Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 342, April, 1844

"And you'll plead my cause—you'll speak in the proper quarter?"

"Certainly, you may consider it all arranged."

"But secretly, quietly, no blabbing—these matters are always best done without noise. I would even keep it from my daughters' knowledge, till we are quite prepared to reveal it in all its charms."

"It is indeed a masterpiece—a chef-d'oeuvre—beauty and expression unequaled."

"I flatter myself I am a bit of a judge; and when I have had it in my possession for a short time, I will let you know the result."

The party were now about to break up.

"Them's uncomming pleasant little meetings, arn't them?" said Mr Whalley to one of the middle-aged spinsters who had been present at dinner; "and I thinks this one is like to have a very favourable conclusion."

"Miss Hendy?" enquired the spinster in breathless anticipation.

"Jist so," responded the other—"there can't be no mystery no longer, and they'll be off for France in a few days."

"For France?—gracious! how do you know?"

"I hear'd Mr Bristles, which is their confidant, say something about a chay and Dover. In cooss they will go that way to Boulogne."

Oh, Mæcenas! is there no difference between the chef-d'oeuvre of the great Stickleback, and the town of Dover and a post-chaise.

CHAPTER V

In a week after these events, six or seven gentlemen were gathered round a table in a room very near the skylight in the Minerva chambers. Our former acquaintance, Mr Bristles, whose name shone in white paint above the entrance door, was evidently strongly impressed with the dignity of his position; and as in the pauses of conversation he placed the pen he was using transversely in his mouth, and turned over the pages of various books on the table before him, it will be seen that he presided not at a feast of substantial meat and drink, but at one of those regular "feasts and flows" which the great Mr Pitskiver was in the habit of alluding to, in describing the intellectual treats of which he was so prodigious a glutton.

"What success, Sidsby?" enquired Bristles with a vast appearance of interest.

"None at all," replied the successful dramatist, or, in other words, the long-backed Ticket to whom we were introduced at the commencement of the story. "I have no invitation to dinner yet, and Sophy thinks he has forgotten me."

"That's odd—very odd," mused Mr Bristles, "for I don't know that I ever praised any one half so highly before, not even Stickleback; and the first act was really superb. It took me a whole week to write it."

"But I did not understand some parts of it, and I am afraid I spoiled it in the reading. But Sophy was enchanted with the poem you made me copy."

"A sensible girl; but how to get at the father is the thing. I have mentioned a few of the perfections of our friend Miss Hendy to him in a way that I think will stick. If we could get her good word."

"Oh, she's very good!" replied Sidsby, "she says I'm far above Lord Byron and Thomas Moore."

"Why not? haven't I told you to say, wherever you go, that she is above Corinne?"

"Ah," said Sidsby, "but what's the use of all this to me? I am a wine-merchant, not a poet; my uncle will soon take me into partnership, and when they find out that I know no more about literature than a pig, what an impostor they'll think me!"

"Not more of an impostor than half the other literary men of the day, who have got praised into fame as you have, by judicious and disinterested friends. No: you must still go on. I shall have the second act ready for you next week, and you can make it six dozen of sherry instead of three. You must please the girl first, and get at the father afterwards. She's of a decidedly intellectual turn, and has four thousand pounds in her own right."

"I don't believe she is more intellectual than myself; but that silly old noodle, her father"—

"Stop!" exclaimed Bristles in great agitation, "this is against all rule. Mr Pitskiver is our friend—a man of the profoundest judgment and most capacious understanding. I doubt whether a greater judge of merit ever existed than Mr Pitskiver."

"Hear, hear!" resounded in various degrees of intensity all round the table.

"Well, all I can say is this—that if I don't get on by shamming cleverness, I'll try what open honesty will do, and follow Bill Whalley's advice."

"Bill Whalley! who is he?" asked Bristles with a sneer.

"Son of the old Tom Noddy you make such a precious fool of."

"Mr Whalley of the Boro' is our friend, Mr Sidsby—a man of the profoundest judgment and most capacious understanding. I doubt whether a greater judge of merit ever existed than Mr Whalley of the Boro'."

"Hear hear!" again resounded; and Mr Sidsby, shaking his head, said no more, but looked as sulky as his naturally good-tempered features would let him.

