By this time they were near the Castle, and met Miss Crotchet and her companion, who had turned back to meet them. Captain Fitzchrome was shortly after heartily welcomed by Mr. Crotchet, and the party separated to dress for dinner, the Captain being by no means in an enviable state of mind, and full of misgivings as to the extent of belief that he was bound to accord to the words of the lady of his heart.
En quoi cognoissez-vous la folie anticque? En quoi cognoissez-vous la sagesse présente?—Rabelais.
En quoi cognoissez-vous la folie anticque? En quoi cognoissez-vous la sagesse présente?—Rabelais.
“IfI were sketching a bandit who had just shot his last pursuer, having outrun all the rest, that is the very face I would give him,” soliloquised the Captain, as he studied the features of his rival in the drawing-room, during the miserable half-hour before dinner, when dulness reigns predominant over expectant company, especially when they are waiting for some one last comer, whom they all heartily curse in their hearts, and whom, nevertheless, or indeed therefore-the-more, they welcome as a sinner, more heartily than all the just persons who had been punctual to their engagement. Some new visitors had arrived in the morning, and, as the company dropped in one by one, the Captain anxiously watched the unclosing door for the form of his beloved: but she was the last to make her appearance, and on her entry gave him a malicious glance, which he construed into a telegraphic communication that she had stayed away to torment him. Young Crotchet escorted her with marked attention to the upper end of the drawing-room, where a great portion of the company was congregated around Miss Crotchet. These being the only ladies in the company, it was evident that old Mr. Crotchet would give his arm to Lady Clarinda, an arrangement with which the Captain could not interfere. He therefore took his station near the door, studying his rival from a distance, and determined to take advantage of his present position, to secure the seat next to his charmer. He was meditating on the best mode of operation for securing this important post with due regard tobien-séance, when he was twitched by the button by Mr. Mac Quedy, who said to him: “Lady Clarinda tells me, sir, that you are anxious to talk with me on the subject of exchangeable value, from which I infer that you have studied political economy, and as a great deal depends on the definition of value, I shall be glad to set you right on that point.” “I am much obliged to you, sir,” said the Captain, and was about to express his utter disqualification for the proposed instruction, when Mr. Skionar walked up and said: “Lady Clarinda informs me that you wish to talk over with me the question of subjective reality. I am delighted to fall in with a gentleman who daily appreciates the transcendental philosophy.” “Lady Clarinda is too good,” said the Captain; and was about to protest that he had never heard the word “transcendental” before, when the butler announced dinner. Mr. Crotchet led the way with Lady Clarinda: Lord Bossnowl followed with Miss Crotchet: the economist and transcendentalist pinned in the Captain, and held him, one by each arm, as he impatiently descended the stairs in the rear of several others of the company, whom they had forced him to let pass; but the moment he entered the dining-room he broke loose from them, and at the expense of a littlebrusquerie, secured his position.
“Well, Captain,” said Lady Clarinda, “I perceive you can still manœuvre.”
“What could possess you,” said the Captain, “to send two unendurable and inconceivable bores to intercept me with rubbish about which I neither know nor care any more than the man in the moon?”
“Perhaps,” said Lady Clarinda, “I saw your design, and wished to put your generalship to the test. But do not contradict anything I have said about you, and see if the learned will find you out.”
“There is fine music, as Rabelais observes, in thecliquetis d’asssiettes, a refreshing shade in theombre de salle à manger, and an elegant fragrance in thefumée de rôti,” said a voice at the Captain’s elbow. The Captain turning round, recognised his clerical friend of the morning, who knew him again immediately, and said he was extremely glad to meet him there; more especially as Lady Clarinda had assured him that he was an enthusiastic lover of Greek poetry.
“Lady Clarinda,” said the Captain, “is a very pleasant young lady.”
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—So she is, sir: and I understand she has all the wit of the family to herself, whatever thattotummay be. But a glass of wine after soup is, as the French say, theverre de santé. The current of opinion sets in favour of Hock: but I am for Madeira; I do not fancy Hock till I have laid a substratum of Madeira. Will you join me?
Captain Fitzchrome.—With pleasure.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Here is a very fine salmon before me: and May is the verypoint nomméto have salmon in perfection. There is a fine turbot close by, and there is much to be said in his behalf: but salmon in May is the king of fish.
Mr. Crotchet.—That salmon before you, doctor, was caught in the Thames, this morning.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Παπαπαῖ! Rarity of rarities! A Thames salmon caught this morning. Now, Mr. Mac Quedy, even in fish your Modern Athens must yield.Cedite Graii.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Eh! sir, on its own around, your Thames salmon has two virtues over all others; first, that it is fresh; and, second, that it is rare; for I understand you do not take half a dozen in a year.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—In some years, sir, not one. Mud, filth, gas-dregs, lock-weirs, and the march of mind, developed in the form of poaching, have ruined the fishery. But, when we do catch a salmon, happy the man to whom he falls.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—I confess, sir, this is excellent: but I cannot see why it should be better than a Tweed salmon at Kelso.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Sir, I will take a glass of Hock with you.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—With all my heart, sir. There are several varieties of the salmon genus: but the common salmon, thesalmo salar, is only one species, one and the same everywhere, just like the human mind. Locality and education make all the difference.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Education! Well, sir, I have no doubt schools for all are just as fit for the speciessalmo salaras for the genushomo. But you must allow that the specimen before us has finished his education in a manner that does honour to his college. However, I doubt that thesalmo salaris only one species, that is to say, precisely alike in all localities. I hold that every river has its own breed, with essential differences; in flavour especially. And as for the human mind, I deny that it is the same in all men. I hold that there is every variety of natural capacity from the idiot to Newton and Shakespeare; the mass of mankind, midway between these extremes, being blockheads of different degrees; education leaving them pretty nearly as it found them, with this single difference, that it gives a fixed direction to their stupidity, a sort of incurable wry neck to the thing they call their understanding. So one nose points always east, and another always west, and each is ready to swear that it points due north.
Mr. Crotchet.—If that be the point of truth, very few intellectual noses point due north.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Only those that point to the Modern Athens.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Where all native noses point southward.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Eh, sir, northward for wisdom, and southward for profit.
Mr. Crotchet,jun.Champagne, doctor?
