Читать книгу: «Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843», страница 8

MARSTON; OR THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN

PART IV

 
"Have I not in my time hear lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in the pitched battle heard
Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"
 

SHAKSPEARE.

What that residence and Brighton have since become, is familiar to the world—the one an oriental palace, and the other an English city. But at this time all that men saw in the surrounding landscape was almost as it had been seen by our forefathers the Picts and Saxons. I found the prince standing, with four or five gentlemen of distinguished appearance, under the veranda which shaded the front of the cottage from the evening sun. The day had been one of that sultry atmosphere in which autumn sometimes takes its leave of us, and the air from the sea was now delightfully refreshing. The flowers, clustered in thick knots over the little lawn, were raising their languid heads, and breathing their renewed fragrance. All was sweetness and calmness. The sunlight, falling on the amphitheatre of hills, and touching them with diversities of colour as it fell on their various heights and hollows, gave the whole a glittering and fantastic aspect; while the total silence, and absence of all look of life, except an occasional curl of smoke from some of the scattered cottages along the beach; with the magnificent expanse of the ocean bounding all, smooth and blue as a floor of lapis-lazuli, completed the character of a scene which might have been in fairyland.

The prince, whose politeness was undeviating to all, came forward to meet me at once, introduced me to his circle, and entered into conversation; the topic was his beautiful little dwelling.

"You see, Mr Marston," said he, "we live here like hermits, and in not much more space. I give myself credit for having made the discovery of this spot. I dare say, the name of Brighthelmstone may have been in the journal of some voyager to unknown lands, but I believe I have the honour of being the first who ever made it known in London."

I fully acknowledged the taste of his discovery.

"Why," said he, "it certainly is not the taste of Kew, whose chief prospect is the ugliest town on the face of the earth, and whose chief zephyrs are the breath of its brew houses and lime-kilns. Hampton Court has always reminded me of a monastery, which I should never dream of inhabiting unless I put on the gown of a monk. St James's still looks the hospital that it once was. Windsor is certainly a noble structure—Edward's mile of palaces—but that residence is better tenanted than by a subject. While, here I have found a desert, it is true; but as the poet says or sings—

'I am monarch of all I survey.'"

"Yes," I observed. "But still a desert highly picturesque, and capable of cultivation."

"Oh! I hope not," he answered laughingly. "The first appearance of cultivation would put me to flight at once. Fortunately, cultivation is almost impossible. The soil almost totally prohibits tillage, the sea air prohibits trees, the shore prohibits trade, nothing can live here but a fisherman or a shrimp, and thus I am secure against the invasion of all improvers. W——, come here, and assist me to cure Mr Marston of his skepticism on the absolute impossibility of our ever being surrounded by London brick and mortar."

A man of a remarkably graceful air bowed to the call, and came towards us.

"W——," said the prince, "comfort me, by saying that no man can be citizenized in this corner of the world."

"It is certainly highly improbable," was the answer. "And yet, when we know John Bull's variety of tastes, and heroic contempt of money in indulging them, such things may be. I lately found one of my country constituents the inhabitant of a very pretty villa—which he had built, too, for himself—in Sicily; and of all places, in the Val di Noto, the most notorious spot in the island, or perhaps on the earth, for all kinds of desperadoes—the very haunt of Italian smugglers, refugee Catalonians, expert beyond all living knaves in piracy, and African renegades. Yet there sat my honest and fat-cheeked friend, with Aetna roaring above him; declaiming on liberty and property, as comfortably as if he could not be shot for the tenth of a sixpence, or swept off, chattels and all, at the nod of an Algerine. No, sir. If the whim takes the Londoner, you will have him down here without mercy. To the three per cents nothing is impossible."

"Well, well," said the good-humoured prince, "that cannot happen for another hundred years; and in the mean time my prospect will never be shut out. Let them build, or pull down the pyramids, if they will. The tide of city wealth will never roll through this valley; the noise of city life will never fill those quiet fields; the smoke of an insurrection of city hovels will never mingle with the freshness of such an evening as this. Here, at all events, I have spent half a dozen of the pleasantest years of my existence, and here, if I should live so long, I might spend the next fifty, notwithstanding your prophecies, W——, as far from London, except in the mere matter of miles, as if I had fixed myself in a valley of the Crimea."

