LETTER FROM DR. PERCY TO HIS SISTER ROSAMOND.
“I never told you, my dear Rosamond, that the beautiful Constance was
Mr. Gresham’s daughter; I told you only that I saw her at his house. To
the best of my belief she is no relation to him. She is daughter to
Mr. Gresham’s sick partner; and this partner--now, Rosamond, here is
coincidence, if not romance, enough to please you--this partner is Mr.
Panton, the London correspondent of the shipwrecked Dutch merchants,
the very Panton and Co. to whom my father lately wrote to recommend
Godfrey’s friend, young Captain Henry--captain no more. I have not seen
him yet; he is invisible, in the counting-house, in the remote city, in
ultimate Broad-street, far as pole from pole from me at _Mrs._ Panton’s
fine house in Grosvenor-square.
“But now to have done with an old story, before I begin with a new--I
will tell you at once all I know, or probably shall ever know, about
Constance. She is sole heiress to her father’s fortune, which, on his
repeated word, I believe, amounts to hundreds of thousands. She is
accomplished and amiable, and, as I told you before, beautiful: but
luckily her style of beauty, which is that of one of Rubens’ wives,
does not particularly strike my fancy. Besides, I would really and
truly rather have a profession than be an idle gentleman: I love my
profession, and feel ambitious to distinguish myself in it, and to make
you all proud of your brother, Dr. Percy. These general principles
are strengthened beyond the possibility of doubt, by the particular
circumstances of _the present case_. A young unknown physician, I have
been introduced by a friend to this family, and have, in my medical
capacity, been admitted to a degree of familiarity in the house which
none shall ever have cause to repent. Physicians, I think, are called
upon for scrupulous _good faith_, because in some respects, they are
more trusted in families, and have more opportunities of intimacy, than
those of any other profession. I know, my dear Rosamond, you will not
suspect me of assuming fine sentiments that are foreign to my real
feelings; but I must now inform you, that if I could make myself
agreeable and acceptable to Miss Panton, and if it were equally in my
will and in my power, yet I should never be, in the language of the
market, one shilling the better for her. Her father, a man of low birth,
and having, perhaps, in spite of his wealth, suffered from the proud
man’s contumely, has determined to ennoble his family by means of his
only child, and she is not to enjoy his fortune unless she marry one
who has a title. If she unites herself with any man, below the rank of a
baron’s son, he swears she shall never see the colour of sixpence of
his money. I understand that a certain Lord Roadster, eldest son of Lord
Runnymede, is the present candidate for her favour--or rather for her
wealth; and that his lordship is _patronized_ by her father. Every thing
that could be done by the vulgar selfishness and moneyed pride of her
father and mother-in-law to spoil this young lady, and to make her
consider herself as the first and only object of consequence in this
world, has been done--and yet she is not in the least spoiled. Shame to
all systems of education! there are some natures so good, that they will
go right, where all about them go wrong. My father will not admit this,
and will exclaim, Nonsense!--I will try to say something that he will
allow to be sense. Miss Panton’s own mother was of a good family, and,
I am told, was an amiable woman, of agreeable manners, and a cultivated
mind, who had been sacrificed for fortune to this rich city husband.
Her daughter’s first principles and ideas of manners and morals were, I
suppose, formed by her precepts and example. After her mother’s death, I
know she had the advantage of an excellent and enlightened friend in her
father’s partner, Mr. Gresham, who, having no children of his own, took
pleasure, at all his leisure moments, in improving little Constance.
Then the contrast between her father and him, between their ignorance
and his enlightened liberality, must have early struck her mind, and
thus, I suppose, by observing their faults and follies, she learned to
form for herself an opposite character and manners. The present Mrs.
Panton is only her step-mother. Mrs. Panton is a huge, protuberant
woman, with a full-blown face, a bay wig, and artificial flowers;
talking in an affected little voice, when she is in company, and when
she has on her _company clothes and manners_; but bawling loud, in
a vulgarly broad cockney dialect, when she is at her ease in her own
house. She has an inordinate passion for dress, and a _rage_ for fine
people. I have a chance of becoming a favourite, because I am ‘of a good
_fammully_,” and Mrs. Panton says she knows very well I have been egg
and bird in the best company.
