A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Devereux, Book II.

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Devereux, Book II.



This eBook was produced by Dagny, dagnypg@yahoo.com
and David Widger, widger@cecomet.net





BOOK II.



CHAPTER I.

THE HERO IN LONDON.--PLEASURE IS OFTEN THE SHORTEST, AS IT IS THE
EARLIEST ROAD TO WISDOM, AND WE MAY SAY OF THE WORLD WHAT
ZEAL-OF-THE-LAND-BUSY SAYS OF THE PIG-BOOTH, "WE ESCAPE SO MUCH OF THE
OTHER VANITIES BY OUR EARLY ENTERING."

IT had, when I first went to town, just become the fashion for young men
of fortune to keep house, and to give their bachelor establishments the
importance hitherto reserved for the household of a Benedict.

Let the reader figure to himself a suite of apartments, magnificently
furnished, in the vicinity of the court. An anteroom is crowded with
divers persons, all messengers in the various negotiations of pleasure.
There, a French valet,--that inestimable valet, Jean Desmarais,--sitting
over a small fire, was watching the operations of a coffee-pot, and
conversing, in a mutilated attempt at the language of our nation, though
with the enviable fluency of his own, with the various loiterers who
were beguiling the hours they were obliged to wait for an audience of
the master himself, by laughing at the master's Gallic representative.
There stood a tailor with his books of patterns just imported from
Paris,--that modern Prometheus, who makes a man what he is! Next to him
a tall, gaunt fellow, in a coat covered with tarnished lace, a night-cap
wig, and a large whip in his hands, comes to vouch for the pedigree and
excellence of the three horses he intends to dispose of, out of pure
love and amity for the buyer. By the window stood a thin starveling
poet, who, like the grammarian of Cos, might have put lead in his
pockets to prevent being blown away, had he not, with a more paternal
precaution, put so much in his works that he had left none to spare.
Excellent trick of the times, when ten guineas can purchase every virtue
under the sun, and when an author thinks to vindicate the sins of his
book by proving the admirable qualities of the paragon to whom it is
dedicated.* There with an air of supercilious contempt upon his smooth
cheeks, a page, in purple and silver, sat upon the table, swinging his
legs to and fro, and big with all the reflected importance of a
/billet-doux/. There stood the pert haberdasher, with his box of
silver-fringed gloves, and lace which Diana might have worn. At that
time there was indeed no enemy to female chastity like the former
article of man-millinery: the delicate whiteness of the glove, the
starry splendour of the fringe, were irresistible, and the fair Adorna,
in poor Lee's tragedy of "Caesar Borgia," is far from the only lady who
has been killed by a pair of gloves.


* Thank Heaven, for the honour of literature, /nous avons change tout
cela!--ED.


Next to the haberdasher, dingy and dull of aspect, a book-hunter bent
beneath the load of old works gathered from stall and shed, and about to
be re-sold according to the price exacted from all literary gallants who
affect to unite the fine gentleman with the profound scholar. A little
girl, whose brazen face and voluble tongue betrayed the growth of her
intellectual faculties, leaned against the wainscot, and repeated, in
the anteroom, the tart repartees which her mistress (the most celebrated
actress of the day) uttered on the stage; while a stout, sturdy,
bull-headed gentleman, in a gray surtout and a black wig, mingled with
the various voices of the motley group the gentle phrases of
Hockley-in-the-Hole, from which place of polite merriment he came
charged with a message of invitation. While such were the inmates of
the anteroom, what picture shall we draw of the /salon/ and its
occupant?

