iU 
 
 isi ''
 
 
 ifcl 
 
 /
 
 OF THE 
 UN IVLR5ITY 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 v.i
 
 NOTICE: Return or renew all Library Materialsl The Minimum Fee lor 
 each Lost Book Is $50.00. 
 
 The person charging this material is responsible for 
 its return to the library from which it was withdrawn 
 on or before the Latest Date stamped below. 
 Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for discipli- 
 nary action and may result in dismissal from the University. 
 To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 
 
 c 
 
 EC1118M
 
 WYNVILLE; 
 
 OB, 
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES, 
 
 A NOVEL. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE AGE OF PITT AND FOX.' 
 
 " There be that can pack the cards, and yet cannot play well, so there are 
 some that are good in canvasses and factions, that are otherwise weak men." 
 — LoKD Bacon. 
 
 IN THREE VOLS. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 CHARLES J. SKEET, PUBLISHER, 
 
 21, KING WILLIAM STREET, CHARING CROSS 
 1852.
 
 London : 
 M, S. Myers, Printer, 22, Tavistock Street, Covcnt Garden.
 
 8^3 
 
 THESE VOLtJlVrES ARE INSCRIBED 
 TO 
 
 LORD VISCOUNT PALMERSTON, 
 
 M.P., G.C.B. ETC., 
 A STATESMAN ON WHOSE POLICY 
 
 EUROPE 
 
 HOLDS TWO OPINIONS, 
 
 ON WHOSE 
 
 ENERGY AND ELOQUENCE THE 
 
 WORLD 
 
 HAS BUT 
 
 ONE. 
 
 ^
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 A WITTY and popular M.P. has given 
 me so much assistance in the composition 
 of this novel, that I hesitate in sending it 
 before the town with only one name on the 
 title-page. As, however, he persists in 
 saying that viva voce sketches of scenes in 
 which he mingled, descriptive analysis of 
 character, and manipulation of occasional
 
 VI I'REFACE. 
 
 passages, do not give him a claim to joint 
 authorship, I have been left no option. 
 Nor, indeed, would I allude to this point, 
 but that some parties would perhaps think 
 it unfair on my part not to acknowledge 
 his kindly meant assistance. 
 
 Brighton, Feb. ISth, 1852,
 
 THE AGE OF PITT AND FOX. 
 
 " A work like the present has long been a desideratum 
 in our popular literature. We want something at once 
 short, clear and comprehensive, in a word popular, and 
 where are we to find a man competent to such a task? The 
 Author of the work before us has undertaken to meet the 
 difficulty and has succeeded in producing an able solution 
 of it. If we may judge of the whole work by the one 
 volume now published, we may safely pronounce it to be 
 the best text book that we have yet seen of the age, which 
 it professes to describe, and to the publication of the 
 remaining portion we look forward with much interest." 
 
 The Times, July 10th, 1846.
 
 WYNYILLE; 
 
 OR, 
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MY FAMILY. — THE OLD WHIG COMMONER. 
 
 The Wynvilles have, for upwards of two 
 centuries, ranked creditably amongst the 
 higher gentry of Hampshire. Since the Re- 
 volution of 1688, there has been always a 
 member of the family in parliament, and the 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 portraits at Wynville Manor shew that we 
 can count a respectable complement of gene- 
 rals, admirals, judges, and ambassadors. 
 
 In about a hundred-and- twenty years we 
 can point to a couple of cabinet ministers, 
 who owned the broad acres of Wynville Manor. 
 We boast also that the great common law 
 lawyer, Judge Wynville, belonged to our 
 line; and I never entered Westminster Abbey 
 without exulting that its venerable walls en- 
 closed the dust of my grandfather. Admiral 
 Wynville, whose name, though blazoned by 
 no title, shines with a radiance of its own in 
 the naval annals of our island. 
 
 Thus our family has always been very 
 honourable, without, however, producing any 
 men of dazzling genins. Our rank in the 
 commonage is eminent; in civil and political 
 history the name is most creditably known; 
 the world of fashion has in two generations
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 6 
 
 praised the beauty of daughters of the race 
 of Wynville. We have been courted without 
 having been famous ; and generally respected, 
 though not publicly revered. 
 
 My father was the well-known Eight 
 Honourable Frederick Wynville, a stately and 
 dignified specimen of the political clique, 
 known as " old Whigs." He was a man of 
 high character, without great talents; am- 
 bitious of being a great man, without the 
 abilities to acquire the fame of one; a poli- 
 tician of gentlemanly conduct and manners, 
 who first followed Fox, and then at the French 
 revolution joined Mr. Burke. From 1793 to 
 1809 he continued to talk the politics of the 
 old Portland Whigs, and all the school of 
 which Burke was the oracle in those days. 
 Unlike most of his companions, he remained 
 the associate in private of the Foxites, and 
 was more proficient in imitating the habits of 
 
 B 2
 
 4 wynville; or, 
 
 Sheridan and the other brilliant rakes of the 
 time, than dexterous or eloquent in the advo- 
 cacy of the principles of Mr. Burke. 
 
 I remember my father well. Me thinks I 
 see him now, as he appeared in 1820, shaking 
 hands with Harry Brougham at the door of 
 Brookes's. His figure was tall and thin. His 
 countenance grave, calm and worn ; a Grecian 
 nose; dark small eyes; black brows; and a 
 square forehead, over which a few locks of 
 hairs still clustered. He had a beautiful 
 mouth and teeth; small hands and feet; he 
 dressed with scrupulous neatness ; and sat so 
 erect in his saddle, with such an air of 
 dignity, that his figure constantly attracted 
 notice in the streets. There was diflPused over 
 his whole person, that indescribable something 
 which so decisively stamps a gentleman of 
 
 England. Captain H , (the father of the 
 
 charming Mrs. S , the graceful comic
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 5 
 
 actress) who was an excellent draughtsman, 
 drew an inimitable likeness of my father. It 
 was lithographed, and hung in all the shop 
 windows some twenty-five years since, as the 
 sketch had acquired an accidental notoriety. 
 My father had incurred the severe displeasure 
 of George the Fourth. There was a certain 
 actress, towards whom my father stood in an 
 equivocal relation. Scandal said that she was 
 a daughter of my father. The King affected 
 her society ; and paid her significant attention. 
 The lady was, I believe, decidedly averse to 
 the proposals of the sovereign, and spoke to 
 my father on the subject. He was angry, and 
 it is said, addressed a note to the King, in 
 which the writer evidently thought more of 
 himself than about the whims of King George. 
 
 Some days after. Captain H 's clever 
 
 sketch of Mr. Wynville found its way to the 
 breakfast-table of the King. " Take away
 
 6 WYXVILLE; OR, 
 
 that odious likeness, it is just as stiff and 
 sullen as the figure and face- of the repentant 
 rake'' who is its original." The King showed 
 so much displeasure on the occasion, that some 
 of the quizzers at Brookes's, where my father 
 was a favourite, took the matter up. They 
 ordered a hundred copies of the print, and 
 sent it to the King in every possible form of 
 envelope. For nearly six weeks he received 
 amongst his daily letters a couple of copies of 
 " the repentant rake." Sometimes in female 
 hand-writing, the copies were addressed. The 
 hand- writing of a certain titled lady of fashion 
 whom the King visited, was imitated with 
 exquisite skill by one who afterwards became 
 a prominent member of the Melbourne ad- 
 ministration. The rage of the King at being 
 so played upon was boundless. He was pro- 
 voked, and let it be seen that he lost his 
 temper. The matter reached Paris, and an
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 7 
 
 attache then 'in the French embassy, after- 
 wards an ambassador to one of the four great 
 powers, got hold by some means of an unused 
 cover addressed in the writing of Louis the 
 Eighteenth to King George. He popped a 
 copy of " the repentant rake" into the cover; 
 put it into one of the despatch bags, and sent 
 it to England. The King was unlucky enough 
 to open it in the presence of Mr. Canning, 
 and so to disgrace himself by irritation, that 
 Mr. Canning was compelled to inquire into 
 the cause of his majesty's displeasure. The 
 answer of the King was one which, to use his 
 own phrase, " would shock the puritans.'' 
 
 My mother was one of the Devonshire 
 Parkers, and was a great beauty in her day. 
 Her portrait by ' Harlowe,* is known to every 
 collector of rare prints. She was a blonde^ 
 and her face was in the Grecian style of 
 beauty. Her temper was mild, and her
 
 8 wynville; or, 
 
 character extremely attractive, by its union 
 of sweetness of disposition and considerable 
 talent, without the least pretensions on her 
 part to the character of that great bore, '' a 
 learned woman." She was the favourite of her 
 circle, and was not only admired, but respected 
 by all who knew her. 
 
 My eldest brother, Frederick, was intended 
 by his father, but not by nature, for a states- 
 man. He was my senior by several years ; 
 and there never was much intimacy between 
 us. By dint of hard reading he distinguished 
 himself at Oxford; and, by assiduous labour 
 he became a second-rate parliamentary de- 
 bater. Charles, my father's second son, was 
 sent into the army at an early period ; he was 
 adopted as his heir, by Sir Harry Wynville, 
 a general not undistinguished in the Penin- 
 sular war. My sister Louisa was next in 
 age to Charles. I was her junior by nearly
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 9 
 
 eight years. She passed much of her time 
 with Lady Ferguson, my father's sister, and 
 the widow of Sir Mark Ferguson, a Yorkshire 
 baronet, who had settled on her a princely 
 jointure. My sister was cold, and elegantly 
 fastidious. She inherited much of my 
 mother's beauty; but none of her sweetness 
 and tenderness of soul. She had more talents 
 than either of my brothers ; but her want of 
 affection made people indifferent to any merits 
 she possessed. 
 
 My father's rent-roll averaged nearly eight 
 thousand a year. The estate was settled 
 strictly upon my eldest brother; and the only 
 charges on it were my sister's fortune of ten 
 thousand pounds, and a few trifling bond 
 debts. Neither Charles nor myself had any 
 claims on the paternal estate, as my father 
 deemed we were sufiiciently provided, two of 
 our uncles having adopted each of us. 
 
 B 3
 
 10 avynville: or 
 
 I have said that Sir Harry Wynville pro- 
 vided for Frederick. My mother had a 
 younger brother, Seward Parker, who was 
 devotedly attached to her. He was a member 
 of the bar, and was at the time of the French 
 revolution, one of the innumerable swarm of 
 political essayists. He was a man also of 
 gallantry. His person was distinguished for 
 manly grace. In his young days he was 
 joyous, dissipated, gay. For some years he 
 was one of the best known men about town. 
 He grew tired of his desultory existence, 
 when his physical powers began to fail ; and 
 become a grave reader of books. In 1806, 
 he was appointed an Indian judge, by the 
 influence of Mr. Fox, of whom he was a 
 political supporter. He came home to Europe 
 in 1814, having enlarged his fortune and his 
 liver. He settled in Surrey, where he bought 
 the Wycombe Hall Estate, and rented a large
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 11 
 
 and handsome farm. Though a good deal 
 broken in constitution, he devoted himself to 
 agricultural pursuits, in which to the astonish- 
 ment of the Surrey squires, he became most 
 successful. But it has been said that farming 
 and gig-driving come by nature.
 
 12 WYNYILLE; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 WYCOMBE HALL. — SURREY SCENERY. — YOUTH, 
 
 Wycombe Hall was (and is) a charming 
 place. It lies in one of the finest and 
 most picturesque parts of Surrey. The hills 
 in its neighbourhood are of a respectable 
 altitude. It stands about half a mile off the 
 high road to Brighton. Placed on a rising 
 ground, its lawn slopes down to a copse through 
 which a stream murmurs. Right in front
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 13 
 
 rises a hill planted with ancient timber, and 
 to the east of the house the Wycombe Downs 
 gradually stretch onwards, presenting a delight- 
 ful scene when decked with the furze " unprofit- 
 ably gay." To the west the scenery is bold and 
 striking, the landscapes in the immediate 
 vicinity have so often appeared, not only on 
 the walls of the Royal Academy, but of the 
 other societies of artists, that it would be a 
 vain labour to describe them. For how could 
 I, in composition, surpass the graphic skill of 
 Copley Fielding; or who in printers' ink, 
 (unless Alfred Tennyson,) could rival the 
 vivid colouring and minute elaboration of a 
 Lee? 
 
 It was amid that delightful scenery I passed 
 my early life. When I was in my twelfth 
 year I was sent by my father to reside with 
 my uncle, Seward Parker, at Wycombe Hall. 
 My mother pathetically remonstrated; for
 
 14 wynville; or, 
 
 she was fond to excess of me, but my father's 
 will prevailed. He had reasons for his resolu- 
 tion. My uncle Parker, had twenty thousand 
 pounds in the funds. He had purchased the 
 fee of Wycombe Hall, and eighty acres of 
 prime land. He had invested money profit- 
 ably in a large farm of four hundred acres. 
 In addition to all this he had an estate in 
 Scotland, which he had been suddenly be- 
 queathed, and which paid a profit over its in- 
 cumbrances of some six hundred pounds. He 
 had besides a pension of fourteen hundred pounds 
 per annum. He was advanced in life, too infirm 
 for marriage; and he pointed to me as his 
 heir, annexing as a condition that I should 
 reside with him at Wycombe Hall, where I 
 should be his pupil and companion. Under 
 these circumstances, what worldly-wise 
 father could have refused to give away his 
 youngest son?
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 15 
 
 I was sorry to live apart from my family; 
 and I deeply regretted separation from my 
 mother. But there was much to compensate 
 me. I became more of my own master, that 
 perilous privilege which youths so eagerly 
 covet, and so dearly pay for. My uncle 
 Parker was very fond of me; and provided 
 for my amusements on the most liberal scale. 
 Wycombe Hall, and the neighbourhood was 
 more agreeable to my disposition, than the 
 heavy and rather monotonous country about 
 Wynville Manor. I was by some miles nearer 
 to London ; and last, not least, I was paid far 
 more attention by many persons, as the future 
 owner of Wycombe Hall, and the accompany- 
 ing goods and chattels, lands and messuages, 
 than as third son of Mr. Wynville of Wynville 
 Manor. 
 
 My uncle was an agreeable and polished 
 old gentleman. His manners were cordial
 
 16 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 and polite ; his character shrewd ; his address, 
 insinuating. The voluptuous life of his early 
 days, and the climate of India had enfeebled 
 his body, without enervating his intellect, his 
 understanding was not very comprehensive by 
 nature ; or to speak more justly, he had not 
 given it the wisest culture. He had cultivated 
 the powers of expression at the expense of the 
 faculties of thought. But forensic education 
 and habits ; and his ardour in political dispu- 
 tation had made him very ready in the use of 
 his intellect. He knew the world very well, 
 its good as well as its bad points ; and he was 
 very liberal in his judgments. Yet at times 
 he could be caustic enough. 
 
 He was fertile in anecdote, and had lived 
 amongst all kind of people. He had been 
 very intimate with all the literary and legal 
 characters that flourished in London towards 
 the end of the last century. His learning on
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 17 
 
 some branches of English literature was ex- 
 tensive. His knowledge of the political 
 literature of England, from the days of 
 Elizabeth to his own age was profound, and 
 was borne testimony to by several of the first 
 writers of his times. 
 
 His general taste in literature, however, 
 was unfixed; his habits of reading were 
 desultory, owing to his having no strong 
 moral purpose, for at heart he was a sceptic. 
 He was, therefore, in many respects a very 
 unsafe guide for an eager, excitable young 
 fellow like me. For I had naturally a craving 
 appetite for all kinds of knowledge ; my mind 
 was so constituted as to be more easily struck 
 by the brilliant than the true. I admired the 
 vigorous style, even where it was incorrect, 
 and I remember to have preferred the vigorous 
 rant of Nat Lee to the sweet Yirgilian elegance 
 of Addison. Being very lively in my cha-
 
 18 wynville; or, 
 
 racter, I was disposed to occupy myself with 
 too many subjects; and my uncle, though 
 extensively accomplished, was little suited for 
 checking and directing my course of erratic 
 study. 
 
 There was a private school half-way between 
 Wycombe Hall and Croydon. It was kept by 
 a clergyman, who educated a few select pupils. 
 I used to ride there in the mornings after 
 breakfast, spend three hours there reading a 
 course of mathematics and physics; I re- 
 turned again by dinner-time, and for a couple 
 of hours in the evening I read the ancient 
 classics with my uncle. Sometime he used 
 to ride to meet me coming home from the 
 school, and we had many pleasant conversa- 
 tions while riding over the hills and through 
 the charming green lanes of Surrey. Young 
 as I was, I was keenly alive to the charms of 
 scenery, and I enjoyed the rural scenes in which
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 19 
 
 I passed those years with all the raptures of a 
 poetic spirit. I had a lively participation in 
 the sanguine warmth of feeling, which cast 
 such natural graces over the poetry of 
 Thomson; his genial spirit of enthusiasm 
 roused my mind to delightful conceptions of 
 nature. I felt in my own heart the same 
 sensations, as those which the author of the 
 " Seasons" has described with such energy, 
 and I doubt whether he ever received such 
 vivid impressions of pleasure from a landscape, 
 as these which I felt, when in the bloom of 
 youth I inhaled the fresh air on the Surrey 
 Downs, and from some heath-covered hill 
 gazed upon a wide scene of green meadows, 
 and waving corn-fields traversed by lanes, 
 through which the whistling boor urged his 
 cattle, and whence I heard all the delightful 
 sounds that fill the ear in the country. Ah ! 
 how keenly alive to simple beauty was my
 
 20 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 ]ieart in those days ! And which of the plea- 
 sures of the world can ever compensate me 
 for the loss of that earnestness blended with 
 simplicity, which made my heart throb with 
 pleasure, as I felt myself alone with nature ? 
 
 Those were the days in which the poetry of 
 Byron was captivating the public ; but I had 
 no sympathy with the melancholy of the noble 
 bard. T only wondered how any one endowed 
 with such a sense of beauty could grow sad. 
 The moral sense of nature spoke to my imagi- 
 nation in a thousand ways, and reading 
 poetry with ardour, the chances were that I 
 would dedicate my life and intellect to the 
 muses. 
 
 But my natural character was not contem- 
 plative; I was eager and endowed with great 
 physical activity. A life of action was more 
 suitable for me than any other, nor was I long 
 in discovering that propensity to the life of
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 21 
 
 adventure, which has been a main ingredient 
 in my character. A circumstance, which 1 
 shall now relate, revealed this propensity to 
 myself.
 
 22 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. — THE HEROINE IN TEENS. 
 
 One day as I was riding home from school, 
 I was leisurely walking my gray cob up a steep 
 hill, when about half-a-mile from Wycombe, 
 I heard the rapid clatter of a horse's hoofs, as 
 if some one was coming down the hill at full 
 gallop. There was an awkward turn on the 
 road, so as that whoever was approaching was 
 hidden from my view by the intervening
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 23 
 
 hedges. But before I had any time for reflec- 
 tion, a runaway horse came dashing down the 
 hill ; he hai scarcely turned the corner, when 
 he shied across the road, and flung his rider 
 with stunning force upon the ground. 
 
 I cantered forward to render assistance, 
 and on dismounting I beheld, as I thought, a 
 lifeless corse. It was the form of a young man, 
 of extraordinary beauty of countenance, and 
 even in the excitement of the occasion, I could 
 not help admiring the face and appearance of 
 one whom I then believed dead. Though 
 his cheeks had the hue of death, his finely 
 chiselled features were as strikingly handsome 
 as any I have ever beheld. But I had no time 
 then for admiration. I removed the stranger 
 to the side of the road, and placed him re- 
 clining on a jutting part of the bank. I 
 could not distinguish his breathing, but I felt 
 a pulse faintly fluttering at his wrist. It was
 
 24 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 not the first time that I had witnessed such 
 an accident; I had been taught how to bleed 
 by no less a person than Sir Charles Maclau- 
 rin (an occasional visitor at Wynville Manor, 
 and a frequent guest at Wycombe, of whom 
 I shall speak presently), and tearing open his 
 coat and shirt, I took a few ounces of blood 
 from the arm of the gentleman. I had the 
 satisfaction of seeing him revive, and though 
 my chirurgical operation was rather clumsily 
 performed, I had the satisfaction of knowing 
 that I had saved his life, at the trifling cost 
 of saturating his fashionable clothes with 
 some of his blood. 
 
 The gentleman had been badly hurt : his 
 head had come sideways on the ground, and 
 was severely bruised. His right arm was 
 broken, and his ancle was sprained. These 
 latter injuries I had not at first perceived. 
 But they were apparent when he attempted to
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 25 
 
 move on recovering his consciousness. He 
 evidently felt great pain. I despatched a 
 messenger to Wycombe for assistance, and in 
 the course of half-an-hour I conveyed him in 
 a chaise to my uncle's house. There he was 
 paid all requisite attention. A surgeon was 
 despatched for with all haste, and the house- 
 keeper, Mrs. Margetts, brouglit her plaisters 
 and applications into use. 
 
 While waiting for the surgeon, the stranger 
 was placed at full length upon a sofa in the 
 library. My uncle could not refrain from 
 commenting in a whisper to me, upon the 
 striking appearance of the sufferer. His 
 form was manly ; his face deserved that much 
 abused word "beautiful;" over his whole 
 figure there was an air of graceful, though 
 negligent fashion. We had prevented him 
 from speaking ; but fumbling in his waistcoat- 
 pocket, he contrived to jerk a card-case upon 
 VOL. I. c
 
 26 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 the floor. We ascertained his name; upon 
 his card was engraved " Captain Granby 
 Cumberland." 
 
 The surgeon pronounced him to be out of 
 danger ; and reset the broken arm without- 
 much trouble, but he said that Mr. Cumber- 
 land could not be removed for some days, as 
 the sprain was very severe, and the patient 
 would require to be kept quiet, and not 
 exposed to uneasy motion. Accordingly 
 Captain Cumberland was domesticated at 
 Wycombe Hall. As I shall have a very 
 extraordinary story to tell of him, I may 
 here mention who he was. 
 
 Though a member of an ancient family, he 
 was the son of a London merchant. Mr. 
 Cumberland senior had, at an early period of 
 his life, embarked in trade. Old Cumberland 
 married Miss Hervey, the beautiful actress, 
 and his son was Granby Cumberland, of whose
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 27 
 
 singular and chequered career the reader will 
 learn in these memoirs. 
 
 At the time of the accident, Cumberland 
 was in the twenty -first year of his age. His 
 mother had been dead for some years. His 
 father resided at a handsome seat called High 
 Mount, not far from Croydon. We sent a 
 messenger for the old gentleman, who arrived 
 on the evening of his son's accident, and 
 testified great gratitude for the attention 
 which my uncle and myself had paid the 
 sufferer. He was a selfish well-bred Londoner. 
 It was the first time that I had ever been 
 brought in contact with a man of his class, 
 and my unsophisticated mind was much struck 
 with the worldly knowledge and ready memory 
 of the old gentleman. He was purse-proud, 
 complacent, and occasionally caustic; but on 
 the whole he was an amusing, and in some 
 respects an instructive companion. 
 
 c 2
 
 28 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 The Cumberland's country residence, High- 
 mount, was about twelve miles from Wycombe 
 Hall. Mr. Cumberland's sister was married 
 to Lord Belvale, who lived in the immediate 
 vicinity of Highmount, and young Cumber- 
 land passed a great part of his time Avith 
 Lord Belvale, who had a large family of 
 daughters, endowed with beauty, intelligence, 
 and much amiability of character. Lord 
 Belvale himself was a polished and estimable 
 peer possessing great political influence in 
 parliament. 
 
 Young Cumberland rapidly recovered from 
 his accident. Both he and his father insisted 
 that I should pass some days with them at 
 Highmount, and my uncle readily consented. 
 It was the first time in my life that I was 
 thrown totally amongst strangers, and I felt 
 in some respects awkward, as my education 
 had been reserved. But this feeling soon wore
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 29 
 
 off; Granby Cumberland was my senior by 
 three years; was frank and good-humoured, 
 and much to be liked as a companion. We 
 soon became sworn friends. 
 
 I was introduced to Lord Belvale, who 
 knew my father and mother very well. He 
 asked whether I was intended for any profes- 
 sion, whether I would follow the profession in 
 which Judge Wynville became so eminent, or 
 whether I would enter parliament? I an- 
 swered what was the truth, that I had never 
 thought twice upon the subject, and that I 
 desired nothing better than to live at Wy- 
 combe Hall all my life. 
 
 "What! not go to a university? Not go 
 into the great world and see men as they are? 
 You surely don't mean to say that you would 
 always live at Wycombe. 
 
 " Really I have no desire to quit it, I am 
 very happy there. My uncle, Mr. Parker,
 
 aO WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 strives to make me happy, I enjoy all the 
 sports of the country: I have a fine library 
 to study in: I am never in want of amuse- 
 ment. My uncle is visited from town by 
 many of his old friends, and it was only the 
 other day that Sir Charles Maclaurin wished 
 that he might have spent all his life at 
 Wycombe. 
 
 " What ! " cried Lord Belvale, " so you 
 know Maclaurin?" 
 
 " Perfectly well; he is the attached old 
 friend of Mr. Parker. They knew each other 
 in India, where they both filled legal posts." 
 
 " Oh ! long before that, my young friend," 
 answered Lord Belvale, " they first knew 
 each other, I'll venture to say, at the Specu- 
 lation Society. I remember when I was a 
 young man, spending the winter of '89 and 
 part of the following year in Edinburgh. It 
 was then a great place for young men to go
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 31 
 
 to for education. I remember Maclaurin 
 perfectly well ; he was the first among the 
 young men. He is nothing now to what he 
 was then. We all thought that he would 
 have become a greater man than either Burke 
 or Fox, or Pitt, and you see after all how little 
 he has done — why, he is little more than an 
 eminent lawyer — though, to be sure, he may 
 make a great literary reputation by the work 
 he is Avriting — " The History of Europe from 
 the Reformation to the Fall of Napoleon." 
 
 But dinner was announced just as Lord 
 Bel vale was exciting my curiosity. The party 
 was a very large one, and I well recollect how 
 excited my mind was by the conversation at 
 the table. The company talked of the town 
 — of theatres — the House of Commons, and 
 of the events of various literary and political 
 notorieties. I felt as I sat at table a strong 
 spirit of curiosity wakened in me to see more 
 of life.
 
 32 WYxWILLE; OR, 
 
 Nor was this curiosity diminished when I 
 passed tlie following evening at Lord Belvale's. 
 A large party was assembled there. Some of 
 the London notorieties were there. Amongst 
 them was Lord Mowbray's court, the celebrated 
 master of small political" intrigues. He was 
 accompanied by a young girl — his eldest 
 daughter — the Lady Jane Mowbray, and 
 little did one of the company then assembled 
 anticipate the vast influence, which she was 
 destined to exercise over his heart, colouring 
 the events of his future life. She was then 
 about fifteen years of age, and of a slight 
 figure. Her beauty was such as a Lawrence 
 would have loved to transfer to canvass. Her 
 black eyes and hair, contrasted brilliantly 
 with the excessive fineness of her skin, and 
 there was even then in her youthful figure and 
 face the mark of that intellectual determi- 
 nation, and vivid versatility of mind, which
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 33 
 
 in after years entitled the oracle of Holland- 
 House — Sir Charles Maclaurin — to call her 
 " the de-Stael of English Toryism." 
 
 Years elapsed before I met with her again, 
 and the effect which she exercised over my 
 destinies is depicted in the second and third 
 of these volumes. That effect was vastly 
 increased by the peculiar kind of life which I 
 led in London, previous to my becoming 
 enamoured of Lady Jane. Those readers, 
 who care only for love scenes, must skip a few 
 of my preliminary chapters, but those who 
 like to study the various phases of life, and 
 working of opinions, will find matter for 
 reflection, in the gradual formation of my 
 character. 
 
 The party at Lord Belvale's was exceedingly 
 brilliant. I had led so reserved a life, that 
 the effect of the gay company was more than 
 ordinarily exciting. I was delighted with 
 
 C 3
 
 34 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 the display of beauty — ^mingled with fashion 
 and elegance. I listened with pleasure to the 
 gay — lively — and airy conversation. I feasted 
 my eyes upon the women. I resigned myself 
 to all the intoxication of fancy. I flattered 
 myself at the attention paid to me. I 
 treasured carefully some of Lord Belvale's 
 idle compliments, and put the gentlest con- 
 struction upon the amiable looks of his 
 captivating daughters. To see the world at 
 large became a desire with me; though on 
 reflection, I found that it would not be so easy, 
 as I was in point of honour, as well as from 
 motives of interest, obliged to reside with my 
 uncle.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 35 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE INNER TEMPLE. — ^ST. LEGER. — ^AJIBITION. 
 
 For the next four or five years I led the 
 same kind of life as I had been accustomed to 
 at Wycombe Hall. I grew up to be a man, 
 without any profession. My uncle quietly 
 determined that I should be a country gentle- 
 man and nothing more; I took little interest 
 in agricultural matters. I continued to read 
 a vast deal, though without method. I studied
 
 36 WYNYILLE; OR, 
 
 the languages, and dived into a great many 
 philosophers. My memory was tenacious, and 
 in my twenty-second year I had amassed a 
 prodigious variety of knowledge, which was 
 ill calculated for assimilation. I joined in 
 field sports, and frequented eveiy good society 
 within our neighbourhood. I was frequently 
 at Lord Bel vale's, and I felt more eager than 
 ever to see the great world at large. 
 
 My uncle soon died, and left me all his 
 worldly goods. I deeply regretted him. His 
 foibles never became faults. He was eccen- 
 tric in some things, but his heart and prin- 
 ciples were incorrupt. His faults were those 
 of temperament, of accident, and of edu- 
 ca^tion. 
 
 I became my own master: my fortune, 
 however, was not so large as had been ex- 
 pected. Mr. Parker had suffered some losses 
 towards the end of his life. I found myself in
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 37 
 
 my twenty-third year, with a handsome place in 
 Surrey, and a fortune of fifteen hundred pounds 
 a-year. The question came, " what was I 
 to do?" Ninety-nine out of a hundred would 
 have quietly settled down at Wycombe — have 
 married — got children — and aimed at nothing 
 more than the ordinary object of squirearchi- 
 cal ambition. But I was a Wynville, and 
 though my uncle's education had given me 
 a propensity to reflection and quiet life, the 
 blood in my veins urged me to adventure. 
 My chief desire was to see life^ and to know 
 the world thoroughly. I felt the greatest 
 curiosity to observe men as they were in real 
 life, and to see them without the artificial 
 spectacles of books, and preconceived systems. 
 Ought I enter the army ? or the church ? If 
 truth must be told, I had not sufficient fri- 
 volity and mental apathy for the first, and my 
 practical morals were not good enough for the
 
 38 wynville; or, 
 
 second. I should have wished to enter par- 
 liament; but I was not rich enough to buy 
 one, or so well-known as to get a borough on 
 mere personal considerations. I decided to be 
 a barrister, and without delay became a 
 member of the Inner Temple. 
 
