Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 478, February 26, 1831», страница 6
NOTES OF A READER
ROYAL EQUIVOQUE
(From the Life and Reign of George IV.)
A well-known individual, some time deceased, who was admitted to the prince's familiarity upon his first entrance into life, and for several years after, described or rather dramatized with much humour a scene which he professed to have had from the prince himself. So much depends upon tone and manner, that the spirit of these pleasantries evaporates on paper. The story was in substance as follows:—A new suit, destined for a ball that night at Cumberland-house, was brought home to the prince, but ordered back by him for the purpose of undergoing immediate alterations. He gave directions that the tailor's return with it should be instantly made known to him. The prince happened to pass the early part of the evening with the king and queen at Buckingham-house. Whilst he was seated in the royal group, a German page entered, and pronounced in a tone meant for his particular ear, but loud enough to be heard by every one present, "Please your royal highness, she is come." There was a moment's awful pause. "Who is come?" said his royal highness, in a tone between surprise, embarrassment, and anger. "Sir, she is come," repeated the page, with his bad English and German phlegm. "Eh! what, what! who is come?" exclaimed the king. "She, your majesty," reiterated the unmoved German. "She is come!" cried the queen, bursting with wrath, and supposing that the visiter was one of the house of Luttrell, who already sought an undue influence over the prince. All was for a moment inexplicable confusion. The queen summoned another page, and asked him with fury in her looks, "Who is she that dares inquire for the Prince of Wales?" "Please your majesty," said the second oracle, "it is Shea, his royal highness's tailor."—Dr. Lardner's Cabinet Library, vol. ii.
THE PRINCE OF WALES AND MRS. FITZHERBERT
He had now formed an attachment of no common kind to a lady, whose name at this period came frequently before the public associated with his. A veil of ambiguity or mystery covered, and still covers, the relations of the Prince of Wales with Mrs. Fitzherbert. She received all the respect and exercised all the influence which could belong to rank, character, accomplishments, and manners, in the highest class of society in this country daring her intimacy with the prince, and after their separation; and she is still living, surrounded, in her advanced years, with all the consideration which could do honour to the decline of a life the most estimable. Mrs. Fitzherbert was first married at sixteen, and had still all the graces of beauty and youth on the death of Colonel Fitzherbert. She was brought up abroad, with every advantage of a costly and consummate education. Her beauty had that soft and touching character, the result of fair complexion and blue eyes which distinguishes Englishwomen abroad, and obtained her the appellation of the angelic English blonde. The cousin of Lord Sefton, and related to other distinguished families, she lived in a sphere of society in London which necessarily made her acquainted with the Prince of Wales. He became enamoured, declared his passion, and was the cause of her retiring to the continent to avoid his importunities. Having remained abroad about three years, she returned to England in 1784. The prince on her return declared the continuance and repeated the sincerity of his attachment, with, it would appear, more success. Their intimacy for some time was known only to the initiated in high life; they moved and met in the same society, apparently on terms rather of formal than familiar acquaintance. The secret was divulged shortly before the prince's quarrel with the king, and base advantage was taken of it to wound the private feelings of the prince where manly feelings are the most vulnerable. She was of a Catholic family, herself a Catholic; and this was easily turned against the Prince of Wales, at a period of religious bigotry, and political alarm, especially in the mind of George III.—Ibid.
A GREAT SLEEPER
The Stadtholder, who had recently fled from Holland, was also the prince's guest, and afforded amusement by the whimsical incongruity with which he chose his occasions for going to sleep. The princess commanded a play for his entertainment: in spite of her vivacity and utmost efforts, he slept and snored in the box beside her, and was roused with some difficulty when the curtain fell. A ball having been given in compliment to him at the Castle-tavern, he fell asleep whilst eating his supper, and snored so loud as to disturb the harmony of the orchestra and the decorum of the assembly. His Dutch highness was also entertained, if the term in this instance be admissible, with a grand masquerade, and was perplexed by the difficulty of resolving in what dress or character he should attend it. The Prince of Wales said he might go as an old woman.—Ibid.
PRIVATE MEMOIRS OF GEORGE III
It was well known to be the habit of Geo. III. to write in various folios, for an hour after he rose in the morning. This practice was not obviously consistent with his want of facility and taste in any sort of composition; but his manuscripts were only registers of names, with notes annexed of the services, the offences, and the characters, as he judged them, of the respective persons. "In addition," says a publication of 1779 "to the numerous private registers always kept by the king, and written with his own hand, he has lately kept another, of all those Americans who have either left the country voluntarily rather than submit to the rebels, and also of such as have been driven out by force; with an account of their losses and services." It is somewhat cruel to lay bare "the bosomed secrets" of any man, even after the grave has closed upon his passions and weaknesses; but if these registers of George III. still exist, and should ever come to light, they will be as curious private memoirs as have ever appeared: they doubtless promoted the remembrance and compensation of losses and services; but they also produced his petty long-cherished resentments, less hurtful to their objects than injurious to his own character and torturing to his breast.—Ibid.
THE GATHERER
A snapper up of unconsidered trifles.
SHAKSPEARE.
SUPPOSED POSTHUMOUS WORK OF DR. JOHNSON'S
An Ode written April 15, 1786
St. Paul's deep bell, from stately tower,
Had sounded once and twice the hour—
Blue burnt the midnight taper;
Hags their dark spells o'er cauldrons hewed,
While Sons of Ink their work pursued,
Printing "the Morning Paper."
Say, Herald, Chronicle, or Post,
Which then beheld great Johnson's ghost,
Grim, horrible, and squalid?
Compositors their letters dropt,
Pressmen their printing engines stopt,
And devils all grew pallid.
Enough! the spectre cried, Enough!
No more of your fugacious stuff,
Trite anecdotes and stories!
Rude martyrs of Sam. Johnson's name,
You rob him of his honest fame,
And tarnish all his glories.
First in the fertile tribe is seen
Tom Tyres, in the Magazine,
That teazer of Apollo!
With goose-quill he, like desperate knife,
Slices, as Vauxhall beef, my life,
And calls the town to swallow.
The cry once up, the dogs of news,
Who hunt for paragraphs the stews,
Yelp out "Johnsoniana!"
Their nauseous praise but moves my bile,
Like tartar, carduus, camomile,
Or ipecacuanha.
Next Boswell comes, for 'twas my lot
To find at last one honest Scot
With constitutional veracity;
Yet garrulous he tells too much,
On fancied failings prone to touch
With sedulous loquacity.
At length, Job's patience it would try,
Brewed on my lees comes "Thrale's Entrie,"
Straining to draw my picture;
For she a common-place book kept,
"Johnson at Streatluim dined and slept,"
And who shall contradict her?
Thrale lost midst fiddles and sopranos,
With them plays fortes and pianos,
Adagio and allegro.
I loved Thrale's widow and Thrale's wife
But now, believe—to write my life!
I'd rather trust my negro.
I gave the public works of merit,
Written with vigour, fraught with spirit,
Applause crowned all my labours;
But thy delusive pages speak
My palsied powers, exhausted, weak,
The scoff of friends and neighbours.
They speak me insolent and rude,
Light, trivial, puerile, and crude,
The child of pride and vanity.
Poor Tuscan-like improvisation
Is but of English sense castration,
And infantine inanity.
Such idle rhymes, like Sybil's leaves,
Kindly the scattering winds receive—
The gatherer proves a scorner.
But hold! I see the coming day!
The spectre said—and stalked away,
To sleep in Poet's Corner.
