“I loathe and detest that eternal sneer of yours. You believe and feel, Marmaduke, although you are too weak to confess it, that the life you have described, a turbid unresting sea of passion and anxiety, and hope and fear, and brief calm and long madness, is worth—oh! twenty times over—the sleepy river of a pedant’s philosophy, or the dirty ditch-water of your own clumsy indifference.”
“Why, my dear Davenant,” said Marmaduke, quietly, “you know love has its ditch-water occasionally; my poor ancestor found it so. But pass on. Here is a courtier of Queen Elizabeth’s day, lying on the green sward in despondency and an attitude, with a myriad of cares and a bunch of daffy-down-dillies in his bosom. There is your true cavalier; a health to short wit and long spurs, blue eyes and white satin! The race has been quite extinct since rapiers went out and political economists came in.”
“I wish,” muttered Cecil, “I wish I had lived with those men. To have had Spenser for my idol, or Sydney for my friend—to have held Leicester’s mantle at court, or Raleigh’s back-hand at tennis—to have stormed a town with Drake, or a bottle with Shakespeare—by Elizabeth’s ruff, it would have been worth an eternity! That was your age for choice spirits!”
“You will find very choice spirits at the Hummums,” said Marmaduke; “but we are getting into the Great Rebellion. It abounded in good subjects—for the pencil, I mean, not for the prince. Never was the land so sorely plagued with dire confusion and daubed canvas. There is silly Sir Lacy who lost his head, and was none the poorer; and sillier Sir Maurice, who lost his lands, and was many acres the poorer: and there is honest Sir Paul, who came in with the Restoration, and wrote my favourite song. Ha, Davenant!
“‘For prince or for prig,
Long locks or flowery wig,
I don’t care a fig!—
Fill the glasses.
So I may hold my land,
And my bottle in my hand,
And moisten life’s sand
While it passes.’”
[Pg 250]
There was a curious portrait a little farther on—a beautiful and interesting woman, as far as neck and bosom could give us any information; but in place of her countenance was painted a thick black veil. I asked for her history. “Oh,” said Villars, “that damosel was called Priscilla the Penniless. She was wonderfully killing, but of course that is not the reason she is veiled. Her uncle, the existing head of the family, struck her face out of the picture, and her name out of his will, because she married a young Roundhead, who had no merit but his insolence and no fortune but his sword.”
“What a detestable fool!” said Davenant, meaning the uncle.
“I think she was,” said Marmaduke, meaning the niece. “Mais allons; let me show you one more set of features, and we will adjourn. Here is my earliest and most complete idea of feminine beauty. Down on your knees, Davenant, and worship. The fairy-like symmetry of the shape, and the pretty threatening of the right arm, and the admirable nonchalance of the left, and the studied tranquillity of the black hair, and the eloquent malignity of the dark eyes, and the exquisite caprice of the nose, and the laughing scorn of her little lips! By Venus’ dimple, Davenant, I have stood here, and talked rhapsodies to her for hours.”
“Pray give us one now,” said Cecil, laughing.
“I will. Fairest of Nature’s works! perfection in duodecimo! I speak to you, and you do not hear; I question you, and you do not answer: but I read your taste in your dress, and your character in your countenance. You are the brightest of all earthly beauties. You would call me a blockhead if I called you a goddess; you are fashioned for a drawing-room, and not for Olympus—for champagne, and not for nectar; you are born for conquest and for mirth, to busy your delicate brain with the slaves of to-day, and to snap your delicate fingers at the slaves of yesterday; epigrams only are indited to your charms, witticisms only are uttered in your presence; you think laughter the elixir vitæ, and a folio of theology poison; you look with contempt on the Damon who has died for your sake, and with kindness[Pg 251] on the fool who bows to the ground and vows he is ‘yours entire,’ head and hand, pen and pistol, from infancy to age, and from shining ringlet to shoe-ribbon!”