Who would recal departed days and yearsTo tread again the dark and cheerless road,Which, leading through this gloomy vale of tears,His weary feet in pain and toil have trod!I've felt the bitterness of grief—I've shedSuch tears as only wretched mortals pour,And wish'd among the calm and quiet deadTo find my sorrows and my sufferings o'er;Yet firm in heart and hope I still bear up,And onward steer my course true—a true "Flare-up".Sigma.
Who would recal departed days and yearsTo tread again the dark and cheerless road,Which, leading through this gloomy vale of tears,His weary feet in pain and toil have trod!I've felt the bitterness of grief—I've shedSuch tears as only wretched mortals pour,And wish'd among the calm and quiet deadTo find my sorrows and my sufferings o'er;Yet firm in heart and hope I still bear up,And onward steer my course true—a true "Flare-up".
Sigma.
BY BOZ.
THE PANTOMIME OF LIFE.
Before we plunge headlong into this paper, let us at once confess to a fondness for pantomimes—to a gentle sympathy with clowns and pantaloons—to an unqualified admiration of harlequins and columbines—to a chaste delight in every action of their brief existence, varied and many-coloured as those actions are, and inconsistent though they occasionally be with those rigid and formal rules of propriety which regulate the proceedings of meaner and less comprehensive minds. We revel in pantomimes—not because they dazzle one's eyes with tinsel and gold leaf; not because they present to us, once again, the well-beloved chalked faces, and goggle eyes of our childhood; not even because, like Christmas-day, and Twelfth-night, and Shrove Tuesday, and one's own birth-day, they come to us but once a-year;—our attachment is founded on a graver and a very different reason. A pantomime is to us, a mirror of life; nay more, we maintain that it is so to audiences generally, although they are not aware of it; and that this very circumstance is the secret cause of their amusement and delight.
Let us take a slight example. The scene is a street: an elderly gentleman, with a large face, and strongly marked features, appears. His countenance beams with a sunny smile, and a perpetual dimple is on his broad red cheek. He is evidently an opulent elderly gentlemen, comfortable in circumstances, and well to do in the world. He is not unmindful of the adornment of his person, for he is richly, not to say gaudily dressed; and that he indulges to a reasonable extent in the pleasures of the table, may be inferred from the joyous and oily manner in which he rubs his stomach, by way of informing the audience that he is going home to dinner. In the fullness of his heart, in the fancied security of wealth, in the possession and enjoyment of all the good things of life, the elderly gentleman suddenly loses his footing, and stumbles. How the audience roar! He is set upon by a noisy and officious crowd, who buffet and cuff him unmercifully. They scream with delight! Every time the elderly gentleman struggles to get up, his relentless persecutors knock him down again. The spectators are convulsed with merriment! And when at last the elderly gentleman does get up, and staggers away, despoiled of hat, wig, and clothing, battered to pieces, and his watch and money gone, they are exhausted with laughter, and express their merriment and admiration in rounds of applause.
Is this like life? Change the scene to any real street;—to the Stock Exchange, or the City banker's; the merchant'scounting-house, or even the tradesman's shop. See any one of these men fall,—the more suddenly, and the nearer the zenith of his pride and riches, the better. What a wild hallo is raised over his prostrate carcase by the shouting mob; how they whoop and yell as he lies humbled beneath them! Mark how eagerly they set upon him when he is down; and how they mock and deride him as he slinks away. Why, it is the pantomime to the very letter.
Of all the pantomimicdramatis personæ, we consider the pantaloon the most worthless and debauched. Independent of the dislike, one naturally feels at seeing a gentleman of his years engaged in pursuits highly unbecoming his gravity and time of life, we cannot conceal from ourselves the fact that he is a treacherous worldly-minded old villain, constantly enticing his younger companion, the clown, into acts of fraud or petty larceny, and generally standing aside to watch the result of the enterprise: if it be successful, he never forgets to return for his share of the spoil; but if it turn out a failure, he generally retires with remarkable caution and expedition, and keeps carefully aloof until the affair has blown over. His amorous propensities, too, are eminently disagreeable; and his mode of addressing ladies in the open street at noon-day is downright improper, being usually neither more nor less than a perceptible tickling of the aforesaid ladies in the waist, after committing which, he starts back, manifestly ashamed (as well he may be) of his own indecorum and temerity; continuing, nevertheless, to ogle and beckon to them from a distance in a very unpleasant and immoral manner.
Is there any man who cannot count a dozen pantaloons in his own social circle? Is there any man who has not seen them swarming at the west end of the town on a sun-shiny day or a summer's evening, going through the last-named pantomimic feats with as much liquorish energy, and as total an absence of reserve, as if they were on the very stage itself? We can tell upon our fingers a dozen pantaloons of our acquaintance at this moment—capital pantaloons, who have been performing all kinds of strange freaks, to the great amusement of their friends and acquaintance, for years past; and who to this day are making such comical and ineffectual attempts to be young and dissolute, that all beholders are like to die with laughter.
Take that old gentleman who has just emerged from theCafé de l'Europein the Haymarket, where he has been dining at the expense of the young man upon town with whom he shakes hands as they part at the door of the tavern. The affected warmth of that shake of the hand, the courteous nod, the obvious recollection of the dinner, the savoury flavour of which still hangs upon his lips, are all characteristics of his great prototype. He hobbles away humming an opera tune, and twirling his cane to and fro, with affected carelessness.Suddenly he stops—'tis at the milliner's window. He peeps through one of the large panes of glass; and, his view of the ladies within being obstructed by the India shawls, directs his attentions to the young girl with the bandbox in her hand, who is gazing in at the window also. See! he draws beside her. He coughs; she turns away from him. He draws near her again; she disregards him. He gleefully chucks her under the chin, and, retreating a few steps, nods and beckons with fantastic grimaces, while the girl bestows a contemptuous and supercilious look upon his wrinkled visage. She turns away with a flounce, and the old gentleman trots after her with a toothless chuckle. The pantaloon to the life!
But the close resemblance which the clowns of the stage bear to those of every-day life, is perfectly extraordinary. Some people talk with a sigh of the decline of pantomime, and murmur in low and dismal tones the name of Grimaldi. We mean no disparagement to the worthy and excellent old man when we say, that this is downright nonsense. Clowns that beat Grimaldi all to nothing turn up every day, and nobody patronises them—more's the pity!
"I know who you mean," says some dirty-faced patron of Mr. Osbaldistone's, laying down the Miscellany when he has got thus far; and bestowing upon vacancy a most knowing glance: "you mean C. J. Smith as did Guy Fawkes, and George Barnwell, at the Garden." The dirty-faced gentleman has hardly uttered the words when he is interrupted by a young gentleman in no shirt-collar and a Petersham coat. "No, no," says the young gentleman; "he means Brown, King, and Gibson, at the 'Delphi." Now, with great deference both to the first-named gentleman with the dirty face, and the last-named gentleman in the non-existing shirt-collar, we do not mean, either the performer who so grotesquely burlesqued the Popish conspirator, or the three unchangeables who have been dancing the same dance under different imposing titles, and doing the same thing under various high-sounding names, for some five or six years last past. We have no sooner made this avowal than the public, who have hitherto been silent witnesses of the dispute, inquire what on earth it is wedomean; and, with becoming respect, we proceed to tell them.
