CHAPTER I.

Produced by Jonathan Ingram, William Flis, David Widger

and Distributed Proofreaders

TALES AND NOVELS

VOLUME IX (of X)

HARRINGTON; THOUGHTS ON BORES; ORMOND

By Maria Edgeworth

With Engravings On Steel (Engravings are not included in this edition)

CONTENTS

TO THE READER.

HARRINGTON.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHAPTER XVII.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHAPTER XIX.

THOUGHTS ON BORES.

ORMOND

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHAPTER XVII.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHAPTER XIX.

CHAPTER XX.

CHAPTER XXI.

CHAPTER XXII.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CHAPTER XXV.

CHAPTER XXVI.

CHAPTER XXVII.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

CHAPTER XXIX.

CHAPTER XXX.

CHAPTER XXXI.

CHAPTER XXXII.

TO THE READER.

In my seventy-fourth year, I have the satisfaction of seeing another

work of my daughter brought before the public. This was more than I

could have expected from my advanced age and declining health.

I have been reprehended by some of the public critics for the _notices_

which I have annexed to my daughter’s works. As I do not know their

reasons for this reprehension, I cannot submit even to their respectable

authority. I trust, however, the British public will sympathize with

what a father feels for a daughter’s literary success, particularly as

this father and daughter have written various works in partnership.

The natural and happy confidence reposed in me by my daughter puts it in

my power to assure the public that she does not write negligently. I can

assert that twice as many pages were written for these volumes as are

now printed.

The first of these tales, HARRINGTON, was occasioned by an extremely

well-written letter, which Miss Edgeworth received from America, from

a Jewish lady, complaining of the illiberality with which the Jewish

nation had been treated in some of Miss Edgeworth’s works.

The second tale, ORMOND, is the story of a young gentleman, who is in

some respects the reverse of Vivian. The moral of this tale does not

immediately appear, for the author has taken peculiar care that it

should not obtrude itself upon the reader.

Public critics have found several faults with Miss Edgeworth’s former

works--she takes this opportunity of returning them sincere thanks for

the candid and lenient manner in which her errors have been pointed out.

In the present Tales she has probably fallen into many other faults,

but she has endeavoured to avoid those for which she has been justly

reproved.

And now, indulgent reader, I beg you to pardon this intrusion, and, with

the most grateful acknowledgments, I bid you farewell for ever.

RICHARD LOVELL EDGEWORTH.

_Edgeworthstown, May_ 31,1817.

_Note_--Mr. Edgeworth died a few days after he wrote this Preface--the

13th June, 1817.

HARRINGTON.

CHAPTER I.

When I was a little boy of about six years old, I was standing with a

maid-servant in the balcony of one of the upper rooms of my father’s

house in London--it was the evening of the first day that I had ever

been in London, and my senses had been excited, and almost exhausted, by

the vast variety of objects that were new to me. It was dusk, and I was

growing sleepy, but my attention was awakened by a fresh wonder. As I

stood peeping between the bars of the balcony, I saw star after star of

light appear in quick succession, at a certain height and distance, and

in a regular line, approaching nearer and nearer. I twitched the skirt

of my maid’s gown repeatedly, but she was talking to some acquaintance

at the window of a neighbouring house, and she did not attend to me. I

pressed my forehead more closely against the bars of the balcony,

and strained my eyes more eagerly towards the object of my curiosity.

Presently the figure of the lamp-lighter with his blazing torch in one

hand, and his ladder in the other, became visible; and, with as much

delight as philosopher ever enjoyed in discovering the cause of a new

and grand phenomenon, I watched his operations. I saw him fix and mount

his ladder with his little black pot swinging from his arm, and his red

smoking torch waving with astonishing velocity, as he ran up and down

the ladder. Just when he reached the ground, being then within a few

yards of our house, his torch flared on the face and figure of an old

man with a long white beard and a dark visage, who, holding a great bag

slung over one shoulder, walked slowly on, repeating in a low, abrupt,

mysterious tone, the cry of “Old clothes! Old clothes! Old clothes!”

I could not understand the words he said, but as he looked up at

our balcony he saw me--smiled--and I remember thinking that he had a

good-natured countenance. The maid nodded to him; he stood still, and at

the same instant she seized upon me, exclaiming, “Time for you to come

off to bed, Master Harrington.”

I resisted, and, clinging to the rails, began kicking and roaring.

“If you don’t come quietly this minute, Master Harrington,” said she,

“I’ll call to Simon the Jew there,” pointing to him, “and he shall come

up and carry you away in his great bag.”

The old man’s eyes were upon me; and to my fancy the look of his

eyes and his whole face had changed in an instant. I was struck with

terror--my hands let go their grasp--and I suffered myself to be carried

off as quietly as my maid could desire. She hurried and huddled me into

bed, bid me go to sleep, and ran down stairs. To sleep I could not go,

but full of fear and curiosity I lay, pondering on the thoughts of Simon

the Jew and his bag, who had come to carry me away in the height of

my joys. His face with the light of the torch upon it appeared and

vanished, and flitted before my eyes. The next morning, when daylight

and courage returned, I asked my maid whether Simon the Jew was a good

or a bad man? Observing the impression that had been made upon my mind,

and foreseeing that the expedient, which she had thus found successful,

might be advantageously repeated, she answered with oracular duplicity,

“Simon the Jew is a good man for naughty boys.” The threat of “Simon the

Jew” was for some time afterwards used upon every occasion to reduce me

to passive obedience; and when by frequent repetition this threat had

lost somewhat of its power, she proceeded to tell me, in a mysterious

tone, stories of Jews who had been known to steal poor children for the

purpose of killing, crucifying, and sacrificing them at their secret

feasts and midnight abominations. The less I understood, the more I

believed.

Above all others, there was one story--horrible! most horrible!--which

she used to tell at midnight, about a Jew who lived in Paris in a dark

alley, and who professed to sell pork pies; but it was found out at

last that the pies were not pork--they were made of the flesh of little

children. His wife used to stand at the door of her den to watch for

little children, and, as they were passing, would tempt them in with

cakes and sweetmeats. There was a trap-door in the cellar, and the

children were dragged down; and--Oh! how my blood ran cold when we came

to the terrible trap-door. Were there, I asked, such things in London

now?

Oh, yes! In dark narrow lanes there were Jews now living, and watching

always for such little children as me; I should take care they did not

catch me, whenever I was walking in the streets; and Fowler (that was my

maid’s name) added, “There was no knowing what they might do with me.”

In our enlightened days, and in the present improved state of education,

it may appear incredible that any nursery-maid could be so wicked as

to relate, or any child of six years old so foolish as to credit, such

tales; but I am speaking of what happened many years ago: nursery-maids

and children, I believe, are very different now from what they were

then; and in further proof of the progress of human knowledge and

reason, we may recollect that many of these very stories of the Jews,

which we now hold too preposterous for the infant and the nursery-maid

to credit, were some centuries ago universally believed by the English

nation, and had furnished more than one of our kings with pretexts for

extortion and massacres.

But to proceed with my story. The impression made on my imagination by

these horrible tales was greater than my nursery-maid intended. Charmed

by the effect she had produced, she was next afraid that I should bring

her into disgrace with my mother, and she extorted from me a

solemn promise that I would never tell any body the secret she had

communicated. From that moment I became her slave, and her victim. I

shudder when I look back to all I suffered during the eighteen months I

was under her tyranny. Every night, the moment she and the candle left

the room, I lay in an indescribable agony of terror; my head under the

bed-clothes, my knees drawn up, in a cold perspiration. I saw faces

around me grinning, glaring, receding, advancing, all turning at last

into the same face of the Jew with the long beard and the terrible eyes;

and that bag, in which I fancied were mangled limbs of children--it

opened to receive me, or fell upon my bed, and lay heavy on my breast,

so that I could neither stir nor scream; in short, it was one continued

nightmare; there was no refreshing sleep for me till the hour when the

candle returned and my tyrant--my protectress, as I thought her--came to

bed. In due course she suffered in her turn; for I could not long endure

this state, and, instead of submitting passively or lying speechless

with terror, the moment she left the room at night I began to roar and

scream till I brought my mother and half the house up to my bedside.

“What could be the matter with the child?” Faithful to my promise, I

never betrayed the secrets of my prison-house. Nothing could be learned

from me but that “I was frightened,” that “I could not go to sleep;”

and this, indeed, my trembling condition, and convulsed countenance,

sufficiently proved. My mother, who was passionately fond of me, became

alarmed for my health, and ordered that Fowler should stay in the room

with me every night till I should be quite fast asleep.

So Fowler sat beside my bed every night, singing, caressing, cajoling,

hushing, conjuring me to sleep: and when in about an hour’s time, she

flattered herself that her conjurations had succeeded; when my relaxing

muscles gave her hope that she might withdraw her arm unperceived; and

when slowly and dexterously she had accomplished this, and, watching

my eyelashes, and cautiously shading the candle with her hand, she had

happily gained the door; some slipping of the lock, some creaking of the

hinge, some parting sound startled me, and bounce I was upright in

my bed, my eyes wide open, and my voice ready for a roar: so she was

compelled instantly to return, to replace the candle full in my view, to

sit down close beside the bed, and, with her arm once more thrown over

me, she was forced again to repeat that the Jew’s bag could not come

there, and, cursing me in her heart, she recommenced her deceitful

songs. She was seldom released in less than two hours. In vain she now

tried by day to chase away the terrors of the night: to undo her own

work was beyond her power. In vain she confessed that her threats were

only to frighten me into being a good boy. In vain she told me that I

was too old now to believe such nonsense. In vain she told me that Simon

was only an old-clothes-man, that his cry was only “Old clothes! Old

clothes!” which she mimicked to take off its terror; its terror was in

that power of association which was beyond her skill to dissolve. In

vain she explained to me that his bag held only my old shoes and her

yellow petticoat. In vain she now offered to let me _see with my

own eyes_. My imagination was by this time proof against ocular

demonstration. One morning early, she took me down stairs into the

housekeeper’s room, where Simon and his bag were admitted; she emptied

the bag in my presence, she laughed at my foolish fears, and I pretended

to laugh, but my laugh was hysterical. No power could draw me within

arm’s-length of the bag or the Jew. He smiled and smoothed his features,

and stroked his white beard, and, stooping low, stretched out his

inoffensive hand to me; my maid placed sugared almonds on the palm of

that hand, and bid me approach and eat. No! I stood fixed, and if the

Jew approached, I ran back and hid my head in Fowler’s lap. If she

attempted to pull or push me forwards I screamed, and at length I sent

forth a scream that wakened my mother--her bell rang, and she was told

that it was only Master Harrington, who was afraid of poor Simon, the

old-clothes-man. Summoned to the side of my mother’s bed, I appeared

nearly in hysterics--but still faithful to my promise, I did not betray

my maid;--nothing could be learned from me but that I could not bear the

sight of Old Simon the Jew. My mother blamed Fowler for taking me down

to see such a sort of a person. The equivocating maid replied, that

Master Harrington could not or would not be asy unless she did; and that

indeed now it was impossible to know how to make him asy by day or by

night; that she lost her natural rest with him; and that for her part

she could not pretend to stand it much longer, unless she got her

natural rest. Heaven knows _my_ natural rest was gone! But, besides,

she could not even get her cup of tea in an evening, or stir out for a

mouthful of fresh air, now she was every night to sing Master Harrington

to sleep.

It was but poetical justice that she who had begun by terrifying me, in

order to get me to bed, and out of her way, should end by being forced

to suffer some restraint to cure me of my terrors: but Fowler did not

understand or relish poetical justice, or any kind of justice: besides,

she had heard that Lady de Brantefield was in want of a nursery-maid

for the little Lady Anne Mowbray, who was some years younger than Master

Harrington, and Fowler humbly represented to my mother that she thought

Master Harrington was really growing too stout and too much of a

man; and she confessed quite above and beyond her management and

comprehension; for she never pretended to any thing but the care of

young children that had not arrived at the years of discretion; this she

understood to be the case with the little Lady Anne Mowbray; therefore a

recommendation to Lady de Brantefield would be very desirable, and, she

hoped, but justice to her. The very desirable recommendation was given

by my mother to Lady de Brantefield, who was her particular friend;

nor was my mother in the least to blame on this occasion, for she truly

thought she was doing nothing but justice; had it been otherwise, those

who know how these things are usually managed, would, I trust, never

think of blaming my mother for a _sort of thing_ which they would do,

and doubtless have done themselves without scruple, for a favourite

maid, who is always a _faithful creature_.

So Fowler departed, happy, but I remained unhappy--not with her,

departed my fears. After she was gone I made a sort of compromise with

my conscience, and without absolutely breaking my promise, I made a half

confession to my mother that I had somehow or other horrid notions about

Jews; and that it was the terror I had conceived of Simon the Jew

which prevented me from sleeping all night. My mother felt for me, and

considered my case as no laughing matter.

My mother was a woman of weak health, delicate nerves, and a kind of

morbid sensibility; which I often heard her deplore as a misfortune, but

which I observed every body about her admire as a grace. She lamented

that her dear Harrington, her only son, should so much resemble her in

this exquisite sensibility of the nervous system. But her physician, and

he was a man who certainly knew better than she did, she confessed,

for he was a man who really knew every thing, assured her that this was

indisputably “the genuine temperament of genius.”

I soon grew vain of my fears. My antipathy, my _natural_, positively

natural antipathy to the sight or bare idea of a Jew, was talked of

by ladies and by gentlemen; it was exhibited to all my mother’s

acquaintance, learned and unlearned; it was a medical, it was a

metaphysical wonder, it was an _idiosyncrasy_, corporeal, or mental, or

both; it was--in short, more nonsense was talked about it than I will

repeat, though I perfectly remember it all; for the importance of which

at this period I became to successive circles of visitors fixed every

circumstance and almost every word indelibly in my memory. It was a

pity that I was not born some years earlier or later, for I should have

flourished a favourite pupil of Mesmer, the animal magnetizer, or

I might at this day be a celebrated somnambulist. No, to do myself

justice, I really had no intention to deceive, at least originally;

but, as it often happens with those who begin by being dupes, I was in

imminent danger of becoming a knave. How I escaped it, I do not well

know. For here, a child scarce seven years old, I saw myself surrounded

by grown-up wise people, who were accounting different ways for that,

of which I alone knew the real, secret, simple cause. They were all,

without my intending it, my dupes. Yet when I felt that I had them in

my power, I did not deceive them much, not much more than I deceived

myself. I never was guilty of deliberate imposture. I went no farther

than affectation and exaggeration, which it was in such circumstances

scarcely possible for me to avoid; for I really often did not know the

difference between my own feelings, and the descriptions I heard given

of what I felt.

Fortunately for my integrity, my understanding, and my health, people

began to grow tired of seeing and talking of Master Harrington. Some

new wonder came into fashion; I think it was Jedediah Buxton, the man of

prodigious memory, who could multiply in his head nine figures by nine;

and who, the first time he was taken to the playhouse, counted all the

steps of the dancers, and all the words uttered by Garrick in Richard

the Third. After Jedediah Buxton, or about the same time, if I recollect

rightly, came George Psalmanazar, from his Island of Formosa, who, with

his pretended Dictionary of the Pormosan language, and the pounds of

raw beef he devoured per day, excited the admiration and engrossed the

attention of the Royal Society and of every curious and fashionable

company in London: so that poor little I was forgotten, as though I had

never been. My mother and myself were left to settle the affair with my

nerves and the Jews, as we could. Between the effects of real fear, and

the exaggerated expression of it to which I had been encouraged, I was

now seriously ill. It is well known that persons have brought on fits

by pretending to have them; and by yielding to feelings, at first slight

and perfectly within the command of the will, have at last acquired

habits beyond the power of their reason, or of their most strenuous

voluntary exertion, to control. Such was my pitiable case; and at the

moment I was most to be pitied, nobody pitied me. Even my mother, now

she had nobody to talk to about me, grew tired of my illness. She was

advised by her physician, on account of her own health, by no means

to keep so close to the house as she had done of late: she went out

therefore every night to refresh herself at crowded parties; and as soon

as she left the house, the nurse and every body in the family left me.

The servants settled it, in my hearing, that there was nothing in life

the matter with me, that my mother and I were equally vapoursome-ish and

_timersome_, and that there was no use in nursing and pampering of me up

in them fantastical _fancifulnesses_: so the nurse, and lady’s maid, and

housekeeper, went down all together to _their_ tea; and the housemaid,

who was ordered by the housekeeper to stay with me, soon followed,

charging the under housemaid to supply her place; who went off also in

her turn, leaving me in charge of the cook’s daughter, a child of nine

years old, who soon stole out of the room, and scampered away along the

gallery out of the reach of my voice, leaving the room to darkness

and to me--and there I lay, in all the horrors of a low nervous fever,

unpitied and alone.

Shall I be pardoned for having dwelt so long on this history of the

mental and corporeal ills of my childhood? Such details will probably

appear more trivial to the frivolous and ignorant than to the

philosophic and well informed: not only because the best informed are

usually the most indulgent judges, but because they will perceive some

connexion between these apparently puerile details and subjects of

higher importance. Bacon, and one who in later days has successfully

followed him on this ground, point out as one of the most important

subjects of human inquiry, equally necessary to the science of morals

and of medicine, “The history of the power and influence of the

imagination, not only upon the mind and body of the imaginant, but upon

those of other people.” This history, so much desired and so necessary,

has been but little advanced. One reason for this may be, that both by

the learned and the unlearned it is usually begun at the wrong end.

“_Belier, mon ami, commences par le commencement_,” is excellent advice;

equally applicable to philosophical history and to fairy tale. We must

be content to begin at the beginning, if we would learn the history of

our own minds; we must condescend to be even as little children, if we

would discover or recollect those small causes which early influence

the imagination, and afterwards become strong habits, prejudices, and

passions. In this point of view, if they might possibly tend to turn

public attention in a new direction to an important subject, my puerile

anecdotes may be permitted. These, my experiments, _solitary and

in concert, touching fear_, and _of and concerning sympathies and

antipathies_, are perhaps as well worth noting for future use, as some

of those by which Sir Kenelm Digby and others astonished their own

generation, and which they bequeathed to ungrateful posterity.

CHAPTER II.

My mother, who had a great, and perhaps not altogether a mistaken,

opinion, of the sovereign efficacy of the touch of gold in certain

cases, tried it repeatedly on the hand of the physician who attended me,

and who, in consequence of this application, had promised my cure; but

that not speedily taking place, and my mother, naturally impatient,

beginning to doubt his skill, she determined to rely on her own. On Sir

Kenelm Digby’s principle of curing wounds, by anointing the weapon with

which the wound had been inflicted, she resolved to try what could be

done with the Jew, who had been the original cause of my malady, and to

whose malignant influence its continuance might be reasonably ascribed;

accordingly one evening, at the accustomed hour when Simon the

old-clothes-man’s cry was heard coming down the street, I being at that

time seized with my usual fit of nerves, and my mother being at her

toilette crowning herself with roses to go to a ball, she ordered

the man to be summoned into the housekeeper’s room, and, through the

intervention of the housekeeper, the application was made on the Jew’s

hand; and it was finally agreed that the same should be renewed every

twelvemonth, upon condition that he, the said Simon, should never more

be seen or heard under our windows or in our square. My evening attack

of nerves intermitted, as the signal for its coming on, ceased. For

some time I slept quietly: it was but a short interval of peace. Simon,

meanwhile, told his part of the story to his compeers, and the fame of

his annuity ran through street and alley, and spread through the whole

tribe of Israel. The bounty acted directly as an encouragement to ply

the profitable trade, and “Old clothes! Old clothes!” was heard again

punctually under my window; and another and another Jew, each more

hideous than the former, succeeded in the walk. Jews I should not

call them; though such they appeared to be at the time: we afterwards

discovered that they were good Christian beggars, dressed up and daubed,

for the purpose of looking as frightful, and as like the traditionary

representations and vulgar notions of a malicious, revengeful, ominous

looking Shylock as ever whetted his knife. The figures were well got

up; the tone, accent, and action, suited to the parts to be played; the

stage effect perfect, favoured as it was by the distance at which I saw

and wished ever to keep such personages; and as money was given, by my

mother’s orders, to these people to send them away, they came the more.

If I went out with a servant to walk, a Jew followed me; if I went in

the carriage with my mother, a Jew was at the coach-door when I got in,

or when I got out: or if we stopped but five minutes at a shop, while my

mother went in, and I was left alone, a Jew’s head was at the carriage

window, at the side next me; if I moved to the other side, it was at

the other side; if I pulled up the glass, which I never could do fast

enough, the Jew’s head was there opposite to me, fixed as in a frame;

and if I called to the servants to drive it away, I was not much better

off, for at a few paces’ distance the figure would stand with his eyes

fixed upon me; and, as if fascinated, though I hated to look at those

eyes, for the life of me I could not turn mine away. The manner in which

I was thus haunted and pursued wherever I went, seemed to my mother

something “really extraordinary;” to myself, something magical and

supernatural. The systematic roguery of beggars, their combinations,

meetings, signals, disguises, transformations, and all the secret tricks

of their trade of deception, were not at this time, as they have in

modern days, been revealed to public view, and attested by indisputable

evidence. Ignorance is always credulous. Much was then thought

wonderful, nay, almost supernatural, which can now be explained and

accounted for, by asy and very ignoble means. My father--for all this

time, though I have never mentioned him, I had a father living--my

father, being in public life, and much occupied with the affairs of the

nation, had little leisure to attend to his family. A great deal went on

in his house, without his knowing any thing about it. He had heard of

my being ill and well, at different hours of the day; but had left it to

the physicians and my mother to manage me till a certain age: but now

I was nine years old, he said it was time I should be taken out of the

hands of the women; so he inquired more particularly into my history,

and, with mine, he heard the story of Simon and the Jews. My mother

said she was glad my father’s attention was at last awakened to this

extraordinary business. She expatiated eloquently upon the medical, or,

as she might call them, magical effects of sympathies and antipathies:

on the nervous system; but my father was not at all addicted to a belief

in magic, and he laughed at the whole _female_ doctrine, as he called

it, of sympathies and antipathies: so, declaring that they were all

making fools of themselves, and a Miss Molly of his boy, he took the

business up short with a high hand. There was some trick, some roguery

in it. The Jews were all rascals, he knew, and he would soon _settle_

them. So to work he set with the beadles, and the constables, and the

overseers. The corporation of beggars were not, in those days, so well

grounded in the theory and so alert in the practice of evasion as, by

long experience, they have since become. The society had not then, as

they have now, in a certain lane, their regular rendezvous, called the

_Beggars’ Opera_; they had not then, as they have now, in a certain

cellar, an established school for teaching the art of scolding, kept

by an old woman, herself an adept in the art; they had not even their

regular nocturnal feasts, where they planned the operations of the next

day’s or the next week’s campaign, so that they could not, as they now

do, set at nought the beadle and the parish officers: the system of

signals was not then perfected, and the means of conveying secret and

swift intelligence, by telegraphic science, had not in those days been

practised. The art of begging was then only art without science:

the native genius of knavery unaided by method or discipline. The

consequence was, that the beggars fled before my father’s beadles,

constables, and overseers; and they were dispersed through other

parishes, or led into captivity to roundhouses, or consigned to places

called asylums for the poor and indigent, or lodged in workhouses, or

crammed into houses of industry or penitentiary houses, where, by

my father’s account of the matter, there was little industry and no

penitence, and from whence the delinquents issued, after their seven

days’ captivity, as bad or worse than when they went in. Be that as it

may, the essential point with my father was accomplished: they were got

rid of that season, and before the next season he resolved that I should

be out of the hands of the women, and safe at a public school, which

he considered as a specific for all my complaints, and indeed for every

disease of mind and body incident to childhood. It was the only thing,

he said, to make a man of me. “There was Jack B----, and Thomas D----,

and Dick C----, sons of gentlemen in our county, and young Lord Mowbray

to boot, all at school with Dr. Y----, and what men they were already!”

A respite of a few months was granted, in consideration of my small

stature, and of my mother’s all eloquent tears. Meantime my father took

me more to himself; and, mixed with men, I acquired some manly, or what

were called manly, ideas. My attention was awakened, and led to new

things. I took more exercise and less medicine; and with my health and

strength of body my strength of mind and courage increased. My father

made me ashamed of that nervous sensibility of which I had before been

vain. I was glad that the past should be past and forgotten; yet a

painful reminiscence would come over my mind, whenever I heard or saw

the word _Jew_. About this time I first became fond of reading, and I

never saw the word in any page of any book which I happened to open,

without immediately stopping to read the passage. And here I must

observe, that not only in the old story books, where the Jews are as

sure to be wicked as the bad fairies, or bad genii, or allegorical

personifications of the devils, and the vices in the old emblems,

mysteries, moralities, &c.; but in almost every work of fiction, I found

them represented as hateful beings; nay, even in modern tales of very

late years, since I have come to man’s estate, I have met with books by

authors professing candour and toleration--books written expressly for

the rising generation, called, if I mistake not, Moral Tales for Young

People; and even in these, wherever the Jews are introduced, I find

that they are invariably represented as beings of a mean, avaricious,

unprincipled, treacherous character. Even the peculiarities of their

persons, the errors of their foreign dialect and pronunciation, were

mimicked and caricatured, as if to render them objects of perpetual

derision and detestation. I am far from wishing to insinuate that such

was the serious intention of these authors. I trust they will in

future benefit by these hints. I simply state the effect which similar

representations in the story books I read, when I was a child, produced

on my mind. They certainly acted most powerfully and injuriously,

strengthening the erroneous association of ideas I had accidentally

formed, and confirming my childish prejudice by what I then thought the

indisputable authority of _printed books_.

About this time also I began to attend to conversation--to the

conversation of gentlemen as well as of ladies; and I listened with a

sort of personal interest and curiosity whenever Jews happened to be

mentioned. I recollect hearing my father talk with horror of some young

gentleman who had been _dealing with the Jews_, I asked what this meant,

and was answered, “‘Tis something very like dealing with the devil, my

dear.” Those who give a child a witty instead of a rational answer, do

not know how dearly they often make the poor child pay for their jest.

My father added, “It is certain, that when a man once goes to the Jews,

he soon goes to the devil. So Harrington, my boy, I charge you at your

peril, whatever else you do, keep out of the hands of the Jews--never go

near the Jews: if once they catch hold of you, there’s an end of you, my

boy.”

Had the reasons for the prudential part of this charge been given to

me, and had the nature of the disgraceful transactions with the Hebrew

nation been explained, it would have been full as useful to me, and

rather more just to them. But this was little or no concern of my

father’s. With some practical skill in the management of the mind, but

with short-sighted views as to its permanent benefit, and without an

idea of its philosophic moral cultivation, he next undertook to cure me

of the fears which he had contributed to create. He took opportunities

of pointing out how poor, how helpless, how wretched they are; how they

are abused continually, insulted daily, and mocked by the lowest of

servants, or the least of children in our streets; their very name a

by-word of reproach: “He is a Jew--an actual Jew,” being the expression

for avarice, hard-heartedness, and fraud. Of their frauds I was told

innumerable stories. In short, the Jews were represented to me as

the lowest, meanest, vilest of mankind, and a conversion of fear into

contempt was partially effected in my mind; partially, I say, for the

conversion was not complete; the two sentiments existed together, and by

an experienced eye, could easily be detected and seen even one through

the other.

Now whoever knows any thing of the passions--and who is there who does

not?--must be aware how readily fear and contempt run into the kindred

feeling of hatred. It was about this time, just before I went to school,

that something relative to the famous _Jew Bill_ became the subject

of vehement discussion at my father’s table. My father was not only a

member of parliament, but a man of some consequence with his party. He

had usually been a staunch friend of government; but upon one occasion,

when he first came into parliament, nine or ten years before the time

of which I am now writing, in 1753 or 54, I think, he had voted against

ministry upon this very bill for the Naturalization of the Jews in

England. Government liberally desired that they should be naturalized,

but there was a popular cry against it, and my father on this one

occasion thought the voice of the people was right. After the bill had

been carried half through, it was given up by ministry, the opposition

to it proving so violent. My father was a great stickler for

parliamentary consistency, and moreover he was of an obstinate temper.

Ten years could make no change in his opinions, as he was proud to

declare. There was at this time, during a recess of parliament, some

intention among the London merchants to send addresses to government in

favour of the Jews; and addresses were to be procured from the country.

The county members, and among them of course my father, were written to;

but he was furiously against _the naturalization_: he considered all

who were for it as enemies to England; and, I believe, to religion. He

hastened down to the country to take the sense of his constituents,

or to impress them with his sense of the business. Previously to some

intended county meeting, there were, I remember, various dinners of

constituents at my father’s, and attempts after dinner, over a bottle of

wine, to convince them, that they were, or ought to be, of my father’s

opinion, and that they had better all join him in the toast of “The Jews

are down, and keep ‘em down.”

A subject apparently less liable to interest a child of my age could

hardly be imagined; but from my peculiar associations it did attract my

attention. I was curious to know what my father and all the gentlemen

were saying about the Jews at these dinners, from which my mother and

the ladies were excluded. I was eager to claim my privilege of marching

into the dining-room after dinner, and taking my stand beside my

father’s elbow; and then I would gradually edge myself on, till I got

possession of half his chair, and established a place for my elbow on

the table. I remember one day sitting for an hour together, turning from

one person to another as each spoke, incapable of comprehending their

arguments, but fully understanding the vehemence of their tones, and

sympathizing in the varying expression of passion; as to the rest, quite

satisfied with making out which speaker was _for_, and which against

the Jews. All those who were against them, I considered as my father’s

friends; all those who were _for_ them, I called by a common misnomer,

or metonymy of the passions, my father’s enemies, because my father was

their enemy. The feeling of party spirit, which is caught by children as

quickly as it is revealed by men, now combined to strengthen still more

and to exasperate my early prepossession. Astonished by the attention

with which I had this day listened to all that seemed so unlikely to

interest a boy of my age, my father, with a smile and a wink, and a

side nod of his head, not meant, I suppose, for me to see, but which

I noticed the more, pointed me out to the company, by whom it was

unanimously agreed, that my attention was a proof of uncommon abilities,

and an early decided taste for public business. Young Lord Mowbray, a

boy two years older than myself, a gawkee schoolboy, was present; and

had, during this long hour after dinner, manifested sundry symptoms of

impatience, and made many vain efforts to get me out of the room.

After cracking his nuts and his nut-shells, and thrice cracking the

cracked--after suppressing the thick-coming yawns that at last could no

longer be suppressed, he had risen, writhed, stretched, and had fairly

taken himself out of the room. And now he just peeped in, to see if he

could tempt me forth to play.

“No, no,” cried my father, “you’ll not get Harrington, he is too deep

here in politics--but however, Harrington, my dear boy, ‘tis not _the

thing_ for your young companion--go off and play with Mowbray: but stay,

first, since you’ve been one among us so long, what have we been talking

of?”

“The Jews, to be sure, papa.”

“Right,” cried my father; “and what about them, my dear?”

“Whether they ought to be let to live in England, or any where.”

“Right again, that is right in the main,” cried my father; “though that

is a larger view of the subject than we took.”

“And what reasons did you hear?” said a gentleman in company.

“Reasons!” interrupted my father: “oh! sir, to call upon the boy for all

the reasons he has heard--But you’ll not pose him: speak up, speak up,

Harrington, my boy!”

“I’ve nothing to say about reasons, sir.”

“No! that was not a fair question,” said my father; “but, my boy, you

know on which side you are, don’t you?”

“To be sure--on your side, father.”

“That’s right--bravo! To know on which side one is, is one great point

in life.”

“And I can tell on which side every one here is.” Then going round

the table, I touched the shoulder of each of the company, saying, “A

Jew!--No Jew!” and bursts of applause ensued.

When I came to my father again, he caught me in his arms, kissed me,

patted my head, clapped me on the back, poured out a bumper of wine,

bid me drink his toast, “No Naturalization Bill!--No Jews!” and while I

blundered out the toast, and tossed off the bumper, my father pronounced

me a clever fellow, “a spirited little devil, who, if I did but live to

be a man, would be, he’d engage, an honour to my country, my family, and

my _party_.”

Exalted, not to say intoxicated, by my father’s praise, when I went to

the drawing-room to the ladies, I became rather more eloquent and noisy

than my mother thought quite becoming; she could not, indeed, forbear

smiling furtively at my wit, when, in answer to some simple country

lady’s question of “After all, why should not the Jews be naturalized?”

I, with all the pertness of ignorance, replied, “Why, ma’am, because the

Jews are naturally an unnatural pack of people, and you can’t naturalize

what’s naturally unnatural.”

Kisses and cake in abundance followed--but when the company was gone, my

mamma thought it her duty to say a few words to me upon politeness, and

a few words to my father upon the _too much_ wine he had given me. The

reproach to my father, being just, he could not endure; but instead of

admitting the truth, he vowed, by Jupiter Ammon, that his boy should

never be made a Miss Molly, and to school I should go, by Jupiter Ammon,

next morning, plump.

Now it was well known in our house, that a sentence of my father’s

beginning and ending “_by Jupiter Ammon_” admitted of no reply from

any mortal--it was the stamp of fate; no hope of any reversion of the

decree: it seemed to bind even him who uttered the oath beyond his own

power of revocation. My mother was convinced that even her intercession

was vain; so she withdrew, weeping, to the female apartments, where,

surrounded by her maids, the decree of fate was reported, but not

verbatim, after the manner of the gods and goddesses. The maids and the

washerwoman, however, scolded one another very much after their manner,

in a council held at midnight, about my clothes; the result of the whole

was that “they must be found and packed;” and found and packed at last

they were; and the next morning, as decreed, early as Aurora streaked

the east, to school I went, very little thinking of her rosy-tipped

fingers.

CHAPTER III.

My life at school was like that of any other school-boy. I shall not

record, even if I could remember, how often I was flogged when I did

not deserve it, or how often I escaped when I did. Five years of my life

passed away, of which I have nothing to relate but that I learned to

whip a top, and to play at ball and marbles, each in their season; that

I acquired in due course the usual quantity of Greek and Latin; and

perpetrated in my time, I presume, the usual quantity of mischief. But

in the fourth year of my schoolboy life, an opportunity for unusual

mischief occurred. An accident happened, which, however trifling in

itself, can never be effaced from my memory. Every particular connected

with it, is indeed as fresh in my recollection as it was the day

after it happened. It was a circumstance which awakened long dormant

associations, and combined them with all the feelings and principles of

party spirit, which had first been inculcated by my father at home, and

which had been exercised so well and so continually by my companions at

school, as to have become the governing power of my mind.

Schoolboys, as well as men, can find or make a party question, and

quarrel out of any thing or out of nothing. There was a Scotch pedlar,

who used to come every Thursday evening to our school to supply our

various wants and fancies. The Scotch pedlar died, and two candidates

offered to supply his place, an English lad of the name of Dutton, and

a Jew boy of the name of Jacob. Dutton was son to a man who had lived as

butler in Mowbray’s family. Lord Mowbray knew the boy to be a rogue,

but thought he was attached to the Mowbrays, and at all events was

determined to support him, as being somehow supposed to be connected

with his family. Reminding me of my early declaration at my father’s

table against the naturalization of the Jews, and the _bon-mot_ I had

made, and the toast I had drunk, and the pledge I had given, Mowbray

easily engaged me to join him against the Jew boy; and a zealous

partisan against Jacob I became, canvassing as if my life had depended

upon this point. But in spite of all our zeal, noise, violence, and

cabal, it was the least and the most simple child in the school who

decided the election. This youngster had in secret offered to exchange

a silver pencil-case for a top, or something of such inadequate value:

Jacob, instead of taking advantage of the child, explained to him that

his pencil-case was worth twenty tops. On the day of election, this

little boy, mounted upon the top of a step-ladder, appeared over the

heads of the crowd, and in a small clear voice, and with an eagerness

which fixed attention, related the history of his pencil-case, and ended

by hoping with all his heart that his friend Jacob, his honest Jacob,

might be chosen. Jacob was elected. Mowbray and I, and all our party,

vexed and mortified, became the more inveterate in our aversion to the

successful candidate; and from this moment we determined to plague and

persecute him, till we should force him to _give up_. Every Thursday

evening, the moment he appeared in the school-room, or on the

play-ground, our party commenced the attack upon “the Wandering Jew,”

as we called this poor pedlar; and with every opprobrious nickname, and

every practical jest, that mischievous and incensed schoolboy zealots

could devise, we persecuted and tortured him body and mind. We twanged

at once a hundred Jew’s-harps in his ear, and before his eyes we paraded

the effigy of a Jew, dressed in a gabardine of rags and paper. In the

passages through which he was to pass, we set stumbling-blocks in his

way, we threw orange-peel in his path, and when he slipped or fell, we

laughed him to scorn, and we triumphed over him the more, the more he

was hurt, or the more his goods were injured. “We laughed at his losses,

mocked at his gains, scorned his nation, thwarted his bargains, cooled

his friends, heated his enemies--and what was our reason? he was a Jew.”

But he was as unlike to Shylock as it is possible to conceive. Without

one thought or look of malice or revenge, he stood before us Thursday

after Thursday, enduring all that our barbarity was pleased to inflict;

he stood patient and long-suffering, and even of this patience and

resignation we made a jest, and a subject of fresh reproach and taunt.

How I, who was not in other cases a cruel or an ill-natured boy, could

be so inhuman to this poor, unprotected, unoffending creature I cannot

conceive; but such in man or boy is the nature of persecution. At

the time it all appeared to me quite natural and proper; a just and

necessary war. The blame, if blame there were, was divided among so

many, that the share of each, my share at least, appeared to me so

small, as not to be worth a moment’s consideration. The shame, if we had

any, was carried away in the tide of popular enthusiasm, and drowned

and lost in the fury and noise of the torrent. In looking back upon this

disgraceful scene of our boyish days--boyish indeed I can scarcely call

them, for I was almost, and Mowbray in his own opinion was quite, a

man--I say, in looking back upon this time, I have but one comfort. But

I have _one_, and I will make the most of it: I think I should never

have done so _much_ wrong, had it not been for Mowbray. We were both

horribly to blame; but though I was full as wrong in action, I flatter

myself that I was wrong upon better or upon less bad motives. My

aversion to the Jew, if more absurd and violent, was less interested and

malignant than Mowbray’s. I never could stand as he did to parley, and

barter, and chaffer with him--if I had occasion to buy any thing, I was

high and haughty, and at a word; he named his price, I questioned not,

not I--down was thrown my money, my back was turned--and away! As for

stooping to coax him as Mowbray would, when he had a point to gain, I

could not have done it. To ask Jacob to lend me money, to beg him to

give me more time to pay a debt, to cajole and bully him by turns, to

call him alternately usurer and _my honest fellow_, extortioner and

_my friend Jacob_--my tongue could not have uttered the words, my soul

detested the thought; yet all this, and more, could Mowbray do, and did.

Lord Mowbray was deeply in Jacob’s debt, especially for two watches

which he had taken upon trial, and which he had kept three months,

making, every Thursday, some fresh excuse for not paying for them; at

last Jacob said that he must have the money, that his employer could

wait no longer, and that he should himself be thrown into prison.

Mowbray said this was only a trick to work upon his compassion, and that

the Jew might very well wait for his money, because he asked twice as

much for the watches as they were worth. Jacob offered to leave the

price to be named by any creditable watchmaker. Lord Mowbray swore

that he was as good a judge as any watchmaker in Christendom. Without

pretending to dispute that point, Jacob finished by declaring, that his

distress was so urgent that he must appeal to some of the masters. “You

little Jewish tell-tale, what do you mean by that pitiful threat? Appeal

to the higher powers if you dare, and I’ll make you repent it, you

usurer! Only do, if you dare!” cried he, clenching his hand and opening

it, so as to present, successively, the two ideas of a box on the

ear, and a blow on the stomach. “That was logic and eloquence,” added

Mowbray, turning to me. “Some ancient philosopher, _you_ know, or _I_

know, has compared logic to the closed fist, and eloquence to the open

palm. See what it is, Harrington, to make good use of one’s learning.”

This was all very clever, at least our party thought so, and at the

moment I applauded with the rest, though in my secret soul I thought

Jacob was ill used, and that he ought to have had justice, if he had

not been a Jew. His fear of a prison proved to be no pretence, for it

surmounted his dread of Mowbray’s logic and eloquence, and of all the

unpopularity which he was well aware must be the consequence of his

applying to the higher powers. Jacob appealed, and Lord Mowbray was

summoned to appear before the head master, and to answer to the charge.

It was proved that the price set upon the two watches was perfectly

fair, as a watchmaker, who was examined on this point, declared. The

watches had been so damaged during the two months they had been in

his lordship’s possession, that Jacob declined taking them back. Lord

Mowbray protested that they were good for nothing when he first had

them.

Then why did he not return them after the first week’s trial, when

Jacob had requested either to have them back or to be paid for them? His

lordship had then, as half a dozen of the boys on the Jew’s side were

ready to testify, refused to return the watches, declaring they went

very well, and that he would keep them as long as he pleased, and pay

for them when he pleased, and no sooner.

This plain tale put down the Lord Mowbray. His wit and his party now

availed him not; he was publicly reprimanded, and sentenced to pay Jacob

for the watches in a week, or to be expelled from the school. Mowbray

would have desired no better than to leave the school, but he knew that

his mother would never consent to this.

His mother, the Countess de Brantefield, was a Countess in her own

right, and had an estate in her own power;--his father, a simple

commoner, was dead, his mother was his sole guardian.

“That mother of mine,” said he to us, “would not hear of her son’s being

_turned out_--so I must set my head to work against the head of the head

master, who is at this present moment inditing a letter to her ladyship,

beginning, no doubt, with, ‘_I am sorry to be obliged to take up my

pen_,’ or, ‘_I am concerned to be under the necessity of sitting down to

inform your ladyship_.’ Now I must make haste and inform my lady mother

of the truth with my own pen, which luckily is the pen of a ready

writer. You will see,” continued he, “how cleverly I will get myself out

of the scrape with her. I know how to touch her up. There’s a folio, at

home, of old Manuscript Memoirs of the De Brantefield family, since the

time of the flood, I believe: it’s the only book my dear mother ever

looks into; and she has often made me read it to her, till--no offence

to my long line of ancestry--I cursed it and them; but now I bless it

and them for supplying my happy memory with a case in point, that

will just hit my mother’s fancy, and, of course, obtain judgment in my

favour. A case, in the reign of Richard the Second, between a Jew and my

great, great, great, six times great grandfather, whom it is sufficient

to name to have all the blood of all the De Brantefields up in arms for

me against all the Jews that ever were born. So my little Jacob, I have

you.”

Mowbray, accordingly, wrote to his mother what he called a

_chef-d’oeuvre_ of a letter, and next post came an answer from Lady de

Brantefield with the money to pay her son’s debt, and, as desired and

expected, a strong reproof to her son for his folly in ever dealing with

a Jew. How could he possibly expect not to be cheated, as, by his

own confession, it appeared he had been, grossly? It was the more

extraordinary, since he so well recollected the ever to be lamented case

of Sir Josseline de Brantefield, that her son could, with all his family

experience, be, at this time of day, a dupe to one of a race branded

by the public History of England, and private Memoirs of the De

Brantefields, to all eternity!

Mowbray showed this letter in triumph to all his party. It answered the

double purpose of justifying his own bad opinion of the tribe of Israel,

and of tormenting Jacob.

The next Thursday evening after that on which judgment had been given

against Mowbray, when Jacob appeared in the school-room, the anti-Jewish

party gathered round him, according to the instructions of their leader,

who promised to show them some good sport at the Jew’s expense.

“Only give me fair play,” said Mowbray, “and stick close, and don’t

let him off, for your lives don’t let him break through you, till I’ve

_roasted_ him well.”

“There’s your money,” cried Mowbray, throwing down the money for the

watches--“take it--ay, count it--every penny right--I’ve paid you by the

day appointed; and, thank Heaven and my friends, the pound of flesh next

my heart is safe from your knife, Shylock!”

Jacob made no reply, but he looked as if he felt much.

“Now tell me, honest Jacob,” pursued Mowbray, “honest Jacob, patient

Jacob, tell me, upon your honour, if you know what that word means--upon

your conscience, if you ever heard of any such thing--don’t you think

yourself a most pitiful dog, to persist in coming here to be made game

of for twopence? ‘Tis wonderful how much your thoroughbred Jew will

do and suffer for gain. We poor good Christians could never do as much

now--could we any soul of us, think you, Jacob?”

“Yes,” replied Jacob, “I think you _could_, I think you _would.”_

Loud scornful laughter from our party interrupted him; he waited calmly

till it was over, and then continued, “Every soul of you good Christians

would, I think, do as much for a father, if he were in want and dying,

as mine is.” There was a silence for the moment: we were all, I believe,

struck, or touched, except Mowbray, who, unembarrassed by feeling, went

on with the same levity of tone as before: “A father in want! Are you

sure now he is not a father of straw, Jacob, set up for the nonce, to

move the compassion of the generous public? Well, I’ve little faith, but

I’ve some charity--here’s a halfpenny for your father, to begin with.”

“Whilst I live, my father shall ask no charity, I hope,” said the son,

retreating from the insulting alms which Mowbray still proffered.

“Why now, Jacob, that’s bad acting, out o’ character, Jacob, my Jew;

for when did any son of Israel, any one of your tribe, or your twelve

tribes, despise a farthing they could get honestly or dishonestly? Now

this is a halfpenny--a good halfpenny. Come, Jacob, take it--don’t be

too proud--pocket the affront--consider it’s for your father, not for

yourself--you said you’d do much for your father, Jacob.”

Jacob’s countenance continued rigidly calm, except some little

convulsive twitches about the mouth.

“Spare him, Mowbray,” whispered I, pulling back Mowbray’s arm; “Jew as

he is, you see he has some feeling about his father.”

“Jew as he is, and fool as you are, Harrington,” replied Mowbray, aloud,

“do you really believe that this hypocrite cares about his father,

supposing he has one? Do _you_ believe, boys, that a Jew pedlar _can_

love a father gratis, as we do?”

“As we do!” repeated some of the boys: “Oh! no, for his father can’t be

as good as ours--he is a Jew!”

“Jacob, is your father good to you?” said one of the little boys.

“He is a good father, sir--cannot be a better father, sir,” answered

Jacob: the tears started into his eyes, but he got rid of them in an

instant, before Mowbray saw them, I suppose, for he went on in the same

insulting tone.

“What’s that he says? Does he say he has a good father? If he’d swear

it, I would not believe him--a good father is too great a blessing for a

Jew.”

“Oh! for shame, Mowbray!” said I. And “For shame! for shame, Mowbray!”

echoed from the opposite, or, as Mowbray called it, from the Jewish

party: they had by this time gathered in a circle at the outside of that

which we had made round Jacob, and many had brought benches, and were

mounted upon them, looking over our heads to see what was going on.

Jacob was now putting the key in his box, which he had set down in the

middle of the circle, and was preparing to open it.

“Stay, stay, honest Jacob! tell us something more about this fine

father; for example, what’s his name, and what is he?” “I cannot tell

you what he is, sir,” replied Jacob, changing colour, “nor can I tell

you his name.”

“Cannot tell me the name of his own father! a precious fellow! Didn’t

I tell you ‘twas a sham father? So now for the roasting I owe you, Mr.

Jew.” There was a large fire in the school-room; Mowbray, by a concerted

movement between him and his friends, shoved the Jew close to the fire,

and barricadoed him up, so that he could not escape, bidding him speak

when he was too hot, and confess the truth.

Jacob was resolutely silent; he would not tell his father’s name. He

stood it, till I could stand it no longer, and I insisted upon Mowbray’s

letting him off.

“I could not use a dog so,” said I.

“A dog, no! nor I; but this is a Jew.”

“A fellow-creature,” said I.

“A fine discovery! And pray, Harrington, what has made you so

tender-hearted all of a sudden for the Jews?”

“Your being so hard-hearted, Mowbray,” said I: “when you persecute and

torture this poor fellow, how can I help speaking?”

“And pray, sir,” said Mowbray, “on _which_ side are you speaking?”

“On the side of humanity,” said I.

“Fudge! On _whose_ side are you?”

“On yours, Mowbray, if you won’t be a tyrant.”

“_If!_ If you have a mind to rat, rat _sans phrase_, and run over to the

Jewish side. I always thought you were a Jew at heart, Harrington.”

“No more a Jew than yourself, Mowbray, nor so much,” said I, standing

firm, and raising my voice, so that I could be heard by all.

“No more a Jew than myself! pray how do you make that out?”

“By being more of a Christian--by sticking more to the maxim ‘Do as you

would be done by.’”

“That is a good maxim,” said Jacob: a cheer from all sides supported me,

as I advanced to liberate the Jew; but Mowbray, preventing me,

leaped upon Jacob’s box, and standing with his legs stretched out,

Colossus-like, “Might makes right,” said he, “all the world over. You’re

a mighty fine preacher, Master Harrington; let’s see if you can preach

me down.”

“Let’s see if I can’t _pull_ you down!” cried I, springing forward:

indignation giving me strength, I seized, and with one jerk pulled the

Colossus forward and swung him to the ground.

“Well done, Harrington!” resounded from all sides. Mowbray, the instant

he recovered his feet, flew at me, furious for vengeance, dealing his

blows with desperate celerity. He was far my overmatch in strength and

size; but I stood up to him. Between the blows, I heard Jacob’s voice

in tones of supplication. When I had breath I called out to him, “Jacob!

Escape!” And I heard the words, “Jacob! Jacob! Escape!” repeated near

me.

But, instead of escaping, he stood stock still, reiterating his prayer

to be heard: at last he rushed between us--we paused--both parties

called to us, insisting that we should hear what the Jew had to say.

“Young Lord--,” said he, “and _dear_ young gentleman,” turning to me,

“let poor Jacob be no more cause now, or ever, of quarrel between you.

He shall trouble you never more. This is the last day, the last minute

he will ever trouble you.”

He bowed. Looking round to all, twice to the upper circle, where his

friends stood, he added, “Much obliged--for all kindness--grateful.

Blessings!--Blessings on all!--and may--”

He could say no more; but hastily taking up his box, he retired through

the opening crowd. The door closed after him. Both parties stood silent

for a moment, till Mowbray exclaimed, “Huzza! Dutton for ever! We’ve won

the day. Dutton for Thursday! Huzza! Huzza! Adieu! Adieu!--_Wandering

Jew!_”

No one echoed his adieu or his huzzas. I never saw man or boy look more

vexed and mortified. All further combat between us ceased, the boys one

and all taking my part and insisting upon peace. The next day Mowbray

offered to lay any wager that Jacob the Jew would appear again on the

ensuing Thursday; and that he would tell his father’s name, or at least

come provided, as Mowbray stated it, with a name for his father. These

wagers were taken up, and bets ran high on the subject. Thursday was

anxiously expected--Thursday arrived, but no Jacob. The next Thursday

came--another, and another--and no Jacob!

When it was certain that poor Jacob would appear no more--and when

his motive for resigning, and his words at taking leave were

recollected--and when it became evident that his balls, and his tops,

and his marbles, and his knives, had always been better and _more

reasonable_ than Dutton’s, the tide of popularity ran high in his

favour. _Poor Jacob_ was loudly regretted; and as long as schoolboys

could continue to think about the same thing, we continued conjecturing

why it was that Jacob would not tell us his father’s name. We made many

attempts to trace him, and to discover his secret; but all our inquiries

proved ineffectual: we could hear no more of Jacob, and our curiosity

died away.

Mowbray, who was two or three years my senior, left school soon

afterwards. We did not meet at the university; he went to Oxford, and I

to Cambridge.

CHAPTER IV.

When the mind is full of any one subject, that subject seems to recur

with extraordinary frequency--it appears to pursue or to meet us at

every turn: in every conversation that we hear, in every book we open,

in every newspaper we take up, the reigning idea recurs; and then we are

surprised, and exclaim at these wonderful coincidences. Probably such

happen every day, but pass unobserved when the mind is not intent upon

similar ideas, or excited by any strong analogous feeling.

When the learned Sir Thomas Browne was writing his Essay on the Gardens

of Cyrus, his imagination was so possessed by the idea of a quincunx,

that he is said to have seen a quincunx in every object in nature.

In the same manner, after a Jew had once made an impression on my

imagination, a Jew appeared wherever I went.

As I was on my road to Cambridge, travelling in a stagecoach, whilst we

were slowly going up a steep hill, I looked out of the window, and saw

a man sitting under a hawthorn-bush, reading very intently. There was

a pedlar’s box beside him; I thought I knew the box. I called out as we

were passing, and asked the man, “What’s the mile-stone?” He looked

up. It was poor Jacob. The beams of the morning sun dazzled him; but he

recognized me immediately, as I saw by the look of joy which instantly

spread over his countenance. I jumped out of the carriage, saying that I

would walk up the hill, and Jacob, putting his book in his pocket, took

up his well-known box, and walked along with me. I began, not by asking

any question about his father, though curiosity was not quite dead

within me, but by observing that he was grown very studious since we

parted; and I asked what book he had been reading so intently. He showed

it to me; but I could make nothing of it, for it was German. He told me

that it was the Life of the celebrated Mendelssohn, the Jew. I had never

heard of this celebrated man. He said that if I had any curiosity about

it, he could lend me a translation which he had in his pack; and with

all the alacrity of good-will, he set down the box to look for the book.

“No, don’t trouble yourself--don’t open it,” said I, putting my hand on

the box. Instantly a smile, and a sigh, and a look of ineffable kindness

and gratitude from Jacob, showed me that all the past rushed upon his

heart.

“Not trouble myself! Oh, Master Harrington,” said he, “poor Jacob is not

so ungrateful as that would come to.”

“You’re only too grateful,” said I; “but walk on--keep up with me, and

tell me how your affairs are going on in the world, for I am much

more interested about them than about the life of the celebrated

Mendelssohn.”

Is that possible! said his looks of genuine surprised simplicity.

