The end of Mr. Deuceace’s history
is going to be the end of my corrispondince.
I wish the public was as sory to part with me as I
am with the public; becaws I fansy reely that we’ve
become frends, and feal for my part a becoming greaf
at saying ajew.
It’s imposbill for me to continyow,
however, a-writin, as I have done violetting
the rules of authography, and trampling upon the fust
princepills of English grammar. When I began,
I knew no better: when I’d carrid on these
papers a little further, and grew accustmd to writin,
I began to smel out somethink quear in my style.
Within the last sex weaks I have been learning to
spell: and when all the world was rejoicing at
the festivvaties of our youthful Quean when
all i’s were fixed upon her long sweet of ambasdors
and princes, following the splendid carridge of Marshle
the Duke of Damlatiar, and blinking at the pearls and
dimince of Prince Oystereasy Yellowplush
was in his loanly pantry HIS eyes were
fixt upon the spelling-book his heart was
bent upon mastring the diffickleties of the littery
professhn. I have been, in fact, CONVERTID.
This was written in 1838.
You shall here how. Ours, you
know, is a Wig house; and ever sins his third son
has got a place in the Treasury, his secknd a captingsy
in the Guards, his fust, the secretary of embasy at
Pekin, with a prospick of being appinted ambasdor
at Loo Choo ever sins master’s sons
have reseaved these attentions, and master himself
has had the promis of a pearitch, he has been
the most reglar, consistnt, honrabble Libbaral,
in or out of the House of Commins.
Well, being a Whig, it’s the
fashn, as you know, to reseave littery pipple; and
accordingly, at dinner, tother day, whose name do you
think I had to hollar out on the fust landing-place
about a wick ago? After several dukes and markises
had been enounced, a very gentell fly drives up to
our doar, and out steps two gentlemen. One was
pail, and wor spektickles, a wig, and a white neckcloth.
The other was slim with a hook nose, a pail fase,
a small waist, a pare of falling shoulders, a tight
coat, and a catarack of black satting tumbling out
of his busm, and falling into a gilt velvet weskit.
The little genlmn settled his wigg, and pulled out
his ribbins; the younger one fluffed the dust of his
shoes, looked at his whiskers in a little pockit-glas,
settled his crevatt; and they both mounted upstairs.
“What name, sir?” says I, to the old genlmn.
“Name! a! now, you
thief o’ the wurrld,” says he, “do
you pretind nat to know me? Say it’s
the Cabinet Cyclopa no, I mane the Litherary
Chran psha! bluthanowns! say
it’s docthor DIOCLESIAN Larner I
think he’ll know me now ay, Nid?”
But the genlmn called Nid was at the botm of
the stare, and pretended to be very busy with his shoo-string.
So the little genlmn went upstares alone.
“Doctor DIOLESIUS Larner!” says
I.
“Doctor athanasius
Lardner!” says Greville Fitz-Roy, our secknd
footman, on the fust landing-place.
“Doctor Ignatius Loyola!”
says the groom of the chambers, who pretends to be
a scholar; and in the little genlmn went. When
safely housed, the other chap came; and when I asked
him his name, said, in a thick, gobbling kind of voice:
“Sawedwadgeorgeearllittnbulwig.”
“Sir what?” says I, quite agast at the
name.
“Sawedwad no, I mean MISTAWedwad
Lyttn Bulwig.”
My neas trembled under me, my i’s fild with
tiers, my voice shook, as
I past up the venrabble name to the other footman,
and saw this fust of
English writers go up to the drawing-room!
It’s needless to mention the
names of the rest of the compny, or to dixcribe the
suckmstansies of the dinner. Suffiz to say that
the two littery genlmn behaved very well, and seamed
to have good appytights; igspecially the little Irishman
in the whig, who et, drunk, and talked as much as
a duzn. He told how he’d been presented
at cort by his friend, Mr. Bulwig, and how the Quean
had received ’em both, with a dignity undigscribable;
and how her blessid Majisty asked what was the bony
fidy sale of the Cabinit Cyclopaedy, and how be (Doctor
Larner) told her that, on his honner, it was under
ten thowsnd.
You may guess that the Doctor, when
he made this speach, was pretty far gone. The
fact is, that whether it was the coronation, or the
goodness of the wine (cappitle it is in our house,
I can tell you), or the natral propensaties of
the gests assembled, which made them so igspecially
jolly, I don’t know; but they had kep up the
meating pretty late, and our poar butler was quite
tired with the perpechual baskits of clarrit which
he’d been called upon to bring up. So that
about 11 o’clock, if I were to say they were
merry, I should use a mild term; if I wer to say
they were intawsicated, I should use a nigspresshn
more near to the truth, but less rispeckful in one
of my situashn.
The cumpany reseaved this annountsmint with mute extonishment.
“Pray, Doctor Larnder,”
says a spiteful genlmn, willing to keep up the littery
conversation, “what is the Cabinet Cyclopaedia?”
“It’s the littherary wontherr
of the wurrld,” says he; “and sure your
lordship must have seen it; the latther numbers ispicially cheap
as durrt, bound in gleezed calico, six shillings a
vollum. The illusthrious neems of Walther Scott,
Thomas Moore, Docther Southey, Sir James Mackintosh,
Docther Donovan, and meself, are to be found in the
list of conthributors. It’s the Phaynix
of Cyclopajies a litherary Bacon.”
“A what?” says the genlmn nex to
him.
“A Bacon, shining in the darkness
of our age; fild wid the pure end lambent flame of
science, burning with the gorrgeous scintillations
of divine litherature a monumintum, in
fact, are perinnius, bound in pink calico, six shillings
a vollum.”
“This wigmawole,” said
Mr. Bulwig (who seemed rather disgusted that his friend
should take up so much of the convassation), “this
wigmawole is all vewy well; but it’s cuwious
that you don’t wemember, in chawactewising the
litewawy mewits of the vawious magazines, cwonicles,
weviews, and encyclopaedias, the existence of a cwitical
weview and litewary chwonicle, which, though the aewa
of its appeawance is dated only at a vewy few months
pwevious to the pwesent pewiod, is, nevertheless,
so wemarkable for its intwinsic mewits as to be wead,
not in the metwopolis alone, but in the countwy not
in Fwance merely, but in the west of Euwope whewever
our pure Wenglish is spoken, it stwetches its peaceful
sceptre pewused in Amewica, fwom New York
to Ningawa wepwinted in Canada, from Montweal
to Towonto and, as I am gwatified to hear
fwom my fwend the governor of Cape Coast Castle, wegularly
weceived in Afwica, and twanslated into the Mandingo
language by the missionawies and the bushwangers.
