India. He was seated at his breakfast of the choicest tea of Hyson, which he sipped out of the most elegant porcelain of Nanquin. His head was wrapped in a coif bordered with the finest lace; his temples bound with a ribbon of the colour of a rose; a gown of the silk of the chintz of Pekin flowed loose around him; he had hose of white silk on his legs, and his feet were half covered with slippers of the leather of Tarquestan. As soon as he had finished his breakfast he asked permission to dress before me, and on my assenting, a person in an habit peculiarly trim entered, and pulling off his stockings instantly set about clipping away the horny excrescences on the ends of the articulations of his feet; at every touch he gave to which the military man winced; and, with looks of the strongest apprehension, begged of the doctor to take care. The operation took up it with a toothed instrument made of the tusk of an elephant a quantity of dirty meal and grease disgustful to the sight, he worked his hair about, sometimes twisting it up in pieces of paper, which he squeezed between heated irons, till he forced it up into a bush; then dishevelling it again, till at length, by the help of grease and meal, he tortured it into a figure which nature never had imposed upon a human head. This operation consumed as much time as the two former. Having then put on his garments, I imagined the work of the morning was over, but I was mistaken. He had scarce finished his dressing when the figure of Foppery herself slid into the room humming a tune. "Ah, Monsieur!" said the man-of-war as soon as he saw him, "how could you stay so late? You promised to have been here before breakfast, and I waited several minutes for you." "Ah! mon Dieu!" answered the other in a jargon between the language of this country and that of the French, which would be unintelligible to you, and I shall therefore not strive to imitate. "I would have attended your honour to the moment, but I was prevented by the first minister of state, who was delayed from taking his lesson above an hour by some cursed despatches from Holland, which I could not hinder his stopping to open, though just half an hour. This doctor was succeeded directly by another, dressed in the formal garb of a physician, who, pulling a case of instruments out of his pocket and opening a box brought by his own servant in gaudy livery, which contained pots of ointment, bottles of liquid, and boxes of powders of various sorts and colours, the military man reclined his head on the back of the chair, and having conjured the doctor not to hurt him, opened his mouth, in which the other went to work, with all his filthy mixtures, in such a nauseous manner, that II told him how unreasonable it was to make was obliged to turn away from the sight, or my stomach would certainly have disgorged its contents. This hateful operation, which he called dressing his teeth, took up another half hour. Afterwards, when the horse had recovered his spirits after the fatigue of these two important operations, a third operator entered, more extraordinary in his appearance than all the rest. His hair was tied up in a bush at the back of his head as big as a horse's tail. His coat had been green and bound with gold; his waistcoat had been blue with holes of silver, both covered so thick with meal that it was difficult to distinguish their colours. In a word there was nothing natural, nothing of a piece about him. He no sooner entered than, advancing to the gentleman with an air of familiarity, he threw a loose robe over his shoulders, which covered him all over, and then taking off his coif, immediately dishevelled his hair in such a manner that he looked like one of the frantic votaries of the idol Wissnar, when, clearing out of VOL. II. me wait. But allons! we will soon bring up our lost time." I was utterly at a loss to conceive what lesson of sufficient importance to interfere with the business of the state this extraordinary personage could have to teach the minister; but I was soon informed by his present pupil's telling him that it was not in his power to attend to him then, as he was just going out, and therefore that he would only practise the bow at entrance and departure, and walk one turn round the room. The man of mode instantly took his pupil by the hand, and leading him into the middle of the room, humming a tune as nurses do to infants when they are first coaxing them to walk, he taught him to scrape his feet upon the floor, and bend his body into half a score antic postures; and then leading him to the door, walked off with a smile of affected approbation. This teacher of the feet was succeeded by one for the tongue, but the scholar had not time to do more with him that day, than just 25 to read over a set of polite phrases in the | are the only people in the world who have any language of the French, which the master notion of politeness. Our own are such awkbrought to him for the embellishment of his ward brutes that there is no bearing them. discourse. Give me English soldiers, but French teachers and servants always." The scene was closed by a ferocious-looking fellow, the first sight of whom showed me that he professed the noble science of defence, but he also had come too