“'Alas! why did not Heaven these members frailWith lively force and vigour strengthen, soThat I this silken gown...'”
“Silken gown?” says downright Harry, with a look of inquiry.
“Well, sir, I know 'tis but Calimanco;—but so it is in the book—
“'... this silken gown and slender veilMight for a breastplate and a helm forgo;Then should not heat, nor cold, nor rain, nor hail,Nor storms that fall, nor blust'ring winds that blow,Withhold me; but I would, both day and night,In pitched field or private combat, fight—'
“Fight? Yes, that I would! Why are both my brothers to be parsons, I say? One of my papa's children ought to be a soldier!”
Harry laughed, a very gentle, kind laugh, as he looked at her. He felt that he would not like much to hit such a tender little warrior as that.
“Why,” says he, holding a finger out, “I think here is a finger nigh as big as your arm. How would you stand up before a great, strong man? I should like to see a man try and injure you, though; I should just like to see him! You little, delicate, tender creature! Do you suppose any scoundrel would dare to do anything unkind to you?” And, excited by this flight of his imagination, Harry fell to walking up and down the room, too, chafing at the idea of any rogue of a Frenchman daring to be rude to Miss Hester Lambert.
It was a belief in this silent courage of his which subjugated Hetty, and this quality which she supposed him to possess, which caused her specially to admire him. Miss Hetty was no more bold, in reality, than Madam Erminia, whose speech she had been reading out of the book, and about whom Mr. Harry Warrington never heard one single word. He may have been in the room when brother George was reading his poetry out to the ladies, but his thoughts were busy with his own affairs, and he was entirely bewildered with your Clotildas and Erminias, and giants, and enchanters, and nonsense. No, Miss Hetty, I say and believe, had nothing of the virago in her composition; else, no doubt, she would have taken a fancy to a soft young fellow with a literary turn, or a genius for playing the flute, according to the laws of contrast and nature provided in those cases; and who has not heard how great, strong men have an affinity for frail, tender little women; how tender little women are attracted by great, honest, strong men; and how your burly heroes and champions of war are constantly henpecked? If Mr. Harry Warrington falls in love with a woman who is like Miss Lambert in disposition, and if he marries her—without being conjurers, I think we may all see what the end will be.
So, whilst Hetty was firing her little sarcasms into Harry, he for a while scarcely felt that they were stinging him, and let her shoot on without so much as taking the trouble to shake the little arrows out of his hide. Did she mean by her sneers and innuendoes to rouse him into action? He was too magnanimous to understand such small hints. Did she mean to shame him by saying that she, a weak woman, would don the casque and breastplate? The simple fellow either melted at the idea of her being in danger, or at the notion of her fighting fell a-laughing.
“Pray what is the use of having a strong hand if you only use it to hold a skein of silk for my mother?” cries Miss Hester; “and what is the good of being ever so strong in a drawing-room? Nobody wants you to throw anybody out of window, Harry! A strong man, indeed! I suppose there's a stronger at Bartholomew Fair. James Wolfe is not a strong man. He seems quite weakly and ill. When he was here last he was coughing the whole time, and as pale as if he had seen a ghost.”
“I never could understand why a man should be frightened at a ghost,” says Harry.
“Pray, have you seen one, sir?” asks the pert young lady.
“No. I thought I did once at home—when we were boys; but it was only Nathan in his night-shirt; but I wasn't frightened when I thought he was a ghost. I believe there's no such things. Our nurses tell a pack of lies about 'em,” says Harry, gravely. “George was a little frightened; but then he's——” Here he paused.
“Then George is what?” asked Hetty.
“George is different from me, that's all. Our mother's a bold woman as ever you saw, but she screams at seeing a mouse—always does—can't help it. It's her nature. So, you see, perhaps my brother can't bear ghosts. I don't mind 'em.”
“George always says you would have made a better soldier than he.”
“So I think I should, if I had been allowed to try. But he can do a thousand things better than me, or anybody else in the world. Why didn't he let me volunteer on Braddock's expedition? I might have got knocked on the head, and then I should have been pretty much as useful as I am now, and then I shouldn't have ruined myself, and brought people to point at me and say that I had disgraced the name of Warrington. Why mayn't I go on this expedition, and volunteer like Sir John Armytage? Oh, Hetty! I'm a miserable fellow—that's what I am,” and the miserable fellow paced the room at double quick time. “I wish I had never come to Europe,” he groaned out.
“What a compliment to us! Thank you, Harry!” But presently, on an appealing look from the gentleman, she added, “Are you—are you thinking of going home?”
“And have all Virginia jeering at me! There's not a gentleman there that wouldn't, except one, and him my mother doesn't like. I should be ashamed to go home now, I think. You don't know my mother, Hetty. I ain't afraid of most things; but, somehow, I am of her. What shall I say to her, when she says, 'Harry, where's your patrimony?' 'Spent, mother,' I shall have to say. 'What have you done with it?' 'Wasted it, mother, and went to prison after.' 'Who took you out of prison?' 'Brother George, ma'am, he took me out of prison; and now I'm come back, having done no good for myself, with no profession, no prospects, no nothing—only to look after negroes, and be scolded at home; or to go to sleep at sermons; or to play at cards, and drink, and fight cocks at the taverns about.' How can I look the gentlemen of the country in the face? I'm ashamed to go home in this way, I say. I must and will do something! What shall I do, Hetty? Ah! what shall I do?”
“Do? What did Mr. Wolfe do at Louisbourg? Ill as he was, and in love as we knew him to be, he didn't stop to be nursed by his mother, Harry, or to dawdle with his sweetheart. He went on the King's service, and hath come back covered with honour. If there is to be another great campaign in America, papa says he is sure of a great command.”
“I wish he would take me with him, and that a ball would knock me on the head and finish me,” groaned Harry. “You speak to me, Hetty, as though it were my fault that I am not in the army, when you know I would give—give, forsooth, what have I to give?—yes! my life to go on service!”
“Life indeed!” says Miss Hetty, with a shrug of her shoulders.
“You don't seem to think that of much value, Hetty,” remarked Harry, sadly. “No more it is—to anybody. I'm a poor useless fellow. I'm not even free to throw it away as I would like, being under orders here and at home.”
