Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

People must have spoken more slowly in the time of Queen Elizabeth, than they do now. The cumbrous construction of phrases in the written style of that day, obliges one to read the page of an old author much slower than a modern one. It must have been the same in conversation: there being then fewer ideas in general circulation, the speaker had further to seek for subject matter: the words did not “come skipping rank and file.” There was no ready money of mind in the market, although there were immense masses of unworked ingot, lying in the great bank of the national intellect. There was not then, as now, a ready-made set of conventional phrases, which served to dress up every man’s thoughts, and often to supply the place of thinking; every man was then his own thinker. A rapid speaker, in such a state of things, must have outstripped his hearers. “In all kinds of speech,” (says Lord Bacon) “either pleasant, grave, severe, or ordinary, it is convenient to speak leisurely, and rather drawlingly, than hastily; because hasty speech confounds the memory, and oftentimes, beside the unseemliness, draws a man either to stammering, a nonplus, or harping on that which should follow; whereas a slow speech confirmeth the memory, and addeth a conceit of wisdom to the hearers,—besides a seemliness of speech and countenance.” Here then was the _beau-idéal_ of a good speaker in the time of Queen Elizabeth.

One of the most satisfactory evidences of improvement in the details of civilized life, is the increased rapidity of all its movements. Rapidity is power—omnipotence goes at once to its object, and reaches it. To be slow is to be feeble—to measure human action against time, and to overtake it, is to double existence. To live fast (properly understood) is not to wear out life briefly, but to multiply the sensations which extend it. The more thought, action, intellect, and sensation, can be crammed into this “petty space,” the longer we live: for it is not years, but the consciousness of living, that gives the true longevity.

“Mourir, sans avoir vécu,”

is therefore the fate of the whole tortoise tribe, whether in or out of their shell.

The events of the American and French revolutions have quadrupled the existence of the generation which witnessed them. More has been done in the last century, than in any three centuries which preceded it.

By rapidity, however, is not intended that description of haste, which is proverbially said to make the worst speed. That which is done imperfectly will require more time to mend, than, if properly bestowed, would have been consumed in its original completion; and as imperfect objects are objects not adapted to their end, to employ them in that state, occasions an equal waste of time in the business of life. The merit of the rapidity of civilization is, that it is combined with a greater perfection in the arts and sciences.

We travel over Macadamized roads, and sail in steam vessels, not only quicker, but safer and more comfortably. The modern speaker is not only more rapid, but clearer, and less exposed to fallacy. Society begins its progress, like life, feebly and slowly; the human intellect develops itself in ponderous poems, of a thousand and one cantos, essays in folios, and “hints,” in quarto. Journeys, in the infancy of society, are made in moving houses, over trackless mountains and “crack-skull commons,” at the rate of ten miles per day.

“Slow and sure,” was a maxim of the wisdom of our ancestors; and (to end with the pleasant farce whence I took the motto for the head of this rapid rhapsody) “keep moving,” should be the epigraph of ours. The “_en avant_” of Bonaparte set all the old dynasties in a bustle; and but for the whip and the spur, and the “_allez, allez_” of the French Revolution, we should have their absolutisms still moving their “_minuet de la Lorraine_.” They have been taught to dance in quicker time, since that important _pas grave_ nearly caused a war in which half Europe was to have taken a part.

MY FIRST ROUT IN LONDON.

Of all metaphysical mysteries, there is nothing more difficult to get at than the mystery of memory. Montaigne, complaining of his, observes, “_et suis si excellente en oubliance, que mes escripts mêmes, je les oublie, pas moins que les autres_.”[26] This is precisely my own case. I never could remember any thing I wrote, beyond the moment when it was going through the press. The other evening I found a book lying open on the piano-forte, which somebody had just laid down, on being called to take a part in the _Preghiera_ in the opera of the _Mosé_, and I chanced to light upon a high-flown and rather nonsensical passage, of which I could make nothing. This induced me to look at the title-page. It was “the Wild Irish Girl,” seventh edition. I had not seen it for years. I was amused, and a little surprised.

In _diebus illis_, it was with my style, pretty much as with the oaths of Frère Jean de l’Entommoures—“_Comment, vous jurez, Frère Jean?_” “_Ce n’est (dit le moine) que pour orner mon langage: ces sont couleurs de rhétorique Cicéronienne._”[27] All, that literary counsel, acquirement, and instruction give to literary composition, was, in my early career of authorship, utterly denied me. The imagination, or feeling, or whatever it was, that carried the “Wild Irish Girl” through seven editions in less than two years, was wholly unsupported by any of the advantages which reading, the world, society, or the judgment and taste they bring with them, could confer. I began to write almost as soon as I could read; and the premature development of imagination, which enabled me to combine and invent, was inevitably destitute of that command of language, which books and reflection only give. Hurried on by the “thick-coming fancies” of a fervid but uncultivated mind, I did not always pause to secure the best and most precise expression by which they could be conveyed; and except when I had to give utterance to some strong feeling, (for feeling always finds its own language,) I was often, as the sportsman’s phrase is, “at fault.” Conscious of the poverty of my vocabulary, I frequently borrowed a word, or adopted a phrase, as Frère Jean did an oath, not for its precise application or intrinsic meaning, but simply “_pour orner mon langage_.”

I remember once making this humble and plenary confession under very singular circumstances, and with a most propitiating effect. It was on the occasion of my first appearance at a great London rout, and at the moment when the uncalculated success of the juvenile work alluded to, had given me that sort of vogue which learned pigs, and learned ladies, and other things more valuable for their singularity than their utility, enjoy in common.