His royal highness was clever, but he was no prophet, more than other men. Need I say that London found him out within the tenth part of his fifty years; instead of suffering him to escape, compelled him to build: and, after the outlay of a quarter of a million, shut him up within his own walls, like the giant of the Arabian tales in a bottle—His village a huge suburb of the huge metropolis; his lawn surrounded by a circumvallation of taverns and toyshops; the sea invisible; and the landscape scattered over with prettinesses of architecture created by the wealth of Cheapside, and worthy of all the caprices of all the tourists of this much travelled world.

But simple as was the exterior of the cottage, all within was costliness, so far as it can be united with elegance. Later days somewhat impaired the taste of this accomplished man, and he sought in splendour what was only to be found in grace. But here, every decoration, from the ceiling to the floor, exhibited the simplicity of refinement. A few busts of his public friends, a few statues of the patriots of antiquity, and a few pictures of the great political geniuses of Europe—among which the broad forehead and powerful eye of Machiavel were conspicuous—showed at a glance that we were under the roof of a political personage. Even the figures in chased silver on the table were characteristic of this taste. A Timoleon, a Brutus, and a Themistocles, incomparably classic, stood on the plateau; and a rapier which had belonged to Doria, and a sabre which had been worn by Castruccio, hung on either side of the mantelpiece. The whole had a republican tendency, but it was republicanism in gold and silver—mother-of-pearl republicanism—the Whig principle embalmed in Cellini chalices and porcelain of Frederic le Grand. Fortunately the conversation did not turn upon home politics. It wandered lightly through all the pleasanter topics of the day; slight ventilations of public character, dexterous allusions to anecdotes which none but the initiated could understand; and the general easy intercourse of well-bred men who met under the roof of another well-bred man to spend a few hours as agreeably as they could. The prince took his full share in the gaiety of the evening; and I was surprised to find at once so remarkable a familiarity with the classics, whose sound was scarcely out of my college ears; and with those habits of the humbler ranks, which could have so seldom come to his personal knowledge. To his exterior, nature had been singularly favourable. His figure, though full, still retained all the activity and grace of youth; his features, though by no means regular, had a general look of manly beauty, and his smile was cordiality itself. I have often since heard him praised for supreme elegance; but his manner was rather that of a man of great natural good-humour, who yet felt his own place in society, and of that degree of intelligence which qualified him to enjoy the wit and talents of others, without suffering a sense of inferiority. Among those at table were C—— and H——, names well known in the circles of Devonshire House; Sir P—— F——, who struck me at first sight by his penetrating physiognomy, and who was even then suspected of being the author of that most brilliant of all libels, Junius; W——, then in the flower of life, and whose subtilty and whim might be seen in his fine forehead and volatile eyes; some others, whose names I did not know, and among them one of low stature, but of singularly animated features. He was evidently a military man, and of the Sister Isle, a prime favourite with the prince and every body; and I think a secretary in the prince's household. He had just returned from Paris; and as French news was then the universal topic, he took an ample share in the conversation. The name of La Fayette happening to be mentioned, as then carrying every thing before him in France—

"I doubt his talents," said the prince.

"I more doubt his sincerity," said W——.

"I still more doubt whether this day three months he will have his head on his shoulders," said Sir P——.

"None can doubt his present popularity," said the secretary.

"At all events," said his highness, "I cannot doubt that he has wit, which in France was always something, and now, in the general crash of pedigree, is the only thing. Any man who could furnish the Parsans with a bon-mot a-day, would have a strong chance of succeeding to the throne in the probable vacancy."

