Essays

by Winthrop Mackworth Praed

From that time to the present the Etonian has never renewed the contest. The answers, however, which you have published to the strictures of a correspondent upon Wordsworth and Coleridge have shown that the Salt-Bearer was somewhat reluctant to lay down the cudgels. There was also an occasional sly hit at Peregrine—especially one on the score of plagiarism, which the author did not think fit to support by any examples. You remember the lines “To a Young Lady on her Fourteenth Birthday,” inserted in your fourth number? You have accused me of plagiarism, but I did not retaliate. Neither was I severe upon your literary connection with a certain Mr. H., because I believe that connection was at least commenced when you were ignorant of the man’s notorious character.

And now, after the furious reply in your fifth number, and the occasional hits in its successors, you come forward and say, “There is no reason that I should retaliate a single word.” The palpable absurdity of this generosity must be so evident both to yourself and your readers that I need say no more upon the subject.

At all events our warfare is now over. I know not what your feelings may be towards me, but I assure you that in mine not a particle of hostility exists: if I may use the[Pg 205] expression, I have shaken hands with you, not re verâ, but by a poetical license. I feel no reluctance in allowing that the prose composition of your latter numbers has exhibited many signs of improvement; and that if the support you have received has been no greater than I believe it to have been, the editor of the Salt-Bearer has gone through his work respectably.

You and I, Mr. Bookworm, have made much noise in our day, and have excited, among our fellow-Etonians, a greater sensation than two such insignificant beings ever excited before. There has been much talk about us, which has now, I believe, ceased; and there has been much hot blood between us, which has now, I trust, grown cool. For my part, I can look back to our early disputes as if they were the events of a former age; and detect our respective blunders and mistakes as calmly as if I were making the same examination into the conduct of our great-grandfathers.

When I throw a glance over the journey which our Etonian writers have travelled, I fancy that I see three different routes leading towards the same point. In the centre, Messrs. Griffin and Gildrig are riding a couple of clever nags, at a good round trot: on one side, Mr. Bookworm is bestriding what is commonly termed “a safe cob for an infirm gentleman,” which scrambles over his ground in such a manner that the spectators imagine he will come to a dead stop every instant; on the other side is Mr. Courtenay, whip and spur, whip and spur, the whole way—up hill and down hill, bush and briar, furze and fence, it is the same thing. Mr. C., they say, never uses a curb; and the animal occasionally waxes so formidably obstinate that he has infinite difficulty in keeping his seat.

The meaning of all this is, that it would have been well for you to have had a little less discretion, and for me to have had a little more; it would have been well for you to have drunk a little more punch, and for me to have drunk a little less. But what could I do? The Salt-Bearer appeared, and was voted milk and water! It was necessary for me to prepare a more potent beverage. I will venture to assert, that if the Microcosm itself had appeared[Pg 206] immediately after the Salt-Bearer, its success would have been precarious. Eton wanted something more pungent! The Etonian substituted the punch-bowl for the tea-pot; and people ran away from Mr. Bookworm’s best Bohea to see Mr. Golightly squeezing the lemons.

I, Peregrine Courtenay, as is well known, am a very sober long-faced sort of editor, somewhat of a friend to a quiet pint of ale or a social glass of old port, but a most abominable enemy (I hope Sir Thomas will not be angry) to everything that bears the name of downright jollification. I was therefore not less surprised than my friends at finding myself a member—- nay, the president of a club—so formidably jovial. Many times during the first week of my reign did I turn round in an absent fit and exclaim, “How in the name of sobriety did I come here?” However, finding that there were no spirits in our punch-bowl saving the spirit of good-humour, and no danger of intoxication saving the intoxication of success, I gradually became reconciled to my situation, and can now get drunk, in print, with very tolerable success. With you, however, my dear sir, I am quite sober. I would not have ventured to obtrude myself upon your retirement in a condition of which you could have disapproved. I do assure you, upon the word of an editor, that I have drunk nothing this morning but some “Meanders of Sensibility,” by “Juvenis,” very weak and corky indeed; and some “Tricklings from Tweed,” by “Allen-a-Dale,” the first bottle of which has poisoned half the Club.

I have been remarking upon the birth of you and me. Let me now look back to your decease, and forward (alas!) to my own.

You have taken leave of your readers, I must say, pretty decently. I regret, however, that you have not thought fit to disclose to the world the names of your several correspondents, and the papers for which you are indebted to them. I regret it not, believe me, from any silly curiosity, but merely from a regard for your own character. I wish you had shown (I know you could have shown) that it was not your hand which put “rancour” and “malice” and “hatred” into your fourth number; that it was[Pg 207] not your ingenuity which coined that unlucky nullæ in your fifth. But, however—you have delivered your farewell address, and I am getting ready mine. On the 28th of July—I weep as I think of it—the Club will be dissolved, and the Etonian will be no more.

In the concealment of your correspondents’ names, I think I shall not imitate you. It is at present my intention to adopt a contrary line of conduct. I am actuated in this by two very opposite motives—by a feeling of modesty and a feeling of pride. Modesty induces me to take care that I may not be commended, as I have been, for writings which are another’s; and that others may not be abused, as they have been, for writings which are mine. Pride, on the other hand, compels me to wish that my name may appear in print, coupled with names which are, and long will be, a part of our most triumphant recollections. When I reflect exultingly on the powerful minds upon which Peregrine Courtenay has leaned for support, I would fain hope that in after years he may continue to share in their praises—to partake of their immortality!