Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges Part 52

Roger Sterne, Sterne's father, was the second son of a numerous race, descendants of Richard Sterne, Archbishop of York, in the reign of James II; and children of Simon Sterne and Mary Jaques, his wife, heiress of Elvington, near York.(160) Roger was a lieutenant in Handyside's regiment, and engaged in Flanders in Queen Anne's wars. He married the daughter of a noted sutler-"N.B., he was in debt to him," his son writes, pursuing the paternal biography-and marched through the world with this companion following the regiment and bringing many children to poor Roger Sterne.

The captain was an irascible but kind and simple little man, Sterne says, and informs us that his sire was run through the body at Gibraltar, by a brother officer, in a duel, which arose out of a dispute about a goose.

Roger never entirely recovered from the effects of this rencontre, but died presently at Jamaica, whither he had followed the drum.

Laurence, his second child, was born at Clonmel, in Ireland, in 1713, and travelled for the first ten years of his life, on his father's march, from barrack to transport, from Ireland to England.(161)

One relative of his mother's took her and her family under shelter for ten months at Mullingar: another collateral descendant of the Archbishop's housed them for a year at his castle near Carrickfergus. Larry Sterne was put to school at Halifax in England, finally was adopted by his kinsman of Elvington, and parted company with his father, the Captain, who marched on his path of life till he met the fatal goose, which closed his career. The most picturesque and delightful parts of Laurence Sterne's writings, we owe to his recollections of the military life. Trim's montero cap, and Le Fevre's sword, and dear Uncle Toby's roquelaure, are doubtless reminiscences of the boy, who had lived with the followers of William and Marlborough, and had beat time with his little feet to the fifes of Ramillies in Dublin barrack-yard, or played with the torn flags and halberds of Malplaquet on the parade-ground at Clonmel.

Laurence remained at Halifax school till he was eighteen years old. His wit and cleverness appear to have acquired the respect of his master here: for when the usher whipped Laurence for writing his name on the newly whitewashed schoolroom ceiling, the pedagogue in chief rebuked the under-strapper, and said that the name should never be effaced, for Sterne was a boy of genius, and would come to preferment.

His cousin, the Squire of Elvington, sent Sterne to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he remained five years, and taking orders, got, through his uncle's interest, the living of Sutton and the prebendary of York.

Through his wife's connexions, he got the living of Stillington. He married her in 1741; having ardently courted the young lady for some years previously. It was not until the young lady fancied herself dying, that she made Sterne acquainted with the extent of her liking for him. One evening when he was sitting with her, with an almost broken heart to see her so ill (the Rev. Mr. Sterne's heart was a good deal broken in the course of his life), she said-"My dear Laurey, I never can be yours, for I verily believe I have not long to live, but I have left you every shilling of my fortune," a generosity which overpowered Sterne: she recovered: and so they were married, and grew heartily tired of each other before many years were over. "Nescio quid est materia c.u.m me," Sterne writes to one of his friends (in dog-Latin, and very sad dog-Latin too), "sed sum fatigatus et aegrotus de mea uxore plus quam unquam," which means, I am sorry to say, "I don't know what is the matter with me: but I am more tired and sick of my wife than ever."(162)

This to be sure was five-and-twenty years after Laurey had been overcome by her generosity and she by Laurey's love. Then he wrote to her of the delights of marriage, saying-"We will be as merry and as innocent as our first parents in Paradise, before the arch-fiend entered that indescribable scene. The kindest affections will have room to expand in our retirement-let the human tempest and hurricane rage at a distance, the desolation is beyond the horizon of peace. My L. has seen a polyanthus blow in December?-Some friendly wall has sheltered it from the biting wind-no planetary influence shall reach us, but that which presides and cherishes the sweetest flowers. The gloomy family of care and distrust shall be banished from our dwelling, guarded by thy kind and tutelar deity-we will sing our choral songs of grat.i.tude and rejoice to the end of our pilgrimage. Adieu, my L. Return to one who languishes for thy society!-As I take up my pen, my poor pulse quickens, my pale face glows, and tears are trickling down on my paper as I trace the word L."