"And now, Stickleback," said Mr Bristles—"I am happy to tell you your fortune is made; your fame will rise higher and higher."

A little dark-complexioned man with very large mouth and very flat nose, looked a little disdainful at this speech, which to any one else would have sounded like a compliment.

"I always knew that merit such as I felt I possessed, would force its way, in spite of envy and detraction," he said.

"We have an uphill fight of it, I assure you," rejoined Mr Bristles; "but by dint of throwing it on pretty thick, we are in hopes some of it will stick."

"Now, Mr Bristles," resumed the artist, "I don't at all like the style you talk in to me. You always speak as if my reputation had been made by your praises. Now, talents such as mine"—

"Are very high, my good sir; no one who reads the Universal doubts that fact for a moment."

"Talents, I say, such as mine," pursued Mr Stickleback, "were sure to raise me to the highest honours; and it is too bad for you to claim all the merit of my success."

"Not I; but all our friends here," said Bristles. "For two years we have done nothing but praise you wherever we went. Haven't we sneered at Bailey, and laughed at the ancient statues? Who wrote the epigram on Thorwaldsen—was it not our friend now present, Mr Banks? a gentleman, I must say, perfectly unequaled in the radiance of his wit and the delicious pungency of his satire. Without us, what would you have been?"

"Exactly what I am. The only sculptor worth a sixpence since the fine arts were invented," replied the self-satisfied Mr Stickleback.

"No," said Mr Bristles; "since you force us to tell you what we have done for you, I will mention it. We have persuaded all our friends, we have even persuaded yourself, that you have some knowledge of sculpture; whereas every one who follows his own judgment, and is not led astray by our puffs, must see that you could not carve an old woman's face out of a radish; that you are fit for nothing with the chisel but to smooth gravestones, and cut crying cherubs over a churchyard door; that your donkey"—

"Well, what of my donkey, as you call it?" cried the enraged sculptor, "I have heard you praise it a thousand times."

"Of course you have; but do you think I meant it?"

"As much as I meant what I said, when I praised some of your ridiculous rubbish in the Universal."

"Oh, indeed! Then you think my writings ridiculous rubbish?"

"Yes—I do—very ridiculous rubbish."

"Then let me tell you, Mr Stickleback, you are about as good a critic as a sculptor. My writings, sir, are universally appreciated. To find fault with them shows you are unfit for our acquaintance; and with regard to Mr Pitskiver's recommendation to the city building committee, and your donkey to adorn the pediment of the Mansion-house—you have of course given up all hopes of any interest I may possess."

"Gentlemen," said a young man with small piercing eyes and a rather dirty complexion, with long hair rolling over the collar of his coat—"are you not a little premature in shivering the friendship by a blow of temper which had been consolidated by several years of mutual reciprocity?"

"Silence, Snooksby!—I have been insulted. I was ever a foe to ingratitude, and grievous shall the expiation be," replied Bristles.

"I now address myself to you, sir," continued Snooksby, turning to the wrathful sculptor, whose wrath, however, had begun to evaporate in reflecting on the diminished chance of the promotion so repeatedly promised by Mr Bristles for his donkey; "and I feel on this momintous occasion, that it is my impiritive duty to endeavour to reinimite the expiring imbers of amity, and re-knit the relaxed cords of unanimity. Mr Stickleback, you were wrong—decidedly, powerfully, undeniably wrong—in denominiting the splindid lucibritions of our illustrious friend by the name of ridiculous rubbish. Apoligise, apoligise, apoligise; and I know too well the glowing sympithies of that philinthripic heart to doubt for a moment that its vibrations will instantly beat in unisin with yours."

"I never meant to call his writings rubbish," said the subdued sculptor. "I know he's the greatest writer in England."

"And you, my dear Stickleback, the greatest sculptor the world has ever seen!" exclaimed the easily propitiated critic. "Why will you doubt my respect, my admiration of your surpassing talent? Let us understand each other better—we shall both be ever indebted to the eloquent Mr Snooksby—(may he soon get on the vestry, the object of his inadequate ambition;) for a speech more refulgent in simple pathos, varied metaphor, and conclusive reasoning, it has not been my good fortune to hear. When our other friends leave me, Stickleback, I hope you will stay for half an hour. I have a most important secret to confide to you, and a favour to ask."

