Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges Part 25

As for the young lord, his University career had ended rather abruptly.

Honest Tusher, his governor, had found my young gentleman quite ungovernable. My lord worried his life away with tricks; and broke out, as home-bred lads will, into a hundred youthful extravagances, so that Dr.

Bentley, the new master of Trinity, thought fit to write to the Viscountess Castlewood, my lord's mother, and beg her to remove the young n.o.bleman from a college where he declined to learn, and where he only did harm by his riotous example. Indeed, I believe he nearly set fire to Nevil's Court, that beautiful new quadrangle of our college, which Sir Christopher Wren had lately built. He knocked down a proctor's man that wanted to arrest him in a midnight prank; he gave a dinner party on the Prince of Wales's birthday, which was within a fortnight of his own, and the twenty young gentlemen then present sallied out after their wine, having toasted King James's health with open windows, and sung cavalier songs, and shouted, "G.o.d save the King!" in the great court, so that the master came out of his lodge at midnight, and dissipated the riotous a.s.sembly.

This was my lord's crowning freak, and the Rev. Thomas Tusher, domestic chaplain to the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Castlewood, finding his prayers and sermons of no earthly avail to his lordship, gave up his duties of governor; went and married his brewer's widow at Southampton, and took her and her money to his parsonage-house at Castlewood.

My lady could not be angry with her son for drinking King James's health, being herself a loyal Tory, as all the Castlewood family were, and acquiesced with a sigh, knowing, perhaps, that her refusal would be of no avail to the young lord's desire for a military life. She would have liked him to be in Mr. Esmond's regiment, hoping that Harry might act as guardian and adviser to his wayward young kinsman; but my young lord would hear of nothing but the Guards, and a commission was got for him in the Duke of Ormonde's regiment; so Esmond found my lord, ensign and lieutenant, when he returned from Germany after the Blenheim campaign.

The effect produced by both Lady Castlewood's children when they appeared in public was extraordinary, and the whole town speedily rang with their fame; such a beautiful couple, it was declared, never had been seen; the young maid of honour was toasted at every table and tavern, and as for my young lord, his good looks were even more admired than his sister's. A hundred songs were written about the pair, and as the fashion of that day was, my young lord was praised in these Anacreontics as warmly as Bathyllus. You may be sure that he accepted very complacently the town's opinion of him, and acquiesced with that frankness and charming good humour he always showed in the idea that he was the prettiest fellow in all London.

The old dowager at Chelsea, though she could never be got to acknowledge that Mrs. Beatrix was any beauty at all (in which opinion, as it may be imagined, a vast number of the ladies agreed with her), yet, on the very first sight of young Castlewood, she owned she fell in love with him; and Henry Esmond, on his return to Chelsea, found himself quite superseded in her favour by her younger kinsman. That feat of drinking the king's health at Cambridge would have won her heart, she said, if nothing else did. "How had the dear young fellow got such beauty?" she asked. "Not from his father-certainly not from his mother. How had he come by such n.o.ble manners, and the perfect _bel air_? That countrified Walcote widow could never have taught him." Esmond had his own opinion about the countrified Walcote widow, who had a quiet grace, and serene kindness, that had always seemed to him the perfection of good breeding, though he did not try to argue this point with his aunt. But he could agree in most of the praises which the enraptured old dowager bestowed on my lord viscount, than whom he never beheld a more fascinating and charming gentleman. Castlewood had not wit so much as enjoyment. "The lad looks good things," Mr. Steele used to say; "and his laugh lights up a conversation as much as ten repartees from Mr. Congreve. I would as soon sit over a bottle with him as with Mr.

Addison; and rather listen to his talk than hear Nicolini. Was ever man so gracefully drunk as my Lord Castlewood? I would give anything to carry my wine (though, indeed, d.i.c.k bore his very kindly, and plenty of it, too) like this incomparable young man. When he is sober he is delightful; and when tipsy, perfectly irresistible." And referring to his favourite, Shakespeare (who was quite out of fashion until Steele brought him back into the mode), d.i.c.k compared Lord Castlewood to Prince Hal, and was pleased to dub Esmond as ancient Pistol.