late. The gentleman, now thinking he had sufficiently displayed his diligence to me, would not run the hazard of disordering his dress by a single posture. All the master was permitted to do for his visit was barely to adjust the hanging of his sword. When his levee was thus dismissed, I could not forbear observing to him that all of them were of the country with which we had so lately been at war. He smiled, and squeezing my hand, "My dear friend," said he, “it is but just to let them earn back some of the money we have taken from them. Besides, the truth is, they He then attended me to the door, when he went into one of the palankeens of this country, to be carried across the street, though the weather was uncommonly fine, while I walked away, sick at the manner in which I had wasted my morning. What thinketh my friend at this mode of life for a military man? Could you have conceived it to be true if I had not in some measure accounted for the reason of it? And are these the soldiers who spread their victories from pole to pole? But they may go too far! The body has greater influence on the mind than is commonly thought or easy to be understood. The effeminacy of the former may affect the latter, and then all their glory will be at an end. ISAAC BICKERSTAFF. BORN 1735 DIED 1800. [Isaac Bickerstaff, a name well known in | compilation of scenes and incidents from a dramatic literature, was born of a respectable number of other plays. But Bickerstaff saw family in the year 1735. In 1746 he became no harm in this, any more than our modern page to Lord Chesterfield when that nobleman adapters do in conveying from the French; and was appointed Lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and if he stole, it must be said he dressed his later on in life he was an officer of marines. kidnapped children in better clothes than From this post he was dismissed for some they possessed before. dishonourable action, when he left his country and died abroad, the exact time and place being both uncertain, although the date of his death is generally said to be 1800. Of comedies, farces, operas, &c., Bickerstaff produced in his time some twenty-two, a large proportion of which were highly successful. His three good old-fashioned English comic operas, Love in a Village, The Maid of the Mill, and Lionel and Clarissa, are declared by a clever yet sober critic to be "of the first class, which will continue to be popular as long as the language in which they are written lasts." Love in a Village, which appeared in 1762, and was played frequently during its first season, had a success nearly as great as The Beggar's Opera of an earlier period. Its reputation is still high, and it is yet retained as a stock piece on the English stage, although it is said to be at best only a clever Of Bickerstaff's farces three at least, The Padlock, The Sultan, and The Spoiled Child, held the stage for a long time, and we ourselves remember seeing The Padlock acted at a country theatre. Though constantly producing light musical pieces, and excelling in them, Bickerstaff only once attempted oratorio. This piece was called Judith, set to music by Dr. Arne, and performed first at the Lock Hospital Chapel in February, 1764, and afterwards revived at the church of Stratford-on-Avon on the occasion of Garrick's foolish "Jubilee in honour of the memory of Shakspere," in 1769. In 1765 The Maid of the Mill was produced at Covent Garden, and ran the unusual period of thirty-five nights. It is chiefly founded on Richardson's novel Pamela, but "divested of the coarse scenes and indecency by which that moral and model lesson, as it has been called, is dis figured." His pieces The Plain Dealer and The Hypocrite, both alterations of other plays, the latter of Colley Cibber's Nonjuror, are well known, and still keep the stage. One of Bickerstaff's best comedies, 'Tis Well it's no Worse, is founded on a Spanish original. Indeed, of all his works, only Lionel and Clarissa can be said to be thoroughly and completely original. Notwithstanding this, however, critics still continue to look on him as one of the most successful writers for the stage, an employment which he followed for over twenty years.] A NOBLE LORD. (FROM "THE MAID OF THE MILL.") [Patty has been educated and brought up by Lord Aimworth's mother, who was very fond of her, and his lordship is equally so.] LORD AIMWORTH and PATTY. Lord Aim. I came hither, Patty, in consequence of our conversation this morning, to render your change of state as agreeable and happy as I could; but your father tells me you have fallen out with the farmer. Has anything happened since I saw you last to alter your good opinion of him? Patty. No, my lord, I am in the same opinion now with regard to the farmer that I always was. myself, of whom I have been too long ignorant. Lord Aim. Perhaps, Patty, you love some one so much above you you are afraid to own it. If so, be his rank what it will he is to be envied: for the love of a woman of virtue, beauty, and sentiment does honour to a monarch. What means that downcast look, those tears, those blushes? Dare you not confide in me? Do you think, Patty, you have a friend in the world would sympathize with you more sincerely than I? Patty. What shall I