Part 17

In the Marquis's book may be found recorded the exaggerated accounts of the Enchantress, which were zealously circulated in her own times by the French, and which inflamed and animated Matthew; St. Cas most gallantly repeats (as if he believed) all the praises which his forefathers had lavished upon her, and pictures her as the most fascinating being on earth, so condescending in her manners that the lowest orders of society were more readily admitted to her confidence and acquaintance than those of noble birth and superior qualifications, and of a disposition so forgiving, that if she could anyhow light upon men (no matter who) who had been the creatures and favoured followers of any person or family who from time immemorial had been the bitterest enemies of her house and the country she most loved, these were the particular objects of her care and protection--for those were all her powers exerted, the magic of all her charms displayed. This predilection for the destroyers of her relations, the Marquis adduces as one of the most amiable traits of "La belle Sorcière."

And here again we are presented with a confirmation of Mr. Backhouse's hypothesis, that all the vulgar mistaken notions about this great lady are occasioned by errors of the press; for in the first edition of St. Cas (Lyons, 1609) the word _sorcière_ is printed _souricière_, which means, as the learned reader well knows, "a mouse-catcher."

Perhaps, however, the printer may not be wholly to blame on this point, inasmuch as the Marquis himself distinctly alludes to her having assumed the form of a Cat, which he seems to consider a state of honour--"The Cat," says he, "is a privileged animal;" and then proceeds to narrate the following story in support of his assertion:--

"Mahomet avoit beaucoup d'égards pour son Chat.--Ce vénérable animal s'était un jour couché sur la manche pendante de la veste du Prophète, et semblait y mediter si profondément que Mahomet pressé de se rendre à la Prière, et n'osant le tirer de son extase, coupa la manche de sa veste. A son retour, il trouva son chat qui revenait de son assoupissement extatique, et que s'appercevant de l'attention de son maître à la vue de la manche coupée, se leva, pour lui faire la revérénce, dressa la queue, et plia le dos en arc, pour lui témoigner plus de respect. Mahomet qui comprit à merveille ce que cela signifiait, assura au saint homme de chat une place dans son Paradis. Ensuite lui passant trois fois la main sur le dos, il lui imprima, par cet attouchement, la vertu de ne jamais tomber que sur ses pates."

Hence the Marquis argues, that his favourite Enchantress did by no means degrade or bemean herself by the abandonment of her character as a woman, if it were to answer any sufficient purpose she assumed that of a Cat.

The accounts which tradition brought down to the Marquis's time, and has even to our own, would naturally have spread from mouth to mouth all through Europe, at the time when facts so surprising occurred; and Whittington was one of those men who are disposed to believe every thing they do not rightly comprehend, the consequence of which disposition was his almost boundless credulity, and after inflaming his mind with the descriptions of the Enchantress, and the implied restraint under which she laboured, he resolved (from what motive nobody has completely succeeded in discovering) to induce her to visit England.

It is concluded, that a desire for notoriety had no weight with him in this resolution, for never did any man of his time shrink from the applause of the vulgar with such delicate sensibility as Whittington. Hearing his own name spoken aloud in the streets, caused him the greatest uneasiness, and he was moved to anger if any wandering minstrels who were singing his praises, chanced to pass near his residence.

This is stated by Ibbotson (before quoted), and is highly satisfactory, inasmuch as the general impression upon the minds of all those versed in the history, was that most of the little songs of which he was the hero were written either in his house or at least at his suggestion. The friend who favoured me with the copy of the ballad quoted above has furnished me with two stanzas of another, which he found in the same volume, and which proves that Ibbotson's account of Matthew's modesty is perfectly just, for his indifference about, not to say dislike to, popularity (as it is called) was so strong, that such of his partisans as chose to celebrate him in poetry were, in compliance with his scrupulous wishes, compelled to designate him by the initials of his name.

Serche Englonde round, naye all the Erthe, Itte myghtelie would trouble you To find a manne so ryche in worthe, As honest Matthewe W.

He's notte thee manne to doe you wronge, Nor wyth false speeeches bubble you. Whyle Beef grows fatte, and Beer grows strong Long lyfe to Matthewe W.

With this proof of his retiring disposition we are the more puzzled in looking at his conduct with respect to the Great Lady, because really, if we had not such powerful evidence as Ibbotson and others have adduced, one could hardly fancy any other incitement to her introduction into the country, than an officious desire to be meddling with things which did not at all concern him, for the mere sake of creating a sensation, of withdrawing the attention of his countrymen from the pursuit of their occupations, to the idle speculation of star-gazing and conjuring, and, in short, of making himself at any rate the Hero of a Story, by which his name might go down to posterity. In this he has certainly succeeded; but the price he has paid for notoriety appears (considering how he disliked it) to have been rather high.

