Читать книгу The Life and Legacy of Harriette Wilson - Harriette Wilson - Страница 10

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A few days after his departure I was surprised by a visit from Sir William Abdy, with whom I was but very slightly acquainted. I thought it strange his paying any visits so immediately after the elopement of his wife, who was a natural daughter of the Marquis Wellesley by a Frenchwoman, who, as I am told, once used to walk in the Palais Royal at Paris, but afterwards became Marchioness of Wellesley.

"I have called upon you, Miss Harriette," said Sir William, almost in tears, "in the first place, because you are considered exactly like my wife,"—my likeness to Lady Abdy had often been thought very striking—"and, in the second, because I know you are a woman of feeling!"

I opened my eyes in astonishment.

"Women," he continued, "have feeling, and that's more than men have."

I could not conceive what he would be at.

"You know, Miss Harriette, all about what has happened, and my crim. con. business, don't you, miss?"

"Yes."

"Could you have thought it?"

"Oh yes!"

"And yet, I am sure, Charles Bentinck is worse than I am."

"In what way, pray?"

"Why, a worse head," said Sir William, touching his forehead, "and I don't pretend to be clever myself."

"Is that all? But I would not be so very demonstrative as to touch my forehead, if I were you."

"That Charles Bentinck," said he, half angry, "is the greatest fool in the world; and in Paris we always used to laugh at him."

"But," said I, "why did you suffer his lordship to be eternally at your house?"

"Why, dear me!" answered Abdy, peevishly, "I told him in a letter I did not like it and I thought it wrong, and he told me it was no such thing."

"And therefore," I remarked, "you suffered him to continue his visits as usual?"

"Why, good gracious, what could I do! Charles Bentinck told me, upon his honour, he meant nothing wrong."

"This man is really too good!" thought I, and then I affected the deepest commiseration of his mishap.

"Why did she run away from you?" said I. "Why not, at least, have carried on the thing quietly?"

"That's what I say," said Abdy.

"Because," I continued, "had she remained with you sir, you would have always looked forward with hope to that period when age and ugliness should destroy all her power of making conquests."

"Oh," said Abdy, clasping his hands, "if any real friend like you had heartened me up in this way at the time, I could have induced her to have returned to me! But then, Miss Wilson, they all said I should be laughed at and frightened me to death. It was very silly to be sure of me to mind them; for it is much better to be laughed at, than to be so dull and miserable as I am now."

"Shall I make you a cup of tea, Sir William?"

"Oh! Miss, you are so good! tea is very refreshing when one is in trouble."

I hastened to my bell, to conceal the strong inclination I felt to laugh in his face, and ordered tea.

"Green tea is the best, is it not, Miss?" said Sir William.

"Oh, yes," answered I, "as green as a willow leaf: and in extreme cases like yours I am apt to recommend a little gunpowder."

"Just as you please, Miss."

I asked him, after he had swallowed three cups of tea, whether he did not feel himself a little revived.

"Yes, Miss, I should soon get better here; but you know my house is such a very dull house and in such a very dull street too! Hill-street is, I think, the dullest street in all London, do you know, Miss Wilson."

"True, Sir William! would not you like to go to Margate?"

"Why I was thinking of travelling, for you know in Hill Street, there is her sofa just as she left."

"Very nervous indeed," said I, interrupting him. "I would burn the sofa at all events."

"And then there is her pianoforte."

"Lady Abdy was musical then?"

"Oh, very. She was always at it! I used to be tired to death of her music and often wished she would leave off: but now she is gone Miss Wilson, I would give the world to hear her play Foote's minuet!"

"Or, 'Off she goes,'" added I.

"What is that, pray, Miss?"

"A very lively dance," I answered.

"True, Miss, I recollect my wife used to play it."

"Dear me, Sir William, how could she be so foolish as to run away? I dare say you never interfered with her, or entered her room without knocking."

"Never, upon my honour."

"Well, I always heard you were a very kind, obliging, good-natured husband."

"Yes, and sometimes, when I used to knock latterly, Lady Abdy would not open the door!"

"That was wrong," said I, shaking my head, "very wrong."

"And how could that nasty, stupid fellow seduce her I cannot think!"

"There was good blood in her veins, you know, by the mother's side. Besides, to tell you the truth, I don't think Charles Bentinck did seduce Lady Abdy from you."

"Oh! dear, Miss Wilson, what do you mean?"

"Shall I speak frankly?"

"Oh, Lord a mercy! pray do! I am quite in a fright!"

"I think Fred Lamb was one of her seducers; but how many more may have had a finger in the pie, I really cannot take upon myself to say."

"Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! Miss Wilson!" said Sir William, grasping my arm with both his hands, "you do not say so? What makes you think so?"

"I have seen Fred Lamb daily and constantly riding past her door. I know him to be a young man of strong passions, much fonder of enjoyment than pursuit; and further, my sister Fanny, one of the most charitable of all human beings, told me she had seen Fred Lamb in a private box at Drury Lane with your wife, and her hand was clasped in his, which he held on his knee!"