The mistress of the robes, the greatest lady in England after the queen, or even before her Majesty, as the world said, though she never could be got to say a civil word to Beatrix, whom she had promoted to her place as maid of honour, took her brother into instant favour. When young Castlewood, in his new uniform, and looking like a prince out of a fairy-tale, went to pay his duty to her grace, she looked at him for a minute in silence, the young man blushing and in confusion before her, then fairly burst out a-crying, and kissed him before her daughters and company. "He was my boy's friend," she said, through her sobs. "My Blandford might have been like him." And everybody saw, after this mark of the d.u.c.h.ess's favour, that my young lord's promotion was secure, and people crowded round the favourite's favourite, who became vainer and gayer, and more good-humoured than ever.

Meanwhile Madam Beatrix was making her conquests on her own side, and amongst them was one poor gentleman, who had been shot by her young eyes two years before, and had never been quite cured of that wound; he knew, to be sure, how hopeless any pa.s.sion might be, directed in that quarter, and had taken that best, though ign.o.ble, _remedium amoris_, a speedy retreat from before the charmer, and a long absence from her; and not being dangerously smitten in the first instance, Esmond pretty soon got the better of his complaint, and if he had it still, did not know he had it, and bore it easily. But when he returned after Blenheim, the young lady of sixteen, who had appeared the most beautiful object his eyes had ever looked on two years back, was now advanced to a perfect ripeness and perfection of beauty, such as instantly enthralled the poor devil, who had already been a fugitive from her charms. Then he had seen her but for two days, and fled; now he beheld her day after day, and when she was at Court, watched after her; when she was at home, made one of the family party; when she went abroad, rode after her mother's chariot; when she appeared in public places, was in the box near her, or in the pit looking at her; when she went to church was sure to be there, though he might not listen to the sermon, and be ready to hand her to her chair if she deigned to accept of his services, and select him from a score of young men who were always hanging round about her. When she went away, accompanying her Majesty to Hampton Court, a darkness fell over London. G.o.ds, what nights has Esmond pa.s.sed, thinking of her, rhyming about her, talking about her!

His friend d.i.c.k Steele was at this time courting the young lady, Mrs.

Scurlock, whom he married; she had a lodging in Kensington Square, hard by my Lady Castlewood's house there. d.i.c.k and Harry, being on the same errand, used to meet constantly at Kensington. They were always prowling about that place, or dismally walking thence, or eagerly running thither.

They emptied scores of bottles at the "King's Arms", each man prating of his love, and allowing the other to talk on condition that he might have his own turn as a listener. Hence arose an intimacy between them, though to all the rest of their friends they must have been insufferable.

Esmond's verses to "Gloriana at the Harpsichord", to "Gloriana's Nosegay", to "Gloriana at Court", appeared this year in the _Observator_.-Have you never read them? They were thought pretty poems, and attributed by some to Mr. Prior.

This pa.s.sion did not escape-how should it?-the clear eyes of Esmond's mistress: he told her all; what will a man not do when frantic with love?

To what baseness will he not demean himself? What pangs will he not make others suffer, so that he may ease his selfish heart of a part of its own pain? Day after day he would seek his dear mistress, pour insane hopes, supplications, rhapsodies, raptures, into her ear. She listened, smiled, consoled, with untiring pity and sweetness. Esmond was the eldest of her children, so she was pleased to say; and as for her kindness, who ever had or would look for aught else from one who was an angel of goodness and pity? After what has been said, 'tis needless almost to add that poor Esmond's suit was unsuccessful. What was a nameless, penniless lieutenant to do, when some of the greatest in the land were in the field? Esmond never so much as thought of asking permission to hope so far above his reach as he knew this prize was-and pa.s.sed his foolish, useless life in mere abject sighs and impotent longing. What nights of rage, what days of torment, of pa.s.sionate unfulfilled desire, of sickening jealousy, can he recall! Beatrix thought no more of him than of the lackey that followed her chair. His complaints did not touch her in the least; his raptures rather fatigued her; she cared for his verses no more than for Dan Chaucer's, who's dead these ever so many hundred years; she did not hate him; she rather despised him, and just suffered him.