One circumstance has been mentioned, as having probably given his disposition a turn, which is this: the Countess of Mountfort, or as she is called, Jane of Flanders, had visited England about five or six years before the period at which Whittington undertook his renowned expedition. This extraordinary woman, roused by the captivity of a husband to whom she was faithfully attached, had quitted the confined circle of domestic life, to which she was an ornament, and risked everything in the cause of her beloved Count: her party, however (spite of her personal success), declining on every side, she came to London, to solicit succours from the King of England, and to the reception she met with from the populace, and the praises bestowed on Sir Walter Manny, who suggested her appeal to the British Court, is by very many persons attributed the anxiety of Whittington to introduce his Cat or lady to the notice of the people.

But a much more probable account is suggested by the old ballad, and indeed countenanced by other authorities, namely, that a certain knavish lawyer who had, by some means, now unknown, and probably at no time very avowable, got about the Cat, and became intimately connected with all her secrets and mysteries whatever they were, had contrived to get the Cat into a bag, and so far from letting her out of the bag, as she and her followers no doubt expected, he is supposed to have formed the base design of selling the Cat to her enemies.

This account would naturally rouse the indignation of a man, even less high-minded than the illustrious Whittington, who combining, like many modern citizens, generosity with an eye to profit, justly considered that if the Cat were worth anything, he might as well have the gain as the lawyer; and with this magnanimous intention he resolved to get possession of the Cat. Not very much, it would appear, knowing or caring, in the blindness of his enthusiasm, whether she was a Cat or a witch; a great lady, or the devil.

What she really was, appeared afterwards, when the bag came to be opened.[38]

The _zealous_ desire of possessing at all events this demi-human personage, made Whittington quite careless of the consequences of his blind bargain. He anticipated advantages to himself from exhibiting her, which (probably from the apprehension of being laughed at) he never ventured to mention to his nearest friends; a gentle hint on the subject thrown out to his better and bigger half, was received by her with all the rapture one might expect an obscure person to express at the prospect of becoming notorious; for though certain it is that Matthew's views and desires throughout the whole business were untinctured by the smallest wish for _éclat_ or distinction, we are not prepared to say that his wife might not have cast a longing eye towards the Enchantress's banquets and gaieties, of which such splendid accounts had been given, or that her ambition (for these sort of people are ambitious in their sphere) might not have led her to hope that by the aid of the great lady's magic, her daughter (who had been some time on hand) might attain such an accession either of real property or personal attraction, as might get her respectably established in life.

For the means of carrying his plan into execution quietly and securely, Matthew had recourse to a stratagem, which, although, under the circumstances, perfectly fair, to him was eminently distressing, for the exquisite sensibility with which he shrunk from anything like disguise--equivocation--mis-statement, or deviation from the plain fact, had obtained for him the appellation of honest Whittington; and to maintain his claim to that honourable distinction, was the constant effort of his life.

The stratagem which he adopted is stated to have been this:--It will be recollected, that at the period of which we treat, the staple of wool, leather, and lead was fixed at Calais whither all foreigners were specially invited to traffic, and whence no English merchant was permitted to export English goods. The intercourse between this port and Dover at the first institution of this mart was frequent and general. Thither went Whittington as on a mercantile speculation.

In the various histories of our hero considerable confusion appears to have arisen at this point. The majority of the innumerable authorities which I have quoted in my large work, I think bear me out in declaring that Whittington actually saw his commodity before he brought it to England, and that it assumed the appearance of a woman in order to deceive him.

The difficulty of deciding arises from the improbability that a great lady should so suddenly have abandoned the guidance of her counsellors, who (as they were paid for it) were bound to give her proper advice, and put herself under the care of a "feu Lord Maire;" but that difficulty is met by the consideration that Matthew's eloquence was very celebrated in his day, and that, as his mind was set upon bringing over the prodigy, he doubtlessly exerted its whole force and energy in representing to her the respectability which would infallibly attach itself to her through the rest of her life, from the circumstance of her having been brought into the capital of England under the immediate protection of a man renowned as he was both in his mercantile and political character, and whose important station in the country was so well suited to the introduction of such a personage.

