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 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 VOLUME r.
 
 [The right of Translation is reserved.'
 
 MAURICE ELVINGTON; 
 
 ONE OUT OF SUITS WITH FORTUNE, 
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 EDITED BY WILFRID EAST. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. L 
 
 LONDON : 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 65 CORNHILL. 
 
 1856.
 
 EDINBURGH ! 
 
 PRINTED BY OLIVER AND BOYD, 
 
 TWEEDDALE COURT.
 
 
 ADVEETISEMENT. 
 
 8 
 
 a The narrative contained in the ensuing chapters 
 
 a 
 
 was placed in my hands by an old College Friend, 
 with whom I renewed my acquaintance — by mere 
 accident — after we had lost sight of each other for 
 fifteen years. 
 
 The first occasion on which I met Mr Elvington 
 was in the rooms of a third party, and for the next 
 three years there was a great intimacy between us, 
 not only when crossing the Great Court of T. C. C. 
 together, bound to Chapel, Hall, or Lectures, but 
 
 K 
 
 on other occasions and during the Vacations. I 
 have therefore acceded to his request to see his 

 
 VI ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 manuscript through the press, during a prolonged, 
 and perhaps final, absence of the Author from his 
 own country. 
 
 Mr Elvington quitted England before his narra- 
 tive was quite brought to a conclusion — indeed 
 the last five or six chapters were forwarded by him 
 to this country by the mail — so that the task of 
 introducing it to the public has also fallen upon 
 the shoulders of the present Editor. 
 
 W. E. 
 
 Regent's Park, 
 
 January, 1856.
 
 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 "Why do I commit these pages to the Press ? 
 Would it not be better to lock them up in the 
 drawers of some book-case or secretary, and pon- 
 j( der over them alone ? To expose one's passions 
 and frailties to the glare of day — to go as it were 
 into the market-place and full concourse of my 
 fellow-creatures, and call them out into the ears of 
 a public just hurrying through it, each man busied 
 on his own daily cares and bargains — is this judi- 
 cious ? is it delicate ? Is it not some breach of the 
 confidence in which every one has sworn to him- 
 self to preserve his own secrets ? 
 
 VOL. 1. A
 
 2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 This modesty — or shame, or self-respect, or all, 
 are in my case mastered by a stronger feeling. 
 I have kept company with my own thoughts too 
 long : I must speak out — I must have sympathy. 
 Laugh with me, weep with me, reprove me if you 
 will, but let me hear the voice of my fellow-crea- 
 tures telling me once more that I am a denizen 
 in their actual world of joys and sorrows, and I 
 will go away contented. 
 
 But let my readers accept this narrative from my 
 hands in the spirit in which it is offered to them. 
 It takes its hue and complexion from the varying 
 moods, the lights and shadows, playing over the 
 mind of the writer, as he recalls old times to his 
 memory, and notes them down with a free pen. It 
 is no elaborate fiction, written solely to amuse. 
 
 What to me is praise or blame now ? — The 
 memories of the dead rise before me : I hear their 
 voices — they are speaking to me — they tell me that 
 there was a time when I was desirous of some slight 
 literary notice ; but that it is has long since taken 
 its flight. — The ears to which the voice of praise
 
 INTRODUCTION. 6 
 
 would have discoursed the most excellent music, 
 because the garland was to be lifted on to the head 
 of one they loved and respected, are dull now. 
 Their eyes can no longer meet mine if they dance 
 and sparkle with the joy of success.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 It was some time in the pleasant thirties, I believe 
 in the year thirty-seven, that I ; Maurice Elvington 
 by name, found myself seated in my apartments 
 in Suffolk Street, thinking of nothing less than 
 that I should ever undergo any vicissitudes of for- 
 tune, and thus be enabled to roll my experience of 
 life into a history worthy of your perusal. If I 
 remember rightly I was sauntering over my break- 
 fast, and just asking myself the serious question, 
 how I was to get through a confoundedly long day ? 
 I might hunt up a studious friend, who kept to his 
 rooms too much ; or attend an auction of the books 
 of a gentleman deceased ; or buy a concert-ticket ; 
 or do anything else that required the mere median-
 
 6 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 ical effort of opening the street-door and putting 
 my hand into my pocket. The train of my 
 meditations, such as they were, became just then 
 broken by the entrance of the quiet young gentle- 
 man in plain clothes who condescended to act as 
 the Mercury of my landlord the wine merchant, 
 wait upon the inmates of his establishment, and, by 
 the studied civility or incivility of his carriage, re- 
 veal to them, like a weather-glass, what atmosphere 
 of worldly opinion they were living in, and whether 
 they were profitable or not to the master of the 
 house. 
 
 We are all a good deal flattered by the respect 
 vouchsafed to us by another person's servants, 
 and mortified if the flunkies do not, in some degree, 
 patronize us ; but, of course, we are ashamed of the 
 feeling and conceal it. This the wine merchant and 
 his factotum, who were both accomplished knaves 
 in their small way, knew well, and if they once got 
 a weak-minded good young man into their man-trap, 
 they trampled upon him, until he turned reckless at 
 being made of so little account, and gave extensive
 
 GIVING CHECK TO A LANDLORD. 7 
 
 wine parties, or betted on all kinds of shy horses, 
 merely to wring a smile from his two tormentors : 
 and when they once pitched him over the edge of 
 the inclined plane in this fashion, they bowled him 
 down the road to ruin in no time. 
 
 I never came up to their abstract idea of an inmate 
 of such a respectable establishment. I was seven 
 and twenty years of age ; possessed at that time of 
 my life a cool temper ; had as much experience of 
 knavery as the fact of having been pretty well 
 fleeced by the respected authorities of a large col- 
 lege could give the sufferer, and was, as I have 
 always been, as obstinate a mule as any going. 
 The wine merchant soon found this out, and there- 
 fore tried hard to get rid of his unprofitable inmate ; 
 but the said inmate chose to be delighted with the 
 apartments and attendance, because he did not choose 
 to understand anything short of a legal ejectment, 
 and on one occasion, when the good man was par- 
 ticularly uncivil, told him : " My good sir, I dote on 
 the very walls and window-frames of my rooms, 
 and shall make them my home for the rest of my
 
 8 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 bachelor-days." In the sequel, the old rogue grew 
 very savage, and this was just the effect I wanted 
 to produce on his temper. 
 
 But to return from this little digression. My 
 landlord's deputy, as I observed, broke the chain 
 of my meditations, firstly, by coming into the 
 room at all, and in the second place by hand- 
 ing me a letter, with that very innocent expres- 
 sion of face which tells one that the person 
 assuming it has been loitering on the stairs and 
 behind corners, trying to purloin the contents with- 
 out crumpling the envelope, until at last he has 
 condescended to let the rightful owner have his 
 own lawful property. Of this patent fact, however, 
 I took no notice, but just glanced at the address 
 of the letter, sent the fellow out of the room, glanced 
 at the letter again, and then put it aside with an 
 impatient " pish !" I saw it came from a man of 
 business, and business of any kind was my detes- 
 tation. There is also a kind of presentiment which 
 comes across one at times — a feeling to which our 
 German cousins would give some very fine name,
 
 A LETTER ON BUSINESS. 9 
 
 besides writing half a volume about it on the spot 
 — but which I shall just take the liberty of styling 
 an odd notion, that, somehow or other, you are on 
 the top of the stairs, and are going to tumble down 
 to the bottom. Be this as it may, there rested the 
 letter on the breakfast-table, as it were daring one 
 to read it, whilst the writer of this autobiography 
 eyed it askance, requesting a personage of bad 
 name and reputation to read it in his stead, and 
 the letter declaring that it had no intention of 
 walking into the box again, and so on. At last 
 I really mustered courage to break the seal, and 
 of course after I had done so, called myself a fool 
 for being frightened before I was hurt. The com- 
 munication, which, as I suspected, was from a man 
 of business, did not in plain terms ask me to put my 
 head on the block, or jump oif London Bridge, but 
 respectfully requested an interview between myself 
 and the writer. It came from a gentleman learned 
 in the law, who acted as the solicitor of my deceased 
 uncle and guardian, Sir William Maurice, and ran 
 as follows : — 
 
 A 2
 
 10 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 Bedford Row, 27th May 1837. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I write to inform you that I should 
 feel very much obliged by your favouring me with 
 an interview at your earliest convenience. If you 
 have no better engagement, can you give me a call 
 to-morrow afternoon about three o'clock, or make 
 some other appointment with, dear Sir, yours very 
 truly, 
 
 Robert Sloper Gently. 
 
 Maurice Elvington, Esq., 
 Suffolk Street, Pall Mall. 
 
 Mr Gently had long acted not only as the soli- 
 citor but also as the confidential adviser of my de- 
 ceased uncle, and was a most respectable gentleman 
 in his way. During my minority I had received 
 through his hands the very liberal allowance made 
 to me by Sir William, and after my coming of age 
 had allowed him to retain the management of my 
 own affairs ; for I was too indolent to attend to 
 them myself. My poor uncle had taken his last 
 look of this world about six months previously, 
 and I had learned from Mr Gently, whom 1 had
 
 A PBOSPECT OF INHERITANCE. 11 
 
 seen several times on the subject, that he had 
 made his will in my favour, and I should inherit 
 whatever part of his fortune did not pass over to 
 his second cousin, the present Sir Anthony Maurice. 
 I drew then from the solicitor's letter the no very 
 pleasant inference that the time had arrived when 
 I really must, to a certain extent, take the manage- 
 ment of my own affairs upon my shoulders, and no 
 longer content myself with the mere possession of 
 property, while I shirked all its duties and obliga- 
 tions. Here was a pleasant prospect for the truly 
 careless nephew of an insouciant uncle. Sir Wil- 
 liam's family had first given me, through my mother, 
 no small portion of the idle blood in their veins, 
 and my uncle had now left me heir to his own petty 
 vexations : for of vexations idle men always have 
 their hands full. I knew there was a little country 
 box somewhere, to which I must now run down. 
 It had never been inhabited or looked to for years, 
 and probably all the windows were out, the statues 
 with their heads knocked off, the chimneys stuffed 
 up with martins' nests, the lodge made pleasant for
 
 12 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 the habitation of the park-keeper by having the 
 roof off ; in fact, the whole place a scene of dis- 
 graceful ruin. Then there were farms — my own 
 property — to be leased out, the rents collected, the 
 bumpkins who held them to be conciliated by 
 draining, building barns, recovering rights of way, 
 and a thousand other little agreeable expenses ; and 
 their pleasant spouses to be coaxed by tasting their 
 cheese, patting their boys on the head, and kissing 
 their daughters. Perhaps the government might 
 seize upon me for high sheriff by force, or the gentry 
 put me up for the county by violence. Here was 
 a pleasant prospect for a sedentary gentleman of 
 seven-and-twenty, who cared for none of the pomps 
 and vanities of this world, and only asked to be 
 allowed to elbow his way through the mob of his 
 fellow-creatures, without having his pocket picked 
 or the breath taken out of his body while squeezed 
 against some great man's area railings. 
 
 However, what little good sense I possessed at 
 the bottom told me that mere procrastination would 
 be of no earthly use, and that I must face the man
 
 FROM THE WEST END TO THE CITY. 13 
 
 of law, and hear what he had to communicate to 
 me. As the day appeared fine, and it was then 
 only about twelve o'clock, I had no need to dive 
 into the dirty disagreeable city at once, and I said 
 to myself, " Maurice Elvington, my excellent young 
 friend, you shall be recompensed for going there at 
 all." I determined then first to look round in St 
 James' Street, where there was a picture by Sasso 
 Ferrato on sale. I was not rich enough to give 
 several hundred pounds for a picture, which, after 
 all, might be a long way after the original master, 
 but I liked to know what was going on in the fine 
 arts, and to see the last new importation. 
 
 This important business finished, then — and it 
 would wear away an hour — I would dive down to the 
 Temple, and unearth an old college friend who was 
 burrowing in " a small chamber," as Roger North 
 calls it, and devoting his time and energies to 
 the study of the common law of this realm. He 
 was a good fellow in all respects, as industrious as 
 a bee, and as poor as a rake ; so the attorneys 
 had found a diligent man out, and were beginning
 
 14 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 to knock at his door. After I had intruded upon 
 this friend, then, and done my best, by talking 
 nonsense to him, to call his mind away from his 
 profession, I would condescend to keep Mr Gently \s 
 appointment, and hear what he really had to say 
 to me. 
 
 I daresay my reader cares wonderfully little 
 about the paintings of Sasso Ferrato, and less con- 
 cerning the conversation of two young men of no 
 extraordinary abilities. I will imagine, then, that 
 he is taking hold of my arm and walking about 
 the streets with me, while I am performing my 
 rather circuitous peregrination to the office of the 
 worthy solicitor. If he will do so, I will relate to 
 him, as we walk on, a few particulars concerning 
 my birth, parentage, and education ; and after he 
 is acquainted with tliem, he will perhaps be the 
 better enabled to understand the subsequent pages.
 
 SOME ACCOUNT OF MY ANCESTORS. 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Any one who opens the Court Guide will find a 
 hundred names in its columns which have a less 
 aristocratic sound than my own patronymic of 
 Elvington, and could I really claim descent on 
 my father's side from any leader of that hcfrde 
 of landless men — the sweepings of Europe — who 
 marched with William the Conqueror into this 
 fertile island and seized " material guarantees " 
 from the unhappy Saxons, I should only be too 
 happy to do so. But I have the terrible misfor- 
 tune to be of the lineage of these same Saxons, 
 and to claim a plebeian for my grandfather. This 
 may perhaps in some measure account for the ill 
 success of my career in life, for it is really useless
 
 16 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 for any man to endeavour to exist in England out 
 of the beaten paths of commerce, unless he has 
 either some of the ruling foreign blood in his veins, 
 or has been kicked about the house of a great noble- 
 man as the family tutor, or, thirdly, is the child of 
 a favourite lady's maid, or, lastly and leastly, hap- 
 pens to be a person of gigantic energy and abilities. 
 The first ancestor I am able to record is my 
 great-grandfather Elvington, the son of a yeo- 
 man near Cartmel in Lancashire, who subse- 
 quently moved into the West Biding, hired a 
 water-mill, and devoted himself to the useful but 
 then lowly occupation of watchet weaving. When 
 he died he left two children, my grandfather John 
 Elvington, and a daughter Martha. John Elving- 
 ton lived contentedly at the paternal mill, and 
 gained immortal honour in his race and day by 
 being the first manufacturer who put up a steam 
 engine, and introduced the factory system into those 
 parts. He seems to have had a spice of the old 
 yeoman stock in him, for he was a sturdy fellow, 
 and a dissenter by creed. Eadicals in those days
 
 MY GRANDFATHER ELVINGTON. 17 
 
 there were none. Men had not been abused and 
 taunted into making unpleasant inquiries into the 
 right of the upper classes to ride Upon their shoul- 
 ders — that good work was left for the Elclon and 
 Castlereagh tories — and, moreover, the manufac- 
 turers were too much occupied with the task of 
 rooting up felons from the jails, and purloining 
 children out of the workhouses, in order to set them 
 to work in their mills, to have leisure or inclination 
 to become keen politicians ; still some of them were 
 what is now styled liberals, and of these liberals my 
 grandfather was at that time the leader in his district. 
 John Elvington stood by the colonists during the 
 American war, had been an intimate friend of 
 Benjamin Franklin when that plain republican 
 was in England, and had a kind of acquaintance 
 with Priestley, whom he consulted on certain ex- 
 periments he was making on the dyeing of his own 
 damasks. He was a man of plain education and 
 some reading, and I recollect that our family li- 
 brary — which disappeared during my minority, be- 
 cause my uncle really did not know what to do
 
 IS MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 with it, and therefore sold it off — contained a col- 
 lection which did credit to his judgment. Burke's 
 speeches were there in long grim pamphlets, the 
 works of Adam Smith and De Lolme. There was 
 also a long array of dry and stern divinity — Jona- 
 than Edwards, Toplady, Newton, and the rest of 
 the class, curiously flanked by the works of Rous- 
 seau in some twenty little volumes. However, the 
 whole generation of this political and theological 
 literature, with the exception of Burke, who ling- 
 ered on in his reflections on the regicide Peace and 
 letter to the Duke of Bedford, was cut short about 
 the period of the French revolution, and a line of 
 decorous vapid authors — mighty champions of 
 church and king in their day — took up the succes- 
 sion ; for at the period I have mentioned, my grand- 
 father Elvington underwent a change of opinion. 
 
 Like many moderate and wealthy men of that 
 period, my grandfather was startled in the decline of 
 his life by beholding opinions which he had held in 
 the quiet of his own study, carried out beyond their 
 legitimate consequences, and was stunned by the
 
 MY GRANDFATHER TURNS TORY. 19 
 
 roar of democracy which thundered in his ears. He 
 had admitted the " rights of man" as an abstract 
 postulate easily enough, especially as illustrated 
 by his decorous friend Franklin, but was not quite 
 prepared to hear them preached to millions of ig- 
 norant and infuriate peasants, who worked them 
 out by the guillotine. Then, too, these same rights 
 of man, instead of remaining confined to the heads 
 of a few decorous gentlemen, who declaimed about 
 them over a friendly pipe and swore at the land- 
 lord and waiters as much as they pleased, had now 
 got into the noddles of the troublesome lads who 
 worked at his own mill and those of his neighbours ; 
 and as these worthy men had always kept a light 
 hand over their people, they did not understand 
 all this riot about rights on the servant's side and 
 duties on that of the master, but altogether began 
 to hate the very word, and vote " the rights of 
 man " a thorough nuisance. 
 
 My grandfather and his neighbours all changed 
 their opinions at the same period, boxed the compass 
 for a bit, and finally stood up for King George, poor
 
 20 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 Mr Pitt (who lias fathered the bigotry of a whole 
 generation without being the parent of one twentieth 
 part of it), and the "just and necessary war." He 
 even went so far as to desert the religious opinions 
 in which he had been brought up, conform to the 
 Establishment, and make the acquaintance of a 
 dignitary of the church, who obtained great in- 
 fluence over him and advised him to send his only 
 son to Oxford. 
 
 Now, on any other young man brought up in the 
 bosom of nonconformity, this startling change from 
 the conventicle to the university might have had 
 no beneficial effect : indeed it might have unsettled 
 his opinions for the rest of his life ; but my father 
 Benjamin Franklin Elvington (who, by the way, 
 could not be re-christened), was one of those gentle- 
 manly young fellows who think it better to get 
 through life without having any decided opinions 
 at all, and take up any line of thinking which rep- 
 utable people mark out for them. When, then, the 
 Dean had satisfied himself that young Mr Elving- 
 ton had scraped together the little Latin and less
 
 MY FATHER IS SENT TO OXFORD. 21 
 
 Greek required in those days at a university, and 
 could expend a certain sum per annum in a stock 
 of fine old crusted port, which the fellows of colleges 
 sixty years since did not disdain to drink in an un- 
 dergraduate's rooms ; that he could also pay a pri- 
 vate tutor, who would not dream of teaching him 
 anything, a few hundreds, when the learned gen- 
 tleman had lost upon running horses and wanted 
 ready cash, and was, above all, quite ready to throw 
 up his cap and yell like a maniac when some Jaco- 
 bin master of arts was deprived of his degree ; the 
 great man declared himself much gratified with my 
 father's accomplishments, and entered him of his 
 own college Christchurch ; and so to Oxford the 
 godson of Benjamin Franklin wended his way. 
 
 When my father settled down in his college, he 
 soon found out the advantage of possessing a mal- 
 leable character, for he fell into the habits of Ox- 
 ford at one plunge : he swallowed everything — 
 the dean, the dons, the scouts, the chapels — and 
 made the best of his position ; trying to grind as 
 little as possible, and to enjoy himself as much as a
 
 22 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 feeble constitution would allow him to do. He was 
 no match for the robust set of young fellows who 
 came up with him, and therefore became from ne- 
 cessity a quiet man, and took to elegant pursuits. 
 He had a turn for antiquities, and was at some 
 pains to cast up those of his own university, from 
 Anthony Wood and other musty folios. 
 
 There happened to be at that time a small club 
 in the college, which met in the rooms of Sir Wil- 
 liam Maurice, a young baronet, my father's senior 
 in standing by one year, and the son of a deceased 
 ambassador at Florence. They called themselves 
 the Antiquarians, and pursued researches of a na- 
 ture congenial to those of my father, although not 
 quite of such a black-letter description. Young 
 Sir William their founder was the son of a very 
 intellectual man, and having been brought up in 
 Italy had imbibed refined tastes and pursuits : 
 indeed they became the passion of his life, if such 
 a careless indolent man can be said to have had a 
 passion. He therefore left Horace to those who in- 
 tended to quote it in the House, and Greek, port
 
 SIR WILLIAM MAURICE. 23 
 
 wine, and rabid toryism to sucking clergymen who 
 looked to become heads of houses at the least, and 
 devoted himself to his own elegant studies. He cor- 
 responded with Gavin Hamilton, who let him have a 
 bust when he had no better customer for it, collected 
 prints, and passed his judgment upon a picture. 
 He took an undergraduate's pride in the club of 
 which he was the founder, and recruited it with any 
 clever freshman who crossed his path. Altogether 
 Sir William Maurice was a young man of great 
 promise, who might have been anything he liked ; 
 but as he preferred being nothing at all, the world 
 never heard of him. 
 