It is very well known to all play-goers and pantomime-seers, that the scenes in which a theatrical clown is at the very height of his glory are those which are described in the play-bills as "Cheesemonger's shop, and Crockery warehouse," or "Tailor's shop, and Mrs. Queertable's boarding-house," or places bearing some such title, where the great fun of the thing consists in the hero's taking lodgings which he has not the slightest intention of paying for, or obtaining goods under false pretences, or abstracting the stock-in-trade of the respectable shopkeeper next door, or robbing warehouse-porters as they pass under his window,or, to shorten the catalogue, in his swindling everybody he possibly can; it only remaining to be observed, that the more extensive the swindling is, and the more barefaced the impudence of the swindler, the greater the rapture and ecstasy of the audience. Now it is a most remarkable fact that precisely this sort of thing occurs in real life day after day, and nobody sees the humour of it. Let us illustrate our position by detailing the plot of this portion of the pantomime—not of the theatre, but of life.
The Honourable Captain Fitz-Whisker Fiercy, attended by his livery-servant Do'em,—a most respectable servant to look at, who has grown grey in the service of the captain's family,—views, treats for, and ultimately obtains possession of, the unfurnished house, such a number, such a street. All the tradesmen in the neighbourhood are in agonies of competition for the captain's custom; the captain is a good-natured, kind-hearted, easy man, and, to avoid being the cause of disappointment to any, he most handsomely gives orders to all. Hampers of wine, baskets of provisions, cart-loads of furniture, boxes of jewellery, supplies of luxuries of the costliest description, flock to the house of the Honourable Captain Fitz-Whisker Fiercy, where they are received with the utmost readiness by the highly respectable Do'em; while the captain himself struts and swaggers about with that compound air of conscious superiority, and general blood-thirstiness, which a military captain should always, and does most times wear, to the admiration and terror of plebeian men. But the tradesmen's backs are no sooner turned, than the captain, with all the eccentricity of a mighty mind, and assisted by the faithful Do'em, whose devoted fidelity is not the least touching part of his character, disposes of everything to great advantage; for, although the articles fetch small sums, still they are sold considerably above cost price, the cost to the captain having been nothing at all. After various manœuvres, the imposture is discovered, Fitz-Fiercy and Do'em are recognised as confederates, and the police-office to which they are both taken is thronged with their dupes.
Who can fail to recognise in this, the exact counterpart of the best portion of a theatrical pantomime—Fitz-Whisker Fiercy by the clown; Do'em by the pantaloon; and supernumeraries by the tradesmen? The best of the joke, too, is that the very coal-merchant who is loudest in his complaints against the person who defrauded him, is the identical man who sat in the centre of the very front row of the pit last night and laughed the most boisterously at this very same thing,—and not so well done either. Talk of Grimaldi, we say again! Did Grimaldi, in his best days, ever do anything in this way equal to Da Costa?
The mention of this latter justly-celebrated clown reminds us of his last piece of humour, the fraudulently obtaining certainstamped acceptances from a young gentleman in the army. We had scarcely laid down our pen to contemplate for a few moments this admirable actor's performance of that exquisite practical joke, than a new branch of our subject flashed suddenly upon us. So we take it up again at once.
All people who have been behind the scenes, and most people who have been before them, know, that in the representation of a pantomime, a good many men are sent upon the stage for the express purpose of being cheated, or knocked down, or both. Now, down to a moment ago, we had never been able to understand for what possible purpose a great number of odd, lazy, large-headed men, whom one is in the habit of meeting here, and there, and everywhere, could ever have been created. We see it all, now. They are the supernumeraries in the pantomime of life; the men who have been thrust into it, with no other view than to be constantly tumbling over each other, and running their heads against all sorts of strange things. We sat opposite to one of these men at a supper-table, only last week. Now we think of it, he was exactly like the gentlemen with the pasteboard heads and faces, who do the corresponding business in the theatrical pantomimes; there was the same broad stolid simper—the same dull leaden eye—the same unmeaning, vacant stare; and whatever was said, or whatever was done, he always came in at precisely the wrong place, or jostled against something that he had not the slightest business with. We looked at the man across the table, again and again; and could not satisfy ourselves what race of beings to class him with. How very odd that this never occurred to us before!
We will frankly own that we have been much troubled with the harlequin. We see harlequins of so many kinds in the real living pantomime, that we hardly know which to select as the proper fellow of him of the theatres. At one time we were disposed to think that the harlequin was neither more nor less than a young man of family and independent property, who had run away with an opera-dancer, and was fooling his life and his means away in light and trivial amusements. On reflection, however, we remembered that harlequins are occasionally guilty of witty, and even clever acts, and we are rather disposed to acquit our young men of family and independent property, generally speaking, of any such misdemeanours. On a more mature consideration of the subject, we have arrived at the conclusion, that the harlequins of life are just ordinary men, to be found in no particular walk or degree, on whom a certain station, or particular conjunction of circumstances, confers the magic wand; and this brings us to a few words on the pantomime of public and political life, which we shall say at once, and then conclude; merely premising in this place, that we decline any reference whatever to the columbine: being in no wise satisfied of the nature of her connexion with her parti-colouredlover, and not feeling by any means clear that we should be justified in introducing her to the virtuous and respectable ladies who peruse our lucubrations.
We take it that the commencement of a session of parliament is neither more nor less than the drawing up of the curtain for a grand comic pantomime; and that his Majesty's most gracious speech, on the opening thereof, may be not inaptly compared to the clown's opening speech of "Here we are!" "My lords and gentlemen, here we are!" appears, to our mind at least, to be a very good abstract of the point and meaning of the propitiatory address of the ministry. When we remember how frequently this speech is made, immediately after thechangetoo, the parallel is quite perfect, and still more singular.
Perhaps the cast of our political pantomime never was richer than at this day. We are particularly strong in clowns. At no former time, we should say, have we had such astonishing tumblers, or performers so ready to go through the whole of their feats for the amusement of an admiring throng. Their extreme readiness to exhibit, indeed, has given rise to some ill-natured reflections; it having been objected that by exhibiting gratuitously through the country when the theatre is closed, they reduce themselves to the level of mountebanks, and thereby tend to degrade the respectability of the profession. Certainly Grimaldi never did this sort of thing; and though Brown, King, and Gibson have gone to the Surrey in vacation time, and Mr. C. J. Smith has ruralised at Sadler's Wells, we find no theatrical precedent for a general tumbling through the country, except in the gentleman, name unknown, who threw summersets on behalf of the late Mr. Richardson, and who is no authority either, because he had never been on the regular boards.
But, laying aside this question, which after all is a mere matter of taste, we may reflect with pride and gratification of heart on the proficiency of our clowns as exhibited in the season. Night after night will they twist and tumble about, till two, three, and four o'clock in the morning; playing the strangest antics, and giving each other the funniest slaps on the face that can possibly be imagined, without evincing the smallest tokens of fatigue. The strange noises, the confusion, the shouting and roaring, amid which all this is done, too, would put to shame the most turbulent sixpenny gallery that ever yelled through a boxing-night.
