CHAPTER XXXIX

Very soon after this I left London for Paris, as I have already described, and I must now carry my readers back a few pages, to that part of my Memoirs where I have stated that my finances required my return to London.

I passed the whole of the last day with Rosabella, who was in an agony of passionate grief, when at last I, with my English maid and _femme de chambre,_ was seated in the carriage. She absolutely called after the post-boys, and insisted on once more pressing me in her arms. Any one who had heard her sobs would have thought she was parting with a beloved husband for ever: and yet, when we afterwards got her adored Bonaparte into our power, Rosabella cut me dead, just as if I could possibly have helped it.

I arrived in town late in the evening, and was immediately visited by my constant swain, Lord Frederick Bentinck, whom I found at least as entertaining as usual. I visited my sister Fanny early the next morning, and presented her son and heir, George Woodcock who, strange to tell, had actually forgotten his English and answered everybody in French, to his mother's great surprise and amusement.

Amy continued with Paget, and insisted with much vulgarity on his appearing with her everywhere in public; particularly at the opera, because Mrs. Berkeley Paget frequented the theatre herself.

I forget whether the Prussian King and the Russian Emperor were in London, or only expected; but I remember well that London had never been so brilliantly gay in my time before, and the opera-house was perhaps never so crowded, in the memory of any person now living, as on the night that these two crowned heads, accompanied by our own beloved Sovereign, who was then Regent, appeared at this theatre. Thirty guineas were, I know, refused for a box on the upper tier.

Amy, with her usual selfishness, forced herself into my box, which was already crowded almost beyond endurance, because it exactly faced the royal one. No less than fifty people obtained permission to take a peep at the three reigning princes from my excellent position. Altogether, I had like to have been suffocated. A little before the curtain dropped, I contrived to secure a seat near the entrance to the upper room, called the round-room, which faces the Haymarket. There I waited patiently till the gay crowd should disperse, amusing myself by endeavouring to guess at the characters of those persons who were nearest me.

Lady Anne Wyndham was leaning against the crimson door in her most studied attitude: her swan's-down tippet thrown back on purpose to display her bosom, while the same set soft smile she had worn for the last twenty years played on her lips, and might have played there unobserved till doomsday, but for her faithful solitary swain, Cecisbo or lover, I know not which appellation he best deserved, my Lord Petersham, who was eagerly making his way through the crowd in his _outré costume d'Espagne,_ in order to pay his respects to her ladyship. His address was most correctly elegant, his school, Lord Chesterfield, with less of pedantry, or the late Duc de Richelieu perhaps, without his depravity.

"I am quite distressed," said his lordship, after performing his graceful bow of six years studying, "that I have been prevented joining you earlier. I am afraid you found the heat very oppressive to-night. Allow me to offer you these violets," presenting a small bouquet between his delicate finger and thumb. "They are, I know, the flowers you prefer." Lady Anne became broad awake, if not animated by the attention of her admirer.

I now observed a very corpulent gentleman sailing towards us. He had a lady leaning on his right arm, and two ugly, tawny daughters on his left: all three seemed ready to expire under the pressure of heat and finery.

"La! papa, don't pull so," said the eldest daughter.

"Somebody has shoved the comb out of my head, I declare; and I have torn my dress," said the youngest.

"Why don't William stay with the girls?" said mamma. "I declare I am squeezed to death."

Beau Brummell, at this moment, passed immediately between Lord Petersham and this interesting family party. As the pressure prevented the possibility of advancing, the corpulent gentleman, after taking out his pocket-handkerchief and wiping his head and face, seemed about to address Beau Brummell, and I promised myself not a little amusement, from observing the very essence of vulgarity in close contact with the finest man in town.

"Warm work this, sir," said the corpulent gentleman to Brummell, who merely answered by a look of dismay, softened, however, by a glance at the muscular strength of his neighbour.

"Pray, sir," said the fat gentleman, speaking louder, "may I be bold to ask which of they two foreigners might be the Russian Emperor?"

