We, who had been active in the guilty scene of the morning, felt trebly guilty when we saw the effect which our conduct had produced upon him, who, of all others, we loved and respected. The shock to the good man was strange, and pitiful to us to witness who had administered it. The child of his heart had deceived and disobeyed him—I declare I think, my dear, now, we would not or could not do it over again; his whole family had entered into a league against him. Dear, kind friend and father! We know thou hast pardoned our wrong—in the Heaven where thou dwellest amongst purified spirits who learned on earth how to love and pardon! To love and forgive were easy duties with that man. Beneficence was natural to him, and a sweet, smiling humility; and to wound either was to be savage and brutal, as to torture a child, or strike blows at a nursing woman. The deed done, all we guilty ones grovelled in the earth, before the man we had injured. I pass over the scenes of forgiveness, of reconciliation, of common worship together, of final separation when the good man departed to his government, and the ship sailed away before us, leaving me and Theo on the shore. We stood there hand in hand, horribly abashed, silent, and guilty. My wife did not come to me till her father went: in the interval between the ceremony of our marriage and his departure, she had remained at home, occupying her old place by her father, and bed by her sister's side: he as kind as ever, but the women almost speechless among themselves; Aunt Lambert, for once, unkind and fretful in her temper; and little Hetty feverish and strange, and saying, “I wish we were gone. I wish we were gone.” Though admitted to the house, and forgiven, I slunk away during those last days, and only saw my wife for a minute or two in the street, or with her family. She was not mine till they were gone. We went to Winchester and Hampton for what may be called our wedding. It was but a dismal business. For a while we felt utterly lonely: and of our dear father as if we had buried him, or drove him to the grave by our undutifulness.
I made Sampson announce our marriage in the papers. (My wife used to hang down her head before the poor fellow afterwards.) I took Mrs. Warrington back to my old lodgings in Bloomsbury, where there was plenty of room for us, and our modest married life began. I wrote home a letter to my mother in Virginia, informing her of no particulars, but only that Mr. Lambert being about to depart for his government, I considered myself bound in honour to fulfil my promise towards his dearest daughter; and stated that I intended to carry out my intention of completing my studies for the Bar, and qualifying myself for employment at home, or in our own or any other colony. My good Mrs. Mountain answered this letter, by desire of Madam Esmond, she said, who thought that for the sake of peace my communications had best be conducted that way. I found my relatives in a fury which was perfectly amusing to witness. The butler's face, as he said, “Not at home,” at my uncle's house in Hill Street, was a blank tragedy that might have been studied by Garrick when he sees Banque. My poor little wife was on my arm, and we were tripping away, laughing at the fellow's accueil, when we came upon my lady in a street stoppage in her chair. I took off my hat and made her the lowest possible bow. I affectionately asked after my dear cousins. “I—I wonder you dare look me in the face!” Lady Warrington gasped out. “Nay, don't deprive me of that precious privilege!” says I. “Move on, Peter,” she screams to her chairman. “Your ladyship would not impale your own husband's flesh and blood!” says I. She rattles up the glass of her chair in a fury. I kiss my hand, take off my hat, and perform another of my very finest bows.
Walking shortly afterwards in Hyde Park with my dearest companion, I met my little cousin exercising on horseback with a groom behind him. As soon as he sees us, he gallops up to us, the groom powdering afterwards and bawling out, “Stop, Master Miles, stop!”
“I am not to speak to my cousin,” says Miles, “but telling you to send my love to Harry is not speaking to you, is it? Is that my new cousin? I'm not told not to speak to her. I'm Miles, cousin, Sir Miles Warrington Baronet's son, and you are very pretty!” “Now, duee now, Master Miles,” says the groom, touching his hat to us; and the boy trots away laughing and looking at us over his shoulder. “You see how my relations have determined to treat me,” I say to my partner. “As if I married you for your relations!” says Theo, her eyes beaming joy and love into mine. Ah, how happy we were! how brisk and pleasant the winter! How snug the kettle by the fire (where the abashed Sampson sometimes came and made the punch); how delightful the night at the theatre, for which our friends brought us tickets of admission, and where we daily expected our new play of Pocahontas would rival the successes of all former tragedies.
The fickle old aunt of Clarges Street, who received me, on my first coming to London with my wife, with a burst of scorn, mollified presently, and as soon as she came to know Theo (who she had pronounced to be an insignificant little country-faced chit), fell utterly in love with her, and would have her to tea and supper every day when there was no other company. “As for company, my dears,” she would say, “I don't ask you. You are no longer du monde. Your marriage has put that entirely out of the question.” So she would have had us come to amuse her, and go in and out by the back-stairs. My wife was fine lady enough to feel only amused at this reception; and, I must do the Baroness's domestics the justice to say that, had we been duke and duchess, we could not have been received with more respect. Madame de Bernstein was very much tickled and amused with my story of Lady Warrington and the chair. I acted it for her, and gave her anecdotes of the pious Baronet's lady and her daughters, which pleased the mischievous, lively old woman.
The Dowager Countess of Castlewood, now established in her house at Kensington, gave us that kind of welcome which genteel ladies extend to their poorer relatives. We went once or twice to her ladyship's drums at Kensington; but, losing more money at cards, and spending more money in coach-hire than I liked to afford, we speedily gave up those entertainments, and, I dare say, were no more missed or regretted than other people in the fashionable world, who are carried by death, debt, or other accident out of the polite sphere. My Theo did not in the least regret this exclusion. She had made her appearance at one of these drums, attired in some little ornaments which her mother left behind her, and by which the good lady set some store; but I thought her own white neck was a great deal prettier than these poor twinkling stones; and there were dowagers, whose wrinkled old bones blazed with rubies and diamonds, which, I am sure, they would gladly have exchanged for her modest parure of beauty and freshness. Not a soul spoke to her—except, to be sure, Beau Lothair, a friend of Mr. Will's, who prowled about Bloomsbury afterwards, and even sent my wife a billet. I met him in Covent Garden shortly after, and promised to break his ugly face if ever I saw it in the neighbourhood of my lodgings, and Madam Theo was molested no further.
