LEONORA.

“‘For prince or for prig,Long locks or flowery wig,I don’t care a fig!—Fill the glasses.So I may hold my land,And my bottle in my hand,And moisten life’s sandWhile it passes.’”[Pg 250]

There was a curious portrait a little farther on—a beautiful and interesting woman, as far as neck and bosom could give us any information; but in place of her countenance was painted a thick black veil. I asked for her history. “Oh,” said Villars, “that damosel was called Priscilla the Penniless. She was wonderfully killing, but of course that is not the reason she is veiled. Her uncle, the existing head of the family, struck her face out of the picture, and her name out of his will, because she married a young Roundhead, who had no merit but his insolence and no fortune but his sword.”

“What a detestable fool!” said Davenant, meaning the uncle.

“I think she was,” said Marmaduke, meaning the niece. “Mais allons; let me show you one more set of features, and we will adjourn. Here is my earliest and most complete idea of feminine beauty. Down on your knees, Davenant, and worship. The fairy-like symmetry of the shape, and the pretty threatening of the right arm, and the admirable nonchalance of the left, and the studied tranquillity of the black hair, and the eloquent malignity of the dark eyes, and the exquisite caprice of the nose, and the laughing scorn of her little lips! By Venus’ dimple, Davenant, I have stood here, and talked rhapsodies to her for hours.”

“Pray give us one now,” said Cecil, laughing.

“I will. Fairest of Nature’s works! perfection in duodecimo! I speak to you, and you do not hear; I question you, and you do not answer: but I read your taste in your dress, and your character in your countenance. You are the brightest of all earthly beauties. You would call me a blockhead if I called you a goddess; you are fashioned for a drawing-room, and not for Olympus—for champagne, and not for nectar; you are born for conquest and for mirth, to busy your delicate brain with the slaves of to-day, and to snap your delicate fingers at the slaves of yesterday; epigrams only are indited to your charms, witticisms only are uttered in your presence; you think laughter the elixir vitæ, and a folio of theology poison; you look with contempt on the Damon who has died for your sake, and with kindness[Pg 251]on the fool who bows to the ground and vows he is ‘yours entire,’ head and hand, pen and pistol, from infancy to age, and from shining ringlet to shoe-ribbon!”

“Admirable!” cried Cecil, “and after all the woman is nothing extraordinary.”

“Chacun a son goût,” said Villars.

“She has no poetry about her,” said the first.

“I never write poetry about anybody,” said the second.

“She is not guilty of intellect,” said the reviler.

“She is guilty of coquetry,” said the admirer.

“She would never understand Milton,” said the poet.

“She would dance divinely,” said the fashionable.

“You are over head and ears in love,” said Davenant, laughing immensely.

“She died anno Domini seventeen hundred!” said Marmaduke, with inestimable gravity; and so we left the gallery.

We parted from our friend the next morning. If perfect indifference and composure in all trials and temptations can constitute happiness, Villars will be a happy man; but there is something repulsive in his very happiness. Which shall I prefer? Marmaduke, with his unsunned and unclouded weather, or Davenant, with his eternal alternation of bright glow and fleeting shower?

I could never settle the point.

PoorAlonzo! He was the best friend that ever drank Xeres: he picked me out of the Guadalquivir, when I deemed I had said my last prayer.

It was a very conciliating introduction. I never in my life made a friend of a man to whom I was introduced in a formal kind of way, with bows from both parties, and[Pg 252]cordiality from neither. I love something more stirring, more animated; the river of life is at best but a quiet stupid stream, and I want an occasional pebble to ruffle its surface withal. The most agreeable introductions that ever fell to my lot were these—my introduction to Pendragon, who was overturned with me in the York Mail; my introduction to Eliza, who contrived to faint in my arms on board theAlbionpacket; and my introduction to Alonzo, who picked me out of the Guadalquivir.

I was strolling beside it on a fine moonlight night, after a brilliant and fatiguing party, at which the Lady Isidora had made ten conquests, and Don Pedro had told twenty stories: I was tired to death of dancing and iced waters, glaring lights and lemonade; and as I looked on the sleepy wave, and the dark trees, and the cloudless sky, I felt that I could wander there for ever, and dream of poetry, and—two or three friends.

The sound of a guitar and a sweet voice waked me; I do not know why I always associate the ideas of pleasant tones and bright eyes together; but I cannot help it, and of course I was very anxious to see the musician of the Guadalquivir. I clambered, by the aid of cracked stones, and bushes which hung to them, to the summit of a low wall; and looking down perceived a cavalier sitting with a lady under a grove of sycamores. The cavalier seemed to have seen hardly seventeen winters; he was slender and tall, with a ruddy complexion, black hair, and a quick merry eye. The lady appeared full five years older; her eyes were as quick, and her ringlets as black, and her complexion as warm, but more delicate: they were evidently brother and sister; but that was a matter of indifference to me.

I heard a Spanish song upon the fall of the Abencerrage, and another upon the exploits of the Cid: then the lady began an Italian ditty, but she had not accomplished the first stanza when a decayed stone gave way, and carried me through all the intricacies of bush and bramble into the cold bed of the river. I could not swim a stroke.