It is especially curious to behold one of these clowns compelled to go through the most surprising contortions by the irresistible influence of the wand of office, which his leader or harlequin holds above his head. Acted upon by this wonderful charm he will become perfectly motionless, moving neither hand, foot, nor finger, and will even lose the faculty of speech at an instant's notice; or, on the other hand, he will become alllife and animation if required, pouring forth a torrent of words without sense or meaning, throwing himself into the wildest and most fantastic contortions, and even grovelling on the earth and licking up the dust. These exhibitions are more curious than pleasing; indeed they are rather disgusting than otherwise, except to the admirers of such things, with whom we confess we have no fellow-feeling.
Strange tricks—very strange tricks—are also performed by the harlequin who holds for the time being, the magic wand which we have just mentioned. The mere waving it before a man's eyes will dispossess his brain of all the notions previously stored there, and fill it with an entirely new set of ideas; one gentle tap on the back will alter the colour of a man's coat completely; and there are some expert performers, who, having this wand held first on one side, and then on the other, will change from side to side, turning their coats at every evolution, with so much rapidity and dexterity, that the quickest eye can scarcely detect their motions. Occasionally, the genius who confers the wand, wrests it from the hand of the temporary possessor, and consigns it to some new performer; on which occasions all the characters change sides, and then the race and the hard knocks begin anew.
We might have extended this chapter to a much greater length—we might have carried the comparison into the liberal professions—we might have shown, as was in fact our original purpose, that each is in itself a little pantomime with scenes and characters of its own, complete; but, as we fear we have been quite lengthy enough already, we shall leave this chapter just where it is. A gentleman, not altogether unknown as a dramatic poet, wrote thus a year or two ago—
"All the World's a stage,And all the men and women merely players;"
"All the World's a stage,And all the men and women merely players;"
and we, tracking out his footsteps at the scarcely-worth-mentioning little distance of a few millions of leagues behind, venture to add, by way of new reading, that he meant a Pantomime, and that we are all actors in The Pantomime of Life.
Who thedickens"Boz" could bePuzzled many a learned elf;Till time unveil'd the mystery,AndBozappear'd asDickens'self!C. J. Davids.
Who thedickens"Boz" could bePuzzled many a learned elf;Till time unveil'd the mystery,AndBozappear'd asDickens'self!C. J. Davids.
Few writers obtained a larger share of notoriety during their lifetime than Samuel Foote. If the interest which he excited was not very profound, it was at any rate very generally diffused throughout the community. His witty sayings were in every one's mouth; his plays were the rage of the day; he was the constant guest of royalty, the Dukes of York and Cumberland being among his staunchest friends and patrons; and the "Sir Oracle" of all thebons vivantsand would-be wits of the metropolis. Take up any light memoir of those days, and you shall scarcely find one that does not bear testimony to the powers of this incomparable humourist. Yet, what is he now? A name,—perhaps a great one,—but little more. His plays are seldom acted, though the best Major Sturgeon and Jerry Sneak that the stage ever had are still among us; and as seldom perused in the closet, or assuredly they would have been republished oftener than has been the case of late years.
We are induced, therefore, to give a brief memoir of our English Aristophanes, accompanied by as brief a criticism on his genius, such a task falling naturally, indeed almost necessarily, within the scope of our Miscellany. But enough of preface: "now to business," as Foote's own Vamp would say.
Samuel Foote was born at Truro in the year 1720. His family was of credible extraction, his father being a gentleman of some repute in Cornwall as receiver of fines for the duchy; and his mother, the daughter of Sir Edward Goodere, Bart. M.P. for Herefordshire. From this lady, whom he closely resembled in appearance and manner, he is supposed to have inherited that turn for "merry malice" for which he was famous above all his contemporaries. Mr. Cooke, in his notices of Foote, describes his mother as having been "the very model of her son Samuel,—short, fat, and flabby," and nearly equally remarkable for the broad humour of her conversation.
At an early age, young Foote was despatched to a school at Worcester, where he soon became notorious for his practical jokes and inveterate propensity to caricature. He was the leader in all the rebellions of the boys, and perpetrated much small mischief on his own private account. Among other of his freaks, it is stated that he was in the habit of anointing his master's lips with ink while he slept in the chair of authority, and then bewildering and overwhelming the good man with a host of grave apologies. Yet, with all this, he was attentive to his studies, reading hard by fits and starts; and left Worcester with the reputation of being that very ambiguous character—a "lad of parts."
Samuel Foote
SAMUEL FOOTE
At the usual period of life, Foote was entered of Worcester College, Oxford, where, as at school, his favourite amusement consisted in quizzing the authorities,—more especially the provost, who was a grave, pedantic scholar, of a vinegar turn of temperament. The following hoax is recorded as having been played off by him in his Freshman's year. In one of the villages near Oxford there was a church that stood close by a shady lane, through which cattle were in the habit of being driven to and fro from grass. From the steeple or belfry of this church dangled a rope, probably for the convenience of the ringers, which overhung the porch, and descended to within a few feet of the ground. Foote, who chanced to see it in the course of one of his rambles, resolved to make it the subject of a practical joke; and accordingly, one night, just as the cattle were passing down the lane, tied a wisp of fresh hay tightly about the rope by way of bait. The scheme succeeded to a miracle. One of the cows, as she passed the church-porch, attracted by the fragrant smell of the fodder, stopped to nibble at, and tear it away from the rope; and by so doing set the bell tolling, infinitely to the astonishment and perplexity of the village authorities, who did not detect the hoax, which was repeated more than once, till the circumstance had become the talk of the neighbourhood for miles round. We do not vouch for the authenticity of this anecdote, though more than one biographer has alluded to it; but, as it is highly characteristic of Foote, we think it not unlikely to be true.
On quitting the university, Foote returned for a few months to his father's house at Truro, at which period it was that a frightful tragedy occurred in his family, which he seldom spoke of afterwards, and never without the deepest emotion. We allude to the murder of his uncle Sir John Goodere, by the baronet's brother Captain Goodere, which took place about the year 1740. The parties had been dining together at a friend's house near Bristol; apparently a reconciliation—for they had been for some time on bad terms with each other, owing to certain money transactions—had been agreed to between them; but, on his return home, Sir John was waylaid, by his brother's orders, by the crew of his vessel, which lay at anchor in the roads; carried on board, and there strangled; the assassin looking on the while, and actually furnishing the rope by which the murder was perpetrated. For this atrocious deed, the Captain and his confederates, who, it appears, made no attempt at concealment, were tried at the Bristol assizes, found guilty, and hanged.
But the strangest part of this strange story remains to be told. On the night the murder was committed, Foote arrived at his father's house at Truro, and describes himself as having been kept awake for some time by the softest and sweetest strains of music he had ever heard. At first he imagined that it was a serenade got up by some of the family, by way of a welcome home; but, on looking out of his windows, could see no trace of the musicians, so was compelled to come to the conclusion that the sounds were the mere offspring of his imagination. When, however, he learned shortly afterwards that the catastrophe to which we have alluded, had occurred on the same night, and at the same hour when he had been greeted by the mysterious melody, he became, says one of his biographers, persuaded that it was a supernatural warning, and retained this impression to the last moment of his existence. Yet the man who was thus strongly susceptible of superstitious influences, and who could mistake a singing in the head, occasioned possibly by convivial indulgence, for a hint direct from heaven, was the same who overwhelmed Johnson with ridicule for believing in the Cock-lane ghost!