“Orders indeed! Why under orders?” cries Miss Hetty. “Aren't you tall enough, and old enough, to act for yourself, and must you have George for a master here, and your mother for a schoolmistress at home? If I were a man, I would do something famous before I was two-and-twenty years old, that I would! I would have the world speak of me. I wouldn't dawdle at apron-strings. I wouldn't curse my fortune—I'd make it. I vow and declare I would!”
Now, for the first time, Harry began to wince at the words of his young lecturer.
“No negro on our estate is more a slave than I am, Hetty,” he said, turning very red as he addressed her; “but then, Miss Lambert, we don't reproach the poor fellow for not being free. That isn't generous. At least, that isn't the way I understand honour. Perhaps with women it's different, or I may be wrong, and have no right to be hurt at a young girl telling me what my faults are. Perhaps my faults are not my faults—only my cursed luck. You have been talking ever so long about this gentleman volunteering, and that man winning glory, and cracking up their courage as if I had none of my own. I suppose, for the matter of that, I'm as well provided as other gentlemen. I don't brag but I'm not afraid of Mr. Wolfe, nor of Sir John Armytage, nor of anybody else that ever I saw. How can I buy a commission when I've spent my last shilling, or ask my brother for more who has already halved with me? A gentleman of my rank can't go a common soldier—else, by Jupiter, I would! And if a ball finished me, I suppose Miss Hetty Lambert wouldn't be very sorry. It isn't kind, Hetty—I didn't think it of you.”
“What is it I have said?” asks the young lady. “I have only said Sir John Armytage has volunteered, and Mr. Wolfe has covered himself with honour, and you begin to scold me! How can I help it if Mr. Wolfe is brave and famous? Is that any reason you should be angry, pray?”
“I didn't say angry,” said Harry, gravely. “I said I was hurt.”
“Oh, indeed! I thought such a little creature as I am couldn't hurt anybody! I'm sure 'tis mighty complimentary to me to say that a young lady whose arm is no bigger than your little finger can hurt such a great strong man as you!”
“I scarce thought you would try, Hetty,” the young man said. “You see, I'm not used to this kind of welcome in this house.”
“What is it, my poor boy?” asks kind Mrs. Lambert, looking in at the door at this juncture, and finding the youth with a very woeworn countenance.
“Oh, we have heard the story before, mamma!” says Hetty, hurriedly. “Harry is making his old complaint of having nothing to do. And he is quite unhappy; and he is telling us so over and over again, that's all.”
“So are you hungry over and over again, my dear! Is that a reason why your papa and I should leave off giving you dinner?” cries mamma, with some emotion. “Will you stay and have ours, Harry? 'Tis just three o'clock!” Harry agreed to stay, after a few faint negations. “My husband dines abroad. We are but three women, so you will have a dull dinner,” remarks Mrs. Lambert.
“We shall have a gentleman to enliven us, mamma, I dare say!” says Madam Pert, and then looked in mamma's face with that admirable gaze of blank innocence which Madam Pert knows how to assume when she has been specially and successfully wicked.
When the dinner appeared. Miss Hetty came downstairs, and was exceedingly chatty, lively, and entertaining. Theo did not know that any little difference had occurred (such, alas, my Christian friends, will happen in the most charming families), did not know, I say, that anything had happened until Hetty's uncommon sprightliness and gaiety roused her suspicions. Hetty would start a dozen subjects of conversation—the King of Prussia, and the news from America; the last masquerade, and the highwayman shot near Barnet; and when her sister, admiring this volubility, inquired the reason of it, with her eyes,—
“Oh, my dear, you need not nod and wink at me!” cries Hetty. “Mamma asked Harry on purpose to enliven us, and I am talking until he begins, just like the fiddles at the playhouse, you know, Theo! First the fiddles. Then the play. Pray begin, Harry!”
“Hester!” cries mamma.
“I merely asked Harry to entertain us. You said yourself, mother, that we were only three women, and the dinner would be dull for a gentleman; unless, indeed, he chose to be very lively.”
“I'm not that on most days—and, Heaven knows, on this day less than most,” says poor Harry.
“Why on this day less than another? Tuesday is as good a day to be lively as Wednesday. The only day when we mustn't be lively is Sunday. Well, you know it is, ma'am! We mustn't sing, nor dance, nor do anything on Sunday.”
And in this naughty way the young woman went on for the rest of the evening, and was complimented by her mother and sister when poor Harry took his leave. He was not ready of wit, and could not fling back the taunts which Hetty cast against him. Nay, had he been able to retort, he would have been silent. He was too generous to engage in that small war, and chose to take all Hester's sarcasms without an attempt to parry or evade them. Very likely the young lady watched and admired that magnanimity, while she tried it so cruelly. And after one of her fits of ill-behaviour, her parents and friends had not the least need to scold her, as she candidly told them, because she suffered a great deal more than they would ever have had her, and her conscience punished her a great deal more severely than her kind elders would have thought of doing. I suppose she lies awake all that night, and tosses and tumbles in her bed. I suppose she wets her pillow with tears, and should not mind about her sobbing: unless it kept her sister awake; unless she was unwell the next day, and the doctor had to be fetched; unless the whole family is to be put to discomfort; mother to choke over her dinner in flurry and indignation; father to eat his roast-beef in silence and with bitter sauce; everybody to look at the door each time it opens, with a vague hope that Harry is coming in. If Harry does not come, why at least does not George come? thinks Miss Theo.
Some time in the course of the evening comes a billet from George Warrington, with a large nosegay of lilacs, per Mr. Gumbo. “'I send my best duty and regards to Mrs. Lambert and the ladies,'” George says, “'and humbly beg to present to Miss Theo this nosegay of lilacs, which she says she loves in the early spring. You must not thank me for them, please, but the gardener of Bedford House, with whom I have made great friends by presenting him with some dried specimens of a Virginian plant which some ladies don't think as fragrant as lilacs.
“'I have been in the garden almost all the day. It is alive with sunshine and spring; and I have been composing two scenes of you know what, and polishing the verses which the Page sings in the fourth act, under Sybilla's window, which she cannot hear, poor thing, because she has just had her head off.'”
