The Virginians

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  CHAPTER XLI. Rake's Progress

  People were still very busy in Harry Warrington's time (not that ouryoung gentleman took much heed of the controversy) in determiningthe relative literary merits of the ancients and the moderns; and thelearned, and the world with them, indeed, pretty generally pronounced infavour of the former. The moderns of that day are the ancients ofours, and we speculate upon them in the present year of grace, as ourgrandchildren, a hundred years hence, will give their judgment about us.As for your book-learning, O respectable ancestors (though, to be sure,you have the mighty Gibbon with you), I think you will own that youare beaten, and could point to a couple of professors at Cambridge andGlasgow who know more Greek than was to be had in your time in allthe universities of Europe, including that of Athens, if such an oneexisted. As for science, you were scarce more advanced than thoseheathen to whom in literature you owned yourselves inferior. And inpublic and private morality? Which is the better, this actual year 1858,or its predecessor a century back? Gentlemen of Mr. Disraeli's House ofCommons! has every one of you his price, as in Walpole's or Newcastle'stime,--or (and that is the delicate question) have you almost all of youhad it? Ladies, I do not say that you are a society of Vestals--but thechronicle of a hundred years since contains such an amount of scandal,that you may be thankful you did not live in such dangerous times. No:on my conscience, I believe that men and women are both better; not onlythat the Susannas are more numerous, but that the Elders are not nearlyso wicked. Did you ever hear of such books as Clarissa, Tom Jones,Roderick Random; paintings by contemporary artists, of the men andwomen, the life and society, of their day? Suppose we were to describethe doings of such a person as Mr. Lovelace or my Lady Bellaston, orthat wonderful "Lady of Quality" who lent her memoirs to the author ofPeregrine Pickle. How the pure and outraged Nineteenth Century wouldblush, scream, run out of the room, call away the young ladies, andorder Mr. Mudie never to send one of that odious author's books again!You are fifty-eight years old, madam, and it may be that you are toosqueamish, that you cry out before you are hurt, and when nobody hadany intention of offending your ladyship. Also, it may be that thenovelist's art is injured by the restraints put upon him as many anhonest, harmless statue at St. Peter's and the Vatican is spoiled by thetin draperies in which ecclesiastical old women have swaddled the fairlimbs of the marble. But in your prudery there is reason. So there is inthe state censorship of the Press. The page may contain matter dangerousto bonos mores. Out with your scissors, censor, and clip off theprurient paragraph! We have nothing for it but to submit. Society, thedespot, has given his imperial decree. We may think the statue had beenseen to greater advantage without the tin drapery; we may plead that themoral were better might we recite the whole fable. Away with him--not aword! I never saw the pianofortes in the United States with the frilledmuslin trousers on their legs; but, depend on it, the muslin coveredsome of the notes as well as the mahogany, muffled the music, andstopped the player.

  To what does this prelude introduce us? I am thinking of HarryWarrington, Esquire, in his lodgings in Bond Street, London, and of thelife which he and many of the young bucks of fashion led in those times,and how I can no more take my faire young reader into them, thanLady Squeams can take her daughter to Cremorne Gardens on an ordinaryevening. My dear Miss Diana (psha! I know you are eight-and-thirty,although you are so wonderfully shy, and want to make us believeyou have just left off schoolroom dinners and a pinafore), when yourgrandfather was a young man about town, and a member of one of the clubsat White's, and dined at Pontac's off the feasts provided by Braund andLebeck, and rode to Newmarket with March and Rockingham, and toastedthe best in England with Gilly Williams and George Selwyn (and didn'tunderstand George's jokes, of which, indeed, the flavour has very muchevaporated since the bottling)--the old gentleman led a life of whichyour noble aunt (author of Legends of the Squeams's; or, Fair Fruits ofa Family Tree) has not given you the slightest idea.