"Oh, la, Miss!"

"Come, do not take on so," said I, in imitation of Brummell's nonsense, and striving to conceal a laugh, "leave your dull house in Hill Street, and set off to-morrow morning, on some pleasant excursion. Be assured that you will find fifty pretty girls, who will be so delighted with you as soon to make you forget Lady Abdy."

"But then," said Sir William, "I cannot think how she came to be in the family-way: for I am sure, Miss Wilson, that during all the years we have lived together, I always——"

"Never mind," interrupted I, "go home now, and prepare for your journey, and be sure to write to me, and tell me if your mind is easier."

"Thank you, Miss Wilson! you are all goodness. I'll be sure to write, and I mean to set off to-morrow morning, and I'll never come back to that nasty, dull, large house of mine again."

"Get the sofa removed," said I, "at all events."

"Yes, Miss, I will, thank you; and the pianoforte. So good-bye, Miss;" and then returning, quite in a whisper, "perhaps, Miss Wilson, when you and I become better acquainted, you'll give me a kiss!"

I only laughed, and bade him take care of himself, and so we parted.

All this nonsense was however very poor amusement to me, now that I had lost Lord Ponsonby. I considered that, although I was by my hard fate denied the pleasure of consoling his affliction, I might yet go into the country and lead the same retired sort of life which he did; and there endeavour by study to make myself rather more worthy of him. "I am a very ignorant little fool," thought I, "but it does not, therefore, follow, that I should remain a fool all my life, like Sir William Abdy." My plan was settled and arranged in less than an hour, and my small trunk packed, my carriage filled with books, and I and my femme de chambre on our road to Salt Hill.

I told the landlady of the Castle Inn, that I was come to take up my residence with her for a fortnight, and that I should require a quiet comfortable room to study in. The word study sounded very well, I thought, as I pronounced it, and, after arranging my books in due order, in the pretty rural room allotted to me by my civil landlady, I sat down to consider which of them I should begin with, in order to become clever and learned at the shortest notice, as that good lady provided people with hot dinners.

"Ponsonby, being forty already," thought I, "will be downright out, while I continue to bloom: therefore, when this idea makes him more timid and humble, I should like to improve my powers of consoling him and charming away all his cares. Let me see! What knowledge will be likely to make me most agreeable to him? Oh! politics. What a pity that he does not like something less dry and more lively! But, no matter!" and I turned over the leaves of my History of England, for George the Second and George the Third, and I began reading the Debates in Parliament. "Let me consider!" continued I, pausing. "I am determined to stick firm to the Opposition side, all my life; because Ponsonby must know best: and yet it goes against the grain of all my late aristocratical prejudices, which, by-the-bye, only furnish a proof how wrong-headed young girls often are."

I began to read a long speech of Lord Ponsonby's late intimate friend, Charles James Fox. "This man," thought I, when I had finished his speech, "appears to have much reason on his side; but then all great orators seem right, till they are contradicted by better reasoners; so, if I read Pitt's answer to this speech, I shall become as aristocratical as ever. I must begin with Pitt, and finish with Fox's answer and objections to Pitt's plan." I tried this method of making a little Whig of myself, pour les beaux yeux de milord Ponsonby. "After all," said I, pausing, "it will be no use, and very mean of me, to think one way and profess to think another; and it still strikes me the better reason and the sounder judgment is with Pitt, who seems to go further and embrace a vaster and more solid plan than Fox. The latter finding all that wit and brilliant exercise of humour necessary, makes his appear to me the worse course; then there is too much method in these Whigs, and their abuse of administration becomes pointless; because it seems as though perpetually ready cut and dried; and so vulgar! and opposition is such a losing game! and then I have a sneaking kindness for my king."

"Quelle dommage! I cannot be a Whig, for the life of me!" said I, throwing away the book, and quietly reclined my head on my hand, in deep thought as to what next I should study, having determined at once, out of respect to Lord Ponsonby to stand neuter in regard to politics, since I could not make a Whig of myself.

My landlady came in to know what I would have for dinner.

"Oh, ma'am," I exclaimed, pushing aside my book, and walking towards the window, "it is impossible for persons to study if they are to be interrupted by such absurd questions."

The woman begged my pardon.

"Listen to me, madam," said I, with the utmost concentration of dignity; "I have come into this retirement for the purpose of hard reading; therefore, instead of asking me what I want for dinner every day, or disturbing my books or papers, I shall thank you to bring up a tray with a fowl, or anything you like, exactly at five, and, placing it upon that little table, you must, if you please, go out of the room again without saying a single word, and when I am hungry I will eat."

Mine hostess looked at me as if she would have laughed if she had dared, and I felt somewhat of a sort of inclination to join her; however, I contrived to preserve my consequence, and asked, while attempting to assume a severe frown, how old she would guess me to be.