A table was covered with books, a couple of fencing foils, a woman's
mask, and a profusion of letters; a scarlet cloak, richly laced, hung
over, trailing on the ground. Upon a slab of marble lay a hat, looped
with diamonds, a sword, and a lady's lute. Extended upon a sofa,
loosely robed in a dressing-gown of black velvet, his shirt collar
unbuttoned, his stockings ungartered, his own hair (undressed and
released for a brief interval from the false locks universally worn)
waving from his forehead in short yet dishevelled curls, his whole
appearance stamped with the morning negligence which usually follows
midnight dissipation, lay a young man of about nineteen years. His
features were neither handsome nor ill-favoured, and his stature was
small, slight, and somewhat insignificant, but not, perhaps, ill-formed
either for active enterprise or for muscular effort. Such, reader, is
the picture of the young prodigal who occupied the apartments I have
described, and such (though somewhat flattered by partiality) is a
portrait of Morton Devereux, six months after his arrival in town.

The door was suddenly thrown open with that unhesitating rudeness by
which our friends think it necessary to signify the extent of their
familiarity; and a young man of about eight-and-twenty, richly dressed,
and of a countenance in which a dissipated /nonchalance/ and an
aristocratic /hauteur/ seemed to struggle for mastery, abruptly entered.

"What! ho, my noble royster," cried he, flinging himself upon a chair,
"still suffering from St. John's Burgundy! Fie, fie, upon your
apprenticeship!--why, before I had served half your time, I could take
my three bottles as easily as the sea took the good ship 'Revolution,'
swallow them down with a gulp, and never show the least sign of them the
next morning!"

"I really believe you, most magnanimous Tarleton. Providence gives to
each of its creatures different favours,--to one wit, to the other a
capacity for drinking. A thousand pities that they are never united!"

"So bitter, Count!--ah, what will ever cure you of sarcasm?"

"A wise man by conversation, or fools by satiety."

"Well, I dare say that is witty enough, but I never admire fine things
of a morning. I like letting my faculties live till night in a
deshabille; let us talk easily and sillily of the affairs of the day.
/Imprimis/, will you stroll to the New Exchange? There is a black eye
there that measures out ribbons, and my green ones long to flirt with
it."

"With all my heart--and in return you shall accompany me to Master
Powell's puppet-show."

"You speak as wisely as Solomon himself in the puppet-show. I own that
I love that sight: 'tis a pleasure to the littleness of human nature to
see great things abased by mimicry; kings moved by bobbins, and the
pomps of the earth personated by Punch."

"But how do you like sharing the mirth of the groundlings, the filthy
plebeians, and letting them see how petty are those distinctions which
you value so highly, by showing them how heartily you can laugh at such
distinctions yourself? Allow, my superb Coriolanus, that one purchases
pride by the loss of consistency."

"Ah, Devereux, you poison my enjoyment by the mere word 'plebeian'! Oh,
what a beastly thing is a common person!--a shape of the trodden clay
without any alloy; a compound of dirty clothes, bacon breaths, villanous
smells, beggarly cowardice, and cattish ferocity. Pah, Devereux! rub
civet on the very thought!"

"Yet they will laugh to-day at the same things you will, and
consequently there would be a most flattering congeniality between you.
Emotion, whether of ridicule, anger, or sorrow; whether raised at a
puppet-show, a funeral, or a battle,--is your grandest of levellers.
The man who would be always superior should be always apathetic."

"Oracular, as usual, Count,--but, hark, the clock gives tongue. One, by
the Lord!--will you not dress?"

And I rose and dressed. We passed through the anteroom; my attendant
assistants in the art of wasting money drew up in a row.

"Pardon me, gentlemen," said I ("gentlemen, indeed!" cried Tarleton),
"for keeping you so long. Mr. Snivelship, your waistcoats are
exquisite: favour me by conversing with my valet on the width of the
lace for my liveries; he has my instructions. Mr. Jockelton, your
horses shall be tried to-morrow at one. Ay, Mr. Rymer, I beg you a
thousand pardons; I beseech you to forgive the ignorance of my rascals
in suffering a gentleman of your merit to remain for a moment unattended
to. I have read your ode; it is splendid,--the ease of Horace with the
fire of Pindar; your Pegasus never touches the earth, and yet in his
wildest excesses you curb him with equal grace and facility: I object,
sir, only to your dedication; it is too flattering."