The hint seemed to be sufficient. The rest of the party soon retired; and Bristles and Stickleback began their confidential conclave.

CHAPTER VI

But another confidential conclave, of rather a more interesting nature to the parties concerned, took place three days after these occurrences in the shady walk in St James's Park. Under the trees sauntered four people—equally divided—a lady and a gentleman; the ladies brilliantly dressed, stout, and handsome—the gentlemen also in the most fashionable costume: one tall and thin, the long-backed Ticket; and the other short and amazingly comfortable-looking, Mr William Whalley—for shortness called Bill. Whether, while he admired the trunks of the old elms, he calculated what would be their value in deals, this narrative disdains to mention; but it feels by no means bound to retain the same cautious reserve with regard to his sentiments while he gazed into the eyes of Emily Pitskiver. He thought them beautiful eyes; and if they had been turned upon you with the same loving, trusting expression, ten to one you would have thought them beautiful too. The other pair seemed equally happy.

"So you don't like me the worse," said Mr Sidsby, "now that you know I am not a poet?"

"I don't know how it is, but I don't think I care for poetry now at all," replied the lady. "In fact, I suppose my passion for it was never real, and I only fancied I was enchanted with it from hearing papa and Mr Bristles perpetually raving about strength and genius. Is Miss Hendy a really clever woman?"

"A genuine humbug, I should say—gooseberry champagne at two shillings a bottle," was the somewhat professional verdict on Miss Hendy's claims.

"Oh! you shouldn't talk that way of Miss Hendy—who knows but she may be my mamma soon?"

"He can never be such a confounded jackass!" said Mr Sidsby, without giving a local habitation or a name to the personal pronoun he.

"He loses his daughters, I can tell him," said Miss Sophy with a toss of her head, that set all the flowers on the top of her bonnet shaking—"Emily and I are quite resolved on that."

"But what can you do?" enquired the gentleman, who did not appear to be very nearly akin to Œdipus.

"Do? Why, don't we get possession of mamma's fortune if he marries; and can't we—oh, you've squeezed my ring into my finger!"

"My dear Sophy, I was only trying to show you how much I admired your spirit. I hope he'll marry Miss Hendy with all my heart."

When a conversation has got to this point, a chronicle of any pretensions to respectability will maintain a rigid silence; and we will therefore only observe, that by the time Mr William Whalley and Emily had come to Marlborough House, their conversation had arrived at a point where discretion becomes as indispensably a chronicler's duty as in the case of the other couple.

"We must get home," said Sophy.

"Why should you go yet? There is no chance of your father being back from the city for hours to come."

"Oh! but we must get home. We have been out a long time." And so saying, she led the way up the steps by the Duke of York's column, followed by her sister and her swain—and attended at a respectful distance by a tall gentleman with an immense gold-headed walking-stick, displaying nether integuments of the brightest red, and white silk stockings of unexampled purity. The reader, if he had heard the various whispered allusions to different dishes, such as "sheep's head," "calf's foot jelly," "rhubarb tart," and "toasted cheese," would have been at no loss to recognise the indignant Daggles, whose culinary vocabulary it seemed impossible to exhaust. He followed, watching every motion of the happy couples. "Well, if this ain't too bad!—I've a great mind to tell old Pits how them disgusting saussingers runs after his mince-pies—meets 'em in the Park; gallivants with them under the trees as if they was ortolans and beccaficas; bills and coos with 'em as if they was real turtles and punch à la Romaine. How the old cucumber would flare up! Up Regent Street, along Oxford Street, through the square, up to our own door. Well, blowed if that ain't a good one! Into the very house they goes; up stairs to the drawing-room. O Lord! that there should be such impudence in beefsteaks and ingans! They couldn't be more audacious if they was Perigord pies."

CHAPTER VII

Half an hour passed—an hour—and yet the conversation was flowing on as briskly as ever. Mr Bill Whalley had explained the exact difference between Norway and Canada timber, greatly to Miss Emily's satisfaction; and Miss Sophia had again and again expressed her determination to leave the house the moment Miss Hendy entered it; and both the young ladies had related the energetic language in which they had expressed this resolution to their father, and threatened him with immediate desertion if he didn't cut that horrid old schoolmistress at once. The same speeches about happiness and simple cottages, with peace and contentment, had been made a dozen time over by all parties, when the great clock in the hall—a Dutch pendule, inserted in a statue of Time—struck three o'clock, and at the same moment a loud rap was heard at the front door.

