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 Return this book on or before the 
 Latest Date stamped below. 
 
 University of Illinois Library 
 
 ^M«v 2zmd 
 
 
 L161— H41 
 
LI E) R.ARY 
 
 OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
^l]^,r,1holort tdw^rd^ 
 
 GILBERT GURNEY, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 AUTHOR OF "SAYINGS AND DOINGS, 
 " LOVE AND PRIDE," 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 PRINTED FOR WHITTAKER & Co. 
 
 AVE MARIA LANE. 
 
 1836. 
 
London: 
 
 GILBERT & RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, 
 
 ST. John's square. 
 
Several of the following chapters have already 
 appeared in print. Two of the incidents con- 
 tained in them have been dramatized; one on the 
 French, and the other on the English stage. 
 
 This circumstance, which has been noticed 
 by one of the ablest and most impartial of our 
 periodicals (the Athenceum), has arisen from the 
 fact of the Editor's having, in society, frequently 
 described the events which actually occurred 
 many years since. He does not, however, think 
 this a sufficient reason for omitting them in his 
 bundle of gleanings from the late lamented Mr. 
 Gurney's papers, in which they stand originally 
 recorded. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 When I resolved upon committing to paper 
 sundry passages of my life, I determined most 
 carefully to abstain from the perpetration of a 
 piece of autobiography — not because the public 
 has been somewhat surfeited with that kind of 
 literature ; since, if I have my will, my memo- 
 randa of the scenes and circumstances which I 
 have witnessed, and which have occurred to me, 
 will never meet the public eye — but because, for 
 the most part, " Reminiscences," and " Lives 
 and Times," and the like, are extremely tire- 
 some to read, seeing that the matters and events 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
"2 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 incidents and occurrences, which are, or were at 
 the time at which they were set down, all of 
 great importance to the recording individual, 
 have (as all those books savour sadly of senility) 
 lost all interest for the reader, long before they 
 reach his eye. 
 
 Nevertheless and notwithstanding, such is the 
 force of habit, and such the dominion of prin- 
 ciple, that, for the life of me, I cannot prevail 
 upon myself to leave my notes huddled together 
 without something like arrangement, nor without 
 just so much notice of myself and my family as 
 may serve to account for my curious wanderings 
 over the face of the earth, and for many of the 
 transactions in which I have been doomed to 
 bear a principal part. 
 
 Begin we, therefore, with the beginning. " A 
 fig for your dates," says the Smyrna man to the 
 Tunisian. Nevertheless, in this place, dates 
 are really essential, as marking the progress of 
 the writer through his chequered career. Be 
 patient, reader, whomsoever thou mayst chance 
 to be, and I v/ill be brief. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 3 
 
 I was born in the same year, and in the same 
 month of the same year, as Lord Byron — but 
 eight days later — on the 30th of January — a 
 memorable day, too. I always felt a sort of 
 sympathetic self-satisfaction as Byron advanced 
 in age and reputation, in the recollection that — 
 although, with my inherent respect for his rank 
 and talents, I could not possibly take the liberty 
 of coming into the world before him — I began 
 my life so nearly about the same period. 
 
 There was, nevertheless, something very dis- 
 heartening to me in the sombre seriousness of 
 mjjoiir defete, I would rather have been born 
 on the anniversary of a victory or a coronation. 
 Let me be ever so good a boy, I could enjoy no 
 holiday on my birth-day — never could be taken 
 to a play — seeing that the theatres were all 
 closed; and moreover, and above this, I lost 
 twelve thousand pounds which my godfather, 
 the late Sir Charles Smith, would have left me, 
 if I had been christened after him, as he had 
 proposed, and my parents had intended: but, 
 happening to be born upon the anniversary of 
 b2 
 
4 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 the martyrdom of our too conceding king, my 
 sire, somewhat superstitious, would not hear of 
 my bearing the same name as the unfortunate 
 monarch ; — so I was christened Gilbert, and lost 
 my legacy, Sir Charles having taken huiF at my 
 not being named after him, as our old friend 
 Pepys did at Mrs. Brown's, where he and Sir 
 William Penn were godfathers, and Mrs. Jordan 
 and Shipman godmothers to her boy — that being 
 the king's birth-day, upon which Pepys rose 
 early and put six spoons and a silver porringer 
 into his pocket to give aioay ; but in the se- 
 quel did give the midwife ten shillings, and the 
 nurse five shillings, and the maid of the house 
 two shillings ; — " yet forasmuch as he expected 
 to give his name to the child, but did not, (it 
 being called John,) he forbore, then, to give 
 his plate." Thus, by similar mishaps, did Gil- 
 bert Gurney lose twelve thousand pounds, and 
 John Browne a porringer and six spoons. 
 
 The saying goes that it is "a wise child 
 who knows his own father." For myself it is 
 a disparagement neither to my own personal 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 5 
 
 wisdom nor to my mother's unquestionable cha- 
 racter, to admit that I knew very little of mine. 
 A faint vision of a large red face, a white 
 head, a black tail, and a brown walking-stick, 
 floats in my mind, the possessor of which I was 
 taught in infancy to respect as my parent. He 
 died, however, before I was three years old, in 
 the house in which he had lived for upwards of 
 twenty years, and in which I was born ; it stood 
 in Bolsover-street, Cavendish-square, — a street 
 which no longer exists, thanks to the extraor- 
 dinary improvements which have taken place in 
 that part of the metropolis; it having, several 
 years since, subsided into a chaos of old mate- 
 rials, whence has arisen one of the most magnifi- 
 cent promenades in Europe. Like the Dragon's 
 teeth, the buried bricks of former houses have 
 given birth to a legion of palaces. 
 
 I remember our particular house perfectly; 
 the front parlour had two windows looking to 
 the street, over the blinds of which I recollect 
 my father liad a strange propensity for looking 
 out at the passengers ; and so earnestly did he 
 b3 
 
6 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 indulge in the pursuit, (if standing still, may be 
 so called,) that in its enjoyment he would remain 
 intently watching the most trifling occurrence 
 which came under his observation, with his nose 
 flattened against the pane, as little aware of the 
 circumstance as the anxious hero who stuck his 
 spear through his foot without knowing it, while 
 leaning his chin on the reversed end of it watch- 
 ing the fate of a battle. I remember, too, that 
 opposite to the windows, one of which, that 
 nearest the fire-place, was the solace of my 
 parent's leisure, there was a recess in which 
 stood a sideboard, perpetually decorated with 
 cruets, beakers, and glasses, and three mahogany 
 cases, two for smart-handled knives, and one in 
 the centre for spoons, over which sideboard was 
 affixed to the panel, (for the room was wains- 
 coated,) a round mirror, encircled with gilt bo- 
 luses, supporting two branches for candles ; and 
 over the mantel-piece hung a portrait of my 
 father himself, when a smart young man, by 
 an artist of the name of Abbot, who obtained a 
 reputation for painting Lord Nelson more than 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 7 
 
 once, and who, I recollect, lost his life by swal- 
 lowing as a draught, a mixture sent him from 
 an apothecary to be used as a gargle. 
 
 The drawing-room had three windows in it; 
 over the fire-place there hung a picture of my 
 mother, by Wheatley, and in one panel at the 
 side was a portrait of my sister Jane, who died 
 before I w^as born ; and in the other a likeness of 
 my brother Cuthbert, who was seventeen years 
 my senior, and in India at the time of which I 
 now speak. 
 
 My grandfather I never saw ; he was a phy- 
 sician in the West of England, or rather, as I 
 suspect, an apothecary, &c., for I never could 
 find his name in any old list of the college. He 
 set my father to study the law, who, being defi- 
 cient either in talent or industry, soon found, to 
 use a colloquial phrase in a double sense that 
 " he could make nothing of it "; he, therefore, 
 abandoned it as a profession, and marrying soon 
 afterwards, the old gentleman contributed libe- 
 rally during his lifetime to support the esta- 
 blishment of the young couple, and at his death 
 b4 
 
8 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 bequeathed them a fortune perfectly adequate 
 to all their wants and wishes. 
 
 My mother's maiden name was Gataker, and 
 my father, who has been represented to me as a 
 proud man, was very vain of the connexion. 
 The earliest of her ancestors married a Miss 
 Jocosa Burley; but the one from which, it 
 seemed, she claimed to descend, was a clergy- 
 man who had been married four times. Certain 
 it is that I have at this moment a seal of my 
 father's arms impaled with those of his wife; 
 and there I find the lion rampant per fess, sable 
 and gules, and the cross pattee fleury with blue 
 tips. 
 
 My father never was known so seriously and 
 suddenly to lose his temper as when he was 
 thought to be descended from the Norfolk 
 Gurneys; (not that a more honourable or re- 
 spectable family exists ; and quite sure am I that 
 a monarch might be proud of a connexion with 
 one of its members, whose noble heart and cha- 
 ritable disposition would do honour to a throne); 
 because he fancied his to be an elder branch 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 9 
 
 of the house, and that he sprang from the De 
 Gourneys, while they were yet resident at Le 
 Brai, before the conquest; and so satisfied of this 
 fact was he, that nothing but a request from my 
 mother to the contrary prevented his christening, 
 or rather naming, my eldest brother Cuthbert, 
 Eudes, after his pet ancestor, who assumed the 
 name of Gournay, when Rollo, at the division of 
 Neustria, amongst his adherents, bestowed upon 
 him the fortress so called. 
 
 All this was a question of time and history, 
 but hence arose his firm conviction that, instead 
 of the junior, it was the elder branch of the 
 family that settled in Somersetshire, and that the 
 Gurneys of Barew Gurney and Inglishcombe, 
 with all the accumulation of the Harpetree 
 property, had of right the precedence of the 
 Gurneys of Kieswick. 
 
 Of the plain blue cross on his shield my father 
 
 was justly proud ; and his gurnet capsized upon 
 
 his chapeau gules, was to him a point of no little 
 
 importance ; and having not only great respect 
 
 for his memory, but strong faith in his accuracy, 
 B 5 
 
10 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 I have continued to use the same arms and crest 
 even up to the present moment, without doubt, 
 hesitation, or disturbance of mind. 
 
 I pass over the first sixteen or seventeen 
 years of my career at a dash — per saltum. My 
 school life was not a happy one. I was idle and 
 careless of my tasks — I had no aptitude for 
 learning languages — I hated Greek, and abso- 
 lutely shuddered at Hebrew — I fancied myself 
 a genius, and any thing that could be done in 
 a hurry and with little trouble, I did tolerably 
 well — but application I had not ,* and when 
 my excellent mother (who survived her husband 
 eighteen years) suggested to me, on the advice 
 of Mr. Graham, a most worthy man and excel- 
 lent magistrate, to enter myself of Lincoln's- inn 
 and commence the study of the law, I could not 
 help calling to her mind the history she had 
 herself told me of my father's signal defeat in 
 the same pursuit. 
 
 There is something extremely vague in the 
 term studying for the bar — in seven cases out of 
 ten it means doing nothing, under a gentlemanly 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 11 
 
 pretence; in mine nothing could be more unlike 
 what it professed to be ; I paid my entrance- 
 money, gave my caution, and thenceforth pro- 
 ceeded to " mine Inn " for four or five days in 
 each term, threw on my gown, walked into hall, 
 and dreading the fatigue of even eating pro- 
 fessionally, wrote down my name and walked 
 out again. 
 
 It was necessary, however, to satisfy my 
 kind and anxious mother, who, with something 
 more like certainty than ever I considered justi- 
 fiable by appearances, anticipated my elevation 
 to either the Woolsack or the King's Bench — 
 the latter by far the more probable — that I 
 should put myself under somebody who might 
 do me the favour of permitting me to copy his 
 papers gratis, while he did her the kindness of 
 taking three hundred pounds per annum out of 
 her pocket in return for his goodnature: and 
 accordingly I was harnessed under the inspection 
 and direction of the worthy magistrate whose 
 name I have already mentioned, and confided 
 to the care of a very learned gentleman of the 
 
12 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 profession, who, at the time of my writing this, 
 is filling a situation not very far below one of 
 those which my too fond parent, in the ardour of 
 her affection, had destined for my occupation. 
 What might have been the result of my serious 
 application to the dry drudgery of this leaTned 
 man's office it is impossible for me to surmise. 
 It so happened that the experiment was destined 
 never to be tried, for, among my fellow-pupils 
 at his chambers, there was one whose society 
 and conversation I found so much more agree- 
 able than the elaborated tautology over which I 
 had to pore from ten o'clock in the morning till 
 ten at night — dinner alone intervening — that I 
 gradually relaxed from a regular attendance 
 upon my work, first, to a gentle indifference, 
 and then to an absolute aversion and distaste for 
 the whole pursuit. 
 
 My young companion was a bit of a poet, a 
 bit of an artist, a bit of a musician, and above 
 all, — to me at the period delightful, — a bit of an 
 actor. He knew several of the regular actors — 
 they visited at his father's house — I was invited 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 13 
 
 by my young friend, and met Charles Kemble 
 and Mathews. The latter at that period was 
 new to London — his merits were not yet appre- 
 ciated — he wanted that nerve and confidence 
 which subsequent patronage and ultimate suc- 
 cess inspired. I well remember the evening. 
 Charles Kemble was grave and gentlemanly ; 
 but Mathews, although quite gentlemanly 
 enough for all earthly purposes, was gay as a 
 lark. He gave us imitations and personifica- 
 tions. There, yet unseen by metropolitan eyes, 
 his old Frenchman, his old Scotswoman, all the 
 bright and vivid pictures, now grown familiar to 
 the public, were exhibited to us fresh in all 
 the charms of novelty. 
 
 That night decided me as to Lincoln's Inn — 
 not that I intended to mount the stage myself, 
 but after seeing that exquisite mimic, the best 
 actor ofi* the stage that ever lived, I resolved 
 to put into execution a design which I had 
 previously imparted to my young friend — a 
 design no other than that of writing a farce for 
 one of the theatres. 
 
14 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 The moment this notable scheme took pos- 
 session of what I fancied my brain, law was at 
 an end ; I had no patience with the parchments. 
 As that witty (now veteran) George Colman 
 the younger says in his " Reckoning with 
 Time/' — which, by the by, he wrote when he 
 was five and forty, and fancied himself old, — 
 
 " Congreve beat Blackstone hollow, 
 
 And in rmj crown no pleas had Hale 
 To supersede Apollo." 
 
 It is quite clear that when a man takes what 
 is called a fancy, the one pursuit is paramount. 
 A geologist will tell you that there is nothing 
 in the world so interesting, so engrossing, so 
 captivating, as perambulating a dull and miser- 
 able country, chipping off bits of rock, and 
 scooping out lumps of clay. He sees no beauty 
 in Richmond Hill — his only delight is in disco- 
 vering and telling you of what it is composed. 
 The finest mountain in the world has no charm 
 for his eye in the mass. No ; to be agreeable 
 to him^ he must go and knock a little bit of 
 it off, and wrap up that little bit of dirt in a 
 15 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 15 
 
 a little bit of paper, and carry it to Somer- 
 set-house, and then take another little bit of 
 paper, and write a history of it. 
 
 To ordinary folks nothing can be much more 
 dull than such a course of proceeding ; to the 
 geologist it is delight — upon me the particular 
 taste for dramatic-writing had a similar effect: 
 Act 1. Scene 1. — '^ Enter Sir Jeremy Bootjack ;" 
 delightful thought ! — there I saw him dressed 
 as nobody ever was dressed in his life — he, the 
 said Sir Jeremy, appearing in a sort of mongrel 
 full dress with jockey tops and a pig-tail : whilst 
 all the lovers and their ladies were to be flirting 
 and tom-fooling about in the costume of the 
 then present day. But what was all that to me ? 
 Munden and Dowton, and all those men, wore 
 court suits, and jack boots, and cocked hats, and 
 pigtails; and I was sure it was right, and so 
 to work I went; bought three or four French 
 vaudevilles, (which, it being then war-time, 
 were not quite so easy of access as they became 
 after the Duke of Wellington had set Europe 
 to rest and raised England to the pinnacle of 
 
16 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 glory, whence smaller people than his Grace 
 have been every day dragging her down,) and, 
 filching an incident from each, made up my 
 very effective drama. 
 
 Young as I was at that time, and inexperi- 
 enced in such matters, a little observation assured 
 me that the English audiences, who are, in point 
 of fact, as undramatic in their notions as Me- 
 thodists, would not be satisfied with a single in- 
 cident, which, on the foreign stage, amply serves 
 to amuse and delight. The French go to a play 
 prepared to view the affair theatrically, and are 
 ready to catch the slightest allusion, and enter 
 into the spirit of the author — with the English 
 it is necessary to thump in your meaning, to 
 make every effect clear "to the meanest com- 
 prehension," or else you fail; and as to inci- 
 dents, there must be a dozen in a farce, one 
 after the other, if you mean that people should 
 laugh or be pleased. This being clearly the 
 case, I set to work, and, as I have just said, 
 crammed the materials of some four or five 
 light French pieces into my maiden drama, (as 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 17 
 
 an Indian cook sticks kabobs upon a skewer,) 
 and was, when I had finished it, convinced that 
 I had at least equalled Foote, emulating therein 
 the exultation which a dramatist of our own day 
 expressed at having given " Billy the go by" — 
 Billy meaning Shakspeare ! — I recollect so well 
 the anxiety with which I copied out my MS., 
 the infinite pains I took to dash and underline 
 the points which I felt quite confident would 
 set the house in a roar, and the nervous solici- 
 tude with which I read my first eifort to my 
 young friend, who had promised when it was 
 finished to present it to the manager. 
 
 My exemplary mother, who had a sort of 
 instinctive horror of actors and actresses, was not 
 slow to find out the enormity — as she thought 
 it — of which I had been guilty. Something 
 fell from my young friend during a visit which 
 we were paying her, which developed the im- 
 portant secret — for such I intended it to be ; 
 and the result of the discovery was the following 
 letter. Upon recording which, it may be as 
 well to observe that my surviving parent had 
 
18 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 shortly after my admission into Lincoln's-inn, 
 given up her house in Bolsover-street, and re- 
 tired to the neighbourhood of Teddington, leav- 
 ing me in possession of some ready-furnished 
 lodgings in Great Suffolk-street, Haymarket. 
 But for the letter — here it is : — 
 
 " Teddingtoti, May 8, 18—. 
 
 "My dearest Gilbert, — I take up my pen 
 with regret to address you upon a subject to 
 which I once before slightly alluded, and upon 
 which I am quite aware our opinions are at 
 variance. 
 
 " I think I may assure myself of your readi- 
 ness to give me credit for an anxious desire for 
 your happiness as well as your respectability, 
 and for having no wish either to curtail the 
 enjoyments which your income justifies, or to 
 restrain the amusements which are congenial to 
 your age and inclinations ; but there is one point 
 upon which I feel it my duty to speak out, — 
 to warn you of dangers by which what appears 
 a most innocent pursuit is environed, and to 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 19 
 
 endeavour, if possible, to check you in a career 
 which I know you are on the point of begin- 
 ning, or, perhaps, have actually begun — I mean 
 that of a dramatic author. 
 
 " I dare say you will laugh at me for my 
 apprehensions, and even ridicule the partiality 
 which, in the midst of my fears, magnifies my son 
 into a " dramatic author," because, as I happen 
 to know, he has written a farce. Everything 
 has a beginning ; and if this farce be produced 
 and succeeds, it will only be the first of a 
 lengthened race ; if it fail, you will be exposed 
 to the ridicule of the newspapers and the green- 
 room. Why adopt such an alternative ? 
 
 " Now, understand me, my dear Gilbert. Do 
 not imagine that I feel any of those blind and 
 determined prejudices against actors and ac- 
 tresses which you have, more than once, half 
 playfully and half in earnest, accused me of 
 maintaining. I have no doubt that they may 
 be extremely worthy persons in their way. 
 What I contend for is, that while pursuing your 
 studies for a serious avocation, in which no sue- 
 
20 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 cess can be hoped for, without sedulous atten- 
 tion, it will be ruinous to associate with a class 
 of men and women whose whole existence is 
 one tissue of artificiality ; who see nature not in 
 her proper colours, but through the darkened 
 medium of theatrical lamp-light, and who, from 
 the constant mechanical repetition of exalted 
 sentiments, the personification of conflicting 
 passions, and the assumption of a diversity of 
 characters, are rendered callous to the realities 
 of life, — except when they may personally affect 
 their own interests, — ^and are imbued with a con- 
 tempt for those principles and qualities which 
 they habitually treat as mere matters of acting. 
 " It is curious to observe, although the effect 
 may be extremely natural, how the force of habit 
 weakens the value and importance of the most 
 serious objects in our existence. How diff'erent 
 are the feelings of the man who administers an 
 oath to a witness in a court of justice from those 
 of the individual to whom it is tended ! The 
 undertaker's man at a funeral, if he be serious 
 at all, is sad only in the way of business. No 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 21 
 
 ceremony of that nature or character could be 
 made either solemn or affecting to him. The 
 butcher never could be brought to pity the 
 struggles of a dying lamb. The dramatic per- 
 former, in the same way, talks of honour, and 
 virtue, and the best affections of the heart, like 
 a parrot; and although, here and there, there 
 may be one whose taste for literature induces 
 him to dwell upon some splendid passages of 
 our great dramatic poets, he speaks and thinks 
 even of those professionally, — and considers 
 them relatively to the ' effect ' they will pro- 
 duce in the delivery, and not with reference to 
 the principles they inculcate or the virtues they 
 applaud. 
 
 " But it is not with the individuals I quarrel ; 
 nor is it just that a universal censure should be 
 applied to a community in which there are, no 
 doubt, many exceptions to the general rule. It 
 is to the art, or calling, and to the pursuits con- 
 nected with it, I object, as affecting the study of 
 the law. I hate lecturing, and, indeed, am not 
 well qualified for it ; but experience convinces 
 
22 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 me that the avocations of the lawyer and the 
 dramatist are incompatible. You need not tell 
 me that there are many attractions in the pros- 
 pect of success as a dramatist, which, to a very 
 young man, are in a high degree alluring — the 
 facility which it affords to an introduction to the 
 gay and lively, — the entree to the playhouses, — 
 the society of -wits, — the association with talent 
 and beauty. But ask yourself, my dear child, 
 whether these enticements are to be admitted or 
 rejected. Look round, and see whether any 
 instance exists of high professional success in 
 any other pursuit, where the equivocal avocation 
 of play-writing has been adopted." 
 
 I recollect perfectly well throwing down my 
 mother's letter when I came to this passage, 
 absolutely indignant at the supposition of the 
 incompatibility of my two pursuits. But when 
 I came to the examination of facts, I found 
 myself unable to make out a case. Sheridan 
 was my strong hold: but that failed me; for 
 although his genius placed him in the first ranks 
 of society, (and he was then yet in full strength 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 23 
 
 and vigour,) he had never established himself 
 in a profession. Murphy was a barrister ; but 
 although he was a good dramatic author, he 
 never shone at the bar. Our own George 
 Colman, with talent equal to anything, began 
 with the law ; he became an admirable drama- 
 tist, but no lawyer. 
 
 Then I bethought me of Addison, whose one 
 great play established him in the highest class of 
 dramatic authors, but I found myself little better 
 off; for he, like Sheridan, made no figure in 
 any learned profession : but having been for 
 many years avowedly " a man of letters," mar- 
 ried Lady Warwick, got into Parliament, and 
 was made Secretary of State. Now, said I, I 
 have my triumph. I'll quote Addison upon my 
 exemplary parent. But no : what his biographer 
 says of him settled that question: — "In 1717 
 he rose to his highest elevation, being made 
 Secretary of State; hut it is universally con- 
 fessed that he was unequal to the duties of the 
 place." This, considering the Secretaries of 
 State we have since seen flourishing in office. 
 
24 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 was rather a clamper to my ardour in his behalf. 
 " In the House of Commons he could not speak, 
 and therefore was useless to the Government. 
 In the office he could not issue an order without 
 losing his time in quest of fine expressions. 
 What he gained in rank he lost in credit, and 
 finding by experience his own inability, was 
 forced to solicit his dismission with a pension 
 of 1500Z. a-year. His friends palliated this re- 
 linquishment, of which both friends and enemies 
 knew the true reason, with an account of declin- 
 ing health, and the necessity of recess and quiet. 
 He now returned to his vocation, and began to plan 
 literary occupations for his future life. He pre- 
 pared a tragedy on the death of Socrates, 
 and " 
 
 Here I threw down the book in despair. The 
 author, incompetent to the fulfilment of high 
 office in real life, returns from the station to 
 which he had ascended, and, resuming his voca- 
 tion, prepares a tragedy. This vexed me. 
 
 Congreve was my next attempt. He died in 
 honour and in affluence, and his body lay in 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 25 
 
 State in the Jerusalem Chamber, and the Duke 
 of Bridgewater, and Lord Godolphin, and Lord 
 Wilmington, and the Lord knows whom besides, 
 were pall-bearers. What could my exemplary 
 parent say to that? — When I asked the " authori- 
 ties," they answered me, that " Congreve was 
 sent to school at Kilkenny, and thence to the 
 University of Dublin, where he acquired a per- 
 fect skill in all the branches of polite literature ; 
 a little after the revolution in 1688, he was sent 
 over to London, and placed in the Middle 
 Temple, but— "—What did I see?—" the law 
 proving too dry for him, he troubled himself 
 little with it, and continued to pursue his former 
 studies" He brought out his " Old Bachelor " 
 
 in 1693, and 
 
 " Well," said I, "here is another break-down; 
 but still his admirable plays have procured for 
 him an immortal reputation. What signified 
 the law to him ? He must have been as proud 
 of his place in society as any Lord Chief Justice 
 in Christendom." There again was I wrong, 
 
 VOL. I. c 
 
26 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 for Voltaire has recorded of him quite the con- 
 trary. 
 
 " He raised the glory of comedy/* says Vol- 
 taire, " to a greater height than any English 
 writer before or since our time — he wrote only 
 a few plays, but they were excellent in their 
 kind — the laws of the drama are strictly 
 observed in them." This praise elated and 
 delighted me : what immediately follows I con- 
 fess surprised me — " They abound with cha- 
 racters which are shadowed with the utmost 
 delicacy^ and ive meet with not so much as one 
 loio or coarse jest ^^ 
 
 What can more strongly mark the difference 
 which exists between the manners and conversa- 
 tion of Congreve's day and our own ? In order 
 to render Congreve's comedies endurable on the 
 modern stage, more than one-third of the dia- 
 logue is now either omitted or greatly modified 
 — a circumstance which gave rise to that witty 
 observation of Sheridan's, who, after witnessing 
 the representation of " Love for Love," purified 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 27 
 
 for the refined modem public, said, — " This is 
 not Congreve's play — the popular fastidiousness 
 has ruined it — such prunings for propriety's 
 sake are like the emasculation of animals ; you 
 eradicate their vice, but you destroy their 
 vigour." 
 
 Still, however, I dwelt upon Voltaire's praises. 
 " He was infirm," says Voltaire, " and come 
 to the verge of life when I knew him. Mr. 
 Congreve had one defect, which was his enter- 
 taining too mean an idea of his profession, that of 
 a writer.''^ 
 
 What, said I, was even Congreve ashamed 
 of play-writing — he who (as his French friend 
 says) owed to it both fame and fortune ? This, 
 thought I, is as bad an answer to my mother 
 as any of the former ones which I had pre- 
 pared. 
 
 I then bethought me of Massinger, a man 
 
 universally esteemed, as I had always heard, — 
 
 but he served me no better than the others ; for 
 
 having been entered of St. Alban's Hall, Oxford, 
 
 c2 
 
28 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 he applied his mind to poetry and romance for 
 four years or more, and not to logic or philo- 
 sophy, as he ought to have done, and for which 
 alone he was patronized by the Earl of Pem- 
 broke. He left the University without a degree^ 
 became a play-writer, and died in his house near 
 the Theatre — to be sure he was a good play- 
 writer, but he was nothing else. 
 
 Otway, like Massinger, had, or might have 
 had, the advantages of an University education — 
 but leaving College without a degree^ took to 
 writing plays for his livelihood — they were good 
 plays — popular plays, and he was a successful 
 author, — but he died of starvation, or rather in 
 the act of hastily satisfying the hunger under 
 which he had been suffering, through the 
 charity of a stranger in a Coffee House. — I 
 did not think it prudent to let Otway loose upon 
 my mother, neither could I venture to quote 
 Farquhar, whose career began under equally 
 auspicious circumstances, and ended nearly as 
 ill. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 29 
 
 Rowe, who was the son of a Serg-eant-at-Law, 
 was by his father entered of the Middle Temple 
 at an early age; and being extremely clever, 
 could have made himself a highly distinguished 
 member of the profession — but— at twenty-four 
 he wrote a tragedy, and, although he lived 
 respectably, and received the honours of a grave 
 in Poets' Corner, he never made a figure at the 
 Bar. 
 
 Ben Jonson was a bricklayer, and then a 
 soldier, but the "said Ben" neither built houses 
 nor reaped laurels. Beaumont was the son of a 
 judge, and entered of the Inner Temple; but, 
 says his biographer, " it does not appear that he 
 made any proficiency in the law, his passion for 
 the Muses being such as made him devote 
 himself entirely to the Muses." Foote was edu- 
 cated at Oxford, and thence removed to the 
 Temple, as designed for the law. " The dry- 
 ness and gravity of this study, however, not 
 suiting the vivacity and volubility of Foote's 
 spirit, and his fortune, whatever it teas, being 
 dissipated, he took to the stage,^^ I then began 
 c3 
 
30 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 to despair; I looked round me, but found no 
 more justification in the successes of my contem- 
 poraries than in those of my predecessors, and 
 accordingly, instead of replying with the pert- 
 ness of self-sufficiency to my mother, upon a 
 point where, as it seemed to me, she was unas- 
 sailable, I fell to calculating, since there must be 
 a choice, and since it was clear that the " two 
 trades could never agree," which was likely to 
 be the pleasanter and more profitable of the 
 two. 
 
 The result of these deliberations was a resolu- 
 tion for the present to temporise — to finish my 
 one farce, if I never wrote another, and then to 
 judge, by its reception and success, whether I 
 should entirely renounce or decidedly embrace 
 the craft of play-writing, for which, as every 
 dunce who spoiled paper thought before me, I 
 fancied I had a " wonderful talent." 
 
 It was to the eff*ect of procrastinating my 
 final decision upon these points that I wrote 
 to my excellent mother, imploring her to believe 
 that I duly appreciated all her care and kind- 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 31 
 
 ness, and assuring her, that, let me take what 
 course I might, she might be perfectly certain 
 that I should do nothing to disgrace the family 
 of the Gurneys, or its alliance with that of 
 Gataker. 
 
 I had, however, accidentally placed myself in 
 a situation full of temptation. I could not obtain 
 chambers in Lincoln's Inn, which I was anxious 
 to secure, and, as I have already mentioned, 
 took a first floor in Suffolk-street, Charing 
 Cross, then extremely unlike what it afterwards 
 became, in the course of the improvements in 
 that neighbourhood. At that period it consisted 
 for the most part of tailors' houses, the upper 
 floors of which were tenanted in their different 
 degrees by gentlemen loose upon town, visiters 
 to the metropolis, and officers on half-pay, of 
 which it appeared the greater proportion were 
 considered to be " frae the North," inasmuch 
 as Suffolk-street was nicknamed in that day 
 " The Scotch Barracks." 
 
 I had been settled in my apartments a few days 
 only, when I perceived from my windows during 
 c4 
 
32 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 the morning, a constant passing and repassing 
 of pretty- looking women, with a certain perk- 
 ing, jerking pace, gaily drest, particularly smart 
 about the feet and ancles, with parasols over 
 their heads, and little rolls of paper in their 
 hands; and men with their hats on one side, 
 and frills, and chains, and frogged coats with 
 fur collars, although it was May ! and I heard 
 them hum songs and quaver out cantabiles as 
 they swaggered down the street and up the 
 street. I thought I could not be mistaken in 
 their vocation, and thrust my head out of the 
 window to watch where they went, for the street 
 was a cid de sac, and the only place to which I 
 fancied they could resort was a sort of tavern, 
 which I one day explored, in the right-hand 
 corner. To my surprise I saw them all enter a 
 house exactly opposite that tavern — then I saw 
 a smart chariot drive up and stop at the same 
 place — then I saw come out of it two well- 
 known London performers. I was delighted — 
 I was in the middle of Attica — in the region of 
 Thespis. I rang the bell, and inquired of the 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 33 
 
 rosy-cheeked maid of tlie house, what place 
 " that was ?" pointing to the spot whence the 
 stars disappeared from my sight. 
 
 " La ! Sir," said the girl, " don't you know ? 
 that's the stage-door of the Little Theatre." 
 
 What charm had Lincoln's Inn for me after I 
 made this discovery ? Here, in the plenitude 
 of my devotion to the drama, could I see all the 
 wit and beauty of the stage and the age in 
 constant motion — here could I hear them talk 
 in '' common pmdance^' — and here I resolved I 
 would renew, or rather improve, my acquaint- 
 ance with the agreeable Mathews, and endea- 
 vour by his means to procure the representation 
 of my farce, and the consequent entree of the 
 coulisses. 
 
 It sounds indicative of either grievous affec- 
 tation or woeful ignorance that I, professing 
 myself theatrical, should not know where the 
 stage-door of the Little Haymarket was located ; 
 it is, however, true that I did not till the house- 
 maid enlightened me. No sooner had I obtained 
 the information, than my intuitive and instinctive 
 c5 
 
34 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 love of the "art" induced me to prowl up the 
 street and look into the dark dirty passage, 
 progress through which was checked by a well- 
 spiked gate ; there, however, my heart lingered ; 
 and when my fellow pupil, who had just returned 
 from playing truant, called upon me, we partook 
 together the delights of this peep into Tartarus, 
 and joined in a sympathetic anticipation of the 
 privileges and pleasures we should enjoy when 
 my admirable two-act piece had been received 
 with unbounded applause by an " overflowing 
 and delighted audience." 
 
 How childish do all these anxieties and ex- 
 pectations now seem ! How wonderful does it 
 now appear to me, that a mind which has since 
 been destined to bear with mighty evils, and 
 endure the saddest reverses without shrinking or 
 flinching, should have been so acted upon by 
 hopes and fears, and doubts and wishes, the 
 overthrow or fulfilment of which was, after all 
 — for that was the great object — the power of 
 smelling <' lamp-oil, orange-peel, and sawdust," 
 behind the scenes of a playhouse ! 
 
GILBERT GUR^'EY. 35 
 
 The Fates seemed propitious; for availing 
 myself of my previous introduction to the 
 modern Aristophanes, I addressed him in the 
 street the very first day I met him. There was 
 a frankness and plainness of manner about him 
 which quite delighted me ; and after having 
 conversed with him touching my " farce," he 
 told me that he would not only read it, if I 
 wished it, but that he would himself present it 
 to Mr. Colman, wdth whom he was in habits of 
 intimacy. This was the very point I had been 
 longing to gain; and when my new friend 
 invited me to dine with him, at a cottage which 
 he then inhabited at Colney Hatch, on the 
 following Sunday, and bade me put my maiden 
 production into my pocket, I felt extremely 
 happy. 
 
 There must be constant alternations in this 
 world of vicissitudes. I left my friend full of 
 present gratification and future hope ; 1 went to 
 my rooms, and there found a letter, of which the 
 following is a copy : — 
 
 c6 
 
36 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 " Great Queen-street, Lincoln' s- inn-fields, 
 " May 2G, 180— 
 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 " I feel very great pain in writing to you 
 upon the subject of this letter ; but I think it 
 my duty to do so, on account of your exemplary 
 mother, whose anxiety for your welfare is in- 
 cessant and unqualified. I have received a com- 
 munication from the gentleman under whose 
 care I placed you in Lincoln's Inn, representing 
 to me, for her information, the absolute useless- 
 ness of your prosecuting your studies under him 
 in the manner in which they are at present con- 
 ducted. He says that he cannot consider him- 
 self justified in receiving a stipend while your 
 utter want of attention renders it impossible that 
 you should benefit by his instructions, or that 
 you should acquire either knowledge or experi- 
 ence from the practice of his ofiice. 
 
 " Unwilling, however, to take any decided 
 step likely to wound the feelings of Mrs. Gur- 
 ney, he begs me to offer you the alternative in 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 37 
 
 the first instance, assuring me that, if you decide 
 upon a sedulous application and constant attend- 
 ance at his chambers, he shall be most happy to 
 devote himself particularly to your interests; but 
 that, if you do not feel yourself able to come to 
 such a determination, he must beg to decline 
 any further professional connexion with you. I 
 assure you this is extremely painful to me ; but 
 as I said in the outset, I consider I am only 
 doing my duty to all parties concerned. Believe 
 me, dear Sir, 
 
 « Your's, faithfully, 
 
 " A. G." 
 
 This was awkward — it was unpleasant. I felt 
 I had acted wrongly, I was sure that my mother 
 would be vexed and mortified ; but I could not 
 feel sufl&cient confidence in myself to promise 
 such amendment as my task-master required. 
 It appeared to me the wisest plan to go down 
 to Teddington and see my mother, and explain 
 to her my aversion from the profession for which 
 she had destined me. The truth is, that I had 
 
38 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 no absolute necessity for any profession. I had 
 a gentlemanly allowance (for I was yet a minor), 
 and at my mother's death I should become pos- 
 sessed of an income more than treble in amount 
 to that which I at present enjoyed ; yet I could 
 not say to her — dear, kind, excellent being ! — 
 that I anticipated any event which was to residt 
 from the loss of her, I was quite certain that I 
 never should make a lawyer ; and I resolved to 
 take my ground upon her own history, often 
 repeated to me, of my father's entire failure in 
 the same pursuit. But when could I go to her? 
 Here was Friday afternoon : I wanted to devote 
 a few hours to my farce, — I could not spare time 
 on Saturday, — and on Sunday it was to be con- 
 veyed to Colney Hatch to be read by a compe- 
 tent judge. 
 
 I remember when I was at school, two of the 
 boys proceeded to a pond, for the purpose of 
 swimming a gallipot, which was the property of 
 the bigger boy of the two. It chanced that, in 
 the eagerness incidental to this exciting amuse- 
 ment, the smaller boy tipped into the water, and. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY, 39 
 
 after a good deal of struggling, sank, and was 
 drowned. After the melancholy catastrophe, 
 the bigger boy was questioned as to what efforts 
 he had made to rescue his companion, and his 
 answers made it evident that he had by no 
 means exerted himself to the utmost. This 
 conviction produced a severe rebuke from the 
 tutor ; upon which Master Simpson burst into 
 a flood of tears, and said — " I do think that I 
 could have saved Green — but — if I had tried, I 
 should have lost my gallipot. ^^ 
 
 My infernal farce was my gallipot ; and, to 
 advance the success of that parcel of trash, I 
 made up my mind to postpone my answer to 
 my kind friend upon a vital question, affecting 
 my future prospects, and delay my visit to my 
 mother, whose heart and soul were devoted to 
 my interests. I need not say, that, having 
 come to this resolution, I passed the whole of 
 the following morning in revising my work; nor 
 need I add, that, immediately after morning 
 service on Sunday, I mounted my horse, and 
 proceeded to the villa of my fostering patron. 
 
40 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 I reached it in good time ; was presented to his 
 amiable lady; and, shortly after, walked with 
 mine host to a small summer-house, which com- 
 manded a most agreeable view of the country, 
 where I began, with faltering tongue, to read 
 my production. 
 
 I saw that the effect it produced was not 
 disheartening. My auditor smiled, and some- 
 times laughed ; but it struck me that his atten- 
 tion was somewhat too exclusively fixed upon 
 the part which, in case the piece should be 
 accepted, was intended for himself: indeed, my 
 apprehensions of his peculiar partiality for this 
 character were completely realized when, after 
 a little hesitation, he suggested the introduction 
 of two or three jokes — " hits," I recollect he 
 called them — into the speeches of that per- 
 sonage, the said ''hits" being to be taken out 
 of the parts which were intended for other 
 actors. 
 
 Suffice it here to say, that I was quite satisfied 
 with the reception of my bantling, not only 
 from the manner of my host, but from what he 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 41 
 
 said upon the subject to his better half, and still 
 more from the announcement of his determi- 
 nation to take it over the very next day to 
 Melina- place, where Mr. Colman then resided. 
 
 To me this was perfect happiness. I en- 
 joyed the air and the sunshine, and the dinner, 
 and the wine, and the conversation, which, as 
 the party was subsequently increased to six, 
 became extremely agreeable and animated ; and 
 the favourable impression which had been made 
 upon me at my first meeting with my new friend 
 w^as even yet more improved as I became better 
 acquainted with him, and found, in his observa- 
 tions and remarks, not only all the wit and 
 drollery for which the world so justly gave him 
 credit, but a depth and shrewdness to which 
 much of the success with which he has been sub- 
 sequently rewarded is unquestionably owing. 
 
 Having brought myself to what I call the 
 first halting-place of my career, I shall reserve 
 for to-morrow's task the record of occurrences 
 which immediately followed this very agreeable 
 beginning of my literary life — for so it must be 
 
42 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 considered. Lincoln's Inn was fast disappearing 
 in the distance ; and I resolved that, next day, 
 while my drama was undergoing the Colmanic 
 ordeal in St. George's-fields, 1 would make such 
 an appeal to my mother as might terminate my 
 suspense, and cut the Gordian knot of all my 
 difficulties. 
 
CHAPTER IL 
 
 With my head full of bright visions I re- 
 turned to my lodgings, and having retired to 
 bed, passed a feverish, restless night. I had 
 heard conversations on subjects which were new 
 to me ; I had been admitted into the secrets of 
 what, to a young and ill-regulated mind, is a 
 very striking profession ; I had been told stories 
 and anecdotes of the private lives of public cha- 
 racters; and madder than ever with pleasure 
 at the anticipation of the enjoyments I should 
 reap from the acceptance of my farce, and my 
 consequent familiarity with the wits and the 
 geniuses and the players, I could not settle my- 
 self to sleep. 
 