"By no means, my Lord Count, it fits you to a hair."

"Pardon me," interrupted I, "and allow me to transfer the honour to Lord
Halifax; he loves men of merit; he loves also their dedications. I will
mention it to him to-morrow: everything you say of me will suit him
exactly. You will oblige me with a copy of your poem directly it is
printed, and suffer me to pay your bookseller for it now, and through
your friendly mediation; adieu!"

"Oh, Count, this is too generous."

"A letter for me, my pretty page? Ah! tell her ladyship I shall wait
upon her commands at Powell's: time will move with a tortoise speed till
I kiss her hands. Mr. Fribbleden, your gloves would fit the giants at
Guildhall: my valet will furnish you with my exact size; you will see to
the legitimate breadth of the fringe. My little beauty, you are from
Mrs. Bracegirdle: the play /shall/ succeed; I have taken seven boxes;
Mr. St. John promised his influence. Say, therefore, my Hebe, that the
thing is certain, and let me kiss thee: thou hast dew on thy lip
already. Mr. Thumpen, you are a fine fellow, and deserve to be
encouraged; I will see that the next time your head is broken it shall
be broken fairly: but I will not patronize the bear; consider that
peremptory. What, Mr. Bookworm, again! I hope you have succeeded
better this time: the old songs had an autumn fit upon them, and had
lost the best part of their /leaves/; and Plato had mortgaged one half
his "Republic," to pay, I suppose, the exorbitant sum you thought proper
to set upon the other. As for Diogenes Laertius, and his
philosophers--"

"Pish!" interrupted Tarleton; "are you going, by your theoretical
treatises on philosophy, to make me learn the practical part of it, and
prate upon learning while I am supporting myself with patience?"

"Pardon me! Mr. Bookworm; you will deposit your load, and visit me
to-morrow at an earlier hour. And now, Tarleton, I am at your service."



CHAPTER II.

GAY SCENES AND CONVERSATIONS.--THE NEW EXCHANGE AND THE
PUPPET-SHOW.--THE ACTOR, THE SEXTON, AND THE BEAUTY.

"WELL, Tarleton," said I, looking round that mart of millinery and
love-making, which, so celebrated in the reign of Charles II., still
preserved the shadow of its old renown in that of Anne,--"well, here we
are upon the classical ground so often commemorated in the comedies
which our chaste grandmothers thronged to see. Here we can make
appointments, while we profess to buy gloves, and should our mistress
tarry too long, beguile our impatience by a flirtation with her
milliner. Is there not a breathing air of gayety about the place?--does
it not still smack of the Ethereges and Sedleys?"

"Right," said Tarleton, leaning over a counter and amorously eying the
pretty coquette to whom it belonged; while, with the coxcombry then in
fashion, he sprinkled the long curls that touched his shoulders with a
fragrant shower from a bottle of jessamine water upon the
counter,--"right; saw you ever such an eye? Have you snuff of the true
scent, my beauty--foh! this is for the nostril of a Welsh
parson--choleric and hot, my beauty,--pulverized horse-radish,--why, it
would make a nose of the coldest constitution imaginable sneeze like a
washed school-boy on a Saturday night.--Ah, this is better, my princess:
there is some courtesy in this snuff; it flatters the brain like a
poet's dedication. Right, Devereux, right, there is something
infectious in the atmosphere; one catches good humour as easily as if it
were cold. Shall we stroll on?--/my/ Clelia is on the other side of the
Exchange.--You were speaking of the play-writers: what a pity that our
Ethereges and Wycherleys should be so frank in their gallantry that the
prudish public already begins to look shy on them. They have a world of
wit!"

