THE HASTINGS TRIAL AND MR. WINDHAM AGAIN. The part of this month in
which my Susanna was in town I kept no journal at all. And I have now nothing to add but to copy those memorandums I made of the trial on the day I went to Westminster Hall with my two friends,[274] previously to the deep calamity on which I have dwelt. They told me they could not hear what Mr. Windham said; and there is a spirit in his discourse more worth their hearing than any other thing I have now to write.
You may remember his coming straight from the managers, in their first procession to their box, and beginning at once a most animated attack—scarcely waiting first to say “How do!”—before he exclaimed “I have a great quarrel with you—I am come now purposely to quarrel with you—you have done me mischief irreparable—you have ruined me!”
“Have I?”
“Yes: and not only with what passed here, even setting that aside, though there was mischief enough here; but you have quite undone me since!”
I begged him to let me understand how.
“I will,” he cried. “When the trial broke up for the recess I went into the country, purposing to give my whole time to study and business; but, most unfortunately, I had just sent for a new set of ‘Evelina;’ and intending only to look at it, I was so cruelly caught that I could not let it out of my hands, and have been living with nothing but the Branghtons ever since.”
I could not but laugh, though on this subject ’tis always awkwardly.
“There was no parting with it,” he continued. “I could not shake it off from me a moment!—see, then, every way, what mischief you have done me!”
He ran on to this purpose much longer, with great rapidity, and then, suddenly, stopping, again said, “But I have yet another quarrel with you, and one you must answer. How comes it that the moment you have attached us to the hero and the heroine—the instant you have made us cling to them so that there is no getting disengaged—twined, twisted, twirled them round our very heart-strings—how is it that then you make them undergo such persecutions? There is really no enduring their distresses, their Suspenses, their perplexities. Why are you so cruel to all around—to them and their readers?”
I longed to say—Do you object to a persecution?—but I know he spells it prosecution.
I could make no answer: I never can. Talking over one’s own writings seems to me always ludicrous, because it cannot be impartially, either by author or commentator; one feeling, the other fearing, too much for strict truth and unaffected candour.
When we found the subject quite hopeless as to discussion, he changed it, and said “I have lately seen some friends of yours, and I assure you I gave you an excellent character to them: I told them you were firm, fixed, and impenetrable to all conviction.”
An excellent character, indeed! He meant to Mr. Francis and Charlotte.
Then he talked a little of the business of the day and he told me that Mr. Anstruther was to speak.
“I was sure of it,” I cried, “by his manner when he entered the managers’ box. I shall know when you are to speak, Mr. Windham, before I hear you.”
He shrugged his shoulders a little uncomfortably. I asked him to name to me the various managers. He did; adding, “Do you not like to sit here, where you can look down upon the several combatants before the battle?”
When he named Mr. Michael Angelo Taylor, I particularly desired he might be pointed out to me, telling him I had long wished to see him, from the companion given to him in one of the “Probationary Odes,” where they have coupled him with my dear father, most impertinently and unwarrantably.
“That, indeed,” he cried, “is a licentiousness in the press quite intolerable—to attack and involve private characters in their public lampoons! To Dr. Burney they could have no right; but Mr. Michael Angelo Taylor is fair game enough, and likes that or any other way whatever of obtaining notice. You know what Johnson said to Boswell of preserving fame?”
“No.”
“There were but two ways,” he told him, “of preserving; one was by sugar, the other by salt. ‘Now,’ says he, ‘as the sweet way, Bozzy, you are but little likely to attain, I would have you plunge into vinegar, and get fairly pickled at once.’ And such has been the plan of Mr. Michael Angelo Taylor. With the sweet he had, indeed, little chance, so he soused into the other, head over ears.”
We then united forces in repeating passages from various of the “Probationary Odes,” and talking over various of the managers, till Mr. Anstruther was preparing to speak, and Mr. Windham went to his cell.
I am sure you will remember that Mr. Burke came also, and the panic with which I saw him, doubled by my fear lest he should see that panic.
When the speech was over, and evidence was filling up the day’s business, Mr. Windham returned. Some time after, but I have forgotten how, we were agreeing in thinking suspense, and all obscurity, in expectation or in opinion, almost the thing’s most trying to bear in this mortal life, especially where they lead to some evil construction.
“But then,” cried he, “on the other hand, there is nothing so pleasant as clearing away a disagreeable prejudice; nothing SO exhilarating as the dispersion of a black mist, and seeing all that had been black and gloomy turn out bright and fair.”
“That, Sir,” cried I, “is precisely what I expect from thence,” pointing to the prisoner.
What a look he gave me, yet he laughed irresistibly.
“However,” I continued, “I have been putting my expectations from your speech to a kind of test.”
“And how, for heaven’s sake?”
“Why, I have been reading—running over, rather—a set of speeches, in which almost the whole House made a part, upon the India bill; and in looking over those I saw not one that had not in it something positively and pointedly personal, except Mr. Windham’s.”
“O, that was a mere accident.”
“But it was just the accident I expected from Mr. Windham. I do not mean that there was invective in all the others, for in some there was panegyric—plenty! but that panegyric was always so directed as to convey more of severe censure to one party than of real praise to the other. Yours was all to the business, and hence I infer you will deal just so by Mr. Hastings.”
“I believe,” cried he, looking at me very sharp, “you only want to praise me down. You know what it is to skate a man down?”
“No, indeed.”
“Why, to skate a man down is a very favourite diversion among a certain race Of wags. It is only to praise, and extol, and stimulate him to double and treble exertion and effort, till, in order to show his desert of such panegyric, the poor dupe makes so many turnings and windings, and describes circle after circle with such hazardous dexterity, that, at last, down he drops in the midst of his flourishes, to his own eternal disgrace, and their entire content.”
I gave myself no vindication from this charge but a laugh; and we returned to discuss speeches and speakers, and I expressed again my extreme repugnance against all personality in these public harangues, except in simply stating facts. “What say you, then,” cried he, “to Pitt?” He then repeated a warm and animated praise of his powers and his eloquence, but finished with this censure: “He takes not,” cried he, “the grand path suited to his post as prime minister, for he is personal beyond all men; pointed, sarcastic, cutting; and it is in him peculiarly unbecoming. The minister should be always conciliating; the attack, the probe, the invective, belong to the assailant.” Then he instanced Lord North, and said much more on these political matters and maxims than I can possibly write, or could at the time do more than hear; for, as I told him, I not only am no politician, but have no ambition to become one, thinking it by no means a female business.