In addition to this, the mines which supplied the Roman world failed to a considerable extent under the emperors. "The poverty of Greece, as of the whole empire," says Finlay, "was further increasedby the gradual rise in the value of the precious metals; an evil which began to be generally felt about the time of Nero, and affected Greece with great severity, from the altered distribution of wealth in the country with which it was attended. Greece had once been rich in mines, which had been a source of wealth and prosperity to Siphnos and Atticus, and had laid the foundation of the power of Philip of Macedon. The fiscal measures of the Romans soon rendered it aruinous speculation for individuals to attempt working mines of the precious metals; and, in the hands of the state, they soon proved unprofitable. Many mines were exhausted; and eventhough the value of the precious metals was enhanced, some mines beyond the sphere of the Roman powerwere abandonedfrom those causes which, after the second century of the Christian era, produced a sensible diminution in the commercial transactions of the Old Hemisphere.[62]Greece shared in the general decay: her commerce and manufactures, being confined to supplying the consumption of a diminished and impoverished population, sunk into insignificancy.An accumulation of debts became general throughout the country, and formed an extensive evil, as already observed, in the time of Plutarch."[63]
As this great diminution on the supply, and drain upon the treasures of the precious metals in the time of the emperors, lowered the value of every species of produce, so it proportionally augmented debts, and swelled the already overgrown fortunes of the capitalists. What Finlay says of Greece was true of the whole European provinces of the empire:—"The property of the Grecian debtors was at last transferred to a very great extent to the Roman creditors."[64]The gradual diminution in the supply of, orabstraction of the precious metals, by contracting the currency, lowered prices, and thus diminished the returns of industry; while it proportionally augmented debts, and added to the fortunes of the great capitalists and landholders. This again produced another effect upon the manners of the inhabitants of the great cities, which had an equally powerful effect in increasing the drain upon that portion of the precious metals which was employed in the public currency. The rich patricians of Rome, Antioch, and Constantinople, possessed of colossal fortunes to which nothing in modern times will bear a comparison, and nursed in habits of luxury and expense beyond any thing we can even conceive, daily augmented the amount of their immense incomes, which was devoted to the purposes of extravagance. "The historians of the second and third centuries," says Finlay, "are filled with lamentations on this subject."[65]It is not surprising that it was so. Men possessed, in private stations, of as much as three or four hundred thousand pounds a-year of modern money, could not get through their incomes without indulging in the habitual purchase of the most costly articles. Society in this way had come to verify the saying of Bacon—"Above all things, good policy is to be used that the treasure and money in a statebe not gathered into few hands. For otherwise, a state mayhave a great stock and yet starve. And money is like muck, not good unless it be spread."
Hence the consumption and permanent fixing of gold and silver in the form of plate and costly ornaments, increased in the great families down to the very close of the empire; and while the currency was constantly declining, and prices in consequence falling in the provinces, the colossal capitalists of Rome and Constantinople were daily absorbing more of the precious metals in these beautiful but unproductive objects. The quantity of gold and silver moulded into the form of vases, statues, tripods, and personal ornaments, which was accumulated in Rome at the time it was taken by the Goths, would exceed belief if not attested by the unanimous testimony of all the contemporary writers. Great part of it was thrown into the Tiber, where it still remains covered by the alluvial deposits of fourteen centuries; the most precious of the spoils were buried with Alaric in the bed of a stream in Calabria, where that redoubtable conqueror was overtaken by the common fate of mortality. The place where he was interred was kept a profound secret, and the slaves who dug his grave in the bed of the river, of which the course had been turned aside for the purpose, were put to death, and buried with him and his treasures; and the river itself was immediately let into its old channel, that its ceaseless flow might secure, as it since has done, the grave of the mighty chief from disturbance, and enable him to present himself loaded with his earthly spoils in the land of spirits.[66]
The concurring operation of these causes produced, in the three last centuries of the Roman empire, a very great scarcity in the supply of the precious metals for the purposes of the public currency, and consequently a most distressing fall in prices, and diminution in the remuneration of industry, accompanied by a proportional increase in the weight of debt and taxes. And the progressive effect of these changes appeared in the clearest manner, in the repeated changes which were made by successive emperors in the value of the gold and silver coins which passed current in the empire. Gold became progressively so scarce in proportion to silver, that the proportion between the two, which at first had been 1 to 10 in the time of Augustus, rose in time to 1 to 12½, and was fixed by Constantine the Great at 1 to 14⅖ths.[67]In consequence of this rise in the value of gold—the precise counterpart of what was experienced in Great Britain in the later years of the war, when alightguinea sold for 25s.—the quantity of gold in theaureus, or chief goldRoman coin, was progressively diminished, till it came to contain little more thanhalfits former weight of that precious metal. The learned Greaves has shown, after diligent inquiry, that while in the time of the Antonines theaureusweighed 118, in the time of Majorian, in the fifth century, it had come to weigh only 68 grains.[68]This is a clear indication, that 68 grains of gold were now equal in value to what 118 grains had been three centuries before; for Majorian, by a special decree, ordered allaureiof whatever reign, the Gallicsolidusalone excepted, to pass, not according to weight but standard.[69]That is the most decisive proof to what a grievous extent the currency had, from the operation of the causes which have been mentioned, come to be contracted; for as gold constitutes, from its superior value, at least nine-tenths of the circulating medium of every civilized state, so great a rise in its value could only have been occasioned by a very great contraction of the whole currency. We know in what state the metallic currency of Great Britain was when thelightguinea was selling for twenty-five shillings.
