Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

"I was only five years old,'' he says, "when | Think of him reckless, thriftless, vain, if you Goldsmith took me on his knee one evening like-but merciful, gentle, generous, full of whilst he was drinking coffee with my father, and began to play with me, which amiable act I returned, with the ingratitude of a peevish brat, by giving him a very smart slap on the face: it must have been a tingler, for it left the marks of my spiteful paw on his cheek. This infantile outrage was followed by summary justice, and I was locked up by my indignant father in an adjoining room to undergo solitary imprisonment in the dark. Here I began to howl and scream most abominably, which was no bad step towards my liberation, since those who were not inclined to pity me might be likely to set me free for the purpose of abating a nuisance.

I was

love and pity. He passes out of our life, and goes to render his account beyond it. Think of the poor pensioners weeping at his grave; think of the noble spirits that admired and deplored him; think of the righteous pen that wrote his epitaph-and of the wonderful and unanimous response of affection with which the world has paid back the love he gave it. His humour delighting us still: his song fresh and beautiful as when first he charmed with it: his words in all our mouths: his very weaknesses beloved and familiar-his benevolent spirit seems still to smile upon us; to do gentle kindnesses: to succour with sweet charity: to soothe, caress, and forgive: to plead with the fortunate for the unhappy and the poor.

His name is the last in the list of those men of humour who have formed the themes of the discourses which you have heard so kindly.

FROM ROUNDABOUT PAPERS*

DE JUVENTUTEL

us. His

"At length a generous friend appeared to extricate me from jeopardy, and that generous friend was no other than the man I had so wantonly molested by assault and battery it was the tender-hearted Doctor himself, with a lighted candle in his hand and a smile upon his countenance, which was still partially red from the effects of my petulance. I sulked and sobbed as he fondled and soothed, till I began Our last paper of this veracious and roundto brighten. Goldsmith seized the propitious about series related to a period which can only moment of returning good-humour, when he put be .istorical to a great number of readers of down the candle and began to conjure. He this Magazine. Four I saw at the station placed three hats, which happened to be in the to-day with orange-covered books in their room, and a shilling under each. The shillings, hands, who can but have known George IV. he told me, were England, France, and Spain. by books, and statues, and pictures. Elderly 'Hey presto cockalorum!' cried the Doctor, and gentlemen were in their prime, old men in their lo, on uncovering the shillings, which had been middle age, when he reigned over dispersed each beneath a separate hat, they image remains on coins; on a picture or two were all found congregated under one. hanging here and there in a Club or oldno politician at five years old, and therefore fashioned dining-room; on horseback, as at might not have wondered at the sudden revolu- Trafalgar Square, for example, where I defy tion which brought England, France, and any monarch to look more uncomfortable. He Spain all under one crown; but as also I was turns up in sundry memoirs and histories which no conjurer, it amazed me beyond measure. may have been published in Mr. Massey's3 From that time, whenever the Doctor"History"; in the "Buckingham and Grencame to visit my father, I plucked his gown ville Correspondence"; and gentlemen who to share the good man's smile;' a game at have accused a certain writer of disloyalty are romps constantly ensued, and we were always referred to those volumes to see whether the cordial friends and merry play fellows. Our picture drawn of George is overcharged. unequal companionship varied somewhat as to sports as I grew older; but it did not last long: my senior playmate died in his forty-fifth year, when I had attained my eleventh. . . . In all the numerous accounts of his virtues and foibles, his genius and absurdities, his knowl edge of nature and ignorance of the world, his 'compassion for another's woe' was always predominant; and my trivial story of his humouring a froward child weighs but as a feather in the recorded scale of his benevolence."

1 "Upon Youth."

2 Died 1830.

3 William Massey, author of a history of George
III's reign. Grenville's Memoirs of the Court
of George IV had just been published (1859).
Thackeray's lectures on The Four Georges had
been delivered about five years before.

* In emulation of Household Words, of which
in
Dickens had made such a great success
the fifties, The Cornhill Magazine was founded
in 1860 and Thackeray was engaged to edit
The "Roundabout Papers" were his regu-
lar contribution for three years. The Maga
zine bore an orange cover.

it.

duty, if we can keep our place pretty honourably through the combat, let us say Laus Deo! at the end of it, as the firing ceases, and the night falls over the field.

darin's cap (the young folks at the countryplace where I am staying are so attired), your parents were unknown to each other, and wore short frocks and short jackets, at the date of this five-shilling piece. Only to-day I met a dog-cart crammed with children-children with moustaches and mandarin caps-children with saucy hats and hair-nets-children in short frocks and knickerbockers (surely the prettiest boy's dress that has appeared these hundred years)—children from twenty years of age to six; and father, with mother by his side, driving in front-and on father's countenance I saw that very laugh which I remember perfectly in the time when this crown-piece was coined-in his time, in King George's time, when we were school-boys seated on the same form. The smile was just as broad, as bright, as jolly, as I remember it in the past-unforgotten, though not seen or thought of, for how many decades of years, and quite and instantly familiar, though so long out of sight.

