Originally published in Fraser's Magazine (James Fraser) vol.2 #11 (Dec 1830).
"Ay—father! I have had those earthly visions
And noble aspirations in my youth,
To make my own the mind of other men,
The enlightener of nations; and to rise
I knew not whither—it might be to fall.
* * * * *
But this is past,
My thoughts mistook themselves.
Abbot. And wherefore so?
Manfred. I could not tame my nature down; for he
Must serve, who fain would sway—and soothe and sue,
—And watch all time—and pry into all place—
And be a living lie—who would become
A mighty thing amongst the mean, and such
The mass are. * * * *
Byron's Manfred.
INTRODUCTORY NOTICES.
At the commencement of last spring, I returned to my native home in a remote Irish county, after an absence of several years; it was my first long absence; and certainly never did I experience purer happiness than at the moment I again found myself under the paternal roof, surrounded by my family, and looking forth upon the scene of all my early recollections.
The entire week, too, that followed, was delightful; I was an object of admiration to many—of solicitude to all. My elder relatives were satisfied, that time and travel had wrought a wondrous improvement in me;—my little brothers and sisters regarded me as a perfect hero.
The second week was little inferior to its predecessor. I had much to tell, and every body seemed proud to listen; I had much to hear, and every body was anxious to relate.
The third week tripped along very lightly. I ascertained how many of my friends were dead—how many married—how many single. I sighed forth a brief valedictory eulogium upon the first—condoled with the second—congratulated the third. I sought after the fair faces which—
"Had made
The star-light of my boyhood;"—
complimented those who had bound themselves in matrimonial ties, with having done well—those who remained yet free, with having done better. I flirted equally with both.
The fourth week passed most merrily. I rode abroad to return visits and partake of hospitalities; and my spirit rejoiced in the wild scenes amidst which it had been reared; I gazed exultingly upon our vast lakes—our mighty rivers—our stupendous mountains—our glorious ocean; and I revelled in the breeze that swept them with the abandonment of one who, in distance, in sickness, and in sorrow, had always anticipated health, strength, and rapture from its embrace.
The fifth week was not like the preceding, replete with pleasure; I had told all the stories touching my adventures in foreign parts, which either cared to tell or would have haply been intelligible to my auditory. I had heard every thing that was worth hearing. 1 began to sigh for some accustomed pleasures which were not within my reach. There was no Italian opera—no soirée musicale, at which the idolized of Europe charmed the breathless salon—no conversazioné in which distinguished men and lovely women took a part.
I found leisure to discover specks in many things, which before appeared all brilliancy. The women were not the fascinating creatures in whose society the later years of my life had glided so deliciously away. They had not the beauty and confiding gentleness of the English girl—the grace and talent of the Française—the thoughtful tenderness of the Italian—nor the peerless form and inexhaustible versatility of enchantment which so pre-eminently mark the Spaniard. Then they were never bien mises, and never, oh! never, bien chaussées.—These were the ladies. As for the female peasantry, they were coarse and cold, and spoke no intelligible language; so that ordinary gallantry was reduced to mere hic et hæc work.
I began to find I could not take my pleasure at home as I would "in mine own inn." I was compelled to enjoy my meerschaum in the open air—sub Jove frigido—nor could the beauty of its sculptured bole, whereon Leda was caressing the too happy swan—nor the splendour of its tasselled cherry-stick and amber mouthpiece, secure it an undisputed place even in my own bed-chamber.
