Chapter 10

IN COMINIUM.

If you, Cominius, old, defiled With every vice, contemn'd, and hoary, From your vile life were once exiled, Your carcass beasts would mar--grim, wild. Vultures that tongue, defamatory Of all the gentle, good, and mild; And with those eyes, that all detest, Pluck'd from their hateful sockets gory, Crows cram their maws, or feed their nest, And hungry wolves devour the rest!

It was now time, Eusebius, to conclude for the night, and, indeed, to put our Catullus upon his shelf again. Before separating, we reminded Gratian that he was the arbiter, and must make his award. "I remember well," said he; "and you, Aquilius, made, I think, this my baculus the staff of office. A good umpire might, not very improperly, give the stick to you both, breaking it equally, "secundum artem baculinam." But it is a good, useful staff to me; we have had some rubs together, and I won't part with it. True, it has not unfrequently rubbed my pigs' backs, and shall again. But _the_ pig Aquilius has made his acquaintance with, has grunted out all his happy days; and, to do him all honour, I have sacrificed him upon this occasion, to appease the manes of the Latin poet in his anger at your bad translations. But for yourselves, I have still something to award. My pig has two cheeks--there is one for each, and you shall have them put before you at breakfast to-morrow morning; and thus, I think, you will agree with me that I have duly countenanced you both. And I hope my pig will have both sharpened your appetites and your wit, 'sus Minervam.' Good-night!

'To-morrow to fresh fields and turnips new.'"

POSTSCRIPT.

I here send you, Eusebius, the last of our Horae Catullianae, which has been lying by a week or more. This little delay enables me to wind up the Curate's affair to your satisfaction. Our friend Gratian gave verbally the Bishop's reply to Mathew Miffins, who, seeing himself deserted by his principal witness and informer, Prateapace, was not sorry to veer round with the weather-cock, and was obsequiously civil. It was characteristic of our friend Gratian, that he should settle it as he did with that huckster. Going through, as it is called, the main street, I saw him engaged with Miffins, in his shop, and went in. He was talking somewhat familiarly with the man--of all subjects, on what do you suppose?--on fishing. Gratian had been a great fisherman in his day, as his rheumatic pains can now testify. As he afterwards told me, fearing he might have given the Bishop's message rather sharply, and not liking to pain the man, he turned off the subject, and talked of fishing, to which he knew Miffins was addicted; and so it ended by Gratian's obtaining his good-will for ever, for he sent him some choice hackles. Prateapace and Gadabout have returned to the church, whereupon the Rev. the cow-doctor has stirred up the wrath of the chapel by a very strong discourse upon backsliding. A poor woman spoke of it as very affecting, adding, "Some loves 'sons of consolation,' but I loves 'sons of thunder.'" Doubtless there was lightning too; and there is of that vivid kind which bewilders and leaves all darker than before. The Curate _has_ found bouquets in the vestry and the desk, and has been in danger of becoming "a popular."

A subscription has actually been set on foot, by Nicholas Sandwell, at the instigation, it is said, of certain ladies, and even encouraged by Miffins, to purchase a coffee-pot and tea-spoons for the Curate; but an event a few days ago has put an end to the affair, and given rather a new turn to the parochial feelings. This event is of such moment, that I ought, perhaps, to have told you of it at first--but I should have spoiled my romance, my novel--and what is any writing without a tale in it worth now-a-days? The Curate, then, is actually married--even since the termination of the Horae Catullianae.

Miss Lydia, ("alas, false man!" sighed some one,) of the family at Ashford, is the happy bride. The Curate had unexpectedly come into a very decent independence; and is, and will be for ever after, according to the usual receipt, happy.

Since this event, the bouquets have ceased to be laid in the vestry and the desk. Lydia Prateapace has been heard to say she should not wonder if all was true after all, and affects to be glad, for propriety's sake, that they _are_ married. Gadabout runs every where repeating what Prateapace said; and Brazenstare looks audacious indifference, and once stared in the Curate's face and asked him how many Misses Lydia there might be of his acquaintance. My dear Eusebius,

"So goes the world, and such the Play of Life. This loves to make, and t'other mends a strife; Old fools write rhymes--the Curate takes a wife."

Yours ever, AQUILIUS.

PROSPER MERIMEE.