 Sir William at first took a great dislike to my 
 father, having heard that he was the son of a man- 
 ufacturer, and considering that such a person had no 
 
 right to show his face at Christchurch : in those days 
 
 ■ 
 as exclusive a place as you please. He was also 
 
 influenced, as he told me afterwards, by the fresh- 
 man's unlucky patronymic of Benjamin. " Only 
 fancy, Maurice," said he to me one day, " a poor 
 fellow coming up to Christchurch, taking good
 
 24 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 rooms, and then confessing that he was only a Ben- 
 jamin after all." When, however, he found worthy 
 Dr Franklin tacked on to the name, he was delight- 
 ed beyond measure with the oddity of the whole 
 affair, and relented towards his victim : for some- 
 thing like a victim had my father become, under the 
 lash of that sarcastic tongue of which tutors and 
 proctors stood in awe. My uncle was a man who 
 by nature relished anything strange or odd. He 
 crowded his rooms with old oak carvings of the 
 most diabolical pattern, had china dragons and 
 demons grinning off every bracket and shelf, and 
 once followed up the exhibition of a mermaid so 
 assiduously that at last he and Dr Scott, afterwards 
 Lord Stowell, were the only two persons in the 
 room, so the great jurist spoke to him, and made 
 the friendship of such a promising sight-seer. Sir 
 William therefore pitied where he had before de- 
 spised, and began to inquire whether a person with 
 such a name tacked on to his own had anything in 
 him worth knowing ; at last he quite relented to- 
 wards the young fellow, and made his acquaintance.
 
 A USEFUL FRIEND. 25 
 
 It was a fortunate thing for my father, who before 
 this had been shown the cold shoulder in Christ- 
 church, that his pursuits were in some degree con- 
 genial to those of the young baronet, or he would 
 never have obtained the advantage of Sir Willliam's 
 patronage. To the end of his days my uncle 
 lacked appreciation of any abilities which did not 
 resemble his own ; and as to mere moral worth, it 
 goes for nothing in the estimation of such people. 
 However, my father became in time a kind of 
 shadow of Sir William's, and was honoured with 
 his friendship. The young baronet very often out- 
 ran his ample resources, either owing to the pur- 
 chase of a statue when he did not want it, or be- 
 cause he never condescended to pay an Oxford 
 tradesman until the rogue had doubled his bill by 
 compound interest ; and he would on such occasions 
 give a lofty hint of the fact to my father, who was 
 expected to feel great pleasure in assisting him to 
 get out of the scrape. As for denying the loan of 
 all he possessed when his young patron called for it, 
 the idea, I am afraid, never entered his head, for 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 26 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 Sir William could gain the complete ascendency 
 over such a person as my father and every one else. 
 He was the coolest man on the face of the earth, 
 and never took the trouble to bully or coerce any 
 one ; yet he never came into contact with any 
 person whom he could not turn round his little 
 finger. The secret of this magic — for intellectual 
 magic it was — dwelt in the inward conviction of the 
 victim himself, who felt that he had fallen into the 
 hands of a person of first-rate abilities, and of 
 a fascination of character which drew his own to- 
 wards the centre of light, until he fluttered about it 
 like a moth round a candle. 
 
 When my grandfather died, and my father set 
 up in the world for himself, which was in the year 
 that he left Oxford, a relationship of patronus and 
 client was established between the two young men, 
 and lasted for the remainder of their lives. Sir 
 William was to countenance Mr Elvington, and 
 usher him into a sphere in which he had not ex- 
 actly been born and bred, while Mr Elvington was 
 to have his purse open at the great man's requisi-
 
 PATRON AND CLIENT. 27 
 
 tion, copy him in his tastes, adopt his political 
 principles, and the moment he was requested to 
 enter the Norman line of the Maurices by marrying 
 an amiable lady who could bring him no fortune, 
 was to return thanks for the honour done to him, 
 and be more the slave of a great family than ever.
 
 28 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 My grandfather Elvington, if what I have heard 
 concerning him be true, had no small portion of 
 the thoroughbred Englishman in his composition. 
 When, therefore, he had once fitted himself into a 
 new suit of opinions political and religious, he took 
 the Briton's liberty of kicking the old garments out 
 of doors, and would have nothing more to do with 
 them. It is true that he was a moderate man in 
 most things, and would, if left to himself, have car- 
 ried his usual discretion into his new politics ; but 
 unfortunately matters had taken a turn in the coun- 
 try, and the very working classes, in whose name 
 the dreadful tragedy on the Continent had just been 
 enacted, turned completely round, and became
 
 A DIGNITARY OF OXFORD. 29 
 
 brimful of loyalty. Now it would never do for a 
 manufacturer to be outdone by his own workpeople, 
 even in a change of opinion ; my grandfather was 
 therefore expected to come out as a tory of the first 
 water, and enacted the character exceedingly well. 
 He cannot be blamed, then, for viewing his son's 
 career at Oxford with great complacency, and be- 
 coming proud of the acquaintances he made : for he 
 often had Christchurch in his mouth. It is true 
 that at first he formed an erroneous opinion that his 
 son ought to distinguish himself at the university, 
 and at last grew so dissatisfied that he spoke to his 
 friend the dean on the subject. That judicious 
 dignitary, however, soon set him right on the point, 
 and showed him how matters really stood. 
 
 The dean convinced my grandfather that such an- 
 cient foundations, whatever their statutes might say 
 to the contrary, were set apart for the benefit of a 
 particular and exclusive class, and called his atten- 
 tion to the fact that many of the larger prizes in 
 the colleges were appropriated to particular schools, 
 and even to families, which were supposed to pos-
 
 30 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 sess the faculty of bringing learned men into the 
 world. He also remarked that those university 
 rewards, which were nominally free, were in reality 
 retained by the gentlemen who happened to be in 
 residence — from motives which all must appreciate 
 — for their own relations : indeed many of them 
 went down from a dean or bishop to his sons by a 
 kind of heirship. He explained how, in order that 
 this system might act easily and without the actual 
 imputation of unfairness, a kind of special education 
 was exacted, which was commonly styled " train- 
 ing," in which training the sons and pupils of the 
 late fellows of colleges were exercised from the 
 eighth year of their ages up to the eighteenth, 
 and then sent up to the university in what was 
 called " a good state." It was true that young 
 gentlemen like Mr Elvington were at perfect liberty 
 to compete with these youthful athletes, and indeed 
 their doing so kept up a healthy emulation in the 
 minds of the real victors ; but suggested that if his 
 private opinion were taken, he should advise his 
 young friend to turn his back upon such things al-
 
 UNIVERSITY STUDIES EXPLAINED. 31 
 
 together, and conciliate the authorities of his col- 
 lege — who had all relations, or the sons of intimate 
 friends, looking for what they might get — by a 
 modest self-denying demeanour. 
 
 The venerable dean, who had some humour, 
 showed the hopelessness of any outsider taking 
 a part in the struggle, by supposing that a par- 
 ticular college gave a fellowship to the undergra- 
 duate who was the next of kin to the venerable 
 Bede, and also an adept at the intellectual game of 
 cup and ball, being able to catch the ivory ball in 
 the cup one thousand times without missing, — a 
 thing difficult to accomplish certainly, but after 
 all not worth wasting time about. Now he ob- 
 served, that a man might be an excellent scholar, 
 and yet no relation to Bede ; and also that a young 
 gentleman whose abilities had been exclusively de- 
 voted to playing with an ivory cup and ball up to the 
 eighteenth year of his age, would beat any poor fellow 
 who merely knew the laws of his own country, was 
 a good metaphysician, or brim-full of elegant know- 
 ledge and accomplishments. Yet this deserving
 
 32 MAURICE ELVINGTOX. 
 
 feat would, after all, push the young juggler on to 
 the foundation of his college, and make him a bishop 
 or a judge, while a thousand Mr Elvingtons were 
 starving at the bar, or reading their lungs to pieces 
 in country curacies. 
 
 I really cannot say whether my grandfather was 
 convinced by this powerful reasoning or not ; but in 
 the sequel he allowed his son to follow his own 
 tastes, and after my father had made the acquaint- 
 ance of Sir William Maurice, became very proud of 
 him. Indeed he felt rather ashamed of himself when 
 he considered what a bad figure he should cut in 
 the eyes of posterity, as the mere money-making 
 ancestor of what might in time become a line of 
 gentry. All ancient families must at one time have 
 descended from a hideous blood-thirsty savage, or 
 some money-making snob ; but give us the savage 
 by all means, and save us from the snob ! However, 
 this painful reflection so preyed upon my grand- 
 father's mind, that at last he retired from his mill 
 altogether, in favour of two of his overlookers, and 
 invested the greater part of his fortune in a landed
 
 MY GRANDFATHER RETIRES FROM BUSINESS. 33 
 
 estate in the vicinity of York. He had a clear 
 north country head on his shoulders, and could turn 
 to most things, if you only gave him time ; so he soon 
 became interested in agricultural pursuits, adding 
 much to his happiness by breeding short-horns, 
 studying the Norfolk high farming, and corre- 
 sponding with Arthur Young, who succeeded Dr 
 Priestley, as his scientific oracle : for an oracle of 
 some kind, men like my grandfather must have. 
 
 I cannot say that he had much increased his do- 
 mestic felicity by his change of opinions. If a man 
 be not master of his own house, the sooner his eyes 
 are opened to the fact the better, in order that he" 
 may submit himself to the person who is. Now, 
 master of his own house my grandfather had not 
 been since the death of his wife, and the usurpation 
 of her place by his own sister, Martha Elvington. 
 
 This lady was then, and continued up to the time 
 of her decease (not long since), a female character 
 in the fullest sense of the word. She was brought 
 up with my grandfather in a lonely house in the 
 north country, and had not had the advantage or 
 
 b2
 
 34 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 disadvantage of any regular education. Govern- 
 esses in those days there were none, and as for a 
 boarding-school, her mother would not hear of such 
 a wicked place. The little Martha, therefore, just 
 received what plain education she could pick up at 
 a dame-school, and was then left to herself. It was 
 true that her mother, a mighty needlewoman in 
 her day, marked out a course of embroidery, in which 
 in time she might have excelled Miss Linwood ; but 
 the young lady, who was a genius, broke down at 
 the first attempt to make her clever after a set pat- 
 tern : she spelt the name of good Dr Watts in her 
 sampler with one t only, and thus effectually ban- 
 ished that piece of needlework from the best parlour. 
 This sad failure gave her mother a contempt for 
 her intellect, which she never got over, so Martha 
 was allowed to leave chairs and table-covers to other 
 hands, and educate herself. Female companions 
 she had none, for the house stood in a lonely situa- 
 tion — a valley with a brook running down it, and 
 bounded on all sides with craggy hills ; and as she 
 could not wander about the whole day long, she
 
 MARTHA ELVINGTON. 35 
 
 betook herself to what few books there were in the 
 house. These, with the exception of the Pilgrim's 
 Progress, were chiefly works on Calvinistic divinity, 
 relieved by the light periodical literature published 
 by the disciples of Mr Wesley. By such reading 
 as this the girl became in time a tolerable theolo- 
 gian, and could have puzzled a bishop's chaplain 
 who was not of her way of thinking, upon more 
 points than one ; but as all studies require a change, 
 the little lady varied her style of reading, and took 
 to her brother's school-books when they fell in her 
 way. 
 
 John Elvington was at that time a lad of 
 slow parts, for his solid faculties required time to 
 unfold themselves, and the lively Martha soon beat 
 him at his own lessons. Geometry has always 
 taken pretty strong hold of the north country 
 schools, even French and Latin were beginning to 
 feel their way, and Martha, partly from the love of 
 victory and partly from a natural turn to abstract 
 reasoning, got possession of her brother's Euclid, 
 and worked through the first three books, besides
 
 36 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 acquiring French enough to enable her to read any 
 author in that language. These rather rare ac- 
 quirements exacted the involuntary admiration of 
 her parents, and as she could give her opinion off- 
 hand upon most subjects, and would even sometimes 
 set household matters to rights, she was gradually 
 installed as the genius of the family. Her brother, 
 at that time an awkward stupid lad, had early been 
 taught by defeat that his sister was the superior in 
 intellect, and allowed her to gain an ascendency 
 over him which of course she never relinquished. 
 
 When my grandfather, after the decease of 
 their parents, married and set up for himself, Martha 
 Elvington was a tall north country lass with gray 
 eyes and sandy hair, making no pretensions to good 
 looks ; but with no small amount of shrewdness, or 
 shrewishness — the words only differ by a few letters 
 — in her composition, and with a reputation for learn- 
 ing which kept the young fellows about her at a 
 distance. Indeed, as she was of a religious turn, 
 and took an active part in the management of the 
 chapel of which she was a member, and (but this is
 
 A SELF-EDUCATED GIRL. 37 
 
 scarcely worth mentioning) had ten thousand pounds 
 to her own portion, she was generally set down as 
 the wife, not of her present minister — for he had un- 
 fortunately married a decent woman without any 
 money before he had made up his mind that he was 
 to become in the sequel an awakened cobbler — but 
 of some succeeding minister who might happen to 
 be a single man. As it was, she remained a spinster 
 during the life of her parents ; and when, after their 
 decease, she moved into the neighbouring town, she 
 found more congenial occupation for a person of her 
 turn of mind than a mere country house could fur- 
 nish her with.
 
 38 MAURICE ELVINGTOX, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WHEN my grandfather, after the decease of his 
 wife, found himself hardened with the cares of 
 his household and the education of a boy and two 
 girls, of whom he knew less than of many of the 
 young hands in his mill, he bethought himself of 
 his sister Martha, and that she was just the person 
 to take the head of his family. It is true that 
 lately there had not been much correspondence be- 
 tween the brother and sister ; but people often lose 
 sight of each other from mere negligence. My 
 grandfather then wrote plainly to his sister on the 
 subject, and Miss Elvington returned him a reply, 
 in which she did not conceal from her brother that 
 she was making the sacrifice of her own leisure ; 
 accepting the charge of his three children, as she
 
 A FEMALE MAJOR DOMO. 39 
 
 did, only because she felt it a matter of duty so to 
 do. The business once settled, and leisure given 
 to the brother to turn it over in his mind, the result 
 of his meditations over a solitary pipe were not al- 
 together agreeable. He recollected how Martha 
 used to hector him, and dreaded lest she should re- 
 gain her old ascendency over his mind : he gave 
 the control over his household up as a bad job, but 
 feared lest his beloved mill might not escape, and 
 altogether saw a dark prospect before him. In short, 
 he half repented the haste with which he had made 
 the offer ; but the business was now settled, and, 
 like a wise man, he must make the best of things. 
 At last, the dreaded day arrived, and the enemy, 
 in the shape of Mrs Elvington and four heavy 
 trunks, entered the home provinces. There was a 
 slight skirmish with the deceased mistress's favour- 
 ite servant, who stood up, as she termed it, for the 
 poor children ; but she was soon overthrown, paid 
 her wages, and sent about her business, and the 
 master of the house then himself retreated before 
 the conqueror. As this suited Mrs Elvington's
 
 40 MAURICE ELVINGTOX. 
 
 temper, she did not press her victory, but allowed 
 her brother to stand on the defensive before his 
 mill, and in other matters which can be made un- 
 pleasant by a meddling woman. 
 
 Both parties were at first on their guard, and 
 talked about indifferent topics, until the truce, I am 
 sorry to say, was broken by my grandfather ; who, 
 as he spoke slowly and was dreadfully obstinate, 
 thought that he had a wonderful talent for clear and 
 convincing argument. He therefore could not help 
 provoking his sister, although he dreaded her : he 
 rallied her on what he considered were still her re- 
 ligious opinions, and offered to enlighten her while 
 he smoked a pipe ; but, to his surprise, the good lady 
 answered him in a style which he did not exactly 
 understand, although he felt ashamed to own it. 
 What he did make out consisted of something which 
 impartial hearers might have termed a rigmarole, 
 not intelligible to uninitiated ears, but mixed up 
 with an affectation of disdain for the said ears, which 
 could be comprehended in a moment. Miss Elving- 
 ton spoke long and mystically, and with a placid
 
 A FEMALE PHILOSOPHER. 41 
 
 smile on her countenance, concerning the old im- 
 moral world, and a coming new and improved state 
 of society, when a reign of benevolence, equality, and 
 fraternity would be established on a durable basis. 
 She also interspersed her sallies of universal benevo- 
 lence with many fiery denunciations of priestcraft, 
 statecraft, and other crafts which stood in the way 
 of what she called " philosophy." Now this jargon, 
 although no doubt perfectly intelligible to its adepts, 
 did not, either owing to the misty way in which it 
 was enunciated, or some want of clearness in the 
 subject-matter, convey any very denned ideas to my 
 grandfather's comprehension ; and, as the reader 
 might find Mrs Elvington's discourse equally mys- 
 tical, I had better refrain from giving him any spe- 
 cimen of it, and just explain the state of mind she 
 was in, and what had brought her to it. 
 
 When the brother and sister first parted company, 
 to act their part in a world of which they knew 
 little, a kind of change began to ferment in the 
 minds of both of them, which was a natural reac- 
 tion from the rigid maimer in which they had been
 
 42 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 brought up. With John Elvington, a man of plain 
 sense, this mutation ended with some freedom of 
 speculation in abstract matters ,* but with his sister, 
 who, notwithstanding her outward austerity was a 
 woman of enthusiastic temperament, the electrical 
 balance was destroyed, and attraction succeeded re- 
 pulsion. When she took up her residence in a 
 large town, she amused her leisure by reading as 
 much as ever, but still on the old dry subjects ; 
 and, owing to her command of the French tongue, 
 fell somehow or other into bad company. 
 
 What the French literature of that day meant, and 
 how, from the playful purring little animal, the toy 
 of marquises and presidents a morlier, it had become 
 a tiger, crouching to make a murderous spring, 
 the world now fully understands ; and may yet com- 
 prehend more fully, to its cost : for a volcano cannot 
 be put out by merely clapping a brass extinguisher 
 over the crater. Voltaire, that shifty meagre spirit, 
 is still abroad ; and the Pope and Emperor of Aus- 
 tria are dancing before his carriage like whifflers, 
 clearing the way for him in beautiful style. This
 
 VOLTAIRE ABROAD. 43 
 
 literature, then, so atheistical, and yet full of a 
 certain kind of faith — so utterly false as a whole, and 
 yet so painfully true in many of its special ani- 
 madversions — fell into the hands of Martha Elving- 
 ton, a person educated in another school of fanati- 
 cism, and therefore a victim ready made. 
 
 When the good lady consulted also some of the 
 dissenting clergy about her on her doubts, she was 
 not a little surprised to find that half of them were 
 going the same road as herself, and were even in ad- 
 vance of her. An introduction to a Spanish priest 
 who had escaped the inquisition and professed to 
 have turned Protestant, but who was in reality an 
 enthusiastic disciple of Rousseau, completed her ruin. 
 Her mind, after all, was not of a steady poise : she 
 hated indecision, and liked to be dogmatical on one 
 side or another ; and being deserted by those who 
 ought to have kept her in the right scale, she 
 threw herself suddenly into the other, and became 
 a female philosopher for the rest of her life. 
 
 Here was a scrape for a man like my grand- 
 father to fall into. He wanted a clever woman to
 
 44 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 manage his family, and had invited a female Rous- 
 seau into his house. The discovery caused him 
 to sit tongue-tied at his own club, and to smoke 
 out his whole stock of tobacco. He had invited 
 his sister to manage his family, and she had al- 
 ready begun to manage himself, and to recover her 
 old ascendency over him. Then, too, he was up 
 to his ears in business ; and a man's business takes 
 up his time, and tells his conscience to keep quiet, 
 and, as it were, come into business too. He really 
 had no leisure to tell his sister the whole of his 
 mind, and go through a downright quarrel with 
 her ; especially in the leisurely way in which John 
 Elvington quarrelled, as he did everything else. 
 
 He at last contented himself with extorting a sort 
 of half promise from her that she would not med- 
 dle with his own opinions, and determined to save 
 his children's minds from contamination at some 
 future time, when he should not happen to be so 
 dreadfully busy. Martha, therefore, took posses- 
 sion of the young folks, and being a conscientious 
 woman who always acted up to the light within
 
 A PHILOSOPHICAL EDUCATOR. 45 
 
 her, entered upon her new task with great zeal. 
 She had the passion for bringing up and manag- 
 ing young children, which even the selfishness of 
 advancing years cannot quite extinguish in the 
 breast of any woman ; and as she was a great ad- 
 mirer of De Genlis, and had the Emile at her fin- 
 gers' ends, she was only too happy to put her 
 favourite principles into practice. My father was 
 out of her reach, and under the most favourable 
 circumstances would have been a very unfortunate 
 subject for a clever woman to doctor into a Louis 
 Philippe ; but the girls were young and malleable. 
 Those were the days of whalebone and high-heeled 
 shoes for the health of a girl, and of plain needle- 
 work to fill her mind ; and altogether young ladies 
 grew up puny and fretful, with little stunted bodies 
 and narrow peevish intellects — a misery to them- 
 selves, and a curse to their future husbands. Mar- 
 tha Elvington, after she had inspected her nieces 
 and found they inherited their mother's consumptive 
 constitution, locked up their finery in a wardrobe, 
 put them into plain white frocks, and made them
 
 46 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 run up and down the lulls four or five hours a-day. 
 She had also acquired a great deal of general 
 knowledge of the De Genlis sort, and the girls 
 learned more from her than they could have gained 
 from the miserable schoolbooks of that day, if they 
 had bent themselves double over them for twenty 
 years. This then was her discipline with her 
 nieces ; who, from being delicate and fretful, grew 
 up robust and good-tempered ; and she was repaid 
 for her judicious management of their health by 
 the society of two cheerful happy companions, who 
 in time became devotedly attached to her.
 