Charon has paddled him off; he has mingled with the crowded republic of the dead. His effigy smiles from a canvas or two. Breechless he bestrides his steed in Trafalgar Square. I believe he still wears his robes at Madame Tus- The old were middle-aged, the elderly were in saud's (Madame herself having quitted Baker their prime, then, thirty years since, when yon Street and life, and found him she modelled royal George was till fighting the dragon. As t'other side the Stygian stream). On the head for you, my pretty lass, with your saucy hat of a five-shilling piece we still occasionally and golden tresses tumbled in your net, and come upon him, with St. George, the dragon-you, my spruce young gentleman in your manslayer, on the other side of the coin.† Ah me! did this George slay many dragons? Was he a brave, heroic champion, and rescuer of virgins? Well! Well! have you and I overcome all the dragons that assail us? come alive and victorious out of all the caverns which we have entered in life, and succoured, at risk of life and limb, all poor distressed persons in whose naked limbs the dragon Poverty is about to fasten his fangs, whom the dragon Crime is poisoning with his horrible breath, and about to crunch up and devour? O my royal liege! O my gracious prince and warrior! You a champion to fight that monster? Your feeble spear ever pierce that slimy paunch or plated back? See how the flames come gurgling out of his red-hot brazen throat! What a roar! Nearer and nearer he trails, with eyes flaming like the lamps of a railroad engine. How he squeals, rushing out through the darkness of his tunnel! Now he is near. Now he is here. And now-what?-lance, shield, knight, feathers, horse and all? O horror, horror! Next Any contemporary of that coin who takes day, round the monster's cave, there lie a few it up and reads the inscription round the laubones more. You, who wish to keep yours in relled head, "Georgius IV Britanniarum Rex. your skins, be thankful that you are not called Fid. Def. 1823," if he will but look steadily upon to go out and fight dragons. Be grateful at the round, and utter the proper incantation,‡ that they don't sally out and swallow you. I dare say may conjure back his life there. Keep a wise distance from their caves, lest you | Look well, my elderly friend, and tell me what pay too dearly for approaching them. Remem- you see? First, I see a Sultan, with hair, ber that years passed, and whole districts were beautiful hair, and a crown of laurels round ravaged, before the warrior came who was able his head, and his name is Georgius Rex. Fid. to cope with the devouring monster. When Def., and so on. Now the Sultan has disapthat knight does make his appearance, with all peared; and what is it that I see? A boy,my heart let us go out and welcome him with a boy in a jacket. He is at a desk; he has our best songs, huzzas, and laurel wreaths, and great books before him, Latin and Greek books eagerly recognize his valour and victory. But and dictionaries. Yes, but behind the great he comes only seldom. Countless knights were books, which he pretends to read, is a little one, slain before St. George won the battle. In the with pictures, which he is really reading. battle of life are we all going to try for the honours of championship? If we can do our

4 Ferryman of the river Styx.

5 The proprietress of a famous show-place contain-
ing wax effigies of various celebrities.
St. George is the great Christian hero of the
middle ages, and legendary slayer of the
dragon (the devil), whereby he delivered the
virgin Sabra (the Church); adopted as the
patron saint of England.

6 "Praise God."

It

7 "King of Britain, Defender of the Faith."
This word suggests to Thackeray's fancy the
oriental terms in which he proceeds to de-
scribe the vision. The king is a "Sultan.'
The conjurer who reviews his own past life
sees himself as a school-boy under the instruc-
tion of a gowned "dervish"; later, as a college
youth in cap and gown he is himself a "der-
vish," disciplined by an old proctor perhaps
(“moollah," judge, priest); and so on.

is-yes, I can read now-it is the "Heart of think rightly, that we have some cause to be Mid Lothian," by the author of "Waverley" indignant. The great cause why modern

[ocr errors]

