Our hero modestly replied, “Having read, sir, Aristotle and Bacon, Cicero and Burke, and endeavoured to imbibe lessons and sentiments, which I so much admired, I am naturally a friend to mixed government, modified and rational liberty, and an enemy to uncontrouled licence.” Burke again squeezing his hand—“You must, Mr. Hamilton, gratify an old man, by helping me to pass the Easter holidays; I shall learn your address, and pay you my respects, in hopes of making our arrangements for Beaconsfield.” Messrs. Fox and Sheridan paid our hero high compliments. Mr. Fox said, “Cum talis fis utinam noster esses.” Burke, who had moved a little aside, hearing this wish, said aloud, “Dii avertite omen.” About this time, a very loud sobbing was heard from a corner. The humanity of Burke directed him to the place, and he found the sobbing issued from an elderly gentleman. In a soothing voice, he begged to know if he could give any assistance, or alleviate his grief?—“It is not g-r-i-e-f,” replied the other, “it is j-o-y.” When our hero coming up, addressed the gentleman by the appellation of uncle, Burke immediately comprehended the case, and was very much amused and interested. He congratulated the uncle on the nephew, and included him in the invitation to Beaconsfield.
The uncle and nephew having gone home, the laird finding the old clergyman and his son, and both the Mrs. Hamiltons waiting for them in the supper-room, called out with great emotion, “I pity you aw, nane of ye half kenns Willie; nay, for that matter, I did not half kenn him mysel.” Hamilton smiled. “What is the matter, uncle?” said Maria.—“Willie made a speech! Willie made a speech!” and he strutted through the room: “if you want to ken what kind of speech it was, ask Mr. Pett and Mr. Dundas, the saaviours of their country; and ask Mr. Burke, that spoke up for the gentry and dignity of the country, against rapscallions: he has inveeted Willie and me to his country hoose. Nay, even Mr. Fox, though I suspect he is one of them as they call Foxites, or democrats, or jacobins, which they tell me is all ane, he praised Willie, and said something in laatin to him; but you may be all prood of Willie.” Sir Edward Hambden now arriving, gave the company a full explanation of what they had, in a considerable degree understood, even from the report of the laird; and placed the whole speech before them, to their great admiration and delight. Our hero said very little, except merely rectifying his uncle’s mistake about Foxites. Neither they, nor their leaders, he believed were democrats; and he was still more convinced they were not jacobins, though some parts of their conduct had a tendency to promote democratical principles and practices.
Our hero having thus laid the foundation of parliamentary fame, persevered in his career, and was always most distinguished on the most arduous subjects. He was caressed and courted by the chief men of the land, presented, with his lady, to their Majesties, and both received with the most benignant complacency. He had now, though only twenty-nine, reached a high elevation of fortune, and a much higher elevation of honour. A rank in society, which he had only faintly hoped to attain in the decline of years, he now realized in the youthful vigour of life. His beloved Maria was placed in that sphere, which she was so well fitted to adorn, and to which it had been the utmost ambition of his love that she might be raised. To his growing family, he saw the certainty of opulence and distinction, and resolved to make it his chief care, that the understandings and hearts of his children, should be adequate to their fortunes. He saw his friends prosperous and happy around him, and his absent brother, for professional talents and enterprize, was promoted to command a frigate; while his uncle, Captain Wentbridge, who had intended to divide a considerable property among the children of his sister, with a mere honorary legacy to his brother, who required or wanted no pecuniary addition, now destined his second nephew his heir, as both Hamilton and Lady Hambden had so very ample provisions. Our hero prevailed on his mother, to accept of as much addition to her income, as could afford her the comfort of a carriage. He himself persevered with his literary engagements, and notwithstanding his parliamentary occupations, completed them within the specified time. Besides the nine hundred pounds for the three volumes, he had to receive about one hundred and fifty pounds of a balance on other accounts. As he now had no occasion to earn profits from literary labours, he resolved to apply the proceeds to a purpose of the highest consequence to the advancement of literature. He presented the sum, in all a thousand guineas, to that WISE AND BENEFICIAL INSTITUTION—THE LITERARY FUND. Placed in such hands, he knew it would be employed with combined benignity and discrimination; and that when enlightened dispensers of bounty administer relief, they so model the donation and mode, as to alleviate distress without wounding ingenuous sensibility.
