Grant me an honest fame, or grant me none!
but was of opinion, as his apologist likewise admits, that wealth was an ample counterbalance to the loss of reputation.—That he might evade accusation (as I have already observed) in one particular instance, and therefore recover damages, is no proof of his innocence, that his general conduct would admit of defence, or that much of the manifold censure passed upon him had no foundation.
How Lord Peterborough happened to become his patron, &c. may be accounted for without any great degree of credit to either party. His lordship (as Lord Orrery observes) "in his private life and conduct differed from most men;" and, having often capricious disputes with the court, was sure to favour those who, like St. André, had been dismissed from its service. Our hero's musical talents, indeed, if they were such as they have been represented, might procure him access to his lordship and many other noble adepts in the sublime and useful science of harmony. The lovers of a tune urge no severe enquiries concerning the heart of a fidler. If he be a mercenary, while he teaches female pupils, he is watched; and, if he performs in concerts, he is paid. If above pecuniary gratifications, he is rewarded with hyperbolical compliments. Articulate for inarticulate sounds is ample retribution.
His defender adds, that he was visited by all strangers and foreigners. It will be supposed then that his house was never free from company. May we not rather think, that if he was at any time sought after by these peregrine worthies, &c. it was because the keepers of inns and mistresses of boarding-houses had been instructed to disseminate attractive tales of his "capacity in all kinds," his curiosities and good dinners? Besides, all foreigners who have arrived in England have not travelled to Southampton, and consequently could not have seen St. André, who for upwards of the last twenty years of his life had resided only there. It is nearer the truth to say, that not a single Frenchman, &c. in fifty thousand, ever heard of his name.
That "his profession as a surgeon, in a reasonable term of years, would probably have put more money in his pocket" than he gained by his union with Lady Betty Molyneux (i. e. £30,000. a sum that elevated him into a state little short of madness), I cannot believe. The blast his reputation had received respecting the business at Godalming, being seconded by his expulsion from court, he must have felt his business on the decline. Indeed, I am told that he staid long enough in town to try the experiment. Marriage therefore might have been his dernier resort.
The exaggerations of this impostor's generosity and accomplishments, which are next brought forward by his panegyrist with no small degree of pomp, are such as we may suppose himself would have furnished, had he undertaken, like the Chevalier Taylor, to compile his own memoirs. The majority of circumstances collected for the purpose of proving him to have been
Grammaticus, rhetor, geometres, pictor, aliptes,
Augur, schænobates, medicus, magus,
could only have been derived from those very flattering testimonials to his merits which he was always ready to exhibit on the slightest encouragement. Those who were content to admit so partial an estimate of his abilities, &c. found it necessary to express their belief that he could have beaten Hercules at quoits, played a better fiddle than Apollo, out-witted Mercury, disarmed the God of War, and forged such chemic thunders, that, compared with the produce of our hero's laboratory, the bolts of Jove were no louder than a pot-gun. So far was he from being deficient in commendation of his own talents, that he thought his very furniture might claim a proportionable extravagance of praise. He was possessed of some foreign tapestry which he was proud on all occasions to display. But the eulogiums of others, lavish as they might be, fell considerably short of his own, so that the spectator retired with disgust from an object which the excessive vanity of its owner would not permit to be enjoyed without the most frequent and nauseous intrusions of self-congratulation.
As to the history of his eye-lashes, which he sacrificed to vigilance, and his sudden proficiency in the very difficult game of chess (provided his instructor, whom he afterwards vanquished, was a skilful one) credat Judæus Apella.—That his language did not want energy, may more easily be allowed, for force is the characteristic of vulgar phraseology. Conceits, expressed with much vigour, are current among sailors; and such nervous denunciations of revenge may occasionally be heard at Billingsgate, as might emulate the ravings of Dryden's Maximin. No man will be hardy enough to assert that the figure, manners, and language, of St. André, were those of a gentleman.
If one of his eyes was a "mass of obscurity" (notwithstanding the other, like that of Lady Pentweazle's Great Aunt, might be a piercer), perhaps he ought to have been sparing of his satire on the personal disadvantages of his acquaintance. Yet, the last time my informant saw him was at the Theatre at Southampton, where, sitting near a gentleman and lady not remarkable for handsome faces, he had the modesty to express a doubt (and in a voice sufficiently audible) which of the two would furnish the most comic mask.