"Who can it be?" exclaimed Miss Sophia. "It isn't papa's knock;"—and hiding her face in the thick hydrangia which filled the drawing-room window, she gazed down to catch a glimpse of the entrance steps. She only saw the top of a large wooden case, and the white hat of a gentleman who rested his hand on the burden, and was giving directions to the bearers to be very careful how they carried it up stairs.

Mr Whalley started up, as did Mr Sidsby, in no small alarm. "I wouldn't be found here for half-a-crown," said the former gentleman: "old father would shake his head into a reg'lar palsy if he knew I was philandering here, when the Riga brig is unloading at the wharf."

"Let us go into the back drawing-room," suggested one of the young ladies, "and you can get out quite easily when the parcel, whatever it is, is delivered." They accordingly retired to the back drawing-room, and in a few minutes had the satisfaction of hearing heavy steps on the stairs, and the voice of the redoubtable Mr Bristles saying, "Gently, gently,—I have no hesitation in stating, that you were never entrusted with so valuable a burden before. Deposit it with gentleness on the large table in the middle; and, you may now boast, that your hands have borne the noblest specimen of grace and genius that modern ages have produced."

"It's that everlasting donkey papa is always talking about!" whispered Sophia.

"If it's Stickleback's statue," said Mr William Whalley, "the little vagabond promised the first sight of it to old father. He'll be in a precious stew when he finds his rival has been beforehand!"

The porters now apparently retired, and the youthful prisoners in the back drawing-room tried to effect their escape by the door which opened on the stairs; but, alas! it was locked on the outside, and it was evident, from the soliloquy of Mr Bristles, that their retreat was cut off through the front room. A knock—the well-known rat, tat, tat, of the owner of the mansion—now completed their perplexity; and, in a moment more, they heard the steps of several persons rushing up stairs.

"Mr Pitskiver!" exclaimed Bristles in intense agitation, "you have surely forgotten our agreement—Snooksby! Butters! Banks! Why, I am quite overpowered with the surprise! It was to have been alone, without witnesses; or at most, in my presence. But so public!"

"Never mind, my dear Bristles. Why should I conceal my triumph—my happiness—the boast and gratification of my future days? Let us open the casket that enshrines such unequaled merits."

"If you really wish for no further secresy," replied Mr Bristles.

"Certainly! Don't I know that that case contains a masterpiece, softly sweet and beautifully feminine, as a talented friend of ours would say?"

"An exquisite woman, indeed!" said Bristles; "and a truly talented friend. The case, as you justly observe," proceeded the critic, while he untied the cords, "contains the most glorious manifestation of the softening influences of sex."

"It's a pity she's an ass," suggested Mr Pitskiver. "I can't help thinking that that's a drawback."

"What?—what is a drawback, my dear sir?"

"That femininity, as Miss Hendy calls it, should be brought so prominently forward in the person of an ass."

"An ass?—I don't understand! Are you serious?"

"Serious! to be sure, my dear Bristles. In spite of all efforts to assume an intellectual expression, the donkey, depend upon it, preponderates—the long visage, the dull eyes, the crooked legs—it is impossible to perceive any grace in such a wretched animal. I can't help thinking that if it had been a young girl you had brought me—say, a sleeping nymph—full of youth and beauty, 'twould have been a vast improvement on the scraggy jeanie contained in this box. But clear away, Bristles, we are all impatience."

"My dear sir—Mr Pitskiver—unaccustomed as I am, his I can truly say is the most uncomfortable moment of my life."

"Why, what's the matter with you, Bristles, can't you untie the string?"—"Here," continued Mr Pitskiver, "give me the cord," and so saying he untwisted it in a moment—down fell the side of the case, and to the astonished eyes of the assembled critics, and also of the party in the back drawing-room, revealed, not the masterpiece of the immortal Stickleback, but a female figure enveloped in a grey silk cloak, and covering its face with a white muslin handkerchief.

