But my rival was a man of infinite resource; when one mode of attack failed, he tried another. Vanity, in some form, he was from experience convinced must be the ruling passion of the female heart—and vanity is so accessible, so easily managed. Miss Montenero was a stranger, a Jewess, just entering into the fashionable world—just doubting, as he understood, whether she should make London her future residence, or return to her retirement in the wilds of America. Lord Mowbray wished to make her sensible that his public attentions would bring her at once into fashion; and though his mother, the prejudiced Lady De Brantefield, could not be prevailed upon to visit a Jewess, yet his lordship had a vast number of high connexions and relations, to all of whom he could introduce Mr. and Miss Montenero. Lady Anne Mowbray, indeed, unaccountably persisted in saying every where, that she was certain her brother had no more thought of the Jewess than of the queen of the gipsies. Whenever she saw Miss Montenero in public, her ladyship had, among her own set, a never-failing source of sarcasm and ridicule in the Spanish fashion of Miss Montenero’s dress, especially her long veils—veils were not then in fashion, and Lady Anne of course pronounced them to be hideous. It was at this time, in England, the reign of high heads: a sort of triangular cushion or edifice of horsehair, suppose nine inches diagonal, three inches thick, by seven in height, called I believe a toque or a system, was fastened on the female head, I do not well know how, with black pins a quarter of a yard long; and upon and over this system, the hair was erected, and crisped, and frizzed, and thickened with soft pomatum, and filled with powder, white, brown, or red, and made to look as like as possible to a fleece of powdered wool, which battened down on each side of the triangle to the face. Then there were things called curls—nothing like what the poets understand by curls or ringlets, but layers of hair, first stiffened and then rolled up into hollow cylinders, resembling sausages, which were set on each side of the system, “artillery tier above tier,” two or three of the sausages dangling from the ear down the neck. The hair behind, natural and false, plastered together to a preposterous bulk with quantum sufficit of powder and pomatum, was turned up in a sort of great bag, or club, or chignon—then at the top of the mount of hair and horsehair was laid a gauze platform, stuck full of little red daisies, from the centre of which platform rose a plume of feathers a full yard high—or in lieu of platform, flowers, and feathers, there was sometimes a fly-cap, or a wing-cap, or a pouf. If any one happens to have an old pocket-book for 1780, a single glance at the plate of fashionable heads for that year will convey a more competent idea of the same than I, unknowing in the terms of art, can produce by the most elaborate description. Suffice it for me to observe, that in comparison with this head-dress, to which, in my liberality and respect for departed fashion, I forbear to fix any of the many epithets which present themselves, the Spanish dress and veil worn by Miss Montenero, associated as it was with painting and poetry, did certainly appear to me more picturesque and graceful. In favour of the veil, I had all the poets, from Homer and Hesiod downwards, on my side; and moreover, I was backed by the opinion of the wisest of men, who has pronounced that “a veil addeth to beauty.” Armed with such authority, and inspired by love, I battled stoutly with Lady Anne upon several occasions, especially one night when we met at the Pantheon. I was walking between Lady Emily B—— and Miss Montenero, and two or three times, as we went round the room, we met Lady Anne Mowbray and her party, and every time we passed, I observed scornful glances at the veil. Berenice was too well-bred to suspect ill-breeding in others; she never guessed what was going forward, till one of the youngest and boldest of these high-born vulgarians spoke so loud as she passed, and pronounced the name of Montenero, and the word Jewess, so plainly, that both Miss Montenero and Lady Emily B—— could not avoid hearing what was said. Lord Mowbray was not with us. I took an opportunity of quitting the ladies as soon as general B——, who had left us for a few minutes, returned. I went to pay my compliments to Lady Anne Mowbray, and, as delicately as I could, remonstrated against their proceedings. I said that her ladyship and her party were not aware, I was sure, how loudly they had spoken. Lady Anne defended herself and her companions by fresh attacks upon the veil, and upon the lady, “who had done vastly well to take the veil.” In the midst of the nonsense which Lady Anne threw out, there now and then appeared something that was a little like her brother Mowbray’s wit—little bits of sparkling things, mica, not ore. I was in no humour to admire them, and her ladyship took much offence at a general observation I made, “that people of sense submit to the reigning fashion, while others are governed by it.” We parted this night so much displeased with each other, that when we met again in public, we merely exchanged bows and curtsies—in private we had seldom met of late—I never went to Lady de Brantefield’s. I was really glad that the battle of the veil had ended in this cessation of intercourse between us. As soon as Miss Montenero found that her Spanish dress subjected her to the inconvenience of being remarked in public she laid it aside. I thought she was right in so doing—and in three days’ time, though I had at first regretted the picturesque dress, I soon became accustomed to the change. So easily does the eye adapt itself to the fashion, so quickly do we combine the idea of grace and beauty with whatever is worn by the graceful and the beautiful, and I may add, so certainly do we learn to like whatever is associated with those we love.