"A case has just occurred in point," said the secretary. "Last week La Fayette had a quarrel with a battalion of the National Guard on the subject of drill; they considering the manual exercise as an infringement of the Rights of Man. The general being of the contrary opinion, a deputation of corporals, for any thing higher would have looked too aristocratic, waited on him at the quarters of his staff in the Place Vendôme, to demand—his immediate resignation. On further enquiry, he ascertained that all the battalions, amounting to thirty thousand men, were precisely of the same sentiments. Next morning happened to have been appointed for a general review of the National Guard. La Fayette appeared on the ground as commandant at the head of his staff, and after a gallop along the line, suddenly alighted from his horse, and taking a musket on his shoulder, to the utter astonishment of every body walked direct into the centre of the line, and took post in the ranks. Of course all the field-officers flew up to learn the reason. 'Gentlemen,' said he, 'I am tired of receiving orders as commander-in-chief, and that I may give them, I have become a private, as you see.' The announcement was received with a shout of merriment; and, as in France a pleasantry would privilege a man to set fire to a church, the general was cheered on all sides, was remounted and the citizen army, suspending the 'Rights of Man' for the day, proceeded to march and manoeuvre according to the drill framed by despots and kings."

"Well done, La Fayette," said the prince, "I did not think that there was so much in him. To be sure, to have one's neck in danger—for the next step to deposing would probably be to hang him—might sharpen a man's wits a good deal."

"Yes," said Sir P——, "so many live by their wits in Paris, that even the marquis of the mob might have his chance; but a bon-mot actually saved, within these few days, one even so obnoxious as a bishop from being sus. per coll. In the general system of purifying the church by hanging the priests, the rabble of the Palais Royal seized the Bishop of Autun, and were proceeding to treat him 'à la lanterne' as an aristocrat. It must be owned that the lamps in Paris, swinging by ropes across the streets, offer really a very striking suggestion for giving a final lesson in politics. It was night, and the lamp was trimmed. They were already letting it down for the bishop to be its successor; when he observed, with the coolness of a spectator—'Gentlemen, if I am to take the place of that lamp, it does not strike me that the street will be better lighted.' The whimsicality of the idea caught them at once; a bishop for a reverbère was a new idea; they roared with laughter at the conception, and bid him go home for a 'bon enfant!'"

"I cannot equal the La Fayette story," said C——, "but I remember one not unlike it, when the Duke of Rutland was Irish viceroy. Charlemont was reviewing a brigade of his volunteers when he found a sudden stop in one of the movements, a troop of cavalry on a flank: choosing to exhibit a will of their own in an extraordinary way. If the brigade advanced, they halted; if it halted, they advanced. The captain bawled in vain. Aide-de-camp after aide-de-camp was sent to enquire the cause; they all came back roaring with laughter. At length Charlemont, rather irritated by the ridicule of the display, rode down the line and desired the captain to order them to move; not a man stirred; they were as immovable as a wall of brass. He then took the affair upon himself; and angrily asked, 'if they meant to insult him.' 'Not a bit of it, my lord,' cried out all the Paddies together. 'But we are not on speaking terms with the captain.'"

"How perfectly I can see Charlemont's countenance at that capital answer: his fastidious look turning into a laugh, and the real dignity of the man forced to give way to his national sense of ridicule. Is there any hope of his coming over this season, C——?" asked the prince.

"Not much. He talks in his letters of England, as a man married to a termagant might talk of his first love—hopeless regrets, inevitable destiny, and so forth. He is bound to Ireland, and she treats him as Catharine treated Petruchio before marriage. But he has not the whip of Petruchio, nor perhaps the will, since the knot has been tied. He is only one of the many elegant and accomplished Irishmen who have done just the same—who find some strange spell in the confusions of a country full of calamities; prefer clouds to sunshine, and complain of their choice all their lives."

"Yes," said W——. "It is like the attempt to put a coat and trousers on the American Indian. The hero flings them off on the first opportunity, takes to his plumes and painted skin, and prefers being tomahawked in a swamp to dying in a feather-bed like a gentleman!"

"Or," said the prince, "as Goldsmith so charmingly expresses it of the Swiss—to whom, however, it is much less applicable than his own countrymen—

 
'For as the babe, whom rising storms molest,
Clings but the closer to his mother's breast,
So the rude whirlwind and the tempest's roar
But bind him to his native mountains more.'"
 

My story next came upon the tapis; and the sketch of my capture by the free-traders was listened to with polite interest.

"Very possibly I may have some irregular neighbours," was the prince's remark. "But, it must be confessed, that I am the intruder on their domain, not they on mine; and, if I were plundered, perhaps I should have not much more right to complain, than a whale-catcher has of being swamped by a blow of the tail, or a man fond of law being forced to pay a bill of costs."

