Old lamps for new

by E. V. Lucas

Mr. Moritz had good fortune, for he heard both Fox and Burke. He writes: “Charles Fox is a short, fat, and gross man, with a swarthy complexion, and dark; and in general he is badly dressed. There certainly is something Jewish in his looks. But upon the whole, he is not an ill-made nor an ill-looking man: and there are many strong marks of sagacity and fire in his eyes. I have frequently heard the people here say, that this same Mr. Fox is as cunning as a fox. Burke is a well-made, tall, upright man, but looks elderly and broken.” Burke was then only fifty-three, but he had just been excluded from the Cabinet.

A few weeks later, on his return to London, Moritz was again in the House to hear the debate on the death of the Marquis of Rockingham. Fox, General Conway, and Burke were the speakers. This is interesting: “Burke now stood up and made a most elegant, though florid speech, in praise of the late Marquis of Rockingham. As he did not meet with sufficient attention, and heard much talking and many murmurs, he said, with much vehemence, and a sense of injured merit, ‘This is not treatment for so old a Member of Parliament as I am, and I will be heard!’ On which there was immediately a most profound silence.”

Living authors seem to have had no interest for Mr. Moritz, and therefore we get no glimpse of Dr. Johnson; but he saw everything else. He went to Ranelagh and Vauxhall; to many of the churches, even preaching in one; to the British Museum and to the theatre, where he was so much taken with a musical farce called “The Agreeable Surprise” that he saw it again and wished to translate it into German. Edwin was the principal comedian. Although the play was good, the audience was very uncivil.

Here again it is not uninstructive to pause and ask ourselves for our views on the London theatre-gallery in 1782. It had not occurred to me that the gods were quite as high-spirited and powerful as Mr. Moritz describes them. In his seat in the pit Mr. Moritz became at once their target; but whether it was because he looked foreign, or because he had the effrontery to be able to afford to sit there, is not explained.

“Often and often, whilst I sat here, did a rotten orange or pieces of the peel of an orange fly past me, or past some of my neighbours, and once one of them actually hit my hat: without my daring to look round, for fear another might then hit me on the face. Besides this perpetual pelting from the gallery, which renders an English play-house so uncomfortable, there is no end to their calling out and knocking with their sticks, till the curtain is drawn up. I saw a miller’s, or a baker’s boy thus, like a huge booby, leaning over the rails and knocking again and again on the outside, with all his might, so that he was seen by everybody, without being in the least ashamed or abashed.

“In the boxes, quite in a corner, sat several servants, who were said to be placed there to keep the seats for the families they served, till they should arrive; they seemed to sit remarkably close and still, the reason of which, I was told, was their apprehension of being pelted; for if one of them dares to look out of the box, he is immediately saluted with a shower of orange peel from the gallery.” And here the London experiences end.

Now for the open road. Having coached to Richmond, Mr. Moritz set out to reach Oxford on foot, sleeping at whatever village he came to at nightfall. But he was not very fortunate, either because he fell among peculiarly rude and inhospitable folk or because his appearance was so odd as to be irresistible. A traveller on foot in this country, he says, “seems to be considered as a sort of wild man, or out-of-the-way being, who is stared at, pitied, suspected and shunned by everybody that meets him. At least this has hitherto been my case, on the road from Richmond to Windsor. When I was tired, I sat down in the shade under the hedges, and read Milton. But this relief was soon rendered disagreeable to me; for those who rode, or drove, past me, stared at me with astonishment; and made many significant gestures, as if they thought my head deranged. So singular must it needs have appeared to them to see a man sitting along the side of a public road, and reading. I therefore found myself obliged, when I wished to rest myself and read, to look out for a retired spot in some by-lane or cross-road.

“Many of the coachmen who drove by called out to me, ever and anon, and asked if I would not ride on the outside; and when, every now and then, a farmer on horseback met me, he said, and seemingly with an air of pity for me, ‘’Tis warm walking, sir!’ and when I passed through a village, every old woman testified her pity by an exclamation of ‘Good God!’”

His troubles continued, for an Eton inn refused to admit him at all, and the servants at the Windsor inn did all they could to make him uncomfortable. He had his revenge, however. “As I was going away, the waiter, who had served me with so very ill a grace, placed himself on the stairs, and said, ‘Pray remember the waiter!’ I gave him three halfpence: on which he saluted me with the heartiest ‘G—d d——n you, sir!’ I had ever heard. At the door stood the cross maid, who also accosted me with ‘Pray remember the chambermaid!’—‘Yes, yes,’ said I, ‘I shall long remember your most ill-mannered behaviour and shameful incivility’; and so I gave her nothing. I hope she was stung and nettled by my reproof: however, she strove to stifle her anger by a contemptuous, loud horse-laugh.”

An adventure with a foot-pad and rebuffs from other landlords followed, but in the little Berkshire village of Nettlebed, five miles north-west of Henley, he found repose. Nettlebed remained in his mind as the most charming spot in England: he liked the inn, he liked the people, and he liked the church. His description of the inn actually re-creates the past; indeed, it is not unworthy to stand beside that description of that inn in “The Old Curiosity Shop” in which the nature of dwarfs and giants was so illuminatingly discussed, over the landlord’s wonderful stew.