The change of dress which Berenice had so prudently adopted, did not, however, produce any change in the manners of Lady Anne and of her party. Lady Anne, it was now evident, had taken an unalterable dislike to Miss Montenero. I am not coxcomb enough to imagine that she was jealous; I know that she never had the slightest regard for me, and that I was not the sort of man whom she could like; but still I had been counted, perhaps by others, in the list of her admirers, and I was a young man, and an admirer the less was always to be regretted—deserting to a Jewess, as she said, was intolerable. But I believe she was also secretly afraid, that her brother was more in earnest in his attentions to Miss Montenero, than she affected to suppose possible. From whatever cause, she certainly hated Berenice cordially, and took every means of mortifying me by the display of this aversion. I shall not be at the trouble of recording the silly and petty means she took to vex. I was not surprised at any thing of this sort from her ladyship; but I was much surprised by her brother’s continuing to be absolutely blind and deaf to her proceedings. It is true, sometimes it happened that he was not present, but this was not always the case; and I was convinced that it could not be from accident or inadvertency, that it must be from settled design, that he persisted in this blindness. Combining my observations, I discovered that he wanted to make Miss Montenero feel how impossible it was for her to escape the ridicule of certain fashionable impertinents, and how impracticable it would be to get on among people of the ton in London, without the aid of such a champion as himself. One day he suddenly appeared to discover something of what was going forward, and assumed great indignation; then affecting to suppress that feeling, “wished to Heaven he were authorized to speak”—and there he paused—but no inclination to authorize him appeared. I had sometimes seen Miss Montenero distressed by the rude manner in which she had been stared at. I had seen her colour come and go, but she usually preserved a dignified silence on such occasions. Once, and but once, I heard her advert to the subject in speaking to her father, when Lord Mowbray was not present. “You see, I hope, my dear father,” said she, “that I am curing myself of that morbid sensibility, that excessive susceptibility to the opinion of others, with which you used to reproach me. I have had some good lessons, and you have had some good trials of me, since we came to England.”
“How much I am obliged to those persons or those circumstances, which have done what I thought was impossible, which have raised my daughter in my opinion!” said her father. The look of affectionate approbation with which these words were pronounced, and the grateful delight with which Berenice heard them, convinced me that Lord Mowbray had completely mistaken his ground—had mistaken strong sensibility for weakness of mind. It now appeared, to my entire satisfaction, that Miss Montenero was really and truly above the follies and the meanness of fashion. She did not wish to be acquainted with these fine people, nor to make a figure in public; but she did wish to see the best society in London, in order to compare it with what she had been accustomed to in other countries, and to determine what would be most for her future happiness. Through the friendship of General B—— and his family, she had sufficient opportunities of seeing in public, and enjoying in private, the best society in London. Lord Mowbray, therefore, had no power over her, as a leader of fashion; his general character for being a favourite with the ladies, and his gallant style of conversation, did not make the impression upon her that he had expected.
He did not know how to converse with one who could not be answered by a play upon words, nor satisfied by an appeal to precedents, or the authority of numbers and of high names.
