Mr. —— came round to the stage door to bid us good-night; and as we drove off, a whole parcel of folk, who had gathered round the door to see us depart, set up a universal hurrah! How strange a thing it is, that popular shout. After all, Pitt or Canning could get no more for the finest oratory that human lips ever uttered, or the wisest policy that human brain ever devised. Sometimes they got the reverse; but then the hereafter—there's the rub! Praise is so sweet to me that I would have it lasting: above all, I would wish to feel that I deserved it. I must do so if I am to value it a straw; and acting, even the best that ever was seen, is, to my mind, but a poor claim to approbation. I think the applause of an audience in a play-house should be reckoned with the friendly and favourable opinions of a good-natured tipsy man,—'tis given under excitement. Oh Lord! how unsatisfactory all things are!
Wednesday, 13th, New York.
After dinner, —— came in. He sat himself down, and presently was over-head in reminiscences. His account of Tom Paine's escape from the Conciergerie, on the eve of being guillotined, was extremely interesting. His own introduction to, and subsequent acquaintance with, that worthy, was equally so, and his summing up was highly characteristic. "I tell ye, madam, the saving of that man's life was an especial providence, that he might come over to this country, where his works have done so much harm, and might have done so much more, and just exemplify the result of his own principles put into practice in his own person, and show that the glorious light of reason, and the noble natural gifts of man, of which he preached so much, would neither prevent a man's becoming a drunkard and a spendthrift, nor a debased degraded being. If Paine had been guillotined, madam, he would have been a martyr, and his works would have had ten times the power of evil they had before. But he lived to be a miserable low unthrift, and sot, and died neglected and despised by all reputable and respectable individuals, and, I say again, it was a manifest providence that he did so." We left the gentlemen to their wine for a short time, but were presently summoned back. —— had gone to the theatre. —— began his history to me, and it was, word for word, a repetition of Galt's book, except that occasionally it was more touching. The pity of all this is, the man's own consciousness that he is a lion. His vanity is almost as amusing as his recollections are curious and interesting; and though the tears were in my eye several times while he described the blessed time he lived with his sweet Phœbe, yet, at others, I could scarce help exclaiming, in the words of his own countryman, "Heigh, cretur, cretur! thou hast unco plause o' thysel'!" He ended his narrative with a eulogy of women that would have warmed the heart of a stone; and to my utter surprise addressed Mr. —— with, "Out upon ye, bachelors, all! ye throw away your lives, and your life's happiness!" This last attack of ——'s seemed too much for Mr. ——; and, as I turned to him with the tears in my eyes, to desire he would not laugh, which he was doing very heartily, he said he couldn't stand it any longer, and went away, apparently more amused than edified by ——'s appeal.
Thursday, 14th.
St. Valentine's day! I wish all these pretty golden days, which, like the flowers in the sundial of Linnæus, were wont so gaily to mark the flight of time, were not becoming so dim in our calendars; I wish St. Valentine's day, and May morning, and Christmas day, and New-Year's day, were not putting off their holiday suits to wear the work-day russet of their drudging fellows; I wish we were not making all things, of all sorts, so completely of a neutral tint.
* * * * *
I wouldn't be in the Reform Parliament of England for ten thousand pounds! ——, and ——, the bruiser, and the bankrupt! Oh, shame, England, shame!—Poor England!
A RHAPSODY.
White lady, sitting on the sea,
Tell to me, oh, tell to me,