"Ay," said I; "and, as my good uncle would say, a world of knowledge of
human nature, namely, of the worst part of it. But they are worse than
merely licentious: they are positively villanous; pregnant with the most
redemptionless /scoundrelism/,--cheating, lying, thieving, and fraud;
their humour debauches the whole moral system; they are like the
Sardinian herb,--they make you laugh, it is true, but they poison you in
the act. But who comes here?"

"Oh, honest Coll!--Ah, Cibber, how goes it with you?"

The person thus addressed was a man of about the middle age, very
grotesquely attired, and with a periwig preposterously long. His
countenance (which, in its features, was rather comely) was stamped with
an odd mixture of liveliness, impudence, and a coarse yet not unjoyous
spirit of reckless debauchery. He approached us with a saunter, and
saluted Tarleton with an air servile enough, in spite of an affected
familiarity.

"What think you," resumed my companion, "we were conversing upon?"

"Why, indeed, Mr. Tarleton," answered Cibber, bowing very low, "unless
it were the exquisite fashion of your waistcoat, or your success with my
Lady Duchess, I know not what to guess."

"Pooh, man," said Tarleton, haughtily, "none of your compliments;" and
then added in a milder tone, "No, Colley, we were abusing the
immoralities that existed on the stage until thou, by the light of thy
virtuous example, didst undertake to reform it."

"Why," rejoined Cibber, with an air of mock sanctity, "Heaven be
praised, I have pulled out some of the weeds from our theatrical
/parterre/--"

"Hear you that, Count? Does he not look a pretty fellow for a censor?"

"Surely," said Cibber, "ever since Dicky Steele has set up for a saint,
and assumed the methodistical twang, some hopes of conversion may be
left even for such reprobates as myself. Where, may I ask, will Mr.
Tarleton drink to-night?"

"Not with thee, Coll. The Saturnalia don't happen every day. Rid us
now of thy company: but stop, I will do thee a pleasure; know you this
gentleman?"

"I have not that extreme honour."

"Know a Count, then! Count Devereux, demean yourself by sometimes
acknowledging Colley Cibber, a rare fellow at a song, a bottle, and a
message to an actress; a lively rascal enough, but without the goodness
to be loved, or the independence to be respected."

"Mr. Cibber," said I, rather hurt at Tarleton's speech, though the
object of it seemed to hear this description with the most unruffled
composure--"Mr. Cibber, I am happy and proud of an introduction to the
author of the 'Careless Husband.' Here is my address; oblige me with a
visit at your leisure."

"How could you be so galling to the poor devil?" said I, when Cibber,
with a profusion of bows and compliments, had left us to ourselves.

"Ah, hang him,--a low fellow, who pins all his happiness to the skirts
of the quality, is proud of being despised, and that which would
excruciate the vanity of others only flatters his. And now for my
Clelia."

After my companion had amused himself with a brief flirtation with a
young lady who affected a most edifying demureness, we left the
Exchange, and repaired to the puppet-show.

On entering the Piazza, in which, as I am writing for the next century,
it may be necessary to say that Punch held his court, we saw a tall,
thin fellow, loitering under the columns, and exhibiting a countenance
of the most ludicrous discontent. There was an insolent arrogance about
Tarleton's good-nature, which always led him to consult the whim of the
moment at the expense of every other consideration, especially if the
whim referred to a member of the /canaille/ whom my aristocratic friend
esteemed as a base part of the exclusive and despotic property of
gentlemen.

"Egad, Devereux," said he, "do you see that fellow? he has the audacity
to affect spleen. Faith, I thought melancholy was the distinguishing
patent of nobility: we will smoke him." And advancing towards the man
of gloom, Tarleton touched him with the end of his cane. The man
started and turned round. "Pray, sirrah," said Tarleton, coldly, "pray
who the devil are you that you presume to look discontented?"

"Why, Sir," said the man, good-humouredly enough, "I have some right to
be angry."