“Provoking! I wish he would not always sneer and laugh! The verses are beautiful,” says Theo.
“You really think so, my dear? How very odd!” remarks papa.
Little Het looks up from her dismal corner with a faint smile of humour. Theo's secret is a secret for nobody in the house, it seems. Can any young people guess what it is? Our young lady continues to read:
“'Spencer has asked the famous Mr. Johnson to breakfast to-morrow, who condescends to hear the play, and who won't, I hope, be too angry because my heroine undergoes the fate of his in Irene. I have heard he came up to London himself as a young man with only his tragedy in his wallet. Shall I ever be able to get mine played? Can you fancy the catcall music beginning, and the pit hissing at that perilous part of the fourth act, where my executioner comes out from the closet with his great sword, at the awful moment when he is called upon to amputate? They say Mr. Fielding, when the pit hissed at a part of one of his pieces, about which Mr. Garrick had warned him, said, 'Hang them, they have found it out, have they?' and finished his punch in tranquillity. I suppose his wife was not in the boxes. There are some women to whom I would be very unwilling to give pain, and there are some to whom I would give the best I have.'”
“Whom can he mean? The letter is to you, my dear. I protest he is making love to your mother before my face!” cries papa to Hetty, who only gives a little sigh, puts her hand in her father's hand, and then withdraws it.
“'To whom I would give the best I have. To-day it is only a bunch of lilacs. To-morrow it may be what?—a branch of rue—a sprig of bays, perhaps—anything, so it be my best and my all.
“'I have had a fine long day, and all to myself. What do you think of Harry playing truant?'” (Here we may imagine, what they call in France, or what they used to call, when men dared to speak or citizens to hear, sensation dans l'auditoire.)
“'I suppose Carpezan wearied the poor fellow's existence out. Certain it is he has been miserable for weeks past; and a change of air and scene may do him good. This morning, quite early, he came to my room, and told me he had taken a seat in the Portsmouth machine, and proposed to go to the Isle of Wight, to the army there.'”
The army! Hetty looks very pale at this announcement, and her mother continues:
“'And a little portion of it, namely, the thirty-second regiment, is commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Richmond Webb—the nephew of the famous old General under whom my grandfather Esmond served in the great wars of Marlborough. Mr. Webb met us at our uncle's, accosting us very politely, and giving us an invitation to visit him at his regiment. Let my poor brother go and listen to his darling music of fife and drum! He bade me tell the ladies that they should hear from him. I kiss their hands, and go to dress for dinner, at the Star and Garter, in Pall Mall. We are to have Mr. Soame Jenyns, Mr. Cambridge, Mr. Walpole, possibly, if he is not too fine to dine in a tavern; a young Irishman, a Mr. Bourke, who they say is a wonder of eloquence and learning—in fine, all the wits of Mr. Dodsley's shop. Quick, Gumbo, a coach, and my French grey suit! And if gentlemen ask me, 'Who gave you that sprig of lilac you wear on your heart-side?' I shall call a bumper, and give Lilac for a toast.'”
I fear there is no more rest for Hetty on this night than on the previous one, when she had behaved so mutinously to poor Harry Warrington. Some secret resolution must have inspired that gentleman, for, after leaving Mr. Lambert's table, he paced the streets for a while, and appeared at a late hour in the evening at Madame de Bernstein's house in Clarges Street. Her ladyship's health had been somewhat ailing of late, so that even her favourite routs were denied her, and she was sitting over a quiet game of ecarte, with a divine of whom our last news were from a lock-up house hard by that in which Harry Warrington had been himself confined. George, at Harry's request, had paid the little debt under which Mr. Sampson had suffered temporarily. He had been at his living for a year. He may have paid and contracted ever so many debts, have been in and out of jail many times since we saw him. For some time past he had been back in London stout and hearty as usual, and ready for any invitation to cards or claret. Madame de Bernstein did not care to have her game interrupted by her nephew, whose conversation had little interest now for the fickle old woman. Next to the very young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish. Alas, the heart hardens as the blood ceases to run. The cold snow strikes down from the head, and checks the glow of feeling. Who wants to survive into old age after abdicating all his faculties one by one, and be sans teeth, sans eyes, sans memory, sans hope, sans sympathy? How fared it with those patriarchs of old who lived for their nine centuries, and when were life's conditions so changed that, after threescore years and ten, it became but a vexation and a burden?
Getting no reply but Yes and No to his brief speeches, poor Harry sat a while on a couch opposite his aunt, who shrugged her shoulders, had her back to her nephew, and continued her game with the chaplain. Sampson sat opposite Mr. Warrington, and could see that something disturbed him. His face was very pale, and his countenance disturbed and full of gloom. “Something has happened to him, ma'am,” he whispered to the Baroness.
“Bah!” She shrugged her shoulders again, and continued to deal her cards. “What is the matter with you, sir,” she at last said, at a pause in the game, “that you have such a dismal countenance? Chaplain, that last game makes us even, I think!”
Harry got up from his place. “I am going on a journey: I am come to bid you good-bye, aunt,” he said, in a very tragical voice.
“On a journey! Are you going home to America? I mark the king, Chaplain, and play him.”
No, Harry said: he was not going to America yet going to the Isle of Wight for the present.
“Indeed!—a lovely spot!” says the Baroness. “Bon jour, mon ami, et bon voyage!” And she kissed a hand to her nephew.
“I mayn't come back for some time, aunt,” he groaned out.
“Indeed! We shall be inconsolable without you! Unless you have a spade, Mr. Sampson, the game is mine. Good-bye, my child! No more about your journey at present: tell us about it when you come back!” And she gaily bade him farewell. He looked for a moment piteously at her, and was gone.
“Something grave has happened, madam,” says the chaplain.
“Oh! The boy is always getting into scrapes! I suppose he has been falling in love with one of those country girls—what are their names, Lamberts?—with whom he is ever dawdling about. He has been doing no good here for some time. I am disappointed in him, really quite grieved about him—I will take two cards, if you please—again?—quite grieved. What do you think they say of his cousin—the Miss Warrington who made eyes at him when she thought he was a prize—they say the King has remarked her, and the Yarmouth is creving with rage. He, be!—those methodistical Warringtons! They are not a bit less worldly than their neighbours; and, old as he is, if the Grand Seignior throws his pocket-handkerchief, they will jump to catch it!”