At the age of twenty-two, shortly after he had quitted Oxford, Foote entered the Temple; rented an expensive set of chambers; sported a dashing equipage; gave constant convivial parties; gambled—betted—aped the man of fashion and of title—in a word, distinguished himself as one of the most exquisite fops about town. Inthose days the fop was quite a different sort of person from what he is now. He was a wit, and very frequently a scholar; whereas he is now, in the majority of instances,—to quote Swift's pungent sarcasm,—"a mere peg whereon to hang a trim suit of clothes." The last legitimate fop, or dandy, vanished from the scene of gay life with Brummell. He was theUltimus Romanorum.
One of Foote's most frequent places of resort was the Bedford Coffee-house, then the favourite lounge of all the aspiring wits of the day. Here Fielding, Beauclerk, Bonnell Thornton, and a host of kindred spirits, used to lay down the law to their consenting audience; and here too many of those verdicts issued which stamped the character of the "last new piece." Such desultory habits of life—to say nothing of his inveterate propensity to gambling—soon dissipated the handsome fortune which Foote had acquired by his father's death; and, at the end of three years, he was compelled to quit the law, and resort to some other means of gaining a livelihood.
From a young and enthusiastic amateur of the stage to a performer on its boards, is no unnatural transition; and we find Foote, somewhere about the year 1743, associated with his friend Macklin in the management of a wooden theatre in the Haymarket. Having a lofty notion of his tragic capabilities, he made hisdebutin the character of Othello; and, like Mathews, Liston, and Keeley, who began their theatrical career in the same mistaken spirit, convulsed the audience with the grotesque extravagance of his passion, and the irresistible drollery of his pathos. Finding therefore that his forte did not lie in tragedy, he next had recourse to comedy, and made a tolerable hit at Drury-lane in the parts of Sir Paul Pliant, Bayes, and Fondlewife. We have seen a portrait of him in this last character,—one of Congreve's earliest and raciest,—and, if it be at all like him, we do not wonder at his success, for his countenance is replete with the true sly, oily, hypocritical expression.
In the ear 1747, Foote produced his first piece at the Haymarket, in which he mimicked the peculiarities of several well-known actors, and, among others, Macklin. The play was successful; but its performance having been interdicted by the Westminster magistrates, Foote brought it out in a new form, under the title of "Diversions of the Morning," and issued cards of invitation to the public, requesting the honour of their company to a tea-party (at playhouse prices) at the Haymarket. The experiment was a decided hit, and was followed up next season by an "Auction of Pictures," in which the author lashed with pitiless ridicule the Virtuoso follies of the day.
Foote was now once again in possession of a handsome competency, for, in addition to the money made by his labours as an author and an actor, an unexpected legacy was left him by some branch of his mother's family. Intoxicated by his good fortune, and unwarned by experience, he resumed his old habits of extravagance; but, finding that his funds did not disappear fast enough, he accelerated their diminution by a trip to Paris, where he remained two or three years, and did not return home until he found himself, as before, reduced to his last shilling.
Immediately on his arrival in London, Foote renewed his engagement at Drury-lane, and performed the principal character in his own play of "The Knights;" but this proving less attractive thanthe two former ones, he abruptly quitted town, and crossed the channel to Dublin, where, in the year 1760, he brought out at the Crowstreet theatre his celebrated comedy, "The Minor." This, which was then a mere crude sketch in two acts, was unequivocally damned; but the circumstance, so far from depressing the author's spirits, only stimulated him to fresh exertions, and after mercifully revising the play, and adding a third act, he produced it at the Haymarket. His industry did not go unrewarded. The success of the comedy equalled his most sanguine expectations, being played without intermission throughout the season, to houses crammed to the very ceiling.
It is a singular fact connected with this piquant play, that its author, doubtful of its reception, sent it in MS. to the Archbishop of Canterbury, with a request that, if he found any objectionable passages, he would do him the favour to expunge them. Of course, his Grace declined all interference with such a heterodox production, observing to a friend, that if he had made the slightest alteration, the wag might possibly have published it, as "corrected and prepared for the press by the Archbishop of Canterbury!" This is as good a story as that told of Shelley, who is said to have sent a copy of his "Queen Mab" to each of the twenty-four bishops. The part which Foote played in the "Minor" was that of the notorious Mother Cole; and the Parson Squintem, to whom this exemplary specimen of womankind—as Jonathan Oldbuck would say—makes such repeated allusions, is supposed to have been the celebrated Whitfield.
"The Minor" was followed in 1762 by "The Liar," which was brought out at Covent Garden. This drama, the idea of which is borrowed from the "Menteur" of Corneille, brought full houses for the season; and was succeeded in the same year by the "Orators,"—an amusing play, but by no means one of its author's best,—in which he ridiculed Falkner, the printer of the Dublin Journal, and for which he got entangled in a tedious law-suit that was not compromised without difficulty. About this time, too, Foote, according to Boswell, announced his intention of bringing Dr. Johnson on the stage; but the threat of a public chastisement, with which "Surly Sam" threatened him, induced him to abandon his intention. "What is the price of a good thick stick?" said the Doctor on this remarkable occasion. "A shilling," replied the individual to whom he put the question. "Then go, and buy me a half-crown one; for if that rascal, Foote, persists in his attempt to mimic me, I will step from the boxes, thrash him publicly before the audience, and then make them a speech in justification of my conduct." It is almost to be regretted that the satirist gave up his design, for a capital Philippic has been thereby lost to the world.
From this period Foote chiefly confined himself to the Haymarket, where appeared in succession his "Mayor of Garratt," "Patron," and "Commissary." The first, which was founded on the whimsical custom, now discontinued, of choosing a mock M.P. for the village of Garratt in Surrey, is a laughable hit at the warlike propensities of cockney volunteers. After some years' neglect, it was revived with success during the height of the anti-Jacobin phrensy, when Major Sturgeons again sprung up as plentiful as mushrooms,—when every tailor strutted a hero, and every Alderman felt himself a William Tell.
Foote was now afloat on the full tide of prosperity, drawing crowded houses whenever he performed; patronised by the nobility, at whose tables he was a sort of privileged guest; and everywhere acknowledged as the great lion of the day. In the year 1766, when on a visit with the Duke of York at Lord Mexborough's, he had the misfortune to break his leg by a fall from his horse in hunting. A silly peer condoling with him shortly afterwards on this accident, the wag replied, "Pray, my lord, do not allude to my weak point, I have not alluded to yours," at the same time pointing significantly to the nobleman's head.
By this misfortune Foote was withdrawn some months from his profession, but on his recovery he purchased the Haymarket, and opened it with an extravaganza entitled "The Tailors, or a Tragedy for Warm Weather." The next year appeared his "Devil on Two Sticks," the machinery of which is derived from the "Diable Boiteux" of Le Sage. This play, which was a severe satire on those medical quacks who then, as now, infested the metropolis, was so popular, that its author cleared upwards of three thousand pounds by it, but, a few weeks after, lost it all by gambling at Bath.