I remember nothing more until the minute when I[Pg 253]opened my eyes, and found myself in a pretty summer-house, very wet and very cold, with Alonzo and his sister leaning over me. “For the love of heaven” were the first words I heard, “run, Alonzo, to call the servants.”

“I wait,” said Alonzo, “to hear him speak. If he be a Frenchman he goes to the bottom again.”

The Fates be thanked that I was born in Derbyshire, and called Sir Harry my father; if I had bathed in the Seine instead of the Derwent, I had rued my parentage bitterly. Alonzo detested the French.

From that time we were always together. They were orphans, and had scarcely a relation in the world except an aunt who had gone to the cloister, and an uncle who had crossed the sea, and a rich cousin who had betaken himself St. Jerome knew whither; but Alonzo, who had a much nearer concern in the matter, seemed to know little enough about it. They had travelled much, and Leonora was mistress apparently of the literature of all Europe; yet they went rarely into company, for they doted upon one another with a love so perfect and so engrossing, that you might have fancied them, as they fancied themselves, alone in the world, with no toil and no pleasure, but solitary walks, and songs of tenderness, and gazings upon one another’s eyes. If ever perfection existed in woman, it existed here. I do not know why I did not fall in love with Leonora; but to be sure I was in love with five or six at a time.

A few months flew delightfully away. Leonora taught me Spanish, and Alonzo taught me to swim. Every morning was occupied with romantic excursions by water or by land, and every evening was beguiled with literary conversation or music from the loveliest voice and the most eloquent strings that ever I had the fortune to listen to. And when we parted, we parted with warm hearts, and pleasant anticipations, and affectionate tears. In two brief years those hearts were separated, and those anticipations were blighted for ever, and those tears were exchanged for tears of bitterness and of mourning.

The troubles of Spain commenced; and my poor Alonzo joined the Patriots, and fell in his first campaign. Leonora[Pg 254]had been—not a heroine, for I hate heroines—but a noble woman. She herself had decorated the young victim whom she sacrificed to her country’s good; she had embroidered the lace on his uniform with her own hand; she had given him the scarf which was found turned round his arm on the field; and she had smiled mournfully as she bade him wear it till some one more beautiful or more beloved had chosen him for her knight. And when he had girded on his father’s sword, and lingered with his hand upon his courser’s mane, she had said “farewell” in a firm voice, and wept while she said it.

It was on a journey to Scotland that I passed through the small village in which the Spanish lady had shrouded her fading beauty and her breaking heart. I sent up my name to her, and was admitted into her little drawing-room immediately. Oh! how altered she seemed that day. All the colour had disappeared from her cheek, and all the freshness from her lip; she had still the white hand and arm, which I had seen running so lightly over the strings of her theorbo, but they were wasted terribly away; and though her long dark locks were braided as carefully as they had been in happier days, they did not communicate the idea of brightness and brilliancy which they had been wont to scatter over her countenance. She endeavoured to rise from the sofa as I entered; but the effort was too great for her, and she sat down without speaking. She was evidently dying; and the contrast between the parting and the meeting, and the vague vision of the past and the melancholy reality of the present, struck me so forcibly and so sadly, that I stayed with my hand on the door and burst into tears.

“We are not to weep thus,” she said; “he fell like a true Spaniard, and I only regret that I was not born a man, that I might have put my rifle to my shoulder and died with my hand in his. Pray sit down; it is a long time since I have seen any friend who can talk to me of the old days.”

I suggested that she ought to endeavour to think less of the losses she had endured, and to dwell more cheerfully on the tranquillity which might yet be in store for her. “I[Pg 255]should despise you now,” she answered, “if I could think this advice came from your heart. What! you would have me forget him, whose life was my dearest pleasure, and whose death is my greatest pride. Look at this ring,” and she took off a small gold one, and made me remark its motto—fiel a la muerte; “he would not have bade me wear this in remembrance of him, if he had not known that he was doomed to perish, if he had not known too that I should be happy afterwards in thinking and dreaming of him.” Then she began to recall minutely every scene and circumstance of our intimacy; inquiring about every study or amusement we had meditated or enjoyed together, whether I had bettered my flute-playing, whether I had studied landscape, whether I had finished Calderon. She wearied herself with talking; and then, leaning her head on the cushions, desired me to take up a book from the table and read to her, that she might hear whether my pronunciation was improved.

I took up the first that presented itself; it was only a manuscript book, containing many scraps and fragments from different authors in her brother’s writing. I laid it down again, and took up the next: it was a Dante which I had given her: I opened it at random and began to read the story of Francesca. When I came to the celebrated lines—

Nessun maggior doloreChe ricordarsi del tempo feliceNella miseria——

“I do not believe a word of it” she said. “I would not lose my recollection for all Mexico.”