He thanked me, and told me that he was much better in the world than

formerly; that a good friend of his, a London jeweller of his own

tribe, who had employed him as a pedlar, and had been satisfied with his

conduct, had assisted him through his difficulties. This was the last

time he should go his rounds in England as a pedlar; he said he was

going into another and a much better way of business. His friend, the

London jeweller, had recommended him to his brother, a rich Israelite,

who had a valuable store in Gibraltar, and who wanted a young man to

assist him, on whom he could entirely depend. Jacob was going out to

Gibraltar in the course of the next week. “And now, Mr. Harrington,”

said he, changing his tone and speaking with effort, as if he were

conquering some inward feeling, “now it is all over, Mr. Harrington, and

that I am leaving England, and perhaps may never see you again; I wish

before I take leave of you, to tell you, sir, who my father was--_was_,

for he is no more. I did not make a mystery of his name merely to excite

curiosity, as some of the young gentlemen thought, nor because I was

ashamed of my low birth. My father was Simon the old clothes-man. I knew

you would start, Mr. Harrington, at hearing his name. I knew all that

you suffered in your childhood about him, and I once heard you say to

Lord Mowbray who was taunting you with something about _old Simon_, that

you would not have that known, upon any account, to your school-fellows,

for that they would plague you for ever. From that moment I was

determined that _I_ would never be the cause of recalling or publishing

what would be so disagreeable to you. This was the reason why I

persisted in refusing to tell my father’s name, when Lord Mowbray

pressed me so to declare it before all your school-fellows. And now,

I hope,” concluded he, “that Mr. Harrington will not hate poor Jacob,

though he is the son of--”

He paused. I assured him of my regard: I assured him that I had long

since got rid of all the foolish prejudices of my childhood. I thanked

him for the kindness and generosity he had shown in bearing Mowbray’s

persecution for my sake, and in giving up his own situation, rather than

say or do what might have exposed me to ridicule.

Thanking me again for taking, as he said, such a kind interest in the

concerns of a poor Jew like him, he added, with tears in his eyes, that

he wished he might some time see me again: that he should to the

last day of his life remember me, and should pray for my health and

happiness, and that he was sorry he had no way of showing me his

gratitude. Again he recurred to his box, and would open it to show me

the translation of Mendelssohn’s Life; or, if that did not interest me,

he begged of me to take my choice from among a few books he had with

him; perhaps one of them might amuse me on my journey, for he knew I was

a _reading young gentleman_.

I could not refuse him. As he opened the packet of books, I saw one

directed to Mr. Israel Lyons, Cambridge. I told Jacob that I was going

to Cambridge. He said he should be there in a few days, for that he took

Cambridge in his road; and he rejoiced that he should see me again. I

gave him a direction to my college, and for his gratification, in truth,

more than for my own, I borrowed the magazine containing the life of

Mendelssohn, which he was so anxious to lend me. We had now reached the

coach at the top of the hill; I got in, and saw Jacob trudging after me

for some time; but, at the first turn of the road, I lost sight of him,

and then, as my two companions in the coach were not very entertaining,

one of them, a great fat man, being fast asleep and snoring, the other,

a pale spare woman, being very sick and very cross, I betook myself to

my magazine. I soon perceived why the life of Mendelssohn had so deeply

interested poor Jacob. Mendelssohn was a Jew, born like himself in

abject poverty, but, by perseverance, he made his way through incredible

difficulties to the highest literary reputation among the most eminent

men of his country and of his age; and obtained the name of the

Jewish Socrates. In consequence of his early, intense, and misapplied

application in his first Jewish school, he was seized at ten years old

with some dreadful nervous disease; this interested me, and I went on

with his history. Of his life I should probably have remembered nothing,

except what related to the nervous disorder; but it so happened, that,

soon after I had read this life, I had occasion to speak of it, and

it was of considerable advantage in introducing me to good company

at Cambridge. A few days after I arrived there, Jacob called on me: I

returned his book, assuring him that it had interested me very much.

“Then, sir,” said he, “since you are so fond of learning and learned

men, and so kind to the Jews, there is a countryman of mine now at

Cambridge, whom it will be well worth your while to be acquainted with;

and who, if I may be bold enough to say so, has been prepossessed in

your favour, by hearing of your humanity to poor Jacob.”

Touched as I was by his eagerness to be of use to me, I could not help

smiling at Jacob’s simplicity and enthusiasm, when he proceeded to

explain, that this person with whom he was so anxious to make me

acquainted was a learned rabbi, who at this time taught Hebrew to

several of the gownsmen of Cambridge. He was the son of a Polish Jew,

who had written a Hebrew grammar, and was himself author of a treatise

on fluxions (since presented to, and accepted by the university), and

moreover the author of a celebrated work on botany. At the moment Jacob

was speaking, certainly my fancy was bent on a phaeton and horses,

rather than on Hebrew or fluxions, and the contrast was striking,

between what he conceived my first objects at Cambridge would be, and

what they really were. However, I thanked him for his good opinion, and

promised to make myself acquainted with his learned countryman. To make

the matter secure, as Jacob was to leave Cambridge the next day, and as

the rabbi was at the house of one of his scholars in the country, and

was not to return to Cambridge till the ensuing week, Jacob left with me

a letter for him, and the very parcel which I had seen directed to

Mr. Israel Lyons: these I engaged to deliver with my own hands. Jacob

departed satisfied--happy in the hope that he had done me a service; and

so in fact it proved. Every father, and every son, who has been at the

university, knows how much depends upon the college companions with whom

a young man first associates. There are usually two sets: if he should

join the dissipated set, it is all over with him, he learns nothing; but

if he should get into the set with whom science and literature are in

fashion, he acquires knowledge, and a taste for knowledge; with all

the ardour inspired by sympathy and emulation, with all the facility

afforded by public libraries and public lectures--the collected and

combined information of the living and the dead--he pursues his studies.

He then fully enjoys the peculiar benefits of a university education,

the union of many minds intent upon the same object, working, with

all the advantages of the scientific division of labour, in a literary

manufactory.

When I went to deliver my packet to Mr. Lyons, I was surprised by seeing

in him a man as different as possible from my preconceived notion of a

Jewish rabbi; I never should have guessed him to be either a rabbi, or

a Jew. I expected to have seen a man nearly as old as Methuselah, with

a reverend beard, dirty and shabby, and with a blue pocket handkerchief.

Instead of which I saw a gay looking man, of middle age, with quick

sparkling black eyes, and altogether a person of modern appearance,

both in dress and address. I thought I must have made a mistake, and

presented my packet with some hesitation, reading aloud the direction to

Mr. Israel Lyons--“I am the man, sir,” said he; “our honest friend

Jacob has described you so well, Mr. Harrington--_Mr. William Harrington

Harrington_ (you perceive that I am well informed)--that I feel as if

I had had the pleasure of being acquainted with you for some time. I am

very much obliged by this visit; I should have done myself the honour

to wait upon you, but I returned only yesterday from the country, and

my necessary engagements do not leave as much time for my pleasures as I

could wish.”

I perceived by the tone of his address, that, though he was a Hebrew

teacher, he was proud of showing himself to be a man of the world. I

found him in the midst of his Hebrew scholars, and moreover with some

of the best mathematicians, and some of the first literary men in

Cambridge. I was awe-struck, and should have been utterly at a loss,

had it not been for a print of Mendelssohn over the chimney-piece, which

recalled to my mind the life of this great man; by the help of that I

had happily some ideas in common with the learned Jew, and we; entered

immediately into conversation, much to our mutual relief and delight.

Dr. Johnson, in one of his letters, speaking of a first visit from a

young gentleman who had been recommended to his acquaintance, says,

that “the initiatory conversation of two strangers is seldom pleasing

or instructive;” but I am sure that I was both pleased and instructed

during this initiatory conversation, and Mr. Lyons did not appear to be

oppressed or encumbered by my visit. I found by his conversation, that

though he was the son of a great Hebrew grammarian, and himself a great

Hebrew scholar, and though he had written a treatise on fluxions, and a

work on botany, yet he was not a mere mathematician, a mere grammarian,

or a mere botanist, nor yet a dull pedant. In despite of the assertion,

that

“----Hebrew roots are always found

To flourish best on barren ground,”

this Hebrew scholar was a man of a remarkably fertile genius. This visit

determined my course, and decided me as to the society which I kept

during the three happy and profitable years I afterwards spent at

Cambridge.

Mr. Israel Lyons is now no more. I hope it is no disrespect to his

memory to say that he had his foibles. It was no secret among our

contemporaries at Cambridge that he was like too many other men

of genius, a little deficient in economy--shall I say it? a little

extravagant. The difficulties into which he brought himself by his

improvidence were, however, always to him matters of jest and raillery;

and often, indeed, proved subjects of triumph, for he was sure to

extricate himself, by some of his many talents, or by some of his many

friends.

I should be very sorry, however, to support the dangerous doctrine, that

men of genius are privileged to have certain faults. I record with quite

a different intention these _facts_, to mark the effect of circumstances

in changing my own prepossessions.

The faults of Israel Lyons were not of that species which I expected to

find in a Jew. Perhaps he was aware that the Hebrew nation is in general

supposed to be too _careful_, and he might, therefore, be a little

vain of his own carelessness about money matters. Be this as it may,

I confess that, at the time, I rather liked him the better for it. His

disregard, on all occasions, of pecuniary interest, gave me a conviction

of his liberal spirit. I was never fond of money, or remarkably careful

of it myself; but I always kept out of debt; and my father gave me such

a liberal allowance, that I had it in my power to assist a friend. Mr.

Lyons’ lively disposition and manners took off all that awe which I

might have felt for his learning and genius. I may truly say, that these

three years, which I spent at Cambridge, fixed my character, and the

whole tone and colour of my future life. I do not pretend to say that I

had not, during my time at the university, and afterwards in London, my

follies and imprudences; but my soul did not, like many other souls of

my acquaintance, “embody and embrute.” When the time for my quitting

Cambridge arrived, I went to take leave of my learned friend Mr. Israel

Lyons, and to offer him my grateful acknowledgments. In the course of

the conversation I mentioned the childish terror and aversion with which

I had been early taught to look upon a Jew. I rejoiced that, even while

a schoolboy, I had conquered this foolish prejudice; and that at

the university, during those years which often decide our subsequent

opinions in life, it had been my good fortune to become acquainted with

one, whose superior abilities and kindness of disposition, had formed in

my mind associations of quite an opposite nature. Pleased with this

just tribute to his merit, and with the disposition I showed to think

candidly of persons of his persuasion, Mr. Lyons wished to confirm me in

these sentiments, and for this purpose gave me a letter of introduction

to a friend, with whom he was in constant correspondence, Mr. Montenero,

a Jewish gentleman born in Spain, who had early in life quitted that

country, in consequence of his horror of tyranny and persecution. He had

been fortunate enough to carry his wealth, which was very considerable,

safely out of Spain, and had settled in America, where he had enjoyed

perfect toleration and freedom of religious opinion; and as, according

to Mr. Lyons’ description of him, this Spanish Jew must, I thought, be

a most accomplished and amiable person, I eagerly accepted the offered

letter of introduction, and resolved that it should be my first business

and pleasure, on arriving in London, to find and make myself acquainted

with Mr. Montenero.

CHAPTER V.

People like myself, of lively imagination, may have often felt that

change of place suddenly extinguishes, or gives a new direction to,

the ardour of their enthusiasm. Such persons may, therefore, naturally

suspect, that, as “my steps retired from Cam’s smooth margin,” my

enthusiasm for my learned rabbi might gradually fade away; and that,

on my arrival in London, I should forget my desire to become acquainted

with the accomplished Spanish Jew. But it must be observed that, with my

mother’s warmth of imagination, I also had, I will not say, I inherited,

some of my father’s “_intensity of will_,”--some of that firmness of

adhesion to a preconceived notion or purpose, which in a good cause is

called resolution, in a bad cause obstinacy; and which is either a curse

or a blessing to the possessor, according to the degree or habit of

exercising the reasoning faculty with which he may be endowed.

On my arrival in London, a variety of petty unforeseen obstacles

occurred to prevent my accomplishing my visit to the Spanish Jew. New

and never-ending demands upon my time arose, both in and out of my own

family, so that there seemed a necessity for my spending every hour

of the day and night in a manner wholly independent of my will. There

seemed to be some fatality that set at nought all my previous plans and

calculations. Every morning for a week after my arrival, I regularly

put my letter of introduction to Mr. Montenero into my pocket, resolving

that I would that day find him out, and pay my visit; but after walking

all the morning, to bear and to forbear various engagements, to execute

promised commissions, and to fulfil innumerable duties, I regularly

came home as I went out, with my letter in my pocket, and with the sad

conviction that it was utterly impossible to deliver it that day. These

obstacles, and this contrariety of external circumstances, instead of

bending my will, or making me give up my intention, fixed it more firmly

in my mind, and strengthened my determination. Nor was I the least

shaken from the settled purpose of my soul, by the perversity with which

every one in our house opposed or contemned that purpose. One morning,

when I had my letter and my hat in my hand, I met my father, who after

looking at the direction of the letter, and hearing that I was going on

a visit to a Spanish Jew, asked what business upon earth I could have

with a Jew--cursed the whole race--rejoiced that he had five-and-twenty

years ago voted against their naturalization in England, and ended as

he began, by wondering what in the name of Heaven could make me scrape

acquaintance with such fellows. When, in reply, I mentioned my friend,

Mr. Israel Lyons, and the high character he had drawn of Mr. Montenero,

my father laughed, saying that he would answer for it my friend Israel

was not an Israelite without guile; for that was a description of

Israelite he had never yet seen, and he had seen a confounded deal of

the world. He decided that my accomplished Spanish Jew would prove

an adventurer, and he advised me, a young man, heir to a good English

fortune, to keep out of his foreign clutches: in short, he stuck to the

advice he gave me, and only wished I would stick to the promise I gave

him, when I was ten years old, to have _no dealings with the Jews_.

It was in vain that I endeavoured to give my explanation of the word

_dealings_. My father’s temper, naturally positive, had, I observed,

become, as he advanced in years, much more dogmatic and intolerant. I

avoided contradicting his assertions; but I determined to pursue my

own course in a matter where there could be nothing really wrong or

improper. That morning, however, I must, I perceived, as in duty bound,

sacrifice to my father; he took me under the arm, and carried me away

to introduce me to some commonplace member of parliament, who, as he

assured me, was a much fitter and more profitable acquaintance for me

than any member of the synagogue could possibly be.

The next morning, when, firm to my purpose, I was sallying forth, my

mother, with a face of tender expostulation and alarm, stopped me, and

entreated me to listen to her. My mother, whose health had always been

delicate, had within these three last years fallen into what is called a

very nervous state, and this, with her natural timidity and sensibility,

inclined her now to a variety of superstitious feelings--to a belief in

_presentiments_ and presages, omens and dreams, added to her original

belief in sympathies and antipathies. Some of these her peculiarities of

opinion and feeling had perhaps, at first, only been assumed, or yielded

to in her season of youth and beauty, to interest her admirers and

to distinguish herself in society; but as age advanced, they had been

confirmed by habit and weakness, so that what in the beginning might

have been affectation, was in the end reality. She was alarmed, she

said, by the series of strange coincidences which, from my earliest

childhood, had occurred, seeming to connect my fate, in some

extraordinary manner, with these Jews. She recalled all the

circumstances of my illness when I was a child: she confessed that she

had retained a sort of antipathy to the idea of a Jew--a weakness it

might be--but she had had dreams and _presentiments_, and my fortune

had been told her while I was at Cambridge; and some evil, she had been

assured, hung over me within the five ensuing years--some evil connected

with a Jew: in short, she did not absolutely believe in such prophecies,

but still it was extraordinary that the first thing my mind should

be intent upon, in coming to town, should be a Spanish Jew, and she

earnestly wished that I would avoid rather than seek the connexion.

Knowing my mother’s turn for the romantic, I had anticipated her

delight at the idea of making acquaintance with a noble-minded travelled

Spaniard; but unluckily her imagination had galloped off in a contrary

direction to mine, and now my only chance was to make her hear reason,

and a very bad chance I knew this to be. I endeavoured to combat her

_presentiment_, and to explain whatever appeared extraordinary in

my love and hatred of the Jews, by recalling the slight and natural

circumstances at school and the university, which had changed my early

prejudice; and I laboured to show that no natural antipathy could have

existed, since it had been completely conquered by humanity and reason;

so that now I had formed what might rather appear a natural sympathy

with the race of Israel. I laboured these points in vain. When I urged

the literary advantages I had reaped from my friendship with Mr. Israel

Lyons, she besought me not to talk of friendship with persons of that

sort. I had now awakened another train of associations, all unfavourable

to my views. My mother _wondered_--for both she and my father were great

_wonderers_, as are all, whether high or low, who have lived only

with one set of people--my mother wondered that, instead of seeking

acquaintance in the city with old Jews and persons of whom nobody had

ever heard, I could not find companions of my own age and rank in life:

for instance, my schoolfellow and friend, Lord Mowbray, who was now in

town, just returned from abroad, a fine young officer, “much admired

here by the ladies, I can assure you, Harrington,” added my mother.

This, as I had opportunity of seeing, was perfectly true; four, nearly

five years had made a great apparent change in Mowbray for the better;

his manners were formed; his air that of a man of fashion--a military

man of fashion. He had served a campaign abroad, had been at the siege

of Gibraltar, had much to say, and could say it well. We all know

what astonishing metamorphoses are sometimes wrought even on the most

hopeless subjects, by seeing something of the world, by serving a

campaign or two. How many a light, empty shell of a young man comes home

full, if not of sense, at least of something bearing the semblance of

sense! How many a heavy lout, a dull son of earth, returns enlivened

into a conversable being, who can tell at least of what it has seen,

heard, and felt, if not understood; and who for years, perhaps for ever

afterwards, by the help of telling of other countries, may pass in his

own for a man of solid judgment! Such being the advantages to be derived

by these means, even in the most desperate cases, we may imagine the

great improvement produced in a young man of Lord Mowbray’s abilities,

and with his ambition both to please and to shine. In youth, and by

youth, improvement in appearance and manner is easily mistaken for

improvement in mind and principle. All that I had disliked in the

schoolboy--the tyrannical disposition--the cruel temper--the insolent

tone--had disappeared, and in their place I saw the deportment which

distinguished a gentleman. Whatever remained of party spirit, so

different from the wrangling, overbearing, mischievous party spirit of

the boy, was in the man and the officer so happily blended with love of

the service, and with _l’esprit de corps_, that it seemed to add a

fresh grace, animation, and frankness to his manner. The evil spirit of

persecution was dislodged from his soul, or laid asleep within him, and

in its place appeared the conciliating spirit of politeness. He showed

a desire to cultivate my friendship, which still more prepossessed me in

his favour.

Mowbray happened to call upon me soon after the conversation I had

with my mother about the Spanish Jew. I had not been dissuaded from my

purpose by her representations; but I had determined to pay my visit

without saying any thing more about the matter, and to form my own

judgment of the man. A new difficulty, however, occurred: my letter of

introduction had disappeared. I searched my pockets, my portfolios,

my letter-case, every conceivable place, but it was not to be found.

Mowbray obligingly assisted me in this search; but after emptying half

a dozen times over portfolios, pockets, and desks, I was ashamed to give

him more trouble, and I gave up the letter as lost. When Mowbray heard

that this letter, about which I was so anxious, was an introduction to

a Jewish gentleman, he could not forbear rallying me a little, but in a

very agreeable tone, upon the constancy of my Israelitish taste, and the

perfect continuance of my identity.

“I left you, Harrington, and I find you, after four years’ absence,

intent upon a Jew; boy and man you are one and the same; and in your

case, ‘tis well that the boy and man should an individual make; but for

my part, I am glad to change my identity, like all other mortals, once

in seven years; and I hope you think I have changed for the better.”

It was impossible to think otherwise, especially at that moment. In a

frank, open-hearted manner, he talked of his former tyrannical nature,

and blamed himself for our schoolboy quarrel. I was charmed with him,

and the more so, when he entered so warmly or so politely into my

present distress, and sympathized with my madness of the moment. He

suggested all that was possible to be done to supply the loss of the

letter. Could not I get another in its stead? The same friend who gave

me one letter of introduction could write another. No; Mr. Israel Lyons

had left Cambridge, and I knew not where to direct to him. Could not I

present myself to Mr. Montenero without a letter? That might be

rather an awkward proceeding, but I was not to be stopped by any nice

observances, now that I had set my mind upon the matter. Unluckily,

however, I could by no means recollect the exact address of Mr.

Montenero. I was puzzled among half a dozen different streets and

numbers: Mowbray offered to walk with me, and we went to each of these

streets, and to all the variety of numbers I suggested, but in vain; no

Mr. Montenero was to be found. At last, tired and disappointed, as I was

returning home, Mowbray said he thought he could console me for the loss

of my chance of seeing my Spanish Jew, by introducing me to the most

celebrated Jew that ever appeared in England. Then turning into a street

near one of the play-houses, he knocked at the door of a house where

Macklin the actor lodged. Lord Mowbray was well acquainted with him, and

I was delighted to have an opportunity of seeing this celebrated man. He

was at this time past the meridian of ordinary life, but he was in the

zenith of his extraordinary course, and in the full splendour and vigour

of his powers.

“Here,” said Mowbray, presenting me to Macklin, “is a young gentleman,

who is ambitious of being acquainted with the most celebrated Jew

that ever appeared in England. Allow me to introduce him to the real,

original Jew of Venice:

‘This is the Jew

That Shakspeare drew!’

Whose lines are those, Harrington? do you know?”

“_Yours_, I suppose.”

“Mine! you do me much honour: no, they are Mr. Pope’s. Then you don’t

know the anecdote?

“Mr. Pope, in the decline of life, was persuaded by Bolingbroke to go

once more to the play-house, to see Mr. Macklin in the character of

Shylock. According to the custom of the time, Pope was seated among

the critics in the pit. He was so much struck and transported with

admiration, that in the middle of the play, he started up, and repeated

that distich.

“Now, was not I right when I told you, Harrington, that I would

introduce you to the most celebrated Jew in all England, in all

Christendom, in the whole civilized world?”

No one better than Mowbray knew the tone of enthusiastic theatric

admiration in which the heroes of the stage like, or are supposed to

like, to be addressed. Macklin, who was not asy to please, was pleased.

The _lines_, or as Quin insisted upon their being called, the _cordage_

of his face relaxed. He raised, turned, and settled his wig, in sign

of satisfaction; then with a complacent smile gave me a little nod, and

suffered Lord Mowbray to draw him out by degrees into a repetition of

the history of his first attempt to play the character of Shylock. A

play altered from Shakespeare’s, and called “The Jew of Venice,” had

been for some time in vogue. In this play, the Jew had been represented,

by the actors of the part, as a ludicrous and contemptible, rather than

a detestable character; and when Macklin, recurring to Shakespeare’s

original Shylock, proposed, in the revived Merchant of Venice, to play

the part in a serious style, he was scoffed at by the whole company of

his brother actors, and it was with the utmost difficulty he could screw

the manager’s courage to the sticking-place, and prevail upon him to

hazard the attempt. Take the account in Macklin’s own words. [Footnote:

Vide Macklin’s Life.]

“When the long expected night at last arrived, the house was crowded

from top to bottom, with the first company in town. The two front rows

of the pit, as usual, were full of critics. I eyed them,” said Macklin,

“I eyed them, sir, through the slit in the curtain, and was glad to

see them there; as I wished, in such a cause, to be tried by a _special

jury_. When I made my appearance in the green-room, dressed for the

part, with my red hat on my head, my piqued beard, my loose black gown,

and with a confidence which I had never before assumed, the performers

all stared at one another, and evidently with a stare of disappointment.

Well, sir, hitherto all was right, till the last bell rung; then, I

confess, my heart began to beat a little: however, I mustered up all the

courage I could, and recommending my cause to Providence, threw myself

boldly on the stage, and was received by one of the loudest thunders of

applause I ever before experienced. The opening scenes being rather tame

and level, I could not expect much applause; but I found myself listened

to: I could hear distinctly in the pit, the words ‘_Very well--very

well indeed! this man seems to know what he is about_.’ These encomiums

warmed me, but did not overset me. I knew where I should have the pull,

which was in the third act, and accordingly at this period I threw out

all my fire; and as the contrasted passions of joy for the merchant’s

losses, and grief for the elopement of Jessica, open a fine field for an

actor’s powers, I had the good fortune to please beyond my most sanguine

expectations. The whole house was in an uproar of applause; and I was

obliged to pause between the speeches to give it vent, so as to be

heard. The _trial scene_ wound up the fulness of my reputation. Here

I was well listened to, and here I made such a silent yet forcible

impression on my audience, that I retired from this great attempt most

perfectly satisfied. On my return to the green-room, after the play was

over, it was crowded with nobility and critics, who all complimented

me in the warmest and most unbounded manner; and the situation I

felt myself in, I must confess, was one of the most flattering and

intoxicating of my whole life. No money, no title, could purchase what

I felt. By G--, sir, though I was not worth fifty pounds in the world

at that time, yet let me tell you, I was _Charles the Great_ for that

night.”

The emphasis and enthusiasm with which Macklin spoke, pleased

me--enthusiastic people are always well pleased with enthusiasm. My

curiosity too was strongly excited to see him play Shylock. I returned

home full of the Jew of Venice; but, nevertheless, not forgetting my

Spanish Jew.--At last, my mother could no longer bear to see me perplex

and vex myself in my fruitless search for the letter, and confessed that

while we were talking the preceding day, finding that no arguments or

persuasions of hers had had any effect, she had determined on what she

called a pious fraud: so, while I was in the room--before my face--while

I was walking up and down, holding forth in praise of my Jewish friend

whom I did know, and my Jewish friend whom I did not know, she had taken

up Mr. Israel Lyons’ letter of introduction to Mr. Montenero, and had

thrown it into the fire.

I was very much provoked; but to my mother, and a mother who was so fond

of me, what could I say? After all, I confessed there was a good deal of

fancy in the case on my side as well as on hers. I endeavoured to forget

my disappointment. My imagination turned again to Shylock and Macklin;

and, to please me, my mother promised to make a large party to go with

me to see the Merchant of Venice the next night that Macklin should act;

but, unfortunately, Macklin had just now quarrelled with the manager,

and till this could be made up, there was no chance of his condescending

to perform.

Meantime my mother having, as she thought, fairly got rid of the Jews,

and Mowbray having, as he said, cured me of my present fit of Jewish

insanity, desired to introduce me to his mother and sister. They had

now just come to town from the Priory--Brantefield Priory, an ancient

family-seat, where, much to her daughter’s discomfiture, Lady de

Brantefield usually resided eight months of the year, because there

she felt her dignity more safe from contact, and herself of more

indisputable and unrivalled consequence, than in the midst of the

jostling pretensions and modern innovations of the metropolis. At

the Priory every thing attested, recorded, and flattered her pride of

ancient and illustrious descent. In my childhood I had once been with my

mother at the Priory, and I still retained a lively recollection of the

antique wonders of the place. Foremost in my memory came an old picture,

called “Sir Josseline going to the Holy Land,” where Sir Josseline de

Mowbray stood, in complete armour, pointing to a horrid figure of a

prostrate Jew, on whose naked back an executioner, with uplifted whip,

was prepared to inflict stripes for some shocking crime.--This picture

had been painted in times when the proportions of the human figure were

little attended to, and when foreshortening was not at all understood:

this added to the horrible effect, for the executioner’s arm and scourge

were of tremendous size; Sir Josseline stood miraculously tall, and the

Jew, crouching, supplicating, sprawling, was the most distorted squalid

figure, eyes ever beheld, or imagination could conceive.

After having once beheld it, I could never bear to look upon it again,

nor did I ever afterwards enter the tapestry chamber:--but there were

some other of the antique rooms in which I delighted, and divers pieces

of old furniture which I reverenced. There was an ancient bed, with

scolloped tester, and tarnished quilt, in which Queen Elizabeth had

slept; and a huge embroidered pincushion done by no hands, as you may

guess, but those of the unfortunate Mary, Queen of Scots, who, during

her captivity, certainly worked harder than ever queen worked before or

since.

Then there was an old, worm-eaten chair, in which John of Gaunt had

sat; and I remember that while Lady de Brantefield expressed her just

indignation against the worms, for having dared to attack this precious

relique, I, kneeling to the chair, admired the curious fretwork, the

dusty honeycombs, which these invisible little workmen had excavated.

But John of Gaunt’s chair was nothing to King John’s table. There was

a little black oak table, too, with broken legs, which was

invaluable--for, as Lady de Brantefield confidently affirmed, King John

of France, and the Black Prince, had sat and supped at it. I marvelled

much in silence--for I had been sharply reproved for some observation

I had unwittingly made on the littleness and crookedness of a dark,

corner-chimneyed nook shown us for the banqueting-room; and I had fallen

into complete disgrace for having called the winding staircases, leading

to the turret-chambers, _back stairs._

Of Lady de Brantefield, the _touch-me-not_ mistress of the mansion, I

had retained a sublime, but not a beautiful idea--I now felt a desire to

see her again, to verify my old notion.

Of Lady Anne Mowbray, who at the time I had been at the Priory, was a

little child, some years younger than myself, I could recollect nothing,

except that she wore a pink sash, of which she was very vain, and that

she had been ushered into the drawing-room after dinner by Mrs. Fowler,

at the sight of whom my inmost soul had recoiled. I remember, indeed,

pitying her little ladyship for being under such dominion, and longing

to ask her whether Fowler had told her the story of Simon the Jew. But

I could never commune with Lady Anne; for either she was up in the

nursery, or Fowler was at her back in the drawing-room, or little Lady

Anne was sitting upright on her stool at her mother’s feet, whom I

did not care to approach, and in whose presence I seldom ventured to

speak--consequently my curiosity on this point had, from that hour,

slumbered within me; but it now wakened, upon my mother’s proposing

to present me to Lady Anne, and the pleasure of asking and the hope

of obtaining an answer to my long-meditated question, was the chief

gratification I promised myself from the renewal of our acquaintance

with her ladyship.

CHAPTER VI.

My recollection of Lady de Brantefield proved wonderfully correct;

she gave me back the image I had in my mind--a stiff, haughty-looking

picture of a faded old beauty. Adhering religiously to the fashion of

the times when she had been worshipped, she made it a point to wear

the old head-dress exactly. She was in black, in a hoop of vast

circumference, and she looked and moved as if her being Countess

de Brantefield in her own right, and concentring in her person five

baronies, ought to be for ever present to the memory of all mankind, as

it was to her own.

My mother presented me to her ladyship. The ceremony of introduction

between a young gentleman and an old lady of those times, performed on

his part with a low bow and look of profound deference, on hers, with

back stepping-curtsy and bridled head, was very different from the

nodding, bobbing trick of the present day. As soon as the _finale_ of

Lady de Brantefield’s sentence, touching honour, happiness, and family

connexion, would permit, I receded, and turned from the mother to the

daughter, little Lady Anne Mowbray, a light fantastic figure, bedecked

with “daisies pied,” covered with a profusion of tiny French flowers,

whose invisible wire stalks kept in perpetual motion as she turned her

pretty head from side to side. Smiling, sighing, tittering, flirting

with the officers round her, Lady Anne appeared, and seemed as if she

delighted in appearing, as perfect a contrast as possible to her august

and formidable mother. The daughter had seen the ill effect of the

mother’s haughty demeanour, and, mistaking reverse of wrong for right,

had given reserve and dignity to the winds. Taught by the happy example

of Colonel Topham, who preceded me, I learned that the low bow would

have been here quite out of place. The sliding bow was for Lady Anne,

and the way was to dash into nonsense with her directly, and full

into the midst of nonsense I dashed. Though her ladyship’s perfect

accessibility seemed to promise prompt reply to any question that could

be asked; yet the single one about which I felt any curiosity, I could

not contrive to introduce during the first three hours I was in her

ladyship’s company. There was such a quantity of preliminary nonsense

to get through, and so many previous questions to be disposed of: for

example, I was first to decide which of three colours I preferred, all

of them pronounced to be the _prettiest_ in, the universe, _boue de

Paris, oeil de l’empereur_, and a _suppressed sigh_.

At that moment, Lady Anne wore the _suppressed sigh_, but I did not

know it--I mistook it for _boue de Paris_--conceive my ignorance! No two

things in nature, not a horse-chestnut and a chestnut-horse, could be

more different.

Conceive my confusion! and Colonels Topham and Beauclerk standing by.

But I recovered myself in public opinion, by admiring the slipper on her

ladyship’s little foot. Now I showed my taste, for this slipper had

but the night before arrived express from Paris, and it was called a

_venez-y voir_; and how a slipper, with a heel so high, and a quarter

so low, could be kept on the foot, or how the fair could walk in it, I

could not conceive, except by the special care of her guardian sylph.

After the _venez-y voir_ had fixed all eyes as desired, the lady turning

alternately to Colonels Topham and Beauclerk, with rapid gestures of

ecstasy, exclaimed, “The _pouf!_ the _pouf!_ Oh! on Wednesday I shall

have the _pouf_!”

Now what manner of thing a _pouf!_ might be, I had not the slightest

conception. “It requireth,” said Bacon, “great cunning for a man in

discourse to seem to know that which he knoweth not.” Warned by _boue de

Paris_ and the _suppressed sigh_, this time I found safety in silence. I

listened, and learned, first that _un pouf_ was the most charming thing

in the creation; next, that nobody upon earth could be seen in Paris

without one; that one was coming from Mademoiselle Berlin, per favour of

Miss Wilkes, for Lady Anne Mowbray, and that it would be on her head

on Wednesday; and Colonel Topham swore there would be no resisting her

ladyship in the _pouf_, she would look so killing.

“So killing,” was the colonel’s last.

I now thought that I had Lady Anne’s ear to myself; but she ran on to

something else, and I was forced to follow as she skimmed over fields of

nonsense. At last she did stop to take breath, and I did get in my one

question: to which her ladyship replied, “Poor Fowler frighten me? Lord!

No. Like her? oh! yes--dote upon Fowler! didn’t you?--No, you hated her,

I remember. Well, but I assure you she’s the best creature in the world;

I could always make her do just what I pleased. Positively, I must make

you make it up with her, if I can remember it, when she comes up to

town--she is to come up for my birthday. Mamma, you know, generally

leaves her at the Priory, to take care of all the old trumpery, and show

the place--you know it’s a _show place_. But I tell Colonel Topham, when

I’ve a place of my own, I positively will have it modern, and all

the furniture in the very newest style. I’m so sick of old reliques!

Natural, you know, when _I have been having_ a surfeit all my life of

old beds and chairs, and John of Gaunt and the Black Prince. But the

Black Prince, I remember, was always a vast favourite of yours. Well,

but poor Fowler, you must like her, too--I assure you she always speaks

with tenderness of you; she is really the best old soul! for she’s

growing oldish, but so faithful, and so sincere too. Only flatters mamma

sometimes so, I can hardly help laughing in her face; but then you know

mamma, and old ladies, when they come to that pass, must be flattered to

keep them up--‘tis but charitable--really right. Poor Fowler’s daughter

is to be my maid.”

“I did not know Fowler had a daughter, and a daughter grown up.”

“Nancy Fowler! not know! Oh! yes, quite grown up, fit to be

married--only a year younger than I am. And there’s our old apothecary

in the country has taken such a fancy to her! But he’s too old and

_wiggy_--but it would make a sort of lady of her, and her mother will

have it so--but she sha’n’t--I’ve no notion of compulsion. Nancy shall

be my maid, for she is quite out of the common style; can copy verses

for one--I’ve no time, you know--and draws patterns in a minute. I

declare I don’t know which I love best--Fowler or Nancy--poor old

Fowler, I think. Do you know she says I’m so like the print of the Queen

of France. It never struck me; but I’ll go and ask Topham.”

I perceived that Fowler, wiser grown, had learned how much more secure

the reign of flattery is, than the reign of terror. She was now, as

I found, supreme in the favour of both her young and old lady. The

specimen I have given of Lady Anne Mowbray’s conversation, or rather

of Lady Anne’s mode of talking, will, I fancy, be amply sufficient

to satiate all curiosity concerning her ladyship’s understanding

and character. She had, indeed, like most of the young ladies her

companions--“no character at all.”

Female conversation in general was, at this time, very different from

what it is in our happier days. A few bright stars had risen, and shone,

and been admired; but the useful light had not diffused itself. Miss

Talbot’s and Miss Carter’s learning and piety, Mrs. Montague’s genius,

Mrs. Vesey’s elegance, and Mrs. Boscawen’s [Footnote: See Bas-Bleu.]

“polished ease,” had brought female literature into fashion in certain

favoured circles; but it had not, as it has now, become general in

almost every rank of life. Young ladies had, it is true, got beyond the

Spectator and the Guardian: Richardson’s novels had done much towards

opening a larger field of discussion. One of Miss Burney’s excellent

novels had appeared, and had made an era in London conversation; but

still it was rather venturing out of the safe course for a young lady to

talk of books, even of novels; it was not, as it is now, expected that

she should know what is going on in the literary world. The Edinburgh

and Quarterly Reviews, and varieties of literary and scientific

journals, had not

“Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.”

Before there was a regular demand and an established market, there were

certain hawkers and pedlars of literature, fetchers and carriers of

bays, and at every turn copies of impromptus, charades, and lines by the

honourable Miss C----, and the honourable Mrs. D----, were put into my

hands by young ladies, begging for praise, which it was seldom in my

power conscientiously to bestow. I early had a foreboding--one of my

mother’s _presentiments_--that I should come to disgrace with Lady Anne

Mowbray about some of these cursed scraps of poetry. Her ladyship had

one--shall I say?--_peculiarity_. She could not bear that any one should

differ from her in matters of taste; and though she regularly disclaimed

being a reading lady, she was most assured of what she was most

ignorant. With the assistance of Fowler’s flattery, together with

that of all the hangers-on at Brantefield Priory, her temper had been

rendered incapable of bearing contradiction. But this defect was not

immediately apparent: on the contrary, Lady Anne was generally thought

a pleasant, good-humoured creature, and most people wondered that the

daughter could be so different from the mother. Lady de Brantefield was

universally known to be positive and prejudiced. Her prejudices were

all old-fashioned, and ran directly counter to the habits of her

acquaintance. Lady Anne’s, on the contrary, were all in favour of the

present fashion, whatever it might be, and ran smoothly with the

popular stream. The violence of her temper could, therefore, scarcely

be suspected, till something opposed the current: a small obstacle would

then do the business--would raise the stream suddenly to a surprising

height, and would produce a tremendous noise. It was my ill fortune

one unlucky day to cross Lady Anne Mowbray’s humour, and to oppose her

opinion. It was about a trifle; but trifles, indeed, made, with her,

the sum of human things. She came one morning, as it was her custom, to

loiter away her time at my mother’s till the proper hour for going

out to visit. For five minutes she sat at some fashionable kind of

work--_wafer work_, I think it was called, a work which has been long

since consigned to the mice; then her ladyship yawned, and exclaiming,

“Oh, those lines of Lord Chesterfield’s, which Colonel Topham gave me;

I’ll copy them into my album. Where’s my _album_?--Mrs. Harrington, I

lent it to you. Oh! here it is. Mr. Harrington, you will finish copying

this for me.” So I was set down to the _album_ to copy--_Advice to a

Lady in Autumn_.

“Asses’ milk, half a pint, take at seven, or before.”

My mother, who saw that I did not relish the asses’ milk, put in a word

for me.

“My dear Lady Anne, it is not worth while to write these lines in

your _album_, for they were in print long ago, in every lady’s old

memorandum-book, and in Dodsley’s Collection, I believe.”

“But still that was quite a different thing,” Lady Anne said, “from

having them in her _album_; so Mr. Harrington must be so very good.” I

did not understand the particular use of copying in my illegible hand

what could be so much better read in print; but it was all-sufficient

that her ladyship chose it. When I had copied the verses I must, Lady

Anne said, read the lines, and admire them. But I had read them twenty

times before, and I could not say that they were as fresh the twentieth

reading as at the first. Lord Mowbray came in, and she ran to her

brother:--“Mowbray! can any thing in nature be prettier than these

verses of Lord Chesterfield? Mowbray, you, who are a judge, listen to

these two lines:

‘The dews of the evening moat carefully shun,

Those tears of the sky for the loss of the sun.’

_Now_, here’s your friend, Mr. Harrington, says it’s only a

_prettiness_, and something about Ovid. I’m sure I wish you’d advise

some of your friends to leave their classics, as you did, at the musty

university. What have we to do with Ovid in London? You, yourself, Mr.

Harrington, who set up for such a critic, what fault can you find, pray,

with

‘Keep all cold from your breast, there’s already too much?’”

By the lady’s tone of voice, raised complexion, and whole air of the

head, I saw the danger was imminent, and to avoid the coming storm, I

sheltered myself under the cover of modesty; but Mowbray dragged me out

to make sport for himself.

“Oh! Harrington, that will never do. No critic! No judge! You! with all

your college honours fresh about you. Come, come, Harrington, pronounce

you must. Is this poetry or not?

‘_Keep all cold from your breast, there’s already too much_.’”

“Whether prose or poetry, I pronounce it to be very good advice.”

“Good advice! the thing of all others I have the most detested from my

childhood,” cried Lady Anne; “but I insist upon it, it is good poetry,

Mr. Harrington.”

“And equally good grammar, and good English, and good sense,” cried her

brother, in an ironical tone. “Come, Harrington, acknowledge it all,

man--all equally. Never stop half way, when a young--and such a young

lady, summons you to surrender to her your truth, taste, and common

sense. Gi’ her a’ the plea, or you’ll get na good of a woman’s hands.”

“So, sir!--So, my lord, you are against me too, and you are mocking me

too, I find. I humbly thank you, gentlemen,” cried Lady Anne, in a high

tone of disdain; “from a colonel in the army, and a nobleman who has

been on the continent, I might have expected more politeness. From a

Cambridge scholar no wonder!”

My mother laid down her netting in the middle of a row, and came to

keep the peace. But it was too late; Lady Anne was deaf and blind with

passion. She confessed she could not see of what use either of the

universities were in this world, except to make bears and bores of young

men.

Her ladyship, fluent in anger beyond conception, poured, as she turned

from her brother to me, and from me to her brother, a flood of nonsense,

which, when it had once broken bounds, there was no restraining in its

course. Amazed at the torrent, my mother stood aghast; Mowbray burst

into unextinguishable laughter: I preserved my gravity as long as

I possibly could; I felt the risible infection seizing me, and that

malicious Mowbray, just when he saw me in the struggle--the agony--sent

me back such an image of my own length of face, that there was no

withstanding it. I, too, breaking all bounds of decorum, gave way to

visible and audible laughter; and from which I was first recovered by

seeing the lady burst into tears, and by hearing, at the same moment,

my mother pronounce in a tone of grave displeasure, “Very ill-bred,

Harrington!” My mother’s tone of displeasure affecting me much more than

the young lady’s tears, I hastened to beg pardon, and I humbled myself

before Lady Anne; but she spurned me, and Mowbray laughed the more.

Mowbray, I believe, really wished that I should like his sister; yet

he could not refrain from indulging his taste for ridicule, even at her

expense. My mother wondered how Lord Mowbray could tease his sister in

such a manner; and as for Harrington, she really thought he had known

that the first law of good-breeding is never to say or do any thing that

can hurt another person’s feelings.

“Never _intentionally_ to hurt another’s feelings, ma’am,” said I; “I

hope you will allow me to plead the innocence of my intentions.”

“Oh, yes! there was no malicious _intent_: Not guilty--Not guilty!”

cried Mowbray. “Anne, you acquit him there, don’t you, Anne?”

Anne sobbed, but spoke not.

“It is little consolation, and no compensation, to the person who is

hurt,” said my mother, “that the offender pleads he did not mean to say

or do any thing rude: a rude thing is a rude thing--the intention is

nothing--all we are to judge of is the fact.”

“Well, but after all, in fact,” said Mowbray, “there was nothing to make

any body seriously angry.”

“Of that every body’s own feelings must be the best judge,” said my

mother, “the best and the sole judge.”

“Thank Heaven! that is not the law of libel _yet_, not the law of the

land _yet_,” said Mowbray; “no knowing what we may come to. Would it not

be hard, ma’am, to constitute the feelings of one person _always_ sole

judge of the intentions of another? though in cases like the present I

submit. Let it be a ruled case, that the sensibility of a lady shall be

the measure of a gentleman’s guilt.”

“I don’t judge of these things by rule and measure,” said my mother:

“try my smelling-bottle, my dear.” Very few people, especially women of

delicate nerves and quick feelings, could, as my mother observed, bear

to be laughed at; particularly by those they loved; and especially

before other people who did not know them perfectly. My mother was

persuaded, she said, that Lord Mowbray had not reflected on all this

when he had laughed so inconsiderately.

Mowbray allowed that he certainly had not reflected when he had laughed

inconsiderately. “So come, come. Anne, sister Anne, be friends!” then

playfully tapping his sister on the back, the pretty, but sullen back

of the neck, he tried to raise the drooping head; but finding the chin

resist the upward motion, and retire resentfully from his touch, he

turned upon his heel, and addressing himself to me, “Well! Harrington,”

said he, “the news of the day, the news of the theatre, which I was

bringing you full speed, when I stumbled upon this cursed half-pint

of asses’ milk, which Mrs.. Harrington was so angry with me for

overturning--”

“But what’s the news, my lord?” said my mother.

“News! not for you, ma’am, only for Harrington; news of the Jews.”

“The Jews!” said my mother.

“The Jews!” said I, both in the same breath, but in very different

tones.

“_Jews_, did I say?” replied Mowbray: “Jew, I should have said.”

“Mr. Montenero?” cried I.

“Montenero!--Can you think of nothing but Mr. Montenero, whom you’ve

never seen, and never will see?”

“Thank you for that, my lord,” said my mother; “one touch from you is

worth a hundred from me.”

“But of what Jew then are you talking? and what’s your news, my lord?”

said I.

“My news is only--for Heaven’s sake, Harrington, do not look expecting

a mountain, for ‘tis only a mouse. The news is, that Macklin, the honest

Jew of Venice, has got the pound, or whatever number of pounds he wanted

to get from the manager’s heart; the quarrel’s made up, and if you keep

your senses, you may have a chance to see, next week, this famous Jew of

Venice.”

“I am heartily glad of it!” cried I, with enthusiasm.

“And is that all?” said my mother, coldly.

“Mr. Harrington,” said Lady Anne, “is really so enthusiastic about some

things, and so cold about others, there is no understanding him; he is

very, very _odd_.”

Notwithstanding all the pains my mother took to atone for my offence,

and notwithstanding that I had humbled myself to the dust to obtain

pardon, I was not forgiven.

Lady de Brantefield, Lady Anne, and some other company, dined with us;

and Mowbray, who seemed to be really sorry that he had vexed his sister,

and that he had in the heyday of his spirit unveiled to me her defects

of temper, did every thing in his power to make up matters between us.

At dinner he placed me beside Anne, little sister Anne; but no caressing

tone, no diminutive of kindness in English, or soft Italian, could touch

her heart, or move the gloomy purpose of her soul. Her sulky ladyship

almost turned her back upon me, as she listened only to Colonel Topham,

who was on the other side. Mowbray coaxed her to eat, but she refused

every thing he offered--would not accept even his compliments--his

compliments on her _pouf_--would not allow him to show her off, as he

well knew how to do, to advantage; would not, when he exerted himself

to prevent her silence from being remarked, smile at any one of the many

entertaining things he said; she would not, in short, even passively

permit his attempts to cover her ill-humour, and to make things pass off

well.

In the evening, when the higher powers drew off to cards, and when Lady

Anne had her phalanx of young ladies round her; and whilst I stood a

defenceless young man at her mercy, she made me feel her vengeance. She

talked _at_ me continually, and at every opening gave me sly cuts, which

she flattered herself I felt sorely.

Mowbray turned off the blows as fast as they were aimed, or treated them

all as playful traits of lover-like malice, tokens of a lady’s favour.

“Ha! a good cut, Harrington!--Happy man!--Up to you there, Harrington!

High favour, when a lady condescends to remember and retaliate. Paid you

for old scores!--Sign you’re in her books now!--‘No more to say to you,

Mr. Harrington’--a fair challenge to say a great deal more to her.”

And all the time her ladyship was aiming to vex, and hoping that I was

heartily mortified, as from my silence and melancholy countenance she

concluded that I was; in reality I stood deploring that so pretty a

creature had so mean a mind. The only vexation I felt was at her having

destroyed the possibility of my enjoying that delightful illusion which

beauty creates.

My mother, who had been, as she said, quite nervous all this evening, at

last brought Lady Anne to terms, and patched up a peace, by prevailing

on Lady de Brantefield, who could not be prevailed on by any one else,

to make a party to go to some new play which Lady Anne was _dying_ to

see. It was a sentimental comedy, and I did not much like it; however, I

was all complaisance for my mother’s sake, and she in return renewed her

promise to go with me to patronize Shylock. By the extraordinary anxiety

my mother showed, and by the pains she took that there should be peace

betwixt Lady Anne and me, I perceived, what had never before struck me,

that my mother wished me to be in love with her ladyship.

Now I could sooner have been in love with Lady de Brantefield. Give her

back a decent share of youth and beauty, I think I could sooner have

liked the mother than the daughter.

By the force and plastic power of my imagination, I could have turned

and moulded Lady de Brantefield, with all her repulsive haughtiness,

into a Clelia, or a Princess de Cleves, or something of the Richardson

full-dressed heroine, with hoop and fan, and _stand off, man_!--and then

there would be cruelty and difficulty, and incomprehensibility-something

to be conquered--something to be wooed and won. But with Lady Anne

Mowbray my imagination had nothing to work upon, no point to dwell on,

nothing on which a lover’s fancy could feed: there was no doubt, no

hope, no fear, no reserve of manner, no dignity of mind.

My mother, I believe, now saw that it would not do, at least for the

present; but she had known many of Cupid’s capricious turns. Lady Anne

was extremely pretty, and universally allowed to be so; her ladyship was

much taken notice of in public, and my mother knew that young men are

vain of having their mistresses and wives admired by our sex. But my

mother calculated ill as to my particular character. To the Opera and to

Ranelagh, to the Pantheon, and to all the fashionable public places of

the day, I had had the honour of attending Lady Anne; and I had had the

glory of hearing “Beautiful!” “Who is she?”--and “Who is with her?” My

vanity, I own, had been flattered, but no further. My imagination was

always too powerful, my passions too sincere and too romantic, to be

ruled by the opinions of others, or to become the dupe of personal

vanity. My mother had fancied that a month or two in London would

have brought my imagination down to be content with the realities of

fashionable life. My mother was right as to the fact, but wrong in

her conclusion. This did not incline me more towards Lady Anne, but it

disinclined me towards marriage.

My exalted ideas of love were lowered--my morning visions of life

fled--I was dispirited.

Mowbray had rallied me on my pining for Cambridge, and on preferring

Israel Lyons, the Jew, to him and all the best company in London.

He had hurried me about with him to all manner of gaieties, but still I

was not happy; my mind--my heart wanted something more.

In this my London life, I found it irksome that I could never, as at

dear Cambridge, pause upon my own reflections. If I stopped awhile, “to

plume contemplation’s wings, so ruffled and impaired,” some of the low

realities, some of the impertinent necessities of fashionable life,

would tread on my heels. The order of the day or night was for ever

pressed upon me--and the order of the day was now to go to this new

sentimental comedy--my mother’s favourite actor, the silver-toned

Barry, was to play the lover of the piece; so she was sure of as many

fashionable young ladies as her box could possibly hold. At this period,

in England, every fashionable belle declared herself the partisan

of some actor or actress; and every fashionable beau aspired to the

character of a dramatic critic. Mowbray, of course, was distinguished

in that line, and his pretty little sister, Lady Anne, was, at least in

face, formed to grace the front box. The hours of the great world were

earlier then than they are now, and nothing interfered, indeed nothing

would have been suffered to interfere, with the hour for the play. As a

veteran wit described it, “There were at this time four estates in

the English Constitution, kings, lords, commons, and the theatre.”

Statesmen, courtiers, poets, philosophers, crowded pell mell with

the white-gloved beaux to the stage box and the pit. It was thought

well-bred, it was _the thing_ to be in the boxes before the third act,

even before the second, nay, incredible as it may in these times appear,

before the first act began. Our fashionable party was seated some

minutes before the curtain drew up.

CHAPTER VII.

The beaux and belles in the boxes of the crowded theatre had bowed and

curtsied, for in those days beaux did bow and belles did curtsy; the

impatient sticks in the pit, and shrill catcalls in the gallery, had

begun to contend with the music in the orchestra; and thrice had we

surveyed the house to recognize every body whom any body knew, when the

door of the box next to ours, the only box that had remained empty, was

thrown open, and in poured an over-dressed party, whom _nobody knew_.

Lady de Brantefield, after one reconnoitring glance, pronounced them to

be city Goths and Vandals; and without resting her glass upon them for

half a moment, turned it to some more profitable field of speculation.

There was no gentleman of this party, but a portly matron, towering

above the rest, seemed the principal mover and orderer of the group. The

awkward bustle they made, facing and backing, placing and changing of

places, and the difficulty they found in seating themselves, were in

striking contrast with the high-bred ease of the ladies of our party.

Lady Anne Mowbray looked down upon their operations with a pretty air

of quiet surprise, tinctured with horror; while my mother’s shrinking

delicacy endeavoured to suggest some idea of propriety to the city

matron, who having taken her station next to us in the second row, had

at last seated herself so that a considerable portion of the back part

of her head-dress was in my mother’s face: moreover, the citizen’s

huge arm, with its enormous gauze cuff, leaning on the partition which

divided, or ought to have divided, her from us, considerably passed the

line of demarcation. Lady de Brantefield, with all the pride of all

the De Brantefields since the Norman Conquest concentrated in her

countenance, threw an excommunicating, withering look upon the arm--but

the elbow felt it not--it never stirred. The lady seemed not to be made

of penetrable stuff. In happy ignorance she sat fanning herself for a

few seconds; then suddenly starting and stretching forward to the front

row, where five of her young ladies were wedged, she aimed with her fan

at each of their backs in quick succession, and in a more than audible

whisper asked, “Cecy! Issy! Henny! Queeney! Miss Coates, where’s

Berry?”--All eyes turned to look for Berry--“Oh! mercy, behind in the

back row! Miss Berry, that must not be--come forward, here’s my place

or Queeney’s,” cried Mrs. Coates, stretching backwards with her utmost

might to seize some one in the farthest corner of the back row, who

had hitherto been invisible. We expected to see in Miss Berry another

vulgarian produced, but to our surprise, we beheld one who seemed of a

different order of beings from those by whom she was surrounded. Lord

Mowbray and I looked at each other, struck by the same sentiment, pained

for this elegant timid young creature, as we saw her, all blushing and

reluctant, forced by the irresistible fat orderer of all things to “step

up on the seat,” to step forward from bench to bench, and then wait in

painful pre-eminence while Issy, and Cecy, and Queeney, and Miss Coates,

settled how they could make room, or which should vacate her seat in her

favour. In spite of the awkwardness of her situation she stood with such

quiet, resigned, yet dignified grace, that ridicule could not touch her.

The moment she was seated with her back to us, and out of hearing, Lady

de Brantefield turned to her son and asked “Who is she?”