In the latter days of the empire, when the invasions of the barbarians began, and its provinces were liable to be pierced through and overrun by columns of their predatory hordes, the universal and well-founded terror produced a generalhoardingof the precious metals, which entirely withdrew them from circulation, until they were forced from the trembling inhabitants by threats of massacre or conflagration. The effect of this, in contracting the currency, and causing the little that remained to disappear altogether from the circulation, of course was prodigious. It lowered to almost nothing the money-price of every species of industry, and proportionally augmented the weight of public and private debts—the subject of such loud and constant complaints from ancient historians. Nor was this evil confined to the latest periods of the empire of the West—the years which immediately preceded its fall. From the time of Commodus, who succeeded Marcus Antoninus, the incursions of the barbarians into the northern provinces of the empire had been severely felt; and from the time of the separation of the empires of the East and West, they were almost perpetual, and sometimes extended far into its interior provinces. The effect of these alarms and dangers, in producing a universal disposition to hoard, and consequently rendering money every where scarce, prices cheap, and debts and taxes oppressive, was very great, and may be regarded as one of the chief causes of the excessive and crushing weight which the direct burdens of the state acquired in the later periods of the empire.
The resource so well known, and so often had recourse to with the happiest effects, in modern times, to supply the void produced by a temporary or permanent drain of the precious metals, was unknown in antiquity.They had no paper currency.Even bills of exchange were unknown. They, as is well known, were a contrivance of the Jews, in the middle ages, to transport their wealth in a commodious form, when threatened with persecution, from one country to another. To what an extent paper of these various kinds has come to supply the place of gold and silver, may be judged of by the fact, that during the war, the paper currency of Great Britain and Ireland rose to £60,000,000 sterling; and that, at the present time, the private bills in circulation in it are estimated at £132,000,000 sterling. But this admirable resource, by which an accidental or temporary dearth of the precious metals is supplied by a paper currency, circulating at par with it, and fully supplying, as long as credit lasts, its place, was unknown in the ancient world. Gold, silver, and copper were their sole circulating mediums; and consequently, when they were progressively withdrawn, by the causes which have been mentioned, from the currency, there was nothing left to supply their place. Instantly, as if by the stroke of a fell necromancer, disasters of every kind accumulated on the wretched inhabitants. Credit was violently shaken;money disappeared; prices fell to a ruinous degree; industry could obtain no remuneration; the influence and ascendancy of realized capital became irresistible; and the only efficient power left in the state was that of the emperor, who wrenched his taxes out of the impoverished hands of his subjects, or of the creditors and landlords, who, by legal process, exacted their debts from their debtors, and drove them to desperation. This was exactly the social state of the empire in its declining days. We can appreciate its horrors, from having had a foretaste of them during the commercial crises with which, during the last twenty-five years, this country has been visited.
From what has now been said, it is evident that the two circumstances which occasioned the fall of the Roman empire, werethe destruction of its domestic agriculture, by the importation of grain from its distant provinces, and the accumulation of debts and taxes, arising from the contraction of the currency. If these causes be attentively considered, it will be found that they not only afford a perfect solution of its fall, but explain how it happened at the period it did, and had not occurred at an earlier period. They show what it was which, slowly but steadily, wasting away the vitals of the empire, successively destroyed its rural population and agricultural industry, and at length crushed its property under the increasing load of debts and taxes. They explain how it happened that the indirect taxes, which at first were sufficient, with a moderate imposition of five per cent on inheritances, to support the large military and naval establishments of Augustus, became gradually unproductive, and were at length succeeded by direct taxes on land, of severe, and in the end destructive amount. They show what every page of contemporary history demonstrates, that it was neither the superior military power of the barbarians, nor the diminished skill and courage of the legions, which occasioned the overthrow of the mighty fabric, but thewasting away of its internal resources—which was the real cause of its decay. They tell us that it was not the timidity of the legions, butthe inability of government to array them in sufficient strength, which rendered them unequal to the contest with an enemy whom, during the vigour of the state, they had so often repelled. They explain how it happened that Italy and Greece had become deserts in their rural districts, before one of the barbarians had crossed either the Alps or the Hæmus and how Africa, Spain, and Egypt, alone of the provinces, retained their prosperity, when rural industry was wellnigh extinct in all the other parts of the empire. Lastly, they explain how it happened, that while the rural districts to the north of the Mediterranean were so generally relapsing into a state of desolation, the great cities of Greece and Italy long retained their prosperity, and the wealth of the capitalists and great proprietors who inhabited them, was continually increasing, while all other classes were ground to the earth under the weight of public or private burdens.