“My patient--observe, my patient is the last person of whom I speak or
think--is nervous and hypochondriac; but as I do not believe that you
have much taste for medical detail, I shall not trouble you with the
particulars of this old gentleman’s case, but pray for his recovery--for
if I succeed in setting him up again, it will set me up.... For the
first time I have, this day, after many calls, seen Godfrey’s friend,
young Mr. Henry. He is handsome, and, as you ladies say, _interesting_.
He is particularly gentlemanlike in his manners; but he looks unhappy,
and I thought he was reserved towards me; but I have no right yet to
expect that he should be otherwise. He spoke of Godfrey with strong
affection.
“Yours, truly,
“ERASMUS PERCY.”
In the care of Mr. Panton’s health, Dr. Percy was now the immediate
successor to a certain apothecary of the name of Coxeater, who, by right
of flattery, had reigned for many years over the family with arbitrary
sway, till he offended the lady of the house by agreeing with her
husband upon some disputed point about a julep. The apothecary had a
terrible loss of old Panton, for he swallowed more drugs in the course
of a week than any man in the city swallows in a year. At the same time,
he was so economical of these very drugs, that when Dr. Percy ordered
the removal from his bedchamber of a range of half full phials, he was
actually near crying at the thoughts of the waste of such a quantity of
good physic: he finished by turning away a footman for laughing at his
ridiculous distress. Panton was obstinate by fits, but touch his fears
about his health, and he would be as docile as the _bon vivant_ seigneur
in Zadig, whose physician had no credit with him when he digested well,
but who governed him despotically whenever he had an indigestion; so
that he was ready to take any thing that could be prescribed, even a
basilisk stewed in rose-water. This merchant, retired from business,
was now as much engrossed with his health as ever he had been with his
wealth.
When Dr. Percy was first called in, he found his patient in a lamentable
state, in an arm-chair, dying with the apprehension of having swallowed
in a peach a live earwig, which he was persuaded had bred, was breeding,
or would breed in his stomach. However ridiculous this fancy may appear,
it had taken such hold of the man, that he was really wasting away--his
appetite failing as well as his spirits. He would not take the least
exercise, or stir from his chair, scarcely move or permit himself to be
moved, hand, foot, or head, lest he should disturb or waken this nest of
earwigs. Whilst these “_reptiles_” slept, he said, he had rest; but when
they wakened, he felt them crawling about and pinching his intestines.
The wife had laughed, and the apothecary had flattered in vain: Panton
angrily persisted in the assertion that he should die--and then they’d
“see who was right.” Dr. Percy recollected a case, which he had heard
from a celebrated physician, of a hypochondriac, who fancied that his
intestines were sealed up by a piece of wax which he had swallowed,
and who, in this belief, refused to eat or drink any thing. Instead of
fighting against the fancy, the judicious physician humoured it--showed
the patient sealing-wax dissolving in spirit of wine, and then persuaded
him to take some of that spirit to produce the same effect. The patient
acceded to the reasoning, took the remedy, said that he felt that his
intestines were unsealing--were unsealed: but, alas! they had been
sealed so long, that they had lost their natural powers and actions, and
he died lamenting that his excellent physician had not been called in
soon enough.
Dr. Percy was more fortunate, for he came in time to kill the earwigs
for his patient before they had pinched him to death. Erasmus showed
Mr. Panton the experiment of killing one of these insects, by placing
it within a magic circle of oil, and prevailed upon him to destroy his
diminutive enemies with castor oil. When this _hallucination_, to speak
in words of learned length, when this hallucination was removed, there
was a still more difficult task, to cure our hypochondriac of the three
remote causes of his disease--idleness of mind--indolence of body--and
the habit of drinking every day a bottle of _London particular_: to
prevail upon him to diminish the quantity per diem was deemed impossible
by his wife; especially as Mr. Coxeater, the apothecary, had flattered
him with the notion, that _to live high_ was necessary for a gouty
constitution, and that he was gouty.--N.B. He never had the gout in his
life.
