Macte nova virtute, puer; sic itur ad astra. "In virtue renewed go on; thus to the skies we go."
We are unfeignedly reluctant to check a filial effusion, or to tell disagreeable truths; but there are occasions when a sense of public duty imperatively requires them to be told.
'Why did this exemplary parent die poor? When did he abandon the allurements of a patrician circle? He died poor because he wasted a fine fortune. If he abandoned a patrician circle, it was because he was tired of it, or thought he could make a better thing of democracy. If he conquered his passions, it was, like St Evremond—by indulging them.
'"Honest Tom Duncombe!" We never heard him so designated before except in pleasantry. "As honest as any man living, that is an old man, and not honester than I." We cannot go further than Verges; it is a stretch of charity to go so far when we call to mind the magnificent reversion and the French jobs. A ruined spendthrift, although he may have many good qualities, can never, strictly speaking, be termed honest. It is absurd to say of him that he is nobody's enemy but his own—with family, friends, and tradespeople paying the penalty for his self-indulgence. He must be satisfied to be called honourable—to be charged with no transgression of the law of honour; which Paley defines as "a system of rules constructed by people of fashion, and calculated to facilitate their intercourse with one another, AND FOR NO OTHER PURPOSE."
'There was one quality of honesty, however, which "honest Tom Duncombe" did possess. He was not a hypocrite. He was not devoid of right feeling. He had plenty of good sense; and it would have given him a sickening pang on his death-bed to think that his frailties were to be perpetuated by his descendants; that he was to be pointed out as a shining star to guide, instead of a beacon-fire to warn. "No," he would have said, if he could have anticipated this most ill-chosen, however well-intentioned, tribute, "spare me this terrible irony. Do not provoke the inevitable retort. Say of me, if you must say anything, that I was not a bad man, though an erring one; that I was kindly disposed towards my fellow-creatures; that I did some good in my generation, and was able and willing to do more, but that I heedlessly wasted time, money, health, intellect, personal gifts, social advantages and opportunities; that my career was a failure, and my whole scheme of life a melancholy mistake."'(134)
(134) Times, Jan. 7, 1868.
This is a terrible rejoinder to a son endeavouring to raise a monument to his beloved and respected parent. But, if we will rake up rottenness from the grave—rottenness in which we are interested—we must take our chance whether we shall find a Hamlet who will say, 'Alas! poor Yorick!' and say NO MORE than the musing Dane upon the occasion.
WAS THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON A GAMESTER?
A few years after the battle of Waterloo there appeared a French work entitled 'L'Academie des Jeux, par Philidor,' which was soon translated into English, and here published under the title of 'Rouge et Noir; or, the Academies.' It was a denunciation of gambling in all its varieties, and was, no doubt, well-intentioned. There was, however, in the publication the following astounding statement:—
'Not long ago the carriage of the heir-apparent to the T***** of England, in going to his B****'s levee, was arrested for debt in the open street. That great captain, who gained, if not laurels, an immense treasure, on the plains of Wa****oo, besides that fortune transmitted to him by the English people, was impoverished in a few months by this ignoble passion.'