 I was then in my twenty-third year, alive 
 to pleasure of every kind, possessing a sanguine 
 character, and an ardent love of fame. Life 
 presented to me a scene of dazzling enjoyment, 
 I longed to play my part in the great arena 
 of London. My confidence in myself was 
 resolute without vanity. I saw numbers 
 without my abilities advancing to fortune 
 and honour, and I supposed that there was no 
 difficulty in my overtaking, or surpassing 
 them. Young men of talent never calculate 
 how much of accident is in human life. They 
 suppose that talent — mere talent, carries 
 away the prizes. But it is not so, chance
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 39 
 
 does much; conduct does more. Interest 
 does much, and it is certain that mere com- 
 mon sense, and steady application will carry- 
 men farther than the most brilliant genius, 
 unattended by the foregoing qualities. But 
 young men can never believe such stale 
 truisms. 
 
 I was delighted with the Inner Temple. 
 Bred up by my uncle Parker, in comparative 
 solitude, my heart panted with exultation at 
 finding myself amongst a swarm of young 
 men from the Universities. I felt a principle 
 of emulation take possession of me, and a 
 struggle for reputation and honour, with all 
 its excitement, presented a more fascinating 
 picture to my mind, than the life of contem- 
 plation and quiet study which I had been 
 leading at Wycombe. 
 
 The term dinners at the Temple Hall were 
 regularly attended by me; there I became
 
 40 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 acquainted with many singular and interesting 
 young fellows. We used to dine at long 
 tables, running down the old Hall. We were 
 divided into messes of four, and the conversa- 
 tion was generally very brisk. What amused 
 me most was the infinite variety of tastes 
 that prevailed amongst the Templars. With 
 one set, the talk would be of nothing but 
 opera dancers and actresses. The next day 
 with a different set, it would be of politics — of 
 Mr. Canning's eloquence and the catholic 
 question. Next day I would probably mess 
 with men who could talk of nothing but 
 Cambridge and Oxford reputations — of double 
 firsts, and the last senior wrangler. On 
 another day it would be an incessant gabble 
 about the last case decided by Lord Tenterden, 
 and of proposed new rules in pleading. And 
 again, by way of variety, the talk would be 
 de omnibus — of triangles — Madame Vestris, 
 and the Bishop of London.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 41 
 
 One very amusing person I first met at the 
 Temple dinners. I chanced somehow to be 
 in the same mess with him very often, and 
 was struck with the versatility of his mind. 
 He talked (and right well) upon every 
 description of subject. He had great humour 
 and a strong propensity to satire. His reading 
 was evidently extensive, but on all that 
 related to English history, he was informed to 
 an extent surprising in so very young a man. 
 He had all the gossip of history at his fingers. 
 He knew the life of every statesman, from 
 Clarendon down to Charles Fox, by heart. 
 The purposes of parties, and characters of 
 various ages, he was thoroughly conversant 
 with. His knowledge of family history was 
 extraordinary ; and his power of illustrating 
 public events, by connecting them with private 
 motives of statesman, was deeply interesting. 
 He knew very little of foreign literature,
 
 42 WYxWILLE; OR, 
 
 though he had travelled through the best part 
 of Europe. He was very shrewd in his judg- 
 ments, and had a propensity to cutting satire. 
 He had lived rather freely, and was very 
 familiar with the town, a circumstance which 
 gave his conversation more slang than was 
 quite agreeable. But in manners and conduct 
 he was a perfect gentleman. 
 
 His name was St. Leger, and to this day 
 nobody knows where he came from. It was 
 generally thought that he was not an English- 
 man; it was supposed that he was a Scotch- 
 man, and scandal whispered that he was an 
 Irishman. There was that mixture of in- 
 tellect and shrewdness in him, that led one to 
 think he was one of those "canny," clever 
 Scotchmen who have shewn their excellent 
 taste in determining to reside south of the 
 Tweed. There was a certain peculiarity in 
 his character and manners, that gave ground
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 43 
 
 for supposing that he was not an Fnglishman ; 
 besides, he used to turn his ridicule too often 
 against some of our prejudices, and appear 
 even at times animated with an hostile feeling 
 towards us. That he was an Irishman, 
 however, was absurd to suppose. He was 
 altogether too rational when talking of 
 Irish subjects, for a native of the land of 
 exaggeration. 
 
 He had great knowledge of persons, and 
 mixed extensively in society. He had gradu- 
 ated at Cambridge; he knew all the clever 
 men about the inns of court. We became 
 acquainted with each other soon after I 
 entered the Temple.
 
 44 WYNYILLE; OR. 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 MEN OF PROMISE — A LOST STAR AND A 
 LIVING ONE. 
 
 One evening, after dinner, St. Leger and I 
 strolled together into the gardens, and lounged 
 up and down the terrace by the river side. 
 A great many Templars and Lincoln's Inn 
 men were taking the air — it was June term, 
 and the evening sun poured a flood of light 
 over the Thames, whose surface was covered
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 45 
 
 with wherries and barges coming up with the 
 tide. It was an animating scene. I could 
 not help remarking to St. Leger, what a fear- 
 ful profession the law was, and how difficult 
 it must be to succeed in it, when such crowds 
 thronged to the bar. 
 
 ^' Look !" cried I, " to this swarm of men, 
 about our own age. How is a young fellow 
 to get out of the crowd? Even with talents 
 and learning, the number of competitors, simi- 
 larly gifted, is so numerous, that it is hardly 
 possible to distinguish one-self from the crowd. 
 Success comes only when a man is too old to 
 enjoy it." 
 
 " Pooh ! let the number of your competitors 
 in life never startle you. If you look closely 
 at the matter, there is much less competition 
 than you suppose. A man starts at the bar 
 with twenty men, say, for his contemporaries 
 and immediate contemporaries. Five out of
 
 46 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 these have probably gone to the bar, merely 
 for the fancy of the thing. They expect to 
 be in parliament, and have probably desired 
 the advantages of a legal education as a pre- 
 paration for political life. Fifteen remain, 
 say, of the age of five-and- twenty. Well, let 
 ten years pass over, and there will probably 
 be five out of those fifteen, no more. Out of 
 the ten that remain, five will probably have 
 proved failures, from a variety of causes, 
 without reference to their talents. Some 
 from want of moral character, others from 
 paucity of means to sustain themselves pro- 
 perly in society, others from some leading 
 defect in manners ; thus only five remain at 
 thirty-five years of age, and see the effect of 
 ten years more on them. 
 
 " Yes ! but St. Leger, you make no account 
 that you will have to compete with the men 
 above you as well as those of your own 
 standing."
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 47 
 
 '^ True! but time, experience, and your 
 own length of standing, will be pushing you 
 on just as well." 
 
 " You amuse me, St. Leger, with your 
 theory of chance being so effective in dis- 
 tributing fame and fortune." 
 
 ^' It is only the truth ; it will be the same 
 way with those two young men coming up the 
 terrace." 
 
 I looked in the direction in which St. 
 Leger pointed, and saw two young men, sur- 
 rounded by a crowd of Templars, listening to 
 a very animated conversation between the two 
 persons on whom St. Leger had fixed his eyes. 
 As we passed, they both saluted St. Leger. 
 
 '' There go," cried St. Leger, " two men, 
 who must, if they live, and have any chances 
 in their favour, attain to no small degree of 
 political or literary renown. They are both 
 of them, the most gifted young men of the
 
 48 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 present day. Neither at Oxford or Cambridge, 
 or in our London circles, recruited as they 
 are by aspirants from Scotland and Ireland, 
 would it be possible to find a pair of young 
 men, approaching those who have passed in 
 acquirements and talents. These are the 
 Penrose and Mackenzie of whom you may 
 have often heard persons speak." 
 
 "' What," cried I, '' are these the Penrose 
 and Mackenzie, who were rivals at Cambridge, 
 and the leading speakers at the Union?" 
 
 '' The same," replied St. Leger, " they are 
 now rapidly rising into distinction. He, who 
 saluted me is Penrose, the other is his friend 
 and rival, Barrington Mackenzie. They are 
 very different in their characters and talents ; 
 they are alike in superiority over all their 
 competitors and rivalry." 
 
 " And which of the two," I inquired, '^ is 
 the most clever?"
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 49 
 
 "Never use the word clever in London. It 
 has no meaning here, where there are at least 
 a few thousand very clever fellows. For 
 London, to be clever is nothing. To have 
 power of mind, and a resolute character, 
 aye! these are the qualities which carry a 
 man forward in London. To call Barrington 
 Mackenzie, a man who could write that 
 glowing gorgeous article on " Spenser and his 
 Times" in the last Review, to call him clever^ 
 is like saying that Mr. Canning is a fluent 
 speaker, by way of complimenting him. No ! 
 those two men are far more than clever. 
 Those are gifted men. They have minds of 
 genius. They have a desire of fame, as dis- 
 tinguished from mere notoriety, which any 
 charlatan can attain. If I do not tire you, 
 I will give you some account of them, as far 
 as I knoAv their abilities." 
 
 "Pray do," cried I, as I saw that St. 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 50 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 Leger was in a discursive mood of mind, and 
 I enjoyed his conversation. 
 
 " 1 knew Penrose very well at Cambridge. 
 He is son of the late Serjeant Penrose, who 
 went the western circuit. The family is an old 
 one; his mother was a daughter of old 
 ]\Iackreth, the banker. You may have heard 
 of the firm, Penrose, Mackreth and Co. 
 In his boyhood, Penrose gave signs of preco- 
 cious talents. He had singular powers of 
 apprehension, and astonished his various 
 masters. He early displayed those talents for 
 versifying which he possesses in so eminent a 
 degree. Nothing can be more playful — airy, 
 or sprightly than his verses. What Charles 
 Lamb is in his prose, Penrose is in his poetry. 
 His playful humour, struggles with his pen- 
 sive thinking. His smile scarcely conceals 
 the sweet mournfulness of his muse. He was 
 the elegance of some of the French song
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 51 
 
 writers, with much of that genuine tender- 
 ness which one meets in our old English 
 poets. In fact, the charms of his poetry con- 
 sist in being the transcript of his own, graceful 
 and engaging mind. ''Messieurs' — said Buffoon, 
 in his discourse to the academy — ' le style — 
 c'estVhomme.'' And so it is with Penrose. He 
 is in fact a poem, rather than a poet. He 
 is graceful — lively — fanciful. His heart is 
 gentle — his disposition gay. His wit is 
 sprightly, and his humour free from all coarse- 
 ness. I will shew you sometime some of his 
 poems, which will justify these praises. And 
 yet, notwithstanding these talents, I have my 
 doubts as to Penrose. His talents, as Dr. 
 Johnson would say, are not ' determined in 
 some particular direction.' With the genius 
 of a poet — he has the habits of a politician. 
 He devours all the newspapers, and scribbles 
 in some of them. He is constantly in the 
 
 D 2
 
 52 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 clubs. His tongue drops more of St Steplien^s 
 Chapel gossip, than of the honey of Hybla. 
 And the worst of it is, nobody knows under 
 what party he is ranged. He is a political 
 Proteus. He adores Mr. Canning, and squibs 
 at Mr. Peel. He hates Lord Grey — distrusts 
 Mr. Brougham — sneers at the whig party — 
 talks radicalism with the air of a man of 
 ton^ and every Sunday Morning he makes as 
 Iiearty a literary meal, on Cobbett's sturdy 
 Register, as on Mr. Fonblanque's sparkling 
 Examiner." 
 
 " You paint a strange character," cried I, 
 interrupting. 
 
 '• Aye ! and a portrait as you will perceive, 
 when you become acquainted with him. But 
 that is not all, he is also something of a 
 dandy, and aspires to a boudoir reputation. 
 He makes interest to be introduced into the 
 most difficult circles, and Churchley — you 
 know Churchley, the severe caustic barrister,
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 53 
 
 who delights in detraction. I do believe 
 Churchley's story about Penrose was not 
 much of an exaggeration. According to 
 Churchley, when one day at Cambridge, Pen- 
 rose read a paragraph in the Morning Post to 
 the effect, that the Mr. Penrose who had so 
 distinguished himself at the university, was 
 son of Mr. Penrose, the banker." — Away 
 posted Penrose in a post-chaise for London, 
 greatly alarmed lest the paragraph should 
 meet the eye of Countess Cowper, and he 
 might be refused a ticket for Almack's. And 
 next morning there was an elaborate contra- 
 diction of the paragraph. In fact Penrose 
 has a good deal of the fop about him. But 
 his fault — for we all have faults, is that he is 
 too much of a quiz. He is seldom serious, 
 and if he embarks on the sea of politics, I 
 am afraid that he would founder. He is an 
 odd mixture of Theodore Hook and Tom
 
 54 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 Hood. The mariner doubling Cape Horn 
 should be more careful and grave than one of 
 K. Y. C — 's in his Thames yacht off Graves- 
 end. Now Penrose is just the man who 
 would essay to sail round the globe, with the 
 same levity as he would join a party of plea- 
 sure from Southampton to Netly Abbey." 
 
 " If I understand the character rightly, he 
 is deficient in masculinity of tone." 
 
 '' iSTo ! there you are wrong, for Penrose is 
 a very plucky fellow. He has excellent game 
 qualities, and I think the fact of his spirit 
 and energy is the very best thing about him. 
 Penrose, I assure you, is a very manly fellow. 
 He was a man, before he was either a wit, or 
 scholar. He is nothing of a literary petit 
 mditre. If you met him at the Sheridan 
 Club, you would never knoAv that he was a 
 scholar, or a man of parts. You would take 
 him for one of the graceful well-bred rakes
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 55 
 
 and men of fashion of the club. In short, 
 Penrose has some apparent contradictions in 
 his character. With his poetry and pensive- 
 ness, his foppery and small talk, he is a sort 
 of being, half-way between Sir Philip Sidney 
 and Beau Brummell." 
 
 " An odd conjunction, indeed ! But let 
 me now hear your opinion of Barrington 
 Mackenzie." 
 
 " Mackenzie," cried St. Leger, ^' is a man 
 of totally different character from Penrose, 
 though there is a good deal of similarity in 
 their genre as well as in their pursuits. They 
 belong to the same class of men, that is uni- 
 versity crack men. They both write poetry, 
 make brilliant speeches in debating societies — 
 dabble more or less in politics — d — n the ex- 
 ministers or the new tragedy with equal pun- 
 gency and grace, and talk de omnibus with 
 similar fluency and confidence. But there all
 
 56 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 resemblance ends between them. The critical 
 faculty predominates as much in Mackenzie's 
 mind, as, the /fanciful in that of Penrose. 
 Mackenzie is not a quicker man than Pen- 
 rose, they have both carried prizes with equal 
 ease, but Mackenzie is a surer man, not so 
 much because his abilities are more compre- 
 hensive, as because his character is steadier, 
 and his temperament not so impulsive. His 
 memory is extraordinary — wax to receive and 
 marble to retain. Whatever he has seen, heard, 
 or read, he recollects with equal tenacity. 
 In acquirements his strength lies in knowledge 
 of English literature and political history. 
 '^ I know myself," said St. Leger, " a vast deal 
 of biography, but Mackenzie is a Plutarch in 
 breeches. He has such a detailed knowledge 
 of the age of Charles the First, that with his 
 vigorous fancy and picturesque declamation, 
 he could give you as graphic a portraiture of
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 57 
 
 the cavaliers and levellers — of Laud — of 
 Hampden — and Sir Harry Vane, as if he had 
 gone to confession, and received the sacrament 
 from Laud, or been close to Hampden's side 
 in Chalgrove field. You have read probably 
 
 two of his contributions to the reviews. 
 
 They strikingly exhibit the main quality of 
 his mind. He has all the qualities that go to 
 form a picturesque essayist. We have had 
 moral essayists, like Addison and Johnson; 
 aesthetic essayists, like Payne Knight, cum 
 multis aliis; gossipping commentators, like 
 Horace Walpole, but Mackenzie would make 
 an essayist of a style quite original. As a 
 picturesque writer of history he would have 
 vast success. He has large power of gene- 
 ralization. With his ready memory he forti- 
 fies his assertions with apt and striking facts, 
 and describes characters and parties with the 
 strength and brilliancy of a literary Titian. 
 
 D 3
 
 58 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 Coleridge brilliantly said that ^'seeing Kean 
 act was like reading Shakspeare by flashes of 
 lightning/' And there is a gorgeousness of 
 effect diffused over Barrington Mackenzie's 
 writing, that you read him as if by the light 
 of a painted window illumined by the setting 
 sun. It is rather to be apprehended that he 
 will sacrifice too much to this capacity for 
 producing effect. But his main talent, and 
 that which most attracts the notice of literary 
 judges is the peculiarity of his style. He is 
 florid in his language. He is very prone to 
 ornament. Similes — metaphors — allusions — 
 bedeck his composition. Yet it cannot be 
 said that his writings are prolix. On the 
 contrary, there is throughout an affectation 
 of treating the subjects discussed in a sum- 
 mary fashion. Then his tone is always that 
 of an orator more than an author. His 
 sentences seem as if intended for a speech.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 59 
 
 Addressed to the eye, they are constructed to 
 catch the ear. On the whole, it must be at 
 once admitted that his style is decidedly 
 original." 
 
 '' But is it as a literary man, that he is 
 destined to figure before the world?" said I. 
 
 " That," answered St. Leger, " could only 
 be guessed at by Mackenzie himself. I rather 
 think that it is probable he will become a 
 politician. He has several influential connec- 
 tions, who are more or less engaged in public 
 affairs, and with his reputation it will pro- 
 bably not be very difficult for him to procure 
 a seat in Parliament." 
 
 " Would he be likely to succeed in Parlia- 
 ment? So many clever literary men have 
 failed there." 
 
 " Well ! I should be disposed to augur well 
 of his success up to a certain point. Though 
 I do not think he has enough of passion for a
 
 60 wynville; or, 
 
 first-rate orator. I heard him repeatedly at 
 the Union. He speaks in a set style, and 
 delivers himself one rotundo. He always 
 took a large view of whatever subject was 
 discussed. He had an excellent tact for 
 seizing an interesting point of view, and for 
 bringing to bear the opinions of celebrated 
 authors on his side of a question. But he 
 spoke with too much coldness. The manner 
 was too elaborate and heavy, but the ingenuity 
 of his reasoning, and the brilliancy of his 
 fancy captivated his audience. Penrose spoke 
 in quite a different style. Light — gay — and 
 laughing he sparkled over a subject. He was 
 more anxious to shew his wit than his powers 
 of reasoning. He was very ready, and with 
 his gibes, and pungent quotations, delivered 
 in a dashing off-hand style, always produced 
 a brilliant, though transitory effect. In 
 Penrose there was an evident case of style.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 61 
 
 and a gaiety of mind, that were more pleas- 
 ing than Mackenzie's more solid qualities. 
 It was quite surprising to witness Penrose 
 standing up, and on the spur of the moment, 
 rattle off a succession of rhetorical fire-works, 
 exhibiting great impromptu talent." 
 
 " On the whole," continued St. Leger, " I 
 am anxious to see how these two crack men 
 will turn out, whether they will realize the 
 expectations of their friends, or whether like 
 so many others, they will founder in public 
 life."
 
 62 WY]!fVILLE; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 GRANBY CUMBERLAND. — A DANDY DEMAGOGUE. 
 — FASHIONABLE DISSIPATION. 
 
 My friend, Granby Cumberland, was at 
 this time leading a life of incessant dissipa- 
 tion. A windfall of thirty thousand pounds 
 had come to him from a relative, and he was 
 squandering it like a prodigal. He counted 
 also on inheriting from his father a very large 
 fortune. Cumberland was in his way so
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 63 
 
 remarkable a character that it is worth while 
 to describe him at full length. 
 
 Unconnected by birth with the aristocracy, 
 and possessing much energy and some popular 
 talents, the great ambition of his life was to 
 become a social notoriety. By professing 
 Radical principles in politics he obtained a 
 seat in the House of Commons, and an oppor- 
 tunity of making acquaintances with persons 
 of high station. To political talents he had 
 no pretensions beyond being capable of 
 making a plain speech, delivered very grace- 
 fully. His personal appearance was very 
 prepossessing, and might have been perfectly 
 captivating, but for the undue predominance 
 of his cheek bones, which he inherited from 
 some of his Caledonian forefathers. Tall, 
 slight, and graceful in his figure, he had a 
 manly and almost noble bearing, and his 
 smile was singularly sweet. A straight Gre-
 
 64 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 cian nose rose over a mouth perfectly formed, 
 and set off by good teeth ; while his large and 
 well opened grey eyes sparkled with un- 
 commmon brilliancy. A profusion of light 
 chesnut curls clustered over his forehead, and 
 by studying the best models in di^ess, and 
 sparing no expence in tailoring, he was in his 
 appearance and bearing a very capital speci- 
 men of one of the most remarkable and 
 hitherto unclassified specimens of the dandy 
 species. 
 
 Cumberland was a dandy demagogue^ one 
 of those gentlemanly levellers and dandified 
 destructives who have become naturalized 
 amongst us. As a class of politicians they 
 Avere the least troubled with conscience of any 
 I ever knew. To cut a strong figure before 
 the public eye, to see their names often in 
 print, and to enjoy the digito monstrari at 
 parish vestries, and claptrap associations, were
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 65 
 
 their main motives of action. No part of 
 their parliamentary life they enjoyed more 
 than walking in and out of the House of 
 Commons, or along the avenues leading to it, 
 when crowds of provincial spectators loiter to 
 see the ' lions' of the day, disporting them- 
 selves in the lobbies, with showy well made 
 up costume of dandyism. I have known 
 many honest Eadical members of parliament, 
 but they were men of plebeian connections, 
 who raised themselves in the world by com- 
 mercial energy and enterprise. But for 
 genuine political scampishness, for reckless- 
 ness in adopting a political creed, the ranting 
 radical dandy democrats beat all competitors 
 hollow in wantonness and parliamentary 
 libertinism. 
 
 Cumberland studied the part he played 
 with great care. He went to a retired actor, 
 who lived by teaching young clergymen to
 
 66 WYNVILLE: OR 
 
 read the liturgy, and got up the management 
 of his voice according to the best mode of 
 elocution. He conned the common places of 
 politics, studied the best speeches, and gleaned 
 a smattering of history from them, aided with 
 a perusal of reviews and elementary books. 
 He committed to memory several good jests 
 and anecdotes, and introduced them cleverly 
 into his speeches, so that he was often felt as 
 an agreeable relief in debate after some 
 proser or bore. He made great use of any 
 unfledged litterateur of his acquaintance, and 
 crammed in a parliamentary speech by mark- 
 ing the conversation of town for a fortnight 
 before, and then digesting its sayings into 
 a speech which he passed off as his own. 
 His mind was like a patchwork quilt, or the 
 floor of a rustic arbour, a large collection of 
 curious little bits put together with much 
 mechanical contrivance.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 67 
 
 In society he threw off his art, and relied 
 on his handsome face and high spirits. 
 Singing a good song, and with lots of funny 
 stories, he was a very good man for a club, or 
 a gentleman's dinner-party. But he never 
 could secure the permanent entree into houses 
 of fashion, though he lavished compliments 
 of all kinds upon younger sons, and spent 
 days of plotting to circumvent a peer of first- 
 class standing to condescend to his acquaint- 
 ance. Failing in that line, he aimed at mere 
 common notoriety as a man on town, and 
 since he failed in being a real man of fashion, 
 he succeeded in being a very genuine rake ; 
 did monstrous foolish things, confounded fame 
 and notoriety, gave a splendid villa to an 
 Opera danseuse, and dabbled extensively in 
 turf speculations. He kept his seat in Parlia- 
 ment by liberal disbursements from his well 
 filled purse, and being always most punctual
 
 68 wynville; or, 
 
 in his pecuniary dealings, the Methodist shop- 
 keepers in his borough thought him a most 
 respectable character. 
 
 I remember his coming one day to my 
 chambers in the Temple. "Ah, my lad, 
 there you are poring over your books. What 
 are you reading now," cried he, taking up a 
 volume of Burke, which I was perusing. 
 " How can you read such an old proser as 
 Burke? I tried to read him once, and I re- 
 member he put me to sleep. Burke Avas a 
 brilliant pedagogue ; he had more of the 
 spirit of a schoolmaster than a statesman in 
 his composition. I always figure him address- 
 ing the house with a book in one hand, and a 
 birch in the other. Ah! Fox is the man I 
 admire — Fox and Sheridan — these were the 
 real kind of fellows after all! They could 
 drink — dice — and rake against any men in 
 town, and debate with the first men of the
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 69 
 
 day. But come, my lad, come oiF to White 
 Conduit House with me — I am to go through 
 a fine piece of popular humbug — I promised 
 to be there at two o'clock." 
 
 '^ One of your low radical meetings, I sup- 
 pose," said I. 
 
 " You have hit it — I promised three or four 
 days since to take the chair at a meeting to 
 be held to-day of the great un-washed, to 
 petition for universal suffrage and annual 
 parliaments, and I do not know how many 
 other things, which they will probably get as 
 soon as the world is at an end." 
 
 " How can you reconcile it to your con- 
 science, Cumberland, to take part in pro- 
 ceedings which you evidently think humbug?" 
 
 '' Why that is just the reason I do take 
 part in them ! It is because I do think them 
 humbug that I can reconcile it to myself to 
 take part in them. If I really thought that
 
 70 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 we were going to have a democracy in Eng- 
 land, there is not a man in the community 
 who would struggle more against it than my- 
 self. I could endure any government sooner 
 than that of the rabble. God forbid that 
 England should ever be ruled by its tag-rag 
 and bob- tail — by its ' swinish multitude,' as 
 Burke says. By the way it's a capital phrase 
 — ' the swinish multitude.' " 
 
 " Allow me to remind you, Cumberland, 
 that when Burke wrote the words, he evidently 
 meant that swinish multitude, in alluding 
 to the outrageous mob of Paris. In his 
 ' Thoughts on the Discontents,' he has himself 
 said, that if the constitution is to perish, he 
 hoped it would not be under the austere form 
 of aristocracy, and besides " 
 
 " Oh ! my good friend, spare me your 
 lecture, 1 see old Maclaurin has bitten you 
 with his admiration of Burke, and I have no
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 71 
 
 time for a sermon on politics now, seeing that 
 I have to make a speech on them in a few 
 minutes, and I promised to he at the White 
 Conduit House by two o'clock, of which it 
 now wants twenty minutes, and I promised to 
 be with Bessy Harrisson, in St. John's Wood, 
 at three o'clock, and I must be at the club at 
 five ; and I have a parcel of letters to write 
 about one thing an another, and I have a 
 dinner-party at seven o'clock, at Jemmett's, to 
 which I want you particularly to come ; nay, 
 nay! you must make no excuses, so come 
 along, come along! Mirabeau is I know 
 impatiently awaiting me — don't stare, 1 
 mean my new cab horse, I called him after 
 the Frenchman, you know I like men who can 
 go it hard, so come along my lad, and shake 
 off the Temple dust." 
 
 We jumped into his cab, which was 
 elegantly appointed; I could not help ob-
 
 72 wynville; or, 
 
 serving the excessive vanity of Cumberland. 
 As we emerged from Inner Temple-lane, into 
 Fleet-street, there was a knot of young 
 Templars lounging at the Temple gate. 
 " There's Cumberland, there in the olive frock 
 coat and light trousers." He enjoyed their 
 gaze of admiration at his dress and fashion- 
 able figure, and drove off with evident self- 
 complacency. 
 
 We came to Conduit House, and the cha- 
 racter of the man was again displayed in the 
 same way. The cheers of the meeting indeed 
 he little cared for, but he was pleased with 
 the awe-stricken look of the genteel tradesmen 
 who were on the committee of the meeting, 
 and the admiring gaze of some broken-down 
 actors. He nodded with easy indifference to 
 the committee, met with perfect levity the 
 contemptuous scrutiny of Cobbett, and fami- 
 liarly greeted one or two members of parlia-
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 73 
 
 ment of the same genre^ tliough not the 
 same fashion as himself. There was a certain 
 dash, and appearance of " pluck" combined 
 with suavity, in his air, which dazzled the 
 assembled crowd. He looked as if he was 
 ready to do something bold and courageous, 
 like one who would perform some great 
 exploit in the popular cause. He made a 
 hearty dashing speech; clenched his right 
 fist, thumped the table before him, scowled 
 as he denounced "the incapable aristocrats 
 who misgovern our long suffering millions," 
 talked of freedom, and the rights earned by 
 the blood of our forefathers; extolled demo- 
 cratic principles, and said that radicalism 
 would make England the most prosperous of 
 countries. The meeting eagerly drank in all 
 his words. They cheered every sentence, 
 and lustily roared for one cheer more for 
 VOL. I. E
 
 74 wynville; or, 
 
 " Granby Cumberland, the people's pet." He 
 sat down amidst a whirlwind of applause. 
 
 Whilst he was speaking I could not help 
 looking around me. The place on which I 
 sat was a kind of stage in a recess, raised 
 above the level of the meeting. There were 
 between thirty and forty of the elite of the 
 meeting gathered together in my vicinity. 
 What a set they were! I was sufficiently 
 acquainted at that time with the town, to 
 recognize many of the low political notorieties, 
 who congregated under the presidency of 
 Cumberland and Cobbett, and orator Hunt. 
 Judged by a political and social standard, 
 there could not be a more wretched set of 
 creatures. 
 
 I remember on the day of that meeting at 
 Conduit House, being struck with the contrast 
 between the mass of the meeting, and the 
 leaders. The working classes looked earnest
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 75 
 
 and ferocious, truthful and violent. Stern 
 sincerity was stamped on their grim, swarthy- 
 faces. Unlike Granby Cumberland's tricks, 
 their frowns and scowling were no make- 
 believe. I could not help looking on their 
 meeting as a dangerous one, and being then 
 unused to the vanity of popular meetings, I 
 apprehended from them more than was justly 
 to be feared. Alas ! I learned in after years 
 that the masses are in no wise to be feared, 
 when they are bereft of honest and intelligent 
 leaders. Such men as Hunt and his associates, 
 and gentlemen-levellers like my friend Cum- 
 berland could never make a people morally 
 formidable to an educated and vigorous 
 aristocracy. The sight of the violent and 
 rash working classes, and of the motley 
 mauvais sujets^ who affected to lead them, 
 dispirited me. Like many a young enthusiast, 
 I too had my great hopes for human nature. 
 
 E 2
 
 76 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 I too dreamed of human perfectibility, and I 
 leaned to the side of democracy. But here I 
 saw something very unlike the elements with 
 which I hoped to deal, and the subject of 
 reform began to appear to me more perplexed 
 than I had thought it.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 77 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 AN ARISTOCRATIC DINNER-PARTY — 
 SPIRITS OF THE DAY. 
 