"Sir?" said Brummell, shrugging up his shoulders, and turning up his eyes from Lord Petersham to the ceiling in utter despondency at observing no possible means of escape. The man of real high rank and breeding might here have been easily distinguished from the mere man of impudent pretensions. Lord Petersham good-naturedly condescended to answer for the beau.

"Thank you, sir," said the fat gentleman. "I thought so; and, do you know, I likes the look of him."

"Pa!" said the eldest daughter, anxious to be thought of consequence, and having actually made a slight acquaintance with Lord Alvanly by accident, "here comes our friend Lord Alvanly."

Lord Alvanly, much amused at finding the Smiths in such society, affected great cordiality, and shaking them heartily by the hand, begged to have the honour of introducing Mr. and Mrs. Smith, also the two Misses Smith, to Lord Petersham and Mr. Brummell. On hearing the name of Brummell Mr. Smith, mistaking it for some acquaintance of his own, repeated the name to himself, "Brummell! Brummell!"

"I believe, sir," addressing the beau smirkingly, "I fancy, sir, I have had the pleasure of meeting you before? I am sure I have. You are the gentleman as sung such a good song at our club."

The well-taught muscles of Lord Petersham's face were nearly giving way, not only against all superfine Chesterfieldian rules, but common civility. Even Lady Anne's placid waxen smile was almost enlarging into a laugh, at the idea of Brummell singing a good song at Smith's club; but Lord Alvanly whispered gravely in Smith's ear, that he had no doubt it was the very same person, adding that Mr. Brummell did sing a remarkably good song; but was always shy at receiving compliments, in public.

"Sir," said Smith, bowing to Brummell, "I shall be most happy to see you at my snug box at Clapham. All my family are fond of a good English song, and I will venture to say I can give you as good a bottle of port wine as any in England."

Brummell here forced his way through the crowd in a fit of desperation and disappeared.

"That's a queer chap!" said Smith, much offended; "but, good Lord, who have we got here? Crazy Jane?"

The personage who thus excited his surprise was Lady Owen, who came sailing towards them under the escort of a young barrister, whose broad unmeaning face some ladies have been pleased to call handsome. A profusion of full-grown artificial wheat was scattered over her head in grotesque confusion. Several dark ringlets were suffered to fall loosely over her neck and shoulders, and the rest was confined by immense red roses, indigenous, probably, to Brobdingnag or Patagonia, or some other climate where everything is gigantic. She did not appear to affect youth, but voluptuousness; rolling her eyes in affectation of libertinism, such as she had no inclination to indulge, yet seemed as anxious to excite, as if it had been her natural vocation. Indeed that was the character of her countenance, which could have expressed no other feeling even at her best beloved's funeral!

Miss Smith now addressed a young man, with stiff dark whiskers, by the appellation of brother, who, though a better grammarian, appeared to be as much more radically vulgar than his father, as he was presuming and self-sufficient.

"Laws! William," said his youngest sister, "Pa has had a nice job with us three women."

"We are very much obliged to you, indeed," the eldest Miss Smith observed.

"I told you before," said the pompous youth, pulling up his neck-cloth without looking at his sisters, "I have frequently informed you that brothers attending their sisters in public is not at all the correct thing, neither is this the proper spot to wait in."

"Don't tell me your nonsense about the proper spot," said old Smith, "I have almost had the breath shoved out of my body to-night."

"Pray William," said his mother, "why do you come to the Hoppera in that hodious round 'at, after giving such a price for a three-cornered one?"

"If you inquire, Madam," answered William, with grave contempt, "you will learn that a round hat is the correct thing at this time of the year."

Hearing the clock strike three, I immediately fancied myself half dead with fatigue, and hurried to my carriage as fast as the crowd, which still continued, would permit me.