Foote's next production was the "Maid of Bath", which was performed in the year 1771. The principal characters in this comedy—Flint, the avaricious old bachelor, and Miss Linnet, the vocalist to whom he is represented as paying his addresses,—were portraits from life; the former having been intended for Walter Long, a rich Somersetshire squire, who died in 1807 at the age of ninety-five, leaving property to the amount of a quarter of a million sterling to Miss Tilney Long, who married the present Mr. Wellesley; and the latter for the beautiful Miss Linley, afterwards Mrs. Sheridan. The "Maid of Bath" is a lively play, containing one or two terse, brilliant witticisms worthy of Congreve; such, for instance as the definition of marriage,—that it is like "bobbing for a single eel in a barrel of snakes." Its best-sustained character is that of Flint; in sketching which, Foote had evidently in view the Athenian miser alluded to by Horace, for he makes him say, "Ay, you may rail, and the people may hiss; but what care I? I have that at home which will keep up my spirits,"—which is a manifest paraphrase from
——"Populus me sibilat; at mihi plaudoIpse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arcâ."
——"Populus me sibilat; at mihi plaudoIpse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arcâ."
This comedy is further deserving of notice, as showing the exquisite tact and readiness with which Foote availed himself of the floating topics of the day. At the time it appeared, the town was greatly diverted by a squabble between Wilkes and the notorious political parson John Horne, afterwards Horne Tooke, the latter of whom accused the former of having sold some rich court-dresses which he had entrusted to his care at Paris. In allusion to this amusing quarrel, Flint says, speaking of the clergyman whom he has engaged to marry him to Miss Linnet, "You have seen friend Button, the Minister that has come down to tack us together; he don't care much to meddle with the pulpit, but he is a prodigious patriot, and a great politician to boot; and, moreover, he has left behind him at Paris a choice collection of curious rich clothes, which he has promised to sell me cheap."
The "Maid of Bath" was followed by the "Nabob" and the "Bankrupt," the first of which was an effective attack on the habitsof many of those old curmudgeons who, about the middle of the last century—the period of Anglo-Indian prosperity—returned with dried livers from the East, rich as Chartres, and equally profligate; and the last, on the crazy commercial speculations of the day. The sketch of Sir Robert Riscounter in the "Bankrupt" is supposed to have been meant for the well-known Sir George Fordyce, who failed, in the year 1772, for an almost unparalleled amount. Of these two plays, the "Nabob" is the most carefully finished; but its breadth and grossness must ever prevent its revival.
In 1774 came out the "Cozeners," a pungent satire on the venal politicians of the day. The corruption which had been sanctioned and made systematic by Walpole and the Pelhams, was then in the full vigour of its rank luxuriance; every man had his price; never therefore was satire better applied than this of Foote's. The "Mrs. Fleec'em" of the "Cozeners," a lady of accommodating virtue, and somewhat relaxed in her notions ofmeumandtuum, was intended for the notorious Mrs. Catherine Rudd, who, after inducing the two brothers (Perreau) to commit forgery, gave evidence against them, on the strength of which they were hanged. Yet this creature, tainted as she was with the foulest moral leprosy, was admitted into the best society, and died at a good old age with the character of a discreet, respectable matron!
We come now to Foote's last production. In the year 1775, the famous Duchess of Kingston was tried before the House of Lords for bigamy, and found guilty. Her case excited extraordinary interest throughout the country; availing himself of which, Foote introduced her in the "Trip to Calais" under the character of Lady Kitty Crocodile, which coming to her Grace's ears, she procured its prohibition by the Lord Chamberlain, and, not content with this measure of retaliation, got up through her minions of the press, of whom she had numbers in her pay, a charge against Foote of a most odious complexion,—so odious, indeed, that he had no alternative but to demand an instant public trial, which ended, as might have been anticipated, in his triumphant acquittal. But this result, satisfactory as it was, had no power to restore him to his wonted peace of mind. The dagger had struck home to the heart. His friends, too, for the first time, began to look coolly on him; the anonymous agents of the Duchess still pursued him with unrelenting acrimony; many of those whose follies and crimes he had lashed, but who had feared to retort in his hour of pride, swelled the clamour against him; and he found himself, in the decline of health and manhood, becoming just as unpopular as he once was the reverse. In vain he endeavoured to rally and make head against this combination; his moral fortitude wholly deserted him; and after performing a few times, after his trial, at the Haymarket, but with none of his former vivacity, he was seized with a sudden paralytic affection, and bade adieu to the stage for ever.
About six months subsequent to his retirement, he was attacked by a complaint which ultimately terminated his life; and, by his physician's order, quitted London for the Continent, with a view to pass the winter at Paris. But his constitution was too much shattered to admit of the fatigue of such a journey, and he was compelled to halt at Dover, where, on the morning after his arrival, a violent shivering fit came over him while seated at the breakfast table, which in a fewhours put an end to his existence. No sooner was his death known in the metropolis, than a re-action commenced in his favour. It was then discovered that, with all his errors, he had been "more sinned against than sinning;" and some of his friends even went the length of proposing the erection of a monument to his memory! Just in the same way, a few years later, was Burns treated by the world. He, too, was alternately caressed and vilified; and finally hurried to a premature grave, the victim of a broken heart. But this is the penalty that superior genius must ever be prepared to pay. It walks alone along a dizzy, dangerous height, the observed of all eyes; while gregarious common-place treads, secure and unnoticed, along the tame, flat "Bedford level" of ordinary life!
Having closed our brief memoir of Foote, it remains to say a few words of his literary peculiarities. His humour was decidedly Aristophanic; that is to say, broad, easy, reckless, satirical, without the slightest alloy ofbonhommie, and full of the directest personalities. There is no playfulness or good-nature in his comedies. You laugh, it is true, at his portraits, but at the same time you hold them in contempt; for there is nothing redeeming in their eccentricities; nothing for your esteem and admiration to lay hold of. We cannot gather from his writings, as we can from every page of Goldsmith, that Foote possessed the slightest sympathies with humanity. He seems everywhere to hold it at arm's length, as worthy of nought but the must supercilious treatment; which accounts for, and to a certain extent justifies, the treatment he received from the world in his latter days. Foote could never have drawn a "Good-natured Man," or even a "Dennis Brulgruddery;" for, though he may have possessed the head to do so, yet he lacked the requisite sensibility. So greatly deficient is he in this respect, that, whenever he attempts to put forth a refined or generous sentiment, he almost always overdoes it, and degenerates into cant. Yet his characters—with the exception of his virtuous and moral ones, which are the most insipid in the world—are admirably drawn, are sustained with unflagging spirit, and evince a wide range of observation which, however, rarely pierces beyond the surface.