  It was before your grandmother adopted those serious views for whichshe was distinguished during her last long residence at Bath, and afterColonel Tibbalt married Miss Lye, the rich soap-boiler's heiress, thather ladyship's wild oats were sown. When she was young, she was as giddyas the rest of the genteel world. At her house in Hill Street, she hadten card-tables on Wednesdays and Sunday evenings, except for a shorttime when Ranelagh was open on Sundays. Every night of her life shegambled for eight, nine, ten hours. Everybody else in society did thelike. She lost; she won; she cheated; she pawned her jewels; who knowswhat else she was not ready to pawn, so as to find funds to supply herfury for play? What was that after-supper duel at the Shakspeare's Headin Covent Garden, between your grandfather and Colonel Tibbalt: wherethey drew swords and engaged only in the presence of Sir John Screwby,who was drunk under the table? They were interrupted by Mr. JohnFielding's people, and your grandfather was carried home to Hill Streetwounded in a chair. I tell you those gentlemen in powder and ruffles,who turned out the toes of their buckled pumps so delicately, wereterrible fellows. Swords were perpetually being drawn; bottlesafter bottles were drunk; oaths roared unceasingly in conversation;tavern-drawers and watchmen were pinked and maimed; chairmen belaboured;citizens insulted by reeling pleasure-hunters. You have been to Cremornewith proper "vouchers" of course? Do you remember our great theatresthirty years ago? You were too good to go to a play. Well, you haveno idea what the playhouses were, or what the green boxes were, whenGarrick and Mrs. Pritchard were playing before them! And I, for mychildren's sake, thank that good Actor in his retirement who wasthe first to banish that shame from the theatre. No, madam, you aremistaken; I do not plume myself on my superior virtue. I do not say youare naturally better than your ancestress in her wild, rouged, gambling,flaring tearing days; or even than poor Polly Fogle, who is just takenup for shoplifting, and would have been hung for it a hundred years ago.Only, I am heartily thankful that my temptations are less, having quiteenough to do with those of the present century.

  So, if Harry Warrington rides down to Newmarket to the October meeting,and loses or wins his money there; if he makes one of a party at theShakspeare or Bedford Head; if he dines at White's ordinary, and sitsdown to macco and lansquenet afterwards; if he boxes the watch, andmakes his appearance at the Roundhouse; if he turns out for a shortspace a wild dissipated, harum-scarum young Harry Warrington; I, knowingthe weakness of human nature, am not going to be surprised; and, quiteaware of my own shortcomings, don't intend to be very savage at myneighbour's. Mr. Sampson was: in his chapel in Long Acre he whipped Vicetremendously; gave Sin no quarter; out-cursed Blasphemy with superiorAnathemas; knocked Drunkenness down, and trampled on the prostrate brutewallowing in the gutter; dragged out conjugal Infidelity, and poundedher with endless stones of rhetoric--and, after service, came to dinnerat the Star and Garter, made a bowl of punch for Harry and his friendsat the Bedford Head, or took a hand at whist at Mr. Warrington'slodgings or my Lord March's, or wherever there was a supper and goodcompany for him.

  I often think, however, in respect of Mr. Warrington's doings at thisperiod of his coming to London, that I may have taken my usual degradingand uncharitable views of him--for, you see, I have not uttered a singleword of virtuous indignation against his conduct, and if it was notreprehensible, have certainly judged him most cruelly. O the Truthful,O the Beautiful, O Modesty, O Benevolence, O Pudor, O Mores, O BlushingShame, O Namby Pamby--each with your respective capital letters to yourhonoured names! O Niminy, O Piminy! how shall I dare for to go for tosay that a young man ever was a young man?

  No doubt, dear young lady, I am calumniating Mr. Warrington according tomy heartless custom. As a proof here is a letter out of the Warringtoncollection, from Harry to his mother in which there is not a single wordthat would lead you to suppose he was leading a wild life. And such aletter from an only son to a fond and exemplary parent, we know must betrue:--

  "BOND STREET, LONDON, October 25, 1756.

  "HONORD MADAM--I take up my pen to acknowledge your honored favor of 10J
uly per Lively Virginia packet, which has duly come to hand, forwardedby our Bristol agent, and rejoice to hear that the prospect of the cropsis so good. 'Tis Tully who says that agriculture is the noblest pursuit;how delightful when that pursuit is also prophetable!

  "Since my last, dated from Tunbridge Wells, one or two insadence haveoccurred of which it is nessasery [This word has been much operatedupon with the penknife, but is left sic, no doubt to the writer'ssatisfaction.] I should advise my honored Mother. Our party there brokeup end of August: the partridge-shooting commencing. Baroness Bernstein,whose kindness to me has been most invariable, has been to Bath, herusual winter resort, and has made me a welcome present of a fifty-poundbill. I rode back with Rev. Mr. Sampson, whose instruction I findmost valluble, and my cousin, Lady Maria, to Castlewood. [Could ParsonSampson have been dictating the above remarks to Mr. Warrington?] I paida flying visit on the way to my dear kind friends Col. and Mrs. Lambert,Oakhurst House, who send my honored mother their most affectionateremembrances. The youngest Miss Lambert, I grieve to say, was dellicate;and her parents in some anxiety.