It must appear, at first sight, not a little extraordinary that the very causes which thus evidently led to the destruction of Rome, viz., the unlimited importation of foreign grain and contraction of the currency, are those which have been most the object of the policy of the British government, for the last quarter of a century, by every possible means to promote in this country. They were imposed upon Rome by necessity. The extension of the empire over Spain, Africa, and Egypt, as well as the magnanimous policy of its government towards all its subjects, rendered a free trade in grain with the provinces, and large importations from the great corn countries, unavoidable. Public misfortunes, the increasing luxury of the rich, that very great importation of grain itself, the failure of the Spanish and Grecian mines, and the entire want of any paper currency to supply the place of the metals thus largely abstracted, necessarily and unavoidably forced this calamitous contraction of the currency upon the Roman empire. But the British policy has adopted the same principles, and done the same things, whenno necessityor external pressure rendered it unavoidable. A free trade in grain is to be introduced, not in favour of distantprovinces of the empire, but of its neighbours and its enemies. The currency has been contracted, not by public calamities, or any deficiency in the means of supplying the failure of the ordinary sources of gold and silver, but by the fixed determination of government, carried into execution by repeated acts of Parliament in 1819, 1826, and 1844, to abridge the paper circulation, and deprive the nation of the benefit of the great discovery of modern times, by which the calamitous effects of the diminution in the supply of the precious metals throughout the world have been so materially prevented.
Such a result must appear under all circumstances strange, and would be inexplicable, if we did not reflect, that the same impulse which was communicated to the measures of government in Rome by the influence of the capitalists and the clamorous inhabitants of great towns, is equally felt in the same stage of society in modern times. The people in our great cities do not call out, as in ancient days, for gratuitous distributions of corn from Lybia or Egypt; but they clamour just as loudly for free trade in grain with Poland and the Ukraine, which has the effect of swamping the home-grower quite as completely. The great capitalists do not make colossal fortunes by the plunder of subject provinces, as in the days of the Roman proconsuls; but they never cease to exert their influence to procure a contraction of the currency by the measures of government, which answers the purpose of augmenting their fortunes at the expense of the industrious classes just as well. Political writers, social philosophers, practical statesmen, fall in with the prevailing disposition ofthe most influential classes; they deceive themselves into the belief that they are original, and promulgating important truths, when they are merely yielding to the pressure of the strongest, or at least the most noisy, class at the moment in society. The Reform Bill gavethree-fifthsof the British representation to the members for boroughs. From that moment the eventual adoption of legislative measures favourable to the interests of capital, and agreeable to the wishes of the inhabitants of towns, how destructive soever to those of the country, was as certain as the daily distribution of Egyptian grain to the inhabitants of Rome, Antioch, and Constantinople was, when the mob of these cities became, from their formidable numbers, an object of dread to the Roman government.
The only answer which the partisans of free trade in grain have ever attempted to these considerations is, that the ruin of the agriculture in the central provinces of the Roman empire was owing, not to the importation of foreign corn as a mercantile commodity, but to itsdistribution gratuitouslyto the poorer citizens of Rome, Constantinople, and some of the larger cities in the empire. Theyadmit, in its fullest extent, the decay of domestic agriculture, and consequent ruin of the state, but allege it was owing to this gratuitous distribution, which was in fact a poor-law, and not to the free trade in grain.[70]But a very little consideration must be sufficient to show that this is an elusory distinction; and that it was the unrestricted admission of foreign wheat by purchase, which in reality, coupled with the contraction of the currency, destroyed the dominion of the legions.
1. In the first place, the number who received these gratuitous distributions was, as already shown,so small, when compared to the whole body of the grain-consuming population, that they could not materially have affected the market for agricultural produce in Italy. Not more than 150,000 persons received rations in Rome daily, and perhaps as many in the other cities of Italy. What was this in a peninsula containing at that period sixteen or eighteen millions of souls, and with 2,300,000 in its capital alone?[71]It is evident that the gratuitous distributions ofgrain, taking those at their greatest extent, could not have embraced a fiftieth part of the Italian population. What ruined the agriculturists, who used to feed the remaining forty-nine fiftieths? The unlimited importation of cheap grain from Spain, Egypt, Sicily, and Lybia, and nothing else.
2. In the next place, even if the gratuitous distributions of grain had embraced twenty times the number which they did, nothing can be clearer than that the effecton agricultureis the same, whether cheap foreign grain is imported by the private importer, or bought and distributed by the government. If the home-growerloses his market, it is the same thing to him whether he does so from the effects of private importation or public distribution; whether his formidable competitor is the merchant, who brings the Lybian grain to the Tiber; or the government, which exacts it as a tribute from Sicily or Egypt. The difference is very great to theurbanpopulation, whether they receive their foreign grain in return for their own labour, or get it doled out to them from the government store as the price of keeping quiet. But to theruralcultivator it is immaterial, whether destruction comes upon him in the one way or the other. It is theimportation of foreign grainwhich ruins him; and the effect is the same, whether the price paid for is the gold of the capitalist, or the blood of the legions.
Chapter the First.