The only one of our relatives who came to see us (Madame de Bernstein never came; she sent her coach for us sometimes, or made inquiries regarding us by her woman or her major-domo) was our poor Maria, who, with her husband, Mr. Hagan, often took a share of our homely dinner. Then we had friend Spencer from the Temple, who admired our Arcadian felicity, and gently asked our sympathy for his less fortunate loves; and twice or thrice the famous Doctor Johnson came in for a dish of Theo's tea. A dish? a pailful! “And a pail the best thing to feed him, sar!” says Mr. Gumbo, indignantly: for the Doctor's appearance was not pleasant, nor his linen particularly white. He snorted, he grew red, and sputtered in feeding; he flung his meat about, and bawled out in contradicting people: and annoyed my Theo, whom he professed to admire greatly, by saying, every time he saw her, “Madam, you do not love me; I see by your manner you do not love me; though I admire you, and come here for your sake. Here is my friend Mr. Reynolds that shall paint you: he has no ceruse in his paint-box that is as brilliant as your complexion.” And so Mr. Reynolds, a most perfect and agreeable gentleman, would have painted my wife; but I knew what his price was, and did not choose to incur that expense. I wish I had now, for the sake of the children, that they might see what yonder face was like some five-and-thirty years ago. To me, madam, 'tis the same now as ever; and your ladyship is always young!
What annoyed Mrs. Warrington with Dr. Johnson more than his contradictions, his sputterings, and his dirty nails, was, I think, an unfavourable opinion which he formed of my new tragedy. Hagan once proposed that he should read some scenes from it after tea.
“Nay, sir, conversation is better,” says the Doctor. “I can read for myself, or hear you at the theatre. I had rather hear Mrs. Warrington's artless prattle than your declamation of Mr. Warrington's decasyllables. Tell us about your household affairs, madam, and whether his Excellency your father is well, and whether you made the pudden and the butter sauce. The butter sauce was delicious!” (He loved it so well that he had kept a large quantity in the bosom of a very dingy shirt.) “You made it as though you loved me. You helped me as though you loved me, though you don't.”
“Faith, sir, you are taking some of the present away with you in your waistcoat,” says Hagan, with much spirit.
“Sir, you are rude!” bawls the Doctor. “You are unacquainted with the first principles of politeness, which is courtesy before ladies. Having received an university education, I am surprised that you have not learned the rudiments of politeness. I respect Mrs. Warrington. I should never think of making personal remarks about her guests before her!”
“Then, sir,” says Hagan, fiercely, “why did you speak of my theatre?”
“Sir, you are saucy!” roars the Doctor.
“De te fabula,” says the actor. “I think it is your waistcoat that is saucy. Madam, shall I make some punch in the way we make it in Ireland?”
The Doctor, puffing, and purple in the face, was wiping the dingy shirt with a still more dubious pocket-handkerchief, which he then applied to his forehead. After this exercise, he blew a hyperborean whistle, as if to blow his wrath away. “It is de me, sir—though, as a young man, perhaps you need not have told me so.”
“I drop my point, sir! If you have been wrong, I am sure I am bound to ask your pardon for setting you so!” says Mr. Hagan, with a fine bow.
“Doesn't he look like a god?” says Maria, clutching my wife's hand: and indeed Mr. Hagan did look like a handsome young gentleman. His colour had risen; he had put his hand to his breast with a noble air: Chamont or Castalio could not present himself better.
“Let me make you some lemonade, sir; my papa has sent us a box of fresh limes. May we send you some to the Temple?”
“Madam, if they stay in your house, they will lose their quality and turn sweet,” says the Doctor. “Mr. Hagan, you are a young sauce-box, that's what you are! Ho! ho! It is I have been wrong.”
“Oh, my lord, my Polidore!” bleats Lady Maria, when she was alone in my wife's drawing-room:
“'Oh, I could hear thee talk for ever thus,Eternally admiring,—fix and gazeOn those dear eyes, for every glance they sendDarts through my soul, and fills my heart with rapture!'
“Thou knowest not, my Theo, what a pearl and paragon of a man my Castalio is; my Chamont, my—oh, dear me, child, what a pity it is that in your husband's tragedy he should have to take the horrid name of Captain Smith!”
Upon this tragedy not only my literary hopes, but much of my financial prospects were founded. My brother's debts discharged, my mother's drafts from home duly honoured, my own expenses paid, which, though moderate, were not inconsiderable,—pretty nearly the whole of my patrimony had been spent, and this auspicious moment I must choose for my marriage! I could raise money on my inheritance: that was not impossible, though certainly costly. My mother could not leave her eldest son without a maintenance, whatever our quarrels might be. I had health, strength, good wits, some friends, and reputation—above all, my famous tragedy, which the manager had promised to perform, and upon the proceeds of this I counted for my present support. What becomes of the arithmetic of youth? How do we then calculate that a hundred pounds is a maintenance, and a thousand a fortune? How did I dare play against Fortune with such odds? I succeeded, I remember, in convincing my dear General, and he left home convinced that his son-in-law had for the present necessity at least a score of hundred pounds at his command. He and his dear Molly had begun life with less, and the ravens had somehow always fed them. As for the women, the question of poverty was one of pleasure to those sentimental souls, and Aunt Lambert, for her part, declared it would be wicked and irreligious to doubt of a provision being made for her children. Was the righteous ever forsaken? Did the just man ever have to beg his bread? She knew better than that! “No, no, my dears! I am not going to be afraid on that account, I warrant you! Look at me and my General!”
Theo believed all I said and wished to believe myself. So we actually began life upon a capital of Five Acts, and about three hundred pounds of ready money in hand!