Rarely, in these days of profuse and unscrupulous scribbling, do we find an author giving the essence, not a dilution, of his wit, learning, and imagination, dispensing his mental stores with frugal caution, instead of lavishing them with reckless prodigality. Such a one, when met with, should be made much of, as a model for sinners in a contrary sense, and as a bird of precious plumage. Of that feather is Monsieur Prosper Merimee. He plays with literature, rather than professes it; it is his recreation, not his trade; at long intervals and for a brief space, he turns from more serious pursuits to coquet with the Muse, not frankly to embrace her. Willing though she be, he will not take her for a lawful spouse and constant companion, but courts her _par amours_. The offspring of these moments of dalliance are buxom and _debonair_, of various but comely aspect. In two-and-twenty years he has written less than the average annual produce of many of his literary countrymen. In several paths of literature, he has essayed his steps and made good a footing; in not one has he continuously persevered, but, although cheered by applause, has quickly struck into another track, which, in its turn, has been capriciously deserted. His "Studies of Roman history" give him an honourable claim to the title of historian; his "Notes of Archaeological Rambles" are greatly esteemed; he has written plays; and his prose fictions, whether middle-age romance or novel of modern society, rank with the best of their class. He began his career with a mystification. His first work greatly puzzled the critics. It professed to be a translation of certain comedies, written by a Spanish actress, whose fictitious biography was prefixed and signed by Joseph L'Estrange, officer in the Swiss regiment of Watteville. This imaginary personage had made acquaintance with Clara Gazul in garrison at Gibraltar. Nothing was neglected that might perfect the delusion and give success to the cheat; fragments of old Spanish authors were prefixed to each play, showing familiarity with the literature of the country; the style, tone, and allusions were thoroughly Spanish; and, through the French dress, the Castilian idiom seemed here and there to peep forth, confirming the notion of a translation. Clara was an Andalusian, half gipsy, half Moor, skilled in guitars and castanets, saynetes and boleros. L'Estrange makes her narrate her own origin.

"'I was born,' she told us, 'under an orange-tree, by the roadside, not far from Motril, in the kingdom of Granada. My mother was a fortune-teller, and I followed her, or was carried on her back, till the age of five years. Then she took me to the house of a canon of Granada, the licentiate Gil Vargas, who received us with every sign of joy. Salute your uncle, said my mother. I saluted him. She embraced me, and departed. I have never seen her since.' And to stop our questions, Dona Clara took her guitar and sang the gipsy song, _Cuando me pario mi madre, la gitana_."

Biography and comedies were so skillfully got up, the deception was so well combined, that the reviewers were put entirely on a wrong scent. Two years later, M. Merimee was guilty of another harmless literary swindle, entitled La Guzla, a selection of Illyrian poems, said to be collected in Bosnia, Dalmatia, &c., but whose real origin could be traced no further than to his own imagination. Although the name was a manifest anagram of Gazul, the public were gulled. The deceit was first unmasked in Germany, we believe, by Goethe, to whom the secret had been betrayed. Thenceforward the young author was content to publish under his own name works of which he certainly had no reason to be ashamed. One of the earliest of these was, "La Jacquerie"--a sort of long melodrama, or series of scenes, illustrating feudal aggressions and cruelties in France, and the consequent peasant revolts of the fourteenth century. It shows much historical research and care in collection of materials, is rich in references to the barbarous customs and strange manners of the times, and, like the "Chronicle of Charles IX.," another historical work of M. Merimee's, has, we suspect, been found very useful by more recent fabricators of romances.

Educated for the bar, but not practising his profession, M. Merimee was one of the rising men of talent whom the July revolution pushed forward. After being _chef de cabinet_ of the Minister of the Interior, Count d'Argout, he held several appointments under government, amongst others, that of Inspector of Historical Monuments, an office he still retains. In 1844 he was elected to a chair in the French Academy, vacant by the death of the accomplished Charles Nodier. He has busied himself much with archaeological researches, and the published results of his travels in the west of France, Provence, Corsica, &c., are most learned and valuable. In the intervals of his antiquarian investigations and administrative labours, he has thrown off a number of tales and sketches, most of which first saw the light in leading French periodicals, and have since been collected and republished. They are all remarkable for grace of style and tact in management of subject. One of the longest, "Colomba," a tale of Corsican life, is better known in England than its author's name. It has been translated with accuracy and spirit, and lately has been further brought before the public, on the boards of a minor theatre, distorted into a very indifferent melodrama. The Corsican Vendetta has been taken as the basis of more than one romantic story, but, handled by M. Merimee, it has acquired new and fascinating interest; and he has enriched his little romance with a profusion of those small traits and artistical touches which exhibit the character and peculiarities of a people better than folios of dry description. "La Double Meprise," another of his longer tales, is a clever _novelette_ of Parisian life. According to English notions its subject is slippery, its main incident, and some of its minor details, improbable and unpleasant, although so neatly managed that one is less startled when reading them than shocked on after-reflection. It certainly requires skilful management to give an air of probability to such a scene as is detailed in chapter five. A French _gentleman_, a man of fortune and family, mixing in good society, is anxious for an appointment at court, and to obtain it he reckons much on the influence and good word of a certain Duke of H----. There is a benefit night at the Opera, and the young wife of the aspirant to court honours has a box. Between the acts her husband, who has unwillingly accompanied her, rambles about the house, and discovers the Duke in an inconvenient corner, where he can see nothing. His grace is not alone, but in the society of his kept-mistress. To propitiate his patron, the unscrupulous husband introduces him and his companion into the box of his unsuspecting wife! The sequel may be imagined; the stare and titter of acquaintances, the supercilious gratitude of the Duke, the astonishment of the lady at the singular tone of the pretty and elegantly dressed woman with whom she is thus unexpectedly brought in contact, and whose want of _usage_ bespeaks, as she imagines, the newly arrived provincial. All this, which might pass muster in a novel depicting the manners and morals of the Regency, is rather violent in one of our day; but yet, so cleverly are the angles of improbability draped and softened down, the reader perseveres. The plot is very slight; the tale scarcely depends on it, but is what the French call a _tableau de moeurs_, with less pretensions to the regular progress and catastrophe of a novel, than to be a mirror of everyday scenes and actors on the bustling stage of Paris life. The characters are well drawn, the dialogues witty and dramatic, the book abounds in sly hits and smart satire; but its bitterness of tone injured its popularity, and, unlike its author's other tales, it met little success. The opening chapter is a picture of a lively Parisian _menage_, such as many doubtless exist; a striking example of a _mariage de convenance_, or mis-match.

