“Are you acquainted with my friend here?—but of course you can scarcely be; you began too early as a soldier. So let me present you to my friend, Mr. Tierney,” a middle-aged man, whose broad, white forehead and deep-set eyes gave a character to features that were otherwise not remarkable in expression, and who bowed rather stiffly.
Before he had concluded a somewhat labored compliment to me, we were joined by a third person, whose strikingly-handsome features were lit up with an expression of the most animated kind. He accosted the Prince with an air of easy familiarity, and while he led him from the group, appeared to be relating some anecdote which actually convulsed his Royal Highness with laughter.
Before I had time or opportunity to inquire who the individual could be, dinner was announced, and the wide folding-doors being thrown open, displayed the magnificent dining-room of Carlton House in all the blaze and splendor of its magnificence.
The sudden change from the rough vicissitudes of campaigning life to all the luxury and voluptuous elegance of a brilliant court, created too much confusion in my mind to permit of my impressions being the most accurate or most collected. The splendor of the scene, the rank, but even more the talent of the individuals by whom I was surrounded, had all their full effect upon me. And although I found, from the tone of the conversation about, how immeasurably I was their inferior, yet by a delicate and courteous interest in the scene of which I had lately partaken, they took away the awkwardness which in some degree was inseparable from the novelty of my position among them.
Conversing about the Peninsula with a degree of knowledge which I could in no wise comprehend from those not engaged in the war, they appeared perfectly acquainted with all the details of the campaign; and I heard on every side of me anecdotes and stories which I scarcely believed known beyond the precincts of a regiment. The Prince himself—the grace and charm of whose narrative talents have seldom been excelled—was particularly conspicuous, and I could not help feeling struck with his admirable imitations of voice and manner. The most accomplished actor could not have personated the canny, calculating spirit of the Scot, or the rollicking recklessness of the Irishman, with more tact and finesse. But far above all this, shone the person I have already alluded to as speaking to his Royal Highness in the drawing-room. Combining the happiest conversational eloquence with a quick, ready, and brilliant fancy, he threw from him in all the careless profusion of boundless resource a shower of pointed and epigrammatic witticisms. Now illustrating a really difficult subject by one happy touch, as the blaze of the lightning will light up the whole surface of the dark landscape beneath it; now turning the force of an adversary’s argument by some fallacious but unanswerable jest, accompanying the whole by those fascinations of voice, look, gesture, and manner which have made those who once have seen, never able to forget Brinsley Sheridan.
I am not able, were I even disposed, to record more particularly the details of that most brilliant evening of my life. On every side of me I heard the names of those whose fame as statesmen or whose repute as men of letters was ringing throughout Europe. They were then, too, not in the easy indolence of ordinary life, but displaying with their utmost effort those powers of wit, fancy, imagination, and eloquence which had won for them elsewhere their high and exalted position. The masculine understanding and powerful intellect of Tierney vied with the brilliant and dazzling conceptions of Sheridan. The easy bonhomie and English heartiness of Fox contrasted with the cutting sarcasm and sharp raillery of O’Kelly. While contesting the palm with each himself, the Prince evinced powers of mind and eloquent facilities of expression that, in any walk of life, must have made their possessor a most distinguished man. Politics, war, women, literature, the turf, the navy, the opposition, architecture, and the drama, were all discussed with a degree of information and knowledge that proved to me how much of real acquirements can be obtained by those whose exalted station surrounds them with the collective intellect of a nation. As for myself, the time flew past unconsciously. So brilliant a display of all that was courtly and fascinating in manner, and all that was brightest in genius, was so novel to me, that I really felt like one entranced. To this hour, my impression, however confused in details, is as vivid as though that evening were but yesternight; and although since that period I have enjoyed numerous opportunities of meeting with the great and the gifted, yet I treasure the memory of that evening as by far the most exciting of my whole life.
While I abstain from any mention of the many incidents of the evening, I cannot pass over one which, occurring to myself, is valuable but as showing, by one slight and passing trait, the amiable and kind feeling of one whose memory is hallowed in the service.
A little lower than myself, on the opposite side of the table, I perceived an old military acquaintance whom I had first met in Lisbon. He was then on Sir Charles Stewart’s staff, and we met almost daily. Wishing to commend myself to his recollection, I endeavored for some time to catch his eye, but in vain; but at last when I thought I had succeeded, I called to him,—
“I say, Fred, a glass of wine with you.”
When suddenly the Duke of York, who was speaking to Lord Hertford, turned quickly round, and taking the decanter in his hand, replied,—