And it is about this woman, with whom he finds no fault, but that she bores him, that our philanthropist writes, "Sum fatigatus et aegrotus"-_Sum mortaliter in amore_ with somebody else! That fine flower of love, that polyanthus over which Sterne snivelled so many tears, could not last for a quarter of a century!

Or rather it could not be expected that a gentleman with such a fountain at command, should keep it to _arroser_ one homely old lady, when a score of younger and prettier people might be refreshed from the same gushing source.(163)

It was in December, 1767, that the Rev. Laurence Sterne, the famous Shandean, the charming Yorick, the delight of the fashionable world, the delicious divine, for whose sermons the whole polite world was subscribing,(164) the occupier of Rabelais's easy chair, only fresh stuffed and more elegant than when in possession of the cynical old curate of Meudon(165)-the more than rival of the Dean of St. Patrick's, wrote the above-quoted respectable letter to his friend in London: and it was in April of the same year, that he was pouring out his fond heart to Mrs.

Elizabeth Draper, wife of "Daniel Draper, Esq., Counsellor of Bombay, and, in 1775, chief of the factory of Surat-a gentleman very much respected in that quarter of the globe".

"I got thy letter last night, Eliza," Sterne writes, "on my return from Lord Bathurst's, where I dined" (the letter has this merit in it that it contains a pleasant reminiscence of better men than Sterne, and introduces us to a portrait of a kind old gentleman)-"I got thy letter last night, Eliza, on my return from Lord Bathurst's; and where I was heard-as I talked of thee an hour without intermission-with so much pleasure and attention, that the good old lord toasted your health three different times; and now he is in his 85th year, says he hopes to live long enough to be introduced as a friend to my fair Indian disciple, and to see her eclipse all other Nabobesses as much in wealth, as she does already in exterior, and what is far better" (for Sterne is nothing without his morality)-"and what is far better, in interior merit. This n.o.bleman is an old friend of mine. You know he was always the protector of men of wit and genius, and has had those of the last century, Addison, Steele, Pope, Swift, Prior, &c., always at his table. The manner in which his notice began of me was as singular as it was polite. He came up to me one day as I was at the Princess of Wales's court, and said, 'I want to know you, Mr.

Sterne, but it is fit you also should know who it is that wishes this pleasure. You have heard of an old Lord Bathurst, of whom your Popes and Swifts have sung and spoken so much? I have lived my life with geniuses of that cast; but have survived them; and, despairing ever to find their equals, it is some years since I have shut up my books and closed my accounts; but you have kindled a desire in me of opening them once more before I die: which I now do: so go home and dine with me.' This n.o.bleman, I say, is a prodigy, for he has all the wit and promptness of a man of thirty; a disposition to be pleased, and a power to please others, beyond whatever I knew: added to which a man of learning, courtesy, and feeling."

"He heard me talk of thee, Eliza, with uncommon satisfaction-for there was only a third person, _and of sensibility_, with us: and a most sentimental afternoon till nine o'clock have we pa.s.sed!(166) But thou, Eliza! wert the star that conducted and enlivened the discourse! And when I talked not of thee, still didst thou fill my mind, and warm every thought I uttered, for I am not ashamed to acknowledge I greatly miss thee. Best of all good girls!-the sufferings I have sustained all night in consequence of thine, Eliza, are beyond the power of words.... And so thou hast fixed thy Bramin's portrait over thy writing desk, and will consult it in all doubts and difficulties?-Grateful and good girl! Yorick smiles contentedly over all thou dost: his picture does not do justice to his own complacency. I am glad your shipmates are friendly beings" (Eliza was at Deal, going back to the Counsellor at Bombay, and indeed it was high time she should be off). "You could least dispense with what is contrary to your own nature, which is soft and gentle, Eliza; it would civilize savages-though pity were it thou shouldst be tainted with the office. Write to me, my child, thy delicious letters. Let them speak the easy carelessness of a heart that opens itself anyhow, every how. Such, Eliza, I write to thee!" (The artless rogue, of course he did!) "And so I should ever love thee, most artlessly, most affectionately, if Providence permitted thy residence in the same section of the globe: for I am all that honour and affection can make me 'THY BRAMIN'."

