John de Lancaster: a novel; vol. I.

by Richard Cumberland

Since you make so polite a tender of your patience, said De Lancaster, to me, who have already put it to so hard a trial, I must resume my narrative from the landing of Brute and his Trojans, when my ancestors established themselves on this very spot, I do not say in this very castle, under Camber, the second son of the aforesaid Brute. Lud-Hurdibras was the grandson of Camber, and King Bladud was the son of Hurdibras: he built, as is notorious to all the world, the city of Bath, and was the projector of those salubrious baths, that William of Malmsbury would fain ascribe to Julius Cæsar, which I pronounce to be an egregious anachronism, and you may take it meo periculo.

I take it at my own peril, said the colonel; for I have seen Bladud himself with these very eyes standing centinel over the bath of his own making, and I never met with any body hardy enough to dispute his title to it.

Let it pass then! He was a benefactor to mankind by the institution of those baths, and might have been more eminently so, had his opinion upon the practicability of men’s flying in the air been established upon experiment. I confess there is much plausibility in the project, but I am also aware of some difficulties attending it, which merit consideration. I do not say it may not be achieved, but I am not prepared to recommend the undertaking to any friend, whose life is of immediate consequence to his family.

It would be a famous lift, said the wooden-legged warrior, to people in my mutilated predicament; and though I am not quite disposed to the experiment myself, any body else, who is so inclined, will have my good wishes.

That was exactly the language, cried De Lancaster, of King Bladud’s courtiers, and the learned men of the time. They unanimously declared that many notable discoveries might be struck out in astrology, which was the reigning study of the day, if men would fly up high enough to look after them; but they were not impatient to be amongst the first to fly upon those discoveries. My ancestor however, who was then about the person of the king, and an enthusiastic admirer of the sublime and beautiful, went a step beyond them all, and actually contrived a very ample and becoming pair of artificial wings, which in the judgment of the very best mechanics then living promised all possible success to the experiment. Upon their exhibition in presence of the sovereign and of a committee specially appointed, so charmed was King Bladud with the skill displayed in their construction, that he was graciously pleased to authorize and empower the inventor himself to make trial of his own pinions, with free leave to fly as far and as high as he saw fit, and to perch at discretion wherever it might suit him, the chimney tops and lattices of the chambers even of the maids of honour not excepted.

Happy man! cried Wilson; this was a roving commission of a most tempting sort, and I hope your ancestor had too much gallantry to hesitate about embracing it.

I beg your pardon, replied De Lancaster, my ancestor was not a man of that forward character as to aspire to situations, that ought to be above the ambition of a subject, but when this flattering offer was with all becoming thankfulness most modestly declined, King Bladud himself (as my ancestor no doubt foresaw) had the aforesaid wings fitted to his royal shoulders; ascended the roof of the temple of Apollo (at that time the loftiest edifice in the city of Troy-nouvant) and launching himself into the air confidently, as became a prince so sagacious and philosophical, committed his sacred person to the protection of Apollo and the artificial supporters, which promised him so delicious an excursion. Whether the fault was in the wings themselves, or in King Bladud’s want of dexterity in the management of them, is not for me to determine; but history puts it out of doubt that the attempt was fatal to the adventurous monarch. He fell headlong on the steps of the temple, (as you see in the picture fronting you) and was dashed in pieces in the twentieth year of his reign, and the two hundred and twentieth from the landing of Brute. All the world believed my ancestor a lost man, but Lear, son of Bladud and heir to his kingdom, being a prince of a most noble nature, and sensible to whom he was indebted for his so early elevation to the throne, rewarded the artificer of his father’s pinions by empowering him to affix them to his armorial bearing of the harp, and from that hour to this the harp of the bard between the wings of Bladud has been the proper and distinguishing shield of the De Lancasters, as not only the records of the herald’s office, but the head of every spout appertaining to the castle, can testify and evince.

The spouts alone would satisfy me, said the colonel, but the heralds and the spouts together are authorities incontestible; but since you have named Lear, I should wish to know if he is that very Lear, who, according to the drama of our poet Shakespear, having parted his kingdom between his two ungrateful daughters Gonerill and Regan, ran mad upon the reflection of his own folly for having done it.