I need not say, gentlemen sir that
is, Mr. Speaker I mean, Sir John that
I allude to the Litewary Chwonicle, of which I have
the honor to be pwincipal contwibutor.”
“Very true; my dear Mr. Bullwig,”
says my master: “you and I being Whigs,
must of course stand by our own friends; and I will
agree, without a moment’s hesitation, that the
Literary what-d’ye-call’em is the prince
of periodicals.”
“The pwince of pewiodicals?”
says Bullwig; “my dear Sir John, it’s the
empewow of the pwess.”
“Soit, let it be
the emperor of the press, as you poetically call it:
but, between ourselves, confess it, Do not
the Tory writers beat your Whigs hollow? You
talk about magazines. Look at ”
“Look at hwat?” shouts
out Larder. “There’s none, Sir Jan,
compared to ourrs.”
“Pardon me, I think that ”
“It is ‘Bentley’s
Mislany’ you mane?” says Ignatius, as sharp
as a niddle.
“Why, no; but ”
“O thin, it’s Co’burn,
sure! and that divvle Thayodor a pretty
paper, sir, but light thrashy, milk-and-wathery not
sthrong, like the Litherary Chran good
luck to it.”
“Why, Doctor Lander, I was going
to tell at once the name of the periodical, it’s
Fraser’s magazine.”
“FRESER!” says the Doctor. “O
thunder and turf!”
“FWASER!” says Bullwig.
“O ah hum haw yes no why, that
is weally no, weally, upon my weputation,
I never before heard the name of the pewiodical.
By the by, Sir John, what wemarkable good clawet this
is; is it Lawose or Laff ?”
Laff, indeed! he cooden git beyond
laff; and I’m blest if I could kip it neither, for
hearing him pretend ignurnts, and being behind the
skreend, settlin somethink for the genlmn, I bust into
such a raw of laffing as never was igseeded.
“Hullo!” says Bullwig,
turning red. “Have I said anything impwobable,
aw widiculous? for, weally, I never befaw wecollect
to have heard in society such a twemendous peal of
cachinnation that which the twagic bard
who fought at Mawathon has called an anewithmon gelasma.”
“Why, be the holy piper,”
says Larder, “I think you are dthrawing a little
on your imagination. Not read Fraser! Don’t
believe him, my lord duke; he reads every word of
it, the rogue! The boys about that magazine baste
him as if he was a sack of oatmale. My reason
for crying out, Sir Jan, was because you mintioned
Fraser at all. Bullwig has every syllable of
it be heart from the pailitix down to the
’Yellowplush Correspondence.’”
“Ha, ha!” says Bullwig,
affecting to laff (you may be sure my ears prickt
up when I heard the name of the “Yellowplush
Correspondence"). “Ha, ha! why, to tell
truth, I have wead the cowespondence to which
you allude: it’s a gweat favowite at court.
I was talking with Spwing Wice and John Wussell about
it the other day.”
“Well, and what do you think
of it?” says Sir John, looking mity waggish for
he knew it was me who roat it.
“Why, weally and twuly, there’s
considewable cleverness about the cweature; but it’s
low, disgustingly low: it violates pwabability,
and the orthogwaphy is so carefully inaccuwate, that
it requires a positive study to compwehend it.”
“Yes, faith,” says Larner;
“the arthagraphy is detestible; it’s as
bad for a man to write bad spillin as it is for ’em
to speak wid a brrogue. Iducation furst, and
ganius afterwards. Your health, my lord, and good
luck to you.”
“Yaw wemark,” says Bullwig,
“is vewy appwopwiate. You will wecollect,
Sir John, in Hewodotus (as for you, Doctor, you know
more about Iwish than about Gweek), you
will wecollect, without doubt, a stowy nawwated by
that cwedulous though fascinating chwonicler, of a
certain kind of sheep which is known only in a certain
distwict of Awabia, and of which the tail is so enormous,
that it either dwaggles on the gwound, or is bound
up by the shepherds of the country into a small wheelbawwow,
or cart, which makes the chwonicler sneewingly wemark
that thus ’the sheep of Awabia have their own
chawiots.’ I have often thought, sir (this
clawet is weally nectaweous) I have often,
I say, thought that the wace of man may be compawed
to these Awabian sheep genius is our tail,
education our wheelbawwow. Without art and education
to pwop it, this genius dwops on the gwound, and is
polluted by the mud, or injured by the wocks upon
the way: with the wheelbawwow it is stwengthened,
incweased, and supported a pwide to the
owner, a blessing to mankind.”
“A very appropriate simile,”
says Sir John; “and I am afraid that the genius
of our friend Yellowplush has need of some such support.”
“Apropos,” said Bullwig,
“who is Yellowplush? I was given to
understand that the name was only a fictitious one,
and that the papers were written by the author of
the ‘Diary of a Physician;’ if so, the
man has wonderfully improved in style, and there is
some hope of him.”
“Bah!” says the Duke of
Doublejowl; “everybody knows it’s Barnard,
the celebrated author of ‘Sam Slick.’”
“Pardon, my dear duke,”
says Lord Bagwig; “it’s the authoress of
’High Life,’ ‘Almack’s,’
and other fashionable novels.”
“Fiddlestick’s end!”
says Doctor Larner; “don’t be blushing
and pretinding to ask questions; don’t we know
you, Bullwig? It’s you yourself, you thief
of the world: we smoked you from the very beginning.”
Bullwig was about indignantly to reply,
when Sir John interrupted them, and said, “I
must correct you all, gentlemen; Mr. Yellowplush is
no other than Mr. Yellowplush: he gave you, my
dear Bullwig, your last glass of champagne at dinner,
and is now an inmate of my house, and an ornament
of my kitchen!”
“Gad!” says Doublejowl, “let’s
have him up.”
“Hear, hear!” says Bagwig.