 Jemmett's was a house kept up by about 
 a hundred men of fashion and pleasure. It 
 is not now in existence, but was certainly a 
 capital place to dine at. It was in Dover 
 Street — a quiet unpretending house. The 
 place was rented and carried on by the private 
 speculation of Jemmett, but no person was
 
 78 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 allowed to give a dinner there, unless he had 
 been ballotted for, and it was understood that 
 at least half of the company sitting down to 
 table, should " belong to the house," as it 
 was called — that is should be members of 
 Jemmett's. There was no gaming there. A 
 house for dinner parties — such was its object. 
 I was punctual to the hour, and having 
 heard much of Jemmett's, expected to find it 
 a more brilliant looking place than it appeared. 
 I was ushered into a small drawing-room, where 
 I found Cumberland seated with an immensely 
 fat person, who could with difficulty rise off 
 his chair. This was the very notorious Lord 
 Lingard. He was certainly a man of remark- 
 able appearance. His size was huge; his 
 face was inflamed by the effects of all kinds 
 of intemperance; his skull was large and 
 admirably formed, and a profusion of white 
 hair contrasted singularly with his red and
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 79 
 
 swollen face. His dress was elaborately good, 
 and showed the model he had chosen — none 
 other than George the Fourth. 
 
 Lord Lingard was always supposed to have 
 been deep in the councils of Lord Liverpool's 
 government. He was very intimate with 
 Lord Castlereagh, and report said (and truly) 
 that he had done a vast deal of political dirty 
 work for the tory party. He had city con- 
 nections, and much influence with capitalists. 
 He had, besides, a large fortune of his own, 
 originally acquired in trade by his grand- 
 father. 
 
 "Ah!" he was saying, while I was coming 
 into the room, " if I had the power to alter 
 the world, the first change that I would make 
 is to enable us to dine three times a day. 
 Our appetites are not half strong enough." 
 
 Then came in Mr. Warrender, an old par- 
 liamentary celebrity. Then a very young
 
 80 wynville; or, 
 
 man, Mr. Dunville of racing notoriety, all 
 whose ideas turned on King's plate, gold cup, 
 and the Derby. He had then some three 
 hundred thousand pounds. After him came 
 in Sir Charles North, a man of the very fii^st 
 and highest order of fashionable rakes. He 
 was aged about forty. Very tall in figure, 
 his presence was rendered still more command- 
 ing by his deportment and bold open coun- 
 tenance. He was a remarkably fine man, and 
 was very popular in London society. He 
 lived with the levity and gaiety of a young 
 man; never took any matter much to heart, 
 was a bachelor devoted to pleasure, and an 
 old Whig wlio hung loosely on the skirts of 
 his party; he was a connoisseur in beauty, 
 and was a constant frequenter of the green 
 rooms. 
 
 Next came in Major Macdonald, the defend- 
 ant in two well-known crim-con actions,
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 81 
 
 witty, gay, and debonair ; he was very graceful 
 in appearance, and having manly manners, 
 was a great favourite everywhere. Next to 
 him followed Lord Hungerford, he had lost 
 all the remains of his good looks, he had a 
 worn skinny face, shrivelled up with wrinkles ; 
 but his manner was hearty, though impreg- 
 nated with that peculiar tone, acquired by 
 Englishmen who lead a roue life in Paris. 
 
 Last of all came in Sir Francis Bennett. 
 It was the first time I had ever met him in 
 company, though of course I had often seen 
 him in public; I could not help for the 
 hundredth time, admiring his singularly dis- 
 tinguished appearance; surely there never 
 was such an impersonation of an English 
 country gentleman, so erect, so proud, and 
 yet without any vulgar artificial stateliness; 
 his high head and his great nose gave him an 
 air altogether peculiar. His figure was 
 
 E 3
 
 82 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 certainly too thin, but he bore himself so 
 nobly that you forgot his slender shoulders. 
 
 When I was presented to him, waiving the 
 formalities, he immediately shook me by the 
 hand. " Always glad to see a Wynville 
 there was once some connection between us,'^ 
 alluding to some intermarriage long ago 
 between the families. 
 
 We went into dinner, and never before, 
 aye ! or since, did I see any dinner served 
 with more comfort and celerity, I saw at once 
 that the reputation of the house was well 
 deserved; everything was so well arranged, 
 nothing forgotten or out of its place. 
 
 " The beauty of a dinner at this house," 
 said Lord Lingard, " is that like the British 
 Constitution, there is a place for everything 
 and everything in its place." 
 
 " By jove ! Lingard," said Sir Charles 
 North, " our dinners Avill be very unlike the
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 83 
 
 Constitution, when Bennett has carried his 
 scheme of radical reform; what topsy-turvy 
 we'll have then in our affairs ! It will be some 
 satisfaction however, to come to Jemmetts, 
 and see one place, where the idea of excellence 
 will be preserved." 
 
 ^'My dear North," remarked Sir F. 
 Bennett, " you need not be at all alarmed at 
 my motion for universal suffrage ! It will be a 
 reform, and not a revolution. England never 
 could be governed except by gentlemen, we 
 are too proud a people to bear the domination 
 of a soldier like Wellington or Bonaparte, a 
 shopkeeping democracy like the Yankees; 
 gentlemen for ever! Such is the idea of 
 England, nobody ought to know it better than 
 I, for you'll admit that I go amongst all 
 classes of the people." 
 
 ^TU admit no such thing. Sir Francis," 
 cried Lord Lingard, " it may be very true,
 
 84 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 that you go to the meetings attended by all 
 classes, but you take decidedly good care not to 
 mix with them. How often I should be glad 
 to know, does Price the tailor, dine with you?" 
 
 " Oh ! why we all have our prejudices. A 
 man can't help falling in with the social pre- 
 judices of the country. I should not have 
 the least objection myself to give Price a 
 dinner, but then, you know — my wife and 
 daughters " 
 
 " Ah ! ha ! there is Sir Kadical Keformer. 
 Come now, confess what a humbug it is! 
 Egad!" continued Lord Lingard, "I should 
 like to see Lady Bennett's face, when Price 
 would ask her to take wine. But there it is, 
 you profess in public, principles which you 
 won't carry out in private. ' Keep the 
 vulgar out,' you say in your own house. — 
 * Let the rabble in,' you cry in the House of 
 Commons."
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 85 
 
 "No!" said Sir F. Bennett, ''all I say is 
 this, let the people choose their rulers. I am 
 not afraid of them, because I know they 
 never will choose any but gentlemen." 
 
 " Mr. Fox used to say," observed War- 
 render, ''that the people of England were 
 monarchy mad, but Sir Francis, you seem to 
 think that they are gentleman mad." 
 
 " All I say is, Warrender, that the social 
 and prescriptive idea of Englishmen is, 
 ' Gentlemen for ever.' In fact, we could 
 not carry on our constitution if there was 
 not some feeling of that kind at bottom. I 
 love liberty because it is old, because it is in- 
 tertwined with all our ideas, because our fore- 
 fathers spoke for it — wrote for it, aye ! died 
 for it. The ancestral feeling is strong — aye ! 
 just as strong in St. Giles's as in St. James's." 
 
 " Xo doubt — no doubt" — observed Lord 
 Lingard, " the people of England are a proud
 
 86 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 race, and would always require that their 
 rulers should be men of social consideration. 
 But even if your radical reform would not 
 knock up our constitution, it would make 
 violence the order of the day. Look at the 
 Spaniards — there is not a people in Europe 
 more prejudiced in favour of rank and title, 
 but see ! what a turbulent set they are ! You 
 never could manage the tide you'd let in with 
 your universal suffrage." 
 
 The conversation then became very po- 
 litical. 
 
 " Tell me, Bennett," said Lord Hunger- 
 ford, " who is the best speaker in the house?" 
 
 " Oh ! Canning, beyond a doubt," answered 
 Sir Francis. 
 
 " Well, I prefer Peel," said Lord Lingard. 
 
 " Mr. Plunket, I should suppose," said 
 Warrender, " is superior to either." 
 
 " Brougham is the best of the lot, in my 
 opinion," said Cumberland.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 87 
 
 " Nothing like difference of opinion," said 
 Sir Charles North, '' as a speaker, Copley is 
 the man for me." 
 
 "Ah!" continued Lord Lingard, ''Peel is 
 the most parliamentary man of the lot. He 
 has a capital style of speaking. It is not 
 made up of flash and spangles like Canning's 
 speeches — it is specious, plausible, and does 
 the work famously. He has an excellent 
 knack of dropping his facts in the exact place, 
 and at the right time to give them their full 
 value." 
 
 '' But — hang it — that may be all very 
 well," rejoined Sir F. Bennett, "but Peel 
 has a mediocrity of soul that could never soar 
 beyond the common-places of politics. There 
 is nothing original about him. There is 
 nothing great or inventive in his mind. He 
 has great powers of work, and astonishing 
 prudence, but he's only a commonplace cha-
 
 88 WYNTILLE; OR, 
 
 racter after all. See that Canning — what a 
 fellow he is to be sure," and Sir Francis's 
 eyes sparkled while he spoke, " why the very 
 look of him always rouses me. There is 
 intellect in every feature. You may see poet 
 and orator stamped upon his face. And then 
 how full of character he is ! He is all alive 
 with wit and humour ; — and there is such a 
 dash about the fellow. He is so buoyant and 
 vivacious, that in this age of conventionalism 
 it is quite refreshing to meet such a man. I 
 wish so much, Canning would turn radical 
 reformer." 
 
 " Before that day comes. Sir Francis, 
 you'll be a tory yourself," said Lord Lingard. 
 
 " Well, I have for twenty years heard 
 the debates," observed Warrender, " and I 
 should say that Plunket's speeches on the 
 catholic question are the very perfection of 
 English eloquence — grave, massive, logical;
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 89 
 
 SO clear that the dullest can comprehend ; so 
 strong and animated that the coldest would 
 be carried away " 
 
 "Yes! but" said Cumberland, '^ Plunket 
 is a regular speech manufacturer. He is a 
 regular trader in great parliamentary speeches 
 — a general dealer in those articles. He is 
 not a great political character; and he is 
 never carried away himself — il se hatte les 
 flancs dJun entliousiasme de commande. We 
 think no more about him when he has sat 
 down. But Brougham — that's the man for 
 me. Surely none of you can compare Can- 
 ning to him for energy. He jumps up all of 
 a sudden, hurls forth a philippic against 
 the treasury bench — is ready to debate any 
 possible kind of subject with any. He knows 
 everything. He's an orator and a lawyer, 
 and a philosopher and a critic." 
 
 " And a charlatan on an extensive scale,"
 
 90 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 chimed in Sir Charles North. "Don't deceive 
 yourself, Cumberland, about Brougham. He's 
 a universal smatterer, and a talker on 
 subjects, that he only seems to know some- 
 thing about. But he has no deep knowledge of 
 anything. He's a deafening and incessant 
 speech mill, and then he has such forensic 
 habits, he overdoes everything. He has no 
 calm depth, and can never take the tone fit 
 for a senate. No! no, there are none of 
 them like Copley. He talks so unafiectedly 
 and has such a high-bred bearing. There 
 is nothing of the charlatan, or the pleader, or 
 the set speaker about him. He speaks so 
 like one of ourselves, and not like those speech- 
 mongering lawyers." 
 
 From the men of the present day, the 
 conversation turned towards departed poli- 
 ticians. Lord Castlereagh's character was 
 discussed, and I was surprised to find that
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 91 
 
 Lord Lingard, Sir F. Bennett, who for many 
 years had been his prominent opponent, and 
 Sir Charles North rated him so highly. It 
 was admitted by them all, even by Lord 
 Lingard, that Castlereagh was grossly ignorant 
 of the affairs of Europe, but his personal 
 courage, combined with his gravity and fas- 
 cinating manners, had impressed both Lingard 
 and Bennett, with the same views of him. 
 
 "A braver man never lived," said Lingard, 
 ''his personal courage was matchless. He 
 was perfectly civil, and never worked himself 
 up, as others do, into fits of audacity. He 
 was always the same." 
 
 " By Jove," said Bennett, " if Louis the 
 Sixteenth, had Castlereagh for his prime 
 minister, the affairs of all Europe might have 
 been changed." 
 
 " That proves nothing in favour of 
 Castlereagh," I remarked. " It was
 
 92 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 Pascal, who said, that if the nose of Cleopatra 
 had been an inch shorter, the destiny of the 
 world would have been altered. I confess 
 that I never could conceive Lord Castlereagh 
 to have been such a formidable man as you 
 all appear to think him." 
 
 " Because, Mr. Wynville," said Sir Charles 
 North, " you were never personally in contact 
 with him. You take your opinions of him 
 from the newspapers, from Tom Moore's witty 
 squibs, from Byron's sarcastic allusions to him. 
 But if you knew the man, you would hold 
 another opinion of him." 
 
 " See what he did," said Bennett. " He 
 began life as Mr. Stewart, an Irish radical 
 reformer. He beat the Hills out of Downshire, 
 I remember the time well. He was then 
 looked to as the chief of the Irish reformers. 
 Pitt put his eye on him. Before he was 
 thirty years old, he was the leading minister
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 93 
 
 in the Irish parliament. He confronted all 
 the bullies that infested that den of political 
 bravos. He put them all down. He circum- 
 vented the Irish protestant leaders, and cajoled 
 all the catholics. He bullied all the bullies, 
 and did it like a gentleman. In short, he 
 extinguished the Irish parliament. He then 
 came over here, and after the Union, all the 
 Irish leaders were of very little weight or 
 influence in the new state of things. Lord 
 Clare, the big tory bully of Ireland, was 
 quietly flapped down by the Duke of Bedford, 
 and so with many others of the local great 
 men of Ireland. But Castlereagh went a 
 head here ; a few years saw him secretary of 
 state, and from 1812 to the day of his death, 
 he was leader of the House of Commons, and 
 kept his party well together ! See what strong 
 qualities of personal ascendancy were re- 
 quired to do all that !
 
 94 WYNVILLE; OE, 
 
 " These are the kind of men Avho govern," 
 said Lord Lingard, " one man with Castle- 
 reagh's vigour of will is worth fifty of your 
 clever, eloquent, accomplished speakers like 
 Lord Harrowby or Lord Dudley. 
 
 The subject of Castlereagh's suicide was 
 then discussed. Sir Charles North told a 
 most romantic story concerning it. I never 
 heard so strange a tale; and Lord Lingard 
 confirmed the truth of many of North's par- 
 ticulars. I believe the story told by Sir 
 Charles to be a true account of the cause of 
 Lord Castlereagh's suicide, and I must ever 
 think of him with the deepest commiseration.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 95 
 
 CHAPTEK VIIL 
 
 THE BROTHERS CLEVELAND. — A TRIP TO BATH. 
 — THE BATH BEAUTY. 
 
 I REGRET to say that I spent about this 
 period far too much of my time with Cumber- 
 land. I continued to read a great deal, but 
 I dissipated rather freely with some of Cum- 
 'berland's companions. The life of a young 
 bachelor in London is surrounded with the 
 most fearful temptations, and I have observed
 
 96 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 that no men are so apt to be ensnared by 
 pleasure (ought I say vice?) as men of for- 
 tune who are addicted to the pursuit of lite- 
 rature. This may seem a paradox, but I am 
 afraid that it is a fact. They have no motive 
 to give them steady self-denying. Their lives 
 are often secluded. The very superiority of 
 their minds make them avoid the idle trifling 
 good for little fashionable society. They live 
 a good deal by themselves. But they must 
 have excitement like the rest of the world. 
 They don't care for horse-racing — gambling — 
 going to balls, and flirting. But the erring 
 man is just as Avilful and passionate in them 
 as in the coarser sorts of people. They addict 
 themselves to self-enjoyment, and become as 
 gross worshippers of the flesh, as the un-idea'd 
 guardsmen and selfish idlers that throng the' 
 parks. 
 
 There is a kind of elegantly demoralizing
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 97 
 
 society in London, wliich corrupts young men 
 far more fatally than those companies in 
 which the passions are grossly worshipped. 
 The society of young men of parts, with 
 brilliant accomplishments, with wit, eloquence, 
 and literature ; without any serious impres- 
 sions, or steadiness of character, or any self- 
 denial, ah ! it is from that species of company, 
 that a parent should desire his son to be de- 
 livered. The danger of a young man being 
 demoralized is often exactly in proportion to 
 his union of intellect with feeling — of ardour 
 with taste. 
 
 Taste! Thou cheating, deceitful, hypo- 
 critical faculty ! How many, whose souls are 
 steeped in vice, offer incense at thy shrine ! 
 How many impersonations of elegance, and 
 hierophants of the graceful, at once adoring 
 thy nature, and expounding thy laws, grovel 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 98 WYNVILLE; OK, 
 
 down in the most vile and destructive worship 
 of the senses ! 
 
 " Vice is a monster of such hideous mien 
 As to be hated needs but to be seen." 
 
 Yes, when it is seen^ but it is often invisible 
 in its hideous deformity. How often, in- 
 stead of a hideous mien, does it wear a graceful 
 deportment, and mild and engaging grace! 
 How often, beneath the decorums in which it 
 wraps itself, does it contain dishonouring 
 propensities of human nature ! 
 
 The brothers Cleveland, were at once the 
 giddiest and most graceful young men 
 I ever knew ; I made their acquaintance at the 
 Temple. They were the sons of Sir Gaspar 
 Cleveland, a Eoman Catholic baronet, of a 
 most ancient Northumbrian family. They 
 had been educated at a Jesuit's college near 
 Friburg, and spent three years in • Paris, 
 mixing in the very best circles of the Faubourg 
 St. Germain. In manners, and even in
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 99 
 
 appearance, they seemed like young French 
 noblemen of the old noblesse. They were 
 airy, light, and spirituel; a delicious non- 
 chalance pervaded their characters; they 
 aspired, but without any effort, to be consum- 
 mate judges of the beautiful; and professed an 
 acquaintance with all the arts that minister 
 to elegance and pleasure. Their scholarship 
 was rather extensive, and from frequent inter- 
 course with eminent French politicians, they 
 had obtained much familiarity with European 
 politics ; at a dinner-table, they were delight- 
 ful associates, and at a ball, the women 
 esteemed them the most brilliant partners. 
 
 Xor was that all, men of sense and solid 
 character found the society of the brothers, — 
 Hugh and Gabriel Cleveland, — particularly 
 agreeable. They were to be found at houses 
 where the slightest deviation from propriety of 
 morals, would have made a bar of exclusion. 
 
 F 2
 
 100 wynville; or, 
 
 They Avere spirited without transgressing the 
 conventions. But within all their speciousness 
 they were a most selfish and indulgent pair. 
 They restrained their passions in public, only 
 to gratify them to the fullest extent in pri- 
 vate. They were in secret, as dissipated a pair 
 as could have been found in the whole metro- 
 polis. 
 
 1 have said that they were of an ancient 
 Catholic family; and their irreligious cha- 
 racter presented features worth observation. 
 They were both controversialists, read up in 
 most of the works on theological differences. 
 Hugh, the eldest son, was a Catholic (nomi- 
 nally), but his brother, Gabriel, professed the 
 Unitarian creed. They lived together in the 
 same chambers in Paper Buildings. They 
 had their sitting-room luxuriously fitted up, 
 and on either side was a large mahogany book- 
 case. One contained all the orthodox and
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 101 
 
 Catholic works; the other all the Unitarian 
 and heterodox writers. Hugh Cleveland had 
 read much in divinity, partly from the acci- 
 dent of being a Catholic gentleman and 
 scholar, and partly from a strong natural 
 taste. Gabriel had been intended for a Jesuit, 
 but on being bequeathed a large fortune, 
 turned his thoughts to the bar. He became 
 a Unitarian, he used to say himself, because 
 he could not help it. He contended that his 
 creed was true, and so forth. 
 
 But neither of them ever intruded their 
 opinions. It was for their own mental enjoy- 
 ments that they addicted themselves to such 
 studies. Hugh, the elder, was at heart a 
 deist, who believed in the necessity of exhi- 
 biting moral truths under visible forms. He 
 thought that the beautiful should be intro- 
 duced into religion; and that no church can 
 do this, except the Koman Catholic. Gabriel
 
 102 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 on the otlier hand was, in his belief, a deist, 
 and a little more. He did believe in some 
 dim faint kind of revelation. 
 
 They both attended service on Sundays 
 regularly. Hugh always went to Warwick- 
 street Chapel, and thought the service de- 
 lightful — " even after the opera last night." 
 And he would be greeted by the priests : and 
 he would then pay his respects to his friends, 
 some of the members of ancient and ennobled 
 Catholic families. Gabriel, on the other hand, 
 would, with grave face, walk into Belsham^s 
 Chapel in Essex-street, and sing Unitarian 
 hymns with the smooth countenance of a 
 quietist. 
 
 One peculiarity was common to both 
 brothers. A morbid spirit of aristocracy 
 possessed their minds. With them nothing 
 was deemed right, unless it was justified by 
 aristocratic example. Thus, Hugh Cleveland
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 103 
 
 was ready to defend his conformity to the 
 religion of his ancestors, not because it was 
 his family creed, but because it was professed 
 by the most ancient houses in England. He 
 valued the assent of the hereditary Marshal 
 of England more than that of Bossuet. And 
 so with Gabriel Cleveland. It was a Duke 
 of Grafton who built Belsham's Chapel, as he 
 used to say, " Junius's Duke," — and Lord 
 King was a Unitarian, and so was Lord This, 
 and Sir Harry That, " and doubtless Sir 
 Harry was one of the first gentlemen in 
 England." 
 
 The Clevelands were great friends of Cum- 
 berland's, and were constantly in his com- 
 pany. Xot very long after I accompanied 
 the younger of them down to Bath. Cum- 
 berland joined us there, and we had a merry 
 time of it. 
 
 " I like Bath much," said Gabriel Cleveland,
 
 104 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 one day, " there is a gentlemanly quiet in the 
 place that is very agreeable after the noise 
 and smoke of London. The place itself is 
 striking; the scenery about has many parts 
 interesting ; there are always some good 
 families in the place ; and then one is respited 
 from the great pests of London — the great 
 vulgar — the east wind — and duns. Then 
 one is carried back to past times. Bath has 
 always been a place for adventures. Our 
 grandfathers played the devil here once — and 
 our great grandmothers blushed and flirted 
 here. There is a fine — old — well-bred look 
 about the place." 
 
 '' Too many old people here," said Cumber- 
 land, '' I can't bear the sight of invalids, 
 nurses, and doctors. Here we have countesses 
 in flannels — and marquises in garden chairs. 
 Admirals that fifty years ago skipped up the 
 shrouds, hobble about here leaning on their
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 105 
 
 grand-daughters ; here we have superannuated 
 generals, asthmatical old orators, blind states- 
 men, gouty fox-hunters, and — by jove ! what 
 a fine girl!" 
 
 We were walking in Milsom -street, I looked 
 in the direction where Cumberland's eyes 
 were rivetted, and beheld at the opposite side 
 of the way a young woman, rather gaudily 
 dressed, whose figure was somewhat heavy 
 and inelegant, but whose face possessed the 
 attraction of a magnificent pair of eyes, and 
 a very pretty mouth. She did not observe 
 the attention with which she was regarded ; 
 and quite unconscious of the scrutiny to which 
 she was exposed, she crossed the street, so as 
 that we had an opportunity of scanning her 
 close. Her complexion was that of a bru- 
 nette, her hair was jet black, and 1 noticed 
 her white pearly teeth. She had the face of 
 a woman of strong feelings ; the expression 
 
 F 3
 
 106 wynville; or, 
 
 of her countenance was more striking than 
 pleasing; it would have been impossible, 
 however, to deny that she was remarkably 
 handsome, though her beauty was not interest- 
 ing by feminine tenderness of expression, in 
 short she was what is called by young men 
 on town '' a d — d fine girl !" 
 
 She looked up as she was passing us, and 
 she blushed deeply wlien she saw Cumberland 
 looking eagerly at her. 
 
 " One of the Bath milliners," said Cumber- 
 land, looking after her, " Certes an amazingly 
 fine girl, 'pon my life, I don't know when I 
 saw a more sprightly black eye ; that girl has 
 
 capital points about her rather too much 
 
 embonpoint^ but none the worse for that, 
 for she has a right well turned ankle, 
 what the deuce can she be — too fine for a 
 milliner, eh!" 
 
 " She is an actress, probably," said I, "you
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 107 
 
 know the Bath Theatre has always some tine 
 women attached to it." 
 
 " No ! she's no actress I promise you," 
 remarked Gabriel Cleveland, who as one of 
 the Sheridan Club, prided himself on knowing 
 every kind of theatrical person. " No she 
 can't be an actress, for it was only this morn- 
 ing I was talking to old Jack Morris, the 
 manager, and he told me that he had not atr 
 present a single woman in his company worth 
 looking at. I rather think I have seen that 
 woman before. I am sure I have met her 
 somewhere; I don't think her so fine a girl 
 after all, Cumberland. She is evidently 
 very fatty, and I do abhor any tendency to 
 pinguidity in a woman." 
 
 '' Ah ! sir," replied Cumberland, " her eyes 
 and ankles ! When those are all right, there 
 can be no mistake. Egad ! She looks back 
 at us. I thought so. Come, Cleveland, I
 
 108 wynville; or, 
 
 know you are faulting her, merely to blind 
 our eyes. Now as slie is fair game, like a 
 true sportsman, I say, let her be fairly run 
 down. So! egad! I'll toss up with you, 
 who's to have her. For before many days 
 pass, either of us must know the black-eyed, 
 tight-ankled minx better than we do now." 
 
 Just then she had stopped for a minute, 
 apparently to look into some shop window, 
 and it was very true that she had turned her 
 head in the direction in which we had been 
 walking ; but whether it was after us, or not, 
 I cannot say. She looked only for a moment, 
 and she saw that the three of us had turned 
 back, and were following her. 
 
 So handsome a woman — so flauntily dressed 
 -7-in such a place as Bath, looked suspicious, 
 and we talked idly about her. 
 
 She stopped suddenly, when she met a 
 gentlemanly-looking old man, with a young
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 109 
 
 girl leaning on him, and a little boy walking 
 by his side. 
 
 She turned back with the old gentleman, 
 and took his disengaged arm. 
 
 '' She must be his daughter," said Cumber- 
 land, '' there is a strong resemblance between 
 her and the old gentleman." 
 
 She passed us again, and there was this 
 time no blush on her cheek. She looked con- 
 fident, and conscious of her attractions. Alto- 
 gether a woman not to my taste, though one 
 could not help surveying her. 
 
 " She is decidedly a fine woman," said 
 Cleveland, " that person she is leaning against 
 is not a gentleman, Cumberland, I don't much 
 care if I toss up with you for a chance of 
 carrying her off."
 
 110 WYNVILLE; OE, 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 BEAU MUSGRAVE — A LAMENTABLE INCIDENT. 
 
 Turning a corner, we missed the lady of 
 whom we had been in pursuit. She had gone 
 into some shop, and we could not get sight of 
 her. Just then a very strange-looking person, 
 dressed in a style of high fashion, with a most 
 extravagant outlandish air, came up to us. 
 He was a handsome man, with an air of in- 
 tolerable conceit, and as I soon found, a dash 
 of absurdity in his manners.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. Ill 
 
 '' Ha ! ha ! " he cried, '' 'Angels and Ministers 
 of Grace defend us!' and apropos of angels 
 — is it the angelic — the incomparable — the 
 trascendantly super-excellent Gabriel I see 
 before me ? ' Prithee, my dear, have you any 
 pretensions,' as Far quhar saith. Nay! 'a fico 
 for your modesty' — on what mission of love 
 and glory has thy course tended to the regions 
 of King Bladud? I pause for a reply." 
 
 "Well, Musgrave, and where have you 
 been acting last?" replied Cleveland. 
 
 " Acting ! Acting ! my dear friend, ' tell 
 it not in Gath.' ' Staap my vitals,' — as my 
 Lord Foppington says. I never act at all, 
 save in the profession of physic. Curse my 
 stars that I should be brought up to the 
 lancet, and not to the sock and buskin. 
 Genius is always unfortunate. ' The Fates 
 join the dunces to stifle its inspiration,' as 
 the incomparable Colley Cibber says."
 
 112 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 "Oh! d — n your Gibber," replied Cleve- 
 land. 
 
 "No — Sir — don't d — n him. Colley Gibber 
 
 was an unappreciated genius — a spirit ' high 
 fantastical,' with peculiarities altogether in- 
 imitable — a man, sir, who might make an age. 
 A plebeian wit, who in a corrupt age asserted 
 the rights of universal levity, and ethereal- 
 ized humour against the patrician monopolists 
 of epigram and antithesis. D — n such a man 
 as that, sir. Shame on thy Vandal soul! 
 Why, look you, I say that Colley Gibber 
 stands without a rival. What though his 
 voice squeaked like Lord H 's in the Gam- 
 bridge Union — he produced admirable per- 
 sonations of your true fop. He wrote a 
 capital comedy, which keeps the stage, and 
 always will. And then, see what he was oiF 
 the stage." 
 
 " Aye — what was he off the stage?"
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 113 
 
 '' Oh — Sir — he was a wonderful man off 
 the stage. As I live by claret he was a true 
 genuine fop. And let me tell you to be that 
 is to play a rarer part than to be one of your 
 great statesman — d — n it — any one could be a 
 statesman ! But to be a first-rate original fop 
 — curse me if it doesn't try a man's whole 
 powers. It requires exhaustless imagination, 
 and dauntless, inconceivable assurance ! Eng- 
 land will see another Canning, before it is 
 illumined by another Gibber." 
 
 " Pooh ! Musgrave, — you're as good as 
 Gibber any day." 
 
 " Ah ! no ! my dear friend," and he shook 
 his head mournfully. You see Gibber was 
 before me. To be sure, if I had lived in that 
 glorious age of true manners, — I might — -but 
 what use is it for me to talk?" 
 
 " There is every use in your talking, espe- 
 cially when your friends want information
 
 114 wynville; or, 
 
 about that showy young woman who is walk- 
 ing before us there, near the corner turning 
 up to the Crescent. You know every one in 
 Bath, who is she?" 
 
 " Oh! don't you know her? How strange! 
 Why, that's old Pickle Vinegar's daughter; 
 and that the old fellow himself, walking with 
 her. The town has an eye on that girl, but 
 fat though she seems, she is tough and crusty 
 in her mariners. She has foiled some clever 
 fellows who thought they might succeed : but 
 I rather think she is likely to succumb when 
 skilfully addressed. Ahem ! " 
 
 " You're one of her admirers, I see." 
 " Why — ah ! 'pon my life, I have not yet 
 made up my mind whether I'll take notice of 
 her. It depends on whim, and the chances of 
 the times, — in short, curse me, if I have not 
 too much game on my hands already. But, 
 as I live, there's old Jack Morris, I want to
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 115 
 
 see him particularly, — I want him to give a 
 part to a protegee of mine. Adieu — adieu ! " 
 And away went the speaker in chase of a di- 
 lapidated old gentleman. 
 
 '' There he goes, — Beau Musgrave — the 
 most fantastical jackass of any age. A man 
 who has dressed up his soul in shreds and 
 patches torn from Colley Gibber, Beau Brum- 
 mell, and the play books." 
 
 " Who is Musgrave, himself?" asked I. 
 