One day, after talking to Beatrix's mother, his dear, fond, constant mistress-for hours-for all day long-pouring out his flame and his pa.s.sion, his despair and rage, returning again and again to the theme, pacing the room, tearing up the flowers on the table, twisting and breaking into bits the wax out of the standish, and performing a hundred mad freaks of pa.s.sionate folly; seeing his mistress at last quite pale and tired out with sheer weariness of compa.s.sion, and watching over his fever for the hundredth time, Esmond seized up his hat, and took his leave. As he got into Kensington Square, a sense of remorse came over him for the wearisome pain he had been inflicting upon the dearest and kindest friend ever man had. He went back to the house, where the servant still stood at the open door, ran up the stairs, and found his mistress where he had left her in the embrasure of the window, looking over the fields towards Chelsea. She laughed, wiping away at the same time the tears which were in her kind eyes; he flung himself down on his knees, and buried his head in her lap.

She had in her hand the stalk of one of the flowers, a pink, that he had torn to pieces. "Oh, pardon me, pardon me, my dearest and kindest," he said; "I am in h.e.l.l, and you are the angel that brings me a drop of water."

"I am your mother, you are my son, and I love you always," she said, holding her hands over him; and he went away comforted and humbled in mind, as he thought of that amazing and constant love and tenderness with which this sweet lady ever blessed and pursued him.

Chapter XI. The Famous Mr. Joseph Addison

The gentlemen ushers had a table at Kensington, and the Guard a very splendid dinner daily at St. James's, at either of which ordinaries Esmond was free to dine. d.i.c.k Steele liked the Guard-table better than his own at the gentleman ushers', where there was less wine and more ceremony; and Esmond had many a jolly afternoon in company of his friend, and a hundred times at least saw d.i.c.k into his chair. If there is verity in wine, according to the old adage, what an amiable-natured character d.i.c.k's must have been! In proportion as he took in wine he overflowed with kindness.

His talk was not witty so much as charming. He never said a word that could anger anybody, and only became the more benevolent the more tipsy he grew. Many of the wags derided the poor fellow in his cups, and chose him as a b.u.t.t for their satire; but there was a kindness about him, and a sweet playful fancy, that seemed to Esmond far more charming than the pointed talk of the brightest wits, with their elaborate repartees and affected severities. I think Steele shone rather than sparkled. Those famous _beaux-esprits_ of the coffee-houses (Mr. William Congreve, for instance, when his gout and his grandeur permitted him to come among us) would make many brilliant hits-half a dozen in a night sometimes-but, like sharpshooters, when they had fired their shot, they were obliged to retire under cover till their pieces were loaded again, and wait till they got another chance at their enemy; whereas d.i.c.k never thought that his bottle-companion was a b.u.t.t to aim at-only a friend to shake by the hand.

The poor fellow had half the town in his confidence; everybody knew everything about his loves and his debts, his creditors or his mistress's obduracy. When Esmond first came on to the town, honest d.i.c.k was all flames and raptures for a young lady, a West India fortune, whom he married. In a couple of years the lady was dead, the fortune was all but spent, and the honest widower was as eager in pursuit of a new paragon of beauty as if he had never courted and married and buried the last one.

Quitting the Guard-table on one sunny afternoon, when by chance d.i.c.k had a sober fit upon him, he and his friend were making their way down Germain Street, and d.i.c.k all of a sudden left his companion's arm, and ran after a gentleman who was poring over a folio volume at the book-shop near to St.

James's Church. He was a fair, tall man, in a snuff-coloured suit, with a plain sword, very sober, and almost shabby in appearance-at least when compared to Captain Steele, who loved to adorn his jolly round person with the finest of clothes, and shone in scarlet and gold lace. The captain rushed up, then, to the student of the bookstall, took him in his arms, hugged him, and would have kissed him-for d.i.c.k was always hugging and bussing his friends-but the other stepped back with a flush on his pale face, seeming to decline this public manifestation of Steele's regard.

"My dearest Joe, where hast thou hidden thyself this age?" cries the captain, still holding both his friend's hands; "I have been languishing for thee this fortnight."

"A fortnight is not an age, d.i.c.k," says the other, very good-humouredly.

(He had light blue eyes, extraordinary bright, and a face perfectly regular and handsome, like a tinted statue.) "And I have been hiding myself-where do you think?"