I took leave of her soon: for I saw that my presence agitated and wearied her. When I had parted from her before, she had given me a miniature of herself, which she had painted in all the glow of health and spirits, and ardent affections, which then so well became her. Now she gave me another which had been her task or pleasure in sickness and solitude. I do not know why I turn from the first with its fine hues and sparkling lustre, to gaze upon the paleness and languor of the other, with a deeper feeling of melancholy delight.[Pg 256]

When I returned from Scotland after the lapse of two months, Leonora was dead. I found the sexton of the village, and desired him to point out to me the spot where she rested. There was a small marble slab over her remains, with the brief inscription, “Leonora.—Addio!” I stood for a few minutes there, and began to moralize and murmur. “It seems only yesterday,” I said, “that she was moving and breathing before me, with all the buoyancy and beauty of her blameless form and her stainless spirit; and now she lies in her purity and her loveliness.”

“She lies in a pretty grave,” said the old sexton, looking with apparent satisfaction on his handiwork.

“She does, indeed, good Nicholas; and her loveliness is but little to the purpose!”

Scene—Rome.A Cook’s Shop.Time—Night.

Dam.[entering.] Hilloa! black dweller in darkness! Hilloa! monarch of perfumes and placentæ! How long am I to kick my royal feet before thy damnable dwelling-place, like a half-buried ghost before Charon, or a half-witted Grecian before Troy? Shrivelled imp of Hades, answer me! Was it for me—for me, reptile, the lord of all misrule, the bosom friend of every felon and flagon in Rome, the deepest drinker that ever kissed Chian—saving always the Emperor, whom the Fates and the Furies preserve!—was it for me to stand for an hour, roaring “Syrinx, Syrinx,” louder than ever poet cried Evoe! over his sour verses and sour vinegar, with not a hand of those[Pg 257]who live by me to take the bolt from the door and the seal from the bottle? Now, by Pollux——

Syr.Prince of patrons——

Dam.I tell thee, foul fiend, all Rome has been at my heels, hooting and hallooing, sweating and swearing, making a very chaos of greasy caps and grievous imprecations, red flambeaux and faces almost as red, cooks and cobblers, slaves and centurions, money borrowers and money lenders. By Pollux, again I say, Themison is not more weary when he has prescribed for his twentieth patient, nor Palemon, when the last disputant of his hundred has murthered grammar and great Julius together.

Syr.Merciful lord——

Dam.Hecate! We are come to a pretty pass, when a man of my blood may not walk in the dark, and swear in a mask, and kiss a girl in the Capitol, and cudgel a usurer in the Suburra—but fathers, and brothers, and cousins—ay, by the gods of the hearthstone! and mothers and aunts to boot—must start up, like the Argonaut’s harvest, scouring and screaming in all the streets of Rome and all the dialects of its provinces. Marry, hang them! Is there no respect or reverence for my this year’s chariot, or my last year’s fasces? Nay, then, honour may hide in a cloaca, and fashion walk a-foot; patricians shall patronize the tunic, and consulships be sold for an as.

Syr.Most munificent of revellers——

Dam.And for thee, scum of Ethiopia, for thee to keep thy supporter and thy sovereign lingering thus long before thy threshold, and listening to the cries, and the curses, and the distant murmurs of a mob. May I never fling Venus again, may I never lip Mela’s Falernian, may the black plague poison my pickles, may the green jacket fail in the circus, if ever I danced the client so long—no, not before the Emperor’s gate—no, not under Triphenion’s window, though she be witty, and wicked, and gay, and golden-haired, the fairest and the fondest of the daughters of Corinth! Epona! belike thou hast forgotten me; there is nothing to be remembered in my forehead and my features! Look at me, villain, slave—who am I?

Syr.My most admirable and excellent master, I lick thy[Pg 258]foot. Thou art the supreme of sin and song, the chief choice of charioteers, the love of all thy slaves, the envy of all the Senate, priest of pledgings and king of cups, the Mars of midnight, the Cupid of costume, the Jupiter of all joviality!

Dam.Excellent well! I had not deemed thy recollection so good; marry, thou mayest perhaps recollect the far-back landing, and the lorn look, and the chalked sole, and the bored ear; and thou mayest perhaps have some slight vision of thrushes fried to dust, and boars burned to powder, and the inflicted scourge, and the threatened crucifixion. I thought that withered skin of thine had undergone metempsychosis, or that thou hadst found the two springs of Lethe in Vindicta and Vertigo.

Syr.Prince of men, it is not so lightly that I forget my native dust, or the hand that raised me from it. All I have is thine own; take of it to eat or to drink, or to wear or to waste; set thy slipper on my head, and crush my brains beneath thee; give me thy dagger, and let me pledge a health to thee in my best heart’s blood.

Dam.Honest Syrinx, I forgive thee! let there be new peace and old wine between us. Ha! little Cyane, where hast thou hidden thy mirth and mitra? Come hither, little Cyane! What! I warrant me thou wert afraid of me, because my frown was somewhat grim, and my posture somewhat gladiatorial. But mine anger is vanished; I am as cold as the snows of Hæmus, or the pleadings of Pedo. Sit by me, Cyane; we will have music anon.