"I doubt it, my friend," said Tarleton. "What is your complaint? a rise
in the price of tripe, or a drinking wife? Those, I take it, are the
sole misfortunes incidental to your condition."

"If that be the case," said I, observing a cloud on our new friend's
brow, "shall we heal thy sufferings? Tell us thy complaints, and we
will prescribe thee a silver specific; there is a sample of our skill."

"Thank you humbly, gentlemen," said the man, pocketing the money, and
clearing his countenance; "and seriously, mine is an uncommonly hard
case. I was, till within the last few weeks, the under-sexton of St.
Paul's, Covent Garden, and my duty was that of ringing the bells for
daily prayers but a man of Belial came hitherwards, set up a
puppet-show, and, timing the hours of his exhibition with a wicked
sagacity, made the bell I rang for church serve as a summons to
Punch,--so, gentlemen, that whenever your humble servant began to pull
for the Lord, his perverted congregation began to flock to the devil;
and, instead of being an instrument for saving souls, I was made the
innocent means of destroying them. Oh, gentlemen, it was a shocking
thing to tug away at the rope till the sweat ran down one, for four
shillings a week; and to see all the time that one was thinning one's
own congregation and emptying one's own pockets!"

"It was indeed a lamentable dilemma; and what did you, Mr. Sexton?"

"Do, Sir? why, I could not stifle my conscience, and I left my place.
Ever since then, Sir, I have stationed myself in the Piazza, to warn my
poor, deluded fellow-creatures of their error, and to assure them that
when the bell of St. Paul's rings, it rings for prayers, and not for
puppet-shows, and--Lord help us, there it goes at this very moment; and
look, look, gentlemen, how the wigs and hoods are crowding to the
motion* instead of the minister."


* An antiquated word in use for puppet-shows.


"Ha! ha! ha!" cried Tarleton, "Mr. Powell is not the first man who has
wrested things holy to serve a carnal purpose, and made use of church
bells in order to ring money to the wide pouch of the church's enemies.
Hark ye, my friend, follow my advice, and turn preacher yourself; mount
a cart opposite to the motion, and I'll wager a trifle that the crowd
forsake the theatrical mountebank in favour of the religious one; for
the more sacred the thing played upon, the more certain is the game."

"Body of me, gentlemen," cried the ex-sexton, "I'll follow your advice."

"Do so, man, and never presume to look doleful again; leave dulness to
your superiors."*


* See "Spectator," No. 14, for a letter from this unfortunate
under-sexton.


And with this advice, and an additional compensation for his confidence,
we left the innocent assistant of Mr. Powell, and marched into the
puppet-show, by the sound of the very bells the perversion of which the
good sexton had so pathetically lamented.

The first person I saw at the show, and indeed the express person I came
to see, was the Lady Hasselton. Tarleton and myself separated for the
present, and I repaired to the coquette. "Angels of grace!" said I,
approaching; "and, by the by, before I proceed another word, observe,
Lady Hasselton, how appropriate the exclamation is to /you/! Angels of
/grace/! why, you have moved all your patches--one--two--three--six--
eight--as I am a gentleman, from the left side of your cheek to the
right! What is the reason of so sudden an emigration?"

"I have changed my politics, Count,* that is all, and have resolved to
lose no time in proclaiming the change. But is it true that you are
going to be married?"


* Whig ladies patched on one side of the cheek, Tories on the other.


"Married! Heaven forbid! which of my enemies spread so cruel a report?"

"Oh, the report is universal!" and the Lady Hasselton flirted her fan
with the most flattering violence.

"It is false, nevertheless; I cannot afford to buy a wife at present,
for, thanks to jointures and pin-money, these things are all matters of
commerce; and (see how closely civilized life resembles the savage!) the
English, like the Tartar gentleman, obtains his wife only by purchase!
But who is the bride?"

"The Duke of Newcastle's rich daughter, Lady Henrietta Pelham."

"What, Harley's object of ambition!* Faith, Madam, the report is not so
cruel as I thought for!"