Add to his arguments, his conduct on the occasion; and our surprise at her complying with his wishes will be materially diminished. Could a woman of sense and feeling refuse to throw herself into the care of the man, who, with that wonderful intrepidity and almost incredible presence of mind, which obtained for him the appellation of the _brave_ Whittington, ventured his existence for upwards of three hours and a half upon the water, and undertook a voyage of nearly thirty-two miles (starting late in the evening), in a vessel of not more than one hundred and seventy tons burthen, for her sake! an enterprise which, though in these enlightened days we might be inclined to ridicule, was in those times considered the most surprisingly valorous feat ever compassed by an Alderman.[39]

As for the Cat, whatever shape she took (and there can be little doubt, as my readers will hereafter see, which form she really did assume), she suffered not much from the effects of the water carriage. She had been a great traveller in her time, and, amongst other good company into which she had fallen during her progresses, had been admitted into the Serail at Algiers, where, according to an old poem, it appears, she

"Passed herre tyme amydst ye throng, As happie as ye deye was long."[40]

Nevertheless, Whittington, after he had been in her society for a short time, began to doubt (as well he might) her supernatural powers. He argued, from a knowledge of the sex's little weaknesses, that if she had had the ability to have assumed any form she had chosen, she doubtlessly would have adopted a more agreeable one than that which she actually appeared under; but then, on the other hand, he contended with himself, that by as much as her real claims upon notice and attention were weak and groundless, by so much must her magic be potent, for that unless the Devil himself had taken possession of the rabble (at her instigation) they never could have seen anything to admire or respect about her.

Still, however, with that good taste so perceptible in all his conduct, Matthew, in order to keep up the dignity of his Enchantress, and to induce spectators to respect her, never ventured to approach her without the most marked actions of humility, never would be covered in her presence, nor treat her with less deference than though she had been a queen.[41]

The more Matthew began to doubt her powers, and to suspect he had been in some sort duped, the more he raved about the excellent qualities of his great Lady--Penthesilea, with all her "magna virtutis documenta" at her back, was not fit to be named in the same day with her. Berenice, Camilla, Zenobia, Valasca the Bohemian, or Amelasunta, queen of the Ostrogoths, had neither fortitude, nor temperance, nor chastity, nor any good qualities to put in competition with hers. And as for the modern ladies, your Laura Bossis or Victoria Accarambonis, or even the renowned Donna Maria Pacheco, Bianca Hedwig, Lady of Duke Henry the beardy of Ligniz, they would have been considered the small fry, the mere white-bait of the sex, compared with Whittington's Enchantress.[42] Matthew daily grew more and more uneasy about his charge: instead of aspiring to dignity, or performing any of those astonishing feats which he expected, she appeared addicted to vulgar habits and coarse pleasures, attracted no respectable admirers, and passed her time in obscure corners, choosing either woods or barns for her lurking-places, to which she was followed only by the very lowest of the rabble.

It was a matter of delicacy with Matthew not to hint that he should be glad to see some proof of her powers, for by the murmurs which he heard, in bettermost life, he apprehended that the Legislature would interfere, in order to put a stop to her imposition.

Matthew now stood in a very awkward situation: he had brought an unwelcome object into England, contrary to the advice of all those about her, and in direct opposition to the feelings of all the respectable part of the community, and had, in fact, drawn himself into the disagreeable certainty of being wrong under all circumstances.

If she really were what he boasted her to be, he was amenable to the laws, which, as Blackstone says, both before and since the Conquest, have been equally severe, ranking the crime of sorcery and of those who consult sorcerers in the same class with heresy, and condemning both to the flames. If she were not, he had foisted a deception upon the mob, which they never would forgive.

This he knew, and therefore felt his full share of agreeable sensations arising from the alternative, which presented itself of being burned alive in one case, and universally laughed at in the other; not but that it must be allowed that Mr. W. possessed amongst other characteristics of fortitude, a surprisingly stoical callousness to ridicule.

His apprehensions about the interference of the Legislature were by no means groundless. It was evidently necessary to open the eyes of the country to the flagrant imposition which was carrying on, and to which poor Whittington most innocently and unintentionally had made himself a party. The _brave_ man, however, began to feel a few fears, which had hitherto been strangers to his _great_ heart: testimonies of his enchantress's charlatanerie were forthcoming from every quarter, of which she was perfectly aware, but advised Matthew to put a good face upon the matter and brave it out, assuring him, that if it came to evidence, she could produce a great many more witnesses of her innocence than her opponents could bring forward of her guilt.