Cya.Now, by Venus, I had not dreamed we should see you again, Damasippus! Have you been grieving with the jaundice or grappling with the Gauls? Have you hunted Parnassus and the columns, or cultivated philosophy and a beard? Ah! now I bethink me; there were two tormentors who kept your sweet looks from us; soldier and sophist they were, uncle and father. Tisiphone whip them for it! And what hast thou done with them, dear Damasippus: him of the civic crown, with his sword and buckler, his sour look and sagum; who prated to you of cohorts and conquests, warfare and wounds, Syria and Armenia, Ister and Rhine? and him of the Stoic school, with his good[Pg 259]morals and grave face, his short breath and long speeches, who only lived for profitless dispute, and endless enthymeme, and meaningless maxim, and senseless syllogism. Mercury! but they were a valuable pair to all the lovers of laughter.

Dam.They were, Cyane, they were; but they were loathsome poisoners of enjoyment, and detestable marrers of mettle. Here is to the quiet of their encampment. Mine uncle—the gods be thanked for that—is with the Prætor in Spain; and my father—the gods be thanked for that too—is with his ancestors in the Flaminian; and I am here, sweet Cyane—the gods be thanked for that, above all—sufficiently merry and reasonably drunk. I thought I should have died before supper. A hundred plagues have haunted me since daybreak. My head was out of order, and my physician out of town; and my mistress broke an appointment, and my curricle broke down; and the theatres were empty, and the courts were full; and merry Marcus was swearing in the sullens, and solemn Saleius was reciting in the baths. Phœbus blight him for it! Λ decree of the Senate would never stop that eternal babbler; it would be easier to silence the Danube. Does he think that man, whose life is fourscore years, has nothing to study and care for here but warrior and amazon, epic and ode, maidens shrieking in sapphics and heroes howling in hexameters?

Cya.Nay now, sweetest soul of mine, you are very rude to the poets. May I never see a solidus again, if I do not love a poet as I love my own soul! They are all so humble, and so obedient, and so starving. Poor Saleius never fingers a denarius, but it comes straight to us at the Jews’ gate. And then he is so happy and so agreeable, and so fond of his liquor and his laurels; and after his second cup, “Cyane,” says he, “did you never hear my Orestes? Never, I’ll be sworn! Woe for thy education, Cyane; thou wert born among savage barbarians, and suckled by tigresses, and cradled in rocks and stones. But it shall be amended. ‘Learning,’ as Ovid sung before me,

“‘Learning and love are good lustrations,And purify all rude sensations,’”[Pg 260]

And then he throws himself into an attitude thus, takes off his cup with a tragic smack of the lips, and “Cyane,” quoth he, “thou shalt hear sounds which Hercules might have earned by the repetition of his old labours, which Cleopatra might have bought with the brightest jewel in her crown. Their melody might make a client pause when he throws his first glance on the sportula, or a lawyer when the last drop of his clepsydra is putting him into a passion and a gallop. They might wake a Stoic from his mutterings, or a spendthrift from his debauch, or a lover from his dream, or a Christian from his cloud-worship. Listen; I am to recite them at Carus’s to-morrow, and would fain have thy judgment, Cyane, on my voice and manner. By Phœbus, there is some fascination in both, and I could tell thee of some bright-haired ladies who have thought so. Ha!” Upon which I compose my features into a greedy gaze of admiration, and bid Syrinx hold the bottle, and Marsyas hold his tongue; and so my man of loud verses and cheap drink prologuises.

Dam.Let me bathe my lips in the Chian but once more, and so begin, Cyane: thou art an incomparable mimic; Bathyllus is but dirt by thy side.

Cya.What will you have then, sweet Damasippus? Œdipus, the expounder of riddles, or Ajax, the slaughterer of sheep? Medea, with her brats and dragons, or Orestes, with his rags and snakes? for he has stored me with specimens of all.

Dam.The last, I pray thee, the last; let me hear what Orestes says to his tormentors, that I may know how to answer mine. Marry, the fiends in the fish market are becoming so tumultuous now, that a nobleman knows not wherewithal to reply, unless he ransacks the poets for complimentary language.

Cya.Thus then: “It is necessary that thou shouldst understand, Cyane, how that Orestes is the murderer of his mother—a wicked thing, by Themis, a wicked thing; but justifiable in particular cases. Æmilius argued it so the other day, and saved his client—Publius it was, who had succeeded somewhat too suddenly to an inheritance. Alas,[Pg 261]avarice never walks abroad, but she carries aconite fastened to her girdle. But as I said, Orestes has murdered his mother, and he rushes upon the stage with long hair, and short breath, and torn garments, and wandering eyes; and fifty furies are in readiness without, with snaky ringlets and blazing torches, which thou knowest, little Cyane, are the adornments which the furies most conceit. When Serranus played his Megæra, the torches went out; but those things shall be better cared for when I——but I lose time; listen! Orestes begins thus, faltering a little from fear, as is natural:

“‘Dark goddesses, swift-footed, serpent-haired,Red-eyed, black-lipped, hell’s offspring, earth’s annoy,Avaunt, I spit upon ye! King Apollo,Lord of the beaming bow and echoing string,Fair-browed, far-darting, Prince of Poetry,Art thou a juggler? are thine oraclesMere webs for witching flies? Behold! they come!Railing and roasting, scampering and scaring,All hot from hissing Tartarus! Ο God,Pæan, Lycean,God of music, god of day,Delian, Patarean,Help, help! and let me see anEnd of these calamities as soon as I may.’”