A few days after my arrival in London, and while my little book was running rapidly through successive editions, I was presented to the Countess Dowager of C——k, and invited to a rout at her fantastic and pretty mansion in New Burlington-street. Oh, how her Irish historical name tingled on my ears, and seized on my imagination; as that of her great ancestor, “the father of chemistry, and uncle to Lord Cork,” did on the mind of my old friend, Professor Higgens. I was freshly launched from the bogs of the barony of Tireragh, in the province of Connaught, and had dropped at once into the very sanctuary of English _ton_, without time to go through the necessary course of training in manners or millinery, for such an awful transition: so, with no _chaperon_ but my incipient notoriety, and actually no toilet but the frock and the flower in which, not many days before, I had danced a jig, on an earthen floor, with an O’Rourke, prince of Brefney, in the county of Leitrim, I stepped into my job-carriage at the hour of ten, and, “all alone by myself”—as the Irish song says—

“To Eden took my solitary way.”

What added to my fears, and doubts, and hopes, and embarrassments, was a note from my noble hostess, received at the moment of departure, which ran thus:—

“Every body has been invited expressly to meet the Wild Irish
Girl: so she must bring her Irish harp.

“M. C. O.”

I arrived at New Burlington-street without my Irish harp, and with a beating heart; and I heard the high-sounding titles of princes and ambassadors, and dukes and duchesses, announced, long before my own poor plebeian Hibernian name puzzled the porter, and was bandied from footman to footman, as all names are bandied, which are not written down in the red-book of Fashion, nor rendered familiar to the lips of her insolent menials. How I wished myself back in Tireragh with my own princes, the O’s and Macs; and yet this position was among the items of my highest ambition! To be sought after by the great, not for any accidental circumstance of birth, rank, or fortune, but simply “_pour les beaux yeux de mon mérite_,” was a principal item in the utopia of my youthful fancy. I endeavoured to recall the fact to mind; but it would not do: and as I ascended the marble stairs, with their gilt balustrade, I was agitated by emotions, similar to those which drew from my countryman, Maurice Quill,[28] his frank exclamation in the heat of the battle of Vittoria, “Oh, Jasus, I wish some one of my greatest enemies was kicking me down Dame-street!”

Lady C——k met me at the door of that suite of apartments which opens with a brilliant boudoir, and terminates with a sombre conservatory, where eternal twilights fall upon fountains of rose-water which never dry, and on beds of flowers which never fade,—where singing birds are always silent, and butterflies are for once at rest.

“What, no harp, Glorvina?” said her ladyship.

“Oh, Lady C——!”

“Oh, Lady Fiddlestick!—you are a fool, child; you don’t know your own interests. Here, James, William, Thomas, send one of the chairmen to Stanhope-street, for Miss Owenson’s harp.”

Led on by Doctor Johnson’s celebrated “little Dunce,” and Boswell’s “_divine Maria_,” who kindly and protectingly drew my arm through hers, I was at once merged into that mob of _élégantes_ and _élégants_, who always prefer narrow door-ways for incipient flirtations, to the clear stage and fair play of the centre of a salon. As we stood wedged on the threshold of fashion, my dazzled eyes rested for a moment, on a strikingly sullen-looking handsome creature, whose boyish person was distinguished by an air of singularity, which seemed to vibrate between hauteur and shyness. He stood with his arms crossed, and alone, occupying a corner near the door; and though in the brilliant bustling crowd, was “not of it.”

“How do, Lord Byron?” said a pretty sprite of fashion, as she glided her spirituality through a space, which might have proved too narrow for one of Leslie Forster’s demi-semi souls to pass through.

Lord Byron! All “_les braves Birons_” of French and English chivalry rushed to my mind, at the sound of the historical name! But I was then ignorant, that its young and beautiful inheritor was to give it greater claims on the admiration of posterity, than the valiant _preux_ of France, or the loyal cavaliers of England, had yet bestowed on it. For fame travels slowly in our Barony of Tireragh; and though Lord Byron had already made his first step in that career which ended in the triumph of his brilliant and powerful genius over all his cotemporaries, _I_ had got no further in the article Byron, than the “_pends-toi, brave Biron_,” of _Henri Quatre_.

After a stand and a stare of some seconds, I was pushed on—and, on reaching the centre of the conservatory, I found myself suddenly pounced upon a sort of rustic seat by Lady C——k, whose effort to detain me on this very uneasy preeminence, resembled Lingo’s remonstrance of “keep your temper, great Rusty-fusty;” for I too was treated _en princesse_, (the Princess of _Coolavin_), and denied the civilized privileges of sofa or chair, which were not in character with the habits of a “Wild Irish Girl.” So, there I sat, “_patience per force with wilful choler meeting_,” the lioness of the night! exhibited and shewn off like “the beautiful hyena that never was tamed,” of Exeter Change,—looking almost as wild, and feeling quite as savage!

Lady C——k, whose parties are the pleasantest in London, because they are exempt from the monotony which broods like an incubus over the circles of English fashion, has been accused of an inordinate passion for lions. In my own respect I have only to say, that this _engouement_, indulged, in the first instance, perhaps, a little too much at my expense, has been followed up by nearly twenty years of unswerving friendship, kindness, and hospitality.