Mrs. Panton augured ill of Dr. Percy’s success, and Constance grew pale
when he touched upon this dangerous subject--the madeira. Yet he had
hopes. He recollected the ingenious manner in which Dr. Brown [Footnote:
Vide Life of Dr. Brown.] worked upon a Highland chieftain, to induce him
to diminish his diurnal quantity of _spirituous potation_. But there was
no family pride to work upon, at least no family arms were to be had.
Erasmus found a succedaneum, however, in the love of titles and of what
are called _fine people_. Lord Runnymede had given Mr. Panton a gold
beaker, of curious workmanship, on which his lordship’s arms were
engraved; of this present the citizen was very fond and vain: observing
this, Dr. Percy was determined to render it subservient to his purposes.
He knew they would be right glad of any opportunity of producing
and talking of this beaker to all their acquaintance. He therefore
advised--no, not _advised_; for with some minds if you _advise_ you are
not listened to, if you command you are obeyed--he commanded that his
patient should have his madeira always decanted into the curious beaker,
for certain galvanic advantages that every knowing porter-drinker is
aware of: Erasmus emptied a decanter of madeira into the beaker to
show that it held more than a quart. This last circumstance decided Mr.
Panton to give a solemn promise to abide by the advice of his physician,
who seized this auspicious moment to act upon the imagination of his
patient, by various medical anecdotes. Mr. Panton seemed to be much
struck with the account of bottles made of antimonial glass, which
continue, for years, to impregnate successive quantities of liquor with
the same antimonial virtues. Dr. Percy then produced a piece of coloured
crystal about the size of a large nut, which he directed his patient
to put into the beaker, and to add another of these medicated crystals
every day, till the vessel should be half full, to increase the power
of the drug by successive additions; and by this arrangement, Panton was
gradually reduced to half his usual quantity of wine.
Dr. Percy’s next difficulty was how to supply the purse-full and
purse-proud citizen with motive and occupation. Mr. Panton had an utter
aversion and contempt for all science and literature; he could not
conceive that any man “could sit down to read for amusement,” but he
enjoyed a party of pleasure in a good boat on the water, to one of the
_aits_ or islets in the Thames at the right season, to be regaled with
eel-pie. One book he had read, and one play he liked--no, not a play,
but a pantomime. The book was Robinson Crusoe--the pantomime, Harlequin
Friday. He had been heard to say, that if ever he had a villa, there
should be in it an island like Robinson Crusoe’s; and why not a
fortress, a castle, and a grotto? this would be something new; and why
should he not have his fancy, and why should not there be _Panton’s
Folly_ as well as any of the thousand _Follies_ in England? Surely he
was rich enough to have a Folly. His physician cherished this bright
idea. Mrs. Panton was all this time dying to have a villa on the Thames.
Dr. Percy proposed that one should be made on Mr. Panton’s plan. The
villa was bought, and every day the hypochondriac--hypochondriac now
no more--went to his villa-Crusoe, where he fussed, and furbished, and
toiled at his desert island in the Thames, as hard as ever he laboured
to make his _plum_ in the counting-house. In _due course_ he recovered
his health, and, to use his own expression, “became as alert as any man
in all England of his inches in the girth, thanks be to Dr. Percy!”
We find the following letter from Dr. Percy, written, as it appears,
some months after his first attendance upon Mr. Panton.
“Yes, my dear friends at home, Alfred tells you truth, and does not
flatter much. The having set up again this old citizen, who was thought
bankrupt in constitution, has done me honour in the city; and, as Alfred
assures you, has spread my name through Broad-street, and Fleet-street,
and Milk-street, embracing the wide extremes between High-Holborn and
St. Mary Axe,
‘And even Islington has heard my fame.’