"About sixteen or seventeen, Miss."

"I am almost nineteen, madam," said I, elevating my head, with much pride. "You must not laugh!" I added, seeing that her risible muscles again exhibited symptoms of incipient activity, and well they might; for I was the most tom-boy, childish-looking creature who ever sat down by herself in a large room to study the merits of Pitt and Fox; and, what was worse, one of the most perfectly uneducated young women of my age that ever went to school; but then my school was only a French convent, where there really was nothing which excited in me the slightest curiosity after knowledge, and I never learned a single lesson by heart in my life, nor I believe ever could. The abbess was in despair about me. The confessor said, with Fred Bentinck, that I should come to no good; and I played the old nuns so many tricks that they were all frightened to death of me.

Being once more left to myself, I snatched up a volume of Shakespeare, pour me désennuyer un moment, and opened it at this passage, in the tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra:

The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,

Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;

Purple the sails, and so perfumed that

The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver;

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made

The water which they beat to follow faster,

As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,

It beggar'd all description: she did lie

In her pavilion (cloth of gold of tissue),

O'erpicturing that Venus where we see

The fancy outwork nature: on each side her

Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,

With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem

To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,

And what they undid, did.

"How beautiful!" said I, throwing down the book, "Can anything be imagined more glowing or more animated than this description! However I came here to study—and Shakespeare is too amusing to be considered study. True I have heard people remark that many passages of Shakespeare's writings are obscure; yet it seems to me that all the beauties are clear and plain, and the little obscurities not worth puzzling about:—therefore I'll study history; one must know something of that. I'll begin with ancient Greece, never mind English history, we can all get credit for that."

The Greeks employed me for two whole days, and the Romans six more: I took down notes of what I thought most striking. I then read Charles the Twelfth, by Voltaire, and liked it less than most people do; and then Rousseau's Confessions; then Racine's Tragedies, and afterwards, Boswell's Life of Johnson. I allowed myself only ten minutes for my dinner. In short, what might I not have read, had not I been barbarously interrupted by the whole family of the Pitchers, who, having once taken a fancy to my society, I had no chance but returning to town as fast as possible after a three weeks' residence at Salt Hill, during which time I had constantly heard from Lord Ponsonby, who was in Ireland; but hoped shortly to join me in town.

I was soon visited by my dear mother. She wished to consult me about what was best to be done to put my young sister out of the way of that most profligate nobleman, Lord Deerhurst, who was, she said, continually watching her in the Park and streets whenever she went out. I could hardly believe that anything wrong could be meant towards a child scarcely thirteen years of age; but my mother assured me that he had been clandestinely writing to her and sending her little paltry presents of gilt chains, such as are sold by Jews in the streets; these said trumpery articles being presented to my sister Sophia, in old jewel-boxes of Love and Wirgman, in order to make it appear to the poor child that they were valuable.

"I see no remedy," said my dear mother, "but sending Sophia to some school at a distance; and I hope to obtain her father's consent for that purpose as soon as possible. No time is to be lost, Sophia being so sly about receiving these things that I only found it out by the greatest accident. The last were delivered to her by a young friend of hers, quite a child, to whom Lord Deerhurst addressed himself, not having been able to meet with Sophia lately."

I was very much disgusted with this account, and quite agreed with my mother that it would be the safest plan to send the child away.

Before she took her leave, she assured me that, if possible, Sophia should depart immediately.

The next day I went to visit Fanny. Colonel Armstrong was with her. I allude to the Duke of York's aide-de-camp. The Earl of Bective was also there.

I inquired how Amy went on.

Sydenham was beginning to consider her evening parties rather a bore. Julia, they said, was growing more gracious towards George Brummell than Colonel Cotton liked.

Armstrong happening to be disengaged, which was seldom the case, proposed our taking Amy, who was a great favourite of his, by surprise, in the absence of Sydenham, who was at Brighton assisting Lord Wellesley to take care of Moll Raffles.

"Do you propose dining with her?" said I.

"Why not?" inquired Colonel Armstrong.

"I hope she will treat you better than she does her own sisters when we try her pot-luck."

"I am not at all particular," said Armstrong.

"I never saw but one man," retorted I, "among all Amy's train of admirers, whom she did not contrive to cure of their temerity in intruding themselves to dinner. The Baron Tuille's ardent love was, for six months, proof against Amy's bill of fare. Amy used to sit and sit till hunger would not permit her to fast any longer, and at last she would say, 'Baron! I am going down to dinner: but I have nothing to offer you but a black pudding!' 'Note!' the Dutchman always answered, 'Note! noting I like so vel!'"

"What," said Armstrong, "does she never have anything but black pudding?"

"Oh! yes," I replied, "sometimes toad-in-a-hole, or hard dumplings; but black pudding takes the lead."