Dam.Ha! ha! May Æsculapius put life into my father’s ashes, if I do not love thee entirely. The poet is under infinite obligations to thee; if thou wouldst only study this trade, the dirty Quirites would run from their bread—by Pollux! I think they would run from their games, to hear thee. And now the answer, pretty Saleius, the response of the Avengers!

Cya.Let me unfasten my mitra, and perform it in costume. There! “Now, Cyane,” he says, “thou must suppose, what doubtless thou hast already suspected, that the goddesses rush in with their shrivelled arms and terrible eyebrows, dancing, in groups of three or four, a dance dreadful to look upon, such a dance as Pomponia’s slave performs when he is whipped, or Paulus’s mistress when she is intoxicated; thus, Cyane, a rapid agitation of the right foot, then a corresponding movement of the left, with vibrations of the arms and contortions of the neck in[Pg 262]unison. Presently the chief of them chants these terrible verses in a low and dismal scream:

“‘Ye raven-headed goddesses,Who, in your cloudy bodices,Hover with me around this ball of earth,And ever love to mixDark drops from your own StyxWith every rivulet of living mirth,Fit followers of mortality,Fine teachers of morality,Eternal servants of the Olympian thunder,—Dwellers in mirky mists,By whose unyielding wristsStrong frames are racked, fine heart-strings rent asunder,—Come hither, solemn sisters,Rain, rain your boils and blisters,Heart-thrilling ache, swift stripe, and searing cinder,Come hither, oh! come hither,And let him waste and wither,Roaring like twenty bulls, and rotting into tinder!’”

Dam.Ho! ho! ho! Stop, dear girl, or thou wilt murder me indeed; thou art very Saleius from head to foot. Investigate the flagon and proceed: I would bring thee to the Emperor’s hearing, Cyane, had I not some scruples of jealousy in my composition. But thou must be chary of thy parlous wit, for those singing birds are marvellously inflammable; I have known them in their wrath more rude than a Briton and more robust than a rhinoceros. Codrus broke my skull in the first week of my consulship, because I asked him how often he had dined upon his Theseid; and Serranus has written five-and-twenty lampoons upon me, because I told him that Podalirius recommends cold water for a December cup. And I need not tell thee that these male sempstresses of absurdities have at their beck and bidding sword and dagger, plague and pestilence, balista and bowl—ay, by my head, and lightning-flash and thunder-bolt to boot, and the whole armoury of the skies. But go on, sweetest of all the Furies; maledictions from such lips as thine are worth blessings from any others.

Cya.I have done! Never was Sibyl more weary after[Pg 263]an hour’s raving. But Damasippus hath noticed none other of his friends. Geta is here, and Parmeno, and little Amphitryon, and tall Antigonus. Come, do throw away a word upon them; it is long since they have looked upon their master.

Dam.Geta, worthy Geta, sovereign reducer of ringlets and princely mower of beards, how fares the world with thee! Well, as I can divine by thy red nose and round external. What! do the gallants still linger to babble truth and falsehood in the shade of thy dominion? Come, let us know what scandal is toward.

Get.I prate scandal! Now Mercury forbid! It is true that idle persons do consort to me often; and as my worshipful master knows, much talk will arise of princes and patricians, and matters with which the like of Geta are little concerned. But do I ever report a syllable? Now Mercury forbid! ’Twas but yesterday that young Nasica was telling of the quarrel between Aurelius and his wife; did you hear? She must go on the arena forsooth; nothing would serve her but helm and sword, glory and fencing. “Why not,” quoth the lady; “was not Julia in training with Capella, and had not Lucia foiled her master after three week’s learning?” Marry, Aurelius was but little moved by authority or precept. He stilled her arguments by oaths, and sold her paraphernalia by auction; carried her into the country on a lean mule, and confined her in what he calls his Tusculan, where he collects together gems he cannot name, and books he cannot read, busts with broken noses and bailiffs who talk philosophy.

Dam.Bravo! and has the lady laid her propensities on the shelf?

Get.No; she has put her baggage on board; she has gone off to sea with that long armed destroyer of tigers, Cleobulus. The amphitheatre never saw a firmer hand or a quicker eye. But do I ever mention the story? Now Mercury forbid! Then there was merry Tiberius—ha, ha! a clever young fellow, and one who stands well with the court; and he was telling how Sulpicia tore the old Prætor’s hair to shreds, because he had never read Homer, and[Pg 264]whipped a slave to death because he brought her some perfumes wrapt up in a page of old Horace. A strong woman, and terrible when moved! But do I circulate these tales? Now Mercury forbid!

Dam.Thou art the most silent of babblers, the most veracious of liars, the most honest of knaves! I would trust in thy keeping, dear Geta, all secrets that men strive most to conceal; I would breathe in thine ear my successful amours and my anonymous writings, my own merits and the failings of my friends.