44 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 In the morning I arose unrefreshed, ate a 
 tasteless breakfast, and mingled the azure milk 
 with the almost colourless tea, without caring, 
 or even thinking, what I did. Still, however, 
 there was a clog of deeper anxiety hanging over 
 my mind than this fitful, feverish kind of irrita- 
 tion. I had to make a visit to my mother ; I 
 had to express my regret as to the unconquer- 
 able difficulties which I thought interposed in 
 my path towards the Bench, or even the Bar, 
 and to decide the question so deeply interesting 
 to my respected parent as to my future career ; 
 yet, somehow, my one day's association with 
 wags and worldlings had very much altered the 
 tone and character of my sentiments towards 
 the old lady. I felt rather ashamed of my du- 
 tiful anxiety about her, and wondered what had 
 hitherto made me so diffident in speaking out 
 my mind, which, in the end, I resolved to do, 
 cost what it might. 
 
 But a circumstance occurred the next day 
 which, at any other time, would have been 
 regarded by me as most important and exciting ; 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 45 
 
 as it was, it made but little eiFect. My mother 
 had received a letter from my brother Cuthbert 
 (at that period more than thirty years old), in- 
 forming her that he had been admitted as partner 
 into the great commercial firm in Calcutta, in the 
 service of which he had passed several years of 
 probation, and that he felt it would be greatly 
 advantageous to me, and, in short, open the 
 road to a splendid fortune, if I were to be placed 
 for some time in some banking or mercantile 
 establishment in London, to ground myself in 
 all the arcana of the counting-house ; and, after 
 a certain period of education in that school, 
 proceed to join him in India. 
 
 At that time the amusing pursuit of "shaking 
 the pagoda-tree," once so popular in our Orien- 
 tal possessions, had not been entirely exploded : 
 and, it must be confessed, the way in which he 
 wrote was extremely tempting to a young gen- 
 tleman endowed with a strong disposition to 
 extravagance. Lacs and crores of rupees — 
 maunds of cotton — pekuls of indigo — and a 
 thousand things of which I had never heard be- 
 
46 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 fore — sounded magnificently; and, to a young 
 and sanguine mind, perhaps the novelty itself 
 was even more attractive than the vastitude of 
 the expressions contained in his despatch; but 
 more than all, when he described the women — 
 the ladies of the City of Palaces, — their sway, 
 — their charms, — their interesting indolence, — 
 their lovely listlessness, — the amiable manner in 
 which they passed their mornings, playing with 
 their lank ringlets before looking-glasses, till 
 tiffin-time, — and then the amiability with which 
 they performed the ceremonies of that peculi- 
 arly-named Eastern repast. — This combination 
 of beauty, grace, languor, and tenderness, — 
 with a detail of the vestibules, varhandahs, kit- 
 maygars, hurkarahs, peons, palanquins, and pun- 
 kahs, — influenced my mind for a moment, until 
 I recollected that the scenery of " Blue-Beard" 
 was infinitely more beautiful than that of Ben- 
 gal; and that Mrs. Senior Merchant Mack- 
 irkin croft, or Mrs. Secretary Macnab, was, 
 after all, like the ale she imbibed, of home 
 manufacture, or rather, as the old joke goes. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 47 
 
 like a pack of playing-cards made in England 
 for exportation, with a penalty marked upon it 
 if re-landed. 
 
 No, thought I, there can be no attraction that 
 way from England ; yet I must own the pros- 
 pect of great wealth had a dazzling effect for a 
 moment. It was but for a moment. A laugh 
 in the street attracted me to the w^indow, and I 
 saw two of the dram. pers. (female) walking to 
 rehearsal, with a fresh breeze blowing in their 
 pretty faces, and pekuls, pagodas, peons, palan- 
 quins, and punkahs were instantly banished for 
 ever from my thoughts. Nevertheless, the let- 
 ter required attention. The proposition was 
 one submitted to me by my mother, and must 
 be attended to ; so I resolved, coute qui coute, 
 to make my visit to Teddington the very next 
 day. 
 
 Still I could not quite abandon my "galli- 
 pot ;" and so to work I went upon my precious 
 drama, in order to wTite two comic songs, in a 
 style which was then somewhat popular. Indeed, 
 that of " Miss Bailey," which then continued 
 15 
 
48 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 in fasliion, aiForded the strongest proof of the 
 effect produced by Colman in the narrative 
 style. It has been translated into Greek, Latin, 
 French, and German ; and I am not quite sure 
 that it is not completely the rage at this moment 
 in the best circles of Spitzbergen and Kamts- 
 chatka. As proofs of what a young author 
 fancies good, I have preserved from the wreck 
 of my papers these two " poetical " efforts ; and 
 I am sure that, at the time I wrote them, I fan- 
 cied them quite equal to O'Keefe, or Dibdin, 
 or even Colman himself. Nothing is more ex- 
 traordinary than a reference to such records, in 
 order to prove what were the feelings and opi- 
 nions by which we have been acted upon at 
 some former period of our lives. 
 
 The first was to be sung in the character of 
 Sir Jeffery Boot-top, by Mathews, founded 
 upon an incident in real life : and thus it ran : — 
 
 Song. 
 
 The plump Lady Tott to her husband one day 
 Said, '* Let us go driving this evening, I pray." 
 
 (Lady Tott was an Alderman's daughter.) 
 " Well, where shall we go ?" said Sir Tilbury Tott. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 49 
 
 "Why, my love," said my Lady, " the weather is hot, 
 Suppose we drive round by the water, — 
 
 The water, — 
 Suppose we drive round by the water." 
 
 The dinner was ended, the claret was *' done," 
 
 The knight getting up, — getting down was the sun, — 
 
 And my Lady agog for heart-slaughter ; 
 When Sir Tilbury, lazy, like cows after grains, 
 Said, " The weather is low'ring, my love ; see, it rains — 
 
 Only look at the drops in the water, — 
 The water, — 
 
 Only look at the drops in the water." 
 
 Lady Tott, who, when earnestly fixed on a drive, 
 Overcame all excuses Sir Til might contrive. 
 
 Had her bonnet and parasol brought her : 
 Says she, " Dear Sir Til, don't let me ask in vain ; 
 The dots in the pond which you take to be rain 
 
 Are nothing but flies in the water, — 
 The water, 
 
 Are nothing but flies in the water." 
 
 Sir Tilbury saw that he could not escape ; 
 
 So he put on his coat, with a three-doubled cape, 
 
 And then by the hand gently caught her; 
 And lifting her up to his high one-horse " shay " 
 She settled her " things," and the pair drove away, 
 
 And skirted the edge of the water, — 
 The water, — 
 
 And skirted the edge of the water. 
 
 Sir Til was quite right ; on the top of his crown, 
 Like small shot in volleys, the rain peppered down, — 
 
 VOL. I. D 
 
50 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 Only small shot would do much more slaughter, — 
 Till the gay Lady Tott, who was getting quite wet, 
 Said, " My dear Sir T. T.," in a kind of half pet, 
 
 " Turn back, for I'm drench'd with rain-water, — 
 Rain-water, — 
 Turn back, for I'm drench'd with rain-water." 
 
 " Oh, dear Lady T.," said Til, winking his eye, 
 '* You every thing know so much better than I." 
 
 (For, when angry, with kindness he fought her,) 
 " You may fancy this rain, as I did before ; 
 But you show'd me my folly ; — 'tis really no more 
 
 Than the skimming of flies in the water, — 
 The water, — 
 
 The skimming of flies in the water." 
 
 He drove her about for an hour or two, 
 
 Till her Ladyship's clothes were completely soak'd through, 
 
 Then home to Tott Cottage he brought her. 
 And said, " Now, Lady T., by the joke of to-night, 
 I'll reign over you ; for you'll own that I'm right. 
 
 And know rain, Ma'am, from flies in the water, — 
 The water, — 
 
 Know rain. Ma'am, from flies in the water." 
 
 This was one of the effusions for the sake of 
 which I abandoned my studies, neglected my 
 parent, and expended two hours ; yet I confess, 
 when it was finished, I thought I had " done it." 
 But I had another to do; for it had been hinted 
 to me, during the time that my maiden produc- 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 51 
 
 tion was undergoing the process of examination 
 by the manager, that it wanted enlivening ; and, 
 moreover, that if Mr. Mathews had a song, 
 Mr. Liston would expect to have one also ; that 
 these were little points of professional etiquette 
 which were as rigidly observed as the rules and 
 ceremonies of other services; and that there 
 would be as great an impropriety in offering a 
 secondary part to a first-rate actor, or putting a 
 secondary actor into a first-rate part, as there 
 would be in giving a lieutenant a field-officer's 
 command, or sending a commander to commis- 
 sion a seventy-four. 
 
 I was somewhat puzzled for a subject, fancy- 
 ing that the songs of a drama should have some 
 reference to the plot and dialogue of the piece ; 
 but upon this point I was very speedily enlight- 
 ened. Instead of following the example of Gay, 
 in the " Beggar's Opera," Bickerstaff, in " Love 
 in a Village," or Sheridan, in the " Duenna," 
 in which operas the music seems but an adjunct 
 to the dialogue, and the songs, the natural sen- 
 timents arising out of it, only versified, — I was 
 d2 
 
52 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 told that, much after the fashion of the man 
 who introduced his story of a gun, apropos to 
 nothing, a song, no matter what its subject or 
 purport, might be cleverly and properly intro- 
 duced by three lines of preparatory prose. 
 
 This principle established, I had no hesita- 
 tion in proceeding to my task. At that period 
 it was the rage to parodize tragedies. Horace 
 Smith wrote a parody on " George Barnwell;" 
 Horace Twiss did another; and Theodore Hook 
 indulged the town with one upon " Othello," 
 and, I believe, an extremely facetious ridicule 
 of " Hamlet." The good taste of such pro- 
 ceedings I do not mean to discuss; that these 
 things had been successful was enough for me, 
 and I determined to follow in the wake, and 
 accordingly produced the following travestie of 
 " Venice Preserved," which was to receive addi- 
 tional point and piquancy by being sung with 
 an Irish brogue: — 
 
 Tune— T/ze Sprig of Shillelagh. 
 Och tell me the truth now, and did you ne'er hear 
 Of a pair of big traitors, called Jaffier and Pierre, 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 53 
 
 Who thought that their country was shockingly served ? 
 Who met in the dark, and the night, and the fogs, — 
 Who " who howl'd at the moon," and call'd themselves 
 
 " dogs," 
 Till Jaffier to Pierre pledged his honour and life, 
 And into the bargain his iligant wife, — 
 
 By which very means was ould Venice preserved. 
 
 The ringleaders held a snug club in the town, 
 The object of which was to knock the Doge down. 
 
 Because from his duty they thought he had swerved. 
 They met every evening, and more was their fault. 
 At the house of a gentleman, Mr. Renault, 
 Who — Och, the spalpeen ! — when they all went away, 
 Stayed at home, and made love to the sweet Mrs. J., — 
 
 By which, in the end, was ould Venice preserved. 
 
 When Jaffier came back, his most delicate belle — 
 Belvidera they call'd her — determined to tell 
 
 How she by old Renault that night had been served. 
 This blew up a breeze, and made Jaffier repent 
 Of the plots he had laid : to the Senate he went. 
 He got safe home by twelve : his wife bade him not fail ; 
 And by half-after- one he was snug in the gaol, — 
 
 By which, as we'll see, was ould Venice preserved. 
 
 The Doge and the Court, when J.'s story they'd heard. 
 Thought it good for the country to forfeit their word. 
 
 And break the conditions they should have observed 
 So they sent the police out to clear every street, 
 And seize whomsoever by chance they might meet ; 
 And before the bright sun was aloft in the sky. 
 Twenty-two of the party were sentenced to die, — 
 
 And that was the way was ould Venice preserved. 
 
 d3 
 
54 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 Mr. Jaffier, who 'peach'd, was let off at the time ; 
 But that wouldn't do, he committed a crime, 
 
 Which punishment more than his others deserved; 
 So when Pierre was condemn'd, to the scaffold he went. 
 Pierre whisper'd and nodded, and J. said " Content." 
 They mounted together, till kind Mr. J., 
 Having stabb'd Mr. P.. served himself the same way, — 
 
 And so was their honour in Venice preserved. 
 
 But och I what a scene, when the beautiful Bell, 
 
 At her father's, found out how her dear husband fell ! 
 
 The sight would the stoutest of hearts have unnerved. 
 She did nothing but tumble, and squabble, and rave, 
 And try to scratch J., with her nails from the grave. 
 This lasted three months, when, cured of her pain, 
 She chuck'd off her weeds, and got married again, — 
 
 By which very means was this Venus preserved. 
 
 In this piece of tom-foolery I trace the first 
 fruits of that disposition to treat high and serious 
 subjects farcically, which is engendered and fos- 
 tered in the society of those who, as my poor 
 mother said in her letter, from which I have 
 already made an extract, are habituated to judge 
 of real events histrionically. The effect the 
 thing produced at the time remains to be told. 
 
 Having done my task, I enclosed my eflfu- 
 sions to my Mecsenas, and prepared for my 
 departure on the next morning to Teddington, 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 55 
 
 endeavouring if possible to fix my thoughts 
 upon the proposition contained in my brother's 
 letter, and upon the solicitude which I well 
 knew my excellent parent would feel as to my 
 decision ; but I found this a much more difficult 
 task than the grave and sober-minded may sup- 
 pose. The moment I had settled myself, some 
 trivial accident would scatter my thoughts ; and 
 while I was pondering upon my future destiny, 
 I found myself singing the most important 
 passages of Cuthbert's despatch to the tune of 
 the "Sprig of Shillelagh," to which I had 
 written my ridiculous parody. 
 
 I was still in the agonies of suspense — eight- 
 and-forty hours had elapsed, and no tidings of 
 my drama. Every man fancies his own affairs 
 of paramount importance. Dennis the critic came 
 away from the sea-side because he imagined 
 the King of France was sending a ship to carry 
 him off, in consequence of his having written a 
 severe squib against him in the shape of a pam- 
 phlet ; and I once knew a young ensign who, 
 expressing to me his anxiety that a leave of 
 D 4 
 
36 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 absence which was about to be granted him 
 should be correct to the letter, told me that he 
 was the more solicitous, as he had only entered 
 the service three days before, and the eyes of 
 the whole army were upon him. 
 
 It never occurred to me, while I earnestly 
 watched every knock or ring at the door in ex- 
 pectation of Mr. Colman's fiat, that Mr. Colman 
 had fifty other things to do besides reading my 
 farce — that perhaps he had never even opened it. 
 I did not then know the story of Sheridan and 
 the playwright, which is vouched for upon good 
 authority. The playwright had sent a comedy 
 to Mr. Sheridan for perusal, and of course 
 approval, and of course heard nothing more of 
 his comedy. He waited six months patiently 
 — the season w^as then over, and he therefore 
 resolved to wait on till the next season began : 
 he did so — he then called at Mr. Sheridan's, 
 who at that time lived in George-street, Han- 
 over-square — not at home, of course — he then 
 dispatched a note — no answer — another — ditto 
 — another call — still the same result. At last, 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 57 
 
 however, the author hit upon the expedient of 
 posting himself in the hall, on a day in the even- 
 ing of which there was to be an important debate 
 in the House of Commons. This was a blockade 
 which even the ingenuity of the wit could not 
 evade; the author was therefore admitted. 
 
 His inquiries were respectful, but earnest. 
 " My comedy, Mr. Sheridan — I " 
 
 " Yes — to be sure — clearly — the ?" 
 
 " Fashionable Involvements, in five acts," said 
 the author, helping his great friend to the name 
 of his work, which he hoped might recal the work 
 itself to his recollection — a hope most vain. 
 
 " Upon my word," said Sheridan, " I — I'm 
 in a great hurry — I really don't remember — I 
 am afraid your play has been somehow mislaid." 
 
 " Mislaid !" exclaimed the anxious parent of 
 the lost bantling. " My dear Sir, if it is, I am 
 ruined — I have no copy of it." 
 
 " It is very unfortunate," said Mr. Sheridan, 
 '' very — I'm sure I regret — I " 
 
 " But what can I do. Sir ?" said the author. 
 
 " I tell you what my dear friend," replied 
 D 5 
 
58 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 Mr. Sheridan, " I cannot promise you your own 
 play back, because I don't know where any of 
 the last year's pieces are ; but if you will open 
 that table-drawer, you will find a great number 
 that have been sent me this year: you may 
 take any three of those in exchange, and do 
 what you like with them." 
 
 Had I at the time when I was so sensitively 
 alive to the fate of my farce known this his- 
 toriette, I should perhaps have been better able 
 to regulate my expectations. 
 
 On the following morning, however, I pro- 
 ceeded to Teddington, and found my mother and 
 her friend and companion Miss Crab, at home. 
 My reception was every thing that ought to have 
 been delightful to a fond and dutiful son: some- 
 how it was unsatisfactory, and Miss Crab was so 
 plain, and the place was so quiet, and they began 
 to talk so seriously to me, and when I heard 
 them both expressing themselves sentimentally, I 
 could scarcely hold my tongue to listen to them. 
 
 " Gilbert," said my mother, "after what you 
 have said with regard to making the law your 
 15 
 
GILBERT OURNEY. 59 
 
 profession, I think I should not be justified in 
 endeavouring to force your inclinations; but, 
 painful as it would be to me when the time came 
 to part with you, I do think this proposal of 
 Cuthbert's merits your best attention ; you see 
 he is well established, his prospects are bright, 
 and he holds out his hand to lift his brother into 
 the same station." 
 
 " Why yes," said I ; "but after all what is 
 the station ? He is only a merchant — now the 
 law leads to the highest honours, and " 
 
 " So it does," replied my mother ; " but as 
 you have yourself decided against striving for 
 those honours, why try back upon what you 
 have rejected, in order to draw a comparison 
 unfavourable to that, which now presents itself?" 
 
 " I should never make a lawyer," said I; "and 
 — I do not think I should like to be a merchant 
 — there is something in the words shop and 
 counting-house discordant to my ear." 
 
 " I think," said Miss Crab, — and what she 
 said was true enough, — " Gilbert prefers being 
 a gentleman to any other occupation." 
 D 6 
 
60 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 " He lias not sufficient means to maintain him- 
 self in that character," said my mother, " and I 
 apprehend, that if he rely upon his talents for 
 dramatic literature to make up the deficiency, he 
 will only reap what alone grow in abundance in 
 that field — regrets and disappointments." 
 
 My mother had touched the right chord. 
 
 " Well, for my part," said Miss Crab, " I wish 
 there was not such a thing as a playhouse or a 
 player ; they are the ruin of more young people 
 than anything else in the world." 
 
 I thought I never saw Crab look so frightful 
 as she did at the moment she uttered that little 
 speech. 
 
 " I do not quite agree with you there," said 
 my admirable parent : "I believe a well-regu- 
 lated stage, speaking both morally and politi- 
 cally, might be rendered highly serviceable to 
 the people, not more for amusement than for 
 instruction — for when is instruction so gladly 
 received as through the means of rational amuse- 
 ment? — it has the same effect upon the mind as 
 indirect taxation has upon the purse — no sudden 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 61 
 
 and abrupt demand is made, which at once 
 enforces a claim, and proclaims a superiority. 
 If, through the medium of the theatre, morality 
 and virtue were exhibited in all their beauty, 
 and vice and dissipation held up in all their 
 deformity, great good might ensue." 
 
 " Aye," said Miss Crab, " but they are not ; 
 all the things the people run after, now-a-days, 
 are either gingerbread pantomimes, culled from 
 Mother Bunch, or stupid farces translated from 
 the French." 
 
 Miss Crab looked more hideous than she did 
 before ; but what could I say ? Had I defended 
 the stage and farces, it would have led to end- 
 less controversies — Had I discarded them, I 
 should instantly have been doomed to a pair of 
 canvass sleeves, and perliaps an apron; posted 
 behind a counter, or stuck up on a high stool 
 from nine till six, with a pen behind my ear, in 
 some wretched hole of an office in a dark lane 
 in the City. 
 
 The. great difficulty I had to contend with, in 
 these controversial conversations, as they threat- 
 
62 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 ened to be, and which I have before noticed, 
 arose from the fact that, although I certainly- 
 had not at that time an income sufficient for the 
 indulgence of my favourite pursuits, and the 
 enjoyment of my natural amusements, as I held 
 them to be, I should be quite rich enough to 
 please myself at the death of my mother. If she 
 had lived to this hour, and I remained poor, I 
 should have been but too happy ; and I felt it 
 impossible to explain to her the real grounds of 
 my apparent carelessness of my future prospects. 
 It was clear, too, that she was fast declining; 
 and this very circumstance rendered it utterly 
 out of the question to allude to an event which 
 seemed to me too probably not far distant. I 
 therefore resolved to temporize, and at last hit 
 upon an expedient which, before I had turned 
 my mind theatrically, perhaps would not have 
 occurred to me, in order to gain time. 
 
 I suggested to my mother what I considered 
 the inexpediency of plunging at once into mer- 
 cantile life without some more distinct and 
 explicit statement from Cuthbert. All that he 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 63 
 
 said, tempting as I admit it to have been, was 
 said generally, and, for tlie most part, hypo- 
 thetically. " I do not think it would be a bad 
 plan for Gilbert to do so and so;" and " if" he 
 did, he " might perhaps ;" and " if he might 
 perhaps," why then, perhaps, " I might be able," 
 and so on. I argued that this was an invitation 
 hardly strong enough to adopt as credentials for 
 the total alteration of my pursuits and prospects, 
 and what I considered my immolation in a 
 counting-house. 
 
 My mother listened attentively to what 1 said, 
 and appeared rather struck by my reasoning, 
 although she did not see that Cuthbert could 
 have said more, being, as he w^as, ignorant of what 
 course I had shaped for myself in England. 
 
 *' I am sure," said Miss Crab, " it is as plain 
 as the nose on my face — " 
 
 I looked at her, and thought, whatever it is, 
 nothing can be plainer. 
 
 " that Cuthbert wishes Gilbert to go to 
 
 him; that there are bright prospects, the realiza- 
 tion of which depends only upon his prepara- 
 
64 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 tory attention and assiduity here. If I were 
 you, my dear Mrs. Gurney, I would not hesitate 
 a moment." 
 
 I could have strangled her. 
 
 " There," continued she, " is that highly 
 respectable Indian house, Curry, Raikes, Yel- 
 lowly, Lefevre, and Company." 
 
 " Mercy on us. Miss Crab," said I, " have 
 you made that firm, with all their orientally- 
 bilious names, to terrify me ?" 
 
 " Not a bit, Mr. Gurney," said Miss Crab. 
 " I know them intimately well ; and, if your 
 mother chooses, I will write to Mr. Yellowly, 
 who is my particular friend, such a letter as will 
 ensure you " 
 
 " — the highest stool in the darkest corner of 
 their counting-house," interrupted I, forgetting 
 at once my notions of temporizing. 
 
 " Oh ! Sir," said Miss Crab, " if I am to be 
 subjected to such farcical remarks as these, and 
 you are determined to throw cold water upon 
 the scheme, I have done." 
 
 " I think. Miss Crab," said my mother. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 65 
 
 " Gilbert's idea is not a bad one. He is yet 
 young. A few months' postponement can do no 
 harm." 
 
 " There I diifer with you entirely, Mrs. 
 Gurney," said Miss Crab. " At his time of 
 life, and in the society and habits into which he 
 has fallen, six or eight months will make all the 
 difference in the world." 
 
 " I fancy," said my mother, " that I know 
 Gilbert pretty well ; and I believe that, although 
 idle, and gay, and thoughtless, he will never 
 suffer himself to be led into conduct or circum- 
 stances likely to affect me or dishonour himself. 
 If we were immediately to avail ourselves of 
 your kind offer of writing to the gentleman you 
 have named, and he were admitted to a partici- 
 pation in the duties of his office, and, after a 
 severe probation of eight or ten months, Cuth- 
 bert's offer should turn out of less importance 
 than we at first imagined it, we should have lost 
 so much time." 
 
 " Not a bit of it," said Miss Crab ; " wouldn't 
 Gilbert be much better employed posting ledgers 
 
66 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 and copying letters all the day, than lounging 
 about the streets and writing farces ? There is 
 no disgrace in a mercantile life ; and supposing 
 he never went to India at all, what would he be 
 the worse for knowing what he would learn in 
 the City?" 
 
 I could scarcely listen complacently to the 
 odious interruptions and interference of my 
 mother's most excellent and disagreeable friend. 
 I could not endure the woman for talking so 
 sensibly ; yet I saw that, with a parent's par- 
 tiality, my mother leant very much to my views ; 
 and I found, not without reason, that her readi- 
 ness to acquiesce with me in the proposal of 
 giving time for consideration arose from a latent 
 unwillingness to lose my society altogether, and 
 doom me to a transportation for life, — for such, 
 a residence in India seems to those who have 
 never quitted their " fatherland," and who be- 
 lieve, with great reason, at all events where 
 England is concerned, that " there is no place 
 like home." 
 
 It was somewhat past ten o'clock at night 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 67 
 
 when I mounted my horse at my mother's gate 
 to return to London, and I must confess that I 
 felt as if I had achieved a great deal in the 
 course of my visit, in spite of fate and Miss 
 Crab. I had, in fact, left my affairs, as far as 
 regarded India, Cuthbert, and the partnership, 
 much as I had begun upon them, with this sig- 
 nal advantage in my favour, that they had 
 been under discussion and nothing had been 
 decided upon, so that I felt myself quite at 
 liberty to go on with a snaffle until my excellent 
 mother thought proper to apply the curb. 
 
 There was one point upon which the old 
 gentlewoman was particularly susceptible and 
 tenacious, but upon which, as it happened, I had 
 not yet seen reason to give her any uneasiness. 
 She had — next to the playhouses and the ac- 
 tresses — a most sensitive and matronly horror of 
 the designing wiles of the young woman crea- 
 tures who enliven and illuminate the world ; and 
 proportionably fearful that I should fall a prey 
 to some young adventuress, which, considering 
 what I possessed in the way of prize-money, was 
 
68 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 really not ground for serious alarm ; for it was 
 clear that nobody who had anything would think 
 of making a good speculation by catching a youth 
 who had nothing. She never went the length 
 of cautioning me against the artillery of bright 
 eyes, or the music of soft w^ords, because being 
 a woman, although my mother, she perhaps was 
 aware that the surest method of setting a young 
 heart on, is by warning it off. " I'm driving 
 the pig to Cork," says Paddy, " but dont you 
 let him hear that — he thinks he is going to 
 Bandon." Prohibit, prevent, and warn, and what 
 nine times in ten are the consequences. 
 
 What happened to the ostler and the priest ? 
 — I believe it is an old story, but never mind — 
 it is in point. An ostler of the Popish persua- 
 sion annually paid two shillings and threepence 
 halfpenny to his priest to confess and whitewash 
 him at Easter. Down on his knees did he lay 
 open his heart to the Padre, and tell everything 
 he had done amiss during the preceding year. 
 " Father," says Paddy, " I water the whisky, I 
 take half a quartern out of every peck of oats, 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 69 
 
 and I charge fourpeiice for horsekeeping and 
 give my master but threepence." — " Tell me," 
 says the Padre, " do you never grease the 
 horses' teeth to prevent their eating the beans?" 
 — "Never, your reverence, never!" cries Paddy, 
 with tears in his eyes. — " Good boy, get up 
 wid ye then," says the Padre ; "tip us the 
 thirteen ers, and you are as clean as a whistle 
 for the next twelve months." 
 
 Those twelve months over, back comes the 
 priest. The same mummery goes on; the same 
 kneeling down and confessing to the absolving 
 Padre, — whose infallible power of absolution is 
 best tested by the fact that the infallible head of 
 tlie Church himself, who can excommunicate 
 and absolve every Roman Catholic in the world, 
 confesses to his own particular chaplain, — and 
 there we have the ostler at it again ; the same 
 questions are repeated the same admissions made 
 — till at last Dominie reiterates his inquiry, 
 " Have you not greased the horses' teeth to 
 prevent their eating the beans?" Different 
 from that of the preceding year was the answer 
 
70 GIIBERT GURNEY. 
 
 to this — " Yes, your reverence, I have." — 
 "How!" exclaims Doctor O'Doddipole; "what! 
 an accession of crime as you draw nearer the 
 grave ! How comes this ? Last year, you told 
 me you had never done such a thing in your life; 
 how happens it that this year you have?" — 
 " Plase your reverence," says the ostler, " I'd 
 never have had sich a thought in my head if 
 your reverence hadn't been kind enough to put 
 it there." 
 
 Upon this principle, I suppose, my excellent 
 mother never directly cautioned me about the 
 sparkling eyes, the downy cheeks, the pouting 
 lips, and all the rest of the charms so likely to 
 catch such a person as I then was, lest " her 
 reverence should put strange thoughts into my 
 head." However, thoughts had been there, 
 without her putting ; and I verily believe if my 
 new and absorbing passion for Thespian pursuits 
 had not unluckily intervened, I should have en- 
 gaged myself to one of the very prettiest girls 
 in the world, who shall be nameless. However, 
 the sequel will show how that affair terminated, 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 71 
 
 and in what manner I escaped matrimony. In 
 the sequel, too it will be seen that if I were only- 
 singed in my coup d'essai, I got considerably 
 more damaged in my subsequent career. 
 
 The one great point of delay having been 
 gained, I felt myself more at ease than I had 
 been for the previous week or fortnight. A 
 sanguine mind always sees daylight through the 
 darkness — and upon the principle and in the 
 hope, which all through life have sustained me, I 
 fancied that "something would turn up" before 
 the possible return of letters from Cuthbert, 
 which might favourably decide the question 
 now in abeyance. 
 
 On my return home, I found, much to my 
 delight, that my farce had been read — ay, and 
 approved — for a note which I discovered lying 
 upon my table, from my Mecsenas, informed me 
 that he would call upon me the next day at 
 five o'clock, if I happened to be disengaged, 
 take me over to Melina-place and introduce me 
 to Mr. Colman, who wished us to dine with 
 him. This, it may be easily imagined, was to 
 
72 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 me as decided a " command " as if it had come 
 from George, King of England, instead of 
 George, King of the Dramatists ; and I did not 
 allow a moment to elapse before I answered my 
 friend in the affirmative, 
 
 I scarcely recollect how the intervening hours 
 were passed; my friend and ci-devant fellow- 
 pupil (who continued to "make believe" in 
 Lincoln's Inn) was of course apprized of my 
 premier pas, and I received his warm congratu- 
 lations upon my initiatory success. The mere 
 routine of eating, drinking, and sleeping, had 
 in it nothing of interest, except as the perform- 
 ance of those ordinary functions served for 
 points by which to reckon time, until the hour 
 of my introduction to the Haymarket proprietor 
 was to take place. 
 
 That hour at length arrived : punctual to the 
 minute, my friend knocked at my door, and we 
 proceeded together to the scene of action. I there 
 found mine host everything that was agreeable. 
 I met four or five " ladies and gentlemen," all 
 delightful in their way. Mr. Colman suggested 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 73 
 
 one or two alterations, which it would be need- 
 less to say were improvements, in my drama; 
 and having despatched what I fancied our im- 
 portant business, we sat down to dinner, some- 
 where about six. How delightful the party 
 was, may perhaps best be imagined from the 
 fact, that we did not separate for the evening 
 until five in the morning, when I returned home 
 enchanted with the amusements of the day and 
 night. 
 
 Everything was now en train. The following 
 Friday — a day from which, for the commence- 
 ment of any undertaking, I have a great and 
 unconquerable aversion — was fixed for the read- 
 ing of my farce, and my eyes were gladdened 
 the very next morning, by seeing in the play- 
 bills an announcement, technically (as I after- 
 wards discovered) called "underlined," that a 
 new farce was in rehearsal and would speedilv 
 be produced. 
 
 The Friday came ; and for the first time in 
 my life I found myself in the green-room of a 
 theatre — it was literally a green room, into 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
74 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 which light was admitted by a thing like a cu- 
 cumber-frame at one end of it. It was matted, 
 and round the walls ran a bench covered with 
 faded green stuff, whereupon the dramatis per- 
 soncB deposited themselves until called to go on 
 the stage ; a looking-glass under the skylight, 
 and a large bottle of water and a tumbler on 
 the chimney-piece, completed the furniture of 
 this classic apartment. 
 
 Upon the special occasion of reading my 
 farce, a table, with pens, ink, and paper, was 
 introduced, and deposited in one corner of the 
 room under the cucumber-frame, and at which 
 the reader was to preside. The actors and 
 actresses began to assemble. I was introduced 
 to such of them as were concerned in the per- 
 formance of my hopeful work ; and having 
 declined to undertake the reading myself, the 
 manager proceeded to execute that task. 
 
 A dead silence prevailed as he delivered, in a 
 hurried, monotonous tone, all the pointed and 
 witty dialogues of the first scene, upon which I 
 had spent so much time, and to which I had 
 
GILBERT GURNEV. 75 
 
 devoted so much attention. Not a smile did I 
 see ; Liston, from whom I had expected all the 
 compliments of excessive laughter at the jokes 
 introduced into his part, sat still and mute, the 
 very picture of gravity, until the reader came 
 to a bit which I had intended to be marvel- 
 lously comic, when he made a face of so 
 grotesque a character of extreme disapproba- 
 tion, that Mrs. Gibbs burst into a loud fit of 
 merriment, which was only moderated by a sort 
 of admonitory look from Mathews, — who had 
 the best part in the piece, — to spare the feel- 
 ings of the young author. 
 
 For nearly an hour and a quarter did I 
 endure this purgatorial process; and I must 
 admit, that, during that period, my feelings of 
 self-complacency had undergone a very import- 
 ant change. Just as I anticipated a positive 
 cheer, at a denouement which I was quite sure 
 must be unexpected, I looked round, and saw 
 Mrs. Davenport, the main-stay of my plot, fast 
 asleep, with her head in a corner ; and the 
 aforesaid Liston, another of my props, tickling 
 e2 
 
76 GILBERT GUriNEY. 
 
 her nose with the end of her parasol. It then 
 occurred to me, that it would have been better 
 that I should not have been present, inasmuch 
 as in my absence, those ladies and gentlemen, 
 who, regardless of my agonies and sensitive- 
 ness, thus practically exhibited their perfect 
 indifference to my " work," might have ex- 
 pressed their opinions in cabinet, and while 
 they disapproved some portion of the perform- 
 ance, might have suggested improvements in 
 others. When the reading was over, nobody said 
 capital, or even good, or even tolerable. One 
 of the gentlemen asked " When is this thing to 
 be put in rehearsal ?" " To-morrow," was the 
 reply, " and it must be out to-morrow week." 
 
 " To-morrow week !" said one ; " how am I 
 to study this infernal part, nine lengths and a 
 half, by to-morrow week, besides all the stock 
 business ?" 
 
 "/think," said Mrs. Davenport, "that / 
 should be better out of the farce than in it. 
 Mrs. Kendall, or Mrs. Wall, would do just as 
 well for all there is to do." 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 77 
 
 " Anybody would do as well as me," whis- 
 pered Liston ; and then Mrs. Gibbs made her 
 joyous, handsome face look hideous in my eyes 
 for the moment, by giving a sign of perfect ac- 
 quiescence in Mr. Liston's opinion. 
 
 I felt that I could not endure their comments 
 any longer, so sought safety in flight, and got 
 out of the regions, into which at length, after 
 many years' working, I had obtained admission, 
 not, however, without attracting the notice of 
 my good-natured Mecaenas, who walked down 
 the street with me, and gave me his opinion, 
 that I must reconcile myself to lose one or two 
 of the principal performers ; adding that it was 
 always the wisest plan to let a discontented 
 actor give up the part of which he complained ; 
 for your leaders of the profession, if they say 
 they can make nothing of a character, gene- 
 rally back their opinions by their acting on the 
 first night. 
 
 Here began those difficulties and annoyances 
 by which the progress of a dramatic author is 
 impeded : the operation of small jealousies 
 E 3 
 
78 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 which the uninitiated cannot comprehend; the 
 great vanities which the unenlightened are una- 
 ble to appreciate ; and the combinations for and 
 against certain persons and purposes, the intri- 
 cacies of which are hidden from the common 
 eye, but the workings of which, more or less, 
 affect every individual brought into contact with 
 the dramatic department of English literature. 
 The thing, however, was too far gone to retract, 
 and I resolved to bear with fortitude evils which 
 I then was foolish enough to think great, and 
 submit myself to the guidance of those who, of 
 course much better than I could be supposed to 
 do, understood the nature of such proceedings. 
 The next morning was our first rehearsal. 
 The cool atmosphere of the theatre in a hot 
 summer's day, blended with the peculiar smell 
 which edl theatres have, was to me quite refresh- 
 ing and invigorating ; and when I found myself 
 referred to by such of the performers as were 
 present, for my views and opinions of how this 
 should be said, and how that should be done, 
 I felt tolerably reconciled to the absence of 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 79 
 
 two or three of the "stars" by whom I had 
 hoped to see my work adorned and illuminated. 
 
 The efforts of five days perfected the work 
 of rehearsal. My " Venice Preserved" song — 
 the idol of my heart — was omitted, because the 
 gentleman who was Mr. Liston's substitute 
 could not sing — a failing which I the less de- 
 plored, inasmuch as Mr. Liston, even if he had 
 acted the part, had declined singing the song. 
 My misfortunes, however, did not end here ; 
 for as it had been resolved to omit that song, 
 and as the young lady who was to enact my 
 heroine sang no more than Mr. Liston's suc- 
 cessor, it was considered not usual to have one 
 song in a piece, not musical, and so out they 
 cut my " Flies in the Water." I own these 
 two sacrifices cost me a pang, but it was decreed 
 by better judges than myself, and away they 
 went. 
 
 The time now drew near when my fate was 
 to be decided, and no rational person can pos- 
 sibly believe how much I was agitated on the 
 morning of performance. The sight of my 
 E 4 
 
80 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 title, flaring in huge red letters in the play-bills, 
 was in the highest degree gratifying to my eye. 
 I stopped and perused the affiche, as if it had 
 been a document of the highest public interest. 
 I fancied I was known in the streets as the 
 author of the new piece — I walked upon air. 
 But as the evening drew nigh, I felt that 
 aching pain of anxiety, which in other days, 
 such interests could excite ; and when it was 
 time to go to the theatre, I scarcely knew 
 whether I should be able to endure the trial. 
 
 After the opera of " Inkle and Yarico " came 
 my drama. I was placed in the manager's box, 
 allotted the seat of honour behind the treillage, 
 favoured by the presence of two of the hand- 
 somest and most agreeable ladies in London, 
 and treated in the kindest possible manner. 
 Overture over — curtain up — I listened to my 
 own words fearfully and tremblingly; not that 
 I heard quite so many of them as I had confi- 
 dently expected, seeing that most of the low 
 comedians substituted, for what they had not 
 learned, speeches and dialogues, not one word of 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 81 
 
 which I had written ; indeed, daring the greater 
 part of the first act, the voice of the prompter 
 was more generally audible than those of the 
 actors. Still, however, we went on smoothly, 
 but not with that spirit which I had anticipated ; 
 and when the curtain fell, at the close of the first 
 act the audience gave no signs of approbatioji 
 or dissent, and the only sound which I heard in 
 any degree indicative of popular opinion, was 
 the loud twanging of an elderly gentleman's 
 nose, who was fast asleep, with his head reclin- 
 ed against the partition of the box in which 
 we sat. 
 
 The second act began, and in the middle of 
 the second scene of it, several parties removed 
 themselves from the lower boxes, evidently 
 tired with what was going on. Would that the 
 gods in the galleries had been equally well- 
 bred ! their patience, however, was not proof 
 against my drollery — one point of which, a cant 
 phrase by my hero. Sir Jeffery Boot-top, of 
 " How d'ye know^ — don't you think so ?" ap- 
 peared, after innumerable repetitions, to make 
 £ 5 
 
82 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 the first seat in the pit angry — they began to 
 groan, and then to answer Sir Jeffery's ques- 
 tions, with shouts of " No, no, no !" — these, by 
 a natural transition, were converted into cries 
 of "Off, off, off!" and at a quarter after eleven 
 o'clock, the green curtain of the Theatre Royal, 
 Haymarket, descended upon my condemned 
 farce, and concluded my career as a dramatic 
 writer. 
 
 I had anticipated a triumph — I had encoun- 
 tered a defeat. It was in vain I cracked the 
 joke of "laudatur ab /im," — in vain affected to 
 laugh at my own disaster. I rejected the gay 
 supper which had been prepared to await the 
 successful young author, and returned to my 
 lodgings ashamed to look even the servants in 
 the face; I hurried to bed, in the full consci- 
 ousness of my failure, and the certain malevo- 
 lence of the accounts of that failure, as they 
 would appear the next day in the criticisms 
 of the newspapers. I slept little — I made a 
 hundred different resolves— I hoped at least 
 my name would be kept secret — I anticipated 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 83 
 
 the misery of my poor mother at the publicity 
 of my overthrow, in which, she of course, 
 would find ample ground for congratulating 
 herself upon her unheeded efforts to save me 
 from such an exposure. I at length determined 
 to fly the scene of my mortification as soon as 
 possible, and by nine o'clock I had quitted my 
 lodgings, and was on my road to the maternal 
 roof at Teddington. 
 
 E 6 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 As I cantered down towards Teddington, all 
 the events of the preceding evening passed in 
 review before me. I almost hoped that I had 
 only had a frightful dream, and that the scene 
 and proceedings at the playhouse were all 
 images of a disordered brain — but the hope was 
 vain ; and already in the streets the playbills of 
 the day had negatively declared my defeat by 
 announcing " Peeping Tom," or " The Village 
 Lawyer," or some such ancient favourite, in- 
 stead of a repetition of my doomed drama. 
 
 Breakfast appears to me to have been des- 
 tined for a solitary meal — nothing to me is less 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 85 
 
 endurable than a breakfast party. I love the 
 lengthened lounging meal made up of eating, 
 drinking, and reading; but there is nothing 
 social or sociable in its attributes ; one cannot 
 "hob-nob" in tea or coffee. Moreover, it is 
 an ungraceful meal. Egg-eating and prawn- 
 picking are not delicate performances : and, 
 besides, a man when he is first up and just 
 down, if he tries his mind and temper by a 
 moral "spirit-level," will find that breakfast- 
 time is not the time for company or conversa- 
 tion. Most especially, then, was I disqualified 
 for a public breakfast at my mother's on this 
 particular day, with Miss Crab for a companion. 
 I therefore resolved to call a halt at Richmond, 
 and take my morning meal at the castle, an 
 inn full of delightful associations in my mind, 
 and where the coolness of the breeze and the 
 fragrance of the flowers promised to moderate 
 the fever into which I had fidgetted myself. 
 