“Ah, now,” says Larner,
“your grace is not going to call up and talk
to a footman, sure? Is it gintale?”
“To say the least of it,”
says Bullwig, “the pwactice is iwwegular, and
indecowous; and I weally don’t see how the interview
can be in any way pwofitable.”
But the vices of the company went
against the two littery men, and everybody excep them
was for having up poor me. The bell was wrung;
butler came. “Send up Charles,” says
master; and Charles, who was standing behind the skreand,
was persnly abliged to come in.
“Charles,” says master,
“I have been telling these gentlemen who is the
author of the ‘Yellowplush Correspondence’
in Fraser’s Magazine.”
“It’s the best magazine in Europe,”
says the duke.
“And no mistake,” says my lord.
“Hwhat!” says Larner; “and where’s
the Litherary Chran?”
I said myself nothink, but made a
bough, and blusht like pickle-cabbitch.
“Mr. Yellowplush,” says
his grace, “will you, in the first place, drink
a glass of wine?”
I boughed agin.
“And what wine do you prefer, sir? humble port
or imperial burgundy?”
“Why, your grace,” says
I, “I know my place, and ain’t above kitchin
wines. I will take a glass of port, and drink
it to the health of this honrabble compny.”
When I’d swigged off the bumper,
which his grace himself did me the honor to pour out
for me, there was a silints for a minnit; when my
master said:
“Charles Yellowplush, I have
perused your memoirs in Fraser’s Magazine with
so much curiosity, and have so high an opinion of your
talents as a writer, that I really cannot keep you
as a footman any longer, or allow you to discharge
duties for which you are now quite unfit. With
all my admiration for your talents, Mr. Yellowplush,
I still am confident that many of your friends in
the servants’-hall will clean my boots a great
deal better than a gentleman of your genius can ever
be expected to do it is for this purpose
I employ footmen, and not that they may be writing
articles in magazines. But you need
not look so red, my good fellow, and had better take
another glass of port I don’t wish
to throw you upon the wide world without the means
of a livelihood, and have made interest for a little
place which you will have under government, and which
will give you an income of eighty pounds per annum;
which you can double, I presume, by your literary
labors.”
“Sir,” says I, clasping
my hands, and busting into tears, “do not for
heaven’s sake, do not! think of any
such think, or drive me from your suvvice, because
I have been fool enough to write in magaseens.
Glans but one moment at your honor’s plate every
spoon is as bright as a mirror; condysend to igsamine
your shoes your honor may see reflected
in them the fases of every one in the company.
I blacked them shoes, I cleaned that there plate.
If occasionally I’ve forgot the footman in the
litterary man, and committed to paper my remindicences
of fashnabble life, it was from a sincere desire to
do good, and promote nollitch: and I appeal to
your honor, I lay my hand on my busm, and
in the fase of this noble company beg you to
say, When you rung your bell, who came to you fust?
When you stopt out at Brooke’s till morning,
who sat up for you? When you was ill, who forgot
the natral dignities of his station, and answered
the two-pair bell? Oh, sir,” says I, “I
know what’s what; don’t send me away.
I know them littery chaps, and, beleave me, I’d
rather be a footman. The work’s not so hard the
pay is better: the vittels incompyrably supearor.
I have but to clean my things, and run my errints,
and you put clothes on my back, and meat in my mouth.
Sir! Mr. Bullwig! an’t I right? shall I
quit my station and sink that is to
say, rise to yours?”
Bullwig was violently affected; a
tear stood in his glistening i. “Yellowplush,”
says he, seizing my hand, “you are right.
Quit not your present occupation; black boots, clean
knives, wear plush, all your life, but don’t
turn literary man. Look at me. I am the first
novelist in Europe. I have ranged with eagle
wing over the wide regions of literature, and perched
on every eminence in its turn. I have gazed with
eagle eyes on the sun of philosophy, and fathomed the
mysterious depths of the human mind. All languages
are familiar to me, all thoughts are known to me,
all men understood by me. I have gathered wisdom
from the honeyed lips of Plato, as we wandered in
the gardens of Acadames wisdom, too, from
the mouth of Job Johnson, as we smoked our ’backy
in Seven Dials. Such must be the studies, and
such is the mission, in this world, of the Poet-Philosopher.
But the knowledge is only emptiness; the initiation
is but misery; the initiated, a man shunned and bann’d
by his fellows. Oh,” said Bullwig, clasping
his hands, and throwing his fine i’s up to the
chandelier, “the curse of Pwometheus descends
upon his wace. Wath and punishment pursue them
from genewation to genewation! Wo to genius,
the heaven-scaler, the fire-stealer! Wo
and thrice bitter desolation! Earth is the wock
on which Zeus, wemorseless, stwetches his withing
victim men, the vultures that feed and
fatten on him. Ai, aï! it is agony eternal gwoaning
and solitawy despair! And you, Yellowplush, would
penetwate these mystewies: you would waise the
awful veil, and stand in the twemendous Pwesence.
Beware; as you value your peace, beware! Withdwaw,
wash Neophyte! For heaven’s sake O
for heaven’s sake!” here he
looked round with agony “give me
a glass of bwandy-and-water, for this clawet is beginning
to disagwee with me.”
Bullwig having concluded this spitch,
very much to his own sattasfackshn, looked round to
the compny for aplaws, and then swigged off the glass
of brandy-and-water, giving a sollum sigh as he took
the last gulph; and then Doctor Ignatius, who longed
for a chans, and, in order to show his independence,
began flatly contradicting his friend, addressed me,
and the rest of the genlmn present, in the following
manner:
“Hark ye,” says he, “my
gossoon, doan’t be led asthray by the nonsinse
of that divil of a Bullwig. He’s jillous
of ye, my bhoy: that’s the rale, undoubted
thruth; and it’s only to keep you out of litherary
life that he’s palavering you in this way.
I’ll tell you what Plush ye blackguard, my
honorable frind the mimber there has told me a hunder
times by the smallest computation, of his intense admiration
of your talents, and the wonderful sthir they were
making in the world. He can’t bear a rival.
He’s mad with envy, hatred, oncharatableness.
Look at him, Plush, and look at me. My father
was not a juke exactly, nor aven a markis, and
see, nevertheliss, to what a pitch I am come.