I shall never forget the cordiality with which, upon this memorable occasion, she presented me to all that was then most illustrious for rank and talent in England; even though the manner savoured, perhaps, something too much of the Duchess de la Ferté’s style of protection, on a similar occasion, “_Allons, Mademoiselle, parlez—vous allez voir comme elle parle_;” for if the manner was not exactly conformable to the dignity of the Princess of _Coolavin_, the motive rendered all excusable; and I felt with the charming _protégée_ of the French duchess, that “so many whimsical efforts proceeded merely from an immoderate desire to bring me forward.”

Presenting me to each and all of the splendid crowd, which an idle curiosity, easily excited, and as soon satisfied, had gathered round us, she prefaced every introduction with a little exordium, which seemed to amuse every one but its subject. “Lord Erskine, this is the ‘Wild Irish Girl,’ whom you were so anxious to know. I assure you, she talks quite as well as she writes. Now, my dear, do tell my Lord Erskine some of those Irish stories, you told us the other evening at Lord C——ville’s. Fancy yourself _en petit comité_, and take off the Irish brogue. Mrs. Abington says you would make a famous actress, she does indeed! You must play the short-armed orator with her; she will be here by and by. This is the Duchess of St. A——, she has your ‘Wild Irish Girl’ by heart. Where is Sheridan? Do, my dear Mr. T——; (this is Mr. T——, my dear—Geniuses should know each other)—do, my dear Mr. T——, find me Mr. Sheridan. Oh! here he is! what! you know each other already; _tant mieux_. This is Lord Carysfort. Mr. Lewis, do come forward; that is Monk Lewis, my dear, of whom you have heard so much—but you must not read his works, they are very naughty. But here is one, whose works I know you have read. What, you know him too!” It was the Hon. William Spenser, whose “Year of Sorrow” was then drawing tears from all the brightest eyes in England; while his wit and his pleasantry cheered every circle he distinguished by his presence.

Lewis, who stood staring at me through his eye-glass, backed out at this exhibition, and disappeared. “Here are two ladies,” continued her ladyship, “whose wish to know you is very flattering, for they are wits themselves, _l’esprit de Mortemar_, true N——’s. You don’t know the value of this introduction. You know Mr. Gell, so I need not present you. He calls you the Irish Corinne. Your friend Mr. Moore will be here by and by. I have collected ‘all the talents’ for you. Do see, somebody, if Mr. Kemble and Mrs. Siddons are come yet; and find me Lady Hamilton. Now pray tell us the scene at the Irish baronet’s, in the rebellion, that you told to the ladies of Llangollen; and then give us your blue stocking dinner, at Sir Richard Phillips’s; and describe us the Irish priests. Here is your countryman, Lord L——k, he will be your bottle holder.”

Lord L——k volunteered his services. The circle now began to widen—wits, warriors, peers, and ministers of state. The harp was brought forward, and I attempted to play; but my howl was funereal; I was ready to cry in character, but endeavoured to laugh, and to cover out my real timidity by an affected ease, which was both awkward and impolitic. The best coquetry of the young and inexperienced is a frank exhibition of its own unsophisticated feelings—but this is a secret learned too late.

A ball at Mrs. Hope’s drew off my auditory, and towards midnight, the ring was thinned to a select few, some fifty particular friends, who had been previously asked to stay supper. It was my good fortune to be placed at table between Lords Erskine and Carysfort, who had both been particularly kind to me during my perilous probation; and now, no longer “the observed of all observers,” I had leisure to observe for myself, and to be amused in my turn.

I had got into a very delightful conversation with my veteran beaux, when Mr. Kemble was announced. Lady C——k reproached him as “the late Mr. Kemble;” and then, looking significantly at me, told him who I was. Kemble, to whom I had been already presented by Mrs. Lefanu, acknowledged me by a kindly nod; but the intense stare which succeeded, was not one of mere recognition. It was the glazed, fixed look, so common to those who have been making libations to altars which rarely qualify them for ladies’ society. Mr. Kemble was evidently much pre-occupied, and a little exalted; and he appeared actuated by some intention, which he had the will, but not the power, to execute. He was seated _vis-à-vis_, and had repeatedly raised his arm, and stretched it across the table, for the purpose, as I supposed, of helping himself to some boar’s-head in jelly. Alas, no!—the _bore_ was, that my head happened to be the object which fixed his tenacious attention; and which being a true Irish _cathah_ head, dark, cropped, and curly, struck him as a particularly well organized Brutus, and better than any in his _répertoire_ of theatrical perukes. Succeeding at last in his feline and fixed purpose, he actually struck his claws in my locks, and addressing me in the deepest sepulchral tones, asked—“Little girl, where did you buy your wig?”

Lord Erskine “came to the rescue,” and liberated my head.

Lord Carysfort exclaimed, to retrieve the awkwardness of the scene, “_les serpents de l’envie ont sifflés dans son cœur_;” on every side—

“Some did laugh,
And some did say, God bless us;”

—while I, like Macbeth—

“Could not say, Amen.”

Meantime Kemble, peevish, as half tipsy people generally are, and ill brooking the interference of the two peers, drew back, muttering and fumbling in his coat-pocket, evidently with some dire intent lowering in his eyes. To the amusement of all, and to my increased consternation, he drew forth a volume of the “Wild Irish Girl,” (which he had brought to return to Lady C——k) and, reading, with his deep, emphatic voice, one of the most high-flown of its passages, he paused, and patting the page with his fore-finger, with the look of Hamlet addressing Polonius, he said, “Little girl, why did you write such nonsense? and where did you get all these d——d hard words?”