The Bramin continues addressing Mrs. Draper until the departure of the _Earl of Chatham_, Indiaman, from Deal, on the 2nd of April, 1767. He is amiably anxious about the fresh paint for Eliza's cabin; he is uncommonly solicitous about her companions on board: "I fear the best of your shipmates are only genteel by comparison with the contrasted crew with which thou beholdest them. So was-you know who-from the same fallacy which was put upon your judgement when-but I will not mortify you!"

"You know who" was, of course, Daniel Draper, Esq., of Bombay-a gentleman very much respected in that quarter of the globe, and about whose probable health our worthy Bramin writes with delightful candour.

"I honour you, Eliza, for keeping secret some things which, if explained, had been a panegyric on yourself. There is a dignity in venerable affliction which will not allow it to appeal to the world for pity or redress. Well have you supported that character, my amiable, my philosophic friend! And indeed, I begin to think you have as many virtues as my Uncle Toby's widow. Talking of widows-pray, Eliza, if ever you are such, do not think of giving yourself to some wealthy Nabob, because I design to marry you myself. My wife cannot live long, and I know not the woman I should like so well for her subst.i.tute as yourself. 'Tis true I am ninety-five in const.i.tution, and you but twenty-five; but what I want in youth, I will make up in wit and good humour. Not Swift so loved his Stella, Scarron his Maintenon, or Waller his Saccharissa. Tell me, in answer to this, that you approve and honour the proposal."

Approve and honour the proposal! The coward was writing gay letters to his friends this while, with sneering allusions to this poor foolish _Bramine_. Her ship was not out of the Downs, and the charming Sterne was at the "Mount" Coffee-house, with a sheet of gilt-edged paper before him, offering that precious treasure his heart to Lady P--, asking whether it gave her pleasure to see him unhappy? whether it added to her triumph that her eyes and lips had turned a man into a fool?-quoting the Lord's Prayer, with a horrible baseness of blasphemy, as a proof that he had desired not to be led into temptation, and swearing himself the most tender and sincere fool in the world. It was from his home at c.o.xwould that he wrote the Latin letter, which, I suppose, he was ashamed to put into English. I find in my copy of the _Letters_, that there is a note of I can't call it admiration, at Letter 112, which seems to announce that there was a No. 3 to whom the wretched worn-out old scamp was paying his addresses;(167) and the year after, having come back to his lodgings in Bond Street, with his _Sentimental Journey_ to launch upon the town, eager as ever for praise and pleasure; as vain, as wicked, as witty, as false as he had ever been, death at length seized the feeble wretch, and, on the 18th of March, 1768, that "bale of cadaverous goods", as he calls his body, was consigned to Pluto.(168) In his last letter there is one sign of grace-the real affection with which he entreats a friend to be a guardian to his daughter Lydia.(169) All his letters to her are artless, kind, affectionate, and _not_ sentimental; as a hundred pages in his writings are beautiful, and full, not of surprising humour merely, but of genuine love and kindness. A perilous trade, indeed, is that of a man who has to bring his tears and laughter, his recollections, his personal griefs and joys, his private thoughts and feelings to market, to write them on paper, and sell them for money. Does he exaggerate his grief, so as to get his reader's pity for a false sensibility? feign indignation, so as to establish a character for virtue? elaborate repartees, so that he may pa.s.s for a wit? steal from other authors, and put down the theft to the credit side of his own reputation for ingenuity and learning? feign originality? affect benevolence or misanthropy? appeal to the gallery G.o.ds with claptraps and vulgar baits to catch applause?