It is now forty years since I found myself, for the first time in my life, in the once fashionable city of Bath. I had accompanied thither from London a dear friend from whom I had parted two years before at Oxford; a man as noble as ingenuous, as gentle as he was brave. Few men could boast the advantages enjoyed by Rupert Sinclair. Born of noble blood, of a family whose peerage had been raised upon the foundation of a huge wealth, handsome in person, intellectual, well-informed, enthusiastic and aspiring, he bred a fascination around his existence which it was difficult to resist. I had already graduated when Rupert Sinclair entered Christ Church as a gentleman commoner; I was, moreover, his senior by five years, yet from the moment I saw him until the hour of his decease—with one painful interregnum—we were firm and unflinching friends. He was sent to the university, like others of his rank, to acquire such knowledge of men and books as a temporary residence—and that alone—in an atmosphere of mingled learning and frivolity, is generally supposed to impart. His father looked upon all book knowledge as superfluous, except in a parson or schoolmaster; his lady mother would have been shocked to find him, whether at Oxford or elsewhere, any thing but the gay and fashionable nonentity which her taste and experience had taught her to regard as the perfection of God's fair creation. Lord Railton was a courtier, and affected to be a politician; her ladyship was a woman of fashion. It is surprising to me that, with their views of a nobleman's duties at Oxford, they should have thought it necessary to procure for their son the services of one who had nothing better to offer for his amusement, than the poor learning he had picked up at Eton and elsewhere, to dole out again to the best advantage, for the support of himself and widowed mother. I ought rather to say it was surprising to methen. I have grown wiser since. A tutor was necessary to the position of Lord Railton's son, and it was my happiness to be chosen the instructor of Rupert Sinclair. Every possible pains had been taken to ruin the intellect and impair the moral faculties of the youth. His earliest teachers had been strictly enjoined to give himno tasks which should subject him to the slightest inconvenience, and were forbidden, under pain of dismissal, to ruffle the serenity of his temper, or intercept the slightest movement of his mind, however cross or wayward. Rupert in his very cradle had been taught, both by precept and example, that his equals in rank were his fellow creatures, and that all below him were—creatures, it is true, but the fellows of one another, and not of him and such as he; that the men to whose virtue, discretion, and conduct he was confided—hisTEACHERS—were—oh, mockery of mockeries!—his dependents and inferiors, and necessary to him as his nurse or footman, but not a whit more so! Lord Railton was a tyrant, self-willed and imperious by nature, and as cold-blooded and selfish as a superadded artistocratic education could render him. He saw little of his children, whom he terrified when he did see them, and busied himself in this world with little more than the intrigues and plots of the political junto to whom he was bound by a community of interests, rather than affectionately attached. It is my firm belief that miracles have not ceased upon the earth. Invisible angels interpose now, as did the living saints of old, to repair the faults and infirmities of nature, and by a suspension of our ordinary laws to proclaim the might and mercy of the Divinity. How but by a miracle could the character of Rupert Sinclair have belied the natural reasoning of all ordinary mortals, exhibiting the utter annihilation of the intimate connexion of cause and effect, and the independence of the infant soul, when God so wills it, of the machinations of the wicked, and the vicious trifling of the foolish? The good sense of the youth had strengthened and increased under the enervating system which would have destroyed a weaker brain and a less honest heart. I was the tutor of Sinclair, but I suffered him to sketch out his own plan of study. His mother had not failed to forward me the usual instructions respecting the treatment of her darling child; but had she been silent I should not have insisted upon a strict adherence to the college system with one who, neither in the university nor in the world, to which he was about to be summoned, would be tasked to remember or repeat one syllable of his lessons. Great is the temptation to dwell upon these early days of our attachment; for, alas! a pang must wait upon the pen when it traces the last record of a period unclouded by grief. An account of the earliest springtime that promised so fair a summer and harvest, is, it is true, not necessary to the main plot of the drama I have undertaken to write; but one of its chief characters can hardly be thoroughly understood without some reference to his conduct and pursuits previously to the commencement of the action. To say that I was prepossessed in favour of my pupil after my first conversation with him, is to say but little. I was at once surprised, delighted, and charmed. I had expected to receive a spoiled child of fortune; a giddy, self-willed, arrogant, and overbearing boy. I met with one whose demeanour was gentle, modest, and sedate. A childlike simplicity governed his manners; reflection and sound judgment his discourse. Long before the close of my young friend's academical career I had gained his entire confidence—he my heart; andatthe close of it, I had not occasion to change one opinion or one sentiment entertained for my charge at the commencement of our friendship; so transparent are the minds of the ingenuous, and of those whom nature shelters from the baleful influences of life. It must, however, be stated, that in the all but perfect specimen of humanity presented to the world in the person of Rupert Sinclair, there existed one flaw to convict it of mortality, and to establish its relation with universal error. The simplicity spoken of as characteristic of the man, degenerated into weakness; faith in the goodness of his fellow-creatures into glaring credulity. It is a singular fact, and one that must be accounted for by those who have made theMindan especial study, that whilst no man was quicker in detecting the slightest indication of his own imperfection in another, no one could be less conscious of its existence in himself, or less alive to imposition, the moment it was practised under his own eye, and against his own good-nature. How many times, during his residence inOxford, Rupert Sinclair became the victim of the unprincipled and the sharper, I will not venture to say, prepared as I am to assert that no discovery of falsehood and imposture ever convinced him of the folly of his benevolence, or of the worthlessness of the objects upon whom his favours had been showered. The world is said to be divided into two classes; into those who suspect all men until they are proved honest, and those who believe all men honest until they are proved to be false. The name of Rupert Sinclair might be written in neither category. He not only believed the world to be good prior to experience, but he denied it to be bad, let experience succeed as it might in convicting it of evil.