 THE FEENCH KEV0LUT10N. 47 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 Altogethee matters were going on very quietly 
 in my grandfather's family, when the French Rev- 
 olution burst like a shell in the midst of society. 
 I have described in a previous chapter what change 
 it brought about in his own opinions ; and as for 
 his sister, it rendered her perfectly rabid. Mrs 
 Elvington had hitherto amused herself with mere 
 speculation, but now her favourite opinions were 
 brought into action — the clock had struck, and 
 the time was arrived for Liberty, Fraternity, and 
 Equality to give themselves a rousing shake, get 
 on their legs, and rule the world in a very
 
 48 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 superior manner. Who could help being en- 
 thusiastic in such a noble work, or refrain from 
 putting a hand to the lever which was to turn 
 the earth ? Not Mrs Elvington. There were the 
 benighted folks in clogs about her to begin 
 with, and her own brother, who could turn his 
 people into Jacobins in a week by locking them 
 out of the mill if they refused to riot for "the 
 rights of man." She tried her hand on him 
 forthwith, but found, to her dismay, that while she 
 was advancing in the right direction, he had begun 
 receding in the wrong. Although, therefore, she 
 was a universal philanthropist in general, she con- 
 ceived a perfect hatred to her brother in particular, 
 and was at no pains to disguise the contempt she 
 felt for his character and understanding. 
 
 As for John Elvington, he became perfectly dis- 
 mayed at his sister's doings, for she had unknown 
 to him entered into a correspondence with Mary 
 Wolstoncraft on physiological matters, and one of 
 her letters found its way into a Sheffield newspaper, 
 which was handed to him by his friend the dean, with
 
 A BRISSOT IN PETTICOATS. 49 
 
 veritable tears in his eyes. Nor did the female Jaco- 
 bin halt here, for she joined a corresponding society 
 in order to try her hand at a little treason, and pub- 
 lished an address, written in very fair French for an 
 English lady, to the unfortunate Madame Eoland. 
 On the whole, John Elvington, who had now 
 taken his conscience out of business, felt vexed and 
 uneasy, and feared his sister would bring some 
 dreadful disgrace upon his family. My father, 
 whom she could never make anything of, was at 
 Chris tchurch ; but there were the two girls, and she 
 had turned them into two little Girondists. Had 
 his health not given way, I have no doubt that 
 my grandfather would have acted promptly, and 
 have sent this Brissot in petticoats about her bus- 
 iness ; but his habitual slowness had now grown 
 into a disease, and, moreover, his conscience told 
 him that his sister had sacrificed her leisure for 
 the sake of his family, and that he would not make 
 her a grateful return by taking the girls out of her 
 hands in a summary manner. 
 
 In the meantime, death, that accomplished ana- 
 VOL. I. C
 
 50 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 lyst, was busy at the calculation, and solved the 
 problem by interpolating a fit of apoplexy. John 
 Elvington slept by the side of his wife before he 
 had the resolution even to alter the will in which 
 he had appointed his sister the guardian of his two 
 daughters, and Martha gained the day ; not by 
 clenching an argument, but, as usual in worldly 
 affairs, by the steady flow of the current of events. 
 Now Mrs Elvington was a female philosopher 
 and stanch disciple of the celebrated Godwin, 
 whose Political Justice she had at her fingers' 
 ends. Like her favourite author, her expansive 
 benevolence embraced the whole human species, 
 and she considered, in agreement with him, that 
 her brother claimed less of her regard than the 
 deceased philosopher Socrates. Now .we do not 
 exactly weep when we read at the present day of 
 the execution of Socrates, although we are sorry 
 that the Athenians put such a good man to death ; 
 and I am not certain that Mrs Elvington was in- 
 consolable at the decease of her only brother. She 
 w as a kindly woman at the bottom ; so, probably,
 
 THE FEMALE JACOBIN LEAVES YORK. 51 
 
 she shed a few tears, and then allowed herself to 
 be comforted. One circumstance, no doubt, caused 
 her to pluck up her spirits, and this was that her 
 nieces, to whom she had been more than a mother, 
 were left in her charge, and that she could now 
 remove them to a neighbourhood where they would 
 run no danger of having the opinions in which she 
 had brought them up weakened as they grew 
 older. York, indeed, with its chapter and cathe- 
 dral, was no place for a female Jacobin, and she 
 beat a retreat as soon as possible to the town in 
 which she had so long resided. 
 
 Even there the change of opinion in England made 
 itself felt ; but half-a-dozen dear friends were still 
 left to her, and a strong party of Quakers and Uni- 
 tarians kept the boat rigged and the frantic loyalists 
 a little in check. My two aunts, Penelope and So- 
 phia, who from their childhood had received from her 
 the care and affection of a tender parent, of course 
 accompanied their relative to her old residence. In 
 her love for her two charges, Mrs Elvington rather 
 gave Mr Godwin the slip ; but it was an amiable 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 S1TY Of numa
 
 52 MAUEICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 weakness, and we will set it off against her er- 
 roneous doctrines. 
 
 About her nephew, my father, Mrs Elvington 
 cared nothing — less even than at last she cared 
 about her own brother. The latter she thought 
 an unreasonable man, for she had unfolded her 
 doctrines to him in the most convincing style, and 
 yet, out of mere obstinacy, he would not own 
 that he agreed with her. Still he would call her a 
 wrong-headed woman, and fly into a passion with 
 her, and that was better than being treated with 
 quiet contempt : but her nephew was a hopeless 
 case. The young man cared nothing about uni- 
 versally benevolent principles in any shape, al- 
 though he did charitable actions at times in an 
 unphilosophical fashion, and was not even zeal- 
 ous enough on the opposite side to contradict 
 her when out of humour. He had also given her 
 mortal offence by going up to Christchurch ; al- 
 though he had little hand in the business, and she 
 ought to have blamed the dean who sent him there. 
 Altogether she saw that he was an easy-tempered
 
 FAMILY GOSSIP. 53 
 
 young man, who would live upon his property 
 without inquiring whether he had an abstract right 
 to it or not ; and would by no means advance social 
 perfection in his time and day. Still, there must 
 have been at one time some little correspondence 
 between them, for my uncle Sir William had seen 
 Mrs Elvington, and taken a sharp survey of her 
 peculiarities ; and it is from him I received some of 
 the particulars I have related concerning her. I 
 also learned something from an old family servant, 
 who afterwards married and settled in London, 
 and was a welcome visiter in a humble way at 
 my father's house. This worthy person, by name 
 Mrs Saunders, was never tired of talking to me 
 for the hour together of family affairs, even when 
 I was too young to comprehend them ; and most of 
 the facts I have related concerning my grandfather 
 and Mrs Elvington's early history, must be taken 
 by the reader upon her authority. 
 
 Of my two aunts, who were left to Mrs Elving- 
 ton's care and supervision, I have little or nothing 
 to tell. They grew up in her peculiar opinions as
 
 54 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 a matter of course ; and no doubt she was proud of 
 her disciples, and expected wonderful things of 
 them. Sophia, the youngest, turned out a kind 
 of Mrs Fry, and died unmarried, of a malignant 
 fever caught in some prison or hospital. Penelope, 
 who had her sister's fortune added to her own, 
 married, with her aunt's consent, the Viscompte 
 Vidanne de St Ange, an exiled Girondist, who 
 afterwards returned to his country and took ser- 
 vice under Napoleon. He was shot down before 
 his own guns at Austerlitz, and his widow, who 
 continued to reside in France, did not add, I am 
 afraid, to the happiness of her now aged and 
 venerable relative. She fell into the hands of the 
 priests, and brought up her own daughters in a 
 nunnery. I have received one or two letters from 
 my aunt since my father's decease, but I never 
 set eyes upon her in my life, and really know very 
 little about her.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 How the ancient line of the Maurices, as repre- 
 sented by Sir William and his relations, ever al- 
 lowed my father to marry into their very distin- 
 guished family, I really cannot undertake to say. 
 It is true that he found himself a man of consider- 
 able fortune, had a fine person, and possessed some 
 elegant accomplishments; and also that my poor 
 mother must have been devotedly attached to him, 
 for she fretted herself to death when she lost her 
 husband, and followed him to the grave in less 
 than six months. Still, the alliance was one 
 which, after all, hurt the pride of her family ; and
 
 5Q MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 my uncle never spoke of it, even to me, save as a 
 matter which was just tolerated, for good and suf- 
 ficient reasons : probably pecuniary ones. 
 
 Both my parents died when I was very young; but 
 I remember my mother exceedingly well. She was 
 some five or six years older than my father, though 
 still a young woman when she was taken from me. 
 I recall her memory with fondness, for she was 
 kind and indulgent to her child ; and I only wish 
 that she had lived to see him enter the world, and 
 have given him the benefit of a parent's advice. 
 She was of a slight fragile figure, with a pale 
 countenance, which, had it been less emaciated by 
 disease, would have been handsome, and had large 
 brown eyes and a profusion of auburn hair. I 
 sometimes dream of her, and have a superstition 
 that she is allowed to appear before me when some 
 misfortune impends over my head, in order that I 
 may take warning betimes and avoid it. 
 
 After the death of my surviving parent, the 
 charge of my education devolved upon the reluc- 
 tant shoulders of Sir William Maurice ; who was,
 
 MY GUARDIAN SIR WILLIAM. 57 
 
 no doubt, very much annoyed at the burden. He 
 seems to have come to the rational conclusion that 
 he was just the most unfit person in the world to 
 train a young gentleman in the way he should 
 go, and that the master of a great grammar school, 
 who had edited Plato's Phsedon, was the warranted 
 
 article. He therefore duly sent me off to K , 
 
 where I ran about with two hundred young repro- 
 bates, and had an opportunity of picking up as 
 much vice and as little Greek as I pleased. 
 
 When Sir William happened to be in England — 
 which he seldom was, for Florence continued to the 
 day of his death to be the home of his affections— \t 
 was in the habit of sending for me and treating 
 me with the greatest kindness, but in a queer 
 fashion. He made me quite his equal, talked to 
 me as a grown-up companion, and his conversation 
 was not always edifying, — he took me with him 
 to his club, where I heard elderly gentlemen talk 
 about pretty opera dancers and the dexterity of 
 George the Fourth at whist. When I really be- 
 came too old to be stalled any longer in the an- 
 
 c2
 
 58 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 cient and royal foundation of K , my uncle 
 
 took the trouble, for the first time in his life, to 
 ask the head master if I carried away any classics 
 with me. When he heard that I was not a bad 
 hand at my Homer and Livy, and that I enjoyed 
 the reputation of being a gentlemanly youth, he 
 expressed himself very much gratified, and told 
 me in a careless manner, as if communicating some- 
 thing I might listen to or not as I pleased, that I 
 was to be his heir, adding that " a confounded bad 
 heirship I should find it." He even took such a 
 fancy to me that he promised that I should return 
 with him to Florence ; and bitter was my disap- 
 pointment when I made the unpleasant discovery 
 that my uncle had been talking over the matter at 
 his club with Professor Staggerer. 
 
 Professor Staggerer was a middle aged gentleman 
 who deserved the highest respect, when he confined 
 himself to the accomplishments in which he really 
 excelled. He could walk into his lecture room, throw 
 open his Plato, and translate a couple of pages into 
 the most elegant English, giving, at the same time,
 
 PROFESSOR STAGGERER. 59 
 
 good and conscientious change for the original 
 Greek. But the worthy man prided himself very 
 little upon this dexterity, which he had acquired 
 when he was a poor friendless young snob, and 
 set his whole heart upon forcing his way into 
 fashionable society ; in which he was just tolerated, 
 and no more. He therefore wasted his time and 
 intellect in hunting up superannuated dowagers, 
 dining at the tables of weak-minded noblemen, 
 and converting his portly person into his own idea 
 of a clerical Adonis of fifty. Of course he be- 
 longed to a good club, and there scraped acquain- 
 tance with my uncle ; a kind-hearted man, who 
 would not crush a worm, much less a professor. 
 I met Mr Staggerer myself once or twice there, 
 and found him a civil person, but thought his con- 
 versation rather too ornate and elaborate. It 
 struck me at the time that he did not succeed very 
 well in trying to make himself out the frivolous 
 unsteady person for which he wished the irregular 
 old gentlemen in the room to take him ; and when 
 I went up to the university I detected the impos-
 
 60 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 ture at once, for the Professor was in reality a vir- 
 tuous man, of studious habits, kind-hearted and 
 conscientious. 
 
 When, then, my uncle detailed to the Professor 
 his ingenious notion of taking a youth of nineteen 
 through a course of Italian morals at Florence, Mr 
 Staggerer, who always did his best to keep his own 
 pupils out of mischief, saw that this rash step would 
 never do, and that Sir William, when once off his 
 guard, would himself lead me into the primrose 
 path of iniquity in no time ; so he bethought him 
 of his own university Cambridge, and said that, 
 although his own side at his college for that year 
 was full, he would enter me on that presided over 
 by Mr Cadger, who then (and always afterwards, 
 for very good reasons) happened to have room to 
 spare. My uncle might then set off to Florence, 
 and his nephew be packed up to Cambridge, and 
 in fact got rid of in a few weeks. 
 
 Now I had been hugging myself with the idea of 
 seeing Italy, and enjoying myself to my heart's con- 
 tent at Florence ; and therefore, although I could
 
 SULKING AT CAMBRIDGE. 61 
 
 raise no reasonable objection to the proposed altera- 
 tion of arrangements, I went up to Cambridge in a 
 very bad temper. I was determined not to be pleased 
 with anybody or anything, and passed my freshman's 
 term, which has generally attractions of some kind 
 or another for a neophyte, in a fit of the sullens. As 
 time wore away with me, I did not choose to be any 
 better pleased with the university, but sulked in 
 my own rooms ; cursing the town, the gown, the 
 college, the dons, the vice-chancellor, and even the 
 esquire bedells, for walking underneath my win- 
 dows before and after the said vice-chancellor and 
 condescending, gentlemen and men of learning as 
 they were, to carry a silver mace on their shoulders 
 for a few paltry hundreds a-year. 
 
 I had never in my life been a student after the 
 orthodox fashion ; and if I had been, my health was 
 too irregular to allow me to grind after the disgrace- 
 ful ungentlemanly Cambridge manner. I had some 
 relish for the Greek historians, but for mere verbal 
 criticism did not care one rush j and as to iambics, 
 why I could never write a correct one in my life :
 
 62 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 and verbal criticism and iambics, then as now, made 
 a man a Cambridge classic, if he confounded the 
 campaigns of Julius Csesar with the exploits of Al- 
 exander the Great. During my second year I took 
 some fancy to mathematics, and believe that I really 
 did understand the differential calculus; but Dr 
 Eymers and his Manuals, all to be learned by 
 heart, cut a possible wrangler off in the bud. After 
 that I just kept the Plato and Aristotle lectures in 
 my own college, saw the instruments handled at 
 the observatory ; and there my studies came to a 
 full stop. For the next few months I walked about 
 the beautiful chapel at King's, learned the stained 
 windows by heart, wondered why the college was 
 kept as a mere oven to bake the Eton boys in, and 
 finally voted Cambridge the dullest town wherein 
 an evil destiny could imprison a poor wretch, and 
 the Cam a filthy ditch, only fit for the reception of 
 the senior fellow of a college, if he perpetrated a 
 joke more than commonly atrocious. 
 
 Nature never, as the reader may see, cut me out 
 for a reading man at Cambridge ; but had she done
 
 MR CADGER MY COLLEGE TUTOR. 63 
 
 so, my position on the side of the indolent and in- 
 efficient Mr Cadger would soon have damped the 
 ardour of a Newton or Porson. My college was 
 divided into several sides, as they are called : that 
 is, a certain number of resident fellows each takes 
 a body of undergraduates under his charge. Mr 
 Staggerer, of whom his pupils could never speak too 
 highly, took one batch ; Mr Cadger another ; and 
 there was a third tutor, an able and conscientious 
 gentleman. 
 
 The tutors, who are paid by fees, which reach 
 a large sum in the aggregate, are not always the 
 very best men, either as regards learning or in- 
 tellect — for the system of allowing them to suc- 
 ceed each other by seniority is a bad one, since 
 it sends eager clever men away, and encourages 
 idle ones to stay : who generally do what they 
 consider their duty ; although the Cambridge 
 fashion even of doing one's duty is embellished by 
 many graceful and amiable peculiarities. On the 
 other hand, if a man chooses to shirk his work, 
 throw himself back in his chair, and say, u Here I
 
 64 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 am, and here I mean to stay, and the undergradu- 
 ates shall "be forced on to my side, pay me my fees, 
 and be worse treated and looked after than so many 
 young felons in a model prison," he may play this 
 scandalous trick with impunity ; for he has waited a 
 good many years for his tutorship, and has to all 
 intents and purposes a vested interest in it. 
 
 All I shall say on the present occasion concerning 
 Mr Cadger is, that he was disposed to shirk his 
 work ; and although not a bright article in other 
 respects, had cultivated the art and science of shirk- 
 ing to such an extent, that many people up at 
 Cambridge really imagined he had reduced it to a 
 written system, and intended to bequeath his manu- 
 script to the college. I was soon, therefore, given 
 a few hints, that if I really did possess any abilities 
 I had better hide them ; as otherwise Mr Cadger 
 would look upon me as a personal enemy, for setting 
 his side a bad example and encouraging the young 
 men to read. This would compel him to take some 
 interest in them, . and trouble his head about their 
 concerns ; and about the pensioners on his side, Mr
 
 MR cadger's system. 65 
 
 Cadger — who never offered to resign his lucrative 
 appointment, indeed held on to it tooth and nail — 
 was determined not to trouble himself in the slight- 
 est degree. 
 
 Somehow or other I got on very well with the 
 men of my own year and those below me. The 
 mighty reading men of my college early excited 
 my admiration by their unassuming deportment 
 and conciliating manners, and I really had not 
 health to go much among the rowing men and take 
 part in their foolish orgies. Still there were many 
 nice young fellows of my year who neither pulled 
 themselves to pieces on the Cam, nor read themsehaes 
 into a consumption in their own rooms, but who lived 
 quiet lives, and improved their minds without al- 
 lowing Mr Cadger to detect them in the offence ; 
 and out of them I selected my friends. Mr Cadger 
 certainly annoyed me at times ; but I paid the fel- 
 low's currishness back in his own coin, and yet 
 managed to snap my fingers at him. So time 
 passed away, and at last, when the period arrived 
 when it was requisite for me, if I expected any de-
 
 6Q MAUEICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 gree at all, to put myself into the hands of Mr 
 Cadger's friend, the resident master of arts, who 
 lived on the crumbs which fell from the rich man's 
 table, I refused to grind for my degree at all ; but 
 just took my exeat from the tutor, and bade fare- 
 well to dismal dowdy Cambridge for the rest of my 
 days. 
 
 I was not at that period of my life a very 
 modest youth, and therefore wrote a long letter to 
 my uncle, informing him that I had cut the univer- 
 sity and civilly requesting him to approve of my 
 judicious step. In due time a reply came from 
 Florence, just in the style I did not relish — indeed 
 it made me unhappy for some weeks. My uncle 
 told me that he was growing an old man now, and 
 should not be many years longer in the world ; that 
 when he looked back on his own career, he saw 
 nothing in it which merited approval ; that he 
 had set his own nephew a bad example he knew, 
 and was sorry to see him so ready to copy it, instead 
 of modelling himself upon the standard of the many 
 eminent men with whom he must have come into
 
 67 
 
 daily intercourse at the university. However, he 
 added, although I had acted like a hasty young man, 
 and had thrown myself upon a world of which I 
 should get tired before I was ten years older, I must 
 not be allowed to feel myself wanting in the re- 
 sources requisite to maintain me as a gentleman in 
 society, and to pay for the consequences of any 
 foolish scrapes I might get my wise head into. He 
 informed me, therefore, that if I would call upon Mr 
 Gently, I should find my allowance increased ; and 
 he conjured me, if I ever exceeded it, much or little, 
 to make a/friend of that worthy gentleman, and not 
 to throw myself into the hands of the Jews. This 
 goodnatured letter really made me feel very miser- 
 able, for I knew that my conduct could not exactly 
 be defended, and had expected a bullying ; but in- 
 stead of giving me one, my uncle had written to 
 me with a kindness which I felt that I did not 
 merit : I really wished that he had treated me more 
 in accordance with my deserts. 
 
