“Indeed it was not,” said she, compassionately.
“Very well,” said Mr —, very quietly, “I’ll tell you this, Master Rattlin, sportsmen as you think yourselves, you and Frank, after all, whatever you both were when you went into the lake, you turned out two Johnny Raws.”
“Why, Master Rattlin,” said the lady, “Mr — uses you worse than the sun—that did but scorch—but he roasts you.”
“No wonder, madam, as he considers me raw,” replied I.
Chapter Twenty Three.
Reminiscences—A friend found and a line lost—Ralph makes a new acquaintance and a hearty supper, both of which do him much good.
Openly admired abroad, and secretly cherished by a love, the more intense because concealed, at home, the course of my days was as happy as the improvement in the various branches of my education was rapid. Nor was I wholly unnoticed by men who have since stood forward, honoured characters, in the van of those who have so nobly upheld the fame of England. The bard who began his career in the brightest fields of Hope, and whose after-fame has so well responded to his auspicious commencement, read many portions of my boyish attempts, and pronounced them full of promise, and the author possessed of nous. It was the term he himself used, and that is the only reason why I have recorded it. Indeed, this deservedly great man was, in some sense, my schoolfellow, for he came in the evening to learn French of Monsieur Cherfeuil. He was then engaged to translate an epic, written by one of the Buonapartes, into English verse. I believe that engagement never was carried into effect, notwithstanding the erudite pains Mr — took to qualify himself to perform it successfully. No man could have laboured more to make himself master of the niceties of the Gallic idiom, and the right use of its very doubtful subjunctive.
At the time to which I allude, the inspired author wore a wig—not that his then age required one. Perhaps, the fervid state of his brain, like a hidden volcano, burnt up the herbage above—perhaps, his hair was falling off from the friction of his laurels—perhaps growing prematurely grey from the workings of his spirit; but without venturing upon any more conjectures, we may safely come to the conclusion, that the hair that God gave him did not please him so well as that which he bought of the perruquiers. Since we cannot be satisfied with the causes, we must be satisfied with the fact—he wore a wig; and, in the distraction of mental perplexity, when Monsieur Cherfeuil was essaying to get the poet out of the absent into the conditional mood, the man of verse, staring abstractedly upon the man of tense, would thrust his hand under his peruke, and rub, rub, rub his polished scalp, which all the while effused a divine ichor—(poets never perspire)—and, when he was gently reminded that his wig was a little awry towards the left side, he would pluck it, resentfully, equally as much awry on the right; and then, to punish the offending and displacing hand, he would commence gnawing off the nails of his fingers, rich with the moisture from above. We have recorded this little personal trait, because it may be valuable to the gentleman’s future biographers; and also because it is a convincing proof to the illiterate and the leveller, that head-work is not such easy, sofa-enjoyed labour, as is commonly supposed; and, finally, that the great writer’s habit, vivos ungues rodere, proves him to be, tooth and nail, homo ad unguem factus.