-or, no, it is "Life in London, or the Adven-humour and modern sentimentalism repel us, tures of Corinthian Tom, Jeremiah Hawthorn, is that they are unwarrantably familiar. Now, and their friend Bob Logic," by Pierce Egan; Mr. Sterne, the Superfine Review thinks, "was and it has pictures-oh! such funny pictures! a true sentimentalist, because he was above As he reads, there comes behind the boy, a man, all things a true gentleman. The flattering a dervish, in a black gown, like a woman, and inference is obvious; let us be thankful for an a black square cap, and he has a book in each elegant moralist watching over us, and learn, hand, and he seizes the boy who is reading the if not too old, to imitate his high-bred politepicture-book, and lays his head upon one of his ness and catch his unobtrusive grace. If we books, and smacks it with the other. The boy are unwarrantably familiar, we know who is makes faces, and so that picture disappears. not. If we repel by pertness, we know who Now the boy has grown bigger. He has got never does. If our language offends, we know on a black gown and cap, something like the whose is always modest. O pity! The vision dervish. He is at a table, with ever so many has disappeared off the silver, the images of bottles on it, and fruit, and tobacco; and other youth and the past are vanishing away! We young dervishes come in. They seem as if they who have lived before railways were made bewere singing. To them enters an old moollah; long to another world. In how many hours he takes down their names, and orders them could the Prince of Wales drive from Brighton all to go to bed. What is this? A carriage, to London, with a light carriage built exwith four beautiful horses all galloping-a man pressly, and relays of horses longing to gallop in red is blowing a trumpet. Many young men the next stage? Do you remember Sir Someare on the carriage-one of them is driving the body, the coachman of the Age, who took our horses. Surely they won't drive into that-? | half-crown so affably? It was only yesterday; -ah! they have all disappeared. And now I but what a gulf between now and then! Then see one of the young men alone. He is walk was the old world. Stage-coaches, more or less ing in a street a dark street presently a swift, riding-horses, pack-horses, highwaymen, light comes to a window. There is the shadow knights in armour, Norman invaders, Roman of a lady who passes. He stands there till the legions, Druids, Ancient Britons painted blue, light goes out. Now he is in a room scribbling and so forth-all these belong to the old period. on a piece of paper, and kissing a miniature I will concede a halt in the midst of it, and every now and then. There seem to be lines allow that gunpowder and printing tended to each pretty much of a length. I can read modernize the world. But your railroad starts heart, smart, dart; Mary, fairy; Cupid, stupid; the new era, and we of a certain age belong true, you; and never mind what more. Bah! to the new time and the old one. We are of the it is bosh. Now see, he has got a gown on time of chivalry as well as the Black Prince1 again, and a wig of white hair on his head, and or Sir Walter Manny. We are of the age of he is sitting with other dervishes in a great steam. We have stepped out of the old world room full of them, and on a throne in the on to "Brunel's" vast deck,3 and across the middle is an old Sultan in scarlet, sitting be-waters ingens patet tellus.4 Towards what new fore a desk, and he wears a wig too-and the continent are we wending? to what new laws, young man gets up and speaks to him. And new manners, new politics, vast new expanses now what is here? He is in a room with ever of liberties unknown as yet, or only surmised? so many children, and the miniature hanging I used to know a man who had invented a Can it be a likeness of that woman who flying-machine. "Sir," he would say, "give is sitting before that copper urn with a silver me but five hundred pounds, and I will make vase in her hand, from which she is pouring It is so simple of construction that I tremhot liquor into cups? Was she ever a fairy ble daily lest some other person should light She is as fat as a hippopotamus now. He is upon and patent my discovery." Perhaps faith sitting on a divan by the fire. He has a paper was wanting; perhaps the five hundred pounds. on his knees. Read the name. It is the Super- He is dead, and somebody else must make the fine Review. It inclines to think that Mr. flying-machine. But that will only be a step Dickens is not a true gentleman, that Mr. 1 The son of Edward Thackeray is not a true gentleman, and that III; hero of Poiwhen the one is pert and the other arch, we, the tiers, 1356. gentlemen of the Superfine Review, think, and

up.

it.

2 A soldier of Edward
III.

3 The steamship "Great Eastern," designed by I. K. Brunel, 1858.

4 "A great world looms."

6

forward on the journey already begun since we quitted the old world. There it lies on the other side of yonder embankments. You young folks have never seen it; and Waterloo is to you no more than Agincourt, and George IV. than Sardanapalus.7 We elderly people have lived in that pre-railroad world, which has passed into limbo and vanished from under us. I tell you it was firm under our feet once, and not long ago. They have raised those railroad embankments up, and shut off the old world that was behind them. Climb up that bank on which the irons are laid, and look to the other side it is gone. There is no other side. Try and catch yesterday. Where is it? Here is a Times newspaper, dated Monday 26th, and this is Tuesday 27th. Suppose you deny there was such a day as yesterday.

We who lived before railways, and survive out of the ancient world, are like Father Noah and his family out of the Ark. The children will gather round and say to us patriarchs, "Tell us, grandpapa, about the old world." And we shall mumble our old stories; and we shall drop off one by one; and there will be fewer and fewer of us, and these very old and feeble. There will be but ten pre-railroadites left; then three-then two-then one-then O! If the hippopotamus had the least sensibility (of which I cannot trace any signs either in his hide or his face), I think he would go down to the bottom of his tank, and never come up again. Does he not see that he belongs to bygone ages, and that his great hulking barrel of a body is out of place in these times? What has he in common with the brisk young life surrounding him? In the watches of the night, when the keepers are asleep, when the birds are on one leg, when even the little armadillo is quiet, and the monkeys have ceased their chatter, he, I mean the hippopotamus, and the elephant, and the long-necked giraffe, perhaps may lay their heads together and have a colloquy about the great silent antediluvian world which they remember, where mighty monsters floundered through the ooze, crocodiles basked on the banks, and dragons darted out of the caves and waters before men were made to slay

them. We who lived before railroads are antediluvians—we must pass away. We are grow: ing scarcer every day; and old-old-very old relics of the times when George was still fighting the Dragon.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

1 The place of Arthur's court. * This is, with some variations, essentially the story of Elaine, "the lily maid of Astolat," which is told at greater length and with more fidelity in the Idylls of the King. It is Tennyson's earliest venture into the Arthurian field.

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »