[64] i.e.—A 'Statesman elliptically for an Estatesman,—a native dalesman possessing and personally cultivating a patrimonial landed estate.
[65] "Waiter":—Since this was first written, social changes in London, by introducing females very extensively into the office (once monopolized by men) of attending the visitors at the tables of eating-houses have introduced a corresponding new word—viz., waitress; which word, twenty-five years back, would have been simply ludicrous; but now is become as indispensable to precision of language as the words traitress, heiress, inheritrix, &c.
[66] My doubt is founded upon the varying tenure of these secluded chapels as to privileges of marrying or burying. The mere name of chapel, though, of course, in regular connexion with some mother church, does not of itself imply whether it has or has not the power to solemnize a marriage.
[67] At Carlisle, 3d September 1803. His marriage with Mary Robinson, the Beauty of Buttermere, had been on 3d October 1802, when he was forty-three years of age. Originally he had been a commercial traveller; and his early marriage with an illegitimate daughter of a younger son of an English nobleman seems to have had much to do with his subsequent career. Deserting this wife and her children in 1782, he had lived a life of swindling ever since, had married a second wife and deserted her, and was wooing a young Irish lady at the very time when the Buttermere girl became his victim. "His manners were extremely polished and insinuating, and he was possessed of qualities which might have rendered him an ornament of society," is the pleasant character I find of him in one Newgate Calendar compendium.—M.
[68] In connexion with this mention of "suburban" and minor theatres, it is but fair to cite a passage expressly relating to Mary of Buttermere from the Seventh Book (entitled "Residence in London") of Wordsworth's "Prelude":—
"Here, too, were forms and pressures of the time,
Rough, bold, as Grecian comedy display'd
When Art was young; dramas of living men,
And recent things yet warm with life; a sea-fight,
Shipwreck, or some domestic incident
Divulged by Truth, and magnified by Fame;
Such as the daring brotherhood of late
Set forth, too serious theme for that light place—
I mean, O distant friend! a story drawn
From our own ground—the Maid of Buttermere,
And how, unfaithful to a virtuous wife,
Deserted and deceived, the spoiler came
And wooed the artless daughter of the hills,
And wedded her, in cruel mockery
Of love and marriage bonds. These words to thee
Must needs bring back the moment when we first,
Ere the broad world rang with the maiden's name,
Beheld her serving at the cottage inn,
Both stricken, as she enter'd or withdrew,
With admiration of her modest mien
And carriage, mark'd by unexampled grace.
We since that time not unfamiliarly
Have seen her—her discretion have observed,
Her just opinions, delicate reserve,
Her patience and humility of mind,
Unspoiled by commendation and the excess
Of public notice—an offensive light
To a meek spirit suffering inwardly."
The "distant friend" here apostrophized is Coleridge, then at Malta. But it is fair to record this memorial of the fair mountaineer—going perhaps as much beyond the public estimate of her pretensions as my own was below it. It should be added that William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (to whom the writer appeals as in general sympathy with himself) had seen Mary more frequently, and had conversed with her much more freely, than myself.
[69] In April 1804.—M.
[70] "Ball and Bell"—"Bell and Ball":—viz. Sir Alexander Ball, Governor of Malta, and Dr. Andrew Bell, the importer into England from Madras of that machinery for facilitating popular education which was afterwards fraudulently appropriated by Joseph Lancaster. The Bishop of Durham (Shute Barrington) gave to Dr. Bell, in reward of his Madras services, the princely Mastership of Sherborne Hospital. The doctor saved in this post £125,000, and with this money founded Trinity College, Glenalmond, in Perthshire. Most men have their enemies and calumniators: Dr. Bell had his, who happened rather indecorously to be his wife—from whom he was legally separated, or (as in Scotch law it is called) divorced; not, of course, divorced à vinculo matrimonii (which only amounts to a divorce in the English sense—such a divorce as enables the parties to contract another marriage), but simply divorced à mensâ et thoro. This legal separation, however, did not prevent the lady from persecuting the unhappy doctor with everlasting letters, indorsed outside with records of her enmity and spite. Sometimes she addressed her epistles thus:—"To that supreme of rogues, who looks the hang-dog that he is, Doctor (such a doctor!) Andrew Bell." Or again:—"To the ape of apes, and the knave of knaves, who is recorded to have once paid a debt—but a small one, you may be sure, it was that he selected for this wonderful experiment—in fact, it was 4 1/2d. Had it been on the other side of 6d., he must have died before he could have achieved so dreadful a sacrifice." Many others, most ingeniously varied in the style of abuse, I have heard rehearsed by Coleridge, Southey, Lloyd, &c.; and one, in particular, addressed to the doctor, when spending a summer at the cottage of Robert Newton, an old soldier, in Grasmere, presented on the back two separate adjurations: one specially addressed to Robert himself, pathetically urging him to look sharply after the rent of his lodgings; and the other more generally addressed to the unfortunate person, as yet undisclosed to the British public (and in this case turning out to be myself) who might be incautious enough to pay the postage at Ambleside. "Don't grant him an hour's credit," she urged upon the person unknown, "if I had any regard to my family." "Cash down!" she wrote twice over. Why the doctor submitted to these annoyances, nobody knew. Some said it was mere indolence; but others held it to be a cunning compromise with her inexorable malice. The letters were certainly open to the "public " eye; but meantime the "public" was a very narrow one; the clerks in the post-office had little time for digesting such amenities of conjugal affection; and the chance bearer of the letters to the doctor would naturally solve the mystery by supposing an extra portion of madness in the writer, rather than an extra portion of knavery in the reverend receiver.
[71] He left Malta 27th September 1805.—M.