It was exactly two years after Sinclair quitted Oxford, that I received a letter from him, requesting me to meet him in London as soon after the receipt of his letter as my engagements would permit. The long vacation had again commenced. Rupert was no longer a student, or, to speak more correctly, books had now become the solace and recreation of his leisure hours, rather than the business of his life. To please his fond and very foolish mother, he had accepted a commission in the Guards. The small ambition of Lady Railton was consummated the moment her noble boy appeared in her drawing-room "en grande tenue;" as for the peer, he was too absorbed in his own diplomacy to interfere with that of her ladyship, in whose knowledge of the world and sound discretion he placed unbounded faith. I attended to the summons of Sinclair without delay. Upon arriving in London I went to his hotel, and found him recovering from a fit of illness which at one period had threatened his life, but of which he had as yet kept his family in ignorance. He had been recommended by his physicians to try the waters and mild temperature of Bath; and he was willing to obey them, provided I would become his companion. My time was my own, and I loved Sinclair too well to throw an obstacle in his way, had not the offer itself been temptation enough to one who had passed so many months of physical inactivity, without one holiday, in the dusty gloominess of college rooms. In the course of two days our preparations were made, and we quitted London.
A week glided by in happy idleness. The invalid, compelled to keep his room for many hours of the day, was thrown upon his resources, and upon such as I could command for his amusement. The past is always a pleasant subject of discourse where the speakers are young, and the past is a day of sunshine, still lingering and warm. The days we had seen were bright enough, and to speak of them was to bring them back in all their recent freshness. Rupert was twenty-one, and he wondered at the ingratitude of man that called this world a scene of strife and misery. I was twenty-six, and as yet without a calamity. I had never known my father; and I had maintained my mother in comfort for many years. I had yet to part withher.
Another week, and the invalid was convalescent. The walks were extended and the prescriptions torn up. Invitations came and were accepted. A distant relative of Lady Railton was in Bath. Sinclair visited her, and was the next day a guest at her table. There was another guest there. Her name wasElinor Travis.
Twenty times, on the day I speak of, had Sinclair resolved not to keep his engagement, but to send an apology to Mrs Twisleton, and to return to London on the following morning. He had become tired, he said, of idleness, and the frivolities that surrounded us. One word of encouragement from me, and Sinclair wouldnothave dined with Mrs Twisleton, wouldnothave met withherwho gave the colouring to his future life, wouldnothave blasted every——but I must not anticipate.
General Travis and his family were amongst the most fashionable of the gay multitude then resident at Bath. They lived in first-rate style, and gathered about them all who aspired to a position in that upper world peopled pre-eminently by the "ton." The general was reputed a man of enormous wealth, and his banker's book procured for him the respect that was denied him in Debrett. The general was the father of two children—daughters—Elinor and Adela. His wife was also living. They wereall, according to report, essentially dashing people. So much I knew of them at the period of Sinclair's first acquaintance with the ill-fated Elinor.
After dining with Mrs Twisleton, Sinclair altered his mind. His departure was delayed. Within a day or two he was again invited to Mrs Twisleton's, and again he met the general and his family. Well, there was nothing to excite suspicion in all this! Sinclair said nothing; no observation escaped me. I concluded that a few days would put an end to the new interest that had been raised, and that we should return to London as quietly as we had left it. I was grievously mistaken.
Since our arrival in Bath we had been early risers, and our habits generally somewhat primitive. Suddenly Sinclair took it into his head to walk without me for an hour or so before breakfast. He invariably looked flushed and confused on his return. At least I thought so. I was puzzled, but still said nothing.
I had been favoured by Mrs Twisleton with one or two invitations to dinner, but had never cared to accept them. I resolved, should opportunity again offer, to accompany Sinclair to this lady's house. Whilst waiting, somewhat impatiently and in vain, for another invitation from Mrs Twisleton, a grand ball was announced at General Travis's, and Sinclair was in the number of the favoured guests. He was requested to bring his friend. "His friend" did not refuse.
There were in truth grandeur, profusion, and style sufficient in the entertainments of that evening. No additional outlay could have added to the sumptuous provision that was made for the gratification and delight of every sense. Eye and ear were ravished by the luxuries set before them, and the grosser appetites were not forgotten. What Indian wealth! What princely hospitality! Well might the general be esteemed the most royal of entertainers. Nobility lost none of its prerogative in mixing in such a scene as this, upon which an emperor might have descended with no dishonour to his ermine. I experienced for a time the full power of the enchantment, and acknowledged, against my will, the sovereign dominion of Mammon. I was presented to my hostess and the general. The former was a woman of fifty or thereabouts, delicately formed, pale, and somewhat sickly-looking; there were traces of feminine beauty on her countenance, but, such as they were, retreating rapidly before disease or care, or some ailment hidden from the looker-on. She seemed more like a gentle handmaiden than the mistress of the happy feast. The general was of another race of beings. He stood six feet two, but his extreme height was modified by the admirable proportions of his frame. He was firmly built, and but for a certain unsatisfactory expression in his countenance, might have been considered one of the handsomest men of his day. This expression it is not easy to describe. It proceeded from his eye, and seemed to communicate with all his features, leaving the stamp of low cunning upon every one. The eye was large and grey, and very restless; always in motion; always attempting to convey more than the inner man would answer for, or the observer take for granted. It had a volubility of expression like his tongue, and both bespoke their owner no efficient actor.
