At the time of the fire at Percy-Hall, a painted glass window in the passage ... we should say the gallery ... leading to the study had been destroyed. ——Old Martha, whose life Caroline had saved, had a son, who possessed some talents as a painter, and who had learnt the art of painting on glass. He had been early in his life assisted by the Percy family, and desirous to offer some small testimony of his gratitude, he begged permission to paint a new window for the gallery.——He chose for his subject the fire, and the moment when Caroline was assisting his decrepit mother down the dangerous staircase.——The painting was finished and put up on Caroline's birth-day, when she had just attained her eighteenth year. This was the only circumstance worth recording, which the biographer can find noted in the family annals at this period.——In this dearth of events may we take the liberty of introducing, according to the fashion of modern biography, a few private letters. They are written by persons, of whom the reader as yet knows nothing,——Mr. Percy's second and third sons, Alfred and Erasmus. Alfred was a barrister; Erasmus a physician; they were both at this time in London, just commencing their professional career.——Their characters ... but let their characters speak for themselves in their letters, else neither their letters nor their characters can be worth attention.
Pray do not feel disappointed when I tell you, that I am not getting on quite so fast as I expected. I assure you, however, that I have not neglected any honorable means of bringing myself into notice.——But it is very difficult for an honest young man to rise without puffing, or stooping to low means.
"I stood candidate for the place of physician to the —— hospital, and made all the necessary applications to those who had votes and interest.——Sir Amyas Courtney and Dr. Frumpton, I was told, were the leading men,——one a court, the other a city physician——one always consulted in nervous complaints—— the other in desperate cases——both hating and despising each other——each seizing this election as an opportunity of plaguing and mortifying his opponent, and of making the election for the hospital a mere struggle for power, and trial of popularity. ——I waited first upon Sir Amyas Courtney, and was at his house ten times before I could find him at home. At last by appointment I went to breakfast with him. He received me in the most promising manner,——recollected to have danced with my mother many years ago at a ball at Lord Somebody's——professed the greatest respect for the name of Percy ——asked me various questions about my great grandfather, which I could not answer ——and paid you more compliments than I can remember.——Sir Amyas is certainly the prettiest behaved physician breathing, with the sweetest assortment of small talk. He has the happiest art of speaking a vast deal, and yet saying nothing; or seeming to come to the point, and yet never committing himself.——For the life of me, I could not get any distinct answer from him.——He would talk of every thing but of my object.——Far, far aloof, for the first twenty minutes after he had done with my great grandfather, he kept to politics. Then we were interrupted by the arrival of a Mr. Gresham, a rich merchant, who came to look at a picture which Sir Amyas shows as a true Titian.——Sir Amyas talked a great deal of amateur nonsense, and Mr. Gresham, I thought, a great deal of sense about it.—— I liked Mr. Gresham, and think he liked me, but I have not time to say more of him. Sir Amyas, in the same nambypamby style, and with the same soft voice, and sweet smile, talked on of pictures, and battles, and carnage, and levees, and drawing-rooms, and balls, and butterflies.——He has a museum for the ladies, and he took me to look at it.——Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day.—— Among his shells there was one upon which he peculiarly prided himself, and which he showed me as an unique. I was, (I assure you) prudently silent, till he pressed for my opinion, and then, I could not avoid confessing, that I suspected it to be a made shell——made, Caroline knows how, by the application of acids.——Sir Amyas's countenance clouded over——and before the cloud had passed away, as my ill fortune would have it, my rival candidate, Dr. Bland called, and was admitted. ——His opinion was immediately asked about the shell.——He was confident, at the first glance, that it was an unique, and was ready to swear that no acid had ever come near it.——I said no more——but I had already said too much. Dr. Bland profited by my error.——He was all obsequiousness and flattery, admiring and extolling the nick-nacks on which he knew that Sir Amyas piqued himself.——I took my leave——well aware that my election had been decided by the shell, at least as far as Sir Amyas's vote could decide.