"Six years had elapsed since the marriage of Julie de Chaverny, and five years and six months, or thereabouts, since she had discovered that it was impossible for her to love her husband, and very difficult to esteem him. He was not a bad man, neither could he be called stupid, nor even silly; she had once thought him agreeable; now she found him intolerably wearisome. To her every thing about him was repulsive and unpleasant. His most trifling actions, his way of eating, of taking coffee, of talking, gave her umbrage and irritated her nerves. Except at table, the pair scarcely saw or spoke to each other; but they dined together several times a-week, and that sufficed to keep up the sort of hatred Julie entertained towards her husband.

"As to Chaverny, he was rather a handsome man, a little too corpulent for his time of life, with a fresh complexion, full-blooded, and by no means subject to those vague uneasinesses which sometimes torment persons of more intellectual organisation. Piously convinced that his wife's sentiments towards him were those of tender friendship, the conviction caused him neither pleasure nor pain. Had he known Julie's feelings to be of an opposite nature, it would have made little difference to his happiness. He had served several years in a cavalry regiment, when he inherited a considerable fortune, became disgusted with garrison life, resigned his commission, and took a wife. It seems difficult to explain the marriage of two persons who had not an idea in common. On the one hand, a number of those officious friends and relations, who, as Phrosine says, would marry the republic of Venice to the Grand Turk, had taken much pains to arrange it: on the other, Chaverny was of good family; before his marriage he was not too fat; he was gay and cheerful, and what is called a _good fellow_. Julie was glad to see him at her mother's house, because he made her laugh with anecdotes of his regiment, droll enough, if not always in the best taste. She found him amiable, because he danced with her at every ball, and was always ready with excellent reasons to persuade her mother to remain late at theatre or party, or at the _Bois de Boulogne_. Finally, she thought him a hero, because he had fought two or three creditable duels. But what completed his triumph, was the description of a certain carriage, to be built after a plan of his own, and in which he was to drive Julie, as soon as she consented to become Madame de Chaverny.

"A few months of married life, and Chaverny's good qualities had lost much of their merit. He no longer danced with his wife--that of course. His funny stories had long been thrice told. He complained that balls lasted too late; at the theatre he yawned; the custom of dressing for the evening he found an insufferable bore. Laziness was his bane; had he endeavoured to please, perhaps he would have succeeded, but the least exertion or restraint was torture to him, as to most fat persons. He found it irksome to go into society, because there the manner of one's reception depends on the efforts one makes to please. A rude joviality suited him better than refined amusements; to distinguish himself amongst persons of a similar taste to his own, he had only to talk and laugh louder than his companions--and that he did without trouble, for his lungs were remarkably vigorous. He also prided himself on drinking more champagne than most men could support, and on leaping his horse over a four-foot wall in true sporting style. To these various accomplishments he was indebted for the friendship and esteem of the indefinable class of beings known as 'young men,' who swarm upon our _boulevards_ towards eight in the evening. Shooting parties, country excursions, races, bachelors' dinners and suppers, were his favourite pastimes. Twenty times a-day he declared himself the happiest of mortals; and when Julie heard the declaration, she cast her eyes to heaven, and her little mouth assumed an expression of indescribable contempt."