 I was, however, mistaken; for just as one of 
 the waiters had arranged my table, and the huge 
 urn, hissing and sputtering forth its steam and 
 
86 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 smoke, was put down, another officious varlet, 
 with a smirk and bow, laid upon the cloth the 
 " Morning Chronicle." Little could he con- 
 ceive the dread and apprehension with which I 
 regarded the fatal sheet. New to the world, and 
 as thin-skinned as a Whig, I could not venture 
 even to unfold the paper. I waited till the 
 servants had retired, and then respectfully and 
 fearfully lifted the front page and peeped into 
 that part of the journal usually appropriated to 
 " theatricals." I saw the great word " theatri- 
 cals " stare me in the face, and I hastily left my 
 hold and closed the leaf with the haste and trepi- 
 dation with which, in after years, I might have 
 started back from the hiss of a snake or the 
 growl of a tiger. 
 
 At length, having fortified my courage by a 
 sip of coffee, I again approached the dreaded 
 page, and having with fingers as cold as ice 
 opened the paper, read as follows: — 
 
 " Theatricals. — Last night a new farce 
 was acted at the Haymarket Theatre ; as it was 
 finally and decidedly condemned, any further 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 87 
 
 notice of the absurd abortion would be su- 
 perfluous." 
 
 After reading this short, pithy paragraph, I 
 felt that sort of gratitude to the writer, which a 
 culprit may be supposed to feel for an execu- 
 tioner who puts him speedily out of pain : there 
 was no tedious process of strangulation in this 
 — no roasting before a slow fire — the bolt was 
 drawn and the spine of my vanity broken with- 
 out any lingering preparation. I thought " ab- 
 surd abortion " rather a strong term: but I was 
 glad to find that my name had escaped either 
 the knowledge or the notice of the critic. I 
 felt comparatively calm and easy, not at the 
 moment reflecting: that there were more news- 
 papers than one, published in London. 
 
 It was in this temper of mind that I heard — 
 it was then past eleven o'clock — merry peals of 
 laughter ringing by a company which, unper- 
 ceived by me, had taken possession of the 
 pavilion which opens on the terrace at the back 
 of the house, and which appeared to be excited- 
 by some waggeries of which I could not exactly 
 
88 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 comprehend tlie nature or character. I never 
 was a listener nor an eaves-dropper; but the 
 most incurious person in the world will admit, 
 that nothing is so tantalizing as to hear laugh- 
 ter in an adjoining room without being aware 
 of its cause, and nothing so worrying as to be 
 treated with conversation through a wainscot 
 which never rises above a sort of mumbling, 
 grumbling noise, in sound something like what 
 Colman in his Preface to the " Iron Chest," 
 describes as the distinguishing characteristics 
 of a great tragic actor's voice — " Flies in a 
 bottle — frogs in a marsh — wind in a crevice — 
 and the drone of a bagpipe." I could not — 
 '^ fond as I then was of laughing — endure to 
 hear mirth going on, and not somehow con- 
 trive to be a partaker and participator. I 
 admit, therefore, that I protruded my head 
 from the breakfast-room window to catch some 
 clue to the gaiety of my noisy neighbours. 
 
 "I wonder," said one, whose voice sounded 
 peculiarly familiar to me, " I wonder where the 
 poor devil is to-day ! " 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 89 
 
 " Dangling on a beam in his garret by a 
 silk pocket-handkerchief," replied somebody, 
 whose tone and accent I also thought I recog- 
 nized. 
 
 "No;" rejoined a third, "his suspense was 
 over last night — to be sure, my dear friend, the 
 idea of bringing out that infernal farce !" 
 
 " I did it to please the boy," answered some- 
 body. " I liked the fellow, and could not say 
 no to the goose ; but as for his farce, I admit 
 it deserved to be condemned as much as any- 
 thing I ever saw. The only hits in it I -put in 
 myself, but they were so overlaid by his own 
 original twaddle that they were lost to the 
 million." 
 
 I felt the blood tingling in my ears and 
 cheeks: the people were talking of me — I 
 thought I could not be mistaken. 
 
 " Well," said one of the amiable ladies, who 
 acted as my bottle — smelling-bottle holder — the 
 night before, " poor fellow, I pity him very 
 much; he may be foolish, and I think he is, 
 but he is remarkably good-natured." 
 
90 GILBERT GURNEY, 
 
 " Perhaps," said some odious person, " you 
 will presently find out that he is good-looking.'* 
 A roar of laughter followed this, which had 
 nearly killed me. 
 
 " Saracen's Head !" said one. 
 
 " Buckhurst !" cried another. 
 
 " I suppose," said a third, " he is gone to tell 
 his mamma the history of his misfortunes." 
 
 " I believe she wrote the farce herself," said 
 a fourth. 
 
 " Well, poor devil," exclaimed the first speaker, 
 " let us leave him alone — his business is done — 
 I flatter myself the shine was taken out of him 
 last night, and there's an end ; so, what's to be 
 done till dinner-time — Patience in a punt, or a 
 drive to Hampton Court ?" 
 
 This speech, so surely indicative of a move, 
 induced me suddenly to withdraw my head and 
 make a retreat towards the front door, where I 
 desired the waiter to bring my bill and order my 
 servant to bring the horses to the door. 
 
 Here, however, I was foiled, for scarcely had 
 I made two knight's moves over the chequered 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 91 
 
 pavement of the hall, before I found myself sur- 
 rounded by the gay party from the pavilion. 
 Nothing- could exceed their expressions of de- 
 light at finding me there ; the poor devil hang- 
 ing in his silk handkerchief, whom they had been 
 abusing five minutes before, was suddenly con- 
 verted into their dear friend and delightful 
 Mr. Gurney. The groupe consisted of several 
 of my theatrical friends, and, to my utter 
 horror, they began condoling with me on the 
 annihilation of my farce before the w^aiters 
 and chambermaids, all of them declaring unani- 
 mously that it had been unfairly treated, and 
 that it possessed the most unquestionable marks 
 of great dramatic genius. 
 
 I then did not know the world quite so well 
 as I afterwards did; and when I saw the smile 
 of friendship upon the countenances of these 
 ladies and gentlemen, and felt the kind pressure 
 of their proffered hands, I also felt assured that 
 I had not been the subject of their conversation 
 in the next room, but that some other man and 
 some other drama had been so generally anathe- 
 
92 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 matised; and, perhaps, my ignorance was bliss, 
 for seeing how extremely happy they were to 
 meet me, and hearing how earnestly they pressed 
 me to join their party, I countermanded my 
 horses till the evening, and passed what, in the 
 sequel, turned out to be a very entertaining day. 
 
 It was agreed — and what would I not at that 
 period of my life have agreed to ? — that some of 
 the party should fish, some walk, some row 
 about, according to their several fancies, and 
 that all should dine at the early hour of three ; 
 the reason for the adoption of a period so Gothic 
 for such a meal being, that one or two of the 
 party had to present themselves in the evening 
 to the eyes of the admiring audience of the 
 Haymarket Theatre. 
 
 Among the groupe was a man, whose name 
 was Daly — who, of all the people accounted 
 sane and permitted to range the world keeper- 
 less, I hold to have been the most decidedly 
 mad. His conversation was full of droll conceits, 
 mixed with a considerable degree of superior 
 talent, and the strongest evidence of general 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 93 
 
 acquirements and accomplishments. He ap- 
 peared to be on terms of familiar intimacy with 
 all the members of our little community, and, 
 by his observations and anecdotes, equally well 
 known to persons of much higher consideration ; 
 but his description of himself to me^ shortly after 
 our introduction, savoured so very strongly of 
 insanity — peculiar in its character, I admit — 
 that I almost repented having, previously to 
 hearing his autobiography, consented to send on 
 my horses to Teddington, in order to accom- 
 pany him to that village after the departure of 
 the rest of the party to London, in a boat in 
 which he proposed to row himself up to Hamp- 
 ton Court, where, it appeared, he had, a few 
 days before, fixed his temporary residence. 
 
 " I hope," said he, " that we shall be better 
 acquainted. I dare say you think me an odd 
 fish — I know I am one. My father, who is no 
 more, was a most respectable man in his way — 
 a sugar-baker in St. Mary Axe. I was destined 
 to follow in his wake and succeed to the busi- 
 ness; however, I cut the treacle tubs at an early 
 
94 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 age — I saw no fun in firkins, and could not 
 manage conviviality in canvass sleeves. D'ye 
 ever read the ' London Gazette ?' " 
 
 " Sometimes," said I. 
 
 " In that interesting paper," said Daly, " I 
 used to look twice a week to see the price of 
 Muscovados. One hapless Saturday I saw my 
 father's name along with the crush: the aifair 
 was done — settled ; dad went through the usual 
 ceremony, and came out of Guildhall as white as 
 one of his own superfine lumps. Refreshed by 
 his ruin, my exemplary parent soon afterwards 
 bought a house in Berkeley-square, stood a con- 
 test for a county, and died rather richer than he 
 started." 
 
 " And you, I suppose, his heir ?" said I. 
 
 " He had not much to leave," replied my 
 new friend. " He ran it rather fine towards 
 the close of his career. My two sisters got their 
 fortunes paid, but I came off with what we tech- 
 nically called the scrapings — four hundred a 
 year, Sir, is the whole of my income; all my 
 personal property I carry under my hat. Tim- 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 95 
 
 ber I have none — save my walking-stick; and 
 as to land, except the mould in three geranium 
 pots, which stand in my sitting-room window, I 
 haven't an inch. Still, Mr. Gurney, although I 
 have not a ducat in my purse, 
 
 •* * Yet I'm in love, and pleased with ruin.' " 
 
 " I envy your philosophy and spirits," said I. 
 
 " You are right," replied Daly ; " fun is to 
 me what ale was to Boniface ; I sleep upon fun 
 — I drink for fun — I talk for fun — I live for 
 fun ; hence my addiction to our dear funny 
 friends of to-day. They just suit me — they do 
 nothing but laugh; they laugh with one when 
 present, and at one when absent — but to me 
 that is the fun." 
 
 I immediately thought of the " funny " obser- 
 vations upon myself, which I had overheard 
 earlier in the day, pretty well assured that the 
 voice of my new laughter-loving acquaintance 
 had not been the least loud in the debate. 
 
 " I admit myself fond of practical joking," 
 continued my friend. ^' I don't mean in one's 
 15 
 
96 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 own particular circle ; there it is dangerous ; 
 people are not always in the same humour — 
 what they think uncommonly good fun one day, 
 they will seriously resent as an insult the next. 
 There's no judging with certainty a man's 
 temper of mind, and it is not easy to a«certain 
 how much melted butter a gentleman would like 
 to have poured into his coat-pocket without 
 kicking; I avoid that sort of thing, but on the 
 great scale I confess my addiction. Coming 
 here yesterday evening, I stopped the chaise at 
 the corner of Egham, to turn the finger-post at 
 the corner half round — sent all the people bound 
 for London to Chertsey, all the people destined 
 for Egham to Windsor, and all the people 
 destined for Windsor, to London — that's my 
 way." 
 
 " Probably," said I, " but not theirs. And 
 do you often indulge yourself in these freaks ?" 
 
 " Perpetually," replied Daly; " Pve whip- 
 ped off every knocker in Sloane-street three 
 nights running — a hundred and ninety-four, 
 exclusive of shops; and if ever the project 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 97 
 
 of lighting London with smoke should be 
 brought to bear, I flatter myself you will hear of 
 my darkening the whole parish of Pancras, by 
 grinding a gimlet through a gas-pipe." 
 
 " These frolics must cost something," said I. 
 
 "Occasionally," said my friend; "but what 
 of that? Every man has his pursuits — I have 
 mine." 
 
 " I should think," replied I, "if you perform 
 such tricks often, your pursuits must be innu- 
 merable." 
 
 " What !" exclaimed Daly ; " pursuits after 
 me, you mean ? Pm obliged to you for that — 
 I see we shall be better acquainted — of that I 
 am now quite certain. One thing I must tell you 
 of myself, because, although there is something 
 equivocal in the outset of the adventure, I set 
 it all to rights afterwards, and will prove to you 
 that in fact all I did, was done for fun — pure fun." 
 
 I foresaw an awkward discovery of some sort 
 by the prefatory deprecation of criticism ; how- 
 ever, I listened to my slight acquaintance with 
 complacency and confidence. 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
98 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 " You must know," said Daly, " that I once 
 bad a brother, — long since dead, — and you must 
 know that he was my elder brother, and he 
 went abroad ; I remained at home, and was my 
 father's darling — he fancied nothing on earth 
 was like me. I was the wittiest, if not the 
 wisest fellow breathing, and I have seen my 
 respectable parent shake his fat sides with 
 laughing at my jokes and antics, till the tears 
 ran down his rosy cheeks. — Nevertheless I had 
 a fault, — I cannot distinctly aver that I have 
 even yet overcome it, — I was extravagant — ex- 
 travagant in everything — extravagant in mirth 
 — extravagant in love — extravagant in money- 
 matters. After my respected parent's death, I 
 lodged at an upholsterer's — excellent man ! — 
 occupied his first floor — but paid him no rent ; 
 on the contrary, borrowed money of him." 
 
 " Indeed !" said I, " I " 
 
 " Don't frown, Mr. Gurney," interrupted 
 Daly, " you will find that it all comes right in 
 the end. I'm as honest as a Parsee— don't be 
 alarmed — I was then much younger than I 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 99 
 
 am now; and, although the world unjustly, 
 ungenerously, and invariably judge a man's cha- 
 racter in after life, by the foibles of his youth, 
 don't be prejudiced, but hear me. I bor- 
 rowed money of him — I consulted him upon all 
 occasions — he was delighted with me, I with 
 him — reciprocity of feeling, you know, and all 
 that sort of thing. My upholsterer was my 
 cahinet-mim^teT — who better ? who fitter to be 
 consulted when any new measure was on the 
 tapis? So things went on for a year, at the 
 end of which, I owed him fourteen hundred 
 and seventy-two pounds, thirteen shillings, and 
 iiinepence halfpenny, without the interest." 
 
 " That was no joke, Mr. Daly," said I. 
 
 " No, but what followed was," continued my 
 equivocal friend. " My cabinet-minister ap- 
 plied for funds — I had none at hand. I there- 
 fore quitted London, and retired to the blest 
 shades of Holyrood — not that this sort of 
 constraint was at all necessary, for my friend, 
 the sofa-maker, never troubled himself to inquire 
 after me." 
 
 F 2 
 
100 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 " Why, then, did you go?" said I. 
 
 " Why, you see I thought he might," replied 
 Daly. *' After I had hovered about Scotland, 
 seen the sights, visited the Highlands, shot 
 some grouse, — and a pretty job I made of that, 
 umph ! — I returned to Edinburgh, and began 
 to be anxious to get back to London. I there- 
 fore took the resolution of killing myself forth- 
 with." 
 
 " Horrible !" said I. 
 
 " Most horrible !" replied he; " nevertheless 
 I put that resolve into immmediate execution." 
 
 " How ?" I inquired. 
 
 " By transmitting an account of my death to 
 the metropolitan newspapers in tliese words — 
 'Died, at Antigua, on the 15th March, in the 
 28th year of his age, Robert Fergusson Daly, 
 Esq., son of the late Thomas Fergusson Daly, 
 Esq., of St. Mary Axe, London.' " 
 
 "What earthly purpose could that have an- 
 swered ?" 
 
 " You shall hear," said Daly. " About ten 
 days after this announcement, having ' incurred* 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 101 
 
 for a suit of mourning, I proceeded to my 
 friend the upholsterer. Dear man, I recollect 
 his little white bald head peering over his desk 
 in the counting-house as well as if it were but 
 yesterday — in I went — made a bow — up jumped 
 my creditor. 
 
 " « Ah, Mr. Daly,' cried he, ' then what I 
 have read in the newspaper is not true ! — you 
 are alive and merry.' 
 
 " Upon which I, looking as grave as a judge, 
 said, with a long-drawn sigh, ' Sir, I see you 
 have fallen into the common mistake.' 
 
 " * Mistake, Sir,' said he, ' no mistake in the 
 world ! Why, I read in the newspapers that you 
 were dead. How those fellows do fib !' 
 
 " ' In this instance,' I replied, * they are as true as 
 the tides to the moon — or the needle to the Pole.' 
 
 " ' Why,' cried he, ' you are not dead, for 
 here you are !' 
 
 " ' So I am,' said I, « but I am not the Mr. 
 Daly who died in Antigua.' 
 
 " « That's very clear,' said the old cabinet- 
 maker, ' for, as I said before, here you are.' 
 F 3 
 
102 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 " « Still,' said I, « Sir/— I thought the Sir 
 good — 'you do not understand; I am the bro- 
 ther — the twin brother of poor Bob Daly who 
 lived here with you, and who has died, as I 
 unfortunately know, deep in your debt.* 
 
 " ' What !' exclaimed the upholsterer, « you 
 his brother ! Impossible — ridiculous ! Why, I 
 should know you from a thousand by that little 
 knob on your nose.' 
 
 " ' That may be. Sir,' said I ; ' but I was born 
 with a knob on my nose as well as my brother. 
 I assure you he is in his grave at Antigua.' 
 
 " This astounded him, and he was proceeding 
 to ring the bell in order to call up the house- 
 maid, who had made herself particularly fami- 
 liar with my knob, in order to identify me, 
 when I pacified him by fresh assurances that he 
 was mistaken, and that I was come to settle the 
 account due from my late brother to himself." 
 
 " This," said I, " was all very funny, no 
 doubt ; but cui bono ?" 
 
 " Nous verrons,'* said Daly. " The moment 
 I talked of paying, all doubt ended; he felt 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 103 
 
 convinced that it could not be me, for he was 
 quite of opinion that at that time I had no no- 
 tion of muddling away my income in paying 
 bills. So he listened, looking all the while at 
 my knob — you see the thing I mean, Mr. 
 Gurney," said Daly, pointing to a pimple ; " till 
 at last I begged to see his account — he produced 
 it — I sighed — so did he." 
 
 " ' Sir,' said he, ' this is — dear me, is it possi- 
 ble two people should be so much alike ? — your 
 brother's last account before he went.' 
 
 " I could not help saying, ' He is gone to his 
 last account now. Sir.' If it had been to save 
 my life, I could never check my fun. 
 
 " ' Lord, how like Mr. Robert that is ! ' said 
 the upholsterer. 
 
 " ' What is the amount ?' said I. 
 
 " ' Fourteen hundred and seventy-two pounds, 
 thirteen shillings, and ninepence halfpenny. As 
 for interest, Mr Daly, I don't want it.' 
 
 " ' Sir, ' said I, drawing out of my pocket a 
 handkerchief whiter than unsunned snow, ' I 
 honour and reverence you. I can now account 
 F 4 
 
104 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 for the high respect and veneration with which 
 my poor brother Bob used to speak of you and 
 write about you. You shall judge what he has 
 done ; — he has died worth three thousand five 
 hundred pounds; the claims upon him are nu- 
 merous and heavy ; in his letter — the last I ever 
 received from him — he directs me to make an 
 equitable division of his property.' 
 
 " ' Poor fellow !' said the cabinet-maker. 
 
 "'An innocent young creature, with three 
 children,' said I, ' first claims his care.' 
 
 " ' Dear me !' said the man. ' Rely upon it 
 I won't interfere there. No, no. I gave him 
 credit farther than he asked it. I won't visit 
 his sins upon those who perhaps are helpless, 
 and certainly blameless in this affair.' 
 
 " There was something so kind in this, that I 
 was near betraying myself; but I should have 
 spoiled the joke. 
 
 " ' After those,' continued I, 'you come next; 
 and, having divided his assets fairly, he decided 
 that he could, acting conscientiously towards 
 others, afford to pay you five shillings in the 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 105 
 
 pound upon the amount due; and, accordingly, 
 I have brought you to-day a sum calculated at 
 that rate — that is to say, three hundred and 
 sixty-eight pounds, thirteen shillings and six- 
 pence, for I don't descend to fractions.' 
 
 " * Well now,' said the honest old man, ' I 
 love and honour him for that. He needn't have 
 paid me a farthing. I knew not where he was ; 
 — and to think of me on his death-bed ! — that, 
 Sir, shows good principle; and as you are so 
 like him in everything else, — and how like you 
 are, to be sure ! — I hope and trust — don't be 
 angry. Sir — that you will follow the example he 
 set you in the last act of his life.' 
 
 " ' Then,' said I, ' you accept the proposal ?' 
 
 " ' Most happily. Sir,' said he. ' I tell you I 
 honour his feelings. I had given the whole 
 thing up as lost. I thought he was a hard- 
 hearted and a practised taker-in of credulous 
 men ' 
 
 " ' Sir,' said I, bowing, ' you little knew my 
 poor brother Bob if you thought that. Here, 
 Sir, is the money ; all I ask, as a satisfaction to 
 F 5 
 
106 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 the interesting young creature who survives 
 him, is a receipt in full of all demands as against 
 him.' 
 
 " ' In course, Mr. Daly,' said the upholsterer, 
 taking the notes I proffered. ' Why, la !' ex- 
 claimed he, ' I declare you have got the very 
 ring on, that I have seen a hundred times, with 
 a leetel patent key twisted into the inside, that 
 he used to wear.' 
 
 " ' Yes,' said I, rather taken aback at this ; for 
 with all my cunning I had forgotten to dis-ring 
 my finger for the occasion. *Yes, it was the 
 only thing he left me; and I wear it for his sake.' 
 
 " ' And how well it fits !' said the cabinet- 
 maker. 
 
 " ' Often the case with twins,' said I. ' There 
 are two hundred, three hundred, and fifty, a ten 
 pound note, eight guineas, and five shillings and 
 sixpence ; count it yourself.* 
 
 " « And now,' said he, 'I am to give you a 
 receipt in full ; to be sure I will. But I do wish 
 you would do me one favour, Sir,' continued he; 
 ' I wish you would let my housemaid Becky see 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 107 
 
 you ; she was very fond of your poor brother, 
 and very attentive to him, and I should — I 
 know it is taking a great liberty — I should like 
 her to see you/ 
 
 " ' I should be too happy,* said I, trembling 
 at the apprehension that the girl, who was more 
 than usually civil to me while I lived in the 
 lodgings, should make her appearance, con- 
 vinced that she would not be deceived as to 
 the identity, or believe in the story of two 
 brothers having the same knobs on their noses ; 
 'but don't you think it might shock the poor 
 young woman ?* 
 
 " ' No, no. Sir,' said he, looking over a black 
 leather book for a proper stamp ; ' Becky isn't 
 frightened at trifles ; shall I ring ?* 
 
 " I could not help myself, and Becky was 
 summoned. Luckily, however, she had just 
 stepped out to get something, and satisfied, by 
 the way in which the other servant conveyed 
 the intelligence to her master, that it was not 
 very probable she would soon return, I screwed 
 my courage to the sticking-place, and remained 
 F 6 
 
108 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 until he had written, signed, and delivered my 
 entire acquittance from my whole debt, in con- 
 sideration of the receipt of 368Z. 13s. 6d.; having- 
 secured which, I made my bow and left my 
 upholsterer, not ill pleased with the adventure 
 of the day." 
 
 " Yes, Sir," said I, after I had heard this 
 narrative, " but I see no joke in all this : it 
 appears to me that a person less favourably 
 disposed than myself would find a very diiFerent 
 name for such a proceeding." 
 
 " So would anybody," said my valuable friend, 
 "if it were not for the sequel. A short time 
 after, I had the means to set all right, and lost 
 no time in doing so ; I confessed my ruse to my 
 worthy friend, made him laugh heartily at his 
 own credulity, paid him the difference, and 
 gave Becky a guinea or two." 
 
 I honestly confess, that although my new 
 friend polished off the end of his story with a 
 few retributive facts, the account of his adven- 
 ture with the cabinet-maker did not very much 
 elevate him in my opinion, and I began again 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 109 
 
 to repent of having hastily engaged myself as 
 passenger in his boat, so appropriately, as he 
 himself said, called a " funny." The only con- 
 solation I could afford myself arose from the 
 consideration that our connexion would not be 
 of long duration — that it need never be renewed 
 — that few people, if any, would see me in my 
 way up the river — and that, from all I had heard 
 of him from himself, he did not appear likely to 
 die a watery death, so that my personal safety 
 was rather guaranteed than not, by my having 
 placed myself under his command in our aquatic 
 excursion. 
 
 I had never seen such a man before, nor have 
 I ever seen such a one since : from the time 
 he sat down to dinner till all was done, his 
 tongue never ceased — he was au fait at every- 
 thing — played billiards better than anybody I 
 ever saw — jumped higher — imitated birds and 
 beasts, including men, women, and children more 
 correctly — caught more fish in an hour than all 
 the rest of the punters did in three — sang all 
 sorts of songs — made speeches — and told stories 
 
110 GILBERT GURNEY^ 
 
 of himself which would have made my poor 
 mother's hair stand on end. One of his prac- 
 tical jokes, played off upon one of the ladies of 
 our party, I must set down. She had never 
 been at Richmond before, or if she had, knew 
 none of the little peculiarities attached to it. 
 He desired the waiter to brin^ some " maids of 
 honour" — those cheesecakes for which the place 
 has been time out of mind so celebrated. The 
 lady stared and then laughed ; Daly saw her 
 surprise, and elicited all he wanted — her inno- 
 cent question of " What do you mean by maids 
 of honour ?" " Dear me," said he, " don't you 
 know that this is so courtly a place, and so com- 
 pletely under the influence of state etiquette, 
 that everything in Richmond is called after the 
 functionaries of the palace ? What are called 
 cheesecakes elsewhere, are here called maids of 
 honour ; a capon is a lord chamberlain ; a goose, 
 a lord steward ; a roast pig is a master of the 
 horse ; a pair of ducks, grooms of the bedcham- 
 ber ; and a gooseberry tart, a gentleman usher 
 of the black rod; and so on." 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. Ill 
 
 The unsophisticated lady was taken in ; and 
 with all the confidence which Daly's gravity 
 inspired, when she actually saw the maids of 
 honour make their appearance in the shape of 
 cheesecakes, convulsed the whole party, by 
 turning to the waiter and desiring him, in a 
 sweet but decided tone, to bring her a gentle- 
 man usher of the black rod, if they had one in 
 the house, quite cold. 
 
 These were the sort of plaisanteries (mau- 
 vaises, if you will) in which this most extraor- 
 dinary person indulged. In the sequel, I had 
 occasion to see his versatile powers more profit- 
 ably engaged, and which led me to reflect some- 
 what more seriously upon the adventure of the 
 upholsterer and the receipt in full of all de- 
 mands. 
 
 The dinner was rather inconveniently de- 
 spatched, in order to suit the convenience of 
 the engaged performers, and by seven o'clock 
 my new friend and myself were left to com- 
 mence our voyage up the river. His spirits 
 appeared even higher than they had been be- 
 
11*2 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 fore, and I felt myself, when consigned to his 
 care, something in the same situation as Mr. 
 O'Rourke on the eagle's back: whither I was to 
 be carried by his influence, or how to be dashed 
 down when he got tired of me, 1 could not 
 clearly comprehend; nor were my apprehen- 
 sions of consequences in any satisfactory degree 
 diminished when my perilous companion com- 
 menced a violent wordy attack upon a very 
 respectable round-bodied gentleman who was 
 sitting squeezed into the stern- sheets of a skiff, 
 floating most agreeably to himself adown the 
 stream, the gentle south-west breeze giving the 
 sail of his boat a shape very similar to that of 
 his equally well-filled white dimity waistcoat. 
 
 " Hollo !" cried my friend Daly • " I say, you 
 Sir, what are you doing in that boat ?" 
 
 The suburban Josh maintained a dignified 
 silence. 
 
 " I say, you Sir," continued the undaunted 
 joker, " what are you doing there ? you have 
 no business in that boat, and you know it !" 
 
 A slight yaw of the skiff into the wind's eye 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 113 
 
 was the only proof of the stout navigator's 
 agitation. 
 
 Still Daly was inexorable, and he again called 
 to the unhappy mariner to get out of the boat. 
 "I tell you, my fat friend," cried he, "you 
 have no business in that boat !" 
 
 Flesh and blood could not endure this re- 
 iterated declaration. The ire of the Cockney 
 was roused. " No business in this boat, Sir !" 
 cried he; "what d'ye mean?" 
 
 " I mean what I say," said Daly; " you have 
 no business in it, and I'll prove it." 
 
 " I think. Sir, you will prove no such thing," 
 said the navigator, whose progress through the 
 water was none of the quickest ; " perhaps you 
 don't know, Sir, that this is my own pleasure- 
 boat?" 
 
 " That's it," said Daly, " now you have it — no 
 man can have any business in a pleasure-hodit. 
 Good day. Sir. That's all." 
 
 I confess I was a good deal shocked at this 
 mode of terminating the colloquy. However, 
 no ill consequences arose ; the fat man went his 
 
114 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 way, and so did we, and in a few minutes more 
 embarked in Daly's " pleasure"-boat, in which 
 I felt, according to his dictum, that I had no 
 business whatever. 
 
 Richmond, which seems, every time one sees 
 it, as if it were dressed to look lovely for that 
 particular day, was smiling in all its radiance 
 and gaiety; the velvet meadows of Twickenham, 
 studded with noble trees, looked cooler and 
 greener than ever; and my friend began to 
 perform that incomprehensibly agreeable exer- 
 cise of pulling up against the stream, when all 
 at once a thought seemed to flash upon his 
 mind, and a look of regret sadden his coun- 
 tenance; the expression was too distinct to be 
 mistaken or disregarded. 
 
 " What," said I, " what is the matter? have 
 you left anything behind ?" 
 
 " No," said he, laughing ; " but if I had 
 thought of it, we would not have come away 
 so soon from Richmond; and I would have 
 shown you some sport in Cockney-catching." 
 
 " What do you mean ?" asked innocent I. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 115 
 
 " A trick specially my own," replied Daly, 
 ''to be played with the greatest success between 
 the grounds of Sion and Kew Gardens. Thus ; 
 — In the dusk of the evening — I prescribe 
 scientifically — take a strong line, fix him to 
 a peg in the bank of Sion, carry him across 
 the river, and fix him to another peg in the 
 bank of Kew; strain him tight, and then retire 
 to watch the efi'ect. Tide running down, pre- 
 sently comes a Cockney-couple, the man flirt- 
 ing and pulling, the lady sitting and smiling: 
 when they reach the chosen spot, the tight line 
 catches the Cockney Corydon on the back of 
 his head, and tumbles him forward at the feet 
 of his Phyllis ; in a twinkling, the same effect 
 is produced on the lady, with this single simple 
 difference, that the cord catches her under the 
 chin, and tumbles her backwards. In the confu- 
 sion of the moment, tide ebbing fast, the happy 
 pair are swept down the stream ; and having, 
 after the lapse of few minutes, set themselves 
 to rights again, begin to wonder what has hap- 
 pened, and of course never think of trying back 
 
116 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 against tide to ascertain the cause ; which, how- 
 ever, if they did, would assist them little, for the 
 moment you have caught your Cockneys you cast 
 off the line from the peg, and the cause of the 
 mischief disappears from the sight — prohatum est'* 
 
 " That seems rather a serious joke," said I. 
 
 " Umph ! " replied Daly ; " perhaps you 
 would prefer keeping the line, but for my 
 part I am not particular." 
 
 This he certainly need not have mentioned. 
 Every moment added fresh evidence to the fear- 
 ful fact ; I was yet unprepared for what was to 
 come. 
 
 " I wish," said my friend, as he plied the oar, 
 " that we had stayed a little longer at Rich- 
 mond. I think one more bottle of claret, tete-d- 
 tete, would have been vastly agreeable." 
 
 "I should not have disliked it myself," said I. 
 " Is it impossible to repair the mischief ?— is 
 there no agreeable retreat on these shores, in 
 which we may solace ourselves for our impru- 
 dence ?" 
 
 " No," said my friend : " the Eel-pie House 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 117 
 
 is a wretched hole — the inns at Twickenham are 
 all inland — there is nothing marine short of the 
 Toy, and we are to part long before I reach that 
 much-loved spot" 
 
 " Then," said I, " we must make up our 
 minds to the evil, and bear it as well as we can." 
 
 At this moment we were under the bank of 
 a beautiful garden, upon which opened a spa- 
 cious bow-windowed dinner-room, flanked by an 
 extensive conservatory. Within the circle of 
 the window was placed a table, whereon stood 
 bottles and decanters, rising, as it were, from 
 amidst a cornucopia of the choicest fruits. 
 Around this table were seated a highly respect- 
 able family ; a portly gentleman, whose cheeks 
 and chin gave ample evidence that such refec- 
 tions were "his custom always in the afternoon," 
 and near him a lady, evidently his better, if not 
 his larger half — on either side bloomed two 
 young creatures, unquestionably the daughters 
 of the well-fed pair. Our appearance, although 
 the lawn was some twenty or thirty yards in 
 depth, had caught their attention, as their re- 
 
118 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 spective forms and figures had attracted our 
 notice. 
 
 " There," said I, " this scene is exhibited to 
 us by our evil genius, to tantalize us with the 
 prospect we may not enjoy." 
 
 " You are wrong," said Daly, " quite wrong 
 — be quiet — beautiful girls, cool wine, and 
 agreeable society, are worth making a dash for. 
 Those girls will we become acquainted with — 
 that society will we join — those wines will we 
 imbibe." 
 
 " Do you know them ?" said I. 
 
 " Never saw them by any chance in my life," 
 said Daly ; *' but here goes — the thing is settled 
 — arranged — done. Have you a pocket-book 
 and a pencil about you? if you have, lend 
 them to me; say nothing, and I will manage 
 the rest. Assent to all I assert, and stay in the 
 boat till we are invited to partake of the colla- 
 tion." 
 
 " But, my dear Sir," said I 
 
 " Mum," said Daly, at the same moment 
 pulling the head of his funny " chock block," 
 
 15 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 119 
 
 as the sailors say, into the bank of the garden, 
 upon whose velvet surface he jumped with the 
 activity of an opera-dancer. I sat in amaze- 
 ment, doubting what he was about to do, and 
 what I should do myself. The first thing I saw, 
 was my friend pacing in measured steps along 
 the front of the terrace. He then affected to 
 write down something in my book — then he 
 stopped — raised his hand to his eyes, as if to 
 make an horizon in order to obtain a level — 
 then noted something more — and then began to 
 pace the ground afresh. 
 
 " Bring the staff out of the boat," said he to 
 me, with an air of command, which was so 
 extremely well assumed that I scarcely knew 
 whether he were in joke or in earnest. I 
 obeyed and landed with the staff. Without any 
 further ceremony, he stuck the pole into the 
 lawn, a measure which, as he whispered to me, 
 while in the act of taking it, he felt assured 
 would bring things to a crisis. 
 
 Sure enough, after a certain ringing of the 
 dinner-room bell, which we heard, and which 
 
120 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 conveyed to Daly's mind a conviction that he 
 had created a sensation, a butler, hien poudre, in 
 a blue coat, white waistcoat, and black et ceteras, 
 followed at a properly-graduated distance by a 
 strapping footman, in a blue and scarlet livery, 
 were seen approaching. I thought the next 
 step would be our sudden and unceremonious 
 expulsion from the Eden we had trespassed 
 upon — not so my friend, who continued pacing, 
 and measuring, and "jotting down," until the 
 minister for the home department was at his 
 elbow. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, gentlemen," said the 
 butler, " but — my master's compliments, begs 
 to know what your pleasure here is — it is not 
 usual for strangers to land — and 
 
 " Exactly like the man in the boat. Sir," 
 said Daly, " only quite the reverse. I am not 
 here for pleasure — business calls me here — 
 duty. Sir — duty. Here, Mr. Higgins, carry 
 the staff to that stump." 
 
 These words were addressed to me, and I, 
 completely infatuated — fascinated, like the bird 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 121 
 
 by the rattle-snake — did as I was told, not 
 daring to rebel, lest a denouement might ensue, 
 which would eclater in our being jointly and 
 severally kicked into the river, in which case, 
 from the very little, or rather the very great deal, 
 which I had seen of my companion during our 
 short acquaintance, I felt perfectly certain that 
 / should sink, and he would swim, and that 
 while I was floundering in all the agonies of 
 ignominy and disgrace, he would be capering 
 and flourishing with the two pretty girls in the 
 dining-room, laying all the blame of the affair 
 upon my most incompetent shoulders, and 
 cracking his jokes upon the tyro who had so 
 blunderingly botched the business. 
 
 The butler, who found that he made very 
 little impression upon Daly, seemed inclined 
 to come at me, which, as I had not the slightest 
 idea of the game my companion was playing, 
 nor the faintest notion what he expected to 
 be the result, alarmed me considerably. Daly 
 was too much on the alert however, to permit 
 me to be cross-questioned. 
 
 VOL. I. G 
 
122 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 " Sir," said lie to the butler, " present my 
 compliments to your master, and make my hum- 
 ble apologies for the liberty I am obliged to 
 take. I am the acting Deputy Assistant Sur- 
 veyor of the Grand Junction Paddington Canal 
 Company, and an Act of Parliament is just 
 about to be applied for, to construct and cut a 
 branch from the basin at Brentford, into the 
 river Thames, near this point. A great deal 
 depends upon my decision as to the line it will 
 take, and I should not have ventured to land 
 without apprizing your master of my business, 
 but that no time is to be lost, inasmuch as my 
 plan for the cut must be ready for the committee 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " Cut a canal through my master's grounds, 
 Sir ?" said the butler. 
 
 " Right through," said Daly, poking the fore- 
 finger of his right hand very nearly into the 
 butler's left eye ; " and what I am now so par- 
 ticular about is, I am most anxious that the line 
 should not take down the corner of the conser- 
 vatory." 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 123 
 
 "Dear me, Sir," said the man, " my mistress 
 would go mad at the very thought of such a 
 thing. Will you just wait, Sir, while I speak 
 to Sir Timothy?" 
 
 " Certainly," said he " and assure him — 
 assure Sir Timothy — that I will do all I can to 
 preserve the elevation of his mansion ; for, as it 
 all depends upon my opinion, I shall of course 
 be extremely scrupulous how I decide." 
 
 " I am sure. Sir," said the astounded and 
 mollified butler, " Sir Timothy will be greatly 
 obliged to you. I'll be back directly. Sir." 
 
 Saying which the butler returned to the 
 house, and giving a significant look to the strap- 
 ping footman, with the grenadier shoulders and 
 balustrade legs, which seemed to imply that he 
 need not kick us into the water till he had con- 
 sulted his master, the fellow followed him, which 
 aflforded me an opportunity of asking my vola- 
 tile friend what the deuce he was at. 
 
 " Leave me alone," said he — 
 
 * Women and wine compare so well, 
 They run in a perfect parallel' 
 
 G 2 
 
1*24 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 1 am the Company's acting Deputy Assistant 
 Surveyor, and having surveyed this company, I 
 mean to be made a participator in those good 
 things of which they seem to be in full possession . 
 Yes, Mr. Gurney, as King Arthur says — 
 
 * It is our royal will and pleasure to be drunk, 
 And this, our friend, shall be as drunk as we.' 
 
 Who knows but we may make an agreeable and 
 permanent acquaintance with this interesting 
 family !" 
 
 ." But," said I, " you don't even know their 
 name." 
 
 " You are in error," replied Daly, " the man's 
 name is known to me." 
 
 " Then perhaps you are known to him" 
 said I. 
 
 " That is a ?ion seqiiitur," said Daly ; " I 
 knew nothing of him before I landed here — 
 now I am aufait — my friend in the powder and 
 sticking-plasters calls his master Sir Timothy. 
 There are hundreds of Sir Timothies ; but what 
 do I do upon hearing this little distinctive appel- 
 lation, but glance my eye to the livery button of 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 125 
 
 the lacquey — and what do I see there? a ser- 
 pent issuing from and piercing a garb or gerb. 
 The crest is unique — ergo, my new acquaint- 
 ance is neither more nor less than Sir Timothy 
 Dod." 
 
 " Why," said I, " you are, like myself, a bit 
 of a herald, too !" 
 
 " Exactly," replied Daly, " in my composi- 
 tion are 
 
 ' Arts with arms contending,' 
 
 I am a bit of everything; but somehow all 
 my accomplishments are so jumbled, and each 
 is so minute in itself, that they are patched 
 together in my mind like the squares of a har- 
 lequin's jacket, only to make their master ridi- 
 culous. Here, however, comes Sir Timothy 
 himself. You are my clerk — keep the staif and 
 the joke up, and you shall be repaid with some 
 of Tim's very best Lafitte, or I'm an ass." 
 
 " Good day. Sir," said Sir Timothy, some- 
 what warmed with the intelligence given him 
 by the butler, and the exertion of trotting him- 
 g3 
 
]'26 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 self across his lawn. " My servant tells me 
 that you are here for the purpose of deciding 
 upon the line of some new branch of the Pad- 
 dington Canal ; — it is very extraordinary I never 
 should have heard of it !" 
 
 " You ought, Sir Timothy," said Daly, " to 
 have been apprised of it. Do you understand 
 much of ground-plans. Sir Timothy ?" 
 
 " No, Sir; very little indeed," replied the 
 worthy Knight. 
 
 " So much the better," I heard Daly dis- 
 tinctly say, for he could not resist an impulse. 
 " If you will just cast your eye over this paper, 
 I will endeavour to explain. Sir. A, there you 
 see ; — A is your house, Sir Timothy ; B is the 
 conservatory ; C is the river, — that perhaps you 
 will think strange ?" 
 
 " No, Sir," said Sir Timothy, " not at all." 
 
 " Then, Sir, D, E, F, and G are the points, 
 from which I take the direct line from the bridge 
 at Brentford; and thus you perceive, by con- 
 tinuing that line to the corner of Twickenham 
 churchyard, where the embouchure is to be " 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 127 
 
 « The what, Sir?" said Sir Timothy. 
 