“An East Indian, I should guess, by her dark complexion,” whispered Lady

Anne to me.

Some feather or lappet intercepted my view of her face, but from

the glimpse I caught of it as she passed, it struck me as uncommonly

interesting, though with a peculiar expression and foreign air--whether

she was handsome or not, though called upon to decide, I could not

determine. But now our attention was fixed on the stage. It was

announced to the audience that, owing to the sudden illness of the actor

who was to have performed the principal part in the comedy advertised

for this night, there was a necessity for changing the play, and they

should give in its stead the Merchant of Venice.

The Merchant of Venice and Macklin the Jew!--Murmurs of discontent from

the ladies in my box, who regretted their sentimental comedy and their

silver-toned Barry, were all lost upon me; I rejoiced that I should see

Macklin in Shylock. Before the performance began, my attention was again

caught by the proceedings of the persons in the next box. There seemed

to be some sudden cause of distress, as I gathered from exclamations

of “How unlucky!--How distressing!--What shall we do?--What can we

do?--Better go away--carriage gone!--must sit it out--May be she won’t

mind--Oh! she will--Shylock!--Jessica!--How unfortunate!--poor Miss

Berry!”

“Jessica!” whispered Mowbray to me, with an arch look: “let me pass,”

added he, just touching my shoulder. He made his way to a young lady at

the other end of the box; and I, occupying immediately the ceded place,

stationed myself so that I had a better view of my object, and could

observe her without being seen by any one. She was perfectly still, and

took no notice of the whispering of the people about her, though, from

an indescribable expression in the air of the back of her head and neck,

I was convinced that she heard all that passed among the young and old

ladies in her box. The play went on--Shylock appeared--I forgot every

thing but him.--Such a countenance!--Such an expression of latent malice

and revenge, of every thing detestable in human nature! Whether speaking

or silent, the Jew fixed and kept possession of my attention. It was an

incomparable piece of acting: much as my expectations had been raised,

it far surpassed any thing I had conceived--I forgot it was Macklin, I

thought only of Shylock. In my enthusiasm I stood up, I pressed forward,

I leaned far over towards the stage, that I might not lose a word, a

look, a gesture. When the act finished, as the curtain fell, and the

thunders of applause died away, I heard a soft low sigh near me; I

looked, and saw the Jewess! She had turned away from the young ladies

her companions, and had endeavoured to screen herself behind the pillar

against which I had been leaning. I had, for the first time, a full view

of her face and of her countenance, of great sensibility, painfully,

proudly repressed. She looked up while my eyes were fixed upon her--a

sudden and deep colour spread over her face and mounted to her temples.

In my confusion I did the very thing I should not have done, and said

the thing of all others I should not have said. I expressed a fear

that I had been standing in such a manner as to prevent her from seeing

Shylock; she bowed mildly, and was, I believe, going to speak.

“You have indeed, sir,” interrupted Mrs. Coates, “stood so that nobody

could see nothing but yourself. So, since you mention it, and speak

without an introduction, excuse me if I suggest, against the next act,

that this young lady has never been at a play before in her life--in

Lon’on, at least. And though it i’n’t the play I should have chose for

her, yet since she is here, ‘tis better she should see something

than nothing, if gentlemen will give her leave.” I bowed in sign of

submission and repentance; and was retiring, so as to leave my place

vacant, and a full opening to the stage. But in a sweet, gentlewomanlike

voice, seeming, perhaps, more delightful from contrast, the young lady

said that she had seen and could see quite as much as she wished of the

play; and she begged that I would not quit my place. “I should oblige

her,” she added, in a lower tone, “if I would continue to stand as I had

done.” I obeyed, and placed myself so as to screen her from observation

during the whole of the next act. But now, my pleasure in the play was

over. I could no longer enjoy Macklin’s incomparable acting; I was so

apprehensive of the pain which it must give to the young Jewess. At

every stroke, characteristic of the skilful actor, or of the master

poet, I felt a strange mixture of admiration and regret. I almost wished

that Shakspeare had not written, or Macklin had not acted the part so

powerfully: my imagination formed such a strong conception of the pain

the Jewess was feeling, and my inverted sympathy, if I may so call

it, so overpowered my direct and natural feelings, that at every fresh

development of the Jew’s villany I shrunk as though I had myself been a

Jew.

Each exclamation against this dog of a Jew, and still more every general

reflection on Jewish usury, avarice, and cruelty, I felt poignantly. No

power of imagination could make me pity Shylock, but I felt the force of

some of his appeals to justice; and some passages struck me in quite a

new light on the Jewish side of the question.

“Many a time, and oft,

In the Rialto, you have rated me,

About my moneys and my usances;

Still have I borne it with a patient shrug;

For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.

You call me misbeliever! cut-throat dog!

And spit upon my Jewish gabardine;

And all, for use of that which is my own.

Well, then, it now appears you need my help.

Go to, then--you come to me, and you say,

Shylock, we would have moneys; you say so.

Shall I bend low, and in a bondsman key,

With bated breath, and whisp’ring humbleness, Say this:

Fair sir, you spit on me last Wednesday;

You spurned me such a day; another time

You called me dog; and for these courtesies

I’ll lend you thus much moneys?”

As far as Shylock was concerned, I was well content he should be used in

such a sort; but if it had been any other human creature, any other Jew

even--if it had been poor Jacob, for instance, whose image crossed my

recollection--I believe I should have taken part with him. Again, I

was well satisfied that Antonio should have hindered Shylock of half

a million, should have laughed at his losses, thwarted his bargains,

cooled his friends, heated his enemies; Shylock deserved all this: but

when he came to,

“_What’s his reason?--I am a Jew_. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew

hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the

same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases,

healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and

summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you strike us,

do not we die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like

you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a

Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew,

what should his sufferance be, by Christian example? Why, revenge.”

I felt at once horror of the individual Shylock, and submission to the

strength of his appeal. During the third act, during the Jessica

scenes, I longed so much to have a look at the Jewess, that I took an

opportunity of changing my position. The ladies in our box were now so

happily occupied with some young officers of the guards, that there was

no farther danger of their staring at the Jewess. I was so placed that

I could see her, without being seen; and during the succeeding acts, my

attention was chiefly directed to the study of all the changes in

her expressive countenance. I now saw and heard the play solely with

reference to her feelings; I anticipated every stroke which could touch

her, and became every moment more and more interested and delighted with

her, from the perception that my anticipations were just, and that I

perfectly knew how to read her soul, and interpret her countenance. I

saw that the struggle to repress her emotion was often the utmost she

could endure; and at last I saw, or fancied I saw, that she grew so

pale, that, as she closed her eyes at the same instant, I was certain

she was going to faint; and quite forgetting that I was an utter

stranger to her, I started forward--and then unprovided with an apology,

could only turn to Mrs. Coates, and fear that the heat of the house was

too much for this young lady. Mrs. Coates, alarmed immediately, wished

they could get her out into the air, and regretted that her gentlemen

were not with their party to-night--there could be no getting servants

or carriage--what could be done? I eagerly offered my services, which

were accepted, and we conducted the young lady out. She did not

faint; she struggled against it; and it was evident that there was no

affectation in the case; but, on the contrary, an anxious desire not

to give trouble, and a great dread of exposing herself to public

observation. The carriage, as Mrs. Coates repeated twenty times, was

ordered not to come till after the farce, and she kept on hoping and

hoping that Miss Berry would be stout enough to go back to see “The Maid

of the Oaks.” Miss Berry did her utmost to support herself; and said she

believed she was now quite well, and could return; but I saw she wished

to get away, and I ran to see if a chair could be had. Lord Mowbray, who

had assisted in conducting the ladies out, now followed me; he saw, and

called to one of his footmen, and despatched him for a chair.

“There, now,” said Mowbray, “we may leave the rest to Mrs. Coates, who

can elbow her own way through it. Come back with me--Mrs. Abingdon plays

Lady Bab Lardoon, her favourite character--she is incomparable, and I

would not miss it for the world.”

I begged Mowbray to go back, for I could not leave these ladies.

“Well,” said he, parting from me, and pursuing his own way, “I see how

it is--I see how it will be. These things are ruled in heaven above, or

hell beneath. ‘Tis in vain struggling with one’s destiny--so you to your

Jewess, and I to my little Jessica. We shall have her again, I hope, in

the farce, the prettiest creature I ever saw.”

Mowbray hastened back to his box, and how long it might be between my

return to the Jewess, and the arrival of the chair, I do not know: it

seemed to me not above two minutes, but Mowbray insisted upon it, that

it was a full quarter of an hour. He came to me again, just as I had

received one look of silent gratitude; and while I was putting the young

lady into the chair, and bustling Mrs. Coates was giving her orders and

address to the servant, Mowbray whispered me that my mother was in an

agony, and had sent him out to see what was become of me. Mrs. Coates,

all thanks, and apologies, and hurry, now literally elbowed her way back

to her box, expressing her reiterated fears that we should lose the best

part of “The Maid of the Oaks,” which was the only farce she made it a

rule ever to stay for. In spite of her hurry and her incessant talking,

I named the thing I was intent upon. I said, that with her permission

I should do myself the honour of calling upon her the next morning to

inquire after Miss Berry’s health.

“I am sure, sir,” she replied, “Mr. Alderman Coates, and myself, will be

particularly glad of the honour of seeing you tomorrow, or any time;

and moreover, sir, the young lady,” added she, with a shrewd, and to

me offensive smile, “the young lady no doubt’s well worth inquiring

after--a great heiress, as the saying is, as rich as a Jew she’ll be,

Miss Montenero.”

“Miss Montenero!” repeated Lord Mowbray and I, in the same instant. “I

thought,” said I, “this young lady’s name was Berry.

“Berry, yes--Berry, we call her, we who are intimate, I call her

for short--that is short for Berenice, which is her out o’ the way

Christian, that is, Jewish name. Mr. Montenero, the father, is a Spanish

or American Jew, I’m not clear which, but he’s a charming man for a Jew,

and the daughter most uncommon fond of him, to a degree! Can’t, now,

bear any reflections the most distant, now, sir, upon the Jews, which

was what distressed me when I found the play was to be this Jew of

Venice, and I would have come away, only that I couldn’t possibly.” Here

Mrs. Coates, without any mercy upon my curiosity about Mr. Montenero and

his daughter, digressed into a subject utterly uninteresting to me, and

would explain to us the reasons why Mr. Alderman Coates and Mr. Peter

Coates her son were not this night of her party. This lasted till we

reached her box, and then she had so much to say to all the Miss Issys,

Cecys, and Hennys, that it was with the utmost difficulty I could, even

by carefully watching my moment, obtain a card with her own, and another

with Miss Montenero’s address. This time there was no danger of my

losing it. I rejoiced to see that Miss Montenero did not live with Mrs.

Coates.

For all further satisfaction of my curiosity, I was obliged to wait till

the next morning.

CHAPTER VIII.

During the whole of the night, sleeping or waking, the images of the

fair Jewess, of Shylock, and of Mrs. Coates, were continually recurring,

and turning into one another in a most provoking manner. At breakfast my

mother did not appear; my father said that she had not slept well, and

that she would breakfast in her own apartment; this was not unusual; but

I was particularly sorry that it happened this morning, because, being

left _tête-à-tête_ with my father, and he full of a debate on the

malt-tax, which he undertook to read to me from the rival papers, and to

make me understand its merits, I was compelled to sit three-quarters of

an hour longer after breakfast than I had intended; so that the plan

I had formed of waiting upon Mr. Montenero very early, before he could

have gone out for the day, was disconcerted. When at last my father had

fairly finished, when he had taken his hat and his cane, and departing

left me, as I thought, happily at liberty to go in search of my Jewess,

another detainer came. At the foot of the stairs my mother’s woman

appeared, waiting to let me know that her lady begged I would not go out

till she had seen me--adding, that she would be with me in less than a

quarter of an hour.

I flung down my hat, I believe, with rather too marked an expression of

impatience; but five minutes afterwards came a knock at the door. Mr.

Montenero was announced, and I blessed my mother, my father, and the

malt-tax, for having detained me at home. The first appearance of Mr.

Montenero more than answered my expectations. He had that indescribable

air, which, independently of the fashion of the day, or the mode of any

particular country, distinguishes a gentleman--dignified, courteous, and

free from affectation. From his features, he might have been thought

a Spaniard--from his complexion, an East Indian; but he had a peculiar

cast of countenance, which seemed not to belong to either nation. He had

uncommonly black penetrating eyes, with a serious, rather melancholy,

but very benevolent expression. He was past the meridian of life.

The lines in his face were strongly marked; but they were not the

common-place wrinkles of ignoble age, nor the contractions of any of the

vulgar passions: they seemed to be the traces of thought and feeling. He

entered into conversation directly and easily. I need not say that this

conversation was immediately interesting, for he spoke of Berenice. His

thanks to me were, I thought, peculiarly gentlemanlike, neither too

much nor too little. Of course, I left him at liberty to attribute her

indisposition to the heat of the playhouse, and I stood prepared to

avoid mentioning Shylock to Jewish ears; but I was both surprised and

pleased by the openness and courage with which he spoke on the very

subject from which I had fancied he would have shrunk. Instead of

looking for any excuse for Miss Montenero’s indisposition, he at once

named the real cause; she had been, he said, deeply affected by the

representation of Shylock; that detestable Jew, whom the genius of the

greatest poet that ever wrote, and the talents of one of the greatest

actors who had ever appeared, had conspired to render an object of

public execration. “But recently arrived in London,” continued Mr.

Montenero, “I have not had personal opportunity of judging of this

actor’s talent; but no Englishman can have felt more strongly than I

have, the power of your Shakspeare’s genius to touch and rend the human

heart.”

Mr. Montenero spoke English with a foreign accent, and something of a

foreign idiom; but his ideas and feelings forced their way regardless of

grammatical precision, and I thought his foreign accent agreeable. To an

Englishman, what accent that conveys the praise of Shakspeare can

fail to be agreeable? The most certain method by which a foreigner

an introduce himself at once to the good-will and good opinion of an

Englishman, is by thus doing homage to this national object of idolatry.

I perceived that Mr. Montenero’s was not a mere compliment--he spoke

with real feeling. “In this instance,” resumed he, “we poor Jews have

felt your Shakspeare’s power to our cost--too severely, and, considering

all the circumstances, rather unjustly, you are aware.”

“_Considering all the circumstances_,” I did not precisely understand;

but I endeavoured, as well as I could, to make some general apology for

Shakspeare’s severity, by adverting to the time when he wrote, and the

prejudices which then prevailed.

“True,” said he; “and as a dramatic poet, it was his business, I

acknowledge, to take advantage of the popular prejudice as a _power_--as

a means of dramatic pathos and effect; yet you will acknowledge that we

Jews must feel it peculiarly hard, that the truth of the story on which

the poet founded his plot should have been completely sacrificed to

fiction, so that the characters were not only misrepresented, but

reversed.”

I did not know to what Mr. Montenero meant to allude: however, I

endeavoured to pass it off with a slight bow of general acquiescence,

and the hundred-times-quoted remark, that poets always succeed better

in fiction than in truth. Mr. Montenero had quick penetration--he saw my

evasion, and would not let me off so easily. He explained.

“In the _true_ story, [Footnote: See Stevens’ Life of Sixtus V.,

and Malone’s Shakspeare.] from which Shakspeare took the plot of the

Merchant of Venice, it was a Christian who acted the part of the Jew,

and the Jew that of the Christian; it was a Christian who insisted

upon having the pound of flesh from next the Jew’s heart. But,” as

Mr. Montenero repeated, “Shakspeare was right, as a dramatic poet, in

reversing the characters.”

Seeing me struck, and a little confounded, by this statement, and even

by his candour, Mr. Montenero said, that perhaps his was only the Jewish

version of the story, and he quickly went on to another subject, one far

more agreeable to me--to Berenice. He hoped that I did not suspect her

of affectation from any thing that had passed; he was aware, little

as he knew of fine ladies, that they sometimes were pleased to make

themselves noticed, perhaps rather troublesome, by the display of their

sensibility; but he assured me that his Berenice was not of this sort.

Of this I was perfectly convinced. The moment he pronounced the name of

Berenice, he paused, and looked as if he were afraid he should say too

much of her; and I suppose I looked as I felt--afraid that he would not

say enough. He gently bowed his head and went on. “There are reasons why

she was peculiarly touched and moved by that exhibition. Till she came

to Europe--to England--she was not aware, at least not practically

aware, of the strong prepossessions which still prevail against us

Jews.” He then told me that his daughter had passed her childhood

chiefly in America, “in a happy part of that country, where religious

distinctions are scarcely known--where characters and talents are all

sufficient to attain advancement--where the Jews form a respectable part

of the community--where, in most instances, they are liberally educated,

many following the honourable professions of law and physic with credit

and ability, and associating with the best society that country affords.

Living in a retired village, her father’s the only family of Israelites

who resided in or near it, all her juvenile friendships and attachments

had been formed with those of different persuasions; yet each had looked

upon the variations of the other as things of course, or rather as

things which do not affect the moral character--differences which take

place in every society.”--“My daughter was, therefore, ill prepared,”

said Mr. Montenero, “for European prepossessions; and with her feeling

heart and strong affection for those she loves, no wonder that she has

often suffered, especially on my account, since we came to England; and

she has become, to a fault, tender and susceptible on this point.”

I could not admit that there was any fault on her part; but I regretted

that England should be numbered among the countries subject to such

prejudices. I hoped, I added, that such illiberality was now confined to

the vulgar, that is, the ill-educated and the ill-informed.

The well-educated and well-informed, he answered, were, of course,

always the most liberal, and were usually the same in all countries. He

begged pardon if he had expressed himself too generally with respect

to England. It was the common fault of strangers and foreigners to

generalize too quickly, and to judge precipitately of the whole of a

community from a part. The fact was, that he had, by the business which

brought him to London, been unfortunately thrown among some vulgar

rich of contracted minds, who, though they were, as he was willing

to believe, essentially good and good-natured persons, had made his

Berenice suffer, sometimes more than they could imagine, by their want

of delicacy, and want of toleration.

As Mr. Montenero spoke these words, the image of vulgar, ordering Mrs.

Coates--that image which had persecuted me half the night, by ever

obtruding between me and the fair Jewess--rose again full in my view. I

settled immediately, that it was she and her tribe of Issys, and Cecys,

and Hennys, and Queeneys, were “the vulgar rich” to whom Mr. Montenero

alluded. I warmly expressed my indignation against those who could

have been so brutal as to make Miss Montenero suffer by their vile

prejudices.

“_Brutal_,” Mr. Montenero repeated, smiling at my warmth, “is too strong

an expression: there was no brutality in the case. I must have expressed

myself ill to give rise to such an idea. There was only a little want of

consideration for the feelings of others--a little want of liberality.”

Even so I could not bear the thought that Miss Montenero should have

been, on her first arrival in England, thrown among persons who might

give her quite a false idea of the English, and a dislike to the

country.

“There is no danger of that sort,” he replied. “Had she been disposed to

judge so rashly and uncharitably, the humane and polite attentions she

met with last night from a gentleman who was an utter stranger to her,

and who could only know that she was a foreigner in want of assistance,

must have been to her at once conviction and reproof.” (I bowed,

delighted with Mr. Montenero and with myself.) “But I hope and believe,”

continued he, “that my Berenice is not disposed to form uncharitable

judgments either of individuals or nations; especially not of the

English, of whom she has, from their history and literature, with which

we are not wholly unacquainted, conceived the highest ideas.” I bowed

again, though not quite so much delighted with this general compliment

to my nation as by that peculiar to myself. I expressed my hopes that

the English would justify this favourable prepossession, and that on

farther acquaintance with different societies in London, Mr. and Miss

Montenero would find, that among the higher classes in this country

there is no want of liberality of opinion, and certainly no want of

delicacy of sentiment and manner--no want of attention to the feelings

of those who are of a different persuasion from ourselves. Just at this

moment my mother entered the room. Advancing towards Mr. Montenero, she

said, with a gracious smile, “You need not introduce us to each other,

my dear Harrington, for I am sure that I have the pleasure of seeing Mr.

Clive, from India.”

“Mr. Montenero, from America, ma’am.”

“Mr. Montenero! I am happy to have the honour--the pleasure--I am very

happy--”

My mother’s politeness struggled against truth; but whilst I feared that

Mr. Montenero’s penetration would discern that there was no pleasure

in the honour, a polite inquiry followed concerning Miss Montenero’s

indisposition. Then, after an ineffectual effort to resume the ease and

cordiality of her manner, my mother leaned back languidly on the sofa,

and endeavoured to account for the cloud which settled on her brow by

adverting to the sleepless night she had passed, and to the fears of an

impending headache; assuring Mr. Montenero at the same time that society

and conversation were always of service to her. I was particularly

anxious to detain, and to draw him out before my mother, because I felt

persuaded that his politeness of manner, and his style of conversation,

would counteract any _presentiment_ or prejudice she had conceived

against him and his race. He seemed to lend himself to my views, and

with benevolent politeness exerted himself to entertain my mother. A Don

Quixote was on the table, in which there were some good prints, and from

these he took occasion to give us many amusing and interesting accounts

of Spain, where he had passed the early part of his life. From Don

Quixote to Gil Blas--to the Duc de Lerma--to the tower of Segovia--to

the Inquisition--to the Spanish palaces and Moorish antiquities, he let

me lead him backwards and forwards as I pleased. My mother was very fond

of some of the old Spanish ballads and Moorish romances: I led to the

_Rio Verde_, and the fair Zaida, and the Moor Alcanzor, with whom both

in their Moorish and English dress Mr. Montenero was well acquainted,

and of whom he was enthusiastically fond.

My mother was fond of painting: I asked some questions concerning the

Spanish painters, particularly about Murillo; of one of his pictures

we had a copy, and my mother had often wished to see the original. Mr.

Montenero said he was happy in having it in his power to gratify her

wish; he possessed the original of this picture. But few of Murillo’s

paintings had at this time found their way out of Spain; national and

regal pride had preserved them with jealous care; but Mr. Montenero

had inherited some of Murillo’s master-pieces. These, and a small but

valuable collection of pictures which he had been many years in forming,

were now in England: they were not yet arranged as he could wish, but

an apartment was preparing for them; and in the mean time, he should

be happy to have the honour of showing them to us and to any of our

friends. He particularly addressed himself to my mother; she replied in

those general terms of acquiescence and gratitude, which are used when

there is no real intention to accept an invitation, but yet a wish to

avoid such an absolute refusal as should appear ill-bred. I, on the

contrary, sincerely eager to accept the offered favour, fixed instantly

the time, and the soonest possible. I named the next day at one o’clock.

Mr. Montenero then took his leave, and as the door closed after him, I

stood before my mother, as if waiting for judgment; she was silent.

“Don’t you think him agreeable, ma’am?”

“Very agreeable.”

“I knew you would think so, my dear mother; an uncommonly agreeable

man.”

“But--”

“But what, ma’am?”

“But so much the worse.”

“How so, ma’am? Because he is a Jew, is he forbidden to be agreeable?”

said I, smiling.

“Pray be serious, Harrington--I say the more agreeable this man is, the

better his manner, the more extensive his information, the higher the

abilities he possesses, the greater are his means of doing mischief.” “A

conclusive argument,” said. I, “against the possession of good manners,

information, abilities, and every agreeable and useful quality! and an

argument equally applicable to Jews and Christians.”

“Argument!” repeated my mother: “I know, my dear, I am not capable

of arguing with you--indeed I am not fond of arguments, they are so

unfeminine: I seldom presume to give even my opinion, except on subjects

of sentiment and feeling; there ladies may venture, I suppose, to have

a voice as well as gentlemen, perhaps better, sometimes. In the present

case, it may be very ridiculous; but I own that, notwithstanding this

Mr. Montenero is what you’d call an uncommonly agreeable man, there is

a something about him--in short, I feel something like an antipathy

to him--and in the whole course of my life I have never been misled by

these _antipathies_. I don’t say they are reasonable, I only say that

I can’t help feeling them; and if they never mislead us, you know

they have all the force of instincts, and in some cases instincts are

superior even to that reason of which man is so proud.”

I did not advert to the _if_, on which this whole reasoning rested, but

I begged my mother would put herself out of the question for one moment,

and consider to what injustice and intolerance such antipathies would

lead in society.

“Perhaps in general it might be so,” she said; “but in this particular

instance she was persuaded she was right and _correct_; and after all,

is there a human being living who is not influenced at first sight by

countenance! Does not Lavater say that even a cockchafer and a dish of

tea have a physiognomy?”

I could not go quite so far as to admit the cockchafer’s physiognomy in

our judgment of characters. “But then, ma’am,” concluded I, “before we

can judge, before we can decide, we should see what is called the play

of the countenance--we should see the working of the muscles. Now, for

instance, when we have seen Mr. Montenero two or three times, when we

have studied the muscles of his countenance--”

“I! I study the muscles of the man’s countenance!” interrupted my

mother, indignantly; “I never desire to see him or his muscles again!

Jew, Turk, or _Mussulman_, let me hear no more about him. Seriously, my

dear Harrington, this is the subject on which I wished to speak to you

this morning, to warn you from forming this dangerous acquaintance.

I dreamed last night--but I know you won’t listen to dreams; I have a

_presentiment_--but you have no faith in _presentiments_: what shall I

say to you?--Oh! my dear Harrington, I appeal to your own heart--your

own feelings, your own conscience, must tell you all I at this moment

foresee and dread. Oh! with your ardent, too ardent imagination--your

susceptibility! Surely, surely, there is an absolute fatality in these

things! At the very moment I was preparing to warn you, Mr. Montenero

appears, and strengthens the dangerous impression. And after all the

pains I took to prevent your ever meeting, is it not extraordinary that

you should meet his daughter at the playhouse? Promise me, I conjure

you,” cried she, turning and seizing both my hands, “promise me, my dear

son, that you will see no more of this Jew and Jewess.”

It was a promise I could not, would not make:--some morning visitors

came in and relieved me. My mother’s imagination was as vivacious, but

not as tenacious as my own. There was in her a feminine mobility, which,

to my masculine strength of passion, and consequent tenacity of purpose,

appeared often inconceivable, and sometimes provoking. In a few minutes

her fancy turned to old china and new lace, and all the fears which had

so possessed and agitated her mind subsided.

Among the crowd of morning visitors, Lady Anne Mowbray ran in and

ran out; fortunately she could not stay one minute, and still more

fortunately my mother did not hear a word she said, or even see her

ladyship’s exit and entrance, so many ladies had encompassed my

mother’s sofa, displaying charming bargains of French lace. The subject

abstracted their attention, and engrossed all their faculties. Lady Anne

had just called to tell me a secret, that her mother had been saying

all the morning to every body, how odd it was of Mr. Harrington to take

notice whether a Jewess fainted or not. Lady Anne said, for her part,

she had taken my part; she did not think it _so_ odd of me, but she

thought it odd and ridiculous of the Jewess to faint about Shylock. But

the reason she called was, because she was dying with curiosity to know

if I had heard any more about the Jewess. Was she an heiress or not? I

must find out and tell: she had heard--but she could not stay now--going

to ride in the park.

I had often observed that my mother’s _presentiments_ varied from day

to day, according to the state of her nerves, or of some slight external

circumstances. I was extremely anxious to prevail upon her to accompany

me to see the Spanish pictures, and I therefore put off my visit for

a day, when I found my mother had engaged herself to attend a party of

fair encouragers of smugglers to a cheap French lace shop. I wrote an

apology to Mr. Montenero, and Heaven knows how much it cost me. But

my heroic patience was of no avail; I could not persuade my mother to

accompany me. To all her former feelings, the pride of opinion and the

jealousy of maternal affection were now added; she was piqued to prove

herself in the right, and vexed to see that, right or wrong, I would not

yield to her entreaties. I thought I acted solely from the dictates of

pure reason and enlightened philanthropy.

CHAPTER IX.

Mowbray was curious, he said, to know how the Jewess would look by

daylight, and he begged that he might accompany me to see the pictures.

As I had told him that I had permission to take with me any of my

friends, I could not refuse his request, though I must own that I would

rather have gone without him. I was a little afraid of his raillery, and

of the quickness of his observation. During our walk, however, he with

address--with that most irresistible kind of address, which assumes

an air of perfect frankness and cordiality, contrived to dissipate my

feelings of embarrassment; and by the time we got to Mr. Montenero’s

door, I rejoiced that I had with me a friend and supporter.

“A handsome house--a splendid house, this,” said Mowbray, looking up

at the front, as we waited for admission. “If the inside agree with the

out, faith, Harrington, your Jewish heiress will soon be heard of

on ‘Change, and at court too, you’ll see. Make haste and secure your

interest in her, I advise you.”

To our great disappointment the servant told us that neither Mr. nor

Miss Montenero was at home. But orders had been left with a young man

of his to attend me and my company. At this moment I heard a well-known

voice on the stairs, and Jacob, poor Jacob, appeared: joy flashed in

his face at the sight of me; he flew down stairs, and across the hall,

exclaiming, “It is--it is my own good Mr. Harrington!”

But he started back at the sight of Mowbray, and his whole countenance

and manner changed. In an embarrassed voice, he began to explain why

Mr. Montenero was not at home; that he had waited yesterday in hopes of

seeing me at the appointed time, till my note of apology had arrived.

I had not positively named any day for my visit, and Mr. Montenero had

particular business that obliged him to go out this morning, but that he

would be back in an hour: “Meantime, sir, as Mr. Montenero has desired,”

said Jacob, “I shall have the honour of showing the pictures to you and

your friend.”

It was not till he came to the words _your friend_, that Jacob

recollected to bow to Lord Mowbray, and even then it was a stiff-necked

bow. Mowbray, contrary to his usual assurance, looked a little

embarrassed, yet spoke to Jacob as to an old acquaintance.

Jacob led us through several handsome, I might say splendid, apartments,

to the picture-room.

“Good! Good!” whispered Mowbray, as we went along, till the moment

we entered the picture-room; then making a sudden stop, and start of

recollection, and pulling out his watch, he declared that he had till

that minute forgotten an indispensable engagement--that he must come

some other day to see these charming pictures. He begged that I would

settle that for him--he was excessively sorry, but go he must--and off

he went immediately.

The instant he was out of sight, Jacob seemed relieved from the

disagreeable constraint under which he laboured, and his delight was

manifest when he had me to himself. I conceived that Jacob still

felt resentment against Mowbray, for the old quarrel at school. I was

surprised at this, and in my own mind I blamed Jacob.

I have always found it the best way to speak openly, and to go to the

bottom of mysteries and quarrels at once: so turning to Jacob, I asked

him, whether, in right of our former acquaintance, I might speak to him

with the freedom of one who heartily wished him well? The tears came

into his eyes, and he could only say, “Speak, pray--and thank you, sir.”

“Then, Jacob,” said I, “I thought you could not for such a number of

years bear malice for a schoolboy’s offence; and yet your manner just

now to Lord Mowbray--am I mistaken?--set me right, if I am--did I

misinterpret your manner, Jacob?”

“No, sir,” said he, looking up in my face, with his genuine expression

of simplicity and openness; “no, sir, you do not mistake, nor

misinterpret Jacob’s manner; you know him too well, and his manner tells

too plainly; you do not misinterpret the feeling, but you mistake the

cause; and since you are so kind as to desire me to set you right, I

will do so; but it is too long a story to tell while you are standing.”

“Not at all--I am interested--go on.”

“I should not,” said Jacob, “be worthy of this interest--this regard,

which it is joy to my very heart to see that you still feel for me--I

should not be worthy in the least of it, if I could bear malice so many

years for a schoolboy’s offence.

“No, Mr. Harrington, the schoolboy young lord is forgotten. But long

since that time, since this young lord has been grown into a man, and an

officer--at Gibraltar--”

The recollection of whatever it was that happened at Gibraltar seemed to

come at this instant so full upon Jacob’s feelings, that he could not go

on. He took up his story farther back. He reminded me of the time when

we had parted at Cambridge; he was then preparing to go to Gibraltar,

to assist in keeping a store there, for the brother and partner of

his friend and benefactor, the London jeweller, Mr. Manessa, who had

ventured a very considerable part of his fortune upon this speculation.

About that time many Jews had enriched themselves at Gibraltar, by

keeping stores for the troops; and during the siege it was expected that

it would be a profitable business. Mr. Manessa’s store under Jacob’s

care went on prosperously till the day when Lord Mowbray arrived at

Gibraltar with a regiment, of which, young as he was, he had been

appointed lieutenant-colonel: “He recognized me the first time we met;

I saw he was grown into a fine-looking officer; and indeed, Mr.

Harrington, I saw him, without bearing the least malice for any little

things that had passed, which I thought, as you say, were only schoolboy

follies. But in a few minutes I found, to my sorrow, that he was not

changed in mind towards me.

“His first words at meeting me in the public streets were, ‘So! are

you here, _young Shylock?_ What brings you to Gibraltar? You are of the

tribe of Gad, I think, _thou Wandering Jew!_’

“Lord Mowbray’s servants heard, and caught their lord’s witticism: the

serjeants and soldiers repeated the colonel’s words, and the nicknames

spread through the regiment, and through the garrison; wherever I

turned, I heard them echoed: poor Jacob was called _young Shylock_ by

some, and by others the _Wandering Jew_. It was a bitter jest, and soon

became bitter earnest.

“The ignorant soldiers really believed me to be that Jew whom Christians

most abominate. [Footnote: See Percy’s Reliques of Ancient Poetry, for

the ballad of the Wandering Jew.]

“The common people felt a superstitious dread of me: the mothers charged

their children to keep out of my way; and if I met them in the streets,

they ran away and hid themselves.

“You may think, sir, I was not happy. I grew melancholy; and my

melancholy countenance, they said, was a proof that I was what I was

said to be. I was ashamed to show my face. I lost all relish for my

food, and began to pine away. My master noticed it, and he was sorry

for me; he took my part, and spoke to the young lord, who thereupon grew

angry, and high words passed; the young lord cursed at my master for an

insolent Jew dog. As to me, his lordship swore that he knew me from a

boy; that he had known enough of my tricks, and that of course for that

I must bear him malice; and he vowed I should not bear it to him for

nothing.

“From that day there was a party raised against us in the garrison. Lord

Mowbray’s soldiers of course took his part; and those who were most

his favourites abused us the most. They never passed our store any day

without taunt and insult; ever repeating the names their colonel had

given me. It was hard to stand still and mute, and bear every thing,

without reply. But I was determined not to bring my master into any

quarrel, so I bore all. Presently the time came when there was great

distress for provisions in the garrison; then the cry against the Jews

was terrible: but I do not wish to say more of what followed than is

necessary to my own story. You must have heard, sir, of the riot at

Gibraltar, the night when the soldiery broke into the spirit stores?”

I had read accounts of some such thing in the newspapers of the day;

I had heard of excesses committed by the soldiery, who were enraged

against the Jew merchants; and I recollected some story [Footnote:

Drinkwater’s Siege of Gibraltar.] of the soldiers having roasted a pig

before a Jew’s door, with a fire made of the Jew’s own cinnamon.

“That fire, sir,” said Jacob, “was made before our door: it was kindled

by a party of Lord Mowbray’s soldiers, who, madly intoxicated with

the spirits they had taken from the stores, came in the middle of that

dreadful night to our house, and with horrible shouts, called upon my

master to give up to them the _Wandering Jew_. My master refusing to do

this, they burst open his house, pillaged, wasted, destroyed, and burnt

all before our eyes! We lost every thing! I do not mean to say _we--I_,

poor Jacob, had little to lose. It is not of that, though it was my all,

it is not of that I speak--but my master! From a rich man in one hour he

became a beggar! The fruit of all his labour lost--nothing left for

his wife or children! I never can forget his face of despair by that

fire-light. I think I see it now! He did not recover it, sir,--he died

of a broken heart. He was the best and kindest of masters to me. And can

you wonder now, Mr. Harrington, or do you blame Jacob, that he could

not look upon that lord with a pleased eye, nor smile when he saw him

again?”

I did not blame Jacob--I liked him for the warmth of his feeling for his

master. When he was a little composed, however, I represented that his

affection and pity might have raised his indignation too strongly,

and might have made him impute to Lord Mowbray a greater share than he

really had in their misfortunes. Lord Mowbray was a very young officer

at that time, too young to be trusted with the command of men in such

difficult circumstances. His lordship had been exceedingly blamable in

giving, even in jest, the nicknames which had prejudiced his soldiers

against an innocent individual; but I could not conceive that he had a

serious design to injure; nor could he, as I observed, possibly foresee

the fatal consequences that afterwards ensued. As to the excesses of

his soldiers, for their want of discipline he was answerable; but Jacob

should recollect the distress to which the soldiers had been previously

reduced, and the general prejudice against those who were supposed to be

the cause of the scarcity. Lord Mowbray might be mistaken like others;

but as to his permitting their outrages, or directing them against

individual Jews whom he disliked, I told Jacob it was impossible for me

to believe it. Why did not the Jew merchant state his complaint to the

general, who had, as Jacob allowed, punished all the soldiers who

had been convicted of committing outrages? If Lord Mowbray had been

complained of by Mr. Manessa, a court-martial would have been held;

and if the charges had been substantiated, his title of colonel or lord

would have availed him nothing--he would have been broke. Jacob

said, his poor master, who was ruined and in despair, thought not of

courts-martial--perhaps he had no legal proofs--perhaps he dreaded, with

reason, the popular prejudice in the garrison, and dared not, being a

Jew, appear against a Christian officer. How that might have been, Jacob

said, he did not know--all he knew was that his master was very ill, and

that he returned to England soon afterwards.

But still, argued I, if Lord Mowbray had not been brought to a

court-martial, if it had been known among his brother officers that he

had been guilty of such unofficer-like conduct, no British officer would

have kept company with him. I was therefore convinced that Jacob

must have been misinformed and deceived by exaggerated reports, and

prejudiced by the warmth of his own feelings for the loss of his master.

Jacob listened to me with a look of incredulity, yet as if with a wish

to believe that I was right: he softened gradually--he struggled with

his feelings.

“He knew,” he said, “that it was our Christian precept to forgive our

enemies--a very good precept: but was it easy? Did all Christians find

it easy to put it in practice? And you, Mr. Harrington, you who can have

no enemies, how can you judge?”

Jacob ended by promising, with a smile, that he would show me that a Jew

could forgive.

Then, eager to discard the subject, he spoke of other things. I thanked

him for his having introduced me to Mr. Israel Lyons:--he was delighted

to hear of the advantage I had derived from this introduction at

Cambridge, and of its having led to my acquaintance with Mr. Montenero.

He had been informed of my meeting Miss Montenero at the theatre: and

he told me of his hopes and fears when he heard her say she had been

assisted by a gentleman of the name of Harrington.

I did not venture, however, to speak much of Miss Montenero; but I

expatiated on the pleasure I had in Mr. Montenero’s conversation, and on

the advantages I hoped to derive from cultivating his society.

Jacob, always more disposed to affection and gratitude than to suspicion

or revenge, seemed happy to be relieved from the thoughts of Lord

Mowbray, and he appeared inspired with fresh life and spirit when he

talked of Mr. Montenero and his daughter. He mentioned their kindness

to the widow and children of his deceased master, and of Mr. Montenero’s

goodness to the surviving brother and partner, the London jeweller,

Mr. Manessa, Jacob’s first benefactor. The Manessas had formerly been

settled in Spain, at the time Mr. Montenero had lived there; and when

he was in some difficulties with the Inquisition, they had in some

way essentially served him, either in assisting his escape from that

country, or in transmitting his property. Jacob was not acquainted with

the particulars, but he knew that Mr. Montenero was most grateful for

the obligation, whatever it had been; and now that he was rich and the

Manessas in distress, he seemed to think he could never do enough for

them. Jacob became first acquainted, as he told me, with Mr. Montenero

in consequence of his connexion with this family. The widow had

represented him as being a faithful friend, and the two children of

his deceased master were fond of him. Mr. Montenero’s attachment to the

Manessas immediately made him take notice of Jacob. Jacob told me that

he was to go to their house in the city, and to take charge of their

affairs, as soon as they could be settled; and that Mr. Montenero

had promised if possible to obtain for him a share in the firm of the

surviving brother and partner. In the mean time Jacob was employed

by Mr. Montenero in making out catalogues of his books and pictures,

arranging his library and cabinet of medals, &c., to all which he was

fully competent. Jacob said he rejoiced that these occupations would

keep him a little while longer at Mr. Montenero’s, as he should there

have more frequent opportunities of seeing me, than he could hope for

when he should be at the other end of the town. “Besides,” added he,

“I don’t know how I shall ever be able to do without the kindness Mr.

Montenero shows me; and as for Miss Montenero--!” Jacob’s countenance

expanded, and his voice was by turns softened into tenderness, and

raised to enthusiasm, as he again spoke of the father and daughter:

and when my mind was touched and warmed by his panegyric of

Berenice--pronounced with the true eloquence of the heart--she, leaning

on her father’s arm, entered the room. The dignified simplicity,

the graceful modesty of her appearance, so unlike the fashionable

forwardness or the fashionable bashfulness, or any of the various airs

of affectation, which I had seen in Lady Anne Mowbray and her class of

young ladies, charmed me perhaps the more from contrast and from the

novelty of the charm. There was a timid sensibility in her countenance

when I spoke to her, which joined to the feminine reserve of her whole

manner, the tone of her voice, and the propriety and elegance of the

very little she said, pleased me inexpressibly. I wished only that she

had said more. However, when her father spoke, it seemed to be almost

the same as if she spoke herself--her sympathy with him appeared so

strongly. He began by speaking of Jacob: he was glad to find that I was

_the_ Mr. Harrington whom Jacob had been so eager to see. It was evident

that they knew all the good that grateful young man could tell of me;

and the smile which I received from the father and daughter at this

instant would have overpaid me for any obligations I could have

conferred. Jacob retired, observing that he had taken up all the time

with the history of his own private affairs, and that I had not yet

seen any of the pictures. Mr. Montenero immediately led me to one of

Murillo’s, regretting that he had not the pleasure of showing it to my

mother. I began to speak of her sorrow at not being able to venture out;

I made some apology, but whatever it was, I am sure I did not, I could

not, pronounce it well. Mr. Montenero bowed his head courteously,

removed his eyes from my face, and glanced for one moment at Miss

Montenero with a look of regret, quickly succeeded by an expression in

his countenance of calm and proud independence. He was sorry, he

said, that he could not have the honour of seeing Mrs. Harrington--the

pleasure of presenting his daughter to her.

I perceived that he was aware of what I had hoped had escaped his

penetration--my mother’s prepossession against him and his daughter. I

saw that he attributed it to a general prejudice against his race and

religion, and I perceived that this hurt his feelings much, though his

pride or his philosophy quickly repressed his sensibility. He never

afterwards spoke of my mother--never hoped to see her another day--nor

hoped even that the cold, which had prevented her from venturing out,

would be better. I was the more vexed and ashamed that I had not been

able to bring my mother with me. I turned the conversation as quickly as

I could to Mr. Israel Lyons.

I observed, by what Mr. Montenero said, that from the information he had

received from Mr. Lyons and from Jacob, he was thoroughly aware of my

early prejudices and antipathy to the Jews. He observed to his daughter,

that Mr. Harrington had double merit in his present liberality, since he

had conquered what it is so difficult, scarcely possible, completely to

conquer--an early prepossession, fostered perhaps by the opinion of many

who must have had great influence on his mind. Through this compliment,

I thought I saw in Mr. Montenero’s, and still more in the timid

countenance of his daughter, a fear that I might relapse; and that

_these early prepossessions, which were so difficult, scarcely possible,

completely to conquer_, might recur. I promised myself that I should

soon convince them they were mistaken, if they had formed any such

notion, and I was flattered by the fear, as it implied that I had

inspired some interest. We went on with the pictures. Not being a

connoisseur, though fond of the arts, I was relieved and pleased to find

that Mr. Montenero had none of the jargon of connoisseurship: while his

observations impressed me with a high idea of his taste and judgment,

they gave me some confidence in my own. I was delighted to find that I

understood, and could naturally and truly agree with all he said, and

that my untutored preferences were what they ought to be, according to

the right rules of art and science. In short, I was proud to find that

my taste was in general the same as his and his daughter’s. What pleased

me far more than Mr. Montenero’s taste, was the liberality and the

enlargement of mind I saw in all his opinions and sentiments. There was

in him a philosophic calmness and moderation; his reason seemed to have

worked against great natural sensibility, perhaps susceptibility, till

this calm had become the unvarying temper of his mind. I fancied, also,

that I perceived a constant care in him to cultivate the same temper in

his daughter, and to fortify her against that extreme sensibility to

the opinion of others, and that diffidence of herself, to which, as I

recollected, he had formerly adverted.

After having admired some of Murillo’s pictures, we came to one which I,

unpractised as I was in judging of painting, immediately perceived to be

inferior.

“You are quite right,” said Mr. Montenero; “it is inferior to Murillo,

and the sudden sense of this inferiority absolutely broke the painter’s

heart. This picture is by a painter of the name of Castillo, who had

thought comfortably well of himself, till he saw the master-pieces

of Murillo’s genius; Castillo surveyed them for some time in absolute

silence, then turning away, exclaimed _Castillo is no more!_ and soon

Castillo was no more. From that moment he pined away, and shortly

afterwards died: not from envy,” continued Mr. Montenero; “no, he was a

man of mild, amiable temper, incapable of envy; but he fell a victim

to excessive sensibility--a dangerous, though not a common vice of

character.”

“Weakness, not vice, I hope,” I heard Miss Montenero say in a low voice.

The father answered with a sigh, “_that_, however, cannot be called a

virtue, which incapacitates from the exercise of independent virtue, and

which, as you find, not only depresses genius, but may extinguish life

itself.”

Mr. Montenero then turned to me, and with composure went on speaking of

the pictures. Ever since I knew I was to see these, I had been studying

Cumberland’s Lives of the Spanish Painters, and this I honestly told

Mr. Montenero, when he complimented me upon my knowing all the names and

anecdotes to which he alluded: he smiled--so did his daughter; and he

was so good as to say that he liked me better for telling him this

so candidly, than if I had known all that the connoisseurs and

anecdote-mongers, living or dead, had ever said or written. We came to

a picture by Alonzo Cano, who, excelling in architecture, statuary, and

painting, has been called the Michael Angelo of Spain.

“He at least was not deficient in a comfortably good opinion of himself,

Mr. Montenero,” said I. “Is not it recorded of Cano, that having

finished a statue of Saint Antonio de Padua for a Spanish counsellor,

the tasteless lawyer and niggardly devotee hesitated to pay the artist

his price, observing that Cano, by his own account, had been only

twenty-five days about it? The counsellor sat down, with stupid

self-sufficiency, to calculate, that at a hundred pistoles, divided by

twenty-five days, the artist would be paid at a higher rate than he was

himself for the exercise of his talents. ‘Wretch! talk to me of your

talents!’ exclaimed the enraged artist; ‘I have been fifty years

learning to make this statue in twenty-five days!’ And as he spoke,

Cano dashed his statue to pieces on the pavement of the academy. The

affrighted counsellor fled from the house with the utmost precipitation,

concluding that the man who was bold enough to destroy a saint, would

have very little remorse in destroying a lawyer.

“Happily for Cano, this story did not reach the ears of the

Inquisition,” said Mr. Montenero, “or he would have been burnt alive.”

Mr. Montenero then pointed out some exquisite pieces by this artist, and

spoke with enthusiasm of his genius. I perceived some emotion, of which

I could not guess the cause, in the countenance of his daughter;

she seemed touched by what her father said about this painter or his

pictures.

Mr. Montenero concluded his panegyric on Cano’s genius by saying,

“Besides being a great genius, we are told that he was very religious,

and, some few peculiarities excepted, very charitable.”

“You are very charitable, I am sure,” said Miss Montenero, looking at

her father, and smiling: “I am not sure that I could speak so charitably

of that man.” A sigh quickly followed her smile, and I now recollected

having heard or read that this painter bore such an antipathy to the

Jews, that he considered every touch of theirs as contamination; and, if

he accidentally came in contact with them, would cast off and give away

his clothes, forbidding the servant to whom he gave them, on any account

to wear them.

Miss Montenero saw that I recollected to what she alluded--that I had

a just feeling of the benevolent magnanimity of her father’s character.

This raised me, I perceived, in the daughter’s opinion. Though scarcely

a word passed at the moment, yet I fancied that we felt immediately

better acquainted. I ventured to go and stand beside her, from doing

which I had hitherto been prevented by I know not what insurmountable

difficulty or strange spell.

We were both opposite to a Spanish copy of Guido’s Aurora Surgens.

I observed that the flame of the torch borne by the winged boy,

representing Lucifer, points westward, in a direction contrary to that

in which the manes of the horses, the drapery of Apollo, and that of the

dancing Hours, are blown, which seemed to me to be a mistake.

Berenice said that Guido had taken this picture from Ovid’s description,

and that he had, with great art, represented, by the very circumstance

to which I objected, the swiftness of the motion with which the chariot

was driven forward. The current of the morning wind blowing from the

east was represented by the direction of the hair of Lucifer, and of the

flame of his torch; while the rapidity of the motion of the chariot was

such, that, notwithstanding the eastern wind, which would otherwise have

blown them towards the west, the manes of the horses, and the drapery of

the figures, were driven backwards, by the resistance of the air against

which they were hurried. She then repeated, in a pleasing but timid

manner, in support of her opinion, these two beautiful lines of

Addison’s translation:

“With winged speed outstrips the eastern wind,

And leaves the breezes of the morn behind.”

I need not say that I was delighted with this criticism, and with the

modest manner in which it was spoken: but I could not honestly help

remarking that, to the description immediately alluded to in Ovid,

Addison had added the second beautiful line,

“And leaves the breezes of the morn behind.”

Mr. Montenero looked pleased, and said to me, “It is very true, in the

immediate passage describing the chariot of the Sun issuing from the

gates of Heaven, this line is not in the original; but if you look

further back in the fable, you will find that the idea is still more

strongly expressed in the Latin than in the English.”

It was with the utmost difficulty that I at last forced myself away, nor

was I in the least aware of the unconscionable length of my visit. What

particularly pleased me in the conversation of Miss Montenero was, that

she had none of those fashionable phrases which fill each vacuity of

sense, and which level all distinctions of understanding. There was none

of that commonplace stuff which passes for conversation in the world,

and which we hear and repeat till we are equally tired of others and of

ourselves.

There were, besides, in her manner and countenance, indications of

perfect sweetness of temper, a sort of feminine gentleness and softness

which art cannot feign nor affectation counterfeit; a gentleness which,

while it is the charm of female manners, is perfectly consistent with

true spirit, and with the higher or the stronger qualities of the mind.

All I had seen of Miss Montenero in this first visit inspired me with

the most ardent desire to see more. Here was a woman who could fill my

whole soul; who could at once touch my heart and my imagination. I felt

inspired with new life--I had now a great object, a strong and lively

interest in existence. At parting, Mr. Montenero shook hands with me,

which, he said, he knew was the English mode of showing kindness: he

expressed an earnest, but proudly guarded wish, that I might be _so

circumstanced_, and so inclined, as to allow him the pleasure he much

desired, of cultivating my acquaintance.

CHAPTER X

The interest which Berenice inspired, so completely absorbed my mind,

that I never thought again of Jacob and his story, till I met Lady Anne

and her brother the next morning, when I went to take a ride in the

park: they were with Colonel Topham, and some people of her ladyship’s

acquaintance.

Lady Anne, after the usual preliminary quantity of nonsense, and after

she had questioned and cross-questioned me, to the best of her slender

abilities, about the Jewess, told me a long story about herself, and her

fears, and the fears of her mare, and a horse-laugh of Mowbray’s which

Colonel Topham said no horse could stand: not much applause ensuing

from me, she returned to the witty colonel, and left me to her brother.

Mowbray directly began to talk about Jacob. He said he supposed Jacob

had not failed to make his Gibraltar story good; but that “Hear both

sides” was an indispensable maxim, even where such a favourite as Jacob

was concerned. “But first let us take one other good gallop,” said

Mowbray; “Anne, I leave you here with Mrs. Carrill and Colonel Topham;”

and away he galloped. When he thought, as he said, that he had shaken

off some of my prejudices, he drew up his horse, and talked over the

Gibraltar affair.

His dashing, jocular, military mode of telling the thing, so different

from Jacob’s plain, mercantile, matter-of-fact method, quite changed my

view and opinion of the transaction. Mowbray blamed himself with such a

good grace, and wished so fervently that he could make any reparation to

“the poor devils who had suffered,” that I acquitted him of all malice,

and forgave his imprudence.

The frankness with which he spoke to Jacob, when they met, was proof

conclusive to me that he was incapable, as he declared, of harbouring

any malice against Jew or Christian. He inquired most particularly into

Jacob’s own losses at Gibraltar, called for pen, ink, and paper, and in

his off-hand manner wrote a draft on his banker, and put it into Jacob’s

hand. “Here, my honest Jacob, you are a Jew whose accounts I can take

at your word. Let this settle the balance between us. No scruples,

Jacob--no present, this--nothing but remuneration for your losses.”

Jacob accepted Lord Mowbray’s apologies, but could not by any means be

prevailed upon to accept from him any present or remuneration. He

seemed willing to forgive, but not to trust Lord Mowbray. All trace of

resentment was cleared from his countenance, but no condescension of

his lordship could move Jacob to throw off his reserve beyond a certain

point. He conquered aversion, but he would not pretend to like. Mr.

Montenero came into the room while we were speaking, and I presented

Lord Mowbray to him. There was as marked a difference as politeness

would allow in Mr. Montenero’s manner towards his lordship and towards

me, which I justly attributed to Jacob’s previous representations. We

looked at the pictures, and talked, and loitered, but I turned my eyes

in vain to the door every time it opened--no Miss Montenero appeared.

I was so much preoccupied with my object that I was silent, and left

Mowbray to make his own way, which no one was more capable of doing. In

a few minutes he was in full conversation. He went over again, without

my attending to it, his _pièce justificative_ about the riot at

Gibraltar, and Jacob, and the Manessas; and between the fits of my

reverie, I perceived Mowbray was talking of the Due de Crillon and

General Elliot, and red-hot balls; but I took no interest in the

conversation, till I heard him speak of an officers’ ball at Gibraltar,

and of dancing with a Jewess. The very night he had first landed at

Gibraltar, there happened to be a ball to which he went with a friend,

who was also just landed, and a stranger. It was the custom to draw lots

for partners. His friend, a true-born Englishman, took fright at the

foreign-sounding name of the lady who fell to his lot--Mowbray changed

tickets with him, and had, he said, great reason to rejoice. The lady

with the foreign name was a Jewess, the handsomest, the most graceful,

the most agreeable woman in the room. He was the envy of every man,

and especially of his poor friend, who too late repented his rash

renunciation of his ticket. Lord Mowbray, by several other slight

anecdotes, which he introduced with happy effect, contrived to please

Mr. Montenero; and if any unfavourable prepossession had existed against

him, it was, I thought, completely removed. For my own part, I was

delighted with his presence of mind in recollecting all that was best

worth seeing in London, and arranging parties in which we could have the

honour of attending Miss Montenero, and the pleasure of being of some

use to her.