 " He is the son of an Old Bailey attorney, 
 and was educated for a surgeon. But he 
 wished to figure as a man on town, for which 
 he had not the requisite money or connexions. 
 He sought for notoriety through an assump- 
 tion of the fantastic, and he has found uni- 
 versal ridicule. He still affects the part of a 
 wit, elaborates impromptus, and builds an 
 epigram with industry — is deliberately witty, 
 and spontaneously absurd. He haunts the
 
 116 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 green-rooms, gives bouquets to the actresses, 
 and pretends that he has captivated them all. 
 Pity, however, that he did not tell us who this 
 girl was." 
 
 I found my hand suddenly seized, it was by 
 St. Leger, who was well acquainted with 
 Cleveland. 
 
 " Why," said he, " you're following in the 
 wake of the Bath beauty." 
 
 " Pray tell us who she is ? You know, St. 
 Leger," said Cleveland, '' your friends attri- 
 bute omniscience to you." 
 
 ^' Why, without any affectation," answered 
 St. Leger, " I have a pretty considerable 
 knowledge of persons. Well, I shall enlighten 
 your ignorance by giving you the natural 
 history of the Bath Beauty. Her name is 
 Charlotte Thorpe. She is daughter to old 
 Thorpe, who is now walking with her. He 
 has an Italian warehouse in Milsom-street, and
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 117 
 
 the fair Charlotte has often ministered behind 
 the counter. She inherits her beauty from 
 her mother, who was Mrs. Gurney, sister, you 
 
 know, to the celebrated Mrs. -, (here St. 
 
 Leger named a favourite actress.) Charlotte 
 is a splendid singer, and some say that she 
 will yet go on the stage. She is an object of 
 much attention here, she is always talked of, 
 on account of her remarkable appearance, but 
 she has made no false step, and is perfectly 
 unblemished, though repeatedly assailed by 
 fops and dandies. Poor girl — God grant that 
 she may have a happy fate !" 
 
 The next evening our party was at the 
 Bath theatre, and in the very next box, was 
 Miss Charlotte Thorpe with some friends. 
 Both Gabriel Cleveland and Cumberland often 
 looked towards her, and her movements 
 attracted their notice. Cumberland with his 
 usual sang froid contrived to seat himself in
 
 118 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 the same box with her, carelessly lounging 
 into a vacant seat. The fair Charlotte saw 
 that she was noticed by the dandy, I saw that 
 Cumberland was bent on making her acquaint- 
 ance, and I was curious to observe his 
 conduct; an opportunity however presented 
 itself, in a very unlooked-for manner. In the 
 crowd coming out of the theatre, a pickpocket 
 was detected in the box lobby, and much 
 confusion was created by a violent rush made 
 by the throng of people. Miss Thorpe got 
 separated from her companions, and was 
 carried off with great force into the street, 
 where she was not a little frightened at the 
 temporary turmoil ; Cumberland hastened to 
 her assistance, and in his most winning 
 manner, exclaimed, " allow me to offer you 
 my arm, and I Avill conduct you safely to 
 your friends;" alone, and unescorted, the 
 frightened girl had no other alternative than 
 to accept.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 119 
 
 And thus the Bath beauty made the fatal 
 acquaintance of Granby Cumberland. 
 
 A day or two after, we were walking together, 
 and met Charlotte Thorpe and her father. 
 In a luckless hour, the good-hearted shop- 
 keeper expressed his thanks to Cumberland, 
 for rescuing his daughter at the theatre. 
 Cumberland bowed in return, and with 
 cool assurance apologized for not having 
 called the next day to inquire for Miss Thorpe. 
 The father looked gratified, the daughter 
 blushed. With great art, Cumberland contrived 
 to continue the conversation for two or three 
 minutes, affecting to be ignorant of his way 
 to some public building which he wanted to 
 see. 
 
 " Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute^' 
 cried he, as we found ourselves alone, " the 
 fair Charlotte and I are sure to be better 
 acquainted."
 
 120 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 " Why you do not mean to say," said I, 
 " that you deliberately mean to do mischief 
 to a family that has never done you wrong." 
 
 " Pooh ! you're but a green-horn, Wynville, 
 
 the mischief I mean to do, will be surely done 
 
 by somebody else ; my conscience acquits me in 
 
 that sense, our sex are often blamed for things 
 
 when the fault is just as much that of the 
 
 other sex." 
 
 " Well ! deliberate and uninvited attacks on 
 
 an unblemished woman, are in my eyes 
 
 calculated to " 
 
 "Why, man, you're not in the pulpit; if 
 you turn parson in our hands, you cannot be 
 an M.P. and figure in the House one of these 
 days. Look you my lad, my notion is, these 
 things are perfectly simple. When a wo- 
 man appears to be inclined to receive my 
 notice and addresses, then 1 have not the 
 least remorse, I commence my assault with
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 121 
 
 cool and calculating policy, for a little while 
 lull the unsuspecting garrison asleep, and when 
 least prepared for resistance I make my attack, 
 but where I meet perfect and real modesty, there 
 I am powerless and feel it. Hence I perceive, 
 and you may note it, as you are fond of 
 aphorism, that as honesty is the best policy 
 for men, so modesty is the surest protection 
 for women. Egad ! so it is ! Libertine that I 
 am, and enjoying the reputation of bonnes 
 fortunes^ I have often been vanquished by 
 maids, who had no other arts than their truth, 
 no other artifices to withstand my appeals 
 than their purity,. Yes ! there is such a thing 
 as female virtue after all, and 1 confess that 
 it has an inexpressible charm in my eyes, 
 when animated with even moderate beauty, it 
 enables its possessor to captivate more surely 
 than consummate personal charms, wanting 
 the indefinable charm of modesty. I have 
 VOL. I. G
 
 122 WYXYILLE; OR, 
 
 known some reformed rakes, who made 
 capital husbands, but they all married women 
 above suspicion. Thus you see, my dear 
 Wynville, that I manifest, in my character 
 many of what your philosophic friend Sir 
 Charles Maclaurin calls 'the moral phenomena 
 of that strange problem — human nature.'" 
 
 " Ay ! truly," cried I, " you meditate sin 
 — a deep sin — a seduction, and cry ' hurrah 
 for virtue !' " 
 
 '' My dear fellow 'tis the way of the world. 
 We sin first, and moralize afterwards. And 
 what is still more common — we do both to- 
 gether, like politicians talking patriotism and 
 plotting for power ; like English shopkeepers, 
 going to church regularly to get a good 
 character, by which they can extract pounds 
 for their piety ; or like legislators from Ireland, 
 enamoured of national grievances, because 
 they can sigh for Old Ireland while they rob 
 it, and lament its misfortunes while they dis-
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 123 
 
 tiu'b its peace. But good-by to you for to- 
 day, or by Jove I'll become a philosopher." 
 
 Off he went — the shrewd, reckless, super- 
 ficial Cumberland, careless of consequences, 
 and defending his vices on a system. The 
 thorough paced sinner is always ready to 
 argue wrong into right. And by specious 
 moralizing, excuse his faults, and palliate his 
 crimes with the maxims of a lax and easy 
 philosophy, that never exacts self-control from 
 its possessors. 
 
 A week had passed away, and we were still 
 at Bath lounging away the time. Cumber- 
 land, under some pretext, had contrived to 
 leave the house where we had been staying 
 together, and had settled in another place. 
 Gabriel Cleveland had returned to London. 
 
 One morning, while lounging over the Times ^ 
 after breakfast, I heard some altercation in 
 the hall, and a man's step upon the stairs. 
 
 G 2
 
 124 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 The room door was flung open, and pant- 
 ing with excitement — pale with passion — his 
 eyes glaring — then rushed in Thorpe, the 
 grocer. 
 
 " My child !^ — my child! where is she — 
 give her to me — oh! wretch that you are, 
 where is she?" 
 
 " Your child," cried I, " I know nothing 
 about ." 
 
 " Bah! you hypocrite! You base, false- 
 hearted scoundrel — you vile accomplice of 
 the seducing villain — give her to me — tell me 
 where she is, or by heavens you'll rue the day 
 you took her." 
 
 'M took her! I took her!" said I, endea- 
 vouring to stop his outpouring of anger. I 
 suspected the truth. 
 
 " Where is he gone with her ? Where is he 
 gone with her?" the unfortunate father cried 
 — he trembled with rage while he spoke
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 125 
 
 • — his mouth was convulsed, and his voice was 
 husky and hoarse. 
 
 Oh! could his daughter have seen him in 
 that time of agony, what a punishment for 
 her offence ! If she could have got a glimpse 
 of the scene before her elopement, she would 
 have spurned her seducer, even though he 
 combined in himself the fortunes of the 
 Cavendishes — the blood of the Seymours — 
 and the manly beauty of the Stanleys. 
 
 The father sat down exhausted. His rage 
 collapsed into humiliating agony. He wept 
 — the old man's tears coursed down his cheeks. 
 I saw them running down, and was shocked, 
 as he actually clasped my knees, and in a 
 bending posture supplicated me to tell him 
 
 where my friend 1 could then have cursed 
 
 that word friend — had taken his child — his 
 only child ! 
 
 I will not tell how much pain I suffered.
 
 126 WYNVILLE: OR 
 
 My heart would have been that of a stone, if 
 I had not been profoundly touched with that 
 scene. Methinks I still hear his hoarse voice, 
 and his whining — and to hear a father crying 
 for a child is a fearful thing. — Methinks I 
 still see his trembling person — his broken- 
 hearted face— his friends leading him from my 
 room, and worse than all, their scornful and 
 indignant look at myself — the friend of the 
 cold-blooded seducer ! 
 
 It was as I feared. The conquest of 
 Charlotte Thorpe was an easy one to the 
 practised powers of Cumberland. They had 
 left Bath together — nobody knew whither.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 127 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 STRUGGLE OF OPINION. — THE IDEAS OF 
 THE AGE. 
 
 How well do I remember the state of my 
 my mind in those days of which I am now 
 treating. I was then a young man, with all 
 the passions and all the illusions of youth, 
 living under the stimuli of springing ambition, 
 social enjoyment, and a high state of health 
 and spirits- The society at the Temple had
 
 128 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 great charms for me. I lived in familiar in- 
 tercourse with two or three different sets, and 
 mixed freely in all the pleasures of the 
 metropolis. 
 
 I was, also, at this time excessively am- 
 bitious, and most anxious to make a figure in 
 public life. It was the age of Canning and 
 Brougham, when oratorical genius had for a 
 brief time overleaped the traditionary bounds 
 of politics, and ruled the state with the 
 divinity of mind. Brougham was then the 
 god of all the young Templars, of every un- 
 fledged lawyer who mistook garrulity for 
 genius, and crammed his memory with the 
 Penny Magazine, and pewter philosophy of 
 that description, in hopes of being lauded as 
 an omnis liomo. What an amount of char- 
 latanism was produced by the ascendancy of 
 Brougham ! What numbers of impostors fol- 
 lowed in his wake ! What crowds of spurious
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 129 
 
 philanthropists, bellowing out empty gene- 
 ralities at Freemasons' Tavern, about ' spirit 
 of the age' — ' the antelluc of the peeple' 
 (Scotticism for intellect of the people) — 
 ' useful knowledge.' " 
 
 The energy of Brougham — his eminence at 
 the bar and in the senate — the vast space he 
 filled in London society — the exaggerated repu- 
 tation he then possessed — all these were very 
 dazzling to the young Templars of my own 
 standing, all of whom expected that they also 
 in their turns would be as great as Brougham. 
 Whenever disparaging and morose critics as- 
 serted that Brougham's enthusiasm was spu- 
 rious and got up — that he was a vehement 
 personality, trying to pass for a patriot — that 
 his philosophy was the veriest quackery — and 
 that his writings were mere energetic verbiage, 
 which would pass away with the occasion 
 (unlike the immortal literary efforts of Boling- 
 
 G 3
 
 130 wynville; or, 
 
 broke and Burke) — how eagerly would the 
 Templars take up the cause of the diparaged 
 Brougham! When they praised their idol — 
 the great speech-making barrister — they were 
 in fact apologizing for themselves. 
 
 I have said that I was very ambitious ! But 
 
 I recollect that I always disguised the fact to 
 
 myself. I tried to persuade my conscience 
 
 that I was at heart a genuine philanthropist, 
 
 I took great pains to fit myself for public 
 
 speaking, not for the sake of investing myself 
 
 with popularity, and being admired as a man 
 
 of talent — oh, no ! it was only for the public 
 
 good that I carefully conned Quintilian, and 
 
 J wrote fairly out Erskine's speech for Stockdale, 
 
 more than once ! The labours I took to be 
 
 a master of the principles of English politics 
 
 were of course also for the public good alone. 
 
 Ah ! thou poor human heart, how thou hatest 
 
 the coarse lust of selfishness, even when thy
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 131 
 
 pantings betray the personality of thy ambi- 
 tion. As hypocrisy "is the homage paid 
 by vice to virtue," so "patriotism," is too 
 often, even in high and gallant spirits, the 
 mere mask of a character craving for public 
 appreciation. 
 
 But though I was ambitious, truth compels 
 me to say that I could not have been of a 
 sorry, selfish disposition, nor was I ever 
 accused of being an egotist. In point of fact, 
 I was an extremely popular person, and 
 noted by all my acquaintances " a really good 
 fellow," I was very capable of playing a 
 disinterested part, and was a man who would 
 have scorned to win a great, but guiltily 
 earned fame; I thought that I had got a 
 faith in politics, and parrotted all the events 
 in fashion about " panegyrism of human 
 society," and so forth, in the most approved 
 fashion.
 
 132 WYXYJLLE; OR, 
 
 The society I then kept was not of the 
 most edifying kind. The two Clevelands 
 alone would have corrupted all the Inns of 
 Court. They were the most brilliant rakes I 
 ever knew, and the strangest part of the case 
 was, that each of the brothers was the propa- 
 gandist of a religion — one of Romanism — the 
 other of Socinianism. They used to give 
 breakfast-parties on Sunday mornings, and I 
 often attended them. Young men used prin- 
 cipally to partake of them, and in sipping 
 their tea sucked in the poisoned communica- 
 tion of the Clevelands. 
 
 Amongst their guests was a friend of 
 Gabriel Cleveland's — a Mr. Marlowe, to whom 
 I took a great fancy. He was not quite 
 thirty — was a literary man, wrote radicalism 
 in one of the quarterly journals; abused 
 every religion, except Unitarianism, to which 
 he was a pervert; his zeal was that of a 
 neophyte ; he was a man of most exemplary
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 133 
 
 morals and character, and prepossessing 
 manners; his conversation was stimulating 
 and intellectual : he was a Benthamite with a 
 heart, and was a Socinian, without being 
 frost-bitten. 
 
 I often heard Marlowe and Gabriel Cleve- 
 land extolling the talents of a certain oracle 
 of a portion of the Unitarian world. Mr. P. 
 J. Foss, a London notoriety of some influence, 
 and inordinate pretensions — a journalist and 
 essayist — an innovator in religion and politics 
 — a literary leveller, and sparkling de- 
 claimer on revolutionary politics — ^the pre- 
 tended herald of a new religion. 
 
 " Come — lads — let us adjourn after break- 
 fast and hear Foss. I have no doubt that he 
 will be splendid this morning in his announced 
 discourse." 
 
 " What is it to be about?" cried Hugh 
 Cleveland. 
 
 '' The pretensions of the church/' answered
 
 134 wynville; or, 
 
 Marlowe, '' and I have no doubt, Mr. Cleve- 
 land," continued he, addressing himself to 
 the Romanist brother, " that you would be 
 delighted with him. Surely as a Roman 
 Catholic you would like to see this parlia- 
 mentary Christianity of England get a sound 
 llaggellation. Do pray come with us to-day 
 to hear Foss." 
 
 " No, indeed, Mr. Marlowe, I will do no 
 such thing. I do not like hopping about 
 from one place of worship to another, as you 
 connoisseurs in religious innovation are accus- 
 tomed to do. I will go to Warwick-street, 
 and hear Father Lydgate expound the myste- 
 ries of the good old church. But I'll send a 
 representative. What say you, Wynville, 
 will you go and see this eighth wonder of the 
 world that they talk so much about — this 
 deistical Demosthenes — this flaggelant of all 
 creeds, and professor of none — this wonderful 
 Mr. Foss?"
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 135 
 
 " Well ! I have no objection to go, provided 
 St. Leger will go with me for safety sake." 
 
 A party was soon made up ; and we dis- 
 cussed our breakfast with fresh appetites. We 
 talked of creeds falling, while the rolls disap- 
 peared before our eyes ; and broke egg-shells 
 and systems of opinion with equal facility 
 and indifference. We chatted about Christi- 
 anity as only Templars can chatter. Such su- 
 perficiality tricked out with racy freshness 
 and cleverness of phrase! Such theories 
 opening profound views—such triviality of 
 spirit that ends in embracing nothing ! Such 
 ready-made critics, and omniscient philoso- 
 phers of twenty-five. — Such genuine Tem- 
 plars ! 
 
 We were a gay, lively group, as about 
 eleven o'clock we sallied out of Inner Temple- 
 lane, and walked down Fleet-street. The 
 citizens were, in all directions, going to their
 
 136 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 various places of worship. The church bells 
 were tolling — charity boys and girls paraded 
 in due order. Quakers — Catholics — Presby- 
 terians, were jostling each other on the pave- 
 ment, as going to worship according to their 
 various forms. 
 
 " And who is this Mr. Foss?" I cried, 
 " what is his history?" 
 
 " He was brought up by Dr. Drayton — a 
 leading light of the three denominations ; and 
 some years since he embraced Unitarian 
 views. He is a man of transcendant talents, 
 as you will admit when you have heard him. 
 Oh ! he is none of your narrow, conventional 
 thinkers — none of your slaves to routine 
 systems — he is broad, grand, and original; 
 and recreates the mind with the freshness of 
 his genius, while he delights and instructs by 
 the vigour of his enlightened understanding." 
 
 " There is nothing like the superlative de-
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 137 
 
 gree when you are about an eulogy," said 
 St. Leger, in a sneering way. " However, 
 Marlowe, you are a philosophical radical, and 
 your party have been for a long time crying 
 up their black swans, which too often prove 
 mere vulgar wild geese, differing from the 
 ordinary goose, only by a superior activity in 
 exhibiting their anserme nature — that 1 more 
 than suspect this wonderful creature will be 
 a mock original after all." 
 
 " Well, you can judge for yourself," cried 
 ^larlowe, — " behold we are already at our 
 destination." 
 
 Mr. Foss's chapel was a small building, 
 with the appearance of a stunted Greek 
 temple — a dirty little specimen of the Doric 
 style. There was a bustle about the spot, 
 groups of two or three entering into the place 
 together. Inside the building was, for the 
 most part, like an ordinary dissenting chapel.
 
 138 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 The congregation was of a curious sort enough. 
 St. Leger, shrewd and observant, remarked 
 that there were no poor people at all. "I 
 will bet the odds," he cried, " they are a set 
 of intellectual Deists." 
 
 Whether they were Deists or Christians is 
 more than I can tell, but of one thing I am 
 pretty certain, and that is, that a more 
 diabolically ugly set of women I never saw 
 congregated together in any place of worship. 
 They Avere a pale — sickly — sour — disap- 
 pointed looking set — if not deistical, certainly 
 dyspeptic. Every second woman of the lot 
 might have been hung outside an hospital as 
 a sign. They all looked like governesses out of 
 place, for in vain did I look for a fine fresh 
 face, joyous and jocund. The juicy form of 
 woman, in her prime, met my eyes nowhere. 
 One woman alone caught my particular notice. 
 She was tall and not ill-shaped. Her face
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 139 
 
 was not ugly, nor was it pretty, but it was 
 striking. She had good eyes and brows — 
 pouting lips and splendid teeth, but her nose 
 was a pincushion — her hair was a little foxy, 
 and her skin was freckled. She wore a sky- 
 blue shawl, with a preposterous green bonnet 
 and feathers. St. Leger told me her name. 
 
 " That is a curious woman," said he. 
 " Mrs. Corry Sykes — a has bleu — a kind of 
 Catharine Macauly — a female radical — rant- 
 ing about the rights of women, and the per- 
 fectibility of human nature. But stay, she 
 scrutinizes us closely." 
 
 She saluted Gabriel Cleveland with eager- 
 ness, and I now saw that Cleveland was an 
 object of much attention amongst the con- 
 gregation. The female ogres seemed to eye 
 him with particular approbation. And I 
 almost thought that I caught Mrs. Corry 
 Sykes in the act of ogling with him, but I 
 hoped better of human perfectibility.
 
 140 wynville; or, 
 
 The men of the congregation were better 
 than the women ; there were a good number 
 of clever looking faces and heads amongst 
 them. St. Leger pointed out to me two or 
 three journalists, an actor of some melo- 
 dramatic eminence, a Jew singer of some 
 celebrity, a Whiggish baronet of loose morals 
 and liberal principles, an Irish republican, 
 banished from Ireland by O'ConnelFs abuse of 
 him, and pestered with duns in London, two 
 or three circulators of Deistical common-place, 
 in short a motley congregation indeed.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 141 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 A FALSE PROPHET — FEMALE DISCIPLES. 
 
 There was a movement through the chapel. 
 A door opened, and the great man of the day, 
 the mighty one of the congregation of ugly 
 women and eccentric men appeared in sight, 
 slowly ascending the staircase. 
 
 When I got a fair view of his face, I was 
 displeased at its expression. There was a 
 furtive look about the eyes and mouth, an
 
 142 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 appearance as if he was playing a part that 
 did not become him. He seemed as if he had 
 done something which made him feel unquietly, 
 like a monk of La Trappe, addicting to 
 eating beef-steak in the dark. The flesh of 
 his cheeks was pale and flabby ; his hair was 
 black and greasy, and fantastically frizzed up. 
 His collar was like Lord Byron's, but his 
 throat was not; his appearance on the whole, 
 was strange, striking, and disagreeable. 
 
 There was a short prayer ; then a psalm ; 
 then a few words of prayer addressed to the 
 one God of all. Then a hymn, sung out 
 of tune, and after about half-an-hour spent 
 in praying and singing, the orator rose. 
 
 His voice was harsh, husky, and hoarse ; he 
 affected a careless air, but his manner was 
 really studied, the enunciation was distinct, 
 and the sentences measured. He commenced 
 with the pretensions of the church, and with
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 143 
 
 adroitness, begged his premises that after all 
 it was only a modern invention, and could not 
 go beyond the age of Henry the Eighth, that 
 benign model of a conservative reformer ; that 
 it was a mere English institution, he showed, 
 by contrasting it with the Eomish church, 
 and he poured rapidly forth a striking contrast 
 setting forth in glowing language, the artistic 
 qualities of the Romish system. His language 
 was brilliant, and his use of antithesis and 
 epigram was frequent. He excited the mind 
 as much by his style as his matter, which in 
 plainer words would have been common 
 enough. He then contrasted the church with 
 every other religious system in England, 
 assigning the palm for superiority of spirit 
 and consistency to every other form of Chris- 
 tianity, rather than that of the Church of 
 England. The Presbyterian system, that was 
 natural and successful ; the various forms of
 
 144 wynville; or, 
 
 dissent, tliey were all real and earnest, they 
 actually were what they professed to be. 
 But the church, and he spoke with intense 
 bitterness, that was a great imposture of 
 rancorous spirit and rusty principles, a mix- 
 ture of mediaeval rubbish, and modern bigotry, 
 with its articles discordant, its clergy split 
 into sections, and its congregations wavering 
 between Calvin and Arminius. " The God 
 of its worship, one would suppose," he cried, 
 " is the very Deity of discord." 
 
 He then attacked it, as the armoury in 
 which beaten Toryism looks for its weapons to 
 vanquish democracy in the encounter of con- 
 troversy. He scornfully praised it as the 
 hospital of high priests, in which noble 
 paupers locate their needy scions and provide 
 for their political supporters. Apostro- 
 phizing with glowing eloquence the spirit of
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 145 
 
 the time, he then denounced the church as 
 the great stumbling-block in the way of social 
 progress, incriminating its whole system as 
 false, conventional, and vulgar, mocking at 
 its reputation, and raking up all the political 
 scandal that three centuries have left upon 
 the Church of England. 
 
 His eloquence was in the spirit of a tirade, 
 but his language was choice, his sarcasm 
 poignant, and his elocution singularly impres- 
 sive, though defective in art. In spite of my 
 revulsion from the appearance of the man, I 
 was spell-bound. His sophistries eluded me. 
 His exciting style concealed the real shallow- 
 ness of his own views. Fired by his brilliant 
 — lively — and picturesque declamation, I was 
 ready to say ditto to his sentiments, like the 
 Bristol merchant did to Burke. 
 
 Marlowe saw with joy the pleasure I felt at 
 tlie discourse, and I suppose calculated on 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 146 WYNYILLE; OR, 
 
 leading me into the same quagmire of un- 
 belief as he floundered in himself. " Well," 
 said he, " was I not right in my description 
 of Foss? Is he not a grand creature?" 
 
 " Oh ! he's the most striking speaker I have 
 ever yet Heard. By Jove, sir, the man is an 
 orator, a thing I have often before been read- 
 ing and hearing about, but never heard be- 
 fore. I shall come here and listen to him 
 again and again." 
 
 Marlowe was rejoiced, and so was Gabriel 
 Cleveland. They then turned to St. Leger, 
 and asked him what he thought of Foss. 
 
 " Well — ah — really it was all vastly well 
 of its kind. But that kind was not of the 
 highest. No doubt there was a great deal of 
 cleverness about the exhibition, for the whole 
 thing was got up." 
 
 I was angry with St. Leger for his pooh- 
 poohing the man who had made such an im-
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 147 
 
 pression on me, and told him that he was 
 affecting the cant of criticism." 
 
 " Why no," said St. Leger, '' the cant of 
 criticism was affected by the very man whom 
 you so extravagantly admire. It was he that 
 played the critic's part, and played it with a 
 vengeance. Did he not cut away, right and 
 left, at the church in which for three centuries 
 the greatest part of English worth and 
 genius has been trained? Did he not with 
 a mere critic's eye note every fault in that 
 great civil and religious institution, and not 
 specify a single merit of that church which 
 reared a Hooker and a Barrow — which nursed 
 a Jeremy Taylor, the most readable and fasci- 
 nating of all divines — which produced such 
 hosts of learned and able men in all ages, to 
 uphold the truth of primitive religion against 
 the logical assaults and witty scoffs of the 
 hosts of European infidels. Why look at the 
 
 H 2
 
 148 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 progress that irreligion made in France in 
 the literary circles, where the cold deism of 
 their philosophers, and the gaudy Romanism 
 of the. intolerant and intolerable French 
 Church, Avere powerless to keep the educated 
 minds of the country in the following of Him 
 who died on Calvary. What else saved the 
 intellect of England from the frozen heart of 
 unbelief, or the fanatic head of Methodism, 
 or Eomanism, but the illustrious divines, who 
 with immortal eloquence and prodigious learn- 
 ing, confuted and crushed the daring assaulters 
 of Christianity in the last century? Never 
 was the christian fight fought vrith keener 
 weapons — never was more masterly intellect 
 brought to its support, than by the very 
 divines of that church which we heard so 
 abused and denounced by this deistical de- 
 claimer. Ah! it is an easy thing to play the 
 mere critic's part, but I like to see either
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 149 
 
 evidence of the constructive head that can 
 devise a new and greater system, or reverence 
 for an institution venerable by the illustrious 
 offspring it has produced." 
 
 '' And what is this Foss after all? He is 
 nothing but a decorous Tom Paine ; an Angli- 
 cised Diderot, with more adroitness than to 
 shock openly, he covertly insinuates his utter 
 disbelief. I take him as he showed himself 
 this day. I say that no man could be 
 really tinctured with religious philosophy who 
 would deliver such a one-sided tirade against 
 any christian church, whether French, or Eng- 
 lish, or Eomish. He does not know what the 
 spirit of religion is. Deficient in heart, he is 
 a rhetorician whose intellect is not warmed by 
 feeling, whose soul is not visited by any of 
 that mystic sense of spiritual nature, which is 
 absolutely necessary to a religious teacher.
 
 150 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 He is a negative thinker without a creed of 
 his own. He is a pungent commentator on 
 the errors and scandals of the christian world, 
 a sparkling derider of whatever age has hal- 
 lowed, or experience has approved — a crea- 
 ture dieted on cavils, and existing only by the 
 spirit of opposition — fit to coast only the lower 
 regions of logic — never to ascend beyond mere 
 analysis, because incapable by mental defects 
 of embracing a large synthesis. For the con- 
 ception of a great truth is not an affair of 
 the head merely, there must be sympathy to 
 give perception — to vivify the nature of a 
 being employed in the discovery of a moral 
 truth." 
 
 St. Leger surprised me with the keen 
 remarks he made. I was afterwards sorry 
 that I did not then pay more attention than I 
 then did to his comments upon Foss. But
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 151 
 
 novelty is a very fascinating thing to every 
 youthful mind. And I fancied that I had got hold 
 of a strong original thinker in Foss, little 
 supposing, that in point of fact, he was only 
 Bolingbroke modernized — Tom Paine improved 
 and varnished. 
 
 In those days, the whigs were abused by the 
 advanced reform party as latitudinarian, and 
 as being a party destitute of profound con- 
 victions. My family had since the revolution 
 been whig, and my uncle had bred me up in 
 his own ideas of a loose liberalism. The 
 plausible generalities, the artful sarcasms and 
 the vigorous rhetoric of Foss, stronger than 
 his logic, imposed on me for the time, and 
 the pungent critic on aU parties, imposed on 
 my mind as the expositor of intellectual 
 democracy. 
 
 That I was for the time carried away by
 
 152 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 Foss I trace to the following causes — to my 
 own mental laxity, from the unsystematic 
 mode of my own education, and also to the 
 careless habit I had acquired from my uncle, 
 who was a pupil of the Scotch school in 
 mental philosophy. If I had been more ad- 
 dicted to the study of moral subjects, and 
 more accustomed to fixed habits of conduct, I 
 could not have been misled by the artificial 
 eloquence, and sophistical Socinianism of Foss. 
 I continued for some time regularly to at- 
 tend his chapel, and candidly record that I 
 was the worse man for doing so. He destroyed 
 many wholesome prejudices that 1 poss'essed, 
 (more truths associated with traditions) and 
 put nothing in their place. His teaching re- 
 moved from my mind that sense of awful 
 accountability to the Almighty which is the 
 most solemn and grand truth that man pos-
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 153 
 
 sesses. The practical consequences of his 
 Sunday lectures, was to destroy the principle 
 of reverence, and leave me afloat on a sea 
 of speculation, where he who had cast me 
 adrift, neither offered me a compass to steer 
 by, or cast a rope to tow me into a harbour. 
 
 H 3
 
 154 wynville; or, 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE NEW ACTRESS — AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE — 
 UPS AND DOAVNS. 
 
 My principles having been made worse, 
 or renounced, I had then nothing but my 
 feelings to guide me through life. 
 
 At this time, I was in the habit of attending 
 the theatres regularly, and I took special 
 delight in witnessing English comedies; I 
 hardly ever missed " the School for
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 155 
 
 Scandal," whenever it was performed with a 
 tolerable cast ; I liked the hearty manner, the 
 keen wit, and the racy language of old 
 comedies, and insensibly I became addicted to 
 the theatre. 
 