“In earnest, I am getting fast into practice in the city--and Rosamond
must not turn up her aristocratic lip at the city--very _good_ men, in
every sense of the word, some of the best men I know, inhabit what she
is pleased to call the wrong end of the town.
“Mr. Gresham is unceasing and indefatigable in his kindness to me. I
consider it as an instance of this kindness that he has found employment
for my poor friend, O’Brien; has made him his porter--a pleasanter place
than he had with the painter that pleased nobody: O’Brien sees me almost
every day, and rejoices in what he calls my prosperity.
“‘Heaven for ever prosper your honour’ is the beginning and end of all
he says, and, I believe, of all he thinks. Is not it singular, that my
first step towards getting into practice should have been prepared by
that which seemed to threaten my ruin--the quarrel with Frumpton about
O’Brien and the hospital?
“A delicacy strikes me, and begins at this moment, in the midst of my
prosperity, to make my pride uneasy.
“I am afraid that my father should say Erasmus gets on by patronage,
after all--by the patronage of a poor Irish porter and a rich English
merchant.
“Adieu, my dear friends; you must not expect such long letters from me
now that I am becoming a busy man. Alfred and I see but little of one
another, we live at such a distance, and we are both so gloriously
industrious. But we have holiday minutes, when we meet and talk more in
the same space of time than any two wise men--I did not say, women--that
you ever saw.
“Yours, affectionately,
“ERASMUS PERCY.
“P.S. I have just recollected that I forgot to answer your question
about Mr. Henry. I do see him whenever I have time to go, and whenever
he will come to Mr. Gresham’s, which is very seldom. Mr. Gresham has
begged him repeatedly to come to his house every Sunday, when Henry must
undoubtedly be at leisure; yet Mr. Henry has been there but seldom since
the first six weeks after he came to London. I cannot yet understand
whether this arises from pride, or from some better motive. Mr. Gresham
says he likes what he has seen of him, and well observes, that a young
officer, who has lived a gay life in the army, must have great power
over his own habits, and something uncommon in his character, to be
both willing and able thus suddenly and completely to change his mode
of life, and to conform to all the restraints and disagreeable
circumstances of his new situation.”
EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM MR. PERCY TO ERASMUS PERCY.
“... Let me take the opportunity of your playful allusion to your
present patrons, a porter and a hypochondriac, seriously to explain to
you my principles about patronage--I never had any idea that you ought
not to be assisted by friends: friends which have been made for you by
your parents I consider as part of your patrimony. I inherited many from
my father, for which I respect and bless his name. During the course of
my life, I have had the happiness of gaining the regard of some persons
of talents and virtue, some of them in high station; this regard will
extend to my children while I live, and descend to them when I am no
more. I never _cultivated_ them with a view to advancing my family,
but I make no doubt that their friendship will assist my sons in their
progress through their several professions. I hold it to be just and
right that friends should give, and that young men should gratefully
accept, all the means and opportunities of bringing professional
acquirements and abilities into notice. Afterwards, the merit of the
candidate, and his fitness for any given situation, ought, and probably
will, ultimately decide whether the assistance has been properly or
improperly given. If family friends procure for any young man a reward
of any kind which he has not merited, I should object to that as much as
if the place or the reward had been bestowed by a professed patron from
political or other interested motives. If my friends were to assist
you _merely_ because you were my sons, bore my name, or represented the
Percy estate, I should not think this just or honourable; but they know
the principles which have been instilled into you, and the education
you have received: from these they can form a judgment of what you are
likely to be, and for what situations you are qualified; therefore it is
but reasonable that they should recommend you preferably to strangers,
even of equal ability. Every young man has friends, and they will do all
they can to assist him: if they do so according to his merits, they do
well; if in spite of his demerits, they do ill; but whilst nothing is
practised to prevent the course of free competition, there can be no
evil to the community, and there is no injurious patronage. So much for
family friends. Now as to friends of your own making, they are as much
your own earning, and all the advantage they can be of to you is as
honourably yours, as your fees. Whatever assistance you may receive from
Mr. Gresham I consider in this light. As to gratitude--I acknowledge
that in some cases gratitude might be guilty of partial patronage.
