceedingly affected, wrote poetry in albums, ridiculed her
husband, who was a fox hunter, and had a great penchant pour les beaux
arts et les beaux hommes.
There were four or five others of the unknown vulgar, younger brothers,
who were good shots and bad matches; elderly ladies, who lived in Baker-
street, and liked long whist; and young ones, who never took wine, and
said "Sir."
I must, however, among this number, except the beautiful Lady Roseville,
the most fascinating woman, perhaps, of the day. She was evidently the
great person there, and, indeed, among all people who paid due deference
to ton, was always sure to be so every where. I have never seen but one
person more beautiful. Her eyes were of the deepest blue; her complexion
of the most delicate carnation; her hair of the richest auburn: nor could
even Mr. Wormwood detect the smallest fault in the rounded yet slender
symmetry of her figure.
Although not above twenty-five, she was in that state in which alone a
woman ceases to be a dependant--widowhood. Lord Roseville, who had been
dead about two years, had not survived their marriage many months; that
period was, however, sufficiently long to allow him to appreciate her
excellence, and to testify his sense of it: the whole of his unentailed
property, which was very large, he bequeathed to her.
She was very fond of the society of literati, though without the pretence
of belonging to their order. But her manners constituted her chief
attraction: while they were utterly different from those of every one
else, you could not, in the least minutiae, discover in what the
difference consisted: this is, in my opinion, the real test of perfect
breeding. While you are enchanted with the effect, it should possess so
little prominency and peculiarity, that you should never be able to guess
the cause.
"Pray," said Lord Vincent to Mr. Wormwood, "have you been to P--this
year?"
"No," was the answer.
"I have, my lord," said Miss Trafford, who never lost an opportunity of
slipping in a word.
"Well, and did they make you sleep, as usual, at the Crown, with the same
eternal excuse, after having brought you fifty miles from town, of small
house--no beds--all engaged--inn close by? Ah, never shall I forget that
inn, with its royal name, and its hard beds--
"'Uneasy sleeps a head beneath the Crown!'"
"Ha, ha! Excellent!" cried Miss Trafford, who was always the first in at
the death of a pun. "Yes, indeed they did: poor old Lord Belton, with his
rheumatism; and that immense General Grant, with his asthma; together
with three 'single men,' and myself, were safely conveyed to that asylum
for the destitute."
"Ah! Grant, Grant!" said Lord Vincent, eagerly, who saw another
opportunity of whipping in a pun. "He slept there also the same night I
did; and when I saw his unwieldy person waddling out of the door the next
morning, I said to Temple, 'Well, that's the largest Grant I ever saw
from the Crown.'" [Note: It was from Mr. J. Smith that Lord Vincent
purloined this pun.]
"Very good," said Wormwood, gravely. "I declare, Vincent, you are growing
quite witty. Do you remember Jekyl? Poor fellow, what a really good
punster he was--not agreeable though--particularly at dinner--no punsters
are. Mr. Davison, what is that dish next to you?"
Mr. Davison was a great gourmand: "Salmi de perdreaux aux truffes,"
replied the political economist.
"Truffles!" said Wormwood, "have you been eating any?"
"Yes," said Davison, with unusual energy, "and they are the best I have
tasted for a long time."
"Very likely," said Wormwood, with a dejected air. "I am particularly
fond of them, but I dare not touch one--truffles are so very apoplectic--
you, I make no doubt, may eat them in safety."
Wormwood was a tall, meagre man, with a neck a yard long. Davison was, as
I have said, short and fat, and made without any apparent neck at all--
only head and shoulders, like a cod-fish.
Poor Mr. Davison turned perfectly white; he fidgeted about in his chair;
cast a look of the most deadly fear and aversion at the fatal dish he had
been so attentive to before; and, muttering "apoplectic," closed his
lips, and did not open them again all dinner-time.
Mr. Wormwood's object was effected. Two people were silenced and
uncomfortable, and a sort of mist hung over the spirits of the whole
party. The dinner went on and off, like all other dinners; the ladies
retired, and the men drank, and talked indecorums. Mr. Davison left the
room first, in order to look out the word "truffle," in the
Encyclopaedia; and Lord Vincent and I went next, "lest (as my companion
characteristically observed) that d--d Wormwood should, if we stayed a
moment longer, 'send us weeping to our beds.'"