 Here I am reminded that my reader, who has 
 accompanied me in my walk to Bedford Kow, has
 
 68 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 no doubt grown weary of the Elvingtons and Mau- 
 rices, and that we have now arrived at the office 
 door of the worthy professional man, Mr Gently.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Mr Gently the solicitor was not one of those pro- 
 fessional grandees who endeavour to drive every- 
 thing before them by " the pomp and circumstance 
 of glorious law." These gentlemen grow up in*a 
 wholesome fear of her majesty's judges at West- 
 minster, and do not therefore presume exactly to 
 insert in the public newspapers an advertisement, 
 " that Mr Capias has succeeded to the old shop for 
 law, and still supplies the genuine article ;" or, that 
 the "Messrs Pettifoggers are now winding up twenty 
 chancery suits under experienced clerks, and have 
 no objection to make an advance in cash to a dis- 
 tressed reversioner before they file the bill ; " but
 
 70 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 they open, as it were, a kind of legal gin-palace in 
 a good neighbourhood, and entice the public in by 
 the splendour of their swing-doors and plate-glass. 
 Mr Gently, who was not of this tribe, adhered to 
 the old established ways of his profession ; which, 
 to tell the truth, were not cleanly ones : never al- 
 lowed his windows to be cleaned, quarrelled with 
 the painter and decorator, and kept his business- 
 door shut. I had an opportunity of coming to this 
 conclusion whilst standing at the said door and 
 ringing the office-bell at intervals convenient to 
 myself. At last, a gray-headed old copying-clerk, 
 whom I had never before beheld in any position 
 except that of intently digging into lined brief- 
 paper with a steel-pen, appeared at the portal, with 
 ill-temper depicted on his countenance ; who, after 
 he had ushered me respectfully into the outer 
 office, vented his ill humour on two young gentle- 
 men who had been quarrelling about opening the 
 door, and were laughing at having made the scribe 
 quit his stool. These lads were not unlike each 
 other, for they both had the same sharp young
 
 A BRACE OF COPYING CLERKS. 71 
 
 lawyer-like features and bright black eyes, and wore 
 clean turned down collars, and silk handkerchiefs 
 tied loosely round them ; but the remainder of their 
 dress denoted a difference in rank. The taller youth, 
 who worked about on his stool in a pair of shabby 
 brown pantaloons, much too large in the seat, had 
 also sundry articles of legal stationery before him, 
 and was copying into a large letter-book, while his 
 superior in rank was just yawning and doing nothing. 
 In order probably to attract my attention as I came 
 into the room, this young gentleman submitted to his 
 ally the propriety of his " pitching over the bodkin 
 and ferret," to which the other replied, " that he w T oulcl 
 do that next week," and went on intently with his 
 copying. On receiving this tart answer, the origi- 
 nator of the conversation requested the public " to 
 look at that young snob at four and sixpence a- 
 w 7 eek ! " — and commenced some slight flourishes 
 with a ruler, tapping the other's knuckles and tell- 
 ing him " to wash his filthy paws." As this com- 
 pliment was returned by the bodkin, and the en- 
 suing passage at arms did not altogether advance
 
 72 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 legal studies, a seedy youth, who was inscribing 
 something against somebody on a long roll of parch- 
 ment, reminded the lads that this was no time for 
 larking, and that a cause, entitled " Cracks and 
 Craggles," was coming on. 
 
 " Here's a start, Taxer," said he to a tall heavy 
 man who came bustling into the office and ap- 
 peared to have been drinking, for he smelt of " Old 
 Tom" or some other cordial : — " Cracks and Crag- 
 gles comes on to-morrow — that rascally plaintiff 
 won't settle." 
 
 " Won't settle, eh ? " cried Taxer, fiercely :— 
 u Then we must fight them and get up the case ! 
 — By the way," added he, looking reproachfully at 
 a young man who just sauntered into the office with 
 his hat stuck on one side of his head, and whom I 
 recognised as the senior articled clerk of the estab- 
 lishment — " that reminds me, Mr Tallboys, of a 
 slight omission on your part, and I shall be happy 
 to have a few words. with you on the subject." 
 
 Mr Tallboys walked up to the desk with the 
 sulky air of a felon entering the dock at Hicks's
 
 AN ARTICLED CLERK. 73 
 
 Hall, and said, u he was ready for the few words, 
 but they must be deuced few, for he was off again 
 to see a trotting pony at Aldridge's : he couldn't 
 therefore stand there all day for the pleasure of Mr 
 Taxer 7 s conversation, but for a few minutes, to be 
 counted by the watch held in his hand, he should 
 be happy to listen to him." 
 
 " Mr Tallboys," said Mr Taxer, suppressing a 
 hiccup, and addressing the articled clerk in the 
 same impressive manner in which he was in the 
 habit of entreating my lord the judge to grant him 
 four days more time to plead, " I don't ask an 
 opposite party whether he does attend to business or 
 whether he does not. Every legal gentleman man- 
 ages his own establishment, as Mr Justice Little- 
 dale once laid down to me, at chambers. All I am 
 entitled to urge is, that you will not get your fel- 
 low-clerks into trouble." 
 
 " Trouble, be hanged !" exclaimed Mr Tallboys, 
 who nevertheless looked vexed — " What's the 
 matter?" 
 
 " Matter !" echoed Taxer, forgetting his dignity, 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 74 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 and almost shedding tears — " thirty-five shillings 
 out of some person's pocket — that's the matter ! — 
 My little gentleman at home can't have his new 
 hat next Sunday — that's the matter ! " 
 
 " Dress him in a Scotch cap and a plume of 
 feathers, Taxer ! — He'll look lovely, going down to 
 Gravesend ! " — suggested the junior articled clerk 
 in a lively tone. 
 
 " Will you do me the favour, Mr Simmers, to 
 attend a little more to increasing your knowledge 
 of your profession, and to interrupt the business of 
 the office a little less," replied the managing clerk 
 with some asperity of manner. Mr Tallboys, you 
 promised me as a personal favour, sir (for I know 
 you don't like the common law), to attend that 
 summons with Shuffler's people, while I just ran 
 round with Chowser's clerk to take a glass of ale 
 after our set-to ; and when I came back to cham- 
 bers I found that our summons had been called on, 
 and that the judge was up. Shuffler's clerk owes 
 me a spite, and I won't ask him a favour, if it costs 
 me five pounds to amend the proceedings.
 
 AN OFFICE ARRANGEMENT. 75 
 
 u Gently's a trump," thoughtfully suggested Mr 
 Tallboys. 
 
 " He mustn't hear of it," said Taxer — " Cracks 
 and Craggles is coming on, and lie mustn't be made 
 nervous." 
 
 " Then I'll pay for the amendment out of my 
 own pocket; so give us no more of your humbug," 
 said Mr Tallboys. " And take my advice, Taxer, 
 and drink a little less malt-liquor with Chowser's 
 out-door clerk : he has eyes at the back of his 
 head, and can worm anything out of such a man as 
 
 you." 
 
 " Hear, hear ! " cried the two lads, who approved 
 of Mr Tallboy's magnanimous spirit exceedingly. 
 
 " Why you are keeping Mr Elvington here," 
 remonstrated the common law clerk, very much mol- 
 lified—" Who's with Gently ? " 
 
 " Craggles, storming away like a bedlamite," 
 replied the junior articled clerk with great glee. — 
 " And there he goes," — pointing to an old gentle- 
 man in shorts and gaiters, who rushed through the 
 outer office as if his feelings were too much for him.
 
 76 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 " If you will have the kindness to step this way, 
 Mr Elvington," said Taxer — who was almost the 
 only civil person in the office, for the easy tempered 
 master of it ruined his clerks by over-indulgence — 
 " Mr Gently is now at leisure, and will be happy 
 to speak with you." 
 
 When I entered the sanctum of the legal gentle- 
 man, I cannot say that I found him in his usual 
 state of professional coolness, for he looked flurried, 
 and tied and untied several bundles of papers out 
 of mere nervousness : indeed, he did not at first 
 recognise me, and seemed very much ashamed of 
 himself when he observed that I had been stand- 
 ing before him without being requested to take a 
 seat. 
 
 " My dear Mr Elvington," said Mr Gently, I 
 really beg your pardon for keeping you waiting, for 
 it was my own appointment : yes, glancing at his 
 diary, to-day at half-past three ; but I am dread- 
 fully run for time. I have a heavy cause coming 
 on, and two sharp fellows on the other side, Chow- 
 ser and Naylor, sir. Of course, you have heard
 
 MESSES CHOWSER AND NAYLOR. 77 
 
 of them — an immense run of practice — but nasty — 
 nasty" — said Mr Gently with a face of disgust — 
 " never keep a clerk six months, and yet never 
 make a false step. — Clever ! too clever by half ! " 
 exclaimed the lawyer, looking up at the ceiling in 
 an entranced state of professional admiration at the 
 abilities of those two thorough legal rascals, Messrs 
 Chowser and Naylor. 
 
 Here Mr Gently paused from confusion of ideas, 
 for he was rather a nervous man, and seemed puzzled 
 what to say next ; and as I saw at a glance that 
 the two sharpers were frightening him out of his 
 wits, and that if I called his attention away to other 
 business Mr Craggles might possibly lose the ac- 
 tion, I suggested that my own time was of no 
 great value, and that, if he were at present engaged, 
 I would keep some other appointment. 
 
 " Why my dear sir," replied he in a very kind 
 tone, " my business with you is rather important ; 
 but not so immediately pressing as that of Mr 
 Craggles. Do you ever walk out of town, Mr El- 
 vington?"
 
 78 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 "Walk and ride," said I, " Mr Gently:— but 
 what has this to do with the matter?" 
 
 " Why I live in the country now/' said the soli- 
 citor, inscribing the name of his place of residence 
 on a card, " and have only one quiet day in the 
 week, and that is Sunday. Do not think that I 
 fall into bad habits, and devote the Sabbath to 
 business, as many of my professional brethren are 
 in the habit uf doing. But as the matter on which 
 I wish to have a little conversation with you is 
 hirdly business in the strict sense of the word, I 
 should feel happy if you would do me the favour of 
 dining with me on Sunday next, and we can then 
 go into matters very quietly after dinner : I hope I 
 am not asking too great a favour." 
 
 Now, in my private opinion, I did think that Mr 
 Gently was asking too great a favour of me, for I 
 knew that he was proud of being concerned for Sir 
 William Maurice, and had always treated him with 
 great deference. This deference, I imagined, de- 
 scended to me as the baronet's next of kin, and 
 ought not to be trenched upon by my own solicitor
 
 A BUSINESS ENGAGEMENT. 79 
 
 asking me to dinner, just as if I were only the sub- 
 missive stuff-gown who drew his bills in Chancery. 
 I really was not best pleased at the invitation ; 
 while, at the same time, I pitied the poor man for 
 the excited state he was in, and saw that Chowser 
 and Nay lor were driving him into a nervous fever. 
 I accepted the invitation then ; and taking the card 
 in my hand, was gratefully bowed out of the office, 
 leaving Mr Gently in the hands of Mr Taxer, who 
 seemed to be the person really occupied in getting 
 up the case in Cracks and Craggles.
 
 80 MAURICE ELVINGTCN. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 When I had leisure to consider the address upon 
 Mr Gently's card, I discovered that the learned 
 gentleman had ensconced himself in the cockney 
 paradise named Highgate-rise. This was too great 
 a distance for me to walk, according to my friend's 
 recommendation, derived probably from his own 
 recollections of pedestrian feats performed in the 
 early days of his life. So I sent round for my 
 mare, which stood at livery, ready to bolt through 
 h e stable-door for want of exercise, and turned her 
 head towards Highgate. We cleared the suburbs 
 at a quick rate, and walked quietly up Highgate 
 Hill, by the side of a tall row of chestnut trees
 
 81 
 
 which overhung the park paling of some retired 
 person or other. Here I fell to musing about the 
 old days, when many a time and oft had I looked 
 out of my windows in Jesus Lane, and seen the 
 men running home from the boats under the mag- 
 nificent chestnut trees of the college grounds while 
 the dinner bell of Trinity was ringing : in fact I 
 forgot to keep my eyes about me, until my nag, be- 
 ing the more sensible animal of the two, pulled up of 
 her own accord opposite an inn called " The Fox." 
 I put her up there ; and, on inquiring my way, 
 found that I had overshot the mark, and must re- 
 turn down the hill until I came to the lane branck- 
 ing off from the main road a and in that lane I should 
 find Mr Gently's domicile. Following the direc- 
 tion, I reached a pretty, quiet little lane, the upper 
 end of which was shaded by two ranks of fine 
 elm trees, but full, at the lower part, of detached 
 snuggeries of wealthy cockneys, who had perfectly 
 covered themselves up with a fence of bushes and 
 young plantations : and I thought that Gently 
 might have chosen a worse spot. One gate was 
 
 d2
 
 82 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 just like another ; so I began with that at the end 
 of the lane, and after ringing at as many wrong 
 bells as gentlemen going out to dinner mostly do, 
 came to the right house at last. I saw, at a glance, 
 that my man of law, who was rather modest in his 
 business arrangements, compensated himself in his 
 retired leisure, and lived like a person of some pre- 
 tensions to wealth. 
 
 As for the style of Mr Gentry's cockney villa, 
 which appeared to be newly built, I cannot say that 
 it would have quite satisfied the critical eyes of Sir 
 Charles Barry or Professor Cockerell ; but it was as 
 architectural as brick towers and Italian windows 
 generally render a moderate gentleman's house ; 
 and there was a worse specimen of builder's Italian 
 next door to it. The details, for the most part, 
 were rather modest, and resembled a small country 
 railway station ; for which, indeed, it might have 
 been mistaken, had it not burst out into a violent 
 fit of ornateness at one end, where it shot up into 
 the air, as if to beat a palace at Florence or Rome out 
 of the field. Yet, as I said, there were worse speci-
 
 MR GENTLY'S DOMESTIC CIRCLE. 83 
 
 mens of architecture round it, and the house looked 
 as if a little money had been spent upon it. There was 
 a pretty little terrace-garden in the front, crowded 
 with stone urns filled with the brightest scarlet 
 geraniums I have ever seen, and in the portico be- 
 fore the door stood a double rank of beautiful Aoav- 
 ering plants in pots ; for Mrs Gently, as I subse- 
 quently learned, was a great horticulturist. 
 
 WhenI rang the bell, Mr Gently himself, who was 
 standing at the open door — probably on the look-out 
 for me, for he was a punctual man, and perhaps I had 
 kept his dinner waiting — ran down the steps, and 
 welcomed his guest most cordially to his rus m 
 urbe; and, as we entered the drawing-room together, 
 he introduced me to his domestic circle, all seated 
 waiting for something, or somebody, probably a 
 dilatory visiter. I was introduced, with due form 
 and ceremony, first to Mrs Gently, a good-looking 
 lady with a clever expression of countenance, and 
 then to her three daughters, Miss Mary Ann Gently, 
 Fanny Gently, and a splendid little girl called 
 Amelia. I also learned during the day that there had
 
 84 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 been once a " poor Tom" belonging to the family, 
 but that he had been accidentally drowned at East- 
 bourne about two years preceding my visit ; so that Mr 
 Gently had now no son to succeed him in his lucra- 
 tive practice. 
 
 As for the two grown-up daughters, the second 
 one, Fanny, was a very pretty little girl indeed, 
 with hair of a bright sunny brown, fine hazel 
 eyes, a pouting lip, small delicate features, and the 
 greatest expression of goodness on her countenance 
 that I have ever seen beaming from the face of a 
 human creature. The eldest daughter seemed to 
 be some years in advance of her pretty sister, and 
 had rather passed her bloom ; but she was still a 
 handsome woman, with a well-turned head and fine 
 intelligent features. She had a sharp, quick eye, 
 and rather an accurate expression of countenance, 
 as if she had served some years in her father's 
 office, and was accustomed to see the bearings of 
 things : indeed I soon found out that she was the 
 most important person in the family, and that her pa- 
 rents and sisters generally deferred to her judgment.
 
 A FAMILY DINNER. 85 
 
 After a little general conversation, in the course 
 of which Mr Gently did not exactly request me 
 to admire his house and furniture, "but yet led the 
 way to a few remarks which rather flattered his 
 self-complacency, dinner was announced. Mr Gent- 
 ly took the arm of his second daughter, and left Mrs 
 Gently to my protection, while Amelia followed as 
 she could. In the dinner-parlour I had the good 
 fortune to re-discover Miss Gently, who had previ- 
 ously quitted the drawing-room, and now stood gaz- 
 ing out of the front window ; from which I inferred 
 that she had left the arrangement of the napkins 
 and wineglasses to the pretty young servant who 
 waited at table, and had been merely amusing 
 herself by looking into the garden. The master 
 of the house, who at times fell into a fit of serious- 
 ness which I could not then understaDd, forced a 
 few cheerful remarks concerning people coming 
 out of town to dinner, and bringing an appetite 
 with them ; but as similar jokes have been made 
 before by elderly gentlemen when heading their 
 own tables, I need not repeat them. I was then
 
 86 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 seated in the place of honour, with Miss Fanny 
 next to me, and the portrait of a pleasant old gen- 
 tleman in powdered hair and a loose white neck- 
 cloth smiling at me over the way. This, Mrs 
 Gently informed me ; represented her father, a de- 
 ceased vestry clerk of Warminster, Wilts. Miss 
 Gently, who, although she defended her rights in 
 the family on all proper occasions, had rather re- 
 tired from the general run of small attentions in 
 favour of her pretty sister, seated herself on the op- 
 posite side of the table, and dinner commenced. 
 
 Now here was rather an extraordinary circum- 
 stance. I was only dining with one of those 
 middle- class families who are expected to be 
 walked over and extinguished the moment a per- 
 son like myself, with the blood of the Maurices 
 in his veins, gets among them, yet really I found 
 them as intelligent and well-bred as if they had 
 all been Lord Claudes and Lady Angelicas. Mr 
 Gently was sometimes absent in his manner, and 
 his eldest daughter had a few passages of argument 
 with the pretty servant, who probably wanted oc-
 
 DINNEK-TABLE TALK ON SUNDAY. 87 
 
 casional prompting, but it was quite evident that 
 the whole family knew what they were about. 
 I soon learned that their principles were what are 
 called a serious," and when serious people are 
 always burning red and blue fire for the benefit 
 of their neighbours, such principles are serious in- 
 deed ; but the Gentlys were none of such people, 
 and evidently made no pretensions to superfine 
 piety. However, as it was Sunday, we talked 
 chiefly about the Exeter Hall oratorios and the 
 anthems on surplice nights at Cambridge ; and I 
 had to set Mrs Gently right in a strange impres- 
 sion the lady had acquired that the Fellows in 
 residence up there were lively intellectual gentle- 
 men of great conversational powers, who rather 
 affected rakishness and played cards in the college 
 chapel, and to inform her that even the Pensioners 
 had in these days actually attained to the idea that 
 they might be smart specimens of humanity without 
 affecting profanity. After the wine and dessert, 
 and the usual jug of claret vouched for by Mr 
 Gently's client the great wine merchant, the ladies
 
 88 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 withdrew, and I was left alone with my host, who 
 challenged me to fill my glass. He then put on 
 a face of professional sagacity, and reminding me 
 that a little business had brought us together, said 
 that if I was quite willing, we would now go into it.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 As I complied with the worthy gentleman's chal- 
 lenge to despatch his claret, and put myself into 
 the position of a person ready to listen to a speech 
 a mile long, Mr Gently thought fit to commence 
 the conversation ; and he did so with an unpleasant 
 proem, in which he observed that we had all of us 
 in this life vexations to contend against. He said 
 that he himself was at that moment a prosperous 
 and happy man, surrounded by an affectionate 
 family, and, he believed, esteemed by the clients 
 who honoured him with their confidence ; and yet 
 two short years since he had been plunged into the 
 very depths of affliction by the loss of his only
 
 90 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 son. He also added, that he had only yesterday 
 the misfortune to lose an important cause, " Cracks 
 and Craggles," in which his old friend the defen- 
 dant was made the victim of two legal sharpers. 
 " Yes," he said, " we all have our trials :" and here 
 he paused. 
 
 As this commencement was not very encourag- 
 ing, I made him no reply ; for I felt uneasy, and 
 wondered what would follow. 
 
 Mr Gently then spoke of my uncle, and said 
 that in the course of his professional experience he 
 had met with many bad men of business, but that 
 poor Sir William, he thought, was the worst he 
 ever came across. He declared that he, Mr Gently, 
 had made many efforts to open my uncle's eyes to 
 the fact that his affairs were becoming entangled 
 through mere negligence, and had written many a 
 long letter to Florence all on the same topic, but 
 to no purpose. No doubt they were allowed to 
 remain unread, while Sir William continued buried 
 in frivolous pursuits, or busied himself about pic- 
 tures and statues. About the period of his sister's
 
 AN UNEXPECTED REVELATION. 91 
 
 decease, he roused himself so far as to attend a 
 little to business, for he called upon Mr Gently, 
 and spoke to him of the uncertainty of life, and 
 informed him that he had considered it his duty to 
 remain unmarried, so that no son of his might re- 
 proach a worthless father with leaving him heir to 
 his embarrassments. On this occasion Mr Gently 
 pointed out to Sir William that he still possessed 
 considerable property over and above the family 
 estates, and rallied him upon the bad character he 
 gave himself. My uncle, however, was for once 
 in his life in earnest, and said that " young Mau- 
 rice should be his heir, for that the worsted spin^ 
 ner's blood was not quite washed out of his veins, 
 and that he would know how to keep money when 
 he got it." Upon this, Mr Gently drew up a 
 short will, leaving what property my uncle had 
 in his own control to me : the family estates, I was 
 aware, had gone over to the present Sir Anthony 
 Maurice. Now he, Mr Gently, would be very happy 
 to find himself undeceived, but as far as he could 
 at present see, not one shilling would ever be com-
 
 92 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 ing to me from this bequest. Here he paused 
 again, proposed that I should replenish my glass, 
 and gave a keen glance at my features, to see how 
 I took the bad news. 
 
 Now it was not pleasant for a young man who 
 had just conquered the first burst of his grief at the ' 
 loss of a kind relative, and had begun to contem- 
 plate the advantages contingent on his succession 
 to a certain amount of property, to learn that his 
 benefactor had been deceiving himself all the while, 
 and had nothing to leave behind him. Neverthe- 
 less, when Mr Gently paused, I felt rather relieved 
 at finding that nothing worse was to come out ; for 
 I knew that I had never yet spent the full income 
 of my own fortune, and should not quite beg my 
 bread because my uncle had misled himself. Find- 
 ing I was expected to say something in reply, I 
 told Mr Gently that the news was bad, but might 
 have been worse, and that I was obliged to him 
 for the delicate manner in which he had broken it 
 to me. 
 