"What! not across the water, my dear Joe?" says Steele, with a look of great alarm: "thou knowest I have always--"

"No," says his friend, interrupting him with a smile: "we are not come to such straits as that, d.i.c.k. I have been hiding, sir, at a place where people never think of finding you-at my own lodgings, whither I am going to smoke a pipe now and drink a gla.s.s of sack; will your honour come?"

"Harry Esmond, come hither," cries out d.i.c.k. "Thou hast heard me talk over and over again at my dearest Joe, my guardian angel."

"Indeed," says Mr. Esmond, with a bow, "it is not from you only that I have learnt to admire Mr. Addison. We loved good poetry at Cambridge, as well as at Oxford; and I have some of yours by heart, though I have put on a red-coat ... '_O qui canoro blandius Orpheo vocale ducis carmen_'; shall I go on, sir?" says Mr. Esmond, who indeed had read and loved the charming Latin poems of Mr. Addison, as every scholar of that time knew and admired them.

"This is Captain Esmond who was at Blenheim," says Steele.

"Lieutenant Esmond," says the other, with a low bow; "at Mr. Addison's service."

"I have heard of you," says Mr. Addison, with a smile; as, indeed, everybody about town had heard that unlucky story about Esmond's dowager aunt and the d.u.c.h.ess.

"We were going to the 'George', to take a bottle before the play," says Steele; "wilt thou be one, Joe?"

Mr. Addison said his own lodgings were hard by, where he was still rich enough to give a good bottle of wine to his friends; and invited the two gentlemen to his apartment in the Haymarket, whither we accordingly went.

"I shall get credit with my landlady," says he, with a smile, "when she sees two such fine gentlemen as you come up my stair." And he politely made his visitors welcome to his apartment, which was indeed but a shabby one, though no grandee of the land could receive his guests with a more perfect and courtly grace than this gentleman. A frugal dinner, consisting of a slice of meat and a penny loaf, was awaiting the owner of the lodgings. "My wine is better than my meat," says Mr. Addison; "my Lord Halifax sent me the burgundy." And he set a bottle and gla.s.ses before his friends, and eat his simple dinner in a very few minutes, after which the three fell to, and began to drink. "You see," says Mr. Addison, pointing to his writing-table, whereon was a map of the action at Hochstedt, and several other gazettes and pamphlets relating to the battle, "that I, too, am busy about your affairs, captain. I am engaged as a poetical gazetteer, to say truth, and am writing a poem on the campaign."

So Esmond, at the request of his host, told him what he knew about the famous battle, drew the river on the table, _aliquo mero_, and with the aid of some bits of tobacco-pipe, showed the advance of the left wing, where he had been engaged.

A sheet or two of the verses lay already on the table beside our bottles and gla.s.ses, and d.i.c.k having plentifully refreshed himself from the latter, took up the pages of ma.n.u.script, writ out with scarce a blot or correction, in the author's slim, neat handwriting, and began to read therefrom with great emphasis and volubility. At pauses of the verse the enthusiastic reader stopped and fired off a great salvo of applause.

Esmond smiled at the enthusiasm of Addison's friend.

"You are like the German burghers," says he, "and the princes on the Mozelle; when our army came to a halt, they always sent a deputation to compliment the chief, and fired a salute with all their artillery from their walls."

"And drunk the great chief's health afterward, did not they?" says Captain Steele, gaily filling up a b.u.mper;-he never was tardy at that sort of acknowledgement of a friend's merit.

"And the duke, since you will have me act his grace's part," says Mr.

Addison, with a smile and something of a blush, "pledged his friends in return. Most serene Elector of Covent Garden, I drink to your highness's health," and he filled himself a gla.s.s. Joseph required scarce more pressing than d.i.c.k to that sort of amus.e.m.e.nt; but the wine never seemed at all to fl.u.s.ter Mr. Addison's brains; it only unloosed his tongue, whereas Captain Steele's head and speech were quite overcome by a single bottle.

No matter what the verses were, and, to say truth, Mr. Esmond found some of them more than indifferent, d.i.c.k's enthusiasm for his chief never faltered, and in every line from Addison's pen, Steele found a master-stroke. By the time d.i.c.k had come to that part of the poem, wherein the bard describes as blandly as though he were recording a dance at the Opera, or a harmless bout of bucolic cudgelling at a village fair, that b.l.o.o.d.y and ruthless part of our campaign, with the remembrance whereof every soldier who bore a part in it must sicken with shame-when we were ordered to ravage and lay waste the Elector's country; and with fire and murder, slaughter and crime, a great part of his dominions was overrun: when d.i.c.k came to the lines-

In vengeance roused the soldier fills his hand With sword and fire, and ravages the land.