Thus taken by surprise, and “smarting with my wounds” of mortified authorship, I answered, unwittingly and witlessly, the truth: “Sir, I wrote as well as I could, and I got the hard words out of Johnson’s dictionary.”

The eloquence of Erskine himself would have pleaded my cause with less effect; and the “_J’y allois_” of _La Fontaine_ was not quoted with more approbation in the circles of Paris, than the _naïveté_ of my equally veracious and spontaneous reply. The triumph of my simplicity did not increase Kemble’s good humour; and, shortly after, Mr. Spenser carried him off in his carriage, to prevent any further attacks on my unfortunate head—inside or out.

Talking over this scene, not long since, at Lady C——k’s, with a lady who had been present, it came back with all its circumstances to my memory, and with a keen recollection of the pains and penalties incidental to inexperienced and unprotected female youth, when forced by necessity to step across the threshold of domestic privacy, and to carry to the mart of public suffrage the feeling and fancy, intended by nature for home consumption. Between my first and my last appearance in the elegant and hospitable salons of New Burlington-street, what a difference!—in person, feeling, sensations, intellect,—the all that should make identity, yet does not! I cannot trace the least similitude between Mr. Kemble’s “little girl,” and the proscribed of emperors and the excommunicated of popes. There is more philosophy in the little woman who went “to market her eggs for to sell,” than the world is aware of: and I have been tempted to quote her “Lord have mercy on me! _sure this is none of I?_” as often as my illustrious countryman Daniel O’Connell has applied to his own Ireland his favourite quotation of

“Great, glorious, and free,
First flow’r of the ocean, first gem of the sea.”

I have repeated it, when telling a droll Irish story to the minister who had set his seal to Ireland’s ruin; in the Tuileries, when I stood face to face, “bandying compliments with majesty;” in the Quirinal, when in _tête-à-tête_ with a cardinal secretary, amid scenes that belonged to the middle ages; in the Palace Borghese with the family of Napoleon Bonaparte; on the Pontine Marshes, when receiving the confessions of a Carmelite monk, on his pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Peter; and in the vice-regal circles of Dublin Castle, when a liberal Lord Lieutenant shook my right hand, at the same moment that a grand master of an orange lodge shook my left!

I remember relating my _début_ at Lady C——k’s, and my scene with Mr. Kemble, to the late Marquess of A——, as something more true than possible. He told me that he had known him to do things more eccentric, when under the influence of that _one_ glass too much; and he quoted an anecdote which occurred at the ——. “Kemble was seated between the two Scotch Dukes of H——, and of A——; the conversation turned on genealogy, and the two peers grew warm upon the relative antiquity of their houses. Kemble, who had not drunk pending the argument, and who saw with despair the bottle in abeyance between their graces, after muttering his impatience for some time, broke out on a sudden with, ‘D—— both your bloods, send round the wine!’ Nobody,” added Lord A——, “appeals to Kemble sober against Kemble tipsy—he is such an excellent fellow, and such a perfect gentleman.”

Perhaps no actor of any age or country (Garrick excepted) lived upon such intimate and equal terms with the great, as Kemble. There was such a natural patent of gentility about him, that the highest nobility of the land gave way to it. He and Talma were the last of their class and caste. Not but that there are now as perfect gentlemen on the stage as ever: but the heroic age of the theatre is over. For me, as long as Potier and Perlet, and Liston, remain, _je ne demande pas mieux_. I would rather laugh with Falstaff, than shudder with Macbeth; and with respect to French tragedy and French declamation, I am just where I was, when I wrote “France.” Notwithstanding all the “_Lettres adressés à Mi Ladi Morgan_,” to prove that she is a blockhead and knows nothing of the matter, she at least knows what amuses and what bores her—and all she has done, is to say so.

To observe of any gentleman, now, that he drank, would be to utter a disgraceful reproach. Yet, up to the last quarter of the century, the male nobility and even royalty of Great Britain, gave themselves up to inebriety; so that to be “as drunk as a lord,” was, in reality, a patrician distinction. Charles the Second was frequently seen reeling to his home in Whitehall, through the streets of London, in the midst of his brawling riotous courtiers, with “the fiddles” in his van, to serenade the Duchess of Portsmouth, on his return from “poor Nelly’s” lodgings.

In more recent and refined times, modern Falstaffs, and Heirs Apparent, have had their “Boar’s Heads,” as favourite resorts, though not in Cheapside. Hereditary legislators and representatives of the people, have staggered home together in the neighbourhood of St. Stephen’s—and the representative of majesty itself, lying under his own dinner-table, has given rise to the Catholic witticism of a great law officer, who observed, that “the _Host_ wanted elevation.” Even in times still fresh in the memories of many, sobriety was deemed a suspicious virtue, as well as a vulgar one; and to be a seven-bottle-man, was to qualify for the highest society. But where, now, is the nobleman or gentleman, who would not shrink from such a reputation? School of the sticklers for the good old times, and for the wisdom of our ancestors—you, who place the excesses of intemperance among the social virtues—what say you to the sobriety of the present generation?

LORD ERSKINE.