Mr. Montenero’s own acquaintance in London was chiefly with the families

of some of the foreign ambassadors, and with other foreigners of

distinction; but his daughter was not yet acquainted with any English

ladies, except the lady of General B----, with whom the Monteneros had

been intimate in America. Lady Emily B---- was detained in the country

by the illness of one of her family, and Miss Montenero, having declined

going into public with Mrs. Coates, would wait quietly at home till

her English friends should come to town. Again shame for my mother’s

remissness obliged me to cast down my eyes in awkward silence. But

Mowbray, Heaven bless him for it! went on fluently. This was the moment,

he said, before Miss Montenero should appear in public, and get into the

whirl of the great world, before engagements should multiply and

press upon her, as inevitably they would as soon as she had made her

début--this was the moment, and the only moment probably she would

ever have to herself, to see all that was worth a stranger’s notice in

London. Mr. Montenero was obliged to Mowbray, and I am sure so was I.

Miss Montenero, infinitely more desirous to see than to be seen, was

pleased with the parties we arranged for her and from this time forward,

scarcely a day passed without our having the pleasure of attending

the father and daughter. My mother sighed and remonstrated in vain; my

father, absorbed in the House of Commons, was satisfied with seeing me

regularly at breakfast. He usually dined at clubs, and it was happily

his principle to let his son amuse himself his own way. But I assured

her, and truly, that I was only amusing myself, and that I had not

formed any serious intentions. I wished to see more of the lady.

Mowbray, with ready invention, continually suggested something

particularly well worth seeing or hearing, some delightful pretext for

our being together. Sometimes he accompanied us, sometimes he

excused himself--he had indispensable engagements. His _indispensable

engagements_ I knew were usually with ladies of a very different sort

from Miss Montenero. Mowbray was desperately in love with the young

actress who had played the part of Jessica, and to her he devoted every

moment he could command. I regretted for his sake his dissipated

tastes, but I felt the more obliged to him for the time he sacrificed to

friendship; and perhaps, to tell things just as they were, I was glad he

was safely in love with a Jessica of his own, as it secured me from all

apprehension of his rivalling or wishing to rival me. Miss Montenero

he confessed was not in the least to his taste. In this instance I was

quite satisfied that our tastes should completely differ. I never

liked him so well--we went on most happily together. I felt uncommonly

benevolent towards the whole world; my heart expanded with increased

affection for all my friends--every thing seemed to smile upon me--even

the weather. The most delicious morning I ever remember was that on

which we rowed along the banks of the Thames with Miss Montenero. I

always enjoyed every beautiful object in nature with enthusiasm, but now

with new delight--with all the enchantment of a first love, and of hope

that had never known disappointment.

I was almost angry with my dear friend Mowbray, for not being as

enthusiastic this day as I was myself.

There were certain points of taste and character on which we never could

agree; my romantic imagination and enthusiastic manner of expressing

myself, were often in contrast with his worldly comic mode of seeing and

talking. He hurt, sometimes, my feelings by his raillery--he pulled me

down too suddenly from my flights of imagination. By the flashes of his

wit he showed, perhaps too clearly, the danger of my fall from “high

sublime to deep absurd;” but, after all, I was satisfied that Miss

Montenero preferred my style, and in general I was content that he

should enjoy his dear wit and gay rhetoric--even a little at my expense.

The morning we went to Westminster Abbey, I own I was provoked with him,

for pointing out to my observation, at the moment when my imagination

was struck with the sense of sublimity at the sight of the awful pile,

the ridiculous contrast of the showman and his keys, who was impatiently

waiting till I had finished my exclamations; but I soon forgot both the

showman and the wit, while at every step, among the illustrious dead,

my enthusiasm was raised, and some anecdote of their lives, or some

striking quotation from their works, rushed upon my mind. I was inspired

and encouraged by the approbation of the father, and the sympathy of the

daughter.

As we were quitting the Abbey, Mr. Montenero stopped, turned to me, and

said, “You have a great deal of enthusiasm, I see, Mr. Harrington: so

much the better, in my opinion--I love generous enthusiasm.”

And at the moment I flattered myself that the eyes of his daughter

repeated “I love generous enthusiasm,” her father caught the expression,

and immediately, with his usual care, moderated and limited what he had

said.

“Enthusiasm well governed, of course, I mean--as one of your English

noblemen lately said, ‘There is an enthusiasm of the head, and that is

genius--there is an enthusiasm of the heart, and that is virtue--there

is an enthusiasm of the temper, and that is--’”

Miss Montenero looked uneasy, and her father perceiving this, checked

himself again, and, changing his tone, added, “But with all its dangers

and errors, enthusiasm, in either man or woman, is more amiable and

respectable than selfishness. Enthusiasm is not the vice of the young

men or women of the present day.”

“Certainly not,” said Mowbray, who was now very attentive to every thing

that passed. I forgave him the witticisms with which he had crossed my

humour this morning, for the kind sympathy he showed with the pleasure I

felt at this moment. Afterwards, when Mowbray and I were alone together,

and _compared notes_, as we were in the habit of doing, upon all

that had been said, and had been looked, during the day, Mowbray

congratulated me upon the impression I had made by my eloquence.

“Enthusiasm, you see, is the thing both with father and daughter: you

succeed in that line--follow it up!”

I was incapable of affecting enthusiasm, or of acting any part to show

myself off; yet Mowbray’s opinion and my own observations coinciding,

unconsciously and involuntarily, I afterwards became more at my ease in

yielding to my natural feelings and habitual expressions.

Miss Montenero had not yet seen the Tower, and Mowbray engaged himself

to be of our party. But at the same time, he privately begged me to keep

it a dead secret from his sister. Lady Anne, he said, would never cease

to ridicule him, if she were to hear of his going to the Tower, after

having been too lazy to go with her, and all the fashionable world, the

night before, to the Fantoccini.

Though I had lived in London half my childhood, my nervous disease

had prevented my being taken to see even the sights that children are

usually shown; and since my late arrival in town, when I had been my own

master, engagements and emotions had pressed upon me too fast to leave

time or inclination to think of such things. My object, of course, was

now merely to have the pleasure of accompanying Berenice.

I was unexpectedly struck, on entering the armoury at the Tower. The

walls, three hundred feet in length, covered with arms for two hundred

thousand men, burnished arms, glittering in fancy figures on the walls,

and ranged in endless piles from the ceiling to the floor of that long

gallery; then the apartment with the line of ancient kings, clad

in complete armour, mounted on their steeds fully caparisoned--the

death-like stiffness of the figures--the stillness--the silence of the

place--altogether awe the imagination, and carry the memory back to the

days of chivalry. When among these forms of kings and heroes who had

ceased to be, I beheld the Black Prince, lance couched, vizor down, with

the arms he wore at Cressy and Poictiers, my enthusiasm knew no bounds.

The Black Prince, from my childhood, had been the object of my idolatry.

I kneeled--I am ashamed to confess it--to do homage to the empty armour.

Mr. Montenero, past the age of romantic extravagance, could not

sympathize with this enthusiasm, but he bore with it.

We passed on to dark Gothic nooks of chambers, where my reverence for

the beds on which kings had slept, and the tables at which kings had

sat, much increased by my early associations formed of Brantefield

Priory, was expressed with a vehemence which astonished Mr. Montenero;

and, I fear, prevented him from hearing the answers to various

inquiries, upon which he, with better regulated judgment, was intent.

An orator is the worst person to tell a plain fact; the very worst

guide, as Mowbray observed, that a foreigner can have. Still Mr.

Montenero had patience with me, and supplied the elisions in my

rhetoric, by what information he could pick up from the guide, and from

Mowbray, with whom, from time to time, he stopped to see and hear, after

I had passed on with Berenice. To her quickness and sympathy I flattered

myself that I was always intelligible.

We came at last to the chamber where Clarence and the young princes had

been murdered. Here, I am conscious, I was beyond measure exuberant in

exclamations, and in quotations from Shakspeare.

Mr. Montenero came in just as I was ranting, from Clarence’s dream--

“Seize on him, furies! take him to your torments!--  With that,

methought, a legion of foul fiends  Environ’d me, and howled in mine

ears” Such hideous cries! that with the very noise I made, I prevented

poor Mr. Montenero from hearing the answer to some historic question he

was asking. Berenice’s eye warned me to lower my voice, and I believe

I should have been quiet, but that unluckily, Mowbray set me off in

another direction, by reminding me of the tapestry-chamber and

Sir Josseline. I remember covering my face with both my hands, and

shuddering with horror.

Mr. Montenero asked, “What of the tapestry-chamber?”

And immediately recollecting that I should not, to him, and before his

daughter, describe the Jew, who had committed a deed without a name,

I with much embarrassment said, that “it was nothing of any

consequence--it was something I could not explain.”

I left it to Mowbray’s superior presence of mind, and better address, to

account for it, and I went on with Berenice. Whenever my imagination was

warmed, verses poured in upon my memory, and often without much apparent

connexion with what went before. I recollected at this moment the

passage in Akenside’s “Pleasures of the Imagination” describing the

early delight the imagination takes in horrors:--the children closing

round the village matron, who suspends the infant audience with her

tales breathing astonishment; and I recited all I recollected of

“Evil spirits! of the deathbed call

Of him who robb’d the widow, and devour’d

The orphan’s portion--of unquiet souls

Ris’n from the grave, to ease the heavy guilt

Of deeds in life conceal’d--of shapes that walk

At dead of night, and clank their chains, and wave

The torch of Hell around the murderer’s bed!”

Mowbray and Mr. Montenero, who had stayed behind us a few minutes, came

up just as I was, with much emphasis and gesticulation,

“Waving the torch of Hell.”

I am sure I must have been a most ridiculous figure. I saw Mowbray on

the brink of laughter; but Mr. Montenero looked so grave, that he fixed

all my attention. I suddenly stopped.

“We were talking of ‘The Pleasures of Imagination,’” said Berenice to

her father. “Mr. Harrington is a great admirer of Akenside.”

“Is he?” replied Mr. Montenero coldly, and with a look of absence. “But,

my dear, we can have the pleasures of the imagination another time. Here

are some realities worthy of our present attention.”

He then drew his daughter’s arm within his. I followed; and all the time

he was pointing out to her the patterns of the Spanish instruments of

torture, with which her politic majesty Queen Elizabeth frightened her

subjects into courage sufficient to repel all the invaders on board the

invincible armada--I stood silent, pondering on what I might have said

or done to displease him whom I was so anxious to please. First, I

thought he suspected me of what I most detested, the affectation of

taste, sensibility, and enthusiasm; next, I fancied that Mowbray,

in explaining about the tapestry-chamber, Sir Josseline, and the

bastinadoed Jew, had said something that might have hurt Mr. Montenero’s

Jewish pride. From whichever of these causes his displeasure arose,

it had the effect of completely sobering my spirits. My poetic fit was

over. I did not even dare to speak to his daughter.

During our drive home, Berenice, apropos to something which Mowbray had

said, but which I did not hear, suggested to her father some lines of

Akenside, which she knew he particularly admired, on the nature and

power of the early association of ideas. Mr. Montenero, with all the

warmth my heart could wish, praised the poetic genius, and the intimate

and deep knowledge of the human mind displayed in this passage. His

gravity gradually wore off, and I began to doubt whether the displeasure

had ever existed. At night, before Mowbray and I parted, when we talked

over the day, he assured me that he had said nothing that could make Mr.

Montenero displeased with me or any living creature; that they had been

discussing some point of English History, on which old Montenero had

posed him. As to my fears, Mowbray rallied me out of them effectually.

He maintained that Montenero had not been at all displeased, and that I

was a most absurd _modern self-tormentor._ “Could not a man look grave

for two minutes without my racking my fancy for two hours to find a

cause for it? Perhaps the man had the toothache; possibly the headache;

but why should I, therefore, insist upon having the heartache?”

CHAPTER XI.

Mowbray’s indifference was often a happy relief to my anxiety of temper;

and I had surely reason to be grateful to him for the sacrifices he

continued daily to make of his own tastes and pleasures, to forward my

views.

One morning in particular, he was going to a rehearsal at Drury-lane,

where I knew his heart was; but finding me very anxious to go to the

Mint and the Bank with Mr. Montenero and Berenice, Mowbray, who had

a relation a Bank director, immediately offered to accompany us, and

procured us the means of seeing every thing in the best possible manner.

Nothing could, as he confessed, be less to his taste; and he was

surprised that Miss Montenero chose to be of the party. A day spent in

viewing the Mint and the Bank, it may perhaps be thought, was a day lost

to love--quite the contrary; I had an opportunity of feeling how the

passion of love can throw its enchantment over scenes apparently least

adapted to its nature.

Before this time I had twice gone over every part of these magnificent

establishments. I had seen at the Bank the spirit of order operating

like predestination, compelling the will of man to act necessarily and

continually with all the precision of mechanism. I had beheld human

creatures, called clerks, turned nearly into arithmetical machines.

But how new did it all appear in looking at it with Berenice! How would

she have been delighted if she had seen those machines, “instinct with

spirit,” which now perform the most delicate manoeuvres with more than

human dexterity--the self-moving balance which indefatigably weighs,

accepts, rejects, disposes of the coin, which a mimic hand perpetually

presents!

What chiefly pleased me in Miss Montenero was the composure, the

_sincerity_ of her attention. She was not anxious to display herself: I

was the more delighted when I discovered her quickness of comprehension.

I was charmed too by the unaffected pleasure she showed in acquiring new

ideas, and surprised by the judicious _proportion_ of the admiration she

expressed for all that was in various degrees excellent in arrangement,

or ingenious in contrivance: in short....

“In short, man,” as Mowbray would say, “in short, man, you were in love,

and there’s an end of the matter: if your Berenice had hopped forty

paces in the public streets, it would have been the same with you.”

That I deny--but I will go on with my story.

As we were going away, Mr. Montenero, after thanking Lord Mowbray and

his cousin, the Bank director, who had shown and explained every thing

to us with polite and intelligent patience, observed that the Bank was

to him a peculiarly interesting sight.

“You know,” said he, “that we Jews were the first inventors of bills of

exchange and bank-notes--we were originally the bankers and brokers of

the world.”

Then, as we walked to the carriage, he continued addressing himself

to his daughter, in a lowered voice, “You see, Berenice, here, as in a

thousand instances, how general and permanent good often results from

partial and temporary evil. The persecutions even to which we Jews

were exposed--the tyranny which drove us from place to place, and

from country to country, at a moment’s or without a moment’s warning,

compelled us, by necessity, to the invention of a happy expedient, by

which we could convert all our property into a scrap of paper, that

could be carried unseen in a pocket-book, or conveyed in a letter

unsuspected.”

Berenice thanked Heaven that the times of persecution were over; and

added, that she hoped any prejudice which still existed would soon die

away.

Mowbray exclaimed against the very idea of the existence of such

prejudices at this time of day in England, among the higher classes.

He did not recollect his own mother, I believe, when he said this; but I

know I had a twinge of conscience about mine, and I did not dare to

look at Mr. Montenero; nor did I know well which way to look, when his

lordship, persisting in his assertion, asked Miss Montenero if she could

possibly imagine that any such vulgar prejudices existed among well-bred

persons. Berenice mildly answered, that she had really as yet enjoyed so

few opportunities of seeing the higher classes of society in London that

she could not form a judgment. She was willing to take upon trust his

lordship’s opinion, who must have means of knowing.

I imagined that Mr. Montenero’s eye was upon me, and that he was

thinking of my mother’s never having made the slightest advance towards

an acquaintance with his daughter. I recollected the speeches I had

made on his first visit, pledging my mother to that which she had never

performed. I felt upon the rack--and a pause, that ensued afterwards,

increased my misery. I longed for somebody to say something--any thing.

I looked for assistance to Mowbray. He repeated, confidently, that

Miss Montenero might entirely rely upon what he said as to London and

England--indeed he had been a good deal abroad _too_. He seemed to be

glad to get to the continent again--I followed him as fast as I could,

and inquired whether he did not think that the French and Germans were

much improved in liberality, and a spirit of toleration.

“Give me leave,” said Mr. Montenero, “to answer for the improvement of

the Germans. Fifteen years ago, I remember, when I was travelling in

Germany, I was stopped at a certain bridge over the Rhine, and, being

a Jew, was compelled to pay rather an ignominious toll. The Jews were

there classed among cloven-footed beasts, and as such paid toll. But,

within these few years, sixteen German princes, enlightened and inspired

by one great writer, and one good minister, have combined to abolish

this disgraceful tax. You see, my dear Berenice, your hope is quickly

fulfilling--prejudices are dying away fast. Hope humbly, but hope

always.”

The playful tone in which Mr. Montenero spoke, put me quite at my ease.

The next day I was determined on an effort to make my mother acquainted

with Miss Montenero. If I could but effect a meeting, a great point

I thought would be gained. Mowbray undertook to manage it, and he,

as usual, succeeded. He persuaded his mother to go to an auction of

pictures, where he assured her she would be likely to meet with a

Vandyke of one of her ancestors, of whose portrait she had long been

in search. Lady de Brantefield engaged my mother to be of the party,

without her having any suspicion that she would meet the Monteneros.

We arrived in time to secure the best places, before the auction

began. Neither Mr. nor Miss Montenero were there; but, to my utter

discomfiture, a few minutes after we were seated, vulgar Mrs. Coates and

all her tribe appeared. She elbowed her difficult way onward towards us,

and nodding to me familiarly, seated herself and her Vandals on a line

with us. Then, stretching herself across the august Lady de Brantefield,

who drew back, far as space would permit, “Beg your pardon, ma’am, but I

just want to say a word to this lady. A’n’t you the lady--yes--that sat

beside me at the play the other night--the Merchant of Venice and

the Maid of the Oaks, was not it, Izzy? I hope you caught no cold,

ma’am--you look but poorly, I am sorry to notice--but what I wanted

to say, ma’am, here’s an ivory fan Miss Montenero was in a pucker and

quandary about.” _Pucker and quandary!_--Oh! how I groaned inwardly!

“I was in such a fuss about her, you know, sir, that I never found out,

till I got home, I had pocketed a strange fan--here it is, ma’am, if it

is yours--it’s worth any body’s owning, I am sure.”

The fan was my mother’s, and she was forced to be much obliged. Lady de

Brantefield, still painfully holding back, did not resume her position

till some seconds had elapsed after Mrs. Coates had withdrawn her fat

bust--till it might be supposed that the danger of coming into contact

with her was fairly over. My mother, after a decent interval, asked me

if it were possible to move to some place where they could have more

air, as the crowd was increasing. Lord Mowbray and I made way for her

to a seat by an open window; but the persevering Mrs. Coates followed,

talking about the famous elbows of Mr. Peter Coates, on whose arm she

leaned. “When Peter chooses, there’s not a man in Lon’on knows the use

of his elbows better, and if we’d had him, Mr. Harrington, with us at

the play, the other night, we should not have given you so much trouble

with Miss Montenero, getting her out.”

Lord Mowbray, amused by my look of suffering, could not refrain

from diverting himself further by asking a question or two about the

Monteneros. It was soon apparent, from the manner in which Mrs. Coates

answered, that she was not as well pleased with them as formerly.

It was her maxim, she said, to speak of the bridge as she went over it;

and for her part, if she was to give her verdict, she couldn’t but

say Miss Montenero--for they weren’t on terms to call her Miss Berry

now--was a little incomprehensible sometimes.

A look of surprise from Lord Mowbray, without giving himself the trouble

to articulate, was quite sufficient to make the lady go on.

“Why, if it concerned any gentleman” (glancing her ill-bred eye upon

me), “if any gentleman was thinking of looking that way, it might be

of use to him to know the land. Miss Montenero, then, if truth must be

told, is a little touchy on the Jewish chapter.”

Lord Mowbray urged Mrs. Coates on with “How, for instance?” “Oh, how!

why, my lord, a hundred times I’ve hurt her to the quick. One can’t

always be thinking of people’s different persuasions you know--and if

one asked a question, just for information’s sake, or made a natural

remark, as I did t’other day, Queeney, you know, just about Jew

butchers, and pigeons--‘It’s a pity,’ said I, ‘that Jews must always

have Jew butchers, Miss Berry, and that there is so many things they

can’t touch: one can’t have pigeons nor hares at one’s table,’ said I,

thinking only of my second course; ‘as to pork, Henny,’ says I, ‘that’s

a coarse butcher’s meat, which I don’t regret, nor the alderman, a

pinch o’ snuff’--now, you know, I thought that was kind of me; but Miss

Montenero took it all the wrong way, quite to heart so, you’ve no idear!

After all, she may say what she pleases, but it’s my notion the Jews is

both a very unsocial and a very revengeful people; for, do you know, my

lord, they wouldn’t dine with us next day, though the alderman called

himself.”

My mother was so placed that she could not avoid hearing all that Mrs.

Coates said to Lord Mowbray; and though she never uttered a syllable,

or raised her eyes, or moved the fan she held in her hand, I knew by

her countenance the impression that was made on her mind: she would have

scorned, on any other subject of human life or manners, to have allowed

the judgment of Mrs. Coates to weigh with her in the estimation of

a single hair; yet here her opinion and _idears_ were admitted to be

decisive.

Such is prejudice! thought I. Prejudice, even in the proudest people,

will stoop to accept of nourishment from any hand. Prejudice not only

grows on what it feeds upon, but converts every thing it meets with into

nourishment.

How clear-sighted I was to the nature of prejudice at this moment,

and how many reflections passed in one instant, which I had never made

before in the course of my life!--Meantime Mrs. Coates had beckoned

to her son Peter, and Peter had drawn near, and was called upon by his

mother to explain to my lord the cause of the _coolness_ betwixt the

alderman and Mr. Montenero: “It was,” she said, “about the Manessas, and

a young man called Jacob.”

Peter was not as fluent as his mother, and she went on. “It was some

money matter. Mr. Montenero had begun by acting a very generous part,

she understood, at first, by way of being the benevolent Jew, but had

not come up to the alderman’s expectations latterly, and had shown a

most illiberal partiality to the Manessas, and this Jacob, only

because they _was_ Jews; which, you know,” said Mrs. Coates, “was very

ungentleman-like to the alderman, after all the civilities we had shown

the Monteneros on their coming to Lon’on--as Peter, if he could open his

mouth, could tell you.”

Peter had just opened his mouth, when Mr. Montenero appearing, he closed

it again. To my inexpressible disappointment, Miss Montenero was not

with her father. Mr. Montenero smiled the instant he caught my eye, but

seeing my mother as he approached, he bowed gravely, and passed on.

“And never noticed me, I declare,” said Mrs. Coates: “that’s too good!”

“But Miss Montenero! I thought she was to be here?” cried Mowbray.

Mrs. Coates, after her fashion, stretching across two of her daughters,

whispered to the third, loud enough for all to hear, “Queeney, this

comes of airs!--This comes of her not choosing for to go abroad with me,

I suppose.”

“If people doesn’t know their friends when they has ‘em,” replied

Queeney, “they may go farther and fare worse: that’s all I have to say.”

“Hush!” said Peter, giving his sister a monitory pinch--“can’t you say

your say under your breath? _he’s_ within seven of you, and he has ears

like the devil.”

“All them Jews has, and Jewesses too; they think one’s always talking

of them, they’re so suspicious,” said Mrs. Coates. “I am told, moreover,

that they’ve ways and means of hearing.”

To my great relief, she was interrupted by the auctioneer, and the sound

of his hammer. The auction went on, and nothing but “Who bids more?

going!--going!--who bids more?” was heard for a considerable time.

Not being able to get near Mr. Montenero, and having failed in all my

objects, I grew excessively tired, and was going away, leaving my

mother to the care of Mowbray, but he stopped me. “Stay, stay,” said

he, drawing me aside, behind two connoisseurs, who were babbling about

a Titian, “you will have some diversion by and by. I have a picture to

sell, and you must see how it will go off. There is a painting that I

bought at a stall for nothing, upon a speculation that my mother, who is

a judge, will pay dear for; and what do you think the picture is? Don’t

look so stupid--it will interest you amazingly, and Mr. Montenero too,

and ‘tis a pity your Jewess is not here to see it. Did you ever hear of

a picture called the ‘Dentition of the Jew?’”

“Not I.”

“You’ll see, presently,” said Mowbray.

“But tell me _now_,” said I.

“Only the drawing the teeth of the Jew, by order of some one of our most

merciful lords the kings--John, Richard, or Edward.”

“It will be a companion to the old family picture of the Jew and Sir

Josseline,” continued Mowbray; “and this will make the vile daub, which

I’ve had the luck to pick up, invaluable to my mother, and I trust very

valuable to me.”

“There! Christie has it up! The dear rascal! hear him puff it!”

Lady de Brantefield put up her glass, but neither she nor I could

distinguish a single figure in the picture, the light so glared upon it.

Christie caught her ladyship’s eye, and addressed himself directly to

her. But her ladyship was deaf. Mowbray pressed forward to her ear, and

repeated all Christie roared. No sooner did she understand the subject

of the picture than she turned to her son, to desire him to bid for her;

but Mowbray substituted Topham in his stead: Topham obeyed.

“Who bids more?”

A bidder started up, who seemed very eager. He was, we were told, an

engraver.

“Who bids more?”

To our surprise, Mr. Montenero was the person to bid more--and more,

and more, and more. The engraver soon gave up the contest, but her

ladyship’s pride and passions rose when she found Mr. Montenero

continued to bid against her; and she persisted, till she came up to an

extravagant sum; and still she desired Colonel Topham to bid on.

“Beyond my expectation, faith! Both mad!” whispered Mowbray. I thought

so too. Still Mr. Montenero went higher.

“I’ll go no higher,” said Lady de Brantefield; “you may let it be

knocked down to that person, Colonel.” Then turning to her son, “Who is

the man that bids against me?”

“A Jewish gentleman, ma’am, I believe.”

“A Jew, perhaps--gentleman, I deny; no Jew ever was or ever will be a

gentleman. I am sure our family, since the time of Sir Josseline, have

had reason enough to know that.”

“Very true, ma’am--I’ll call for your carriage, for I suppose you have

had enough of this.”

Mowbray carried me with him. “Come off,” said he; “I long to hear

Montenero descant on the merits of the dentition. Do you speak, for you

can do it with a better face.”

Mowbray seemed to be intent merely upon his own diversion; he must have

seen and felt how reluctant I was: but, taking my arm, he dragged me on

to Mr. Montenero, who was standing near a window, with the picture in

his hand, examining it attentively. Mowbray pushed me on close behind

Mr. Montenero--the light now falling on the picture, I saw it for the

first time, and the sight struck me with such associated feelings of

horror, that I started back, exclaiming, with vehement gestures, “I

cannot bear it! I cannot bear that picture!”

Mr. Montenero turned, and looked at me with surprise.

“I beg pardon, sir,” said I; “but it made me absolutely--”

“Sick,” said Mr. Montenero, opening the window, as I leaned back against

the wall, and the eyes of all present were fixed upon me. Ashamed of the

exaggerated expression of my feelings, I stood abashed. Mr. Montenero,

with the greatest kindness of manner, and with friendly presence of

mind, said he remembered well having felt actually sick at the sight of

certain pictures. “For instance, my lord,” said he, addressing

himself to Lord Mowbray, “the famous picture of the flaying the unjust

magistrate I never could look at steadily.”

I recovered myself--and squeezing Mr. Montenero’s hand to express my

sense of his kind politeness, I exerted myself to talk and to look at

the picture. Afraid of Mowbray’s ridicule, I never once turned my

eyes towards him--I fancied that he was laughing behind me: I did

him injustice; he was not laughing--he looked seriously concerned. He

whispered to me, “Forgive me, my dear Harrington--I aimed at _mamma_--I

did not mean to hurt you.”

Before we quitted the subject, I expressed to Mr. Montenero my surprise

at his having purchased, at an extraordinary price, a picture apparently

of so little merit, and on such a disgusting subject.

“Abuse the subject as much as you please,” interrupted Mowbray; “but as

to the merit of the painting, have the grace, Harrington, to consider,

that Mr. Montenero must be a better judge than you or I.”

“You are too good a judge yourself, my lord,” replied Mr. Montenero,

in a reserved tone, “not to see this picture to be what it really is,

a very poor performance.” Then turning to me in a cordial manner, “Be

assured, Mr. Harrington, that I am at least as clear-sighted, in every

point of view, as you can possibly be, to its demerits.”

“Then why did you purchase it?” was the question, which involuntarily

recurred to Mowbray and to me; but we were both silent, and stood with

our eyes fixed upon the picture.

“Gentlemen, if you will do me the honour to dine with me to-morrow,”

said Mr. Montenero, “you shall know the purpose for which I bought this

picture.”

We accepted the invitation; Mowbray waited for to-morrow with all

the eagerness of curiosity, and I with the eagerness of a still more

impatient passion.

I pass over my mother’s remonstrances against my _dining at the

Monteneros’;_ remonstrances, strengthened as they were in vehemence,

if not in reason, by all the accession of force gathered from the

representations and insinuations of Mrs. Coates.

The next day came. “Now we shall hear about the dentition of the Jew,”

said Mowbray, as we got to Mr. Montenero’s door.

And now we shall see Berenice! thought I.

We found a very agreeable company assembled, mixed of English and

foreigners. There was the Spanish ambassador and the Russian envoy--who,

by-the-by, spoke English better than any foreigner I ever heard; a

Polish Count, perfectly well bred, and his lady, a beautiful woman, with

whom Mowbray of course was half in love before dinner was over. The only

English present were General and Lady Emily B----. We soon learned, by

the course of the conversation, that Mr. Montenero stood high in the

estimation of every individual in the company, all of whom had known him

intimately at different times of his life, and in different countries.

The general had served in America during the beginning of the war; he

had been wounded there, and in great difficulties and distress. He and

his lady, under very trying circumstances, had been treated in the most

kind and hospitable manner by Mr. Montenero and his family. With that

true English warmth of gratitude, which contrasts so strongly and

agreeably with the natural reserve of English manner and habits, the

general and his wife, Lady Emily, expressed their joy at having Mr.

Montenero in England, in London, among their own friends.

“My dear, Mr. Montenero must let us introduce him to your brother

and our other friends--how delighted they will be to see him! And

Berenice!--she was such a little creature, General, at the time you saw

her last!--but such a kind, sweet, little creature!--You remember her

scraping the lint!”

“Remember it! certainly.”

They spoke of her, and looked at her, as if she was their own child; and

for my part, I could have embraced both the old general and his wife.

I only wished that my mother had been present to receive an antidote to

Mrs. Coates.

“Oh! please Heaven, we will make London--we’ll make England agreeable

to you--two years! no; that won’t do--we will keep you with us for

ever--you shall never go back to America.”

Then, in a low voice, to Mr. Montenero, the general added, “Do you think

we have not an Englishman good enough for her?”

I felt the blood rush into my face, and dreaded that every eye must see

it. When I had the courage to raise my head and to look round, I saw

that I was perfectly safe, and that no creature was thinking about me,

not even Mowbray, who was gallanting the Polish lady. I ventured then

to look towards Berenice; but all was tranquil there--she had not, I

was sure, heard the whisper. Mr. Montenero had his eye upon her; the

father’s eye and mine met--and such a penetrating, yet such a benevolent

eye! I endeavoured to listen with composure to whatever was going on.

The general was talking of his brother-in-law, Lord Charles; a panic

seized me, and a mortal curiosity to know what sort of a man the

brother-in-law might be. I was not relieved till the dessert came on

the table, when, apropos to something a Swedish gentleman said about

Linnaeus, strawberries, and the gout, it appeared, to my unspeakable

satisfaction, that Lord Charles had the gout at this instant, and had

been subject to it during the last nine years. I had been so completely

engrossed by my own feelings and imaginations, that I had never once

thought of that which had previously excited our curiosity--the picture,

till, as we were going into another room to drink coffee, Mowbray said

to me, “We hear nothing of the dentition of the Jew: I can’t put him in

mind of it.”

“Certainly not,” said I. “There is a harp; I hope Miss Montenero will

play on it,” added I.

After coffee we had some good music, in different styles, so as to

please, and interest, and join in one common sympathy, all the company,

many of whom had never before heard each other’s national music.

Berenice was asked to play some Hebrew music, the good general reminding

her that he knew she had a charming ear and a charming voice when she

was a child. She had not, however, been used to sing or play before

numbers, and she resisted the complimentary entreaties; but when the

company were all gone, except the general and his lady, Mowbray and

myself, her father requested that Berenice would try one song, and

that she would play one air on the harp to oblige her old friends: she

immediately complied, with a graceful unaffected modesty that

interested every heart in her favour--I can answer for my own; though no

connoisseur, I was enthusiastically fond of good music. Miss Montenero’s

voice was exquisite: both the poetry and the music were sublime and

touching. No compliments were paid; but when she ceased, all were

silent, in hopes that the harp would be touched again by the same hand.

At this moment, Mr. Montenero, turning to Lord Mowbray and to me, said,

“Gentlemen, I recollect my promise to you, and will perform it--I will

now explain why I bought that painting which you saw me yesterday so

anxious to obtain.”

He rang the bell, and desired a servant to bring in the picture which

he had purchased at the auction, and to desire Jacob to come with it. As

soon as it was brought in, I retired to the farther end of the room.

In Mowbray’s countenance there was a strange mixture of contempt and

curiosity.

Mr. Montenero kindly said to me, “I shall not insist, Mr. Harrington, on

your looking at it; I know it is not to your taste.”

I immediately approached, resolved to stand the sight, that I might not

be suspected of affectation.

Berenice had not yet seen the painting: she shrunk back the moment

she beheld it, exclaiming, “Oh, father! Why purchase such a horrible

picture?”

“To destroy it,” said Mr. Montenero. And deliberately he took the

picture out of its frame and cut it to pieces, repeating, “To destroy

it, my dear, as I would, were it in my power, every record of cruelty

and intolerance. So perish all that can keep alive feelings of hatred

and vengeance between Jews and Christians!”

“Amen,” said the good old general, and all present joined in that

_amen_. I heard it pronounced by Miss Montenero in a very low voice, but

distinctly and fervently.

While I stood with my eyes fixed on Berenice, and while Mowbray loudly

applauded her father’s liberality, Mr. Montenero turned to Jacob and

said, “I sent for my friend Jacob to be present at the burning of this

picture, because it was he who put it in my power to prevent this horrid

representation from being seen and sold in every print-shop in London.

Jacob, who goes every where, and _sees_ wherever he goes, observed

this picture at a broker’s shop, and found that two persons had been in

treaty for it. One of them had the appearance of an amateur, the other

was an artist, an engraver. The engraver was, I suppose, the person who

bid against Colonel Topham and me; who the other gentleman was, and why

he bought in to sell it again at that auction, perhaps Jacob knows, but

I have never inquired.”

Then, with Jacob’s assistance, Mr. Montenero burned every shred of this

abominable picture, to my inexpressible satisfaction.

During this _auto-da-fè_, Jacob cast a glance at Mowbray, the meaning

of which I could not at first comprehend; but I supposed that he was

thinking of the fire, at which all he had in the world had been consumed

at Gibraltar. I saw, or thought I saw, that Jacob checked the feeling

this recollection excited. He turned to me, and in a low voice told me,

that Mr. Montenero had been so kind as to obtain for him a lucrative and

creditable situation in the house of Manessa, the jeweller; and the next

day he was to go to Mr. Manessa’s, and to commence business.

“So, Mr. Harrington, you see that after all my misfortunes, I am now

established in a manner far above what could have been expected for poor

Jacob--far above his most sanguine hopes. Thanks to my good friends.”

“And to your good self,” said I.

I was much pleased with Mowbray at this instant, for the manner in which

he joined in my praise of Jacob, and in congratulations to him. His

lordship promised that he would recommend his house to all his family

and friends.

“What a contrast,” said Mowbray, as soon as Jacob had left the room,

“there is between Jacob and his old rival, Dutton! That fellow has

turned out very ill--drunken, idle dog--is reduced to an old-iron

shop, I believe--always plaguing me with begging letters. Certainly,

Harrington, you may triumph in your election of Jacob.”

I never saw Berenice and her father look so much pleased with Mowbray as

they did at this instant.

Of the remainder of the evening I recollect nothing but Berenice, and of

my staying later than I ought to have done. Even after the general

and his wife had departed some time, I lingered. I was to go home in

Mowbray’s carriage, and twice he had touched my shoulder, telling me

that I was not aware how late it was. I could not conceive how he could

think of going so early.

“Early!” He directed my eye to the clock on the chimneypiece. I was

ashamed to see the hour. I apologized to Mr. Montenero. He replied in a

manner that was more than polite--that was quite affectionate; and his

last words, repeated at the head of the stairs, expressed a desire to

see me again _frequently_.

I sprang into Mowbray’s carriage one of the happiest men on earth, full

of love, hope, and joy.

CHAPTER XII.

“All gone to bed but you?” said I to the footman, who opened the door.

“No, sir,” said the drowsy fellow, “my lady is sitting up for you, I

believe.”

“Then, Mowbray, come in--come up with me to my mother, pray do, for one

instant.”

Before she slept, I said, he must administer an antidote to Coates’s

poison. While the impression was still fresh in his mind, I entreated

he would say what a delightful party we had had. My mother, I knew,

had such a high idea of his lordship’s judgment in all that concerned

gentility and fashion, that a word from him would be decisive. “But let

it be to-morrow morning,” said Mowbray; “‘tis shamefully late to-night.”

“To-night--to-night--now, now,” persisted I. He complied: “Any thing to

oblige you.”

“Remember,” said I, as we ran up stairs, “Spanish ambassador, Russian

envoy, Polish Count and Countess, and an English general and his

lady--strong in rank we’ll burst upon the enemy.” I flung open the door,

but my spirits were suddenly checked; I saw it was no time for jest and

merriment.

Dead silence--solemn stillness--candles with unsnuffed wicks of

portentous length. My father and mother were sitting with their backs

half turned to each other, my mother leaning her head on her hand, with

her elbow on the table, her salts before her. My father sitting in his

arm-chair, legs stretched out, feet upon the bars of the grate, back

towards us--but that back spoke anger as plainly as a back could speak.

Neither figure moved when we entered. I stood appalled; Mowbray went

forward, though I caught his arm to pull him back. But he did not

understand me, and with ill-timed gaiety and fluency, that I would have

given the world to stop, he poured forth to my mother in praise of all

we had seen and heard; and then turning to my father, who slowly rose,

shading his eyes from the candle, and looking at me under the hand,

Lord Mowbray went on with a rapturous eulogium upon Harrington’s Jew and

Jewess.

“Then it is all true,” said my father. “It is all very well,

Harrington--but take notice, and I give you notice in time, in form,

before your friend and counsellor, Lord Mowbray, that by Jupiter--by

Jupiter Ammon, I will never leave one shilling to my son, if he marry

a Jewess! Every inch of my estate shall go from him to his cousin

Longshanks in the North, though I hate him like sin. But a Jewess for my

daughter-in-law I will never have--by Jupiter Ammon!”

So snatching up a bougie, the wick of which scattered fire behind him,

he left the room.

“Good Heavens! what have I done?” cried Mowbray.

“What you can never undo,” said I.

My mother spoke not one word, but sat smelling her salts.

“Never fear, man,” whispered Mowbray; “he will sleep it off, or by

to-morrow we shall find ways and means.”

He left me in despair. I heard his carriage roll away--and then

there was silence again. I stood waiting for some explanation from my

mother--she saw my despair--she dreaded my anger: in broken and scarcely

intelligible, contradictory phrases, she declared her innocence of all

intention to do me mischief, and acknowledged that all was her doing;

but reminded me, that she had prophesied it would come to this--it would

end ill--and at last, trembling with impatience as I stood, she told me

all that had happened.

The fact was, that she had talked to her friend Lady de Brantefield, and

some other of her dear friends, of her dread that I should fall in love

with Miss Montenero; and the next person said I had fallen in love with

her; and under the seal of secresy,--it was told that I had actually

proposed for her, but that my father was to know nothing of the

matter. This story had been written in some young lady’s letter to her

correspondent in the country, and miss in the country had told it to her

brother, who had come to town this day, dined in company with my father,

got drunk, and had given a bumper toast to “Miss Montenero, the Jewish

heiress--_Mrs. Harrington, jun. that is to be!_”

My father had come home foaming with rage; my mother had done all she

could to appease him, and to make him comprehend that above half what

he had heard was false; but it had gone the wrong way into his head, and

there was no getting it out again. My father had heard it at the most

unlucky time possible, just after he had lost a good place, and was

driven to the necessity of selling an estate that had been in his family

since the time of Richard the Second. My mother farther informed me,

that my father had given orders, in his usual sudden way when angry, for

going into the country immediately. While she was yet speaking, the door

opened, and my father, with his nightcap on, put his head in, saying,

“Remember, ma’am, you are to be off at seven to-morrow--and you sir,”

continued he, advancing towards me, “if you have one grain of sense

left, I recommend it to you to come with us. But no, I see it written

in your absurd face, that you will not--obstinate madman! I leave you

to your own discretion,” cried he, turning his back upon me; “but, by

Jupiter Ammon, I’ll do what I say, by Jupiter!” And carrying my mother

off with him, he left me to my pleasing reflections.

All was tumult in my mind: one moment I stood motionless in utter

despair, the next struck with some bright hope. I walked up and down the

room with hasty strides--then stopped short again, and stood fixed,

as some dark reality, some sense of improbability--of impossibility,

crossed my mind, and as my father’s denunciation recurred to my ear.

A Jewess!--her religion--her principles--my principles!--And can a

Jewess marry a Christian? And should a Christian marry a Jewess? The

horrors of family quarrels, of religious dissensions and disputes

between father and child, husband and wife--All these questions, and

fears, and doubts, passed through my imagination backwards and forwards

with inconceivable rapidity--struck me with all the amazement of

novelty, though in fact they were not new to me. The first moment I saw

her, I was told she was a Jewess; I was aware of the difficulties, and

yet I had never fixed my view upon them: I had suffered myself to waive

the consideration of them till this moment. In the hope, the joy, the

heaven of the first feelings of the passion of love, I had lost sight of

all difficulties, human or divine; and now I was called upon to decide

in one hour upon questions involving the happiness of my whole life. To

be called upon before it was necessary too--for I was not in love, not

I--at least I had formed no idea of marrying, no resolution to propose.

Then bitterly I execrated the reporters, and the gossipers, and the

letter-writing misses, whose tattling, and meddling, and idleness, and

exaggeration, and absolute falsehood, had precipitated me into this

misery. The drunken brute, too, who had blundered out to my father that

fatal toast, had his full share of my indignation; and my mother, with

her _presentiments_--and Mowbray, with his inconceivable imprudence--and

my father, with his prejudices, his violence, and his Jupiter

Ammon--every body, and every thing I blamed, except myself. And when I

had vented my rage, still the question recurred, what was to be done?

how should I resolve? Morning was come, the grey light was peeping

through the shutters: I opened the window to feel the fresh calm air.

I heard the people beginning to stir in the house: my father and mother

were to be called at half after six. Six struck; I must decide at least,

whether I would go with them or not. No chance of my father sleeping it

off! Obstinate beyond conception; and by Jupiter Ammon once sworn, never

revoked. But after all, where was the great evil of being disinherited?

The loss of my paternal estate, in this moment of enthusiasm, appeared a

loss I could easily endure. Berenice was an heiress--a rich heiress, and

I had a small estate of my own, left to me by my grandfather. I could

live with Berenice upon any thing--upon nothing. Her wishes were

moderate, I was sure--I should not, however, reduce her to poverty; no,

her fortune would be sufficient for us both. It would be mortifying

to my pride--it would be painful to receive instead of to give--I had

resolved never to be under such an obligation to a wife; but with such

a woman as Berenice!--I would submit--submit to accept her and her

fortune.

Then, as to her being a Jewess--who knows what changes love might

produce? Voltaire and Mowbray say, “qu’une femme est toujours de la

religion de son amant.”

At this instant I heard a heavy foot coming down the back stairs; the

door opened, and a yawning housemaid appeared, and started at the sight

of me.

“Gracious! I didn’t think it was so late! Mistress bid me ask the first

thing I did--but I didn’t know it was so late--Mercy! there’s master’s

bell--whether you go or not, sir?”

“Certainly not,” said I; and after having uttered this determination, I

was more at ease. I sat down, and wrote a note to my father, in the most

respectful and eloquent terms I could devise, judging that it was better

to write than to speak to him on the subject. Then I vacated the room

for the housemaid, and watched in my own apartment till all the noises

of preparation and of departure were over; and till I heard the sound of

the carriage driving away. I was surprised that my mother had not come

to me to endeavour to persuade me to change my determination; but my

father, I heard, had hurried her into the carriage--my note I found on

the table torn down the middle.

I concluded that my cousin Longshanks was in a fair way to have the

estate; but I went to bed and to sleep, and I was consoled with dreams

of Berenice.

Mowbray was with me in the morning before I was dressed. I had felt so

angry with him, that I had resolved a hundred times during the night

that I would never more admit him into my confidence--however, he

contrived to prevent my reproaches, and dispel my anger, by the great

concern he expressed for his precipitation. He blamed himself so much,

that, instead of accusing, I began to comfort him. I assured him that

he had, in fact, done me a service instead of an injury, by bringing my

affairs suddenly to a crisis: I had thus been forced to come at once

to a decision. “What decision?” he eagerly asked. My heart was at this

instant in such immediate want of sympathy, that it opened to him.

I told him all that had passed between my father and me, told him my

father’s vow, and my resolution to continue, at all hazards, my pursuit

of Berenice. He heard me with astonishment: he said he could not tell

which was most rash, my father’s vow, or my resolution.

“And your father is gone, actually gone,” cried Mowbray; “and, in spite

of his Jupiter Ammon, you stand resolved to brave your fate, and to

pursue the fair Jewess?”

“Even so,” said I: “this day I will know my fate--this day I will

propose for Miss Montenero.”

Against this mad precipitation he argued in the most earnest manner.

“If you were the first duke in England, Harrington,” said he, “with the

finest estate, undipped, unencumbered, unentailed; if, consequently,

you had nothing to do but to ask and have any woman for a wife; still

I should advise you, if you meant to secure the lady’s heart as well as

her hand, not to begin in this novice-like manner, by letting her see

her power over you: neither woman nor man ever valued an easy conquest.

No, trust me, keep your mind to yourself till the lady is dying to know

it--keep your own counsel till the lady can no longer keep hers: when

you are sure of her not being able to refuse you, then ask for her heart

as humbly as you please.”

To the whole of this doctrine I could not, in honour, generosity, or

delicacy accede. Of the wisdom of avoiding the danger of a refusal I was

perfectly sensible; but, in declaring my attachment to Miss Montenero, I

meant only to ask permission to address her. To win her heart I was

well aware must be a work of time; but the first step was to deserve her

esteem, and to begin by conducting myself towards her, and her father,

with perfect sincerity and openness. The more I was convinced of my

father’s inflexibility, the more desperate I knew my circumstances were,

the more I was bound not to mislead by false appearances. They would

naturally suppose that I should inherit my father’s fortune--I knew that

I should not, if--

“So, then,” interrupted Mowbray, “with your perfect openness and

sincerity, you will go to Mr. Montenero, and you will say, ‘Sir, that

you are a Jew, I know; that you are as rich as a Jew, I hope; that

you are a fool, I take for granted: at all events, I am a madman and

a beggar, or about to be a beggar. My father, who is a good and a most

obstinate Christian, swore last night by Jupiter Ammon, the only oath

which he never breaks, that he will disinherit me if I marry a Jewess:

therefore, I come this morning to ask you, sir, for your daughter, who

is a Jewess, and as I am told, a great heiress--which last circumstance

is, in my opinion, a great objection, but I shall overcome it in favour

of your daughter, if you will be pleased to give her to me. Stay, sir, I

beg your pardon, sir, excuse the hurry of the passions, which, probably,

you have long since forgotten; the fact is, I do not mean to ask you

for your daughter,--I came simply to ask your permission to fall in love

with her, which I have already done without your permission; and I trust

she has, on her part, done likewise; for if I had not a shrewd suspicion

that your Jessica was ready, according to the custom of Jews’ daughters,

to jump out of a two-pair of stairs window into her lover’s arms, madman

as I am, I could not be such an idiot as to present myself before you,

as I now do, sir, suing _in forma pauperis_ for the pleasure of becoming

your son-in-law. I must further have the honour to tell you, and with

perfect sincerity and consideration let me inform you, sir, that my

Christian father and mother having resolved never to admit a Jewish

daughter-in-law to the honours of the maternal or paternal embrace, when

your daughter shall do me the favour to become my wife, she need not

quit your house or family, as she cannot be received into mine. Here,

sir, I will rest my cause; but I might farther plead--’”

“Plead no more for or against me, Mowbray,” interrupted I, angrily

turning from him, for I could bear it no longer. Enthusiasm detests

wit much, and humour more. Enthusiasm, fancying itself raised above the

reach of ridicule, is always incensed when it feels that it is not safe

from its shafts.

Mowbray changed his tone, and checking his laughter, said seriously, and

with an air of affectionate sympathy, that, at the hazard of displeasing

me, he had used the only means he had conceived to be effectual to

prevent me from taking a step which he was convinced would be fatal.

I thanked him for his advice, but I had previously been too much piqued

by his raillery to allow his reasons even their due weight: besides, I

began to have a secret doubt of the sincerity of his friendship. In his

turn, he was provoked by my inflexible adherence to my own opinion; and

perhaps, suspecting my suspicion, he was the more readily displeased.

He spoke with confidence, I thought with arrogance, as a man notoriously

successful in the annals of gallantry, treating me, as I could not bear

to be treated, like a novice.

“I flatter myself, no man is less a coxcomb with regard to women than

I am,” Lord Mowbray modestly began; “but if I were inclined to boast,

I believe it is pretty generally allowed in town, by all who know any

thing of these things, that my practice in gallantry has been somewhat

successful--perhaps undeservedly so; still, in these cases, the world

judges by success: I may, therefore, be permitted to think that I know

something of women. My advice consequently, I thought, might be of use;

but, after all, perhaps I am wrong: often those who imagine that they

know women best, know them least.”

I replied that I did not presume to vie with Lord Mowbray as a man of

gallantry; but I should conceive that the same precepts, and the same

arts, which ensured success with women of a _certain class_, might

utterly fail with women of different habits and tastes. If the question

were how to win such and such an actress (naming one who had sacrificed

her reputation for Mowbray, and another, for whom he was sacrificing

his fortune), I should, I said, implicitly follow his advice; but that,

novice as I was in gallantry, I should venture to follow my own judgment

as to the mode of pleasing such a woman as Miss Montenero.

“None but a novice,” Mowbray answered, laughing, “could think that there

was any essential difference between woman and woman.” Every woman was

at heart the same. Of this he was so much convinced, that though he

had not, he said, any absurd confidence in his own peculiar powers of

pleasing, he was persuaded, that if honour had not put the trial quite

out of the question on his part, he could as easily have won the fair

Jewess as any other of her sex.

My indignation rose.

“Honour and friendship to me, my lord, are out of the question: forgive

me, if I own that I do not think your lordship would there have any

chance of success.”

“At all events you know you are safe; I cannot make the trial without

your permission.” “Your lordship is perfectly at liberty, if you think

proper, to make the trial.”

“Indeed!--Are you in earnest?--Now you have put it into my head, I will

think of it seriously.”

Then in a careless, pick-tooth manner, he stood, as if for some moments

debating the matter with himself.

“I have no great taste for matrimony or for Jewesses, but a Jewish

heiress in the present state of my affairs--Harrington, you know the

pretty little gipsy--the actress who played Jessica that night, so

famous in your imagination, so fatal to us both--well, my little

Jessica has, since that time, played away at a rare rate with my ready

money--_dipped me_ confoundedly--‘twould be poetic justice to make one

Jewess pay for another, if one could. Two hundred thousand pounds, Miss

Montenero is, I think they say. ‘Pon my sincerity, ‘tis a temptation!

Now it strikes me--if I am not bound in honour--”

I walked away in disgust, while Mowbray, in the same tone, continued,

“Let me see, now--suppose--only suppose--any thing may be by

supposition--suppose we were rivals. As rivals, things would be

wonderfully fair and even between us. You, Harrington, I grant, have the

advantage of first impressions--she has smiled upon you; while I, bound

in honour, stood by like a mummy--but unbound, set at liberty by express

permission--give me a fortnight’s time, and if I don’t make her blush,

my name’s not Mowbray!--and no matter whom a woman smiles upon, the man

who makes her blush is the man. But seriously, Harrington, am I hurting

your feelings? If what is play to me is death to you, I have done. Bind

me over again to my good behaviour you may, by a single word. Instead

of defying me, only swear, or, stay--I won’t put you to your oath--say

candidly, upon your honour, Lord Mowbray puts you in fear of your love.”

“I neither defy you nor fear you, my lord!” said I, with a tone and

look which at any other time Lord Mowbray, who was prompt enough to

take offence, would have understood as it was meant. But he was now

determined not to be provoked by any thing I could say or look. Standing

still at ease, he continued, “Not fear me!--Not bind me in honour!--Then

I have nobody’s feelings to consult but my own. So, as I was

considering, things are marvellously nicely balanced between us. In

point of fortune, both beggars--nearly; for though my father did not

disinherit me, I have disinherited myself. Then our precious mothers

will go mad on the spot, in white satin, if either of us marry a Jewess.

Well! that is even between us. Then religious scruples--you have some,

have not you?”

“I have, my lord.”

“Dry enough--there I have the advantage--I have none. Mosque--high

church--low church--no church--don’t let me shock you. I thought you

were for universal toleration; I am for liberty of conscience, in

marriage at least. You are very liberal, I know. You’re in love, and

you’d marry even a Jewess, would not you, if you could not contrive to

convert her? I am not in love, but shall be soon, I feel; and when once

I am in love!--I turn idolater, plump. Now, an idolater’s worse than a

Jew: so I should make it a point of conscience to turn Jew, to please

the fair Jewess, if requisite.”

“My lord, this trifling I can bear no longer; I must beg seriously that

we may understand each other.”

“Trifling!--Never was more serious in my life. I’d turn Jew--I’d turn

any thing, for a woman I loved.”