“If you had saved a minister of state from breaking his neck, and he
in return had made you surgeon-general to our armies, without knowing
whether you were qualified for that situation, I should call that
partial and pernicious patronage; but if you had cured a great man of a
dangerous disease, and he afterwards exerted himself to recommend you as
a physician to his friends and acquaintance, this I should consider as
part of your fit reward.
“So now, my dear son, I hope you fully understand me, and that you will
not attribute to me false delicacies, and a prudery, a puritanism of
independence, which I utterly disclaim.--Go on, and prosper, and depend
upon the warm sympathy and entire approbation of your affectionate
father,
“L. PERCY.”
LETTER FROM ALFRED PERCY TO ROSAMOND.
“MY DEAR ROSAMOND,
“Thank you for your letters from Hungerford Castle. If Mr. Barclay
had been but ten years younger, and if he had been ten degrees more a
laughing philosopher, and if Caroline could but have loved him, I should
have had no objection to him for a brother-in-law; but as my three _ifs_
could not be, I regret the Leicestershire estate as little as possible,
and I will console myself for not having the marriage settlements to
draw.
“Your letters were great delights to me. I kept them to read when the
business of the day was done, and I read them by my single candle in my
lone chamber. I would rather live in my lone chamber all my days,
and never see a wax-light all my nights, than be married to your Lady
Angelica Headingham. I give Mr. Barclay joy of having escaped from her
charms. I prefer an indenture tripartite, however musty or tiresome, to
a triple tyrant, however fair or entertaining.
“So you expect me to be very entertaining next vacation, and you expect
to hear all I have seen, heard, felt, and understood since I came to
London. Alas! Rosamond, I have no wonders to relate; and lest you should
be disappointed when we meet, I had best tell you now and at once all
I have to say about myself. My history is much like that of the first
years at the bar of every young lawyer--short and bitter--much law and
few fees. Some, however, I have received.
“A few of my father’s friends, who are so unfortunate as to be at law,
have been so good as to direct their attorneys to give me briefs. But
most of his friends, to my loss--I am too generous, observe, to say
_to my sorrow_--are wise enough to keep clear of lawsuits. I heard his
friend, the late chancellor, say the other day to some one who wanted to
plunge into a suit in Chancery, ‘If any body were to take a fancy to a
corner of my estate, I would rather--provided always that nobody knew
it--let him have it than go to law for it.’
“But to go on with my own affairs.
“A little while after my interview with Lord Oldborough, his lordship,
to my surprise--for I thought his offer to assist me in my profession,
if ever it should lie in his line, was a mere courtier’s promise--sent
his attorney to me, with a brief in a cause of Colonel Hauton’s. The
colonel has gone to law (most ungrateful as he is) with his uncle, who
was his guardian, and who managed all his affairs for years. I need not
explain to you the merits of the suit, or the demerits of the plaintiff.
It is enough to tell you that I was all-glorious, with the hope of
_making a good point_ which had escaped the other counsel employed on
our side; but the senior counsel never acknowledged the assistance he
had received from me--obtained a nonsuit against the colonel, and had
all the honour and triumph of the day. Some few gentlemen of the bar
knew the truth, and they were indignant. I hear that my senior, whose
name I will never tell you lest you should hate it, has got into great
practice by the gaining of this suit. Be that as it may, I would not
change places and feelings with him at this moment.
‘Grant me an honest fame, or grant me none!’
