All this I detailed to my right reverend patron, who heaved his cumbrous eye-brows, and gazed approbation while I spoke. I was so full of myself and my subject, repeated sounding names and apt quotations with such volubility, and imparted my own firm conviction that this was the death blow to non-conformity with such force, that the rotund man felt some small portion of sympathy, looked forward to happy times, and began to hope he might see the thrones dominions powers and principalities of the church re-established, and flourishing once more! Had this been his only motive, however false his tenets, he would have acted from a virtuous intention; but he had another, with which the reader will in due time be acquainted.
Thus favourably prepossessed, I left my manuscript for his perusal; and he treated me with as much condescension as, for a client so undignified, he could persuade himself to assume.
It must not be forgotten that Enoch was present: this my vanity and his cunning required. He played his part. His congratulations of his young friend, and his amazement at his lordship's most prodigious goodness, would have risen to ecstacy, if ecstacy and Enoch could possibly have been acquainted.
We hied back to Suffolk street, where our good news was as usual related. I had my vanity to feed, and the family had their views.
Miss had been presented with two box tickets, for the benefit of a capital performer. The inimitable Mrs. Jordan was to play the Country Girl, and I was invited by the family and pressed by Miss to accept of one of them, and accompany her to the theatre.
I was not of a saturnine and cold complexion; and, fearful and guarded as Miss was against rakes, I had some latent apprehension that the tempter might be at hand. But the play-house was the region of delight. Mrs. Jordan I had never seen, and to reject a lady's invitation was as cowardly as to refuse a gentleman's challenge.
I had not yet philosophy enough for either, and at the appointed hour a hackney coach was in waiting, and I and Miss Eliza, accompanied by Enoch who had business in the Temple, were driven to Drury Lane Theatre.
Places were kept, we took our seats, and the play began. So intent was I, on plot, incident, character, wit, and humour, that, had I been left unmolested, I fear I should have totally forgotten Miss Eliza. But that was no part of her plan: at least it was no part of her practice. Our knees soon became very intimate, and had frequent meetings of a very sentimental kind: for, she being courageous enough to advance, could I be the poltroon to retreat? They were however very good and loving neighbours, and the language they spoke was peculiarly impressive. The whole subject before us was love, and intrigue, and the way to torment the jealous. Whenever a significant passage occurred, and that was very often, either the feet, or the legs, or the elbows of Miss and me came in contact. Our eyes too might have met, but that I did not understand her traverse sailing. Commentaries, conveyed in a whisper, were continual. Her glances, shot athwart, frequently exclaimed—'Oh la!' and the fan, half concealing their significance, often enough increased the interjection to—'Oh fie!' The remarks of Miss, ocular and oral, were very pointed, and it must be owned that she was a great master of the subject. Whenever the tone of libertine gallantry occurred, she was ready with—'There! That's you! There! There you are again! Well, I protest! Was any thing ever so like? That is you to a T!'
I must tell the truth, and acknowledge she created no little perturbation in my inward man. My thoughts were attracted this way, and hurried that. The divine Mrs. Jordan for one moment made me all her own. Miss insisted on having me to herself the next. Then came theology, a dread of Eve and her apple, supported by a still more redoubtable combatant, virtue, with her fair but inflexible face! And could Olivia, the gentle, the angelic, the beaming Olivia, such as I remembered her in days of early innocence, such as I beheld her reclining in my arms as I bore her from the dangerous waters, could love be the theme and she forgotten? No! There was not a day in which that phenomenon happened; and on such occasions never. Why I thought on her, or what I meant, I seldom staid in inquire; for that was a question that would have given exquisite pain, had I not remembered that the world was soon to be at my command.
But Olivia was absent, and I had entered the lists with a very different heroine. Through play and farce there was no cessation to the combat; and, in spite of the fencing and warding of prudence, before the curtain finally dropped I own I felt myself a little breathed.