answer? No, my lord, you have ever treated me with kindness, a generosity of which none but minds like yours are capable. You have been my instructor, my adviser, my protector; but, my lord, you have been too good: when our superiors forget the distance between us, we are sometimes led to forget it too. Had you been less condescending perhaps I had been happier. Lord Aim. And have I, Patty, have I made you unhappy? I, who would sacrifice my own felicity to secure yours? Patty. I beg, my lord, you will suffer me to be gone; only believe me sensible of all your favours, though unworthy of the smallest. Lord Aim. How unworthy! You merit everything; my respect, my esteem, my friendship, and my love! Yes, I repeat, I avow it: your beauty, your modesty, your understanding, have made a conquest of my heart; but what a world do we live in! that while I own this; while I own a passion for you, founded on the Lord Aim. I thought, Patty, you loved him, justest, the noblest basis, I must at the same You told me Patty. My lord! time confess the fear of that world, its taunts, its reproaches. Patty. Ah! sir, think better of the creature you have raised than to suppose I ever entertained a hope tending to your dishonour: would that be a return for the favours I have received? Would that be a grateful reverence Lord Aim. Well, no matter; it seems I have been mistaken in that particular. Possibly your affections are engaged elsewhere. Let me but know the man that can make you happy and I swearPatty. Indeed, my lord, you take too much for the memory of her? Pity and pardon the trouble upon my account. Lord Aim. Perhaps, Patty, you love somebody so much beneath you you are ashamed to own it, but your esteem confers a value wherever it is placed. I was too harsh with you this morning; our inclinations are not in our own power, they master the wisest of us. Patty. Pray, pray, my lord, talk not to me in this style. Consider me as one destined by birth and fortune to the meanest condition and offices, who has unhappily been apt to imbibe sentiments contrary to them! Let me conquer a heart where pride and vanity have usurped an improper rule; and learn to know disturbance of a mind that fears to inquire too minutely into its own sensations. I am unfortunate, my lord, but not criminal. Lord Aim. Patty, we are both unfortunate; for my own part, I know not what to say to you, or what to propose to myself. Patty. Then, my lord, 'tis mine to act as I ought. Yet while I am honoured with a place in your esteem, imagine me not insensible of so high a distinction, or capable of lightly turning my thoughts towards another. Lord Aim. How cruel is my situation! I am here, Patty, to command you to marry the man who has given you so much uneasiness. Patty. My lord, I am convinced it is for your credit and my safety it should be so. I hope I have not so ill profited by the lessons of your noble mother but I shall be able to do my duty whenever I am called to it; this will be my first support, time and reflection will complete the work. [The farmer refuses to marry Patty because of hearing some scandal whispered as to her intimacy with Lord Aimworth. Fairfield, Patty's father, takes her up to the nobleman's house to complain of the slight, much against her will.] Lord Aim. (On hearing it says.) I am sorry, Patty, you have had this mortification. Patty. I am sorry, my lord, you have been troubled about it, but really it was against my Fair. Your honour is to do as you please. Lord Aim. What say you, Patty, will accept of a husband of my choosing? you Patty. My lord, I have no determinations; you are the best judge how I ought to act; whatever you command, I shall obey. Lord Aim. Then, Patty, there is but one person I can offer you, and I wish for your sake he was more deserving. Take me. Patty. Sir! Lord Aim. From this moment our interests are one, as our hearts, and no earthly power shall ever divide us. Fair. "O the gracious!" Patty-my lord -did I hear right! You sir, you marry a child of mine? Lord Aim. Yes, my honest old man, in me you behold the husband designed for your daughter; and I am happy that by standing in the place of fortune, who has alone been wanting to her, I shall be able to set her merit in a light where its lustre will be rendered conspicuous. Fair. But good noble sir, pray consider, don't go to put upon a silly old man, my daughter is unworthy. Patty, child, why don't you speak? Patty. What can I say, father! what answer to such unlooked for, such unmerited, such unbounded generosity!