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Most willingly. But you will permit my drinking it while it sparkles. I hold it a heresy to let it deaden in my hand, while the glass of mycompotatoris being filled on the opposite side of the table. By-the-bye, Captain, you remember a passage in Athenæus, where he cites Menander on the subject of fish-sauce: ὀψάριον ἐπὶ ἰχθύος. (The Captain was aghast for an answer that would satisfy both his neighbours, when he was relieved by the divine continuing.) The science of fish-sauce, Mr. Mac Quedy, is by no means brought to perfection; a fine field of discovery still lies open in that line.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Nay, sir, beyond lobster-sauce, I take it, ye cannot go.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—In their line, I grant you, oyster and lobster-sauce are the pillars of Hercules. But I speak of the cruet sauces, where the quintessence of the sapid is condensed in a phial. I can taste in my mind’s palate a combination, which, if I could give it reality, I would christen with the name of my college, and hand it down to posterity as a seat of learning indeed.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Well, sir, I wish you success, but I cannot let slip the question we started just now. I say, cutting off idiots, who have no minds at all, all minds are by nature alike. Education (which begins from their birth) makes them what they are.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—No, sir, it makes their tendencies, not their power. Cæsar would have been the first wrestler on the village common. Education might have made him a Nadir Shah; it might also have made him a Washington; it could not have made him a merry-andrew, for our newspapers to extol as a model of eloquence.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Now, sir, I think education would have made him just anything, and fit for any station, from the throne to the stocks; saint or sinner, aristocrat or democrat, judge, counsel, or prisoner at the bar.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—I will thank you for a slice of lamb, with lemon and pepper. Before I proceed with this discussion,—Vin de Grave, Mr. Skionar,—I must interpose one remark. There is a set of persons in your city, Mr. Mac Quedy, who concoct, every three or four months, a thing, which they call a review: a sort of sugar-plum manufacturers to the Whig aristocracy.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—I cannot tell, sir, exactly, what you mean by that; but I hope you will speak of those gentlemen with respect, seeing that I am one of them.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Sir, I must drown my inadvertence in a glass of Sauterne with you. There is a set of gentlemen in your city—
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Not in our city, exactly; neither are they a set. There is an editor, who forages for articles in all quarters, from John o’ Groat’s house to the Land’s End. It is not a board, or a society: it is a mere intellectual bazaar, where A, B, and C, bring their wares to market.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Well, sir, these gentlemen among them, the present company excepted, have practised as much dishonesty as, in any other department than literature, would have brought the practitioner under the cognisance of the police. In politics, they have ran with the hare and hunted with the hound. In criticism, they have, knowingly and unblushingly, given false characters, both for good and for evil; sticking at no art of misrepresentation, to clear out of the field of literature all who stood in the way of the interests of their own clique. They have never allowed their own profound ignorance of anything (Greek for instance) to throw even an air of hesitation into their oracular decision on the matter. They set an example of profligate contempt for truth, of which the success was in proportion to the effrontery; and when their prosperity had filled the market with competitors, they cried out against their own reflected sin, as if they had never committed it, or were entitled to a monopoly of it. The latter, I rather think, was what they wanted.
Mr. Crotchet.—Hermitage, doctor?
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Nothing better, sir. The father who first chose the solitude of that vineyard, knew well how to cultivate his spirit in retirement. Now, Mr. Mac Quedy, Achilles was distinguished above all the Greeks for his inflexible love of truth; could education have made Achilles one of your reviewers?
Mr. Mac Quedy.—No doubt of it, even if your character of them were true to the letter.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—And I say, sir—chicken and asparagus—Titan had made him of better clay. I hold with Pindar, “All that is most excellent is so by nature.” Τὸ δὲ φυᾷ κράτιστον ἅπαν. Education can give purposes, but not powers; and whatever purposes had been given him, he would have gone straight forward to them; straight forward, Mr. Mac Quedy.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—No, sir, education makes the man, powers, purposes, and all.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—There is the point, sir, on which we join issue.
Several others of the company now chimed in with their opinions, which gave the divine an opportunity to degustate one or two side dishes, and to take a glass of wine with each of the young ladies.
Ay imputé a honte plus que médiocre être vu spectateur ocieux de tant vaillans, disertz, et chevalereux personnaiges.Rabelais.
Ay imputé a honte plus que médiocre être vu spectateur ocieux de tant vaillans, disertz, et chevalereux personnaiges.
Rabelais.
Lady Clarinda(to the Captain).—I declare the creature has been listening to all this rigmarole, instead of attending to me. Do you ever expect forgiveness? But now that they are all talking together, and you cannot make out a word they say, nor they hear a word that we say, I will describe the company to you. First, there is the old gentleman on my left hand, at the head of the table, who is now leaning the other way to talk to my brother. He is a good-tempered, half-informed person, very unreasonably fond of reasoning, and of reasoning people; people that talk nonsense logically: he is fond of disputation himself, when there are only one or two, but seldom does more than listen in a large company ofilluminés. He made a great fortune in the city, and has the comfort of a good conscience. He is very hospitable, and is generous in dinners; though nothing would induce him to give sixpence to the poor, because he holds that all misfortune is from imprudence, that none but the rich ought to marry, and that all ought to thrive by honest industry, as he did. He is ambitious of founding a family, and of allying himself with nobility; and is thus as willing as other grown children to throw away thousands for a gew-gaw, though he would not part with a penny for charity. Next to him is my brother, whom you know as well as I do. He has finished his education with credit, and as he never ventures to oppose me in anything, I have no doubt he is very sensible. He has good manners, is a model of dress, and is reckoned ornamental in all societies. Next to him is Miss Crotchet, my sister-in-law that is to be. You see she is rather pretty, and very genteel. She is tolerably accomplished, has her table always covered with new novels, thinks Mr. Mac Quedy an oracle, and is extremely desirous to be called “my lady.” Next to her is Mr. Firedamp, a very absurd person, who thinks that water is the evil principle. Next to him is Mr. Eavesdrop, a man who, by dint of a certain something like smartness, has got into good society. He is a sort of bookseller’s tool, and coins all his acquaintance in reminiscences and sketches of character. I am very shy of him, for fear he should print me.
Captain Fitzchrome.—If he print you in your own likeness, which is that of an angel, you need not fear him. If he print you in any other, I will cut his throat. But proceed—
Lady Clarinda.—Next to him is Mr. Henbane, the toxicologist, I think he calls himself. He has passed half his life in studying poisons and antidotes. The first thing he did on his arrival here was to kill the cat; and while Miss Crotchet was crying over her, he brought her to life again. I am more shy of him than the other.
Captain Fitzchrome.—They are two very dangerous fellows, and I shall take care to keep them both at a respectful distance. Let us hope that Eavesdrop will sketch off Henbane, and that Henbane will poison him for his trouble.
Lady Clarinda.—Well, next to him sits Mr. Mac Quedy, the Modern Athenian, who lays down the law about everything, and therefore may be taken to understand everything. He turns all the affairs of this world into questions of buying and selling. He is the Spirit of the Frozen Ocean to everything like romance and sentiment. He condenses their volume of steam into a drop of cold water in a moment. He has satisfied me that I am a commodity in the market, and that I ought to set myself at a high price. So you see, he who would have me must bid for me.
Captain Fitzchrome.—I shall discuss that point with Mr. Mac Quedy.
Lady Clarinda.—Not a word for your life. Our flirtation is our own secret. Let it remain so.
Captain Fitzchrome.—Flirtation, Clarinda! Is that all that the most ardent—
Lady Clarinda.—Now, don’t be rhapsodical here. Next to Mr. Mac Quedy is Mr. Skionar, a sort of poetical philosopher, a curious compound of the intense and the mystical. He abominates all the ideas of Mr. Mac Quedy, and settles everything by sentiment and intuition.
Captain Fitzchrome.—Then, I say, he is the wiser man.