 " Well/' answered he, hesitating as he uttered
 
 COMING TO THE WORST. 93 
 
 the words, "We must be — quite sure — that we have 
 come — to the — to the worst, Mr Elvington. How- 
 ever, solicitors are frightened a hundred times on 
 their clients 7 account, before they are hurt. Now, 
 Sir William was your guardian " 
 
 When the conversation took this unpleasant turn, 
 I felt my face flush, and really grew angry with Mr 
 Gently : I exclaimed sharply : 
 
 " But there are the Yorkshire estates, sir, my 
 father left me. My uncle could not surely make 
 away with them ?" 
 
 " The Yorkshire estates," replied Mr Gently, 
 throwing himself back in his chair, and no doubt 
 indulging in delightful professional recollections of 
 deeds and documents which would fill a tin box, 
 61 gave great trouble to your deceased father, and 
 at last he got tired of them. I remember the cir- 
 cumstance well, for I went down to Yorkshire with 
 my partner, Mr Kackham, and carried through the 
 sale. We dined with the residentiary canon, who 
 was lord of the manor of part of them, and he and 
 poor Mr Kackham made rather free. Yes, your
 
 94 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 father sold the estates remarkably well, and bought 
 into the old fours at sixty-three and a quarter. 
 Fine times those, Mr Elvington, for buying into 
 the funds." 
 
 Now, it did occur to me that if my uncle had 
 beggared me, in the sequel, I had not derived much 
 advantage from this profitable sale and investment ; 
 but I was too much chagrined to smile at the wor- 
 thy man's simplicity. I therefore coldly told him, 
 that I guessed what was to come next, and that he 
 might spare my feelings, for my uncle's personal 
 conduct towards me had always been kind and in- 
 dulgent. 
 
 " Well," said Mr Gently, who, although not a 
 profound person in other respects, had a professional 
 knowledge of human nature, " I would not delude 
 any one by endeavouring to keep him in the dark ; 
 but just now I am in the dark myself. When Sir 
 William was last in England, he never came near 
 me, and I only learned by mere accident that he 
 was consulting another professional adviser. I can 
 see now that he was raising money at any sacrifice,
 
 I DISCOVER THAT I AM RUINED. 95 
 
 and altogether fell into very bad hands. Yet, after 
 all, we will hope for the best, Mr Elvington." 
 
 I shook my head despondingly, and said that I 
 knew I was ruined, and that nothing could con- 
 vince me to the contrary. 
 
 " There is property somewhere," said Mr Gently. 
 " Sir William, to the day of his death, collected 
 pictures, and of course such things always possess 
 a certain value ; but, alas ! my dear sir, he had the 
 morals of his class, although by no means the worst 
 specimen I have seen of them. He lived at Flo- 
 rence, in the palace of an Italian Duke, and the 
 Duchess exercised an unworthy influence over his 
 mind. I have written out to see what can be done, 
 but I find that the Duke claims everything ; and 
 it is difficult in these petty states for a foreigner to 
 press his rights against a native of the country. 
 But if there be law in Tuscany you shall not be 
 robbed of your property, because Sir William 
 thought fit to live with an Italian lady in the house 
 of her own husband. And now," said he, " I can 
 tell you better news. Your uncle, who never could
 
 96 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 be accurate even by mistake, paid me a little too 
 much when he last settled accounts with me, and I 
 have a small balance of fifty pounds at your ser- 
 vice. We can settle my costs," said Mr Gently, 
 as if he meant to be very sharp with me, " when 
 we have brought this Italian grandee to account. 
 This, my dear young friend," he added in a fatherly 
 way, u is bad news for you, and you had better go 
 home and think it over. Perhaps you will not wish 
 to meet my family again this evening, and I can 
 see you to the Fox in five minutes." 
 
 If I had just then started from the Fox, I should 
 have turned my horse's head in the direction of the 
 nearest Hampstead pond, and she would have re- 
 turned to Suffolk Street without a rider. But I de- 
 termined not to be put down by circumstances, 
 whatever it might cost my feelings ; and was also 
 rather angry at Mr Gently's endeavouring to twist 
 me about like a child. I smiled faintly and said 
 that I should be happy to pay my respects to the 
 ladies again, and the solicitor, whose wife was 
 reckoned rather a grand person in her own con-
 
 MR PAUL SADGROVE. 97 
 
 nexion, and who was the father of two handsome 
 grown -up daughters, rather complacently led the 
 way into the adjoining room. 
 
 In this apartment I found Mrs Gently seated on 
 the sofa, suffering from a headache, and Miss Gently 
 presiding at the tea-table, sending out tea and 
 coffee cups and calling them in again with great 
 accuracy and precision. There was also an addi- 
 tion to our party in the person of a gentleman, 
 whose name I had read for the last six months at 
 the side of the doorway appertaining to Mr Gently's 
 premises in Bedford Kow. This was one Mr Sad- 
 grove, who had recently commenced his professional 
 career as a solicitor in the cities of London and 
 Westminster. Mr Sadgrove was a slight young 
 gentleman of middle stature, who wore a white 
 neckcloth and buttoned boots. His manners were 
 quiet, and might have been sheepish, had not the 
 duties of his profession, which compelled him to 
 advocate his clients at Basinghall Street and else- 
 where, brought him out. He was not bad-looking, 
 but had the features and voice of a sharp little 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 98 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 girl : Amelia Gently appeared manly by the side of 
 liim. 
 
 The conversation, however, had not flagged 
 between Mr Sadgrove and the young ladies, for 
 they were old acquaintances, and Miss Gently in 
 particular treated him in a very friendly manner. 
 When I entered the room they seemed to be talking 
 about Cowper, and Kirke White the unlucky poet 
 whom the worthy Johnians coached into his coffin. 
 As I interrupted a long story about Kirke White, 
 Fanny Gently kindly seized the opportunity, and 
 tried to hand me my coffee out of due course, all 
 the time listening to my forced cheerfulness and 
 incoherent observations with a pleasant smile. 
 Amelia appeared to be reading Mrs Sherwood's 
 " Emma and her Nurse," sipping her tea be- 
 tween the pauses of that tragical little story ; and 
 was occasionally interrupted to repeat some verses of 
 Cowper which she knew by heart, or to point out the 
 position of one of the twelve tribes of Israel on the 
 map of Palestine. After a few painful efforts to 
 force a conversation, I relapsed into silence, and
 
 SUNDAY LITERARY CONVERSATION. 99 
 
 was glad to allow Miss Fanny to join the conver- 
 sation between her sister and Mr Sadgrove, That 
 gentleman was not exactly diffident, and not ex- 
 actly pert, but might, about the five-and-thirtieth 
 year of his age, fall into the style of discourse called 
 the pragmatical. He therefore responded to Miss 
 Gently's well-defined observations on her favourite 
 Kirke White with equal precision, and answered 
 Fanny's notes of admiration when a pretty passage 
 from the mild poet was quoted, with a quiet smile 
 which seemed to imply that if Mr Sadgrove pleased 
 he could spoil Kirke's market as a poet in a very 
 short time. 
 
 Mr Gently in his office was the soul of profes- 
 sional honour, and would not have let out a secret 
 to oblige the lord chancellor ; but in the bosom of 
 his family he rather unbent, and Mrs Gently, whose 
 residence in Bedford Eow in the early part of her 
 married life had given her a taste for legal gossip, 
 could occasionally worm a few facts out of him. 
 She had been able to ascertain, then, that I was to 
 hear unpleasant news after dinner, and that my
 
 100 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 uncle's property had somehow or other gone wrong. 
 She soon saw, therefore, that I was merely forcing 
 my spirits, and from a charitable disposition to re- 
 lieve me, reminded her daughters that the bells 
 were chiming for evening service, and threw out 
 sundry hints about the loneliness of my road home. 
 Mr Gently, who acknowledged a nod or two from 
 his wife, did not oppose me when I offered to take 
 my leave, but volunteered to accompany me to the 
 Fox, where he patted my mare on the shoulder, 
 and pretended to be wide awake to a good piece of 
 horseflesh. I jumped across her back, turned her 
 head towards London, and fell into a train of mel- 
 ancholy reflections, which were only interrupted 
 when she pulled up of her own accord before my 
 door in Suffolk Street.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The good Mr Gently 's kind-hearted attempt to coax 
 his client into the belief that the misconduct of a 
 careless relative had not entirely ruined him, was not 
 successful — perhaps he did not expect it to be so. It 
 merely warded off the shock at the instant of such 
 a dreadful blow — for a dreadful blow in good sooth 
 it was ; and I should do wrong to compare it with 
 any of those ordinary buffets of fortune one receives 
 when struggling in the stormy sea of life, dancing- 
 over one wave, breasting another, stunned and 
 overwhelmed by the one rolling after it. In this 
 battle with the surge there is an energy evoked by 
 the sight of the breakers heaving towards us, and
 
 102 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 after drawing a long breath, we feel the muscles strung 
 and the chest glow with healthy exercise. But the 
 results of this shock to me resembled those of some 
 dreadful accident, when a man wakes up from a long 
 swoon and finds himself deadly faint from loss of 
 blood. I felt sick at heart. Here I had been 
 living in the lap of luxury, toying on the knees 
 of a painted and deceitful world, and now the harlot 
 had turned me adrift — cheated me out of all I pos- 
 sessed, and then thrust me into the streets. 
 
 Since this evil fate was to overtake me in the end, 
 everything had been wrong with me from my birth 
 — my education, my habits, even my virtues. 
 In my own walk of life, the very highmind- 
 edness with which I held aloof from the petty 
 struggles around me would have kept me safe in 
 my own quiet path j but haughty seclusion from 
 the world was no more possible now. I must 
 come out of my cell, struggle for a mere existence, 
 and put my health and strength into a lottery, in 
 which I knew beforehand the blanks would turn up 
 to men like me, and the prizes, large and small, be
 
 A RUINED MAN. 103 
 
 gained by others. The antagonists with whom I 
 must wrestle had been trained for the struggle 
 of life from their boyhood, and they would throw 
 me at their feet one after another. I felt, as I re- 
 marked, deadly sick, and weary in my flesh from 
 head to foot. I shut myself up in my rooms, closed 
 the shutters, took my meals I scarce knew how, and 
 often fell asleep in my chair after the clock told me 
 that it was near sunrise : daylight came and went, 
 and I took no heed of it. 
 
 This state of mental prostration was of course 
 open to the observation of the quiet young man 
 who waited upon me, and his master the wine 
 merchant. The latter worthy at once came to the 
 conclusion that I had been gaming, or risking my 
 money on Swallowtail or Kiteflyer, and had been 
 completely cleaned out on the turf; and as it was 
 not creditable for his establishment to harbour 
 ruined people, he determined to get rid of me forth- 
 with. As, however, he was rather afraid of his 
 customer, and came to the rational conclusion that 
 a downfal in life seldom renders a rugged temper
 
 104 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 more placable, he held a consultation (probably with 
 his Mercury), and determined to coax me out of 
 the house by civility, aided and assisted by a 
 plausible lie. He therefore came into my room 
 with a very long face indeed, and was grieved to 
 inform me that Shaki EfFendi, the Turkish ambas- 
 sador, had hired the whole upper part of the house 
 for some Ottoman subjects. He pleaded that he was 
 eaten up by rent and taxes, and scarcely made a 
 living : he was aware that I had stipulated for six 
 weeks' notice — some gentlemen kindly took only a 
 fortnight under very peculiar circumstances. Could 
 I have his interest at heart and oblige him ? As I 
 detested the very sight of the rooms, which hourly 
 brought to my mind what a dreadful misfortune 
 had befallen me, I played into the rogue's hands, 
 and promised to let him have his apartments. He 
 thanked me in fulsome terms for my kindness, and 
 probably had a good laugh with the quiet young 
 man at the expense of my greenness, when they were 
 safely at the bottom of the stairs. 
 
 Several more days passed over my head, during
 
 A WELCOME VISITER. 105 
 
 which I took count of nothing. A lad called from 
 Mr Gentry's office — he brought a letter and waited 
 for an answer. I sent down word that I had re- 
 ceived it, and then threw it into a drawer ; for I 
 had really not the courage to open it. How long 
 I might have continued in this crestfallen state, I 
 cannot tell — probably until the " malignant and tur- 
 baned Turks" thrust me into the street; but I was 
 at last roused by a casual visit from the only man 
 on earth I could ha^e allowed to have seen me. 
 
 This was an old schoolfellow at K , an eccen- 
 tric fellow, but the best classic we ever turned out. 
 He had left us abruptly, just as he was grinding up 
 for Oxford ; for the death of his father compelled 
 him to turn into the world very early in the morn- 
 ing. I lost sight of him for some years, but heard 
 that he had carried some open scholarship and was 
 at Oxford after all. At the end of about four years' 
 time I met him in London ; and, to tell the truth, 
 rather out at elbows. He invited himself into my 
 rooms, and offered to repeat his call ; I was glad to 
 see him and talk about old times, and what the 
 
 e2
 
 106 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 men we knew at K were doing in the world. 
 
 When he conld keep his tongne steady he was no 
 despicable antagonist, and as we did not altogether 
 agree in opinion, we had many tough arguments 
 together. This man was a thorough socialist, and 
 often alluded to Paley's crows in the cornfield — a pas- 
 sage by the way, in which the cautious and worldly 
 archdeacon, who u could not afford to keep a con- 
 science," leis his real opinions peep out — and once 
 made my ears tingle by asserting that he thought 
 "the Eights of Property" something very like 
 fudge. Of course I always stood on the defensive, 
 for I thought of the Yorkshire estates and Sir 
 William's little country box, and had no fancy to 
 throw them into a raffle. When we grew very 
 warm, I was in the habit of reviling him as a fol- 
 lower of Eobert Dale Owen, while he stigmatized 
 me as a hard and harsh philosophical radical ; com- 
 pared with which breed, he told me, your old 
 tories were enlightened thinkers. Still we agreed 
 pretty well in the main, and I thought it my duty 
 not to show the cold shoulder to a learned man,
 
 A SOCIALIST. 107 
 
 who could not eat the covers of his own books, and 
 therefore sometimes, I suspected, wanted a dinner. 
 This person, then a man hanging on the world 
 as loosely as a cobweb in a nook of some old 
 church, was the only human being upon earth to 
 whom I could at that time have told my troubles ; 
 and I did open upon them a little as he sat in my 
 rooms. Had he been foolish enough to pump me, 
 I should have kept the best part of my secret 
 back, but as he sat perfectly quiet and said nothing, 
 I let by degrees everything out. He sympathized 
 very much with me, for he was a good-natured 
 fellow, and his own crosses in life had softened 
 his heart ; at last he became so vexed that he burst 
 out in the following fashion — for his conversa- 
 tion, even when serious, was full of quaint ex- 
 pressions and odd similes, picked up in a ver- 
 satile career. 
 
 He said that he was sorry for me, for he knew 
 the rough and tumble of life as well as any man ; 
 
 and since he left K had been kicked about 
 
 like a foot -ball. When he first found himself
 
 108 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 homeless, he took refuge with a maiden aunt, and 
 carried her prayer-book for her every Sunday as 
 she walked to church, for six months ; but notwith- 
 standing this act of virtuous complacency, he was 
 eliminated from the establishment by the old lady's 
 favourite servant, who declared that she had not 
 been hired to black a gentleman's boots. They 
 
 had never taught him at K to black his own 
 
 boots, or do anything else that was useful ; his 
 aunt would not pay a shoeblack, and at last he 
 was obliged to turn out and seek his Day and 
 Martin somewhere else. 
 
 He then jumped, he told me, like harlequin 
 through a window, into a very small private 
 school, the proprietor of which had advertised 
 for a good classic as his usher. Here he found 
 that the classics began and ended with Ovid, 
 but that he could agreeably fill up his leisure by 
 giving the dancing lessons, teaching navigation, act- 
 ing as drill sergeant, helping the master's wife to sort 
 the pupils' clothes, and cutting the young gentle- 
 men's hairs on Saturday afternoon. However, he
 
 CANDIDATES FOR A SCHOLARSHIP. 109 
 
 held on for six months in sheer desperation, and 
 only quitted at last because the talented proprietor 
 of the school never paid his ushers one penny 
 piece, and the people in the town expected even 
 ushers to hand a few shillings over the counter. 
 
 He next appeared on the stage of London, and ac- 
 cording to his own expression, " ducked and dived 
 about;" but of course he did not explain clearly where 
 and under what circumstances. While prowling 
 about London, he heard by chance that there was 
 an open scholarship vacant at St Swithin's College, 
 Oxford. St Swithin's was no great place, and was 
 irreverently styled the Dust Hole — but any col- 
 lege was better than none. He read himself into 
 a congestion of the brain in order to answer in 
 first-rate style, borrowed fifteen guineas of a friend, 
 and rushed up to the examination. But he really 
 might have saved himself the trouble, for the " open 
 scholarship " had long been bespoke by one of the 
 college laundresses for her own son. This good 
 woman washed for the Provost's wife, and as the 
 Provost was a henpecked husband, her interest in
 
 110 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 the learned foundation of St Swithin's carried 
 everything before it. The provost, however, who 
 was a kind-hearted old fellow, took a fancy to my 
 friend's answering, and, although he did not dare 
 to reward it with the scholarship, got him on to 
 the foundation, and was a good friend to him in 
 many respects. He read, he told me, exceedingly 
 hard whilst in the college, but could not take more 
 than a second class in classical honours, because 
 his aunt would not advance him the money to pay 
 the fees of Mr Billytoes, the celebrated grinder. 
 
 Mr Billytoes, who in his undergraduate days 
 had never washed his face more than once a- 
 week, shook his head when he saw my friend so 
 spruce and tidy. He also accused him of wasting 
 time in thinking about what he read, and said 
 such nonsense would never do with him. " Trans- 
 late, sir, translate," said Mr Billytoes, and then 
 come to me to have u apax legomina" and parallel 
 passages chucked into you. " Do this and I can 
 get you your first class. Two hundred pounds is 
 my fee, paid into my bankers."
 
 MR BILLYTOES " THE GRINDER." Ill 
 
 As my friend had not two hundred pence, he was 
 therefore degraded to the second class. But a sec- 
 ond class was good enough for St Swithin's, and 
 had he been the lineal descendant of one Grypefull, 
 a woman's mercer, who founded the two vacant fel- 
 lowships in the college, he might have been walking 
 over the undergraduates in fine style at this very 
 time ; as it was, he found himself at sea again, and 
 had to return to London. Since then, he confessed 
 that he had lived upon his wits, and as bitter ex- 
 perience had taught him what living upon one's 
 wits meant, he was very sorry for any man who 
 was compelled to follow his example. He said 
 that he sympathized with me sincerely, and would 
 serve me to the utmost of his power, and that the 
 best question he could put to me was, u What did 
 I mean to do for a living?" 
 
 This question staggered me. I positively declare 
 that, stunned as I was, I had looked back merely, and 
 never contemplated my future prospects in the slight- 
 est degree. I shivered at the very words, and told 
 him that, depressed as I was, I could not collect my
 
 112 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 thoughts, but should be happy to listen to anything 
 his experience might suggest. 
 
 u Well, you have the advantage over me, El- 
 vington," said he, " in having taken your degree 
 from a good college : now — " 
 
 u My friend," replied I, interrupting him hastily, 
 " I have never taken any degree at all. I never 
 thought it of the slightest value to a person in my 
 independent position, and was too idle to grind 
 for it." 
 
 " That's a stunner," said he, much vexed; " in 
 that case you cannot inform the public that a Mas- 
 ter of Arts, of College, Cambridge, is 
 
 experienced in tuition, and will be happy to read 
 with a few gentlemen during the vacation. It is 
 difficult to turn you into a humbug, I see. You 
 have kept your terms for the bar, have you not ? " 
 
 " Some two or three, just to enable me to com- 
 pel Mr Cadger to set me free to come up to Lon- 
 don during term. When I left Cambridge, the end 
 was answered, and I never entered Lincoln's Inn 
 Hall for another dinner."
 
 THE " BRITISH LION." 113 
 
 u All heads and no tails, by St Swithin," ex- 
 claimed my friend musingly. — " What is to be 
 done ? — I am trying the Weekly Press dodge my- 
 self : it — (after a pause it came out) it is the shabby 
 Old Growler, as we call it ; but, in the language 
 of the gods, the British Lion Conservative Palla- 
 dium that I am on at present. — You are surprised 
 to hear that, are you not ? " 
 
 It was rather surprising, for my friend was in the 
 habit of advocating and pleading for u a new and 
 more advanced state of society" on every possible 
 occasion ; and the British Lion was a journal of 
 oldwomanish toryism, which was in the habit of 
 denouncing the Prime Minister as a person leagued 
 with " chartists, socialists, papists, and other mis- 
 creants," and of conjuring him in a maternal tone 
 to reconsider the danger of a position in such com- 
 pany and retire from politics altogether ; in which 
 case the Lion would not rouse his mane and urge an 
 indignant British public to tear the said minister 
 to pieces. 
 
 My friend, when he once got over the awkward
 
 114 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 confession that lie wrote for the Growler, seemed to 
 recover his spirits, for he added gaily : " You and 
 all the world know my principles ; but the misfor- 
 tune is, that people of better principles than mine 
 are left to starve upon them : and starving is un- 
 pleasant. The old Growler gives every one great 
 latitude, if he does not interfere with the parsons ; 
 and, if I ever try my hand at a leading article, is 
 quite contented with the pounding I give to the 
 millocrats ; and I do that with an easy conscience. 
 Now, our staff — no great one — is short of a hand, 
 and I am great cronies with Simply, the editor : 
 we want a foreign correspondent and general sub- 
 editor for three months ; — of course, you don't leave 
 England (we are too poor for that) to supply the 
 place of the unlucky fellow who at present writes 
 from everywhere for us ; but as he is just now in 
 the lunatic asylum at Hanwell, that place of resi- 
 dence is not a pleasant one to have his letters, dated 
 from." 
 