As works of art, Foote's dramas are by no means of first-rate excellence. They show no fancy, no invention, no ingenuity in constructing, or tact in developing plot; but are merely a collection of scenes and incidents huddled confusedly together for the purpose of drawing out the peculiarities of some two or three pet characters. The best thing we can say of them is, that they exhibit everywhere the keenness, the readiness, the self-possession, of the disciplined man of the world, combined with a pungent malicious humour that reminds us of a Mephistopheles in his merriest mood. It must also be urged in their favour, that they are, in every sense of the word, original. Foote copied no model, but painted direct from the life. He took no hints from others, but gave his own fresh impressions of character. He did not draw on his fancy, like Congreve, or study to make points like Sheridan, but availed himself hastily of such materials as came readiest to hand. The very extravagances of his early life were in his favour, by bringing him in contact with those marked, out-of-the-way characters, who, like Arabs, hang loose on the skirts of society, and constitute the quintessence of comedy. Thus his inveterate love of gambling furnished him with his masterly sketch of Dick Loader; and his long-continued residence at Paris—into whose various dissipations he entered with all the zeal of a devotee—with his successful hits at the absurdities of our travelled fops.
Foote's three best plays are his "Minor," his "Liar," and his "Mayor of Garratt." Perhaps the last is his masterpiece; for it is alive and bustling throughout, is finished with more than the author's ordinary care, and contains two characters penned in his truestcon amorespirit. Jerry Sneak and Major Sturgeon are, in their line, the two most perfect delineations of which the minor British drama can boast. There is no mistaking their identity. They speak the genuine, unadulterated vulgar tongue of the City. Their sentiments are cockney; their meanness and their bluster, their pompous self-conceit and abject humility, are cockney; they are cockney all over from the crown of the head to the sole of the shoe. What a rich set-off to the "marchings and counter-marchings" of the one, is the other's recital of his domestic grievances! Jerry's complaint that his wife only allows him "two shillings for pocket-money," and helps him to "all the cold vittles at table," is absolutely pathetic, if—as Hazlitt observes—"the last stage of human imbecility can be called so." While Bow bells ring, and St. Paul's church overlooks Cheapside, Foote's cockneys shall endure. Nevertheless, while we acknowledge their excellence, we entertain the most intense contempt for them, and feel the strongest possible inclination to fling the Major into a horse-pond, and smother Jerry Sneak in a basin of water-gruel.
Foote's conversational abilities were, if possible, superior to his literary ones. For men of the world, in particular, they must have had an inexpressible charm. There is no wit on record who has said so many good things, or with such perfect ease and readiness. Foote never laid a pun-trap to catch the unwary. He had humour at will, and had no need to resort to artifice. His mind was well, but not abundantly stored; and he had the tact to make his knowledge appear greater than it really was. The most sterling testimony that has been borne to his colloquial powers, is that furnished by Dr. Johnson, who says, "The first time I was in company with Foote, was at Fitzherbert's. Having no good opinion of the fellow, I was resolved not to be pleased; and it is very difficult to please a man against his will. I went on eating my dinner pretty sullenly, affecting not to mind him; but the dog was so very comical, that I was obliged to lay down my knife and fork, and fairly laugh it out. Sir, he was irresistible." Foote's favourite butt was Garrick, whose thrifty habits he was constantly turning into ridicule. Being one day in company with him, when after satirizing some individual, David had wound up his attack by saying, "Well, well, perhaps before I condemn another, I should pull thebeamout of my own eye," Foote replied. "And so you would, if you couldsell the timber." On another occasion, when they were dining together, Garrick happened to let a guinea drop on the floor. "Where has it gone to?" asked Foote, looking about for it. "Oh, to the devil, I suppose," was the reply. "Ah, David," rejoined his tormentor, "you can always contrive to make a guinea go farther than any one else."
Such was Samuel Foote,—the wit, the satirist, the humourist—whose life inculcates this wholesome truth, that those who set themselves up, with no superior moral qualifications to recommend them, to ridicule the follies and lash the vices of the age, but "sow the wind, to reap the whirlwind!"
In all countries and all languages we have the story ofIl Bondocani. May I tell one from Ireland?
It is now almost a hundred years ago—certainly eighty—since Tom—I declare to Mnemosyne I forget what his surname was, if I ever knew it, which I doubt,—It is at least eighty years since Tom emerged from his master's kitchen in Clonmell, to make his way on a visit to foreign countries.
If I can well recollect dates, this event must have occurred at the end of the days of George the Second, or very close after the accession of George the Third, because in the course of the narrative it will be disclosed that the tale runs of a Jacobite lord living quietly in Ireland, and that I think must have been some time between 1740 and 1760,—or say 65. Just before the year of the young Pretender's burst, a sharp eye used to be kept upon the "honest men" in all the three kingdoms; and in Ireland, from the peculiar power which the surveillance attendant on the penal laws gave the government, this sharp eye could not be surpassed in sharpness,—that is to say, if it did not choose to wink. Truth, nevertheless, makes us acknowledge that the authorities of Ireland were ever inclined at the bottom of their hearts to countenance lawlessness, if at all recommended by anything like a noble or a romantic name. And no name could be more renowned or more romantic than that of Ormond.
It is to be found in all our histories well recorded. What are the lines of Dryden?—and Dryden was a man who knew how to make verses worth reading.
And the rebel rose stuck to the house of Ormond for many a day;—but it is useless to say more. Even I who would sing "Lilla bullalero bullen a la,"—if I could, only I can't sing,—and who give "The glorious, pious, and immortal memory," because I can toast,—even I do not think wrong of the house of Ormond for sticking as it did to the house of Stuart. Of that too I have a long story to tell some time or another.
Never mind. I was mentioning all this, because I have not a 'Peerage' by me; and I really do not know who was the Lord Ormond of the day which I take to be the epoch of my tale. If I had a 'Peerage,' I am sure I could settle it in a minute; but I have none. Those, therefore, who are most interested in the affair ought to examine a 'Peerage,' to find who was the man of the time;—I can only help them by a hint. My own particular and personal reason for recollecting the matter is this: I am forty, or more—never mind the quantity more; and I was told the story by my uncle at least five-and-twenty years ago. That brings us to the year 1812,—say 1811. My uncle—his name was Jack—told me that he had heard the story from Tom himself fifty years before that. If my uncle Jack, who was a very good fellow, considerably given to potation, was precise in his computation of time, the date of his story must have fallen in 1762—or 1763—no matter which. This brings me near the date I have already assigned; but the reader of my essay hasbefore him the grounds of my chronological conjectures, and he can form his opinions ondataas sufficiently as myself.
I recur fearlessly to the fact that Tom—whatever his surname may have been—emerged from the kitchen of his master in Clonmell, to make his way to foreign countries.
His master was a very honest fellow—a schoolmaster of the name of Chaytor, a Quaker, round of paunch and red of nose. I believe that some of his progeny are now men of office in Tipperary—and why should they not? Summer school-vacations in Ireland occur in July; and Chaytor—by the bye, I think he wasTomChaytor, but if Quakers have Christian names I am not sure,—gave leave to his man Tom to go wandering about the country. He had four, or perhaps five, days to himself.
Tom, as he was described to me by my uncle over a jug of punch about a quarter of a century ago, was what in his memory must have been a smart-built fellow. Clean of limb, active of hand, light of leg, clear of eye, bright of hair, white of tooth, and two-and-twenty; in short, he was as handsome a lad as you would wish to look upon in a summer's day. I mention a summer's day merely for its length; for even on a winter's day there were few girls that could cast an eye upon him without forgetting the frost.