I spare no ixpinse; I’m the iditor of a cople
of pariodicals; I dthrive about in me carridge:
I dine wid the lords of the land; and why in
the name of the piper that pleed before Mosus, hwy?
Because I’m a litherary man. Because I
know how to play me cards. Because I’m Docther
Larner, in fact, and mimber of every society in and
out of Europe. I might have remained all my life
in Thrinity Colledge, and never made such an incom
as that offered you by Sir Jan; but I came to London to
London, my boy, and now see! Look again at me
friend Bullwig. He is a gentleman, to be
sure, and bad luck to ’im, say I; and what has
been the result of his litherary labor? I’ll
tell you what; and I’ll tell this gintale society,
by the shade of Saint Patrick, they’re going
to make him a BARINET.”
“A barnet, Doctor!”
says I; “you don’t mean to say they’re
going to make him a barnet!”
“As sure as I’ve made meself a docthor,”
says Larner.
“What, a baronet, like Sir John?”
“The divle a bit else.”
“And pray what for?”
“What faw?” says Bullwig.
“Ask the histowy of litwatuwe what faw?
Ask Colburn, ask Bentley, ask Saunders and Otley,
ask the gweat Bwitish nation, what faw? The blood
in my veins comes puwified thwough ten thousand years
of chivalwous ancestwy; but that is neither here nor
there: my political principles the
equal wights which I have advocated the
gweat cause of fweedom that I have celebwated, are
known to all. But this, I confess, has nothing
to do with the question. No, the question is
this on the thwone of litewature I stand
unwivalled, pwe-eminent; and the Bwitish government,
honowing genius in me, compliments the Bwitish nation
by lifting into the bosom of the heweditawy nobility,
the most gifted member of the democwacy.” (The
honrabble genlm here sunk down amidst repeated cheers.)
“Sir John,” says I, “and
my lord duke, the words of my rivrint frend Ignatius,
and the remarks of the honrabble genlmn who has just
sate down, have made me change the detummination which
I had the honor of igspressing just now.
“I igsept the eighty pound a
year; knowing that I shall ave plenty of time
for pursuing my littery career, and hoping some day
to set on that same bentch of barranites, which is
deckarated by the presnts of my honrabble friend.
“Why shooden I? It’s
trew I ain’t done anythink as yet to deserve
such an honor; and it’s very probable that I
never shall. But what then? quaw dong,
as our friends say? I’d much rayther have
a coat-of-arms than a coat of livry. I’d
much rayther have my blud-red hand spralink in the
middle of a shield, than underneath a tea-tray.
A barranit I will be; and, in consiquints, must cease
to be a footmin.
“As to my politticle princepills,
these, I confess, ain’t settled: they are,
I know, necessary; but they ain’t necessary until
askt for; besides, I reglar read the
Sattarist newspaper, and so ignirince on this pint
would be inigscusable.
“But if one man can git to be
a doctor, and another a barranit, and another a capting
in the navy, and another a countess, and another the
wife of a governor of the Cape of Good Hope, I begin
to perseave that the littery trade ain’t such
a very bad un; igspecially if you’re up to snough,
and know what’s o’clock. I’ll
learn to make myself usefle, in the fust place; then
I’ll larn to spell; and, I trust, by reading
the novvles of the honrabble member, and the scientafick
treatiseses of the reverend doctor, I may find the
secrit of suxess, and git a litell for my own share.
I’ve sevral frends in the press, having paid
for many of those chaps’ drink, and given them
other treets; and so I think I’ve got all the
emilents of suxess; therefore, I am detummined, as
I said, to igsept your kind offer, and beg to withdraw
the wuds which I made yous of when I refyoused your
hoxpatable offer. I must, however ”
“I wish you’d withdraw
yourself,” said Sir John, bursting into a most
igstrorinary rage, “and not interrupt the company
with your infernal talk! Go down, and get us
coffee: and, hark ye! hold your impertinent tongue,
or I’ll break every bone in your body. You
shall have the place as I said; and while you’re
in my service, you shall be my servant; but you don’t
stay in my service after to-morrow. Go down stairs,
sir; and don’t stand staring here!”
. . . . .
.
In this abrupt way, my evening ended;
it’s with a melancholy regret that I think what
came of it. I don’t wear plush any more.
I am an altered, a wiser, and, I trust, a better man.
I’m about a novvle (having made
great progriss in spelling), in the style of my friend
Bullwig; and preparing for publigation, in the Doctor’s
Cyclopedear, “The Lives of Eminent British and
Foring Wosherwomen.”
SKIMMINGS FROM “THE DAIRY OF GEORGE IV.”
CHARLES YELLOWPLUSH, ESQ, TO OLIVER YORKE, ESQ.
Dear why, Takin
advantage of the Crismiss holydays, Sir John and me
(who is a member of parlyment) had gone down to our
place in Yorkshire for six wicks, to shoot grows and
woodcox, and enjoy old English hospitalaty. This
ugly Canady bisniss unluckaly put an end to our sports
in the country, and brot us up to Buckly Square as
fast as four posterses could gallip. When there,
I found your parcel, containing the two vollumes of
a new book; which, as I have been away from the literary
world, and emplied solely in athlatic exorcises, have
been laying neglected in my pantry, among my knife-cloaths,
and dekanters, and blacking-bottles, and bed-room
candles, and things.
These Memoirs were originally published
in Fraser’s Magazine, and it may be stated for
the benefit of the unlearned in such matters, that
“Oliver Yorke” is the assumed name of the
editor of that periodical.
This will, I’m sure, account
for my delay in notussing the work. I see sefral
of the papers and magazeens have been befoarhand with
me, and have given their apinions concerning it:
specially the Quotly Revew, which has most mussilessly
cut to peases the author of this Dairy of the Times
of George IV.
Diary illustrative of the Times
of George the Fourth, interspersed with Original Letters
from the late Queen Caroline, and from various other
distinguished Persons.
“Tot
où tard, tout se scait.” Maintenon.
In 2 vols. London, 1838. Henry
Colburn.
That it’s a woman who wrote
it is evydent from the style of the writing, as well
as from certain proofs in the book itself. Most
suttnly a femail wrote this Dairy; but who this Dairy-maid
may be, I, in coarse, can’t conjecter:
and indeed, common galliantry forbids me to ask.