 " The mouth, Sir, — the entrance to the new 
 branch, the canal will clip your conservatory 
 diagonally to the extent of about eighteen feet 
 six inches, and leave it deprived of its original 
 dimensions somewhat in the shape of a cocked- 
 hat box. You see — so, Sir, — H, I, K." 
 
 " I give you my honour. Sir," said Sir 
 Timothy, " such a thing would drive Lady Dod 
 mad !» 
 
 " I admit it would be a dreadful cut," said 
 Daly ; " and then the noise of the bargemen, 
 and the barge-horses close under the windows, 
 — clanking chains, — horrible oaths, — disgusting 
 language " 
 
 " My daughters' bed-rooms are at that end of 
 the house," said Sir Timothy. " What am I to 
 do Sir ? What interest can I make ? Are the 
 magistrates — are the " 
 
 " No, Sir," said Daly, with a face of the most 
 imperturbable gravity ; "all that would be per- 
 fectly unavailing. The decision as to the line 
 rests entirely with me ; and, as I said to Mr. 
 g4 
 
It28 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 Higgins, my assistant, — Higgins," continued 
 he, calling me to him, "let me present you to 
 Sir Timothy Dod, — I said to Higgins, what a 
 pity it would be to disturb the Dods, — what a 
 cut at their comforts ; — it goes against my heart 
 to send in the plan, but the line is so decidedly 
 the shortest. ' Ah, Sir !' says Higgins to me, 
 with a deep sigh, ' I assure you, — " but do con- 
 sider the conservatory.' " 
 
 " Fm sure. Sir," said Sir Timothy, extending 
 his hand to me, " I feel very grateful for your 
 kindness. It would indeed be a sad thing ; and 
 must the decision be made so soon ?" 
 
 " Immediately, Sir," said Daly : " but we are 
 keeping you out here in the open air without 
 your hat. I am afraid. Sir, you may catch 
 cold." 
 
 " Oh, no. Sir," said Sir Timothy ; "don't mind 
 that. Perhaps, gentlemen, you would do me 
 the kindness to walk in. The servants shall take 
 care of your boat. I will introduce you to Lady 
 Dod, she must try what her influence can effect, 
 and I am sure you have the disposition to serve 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 129 
 
 US. Here, Philip, James, George, some of you, 
 come and make this boat fast, and stay down by 
 her while the gentlemen stop. Let me show 
 you the way, gentlemen." 
 
 I never shall forget the look which Daly gave 
 me as we followed the respectable knight to his 
 lady and family, — the triumphant chuckle of his 
 countenance, the daring laugh in his eyes; while ^ 
 I, who only saw in the success of the design the 
 beginning of a signal defeat, scarce knew whe- 
 ther I was walking on my head or my heels : re- 
 sistance or remonstrance was equally vain under 
 the circumstances, and in a few minutes we 
 found ourselves in the presence of Lady Dod 
 and her daughters, breathing an atmosphere 
 redolent with the fumes of the departed dinner, 
 and the still remaining fruit and wine. I never 
 was so abashed in my life. My friend, on the 
 contrary, seemed perfectly at home; and, placing 
 himself beside her Ladyship, made a sign for 
 me to occupy a vacant seat between the young 
 ladies. Never did 1 see two more lovely girls. 
 It has frequently been a serious matter of 
 
130 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 deliberation with me, whether it is more advan- 
 tageous to be next neighbour, or vis-d-vis, to an 
 object of attraction, such as either of these 
 charming creatures was. I sat between them, as 
 Garrick stands between Tragedy and Comedy, 
 in the profane theatrical monument which some 
 superannuated or careless Dean of other days 
 has permitted to disgrace and desecrate the 
 wails of Westminster Abbey. Augusta Dod 
 was a brunette, with a countenance fall of ex- 
 pression and intelligence. Fanny Dod a blonde, 
 with melting blue eyes, and a pair of lips that, 
 spite of my feigned occupation, I could not help 
 gazing at in a manner of which I believe 1 
 ought to have been very much ashamed. The 
 young witches soon saw the effect of their fasci- 
 nation, and I could perceive in the sparkle of 
 Augusta's brilliant orbs, and the intellectual, 
 but saucy expression of her playful mouth, that 
 they triumphed in " astonishing a native," even 
 in the shape of an acting deputy assistant 
 surveyor's clerk. 
 
 The courtesy of Sir Timothy, the sweetness 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 131 
 
 of my Lady, and the constrained fun of the 
 girls, were, I admit, when I recovered my com- 
 posure in some degree, a great treat; while 
 Daly, *' helping himself and passing the bottle " 
 to me, kept up a fire of conversation, which, if 
 the senior Dods had known anything of the 
 world, would have convinced them in ten minutes 
 that the part of acting deputy assistant measurer 
 was an assumed one. It certainly was a sight 
 to see the respectable lady of the house pleading 
 the cause of her conservatory, and piling the 
 choicest fruits upon the plate of the arbiter of 
 her destinies, while Fanny's civilities to me were 
 displayed with equal zeal and far superior grace. 
 I would have given the world to have owned 
 the truth; and I am sure, if we had done so, 
 we should not have been the worse received; 
 for, independently of the excellence of the joke 
 and the impudence of the proceeding, the relief 
 which would have been afforded to the minds of 
 the whole Doddery would have ensured us their 
 eternal favour and affection. 
 
 Daly having finished the claret, and taken a 
 G 6 
 
13*2 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 last " stopper over all,' (as tlie sailors say), of 
 sherry, gave me the signal for departure. I, too 
 gladly took the hint, and drew back my chair. 
 Fanny looked as if she thought we were in a 
 hurry; however, it was getting late, and my 
 master had some distance to pull. We accord- 
 ingly rose and prepared to take leave. I bowed 
 my adieu to the girls, and shook hands with 
 Fanny, at which I saw Augusta toss back 
 her head and throw up her sparkling ej^es, as 
 much as to say, " Well, Fanny !" meaning ex- 
 actly the reverse. I bowed low to my Lady 
 Dod, and Sir Timothy attended us to our boat. 
 I stepped in; Daly was at the bow; Sir Ti- 
 mothy desired the man who had been left in 
 charge of the funny to go away; and then I 
 saw, with doubt and trepidation, the respectable 
 dupe of Daly's consummate impudence shake 
 him by the hand with a peculiarity of manner 
 which particularly attracted my attention. I saw 
 him in the execution of this manoeuvre press 
 upon his palm a bank-note, with a flourish in the 
 corner like the top of a raspberry tartlet. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 133 
 
 I never was more agitated. If Daly took this 
 bribe for saving the corner of the conservatory- 
 it was an act of swindling. The strawberries, 
 grapes, and claret, were fit matters of joke, 
 although I admit it was carrying the joke a little 
 too far ; but money, — if he took that, I was re- 
 solved to avow the whole affair to Sir Timothy, 
 show up my companion, and leave him to the 
 fate he deserved. Judge my mingled delight 
 and horror when I heard him say, — 
 
 " Sir ! what I have done in your house or in 
 your society to induce you to believe me capa- 
 ble of taking a bribe to compromise my duty, I 
 really don't know. Mr. Higgins, I call you to 
 witness that this person has had the insolence 
 to put a fifty-pound bank-note into my hand. 
 Witness, too, the manner in which I throw it 
 back to him." Here he suited the word to the 
 action. "Learn;, old gentleman," continued he, 
 with an anger so well feigned that I almost 
 believed him in earnest, " that neither fifty nor 
 fifty thousand pounds will warp an honest man 
 from the duty he owes to his employers ; and so, 
 
134 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 Sir, good night, and rely upon it, your conser- 
 vatory goes, — rely upon it, Sir Timothy; — It 
 comes in the right line, and the short line, and 
 down it goes — and I feel it incumbent on me 
 not only to tell the history of your petty bribe, 
 but to prove my unimpeachable integrity by 
 running the canal right under your dining-room 
 windows; and so. Sir, good night." 
 
 Saying which he jumped into the boat, and 
 pulling aw^ay manfully, left his unfortunate vic- 
 tim in all the horrors of defeated corruption, and 
 the certainty of the destruction of his most fa- 
 vourite object, for the preservation of which 
 he had actually crammed his betrayers, and 
 committed himself to a perfect stranger. 
 
 I confess I regretted the termination of this 
 adventure as much as I had apprehended its 
 consequences in the beginning ; however, Daly 
 swore that it was right to leave the old gentle- 
 man in an agony of suspense for having enter- 
 tained so mean an idea of his honour and 
 honesty. 
 
 The thing seemed all like a dream, but 
 15 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 135 
 
 I found myself awake when Daly ran the 
 narrow nose of his boat into the nook at 
 Teddington Church, where I landed ; and hav- 
 ing shaken my extraordinary friend by the 
 hand, proceeded to my mother's villa, while 
 he continued his pull up to Hampton Court, at 
 which place, as he told me, he had been stay- 
 ing a few days, and intended to remain two or 
 three more. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The voyager long pent up within the "wood- 
 en walls" of a ship, feels a sensation upon once 
 again walking the "lean earth," which cannot 
 be adequately described to one who has not 
 experienced it. I confess, although the nature 
 of the effect produced upon me when I stepped 
 from Mr. Daly's " funny" w^as of course per- 
 fectly different in its character, yet as far as the 
 relief afforded me, it was almost equally pleasur- 
 able. It seemed to me that I had escaped from 
 some incarnate fiend, whose whole existence 
 was devoted to what he called fun, but which I 
 could not but consider absolute and unqualified 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 137 
 
 mischief; and as I walked onwards to my 
 mother's villa, I seriously revolved the events of 
 the day in my mind, at the same time forming 
 a resolution never again to subject myself to the 
 domination of a practical joker, although my 
 new friend had given me a pressing invitation 
 to visit him at Hampton Court, where he had 
 so recently established himself, and of which 
 sedate and aristocratic neighbourhood he would, 
 as I suspected, soon become, even by his own 
 showing, the terror and affright. 
 
 It was a beautiful eveninc^ when I reached 
 the gate of Mrs. Gurney's cottage, the mere 
 sight of which recalled all the misfortunes of 
 the previous night to my mind. The striking 
 contrast afforded by the quiet aspect of the villa, 
 the well-mown lawn, the gently waving trees, 
 and the gay beds of flowers, to that of the house 
 in which I iiad been but twenty-four hours be- 
 fore eternally disgraced as a dramatist, went to 
 my heart ; while the parterre, full of roses, and 
 pinks, and geraniums, gently bowing their heads 
 and smelling sweetly, exhibited so refreshing a 
 
138 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 " reverse " to the parterre of the Haymarket, 
 with its " greasy citizens." and yelling appren- 
 tices, that all my regrets burst upon me in a 
 flood of remorse and sorrow, and found utter- 
 ance in one exclamation of " how could I be 
 such a fool !" 
 
 It was however necessary that I should sum- 
 mon all my resolution to bear the reproaches 
 with which I knew I was destined to be assailed, 
 if the news of my exposure had preceded me. 
 In vain I hoped that my respectable parent 
 might not have seen a newspaper, for I recol- 
 lected that my servant, although not entirely 
 informed of my share in the entertainment of 
 the preceding evening, had made himself master 
 of so much of my secret as would serve to en- 
 lighten Mrs. Sadler, my mother's maid, of whose 
 disposition to find out whatever he was unable 
 to explain, I had no doubt; once the clue given, 
 and the train lighted, the explosion was a mat- 
 ter of certainty. 
 
 Full of contending feelings, somewhat exci- 
 ted by the rapid consumption of Sir Timothy's 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 139 
 
 claret and sherry, I entered the cottage, and 
 found, as I had anticipated, my excellent parent 
 seated at tea, opposite to her never-failing friend 
 and companion. Crab. 
 
 "Dear child," said my excellent parent, — 
 and she would have called me child had she 
 lived till I was forty, — " what on earth has 
 kept you at Richmond so late? Have you 
 dined ? or ." 
 
 "Dined? hours ago," replied I, rather too 
 hastily, considering it to have been my inten- 
 tion not to confess the company in which I had 
 passed the day. 
 
 " Theatricals again, Gilbert !" said my mo- 
 ther, with a sigh. 
 
 How the deuce did she know that? 
 
 " You were coming here to pass the day, but 
 the fascination of those syrens of the stage was 
 irresistible — we waited dinner nearly an hour 
 for you." 
 
 " More, Ma'am," said Miss Crab : " the 
 lamb was stone cold, and the fish boiled to 
 pieces." 
 
140 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 " I am extremely sorry," said I, " but I told 
 William that I should not be here until the 
 evening." 
 
 " He misunderstood you then," said my 
 mother ; " not that I should have waited at all 
 if I had known who were your associates. I am 
 quite aware of the attractions of such society." 
 
 My mother was evidently vexed, and know- 
 ing as little of the qualities or accomplishments 
 of my fair friends at Richmond, as she did of 
 the syrens to whom she likened them, imagined 
 them, as I believe, to be something quite as 
 extraordinary as the well- fledged daughters of 
 Achelous ; and no doubt transformed the ayte 
 opposite Mrs. Forty's excellent inn into the 
 little Sicilian island which the classical leash of 
 ornithological beauties occupied in other times. 
 If I could have explained the real cause of 
 my late arrival it would have all been extremely 
 well, but I would not for the world have ventured 
 to confess to my most exemplary parent, more 
 especially in the presence of the fair vinaigrette 
 " she loved so much," the adventure at Twick- 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 141 
 
 enham. 1 therefore resolved upon bowing my 
 head to the coming storm, and without attempt- 
 ing to vindicate the character or qualities of my 
 merry -hearted companions at the Castle, endea- 
 vourins: to soothe the ladies with an humble 
 apology. 
 
 As for my mother, with great shrewdness and 
 knowledo-e of the world, she blended a remark- 
 ably sweet temper, but her constant association 
 with Miss Crab appeared to me latterly to have 
 somewhat acidulated her character. This offi- 
 cious aide-de-camp was always ready to throw 
 in. the sours; and from having arrived at the 
 unmentionable age of fifty- six, without having 
 changed her state of single-unblessedness, all 
 tlie kindness of her nature had curdled, and, as 
 people say, every thing went wrong with her — 
 couleur cle rose was a tint unknown to her eyes 
 — every thing was jaundiced — she was full of 
 jealousy, without one grain of love to compen- 
 sate for her failing ; and to her influence, more 
 than anything else, I attributed my mother's 
 apparent ill-humour upon the present occasion. 
 
142 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 " Will you have some coffee, Gilbert ?" said 
 my mother. 
 
 " None, I thank you," said I. 
 
 " Some tea ?" 
 
 « None." 
 
 " Oh dear, no," said Miss Crab, " dissipated 
 people never drink Such weak liquors as tea 
 or coffee." 
 
 " You seem," said I, " to have formed a very 
 unfavourable and somewhat erroneous opinion 
 of my character, Miss Crab ; I am not conscious 
 of having deserved to be called dissipated, nor 
 do I know that I have either denounced tea 
 or renounced coffee." 
 
 " I am sure I don't know," said the lady, 
 " but this I do know, that actors, and actresses 
 too, are invariably drunkards, profaners, and 
 Sabbath-breakers. When I was a few years 
 younger, and secretary to a very well-conduct- 
 ed Vice- suppression Society at Peckham, we 
 actually ascertained that a man of the name of 
 Pluggs, the husband of an exemplary and ill- 
 treated laundress of that place, was known to 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 143 
 
 have gone on the evening of the Sabbath to 
 Covent-garden playhouse to which he belonged, 
 and put on a pair of feather trowsers and a 
 wooden nose, in order to rehearse the part of 
 a goose which he had to act in a pantomime, 
 the next niorht." 
 
 " Well," said I, " at all events he had the 
 excuse of his poverty for making himself a goose, 
 which the coterie who criticised him had not .^'' 
 
 " Oh, I quite agree with Miss Crab," said 
 my mother, " there is no defending the thing ; 
 and joking with serious subjects is extremely 
 offensive." 
 
 I found the odds were against me. I there- 
 fore made no reply, satisfied at all events that 
 the intelligence of my defeat as a dramatist had 
 not yet reached Teddington. 
 
 " I hope," said my mother, " that you are 
 come to stay with us for two or three days ?" 
 
 «^ Not he. Ma'am," said Miss Crab. 
 
 I could almost have found it in my heart to 
 declare my intention of stopping a fortnight, 
 merely to vex her. 
 
144 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 " I have no engagement in town," said I. 
 
 " Well, then, Miss Crab," said my mother, 
 " I think we may let him into our scheme." 
 
 " Probably." 
 
 " What," said I, " a plot against me?" 
 
 " A plot for your happiness," said my mother. 
 " If you will but attend to us " 
 
 " I have no hope of that" said Miss Crab. 
 
 " What is it?" said I ; "an immediate voyage 
 to India, or a fresh touch at the law ?" 
 
 " Neither Gilbert," said my mother ; " but 
 much more agreeable than cither." " Miss Crab 
 and I have seen — haven't we, Miss Crab?" 
 
 " I think we have," replied Miss Crab. 
 
 " Such a charming girl," said my mother. 
 
 " Two," cried her friend. 
 
 " Yes, but the younger one is my favourite," 
 said Mrs. Gurney ; she is so gentle, so mild, so 
 amiable, so pretty, and so good !" 
 
 « Well," said I, " and what then?" 
 
 " Oh, Ma'am," said Miss Crab, " its all of 
 no use talking to Gilbert about such sort of 
 people. A young gentleman who spends his 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 145 
 
 time with actresses has no taste — can have no 
 taste — for the gentler attributes of women, nor 
 appreciate the qualities which, in well-regulated 
 society, render their influence so powerful and 
 beneficial." 
 
 "I don't know that, Miss Crab," said my 
 mother ; " I don't think he is yet irredeemable, 
 and I am quite sure if anything could draw him 
 back into the right path the charms of our dear 
 Fanny " 
 
 " Oh !" said I, " a pretty girl is what you 
 prescribe as a sedative." 
 
 " As an alterative, Mr. Gilbert," said Miss 
 Crab. 
 
 " But you don't seriously mean," said I, " that 
 I should turn Benedick before I have arrived at 
 years of discretion ?" 
 
 " I am an advocate of early marriages," said 
 my mother. 
 
 " So am I," said Miss Crab (cetat. 56), draw- 
 ing a sigh as long as the thread with which she 
 was working. 
 
 VOL. I. H 
 
146 GTL^EKT GURNEY. 
 
 " And who may this paragon of perfection 
 be?" said I. 
 
 " A neighbour of ours," said my mother ; 
 " there are two sisters, both delightful persons ; 
 but Fanny — is to me quite charming." 
 
 " We must not say too much about them," 
 said Miss Crab, "or Gilbert will be disap- 
 pointed ; nor will we tell him which is Fanny, 
 and which her sister — he shall judge for himself. 
 All we have to observe Mr. Gilbert," continued 
 Miss Crab, "is that they have fifty thousand 
 pounds apiece." 
 
 " Equal then in that respect," said I ; " and 
 when shall I see these fair creatures ?" 
 
 " They are coming to me, to-morrow," said 
 my mother; "so that you will not have long to 
 wait before you may gratify your curiosity." 
 
 " And what may their name be?" I inquired. 
 
 "The name is not euphonic," answered my 
 mother. 
 
 "The stronger the reason for changing it," 
 said I. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 147 
 
 " Try that scheme," said my anxious parent ; 
 " at present they rejoice in the monosyllabic 
 patronymic of Dod." 
 
 " Dod !" exclaimed I. 
 
 " Dod," said my mother. 
 
 « Dod," said Miss Crab. 
 
 " What," said I, " daughters of Sir Timothy 
 Dod, of Twickenham ?" 
 
 " The same," said Mrs, Gurney ; " do you 
 know them ?" 
 
 What was I to say? I did know them, and I did 
 not know them — I had sat between them an hour 
 before — drank wine with them — shaken hands 
 with one of them — but under what circumstan- 
 ces? I felt justified in saying " No." Itwas truth 
 to a certain extent, and if I had attempted to 
 give the entire truth, and nothing but the truth, 
 it would have involved me in the confession of 
 an adventure, of which, though, I had escaped 
 with a whole skin, I was by no means proud. 
 
 " They live," said my mother, " in that large 
 house on the banks of the river, with the fine 
 conservatory." 
 
 H 2 
 
148 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 Yes, thought I, that conservatory which is to 
 come down, to make room for a branch of the 
 Paddington Canal. 
 
 " Lady Dod is a great botanist," continued my 
 dear unconscious mother ; " and Fanny " 
 
 " Is a great beauty," interrupted Miss Crab ; 
 "a leetel on one side I think, but thafs not to 
 be wondered at; I remember hearing Sir 
 Everard Home say that nine women out of ten 
 were more or less so." 
 
 " Well," said my mother, " let Gilbert judge 
 for himself; Fanny seems to me to be the most 
 likeable and loveable person I ever saw." 
 
 " Is Fanny the one with the beautiful hair ?" 
 said I, like a fool. 
 
 " Yes," said my mother. 
 
 " Why, la," said Miss Crab, laying down her 
 work, and looking me full in the face over the 
 candle ; ^' how do you know anything about her 
 beautiful hair, if you know nothing of the girls ?" 
 
 " Me," said I ; " why you talked about her 
 beautiful hair yourself;" not that she had, but 
 luckily for me, the confident manner in which I 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 149 
 
 made the assertion, induced her to believe she 
 had, and she was for the moment satisfied. 
 
 To me this aiFair was in the highest degree 
 perplexing. The girls were charming — the 
 opportunity of making their acquaintance fa- 
 vourable and inviting. Although my heart 
 even then was, perhaps, not mine to give, and 
 love altogether out of the question, still, their 
 society would have made the shades of Ted- 
 dington, Elysium ; and here was I, driven by 
 the rash imprudence of my slight acquaintance, 
 Daly, to fly them, to shun them, and to decamp 
 on their approach, not only to the detriment of 
 my own happiness, but to the vexation of my 
 anxious parent, whose whole heart was ardently 
 set upon making a partie^ and who would attri- 
 bute my flight from the maternal roof to a 
 distaste for the pleasing calm of retirement, or 
 to an addiction to grosser pleasures and less 
 refined pursuits; and yet, what was to be done? 
 the moment they saw me they would of course 
 recognize in the son of their much-respected 
 neighbour the obsequious Higgins, measuring 
 H 3 
 
150 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 clerk to the deputy assistant surveyor of the 
 Paddington Canal Company. If our expedition 
 and invasion of Sir Timothy's lawn and house 
 had ended civilly, I should have had little 
 scruple in admitting the joke, deprecating the 
 anger of the young ladies, and trusting to their 
 love of fun for pardon ; but as the catastrophe 
 was any thing but agreeable to their venerable 
 papa, and as that worthy gentleman had fallen 
 under the lash of Mr. Daly's practical satire, I 
 did not see the possibility of patching up any- 
 thing like peace. The denouement was not to 
 be risked; I therefore, contented myself with 
 listening to the praises of the beautiful sisters, 
 and expressing the great pleasure I should have 
 in making their acquaintance, at the same time, 
 resolving in my own mind to be up with the 
 lark, and in London to breakfast. 
 
 In those days of ingenuousness, I was not 
 able, even though I might have wished it, 
 to conceal the real feelings by which I was 
 affected, although, as in this instance, their 
 workings might be frequently misinterpreted. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 151 
 
 My mother exchanged a look with Miss Crab 
 which I perfectly understood: it conveyed to 
 me at once the certainty that my excellent 
 parent was satisfied that something was wrong; 
 and as by the perpetual counsellings of her 
 her companion, she had made up her mind 
 that I was going in a hand-canter — or perhaps, 
 I should rather say by the stage — on the 
 road to ruin, it was evident that the dear 
 soul attributed to some prior engagement the 
 cold and uncomfortable manner in which I 
 responded to the beautiful inspirations about a 
 lovely girl and fifty thousand pounds. Little 
 did they think what my real feelings were — how 
 much shame I felt at Daly's pranks, and what 
 regret I experienced that I could not venture to 
 meet the two. dear victims of his most unjusti- 
 fiable frolic. However, my miseries were only 
 beginning; for just as I had listened my com- 
 panions into a calm, and heard a detail of all 
 the perfections of the two Miss Dods, in walked 
 the footman, and going up to my mother, said, 
 H 4 
 
152 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 " Miss MarshalFs compliments, Ma'am, she 
 lias sent you the newspaper ;" at the same mo- 
 ment placing in her hands the " Morning Post" 
 of the day. 
 
 My mother made her acknowledgments, and 
 I endeavoured to avail myself of the opportunity 
 of being very civil and offered to read it to her. 
 I saw it was not the paper I had seen in the 
 morning, and anticipated some more dreadful 
 criticisms upon my unhappy farce — but no — my 
 mother declared that she could not endure to 
 hear the newspaper read, and that she would look 
 at it herself; saying which, she forthwith pro- 
 ceeded to read the births, deaths, and marriages, 
 and one or two advertisements about bonnets and 
 caps, and then, having turned with cordial and 
 candid disgust from some long article upon the 
 state of affairs in general, she threw the popular 
 journal upon the table, and resumed her work. 
 
 Miss Crab — always active — immediately took 
 it up, and began in an audible voice to do that 
 which my respected parent had just declared 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 153 
 
 she disliked so much, and doled out, with a sort 
 of melancholy twang, sundry pieces of much 
 important intelligence : e. g. 
 
 " Captain and Mrs. Hobkirk arrived on 
 Tuesday at the Bath Hotel, Piccadilly, from 
 Cheltenham. 
 
 " We understand that Sir Robert Hitchcock 
 is expected next Tuesday at his house in Cur- 
 zon-street. May-fair. 
 
 " We are requested to contradict the report 
 of Miss Hall's approaching marriage with Mr. 
 Wetherspoon. It originated in the malicious 
 contrivance of a person who will not long remain 
 concealed. 
 
 " The wind in Hyde Park yesterday was 
 uncommonly high; the equestrians, however, 
 mustered strongly. Amongst the most striking 
 equipages we noticed the new carriage of Lady 
 Ann Stiifkey, built by Chamberlain and Co., 
 Liquorpond-street, Gray's Inn-lane. 
 
 " Mrs. Huffy Buggins entertained a select 
 party at dinner yesterday, at her house in Port- 
 man-square; among the company we noticed 
 H 5 
 
154 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 Lord Daudle, the Riglit Honourable John 
 Gumdum and Mrs. Gumdum, Sir Anthony 
 Bumpus and Lady, Mr. Gardner, Mr. Hogg, 
 and Mr. Dilbury Maggenton. 
 
 " Pink is the prevailing colour for the sea- 
 son; we observed in Kensington Gardens last 
 Sunday a bonnet peculiarly becoming; it did 
 not require a second glance to know that it was 
 of the fahrique of Madame Boss Tickner, of 
 Hanover-street. 
 
 " An event has occurred in a certain noble 
 family, not a hundred miles from Berkeley- 
 square, which will cause some employment for 
 the gentlemen of the long robe. 
 
 " Epigram. 
 
 " It seems as if nature had curiously plann'd, 
 
 That men's names with their trades should agree, 
 There's Twining the Tea-man, who lives in the Strand, 
 Would be whining if robb'd of his T. 
 
 " On the Latin Gerunds. 
 
 " When Dido's spouse to Dido would not come, 
 She mourn'd in silence, and was Di, Do, Dumb !" 
 
 All these witticisms, and truisms, and follies, 
 and platitudes, I patiently bore; they fell upon 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 155 
 
 my tympanum, from Miss Crab's lips, as might 
 the sound of wind down the chimney, for I was 
 completely absorbed in the regret I felt at the 
 absolute necessity which existed for my avoid- 
 ing the girls, with whom an acquaintance would 
 have been so particularly agreeable; but my 
 abstraction was very speedily ended, and my 
 heart set beating, by hearing Miss Crab, in a 
 somewhat louder tone than usual, twang out the 
 following : — 
 
 " Theatre. 
 
 " Last night afforded us the opportunity of 
 witnessing the justly-merited condemnation of 
 one of the most contemptible attempts at a 
 farce, with which the manager of a play-house 
 ever ventured to insult the public. From the 
 moment the curtain rose, until it fell amidst the 
 yells of a disgusted audience, we could not detect 
 one line or word calculated to moderate the 
 disapprobation with which the thing was re- 
 ceived. The incidents — if incidents they may 
 be called — are stolen from the French, and the 
 H 6 
 
156 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 dialogue from the oldest editions of Joe Miller, 
 It was, indeed, painful to see good actors and 
 actresses doomed to repeat such absurdities. 
 The audience were wonderfully patient, but 
 everything in this world must wear out; and 
 accordingly the second act proving, if possible, 
 worse than the first, forbearance was at an end, 
 and the whole house rose to hoot the nuisance 
 from the stage. 
 
 " This most beautiful example of modern 
 authorship is, we are told, from the pen of a 
 young gentleman of the name of Gurney, a law- 
 student. If he should ever come to be a judge, 
 it must be of something else than literature ; for, 
 without one redeeming point, his farce combined 
 dulness, indelicacy, ignorance of society, a total 
 want of knowledge of character, and what may, 
 perhaps, be worse in the present state of the 
 drama, entire ignorance of the peculiar qualities 
 of the actors. We trust that the dunce will 
 drive his quill in some other direction than that 
 of the stage, and that we shall never again be 
 kept from a comfortable party at home, to wit- 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 157 
 
 ness the representation of a second effort from 
 the same quarter." 
 
 " What do you mean, Miss Crab?" said my 
 mother. " Mr. Gurney, a law-student — you 
 are joking ?" 
 
 " I never joke. Ma'am," said Miss Crab. 
 
 " Now, Gilbert, explain," said my parent, 
 with highly erected eyebrows, " are you the 
 person meant in this odious newspaper — have 
 you really disgraced yourself by putting into 
 execution the crude and absurd ideas you ad- 
 mitted you had formed of writing a farce — tell 
 me — without evasion or equivocation ?" 
 
 I saw that the blood of the Gatakers had 
 mounted to her cheeks, and recollecting the 
 precautionary letter she had written me on the 
 subject, I felt that I wished Miss Marshall at 
 Jericho for sending in the newspaper, Miss Crab 
 at Botany Bay for having read it, and myself 
 anywhere but where I was. 
 
 " My dear mother," said I, " when you were 
 good enough to express your opinions upon the 
 subject of my dramatic authorship, I made no 
 
15B GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 promise-— I was guilty of no evasion or equivo- 
 cation. I told you then that, let me take what 
 course I might, I never would do anything to 
 disgrace myself or my family." 
 
 " And how have you kept that promise ?" ex- 
 claimed my mother; " by directly flying in the 
 face of my wishes and entreaties, and bringing 
 out a farce at the summer theatre, which " 
 
 " Has been damned Ma'am," exclaimed 
 
 Miss Crab, with a force and energy which made 
 me feel that if she were to experience a similar 
 fate I should not very much care. 
 
 " Exactly so," rejoined my mother ; " if it 
 had succeeded " 
 
 " The fault," interrupted I, " would have 
 been just the same." 
 
 " As far as regards your disobedience to me," 
 said my mother ; — " Yes, — as far as regards your 
 own reputation — No." 
 
 " To be sure not," chimed in Miss Crab, 
 pursing herself up and chuckling and turning 
 her head round first one way and then another. 
 
 " And then" — exclaimed my distressed parent. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 159 
 
 "I know what you are going to say Mrs. 
 Gurney," screamed her dear companion. 
 
 " One at a time," cried I, and the noise 
 at this time was prodigious; both ladies had 
 opened on me at once, which aroused the two 
 little dogs on the carpet, who began barking, 
 upon which the three cock canary birds immedi- 
 ately began singing with all their might and 
 main. " One would think that I had committed 
 some heinous offence ;" bawled I, at the top of 
 my voice, "I have only done what hundreds of 
 gentlemen have done before me ; and as for 
 the failure, that cannot be helped — many a 
 better farce has been cut short in its career in 
 a similar manner — nipped in the bud." 
 
 " Only to burst out again next spring, I 
 fear," said Mrs. Gurney. 
 
 " You may be sure of that, Ma'am," said 
 Miss Crab; "once the propensity gets hold of 
 a man, his pen never keeps still — scribble — 
 scribble — scribble." 
 
 " There you are mistaken," said I. " I have 
 committed a fault — that I admit; but it is not 
 
160 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 ever likely to be repeated. If I had met with 
 the success the absence of which you so much 
 regret, I might have been tempted to try again ; 
 but the first round of the ladder to fame having 
 snapped under my feet, I shall give it up, and 
 turn to something else." 
 
 " Fame, indeed," said my mother ! " the idea 
 of the fame of a farce-writer — while, with com- 
 mon application, the Bench or the Woolsack is 
 open to you — the notion of wasting your time 
 in composing folly for fools to repeat, for the 
 amusement of fools greater than themselves." 
 
 " Upon this occasion. Ma'am," said Miss 
 Crab, with a diabolical smile of self-satisfaction, 
 " the audience were not such great fools as to 
 listen." 
 
 " Thank you. Miss Crab," said I, " you are 
 adding pepper to the seasoning of the news- 
 paper critic. I tell you all preachings and 
 lectures are useless " 
 
 « That I truly believe," said Miss Crab. 
 
 " For this reason, that I am as firmly resolved 
 never to attempt another dramatic work, as I am 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 161 
 
 not to study the law, for wliich I have neither 
 turn nor ability, and my devotion to which 
 would be a much more ridiculous farce in real 
 life, than that of the mimic world which was last 
 night so unceremoniously driven from the stage." 
 
 " I see how it is," said my respected parent, 
 " you want to break my heart." 
 
 " My dear mother !" said I. 
 
 " No matter," said my mother, " I shall not 
 be here to trouble you long : surely the little 
 time I have to live, I might see you pursuing 
 a career, the termination of which might render 
 you happy and honourable !" 
 
 " I thought, my dear mother," said I, " that 
 let what might happen to either of us, you had 
 so far reconciled yourself to losing me, that you 
 were actually waiting only to learn a little more 
 of my brother Cuthbert's plans, to ship me off 
 to Calcutta." 
 
 " Ship you off, my child," said my mother, 
 whose earnestness for my respectability, and my 
 preservation from all the evils of dissipation 
 into which she feared my present pursuits and 
 
162 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 connexions would lead me, induced her to 
 propose what she sincerely felt to be a great 
 sacrifice; "you do me an injustice by using 
 such an expression. I would rather do any- 
 thing than part with you." 
 
 " Rely upon it," said Miss Crab, " it is the 
 the best thing you can do — save him from 
 destruction, and make him a rich man into the 
 bargain." 
 
 " And lose his society for ever," said my 
 kind parent. 
 
 " You have not much of it as it is, Ma'am, I 
 think," said Miss Crab. 
 
 " While my mother is so happy to have you 
 as a companion," said I, " my presence can be 
 little needed here; indeed," continued I, "it 
 seems to me as if my appearance under this roof 
 was the signal for discord and confusion. I am 
 perfectly content to hear the advice, and even 
 bear the reproaches of a parent when I merit 
 them, but I really do not see what right " 
 
 " Come, come, dear Gilbert," said my mother, 
 "do not speak angrily — we all mean for the best." 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 163 
 
 « Yes, I'm sure I do," said Miss Crab ; " but 
 advice to young folks who will liave their own 
 way is not always agreeable — medicine, how- 
 ever salutary, is seldom palatable." 
 
 " What I mean to say then, is this," said I : 
 " I have no turn for the law— I know it would 
 be folly in me to attempt it — I am quite satis- 
 fied to live upon my allowance — I owe no debts 
 — I am not likely to incur any — but if my 
 mother is of opinion that a life of idle inde- 
 pendence is not desirable, then, I repeat, I am 
 ready to start whenever she pleases to my 
 brother, according to her desire." 
 
 " Having previously prepared yourself in a 
 mercantile house in the city," said Miss Crab. 
 
 I confess I had a great mind to quarrel with 
 the matured virgin for her constant interference 
 in my schemes and arrangements, not only 
 because I was really irritated at what appeared 
 to me to be her vast presumption on my mother's 
 kindness, but because it was absolutely neces- 
 sary I should somehow " get up" a grievance in 
 the course of the evening, upon the strength of 
 
164 GILBERT GURXEY. 
 
 which I might retire in dudgeon early in the 
 morning, so as to avoid the presence of the two 
 fair Dods, whom, of all girls in the world, my 
 anxious mother most particularly wished me to 
 meet. 
 
 I was a good deal worried about tliis little 
 contretemps^ which went a great way to impress 
 upon my mind the truth of the saying, which 
 since has become indelibly stamped there, that 
 " wrong never comes right." As I have already 
 said, the foolish trick in which I had been in- 
 volved that evening had rendered it impossible 
 for me to look the gentle victims of our hoax in 
 the face, or permit them to look in mine. I was 
 quite sure my absence would be attributed by my 
 parent — if not in the first instance, certainly at 
 the suggestion of her most unamiable com- 
 panion — to a resolute opposition to her wishes, 
 and, in all probability, to the existence of some 
 tendresse in another quarter, or some clandestine 
 connexion of a less respectable character; but 
 what could I do ? I asked myself this question 
 once or twice during what the sailors call a 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 165 
 
 "lull" in the storm of discussion, and I should 
 have been glad either to have answered it satis- 
 factorily, or to have found it the only one I had 
 to put ; unluckily, there was another which cut 
 me even deeper than the first. How came I 
 involved in the surveying afikir ? — by an asso- 
 ciation with one of those agreeable vauriens of 
 whom my excellent parent had such a violent, 
 and, as I used to think, needless dread. 
 
 Here, however, in this one instance, I could 
 neither impugn nor gainsay her apprehensions. 
 If 1 had not written the farce I should not have 
 known the actors, — if I had not known the actors 
 I could not have joined them at Richmond, — if 
 I had not joined them at Richmond I should not 
 have made the acquaintance of Mr. Daly, — and 
 if I had not have made his acquaintance I should 
 have ridden quietly home to my mother's cot- 
 tage, have enjoyed her society without rebuke 
 or reproach, and the next morning have been 
 presented to two lovely and amiable young 
 women, with one of whom, even situated as I 
 
166 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 was, I might have formed, at some future period, 
 a happy and honourable alliance. 
 
 " After all," thought I, "my mbther is right;'* 
 but, as if Old Nick had set his hoof in it, it was 
 the only occasion I could recollect upon which I 
 was unable to admit her to be so; and thus, 
 adding hypocrisy to undutifulness, I combated 
 her arguments, which, in fact, convinced me ; 
 opposed suggestions which I was satisfied were 
 admirable, and closed an uncomfortable evening 
 by going to bed in an unamiable fit of assumed 
 anger. 
 
 After I had retired to my room I heard the 
 two ladies holding converse rather long than 
 gentle. It struck me that my mother was tak- 
 ing my part against the vindictive malignity of 
 her ill-conditioned friend, whose anxious desire 
 for my departure for India I was base enough to 
 attribute to a desire on her part to get entire 
 possession of my excellent mother during her 
 life, and of her property after her death; and 
 more than once I had resolved to open my heart 
 
 15 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 167 
 
 to my mother and communicate my thoughts and 
 suspicions. However, for the present, the " evil 
 of the day " was sufficient to encounter, and the 
 only question which remained unsettled in my 
 mind was whether I should get away as I first 
 proposed to myself before breakfast, or break- 
 fast with the ladies, pretend an engagement in 
 town, and so depart about eleven. 
 
 Upon mature deliberation, I determined upon 
 an early flight : there could then be no remon- 
 strances, no explanations, no pressings or insist- 
 ings, — no demurrings, or evasions. I therefore 
 wrote a note before I went to bed, and ordered 
 my servant to have the horses at the stable gate 
 by eight o'clock. The note too was unw^orthy 
 of me. I pleaded the unpleasantness of useless 
 discussions at the cause of my sudden departure, 
 and expressed a perfect readiness to return and 
 accommodate myself to my mother's wishes 
 whenever she was prepared to receive me with 
 less harshness than she had exhibited that even- 
 ing. Thus evil upon evil seemed to accumulate. 
 It would vex her gentle nature to think she had 
 
168 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 wounded my feelings, and she would worry her- 
 self at my absence. Yet without some cause I 
 could not have gone ; and thus, as one falsehood 
 invariably begets another, one meanness pro- 
 duced more, and I condescended to sneak out 
 of my mother's house under false pretences, in 
 order to avoid being detected in an unwarrant- 
 able proceeding, contrived and carried into effect 
 by one of my new theatrical connexions. 
 
 I did not feel satisfied with these results, and 
 I think I slept worse than I otherwise should, 
 considering that I had undergone much fatigue, 
 mental and bodily, during the day, and that I 
 had scarcely closed my eyes the night before, 
 while my heart was full of the martyrdom of my 
 favourite Sir Jeffery. I arose stealthily and 
 noiselessly before my note could be conveyed 
 to my mother's room by her maid, and by half- 
 past eight found myself journeying back to 
 town, less composed, and more unsettled than I 
 ever recollected to have been before. 
 
 For a narrative of the events which occurred 
 after my departure I am indebted to a letter 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 169 
 
 from my excellent parent, upon whose mind 
 they were impressed with an almost indelible 
 severity : a letter which, as will hereafter be seen, 
 was rendered by circumstances deeply and pain- 
 fully interesting. 
 
 Breakfast ready, and Miss Crab waiting; 
 down came my mother with my note in her 
 hand. 
 
 " Good morning," said Miss Crab. " I was 
 down before you, waiting to take a turn round 
 the shrubbery with Gilbert, and prepare his 
 mind for the beauties he is to see at luncheon," 
 
 " You would have lost your labour had you 
 waited till luncheon-time itself," said my mother. 
 " Gilbert is gone to town." 
 
 " To town !" exclaimed Miss Crab. " Umph ! 
 That is strange. What reason does he give for 
 running away from the treat we have proposed 
 for him?" 
 
 " I don't know," said Mrs. Gurney, " that he 
 is altogether wrong in his feelings; but I am 
 quite sure I know what those feelings are. He 
 
 VOL. I, I 
 
170 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 thinks that whatever right / may have to ques- 
 tion and even censure his conduct when I think 
 it faulty, a second person — not a relation, and 
 having, no legitimate control over him — has 
 7ione ; — in fact, my belief is, that he is worried 
 and vexed by your interference." 
 
 « Mine, Ma'am !" said Miss Crab ; « really 
 I did not expect this. You have been most 
 candid and confidential in all your communica- 
 tions about your son to me ; and I thought, after 
 the observations you had made, that I was sup- 
 porting you in your endeavours to keep him 
 right, at your own special desire." 
 