Lord Chesterfield’s style of conversation, and that of any of the personages in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, could not be more different, or less compatible, than the simplicity of Miss Montenero and the wit of Lord Mowbray.
I never saw any one so puzzled and provoked as was this man of wit by a character of genuine simplicity. He was as much out of his element with such a character as any of the French lovers in Marmontel’s Tales would be tête-à-tête with a Roman or a Grecian matron—as much at a loss as one of the fine gentlemen in Congreve’s plays might find himself, if condemned to hold parley with a heroine of Sophocles or of Euripides.
Lord Mowbray, a perfect Proteus when he wished to please, changed his manner successively from that of the sentimental lover, to that of the polite gallant and accomplished man of the world; and when this did not succeed, he had recourse to philosophy, reason, and benevolence. No hint, which cunning and address could improve to his purpose, was lost upon Mowbray. Mrs. Coates had warned me that Miss Montenero was touchy on the Jewish chapter, and his lordship was aware it was as the champion of the Jews that I had first been favourably represented by Jacob, and favourably received by Mr. Montenero. Soon Lord Mowbray appeared to be deeply interested and deeply read in very thing that had been written in their favour.
He rummaged over Tovey and Ockley; and “Priestley’s Letters to the Jews,” and “The Letters of certain Jews to M. de Voltaire,” were books which he now continually quoted in conversation. With great address he wondered that he had never happened to meet with them till lately; and confessed that he believed he never should have thought of reading them, but that really the subject had of late become so interesting! Of Voltaire’s illiberal attacks upon the Jews, and of the King of Prussia’s intolerance towards them, he could not express sufficient detestation; nor could he ever adequately extol Cumberland’s benevolent “Jew,” or Lessing’s “Nathan the Wise.” Quotations from one or the other were continually in readiness, uttered with all the air of a man so deeply impressed with certain sentiments, that they involuntarily burst from him on every occasion. This I could also perceive to be an imitation of what he had seen suceed with me; and I was not a little flattered by observing, that Berenice was unconsciously pleased, if not caught by the counterfeit. The affectation was skilfully managed, with a dash of his own manner, and through the whole preserving an air of nature and consistency: so that he had all the appearance of a person whose understanding, naturally liberal, had, on one particular subject, been suddenly warmed and exalted by the passion of love. It has often been said, that liars have need of good memories. Mowbray had really an excellent memory, but yet it was not sufficient for all his occasions. He contradicted himself sometimes without perceiving it, but not without its being perceived. Intent upon one point, he laboured that admirably; but he sometimes forgot that any thing could be seen beyond that point—he forgot the bearings and connexions. He never forgot his liberality about the Jews, and about every thing relative to Hebrew ground; but on other questions, in which he thought Mr. Montenero and his daughter had no concern, his party spirit and his want of toleration for other sects broke out.
One day a Rabbi came to Mr. Montenero’s while we were there, to solicit his contribution towards the building or repairing a synagogue. The priest was anxious to obtain leave to build on certain lands which belonged to the crown. These lands were in the county where Lord Mowbray’s or Lady de Brantefield’s property lay. With the most engaging liberality of manner, Lord Mowbray anticipated the wishes of the Jewish priest, declaring that he was happy on this occasion publicly and practically to show his principles of toleration; he would immediately use whatever influence he might possess with government to obtain the desired grant; and if that application should fail, there was still a resource in future. At present, unfortunately, his mother’s opinions differing from his own, nothing could be done; but he could, in future, offer a site for a synagogue in the very part of the country that was desired, on lands that must in time be his.
The priest was down to the ground, bowing, full of acknowledgments, and admiration of his lordship’s generosity and liberality of principle. A few minutes afterwards, however, his lordship undid all he had done with Berenice and with her father, by adding that he regretted that his mother had given a lease of a bit of land to some confounded dissenters: he was determined, he said, whenever the estate should come into his own hands, to break that lease—he would have no meeting-house, no dissenting chapel on his estate—he considered them as nuisances—he would raze the chapel to the ground—he would much rather have a synagogue on that spot.