"Why, what the mischief is all this?" exclaimed the bewildered Mr Pitskiver; "this isn't the jeanie-ass you promised me a sight of. Who the deuce is this?"

The handkerchief was majestically removed, and the sharp eyes of Miss Hendy fixed in unspeakable disdain on the assembled party.

"'Tis I, base man! Are all your protestations of admiration come to this? Who shall doubt hereafter that it is the task of noble, gentle, self-denying woman to elevate society?"

A smothered but very audible laugh proceeding from the back drawing-room, interrupted the further eloquence of the regenerator of mankind; and, finding concealment useless, the two young ladies threw open the door, and advanced with their attendant lovers to the table. The female philosopher, with the assistance of Mr Bristles, descended from her lofty pedestal, and looked unutterable basilisks at the open-mouthed Mæcenas, who turned his eyes from the wooden box to Miss Hendy, and from Miss Hendy to the wooden box, without trusting himself with a word of either explanation or enquiry.

"We told you of our intentions, papa," said Miss Sophia, "if you brought that old lady to your house."

"I didn't bring her; I give you my honour 'twas that scoundrel Bristles," whispered the dismayed Pitskiver.

"You told me sir," exclaimed Bristles, "that you would be for ever indebted to me if I brought this lady to your mansion—that she was the perfection of grace and innocence. By a friendly arrangement with Mr Stickleback, the greatest sculptor of ancient or modern times, I managed to secure to this illustrious woman an admission to your house, which, I understood, she could not openly obtain through the opposition of your daughters. I considered that you knew of the arrangement, sir; and I know that, with a soft and feminine trustfulness, this most gentle and intellectual ornament of her sex and species consented to meet the wish you had so ardently expressed."

"I never had a wish of the kind," cried Mr Pitskiver; "and I believe you talking fellows and chattering women are all in a plot to make me ridiculous. I won't stand it any longer."

"Stand what?" enquired Mr Bristles, knitting his brows.

"Your nonsensical praises of each other—your boastings of Sticklebacks, and Snooksbys, and Bankses; a set of mere humbugs and blockheads! And even this foolish woman, with her femininities and re-invigorating society, I believe to be a regular quack. By dad! one would think there had never been a woman in the world before."

"Your observations are uncalled for"—

"By no manner of means," continued the senior, waxing bolder from the sound of his own voice. "I believe you're in a conspiracy to puff each other into reputation; and, if possible, get hold of some silly fellow's daughters. But no painting, chiseling, writing, or sonneteering blackguard, shall ever catch a girl of mine. What the deuce brings you here, sir?" he added, fiercely turning to Mr Sidsby. "You're the impostor that read the first act of a play"—

"I read it, sir," said the youth, "but didn't write a word of it, I assure you. Bristles is the author, and I gave him six dozen of sherry."

"No indeed, papa; he never wrote a line in his life," said Sophia.

"Then he may have you if he likes."

"Nor I, except in the ledger," modestly observed Mr Bill Whalley.

"Then take Emily with all my heart. Here, Daggles," he continue, ringing the bell, "open the street-door, and show these parties out!"

Amidst muttered threats, fierce looks, and lips contorted into all modes and expression of indignation, the guests speedily disappeared. And while Mr Pitskiver, still panting from his exertions, related to his daughters and their enchanted partners his grounds for anger at the attempt to impose Miss Hendy on him instead of a statue, Mr Daggles shut the front door in great exultation as the last of the intruders vanished, and said—

"Snipe, old Pits may do after all. He ain't a bad round of beef; and I almost like our two mutton-chops, since they have freed the house from such shocking sour-crouts and watery taties as I have just flinged into the street."

But it was impossible to convert the great Mr Bristles to the belief into which his quondam follower, Mr Pitskiver, had fallen as to the qualities of Miss Hendy. That literary gentleman had too just a perception of the virtues of the modern Corinne, and of a comfortable house at Hammersmith, with an income of seven hundred a-year, to allow them to waste their sweetness on some indecent clown, unqualified by genius and education to appreciate them. The result of this resolution was seen in a very few days after the interesting scene in Harley Street; and the following announcement in the newspapers will put our readers in as full a state of knowledge as we can boast of being in ourselves:—