"I now paid my visit to Dr. Frumpton. ——Do you know who he is, and who he was, and how he has risen to his present height?——He was a farrier in a remote county-he began by persuading the country people in his neighbourhood, that he had a specific for the bite of a mad dog.—— It happened that he cured an old dowager's favorite waiting maid, who had been bitten by a cross lap dog, which her servants pronounced to be mad, that they might have an excuse for hanging it.—— The fame of this cure was spread by the dowager among her numerous acquaintance in town and country. Then he took agues——and afterwards scrofula under his protection; patronised by his old dowager, and lucky in some of his desperate quackery, Dr. Frumpton's reputation rapidly increased, and from different counties fools came to consult him. His manners were bearish even to persons of quality who resorted to his den, but these brutal manners imposed upon many; heightened the idea of his confidence in himself, and commanded the submission of the timid.——His tone grew higher and higher, and he more and more easily bullied the credulity of man and womankind. ——It seems that either extreme of soft and polished, or of rough and brutal manner, can succeed with a physician.—— Dr. Frumpton's name, and Dr. Frumpton's wonderful cures, were in every newspaper, and in every shop window.——No man ever puffed himself better even in this puffing age.——His success was viewed with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, by the regular bred physicians, and they did all they could to keep him down,——sir Amyas Courtney, in particular, who would never call him any thing but that farrier, making what noise he could about Frumpton's practising without a diploma. ——In pure spite Frumpton took to learning——late as it was he put himself to school——with virulent zeal he read and crammed till——Heaven knows how!——he accomplished getting a diploma——stood all prescribed examinations, forced himself into the college of physicians, and has grinned defiance ever since at Sir Amyas.——
"Frumpton received me with open arms, and such is the magical deception of self-love, that his apparent friendliness towards me made him appear quite agreeable, and notwithstanding all I had heard and known of him, I fancied his brutality was frankness, and his presumption strength of character.——I gave him credit especially for a happy instinct for true merit, and an honorable antipathy to flattery and meanness.——The manner in which he pronounced the words, fawning puppy! applied to my rival young Bland, pleased me peculiarly——and I had just exalted Frumpton into a great man, and an original genius, when he fell flat to the level, and below the level of common mortals, in my opinion.——He found that I had waited upon Sir Amyas Courtney before I had applied to him——upon which he frowned a terrible frown, and sat scowling in silence in his arm chair for some minutes, pushing and pulling his wig backwards and forwards on his forehead.
"So, Sir, I suppose you are all for the polite system of nerves along with Sir Amyas.——All for nerves, hey?——Nervous nonsense may do well enough at the court end, but won't go down at our end of the world——Nerves won't do for an hospital physician——no——no, I'll keep nerves out of the hospital as long as I can, by the blessing of Heaven——So you may take your nerves back to Sir Amyas——to whom you went first——First or last I'll have nothing to do with nerves, and Sir Amyas, Sir——"
"He turned his angry eyes upon me at this moment, and I believe the astonishment of my countenance convinced him of my innocence, for without my having said one word, he added, in a softened tone, "Then why went you to Sir Amyas first?"
"Because he was nearest to me——he lives within two streets of my lodgings."
