Chapter 4

My uncle did as his ancestors had done before him; and, cheap as the dignity had grown, went up to court to be knighted by Charles II. He was so delighted with what he saw of the metropolis, that he foreswore all intention of leaving it, took to Sedley and champagne, flirted with Nell Gwynne, lost double the value of his brother's portion at one sitting to the chivalrous Grammont, wrote a comedy corrected by Etherege, and took a wife recommended by Rochester. The wife brought him a child six months after marriage, and the infant was born on the same day the comedy was acted. Luckily for the honour of the house, my uncle shared the fate of Plimneus, king of Sicyon, and all the offspring he ever had (that is to say, the child and the play,) "died as soon as they were born." My uncle was now only at a loss to know what to do with his wife, that remaining treasure, whose readiness to oblige him had been so miraculously evinced. She saved him the trouble of long cogitation,--an exercise of intellect to which he was never too ardently inclined. There was a gentleman of the court celebrated for his sedateness and solemnity; my aunt was piqued into emulating Orpheus, and six weeks after her confinement she put this rock into motion,--they eloped. Poor gentleman! it must have been a severe trial of patience to a man never known before to transgress the very slowest of all possible walks, to have had two events of the most rapid nature happen to him in the same week. Scarcely had he recovered the shock of being ran away with by my aunt, before, terminating for ever his vagrancies, he was ran through by my uncle. The wits made an epigram upon the event; and my uncle, who was as bold as a lion at the point of a sword, was, to speak frankly, terribly disconcerted by the point of a jest. He retired to the country in a fit of disgust and gout. Here his own _bon naturel_ rose from the layers of art which had long oppressed it, and he solaced himself by righteously governing domains worthy of a prince, for the mortifications he had experienced in the dishonourable career of a courtier. Hitherto I have spoken somewhat slightingly of my uncle; and in his dissipation he deserved it, for he was both too honest and too simple to shine in that galaxy of prostitute genius of which Charles II. was the centre. But in retirement he was no longer the same person, and I do not think that the elements of human nature could have furnished forth a more amiable character than Sir William Devereux, presiding at Christmas over the merriment of his great hall. Good old man! his very defects were what we loved best in him; vanity was so mingled with good nature that it became graceful, and we reverenced one the most, while we most smiled at the other. One peculiarity had he, which the age he had lived in, and his domestic history, rendered natural enough, viz. an exceeding distaste to the matrimonial state: early marriages were misery; imprudent marriages idiotism; and marriage at the best he was wont to say, with a kindling eye and a heightened colour, marriage at the best--was the devil. Yet it must not be supposed that Sir William Devereux was an ungallant man. On the contrary, never did the _beau sexe_ have a humbler or more devoted servant. As nothing in his estimation was less becoming to a wise man than matrimony, so nothing was more ornamental than flirtation. He had the old man's weakness, garrulity, and he told the wittiest stories in the world, without omitting any thing in them but the point. This omission did not arise from the want either of memory or of humour, but solely from a deficiency in the malice natural to all jesters. He could not persuade his lips to repeat a sarcasm hurting even the dead or the ungrateful; and when he came to the drop of gall which should have given zest to the story, the milk of human kindness broke its barrier despite himself, and washed it away. He was a fine wreck, a little prematurely broken by dissipation, but not perhaps the less interesting on that account; tall, and somewhat of the jovial old English girth, with a face where good nature and good living mingled their smiles and glow. He wore the garb of twenty years back, and was curiously particular in the choice of his silk stockings. He was not a little vain of his leg, and a compliment on that score was always sure of a gracious reception.

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The Gatherer.

A snapper up of unconsidered trifles.

SHAKSPEARE.

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Lord Sundon was one of the commissioners of the treasury in the reign of George II. The celebrated Bob Doddington was a colleague of the noble lord, and was always complaining of his slowness of comprehension. One day that lord Sundon laughed at something which Doddington had said, Winnington, another member of the board, said to him, in a whisper, "You are very ungrateful: you see lord Sundon takes your joke." "No, no," replied Doddington, "he is laughing now at what I said last board day."--_Monthly Mag_.

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STINGING MISTAKE.

A certain person, who shall be nameless, filled the situation of Plumian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford. He was a great stickler for decorum, and all due respect to his office. One day he received a letter by the post, directed to himself, as the _Plumbian_ Professor. He shook with indignation. What an insult! _Plumbian_ professor! Leaden professor! Was it meant to insinuate that there was any thing of a leaden quality in his lectures or writings! While thus irate, a friend of the professor happened to drop in. He showed him the letter, and expatiated upon the indignity of the superscription. His friend endeavoured to convince him that it must be merely a slip of the pen. In vain. The professor would not be pacified. "Well," said his friend, "at any rate, it is evident the _b_ has stung you."--_Ibid_.

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An Irish barrister had the failing of Goldsmith, in an eminent degree: that of believing he could do every thing better than any other person. This propensity exhibited itself ludicrously enough on one occasion, when a violent influenza prevailed in Dublin. A friend who happened to meet him, mentioned a particular acquaintance, and observed that he had had the influenza very bad. "Bad!" exclaimed the other, "I don't know how bad _he_ has had it, but I am sure I have had it quite as bad as he, or any one else."--"Not quite, I think," replied his friend, "for poor Mr. Gillicuddy is dead."--"Well," rejoined our tenacious optimist, "and what of that? _I_ could have died too, if I had liked it."--_Ibid_.

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THE LATE SIR HUMPHRY DAVY, BART.

THE SUPPLEMENT, containing Title, Preface, and Index to Vol. xiii. and a fine Steel-plate

PORTRAIT OF SIR HUMPHRY DAVY, BART.

With a copious Memoir of his interesting Life and Discoveries, Notices of his Literary Works, &c. is now Publishing.

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LIMBIRD'S EDITION OF THE _Following Novels is already Published_:

s. d. Mackenzie's Man of Feeling 0 6 Paul and Virginia 0 6 The Castle of Otranto 0 6 Almoran and Hamet 0 6 Elizabeth, or the Exiles of Siberia 0 6 The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne 0 6 Rasselas 0 8 The Old English Baron 0 8 Nature and Art 0 8 Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield 0 10 Sicilian Romance 1 0 The Man of the World 1 0 A Simple Story 1 4 Joseph Andrews 1 6 Humphry Clinker 1 8 The Romance of the Forest 1 8 The Italian 2 0 Zeluco, by Dr. Moore 2 6 Edward, by Dr. Moore 2 6 Roderick Random 2 6 The Mysteries of Udolpho 3 6 Peregrine Pickle 4 6