Lady Clarinda.—They are two oddities, but a little of them is amusing, and I like to hear them dispute. So you see I am in training for a philosopher myself.
Captain Fitzchrome.—Any philosophy, for Heaven’s sake, but the pound-shilling-and-pence philosophy of Mr. Mac Quedy.
Lady Clarinda.—Why, they say that even Mr. Skionar, though he is a great dreamer, always dreams with his eyes open, or with one eye at any rate, which is an eye to his gain: but I believe that in this respect the poor man has got an ill name by keeping bad company. He has two dear friends, Mr. Wilful Wontsee, and Mr. Rumblesack Shantsee, poets of some note, who used to see visions of Utopia, and pure republics beyond the Western deep: but, finding that these El Dorados brought them no revenue, they turned their vision-seeing faculty into the more profitable channel of espying all sorts of virtues in the high and the mighty, who were able and willing to pay for the discovery.
Captain Fitzchrome.—I do not fancy these virtue-spyers.
Lady Clarinda.—Next to Mr. Skionar sits Mr. Chainmail, a good-looking young gentleman, as you see, with very antiquated tastes. He is fond of old poetry, and is something of a poet himself. He is deep in monkish literature, and holds that the best state of society was that of the twelfth century, when nothing was going forward but fighting, feasting, and praying, which he says are the three great purposes for which man was made. He laments bitterly over the inventions of gunpowder, steam, and gas, which he says have ruined the world. He lives within two or three miles, and has a large hall, adorned with rusty pikes, shields, helmets, swords, and tattered banners, and furnished with yew-tree chairs, and two long old worm-eaten oak tables, where he dines with all his household, after the fashion of his favourite age. He wants us all to dine with him, and I believe we shall go.
Captain Fitzchrome.—That will be something new, at any rate.
Lady Clarinda.—Next to him is Mr. Toogood, the co-operationist, who will have neither fighting nor praying; but wants to parcel out the world into squares like a chess-board, with a community on each, raising everything for one another, with a great steam-engine to serve them in common for tailor and hosier, kitchen and cook.
Captain Fitzchrome.—He is the strangest of the set, so far.
Lady Clarinda.—This brings us to the bottom of the table, where sits my humble servant, Mr. Crotchet the younger. I ought not to describe him.
Captain Fitzchrome.—I entreat you do.
Lady Clarinda.—Well, I really have very little to say in his favour.
Captain Fitzchrome.—I do not wish to hear anything in his favour; and I rejoice to hear you say so, because—
Lady Clarinda.—Do not flatter yourself. If I take him, it will be to please my father, and to have a town and country house, and plenty of servants and a carriage and an opera-box, and make some of my acquaintance who have married for love, or for rank, or for anything but money, die for envy of my jewels. You do not think I would take him for himself. Why, he is very smooth and spruce as far as his dress goes; but as to his face, he looks as if he had tumbled headlong into a volcano, and been thrown up again among the cinders.
Captain Fitzchrome.—I cannot believe, that, speaking thus of him, you mean to take him at all.
Lady Clarinda.—Oh! I am out of my teens. I have been very much in love; but now I am come to years of discretion, and must think, like other people, of settling myself advantageously. He was in love with a banker’s daughter, and cast her off at her father’s bankruptcy, and the poor girl has gone to hide herself in some wild place.
Captain Fitzchrome.—She must have a strange taste, if she pines for the loss of him.
Lady Clarinda.—They say he was good-looking, till his bubble schemes, as they call them, stamped him with the physiognomy of a desperate gambler. I suspect he has still a penchant towards his first flame. If he takes me, it will be for my rank and connection, and the second seat of the borough of Rogueingrain. So we shall meet on equal terms, and shall enjoy all the blessedness of expecting nothing from each other.
Captain Fitzchrome.—You can expect no security with such an adventurer.
Lady Clarinda.—I shall have the security of a good settlement, and then ifandare al diavolobe his destiny, he may go, you know, by himself. He is almost always dreaming anddistrait. It is very likely that some great reverse is in store for him: but that will not concern me, you perceive.
Captain Fitzchrome.—You torture me, Clarinda, with the bare possibility.
Lady Clarinda.—Hush! Here is music to soothe your troubled spirit. Next to him, on this side, sits the dilettante composer, Mr. Trillo; they say his name was O’Trill, and he has taken the O from the beginning, and put it at the end. I do not know how this may be. He plays well on the violoncello, and better on the piano; sings agreeably; has a talent at versemaking, and improvises a song with some felicity. He is very agreeable company in the evening, with his instruments and music-books. He maintains that the sole end of all enlightened society is to get up a good opera, and laments that wealth, genius, and energy are squandered upon other pursuits, to the neglect of this one great matter.
Captain Fitzchrome.—That is a very pleasant fancy at any rate.
Lady Clarinda.—I assure you he has a great deal to say for it. Well, next to him, again, is Dr. Morbific, who has been all over the world to prove that there is no such thing as contagion; and has inoculated himself with plague, yellow fever, and every variety of pestilence, and is still alive to tell the story. I am very shy of him, too; for I look on him as a walking phial of wrath, corked full of all infections, and not to be touched without extreme hazard.
Captain Fitzchrome.—This is the strangest fellow of all.
Lady Clarinda.—Next to him sits Mr. Philpot, the geographer, who thinks of nothing but the heads and tails of rivers, and lays down the streams of Terra Incognita as accurately as if he had been there. He is a person of pleasant fancy, and makes a sort of fairy land of every country he touches, from the Frozen Ocean to the Deserts of Sahara.
Captain Fitzchrome.—How does he settle matters with Mr. Firedamp?
Lady Clarinda.—You see Mr. Firedamp has got as far as possible out of his way. Next to him is Sir Simon Steeltrap, of Steeltrap Lodge, Member for Crouching-Curtown, Justice of Peace for the county, and Lord of the United Manors of Spring-gun-and-Treadmill; a great preserver of game and public morals. By administering the laws which he assists in making, he disposes, at his pleasure, of the land and its live stock, including all the two-legged varieties, with and without feathers, in a circumference of several miles round Steeltrap Lodge. He has enclosed commons and woodlands; abolished cottage gardens; taken the village cricket-ground into his own park, out of pure regard to the sanctity of Sunday; shut up footpaths and alehouses (all but those which belong to his electioneering friend, Mr. Quassia, the brewer); put down fairs and fiddlers; committed many poachers; shot a few; convicted one-third of the peasantry; suspected the rest; and passed nearly the whole of them through a wholesome course of prison discipline, which has finished their education at the expense of the county.
Captain Fitzchrome.—He is somewhat out of his element here: among such a diversity of opinions he will hear some he will not like.
Lady Clarinda.—It was rather ill-judged in Mr. Crotchet to invite him to-day. But the art of assorting company is above theseparvenus. They invite a certain number of persons without considering how they harmonise with each other. Between Sir Simon and you is the Reverend Doctor Folliott. He is said to be an excellent scholar, and is fonder of books than the majority of his cloth; he is very fond, also, of the good things of this world. He is of an admirable temper, and says rude things in a pleasant half-earnest manner, that nobody can take offence with. And next to him again is one Captain Fitzchrome, who is very much in love with a certain person that does not mean to have anything to say to him, because she can better her fortune by taking somebody else.