Poor Lord Erskine! how the memory of the first odd and pleasant evening which introduced me to the distinction of his notice, refreshes all my after remembrance of his unchanging kindness, from the moment that we met in Lady C——k’s conservatory, until within a few weeks of his death. Among the brightest, and often falsest illusions of our youth, are the ideas we conceive of eminent persons, of whom we have long read and heard. I could write volumes on the impressions which I received in my early and obscure youth, of the eminent and the celebrated, whose names had danced before my eyes, or tingled in my ears, in books and news-papers, in rumours and reports; and of the disappointment which followed, when my own notoriety brought me within their sphere. The first time I read of Lord Erskine was in Miss Seward’s works. What a splendid picture of humanity, for one whose imagination, like the style of the fair author whose pages she gloated over, was all exaggeration and effervescence! Oh! how very much in love I then was with the _idea_ of Lord Erskine!

A little further on in life, I met with an old pamphlet, in the parlour window of a country house, and found it was the famous trial of Horne Tooke. The speech of Lord Erskine revived my early and warm impressions of that splendid person; and he of whom it had been said that “he had spoken on that momentous occasion like a man inspired, and at once redeemed the honour of his profession, and established the safety of his country,” was to me just that sort of person, whom to behold but for a moment, I would have made a pilgrimage barefooted from Tipperary (where I then was) to any given spot which he inhabited.

I met Lord Erskine, therefore, under these exaggerated notions of his genius and character; and was a little disappointed to find that he spoke like other persons—was a thin, middle-aged gentleman, and wore a brown wig. This was not exactly the impersonation of my _beau-idéal_! Genius was then with me a mode of being, splendid in its form as in its spirit. Already a little disabused, I yet could not reconcile myself to inspiration in a bob wig. Still it was a great epoch in my life, when I found myself seated by one of the gods of my idolatry—for I then had a great many; and worshipped a sort of polytheism of prepossession, which kept me in a constant alternation of hope and disappointment:—my gods being too frequently false gods, and my golden idols, images of clay. It was a still more flattering distinction, when his lordship called on me, the day after our introduction, at Lady C——’s.

From that time, till his death, we met frequently, and corresponded occasionally; just seeing enough of each other, to become intimate with nothing but our respective good qualities. He was always delightful, always amusing, frequently incoherent—and, I thought, sometimes affectedly wild, at least paradoxical. Of this, an instance occurs to me, connected with an important epoch, and with some amusing scenes, _que voilà_.

It was during that grand political æra—the very hegira of ratting—when the Prince of Wales, becoming regent, left it a moment in doubt whether the old ministry would join the whig sovereign, or the whig sovereign adopt the sentiments of the tory ministers. I was then enjoying my brilliant existence, at that Alhambra of fashion, and of ministerial politics, the P—— at St——re. The noble owner of that hospitable mansion was an aristocrat in feeling and a tory in principle. The blood of the Stuarts ran in his veins; the beauty of the Darnley and the hauteur of the Bothwell were the characteristics of his distinguished person. He was so organized to be the man he was, that no education nor example could have made him otherwise. Had he occupied the throne of his ancestors, he would have been the justest despot that ever reigned; for though he loved power much, he loved truth more;—and truth is—justice. Lord A—— was a frank, aboveboard, and uncompromising politician. His pride, with which he was reproached as a vice, was his virtue. It rendered him untractable to the meanness of manœuvre, intrigue, and corruption. His opinions were in such perfect coincidence with his interest, that his marquisate and blue ribbon were not the rewards of a purchased conformity, but testimonials of ministerial good will, for voluntary and independent services, conscientiously rendered; and much as he was said to have loved such distinctions, I am sure he would rather have resigned the title and the garter, than have changed sides, or given up any cause he deemed to be based in justice.

From Saturday till Monday, (the weekly interval of public business,) was always a carnival at the P——, when the upper and lower houses seemed to send their most distinguished members to recreate in its elegant _salons_. The first Saturday after the appointment of the Regent brought down a multitude of visitors, the _élite_ of the statesmen and stateswomen of both parties. Among these were Lord Erskine and the Duchess of G——. It was my good fortune to be seated on a sofa with Lord Erskine, when the duchess did us the honour to make a third in our conversation. “Oh, my lord,” she said, “you ha’ got the Wild Irish Girl all to yourself. Weel, she’s a clever creature, but I’ve a great fault to find with her. She has no more sentiment than a London Missy! The first time I met her was at the Irish chancellor’s. Jannie M—— and I had been living among the heaths and the roses of Glengarry, and had been gloating on her ‘Wild Irish Girl’ and ‘Novice;’ and when I arrived in Dublin I was longing to know her. Weel, Lord M—— made a dinner expressly. But, what was my disappointment when she said, ‘Oh! Lord M——, think how unlucky I am. The very day I left B—— C——, a whole jaunting car of officers were expected from Strabane.’ Eh! gude God, there was sentiment with a vengeance.”

This brought on the chapter of romance, national peculiarities, fetches, second-sights, &c. &c.; in the latter of which, both Lord E. and the duchess acknowledged their belief. I could not avoid expressing some surprise that such persons should give way to the influence of such irrational superstition. The duchess was displeased, and said, “I don’t like to see young ladies setting themselves above their superiors, and giving in to free thinking. I never knew any one cry down what is called superstition, but those who have no religion.”

It was in vain that “I rose to explain.” Prostration of intellect, and profound obedience in the young and inexperienced, were the order of the day; and her grace related a very curious and romantic tale of second-sight in her own family, which amused, if it did not convert me—while the affecting manner in which it was told, left no doubt as to the sincerity of the relator.