“Have you, or have you not, my lord, any intention of addressing Miss

Montenero?”

“Since I have your permission--since you have put it in my head--since

you have piqued me--frankly--yes.”

“I thank you for your frankness, my lord; I understand you. Now we

understand each other,” said I.

“Why, yes--and ‘tis time we should,” said Mowbray, coolly, “knowing one

another, as we have done, even from our boyish days. You may remember, I

never could bear to be piqued, _en honneur;_ especially by you, my dear

Harrington. It was written above, that we were to be rivals. But still,

if we could command our tempers--I was the hottest of the two, when we

were boys; but seeing something of the world, abroad and at home, has

done wonders for me. If you could coolly pursue this business as I

wish, in the comic rather than the heroic style, we might still, though

rivals, be friends--very good friends.”

“No, my lord, no: here all friendship between us ends.” “Be it so,” said

Lord Mowbray: “then sworn foes instead of sworn friends--and open war is

the word!”

“Open war!--yes--better than hollow peace.”

“Then a truce for to-day; to-morrow, with your good leave, I enter the

lists.”

“When you please, my lord.”

“Fearful odds, I own. The first flourish of trumpets, by that trumpeter

of yours, Jacob, has been in favour of the champion of the Jew pedlars;

and the lady with bright Jewish eyes has bowed to her knight, and he has

walked the field triumphantly alone; but Mowbray--Lord Mowbray appears!

Farewell, Harrington!”

He bowed, laughing, and left me. ‘Twas well he did; I could not have

borne it another second, and I could not insult the man in my own

house--anger, disdainful anger, possessed me. My heart had, in the

course of a few hours, been successively a prey to many violent

conflicting passions; and at the moment when I most wanted the support,

the sympathy of a friend, I found myself duped, deserted, ridiculed! I

felt alone in the world, and completely miserable.

A truce for this day was agreed upon. I had a few hours’ time for

reflection--much wanted. During this interval, which appeared to me a

most painful suspense, I had leisure to reconsider my difficulties.

Now that I was left to my own will entirely, should I decide to make an

immediate declaration? As I revolved this question in my thoughts, my

mind altered with every changing view which the hopes and fears of a

lover threw upon the subject. I was not perfectly well informed as

to the material point, whether the Jewish religion and Jewish customs

permitted intermarriages with Christians. Mowbray’s levity had suggested

alarming doubts: perhaps he had purposely thrown them out; be that as

it would, I must be satisfied. I made general inquiries as to the Jewish

customs from Jacob, and he, careful to answer with propriety, kept also

to general terms, lest he should appear to understand my particular

views: he could tell me only, that in some cases, more frequently on the

continent and in America than in England, Jews have married Christian

women, and the wives have continued undisturbed in their faith; whether

such marriages were regularly permitted or not, Jacob could not say--no

precedent that he could recollect was exactly a case in point. This

difficulty concerning religion increased, instead of diminishing, in

magnitude and importance, the more my imagination dwelt upon it--the

longer it was considered by my reason: I must take more time before I

could determine. Besides, I was _curious_--I would not allow that I was

_anxious_--to see how Miss Montenero would conduct herself towards

Lord Mowbray--a man of rank--a man of fashion--supposed to be a man

of fortune--known to be a man of wit and gallantry: I should have an

opportunity, such as I had never before had, of seeing her tried; and I

should be able to determine whether I had really obtained any interest

in her heart. On this last point particularly, I could now, without

hazard of a mortifying refusal, or of a precipitate engagement, decide.

Add to these distinct reasons, many mixed motives, which acted upon me

without my defining or allowing them in words. I had spoken and thought

with contempt of Lord Mowbray’s chance of success; but in spite of my

pride in my own superiority of principle and character, in spite of

my confidence in Berenice and in myself, I had my secret, very secret,

quailings of the heart. I thought, when it came to the point, that

it would be best to wait a little longer, before I hazarded that

declaration which must bring her to direct acceptance or rejection; in

short, I determined not to throw myself at her feet precipitately. I

took Mowbray’s advice after all; but I took it when I had made it my own

opinion: and still I rejoiced that my resistance to the arrogant manner

in which Lord Mowbray had laid down the law of gallantry, had produced

that struggle of the passions, in the height of which his mask had

fallen off. I never could decide whether the thought of becoming my

rival really struck him, as he said it did, from the pique of the

moment; or whether he only seized the occasion to declare a design he

had previously formed: no matter--we were now declared rivals.

CHAPTER XIII.

After our declaration of hostilities, Lord Mowbray and I first met on

neutral ground at the Opera--Miss Montenero was there. We were both

eager to mark our pretensions to her publicly. I appeared this night to

great disadvantage: I certainly did not conduct myself prudently--I

lost the command of my temper. Lord Mowbray met me with the same

self-possession, the same gay, careless manner which had provoked me so

much during our last interview. To the by-standers, who knew nothing of

what had passed between us, his lordship must have appeared the pink of

courtesy, the perfection of gentlemanlike ease and good-humour; whilst

I, unable to suppress symptoms of indignation, of contempt, and perhaps

of jealousy, appeared, in striking contrast, captious, haughty, and at

best incomprehensible. Mr. Montenero looked at me with much surprise,

and some concern. In Miss Montenero’s countenance I thought I saw more

concern than surprise; she was alarmed--she grew pale, and I repented of

some haughty answer I had made to Lord Mowbray, in maintaining a place

next to her, which he politely ceded to my impetuosity: he seated

himself on the other side of her, in a place which, if I had not been

blinded by passion, I might have seen and taken as quietly as he did. I

was more and more vexed by perceiving that Mr. Montenero appeared to be,

with all his penetration, duped this night by Mowbray’s show of kindness

towards me; he whispered once or twice to Mr. Montenero, and they seemed

as if they were acting in concert, both observing that I was out of

temper, and Lord Mowbray showing Mr. Montenero how he bore with me. In

fact, I desired nothing so much as an opportunity of quarrelling with

him, and he, though determined to put me ostensibly and flagrantly in

the wrong, desired nothing better than to commence his operation by

the eclat of a duel. If Miss Montenero had understood her business as a

heroine, a duel, as every body expected, must have taken place between

us, in consequence of the happy dispositions in which we both were this

night: nothing but the presence of mind and unexpected determination

of Miss Montenero could have prevented it. I sat regretting that I

had given a moment’s pain or alarm to her timid sensibility, while I

observed the paleness of her cheek, and a tremor in her under lip, which

betrayed how much she had been agitated. Some talking lady of the party

began to give an account, soon afterwards, of a duel in high life,

which was then the conversation of the day: Lord Mowbray and I were

both attentive, and so was Miss Montenero. When she observed that our

attention was fixed, and when there was a pause in the conversation

in which her low voice could be distinctly heard, she, conquering her

extreme timidity, and with a calmness that astonished us all, said, that

she did not pretend to be a judge of what gentlemen might think right

or wrong about duels, but that for her own part she had formed a

resolution--an unalterable resolution, never to marry a man who had

fought a duel in which he had been the challenger. Her father, who

was behind her, leaned forward, and asked what his daughter said--she

deliberately repeated her words.

That instant I recovered perfect command of temper--I resolved that at

all events I never would be the person to give the challenge, and Lord

Mowbray, at the same instant, I believe, resolved that I should, if he

could so manage it without appearing to be the aggressor. We were both

of us firmly convinced that Miss Montenero was in earnest; the manner

in which she spoke, and the strong evidence of her power over herself at

this moment, impressed us completely with this conviction. A young lady,

a stranger in London, averse from appearing, infinitely more averse

from speaking before numbers, who, when all eyes, and some of them no

friendly eyes, were fixed upon her, could so far conquer her excessive

susceptibility to the opinion of others, as to pronounce, in such

circumstances, such a new and extraordinary determination, was certainly

to be deemed capable of abiding by her resolution. She was much blamed,

I heard afterwards, for the resolution, and more for the declaration. It

was said to be “quite unfit for a lady, and particularly for so young a

lady. Till swords were actually drawn, she should never have thought

of such a thing: then, to presume that she or her fortune were of such

consequence, that her declaration could influence gentlemen--could have

any effect on Lord Mowbray! He did her a vast deal too much honour

in paying her any of those attentions which every body knew meant

nothing--a Jewess, too!”

Miss Montenero never afterwards spoke on the subject; the effect she

desired was produced, and no other power, I am persuaded, could have

been sufficient to have made me preserve command of myself, during my

daily, hourly trials of temper, in those contentions for her favour

which ensued. Lord Mowbray, by every secret art that could pique my

pride, my jealousy, or my love, endeavoured to provoke me to challenge

him. At first this struggle in my mind was violent--I had reason to fear

my rival’s address, and practised powers of pleasing. He used his utmost

skill, and that skill was great. He began by exerting all his wit,

humour, and vivacity, to entertain in conversation; while I, with a

spell over my faculties, could not produce to advantage any one thing

I knew or had ever known. What became of my ideas I know not, but I

was sensible of my being very stupid and disagreeable. Aware of the

contrast, aware that Miss Montenero saw and felt it, I grew ten times

worse, more silent, and more stupid. Mowbray, happy and confident, went

on, secure of victory. He was an excellent actor, and he was now to act

falling in love, which he did by such fine degrees, and with a nicety

of art which so exquisitely imitated nature, that none but the most

suspicious or the most practised could have detected the counterfeit.

From being the most entertaining, lively man in London, Lord Mowbray

became serious, grave, and sentimental. From being a gallant, gay

Lothario, he was reformed, likely to make the best husband in the world,

provided he marry the woman he loves, and who has influence over him

sufficient to make his reformation last for life. This Lord Mowbray, in

every possible form of insinuation, gave Miss Montenero to understand

was precisely her case and his; she had first, he said, given him

a taste for refined female society, disgusted him with his former

associates, especially with the women of whom he could not now bear

to think; he had quarrelled with--parted with all his mistresses--his

Jessica, the best beloved--parted from irrevocably. This was dropped

with propriety in conversation with Mr. Montenero. The influence of a

virtuous attachment is well known. The effects on Lord Mowbray were,

as he protested, wonderful; he scarcely knew himself--indeed I scarcely

knew him, though I had been, as it were, behind the scenes, and had seen

him preparing for his character. Though he knew that I knew that he was

acting, yet this never disconcerted him in the slightest degree--never

gave him one twinge of conscience, or hesitation from shame, in my

presence. Whenever I attempted openly--I was too honourable, and he

knew I was too honourable, to betray his confidence, or to undermine him

secretly--whenever I attempted openly to expose him, he foiled me--his

cunning was triumphant, and the utmost I could accomplish was, in

the acme of my indignation, to keep my temper, and recollect Miss

Montenero’s resolution.

Though she seemed not at first in the least to suspect Lord Mowbray’s

sincerity, she was, as I rejoiced to perceive, little interested by his

professions: she was glad he was reformed, for his sake; but for her own

part, her vanity was not flattered. There seemed to be little chance

on this plea of persuading her to take charge of him for life. My heart

beat again with hope--how I admired her!--and I almost forgave Lord

Mowbray. My indignation against him, I must own, was not always as

steadily proportioned to his deserts as for the sake of my pride and

consistency I could wish to represent it. In recording this part of the

history of my life, truth obliges me to acknowledge that my anger rose

or fell in proportion to the degree of fear I felt of the possibility of

his success; whenever my hope and my confidence in myself increased, I

found it wonderfully easy to command my temper.

But my rival was a man of infinite resource; when one mode of attack

failed, he tried another. Vanity, in some form, he was from experience

convinced must be the ruling passion of the female heart--and vanity

is so accessible, so easily managed. Miss Montenero was a stranger, a

Jewess, just entering into the fashionable world--just doubting, as

he understood, whether she should make London her future residence, or

return to her retirement in the wilds of America. Lord Mowbray wished

to make her sensible that his public attentions would bring her at once

into fashion; and though his mother, the prejudiced Lady De Brantefield,

could not be prevailed upon to visit a Jewess, yet his lordship had a

vast number of high connexions and relations, to all of whom he

could introduce Mr. and Miss Montenero. Lady Anne Mowbray, indeed,

unaccountably persisted in saying every where, that she was certain

her brother had no more thought of the Jewess than of the queen of the

gipsies. Whenever she saw Miss Montenero in public, her ladyship had,

among her own set, a never-failing source of sarcasm and ridicule in

the Spanish fashion of Miss Montenero’s dress, especially her long

veils--veils were not then in fashion, and Lady Anne of course

pronounced them to be hideous. It was at this time, in England,

the reign of high heads: a sort of triangular cushion or edifice of

horsehair, suppose nine inches diagonal, three inches thick, by seven

in height, called I believe a _toque_ or a _system_, was fastened on the

female head, I do not well know how, with black pins a quarter of a

yard long; and upon and over this _system_, the hair was erected, and

crisped, and frizzed, and thickened with soft pomatum, and filled with

powder, white, brown, or red, and made to look as like as possible to

a fleece of powdered wool, which _battened_ down on each side of the

triangle to the face. Then there were things called _curls_--nothing

like what the poets understand by curls or ringlets, but layers of hair,

first stiffened and then rolled up into hollow cylinders, resembling

sausages, which were set on each side of the system, “artillery tier

above tier,” two or three of the sausages dangling from the ear down

the neck. The hair behind, natural and false, plastered together to

a preposterous bulk with quantum sufficit of powder and pomatum, was

turned up in a sort of great bag, or club, or _chignon_--then at the top

of the mount of hair and horsehair was laid a gauze platform, stuck full

of little red daisies, from the centre of which platform rose a plume

of feathers a full yard high--or in lieu of platform, flowers, and

feathers, there was sometimes a fly-cap, or a wing-cap, or a _pouf_. If

any one happens to have an old pocket-book for 1780, a single glance

at the plate of fashionable heads for that year will convey a more

competent idea of the same than I, unknowing in the terms of art, can

produce by the most elaborate description. Suffice it for me to observe,

that in comparison with this head-dress, to which, in my liberality and

respect for departed fashion, I forbear to fix any of the many epithets

which present themselves, the Spanish dress and veil worn by Miss

Montenero, associated as it was with painting and poetry, did certainly

appear to me more picturesque and graceful. In favour of the veil, I

had all the poets, from Homer and Hesiod downwards, on my side; and

moreover, I was backed by the opinion of the wisest of men, who has

pronounced that “_a veil addeth to beauty._” Armed with such authority,

and inspired by love, I battled stoutly with Lady Anne upon several

occasions, especially one night when we met at the Pantheon. I was

walking between Lady Emily B---- and Miss Montenero, and two or three

times, as we went round the room, we met Lady Anne Mowbray and her

party, and every time we passed, I observed scornful glances at the

veil. Berenice was too well-bred to suspect ill-breeding in others;

she never guessed what was going forward, till one of the youngest and

boldest of these high-born vulgarians spoke so loud as she passed, and

pronounced the name of _Montenero,_ and the word _Jewess,_ so plainly,

that both Miss Montenero and Lady Emily B---- could not avoid hearing

what was said. Lord Mowbray was not with us. I took an opportunity of

quitting the ladies as soon as general B----, who had left us for a few

minutes, returned. I went to pay my compliments to Lady Anne Mowbray,

and, as delicately as I could, remonstrated against their proceedings.

I said that her ladyship and her party were not aware, I was sure, how

loudly they had spoken. Lady Anne defended herself and her companions

by fresh attacks upon the veil, and upon the lady, “who had done vastly

well to take the veil.” In the midst of the nonsense which Lady Anne

threw out, there now and then appeared something that was a little like

her brother Mowbray’s wit--little bits of sparkling things, _mica,_

not ore. I was in no humour to admire them, and her ladyship took much

offence at a general observation I made, “that people of sense submit to

the reigning fashion, while others are governed by it.” We parted this

night so much displeased with each other, that when we met again in

public, we merely exchanged bows and curtsies--in private we had seldom

met of late--I never went to Lady de Brantefield’s. I was really glad

that the battle of the veil had ended in this cessation of intercourse

between us. As soon as Miss Montenero found that her Spanish dress

subjected her to the inconvenience of being remarked in public she laid

it aside. I thought she was right in so doing--and in three days’ time,

though I had at first regretted the picturesque dress, I soon became

accustomed to the change. So easily does the eye adapt itself to the

fashion, so quickly do we combine the idea of grace and beauty with

whatever is worn by the graceful and the beautiful, and I may add, so

certainly do we learn to like whatever is associated with those we love.

The change of dress which Berenice had so prudently adopted, did not,

however, produce any change in the manners of Lady Anne and of her

party. Lady Anne, it was now evident, had taken an unalterable dislike

to Miss Montenero. I am not coxcomb enough to imagine that she was

jealous; I know that she never had the slightest regard for me, and

that I was not the sort of man whom she could like; but still I had been

counted, perhaps by others, in the list of her admirers, and I was a

young man, and an admirer the less was always to be regretted--deserting

to a _Jewess_, as she said, was intolerable. But I believe she was also

secretly afraid, that her brother was more in earnest in his attentions

to Miss Montenero, than she affected to suppose possible. From whatever

cause, she certainly hated Berenice cordially, and took every means of

mortifying me by the display of this aversion. I shall not be at the

trouble of recording the silly and petty means she took to vex. I was

not surprised at any thing of this sort from her ladyship; but I was

much surprised by her brother’s continuing to be absolutely blind and

deaf to her proceedings. It is true, sometimes it happened that he was

not present, but this was not always the case; and I was convinced that

it could not be from accident or inadvertency, that it must be from

settled design, that he persisted in this blindness. Combining my

observations, I discovered that he wanted to make Miss Montenero

feel how impossible it was for her to escape the ridicule of certain

_fashionable impertinents_, and how impracticable it would be to

_get on_ among people of the ton in London, without the aid of such a

champion as himself. One day he suddenly appeared to discover something

of what was going forward, and assumed great indignation; then affecting

to suppress that feeling, “wished to Heaven he were _authorized_

to speak”--and there he paused--but no inclination to authorize him

appeared. I had sometimes seen Miss Montenero distressed by the rude

manner in which she had been stared at. I had seen her colour come and

go, but she usually preserved a dignified silence on such occasions.

Once, and but once, I heard her advert to the subject in speaking to

her father, when Lord Mowbray was not present. “You see, I hope, my

dear father,” said she, “that I am curing myself of that _morbid

sensibility_, that excessive susceptibility to the opinion of others,

with which you used to reproach me. I have had some good lessons, and

you have had some good trials of me, since we came to England.”

“How much I am obliged to those persons or those circumstances, which

have done what I thought was impossible, which have raised my daughter

in my opinion!” said her father. The look of affectionate approbation

with which these words were pronounced, and the grateful delight with

which Berenice heard them, convinced me that Lord Mowbray had completely

mistaken his ground--had mistaken strong sensibility for weakness of

mind. It now appeared, to my entire satisfaction, that Miss Montenero

was really and truly above the follies and the meanness of fashion.

She did not wish to be acquainted with these fine people, nor to make a

figure in public; but she did wish to see the best society in London,

in order to compare it with what she had been accustomed to in other

countries, and to determine what would be most for her future happiness.

Through the friendship of General B---- and his family, she had

sufficient opportunities of seeing in public, and enjoying in private,

the best society in London. Lord Mowbray, therefore, had no power over

her, as a leader of fashion; his general character for being a favourite

with the ladies, and his gallant style of conversation, did not make the

impression upon her that he had expected.

He did not know how to converse with one who could not be answered by

a play upon words, nor satisfied by an appeal to precedents, or the

authority of numbers and of high names.

Lord Chesterfield’s style of conversation, and that of any of the

personages in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, could not be more different, or

less compatible, than the simplicity of Miss Montenero and the wit of

Lord Mowbray.

I never saw any one so puzzled and provoked as was this man of wit by a

character of genuine simplicity. He was as much out of his element with

such a character as any of the French lovers in Marmontel’s Tales would

be tête-à-tête with a Roman or a Grecian matron--as much at a loss as

one of the fine gentlemen in Congreve’s plays might find himself, if

condemned to hold parley with a heroine of Sophocles or of Euripides.

Lord Mowbray, a perfect Proteus when he wished to please, changed his

manner successively from that of the sentimental lover, to that of the

polite gallant and accomplished man of the world; and when this did

not succeed, he had recourse to philosophy, reason, and benevolence. No

hint, which cunning and address could improve to his purpose, was lost

upon Mowbray. Mrs. Coates had warned me that Miss Montenero was _touchy

on the Jewish chapter_, and his lordship was aware it was as the

champion of the Jews that I had first been favourably represented by

Jacob, and favourably received by Mr. Montenero. Soon Lord Mowbray

appeared to be deeply interested and deeply read in very thing that had

been written in their favour.

He rummaged over Tovey and Ockley; and “Priestley’s Letters to the

Jews,” and “The Letters of certain Jews to M. de Voltaire,” were books

which he now continually quoted in conversation. With great address he

wondered that he had never happened to meet with them till lately; and

confessed that he believed he never should have thought of reading

them, but that really the subject had of late become so interesting! Of

Voltaire’s illiberal attacks upon the Jews, and of the King of Prussia’s

intolerance towards them, he could not express sufficient detestation;

nor could he ever adequately extol Cumberland’s benevolent “Jew,” or

Lessing’s “Nathan the Wise.” Quotations from one or the other were

continually in readiness, uttered with all the air of a man so deeply

impressed with certain sentiments, that they involuntarily burst from

him on every occasion. This I could also perceive to be an imitation of

what he had seen _suceed_ with me; and I was not a little flattered by

observing, that Berenice was unconsciously pleased, if not caught by the

counterfeit. The affectation was skilfully managed, with a dash of

his own manner, and through the whole preserving an air of nature

and consistency: so that he had all the appearance of a person whose

understanding, naturally liberal, had, on one particular subject, been

suddenly warmed and exalted by the passion of love. It has often been

said, that liars have need of good memories. Mowbray had really an

excellent memory, but yet it was not sufficient for all his occasions.

He contradicted himself sometimes without perceiving it, but not without

its being perceived. Intent upon one point, he laboured that admirably;

but he sometimes forgot that any thing could be seen beyond that

point--he forgot the bearings and connexions. He never forgot his

liberality about the Jews, and about every thing relative to Hebrew

ground; but on other questions, in which he thought Mr. Montenero and

his daughter had no concern, his party spirit and his want of toleration

for other sects broke out.

One day a Rabbi came to Mr. Montenero’s while we were there, to solicit

his contribution towards the building or repairing a synagogue. The

priest was anxious to obtain leave to build on certain lands which

belonged to the crown. These lands were in the county where Lord

Mowbray’s or Lady de Brantefield’s property lay. With the most engaging

liberality of manner, Lord Mowbray anticipated the wishes of the Jewish

priest, declaring that he was happy on this occasion publicly and

practically to show his principles of toleration; he would immediately

use whatever influence he might possess with government to obtain the

desired grant; and if that application should fail, there was still a

resource in future. At present, unfortunately, his mother’s opinions

differing from his own, nothing could be done; but he could, in future,

offer a site for a synagogue in the very part of the country that was

desired, on lands that must in time be his.

The priest was down to the ground, bowing, full of acknowledgments, and

admiration of his lordship’s generosity and liberality of principle. A

few minutes afterwards, however, his lordship undid all he had done

with Berenice and with her father, by adding that he regretted that his

mother had given a lease of a bit of land to some confounded dissenters:

he was determined, he said, whenever the estate should come into his

own hands, to break that lease--he would have no meeting-house, no

dissenting chapel on his estate--he considered them as nuisances--he

would raze the chapel to the ground--he would much rather have a

synagogue on that spot.

Lord Mowbray walked to the window with the Jewish priest, who was eager

to press his own point while his lordship was in the humour.

Mowbray looked back for Mr. Montenero, but, to his evident

mortification, neither Mr. Montenero nor Berenice followed to this

consultation. Mr. Montenero turned to me, and, with a peculiar look of

his, an expression of grave humour and placid penetration, said, “Did

you ever hear, Mr. Harrington, of a sect of Jews called the Caraites?”

“Never, sir.”

“The _Caraites_ are what we may call Jewish dissenters. Lord Mowbray’s

notions of toleration remind me of the extraordinary liberality of one

of our Rabbies, who gave it as his opinion that if a _Caraites_ and a

Christian were drowning, we Jews ought to make a bridge of the body of

the Caraite, for the purpose of saving the Christian.”

Berenice smiled; and I saw that my fears of her being duped by mock

philanthropy were vain. Lord Mowbray was soon tired of his colloquy with

the priest, and returned to us, talking of the Hebrew chanting at some

synagogue in town which he had lately visited; and which, he said, was

the finest thing he had ever heard. A Jewish festival was in a few days

to be celebrated, and I determined, I said, to go on that day to hear

the chanting, and to see the ceremony. In the countenance of Berenice,

to whom my eyes involuntarily turned as I spoke, I saw an indefinable

expression, on which I pondered, and finished by interpreting favourably

to my wishes. I settled that she was pleased, but afraid to show this

too distinctly. Lord Mowbray regretted, what I certainly did not in the

least regret, that he should be on duty at Windsor on the day of this

festival. I was the more determined to be at the synagogue, and there

accordingly I went punctually; but, to my disappointment, Berenice did

not appear. Mr. Montenero saw me come in, and made room for me near him.

The synagogue was a spacious, handsome building; not divided into

pews like our churches, but open, like foreign churches, to the whole

congregation. The women sat apart in a gallery. The altar was in the

centre, on a platform, raised several steps and railed round. Within

this railed space were the high-priest and his assistants. The

high-priest with his long beard and sacerdotal vestments, struck me as a

fine venerable figure. The service was in Hebrew: but I had a book

with a translation of it. All I recollect are the men and women’s

thanksgivings.

“Blessed art thou, O Everlasting King! that thou hast not made me a

woman.”

The woman’s lowly response is, “Blessed art thou, O Lord! that thou hast

made me according to thy will.”

But of the whole ceremony I must confess that I have but a very confused

recollection. Many things conspired to distract my attention. Whether

it was that my disappointment at not seeing Berenice indisposed me to be

pleased, or whether the chanting was not this day, or at this synagogue,

as fine as usual, it certainly did not answer my expectations. However

pleasing it might be to other ears, to mine it was discordant; and I was

afraid that Mr. Montenero should perceive this. I saw that he observed

me from time to time attentively, and I thought he wanted to discover

whether there was within me any remains of my old antipathies. Upon this

subject I knew he was peculiarly susceptible. Under this apprehension,

I did my utmost to suppress my feelings; and the constraint became

mentally and corporeally irksome. The ceremonials, which were quite new

to me, contributed at once to strain my attention, and to increase the

painful confusion of my mind. I felt relieved when the service was

over; but when I thought that it was finished, all stood still, as if

in expectation, and there was a dead silence. I saw two young children

appear from the crowd: way was made for them to the altar. They

walked slowly, hand in hand, and when they had ascended the steps,

and approached the altar, the priest threw over them a white scarf, or

vestment, and they kneeled, and raising their little hands, joined them

together, in the attitude of supplication. They prayed in silence. They

were orphans, praying for their father and mother, whom they had lately

lost. Mr. Montenero told me that it is the Jewish custom for orphans,

during a year after the death of their parents, to offer up at

the altar, on every public meeting of their synagogue, this solemn

commemoration of their loss. While the children were still kneeling, a

man walked silently round the synagogue, collecting contributions for

the orphans. I looked, and saw, as he came nearer to me, that this was

Jacob. Just as I had taken out my purse, I was struck by the sight of a

face and figure that had terrible power over my associations--a figure

exactly resembling one of the most horrible of the Jewish figures which

used to haunt me when I was a child. The face with _terrible eyes_

stood fixed opposite to me. I was so much surprised and startled by this

apparition, that a nervous tremor seized me in every limb. I let the

purse, which I had in my hand, fall upon the ground. Mr. Montenero took

it up again, and presented it to me, asking me, in a very kind voice,

“if I was ill.” I recollected myself--when I looked again, the figure

had disappeared in the crowd. I had no reason to believe that Mr.

Montenero saw the cause of my disorder. He seemed to attribute it to

sudden illness, and hastened to get out of the synagogue into the fresh

air. His manner, on this occasion, was so kind towards me, and the

anxiety he showed about my health so affectionate, that all my fears of

his misinterpreting my feelings vanished; and to me the result of all

that had passed was a firmer conviction, than I had ever yet felt, of

his regard.

It was evident, I thought, that after all the disadvantages I had had

on some points, and after all the pains that Lord Mowbray had taken

to please, Mr. Montenero far preferred me, and was interested in the

highest degree about my health, and about every thing that concerned

me. Nevertheless, Lord Mowbray persevered in showing the most profound

respect for Mr. Montenero, by acting an increasing taste for his

conversation, deference for his talents, and affection for his virtues.

This certainly succeeded better with Berenice than any thing else his

lordship had tried; but when he found it please, he overdid it a little.

The exaggeration was immediately detected by Berenice: the heart easily

detects flattery. Once, when Lord Mowbray praised her father for some

accomplishment which he did not possess--for pronouncing and reading

English remarkably well--his daughter’s glance at the flatterer

expressed indignation, suddenly extinguished by contempt. Detected and

baffled, he did not well know how, by a woman whom he considered as so

much his inferior in ability and address, Lord Mowbray found it often

difficult to conceal his real feelings of resentment, and then it was

that he began to hate her. I, who knew his countenance too well to

be deceived by his utmost command of face, saw the evil turn of the

eye--saw looks from time to time that absolutely alarmed me--looks of

hatred, malice, vengeance, suddenly changed to smiles, submission, and

softness of demeanour. Though extremely vain, and possessed with an

opinion that no woman could resist him, yet, with his understanding

and his experience in gallantry, I could not conceive it possible that,

after all the signs and tokens he had seen, he should persist in the

hope of succeeding; he was certainly aware that I was preferred. I knew

it to be natural that jealousy and anger should increase with fears and

doubts of success; and yet there was something incomprehensible in

the manner which, before Mr. Montenero, he now adopted towards me: he

appeared at once to yield the palm to me, and yet to be resolved not to

give up the contest; he seemed as if he was my rival against his will,

and my friend if I would but permit it; he refrained, with ostentatious

care, from giving me any provocation, checking himself often, and

drawing back with such expressions as these:--“If it were any other man

upon earth--but Mr. Harrington might say and do what he pleased--in any

other circumstances, he could not hazard contradicting or quarrelling

with _him_; indeed he could never forget--”

Then he would look at Berenice and at Mr. Montenero, and they would

look as if they particularly approved of his conduct. Berenice softened

towards him, and I trembled. As she softened towards him, I fancied she

became graver and more reserved towards me. I was more provoked by the

new tone of sentimental regret from Mowbray than I had been by any of

his other devices, because I thought I saw that it imposed more than any

thing else had done on Berenice and Mr. Montenero, and because I knew it

to be so utterly false.

Once, as we were going down stairs together, after I had disdainfully

expressed my contempt of hypocrisy, and my firm belief that my plain

truth would in the end prevail with Berenice against all his address,

he turned upon me in sudden anger, beyond his power to control, and

exclaimed, “Never!--She never shall be yours!”

It appeared as if he had some trick yet in store--some card concealed

in his hand, with which he was secure, at last, of winning the game. I

pondered, and calculated, but I could not make out what it could be.

One advantage, as he thought it, I was aware he had over me--he had no

religious scruples; he could therefore manage so as to appear to make

a great sacrifice to love, when, in fact, it would cost his conscience

nothing. One evening he began to talk of Sir Charles Grandison and

Clementina--he blamed Sir Charles Grandison; he declared, that for his

part _there was nothing he would not sacrifice to a woman he loved_.

I looked at Miss Montenero at that instant--our eyes met--she blushed

deeply--withdrew her eyes from me--and sighed. During the remainder of

the evening, she scarcely spoke to me, or looked toward me. She appeared

embarrassed; and, as I thought, displeased. Lord Mowbray was in high

spirits--he seemed resolved to advance--I retired earlier than usual.

Lord Mowbray stayed, and seized the moment to press his own suit. He

made his proposal--he offered to sacrifice religion--every thing to

love. He was refused irrevocably. I know nothing of the particulars, nor

should I have known the fact but for his own intemperance of resentment.

It was not only his vanity--his mortified, exasperated vanity--that

suffered by this refusal; it was not only on account of his rivalship

with me that he was vexed to the quick; his interest, as much as his

vanity, had suffered. I did not know till this night how completely

he was ruined. He had depended upon the fortune of the Jewess. What

resource for him now?--None. In this condition, like one of the Indian

gamblers, when they have lost all, and are ready _to run amuck_ on all

who may fall in their way, he this night, late, made his appearance at

a club where he expected to find me. Fortunately, I was not there; but a

gentleman who was, gave me an account of the scene. Disappointed at

not finding me, with whom he had determined to quarrel, he supped in

absolute silence--drank hasty and deep draughts of wine--then burst out

into abuse of Mr. and Miss Montenero, and challenged any body present

to defend them: he knew that several of their acquaintances were in

company; but all, seeing that from the combined effects of passion and

wine he was not in his senses, suffered him to exhale his fury without

interruption or contradiction. Then he suddenly demanded the reason of

this silence; and seemingly resolved to force some one into a quarrel,

[Footnote: Strange as it may appear, this representation is true.] he

began by the gentleman next to him, and said the most offensive and

provoking things he could think of to him--and to each in turn; but all

laughed, and told him they were determined not to quarrel with him--that

he must take four-and-twenty hours to cool before they would take

notice of any thing he should say. His creditors did not give him

four-and-twenty hours’ time: a servant, before whom he had vented his

rage against the Jewess, comprehended that all his hopes of her were

over, and gave notice to the creditors, who kept him in their pay for

that purpose. Mowbray was obliged the next day to leave town, or to

conceal himself in London, to avoid an arrest. I heard no more of him

for some time--indeed I made no inquiries. I could have no farther

interest concerning a man who had conducted himself so ill. I only

rejoiced that he was now out of my way, and that he had by all his

treachery, and by all his artifices, given me an opportunity of seeing,

more fully tried, the excellent understanding and amiable disposition of

Berenice. My passion was now justified by my reason: my hopes were high,

not presumptuous--nothing but the difficulty about her religion stood

between me and happiness. I was persuaded that the change by which I had

been alarmed in Miss Montenero’s manner towards me had arisen only

from doubts of my love, or from displeasure at the delay of an explicit

declaration of my passion. Determined, at all hazards, now to try my

fate, I took my way across the square to Mr. Montenero’s--Across the

square?--yes! I certainly took the diagonal of the square.

CHAPTER XIV.

When I arrived at Mr. Montenero’s I saw the window-shutters closed, and

there was an ominous stillness in the area--no one answered to my knock.

I knocked louder--I rang impatiently; no footsteps were heard in the

hall: I pulled the bell incessantly. During the space of three minutes

that I was forced to wait on the steps, I formed a variety of horrid

imaginations. At last I heard approaching sounds: an old woman very

deliberately opened the door. “Lauk, sir, how you do ring! There’s not a

body to be had but me--all the servants is different ways, gone to their

friends.”

“But Mr. and Miss Montenero--”

“Oh! they was off by times this morning--they be gone--”

“Gone?”

I suppose my look and accent of despair struck the old woman with some

pity, for she added, “Lauk, sir, they be only gone for a few days.”

I recovered my breath. “And can you, my good lady, tell me where they

are gone?”

“Somewhere down in Surrey--Lord knows--I forget the names--but to

General somebody’s.”

“General B----‘s, perhaps.”

“Ay, ay,--that’s it.”

My imagination ran over in an instant all the general’s family, the

gouty brother, and the white-toothed aide-de-camp.

“How long are they to stay at General B----‘s, can you tell me, my good

lady?”

“Dear heart! I can’t tell, not I’s, how they’ll cut and carve their

visitings--all I know is, they be to be back here in ten days or a

fortnight or so.”

I put a golden memorandum, with my card, into the old woman’s hand, and

she promised that the very moment Mr. and Miss Montenero should return

to town I should have notice.

During this fortnight my anxiety was increased by hearing from Mrs.

Coates, whom I accidentally met at a fruit-shop, that “Miss Montenero

was taken suddenly ill of a scarlet fever down in the country at General

B----‘s, where,” as Mrs. Coates added, “they could get no advice for her

at all, but a country apothecary, which was worse than nobody.”

Mrs. Coates, who was not an ill-natured, though a very ill-bred woman,

observing the terrible alarm into which she had thrown me by her

intelligence, declared she was quite sorry she had _outed_ with the

news so sudden upon me. Mrs. Coates now stood full in the doorway of the

fruit-shop, so as to stop me completely from effecting my retreat; and

while her footman was stowing into her carriage the loads of fruit which

she had purchased, I was compelled to hear her go on in the following

style.

“Now, Mr. Harrington--no offence--but I couldn’t have conceived it was

so re’lly over head and ears an affair with you, as by your turning as

pale as the table-cloth I see it re’lly is. For there was my son Peter,

he admired her, and the alderman was not against it; but then the Jewess

connexion was always a stumbling-block Peter could not swallow;--and as

for my Lord Mowbray, that the town talked of so much as in love with the

Jewess heiress--heiress, says I, very like, but not Jewess, I’ll engage;

and, said I, from the first, he is no more in love with her than I

am. So many of them young men of the ton is always following of them

heiresses up and down for fashion or _fortin’s_ sake, without caring

sixpence about them, that--I ask your pardon, Mr. Harrington--but I

thought you might, in the alderman’s phrase, be _of the same kidney_;

but since I see ‘tis a real downright affair of the heart, I shall make

it my business to call myself at your house to-morrow in my carriage.

No--that would look odd, and you a bachelor, and your people out o’town.

But I’ll send my own footman with a message, I promise you now, let ‘em

be ever so busy, if I hear any good news. No need to send if it be bad,

for ill news flies apace evermore, all the world over, as Peter says.

Tom! I say! is the fruit all in, Tom?--Oh! Mr. Harrington, don’t trouble

yourself--you’re too polite, but I always get into my coach best myself,

without hand or arm, except it be Tom’s. A good morning, sir--I sha’n’t

forget to-morrow: so live upon hope--lover’s fare!--Home, Tom.”

The next day, Mrs. Coates, more punctual to her word than many a more

polished person, sent as early as it was possible “to set my heart at

ease about Miss Montenero’s illness, and _other_ _matters_.” Mrs. Coates

enclosed in her note two letters, which her maid had received that

morning and last Tuesday. This was the way, as Mrs. Coates confessed,

that the report reached her ears. The waiting-maid’s first letter had

stated “that her lady, though she did not complain, had a cold and sore

throat coming down, and this was alarming, with a spotted fever in the

neighbourhood.” Mrs. Coates’s maid had, in repeating the news, “turned

the sore throat into a spotted fever, or a scarlet fever, she did not

rightly know which, but both were said by the apothecary to be generally

fatal, where there was any Jewish taint in the blood.”

The waiting-maid’s second epistle, on which Mrs. Coates had written, “_a

sugar plum for a certain gentleman_,” contained the good tidings “that

the first was all a mistake. There was no spotted fever, the general’s

own man would take his Bible oath, within ten miles round--and Miss

Montenero’s throat was gone off--and she was come out of her room. But

as to spirits and good looks, she had left both in St. James’-square,

Lon’on; _where her heart was, fur certain_. For since she come to the

country, never was there such a change in any living lady, young or

old--quite moped!--The general, and his aide-de-camp, and every body,

noticing it at dinner even. To be sure if it did not turn out a _match_,

which there was some doubts of, on account of the family’s and the old

gentleman’s particular oaths and objections, as she had an inkling of,

there would be two broken hearts. Lord forbid!--though a Jewish heart

might be harder to break than another’s, yet it looked likely.”

The remainder of the letter, Mrs. Coates, or her maid, had very

prudently torn off. I was now relieved from all apprehensions of spotted

fever; and though I might reasonably have doubted the accuracy of all

the intelligence conveyed by such a correspondent, yet I could not help

having a little faith in some of her observations. My hopes, at least,

rose delightfully; and with my hope, my ardent impatience to see

Berenice again. At last, the joyful notice of Mr. and Miss Montenero’s

return to town was brought to me by the old woman. Mr. Montenero

admitted me the moment I called. Miss Montenero was not at home, or not

visible. I was shown into Mr. Montenero’s study. The moment I

entered, the moment I saw him, I was struck with some change in his

countenance--some difference in his manner of receiving me. In what the

difference consisted, I could not define; but it alarmed me.

“Good Heavens!” I exclaimed, “is Miss Montenero ill?”

“My daughter is perfectly well, my dear sir.”

“Thank Heaven! But you, sir?”

“I,” said Mr. Montenero, “am also in perfect health. What alarms you?”

“I really don’t well know,” said I, endeavouring to laugh at myself,

and my own apprehensions; “but I thought I perceived some change in the

expression of your countenance towards me, my dear Mr. Montenero. You

must know, that all my life, my quickness of perception of the slightest

change in the countenance and manner of those I love, has ever been a

curse to me; for my restless imagination always set to work to invent

causes--and my causes, though ingenious, unluckily, seldom happened to

be the real causes. Many a vain alarm, many a miserable hour, has this

superfluous activity of imagination cost me--so I am determined to cure

myself.”

At the moment I was uttering the determination, I stopped short, for I

felt that I could not keep it, on this occasion. Mr. Montenero sighed,

or I thought he sighed, and there was such an unusual degree of gravity

and deliberation in the mildness of his manner, that I could not believe

my alarm was without cause. I took the chair which he placed for me, and

we both sat down: but he looked so prepared to listen, that I could not

articulate. There was a sudden revulsion in my spirits, and all my ideas

were in utter confusion. Mr. Montenero, the kindness of whose manner was

not changed towards me, I saw pitied my confusion. He began to talk of

his excursion into the country--he spoke of General B---- and of the

whole county of Surrey. The words reached my ears, but conveyed no ideas

to my mind, except the general notion that Mr. Montenero was giving

me time to recover myself. I was grateful for the kind intention, and

somewhat encouraged by the softness of voice, and look of pity. But

still there was something so measured--so guarded--so prepared!--At

last, when he had exhausted all that he could say about the county of

Surrey, and a dead silence threatened me, I took courage, and plunged

into the middle of things at once. I cannot remember exactly the words,

but what I said was to this effect.

“Mr. Montenero, you know so much of the human heart, and of my heart,

that you must be aware of the cause of my present embarrassment and

emotion. You must have seen my passion for your incomparable daughter.”

“I have seen it, I own--I am well aware of it, Mr. Harrington,” replied

Mr. Montenero, in a mild and friendly tone; but there was something

of self-accusation and repentance in the tone, which alarmed me

inexpressibly.

“I hope, my dear good sir, that you do not repent of your kindness,”

said I, “in having permitted me to cultivate your society, in having

indulged me in some hours of the most exquisite pleasure I ever yet

enjoyed.”

He sighed; and I went on with vehement incoherence.

“I hope you cannot suspect me of a design to abuse your confidence, to

win, if it were in my power, your daughter’s affections, without your

knowledge, surreptitiously, clandestinely. She is an heiress, a rich

heiress, I know, and my circumstances--Believe me, sir, I have never

intended to deceive you; but I waited till--There I was wrong. I wish

I had abided by my own opinion! I wish I had followed my first impulse!

Believe me, sir, it was my first thought, my first wish, to speak to

you of all the circumstances; if I delayed, it was from the fear that

a precipitate declaration would have been imputed to presumption.

As Heaven is my judge, I had no other motive. I abhor artifice. I am

incapable of the base treachery of taking advantage of any confidence

reposed in me.”

“My good sir,” said Mr. Montenero, when at last I was forced to pause

for breath, “why this vehemence of defence? I do not accuse--I do not

suspect you of any breach of confidence. Pray compose yourself.”

Calmed by this assurance, I recovered some presence of mind, and

proceeded, as I thought, in a most tranquil manner to express my regret,

at all events, that I should not have been the first person to have

explained to him my unfortunate circumstances. “But this,” I said, “was

like the rest of Lord Mowbray’s treacherous conduct.”

I was going on again in a tone of indignation, when Mr. Montenero

again begged me to compose myself, and asked “to what unfortunate

circumstances I alluded?”

“You do not know then? You have not been informed? Then I did Lord

Mowbray injustice.”

I explained to Mr. Montenero to what circumstances I had so

unintelligibly alluded. I gained courage as I went on, for I saw that

the history of my father’s vow, of which Mr. Montenero had evidently

never heard till this moment, did not shock or offend him, as I had

expected that it would.

With the most philosophic calmness and benevolence, he said that he

could forgive my father for his prejudices the more readily, because he

was persuaded that if he had ever become known to my father, it would

not have been impossible to conquer this prepossession.

I sighed, for I was convinced this was a vain hope. There was some

confusion in the tenses in Mr. Montenero’s sentence too, which I did not

quite like, or comprehend; he seemed as if he were speaking of a thing

that might have been possible, at some time that was now completely

past. I recollect having a painful perception of this one instant, and

the next accounting for it satisfactorily, by supposing that his foreign

idiom was the cause of his confusion of speech.

After a pause, he proceeded. “Fortune,” said he, “is not an object to me

in the choice of a son-in-law: considering the very ample fortune which

my daughter will possess, I am quite at ease upon that point.”

Still, though he had cleared away the two first great obstacles, I saw

there was some greater yet unnamed. I thought it was the difference of

our religion. We were both silent, and the difficulty seemed to me at

this moment greater, and more formidable, than it had ever yet appeared.

While I was considering how I should touch upon the subject, Mr.

Montenero turned to me and said, “I hate all mysteries, and yet I cannot

be perfectly explicit with you, Mr. Harrington; as far as I possibly

can, however, I will speak with openness--with sincerity, you may depend

upon it, I have always spoken, and ever shall speak. You must have

perceived that your company is particularly agreeable to me. Your

manners, your conversation, your liberal spirit, and the predilection

you have shown for my society--the politeness, the humanity, you showed

my daughter the first evening you met--and the partiality for her, which

a father’s eye quickly perceived that you felt, altogether won upon

my heart. My regard for you has been strengthened and confirmed by

the temper, prudence, and generosity, I have seen you evince towards

a rival. I have studied your character, and I think I know it as

thoroughly as I esteem and value it. If I were to choose a son-in-law

after my own heart, you should be the man. Spare me your thanks--spare

me this joy,” continued he; “I have now only said what it was just to

say--just to you and to myself.”

He spoke with difficulty and great emotion, as he went on to say, that

he feared he had acted very imprudently for my happiness in permitting,

in encouraging me to see so much of his daughter; for an obstacle--he

feared an obstacle that--His voice almost failed.

“I am aware of it,” said I.

“Aware of it?” said he, looking up at me suddenly with astonishment: he

repeated more calmly, “Aware of it? Let us understand one another, my

dear sir.”

“I understand you perfectly,” cried I. “I am well aware of the nature

of the obstacle. At once I declare that I can make no sacrifice, no

compromise of my religious principles, to my passion.”

“You would be unworthy of my esteem if you could,” said Mr. Montenero.

“I rejoice to hear this declaration unequivocally made; this is what I

expected from you.”

“But,” continued I, eagerly, “Miss Montenero could be secure of the free

exercise of her own religion. You know my principles of toleration--you

know my habits; and though between man and wife a difference of religion

may be in most cases a formidable obstacle to happiness, yet permit me

to hope--”

“I cannot permit you to hope,” interrupted Mr. Montenero. “You are

mistaken as to the nature of the obstacle. A difference of religion

would be a most formidable objection, I grant; but we need not enter

upon that subject--that is not the obstacle to which I allude.”

“Then of what nature can it be? Some base slander--Lord Mowbray--Nothing

shall prevent me!” cried I, starting up furiously.

“Gently--command yourself, and listen to reason and truth,” said Mr.

Montenero, laying his hand on my arm. “Am I a man, do you think, to

listen to base slander? Or, if I had listened to any such, could I speak

to you with the esteem and confidence with which I have just spoken?

Could I look at you with the tenderness and affection which I feel for

you at this instant?”

“Oh! Mr. Montenero,” said I, “you know how to touch me to the heart; but

answer me one, only one question--has Lord Mowbray any thing to do with

this, whatever it is?”

“I have not seen or heard from him since I saw you last.”

“Your word is sufficient,” said I. “Then I suspected him unjustly.”

“Heaven forbid,” said Mr. Montenero, “that I should raise suspicion in

a mind which, till now, I have always seen and thought to be above that

meanness. The torture of suspense I must inflict, but inflict not

on yourself the still worse torture of suspicion--ask me no farther

questions--I can answer none--time alone can solve the difficulty.

I have now to request that you will never more speak to me on this

subject: as soon as my own mind is satisfied, depend upon it I shall let

you know it. In the mean time I rely upon your prudence and your honour,

that you will not declare your attachment to my daughter, that you will

take no means, direct or indirect, to draw her into any engagement, or

to win her affections: in short, I wish to see you here as a friend

of mine--not a suitor of hers. If you are capable of this necessary

self-control, continue your visits; but if this effort be beyond your

power, I charge you, as you regard her happiness and your own, see her

no more. Consider well, before you decide.”

I had confidence in my own strength of mind and honour; I knew that

want of resolution was not the defect of my character. Difficult as the

conditions were, I submitted to them--I promised that if Mr. Montenero

permitted me to continue my visits, I would strictly comply with all he

desired. The moment I had given this promise, I was in haste to quit the

room, lest Berenice should enter, before I had time to recover from the

excessive agitation into which I had been thrown.

Mr. Montenero followed me to the antechamber. “My daughter is not at

home--she is taking an airing in the park. One word more before we

part--one word more before we quit this painful subject,” said he: “do

not, my dear young friend, waste your time, your ingenuity, in vain

conjectures--you will not discover that which I cannot impart; nor would

the discovery, if made, diminish the difficulty, or in the least add to

your happiness, though it might to your misery. It depends not on your

will to remove the obstacle--by no talents, no efforts of yours can it

be obviated: one thing, and but one, is in your power--to command your

own mind.”

“Command my own mind! Oh! Mr. Montenero, how easy to say--how difficult

to command the passions--such a passion!”

“I acknowledge it is difficult, but I hope it is not impossible. We have

now an opportunity of judging of the strength of your mind, the firmness

of your resolution, and your power over yourself. Of these we must see

proofs--without these you never could be, either with my consent or

by her own choice, accepted by my daughter, even if no other obstacle

intervened.--Adieu.” A bright idea, a sudden ray of hope, darted into my

mind. It might be all intended for a trial of me--there was, perhaps,

no real obstacle! But this was only the hope of an instant--it was

contradicted by Mr. Montenero’s previous positive assertion. I hurried

home as fast as possible, shut myself up in my own room, and bolted the

door, that I might not be interrupted. I sat down to think--I could not

think, I could only feel. The first thing I did was, as it were, to

live the whole of the last hour over again--I recollected every word,

recalled every look, carefully to impress and record them in my memory.

I felt that I was not at that moment capable of judging, but I should

have the means, the facts, safe for a calmer hour. I repeated my

recollections many times, pausing, and forming vague and often

contradictory conjectures; then driving them all from my mind, and

resolving to think no more on this mysterious subject; but on no other

subject could I think--I sat motionless. How long I remained in this

situation I have no means of knowing, but it must have been for some

hours, for it was evening, as I remember, when I wakened to the sense of

its being necessary that I should exert myself, and rouse my faculties

from this dangerous state of abstraction. Since my father and mother had

been in the country, I had usually dined at taverns or clubs, so that

the servants had no concern with my hours of meals. My own man was much

attached to me, and I should have been tormented with his attentions,

but that I had sent him out of the way as soon as I had come home. I

then went into the park, walking there as fast and as long as I possibly

could. I returned late, quite exhausted; hoped I should sleep, and waken

with a calmer mind; but I believe I had overwalked myself, or my mind

had been overstrained--I was very feverish this night, and all the

horrors of early association returned upon me. Whenever I began to doze,

I felt the nervous oppression, the dreadful weight upon my chest--I saw

beside my bed the old figure of Simon the Jew; but he spoke to me with

the voice and in the words of Mr. Montenero. The dreams of this night

were more terrible than any reality that can be conceived; and even

when I was broad awake, I felt that I had not the command of my mind. My

early prepossessions and _antipathies_, my mother’s _presentiments_,

and prophecies of evil from the connexion with the Monteneros, the

prejudices which had so long, so universally prevailed against the Jews,

occurred to me. I knew all this was unreasonable, but still the thoughts

obtruded themselves. When the light of morning returned, which I thought

never would return, I grew better.

Mr. Montenero’s impressive advice, and all the kindness of his look

and manner, recurred to my mind. The whole of his conduct--the filial

affection of Berenice--the gratitude of Jacob--the attachment of

friends, who had known him for years, all assured me of his sincerity

towards myself; and the fancies, I will not call them suspicions, of the

night, were dispelled.

I was determined not to see either Mr. Montenero or Berenice for a few

days. I knew that the best thing I could do, would be to take

strong bodily exercise, and totally to change the course of my daily

occupations. There was an excellent riding-house at this time in London,

and I had been formerly in the habit of riding there. I was a favourite

with the master--he was glad to see me again. I found the exercise, and

the immediate necessity of suspending all other thoughts to attend to

the management of my horse, of sovereign use. I thus disciplined my

imagination at the time when I seemed only to be disciplining an Arabian

horse. I question whether reading Seneca, or Epictetus, or any moral

or philosophic writer, living or dead, would have as effectually

_medicined_ my mind. While I was at the riding-house, General B---- came

in with some young officers. The general, who had distinguished me with

peculiar kindness, left the young men who were with him, and walked

home with me. I refrained from asking any questions about Mr. or Miss

Montenero’s visit at his house in Surrey; but he led to the subject

himself, and spoke of her having been less cheerful than usual--dwelt

on his wish that she and her father should settle in England--said there

was a young American, a relation of the Manessas, just come over; he

hoped there was no intention of returning with him to America. I felt a

terrible twinge, like what I had experienced when the general had first

mentioned his brother-in-law--perhaps, said I to myself, it may be

as vain. General B---- was going to speak further on the subject, but

though my curiosity was much raised, I thought I was bound in honour not

to obtain intelligence by any secondary means. I therefore requested the

general to let us change the subject. He tapped my shoulder: “You are

right,” said he; “I understand your motives--you are right--I like your

principles.”

On returning from the riding-house, I had the pleasure of hearing

that Mr. Montenero had called during my absence, and had particularly

inquired from my own man after my health.