I can only judge of the book itself; which, it appears
to me, is clearly trenching upon my ground and favrite
subjicks, viz. fashnabble life, as igsibited
in the houses of the nobility, gentry, and rile fammly.
But I bare no mallis infamation
is infamation, and it doesn’t matter where the
infamy comes from; and whether the Dairy be from that
distinguished pen to which it is ornarily attributed whether,
I say, it comes from a lady of honor to the late quean,
or a scullion to that diffunct majisty, no matter:
all we ask is nollidge; never mind how we have it.
Nollidge, as our cook says, is like trikel-possit it’s
always good, though you was to drink it out of an
old shoo.
Well, then, although this Dairy is
likely searusly to injur my pussonal intrests, by
fourstalling a deal of what I had to say in my private
memoars though many, many guineas, is taken
from my pockit, by cuttin short the tail of my narratif though
much that I had to say in souperior languidge, greased
with all the ellygance of my orytory, the benefick
of my classcle reading, the chawms of my agreble wit,
is thus abruply brot befor the world by an inferior
genus, neither knowing nor writing English; yet I
say, that nevertheless I must say, what I am puffickly
prepaired to say, to gainsay which no man can say a
word yet I say, that I say I consider this
publication welkom. Far from viewing it with
enfy, I greet it with applaws; because it increases
that most exlent specious of nollidge, I mean “FASHNABBLE
nollidge:” compayred to witch all
other nollidge is nonsince a bag of goold
to a pare of snuffers.
Could Lord Broom, on the Canady question,
say moar? or say what he had tu say better?
We are marters, both of us, to prinsple; and every
body who knows eather knows that we would sacrafice
anythink rather than that. Fashion is the goddiss
I adoar. This delightful work is an offring on
her srine; and as sich all her wushippers are
bound to hail it. Here is not a question of trumpry
lords and honrabbles, generals and barronites, but
the crown itself, and the king and queen’s actions;
witch may be considered as the crown jewels. Here’s
princes, and grand-dukes and airsparent, and heaven
knows what; all with blood-royal in their veins, and
their names mentioned in the very fust page of the
peeridge. In this book you become so intmate with
the Prince of Wales, that you may follow him, if you
please, to his marridge-bed: or, if you prefer
the Princiss Charlotte, you may have with her an hour’s
tator-tator.
Our estimable correspondent means,
we presume, tete-a-tete. O. Y.
Now, though most of the remarkable
extrax from this book have been given already (the
cream of the Dairy, as I wittily say,) I shall trouble
you, nevertheless, with a few; partly because they
can’t be repeated too often, and because the
toan of obsyvation with which they have been genrally
received by the press, is not igsackly such as I think
they merit. How, indeed, can these common magaseen
and newspaper pipple know anythink of fashnabble life,
let alone ryal?
Conseaving, then, that the publication
of the Dairy has done reel good on this scoar, and
may probly do a deal moor, I shall look through it,
for the porpus of selecting the most ellygant passidges,
and which I think may be peculiarly adapted to the
reader’s benefick.
For you see, my dear Mr. Yorke, that
in the fust place, that this is no common catchpny
book, like that of most authors and authoresses, who
write for the base looker of gain. Heaven bless
you! the Dairy-maid is above anything musnary.
She is a woman of rank, and no mistake; and is as
much above doin a common or vulgar action as I am superaor
to taking beer after dinner with my cheese. She
proves that most satisfackarily, as we see in the
following passidge:
“Her royal highness came to
me, and having spoken a few phrases on different subjects,
produced all the papers she wishes to have published:
her whole correspondence with the prince relative to
Lady J –’s dismissal; his subsequent
neglect of the princess; and, finally, the acquittal
of her supposed guilt, signed by the Duke of Portland,
&c., at the time of the secret inquiry: when,
if proof could have been brought against her, it certainly
would have been done; and which acquittal, to the
disgrace of all parties concerned, as well as to the
justice of the nation in general, was not made public
at the time. A common criminal is publicly condemned
or acquitted. Her royal highness commanded me
to have these letters published forthwith, saying,
’You may sell them for a great sum.’
At first (for she had spoken to me before concerning
this business), I thought of availing myself of the
opportunity; but upon second thoughts, I turned from
this idea with detestation: for, if I do wrong
by obeying her wishes and endeavoring to serve her,
I will do so at least from good and disinterested motives,
not from any sordid views. The princess commands
me, and I will obey her, whatever may be the issue;
but not for fare or fee. I own I tremble, not
so much for myself, as for the idea that she is not
taking the best and most dignified way of having these
papers published. Why make a secret of it at
all? If wrong, it should not be done; if right
it should be done openly, and in the face of her enemies.
In her royal highness’s case, as in that of
wronged princes in general, why do they shrink from
straightforward dealings, and rather have recourse
to crooked policy? I wish, in this particular
instance, I could make her royal highness feel thus:
but she is naturally indignant at being falsely accused,
and will not condescend to an avowed explanation.”
Can anythink be more just and honrabble
than this? The Dairy-lady is quite fair and abovebored.
A clear stage, says she, and no favior! “I
won’t do behind my back what I am ashamed of
before my face: not I!” No more she does;
for you see that, though she was offered this manyscrip
by the princess for nothink, though she knew
that she could actially get for it a large sum of
money, she was above it, like an honest, noble, grateful,
fashnabble woman, as she was. She aboars secrecy,
and never will have recors to disguise or crookid
polacy. This ought to be an ansure to them radicle
SNEERERS, who pretend that they are the equals of
fashnabble pepple; wheras it’s a well-known fact,
that the vulgar roagues have no notion of honor.
And after this positif declaration,
which reflex honor on her ladyship (long life to her!
I’ve often waited behind her chair!) after
this positif declaration, that, even for the porpus
of defending her missis, she was so hi-minded
as to refuse anythink like a peculiarly consideration,
it is actially asserted in the public prints by a
booxeller, that he has given her A thousand pound
for the Dairy. A thousand pound! nonsince! it’s
a phigment! a base lible! This woman take a thousand
pound, in a matter where her dear mistriss, friend,
and benyfactriss was concerned! Never! A
thousand baggonits would be more prefrabble to a woman
of her xqizzit feelins and fashion.