“I also,” said Lord Erskine, “believe in second-sight, because I have been its subject. When I was a very young man, I had been for some time absent from Scotland. On the morning of my arrival in Edinburgh, as I was descending the steps of a close, on coming out from a bookseller’s shop, I met our old family butler. He looked greatly changed, pale, wan, and shadowy, as a ghost. ‘Eh! old boy,’ I said, ‘what brings you here?’ He replied, ‘To meet your honour, and solicit your interference with my lord, to recover a sum, due to me, which the steward at our last settlement did not pay.’ Struck by his looks and manner, I bade him follow me to the bookseller’s, into whose shop I stepped back; but when I turned round to speak to him, he had vanished.

“I remembered that his wife carried on some little trade in the old town. I remembered even the house and the flat she occupied, which I had often visited in my boyhood. Having made it out, I found the old woman in widow’s mourning. Her husband had been dead for some months; and had told her on her death-bed, that my father’s steward had wronged him of some money, but that when Master Tom returned, he would see her righted. This I promised to do, and shortly after, fulfilled my promise. The impression was indelible; and I am extremely cautious how I deny the possibility of such ‘supernatural visitings’ as those which your grace has just instanced in your own family.”

Either Lord Erskine did, or did not, believe this strange story; if he did, what a strange aberration of intellect!—if he did not, what a stranger aberration from truth! My opinion is, that he _did_ believe it. I had not, however, then learned upon what trifling points human credulity turns, how little even our opinions are our own, and how far the strongest minds are inconsistent with themselves, and obstinately retain the dog’s-ears and folds of early impression.

Notwithstanding my heresy in the matter of second-sight, I continued to receive marks of friendship from Lord E.; and for years after my marriage, he sent me any thing he produced in a literary way. The following note, which was written a few months before his death, closed our correspondence; it was accompanied by his pamphlet on the Greeks. It is worth citing, as a testimony to prove that years do not make age, and that freshness of feeling, and youthful ardour in a great cause, may survive the corporeal decay, which time never spares, even to protracted sensibility:—

“DEAR LADY MORGAN,

“A long time ago, in one of your works (all of which I have
read with great satisfaction), I remember your having expressed
your approbation of my style of writing, and a wish that I
would lose no occasion of rendering it useful. I wish I could
agree with your ladyship in your kind and partial opinion; but
as there never was an occasion in which it can be more useful
to excite popular feeling than in the cause of the Greeks, I
send your ladyship a copy of the second edition [of my work],
published a few days ago.

“I have the honour to be,

“With regard and esteem,

“Your ladyship’s faithful humble servant,

“ERSKINE.”

“_No. 13, Arabella Row, Pimlico, London, October 11, 1822._”

“_Lady Morgan, Dublin._”

The pamphlet which accompanied this note, abundantly proved, that neither the talent nor the feelings of this singularly gifted writer had abandoned him; yet circumstances had occurred, and become notorious, which implied that age had, in some respects, made sad havoc with his powerful intellect. There is nothing more curious in the history of the human mind, than the manner in which it falls to ruin; and in which splendid and magnificent fragments can subsist, in all their pristine beauty, amidst the total decay of the rest of the intellectual fabric.

LORD CASTLEREAGH.

To go back once more to the P——. How often have I seen Whigs and Tories united round its splendid hearths in the great drawing-room, innocently playing their “small games,” after having played, through the preceding week, their great game, on the opposite sides of the two houses. How often have I seen the ministerial red box, (“big with the fate of Cato and of Rome,” bearing the busy tale of some of Napoleon’s unwelcome victories, or welcome defeats, or, haply stuffed with the materials of some green-bag disclosure,) scarcely deposited in the hands of its diplomatic owner, before it was suddenly jerked up into the air by the playful ingenuity of a romping peeress, and its mysterious contents scattered on the floor, while the laughing contriver of the overthrow exclaimed—“_Autant en emporte le vent!_” How often have I seen presidents of the council and lords comptrollers of royal households, taking lessons, there, in waltzing, at that time a novelty, fresh imported from D—— House: while “many a saint and many a hero,” who were then sinners and subalterns, trod upon those Persian carpets, which covered the paved cloisters and knee-worn cells of the ancient monks of St——e.

It was during the time passed in this delightful retreat (which was no retreat), that I had frequently _the pleasure_ of meeting Lord Castlereagh. I say the pleasure, for (I take him here in his social phases only) he was one of those cheerful, liveable, give-and-take persons, in private, who are so invaluable in villa-life, where pleasure and repose are the object and the end. His implacable placidity, his cloudless smile, his mildness of demeanour, his love of music, his untunable voice, and passion for singing all the songs of the Beggar’s Opera,[29] (in which I had always the honour of accompanying him, because nobody else would), his expertness at small plays, and the unalterable good humour with which he stood the brunt of the frequent practical jokes played off at his expense, rendered him most welcome in all the circles which he frequented, in the pauses of his arduous avocations.

I had then no acquaintance with European politics; but I was a furious little Irishwoman; and Lord Castlereagh used frequently to say, “no one cares for Ireland, but Miss O. and I.” I took this for sober earnest; and, in the pride of my ignorance and credulity, would repeat poor Louis the Sixteenth’s “_il n’y a que moi et Monsieur Turgot qui aime le peuple!_”

It is the recollection of that liberal and urbane spirit, which brought men of the most opposite opinions in public life, thus to mingle in the harmony of social confidence,—men who, in the high and courteous breeding of their elevated station, never suffered the acrimony of party to shed its venom on the graces of the private circle,—it is this recollection that has so often made me turn in disgust from the vulgar and brutal party feeling, which has prevailed among the ascendancy faction in Ireland, making political differences the ground for anti-social insolence, and carrying into the club and the drawing-room, the virulence and uncharitableness of public hostility.