* Lord Bolingbroke tells us that it was the main end of Harley's
administration to marry his son to this lady. Thus is the fate of
nations a bundle made up of a thousand little private schemes.


"Oh, you fop!--but is it not true?"

"By my honour, I fear not; my rivals are too numerous and too powerful.
Look now, yonder! how they already flock around the illustrious
heiress; note those smiles and simpers. Is it not pretty to see those
very fine gentlemen imitating bumpkins at a fair, and grinning their
best /for a gold ring/! But you need not fear me, Lady Hasselton, my
love cannot wander if it would. In the quaint thought of Sidney,* love
having once flown to my heart, burned its wings there, and cannot fly
away."


* In the "Arcadia," that museum of oddities and beauties.


"La, you now!" said the Beauty; "I do not comprehend you exactly: your
master of the graces does not teach you your compliments properly."

"Yes, he does, but in your presence I forget them; and now," I added,
lowering my voice into the lowest of whispers, "now that you are assured
of my fidelity, will you not learn at last to discredit rumours and
trust to me?"

"I love you too well!" answered the Lady Hasselton in the same tone, and
that answer gives an admirable idea of the affection of every coquette!
love and confidence with them are qualities that have a natural
antipathy, and can never be united. Our /tete-a-tete/ was at an end;
the people round us became social, and conversation general.

"Betterton acts to-morrow night," cried the Lady Pratterly: "we must
go!"

"We must go," cried the Lady Hasselton.

"We must go!" cried all.

And so passed the time till the puppet-show was over, and my attendance
dispensed with.

It is a charming thing to be the lover of a lady of the mode! One so
honoured does with his hours as a miser with his guineas; namely,
nothing but count them!



CHAPTER III.

MORE LIONS.

THE next night, after the theatre, Tarleton and I strolled into Wills's.
Half-a-dozen wits were assembled. Heavens! how they talked! actors,
actresses, poets, statesmen, philosophers, critics, divines, were all
pulled to pieces with the most gratifying malice imaginable. We sat
ourselves down, and while Tarleton amused himself with a dish of coffee
and the "Flying Post," I listened very attentively to the conversation.
Certainly if we would take every opportunity of getting a grain or two
of knowledge, we should soon have a chest-full; a man earned an
excellent subsistence by asking every one who came out of a
tobacconist's shop for a pinch of snuff, and retailing the mixture as
soon as he had filled his box.*


* "Tatler."


While I was listening to a tall lusty gentleman, who was abusing Dogget,
the actor, a well-dressed man entered, and immediately attracted the
general observation. He was of a very flat, ill-favoured countenance,
but of a quick eye, and a genteel air; there was, however, something
constrained and artificial in his address, and he appeared to be
endeavouring to clothe a natural good-humour with a certain primness
which could never be made to fit it.

"Ha, Steele!" cried a gentleman in an orange-coloured coat, who seemed
by a fashionable swagger of importance desirous of giving the tone to
the company,--"Ha, Steele, whence come you? from the chapel or the
tavern?" and the speaker winked round the room as if he wished us to
participate in the pleasure of a good thing.

Mr. Steele drew up, seemingly a little affronted; but his good-nature
conquering the affectation of personal sanctity, which, at the time I
refer to, that excellent writer was pleased to assume, he contented
himself with nodding to the speaker, and saying,--

"All the world knows, Colonel Cleland, that you are a wit, and therefore
we take your fine sayings as we take change from an honest
tradesman,--rest perfectly satisfied with the coin we get, without
paying any attention to it."

"Zounds, Cleland, you got the worst of it there," cried a gentleman in a
flaxen wig. And Steele slid into a seat near my own.

Tarleton, who was sufficiently well educated to pretend to the character
of a man of letters, hereupon thought it necessary to lay aside the
"Flying Post," and to introduce me to my literary neighbour.

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.