"Lazy dog!——bad place for lodgings," Frumpton muttered, but regaining his good humor, he became more warm in my cause than ever, on hearing the history of the shell, which he told twenty times that morning to numerous people, with variations and exaggerations, such as made it so different the twentieth time from the first, that I should hardly have known it to be my own story——So far so good.——Dr. Frumpton was my declared friend, and swore he'd carry me through thick and thin.——I did not much like the being indebted for my success to the whim of such a brutal and ignorant champion, and I felt mortified rather than pleased at being preferred, not for my own merit of any kind, but merely from hatred and malice against a rival.——However, I settled that matter with my conscience, and satisfied myself, that it would be for the honor of medicine, and the good of mankind, as well as for my own good, that I should gain my election.——In this persuasion I accompanied my patron yesterday, being the morning before the election, through the hospital, that he might show me what he called his summary clinics.—— Summary, indeed!——When I saw the way in which this famous physician dealt with the lives of his poor patients, I really grew sick, and could scarcely follow him. ——I promised myself, that I would act very differently, when I should have the care of them——and whilst I was making myself this promise, a poor man, who had just fallen from a scaffold, was brought into the hospital.——His leg was bruised and terribly cut, but not broken.——The surgeon was called.——This surgeon was one who had practised human farriery formerly under Dr. Frumpton, and, not liking the trouble of attending to the poor man, scarcely looked at him, and said the leg must come off——the sooner the better.—— The man, perceiving that I pitied him, cast such a beseeching look at me, as made me interpose, imprudently, impertinently, perhaps,——but I could not resist it——I forget what I said, but I know the sense of it was, that I thought the poor fellow's leg could be saved.——I remember Dr. Frumpton glared upon me instantly with eyes of fury, and asked if I dared to contradict a surgeon in his own hospital. ——They prepared for the operation. The surgeon whipped on his mittens—— the poor man who was almost fainting with loss of blood, cast another piteous look at me, and said, in an Irish accent, 'Long life to you! Dear!——and don't let'm——for what will I be without a leg? ... and my wife and childer!'—— He fell back in a swoon, and I sprung between the surgeon and him, insisting, that, as he had appealed to me, he should be left to me, and promising that he should be no expense or trouble to the hospital——Frumpton stamped, and scarcely articulate with rage, bade me leave the hospital; and I made a sign to the laborers, who had brought in the poor man, to lift him instantly and carry him out before me, and this one of them, being his countryman, immediately did, exclaiming—— 'Success to your Honor! and may ye never want a friend!'—— Frumpton seized me by both shoulders—— pushed me after them out of the hospital—— and shut the door upon me ——for ever.——This morning I hear that Dr. Bland, (nerves notwithstanding), has been chosen, and that Dr. Frumpton vows unextinguishable vengeance against me.—— The story has been told with as many exaggerations as that of the shell all over the city, and always to my disadvantage.——
"I am afraid I have acted in some degree improperly-and certainly imprudently ——but I have the satisfaction at least to tell you, that the poor man is doing well.——I have taken lodgings for him, and have called in a young surgeon, a friend of mine, who assures me, that his leg, in another fortnight, will be as useful as any leg in London.——Pray let me hear from you, my dear father, and say ... if you can, that you think me right. Thank Caroline for her cordial letter
Thank you for the books—— I have been reading hard lately, for I have still, alas! leisure enough to read.—— I cannot expect to be employed, or to have fees for some time to come.——I am armed with patience——I am told that I have got through the worst part of my profession, the reading of dry law. This is tiresome enough to be sure. But after I had toiled on in the dark for some time through a heap of what I thought rubbish and confusion, a little light broke in upon me. Then I discerned valuable materials, where I had fancied all had been rubbish——and order where I had imagined all was confusion.——The law is a mighty maze, indeed, but not without a plan——faulty in many points, but with compensations for those faults in other parts, and admirable upon the whole, because open to continual revisal, and capable of perpetual improvement.
"I had no intention of making this panegyric on English law. It certainly is not flattery prepense, for I was going to blame and not to praise. I think the courting of attorneys and solicitors is the worst part of the beginning of my profession: for this I was not, and I believe I never shall be, sufficiently prepared. I give them no dinners, and they neglect me; yet I hope I pay them proper attention. To make amends, however, I have been so fortunate as to form acquaintance with some gentlemen of the bar, who possess enlarged minds, and general knowledge: their conversation is of the greatest use and pleasure to me. But many barristers here are men, who live entirely among themselves, with their heads in their green bags, and their souls narrowed to a point. Mere machines for drawing pleas and rejoinders.