“Ah, madam; how your ladyship knows the world!” sighs the chaplain. “I propose, if you please!”
“I have lived long enough in it, Mr. Sampson, to know something of it. 'Tis sadly selfish, my dear sir, sadly selfish; and everybody is struggling to pass his neighbour! No, I can't give you any more cards. You haven't the king? I play queen, knave, and a ten,—a sadly selfish world, indeed. And here comes my chocolate!”
The more immediate interest of the cards entirely absorbs the old woman. The door shuts out her nephew and his cares. Under his hat, he bears them into the street, and paces the dark town for a while.
“Good God!” he thinks, “what a miserable fellow I am, and what a spendthrift of my life I have been! I sit silent with George and his friends. I am not clever and witty as he is. I am only a burthen to him; and, if I would help him ever so much, don't know how. My dear Aunt Lambert's kindness never tires, but I begin to be ashamed of trying it. Why, even Hetty can't help turning on me; and when she tells me I am idle and should be doing something, ought I to be angry? The rest have left me. There's my cousins and uncle and my lady my aunt, they have shown me the cold shoulder this long time. They didn't even ask me to Norfolk when they went down to the country, and offer me so much as a day's partridge-shooting. I can't go to Castlewood—after what has happened; I should break that scoundrel William's bones; and, faith, am well out of the place altogether.”
He laughs a fierce laugh as he recalls his adventures since he has been in Europe. Money, friends, pleasure, all have passed away, and he feels the past like a dream. He strolls into White's Chocolate-House, where the waiters have scarce seen him for a year. The parliament is up. Gentlemen are away; there is not even any play going on:—not that he would join it, if there were.
He has but a few pieces in his pocket; George's drawer is open, and he may take what money he likes thence; but very, very sparingly will he avail himself of his brother's repeated invitation. He sits and drinks his glass in moody silence. Two or three officers of the Guards enter from St. James's. He knew them in former days, and the young men, who have been already dining and drinking on guard, insist on more drink at the club. The other battalion of their regiment is at Winchester: it is going on this great expedition, no one knows whither, which everybody is talking about. Cursed fate that they do not belong to the other battalion; and must stay and do duty in London and at Kensington! There is Webb, who was of their regiment: he did well to exchange his company in the Coldstreams for the lieutenant-colonelcy of the thirty-second. He will be of the expedition. Why, everybody is going; and the young gentlemen mention a score of names of men of the first birth and fashion who have volunteered. “It ain't Hanoverians this time, commanded by the big Prince,” says one young gentleman (whose relatives may have been Tories forty years ago)—“it's Englishmen, with the Guards at the head of 'em, and a Marlborough for a leader! Will the Frenchmen ever stand against them? No, by George, they are irresistible.” And a fresh bowl is called, and loud toasts are drunk to the success of the expedition.
Mr. Warrington, who is a cup too low, the young Guardsmen say, walks away when they are not steady enough to be able to follow him, thinks over the matter on his way to his lodgings, and lies thinking of it all through the night.
“What is it, my boy?” asks George Warrington of his brother, when the latter enters his chamber very early on a blushing May morning.
“I want a little money out of the drawer,” says Harry, looking at his brother. “I am sick and tired of London.”
“Good heavens! Can anybody be tired of London?” George asks, who has reasons for thinking it the most delightful place in the world.
“I am for one. I am sick and ill,” says Harry.
“You and Hetty have been quarrelling?”
“She don't care a penny-piece about me, nor I for her neither,” says Harry, nodding his head. “But I am ill, and a little country air will do me good,” and he mentions how he thinks of going to visit Mr. Webb in the Isle of Wight, and how a Portsmouth coach starts from Holborn.
“There's the till, Harry,” says George, pointing from his bed. “Put your hand in, and take what you will. What a lovely morning, and how fresh the Bedford House garden looks!”
“God bless you, brother!” Harry says.
“Have a good time, Harry!” and down goes George's head on the pillow again, and he takes his pencil and notebook from under his bolster, and falls to polishing his verses, as Harry, with his cloak over his shoulder and a little valise in his hand, walks to the inn in Holborn whence the Portsmouth machine starts.
George Warrington by no means allowed his legal studies to obstruct his comfort and pleasures, or interfere with his precious health. Madam Esmond had pointed out to him in her letters that though he wore a student's gown, and sate down with a crowd of nameless people to hall-commons, he had himself a name, and a very ancient one, to support, and could take rank with the first persons at home or in his own country; and desired that he would study as a gentleman, not a mere professional drudge. With this injunction the young man complied obediently enough: so that he may be said not to have belonged to the rank and file of the law, but may be considered to have been a volunteer in her service, like some young gentlemen of whom we have just heard. Though not so exacting as she since has become—though she allowed her disciples much more leisure, much more pleasure, much more punch, much more frequenting of coffee-houses and holiday-making, than she admits nowadays, when she scarce gives her votaries time for amusement, recreation, instruction, sleep, or dinner—the law a hundred years ago was still a jealous mistress, and demanded a pretty exclusive attention. Murray, we are told, might have been an Ovid, but he preferred to be Lord Chief Justice, and to wear ermine instead of bays. Perhaps Mr. Warrington might have risen to a peerage and the woolsack, had he studied very long and assiduously,—had he been a dexterous courtier, and a favourite of attorneys: had he been other than he was, in a word. He behaved to Themis with a very decent respect and attention; but he loved letters more than law always; and the black-letter of Chaucer was infinitely more agreeable to him than the Gothic pages of Hale and Coke.