For his madness, replied De Lancaster, there is no authority. He bestowed his eldest daughter Gonerill in marriage to Henuinus, Duke of Cornwall, and Regan to Maglanus, Duke of Albania. His youngest daughter Cordelia, who was justly his favourite, married Aganippus, prince of Gallia, and succeeded to the crown at Lear’s death, being the first of her sex, who had ever borne the title of queen absolute and governess of Britain. After the decease of Aganippus she fell a victim to the malice of her nephews Cunedagius and Morgan, sons of her unworthy sisters, and being thrown into prison by them, died, after a reign of only five years, by her own hand. The usurpers, who at first agreed to divide the empire, soon rose in arms against each other, and Morgan was slain in Cambria by Cunedagius, where the place of his death is yet called Glen-Morgan, or Morgan’s Land, now in the possession of the friend, to whom we meditate to-morrow’s visit.—But I am hastening to release you, and conclude my narrative—The line of Brute, the Trojan, ended in the year 3476 with Ferrex and Porrex, sons of old King Gorbodug, who swayed the sceptre through a period of sixty and two years. During the whole time of the Pentarchy, that took place upon the decease of the abovenamed sons of Gorbodug, my family appear to have kept close in their Cambrian retirement, till the reign of Mulmutius Dunwallo, immediately subsequent to the Pentarchy. It was then that a learned ancestor of mine assisted Mulmutius in compiling that incomparable code of laws, which being turned into Latin from the British language by Gildus Priscus, was in time long after translated into English by the great King Alfred, and by him incorporated amongst his famous statutes.—And now, my good friend, as I have always determined to have nothing to do with modern history, I here wind up my long detail, congratulating myself that those, from whom I trace my blood, had the good sense to keep close in their quarters in Cambria upon the landing of the Romans, never deigning to mix or intermarry either with them or the Picts, who came with Roderic A. D. 73, or with the Saxons, who first entered the land A. D. 390, or with the Danes in the time of Egbert, much less with the Normans in a more recent period, but remained pure and unadulterated from the days of Samothes, the grandson of Noah, to the present moment, in which I have the honour of thanking you for the attention, you have been pleased to bestow upon a detail, which I fear has been extremely tedious and unentertaining to you throughout.

Assure yourself, my good sir, replied Wilson, that the attention I have bestowed on your narrative has been amply repaid by the entertainment I have received from it. You have given me a history of my native country, which in many parts was perfectly new to me, and if it had had no concern whatever with your genealogy, still it would have been interesting to me, who have never thought, nor had the curiosity to enquire, about the annals of a time so very distant. That you have authorities for what you have narrated I cannot doubt, for I am sure you are incapable of a voluntary fiction, which, if any such there is, must rest with others, not with you. As for the gratification you may derive from the persuasion, that you can trace your descent from the son of Noah, and by consequence, through Noah, even from Adam himself, grace forbid I should attempt to lessen it, persuaded as I am, that you have too much consideration for Moses to enlist with the Pre-Adamites. At the same time I am free to own, that my respect for you, being founded on the virtues of your character, receives little addition from the circumstances of your pedigree; let me not however be considered as an abettor of plebean sentiments; I acknowledge a degree of prejudice for a well-born gentleman, and so long as you display the wings of King Bladud only on the shoulders of King Bardus’s harp, I look with respect upon your ancient banners; and henceforward when blind David Williams shall make your castle hall resound with his melodious harp, I shall recollect with pleasure that you have not only a natural delight, but also an hereditary interest, in that noble instrument. I am myself a lover of music; but it is a love without knowledge, for I neither know the practice, nor ever studied the theory of it. I like this tune, and I can’t tell why; I don’t like that, and can assign no reason for it. If music only creates surprise in me by the wonderful execution of a performer, I scarcely wish to hear it above once; if it moves my passions, and elicits (as it sometimes will) my tears, I could listen to it, as I may say, for ever; no repetition can exhaust the charm. What this is I cannot define, and for that very reason I suppose it to be nature; for art admits of explanation, but there is no logic, that applies to instinct.