Get.Ah! Damasippus was always witty with his slaves. But I suppose you have not heard of the tumult at Glycerion’s last night. I have heard mention of nought else to-day. Valla has said nothing of the Gauls, and Varus has been silent upon his lawsuit.

Dam.Prithee, now what was the manner of it?

Get.You know Glycerion—the little light-eyed Lesbian. And you know Titus too; and you used to cling as constantly to his side as the lictors to the consul or the duns to Flaminius. Well; he was shivering before her door last night in a thin cloak and sullen mood, with a lute in his hand, and a garland on his head, and perfumes enough on his apparel to convert Tartarus into Ida, and make Atinia herself endurable. A rival comes up; a young fellow in a long robe, masqued, and walking on tiptoes. Swords are drawn—crossed—thrusts given and returned; and Titus discovers that the sober votary of pleasure, the quiet Clodius, the dissipated Hippolytus, is no other than—— Guess now! You may study until a second Virgil rises, until the sun sets at daybreak, until I talk Greek, until my wife talks reason, and you shall never come near the mark. No other, by Jupiter and his transformations, than his studious and stern brother Caius.

Dam.Now, by Pollux, I am glad of it! Caius is a handsome young fellow, and deserves not spoiling by learning, and sobriety.

Get.But the beauty of the jest remains behind. They explain—coalesce—beat the door from its hinges, and find in the citadel Caius’s long-winded and long-bearded tutor, wrinkled Terentius, solacing his tired brain with stewed[Pg 265]vegetables, golden smiles, and a goblet of damaged Falernian.

Dam.I will sacrifice a hecatomb. Thus it should ever be.

Get.But do I tell these stories? Do I repeat what may hurt reputation?—Now Mercury forbid! They told me, and it is indeed true, but do I repeat it?—now Mercury forbid!—that Aurunculeia was seen in the Suburra three nights ago in a mantle and hood, hastening to meet Lentulus, the——

Dam.Aurunculeia! Now, by Olympus and all its sojourners, I will drive the foul falsehood down thy black and calumnious throat. Withered imp of iniquity, cunning scatterer of poison, lie there; I put my sword’s point to thy throat, and recommend to thee silence and thy last testament.

Syr.Noble Damasippus!

Mars.Sweet prince, have mercy!

Dam.Mercy is not for him! He shall never smooth a chin or fabricate a lie again. Come hither, Cyane: take off thy scarlet slipper, girl, and beat him till he confesses.

Cya.Good Damasippus, do not be thus moved by a slave!

Get.Slave, quotha? I beg no mercy, I! Mercury forbid! I will speak out, and be gagged for no man. What now, master of the whip and wheel, do you dream that you are in the company of your cattle, where lash and blow are law? I do most cordially hate thee; and I tell thee, moreover, that if thou comest, braving it and bullying it with loud tongue and long rapier, I have here a stout flagon of Saguntum, which has made flaws in heads of stouter manufacture, and——

Dam.Why, thou foul-mouthed blasphemer of greatness!

Get.Thou impotent imitator of buffoons!

Dam.Thou idol of cobblers!

Get.Thou scorn of nobility!

Mar. Syr. Cya.In the name of the gods, Damasippus! Jove! there will be a goodly tumult!

Messenger[without.] What, Syrinx—Syrinx, I say!

Syr.See now, if the Prætor be not here with a force![Pg 266]

Mess.Syrinx, I say—is Damasippus here to-night?

Dam.Well, fellow, who sends for Damasippus?

Mess.Truly, one that must send and find. The Emperor.

Dam.The Emperor! Hang ye, pestilent curs, give me my sandals. Quick!—and my cloak. So! am I steady, Syrinx? Thy venomous wine hath somewhat—— Adieu, Cyane; I will visit ye again ere long. A pest upon the Emperor!

Alderman Greenfatlives, from three to sevenP.M., in joyous anticipation of the delights that hour will bring upon its wing. He tastes in fancy the never-cloying richness of the turtle, which if Jupiter had reigned now would have made Jupiter a candidate for civic honours; the invigorating flavour of the punch, which at once heightens the zest of the last and prepares the palate for the following dainty; the turbot, the venison, the champagne, the Burgundy—all are present to his imagination. Delicious! But seven o’clock arrives. What is the consummation? The meat is cold, or the wine is hot; the servants are awkward, or the next neighbour is a bore; repletion—indigestion—satiety—gout—the devil!

Lady Bauble waits patiently from March to May for the new Waverley novel, indulging perhaps in an occasional flirtation with Granby or a brief and hurried visit to Brambletye House, but turning eagerly from both to the prospect which the unnamed name of the Great Unknown opens before her imagination. Her visions are full of strange and appalling ideas. Some new Meg Merrilies appears to start into terrible existence; some second Balfour lifts up the sword of the Lord and of Gideon;[Pg 267]Amy Robsart is regenerate, Front de Bœuf blasphemes again. But the three volumes come out, and present her with a commonplace bully or an everyday coquette—a lady who chatters at an evening party, a lord who figures in theMorning Post. “This really is too bad,” says Lady Bauble, yawning; “I must absolutely give up Sir Walter!”