“Mr. Grose, Lord Oldborough’s solicitor, a rich rogue and very saucy,
was obliged to employ me, because his client ordered it, and Lord
Oldborough is not a man to be disobeyed, either in private or public
affairs: but the attorney was obviously vexed and scandalized by his
lordship’s employing me, a young barrister, of whom nobody had ever
heard, and who was not recommended by him, or under the protection
even of any solicitor of eminence. Mr. Grose knew well how the suit was
gained, but he never mentioned it to Lord Oldborough; on the contrary,
he gave all the credit to my _senior_. This dry story of a _point_ law
is the most interesting thing I have to tell you about myself. I have
seen nothing, heard nothing, know nothing, but of law, and I begin to
feel it difficult to write, speak, or think, in any but professional
language. Tell my father, that I shall soon come to talking law Latin
and law French.
“I know no more of what is going on in this great metropolis than if I
were at Tobolski. Buckhurst Falconer used to be my newspaper, but since
he has given up all hopes of Caroline, he seldom comes near me. I have
lost in him my fashionable Daily Advertiser, my Belle Assemblée, and
tête-à-tête magazine.
“Last Sunday, I went to his fashionable chapel to hear him preach: he is
much admired, but I don’t like his manner or his sermons--too theatrical
and affected--too rhetorical and antithetical, evidently more suited to
display the talents of the preacher than to do honour to God or good
to man. He told me, that if he could preach himself into a deanery, he
should think he had preached to some purpose; and could die with a
safe conscience, as he should think he had not laboured in vain in
his vocation. Of all men, I think a dissipated clergyman is the most
contemptible. How much Commissioner Falconer has to answer for, who
forced him, or who lured him, knowing how unfit he was for it, into the
church! The commissioner frets because the price of iniquity has not yet
been received--the living of Chipping Friars is not yet Buckhurst’s. The
poor paralytic incumbent, for whose death he is praying daily, is still
living; and, as Buckhurst says, may shake on many a long year. How
Buckhurst lives in the mean time at the rate he does I cannot tell
you--that art of living in style upon nothing is an art which I see
practised by numbers, but which is still a mystery to me. However, the
Falconers seem in great favour at present; the commissioner hopes Lord
Oldborough may do something for Buckhurst. Last Sunday, when I went to
hear him preach, I saw the whole family of the Falconers, in grandeur,
in the Duke of Greenwich’s seat. The Marchioness of Twickenham was
there, and looked beautiful, but, as I thought, unhappy. After the
sermon, I heard Lady Somebody, who was in the next seat to me, whisper
to a Lady Otherbody, just as she was rising after the blessing, ‘My
dear madam, did you hear the shocking report about the Marchioness of
Twickenham?’ then a very close and confidential whisper; then, loud
enough for me to hear, ‘But I do suppose, as there are hopes of an heir,
all will be hushed--for the present.’
“Just then the Duke of Greenwich and the marquis and marchioness came
down the aisle, and as they passed, my scandal-mongers smiled, and
curtsied, and were so delighted to see their dear marchioness! The Miss
Falconers, following in the wake of nobility, seemed too much charmed
with themselves, to see or know me--till Lord Oldborough, though
listening to the duke, espied me, and did me the honour to bow; then the
misses put up their glasses to see who I could be, and they also smiled,
and curtsied, and were delighted to see me.
“It is well for us that we don’t live on their smiles and curtsies. They
went off in the Marchioness of Twickenham’s superb equipage. I had
a full view of her as she drew up the glass, and a more melancholy
countenance than hers I have seldom seen. Lord Oldborough hoped my
father was well--but never mentioned Godfrey. The marchioness does not
know me, but she turned at the name of Percy, and I thought sighed. Now,
Rosamond, I put that sigh in for you--make what you can of it, and of
the half-heard mysterious whisper. I expect that you will have a romance
in great forwardness, before Monday, the 3rd of next month, when I hope
to see you all.
“No letters from Godfrey.--Erasmus has been so busy of late, he tells
me, he has not had time to record for you all his doings. In one word,
he is doing exceedingly well. His practice increases every day in
the city in spite of Dr. Frumpton. Adieu till Monday, the 3rd--Happy
Monday!--‘Restraint that sweetens liberty.’ My dear Rosamond, which do
you think loves vacation-time most, a lawyer or a school-boy?