 " Well," said I laughing, in spite of my bad 
 l ! spirits, that account of a foreign correspondent
 
 STAFF OF A COxVSERVATIVE PALLADIUM. 115 
 
 sounds encouraging ; however, I will think the 
 matter over, and drop you a line if I approve of 
 your proposal." 
 
 " I meet the editor at our club to-night," he 
 went on to say. " You have heard of our club, of 
 course ? " 
 
 " I really have not," I answered. 
 
 " Well, the world will hear of it," said he rather 
 vexed, " for we are getting up the steam amazingly. 
 However, I must be off. There is our card of sub- 
 jects, and where we meet : you see old Simply 
 takes the chair. He is a good fellow, and only re- 
 quires a little gammon about his literary import- 
 ance to be turned into the warmest friend one has. 
 If he puts you on our staff, you will have something 
 to tide you over three months ; and, at the end of 
 that time, these cormorants at Florence may have 
 disgorged some of their plunder : but, if not, long 
 life to the British Lion and its talented foreign cor- 
 respondent ! " 
 
 So saying, he ran down stairs, and left me to the 
 company of my own thoughts ; which were bitter
 
 116 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 ones certain \y, but not so full of utter misery 
 as those which filled my mind before his friendly 
 visit.
 
 "the peaceful revolutionists." 117 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 I scarcely felt myself in good spirits enough to 
 go round to the tavern, where my friend's club, 
 (which, by the way, styled itself " The Society of 
 Peaceful Revolutionists,") held its sitting ; but a* 
 last made an effort and started off. On entering 
 the room, I found that only some fifteen members 
 of society had yet been revolutionized by peaceful 
 means ; but they were intelligent-looking men. 
 There were several of those elderly gentlemen who 
 have not been able to settle down in life, whom one 
 meets at such places, and the usual recruits from the 
 rising generation : youths who are quite ready to 
 throw up a good place in the Bank or a substantial
 
 118 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 Fire-office, provided they can only hang on to the 
 press for a few years, like lads behind a carriage, un- 
 til they art whipt off it. Fourteen of these gentle- 
 men all stood in a knot, by what in winter was the 
 fireplace, pursing their lips and looking argument- 
 ative and crushing before their time ; whilst the fif- 
 teenth gentleman, the editor of the British Lion, sat 
 apart upon a horsehair-couch, and was evidently 
 keeping up his dignity : for he held a key, although 
 only a latch one, which opened the portals of the 
 press, and the junior members of the club were 
 dreadfully afraid of him. My old schoolfellow just 
 then came into the room, and immediately intro- 
 duced me to the great man, who eyed me doubt- 
 fully through his glass ; for he carried one suspended 
 by a black ribbon round his neck, and was ready 
 to look a ministerial bit of jobbery, or social crisis, 
 through with it in five minutes. He appeared a 
 short man, dressed in black, with high-lows and 
 white cotton stockings. His face was not by nature 
 very intelligent ; but he had given it a thoughtful 
 look, by keeping it on the work, and had worn the
 
 119 
 
 hair off his temples by literary drudgery. Gentle- 
 men of the press occupy, in these days, a good po- 
 sition in society, and many excellent scholars of 
 my own year at Cambridge, who had no vocation 
 to take holy orders, had found honourable occupa- 
 tion on the newspapers ; but the British Lion, alias 
 the Growler, had merely been set going for tempo- 
 rary political purposes, and all parties were on 
 rather a low scale of remuneration. Mr Simply 
 then did not appear to me to be in the first rank of 
 literary men, and when I knew more of him 1 found 
 that I was not far out in my conjecture. 
 
 It is not my intention to give a sketch of the* 
 debate of the evening : indeed, this everlasting 
 and perpetual sketching of every place and every 
 occurrence, from the Duke of Mountarrogant's ball 
 to the conversation of the drunken cadgers in the 
 lock-up-house, has become tiresome in the extreme. 
 My head was at the time full of other business ; and 
 I just remember, that the question of the evening 
 was something about co-operative principles, and 
 " whether nations could be brought to adopt them
 
 120 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 without external pressure?" — and that the Irish 
 member of the club stood up for rebellion, and drew 
 a frightful picture of his own country, which he 
 called, as usual, the Island of Saints, describing 
 her as sitting with her tuneless harp beside her 
 and no longer recalling the melodies of the halls of 
 Tara ; — and that a waspish young special pleader 
 who followed him, accused him of begging his 
 premises and having the middle term of his main 
 syllogism undistributed ; but, at the same time, stat- 
 ed, that he envied Mr O'Leary the glowing imag- 
 ination which made his days one happy dream — 
 and begged his pardon for setting him right. 
 
 The best speech of the evening, according to my 
 own opinion, was made by a young medical man, 
 from whom I did not expect much, for he looked 
 idle and rakish ; nevertheless, he spoke with in- 
 telligence. His remarks certainly smelled a little 
 of the shop ; but this is the common fault in the 
 discourse of every scientific man I have ever met in 
 society : with the exception of our greatest astrono- 
 mer, who, if left to himself, would just as soon
 
 A SCIENTIFIC SPEECH. 121 
 
 devour Philip Quarle or the Arabian Nights, as cor- 
 rect La-place. The medical man then came out 
 strong with the Development Theory, and contended 
 that time alone would gradually develop us all 
 into very superior co-operative animals ; of course, 
 he dragged a syllabus of popular geology into his 
 speech, and spoke of ammonites, madrepores, trap, 
 gneiss, basalt, the ichthyosaurus, and pterodactyle, 
 until one grew weary of such a learned jobation. 
 He then flew off, at a tangent, to Phrenology ; a 
 science in which he acquiesced, for his part, entirely, 
 adding that, whenever he was called in to see a pa- 
 tient, " he always measured the chap's facial angle, 
 and stuck it into his little bill in the inverse ratio." 
 This rather thin joke raised a laugh among the 
 younger members of the club, and altogether, when 
 he sat down, they seemed to be proud of him. 
 The medical man then thought he had done enough 
 for that night, and must not make himself cheap, 
 so he jumped up suddenly from his chair and apol- 
 ogized for leaving us ; declaring he had half a dozen 
 serious cases to visit before he went home. 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 122 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 A few other speeches followed, but they were not 
 very brilliant : and at length the club, having re- 
 volutionized society sufficiently for that evening, 
 was allowed to rise. The members stood chatting 
 together for a few minutes, and then filed off to 
 different places to finish the evening. I accompa- 
 nied my old schoolfellow and Mr Simply into the 
 Strand, and my friend skilfully brought us up short 
 in the vicinity of the Coal Hole. Here we heard a 
 concert going on in a room above us : gentlemen 
 singing, and others applauding vociferously ; but we 
 took a seat on the ground-floor ourselves, and just 
 ordered a chop. Spirits and water, at which the 
 editor was no bad hand, followed ; and I thus took 
 my first lesson of gentish life, under the auspices of 
 a family-man : as many have done before me. 
 
 My schoolfellow by degrees turned the conversa- 
 tion upon the unlucky foreign correspondent of the 
 British Lion ; and Mr Simply got rather maudlin 
 about his temporary seclusion from the world of 
 letters. The poor fellow, it appeared, had not only 
 corresponded night and day with foreign potentates,
 
 A FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT. 123 
 
 ambassadors, principalities, and powers, l?ut had 
 also corresponded a little too much with foreign wines 
 and spirits ; and had for some weeks been labour- 
 ing under the delusion that he was the Emperor 
 Napoleon, and had a mission to shoot the Duke of 
 Wellington whenever he could catch him riding 
 down Whitehall. This monomania, of course, ren- 
 dered his sojourn in Han well of unascertained dur- 
 ation ; and when the sub-editor was pretty far gone, 
 my friend boldly stept in and proposed my filling 
 his place, at the same time giving me a flaming 
 character for abilities, and a ready pen which almost 
 wrote of itself. Mr Simply, who had somehow or 
 other taken a fancy to me, and who also wanted to 
 get the foreign correspondence off his own shoulders 
 — for he was just then stepping from Berlin to Vienna, 
 and then to " our office," in editorial seven-leagued 
 boots — rather entertained the idea. However it 
 would never do to comply with an audacious pro- 
 posal to load and fire off that great gun the Growler 
 all at once, so he shook his head, and remarked 
 that the post required peculiar abilities, and a spe-
 
 124 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 cial turn (namely, for fiction) which compelled many 
 clever men to throw it up before they had tried 
 their hands at it for a week. However, after a little 
 flattery on his own talented occupation of the va- 
 cant seat, and a decent resistance on a few other 
 preliminaries, he allowed us to talk him over ; so the 
 interview concluded by his making an appointment 
 for me the next morning at the office of the King 
 of the Beasts, where I was to write my first com- 
 munication from Paris as fast as he could look over 
 the manuscript sheets.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 It is not my intention to give any farther account 
 in this chapter of my connexion with the British 
 Lion, save that I went round to the office where 
 they published it the next morning, and then 
 and there wrote my first communication from 
 Paris under the inspection of Mr Simply. The 
 editor expressed himself very well satisfied with 
 my performance, especially since I put in a French 
 phrase or two ; but he hurt that vanity which lurks in 
 the breast of every author by occasionally trimming 
 a sentence when it did not seem curt enough : for 
 he told me that sharpness and crispness were the 
 essence of writing of this kind, except when an
 
 126 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 insurrection happened to be going on, and then one 
 was expected to get a little excited, describing the 
 cannon booming down the streets — whirr ! ! — whirr ! ! 
 — thud ! ! — thud ! ! and to sicken at the sight of the 
 dead bodies as they carried them under the window. 
 He also inserted a few lines as the heads of a private 
 conversation between Louis Philippe and Monsieur 
 Thiers in the Palais Royal, which took place at the 
 very time we were writing, in which interview the 
 amiable monarch shed tears as he clasped the hand 
 of the great opposition statesman, and called him 
 " Mon ami." 
 
 These little flourishes and amendments having 
 been introduced, Mr Simply said the article might 
 now go to press, and made a second appointment 
 with me at the office, adding, that he lived at New 
 Camden Town, and should be happy to introduce 
 me to Mrs Simply, who would not object to our de- 
 spatching a bowl of punch together. On making a 
 few inquiries as to my duties, I found that I should 
 be required to turn up at the office at all odd times 
 and seasons, and had better change my apartments,
 
 ADVENT OF THE OTTOMANS. 127 
 
 and settle myself near Fleet Street at once. This 
 discovery did not cause me the slightest concern. I 
 could not afford now to reside at the West End, and 
 felt that I should be in much better spirits when I 
 no longer sat in the midst of furniture and gewgaws 
 which only reminded me of what a " pernicious 
 height" I had fallen from. Then also my kind 
 friend and landlord — who had got some scent of what 
 had really befallen me, for his wife was listening 
 at the door whilst I was detailing my troubles to 
 my old schoolfellow — recollected how many cases he 
 had read lately of suicides by gentlemen in decayed 
 circumstances, and took care to remind me that 
 Shaki Effendi's Ottoman friends were coming into 
 the rooms over my head. As I happened to be a 
 bad sleeper, I was generally roused up about five 
 o'clock in the morning by a bumping and dragging 
 about of heavy boxes, which represented the Turk's 
 luggage, enough to shake the ceiling down over my 
 head ; and although I am by no means of a com- 
 pliant temper when any one wishes me to oblige 
 another person by disobliging myself, I felt that
 
 128 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 the rogue was too much for me, and that I really 
 must get out of his house. 
 
 I began therefore to look up my books, collect 
 my linen, and destroy or arrange my private papers ; 
 and whilst engaged in the latter operation came 
 upon the unopened letter from Mr Gently. I must 
 say that my face turned very red when, on unfold- 
 ing the paper, a check for fifty pounds fell out of 
 it. It was a bitter consolation to reflect how this 
 fifty pounds now seemed a gold mine in my eyes ; 
 relieving me as it did from the dreadful uneasiness 
 in money matters which had already begun to break 
 my rest in the morning, more even than Shaki 
 EfTendi and his trunks. I was still more vexed 
 when I read Mr Gently's very kind letter itself, in 
 which he apologized for taking the liberty of en- 
 closing the balance in his hands, and requested 
 me to give him a call about business matters on 
 the very day before that on which I opened the 
 letter. It has occurred to me since that this was 
 only a ruse of the amiable old gentleman's, in order 
 to see me again and ascertain how I bore up against
 
 A NEGLECTED LETTER. 1 29 
 
 ray mishap ; but this did not strike me at the time, 
 and as I felt alarmed at having missed what might 
 have been an important appointment, I determined 
 to go round to Bedford Bow at once, cashing the 
 check in my way. 
 
 On reaching Bedford Row, I found Mr Gently 
 (who was not always rushing about the Inns of 
 Court making believe that he was busy) in his 
 office, and as fictitious narrative was not my forte, 
 notwithstanding my engagement with the British 
 Lion, explained to him very frankly that I had been 
 so disturbed in my mind as to have omitted to open 
 his letter. The solicitor, who was bound by his 
 professional dignity to take this negligence as a 
 mighty offence, looked very grave, but soon came 
 to himself again. He then closed his office door, 
 and read me a long letter he had written to Flor- 
 ence, and on which he said he was desirous of 
 having my opinion before it was posted. " How- 
 ever, I had not kept his appointment, and the letter 
 was on its way." He then threw himself back in 
 his chair, and observed, that Mrs Gently as well as 
 
 f2
 
 130 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 himself took the liberty of feeling interested in the 
 nephew of so old a client as Sir William, and 
 would it be too much if he asked me what arrange- 
 ments I had made for the future. " There's the 
 bar, now, Mr Elvington," said Mr Gently, glancing 
 at the portrait of old Lord Eldon, which hung over 
 his bookcase. 
 
 Misfortune soon teaches a man to be evasive, and 
 if he earns his bread in a shifty manner, to conceal it. 
 I knew that the shabby old Growler would stink in 
 the nostrils of the very correct person before me, 
 Tory as he was ; so in the first place I told him, in 
 order to prevent him from hurting my pride by 
 offering another check to me, that I was in no 
 immediate want of money, thanks to his kind 
 enclosure. As regarded the future, I said that I 
 had some idea of keeping the remainder of my 
 terms in Lincoln's Inn — this was the veritable 
 fact, — and that in the mean time I could make use 
 of my university education without being beholden 
 to any man. 
 
 This candour raised me exceedingly high in the
 
 CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH. 131 
 
 good opinion of Mr Gently, who at once threw 
 off his stiff professional air and spoke to me then 
 and ever afterwards as a kind friend. Indeed, I 
 found out at a subsequent period that Mrs Gently — 
 to whose opinion in worldly matters he usually de- 
 ferred when it did not involve the settling of a con- 
 veyance or will with trusts — had pronounced her- 
 self, soon after I quitted Highgate Rise a few even- 
 ings before this interview, in favour of the apparent 
 openness of my disposition ; for I had, without in- 
 tending it, taken that excellent lady on the blind 
 side. The name of several serious authoresses 
 having come up in the course of the conversation, 
 Miss Gently, and of course Mr Sadgrove, had 
 declared that Charlotte Elizabeth dimmed the light 
 of all preceding female Evangelical Luminaries. 
 Now Mrs Gently thought very highly of Char- 
 lotte Elizabeth's style of coming down upon the 
 Eoman-catholics ; but as she had met Mrs Hannah 
 More once or twice at great tea-meetings in the 
 west of England, she was rather fond of talk- 
 ing about that venerable old lady, and putting
 
 132 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 her at the head of her own branch of literature. 
 I had read a decent novel by Mrs More myself, and 
 therefore was just able to chime into the conversa- 
 tion, and give it as my opinion that she had the 
 materials of a pleasant writer in her. This quite 
 satisfied Mrs Gently, who claimed me, with the 
 usual logic of ladies, as agreeing with her in opinion, 
 and was in the habit of putting her clever daughter 
 down with the crushing remark, " Mr Elvington 
 has the same high opinion of poor dear Mrs More 
 that I have, Mary Ann ; and of course in these 
 matters he must know better than you." 
 
 But to return to the present interview. Mr 
 Gently, after we had talked over legal matters a 
 little, once more threw himself back in his chair, 
 and glancing again at Lord Eldon, indulged in a 
 delightful professional reverie. Every solicitor in 
 England thinks the bar the grandest and most 
 noble profession upon earth ; and although he is 
 snubbed by the bar, and cut by the bar, and even 
 pushed by the ushers of the Queen's Bench into 
 the Exchequer, and by the ushers of the Exchequer
 
 MR GENTLY ON THE BAR. 133 
 
 shoved into the Common Pleas, and all because 
 Mr Sergeant Nonplus is tearing his way into Court, 
 he takes it all in good part, and only worships the 
 wigged division of his profession with more pro- 
 found humility. Mr Gently had himself once 
 cherished a romantic dream of shutting up Bed- 
 ford Row and turning conveyancing counsel, and 
 had only been restrained by Mrs Gently, who re- 
 minded him of his young family, and threatened 
 to go home to her father if he made such a fool of 
 himself. However, on this occasion he indulged, 
 as I say, in a professional reverie. 
 
 " So you are going to the bar, Mr Elvington ; 
 and, to speak frankly, are just in the worldly posi- 
 tion to make your way at it. Lord Thurlow, sir 
 (glancing at another framed print of a sulky old 
 judge in a large wig), said that a man ought first 
 to spend his own fortune, then squander that of his 
 wife, and then go to the bar. Lord Erskine, sir, 
 whom I just remember, always asserted that he 
 should have broken down in his first address to 
 the jury, if he had not felt his children pulling at
 
 134 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 his gown. Sam Komilly — we used to call him 
 Sam before he got on so wonderfully — entered 
 himself of Gray's Inn because he was unable to 
 purchase the seat of the Sixth Clerk in chancery, to 
 whom he was articled. I congratulate you cor- 
 dially, Mr Elvington, on having made choice of 
 the noblest profession on the face of the earth ; 
 — shall be proud to give you your first brief, and 
 shall not quarrel with you when you get a silk 
 gown and forget to nod to old Gently the at- 
 torney." 
 
 I laughed, and replied, that as my Lord Chancellor 
 had not yet ofTered me a silk gown, there was time 
 enough for me to give myself any airs ; but added, 
 that I trusted that if I did rise at the bar, I should 
 not prove thankless to the man who had given me 
 my first lift over the stile. 
 
 Mr Gently shook his head, for in his heart he 
 admired the superciliousness of the bar exceed- 
 ingly, and replied, u Ah, my dear sir, all this pro- 
 fessional etiquette keeps the two professions in their 
 places ; and I go with it myself. However, you
 
 135 
 
 must read, Mr Elvington, read hard — harder than 
 you ever did at Cambridge (which was no difficult 
 matter), and get the law at your ringers' ends. I 
 need hardly say that you have the command of 
 my library, and that Mr Simmers shall bring round 
 my Fern on Contingent Remainders when you 
 wish a little very first-rate reading. And, sir 
 (warming into a delightful glow, and rubbing his 
 hands at the bare contemplation of the exquisite 
 range of literature to which he was introducing 
 me), when you require a little relaxation, there is 
 Case reading. Poor Sir Samuel made himself 
 great at the bar almost entirely by reading cases. 
 You had, I think, better begin with the great case 
 of ' Cockroach and Salmon,' the finest decision ever 
 pronounced by Lord Eldon, and although so sub- 
 tle, full of first-rate law. Ah, sir, there is no such 
 law in these radical times. I have just had to 
 look up that beautiful Case, for it has cost a client 
 of mine a hundred pounds by compelling him to 
 get the signature of an infant heir-at-law to a de- 
 ceased trustee of real estate. The conclusion was
 
 136 MAUKICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 an interesting scene, for the dear little fellow the 
 trustee, who was only two years old, ate an apple 
 with his left hand, while the solicitor for the ven- 
 dor held the fingers of his right hand on the pen, 
 and traced his name for him at the foot of the con- 
 veyance. Sir, Cockroach and Salmon is a master- 
 piece of our beautiful legal reasoning, and ought 
 to be inscribed word for word on the great Chan- 
 cellor's monument." 
 
 Here Mr Gently paused, and I was myself too 
 much overcome with the beauty of the law in this 
 great Leading case, and the rationality of the proceed- 
 ing to which it gave rise, to venture upon even an 
 interjection of admiration. The solicitor did not 
 preserve his silence long, however, for he pulled 
 out his watch, and seizing hold of a slim parcel 
 of papers tied round with red tape, informed me 
 that he was about to have a little intercourse with 
 the Bar at that very time, for he was on the point 
 of running round to the residence of Mr Bellows 
 of the Inner Temple, to consult him on the prep- 
 aration of a case.
 
 A JUNIOR COUNSEL. 137 
 
 "Which way do you walk, Mr Elvington?" 
 said Mr Gently, kindly : " a little scheme has just 
 come into my head, by which I think I can ad- 
 vance your professional studies." 
 
 I doubted the fact in my own mind, but of 
 course did not wish to add to the ingratitude of 
 turning my back on Lord Eldon and Cockroach 
 and Salmon by hurting the feelings of a person 
 who took such an interest in my welfare, so I re- 
 plied that it did not matter to me how I returned 
 to the West End, and that any suggestions he 
 could make as to my future studies would be very 
 valuable and practical as a matter of course. 
 