Well, the time of the appearance of the famous tragedy drew near, and my friends canvassed the town to get a body of supporters for the opening night. I am ill at asking favours from the great; but when my Lord Wrotham came to London, I went, with Theo in my hand, to wait on his lordship, who received us kindly, out of regard for his old friend, her father—though he good-naturedly shook a finger at me (at which my little wife hung down her head), for having stole a march on the good General. However, he would do his best for her father's daughter; hoped for a success; said he had heard great things of the piece; and engaged a number of places for himself and his friends. But this patron secured, I had no other. “Mon cher, at my age,” says the Baroness, “I should bore myself to death at a tragedy: but I will do my best; and I will certainly send my people to the boxes. Yes! Case in his best black looks like a nobleman; and Brett in one of my gowns has a faux air de moi which is quite distinguished. Put down my name for two in the front boxes. Good-bye, my dear. Bonne chance!” The Dowager Countess presented compliments (on the back of the nine of clubs), had a card-party that night, and was quite sorry she and Fanny could not go to my tragedy. As for my uncle and Lady Warrington, they were out of the question. After the affair of the sedan-chair I might as well have asked Queen Elizabeth to go to Drury Lane. These were all my friends—that host of aristocratic connexions about whom poor Sampson had bragged; and on the strength of whom, the manager, as he said, had given Mr. Hagan his engagement! “Where was my Lord Bute? Had I not promised his lordship should come?” he asks, snappishly, taking snuff (how different from the brisk, and engaging, and obsequious little manager of six months ago!)—“I promised Lord Bute should come?”
“Yes,” says Mr. Garrick, “and her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, and his Majesty too.”
Poor Sampson owned that he, buoyed up by vain hopes, had promised the appearance of these august personages.
The next day, at rehearsal, matters were worse still, and the manager in a fury.
“Great heavens, sir!” says he, “into what a pretty guet-a-pens have you led me! Look at that letter, sir!—read that letter!” And he hands me one:
“MY DEAR SIR” (said the letter)—“I have seen his lordship, and conveyed to him Mr. Warrington's request that he would honour the tragedy of Pocahontas by his presence. His lordship is a patron of the drama, and a magnificent friend of all the liberal arts; but he desires me to say that he cannot think of attending himself, much less of asking his Gracious Master to witness the performance of a play, a principal part in which is given to an actor who has made a clandestine marriage with a daughter of one of his Majesty's nobility.—Your well-wisher, SAUNDERS MCDUFF.”
“Mr. D. Garrick, at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.”
My poor Theo had a nice dinner waiting for me after the rehearsal. I pleaded fatigue as the reason for looking so pale: I did not dare to convey to her this dreadful news.
The English public not being so well acquainted with the history of Pocahontas as we of Virginia, who still love the memory of that simple and kindly creature, Mr. Warrington, at the suggestion of his friends, made a little ballad about this Indian princess, which was printed in the magazines a few days before the appearance of the tragedy. This proceeding Sampson and I considered to be very artful and ingenious. “It is like ground-bait, sir,” says the enthusiastic parson, “and you will see the fish rise in multitudes, on the great day!” He and Spencer declared that the poem was discussed and admired at several coffee-houses in their hearing, and that it had been attributed to Mr. Mason, Mr. Cowper of the Temple, and even to the famous Mr. Gray. I believe poor Sam had himself set abroad these reports; and, if Shakspeare had been named as the author of the tragedy, would have declared Pocahontas to be one of the poet's best performances. I made acquaintance with brave Captain Smith, as a boy in my grandfather's library at home, where I remember how I would sit at the good old man's knees, with my favourite volume on my own, spelling out the exploits of our Virginian hero. I loved to read of Smith's travels, sufferings, captivities, escapes, not only in America but Europe. I become a child again almost as I take from the shelf before me in England the familiar volume, and all sorts of recollections of my early home come crowding over my mind. The old grandfather would make pictures for me of Smith doing battle with the Turks on the Danube, or led out by our Indian savages to death. Ah, what a terrific fight was that in which he was engaged with the three Turkish champions, and how I used to delight over the story of his combat with Bonny Molgro, the last and most dreadful of the three! What a name Bonny Molgro was, and with what a prodigious turban, scimitar, and whiskers we represented him! Having slain and taken off the heads of his first two enemies, Smith and Bonny Molgro met, falling to (says my favourite old book) “with their battle-axes, whose piercing bills made sometimes the one, sometimes the other, to have scarce sense to keep their saddles: especially the Christian received such a wound that he lost his battle-axe, whereat the supposed conquering Turke had a great shout from the rampires. Yet, by the readinesse of his horse, and his great judgment and dexteritie, he not only avoided the Turke's blows, but, having drawn his falchion, so pierced the Turke under the cutlets, through back and body, that though hee alighted from his horse, he stood not long ere hee lost his head as the rest had done. In reward for which deed, Duke Segismundus gave him 3 Turke's head in a shield for armes and 300 Duckats yeerely for a pension.” Disdaining time and place (with that daring which is the privilege of poets) in my tragedy, Smith is made to perform similar exploits on the banks of our Potomac and James's river. Our “ground-bait” verses, ran thus:—
“POCAHONTAS“Wearied arm and broken swordWage in vain the desperate fightRound him press the countless horde,He is but a single knight.Hark! a cry of triumph shrillThrough the wilderness resounds,As, with twenty bleeding wounds,Sinks the warrior, fighting still.“Now they heap the fatal pyre,And the torch of death they lightAh! 'tis hard to die of fire!Who will shield the captive knight?Round the stake with fiendish cryWheel and dance the savage crowd,Cold the victim's mien and proud,And his breast is bared to die.“Who will shield the fearless heart?Who avert the murderous blade?From the throng, with sudden start,See, there springs an Indian maid.Quick she stands before the knight,'Loose the chain, unbind the ring,I am daughter of the king,And I claim the Indian right!'“Dauntlessly aside she flingsLifted axe and thirsty knife;Fondly to his heart she clings,And her bosom guards his life!In the woods of Powhattan,Still 'tis told, by Indian fires,How a daughter of their siresSaved the captive Englishman.”
I need not describe at length the plot of my tragedy, as my children can take it down from the shelves any day and peruse it for themselves. Nor shall I, let me add, be in a hurry to offer to read it again to my young folks, since Captain Miles and the parson both chose to fall asleep last Christmas, when, at mamma's request, I read aloud a couple of acts. But any person having a moderate acquaintance with plays and novels can soon, out of the above sketch, fill out a picture to his liking. An Indian king; a loving princess, and her attendant, in love with the British captain's servant; a traitor in the English fort; a brave Indian warrior, himself entertaining an unhappy passion for Pocahontas; a medicine-man and priest of the Indians (very well played by Palmer), capable of every treason, stratagem, and crime, and bent upon the torture and death of the English prisoner;—these, with the accidents of the wilderness, the war-dances and cries (which Gumbo had learned to mimic very accurately from the red people at home), and the arrival of the English fleet, with allusions to the late glorious victories in Canada, and the determination of Britons ever to rule and conquer in America, some of us not unnaturally thought might contribute to the success of our tragedy.