“I was interrupted just now by a letter from a certain farmer of the
name of Grimwood, who has written to me, ‘because I am a friend to
justice, and my father’s son,’ &c., and has given me a long account of
a quarrel he has with Dr. Leicester about the tithe of peaches--said
Grimwood is so angry, that he can neither spell nor write intelligibly,
and he swears that if it cost him a thousand guineas in gold, he will
have the law of the doctor. I wish my father would be so kind as to send
to Mr. Grimwood (he lives at Pegginton), and advise him to keep clear
of Attorney Sharpe, and to keep cool, if possible, till Monday, the 3rd,
and then I will make up the quarrel if I can. Observe, more is to be
done on Monday, the 3rd, than ever was done on any other Monday.
“Your affectionate brother,
“ALFRED PERCY.
“P.S.--I open my letter to tell you a delightful piece of news--that
Lord Oldborough has taken Temple for his private secretary, and will
bring him in for the borough of ----. How his lordship found him out to
be the author of that famous pamphlet, which bore Cunningham’s name, I
do not know. I know that I kept the secret, as in honour bound; but Lord
Oldborough has the best ways and means of obtaining intelligence of any
man in England. It is singular that he never said one word about the
pamphlet to Temple, nor ever appeared to him to know that it was his
writing. I cannot understand this.”
To comprehend why Lord Oldborough had never mentioned the pamphlet to
Mr. Temple, it was necessary to know more than Alfred had opportunities
of discovering of this minister’s character. His lordship did not
choose to acknowledge to the world that he had been duped by Cunningham
Falconer. Lord Oldborough would sooner repair an error than acknowledge
it. Not that he was uncandid; but he considered candour as dangerous and
impolitic in a public character.
Upon some occasion, soon after Mr. Temple came to be his lordship’s
secretary, Mr. Temple acknowledged to a gentleman, in Lord Oldborough’s
presence, some trifling official mistake he had made: Lord Oldborough,
as soon as the gentleman was gone, said to his secretary, “Sir, if you
make a mistake, repair it--that is sufficient. Sir, you are young in
political life--you don’t know, I see, that candour hurts a political
character in the opinion of fools--that is, of the greater part of
mankind. Candour may be advantageous to a moral writer, or to a private
gentleman, but not to a minister of state. A statesman, if he would
govern public opinion, must establish a belief in his infallibility.”
Upon this principle Lord Oldborough abided, not only by his own
measures, but by his own instruments--right or wrong, he was known to
support those whom he had once employed or patronised. Lucky this for
the Falconer family!
LETTER FROM ALFRED TO ERASMUS.
“MY DEAR DOCTOR,
“How I pity you who have no vacations! Please, when next you sum up the
advantages and disadvantages of the professions of law and medicine,
to set down _vacations_ to the credit side of the law. You who work for
life and death can have no pause, no respite; whilst I from time to
time may, happily, leave all the property, real and personal, of my
fellow-creatures, to its lawful or unlawful owners. Now, for six good
weeks to come, I may hang sorrow and cast away care, and forget the
sound and smell of parchments, and the din of the courts.
“Here I am, a happy prisoner at large, in this nutshell of a house at
the Hills, which you have never seen since it has become the family
mansion. I am now in the actual tenure and occupation of the little
room, commonly called Rosamond’s room, bounded on the N. E. W. and S.
by blank--[N.B. a very dangerous practice of leaving blanks for your
boundaries in your leases, as an eminent attorney told me last week.]