Fanny, with all her good nature, began to laugh as she related the following little anecdote, which had occurred while I was at Salt Hill, apropos to Amy's penchant for a black pudding. My little sister Sophia had been permitted to go and dine with Amy one day, having been particularly invited a week before. Nevertheless, when she arrived Amy appeared to start as though surprised and said, "Oh! by-the-bye, I forgot to order my dinner, and my maid and man are both out, with letters and cards of invitations. However I can soon manage to get a black pudding broiled. You will not mind running to South Audley-street for a pound of black pudding? Shall you, my dear?"

"Oh, no!" replied Sophia, reddening up to the eyes at the vile proposal, having lately become a coquette, from being told that she was an angel, and being really a very ladylike girl at all times; and just now she wore her smartest dress. However, she always said yes to whatever people asked her, wanting courage or character to beg leave to differ from anybody's opinion.

The said black pudding, then, was put into her hand by the vulgar, unfeeling pork-butcher, enveloped only by a small bit of the dirty Times newspaper, just sufficiently large for her to take hold of it by in the middle.

Sophia, being a remarkably shy, proud girl, felt herself ready to sink, as she walked down South Audley-street at that very fashionable hour of the day, with such a substitute for a reticule flourishing quite bare in her hand, as a greasy black pudding! She tried hanging down her arm: but rose it again in alarm, lest she should spoil her gay new frock. Then a ray of good sense, which shot across her brain, her head I mean, induced her with an effort of desperation to hold the thing naturally, without attempting to conceal it; but, Oh, luckless fate! at the very moment poor Sophia had obtained this victory over her feelings, whom should she bolt against, all on a sudden in turning down South-street, but the first flatterer and ardent admirer of her young graces, Viscount Deerhurst!

The black pudding was now huddled up into the folds of her new frock: then she rued the day when pocket-holes went out of fashion. Deerhurst now, holding out his hand to her, her last desperate resource was to throw down the vile black pudding as softly as possible behind her, and she then shook hands with his lordship.

"Miss! Miss!" bawled out, at this instant, a comical-looking, middle-aged Irish labourer, who happened to be close behind her, and had picked up the delicate morsel, at the instant of its fall.

Thrusting forward the spectral lump, "Miss! Miss! how comed you then dear, to let go o' this and never miss it? Be to laying hold of it at this end, honey! It's quite clean, dear, and sure and you need not be afear'd to handle it at that same end," added Pat, giving it a wipe, with the sleeve of his dirty ragged jacket.

Deerhurst, who it must be allowed possesses a great deal of natural humour, could stand this scene between Pat and Sophia no longer, and burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, while poor Sophia, almost black in the face with shame and rage, assured the man she had dropped nothing of the sort, and did not know what he meant—and then she ran away so fast that Deerhurst could not overtake her, and she got safe home to her mother's, leaving Amy to watch at her window the arrival of her favourite black pudding.

Colonel Armstrong was absolutely delighted with this account; but said he should decline her pot-luck, as it is vulgarly called. He nevertheless wished us, of all things, to accompany him to her house, and which we agreed to.

We found Amy in the act of turning over the leaves of Mr. Nugent's music book, and Mr. Nugent singing an Italian air to his own accompaniment, ogling Amy to triple time.

The man commonly called King Allen, now Lord Allen, appeared to be only waiting for a pause of harmony in order to take his leave.

"Ha! How do you do?" said Amy, and Nugent arose to welcome us with his everlasting laugh.

"Well, Harriette," said Amy, "you are come back, are you! I have heard that you went into the country with your whole library in your carriage, like Dominie Sampson; and, let me see, who was it told me you were gone mad?"

"Your new and interesting admirer, his Grace of Grafton, perhaps; for I have heard that he is matter-of-fact enough for anything."

"It is a pity, my dear Harriette, that you continue to have such coarse ideas!" retorted Amy, en faisant la petite bouche, with her usual look of purity, just as if she had not been lately receiving the sly hackney coach visits of the old beau.

Armstrong changed the conversation by telling Amy that he had some idea of intruding upon her to dinner the next day.

"Oh, I really shall give you a very bad dinner, I am afraid," said Amy, having recovered from her growing anger towards me, in real alarm.

"My dear Mrs. Sydenham," replied Colonel Armstrong, earnestly, "I hate apologies, and indeed, am a little surprised that you should pay yourself so poor a compliment as to imagine for a moment any man cared for dinner; for vile, odious, vulgar dinner in your society. Now for my part, I request that I may find nothing on your table to-morrow, but fish, flesh, fowl, vegetables, pastry, fruit and good wine. If you get anything more, I will never forgive you."

Amy's large, round eyes opened wider and wider, and so did her mouth, as Armstrong proceeded; and, before he had got to the wine, she became absolutely speechless with dismay. Armstrong, however, appeared quite satisfied, remarking carelessly that he knew her hour and would not keep her waiting.