 I chanced one evening to dine in a French 
 cafe in the Haymarket, and read in a play-bill, 
 that Miss Lucy Dormer was to make her 
 appearance for the first time after having 
 returned from her American engagements. 
 
 Miss Dormer was one of the best actresses 
 of the day ; I had seen her when she was a 
 mere girl, on the boards of the Croydon 
 theatre, and felt some interest about her, as 
 she belonged to a family of reduced gentility. 
 Her grandfather had been a country squire, 
 who was ruined by the turf and election 
 expences. I had heard with pleasure of her 
 success in the dramatic art, and resolved to 
 see her that evening.
 
 156 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 The play was '' Twelfth Night," the theatre, 
 one of the minor houses, was crowded with 
 her numerous friends and partizans amongst 
 the play-goers. When the curtain drew up, 
 and she entered after the shipwreck, asking 
 the question "what country friend is this?" 
 what a stunning tempest of applause greeted 
 the appearance of the fkvourite actress. Her 
 talents alone, though eminent, would not 
 have made her so popular ; her per- 
 sonal character was most exemplary, and her 
 private life was an honour to her sex. 
 
 I like the enthusiasm of a London audience : 
 there is a vigour and heartiness about the 
 applause of the Londoners, when they are 
 really roused, that one sees no where else. Miss 
 Dormer was obliged to remain several minutes 
 before she was able to go on. 
 
 She played with feeling, and exquisitely 
 feminine pathos. Her voice suited the part,
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 157 
 
 gentle, soft, and sympathetic, in its tones. 
 Her smile was sweet and wistful, and her whole 
 demeanour — her every look and gesture — 
 seemed befitting a woman of refined nature 
 and unsullied purity. I was charmed equally 
 with her person, and her acting. And yet 
 her figure was far from faultless, and her face 
 was engaging and pretty, rather than parti- 
 cularly handsome. Her form was thin, but 
 her hands and feet were delicately shaped. 
 Her head was intellectual, with an exquisite 
 forehead ; and she had a profusion of auburn 
 hair. She had large blue eyes, — the finest 
 feature in her countenance ; her nose was so 
 long as almost to disfigure the whole face, and 
 her mouth was saved from vulgarity only by 
 the splendid teeth that glittered between her 
 lips ; her skin was exquisitely fair. 
 
 Such was the woman who produced in me 
 a striking effect, and delighted my fancy.
 
 158 WTNVILLE; OR, 
 
 What was it that captivated me ? Wliat was 
 it that made me so often go and see her per- 
 form? Genius she did not possess, tliough 
 she had excellent taste, and much talent. 
 Her figure did not appeal to the senses, and 
 she scarcely was classed amongst the great 
 stars of her profession. ^Hiy, then, did she 
 charm me? 
 
 It was because she gave me in her whole 
 air and manner, her expression and figure, a 
 vivid image of the female character in its 
 purity and delicacy. It was because, though 
 her mind was not fired by the flashes of 
 genius that marked a Siddons, or a Rachel; 
 her manners were irresistible by the 
 magic of modesty. It was because, in her 
 sweetly feminine deportment — her subdued 
 pathetic grace, — I saw something of that 
 moral beauty, which my speculative mind 
 longed to apprehend. It was because, living
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 159 
 
 in the excitement of London life, with its 
 monotonous energy of excitement — I saw in 
 her air and being something of that calmness 
 of nature — that serenity of soul — that stain- 
 less purity of heart, which we associate as 
 well with human happiness, as with the per- 
 fection of female character. 
 
 Yes! Miss Dormer's captivation of my 
 mind was owing to the witchery of her 
 modesty — of her being an impersonation of 
 womanhood in its refined and guileless state. 
 The knowledge also that she was in reality all 
 she seemed to be, enhanced the effects of her 
 personal charms, and shed a moral grace over 
 her acting, that rendered her performances 
 most delightful to my mind. 
 
 Little did the actress deem that she was 
 making a conversion in the feelings, and in 
 the views of life and religion entertained by 
 a young Templar. Little could she suppose
 
 160 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 that her manners and figure suggested ideas 
 and thoughts which were more powerful in 
 removing scepticism from his mind, than the 
 arguments of a mere biblical controversialist, 
 however learned. 
 
 But so it was ; she roused my feelings, and 
 excited my mind into the vivid apprehension 
 of the truth — that mere intellect — mere un- 
 standing — is very far from being the chief 
 part of human nature. Foss, and the school 
 to which he belonged, addressed the intellect 
 alone; and I began to recoil from the cold 
 critical analysis, which every Sunday morning, 
 Foss exhibited to his admiring audience of 
 ugly women and smart essayists. 
 
 My friends rallied me on my admiration of 
 Miss Dormer. They did not comprehend the 
 nature of my character — and they little knew 
 that while with them I led a life of levity, 
 that in solitude 1 was addicted to reflection, 
 and to study of society in all its ramifications.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 161 
 
 While I was seated with Granby Cumber- 
 land one night in the boxes of the theatre, he 
 said to me, 
 
 " There is a new actress to appear to-night 
 — Mrs. Delmain — do you know anything of 
 her?" 
 
 '^ I have heard that she is a fine singer — 
 that is all I know about her." 
 
 '' You have never seen her act, or heard 
 her sing?" 
 
 '' No ! she is in London only a few days — 
 quite fresh from the provinces, where I believe 
 she has had great success." 
 
 ^' If she succeeds here, she will be apt to 
 injure Miss Dormer's position." 
 
 My usual custom was not to wait for the 
 after-piece, as I never wished to destroy the 
 agreeable impression left on my mind by Miss 
 Dormer's graceful acting, and charmingly
 
 162 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 modest deportment. But at the special in- 
 stance of Cumberland I remained that night. 
 
 The after-piece was ' Clari, or the Maid of 
 Milan,' in which the interest of the piece 
 turns upon a deluded victim to la belle 
 passion — injured innocence — agonizing re- 
 pentance — " and all that sort of thing," as St. 
 Leger would say. The part of Clari, a most 
 pathetic one, was to be undertaken by the 
 new actress. 
 
 The curtain drew up, and judge my sur- 
 prise, when I saw advancing to the footlights 
 Charlotte Thorpe! 
 
 I looked at Cumberland — he smiled, and 
 was not in the least discomposed. 
 
 With intense eagerness I scanned the fea- 
 tures of the Bath Beauty. She was perfectly 
 self-possessed, though she affected to be a mere 
 novice. The beauty of her countenance was
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 163 
 
 striking, but spoiled by the air of effrontery 
 which her features wore occasionally. 
 
 In the plot of the piece she had to witness 
 a got up stage scene, in which her own adven- 
 tures are ingeniously brought before Clari's 
 eyes. The role is to be moved to tears, and 
 disturbed in feeling to contortion, at the 
 spectacle of a party in a village, singing 
 ' home — sweet home." 
 
 Mrs. Delmain was gorgeously dressed — in 
 theatrical taste, and her part well suited her 
 real character. 
 
 She wept — she sighed — she buried her face 
 in her lace 'kerchief — she sobbed aloud — 
 looked up to heaven — hid her face in her 
 hands again — and appeared convulsed with 
 spasms of mental torture. Her eyes dropped 
 tears — and anguish could not have been better 
 affected. 
 
 I looked around me, in the next box some
 
 164 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 young fashionable, but inexperienced girls, 
 appeared as so many daughters of Niobe, and 
 in the pit I saw half the women with 
 signs of emotion in their faces. 
 
 " You see," said Cumberland, " what crea- 
 tures women are ! Look at that baggage on 
 the stage, she has got no more heart than the 
 Ordinary at Newgate! Oh, these women, 
 how they have tears at will !" 
 
 " Come, come," cried I, " you must not 
 attack womankind ; a man, Cumberland, with 
 your particular talents and conversation are 
 as ill-qualified to judge of women, as a prime 
 minister of political virtue, or an Old Bailey 
 barrister of elegant manners." 
 
 '^ Pooh ! my dear fellow, you are a weak 
 enthusiast about whatever appeals to your 
 feelings, I tell you that all women are 
 actresses at heart,"
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 165 
 
 " Some men to business — others to pleasure — take — 
 But every woman is at heart a rake." 
 
 " Pope was a libeller of the sex ; he was 
 tantalized with the sight of beauty, which 
 his own deformity forbade him all hopes of 
 enjoying. I would as soon accept Sheridan as 
 an authority upon minor morals, as take 
 Pope's malignant dicta upon that sex, which 
 detested his person, as he affected to despise 
 its mind." 
 
 " Since you have taken to admiring Miss 
 Lucy Dormer in particular, you seem to have 
 grown an enthusiast about the whole sex in 
 general. By the way, should you like to 
 know Miss Dormer? If you join me on 
 Tuesday next, at dinner, I will take you to a 
 party at Brompton, given by a theatrical friend 
 of mine, where you will have an opportunity of 
 meeting your favourite amongst the actresses." 
 
 I grasped at Cumberland's proposal, and
 
 166 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 was punctual in my engagement with him to 
 dine. After discussing some excellent Bur- 
 gundy, we arrived at Mr. Webberson's house, 
 at Brompton.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 167 
 
 CHAPTEE XIIL 
 
 THE manager's SOIREE. — LIONS OF ALL TRIBES. 
 
 Webberson was a man who had been for a 
 year in the guards, and for a couple of 
 months in the House of Commons, from which 
 he had been ejected on a petition for want of 
 qualification. He had then gone the northern 
 circuit, and was getting into criminal practice, 
 being a very fluent and energetic speaker, 
 ntil by an unlucky accident he assisted in
 
 168 
 
 hanging one of his clients through his igno- 
 rance of law. He had tried authorship, and 
 had written a tragedy, which excited vast mirth ; 
 and a couple of lachrymose farces, in which 
 the humour was of a most grave-digger kind. 
 Last of all, he took to toadyism and tuft-hunt- 
 ing. He had a fine person, and a vast ex- 
 panse of white forehead, with black bunches 
 of hair at the sides of his head. He dressed 
 well, and told a story tolerably ; and was not 
 over scrupulous as to how he could best serve 
 one of his titled friends. Having vast energy, 
 and no money, he thought the best thing he 
 could do was to turn a theatrical manager. 
 At last the fellow succeeded. What with his 
 impudence to the public, and his servility to 
 the aristocracy; what with his arts of cajoling, 
 by which he got the press to write him 
 up, he actually succeeded in maintaining his 
 theatre with considerable effect.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 169 
 
 His villa at B romp ton was a cottage or nee ^ 
 off the high road, in a small dusty garden, 
 where Flora preserved a phthisical existence. 
 The rooms were very small — three opening en 
 suite — a drawing-room and a dining-parlour, 
 communicating with a library fitted up in imi- 
 tation of Abbotsford. The walls were covered 
 with theatrical portraits, in rich gilt frames. 
 Interspersed amongst tliese were some really 
 excellent oil paintings, presented him by his 
 artistical friends, and his library was stored 
 with presentation copies from the motley band 
 of modern authors ; for Webberson had a uni- 
 versal acquaintance. 
 
 The rooms Avere brilliantly lighted, and the 
 company was exceedingly crowded. There 
 was no dancing, for there was not room for 
 
 the Duke of G to turn about easily, thin 
 
 as his grace is. I experienced a curious sen- 
 sation when I found myself in this crowd of 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 170 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 London celebrities, for the Royal Academy — 
 the professions — the literary world — yea! 
 even the House of Commons, sent repre- 
 sentatives to Webberson. 
 
 "Mr. Wynville, I am delighted to make 
 your acquaintance," said Webberson, shaking 
 me by the hand. " I have heard often of 
 you, .szV, and I have no doubt that you will 
 soon distinguish yourself in the great world. 
 Allow me to introduce Mr. Penrose to you," 
 — and in half a minute the Penrose, of whom 
 St. Leger had told me so much, was bowing to 
 me. He was a slight figure, with a look of 
 singular intelligence, playful — and mock- 
 ing. He had a certain air of pretension not 
 unpleasing. 
 
 " Have you ever met Webberson before?" 
 he said. 
 
 " No ! I never had that pleasure till this 
 evening."
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 171 
 
 " Well ! he's a singular character. Do 
 you know what I call him ? I christened him 
 t'other day — Count Gammon de CocJcaigne. 
 His powers of humbug are prodigious. He 
 is an exception to prove the rule that Irishmen 
 have a monopoly of the thing called ' Blarney.' 
 He is the very O'Connell of theatrical life, 
 always dragging a crowd after him by dint of 
 his incessant promises and inimitable cajo- 
 lery — and his good-humoured impudence. 
 Xow, I'll wager that he told you just now 
 that you were the cleverest man in England, 
 excepting me of course. I knew it. But it 
 is impossible to be angry with the fellow. He's 
 but a type of the sort of human nature that 
 succeeds best in London. Voluble impudence 
 with a respectable appearance, combined with 
 high spirits and unfailing health will make a 
 man go very far in London. The appearance 
 of talent, if kept up with skill and energy 
 
 I 2
 
 172 WYNTILLE; OR, 
 
 will do just as well as the reality, in 
 London." 
 
 " Ah ! I should think the charlatan is soon 
 found out." 
 
 " Not so soon as you suppose. Look 
 around this room — (I see you have few 
 acquaintances in it) and observe what a 
 crowd of empty pretentious noisy reputations 
 are enclosed within these walls. Look at that 
 tall handsome man, with fine eyes and good 
 figure.' 
 
 '' You mean Henniker the barister." 
 
 " Ah ! I see you know more of the folk — well 
 Henniker is making a fortune at the bar as an 
 advocate ; in the strength of his leathern lungs, 
 his fine voice, and his fluent flippant tongue. 
 He is a gentleman-like kind of legal scavenger, 
 excellent at throwing dirt upon an adversary. 
 He is thought eloquent by the attornies, but 
 he is a mere wind-bag, incapable of oratory,
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 173 
 
 yet on the strength of his physical advantages, 
 and his ready utterance, he is making his way 
 at the bar, and a few years hence will see him 
 in parliament as a leading law officer, on the 
 high road to a peerage. Then cast your 
 eyes on that walking pill-box. Sir Charles 
 Rush, there is a fashionable physician for you, 
 his first rise in life was owing to his good 
 fortune, in purging one of a royal duke's 
 babies; then with his assiduous flattery, and 
 his small apothecary arts, and his toadying 
 some noble families, he has contrived to 
 obtain a West-end practice of the first class ; 
 though the man's attainments are despised by 
 all the men of science in his profession. 
 Think of the lives of a Jenner, a Charles 
 Bell, and then of the success of this quack 
 knight, and compliment the penetration of 
 the London world. Bah ! there is a coarse- 
 ness about our London society, that is very
 
 174 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 revolting. Even in intellectual pursuits, its 
 ideas seemed formed upon the lines 
 
 ' The value of anything, 
 
 Is just so much as it will bring.' 
 
 There is the new actress, j\Irs. Delmian, a 
 capital singer, with a showy striking figure. 
 See what a crowd is about her, while our 
 neighbour here, with thrice her intelligence, 
 is comparatively neglected." 
 
 I looked round and saw Miss Dormer, seated 
 on an ottoman, and only one or two persons 
 seeming to notice her. I saw that she was 
 looking at Mrs. Delmain, and observing the 
 effect produced by her upon the company. 
 
 Miss Dormer looked very charmingly. She 
 was dressed in a plain white muslin dress, and 
 wore a blue shawl over her f lir shoulders. 
 Her fine intellectual head was ornamented 
 with a brilliant diamond, that shone resplend- 
 ently upon her forehead.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 175 
 
 I lost no time in being introduced, and was 
 gratified to find the fair actress as lady-like 
 in her manners as report had said. She was 
 utterly unlike her profession, her deportment 
 was quiet and innocent, and she did not look 
 as if fishing for a compliment every second 
 minute. There were none of the green-room 
 artifices in her conversation. Her manner 
 and mode of speaking was in the style of lady- 
 like quiet and graceful good sense that one 
 might suppose Jane Austin, the novelist, 
 would have indulged in. 
 
 " To a lady of intellect and taste, 1 should 
 suppose," said I, '' the stage must be a 
 delightful profession. The poetry of the plays 
 themselves, the variety of ideas brought be- 
 fore the mind, in language the most perfect 
 and elaborate, and all the strange characters 
 to be found only in theatrical company, these 
 must surely prevent the mind from ever flag- 
 ging, or the spirit feeling weary."
 
 176 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 " You take," replied Miss Dormer, " a 
 couleur cle rose view of a theatrical existence ; 
 which I can assure you is much more vulgar 
 and painful than you would suppose. Our 
 profession has many drawbacks and annoyances, 
 some of them of a particularly disagreeable 
 kind." 
 
 " Well ! I should never think so. Actors 
 and actresses are always so hearty and witty, 
 with such high spirits." 
 
 " Ah ! recollect," observed Miss Dormer. 
 ^' that there is acting oif the stage as v/ell as 
 upon it. How do you know that these good 
 spirits are always genuine? But ahem! I 
 must not tell tales out of school!" 
 
 " Oh — Miss Dormer — pray go on. I long 
 to know the real nature of the life of an 
 actress. Does she value the popular homage 
 as eagerly as one may suppose? Is she ner- 
 vous about criticism? Does she quail before
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 177 
 
 the censures of the galling critics of the Lon- 
 don press ? Is she anxious to win a title ? Does 
 she learn the poets with the same ardour as she 
 speaks forth their conceptions — does she 
 
 " Does she," said Miss Dormer archly — 
 " answer fifty questions in a breath, and make 
 revelations to the first gentleman she is intro- 
 duced to? Can she distinguish a west-end 
 lawyer from a dandy who lives east of Temple 
 Bar? Does she ?" 
 
 " My curiosity provokes your raillery, I 
 see, but forgive the inquisitiveness of a novice, 
 if I ask you whether your profession is really 
 as delightful as it seems to be at a distance?" 
 
 " Well, let me tell you, I speak only for 
 myself — I hate the profession. It is a detest- 
 able one, and I wish that I could quit it." 
 
 '' How? You who stand so high in the art 
 — you who are such a favorite of the public — 
 
 " Ha ! " — interrupted the pretty actress — 
 
 I a
 
 178 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 favourite with the public— for how long will 
 the favouritism last? How do 1 know, for 
 example, but that Mrs. Delmain will he the 
 cause of my manager's not renewing my en- 
 gagement. Alas ! I see that you know little 
 indeed of actresses. Come ! let me enlighten 
 you as to our daily grievances. First of all, 
 then, is the jealousy about favourite parts. 
 For example, I foresee that before many days, 
 Mrs. Delmain, Miss Whitaker, and myself, 
 will have a pretty contest about Avho is to 
 play'Letitia Hardy, in the Belles Stratagem^ 
 which is to be played soon, for bringing out the 
 new actor in Doricourt." 
 
 " Well, but Miss Dormer, there are pro- 
 fessional jealousies in all walks of life. Eival 
 lawyers feel as keenly about their pretensions 
 to a vacant judgeship, as actresses about 
 getting leading parts in a play. In fact,' 
 competition in all its forms produces jealousies
 
 CLITBS AND COTERIES. 179 
 
 of every kind, from school -boys at Harrow 
 and Eton, up to senators in the cabinet, like 
 Canning and Peel. An Edinburgh reviewer 
 hates a Quarterly reviewer — each rounding his 
 periods and pointing his phrases to please the 
 critical readers of the empire ; just as you and 
 Miss Whitaker may be supposed to contend 
 for the applause of the theatrical world." 
 
 "Ah! that is not the only annoyance an 
 actress suffers from," replied Miss Dormer, 
 " there is a grievance far worse than the tor- 
 ture of professional jealousy, or the trials of 
 popular caprice— there is the speaking and 
 acting in opposition to one's better feelings — 
 the natural assumption of odious and dis- 
 agreeable characters — there is the shamming 
 of virtue where virtue is not felt, as there is 
 the assumption of vice where vice is not, and 
 thus an actress is made to feel how hollow 
 this world is, and in an age when speakers
 
 180 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 and wi'iters are canting about the perfectibility 
 of human nature, she is made to feel, sup- 
 posing her to be a woman of reflection — the 
 emptiness of this world — the pretences to the 
 beautiful based on falsehood — the affectation 
 of the noble and good — in short (and Miss 
 Dormer lowered her voice) she i.% made to 
 feel that this world is a theatre." She seemed 
 to shudder as she spoke the last words. 
 
 I confess that I was astonished at the 
 moralizing actress, and I was charmed to 
 find her so intellectual. I continued the 
 conversation. 
 
 " You seem to shrink from the world be- 
 cause it is a theatre. Can you forget how 
 Shakspeare " 
 
 " Oh ! pray, Mr. Wynville, do not give us 
 'All the World's a Stage.' Alas! Shaks- 
 peare saw or pourtrayed only the poetry of 
 the stage, in that noble passage which can
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 181 
 
 never be liacknied. The making up for all 
 the parts, and the mechanical representation 
 of the beautiful, he carefully avoided exposing 
 to the mind. The dressing-room dissolves all 
 the illusion." 
 
 '' Yes ! " cried Penrose, who was standing 
 near, " poetry vanishes in the rouge-pot, and 
 beauty itself disappears with its false curls. 
 You pant to embrace the ' Letitia Hardy,' 
 who bewitched you on the stage, and part of 
 her is hung up behind the screen — another 
 part is hid in a wardrobe — and a third is 
 squeezed up in a dressing- drawer." 
 
 "Ah! Mr. Penrose — I see you have been 
 behind the scenes. ^^ 
 
 " Yea ! verily I have ! and witnessed scenes 
 behind the scenes. I have seen the indignant 
 village maid rush from the stage, spurning a 
 princely seducer's arts, and in a minute after, 
 stand quizzing three profligates of quality,
 
 182 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 hesitating Avliich of them she should ask to 
 supper. I have seen the mother, who wept 
 behind the footlights at the elopement of her 
 daughter, view with complacence a lihei'tine 
 lord ogling the same daughter in the green- 
 room. I have seen the gentleman, who five 
 minutes since was a British merchant upon 
 'Change, beg the loan of a guinea from the 
 surly treasurer. I have seen the squire of 
 the village—the rich lord of the manor — with 
 his coat out at the elbows ; and the haughty 
 duchess who hectored a retinue of servants, 
 putting on her dirty pattens to walk home to 
 her second-pair back." 
 
 " Oh ! mercy — mercy — Mr. Penrose — pray," 
 said Miss Dormer, with arch looks of horror — 
 ''no more revelations I beseech you." 
 
 Just then there was a liush through the 
 room, and Mrs. Delmain warbled, ' Away ! 
 Away ! to the mountain's brow ! ' All were
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 183 
 
 delighted, except the actress, Miss Whitaker, 
 who bit her lips Avhile her rival won the admi- 
 ration of the room with her exquisite warb- 
 ling. I looked to Miss Dormer. She seemed 
 to enjoy the singing heartily, and was lavish 
 in the praise of it ; and certainly Mrs. Delmain 
 was -a charming singer. 
 
 Penrose and I were in a small alcove behind 
 the crowd. We could see all the company. 
 
 ''What a scene" cried he, "is a London party 
 where rival celebrities meet each other ; all eiiger 
 to outshine the other. Beneath that surface of 
 smooth and glittering life, how much internal 
 suffering — how much cankered disappointment, 
 and envious rivalry I Yet all seems as if the 
 assembled company were a meeting of philan- 
 thropists, so kindly do people greet each 
 other, and so happy do all seem. The glare 
 and the glitter ; the pomp of ceremony ; the 
 affability of rank; the obsequiousness of am-
 
 184 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 bitious vulgarity — how are they all blended 
 together amid the throng. A London recep- 
 tion is like a masquerade. The costume is 
 conventional, for every one chooses to go in a 
 character not their own. Ambition assumes 
 a modest guise; the modest strive hard to 
 wear a mask of effrontery; the envious look 
 amiable; and the superficial seem profound. 
 Old age tricks itself out in silk and feathers, 
 and borrows for the time the dress of youth, 
 if it can do no more."
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 185 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ROMANISTS AND RATIONALISTS. 
 
 The want of a regular pursuit is, to a 
 well educated man, a very great evil. The 
 stupid, and the purely indolent, can get on 
 pretty well without a regular pursuit, but 
 exactly in proportion to a man's intellect and 
 activity, is the necessity for his devotion to 
 some regular occupation. A clever and idle 
 man is almost sure to get into mischief.
 
 186 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 With fortune sufficient to live at ease in thj^ 
 best company, and without any urgent 
 motive to labour, it was no wonder that I 
 should loiter on the road of life, and dally 
 with the profession in which I embarked. 
 Although very ambitious, and most desirous 
 of political eminence, I found so many ways 
 in London society of finding amusement and 
 pleasure, that 1 gradually acquired a habit of 
 sauntering, instead of stripping manfully to 
 the toil of legal and political study. 
 
 But the Avorst part of my case was, that 
 my religious faith had been completely un- 
 hinged, and that owing to the lectuiTS of the 
 gaudy and glittering deist — Foss, I was little 
 better than an infidel. When transferred to 
 the care of my uncle, Parker, I was a Church 
 of England man. He was a latitudinarian ; 
 a sober quiet deist; averse to all desire of 
 propagandism, because he saw too clearly
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 187 
 
 the political consequences of infidelity. Under 
 liis influence, my religious opinions were 
 quietly sapped; and, after his death, 1 em- 
 barked upon the sea of London life, with 
 hardly a rule of conduct to guide, beyond a 
 sentimental feeling of right and wrong ; refer- 
 ring conduct entirely to the standard of 
 '' honour," and scarcely caring to inquire 
 whether the Almighty had ever made a reve- 
 lation or not. Was it any wonder that in 
 such a state of my heart and feelings that 
 I should have become a worse man? 
 
 Yet early impressions, and early training, 
 would ever and anon exert their influence 
 over me. The system of Foss failed to fill 
 the void in my heart. Often I asked myself 
 — ''And is it really all false ? Has the 
 world been blundering in a Christian belief 
 for two thousand years? Have all the saints 
 and martyrs of so many Christian churches
 
 188 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 been so many enthusiasts? Is it all a de- 
 lusion?" 
 
 Enthusiasm of some sort seems natural to 
 society. Foss, though a cold and contemptu- 
 ous critic when dealing with venerable 
 systems of opinion, yet would himself affect 
 the part of a rapt seer, and occasionally excite 
 himself into a tirade of sentiment. " The 
 perfectability of man," was his favourite 
 topic, when he wished that his mind should 
 be roused into enthusiasm. I became more 
 or less infected with the delusive doctrine 
 of the perfectability of man. 
 
 " Aye ! to be sure," said Gabriel Cleveland, 
 one day ; '' the grand secret of modern times 
 is, that man is perfectible! The doctrine 
 that men are all born in sin is one of those 
 monstrous absurdities which are carefully in- 
 culcated for the purpose of making us the 
 supple slaves of priestcraft."
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 189 
 
 " By education most have been misled, 
 So we believe because we so were bred; 
 The priest continues what the nurse began, 
 And thus the child imposes on the man." 
 
 " I am glad to hear you quoting a papist 
 poet," said Hugh Cleveland. "Ah! glorious 
 John Drjden ; I wonder when you rationalists 
 will have such a poet amongst you?" 
 
 " Pooh, my dear brother, do not sneer at 
 rationalists, for you are one yourself, though 
 you go to mass, and are a conforming 
 Catholic." 
 
 " I am no rationalist, though I may not be 
 able to tell my exact opinion — Hugh, but I 
 know that mere reason will never guide man 
 into a consistent scheme of religion, so I'll 
 support the good old church. 
 
 " Without unspotted — innocent within, 
 It fears no danger — for it knows no sin." 
 
 Look to the state of the world, and even as a
 
 190 WYNYILLE; OR, 
 
 politician, you must confess that religion is 
 absolutely necessary to all mankind. How 
 can you gOA-ern men without it?" 
 
 " No one denies the necessity of religion, 
 as a means of ruling society, but the question," 
 said I, "is what religion you are to 
 impose upon men?" 
 
 " Well," replied Hugh, " your Protestant 
 religion, and your philosophy, and your 
 liberty of unlicensed thinking, and your 
 fantastical notions about private judgment 
 produce all the effects of irreligion. They 
 cause uncertainty of thought, and produce an 
 anarchy of ideas. Instead of one form of 
 christian religion, you have fifty forms, and 
 thereby you expose the christian scheme to 
 the assaults of philosophers, who derisively 
 point to the fifty different views of divine 
 revelation; whereas in the catholic scheme of 
 religion, all is one and uniform ; the same every
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 191 
 
 where, with one set of sacraments — one 
 ritual — one ecclesiastical system. By Pro- 
 testantism you have cast society upon a sea of 
 speculation. There it drifts and tosses, and 
 numbers of the finest natures have sunk 
 under its influence, either into frantic fana- 
 ticism, or into utter infidelity." 
 
 " But see," said I, " what the catholic 
 system produces. You look at the evils of 
 Protestantism, and take no notice of its merits. 
 Look to the torpid state of society in the 
 catholic countries, where priestcraft coils its 
 scaly folds round the mind of man. England, 
 and Holland, and Germany, and the States of 
 America, are protestant and free — but look to 
 slavish Austria, and trampled Italy, and 
 sinking Spain." 
 
 " The protestant countries," said Hugh, 
 '^ are certainly, in advance of the catholic 
 nations; they have more of material civili-
 
 192 AVYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 zation ; their social development has 
 proceeded simultaneously with the Reforma- 
 tion, but not necessarily in consequence of it. 
 The English mind talks of Bacon, Shakspeare, 
 Newton, Milton and Locke, as if they were the 
 offsprings of protestantism; and catholics 
 might as well boast of Galileo — Raphael — 
 Angelo — Dante, or Sir Thomas More — 
 Cardinal Pole — Dryden — Pope — being the 
 creation of catholicity." 
 
 ^'Ah," answered I, '' illustrious names can 
 be quoted on all sides of religious systems. 
 Tacitus branded the religion of christians as 
 exitialis super stitio. It is vain to appeal 
 to the authority of names, catalogues can be 
 quoted against catalogues, and a regiment of 
 cities on this side be easily marshalled to 
 encounter an opposing regiment on the other. 
 But the social development in protestant 
 countries is more active, and there is more
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 193 
 
 now material comfort and mental freedom, 
 in short, more civilization ." 
 
 " Yes," interrupted Hugh, '' but how long 
 will it last ; the catholic countries are all 
 old developments of society, and therefore 
 tainted with the imperfections of all things 
 human. Your protestant countries have now 
 their turn of prosperity, but their develop^ 
 ments will also wear out gradually, and rust 
 with time ! The Italy of Leo and the Medici 
 is surely as grand a development as the Scot- 
 land of Henry Dundas and Dugald Stewart. 
 Spain has played a greater part in civilization 
 than Sweden. France has passed from Catho- 
 licism to infidelity, by a logical process, 
 explained by Dr. Johnson. We see no pro- 
 gress of protestantism in the capital of civili- 
 zation, and the reaction of the old church 
 will yet be triumphant. Three centuries more 
 — and you will find ncAV catliolic countries 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 194 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 blooming with fresh youth, and great pro- 
 testant countries cracking with old age." 
 