Meyler, as I had been informed, while at Paris was consoling himself with a Mrs. Stonyer, as she was called, because she lived with Mr. Stonyer. However, I saw him at the Opera looking so very pale and ill that my heart relented, and I wrote to inquire after him, and the next day he called upon me. I asked him if he was much in love with his new acquaintance.

"Not at all," said Meyler; "but, Stonyer being such a fool, there was no resisting the amusement of making him a cuckold. How do you think I manage it at Melton?"

"How should I know?"

"Why we all go out hunting together and, when I have rode a few miles, I wink at the rest and fall down from my horse, or affect to hurt my ankle. I then express my vexation at being obliged to return home to nurse myself. Stonyer condoles with and offers to accompany me. I insist on his remaining to enjoy the fine sport of the day, and I go back to his mistress. However," continued Meyler, "she got jealous and fond of me latterly, which disgusted me, and I cut her. She then so far lost sight of common prudence as to send her good man Stonyer after me."

"My Mary Ann," or "my Betsy," or whatever her name was, which I have forgotten, "wishes, of all things to see you, if you please," would he say to Meyler, and when Meyler rudely refused to obey the fair lady's summons, Stonyer would remark to some of his Melton friends in a whisper, that, being a delicate subject, he could not well consult Mrs. Stonyer concerning Meyler's rudeness, in being sulky and refusing to obey her invitation: but he was himself pretty shrewd and could guess how the affair stood. He was afraid his friend Meyler had presumed to take some slight liberty with Mrs. Stonyer, which must have seriously alarmed her, and which she must have resented, perhaps so harshly as to wound Meyler's pride in a way not to be overcome.

"Stonyer," Fred Bentinck would sometimes say to me, "Stonyer is like a man in a play; a man quite below par. I never heard such a fool off the stage. He often calls me aside, with much mystery and, having got me into a corner, whispers in my ear that he is afraid we shall have a wet season."

Somewhere about this time John Mills of the Guards insisted on falling in love with me, merely to prove himself a fashionable man. Being a friend of Meyler's, I could not easily avoid making his acquaintance. He was rather well informed: but a stiff, bad imitator of Meyler's gentlemanly carriage and manner: a sort of man who would rather have died than not been a member of White's club, at the door of which he always wished his tilbury and neat groom to be found, between the hours of four and five. From that he went into Hyde Park, for such was the fashion, and he had a chance of meeting Brummell and Meyler there. The former was just now getting into disgrace. The story was this.

Brummell, Alvanly, and Worcester agreed to raise thirty thousand pounds on their joint securities. Brummell, having made Worcester believe that he was at least competent to pay the interest of the debt, the money was raised, and the weight of the debt was expected to fall on the Duke of Beaufort, who, after strict inquiry, ascertained that Brummell was deeply involved and without even the most remote prospect of ever possessing a single guinea. When Meyler heard this he became furious, both on his friend Worcester's account and his own, declaring that Brummell had borrowed seven thousand pounds from him, which he had lent in the fullest conviction that Brummell was a man of honour.

I asked Meyler how he could be so very stupid as to have been deceived, even for an instant, about Brummell.

"Why, did not everybody think so?"

"Certainly not. Brummell was pretty generally known for a man destitute of feeling or principle; but he looked well at an assembly, and was the fashion."

"I would forgive him the seven thousand pounds he has robbed me of; but, on Worcester's account, I shall expose him to-morrow at White's."

"Why not let Worcester fight his own battles?"

"That is just what, for the Duchess of Beaufort's sake, I wish to prevent."

"I think you may trust Worcester, who has no sort of inclination to fight Brummell nor anybody else."

"No matter. Brummell I will certainly expose; because he has basely obtained a sum of money from my friend."

"So has Lord Alvanly."

"But then, Lord Alvanly may at least contrive to pay the interest; therefore it was not so complete a fraud. Nevertheless, I hold it my duty, as an independent gentleman, never to give my countenance nor society to a man who has done a dishonourable action. I shall therefore cut Lord Alvanly wherever I meet him, notwithstanding no man delights more in his amusing qualities than I do; but, believing that society would be much improved by general firmness of this kind, no power on earth should prevail on me to swerve from this my fixed determination."