"Is anybody here who can lend me two shillings to pay my hackney-coach?" said Allen.

"No change," was the general answer; for everybody knew King Allen!

The beaux having left us, Amy opened her heart, and said we might partake of her toad-in-a-hole, if we liked; but that she must leave us the instant after dinner.

"What for?" Fanny inquired.

"Nothing wrong," answered Amy, of course.

"Very little good, I presume," said I, "if we may judge from his appearance; however," taking up my bonnet, "I do not want to run foul of the Duke of Grafton, since he votes me mad:" and I took my leave.

The next morning I received a letter from Lord Ponsonby to acquaint me that I might expect him in town by eight o'clock on the following evening. It is not, however, my intention to enter into many more minute details relative to my former unfortunate passion for Lord Ponsonby. This is not a complete confession, like Jean Jacques Rousseau's, but merely a few anecdotes of my life, and some light sketches of the characters of others, with little regard to dates or regularity, written at odd times, in very ill health. The only thing I have particularly attended to in this little work has been, not to put down one single line at all calculated to prejudice any individual, in the opinion of the world, which is not strictly correct; and though I have, in writing of people as I have found them, only done as I would be done by, and as I request my friends will do by me, who never wished yet to pass for better than what I really am: yet my gratitude has not permitted me to publish even the most trifling faults of the few who have acted kindly towards me.

With regard to my sisters, I never had but one, and she has ceased to exist, who evinced the least regard for me. I am naturally affectionate, and my heart was disposed to love them all, till years of total neglect have at last compelled me to consider them as strangers. Some of them are my enemies. My sister Amy ever made it her particular study to wound my feelings, and do me all the injury in her power; and having occasion, in a moment of the deepest distress, to apply to Lady Berwick for a little assistance, she refused me a single guinea, notwithstanding, in promoting her marriage with Lord Berwick, and on various other occasions, I certainly did my best, and had done many acts of friendship towards her previous to that period. Neither does this want of feeling for me proceed from any ill opinion they have formed of my heart or character: for, during our dear mother's last illness, Lady Berwick remained at her country house, in spite of all I could say to her in my daily communications, as to the immediate danger of that dear parent, and her excuse, which she has often expressed, for this heartless conduct was that, since Harriette remained with her mother, she felt sure that no care or attention would be wanting, that anybody could afford her. However, it is necessary for the sake of justice to relate the good with the bad: thus then, be it known, that if Lady Berwick would not come up to town to attend the dreary couch of a most tender parent; she wrote to me every day notes of inquiry, nay more, she sent fine apples and baskets of grapes from her garden up to the hour of my lamented mother's death.

These sketches, or memoirs, or whatever my publisher and editor may think proper to designate them—for my own part I think it quite tiresome enough to write a book as fast as I can scribble it, without composing either a preface or a name for it—were begun several years ago, merely to amuse myself. I am now only alluding to a few pages of it, for I soon grew tired of my occupation. However, the little I had done pleased my own acquaintances so much that they all advised me to continue.

The Hon. George Lamb, having been good enough to read a comedy which I attempted, was so polite as to say, and I have his letter now before me, that although it was too long, and deficient in stage-tact, there was no lack of wit and native humour about it, and further, he thought my talents well calculated for writing a light work in the form of either novel or sketch-book. He also advised me to put my former name of Harriette Wilson to the work, which he doubted not would the better ensure its sale.

Thus, being almost flattered into something like a good opinion of myself, I ventured one morning to wrap myself up in my large cloak, and put my little unfinished manuscript into my reticule, for I determined not to write another page till I had ascertained whether it was worth publishing. Thus equipped, I ventured in much fear and trembling to wait upon the great Mr. Murray, as Lord Byron always satirically called him. "He," thought I, "being the friend and publisher of Lord Byron (as Dr. Johnson has it, who slays fat oxen, must himself be fat), should be wiser than George Lamb or anybody else, except Lord Byron alone: therefore I will stand by his decree."

I told Murray that I had so little confidence in myself, that I really could not be induced to go on with my work till I had obtained his verdict on the few pages I ventured to offer for his inspection.

Murray looked on me with as much contempt as though Ass had been written in my countenance. Now I know this is not the case. He said, with much rudeness, that I might put the manuscript on his table and he would look at it, certainly, if I desired it.

I asked when I should send for it.

"Whenever you please," was his answer; as though he had already recorded his decision against me and made his mind up not to look at it.