Said room containing in the whole 14 square feet 4-1/2 square inches,
superficial measure, be the same more or less. I don’t know how my
father and mother, and sisters, who all their lives were used to range
in spacious apartments, can live so happily, cooped up as they now are;
but their bodies, as well as minds, seem to have a contractile power,
which adapts them to their present confined circumstances. Procrustes,
though he was a mighty tyrant, could fit only the body to the bed. I
found all at home as cheerful and contented as in the days when we
lived magnificently at Percy-hall. I have not seen the Hungerfords yet;
Colonel H. is, I hear, attached to Lady Elizabeth Pembroke. I know
very little of her, but Caroline assures me she is an amiable, sensible
woman, well suited to him, and to all his family. I need not, however,
expatiate on this subject, for Caroline says that she wrote you a long
letter, the day after she returned from Hungerford Castle.
“I must tell you what has happened to me since I came to the country. Do
you remember my receiving a very angry, very ill-spelled letter, from a
certain Farmer Grimwood of Pegginton, who swore, that if it cost him a
thousand guineas in gold he would have the law of _the doctor_--viz. Dr.
Leicester--about a tithe of peaches? My father, at my request, was
so good as to send for said Grimwood, and to prevent him from having
recourse in his ire to Attorney Sharpe. With prodigious difficulty, the
angry farmer was restrained till my arrival; when I came home, I found
him waiting for me, and literally foaming at the mouth with the furious
desire for law. I flatter myself, I did listen to his story with a
patience for which Job might have been admired. I was well aware that
till he had exhausted himself, and was practically convinced that he had
nothing more to say, he would be incapable of listening to me, or to
the voice of the angel of peace. When at last absolute fatigue of
reiteration had reduced him to silence, when he had held me by the
button till he was persuaded he had made me fully master of his case,
I prevailed upon him to let me hear what could be said on the opposite
side of the question; and after some hours’ cross-examination of six
witnesses, repeaters, and reporters, and after an infinite confusion of
_said I’s, and said he’s_, it was made clearly to appear that the whole
quarrel originated in the mistake of a few words in a message which Dr.
Leicester’s agent had given to his son, a boy of seven years old, who
had left it with a deaf gate-keeper of seventy-six, who repeated it
to Farmer Grimwood, at a moment when the farmer was over-heated and
overtired, and consequently prone to _misunderstanding_ and to anger.
The most curious circumstance in the whole business is, that the
word peaches had never been mentioned by Dr. Leicester’s agent in
the original message; and Dr. Leicester really did not know that Mr.
Grimwood of Pegginton was possessed of a single peach. Grimwood, though
uncommonly obstinate and slow, is a just man; and when I at last brought
the facts with indisputable evidence home to his understanding, he
acknowledged that he had been too hasty, rejoiced that he had not gone
to law, begged the doctor and the doctor’s agent’s pardon, thanked me
with his whole honest heart, and went home in perfect charity with all
mankind. Mr. Sharpe, who soon heard of the amicable conclusion of this
affair, laughs at me, and pronounces that I shall never make a lawyer,
and that my friends need never flatter themselves with the notion of my
rising at the bar.
“Yours truly,
“A. PERCY.
“My letter was forgotten yesterday, and I am glad of it. Blessings on
Farmer Grimwood of Pegginton! Little did I think that he and his quarrel
about tithe peaches would have such happy influence on my destiny.
Blessings on Farmer Grimwood of Pegginton! I repeat: he has been
the cause of my seeing such a--of my receiving such a look of
approbation--such a smile! She is niece to our good rector--come to
spend a few days with him. Grimwood went to the vicarage to make up his
quarrel with Dr. Leicester--I do not know what he said of me, but I find
it has left a very favourable impression in the good doctor’s mind. He
came here yesterday, and brought with him his charming niece. My dear
Erasmus, you know that I have often prayed that I might never fall in
love _seriously_, till I had some reasonable prospect of being able to
marry; but I begin to retract my prayer for indifference, and to be of
opinion that the most prudent thing a professional man can do is to fall
in love--to fall in love with such a woman as Sophia Leicester. What a
new motive for exertion! Animated by delightful hope, perseverance, even
in the most stupid drudgery, will be pleasure. Hope!--but I am far
from hope--far at this instant from knowing distinctly what I hope--or
wish--or mean. I will write again soon and explain.”