-Yes, sir, as my father says, consider your noble friends, your relations; it must not, cannot be. Lord Aim. It must, and shall. Friends! relations! from henceforth I have none that will not acknowledge you; and I am sure, when they become acquainted with your perfections, those whose suffrage I most esteem will rather admire the justice of my choice, than wonder at its singularity. HOIST WITH HIS OWN PETARD. (FROM "LIONEL AND CLARISSA.”) [Harman, who is a younger son of a good family and poor, makes the acquaintance of Colonel Oldboy's daughter Diana in London, and they fall in love. Harman manages to get an introduction from a friend, and comes down to the Colonel's country-house. He tells him all about his being in love, and his dread of the father refusing his consent because of his poverty, but of course conceals the name of the lady. On being pressed to name her he says she does not live far distant. The Colonel, who delights in a bit of intrigue, takes the matter in hand and urges Harman on as follows.] HARMAN and DIANA in conference. DIANA leaves by one door as COLONEL OLDBOY enters by another. Col. Heyday! What's the meaning of this? Who is it went out of the room there? Have you and my daughter been in conference, Mr. Harman? Har. Yes, faith, sir; she has been taking me to task here very severely with regard to this affair. And she has said so much against it, and put it into such a strange light Col. A busy, impertinent baggage! Egad! I wish I had catched her meddling, and after I ordered her not! But you have sent to the girl, and you say she is ready to go with you. You must not disappoint her now. Har. No, no, Colonel; I always have politeness enough to hear a lady's reasons; but constancy enough to keep a will of my own. Col. Very well; now let me ask you, Don't you think it would be proper, upon this occasion, to have a letter ready writ for the father, to let him know who has got his daughter, and so forth? Har. Certainly, sir; and I'll write it directly. Col. You write it! You be d- -d! I won't trust you with it! I tell you, Harman, you'll commit some cursed blunder if you don't leave the management of this whole affair to me. I have writ the letter for you myself. Har. Have you, sir? Col. Ay! Here, read it. I think it's the thing. However, you are welcome to make any alteration. Har. (Reads.) "Sir, I have loved your daughter a great while secretly. She assures me there is no hopes of your consenting to our marriage; I, therefore, take her without it. I am a gentleman who will use her well. And, when you consider the matter, I dare swear you will be willing to give her a fortune; if not, you shall find I dare behave myself like a man. A word to the wise. You must expect to hear from me in another style." Col. Now, sir, I will tell you what you must do with this letter. As soon as you have got off with the girl, sir, send your servant back to leave it at the house, with orders to have it delivered to the old gentleman. Har. Upon my honour, I will, Colonel. Col. But, upon my honour, I don't believe you'll get the girl. Come, Harman; I'll bet you a buck and six dozen of Burgundy that you won't have spirit enough to bring this affair to a crisis! Har. And I say, done first, Colonel. Col. Then look into the court there, sir: a chaise, with four of the prettiest bay geldings in England, with two boys in scarlet and silver jackets, that will whisk you along. Har. Boys, Colonel! Little cupids to transport me to the summit of my desires! Col. Ay; but, for all that, it mayn't be amiss for me to talk to them a little out of the window for you. Dick, come hither. You are to go with this gentleman, and do whatever he bids you; and take into the chaise whoever he pleases; and drive like devils; do you hear? But be kind to the dumb beasts. Har. Leave that to me, sir. And so, my dear Colonel[Bows and exit. [The result of the Colonel's advice is as follows. Mr. Jessamy is the Colonel's son, who has been reared by an uncle, and whose name he has adopted.] Enter a Servant. Col. How now, you scoundrel, what do you want? Ser. A letter, sir. Col. A letter from whom, sirrah? Ser. The gentleman's servant, an't please your honour, that left this just now in the post-chaise; the gentleman my young lady went away with. Col. Your young lady, sirrah! Your young lady went away with no gentleman, you dog. What gentleman? What young lady, sirrah? Mr. Jes. There is some mystery in this. With your leave, sir, I'll open the letter: I believe it contains no secrets. Col. What are you going to do, you jackanapes? You sha'n't open a letter of mine. Di-Diana. Somebody call my daughter to me there. (Reads.) "To John Oldboy, Esq. Sir, I have loved your daughter a great while secretly-consenting to our marriage—” Mr. Jes. So, so. Col. You villain! you dog! what is it you have brought me here? Ser. Please your honour, if you'll have patience I'll tell your honour. As I told your honour before, the gentleman's servant that went off just now in the post-chaise came to the gate, and left it after his master was gone. I saw my young lady go into the chaise with the gentleman. Mr. Jes. (Takes up the letter the Colonel has thrown down.) Why, this is your own hand. Col. Call all the servants in the house, let horses be saddled directly; every one take a different road. Ser. Why, your honour, Dick said it was by your own orders. Col. My orders! you rascal? I thought he was going to run away with another gentleman's daughter. Di-Diana Oldboy. [Exit Servant. Mr. Jes. Don't waste your lungs to no purpose, sir; your daughter is half a dozen miles off by this time. Col. Sirrah, you have been bribed to further the scheme of a pickpocket here. Mr. Jes. Besides, the matter is entirely of your own contriving, as well as the letter and spirit of this elegant epistle. Col. You are a coxcomb, and I'll disinherit you; the letter is none of my writing; it was writ by the devil, and the devil contrived it. Diana, Margaret, my lady Mary, William, John [Exit. |