I forgot to mention, that in one of the young officers whom I met at the

riding-house, I recognized a schoolfellow, that very little boy, who,

mounted upon the step-ladder on the day of Jacob’s election, turned the

election in his favour by the anecdote of the silver pencil-case. My

little schoolfellow, now a lath of a young man, six feet high, was glad

to meet me again, and to talk over our schoolboy days. He invited me to

join him and some of his companions, who were going down to the country

on a fishing party. They promised themselves great sport in dragging a

fish-pond. I compelled myself to join this party for the mere purpose

of changing the course of my thoughts. For three days I was hurried from

place to place, and not a single thing that I liked to do did I do--I

was completely put out of my own way--my ideas were forced into new

channels. I heard of nothing but of fishing and fishing-tackle--of the

pleasures there would be in the shooting season--of shooting-jackets,

and powder-horns, and guns, and _proof_ guns. All this was terribly

irksome at the time, and yet I was conscious that it was of service to

me, and I endured it with heroic patience.

I was heartily glad when I got back to town. When I felt that I was able

to bear the sight of Berenice, I went again to Mr. Montenero’s. From

that hour I maintained my resolution, I strictly adhered to my promise,

and I felt that I was rewarded by Mr. Montenero’s increasing esteem

and affection. My conversation was now addressed chiefly to him, and I

remarked that I was always the chief object of his attention. I observed

that Berenice was much paler, and not in such good spirits as formerly:

she was evidently under great constraint and anxiety, and the

expression of her countenance towards me was changed; there was an

apprehensiveness, which she in vain endeavoured to calm--her attention

to whatever I was saying or doing, even when she appeared to be occupied

with other things, was constant. I was convinced that I was continually

in her thoughts; I felt that I was not indifferent to her: yet the

expression of her countenance was changed--it was not love--or it

was love strongly repressed by fear--by fear!--was it of her father’s

disapprobation? I had been assured by Mr. Montenero, in whom I had

perfect confidence, that no power of mine could remove the obstacle,

if it existed--then his advice was wise not to waste my thoughts and

spirits in vain conjectures. As far as it was in human nature, I took

his advice, repressed my curiosity, and turned my thoughts from that

too interesting subject. I know not how long I should have maintained

my fortitude in this passive state of forbearance. Events soon called me

again into active exertion.

CHAPTER XV.

Party spirit, in politics, ran very high about this time in London--it

was in the year 1780. The ill success of the American war had put the

people in ill-humour; they were ready to believe any thing against the

ministry, and some who, for party purposes, desired to influence the

minds of the people, circulated the most ridiculous reports, and excited

the most absurd terrors. The populace were made to believe that the

French and the papists were secret favourites of government: a French

invasion, the appearance of the French in London, is an old story almost

worn out upon the imaginations of the good people of England; but now

came a new if not a more plausible bugbear--the Pope! It was confidently

affirmed that the Pope would soon be in London, he having been seen in

disguise in a gold-flowered nightgown on _St. James’s_ parade at Bath.

A poor gentleman, who appeared at his door in his nightgown, had been

actually taken by the Bath mob for the Pope; and they had pursued him

with shouts, and hunted him, till he was forced to scramble over a wall

to escape from his pursuers.

Ludicrous as this may appear, the farce, we all know, soon turned to

tragedy. From the smallest beginnings, the mischief grew and spread;

half-a-dozen people gathered in one street, and began the cry of “No

popery!--no papists!--no French!”--The idle joined the idle, and the

discontented the discontented, and both were soon drawn in to assist

the mischievous; and the cowardly, surprised at their own prowess,

when joined with numbers, and when no one opposed them, grew bolder and

bolder. Monday morning Mr. Strachan was insulted; Lord Mansfield treated

it as a slight irregularity. Monday evening Lord Mansfield himself

was insulted by the mob, they pulled down his house, and burnt his

furniture. Newgate was attacked next; the keeper went to the Lord Mayor,

and, at his return, he found the prison in a blaze; that night the

Fleet, and the King’s Bench prisons, and the popish chapels, were

on fire, and the glare of the conflagration reached the skies. I was

heartily glad my father and mother were safe in the country.

Mr. Montenero and Berenice were preparing to go to a villa in Surrey,

which he had just purchased; but they apprehended no danger for

themselves, as they were inoffensive strangers, totally unconnected

with party or politics. The fury of the mob had hitherto been directed

chiefly against papists, or persons supposed to favour their cause. The

very day before Mr. Montenero was to leave town, without any conceivable

reason, suddenly a cry was raised against the Jews: unfortunately, Jews

rhymed to shoes: these words were hitched into a rhyme, and the cry

was, “_No Jews, no wooden shoes_!” Thus, without any natural, civil,

religious, moral, or political connexion, the poor Jews came in

remainder to the ancient anti-Gallican antipathy felt by English feet

and English fancies against the French wooden shoes. Among the London

populace, however, the Jews had a respectable body of friends, female

friends of noted influence in a mob--the orange-women--who were most

of them bound by gratitude to certain opulent Jews. It was then, and I

believe it still continues to be, a customary mode of charity with the

Jews to purchase and distribute large quantities of oranges among the

retail sellers, whether Jews or Christians. The orange-women were thus

become their staunch friends. One of them in particular, a warm-hearted

Irishwoman, whose barrow had, during the whole season, been continually

replenished by Mr. Montenero’s bounty, and by Jacob’s punctual care, now

took her station on the steps of Mr. Montenero’s house; she watched her

opportunity, and when she saw _the master_ appear in the hall, she left

her barrow in charge with her boy, came up the steps, walked in, and

addressed herself to him thus, in a dialect and tone as new, almost to

me, as they seemed to be to Mr. Montenero.

“Never fear, jewel!--Jew as you have this day the misfortune to be,

you’re the best Christian any way ever I happened on! so never fear,

honey, for yourself nor your daughter, God bless her! Not a soul shall

go near yees, nor a finger be laid on her, good or bad. Sure I know them

all--not a mother’s son o’ the _boys_ but I can call my frind--not a

captain or lader that’s in it, but I can lade, dear, to the devil and

back again, if I’d but whistle: so only you keep quite, and don’t be

advertising yourself any way for a Jew, nor be showing your cloven

_fut_, with or without the wooden shoes. _Keep ourselves to ourselves_,

for I’ll tell you a bit of a sacret--I’m a little bit of a cat’olic

myself, all as one as what _they_ call a _papish_; but I keep it to

myself, and nobody’s the wiser nor the worse--they’d tear me to pieces,

may be, did they suspect _the like_, but I keep never minding, and you,

jewel, do the like. They call you a Levite, don’t they? then I, the

Widow Levy, has a good right to advise ye; we were all brothers and

sisters once--no offence--in the time of Adam, sure, and we should help

one another in all times. ‘Tis my turn to help _yees_ now, and, by the

blessing, so I will--accordingly I’ll be sitting all day and night,

mounting guard on your steps there without. And little as you may think

of me, the devil a guardian angel better than myself, only just the

Widow Levy, such as ye see!”

The Widow Levy took her stand, and kept her word. I stayed at Mr.

Montenero’s all day, saw every thing that passed, and had frequent

opportunities of admiring her address.

She began by making the footman take down “the outlandish name from

off the door; for no name at all, sure, was better _nor_ a foreign name

these times.” She charged the footman to “say _sorrow_ word themselves

to the mob for their lives, in case they would come; but to lave it all

entirely to her, that knew how to spake to _them_. For see!” said she,

aside to me--“For see! them powdered numskulls would spoil all--they’d

be taking it too high or too low, and never hit the right _kay_, nor

mind when to laugh or cry in the right place; moreover, when they’d

get _frighted_ with a cross-examination, they’d be apt to be _cutting_

themselves. Now, the ould one himself, if he had me _on the table_ even,

I’d defy to get the truth out of me, if not convanient, and I in the

sarvice of a frind.”

In the pleasure of telling a few superfluous lies it seemed to be

necessary that our guardian angel should be indulged; and there she sat

on the steps quite at ease, smoking her pipe, or wiping and _polishing_

her oranges. As parties of the rioters came up, she would parley and

jest with them, and by alternate wit and humour, and blunder, and

bravado, and flattery, and _fabling_, divert their spirit of mischief,

and forward them to distant enterprise. In the course of the day, we

had frequent occasion to admire her intrepid ingenuity and indefatigable

zeal. Late at night, when all seemed perfectly quiet in this part of the

town, she, who had never stirred from her post all day, was taken into

the kitchen by the servants to eat some supper. While she was away,

I was standing at an open window of the drawing-room, watching and

listening--all was silence; but suddenly I heard a shriek, and two

strange female figures appeared from the corner of the square, hurrying,

as if in danger of pursuit, though no one followed them. One was in

black, with a hood, and a black cloak streaming behind; the other in

white, neck and arms bare, head full dressed, with high feathers blown

upright. As they came near the window at which I stood, one of the

ladies called out, “Mr. Harrington! Mr. Harrington! For Heaven’s sake

let us in!”

“Lady Anne Mowbray’s voice! and Lady de Brantefield!” cried I.

Swiftly, before I could pass her, Berenice ran down stairs,

unlocked--threw open the hall-door, and let them in. Breathless,

trembling so that they could not speak, they sunk upon the first seat

they could reach; the servants hearing the hall-door unchained, ran into

the hall, and when sent away for water, the three footmen returned

with each something in his hand, and stood with water and salvers as

a pretence to satisfy their curiosity; along with them came the

orange-woman, who, wiping her mouth, put in her head between the

footmen’s elbows, and stood listening, and looking at the two ladies

with no friendly eye. She then worked her way round to me, and twitching

my elbow, drew me back, and whispered--“What made ye let ‘em in? Take

care but one’s a mad woman, and t’other a bad woman.” Lady Anne, who had

by this time drank water, and taken hartshorn, and was able to speak,

was telling, though in a very confused manner, what had happened. She

said that she had been dressed for the opera--the carriage was at the

door--her mother, who was to set her down at Lady Somebody’s, who was to

_chaperon_ her, had just put on her hood and cloak, and was coming down

stairs, when they heard a prodigious noise of the mob in the street.

The mob had seized their carriage--and had found in one of the pockets

a string of beads, which had been left there by the Portuguese

ambassador’s lady, whom Lady De Brantefield had taken home from chapel

the preceding day. The mob had seen the carriage stop at the chapel,

and the lady and her confessor get into it; and this had led to the

suspicion that Lady de Brantefield was a catholic, or in their language,

a concealed _papist_.

On searching the carriage farther, they had found a breviary, and one

of them had read aloud the name of a priest, written in the beginning

of the book--a priest whose name was peculiarly obnoxious to some of the

leaders.

As soon as they found the breviary, and the rosary, and this priest’s

name, the mob grew outrageous, broke the carriage, smashed the windows

of the house, and were bursting open the door, when, as Lady Anne told

us, she and her mother, terrified almost out of their senses, escaped

through the back door _just in the dress they were_, and made their way

through the stables, and a back lane, and a cross street: still hearing,

or fancying they heard, the shouts of the mob, they had run on without

knowing how, or where, till they found themselves in this square, and

saw me at the open window.

“What is it? Tell me, dear,” whispered the orange-woman, drawing me back

behind the footman. “Tell me, for I can’t understand her for looking

at the figure of her. Tell me plain, or it may be the ruen of yees all

before ye’d know it.”

I repeated Lady Anne’s story, and from me the orange-woman understood

it; and it seemed to alarm her more than any of us.

“But are they _Romans?_” (Roman Catholics) said she. “How is that, when

they’re not Irish!--for I’ll swear to their not being Irish, tongue or

pluck. I don’t believe but they’re impostors--no right _Romans_, sorrow

bit of the likes; but howsomdever, no signs of none following them

yet--thanks above! Get rid on ‘em any way as smart as ye can, dear; tell

Mr. Montenero.”

As all continued perfectly quiet, both in the back and front of the

house, we were in hopes that they would not be pursued or discovered

by the mob. We endeavoured to quiet and console them with this

consideration; and we represented that, if the mob should break

into their house, they would, after they had searched and convinced

themselves that the obnoxious priest was not concealed there, disperse

without attempting to destroy or pillage it “Then,” said Lady de

Brantefield, rising, and turning to her daughter, “Lady Anne, we had

better think of returning to our own house.”

Though well aware of the danger of keeping these suspected ladies

this night, and though our guardian angel repeatedly twitched us,

reiterating, “Ah! let ‘em go--don’t be keeping ‘em!” yet Mr. Montenero

and Berenice pressed them, in the kindest and most earnest manner,

to stay where they were safe. Lady Anne seemed most willing, Lady de

Brantefield most unwilling to remain; yet her fears struggled with her

pride, and at last she begged that a servant might be sent to her house

to see how things were going on, and to order chairs for her, if their

return was practicable.

“Stop!” cried the orange-woman, laying a strong detaining hand on the

footman’s arm; “stop you--‘tis I’ll go with more sense--and speed.”

“What is that person--that woman?” cried Lady de Brantefield, who now

heard and saw the orange-woman for the first time.

“Woman!--is it me she manes?” said the orange-woman, coming forward

quite composedly, shouldering on her cloak.

“Is it who I am?--I’m the Widow Levy.--Any commands?”

“How did she get in?” continued Lady de Brantefield, still with a look

of mixed pride and terror: “how did she get in?”

“Very asy!--through the door--same way you did, my lady, if ye had your

senses. Where’s the wonder? But what commands?--don’t be keeping of me.”

“Anne!--Lady Anne!--Did she follow us in?” said Lady de Brantefield.

“Follow yees!--not I!--no follower of yours nor the likes. But what

commands, nevertheless?--I’ll do your business the night, for the sake

of them I love in my heart’s core,” nodding at Mr. and Miss Montenero;

“so, my lady, I’ll bring ye word, faithful, how it’s going with ye at

home--which is her house, and where, on God’s earth?” added she, turning

to the footmen.

“If my satisfaction be the object, sir, or madam,” said Lady de

Brantefield, addressing herself with much solemnity to Mr. and Miss

Montenero, “I must take leave to request that a fitter messenger be

sent; I should, in any circumstances, be incapable of trusting to the

representations of such a person.”

The fury of the orange-woman kindled--her eyes flashed fire--her arms

a-kimbo, she advanced repeating, “Fitter!--Fitter!--What’s that ye

say?--You’re not Irish--not a bone in your skeleton!”

Lady Anne screamed. Mr. Montenero forced the orange-woman back, and

Berenice and I hurried Lady de Brantefield and her daughter across the

hall into the eating-room. Mr. Montenero followed an instant afterwards,

telling Lady de Brantefield that he had despatched one of his own

servants for intelligence. Her ladyship bowed her head without speaking.

He then explained why the orange-woman happened to be in his house, and

spoke of the zeal and ability with which she had this day served us.

Lady de Brantefield continued at intervals to bow her head while Mr.

Montenero spoke, and to look at her watch, while Lady Anne, simpering,

repeated, “Dear, how odd!” Then placing herself opposite to a large

mirror, Lady Anne re-adjusted her dress. That settled, she had nothing

to do but to recount her horrors over again. Her mother, lost in

reverie, sat motionless. Berenice, meantime, while the messenger was

away, made the most laudable and kind efforts, by her conversation,

to draw the attention of her guests from themselves and their

apprehensions; but apparently without effect, and certainly without

thanks.

At length, Berenice and her father being called out of the room, I was

left alone with Lady de Brantefield and Lady Anne: the mother broke

silence, and turning to the daughter, said, in a most solemn tone of

reproach, “Anne! Lady Anne Mowbray!--how could you bring me into this

house of all others--a Jew’s--when you know the horror I have always

felt--”

“La, mamma! I declare I was so terrified, I didn’t know one house from

another. But when I saw Mr. Harrington, I was so delighted I never

thought about it’s being _the Jew’s_ house--and what matter?”

“What matter!” repeated Lady de Brantefield: “are you my daughter, and a

descendant of Sir Josseline de Mowbray, and ask what matter?”

“Dear mamma, that’s the old story! that’s so long ago!--How can

you think of such old stuff at such a time as this? I’m sure I was

frightened out of my wits--I forgot even my detestation of----But I must

not say that before Mr. Harrington. But now I see the house, and

_all that,_ I don’t wonder at him so much; I declare it’s a monstrous

handsome house--as rich as a Jew! I’m sure I hope those wretches will

not destroy _our_ house--and, oh! the great mirror, mamma!”

Mr. and Miss Montenero returned with much concern in their countenances:

they announced that the messenger had brought word that the mob were

actually pulling down Lady de Brantefield’s house--that the furniture

had all been dragged out into the street, and that it was now burning.

Pride once more gave way to undisguised terror in Lady de Brantefield’s

countenance, and both ladies stood in speechless consternation. Before

we had time to hear or to say more, the orange-woman opened the door,

and putting in her head, called out in a voice of authority, “Jantlemen,

here’s one wants yees, admits of no delay; lave all and come out,

whether you will or no, the minute.”

We went out, and with an indescribable gesture, and wink of

satisfaction, the moment she had Mr. Montenero and me in the hall, she

said in a whisper, “‘Tis only myself, dears, but ‘tis I am glad I got

yees out away from being bothered by the presence of them women, whiles

ye’d be settling all for life or death, which we must now do--for don’t

be nursing and dandling yourselves in the notion that _the boys_ will

not be wid ye. It’s a folly to talk--they will; my head to a China

orange they will, now: but take it asy, jewels--we’ve got an hour’s

law--they’ve one good hour’s work first--six garrets to gut, where they

are, and tree back walls, with a piece of the front, still to pull down.

Oh! I larnt all. He is a _‘cute_ lad you sent, but not being used to it,

just went and ruined and murdered us all by what he let out! What do ye

tink? But when one of the boys was questioning him who he belonged to,

and what brought him in it, he got frighted, and could think of noting

at all but the truth to tell: so they’ve got the scent, and they’ll

follow the game. Ogh! had I been my own messenger, in lieu of minding

that woman within, I’d have put ‘em off the scent. But it’s past me

now--so what next?” While Mr. Montenero and I began to consult together,

she went on--“I’ll tell you what you’ll do: you’ll send for two chairs,

or one--less suspicious, and just get the two in asy, the black

one back, the white for’ard, beca’ase she’s coming nat’ral from the

Opera--if stopped, and so the chairmen, knowing no more than Adam who

they would be carrying, might go through the thick of the boys at a

pinch safe enough, or round any way, sure; they know the town, and the

short cuts, and set ‘em down (a good riddance!) out of hand, at any

house at all they mention, who’d resave them of their own frinds, or

kith and kin--for, to be sure, I suppose they _have_ frinds, tho’ I’m

not one. You’ll settle with them by the time it’s come, where they’ll

set down, and I’ll step for the chair, will I?”

“No,” said Mr. Montenero, “not unless it be the ladies’ own desire to

go: I cannot turn them out of my house, if they choose to stay; at all

hazards they shall have every protection I can afford. Berenice, I am

sure, will think and feel as I do.”

Mr. Montenero returned to the drawing-room, to learn the determination

of his guests.

“There goes as good a Christian!” cried the Widow Levy, holding up her

forefinger, and shaking it at Mr. Montenero the moment his back was

turned: “didn’t I tell ye so from the first? Oh! if he isn’t a jewel

of a Jew!--and the daughter the same!” continued she, following me as

I walked up and down the hall: “the kind-hearted cratur, how tinder she

looked at the fainting Jezabel--while the black woman turning from

her in her quality scowls.--Oh! I seed it all, and with your own eyes,

dear--but I hope they’ll go--and once we get a riddance of them women.

I’ll answer for the rest. Bad luck to the minute they come into the

house! I wish the jantleman would be back--Oh! here he is--and will

they go, jewel?” cried she, eagerly. “The ladies will stay,” said Mr.

Montenero.

“Murder!--but you can’t help it--so no more about it--but what arms have

ye?”

No arms were to be found in the house but a couple of swords, a pair

of pistols of Mr. Montenero’s, and one gun, which had been left by the

former proprietor. Mr. Montenero determined to write immediately to his

friend General B--, to request that a party of the military might be

sent to guard his house.

“Ay, so best, send for the dragoons, the only thing left on earth for us

now: but don’t let ‘em fire on _the boys_--disperse ‘em with the horse,

asy, ye can, without a shot; so best--I’ll step down and feel the pulse

of all below.”

While Mr. Montenero wrote, Berenice, alarmed for her father, stood

leaning on the back of his chair, in silence.

“Oh! Mr. Harrington! Mr. Harrington!” repeated Lady Anne, “what will

become of us! If Colonel Topham was but here! Do send to the

Opera, pray, pray, with _my_ compliments--Lady Anne Mowbray’s

compliments--he’ll come directly, I’m sure.”

“That my son, Lord Mowbray, should be out of town, how extraordinary and

how unfortunate!” cried Lady de Brantefield, “when we might have had his

protection, his regiment, without applying to strangers.”

She walked up and down the room with the air of a princess in chains.

The orange-woman bolted into the room, and pushed past her ladyship,

while Mr. Montenero was sealing his note.

“Give it, jewel!--It’s I’ll be the bearer; for all your powdered men

below has taken fright by the dread the first messenger got, and dares

not be carrying a summons for the military through the midst of _them_:

but I’ll take it for yees--and which way will I go to get quickest to

your general’s? and how will I know his house?--for seven of them below

bothered my brains.”

Mr. Montenero repeated the direction--she listened coolly, then stowing

the letter in her bosom, she stood still for a moment with a look

of deep deliberation--her head on one side, her forefinger on

her cheek-bone, her thumb under her chin, and the knuckle of the

middle-finger compressing her lips.

“See, now, _they’ll_ be apt to come up the stable lane for the back o’

the house, and another party of them will be in the square, in front;

so how will it be with me to get into the house to yees again, without

opening the doors for _them_, in case they are wid _ye_ afore I’d get

the military up?--I have it,” cried she.

She rushed to the door, but turned back again to look for her pipe,

which she had laid on the table.

“Where’s my pipe?--Lend it me--What am I without my pipe?”

“The savage!” cried Lady de Brantefield.

“The fool!” said Lady Anne.

The Widow Levy nodded to each of the two ladies, as she lit the pipe

again, but without speaking to them, turned to us, and said, “If

the boys would meet me without my pipe, they’d not know me; or smell

something odd, and guess I was on some unlawful errand.”

As she passed Berenice and me, who were standing together, she hastily

added, “Keep a good heart, sweetest!--At the last push, you have one

will shed the heart’s drop for ye!”

A quick, scarcely perceptible motion of her eye towards me marked her

meaning; and one involuntary look from Berenice at that moment, even

in the midst of alarm, spread joy through my whole frame. In the common

danger we were drawn closer together--we _thought_ together;--I was

allowed to help her in the midst of the general bustle.

It was necessary, as quickly as possible, to determine what articles

in the house were of most value, and to place these in security. It was

immediately decided that the pictures were inestimable.--What was to be

done with them? Berenice, whose presence of mind never forsook her,

and whose quickness increased with the occasion, recollected that the

unfinished picture-gallery, which had been built behind the house,

adjoining to the back drawing-room, had no window opening to the street:

it was lighted by a sky-light; it had no communication with any of the

apartments in the house, except with the back drawing-room, into which

it was intended to open by large glass doors; but fortunately these

were not finished, and, at this time, there was no access to the

picture-gallery but by a concealed door behind the gobelin tapestry of

the back drawing-room--an entrance which could hardly be discovered by

any stranger. In the gallery were all the plasterers’ trestles, and the

carpenters’ lumber; however, there was room soon made for the pictures:

all hands were in motion, every creature busy and eager, except Lady de

Brantefield and her daughter, who never offered the smallest assistance,

though we were continually passing with our loads through the front

drawing-room, in which the two ladies now were. Lady Anne standing up

in the middle of the room looked like an actress ready dressed for some

character, but without one idea of her own. Her mind, naturally weak,

was totally incapacitated by fear: she kept incessantly repeating as we

passed and repassed, “Bless me! one would think the day of judgment was

coming!”

Lady de Brantefield all the time sat in the most remote part of the

room, fixed in a huge arm-chair. The pictures and the most valuable

things were, by desperately hard work, just stowed into our place of

safety, when we heard the shouts of the mob, at once at the back and

front of the house, and soon a thundering knocking at the hall-door.

Mr. Montenero and I went to the door, of course without opening it, and

demanded, in a loud voice, what they wanted.

“We require the papists,” one answered for the rest, “the two women

papists and the priest you’ve got within, to be given up, for your

lives!”

“There is no priest here--there are no papists here:--two protestant

ladies, strangers to me, have taken refuge here, and I will not give

them up,” said Mr. Montenero.

“Then we’ll pull down the house.”

“The military will be here directly,” said Mr. Montenero, coolly; “you

had better go away.”

“The military!--then make haste, boys, with the work.”

And with a general cry of “No papists!--no priests!--no Jews!--no wooden

shoes!” they began with a volley of stones against the windows. I ran to

see where Berenice was. It had been previously agreed among us, that

she and her guests, and every female in the house, should, on the first

alarm, retire into a back room; but at the first shout of the mob, Lady

de Brantefield lost the little sense she ever possessed: she did not

faint, but she stiffened herself in the posture in which she sat, and

with her hands turned down over the elbows of the huge chair, on which

her arms were extended, she leaned back in all the frightful rigidity of

a corpse, with a ghastly face, and eyes fixed.

Berenice, in vain, tried to persuade her to move. Her ideas were

bewildered or concentrated. Only the obstinacy of pride remained alive

within her.

“No,” she said, “she would never move from that spot--she would not be

commanded by Jew or Jewess.”

“Don’t you hear the mob--the stones at the windows?”

“Very well. They would all pay for it on the scaffold or the gibbet.”

“But if they break in here you will be torn to pieces.”

“No--those only will be sacrificed who _have sacrificed_. A ‘de

Brantefield’--they dare not!--I shall not stir from this spot. Who will

presume to touch Lady de Brantefield?”

Mr. Montenero and I lifted up the huge chair on which she sat, and

carried her and it into the back room.

The door of this room was scarcely shut, and the tapestry covering but

just closed over the entrance into the picture-gallery, when there was a

cry from the hall, and the servants came rushing to tell us that one of

the window-shutters had given way.

Mr. Montenero, putting the pistols into my hand, took the gun, ran

down stairs, and stationed himself so as to defend the entrance to the

window, at which the people were pelting with stones; declaring that he

would fire on the first man who should attempt to enter.

A man leaped in, and, in the struggle, Mr. Montenero’s gun was wrested

from him.

On my presenting a pistol, the man scrambled out of the window, carrying

away with him the prize he had seized.

At this moment the faithful Jacob appeared amongst us as if by miracle.

“Master, we are safe,” said he, “if we can defend ourselves for a few

minutes. The orange-woman delivered your letter, and the military

are coming. She told me how to get in here, through the house that is

building next door, from the leads of which I crept through a trap-door

into your garret.”

With the pistols, and with the assistance of the servants who were

armed, some of them with swords, and others with whatever weapons came

to hand, we made such a show of resistance as to keep the mob at bay for

some moments.

“Hark!” cried Jacob; “thank Heaven, there’s the military!” There was a

sudden cessation of stones at the window. We heard the joyful sound

of the horses’ hoofs in the street. A prodigious uproar ensued, then

gradually subsided. The mob was dispersed, and fled in different

directions, and the military followed. We heard them gallop off. We

listened till not a sound, either of human voice or of horse’s foot, was

to be heard. There was perfect silence; and when we looked as far as our

eyes could reach out of the broken window, there was not a creature to

be seen in the square or in the line of street to which it opened.

We ran to let out our female prisoners; I thought only of Berenice--she,

who had shown so much self-possession during the danger, seemed most

overpowered at this moment of joy; she threw her arms round her father,

and held him fast, as if to convince herself that he was safe. Her next

look was for me, and in her eyes, voice, and manner, when she thanked

me, there was an expression which transported me with joy; but it was

checked, it was gone the next moment: some terrible recollection seemed

to cross her mind. She turned from me to speak to that odious Lady de

Brantefield. I could not see Mr. Montenero’s countenance, for he, at the

same instant, left us, to single out, from the crowd assembled in the

hall, the poor Irishwoman, whose zeal and intrepid gratitude had been

the means of our deliverance. I was not time enough to hear what Mr.

Montenero said to her, or what reward he conferred; but that the reward

was judicious, and that the words were grateful to her feelings in the

highest degree, I had full proof; for when I reached the hall, the widow

was on her knees, with hands uplifted to Heaven, unable to speak, but

with tears streaming down her hard face: she wiped them hastily away,

and started up.

“It’s not a little thing brings me to this,” said she; “none ever drew a

tear from my eyes afore, since the boy I lost.”

She drew the hood of her cloak over her head, and pushed her way through

the servants to get out of the hall-door; I unbolted and unchained it

for her, and as I was unlocking it, she squeezed up close to me, and

laying her iron hand on mine, said in a whisper, “God bless yees! and

don’t forget my thanks to the sweet _Jewish_--I can’t speak ‘em now,

‘tis you can best, and joined in my prayers ye shall ever be!” said our

guardian angel, as I opened the door; and as she passed out, she added,

“You are right, jewel--she’s worth all the fine ladies in Lon’on,

feathers an’ all in a bag.”

I had long been entirely of the Widow Levy’s opinion, though the mode

of expression would never have occurred to me. What afterwards became of

Lady Anne and of her mother this night, I do not distinctly recollect.

Lady de Brantefield, when the alarm was over, I believe, recovered her

usual portion of sense, and Lady Anne her silly spirits; but neither of

them, I know, showed any feeling, except for themselves. I have an

image of Lady de Brantefield standing up, and making, at parting, such

ungracious acknowledgments to her kind hostess and generous protector,

as her pride and her prejudices would permit. Both their ladyships

seemed to be in a hurry to get out of the house, and I know that

I rejoiced in their departure. I was in hopes of one moment, one

explanatory word or look from Berenice. She was retiring to her own

apartment, as I returned, with her father, after putting those two women

into their carriage.

“I am now quite convinced,” said Mr. Montenero, smiling, “that Mr.

Harrington never could have been engaged or attached to Lady Anne

Mowbray.”

“Is it possible you ever imagined?”

“I did not _imagine_, I only heard and believed--and now I have seen,

and I disbelieve.”

“And is this the obstacle, the invincible obstacle?” cried I.

Berenice sighed, and walked on to her room.

“I wish it were!” said Mr. Montenero; “but I pray you, sir, do not

speak, do not think of this to-night--farewell! we all want repose.”

I did not think that I wanted repose till the moment I lay down in bed,

and then, overpowered with bodily fatigue, I fell into a profound sleep,

from which I did not awaken till late the next morning, when my man,

drawing back my curtains, presented to me a note from--I could hardly

believe my eyes--“from Miss Montenero”--from Berenice! I started up,

and read these words written in pencil: “My father is in danger--come to

us.”

How quick I was in obeying may be easily imagined. I went well armed,

but in the present danger arms were of no use. I found that Mr.

Montenero was summoned before one of the magistrates, on a charge of

having fired from his window the preceding night before the Riot Act had

been read--of having killed an inoffensive passenger. Now the fact was,

that no shot had ever been fired by Mr. Montenero; but such was the rage

of the people at the idea that the _Jew_ had killed a Christian, and

one of their party, that the voice of truth could not be heard. They

followed with execrations as he was carried before the magistrate; and

waited with impatience, assembled round the house, in hopes of seeing

him committed to prison to take his trial for murder. As I was not

ignorant of the substantial nature of the defence which the spirit and

the forms of English law provide in all cases for truth and innocence,

against false accusation and party prejudice, I was not alarmed at the

clamour I heard; I was concerned only for the temporary inconvenience

and mortification to Mr. Montenero, and for the alarm to Berenice. The

magistrate before whom Mr. Montenero appeared was an impartial and very

patient man: I shall not so far try the patience of others as to record

all that was positively said, but which could not be sworn to--all that

was offered in evidence, but which contradicted itself, or which

could not be substantiated by any good witness--at length one

creditable-looking man came forward against Mr. Montenero.

He said he was an ironmonger--that he had been passing by at the time

of the riot, and had been hurried along by the crowd against his will

to Mr. Montenero’s house, where he saw a sailor break open the

window-shutter of one of the lower rooms--that he saw a shot fired by

Mr. Montenero--that the sailor, after a considerable struggle, wrested

the gun, with which the shot had been fired, from Mr. Montenero, and

retreated with it from the window--that hearing the cry of murder in

the crowd, he thought it proper to secure the weapon, that it might be

produced in evidence--and that the piece which he now produced was that

which had been taken from Mr. Montenero.

I perceived great concern in the countenance of the magistrate, who,

addressing himself to Mr. Montenero, asked him what he had to say in his

defence.

“Sir,” said Mr. Montenero, “I acknowledge that to be the gun which was

wrested from my hands by the sailor; and I acknowledge that I attempted

with that gun to defend my family and my house from immediate violence;

I am, however,” continued he, “happy to have escaped having injured any

person, even in the most justifiable cause, for the piece did not go

off, it only flashed in the pan.”

“If that be the case,” said the magistrate, “the piece is still loaded.”

The gun was tried, and it was found to be empty both of powder and ball.

As the magistrate returned the piece to the man, I came forward and

asked leave to examine it. I observed to the magistrate, that if the

piece had been fired, the inside of the barrel must retain marks of

the discharge, whereas, on the contrary, the inside of the barrel was

perfectly smooth and clean. To this the man replied, that he had cleaned

the piece when he brought it home, which might indeed have been true. At

this moment, I recollected a circumstance that I had lately heard from

the officers in the country, who had been talking about a fowling-piece,

and of the careless manner in which fire-arms are sometimes proved

[Footnote: See Manton on Gunnery.]. Upon examination, I found that what

I suspected might be just possible was actually the case with respect

to the piece in question--the touch-hole had never been bored through,

though the piece was marked as _proof_! I never shall forget the

satisfaction which appeared in the countenance of the humane magistrate,

who from the beginning had suspected the evidence, whom he knew from

former delinquency. The man was indeed called an ironmonger, but his

was one of those _old iron shops_ which were known to be receptacles of

stolen goods of various descriptions. To my surprise, it now appeared

that this man’s name was Dutton: he was the very Dutton who had formerly

been Jacob’s rival, and who had been under Lord Mowbray’s protection.

Time and intemperance had altered him so much, that I had not, till I

heard his name, the slightest recollection of his face. What his motive

for appearing against Mr. Montenero might be, whether it was hatred to

him as being the patron of Jacob, whom Dutton envied and detested, or

whether Dutton was instigated by some other and higher person, I shall

not now stop to inquire. As he had not been put upon his oath, he had

not been guilty of perjury; he was discharged amidst the hootings of the

mob. Notwithstanding their prejudice against the Jews, and their rage

against a Jew who had harboured, as they conceived, two _concealed_

papists and a priest, yet the moment an attempt to bear false witness

against Mr. Montenero appeared, the people took his part. In England the

mob is always in favour of truth and innocence, wherever these are

made clearly evident to their senses. Pleased with themselves for their

impartiality, it was not difficult at this moment for me to convince

them, as I did, that Mr. Montenero had not harboured either papists or

priest. The mob gave us three cheers. As we passed through the crowd,

I saw Jacob and the orange-woman--the orange-woman, with broad expanded

face of joy, stretched up her arms, and shouted loud, that all the mob

might hear. Jacob, little accustomed to sympathy, and in the habit of

repressing his emotions, stood as one unmoved or dumb, till his eyes met

mine, and then suddenly joy spread over his features and flashed from

his dark eyes--that was a face of delight I never can forget; but I

could not stay: I hastened to be the first to tell Berenice of her

father’s safety, and of the proof which all the world had had of the

falsehood of the charge against him. I ran up to the drawing-room, where

she was alone. She fainted in my arms.

And now you think, that when she came to herself, there was an end of

all my fears, all my suspense--you think that her love, her gratitude,

overcame the objection, whatever it may be, which has hitherto been

called invincible--alas! you are mistaken.

I was obliged to resign Berenice to the care of her attendants. A short

time afterwards I received from her father the following note:--

“My obligations to you are great, so is my affection for you; but the

happiness of my child, as well as your happiness, is at stake.

“I dare not trust my gratitude--my daughter and you must never meet

again, or must meet to part no more.

“I cannot yet decide: if I shall be satisfied that the obstacle do not

exist, she shall be yours; if it do exist, we sail the first of next

month for America, and you, Mr. Harrington, will not be the only, or

perhaps the most, unhappy person of the three.

“A. MONTENERO.”

CHAPTER XVI.

The Sunday after the riots, I happened to see Mrs. Coates, as we were

coming out of St. George’s church. She was not in full-blown, happy

importance, as formerly: she looked ill and melancholy; or, as one of

her city neighbours, who was following her out of church, expressed it,

quite “crest-fallen.” I heard some whispering that “things were going

wrong at home with the Coates’s--that the world was going down hill with

the alderman.”

But a lady, who was quite a stranger, though she did me the honour to

speak to me, explained that it was “no such thing--worth a plum still,

if he be worth a farthing. ‘Tis only that she was greatly put out of her

way last week, and frightened, till well nigh beside herself, by them

rioters that came and set fire to one of the Coates’s, Mr. Peter’s,

warehouse. Now, though poor Mrs. Coates, you’d think, is so plump and

stout to look at, she is as nervous!--you’ve no notion, sir!--shakes

like an aspen leaf, if she but takes a cup of green tea--so I prescribe

bohea. But there she’s curtsying, and nodding, and kissing hands to you,

sir, see!--and can tell you, no doubt, all about herself.”

Mrs. Coates’s deplorably placid countenance, tremulous muscles, and

lamentable voice and manner, confirmed to me the truth of the assertion

that she had been frightened nearly out of her senses.

“Why now, sir, after all,” said she, “I begin to find what fools we

were, when we made such a piece of work one election year, and said that

no soldiers should come into the town, ‘cause we were _free Britons_.

Why, Lord ‘a mercy! ‘tis a great deal better _maxim_ to sleep safe in

our beds than to be _free Britons_ and burnt to death [Footnote: Vide

Mrs. Piozzi’s Letters.].”

Persons of higher pretensions to understanding and courage than poor

Mrs. Coates, seemed at this time ready to adopt her maxim; and patriots

feared that it might become the national sentiment. No sooner were order

and tranquillity perfectly re-established in the city, than the public

in general, and party politicians in particular, were intent upon the

trials of the rioters, and more upon the question whether the military

had suppressed the riots constitutionally or unconstitutionally. It

was a question to be warmly debated in parliament; and this, after the

manner in which great public and little private interests, in the chain

of human events, are continually linked together, proved of important

consequence to me and my love affairs.

A call of the house brought my father to town, contrary to his will,

and consequently in ill-humour. This ill-humour was increased by the

perplexing situation in which he found himself, with his passions on

one side of the question and his principles on the other: hating the

papists, and loving the ministry. In his secret soul, my father cried

with the rioters, “No papists!--no French!--no Jews!--no wooden shoes!”

but a cry against government was abhorrent to his very nature. My

conduct, with regard to the riot at Mr. Montenero’s, and towards the

rioters, by whom he had been falsely accused, my father heard spoken of

with approbation in the political circles which he most reverenced; and

he could not but be pleased, he confessed, to hear that his son had so

properly conducted himself: but still it was all in defence of the Jews,

and of the father of that Jewess whose very name was intolerable to his

ear.

“So, Harrington, my boy, you’ve gained great credit, I find, by your

conduct last Wednesday night. Very lucky, too, for your mother’s friend,

Lady de Brantefield, that you were where you were. But after all,

sir, what the devil business had you there?--and again on Thursday

morning!--I acknowledge that was a good hit you made, about the gun--but

I wish it had been in the defence of some good Christian: what business

has a Jew with a gun at all?--Government knows best, to be sure; but

I split against them once before, three-and-twenty years ago, on the

naturalization bill. What is this cry which the people set up?--‘_No

Jews!--no wooden shoes_!’--ha! ha! ha!--the dogs!--but they carried it

too far, the rascals!--When it comes to throwing stones at gentlemen’s

carriages, and pulling down gentlemen’s and noblemen’s dwelling-houses,

it’s a mob and a riot, and the rioters deserve certainly to be

hanged--and I’m heartily glad my son has come forward, Mrs. Harrington,

and has taken a decided and distinguished part in bringing the offenders

to justice. But, Harrington, pray tell me now, young gentleman, about

that Jewess.”

Before I opened my lips, something in the turn of my physiognomy enraged

my father to such a degree that all the blood in his body came into

his face, and, starting up, he cried, “Don’t answer me, sir--I ask

no questions--I don’t want to hear any thing about the matter! Only

_if_--if, sir--if--that’s all I have to say--if--by Jupiter Ammon--sir,

I won’t hear a word--a syllable! You only wish to explain--I won’t have

any explanation--I have business enough on my hands, without listening

to a madman’s nonsense!”

My father began to open his morning’s packet of letters and newspapers.

One letter, which had been directed to his house in the country, and

which had followed him to town, seemed to, alarm him terribly. He

put the letter into my mother’s hand, cursed all the post-masters in

England, who were none of them to blame for its not reaching him sooner,

called for his hat and cane, said he must go instantly to the city,

but “feared all was, too late, and that we were undone.” With this

comfortable assurance he left us. The letter was from a broker in

Lombard-street, who did business for my father, and who wrote to let him

know that, “in consequence of the destruction of a great brewery in the

late riots, several mercantile houses had been injured. Alderman Coates

had died suddenly of an apoplexy, it was said: his house had closed on

Saturday; and it was feared that Baldwin’s bank would not stand the run

made on it.”

Now in Baldwin’s bank, as my mother informed me, my father had eight

days before lodged £30,000, the purchase money of that estate which he

had been obliged to sell to pay for his three elections. This sum

was, in fact, every shilling of it due to creditors, who had become

clamorous; and “if _this_ be gone,” said my mother, “we are lost

indeed!--this house must go, and the carriages, and every thing; the

Essex estate is all we shall have left, and live there as we can--very

ill it must be, to us who have been used to affluence and luxury. Your

father, who expects his table, and every individual article of his

establishment, to be in the first style, as if by magic, without ever

reflecting on the means, but just inviting people, and leaving it to me

to entertain them properly--oh! I know how bitterly he would feel even

retrenchment!--and this would be ruin; and every thing that vexes him

of late brings on directly a fit of the gout--and then you know what his

temper is! Heaven knows what I had to go through with my nerves, and my

delicate health, during the last fit, which came on the very day after

we left you, and lasted six weeks, and which he sets down to your

account, Harrington, and to the account of your Jewess.”

I had too much feeling for my mother’s present distress to increase her

agitation by saying any thing on this tender subject. I let her accuse

me as she pleased--and she very soon began to defend me. The accounts

she had heard in various letters of the notice that had been taken of

Miss Montenero by some of the leading persons in the fashionable world,

the proposals that had been made to her, and especially the addresses of

Lord Mowbray, which had been of sufficient publicity, had made, I found,

a considerable alteration in my mother’s judgment or feelings. She

observed that it was a pity my father was so violently prejudiced

and obstinate, for that, after all, it would not be an unprecedented

marriage. My mother, after a pause, went on to say, that though she was

not, she hoped, an interested person, and should scorn the idea of her

son’s being a fortune-hunter--and indeed I had given pretty sufficient

proof that I was not of that description of suitors; yet, if the Jewess

were really amiable, and as capable of generous attachment, it would be,

my mother at last acknowledged, the best thing I could do, to secure an

independent establishment with the wife of my choice.

I was just going to tell my mother of the conversation that I had had

with Mr. Montenero, and of _the obstacle_, when her mind reverted to

the Lombard-street letter, and to Baldwin’s bank; and for a full hour

we discussed the probability of Baldwin’s standing or failing, though

neither of us had any means of judging--of this, being perhaps the

least anxious of the two, I became sensible the first. I finished, by

stationing myself at the window to watch for my father’s return, of

which I promised to give my mother notice, if she would lie down quietly

on the sofa, and try to compose her spirits; she had given orders to be

denied to all visitors, but every knock at the door made her start, and

“There’s your father! There’s Mr. Harrington!” was fifty times repeated

before the hour when it was even possible that my father could have

returned from the city.

When the probable time came and passed, when it grew later and later

without my father’s appearing, our anxiety and impatience rose to the

highest pitch.

At last I gave my mother notice that I saw among the walkers at the end

of the street which joined our square, an elderly gentleman with a cane.

“But there are so many elderly gentlemen with canes,” said my mother,

joining me at the window. “Is it Mr. Harrington?”

“It is very like my father, ma’am. Now you can see him plainly picking

his way over the crossing.”

“He is looking down,” said my mother; “that is a very bad sign.--But is

he not looking up now?”

“No, ma’am; and now he is taking snuff.”

“Taking snuff! is he? Then there is some hope,” said my mother.

During the last forty yards of my father’s walk, we each drew

innumerable and often opposite conclusions, from his slightest gestures

and motions, interpreting them all as favourable or unfavourable omens.

In the course of five minutes my mother’s _presentiments_ varied fifty

times. At length came his knock at the door. My mother grew pale--to her

ear it said “all’s lost;” to mine it sounded like “all’s safe.”

“He stays to take off his great coat! a good sign; but he comes heavily

up stairs.” Our eyes were fixed on the door--he opened it, and advanced

towards us without uttering one syllable.

“All’s lost--and all’s safe,” said my father. “My fortune’s safe, Mrs.

Harrington.”

“What becomes of your presentiments, my dear mother?” said I.

“Thank Heaven!” said my mother, “I was wrong for once.”

“You might thank Heaven for more than once, madam,” said my father.

“But then what did you mean by all’s lost, Mr. Harrington; if all’s

safe, how can all be lost?”

“My all, Mrs. Harrington, is not all fortune. There is such a thing as

credit as well as fortune, Mrs. Harrington.”

“But if you have not lost your fortune, you have not lost your credit, I

presume,” said my mother.

“I have a character as a gentleman, Mrs. Harrington.”

“Of course.”

“A character for consistency, Mrs. Harrington, to preserve.”

“‘Tis a hard thing to preserve, no doubt,” said my mother.

“But I wish you’d speak plain, for my nerves can’t bear it.”

“Then I can tell you, Mrs. Harrington, your nerves have a great deal to

bear yet. What will your nerves feel, madam--what will your enthusiasm

say, sir--when I tell you, that I have lost my heart to--a Jewess?”

“Berenice!” cried I.

“Impossible!” cried my mother. “How came you to see her?”

“That’s not for you to know yet; but first, young gentleman, you who are

hanging on tenter-hooks, you must hang there a little longer.”

“As long as you please, my dear father,” said I.

“_Your dear father_!--ay, I’m very dear to you now, because you are in

hopes, sir, I shall turn fool, and break my vow into the bargain; but I

am not come to _that_ yet, my good sir--I have some consistency.”

“Oh! never mind your consistency, for mercy’s sake, Mr. Harrington,”

said my mother, “only tell us your story, for I really am dying to hear

it, and I am so weak.”

“Ring the bell for dinner,” said my father, “for Mrs. Harrington’s so

weak, I’ll keep my story till after dinner.” My mother protested she was

quite strong, and we both held my father fast, insisting--he being in

such excellent humour and spirits that we might insist--insisting upon

his telling his story before he should have any dinner.

“Where was I?” said he.

“You know best,” said my mother; “you said you had lost your heart to a

Jewess, and Harrington exclaimed _Berenice!_ and that’s all I’ve heard

yet.”

“Very well, then, let us leave Berenice for the present”--I

groaned--“and go to her father, Mr. Montenero, and to a certain Mrs.

Coates.”

“Mrs. Coates! did you see her too?” cried my mother: “you seem to have

seen every body in the world this morning, Mr. Harrington. How happened

it that you saw vulgar Mrs. Coates?”

“Unless I shut my eyes, how can I avoid seeing vulgar people, madam?

and how can I tell my story, Mrs. Harrington, if you interrupt me

perpetually, to ask how I came to see every soul and body I mention?”

“I will interrupt you no more,” said my mother, submissively, for she

was curious.

I placed an arm-chair for my father--in my whole life I never felt so

dutiful or so impatient.

“There, now,” said my father, taking his seat in the chair, “if you

will promise not to interrupt me any more, I will tell you my story

regularly. I went to Baldwin’s bank: I found a great crowd, all pressing

their demands--the clerks as busy as they could be, and all putting a

good face upon the matter. The head-clerk I saw was vexed at the sight

of me--he came out from behind his desk, and begged I would go up stairs

to Mr. Baldwin, who wished to speak to me. I was shown up stairs to Mr.

Baldwin, with whom I found a remarkably gentlemanlike foreign-looking

man.

“Yes, sir--yes, ma’am--Mr. Montenero: it is well you did not either of

you interrupt me to tell me his name, for if you had, I would not have

told you a word more. Well, Mr. Baldwin, evidently wishing me at the

devil, came forward to receive me, and, in great perplexity, said he

would be at my command; he would settle my business immediately;

but must beg my pardon for five minutes, while he settled with this

gentleman, _Mr. Montenero_. On hearing the name, I am sure my look would

have said plain enough to any man alive but Baldwin, that I did not

choose to be introduced; but Baldwin has no breeding: so it was _Mr.

Montenero, Mr. Harrington--Mr. Harrington, Mr. Montenero_. I bowed, and

wished the _Jew_ in the Red Sea, and Baldwin along with him. I then took

up a newspaper and retreated to the window, begging that I might not be

any interruption. The cursed paper was four days old, so I put it down;

and as I stood looking at nothing out of the window, I heard Baldwin

going on with your Jew. They had a load of papers on the table, which

Baldwin kept shuffling, as he talked about the losses the house had

sustained by the sudden death of Alderman Coates, and the sad bankruptcy

of the executors. Baldwin seasoned high with compliments to the Jew upon

his known liberality and generosity, and was trying to get him to enter

into some security, which the Jew refused, saying that what he gave he

gave willingly, but he would not enter into security: he added, that

the alderman and his family had been unjustifiably extravagant; but

on condition that all was given up fairly to the creditors, and a new

course entered upon, he and his daughter would take care that the widow

should be provided for properly. As principal creditor, Mr. Baldwin

would, by this means, be first satisfied. I could not help thinking that

all the Jew said was fair enough, and firm too; but when he had said

and done, I wondered that he did not go away. He and Baldwin came to the

window to which I had retreated, and Baldwin, like a city bear as he is,

got in his awkward way between us, and seizing one button of my coat

and one of Mr. Montenero’s, held us there face to face, while he went on

talking of my demand on the house.

“‘You see, Mr. Harrington,’ said he, ‘how we are circumstanced. The

property of the firm is able to answer all fair demands in due course.

But here’s a set and a run made against us, and no house could stand

without the assistance, that is, the forbearance of friends--that’s what

we must look to. Some of our friends, in particular Mr. Montenero,

have been very friendly indeed--very handsome and liberal--and we have

nothing to say; we cannot, in reason, expect him to do more for the

Coates’s or for us.’ And then came accounts of the executors, &c., in

his banking jargon.

“What the deuce was all this to me, you know? and how awkward I felt,

held by the button there, to rejudge Mr. Montenero’s acts! I had nothing

for it but my snuff-box. But Baldwin’s a mere clerk--cannot guess at

the feelings of a gentleman. Mr. Montenero, I observed, looked down upon

Baldwin all the time with so much the air of a high-bred gentleman, that

I began to think he could not be the Jew--Montenero.

“Baldwin, still thinking only of holding him up as an example to me,

went on, saying, ‘Mr. Montenero, who is a foreigner, and a stranger to

the house, has done so and so, and we trust our old friends will do as

much--Mr. Harrington in particular. There’s our books on the table, open

to Mr. Harrington--he will see we shall be provided on the fifteenth

instant; but, in short, if Mr. Harrington draws his £30,000 to-day, he

drives us to pay in sixpences--so there’s the case.’ In short, it came

to this: if I drew, I certainly ruined them; if I did not draw, I ran a

great hazard of being ruined myself. No, Baldwin would not have it that

way--so when he had stated it after his own fashion, and put it into and

out of his banker’s jargon, it came out to be, that if I drew directly

I was certain to lose the whole; and if I did not draw, I should have

a good chance of losing a great part. I pulled my button away from the

fellow, and without listening to any more of his jabbering, for I saw

he was only speaking _against time_, and all on his own side of the

question, I turned to look at the books, of which I knew I never should

make head or tail, being no auditor of accounts, but a plain country

gentleman. While I was turning over their confounded day-books and

ledgers in despair, your Jew, Harrington, came up to me, and with such

a manner as I did not conceive a Jew could have--but he is a Spanish

Jew--that makes all the difference, I suppose--‘Mr. Harrington,’ said

he, ‘though I am a stranger to you, permit me to offer my services

in this business--I have some right to do so, as I have accepted of

services, and am under real obligations to Mr. Harrington, your son,

a young gentleman for whom I feel the highest attachment as well as

gratitude, but of whom I will now say only, that he has been one of

the chief means of saving my life and my character. His father cannot,

therefore, I think, refuse to let me show at least some sense of

the obligations I have willingly received. My collection of Spanish

pictures, which, without your son’s exertions, I could not have saved

on the night of the riot, has been estimated by your best English

connoisseurs at £60,000. Three English noblemen are at this moment ready

to pay down £30,000 for a few of these pictures: this will secure Mr.

Harrington’s demand on this house. If you, Mr. Baldwin, pay him, before

three hours are over the money shall be with you. It is no sacrifice of

my taste or of my pictures,’ continued your noble Jew, in answer to my

scruples: ‘I lodge them with three different bankers only for security

for the money. If Mr. Baldwin stands the storm, we are all as we

were--my pictures into the bargain. If the worst happen, I lose only a

few instead of all my collection.’

“This was very generous--quite noble, but you know I am an obstinate old

fellow. I had still the Jewess, the daughter, running in my head, and

I thought, perhaps, I was to be asked for my _consent_, you know,

Harrington, or some sly underplot of that kind.

“Mr. Montenero has a quick eye--I perceived that he saw into my

thoughts; but we could not speak to our purpose before Baldwin, and

Baldwin would never think of stirring, if one was dying to get him out

of the room. Luckily, however, he was called away by one of the clerks.

“Then Mr. Montenero, who speaks more to the point than any man I

ever heard, spoke directly of your love for his daughter, and said he

understood that it would not be a match that I should approve. I pleaded

my principles and religious difficulties:--he replied, ‘We need not

enter into that, for the present business I must consider as totally

independent of any view to future connexion:’--if his daughter was going

to be married to-morrow to another man, he should do exactly the same

as he now proposed to do. He did not lessen her fortune:--he should

say nothing of what her sense of gratitude was and ought to be--she had

nothing to do with the business.

“When I found that my _Jupiter Amman_ was in no danger, and that the

love affair was to be kept clear out of the question, I was delighted

with your generous Jew, Harrington, and I frankly accepted his offer.

Baldwin came in again, was quite happy when he heard how it was settled,

gave me three drafts at thirty-one days for my money on the bankers Mr.

