"If he had thought of this when he used to go to her mother's house in order to change his wig and gown and drink coffee, he would have avoided those encouragements of Miss Vanhomrigh's sympathy and admiration, which must have given rise to very bitter reflections when she read such passages as the lines that follow:—
'Cadenus, common forms apart,
In every scene had kept his heart;
Had sighed and languished, vowed and writ,
For pastime, or to show his wit.'
"It was sport to him, but death to her. His allegations of not being conscious of anything on her part, are not to be trusted. There are few men whose self-love is not very sharp-sighted on such occasions,—men of wit in particular; nor was Swift, notwithstanding the superiority he assumed over fopperies of all sorts, and the great powers which gave a passport to the assumption, exempt, perhaps, from any species of vanity. The more airs he gives himself on that point, the less we are to believe him. He was fond of lords and great ladies, and levees, and canonicals, and of having the verger to walk before him. He saw very well, we may be assured, the impression which he made on the young lady; but he hoped, as others have hoped, that it would accommodate itself to circumstances in cases of necessity; or he pretended to himself that he was too modest to believe it a great one; or sacrificing her ultimate good to her present pleasure and to his own, he put off the disagreeable day of alteration and self-denial till it was too late. There are many reasons why Swift should have acted otherwise, and why no man, at any time of life, should hazard the peace of another by involvements which he cannot handsomely follow up. If he does, he is bound to do what he can for it to the last."[328]
The famous Calves' Head Club (in ridicule of the memory of Charles I.) was held at a tavern in Suffolk Street; at least the assembly of it was held there which made so much noise in the last century, and produced a riot. At this meeting it was said that a bleeding calf's head had been thrown out of the window, wrapt up in a napkin, and that the members drank damnation to the race of the Stuarts. This was believed till the other day, and has often been lamented as a disgusting instance of party spirit. To say the truth, the very name of the club was disgusting, and a dishonour to the men who invented it. It was more befitting their own heads. But the particulars above mentioned are untrue. The letter has been set right by the publication of "Spence's Anecdotes," at the end of which are some letters to Mr. Spence, including one from Lord Middlesex, giving the real account of the affair. By the style of the letter the reader may judge what sort of heads the members had, and what was reckoned the polite way of speaking to a waiter in those days:—
Whitehall, Feb. ye 9th, 1735.
"Dear Spanco,
"I don't in the least doubt but long before this time the noise of the riot on the 30 of Jan. has reached you at Oxford, and though there has been as many lies and false reports raised upon the occasion in this good city as any reasonable man could expect, yet I fancy even those may be improved or increased before they come to you. Now, that you may be able to defend your friends (as I don't in the least doubt you have an inclination to do), I'll send you the matter of fact literally and truly as it happened, upon my honour. Eight of us happened to meet together the 30th of January, it might have been the 10th of June, or any other day in the year, but the mixture of the company has convinced most reasonable people by this time that it was not a designed or premeditated affair. We met, then, as I told you before, by chance upon this day, and after dinner, having drunk very plentifully, especially some of the company, some of us going to the window unluckily saw a little nasty fire made by some boys in the street, of straw I think it was, and immediately cried out, 'Damn it, why should not we have a fire as well as anybody else?' Up comes the drawer, 'Damn you, you rascal, get us a bonfire.' Upon which the imprudent puppy runs down, and without making any difficulty (which he might have done by a thousand excuses, and which if he had, in all probability, some of us would have come more to our senses), sends for the faggots, and in an instant behold a large fire blazing before the door. Upon which some of us, wiser, or rather soberer, than the rest, bethinking themselves then, for the first time, what day it was, and fearing the consequences a bonfire on that day might have, proposed drinking loyal and popular healths to the mob (out of the window), which by this time was very great, in order to convince them we did not intend it as a ridicule upon that day. The healths that were drank out of the window were these, and these only: The King, Queen, and Royal Family, the Protestant Succession, Liberty and Property, the present Administration. Upon which the first stone was flung, and then began our siege: which, for the time it lasted, was at least as furious as that of Philipsbourgh; it was more than an hour before we got any assistance; the more sober part of us, doing this, had a fine time of it, fighting to prevent fighting; in danger of being knocked on the head by the stones that came in at the windows; in danger of being run through by our mad friends, who, sword in hand, swore they would go out, though they first made their way through us. At length the justice, attended by a strong body of guards, came and dispersed the populace. The person who first stirred up the mob is known; he first gave them money, and then harangued them in a most violent manner; I don't know if he did not fling the first stone himself. He is an Irishman and a priest, and belonging to Imberti, the Venetian Envoy. This is the whole story from which so many calves' heads, bloody napkins, and the Lord knows what has been made; it has been the talk of the town and the country, and small beer and bread and cheese to my friends the Garretters in Grub Street, for these few days past. I, as well as your friends, hope to see you soon in town. After so much prose, I can't help ending with a few verses:—