But even in the better parts of his character, his liberality in money matters, his good-natured patronage of rising genius, the meanness of his mind broke out. There was a certain young poetess whom he had encouraged; she happened to be sister to Mr. Mapletofft, Lord Davenant’s secretary, and she had spoken with enthusiastic gratitude of Mr. Churchill’s kindness. She was going to publish a volume of Sonnets under Mr. Churchill’s patronage, and, as she happened to be now at some country town in the neighbourhood, he requested Lady Cecilia to allow him to introduce this young authoress to her. She was invited for a few days to Clarendon Park, and Mr. Churchill was zealous to procure subscriptions for her, and eager to lend the aid of his fashion and his literary reputation to bring forward the merits of her book. “Indeed,” he whispered, “he had given her some little help in the composition,” and all went well till, in an evil hour, Helen praised one of the sonnets rather too much—more, he thought, than she had praised another, which was his own. His jealousy wakened—he began to criticise his protegée’s poetry. Helen defended her admiration, and reminded him that he had himself recommended these lines to her notice.
“Well!—yes—I did say the best I could for the whole thing, and for her it is surprising—that is, I am anxious the publication should take. But if we come to compare—you know this cannot stand certain comparisons that might be made. Miss Stanley’s own taste and judgment must perceive—when we talk of genius—that is quite out of the question, you know.”
Horace was so perplexed between his philanthropy and his jealousy, his desire to show the one and his incapability of concealing the other, that he became unintelligible; and Helen laughed, and told him that she could not now understand what his opinion really was. She was quite ready to agree with him, she said, if he would but agree with himself: this made him disagree still more with himself and unluckily with his better self, his benevolence quite gave way before his jealousy and ill-humour, and he vented it upon the book; and, instead of prophecies of its success, he now groaned over “sad careless lines,”—“passages that lead to nothing,”—“similes that will not hold when you come to examine them.”
Helen pointed out in the dedication a pretty, a happy thought.
Horace smiled, and confessed that was his own.
What! in the dedication to himself?—and in the blindness of his vanity he did not immediately see the absurdity.
The more he felt himself in the wrong, of course the more angry he grew, and it finished by his renouncing the dedication altogether, declaring he would have none of it. The book and the lady might find a better patron. There are things which no man of real generosity could say or do, or think, put him in ever so great a passion. He would not be harsh to an inferior—a woman—a protegée on whom he had conferred obligations; but Mr. Churchill was harsh—he showed neither generosity nor feeling; and Helen’s good opinion of him sank to rise no more.
Of this, however, he had not enough of the sympathy or penetration of feeling to be aware.