"I remember Burke asserts——(and I was once, with true professional party-spirit, angry with him for the assertion) ——that the study of the law has a contractile power on the mind: I am now convinced it has, from what I see, and what I feel; therefore I will do all I can to counteract this contraction by the expansive force of literature. I lose no opportunity of making acquaintance with literary men, and cultivating their society. The other day, at Hookham's Library, I met with a man of considerable talents——a Mr. Temple——he was looking for a passage in the life of the Lord Keeper Guildford, which I happened to know. This brought us into a conversation, with which we were mutually so well pleased, that we agreed to dine together, for further information—— and we soon knew all that was to be known of each other's history.
Temple is of a very good family—— though the younger son of a younger brother. He was brought up by his grandfather, with whom he was a favorite. Accustomed, from his childhood, to live with the rich and great, to see a grand establishment, to be waited upon, to have servants, horses, carriages at his command, and always to consider himself as a part of one of a family who possessed every thing they could wish for in life; he says, he almost forgot, or rather never thought of the time when he was to have nothing, and when he should be obliged to provide entirely for himself. Fortunately for him, his grandfather having early discerned that he had considerable talents, determined that he should have all the advantages of education, which he thought would prepare him to shine in parliament.—— His grandfather, however, died when Temple was yet scarcely eighteen.——He had put off writing a codicil to his will, by which Temple lost the provision intended for him.——All hopes of being brought into parliament were over. His uncle, who succeeded to the estate, had sons of his own. There were family jealousies, and young Temple, as having been a favorite, was disliked.——Promises were made by other relations, and by former friends, and by these he was amused and misled for some time; but he found he was only wasting his life, attending upon these great relations. The unkindness and falsehood of some, and the haughty neglect of others, hurt his high spirit, and roused his strong indignation. ——He, in his turn, neglected and offended, was cast off at last, or forgotten by most of the fine promisers. ——At which, he says, he has had reason to rejoice, for this threw him upon his own resources, and made him exert his own mind.——He applied, in earnest, to prepare himself for the profession for which he was best fitted, and went to the bar.——Now comes the part of his history for which he, with reason, alas! blames himself. He was disgusted, not so much by the labor, as by the many disagreeable circumstances, which necessarily occur in the beginning of a barrister's course.——He could not bear the waiting in the courts or on circuit, without business, without notice. he thought his merit would never make it's way, and was provoked by seeing two or three stupid fellows pushed on by solicitors, or helped up by judges.——He had so much knowledge, talent, and eloquence, that he must in time have made a great figure, and would, undoubtedly, have risen to the first dignities, had he persevered. But he sacrificed himself to pique and impatience. He quitted the bar, and the very summer after he had left it, the illness of a senior counsel on that circuit afforded an opportunity where Temple would have been called, and where he could fully have displayed his talents. Once distinguished, such a man would have been always distinguished. ——Alas!——Alas!——He now bitterly regrets, that he abandoned his profession. ——This imprudence gave his friends a fair excuse for casting him off ——but he says, their neglect grieves him not, for he had resolved never more to trust to their promises, or to stoop to apply to them for patronage. He has been these last two years in an obscure garret writing for bread. He says, however, that he is sure he is happier, even in this situation, than are some of his cousins at this instant, who are struggling in poverty to be genteel, or to keep up a family name, and he would not change places with those who are in a state of idle and opprobrious dependance. ——I understand ... (remember this is a secret between ourselves) I understand that secretary Cunningham Falconer has found him out, and makes good use of his pen, but pays him shabily. Temple is too much of a man of honour to peach. So Lord Oldborough knows nothing of the matter; and Cunningham gets half his business done, and supplies all his deficiencies by means of this poor drudging genius.——Perhaps I have tired you with this history of my new friend——but he has interested me extremely——and more, the more I have seen of him.——He has faults certainly, perhaps too high a spirit, too much sensibility; but he has such strict integrity, so much generosity of mind, and something so engaging in his manners, that I cannot help loving, admiring, and pitying him.——That last sentiment, however, I am obliged to conceal, for he would not bear it.