Captain Fitzchrome.—And next to him again is the beautiful, the accomplished, the witty, the fascinating, the tormenting, Lady Clarinda, who traduces herself to the said Captain by assertions which it would drive him crazy to believe.
Lady Clarinda.—Time will show, sir. And now we have gone the round of the table.
Captain Fitzchrome.—But I must say, though I know you had always a turn for sketching characters, you surprise me by your observation, and especially by your attention to opinions.
Lady Clarinda.—Well, I will tell you a secret: I am writing a novel.
Captain Fitzchrome.—A novel!
Lady Clarinda.—Yes, a novel. And I shall get a little finery by it: trinkets and fal-lals, which I cannot get from papa. You must know I have been reading several fashionable novels, the fashionable this, and the fashionable that; and I thought to myself, why I can do better than any of these myself. So I wrote a chapter or two, and sent them as a specimen to Mr. Puffall, the book-seller, telling him they were to be a part of the fashionable something or other, and he offered me, I will not say how much, to finish it in three volumes, and let him pay all the newspapers for recommending it as the work of a lady of quality, who had made very free with the characters of her acquaintance.
Captain Fitzchrome.—Surely you have not done so?
Lady Clarinda.—Oh, no! I leave that to Mr. Eavesdrop. But Mr. Puffall made it a condition that I should let him say so.
Captain Fitzchrome.—A strange recommendation.
Lady Clarinda.—Oh, nothing else will do. And it seems you may give yourself any character you like, and the newspapers will print it as if it came from themselves. I have commended you to three of our friends here as an economist, a transcendentalist, and a classical scholar; and if you wish to be renowned through the world for these, or any other accomplishments, the newspapers will confirm you in their possession for half-a-guinea a piece.
Captain Fitzchrome.—Truly, the praise of such gentry must be a feather in any one’s cap.
Lady Clarinda.—So you will see, some morning, that my novel is “the most popular production of the day.” This is Mr. Puffall’s favourite phrase. He makes the newspapers say it of everything he publishes. But “the day,” you know, is a very convenient phrase; it allows of three hundred and sixty-five “most popular productions” in a year. And in leap-year one more.
But when they came to shape the model,Not one could fit the other’s noddle.—Butler.
But when they came to shape the model,Not one could fit the other’s noddle.—Butler.
Meanwhile, the last course, and the dessert, passed by. When the ladies had withdrawn, young Crotchet addressed the company.
Mr. Crotchet,jun.There is one point in which philosophers of all classes seem to be agreed: that they only want money to regenerate the world.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—No doubt of it. Nothing is so easy as to lay down the outlines of perfect society. There wants nothing but money to set it going. I will explain myself clearly and fully by reading a paper. (Producing a large scroll.) “In the infancy of society—”
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Pray, Mr. Mac Quedy, how is it that all gentlemen of your nation begin everything they write with the “infancy of society?”
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Eh, sir, it is the simplest way to begin at the beginning. “In the infancy of society, when government was invented to save a percentage; say two and a half per cent.—”
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—I will not say any such thing.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Well, say any percentage you please.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—I will not say any percentage at all.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—“On the principle of the division of labour—”
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Government was invented to spend a percentage.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—To save a percentage.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—No, sir, to spend a percentage; and a good deal more than two and a half percent. Two hundred and fifty per cent.: that is intelligible.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—“In the infancy of society—”
Mr. Toogood.—Never mind the infancy of society. The question is of society in its maturity. Here is what it should be. (Producing a paper.) I have laid it down in a diagram.
Mr. Skionar.—Before we proceed to the question of government, we must nicely discriminate the boundaries of sense, understanding, and reason. Sense is a receptivity—
Mr. Crotchet,jun.—We are proceeding too fast. Money being all that is wanted to regenerate society, I will put into the hands of this company a large sum for the purpose. Now let us see how to dispose of it.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—We will begin by taking a committee-room in London, where we will dine together once a week, to deliberate.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—If the money is to go in deliberative dinners, you may set me down for a committee man and honorary caterer.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Next, you must all learn political economy, which I will teach you, very compendiously, in lectures over the bottle.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—I hate lectures over the bottle. But pray, sir, what is political economy?
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Political economy is to the state what domestic economy is to the family.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—No such thing, sir. In the family there is apaterfamilias, who regulates the distribution, and takes care that there shall be no such thing in the household as one dying of hunger, while another dies of surfeit. In the state it is all hunger at one end, and all surfeit at the other. Matchless claret, Mr. Crotchet.
Mr. Crotchet.—Vintage of fifteen, Doctor.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—The family consumes, and so does the state.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Consumes, air! Yes: but the mode, the proportions: there is the essential difference between the state and the family. Sir, I hate false analogies.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Well, sir, the analogy is not essential. Distribution will come under its proper head.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Come where it will, the distribution of the state is in no respect analogous to the distribution of the family. Thepaterfamilias, sir: thepaterfamilias.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Well, sir, let that pass. The family consumes, and in order to consume, it must have supply.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Well, sir, Adam and Eve knew that, when they delved and span.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Very true, sir (reproducing his scroll). “In the infancy of society—”
Mr. Toogood.—The reverend gentleman has hit the nail on the head. It is the distribution that must be looked to; it is thepaterfamiliasthat is wanting in the State. Now here I have provided him. (Reproducing his diagram.)
Mr. Trillo.—Apply the money, sir, to building and endowing an opera house, where the ancient altar of Bacchus may flourish, and justice may be done to sublime compositions. (Producing a part of a manuscript opera.)
Mr. Skionar.—No, sir, buildsacellafor transcendental oracles to teach the world how to see through a glass darkly. (Producing a scroll.)
Mr. Trillo.—See through an opera-glass brightly.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—See through a wine-glass full of claret; then you see both darkly and brightly. But, gentlemen, if you are all in the humour for reading papers, I will read you the first half of my next Sunday’s sermon. (Producing a paper.)
Omnes.—No sermon! No sermon!
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Then I move that our respective papers be committed to our respective pockets.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Political economy is divided into two great branches, production and consumption.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Yes, sir; there are two great classes of men: those who produce much and consume little; and those who consume much and produce nothing. Thefruges consumere natihave the best of it. Eh, Captain! You remember the characteristics of a great man according to Aristophanes: ὅστις γε πίνειν οἶδε καὶ βίνειν μόνον. Ha! ha! ha! Well, Captain, even in these tight-laced days, the obscurity of a learned language allows a little pleasantry.
Captain Fitzchrome.—Very true, sir; the pleasantry and the obscurity go together; they are all one, as it were—to me at any rate (aside).
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Now, sir—
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Pray, sir, let your science alone, or you will put me under the painful necessity of demolishing it bit by bit, as I have done your exordium. I will undertake it any morning; but it is too hard exercise after dinner.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Well, sir, in the meantime I hold my science established.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—And I hold it demolished.
Mr. Crotchet,jun.Pray, gentlemen, pocket your manuscripts, fill your glasses, and consider what we shall do with our money.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Build lecture-rooms, and schools for all.