But I have mentioned the ill omens which preceded the day: the difficulties which a peevish, and jealous, and timid management threw in the way of the piece, and the violent prejudice which was felt against it in certain high quarters. What wonder then, I ask, that Pocahontas should have turned out not to be a victory? I laugh to scorn the malignity of the critics who found fault with the performance. Pretty critics, forsooth, who said that Carpezan was a masterpiece, whilst a far superior and more elaborate work received only their sneers! I insist on it that Hagan acted his part so admirably that a certain actor and manager of the theatre might well be jealous of him; and that, but for the cabal made outside, the piece would have succeeded. The order had been given that the play should not succeed; so at least Sampson declared to me. “The house swarmed with Macs, by George, and they should have the galleries washed with brimstone,” the honest fellow swore, and always vowed that Mr. Garrick himself would not have had the piece succeed for the world; and was never in such a rage as during that grand scene in the second act, where Smith (poor Hagan) being bound to the stake, Pocahontas comes and saves him, and when the whole house was thrilling with applause and sympathy.
Anybody who has curiosity sufficient, may refer to the published tragedy (in the octavo form, or in the subsequent splendid quarto edition of my Collected Works, and Poems Original and Translated), and say whether the scene is without merit, whether the verses are not elegant, the language rich and noble? One of the causes of the failure was my actual fidelity to history. I had copied myself at the Museum, and tinted neatly, a figure of Sir Walter Raleigh in a frill and beard; and (my dear Theo giving some of her mother's best lace for the ruff) we dressed Hagan accurately after this drawing, and no man could look better. Miss Pritchard as Pocahontas, I dressed too as a Red Indian, having seen enough of that costume in my own experience at home. Will it be believed the house tittered when she first appeared? They got used to her, however, but just at the moment when she rushes into the prisoner's arms, and a number of people were actually in tears, a fellow in the pit bawls out, “Bedad! here's the Belle Savage kissing the Saracen's Head;” on which an impertinent roar of laughter sprang up in the pit, breaking out with fitful explosions during the remainder of the performance. As the wag in Mr. Sheridan's amusing Critic admirably says about the morning guns, the playwrights were not content with one of them, but must fire two or three; so with this wretched pothouse joke of the Belle Savage (the ignorant people not knowing that Pocahontas herself was the very Belle Sauvage from whom the tavern took its name!). My friend of the pit repeated it ad nauseam during the performance, and as each new character appeared, saluted him by the name of some tavern—for instance, the English governor (with a long beard) he called the Goat and Boots; his lieutenant (Barker), whose face certainly was broad, the Bull and Mouth, and so on! And the curtain descended amidst a shrill storm of whistles and hisses, which especially assailed poor Hagan every time he opened his lips. Sampson saw Master Will in the green boxes, with some pretty acquaintances of his, and has no doubt that the treacherous scoundrel was one of the ringleaders in the conspiracy. “I would have flung him over into the pit,” the faithful fellow said (and Sampson was man enough to execute his threat), “but I saw a couple of Mr. Nadab's followers prowling about the lobby, and was obliged to sheer off.” And so the eggs we had counted on selling at market were broken, and our poor hopes lay shattered before us!
I looked in at the house from the stage before the curtain was lifted, and saw it pretty well filled, especially remarking Mr. Johnson in the front boxes, in a laced waistcoat, having his friend Mr. Reynolds by his side; the latter could not hear, and the former could not see, and so they came good-naturedly A deux to form an opinion of my poor tragedy. I could see Lady Maria (I knew the hood she wore) in the lower gallery, where she once more had the opportunity of sitting and looking at her beloved actor performing a principal character in a piece. As for Theo, she fairly owned that, unless I ordered her, she had rather not be present, nor had I any such command to give, for, if things went wrong, I knew that to see her suffer would be intolerable pain to myself, and so acquiesced in her desire to keep away.
Being of a pretty equanimous disposition, and, as I flatter myself, able to bear good or evil fortune without disturbance, I myself, after taking a light dinner at the Bedford, went to the theatre a short while before the commencement of the play, and proposed to remain there, until the defeat or victory was decided. I own now, I could not help seeing which way the fate of the day was likely to turn. There was something gloomy and disastrous in the general aspect of all things around. Miss Pritchard had the headache: the barber who brought home Hagan's wig had powdered it like a wretch: amongst the gentlemen and ladies in the greenroom, I saw none but doubtful faces: and the manager (a very flippant, not to say impertinent gentleman, in my opinion, and who himself on that night looked as dismal as a mute at a funeral) had the insolence to say to me, “For Heaven's sake, Mr. Warrington, go and get a glass of punch at the Bedford, and don't frighten us all here by your dismal countenance!”
“Sir,” says I, “I have a right, for five shillings, to comment upon your face, but I never gave you any authority to make remarks upon mine.” “Sir,” says he in a pet, “I most heartily wish I had never seen your face at all!” “Yours, sir!” said I, “has often amused me greatly; and when painted for Abel Drugger is exceedingly comic”—and indeed I have always done Mr. G. the justice to think that in low comedy he was unrivalled. I made him a bow, and walked off to the coffee-house, and for five years after never spoke a word to the gentleman, when he apologised to me, at a nobleman's house where we chanced to meet. I said I had utterly forgotten the circumstance to which he alluded, and that, on the first night of a play, no doubt author and manager were flurried alike. And added, “After all, there is no shame in not being made for the theatre. Mr. Garrick—you were.” A compliment with which he appeared to be as well pleased as I intended he should.
Fidus Achates ran over to me at the end of the first act to say that all things were going pretty well; though he confessed to the titter in the house upon Miss Pritchard's first appearance, dressed exactly like an Indian princess.
“I cannot help it, Sampson,” said I (filling him a bumper of good punch), “if Indians are dressed so.”
“Why,” says he, “would you have had Caractacus painted blue like an ancient Briton, or Bonduca with nothing but a cow-skin?” And indeed it may be that the fidelity to history was the cause of the ridicule cast on my tragedy, in which case I, for one, am not ashamed of its defeat.