 " Three centuries more," retorted Gabriel, 
 " and you will see new developments not 
 dreamed of now. You will see countries 
 neither catholic nor protestant, but philosophi- 
 cally christian — accepting as gospel the reve- 
 lation of increased intelligence, worshipping 
 the Creator of beings born to be perfect — un- 
 shackled by the vulgar formalities of our cere- 
 monial religions of the present time — looking 
 for God, not in the scriptures, but in nature ; 
 studying the laws he has planted in our 
 hearts, and arriving at an actual moral 
 system by means of perfected reason." 
 
 " Illusion, my dear brother, it is all an 
 illusion of yours— but bless me, I forgot that 
 I have to dine at Richmond, to meet the new 
 actress; I must dress for dinner." 
 
 The influence of the Cleveland set was
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 195 
 
 enough to bewilder the understanding of a 
 young man like me. A void in my heart 
 there was, and I instinctively felt the necessity 
 of a religion, to raise my feelings above 
 earthly things. I made desperate lunges 
 after a faith, but could find none to settle 
 down in. The more I thought, the more un- 
 settled I became. From doubting of revela- 
 tion, I soon began to doubt of existence, 
 and some of the ingenious doubts raised by 
 some of the sophists of the coterie in which 
 I then moved, made me almost disbelieve the 
 fact of the responsibility of man. 
 
 K L>
 
 196 WYNVILLEi: OR. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIL 
 
 THE SMITTEN DANDY. — THE COUNTRY BEAUTY, 
 
 I WAS seated one day in my chambers, in a 
 gloomy frame of mind when a post letter was 
 brought in with the hand-writing of Granby 
 Cumberland, from whom I had not heard for 
 some time, as he had been sojourning out of 
 town. It was as follows — 
 
 '^ My Dear Fellow, 
 
 " Congratulate me upon going 
 to be married! Nay! do not start with 
 surprise. The thing is positively true. I
 
 €HJBS AND COTERIES. 197 
 
 have fallen desperately in love with the per- 
 fection of a woman, proposed for her, and 
 have been accepted. She is a Miss Ducken- 
 iield of Foxgrove, near Bath, one of three 
 lovely sisters, each with twenty thousand 
 pounds, and more on the death of various 
 relatives. The other girls would suit you 
 and Gabriel Cleveland admirably, and so I 
 wish that you would both follow my example 
 — sow your wild oats, and become sensible 
 married men. My wedding is to take place 
 in a fortnight, all is nearly arranged for it, 
 and I now write to you, requesting that you 
 would come down to Bath, where you can 
 stay at your old quarters, as I wish to 
 tell you about a variety of matters, and of 
 course expect that you will be present at my 
 wedding. Write me a line saying that you 
 will come. 
 
 " Ever Yours, 
 
 " Granby Cumberland."
 
 198 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 " P.S. — What a laugh there will be in the 
 Clubs and the House of Commons, when it 
 will be announced that I am a married 
 
 mam 
 
 T " 
 
 Wanting something to think of at the time, 
 I accepted the invitation of Cumberland to 
 go to Bath, though I could hardly suppose 
 that he was serious in his intent of marriage. 
 I thought that he was playing me some 
 trick. Little did I suppose that it was upon 
 Cumberland himself — the knowing — keen — 
 and sharp-sighted Cumberland, that a very 
 serious trick was about being played ! 
 
 The Duckenfields, and who were they? I 
 did not remember the name — nor did Cleve- 
 land — or St. Leger, who were both so au cou- 
 rant with society. The name belonged neither 
 to the peerage nor to the baronetage, and I 
 recollected no Commoner of the name. On 
 my way to Bath I chanced to make some in-
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 199 
 
 quiries of persons acquainted with the neigh- 
 bourhood, but no one could tell me anything 
 of the Duckenfield family. 
 
 I had hardly dined at my hotel, when in 
 came, or rather sprung, Granby Cumberland, 
 to see me. 
 
 " Ah ! my dear Wynville, there you are ! 
 Well, I'm going, as many folks say, to be 
 spliced. Gad ! I'm the happiest man alive. 
 I have got the very girl that I wanted. ' Oh ! 
 Jack,' as old Absolute says in the Rivals^ 
 ' such eyes — so innocently wild — so bashfully 
 irresolute! Not a glance but speaks and 
 kindles some thoughts of love. Then — man 
 — her cheeks ! her cheeks so deeply blushing 
 at the insinuation of her tell-tale eyes ! ' " 
 
 " Aye," cried I, taking up the quotation 
 from Sheridan ; ^' and then her lips, smiling 
 at their own discretion; and, if not, smiling 
 more sweetly pouting — more lovely in sullen- 
 ness ! "
 
 200 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 '' 'Tis true, my dear boy, she is a real 
 downright matchless charmer ; but you shall 
 see for yourself. I have brought you an in- 
 vitation to dinner on to-morrow, and you will 
 see with your own eyes that I do not ex- 
 aggerate." 
 
 '' And so, Cumberland, you are going to 
 cut all rakish society, and settle down into 
 a married man; the gay, the joyous, the 
 scampish Cumberland, the joy of young 
 actresses, and terror of old married men." 
 
 "Yes, sir; laugh away, enjoy your railing. 
 I'm going to be a simple married man ; and 
 you know, as to my rakishness, that a reformed 
 rake makes the best husband. You see, Wyn- 
 ville, the fact is this, I'm really tired of the 
 life I have been leading ; it is wearying after 
 all; and one finds the kind of women I have 
 been associating with so very heartless and 
 selfish, such as that baggage, Bessy Harrison,
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 201 
 
 who ran off from me a few weeks ago, because 
 the foolish old Eussian Count, Debrensckenchi, 
 was richer than I, and afforded her more 
 hopes of pillage, and yet Bessy I always 
 thought was a good-hearted girl." 
 
 " Yes, and vou used to boast that she was 
 so fond of you, that she was so passionately 
 in love with you." 
 
 '' And so she was with mjpurse^ the worth- 
 less little " 
 
 " Nay, don't abuse her." 
 
 " Well, no matter — no matter, but the best 
 of it is, I have been weary of the life I led 
 for some time, and besides, I find that my 
 character endangers my success in the political 
 world ; you know that 1 am committed to the 
 popular party. Well my present seat is too 
 expensive, and I must look out elsewhere, by 
 the next general election. The large consti- 
 tuencies suit me best, as I am ready to swallow 
 
 K 3
 
 202 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 any amount of pledges; but then, sir, these 
 puritanical dissenters do not like my morals, 
 they taunt me with my rakish habits, and the 
 notoriety of my old liason with that jade 
 Senora Zumora, and the expose that was 
 made of us both in the journals, those things 
 damage me, and I am only too glad to be 
 married in order to become a moral man." 
 
 '' What, then your marriage is one of 
 convenience !" 
 
 " By no means, I tell you, that I'm over 
 head and ears in love, I saw my charmer at a 
 ball here and was smitten at once. Next I 
 saw her at an archery meeting, and was intro- 
 duced to her; in a week I proposed for her, 
 and was accepted without delay." 
 
 " But the Duckenfields" — and just as I was 
 going to get the history of the Duckenfields 
 from him, Cumberland was called away by 
 his man of business. I had only time to
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 203 
 
 promise to accept the invitation to dinner at 
 Foxgrove the next day. 
 
 I learned the next day that Foxgrove was 
 the seat of a deceased peer, let during the 
 minority of the present peer, who was in 
 embarrassed circumstances. The Duckeniields 
 were strangers ; not known or connected with 
 Bath society. But they were, it was said, 
 persons of station, and it was certain that 
 they had all the apparatus of respectability ; 
 horses, carriages, servants, and apparently 
 plenty of money. 
 
 I drove down to Foxgrove in the evening 
 to dinner. The demesne was small, but pic- 
 turesque ; and the cool shade of the trees was 
 refreshing after a summer sun. The house 
 lay at the foot of a small hill ; it was a long 
 low structure, with a half conventunal air. 
 In the front was a handsome shrubbery and 
 grass garden ; and then I saw the family with
 
 204 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 Cumberland in the midst of them, and the 
 ladies laughing around them. As my carriage 
 wheeled in sight I saw them hastily retire 
 through the French windows to the reception- 
 rooms. I drove up to the door, and in a 
 few minutes was introduced to the family, with 
 which the gay and gallant Cumberland was 
 about to be united. 
 
 There were three sisters, the two elder were 
 tall, striking, figures, with graceful carriage, 
 and prepossessing faces — dark eyes — dark 
 hair — delicate skin. The third sister, Harriet 
 Duckenfield, was more particularly introduced 
 to me. She was certainly very pretty — her 
 figure was not commanding like that of her 
 sisters', and was under the ordinary stature. 
 Her face was round, and happy in its expres- 
 sion. There was a look of quiet enjoyment 
 and homely innocence about it that was pecu- 
 liarly charming, and to a half-worn man of
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 205 
 
 the world as Cumberland, no doubt such a face 
 and figure were particularly attractive. 
 
 There was no dreadful half - hour before 
 dinner. We were summoned without delay 
 into the dining-room, and I observed at once 
 that there were abundant signs, not only of 
 elegance, but even of sumptuous style in the 
 mode of living maintained by the Duckenfields. 
 There was a sideboard groaning with plate, 
 and the finest services for the table; several 
 servants, and all the arrangements conducted 
 in the most fashionable mode. I was the only 
 stranger present besides the family, which 
 consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Duckenfield — their 
 three daughters — a son, fresh from Cambridge 
 — and two or three humdrum relations, with 
 an aged maiden — a former governess of the 
 family. 
 
 The elder Miss Duckenfield fell to my lot at 
 table. I found her sensible and pleasant —
 
 206 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 very well informed — not knowing much of the 
 London world, but apparently acquainted with 
 a second circle of fashion. She had made the 
 tour of Germany, France, and Italy, and 
 knew all the lions of art on the continent. 
 
 The conversation at table was quiet and 
 refined, and left on the whole a pleasing, if 
 not a brilliant impression. It was altogether 
 the dinner of a thoroughly respectable English 
 family party, and I could not help thinking 
 that Cumberland was very lucky in marrying 
 into a family, where, to judge by appearances, 
 he would find himself very happy. A beau- 
 tiful young girl — a handsome fortune of 
 twenty thousand pounds — considerable expec- 
 tations, these were good ingredients to sweeten 
 the matrimonial cup, even for the palate of a 
 gay rake about town. 
 
 Mr. Duckenfield himself was a plain-spoken 
 specimen of an English gentleman, past the
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 207 
 
 meridian of life. The only member of the 
 family who gave me anything of an unplea- 
 sing impression was Mrs. Duckenfield herself. 
 
 She was at first not in anywise remarkable 
 as you looked at her. But after a little time, 
 you could hardly fail to observe a certain 
 nervousness of manner, and when you looked 
 closely at her, her eyes quickly dropped into a 
 most uneasy expression. She seemed as if 
 she was fidgetted about something, that was 
 causing her much vexation. I attributed this 
 uneasiness to her maternal anxiety on a 
 daughter being launched into the world, and 
 possibly to her uneasiness about the propriety 
 of a union, with a man of Granby Cumber- 
 land's too notorious habits. 
 
 Mrs. Duckenfield, I also remarked, with 
 more surprise, seemed very anxious that I 
 should not have much conversation with her 
 daughter Harriet, the future Mrs. Gr^inby
 
 208 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 Cumberland. When I went into the drawings 
 room after dinner, she more than once con- 
 trived to separate us, and prevented my 
 approaches to greater intimacy. Was this 
 done by design ? What possible motive could 
 she have had in it? 1 noticed, also, that though 
 the rest of the family were apparently anxious 
 that I should take up my abode at Foxgrove 
 until the day of the wedding, Mrs. Ducken- 
 field alone threw every obstacle in the way — 
 talked of their relations who had been invited 
 — of rooms unaired and ill-furnished— and, in 
 short, gave me to understand that she would 
 prefer my not accepting the invitation offered 
 by her husband.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 209 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A WEDDING AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 For some days previous to that appointed 
 for the marriage ceremony I continued to 
 visit and dine at Foxgrove. I found myself 
 rarely in the company of Harriet Ducken- 
 field, though the sisters were always ready to 
 drive or walk with me. Some of their rela- 
 tives came from the North of England to be 
 present at the wedding. It appeared that
 
 210 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 the Duckenfields were an old Lancashire 
 family, who had fallen in the early part of 
 the last century, and had been obliged to con- 
 tinue in trade, in which the father of the pre- 
 sent Mr. Duckenfield had realized a fortune. 
 Their ancestors had been of Jacobite politics, 
 and I was shewn some curious relics — a splen- 
 did snuff-box set in diamonds, with an inscrip- 
 tion from James the Third to Sir Charles 
 Duckenfield, who had rendered him some 
 personal services. Some curious letters also 
 were shown to me, which attested that the 
 family were not a new one, though recently 
 enriched by commerce. 
 
 I rode and drove about the country a good 
 deal with the Duckenfield girls, and really 
 liked them very much. I was almost begin- 
 ning to think myself half in love with one of 
 them. Nothing particular occurred before the 
 day of the marriage ceremony.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 211 
 
 On the day before, Cumberland and I were 
 alone together in Bath. He was greatly 
 elated with the approaching change in his 
 condition. He said, playfully, that he had 
 been a sad dog, and that it was time that he 
 should reform. He called to my mind 
 the conversation we once had about the 
 modesty of the sex, when he was moralizing 
 on virtue, at the very time that he was 
 plotting a seduction. 
 
 Just turning the corner of a street, a chariot 
 came towards us close at a slow pace, as the 
 way was choked with vehicles. Who should 
 be in it but Charlotte Thorpe — otherwise Mrs. 
 
 s 
 
 Delmain, who had been victimized by Cum- 
 berland's arts. She was seated by the side 
 of her protector. Lord Hungerford, between 
 whom and Cumberland there was some ill-will, 
 arising I know not from what cause. As we 
 passed the chariot, its occupants stared us
 
 212 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 fully in the face. Having an acquaintance 
 with Lord Hungerford, I bowed slightly to 
 him, but Charlotte Delmain, on observing 
 Cumberland, burst into a loud laugh, and 
 said something apparently very funny, for Lord 
 Hungerford laughed with equal heartiness. 
 
 ''Well— thank God" — cried Cumberland, 
 '' my last days will not be like Hungerford's. 
 There he is, a decrepid man at forty -five, 
 broken down by libertinism. Ah! it would 
 have been well for him ten years ago, if he 
 had met with a sweet little girl, like my dear 
 Harriet, to make him happy for life, and 
 reform his character with her charming 
 modesty." 
 
 " And it would also have been well for Mrs. 
 Delmain, if you had reformed your ways before 
 you had met with her." 
 
 " By jove it would, Wynville, but to be 
 sure, how glad I am that I am going to be
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 213 
 
 married. Just look at Lord Hungerford, 
 fancying himself happy with a woman, who 
 is my cast off mistress, egad ! only fancy that, 
 my cast off mistress !" 
 
 " Aye, indeed," said I, "it is a very respect- 
 able position for a noble lord." 
 
 " And Hungerford, too, a man who always 
 plumed himself on being so successful in bonnes 
 fortunes. Hungerford forsooth, to adopt 
 my discarded mistress as his own! ha! 
 ha! ha!" 
 
 The notion tickled Cumberland immensely, 
 and he laughed without moderation at the 
 idea. After some further conversation, we 
 separated for the evening. 
 
 On the following morning I repaired to 
 Foxgrove, and found a family party of 
 relations assembled together to witness 
 the ceremony. The place looked bright, 
 with all the beauty of the season, and the
 
 214 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 bride'smaids in their white dresses, the servants 
 in their finery, 1)edecked with rosettes, made 
 the house look gay. The bridal party was 
 reasonably numerous, and we formed a 
 very creditable procession to and from the 
 church. Cumberland's brow was radiant with 
 happiness; the bride herself looked pouting, 
 and very demure. The marriage bells rang 
 gaily ; the villagers gave a cheer, so hearty 
 that one would never have suspected that it 
 was bespoken before-hand by a confidential 
 man servant ; the bride'smaids tittered and 
 looked highly amused. The breakfast was 
 famous — the cheer of the right excellent old 
 English style. Such fun and such talk, and 
 the bridegroom, the very life and soul of the 
 party, stealing glances occasionally at Mrs. 
 Granby Cumberland, who blushed at all the 
 raillery which her cousins, male and female, 
 assailed her with. All looked happy except the
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 215 
 
 bride's mother, who still looked fidgetty and 
 nervous. 
 
 The bridle couple started for North Wales 
 to enjoy the honeymoon. We gave them a 
 hearty cheer as their travelling-carriage 
 whirled from the door. Was a happier couple 
 ever launched into matrimony? 
 
 I returned to London without further delay, 
 as ui'gent private business about my private 
 affairs, called me back. On my way home- 
 ward I thought of Cumberland's happy face, 
 of his pretty bride, and felt vastly inclined to 
 matrimony. But whom should I marry ? Whe- 
 ther Miss Dormer would have me was a 
 doubtful matter, and I had considerable re- 
 luctance to marry an actress, however virtuous 
 her private character might be. The Ducken- 
 fields girls were very fine women, but they 
 wanted a fashionable air, and their connections 
 were not altogether pleasing to me. The girls
 
 216 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 were very well themselves, and evidently par- 
 tial to my society, but their characters were 
 not beyond the well-bred common-place for- 
 malities that one meets any time in the 
 second circles of English social life. Their 
 class of life was neither aristocratic nor com- 
 mercial, they occupied a middle position, and 
 had neither the distinguished style of the 
 nobility and commonage, or the large fortunes 
 of merchant princes. No ! the Duckenfields 
 would not answer. And the question still 
 recurred — ''Whom to marry?" 
 
 Only two days after the marriage at Fox- 
 grove, I was seated at breakfast in my cham- 
 bers at the Temple, reading the Times^ when 
 I heard a knock at my oaken-door, which I 
 thought I recognized. " How like Cumber- 
 land's ! " But of course it could not be his. 
 However, I went out and opened my door; 
 and, to my utter amazement, I beheld Cum-
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 217 
 
 berland, whom I supposed to have been 
 spending the honeymoon with his bride ! 
 
 I was surprised when I saw his figure, — I 
 vas utterly horrified when I saw the fearful 
 expression of his face ! 
 
 There was everything in that face ! Eage — 
 disappointment — black and gloomy grief — 
 mental torture ! 
 
 What had happened? What had occurred 
 to him? 
 
 I could hardly speak to him at first, I was 
 so utterly confounded at the suddenness of 
 his visit to town, and at the expression which 
 was stamped in horrid characters upon his 
 plastic countenance. 
 
 He nodded sternly to me, and took my 
 proffered hand mechanically, then shut the 
 door, and led me out of my sitting-room. 1 
 was really so utterly embarrassed, that at 
 first I hardly knew what to say : as, from his 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 218 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 face, I at once discovered that something very 
 dreadful had occurred. At &st I had a con- 
 fused feeling that some sudden accident had 
 befallen his fair bride — possibly she had been 
 killed. 
 
 " Wynville," said Cumberland to me, in a 
 hoarse voice, " you saw me a happy man two 
 days ago. You now see me a miserable one ! 
 I have been cheated, sir, miserably cheated — 
 most cruelly — most horribly deceived ! " 
 
 Cursing the woman whom he had made his 
 bride, he told me his dreadful story ! 
 
 The tale in all its horrors was told to me. 
 But that was not all. Drawing a crumpled 
 letter from his pocket, and grinding his teeth, 
 the unlucky bridegroom handed me the follow- 
 ing epistle : — which I read with amazement.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 219 
 
 " Dear Granby, 
 
 " I congratulate you upon the 
 vestal you have taken to your arms! You 
 were always of a liberal turn in politics, and 
 surely it was fit that you should marry one 
 who Avas a philantliropist before she made 
 your acquaintance. Your bride is as liberal 
 to embrace the cause of mankind as any 
 radical member of parliament in your clique. 
 Just take your blushing spouse to No. 4 — in 
 the green lane, at the village of Somerchase, 
 in Lancashire, and ask Mrs. Lay ton, the land- 
 lady, to speak to the character of the trem- 
 bling innocent. Or show the dear creature 
 this note, and ask her, does she acknowledge 
 the truth of 
 
 " A Candid Friend." 
 
 It seemed that on the morning after his 
 
 marriage, while Cumberland was in the act of 
 
 L 2
 
 220 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 dressing, his servant knocked at his door, and 
 handed him the foregoing letter, which was 
 marked, ^Immediate and special^^ and ad- 
 dressed, Granby Cumberland, Esq. 
 
 Hotel, 
 
 Llanberris, North "Wales. 
 
 The letter had been delivered by a servant 
 man, who after leaving it with the landlord, 
 and charging to have it delivered without 
 delay, rode off in great haste. The letter was 
 written in a female hand. 
 
 The worst insinuations of the anonymous 
 correspondent were found by Cumberland to 
 be perfectly true ; I cannot describe the agony 
 and perturbation of his mind, as he thought 
 of the dreadful position in which he had been 
 placed.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 221 
 
 CHAPTER XYIL 
 
 CIRCLES OF THOUGHT — A GREAT PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 The effect of Cumberland's matrimonial mis- 
 fortune was to turn me more to reflection. It 
 forced me to consider more curiously than 
 ever, the nature of life, and the character of 
 society. I became sensible, that in such a 
 scene of extraordinary trial, as I saw man- 
 kind exposed to, that something more than mere 
 philosophy should be given to people to sus-
 
 222 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 tain them in their progress through the 
 world. 
 
 I entered upon a diligent course of study, 
 and changed my habits from a gay to a grave 
 and reflective person. I was astonished to 
 find that the more I read of moral subjects, 
 the more I saw was to be said in favour of the 
 Christian religion. I read through an ex- 
 tended course of philosophy and theology, and 
 the works of Barrow, Hooker, Warburton, and 
 Bishop Butler, gave my mind abundant 
 reasons for totally changing the views with 
 which the specious and artful sophistry of 
 Foss, the eloquent Socinian lecturer, had for a 
 brief time indoctrinated me. I spent my 
 time chiefly at Wycombe Hall, and made 
 occasional visits to town; and the celebrated 
 Sir Charles Maclaurin, who had been one of my 
 uncle's most particular friends, often came 
 down for a couple of days to my seat in Surrey,
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 223 
 
 and I learned a great deal from his richly 
 stored mind, and most instructive conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 I felt much more happy, when my views 
 on religion became fixed, and ascertained. 
 Although heartily wishing (like Bishop Burnet) 
 that our church was well rid of the Athanasian 
 creed, I became certain that there was no 
 religion more Catholic, and philosophical, 
 than that which comprehended Hooker and 
 Chillingworth, Barrow and Taylor, South, 
 Warburton, Berkeley, Butler, and spirits so 
 entirely dissimilar as the utilitarian Paley and 
 the pietistic Heber. Over the sophistry and 
 false learning of rationalism I obtained a 
 conquest, by the careful study of Christian 
 history. The same arguments which made 
 me a believer, secured me against religious 
 credulity and Pantheism. The Eoman Catholic 
 system of religion I naturally turned from with
 
 224 WYNVILLE; OK, 
 
 the instinct of an Englishman ; for no true 
 Englishman could be, now-a-days, a Eoman 
 Catholic. The Protestant creed has favoured the 
 development of oui^ national mind and character, 
 while Eoman Catholicism drags in its rear a 
 long train of unwholesome foreign influences — 
 a language, and a claim in the subjugation 
 of our wills, that none but a degenerate 
 people could ever acknowledge. I studied 
 the Roman Catholic system, and admired 
 its symmetry and logical harmony; but 
 I was not deceived, therefore, into sup- 
 posing that its skilfully piled formulae pos- 
 sessed the unity of truth. Here my political 
 reading and reflection served to keep me 
 straight. The Austrian empire rests as a 
 system on a more coherent and harmonious 
 logic than the antagonistic principles of the 
 British Constitution ; but is it, therefore, more 
 true, more real in its nature, and inspired by
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 225 
 
 wider truths ? The church of Eome, however, 
 there is no denying, is a most powerful and 
 fascinating system. For an age of materialism, 
 it has a routine which may be assiduously prac- 
 tised by those who Jiave only a minimum of 
 belief. The disbeliever in revelation and 
 scoffer at the Bible may call himself a catholic, 
 and enjoy a certain mental pleasure in the 
 gorgeous ceremonies, and theatric forms of a 
 religion adapted to the senses. This was the 
 case with Hugh Cleveland, and some other 
 aristocratic papists of my acquaintance. I do 
 not think that Hugh Cleveland believed at 
 all in the Bible. He was what Germans 
 would call a disciple of Hegel, a sentimental 
 pantheist, and the most dangerous and extra- 
 ordinary part of the Roman Catholic system is, 
 that its philosophy can scoff and sneer at deep 
 spiritual convictions with as much bitterness 
 and satire as Voltaire himself. My studies, 
 
 L 3
 
 226 wynville; or, 
 
 reflections, and philosophy, led me to believe in 
 the Bible, and the dissensions and dijfferences 
 of protestants I looked on as the badges of 
 our freedom, the soul-stamped signs of our 
 emancipation from spiritual despotism, the 
 hereditary privileges of an unfettered under- 
 standing, and not the symbols of religious 
 anarchy. I thought of our English religion 
 as a great whole, and my heart felt proud that 
 in our system the dissenter stood on equal 
 civil rights with the churchman, and I never 
 sighed for that dreary uniformity of opinion, 
 which can only be realized, when the clank of 
 our chains would echo simultaneously in the 
 gloomy concert of harmony with Rome. I 
 thought too that the state of France was no 
 mean testimony against spiritual despotism — 
 that France, where the Eoman Catholic system 
 existed in its best form, where Fenelon, Bossuet, 
 and others had lived ; and where the people, after 
 all, sickened and took refuge in dreary infidelity.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 227 
 
 I often discussed these topics with that 
 eminent person before alluded to, whom I 
 will here describe. 
 
 Sir Charles Maclaurin was one of the 
 leading literary notorieties of the age; 
 descended from an ancient Scottish clan, he 
 had little patrimony beyond his talents, which 
 were of the highest kind. In his youthful 
 days he had been a famous speaker at the 
 Edinburgh Speculation Society, and his extra- 
 ordinary powers of acquisition, joined to a 
 philosophical profundity of thought, had 
 fixed many eyes upon him. A powerful 
 tract on the subject of the French revolution, 
 had further confirmed his growing reputa- 
 tion, and he was introduced to the circles of 
 the Whigs, as a man calculated to shed 
 lustre on the party of which Charles Fox was 
 the chief. 
 
 But Maclaurin was too much of a philosopher
 
 228 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 to be a partisan. The world, with its jar- 
 ring conflict of ideas, hostile religions and 
 rival nations,presented to his moral apprehen- 
 sions, a mighty field for wonder and con- 
 jecture. The physical phenomena of the 
 universe, were not more intensely contemplated 
 by Isaac Newton, than were the great facts 
 of existence by the speculative intellect of 
 Maclaurin. The moral world of human life, 
 its singular varieties, and its striking vicis- 
 situdes, were ever present to the strongly 
 reflective understanding of the learned Scotch- 
 man. He had much of the scepticism, as he 
 wanted some of the subtlety of his famous 
 countryman, David Hume. But there was in 
 his speculations a moral earnestness, and a 
 strong sympathy with mankind, that marked 
 him out as one of those rare beings, who join 
 the heart of a philanthropist with the head of 
 a philosopher. Some qualities of mind he 
 possessed to the highest degree ; in the faculty
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 229 
 
 of abstraction, and the power of ascending to 
 general principles, he stood nearly alone in his 
 age, but he was deficient in the power of explain- 
 ing his views ; he over-rated also the practical 
 value of philosophical studies, an error which 
 he shared in common with his countryman, 
 Dugald Stewart. 
 
 Tired of the vexatious wrangles of the law- 
 courts, Maclaurin in early life, had been glad 
 to escape to the colonies, hoping with the 
 leisure of retirement, to perfect some vast 
 work of philosophy; but deprived of the 
 stimulus of London society, his mind had dimi- 
 nished in activity, and a tropical climate 
 enervated his body. He returned to London, 
 to be courted by both parties of the House, 
 and thoroughly conscientious, he had accepted 
 poverty and the opposition benches. Weakened 
 in energy, he had failed in the House of 
 Commons to command the attention of a 
 practised audience, and his career in the
 
 230 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 Senate, though eminent and honourable, had 
 not been marked with the brilliancy of that 
 mind, Tvhich Fox, and Pitt, and Burke had con- 
 curred in complimenting with marked applause. 
 Not a sigh of vanity escaped the generous and 
 lofty heart of Maclaurin ; unappreciated even 
 by those who thought they knew him best, and 
 almost unknown to the vast mob of vulgar 
 politicians, he toiled in his vocation, putting 
 in many a seasonable word in behalf of just 
 and liberal reform ; occasionally dropping 
 profound thoughts, which germinated in the 
 growing and youthful intellects of the age. 
 
 Thus, with the progress of life, he had 
 passed into a species of constitutional sa^e — 
 the Nestor of philosophical whiggism. Inti- 
 mate with all the whig aristocracy, and with 
 a wide acquaintance in London society, he 
 intensely enjoyed the variety and intellectual 
 energy of the metropolis. He knew much 
 of the physical sciences, and all topics of
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 231 
 
 literature and philosophy were familiar to his 
 mind. Scarcely a subject could be broached 
 on which he could not shed some light, or 
 quote some profound apothegm from the 
 neglected volumes of a forgotten schoolman 
 or divine. He talked much, but he read still 
 more, with an insatiable curiosity. His 
 powers of acquisition were the most extraor- 
 dinary I ever witnessed. 
 
 I loved Maclaurin's society much, and 
 was always glad to enjoy converse with so 
 profound and interesting a character. His 
 candour, and generous appreciation of excel- 
 lence of every kind; his freedom from all 
 vulgar faction, his exemption from the spirit 
 of clique, which spoils our London society? 
 joined to his vast experience of the world, 
 made his society, beyond example, the most 
 instructive I had ever known.
 
 232 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 CHAPTEE XYIIL 
 
 STORY OF A LIFE. — LONDON FAME. 
 
 Walking one day down Fleet-street, I 
 found my hand suddenly seized, and in turning 
 round, found Maclaurin, whom in the crowd of 
 passers by I had overlooked. As we were near 
 the Temple, I asked him in to my chambers to 
 rest himself, as he appeared fatigued. 
 
 "Heigho! this old Temple!" said he, "'tis 
 now more than forty years ago, since I first
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 283 
 
 made acquaintance with its venerable walls. 
 Then life was new to me, and its illusions all 
 danced merrily before my moral vision. San- 
 guine and ardent, I never anticipated disap- 
 pointment, and I could never suppose that 
 the time would come when I would look back- 
 ward on life with regret." 
 