Between social complaisance and political compliance there is no necessary connexion; and a stern adherence to principle is not incompatible with a good-humoured forbearance to opponents. Lord A——, as I have said, was a warm, and a sincere politician: and, much as he lived with both parties, he would have been the last to forgive or tolerate an act of baseness in his own. On the morning of the day which decided the turn of affairs, on the Prince’s assumption of the Regency, I remember his saying to me, “Lord Castlereagh dines with us to-day; if he goes with the tide, if he rats, it will be for the last time—there is an end of our friendship for ever.” Lord Castlereagh, however, did not rat, and we enjoyed his society at frequent intervals through the rest of the season, with that of his always joyous, pleasure-stirring Lady.

The last time I saw Lord Castlereagh was at Paris, in the year 1818, at the opening of the session by Louis the Eighteenth—a memorable epoch, and a most striking scene! I shall never forget the impression made on that occasion by the appearance of General La Fayette;—it was at the moment when the king, seated on his throne, (the princes of his family on either side, and his “_beloved peers_” and faithful commons around him,) received the oath of fidelity from all. Each individual, in his turn, on being called out by name, stretched forth his hand and pronounced “_Je jure_.” The emphasis, the petulance (so peculiar to French people in speaking), with which many eagerly and anxiously called out “_Je jure_,” who had made the same vow to every form of power which had successively followed, was finely contrasted by the calm, and dignified air, and slowly articulated enunciation of La Fayette,—who, of all that vast assemblage, was the one who had never uttered his “_Je jure_,” nor pledged himself to the power that was not based in the rights of the people.

The moment his name was announced, and he stood forth, the type of all that was purest and best in the greatest revolution that had ever shaken the empires of the earth, a simultaneous murmur burst forth from all parties—proceeding, indeed, from various emotions, but all indicative of the intense interest his striking and venerable appearance excited. As he stood face to face with the king, and, stretching forth his hand, pronounced his vow of fealty to the first constitutional monarch France had ever seen upon the throne, what a sweep of recollections passed over the minds of the spectators! It was at this moment, I perceived the fine head, and pale, impassable countenance of Lord Castlereagh, bearing forward from the diplomatic tribune, in deep observation of the scene. In the scale of humanity, never was there a more striking contrast, than was at this moment exhibited in the persons of the founders of the National Army of France, and the perpetrator of the Union in Ireland.

MEDDLERS.

L’Abbe Gagliani says “that mankind are born with a disposition to meddle with other people’s affairs; and that liberty consists in nothing else but the power of indulging the propensity.” As a sneer against popular governments, this may be an excellent joke, but it is directly the contrary of truth. The propensity to which men are really predisposed, is that of enjoying the fruits of other men’s industry, and of directing the actions of the public towards their own private advantage. The utility of liberty is, that it puts some restraint upon the indulgence of this inclination. The affairs of the nation are the affairs of every one of its members; and tyrants and oligarchs are the real interlopers in their _gestion_, whose interference is impossible, when the guarantees of liberty are perfect.

It is, however, quite true, that in free states the citizens are disposed to resent any abridgment of another’s rights, and to interfere in the concerns of the oppressed, so far as to procure him redress. But every one, thus employed, is really acting for himself, and with the perfect consciousness that he is fighting his own battle. Few of Wilkes’s cotemporaries either loved or respected him, personally; but when his rights were attacked by the government, he represented the people of England; and the people had the sense and the spirit to force the ministry to desist from their violence.

PHILOSOPHY OF GRAMMAR.

I asked the question, should I say “every body is gone out only _I_,” or, “only _me_?” and was answered “only I,” because “only _I_” means “I alone”—“remain,” being understood.

Had I used the conjunction “but” instead of “only,” the proper construction would have been the same, because “but” means “be out,” or, in more modern phrase, “I being out of the question.” The modern “but,” said my informant, represents two distinct words, both imperatives. When it stands for “be out,” it is the precise equivalent of “except,” derived from the Latin. Sometimes it is used for the imperative of an obsolete verb, signifying to add, which is now retained only in the infinitive—“to boot.” Let us look for an instance:—here is one in Sir Charles Grandison, which lies open before me. Harriet Byron writes, after some preliminary reflections—“But, why should I torment myself? what must be, will.” The interpretation of the passage is this;—to what I have already said, _boot_ (or, in modern English, _add_,) this second thought, that what must be, will; and, therefore, why should I torment myself? These two are the only real meanings of that Proteus-like conjunction; and one or other will explain all Johnson’s hundred instances, scarcely one of which he understood properly. Johnson’s industry was unwearied, but his research trifling. Authority, and not analysis, was its object. Authority belonged to his day, inquiry to ours: so adieu to learning—and hey! for knowledge:—_à bas les savans! et vive le savoir!_

Alas! it makes one’s head ache to look over this grammatical jargon—I wrote my first twenty volumes without much troubling my head on the subject. But now “the school-master is abroad,” that is, he is at home—with _me_—and my march of intellect goes on without ever budging from the fire-side. “_Mon voyage autour de ma cheminée_,” would not be the least intellectual book I ever wrote. And yet, my dear Mr. Colburn would not give me £20 for all the grammar that I may write for the rest of my life; though I rivalled in etymological philosophy “_The Diversions of Purley_.”