 " I do not, in the slightest degree," said my 
 mother, " impugn your intentions or doubt your 
 anxiety. Miss Crab ; but he feels that your sup- 
 port generally has the effect of heightening 
 whatever fault of his is under discussion, and of 
 urging me to a severity which he does not be- 
 lieve to be natural to my character." 
 
 " Oh ! well. Ma'am," said Miss Crab, " I 
 have done. Let him follow his own inclina- 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 171 
 
 tions, — let him go upon the stage or upon the 
 highway, which, in my mind, is little worse ; — 
 rely upon it, Ma'am, I will never say another 
 syllable." 
 
 " My dear Miss Crab," said my mother, who 
 was, with respect to our quarrels, something 
 like what a wife is to a husband, — she did not 
 care how much she scolded me herself, but was 
 very tetchy if any third person attempted to 
 assail me — " My dear Miss Crab, what extraor- 
 dinary ideas, and how strangely expressed ! 
 Gilbert is wild and thoughtless, and idle, and 
 giddy, and, unfortunately, addicted to pursuits 
 which perhaps may be unprofitable, but certainly 
 not dishonourable. He dislikes the law, and 
 shrinks from trade." 
 
 " Oh, to be sure he does !" said Miss Crab ; 
 " and of course it is all quite right. If I had 
 known what his determinations were, and how 
 he was to be upheld in them, I certainly 
 should not have made a very considerable 
 effort to speak to Mr. Yellowly, of the firm of 
 Curry, Raikes, Yellowly, Lefevre, and Co., 
 I 2 
 
172 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 in his behalf. Now, that I understand how 
 my advice and suggestions are received, I 
 shall venture them no longer. As for this 
 morning, my belief is, that his reason for going 
 away is the coming hither of the two Miss 
 Dods : rely upon it, living as he is, and has been 
 for some time past, he has formed some liaison^ 
 which, if it does not definitively prevent his 
 forming a respectable matrimonial connexion, 
 gives him, at least for the present, a distaste for 
 any other society. I saw his restlessness and 
 agitation the moment you mentioned that your 
 young and virtuous visitors were expected." 
 
 " We must not be too fastidious : no, nor too 
 inquisitive," said my mother. " Recollect that 
 our conversation about our fair neighbours and 
 the probability of the results of this interview 
 were jokes ; — that nothing upon earth could be 
 much more improbable than that a casual visit 
 here should lead to an union between one of the 
 young ladies and my son." 
 
 " Improbable !" said Miss Crab, " nothing 
 more probable ! Everything must have a be- 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 173 
 
 ginning, and my creed is, that young ladies who 
 are over-fastidious are not over-wise." 
 
 This was what Daly would have called a 
 " bad shot," for either Miss Crab had, by her 
 own showing, been extremely unwise, or had 
 never been asked. My mother perceived the 
 slip, but w^as too amiable and too well-bred to 
 take advantage of it. 
 
 " What I mean to say, my dear Miss Crab," 
 said my mother, " is, that in spite of all the follies 
 and indiscretions of which Gilbert, at twenty 
 years of age, may be guilty, I am quite sure 
 that he would neither sacrifice himself in a 
 mercenary marriage, nor form an acquaintance 
 or connexion likely to turn out disgracefully." 
 
 " Well, Ma'am," said Miss Crab, " enjoy 
 your own opinion. I know the difficulty of 
 persuading parents upon particular points ; how- 
 ever, you may rely upon it that your son's 
 absence this morning is not owing to anything 
 that I have either said or done to annoy him 
 — time, perhaps, will show who is right." 
 J 3 
 
174 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 " I am content to let it rest there," said my 
 mother ; and having thus made peace, she pro- 
 ceeded to make tea, not, however, without an 
 observation from Miss Crab as to the water 
 being quite cold in consequence of having stood 
 so long upon the table, the flame under the 
 urn having been, in consequence of the careless- 
 ness of the servant, out for the last ten minutes. 
 
 Poor Miss Crab, let the subject be what it 
 might, always contrived to drop her little contri- 
 bution of acid into the cup ; and yet my mother 
 had become so used to her, and so convinced — 
 which I was not — of her disinterested attach- 
 ment to her, that although, when I was the 
 object of her varying attacks, she would rally all 
 her energies in my defence, I really believe she 
 liked the excitement produced by her friend's 
 perpetual and unvarying fault-finding. 
 
 The breakfast went on as usual; there was of 
 course a little too much cream, and much too 
 little sugar, in Miss Crab's tea ; and the butter 
 was extremely bad for the time of year, when 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. - 175 
 
 there was plenty of grass for the cows to eat, — 
 and the raspberries were not ripe, — and the eggs 
 were not so fresh as they might have been, — and 
 soj in all other matters, something was wrong. 
 Yet time and patience conquered these little ills, 
 and a stroll in the grounds, succeeded by writing 
 little notes and doing a little " work," brought 
 the domesticated couple to within half an hour 
 of the time at which luncheon would be served, 
 and the Misses Dod arrive to partake of it. 
 
 At this juncture a smartish ringing at the 
 gate-bell aroused the attention of the ladies, 
 who began putting their faces into the most 
 amiable shape, expecting their sylph-like visi- 
 tors; but they were somewhat disappointed, and 
 perhaps more surprised, when the servant, throw- 
 ing open the door, announced " Mr. Daly." 
 " Mr. Daly V' said my mother. " Who?" 
 " Daly !" said Miss Crab. " What ?" 
 « A friend of Mr. Gilbert's, Ma'am," said the 
 servant. 
 
 " Oh !" said my excellent parent ; " pray 
 desire Mr. Daly to walk in." 
 I 4 
 
176 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 The invitation was superfluous, for he had 
 " followed the heels " of the footman so closely, 
 as to be actually in the room before it was com- 
 pleted. 
 
 " I beg ten thousand pardons, Ma'am," said 
 Daly; " I believe I have the honour of address- 
 ing the mother of my friend Gilbert ?" He hit 
 that off, happily, by a glance at the mystic badge 
 which my amiable parent exhibited on the third 
 finger of her left hand. 
 
 " I am afraid I am intruding upon your 
 delightful seclusion, but knowing that our dear 
 Gilbert was here last night, it occurred to me 
 that in all probability he would also be here this 
 morning ; so, as I am domesticated at Hampton 
 Court, I did hope to persuade him to come over 
 and take a cutlet with me, and meet two or 
 three of the 18th, who, as of course you know, 
 are quartered there." 
 
 " My son," said Mrs. Gurney, " was here 
 last night, but went unexpectedly to town this 
 morning before breakfast." 
 
 " What a delightful person he is. Ma'am !" 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 177 
 
 said Daly ; " so full of kindness and ingenuous- 
 ness, and so clever ! The worst of these geni- 
 uses is, they seldom have any application — sorry 
 about his farce, poor fellow — however, he does 
 not seem to take it much to heart — met him 
 yesterday at Richmond — pleasant day — pleasant 
 place — pleasant people — do you visit much at 
 Hampton Court, Ma*am ?" 
 
 My mother, who was perfectly astounded at 
 the ease and volubility of my " slight acquaint- 
 ance," — said " that her visiting-list was a very 
 small one, and that she rarely ventured so far." 
 
 " I find it uncommon pleasant," said Daly, 
 " because the 18th are there — deuced fine fel- 
 lows, you know, and all that — else it seems 
 dullish. I confess I like having all the parties 
 of Palace people under the same roof — the long 
 passages and the steep staircases — not to speak 
 of ringing Lady Niddynod's bell, and stuffing 
 a cork into the jet of the fountain — and then 
 to see the Cockneys come to look at the 
 Cartoons, and then to watch them at the Toy 
 — capital fun I have there sometimes, Ma'am, 
 I 5 
 
178 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 — locking a whole family of fowls into a 
 bed-room cupboard — the sleeping sight-seers 
 tumble into their beds, and all is hushed and 
 calm as my own conscience — just about day- 
 light, Ma'am, the cock in the closet begins to 
 crow, which sets Mrs. Cock, and all the Miss 
 Cockses into a charm of cackling, which the 
 affrighted innocents from Finsbury-square or 
 St. Mary Axe are as unable to account for as 
 to check; and so from daylight, till they can 
 rouse the servants to their assistance, the in- 
 habitants of the hen-roost, like so many minor 
 Macbeths, 'murder sleep.' I call that very 
 good fun, Ma'am." 
 
 " Mischief I call it," said Miss Crab. " And 
 pray. Sir, does Mr. Gilbert Gurney participate 
 in such amusements as these ?" 
 
 " I never tell tales out of school," said Daly. 
 " For myself, I confess I love fun ; and only the 
 night before last, being considerably annoyed 
 by a loud snoring in the next room, proceeded 
 to see who was the monster that caused it ; 
 there I found a venerable lady, who incauti- 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 179 
 
 ously slept with her door unfastened, snoring 
 away — ' discoursing,' as Shakspeare has it — 
 most discordant music with her nose. What 
 d'ye think I did, Ma'am? Ran to my room, 
 burnt the cork of an Eau de Cologne bottle in 
 the candle, returned to the apartment of the 
 sleeping hyena, and gave her a pair of coal-black 
 mustachios, which, when she presented her grim 
 visage to her daughter, who came the first thing 
 in the morning to beg her blessing, threw the 
 young lady into a fit of convulsions, which took 
 Griffinhoof of Hampton three hours and a half 
 to get rid of — that's fun, or the deuce is in it." 
 
 " And is it," said my mother — who sat petrified 
 at the idomitable manner of the wag — " is it to 
 enjoy such jokes as these that you wish my son 
 to join you ?" 
 
 " Oh, by no means," said Daly ; " I never 
 involve a friend — never — if I can possibly help 
 it — no, I should like to introduce him to the 
 18th; and then there are Lord and Lady Griggs, 
 and the Miss Cranbournes, and dear Lady Vene- 
 rable, the charming Miss Fizzgiggle, and her 
 I 6 
 
180 GILBERT GURMEY. 
 
 very agreeable mother. The delightful Lady- 
 Katharine Mango, and her very charming 
 daughter, and the best of all excellent men, 
 a kind-hearted, hospitable East India Captain, 
 the very double of the Lord Chancellor, who 
 has got a pet bird fifteen feet high, with legs 
 like stilts, and a body like a goose. I promise 
 you I will skim the cream of the Court for Gil- 
 bert if he will but come — canter to Kingston 
 — migrate to Molesy — saunter to Sunbury — 
 drop in at Ditton — make him acquainted with 
 all the news of the neighbourhood, and place 
 him only second to myself in the estimation of 
 our enlightened and select circle of society." 
 
 It must have been a curious sight to see 
 Daly running on in this free and easy man- 
 ner, and the two ladies sitting, one beside and 
 the other opposite to him, perfectly thunder- 
 struck by his proceedings, and evidently un- 
 certain what he would next say or do. 
 
 " I like Hampton Court, Ma'am," continued 
 Daly, without paying the least attention to the 
 astonished countenances of his companions; " it's 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 181 
 
 such a nice distance from town — out of the smoke, 
 and among nice people — Toy, bad inn — landlord 
 smart ; — servants not — only one waiter, and he 
 a Goth — I had three friends to dine with me on 
 Tuesday, and what d'ye think happened, Ma'am ? 
 If you recollect, it was vastly hot on Tuesday — 
 glass 82° in the shade — asked if there was any 
 ice — not an ounce in the house — where was the 
 waiter — only conceive, Ma'am, the singularity 
 of the sound, " the waiter," in an inn half as 
 big as a county hospital — Lawrence was gone 
 to Chertsey — I had no resource — could not wait 
 till he came back — wanted to cool my wine — 
 ordered the maid to get a pail of pump- water, 
 put it in the shade on the leads at the back of 
 the house, and pop into it two bottles of Grave, 
 two of Hock, and two of Champagne — what 
 d'ye think occurred, Ma'am ?" 
 
 " I have no idea," said Miss Crab, who was 
 at last absolutely provoked into conversation. 
 " Most likely the girl forgot it." 
 
 "Not she. Ma'am," said Daly; " I'm sure 
 I wish she had. No; she did as she was 
 
182 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 bid most punctually. Dinner-time came ; soup 
 s.erved. My friends, Tootle, Bootle, and Sims 
 of the 18tli, all seated. I turned to Lawrence, 
 who had just returned from Chertsey, and was 
 standing at the back of my chair, ' Get a bottle 
 of Hock and a bottle of Grave,' said I." 
 
 " ' Where are they, Sir T said he. 
 
 " ' Oh,' said I, ' you'll find them cooling in 
 a pail of water, in a shady draught of air on the 
 leads.' 
 
 ii « Very well, Sir,' says he, and away he goes, 
 and quickly enough he comes back. ' Pretty job. 
 Sir,' says Lawrence, with a face like the ghost 
 of Gaffer Thumb — ' Who did this for you, Sir ?' 
 
 "« What?' said L 
 
 " ' Put the Grave and the Hock to cool.' 
 
 " « Who ?' said L « Why, Fanny Lanshawe, 
 the chambermaid.' 
 
 " ' Fanny be !' You'll excuse my not re- 
 peating what he said. Ma'am. — ' She has served 
 you a nice trick, Sir. Look here.' And sure 
 enough. Ma'am, suiting the action to the word, 
 in he brings the pail, into which the simple 
 7 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 183 
 
 creature had emptied the six bottles of enliven- 
 ing liquor, and exhibits, to our utter amaze- 
 ment and confusion, three gallons and a half of 
 very weak mixed wine-and-water. These are 
 drawbacks. Ma'am, you'll admit; but there 
 must be alloys to everything. For my part, 
 nothing damps me — nothing shakes me; I go 
 on laughing along my flowery course, and care 
 for nothing upon earth." 
 
 At this moment, in w^hich Daly was boasting 
 of his imperturbable serenity and joyousness, 
 the drawing-room door was again flung open, the 
 servant announced, in an audible voice — " Miss 
 Dod, and Miss Fanny Dod ;" and there, before 
 Daly's astonished eyes, stood, in all their native 
 loveliness arrayed, the two accomplished daugh- 
 ters of his last night's victim. They approached, 
 but started back for an instant on recognising 
 their persecutor of the preceding evening so 
 snugly and comfortably domesticated with their 
 new acquaintance at the cottage. The ladies 
 rose to receive their guests, and were just 
 shaking hands, when Daly in a tone of exqui- 
 
184 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 site torture, exclaimed, " Oh my nose ! — my 
 nose !" and instantly enveloped Lis whole coun- 
 tenance in a full-sized silk handkerchief. 
 
 " Dear me !" exclaimed my mother, "what is 
 the matter. Sir?" 
 
 " A trifle. Ma'am,'' said Daly, with his face 
 buried in the bandana. " A trifle light as air : 
 it's only my nose, Ma'am — subject to peri- 
 odical fits of bleeding — after a dreadful fall over 
 a five-barred gate, near Grantham. Don't mind 
 7ne, Ma'am. I'll run away; perhaps it mayn't 
 stop for a fortnight. I won't worry 7/ou any 
 longer — I'm ofl" — I'll plunge my head into the 
 river. Just remember me to Gilbert ; say I 
 called; and — O dear, dear — how unlucky ! Adieu 
 — good morning:" saying which, without re- 
 moving the handkerchief, he bustled out and 
 hurried from the room. Mrs. Gurney, to say 
 truth, was not very sorry to perform the ofiice of 
 ringing the bell, in order that he might have 
 free egress from her peaceful home. 
 
 " What an extraordinary man !" said my 
 mother. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 185 
 
 '' Is he mad ?" said Miss Crab. 
 
 " Do you know him well?" said Fanny 
 Dod. 
 
 " No; he is an intimate friend of my son's, 
 I " 
 
 " Indeed !" interrupted Miss Dod. 
 
 " Why," said my mother, " do you know any- 
 thing of him. Miss Dod?" 
 
 " No good, I am sure," said Miss Crab. 
 
 " Why," said Fanny, " we know no great 
 harm of him ; only he came to our house last 
 night with his clerk — a much better-behaved 
 person than himself — and frightened us all out 
 of our wits, by threatening to pull down mam- 
 ma's dear conservatory." 
 
 " Pull down a conservatory !" said my mo- 
 ther. 
 
 " Yes, officially," said Miss Dod. 
 
 " Why, what is he ?" said my mother. 
 
 " A painter and glazier, Ma'am, I dare say," 
 said Miss Crab. 
 
 " No," continued Miss Dod. " You of 
 course know who he is." 
 
186 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 " Not I," said my mother. " He said he was 
 an intimate friend of my son's, and came to in- 
 vite him to meet some of the 1 8th at Hampton 
 Court at dinner to-day." 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Crab ; " Tootle, Bootle, 
 and Sims were their names." 
 
 " There are such men in the 18th," said 
 Fanny Dod. " The ourang-outang's name is 
 Tootle, Gussy, is'nt it ?" 
 
 " Yes," said Augusta ; " but I cannot believe 
 that this man can be giving dinners to officers 
 of the 18th." 
 
 " Why, who and what upon earth is he?" 
 said my mother, getting very anxious to know 
 what her Gilbert's great crony really was. 
 
 *' Oh," said Fanny, " there's no harm in him 
 that we know of; only he was very rude to 
 papa, at last. He came measuring our lawn, 
 in order to ascertain the shortest cut for a canal 
 to Brentford," 
 
 " And," said Augusta, " we behaved as well 
 as possible both to him and his clerk ; and yet he 
 vowed vengeance on the corner of the conser- 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 187 
 
 vatory, and threatened to bring the barge-road 
 close under our bedroom windows." 
 
 " Still, you don't say how he could do this, 
 Miss Dod," said my mother. 
 
 " Why, I believe he is the Acting Deputy 
 Assistant- Surveyor to the Grand Junction Canal 
 Company," said Augusta ; " and a very forward, 
 presuming, rude gentleman into the bargain." 
 
 " And Gilbert's particular friend !" exclaimed 
 my mother. 
 
 " Yes, Ma'am," said Miss Crab, in her glory ; 
 " and yet you are quite sure that he never will 
 form an acquaintance or connexion likely to 
 turn out disgracefully." 
 
 Luckily at that moment luncheon was an- 
 nounced, and the party proceeded to the break- 
 fast-parlour to partake of it. 
 
 Dissatisfied and unsettled as I felt on my way 
 to town, I confess if I could have looked, As- 
 modeus-like, into the peaceful residence of my 
 respected parent, during this and the preceding 
 scene — as I should have called them — my sensa- 
 tions would have been of a much more serious 
 7 
 
188 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 and disagreeable character. I never anticipated 
 a visit from Daly at Teddington, and consoled 
 myself by the escape I had made from an in- 
 terview with the ladies, whose growing intimacy 
 at the cottage must, I foresaw, nevertheless pro- 
 duce an explanation ere long, or act as a pro- 
 hibition to my visits to my mother. I confess 
 I was perfectly astonished when I heard the 
 details. I had never given him the slightest 
 encouragement to come to the cottage, where I 
 must have been certain his manners, principles, 
 and pursuits would throw its gentle occupants 
 into the highest state of perturbation. My 
 regret when, under the most melancholy circum- 
 stances, I ascertained what had occurred was 
 serious indeed ; and my resolution never again 
 to make acquaintances extempore, was coupled 
 with the conviction that a practical joke is, in 
 fact, no joke at all, — and yet, such is the influ- 
 ence of agreeable manners and lively conversa- 
 tion, that Daly subsequently became my great- 
 est friend, at least in the worldly acceptation 
 of that most equivocal word. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 It is said that a certain place not mentionable 
 to " ears polite" is paved with " good inten- 
 tions." Whether it will ever be Macadamized 
 (for that I believe is the term for "unstoning," 
 now fast gaining ground as I am looking over 
 my papers, which in all probability everybody 
 else will overlook) I cannot pretend to say; 
 but certain it is, that although I was beyond 
 measure mortified by the results of the Twick- 
 enham prank, my exclusion from the society 
 of the Miss Dods, and my absolutely necessary 
 escape from an association with them ; I was 
 very soon reconciled to my fate after the arrival 
 15 
 
190 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 of Devil Daly (as I used subsequently to call 
 him) at my lodgings in Suffolk-street. 
 
 The instant he had been dislodged from the 
 cottage by the appearance of the young ladies 
 whose family he had so seriously outraged on 
 the previous evening, instead of walking his 
 horse back to Smart's, at the Toy, at Hampton 
 Court, he cantered up to visit me in London ; not 
 so much from any particular affection for me, 
 but because, although himself the victim, there 
 was something so exciting and delightful to him 
 in a joke, that he could not deny himself the 
 pleasure of narrating to me the history of the 
 arrival of the sylphs, and his extraordinary 
 7mse of the bleeding nose. I never saw him 
 in higher spirits, and, quoad my resolutions, I 
 could not for the life of me refuse to join him 
 in a stroll about town, which, although the 
 season was somewhat advanced, was yet agree- 
 ably full, with a pledge to dine with him some- 
 where afterwards. 
 
 In those days clubs were scarce, although 
 then hearts were plenty ; there were no clubs of 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 191 
 
 note at that period but White's, Brookes's, and 
 Boodle's. To be sure, there was the Cocoa 
 Tree, and there was Graham's, but the number 
 of members was small, the system confined, 
 and therefore, although Daly and I were as 
 proud as Lucifer, and as " fine as fine could 
 be," men had no resource when they wished 
 to enjoy the " feast of reason and the flow of 
 soul" — the one in the shape of a cutlet, and 
 the other in the tapering form of a bottle of 
 claret — but to repair to a coffee-house, a place 
 which, I find, is now (I speak while I am arrang- 
 ing my papers) obsolete — a dear nice uncom- 
 fortable room, with a bar opening into it, a 
 sanded floor, an argand lamp smoking a tin 
 tray in the middle of its ceiling, boxes along 
 its sides, with hard carpet-covered benches, 
 schoolboy tables, and partitions, with rods, and 
 rings, and curtains, like those of a church- 
 warden's pew in a country church. 
 
 I selected Dejex's, at the corner of Leicester- 
 place. Attention and civility, a good cuisine^ 
 and good wine, formed its particular attractions. 
 
192 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 and tlie courteous attention of " mine host" gave 
 a new zest to his cookery and his claret. I 
 own I love attention and civility — not that, 
 which seems to be extracted by dint of money, 
 or by force of the relative situations of guest 
 and landlord, — but that anxious desire to please 
 — that consideration of one's little peculiarities 
 — and that cheerfulness of greeting, which, even 
 if it be assumed, is always satisfactory. To 
 Dejex's we resolved to go, and having " secured 
 our box" and taken our stroll, we found our- 
 selves seated and served by a little after six 
 o'clock. 
 
 There was something irresistibly, practically 
 engaging about Daly, and I never felt more com- 
 pletely assured of the influence over me of a man 
 with whom I had been so short a time acquainted, 
 as I was when I found myself again — in the 
 course of eight and forty hours — associated with 
 him in a place which of all others was the most 
 likely to afford him some opportunity of exhi- 
 biting his eccentricities; for the company con- 
 sisted in a great degree of emigres of the ancient 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 193 
 
 regime, who, until the Master hand of Welling- 
 ton was raised to cut the Gordian knot of their 
 difficulties, which negociation had for years 
 in vain attempted to untwist, England was 
 the asylum for that persecuted race. Yet, how- 
 ever much their misfortunes — the natural results 
 of anarchy and revolution — might excite our 
 sympathies and demand our assistance, some 
 of them, it must be admitted, were to our then 
 unaccustomed eyes extremely strange speci- 
 mens of humanity ; they were what Mr. Daly, 
 in his peculiar phraseology, called " uncommon 
 gigs;" and one very venerable ci-devant mar- 
 quis, who wore spectacles, the said Daly, as 
 he advanced up the room, somewhat too loudly 
 I thought, pronounced to be "a gig with 
 lamps." 
 
 However, we got through dinner and had 
 safely demolished our admirable omelette soufflee 
 without any outbreaking on the part of my 
 mercurial companion ; the coffee-room began 
 to thin, and I began to be more at my ease 
 than before, when Daly proceeded to recount 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
194 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 some of his adventures, which proved to me 
 that, however deeply the scene of the preceding 
 day at Twickenham might have impressed it- 
 self on me^ it was to him a " trifle light as 
 air." 
 
 " But how," said I, " shall I ever reconcile 
 the Dods ? I am destined to meet those people ; 
 you are not." 
 
 " I was destined to meet them this morning," 
 replied Daly, "and if it had not been for this 
 ' bleeding piece of earth,' " laying hold of his 
 nose, " I could not well have escaped ; but for 
 you, rely upon it, it will all turn out right 
 — in a week they will have utterly forgotten 
 you." 
 
 " What," said I, " will Fanny so soon lose all 
 recollection of me ?" 
 
 " To be sure she will," said Daly. " As 
 somebody says, 
 
 * Fancy's visions, like the sand, 
 Every idle mark receive ; 
 Lines are traced by every hand, 
 Which no lasting impress leave.' " 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 195 
 
 " But her hand," said I. 
 
 " You took and shook," replied he, " and 
 very wisely too; but recollect it was nearly 
 dark when we made our exit." 
 
 " And you insulted the father ." 
 
 " who first aflfronted me" said Daly ; 
 
 " and even if the girls did know me this morn- 
 ing, and recognise me as assistant clerk to the 
 deputy assistant surveyor of the Paddington 
 Canal Company, the deuce is in it if the 
 whole family must not respect me as a high- 
 minded, honourable, and conscientious assistant 
 clerk." 
 
 " Yes, but it was quite light enough when 
 we arrived," said I, " to see them and their 
 beauties; why not light enough for them to 
 see our deformities ?" 
 
 " Deformities !" said Daly; " speak for your- 
 self, Mr. Gurney ; women don't care so much 
 for men's beauty as you may suppose. Here 
 am I — plain, but genteel, like a Wedgwood 
 teapot — I make my way, and whatever you 
 may think of yourself and Miss Fanny, I flatter 
 k2 
 
196 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 myself Gussy, as her ma' called her, was equally 
 well pleased with your humble servant." 
 
 " And yet we may never see either of them 
 again," said I. 
 
 " I am not so sure of that," said Daly, " I 
 have done worse to a father than I did to Dod 
 in the course of my life, and yet have come 
 to be domesticated in the family afterwards." 
 
 « As how ?" said I. 
 
 " Some three years since," said Daly, "I was 
 down at my friend's Sir Marmaduke Wriggles- 
 worth's, in Surrey — charming place — nice wife 
 — excellent shooting — capital cook — and inex- 
 haustable cellars. ' Marmaduke,' said I, ' I hate 
 battues; here you have a party staying for the 
 wholesale slaughter of pheasants — eleven double 
 barrels all of a row — more chance of homicide 
 than sport; do me the kindness to let me off, 
 and permit me to ' range the fields ' by myself, 
 and I will consent to be laughed at for my small 
 gains when the card comes in before dinner. 
 « Do as you like,' said Wrigglesworth : ' this is 
 Liberty Hall — shoot alone or in company — with 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 197 
 
 dogs or without — have the keeper or not — 
 comme U vous plairaJ Accordingly away I 
 went, more eager for the sport as having to 
 render an account of my single exploits, young 
 enough to do my day's work well, and strong 
 enough to bring my day's work home. I admit 
 I was not quite so well pleased with what I saw, 
 or rather what I did not see, as I went on — birds 
 were scarce, wild, and shy, and I did not get a 
 shot for the first hour, except at a venerable 
 rabbit, who had retired from public life, but 
 who had somewhat incautiously left his tail out 
 of the burrow which he had selected for his 
 final retreat — at him I went, and he died — first 
 tenant of my bag." 
 
 " A tenant in tail," said I punning profes- 
 sionally. 
 
 " Well, Sir," continued Daly, who never 
 stopped for any body, " on I went until at last, 
 after three hours' ploughing and plodding, I fell 
 in with one of the nicest little snug copses you 
 ever set your eyes on. In I went — whurr went 
 the pheasants — bang went the barrels — down 
 k3 
 
198 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 came the birds — and by the time I had crossed 
 the copse, three cocks and — heu mihif — two 
 hens graced my store." 
 
 " Pretty sport for the time," said I. 
 
 " No sooner, however," said Daly, " had I 
 emerged from the thicket, than I found myself 
 upon a sort of parkish-looking lawn, on the rise 
 of which stood a very respectable house, at the 
 door of which I could distinguish a group of 
 persons standing, and from the court-yard of 
 which I saw some sort of servant leading forth a 
 stout short-legged pony, with a thick neck and 
 a stumpy tail — evidently master's favourite — 
 equal to fourteen stone, warranted never to shy, 
 trip, or stumble. Upon its back did I see a 
 portly gentleman bestride himself, and forthwith 
 begin to canter towards me, followed at a some- 
 what splitting pace by two keepers on foot, 
 each armed either with guns or sticks, which, I 
 could not easily distinguish." 
 
 " I foresee," said I. 
 
 " So did I," said Daly, " the moment I saw 
 the governor coming full tilt, I knew I had been 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 199 
 
 trespassing, and the moment I stepped upon 
 his infernal lawn, felt that I had put my foot 
 into it." 
 
 " Well," said I, "what happened?" 
 " Why," continued Daly, " I standing still, 
 and he moving somewhat rapidly, the elder of 
 the two had the best of it, and I was very soon 
 within six inches of his cob's nose, and within 
 about half a yard of his own. ' You are a 
 pretty fellow. Sir,' said the irate gentleman, ' to 
 come poaching and killing the birds in my 
 preserves, close to my house — why what the 
 devil are you thinking of, you rascal ? Here, 
 
 Stephens — Thomson ' 
 
 " ' Sir,' said I, « I am extremely sorry ' 
 
 " 'Sorry,' interrupted Mr. Bagswash — (for such 
 was the gentleman's name) — ' sorry, yes, and 
 well you may be sorry ; Botany Bay is too good 
 for a fellow like you, Sir. Lay hands on him.' 
 " * One moment Sir,' said I ; ' I am a gentle- 
 man.' Whereupon Squire Bagswash and his 
 keepers burst into an unseemly fit of laughing. 
 " ' A pretty gentleman too,' said Bagswash. 
 k4 
 
200 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 " ' I thank you, Sir,' said I, ' I don't want com- 
 pliments, I only want a hearing. I am staying 
 on a visit at Sir Marmaduke Wrigglesworth's, 
 and here is my card.' Saying which I produced 
 — from what I happened by the merest but 
 luckiest accident in the world to have about me, 
 my card-case — my visiting ticket. 
 
 "'Young man,' said my opponent, having 
 read it, ' is this genuine ? — My name. Sir, is 
 Bagswash ; I am personally known to Sir Mar- 
 maduke. — Is what you are saying true ?' 
 
 " ' Sir,' said T, ' I am not accustomed to have 
 my word doubted. I admit, that not being 
 perfectly acquainted with the boundaries of the 
 Wrigglesworth property, I have transgressed 
 and trespassed. I am sorry for it; and sorry 
 that you should have so far forgotten yourself as 
 to use language which, I am quite sure in a 
 more temperate mood you would regret.' 
 
 " ' Sir,' said Bagswash, half doubting, and 
 certainly more than half fearing me, ' I don't 
 know that I have used any strong expressions, 
 I ' 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 201 
 
 " ' Rascal, 1 think,' said I, bowing pro- 
 foundly. 
 
 " ' If I did, I — really,' said Bagswash, ' I — 
 might — but I was irritated — Sir, this is my 
 manor.' 
 
 " « Why, Sir,' said I, ' as to your manner, I 
 do think it might have been a little more cour- 
 teous — I ' 
 
 " 'Yes, Sir,' said my antagonist, who evidently 
 was anxious to justify his coarseness and vul- 
 garity, ' but — the manor, I mean — for I can't 
 pun, Sir, and I hate puns. Sir; the manor I 
 mean, costs me a very large sum annually — a 
 very large sum, indeed. Sir, to preserve ; and 
 therefore when I see what I conceive to be a 
 poacher immediately under my nose, actually in 
 my homestead— upon my lawn, I may say — 
 shooting right and left; it does put me in a 
 passion, and I own I was warm, and perhaps 
 hasty ; but it is a provocation, and I should like 
 to know, under all the circumstances, what you 
 yourself would say if you were me at this mo- 
 ment ?' 
 
 K 5 
 
202 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 " ' Say, Sir !' said I, * I haven't the smallest 
 hesitation about that. Sir. If I were you at 
 this moment, I should say, — ' Mr. Daly, I beg 
 your pardon for the hasty way in which I spoke 
 when I thought you a poacher ; and in order to 
 show that although passionate I am not vindic- 
 tive, I hope as it is just luncheon-time, and you 
 must have walked a long way and havn't had 
 very good sport, that you will do me and Mrs. 
 Bagswash the favour to come in and take a 
 cutlet, or a little cold meat, as the case may be, 
 and make up our differences with a glass or two 
 of wine.' 
 
 " ' By Jove,' cried Bagswash, ' you are a 
 queer fellow — the very spit of your father, 
 whom I knew before I retired to these parts.' 
 
 " ' Oh,' whispered one of the keepers to 
 the other. ' Master does know him — he had a 
 father.' 
 
 " * Oh,' said the other; and they both imme- 
 diately lowered their sticks to the ground. 
 
 " ' And,' continued the squire, ' you have only 
 just anticipated me in an invitation, except that 
 
GILBERT GURNEy. 203 
 
 I apprehended some more serious requisition on 
 your part/ 
 
 " ' Not a bit, Sir,' said I ; ' there are a vast 
 many gentlemen in the world who don't look 
 like gentlemen, and the shooting jacket and 
 gaiters equalize appearances sp much, that Na- 
 ture must have done a vast deal to give a man 
 an aristocratic appearance under so rough a 
 husk — but as to any meeting, except at your 
 hospitable table, I have not the slightest wish 
 for it. In my opinion. Sir, one luncheon is 
 preferable to two balls/ 
 
 " ' Ah !' said Bagswash, ' I am glad o' that, 
 in spite of your pun. Run up, Stephens, and 
 tell them to get luncheon aS soon as possible. 
 Mr. Daly, a friend of Sir Marmaduke Wriggles- 
 worth, is coming to join our family party.' " 
 
 " Well, Daly," said I, " there your presence 
 of mind served you well." 
 
 " Hear the sequel," said Daly. " Encou- 
 raged by the acquiescence of Bagswash, as I was 
 yesterday by the invitation of Dod, I proceeded 
 towards the house, placing, ever and anon, my 
 k6 
 
204 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 hand on the neck of his cob, or the pummel of 
 the saddle, in order to mark to the distant group 
 the familiar nature of our acquaintance ; and in 
 this fashion we reached the mansion, upon the 
 steps of which a bevy of graces, in number more 
 like the Muses, welcomed us. I had a reputa- 
 tion even then, and the moment the girls had 
 heard who was coming, they made up their 
 minds to mirth — even the big Mrs. Bagswash 
 rolled herself into the hall, like a fillet of veal 
 upon castors, to do me honour. 
 
 " Bating the parents," continued Daly, " I 
 never saw a more prepossessing family. I forget 
 all their names, but one was slim and sylph-like, 
 another plump and pleasant, a third a wicked- 
 looking brunette, a fourth a demure and bashful 
 blonde : all I felt as I entered the house was, 
 that if I had brought eight friends with me, I 
 might, by giving each his choice, have had 
 some one of the ' tuneful nine ' left entirely to 
 myself." 
 
 " And," said I, " were you the only man !" 
 " No," replied Daly, " there were two yahoos. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 205 
 
 in white cord breeches and leather gaiters, and 
 a boy with a frill and a frock, upon which a 
 favourable eruption of brass sugar-loaf buttons 
 had taken place ; a Dr. somebody, who turned 
 out to be the nearest apothecary ; and a very 
 pale, long-legged youth, the curate of the 
 parish." 
 
 " A largish luncheon party," said I. 
 
 " Well," said Daly, " I sat down, having first 
 very much ingratiated myself with old Bags- 
 wash, who was as chary of his pheasants as if 
 they had been of the golden breed, by insisting 
 upon it that his man Stephens should disencum- 
 ber my bag of the birds which I had shot on his 
 land, retaining my solitary rabbit, in order to 
 grace my tale when I reached Wrigglesworth ; 
 and there I found myself placed between mine 
 hostess, and number one of the daughters — very 
 nice, pretty thing — not what one should call well 
 set up, but Nature, as I said about gentlemen 
 to her papa, had done a great deal for her ; poor 
 thing, how I pitied her ! — and pity is akin to love. 
 So, after luncheon, and some wine, do you know, 
 
206 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 Gurney, I almost began to subside into a ten- 
 derer feeling. But then, one of nine !" 
 
 " Well, and how did it end ?" said I. 
 
 " Why," replied Daly, " it would have ended, 
 I have no doubt, as prosperously as it begun, 
 had not my new friend, Bagswash, committed 
 himself by begging me to drink some London 
 Particular Madeira — Duff, Murphy, Gordon, 
 or something of that sort. The moment I tasted 
 it I knew what it was, and rather elated by cir- 
 cumstances, and my other previous libations, I 
 had the temerity to address the dear, interesting, 
 white-necked creature next me, and in a tone of 
 confidential condolence, begged her not to be 
 deceived, for that although her amiable papa 
 might be a judge of other things, he evidently 
 knew nothing of wine, and that the stuff he 
 called * London Particular ' was neither more 
 nor less than infernally bad Teneriffe. 
 
 " The male Bagswash was unconscious of the 
 imputation, but the queen B. overheard me, and 
 looking towards what might literally be called 
 her open countenance, I saw symptoms of fire 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 207 
 
 breaking out, and in less than a minute after- 
 wards the domestic Proserpine exclaimed, ' Come, 
 girls, let us go — too much of your joa'5 Tenreefe 
 will do you a mischief/ Up she got, and out 
 she wheeled herself, and the moment she set the 
 example , away went the nine she Bagswashes, 
 like so many goslings after the maternal goose. 
 
 " I," continued Daly, " regretted the re- 
 treat, for I had had an opportunity to insinuate 
 myself, and never saw an audience more tho- 
 roughly prepared to be gratified; indeed so con- 
 vinced were they, from what they had heard of 
 me, that I was a vastly agreeable person, and 
 talked epigrams, that when, while they were all 
 sitting with their ears open to catch my facetice, 
 I happened to observe (the first observation I had 
 made, too, and that, in reply to a question of 
 the big Bagswash) that I thought mustard went 
 remarkably well with cold boiled beef, they all 
 burst out into an immoderate fit of laughter; 
 and the Doctor, who had been tutored into a 
 belief in my superlative wit, exclaimed, ' Oh, 
 oh, that's too bad !* which every fool cries out. 
 
208 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 either when he thinks a thing remarkably good, 
 or does not comprehend it in the least, which 
 last was the case — as indeed it was with all the 
 rest of the party — with my new-found medical 
 friend." 
 
 " Did you contrive," said I, " to aifront the 
 rest of the company before you quitted it ?" 
 
 " Not all of them," said Daly ; " no ; I be- 
 lieve I got off pretty well, but evidently the 
 worse for wear ; for, Teneriife or not Teneriffe, 
 it is my maxim to stick to the wreck as long 
 as she floats, and as long as I could get any- 
 body to sit, I staid ; the curate and the boy with 
 the frill went with the ladies, but Bags wash 
 and the parish Paracelsus remained. However, 
 at last, seeing all the bottles empty, and no dis- 
 position on the part of Baggy to replenish, I 
 made a move, and never did I see a man more 
 happy at having got out of a scrape than mine 
 host. He sent his kindest regards to the Wrig- 
 glesworths — hoped to see me soon again — did I 
 know my road home ? In short I cannot enume- 
 rate the civilities he heaped upon me, which. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 209 
 
 considering his respect for my friend Sir Mar- 
 maduke, and the fact of his having nine unmar- 
 ried daughters, I duly appreciated, and forthwith 
 bent my way homewards." 
 
 " Glad, I should think," said I, " to be safe 
 out." 
 
 " On the contrary," said Daly, " I should like 
 to have remained where I was ; if it had not 
 been for the anger of the respectable cat of nine 
 tails about the Teneriffe, it would have been a 
 very agreeable domicile. However, once started, 
 onwards I went, rejecting indignantly, the oflfer of 
 Bagswash to send a man to show me the way — 
 Nothing I hate so much; as if a man who had 
 followed his nose into a place could not follow 
 his nose out of it." 
 
 " I trust," said I, " that your intrepidity was 
 crowned with success." 
 
 " Rather crippled," replied Daly, " as you 
 shall hear ; however, there are two ends to my 
 story, or rather a story and a sequel." 
 
 " Pray go on," said I, knowing that so long 
 
210 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 as his breath lasted, his tongue would wag, as 
 a cherry clapper does, while the wind blows. 
 
 « Gad, Sir," said he, " I walked off— I admit 
 the Teneriffe to have been potent — and I 
 thought of one thing, and another thing, and 
 I believe I thought of all things in the world, 
 except the way which I was going. They say, 
 you know, some men have every sense but com- 
 mon sense ; — my case to a hair. Common sense 
 is like flour, — the other sort of sense is like sugar, 
 and gilding, and all the rest of those things — 
 beautiful to adorn a cake and embellish the 
 patisserie, but, without the flour, mere orna- 
 ments — now, without the ornaments, the flour 
 will make bread. I never had the flour — never 
 shall have. So you perceive that the sugar and 
 the flummery being my staple, on I went and 
 went, until I began to think I had missed my 
 way, and just then, I found myself stopped by a 
 gate opening into — or rather shutting me out of 
 — a remarkably well-stocked farmyard; — ricks, 
 stacks, stables, barns — everything comfortable 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 211 
 
 and convenient ; with half a million cocks and 
 hens, walking about like ladies and gentlemen, 
 all as happy as happy could be. Over the gate 
 I stepped, waded my way through the straw, and 
 leaning over the hatch of one of his outhouses, 
 who should I see but the farmer himself. As 
 I advanced, he touched his hat, and civilly 
 asked whether I had had much sport ? 
 
 " ' Not much,* said I, recollecting that the 
 whole contents of my bag now amounted to one 
 elderly rabbit with a Cape tail ; ' I am on my 
 way to Wrigglesworth, and out of it too, as I 
 think. How far have I to go T 
 
 " ' Seven miles, I count,' said the farmer. 
 ' You are coming right away from it. Sir. 
 Wrigglesworth lies over there on your left.' 
 