  "At Castlewood I lament to state my stay was short, owing to a quarrelwith my cousin William. He is a young man of violent passions, and alas!addicted to liquor, when he has no controul over them. In a trifflingdispute about a horse, high words arose between us, and he aymed a blowat me or its equivulent--which my Grandfathers my honored mothers childcould not brook. I rejoyned, and feld him to the ground, whents he wascarried almost sencelis to bed. I sent to enquire after his health inthe morning: but having no further news of him, came away to Londonwhere I have been ever since with brief intavles of absence.

  "Knowing you would wish me to see my dear Grandfathers University ofCambridge, I rode thither lately in company with some friends, passingthrough part of Harts, and lying at the famous bed of Ware. The Octobermeeting was just begun at Cambridge when I went. I saw the students intheir gownds and capps, and rode over to the famous Newmarket Heath,where there happened to be some races--my friend Lord Marchs horseMarrowbones by Cleaver coming off winner of a large steak. It was anamusing day--the jockeys, horses, etc., very different to our poor racesat home--the betting awful--the richest noblemen here mix with the jox,and bett all round. Cambridge pleased me: especially King's CollegeChapel, of a rich but elegant Gothick.

  "I have been out into the world, and am made member of the Clubat White's, where I meet gentlemen of the first fashion. My LordsRockingham, Carlisle, Orford, Bolingbroke, Coventry are of my friends,introduced to me by my Lord March, of whom I have often wrote before.Lady Coventry is a fine woman, but thinn. Every lady paints here, oldand young; so, if you and Mountain and Fanny wish to be in fashion,I must send you out some roogepots: everybody plays--eight, ten,card-tables at every house on every receiving-night. I am sorry to sayall do not play fair, and some do not pay fair. I have been obligedto sit down, and do as Rome does, and have actually seen ladies whom Icould name take my counters from before my face!

  "One day, his regiment the 20th being paraded in St. James's Park, afriend of mine, Mr. Wolfe, did me the honour to present me to hisRoyal Highness the Captain-General, who was most gracious; a fat, jollyPrince, if I may speak so without disrespect, reminding me in his mannerof that unhappy General Braddock; whom we knew to our sorrow last year.When he heard my name, and how dearest George had served and fallen inBraddock's unfortunate campaign, he talked a great deal with me; askedwhy a young fellow like me did not serve too; why I did not go to theKing of Prussia, who was a great General, and see a campaign or two;and whether that would not be better than dawdling about at routs andcard-parties in London? I said, I would like to go with all my heart,but was an only son now, on leave from my mother, and belonged to ourestate in Virginia. His Royal Highness said, Mr. Braddock had wrote homeaccounts of Mrs. Esmond's loyalty, and that he would gladly serve me.Mr. Wolfe and I have waited on him since, at his Royal Highness's housein Pall Mall. The latter, who is still quite a young man, made the Scotscampaign with his Highness, whom Mr. Dempster loves so much at home. Tobe sure, he was too severe: if anything can be top severe against rebelsin arms.

  "Mr. Draper has had half the Stock, my late Papa's property, transferredto my name. Until there can be no doubt of that painful loss in ourfamily which I would give my right hand to replace, the remaining stockmust remain in the trustees' name in behalf of him who inherited it.Ah, dear mother! There is no day, scarce any hour, when I don't think ofhim. I wish he were by me often. I feel like as if I was better when Iam thinking of him, and would like, for the honour of my family, that hewas representing of it here instead of--Honored madam, your dutiful andaffectionate son, HENRY ESMOND WARRINGTON."

  "P.S.--I am like your sex, who always, they say, put their chief news ina poscrip. I had something to tell you about a person to whom my heartis engaged. I shall write more about it, which there is no hurry. Saficeshe is a nobleman's daughter, and her family as good as our own."

  "CLARGIS STREET, LONDON, October 23, 1756.

  "I think, my good sister, we have been all our lives a little more thankin and less than kind, to use the words of a poet whom your dear fatherloved dearly. When you were born in our Western Principallitie, mymother was not as old as Isaac's; but even then I was much more than oldenough to be yours. And though she gave you all she could leave or give,including the little portion of love that ought to have been my share,yet, if we can have good will for one another, we may learn to dowithout affection: and some little kindness you owe me, for your son'ssake; as well as your father's, whom I loved and admired more than anyman I think ever I knew in this world: he was greater than almost all,though he made no noyse in it. I have seen very many who have, and,believe me, have found but few with such good heads and good harts asMr. Esmond.