The good fortune of Hamilton was pleasing to many of his acquaintances, and to all his ABLE literary associates. These trusting to their own efforts and fame, had no motives for repining at the success of another. But a considerable number of professed votaries of literature were enraged at his prosperity, though not ill-pleased that it withdrew him from a field, in which they had the folly to look on him as a competitor. Of those who were the most violently provoked against that Providence that elevated Hamilton, the most incessantly querulous, and furiously acrimonious, was poor Doctor Dicky Scribble, who was now at as great pains to vilify the parliamentary exhibitions of Hamilton, as he formerly had been to revile his literary works. This virulence Dicky poured out in the midst of warm professions of friendship. Hence many may suppose, that Dicky Scribble is a very faithless and bad man. He is not so naturally; he is only so from the accident of situation. Scribble is a bad man, because he is a bad writer; he pours out calumny, not against all, for all do not interfere with him; but against all writers or intellectual labourers of growing or established reputation. He calls on them “with no friendly voice, but to tell them in his darkness how he hates their light.” Poor Dicky not only supposes himself to have common sense, and that is straining hypothesis much too far, but in an infatuation of self-conceit, bordering upon insanity, fancies himself to be above ordinary mediocrity; and, astonishing to say, even dreams he is a man of genius; a notion that proves the justness of one of Swift’s observations—“That there is no proposition so absurd, but that it will be believed by some of mankind.” The Doctor is the more enraged against Hamilton, because he is enraged against his own situation. The world in general, or at least that part of it which happens to know any thing of Scribble and his writings, have unfortunately found out that he is a mere plodding literary blockhead. The booksellers know this opinion, and none of them now give him any employment, except one or two, who have some compassion on him, since they conceived him in his labours an indefatigable drudge. They allow him something for his subsistence, from the same generous motives which induce a liberal farmer to allow to his exhausted donkies, the run of some of his poorer fields, and an ass can feed very comfortably on thistles. Dicky is at present occupied in writing a treatise, to prove that neither Pitt nor Fox, have any more than common abilities; and that both are deplorably deficient in eloquence.
Billy Nincompoop, of the Gallimatia Press, still employs Scribble in the novel line; but as there is said to be a great want of work among milliners, from the hardness of the times, in the journey-women Dicky will find formidable rivals. Nincompoop, I am credibly informed, has two hundred and fifty new romances just a-coming.
The husband of the worthy friend at Brighton, of a gay Countess, still goes on in his former and manifold occupations; and it is confidently asserted, is now as upright an honest man, as ever he was since he came to the years of maturity. His wife is equally disposed to accommodate visitors, either in person or by proxy: of latter years, proxy has been the principal mode.
The Countess of Cockatrice, trained up to a certain course in her youth, when old has not deviated. In her grand climacteric, her objects and pursuits are the same, as in the charming minor climacteric of her teens. Her worthy vassal, Mrs. Dicky, still follows lords and ladies; but as she rather gets old, and less active, her influence decreases apace.—Lord Bayleaf was, some months ago, reported to be on the brink of eternity; but it was found that he still stuck fast by his very old friend Time. It is said, a splendid epitaph was prepared for his tomb; that the inscription recites the years he has lived upon earth, the extent of his possessions, his opportunities of doing good, and the good that he has done, concluding with a text, happily descriptive of the rewards that await the devout and benevolent—“Thy prayers and thine alms shall go before thee, as memorials to the throne of God.” What a multiplicity of such testimonies may this pious and generous man, in looking back on his well-spent life, expect to hail his arrival in the regions of bliss!
Captain Mortimer, worn out by infirmities more than age, has retired from actual service; but still likes the neighbourhood of his favourite element. He has disposed of his house, on the coast of Sussex, there being nothing interesting, he observes, either about Brighton or Worthing, where you hardly ever see a ship, unless one or two from Shoreham dock, and these only small craft. Ramsgate he tried, and allowed that the prospect of the Downs was most charming to any one, who had never seen Plymouth Sound or Spithead. At length he fixed his residence in the slope of Portsdown hill, whence, from his windows, he can descry and reckon the ships at Spithead and St. Helen’s. His bed-room, in a high part of the house, commands the same prospect; and his old servant, Ben Reef, enters his room every morning at seven (if it be day-light), to place the telescope between the bed and the window, that without rising earlier than nine, his now usual hour, he may ascertain departures and arrivals. Fondly attached to the memory of his glorious profession, to which he was himself a distinguished honour, he, nevertheless, pays due regard to the various duties of social life; and Hampshire contains not a more hospitable and friendly man; a more benignant and generous benefactor; a more bountiful supporter of the poor, than this gallant veteran, who having employed his active life, in serving his king and country, now unqualified for such efforts, employs the same ardour in benefiting his fellow-subjects and countrymen. Such is our veteran seaman. Our hero, and all his friends, use every effort in their power, to shew their love and respect for such a valuable character.
His brother, ‘Squire Mortimer, though two years older, and not originally stronger in constitution, yet never having had such hardships to encounter, is, at sixty-seven, hale and vigorous, and resides upon his estate. He is still very assiduous in agricultural pursuits, and has greatly improved his estate. His son John possesses the estate of his wife, who has brought him several children. She lately lost her mother. In 1796, Mortimer having a borough at command, came into parliament, and makes a considerable figure, though scarcely equal to Sir Edward Hambden, and much inferior to Hamilton.
The venerable old Mr. Wentbridge lived to the great age of eighty-eight, and died in the most tranquil resignation, leaving his property equally divided between his three children. His second son, the Captain, followed him in about six months, bequeathing thirty thousand pounds to his maritime nephew, one thousand each for a ring to his brother, his sister, Lady Hambden, and our hero; and dividing his patrimonial two thousand between his brother and sister. Within the year he was followed by his brother, who left to his sister both his father’s and brother’s bequests. A landed property of five hundred a year he left to his elder nephew, burdened with a jointure of two hundred and fifty pounds a year to his sister; he left five thousand pounds each to Captain Hamilton and Lady Hambden.