"I see very little of Erasmus. He has been in the country this fortnight with some patient. I long for his return.——Thank Caroline for observing the advertisement of the sale of law books. I shall take advantage of it.——I will make the inquiries you desire about Buckhurst Falconer.
"P.S. Yes, my dear Rosamond, I shall be obliged to you for the flower-roots for my landlady's daughter."
Letter from Alfred. "My dear father, I have made all possible inquiries about Buckhurst Falconer. He staid at Cheltenham till about a month ago with the Hautons, and I hear attended Miss Hauton every where: but I do not think there is any reason to believe the report of his paying his addresses to her. The public attention he showed her was, in my opinion, designed only to pique Caroline, whom, I'm persuaded, he thinks——(between the fits of half a dozen other fancies) the first of women,——as he always calls her. Rosamond need not waste much pity on him. He is an out-of-sight-out-of-mind man. The pleasure of the present moment is all in all with him.——He has many good points in his disposition, but Caroline had penetration enough to see, that his character would never suit hers; and I rejoice, that she gave him a decided refusal.——
"Since he came to town, he has, by his convivial powers, his good stories, good songs, and knack of mimickry, made himself so famous, that he has more invitations to dinner than he can accept. He has wit and talents fit for more than being the buffoon or mocking-bird of a good dinner and a pleasant party; but he seems so well contented with this réputation de salon, that I am afraid his ambition will not rise to any thing higher. After leading this idle life, and enjoying this cheap-earned praise, he will never submit to the seclusion and application necessary for the attainment of the great prizes of professional excellence. I doubt whether he will even persevere so far as to be called to the bar. Though the other day when I met him in Bond-Street, he assured me, and bid me assure you, that he is getting on famously, and eating his terms with a prodigious appetite. He seemed heartily glad to see me, and expressed warm gratitude for your having saved his conscience, and having prevented his father from forcing him, as he said, to be a disgrace to the church.
"Rosamond asks, what sort of girls the Miss Falconers are, and whether the Falconers have been civil to me since I settled in town?——Yes:——pretty well—— The girls are mere show girls——like a myriad of others, sing——play——dance, dress, flirt, and all that.——Georgiana is beautiful sometimes——Arabella ugly always. I don't like either of them, and they don't like me, for I am not an eldest son. The mother was prodigiously pleased with me at first, because she mistook me for Godfrey, or rather she mistook me for the heir of our branch of the Percys. I hear that Mrs. Falconer has infinite address, both as a political and hymeneal intrigante: but I have not time to study her. All together the family, though they live in constant gaiety, do not give me the idea of being happy among one another. I have no particular reason for saying this. I judge only from the tact on this subject, which I have acquired from my own happy experience.
"Love to Rosamond——I am afraid she will think I have been too severe upon Buckhurst Falconer. I know he is a favorite, at least a protégé of hers and of Godfrey's. Bid her remember I have acknowledged that he has talents and generosity: but that which interests Rosamond in his favor inclines ill-natured me against him——his being one of Caroline's suitors. I think he has great assurance to continue, in spite of all repulse, to hope, especially as he does nothing to render himself more worthy of encouragement. Thank Caroline for her letter——and assure Rosamond, that, though I have never noticed it, I was grateful for her entertaining account of M. de Tourville's vis. I confess I am rather late with my acknowledgments, but the fire at Percy-Hall, and many events which rapidly succeeded, put that whole affair out of my head. Moreover, the story of Euphrosine and Count Albert was so squeezed under the seal, that I must beg notes of explanation in her next. Who the deuse is Euphrosine, and what does the letter P, for the rest of the word was torn out, stand for, and in Count Albert a hero in a novel, or a real live man?
"I saw a live man yesterday, whom I did not at all like to see——Sharpe walking with our good cousin, Sir Robert Percy, in close conversation. This conjunction, I fear, bodes us no good.—— Pray do, pray make another search for the deed.