So he started for the land of Kilkenny, which is what we used to call in Ireland twenty-four miles from Clonmell. They have stretched it now to thirty; but I do not find it the longer or shorter in walking or chalking. However, why should we gamble at an act of "justice to Ireland?" Tom at all events cared little for the distance; and, going it at a slapping pace, he made Kilkenny in six hours. I pass the itinerary. He started at six in the morning, and arrived somewhat foot-worn, but full not only of bread, but of wine, (for wine was to be found on country road-sides in Ireland in those days,) in the ancient city of Saint Canice about noon.
Tom refreshed himself at the Feathers, kept in those days by a man named Jerry Mulvany, who was supposed to be more nearly connected with the family of Ormond than the rites of the church could allow; and having swallowed as much of the substantial food and the pestiferous fluid that mine host of the Feathers tendered him, the spirit of inquisitiveness, which, according to the phrenologists, is developed in all mankind, seized paramount hold of Tom. Tom—? ay, Tom it must be, for I really cannot recollect his other name.
If there be a guide-book to the curiosities of Kilkenny, the work has escaped my researches. Of the city it is recorded, however, that it can boast of fire without smoke, air without fog, and streets paved with marble. And there's the college, and the bridge, and the ruins of St. John's abbey, and St. Canice, and the Nore itself, and last, not least, the castle of the Ormonds, with its woods and its walks, and its stables and its gallery, and all the rest of it, predominating over the river. It is a very fine-looking thing indeed; and, if I mistake not, John Wilson Croker, in his youth, wrote a poem to its honour, beginning with
"High on the sounding banks of Nore,"
every verse of which ended with "The castle," in the manner of Cowper's "My Mary," or Ben Jonson's "Tom Tosspot." If I had thepoem, I should publish it here with the greatest pleasure; but I have it not. I forget where I saw it, but I think it was in a Dublin magazine of a good many years ago, when I was a junior sophister of T. C. D.
Let the reader, then, in the absence of this document, imagine that the poem was infinitely fine, and that the subject was worthy of the muse. As the castle is the most particular lion of the city, it of course speedily attracted the attention of Tom, who, swaggering in all the independence of an emancipated footman up the street, soon found himself at the gate. "Rearing himself thereat," as the old ballad has it, stood a man basking in the sun. He was somewhat declining towards what they call the vale of years in the language of poetry; but by the twinkle of his eye, and the purple rotundity of his cheek, it was evident that the years of the valley, like the lads of the valley, had gone cheerily-o! The sun shone brightly upon his silver locks, escaping from under a somewhat tarnished cocked-hat guarded with gold lace, the gilding of which had much deteriorated since it departed from the shop of the artificer; and upon a scarlet waistcoat, velvet certainly, but of reduced condition, and in the same situation as to gilding as the hat. His plum-coloured breeches were unbuckled at the knee, and his ungartered stockings were on a downward progress towards his unbuckled shoes. He had his hands—their wrists were garnished with unwashed ruffles—in his breeches pockets; and he diverted himself with whistling "Charley over the water," in a state ofquasi-ruminant quiescence. Nothing could be plainer than that he was a hanger-on of the castle off duty, waiting his time until called for, when of course he was to appear before his master in a more carefully arranged costume.
Ormond Castle was then, as I believe it is now, a show-house, and the visitors of Kilkenny found little difficulty in the admission; but, as in those days purposes of political intrusion might be suspected, some shadow at least of introduction was considered necessary. Tom, reared in the household of a schoolmaster, where the despotic authority of the chief extends a flavour of its quality to all his ministers, exhilarated by the walk, and cheered by the eatables and drinkables which he had swallowed, felt that there was no necessity for consulting any of the usual points of etiquette, if indeed he knew that any such things were in existence.
"I say," said he, "old chap! is this castle to be seen? I'm told it's a show; and if it is, let's have a look at it."
"It is to be seen," replied the person addressed, "if you are properly introduced."
"That's all hum!" said Tom. "I know enough of the world, though I've lived all my life in Clonmell, to know that a proper introduction signifies a tester. Come, my old snouty, I'll stand all that's right if you show me over it. Can you do it?"
"Why," said his new friend, "I think I can; because, in fact, I am——"
"Something about the house, I suppose. Well, though you've on a laced jacket, and I only a plain frieze coat, we are both brothers of the shoulder-knot. I tell you who I am. Did you ever hear of Chaytor the Quaker, the schoolmaster of Clonmell?"
"Never."
"Well, he's a decent sort of fellow in thepropria quæ maribusline, and gives as good a buttock of beef to anybody that gets over the threshold of his door as you'd wish to meet; and I am his man,—his valley de sham, head gentleman——"
"Gentleman usher?"
"No, not usher," responded Tom indignantly: "I have nothing to do with ushers; they are scabby dogs of poor scholards, sizards, half-pays, and the like; and all the young gentlemen much prefer me:—but I am hisfiddleus Achates, as master Jack Toler calls me,—that's a purty pup who will make some fun some of these days,—his whacktotum, head-cook, and dairy-maid, slush, and butler. What are you here?"
"Why," replied the man at the gate, "I am a butler as well as you."
"Oh! then we're both butlers; and you could as well pass us in. By coarse, the butler must be a great fellow here; and I see you are rigged out in the cast clothes of my lord. Isn't that true?"
"True enough: he never gets a suit of clothes that it does not fall to my lot to wear it; but if you wish to see the castle, I think I can venture to show you all that it contains, even for the sake of our being two butlers."
It was not much sooner said than done. Tom accompanied his companion over the house and grounds, making sundry critical observations on all he saw therein,—on painting, architecture, gardening, the sublime and beautiful, the scientific and picturesque,—in a manner which I doubt not much resembled the average style of reviewing those matters in what we now call the best public instructors.
"Rum-looking old ruffians!" observed Tom, on casting his eyes along the gallery containing the portraitures of the Ormondes. "Look at that fellow there all battered up in iron; I wish to God I had as good a church as he would rob!"
"He was one of the old earls," replied his guide, "in the days of Henry the Eighth; and I believe he did help in robbing churches."
"I knew it by his look," said Tom; "and there's a chap there in a wilderness of a wig. Gad! he looks as if he was like to be hanged."
"He was so," said the cicerone; "for a gentleman of the name of Blood was about to pay him that compliment at Tyburn."
"Serve him right," observed Tom; "and this fellow with the short stick in his hand;—what the deuce is the meaning of that?—was he a constable?"
"No," said his friend, "he was a marshal; but he had much to do with keeping out of the way of constables for some years. Did you ever hear of Dean Swift?"
"Did I ever hear of the Dane? Why, my master has twenty books of his that he's always reading, and he calls him Old Copper-farthing; and the young gentlemen are quite wild to read them. I read some of them wance (once); but they were all lies, about fairies and giants. Howsoever, they say the Dane was a larned man."
"Well, he was a great friend of that man with the short stick in his hand."
"By dad!" said Tom, "few of the Dane's friends was friends to the Hanover succession; and I'd bet anything that that flourishing-looking lad there was a friend to the Pretender."