I began to perceive that my attributed perfection suffered by continued and minute inspection. Thus my knowledge of languages was rendered somewhat apocryphal by my not being able to sustain a conversation, either in French or Italian, with Miss O'Driscoll, who had lately arrived from "a finishing school," in Dublin; and my taste in music was deemed questionable from my not having been sufficiently enraptured with her performance of the Battle of Prague, or her execution of Di tanti Palpiti;—my fame for vivacity and agreeability was much impaired by my declining to dance jigs, even after supper!—my talent was something doubted in consequence of one of my aunts having lost three sixpences at whist, I being her partner;—my courtesy and good breeding fell in the general esteem, because I gave "the glorious memory"' one evening at my father's table, in the presence of a liberal Protestant; although afterwards, upon learning my transgression, I offered him satisfaction in any degree he might fancy, from pistols to field-pieces;—my religious fervour was rated rather low, from my refusing to go to church to hear one of two sermons which had already vexed my ears a hundred times, the reverend preacher having been, for the last twenty years, unable to trust his eyes or memory with a new discourse;—my orthodoxy was rendered suspicious, by my putting down a notorious blockhead who had turned popular preacher, and who forced an argument on me with the pious view of proving I was "little better than one of the ungodly;"—my good temper was positively put amongst the things gone by, in consequence of my having given my little brother a kick in the after-part, for breaking, unceremoniously, upon my privacy;—and, finally, my moral character and the reputation of a waiting-woman, were placed in jeopardy by the little urchins wandering from the record in his complaint against my cruelty.
The sixth week was once more delightful. I went abroad in search of pleasure as I was wont to do in my warm youth, and sought out some old companions to whom I knew home was once irksome, and might be so at present.
There were ten of us schoolmates and fellow collegians, who, during our vacations, used to meet of nights at an humble house of entertainment, rejoicing in the title of the sack of water and civil usage. There did we steal many and many a joyous hour from the vigilance of parents and guardians, eating oysters or lobsters, as it might happen; drinking potheen punch, and playing spoil-five, brag, blind-hooky, or some other game of cards, in which Hoyle and Horus were equally unrespected.
I proposed that we should renew these noctes cœnæque deûm with the accustomed secrecy, and in the old quiet way. A muster-roll was called; but, alas! all did not answer to their names. Two were no more; each had died gallantly after his own fashion. One was shot at the head of his company in the "attack upon a Burmese stockade—the other broke his neck in the attempt to save a fox at the close of a noble run, by riding from a ploughed field at a five-foot wall. Another was worse than dead; he had been struck evangelical; and in his rage for preaching and proselytising had rendered himself the pest and firebrand of the entire county. Another (one of the best fellows by the bye that ever breathed,) had been seized with the opposite mania; he had become an agitator, knight-liberator, and so forth, and swaggered about the country in a green uniform, and made speeches to breechless bogtrotters, in a language which they could not understand. There was yet another absent in body, but not, we flattered ourselves, in spirit; he was an M.P., and a barrister high in practice at the English bar; the honoured and esteemed of Brougham, and the hated and feared of Scarlett. Five still remained; of these, three were married; all had entered upon the business of life, and all seemed to have sufficiently well selected their pursuits, with the exception of Walter Blaney, a surpassing singer of Bacchanalian lyrics—a fellow of infinite jest—the very prince of boon-companions—but one who never willingly read a hundred pages of any volume; not, however, that he was by any means an habitual idler, for I remember he once took his watch to pieces, threw the component parts into confusion—and finally reunited them himself after six months time, during which he laboured at the rate of six hours a day. He was now a lawyer. With the freedom of an old friend, I questioned him touching the reasons that swayed with him in his choice of a profession; they were unimpeachable. His family was engaged in a Chancery-suit, which had already lasted ten years, and was likely to last ten more; during the which period, and in the which cause he was sure to hold a brief, and thereby put some fifty pounds a year into his pocket, which would otherwise find its way elsewhere.