Captain Eustace is ordered to Rangoon. Delightful dreams are his—dreams of success and of reputation, of promotion and of pay, of armies discomfited, of stockades stormed, of midnight glimpses of the King of Ava’s harem, of curry prepared in the King of Ava’s kitchen! A few short weeks, and the fairy vision fades with a vengeance: he finds an empty camp, and a crowded hospital; a weary surgeon, and a burning sun; a rifleman in every bramble-bush, and a rheumatism in every bone.

Ο that our hopes could last for ever! That we and the objects of our desire could run on, like the fore and hind wheels of a chariot, always close but never united. That we could be contented to let our enjoyments go on like the lamp of the Rosicrucians, burning and dazzling eternally; without advancing towards them the profane step which, by the essence and law of their nature, must destroy and crush them in a moment!

It is now about ten years since I left the residence of my respectable uncle and guardian in order to pay a visit of a few weeks to some friends at a neighbouring watering-place. My guardian, Sir Abraham, was in his day something of a character—and by-and-by I may sketch his portrait. For the present I shall only quote, as faithfully as I can, the old gentleman’s parting admonition, for so constantly and unremittingly had he laboured at my education, up to the age of sixteen, that he considered six weeks of absence a long period, and six miles an infinite distance.

“Hark ye, Frederic!” he began; “all young men are fools—very well! Some are more fools than others; there are degrees of comparison, but all are fools—very well! You I hold to be particularly and peculiarly a fool; no fault of mine—very well! Now you have been for the last two[Pg 268]years pestering me with ravings and reveries about every pretty face that fell in your way; verses you have written, and they are my abomination—very well! I have found stanzas to Chloe in my shaving-pot, and sonnets to Araminta in the blank leaves of the Annual Registers—very well! You are going to-day to my cousin Sir Andrew’s; nobody to fall in love with there—too sensible a man; insists on a crooked nose in his laundress, and prefers a humpback to a ten years’ character in his choice of a dairymaid—very well! But hark you, sir! you may meet, at some of those hotbeds of frivolity and fevers, which are called card-parties, routs, balls, and I know not what beside—I say, sir, you may meet a girl called Adèle Lepicq—a fantastical name forsooth, but ladies are as fine now in their appellations as they are in their costume—very well! What’s in a name? I tell you, Frederic, if ever you mean to play the fool to any purpose, fall in love with that girl. Why, sir, she is rich enough to buy up the Bank of England—to keep even a ballad-monger from starving! Talk of beauty—sentiment—- affection! What are these to a rent-roll like hers? I tell you, a shape is as well set off by Mechlin lace as by brown holland; and a white neck is mere moonshine, till it has a diamond necklace about it. Bah!—very well!”

So spoke my revered relation, and the impression produced on my mind was that which similar speeches have produced on similar minds ever since old men were arbitrary and young men wilful. I sell myself for gold! I barter the first flush of the young heart’s emotion for what in poetry was always trash! I bend my knees to awkwardness or ugliness! I bow in adoration to malice and insipidity!

I set off, however, and found the stage which was to be my conveyance occupied by a fox-hunter and a brace of Militia officers, who were discussing the case of a poor man, named, for his sins, John Smith. He had been severely wounded in a duel. I listened with great interest to the usual interesting details—the chaises ordered at five in the morning; the vain attempt at a reconciliation; the ground measured; the surgeon in attendance; the firing, the dropping; the deep regret of the antagonist; the absconding;[Pg 269]the apprehension of danger. All this was very well; but when, after going through the action, they proceeded to investigate the cause, what was my astonishment at finding that all this, which was to engross conversation for a week and fill the newspapers for a month, was occasioned by the fascinations of Adèle Lepicq!

“I never would risk my life for deformity,” said I, in a fit of enthusiasm. “Deformity!” quoth the foe of foxes, opening his eyes very wide; “why she is a divinity! Venus was a wax doll to her—Diana a dowdy! One glance of her might charm a statue from its pedestal, or inspire the Bench of Bishops with wit!” And then all three joined in a sort of chorus of eulogy, which conveyed to me no definite idea of form or feature, but expressed simply the conviction of the speakers that every perfection of both had been collected by the munificence of a bountiful destiny in the person of Adèle Lepicq.

I arrived at my journey’s end pretty considerably puzzled, and not a little annoyed. I fortified myself, however, in my preconceived dislike of my guardian’s angel, by remembering that wealth and want of ideas, loveliness and imbecility, were perfectly compatible qualities. “Some silly uneducated heiress—all heiresses are silly and uneducated—who knows nothing but what she has learnt from her glass, and likes no one who does not corroborate daily its assertions; who votes literaturemauvais ton, and would rather look into a coffin than a quarto.” So thought I with myself as I lounged into Sir Andrew’s library, in the pride of my mathematical studies, to take down Laplace from the neglect in which I flattered myself he had slumbered for years. Laplace was gone; and the card, which according to the custom of the place accounted for the vacancy on the shelf, informed me that the appropriator of the treasure was Adèle Lepicq.