How much of the paint and emphasis is necessary for the fair business of the stage, and how much of the rant and rouge is put on for the vanity of the actor? His audience trusts him: can he trust himself? How much was deliberate calculation and imposture-how much was false sensibility-and how much true feeling? Where did the lie begin, and did he know where? and where did the truth end in the art and scheme of this man of genius, this actor, this quack? Some time since, I was in the company of a French actor, who began after dinner, and at his own request, to sing French songs of the sort called _des chansons grivoises_, and which he performed admirably, and to the dissatisfaction of most persons present. Having finished these, he commenced a sentimental ballad-it was so charmingly sung that it touched all persons present, and especially the singer himself, whose voice trembled, whose eyes filled with emotion, and who was snivelling and weeping quite genuine tears by the time his own ditty was over. I suppose Sterne had this artistical sensibility; he used to blubber perpetually in his study, and finding his tears infectious, and that they brought him a great popularity, he exercised the lucrative gift of weeping; he utilized it, and cried on every occasion. I own that I don't value or respect much the cheap dribble of those fountains. He fatigues me with his perpetual disquiet and his uneasy appeals to my risible or sentimental faculties. He is always looking in my face, watching his effect, uncertain whether I think him an impostor or not; posture-making, coaxing, and imploring me. "See what sensibility I have-own now that I'm very clever-do cry now, you can't resist this." The humour of Swift and Rabelais, whom he pretended to succeed, poured from them as naturally as song does from a bird; they lose no manly dignity with it, but laugh their hearty great laugh out of their broad chests as nature bade them. But this man-who can make you laugh, who can make you cry, too-never lets his reader alone, or will permit his audience repose: when you are quiet, he fancies he must rouse you, and turns over head and heels, or sidles up and whispers a nasty story. The man is a great jester, not a great humourist.

He goes to work systematically and of cold blood; paints his face, puts on his ruff and motley clothes, and lays down his carpet and tumbles on it.

For instance, take the _Sentimental Journey_, and see in the writer the deliberate propensity to make points and seek applause. He gets to Dessein's Hotel, he wants a carriage to travel to Paris, he goes to the inn-yard, and begins what the actors call "business" at once. There is that little carriage the _desobligeant_. "Four months had elapsed since it had finished its career of Europe in the corner of Monsieur Dessein's courtyard, and having sallied out thence but a vamped-up business at first, though it had been twice taken to pieces on Mount Sennis, it had not profited much by its adventures, but by none so little as the standing so many months unpitied in the corner of Monsieur Dessein's coachyard.

Much, indeed, was not to be said for it-but something might-and when a few words will rescue misery out of her distress, I hate the man who can be a churl of them."

_Le tour est fait!_ Pailla.s.se has tumbled! Pailla.s.se has jumped over the _desobligeant_, cleared it, hood and all, and bows to the n.o.ble company.

Does anybody believe that this is a real Sentiment? that this luxury of generosity, this gallant rescue of Misery-out of an old cab, is genuine feeling? It is as genuine as the virtuous oratory of Joseph Surface when he begins, "The man who," &c. &c., and wishes to pa.s.s off for a saint with his credulous, good-humoured dupes.

Our friend purchases the carriage-after turning that notorious old monk to good account, and effecting (like a soft and good-natured Pailla.s.se as he was, and very free with his money when he had it), an exchange of snuff-boxes with the old Franciscan, jogs out of Calais; sets down in immense figures on the credit side of his account the sous he gives away to the Montreuil beggars; and, at Nampont, gets out of the chaise and whimpers over that famous dead donkey, for which any sentimentalist may cry who will. It is agreeably and skilfully done-that dead jacka.s.s; like M. de Soubise's cook, on the campaign, Sterne dresses it, and serves it up quite tender and with a very piquante sauce. But tears, and fine feelings, and a white pocket-handkerchief, and a funeral sermon, and horses and feathers, and a procession of mutes, and a hea.r.s.e with a dead donkey inside! Psha! Mountebank! I'll not give thee one penny more for that trick, donkey and all!