Well, we met; and the night was one of those rare passages of human life wherein there was a perfect freedom from care. All the kindlier feelings of our nature were conjured up; all the sweets of the past and present fantastically blended to minister to our delight. We rejoiced that our infant friendship was untired and unchanged by time, while we reverted with the utmost gaiety of heart to the adventures of our youth. We told of boxing matches and barrings-out at school, and of revelries, loves, and battles at the University. We resuscitated old jokes; saying how we one night blew up the venerable pump in Botany Bay,[1] thereby making old Trinity rock again—how, on another occasion, we removed all the lamps within the walls from their high places, and cast them into "that bourne from which no traveller returns"—how, when one of us was made a moderator, he, instead of extracting money from the pockets of silly freshmen, as was usual, fined his half dozen of the fellows themselves for various infractions of the statutes; as, for instance, Doctor Jacky Barrett, V.P., for converting his stall in the chapel into a dormitory; Thomas Phipps, LL.D., for wearing boots; J. Singer, D.D., for keeping a horse; Coddie Wall, D.D., for keeping singing-birds; James Kennedy, F.T.C.D., the misrepresenter of Homer, for strutting unacademically through the courts;[2] and finally, the Dean himself, for not seeing that the skips spoke Latin.—Then, apropos to deans, we remembered how Wat accounted for the miracle of his not being called out for any fine at corrections the first Friday his tutor, Tom Gamon, held the office of Dean, by observing, "Nune meus regnat Apollo;" and how, when the aforesaid Tom was at feud with the theatrical observer boys, and Jerry the badgeman yet held horses at the college-gate, the brats used to announce a popular entertainment, under the title of "Tom the Dean, and Jerry the Badgeman;" and how, when the aforesaid James Kennedy succeeded to Tom's office, he passed an edict, excluding oysters and all other shell-fish whatsoever from the University, "as tending to encourage the Aphrodisiac propensities of the students," together with a thousand other things of the like nature.
But all pleasures must have an end as a beginning, so at length we parted—not, however, without first agreeing on an early meeting.
We did meet again, and of course with high-wrought expectations of enjoyment; they were disappointed; there was now a trail of earthliness on our hilarity; we had soon exhausted our reminiscences, and thenceforth every man began to speak upon topics personally interesting to himself, and little short of tiresome to the company. The different scenes and societies in which we had moved, and the different objects and pursuits we had in those years past learned to cherish, had left us no sympathy upon abstract matters; there was no neutral ground on which our spirits could disport; we consequently laboured to be merry, and being only clamorous, got prematurely drunk, and separated without speaking of another party. No one ventured to breathe, though probably all had felt that albeit our affection might be undiminished, we could only meet in happy revelry after the expiration of another lustrum.
The seventh week came, and found me a perplexed and melancholy man; spite of myself I was getting involved in family disputes and county politics, and I was desperately ennuyé, deeply disgusted with the pettiness of all the circumstances by which I was surrounded. Thus it came to pass, my days dragged on in alternations of fretfulness and mental torpor. Had I existed through another week after the same fashion, misanthropy or hypochondriasis was inevitable! But fortunately the arrival of the judges of assize on the Saturday threw the whole county into commotion, and assembled all its gentry within the narrow precincts of the capital. I hate crowds; "for (as Lord Bacon so beautifully expresses it,) a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal where there is no love;" but now the excitement was above price. I accordingly found myself seated at the hospitable board of Fendermere Park, with some twenty other gentlemen, and the two ladies of the house, on the first day of the assizes, listening to the topics usually discussed at such re-unions—the promise of the crops—the price of pigs—the state of the country—the weight of the calendar, and the politics of the contracts for high roads and bridges.
All present were known to me but one, and him I had never seen before; my attention was strangely attracted towards him; so it would have been let me have met him where I might; but here it was especially, from his being thrown forth into such strong relief by the group around.
There was an aristocratic simplicity in every thing about him, which could not fail of notice. He was dressed in a black coat, black neckerchief, white waistcoat, and white trowsers, that all sat upon him in their perfect plainness, so as to display his form to the best advantage, and announce to the experienced eye the man of highest fashion.
He was in the prime of life; the bloom of youth, it is true, had passed away; his cheek was colourless, save from the scorching of a more potent sun than shines within these latitudes; but time had impressed no wrinkle on his brow, and he might accordingly have been named of any age from twenty-five to thirty-five. His head was nobly set upon his shoulders—his forehead fair—oh, delicately fair, and exquisitely moulded, terminating in eye-brows dark, full, smooth, and far asunder, from between the which there extended a nose perfectly Phidian. In youth his face must have been femininely beautiful; the features were so perfect in themselves, so harmoniously drawn in concert; but now thought, and care, and passion, had wrought on their expression—making it statue-like, cold, very cold, not from the absence of feeling, but from pride. Still, however, it was one of those faces which artists love to paint, and ladies love to look upon; for, cast after the finest Attic model, it taxed not the flattery of the pencil, and haughty and something stern withal, it could only inspire woman with that passion tinged with awe, which is the purest, the faithfullest, and the fondest of which her nature is capable. I could scarcely turn my eyes away from him. I felt that, notwithstanding his grace and beauty, there was a degree of repulsiveness in his look and bearing, which could not but be galling to the million. There was that complete ease and self-possession in every thing he said and did, which the vulgar and ignorant imagine can arise only from the consciousness of superiority, mental and conventional. And then I fancied, and could not shake myself free of the fancy, though I was vexed at entertaining it, that there was something of the gladiator in his eye, showing as if he had championed human fears, and harboured few human sympathies. And lastly, there was an air of separateness about him, proclaiming to those around, that though with them, he was not of them.