  "Had we been better acquainted, I might have given you some adviceregarding your young gentleman's introduction to Europe, which you wouldhave taken or not, as people do in this world. At least you would havesed afterwards, 'What she counselled me was right, and had Harry done asMadam Beatrix wisht, it had been better for him.' My good sister, it wasnot for you to know, or for me to whom you never wrote to tell you,but your boy in coming to England and Castlewood found but ill friendsthere; except one, an old aunt, of whom all kind of evil hath beenspoken and sed these fifty years past--and not without cawse too,perhaps.

  "Now, I must tell Harry's mother what will doubtless scarce astonishher, that almost everybody who knows him loves him. He is prudent ofhis tongue, generous of his money, as bold as a lyon, with an imperiousdomineering way that sets well upon him; you know whether he is handsomeor not: my dear, I like him none the less for not being over witty orwise, and never cared for your sett-the-Thames afire gentlemen, who areso much more clever than their neighbours. Your father's great friend,Mr. Addison, seemed to me but a supercillious prig, and his follower,Sir Dick Steele, was not pleasant in his cupps, nor out of 'em. And(revenons a luy) your Master Harry will certainly, pot burn the riverup with his wits. Of book-learning he is as ignorant as any lord inEngland, and for this I hold him none the worse. If Heaven have notgiven him a turn that way, 'tis of no use trying to bend him.

  "Considering the place he is to hold in his own colony when he returns,and the stock he comes from, let me tell you, that he hath not meansenough allowed him to support his station, and is likely to make themore depence from the narrowness of his income--from sheer despairbreaking out of all bounds, and becoming extravagant, which is not histurn. But he likes to live as well as the rest of his company, and,between ourselves, has fell into some of the finist and most rakish inEngland. He thinks 'tis for the honour of the family not to go back, andmany a time calls for ortolans and champaign when he would as leaf dinewith a stake and a mugg of beer. And in this kind of spirit I have nodoubt from what he hath told me in his talk (which is very naif, as theFrench say), that his mamma hath encouraged him in his high opinion ofhimself. We women like our belongings to have it, however little we loveto pay the cost. Will you have
your ladd make a figar in London? Trebblehis allowance at the very least, and his Aunt Bernstein (with hishonored mamma's permission) will add a little more on to whatever summyou give him. Otherwise he will be spending the little capital I learnhe has in this country, which, when a ladd once begins to manger, thereis very soon an end to the loaf. Please God, I shall be able to leaveHenry Esmond's grandson something at my death; but my savings are small,and the pension with which my gracious Sovereign hath endowed me dieswith me. As for feu M. de Bernstein, he left only debt at his decease:the officers of his Majesty's Electoral Court of Hannover are butscantily paid.

  "A lady who is at present very high in his Majesty's confidence hathtaken a great phancy to your ladd, and will take an early occasion tobring him to the Sovereign's favorable notice. His Royal Highness theDuke he hath seen. If live in America he must, why should not Mr. EsmondWarrington return as Governor of Virginia, and with a title to his name?That is what I hope for him.

  "Meanwhile, I must be candid with you, and tell you I fear he hathentangled himself here in a very silly engagement. Even to marry anold woman for money is scarce pardonable--the game ne valant gueres lachandelle--Mr. Bernstein, when alive, more than once assured me of thisfact, and I believe him, poor gentleman! to engage yourself to an oldwoman without money, and to marry her merely because you have promisedher, this seems to me a follie which only very young lads fall into,and I fear Mr. Warrington is one. How, or for what consideration, I knownot, but my niece Maria Esmond hath escamote a promise from Harry. Heknows nothing of her antecedens, which I do. She hath laid herself outfor twenty husbands these twenty years past. I care not how she hathgot the promise from him. 'Tis a sin and a shame that a woman more thanforty years old should surprize the honour of a child like that, andhold him to his word. She is not the woman she pretends to be. A horsejockey (he saith) cannot take him in--but a woman!

  "I write this news to you advisedly, displeasant as it must be. Perhaps'twill bring you to England: but I would be very cautious, above all,very gentle, for the bitt will instantly make his high spirit restive.I fear the property is entailed, so that threats of cutting him off fromit will not move Maria. Otherwise I know her to be so mercenary that(though she really hath a great phancy for this handsome ladd) withoutmoney she would not hear of him. All I could, and more than I ought, Ihave done to prevent the match. What and more I will not say in writing;but that I am, for Henry Esmond's sake, his grandson's sincerest friend,and madam,--Your faithful sister and servant, BEATRIX BARONESS DEBERNSTEIN.

  "To Mrs. Esmond Warrington of Castlewood, in Virginia."

  On the back of this letter is written, in Madam Esmond's hand, "Mysister Bernstein's letter, received with Henry's December 24 on receiptof which it was determined my son should instantly go home."