“Sorrow a bit for the matter o’ that: my master is never ill to a jontleman.”
And with this assurance “the Beau’s keeper” ushered me up a splendid staircase into a large, dreary, faded apartment, and left me to amuse myself with the curiosities within, while he went to perform a cure upon his master’s “megrims.” The chamber, suiting with the house and the owner, looked like a place in the other world set apart for the reception of the ghosts of departed furniture. The hangings were wan and colourless; the chairs and sofas were most spiritually unsubstantial; the mirrors reflected all things in a sepulchral sea-green; even a huge picture of Mr. Fielding himself, placed over the chimney-piece, seemed like the apparition of a portrait, so dim, watery, and indistinct had it been rendered by neglect and damp. On a huge tomb-like table in the middle of the room, lay two pencilled profiles of Mr. Fielding, a pawnbroker’s ticket, a pair of ruffles, a very little muff, an immense broadsword, a Wycherley comb, a jackboot, and an old plumed hat; to these were added a cracked pomatum-pot containing ink, and a scrap of paper, ornamented with sundry paintings of hearts and torches, on which were scrawled several lines in a hand so large and round that I could not avoid seeing the first verse, though I turned away my eyes as quickly as possible; that verse, to the best of my memory, ran thus: “Say, lovely Lesbia, when thy swain.” Upon the ground lay a box of patches, a periwig, and two or three well thumbed books of songs. Such was the reception-room of Beau Fielding, one indifferently well calculated to exhibit the propensities of a man, half bully, half fribble; a poet, a fop, a fighter, a beauty, a walking museum of all odd humours, and a living shadow of a past renown. “There are changes in wit as in fashion,” said Sir William Temple, and he proceeds to instance a nobleman who was the greatest wit of the court of Charles I., and the greatest dullard in that of Charles II.* But Heavens! how awful are the revolutions of coxcombry! what a change from Beau Fielding the Beauty, to Beau Fielding the Oddity!
* The Earl of Norwich.
After I had remained in this apartment about ten minutes, the great man made his appearance. He was attired in a dressing-gown of the most gorgeous material and colour, but so old that it was difficult to conceive any period of past time which it might not have been supposed to have witnessed; a little velvet cap, with a tarnished gold tassel, surmounted his head, and his nether limbs were sheathed in a pair of military boots. In person he still retained the trace of that extraordinary symmetry he had once possessed, and his features were yet handsome, though the complexion had grown coarse and florid, and the expression had settled into a broad, hardy, farcical mixture of effrontery, humour, and conceit.
But how different his costume from that of old! Where was the long wig with its myriad curls? the coat stiff with golden lace? the diamond buttons,—“the pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious war?” the glorious war Beau Fielding had carried on throughout the female world,—finding in every saloon a Blenheim, in every play-house a Ramilies? Alas! to what abyss of fate will not the love of notoriety bring men! to what but the lust of show do we owe the misanthropy of Timon, or the ruin of Beau Fielding!
“By the Lord!” cried Mr. Fielding, approaching, and shaking me familiarly by the hand, “by the Lord, I am delighted to see thee! As I am a soldier, I thought thou wert a spirit, invisible and incorporeal; and as long as I was in that belief I trembled for thy salvation, for I knew at least that thou wert not a spirit of Heaven, since thy door is the very reverse of the doors above, which we are assured shall be opened unto our knocking. But thou art early, Count; like the ghost in ‘Hamlet,’ thou snuffest the morning air. Wilt thou not keep out the rank atmosphere by a pint of wine and a toast?”
“Many thanks to you, Mr. Fielding; but I have at least one property of a ghost, and don’t drink after daybreak.”
“Nay, now, ‘tis a bad rule! a villanous bad rule, fit only for ghosts and graybeards. We youngsters, Count, should have a more generous policy. Come, now, where didst thou drink last night? has the bottle bequeathed thee a qualm or a headache, which preaches repentance and abstinence this morning?”
“No, but I visit my mistress this morning; would you have me smell of strong potations, and seem a worshipper of the ‘Glass of Fashion,’ rather than of ‘the Mould of Form’? Confess, Mr. Fielding, that the women love not an early tippler, and that they expect sober and sweet kisses from a pair ‘of youngsters’ like us.”
“By the Lord,” cried Mr. Fielding, stroking down his comely stomach, “there is a great show of reason in thy excuses, but only the show, not substance, my noble Count. You know me, you know my experience with the women: I would not boast, as I’m a soldier; but ‘tis something! nine hundred and fifty locks of hair have I got in my strong box, under padlock and key; fifty within the last week,—true, on my soul,—so that I may pretend to know a little of the dear creatures; well, I give thee my honour, Count, that they like a royster; they love a fellow who can carry his six bottles under a silken doublet; there’s vigour and manhood in it; and, then, too, what a power of toasts can a six-bottle man drink to his mistress! Oh, ‘tis your only chivalry now,—your modern substitute for tilt and tournament; true, Count, as I am a soldier!”