I asked my neighbour, Walter Blaney, who he was. "What! that Don of a fellow up there?" said Wat; "Oh! that is Sir Reginald St. Senane."
"What sort of fellow is he?"' continued I.
"Oh! a devilish good fellow in his way, but not exactly that sort of fellow I'd borrow money to drink with," was the characteristic reply. "He is a worthy of seven or eight thousand a year; that gives half-a-dozen grand entertainments in the course of it, but except on these occasions, nobody ever sees the bead of his noggin."
"No; but seriously?"
"Oh then, seriously, he is a scholar and a gentleman, and the only honest papist I ever knew."
"Is he a papist?"
"He says he is, but nobody believes him; for he eats meat on a Friday—eschews the mass-house—and abominates the cat—ass—and all belonging to it."
"Gad! I must get introduced to him."
"Do. By Jove! you'll agree very well; for he is a parlez-vous like yourself, and was twice as long away from home."
"Indeed!—Why the deuce, then, does he live here?"
"Partly to fulfil his duties as a landlord,—though, by the bye, he does not take much pride out of his tenantry now, for they all voted against him at the last election,—and partly, it is thought, because he cannot help it."
"How is that?"
"Oh, it is said to be one of the conditions on which his uncle, old Dick Senane, left him the estate; but he makes an escapade every now and then in his yacht to France or Italy. Do you remember the uncle?"
"Indeed I do," said I; "and a queer fellow he was."
"Why, then, I can tell you. That chap there—calm, and grave, and stoical as he looks—has done queerer things than ever the uncle did."
"But not in the same way surely?"
"Oh, no; quite the contrary.—Dick's was a waywardness of the head—his nephew's of the heart."
Here somebody broke in upon our conversation, and there was an end of it. Sir Reginald left the table early. I remained for half an hour longer, in compliance with Wat's earnest entreaty to discuss the other bottle; and doubtless the Bourdeaux was superexcellent.
On entering the drawing-room, I found it crowded with ladies en grande tenue, and all the youth, comme il faut, of the neighbouring town. Sir Reginald was seated near my little friend, Geraldine Fitzgerald, talking in a low but very animated tone; while she seemed to be listening with her whole soul. Oh! it was quite evident her heart was gone; for, as he spoke, she did not dare to raise her eyes to him, but there was a nervous motion of the half-closed eyelids, which shewed they were suffused with a pleasure so great that it was almost pain. I rather thought, too, that he wore the aspect of a lover, and I was at first surprised; for Geraldine was only a pretty, gentle, delicate girl, possessing few of those qualities which excite enthusiastic admiration; but I soon recollected, that, in middle age, the heart has generally ceased to be ambitious, and looks only for affection and repose. We then, according to our great philosopher, seek a companion in a wife, and certainly it is a season at which most men need one; for time or change, or distance or death, have in great part severed our youthful ties, and afflicted us with a sense of loneliness—and pleasure, wooed and won in every form, has cloyed us with possession, and, fading into something new, has become, if not wisdom, at least a creation equally cold and real. The mind, therefore, can no more be duped into adoration of its own phantasma. The salt blood, maddening through our veins, no longer falsifies our vision like the faery ointment, making us see every beauty of our own imagination in a faulty, or frail, or worthless, or false piece of humanity!—for such, alas! are almost always our first loves, if they have not been known from childhood!—and now we dream not of rapture or perfection, but long only for freedom from pain, and the absence of that which is positively bad.