After the second act, my aide-de-camp came from the field with dismal news indeed. I don't know how it is that, nervous before action, in disaster I become pretty cool and cheerful. [The writer seems to contradict himself here, having just boasted of possessing a pretty equanimous disposition. He was probably mistaken in his own estimate of himself, as other folks have been besides.-ED.] “Are things going ill?” says I. I call for my reckoning, put on my hat, and march to the theatre as calmly as if I was going to dine at the Temple; fidus Achates walking by my side, pressing my elbow, kicking the link-boys out of the way, and crying, “By George, Mr. Warrington, you are a man of spirit—a Trojan, sir!” So, there were men of spirit in Troy; but alas! fate was too strong for them.
At any rate, no man can say that I did not bear my misfortune with calmness: I could no more help the clamour and noise of the audience than a captain can help the howling and hissing of the storm in which his ship goes down. But I was determined that the rushing waves and broken masts should impavidum ferient, and flatter myself that I bore my calamity without flinching. “Not Regulus, my dear madam, could step into his barrel more coolly,” Sampson said to my wife. 'Tis unjust to say of men of the parasitic nature that they are unfaithful in misfortune. Whether I was prosperous or poor, the wild parson was equally true and friendly, and shared our crust as eagerly as ever he had partaken of our better fortune.
I took my place on the stage, whence I could see the actors of my poor piece, and a portion of the audience who condemned me. I suppose the performers gave me a wide berth out of pity for me. I must say that I think I was as little moved as any spectator; and that no one would have judged from my mien that I was the unlucky hero of the night.
But my dearest Theo, when I went home, looked so pale and white, that I saw from the dear creature's countenance that the knowledge of my disaster had preceded my return. Spencer, Sampson, cousin Hagan, and Lady Maria were to come after the play, and congratulate the author, God wot! (Poor Miss Pritchard was engaged to us likewise, but sent word that I must understand that she was a great deal too unwell to sup that night.) My friend the gardener of Bedford House had given my wife his best flowers to decorate her little table. There they were; the poor little painted standards—and the battle lost! I had borne the defeat well enough, but as I looked at the sweet pale face of the wife across the table, and those artless trophies of welcome which she had set up for her hero, I confess my courage gave way, and my heart felt a pang almost as keen as any that ever has smitten it.
Our meal, it may be imagined, was dismal enough, nor was it rendered much gayer by the talk we strove to carry on. Old Mrs. Hagan was, luckily, very ill at this time; and her disease, and the incidents connected with it, a great blessing to us. Then we had his Majesty's approaching marriage, about which there was a talk. (How well I remember the most futile incidents of the day down to a tune which a carpenter was whistling by my side at the playhouse, just before the dreary curtain fell!) Then we talked about the death of good Mr. Richardson, the author of Pamela and Clarissa, whose works we all admired exceedingly. And as we talked about Clarissa, my wife took on herself to wipe her eyes once or twice, and say, faintly, “You know, my love, mamma and I could never help crying over that dear book. Oh, my dearest, dearest mother” (she adds), “how I wish she could be with me now!” This was an occasion for more open tears, for of course a young lady may naturally weep for her absent mother. And then we mixed a gloomy bowl with Jamaica limes, and drank to the health of his Excellency the Governor: and then, for a second toast, I filled a bumper, and, with a smiling face, drank to “our better fortune!”
This was too much. The two women flung themselves into each other's arms, and irrigated each other's neck-handkerchiefs with tears. “Oh, Maria! Is not—is not my George good and kind?” sobs Theo. “Look at my Hagan—how great, how godlike he was in his part!” gasps Maria. “It was a beastly cabal which threw him over—and I could plunge this knife into Mr. Garrick's black heart—the odious little wretch!” and she grasps a weapon at her side. But throwing it presently down, the enthusiastic creature rushes up to her lord and master, flings her arms round him, and embraces him in the presence of the little company.
I am not sure whether some one else did not do likewise. We were all in a state of extreme excitement and enthusiasm. In the midst of grief, Love the consoler appears amongst us, and soothes us with such fond blandishments and tender caresses, that one scarce wishes the calamity away. Two or three days afterwards, on our birthday, a letter was brought me in my study, which contained the following lines:—
“FROM POCAHONTAS“Returning from the cruel fightHow pale and faint appears my knight!He sees me anxious at his side;'Why seek, my love, your wounds to hide?Or deem your English girl afraidTo emulate the Indian maid?'“Be mine my husband's grief to cheer,In peril to be ever near;Whate'er of ill or woe betide,To bear it clinging at his side;The poisoned stroke of fate to ward,His bosom with my own to guard;Ah! could it spare a pang to his,It could not know a purer bliss!'Twould gladden as it felt the smart,And thank the hand that flung the dart!”
I do not say the verses are very good, but that I like them as well as if they were—and that the face of the writer (whose sweet young voice I fancy I can hear as I hum the lines), when I went into her drawing-room after getting the letter, and when I saw her blushing and blessing me—seemed to me more beautiful than any I can fancy out of Heaven.
I have already described my present feelings as an elderly gentleman, regarding that rash jump into matrimony, which I persuaded my dear partner to take with me when we were both scarce out of our teens. As a man and a father—with a due sense of the necessity of mutton chops, and the importance of paying the baker—with a pack of rash children round about us who might be running off to Scotland to-morrow, and pleading papa's and mamma's example for their impertinence,—I know that I ought to be very cautious in narrating this early part of the married life of George Warrington, Esquire, and Theodosia his wife—to call out mea culpa, and put on a demure air, and, sitting in my comfortable easy-chair here, profess to be in a white sheet and on the stool of repentance, offering myself up as a warning to imprudent and hot-headed youth.
