To come, however, to the better side of our subject.—Walpole is, as we have said, an inimitable gossip,—a most vivacious garrulous historian of fair-haired women, and curious blue china. His garrulity, moreover, hath a genius of its own—and a transparent tea-cup lets in the light of inspiration upon it, and makes it shine with colours nigh divine. An inlaid commode is, with him, the mind’s easy chair. We shall select a few passages from the letters before us, which, for pleasantry, ease and alertness, are by far the gayest morceau of description we have read of late. We may begin with a curious anecdote of Fielding, which is almost as interesting as any thing in the book. Thus it is—
‘Take sentiments out of their pantoufles, and reduce them to the infirmities of mortality, what a falling off there is! I could not help laughing in myself t’other day, as I went through Holborn in a very hot day, at the dignity of human nature. All those foul old-clothes women panting without handkerchiefs, and mopping themselves all the way down within their loose jumps. Rigby gave me as strong a picture of nature. He and Peter Bathurst, t’other night, carried a servant of the latter’s, who had attempted to shoot him, before Fielding; who, to all his other vocations, has, by the grace of Mr. Lyttleton, added that of Middlesex Justice. He sent them word that he was at supper; that they must come next morning. They did not understand that freedom, and ran up, where they found him banqueting with a blind man, a w——, and three Irishmen, on some cold mutton and a bone of ham, both in one dish, and the dirtiest cloth. He never stirred, nor asked them to sit. Rigby, who had seen him so often come to beg a guinea of Sir. C. Williams, and Bathurst, at whose father’s he had lived for victuals, understood that dignity as little, and pulled themselves chairs,—on which he civilized.’
It is very certain that the writings of men are coloured by their indolence, their amusements, and their occupations; and this little peep into Fielding’s private hours, lets us at once into his course of studies, and is an admirable illustration of his Tom Jones, Jonathan Wild, and other novels. We are taken into the artist’s workshop, and shown the models from which he works; or rather, we break in upon him at a time when he is copying from the life. It is a very idle piece of morality, to lament over Fielding for this low indulgence of his appetite for character. If he had been found quietly at his tea, he would never have left behind him the name he has done. There is nothing of a tea inspiration in any of his novels. They are assuredly the finest things of the kind in the language; and we are Englishmen enough to consider them the best in any language. They are indubitably the most English of all the works of Englishmen.
The descriptions of Lord Ferrers’s fatal murder, and of Balmerino’s death, are given with considerable spirit—(our author, indeed, is extremely piquant in matters of life and death); and we are puzzled which to select for our readers. They are both strongly illustrative of the times in which Walpole and the heroes of them lived; but we cannot afford room for them both; and we choose the letter on Lord Ferrers,—not because it is better written, or that the subject is more interesting, but because the book before us is open at that part, and because we would not idly meddle with so heroic a fall as that of the Lord Balmerino.
‘The extraordinary history of Lord Ferrers is closed: He was executed yesterday. Madness, that in other countries is a disorder, is here a systematic character: It does not hinder people from forming a plan of conduct, and from even dying agreeably to it. You remember how the last Ratcliffe died with the utmost propriety; so did this horrid lunatic, coolly and sensibly. His own and his wife’s relations had asserted that he would tremble at last. No such thing; he shamed heroes. He bore the solemnity of a pompous and tedious procession of above two hours, from the Tower to Tyburn, with as much tranquillity as if he was only going to his own burial, not to his own execution. He even talked of indifferent subjects in the passage; and if the sheriff and the chaplain had not thought that they had parts to act too, and had not consequently engaged him in most particular conversation, he did not seem to think it necessary to talk on the occasion. He went in his wedding clothes; marking the only remaining impression on his mind. The ceremony he was in a hurry to have over. He was stopped at the gallows by a vast crowd; but got out of his coach as soon as he could, and was but seven minutes on the scaffold; which was hung with black, and prepared by the undertaker of his family at their expense. There was a new contrivance for sinking the stage under him, which did not play well; and he suffered a little by the delay, but was dead in four minutes. The mob was decent, and admired him, and almost pitied him; so they would Lord George, whose execution they are so angry at missing. I suppose every highwayman will now preserve the blue handkerchief he has about his neck when he is married, that he may die like a lord. With all his madness, he was not mad enough to be struck with his aunt Huntingdon’s sermons. The Methodists have nothing to brag of his conversion; though Whitfield prayed for him, and preached about him. Even Tyburn has been above their reach. I have not heard that Lady Fanny dabbled with his soul; but I believe she is prudent enough to confine her missionary zeal to subjects where the body may be her perquisite.’
The following is the account of Walpole’s visit to Newsted Abbey,—the seat of the Byrons.
‘As I returned, I saw Newsted and Althorpe; I like both. The former is the very abbey. The great east window of the church remains, and connects with the house; the hall entire, the refectory entire, the cloister untouch’d, with the ancient cistern of the convent, and their arms on; It is a private chapel, quite perfect. The park, which is still charming, has not been so much unprofaned: The present lord has lost large sums, and paid part in old oaks; five thousand pounds of which have been cut near the house. In recompense, he has built two baby forts, to pay his country in castles for damage done to the navy; and planted a handful of Scotch firs, that look like ploughboys dress’d in old family liveries for a public day. In the hall is a very good collection of pictures, all animals; the refectory, now the great drawing room, is full of Byrons; the vaulted roof remaining, but the windows have new dresses making for them by a Venetian tailor.’
This is a careless, but happy description, of one of the noblest mansions in England; and it will now be read with a far deeper interest than when it was written. Walpole saw the seat of the Byrons, old, majestic, and venerable;—but he saw nothing of that magic beauty which Fame sheds over the habitations of Genius, and which now mantles every turret of Newsted Abbey. He saw it when Decay was doing its work on the cloister, the refectory, and the chapel, and all its honours seemed mouldering into oblivion. He could not know that a voice was soon to go forth from those antique cloisters, that should be heard through all future ages, and cry, ‘Sleep no more, to all the house.’ Whatever may be its future fate, Newsted Abbey must henceforth be a memorable abode. Time may shed its wild flowers on the walls, and let the fox in upon the courtyard and the chambers. It may even pass into the hands of unlettered pride or plebian opulence.—But it has been the mansion of a mighty poet. Its name is associated to glories that cannot perish—and will go down to posterity in one of the proudest pages of our annals.
Our author is not often pathetic: But there are some touches of this sort in the account of his visit to Houghton—though the first part is flippant enough.
‘The surprise the picture gave me is again renewed. Accustomed for many years to see nothing but wretched daubs and varnished copies at auctions, I look at these as enchantment. My own description of them seems poor; but, shall I tell you truly, the majesty of Italian ideas almost sinks before the warm nature of Flemish colouring. Alas! don’t I grow old? My young imagination was fired with Guido’s ideas; must they be plump and prominent as Abishag to warm me now? Does great youth feel with poetic limbs, as well as see with poetic eyes? In one respect I am very young; I cannot satiate myself with looking: an incident contributed to make me feel this more strongly. A party arrived, just as I did, to see the house; a man, and three women in riding dresses, and they rode post through the apartments. I could not hurry before them fast enough; they were not so long in seeing for the first time, as I could have been in one room, to examine what I knew by heart. I remember formerly being often diverted with this kind of seers; they come—ask what such a room is called—in which Sir Robert lay—write it down—admire a lobster or a cabbage in a market piece—dispute whether the last room was green or purple—and then hurry to the inn for fear the fish should be over-dressed. How different my sensations! Not a picture here but recalls a history; not one but I remember in Downing-street or Chelsea, where queens and crowds admired them,—though seeing them as little as these travellers!’