The company was separated into knots, as is usual before the dance, and I fluttered along the various parterres of beauty, like the busy bee of story-book celebrity, to gather something useful from each fair flower. In more homely language, I made inquiries of the ladies about the object of my curiosity; and, with them, I found Sir Reginald was universally a favourite. All concurred in praising his genius, manners, and appearance, and in lamenting the melancholy which oppressed him, and which—or I was much mistaken—each fair dame or damsel would have been delighted to assuage. Now this struck me for a moment as being very strange; but I afterwards found, that all I have marked as, for the most part, repulsive about him in the eye of man, was subdued into a kind of proud humility in his intercourse with women. And then he possessed name and fame, and that romantic bravery which ladies love so well, especially when, as by him, it had been frequently displayed on their account—to win, to justify, or to secure their favours; and he had eloquence and enthusiasm; and, above all, the real art of raising for the moment the mind and feelings of her with whom he conversed to a level with his own, and so creating a passion for himself, in gratitude, as it were, for developing powers in his companions of which they were before unconscious, and thus awakening in them a new and increased admiration of themselves.
After this fashion I came to learn some few particulars of his story. They were such as exceedingly to encrease the interest that, from the first, he excited in my mind. He had, it appeared, left home in his youth, (I was then at school in England,) and he had left it in consequence of some unfortunate circumstances which will be found detailed hereafter by a worthier hand. He remained ten years abroad, which, to my fair informants, was nearly a blank. There were some vague allusions to loves and misfortunes, and bloodshed, and so forth; but there was scarcely even a scene assigned to them. The fact was, they knew he had visited many countries, and resided for long in Spain; but how, or in what pursuits he had spent his time, none knew; and being one of the least communicative persons breathing, all had long since ceased to hope for any explanation from himself. This was the more provoking to the many, because it was a matter of wonderment how he had been enabled to support existence during the greater portion of his absence; for he had followed no profession, and while he was yet away, his father died, leaving an accumulated amount of debt nearly equal in value to the family estate. True it was not incumbent on Sir Reginald to pay these debts, but having loved his father very dearly, he would suffer no reproach to rest upon his memory; and accordingly had the property at once put up for sale. The purchaser, strange to say, was his own uncle—his father's elder brother, who had been absent for thirty years, and reported dead. Now this pricked my curiosity in the most lively manner; for, in my boyhood, I knew the old gentleman well, and he was then considered the greatest oddity in a place very fertile in such commodities. From the sorry plight in which he had left the country, he had dropped the honorary prefix to his name, and from pique to his family he would never resume it. So that to the last he insisted on being called Mr. Senane; in which, when present, he was always indulged; but in his absence, he was far more frequently alluded to under the soubriquet of Trincomalee—conferred in consideration of some long stories he loved to tell, and which referred to this Indian city for their localities.
His outer man was not less singular, than I have hinted, was the constitution of his mind. He was little more than five feet high, with a huge head and an immense trunk, supported by limbs utterly shapeless, one might almost say fleshless, for they decidedly exhibited little more bulk than the extremities of a skeleton. The face was precisely of that order, which the popular superstition attributes to elves or fairies—flat and bony, with all the features latitudinally exaggerated into ugliness—great round eyes, protruding from their sockets—vast mouth, and terribly distended nostrils. How the descendant of a family, remarkable for beauty, came to wear such features, it is difficult to conceive, unless some elfish gallant had become enamoured of his mother. But so it was not; for an old beggarman who could lay claim to precisely the same form and physiognomy, used to perambulate the streets of the county town, stimulating the charity of the inhabitants in summer, by the ejaculation—"God Almighty, put it into some Christian's heart to give me a bit to aate or a hapenny to buy it, I pray the Lord God!"—and in winter, with—"God Almighty, put it into some Christian's heart to give me a hapenny to buy a dhudeen of a pipe; for, God knows, I'm could." And he was the innocent cause of poor Dick Senane's deformity. Lady St. Senane, or, to give her her local title, the Madam, was one day seated in her carriage at the door of a haberdasher's shop in the town, viewing some merchandize, when the frightful form of Shaneen Dhu obtruded itself through the open door of the carriage, and begged for charity in his usual broken and terribly discordant accents. The lady shrieked, and clasped her hands over her eyes, to shut out the horrible vision—but without avail. She was at the time far gone in pregnancy, and terror brought on premature labour, which was difficult to the utmost peril of her life. She, however, survived it; and in the first moment of returning sensation, demanded to see her child. Fear that any opposition might occasion a fatal excitement, induced the attendants reluctantly to comply with her commands. She fainted the instant she recognised the features, and fit followed fit, with a violence and rapidity of succession, which seemed to forbid all hope of her recovery. Youth, and a good constitution, notwithstanding prevailed; but she was unable to leave her bed for months; and though she lingered on many years after, in variable health, and bore another son, she never recovered the shock of that illness, nor could she ever endure to look upon that child. He, poor urchin, was first sent to nurse in the mountain, and then transferred to a boarding school in the town, where he was so utterly neglected of his family, that the mistress was even suffered to rear him in her own religious persuasion; and thus it happened, that while his brothers professed the ancient faith, for which his ancestors had fought and bled in the Holy Land, he was taught to believe that popery and idolatry were correlative terms, and, consequently, that there was no salvation for the papist.