This donkey had appeared once before with signal effect. In 1765, three years before the publication of the _Sentimental Journey_, the seventh and eighth volumes of _Tristram Shandy_ were given to the world, and the famous Lyons donkey makes his entry in those volumes (pp. 315, 316):-

"'Twas by a poor a.s.s, with a couple of large panniers at his back, who had just turned in to collect eleemosynary turnip-tops and cabbage-leaves, and stood dubious, with his two forefeet at the inside of the threshold, and with his two hinder feet towards the street, as not knowing very well whether he was to go in or no.

"Now 'tis an animal (be in what hurry I may) I cannot bear to strike; there is a patient endurance of suffering wrote so unaffectedly in his looks and carriage which pleads so mightily for him, that it always disarms me, and to that degree that I do not like to speak unkindly to him: on the contrary, meet him where I will, whether in town or country, in cart or under panniers, whether in liberty or bondage, I have ever something civil to say to him on my part; and, as one word begets another (if he has as little to do as I), I generally fall into conversation with him; and surely never is my imagination so busy as in framing responses from the etchings of his countenance; and where those carry me not deep enough, in flying from my own heart into his, and seeing what is natural for an a.s.s to think-as well as a man, upon the occasion. In truth, it is the only creature of all the cla.s.ses of beings below me with whom I can do this.... With an a.s.s I can commune for ever.

" 'Come, Honesty,' said I, seeing it was impracticable to pa.s.s betwixt him and the gate, 'art thou for coming in or going out?'

"The a.s.s twisted his head round to look up the street.

" 'Well!' replied I, 'we'll wait a minute for thy driver.'

"He turned his head thoughtful about, and looked wistfully the opposite way.

" 'I understand thee perfectly,' answered I: 'if thou takest a wrong step in this affair, he will cudgel thee to death. Well! a minute is but a minute; and if it saves a fellow creature a drubbing, it shall not be set down as ill spent.'

"He was eating the stem of an artichoke as this discourse went on, and, in the little peevish contentions between hunger and unsavouriness, had dropped it out of his mouth half a dozen times, and had picked it up again. 'G.o.d help thee, Jack!' said I, 'thou hast a bitter breakfast on't-and many a bitter day's labour, and many a bitter blow, I fear, for its wages! 'Tis all, all bitterness to thee-whatever life is to others!

And now thy mouth, if one knew the truth of it, is as bitter. I dare say, as soot' (for he had cast aside the stem), 'and thou hast not a friend perhaps in all this world that will give thee a macaroon.' In saying this, I pulled out a paper of 'em, which I had just bought, and gave him one;-and, at this moment that I am telling it, my heart smites me that there was more of pleasantry in the conceit of seeing _how_ an a.s.s would eat a macaroon than of benevolence in giving him one, which presided in the act.

"When the a.s.s had eaten his macaroon, I pressed him to come in. The poor beast was heavy loaded-his legs seemed to tremble under him-he hung rather backward, and, as I pulled at his halter, it broke in my hand. He looked up pensive in my face: 'Don't thrash me with it: but if you will you may.'

'If I do,' said I, 'I'll be d--.' "

A critic who refuses to see in this charming description wit, humour, pathos, a kind nature speaking, and a real sentiment, must be hard indeed to move and to please. A page or two farther we come to a description not less beautiful-a landscape and figures, deliciously painted by one who had the keenest enjoyment and the most tremulous sensibility:-

"'Twas in the road between Nismes and Lunel, where is the best Muscatto wine in all France: the sun was set, they had done their work; the nymphs had tied up their hair afresh, and the swains were preparing for a carousal. My mule made a dead point. ''Tis the pipe and tambourine,' said I-'I never will argue a point with one of your family as long as I live;'

so leaping off his back, and kicking off one boot into this ditch and t'other into that, 'I'll take a dance,' said I, 'so stay you here.'

"A sunburnt daughter of labour rose up from the group to meet me as I advanced towards them; her hair, which was of a dark chestnut approaching to a black, was tied up in a knot, all but a single tress.

" 'We want a cavalier,' said she, holding out both her hands, as if to offer them. 'And a cavalier you shall have,' said I, taking hold of both of them. 'We could not have done without you,' said she, letting go one hand, with self-taught politeness, and leading me up with the other.