Mr. Trillo.—Revive the Athenian theatre; regenerate the lyrical drama.
Mr. Toogood.—Build a grand co-operative parallelogram, with a steam-engine in the middle for a maid of all work.
Mr. Firedamp.—Drain the country, and get rid of malaria, by abolishing duck-ponds.
Dr. Morbific.—Found a philanthropic college of anticontagionists, where all the members shall be inoculated with the virus of all known diseases. Try the experiment on a grand scale.
Mr. Chainmail.—Build a great dining-hall; endow it with beef and ale, and hang the hall round with arms to defend the provisions.
Mr. Henbane.—Found a toxicological institution for trying all poisons and antidotes. I myself have killed a frog twelve times, and brought him to life eleven; but the twelfth time he died. I have a phial of the drug, which killed him, in my pocket, and shall not rest till I have discovered its antidote.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—I move that the last speaker be dispossessed of his phial, and that it be forthwith thrown into the Thames.
Mr. Henbane.—How, sir? my invaluable, and, in the present state of human knowledge, infallible poison?
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Let the frogs have all the advantage of it.
Mr. Crotchet.—Consider, Doctor, the fish might participate. Think of the salmon.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Then let the owner’s right-hand neighbour swallow it.
Mr. Eavesdrop.—Me, sir! What have I done, sir, that I am to be poisoned, sir?
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Sir, you have published a character of your facetious friend, the Reverend Doctor F., wherein you have sketched off me; me, sir, even to my nose and wig. What business have the public with my nose and wig?
Mr. Eavesdrop.—Sir, it is all good-humoured; all inbonhomie: all friendly and complimentary.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Sir, the bottle,la Dive Bouteille, is a recondite oracle, which makes an Eleusinian temple of the circle in which it moves. He who reveals its mysteries must die. Therefore, let the dose be administered.Fiat experimentum in animâ vili.
Mr. Eavesdrop.—Sir, you are very facetious at my expense.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Sir, you have been very unfacetious, very inficete at mine. You have dished me up, like a savoury omelette, to gratify the appetite of the reading rabble for gossip. The next time, sir, I will respond with theargumentum baculinum. Print that, sir: put it on record as a promise of the Reverend Doctor F., which shall be most faithfully kept, with an exemplary bamboo.
Mr. Eavesdrop.—Your cloth protects you, sir.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—My bamboo shall protect me, sir.
Mr. Crotchet.—Doctor, Doctor, you are growing too polemical.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Sir, my blood boils. What business have the public with my nose and wig?
Mr. Crotchet.—Doctor! Doctor!
Mr. Crotchet,jun.Pray, gentlemen, return to the point. How shall we employ our fund?
Mr. Philpot.—Surely in no way so beneficially as in exploring rivers. Send a fleet of steamboats down the Niger, and another up the Nile. So shall you civilise Africa, and establish stocking factories in Abyssinia and Bambo.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—With all submission, breeches and petticoats must precede stockings. Send out a crew of tailors. Try if the King of Bambo will invest in inexpressibles.
Mr. Crotchet,jun.—Gentlemen, it is not for partial, but for general benefit, that this fund is proposed: a grand and universally applicable scheme for the amelioration of the condition of man.
Several Voices.—That is my scheme. I have not heard a scheme but my own that has a grain of common sense.
Mr. Trillo.—Gentlemen, you inspire me. Your last exclamation runs itself into a chorus, and sets itself to music. Allow me to lead, and to hope for your voices in harmony.
After careful meditation,And profound deliberation,On the various pretty projects which have just been shown,Not a scheme in agitation,For the world’s amelioration,Has a grain of common sense in it, except my own.
After careful meditation,And profound deliberation,On the various pretty projects which have just been shown,Not a scheme in agitation,For the world’s amelioration,Has a grain of common sense in it, except my own.
Several Voices.—We are not disposed to join in any such chorus.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Well, of all these schemes, I am for Mr. Trillo’s. Regenerate the Athenian theatre. My classical friend here, the Captain, will vote with, me.
Captain Fitzchrome.—I, sir? oh! of course, sir.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Surely, Captain, I rely on you to uphold political economy.
Captain Fitzchrome.—Me, sir! oh, to be sure, sir.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Pray, sir, will political economy uphold the Athenian theatre?
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Surely not. It would be a very unproductive investment.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Then the Captain votes against you. What, sir, did not the Athenians, the wisest of nations, appropriate to their theatre their most sacred and intangible fund? Did not they give to melopoeia, choregraphy, and the sundry forms of didascalics, the precedence of all other matters, civil and military? Was it not their law, that even the proposal to divert this fund to any other purpose should be punished with death? But, sir, I further propose that the Athenian theatre being resuscitated, the admission shall be free to all who can expound the Greek choruses, constructively, mythologically, and metrically, and to none others. So shall all the world learn Greek: Greek, the Alpha and Omega of all knowledge. At him who sits not in the theatre shall be pointed the finger of scorn: he shall be called in the highway of the city, “a fellow without Greek.”
Mr. Trillo.—But the ladies, sir, the ladies.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Every man may take in a lady: and she who can construe and metricise a chorus, shall, if she so please, pass in by herself.
Mr. Trillo.—But, sir, you will shut me out of my own theatre. Let there at least be a double passport, Greek and Italian.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—No, sir; I am inexorable. No Greek, no theatre.
Mr. Trillo.—Sir, I cannot consent to be shut out from my own theatre.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—You see how it is, Squire Crotchet the younger; you can scarcely find two to agree on a scheme, and no two of those can agree on the details. Keep your money in your pocket. And so ends the fund for regenerating the world.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Nay, by no means. We are all agreed on deliberative dinners.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Very true; we will dine and discuss. We will sing with Robin Hood, “If I drink water while this doth last;” and while it lasts we will have no adjournment, if not to the Athenian theatre.
Mr. Trillo.—Well, gentlemen, I hope this chorus at least will please you:—
If I drink water while this doth last,May I never again drink wine:For how can a man, in his life of a span,Do anything better than dine?We'll dine and drink, and say if we thinkThat anything better can be,And when we have dined, wish all mankindMay dine as well as we.And though a good wish will fill no dishAnd brim no cup with sack,Yet thoughts will spring as the glasses ring,To illume our studious track.On the brilliant dreams of our hopeful schemesThe light of the flask shall shine;And we’ll sit till day, but we’ll find the wayTo drench the world with wine.
If I drink water while this doth last,May I never again drink wine:For how can a man, in his life of a span,Do anything better than dine?We'll dine and drink, and say if we thinkThat anything better can be,And when we have dined, wish all mankindMay dine as well as we.And though a good wish will fill no dishAnd brim no cup with sack,Yet thoughts will spring as the glasses ring,To illume our studious track.On the brilliant dreams of our hopeful schemesThe light of the flask shall shine;And we’ll sit till day, but we’ll find the wayTo drench the world with wine.
The schemes for the world’s regeneration evaporated in a tumult of voices.
Quoth he: In all my life till now,I ne’er saw so profane a show.—Butler.