At length his mother died, and he was brought home at the commencement of the following vacation. Here, as he was one day playing with his brothers in the stable-yard, an accident occurred, which for ever alienated the little regard that might have been entertained for him by his family. The boys were armed with bows and arrows, and engaged in shooting at a mark affixed to the pump.
Reginald, the eldest, (there were three in all,) upon some occasion ran up to arrange the mark, and while his hand was yet on it, Richard let fly his arrow, whether maliciously or not, heaven only knows!
The arrow lodged in his brother's hand, and made a small puncture in the fleshy part near the thumb. The boys concealed the accident; firstly, because the wound did not appear to them of any consequence, there having scarcely been a drop of blood; and, secondly, because they knew poor Richard had little mercy to expect, if it was discovered by his father.
It was, however, fatal; the hand swelled—festered—mortified; and before the end of the fourth day, the eldest and favourite child of the family was no more.
Richard was forthwith sent away from Inchicronan House, without a word of reproach; but it was not intended that he ever should return. He was boarded at a grammar-school in Cork, where he passed several wretched years, for his misfortune was perpetually kept before him by the malice or dislike of his companions. "Ha! fairy-face that killed his brother," rung in his ears on the occasion of every trifling contradiction, or school-boy squabble. So that when he reached his eighteenth year, he resolved to leave his country and seek tranquillity in some distant realm where his name and his misfortunes were alike unknown.
There was only one being in the world who loved him, and that was the old schoolmistress by whom he had been reared. She alone therefore was made acquainted with his intention, and she it was that supplied him with the means of putting it in execution.
Through the interest of a relative of hers, who had amassed a fortune in the India company's service, and was then settled in London, he succeeded in getting out to India, where it was supposed he died, having caught the marsh-fever shortly after landing.
On the contrary, he lived and prospered; and had returned to England with immense wealth, and been already in London for some time, when the family estate was advertised for sale. He at once concluded the purchase with the agent at Lincoln's Inn, but would neither see nor hold any communication whatsoever with his nephew. "He would never," he said, "have disturbed the young man in his possession of the property, had he thought proper to retain it, though of right all belonged to him; and even now, he felt happy in paying the full value for it; but he never could be brought to forget the treatment he had experienced at the hands of his family."
Soon after he returned home, and was welcomed as the rich are always welcomed. But he at first declined all the proffered hospitalities. Afterwards, however, he relaxed something in this respect—made morning visits and went to evening parties, but would accept no dinner invitation, lest he might be expected to make a return.
Neither would he live in the family mansion, considering that that would be attended with too much expense, and declaring it was too large and solitary for a single man. No; he took a small house in the county-town, and announced his intention of selecting a wife from the fair virginities of the place, and leading her in triumph to Inchicronan.
Many an unfortunate girl was in consequence compelled to look pleased with Dick's grotesque and antiquated attentions; but all in vain, for he was as fickle, though not so licentious, as a Don Giovanni, and years rolled on, still finding him a bachelor.