But to proseed. It’s been
objected to me, when I wrote some of my expearunces
in fashnabble life, that my languidge was occasionally
vulgar, and not such as is genrally used in those exqizzit
famlies which I frequent. Now, I’ll lay
a wager that there is in this book, wrote as all the
world knows, by a rele lady, and speakin of kings and
queens as if they were as common as sand-boys there
is in this book more wulgarity than ever I displayed,
more nastiness than ever I would dare to think
on, and more bad grammar than ever I wrote since
I was a boy at school. As for authografy, evry
genlmn has his own: never mind spellin, I say,
so long as the sence is right.
Let me here quot a letter from a corryspondent
of this charming lady of honor; and a very nice corryspondent
he is, too, without any mistake:
“Lady O –,
poor Lady O –! knows the rules of prudence,
I fear me, as imperfectly as she doth those of the
Greek and Latin Grammars: or she hath let her
brother, who is a sad swine, become master of her secrets,
and then contrived to quarrel with him. You would
see the outline of the melange in the newspapers;
but not the report that Mr. S – is
about to publish a pamphlet, as an addition to the
Harleian Tracts, setting forth the amatory adventures
of his sister. We shall break our necks in haste
to buy it, of course crying ‘Shameful’
all the while; and it is said that Lady O –
is to be cut, which I cannot entirely believe.
Let her tell two or three old women about town that
they are young and handsome, and give some well-timed
parties, and she may still keep the society which
she hath been used to. The times are not so hard
as they once were, when a woman could not construe
Magna Charta with anything like impunity. People
were full as gallant many years ago. But the days
are gone by wherein my lord-protector of the commonwealth
of England was wont to go a lovemaking to Mrs. Fleetwood,
with the Bible under his arm.
“And so Miss Jacky Gordon is
really clothed with a husband at last, and Miss Laura
Manners left without a mate! She and Lord Stair
should marry and have children in mere revenge.
As to Miss Gordon, she’s a Venus well suited
for such a Vulcan, whom nothing but money
and a title could have rendered tolerable, even to
a kitchen wench. It is said that the matrimonial
correspondence between this couple is to be published,
full of sad scandalous relations, of which you may
be sure scarcely a word is true. In former times,
the Duchess of St. A –s made use of
these elegant epistles in order to intimidate Lady
Johnstone: but that ruse would not avail; so
in spite, they are to be printed. What a cargo
of amiable creatures! Yet will some people scarcely
believe in the existence of Pandemonium.
“Tuesday Morning. You
are perfectly right respecting the hot rooms here,
which we all cry out against, and all find very comfortable much
more so than the cold sands and bleak neighborhood
of the sea; which looks vastly well in one of Vander
Velde’s pictures hung upon crimson damask, but
hideous and shocking in reality. H –
and his ‘elle’ (talking of parties) were
last night at Cholmondeley House, but seem not to
ripen in their love. He is certainly good-humored,
and I believe, good-hearted, so deserves a good wife;
but his cara seems a genuine London miss made
up of many affectations. Will she form a comfortable
helpmate? For me, I like not her origin, and deem
many strange things to run in blood, besides madness
and the Hanoverian evil.
“Thursday. I verily
do believe that I shall never get to the end of this
small sheet of paper, so many unheard of interruptions
have I had; and now I have been to Vauxhall, and caught
the toothache. I was of Lady E. B –m
and H –’s party: very dull the
Lady giving us all a supper after our promenade
’Much ado was
there, God wot
She would love,
but he would not.’
He ate a great deal of ice, although
he did not seem to require it: and she ‘faisoit
les yeux doux’ enough not only to have
melted all the ice which he swallowed, but his own
hard heart into the bargain. The thing will not
do. In the meantime, Miss Long hath become quite
cruel to Wellesley Pole, and divides her favor equally
between Lords Killeen and Kilworth, two as simple
Irishmen as ever gave birth to a bull. I wish
to Hymen that she were fairly married, for all this
pother gives one a disgusting picture of human nature.”
A disgusting pictur of human nature,
indeed and isn’t he who moralizes
about it, and she to whom he writes, a couple of pretty
heads in the same piece? Which, Mr. Yorke, is
the wüst, the scandle or the scandle-mongers?
See what it is to be a moral man of fashn. Fust,
he scrapes togither all the bad stoaries about all
the people of his acquentance he goes to
a ball, and laffs or snears at everybody there he
is asked to a dinner, and brings away, along with meat
and wine to his heart’s content, a sour stomick
filled with nasty stories of all the people present
there. He has such a squeamish appytite, that
all the world seems to disagree with him.
And what has he got to say to his delicate female
frend? Why that
Fust. Mr. S. is going to publish
indescent stoaries about Lady O –,
his sister, which everybody’s goin to by.
Nex. That Miss Gordon is
going to be cloathed with an usband; and that all
their matrimonial corryspondins is to be published
too.
3. That Lord H. is going to be
married; but there’s some thing rong in his
wife’s blood.
4. Miss Long has cut Mr. Wellesley,
and is gone after two Irish lords.
Wooden you phancy, now, that the author
of such a letter, instead of writin about pipple of
tip-top qualaty, was describin Vinegar Yard?
Would you beleave that the lady he was a-ritin to was
a chased, modist lady of honor, and mother of a famly?
O trumpery! O morris! as Homer says: this
is a higeous pictur of manners, such as I weap to think
of, as evry morl man must weap.
The above is one pritty pictur of
mearly fashnabble life: what follows is about
families even higher situated than the most fashnabble.
Here we have the princessregient, her daughter the
Princess Sharlot, her grandmamma the old quean, and
her madjisty’s daughters the two princesses.
If this is not high life, I don’t know where
it is to be found; and it’s pleasing to see
what affeckshn and harmny rains in such an exolted
spear.