In crackling flames a thousand harvests burn, A thousand villages to ashes turn.

To the thick woods the woolly flocks retreat, And mixed with bellowing herds confusedly bleat.

Their trembling lords the common shade partake, And cries of infants found in every brake.

The listening soldier fixed in sorrow stands, Loath to obey his leader's just commands.

The leader grieves, by generous pity swayed, To see his just commands so well obeyed:

by this time wine and friendship had brought poor d.i.c.k to a perfectly maudlin state, and he hiccuped out the last line with a tenderness that set one of his auditors a-laughing.

"I admire the licence of you poets," says Esmond to Mr. Addison. (d.i.c.k, after reading of the verses, was fain to go off, insisting on kissing his two dear friends before his departure, and reeling away with his periwig over his eyes.) "I admire your art: the murder of the campaign is done to military music, like a battle at the Opera, and the virgins shriek in harmony, as our victorious grenadiers march into their villages. Do you know what a scene it was" (by this time, perhaps, the wine had warmed Mr.

Esmond's head too),-"what a triumph you are celebrating? what scenes of shame and horror were enacted, over which the commander's genius presided, as calm as though he didn't belong to our sphere? You talk of the 'listening soldier fixed in sorrow', the 'leader's grief swayed by generous pity'; to my belief the leader cared no more for bleating flocks than he did for infants' cries, and many of our ruffians butchered one or the other with equal alacrity. I was ashamed of my trade when I saw those horrors perpetrated, which came under every man's eyes. You hew out of your polished verses a stately image of smiling victory; I tell you 'tis an uncouth, distorted, savage idol; hideous, b.l.o.o.d.y, and barbarous. The rites performed before it are shocking to think of. You great poets should show it as it is-ugly and horrible, not beautiful and serene. Oh, sir, had you made the campaign, believe me, you never would have sung it so."

During this little outbreak, Mr. Addison was listening, smoking out of his long pipe, and smiling very placidly. "What would you have?" says he. "In our polished days, and according to the rules of art, 'tis impossible that the Muse should depict tortures or begrime her hands with the horrors of war. These are indicated rather than described; as in the Greek tragedies, that, I dare say, you have read (and sure there can be no more elegant specimens of composition); Agamemnon is slain, or Medea's children destroyed, away from the scene;-the chorus occupying the stage and singing of the action to pathetic music. Something of this I attempt, my dear sir, in my humble way: 'tis a panegyric I mean to write, and not a satire. Were I to sing as you would have me, the town would tear the poet in pieces, and burn his book by the hands of the common hangman. Do you not use tobacco? Of all the weeds grown on earth, sure the nicotian is the most soothing and salutary. We must paint our great duke," Mr. Addison went on, "not as a man, which no doubt he is, with weaknesses like the rest of us, but as a hero. 'Tis in a triumph, not a battle, that your humble servant is riding his sleek Pegasus. We college-poets trot, you know, on very easy nags; it hath been, time out of mind, part of the poet's profession to celebrate the actions of heroes in verse, and to sing the deeds which you men of war perform. I must follow the rules of my art, and the composition of such a strain as this must be harmonious and majestic, not familiar, or too near the vulgar truth. _Si parva licet_: if Virgil could invoke the divine Augustus, a humbler poet from the banks of the Isis may celebrate a victory and a conqueror of our own nation, in whose triumphs every Briton has a share, and whose glory and genius contributes to every citizen's individual honour. When hath there been, since our Henrys' and Edwards'

days, such a great feat of arms as that from which you yourself have brought away marks of distinction? If 'tis in my power to sing that song worthily, I will do so, and be thankful to my Muse. If I fail as a poet, as a Briton at least I will show my loyalty and fling up my cap and huzzah for the conqueror:

----"Rheni pacator et Istri Omnis in hoc uno variis discordia cessit Ordinibus; laetatur eques, plauditque senator, Votaque patricio certant plebeia favori."