Meantime his occupations and amusements proceeded in one unvarying round. He kept a noble stud, (though he seldom crossed a horse, and was invariably maltreated by the animal in some way or other when he did,) and he used to sit in an attic window, where he had fixed his study, and watch the horses as they were led out to exercise by his grooms.
Again, he had a large collection of coats of all dates and shades of colour, (though he never exhibited any thing but a pepper-and-salt coloured single-breasted jacket on his proper person,) and these he used to take especial pleasure in examining, and folding, and turning over in divers ways.
Then he used to dabble in chemistry, or as the superstitious and uncharitable declared, in alchemy, spending whole days amidst furnaces, retorts, and blow-pipes.
And then he used to lounge about the streets and into the news-room, and join some of the various groups of idlers—briefless barristers—patientless physicians—unfrocked parsons—half-pay officers—et hoc genus omne—in which, from the cheapness of provisions, the town abounds; and while they were secretly laughing at his every look and gesture, indulge them with thread-bare jokes and thousand times told stories of Trincomalee.
Now in these companies he never failed to hint obscurely at his admiration of the reigning belle of the county, whoever she might be, and, at his own determination to alter his condition, whereof, though, I believe, he never had any serious intention; for it was observed, that whenever parental authority had nearly forced any of his flirtations to a consummation, he invariably shyed off, and, in the language of the prize-ring, never could be brought to the scratch again.
Now this frequently observed, gave rise to an ill-natured opinion which prevailed pretty widely—and to the
effect that Dick misdoubted his capability of administering what the apostle Paul denominates "the due benevolence." It might have been so; but candour would acknowledge, that throwing such a deficiency aside, there were other reasons sufficiently cogent to prevent his marrying; while it must be at the same time confessed, that the belief gained some colour from the delight wherewith he was wont to dilate upon "love platonic," and upon the bright, immaculate, unmixed, disinterested, and pure affection of the young lady who eloped from Limerick with Tanducci, a person of great celebrity in his day.
Once, however, in spite of doubts and difficulties, Dick was all but captured; this made a most important era in his existence.
He had proceeded so happily with a young lady of a neighbouring village, that he was in the habit of lending his horses to her brother—(a common ruse of his by the bye)--had dined several times at her father's table, and, in fine, agreed to sleep at his house one rainy night.
"But morn, and with it cool reflection, came."
He arose very little after the "divine dawn," and, utterly terrified at his own success, he abstracted his horse from the stable, saddled him himself, and rode away like the false knight in the ballad. Nor did he stop in the town; no, by George, as he would say himself, he never pulled bridle till he found himself within the demesne walls of Inchicronan. There he remained lost to the world for upwards of a month; and there he fixed his staff during the remainder of his mortal pilgrimage.
Abating some customary enjoyments, his days glided away much as usual. His stud, his wardrobe, and his laboratory were kept up on the same grand scale as before, and he had now, in addition to his other occupations, taken upon himself the management of his demesne, which was the most beautiful and extensive in the county. The character of his administration, however, was rather singular; he would neither suffer any one of the beasts, nor any portion of the produce of the land to be sold. He kept horses in paddocks till they died of old age, having been for years unconscious of any riders, except the whiteboys, who were occasionally obliging enough to exercise them in their midnight forays; and he had bullocks in stalls, and sheep in turnip-fields, till they severally died of fat; and he had pigs in marshes till they ran mad with repletion.
And then his corn was kept in barns, and his potatos in beds till the vital principle once more waxed strong within them, and they grew again: and, to complete the catalogue, he had his hay arranged in venerable reeks, that towered in dusky grandeur for many a year, and, at length, like the Israelitish prophet, disappeared from earth in a blaze of fire. The same abhorrence too, of all change of condition had, in like manner, extended itself to his proper person; he never undertook another matrimonial adventure. Accordingly, when he ascertained that he was in all probability booked for an early journey to the shades, and that there was no longer any chance of a child's springing from his loins, he bethought him of his nephew, and, after much negociation, succeeded in inducing him to return, which he did a few days before the uncle's death.
A private conference of very long duration took place between them, and the whole property was bequeathed to the nephew, upon certain conditions, which never clearly transpired; and which each narrator fashioned after a manner of his own.