“Sunday 24th. Yesterday,
the princess went to meet the Princess Charlotte at
Kensington. Lady told me
that, when the latter arrived, she rushed up to her
mother, and said, ’For God’s sake, be
civil to her,’ meaning the Duchess of Leeds,
who followed her. Lady said
she felt sorry for the latter; but when the Princess
of Wales talked to her, she soon became so free and
easy, that one could not have any feeling about
her feelings. Princess Charlotte, I was told,
was looking handsome, very pale, but her head more
becomingly dressed, that is to say, less
dressed than usual. Her figure is of that full
round shape which is now in its prime; but she disfigures
herself by wearing her bodice so short, that she literally
has no waist. Her feet are very pretty; and so
are her hands and arms, and her ears, and the shape
of her head. Her countenance is expressive, when
she allows her passions to play upon it; and I never
saw any face, with so little shade, express so many
powerful and varied emotions. Lady
told me that the Princess Charlotte talked to her
about her situation, and said, in a very quiet, but
determined way, she would not bear it,
and that as soon as parliament met, she intended to
come to Warwick House, and remain there; that she
was also determined not to consider the Duchess of
Leeds as her governess but only as her first
lady. She made many observations on other
persons and subjects; and appears to be very quick,
very penetrating, but imperious and wilful. There
is a tone of romance, too, in her character, which
will only serve to mislead her.
“She told her mother that there
had been a great battle at Windsor between the queen
and the prince, the former refusing to give up Miss
Knight from her own person to attend on Princess Charlotte
as sub-governess. But the prince-regent had gone
to Windsor himself, and insisted on her doing so;
and the ‘old Beguin’ was forced to submit,
but has been ill ever since: and Sir Henry Halford
declared it was a complete breaking up of her constitution to
the great delight of the two princesses, who were
talking about this affair. Miss Knight was the
very person they wished to have; they think they can
do as they like with her. It has been ordered
that the Princess Charlotte should not see her mother
alone for a single moment; but the latter went into
her room, stuffed a pair of large shoes full of papers,
and having given them to her daughter, she went home.
Lady told me everything was written
down and sent to Mr. Brougham next day.”
See what discord will creap even into
the best regulated famlies. Here are six of ’em viz.,
the quean and her two daughters, her son, and his
wife and daughter; and the manner in which they hate
one another is a compleat puzzle.
{his
mother.
The Prince hates... {his wife.
{his
daughter.
Princess Charlotte hates her father.
Princess of Wales hates her husband.
The old quean, by their squobbles,
is on the pint of death; and her two jewtiful daughters
are delighted at the news. What a happy, fashnabble,
Christian famly! O Mr. Yorke, Mr. Yorke, if this
is the way in the drawin-rooms, I’m quite content
to live below, in pease and charaty with all men;
writin, as I am now, in my pantry, or els havin a quiet
game at cards in the servants-all. With us
there’s no bitter, wicked, quarling of this
sort. We don’t hate our children, or
bully our mothers, or wish ’em ded when they’re
sick, as this Dairywoman says kings and queens do.
When we’re writing to our friends or sweethearts,
we don’t fill our letters with nasty stoaries,
takin away the carricter of our fellow-servants, as
this maid of honor’s amusin’ moral frend
does. But, in coarse, it’s not for us to
judge of our betters; these great people
are a supeerur race, and we can’t comprehend
their ways.
Do you recklect it’s
twenty years ago now how a bewtiffle princess
died in givin buth to a poar baby, and how the whole
nation of Hengland wep, as though it was one man,
over that sweet woman and child, in which were sentered
the hopes of every one of us, and of which each was
as proud as of his own wife or infnt? Do you
recklect how pore fellows spent their last shillin
to buy a black crape for their hats, and clergymen
cried in the pulpit, and the whole country through
was no better than a great dismal funeral? Do
you recklet, Mr. Yorke, who was the person that we
all took on so about? We called her the Princis
Sharlot of Wales; and we valyoud a single drop of her
blood more than the whole heartless body of her father.
Well, we looked up to her as a kind of saint or angle,
and blest God (such foolish loyal English pipple as
we ware in those days) who had sent this sweet lady
to rule over us. But heaven bless you! it was
only souperstition. She was no better than she
should be, as it turns out or at least the
Dairy-maid says so. No better? if
my daughters or yours was 1/2 so bad, we’d as
leaf be dead ourselves, and they hanged. But
listen to this pritty charritable story, and a truce
to reflexshuns:
“Sunday, January, 9, 1814. Yesterday,
according to appointment, I went to Princess Charlotte.
Found at Warwick House the harp-player, Dizzi; was
asked to remain and listen to his performance, but
was talked to during the whole time, which completely
prevented all possibility of listening to the music.
The Duchess of Leeds and her daughter were in the
room, but left it soon. Next arrived Miss Knight,
who remained all the time I was there. Princess
Charlotte was very gracious showed me all
her bonny dyes, as B –would have called
them pictures, and cases, and jewels, &c.
She talked in a very desultory way, and it would be
difficult to say of what. She observed her mother
was in very low spirits. I asked her how she
supposed she could be otherwise? This questioning
answer saves a great deal of trouble, and serves two
purposes i.e. avoids committing oneself,
or giving offence by silence. There was hung
in the apartment one portrait, amongst others, that
very much resembled the Duke of D –.
I asked Miss Knight whom it represented. She
said that was not known; it had been supposed a likeness
of the Pretender, when young. This answer suited
my thoughts so comically I could have laughed, if
one ever did at courts anything but the contrary of
what one was inclined to do.
“Princess Charlotte has a very
great variety of expression in her countenance a
play of features, and a force of muscle, rarely seen
in connection with such soft and shadeless coloring.
Her hands and arms are beautiful; but I think her
figure is already gone, and will soon be precisely
like her mother’s: in short it is the very
picture of her, and not in miniature.
I could not help analyzing my own sensations during
the time I was with her, and thought more of them than
I did of her. Why was I at all flattered, at
all more amused, at all more supple to this young
princess, than to her who is only the same sort of
person set in the shade of circumstances and of years?
It is that youth, and the approach of power, and the
latent views of self-interest, sway the heart and
dazzle the understanding. If this is so with a
heart not, I trust, corrupt, and a head not particularly
formed for interested calculations, what effect must
not the same causes produce on the generality of mankind?
“In the course of the conversation,
the Princess Charlotte contrived to edge in a good
deal of tum-de-dy, and would, if I had entered into
the thing, have gone on with it, while looking at a
little picture of herself, which had about thirty
or forty different dresses to put over it, done on
isinglass, and which allowed the general coloring of
the picture to be seen through its transparency.