 '' But Sir Charles, of all men you ought 
 not to regret the past. You have made your 
 way to distinction in your profession, and to 
 fame before the world. Honoured and ap- 
 plauded, with all the pleasures of family and 
 society, verily you have no reason to be dis- 
 contented with your lot." 
 
 " My dear young friend, do not suppose that 
 1 am giving expression to selfish regret. I 
 have had abundant reason to be grateful for 
 my condition. I have had a happy home and 
 the soothing comforts of children that cheer 
 my fire-side, but I have not done what I ex-
 
 234 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 pectecl. When I look back forty years — — 
 pooh! how these stairs of your's puff me — 
 time was when I could have skipped nimbly 
 up these very steps." 
 
 Then we entered into my rooms which 
 commanded a view of the river, and going to 
 the window Maclaurin looked out, and pointed 
 to the various parts of the Temple, and in- 
 dicated the very rooms where ^ he had lived 
 when he was a strange young Scotchman, 
 supporting himself by writing for the 
 papers. He broke forth as he looked towards 
 the river — 
 
 " That view is unique, and has always 
 something in its aspect which arrests my gaze. 
 Tis now just as full of interest as it was forty' 
 years ago. There you have running before 
 you a picturesque image of life. The mighty 
 river, rolling in its incessant stream, sym- 
 bolizes the current of human existence, and
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 235 
 
 on its surface mark the variety of craft, 
 devoted to business and to pleasure. This 
 Temple scenery is a great moral landscape, 
 full of suggestiveness, and pregnant with 
 instinct meaning. Observe the nursery-maids 
 and children on the grass plat, they are quite 
 unconscious of the meanings which may be 
 extracted from the scene around, whilst you 
 and I are a pair of philosophic spectators, 
 calmly looking on at life from its brink, 
 painfully conscious of its perplexities and 
 troubles." 
 
 " Life is certainly a great mystery, but 1 
 doubt whether a too curious consideration of 
 its nature is favourable to personal happi- 
 ness." 
 
 " 1 agree with you, my young friend, to 
 some extent. There can be no doubt that 
 when a mind sails out of the harbour where
 
 236 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 it has been riding securely, anchored in faith, 
 which has its charts and soundings, and 
 launches upon a sea of speculation, that the 
 difficulty of coming into a haven where the 
 adventurous intellect can rest secure from 
 doubt, is a great difficulty. But sometimes 
 men are forced into such studies. When I 
 was a young man, Christendom was overrun 
 with French philosophy. Amongst those who 
 cultivated physical science, materialism was 
 their recognized creed. We had an established 
 church, and a spontaneous infidelity. Num- 
 bers of intellects refused to believe the religion 
 of the cross; and I was driven into specula- 
 tive pursuits which have materially influenced 
 my mind, given it a certain laxity of thinking, 
 and in some degree prevents me from coming 
 to a definite conclusion. I do not regret it 
 for selfish reasons; but this habit of being
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 237 
 
 over speculative, has materially diminished 
 my capacity for being useful to my fellow- 
 creatures." 
 
 " Nay, Sir Charles, do not speak in such 
 strain. Your name is recognized amongst the 
 benefactors of the age. You are universally 
 appreciated as a reformer and philanthropist." 
 
 " Ah, my young friend, you know not all 
 my feelings when you speak in this language 
 to me. The thought of all I intended to 
 have done, and the sight of the little I have 
 accomplished, makes me unhappy. I think 
 of past times as I find myself in this old 
 Temple, where forty years ago I was as ardent 
 and ambitious as a certain young friend of 
 mine (looking archly at me). But let me sit 
 down, and I will give you my story in a few 
 words, and apply it to your own case." 
 
 I was pleased with the idea of so celebrated 
 a man as Maclaurin quietly sitting down in
 
 238 
 
 my chambers, and recounting his life to me. 
 Methinks I still see that aged head, and noble 
 brow, with its expansive forehead surmounted 
 by a few thin locks, and the whole face wear- 
 ing an expression of moral sensibility joined 
 to reflective thinking. 
 
 "When I was at your age I had strong passi- 
 ons which, by a peculiar cast of character, turned 
 towards speculative science. That sensibility 
 which poets apply to their divine art I gave to 
 philosophical pursuit, and speculation became 
 with me a matter of emotional gratification. 
 At twenty years of age I was a bold philoso- 
 pher, striving to pierce through the mystery 
 which hangs over human destiny. From the 
 French devolution, and the crowd of writers 
 who brought about that tremendous change, 
 my mind caught fire, and I became for a sea- 
 son the zealot of human perfectibility. I 
 wrote upon the whole subject of European
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 239 
 
 politics ; and my writings, pregnant with some 
 philosophical ideas, and fired with the soul 
 of ardent youth, obtained for me remark- 
 able notice. At five- and- twenty, a young 
 Scotchman in London, I received the notice 
 of the greatest men of the time. 
 
 " Life was then to me a glorious privilege. 
 I trod on air. I saw everything through the 
 roseate hues of a sanguine fancy ; I exulted 
 in my youth, my talents, and the honourable 
 notoriety I had gained. Numbers looked on 
 me as a prodigy. Sheridan and Congreve 
 had written comedies at twenty and twenty- 
 five years of age, which will last with the 
 language, but it was never seen that a mere 
 Scotch novice could plunge into the world of 
 active politics, and controvert with no mean 
 success the writings of the oldest statesmen 
 of the time. My countrymen cried up my 
 praises; and, for a season, I led a life of
 
 240 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 intense moral and intellectual enjoyment. 
 Even now, it seems wonderful to me that my 
 senses did not give way under the fumes of 
 that intoxicating stimulant — Speculative Phi- 
 lanthropy. 
 
 " But I had a conscience, and it saved me 
 from the phrenzy of intellectual vanity, and 
 from the illusions of political ambition. Were 
 my ideas true? Were my political principles 
 founded on moral facts, and were the results 
 of the French revolution in favoui' of the 
 theory of progress I had formed ? These were 
 questions I put to my heart, and my mind 
 answered that the facts were against me, and 
 that the revolution had belied my predictions. 
 I was too honest a man to wear a mask. 
 Through life I have loathed hypocrisy; I 
 publicly owned the change of my opinions — 
 my party were indignant, and I paid the 
 penalty for having raised hopes, upon which 1
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 241 
 
 was myself the person to cast chilling words 
 of doubt. 
 
 " I lost in a month, my literary and poli- 
 tical popularity, and had to bear the taunts 
 always illiberally cast on those who change 
 their opinions. But I assure you that I did 
 not care for what was said of me. I was 
 always a firm believer in the divine origin of 
 conscience, and accepted its monitions as a 
 revelation. 
 
 " I turned to the profession of the law — but 
 its drudgery and the stupidity of its round of 
 wearisome details soon disgusted me. My 
 mind had become too philosophical and specu- 
 lative for the practical course of life. Oh ! 
 that I had been a professor of moral philosophy 
 in some ancient college, where inclinations 
 and duties would have been harmonious ! But 
 it was not so to be. 1 had to go circuit, draw 
 demurrers, harangue juries, and try to sophis- 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 242 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 ticate upon plain evidence. In philosophy 
 and religion, my mind, untrammelled, winged 
 its way through the loftiest regions of specu- 
 lation, and there was my poor body drudging 
 away amongst attornies and common-place 
 counsellors at law, whose talk was of fi-fas 
 and mandamuses. Yet even still I was a 
 happy man. My wife, poor thing, was the 
 source of inestimable joy to me. She over- 
 looked my failings, soothed me when chafed 
 with transient visitations of spleen, and did 
 much to keep me in the path of duty. My 
 children grew up at my feet— for them — for 
 wife and children — I had to toil — and the 
 labour, though distasteful, was sanctified by 
 its end. There is no sacrifice which to a real 
 manly nature can be so cheerfully paid as one 
 to the Penates ! 
 
 " But still there was the craving for specu- 
 lative philosophy, which I had brought with
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 243 
 
 me from Scotland, and tliere was the panting 
 for literary distinction. I wished to produce 
 some great work, of not less importance than 
 Montesquieu's ' Spirit of Laws,' or Gibbon's 
 ' Decline and Fall.' How was I to find time 
 for it? A well paid colonial office tempted 
 me to leave London and drudgery, to search 
 for a competence and literary celebrity. I took 
 out a library — and returned at the end of 
 several years — having read much, and thought 
 still more, my mind greatly enlarged, but my 
 active powers considerably diminished. A 
 tropical climate had relaxed my animal energy, 
 and I have never been equal to working up 
 to the mental faculties I possess, or to working 
 off the acquisitions I have in this ' warehouse 
 to let,' as a witty philosopher somewhat bit- 
 terly, and I would fain hope, unjustly called 
 my brains. 
 
 " Well, I was received in London with much 
 
 M 2
 
 244 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 heartiness by my old friends. The tories 
 oflfered me lucrative office and a seat in parlia- 
 ment ; the whigs as a matter of course, claimed 
 me for their camp. I could have done very 
 well for my family by consenting to be a 
 trimmer, and coquetting with the tories, but I 
 thought the catholics of Ireland had been 
 deceived in the Union, and I resolved to help 
 their cause by my pen and vote. I became a 
 whig and M.P. 
 
 " In parliament I failed, for reasons I have 
 told you. The House of Commons demands 
 immense exertion. A speaker to be successful 
 there must be free from pain, aU langour, 
 physical debility, or mental dejection ; he must 
 be an intellectual pugilist, I was a valetudina- 
 rian, and my spirits wanted that genial flow 
 that gives vivacity to speech and facility to 
 thought. I failed^ dread word ! aye ! failed^ 
 and my name was added to the list of literary
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 245 
 
 and legal wrecks with which the floor of the 
 House of Commons has been strown, since the 
 days of Addison to those of Erskine. 
 
 " I consoled myself with thinking of 
 the great literary work in which I am still 
 engaged." 
 
 " And I hope, Sir Charles, that it is fast 
 progressing." 
 
 " My young friend, I did not intend to talk 
 about my history, but rather to give you my 
 life, for your advantage. I could have had 
 vast success if I continued in active life, once 
 that I had embarked in it, or if at an early 
 period I had gone into collegiate life, and 
 aimed solely at a literary fame. Now I find you 
 have acquired a certain name as a speculatist, 
 as a young man, (bear with me while I say it,) 
 who has read a vast deal of everything^ except 
 his profession ; and I wish to urge you, either 
 to give up your philosophical pursuits and
 
 246 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 determine to be a man of action, or else, if 
 you will be a philosopher, go to Oxford or 
 Cambridge, or enter the church." 
 
 " I am astonished to hear Sir Charles Mac- 
 laurin recommending a young student to give 
 up the pursuit of philosophy." 
 
 " Nay! I did not say that; what I recom- 
 mended you was to ascertain well your voca- 
 tion for the bar. Trust me that a man 
 cannot be a philosopher and a practical 
 lawyer, and be eminent in both. Bacon is 
 not a case in point. He had family and 
 official influence to push him on; and if he 
 lived in our times, the multifarious character 
 of our modern legal profession, the quantity 
 of index law, and the heavy calls upon a 
 working lawyer's time, would prevent even a 
 man like Bacon from becoming eminent in 
 both. Besides, any man, however gifted 
 he may be, must not think of himself and
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 247 
 
 Lord Bacon. As well might a player at the 
 theatre talk of ' Shakspeare and myself.' " 
 
 " Look to Eomilly and Brougham ." 
 
 " Pooh ! neither one or the other, though 
 men of great energy and power, could be 
 called philosophers in a critical sense. Class 
 both with advocates — men who can admirably 
 talk up or wi^ite up ideas suggested to them 
 by philosophers or thinkers — but they are not 
 themselves inventors. They are what the 
 French call vulgarisateurs — that can diffuse the 
 knowledge of ideas which have been communi- 
 cated by those thinkers, like Beccaria or Ben- 
 tham, who live in an age without contact 
 with its society, or sympathy with its passions. 
 I would have you to take a pursuit, and let 
 your mind converge upon it steadily. Beware 
 of following a life of action while your mind 
 is conversing with airy speculations. Your 
 pr oneness to philosophize will damp your 
 vital heat; your eloquence will become cold
 
 248 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 and critical ; and jou will fail in making 
 yourself understood. 
 
 " Must I, then, lead a life of mechanical 
 routine?" 
 
 "By no means — aim at power, be useful, be 
 vigorous, be formidable. Give your talents an 
 active direction, and beware of contemplations 
 that lead to no practical result. I see in your 
 nature many of the qualities which would 
 make you eminently useful in the House of 
 Commons, but I fear that if you continue to 
 pursue much of this speculative literature, 
 with which I perceive that your book-shelves 
 are crammed, that you will become like myself, 
 averse from practical exertion. But apropos 
 of the House of Commons, I wish you to 
 know Lord John Rowland, who is rising 
 into eminence; he will dine with me to- 
 morrow in Curzon-street, and do you come
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 249 
 
 at seven o'clock to meet him, we will be by 
 by ourselves." 
 
 After my accepting the invitation, and some 
 further conversation on general topics, Sir 
 Charles Maclaurin took his leave. 
 
 M a
 
 250 wynville; or, 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 LORD JOHN ROWLAND. — THE GREAT DEPARTED. 
 VISCOUNT PALLARSTON. 
 
 I WAS anxious to meet Lord John Eowland, 
 as he was greatly cried up in the coteries, and 
 the circumstances of his rising abilities, and 
 his connexion with an illustrious house of 
 the peerage, gave his opinions a consequence 
 which could never have attached to them, 
 except for his adventitious advantage of high 
 birth, and a great historic family.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 251 
 
 He had at that time been generally looked 
 upon as a decided failure in the House of 
 Commons. Several speeches of his had failed 
 to move the House with applause of one who 
 had many claims on its kindly regards. The 
 speeches were short and sententious, and read 
 like carefully conned essays; they were 
 neatly worded, and occasionally sparkled with 
 epigram, l3ut they were not of that order of 
 eloquence which fascinates and carries convic- 
 tion. Yet there were persons who even then, 
 and Maclaurin was amongst the number, 
 deemed it probable that the day would come 
 when the fortunes of the whig party, and 
 perchance the interests of the empire, would 
 hang on the resolves of that disregarded noble 
 and neglected essayist — that ambitious and 
 yet feeble speaker — who was then sneered at 
 in the clubs, and scoffed at when his name 
 was mentioned in common with the great 
 political celebrities of the time.
 
 252 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 I was punctual in my attendance at Sir 
 Charles Maclaurin's. His house was a curio- 
 sity, as every room in it was crammed with 
 books in all languages ; even the very hall 
 had its folios ranged along in shelves. Ma- 
 claurin could not afford to keep a large house, 
 for his finances were limited, and he was 
 obliged to make the most of what room he could 
 spare to his much-loved books. His drawing- 
 room was less crammed than the other apart- 
 ments, but even one side of that was filled 
 with light reading, the British Essayists, 
 and the last metaphysical works from Leipsic 
 fair. 
 
 Mary Maclaurin, the only daughter of Sir 
 Charles, was seated at one side of the fii-e, 
 and opposite to her was a young man of sickly 
 aspect and frigidly reserved bearing. I was 
 introduced to Lord John Kowland, and my 
 very first feeling was that of extreme disap-
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 253 
 
 pointment. I felt at once disposed to join 
 with those who scoffed at the idea of such a 
 man ever becoming the leader of the Com- 
 mons of England, or a prime minister of the 
 British empire. But after a little while, I 
 changed my first opinion, and felt that there 
 was unmistakeable force of character in that 
 defined outline of the face — that well-chiselled 
 mouth with its finely cut lips, around which 
 a slightly sarcastic smile played at times, while 
 in the searchingly inquisitive glance of the 
 eyes there was intellectual power and vigour 
 of will. In short, I thought, on looking at 
 the young nobleman, of Dryden's lines on 
 Shaftesbury : — 
 
 " A fiery soul which working out its way 
 
 Fretted the pigmy body to decay, 
 
 And o'er informed its tenement of clay." 
 
 Lord John Kowland seemed then in very
 
 254 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 poor health, his cheeks were sunken, his face 
 pale, and he had a short phthisical cough; 
 certainly in aj^pearance, he was the very last 
 person that any one would suppose was 
 destined 
 
 " The applause of listening senates to command." 
 
 We were now at the dinner-table, and 
 Lord John began to display his mental 
 character in a way that rivetted my attention. 
 His conversation was most interesting in its 
 kind, though that kind was neither brilliant 
 or profound; his memory seemed stored with 
 a variety of curious facts, which threw light 
 in various directions on society. Sometimes 
 it was a story showing the mercantile value 
 of certain popular works, and he would cite 
 for his informant, a bookseller in Paternoster- 
 row; or perchance he would mention some 
 commercial anecdote, wliich he had learned
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 255 
 
 from a Eussian mercliant; or some personal 
 history which he had from the proprietor of 
 a leading newspaper. His facts were happily 
 selected, and told in a pithy, unpretending 
 style, occasionally dismissed from the com- 
 pany's notice, with a short trenchant aphorism. 
 
 His manner also was different from that of 
 men of fashion and persons of consideration. 
 There was a certain eagerness in grasping at 
 any new piece of information put before his 
 mind, and a certain earnestness and zeal 
 when he spoke upon a favourite topic very 
 unlike the stoical insouciance of young nobles 
 of celebrity. An intellectual spirit dominated 
 his nature, which one might have supposed 
 was more of a moral philosopher than a prac- 
 tical statesman. 
 
 After Miss Maclaurin retired, the talk 
 turned upon politics. Lord John push- 
 ing the conversation, and striving to get
 
 256 wynville; or, 
 
 Maclaurin's opinions about the men of the 
 time." 
 
 " I don't rate Peel high," said Maclaurin ; 
 '^ he is a mechanical genius — if he be a genius 
 at all — and as it is almost absurd to call him 
 an orator ." 
 
 " But there is," observed Lord John, " what 
 I will venture to call an actuality about Sir 
 Robert Peel which is very remarkable. Other 
 men in public life pretend to intellectual 
 qualities which they have not. Brougham 
 affects to be an omnis homo ; Melbourne pre- 
 tends to care for nought or nobody, like a 
 thorough-bred stoic, though at heart he has 
 kind feelings; Lambton pretends to be an 
 intellectual democrat, when by nature he is 
 the very incarnation of an aristocrat; O'Con- 
 nell pretends to be a gentleman, and so on. 
 But Sir Robert seems to me to be thoroughly 
 the man he plays — an English statesman,
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 257 
 
 stooping to the prejudices of his age, but 
 never their creature ; ready to compromise 
 with what is prudent and practicable, rather 
 than aim at an airy and unsubstantial ambi- 
 tion." 
 
 '' He has none of the mens divinior^ of those 
 that I remember — of Burke — or Fox ." 
 
 " Well, perhaps so, but his information is 
 really prodigious. Take him on law, com- 
 merce, finance, or the public history of the 
 country — he is never at fault." 
 
 "• His memory is a file of precedents," said 
 Maclaurin. 
 
 ''To be sure," said Lord John, " official 
 habits have considerably influenced him. If 
 he had been with Stewart, his conception might 
 have enlarged along with his memory ; but I 
 doubt whether the venerable Dugald would 
 have really made him more suited for the 
 work he has to perform."
 
 258 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 " Ah ! Lord John," mildly broke in Mac- 
 laurin — " how can you, the pupil of Stewart, 
 affect to think that our honoured friend would 
 not have enforced a more ethical principle into 
 the materialist nature of Sir Robert Peel! 
 There is no moral enthusiasm about Peel, 
 and the peculiar merit of Stewart was a power 
 of giving to those under his care a strong sense 
 of the sublime. It is evident that Peel is 
 merely the successful man of routine, with 
 vigorous mind, and sustained health — a vast 
 fortune, and a strong ambition to be one of 
 the vulgar great men of the day." 
 
 " As to his ambition," said Lord John, " it 
 is difficult to determine how far his character 
 is influenced by that passion. His position is 
 a very peculiar one. He is a jyarvenu^ com- 
 peting for the lead in politics with the scions 
 of a proud aristocracy. Every false step he 
 makes is maliciously criticised. A Goulburn
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 259 
 
 or a Hemes are allowed to pass unlaslied by 
 ridicule, but the new great man, with a vast 
 fortune, pays a penalty for his heavy purse; 
 and yet, after all, is not Peel an aristocrat, 
 de facto as much so as if he were a peer? 
 He is a landlord — has great mansions — has a 
 title hereditary in his family — and has even a 
 great influence amongst a large portion of the 
 aristocracy — why should he be sneered at for 
 his origin? There is, to me, something dis- 
 gusting in the way that we English attack a 
 new man." 
 
 I was much struck with the shrewd and 
 keen remarks of Lord John, and I could 
 perceive that he in his turn liked the apposite 
 way in which I illustrated some of the views 
 mooted in conversation, by quotations from 
 some of the old English classics. We passed 
 a very agreeable evening, and I was much 
 gratified when, on the next day, he called on
 
 260 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 me — and made me promise to go down to his 
 father's seat, the Duke of Fleetwood's, and 
 stay some time with the family at Kingsleigh 
 House, an invitation which I readily accepted. 
 " Lord John," said Maclaurin, when I 
 called to visit him one day, " will yet make 
 a great figure in the world, much greater 
 than persons now suppose. His education at 
 Edinburgh did much to impart to his mind a 
 love of reflection and philosophic generaliza- 
 tion, of great importance to a statesman. 
 He differs very much from the usual character 
 of our English nobles, who do not care for 
 abstract philosophy. Beyond most men I 
 know, he has a keen sense of the speculative 
 sublime; he likes to canvass a system of 
 opinion, and probe it down to the finaFgrounds 
 upon which it rests. Thus beyond most, or 
 perhaps all of the aristocracy, he can give a 
 reason for the faith that is in him. During 
 his early years of delicate health, while lying
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 261 
 
 on a sofa, he stored his mind with all the 
 arguments that go far to vindicate the truth 
 of the protestant religion. Little do the 
 Eoman catholics, of whose civil rights he is 
 the eminent advocate, know the depth and 
 power of Lord John Kowland's protestant 
 convictions. In the whole ranks of our liberal 
 party there is not another such stanch pro- 
 testant as Lord John." 
 
 " You surprise me, by what you say of him. 
 But I should be surprised, if one, with his 
 weak organization, could ever succeed in the 
 race of politics." 
 
 " When the mind," answered Maclaurin, 
 " is genially employed, it is astonishing what 
 prodigious energies it can sustain the body 
 with. The case of Nelson, and Claverhouse, 
 (Viscount Dundee) are instances, to show 
 what the spirit and soul can perform, even 
 when the body is weak and wasted. The
 
 262 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 health of William the Third, the deliverer of 
 Europe, was never much better than that of 
 a phthisical patient. Look at Wilberforce, 
 his puny wasted frame, a mere shrimp, and 
 think of the prodigious power he has wielded 
 over the public mind. Grattan, the great 
 Irish orator, unrivalled in the oratory of vehe- 
 mence, was a mere skeleton inspired by genius. 
 So with Lord John Rowland, his firm spirit, 
 and better than all, deep political convictions. 
 In character, he is Pluck personified " 
 
 " But surely, he will not be able to make 
 head against the able and powerful debaters 
 now in parliament." 
 
 " Aye ! but he will, he is predestined to be 
 the leader of the whigs. Recollect that he is 
 a Duke's son, bears a name famous in history, 
 and is a scion of a family whose head is one 
 of the hereditary grandees of the whig 
 connection, the Duke of Hartington being the
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 263 
 
 other. EecoUect too, that the Hartington 
 connexion does not of late years produce 
 any political characters, and where in the 
 whole circle of the whig aristocracy can you 
 point to any one with the attainments, 
 influence, and personal ambition, of Lord John 
 Rowland?" 
 
 "Well, he may get on successfully up to a 
 certain point; by the aid of another and abler 
 chief, he may play successfully a secondary 
 part, but I doubt whether Lord John Row- 
 land could ever become the man of an age. 
 He is too much the incarnation of aristocratic 
 whiggism ever to be a great man. It is 
 curious. Sir Charles, with all the whig talk 
 of ancestors, who bled with Hampden in the 
 field, and died with Sydney on the scaffold, 
 that a first class statesman was never born in 
 the whig party. Neither Sir Robert Walpole 
 or Pitt, the great Commoner— or Edmund
 
 264 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 Burke, or Grattan, Sheridan, Earl Grey, or 
 Brougham, were born whigs." 
 
 " 'Tis strange enough," answered Maclau- 
 rin ; " and Charles James Fox was a tory at 
 the start, and was himself the son of what we 
 would now call a Tory statesman. It is as an 
 administrator of actual affairs, distinct from 
 a philosophical reformer, that Lord John 
 Rowland will fail, if he ever be a leading 
 minister at a crisis. He can write with much 
 point and felicity, when he likes. Look at 
 this letter I got from him last year. Read 
 it," cried Maclaurin. 
 
 " It is dated from Kendal, I perceive," 
 said I. 
 
 " Yes, he was in the north at the time, upon 
 a tour to the lakes." 
 
 I then read the following letter from Lord 
 John :
 
 clubs and coteries. 265 
 
 '' My dear Maclaurin, 
 
 " You may recollect our con- 
 versation at Brookes's about starting a light 
 paper to pepper the Ministerialists, somewhat in 
 the style of what Lord Pallarston and Wrixon 
 Crowley used to exhibit in their ' New Whig 
 Guide.'' I have turned this in my mind since 
 with more interest, as I have had serious in- 
 tentions of writing a contemporary history, 
 as you were kind enough to say that I 
 had both the knowledge and style required. 
 I have executed a dozen pen and ink portraits 
 of the Whigs and Tories, and your candid 
 opinion on the style of the enclosed will oblige, 
 " Faithfully your's, 
 
 '' J. Rowland." 
 
 I then read the following — 
 " CHAEACTEE OF LOED PALLAESTON. 
 '' Amongst the pupils of Mr. 
 Canning, who were inclined to support reform, 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 266 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 Viscount Pallarston was in some respects the 
 most remarkable, from his union of many 
 qualities not often found together. He pos- 
 sessed many accomplishments, enabling him to 
 fill with effect a leading department of affairs. 
 His reputation with the country in those days 
 was not so high as it deserved, for in the early 
 part of his career he sacrificed too much to 
 social enjoyment, being proficient in those 
 graceful pursuits, which impart more polish to 
 the person than power to the will. But his 
 nature was too masculine to sink beneath 
 the flowery bondage of fashionable life, and 
 applying to affairs he took them for his 
 pastime. Popular with both sides of the 
 House of Commons, bold without bitterness, 
 at once affable and vaunting in his port, 
 he could alternately conciliate or command 
 as exigency required. With the advantages 
 of official experience, he had also some of the 
 main qualities requisite for power. Like more
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 267 
 
 than one of his contemporaries, he had ac- 
 quired from Dugald Stewart's teaching a cer- 
 tain largeness of thought, enabling him to look 
 beyond precedents on the official file, and 
 making him understand and sometimes sym- 
 pathize with those broad social impulses, which 
 burst beyond traditional routine. As fluent 
 in the cant of diplomacy, as if he had lisped it 
 from his cradle, he could, as a debater sail 
 near the wind, without committing himself to 
 any tach^ like one bred in the old Pittite 
 school. His secretarial aptitude was undoubt- 
 ed, for he had been connected all his life with 
 office, having served under Portland, Perceval, 
 Liverpool, Canning, and Wellington, all being 
 Ministers of transitional Toryism. He had 
 as much liveliness of fancy, as is requisite 
 for decorating a parliamentary harangue. He 
 could sparkle with vivacity in a style, that 
 scintillated, but never flashed with the fire of 
 
 N 2
 
 268 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 genius, and was conversant with all the arts 
 of compilation and selection, necessary for 
 parliamentary speaking. Then his fine pre- 
 sence, his buoyant animal spirits, with his 
 undoubted manliness, excellently sustained 
 him before a popular assembly like the Com- 
 mons. The wear and tear of public life, the 
 pangs of ambition, the toil of competitorship, 
 never soured him into moroseness, or parched 
 him into a mere thing of formula, like a 
 hardened hunter after power. Though his 
 thinking was never original or profound, he 
 could spice his common-places with so much 
 piquancy, and dress up parliamentary plati- 
 tudes with so much sounding rhetoric, and 
 then rattle off his concerted pieces with such 
 swashing spirit, that he would deceive poli- 
 tical novices into the idea that he was a 
 genius ! Wanting a high moral purpose, he 
 was only a desultory patriot, and was more
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 269 
 
 calculated to attain present notoriety than 
 posthumous renown. On the whole, he was 
 a man fitter to head a faction than rule a 
 nation ; for though aided by opportunities and 
 the providence of events, he might make or 
 break ministries, he was not of an order of 
 spirits that overwhelm and establish empires. 
 If troublesome — the policy of the Sovereign 
 to such a man would be suggested by the 
 Pallarston family motto being read conversely, 
 as — " Frangi non flecti^^^ for it is a testimony 
 to the moral order of nature, that it is more 
 easy to crush than to cajole, the statesman 
 too enamoured of — Himself! Such a man 
 always wants the sympathies of others to 
 make him formidable in his fall." 
 
 After I read this pungent specimen of Lord 
 John Eowland^s pen, I replaced it in the 
 envelope, which I saw was marked " Lord 
 John Rowland's Kendal Letter," Maclaurin
 
 270 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 asked me what I thought of the specimen of 
 Lord John's " Sketches of the Reform Era." 
 
 " I did not think that Lord John's pen," 
 said I, " was so mordant. He must have 
 been inspired by the spleen — the character 
 being drawn in a style more blistering than 
 brilliant." 
 
 " Yet there is some truth in what he says 
 about Pallarston wanting a steady moral 
 purpose. He is too much of the mere man 
 of the world to be an original statesman, and 
 an efficient patriot." 
 
 " If the providence of events," said I, 
 should ever cast Pallarston upon a period 
 when the country were ruled, or mis-ruled, 
 by a coterie of imbeciles, calling themselves a 
 Cabinet — then to hurl such a public obstacle 
 from high places, would give a man of Lord 
 Pallarston's splendid energy and sustained 
 power of action, enough of moral purpose
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 271 
 
 to teach Lord John Eowland that he took a 
 wrong measure of the versatile and brilliant 
 Viscount. I wish," I added, " that both 
 Lord John and the Viscount could be both 
 rolled into one — and between them, both 
 united (if it were possible) we should have a 
 very great parliamentary man. Burke wrote 
 that ' great states must be governed by pre- 
 siding principle and prolific energy.' Lord 
 John has something of the first — and the 
 Viscount almost a superabundance of the 
 last." 
 
 " What you say," said Maclaurin, " re- 
 minds me of what Burke said to myself, when 
 I was spending the Christmas of 1793 with 
 him at Beaconsfield. The words are deeply 
 impressed on my memory. ' Public duty,' 
 said he, ' demands that what is right should 
 not only be made known^ but made prevalent' 
 Lord John could indicate a policy, without
 
 272 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 being able to sustain it in action, and Lord 
 Pallars ton's reiterative energy would uphold 
 even a bad system, of whose tendency he 
 could not rightly take an estimate. One is 
 like a critic, trying to produce a drama by 
 rules of rhetoric ; the other resembles an 
 artist, whose productions have more brilliancy 
 of colour than justness of design.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 273 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 KINGSLEIGH HOUSE — A FAMILY GROUP — 
 A DUCAL INTERIOR. 
 