"It is likely that if you laid such a bet you would win it. He was a great friend also of Queen Anne. Have you ever heard of her?"
"Heard of Brandy Nan! To be sure I did—merry be the first of August! But what's the use of looking at those queer old fools?—I wonder who bothered themselves painting them?"
"I do not think you knew the people;—they were Vandyke, Lely, Kneller."
"I never heard of them in Clonmell," remarked Tom. "Have you anything to drink?"
"Plenty."
"But you won't get into a scrape? Honour above all; I'd not like to have you do it unless you were sure, for the glory of the cloth."
The pledge of security being solemnly offered, Tom followed his companion through the intricate passages of the castle until he came into a small apartment, where he found a most plentiful repast before him. He had not failed to observe, that, as he was guided through the house, their path had been wholly uncrossed, for, if anybody accidentally appeared, he hastily withdrew. One person only was detained for a moment, and to him the butler spoke a few words in some unknown tongue, which Tom of course set down as part of the Jacobite treason pervading every part of the castle.
"Gad!" said he, while beginning to lay into the round of beef, "I am half inclined to think that the jabber you talked just now to the powder-monkey we met in that corridor was not treason, but beef and mustard: an't I right?"
"Quite so."
"Fall to, then, yourself. By Gad! you appear to have those lads under your thumb—for this is great eating. I suppose you often rob my lord?—speak plain, for I myself rob ould Chaytor the schoolmaster; but there's a long difference between robbing a schoolmaster and robbing a lord. I venture to say many a pound of his you have made away with."
"A great many indeed. I am ashamed to say it, that for one pound he has lost by anybody else, he has lost a hundred by me."
"Ashamed, indeed! This is beautiful beef. But let us wash it down. By the powers! is it champagne you are giving me? Well, I never drank but one glass of it in my life, and that was from a bottle that I stole out of a dozen which the master had when he was giving a great dinner to the fathers of the boys just before the Christmas holidays the year before last. My service to you. By Gor! if you do not break the Ormonds, I can't tell who should."
"Nor I. Finish your champagne. What else will you have to drink?"
"Have you the run of the cellar?"
"Certainly."
"Why, then, claret is genteel; but the little I drank of it was mortal cold. Could you find us a glass of brandy?"
"Of course:" and on the sounding of a bell there appeared the same valet who had been addressed in the corridor; and in the same language some intimation was communicated, which in a few moments produced a bottle of Nantz, rare and particular, placed beforeTom with all the emollient appliances necessary for turning it into punch.
"By all that's bad," said the Clonmellian butler, "but ye keep these fellows to their knitting. This is indeed capital stuff. Make for yourself. When you come to Clonmell, ask for me—Tom—at old Chaytor's, the Quaker schoolmaster, a few doors from the Globe. This lord of yours, I am told, is a bloody Jacobite: here's the Hanover succession! but we must not drink that here, for perhaps the old fellow himself might hear us."
"Nothing is more probable."
"Well, then, mum's the word. I'm told he puts white roses in his dog's ears, and drinks a certain person over the water on the tenth of June; but, no matter, this is his house, and you and I are drinking his drink,—so, why should we wish him bad luck? If he was hanged, of course I'd go to see him, to be sure; would not you?"
"I should certainly be there."
By this time Tom was subdued by the champagne and the brandy, to say nothing of the hot weather; and the spirit of hospitality rose strong upon the spirit of cognac. His new friend gently hinted that a retreat to hisgîteat the Feathers would be prudent; but to such a step Tom would by no means consent unless the butler of the castle accompanied him to take a parting bowl. With some reluctance the wish was complied with, and both the butlers sallied forth on their way through the principal streets of Kilkenny, just as the evening was beginning to assume somewhat of a dusky hue. Tom had, in the course of the three or four hours passed with his new friend, informed him of all the private history of the house of Ormond, with that same regard to veracity which in general characterises the accounts of the births, lives, and educations of persons of the higher classes, to be found in fashionable novels and other works drawn from the communications of such authorities as our friend Tom; and his companion offered as much commentary as is usually done on similar occasions. Proceeding in a twirling motion along, he could not but observe that the principal persons whom they met bowed most respectfully to the gentleman from the castle; and, on being assured that this token of deference was paid because they were tradesmen of the castle, who were indebted to the butler for his good word in their business, Tom's appreciation of his friend's abilities in the art of "improving" his situation was considerably enhanced. He calculated that if they made money by the butler, the butler made money by them; and he determined that on his return to Clonmell he too would find tradesfolks ready to take hats off to him in the ratio of pedagogue to peer.
The Kilkenny man steadied the Clonmell man to the Feathers, where the latter most potentially ordered a bowl of the best punch. The slipshod waiter stared; but a look from Tom's friend was enough. They were ushered into the best apartment of the house,—Tom remarking that it was a different room from that which he occupied on his arrival; and in a few minutes the master of the house, Mr. Mulvany, in his best array, made his appearance with a pair of wax candles in his hands. He bowed to the earth as he said,
"If I had expected you, my——"
"Leave the room," was the answer.
"Not before I order my bowl of punch," said Tom.
"Shall I, my——"
"Yes," said the person addressed; "whatever he likes."
"Well," said Tom, as Mulvany left the room, "if I ever saw anything to match that. Is he one of the tradespeople of the castle? This does bate everything. And, by dad, he's not unlike you in the face, neither! Och! then, what a story I'll have when I get back to Clonmell."
"Well, Tom," said his friend, "I may perhaps see you there; but good-b'ye for a moment. I assure you I have had much pleasure in your company."
"He's a queer fellow that," thought Tom, "and I hope he'll be soon back. It's a pleasant acquaintance I've made the first day I was in Kilkenny. Sit down, Mr. Mulvany," said he, as that functionary entered, bearing a bowl of punch, "and taste your brewing." To which invitation Mr. Mulvany acceded, nothing loth, but still casting an anxious eye towards the door.
"That's a mighty honest man," said Tom.
"I do not know what you mean," replied the cautious Mulvany; (for, "honest man" was in those days another word for Jacobite.)
"I mane what I say," said Tom; "he's just showed me over the castle, and gave me full and plenty of the best of eating and drinking. He tells me he's the butler."
"And so he is, you idiot of a man!" cried Mulvany. "He's the chief Butler of Ireland."
"What?" said Tom.
"Why, him that was with you just now is the Earl of Ormond."
My story is over—
"And James Fitzjames was Scotland's king."
All the potations pottle-deep, the road-side drinking, the champagne, the cognac, the punch of the Feathers, vanished at once from Tom's brain, to make room for the recollection of what he had been saying for the last three hours. Waiting for no further explanation, he threw up the window, (they were sitting on a ground-floor,) and, leaving Mr. Mulvany to finish the bowl as he pleased, proceeded at a hand-canter to Clonmell, not freed from the apparition of Lord Ormond before he had left Kilcash to his north; and nothing could ever again induce him to wander in the direction of Kilkenny, there to run the risk of meeting with his fellow-butler, until his lordship was so safely bestowed in the family vault as to render the chance of collision highly improbable. Such is myIl Bondocani.
T. C. D.