Quoth he: In all my life till now,I ne’er saw so profane a show.—Butler.
Thelibrary of Crotchet Castle was a large and well-furnished apartment, opening on one side into an ante-room, on the other into a music-room. It had several tables stationed at convenient distances; one consecrated to the novelties of literature, another to the novelties of embellishment; others unoccupied, and at the disposal of the company. The walls were covered with a copious collection of ancient and modern books; the ancient having been selected and arranged by the Reverend Doctor Folliott. In the ante-room were card-tables; in the music-room were various instruments, all popular operas, and all fashionable music. In this suite of apartments, and not in the drawing-room, were the evenings of Crotchet Castle usually passed.
The young ladies were in the music-room; Miss Crotchet at the piano, Lady Clarinda at the harp, playing and occasionally singing, at the suggestion of Mr. Trillo, portions ofMatilde di Shabran. Lord Bossnowl was turning over the leaves for Miss Crotchet; the Captain was performing the same office for Lady Clarinda, but with so much more attention to the lady than the book, that he often made sad work with the harmony, by turnover of two leaves together. On these occasions Miss Crotchet paused, Lady Clarinda laughed, Mr. Trillo scolded, Lord Bossnowl yawned, the Captain apologised, and the performance proceeded.
In the library Mr. Mac Quedy was expounding political economy to the Reverend Doctor Folliott, who waspro moredemolishing its doctrinesseriatim.
Mr. Chainmail was in hot dispute with Mr. Skionar, touching the physical and moral well-being of man. Mr. Skionar was enforcing his friend Mr. Shantsee’s views of moral discipline; maintaining that the sole thing needful for man in this world was loyal and pious education; the giving men good books to read, and enough of the hornbook to read them; with a judicious interspersion of the lessons of Old Restraint, which was his poetic name for the parish stocks. Mr. Chainmail, on the other hand, stood up for the exclusive necessity of beef and ale, lodging and raiment, wife and children, courage to fight for them all, and armour wherewith to do so.
Mr. Henbane had got his face scratched, and his finger bitten, by the cat, in trying to catch her for a second experiment in killing and bringing to life; and Doctor Morbific was comforting him with a disquisition to prove that there were only four animals having the power to communicate hydrophobia, of which the cat was one; and that it was not necessary that the animal should be in a rabid state, the nature of the wound being everything, and the idea of contagion a delusion. Mr. Henbane was listening very lugubriously to this dissertation.
Mr. Philpot had seized on Mr. Firedamp, and pinned him down to a map of Africa, on which he was tracing imaginary courses of mighty inland rivers, terminating in lakes and marshes, where they were finally evaporated by the heat of the sun; and Mr. Firedamp’s hair was standing on end at the bare imagination of the mass of malaria that must be engendered by the operation. Mr. Toogood had begun explaining his diagrams to Sir Simon Steeltrap; but Sir Simon grew testy, and told Mr. Toogood that the promulgators of such doctrines ought to be consigned to the treadmill. The philanthropist walked off from the country gentleman, and proceeded to hold forth to young Crotchet, who stood silent, as one who listens, but in reality without hearing a syllable. Mr. Crotchet, senior, as the master of the house, was left to entertain himself with his own meditations, till the Reverend Doctor Folliott tore himself from Mr. Mac Quedy, and proceeded to expostulate with Mr. Crotchet on a delicate topic.
There was an Italian painter, who obtained the name ofIl Bragatore, by the superinduction of inexpressibles on the naked Apollos and Bacchuses of his betters. The fame of this worthy remained one and indivisible, till a set of heads, which had been, by a too common mistake of Nature’s journeymen, stuck upon magisterial shoulders, as the Corinthian capitals of “fair round bellies with fat capon lined,” but which Nature herself had intended for the noddles of porcelain mandarins, promulgated simultaneously from the east and the west of London, an order that no plaster-of-Paris Venus should appear in the streets without petticoats. Mr. Crotchet, on reading this order in the evening paper, which, by the postman’s early arrival, was always laid on his breakfast-table, determined to fill his house with Venuses of all sizes and kinds. In pursuance of this resolution, came packages by water-carriage, containing an infinite variety of Venuses. There were the Medicean Venus, and the Bathing Venus; the Uranian Venus, and the Pandemian Venus; the Crouching Venus, and the Sleeping Venus; the Venus rising from the sea, the Venus with the apple of Paris, and the Venus with the armour of Mars.
The Reverend Doctor Folliott had been very much astonished at this unexpected display. Disposed, as he was, to hold, that whatever had been in Greece, was right; he was more than doubtful of the propriety of throwing open the classicaladytumto the illiterate profane. Whether, in his interior mind, he was at all influenced, either by the consideration that it would be for the credit of his cloth, with some of his vice-suppressing neighbours, to be able to say that he had expostulated; or by curiosity, to try what sort of defence his city-bred friend, who knew the classics only by translations, and whose reason was always a little ahead of his knowledge, would make for his somewhat ostentatious display of liberality in matters of taste; is a question on which the learned may differ: but, after having duly deliberated on two full-sized casts of the Uranian and Pandemian Venus, in niches on each side of the chimney, and on three alabaster figures, in glass cases, on the mantelpiece, he proceeded, peirastically, to open his fire.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—These little alabaster figures on the mantelpiece, Mr. Crotchet, and those large figures in the niches—may I take the liberty to ask you what they are intended to represent?
Mr. Crotchet.—Venus, sir; nothing more, sir; just Venus.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—May I ask you, sir, why they are there?
Mr. Crotchet.—To be looked at, sir; just to be looked at: the reasons for most things in a gentleman’s house being in it at all; from the paper on the walls, and the drapery of the curtains, even to the books in the library, of which the most essential part is the appearance of the back.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Very true, sir. As great philosophers hold that theesseof things ispercipi, so a gentleman’s furniture exists to be looked at. Nevertheless, sir, there are some things more fit to be looked at than others; for instance, there is nothing more fit to be looked at than the outside of a book. It is, as I may say, from repeated experience, a pure and unmixed pleasure to have a goodly volume lying before you, and to know that you may open it if you please, and need not open it unless you please. It is a resource againstennui, ifennuishould come upon you. To have the resource and not to feel theennui, to enjoy your bottle in the present, and your book in the indefinite future, is a delightful condition of human existence. There is no place, in which a man can move or sit, in which the outside of a book can be otherwise than an innocent and becoming spectacle. Touching this matter, there cannot, I think, be two opinions. But with respect to your Venuses there can be, and indeed there are, two very distinct opinions. Now, Sir, that little figure in the centre of the mantelpiece—as a gravepaterfamilias, Mr. Crotchet, with a fair nubile daughter, whose eyes are like the fish-pools of Heshbon—I would ask you if you hold that figure to be altogether delicate?
Mr. Crotchet.—The sleeping Venus, sir? Nothing can be more delicate than the entire contour of the figure, the flow of the hair on the shoulders and neck, the form of the feet and fingers. It is altogether a most delicate morsel.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Why, in that sense, perhaps, it is as delicate as whitebait in July. But the attitude, sir, the attitude.
