“From my son. Received October 15 at Richmond. Sent 16 jars preserved peaches, 224 lbs. best tobacco, 24 finest hams, per Royal William of Liverpool, 8 jars peaches, 12 hams for my nephew, the Rt. Honourable the Earl of Castlewood. 4 jars, 6 hams for the Baroness Bernstein, ditto ditto for Mrs. Lambert of Oakhurst, Surrey, and 1/2 cwt. tobacco. Packet of Infallible Family Pills for Gumbo. My Papa's large silver-gilt shoe-buckles for H., and red silver-laced saddle-cloth.”
II. (enclosed in No. I.)
“For Mrs. Mountain.
“What do you mien, you silly old Mountain, by sending an order for your poor old divadends dew at Xmas? I'd have you to know I don't want your 7l. 10, and have toar your order up into 1000 bitts. I've plenty of money. But I'm obleaged to you all same. A kiss to Fanny from—Your loving HARRY.”
Note in Madam Esmond's Handwriting
“This note, which I desired M. to show to me, proves that she hath a good heart, and that she wished to show her gratitude to the family, by giving up her half-yearly divd. (on L500 3 per ct.) to my boy. Hence I reprimanded her very slightly for daring to send money to Mr. E. Warrington, unknown to his mother. Note to Mountain not so well spelt as letter to me.
“Mem. to write to Revd. Mr. Sampson desire to know what theolog. books he reads with H. Recommend Law, Baxter, Drelincourt.—Request H. to say his catechism to Mr. S., which he has never quite been able to master. By next ship peaches (3), tobacco 1/2 cwt. Hams for Mr. S.”
The mother of the Virginians and her sons have long long since passed away. So how are we to account for the fact, that of a couple of letters sent under one enclosure and by one packet, one should be well spelt, and the other not entirely orthographical? Had Harry found some wonderful instructor, such as exists in the present lucky times, and who would improve his writing in six lessons? My view of the case, after deliberately examining the two notes, is this: No. 1, in which there appears a trifling grammatical slip (“the kind, friends who I found and whom took me in”), must have been re-written from a rough copy which had probably undergone the supervision of a tutor or friend. The more artless composition, No. 2, was not referred to the scholar who prepared No. 1 for the maternal eye, and to whose corrections of “who” and “whom” Mr. Warrington did not pay very close attention. Who knows how he may have been disturbed? A pretty milliner may have attracted Harry's attention out of window—a dancing bear with pipe and tabor may have passed along the common—a jockey come under his windows to show off a horse there? There are some days when any of us may be ungrammatical and spell ill. Finally, suppose Harry did not care to spell so elegantly for Mrs. Mountain as for his lady-mother, what affair is that of the present biographer, century, reader? And as for your objection that Mr. Warrington, in the above communication to his mother, showed some little hypocrisy and reticence in his dealings with that venerable person, I dare say, young folks, you in your time have written more than one prim letter to your papas and mammas in which not quite all the transactions of your lives were narrated, or if narrated, were exhibited in the most favourable light for yourselves—I dare say, old folks! you, in your time, were not altogether more candid. There must be a certain distance between me and my son Jacky. There must be a respectful, an amiable, a virtuous hypocrisy between us. I do not in the least wish that he should treat me as his equal, that he should contradict me, take my arm-chair, read the newspaper first at breakfast, ask unlimited friends to dine when I have a party of my own, and so forth. No; where there is not equality there must be hypocrisy. Continue to be blind to my faults; to hush still as mice when I fall asleep after dinner; to laugh at my old jokes; to admire my sayings; to be astonished at the impudence of those unbelieving reviewers; to be dear filial humbugs, O my children! In my castle I am king. Let all my royal household back before me. 'Tis not their natural way of walking, I know: but a decorous, becoming, and modest behaviour highly agreeable to me. Away from me they may do, nay, they do do, what they like. They may jump, skip, dance, trot, tumble over heads and heels, and kick about freely, when they are out of the presence of my majesty. Do not then, my dear young friends, be surprised at your mother and aunt when they cry out, “Oh, it was highly immoral and improper of Mr. Warrington to be writing home humdrum demure letters to his dear mamma, when he was playing all sorts of merry pranks!”—but drop a curtsey, and say, “Yes, dear grandmamma (or aunt, as may be), it was very wrong of him: and I suppose you never had your fun when you were young.” Of course, she didn't! And the sun never shone, and the blossoms never budded, and the blood never danced, and the fiddles never sang, in her spring-time. Eh, Babet! mon lait de poule et mon bonnet de nuit! Ho, Betty! my gruel and my slippers! And go, ye frisky, merry little souls! and dance, and have your merry little supper of cakes and ale!