"You look magnificent to-night," said Sinclair, addressing the general after my introduction.
"So, so, with slender opportunities!" said the general. "See us in London, my young friend. No place in the world like London for the exercise of a man's genius—a woman's it should be said, to-night, for Elinor is the presiding genius here. Have you ever seen these flowers? Pretty, eh? Her handiwork."
Sinclair trifled for a moment with an exquisite specimen of artificial flowers, adorning an alabaster vase; but he gave no answer.
"Have you seen her to-night?" continued the general.
"Not yet."
"She's with the Indian Yahoo, no doubt. He arrived this afternoon, and she will give him no rest. She has engaged him for the first four quadrilles, that she may hear the natural history of the Chimpanzee without interruption, which her cousin has promised to relate to her at the first convenient opportunity."
"Her cousin has arrived then?" asked Sinclair, turning slightly pale.
"This very day. Our information is quite correct. His mother, the Begum, is dead, and has left him enough in jewels to purchase an empire. The specie found in chests is immense. A lucky dog, with that brown face of his! If it were as black as soot, he might command a duchess. Elinor and he are first cousins, and are much attached, although they haven't seen each other for years."
As the general spoke, music struck up, and a movement in our immediate neighbourhood announced the approach of dancers. Amongst them was a young and lovely woman. Her arm was in that of a small man, with a copper-coloured face and disgusting features. His beautiful partner, more beautiful by the contrast, looked proud of her prize, which, if I correctly interpreted the admiring gaze of the assembly, was coveted for one reason or another by every dowager and unmarried woman in the room. I felt an instinctive longing to smother the Yahoo.
Inexpressibly lovely looked Elinor Travis, as she gracefully led off the merry dance. She had reached her twentieth year, and was in the full glory of her womanhood. Tall, yet exquisitely moulded, she left nothing for fancy to desire or imagination to create. Her dark and animated eye sparkled with living joy, and her perfect features were illuminated by its fire. I had never before beheld a creature so richly endowed with natural gifts; one who united in her person so much grace, sculpture, and expression; and yet, strange to say, the feeling all inspired was the very opposite to that which might have been expected. The consciousness of beauty was too definitely written upon that brow. That melting eye had inherited too much of the worldliness that played about the eager vision of her sire. Maidenly modesty and retirement were wanting to elevate and dignify mere voluptuousness. I was repulsed rather than attracted by a form, which, had it been more feminine, might have served for an angel; and as it was, was not sufficiently divine for a mortal woman. Such was my first impression, formed almost upon the instant. It never was removed.
Sinclair and I looked on. The spirits of Elinor were exuberant. She laboured as it seemed, under more than ordinary excitement. She laughed and chatted with her tawny partner with a delight which it was impossible for such a copper monster to create. The gaiety of the lady had but one effect upon her partner. At short intervals he opened his jaws and exhibited his teeth to the company. Having rivalled a hyena in the hideousness of his grin, he closed the jaws and hid his molars. Far different was the effect upon another. It took but a very little time to discover that Rupert Sinclair had not been proof against the charms of this darling of nature. His heart had felt her witchery, and his spirit was enchained—not utterly and irretrievably, I fondly trusted, for I knew his worth, and could not willingly entrust him to such doubtful keeping. Elinor Travis was not the wife for Rupert Sinclair. Thanks to the Yahoo, my fears at first were not alarming; still it was vexatious enough to behold the pain with which Sinclair evidently regarded the good fortune of the Indian, and the complacency with which the monster received the favour of one of the loveliest of her sex. Once during the dance, the change of the figure brought the lady within a few feet of Sinclair. Her back was towards him, but, as if aware of his vicinity, she turned round and cast the lustre of her full eye upon him. She smiled, and archly nodded. Rupert shook like a leaf; the colour mounted to his cheek, and his heart beat almost audibly. I grew alarmed. My faith in the Yahoo was shaken, and I trembled for my friend. The position of the dancers was again reversed. Elinor faced us. Her eye once more was fixed upon Rupert, but this time, as I believed, exulting in triumph. Could it be possible that she was aware of her influence, and that she inhumanly trifled with this man's affection? What meant that ardent gaze and that triumphant smile? As the general had informed us, so it happened. The Yahoo danced four quadrilles with Elinor, and then vouchsafed the loan of his blackness to otherladies for the rest of the evening. Miss Travis being at liberty, I proposed to Rupert an adjournment to our hotel. The gentleman, in answer, started up and secured the hand of Elinor for the next dance. His chair at my side was filled on the instant by the general himself. I listened and replied to the questions of the latter as well as I could, watching every movement, step, and gesture of the young sorcerer and her victim.
"Your friend, Mr Wilson, is not so gay as usual. What has happened?"
"Nothing."
"You return to London, I believe, in"——
The general paused.
"Mr Sinclair's leave of absence," I answered, "will soon expire."
"A gentle-spirited man, Mr Wilson. He does you credit."
"He owes me little, general," I answered. "Providence has been bountiful to him."
"Strange! And his father, they say, is as great a brute."
"Lord Railton," I said, "is not so amiable as his son."
"Proud and overbearing! But a magnificent rent-roll though! His son does not appear a man of the world. Vastly good-natured, but he wants fire and character."
"Mr Sinclair does not do himself justice," I replied. "There is more in him than meets the eye."