I promised to send for it the next evening. I did so, and the manuscript was returned without an observation. "No doubt," thought I, "it is all nonsense. I only wish I was quite sure that he had read it! because else it were really cruel thus to damp a beginner who might have done something perhaps, with due encouragement. I am almost certain that it is trash; but I will be still more assured, lest the mania of scribbling should in some moment of poverty attack me again." However, beginning now to feel as much contempt for my manuscript as the Vicar of Wakefield did for his horse, or as I have since felt for the famed Bibliopolist of Albemarle Street, notwithstanding his carriage was numbered with those which followed in the funeral procession of the lamented Byron, I could not present my lucubrations to another publisher as my own: my nerves would not permit it, and I therefore offered it to Messrs. Allman, of Princes Street, Hanover Square, as the first attempt of a young friend of mine. I was received by one of those gentlemen with much politeness, and was requested to allow them four days to send their answer. They fixed their time, and I promised to send for my little manuscript on the day they appointed. It was sealed up, and directed ready for my servant when he called for it. The envelope enclosed a few lines from Messrs. Allman, stating their readiness to publish the work, which they did not consider libellous—sharing the expenses and the profits with me.

On the receipt of this note, which I have now in my possession, I got into a rage with old purblind Murray. "I wish," thought I, "I wish I could make rhymes! I would send him a copy of verses to thank him." The worst of it was I had never made a single rhyme in my life, and, when I had tried to make two lines jingle together, everybody said they had the merit of being infinitely below par; but even that I considered very much better than vile mediocrity in poetry. In short there was no rhyme about them and very little reason. However, I thought that anything would do for Murray, who had been so rude to me; therefore, in a few minutes, I managed to compose and seal up the following state of the case—which said composition my reader cannot say I have encouraged him to lose time in perusing.

THE MAIDEN EFFORT OF A VIRGIN MUSE.

I never thought of turning poet,

And all my friends about me know it,

Till t'other day. I'll tell you why.

Alas! the story makes me sigh!

I tried, in prose, a few light sketches,

Of characters—pats, players, and such wretches,

Which my own folks said were pretty:

In fact, I thought them downright witty;

And, for the good of future ages,

I sallied forth, with these few pages,

To a publisher's, in such a hurry,

As to arrive too soon for that beau-thing, Murray,

Who coolly kept the lady waiting.

An old beau must have time for prating.

At last he came. Oh, mercy! Oh, my stars!

What an appalling beau-costume he wears!

A powdered bob, spectacles, and black coat!

I wish to heaven I had never wrote!

Or ta'en my book, so not here, anywhere,

Sure this won't do! The man's a bore or bear!

My charms to him were nought: nor my oration:

But what care I for Murray's admiration!

If I had penned some Quarterly cupidity, He would have gladly borne with its stupidity. "At length, Sir," cried I, in a fuming rage, "Pray, just peruse, at least, a single page." With a most supercilious kind of glance, "Hum," drawled out Murray, "you've not the slightest chance." "Pray, Sir, must one come here in a bob-wig?" Cried I, in my turn, striving to look big; And then went home to mourn my waste of paper, Pens, ink, time, and e'en my last wax taper. Prosers, methought, require an education; But poets gain, by birth, their own vocation.

I merely pin it into my manuscript because it is ready written, and helps to fill up the book, which, I have undertaken for several reasons: first, because I hope to get some money by it; secondly, because a certain duke and his son, all! all! honourable men, and with very honourable titles and ancient names, have taken such an unfair advantage of my generous treatment of them, that I think they ought to be exposed——

Else they will deceive more men.

But this is not all. My former errors are well known, and, since they have told their story I must in justice to myself relate mine. To proceed with it in form, I perhaps ought to relate at large all the raptures of my meeting with Lord Ponsonby when he returned from Ireland, how struck I was with the pale cast of thought, which enfeebled the brightness of that sweet countenance, only to increase the interest he previously inspired; how infinitely his deep mourning became him; how he had loved me for the very thing cross Amy had laughed at me, and called me Dominie Sampson for; how he sent me Voltaire's tragedy of Zaire, and how delighted he was to find that I felt and understood all its beauties; how he one day called me his angelic Harriette! and further declared that, had he known me sooner he would never have married any other woman! How I used to fancy I could feel his entrance into his wife's private box at the opera, without seeing him, as though the air suddenly should become purer; how I have astonished Fanny by guessing the very instant of his approach, without looking towards his side of the house: how he would watch and follow me in my walks; how he declared that he had never in his whole life felt such tenderness of affection for any woman on earth, combining all a father ought to feel, with the wildest passion his first youth had been capable of, with many other matters which it would be tedious to write now: but all this love is gone by and, for the crime of attaching myself to a married man, I have deeply suffered: and all my affections are now fixed on another, to whom I am bound for life: and, being just about to keep a pig and a few chickens, I really cannot mount up the ladder again: and, why should I dwell too long on the wild romantic follies of my very youthful days?

During the three short years our intercourse lasted, our passion continued undiminished—increase it could not. I do in truth believe, though it was a wicked thing, no two people on earth ever loved each other better, and the restraint and difficulties we laboured under kept our passion alive as it began. Often, after passing the early part of the evening together, finding it so difficult to separate, we drove down in a hackney-coach to the House of Lords, and in that coach have I waited half the night merely for one more kiss and the pleasure of driving with Ponsonby to his own door.