"A lame youth, whom Apollo had recompensed with a pipe, and to which he had added a tambourine of his own accord, ran sweetly over the prelude, as he sat upon the bank. 'Tie me up this tress instantly,' said Nannette, putting a piece of string into my hand. It taught me to forget I was a stranger. The whole knot fell down-we had been seven years acquainted. The youth struck the note upon the tambourine, his pipe followed, and off we bounded.

"The sister of the youth-who had stolen her voice from Heaven-sang alternately with her brother. 'Twas a Gascoigne roundelay. '_Viva la joia, fidon la tristessa!_'-the nymphs joined in unison, and their swains an octave below them.

"_Viva la joia_ was in Nannette's lips, _viva la joia_ in her eyes. A transient spark of amity shot across the s.p.a.ce betwixt us. She looked amiable. Why could I not live and end my days thus? 'Just Disposer of our joys and sorrows!' cried I, 'why could not a man sit down in the lap of content here, and dance, and sing, and say his prayers, and go to heaven with this nut-brown maid?' Capriciously did she bend her head on one side, and dance up insidious. 'Then 'tis time to dance off,' quoth I."

And with this pretty dance and chorus, the volume artfully concludes. Even here one can't give the whole description. There is not a page in Sterne's writing but has something that were better away, a latent corruption-a hint, as of an impure presence.(170)

Some of that dreary _double entendre_ may be attributed to freer times and manners than ours, but not all. The foul Satyr's eyes leer out of the leaves constantly: the last words the famous author wrote were bad and wicked-the last lines the poor stricken wretch penned were for pity and pardon. I think of these past writers and of one who lives amongst us now, and am grateful for the innocent laughter and the sweet and unsullied page which the author of _David Copperfield_ gives to my children.

Jete sur cette boule, Laid, chetif et souffrant; etouffe dans la foule, Faute d'etre a.s.sez grand;

Une plainte touchante De ma bouche sort.i.t; Le bon Dieu me dit: Chante, Chante, pauvre pet.i.t!

Chanter, ou je m'abuse, Est ma tache ici-bas.

Tous ceux qu'ainsi j'amuse, Ne m'aimeront-ils pas?

In those charming lines of Beranger, one may fancy described the career, the sufferings, the genius, the gentle nature of GOLDSMITH, and the esteem in which we hold him. Who, of the millions whom he has amused, doesn't love him? To be the most beloved of English writers, what a t.i.tle that is for a man!(171) A wild youth, wayward, but full of tenderness and affection, quits the country village where his boyhood has been pa.s.sed in happy musing, in idle shelter, in fond longing to see the great world out of doors, and achieve name and fortune-and after years of dire struggle, and neglect and poverty, his heart turning back as fondly to his native place, as it had longed eagerly for change when sheltered there, he writes a book and a poem, full of the recollections and feelings of home-he paints the friends and scenes of his youth, and peoples Auburn and Wakefield with remembrances of Lissoy. Wander he must, but he carries away a home-relic with him, and dies with it on his breast. His nature is truant; in repose it longs for change: as on the journey it looks back for friends and quiet. He pa.s.ses to-day in building an air-castle for to-morrow, or in writing yesterday's elegy; and he would fly away this hour, but that a cage and necessity keep him. What is the charm of his verse, of his style, and humour? His sweet regrets, his delicate compa.s.sion, his soft smile, his tremulous sympathy, the weakness which he owns? Your love for him is half pity. You come hot and tired from the day's battle, and this sweet minstrel sings to you. Who could harm the kind vagrant harper? Whom did he ever hurt? He carries no weapon-save the harp on which he plays to you; and with which he delights great and humble, young and old, the captains in the tents, or the soldiers round the fire, or the women and children in the villages, at whose porches he stops and sings his simple songs of love and beauty. With that sweet story of the _Vicar of Wakefield_,(172) he has found entry into every castle and every hamlet in Europe. Not one of us, however busy or hard, but once or twice in our lives has pa.s.sed an evening with him, and undergone the charm of his delightful music.