See a speaker on his legs—a fluent speaker, somewhat of a florid speaker, occasionally somewhat of a violent speaker, though his violence is strictly confined to words and gesticulations. What withering sarcasms he hurls at kings and ministers! How eloquently he tells those tyrannical puppets that, when they are forgotten, when the force and direction of personal satire is no longer understood, and measures are felt only in their remotest consequences, his words shall still be found to contain principles worthy of being transmitted to posterity! How sneeringly he assures our rulers that they have but a copyhold interest in the state, that they cannot waste, that they cannot alienate, and that the fee-simple is in us! How menacingly he assures the monarchs of the earth that the crowns which were gained by one revolution may be lost by another! and how much, listening to his impassioned exordium, to his whirlwind argument, to his scathing peroration, I become impressed with a notion that the orator has a capital memory, and has been an assiduous student of certain letters, which were addressed, in our great-grandmothers’ time, to Mr. Woodfall, the printer of the “Public Advertiser,” by a mysterious correspondent—a correspondent whose motto was, “Stat nominis umbra” and who chose to assume the pseudonym of “Junius.”
In these orations you are sure to hear a good deal about Catholic Emancipation, the Test and Corporation Acts, the Spa Fields Riots, the Peterloo Massacre, the “Piccadilly Butchers,” the “Dorsetshire Labourers,” Queen Caroline’s Trial, Richmond the Spy, and similar topics. They are not very amusing, perhaps, but they are of infinite service in keeping juvenile politicians au fait with the political memorabilia of thirty or forty years since. I have even heard an ardent reformer, with scarcely so much as a tuft on his chin, declaim in burning accents upon the great case of Horne Tooke versus the House of Commons—“Once a priest forever a priest”—on Jack Wilkes, Number Forty-five, and the question of general warrants, on the cruelty of Lord Ellenborough to William Hone, the trial of Colonel Despard, and the eventualities which might have followed the successful assassination of Lord Sidmouth by Arthur Thistlewood.
A staid, middle-aged gentleman follows the reformer, and proceeds, genteelly, to demolish him. He is a staunch upholder of our ancient institutions, and sneers at the presumptuous and levelling tendencies of the age. He has some neat things to say about the “Pig and Whistle” style of oratory, at which the ardent reformer winces, chews the end of his cigar, and empties his glass indignantly; and he concludes with a glowing eulogium on church and state, our glorious constitution, and our noble aristocracy.
Ere I leave these placid tribunes of Pentonville Hill, discharging their harmless philippics at men high in place and power, I muse a little over the tavern itself, and call to mind a certain story I once heard respecting it, possessing what foundation of truth I know not, but which, if not true, is assuredly ben trovato. Thus runs the dubious legend: You remember the fair young daughter of England, the good princess, the virtuous daughter of a wicked father, and in whom, from her cradle to her marriage, the hope and love of this stolid but strong-feeling nation were centred. You remember her husband: he is a king at Brussels now. You remember how, when she died, all England burst into a passionate lament; how thousands went into voluntary mourning; how clergymen wept in the pulpit, when they discoursed on her virtues; how an awful darkness and despair seemed to overshadow the ill-governed land when the news came that the Princess Charlotte was dead. There is little need to say that her husband (who, I am glad to believe, loved her very truly and fondly) was at first inconsolable for her loss, and grieved long and bitterly for her. But time was good to him, and heaven merciful, and by degrees his sorrow wore away. Still he was melancholy, pre-occupied, and loved nothing so much as to be left alone. It was about this time that the then landlord of the Belvidere began to notice that about eleven o’clock almost every forenoon during the week a gentleman in deep mourning, and on horseback, would stop at the door of the tavern, leave his horse in charge of his groom, enter the large room, call for a pipe and a pint of ale, and quietly enjoy those refreshments for about the space of one hour. The room would be at that early hour of the day almost deserted. The one or two tradesmen who would occasionally drop in for a crust of bread and cheese, and a peep at the “Times,” would be bidden a civil “good morning”—in a slightly foreign accent—by the stranger; but he never entered into conversation; he never read the newspaper; he “kep hisself to hisself,” the waiter said. But he was so punctual and so regular in his attendance, that the people of the house came to look out for his daily visit in his suit of sables, and a special pipe was laid, a special dish of tobacco prepared, and a special chair and spittoon arranged, every day for his use. So things went on for many weeks; till one luckless morning, just after the departure of the black horseman, a customer of the house—I believe he was a commercial traveller, who had just returned from a journey in the west of England, and who had been enjoying his pipe and pint in the society of the taciturn stranger—called the landlord on one side.
“Do you know who that chap is?” he asked.
“Not a bit,” answered the host. “Comes here every morning regular. Pint of mild sixpenny; bird’s-eye; gives the waiter twopence, and goes away. Groom has a glass of ale sitting on his horse. Pays his way like a gentleman.”
“He’s somebody,” said the commercial traveller, significantly.
“So I should think,” returned the landlord, quietly.
“He’s a high fellow,” added the bagman, mysteriously.