 " Why, you see," said Mr Gently, not insensible 
 to a little flattery, " I do not exactly stand at the 
 bottom of my own profession, and throw a certain 
 amount of business into the hands of Mr Bellows, 
 who is a young beginner. Now it does not suit 
 your arrangements to read with any Pleader just 
 at present, or to buy a great number of books, and 
 Mr Bellows, who is a well read man and has an 
 extensive law library, may not be unwilling to
 
 138 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 show a little kindness to a student who has a per- 
 sonal introduction from me. And so (pulling on 
 his gloves) we will with your leave go on one of 
 a solicitor's voyages of discovery, and help you on 
 to the first steps up to the Kolls, or the marble 
 chair at Westminster ; who knows, Mr Elvington ? "
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 During our short walk, I found Mr Gently very 
 communicative, for he had got on the only subject 
 upon which lie happened to be a man of many- 
 words — namely, business matters ; and on this oc- 
 casion he treated me to a full, true, and historical 
 account of Mr Bellows. 
 
 " I believe," said he, " you will form the same 
 favourable opinion of Mr Bellows that I have my- 
 self acquired from my intercourse with him. If 
 he really has any fault as a professional adviser, it 
 is an excess of modesty which sometimes leads 
 him to fall too readily into the opinion of a man
 
 140 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 like myself — his senior in standing, certainly, but 
 yet only a member of the inferior branch of the 
 profession. I do sometimes hit the right nail on 
 the head, but I always make Mr Bellows read the 
 law well up and go over the ground two or three 
 times, and then if he takes my judgment in prefer- 
 ence to his own, I am not accountable for it. Oc- 
 casionally, sir, we positively call in Mrs Bellows — 
 for she knows something of law too — and make 
 her give the casting vote. Ah, sir, Mr Bellows 
 has never taken one false step in the course of his 
 professional career, and has married into the very 
 elite of the legal aristocracy." 
 
 " Probably then, sir," I suggested, " the lady 
 wears a wig as well as a gown, and is Mr Bel- 
 lows' superior in standing at the bar as well as 
 legal knowledge?" 
 
 " Very good, Mr Elvington," said the solicitor, 
 relishing a legal joke ; " why, Mrs Bellows is cer- 
 tainly a few years older than her husband, who 
 was not quite forty when he married. Mrs Bel- 
 lows, sir, is a lady of great intellect and sound
 
 ANCIENT SERGEANT MOLEHILL. 141 
 
 judgment in most matters, and is the only child of 
 one of the greatest luminaries that time has spared 
 to us, Mr Ancient Sergeant Molehill, a contem- 
 porary of Scott and Ellenborough. You have 
 heard of him, perhaps, Mr Elvington ; for the Ser- 
 geant was one of your first-rate men at Cambridge, 
 and was Senior Wrangler in the very same year that 
 Lord Chief Justice Gaily — a good classic, Mr Bel- 
 lows tells me — was plucked and sent away in dis- 
 grace for not writing out the common pulley and 
 siphon quite accurately. Ah, sir, you people at 
 Cambridge are beautifully accurate ! My Lord al- 
 ways treats the Sergeant with great deference, al- 
 though being in the Queen's Bench he has very 
 little to do with him. You have seen Molehill's 
 pumps, Mr Elvington, of course?" 
 
 I had never seen Molehill's pumps in my life, 
 nor could I understand why Mr Gently should call 
 my attention to that article of the great man's cos- 
 tume; but as the question was put seriously, I 
 thought that I had better make a jest of my ig- 
 norance, and answered that I really had not, but
 
 142 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 that I thought the said pumps must be wide and 
 capacious. 
 
 u He, he ! " laughed Mr Gently : " very good again, 
 Mr Elvington. It is a ticklish matter to joke be- 
 fore the Court in banc, but these neat little witti- 
 cisms would tell remarkably well on the circuit, in 
 a quiet respectable town like Hertford or Warwick. 
 But I cannot quarrel with you if you really do 
 mistake my meaning, for we musty old lawyers 
 have a concise way of alluding to our books of 
 reference, which must sound ridiculous enough to 
 uninitiated ears. I allude to the work by which 
 the Sergeant first gained his great reputation — 
 < Molehill's Law of Private Pumps, and on the 
 Eeversionary Interest of Parochial Officers therein.' 
 A neat work, my good sir, full of acute law, and 
 distinguished by that breadth of view and large- 
 ness of mind one expects to find in a high wrangler 
 from Cambridge." 
 
 By this time our conversation had brought us to 
 the middle of Chancery Lane, where Mr Gently 
 halted before a little dingy private house, squeezed
 
 A barrister's study. 143 
 
 between the shops of two thriving law stationers. 
 On the door, which was scarcely wide enough to 
 admit a corpulent solicitor, was inscribed in white 
 letters " Mr Bellows," while a private bell told us 
 that Mrs Bellows had taken up her abode in the 
 same domicile. A sleek-looking youth, who ap- 
 peared dreadfully oppressed when he ascertained 
 that the gentleman who gave the neat legal rap at 
 the door was the great solicitor Mr Gently, mar- 
 shalled us the way that we were going, and in due 
 course Mr Bellows was revealed to his two clients, 
 seated in a small back parlour, and entirely sur- 
 rounded by a legal library clad in professional calf. 
 On an ancient horse-hair chair was cast, by no 
 means with an eye to effect, a rusty stuff gown and 
 well-worn wig, and a red bag crammed with papers 
 stood by the side of them. The owner of this legal 
 property, Mr Bellows, himself a tall, portly, middle- 
 aged man, had thrown himself back in an ample 
 library chair, with a pen between his teeth, while 
 he held at arm's length a slim document on paper : 
 probably a plea or declaration. When Mr Gently
 
 144 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 was announced he gave a terrific start, and took his 
 eyes off the paper immediately ; thus affording us the 
 view of a round florid face, by no means of a meek 
 and submissive aspect, sharpened by keen gray 
 eyes : indeed his features altogether appeared to be 
 the property of a person by nature inclined to play 
 the bully, and come down upon people, if he thought 
 he could do so with impunity. Signs of talent or 
 acuteness on the learned man's rather vulgar coun- 
 tenance I was totally unable to detect ; although his 
 eye was shrewd enough, and could no doubt see a 
 long way when its owner's interest prompted it to 
 do so. 
 
 " I trust that 1 am not interrupting you, Mr 
 Bellows," said Mr Gently, with a certain amount 
 of respect, but with more confidence in his manner, 
 methought, than he would have displayed had he 
 been introduced into the bodily presence of the An- 
 cient Sergeant ; " but a little difficulty has come 
 across me, and I am desirous of having your pro- 
 fessional advice, in order to see if I can remove it." 
 
 " Interruption, my dear sir ! None at all," replied
 
 LEGAL COUKTESIES. 145 
 
 Mr Bellows, with a rough voice subdued to a tone 
 of infantine softness ; " pray, sir, be seated : and 
 you, sir, (to me) — Mr Shakely, bring another chair 
 from the outer office. And how do you find the — 
 hum — ha — common law, my good sir?" said Mr 
 Bellows, who was by nature slow of ideas, and had 
 a slight impediment in his speech ; but when he 
 once got on to the railroad of legal forms and 
 phraseology, steamed on at high pressure with an 
 interminable train of legal verbiage. 
 
 " More lively than I wish it to be, Mr Bellows," 
 answered the solicitor ; u but when clients will 
 bring these matters to us, we must do the best we 
 can for them." 
 
 " No one could — hum — ha — accuse Mr Gently 
 of not doing his — hum — his duty for his clients in 
 the Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, and — hum — 
 ha — Court of Bankruptcy," said Mr Bellows. 
 " Good old practitioners, Mr Gently, are, as my 
 father-in-law the Sergeant well observes, like good 
 old port, the better for keeping, although occa- 
 sionally — hum — ha — crusty. But sir, you look 
 
 VOL I, G
 
 146 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 well, and — hum — ha — in the full vigour of your 
 professional intellect, and will outlive a dozen of 
 us. Really (for here came three decided taps at 
 the door), Mr Shakely must not allow me to be — 
 hum — ha — disturbed, when on your business es- 
 pecially, Mr Gently. Oh ! it's only an old friend. 
 Mr Gently, my dear Mrs Bellows, our old and 
 respected client." 
 
 Mr Bellows pronounced these words very sweetly, 
 but methought impressively, to the person who had 
 tapped at the door and now walked boldly into 
 the room. This was no less a person than his 
 consort, who had probably smelt out a little 
 legal business, and come to enjoy her share of it. 
 I had some desire to see what sort of a woman this 
 eminent daughter of an Ancient Sergeant could pos- 
 sibly be like, and my curiosity was not un gratified. 
 
 Mrs Bellows was a tall, meagre, elderly person of 
 about fifty years of age, and bore a remarkable 
 resemblance to the three-quarter-length print of 
 Lord Coke which adorns some editions of Chris- 
 tian's Blackstone. She had the same sour fea-
 
 THE " ANCIENT SEKGEANtV DAUGHTER. 147 
 
 tures, pinched up mouth, and hard-cut, severe eye ; 
 and as she wore a long stuff gown with a tippet 
 round her neck, and a black head-dress which a 
 lively imagination might convert into the mixture 
 of trencher cap and coif worn by the Elizabethan 
 Judges, the illusion was all but complete. Mrs 
 Bellows took, or rather assumed, her husband's in- 
 vitation to remain in the room, while a grim smile 
 of satisfaction stole over her features when she saw 
 that he was closeted with the influential Mr Gently, 
 and she returned that gentleman's greeting with the 
 hard kind of cordiality with which a Judge's clerk 
 recognises the civilities of the man of law who rep- 
 resents a firm of first-rate Agents in New Inn. 
 
 u Don't let me interrupt business, gentlemen," 
 said Mrs Bellows : " every hour is precious at this 
 time of the year. These are Mr Gently's papers I 
 think, Mr Bellows?" 
 
 u My dear — hum — ha — really," replied the in- 
 timidated husband, setting to work immediately, 
 " a little friendly chat with our old friend — hum — 
 distracted my attention. However, if you will
 
 148 MAUKICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 give me — hum — one quiet three minutes, I will — 
 hum — ha — run my eye over them, Mr Gently." 
 
 " I trust Sergeant Molehill enjoys his accustomed 
 health," said Mr Gently to the good lady, while 
 her better half paused and seemed busy over the 
 papers. 
 
 " Vigorous," replied Mrs Bellows, in a decided 
 tone. " No lack of law, sir, at seventy-seven years 
 of age. The Sergeant stood five hours in the Pleas 
 the day before yesterday arguing the great tithe 
 cause of Puggleton Parva. Well, Mr Bellows (to 
 her husband, who had put down the papers), and 
 what can you do for Mr Gently?" 
 
 " Mrs Bellows, you put — hum — ha — a difficult 
 question," said the learned gentleman, who looked 
 very much as if he had been reading the papers 
 without understanding them ; " the law — hum — 
 ha — is apparently — hum — apparently in the. favour 
 of your client, Mr Gently. Small and Scales is 
 decidedly ruled that way — have the kindness to 
 reach me down the Eeport, Mrs Bellows — but then 
 the case in the Exchequer Chamber last July has
 
 149 
 
 quite unsettled all previous decisions. It is not 
 yet reported, Mr Gently ; but the Sergeant was in 
 it, and lias had the kindness to hand me his pri- 
 vate notes. Have you formed any opinion on the 
 subject, my good sir? Your practical knowledge 
 has frequently been — -hum — ha — of value to us." 
 
 11 1 have no fear of a nonsuit myself," said Mr 
 Gently. " In any case, we may move for a new 
 trial, I suppose, with some prospect of success?" 
 
 " A nonsuit is, as you say, Mr Gently — hum — 
 ha — little to be feared, and Lord Abinger would, 
 in all probability, grant us a new trial. I had — 
 hum — come to the same conclusion myself, Mr 
 Gently, before I put the question to you." 
 
 u Won't Shelley's case," suggested Mrs Bellows, 
 who had been listening to this legal conversation 
 with intense delight, and probably watching her hus- 
 band keenly in order to make sure that he got the 
 law out of the experienced Mr Gently before he 
 risked his own opinion — " won't Shelley's case take 
 that matter in, Mr Bellows?" 
 
 Mr Bellows turned rather red in the face at this
 
 150 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 uncommonly bad shot hazarded by his better half ; 
 for Mrs Bellows was better read in such elemen- 
 tary works as the Law of Private Pumps than in 
 the wide range of Mr Gentry's favourite literature, 
 and Shelley's case had of course no application to 
 the business in hand. Notwithstanding his cha- 
 grin, however, he could not help casting a quiet 
 look of professional triumph at Mr Gently, who 
 himself smiled ; but then he thought it better to 
 avoid a domestic scrape, so he answered mildly, 
 
 " Shelley's case, my dear, is — hum — ha — cer- 
 tainly of — hum — of extensive application, but does 
 not — hum — meet the present legal difficulty. Can 
 I look over these papers at my leisure, Mr Gently ? 
 You can give me until the day after to-morrow, I 
 see. And now allow me to inquire after your ex- 
 cellent family. Mrs Bellows owes Mrs Gently a 
 call, but she really never goes anywhere." 
 
 " I trust Mrs Gently will not stand on etiquette, 
 but take a quiet dinner here with her three daugh- 
 ters," said Mrs Bellows, in what was intended to 
 be a most conciliating tone of voice. " I have
 
 GOING TO THE BAE. 151 
 
 always the greatest pleasure in Miss Gentry's so- 
 ciety. The Sergeant dined with her in last Hilary 
 term, and observed that her conversation put him in 
 mind of the deceased Lord Mansfield. And as for 
 Amelia, she is quite a little goddess ! Whenever 
 I talk to the Sergeant of a lady who brings up her 
 family properly, I quote Mrs Gently, I can assure 
 you." 
 
 " You may quote Mrs Gently as often as 
 you please, my good madam," said the husband 
 and father, much flattered by the compliment, 
 " but we must not have my plain homely girls 
 called goddesses and Lord Mansflelds. And now I 
 must say good morning. Oh ! allow me to intro- 
 duce you to my young friend Mr Elvington. He 
 goes to the bar, Mrs Bellows." 
 
 " All gentlemen of talent do," replied Mrs Bel- 
 lows (with a wink to her husband, which perhaps 
 reminded him that a little dexterity might bag a 
 hundred guineas with a pupil) ; " but, in the Ser- 
 geant's opinion, their future success depends en- 
 tirely upon what gentleman's chambers they happen
 
 152 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 to read in. My father takes great interest in the 
 pupils of Mr Bellows, for instance ; and his counte- 
 nance in court is generally considered worth hav- 
 ing." 
 
 " I have not the slightest doubt of the fact, Mrs 
 Bellows," said Mr Gently, rather embarrassed, 
 " and, when the proper time comes, shall advise 
 Mr Elvington to read twelve months with some 
 sound common lawyer ; but what my friend re- 
 quires just now is the run of a large library." 
 
 " A large library, without the owner's advice how 
 to use it, will do Mr Alvers more harm than good," 
 retorted Mrs Bellows, sarcastically, and probably 
 from interested motives ; but yet not without good 
 sense in the observation. 
 
 " Neither library nor — hum — ha — advice shall 
 be — urn — ha — withheld from the friend of my ex- 
 cellent client Mr Gently," said Mr Bellows, with 
 professional dexterity (for the learned gentleman 
 soon saw how the wind set). " Mr Adcocks is 
 welcome to my books — welcome to my chambers — 
 welcome to my professional knowledge — welcome
 
 A SOUND LAWYER. 153 
 
 to my interleaved copy of the Law of Private Pumps 
 — and, in due time and season, welcome to my 
 drawing-room, with its — hum — ha — its goods, chat- 
 tels, and appurtenances. Run in and out, when 
 you please, Mr Adcocks, and let us see whether 
 you will read harder than Mrs Bellows does." 
 
 And here the learned gentleman grasped my 
 hand with intense fervour, while he bowed Mr 
 Gently respectfully out of his office. I noticed a 
 quiet smile, perhaps one of gratified self-import- 
 ance, playing across the lips of my legal friend ; 
 at last, he turned to me, and said in a pleasant 
 voice : — 
 
 " A sound man, that Mr Bellows, is he not ? — 
 and very careful before he risks his opinion. I sup- 
 pose that is your conclusion as well as mine, Mr 
 Elvington?" 
 
 " Very careful, indeed," was my reply. " He 
 seems to be reluctant to risk his opinion at all." 
 
 " Oh, that is always the case, my good sir, with 
 these deeply-read lawyers," answered Mr Gently ; 
 " but when you do get their decision, it is worth 
 
 G 2
 
 154 MAUEICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 the waiting for. Want of judgment is not Mr Bel- 
 lows' fault. He is too diffident, perhaps, and so 
 friendly and open in his manners, that one almost 
 at times feels inclined to put him in mind that there 
 is such a thing in existence as the Etiquette of the 
 Bar. Ah, Mr Elvington, remember when your 
 time comes to deal with solicitors, that, in your in- 
 tercourse with them, you always maintain the Eti- 
 quette of the Bar."
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 After he had thus duly impressed upon me the 
 importance of my advancing and maintaining the 
 dignity of the superior branch of my profession, as 
 far as it might be in my power to do so, Mr Gently 
 cordially bade me good morning, put his arm into 
 that of a stray solicitor he just then picked up, and 
 returned to Bedford Row. Somehow or other, I 
 took a wrong turning, and found my way into Great 
 James Street, where, of course, I had no business ; 
 but, when once in that quiet neighbourhood, I was 
 reminded, by several placards hanging in dingy 
 open doorways, that I should want apartments 
 somewhere thereabouts, and therefore went up many
 
 156 MAURICE ELVING-TON. 
 
 dirty pairs of stairs in succession, but was always 
 sent down again by the simple fact of being asked 
 a little too much rent. I found also, that if I took 
 chambers at all I must avail myself of the services 
 of some aged poor relation of the landlord, who was 
 put into the basement in order to prey and raven 
 upon the bachelor inmates. During my first year 
 at Cambridge, I had lived in the College, and had 
 unpleasant recollections of how my bedmaker used 
 to stroll in and out of the gate of the Great Court 
 carrying a large basket with a few coals and can- 
 dles or " just a morsel of tea and sugar" in it. It 
 is true she did sometimes run against the wife of 
 the Master ; but then she always curtsied very 
 low to her, and allowed the good lady, who in 
 her early days had been the domestic member 
 of a large family, to worm all the tittle-tattle 
 of the college out of her, and so her little de- 
 linquencies never came to the Doctor's ears. 
 Now, I thought it too bad to be plundered over 
 again at seven and twenty years of age, and when 
 I had no cash to spare, and therefore determined to
 
 SEEKING APARTMENTS. 157 
 
 put my head into furnished apartments. Turning 
 up a street leading into Holbom, where I recol- 
 lected there were several courts full of private 
 houses, and crossing over the way, the first gate- 
 way I entered was Thavies' Inn ; but folks seemed 
 prosperous there, for there were no apartments to 
 be let. Then came Bartlett's Buildings, a range 
 of houses which had seen their best days in the 
 world ; but the place was just then receiving a 
 colony of working-jewellers, and seeing no cards 
 in the windows, I determined to try my luck else- 
 where. 
 
 However, on going out of Bartlett's Buildings,, 
 my eye was caught by a little pasteboard cut in 
 a diamond shape, with the information upon it in a 
 genteel female handwriting, that "Apartments Fur- 
 nished " were, I concluded, to be let. I had almost 
 passed the house, for the diamond hung in a bash- 
 ful manner in the window, and seemed to dodge 
 behind a wire-gauze blind as if ashamed of expos- 
 ing itself upon the errand of letting apartments at 
 all ; but, being the " High contracting party" seek-
 
 158 MAURICE ELVINGTOX. 
 
 ing apartments, I felt none of these qualms, and 
 knocked and rang at the door, and had to knock 
 and ring a second time. At length, in answer to 
 my third time of asking, which was rather decided, 
 a tall and dirty female-servant, with a black cap 
 on her head and her boots unlaced, came dubiously 
 to the entry, holding a large brass candlestick out 
 in her hand as if she designed to make me a pre- 
 sent of it in the open street. On seeing a gentle- 
 man at the door, she looked sulky, and, without 
 waiting to be accosted, told me, " Mr Foggletons 
 was out seeing a patient, and that I ought to have 
 rung the surgery-bell." This elliptical address re- 
 minded me that I had been looking for the last few 
 minutes upon a brass plate, by no means a clean one, 
 which bore upon it the name and professional desig- 
 nation of " MrFoggerton, Surgeon," &c. — and that 
 the dirty wire-gauze blind below the diamond in- 
 formed the poorer part of the sick public that " Pa- 
 tients received advice gratis between the hours often 
 and eleven o'clock every morning." But as I did not 
 wish to have a tooth drawn, I declined ringing the
 
 A PROFESSIONAL RESIDENCE. 159 
 
 bell, and called the girl's attention to the diamond. 
 The servant, who was evidently slow of intellect, 
 seemed suddenly struck with an idea, and at once 
 acted upon it ; for having asked me into the pas- 
 sage, she bolted into a back-room, which, from the 
 smell of stale drugs coming out of it, seemed to be 
 the surgery, deposited the candlestick on a table 
 there, and then ran heavily down the stairs. I 
 thought I heard her in the lower regions holding a 
 conference with a female voice, which impressed 
 several details on her memory ; and then she came 
 up again, and told me she would show me the apart- 
 ments, which were on the second floor. 
 