These three happy years of my life produced very few anecdotes, which I can recollect, worth relating; for I had neither eyes nor ears nor thoughts but for Ponsonby. The old Scotch beggar woman in the park, who had been the cause of my appearing advantageously to his lordship, was my constant visitor, and I contributed to her comforts as far as I could. She had once been in very easy circumstances, and was then in the habit of receiving every possible attention from her kind country-woman Lady Cottrell.

The old woman used to come to dine with me in a rich brocade silk gown, which stood absolutely alone, and once caused my equally stiff, old, powdered footman to laugh; but as it was I believe for the first time in his life I forgave him.

Apropos of that same Mr. Will Halliday, who though always in print never expected the honour of being published, everybody wished to know why I kept such a clock-work, stiff, powdered, methodistical looking servant, with a pig-tail; whom one might have taken for Wilberforce himself instead of Will Halliday, and yet that piece of mechanism, with his hair to match, used to steal my wine, as though he had forgotten all about his commandments; and when I reproached him with it, he declared that it was impossible; because, to use his own words, "I am the most particlerst man as is"; and, because I preferred losing my wine to being talked to, I submitted.

"Mr. Will," I used to say, "yes and no are all I want to hear from any footman; if they will say more to me than this I shall wait upon myself."

Will would console himself on these occasions with a young companion of mine, while she remained with me, whenever he could find her disengaged or she had the misfortune to be in the parlour while he was laying the cloth.

"Miss Hawkes," he would begin, to her great annoyance, "Miss Hawkes, now you see my missis don't like a sarvant to say nothing but yes and no. Now sometimes, as I says, Miss Hawkes, yes or no won't do for everything. Missis was very angry about my speaking yesterday; but, if I haddunt a told her I was the most particlerst man as is she might a thort I drinkt her wine, because I keeps the key of the cellar: and then again, Miss Hawkes, respecting o' my great coat: I wants to tell missis, as how it's a mile too wide in the back; for you see Miss, Missis don't observe them ere things. Will you be so good, Miss, as to mention that I wants to show her how my great coat sets behind?"

"I will go and tell her directly," said Miss Hawkes, delighted with an excuse to get away.

"Well then," said I, in answer to what Miss Hawkes told me, "I will look at the man's coat after dinner, only I am sure I shall laugh if he is to walk about the room, sporting his beautiful shape."

Having thus, for once, given Will liberty of speech, I was in dread of its consequences at dinner-time. As soon as he had withdrawn the cloth and placed the dessert upon the table, he began to cough and place himself in an attitude of preparation. "Now it is coming!" thought I, and I saw Miss Hawkes striving to restrain her inclination to laugh out loud, with all her might.

Will began sheepishly, with his eyes and his fingers fidgeting on the back of a chair; but he grew in height, and in consequence, as he went on. "I was a saying to Miss Hawkes, madam, that, respecting o' your commands, that yes and no wont do for everything. Now ma'am respecting o' my great coat——"

"You had better put it on, William," said I, holding down my head that I might not look at Miss Hawkes.

"Yes, ma'am; sartanly ma'am," said Will, bustling out of the room, and returning in an instant equipped in a drab great coat, so very large behind, that it made him look deformed; but did not, in the least, alter his usual way of strutting about the room, like a player,

Whose conceit

Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich,

To hear the wooden dialogue and sound,

'Twixt his stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage.

So, between my horror of making free with John Bull, and my wish to laugh at my footman, I was in perfect misery.

"Take it off, William," said I, faintly, and without venturing to raise my head, feeling that another glance at Will, eyeing his person all over, with his sharp little, ferret-eyes, would have finished me. "Take it off, and carry it to the tailor's."

But Will, having once received a carte blanche for more than his usual yes and no, was not so easily quieted.

"Thank you, ma'am, you are very good ma'am. I'll step down to-night, with it; for the other evening, ma'am, when you sent me to carry back that ere pheasant, my Lord Lowther's servant brought you I says, says I, to Sally, 'as it is such a wet night Sally, I wont put on my laced hat,' so I claps on an old plain one; and, when I comed to St. James's Street, there was a bit of a row with some of they there nasty women at the corner, and, you see, ma'am, this ere coat, sticking out, in this ere kind of a way behind, and with that large cane of mine, there was a man, says he, to me, 'Here, watchman! why dont you do your duty?'"

It was now all over with our dignities. Will, in finishing his pathetic speech, appeared almost on the point of shedding tears. We both, in the same instant, burst into an immoderate fit of loud laughter, when Will had the good sense to leave us.

The next day Fanny, Miss Hawkes, and myself drove into Hyde Park. We there met Sophia, with her eldest sister, looking very pretty, and above all very modest. My carriage was soon surrounded by trotting beaux, whom I could not listen to, because that adored, sly, beautiful face of Ponsonby's was fixed on me, à la distance. With all my rudeness and inattention I could not get rid of Lord Frederick Beauclerc. The rest went round to Fanny's side. This was better than going over to the enemy. Ponsonby knew me and himself too well to be jealous; but, not daring to speak to me or hear what I said, he looked unhappy, as I guessed, at his friend, Fred Beauclerc's persevering attention; and I proposed to Fanny that we should take a drive down Pall Mall.