Letters were loved indeed in those quaint times, and authors were actually authorities. Gentlemen appealed to Virgil or Lucan in the Courts or the House of Commons. What said Statius, Juvenal—let alone Tully or Tacitus—on such and such a point? Their reign is over now, the good old Heathens: the worship of Jupiter and Juno is not more out of mode than the cultivation of Pagan poetry or ethics. The age of economists and calculators has succeeded, and Tooke's Pantheon is deserted and ridiculous. Now and then, perhaps, a Stanley kills a kid, a Gladstone bangs up a wreath, a Lytton burns incense, in honour of the Olympians. But what do they care at Lambeth, Birmingham, the Tower Hamlets, for the ancient rites, divinities, worship? Who the plague are the Muses, and what is the use of all that Greek and Latin rubbish? What is Elicon, and who cares? Who was Thalia, pray, and what is the length of her i? Is Melpomene's name in three syllables or four? And do you know from whose design I stole that figure of Tragedy which adorns the initial G of this chapter?
Now, it has been said how Mr. George in his youth, and in the long leisure which he enjoyed at home, and during his imprisonment in the French fort on the banks of Monongahela, had whiled away his idleness by paying court to Melpomene; and the result of their union was a tragedy, which has been omitted in Bell's Theatre, though I dare say it is no worse than some of the pieces printed there. Most young men pay their respects to the Tragic Muse first, as they fall in love with women who are a great deal older than themselves. Let the candid reader own, if ever he had a literary turn, that his ambition was of the very highest, and that however, in his riper age, he might come down in his pretensions, and think that to translate an ode of Horace, or to turn a song of Waller or Prior into decent alcaics or sapphics, was about the utmost of his capability, tragedy and epic only did his green unknowing youth engage, and no prize but the highest was fit for him.
George Warrington, then, on coming to London, attended the theatrical performances at both houses, frequented the theatrical coffee-houses, and heard the opinions of the critics, and might be seen at the Bedford between the plays, or supping at the Cecil along with the wits and actors when the performances were over. Here he gradually became acquainted with the players and such of the writers and poets as were known to the public. The tough old Macklin, the frolicsome Foote, the vivacious Hippisley, the sprightly Mr. Garrick himself, might occasionally be seen at these houses of entertainment; and our gentleman, by his wit and modesty, as well, perhaps, as for the high character for wealth which he possessed, came to be very much liked in the coffee-house circles, and found that the actors would drink a bowl of punch with him, and the critics sup at his expense with great affability. To be on terms of intimacy with an author or an actor has been an object of delight to many a young man; actually to hob and nob with Bobadil or Henry the Fifth or Alexander the Great, to accept a pinch out of Aristarchus's own box, to put Juliet into her coach, or hand Monimia to her chair, are privileges which would delight most young men of a poetic turn; and no wonder George Warrington loved the theatre. Then he had the satisfaction of thinking that his mother only half approved of plays and playhouses, and of feasting on fruit forbidden at home. He gave more than one elegant entertainment to the players, and it was even said that one or two distinguished geniuses had condescended to borrow money of him.
And as he polished and added new beauties to his masterpiece, we may be sure that he took advice of certain friends of his, and that they gave him applause and counsel. Mr. Spencer, his new acquaintance, of the Temple, gave a breakfast at his chambers in Fig Tree Court, when Mr. Warrington read part of his play, and the gentlemen present pronounced that it had uncommon merit. Even the learned Mr. Johnson, who was invited, was good enough to say that the piece had showed talent. It warred against the unities, to be sure; but these had been violated by other authors, and Mr. Warrington might sacrifice them as well as another. There was in Mr. W.'s tragedy a something which reminded him both of Coriolanus and Othello. “And two very good things too, sir!” the author pleaded. “Well, well, there was no doubt on that point; and 'tis certain your catastrophe is terrible, just, and being in part true, is not the less awful,” remarks Mr. Spencer.
Now the plot of Mr. Warrington's tragedy was quite full indeed of battle and murder. A favourite book of his grandfather had been the life of old George Frundsberg of Mindelheim, a colonel of foot-folk in the Imperial service at Pavia fight, and during the wars of the Constable Bourbon: and one of Frundsberg's military companions was a certain Carpzow, or Carpezan, whom our friend selected as his tragedy hero. His first act, as it at present stands in Sir George Warrington's manuscript, is supposed to take place before a convent on the Rhine, which the Lutherans, under Carpezan, are besieging. A godless gang these Lutherans are. They have pulled the beards of Roman friars, and torn the veils of hundreds of religious women. A score of these are trembling within the walls of the convent yonder, of which the garrison, unless the expected succours arrive before midday, has promised to surrender. Meanwhile there is armistice, and the sentries within look on with hungry eyes, as the soldiers and camp people gamble on the grass before the gate. Twelve o'clock, ding, ding, dong! it sounds upon the convent bell. No succours have arrived. Open gates, warder! and give admission to the famous Protestant hero, the terror of Turks on the Danube, and Papists in the Lombard plains—Colonel Carpezan! See, here he comes, clad in complete steel, his hammer of battle over his shoulder, with which he has battered so many infidel sconces, his flags displayed, his trumpets blowing. “No rudeness, my men,” says Carpezan; “the wine is yours, and the convent larder and cellar are good: the church plate shall be melted: any of the garrison who choose to take service with Gaspar Carpezan are welcome, and shall have good pay. No insult to the religious ladies! I have promised them a safe-conduct, and he who lays a finger on them, hangs! Mind that Provost Marshal!” The Provost Marshal, a huge fellow in a red doublet, nods his head.
“We shall see more of that Provost Marshal, or executioner,” Mr. Spencer explains to his guests.
“A very agreeable acquaintance, I am sure,—shall be delighted to meet the gentleman again!” says Mr. Johnson, wagging his head over his tea. “This scene of the mercenaries, the camp followers, and their wild sports, is novel and stirring, Mr. Warrington, and I make you my compliments on it. The Colonel has gone into the convent, I think? Now let us hear what he is going to do there.”