"On the contrary," said the secretary, "I give them no slight credit for their forbearance; for the sacking of this cottage would, probably, be an easier exploit than beating off a revenue cruiser, and the value of their prize would be worth many a successful run. I make it a point never to go to war with the multitude. I had a little lesson on the subject myself, within the week, in Paris"—

An attendant here brought in a letter for the prince, which stopped the narrative. The prince honoured the letter with a smile.

"It is from Devonshire House," said he—"a very charming woman the Duchess; just enough of the woman to reconcile us to the wit, and just enough of the wit to give poignancy to the woman. She laughingly says she is growing 'heartless, harmless, and old.' What a pity that so fine a creature should grow any of the three!"

"There is no great fear of that," observed Sir P——, "if it is to be left to her Grace's own decision. There is no question in the world on which a fine woman is more deliberate in coming to a conclusion."

"Well, well," said the prince; "she, at least, is privileged. Diamonds never grow old."

"They may require a little resetting now and then, however," said I.

"Yes, perhaps; but it is only once in a hundred years. If they sparkle during one generation, what can we ask more? Her Grace tells me an excellent hit—the last flash of my old friend Selwyn. It happens that Lady ——"—another fine woman was mentioned—"has looked rather distantly upon her former associates since her husband was created a marquis. 'I enquired the other day,' says the duchess, 'for a particular friend of hers, the wife of an earl.' 'I have not seen her for a long time,' was the answer. Selwyn whispered at the moment, I dare say, long enough—she has not seen her since the creation.'"

"If Selwyn," said Sir P——, "had not made such a trade of wit; if he had not been such a palpable machine for grinding every thing into bons-mots; if his distillation of the dross of common talk into the spirit of pleasantry were less tardy and less palpable; I should have allowed him to be"—

"What?" asked some one from the end of the table.

"Less a bore than he was," was the succinct answer.

"For my part," said the prince, "I think that old George was amusing to the last. He had great observation of oddity, and, you will admit, that he had no slight opportunities; for he was a member of, I believe, every club for five miles round St James's. But he was slow. Wit should be like a pistol-shot; a flash and a hit, and both best when they come closest together. Still, he was a fragment of an age gone by, and I prize him as I should a piece of pottery from Herculaneum; its use past away, but its colours not extinguished, and, though altogether valueless at the time, curious as the beau reste of a pipkin of antiquity."

"Sheridan," observed C——, "amounts, in my idea, to a perfect wit, at once keen and polished; nothing of either violence or virulence—nothing of the sabre or the saw; his weapon is the stiletto, fine as a needle, yet it strikes home."

"Apropos," said the prince, "does any one know whether there is to be a debate this evening? He was to have dined here. What can have happened to him?"

"What always happens to him," said one of the party; "he has postponed it. Ask Sheridan for Monday at seven, and you will have him next week on Tuesday at eight. 'Procrastination is the thief of time,' to him more than, I suppose, any other man living."

"At all events," said H——, "it is the only thief that Sheridan has to fear. His present condition defies all the skill of larceny. He is completely in the position of Horace's traveller—he might sing in a forest of felons."

At this moment the sound of a post-chaise was heard rushing up the avenue, and Sheridan soon made his appearance. He was received by the prince with evident gladness, and by all the table with congratulations on his having arrived at all. He was abundant in apologies; among the rest "his carriage had broken down halfway—he had been compelled to spend the morning with Charles Fox—he had been subpoenaed on the trial of one of the Scottish conspirators—he had been summoned on a committee of a contested election." The prince smiled sceptically enough at this succession of causes to produce the single effect of being an hour behind-hand.

"The prince bows at every new excuse," said H—— at my side, "as Boileau took off his hat at every plagiarism in his friend's comedy—on the score of old acquaintance. If one word of all this is true, it may be the breaking down of his post-chaise, and even that he probably broke down for the sake of the excuse. Sheridan could not walk from the door to the dinner-table without a stratagem."