"Loves, my dear father, are wasted in a letter to you; for you never take the trouble to give them to any one, nor care for them yourself——at least so you say.——My frank will not hold a scrap, which I had penned, in what you call my invisible hand, for my mother, to whom I have not written one letter this term. However, she will not be angry, for she is never angry with any one——much less with me.
Soon after this letter had been received, and while the picture of his life and the portraits of his worthy companions were yet fresh in her view, Buckhurst Falconer took the unhappy moment to write to renew his declaration of passionate attachment to Caroline, and to beg to be permitted to wait upon her once more.
From the indignant blush, which mounted in Caroline's face on reading his letter, Rosamond saw how unlikely it was, that this request should be granted. It came, indeed, at an unlucky time.——Rosamond could not refrain from a few words of apology, and looks of commiseration for Buckhurst; yet she entirely approved of Caroline's answer to his letter, and the steady repetition of her refusal, and even of the strengthened terms in which it was now expressed. Rosamond was always prudent for her friends, when it came to any serious point where their interests or happiness were concerned. Her affection for her friends, and her fear of doing wrong on such occasions, awakened her judgment, and so controlled her imagination, that she then proved herself uncommonly judicious and discreet.—— Prudence had not, it is true, been a part of Rosamond's character in childhood; but, in the course of her education, a considerable portion of it had been infused by a very careful and skilful hand. Perhaps it had never completely assimilated with the original composition: sometimes the prudence fell to the bottom, sometimes was shaken to the top, according to the agitation or tranquillity of her mind; sometimes it was so faintly visible, that it's existence might be doubted by the hasty observer; but when put to a proper test it never failed to appear in full force.——After any effort of discretion in conduct, Rosamond, however, often relieved and amused herself by talking in favor of the imprudent side of the question.
"You have decided prudently, my dear Caroline, I acknowledge," said she, "But now your letter is fairly gone; now that it is all over, and that we are safe, I begin to think you are a little too prudent for your age.——Bless me, Caroline, if you are so prudent at eighteen, what will you be at thirty? ——Beware!——and in the mean time you will never be a heroine——what a stupid uninteresting heroine you will make! You will never get into any entanglements, never have any adventures; or if kind fate should, propitious to my prayer, bring you into some charming difficulties, even then we could not tremble for you, or enjoy all the luxury of pity, because we should always know, that you would be so well able to extricate yourself,——so certain to conquer, or,——not die——but endure.——Recollect, that Doctor Johnson, when his learned sock was off, confessed that he could never be thoroughly interested for Clarissa, because he knew that her prudence would always be equal to every occasion."——
Mrs. Percy began to question, whether Johnson had ever expressed this sentiment seriously: she reprobated the cruelty of friendly biographers, who publish every light expression that escapes from celebrated lips in private conversation; she was going to have added a word or two about the injury done to the public, to young people especially, by the spreading such rash dogmas under the sanction of a great name.
But Rosamond did not give her mother time to enforce this moral, she went on rapidly with her own thoughts.
"Caroline, my dear," continued she, "you shall not be my heroine——you are too well proportioned for a heroine; in mind, I mean——a heroine may, must have a finely proportioned person, but never a well-proportioned mind. All her virtues must be larger than the life——all her passions those of a tragedy queen.——Produce ... only dare to produce one of your reasonable wives, mothers, daughters, or sisters on the theatre, and you would see them hissed off the stage.—— Good people are acknowledged to be the bane of the drama and the novel——I never wish to see a reasonable woman on the stage, or an unreasonable woman off it.——I have the greatest sympathy and admiration for your true heroine in a book; but I grant you, that in real life, in a private room, the tragedy queen would be too much for me; and the novel heroine would be the most useless, troublesome, affected, haranguing, egoistical, insufferable being imaginable.——So, my dear Caroline, I am content, that you are my sister and my friend, though I give you up as a heroine."