Montenero named: here I have them safe in my pocket. Mr. Montenero then

said, he would go immediately and perform his part of the business; and,

as he left the room, he begged Mr. Baldwin to tell his daughter that he

would call for her in an hour.

“I now, for the first time, understood that the daughter was in the

house; and I certainly felt a curiosity to see her. Baldwin told me she

was settling some business, signing some papers in favour of poor Mrs.

Coates, the alderman’s widow. He added, that the Jewess was a charming

creature, and as generous as her father:--he told all she had done for

this widow and her children, on account of some kindness her mother had

received in early life from the Coates’s family; and then there was a

history of some other family of Manessas--I never heard Baldwin eloquent

but this day, in speaking of your Jewess:--Harrington, I believe he is

in love with her himself. I said I should like to see her, if it could

be managed.

“Nothing easier, if I would partake of a cold collation just serving in

the next room for the friends of the house.

“You know the nearer a man is to being ruined, the better he must

entertain his friends. I walked into the next room, when collation time

came, and I saw Miss Montenero. Though I had given him a broad hint--but

the fellow understands nothing but his IOU’s--he fell to introducing of

course: she is a most interesting-looking creature, I acknowledge, my

boy, if--she were not a Jewess. I thought she would have sunk into the

earth when she heard my name. I could not eat one morsel of the man’s

collation--so--Ring for dinner, and let us say no more about the matter

at present: there is my oath against it, you know--there is an end of

the matter--don’t let me hear a word from you, Harrington--I am tired to

death, quite exhausted, body and mind.”

I refrained most dutifully, and most prudently, from saying one word

more on the subject, till my father, after dinner, and after being

refreshed by a sound and long-protracted sleep, began again to speak of

Mr. and Miss Montenero. This was the first time he omitted to call them

the Jew and Jewess. He condescended to say repeatedly, and with many

oaths, that they both deserved to be Christians--that if there was any

chance of the girl’s conversion, even _he_ would overlook the father’s

being a Jew, as he was such a noble fellow. Love could do wonders--as

my father knew when he was a young man--perhaps I might bring about her

conversion, and then all would be smooth and right, and no oath against

it.

I thanked my father for the kind concessions he now appeared willing

to make for my happiness, and from step to step, at each step repeating

that he did not want to hear a syllable about the matter, he made me

tell him every thing that had passed. Mowbray’s rivalship and treachery

excited his indignation in the highest degree: he was heartily glad that

fellow was refused--he liked the girl for refusing him--some spirit--he

liked spirit--and he should be glad that his son carried away the prize.

He interrupted himself to tell me some of the feats of gallantry of his

younger days, and of the manner in which he had at last carried off my

mother from a rascal of a rival--a Lord Mowbray of those times.

When my father had got to this point, my mother ventured to ask whether

I had ever gone so far as to propose, actually to _propose_, for Miss

Montenero.

“Yes.”

Both father and mother turned about, and asked, “What answer?”

I repeated, as nearly as I could, Mr. Montenero’s words--and I produced

his note.

Both excited surprise and curiosity.

“What can this obstacle--this mysterious obstacle be?” said my mother.

“An obstacle on their side!” exclaimed my father: “is that possible?”

I had now, at least, the pleasure of enjoying their sympathy: and of

hearing them go over all the conjectures by which I had been bewildered.

I observed that the less chance there appeared to be of the match, the

more my father and mother inclined towards it.

“At least,” said my mother, “I hope we shall know what the objection

is.”

“It is very extraordinary, after all, that it should be on their side,”

repeated my father.

My mother’s imagination, and my father’s pride, were both strongly

excited; and I let them work without interruption.

CHAPTER XVII.

The time appointed for Mr. Montenero’s final decision approached. In

a few days my fate was to be decided. The vessel that was to sail for

America was continually before my eyes.

It was more difficult to me to endure the suspense of these few days

than all the rest. My mother’s sympathy, and the strong interest which

had been excited on the subject in my father’s mind, were at first

highly agreeable; but there was so much more of curiosity and of pride

in their feelings than in mine, that at last it became irksome to me

to hear their conjectures and reflections. I did not like to answer

any questions--I could not bear to speak of Berenice, or even of Mr.

Montenero.

I took refuge in silence--my mother reproached me for my silence. I

talked on fast of any thing but that which interested me most.

My mother became extremely alarmed for my health, and I believe with

more reason than usual; for I could scarcely either eat, drink, or

sleep, and was certainly very feverish; but still I walked about, and

to escape from the constraint to which I put myself in her company,

to avoid giving her pain--to relieve myself from her hourly fond

inquiries--from the effort of talking, when I wished to be silent--of

appearing well, and in spirits, when I was ill, and when my heart was

dying within me, I escaped from her presence as much as possible. To

feed upon my thoughts in solitude, I either shut myself up in my room,

or walked all day in those streets where I was not likely to meet with

any one who knew me, or whom I knew; and there I was at least safe from

all notice, and secure from all sympathy: I am sure I experienced at

this time the truth of what some one has quaintly but justly asserted,

that an individual can never feel more completely alone than in the

midst of a crowded metropolis.

One evening when I was returning homewards through the city, fatigued,

but still prolonging my walk, that I might not be at home too early for

dinner, I was met and stopped by Jacob: I had not thought of him lately,

and when I looked up in his face, I was surprised by an appearance of

great perturbation. He begged pardon for stopping me, but he had been to

my house--he had been all over the town searching for me, to consult me

about a sad affair, in which he was unfortunately concerned. We were not

far from Manessa’s, the jeweller’s shop; I went in there with Jacob,

as he wished, he said, that I should hear Mr. Manessa’s evidence on the

business, as well as his own. The affair was this: Lady de Brantefield

had, some time ago, brought to Mr. Manessa’s some very fine antique

jewels, to be re-set for her daughter, Lady Anne Mowbray. One day,

immediately after the riots, both the ladies called at Mr. Manessa’s,

to inquire if the jewels were ready. They were finished; the new setting

was approved: but Lady de Brantefield having suffered great losses by

the destruction of her house and furniture in the riots, and her

son, Lord Mowbray, being also in great pecuniary difficulties, it was

suggested by Lady Anne Mowbray, that her mother would be glad if Mr.

Manessa could dispose of some of the jewels, without letting it be known

to whom they had belonged. Mr. Manessa, willing to oblige, promised

secresy, and offered immediately to purchase the jewels himself; in

consequence, the jewels were all spread out upon a little table in the

back parlour--no one present but Jacob, Mr. Manessa, and the two ladies.

A great deal of conversation passed, and the ladies were a long time

settling what trinkets they would part with.

It was very difficult to accommodate at once the personal vanity of

the daughter, the family pride of the mother, and their pecuniary

difficulties. There occurred, in particular, a question about a topaz

ring, of considerable value, but of antique setting, which Lady Anne

Mowbray wished her mother to part with, instead of some more fashionable

diamond ornament that Lady Anne wanted to keep for herself. Lady de

Brantefield had, however, resisted all her daughter’s importunities--had

talked a vast deal about the ring--told that it had been Sir Josseline

de Mowbray’s--that it had come into his possession by ducal and princely

descent--that it was one of four rings, which had been originally a

present from Pope Innocent to King John, of which rings there was a full

description in some old chronicle [Footnote: Rymer’s Foedera.], and

in Mr. Hume’s History of England, to which her ladyship referred Mr.

Manessa: his curiosity [Footnote: For the satisfaction of any readers

who may have more curiosity upon the subject than Mr. Manessa had,

but yet who would not willingly rise from their seats to gratify their

curiosity, the passage is here given _gratis_. “Innocent wrote John a

mollifying letter, and sent him four golden rings, set with precious

stones; and endeavoured to enhance the value of the present, by

informing him of the many mysteries which were implied by it. He begged

him to consider, seriously, the _form_ of the rings, their _number_,

their _matter_, and their _colour_. Their form, he said, being round,

shadowed out eternity, which has neither beginning nor end. Their

number, four, being a square, denoted steadiness of mind, not to be

subverted either by adversity or prosperity, fixed for ever on the four

cardinal virtues. Gold, which is the matter, signified wisdom. The blue

of the sapphire, faith. The verdure of the emerald, hope. The redness

of the ruby, charity. And splendour of the topaz, good works.” “By these

conceits,” continued the historian, “Innocent endeavoured to repay John

for one of the most important prerogatives of the crown.”], however,

was perfectly satisfied upon the subject, and he was, with all due

deference, willing to take the whole upon her ladyship’s word, without

presuming to verify her authorities. While she spoke, she took the ring

from her finger, and put it into Jacob’s hand, desiring to know if he

could make it fit her finger better, as it was rather too large. Jacob

told her it could be easily lessened, if her ladyship would leave it

for an hour or two with him. But her ladyship said she could not let Sir

Josseline’s ring out of her own sight, it was of such inestimable value.

The troublesome affair of satisfying both the vain daughter and

the proud mother being accomplished--the last bows were made at the

door--the carriage drove away, and Manessa and Jacob thanked Heaven that

they had done with these _difficult_ customers. Two hours had scarcely

elapsed before a footman came from Lady de Brantefield with the

following note:--

“Lady de Brantefield informs Mr. Manessa that she is in the greatest

anxiety--not finding Sir Josseline de Mowbray’s ring on her finger, upon

her return home. Her ladyship now recollects having left it in the hands

of one of Mr. Manessa’s shopmen, a young man she believes of the name

of Jacob, the only person except Mr. Manessa, who was in the little

parlour, while her ladyship and Lady Anne Mowbray were there.

“Lady de Brantefield requests that Mr. Manessa will bring the ring

_himself_ to Lady Warbeck’s, Hanover-square, where Lady de Brantefield

is at present.

“Lady de Brantefield desires Mr. M. will make _no delay_, as her

ladyship must remain in indescribable anxiety till Sir Josseline’s ring

shall be restored. Her ladyship could not answer for such a loss to her

family and posterity.

“_Hanover-square, Tuesday._”

Jacob was perfectly certain that her ladyship had not left the ring

with him; nevertheless he made diligent search for it, and afterwards

accompanied Mr. Manessa to Lady Warbeck’s, to assure Lady de Brantefield

that the ring was not in their house. He endeavoured to bring to her

recollection her having put it on her finger just before she got into

the carriage; but this her ladyship would not admit. Lady Anne supported

her mother’s assertions; and Lady de Brantefield ended by being

haughtily angry, declaring she would not be contradicted by a shopman,

and that she was positive the ring had never been returned to her.

Within eight-and-forty hours the story was told by Lady de Brantefield

and her friends at every card-table at the polite end of the town, and

it was spread by Lady Anne through the park and the ball-rooms; and the

ladies’-maids had repeated it, with all manner of exaggerations, through

their inferior but not less extensive circles. The consequence was, that

the character of Mr. Manessa’s house was hurt, and Jacob, who was the

person accused as the cause of it, was very unhappy. The confidence

Mr. Manessa had in him, and the kindness he showed him, increased

his regret. Lady de Brantefield had, in a high tone, threatened a

prosecution for the value of her _inestimable_ ring. This was what both

Jacob and Mr. Manessa would have desired--a public trial, they

knew, would bring the truth to light; but her ladyship was probably

discouraged by her legal advisers from a prosecution, so that Mr.

Manessa and Jacob were still left to suffer by the injustice of private

whisperings. Jacob offered to replace, as far as he could, the value of

this ring; but in Lady de Brantefield’s opinion nothing could compensate

for its loss. Poor Jacob was in despair. Before I heard this story, I

thought that nothing could have forced my attention from my own affairs;

but I could not be so selfish as to desert or neglect Jacob in his

distress. I went with my mother this evening to see Lady de Brantefield;

her ladyship was still at her relation’s, Lady Warbeck’s house, where

she had apartments to herself, in which she could receive what company

she pleased. There was to be a ball in the house this evening, but

Lady de Brantefield never mixed in what she called _idle gaieties_; she

abhorred a bustle, as it infringed upon her personal dignity, and did

not agree with her internal persuasion that she was, or ought to be, the

first object in all company. We found her ladyship in her own retired

apartment; her eyes were weak, and the room had so little light in it,

that when we first went in, I could scarcely distinguish any object: I

saw, however, a young woman, who had been reading to her ladyship,

rise as we entered, put down her book, and prepare to retire. My mother

stopped her as she was passing, and turning to me, said, that this was a

young person, she was sure, I should be glad to see, the daughter of an

old friend of mine.

I looked, and saw a face which awakened the most painful associations of

my childhood.

“Did not I perceive any likeness?” my mother continued. “But it was

so many years since I had seen poor Fowler, and I was so very young a

child, no wonder I should not in the least recollect.”

I had some recollection--if I was not mistaken--I stammered--I

stopped. In fact, I recollected too well to be able to pay the expected

compliment. However, after I had got over the first involuntary shudder,

I tried to say something to relieve the embarrassment which I fancied

the girl must feel.

She, in a mincing, waiting-gentlewoman’s manner, and with a certain

unnatural softness of voice, which again brought all the mother to my

mind, assured me that if I’d forgot her mother, she had not forgot me;

for that she’d often and often heard her mother talk of me, and she was

morally confident her mother had never loved any child so doatingly,

except, to be sure, her own present lady’s, Lady Anne Mowbray. Her

mother had often and often regretted she could never get a sight or

sentence of me since I grew up to be a great gentleman, she

always having been stationary down at my lady’s, in Surrey, at

the Priory--housekeeper--and I never there; but if I’d have the

condescension to wish to gratify her mother, as it would be the greatest

gratification in life--if Lady de Brantefield--

“Presently, perhaps--when I ring,” said Lady de Brantefield, “and

you, Nancy Fowler, may come back yourself with my treble ruffles: Mrs.

Harrington, I know, will have the goodness to permit. I keep her as much

under my own eye, and suffer her to be as much even in the room with me,

as possible,” added Lady de Brantefield, as Nancy left the room; “for

she is a young person quite out of the common line, and her mother

i--but you first recommended her to me, Mrs. Harrington, I remember.”

“_The most faithful creature!_” said my mother, in the very tone I had

heard it pronounced twenty years before.

I was carried back so far, so forcibly, and so suddenly, that it was

some time before I could recover myself sufficiently to recollect what

was the order of the day; but no matter--my mother passed on quite

easily to the jewels, and my silence was convenient, and had an air

of perfect deference for Lady de Brantefield’s long story of Sir

Josseline’s ring, now told over, I believe, for the ninety-ninth time

this season. She ended where she began, with the conviction that, if

the secretary of state would, as he ought, on such an occasion, grant

a general search-warrant, as she was informed had been done for papers,

and things of much less value, her ring would be found in _that_ Jacob’s

possession--_that_ Jacob, of whom she had a very bad opinion!

I took the matter up as quietly as was in my nature, and did not begin

with a panegyric on my friend Jacob, but simply asked, what reason her

ladyship had for her very bad opinion of him?

Too good reason, her ladyship emphatically said: she had heard her son,

Lord Mowbray, express a _very_ bad opinion of him.

Lord Mowbray had known this Jacob, she believed, when a boy, and

afterwards when a man at Gibraltar, and had always thought ill of him.

Lord Mowbray had said, that Jacob was avaricious and revengeful; as you

know Jews always are, added her ladyship.

I wondered she had trusted her jewels, then, in such hands.

There, she owned, she had for once been wrong--overruled by others--by

her daughter, Lady Anne, who said the jewels could be more fashionably

set at Manessa’s than any where else.

She had never acted against her own judgment in her life, without

repenting of it. Another circumstance, Lady de Brantefield said,

prepossessed her, she owned, against this Jacob; he was from the very

dregs of the people; the son absolutely of an old clothes-man, she

had been informed. What could be expected from such a person, when

temptation came in his way? and could we trust to any thing such a low

sort of person would say?

Lady Anne Mowbray, before I had time to answer, entered dressed for

the ball, with her jewels in full blaze, and for some time there was a

suspension of all hope of coming to any thing like common sense. When

her mother appealed to her about Jacob, Lady Anne protested she took a

horrid dislike to his face the moment she saw him; she thought he had a

shocking Jewish sort of countenance, and she was positive he would swear

falsely, because he was ready to swear that her mamma had the ring on

her finger when she got into the carriage--now Lady Anne was clear she

had not.

“Has your ladyship,” I asked, “any particular reason for remembering

this fact?”

“Oh, yes! several very particular reasons.”

There is sometimes wisdom in listening to a fool’s reasons; for ten to

one that the reasons will prove the contrary to what they are brought

to support, or will at least bring out some fact, the distant bearing of

which on the point of question the fool does not perceive. But when two

fools pour out their reasons at once, it is difficult to profit even

by their folly. The mother’s authority at last obtaining precedency,

I heard Lady de Brantefield’s cause of belief, first: her ladyship

declared that she never wore Sir Josseline’s ring without putting

on after it a _guard ring_, a ring which, being tighter than Sir

Josseline’s, kept it safe on her finger. She remembered drawing off the

guard ring when she took off Sir Josseline’s, and put that into Jacob’s

hands; her ladyship said it was clear to her mind that she could not

have put on Sir Josseline’s again, because here was the guard ring on

her _wrong_ finger--a finger on which she never in her life wore it when

she wore Sir Josseline’s, for Sir Josseline’s was so loose, it would

drop off, unless she had the guard on.

“But was not it possible,” I asked, “that your ladyship might this once

have put on Sir Josseline’s ring without recollecting the guard?”

No, absolutely impossible: if Jacob and all the Jews upon earth swore

it (who, by-the-bye, would swear any thing), she could not be convinced

against her reason--she knew her own habits--her private reasons to her

were unanswerable.

Lady Anne’s private reasons to her were equally unanswerable; but

they were so confused, and delivered with so much volubility, as to be

absolutely unintelligible. All I could gather was, that Fowler and her

daughter Nancy were in the room when Lady Anne and her mother first

missed the ring--that when her mother drew off her glove, and

exclaimed, “Bless me, Sir Josseline’s not here!” Lady Anne ran up to

the dressing-table, at which her mother was standing, to try to find the

ring, thinking that her mother might have dropped it in drawing off her

glove; “but it certainly was not drawn off with the glove.”

“But might not it be left in the glove?” I asked.

“Oh! dear, no: I shook the glove myself, and Fowler turned every

finger inside out, and Nancy moved every individual box upon the

dressing-table. We were all in such a fuss, because you know mamma’s

so particular about Sir Josseline; and to tell you the truth, I was

uncommonly anxious, because I knew if mamma was vexed and lost the

ring, she would not give me a certain diamond cross, that makes me so

particularly remember every circumstance--and I was in such a flurry,

that I know I threw down a bottle of aether that was on mamma’s

toilette, on her muff--and it had such a horrid smell!”

The muff! I asked if the muff, as well as the glove, had been searched

carefully.

“La! to be sure--I suppose so--of course it was shaken, as every thing

else in the room was, a hundred times over: the toilette and mamma’s

petticoats even, and cloak, and gloves, as I told you.”

“Yes, but the muff, did your ladyship examine it yourself?”

“Did I examine it? I don’t recollect. No, indeed, after the aether,

how could I touch it? you know: but of course it was shaken, it was

examined, I am sure; but really I know nothing about it--but this, that

it could not possibly be in it, the ring, I mean, because mamma had her

glove on.”

I requested permission to see the muff.

“Oh, mamma was forced to give it away because of the horrid smell--she

bid Fowler take it out of the room that minute, and never let it come

near her again; but if you want to see it, ring for Fowler: you can

examine it as much as you please; depend upon it the ring’s no more

there than I am--send for Fowler and Nancy, and they can tell you how

we shook every thing to no purpose. The ring’s gone, and so am I, for

Colonel Topham’s waiting, and I must lead off.” And away her ladyship

tripped, flirting her perfumed fan as she went. Persisting in my wish to

see the muff, Lady de Brantefield desired me to ring for Fowler.

Her ladyship wondered, she said, how I could, after the reasons she had

given me for her being morally certain that she had left the ring with

Jacob, and after Lady Anne had justly remarked that the ring could

not get through her glove, entertain a hope of finding it in such a

ridiculous place as a muff. But since I was so possessed with this idea,

the muff should be produced--there was nothing like ocular demonstration

in these cases, except internal conviction: “Did you ring, Mr.

Harrington?”

“I did.”

And Miss Nancy with the treble ruffles in her hand now appeared.

“‘Tis your mother, child, I want,” said Lady de Brantefield.

“Yes, my lady, she is only just finished assisting to lay out the ball

supper.”

“But I want her--directly.”

“Certainly, my lady, directly.”

“And bid her bring--” A whisper from me to my mother, and from my mother

to her ladyship, failed of effect: after turning half round, as if

to ask me what I said--a look which did not pass unnoticed by Miss

Nancy--her ladyship finished her sentence--“And tell Fowler I desire

she will bring me the muff that I gave her last week--the day I lost my

ring.”

This message would immediately put Fowler upon her guard, and I was at

first sorry that it had been so worded; but I recollected having heard

an eminent judge, a man of great abilities and experience, say, that if

he were called upon to form a judgment of any character, or to discover

the truth in any case, he would rather that the persons whom he was to

examine were previously put on their guard, than that they were not; for

that he should know, by what they guarded, of what they were afraid.

Fowler appeared--twenty years had so changed her face and figure, that

the sight of her did not immediately shock me as I feared it would. The

daughter, who, I suppose, more nearly resembled what her mother had been

at the time I had known her, was, of the two, the most disagreeable

to my sight and feelings. Fowler’s voice was altered by the loss of

a tooth, and it was even by this change less odious to my ear. The

daughter’s voice I could scarcely endure. I was somewhat relieved from

the fear of being prejudiced against Fowler by the perception of

this change in her; and while she was paying me her compliments, I

endeavoured to fortify the resolution I had made to judge of her with

perfect impartiality. Her delight at seeing me, however, I could not

believe to be sincere; and the reiterated repetition of her sorrow

for her never having been able to get a sight of me before, I thought

ill-judged: but no matter; many people in her station make these sort

of unmeaning speeches. If I had suffered my imagination to act, I

should have fancied that under a sort of prepared composure there was

constraint and alarm in her look as she spoke to me. I thought she

trembled; but I resolved not to be prejudiced--and this I repeated to

myself many times.

“Well, Fowler, but the muff,” said Lady de Brantefield.

“The muff--oh! dear, my lady, I’m so sorry I can’t have it for you--it’s

not in the house nowhere--I parted with it out of hand directly upon

your saying, my lady, that you desired it might never be suffered to

come nigh your ladyship again. Then, says I to myself, since my lady

can’t abide the smell, I can’t never wear it, which it would have been

my pride to do; so I thought I could never get it fast enough out of the

house.”

“And what did you do with it?”

“I made a present of it, my lady, to poor Mrs. Baxter, John Dutton’s

sister, my lady, who was always so much attached to the family, and

would have a regard for even the smallest relic, vestige, or vestment, I

knew, above all things in nature, poor old soul!--she has, what with

the rheumatic pains, and one thing or another, lost the use of her right

arm, so it was particularly agreeable and appropriate--and she kissed

the muff--oh! my lady, I’m sure I only wish your ladyship could have

witnessed the poor soul’s veneration.”

In reply to a question which made my mother ask about the “poor soul,”

I further learned that Mrs. Baxter was wife to a pawnbroker in

Swallow-street. Fowler added, “If my lady wished any way for the muff, I

can get it to-morrow morning by breakfast, or by the time _you’s up_, my

lady.”

“Very well, very well, that will do, I suppose, will it not, Mr.

Harrington?”

I bowed, and said not a word more--Fowler, I saw, was glad to get rid of

the subject, and to go on to the treble ruffles, on which while she and

my mother and Lady de Brantefield were descanting, I made my exit, and

went to the ball-room.

I found Lady Anne Mowbray--talked nonsense to her ladyship for a quarter

of an hour--and at last, _à propos _to her perfumed fan, I brought

in the old muff with the horrid smell, on purpose to obtain a full

description of it.

She told me that it was a gray fox-skin, lined with scarlet; that it had

great pompadour-coloured knots at each end, and that it was altogether

hideous. Lady Anne declared that she was heartily glad it would never

shock her eyes more.

It was now just nine o’clock; people then kept better hours than they

do at present; I was afraid that all the shops would be shut; but I

recollected that pawnbrokers’ shops were usually kept open late. I lost

no time in pursuing my object.

I took a hackney coach, bribed the coachman to drive very fast to Mr.

Manessa--found Manessa and Jacob going to bed sleepy--but at sight of

me Jacob was alert in an instant, and joyfully ready to go with me

immediately to Baxter, the pawnbroker’s.

I made Jacob furnish me with an old surtout and slouched hat, desiring

to look as shabby as possible, that the pawnbroker might take me for one

of his usual nightly customers, and might not be alarmed at the sight of

a gentleman.

“That won’t do yet, Mr. Harrington,” said Jacob, when I had equipped

myself in the old hat and coat. “Mr. Baxter will see the look of a

gentleman through all that. It is not the shabby coat that will make

the gentleman look shabby, no more than the fine coat can ever make _the

shabby_ look like the gentleman. The pawnbroker, who is used to observe

and find out all manner of people, will know that as well as I--but now

you shall see how well at one stroke I will disguise the gentleman.”

Jacob then twisted a dirty silk handkerchief round my throat, and this

did the business so completely, that I defied the pawnbroker and all his

penetration.

We drove as fast as we could to Swallow-street--dismissed our hackney

coach, and walked up to the pawnbroker’s.

Light in the shop!--all alive!--and business going on. The shop was so

full of people, that we stood for some minutes unnoticed.

We had leisure to look about us, as we had previously agreed to do, for

Lady De Brantefield’s muff.

I had a suspicion that, notwithstanding the veneration with which it had

been said to be treated, it might have come to the common lot of cast

clothes.

Jacob at one side, and I at the other, took a careful survey of the

multifarious contents of the shop; of all that hung from the ceiling;

and all that was piled on the shelves; and all that lay huddled in

corners, or crammed into dark recesses.

In one of the darkest and most ignominious of these, beneath a heap of

sailors’ old jackets and trowsers, I espied a knot of pompadour riband.

I hooked it out a little with the stick I had in my hand; but Jacob

stopped me, and called to the shopboy, who now had his eye upon us, and

with him we began to bargain hard for some of the old clothes that lay

upon the muff.

The shopboy lifted them up to display their merits, by the dimness of

the candle-light, and, as he raised them up, there appeared beneath the

gray fox-skin with its scarlet lining and pompadour knots, the Lady de

Brantefield’s much venerated muff.

I could scarcely refrain from seizing upon it that moment, but Jacob

again restrained me.

He went on talking about the sailors’ jackets, for which we had been in

treaty; and he insisted upon having the old muff into the bargain. It

actually was at last thrown in as a makeweight. Had she been witness to

this bargain, I believe Lady De Brantefield would have dropped down in a

swoon.

The moment I got possession of it, I turned it inside out.--There were

several small rents in the lining--but one in particular had obviously

been cut open with scissars. The shopboy, who thought I was pointing out

the rents to disparage my purchase, assured me that any woman, clever

at her needle, would with half-a-dozen stitches sew all up, and make the

muff as good again as new. Jacob desired the boy to show him some old

seals, rings, and trinkets, fit for a pedlar to carry into the country;

Jacob was, for this purpose, sent to the most respectable place at the

counter, and promoted to the honour of dealing face to face with Mr.

Baxter himself:--drawers, which had before been invisible, were now

produced; and I stood by while Jacob looked over all the new and old

trinkets. I was much surprised by the richness and value of various

brooches, picture settings, watches, and rings, which had come to this

fate: at last, in a drawer with many valuables, which Mr. Baxter told

us that some great man’s mistress had, last week, been obliged to leave

with him, Jacob and I, at the same moment, saw “_the splendour of the

topaz_”--Lady de Brantefield’s inestimable ring! I must do myself the

justice to say that I behaved incomparably well--did not make a single

exclamation, though I was sure it was the identical ring, the moment I

caught a glimpse of the topaz--and though a glance from Jacob convinced

me I was right. I said I could wait no longer, but would call again for

him in half an hour’s time. This was what we had agreed upon beforehand

should be the signal for my summoning a Bow-street officer, whom

Mr. Manessa had in readiness. Jacob identified and swore to the

property--Mr. Baxter was seized. He protested he did not know the ring

was _stolen goods_--he could not recollect who had sold it to him; but

when we mentioned Fowler’s name, he grew pale, was disconcerted, and not

knowing how much or how little we knew, decided at once to get out of

the scrape himself by giving her up, and turning evidence against her.

He stated that she had found it in the old muff, but that he never knew

that this muff had belonged to Lady de Brantefield. Mrs. Fowler had

assured Him that it had been left to her along with the wardrobe of a

lady with Whom she had formerly lived.

As soon as Baxter had told all the lies he chose to invent, and

confessed as much of the truth as he thought would serve his purpose,

his deposition was taken and sworn to. This was all that could then be

done, as it was near twelve o’clock.

Poor Jacob’s joy at having his innocence proved, and at being relieved

from the fear of injuring the credit of his master’s house, raised his

spirits higher than I ever saw them in my life before. But still his joy

and gratitude were more shown by looks than words. He thanked me once,

and but once, warmly and strongly.

“Ah! Mr. Harrington,” said he, “from the time you were _Master_

Harrington at school, you were my best friend--always my friend in most

need--I trusted in you, and still I hoped!--hoped that the truth would

stand, and the lie fall. See at last our Hebrew proverb right--‘_A lie

has no feet._’”

CHAPTER XVIII.

The next morning, before I left my room to go down to breakfast, my

servant told me that Lady de Brantefield’s housekeeper, Mrs. Fowler,

begged to speak to me--she had been come some time. I went into my

mother’s dressing-room, where she was waiting alone. I could not bear

to fix my eyes upon her; I advanced towards her, wishing, as I believe I

said aloud, that she had spared me the pain of this interview. I waited

in silence for her to speak, but she did not say a word--I heard the

unhappy woman sobbing violently. Suddenly she took her handkerchief from

before her face, and her sobs ceasing, she exclaimed, “I know you hate

me, Mr. Harrington, and you have reason to hate me--more--much more than

you know of! But Lord Mowbray is the most to blame.”

I stood in astonishment. I conceived either that the woman was out

of her senses, or that she had formed the not unprecedented design of

affecting insanity, in hope of escaping the punishment of guilt: she

threw herself at my feet--she would have clasped my knees, but I started

back from her insufferable touch; provoked by this, she exclaimed, in a

threatening tone, “Take care, sir!--The secret is still in my power.”

Then observing, I believe, that her threat made no impression, her tone

changed again to the whine of supplication.

“Oh, Mr. Harrington, if I could hope for your forgiveness, I could

reveal such a secret--a secret that so concerns you!”

I retreated, saying that I would not hear any secret from her. But I

stopped, and was fixed to the spot, when she added, under her breath,

the name of Montenero. Then, in a hypocritical voice, she went on--“Oh,

Mr. Harrington!--Oh, sir, I have, been a great sinner! led on--led on

by them that was worse than myself; but if you will plead for me with

my lady, and prevail upon her not to bring me to public shame about this

unfortunate affair of the ring, I will confess all to you--I will throw

myself on your mercy. I will quit the country if you will prevail on my

lady--to let my daughter’s marriage go on, and not to turn her out of

favour.”

I refused to make any terms; but my mother, whose curiosity could

refrain no longer, burst into the room; and to her Fowler did not plead

in vain. Shocked as she was with the detection of this woman’s fraud, my

mother was so eager to learn the secret concerning me, that she promised

to obtain a pardon from Lady de Brantefield for the delinquent, if she

would immediately communicate the secret. I left the room.

I met my father with letters and newspapers in his hand. He looked in

consternation, and beckoned to me to follow him into his own room.

“I was just going in search of you, Harrington,” said he: “here’s a

devil of a stroke for your mother’s friend, Lady de Brantefield.”

“The loss of her jewels, do you mean, sir?” said I: “they are found.”

“Jewels!” said my father; “I don’t know what you are talking of.”

“I don’t know then what you mean, sir,” said I.

“No, to be sure you do not, how could you? for the news is but this

instant come--in this letter which I was carrying to you--which is

addressed to you, as I found, when I got to the middle of it. I beg your

pardon for opening it. Stay, stay--this is not the right letter.”

My father seemed much hurried, and looked over his parcel of letters,

while he went on, saying, “This is directed to William Harrington,

instead of William Harrington Harrington. Never mind about that now,

only I don’t like to open letters that don’t belong to me--here it

is--run your eye over it as fast as you can, and tell me--for I stopped,

as soon as I saw it was not to me--tell me how it is with Mowbray--I

never liked the fellow, nor his mother either; but one can’t help

pitying--and being shocked--shocked indeed I was, the moment I read the

letter.”

The letter, which appeared to have been written in great perturbation,

and at two or three different times, with different inks, was from a

brother officer of Lord Mowbray’s. It began in a tolerably composed

and legible hand, with an account of a duel, in which the writer of the

letter said that he had been second to Lord Mowbray. His lordship

had been wounded, but it was hoped he would do well. Then came the

particulars of the duel, which the second stated, of course, as

advantageously for himself and his principal as he could; but even by

his own statement it appeared that Lord Mowbray had been the aggressor;

that he had been intemperate; and, in short, entirely in the wrong:

the person with whom he fought was a young officer, who had been his

schoolfellow: the dispute had begun about some trivial old school

quarrel, on the most nonsensical subject; something about a Jew boy of

the name of Jacob, and a pencil-case; the young gentleman had appealed

to the evidence of Mr. Harrington, whom he had lately met on a

fishing-party, and who, he said, had a perfect recollection of the

circumstance. Lord Mowbray grew angry; and in the heat of contradiction,

which, as his second said, his lordship could never bear, he gave his

opponent the lie direct. A duel was the necessary consequence. Lord

Mowbray insisted on their firing across the table: his opponent was

compelled to it. They fired, as it was agreed, at the same instant: Lord

Mowbray fell. So far was written while the surgeon was with his patient.

Afterwards, the letter went on in a more confused manner. The surgeon

begged that Lord Mowbray’s friends might be informed, to prepare them

for the event; but still there were hopes. Lord Mowbray had begun to

write a letter to Mr. Harrington, but could not go on--had torn it to

bits--and had desired the writer of the present letter to say, “that he

could not go out of the world easy, without his forgiveness--to refer

him to a woman of the name of Fowler, for explanation--a waiting-maid--a

housekeeper now, in his mother’s family. Lord Mowbray assured Mr.

Harrington, that he did not mean to have carried the _jest_ (the word

_jest_ scratched out), the thing farther than to show him his power to

break off matters, if he pleased--but he now repented.”

This dictated part of the letter was so confused, and so much like the

delirium of a man in a fever, that I should certainly have concluded it

to be without real meaning, had it not coincided with the words which

Fowler had said to me. On turning over the page I saw a postscript--Lord

Mowbray, at two o’clock that morning, had expired. His brother officer

gave no particulars, and expressed little regret, but begged me

to represent the affair properly; and added something about the

lieutenant-colonelcy, which was blotted so much, either purposely or

accidentally, that I could not read it.

My father, who was a truly humane man, was excessively shocked by the

letter; and at first, so much engrossed by the account of the manner of

the young man’s death, and by the idea of the shock and distress of

the mother and sister, that he scarcely adverted to the unintelligible

messages to me. He observed, indeed, that the writer of the letter

seemed to be a fool, and to have very little feeling. We agreed that

my mother was the fittest person to break the matter to poor Lady de

Brantefield. If my mother should not feel herself equal to the task, my

father said he would undertake it himself, though he had rather have a

tooth pulled out than go through it.

We went together to my mother. We found her in hysterics, and

Fowler beside her; my mother, the moment she saw us, recovered some

recollection, and pushing Fowler from her with both her hands, she

cried, “Take her away--out of my sight--out of my sight.” I took the

hartshorn from Fowler, and bid her leave the room; ordering her, at her

peril, not to leave the house.

“Why did you tell Mrs. Harrington so suddenly, Mrs. Fowler?” my father

began, supposing that my mother’s hysterics were the consequence of

having been told, too suddenly, the news of Lord Mowbray’s death.

“I did not tell her, sir; I never uttered a sentence of his lordship’s

_death_.”

In her confusion, the woman betrayed her knowledge of the circumstance,

though on her first speaking to me she had not mentioned it. While I

assisted and soothed my mother, I heard my father questioning her. “She

heard the news that morning, early, in a letter from Lord Mowbray’s

gentleman--had not yet had the heart to mention it to her lady--believed

she had given a hint of it to Lady Anne--was indeed so flurried, and

still was so flurried--”

My father, perceiving that Fowler did not know what she was saying,

good-naturedly attributed her confusion to her sorrow for her ladies;

and did not wonder, he said, she was flurried: he was not nervous, but

it had given him a shock. “Sit down, poor Fowler.”

The words caught my mother’s ear, who had now recovered her recollection

completely; and with an effort, which I had never before seen her make,

to command her own feelings--an effort, for which I thank her, as I knew

it arose from her strong affection for me, she calmly said, “I will

bear that woman--that fiend, in my sight, a few minutes longer, for your

sake, Harrington, till her confession be put in writing and signed: this

will, I suppose, be necessary.”

“I desire to know, directly, what all this means?” said my father,

speaking in a certain repressed tone, which we and which Fowler knew to

be the symptom of his being on the point of breaking out into violent

anger.

“Oh! sir,” said Fowler, “I have been a very sad sinner; but indeed I

was not so much to blame as them that knew better, and ought to know

better--that bribed and deceived me, and lured me by promises to do

that--to say that--but indeed I was made to believe it was all to end in

no harm--only a jest.”

“A jest! Oh, wretch!” cried my mother.

“I was a wretch, indeed, ma’am; but Lord Mowbray was, you’ll allow, the

wickedest.”

“And at the moment he is dead,” said my father, “is this a time--”

Fowler, terrified to her inmost coward soul at the sight of the powerful

indignation which appeared in my father’s eyes, made an attempt to throw

herself at his feet, but he caught strong hold of her arm.

“Tell me the plain fact at once, woman.”

Now she literally could not speak; she knew my father was violent, and

dreaded lest what she had to say should incense him beyond all bounds.

My mother rose, and said that she would tell the plain fact.

Fowler, still more afraid that my mother should tell it--as she thought,

I suppose, she could soften it best herself--interposed, saying, “Sir,

if you will give me a moment’s time for recollection, sir, I will tell

all. Dear sir, if one had committed murder, and was going to be put

to death, one should have that much mercy shown--hard to be condemned

unheard.”

My father let go her arm from his strong grasp, and sat down, resolved

to be patient. It was just, he said, that she, that every human creature

should be heard before they were condemned.

When she came to the facts, I was so much interested that I cannot

recollect the exact words in which the account was given; but this was

the substance. Lord Mowbray, when refused by Miss Montenero, had sworn

that he would be revenged on her and on me. Indeed, from our first

acquaintance with her, he had secretly determined to supplant me; and

a circumstance soon occurred which served to suggest the means. He

had once heard Miss Montenero express strongly her terror at seeing an

insane person--her horror at the idea of a marriage which a young friend

of hers had made with a man who was subject to fits of insanity. Upon

this hint Mowbray set to work.

Before he opened his scheme to Fowler, he found how he could bribe her,

as he thought, effectually, and secure her secrecy by making her

an accomplice. Fowler had a mind to marry her daughter to a certain

apothecary, who, though many years older than the girl, and quite old

enough to be her father, was rich, and would raise her to be a lady.

This apothecary lived in a country town near the Priory; the house,

and ground belonging to it, which the apothecary rented, was on her

ladyship’s estate, and would be the inheritance of Lord Mowbray. He

promised that he would renew this lease to her future son-in-law,

provided she and the apothecary continued to preserve his good opinion.

His lordship had often questioned Fowler as to the strange nervous fits

I had had when a boy. He had repeated all he had heard reported; and

certainly exaggerated stories in abundance had, at the time, been

circulated. Lord Mowbray affirmed that most people were of opinion it

was _insanity_. Fowler admitted that was always her own opinion--Lord

Mowbray supposed that was the secret reason for her quitting my mother’s

service--it certainly was, though she was too delicate, and afraid at

the time, to mention it. By degrees he worked Fowler partly to acquiesce

in all he asserted, and to assert all he insinuated. The apothecary had

been an apprentice to the London apothecary who attended me; he had seen

me often at the time I was at the _worst_; he had heard the reports too,

and he had heard opinions of medical men, and he was brought to assert

whatever his future mother-in-law pleased, for he was much in love with

the young girl. This combination was formed about the period when I

first became attached to Miss Montenero: the last stroke had been given

at the time when Mr. Montenero and Berenice were at General B----‘s, in

Surrey. The general’s house was within a few miles of the country town

in which the said apothecary lived; it was ten or twelve miles from the

Priory, where Fowler was left, at that time, to take care of the place.

The apothecary usually attended the chief families in the neighbourhood,

and was recommended to General B----‘s family. Miss Montenero had a

slight sore throat, and no physician being near, this apothecary was

sent for; he made use of this opportunity, spoke of the friends he had

formerly had in London, in particular of Mr. Harrington’s family, for

whom he expressed much gratitude and attachment; inquired anxiously and

mysteriously about young Mr. Harrington’s state of health. One day

Miss Montenero and her father called at this apothecary’s, to see some

curious things that had been found in a Roman bath, just dug up in the

county of Surrey. Fowler, who had been apprised of the intended

visit, was found in the little parlour behind the shop talking to the

apothecary about poor young Mr. Harrington. While Mr. and Miss Montenero

were looking at the Roman curiosities, Fowler contrived, in half

sentences, to let out what she wished to be overheard about _that_ poor

young gentleman’s _strange fits_; and she questioned the apothecary

whether they had come on ever _very_ lately, and hoped that for the

family’s sake, as well as his own, it would never break out publicly.

All which observations and questions the apothecary seemed discreetly

and mysteriously to evade answering. Fowler confessed that she could not

get out on this occasion the whole of what she had been instructed to

say, because Miss Montenero grew so pale, they thought she would have

dropped on the floor.

The apothecary pretended to think the young lady had been made sick

by the smell of the shop. It passed off--nothing more was done at that

time. Mr. Montenero, before he left the house, made inquiries who

Fowler was--learned that she had been, for many years, a servant in

the Harrington family,--children’s maid. Her evidence, and that of the

apothecary who had attended me in my _extraordinary illness_, agreed;

and there seemed no reason to suspect its truth. Mr. and Miss Montenero

went with a party from General B----‘s to see Brantefield Priory. Fowler

attended the company through the house: Mr. Montenero took occasion

to question her most minutely--asked, in particular, about a tapestry

room--a picture of Sir Josseline and the Jew--received such answers as

Lord Mowbray had prepared Fowler to give: so artfully had he managed,

that his interference could not be suspected. Fowler pretended to know

scarcely any thing of her young lord--she had always lived here at the

Priory--his lordship had been abroad--was in the army--always _on the

move_--did not know where he was now--probably in town: her present

ladies had her good word--but her heart, she confessed, was always with

her first mistress, Mrs. Harrington, and poor Master Harrington--_never

to be mentioned without a sigh_--that was noted in her instructions. All

that I or Mowbray had mentioned before Mr. Montenero of my aversion to

Fowler, now appeared to be but the dislike which an insane person is

apt to take against those about them, even to those who treat them

most kindly. Fowler was a good actress, and she was well prompted--she

produced, in her own justification, instructions, in unsigned letters of

Lord Mowbray’s. I knew his hand, however disguised. She was directed to

take particular care not to go too far--to let things be _drawn_ from

her--to refuse to give further information lest she should do

mischief. When assured that the Monteneros were friends, then to tell

_circumstances agreed upon_--to end with a promise to produce a _keeper_

who had attended the poor gentleman not long since, who could satisfy

all doubts. Lord Mowbray noted that this must be promised to be done

within the ensuing month--something about a ship’s sailing for America

was scratched out in these last instructions.

I have calmly related the facts, but I cannot give an idea of the

transports of passion into which my father burst when he heard them. It

was with the utmost difficulty that we could restrain him till the

woman had finished her confession. Lord Mowbray was dead. His death--his

penitence--pity for his family, quenched my father’s rage against

Mowbray; all his fury rose with tenfold violence against Fowler. It

was with the greatest difficulty that I got her out of the room in

safety:--he followed, raging; and my mother, seeing me put Fowler into a

parlour, and turn the key in the door, began beseeching that I would not

keep her another instant in the house. I insisted, however, upon being

permitted to detain her till her confession should be put into writing,

or till Mr. Montenero could hear it from her own lips: I represented

that if once she quitted the house, we might never see her again; she

might make her escape out of town; might, for some new interest, deny

all she had said, and leave me in as great difficulties as ever.

My father, sudden in all his emotions, snatched his hat from the

hall-table, seized his cane, and declared he would that instant go and

settle the point at once with Mr. Montenero and the daughter. My mother

and I, one on each side of him, pleaded that it would be best not to

speak so suddenly as he proposed to do, especially to Berenice. Heaven

bless my mother! she called her _Berenice_: this did not escape my ear.

My father let us take off his hat, and carry away his cane. He sat down

and wrote directly to Mr. Montenero, requesting to see him immediately,

on particular business.

My mother’s carriage was at the door; it was by this time the hour for

visiting.

“I will bring Mr. Montenero back with me,” said my mother, “for I am

going to pay a visit I should have paid long ago--to Miss Montenero.”

I kissed my mother’s hand I don’t know how many times, till my father

told me I was a _fool_.

“But,” turning to me, when the carriage had driven off, “though I

am delighted that the _obstacle_ will be removed on their part, yet

remember, Harrington, I can go no farther--not an inch--not an inch:

sorry for it--but you know all I have said--by Jupiter Ammon, I cannot

eat my own words!”

“But you ought to eat your own words, sir,” said I, venturing to jest,

as I knew that I might in his present humour, and while his heart was

warmed; “your words were a libel upon Jews and Jewesses; and the most

appropriate and approved punishment invented for the libeller is--to eat

his own words.”

CHAPTER XIX.

My mother returned almost as quickly as my impatience expected, and from

afar I saw that Mr. Montenero was in the carriage with her. My heart did

certainly beat violently; but I must not stop to describe, if I could,

my various sensations. My mother, telling Mr. Montenero all the time

that she would tell him nothing, had told him every thing that was to

be told: I was glad of it--it spared me the task of detailing Lord

Mowbray’s villany. He had once been my friend, or at least I had once

been his--and just after his death it was a painful subject. Besides, on

my own account, I was heartily glad to leave it to my father to complete

what my mother had so well begun.

He spoke with great vehemence. I stood by, proud all the time to show

Mr. Montenero my calmness and self-possession; while Fowler, who

was under salutary terror of my father, repeated, without much

prevarication, all the material parts of her confession, and gave up to

him Lord Mowbray’s letters. Astonishment and horror at the discovery

of such villany were Mr. Montenero’s first feelings--he looked at Lord

Mowbray’s writing again and again, and shuddered in silence, as he cast

his eyes upon Fowler’s guilty countenance. We all were glad when she was

dismissed.

Mr. Montenero turned to me, and I saw tears in his eyes.

“There is no obstacle between us now, I hope,” said I, eagerly seizing

the hand which he held out to me.

Mr. Montenero pressed me in his arms, with the affection of a parent.

“Heyday! heyday!” said my father, in a tone between pleasure and

anger,--“do you at all know what you are about, Harrington?--remember!”

“Oh! Mr. Montenero,” said my mother, “speak, for Heaven’s sake, and tell

me that you are perfectly convinced that there was no shadow of truth.”

“Nonsense! my dear, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Harrington,” said my

father,--“to be sure he is convinced, he is not an idiot--all my

astonishment is, how he could ever be made to believe such a thing!”

Mr. Montenero answered my mother and my father alternately, assuring my

mother that he was quite convinced, and agreeing with my father that he

had been strangely imposed upon. He turned again to me, and I believe at

the same instant the same recollections occurred to us both--new light

seemed to break upon us, and we saw in a different point of view a

variety of past circumstances. Almost from the moment of my acquaintance

with Berenice, I could trace Lord Mowbray’s artifices. Even from the

time of our first going out together at Westminster Abbey, when Mr.

Montenero said he loved enthusiasm, how Mowbray encouraged, excited me

to follow that line. At the Tower, my kneeling in raptures to the figure

of the Black Prince--my exaggerated expressions of enthusiasm--my poetic

and dramatic declamation and gesture--my start of horror at Mowbray’s

allusion to the _tapestry-chamber_ and the picture of Sir Josseline--my

horror afterwards at the auction, where Mowbray had prepared for me the

sight of the picture of the Dentition of the Jew--and the appearance of

the figure with the terrible eyes at the synagogue; all, I now found,

had been contrived or promoted by Lord Mowbray: Fowler had dressed up

the figure for the purpose. They had taken the utmost pains to work

on my imagination on this particular point, on which he knew my early

associations might betray me to symptoms of apparent insanity. Upon

comparing and explaining these circumstances, Mr. Montenero further laid

open to me the treacherous ingenuity of the man who had so duped me by

the show of sympathy and friendship. By dexterous insinuations he

had first excited curiosity--then suggested suspicions, worked every

accidental circumstance to his purpose, and at last, rendered desperate

by despair, and determined that I should not win the prize which he

had been compelled to resign, had employed so boldly his means and

accomplices, that he was dreadfully near effecting my ruin.

While Mr. Montenero and I ran over all these circumstances,

understanding each other perfectly, but scarcely intelligible to

either my father or mother, they looked at us both with impatience and

surprise, and rejoiced when we had finished our explanations--and yet,

when we had finished, an embarrassing minute of silence ensued.

My mother broke it, by saying something about Miss Montenero. I do not

know what--nor did she. My father stood with a sort of bravadoing look

of firmness, fixing himself opposite to me, as though he were repeating

to himself, “If, sir!--If--By Jupiter Ammon! I must be consistent.”

Mr. Montenero appeared determined not to say any more, but something

seemed to be still in reserve in his mind.

“I hope, Mr. Montenero,” said I, “that now no obstacle exists.”

“On my part none,” replied Mr. Montenero; “but you recollect--”

“I recollect only your own words, my dear sir,” cried I. “‘either my

daughter and you must never meet again, or must meet to part no more’--I

claim your promise.”

“At all hazards?” said Mr. Montenero.

“No hazards with such a woman as Berenice,” said I, “though her

religion--”

“I would give,” exclaimed my father, “I would give one of my fingers

this instant, that she was not a Jewess!”

“Is your objection, sir, to her not being a Christian, or to her being

the daughter of a Jew?”

“Can you conceive, Mr. Montenero,” cried my father, “that after all I

have seen of you--all you have done for me--can you conceive me to be

such an obstinately prejudiced brute? My prejudices against the Jews I

give up--you have conquered them--all, all. But a difference of religion

between man and wife--”

“Is a very serious objection indeed,” said Mr. Montenero; “but if that

be the only objection left in your mind, I have the pleasure to tell

you, Mr. Harrington,” addressing himself to me, “that your love and duty

are not at variance: I have tried you to the utmost, and am satisfied

both of the steadiness of your principles and of the strength of your

attachment to my daughter--Berenice is not a Jewess.”

“Not a Jewess!” cried my father, starting from his seat: “Not a Jewess!

Then my Jupiter Ammon may go to the devil! Not a Jewess!--give you joy,

Harrington, my boy!--give me joy, my dear Mrs. Harrington--give me

joy, excellent--(_Jew_, he was on the point of saying) excellent Mr.

Montenero; but, is not she your daughter?”

“She is, I hope and believe, my daughter,” said Mr. Montenero smiling;

“but her mother was a Christian; and according to my promise to

Mrs. Montenero, Berenice has been bred in her faith--a Christian--a

Protestant.”

“A Christian! a Protestant!” repeated my father.

“An English Protestant: her mother was daughter of--”

“An English Protestant!” interrupted my father, “English! English! Do

you hear that, Mrs. Harrington?”

“Thank Heaven! I do hear it, my dear,” said my mother. “But, Mr.

Montenero, we interrupt--daughter of--?”

“Daughter of an English gentleman, of good family, who accompanied one

of your ambassadors to Spain.”

“Of good family, Mr. Harrington,” said my mother, raising her head

proudly as she looked at me with a radiant countenance: “I knew she

was of a good family from the first moment I saw her at the play--so

different from the people she was with--even Lady de Brantefield asked

who she was. From the first moment I thought--”

“You thought, Mrs. Harrington,” interposed my father, “you thought, to

be sure, that Miss Montenero _looked like a Christian_. Yes, yes; and no

doubt you had _presentiments_ plenty.”

“Granted, granted, my dear; but don’t let us say any more about them

now.”

“Well, my boy! well, Harrington! not a word?”

“No--I am too happy!--the delight I feel--But, my dear Mr. Montenero,”

said I, “why--_why_ did not you tell all this sooner? What pain you

would have spared me!”

“Had I spared you the pain, you would never have enjoyed the delight;

had I spared you the trial, you would never have had the triumph--the

triumph, did I say? Better than all triumph, this sober certainty of

your own integrity. If, like Lord Mowbray--but peace be to the dead! and

forgiveness to his faults. My daughter was determined never to marry any

man who could be induced to sacrifice religion and principle to interest

or to passion. She was equally determined never to marry any man whose

want of the spirit of toleration, whose prejudices against the

Jews, might interfere with the filial affection she feels for her

father--though he be a Jew.”

“_Though_”--Gratitude, joy, love, so overwhelmed me at this moment, that

I could not say another syllable; but it was enough for Mr. Montenero,

deeply read as he was in the human heart.

“Why did not I spare you the pain?” repeated he. “And do you think that

the trial cost _me_, cost _us_ no pain?” said Mr. Montenero. “The time

may come when, as my son, you may perhaps learn from Berenice--”

“The time is come!--this moment!” cried my father; “for you see the poor

fellow is burning with impatience--he would not be my son if he were

not.”

“That is true, indeed!” said my mother.

“True--very likely,” said Mr. Montenero, calmly holding me fast. “But,

impetuous sir, recollect that once before you were too sudden for

Berenice: after you had saved my life, you rushed in with the joyful

news, and--”

“Oh! no rushing, for mercy’s sake, Harrington!” said my mother: “some

consideration for Miss Montenero’s nerves!”

“Nerves! nonsense, my dear,” said my father: “what woman’s nerves were

ever the worse for seeing her lover at her feet? I move--and I am sure

of one honourable gentleman to second my motion--I move that we all

adjourn, forthwith, to Mr. Montenero’s.”

“This evening, perhaps, Miss Montenero would allow us,” said my mother.

“This instant,” said Mr. Montenero, “if you will do me the honour, Mrs.

Harrington.”

“The carriage,” said my mother, ringing.

“The carriage, directly,” cried my father to the servant as he entered.

“Here’s a fellow will certainly fly the moment you let him go,” said my

father.