I had now, for the first time, an opportunity of seeing this remarkable man. He was then in the prime of life, his fame, and of his powers. His countenance struck me at a glance, as the most characteristic that I had ever seen. Fancy may do much, but I thought that I could discover in his physiognomy every quality for which he was distinguished: the pleasantry of the man of the world, the keen observation of the great dramatist, and the vividness and daring of the first-rate orator. His features were fine, but their combination was so powerfully intellectual, that, at the moment when he turned his face to you, you felt that you were looking on a man of the highest order of faculties. None of the leading men of his day had a physiognomy so palpably mental. Burke's spectacled eyes told but little; Fox, with the grand outlines of a Greek sage, had no mobility of feature; Pitt was evidently no favourite of whatever goddess presides over beauty at our birth. But Sheridan's countenance was the actual mirror of one of the most glowing, versatile, and vivid minds in the world. His eyes alone would have given expression to a face of clay. I never saw in human head orbs so large, of so intense a black, and of such sparkling lustre. His manners, too, were then admirable; easy without negligence, and respectful, as the guest at a royal table, without a shadow of servility. He also was wholly free from that affectation of epigram, which tempts a man who cannot help knowing that his good things are recorded. He laughed, and listened, and rambled through the common topics of the day, with all the evidence of one enjoying the moment, and glad to contribute to its enjoyment; and yet, in all this ease, I could see that remoter thoughts, from time to time, passed through his mind. In the midst of our gaiety, the contraction of his deep and noble brows showed that he was wandering far away from the slight topics of the table; and I could imagine what he might be, when struggling against the gigantic strength of Pitt, or thundering against Indian tyranny before the Peerage in Westminster Hall.

I saw him long afterwards, when the promise of his day was overcast; when the flashes of his genius were like guns of distress; and his character, talents, and frame were alike sinking. But, ruined as he was, and humiliated by folly as much as by misfortune, I have never been able to regard Sheridan but as a fallen star—a star, too, of the first magnitude; without a superior in the whole galaxy from which he fell, and with an original brilliancy perhaps more lustrous than them all.

"Well, Sheridan, what news have you brought with you?" asked the prince.

The answer was a laugh. "Nothing, but that Downing Street has turned into Parnassus. The astounding fact is, that Grenville has teemed, and, as the fruits of the long vacation, has produced a Latin epigram.

 
'Veris risit Amor roses caducas:
Cui Ver—"Vane puer, tuine flores,
Quaeso, perpetuum manent in aevum?'"
 

The prince laughed. "He writes on the principle, of course, that in one's dotage we are privileged to return to the triflings of our infancy, and that Downing Street cannot be better employed in these days than as a chapel of ease to Eton."

"Yet, even there, he is but a translator," said Sir P——.

"'The tenth transmitter of an idler's line,'

It is merely a rechauffé of the old Italian.

 
'Amor volea schernir la primavera
Sulla breve durata e passegiera
Dei vaghi fiori suoi.
Ma la belle stagione a lui rispose
Forse i piacere tuoi
Vita piu lunga avran delle mie rose.'"
 

The prince, who, under Cyril Jackson, had acquired no trivial scholarship, now alluded to a singular poetic production, printed in 1618, which seemed distinctly to announce the French Revolution.

 
'Festinat propere cursu jam temporis ordo,
Quo locus, et Franci majestas prisca, senatus,
Papa, sacerdotes, missae, simulacra, Deique
Fictitii, atque omnis superos exosa potestas,
Judicio Domini justo sublata peribunt.¹⁶
 

"The production is certainly curious," remarked W——; "but poets always had something of the fortune-teller; and it is striking, that in many of the modern Italian Latinists you will find more instances of strong declamation against Rome, and against France as its chief supporter, than perhaps in any other authorship of Europe. Audacity was the result of terror. All Italy reminds one of the papal palace at Avignon—the banqueting-rooms above, the dungeons of the Inquisition below; popes and princes feasting within sound of the rack and the scourge. The Revolution is but the ripening of the disease; the hydrophobia which has been lurking in the system for centuries."