The Abbess, and one or two of her oldest ladies, make their appearance before the conqueror. Conqueror as he is, they heard him in their sacred halls. They have heard of his violent behaviour in conventual establishments before. That hammer, which he always carries in action, has smashed many sacred images in religious houses. Pounds and pounds of convent plate is he known to have melted, the sacrilegious plunderer! No wonder the Abbess-Princess of St. Mary's, a lady of violent prejudices, free language, and noble birth, has a dislike to the lowborn heretic who lords it in her convent, and tells Carpezan a bit of her mind, as the phrase is. This scene, in which the lady gets somewhat better of the Colonel, was liked not a little by Mr. Warrington's audience at the Temple. Terrible as he might be in war, Carpezan was shaken at first by the Abbess's brisk opening charge of words; and, conqueror as he was, seemed at first to be conquered by his actual prisoner. But such an old soldier was not to be beaten ultimately by any woman. “Pray, madam,” says he, “how many ladies are there in your convent, for whom my people shall provide conveyance?” The Abbess, with a look of much trouble and anger, says that, “besides herself, the noble sisters of Saint Mary's House are twenty—twenty-three.” She was going to say twenty-four, and now says twenty-three? “Ha! why this hesitation?” asks Captain Ulric, one of Carpezan's gayest officers.
The dark chief pulls a letter from his pocket. “I require from you, madam,” he says sternly to the Lady Abbess, “the body of the noble lady Sybilla of Hoya. Her brother was my favourite captain, slain by my side, in the Milanese. By his death, she becomes heiress of his lands. 'Tis said a greedy uncle brought her hither; and fast immured the lady against her will. The damsel shall herself pronounce her fate—to stay a cloistered sister of Saint Mary's, or to return to home and liberty, as Lady Sybil, Baroness of ———.” Ha! The Abbess was greatly disturbed by this question. She says, haughtily: “There is no Lady Sybil in this house: of which every inmate is under your protection, and sworn to go free. The Sister Agnes was a nun professed, and what was her land and wealth revert to this Order.”
“Give me straightway the body of the Lady Sybil of Hoya!” roars Carpezan, in great wrath. “If not, I make a signal to my Reiters, and give you and your convent up to war.”
“Faith, if I lead the storm, and have my right, 'tis not my Lady Abbess that I'll choose,” says Captain Ulric, “but rather some plump, smiling, red-lipped maid like—like——” Here, as he, the sly fellow, is looking under the veils of the two attendant nuns, the stern Abbess cries, “Silence, fellow, with thy ribald talk! The lady, warrior, whom you ask of me is passed away from sin, temptation, vanity, and three days since our Sister Agnes—died.”
At this announcement Carpezan is immensely agitated. The Abbess calls upon the chaplain to confirm her statement. Ghastly and pale, the old man has to own that three days since the wretched Sister Agnes was buried.
This is too much! In the pocket of his coat of mail Carpezan has a letter from Sister Agnes herself, in which she announces that she is going to be buried indeed, but in an oubliette of the convent, where she may either be kept on water and bread, or die starved outright. He seizes the unflinching Abbess by the arm, whilst Captain Ulric lays hold of the chaplain by the throat. The Colonel blows a blast upon his horn: in rush his furious Lanzknechts from without. Crash, bang! They knock the convent walls about. And in the midst of flames, screams, and slaughter, who is presently brought in by Carpezan himself, and fainting on his shoulder, but Sybilla herself? A little sister nun (that gay one with the red lips) had pointed out to the Colonel and Ulric the way to Sister Agnes's dungeon, and, indeed, had been the means of making her situation known to the Lutheran chief.
“The convent is suppressed with a vengeance,” says Mr. Warrington. “We end our first act with the burning of the place, the roars of triumph of the soldiery, and the outcries of the nuns. They had best go change their dresses immediately, for they will have to be court ladies in the next act—as you will see.” Here the gentlemen talked the matter over. If the piece were to be done at Drury Lane, Mrs. Pritchard would hardly like to be Lady Abbess, as she doth but appear in the first act. Miss Pritchard might make a pretty Sybilla, and Miss Gates the attendant nun. Mr. Garrick was scarce tall enough for Carpezan—though, when he is excited, nobody ever thinks of him but as big as a grenadier. Mr. Johnson owns Woodward will be a good Ulric, as he plays the Mercutio parts very gaily; and so, by one and t'other, the audience fancies the play already on the boards, and casts the characters.
In act the second, Carpezan has married Sybilla. He has enriched himself in the wars, has been ennobled by the Emperor, and lives at his castle on the Danube in state and splendour.
But, truth to say, though married, rich, and ennobled, the Lord Carpezan was not happy. It may be that in his wild life, as leader of condottieri on both sides, he had committed crimes which agitated his mind with remorse. It may be that his rough soldier-manners consorted ill with his imperious highborn bride. She led him such a life—I am narrating as it were the Warrington manuscript, which is too long to print in entire—taunting him with his low birth, his vulgar companions, whom the old soldier loved to see about him, and so forth—that there were times when he rather wished that he had never rescued this lovely, quarrelsome, wayward vixen from the oubliette out of which he fished her. After the bustle of the first act this is a quiet one, and passed chiefly in quarrelling between the Baron and Baroness Carpezan, until horns blow, and it is announced that the young King of Bohemia and Hungary is coming bunting that way.
Act III. is passed at Prague, whither his Majesty has invited Lord Carpezan and his wife, with noble offers of preferment to the latter. From Baron he shall be promoted to be Count, from Colonel he shall be General-in-Chief. His wife is the most brilliant and fascinating of all the ladies of the court—and as for Carpzoff——
“Oh, stay—I have it—I know your story, sir, now,” says Mr. Johnson. “'Tis in 'Meteranus,' in the Theatrum Universum. I read it in Oxford as a boy—Carpezanus or Carpzoff——”
“That is the fourth act,” says Mr. Warrington. In the fourth act the young King's attentions towards Sybilla grow more and more marked; but her husband, battling against his jealousy, long refuses to yield to it, until his wife's criminality is put beyond a doubt—and here he read the act, which closes with the terrible tragedy which actually happened. Being convinced of his wife's guilt, Carpezan caused the executioner who followed his regiment to slay her in her own palace. And the curtain of the act falls just after the dreadful deed is done, in a side-chamber illuminated by the moon shining through a great oriel window, under which the King comes with his lute, and plays the song which was to be the signal between him and his guilty victim.
This song (writ in the ancient style, and repeated in the piece, being sung in the third act previously at a great festival given by the King and Queen) was pronounced by Mr. Johnson to be a happy imitation of Mr. Waller's manner, and its gay repetition at the moment of guilt, murder, and horror, very much deepened the tragic gloom of the scene.