But, truth to say, that married life, regarding which my dear relatives prophesied so gloomily, has disappointed all those prudent and respectable people. It has had its trials; but I can remember them without bitterness—its passionate griefs, of which time, by God's kind ordinance, has been the benign consoler—its days of poverty, which we bore, who endured it, to the wonder of our sympathising relatives looking on—its precious rewards and blessings, so great that I scarce dare to whisper them to this page; to speak of them, save with awful respect and to One Ear, to which are offered up the prayers and thanks of all men. To marry without a competence is wrong and dangerous, no doubt, and a crime against our social codes; but do not scores of thousands of our fellow-beings commit the crime every year with no other trust but in, Heaven, health, and their labour? Are young people entering into the married life not to take hope into account, nor dare to begin their housekeeping until the cottage is completely furnished, the cellar and larder stocked, the cupboard full of plate, and the strong-box of money? The increase and multiplication of the world would stop, were the laws which regulate the genteel part of it to be made universal. Our gentlefolks tremble at the brink in their silk stockings and pumps, and wait for whole years, until they find a bridge or a gilt barge to carry them across; our poor do not fear to wet their bare feet, plant them in the brook, and trust to fate and strength to bear them over. Who would like to consign his daughter to poverty? Who would counsel his son to undergo the countless risks of poor married life, to remove the beloved girl from comfort and competence, and subject her to debt, misery, privation, friendlessness, sickness, and the hundred gloomy consequences of the res angusta domi? I look at my own wife and ask her pardon for having imposed a task so fraught with pain and danger upon one so gentle. I think of the trials she endured, and am thankful for them and for that unfailing love and constancy with which God blessed her and strengthened her to bear them all. On this question of marriage, I am not a fair judge: my own was so imprudent—and has been so happy, that I must not dare to give young people counsel. I have endured poverty, but scarcely ever found it otherwise than tolerable: had I not undergone it, I never could have known the kindness of friends, the delight of gratitude, the surprising joys and consolations which sometimes accompany the scanty meal and narrow fire, and cheer the long day's labour. This at least is certain, in respect of the lot of the decent poor, that a great deal of superfluous pity is often thrown away upon it. Good-natured fine folks, who sometimes stepped out of the sunshine of their riches into a narrow obscurity, were blinded as it were, whilst we could see quite cheerfully and clearly: they stumbled over obstacles which were none to us: they were surprised at the resignation with which we drank small beer, and that we could heartily say grace over such very cold mutton.
The good General, my father-in-law, had married his Molly, when he was a subaltern of a foot regiment, and had a purse scarce better filled than my own. They had had their ups and downs of fortune. I think (though my wife will never confess to this point) they had married, as people could do in their young time, without previously asking papa's and mamma's leave. [The Editor has looked through Burn's Registers of Fleet Marriages without finding the names of Martin Lambert and Mary Benson.] At all events, they were so well pleased with their own good luck in matrimony, that they did not grudge their children's, and were by no means frightened at the idea of any little hardships which we in the course of our married life might be called upon to undergo. And I suppose when I made my own pecuniary statements to Mr. Lambert, I was anxious to deceive both of us. Believing me to be master of a couple of thousand pounds, he went to Jamaica quite easy in his mind as to his darling daughter's comfort and maintenance, at least for some years to come. After paying the expenses of his family's outfit, the worthy man went away not much richer than his son-in-law; and a few trinkets, and some lace of Aunt Lambert's, with twenty new guineas in a purse which her mother and sisters made for her, were my Theo's marriage portion. But in valuing my stock, I chose to count as a good debt a sum which my honoured mother never could be got to acknowledge up to the day when the resolute old lady was called to pay the last debt of all. The sums I had disbursed for her, she argued, were spent for the improvement and maintenance of the estate which was to be mine at her decease. What money she could spare was to be for my poor brother, who had nothing, who would never have spent his own means had he not imagined himself to be sole heir of the Virginian property, as he would have been—the good lady took care to emphasise this point in many of her letters—but for a half-hour's accident of birth. He was now distinguishing himself in the service of his king and country. To purchase his promotion was his mother's, she should suppose his brother's duty! When I had finished my bar-studies and my dramatic amusements, Madam Esmond informed me that I was welcome to return home and take that place in our colony to which my birth entitled me. This statement she communicated to me more than once through Mountain, and before the news of my marriage had reached her.
There is no need to recall her expressions of maternal indignation when she was informed of the step I had taken. On the pacification of Canada, my dear Harry asked for leave of absence, and dutifully paid a visit to Virginia. He wrote, describing his reception at home, and the splendid entertainments which my mother made in honour of her son. Castlewood, which she had not inhabited since our departure for Europe, was thrown open again to our friends of the colony; and the friend of Wolfe, and the soldier of Quebec, was received by all our acquaintance with every becoming honour. Some dismal quarrels, to be sure, ensued, because my brother persisted in maintaining his friendship with Colonel Washington, of Mount Vernon, whose praises Harry never was tired of singing. Indeed I allow the gentleman every virtue; and in the struggles which terminated so fatally for England a few years since, I can admire as well as his warmest friends, General Washington's glorious constancy and success.
If these battles between Harry and our mother were frequent, as, in his letters, he described them to be, I wondered, for my part, why he should continue at home? One reason naturally suggested itself to my mind, which I scarcely liked to communicate to Mrs. Warrington; for we had both talked over our dear little Hetty's romantic attachment for my brother, and wondered that he had never discovered it. I need not say, I suppose, that my gentleman had found some young lady at home more to his taste than our dear Hester, and hence accounted for his prolonged stay in Virginia.
Presently there came, in a letter from him, not a full confession but an admission of this interesting fact. A person was described, not named—a Being all beauty and perfection, like other young ladies under similar circumstances. My wife asked to see the letter: I could not help showing it, and handed it to her, with a very sad face. To my surprise she read it, without exhibiting any corresponding sorrow of her own.
“I have thought of this before, my love,” I said. “I feel with you for your disappointment regarding poor Hetty.”
“Ah! poor Hetty,” says Theo, looking down at the carpet.
“It would never have done,” says I.
“No—they would not have been happy,” sighs Theo.
“How strange he never should have found out her secret!” I continued.
She looked me full in the face with an odd expression. “Pray, what does that look mean?” I asked.
“Nothing, my dear—nothing! only I am not surprised!” says Theo, blushing.
“What,” I ask, “can there be another?”
“I am sure I never said so, George,” says the lady, hurriedly. “But if Hetty has overcome her childish folly, ought we not all to be glad? Do you gentlemen suppose that you only are to fall in love and grow tired, indeed?”
“What!” I say, with a strange commotion of my mind. “Do you mean to tell me, Theo, that you ever cared for any one but me?”
