Скачать книгу
suitors without end; and, for the more or the less,
that was felt to be a matter of accident. Never, on this earth, I am satisfied, did that pure sisterly love breathe a more steady inspiration than now into the hearts and through the acts of these two generous girls; neither was there any sacrifice which either would have refused
to or
for the other. The period, however, was now rapidly shortening during which they would have any opportunity for testifying this reciprocal love. Suitors were flocking around them, as rank as cormorants in a storm. The grim old chancellor (one, if not both, of the young ladies having been a ward in Chancery) had all his legal jealousies awakened on their behalf. The worshipful order of
adventurers and
fortune-hunters, at that time chiefly imported from Ireland, as in times more recent from Germany, and other moustachoed parts of the continent, could not live under the raking fire of Mrs. Schreiber, on the one side, with her female tact and her knowledge of life, and of the chancellor, with his huge discretional power, on the other. That particular chancellor, whom the chronology of the case brought chiefly into connection with Miss Watson's interests, was (if my childish remembrances do not greatly mislead me) the iracund Lord Thurlow. Lovers and wooers this grim lawyer regarded as the most impertinent order of animals in universal zoology; and of these, in Miss Watson's case, he had a whole menagerie to tend. Penelope, according to some school-boy remembrance of mine, had one hundred and eighteen suitors. These young ladies had almost as many. Heavens! I what a crew of Comus to follow or to lead! And what a suitable person was this truculent old lord on the woolsack to enact the part of shepherd—Corydon, suppose, or Alphesibćus—to this goodly set of lambs! How he must have admired the hero of the "Odyssey," who in one way or other accounted for all the wooers that "sorned" upon his house, and had a receipt for their bodies from the grave-digger of Ithaca! But even this wily descendant of Sisyphus would have found it no such easy matter to deal with the English suitors, who were not the feeble voluptuaries of the Ionian Islands, that suffered themselves to be butchered as unresistingly as sheep in the shambles—actually standing at one end of a banqueting-room to be shot at with bows and arrows, not having pluck enough to make a rush—but were
game men; all young, strong, rich, and in most cases technically "noble;" all, besides, contending for one or other of two prizes a thousand times better fitted to inspire romantic ardor than the poor, withered Penelope. One, by the way, amongst these suitors (I speak of those who addressed Miss Watson), merits a separate commemoration, as having drawn from Sheridan his very happiest
impromptu—and an
impromptu that was really such—(the rarest of all things from Sheridan). This was Lord Belgrave, eldest son of Lord Grosvenorthen an earl, but at some period, long subsequent to this, raised to the Marquisate of Westminster, a title naturally suggesting in itself a connection with the vast Grosvenor property, sweeping across the whole area of that most aristocratic region in the metropolis now called
Belgravia, which was then a name unknown; and this Hesperian region had as yet no architectural value, and consequently no ground- rent value, simply because the world of fashion and distinction had as yet not expanded itself in that direction. In those days the territorial importance of this great house rested exclusively upon its connection with the county of Chester. In this connection it was that the young Viscount Belgrave had been introduced, by his family interest, into the House of Commons; he had delivered his maiden speech with some effect; and had been heard favorably on various subsequent occasions; on one of which it was that, to the extreme surprise of the house, he terminated his speech with a passage from Demosthenes—not presented in English, but in sounding Attic Greek. Latin is a privileged dialect in parliament. But Greek! It would not have been at all more startling to the usages of the house, had his lordship quoted Persic or Telinga. Still, though felt as something verging on the ridiculous, there was an indulgent feeling to a young man fresh from academic bowers, which would not have protected a mature man of the world. Everybody bit his lips, and as yet did
not laugh. But the final issue stood on the edge of a razor. A gas, an inflammable atmosphere, was trembling sympathetically through the whole excited audience; all depended on a match being applied to this gas whilst yet in the very act of escaping. Deepest silence still prevailed; and, had any commonplace member risen to address the house in an ordinary business key, all would have blown over. Unhappily for Lord Belgrave, in that critical moment up rose the one solitary man, to wit, Sheridan, whose look, whose voice, whose traditional character, formed a prologue to what was coming. Here let the reader understand that, throughout the "Iliad," all speeches or commands, questions or answers, are introduced by Homer under some peculiar formula. For instance, replies are usually introduced thus:
"But him answering thus addressed the sovereign Agamemnon;"
or; in sonorous Greek:
"Ton d' apameibomenos prosephé kreion Agamemnon;"
or, again, according to the circumstances:
"But him sternly surveying saluted the swift-footed Achilles;"
"Ton d'ar', upodra idon, prosephé podas okus Achilleus."
This being premised, and that every one of the audience, though pretending to no Greek, yet, from his school-boy remembrances, was as well acquainted with these formulć as with the scriptural formula of Verily, verily, I say unto you, &c., Sheridan, without needing to break its force by explanations, solemnly opened thus:
"Ton d' apameibomenos prosephé Sheridanios heros."_
Simply to have commenced his answer in Greek would have sufficiently met the comic expectation then thrilling the house; but, when it happened that this Greek (so suitable to the occasion) was also the one sole morsel of Greek that everybody in that assembly understood, the effect, as may be supposed, was overwhelming, and wrapt the whole house in what might be called a fiery explosion of laughter. Meantime, as prizes in the matrimonial lottery, and prizes in all senses, both young ladies were soon carried off. Miss Smith, whose expectations I never happened to hear estimated, married a great West India proprietor; and Miss Watson, who (according to the popular report) would succeed to six thousand a year on her twenty-first birthday, married Lord Carbery. Miss Watson inherited also from her father something which would not generally be rated very highly, namely, a chancery lawsuit, with the East India Company for defendant. However, if the company is a potent antagonist, thus far it is an eligible one, that, in the event of losing the suit, the honorable company is solvent; and such an event, after some nine or ten years' delay, did really befall the company. The question at issue respected some docks which Colonel Watson had built for the company in some Indian port. And in the end this lawsuit, though so many years doubtful in its issue, proved very valuable to Miss Watson; I have heard (but cannot vouch for it) not less valuable than that large part of her property which had been paid over without demur upon her twenty-first birth-day. Both young ladies married happily; but in marriage they found their separation, and in that separation a shock to their daily comfort which was never replaced to either. As to Miss Smith's husband, I did not know him; but Lord Carbery was every way an estimable man; in some things worthy of admiration; and his wife never ceased to esteem and admire him. But she yearned for the society of her early friend; and this being placed out of her reach by the accidents of life, she fell early into a sort of disgust with her own advantages of wealth and station, which, promising so much, were found able to perform nothing at all in this first and last desire of her heart. A portrait of her friend hung in the drawing- room; but Lady Carbery did not willingly answer the questions that were sometimes prompted by its extraordinary loveliness. There are women to whom a female friendship is indispensable, and cannot be supplied by any companion of the other sex. That blessing, therefore, of her golden youth, turned eventually into a curse for her after-life; for I believe that, through one accident or another, they never met again after they became married women. To me, as one of those who had known and loved Miss Smith, Lady Carbery always turned the more sunny side of her nature; but to the world generally she presented a chilling and somewhat severe aspect—as to a vast illusion that rested upon pillars of mockery and frauds. Honors, beauty of the first order, wealth, and the power which follows wealth as its shadow—what could these do? what had they done? In proportion as they had settled heavily upon herself, she had found them to entail a load of responsibility; and those claims upon her she had labored to fulfil conscientiously; but else they had only precipitated the rupture of such tics as had given sweetness to her life.
From the first, therefore,
Скачать книгу