And now great joy prevailed the whole county at the accession of Sir Reginald to the neglected title and estates of his ancestors. For a time his popularity was excessive, but before the end of the first year the tide of opinion which set so strongly in his favour, ebbed as rapidly, and left him in well-nigh the same loneliness of heart in which he had returned.
This can be easily understood; he was feared and disliked by the zealots of all parties in politics and religion, and strongly loved of none. From a desire to preserve the peace amongst his tenantry, he was forced into hostilities with the two classes, who, from the most sordid motives, contrive to keep Ireland in a perpetual ferment. I mean the catholic agitators and the evangelical missionaries, than whom greater curses were never yet inflicted on an unfortunate country.
To this description there are of course exceptions in the persons of some who do mischief under the conscientious excitement of an ill-directed patriotism, or a misguided zeal; but in both parties such men exist in very small number.
Sir Reginald, I said, was opposed to both; he did his duty as a magistrate with stern determination, and with a sovereign contempt for that spurious popularity which of late years is courted by too many timorous or unreflecting gentlemen. In proof of this, it will be only necessary to cite two instances. He had one of his own servants transported for joining in some outrage on the property of an Orangeman, and he actually caused a methodist preacher, who created a disturbance in the village of Inchicronan, to be put in the stocks, where he remained for several hours singing "O, be joyful," and divers other psalms, to the infinite merriment of the people.
This act earned him amongst "the elect," the reputation of a cruel persecutor and blood-thirsty tyrant; but he cared little, for he held the whole tribe in utter contempt and aversion; not from bigotry, for he was indifferent to religious forms, but because he considered that they, without addressing one noble or generous incentive to the human heart, sought to scatter a cold superstition and a restless and unsocial hypocrisy throughout the land.
He consequently mixed little in the society which his county afforded but led at once a splendid and solitary life. His establishment at Inchicrongn House was kept up on a scale of positive magnificence; his cook was a first-rate artiste; his table glowed with every luxury; his cellars contained the choicest wines; his dogs and horses were of the best and most beautiful breeds; his library would have done honour to a crowned head; but, according to the parable of Pythagoras, he was preying upon his own heart. His hours were for the most part passed either amongst his books, or in unattended rambles or excursions; he seldom saw a human being except the members of his own household, and with these he hardly exchanged words. He had no friend; such, however, I became to him before long; a true friend, as described by my Lord Bacon, "to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth on the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession." A secret sympathy drew us together; like him I had many mispent hours to lament; and in my bosom, as in his, the spirit of ambition was extinct. I had abandoned my profession, in which I considered the rewards unworthy the toil and trouble, and sacrifice of feeling and independence, and determined to content myself with an obscure condition, and my patrimonial pittance. Amongst those who loved me, this gave rise to much repining, especially when they saw my contemporaries (whom in the race for honours at school and college I had left far behind,) now raising themselves to rank and fortune; and the many, in speaking of me, were wont to shake their heads, while they alluded to me as a melancholy example of the uselessness of talent and education, without common sense. But Sir Reginald could appreciate my motives, and thought the better of me for that which had given me the appearance of folly in the eyes of others. Before the end of the week we were acquainted. I accompanied him home, and from that hour to the day of his death we were well-nigh inseparable. He spoke to me with the utmost freedom of all things relating to himself, and bequeathed to my care a memoir of his life, from his childhood up to the period of his return to Ireland. It bore the title and motto I have given it. He wished it to be published; but referred the time and manner to my discretion. I am now at liberty to fulfil his desires. I propose, however, to preface the eventful passages he has himself detailed, with a brief notice of the happy months I spent in his company, and some account of his death, which was sudden and violent, and accompanied with circumstances of much sorrow.
Henry Mildmay.
1. The newest and best of the college squares, so christened on account of its comparative remoteness from something—I never could exactly discover what.
2. The reason was thus given in Latin, "quia incessu ad aulicam pompam se componit." It is but fair to add, the reverend gentleman was himself conscious of this saltatory imperfection in his gait; for he once proclaimed it his intention to learn to fence, for the purpose of taking the elasticity out of his toes.