“But whatever came afterwards?” he asked. “I remember in the Theatrum, Carpezan is said to have been taken into favour again by Count Mansfield, and doubtless to have murdered other folks on the reformed side.”
Here our poet has departed from historic truth. In the fifth act of Carpezan King Louis of Hungary and Bohemia (sufficiently terror-stricken, no doubt, by the sanguinary termination of his intrigue) has received word that the Emperor Solyman is invading his Hungarian dominions. Enter two noblemen who relate how, in the council which the King held upon the news, the injured Carpezan rushed infuriated into the royal presence, broke his sword, and flung it at the King's feet—along with a glove which he dared him to wear, and which he swore he would one day claim. After that wild challenge the rebel fled from Prague, and had not since been heard of; but it was reported that he had joined the Turkish invader, assumed the turban, and was now in the camp of the Sultan, whose white tents glance across the river yonder, and against whom the King was now on his march. Then the King comes to his tent with his generals, prepares his order of battle; and dismisses them to their posts, keeping by his side an aged and faithful knight, his master of the horse, to whom he expresses his repentance for his past crimes, his esteem for his good and injured Queen, and his determination to meet the day's battle like a man.
“What is this field called?”
“Mohacz, my liege!” says the old warrior, adding the remark that “Ere set of sun, Mohacz will see a battle bravely won.”
Trumpets and alarms now sound; they are the cymbals and barbaric music of the Janissaries: we are in the Turkish camp, and yonder, surrounded by turbaned chiefs, walks the Sultan Solyman's friend, the conqueror of Rhodes, the redoubted Grand Vizier.
Who is that warrior in an Eastern habit, but with a glove in his cap? 'Tis Carpezan. Even Solyman knew his courage and ferocity as a soldier. He knows; the ordnance of the Hungarian host; in what arms King Louis is weakest: how his cavalry, of which the shock is tremendous, should be received, and inveigled into yonder morass, where certain death may await them—he prays for a command in the front, and as near as possible to the place where the traitor King Louis will engage. “'Tis well,” says the grim Vizier, “our invincible Emperor surveys the battle from yonder tower. At the end of the day, he will know how to reward your valour.” The signal-guns fire—the trumpets blow—the Turkish captains retire, vowing death to the infidel, and eternal fidelity to the Sultan.
And now the battle begins in earnest, and with those various incidents which the lover of the theatre knoweth. Christian knights and Turkish warriors clash and skirmish over the stage. Continued alarms are sounded. Troops on both sides advance and retreat. Carpezan, with his glove in his cap, and his dreadful hammer smashing all before him, rages about the field, calling for King Louis. The renegade is about to slay a warrior who faces him, but recognising young Ulric, his ex-captain, he drops the uplifted hammer, and bids him fly, and think of Carpezan. He is softened at seeing his young friend, and thinking of former times when they fought and conquered together in the cause of Protestantism. Ulric bids him to return, but of course that is now out of the question. They fight. Ulric will have it, and down he goes under the hammer. The renegade melts in sight of his wounded comrade, when who appears but King Louis, his plumes torn, his sword hacked, his shield dented with a thousand blows which he has received and delivered during the day's battle. Ha! who is this? The guilty monarch would turn away (perhaps Macbeth may have done so before), but Carpezan is on him. All his softness is gone. He rages like a fury. “An equal fight!” he roars. “A traitor against a traitor! Stand, King Louis! False King, false knight, false friend—by this glove in my helmet, I challenge you!” And he tears the guilty token out of his cap, and flings it at the King.
Of course they set to, and the monarch falls under the terrible arm of the man whom he has injured. He dies, uttering a few incoherent words of repentance, and Carpezan, leaning upon his murderous mace, utters a heartbroken soliloquy over the royal corpse. The Turkish warriors have gathered meanwhile: the dreadful day is their own. Yonder stands the dark Vizier, surrounded by his Janissaries, whose bows and swords are tired of drinking death. He surveys the renegade standing over the corpse of the King.
“Christian renegade!” he says, “Allah has given us a great victory. The arms of the Sublime Emperor are everywhere triumphant. The Christian King is slain by you.”
“Peace to his soul! He died like a good knight,” gasps Ulric, himself dying on the field.
“In this day's battle,” the grim Vizier continues, “no man hath comported himself more bravely than you. You are made Bassa of Transylvania! Advance bowmen—Fire!”
An arrow quivers in the breast of Carpezan.
“Bassa of Transylvania, you were a traitor to your King, who lies murdered by your hand!” continues grim Vizier. “You contributed more than any soldier to this day's great victory. 'Tis thus my sublime Emperor meetly rewards you. Sound trumpets! We march for Vienna to-night!”
And the curtain drops as Carpezan, crawling towards his dying comrade, kisses his hands, and gasps—
“Forgive me, Ulric!”
When Mr. Warrington has finished reading his tragedy, he turns round to Mr. Johnson, modestly, and asks,—
“What say you, sir? Is there any chance for me?”
But the opinion of this most eminent critic is scarce to be given, for Mr. Johnson had been asleep for some time, and frankly owned that he had lost the latter part of the play.
The little auditory begins to hum and stir as the noise of the speaker ceased. George may have been very nervous when he first commenced to read; but everybody allows that he read the last two acts uncommonly well, and makes him a compliment upon his matter and manner. Perhaps everybody is in good-humour because the piece has come to an end. Mr. Spencer's servant hands about refreshing drinks. The Templars speak out their various opinions whilst they sip the negus. They are a choice band of critics, familiar with the pit of the theatre, and they treat Mr. Warrington's play with the gravity which such a subject demands.
Mr. Fountain suggests that the Vizier should not say “Fire!” when he bids the archers kill Carpezan, as you certainly don't fire with a bow and arrows. A note is taken of the objection.
Mr. Figtree, who is of a sentimental turn, regrets that Ulric could not be saved, and married to the comic heroine.
“Nay, sir, there was an utter annihilation of the Hungarian army at Mohacz,” says Mr. Johnson, “and Ulric must take his knock on the head with the rest. He could only be saved by flight, and you wouldn't have a hero run away! Pronounce sentence of death against Captain Ulric, but kill him with honours of war.”