And away I flew, with such swiftness, that at the foot of the stairs I

almost fell over Jacob. He, not knowing any thing of what had happened

this morning, full of the events of the preceding night, and expecting

to find me the same, began to say something about a ring which he held

in his hand.

“That’s all settled--all over--let me pass, good Jacob.”

Still he endeavoured to stop me. I was not pleased with this

interruption. But there was something so beseeching and so kind in

Jacob’s manner that I could not help attending to him. Had the poor

fellow known the cause of my impatience, he would not certainly have

detained me. He begged me, with some hesitation, to accept of a ring,

which Mr. Manessa his partner and he took the liberty of offering me as

a token of their gratitude. It was not of any great value, but it was

finished by an artist who was supposed to be one of the best in the

world.

“Willingly, Jacob,” said I; “and it comes at the happiest moment--if you

will allow me to present it, to offer it to a lady, who--”

“Who will, I hope,” said my father, appearing at the top of the stairs,

“soon be his bride.”

“His bride!”

Jacob saw Mr. Montenero’s face behind me, and clasping his, hands, “The

very thing I wished!” cried he, opening the house-door.

“Follow us, Jacob,” I heard Mr. Montenero say, as we stepped into the

carriage; “follow us to the house of joy, you who never deserted the

house of mourning.”

The ring, the history of it, and the offering it to Berenice, prepared

my way in the happiest manner, and prevented the danger, which Mr.

Montenero feared, of my own or my father’s precipitation. We told her in

general the circumstances that had happened, but spared her the detail.

“And now, my beloved daughter,” said Mr. Montenero, “I may express to

you all the esteem, all the affection, all the fulness of approbation I

feel for _your choice_.”

“And I, Miss Montenero!--Let me speak, pray, Mrs. Harrington,” said my

father.

“By and by,” whispered my mother; “not yet, my love.”

“Ay, put the ring on her finger--that’s right, boy!” cried my father, as

my mother drew him back.

Berenice accepted of the ring in the most gracious, the most graceful

manner.

“I accept this with pleasure,” said she; “I shall prize it more than

ever Lady de Brantefield valued her ring: as a token of goodness and

gratitude, it will be more precious to me than any jewel could be; and

it will ever be dear to me,” added she, with a softened voice, turning

to her father, “very dear, as a memorial of the circumstances which have

removed the only obstacle to _our_ happiness.”

“Our,” repeated my father: “noble girl! Above all affectation. Boy, a

truce with your transports! She is my own daughter--I must have a kiss.”

“For shame, my dear,” said my mother; “you make Miss Montenero blush!”

“Blushes are very becoming--I always thought yours so, Mrs.

Harrington--that’s the reason I have given you occasion to blush for

me so often. Now you may take me out of the room, madam. I have some

discretion, though you think you have it all to yourself,” said my

father.

I have some discretion, too, hereditary or acquired. I am aware that

the moment two lovers cease to be miserable, they begin to be tiresome;

their best friends and the generous public are satisfied to hear as

little as possible concerning their prosperous loves.

It was otherwise, they say, in the days of Theagenes and Chariclea.

“How! will you never be satisfied with hearing?” says their historian,

who, when he came to a prosperous epoch in their history, seems to have

had a discreet suspicion that he might be too long; “Is not my discourse

yet tedious?”

“No,” the indefatigable auditor is made to reply; “and who is he, unless

he have a heart of adamant or iron, that would not listen content to

hear the loves of Theagenes and Chariclea, though the story should last

a year? Therefore, continue it, I beseech you.”

“Continue, I beseech you:” dear flattering words! Though perhaps no one,

at this minute, says or feels this, I must add a few lines more--not

about myself, but about Mr. Montenero.

In the moment of joy, when the heart opens, you can see to the very

bottom of it; and whether selfish or generous, revengeful or forgiving,

the real disposition is revealed. We were all full of joy and

congratulations, when Mr. Montenero, at the first pause of silence,

addressed himself in his most persuasive tone to me.

“Mr. Harrington--good Mr. Harrington--I have a favour to ask from you.”

“A favour! from me! Oh! name it,” cried I: “What pleasure I shall have

in granting it!”

“Perhaps not. You will not have pleasure--immediate pleasure--in

granting it: it will cost you present pain.”

“Pain!--impossible! but no matter how much pain if you desire it. What

can it be?”

“That wretched woman--Fowler!”

I shuddered and started back.

“Yes, Fowler--your imagination revolts at the sound of her name--she

is abhorrent to your strongest, your earliest, associations; but, Mr.

Harrington, you have given proofs that your matured reason and your

humanity have been able to control and master your imagination and your

antipathies. To this power over yourself you owe many of your virtues,

and all the strength of character, and, I will say it, the sanity of

mind, my son, without which Berenice--”

“I will see--I will hear Fowler this instant,” cried I. “So far I will

conquer myself; but you will allow that this is a just antipathy. Surely

I have reason to hate her.”

“She is guilty, but penitent; she suffers and must suffer. Her mistress

refuses ever to see her more. She is abandoned by all her family, all

her friends; she must quit her country--sails to-morrow in the vessel

which was to have taken us to America--and carries with her, in her

own feelings, her worst punishment--a punishment which it is not in our

power to remit, but it is in our power to mitigate her sufferings--I can

provide her with an asylum for the remainder of her miserable old age;

and you, my son, before she goes from happy England, see her and forgive

her. ‘It is the glory of a man to pass by an offence.’ Let us see and

forgive this woman. How can we better celebrate our joy--how can we

better fill the measure of our happiness, than by the forgiveness of our

enemies?”

“By Jupiter Ammon,” cried my father, “none but a good Christian could do

this!”

“And why,” said Berenice, laying her hand gently on my father’s arm,

“and why not a good Jew?”

END OF HARRINGTON.

THOUGHTS ON BORES.

A bore is a biped, but not always unplumed. There be of both kinds;--the

female frequently plumed, the _male-military_ plumed, helmed, or

crested, and whisker-faced, hairy, _Dandy bore_, ditto, ditto,

ditto.--There are bores unplumed, capped, or hatted, curled or uncurled,

bearded and beardless.

The _bore_ is not a ruminating animal,--carnivorous, not

sagacious--prosing--long-winded--tenacious of life, though not

vivacious. The bore is good for promoting sleep; but though he causeth

sleep in others, it is uncertain whether he ever sleeps himself; as few

can keep awake in his company long enough to see. It is supposed that

when he sleeps it is with his mouth open.

The bore is usually considered a harmless creature, or of that class of

irrational bipeds who hurt only themselves. To such, however, I would

not advise trusting too much. The bore is harmless, no doubt, as long

as you listen to him; but disregarded, or stopped in mid-career, he will

turn upon you. It is a fatal, if not a vulgar error, to presume that the

bore belongs to that class of animals that have no gall; of which Pliny

gives a list (much disputed by Sir Thomas Browne and others). That

bores have gall, many have proved to their cost, as some now living,

peradventure, can attest. The milk of human kindness is said to abound

naturally in certain of the gentler bore kind; but it is apt to grow

sour if the animal be crossed--not in love, but in talk. Though I cannot

admit to a certainty that all bores have not gall, yet assuredly they

have no tact, and they are one and all deficient in sympathy.

A bore is a heavy animal, and his weight has this peculiarity, that

it increases every moment he stays near you. The French describe this

property in one word, which, though French, I may be permitted to quote,

because untranslatable, _il s’appesantit_--Touch and go, it is not in

the nature of a bore to do--whatever he touches turns to lead.

Much learning might be displayed, and much time wasted, on an inquiry

into the derivation, descent, and etymology of the animal under

consideration. Suffice it to say, that for my own part, diligence hath

not been wanting in the research. Johnson’s Dictionary and old Bailey,

have been ransacked; but neither the learned Johnson, nor the recondite

Bailey, throw much light upon this matter. The Slang Dictionary, to

which I should in the first place have directed my attention, was

unfortunately not within my reach. The result of all my inquiries

amounts to this--that _bore_, _boor_, and _boar_, are all three

spelt indifferently, and _consequently_ are derived from one common

stock,--what stock, remains to be determined. I could give a string

of far-fetched derivations, each of them less to the purpose than

the other; but I prefer, according to the practice of our great

lexicographer, taking refuge at once in the Coptic.

Of one point there can be little doubt--that bores existed in ancient as

well as in modern times, though the deluge has unluckily swept away all

traces of the antediluvian bore--a creature which analogy leads us to

believe must have been of formidable power.

We find them for certain in the days of Horace. That plague, worse, as

he describes, than asthma or rheumatism, that prating, praising thing

which caught him in the street, stuck to him wherever he went--of which,

stopping or running, civil or rude, shirking or cutting, he could never

rid himself--what was he but a bore?

In Pope I find the first description in English poetry of the

animal--whether imitated from Horace, or a drawing from life, may be

questioned. But what could that creature be but a bore, from whom he

says no walls could guard him, and no shades could hide; who pierced

his thickets; glided into his grotto; stopped his chariot; boarded his

barge; from whom no place was sacred--not the church free; and against

whom John was ordered to tie up the knocker?

Through the indexes to Milton and Shakspeare I have not neglected to

hunt; but unfortunately, I have found nothing to my purpose in Milton,

and in all Shakspeare no trace of a bore; except it be that _thing_,

that popinjay, who so pestered Hotspur, that day when he, faint with

toil and dry with rage, was leaning on his sword after the battle--all

that bald, disjointed talk, to which Hotspur, past his patience,

answered neglectingly, he knew not what, and that sticking to him with

questions even when his wounds were cold. It must have been a bore of

foreign breed, not the good downright English bore.

All the classes, orders, genera, and species of the animal, I pretend

not to enumerate. Heaven forefend!--but some of those most commonly met

with in England, I may mention, and a few of the most curious, describe.

In the first place, there is the _mortal great bore_, confined to the

higher classes of society. A celebrated wit, who, from his long and

extensive acquaintance with the fashionable and political world, has had

every means of forming his opinion on this subject, lays it down as an

axiom, that none but a rich man, or a great man, _can_ be a great bore;

others are not endured long enough in society, to come to the perfection

of tiresomeness.

Of these there is the travelled and the untravelled kind. The travelled,

formerly rare, is now dreadfully common in these countries. The old

travelling bore was, as I find him aptly described--“A pretender to

antiquities, roving, majestic-headed, and sometimes little better than

crazed; and being exceedingly credulous, he would stuff his many letters

with _fooleries_ and misinformations”--_vide_ a life published by

Hearne--Thomas Hearne--him to whom Time said, “Whatever I forget, you

learn.”

The modern travelled bore is a garrulous creature. His talk, chiefly

of himself, of all that he has seen that is incredible; and all that he

remembers which is not worth remembering. His tongue is neither English,

French, Italian, or German, but a leash, and more than a leash, of

languages at once. Besides his having his _quantum_ of the ills that

flesh is subject to, he has some peculiar to himself, and rather

extraordinary. He is subject, for instance, to an indigestion of houses

and churches, pictures and statues. Moreover, he is troubled with fits

of what may be called _the cold enthusiasm_; he babbles of Mont Blanc

and the picturesque; and when the fit is on, he raves of Raphael and

Correggio, Rome, Athens, Paestum, and Jerusalem. He despises England,

and has no home; or at least loves none.

But I have been already guilty of an error of arrangement; I should

have given precedence to the _old original English bore_; which should

perhaps be more properly spelt _boor_; indeed it was so, as late as the

time of Mrs. Cowley, who, in the Belle’s Stratagem, talks of man’s being

_boored_.

The _boor_ is now rare in England, though there are specimens of him

still to be seen in remote parts of the country. He is untravelled

always, not apt to be found straying, or stirring from home. His

covering is home-spun, his drink home-brewed, his meat home-fed, and

himself home-bred. In general, he is a wonderfully silent animal.

But there are talking ones; and their talk is of bullocks. Talking or

silent, the indigenous English bore is somewhat sulky, surly, seemingly

morose; yet really good-natured, inoffensive, if kindly used and rightly

taken; convivial, yet not social. It is curious, that though addicted

to home, he is not properly domestic--bibulous--said to be despotic with

the female.

_The parliamentary bore_ comes next in order. Fond of high places; but

not always found in them. His civil life is but short, never extending

above seven years at the utmost; seldom so long. His dissolution

often occurs, we are told, prematurely; but he revives another and the

same.--Mode of life:--during five or six months of the year these bores

inhabit London--are to be seen every where, always looking as if they

were out of their element. About June or July they migrate to the

country--to watering places--or to their own places; where they shoot

partridges, pheasants, and wild ducks; hunt hares and foxes, cause men

to be imprisoned or transported who do the same without _licence_; and

frank letters--some illegibly.

The parliamentary bore is not considered a sagacious animal, except

in one particular. It is said that he always knows which way the wind

blows, quick as any of the four-footed swinish multitude. Report says

also that he has the instinct of a rat in quitting a falling house. An

incredible power was once attributed to him, by one from Ireland, of

being able at pleasure to turn his back upon himself. But this may well

be classed among vulgar errors.

Of the common parliamentary bore there be two orders; the silent, and

the speechifying. The silent is not absolutely deprived of utterance;

he can say “Yes” or “No”--but regularly in the wrong place, unless well

tutored and well paid. The talking parliamentary bore can outwatch the

Bear. He reiterates eternally with the art peculiar to the rational

creature of using many words and saying nothing. The following are some

of the cries by which this class is distinguished.

“Hear! Hear! Hear!--Hear him! Hear him! Hear him!--Speaker! Speaker!

Speaker! Speaker!--Order! Order! Order!--Hear the honourable member!”

He has besides certain set phrases, which, if repeated with variations,

might give the substance of what are called his speeches; some of these

are common to both sides of the house, others sacred to the ministerial,

or popular on the opposition benches.

To the ministerial belong--“The dignity of this house”--“The honour of

this country”--“The contentment of our allies”--“Strengthening the

hands of government”--“Expediency”--“Inexpediency”--“Imperious

necessity”--“Bound in duty”--with a good store of _evasives_, as “Cannot

at present bring forward such a measure”--“Too late”--“Too early in the

session”--“His majesty’s ministers cannot be responsible for”--“Cannot

take it upon me to say”--“But the impression left upon my mind

is”--“Cannot undertake to answer exactly that question”--“Cannot yet

_make up_ my mind” (an expression borrowed from the laundress).

On the opposition side the phrases chiefly in use amongst the bores are,

“The constitution of this country”--“Reform in Parliament”--“The good

of the people”--“Inquiry should be set on foot”--“Ministers should

be answerable with their heads”--“Gentlemen should draw

together”--“Independence”--and “Consistency.”

Approved beginnings of speeches as follows--for a raw bore:

“Unused as I am to public speaking, Mr. Speaker, I feel myself on the

present occasion called upon not to give a silent vote.”

For old stagers:

“In the whole course of my parliamentary career, never did I rise with

such diffidence.”

In reply, the bore begins with:

“It would be presumption in me, Mr. Speaker, after the able, luminous,

learned, and eloquent speech you have just heard, to attempt to throw

any new light; but, &c. &c.”

For a premeditated harangue of four hours or upwards he regularly

commences with

“At this late hour of the night, I shall trouble the house with only a

few words, Mr. Speaker.”

The Speaker of the English House of Commons is a man destined to be

bored. Doomed to sit in a chair all night long--night after night--month

after month--year after year--being bored. No relief for him but

crossing and uncrossing his legs from time to time. No respite. If he

sleep, it must be with his eyes open, fixed in the direction of the

haranguing bore. He is not, however, bound, _bonâ fide_ to hear all that

is said. This, happily, was settled in the last century. “Mr. Speaker,

it is your duty to hear me,--it is the undoubted privilege, Sir, of

every member of this house _to be heard_,” said a bore of the last

century to the then Speaker of the House of Commons. “Sir,” replied the

Speaker, “I know that it is the undoubted right of every member of this

house to speak, but I was not aware that it was his privilege to be

always heard.”

The courtier-bore has sometimes crept into the English parliament.--But

is common on the continent: infinite varieties, as _le courtisan propre,

courtisan homme d’état_, and _le courtisan philosophe_--a curious but

not a rare kind in France, of which M. de Voltaire was one of the finest

specimens.

Attempts had been made to naturalize some of the varieties of the

philanthropic and sentimental French and German bores in England, but

without success. Some ladies had them for favourites or pets; but they

were found mischievous and dangerous. Their morality was

easy,--but difficult to understand; compounded of three-fourths

sentiment--nine-tenths selfishness, twelve-ninths instinct,

self-devotion, metaphysics, and cant. ‘Twas hard to come at a common

denominator. John Bull, with his four rules of vulgar arithmetic, could

never make it out; altogether he never could abide these foreign bores.

Thought ‘em confounded dull too--Civilly told them so, and half asleep

bid them “prythee begone”--They not taking the hint, but lingering with

the women, at last John wakening out-right, fell to in earnest, and

routed them out of the island.

They still flourish abroad, often seen at the tables of the great. _The

demi-philosophe-moderne-politico-legislativo-metaphysico-non-logico-grand

philanthrope_ still scribbles, by the ream, _pièces justificatives_,

_projets de loi_, and volumes of metaphysical sentiment, to be seen

at the fair of Leipzig, or on ladies’ tables. The greater bore, the

_courtisan propre_, is still admired at little _serene_ courts, where,

well-dressed and well-drilled--his back much bent with Germanic bows;

not a dangerous creature--would only bore you to death.

We come next to our own _blue bores_--the most dreaded of the

species,--the most abused--sometimes with reason, sometimes without.

This species was formerly rare in Britain--indeed all over the

world.--Little known from the days of Aspasia and Corinna to those

of Madame Dacier and Mrs. Montague. Mr. Jerningham’s blue worsted

stockings, as all the world knows, appearing at Mrs. Montague’s

_conversaziones_, had the honour or the dishonour of giving the name of

blue stockings to all the race; and never did race increase more rapidly

than they have done from that time to this. There might be fear that all

the daughters of the land should turn blue.--But as yet John Bull--thank

Heaven! retains his good old privilege of “choose a wife and have a

wife.”

The common female blue is indeed intolerable as a wife--opinionative and

opinionated; and her opinion always is that her husband is wrong. John

certainly has a rooted aversion to this whole class. There is the deep

blue and the light; the _light_ blues not esteemed--not admitted at

Almacks. The deep-dyed in the nine times dyed blue--is that with which

no man dares contend. The _blue chatterer_ is seen and heard every

where; it no man will attempt to silence by throwing the handkerchief.

The next species--the _mock blue_--is scarcely worth noticing; gone

to ladies’ maids, dress-makers, milliners, &c., found of late behind

counters, and in the oddest places. _The blue mocking bird_ (it must be

noted, though nearly allied to the last sort) is found in high as well

as in low company; it is a provoking creature. The only way to silence

it, and to prevent it from plaguing all neighbours and passengers, is

never to mind it, or to look as if you minded it; when it stares at you,

stare and pass on.

_The conversazione blue_, or _bureau d’esprit blue_. It is remarkable

that in order to designate this order we are obliged to borrow from

two foreign languages.--a proof that it is not natural to England; but

numbers of this order have been seen of late years, chiefly in London

and Bath, during the season. The _bureau d’esprit_, or _conversazione

blue_, is a most hard-working creature--the servant of the servants of

the public.--If a dinner-giving blue (and none others succeed well or

long), Champagne and ice and the best of fish are indispensable. She may

then be at home once a week in the evening, with a chance of having her

house fuller than it can hold, of all the would-be wits and three or

four of the leaders of London. Very thankful she must be for the honour

of their company. She had need to have all the superlatives, in and out

of the English language, at her tongue’s end; and when she has exhausted

these, then she must invent new. She must have tones of admiration, and

looks of ecstasy, for every occasion. At reading parties,--especially

at her own house, she must cry--“charming!”--“delightful!” “quite

original!” in the right places even in her sleep.--Awake or asleep she

must read every thing that comes out that has a name, or she must talk

as if she had--at her peril--to the authors themselves,--the irritable

race!--She must know more especially every article in the Edinburgh and

Quarterly Reviews; and at her peril too, must talk of these so as not

to commit herself, so as to please the reviewer abusing, and the author

abused; she must keep the peace between rival wits;--she must swallow

her own vanity--many fail in this last attempt--choke publicly, and give

it up.

I am sorry that so much has been said about the blues; sorry I mean

that such a hue and cry has been raised against them all, good, bad, and

indifferent. John Bull would have settled it best in his quiet way by

just letting them alone, leaving the disagreeable ones to die off in

single blessedness. But people got about John, and made him set up one

of his “_No popery_” cries; and when becomes to that pitch be loses his

senses and his common sense completely. “_No blues!_” “Down with the

blues!”--now what good has all that done? only made the matter ten times

worse. In consequence of this universal hubbub a new order of things has

arisen.

_The blue bore disguised, or the renegade blue_. These may be detected

by their extraordinary fear of being taken for _blues_. Hold up

the picture, or even the sign of a blue bore before them, and they

immediately write under it, “‘Tis none of me.” They spend their lives

hiding their talent under a bushel; all the time in a desperate fright

lest you should see it. A poor simple man does not know what to do about

it, or what to say or think in their company, so as to behave himself

rightly, and not to affront them. Solomon himself would be put to it,

to make some of these authoresses unknown, avow or give up their own

progeny. Their affectation is beyond the affectation of woman, and it

makes all men sick.

Others without affectation are only arrant cowards. They are afraid to

stand exposed on their painful pre-eminence. Some from pure good-nature

make themselves ridiculous; imagining that they are nine feet high at

the least, shrink and distort themselves continually in condescension to

our inferiority; or lest we should be blasted with excess of light,

come into company shading their farthing candle--burning blue, pale, and

faint.

It should be noticed that the _bore condescending_ is peculiarly

obnoxious to the proud man.

Besides the _bore condescending_, who, whether good-natured or

ill-natured, is a most provoking animal--there is the bore _facetious_,

an insufferable creature, always laughing, but with whom you can never

laugh. And there is another exotic variety--the _vive la bagatelle bore_

of the ape kind--who imitate men of genius. Having early been taught

that there is nothing more delightful than the unbending of a great

mind, they set about continually to unbend the bow in company.

Of the spring and fall, the ebb and tide of genius, we have heard much

from Milton, Dryden, and others. At ebb time--a time which must come

to all, pretty or rich, treasures are discovered upon some shores; or

golden sands are seen when the waters run low. In others bare rocks,

slime, or reptiles. May I never be at low tide with a bore! Despising

the Bagatelle, there is the serious regular conversation bore, who

listens to himself, talks from notes, and is witty by rule. All rules

for conversation were no doubt invented by bores, and if followed

would make all men and women bores, either in straining to be witty, or

striving to be easy. There is no more certain method, even for him

who may possess the talent in the highest degree, to lose the power of

conversing, than by talking to support his character. One eye to your

reputation, one on the company, would never do, were it with the best

of eyes. Few people are of Descartes’ mind, that squinting is pretty. It

has been said, that pleasure never comes, if you send her a formal card

of invitation; to a _conversazione_ certainly never; whatever she might

to a dinner-party. Ease cannot stay, wit flies away, and humour grows

dull, if people try for them.

Well-bred persons, abhorring the pedantry of the blues, are usually

_anti-blues_, or _ultra-antis_. But though there exists in a certain

circle a natural honest aversion to every thing like wit or learning,

is it absolutely certain that if taking thought won’t do it, taking none

will do? They are determined, they declare, to have easy conversation,

or none.

But let the ease be high-bred and silent as possible--let it be the

repose of the Transcendental--the death-like silence of the Exclusive

in the perfumed atmosphere of the Exquisite; then begins the danger of

going to sleep--desperate danger. In these high circles are to be found,

_apparently_, the most sleepy of all animated beings. _Apparently_, I

say, because, on close observation, it will usually be found that,

like the spider, who, from fear, counterfeits death, these, from pride,

counterfeit sleep. They will sometimes pretend to be asleep for hours

together, when any person or persons are near whom they do not choose

to notice. They lie stretched on sofas, rolled up in shawls most part of

the day, quite empty. At certain hours of the night, found congregated,

sitting up dressed, on beds of roses, back to back, with eyes scarce

open. They are observed to give sign of animation only on the approach

of a blue--their antipathy. They then look at each other, and shrink.

That the _sham-sleeping bore_ is a delicate creature, I shall not

dispute, but they are intolerably tiresome. For my own part, I would

rather give up the honour and the elegance, and go to the antipodes

at once, and live with their antagonists, the _lion-hunters_--yea, the

_lion-loving_ bores.

Their antipodes, did I say? that was going too far: even the most

exaggerated ultra-anti-blues, upon occasion, forget themselves

strangely, and have been seen to join the common herd in running after

lions. But they differ from the _blue-lion-loving-bore_ proper, by never

treating the lion as if he were one of themselves. They follow and feed

and fall down and worship the lion of the season; still, unless he be

a nobleman, which but rarely occurs, he is never treated as a gentleman

_quite_; there is always a difference made, better understood than

described. I have heard lions of my acquaintance complain of showing

themselves off to these _ultra-antis_, and have asked why they let

themselves be made lions, if they disliked it so much, as no lion can

well be led about, I should have conceived, quite against his will? I

never could obtain any answer, but that indeed they could not help it;

they were very sorry, but indeed they could not help being lions. And

the polite lion-loving bore always echoed this, and addressed them with

some such speech as the following:--“My dearest, sir, madam, or miss

(as the case may be), I know, that of all things you detest being made a

lion, and that you can’t bear to be worshipped; yet, my dear sir, madam,

or miss, you must let me kneel down and worship you, and then you must

stand on your hind legs a little for me, only for one minute, my dear

sir, and I really would not ask you to do it, only you are _such_ a

lion.”

But I have not yet regularly described the genus and species of which

I am treating. The great lion-hunting bore, and the little lion-loving

bore, male and female of both kinds; the male as eager as the female to

fasten on the lion, and as expert in making the most of him, alive or

dead, as seen in the finest example extant, Bozzy and Piozzi, fairly

pitted; but the male beat the female hollow.

The common lion-hunting bore is too well known to need particular

description; but some notice of their habitudes may not be useless for

avoidance. The whole class male subsists by fetching and carrying bays,

grasping at notes and scraps, if any great name be to them; run wild

after verses in MS.; fond of autographs. The females carry albums; some

learn _bon mots_ by rote, and repeat them like parrots; others do not

know a good thing when they meet with it, unless they are told the name

of the cook. Some relish them really, but eat till they burst; others,

after cramming to stupidity, would cram you from their pouch, as the

monkey served Gulliver on the house-top. The whole tribe are foul

feeders, at best love trash and fatten upon scraps; the worst absolutely

rake the kennels, and prey on garbage. They stick with amazing tenacity,

almost resembling canine fidelity and gratitude, to the remains of the

dead lion. But in fact, their love is like that of the ghowl; worse than

ghowls, they sell all which they do not destroy; every scrap of the dead

lion may turn to account. It is wonderful what curious saleable articles

they make of the parings of his claws, and hairs of his mane. The bear

has been said to live at need by sucking his own paws. The bore lives

by sucking the paws of the lion, on which he thrives apace, and, in some

instances, has grown to an amazing size. The dead paws are as good for

his purpose as the living, and better--there being no fear of the claws.

How he escapes those claws when the lion is alive, is the wonder. The

winged lion, however, is above touching these creatures; and the real

gentleman lion of the true blood, in whose nature there is nothing of

the bear, will never let his paws be touched by a bore. His hair stands

on end at the approach or distant sight of any of the kind, lesser or

greater; but very difficult he often finds it to avoid them. Any other

may, more easily than a lion, _shirk a bore_. It is often attempted,

but seldom or never successfully. He hides in his den, but _not at home_

will not always do. The lion is too civil to shut the door in the bore’s

very face, though he mightily wishes to do so. It is pleasant sport to

see a great bore and lion opposed to each other; how he stands or sits

upon his guard; how cunningly the bore tries to fasten upon him, and how

the lion tries to shake him off!--if the bore persists beyond endurance,

the lion roars, and he flies; or the lion springs, and he dies.

A more extraordinary circumstance than any I have yet noted, respecting

the natural history of lions and bores, remains to be told; that the

lion himself, the _greater_ kind as well as the lesser of him, are apt,

sooner or later, to turn into bores; but the metamorphosis, though the

same in the result, takes place in different circumstances, and from

quite different causes: with the lesser lion and lioness often from

being shown, or showing themselves too frequently; with the greater,

from very fear of being like the animal he detests.

I once knew a gentleman, not a bore quite, but a very clever man, one of

great sensibility and excessive sensitiveness, who could never sit still

a quarter of an hour together, never converse with you comfortably, or

finish a good story, but evermore broke off in the middle with “I am

_boring_ you”--“I must run away or I shall be a bore.” It ended in his

becoming that which he most feared to be.

There are a few rare exceptions to all that has been said of the

caprices or _weaknesses_ of lions. The greatest of lions known or

unknown, the most agreeable as well as the noblest of creatures, is

quite free from these infirmities. He neither affects to show himself,

nor lies sullen in his den. I have somewhere seen his picture sketched;

I should guess by himself at some moment I when the lion turned painter.

“I pique myself upon being one of the best conditioned animals that ever

was shown, since the time of him who was in vain I defied by the knight

of the woful figure; for I get up at the first touch of the pole, rouse

myself, shake my mane, lick my chops, turn round, lie down, and go to

sleep again.” It was bad policy in me to let the words “_go to sleep_”

sound upon the reader’s ear, for I have not yet quite done; I have one

more class, and though last not least; were I to adopt that enigmatical

style which made the fortune of the oracle of Apollo, I might add--and

though least, greatest. But this, the oracular sublime, has now gone to

the gipsies and the conjurors, and I must write plain English, if I can.

I am come to the crass of the _infant bore_--the _infant reciting bore_;

seemingly insignificant, but exceedingly tiresome, also exceedingly

dangerous, as I shall show. The old of this class we meet wherever we

go--in the forum, the temple, the senate, the theatre, the drawing-room,

the boudoir, the closet. The young infest our homes, pursue us to

our very hearths; our household deities are in league with them; they

destroy all our domestic comfort; they become public nuisances, widely

destructive to our literature. Their mode of training will explain the

nature of the danger. The infant reciting bore is trained much after

the manner of a learned pig. Before the quadruped are placed, on certain

bits of dirty greasy cards, the letters of the alphabet, or short

nonsensical phrases interrogatory with their answers, such as “Who is

the greatest rogue in company?” “Which lady or gentleman in company will

be married first?” By the alternate use of blows and bribes of such food

as pleases the pig, the animal is brought to obey certain signs from his

master, and at his bidding to select any letter or phrase required

from amongst those set before him, goes to his lessons, seems to read

attentively, and to understand; then by a motion of his snout, or

a well-timed grunt, designates the right phrase, and answers the

expectations of his master and the company. The infant reciter is

in similar manner trained by alternate blows and bribes, almonds and

raisins, and bumpers of sweet wine. But mark the difference between him

and the pig. Instead of greasy letters and old cards, which are used

for the learned pig, before the little human animal are cast the finest

morsels from our first authors, selections from our poets, didactic,

pathetic, and sublime--every creature’s best, sacrificed.

These are to be slowly but surely deprived of spirit, sense, and life,

by the deadly deadening power of iteration. Not only are they deprived

of life, but mangled by the infant bore--not only mangled, but

polluted--left in such a state that no creature of any delicacy, taste,

or feeling, can bear them afterwards. And are immortal works, or works

which fond man thought and called immortal, thus to perish? Thus are

they doomed to destruction, by a Lilliputian race of Vandals.

The curse of Minerva be on the heads of those who train, who incite them

to such sacrilegious mischief! The mischief spreads every day wide

and more wide. Till of late years, there had appeared bounds to its

progress. Nature seemed to have provided against the devastations of

the _infant reciter_. Formerly it seemed, that only those whom she had

blessed or cursed with a wonderful memory, could be worth the trouble of

training, or by the successful performance of the feats desired, to pay

the labour of instruction. But there has arisen in the land, men who

set at nought the decrees of nature, who undertake to make artificial

memories, not only equal but superior to the best natural memory, and

who, at the shortest notice, engage to supply the brainless with brains.

By certain technical helps, long passages, whole poems, may now

be learnt _by heart_, as they call it, without any aid, effort, or

cognizance of the understanding; and retained and recited, under the

same circumstances, by any irrational, as well and better, than by any

rational being, if, to recite well, mean to repeat without missing

a syllable. How far our literature may in future suffer from these

blighting swarms, will best be conceived by a glance at what they have

already withered and blasted of the favourite productions of our

most popular poets, Gray, Goldsmith, Thomson, Pope, Dryden, Milton,

Shakspeare.

Pope’s Man of Ross was doomed to suffer first.

“Rise, honest Muse, and sing the Man of Ross!”

Oh, dreaded words! who is there that does not wish the honest muse

should rise no more? Goldsmith came next, and shared the same fate. His

country curate, the most amiable of men, we heard of till he grew past

endurance.

As to learning any longer from the bee to build, or of the little

nautilus to sail, we gave it up long ago. “To be or not to be”--is a

question we can no longer bear.

Then Alexander’s Feast--the little harpies have been at that too, and it

is defiled. Poor Collins’ Ode to the Passions, on and off the stage, is

torn to very tatters.

The Seven Ages of Man, and “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and

women in it”--gone to destruction.

The quality of mercy _is_ strained, and is no longer twice blest.

We turn with disgust from “angels and ministers of grace.” Adam’s

morning hymn has lost the freshness of its charm. The bores have got

into Paradise--scaled Heaven itself! and defied all the powers of

Milton’s hell. Such Belials and Molochs as we have heard!

It is absolutely shocking to perceive how immortal genius is in the

power of mortal stupidity! Johnson, a champion of no mean force, stood

forward in his day, and did what his single arm could do, to drive the

little bores from the country church-yard.

“Could not the pretty dears repeat together?” had, however, but a

momentary effect. Though he knocked down the pair that had attempted to

stand before him, they got up again, or one down, another came on. To

this hour they are at it.

What can be done against a race of beings not capable of being touched

even by ridicule? What can we hope when the infant bore and his trainers

have stood against the incomparable humour of “Thinks I to myself?”

In time--and as certainly as the grub turns in due season into the

winged plague who buzzes and fly-blows--the little reciting bore

turns into the _dramatic_ or _theatric_ acting, reading, singing,

recitative--and finally into the everlasting-quotation-loving

bore--Greek, Latin, and English.

The everlasting quotation-lover doats on the husks of learning. He is

the infant reciting bore in second childishness. We wish in vain that it

were in mere oblivion. From the ladies’ tea-tables the Greek and

Latin quoting bores were driven away long ago by the Guardian and the

Spectator, and seldom now translate for the country gentlewomen. But

the mere English quotation-dealer, a mortal tiresome creature! still

prevails, and figures still in certain circles of old blues, who are

civil enough still to admire that wonderful memory of his which has a

quotation ready for every thing you can say--He usually prefaces or

ends his quotations with--“As the poet happily says,” or, “as Nature’s

sweetest woodlark justly remarks;” or, “as the immortal Milton has it.”

To prevent the confusion and disgrace consequent upon such mistakes,

and for the general advantage of literature, in reclaiming, if possible,

what has gone to the bores, it might be a service to point out publicly

such quotations as are now too common to be admitted within the pale of

good taste.

In the last age, Lord Chesterfield set the mark of the beast, as he

called it, on certain vulgarisms in pronunciation, which he succeeded

in banishing from good company. I wish we could set the mark of the bore

upon all which has been contaminated by his touch,--all those tainted

beauties, which no person of taste would prize. They must be hung up

viewless, for half a century at least, to bleach out their stains.

I invite every true friend of literature and of good conversation,

_blues_ and _antis_, to contribute their assistance in furnishing out a

list of quotations to be proscribed. Could I but accomplish this object,

I should feel I had not written in vain. To make a good beginning, I

will give half a dozen of the most notorious.

“The light fantastic toe,” has figured so long in the newspapers, that

an editor of taste would hardly admit it now into his columns.

“Pity is akin to love,”--sunk to utter contempt; along with--“Grace

is in all her steps;” and “Man never _is_, but always _to be

blest_;”--“Youth at the prow, and pleasure at the helm;”--no longer safe

on a boating party.

The bourgeois gentilhomme has talked prose too long without knowing it.

“No man is a hero to his _valet de chambre_,”--gone to the valets

themselves.

“Le secret d’ennyer est celui de tout dire,”--in great danger of the

same fate,--it is so tempting!--but, so much the worse,--wit is often

its own worst enemy.

Some anatomists, it is said, have, during the operation of dissection,

caught from the subject the disease. I feel myself in danger at this

moment,--a secret horror thrills through my veins. Often have I remarked

that persons who undergo certain transformations are unconscious of the

commencement and progress in themselves, though quicksighted, when

their enemies, friends, or neighbours, are beginning to turn into

bores. Husband and wife,--no creatures sooner!--perceive each other’s

metamorphoses,--not Baucis and Philemon more surely, seldom like them

before the transformation be complete. Are we in time to say the last

adieu!

I feel that I am--I fear that I have long been,

A BORE

ORMOND

CHAPTER I.

“What! no music, no dancing at Castle Hermitage to-night; and all the

ladies sitting in a formal circle, petrifying into perfect statues?”

cried Sir Ulick O’Shane as he entered the drawing-room, between ten and

eleven o’clock at night, accompanied by what he called his _rear-guard_,

veterans of the old school of good fellows, who at those times

in Ireland--times long since past--deemed it essential to health,

happiness, and manly character, to swallow, and show themselves able to

stand after swallowing, a certain number of bottles of claret per day or

night.

“Now, then,” continued Sir Ulick, “of all the figures in nature or art,

the formal circle is universally the most obnoxious to conversation,

and, to me, the most formidable; all my faculties are spell-bound--here

I am like a bird in a circle of chalk, that dare not move so much as its

head or its eyes, and can’t, for the life of it, take to its legs.”

A titter ran round that part of the circle where the young ladies

sat--Sir Ulick was a favourite, and they rejoiced when he came among

them; because, as they observed, “he always said something pleasant, or

set something pleasant a-going.”

“Lady O’Shane, for mercy’s sake let us have no more of these permanent

circle sittings at Castle Hermitage, my dear!”

“Sir Ulick, I am sure I should be very glad if it were possible,”

replied Lady O’Shane, “to have no more _permanent sittings_ at Castle

Hermitage; but when gentlemen are at their bottle, I really don’t know

what the ladies can do but sit in a circle.”

“Can’t they dance in a circle, or any way? or have not they an elegant

resource in their music? There’s many here who, to my knowledge, can

caper as well as they modulate,” said Sir Ulick, “to say nothing of

cards for those that like them.”

“Lady Annaly does not like cards,” said Lady O’Shane, “and I could not

ask any of these young ladies to waste their breath and their execution,

singing and playing before the gentlemen came out.”

“These young ladies would not, I’m sure, do us old fellows the honour

of waiting for us; and the young beaux deserted to your tea-table a

long hour ago--so why you have not been dancing is a mystery beyond my

comprehension.”

“Tea or coffee, Sir Ulick O’Shane, for the third time of asking?” cried

a sharp female voice from the remote tea-table.

“Wouldn’t you swear to that being the voice of a presbyterian?”

whispered Sir Ulick, over his shoulder to the curate: then aloud he

replied to the lady, “Miss Black, you are three times too obliging.

Neither tea nor coffee I’ll take from you to-night, I thank you kindly.”

“Fortunate for yourself, sir--for both are as cold as stones--and no

wonder!” said Miss Black.

“No wonder!” echoed Lady O’Shane, looking at her watch, and sending

forth an ostentatious sigh.

“What o’clock is it by your ladyship?” asked Miss Black. “I have a

notion it’s tremendously late.”

“No matter--we are not pinned to hours in this house, Miss Black,” said

Sir Ulick, walking up to the tea-table, and giving her a look, which

said as plainly as look could say, “You had better be quiet.”

Lady O’Shane followed her husband, and putting her arm within his, began

to say something in a fondling tone; and in a most conciliatory manner

she went on talking to him for some moments. He looked absent, and

replied coldly.

“I’ll take a cup of coffee from you now, Miss Black,” said he, drawing

away his arm from his wife, who looked much mortified.

“We are too long, Lady O’Shane,” added he, “standing here like lovers,

talking to no one but ourselves--awkward in company.”

“_Like lovers!_” The sound pleased poor Lady O’Shane’s ear, and she

smiled for the first time this night--Lady O’Shane was perhaps the last

woman in the room whom a stranger would have guessed to be Sir Ulick’s

wife.

He was a fine gallant _off-hand_ looking Irishman, with something of

_dash_ in his tone and air, which at first view might lead a common

observer to pronounce him to be vulgar; but at five minutes after sight,

a good judge of men and manners would have discovered in him the power

of assuming whatever manner he chose, from the audacity of the callous

profligate to the deference of the accomplished courtier--the capability

of adapting his conversation to his company and his views, whether his

object were “to set the senseless table in a roar,” or to insinuate

himself into the delicate female heart. Of this latter power, his age

had diminished but not destroyed the influence. The fame of former

conquests still operated in his favour, though he had long since passed

his splendid meridian of gallantry.

While Sir Ulick is drinking his cup of cold coffee, we may look back

a little into his family history. To go no farther than his legitimate

loves, he had successively won three wives, who had each, in her turn,

been desperately enamoured: the first he loved, and married imprudently

for love, at seventeen; the second he admired, and married prudently,

for ambition, at thirty; the third he hated, but married, from

necessity, for money, at five-and-forty. The first wife, Miss Annaly,

after ten years’ martyrdom of the heart, sank, childless,--a victim,

it was said, to love and jealousy. The second wife, Lady Theodosia,

struggled stoutly for power, backed by strong and high connexions;

having, moreover, the advantage of being a mother, and mother of an only

son and heir, the representative of a father in whom ambition had,

by this time, become the ruling passion: the Lady Theodosia stood her

ground, wrangling and wrestling through a fourteen years’ wedlock, till

at last, to Sir Ulick’s great relief, not to say joy, her ladyship was

carried off by a bad fever, or a worse apothecary. His present lady,

formerly Mrs. Scraggs, a London widow of very large fortune, happened to

see Sir Ulick when he went to present some address, or settle some point

between the English and Irish government:--he was in deep mourning at

the time, and the widow pitied him very much. But she was not the sort

of woman he would ever have suspected could like him--she was a strict

pattern lady, severe on the times, and, not unfrequently, lecturing

young men gratis. Now Sir Ulick O’Shane was a sinner; how then could

he please a saint? He did, however--but the saint did not please

him--though she set to work for the good of his soul, and in her own

person relaxed, to please his taste, even to the wearing of rouge

and pearl-powder, and false hair, and false eyebrows, and all the

falsifications which the _setters-up_ could furnish. But after she had

purchased all of youth which age can purchase for money, it would

not do. The Widow Scraggs might, with her “lack lustre” eyes, have

speculated for ever in vain upon Sir Ulick, but that, fortunately for

her passion, at one and the same time, the Irish ministry were turned

out, and an Irish canal burst. Sir Ulick losing his place by the change

of ministry, and one half of his fortune by the canal, in which it had

been sunk; and having spent in unsubstantial schemes and splendid living

more than the other half; now, in desperate misery, laid hold of the

Widow Scraggs. After a nine days’ courtship she became a bride, and she

and her plum in the stocks--but not her messuage, house, and lands, in

Kent--became the property of Sir Ulick O’Shane. “Love was then lord of

all” with her, and she was now to accompany Sir Ulick to Ireland. Late

in life she was carried to a new country, and set down among a people

whom she had all her previous days been taught to hold in contempt or

aversion: she dreaded Irish disturbances much, and Irish dirt more; she

was persuaded that nothing could be right, good, or genteel, that was

not English. Her habits and tastes were immutably fixed. Her experience

had been confined to a London life, and in proportion as her sphere of

observation had been contracted, her disposition was intolerant. She

made no allowance for the difference of opinion, customs, and situation,

much less for the faults or foibles of people who were to her strangers

and foreigners--her ladyship was therefore little likely to please or be

pleased in her new situation. Her husband was the only individual, the

only thing, animate or inanimate, that she liked in Ireland--and while

she was desperately in love with an Irishman, she disliked Ireland

and the Irish: even the Irish talents and virtues, their wit, humour,

generosity of character, and freedom of manner, were lost upon

her--her country neighbours were repelled by her air of taciturn

self-sufficiency--and she, for her part, declared she would have been

satisfied to have lived alone at Castle Hermitage with Sir Ulick. But

Sir Ulick had no notion of living alone with her, or for any body. His

habits were all social and convivial--he loved show and company: he had

been all his life in the habit of entertaining all ranks of people

at Castle Hermitage, from his excellency the Lord-Lieutenant and the

commander-in-chief for the time being, to Tim the gauger, and honest Tom

Kelly, the _stalko_.

He talked of the necessity of keeping up a neighbourhood, and

maintaining his interest in the county, as the first duties of man.

Ostensibly Sir Ulick had no motive in all this, but the hospitable wish

of seeing Castle Hermitage one continued scene of festivity; but under

this good fellowship and apparent thoughtlessness and profusion, there

was an eye to his own interest, and a keen view to the improvement of

his fortune and the advancement of his family. With these habits and

views, it was little likely that he should yield to the romantic,

jealous, or economic tastes of his new lady--a bride ten years older

than himself! Lady O’Shane was, soon after her arrival in Ireland,

compelled to see her house as full of company as it could possibly

hold; and her ladyship was condemned eternally, to do the honours to

successive troops of _friends_, of whom she knew nothing, and of whom

she disliked all she saw or heard. Her dear Sir Ulick was, or seemed, so

engrossed by the business of pleasure, so taken up with his guests, that

but a few minutes in the day could she ever obtain of his company. She

saw herself surrounded by the young, the fair, and the gay, to whom Sir

Ulick devoted his assiduous and gallant attentions; and though his age,

and his being a married man, seemed to preclude, in the opinion of the

cool or indifferent spectator, all idea of any real cause for jealousy,

yet it was not so with poor Lady O’Shane’s magnifying imagination. The

demon of jealousy tortured her; and to enhance her sufferings, she was

obliged to conceal them, lest they should become subjects of private

mockery or public derision. It is the peculiar misfortune or punishment

of misplaced, and yet more of unseasonable, passions, that in their

distresses they obtain no sympathy; and while the passion is in all

its consequence tragic to the sufferer, in all its exhibitions it

is--ludicrous to the spectator. Lady O’Shane could not be young, and

would not be old: so without the charms of youth, or the dignity of age,

she could neither inspire love, nor command respect; nor could she find

fit occupation or amusement, or solace or refuge, in any combination

of company or class of society. Unluckily, as her judgment, never

discriminating, was now blinded by jealousy, the two persons of all his

family connexions upon whom she pitched as the peculiar objects of her

fear and hatred were precisely those who were most disposed to pity and

befriend her--to serve her in private with Sir Ulick, and to treat her

with deference in public: these two persons were Lady Annaly and her

daughter. Lady Annaly was a distant relation of Sir Ulick’s first wife,

during whose life some circumstances had occurred which had excited her

ladyship’s indignation against him. For many years all commerce between

them had ceased. Lady Annaly was a woman of generous indignation, strong

principles, and warm affections. Her rank, her high connexions, her high

character, her having, from the time she was left a young and beautiful

widow, devoted herself to the education and the interests of her

children; her having persevered in her lofty course, superior to all

the numerous temptations of love, vanity, or ambition, by which she was

assailed; her long and able administration of a large property, during

the minority of her son; her subsequent graceful resignation of power;

his affection, gratitude, and deference for his mother, which now

continued to prolong her influence, and exemplify her precepts in

every act of his own; altogether placed this lady high in public

consideration--high as any individual could stand in a country, where

national enthusiastic attachment is ever excited by certain noble

qualities congenial with the Irish nature. Sir Ulick O’Shane, sensible

of the disadvantage of having estranged such a family connexion, and

fully capable of appreciating the value of her friendship, had of late

years taken infinite pains to redeem himself in Lady Annaly’s opinion.

His consummate address, aided and abetted and concealed as it was by

his off-hand manner, would scarcely have succeeded, had it not been

supported also by some substantial good qualities, especially by the

natural candour and generosity of his disposition. In favour of the

originally strong, and, through all his errors, wonderfully surviving

taste for virtue, some of his manifold transgressions might be forgiven:

there was much hope and promise of amendment; and besides, to state

things just as they were, he had propitiated the mother, irresistibly,

by his enthusiastic admiration of the daughter--so that Lady Annaly

had at last consented to revisit Castle Hermitage. Her ladyship and her

daughter were now on this reconciliation visit; Sir Ulick was extremely

anxious to make it agreeable. Besides the credit of her friendship, he

had other reasons for wishing to conciliate her: his son Marcus was just

twenty--two years older than Miss Annaly--in course of time, Sir

Ulick thought it might be a match--his son could not possibly make a

better--beauty, fortune, family connexions, every thing that the hearts

of young and old desire. Besides (for in Sir Ulick’s calculations

_besides_ was a word frequently occurring), besides, Miss Annaly’s

brother was not as strong in body as in mind--in two illnesses his life

had been despaired of--a third might carry him off--the estate would

probably come to Miss Annaly. _Besides_, be this hereafter as it might,

there was at this present time a considerable debt due by Sir Ulick to

these Annalys, with accumulated interest, since the time of his first

marriage; and this debt would be merged in Miss Annaly’s portion, should

she become his son’s wife. All this was well calculated; but to say

nothing of the character or affections of the son, Sir Ulick had omitted

to consider Lady O’Shane, or he had taken it for granted that her love

for him would induce her at once to enter into and second his views. It

did not so happen. On the contrary, the dislike which Lady O’Shane took

at sight to both the mother and daughter--to the daughter instinctively,

at sight of her youth and beauty; to the mother reflectively, on account

of her matronly dress and dignified deportment, in too striking contrast

to her own frippery appearance--increased every day, and every hour,

when she saw the attentions, the adoration, that Sir Ulick paid to Miss

Annaly, and the deference and respect he showed to Lady Annaly, all for

qualities and accomplishments in which Lady O’Shane was conscious that

she was irremediably deficient. Sir Ulick thought to extinguish her

jealousy, by opening to her his views on Miss Annaly for his son; but

the jealousy, taking only a new direction, strengthened in its course.

Lady O’Shane did not like her stepson--had indeed no great reason

to like him; Marcus disliked her, and was at no pains to conceal his

dislike. She dreaded the accession of domestic power and influence he

would gain by such a marriage. She could not bear the thoughts of having

a daughter-in-law brought into the house--placed in eternal comparison

with her. Sir Ulick O’Shane was conscious that his marriage exposed

him to some share of ridicule; but hitherto, except when his taste

for raillery, and the diversion of exciting her causeless jealousy,

interfered with his purpose, he had always treated her ladyship as he

conceived that Lady O’Shane ought to be treated. Naturally good-natured,

and habitually attentive to the sex, he had indeed kept up appearances

better than could have been expected, from a man of his former habits,

to a woman of her ladyship’s present age; but if she now crossed his

favourite scheme, it would be all over with her--her submission to his

will had hitherto been a sufficient and a convenient proof, and the only

proof he desired, of her love. Her ladyship’s evil genius, in the shape

of Miss Black, her humble companion, was now busily instigating her to

be refractory. Miss Black had frequently whispered, that if Lady O’Shane

would show more spirit, she would do better with Sir Ulick; that his

late wife, Lady Theodosia, had ruled him, by showing proper spirit; that

in particular, she should make a stand against the encroachments of Sir

Ulick’s son Marcus, and of his friend and companion, young Ormond. In

consequence of these suggestions, Lady O’Shane had most judiciously

thwarted both these young men in trifles, till she had become their

aversion: this aversion Marcus felt more than he expressed, and Ormond

expressed more strongly than he felt. To Sir Ulick, his son and heir was

his first great object in life; yet, though in all things he preferred

the interest of Marcus, he was not as fond of Marcus as he was of young

Ormond. Young Ormond was the son of the friend of Sir Ulick O’Shane’s

youthful and warm-hearted days--the son of an officer who had served

in the same regiment with him in his first campaign. Captain Ormond

afterwards made an unfortunate marriage--that is, a marriage without a

fortune--his friends would not see him or his wife--he was soon in debt,

and in great distress. He was obliged to leave his wife and go to

India. She had then one child at nurse in an Irish cabin. She died soon

afterwards. Sir Ulick O’Shane took the child, that had been left at

nurse, into his own house. From the time it was four years old, little

Harry Ormond became his darling and grew up his favourite. Sir Ulick’s

fondness, however, had not extended to any care of his education--quite

the contrary; he had done all he could to spoil him by the most

injudicious indulgence, and by neglect of all instruction or discipline.

Marcus had been sent to school and college; but Harry Ormond, meantime,

had been let to run wild at home: the gamekeeper, the huntsman, and a

cousin of Sir Ulick, who called himself the King of the Black Islands,

had had the principal share in his education. Captain Ormond, his

father, was not heard of for many years; and Sir Ulick always argued,

that there was no use in giving Harry Ormond the education of an estated

gentleman, when he was not likely to have an estate. Moreover, he

prophesied that Harry would turn out the cleverest man of the two; and

in the progress of the two boys towards manhood Sir Ulick had shown

a strange sort of double and inconsistent vanity in his son’s

acquirements, and in the orphan Harry’s natural genius. Harry’s

extremely warm, generous, grateful temper, delighted Sir Ulick; but he

gloried in the superior polish of his own son. Harry Ormond grew up with

all the faults that were incident to his natural violence of passions,

and that might necessarily be expected from his neglected and deficient

education. His devoted gratitude and attachment to his guardian father,

as he called Sir Ulick, made him amenable in an instant, even in the

height and tempest of his passions, to whatever Sir Ulick desired; but

he was ungovernable by most other people, and rude even to insolence,

where he felt tyranny or suspected meanness. Miss Black and he were

always at open war; to Lady O’Shane he submitted, though with an ill

grace; yet he did submit, for his guardian’s sake, where he himself only

was concerned; but most imprudently and fiercely he contended upon every

occasion where Marcus, when aggrieved, had declined contending with his

mother-in-law.

Upon the present occasion the two youths had been long engaged to dine

with, and keep the birthday of, Mr. Cornelius O’Shane, the King of the

Black Islands--next to Sir Ulick the being upon earth to whom Harry

Ormond thought himself most obliged, and to whom he felt himself most

attached. This he had represented to Lady O’Shane, and had earnestly

requested that, as the day for the intended dance was a matter of

indifference to her, it might not be fixed on this day; but her ladyship

had purposely made it a trial of strength, and had insisted upon their

returning at a certain hour. She knew that Sir Ulick would be much vexed

by their want of punctuality on this occasion, where the Annalys were