The cheering and huzzas, as this procession walked up the room, were completely deafening. Macready looked deadly pale and rather overcome; and amid the waving of handkerchiefs and the stunning uproar of four hundred “gentlemen and scholars,” the Duke placed the tragedian at his right hand, and took his seat before the turbot.
The dinner was an uncommonly bad one; but of this I had been forewarned, and so had taken a provisory chop at the club. I had leisure, therefore, to look about me, and truly there was work enough for the eyes. M——’s head interested me more than any one’s else, for it was the personification of his lofty, liberal, and poetic genius. His hair, which was long and profuse, curled in tendrils over the loftiest forehead; but about the lower part of the face lay all the characteristics which go to make up a voluptuous yet generous, an enthusiastic and fiery, yet self-possessed and well-directed character. He was excessively handsome; yet it was the beauty of Massaniello, or Salvator Rosa, with more of intellect than both together. All in all, I never saw a finer face for an artist; and judging from his looks and from his works (he is perhaps twenty-four,) I would stake my sagacity on a bold prophecy of his greatness.
On the same side were the L——s, very quiet-looking men, and S—— the portrait-painter, a merry looking grenadier, and L—— B—— the poet, with a face like a poet. Near me was Lover, the painter, poet, novelist, song and music writer, dramatist, and good fellow—seven characters of which his friends scarce know in which he is most excellent—and he has a round Irish face, with a bright twinkle in his eye, and a plump little body which carries off all his gifts as if they were no load at all.—And on my left was S——, the glorious painter of Venice, of the battle of Trafalgar, the unequalled painter of the sea in all its belongings; and you would take him for a gallant lieutenant of the navy, and with the fire of a score of battles asleep in his eye, and the roughening of a hundred tempests in his cheek. A franker and more manly face would not cross your eye in a year’s travel.
Mr. J—— was just beyond, a tall, sagacious looking good humored person of forty-five. He was a man of very kind manners, and was treated with great marks of liking and respect by all about him. But directly opposite to me sat so exact a picture of Paul Pry as he is represented on the stage, particularly of my friend Finn in that character, that it was difficult not to smile in looking at him. To my surprise, I heard some one point him out, soon after, as the well-known original in that character—the gentleman, whose peculiarities of person, as well as manners, were copied in the farce of Mr. Poole. “That’s my name—what’s yours?” said he the moment after he had seated himself, thrusting his card close to the nose of the gentleman next him. I took it of course for a piece of fun between two very old friends, but to my astonishment the gentleman next him was as much astonished as I.
The few servants scattered up and down were deaf to everything but calls for champagne (furnished only at an extra charge when called for—a very mean system for a public dinner by the way,) and the wines on the table seemed selected to drive one to champagne or the doctor. Each person had four plates, and when used, they were to be put under the bench, or on the top of your head, or to be sat upon, or what you would except to be taken away, and the soup and fish, and the roast and boiled and all, having been put on together, was all removed at one fell swoop—the entire operation of dinner having lasted just twenty-five minutes. Keep this fact till we are recorded by some new English traveller as the most expeditious eaters in Christendom.
Here end my croakings, however, for the speeches commenced directly, and admirable they were. To the undoing of much prejudice got by hearsay, I listened to Bulwer. He is, beyond all comparison, the most graceful and effective speaker I ever heard in England. All the world tells you that he makes signal failures in oratory—yet he rose, when his health was drank, and, in self-possessed, graceful, unhesitating language, playful, yet dignified, warm, yet not extravagant, he replied to the compliments of His Royal Highness, and brought forward his plan (as you have seen it reported in the newspapers) for the erection of a new theatre for the legitimate drama and Macready. I remember once hearing that Bulwer had a belief in his future eminence as an orator—and I would warrant his warmest anticipations in that career of ambition. He is a better speaker than Sheil, who followed him, and Sheil is renowned as an orator. Really there is nothing like one’s own eyes and ears in this world of envy and misrepresentation.
D—— sat near Sheil, at the cross-table, very silent, as is his custom and that of most keen observers. The courtly Sir Martin Shea was near B——, looking like some fine old picture of a wit of Charles the second’s time, and he and Y—— the actor made two very opposite and gentlemanlike speeches. I believe I have told you nearly all that struck me except what was reported in the gazettes, and that you have no need to read over again. I got away at eleven, and reached the opera in time to hear the last act of the Puritani, and see the Elsslers dance in the ballet, and with a look in at a ball, I concluded one of those exhausting, exciting, overdone London days, which are pleasanter to remember than to enjoy, and pleasanter to read about than either.
One of the most elegant and agreeable persons I ever saw was Miss Jane Porter, and I think her conversation more delightful to remember than any person’s I ever knew. A distinguished artist told me that he remembered her when she was his beau-ideal of female beauty; but in those days she was more “fancy-rapt,” and gave in less to the current and spirit of society. Age has made her, if it may be so expressed, less selfish in her use of thought, and she pours it forth like Pactolus—that gold which is sand from others. She is still what I should call a handsome woman, or, if that be not allowed, she is the wreck of more than a common allotment of beauty, and looks it. Her person is remarkably erect, her eyes and eyelids (in this latter resembling Scott) very heavily moulded, and her smile is beautiful. It strikes me that it always is so—where it ever was. The smile seems to be the work of the soul.
I have passed months under the same roof with Miss Porter, and nothing gave me more pleasure than to find the company in that hospitable house dwindled to a “fit audience though few,” and gathered around the figure in deep mourning which occupied the warmest corner of the sofa. In any vein, and apropos to the gravest and the gayest subject, her well-stored mind and memory flowed forth in the same rich current of mingled story and reflection, and I never saw an impatient listener beside her. I recollect, one evening, a lady’s singing “Auld Robin Gray,” and some one remarking, (rather unsentimentally) at the close, “By-the-by, what is Lady ——, (the authoress of the ballad) doing with so many carpenters. Berkely square is quite deafened with their hammering.” “Apropos of carpenters and Lady ——,” said Miss Porter—“this same charming ballad writer owes something to the craft. She was better-born than provided with the gifts of fortune, and in her younger days was once on a visit to a noble house, when to her dismay, a large and fashionable company arrived, who brought with them a mania for private theatricals. Her wardrobe was very slender, barely sufficient for the ordinary events of a week-day, and her purse contained one solitary shilling. To leave the house was out of the question, to feign illness as much so, and to decline taking a part was impossible, for her talent and sprightliness were the hope of the theatre. A part was cast for her, and, in despair, she excused herself from the gay party bound to the country town to make purchases of silk and satin, and shut herself up, a prey to mortified low spirits. The character required a smart village dress, and it certainly did not seem that it could come out of a shilling. She sat at her window, biting her lips, and turning over in her mind whether she could borrow of some one, when her attention was attracted to a carpenter, who was employed in the construction of a stage in the large hall, and who, in the court below, was turning off from his plane broad and long shavings of a peculiarly striped wood. It struck her that it was like riband. The next moment she was below, and begged of the man to give her half a dozen lengths as smooth as he could shave them. He performed his task well, and depositing them in her apartment, she set off alone on horseback to the village, and with her single shilling succeeded in purchasing a chip hat of the coarsest fabric. She carried it home, exultingly, trimmed it with her pine shavings, and on the evening of the performance appeared with a white dress, and hat and belt ribands which were the envy of the audience. The success of her invention gave her spirits and assurance, and she played to admiration. The sequel will justify my first remark. She made a conquest on that night of one of her titled auditors, whom she afterward married.—You will allow that Lady —— may afford to be tolerant of carpenters.”