It was, I thought, a pretty enough conceit, though
rather like dressing up a doll. ‘Ah!,’
said Miss Knight, ’I am not content though,
madame for I yet should have liked
one more dress that of the favorite Sultana.’
“‘No, no!’ said
the princess, ’I never was a favorite, and never
can be one,’ looking at a picture
which she said was her father’s, but which I
do not believe was done for the regent any more than
for me, but represented a young man in a hussar’s
dress probably a former favorite.
“The Princess Charlotte seemed
much hurt at the little notice that was taken of her
birthday. After keeping me for two hours and a
half she dismissed me; and I am sure I could not say
what she said, except that it was an olio of decousus
and heterogeneous things, partaking of the characteristics
of her mother, grafted on a younger scion. I dined
tete-a-tete with my dear old aunt: hers is always
a sweet and soothing society to me.”
There’s a pleasing, lady-like,
moral extract for you! An innocent young thing
of fifteen has picturs of two lovers in her room,
and expex a good number more. This dellygate
young creature edges in a good deal of tumdedy
(I can’t find it in Johnson’s Dixonary),
and would have gone on with the
thing (ellygence of languidge), if the dairy-lady
would have let her.
Now, to tell you the truth, Mr. Yorke,
I doan’t beleave a single syllible of this story.
This lady of honner says, in the fust place, that
the princess would have talked a good deal of tumdedy:
which means, I suppose, indeasnsy, if she, the lady
of honner would have let her.
This is a good one! Why, she lets every body
else talk tumdedy to their hearts’ content;
she lets her friends write tumdedy, and, after
keeping it for a quarter of a sentry, she prints
it. Why then, be so squeamish about hearing
a little! And, then, there’s the stoary
of the two portricks. This woman has the honner
to be received in the frendlyest manner by a British
princess; and what does the grateful loyal creature
do? 2 picturs of the princess’s relations are
hanging in her room, and the Dairy-woman swears away
the poor young princess’s carrickter, by swearing
they are picturs of her lovers. For shame,
oh, for shame! you slanderin backbitin dairy-woman
you! If you told all them things to your “dear
old aunt,” on going to dine with her, you must
have had very “sweet and soothing society”
indeed.
I had marked out many more extrax,
which I intended to write about; but I think I have
said enough about this Dairy: in fack, the butler,
and the gals in the servants’-hall are not well
pleased that I should go on reading this naughty book;
so we’ll have no more of it, only one passidge
about Pollytics, witch is sertnly quite new:
“No one was so likely to be
able to defeat Bonaparte as the Crown Prince, from
the intimate knowledge he possessed of his character.
Bernadotte was also instigated against Bonaparte by
one who not only owed him a personal hatred, but who
possessed a mind equal to his, and who gave the Crown
Prince both information and advice how to act.
This was no less a person than Madame de Stael.
It was not, as some have asserted, that she
was in love with Bernadotte;
for, at the time of their intimacy, madame de
Stael was in love with Rocca.
But she used her influence (which was not small) with
the Crown Prince, to make him fight against Bonaparte,
and to her wisdom may be attributed much of the success
which accompanied his attack upon him. Bernadotte
has raised the flame of liberty, which seems fortunately
to blaze all around. May it liberate Europe;
and from the ashes of the laurel may olive branches
spring up, and overshadow the earth!”
There’s a discuvery! that the
overthrow of Boneypart is owing to madame de
Stael! What nonsince for Colonel Southey
or Doctor Napier to write histories of the war with
that Capsican hupstart and murderer, when here we
have the whole affair explaned by the lady of honor!
“Sunday, April 10, 1814. The
incidents which take place every hour are miraculous.
Bonaparte is deposed, but alive; subdued, but allowed
to choose his place of residence. The island
of Elba is the spot he has selected for his ignominious
retreat. France is holding forth repentant arms
to her banished sovereign. The Poissardes who
dragged Louis XVI. to the scaffold are presenting
flowers to the Emperor of Russia, the restorer of
their legitimate king! What a stupendous field
for philosophy to expatiate in! What an endless
material for thought! What humiliation to the
pride of mere human greatness! How are the mighty
fallen! Of all that was great in Napoleon, what
remains? Despoiled of his usurped power, he sinks
to insignificance. There was no moral greatness
in the man. The meteor dazzled, scorched, is put
out, utterly, and for ever. But the
power which rests in those who have delivered the
nations from bondage, is a power that is delegated
to them from heaven; and the manner in which they
have used it is a guarantee for its continuance.
The Duke of Wellington has gained laurels unstained
by any useless flow of blood. He has done more
than conquer others he has conquered himself:
and in the midst of the blaze and flush of victory,
surrounded by the homage of nations, he has not been
betrayed into the commission of any act of cruelty
or wanton offence. He was as cool and self-possessed
under the blaze and dazzle of fame as a common man
would be under the shade of his garden-tree, or by
the hearth of his home. But the tyrant who kept
Europe in awe is now a pitiable object for scorn to
point the finger of derision at: and humanity
shudders as it remembers the scourge with which this
man’s ambition was permitted to devastate every
home tie, and every heartfelt joy.”
And now, after this sublime passidge,
as full of awfle reflections and pious sentyments
as those of Mrs. Cole in the play, I shall only quot
one little extrak more:
“All goes gloomily with the
poor princess. Lady Charlotte Campbell told me
she regrets not seeing all these curious personages;
but she says, the more the princess is forsaken, the
more happy she is at having offered to attend her
at this time. This is very amiable
in her, and cannot fail to be gratifying
to the princess.”
So it is wery amiable,
wery kind and considerate in her, indeed. Poor
Princess! how lucky you was to find a frend who loved
you for your own sake, and when all the rest of the
wuld turned its back kep steady to you. As for
believing that Lady Sharlot had any hand in this book,
heaven forbid! she is all gratitude, pure gratitude,
depend upon it. She would not go for to
blacken her old frend and patron’s carrickter,
after having been so outrageously faithful to her;
she wouldn’t do it, at no price, depend
upon it. How sorry she must be that others an’t
quite so squemish, and show up in this indesent way
the follies of her kind, genrus, foolish bennyfactris!
The “authorized” announcement,
in the John Bull newspaper, sets this question at
rest. It is declared that her ladyship is not
the writer of the Diary. O. Y.