We turn to another of M. Merimee's books, in our opinion his best, an historical romance, entitled 1572, a "Chronicle of the Reign of Charles the Ninth." "In history," says the author in his preface, "I care only for the anecdotes, and prefer those in which I fancy I discover a true picture of the manners and characters of a particular period. This is not a very elevated taste; but I own, to my shame, that I would willingly give the whole of Thucydides for an authentic memoir of Aspasia, or of one of Pericles' slaves. Memoirs, the familiar gossip of an author with his reader, alone supply those individual portraits that amuse and interest me. It is not from Mezerai, but from Montlue, Brantome, D'Aubigne, Tavannes, La Noue, &c., that one forms a just idea of the French of the sixteenth century. From the style of those contemporary authors, we learn as much as from the substance of their narratives. In L'Estoile, for instance, I read the following concise note. 'The demoiselle de Chateau-neuf, one of the king's _mignonnes_, before he went to Poland, having espoused, _par amourettes_, the Florentine Antinotti, officer of the galleys at Marseilles, and detecting him in an intrigue, slew him stoutly with her own hand.' By the help of this anecdote, and of similar ones, which abound in Brantome, I make up a character in my head, and resuscitate a lady of Henry the Third's court." The "Chronicle" is the result of much reading and combination of the kind here referred to; and M. Merimee has even been accused of adhering too closely to reality, to the detriment of the poetical character of his romance. He does not make his heroes and heroines sufficiently perfect, or his villains sufficiently atrocious, to suit the palate of some critics, but depicts them as he finds evidence of their having existed--their virtues obscured by the coarse manners and loose morality, their crimes palliated by the religious antipathies and stormy political passions of a semi-civilised age. He declines judging the men of the sixteenth century according to the ideas of the nineteenth. And, with regard to minor matters, he does not, like some of his contemporaries, place in the mouth of a Huguenot leader, or a _Guisarde_ countess, the tame and dainty phrase appropriate enough in that of an equerry, or lady of the bed-chamber at the court of the Citizen King. Eschewing conventionality, and following his own judgment, and the guidance of the old chroniclers, in whose quaint records he delights, he has written one of the best existing French historical romances.

It would have been easy for a less able writer than M. Merimee to have extended the "Chronique" to thrice its present length. It is not a complete romance, but a desultory sketch of the events and manners of the time, with a few imaginary personages introduced. Novel readers who require a regular _denoument_ will be disappointed at its conclusion. There is not even a hint of a wedding from the first page to the last; and the only lady who plays a prominent part in the story, a certain countess Diane de Turgis, is little better than she should be. And yet, if we follow M. Merimee's rule, and judge her according to the ideas and morals of the age she flourished in, she was rather an amiable and proper sort of person. True, she sets her lovers by the ears, and feels gratified when they cut each other's throats: she even challenges a court dame, who has taken the precedence of her, to an encounter with sword and dagger, _en chemise_, according to the prevailing mode amongst the _raffines_, or professed duellists of the time; and she writes seductive billets-doux in Spanish, and gives wicked little suppers to the handsome cavalier on whom her affections are set. But, on the other hand, she goes to mass, and confesses, and does her best to save her Huguenot lover's body and soul, and obtain the remission of her own sins by converting him from his heresy. So that, as times went in the year 1572, she was to be reckoned amongst the righteous. The handsome heretic, in whose present safety and future salvation she takes so strong an interest, is one Bernard de Mergy, who has come to Paris to take service with the great chief of his co-religionists, Admiral Coligny. His brother, George de Mergy, has deserted the creed of Calvin, and is consequently in high favour at the Louvre, but under the ban of his father, a stern old Huguenot officer, who will not hear the name of his renegade son. Bernard, whilst regretting his brother's apostasy, does not deem it necessary to shun his society. On the road he has been cajoled or robbed of his ready cash by a pretty gipsy girl, and his good horse has been stolen by one of the hordes of German lanzknechts, whom the recent civil war had brought to France. He reaches Paris with an empty purse, and is not sorry to meet his brother, who welcomes him kindly, and supplies his wants, but refuses to recant, and attempts to justify his backsliding. In the course of his defence he gives an insight into the prevalent corruption of the time, and shows how the private vices of great political leaders often marred the fortunes of their party.

"'You were still at school,' said De Mergy, 'learning Latin and Greek, when I first donned the cuirass, girded the Huguenot's white scarf, and took share in our civil wars. Your little Prince of Conde, who has led his party into so many errors, looked after your affairs when his intrigues left him time. A lady loved me; the prince asked me to resign her to him; I refused, and he became my mortal enemy. From that hour he lost no opportunity of mortifying me.

Ce petit prince si joli Qui toujours baise sa mignonne,

held me up to the fanatics of the party as a monster of libertinism and irreligion. I had only one mistress; and as to the irreligion,--I let others do as they like, why attack me?'

"'I thought the prince incapable of such baseness,' said Bernard.