Mr. Crotchet.—Nothing can be more natural, sir.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—That is the very thing, sir. It is too natural: too natural, sir: it lies for all the world like— I make no doubt, the pious cheesemonger, who recently broke its plaster facsimile over the head of the itinerant vendor, was struck by a certain similitude to the position of his own sleeping beauty, and felt his noble wrath thereby justly aroused.
Mr. Crotchet.—Very likely, sir. In my opinion, the cheesemonger was a fool, and the justice who sided with him was a greater.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Fool, sir, is a harsh term: call not thy brother a fool.
Mr. Crotchet.—Sir, neither the cheesemonger nor the justice is a brother of mine.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Sir, we are all brethren.
Mr. Crotchet.—Yes, sir, as the hangman is of the thief; the squire of the poacher; the judge of the libeller; the lawyer of his client; the statesman of his colleague; the bubble-blower of the bubble-buyer; the slave-driver of the negro; as these are brethren, so am I and the worthies in question.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—To be sure, sir, in these instances, and in many others, the term brother must be taken in its utmost latitude of interpretation: we are all brothers, nevertheless. But to return to the point. Now these two large figures, one with drapery on the lower half of the body, and the other with no drapery at all; upon my word, sir, it matters not what godfathers and godmothers may have promised and vowed for the children of this world, touching the devil and other things to be renounced, if such figures as those are to be put before their eyes.
Mr. Crotchet.—Sir, the naked figure is the Pandemian Venus, and the half-draped figure is the Uranian Venus; and I say, sir, that figure realises the finest imaginings of Plato, and is the personification of the most refined and exalted feeling of which the human mind is susceptible; the love of pure, ideal, intellectual beauty.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—I am aware, sir, that Plato, in his Symposium, discourseth very eloquently touching the Uranian and Pandemian Venus: but you must remember that, in our universities, Plato is held to be little better than a misleader of youth; and they have shown their contempt for him, not only by never reading him (a mode of contempt in which they deal very largely), but even by never printing a complete edition of him; although they have printed many ancient books, which nobody suspects to have been ever read on the spot, except by a person attached to the press, who is, therefore, emphatically called “the reader.”
Mr. Crotchet.—Well, sir?
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Why, sir, to “the reader” aforesaid (supposing either of our universities to have printed an edition of Plato), or to any one else who can be supposed to have read Plato, or, indeed, to be ever likely to do so, I would very willingly show these figures; because to such they would, I grant you, be the outward and visible signs of poetical and philosophical ideas: but, to the multitude, the gross, carnal multitude, they are but two beautiful women, one half undressed, and the other quite so.
Mr. Crotchet.—Then, sir, let the multitude look upon them and learn modesty.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—I must say that, if I wished my footman to learn modesty, I should not dream of sending him to school to a naked Venus.
Mr. Crotchet.—Sir, ancient sculpture is the true school of modesty. But where the Greeks had modesty, we have cant; where they had poetry, we have cant; where they had patriotism, we have cant; where they had anything that exalts, delights, or adorns humanity, we have nothing but cant, cant, cant. And, sir, to show my contempt for cant in all its shapes, I have adorned my house with the Greek Venus, in all her shapes, and am ready to fight her battle against all the societies that ever were instituted for the suppression of truth and beauty.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—My dear sir, I am afraid you are growing warm. Pray be cool. Nothing contributes so much to good digestion as to be perfectly cool after dinner.
Mr. Crotchet.—Sir, the Lacedæmonian virgins wrestled naked with young men; and they grew up, as the wise Lycurgus had foreseen, into the most modest of women, and the most exemplary of wives and mothers.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Very likely, sir; but the Athenian virgins did no such thing, and they grew up into wives who stayed at home—stayed at home, sir; and looked after their husbands’ dinner—his dinner, sir, you will please to observe.
Mr. Crotchet.—And what was the consequence of that, sir? that they were such very insipid persons that the husband would not go home to eat his dinner, but preferred the company of some Aspasia, or Lais.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Two very different persons, sir, give me leave to remark.
Mr. Crotchet.—Very likely, sir; but both too good to be married in Athens.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Sir, Lais was a Corinthian.
Mr. Crotchet.—Od’s vengeance, sir, some Aspasia and any other Athenian name of the same sort of person you like—
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—I do not like the sort of person at all: the sort of person I like, as I have already implied, is a modest woman, who stays at home and looks after her husband’s dinner.
Mr. Crotchet.—Well, sir, that was not the taste of the Athenians. They preferred the society of women who would not have made any scruple about sitting as models to Praxiteles; as you know, sir, very modest women in Italy did to Canova; one of whom, an Italian countess, being asked by an English lady, “how she could bear it?” answered, “Very well; there was a good fire in the room.”
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Sir, the English lady should have asked how the Italian lady’s husband could bear it. The phials of my wrath would overflow if poor dear Mrs. Folliott —: sir, in return for your story, I will tell you a story of my ancestor, Gilbert Folliott. The devil haunted him, as he did Saint Francis, in the likeness of a beautiful damsel; but all he could get from the exemplary Gilbert was an admonition to wear a stomacher and longer petticoats.
Mr. Crotchet.—Sir, your story makes for my side of the question. It proves that the devil, in the likeness of a fair damsel, with short petticoats and no stomacher, was almost too much for Gilbert Folliott. The force of the spell was in the drapery.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Bless my soul, sir!
Mr. Crotchet.—Give me leave, sir. Diderot—
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Who was he, sir?
Mr. Crotchet.—Who was he, sir? the sublime philosopher, the father of the Encyclopædia, of all the encyclopædias that have ever been printed.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Bless me, sir, a terrible progeny: they belong to the tribe of Incubi.
Mr. Crotchet.—The great philosopher, Diderot—
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Sir, Diderot is not a man after my heart. Keep to the Greeks, if you please; albeit this Sleeping Venus is not an antique.
Mr. Crotchet.—Well, sir, the Greeks: why do we call the Elgin marbles inestimable? Simply because they are true to nature. And why are they so superior in that point to all modern works, with all our greater knowledge of anatomy? Why, sir, but because the Greeks, having no cant, had better opportunities of studying models?
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Sir, I deny our greater knowledge of anatomy. But I shall take the liberty to employ, on this occasion, theargumentum ad hominem. Would you have allowed Miss Crotchet to sit for a model to Canova?
Mr. Crotchet.—Yes, sir.
“God bless my soul, sir!” exclaimed the Reverend Doctor Folliott, throwing himself back into a chair, and flinging up his heels, with the premeditated design of giving emphasis to his exclamation; but by miscalculating his impetus, he overbalanced his chair, and laid himself on the carpet in a right angle, of which his back was the base.
Chi sta nel mondo un par d’ore contento,Nè gli vien tolta, ovver contaminata,Quella sua pace in veruno momento,Puo dir che Giove drittamente il guata.Forteguerri.
Chi sta nel mondo un par d’ore contento,Nè gli vien tolta, ovver contaminata,Quella sua pace in veruno momento,Puo dir che Giove drittamente il guata.
Forteguerri.