"You are a scholar, Mr Wilson," suddenly exclaimed the general, "and can appreciate a literary curiosity. Do me the favour to accompany me to my study. I have a Greek manuscript which I picked up in Samaria, and which they tell me is invaluable."
Before I could reply, the general was on his legs, and conducting me to his room. The dance was still proceeding.
"I am a simple man, sir," said the general when we reached the apartment, "and very moderate in my desires. We are often called avaricious when we are simply prudent. I despise wealth but for the sake of my children. There," he exclaimed suddenly, showing me a jewel-case—"there's stuff that would buy up Bath."
"Indeed!"
"What do you imagine this to be, Mr Wilson?" next inquired the general, holding up a folded letter.
"I cannot guess!" said I.
"An offer of a peerage. Why should I accept it? I have no son, and am without personal ambition. The world do not give men credit for such self-denial. You are a constant visitor at Sackville Park, I presume?"
"No, in truth. I have been there but once."
"Lady Railton doats upon her son, I believe?"
"A very fond mother," I replied.
The general eyed me suspiciously, and went no further; but he produced forthwith his manuscript from Samaria. It was really a curiosity in its way, being a transcript of one of the gospels in a dialect which I had never before seen, and of which, I think, but few specimens can remain. But I had a fidgety desire to get back to the ball-room, which prevented any thing like a satisfactory inspection of the precious document.
"Shall we return, general?" I asked.
"By all means," said the general, evincing at the same time no disposition to budge. "I trust, Mr Wilson," he continued, "that you will be no stranger at our house. We are humble people, as you see us, but we have friends at court. A man of your talents should command preferment; but these are sad times, and the best fare ill enough without a helping hand. I stand well with the premier."
"No doubt, deservedly," said I. "You have probably seen much service, general?"
"A little, a little;" replied the soldier with mock humility. "But as to yourself, Mr Wilson, they must make a bishop of you."
"Oh, general!" said I with unnecessary modesty.
"Ah, but I say they must! Leave that to me. We want sound and good men like yourself at the head of the church. Methodism must be put down. It is increasing frightfully. Vigorous and learned men are required to cope with it."
"Methodism," said I, with becoming warmth, "is undoubtedly a great curse to the church at the present moment, and every honest churchmanis bound, to the extent of his ability, to oppose its further progress."
"My own words, Mr Wilson; and I beg you not to suspect me of flattery when I tell you that half a dozen men like yourself would do more to bring back a salutary state of things than any legal enactments they could contrive. Sinclair has told me of your energy, high honour, and attainments, and it would be a sin to suffer them to be inactive."
I confess I shall never forgive myself for having patiently, nay somewhat greedily, swallowed such monstrous and glaring trash as that above related, and for having been cajoled by it into spending one long half hour with my wily general in his study. I left the room at length, in a state of heroic excitement, and in time to discover that Rupert Sinclair and his partner had quitted the apartment in which I had previously left them.
There remained upon my mind no longer a doubt of Rupert's attachment to this lovely woman, and I contemplated its issue with no feeling of gratification or delight. Notwithstanding the agreeable communications of the general, I could not thoroughly trust him; and as for the young lady herself, as I have already hinted, she was as adapted to the mild nature of Sinclair as a lioness to a lamb. What would Lord Railton say to the match? What would Lady Railton do, with her sublimated notions of marquises and dukes? I deplored the ill luck that had brought us to Bath, and resolved to carry the youth back whilst he still remained master of his actions. But where was he? I sought him in vain in every public room of the house. Neither he nor the syren could be found. Vexed and hurt, although I scarcely knew why, I determined to quit the place, and to return to the hotel. Attached to the general's house was a spacious pleasure garden, and upon the occasion of this fête it was studded with a number of small lamps, which cast a picturesque and oriental gleam in parts, leaving the remaining portion of the ground in deeper shade. The night was lovely. Passing the door that led into the garden, I turned into the latter, almost without a thought. Visitors were there before me, and to escape them I retired into the gloom. Within a few yards of me passed the pair of whom I had been in search. The arm of Sinclair was twined around the waist of Elinor, and his head was bent on the ground. They advanced, and were soon beyond my ken. I still heard their steps; but suddenly these ceased. The lovers had stopped, and to my great discomfort they spoke.
"You do not know him," said a voice that did no dishonour to the coral lips through which it came. "His heart is fixed upon this hated match."
"You smiled upon him, Elinor," said Rupert, in a voice of emotion; "you gave him hope."
"For your sake, Sinclair, I smiled upon the man I hated; for your dear sake. The least suspicion of the truth, and we are ruined. I cannot have you banished from me."
"What is to be done?" exclaimed Rupert in despair.
I could hear no more. The voices dissolved into whispers, and these soon ceased. The fate of Rupert Sinclair was sealed.
Now, what was my course at this alarming crisis? What steps did it behove me—the friend, tutor, and counsellor of Rupert Sinclair—to take at such a moment as this, when the happiness of his whole life was about to be decided? Was there, in fact, any thing to do? Had not Sinclair already reached that point at which remonstrance is vain, and advice impertinent? And why should I remonstrate at all? What had I to say against a union with a lovely and accomplished woman, whose father had perhaps wealth enough to buy off the prejudices of Lord and Lady Railton, had they been ten times as bigoted as they really were? What could I produce against the young lady herself but a prejudice formed at first sight, and perhaps as unfounded as it had been hastily adopted? Was not Sinclair old enough to select his partner for himself; and when did interference in the delicate affairs of love ever lead to any thing but the confusion of the intruder, and the acceleration of the mischief he absurdly hoped to prevent? I was at the height of my perplexity when Sinclair returned to me. I heard his footsteps at the door, and immediately plunged into my bedroom.