 " ' Thank you,' said I, ' thank you. If you 
 will just give me a sort of concise direction — I 
 am a dab at topography. Merely give me the 
 points, and I'll go across a country I never saw 
 in my life before.' 
 
 « « Well, Sir,' said the kind fellow, « if so be 
 as that is case, I'll tell you. When you get out 
 
212 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 of the gate down there, turn to your left, and 
 keep on straight till you come to Pussy's Nob ; 
 then away to the right, over Sumpter's Green, 
 and you'll soon see the Crooked Billet. Don't 
 go near that; but turn short round by Wheatly's 
 Copse, keep on, till you come to the stile on 
 your left; go over that, through Timsbury's 
 Lane, and that will bring you out by the Three 
 Mackerel, and there they'll be sure to put you 
 in the rig^ht road.' 
 
 " * Thank you,' said I to the farmer, ' I will 
 follow your instructions most implicitly ; but I 
 suppose I shall have no chance of getting a shot 
 now in that direction — even at a pheasant roost- 
 ing — eh ?' 
 
 " 'No, Sir,' said the farmer; 'can't say as 
 how I think you will get many more shots this 
 evening.' 
 
 " ' Well,' said I, ' now both my barrels are 
 loaded. I've got nothing in my bag but an old 
 buck-rabbit with a nob tail ; and as I hate going 
 home with no proofs of my sport, and the one» 
 head — or tail — that I have bagged takes the 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 213 
 
 domestic character, what shall I give you to 
 have a shot with both barrels at all those ducks 
 in the pond, and the fowls on the side of it, 
 standing here, and to carry away what I kill T 
 
 " ' You'll kill a woundy sight on 'em, I think, 
 at that distance,' said the considerate farmer. 
 
 " ' Perhaps yes — perhaps no,' said I. 
 
 " ' And to have all you kill?' said he, doubt- 
 ingly. 
 
 " ' Yes ; all I kill fairly out-and-out,' said I. 
 
 " * Why, you shall give me half-a-guinea,' 
 said the man. 
 
 " ' Half-a-guinea !' echoed I. ' No, no ; if I 
 kill three or four of them it will be the outside. 
 No ; I tell you what I'll do. I'll stand here — 
 won't move an inch ; and you shall have a seven- 
 shilling piece for the slaughter.' 
 
 " Well, Sir,' said the farmer, hitching up his 
 lower garments, ' a bargain's a bargain. Hand 
 over the twine.' 
 
 " Whereupon," said Daly, " I tipped him 
 that beautiful miniature portrait of a half-guinea, 
 and told him I was ready to take my shots. 
 
214 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 He nodded assent; and, having pocketed the 
 money, bade me proceed. I did so. Crack went 
 one barrel — bang ! slap went the other — bang ! 
 — and such a fluttering, and cackling, and 
 squashing and squabbling you never heard. I 
 ran forward, and secured, as my spoil, four hens 
 in high condition, a very respectable cock, lit 
 companion for my rabbit ; and from the pond 
 fished, with the butt-end of my Manton, two 
 extremely corpulent ducks, who had paid the 
 debt of nature in the most decided manner : 
 these I got out, the others I got up, and stuffed 
 them all incontinently into my bag, delighted to 
 think what a display I should make at Wriggles- 
 worth, where it was quite clear I could, by no 
 possibility, arrive in time for dinner. How- 
 ever, that was my joke, and it seemed to be the 
 farmer's ; he laughed quite as much as I did." 
 
 " Inherent good-humour, I suppose," said I. 
 
 " Why, as for that," said Daly, " you shall 
 
 judge. I bagged my birds in the first instance ; 
 
 and then, having secured my booty, began to 
 
 rally my victim ; and having acknowledged his 
 
 15 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 215 
 
 civility in giving me my travelling directions, 
 said to him, with a low bow, ' Thank you for the 
 game. Sir.' 
 
 " ' Yes, Sir,' said the farmer, « you are a 
 deuced sight better shot than I counted upon, 
 considering what you had in your bag afore.' 
 
 " ' Yes, said I, ' I think you are what you 
 may call " done." Seven shillings won't pay 
 for the poultry in my pouch, I guess.' 
 
 " ' No,' said the farmer, ' nor three times the 
 money, I count.' 
 
 " « Well, then,' replied I, « I think I have the 
 best of the bargain.' 
 
 " ' Not much,' said the man. 
 
 " ' Not much !' cried I ; ' why a guinea's 
 worth of fouls for a seven-shilling piece ' 
 
 " « Yees, Sir, that's true,' said the fellow, 
 turning slowly away from the hatch, and grin- 
 ning as he turned; ' but they are none on 'em 
 mine J 
 
 " I could have killed him for his roguery; 
 but there was so much fun in it " 
 
 " So much in your own way," cried I. 
 
216 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 " Exactly so," said Daly ; — " that, instead of 
 breaking his head, which he most righteously 
 deserved, I joined in his infernal horse-laugh, 
 and made the best of my way out of the farm- 
 yard, lest I should be immediately apprehended 
 by the right owner, as a robber of hen-roosts." 
 
 "And," said I, "you carried home your spoils." 
 
 " Not I," exclaimed my unstoppable compa- 
 nion. " Take some wine — help yourself — and 
 listen ; for the sequel is most terrible. I had 
 such a night of it !" 
 
 "How?" said I. 
 
 " Why," said Daly, " out of the gate I went, 
 turned to my left, and got to Pussy's Nob ; but 
 it began to get dusk, and very soon afterwards 
 dark; and when 1 began veering away over 
 Sumpter's Green, I found myself on a wide 
 common, without path, guide, or guide post. 
 As the darkness increased so did the declivity ; 
 and when I had lost all power of seeing, I was 
 gratified by feeling myself in a sort of quag- 
 mire, which for all I knew, might get softer and 
 thicker every step I took. I looked out for the 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 217 
 
 Stars, and saw a few : but they were of no kind 
 of use to me ; for I had not the slightest idea 
 what direction, even under their guidance, I 
 ought to take. I resolved to avoid the bogs ; 
 and kept edging away, until I at length reached 
 a gap, which, as it led off the infernal common, 
 I hoped might lead to some habitation." 
 
 " Where spring-guns and steel-traps were set 
 every night," said I. 
 
 " Not a bit of it," said Daly. " I went on, 
 following my nose, until I found myself at the 
 edge of a copse, which I began to think looked 
 extremely like Squire Bagswash's preserve. 
 However, it was not that ; but I heard people 
 talking at no great distance, and a call of 
 * Halloo !' How to act I did not exactly 
 know, with a gun, and a bag full of cocks aud 
 hens, and a venerable rabbit to boot. What 
 could I do ? To have answered the call would 
 have been to be detected as a poacher in the 
 dark. I resolved, at all events, on getting rid 
 of my poultry in the first instance, and accord- 
 ingly emptied my store, rabbit, tail and all, and 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
218 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 proceeded somewhat more gaily after having 
 thrown out my ballast; yet not without some 
 apprehension, either of being shot by the 
 keepers for a poacher, or by the poachers for a 
 keeper ; so I got clear of the whistling firs and 
 moaning larches as fast as I could, still utterly 
 ignorant of my course." 
 
 " And getting late," said I. 
 
 " It must then have been past eight," said 
 Daly. " On I trudged; scrambled over the 
 furrows of one field, and through the turnips in 
 another ; and so on and on, until at last I was 
 forced to sit myself down on a gate and rest; 
 and, I give you my word, although I have 
 known a great deal of the world, I never was 
 so dead beat in my life as I was then. Not a 
 house could I see. The glimmering of a rush- 
 light in a cottage window, would, in my eyes, 
 have been thrice more brilliant than the whole 
 regalia of England collected. But no: there 
 were no cottages — no rushlights; and I do be- 
 lieve I went the length of swearing at my own 
 stupidity in undertaking my solitary excursion. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 219 
 
 Only one set-ofF was there to the whole thing ; 
 — I had seen the Bagswashes, male and female, 
 and laid in materials for an historiette for the 
 next evening — that is, if I really survived the 
 present one; but I began to feel cold, and 
 hungry, and thirsty. However, it appeared 
 pretty certain that out of the fields I must get, 
 if I went straight on end, and could not well 
 fail of fetching up in a road somewhere at last." 
 
 " Which, as you are here alive to tell the 
 tale," said I, " of course you did." 
 
 " Why, yes," said Daly, "I did ; but it was 
 not for a long time ; and then I had come to a 
 full stop; and striking the butt of my Man ton 
 on the ground, I swore, by stock and barrel, 
 that I would not budge from under a huge tree 
 which overshadowed me till daylight came to 
 my aid. I was ravenous — I was chilled — I was 
 wretched — I was tired to death ; but why tire 
 myself more ? — and accordingly, feeling, and I 
 dare say looking, very like the dear Don of La 
 Mancha, I sat myself down with my back against 
 l2 
 
220 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 the trunk, and, if you'll believe me, fell fast 
 asleep." 
 
 « Asleep !" said I. 
 
 " Fjist as a church," said Daly, " and dream't 
 — dream't, first, that I was starving, — that, I 
 think, must have been a sort of waking vision ; 
 then, that I was at a ball ; and then I dream't 
 of being safe back at mine host's hospitable 
 mansion ; and then I had a confused, hurly-burly 
 kind of a dream, either that I was Sir Mar- 
 maduke Wrigglesworth, or that Lady Wriggles- 
 worth was Mrs. Daly, or something of that sort, 
 and that I tumbled out of bed, which tumble 
 was to me a ' dying fall ;' for I rolled over on 
 my side, and woke — in no bed — in no house, 
 but where I had lain me down, under the tree 
 before-mentioned." 
 
 " You must have caught your death of cold ?" 
 said I. 
 
 " No, Dalys and cats are very tenacious," 
 said my jocular friend ; "I roused myself — sat 
 up and listened — recollected where I was, and 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 221 
 
 heard at the same moment what was really 
 ' sweet music to mine ear/ the sound of a bell- 
 team. Ho ! ho ! says I — you are there are you 
 — where there are bells there are horses — where 
 there's a team there's a waggon — where there's 
 a waggon there's a road — up I jumped, and as 
 fast as I could, just roused from my slumbers, 
 scrambled over brambles and clambered over 
 fences, until I caught sight of the waggoner's 
 lantern waggling on the side of the tilt like a 
 bright pendulum to regulate the wheels ; the 
 moment I saw that I knew I was landed, and 
 after encountering a few of those thumps and 
 bumps which ' flesh is heir to,' found myself 
 on a high road. Waggons, even those called 
 ' flies,' may be overtaken, and although dead 
 beat, and sore of foot, I soon came up with 
 the eight plaited-tailed animals which were 
 dragging the mountain, second only in size to 
 the Juggernaut idol. 
 
 " My first object was to ascertain where I 
 was, and what the direction of the vast pile 
 before me. I found, to my particular satisfac- 
 l3 
 
22*2 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 tlon, that I was within two miles of Ripley, and 
 that the edifice was moving towards London — 
 the result was, an involuntary spring upon the 
 shafts of the vehicle, and a look at the waggoner, 
 which, by the light of his revolver, was perfectly 
 intelligible. The gun, the gaiters, the grace, 
 and the gentility, spoke the gentleman, and he 
 gave me leave to assume the post which he him- 
 self was prevented by act of Parliament from 
 occupying. All my sorrows fled the moment I 
 felt myself moved along without any personal 
 exertion, and the smiles which had nearly been 
 exhausted during my toil and trouble, returned 
 as Moore sings to ' gild my brow.' ' I have had 
 walking enough,' said I to myself, 'and grieving 
 enough — nunc est ridendum,^ " 
 
 " Excellent wag !" said I. 
 
 " Excellent waggon rather," said Daly, " for 
 so it proved; and after three-quarters of an 
 hour's hard tugging by the ' hell assemblee ' 
 before me, I was dropped, gun, gaiters, bag and 
 all at the door of the Talbot — facing the green. 
 I tipped my driver — bade adieu to the tilt — and 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 223 
 
 began knocking loudly at the door of mine 
 ostlery." 
 
 " And a nice enough inn it is," said I. 
 
 " It turned out to be past midnight," said 
 Daly ; " and by the merest luck in the world, 
 the exemplary widow who then occupied it had 
 not gone to her rest, or roost. She personally 
 answered my call, and replied to my knock. 
 After a few preliminary ' Who's there's,' she 
 opened the door ; and the moment she recognized 
 me — for I was well known upon the road — her 
 delight, as you may conceive, was unspeakable. 
 
 " ' Bless my heart, Mr. Daly,' said the widow, 
 ' what a time o' night to be strolling about with 
 your gun ! Why, where do you come from ?' 
 
 " ' That' said I, 'is about the last question in 
 the world I can answer satisfactorily. I have 
 been wandering across a country with which I 
 am not particularly well acquainted — have tired 
 myself to death, and fallen asleep.' 
 
 " ' Fallen indeed,' said mine hostess, ' into a 
 ditch, Mr. Daly, I should think. Why, dear 
 me, what a condition you are in !' 
 l4 
 
224 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 " ' Exactly,' said I; 'recumbent repose in 
 October under an oak, is not particularly deli- 
 cate ; however, my darling, give me some sup- 
 per, some hot brandy and water, and order me 
 the most comfortable bed in the house, for I am 
 a-tired.' 
 
 « < Why, Sir,' asked the dear woman, ' where 
 is your servant with your clothes — you cannot 
 think of sleeping here in that condition ?' 
 
 " ' Not exactly,' said I ; ' I shall take off my 
 clothes when I go to bed — and as for my ser- 
 vant, he is snug and happy at Sir Marmaduke 
 Wrigglesworth's, (where I ought to be too,) un- 
 less they have sent him out with a rake and a 
 lantern to search for me and drag all the horse 
 ponds in the neighbourhood. I tell you I am 
 hungry — and tired — and shall be very sleepy — 
 out with your tit-bits and delicacies — something 
 piquant — nice — savoury, eh — and after that, a 
 comfortable nest." 
 
 " ' You shall have something to eat,' said the 
 widow, ' and something to drink, for those I can 
 give you myself; but as for a bed, I haven't 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 225 
 
 one in the house — crammed full from top to 
 bottom.* 
 
 " ' Tm very tired, said I ; ' I can sleep com- 
 pact like a dog on a hearth-rug — half a bed 
 will do for me.* 
 
 " ' Come Mr. Daly,* said the landlady, ' none 
 of your nonsense — I have no bed whatever to- 
 night, and here it is almost one o'clock — you 
 had better let me ring up the next turn-out, and 
 get back to Wrigglesworth.* 
 
 " ' Thank you Fanny,* said I ; I used to call 
 her Fanny in her husband's time, and he was 
 killed, switching a rasper, three years before; 
 ' not I — I should not get there till nearly four 
 — all the family 'in a deep sleep buried,' — no, 
 no — none of your nonsense — where am I to 
 rest?* 
 
 " ' I told you the truth,' said the widow ; 
 ' there's not a bed disengaged.' 
 
 " ' Not one ?' said I — looking as I fancied 
 most insinuatingly, and helping myself to a glass 
 of brandy from a bottle covered with a gilt 
 bunch of grapes, at the same time gently press- 
 ing the tip of mine hostess's little finger. 
 l5 
 
226 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 " ' Not one upon my life, Mr. Daly,* replied 
 she ; ' indeed we are so full, that my sister Jane, 
 who is here, is obliged to sleep with me^ 
 
 " ' Thaf s very unfortunate, indeed,' said I ; 
 * however, I rejoice that you have so much cus- 
 tom — all's good for trade — at all events let me 
 eat — let me warm myself — both in the sunshine 
 of those bright eyes, and in the blaze of the 
 parlour fire.' 
 
 " Mine hostess proceeded to make me exceed- 
 ingly comfortable — I ate cold fowl and ham, 
 and drank hot brandy and water, and eventually 
 punch. Mine hostess sipped shrub — a liquor, 
 which if it were liqueur^ would rank fathoms 
 above either Curacoa or Maraschino — till at last 
 the clock striking two, reminded her it was time 
 to go to bed. 
 
 " « Ah,' said I, ' that is extremely just and 
 proper. But alas ! I am like my melancholy 
 little friend who was ' very gentil, but whose 
 hair came a leetle through the top of his hat,' I 
 have no bed to go to.' 
 
 " ' It's very provoking,' said the landlady, ' so 
 tired as you are too.' 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 227 
 
 " ' It is, indeed,' replied I — seeing a pro- 
 position of some sort or other on tip of her 
 tongue. 
 
 " ' Now,' said she, looking remarkably seri- 
 ous, ' can I trust you — will you promise me, if 
 I give you a bed, to do as I bid you, Mr. Daly?' 
 
 " ' Your commands,' said I, ' shall be obeyed 
 to the letter — only let me rest myself quietly 
 and comfortably — it is all I ask — for never was 
 poor devil so tired in his life as I.' 
 
 " ' Take a drop more punch, Mr. Daly,' said 
 my landlady, 'it will make you sleep the sounder.' 
 
 " ' No fear of that,' said I ; « but what do you 
 propose ?' 
 
 " « Why,' said mine hostess, ' I have one bed 
 unoccupied.' 
 
 " < Why didn't you say so before ?' cried I. 
 
 " ' I'll tell you why,' said my fair friend ; ' it's 
 a double-bedded room, and the other bed is oc- 
 cupied by a ' 
 
 " < snoring farmer, from Farnham,' said 
 
 I ; ' or perhaps a tight-skinned sailor walking 
 his way to town from Portsmouth.* 
 l6 
 
2*28 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 " ' No,' said she, looking very pathetic — and 
 very pretty by the way — ' by a lady.' 
 
 " ' A lady,' said I, 'oh, charming thought ! — ' 
 
 " ' There it is,' interrupted the lady, ' that's 
 just what I expected, you are all fire and tow — 
 alight in a moment — now I shall not say another 
 word, and you must sleep, if you will sleep here, 
 in the arm-chair by the fire.' 
 
 " ' No,' said I, 'no — don't be angry — I didn't 
 know — I thought ' 
 
 " ' Yes, Mr. Daly, that's what you are always 
 thinking, I believe,' said mine hostess, ' but that 
 won't do — the lady who occupies the other bed 
 in the double-bedded room is a sad invalid ; she 
 has been stopping here for some time, and the 
 only rest she gets is by dint of laudanum, which 
 the doctor gives her in large doses, and she 
 sleeps soundly during the night, which makes up 
 for the sufferings she endures by day. If you 
 choose to behave well — and tired as you are, I 
 don't like to turn you out or leave you here — 
 you shall have the other bed. You must go 
 gently into the room, and when you are in bed 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 229 
 
 I will come and take away your candle ; and as 
 Isleep in the next room, if you don't remain 
 perfectly quiet I shall insist upon your getting 
 up and coming down again here into the bar.' 
 
 " ' Agreed,' said I, ' I only ask for a bed — all 
 I want is rest — I am scarcely able to walk or 
 stand, therefore I agree to your condition ; let 
 me finish my punch, and ' marshal me the way I 
 should go.' ' 
 
 " ' After looking at me suspiciously and hesi- 
 tatingly for a minute or two, my dear landlady 
 agreed to trust me ; and accordingly having seen 
 that my bed was properly prepared she returned, 
 and lighting a candle, preceded me up stairs, 
 and opening the door of the room put her finger 
 to her lips to enforce silence, whispering me, 
 that when I was in bed I should knock against 
 the wainscot which separated her room from that 
 in which I was to repose, and that she would 
 come and fetch my candle. 
 
 " I promissed to obey all her injunctions. 
 The curtains of the other bed were closely drawn 
 — I never felt so awkward in my life — but I had 
 
230 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 promised ; yet one peep before the light vanish- 
 ed — no — perhaps the lady would wake and 
 scream, and I should be forthwith ejected. I 
 resolved to keep my faith, at all events till mine 
 hostess was herself asleep, and then see — as far 
 as utter darkness would permit — how the affair 
 would terminate. 
 
 " Accordingly I hurried off my clothes — wash- 
 ed my face, hands, and mouth as gently and 
 quietly as possible, and having concluded my 
 brief preparations for depositing myself in my 
 much longed-for couch, gave the concerted sig- 
 nal, and scarcely was well in my place before 
 my dear landlady entered the room on tip- 
 toe, and coming up close to the bed-side and 
 having whispered ' Now remember your promise ' 
 — took the glimmering light away, and left me 
 in the dark with my fair and slumbering com- 
 panion. 
 
 " There was something very strange in my 
 position," said Daly ; " I was tired to death, but 
 somehow I could not sleep. I lay and listened 
 to hear whether my fair incognita would sneeze 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 231 
 
 — or cough — or cry ' hem ' — or play off any 
 little coquettish trick which, under the circum- 
 stances, I thought probable enough. I durst 
 not move for / knew I was watched ; however, 
 I sat up in the bed and began to wonder — Is it , 
 thought I, an old woman or a young woman — 
 an invalid is interesting, and bless her, she must 
 be uncommonly genteel, for she does not snore 
 in the least — a few minutes served to convince 
 me that my landlady did — and I rather rejoiced 
 in the sound of her slumbers, since I thought I 
 might perhaps succeed in attracting the atten- 
 tion of my sleeping partner; and the fact that a 
 gentleman of my very respectable pretensions 
 was so whimsically associated with her — knowing 
 mine hostess's archness — induced me to attri- 
 bute her readiness to quarter me upon the slum- 
 bering beauty, to a foreknowledge on her part 
 that my introduction would not be considered 
 altogether an intrusion. 
 
 " After I had satisfied myself that my land- 
 lady was really safe, I had recourse to some 
 slight coughs, which do occasionally infest one ; 
 
232 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 but 110, my signals were not answered : tlie dose 
 of laudanum had been particularly strong that 
 night. At last I thought I heard a slight move- 
 ment. I began to listen, till I heard the beating 
 of my own heart, and felt a sort of drumming 
 palpitation in my ears. I held my breath : psha, 
 thought I, this woman has been cheating me, 
 the other bed is tenantless, — a trick to try me, 
 — and for what a stupid dolt she will set me 
 down if I don't convince her that I had at least 
 curiosity enough in my composition to ascertain 
 what was in it. 
 
 " My feelings fired at the thought. Up I 
 got, — groped my way across the room, — the 
 white dimity drapery being just visible amidst 
 the ' palpable obscure.' I reached the bed, — I 
 paused, — I heard nothing; — I partly opened the 
 curtains at the side, and said in a soft, very soft 
 voice, ' Hem !' No answer. ' Ma'am, — Ma'am,' 
 still silent; — 'are you there!' said I; — and, 
 placing my hand on the pillow, found she was. 
 Dear, unconscious creature, there she lay, com- 
 fortably cuddled up in the clothes, and sleeping 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 233 
 
 or seeming to sleep, soundly. I was, I admit, on 
 the point of proceeding to awaken her, in order 
 to announce my presence, when, in stepping 
 towards the head of the bed, my foot came in 
 contact with a chair which stood on its right- 
 hand side, which was overthrown with a crash 
 that, in an instant, roused, — not my dear opium- 
 drinker, — but my lynx-like landlady. I heard 
 her jump out of bed. I jumped into mine, but, 
 in less than two minutes, there she was, like 
 Margaret's ' grimly ghost,' standing before me, 
 loading me with reproaches, and ordering me, 
 in the most peremptory terms, to take the 
 candle, descend the stairs, and dress myself in 
 the parlour behind the bar, and wait until she 
 came down to eject me from the house; seeing 
 that she could have no kind of confidence in a 
 gentleman who had so much confidence in himself. 
 " Vain were my pantomimic supplications : 
 she would listen to nothing but immediate abdi- 
 cation, and I could not well be angry with her, 
 for she had put faith in me, and perhaps run the 
 risk of losing a valuable customer by indulging 
 
234 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 me with the luxuries of ease and rest which, 
 under no other circumstances, she could have 
 afforded me. I implicitly obeyed her commands; 
 and, as soon as she had retired to dress herself, 
 collected my wearing apparel, and slunk down 
 stairs to prepare for my departure, which seemed 
 inevitable. As I passed along the passages, I 
 heard multifarious snorings in all directions, 
 which convinced me of the truth of my land- 
 lady's assertions as to the influx of company, 
 and made me repent more sorely than before, 
 that I could not for once in my life act with dis- 
 cretion and decorum. 
 
 " I had scarcely finished dressing myself 
 when my landlady made her appearance in the 
 parlour. 
 
 " ' I really am surprised. Sir,' said she, ' at 
 your conduct. I thought as a gentleman, you 
 might have been trusted, considering the cir- 
 cumstances under which I ventured to put you 
 into that room.' 
 
 " * Really," said I, ' I thought you were play- 
 ing me a trick, and I could not bear your having 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 235 
 
 the laugh against me, and so I certainly did ven- 
 ture just to ascertain ' 
 
 " * Ascertain !' cried the landlady, ' that's just 
 the very thing you ought, upon no considera- 
 tion whatever, to have done. Did not I tell 
 you the lady was an invalid ? Oh ! Mr. Daly, 
 Mr. Daly ! I believe you are the d * 
 
 " * evil be. Ma'am,' said I, interrupting 
 
 her, ' to him who evil thinks. I meant no harm, 
 and—' 
 
 " ' You might have ruined me. Sir,' said mine 
 hostess. 
 
 « Might I ?' said I,— < when ?' 
 
 " « This very night. Sir,' said she ; * this very 
 hour. Why, what would have been thought of 
 me and my house, if it had been known that I 
 had allowed you to sleep in that room ? Nobody 
 would have believed that I did it out of pure 
 regard for your comfort, tired and knocked up as 
 you were, and because I had not a hole or corner 
 besides into which you could have poked your- 
 self: however, it will be a lesson for me another 
 time ; and now, Mr. Daly, if you will take my 
 
236 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 advice, the lads are getting up in the yard, — you 
 will let me order out a chaise and pair, and go on 
 to Guildford, where, I have no doubt, they have 
 plenty of beds, and where you may get some 
 comfortable rest ; and as the brother of the lady 
 in No. 3 is sleeping here to-night, something 
 unpleasant to all parties might happen in the 
 morning, and you wTjuld do me a very great 
 favour if you would go.' 
 
 " I felt considerably inclined, for many rea- 
 sons, to accede to what appeared the very rea- 
 sonable desire of mine hostess: first of all, I 
 might do her a mischief by a staying; in the 
 second place, the lady might complain to her 
 brother; in the third place, the White Hart at 
 Guildford was a remarkably good inn ; and a 
 well-made bed, and a well-warmed bed-room, 
 would be extremely comfortable by comparison 
 with the chilly atmosphere and the chair-slumber 
 of the parlour behind the bar, at Ripley. To 
 Guildford I must eventually proceed, — and why 
 not now ? So, with the best possible grace, I told 
 mine hostess that I was at her command, and 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 237 
 
 begged of her to dispose of me as she thought 
 fit. 
 
 " I paid her liberally for the horses, the re- 
 past, and the portion of my night's rest which 
 I ought to have had ; and when I stepped into 
 the ' yellow and two,' I shook hands with her, 
 and she gave me a look as much as to say, again 
 and again, ' Daly, Daly ! you are not to be 
 trusted.' 
 
 " Well, Sir," continued Daly, " away I went, 
 glasses rattling, and wind whistling: (a short 
 stage, as you know, ) and, before four we reached 
 the White Hart. I had forestalled my Guild- 
 ford sleep in the chaise ; however, we soon made 
 them hear at the inn, and in less than three- 
 quarters of an hour I was again rolled up in 
 the sheets, having, before I went to bed, written 
 a note to my servant at Wriggles worth, which 
 I desired might be sent off early in the morn- 
 ing, directing him, after leaving word with Sir 
 Marmaduke's man that I was alive, if not 
 merry, to come to me with my clothes and other 
 requisites for dressing by ten o'clock, and cer- 
 
238 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 tainly, I must say, I never did enjoy rest and 
 quietness so entirely and completely, as upon 
 tliat particular occasion. Instead of ten o'clock 
 — having desired that I might not be disturbed 
 — I did not wake until past noon, and then re- 
 gretted that my balmy comfort had been broken 
 in upon. 
 
 From my servant, when I saw him, I 
 learned that my friends at Wrigglesworth 
 had really expressed great anxiety on my ac- 
 count, which did not displease me ; — I rather 
 like to create an effect; — but I did not hear 
 that dear Lady Wrigglesworth had either ab- 
 sented herself from dinner, or disappeared for 
 the evening in consequence of my absence, 
 which I confess mortified my vanity a little. I 
 dressed, and having ensconced myself in the 
 drawing-room of the White Hart, the walls of 
 which apartment were most constitutionally de- 
 corated with loyal and orthodox prints, and 
 which immediately faces the Gothic House, I 
 delighted myself by watching the movements of 
 two uncommonly pretty girls in the said anti- 
 15 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 239 
 
 quated edifice, who appeared to be in full pos- 
 session, in the absence, as I surmised, of some 
 greater, and probably graver, personages. 
 
 " After breakfast I strolled out. I like 
 Guildford; it is a nice, clean, handsome, healthy 
 town; the hill in the street I admit to be a 
 nuisance ; the alternation between climbing up 
 and sliding down is tiresome and even danger- 
 ous. These little objections did not affect me 
 — ruothing affects me when I am on the hunt for 
 subjects — so away I went — smack bang into a 
 quaker's shop to buy myself a pair of gloves — 
 and there — there I saw what I had never be- 
 fore seen — two quaker children playing about 
 the place, thee'ing and thou'ing each other, 
 with perfect French familiarity. Now, do you 
 know," — continued Daly, — " it is quite worthy 
 of remark, — that nobody — always, I presume, 
 excepting quakers themselves — has ever seen a 
 quaker baby in arms — ^a quaker lady enceinte^ or 
 a quaker gentleman with a wooden leg — eh ? I 
 like these statistical speculations. — So, having 
 bought my gloves, I returned to ' mine inn ' 
 
240 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 about one, intending forthwith to proceed to 
 Wrigglesworth. 
 
 " Just as I reached the door of the White 
 Hart, and just as my man was bringing out my 
 horses, my eye was attracted by a funeral pro- 
 cession, consisting merely of a hearse, one 
 mourning coach, and a private carriage, which 
 had halted before the door; two persons who 
 had occupied the coach having entered the 
 house while fresh horses were put to the three 
 vehicles. A natural and not very blameable 
 curiosity prompted me to ask a jolly, merry- 
 looking undertaker, whose funeral it was, whi- 
 ther they were going, and whence they had 
 come ? 
 
 " « Why, Sir,' said the man, ' what you see 
 here isn't the regular job as I hopes to turn it 
 out at Chichester next Tuesday, which is the 
 day fixed for the interment of the corpse. Short 
 notice, you see, Sir ; could not do everything in 
 a minute, Sir.' 
 
 " * What is the name of the — — ?' I hesi- 
 tatingly asked. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 241 
 
 " ' Miss Barmingfield, Sir,' said the man, 
 * is the name of the eropse. Poor young lady, 
 it was as well as you and me three days ago, 
 and was a coming down to Chichester to spend 
 a month with its mother; when, just in a minute, 
 it was taken ill at Ripley, and out it went for 
 all the world like the snuff of a candle.' 
 
 " ' At Ripley !" said I : 'did she live at 
 Ripley?' 
 
 " ' No, Sir, she didn't,' said the undertaker ; 
 ' you'll excuse me — she died there.' 
 
 " ' But she must have lived there first, I 
 presume,' said I, rather angrily; for a joker 
 hates to be joked upon. 
 
 " ' A very short time, indeed,' said the jolly 
 undertaker. ' She arrived at the Talbot the 
 day before yesterday, about twelve o'clock, in 
 high health, and by six at night, as I said 
 afore, she was a eropse.' 
 
 " ' At the Talbot !' said I. < And are you 
 bringing the body from the Talbot now?' 
 
 " ' Yes, Sir,' said the man ; on our way to 
 Chichester. We could not move her, poor dear 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
242 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 young lady, afore, because I couldn't get things 
 ready till this morning.* 
 
 " ' Pray,' said I, with a degree of agitation 
 which evidently astonished my companion in 
 the crape, ' where — in what part of the Talbot 
 at Ripley did the young lady die ?' 
 
 " ' In Number 3; that ere double-bedded 
 room right over the gateway,' said the man. 
 ' We only packed her up this morning.' 
 
 " My dear Gurney," said Daly, " you may 
 easily imagine what my feelings were. Only 
 conceive the idea of having been turned into 
 a double-bedded room in the dark with a dead 
 woman ! It was lucky that the horses were 
 pronounced ready, and that Major Barming- 
 field, whose residence at Ripley mine hostess 
 so truly had announced, made his appearance 
 just at the moment that the undertaker had 
 enlightened me on the subject. I felt a min- 
 gled sensation of horror at the event, of joy at 
 my escape from the place where it occurred, and 
 of repentance for my misconduct towards my 
 landlady, who had so good-naturedly strained a 
 15 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 243 
 
 point for my accommodation, which nearly over- 
 set me ; and I have not a notion what I should 
 have done, had it not been that the coldness of 
 the weather afforded me an excuse for drink- 
 ing off a glass of brandy, and the lateness of 
 the hour forced me to mount my nag and begin 
 my canter to Wrigglesworth forthwith." 
 
 When Daly had finished this little episode in 
 his eccentric and eventful life, I felt particu- 
 larly sick, — I might say sympathetically sick. 
 He perceived the effect his story had produced, 
 and calling for Dejex himself, prescribed a 
 glass of Garus, at that time the popular liqueur ; 
 and then whispering some directions about 
 egged- wine, desired me to finish the claret, 
 and commence a new course of drinking. 
 
 The subsequent events of that evening re- 
 quire a new chapter. 
 
 M 2 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 So much has been said and written from the 
 days of Shakspeare to our own degenerate 
 times about the vice of drinking, that I have 
 no intention of dilating upon its folly and 
 disgracefulness ; but in confessing that I drank 
 a great deal too much of every thing exciting 
 and intoxicating upon this particular occasion, I 
 may perhaps be permitted to say, that although, 
 under the influence of agreeable conversation 
 and a bad example, I might be induced now 
 and then to exceed, I was not habitually 
 addicted to what are called Bacchanalian plea- 
 sures; and that one bout similar to that to 
 
 I 
 
GILBERT GURNEY, 245 
 
 which I now refer, generally produced at least a 
 six weeks' course of repentance. So it was upon 
 this memorable night — for memorable, indeed, 
 it proved to me ; and so rapidly did our pota- 
 tions affect my faculties, that in the plenitude 
 of our mutual confidence — by which, be it 
 understood, I mean the confidence of Daly in 
 inquiring, and my own confidence in answering 
 — I imparted to him the secret of my attach- 
 ment to an amiable, dear, unsophisticated, 
 creature, who was living in the romantic and 
 beautiful sea-port of Tenby, in South Wales ; 
 whither she had been conveyed, as it had been 
 hinted to me, to get her out of my reach, by 
 her mother, whose designs for her were of the 
 Corinthian order, and who had no notion of 
 allowing her lily to waste its sweetness upon a 
 desert " heir " to four or five hundred a-year. 
 
 I just recollect the enthusiasm with which I 
 described my Emma's beauties as the lamps 
 twinkled before my eyes, and the various 
 "drinks" which Daly had ordered passed over 
 my senseless palate ; but I was diffuse in my 
 M 3 
 
246 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 eulogiums, and candid in the extreme as to 
 the certainty of my failure in obtaining the 
 golden apple of the Cambrian Hesperides, 
 watched as it was by the matronly dragon, who, 
 as I firmly believed, detested me. 
 
 In those days there really existed something 
 like sentiment and affection, devoted and un- 
 qualified by worldly grovellings. Now, these 
 exist no longer ; nobody ever hears of an 
 unmarried woman's being seriously attached; 
 the highly-accomplished and double-refined 
 beauty of the period at which I write would 
 be shocked to death if she were thought to be 
 what in other times was called being in love. 
 Girls like dandies, and with the dandies whom 
 they like they flirt, and they waltz, and, if it 
 happens to be quite convenient to all parties, 
 eventually marry them. Wit and accomplish- 
 ments have taken place of that sober serious 
 devotion, which " looked unutterable things ;" 
 and a man, in these times, convicted of hav- 
 ing been upon his knees, would be as much 
 damaged in the estimation of the sporting- 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 247 
 
 world, as a horse would be for the same 
 reason. 
 
 But when I was sitting sipping and sighing 
 at Dejex's it was not so. I remember trea- 
 suring a fan of Emma's, as I would the relic of 
 a saint, aye and worshipping it too. To a 
 white kid glove ripped at the thumb, I have 
 bowed as pilgrims would at a shrine ; and a rose 
 which once had graced her bosom has been 
 deposited in the leaf of some favoured book 
 to dry, a botanical memorandum of her beauties 
 and my own devotion. 
 
 I have a faint recollection of Daly's strong 
 encouragement in my pursuit, and a most 
 earnest protestation of assistance in any of the 
 manoeuvres of the post-chaise and rope-ladder 
 school, to which, if I ever possessed my Emma, 
 I must be indebted for that happiness. I 
 remember, too, I loved to hear him talk of the 
 possibility of my success, and the facility with 
 which all our machinations were to be carried 
 into effect, till at last I had dreamt myself into 
 a certainty of obtaining the hand of one whose 
 M 4 
 
248 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 heart I was quite sure I had already gained, 
 and only awoke from the semi-slumberings of 
 happiness to pay the bill, Daly having most 
 unfortunately left his purse at home, and having 
 no change whatever in his pocket. 
 
 I do not recollect our further proceedings 
 with any degree of distinctness. I knew we 
 were to walk to St. James's-street, where Daly 
 proposed introducing me to a participation in 
 the noble game of hazard ; and I have a faint 
 remembrance of stopping to pay an evening 
 visit to some relations of his on our way thither; 
 but it seemed all like a bright vision of some 
 very lovely good-natured ladies, and vastly 
 pleasant men, who appeared to make me en- 
 tirely welcome to the party, and who drank 
 punch with unaffected delight. All sublunary 
 pleasures must have an end, and however agree- 
 able this "drop in" might have been, we at 
 length " dropped out" and pursued our journey 
 to the gaming-house in which I was to make 
 my sporting debut^ and which I recollect stood 
 on the left-hand of the street, near the Thatched 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 249 
 
 House Tavern, and had a white bow window 
 projecting over the trottoir, somewhat resem- 
 bling a well-fed alderman's white waistcoat. 
 
 There is always something awkward and 
 embarrassing in the premier pas. The first 
 speech of the politician — the first sermon of the 
 parson — the first cause of the lawyer, by ne- 
 cessarily putting the performer in a novel 
 position, agitates, and in some degree unnerves 
 him ; and although I had somewhat recklessly 
 presented myself to a most respectable and 
 accomplished party of Daly's female friends, 
 before we reached our present destination, I felt 
 nothing very awful in my position there; one 
 party is so very much like another, and conver- 
 sation and manners, in modern times, so very 
 much assimilate in all circles, that whether in the 
 neighbourhood of Grosvenor-square or Leices- 
 ter-fields, a man, knowing a little of the world, 
 will, as a matter of course, find himself equally 
 at home. But when we stepped up two or 
 three stairs, and our progress was impeded by 
 a stout door made of three-inch plank, and 
 M 5 
 
250 GILBERT GURNEY, 
 
 covered with green-baize, in the middle of the 
 upper part of which appeared a small sort of 
 wicket or hatch, through which the Cerberus 
 of the inner regions eyed us, in order to ascer- 
 tain whether we were admissible or suspicious, 
 I felt a sort of qualm, and a kind of wish to 
 return ; but my nervousness was entirely dissi- 
 pated when I heard Daly tell the man, whose 
 eye glanced out of the hole like that in the 
 sign-board of the " Observer " newspaper, or in 
 the puffing bill of Dr. Smellome's nostrum, 
 that I was a friend of his ; upon which " Open, 
 Sesame ! " of my hopeful conductor, I found the 
 door thrown back in order to admit us. Upstairs 
 I went, and half-w^ay farther up we encountered 
 another door similarly contrived and pierced; 
 but, at this barrier, Daly's face was sufficient for 
 passport without a word, and in a minute 
 afterwards, we were ushered into the room, 
 where the game was in full play. 
 
 I confess the smell of the lamps which over- 
 hung the round table — for in those days refined 
 French hazard was unknown to us —and of the 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 251 
 
 company was rather oppressive ; the noise of 
 the dice, the cry of the groom-porter, and the 
 bawling of the betters, somewhat astounded 
 me ; but I admit — such is the influence of 
 sensuality — that the appetite which my copious 
 libations at Dejex's had fictitiously produced, 
 received an additional stimulus, not unaccom- 
 panied by the hope of gratification, when I 
 beheld in the recess of the bow-window before 
 mentioned, a table plentifully covered with an 
 excellent cold supper, at which divers and 
 sundry of the company were indulging them- 
 selves con amove. I began to think my simile, 
 on first sight of the window, was now perfectly 
 borne out, and whatever might be the sporting 
 character of the assembly generally, the comes- 
 tibles were most judiciously and naturally 
 placed in what I had likened to an alderman's 
 waistcoat. 
 
 I was not soon induced to join in the game, 
 
 although a gentleman, whose hat was not of the 
 
 newest, and who was buttoned up to the very 
 
 chin in a sort of military great coat, offered me 
 
 M 6 
 
252 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 his seat the moment I approached the table; 
 but I whispered to my Jidus Achates^ that 
 whatever interest the game might have for 
 others, the cold meat and pickles offered a 
 more attractive subject for my present contem- 
 plation. There, however, he checked my 
 eagerness for the attraction, by hinting, that, 
 as the supper was furnished gratis, I could not, 
 with anything like propriety or gentlemanly 
 feeling, undertake to play with my knife and 
 fork at a table where the keepers of the 
 establishment must be sure to lose, unless I 
 also performed at the other, where the chances 
 were considerably in favour of their winning. 
 In order to exemplify the absolute necessity of 
 this probation, he told me that, although he 
 was quite as hungry as myself, he should 
 entirely abstain from eating, because (as I 
 knew) he had no money to play with ; he 
 therefore could not qualify for the refreshment, 
 which, as in masonry, seemed only to be af- 
 forded after labour. 
 