Meyler strictly adhered to this resolution to the day of his death. Even when he met Lord Alvanly in the Duchess of Beaufort's box, or no matter where, he never spoke to him again. Alvanly used to rail at Meyler for this, as might naturally be expected, calling him a d----d methodistical grocer, &c.

The little sugar-baker kept his promise of exposing Mr. Brummell at White's Club, where he placed himself the following morning for the sole purpose of saying to every man who entered, that Mr. Brummell's late conduct both towards the Marquis of Worcester and himself, had been such as rendered him a disgrace to society, and most unfit to remain a member of that club. Tom Raikes, I believe it was, who acquainted Brummell the next day of this glowing panegyric on his character.

Brummell addressed a few lines to Meyler, begging to be informed if such had really and truly been the expressions made use of.

Meyler answered that not only he had used expressions, but that he further proposed returning to the club on the following day, for the sole purpose of repeating them between the hours of two and four, to anybody who might happen to be present, and, if Mr. Brummell had anything to say to him in return, he would be sure to find him at White's during that particular time.

Brummell never made his appearance in London after the receipt of this letter, which gained Meyler the nickname of the dandy-killer. Since then, dandies have gone out of fashion.

Brummell, finding himself on his last legs, made the best of his way to about a dozen of his former acquaintances, from most of whom he had already contrived to obtain large sums of money.

"Play has been the ruin of me," said he to each of them in turn. "I now throw myself on your compassion, being in a wretched plight; for I have been led into such scrapes, as oblige me to leave London at a minute's notice, and I have not a guinea to pay post horses."

Many of them gave him a fifty-pound note; so did John Mills I believe; but first, he expostulated with the beau, and asked him what excuse he could offer for having already obtained such large sums from one who knew so little of him.

"Why," said Brummell to several of these half-and-half sort of gentry, "have not I called you Dick, Tom, and John, you rogues? And was not that worth all the money to you? But for this, do you fancy or flatter yourselves that you would ever have been seen picking your teeth in Lady Foley's box, or the Duchess of Rutland's? John Mills above all!"

Brummell was soon after this established in Calais, and half the world went to see him, as though he had been a lion. I determined to do so too on my return to Paris, where I promised to join my mother as soon as I had settled the business which had brought me to England. In the interval, I passed much of my time with Fanny, who now saw a good deal of Lord Bective. Her health continued much as usual.

Lord Byron paid me frequent visits; but I really cannot recollect whether it was just at this period or later in that year or the next. No matter, Voltaire says somewhere, that provided there was a battle, it does not signify when it took place. His lordship's manner was always natural, sometimes very pleasant; but generally egotistical. He would listen to one's conversation just as long as he was entertained by it and no longer. However, he very good-naturedly permitted one to grow tired of him in the like manner, which was more than many great men could pardon. Once he talked with me on religion till I grew weary and absent. He then fixed his expressive eyes keenly on my face for an instant, as if to read my thoughts before he ventured to proceed, and complacently changed the subject, observing, "I have tired you to death on religion. Let us talk of the gay world, men and women! Perhaps you may find me less tiresome."

"You are never tiresome on any subject; but I was vexed, and tired of the vain attempts I have been making to change such opinions, as seem to engender black melancholy, in the mind of a man superior and amiable, as you would be with a happier temper. It was indeed the very height of vanity and folly in me, to have hoped for an instant, that anything I could say would influence you."

"The strong proof that you have affected me by much which you have been saying, is the energy and nerve with which I have been striving to refute your arguments during the last half-hour. Do you believe I should have taken all this trouble, if you had said nothing to strike me or throw new lights on a subject which is often tormenting me?"

"Why not make up our minds that we know nothing, and then, while we quietly follow the dictates of our own consciences, hope the best?"