“Oh, George,” she whimpers, “when I was at school, there was—there was one of the boys of Doctor Backhouse's school, who sate in the loft next to us; and I thought he had lovely eyes, and I was so shocked when I recognised him behind the counter at Mr. Grigg's the mercer's, when I went to buy a cloak for baby, and I wanted to tell you, my dear, and I didn't know how!”
I went to see this creature with the lovely eyes, having made my wife describe the fellow's dress to me, and I saw a little bandy-legged wretch in a blue camlet coat, with his red hair tied with a dirty ribbon, about whom I forbore generously even to reproach my wife; nor will she ever know that I have looked at the fellow, until she reads the confession in this page. If our wives saw us as we are, I thought, would they love us as they do? Are we as much mistaken in them, as they in us? I look into one candid face at least, and think it never has deceived me.
Lest I should encourage my young people to an imitation of my own imprudence, I will not tell them with how small a capital Mrs. Theo and I commenced life. The unfortunate tragedy brought us nothing; though the reviewers, since its publication of late, have spoken not unfavourably as to its merits, and Mr. Kemble himself has done me the honour to commend it. Our kind friend Lord Wrotham was for having the piece published by subscription, and sent me a bank-note, with a request that I would let him have a hundred copies for his friends; but I was always averse to that method of levying money, and, preferring my poverty sine dote, locked up my manuscript, with my poor girl's verses inserted at the first page. I know not why the piece should have given such offence at court, except for the fact that an actor who had run off with an earl's daughter, performed a principal part in the play; but I was told that sentiments which I had put into the mouths of some of the Indian characters (who were made to declaim against ambition, the British desire of rule, and so forth), were pronounced dangerous and unconstitutional; so that the little hope of royal favour, which I might have had, was quite taken away from me.
What was to be done? A few months after the failure of the tragedy, as I counted up the remains of my fortune (the calculation was not long or difficult), I came to the conclusion that I must beat a retreat out of my pretty apartments in Bloomsbury, and so gave warning to our good landlady, informing her that my wife's health required that we should have lodgings in the country. But we went no farther than Lambeth, our faithful Gumbo and Molly following us; and here, though as poor as might be, we were waited on by a maid and a lackey in livery, like any folks of condition. You may be sure kind relatives cried out against our extravagance; indeed, are they not the people who find our faults out for us, and proclaim them to the rest of the world?
Returning home from London one day, whither I had been on a visit to some booksellers, I recognised the family arms and livery on a grand gilt chariot which stood before a public-house near to our lodgings. A few loitering inhabitants were gathered round the splendid vehicle, and looking with awe at the footmen, resplendent in the sun, and quaffing blazing pots of beer. I found my Lady Castlewood seated opposite to my wife in our little apartment (whence we had a very bright, pleasant prospect of the river, covered with barges and wherries, and the ancient towers and trees of the Archbishop's palace and gardens), and Mrs. Theo, who has a very droll way of describing persons and scenes, narrated to me all the particulars of her ladyship's conversation, when she took her leave.
“I have been here this ever-so-long,” says the Countess, “gossiping with cousin Theo, while you have been away at the coffee-house, I dare say, making merry with your friends, and drinking your punch and coffee. Guess she must find it rather lonely here, with nothing to do but work them little caps and hem them frocks. Never mind, dear; reckon you'll soon have a companion who will amuse you when cousin George is away at his coffee-house! What a nice lodging you have got here, I do declare! Our new house which we have took is twenty times as big, and covered with gold from top to bottom; but I like this quite as well. Bless you being rich is no better than being poor. When we lived to Albany, and I did most all the work myself, scoured the rooms, biled the kettle, helped the wash, and all, I was just as happy as I am now. We only had one old negro to keep the store. Why don't you sell Gumbo, cousin George? He ain't no use here idling and dawdling about, and making love to the servant-girl. Fogh! guess they ain't particular, these English people!” So she talked, rattling on with perfect good-humour, until her hour for departure came; when she produced a fine repeating watch, and said it was time for her to pay a call upon her Majesty at Buckingham House. “And mind you come to us, George,” says her ladyship, waving a little parting hand out of the gilt coach. “Theo and I have settled all about it.”
“Here, at least,” said I, when the laced footmen had clambered up behind the carriage, and our magnificent little patroness had left us;—“here is one who is not afraid of our poverty, nor ashamed to remember her own.”
“Ashamed!” said Theo, resuming her lilliputian needlework. “To do her justice, she would make herself at home in any kitchen or palace in the world. She has given me and Molly twenty lessons in housekeeping. She says, when she was at home to Albany, she roasted, baked, swept the house, and milked the cow.” (Madam Theo pronounced the word cow archly in our American way, and imitated her ladyship's accent very divertingly.)
“And she has no pride,” I added. “It was good-natured of her to ask us to dine with her and my lord. When will Uncle Warrington ever think of offering us a crust again, or a glass of his famous beer?”
“Yes, it was not ill-natured to invite us,” says Theo, slily. “But, my dear, you don't know all the conditions!” And then my wife, still imitating the Countess's manner, laughingly informed me what these conditions were. “She took out her pocket-book, and told me,” says Theo, “what days she was engaged abroad and at home. On Monday she received a Duke and a Duchess, with several other members of my lord's house, and their ladies. On Tuesday came more earls, two bishops, and an ambassador. 'Of course you won't come on them days?' says the Countess. 'Now you are so poor, you know, that fine company ain't no good for you. Lord bless you! father never dines on our company days! he don't like it; he takes a bit of cold meat anyways.' On which,” says Theo, laughing, “I told her that Mr. Warrington did not care for any but the best of company, and proposed that she should ask us on some day when the Archbishop of Canterbury dined with her, and his Grace must give us a lift home in his coach to Lambeth. And she is an economical little person, too,” continues Theo. “'I thought of bringing with me some of my baby's caps and things, which his lordship has outgrown 'em, but they may be wanted again, you know, my dear.' And so we lose that addition to our wardrobe,” says Theo, smiling, “and Molly and I must do our best without her ladyship's charity. 'When people are poor, they are poor,' the Countess said, with her usual outspokenness, 'and must get on the best they can. What we shall do for that poor Maria, goodness only knows! we can't ask her to see us as we can you, though you are so poor: but an earl's daughter to marry a play-actor! La, my dear, it's dreadful: his Majesty and the Princess have both spoken of it! Every other noble family in this kingdom as has ever heard of it pities us; though I have a plan for helping those poor unhappy people, and have sent down Simons, my groom of the chambers, to tell them on it.' This plan was, that Hagan, who had kept almost all his terms at Dublin College, should return thither and take his degree, and enter into holy orders, 'when we will provide him with a chaplaincy at home, you know,' Lady Castlewood added.” And I may mention here, that this benevolent plan was executed a score of months later; when I was enabled myself to be of service to Mr. Hagan, who was one of the kindest and best of our friends during our own time of want and distress. Castlewood then executed his promise loyally enough, got orders and a colonial appointment for Hagan, who distinguished himself both as soldier and preacher, as we shall presently hear; but not a guinea did his lordship spare to aid either his sister or his kinsman in their trouble. I never asked him, thank Heaven, to assist me in my own; though, to do him justice, no man could express himself more amiably, and with a joy which I believe was quite genuine, when my days of poverty were ended.