 Of course I did not allow my free-hearted 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 253 
 
 friend to starve for such a paltry consideration 
 as that, but instantly handed him out of my 
 purse a five-pound note, with which he said 
 he would play for both of us, so that he might 
 at once increase the store, and give me a proper 
 insight into what he represented to be a most 
 pleasing and profitable pursuit. 
 
 I must confess that, after ten minutes sojourn 
 in the midst of the motley group, all those 
 alarms and prejudices which my grave friend, 
 the justice, and my exemplary mother had so 
 prudently instilled into my mind as to the 
 horrors of gaming-houses, which, in the earnest- 
 ness of their zeal for my safety, they constantly 
 designated by a word wholly " unfit for ears 
 polite," had utterly and entirely subsided; I 
 saw nothing but good humour and good fellow- 
 ship. Some won their tens, and twenties, and 
 fifties with perfect good-nature, and others lost 
 them with equal complacency. Daly made me 
 sit down beside him — the box came — he called 
 a main. I did not even know the term — 
 seven's the main, said Daly — he threw again, 
 
254 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 and out came eleven, upon which the gentle- 
 man in the chair with a rake in his hand, cried 
 out " Eleven's a nick," and immediately I saw 
 my five-pound note converted into a ten, by a 
 process which appeared to me not only ex- 
 tremely simple, but remarkably pleasant. Daly 
 threw again, again called seven and threw nine ; 
 a loud cry of " Five to four," rang through the 
 room ; " Fifty to forty," cried one, " Done," 
 bawled another, — " Do it in fives. Colonel," 
 screamed a little man very like a frog in the 
 face, upon whose back an Irish gentleman was 
 sitting or leaning, pushed forward by half a 
 dozen eager spectators behind him, I heard 
 nothing but *' Five to four" for a minute or 
 two, varied with a counter-cry of " Nine to 
 seven ;" then a pause, broken only by the 
 rattling of the dice, and then a call of " Nine — 
 the caster wins ;" whereupon notes and guineas 
 changed hands all round the outside rim of the 
 table, and Daly swept up ten pounds as a stake, 
 and five for his single bet. 
 
 I was then as much pleased with the practice 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 255 
 
 of the game as I had just been with the princi- 
 ple, and although Daly " threw out," as they 
 called it, next time, and lost five pounds, it was 
 clear he had realized fifteen ; so that having 
 myself been a winner of seven before, on our 
 partnership account, I took the box, and co- 
 vered five sets of one pound each, omitting the 
 more important ones, which I could not afford 
 to touch. I called my main, seven — and threw 
 it — raked up my money, and called again, 
 seven ; threw deuce-ace ; upon which the mon- 
 ster in the chair bellowed out " Crabs," and 
 made no more ado but swept away all my stakes, 
 and whisked the dice out of my reach with a 
 kind of rat-trap which was stuck to the end of 
 his stick. 
 
 Having, however, now done my duty by 
 playing, although I had neither lost nor won, I 
 nudged Daly as to the eatables ; he assented to 
 my practical proposition, and we quitted the 
 round table for the long one, where I admit I 
 felt myself more of an adept than at the other. 
 During my repast, which I enjoyed, Daly was 
 
256 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 particularly assiduous in disabusing my mind 
 with respect to the illiberal prejudices by which 
 sporting men were so regularly assailed. He 
 pointed out to me many men of high distinc- 
 tion, fathers of families, men holding high 
 ostensible situations, who were actively engaged 
 in the fascinating pursuit, and dwelt particu- 
 larly upon the misapplication of the gross term, 
 universally applied to houses of that description. 
 " So far," said Daly, " from hazard being 
 considered a wrong or disreputable game, you 
 know, of course, that the kings of England, till 
 the reign of George III., used annually, on 
 Twelfth-night, to play hazard in an open room 
 in St. James's Palace, which ceremony the 
 public were admitted to witness. Hence the 
 name given to these places of amusement. — 
 The room in which the king publicly exhi- 
 bited himself to his people, doing exactly 
 what all our sporting friends are doing here, 
 was called as those houses are now called on 
 account of its darkness by day, and hence the 
 opprobrium which has fallen upon us players in 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 257 
 
 modern times, who congregate in places which, 
 to the delicate imaginations of little masters 
 and misses, deserve the same horrible appella- 
 tion on account of their infamy, instead of 
 having received it from the court itself : hence, 
 too, the title of my worthy friend in the chair 
 with the rake — he is called groom-porter — why, 
 nobody on earth could possibly surmise, who 
 did not know that in the royal hazard-playing, 
 which I have just mentioned, it was the duty 
 of the groom-porter of the palace to call the 
 odds." 
 
 " That I did not know," said I, excessively 
 pleased to find that the temple of chance did 
 not deserve the hard name which, from mingled 
 ignorance of its honest joys, and the derivation 
 of the name itself, my parent and guardian had 
 thought proper to give it. I believe I appeared 
 sceptical as to my friend's facts, which, however, 
 made him more earnest in his asseverations; 
 and when I ventured to express a doubt that 
 any room in a palace could be called by such 
 a name, he convinced me of his correctness by 
 
258 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 telling me that it was the room in which the 
 birth-day odes were always performed, which 
 odes it was customary to rehearse previously at 
 the concert room in the Devil Tavern, Fleet- 
 street, — a circumstance which, I then saw, gave 
 the only point they possess, to the well-known 
 lines on the poet laureate of the day. 
 
 Somehow, Daly succeeded in soothing all 
 my alarms, and quieting all my scruples, and I 
 found myself almost insensibly swallowing large 
 jorums of cold brandy and water, thereby 
 merely following the example of my surround- 
 ing neighbours, who evidently were friends of 
 the concern, if not of the house, and who ap- 
 peared taking in provision enough to serve 
 them for the next three days ; and in this calm 
 state of amusement, in the midst of the din and 
 rattle, which at first I could scarcely endure, I 
 went on until, tempted by the good fortune of 
 Daly, I began to feel an unaccountable desire 
 to resume my place at the board. In making the 
 effort, I found myself more unsteady than I had 
 expected ; however, the distance was not great. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 259 
 
 and aided by Daly, I seated myself again at 
 the table. I did not like to mention to Daly 
 the promised division of spoils, because I 
 thought he might go on and win, as he seemed 
 extremely lucky, and that it would be better to 
 let him take his own way. Accordingly, I 
 drew forth my only ten-pound note, last resi- 
 dent of my purse, and began my career. A 
 most assiduous friend, whose face I had never 
 seen before, brought me a new edition of 
 brandy and water, which I drank, and then took 
 the box and played with small and varying 
 success ; but the heat and excitement very soon 
 produced a sensible alteration in my deport- 
 ment. I began to wish to find Daly and to 
 retire, but my eyes in vain wandered over the 
 groupe ; I inquired of a man with whom he had 
 been conversing, and found that he had taken 
 his departure. I was surprised that he should 
 have left me in the hands of the Philistines, 
 but much less alarmed or mortified than I 
 should have been under any other circum- 
 stances. I drank more, and played on — and on 
 
260 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 — and on. Nor did consciousness come to my 
 aid until I was awakened by my servant coming 
 into my room to fetch my clothes, at about nine 
 o'clock in the morning. 
 
 His address to me was somewhat astounding 
 — "Where shall I put all this money, Sir?" 
 said he. I looked up, and saw him in the act 
 of withdrawing from my coat pocket a handful 
 of bank-notes, ones, twos, fives, tens, and so 
 on. — 
 
 " Oh," said I, affecting a perfect composure, 
 " leave it on the table." 
 
 So he did ; but out of the room he had not 
 gone one minute before I jumped out of bed to 
 ascertain, not how the sum before my eyes 
 came there, but to what it amounted. I con- 
 cluded I had won largely — but who had brought 
 me home — how did I get to bed — did I open 
 the house door with my own pocket key ? I 
 had no recollection of any incident intervening 
 between the last jorum of St. James's Street 
 nectar and my first start from the slumbers of 
 Suffolk Street, — there, however, lay some clean 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 261 
 
 some dirty, some torn bank-notes, of all sorts, 
 amounting in all to three hundred and seventy- 
 five pounds. 
 
 How these notes had become mine I could 
 not recollect; that they had remained mine 
 while I was in a state of such perfect uncon- 
 sciousness convinced me that the men who are 
 unceremoniously denounced as villains universal 
 and undeniable, were not quite so black as they 
 are painted — else how could I have been suf- 
 fered not only to win when fortune favoured me, 
 but permitted to carry off the produce of my 
 success ? This act of highly creditable inte- 
 grity, done towards me in youth, I admit has 
 had a very powerful effect in regulating my 
 subsequent opinions of the characters of men 
 like those by whom I had been, on the pre- 
 ceding night, at once surrounded and pro- 
 tected \ 
 
 * It was some months after this occurrence that I ascertained 
 to whom I had been indebted for the care and trouble not only 
 of preserving my winnings, but of conveying me to my very 
 room. 
 
262 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 Having cast a hurried glance over my newly- 
 acquired treasure, I returned to bed, taking 
 with me two letters which I found on my table 
 — one I knew to be from my mother, the other 
 was in a strange hand. Anxious to have the 
 lecture of my excellent parent over, and to 
 hear how she bore Daly's visit, upon tlie sub- 
 ject of which I was quite sure she would write, 
 I opened her's first, and therein perused the 
 details of the affair very much as Daly him- 
 self had described them, but with a sequel least 
 agreeable of all, informing me of the recogni- 
 tion which the Miss Dods had made of the 
 " rude and forward " deputy assistant clerk, 
 and her extreme sorrow and vexation that it 
 could be no longer concealed, since his ac- 
 quaintance with me had been admitted, that I 
 was the companion of his most unjustifiable 
 frolic. As far as that went, as I had secretly 
 resolved to marry nobody but Emma Haines, 
 it was a matter of no great importance, to me^ 
 although the acquaintance with the young 
 ladies would have very agreeably enlivened 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 263 
 
 the circle at Teddington, had I intended to make 
 the cottage a place of frequent resort. Matters 
 had now entirely changed as far as my means 
 and inclinations were concerned; the previous 
 night's conversation with Daly had quite deter- 
 mined me on my course. He had overcome, 
 with arguments which I considered full of sound 
 reason and justice, all the boyish scruples I had 
 hitherto felt with regard to filial obedience upon 
 points where the heart was concerned, and was 
 completely convinced that love — love of that 
 peculiar sort which Daly had made me sensible 
 I felt for Miss Haines — was paramount to all 
 other sentiments, duties, or affections. 
 
 It is extraordinary to see with what facility a 
 shrewd and clever person can win over a less- 
 experienced man to the principles he advocates, 
 provided their character and tendency are in 
 unison with the less-experienced man's feelings ! 
 I could not understand what it was that had 
 hitherto kept me tongue-tied with respect to 
 Emma, a being I loved by stealth, as far as my 
 own parent was concerned. I owed my mother 
 
264 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 the allegiance of a son it was true, but I had a 
 right to an opinion of my own, and Emma 
 Haines had a fortune of five and twenty thou- 
 sand pounds, and the match would be a good 
 match, and she was fond of me and I was fond 
 of her; what then was the objection? — her 
 mother's positive refusal to hear of such a 
 thing as a proposal from a pennyless boy ; and 
 this refusal I knew, if I mentioned any thing 
 on the subject to my parent, would heat up the 
 Gataker blood to boiling, and I should be as 
 solemnly warned by my own mother to desist 
 from any further attempts upon the heart of 
 Miss Haines as I had already been by hers. 
 
 However, rope-ladders, post-chaises, and all 
 the rest of it, were dancing in my imagination ; 
 and for an instant I believed that fortune had 
 at last withdrawn the fillet from her eyes, and 
 already displayed her favourable intentions 
 for the future by putting in my possession, by 
 her own means, a sum adequate to defray all 
 the necessary expenses of my juvenile matri- 
 monial expedition. With these bright visions in 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 265 
 
 my mind's eye, it may be supposed I did not 
 read my poor mother's details of Daly's visit 
 with any profound attention; but hastily scan- 
 ning the letter, I threw it down in order to 
 make myself acquainted with the contents of 
 the other epistle. I broke open the seal and 
 read as follows : — 
 
 " 6 o'clock, Friday. 
 " Dear Sir, — I despatch this to you the mo- 
 ment I reach town. I was called into your 
 mother at a little after three, whom I found in 
 a very afflicting state, from an attack of apo- 
 plexy. Having taken the most effective mea- 
 sures at the moment, I set oif to town as fast as 
 I could in order to find and carry down Dr. 
 Baillie to her. I arrived just now, and while 
 he is getting ready to return with me, I write 
 this. Let me entreat of you not to lose a 
 moment in going to her ; for, although I would 
 not excite unnecessary apprehensions, her case 
 is a serious one, and may prove very dangerous. 
 Nothing I can add will express the urgency of 
 your visit more strongly than the simple fact 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
266 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 that having" restored her to consciousness before 
 I quitted her, the first words your mother ut- 
 tered were your name, and an entreaty to see 
 
 you." 
 
 ****** 
 
 When I read thus far, the letter fell from my 
 hand — my eyes swam — my head turned round. 
 I felt that mad impatience, that necessity for 
 immediate action — that wildness of purpose, 
 which are the instant results of intelligence like 
 this — my mother dying and calling for me — 
 dead, perhaps, without seeing me, and I revel- 
 ling in heartless pleasure, in sensual dissipation, 
 in moral turpitude, and actually planning future 
 disobedience to her wishes, and revolts from her 
 just and affectionate control. She who had 
 borne me, nursed me, loved me better than her- 
 self, to be neglected and forgotten ! — yet I was 
 not so base — so vile. I could not have antici- 
 pated the awful visitation ; I had seen her well 
 the previous evening — had parted from her — 
 had received the fond, maternal kiss — perhaps 
 
 the last. There were no symptoms, no warning 
 
 . 15 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 267 
 
 of this thunder-stroke which was so soon to fall 
 and sever, perhaps, the ties of affection and 
 love ; yet how could I reflect that I might have 
 been home early; that I might have received 
 the letter from the village apothecary, which I 
 had just read, in time to have seen her, even to 
 have received her last blessing, and to have 
 closed those mild blue eyes which for years and 
 years had beamed so tenderly on me, 
 
 I struck my forehead with my clenched fist — 
 I hid my burning cheek in the pillow — tears 
 relieved the agony of my heart. I rang the 
 bell — my servant came. I ordered him to get 
 the horses instantly. He evidently thought me 
 mad — I think I loas so. I had, never since I 
 could remember, been so near a great calamity, 
 such as the loss of a beloved parent — a neglected 
 parent, now seemed to be — neglected indeed 
 she was ; for while I knew that she was within 
 my reach, I was careless as to visiting her ; her 
 house was made unpleasant to me by her ungra- 
 cious companion, and, as I have said before, my 
 mother's temper itself had been unfavourably 
 n2 
 
268 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 changed by the influence and irritation of that 
 odious person ; yet now that there was a chance 
 that she was gone, that I should never see her 
 smile, never hear her voice again 
 
 In this temper of mind, I need hardly say 
 that I flew rather than rode from London. I 
 was insensible to every object, to every feeling 
 — to every impression but the one — and the 
 idea that my poor mother was, perhaps, on the 
 verge of another world, and that an increased 
 rate of travelling might yet bring me to her fond 
 embrace, made me nrge the willing animal 
 upon which I was mounted to the top of his 
 speed. In less than an hour I reached Twick- 
 enham. As I entered the road leading to Ted- 
 dington, a fatal sound struck my ear. I pulled 
 up my horse and listened — with a dread beyond 
 imagination I heard it again. I turned sick — 
 my heart seemed to cease its pulsation ; — it was 
 too surely the death-bell tolling for my poor 
 lost, lost mother ! 
 
 The blow had fallen — no more was there 
 need of hastening to the house of mourning. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 269 
 
 Not all the prayers of all the world could give 
 me now that which of all things most I craved 
 — that mother's blessing. No; mute was the 
 tongue which had taught me truths I heeded 
 not — cold were those lips from which a parting 
 kiss would have been some consolation in the 
 hour of separation ; — I had lost them all — all by 
 my own heartless folly and dissipation — by my 
 addiction to the society of those against whom 
 her aflPection and experience had so often cau- 
 tioned me ; — while yet my sainted parent lay 
 on the bed of death, I was revelling and gam- 
 bling in the house of sin ! 
 
 I dismounted, and bade the servant go on 
 with the horses. I could scarcely stand, and 
 I could not bear the man to see how little of 
 a man his master was. He trotted forward, but 
 I could not stir. I leaned against a tree by 
 the road-side, and cried like a child. 
 
 Ought I to be ashamed of this confession ? — 
 
 no ; — the loss of such a parent was of itself 
 
 calamity sufficient to unnerve a son at my time 
 
 of life, who knew the devotion of that parent 
 
 N 3 
 
•270 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 to her child ; but the aggravating circumstances, 
 my absence from her bed-side ; the reasons for 
 that absence; the thousand, thousand recollec- 
 tions which flashed across my mind — I would 
 gladly have died myself upon the very instant. 
 
 I walked on ; and as I approached our little 
 church, the sound of the bell tolling louder and 
 louder as I came nearer to it, cut to my very 
 heart's core ; for its hollow clang had to my ear 
 even less of sorrow in it, than of reproach ; — 
 it seemed to upbraid me for my absence, and 
 chide me for delay. Oh ! how true it is that 
 when those we have adored are gone — when 
 those lips we have loved are sealed in silence, 
 and can no longer speak a pardon for our indis- 
 cretions or omissions — we reproach ourselves 
 with inattentions and unkindnesses, which, at 
 the time we then fancied them committed, 
 would perhaps have been matters of indiffer- 
 ence or even jest. 
 
 Overwhelmed by my feelings, I pursued my 
 way to the well-known entrance of my poor 
 mother's pretty — once cheerful residence. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 271 
 
 I reached the gate — the windows of the 
 cottage were closed — and my mother's favourite 
 dog lay whining on the outside of the door — 
 it ran to me, and barked its welcome as I 
 walked across the lawn. The door was opened, 
 as I approached it, by my mother's maid. I 
 never shall forget the expression of mingled 
 grief and censure which her countenance exhi- 
 bited as her eye met mine ; the faithful woman's 
 look conveyed at once to me the extent of my 
 misconduct — it told me I had been sought for — 
 asked for — prayed for — but I was absent. My 
 conscience added a thousand pangs to those 
 which that absence alone could not fail to inflict. 
 
 I passed into the drawing-room, where I 
 found Miss Crab. I threw myself into the 
 chair in which I had last seen my poor mother 
 sitting, and, hiding my face in my hands, gave 
 vent to my sorrow in another flood of tears. 
 Miss Crab came to me, and took my hand, and 
 pressed it. I felt grateful for this show of 
 kindness, for I was alone in the world — and I 
 wept the more. 
 
 n4 
 
272 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 " I know," said Miss Crab, " that arguments 
 are useless — I will not attempt to check the 
 course of natural affection. Your excellent 
 mother, Gilbert, is gone ; but, sudden as was the 
 summons, she died without pain, and departed 
 repeating your name, and blessing you." 
 
 " And 1 not here," sobbed I, " to hear that 
 blessing !" 
 
 " That was unfortunate," said my companion; 
 " you must have been out very late, because 
 any time in the evening you could have come ; 
 your poor mother, when she became conscious 
 of her danger, watched the hours, and every 
 noise she heard fancied it announced your 
 arrival." 
 
 "And when—" said I, « when ?" I 
 
 could ask no more. 
 
 " Between four and five this morning," was 
 the answer. 
 
 The hour, then, at which I was unconsciously 
 returning from the gaming-table, was the period 
 at which the pure spirit of my exemplary 
 parent was taking its flight — at that moment — 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 273 
 
 Oh mercy, mercy on me ! — my mother was in 
 the last agony of death. 
 
 Miss Crab saw the convulsive heavings of 
 my breast ; the half-choked utterance of my 
 words alarmed her, and with a kindness foreign 
 to her nature, she left me for a moment, and 
 returned with a tumbler of water, of which she 
 made me swallow a portion. 
 
 " I am not surprised," said she, " to see you 
 thus affected; if you had been with her at the 
 last, it would have been a source of consolation 
 whenever the thought of her recurred ; but now 
 you will never be able to forget that, anxious 
 as she was, to take a last farewell of you, you 
 were out of the way ! However, what's done 
 cannot be undone, and I suppose at your time 
 of life pleasure is paramount." 
 
 " Pleasure !" said I ; " do, for Heaven's sake, 
 spare me this reproachful language; years — 
 ages of repentance — will not compensate for 
 this one fault." 
 
 " I always told you, Gilbert," said the odious 
 woman, " that you would be sorry some time or 
 N 5 
 
274 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 another, but not till it was too late ; Vm sure 
 I would not say a word to aggravate the bitter- 
 ness of your feelings just now, but I do think 
 that if you had been more attentive to your 
 poor mother's wishes, and been more with us, 
 and gone on more steadily, she might have been 
 here now " 
 
 " Merciful Heavens, Madam," exclaimed I, 
 " do you wish to drive me raving mad ? Is it 
 not enough that I have lost the being who bore 
 me, nurtured me, and loved me better than 
 herself? am I to be reproached not only for 
 faults I admit, but for conduct for which she 
 herself never blamed me ?" 
 
 " Not in your presence, Gilbert," said Miss 
 Crab, " and that was the misfortune; she 
 was too fond of you ; and when you were 
 here, she could not endure to see you pained 
 by her remarks ; it was when we were alone 
 that her anxiety and sorrow evinced them- 
 selves, and preyed upon her spirits and con- 
 stitution." 
 
 " Do you mean," said I, angry in the midst 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 275 
 
 of my wretchedness, at such insinuations, "do 
 you mean to infer that I have contributed by 
 any conduct of mine to shorten the life of my 
 excellent parent ?" 
 
 "/ mean no such thing," said Miss Crab; 
 "all I know is, that Dr. Baillie said last night 
 that he considered the attack to be the result 
 of mental agitation, and certainly she was very 
 much excited yesterday by the discovery of 
 your connexion with that surveyor's clerk, who 
 behaved so rudely to her great friends the 
 Dods." 
 
 " Surveyor's clerk," said I, spurning with dis- 
 gust the idea of entering into any explanation 
 of the affair with my fiend- like companion at a, 
 moment when she was pronouncing the greatest 
 calamity of riiy life the result of my own in- 
 discretion and irregularities. What a heart 
 this woman must have had ! I have often, on 
 looking back upon these scenes, wondered how 
 anything in female form could be so bitter and 
 so malevolent. 
 
 " I cannot talk," said I ; " I will not listen ; 
 N 6 
 
276 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 all my omissions and negligences are magnified 
 in my own eyes ten thousand fold — I see them 
 all in the most vivid colours — I need no friend, 
 however kind, to point them out — but even I 
 cannot consent to admit the justice of the 
 charges you so unseasonably bring against me, 
 or acknowledge myself an accessary to my poor 
 mother's death." 
 
 I rose from the chair and paced the room in 
 an agony of grief. " I suppose," said my friend, 
 after a pause, " you will go up and see her, 
 Gilbert? — you will be more composed after- 
 wards." 
 
 See ! see my beloved mother — she whom 1 
 had left in health and happiness but a few hours 
 before — see her stretched in the sleep of death ? 
 — to be sure — to be sure I would. It was all 
 like a dream — a dream from which, when I had 
 beheld her dead, I must awake. — I mechani- 
 cally answered "Yes," and as mechanically 
 followed my friend to the door of the bed-cham- 
 ber — the door at which a thousand times my 
 lost parent had parted from me with a blessing 
 
GILBERT GURNEY, 277 
 
 and a kiss. We entered the apartment; every- 
 thing was as 1 had last seen it — the flowers 
 which my mother had gathered the day before, 
 were blooming in their stands — her work lay on 
 the table — all seemed as usual. — My companion 
 took my hand in one of hers, and led me to the 
 bedside : — with the other she drew back the 
 curtain, and there I saw her — my mother — cold, 
 pale, inanimate — dead. The world's supplica- 
 tion could not have obtained me one sinole look 
 from those closed eyes — there was a smile on 
 her lips, but they were mute for ever — I had 
 never seen death before — the thousand feelings 
 of awe, of devotion, of sorrow, of repentance, 
 conflicting in my heart and mind, were too much 
 for me ; and, overcome by the contest, I sank 
 insensible on the bed. 
 
 Oh that week — that wretched, miserable week 
 — the hateful preparations for the funeral — the 
 absolute necessity for action — perhaps it was 
 better that such arrangements required atten- 
 tion. For myself I resolved that the hour at 
 which my mother's dear remains were removed 
 
278 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 from the house should be the last of my resi- 
 dence in it ; I could never have borne to see it 
 after she was gone. This resolution produced 
 new occupation. Miss Crab, whose fine feel- 
 ings were never likely to interfere with her 
 worldly interests, appeared disposed to stay 
 where she was. My mother had made a will, 
 in which she had left everything to me, except- 
 ing the lease and furniture of the cottage, which, 
 if Miss Crab chose to continue resident there, 
 were bequeathed to her for her life ; this bequest, 
 and one of a ring to Cuthbert, were the o^ly 
 two. In consequence of Miss Crab's announce- 
 ment of her wish to remain at the cottage, and 
 of my determination never to disturb her quiet 
 possession by even a solitary visit to the scene 
 of my former happiness, it became necessary 
 that certain inventories should be made, and 
 other forms gone through, to carry the in- 
 tentions of my poor mother into effect. In 
 those arrangements I was aided and assisted by 
 the worthy magistrate whom I have already 
 mentioned, and who came down to Teddington 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 279 
 
 the moment the melancholy intelligence reach- 
 ed him. 
 
 He too accompanied me to the funeral. That 
 day will never be forgotten by me ; till the mo- 
 ment I saw the black coffin borne from the door, 
 I did not feel that I really had lost my beloved 
 parent — the link was not quite broken ; but then 
 — then all my sorrow burst upon me, and I was 
 scarcely conscious of what afterwards occurred, 
 until the drawing up of the ropes by which the 
 body had been lowered into the grave, awakened 
 me again to a sense of all my miseries. Years, 
 years have rolled on, and yet that hour is still 
 vividly fresh in my mind — the smell of the 
 soldered coffin is still in my nostrils — the 
 falling earth upon its lid still rings in my ears. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Turn we from this melancholy passage in my 
 life — suffice it to say, that I have never passed 
 through Teddington since the event with which 
 the last portion of my memoranda concluded. 
 Perhaps I need not add, that I equally avoided 
 Miss Crab, w^ho, (for the reader's satisfaction I, 
 perhaps, might mention it, ) in about a year after 
 my mother's death, married one of the neighbour- 
 ing apothecaries, who, she wrote me word to 
 say, made her a very kind and comfortable hus- 
 band. He had two daughters by a former wife 
 — a blonde and a brunette. Kitty, a tigress — 
 Jenny, a lamb. The one a black dose, the 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 281 
 
 other a mild emulsion. How they made it out 
 with their acidulated mother-in-law, I never 
 troubled my head to inquire ; with the death of 
 my exemplary parent my care and consideration 
 about the Crabs and their connexions departed. 
 I wrote of course to my brother Cuthbert, at 
 Calcutta, giving him information of the event 
 that had occurred, and I took counsel of my 
 worthy friend, the Justice of Peace. But taking 
 counsel and taking physic are different things — 
 his worship prescribed what I could not swallow, 
 and therefore, although I took the advice ear- 
 wise, I did not act upon it. He suggested my 
 immediate departure for India in order to avail 
 myself of the advantages which the great suc- 
 cess of my nearest relative would secure me, 
 and offered to introduce me to a Captain Pillau, 
 or some such person, whose twelve hundred ton 
 ship was a floating London Tavern, with cows 
 in the launch, salad in the windows, fresh rolls 
 three times a week, and champagne on Thurs- 
 days and Sundays — ^but what were these to me ? 
 I was in full possession of four hundred and 
 
282 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 eighty-seven pounds, nineteen shillings, and 
 eleven pence per annum, besides the interest of 
 four thousand pounds, three per cent, consols. 
 Why should I send myself out in a huge packing- 
 case, to look for a fortune which I should not be 
 able to realize until my powers of enjoying it 
 were gone ? Pale nankeens, with bilious-looking 
 silk stockings — cotton shirts, and calico waist- 
 coats, were to my eyes, objects quite familiar in 
 the north-western regions of the metropolis. 
 Why should I waste my youth and manhood 
 in Qui-hi-ing one half the day, and salaaming 
 tlie other, with the glass at ninety-five in the 
 shade, until I at fifty, should look as if I were on 
 the shady side of ninety-five ? — No. With my 
 pretensions and accomplishments — for, like Daly, 
 I did a little of everything — nothing so well as 
 he — but still — I thought I miglit make my 
 way, and even achieve the great object of 
 my ambition, Emma Haines, whose twenty 
 thousand pounds would come in remarkably 
 well. 
 
 Emma was the point in which all my hopes 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 283 
 
 and wishes centered, so soon as I had recovered 
 from the shock, which, especially under its 
 peculiar circumstances, my mother's death had 
 occasioned. The heart, robbed of what it has 
 been cordially and warmly attached to, naturally 
 yearns for some new object to claim and engross 
 its affection. I certainly was devotedly fond of 
 Emma; — she was so graceful — so lady-like — so 
 gentle — so mild — there was a meekness in her 
 eye while the mind was reposing, which lighted 
 into brightness and brilliancy the moment her 
 feelings were excited or her genius roused ; — she 
 played — she sang — she drew — she talked — in 
 short, she was a most bewitching person; and 
 there was a swan-like swimmingness about her 
 air and gait — a sort of sylphy something that 
 rivetted the attention and charmed the heart. 
 I do believe at first she encouraged my atten- 
 tions out of pure good nature. She was older 
 than I was; or rather, perhaps, I should say, 
 about my own age ; but as a girl of seventeen is 
 a woman, when a man of seventeen is a boy. 
 
284 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 she saw how much I loved her, before I was 
 myself conscious of it. 
 
 Her mother had certainly — incautious, I 
 believe, through kindness — encouraged my ac- 
 quaintance ; and I used to be constantly at their 
 house : — my mother knew nothing of them ; but 
 my young theatrical friend in Lincoln's Inn 
 had carried me there, and so I went on, like a 
 silly moth, buzzing about the vestal flame until 
 at last my wings were thoroughly scorched, and 
 then, as I told Daly on that horrible night, I 
 avowed my feelings and was rejected — not by 
 Emma herself— but by her mother, who, having 
 written me a letter which would have driven a 
 stoic mad, set off for South Wales, where, as the 
 reader already knows, my lovely girl was im- 
 mured, as I fancied against her will, at the period 
 of my mother's decease. 
 
 I have already expressed my feelings with 
 respect to Daly, whose acquaintance I had so 
 strangely made ; and certainly for some time my 
 sensitive regrets as to the employment of that 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 285 
 
 evening, wliich I have felt it my duty to record 
 at length, operated as a prevention to our future 
 association — however, as time wore on, I natu- 
 rally, and perhaps, justly argued, that although 
 the things we did, and the course we took that 
 evening, were, seriously and morally speaking 
 indefensible; still, whatever might be the blame 
 due to my companion for introducing me to 
 such scenes, the melancholy fact of my mother's 
 sudden attack and death, could not be adduced 
 in aggravation of his faults — like myself he 
 was, of course, ignorant of the crisis of her 
 fate ; and therefore, although powerfully con- 
 nected in my imagination in the outset, as those 
 sad circumstances were, I began to dismiss from 
 my mind the combination which had made me 
 so incalculably miserable at first, and in propor- 
 tion as this needless horror was dissipated I 
 began to exonerate my friend, and even seek 
 his society; for having — and I was conscious of 
 that — confided to him the history of my Emma, 
 I was most anxious, now that I felt more than 
 ever the necessity of having something to love 
 
286 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 and esteem, to consult him upon the plan best 
 to be adopted to carry my wishes into exe- 
 cution. 
 
 I was quite delighted with his frankness, his 
 friendship, and his zeal; he told me what I 
 believed, because I wished it true, that it was 
 impossible to doubt, after what I had told him, 
 that Emma was devoted to me — that my expec- 
 tations that she would write to me was extra- 
 vagant, that girls were extremely averse from 
 corresponding; first, because they properly con- 
 sidered such clandestine communications inde- 
 licate and undutiful; and secondly, because 
 very young men are apt to be vain of female 
 confidence, and perhaps, might, in some un- 
 guarded moment, be induced to boast, or even 
 show the letters of their unguarded mistresses. 
 Daly was right. Emma was quite well enough 
 aware of the ways of the world not to trust a giddy 
 thoughtless fellow such as I then was; but, ne- 
 vertheless, she might be prevailed upon to grant 
 me an interview, if I went to Tenby, and by 
 some means — not literary — solicited it. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 287 
 
 " Action, my dear friend," said Daly, "action 
 is the thing ; — you may sigh and swear away 
 four sides of foolscap — most appropriate paper 
 — and what then? — you have done nothing but 
 record sentiments which the circumstances of a 
 few years may entirely alter, and pledged your- 
 self to a constancy which events may try, and 
 even overthrow. No; — put yourself into the mail 
 coach — start for Tenby — hide yourself up — 
 find out her house — walk under her window, 
 and whistle some favourite air ; if she loves, she 
 she will instantly recognize it — she will be 
 delighted to find you so active and zealous; and, 
 ten to one, if her respectable parent can be by 
 any means disposed of, the very next evening 
 will find you strolling by moonlight — if there 
 should be a moon — or in the dark, if there 
 should not — either along the beach or on the 
 cliff, breathing out all those delicious protes- 
 tations upon which lovers live, 'as larks on 
 leeks/ " 
 
 " Out !" said I, indignantly — '' do you sup- 
 pose that it would be possible for Emma to 
 
288 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 'come out,' as you call it 'to take a walk?' — 
 Why she is watched and guarded as if she were 
 ' one chrysolite ;' her mother would as soon die 
 as hear of her ' taking a walk' by moonlight." 
 
 " Never mind," said Daly ; " faint heart you 
 know, &c. — where there's a will there's a way; 
 and if you choose to follow my advdce, ' I'll 
 back the caster in.' " 
 
 "The deuce take that phrase," said I; "no — 
 no; Miss Haines is not to be so proceeded 
 with ; and yet I admit, I think a visit to Tenby 
 would be adviseable, because I might plead with 
 her mother." 
 
 " Plead ! — no," said Daly — " practice before 
 preaching any day. All 1 can say is, if you 
 are in need of an ally — if you want an assistant 
 — a Leporello in short, I am your man — my 
 whole delight is doing good. I have no object 
 but to serve my friends ; and, if you think that 
 I can be of the least use in securing you Miss 
 Emma Haines and her twenty thousand pounds, 
 you have only to say, ' Daly do' — and Daly 
 will." 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 289 
 
 It was impossible for me not to feel grateful 
 for this kindly burst of feeling, and the offer 
 which my companion made; and I confess it 
 affected me more powerfully, because during 
 the time at which my grief completely un- 
 manned me, and absorbed all my faculties, he 
 was, whenever he could obtain admittance to 
 me, the most sympathizing of human beings. — 
 He regretted, in such an amiable manner, the 
 absurdity of his self-introduction to the cottage, 
 and spoke of my mother's manners and con- 
 versation in such terms of admiration and es- 
 teem, that I felt convinced, whatever might be 
 his eccentricities, his heart was in the right 
 place; and having established this opinion in 
 my mind, I resolved to trust him with the ma- 
 nagement of my Tenby scheme, for the success 
 of which he himself appeared most unaffectedly 
 anxious. 
 
 The conversations of my enthusiastic friend 
 had very considerably elevated my hopes. He 
 extracted from me every particular of Emma's 
 person and character ; the one, after my report, 
 
 VOL. I. o 
 
290 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 lie pronounced angelic, and the other perfect; 
 but I must say, in the midst of his warmth and 
 energy, and in the full flow of exalted senti- 
 ment, he did come out, as the people say, with 
 something that astonished me. 
 
 " Are you sure now, Gurney," said he " that 
 she has this money? — because we hear of for- 
 tunes, and of hundreds of thousands of pounds, 
 and so much a year, and such and such estates, 
 and West Indian property, and Irish property, 
 and all the rest of it, which at last turn out to 
 be nothing — sometimes worse than nothing. — " 
 
 " I declare, Daly," replied I, " that I know 
 nothing more of her fortune than common 
 report affords ; and moreover, that I consider it 
 quite unimportant, whether it amount to the 
 specified sum or not." 
 
 " Have you never ascertained ?" asked he. 
 
 " No," I replied ; " how should I ? — could I 
 ask Emma such a question, or her mother? " 
 
 " No, my dear friend, certainly not," said 
 Daly ; " but if you will take the trouble to walk 
 with me, to-morrow morning, to St. Paul's 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 291 
 
 Cliurcliyard — turn to your right, through the 
 court, across Carter Lane, thence through Court 
 number two, into Knight Rider Street — you 
 will see opposite to you, the Prerogative Office ; 
 there, my dear friend, for the trifling and incon- 
 siderable charge of one shilling we will read the 
 last will and testament of the late respectable 
 father of your amiable Emma, and discover 
 whether * all is gold that glitters.' " 
 
 " Is that to be done ?" said I. 
 
 "To be sure," said Daly; " it is the just 
 prerogative of an Englishman to know what his 
 neighbour does with his property if he have 
 any ; and as I have already told you, that in love, 
 where there's a will there's a way, so you will 
 see that in law, where there's a will there's a 
 way, to find it out — therefore, to-morrow we 
 start — le premier pas — to the Prerogative Office, 
 and although it may cost us something, it is but 
 a shilling, and anything like confirmation about 
 other people's afikirs is ' dirt cheap at the 
 money.' " 
 
 I really was not sufficiently well-informed as 
 o 2 
 
292 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 to the privileges of the people, at that moment, 
 to know that Daly was right in his statement; 
 and even when he told me the simplicity of the 
 process by which all his doubts as to Emma's 
 fortune could be set at rest, I felt a disinclina- 
 tion to adopt it; for really and truly, I had 
 often before wished that she had had nothing, 
 inasmuch as I fancied that if it were not for the 
 diiference in our circumstances, I might not be 
 personally objectionable to her mother. 
 
 When the morning came, and I called upon 
 Daly, according to appointment, to proceed to the 
 Prerogative Office, of which he had talked, I felt 
 as if I was about to do something underhanded and 
 ungentlemanlike. Why should I pry into the pri- 
 vate affairs of a family ? Why gratify my curi- 
 osity at the expense of the independence of feeling 
 in which I used to glory? For all these questions 
 Daly found ready answers ; and, as usual, the 
 ice of my prudery was thawed by the warmth of 
 his manner, and the energy of his protestations ; 
 and accordingly off we went — searched the office 
 — paid our shilling — got our little slip of paper 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 293 
 
 — shewed it — had down the volume which con- 
 tained the desired document — spread him upon 
 a desk, and began to read the contents. 
 
 I admit myself to have been nearly as ignorant 
 of the purport of the last will and testament 
 of Joseph William Haines, Esq., after I had 
 perused it, as I was before I had seen it. Not 
 so, Daly. He was a bit of a lawyer, and he 
 explained and expounded the whole mystery of 
 the aflPair, and informed me that the " upshot" of 
 the matter was most satisfactory — inasmuch as 
 it appeared that twenty thousand pounds were 
 irrevocably and unconditionally Emma's — but 
 if her mother married again, that sum was to 
 be doubled; and the mother's jointure, which 
 was two thousand five hundred pounds a-year, 
 was to be reduced one half, and, in addition to 
 the rest, revert to her daughter at her death. 
 The estates themselves, upon which the jointure 
 was a charge, were also to become Emma's 
 after t.he decease of her parent, if she married 
 with her consent, during her life time ; but 
 if not, they were to be otherwise disposed 
 o3 
 
294 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 of, with a variety of contingencies and conse- 
 quences Hebraically obscure to my comprehen- 
 sion." 
 
 "I see the thing in a moment," said Daly. 
 " Come along — the affair is settled — we shall 
 
 make ourselves extremely comfortable " 
 
 " We !" said I. " How do you mean ?" 
 " Thus," said Daly ; — " the mother has two 
 thousand five hundred a year, untouchable by 
 fate, so long as she lives a widow — the daugh- 
 ter's twenty thousand is equally secure. But 
 you perceive, that if the mother marries, the 
 daughter's fortune is to be doubled, and the 
 widow's jointure to be diminished by half. Mark 
 me — I have a strong disposition for settling — 
 twelve hundred and fifty pounds a year will do 
 for me, I'll marry the mother, which will pro- 
 duce a splendid increase of fortune to the 
 daughter, with whom you shall afterwards have 
 the felicity of eloping if you think proper — or 
 if not, receive her hand with the full and entire 
 sanction of her respectable father-in-law, your 
 most obedient humble servant, to command." 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 295 
 
 " Visions ! visions !" said I. " Mrs. Haines 
 will never marry again." 
 
 « Is that the doubt?" said Daly; " if that be 
 all, let not that embarrass you." 
 
 " But would you ?" said I, staring with 
 amazement 
 
 " Would I !" exclaimed he ; " trust me for 
 that — a well-jointured widow against the world 
 for settling with. It's a fine sight, Gurney — 
 quite refreshing, as the cocknies say, to see the 
 comfortable ease and independence of a dowager 
 — the lozenged pannels of the luxurious carriage 
 — the fat black nags with their long tails and 
 kicking-straps, the curly-wigged coachman with 
 his three-cornered hat on his head, and a bounc- 
 ing bouquet stuck in his button-hole." 
 
 " But," said I, " Mrs. Haines is not likely 
 to " 
 
 " Leave me alone for that," interrupted my 
 voluble friend. " If you think the scheme a 
 good one, I am your man." 
 
 " And would you," said I, — " as I was just 
 o4 
 
296 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 going to ask — would you marry a woman so 
 much older than yourself?" 
 
 " Age is now like air, my dear fellow," said 
 Daly ; " felt by all, but seen by none. I'll 
 marry her — take her down to DuUmusty Hall, 
 or whatever the name of her place may be — 
 twaddle about with her for a month, in a broad- 
 brimmed straw hat, with a spud in my hand — do 
 the domestic for the first four weeks — then put 
 dowwy out to grass at one of her own farms — 
 allow her three hundred a year out of her own 
 jointure, and expend the residuum in the pur- 
 chase of cross-bows, pop-guns, magic-lanterns, 
 fire-balloons and sky-rockets." 
 