"Very comfortable doctrine, certainly," said Lord Byron: "but, if thoughts and wishes, boundless as the heavens, will force themselves on a soaring inquisitive mind almost to madness, while shame for its own littleness, and dread of a future which cannot be understood or avoided, contribute to disgust me with my present state, and make me the wretch of impulse which you and all must hate----?"

Lord Byron uttered these words in such a tremendous, loud voice, that his strength and feelings were suddenly exhausted, and his countenance changed to the ashy paleness of death as he threw his head against the back of the sofa whereon he was sitting. Common-place words of sympathy and condolence I conceived must be thrown away on any person, at a moment when the feelings were so highly wrought. I therefore silently placing myself by his side imprinted a kiss on his hand. He was in the act of withdrawing it almost furiously; but I fixed my eyes upon his face, and their expression must have pleased him; for he immediately replaced his hand in mine, which he pressed very affectionately. I reclined my head on his shoulder, in order to talk to him with less formality.

"It is the over-excitement of a too active mind which operates thus upon our nerves," said I, trying to identify myself with his mental sufferings. "It would surely soothe us, could we in such moments recline on the fresh grass by the side of a clear brook, and amuse ourselves in luxurious indolence watching the pebbles, as we threw them into the water, until the monotony of this lazy occupation should put us to sleep, when we might happen to dream of infinite space, and freedom, and joy, with no sad void left aching in the breast."

Lord Byron smiled on me with the earnest warmth which a parent would show towards a child, in reward for its attempts to please and amuse him.

"One day or other such a dream as this shall be eternal;" I continued, and, without giving him time to argue on the subject I drew his attention, as if by accident, to some of the most striking and animated beauties of his _Corsair,_ just as they had really impressed me. Where is the author who can be indifferent to the genuine unhackneyed praise bestowed on his own composition?

Lord Byron gradually recovered his serenity, and, before we separated, we had mutually indulged in many a hearty laugh at the expense of false prudes: ladies who put their heads into their pillows, while affecting to cry nay, and, at the same time, _elles se prêtent à la circonstance_. But never mind what we laughed at, or how absurd our conversation, so that poor dear Lord Byron got rid of his sombre melancholy.

We met on various occasions previously to his separation from his wife; and his lordship made me very happy one day, by assuring me that there was a soothing kind of softness in my temper and disposition, which, joined to much playful humour, had more than once saved him from feelings nearly allied to madness.

Speaking one day of the severe critique published by the Edinburgh reviewers on his first work, entitled _Hours of Idleness,_ I mentioned my surprise at his lordship having been so irritated and annoyed by it.

"I can easily conceive a stupid, prosing poet, who felt his own inferiority and despaired of writing anything better, becoming furious at such absurd scurrility; but I should have expected you to have read it without feeling your temper ruffled; though, in fact, your poetry was perhaps a little lame: but the satire directed against it became pointless, from its unnatural severity."

"And where did you ever see a stupid, prosing poet, who did feel his own inferiority?" asked Lord Byron. "As a boy, I certainly had a strong suspicion that I possessed unusual abilities; but I was by no means convinced of it: and I often felt myself very deficient in things which it was incumbent on any man to know. I offered my work to the public in fear and trembling; for I knew but very little of the world, and was foolishly sensitive."

Speaking of vanity some time afterwards, Lord Byron remarked, laughingly, that he was tired of praise as Lord Byron, because it now became a thing of course; but still he felt at all times proud and grateful, when any stranger took him for a very fine fellow.

"I, one day," he continued, "determined to try what effect I could produce on an untaught servant-maid. She was very pretty and not, I think, deficient in natural abilities, though it is really very good of me to say so; for she could not endure me! I made myself very smart too at our second meeting, and she became a little more reconciled to me before I left England. However, she certainly was much more in love with a young shop-keeper in the neighbourhood. You made my vanity ample amends: for I am too proud of your spontaneous good opinion, to suffer myself to doubt the truth of your former assurance, upon your word and honour, that you did not know me when you addressed me at the masquerade."