"Why, then," said Sheridan, "shall we all wonder at what all expected? France may be running mad without waiting for the moon; mad in broad day; absolutely stripping off, not merely the royal livery, which she wore for the last five hundred years with so much the look of a well-bred footman; but tearing away the last coverture of the national nakedness. Well; in a week or two of this process, she will have got rid not only of church and king, but of laws, property, and personal freedom. But, I ask, what business have we to interfere? If she is madder than the maddest of March hares, she is only the less dangerous; she will probably dash out her brains against the first wall that she cannot spring over."

"But, at least, we know that mischief is already done among ourselves. Those French affairs are dividing our strength in the House," remarked C——.

"What then?" quickly demanded Sheridan. "What is it to me if others have the nightmare, while I feel my eyes open? Burke, in his dreams, may dread the example of France; but I as little dread it as I should a fire at the Pole. He thinks that Englishmen have such a passion for foreign importations, that if the pestilence were raging on the other side of the Channel, we should send for specimens. My proposition is, that the example of France is more likely to make slaves of us than republicans."

"Is it," asked W——, "to make us

'Fly from minor tyrants to the throne?'"

"I laugh at the whole," replied Sheridan, "as a bugbear. I have no fear of France as either a schoolmaster, or a seducer, of England. France is lunatic, and who dreads a lunatic after his first paroxysm? Exhaustion, disgust, decay, perhaps death, are the natural results. If there is any peril to us, it is only from our meddling. The lunatic never revenges himself but on his keeper. I should leave the patient to the native doctors, or to those best of all doctors for mad nations, suffering, shame, and time. Chain, taunt, or torment the lunatic, and he rewards you by knocking out your brains."

"Those are not exactly the opinions of our friend Charles," observed the prince with peculiar emphasis.

"No," was the reply. "I think for myself. Some would take the madman by the hand, and treat him as if in possession of his senses. Burke would gather all the dignitaries of Church and State, and treat him as a demoniac; attempt to exorcise the evil spirit, and if it continued intractable, solemnly excommunicate the possessed by bell, book, and candle. But, as I do not like throwing away my trouble, I should let him alone."

"The doctrine of confiscation is startling to all property," remarked the prince. "I wish Charles would remember, that his strength lies in the aristocracy."

"No man knows it better," observed W——. "But I strongly doubt whether his consciousness of his own extraordinary talents is not at this moment tempting him to try a new source of hazard. The people, nay, the populace, are a new element to him, and to all. I can conceive a man of pre-eminent ability, as much delighted with difficulty as inferior men are delighted with ease. Fox has managed the aristocracy so long, and has bridled them with so much the hand of a master, that what he might have once considered as an achievement, he now regards as child's play. If Alexander's taming Bucephalus was a triumph for a noble boy, I scarcely think that, after passing the Granicus, he would have been proud of his fame as a horse-breaker. Fox sees, as all men see, that great changes, for either good or ill, are coming on the world. Next to that of a great king, perhaps the most tempting rank to ambition would be that of a great demagogue."

The glitter of Sheridan's eye, and the glow which passed across his cheek, as he looked at the speaker, showed how fully he agreed with the sentiment; and I expected some bold burst of eloquence. But, with that sudden change of tone and temper which was among the most curious characteristics of the man, he laughingly said, "At all events, whatever the Revolution may do to our neighbours, it will do a vast deal of good to ourselves. The clubs were growing so dull, that I began to think of withdrawing my name from them all. Their principal supporters were daily yawning themselves to death. The wiser part were flying into the country, where, at least, their yawning would not be visible; and the rest remained enveloped in dry and dreary newspapers, like the herbs of a 'Hortus siccus.' White's was an hospital of the deaf and dumb; and Brookes's strongly resembled Westminster Hall in the long vacation. It was in the midst of this general doze that the news from Paris came. I assure you the effects were miraculous—the universal spasm of lock-jaw was no more. Men no longer regarded each other with a despairing glance in St James's Street, and passed on. All was sudden sociability. Even in the city people grew communicative, and puns were committed that would have struck their forefathers with amazement. As Burke said, in one of his sybilline speeches the other night: 'The tempest had come, at once bending down the summits of the forest and stirring up the depths of the pool.' One of the aldermen, on being told that the French were preparing to pass the Waal, said, that if the Dutch would take his advice, and if iron spikes were not enough, they should glass their wall."