Messrs. Essex and Tanfield wonder to one another who is this queer-looking pert whom Spencer has invited, and who contradicts everybody; and suggest a boat up the river and a little fresh air after the fatigues of the tragedy.
The general opinion is decidedly favourable to Mr. Warrington's performance; and Mr. Johnson's opinion, on which he sets a special value, is the most favourable of all. Perhaps Mr. Johnson is not sorry to compliment a young gentleman of fashion and figure like Mr. W. “Up to the death of the heroine,” he says, “I am frankly with you, sir. And I may speak, as a playwright who have killed my own heroine, and had my share of the plausus in the atro. To hear your own lines nobly delivered to an applauding house, is indeed a noble excitement. I like to see a young man of good name and lineage who condescends to think that the Tragic Muse is not below his advances. It was to a sordid roof that I invited her, and I asked her to rescue me from poverty and squalor. Happy you, sir, who can meet her upon equal terms, and can afford to marry her without a portion!”
“I doubt whether the greatest genius is not debased who has to make a bargain with Poetry,” remarks Mr. Spencer.
“Nay, sir,” Mr. Johnson answered, “I doubt if many a great genius would work at all without bribes and necessities; and so a man had better marry a poor Muse for good and all, for better or worse, than dally with a rich one. I make you my compliment to your play, Mr. Warrington, and if you want an introduction to the stage, shall be very happy if I can induce my friend Mr. Garrick to present you.”
“Mr. Garrick shall be his sponsor,” cried the florid Mr. Figtree. “Melpomene shall be his godmother, and he shall have the witches' caldron in Macbeth for a christening font.”
“Sir, I neither said font nor godmother!”—remarks the man of letters. “I would have no play contrary to morals or religion nor, as I conceive, is Mr. Warrington's piece otherwise than friendly to them. Vice is chastised, as it should be, even in kings, though perhaps we judge of their temptations too lightly. Revenge is punished—as not to be lightly exercised by our limited notion of justice. It may have been Carpezan's wife who perverted the King, and not the King who led the woman astray. At any rate, Louis is rightly humiliated for his crime, and the Renegade most justly executed for his. I wish you a good afternoon, gentlemen!” And with these remarks, the great author took his leave of the company.
Towards the close of the reading, General Lambert had made his appearance at Mr. Spencer's chambers, and had listened to the latter part of the tragedy. The performance over, he and George took their way to the latter's lodgings in the first place, and subsequently to the General's own house, where the young author was expected, in order to recount the reception which his play had met from his Temple critics.
At Mr. Warrington's apartments in Southampton Row, they found a letter awaiting George, which the latter placed in his pocket unread, so that he might proceed immediately with his companion to Soho. We may be sure the ladies there were eager to know about the Carpezan's fate in the morning's small rehearsal.
Hetty said George was so shy, that perhaps it would be better for all parties if some other person had read the play. Theo, on the contrary, cried out:
“Read it, indeed! Who can read a poem better than the author who feels it in his heart? And George had his whole heart in the piece!”
Mr. Lambert very likely thought that somebody else's whole heart was in the piece too, but did not utter this opinion to Miss Theo.
“I think Harry would look very well in your figure of a Prince,” says the General. “That scene where he takes leave of his wife before departing for the wars reminds me of your brother's manner not a little.”
“Oh, papa! surely Mr. Warrington himself would act the Prince's part best!” cries Miss Theo.
“And be deservedly slain in battle at the end?” asks the father of the house.
“I did not say that,—only that Mr. George would make a very good Prince, papa!” cries Miss Theo.
“In which case he would find a suitable Princess, I have no doubt. What news of your brother Harry?”
George, who had been thinking about theatrical triumphs; about monumentum aere perennius; about lilacs; about love whispered and tenderly accepted, remembers that he has a letter from Harry in his pocket, and gaily produces it.
“Let us hear what Mr. Truant says for himself, Aunt Lambert!” cries George, breaking the seal.
Why is he so disturbed, as he reads the contents of his letter? Why do the women look at him with alarmed eyes? And why, above all, is Hetty so pale?
“Here is the letter,” says George, and begins to read it:
“RYDE, June 1, 1758.
“I did not tell my dearest George what I hoped and intended, when I left home on Wednesday. 'Twas to see Mr. Webb at Portsmouth or the Isle of Wight, wherever his Regiment was, and if need was to go down on my knees to him to take me as volunteer on the Expedition. I took boat from Portsmouth, where I learned that he was with our regiment incampt at the village of Ryde. Was received by him most kindly, and my petition granted out of hand. That is why I say our regiment. We are eight gentlemen volunteers with Mr. Webb, all men of birth, and good fortunes except poor me, who don't deserve one. We are to mess with the officers; we take the right of the collumn, and have always the right to be in front, and in an hour we embark on board his Majesty's Ship the Rochester of 60 guns, while our Commodore's, Mr. Howe's, is the Essex, 70. His squadron is about 20 ships, and I should think 100 transports at least. Though 'tis a secret expedition, we make no doubt France is our destination—where I hope to see my friends the Monsieurs once more, and win my colours, a la point de mon epee, as we used to say in Canada. Perhaps my service as interpreter may be useful; I speaking the language not so well as some one I know, but better than most here.
“I scarce venture to write to our mother to tell her of this step. Will you, who have a coxing tongue will wheadle any one, write to her as soon as you have finisht the famous tradgedy? Will you give my affectionate respects to dear General Lambert and ladies? and if any accident should happen, I know you will take care of poor Gumbo as belonging to my dearest best George's most affectionate brother, HENRY E. WARRINGTON.
“P.S.—Love to all at home when you write, including Dempster, Mountain, and Fanny M. and all the people, and duty to my honoured mother, wishing I had pleased her better. And if I said anything unkind to dear Miss Hester Lambert, I know she will forgive me, and pray God bless all.—H. E. W.”
“To G. Esmond Warrington, Esq., at Mr. Scrace's House in Southampton Row, Opposite Bedford House Gardens, London.”
He has not read the last words with a very steady voice. Mr. Lambert sits silent, though not a little moved. Theo and her mother look at one another; but Hetty remains with a cold face and a stricken heart. She thinks, “He is gone to danger, perhaps to death, and it was I sent him!”