Next morning I was awake betimes, but Rupert was up before me. Indeed, when I beheld him, I doubted whether he had been to rest at all. He looked haggard and distressed. I took my cue from his downcast appearance.
"Rupert," said I, "it is my intention to quit Bath."
"When?" he inquired.
"Possibly to-day. To-morrow at the furthest."
Rupert sighed.
"We return together, I presume?" said I in continuation.
"Wilson," answered Rupert, in a tone of kindness, "I have never deceived you yet; I will not deceive you now. Nor shall you suffer in any way from acts of mine. I cannot leave this place. It is not expedient that you should stay."
"Your leave of absence soon expires," I said.
"I shall not fail to be at my duty, Wilson," continued Sinclair. "But there is important business to do before I leave this city."
"You have entered, Rupert, into some rash engagement."
"Into an engagement—yes; not rashly, I believe; for I have held consultation with my heart—deep, earnest communings, that have sanctioned my fondest inclination."
"Beware, Sinclair!" I answered. "In some cases, the heart is no safe monitor; and inclination and conviction become convertible terms."
"You know my secret, Wilson."
"I can guess it."
"You saw her last night. I wished you to see her. I desired to hear from your lips a confirmation of the regard she has inspired in one"——
I shook my head.
"You are right—you are right," proceeded Sinclair, hastily. "You shall not speak. You shall not even tell me how divine a being Heaven has placed within my reach. You shall not be involved in the calamity which an irrevocable act may bring upon two whose crime it is to love too well."
"Rupert," I replied, "I am not disposed to desert you at so critical a period of our life. We are both young. You are enthusiastic; your good opinion of mankind has before now led you into error. Have you well pondered on this step? Can you rely on Elinor Travis."
"What do you mean?"
"Is she as brave as she is gentle—as faithful as she is fair?"
"I would answer for her with my life."
"Yes, or with twenty lives, if you had them, for the venture. Yet you have not known her long."
"Long enough to value and to love her. Does it require an age to discover truthfulness so palpable as hers?"
"I have done, Sinclair," said I. "God grant you may be happy!"
"You return to London, then?"
"Such is my intention."
"You do wisely. I would not have you stay with me. You must be clear from all participation in this business, let it end as it may. I know my father. His anger and his vengeance, however undeserved, would fall on you."
"Would these were my greatest fears!" I answered, with a sigh.
"Fear not forme, Wilson. The happiness of your friend is bound up with that of Elinor Travis. I tell you, in all sincerity, I cannot live without her. Fate decrees our movements. No woman but she has made me conscious of that great fountain of love which lies within the bosom of us all—none has had power to direct the stream, and to enchain me, heart and soul, to her will."
"And should that will," I quickly urged, "be found as evil as resistless"——
"Prove it so, and its power ceases on the instant. No; it is resistless, because virtuous and pure. I submit to an enchantment, but it is practised by a fairy as good as she is beautiful."
It was useless to argue so abstruse a point with so interested and impassioned a reasoner. I remained silent.
"One promise I must exact from you," continued Sinclair. "In passing through London, you will not see my father."
"I shall not wait upon his lordship," I replied.
"Nor mention, if you please, one syllable of this affair, should chance bring you together. For the present, I have sufficient reasons for wishing you to keep my secret sacred. In good time all will be known."
"You shall be obeyed, of course."
"Thanks," said Sinclair, grasping my hand, and holding it affectionately: "all will be well, I trust."
For the rest of the day, the subject was not revived. I begged Sinclair to follow his own pleasure, without reference to me, and to leave me to the few arrangements necessary before departure. He insisted, however, upon spending the last day with me; and during many hours of well-remembered intercourse, he evinced a friendliness and affectionate regard such as I had never before experienced—even from him. We sat together until the early hour of morning chid us to our beds.
"There is still one thing to say," said Sinclair, when we parted for the night, "and it had better be communicated now. Heaven knows, Wilson, when and where shall be our next meeting. It may be soon; it may be never. Death to one of us—a hundred circumstances may interfere between our hopes and their fruition. I have desired to tell you, many times, what I am sure you will not hear unkindly, although the fear of offending you has kept me silent. Yet, you ought to know it. I am sure your peace of mind will be secured when you know that the present enjoyments of your mother can, under no circumstances, ever be decreased. I have taken care, should any thing happen to yourself or me, that her latter days shall remain as peaceful as you, her faithful son, have rendered them."
I would have spoken to my friend and benefactor, but could not. I shook his hand cordially, and an honest tear told him my gratitude. So we parted, as I half feared for ever; for his words and actions were full of evil omen.
Upon reaching my bedroom on this eventful evening, the first thing that caught my eye was a mysterious document lying on the table—a lady's note. "A mistake," thought I, approaching the unusual visitor. Not so; it was addressed to me. I opened it, and read. It ran as follows:—