Before I drop grammar,—What a droll pun is that of the grammarian presenting his book to the Académie, after the Duke de —— had advanced his pretensions to be elected one of the _quarante_, on the score of his illustrious ancestors. “_Je suis ici pour mon grand-père_,” said the duke. “_Je suis ici pour ma GRAMMAIRE_,” said his ignoble philological competitor.

By the by, grammar is the last thing that should be placed in the hands of children, as containing the most abstract and metaphysical propositions, utterly beyond their powers of comprehension; putting them to unnecessary torture; giving them the habit of taking words for things, and exercising their memory at the expense of their judgment. But this is the original sin of education, in all its branches.

MY VISITING BOOK.

“Ce seroit une belle chose que je ne susse vivre qu’avec les
gens qui me sont agréables.”

MAD. DE SÉVIGNÉ.

To-day I looked over my visiting book, to clear out for the new year, and to eliminate some of the false and the foolish, who creep into every circle, however exclusive or small: for every body, from a duchess to a dairy-maid, may be exclusive in her own way. Not that I meant to carry my proscription to any great extent; for if I were to admit only the honest and the clever, I might as well shut up shop altogether. There are, however, degrees in all things; and there are some, so falsely false, and so foolishly dull, that principle and patience alike revolt, and so, out they go. But what is to be done with whole incursions from remote provinces,—large families from Bally, courts and castles, when one has a small house?—as, for example, Mrs. Botherum of Castle Botherum, Miss Botherum, Miss Anna Maria Botherum, Miss Jemima Matilda Botherum, Miss Honoria, and Miss Frances Botherum! Col. Botherum (of the yeomanry), Mr. Walter York Botherum, Mr. Ernest Augustus, and the Rev. Mortimer Botherum! Shem, Ham, and Japhet, “a terrible sight;”—and all this, when one has only a reception room, of which the divine Pasta said, the last time she did me the honour to sing in it, “_On pourra aussi bien chanter dans un fiacre_,” and a boudoir which might be placed on the show-table of a moderately sized London drawing-room: and this, too, with a passion for light as great as the Duchess de C——,[30] and with lamps that would light up Erebus, and shew the slightest blot in the escutcheon of the toilette, where every body comes labelled for something.

No, this is beyond the acmé of human friendship! “_Ainsi cuit, on aurait mangé son père_,” says La Reynière of his favourite dish; and there are ridicules in dress, manner, and bearing, which might excuse one’s _cutting_, if not “_eating_” one’s mother. The want of birth, rank, or fortune, are such mere, such inevitable accidents, such universal liabilities, that nothing above the lowest order of intellect, or the most degrading toadyism to the great of all sorts, could stoop to exclude from their society those who, with the exception of such accidental distinctions, possessed every other. But dress and address are within the attainment of every body; and the man who visits you in the morning in a milk-white waistcoat,[31] or the woman, who, in the evening, when she is announced, stops to make a curtesy at the door of your drawing-room, must be wholly beyond the pale of social redemption.

Such anomalies are always indicative of _mauvais ton_; and _mauvais ton_ is the want of good sense or good company. If, however, the white waistcoat is held out as a flag of singularity by a marked man, why then it becomes a _grade_ in itself, like Jerningham’s blue stockings, which founded a sect in literature. But since curtesies went out with hoops and all other grotesque things, the woman who curtesies is lost. She is inaccessible to all improvements, and will bring up her children to hate Catholic emancipation, gas, steam, and M’Adamised roads; her sons will stick fast by 1688, and her daughters will propagate the family curtesy to endless generations.

In this respect, we residents are better off than the country ladies who come to their own mansions in the squares, and the “rows,” and the “places,” for the season, and who have the whole country rising _en masse_ to follow, and fill their drawing-rooms, just as they occupy the castle in the country, on the strength of electioneering interests or county politics and jobs. This reconciles one amazingly to the fee-simple proprietorship of a few flower pots in the balcony—the only _terre_ I could ever call my own.

What, however, particularly amused me to-day, was, not my “mere Irish,” nor my “English of the Pale” visitors; but that, in looking over my list, for the few last years, I found an absolute congress from all parts of the known world; and that representatives of the four quarters of the earth had passed through my little _taudis_ in Kildare-street. There was Major St. J—— B——, from Madras; Mr. B——, from Boston; Captain I——, from Calcutta; Col. T——, from Canada; Sir C. G——n, from the icebergs of Greenland, and Col. D——y, from the Kiosks of Ispahan; with many more droppers-in from the Ganges, and morning callers from the Ohio. There were, too, the _Neri_ and _Bianchi_, from Florence; Imperialists and Nationalists from Lombardy, and Guelphs, Ghibelines, and carbonari, with romanticists and classicists, from all parts of Italy.

How prettily these historico-poetical names write down among the O’s and the Macs of my “native troops!” the Strozzi, and Frangipani, and Pucci, and Piasasco, and Ugoni and Pozzo, and Cimetelli, and Castiglione, and Pepe—all connected with struggles for liberty, and with illustrations in letters, both in modern and ancient times. Then comes my quota from Spain, canonicos of cathedrals in Madrid, members of the Cortes, deputies to the Pope, and ex-ministers of the constitutional régime; then follow the charming French _voltigeurs_,—_voltigeurs_ of nature and the good new times, with their revolutionary names and imperial titles, my Dukes of D——a and M——llo, and the clever Du V——r and P——y, and Tha——rs; and my German professors, “truants from Gottingen,” who come to geologize, and to see Ireland and Dr. Macartney,[32] and talk of Werner, and Kant, and Goëthe——.