 " A profitable outlay for yourself," said I, 
 " and a pleasing prospect for Mrs. Haines." 
 
 " Rely upon it, the scheme is practicable," 
 said Daly ; " however w^e may confer upon it 
 and consider;— this evening you are engaged 
 at Lady Wolverhampton's, where, I flatter my- 
 self, you will be pleased. She gives difete after 
 a new fashion — live fish in the drawing-room. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 297 
 
 and a cow on the staircase — fact — fact, my dear 
 Gurney ; and if I don't contrive to make some 
 fun, my name is not Daly." 
 
 " Remember the Dods," said I, " recollect — 
 I will not consent to be made a party to any 
 more practical jokes." 
 
 " But," said Daly, " Lady Wolverhampton's 
 parties are nothing but practical jokes them- 
 selves. HerfSte of to-night is a masquerade — at 
 least to as many people as like to assume cha- 
 racters — so that a vast many respectable persons 
 who don't choose to go to her house without 
 concealment, will be there incog,., much to 
 their hearts' deliglit. I mean to make my ap- 
 pearance, in the early part of the evening, as a 
 Jew boy, selling macaroon cakes — come in with 
 my basket full of tempting delicacies, which the 
 eager company will snatch away in order to 
 devour, like so many dragons — mum ! — there's 
 fun in that depend on't." 
 
 " The fun of paying for the cakes, and seeing 
 other people eat them," said I. 
 
 " True — " replied Daly ; " but the results — 
 o 5 
 
298 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 the afterwards, as I say — macaroon cakes, ordi- 
 narily manufactured, would afford no sport. 
 My man, under proper medical superintendence, 
 sprinkles in with his sugar, certain powders 
 of a peculiar quality, which, however salutary, 
 taken now and then, are not usually adminis- 
 tered in a ball-room. You'll see a scatter- 
 ing ! — poor devils ! — the gormandizers will be 
 nicely served — the endemic of a Margate-hoy 
 will be but a trifle to the indisposition of her 
 Ladyship's visitors — first one ill, then another, 
 eh — ' si sick omnes.' " 
 
 " My dear Daly," said I, in a dissuasive 
 tone 
 
 " Soyez tranquille, mon cher Gilhert^^ inter- 
 rupted Daly; " there's nothing like fun — what 
 else made the effect in Berner's Street? I am 
 the man — / did it ; sent a Lord Mayor in state, 
 to release impressed seamen — philosophers and 
 sages to look at children with two heads a-piece 
 — piano-fortes by dozens, and coal waggons by 
 scores — two thousand five hundred raspberry 
 tarts from' half-a-hundred pastry-cooks — a squad 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 299 
 
 of surgeons — a battalion of physicians, and a 
 legion of apothecaries — lovers to see sweet- 
 hearts ; ladies to find lovers — upholsterers to 
 furnish houses, and architects to build them 
 — gigs? dog-carts, and glass-coaches, enough 
 to convey half the freeholders of Middle- 
 sex to Brentford. Nay, I despatched even 
 Royalty itself on an errand to a respectable 
 widow lady, whose concourse of visitors, by my 
 special invitation, choked up the great avenues 
 of London, and found employment for half the 
 police of the metropolis." 
 
 " Is it possible that you " 
 
 " I," said Daly, triumphantly; — " copy the 
 joke, and it ceases to he one ; — any fool can 
 imitate an example once set — but for originality 
 of thought and design, I do think that was 
 perfect. However, to-night shall transcend 
 even that effort, and to-morrow we start for 
 Tenby." 
 
 " Let me ask you," said I, " now — if you can 
 be serious — have you really any intention as to 
 
 Mrs. Haines? because " 
 
 o 6 
 
300 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 Serious, to be sure," said Daly ; " I 
 
 never joke but when I am in earnest — like a 
 Frenchman, who is never grave but when he 
 is dancing. I think my arrangement capital, 
 and so will you. We will go to Tenby toge- 
 ther ; or, if you prefer it, I will start alone, and 
 appear to know no more of you^ than one of the 
 cads of the thimble-rig knows of the pea-holder. 
 I will make my play, and, the moment I am in 
 possession, make signals for you — eh? — We'll 
 settle all that in the course of the forenoon ; but 
 for the present, let us return to the habitable 
 part of town, and make our masquerading prepa- 
 rations for the soiree at Wolverhampton House." 
 There was something about Daly that I can- 
 not describe : but he had only to suggest, and I 
 implicitly obeyed. I had never ventured to 
 inquire as to his means or fortune ; and although 
 the unbroken and unmitigated silence he had 
 observed as to our joint winnings on the odious 
 night at the gaming-house, raised a suspicion in 
 my mind that he was not rolling in riches, as 
 they say, I thought that his abstinence from any 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 301 
 
 allusion to that adventure, arose very probably 
 from a delicate disinclination to awaken in my 
 mind the recollections inseparable from the 
 occurrences of that evening. As we walked 
 along the Strand, Daly did, however, what he 
 had never yet done — invited me to dine with 
 him at his lodgings. " Let us," said he, " dine 
 late, and we can go together to the Wolver- 
 hampton aifair — you must put up with what you 
 can get — I live small, according to my means : 
 but after I have married my duck in weeds, the 
 amiable mother of your angelic Emma, I will 
 give you — emblematic of our affection and con- 
 stancy — turtle, whenever you dutifully come 
 and see us." 
 
 I, of course, could not object to dine with my 
 friend ; and accordingly settled the engage- 
 ment for seven, and we parted after a somewhat 
 protracted walk " to meet again." 
 
 I confess, the readiness with which he fell into 
 my views, and the quickness with which he 
 seized the abstruse points of the testamentary 
 document of the late respected head of the 
 
302 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 Haines's, mixed with the sudden resolution 
 which he appeared to have formed of marrying 
 the dowager, gave me an idea that, although 
 there was something like method in it, madness 
 was the particidar reigning malady under which 
 poor Daly laboured? yet there was so much 
 plausibility in his manner, and so much real 
 friendship in his professions, that I could not 
 doubt his earnestness and good will towards 
 me. 
 
 At or about seven, therefore, I proceeded to 
 his lodgings, where I found covers for three 
 laid in his sole sitting-room, into which his bed- 
 room opened ; in which latter apartment he was 
 occupied, when I reached the scene of action, 
 dressing. Having heard my arrival, he begged 
 pardon, from the next room, for being so 
 late at his toilette; and told me to amuse 
 myself with the evening newspaper until he 
 should have completed it. I implicitly obeyed 
 the injunctions of my yet invisible friend who 
 shortly after joined me, finished for the evening, 
 with the exception of his neckcloth, the tying 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 303 
 
 on of which he reserved for the last moment, 
 lest the indulgence of home feelings might in 
 any way disturb the symmetrical arrangement 
 of his favourite folds. Well do I remember the 
 nervous anxiety with which men, in those days 
 studied the art of tying the cravat ; and I recol- 
 lect a friend of mine who had provided himself 
 with no less than four to experimentalize upon, 
 who spoiled them all in the putting on, and was 
 actually obliged to wait at an inn on the Ports- 
 mouth road, in the neighbourhood of the house 
 to which he was going, when dressed, while his 
 servant travelled to town in a post-chaise and 
 four, and returned with a fresh supply. 
 
 " I expect a man to meet you," said Daly, 
 " who will go with us to Lady Wolverhampton's 
 — where you know I have the entree. I am her 
 pet-plaything — a sort of Jonkanoo general for 
 her dignity balls — and you will see me in my 
 element there. — As Dr. Cauliflower the putty- 
 headed physician says, I ought always to have 
 my jacket ready to tumble in — thank my stars, 
 Gurney, I can tumble without one — I admit I 
 
304 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 lead my Dow Wolf a deuce of a life, but she 
 loves me. 1 catch lions for her — which is a 
 prodigious merit in her eyes." 
 
 " Catch lions !" said I — staring like a fool. 
 
 " Exactly," replied Daly. " One of them 
 feeds her to day — a Count Stickinmeyer, a very 
 distinguished person in his way." 
 
 " And what way is that ?" said I. 
 
 " Why, faith, I hardly know," said Daly ; 
 " he has had one empress and two queens 
 desperately in love with him — has killed divers 
 and sundry of his friends in duels, and by 
 these traits — endearing to the female heart — has 
 worked his name into a glorious notoriety. In 
 these warlike times, a foreigner, not an emigre, 
 is a great catch, and he is here on some diplo- 
 matic business ; ergo, the Dow Wolf would have 
 him. I have seen a good deal of him during 
 his stay here ; and so I am to be the leader of 
 the bear. He has one peculiarity — he cannot 
 speak six words of English — but he talks it as 
 fluently as either of us; you'll see how, in a 
 moment after he arrives ; — upon the principle 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 305 
 
 of living from hand to mouth, he makes his 
 words as he wants them ; the consequence is, 
 a jargon of the most extraordinary character, 
 which he firmly believes to be English ; and 
 which, more extraordinary still, answers every 
 purpose of the most refined study of our em- 
 barrassing language." 
 
 Scarcely had Daly finished his description of 
 his friend, when he arrived ; and having intro- 
 duced him to me, Daly proceeded to order 
 dinner forthwith. 
 
 " Well, my dear Count," said Daly, " what 
 news ? — any more conquests ?" 
 
 The moment I had time to contemplate the 
 Count's features, I recognized, with no plea- 
 sureable feelings, one of the faces which, some 
 months before, had flitted before my half-seeing, 
 double-seeing eyes at the gaming-house. This 
 did not prejudice me much in his favour, I 
 admit. 
 
 " No news," said the Count; " none — de 
 unneusability of de week is quite observation- 
 
306 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 able — dat is, by de stoppupishness of de com- 
 munications from de controversialness of de 
 continental postability." 
 
 Daly looked at me after this curious specimen 
 of our native language, aiding the expressive- 
 ness of his countenance by a wink — I acknow- 
 ledged the attention by a slight nod, apprehen- 
 sive lest the Count should observe his bye play, 
 and add him to the number of victims, who, 
 according to his account, had suffered by his 
 sword, like so many larks on a spit — however, 
 the Count's vanity as a linguist of the profi- 
 ciency he had made in our language, secured 
 him, as I afterwards found, from any chance of 
 discovery. 
 
 " You have been some time in England?" said 
 I, enquiringly. 
 
 " Ah, ah," said the Count, " so you guess 
 from de perfectibility of my tongs ; I declare, I 
 haf qvite lost my own tongs in de acquisition- 
 ness of Angleish, and my coutrymen to whom 
 I give rencounterance in de assemblations stare 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 307 
 
 to find what a impetuousness of perfectatioii I 
 have to spike a foreign tong, so as to be always 
 miscomprehended for natifs." 
 
 " I declare," said Daly, " I should have 
 fancied, if not an Englishman, that you had 
 spent the greatest part of your life amongst 
 us." 
 
 " You are too flattersome. Dally," replied the 
 Count, "some people haf an aptiverousness to 
 de possession of tongs — far excellecizing; others 
 whose condensability of faculty is diversified 
 into a ramificationness of stoddy to generalize, 
 what you call de universality of accomplices- 
 ment." 
 
 " Clearly," said Daly." 
 
 " Yes," said the Count, " a sort of poUy- 
 glottability which is foreign to de desiration of 
 dose who have some diversationizing of mind 
 regardful to objects quite antipodistical to de 
 oders." 
 
 I confess, I was very much relieved from the 
 difficulty I had of preserving my gravity, by 
 the appearance of Daly's servant with the 
 
308 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 dinner — which, in the first instance, consisted 
 of two dishes, one larger than the other, which 
 were put down ; Daly seating himself on one 
 side of the table, and placing us at either end 
 of it. The covers removed, we found before us 
 a remarkably delicate looking roasted leg of 
 lamb in the larger dish, and some exquisitely 
 verdant spinach in the other. 
 
 " What no fish, Redmond ?" said Daly to his 
 servant. 
 
 " No, Sir," said the man." 
 
 " Well," said Daly, " no matter — I told you 
 Gurney, you must take what you could get — 
 and as for Stickenmeyer, he is used to my way 
 of living, so I make no apology." 
 
 " Apology," said the Count, " de simplitude 
 of prandationess, is most favourized by me — 
 both in pint of pallatatibility and of salubriment 
 — de stomach of de beings of humanity is not 
 conformable to de digestation of de objects, 
 to which admissiveness is exercised at great 
 dinings." 
 
 The Count*s principle was quite in accordance 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 309 
 
 with my own, and we certainly made sad havoc 
 with our " innocent lamb ;'* the wine circulated 
 freely, and we were all in good spirits. The 
 dishes were removed, and a second dish attended 
 as before by a smaller one, made its appearance. 
 Redmond with his usual dexterity raised the 
 covers, when my astonished eyes beheld a boiled 
 leg of lamb in one dish, and a fresh supply of 
 spinach in the other. 
 
 Daly's astonishment, however, did not seem 
 to be excited ; for he inquired if we would take 
 some boiled lamb, with as much composure as if 
 he had expected the dish, which it seemed quite 
 clear to me he did not. The sight, however, 
 reminded me of a circumstance which occurred 
 to me once in the west of England, at a house 
 where I paid an unexpected visit, and where — 
 as one always is in the west of England — I was 
 kindly and hospitably received. The family 
 was a large one, and I the only stranger, I 
 arrived within a few minutes of dinner, was 
 ushered to my room, hurried my dressing, and 
 was speedily seated at table. 
 
310 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 The soup was served. It was a remarkably- 
 nice sort of broth, made of veal, with rice and 
 vegetables — I applauded it much ; at the bot- 
 tom of the table was a roast loin of veal; at 
 the top, half a calf s head ; there were four 
 entrees, yet uncovered. " What will you eat, 
 Gurney,'' S£iid the master of the house, " some 
 of my dish or Maria's ?" I doubted. " Hand 
 round the entrees,^'' said the lady; two were 
 forthwith put in motion — one dish contained 
 veal patties, and the other some veal collops 
 — I declined both, for I hated veal ; next 
 came the other two — one a calf s brains, and the 
 other a calf's tongue — I declined those, and took 
 some of the joint, determining to wait for the 
 second course. 
 
 I saw, however, dish after dish vanish, and I 
 yet remained unsatisfied ; when my fair hostess, 
 with one of her sweetest smiles, said, " We have 
 no second course for you, Mr. Gurney ; the fact 
 is, we killed a calf the day before yesterday, 
 and we are such prudent managers that we 
 make a point of eating it up while it is good, 
 15 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 311 
 
 and nice, and fresh, before we begin upon any 
 thing else," Having had this experience, and 
 having heard before dinner, that Daly wished 
 particularly to see " the butcher," I concluded 
 that my eccentric host in London, like my more 
 economical one in the country, had purchased a 
 lamb "for fun," and was now employing us to 
 eat it up, while it was " good, and nice, and 
 fresh." 
 
 Daly seemed to enjoy the boiled leg quite 
 as much as he had enjoyed the roast one ; and 
 when he had satisfied his appetite he desired 
 Redmond to take it away, " and if there was 
 any second course to bring it." — " Come," 
 thought I, " unlike my precedent of the veal, 
 we are to have a second course to-day, and all 
 will be well." 
 
 In a few minutes, Redmond made his appear- 
 ance with another couple of dishes ; one as 
 usual, large — the other small — they, like their 
 predecessors, were put down and the covers 
 removed, when, to my utter astonishment, I 
 beheld a third leg of lamb and spinach, the 
 
312 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 only variation consisting in the fact that the 
 lamb was roasted like the first. I could not help 
 exclaiming, on the appearance of this, because 
 it put an end to my speculation of Daly's pur- 
 chase, seeing that no lamb, — except indeed 
 occasionally as a freak of nature, — has three 
 legs; but Daly did not seem either surprised 
 or discomposed at the exhibition, and the Count 
 — which surprised me most — seemed equally at 
 his ease with Daly. 
 
 " Perhaps you don't like lamb," said mine 
 host, "shall I send you some?" 
 
 " If you please," said I, — resolved if it were 
 done in fun — for it is impossible to ascertain 
 when a practical joker is serious — to keep up 
 my good temper, and as it seemed a conceded 
 point, on the part of both my companions, that 
 nothing more was to be served, I washed down 
 the third division of innocence with some re- 
 markably good Champagne. 
 
 To this third edition of lamb, succeeded, 
 three gooseberry tarts — all nearly of equal size 
 — the dishes alone differing in shape and fashion 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 313 
 
 and when these were discussed, three detach- 
 ments of cheese, and three plates of radishes — 
 there was something quaint and odd in the evi- 
 dent aifection for the triune number, which 
 Daly exhibited. However, as we were three at 
 table, I imagined he had prepared his dinner on 
 the principle of every man his own dish — Some- 
 thing like the proud Welsh boy at school, who, 
 hearing that an English Duke employed six 
 men cooks, during the period that he kept open 
 house, or rather open castle in the north, 
 sneered at the alleged magnificence. " My father 
 does better than that," said Griffith ap Jones, "at 
 our very last party before I left Cmydrdlmnynddr, 
 we had twenty-four men cooks all employed 
 in dressing the supper;" — and this would have 
 gone down easily, and Griffith ap Jones would 
 have established his paternal magnificence for 
 ever, had not a "Daly of his day" discovered 
 the real state of the case, and announced to his 
 school-fellows, that although the Welshman had 
 spoken truly, the company at the supper to which 
 he alluded, consisted of twenty-four of his near 
 
 VOL. I. P 
 
314 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 relations, and that emrij man toasted his oivn 
 cheese! 
 
 I noticed the continued impertm Lability of 
 mine host's countenance, and an occasional look 
 passing between him and the Count, convinced 
 me that the circumstance was not accidental; 
 but while Redmond, the servant, was still in 
 the room, I did not like to make any enquiry 
 into the particulars. 
 
 " Dis Claret," said the Count, " is butiful — 
 dere is a refreshiness in de coolth of him, which 
 is gracious to the mouse — Lafitte, I considere." 
 
 " The wine," said Daly, " is good enough in 
 its way — but, Gurney, what did you think of 
 the dinner ? — did it puzzle you ?" 
 
 " Why," said I — " it did puzzle me a little — - 
 I suppose you like lamb ?" 
 
 " Not I," said Daly — "but the Count knows 
 the truth — so shall you — I have lost a good deal 
 of money lately with very little to lose from^ 
 and although my large creditors are full of faith 
 — the lesser ones are suspicious of my re- 
 sources — I therefore deal with many folks, each 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 315 
 
 in a small way, and the tavern-keeper from 
 whom I always get my little dinners at home, 
 suggested that, as I was a good deal in arrear, 
 he should be obliged to confine his confidence 
 in me to the extent of one dish per diem, 
 when I wanted it. Now one dish not being suf- 
 ficient for three persons, I immediately entered 
 into a similar treaty with two other tavern- 
 keepers in the neighbourhood, who are equally 
 willing to trust me to a similar amount — they 
 were all three put in requisition to day; and 
 as legs of lamb, roast or boiled, are just now in 
 season, each of the fellows sent me the popular 
 dish ; thinking, I suppose, that as I was to have 
 but one, I ought to have as well as a fashionable, 
 a somewhat substantial one." 
 
 A new light burst in upon me ; and although 
 it was impossible not to join in the laugh in 
 which mine host and his friend were indulging, 
 the fact which had been elicited, accounted to me 
 for the readiness with which Daly had enlisted 
 in my service in the Tenby expedition, and his 
 willingness to undertake the widow, at half price, 
 p2 
 
316 GILBERT GURNEY, 
 
 whose reduced jointure would afford him a very- 
 snug retirement. During the time we remained 
 drinking our wine, several circumstances oc- 
 curred to induce me to believe that the Count's 
 diplomatic character at our court was, at best, 
 but an equivocal one ; and others in connection 
 with this, led me, in some degree, to regret that 
 I had permitted Daly's agreeable manners to give 
 him the ascendancy over me which I felt con- 
 scious he possessed, and to extract from me the 
 secret of my attachment to Emma. I anticipated 
 the mischief which his introduction into her fa- 
 mily might eventually produce, when it should 
 be known that it was at my suggestion he pre- 
 sented himself there ; and moreover, I felt that 
 it would be extremely unfair in me to aid and 
 abet an alliance between him and the widow, for 
 entering i/ito which, he could have none but 
 intereste'd views, the realization of which would 
 probably entail upon the elder lady a rowe husband, 
 and upon the younger one, a giddy father-in- 
 law — but what was to be done, the plan had been 
 mentioned, we had discussed it during the early 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 317 
 
 part of the day, the horses, I knew, were ordered, 
 or at least, a place in the coach was taken; and if 
 I hesitated or interposed at this period, so shortly 
 before the opening of the campaign, and so 
 soon after the disclosure of the real state of 
 mine host's finances, I should in all probability 
 have been handed over to the tender mercies of 
 the noble Count, who before noon the next day 
 would have exhibited, at my personal expence, 
 " the perfectability of his completiveness in the 
 art of pistolization.'' 
 
 It was, I admit, with no little uneasiness that 
 I heard Daly give directions to Redmond to 
 have all his luggage ready for an early start in 
 the morning ; yet how could I check the impulse 
 of a genuine and generous friendship — his want 
 of wealth arose from no fault of his, or even if it 
 did, it might result from the faults of liberality, 
 and a carelessness of worldly affairs, I therefore 
 said nothing, although I would have given the 
 world to delay his departure for a day or two. 
 
 It was growing late, when Daly suggested 
 the necessity of preparing for action — the Count 
 p3 
 
318 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 was to appear in a splendid military uniform, 
 upon which glittered several decorations, and in 
 which he was to attire himself after Daly had 
 finished his neckcloth, which, in the later part 
 of the evening was to adorn his proper person. 
 I was accommodated with a fancy domino, and 
 and thus we were to proceed to Wolverhampton 
 House, where, as I understood, Daly had been 
 before dinner, aiding and assisting the Countess 
 in various proceedings for the evening's display. 
 
 I concluded, after I received this intelligence, 
 that he had abandoned his design of physicking 
 her Ladyship's friends with his macaroon cakes, 
 and when he sallied forth from the adjoining 
 apartment, in a sort of foreign dress, extremely 
 well disguised, I imagined him prepared to 
 enchant the misses as a minstrel, and win their 
 willing ears with melodies such as he was fully 
 capable of warbling — an idea which was strength- 
 ened, when Redmond gave him, carefully enve- 
 loped in green baize, what I fondly imagined 
 to be a guitar. 
 
 The Count, who looked very magnificently. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 319 
 
 wore no mask, but trusted to liis natural 
 personal appearance to make his way, and, 
 although somewhat upon too large a scale for 
 a lady-killer, I fancied him a likely enough 
 man to delight the dowagers. It was consider- 
 ably past twelve before we were fairly under 
 way — we were each armed with a ticket of 
 admission, which Daly informed me her Lady- 
 ship very much preferred to any other mode of 
 invitation, upon such an occasion as that of to- 
 night — the great merit of a masquerade being 
 the mystery, which would of course be utterly 
 destroyed, if the guests were compelled to show 
 themselves, in order to obtain the entree — Red- 
 mond, I observed put into the coach two or 
 three bundles, which I presumed contained 
 changes of dress for his volatile versatile master, 
 and thus buttoned up, away we drove to the 
 temple of gaiety, of beauty, and fashion. 
 
 When we approached the mansion, a string of 
 carriages checked our advance, — noise and con- 
 fusion were heard on every side — the lashing of 
 coachmen's whips — the loud bawling of consta- 
 p4 
 
320 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 bles and Bow Street officers — the laughs of the 
 congregated groups, as some grotesque charac- 
 ter stepped across the trottoir into the house, 
 the distant clang of cymbals, and the beat of 
 drums, which came wafted on the air from her 
 Ladyship's hall, all combined to whet the appe- 
 tite for action, and it seemed an hour before we 
 found our worthy No. 225 opposite the entrance 
 to the mad scene of brilliancy and fun. Out I 
 stepped — I created no visible sensation amongst 
 the throng — the Baron's red morocco boots, and 
 gold-seamed pantaloons, his much embroidered 
 jacket, and his dangling crosses, seemed to 
 excite a reverential awe; but when Daly step- 
 ped forth with his beard and bundle, which 
 much to my horror developed itself, not as I 
 expected, in the shape of a guitar, but in the 
 more dreaded form of a basket full of " maca- 
 roon cakes," the surrounding crowd cried out, 
 " Moses, give us a cake," — " I say. Mosey,** 
 and indeed diverted themselves so much at his 
 expense, that I almost wondered he did not 
 favour them with a taste of his stock. 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 321 
 
 If the confusion outside the house were great, 
 inconceivably greater was that within — little did 
 I then suspect the immediate cause of it — Daly 
 had told me, (I thought as a joke) that our noble 
 hostess proposed having a cow, deposited in a sort 
 of arbour at the top of the first flight of stairs, in 
 which one of the sweetest girls that ever lived, 
 was to be discovered in the costume of a milk- 
 maid, supposed to be employed in her rustic 
 vocation, while the company were to be perpe- 
 tually refreshed with syllabubs, imaginatively 
 concocted from the produce of her toil. 
 
 When we reached the hall, we might as well 
 have had no tickets ; we found all the servants, 
 and several of the male visitors engaged in one 
 general action — screams above were responded 
 to by shouts below, in the midst of which I 
 observed two butchers, in their ordinary costume, 
 assiduously employed in the divided task of coax- 
 ing and kicking a huge bullock down the flight 
 of stairs, at the top of which was the dairy-maid's 
 bower — the more they roared, the more they 
 coaxed, and the more they kicked, the less would 
 p5 
 
322 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 the bullock stir, and it was not until the greatest 
 skill, judgment, and magnanimity had been dis- 
 played, that the vast monster was got out of the 
 street-door; when, as if angry at being expelled 
 a scene where everything else was i?i character, 
 and therefore out of it, he made a sudden dash 
 amongst the horses and carriages, to the infinite 
 peril of panes, pannels, poles, perches, and 
 platforms. 
 
 " Isn't that good fun," said Daly to me : — 
 "now come along — this is the time for the 
 macaroons—' the labour we delight in physics 
 pain;' — see — watch — and mark the sequel." 
 
 I followed my friend up the staircase, the 
 Count having already fallen into conversation 
 with a very beautiful, but immense lady, to 
 whom I was afterwards introduced, and had 
 much occasion to admire and pity — we pro- 
 ceeded to the drawing-room — where a circle was 
 formed round Lady Wolverhampton, who was 
 expatiating in no measured terms upon the 
 infamous conduct of the man who had promised 
 to send her a nice elegant lady-like cow to stand 
 15 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 323 
 
 Hermioiie-like in the glass-case by the side of 
 the lovely milk-maid, but who, instead, had with 
 great labour and difficulty squeezed a huge 
 overfed bullock into the place. The moment I 
 heard the dear Countess telling her story, a 
 thought flashed across me — the butcher, to see 
 whom Daly had been so anxious before dinner, 
 was no doubt the traitorous cause of the mishap 
 under the malign influence of the practical 
 joker. 
 
 The scene was beautiful and gay — the variety 
 of masks — the diversity of costume — the bois- 
 terous mirth of the Moll Flaggons, and Irish 
 haymakers, flirting with delicate die-away 
 Nuns, and aristocratic flower girls — fat monks, 
 dancing with Swiss peasants — knights in armour, 
 lounging on sofas with Indian queens — Doctor 
 Ollapod, in close conversation with Alex- 
 ander the Great, and Caleb Quotem, seriously 
 arguing a point of etiquette with Henry the 
 Fourth of France, It was all exceedingly fasci- 
 nating and intoxicating, and the bull having 
 been disposed of, harmony was restored — dis- 
 p6 
 
324 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 turbed only by a shrill cry of " macaroons — 
 cakes — cakes — macaroons — who'll buy ? — who'll 
 buy ?" I saw the fiend of fun approach. In an 
 instant, as he had anticipated, an attack was 
 made upon his basket — and every body who wore 
 a mask, in which eating was practicable, began 
 consuming the fruits of their impetuosity. I 
 dreaded the consequences, not only to the suf- 
 ferers, but to Daly himself, who, if discovered, 
 would of course be subject to all the serious 
 penalties which such a trick must naturally entail 
 upon him. Scarcely, however, had the distribu- 
 tion taken place, (long before the sickening 
 effects could shew themselves,) when I felt a 
 sudden twitch at my elbow — I looked round, 
 and saw a Spanish Grandee close at my side. I 
 was startled ! I had never visited a masquerade 
 before. " Who are you ?" said I. " All the 
 cakes are gone," whispered the mask ; " so is 
 the basket and cloak — I'm here:" — it was of 
 course Daly. " Come with me," said he; "I 
 will introduce you to Lady Wolverhampton; — it 
 is quite prudent to do so. She will see my dress 
 
GILBERT GIJRNEY. 325 
 
 and yours, and then she can't suspect either of 
 us of being the macaroon cake-seller; — take care 
 and ingratiate yourself — make yourself amia- 
 ble — she's as hospitable as an Arab, and not 
 very unlike one — hem !" — I followed him, and 
 found myself in a moment at the side of the 
 Countess. 
 
 " Countess," said he 
 
 " Who are you ?" said her Ladyship. 
 
 " Mufti," whispered Daly. 
 
 "What, so smart, Daly!" said she: (Mufti 
 being the mystic word by which he made him- 
 self known) — " a Grandee ?" 
 
 " Yes," said Daly. " This is my friend 
 Gurney, of whom I have spoken — agreeable 
 creature — sings like a syren — talks like a mag- 
 pie — quite delightful." 
 
 " And I am delighted to make his acquaint- 
 ance," said her Ladyship 
 
 I bowed. 
 
 " Unmask for a moment," said Daly ; " let 
 the Countess see the ' human face divine,' else 
 when her Ladyship invites you to meet me at 
 
326 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 dinner here next Tuesday week, at seven 
 o'clock, she may perhaps be disappointed." 
 
 " Don't mind him, Mr. Gurney," said her 
 Ladyship ; " I shall be very glad to see you 
 whenever you will do me the kindness to call. 
 But, Daly, now tell me — had you no hand in 
 the business of the bullock ?" 
 
 "Bullock!" said Daly. "I! My dear 
 Lady." 
 
 Hereabouts, the room began to thin — the 
 dancers seemed particularly anxious to get fresh 
 air — several persons were seen evidently much 
 disordered, and the whole corps appeared in 
 confusion. 
 
 " What's the matter now ?" said Lady Wol- 
 verhampton. 
 
 " I don't know, my dear Countess," said a 
 very respectable old body, with a turban on her 
 head ; " but Kate and Fanny are both taken 
 unaccountably ill, and so is Lieutenant Griggs 
 of the Life Guards, who was dancing with one 
 of them, and as for poor Lady Elizabeth Gro- 
 gan, I believe she is dying." 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 327 
 
 A new confusion here arose — the macaroons 
 were evidently disagreeing with the company ; 
 however, only a small portion had been poi- 
 soned, and to my delight, I found that although 
 a good many of both sexes were considerably 
 damaged by their own anxiety to eat the things, 
 there was still a magnificent crowd to carry on 
 the affairs of the evening. In the midst of the 
 embarras, which to the hostess was of course in- 
 explicable, the arrival of a Prince of the blood 
 Royal, who came unmasked, gave a new 
 zest to the scene, and the delight which the 
 Countess experienced at his appearance, ren- 
 dered her wholly insensible to the indisposition 
 of her numerous guests, who were labouring 
 under the effects of her pet's performances. 
 
 Almost immediately after the Countess had en- 
 tered into conversation with his Royal Highness, 
 who had seated himself on an ottoman in a small 
 circular room, and while he was graciously com- 
 plimenting the beauty of the scene, the candles 
 by which it was lighted, began almost simultane- 
 ously to perform of themselves an operation 
 
328 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 called "guttering down," and then go out, with a 
 sort of unsatisfactory splash of wax. The result 
 was, a nearly total eclipse, attended by an ex- 
 tremely unpleasant smell. Poor Lady Wolver- 
 hampton, who confided in Daly, called him to 
 her, and mourning this new calamity, begged 
 him to order fresh lights, which, with an air of 
 subservient activity, he immediately did ; but as 
 he went, he whispered me to suggest to her Lady- 
 ship the expediency of burning some sort of per- 
 fume in the room. The idea was instantly adopted 
 by her Ladyship, who, directing me to a beautiful 
 iillagree box which lay on one of the tables, 
 requested me to put three or four of the pas- 
 tilles, which it contained^ into a burner on the 
 chimney-piece. I obeyed her Ladyship's orders, 
 and the instant I set light to them they ex- 
 ploded, and continued flashing and snapping 
 and blazing till they were entirely burned out, 
 being neither more nor less than four " devils " 
 or " wild-fires," such as we were in the habit of 
 making at school, and which, looking precisely 
 like pastilles, some mischievous elf had de- 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 329 
 
 posited there instead of the real article. The 
 result was, considerable alarm — an abominable 
 smell, and a smoke so thick that his Royal 
 Highness was seized with a desperate lit of 
 coughing, and all the windows were thrown 
 open to dissipate the obscurity. 
 
 The moment the devils took fire, I was con- 
 vinced that Daly was the author of this affair, as 
 well as of all the others — that he had made 
 the exchange, and set me upon making the 
 proposition, in order to bring his scheme into 
 play. However, the rooms were refreshed — 
 new candles were brought, things resumed their 
 wonted gaiety, and Daly made his re-appear- 
 ance. 
 
 I ought, perhaps, here to observe, that along 
 the principal drawing room, a canal, some two 
 or three feet deep, had been constructed, with 
 an embankment of moss, and coral, and shells, 
 in which the much talked-of fish were destined to 
 desport themselves, but by the time we got there, 
 their swimming had entirely ceased — Daly had 
 dosed them with Coculus Indicus just before 
 he left the house in the afternoon, and when we 
 
330 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 arrived at night they were all floating on their 
 backs, dead drunk from the effects of the dele- 
 terious drug. 
 
 It was now nearly two ; and I — strange to say 
 — felt very much disposed for supper. I asked 
 my Mentor whether such a meal was probable. 
 
 " Supper!" said Daly; " to be sure — it is 
 the point of the epigram ; the sugar after the 
 physic — all regular sit down ; hot soups — snug 
 flirtations and fun ! none of your stand up 
 absurdities, — tables against the wall, covered 
 with cold negus, and warm ice; where men, 
 women, and children take perpendicular re- 
 freshment, like so many horses with their noses 
 in the manger — no ! — trust to me — we shall 
 unmask at supper. I'll introduce you to some- 
 thing very charming, only do me the favour 
 not to forget Emma, and the twenty thousand 
 pounds — eh ?" 
 
 One of the bands here struck up, " the Roast 
 Beef of Old England," as a signal that the 
 much desired banquet was ready ; and accord- 
 ingly every eye sparkled, every heart beat, 
 every body rushed forward, regardless of order, 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 331 
 
 decorum, or decency, in the grand attack upon 
 the Countess's refection. The Countess, however, 
 having made proper arrangements, and know- 
 ing the eagerness of the best bred people upon 
 this particular subject, had desired her house- 
 steward to complete all the preparations for the 
 supper destined for his Royal Highness and his 
 select party, in the circular tent-room, immedi- 
 ately under the one in which he had been sitting, 
 and where covers were laid for twenty; and as soon 
 as all was ready, to bring her the key of the door, 
 so that when she led the Prince to the tent, she 
 might open the little paradise to his view, and 
 be sure that nobody else could make an attack 
 upon the sanctum. According to order, every- 
 thing was arranged, the tent lighted, and the 
 key brought, the soups alone being to be served 
 after the elite had taken their places. 
 
 The rush and squeeze began — and just in the 
 whirlpool of beauty and grace and elegance, I 
 saw a lady, whose laughing eyes, and sweet 
 expression of countenance delighted me, while 
 she and another, somewhat younger than her- 
 
332 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 self, were tossed to and fro in the eddying 
 crowd — they had unmasked, and their dresses 
 were exceedingly becoming to their pretty and 
 animated countenances, and I asked Daly who 
 the elder of the two was ? 
 
 "Just the woman for you to know!" said 
 he. " She is perfectly delightful, gives the 
 most agreeable parties in London; — amiable, 
 clever, agreeable, with a hundred thousand 
 pounds of her own: — make her acquaintance by 
 all means !" saying which, we squeezed towards 
 them. " Mrs. Fletcher Green," said he ; " per- 
 mit me to present my friend Mr. Gurney, 
 who is anxious to become your cavalier in this 
 dreadful onset." 
 
 " A thousand thanks," said Mrs. Fletcher 
 Green, 
 
 " I will take care of Lady John," added he ; 
 and in one instant a wave of humanity separated 
 us, and I found myself obliged, in self-preserva- 
 tion, and for the preservation of Mrs. Fletcher 
 Green, to take an opposite course, by which we 
 secured our places at a table, whence we could 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 333 
 
 not even see my new friend's late companion, or 
 Daly. It did not seem to signify much — Mrs. 
 Fletcher Green appeared perfectly happy where 
 she was — so was I — and we began a conversa- 
 tion of the most agreeable character, which grew 
 livelier as the champagne circulated, and com- 
 menced on that night, an acquaintance, ^ the 
 termination of which I most assuredly did not 
 contemplate at the time. 
 
 Another dreadful mishap had occurred since 
 we quitted the drawing-rooms, of which intel- 
 ligence was brought us by common report ; by 
 which it really seemed as if Lady Wolverhamp- 
 ton had been that night marked out for the sport 
 of fortune. The Countess, as it had been ar- 
 ranged, conducted the Prince to the tent room 
 — his Royal Highness giving her Ladyship his 
 arm, and leading the noble guests who had 
 been favored with a command to join the royal 
 party. Arrived at the door of the pavilion, her 
 Ladyship applied the key, the lock willingly 
 obeyed the appeal, the battants flew open, and 
 disclosed the splendid supper service of the late 
 Earl, making the circular table groan with its 
 
334 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 weight, and dazzling the eye with its magnifi- 
 cence; but what were the Countess's feelings, 
 when she beheld nothing in the golden dishes 
 and vases but the remnants of a devoured 
 feast — fragments of dissected fowls — ends of 
 well notched tongues — creams half demol- 
 ished — jellies in trembling lumps — glasses scarce 
 emptied, and bottles emptied quite — crusts of 
 bread, with heads and tails of prawns scattered 
 about upon the snowy cloth, and plates well 
 used piled upon each other in the middle of 
 the once festive board ! 
 
 The confusion of the Countess was beyond 
 description — the laughter of the Prince beyond 
 belief — to him it was a capital joke— to her 
 Ladyship, a serious evil : how it had occurred 
 nobody could guess, for the door had been locked 
 the moment everything was ready, and the key 
 taken to her Ladyship. Consternation reigned, 
 and his Royal Highness had to re-ascend the 
 stairs, and wait until the whole affair was re- 
 arranged. Of course, I was as ignorant as my 
 neighbours of the cause of this calamity, and 
 should have remained so until now, had not 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 335 
 
 Daly told me, in our way home, that having 
 gone out into the garden, in order to get rid of 
 his Jew's dress and basket, where he deposited 
 them, he found a band of Pandean Minstrels, 
 puffing their hearts out into their pipes, to which 
 nobody listened, and being resolved, if possible, 
 to destroy the royal monopoly in the tent-room, 
 to which he had not been invited, and which, 
 although locked towards the lobby, opened on to 
 the lawn, he directed the weary performers to 
 go in at the window, which he set wide for the 
 purpose, and get their supper; advising them 
 by no means to call for anything that was not 
 there already — to eat and drink what they could, 
 and to make as much haste as possible, and when 
 they had done, to lock the window on the out- 
 side, and throw the key into the four yards 
 square pond, which in rainy weather served as 
 a wet dock for the Countess' pet swan. All of 
 which instructions, it appeared, the said Pan- 
 deans followed to the very letter ; and thus, to 
 his infinite delight, caused that confusion, in 
 which his heart so wonderfully rejoiced. 
 
336 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 It was nearly five when I handed Mrs. 
 Fletcher Green into her dark brown chariot. 
 I ventured to express some solicitude about her 
 companion at the supper-room door, till she 
 assured me that she was quite safe ; " because," 
 said she, " she has a husband here to take care 
 of her. I am quite independent — a thousand 
 thanks — I hope we shall be better acquainted." 
 
 Away she drove — I turned into the house to 
 look for Daly — but I confess Mrs. Fletcher 
 Green had made an impression upon me — 
 there was such a charming mixture of worldli- 
 ness and nature about her — I mean such a per- 
 fect knowledge of every body in society, and of 
 every thing that was going on, mixed with a 
 genuine kind-heartedness — a love of fun — and 
 an artless hearty goodnature, all of which 
 combined with talent of a high order, and ac- 
 complishments which even my short intercourse 
 with her had convinced me were of the first 
 class, rendered her engaging — interesting — 
 captivating. 
 
 When I went up stairs to look for my friend, 
 
GILBERT GURNEY. 337 
 
 the sun had superseded the lamps and candles — 
 the decorations of the preceding night had lost 
 their freshness ; even the flowers seemed to droop 
 — the lovely girls looked haggard, and the elderly- 
 ladies horrid — the rouge burnt blue on their 
 cheeks, and there was not a curl in the whole 
 community. Masks and character-dresses lay 
 heaped in corners, disregarded; and people, 
 in their own proper persons, were languidly 
 praising the humours and delights of the party, 
 listening, listlessly, for the announcement of the 
 carriages which were to take them away; — the 
 vapour of tea and coiFee, which were served, 
 were the only refreshments of the fietri scene, 
 if I except the morning air, which some of the 
 most venturous of the girls dared to admit 
 through the open windows, malgre the warning 
 of their prudent mothers. 
 
 I soon found Daly, and we retired together — 
 my head aching — my heart not easy — tired — 
 worn out — and as much fatigued as if I had 
 travelled a journey of two hundred miles. All 
 the consolation I derived from my own sensa- 
 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
338 GILBERT GURNEY. 
 
 tions was, the hope that my friend would 
 be equally knocked up with myself, and would, 
 therefore, delay his departure for Tenby, for at 
 least another day. 
 
 END OF VOL I. 
 
 Gilbert & Rivington, Printers, St. John's Square, London. 
 
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