I was petrified. But distrust is slow to depart, when it has once been admitted. “A Blue, then—who studies Aristotle, I warrant, and criticizes Plato! who keeps a journal in Hebrew, and scribbles notes in the arrow-headed writing! She has, I doubt not, an album—full of doggerel compliments and pen-and-ink drawings, a cabinet of shells[Pg 270]and fossils, a museum of butterflies and beetles! After all, the days were blest when women attempted nothing beyond embroidery and the making of puddings!” And with these charitable reflections I sat down to dinner. There was at table a detestable story-teller; I have met him often since, and have heard his fifty-nine stories fifty-nine times over; but on this occasion it was as much as he could do to get through one of them. It was about anomelette soufflée: how he was very partial to anomelette soufflée; how he ate anomelette souffléeseven times a week in Paris; how he never tasted a goodomelette souffléeout of France except once; how a very romantic incident belonged to thatomelette soufflée; how it was composed by a beauty—an heiress of sixteen; how she had studied the whole theory of anomelette souffléefor her father’s gratification, because the old man could not live without anomelette soufflée. This tale, interrupted of course by the usual accidents which disturb at a dinner-table the most experienced narrator, concluded by a rhapsody concerning filial duty, and her who was the gastronomical example of its excellence—Adèle Lepicq.

I began to be infinitely plagued by this continual recurrence of Monsieur Tonson in the shape of a reigning toast. But I was haunted for more than a week by unceasing and unpitying rumours. The shops were full of Adèle bonnets and Lepicq shawls; the musicians dedicated their quadrilles to Miss Lepicq; the Poet’s Corner in the newspaper had always its stanzas to A—— L——. By her the harp I admired at Schneider’s had been bespoken; the Arabian I noticed at the riding-house was breaking for her. By degrees my imagination became more and more engrossed by the thought which was thus eternally forced upon its notice. I began to delight in forming conjectures about the extraordinary being who did all things, and all things well. First, I painted her reserved, retiring, shrinking from her own praises, and winning, in consequence, many more than she deserved. Then I drew her wild, piquante, with a little dash of the masculine, and spirits enough to provoke the advances which her pride checked in a moment. Sometimes she was alone by the side of a river stream, reading[Pg 271]Shakespeare, and weeping unconsciously as she read; presently afterwards she was galloping along the hard sands of the sea-shore, her horse starting in vain from the echoing waters, and her hair floating long and dark upon the ocean breeze. She was my thought by day, my vision by night. I became like the lunatic who beholds, whithersoever he turns his eyes, an unvarying attendant figure, distinct in shape and hue to his own sight, but impalpable and unperceived to the gaze of others.

But I had never seen her, and I left the place in all the tortures of unsatisfied curiosity. If I was to meet her at a ball, she had a plaguy cold, and was confined to her room; if I looked for her on the public walk, she was the only person between the ages of seven and seventy who was not there; if I went to the theatre, she patronized the concert; if I rode on the downs, she rambled in the forest.

It was nearly a twelvemonth afterwards that I was one of three hundred who crowded, almost to bursting, two small drawing-rooms, not a hundred miles from Cavendish Square. I had picked up a lost fan, while the hurry and bustle of departure was going on, and was examining it in a fit of vacant abstraction, when I heard some charitable old lady annoying her friends with officious inquiries: “Where is Miss Lepicq’s fan?” “Who has seen Miss Lepicq’s fan?” “Where can Miss Lepicq’s fan be?” I started from my trance. The deuce take the fan, and the querist—but where is Miss Lepicq? She had just left the room—her carriage was stopping the way. I rushed to the landing-place, cleared the stairs with the celerity of a kangaroo, overturned a brace of footmen, and broke my shins over the pole of a sedan, arriving at the house-door just in time to see the last gleam of a kid slipper glide into the concealment of a carriage, to hear the “Home!” of the footman, and to make the best of my way to my hotel, with a head-ache and a sprained ankle.

Inquiries were bootless; she left London, England, the world; for she shut herself up in a convent, Heaven knows why: and, as her epitaph might say, is remembered with regret by all who knew her—and by one who did not.[Pg 272]

Perhaps I ought not to lament—perhaps I do not lament—that I saw no more of Adèle Lepicq. I might have been blind to beauties which all the world adored; I might have discovered imperfections of which no others dreamed. It is pleasant, when I find in all I meet some little admixture of human frailty, to look back to one object which appears still all divine; it is charming, when I am deserted by the fondest friends, betrayed by the dearest hopes, to cling to an imaginative pleasure from which I can expect no treason or desertion. I have flirted with some score of beauties with sufficiently great perseverance, and sufficiently poor success; I have been desperately in love more than once; but if all the rapture of my real passions were set in one scale of a balance, and the luxury of this ideal one were put into the other, I believe the madder weight of the two would preponderate. I remember that in the fervour of my last disappointment I wrote a very fine copy of verses to the same effect; and thus, or nearly thus, they ran—

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