This mode of exculpation has been recorded by a very popular writer of much later days.[43] He relates an anecdote where a murder was clearly proved against a prisoner by the concurrent testimony of seven witnesses: when the culprit was called on for his defence, he complained of want of evidence against him; for, said he, "My Lord and Gentlemen of the Jury, you lay great stress upon the production of seven persons who swear that they saw me commit the crime. If that be all, I will produce you seven times as many who will swear that they did not see me do it." Much on a par with this was the favourable evidence on which this eminent piece of injured innocence relied for exculpation.[44]

The most singular part of the story is, that with all Matthew's well-known intelligence, good sense, prudence, amiability, and virtue, his zeal got the better of his consistency. He and his friends who most warmly espoused the cause of the great impostor, were those who from time immemorial had upheld the democracy of the constitution, had rung the changes upon all the virtuous attributes of low life, "Honest Poverty," and "The Sovereignty of the People;" but, strange to say, in their excessive zeal for their new idol, these equalizing politicians decided unanimously, that all the witnesses who were to prove her misdeeds, were perjured villains and infamous rogues, even before they had said a syllable on the subject, because, forsooth, they were poor and shabbily clothed, as if a line coat were essential to truth and justice, or that a poor man could not speak truth.

Now really to me their poverty (if one may judge by the accounts which have been handed down of them,) appears one of the strongest proofs of their honesty; for, had they been tampered with as Whittington insinuated, it is not improbable that some part of their earnings would have been expended in the purchase of such habits as might at least have protected them from insult in the streets.

There was one objection to their evidence, which, inasmuch as it is patriotic, is honourable--they were foreigners, and therefore not to be believed.----Now, touching the justice of this sweeping decision much may be said; and it is by no means unpleasing to see that even in these days there is still a national prejudice against foreign habits and manners; the looseness of conduct, and general want of delicacy of the continental nations, are at variance with the pure and better regulated habits of our countrymen and countrywomen; and in Whittington's days it clearly appears that morality had so firmly established itself in England, that a foreigner was not to be credited on oath.

In the instance of this nondescript lady, this feeling certainly had not so much weight as it might have had in many others, nor was the expression of it over-gallant, considering that she herself was a foreigner and educated, if St. Cas and other authors are to be believed, in one of the most licentious schools of continental incontinence.

One strong argument against the credibility of these persons was the general venality of all the natives of the country they came from, which was so flagrant that a man might be bought for five shillings to swear any thing. The witnesses which the Cat lady intended, it appears, to produce in her defence, were all from the same nation--this objection, unfortunately for her, tells both ways.

Be that as it may, it appears pretty evident, that at the period to which I am now alluding Whittington, whether voluntarily or not I cannot pretend to determine, was separated from the object of all his hopes and fears;--indeed, how the separation between them was brought about has puzzled all who have hitherto considered the subject: some writers suppose that she never had any superior or supernatural powers, but that she was altogether an impostor, others positively maintain (particularly one) that she was a person of prudence, wisdom, delicacy, and virtue.[45]

Those who deny her existence at _any time_ in human shape are by no means few; amongst their number is, as we have seen, my excellent friend Doctor Snodgrass: these aver with every appearance of truth, that she was neither more nor less than a domestic cat, but that she was stolen from Whittington by the monks of the monastery "_Sancti Stephani apud Westmonasteriensis_," for the purpose of catching certain great rats which infested their chapel and the adjoining house, and that the poor Alderman cut a very ridiculous figure when deprived of his favourite raree-show.

Some, on the other hand, incline to believe that Mr. Whittington got sick of his bargain, and assert that what with caterwauling and bringing crowds of followers into the gutters of his residence, she turned out to be so troublesome an inmate, that he got rid of her as soon as he could, and prevailed on an old maid in the neighbourhood to take care of her.[46]

For me, however, till now, has been reserved the important, the enviable task of unravelling all the mysteries in which this subject has been hitherto involved. To me it is granted to reconcile all contending opinions, and to simplify all the difficulties which have baffled my predecessors in the attainment of truth. I am enabled, as I firmly believe, beyond the power of contradiction, to declare to the world _who_ the Cat was, and _what_ she was. I am competent to display in its true colours the character of Mr. Matthew Whittington, to illustrate and make clear his views, his motives, and the other eight points which I have before noticed to be in dispute, even to the cause and nature of his death, an event hitherto equally obscure with his birth.

Gifted as I am with this power to illuminate the literary world, is it not natural that I should feel anxious to make use of it for their advantage? One consideration alone checks me in my desire to afford the purchasers of this Tentamen all the information I possess; that consideration I trust I shall not be censured for attending to. I confess it is a prudential one, inasmuch as were I in this small specimen to give my readers all the details, narratives, and general information I possess, I am apprehensive that the work itself would not meet with that encouragement which is at present promised, and which alone can repay me for the labour of years, and that ceaseless anxiety which an undertaking so diffusely elaborate naturally has entailed upon its author.

MISCELLANIES, IN VERSE AND PROSE.

MISCELLANIES.

MR. WARD'S ALLEGORICAL PICTURE OF WATERLOO.[47]