"Is that Mr. Frederick Lamb's ghost?" said Fanny.

"Where do you mean?" I inquired, and turning my head round, indeed saw Fred Lamb, who had, I believe, just returned from abroad. He blushed a little, and ordering my coachman to stop, told me that I looked remarkably well and that he knew all about me.

"So you have cut poor Argyle, and are in love again with a man of my acquaintance?" he continued.

"You are mistaken," said I, reddening.

"It may be so," rejoined Fred, "but I rather think I am right."

I shook hands with him, and hoped we were parting good friends.

* * * * *

"I say, Miss Hawkes," said Will Halliday, in the course of the evening, after we got home, for he generally contrived to dédommager himself, for the silence I imposed on him, by forcing a few words on Miss Hawkes' attention—"If we had a gone a little furder down Pall Mall to-day, we should a seen that ere Prince Coburg."

"Really!"

"Yes, Miss: but, laws! Miss, do you know he was nothing in his own country, and had nothing but a small principality."

About ten o'clock in the evening, when Miss Hawkes had retired to rest, and I was sitting alone with my book, Fred Lamb was announced to me. I desired William to say that it was rather too late, and that I was shortly going to bed.

He returned to inform me that Mr. Lamb knew I never went to bed before midnight, and therefore begged I would permit him to chat with me for half an hour, so, feeling puzzled how to excuse myself, he was desired to walk upstairs.

He talked to me for more than an hour, of Argyle, Lord Ponsonby, and his own former affection for me. He then became a little more practical than I liked, first taking hold of my hand, and next kissing me by force. I resisted all his attempts with mild firmness. At last he grew desperate, and proceeded to very rough, I may say, brutal violence, against my fixed determination. I was never very strong; but love gave me almost supernatural powers to repel him; and I contrived to pull his hair with such violence, that some of it was really dragged out by the roots.

Fred Lamb was not of a mild or patient temper. In a moment of disappointment and fury at the pain I must have inflicted on him, though it was certainly done only in self-defence, he placed his hand on my throat, saying, while he nearly stopped my breath, and occasioned me almost the pangs of suffocation, that I should not hurt him another instant. He spoke this in a smothered voice, and I did in truth believe that my last moments had arrived. Another instant would have decided the business; but he, thank God, relinquished his grasp at my throat. He is however mistaken if he believes I have ever forgotten the agony of that moment. He arose from the sofa. His rage, I fancy, being converted into shame and fear of what I might tell the world, or, perhaps, he was really shocked at the violence which he had been guilty of. It may easily be imagined that once free from so frightful a grasper of throats, I was not long in obtaining my room upstairs and double-locking my door. Fred Lamb did not attempt to speak to, much less detain me, and in a very few minutes afterwards I heard him leave the house.

"Thank God!" I ejaculated, from the very bottom of my heart; and I began to breathe more freely although I was some time before I recovered my fright.

Fred Lamb was a man of the world, and the next day he no doubt said to himself "this is a bad story, both for my vanity and my character: for I have been very brutal. The best way now will be for me to tell it first to all her friends"; and he accordingly went about making light of the story, as though he had not any reason to be ashamed.

"Do you know," said he, to several of my acquaintances, who afterwards repeated it, "do you know that Harriette is so in love with John Ponsonby, that she was cruel even to me last night! I tried force too; but she resisted me like a little tiger, and pulled my hair!"

"Be it so," thought I, and I never told the story, till now. In fact, I was a good deal afraid of Fred Lamb at that time, and could not but feel provoked at the idea of a young man going about the world, always laughing, and showing off the character of a fine, good-tempered, open-hearted, easy, generous, sailor-like fellow, and who yet could take me from a rich man, to leave me starving at Somers-town as he had done, without once making me the offer of a single shilling, and then return to me, as though all this selfishness had secured him a right over my person, to persecute me with brutal force and lay hold of my throat, so as to put me in fear of my life, because I was not his humble slave any day in any week he happened to return from the Continent: and I am sure Mr. Frederick Lamb cannot assert that, on the day I believed he meant to have been my last, he had ever given me one single guinea or the value of a guinea.

He is now an ambassador, and just as well off as ambassadors usually are; yet, in my present poverty, I have vainly attempted to get a hundred pounds out of him. He has occasionally indeed sent me ten or five pounds; but not without much pressing, and he has not yet paid my expenses to Hull and back.

So much for the high-spirited Fred Lamb! With his brother George I have only a very slight acquaintance; but am much indebted for the very polite, friendly and condescending interest that gentleman has been pleased to take in my welfare.