 I ARRIVED at Kingsleigh House, in the 
 evening of a November day, about five o'clock. 
 The place was some sixty miles from London, 
 and was approached through the town of 
 Horwood, a neat place, with good comfortable 
 houses, inhabited by a race of small country 
 gentry, who lived upon the smiles of the 
 Duke and Duchess of Fleetwood. 
 
 N 3
 
 274 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 Kingsleigh House, like other of our great 
 English places, was not to be recognized by a 
 grand gateway. I saw the towers in the 
 stately mansion peeping over the trees in the 
 magnificent park; but my post-boy actually 
 passed the chief gateway, so unpretending 
 was its appearance, as seen from the high 
 road of the town of Horwood. I drove 
 down a straight road for three or four hun- 
 dred yards, and came upon another gateway, 
 through which we passed, and came into a 
 vast park. It was one of those splendid 
 pieces of rich fallow land, where forest trees 
 shoot up out of the tall fern, diversified into 
 swelling glades. To the right was a vast 
 vista, stretching to the south, in the direction 
 of the upper park; and I could just catch 
 glimpses of the deer as they trooped from 
 place to place. The avenue then went 
 through a thick grove of beech trees, which
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 275 
 
 obscured all view, and in a couple of minutes 
 afterwards we were at Kingsleigh House. 
 
 The first view disappointed me, as in 
 point of fact, I saw only a small part of the 
 vast fabric belonging to the Duke of Fleet- 
 wood. A long plain structure, two stories 
 high, with battlements, and a Norman gate- 
 way in the centre, appeared to me the front of 
 the building. It was in reality only the out- 
 ward part of the external court. The car- 
 riage rolled into a great court-yard, and drew 
 up at the principal entrance, when the hall- 
 porter showed himself as pompous as my Lord 
 Chancellor, on the first day of sitting on the 
 woolsack. I alighted, and found myself in 
 the grand hall of Kingsleigh, a most cold and 
 cheerless chamber, of prodigious length, with 
 a superb oak roof, and three or four ancient 
 statues standing on their pedestals. The hall 
 was badly lighted, and did not give that
 
 276 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 effect of grandeur one might have expected 
 at Kingsleigh House. 
 
 While my servant was looking after my 
 luggage, and I was desiring my arrival to be 
 made known to Lord John Rowland, an 
 elderly gentleman came into the hall, with a 
 fine-looking matron on his arm. The lady 
 was dressed with quiet elegance, the gentle- 
 man in the extreme simplicity of an English 
 country squire's garb. He heard my name 
 bandied about by the servants, and came 
 forward in a friendly way, offering me his 
 hand, and saying, with that peculiar bluntness 
 of welcome one hears only in England, — 
 
 " You are welcome to Kingsleigh — Mr. 
 Wynville — God bless me ! how time flies — I 
 saw your grandfather here fifty years ago, at 
 my uncle, Lord George's wedding. Duchess 
 — let me present Mr. Wynville, a friend of 
 Lord John's. Well, you are just in time for
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 277 
 
 dinner. We are early people — and the bell 
 will soon ring." 
 
 '' The duchess was friendly and most lady- 
 like in her accueil^ and was certainly as little 
 pretentious in her deportment as if she was 
 only the wife of a simple squire, though the 
 Duchess of Fleetwood was a personage of vast 
 importance in the world of fashion. Sim- 
 plicity — quiet — elegant — refined simplicity^ is 
 the special characteristic of the higher aris- 
 tocracy of England. 
 
 Bowing to me, the duke and duchess passed 
 on to the right, as they saw that one of the 
 head servants was ready to lead me into my 
 room, preparatory to dressing for dinner. We 
 entered upon a large staircase — then into a 
 vast lobby- —after that went up what I learned 
 was called ' The Black Gallery,' from the 
 colour of tlie wainscotting — then into a cor- 
 ridor, in Avhich was my bed-room — a large an-
 
 278 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 tique apartment, with a huge bed, big enough 
 for six aldermen. The room was furnished in a 
 style to delight a connoissew in antiques — 
 but evidently was so trim and well preserved 
 — that one would not have wished a single 
 thing removed. The fire burned cheerfully 
 in the grate, and my guide, leaving me in the 
 room — and saying that dinner would be served 
 a quarter of an hour after the bell rung — 
 went away. 
 
 It was the first time I had been in so vast a 
 house, and domesticated with personages of 
 such high rank as my noble host's. For the 
 Duke and Duchess of Fleetwood could not be 
 ranked with the mass of the titled aristocracy 
 of England. Their society was very difficult 
 of access, for being thoroughly liberal in 
 politics, they were of course very reserved in 
 their deportment to general society. 
 
 Just as I had finished dressing, a knock
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 279 
 
 came to my door, and Lord John Rowland 
 was before me, dressed in shooting costume, 
 with corduroys and gaiters — the very image 
 of a dyspeptic-looking intellectual game-keeper 
 in an atrophy. How so weak-looking a mor- 
 tal could bear the load of a fowling-piece 
 might have puzzled me even now, if I had 
 not known him to carry for some years with- 
 out bending the weight of ministerial power. 
 
 " Welcome to Kingsleigh, Wynville ; my 
 father has just told me he was after intro- 
 ducing you to the Duchess ; wait five minutes, 
 and I will be with you to the drawing-room." 
 
 His toilet was made almost as rapidly as 
 he promised, and we descended to the grand 
 drawing-room together. 
 
 It was not without curiosity that I entered 
 into the scene where the Eowland family 
 dwelt in their privacy. The drawing-room 
 at Kingsleigh House was pronounced by
 
 280 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 George the Fourth to be the most comfortable 
 grand room in England. It Avas superb in 
 its decorations, and yet had that used look — 
 that absence of frigid show, which spoils the 
 effect of some magnificent chambers, and ren- 
 ders them dreary and splendid. There were 
 music instruments, and ladies work tables, 
 and a litter of books, and even some news- 
 papers lying here and there, so that one formed 
 the idea that it was the habitual resort of the 
 family. The chandelier was not lighted, but 
 a vast log on the fire cast out light enough to 
 distinguish people's faces. 
 
 The Duchess was standing at the fire-place, 
 talking most earnestly to a fine looking old 
 gentleman, whom I afterwards found to be 
 Doctor Trevors, the pastor of the parish — two 
 or three country squires were in the back- 
 ground, enlarging upon country sports, and 
 discussing the never to be settled question of
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 281 
 
 corn laws — the old duke himself was appa- 
 rently quizzing Mary Maclaurin, whose winsome 
 Scotch face caught my eyes, as it was lighted 
 up with one of her bonniest smiles — and old 
 Maclaurin's venerable face was plainly visible, 
 as the fire-light flashed upon its massive fea- 
 tures, while he intently listened to the ani- 
 mated conversation of two singularly beautiful 
 young women — of queenly form and dignity 
 of mien. These were the two eldest daughters 
 of the illustrious house of Fleetwood; the 
 eldest of these, Georgiana, Marchioness of 
 Trafford, was then about two years married, and 
 was in the very bloom of her dazzling beauty. 
 Her form was faultless, tending then to a 
 slight matronly fulness, which gave breadth 
 of outline to her majestic stature. I shall not 
 easily forget the elegant hauteur of that peer- 
 less countenance, as gently bending her grace-
 
 282 WYNVILLE: OR 
 
 fill head, she acknowledged my presence on 
 being introduced to her. Yet that lovely- 
 personage was never suspected of arrogance 
 or pride, but there was about her presence a cer- 
 tain innate grandeur — a loftiness of carriage, 
 that marked her out as a creature quite distinct 
 and peculiar. Her aquiline nose, her curved 
 upper lip — the eyes full of fire and animation 
 — the hard and bright forehead — and her 
 gracefully modelled head — gave her face an 
 assemblage of charms rarely drawn by painters. 
 Her figure was dignified, and possessed all the 
 beauties that woman's form in its excellence 
 can exhibit. 
 
 Her sister. Lady Clara Eowland, was 
 standing near her, and was a beauty less 
 gorgeous and dazzling, but perhaps more 
 captivating. With a certain general resem- 
 blance to her elder sister, the face and figure 
 of Lady Clara, were less marked and distinc-
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 283 
 
 tive. As the young Marchioness of Tr afford 
 was far beyond the average height of woman's 
 stature, Lady Clara's figure more nearly 
 approached the regular standard of feminine 
 development. Her eyes were tender, soft, 
 and loving; and the face had an intensely 
 feminine expression. The Marchioness of 
 Trafford might have formed a sex for herself, 
 for with her commanding height and stately 
 carriage, her magnificently moulded form, 
 she possessed much of the force and massiveness 
 of the male sex, without its immobility and 
 coarseness. Her figure was grander than 
 woman's, if her face and complexion were 
 more delicate than are seen in a man. But 
 Lady Clara was an exquisite impersonation 
 of pure womanhood, her form and face expressive 
 of tender sympathies, of sensibility without 
 undue sensitiveness — of modesty without
 
 284 wynville; or, 
 
 sheepish reserve. A little more determination 
 of character might have made her face as 
 imperial in its expression, as the august mag- 
 nificence of her elder sister's beauty. But 
 one would hardly have wished Lady Clara's 
 form or face other than it was, for if more 
 dazzled by the elder sister, you were perhaps 
 more delighted by the other. 
 
 Two other fair blossoms of the house of 
 Rowland were standing near a table at a 
 window; they were girls just budding into 
 womanhood, and a glance at their faces 
 showed me that the beauty of the family had 
 not exhausted itself on the elder sisters. I 
 involuntarily wondered how Lord John Row- 
 land, with his withered features and insigni- 
 ficant form, could be brother to sisters of such 
 surpassing loveliness, but that mystery was 
 explained to me afterwards.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 285 
 
 A laugh was heard in an adjoining room, 
 and suddenly a door opened, when in came 
 the young Marquis of Trafford, with an infant 
 of nearly a twelvemonth old, crowing in his 
 arms. The child had been tossed up and 
 down by its father, and wild with spirits, was 
 screeching and crowing with delight. Oh! 
 what a smile flashed over its mother's face, as 
 she stalked across the carpet, and, forgetting 
 that strangers were present, held out her 
 arms for the babe, which playfully nestled 
 towards its father, and laughed archly as it 
 saw the noble form of its mother eager to 
 caress it. The look of maternal ecstacy 
 beaming over the beautiful face of the Mar- 
 chioness, removed all traces of the aristocratic 
 severity and patrician reserve that habitually 
 sat upon it. 
 
 The baby was caressed and fondled, and
 
 286 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 talked about by all the company, and judging 
 by the delight its presence afforded, one might 
 suppose that a little man-child was the most 
 precious thing in existence; better than 
 jewels, or great castles, and grand parks; or 
 rent-rolls with old titles. The little baby 
 was as natural and simple as if it was a 
 cottager's; it stared about at the strangers, 
 just as if they — commoners, baronets, and 
 untitled folk — were not its inferiors by all the 
 rules of Debrett. That baby in arms — that 
 proud father, tossing his little son in the air, 
 while it crowed with most democratic energy 
 — that glorious mother, lost in admiration of 
 her own dear little mannikin Marquis, her 
 own flesh and blood — who had hung upon 
 her bosom, and sucked milk from her beau- 
 teous breast — that old ducal couple, seeming 
 as if theirs were no more venerable titles
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 287 
 
 than those of grandfather and grandmother — 
 showed how nature transcends all earthly 
 distinctions, and asserts her own inalienable 
 prerogatives of supremacy over the world 
 of custom and external forms.
 
 288 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 NEWS FROM TOWN. — FALL OF A FRIEND. 
 
 The gong sounded for dinner, and I had 
 the pleasure of handing to the dining-room 
 the Lady Clara Rowland. We were seated 
 opposite her dazzling sister, the jMarchioness 
 of Trafford, and in the full blaze of the lights 
 of the dining chamber her beauty was more 
 magnificent. To say that she was one of the 
 finest women in England, was not to give her 
 the full praise due to such striking splendour
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 28^ 
 
 of form, she was rather a being, whom neither 
 painter or poet could easily imagine more 
 commanding or august. Yet 1 might have 
 supposed, that she had little affection in her 
 heart, were it not that I had witnessed in the 
 drawing-room, the ecstacy of her maternal 
 love. 
 
 The conversation at dinner was quiet, 
 agreeable, and without the least pretence. 
 Maclaurin amused the table with a capital 
 story of a scene he once had with Sheridan, 
 in coming from a supper-party at Lord 
 Erskine's ; and we were just in the act of 
 laughing at the point of the tale, when the 
 Duke cried — "Ha! that's a carriage, if I 
 am not mistaken — who can it be at this 
 hour? Eoebuck, go and see!" and in a few 
 moments we were told, that Lord Harry 
 Bernard had arrived, and in a few more 
 minutes "Lord Harry" entered the. room. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 290 
 
 " Ah! Harry — how goes it, my boy?'' 
 '' Lord Harry, your'e welcome ! " " Well, 
 Harry, what are the odds?" " The Lucetta 
 colt won't stand." " Not often last. Lord 
 Harry ! " " Saved your distance, my Lord !" 
 Such were the exclamations which gi^eeted 
 Lord Harry as bowing with sufficient grace he 
 walked up the room, receiving the salutations, 
 and quickly recognizing all the company, 
 with a word and a nod for all. It was very 
 evident that he was a prime favourite, for 
 each and all were glad to see him. And 
 1 noticed that even the servants in the room 
 seemed as if the arrival was a source of 
 satisfaction to them. 
 
 '' Here's room for you here," said the beau- 
 tiful Marchioness. 
 
 " Ah ! if you had only said that two years 
 ago. Lady Tr afford ! " said Lord Harry, look- 
 ing affectedly sad, and with a lackadaisical 
 sigh.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 291 
 
 " Pooh, Lord Harry," said the Marquis of 
 Trafford, " if she had said the fatal word, 
 why then you might have been now a stupid 
 married man, and I might have been as sport- 
 ing a character as yourself." 
 
 " I never lost but one race I really cared to 
 win," said Lord Harry, " but there is no use 
 in regret — well, we can't always win." 
 
 There was a certain dash and off-hand 
 frankness about the newly arrived guest, 
 which were very pleasing. His voice was 
 husky, and not agreeable in its tones. He had a 
 hawk's eye, not entirely exempt from a furtive 
 expression, as if he were on the watch lest some- 
 body would delude him. He looked sharply 
 at every stranger, (there were some at 
 table like myself) — there was, at times, 
 more abruptness in his remarks than was 
 perfectly polite, and his manner was occa- 
 sionally combative and peremptory. He 
 
 2
 
 292 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 seemed to be au courant with all the topics of 
 the day — the turf— theatres — the House of 
 Commons — the Court — Almack's — upon each 
 and all he had something to say. 
 
 " And why don^t you open the county, and 
 get it into your own hands ? Surely the Kings- 
 leigh interest might be strong enough to beat 
 the Vavasours — the Lumleys — the Prescotts, 
 and the rest of the squirearchy. The whigs 
 
 will be in power a year, and B shire is 
 
 important to hold." 
 
 " What say you. Lord Harry, to starting 
 
 yourself for B shire. You're one of the 
 
 most popular men here, since you got up the 
 races at Breckton." 
 
 " Pooh! my dear duke, my interest in 
 politics lias for ever ceased. I do not care 
 about them nov).'' And while he said this, 
 the speaker's face slightly fell, as if some 
 painful recollection came across it. He had
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 293 
 
 been closely connected with a deceased states- 
 man, the object of his personal affections and 
 political confidence. " I am now a mere loose 
 fish in politics, and care little fi)r who is 
 minister. I only use the House of Commons 
 as a good club, hear the news, and see all 
 the oddities in it. For the sake of pleasur- 
 able excitement I prefer Tattersall's to St. 
 Stephen's, and I would rather win the St. 
 Leger than a seat in the cabinet." 
 
 " Now you are not serious in saying so — 
 you, with your bold manly nature, would 
 never abandon politics for the turf." 
 
 "' Why it is because I have a spice of man- 
 liness in my composition that I quit them, 
 and join the sporting world. At Newmarket 
 or Epsom we never hunt a man to his grave; 
 no! but — nHmporte — this is not a world to 
 take things to heart in."
 
 294 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 " What's the news in town?" said Lord 
 John Rowland. 
 
 " Oh ! have you heard that Granby Cum- 
 berland is ruined?" 
 
 " Wliat!" cried the Marchioness of Traf- 
 ford — " Mr. Cumberland; the gay, man of 
 fashion — what has happened to him?" 
 
 " It appears that the failure of Striggett's 
 bank has completely ruined him ; and in con- 
 sequence of the life he was leading, his for- 
 tune had been cruelly dilapidated. I am 
 sorry for him, for he had many good qualities, 
 and only one fault that I could perceive in 
 him." 
 
 " What was that fault?" asked the duke. 
 
 '' He was an insincere politician; he was 
 one of the popular members who sham demo- 
 cratic principles just as some of our so-called 
 Tory statesmen sham Protestantism." 
 
 I felt that there was much truth in what
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 295 
 
 Lord Harry said about the insincerity of 
 Cumberland's politics; but I was greatly 
 shocked to hear of his reverse in fortune, and 
 I suppose my face betrayed my feelings ; for 
 Lord John Rowland remarked on my being a 
 friend of Cumberland's; and on my name 
 being mentioned to Lord Harry, the latter 
 bowed to me, and with concern of manner 
 declared that everybody must be sorry for 
 Cumberland. 
 
 "But there can be no doubt of the fact, 
 for 1 heard it at supper the other night at 
 Lady Eowley burgh's." 
 
 Just then, Lord Harry stopped suddenly, 
 as if he had gone too far. He should not 
 have mentioned such a name as Lady Eowley- 
 burgh in the company where he was then. 
 But it was Lord Harry's way to tell out 
 whatever was uppermost in his mind. Lady 
 Trafford, however, soon changed the conversa-
 
 296 wynville; or, 
 
 tion, and no notice was taken of the objec- 
 tionable name that had leaped from Lord 
 Harry's incautious tongue. 
 
 Conversation was resumed on some indif- 
 ferent topic, and after a little while the ladies 
 left the room.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 297 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 A BEAUTIFUL APPARITION. — LADY JANE 
 MOWBRAY. 
 
 The life at Kingsleigh was extremely de- 
 lightful. Breakfast was. being performed from 
 all hours after eight to eleven o'clock. Some- 
 times the ladies breakfasted in the oak parlour ; 
 but one was always sure of finding either 
 the Duke himself, or Maclaurin, or Lord John 
 Rowland there, and hearing some good con- 
 
 3
 
 298 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 versation, as we whiled the morning away. 
 I rode to the hounds — shot — coursed — and 
 joined in all the country sports going forward, 
 and enjoyed delightful evenings after exciting 
 days. The affability and good humour of the 
 family at Kingsleigh were perfect. 
 
 One day I was separated from my com- 
 panions of the chase, and returning from the 
 hunt, at the distance of about a dozen miles 
 from Kingsleigh House, was riding slowly 
 across a heath, when, I came to a sudden 
 turn, where the road was extremely narrow, 
 and a fence at one side and a declivity on the 
 other made the passage difficult for more 
 than one person to pass with safety. As I 
 was looking sharply to see that my steed did 
 not miss his footing, I suddenly encountered, 
 at a cross-turn of the road, a lady on 
 horseback, mounted on a jet black mare.
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 299 
 
 which stood much higher than the palfreys 
 usually rode on by ladies, and attired in a 
 peculiar riding costume, of which the flowing 
 skirt was of claret-coloured cloth, the body 
 being of velvet of the same colour ; the lady 
 possessed a face and figure which were alike 
 set-off by the fresh wind blowing in her face, 
 and by her posture in the saddle. Her 
 features, like her figure, were on a larger 
 scale of beauty than is usually approved of by 
 fastidious connoisseurs, but it would be impos- 
 sible to find ought bordering on grossness in 
 either. The countenance was open calmly, 
 and joyous ; her complexion shewed that she 
 was a rustic in her habits, as the brightest 
 bloom was on her cheeks ; but neither the red 
 roses of her face, nor the rows of white teeth 
 glittering beneath her rich luscious-looking 
 lips, nor the black ringlets which were blown 
 out of curl, down the neck of the fair owner,
 
 300 wynville; or, 
 
 fixed the gaze of an observer with such atten- 
 tion as the sight of a matchless pair of bright 
 eyes — black, intensely black — and apparently 
 Hashing with all the fiery force of a high souled, 
 and impassioned nature! Though the face 
 was round and the cheeks full, there was a 
 something about the features that spoke of a 
 dash of Moorish or Spanish blood, and gave 
 zest to the regular beauty of a truly lovely 
 countenance. 
 
 Reining in my horse, I drew back as quickly 
 as possible. There was a descent on the road 
 and a cut- water channel, which compelled 
 the fair horsewoman to ride slowly down, and 
 I had in consequence a capital view of her, 
 and I shall not easily forget the impres- 
 sion caused on my mind, when even for 
 a passing moment I saw her sparkling lus- 
 trous eyes rest on me. But they were at once 
 withdrawn, and she rode by quite careless
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 301 
 
 as to being observed, and trotting her steed 
 when on sure ground, she was quickly beyond 
 my notice — but my eyes rested for a minute on 
 her gracefully worn hat, with a short black 
 feather placed coquettishly in one side of it. 
 
 I confess that I had never before been so 
 struck with the sight of any woman. The 
 young Marchioness of Traiford, for example, 
 had an air of proud reserve and hauteur which 
 prevented feelings of love towards her mag- 
 nificent person, but the horsewoman, whose 
 apparition had flitted by, was evidently a 
 being of more fiery clay than the proud nature 
 of Lady TrafFord. Vulgar curiosity is a pas- 
 sion that I detest, but I felt strongly tempted 
 to ask of the groom what was the lady's 
 name, but before I could well recover the 
 sensation of pi jr sure, caused by the sudden 
 sight of sucli a beauty, the horses of both 
 were hidden fro ! 11 my view.
 
 302 wynville; or, 
 
 I rode on towards Kingsleigh House, re- 
 volving in my mind the sight I had seen, and 
 thinking with myself what a happy man he 
 would be who could call so fair a creature his 
 wife, and pondering whether the mind and 
 manners of the beauty were equal to the love- 
 liness of her person. I stopped about two 
 miles from where I had seen her, to get some 
 luncheon at a small inn — and dismounting 
 from my hunter, walked into a large parlour, 
 of which the door remained open. While the 
 waiter was bringing me some refreshment, my 
 ears were caught with a conversation at the 
 bar, carried on in tones so loud, that it was 
 evident that the talkers did not care whether 
 they were overheard or not. 
 
 " Indeed," said a woman's voice, " she is 
 not only the beautifulest woman of all these 
 parts, but she's the best of all the titled folk 
 in high-blood families. Tory, or no Tory, her
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 303 
 
 like is not to be matched hereabouts, in B 
 
 shire." 
 
 '' Her family in the olden time/' answered 
 one of the male sex, " were a bold, proud race, 
 and I've always heard were quite a famous 
 one. Sure my daughter Nancy was not long 
 since reading about some ancestor of Lady 
 
 (I could not catch what name the speaker 
 
 used) who long ago, in Cromwell's time, lost 
 his head for his king's cause, and some other 
 forefathers of the family were great people in 
 their time." 
 
 " She has the good heart in her," replied 
 the woman again, " they say that she is proud, 
 but I could never perceive it in her ways of 
 going on with plain poor folk like us — but I 
 know that her like is nowhere to be found." 
 
 '' If our great ladies would only do half as 
 much good, we would not have much cause to 
 complain."
 
 304 wynville; or, 
 
 '' Well," cried a third voice, with a tone 
 of manly surliness — " Lady — (the name I 
 could not catch — but it sounded like Jane,) 
 Lady — may be a fine creature to look at, but 
 I doubt whether she's as good inside as out- 
 side. Lord bless you — don't I remember her 
 great uncle — the wickedest man in all her 
 family — and then sure she had a dash in her 
 of them papists — the Clevelands — than whom 
 a wickeder set never lived anywhere." 
 
 The conversation had interest for me — but I 
 could not stay — the evening was fast advanc- 
 ing, and there was to be a numerous company 
 at Kingsleigh to dinner. I rode away, ponder- 
 ing whether the beautiful woman I had seen, 
 could have been the subject of the talkers' 
 words. 
 
 On entering the drawing-room, before 
 dinner at Kingsleigh, the duke asked me about 
 the hunt, and I mentioned the fact of having
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 305 
 
 seen a lady whose name I was anxious to 
 learn. The ladies in the room were all at- 
 tention, while I described the face and figure 
 of the horsewoman. 
 
 " Oh I of course it must be Lady Jane." 
 '' Oh ! to be sure — Lady Jane — it must 
 certainly be her ; you know she hates to dress 
 like other people," said Lady Clara, ^' but T 
 don't think a claret-colour habit could have 
 become one like her." 
 
 '' The very thing to set her off," said the 
 old duke: ''why, duchess, don't you remember 
 the first time I ever saw you, it was in a claret- 
 coloured silk that you wore ! And you know 
 how great an impression you made on me. 
 I'll wager that Lady Jane did not make a 
 greater impression on Mr. Wynville to-day, 
 than you did on me, duchess, when in days of 
 auld lang syne, you wore your claret-coloured 
 silk dress in the fancy ball at Devonshire
 
 306 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 House;" and the duke looked with an air of 
 jaunty gallantry towards his duchess. 
 
 " Lady Jane," said the duchess, " is cer- 
 tainly a fine creature, with many good 
 qualities, but is, I think, too masculine in 
 her character and manners to be perfectly 
 pleasing. 
 
 " Oh, mother ! " cried Lord John Eowland, 
 " how can you say so? Surely the manners 
 of Lady Jane are not marked by the least 
 grossierete. Sir Charles, you know Lady Jane, 
 what do you think of her?" 
 
 While this conversation was going on, I 
 felt puzzled to know who Lady Jane could be, 
 and asked for further information about her 
 from Lady Clara Rowland, when I found that 
 the subject of the conversation — the beautiful 
 young horsewoman, whom I had so much 
 admired, was none other than Lady Jane 
 Mowbray, whom I had seen when a very young
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 307 
 
 girl at Lord Belvale's, at the time when I had 
 first made the acquaintance of Granby Cum- 
 berland. 
 
 The Mowbrays were one of those families 
 that had flourished in the days when the 
 dynasties of Plantagenet and Tudor had 
 ruled old England, and were scarcely second 
 to any family in the peerage in the lustre of 
 glorious and soul-stirring historic associa- 
 tions. I eagerly listened to Sir Charles 
 Maclaurin, as he expatiated upon the young 
 and lovely daughter of the proud house of 
 Mowbray, whom I had chanced to see. 
 
 " Lady Jane is a heroine," said Sir Charles, 
 " and has qualities that attest her descent 
 from the heroic stock of her famous ances- 
 tors. She is certainly a character — that is, 
 an original nature, not moulded by the society 
 around her, nor tamed down to the level of 
 the age she is living in. Her mind, her
 
 308 WYNVILLE; OR, 
 
 accomplislimeiits, her strong and resolute 
 nature, and above all, her sanguine eager 
 disposition, remind me often of the two 
 greatest men I ever knew — Burke and Fox. 
 She is accomplished enough to be daughter 
 and pupil of the first, and she has that gene- 
 rous susceptibility — that anxiety to relieve 
 suffering, which one might expect in the sister 
 of Charles Fox. 
 
 " A female nature with much of the genius 
 of Burke, and more of the heart of Charles 
 Fox — that's Lady Jane — is it not?" said the 
 terse Lord John Eowland. 
 
 " Yes! it is near the mark," answered 
 Maclaurin, ^' but you forget the loveliness of 
 her person, and the Fox family is not noted 
 for beauty. 
 
 "I always thought her trop prononcee^^ 
 said the beautiful Marchioness of Trafford; 
 "her manner is too peremptory; and when
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 309 
 
 she gets upon politics, she is quite unfe- 
 minine." 
 
 " Well," said Lord John Rowland, " I never 
 could perceive any coarseness in her language 
 or ideas ; I always looked on her as a lovely 
 and eloquent De Stael of toryism ." 
 
 " One of the last times when I saw Mr. 
 Canning in the flow of his best spirits, was at 
 a dinner-party at Lord Harrowby^s, when he 
 was praising Lady Jane with his own fasci- 
 nating eloquence, and saying, that he envied 
 her father his feelings of paternal pride. 
 Canning," continued Sir Charles Maclaurin, 
 '' seemed quite charmed with Lady Jane." 
 
 " Well, I should think," observed the Mar- 
 chioness of Tr afford, " that Lady Jane is a 
 mere imitator — a would-be imitator of the 
 celebrated Duchess of Devonshire; that she 
 wishes to be in toryism what the Duchess of 
 Devonshire was in the Whig party ; possibly
 
 310 WYNTILLE; OR, 
 
 she aims at being the Duchess of Gordon of 
 her age, and reigning supreme as a great 
 female politician, a stateswoman — dispensing 
 smiles on the mob, and places on the courtiers 
 of her party. It is a kind of role not quite 
 suited to an English woman I think." 
 
 " She is not like the dear Duchess of 
 Devonshire," said the old duke, whose eye 
 brightened with emotion, as he thought of old 
 times. " Lady Jane wants the levity and 
 spice of recklessness, which characterized the 
 beautiful Georgiana, but she has great and 
 fascinating qualities of her own." 
 
 " I heard not long since," said the Duchess 
 of Fleetwood, " that Lady Jane's friends 
 hoped that she might be married to Mr. 
 Percy, the heir of the Earl of Eowsleigh. 
 It would be a good match ; but you know that 
 Mr. Percy is one of our fiercest Whigs, and 
 Lady Jane is the greatest Tory in England."
 
 CLUBS AND COTERIES. 311 
 
 " All ! " answered the Marchioness of Tr af- 
 ford, '' you may be sure that she has not the 
 least chance of Mr. Percy. He is too haughty 
 a man to marry one with such a passion for 
 notoriety, as Lady Jane Mowbray." 
 
 " Nay," said Sir Charles, gently, "I think 
 you are too severe. I really could never 
 perceive a love of notoriety in Lady Jane, 
 and I am sure that she is too lofty a spirit to 
 care for mere applause — and perhaps Mr. 
 Percy might not like to marry a woman 
 whose tongue would rival his own in elo- 
 quence." 
 
 Just then we went out to dinner, and 
 the conversation was cut short. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 J. W. Grove, Printer, 5, Trinity Street, Southwark,
 
 ^*>. ^^mW 
 
 ^^^ It 
 
 
 . *^^Ih^S^^^ 
 
 1 ' ^^Hili^^^^^H 
 
 Sr 
 
 u ^^^ 
 
 
 ■^^P^^^^BhP^ ^fe<-.-^ 
 
 I'l'hM