is within anybody's reach. But Jack had no fits and starts; the humour flowed in one unebbing course, and his whim consisted in making everybody as happy as he was at all seasons.
His joviality never depended upon the excellence of a dinner, the choice of wines, or any accident of the hour. His high spirits and invariable urbanity were wholly independent of the arrangements of the table, the selection of the guests, and the topics of conversation. He discovered pleasant things to hearken to, and found delightful themes to chat upon, even during the dreary twenty minutes before dinner. Yes, even that was a lively time to Jack. Whenever he went out it was to enjoy a pleasant evening, and he enjoyed it.
The fish was spoil'd, the soup was cold,
The meat was broil'd, the jokes were old,
The tarts were dumps, the wine not cool,
The guests were pumps, the host a fool—
but for all this Jack cared about as much as a flying-fish cares for a shower of rain. No combination of ill omens and perverse accidents ever proved a damper to him.
He is invited to meet (say) Johnson and Burke, and is greeted, on his entrance, with the well-known tidings that Johnson and Burke "couldn't come." Does Jack heave one sigh in compliment to the illustrious absentees, and in depreciation of the company who have assembled? Not he. No momentary shade of disappointment dims his smiling face. He seems as delighted to meet the little parlour-full of dull people, as though the room were crammed with Crichtons. He has the honour of being presented to little Miss Somebody, from the country, who seems shy; and he takes the same pains to show his pleasure in the introduction, and to tempt the timid stranger to talk, that he would have exerted in an effort to interest Mrs. Siddons. He sits next to a solemn ignoramus, who is facetious in expounding the humours of Squire Bog, his neighbour, or didactic in developing the character of Dogsby the great patriot in his parish; and Jack listens as complacently as though his ear were being regaled with new-born bonmots of Sheridan's, or anecdotes of the Earl of Chatham.
Jack, like some statesmen, was born to be out; and to him, as to some other statesmen, all parties were the same. The only preference he ever seemed to entertain was for the particular party that chanced at the particular moment to rejoice in his presence. He enjoyed everything that happened. Leigh Hunt, describing a servant-maid "at the play," observes, that every occurrence of the evening adds to her felicity—for she likes even the waiting between the acts, which is tiresome to others. So with Jack at a party. He enjoyed some dislocated experiments on the harp, by an astonishing child, aged only fifteen; and was the sole person in the room who encored with sincerity that little prodigy's convulsive edition of "Bid me discourse." He listened with laudable gravity to Master Henry's recitation of "Rolla's Address," and suggested the passages in which John Kemble was rather too closely followed. He enjoyed the glasses of warm wine handed round between the songs; he liked the long flat pauses, "when nobody said nothing to his neighbour;" and he liked the sudden burst of gabble in which, at the termination of the pause, as if by preconcerted agreement, every creature eagerly joined.