As for my Uncle Warrington, and his virtuous wife and daughters, let me do them justice likewise, and declare that throughout my period of trial, their sorrow at my poverty was consistent and unvarying. I still had a few acquaintances who saw them, and of course (as friends will) brought me a report of their opinions and conversation; and I never could hear that my relatives had uttered one single good word about me or my wife. They spoke even of my tragedy as a crime—I was accustomed to hear that sufficiently maligned—of the author as a miserable reprobate, for ever reeling about Grub Street, in rags and squalor. They held me out no hand of help. My poor wife might cry in her pain, but they had no twopence to bestow upon her. They went to church a half-dozen times in the week. They subscribed to many public charities. Their tribe was known eighteen hundred years ago, and will flourish as long as men endure. They will still thank Heaven that they are not as other folks are; and leave the wounded and miserable to other succour.
I don't care to recall the dreadful doubts and anxieties which began to beset me; the plan after plan which I tried, and in which I failed, for procuring work and adding to our dwindling stock of money. I bethought me of my friend Mr. Johnson, and when I think of the eager kindness with which he received me, am ashamed of some pert speeches which I own to have made regarding his manners and behaviour. I told my story and difficulties to him, the circumstance of my marriage, and the prospects before me. He would not for a moment admit they were gloomy, or, si male nunc, that they would continue to be so. I had before me the chances, certainly very slender, of a place in England; the inheritance which must be mine in the course of nature, or at any rate would fall to the heir I was expecting. I had a small stock of money for present actual necessity—a possibility, “though, to be free with you, sir” (says he), “after the performance of your tragedy, I doubt whether nature has endowed you with those peculiar qualities which are necessary for achieving a remarkable literary success”—and finally a submission to the maternal rule, and a return to Virginia, where plenty and a home were always ready for me. “Why, sir!” he cried, “such a sum as you mention would have been a fortune to me when I began the world, and my friend Mr. Goldsmith would set up a coach-and-six on it. With youth, hope, to-day, and a couple of hundred pounds in cash—no young fellow need despair. Think, sir, you have a year at least before you, and who knows what may chance between now and then. Why, sir, your relatives here may provide for you, or you may succeed to your Virginian property, or you may come into a fortune!” I did not in the course of that year, but he did. My Lord Bute gave Mr. Johnson a pension, which set all Grub Street in a fury against the recipient, who, to be sure, had published his own not very flattering opinion upon pensions and pensioners.
Nevertheless, he did not altogether discourage my literary projects, promised to procure me work from the booksellers, and faithfully performed that kind promise. “But,” says he, “sir, you must not appear amongst them in forma pauperis.—Have you never a friend's coach, in which we can ride to see them? You must put on your best laced hat and waistcoat; and we must appear, sir, as if we were doing them a favour.” This stratagem answered, and procured me respect enough at the first visit or two; but when the booksellers knew that I wanted to be paid for my work, their backs refused to bend any more, and they treated me with a familiarity which I could ill stomach. I overheard one of them, who had been a footman, say, “Oh, it's Pocahontas, is it? let him wait.” And he told his boy to say as much to me. “Wait, sir?” says I, fuming with rage and putting my head into his parlour, “I'm not accustomed to waiting, but I have heard you are.” And I strode out of the shop into Pall Mall in a mighty fluster.
And yet Mr. D. was in the right. I came to him, if not to ask a favour, at any rate to propose a bargain, and surely it was my business to wait his time and convenience. In more fortunate days I asked the gentleman's pardon, and the kind author of the Muse in Livery was instantly appeased.
I was more prudent, or Mr. Johnson more fortunate, in an application elsewhere, and Mr. Johnson procured me a little work from the booksellers in translating from foreign languages, of which I happen to know two or three. By a hard day's labour I could earn a few shillings; so few that a week's work would hardly bring me a guinea: and that was flung to me with insolent patronage by the low hucksters who employed me. I can put my finger upon two or three magazine articles written at this period, and paid for with a few wretched shillings, which papers as I read them awaken in me the keenest pangs of bitter remembrance. [Mr. George Warrington, of the Upper Temple, says he remembers a book, containing his grandfather's book-plate, in which were pasted various extracts from reviews and newspapers in an old type, and lettered outside Les Chains de l'Esclavage. These were no doubt the contributions above mentioned; but the volume has not been found, either in the town-house or in the library at Warrington Manor. The Editor, by the way, is not answerable for a certain inconsistency, which may be remarked in the narrative. The writer says earlier, that he speaks without bitterness of past times, and presently falls into a fury with them. The same manner of forgiving our enemies is not uncommon in the present century.] I recall the doubts and fears which agitated me, see the dear wife nursing her infant and looking up into my face with hypocritical smiles that vainly try to mask her alarm: the struggles of pride are fought over again: the wounds under which I smarted re-open. There are some acts of injustice committed against me which I don't know how to forgive; and which, whenever I think of them, awaken in me the same feelings of revolt and indignation. The gloom and darkness gather over me—till they are relieved by a reminiscence of that love and tenderness which through all gloom and darkness have been my light and consolation.