TheReverend Doctor Folliott took his departure about ten o’clock, to walk home to his vicarage. There was no moon, but the night was bright and clear, and afforded him as much light as he needed. He paused a moment by the Roman camp to listen to the nightingale; repeated to himself a passage of Sophocles; proceeded through the park gate, and entered the narrow lane that led to the village. He walked on in a very pleasant mood of the state called reverie; in which fish and wine, Greek and political economy, the Sleeping Venus he had left behind, and poor dear Mrs. Folliott, to whose fond arms he was returning, passed, as in a camera obscura, over the tablets of his imagination. Presently the image of Mr. Eavesdrop, with a printed sketch of the Reverend Doctor F., presented itself before him, and he began mechanically to flourish his bamboo. The movement was prompted by his good genius, for the uplifted bamboo received the blow of a ponderous cudgel, which was intended for his head. The reverend gentleman recoiled two or three paces, and saw before him a couple of ruffians, who were preparing to renew the attack, but whom, with two swings of his bamboo, he laid with cracked sconces on the earth, where he proceeded to deal with them like corn beneath the flail of the thresher. One of them drew a pistol, which went off in the very act of being struck aside by the bamboo, and lodged a bullet in the brain of the other. There was then only one enemy, who vainly struggled to rise, every effort being attended with a new and more signal prostration. The fellow roared for mercy. “Mercy, rascal!” cried the divine; “what mercy were you going to show me, villain? What! I warrant me, you thought it would be an easy matter, and no sin, to rob and murder a parson on his way home from dinner. You said to yourself, doubtless, “We’ll waylay the fat parson (you irreverent knave), as he waddles home (you disparaging ruffian), half-seas-over, (you calumnious vagabond).” And with every dyslogistic term, which he supposed had been applied to himself, he inflicted a new bruise on his rolling and roaring antagonist. “Ah, rogue!” he proceeded, “you can roar now, marauder; you were silent enough when you devoted my brains to dispersion under your cudgel. But seeing that I cannot bind you, and that I intend you not to escape, and that it would be dangerous to let you rise, I will disable you in all your members. I will contund you as Thestylis did strong smelling herbs, in the quality whereof you do most gravely partake, as my nose beareth testimony, ill weed that you are. I will beat you to a jelly, and I will then roll you into the ditch, to lie till the constable comes for you, thief.”
“Hold! hold! reverend sir,” exclaimed the penitent culprit, “I am disabled already in every finger, and in every joint. I will roll myself into the ditch, reverend sir.”
“Stir not, rascal,” returned the divine, “stir not so much as the quietest leaf above you, or my bamboo rebounds on your body, like hail in a thunder-storm. Confess, speedily, villain; are you a simple thief, or would you have manufactured me into a subject for the benefit of science? Ay, miscreant caitiff, you would have made me a subject for science, would you? You are a school-master abroad, are you? You are marching with a detachment of the march of mind, are you? You are a member of the Steam Intellect Society, are you? You swear by the learned friend, do you?”
“Oh, no! reverend sir,” answered the criminal, “I am innocent of all these offences, whatever they are, reverend sir. The only friend I had in the world is lying dead beside me, reverend sir.”
The reverend gentleman paused a moment, and leaned on his bamboo. The culprit, bruised as he was, sprang on his legs, and went off in double quick time. The Doctor gave him chase, and had nearly brought him within arm’s length, when the fellow turned at right angles, and sprang clean over a deep dry ditch. The divine, following with equal ardour, and less dexterity, went down over head and ears into a thicket of nettles. Emerging with much discomposure, he proceeded to the village, and roused the constable; but the constable found, on reaching the scene of action, that the dead man was gone, as well as his living accomplice.
“Oh, the monster!” exclaimed the Reverend Doctor Folliott, “he has made a subject for science of the only friend he had in the world.” “Ay, my dear,” he resumed, the next morning at breakfast, “if my old reading, and my early gymnastics (for, as the great Hermann says, before I was demulced by the Muses, I wasferocis ingenii puer,et ad arma quam ad literas paratior), had not imbued me indelibly with some of the holy rage ofFrère Jean des Entommeures, I should be, at this moment, lying on the table of some flinty-hearted anatomist, who would have sliced and disjointed me as unscrupulously as I do these remnants of the capon and chine, wherewith you consoled yourself yesterday for my absence at dinner. Phew! I have a noble thirst upon me, which I will quench with floods of tea.”
The reverend gentleman was interrupted by a messenger, who informed him that the Charity Commissioners requested his presence at the inn, where they were holding a sitting.
“The Charity Commissioners!” exclaimed the reverend gentleman, “who on earth are they?”
The messenger could not inform him, and the reverend gentleman took his hat and stick, and proceeded to the inn.
On entering the best parlour, he saw three well-dressed and bulky gentlemen sitting at a table, and a fourth officiating as clerk, with an open book before him, and a pen in his hand. The church-wardens, who had been also summoned, were already in attendance.
The chief commissioner politely requested the Reverend Doctor Folliott to be seated, and after the usual meteorological preliminaries had been settled by a resolution,nem. con., that it was a fine day but very hot, the chief commissioner stated, that in virtue of the commission of Parliament, which they had the honour to hold, they were now to inquire into the state of the public charities of this village.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—The state of the public charities, sir, is exceedingly simple. There are none. The charities here are all private, and so private, that I for one know nothing of them.
First Commissioner.—We have been informed, sir, that there is an annual rent charged on the land of Hautbois, for the endowment and repair of an almshouse.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Hautbois! Hautbois!
First Commissioner.—The manorial farm of Hautbois, now occupied by Farmer Seedling, is charged with the endowment and maintenance of an almshouse.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott(to the Churchwarden). How is this, Mr. Bluenose?
First Churchwarden.—I really do not know, sir. What say you, Mr. Appletwig?
Mr. Appletwig(parish clerk and schoolmaster;an old man). I do remember, gentlemen, to have been informed, that there did stand, at the end of the village, a ruined cottage, which had once been an almshouse, which was endowed and maintained, by an annual revenue of a mark and a half, or one pound sterling, charged some centuries ago on the farm of Hautbois; but the means, by the progress of time, having become inadequate to the end, the almshouse tumbled to pieces.
First Commissioner.—But this is a right which cannot be abrogated by desuetude, and the sum of one pound per annum is still chargeable for charitable purposes on the manorial farm of Hautbois.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Very well, sir.
Mr. Appletwig.—But, sir, the one pound per annum is still received by the parish, but was long ago, by an unanimous vote in open vestry, given to the minister.
The Three Commissioners(unâ voce). The minister!
First Commissioner.—This is an unjustifiable proceeding.
Second Commissioner.—A misappropriation of a public fund.
Third Commissioner.—A flagrant perversion of a charitable donation.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—God bless my soul, gentlemen! I know nothing of this matter. How is this, Mr. Bluenose? Do I receive this one pound per annum?
First Churchwarden.—Really, sir, I know no more about it than you do.
Mr. Appletwig.—You certainly receive it, sir. It was voted to one of your predecessors. Farmer Seedling lumps it in with his tithes.