 I cannot assert that on entering the front room 
 it struck me as exceedingly well furnished j though 
 it certainly contained a horsehair sofa, some old ma- 
 hogany chairs, an ancient bookcase with glass doors 
 covered with green canvass, a carpet of undecided 
 pattern preserved under a gray drugget, and a 
 smart library table apparently just new: there 
 was also a queer little sideboard, somewhat resem- 
 bling Punch in its figure, for it had spindle legs,
 
 160 MAURICE ELVINOTON. 
 
 and a kind of protuberance hanging down in the 
 middle, and as if to brace up its obese structure 
 and brighten its dingy aspect, a brass railing was 
 fixed along the back of it. These were the useful 
 articles of furniture, and on glancing at the orna- 
 mental, I found they consisted of a pair of huge 
 knifecases standing like dumpy sentry-boxes on 
 the sideboard, with a little black old-fashioned 
 nymph standing between them, holding a brass 
 lamp nearly as big as herself. On the chimney- 
 piece, which was a high wooden one, two blue 
 china bottles flanked a cathedral in shellwork, and 
 the tail of a bird of paradise waved over the mum- 
 mified head of a New Zealand chief, which showed 
 its teeth and looked at itself in a little round bulb- 
 ous mirror screwed over the sideboard. The maid- 
 servant evidently regarded with great admiration 
 these articles of vertu, for she pointed them out 
 to me one by one, and informed me that they had 
 once belonged to Mrs Foggerton's mamma, a lady 
 of private property, who had retired from a beautiful 
 house at Hackney to a cottage in De Beauvoir
 
 MODERN FURNITURE. 161 
 
 Town, and had lent part of her furniture to her 
 son-in-law. 
 
 When I requested to see the sleeping-apartment, 
 the girl's spirits apparently sank : at first I did 
 not see the reason of it, for it was a large airy room, 
 newly painted and papered, and was decently fur- 
 nished ; except that it was impossible for any one 
 to sleep in it comfortably without some new ar- 
 rangement with the landlord, in consequence of the 
 absence of a bedstead. What might be the bed it- 
 self certainly appeared to be rolled up in a corner of 
 the room and tied round with a cord ; but bedstead 
 there was none, and the vacant place gave the room 
 an uninhabitable appearance. When I called the 
 attention of the young woman to this omission, she 
 seemed very much confused, and said, " I had 
 better speak to Mrs Foggletons about that ;" and 
 leaving the room abruptly, she stumbled down the 
 bedroom stairs to the lower part of the house. 
 
 At the end of a quarter of an hour, during which 
 I had an opportunity of contemplating the prospect 
 within and without, Mrs Foggerton herself came
 
 162 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 into the room; but very slowly and reluctantly. 
 She was a sallow young woman, rather above the 
 middle height, and might have been pretty, if her 
 face had been fuller and her complexion of a better 
 colour ; for she had large languid dark eyes, and a 
 profusion of black hair braided round her temples, 
 set off by a little brown network cap. She was 
 shockingly thin, especially about the arms and 
 waist ; and perhaps she might, at one time of her 
 life, have applied the pernicious adjuvament to fe- 
 male charms called tight lacing : but her black 
 silk dress, which was rather faded, being in itself 
 much too tight a fit, probably gave her this appear- 
 ance. In her manners she was modest and un- 
 assuming; she spoke in a low tone of voice, and 
 was evidently abashed at having to come down to 
 let lodgings at all. 
 
 When I politely called Mrs Foggerton's atten- 
 tion to the want of a bedstead in the chamber, she 
 at once admitted that it was only reasonable to re- 
 quire such an article in a sleeping-apartment ; but 
 excused herself for the omission on the plea that
 
 MES FOGGERTON. 163 
 
 she had only just moved into the house, and was 
 not quite to rights. " However, sir," said she, 
 " there are two bedsteads in the house not yet put 
 up, and if you take the apartments you can choose 
 which you prefer, — a French polished Arabian 
 bedstead with green furniture, or an iron bed- 
 stead with dimity furniture for the winter, and 
 white muslin for the summer — whichever, sir, you 
 prefer." 
 
 Now, I knew very well that such people did not 
 buy bedsteads two or three at a time, and I had 
 also seen, at a cheap furniture warehouse over the 
 way, two which just answered the description Mrs 
 Foggerton gave of her own. Yet although I sus- 
 pected the young married lady of a slight derelic- 
 tion from the truth, it made no earthly difference 
 to me where the bedstead came from, provided I 
 had one to sleep upon ; and as Mrs Foggerton was 
 a ladylike young person, and evidently unused to 
 letting apartments, I felt inclined to get her out 
 of the scrape ; so, after due deliberation, I gave a 
 preference to the Arabian bedstead, and said
 
 164 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 that I should require no furniture during the hot 
 weather. This brightened the young woman's 
 face up, and we seemed to agree admirably when 
 we took a fresh survey of the other room. On my 
 inquiring the terms per week, Mrs Foggerton, after 
 seeming very nervous, asked such a very small 
 sum that I saw at once that she was in my power, 
 and pitied her ; so, after considering that although 
 the apartments suited me well enough they might 
 have been better furnished, I named what I thought 
 a reasonable weekly rent, and was gratefully 
 thanked by the poor lady : I do believe she would 
 at the time have let me into her house for nothing, 
 merely to put an end to the awkward interview. 
 
 " Indeed, sir," said she, " I am exceedingly 
 obliged to you for correcting me in my silly mis- 
 take ; for before I married Mr Foggerton I had not 
 the slightest idea that I should ever have occasion 
 to show my own furnished apartments; but this 
 house is so dreadfully large that we do not know 
 what to do with one half of it — and Mr Foggerton 
 has only just commenced practice ; and young be-
 
 SETTLING TERMS. 165 
 
 ginners, you know, had better be saving for the first 
 year or two." 
 
 I assented to this reasonable proposition, and 
 then finally decided to take the rooms. Mrs Fog- 
 gerton, evidently much relieved at what she thought 
 the termination of our negotiation, tript down the 
 stairs with a light step, and no doubt a light heart, 
 behind me ; but as she crossed the passage politely 
 to see me to the door, her course was arrested by 
 the dirty maid-servant, who stood planted in her 
 mistress's path, apparently in order to prevent her 
 letting the apartments without settling certain im- 
 portant stipulations, to her (the servant's) own satis- 
 faction. This damsel was not bright certainly, 
 but she had, as I afterwards learned, gone out to 
 place early in life, and had let all kinds of lodgings 
 to all kinds of customers ; she therefore felt it her 
 duty to protect the inexperienced young housekeeper 
 against the mean artifices of an evasive single gen- 
 tleman. 
 
 " Eeferences !" said the girl in an admonishing 
 whisper.
 
 166 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 " Oh, I beg your pardon, sir," said Mrs Fog- 
 gerton, very much ashamed, " but a respectable 
 reference is usual in these affairs. " 
 
 I admitted that it was, and gave the name of Mr 
 Gently. The servant again beckoned her mistress, 
 and whispered for several minutes very impressively. 
 
 u I forgot to mention," said Mrs Foggerton, 
 coming back, and looking very unhappy, " that in 
 the winter we ought not to charge less than six- 
 pence per scuttle for coals. We really have not a 
 coal cellar in which we can accommodate you." 
 
 As I had no wish to be accommodated in a coal 
 cellar, I replied that I thought sixpence the usual 
 price, and would pay it. 
 
 " Attendance we give in, sir," said Mrs Fogger- 
 ton, recognising an energetic nod from the servant, 
 " but if you have company, and Diana waits upon 
 your friends, you will have no objection, I trust, 
 to pay her eighteenpence for the extra trouble you 
 give her." 
 
 I was never hard upon a servant in my life, so 
 made no demur to this new attack upon my purse.
 
 A GREAT RUN OF PRACTICE. 167 
 
 My acquiescence evidently made Mrs Foggerton 
 very happy : perhaps she was in dread of a severe 
 reprimand from her servant if she overlooked the 
 interests of the kitchen ; while at the same time she 
 would have sunk into the earth had I spoken rudely 
 or sharply to her. She therefore insisted upon open- 
 ing the street door, saying, as I thought rather 
 grandly, " One word more, sir, and we are quite 
 arranged. Mr Foggerton being a medical man, 
 the night-bell sometimes rings when he is called up 
 to attend a patient ; and, as it rings into the bed- 
 room just under your own, it may disturb your rest : 
 I should not wish you to reproach me for not 
 having mentioned it." 
 
 Now, I should certainly not voluntarily have se- 
 lected my sleeping-apartment over a room in which 
 a doctor's bell was ringing six nights out of the 
 seven ; but I had seen enough to convince me that 
 Mr Foggerton's practice had not suddenly grown 
 so extensive as all that came to. I waved the ob- 
 jection then, and shook hands at parting with my 
 new landlady ; whom I left in a fine flow of high
 
 168 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 spirits, talking and laughing with the servant as 
 if she had been her own sister, and in all proba- 
 bility congratulating herself on her sharpness and 
 shrewdness in ensnaring a single gentleman into 
 taking her apartments.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 As the subjects of the Sublime Porte displayed 
 more eagerness than ever to take forcible possession 
 of the upper part of the house in Suffolk Street, I 
 determined to get quit of my rogue of a landlord 
 forthwith, and therefore removed to Bartlett's 
 Buildings the next morning. In the arrangement 
 of my few effects I was assisted by the slow-minded 
 maid-servant, who appeared to consider the oc- 
 casional eighteenpence a fee of retainer. She fre- 
 quently treated me to a little familiar conversation, 
 and on these occasions was eloquent on the gran- 
 deur of Mrs Hicks, Mrs Foggerton's mamma, and 
 of Miss Cornelia Hicks, my landlady's only sister, 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 170 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 who, she said, " was as beautiful as an angel." 
 Of Mr Foggerton and his professional skill the 
 girl spoke rather slightingly, tossing her head scorn- 
 fully at the mention of him, and saying, " He 
 shouldn't lance even the gums of a babby of hers, 
 if he did it for nothing in a derspensatory." She 
 brought me up stairs during the day many polite 
 little messages from Mrs Foggerton, who hoped 
 that I approved of the Arabian bedstead, offered to 
 be of any possible help and service to me, and 
 always wound up with the assurance " that I 
 might command her ;" but as Mrs Foggerton, with 
 all this civility, kept carefully in the background, 
 and I suspected domestic activity was not her forte, 
 I left the office of commanding her to the proper 
 person, Mr Foggerton, and went on with my ar- 
 rangements, assisted by the servant. The girl 
 called her mistress a martyr, and seemed to pity 
 her, and to infer that she would rise a loser from 
 the speculative game of matrimony : for a game of 
 speculation many nice young ladies make of it. 
 I had been in the house about a week, and was
 
 MR FOGGERTON. 171 
 
 lying one evening on the sofa, jaded to death with 
 an imaginary interview I had just been honoured 
 with by old Cardinal Lambruschini in the Vatican, 
 when the slow servant came into the room, and said 
 abruptly, that " Mr Foggletons was at home, and 
 would be happy to speak with me;" and before she 
 had time to request him to walk up, there came a 
 rap at the door, in playful imitation of Berkeley 
 Square footmen. In obedience to my reluctant 
 " Come in," Mr Foggerton, who had followed the 
 servant up the stairs, introduced himself; and who 
 should he turn out to be after all but the young 
 medical man who spoke so well among the " Peace- 
 ful Revolutionists." However, on this occasion he 
 had really made himself up in the approved undress 
 of a general practitioner in his studious hours : he 
 had brushed the hair out of his eyes, turned up the 
 sleeves of his dressing-gown as if he had just been 
 mixing pills, and carried Turner's Chemistry in 
 his right hand, bringing it up with him, as it were, 
 in a fit of abstraction. But when he discovered who 
 his lodger really was, he relaxed into a spasmodic
 
 172 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 sort of hilarity, and fenced at me playfully 
 with the book, protesting " that none but the best 
 fellow on earth would have taken his apartments ; 
 and that, now two Peaceful Kevolutionists were 
 under one roof, they would amend society to the 
 state of a large normal school, and that he should 
 have no more police rates to pay for Bartlett's 
 Buildings in future." I was not sorry on my part 
 to have Mr Foggerton for my landlord, as I had 
 formed rather a good opinion of the man from 
 his speech at the club, and thought him a clever 
 fellow, so I begged him to be seated, and asked 
 him to spend an hour with me. He said he would 
 sit down for a few minutes, but must then be off 
 like a rocket, for he had a few rounds to make ; 
 however, he would stay with me just five minutes. 
 " Elvington," said Mr Foggerton (for he soon 
 grew familiar with people), " the morning you took 
 our apartments was a bright day for me as well as 
 for Mrs Foggerton. My little wife is a gentle 
 sylph-like thing, and base is the man who would 
 impose upon her trustful confiding nature. Now,
 
 UNAPPEECIATED TALENT. 173 
 
 lodgers sometimes come that dodge. As for myself, 
 I will not disguise from you that I am just now 
 labouring under the feeling of a want of proper 
 professional appreciation, and what I require above 
 all things in my moments of depression is sympathy 
 —yes, sympathy." 
 
 As Mr Foggerton here thought fit to pull a very 
 long face and slap his forehead with Turner's 
 Chemistry, I put in a word of encouragement for 
 him, and suggested that perhaps his abilities were 
 better appreciated than he imagined. 
 
 " Well," rejoined he, " I do get into some 
 practice in the neighbourhood, certainly ; but it 
 is a low style of art, — scarlet fever, measles, and 
 so on. All the beautiful operations about here go 
 into Bartholomew's ; and as for insanity, I never 
 met a case insane enough for the party to come to 
 me," and here he laughed at his own thin joke. 
 " But this brings me to the occasion of my visit, 
 if that deuced slow coach the slavy has given 
 you the right message. It is partly to congratu- 
 late you on the honour of lodging with Mr Fog-
 
 174 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 gerton, surgeon, &c, and partly to express my hope 
 that you have not "been annoyed by the run of my 
 practice : which, for the sake of you and Mrs Fog- 
 gerton, I keep as quiet as I can. (This he cer- 
 tainly did, for it did not run at all). I do hope 
 you have not been annoyed by the night-bell. It 
 rang so loud the other night that I almost expected 
 the bodies would wake up in St Andrew's church- 
 yard and protest against the disturbance. 
 
 I thought this a forcible image, but did not ad- 
 mire Mr Foggerton's style of wit, and therefore 
 answered coldly, that his bell had not annoyed 
 me. 
 
 " You didn't hear it then ?" inquired he. 
 
 I replied that I did not. 
 
 " Then," said he, rather vexed, " the seven 
 sleepers of Ephesus took a short nap to yours. Why, 
 half the windows in Bartlett's Buildings were up, 
 and the heads out in their nightcaps. A solicitor's 
 wife in Hatton Garden was confined — a fearful 
 case for such a young hand as I am. By coolness 
 and dexterity I saved the mother — lost the child,
 
 A GREAT RUN OF PRACTICE. 175 
 
 of course. Puerperal fever has ensued, and if the 
 poor lady slips through my fingers, all the people 
 will say I have mismanaged the case." 
 
 During this tragical account of a bad case (which 
 I did not believe), I looked very hardly at Mr Fog- 
 gerton more than once ; knowing very well that his 
 night-bell had not rung since I entered his house, 
 and that the whole narrative was a trumpery lie. 
 And yet the man who behaved in this barefaced 
 manner had made a speech the other evening which 
 convinced me he had studied an arduous profession 
 very diligently. But probably he felt that he 
 could not succeed in it without a certain amount 
 of paltry puffing ; and as I had myself just had an 
 imaginary interview with Cardinal Lambruschini in 
 the Vatican, I knew that the misery of inventing 
 a falsehood was by no means lessened by a con- 
 viction of the necessity of drawing upon one's in- 
 vention for daily bread. 
 
 I felt sorry then for Mr Foggerton, and in order 
 to save him from any more falsehoods, turned the 
 subject of conversation ; congratulating him on
 
 176 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 his speech, at the club, observing that, although not 
 a scientific man myself, it appeared to me to dis- 
 play learning and ingenuity, and that I anticipated 
 that some day or other he would rise to be a 
 lecturer at one of the hospitals. This kindly en- 
 couragement, though well meant, did not pro- 
 duce the effect I intended, for Mr Foggerton 
 frowned dismally, and looked ready to cut up and 
 dissect the whole body of hospital surgeons there 
 and then. 
 
 " Alas ! " he cried, " Elvington, you are the best 
 of human creatures, I see ; but that pill won't go 
 down. Not that I should complain of standing 
 my ground like other men — so long as I have any 
 ground, in a pecuniary point of view, to stand 
 upon ; but I doubt and mistrust myself — my feeble, 
 vacillating self. Who can do justice to a man 
 who will not do justice to himself? Some people 
 are mere bubbles, but then they rise to the top 
 before they burst ; others burn like potassium and 
 then go out. Some, again, cannot keep in chemical 
 admixture with the world, but the moment you
 
 A VACILLATING MAN. 177 
 
 throw in a test, down they go to the bottom. Now, 
 the one set of men are great in their day — look at 
 Sir Astley and the muffs who deliver the Hunterian 
 orations — but are forgotten in the long-run ; while 
 the others, never having been known to fame, have 
 not the pleasure of being forgotten at all. I have 
 the gold — dull ore — in me, I know, but I would 
 change it for its value in professional brass any day 
 in the week. No — I am unsteady and vacillating, 
 and had better swallow my own prescriptions (here 
 he laughed hysterically) than run the rigs I am 
 running at present." 
 
 Mr Foggerton added, that when this view of his. 
 own case stared him in the face, he felt as dismal 
 "as vacillating people generally do, and that it gave 
 him a bad headache, not from repletion of the ves- 
 sels, but from anoemia. On these occasions he 
 found a glass of brandy and water and a mild cigar 
 the best prescriptions in his pharmacopoeia — the 
 former a stimulant, the latter a sedative ; and here 
 he looked rather intensely at the corpulent side- 
 board, as if calculating what it contained. Being 
 
 h2
 
 178 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 weary myself with the day's labours, I sum- 
 moned the servant, and, without paying any at- 
 tention to her frowns behind her master's back, 
 ordered tumblers and hot water. I gave my land- 
 lord his choice of cigars, produced some prime co- 
 gnac, and allowed him to correct the " anosmia " of 
 his constitution as much as he deemed it judicious. 
 He sat with me about two hours, and I found him 
 an entertaining companion, who did not tell more 
 professional crammers than many medical men 
 much older than himself sometimes treat them- 
 selves to. At last he remembered his wife, who, 
 he said, was in a weak state of health, and had 
 been sitting alone in his dull professional parlour 
 all that time. 
 
 " By the by, Elvington," said he, in rather an 
 embarrassed tone, as he rose reluctantly from his 
 seat, " you will soon become intimate with my little 
 angel, and will appreciate her society as much as 
 I do. When we are all three spending a cozy 
 evening together, we shall talk about various sub- 
 jects and various people, and the club of the Peace-
 
 MATRIMONIAL PRECAUTIONS. 179 
 
 ful Bevolutionists will of course turn up in some 
 shape or way. Would it be asking you too much 
 to bear carefully in mind that I did belong to that 
 club, in a past sense only — you understand me, 
 you gay, happy, single man ? " 
 
 " I do, Mr Foggerton," replied I, rather signifi- 
 cantly ; meaning to administer a little rebuke to 
 the matrimonial delinquent. 
 
 " My profession," said he, getting bolder, " takes 
 me out amazingly, especially in the after-part of 
 the day — too much for a man who loves his own 
 fireside. Sometimes it is Ely Place, sometimes 
 Fetter Lane — no rest for the wicked. I turn up 
 at odd places, old fellow — the Mitre in Fleet 
 Street is one, and Don Saltero's at Chelsea is 
 another. My night-practice commences at Vaux- 
 hall, and will occasionally terminate at Cremorne. 
 I never make a fool of myself in a masquerade 
 more than once in the same month, but can gen- 
 erally be found by a distressed husband in the pit of 
 the Adelphi ; for a fat man sits eternally there with 
 his mouth wide open with laughing the moment
 
 180 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 Mr Wright shows his face upon the stage. If that 
 man chokes himself, and I bleed him, it may be 
 the making of me. Now, you are a single man, 
 and may sometimes come across me when I am out 
 pursuing my professional practices ; if such should 
 be the case, oblige me, if you please, by not men- 
 tioning the occurrence to my dear Maria. She is 
 a woman of a delicate nervous system, and might 
 get excited ; and as for Mrs Hicks, my mother-in- 
 law, she would only be too happy to get up a 
 domestic breeze between us at the shortest possible 
 notice." 
 
 My amusements and recreations had, up to this 
 period of my life, been of a more refined character 
 than those among which Mr Foggerton appeared 
 to seek his practice. I laughed, however, at my 
 landlord's ingenuous way of letting me into the 
 secret of his matrimonial delinquencies, and assured 
 him that, of course, I should never make mischief 
 between husband and wife. 
 
 " The fact is," cried he, " my professional expe- 
 rience tells me that the atmosphere of Saint An-
 
 A CONSIDERATE HUSBAND. 181 
 
 drews Holborn is peculiarly depressing ; and that 
 my positive duty to myself — and wife of course — 
 is to seek relaxation. You are a capital fellow, 
 Elvington, and I am everlastingly in your debt." 
 
 So saying, he ran down stairs, leaving the door 
 open. I heard him go into the parlour and kiss 
 Mrs Foggerton, who complained about some griev- 
 ance — probably being left alone so long. As I 
 did not choose to listen to the young married couple's 
 private affairs, even by accident, I closed the door, 
 threw myself upon the sofa again, and fell into an 
 uneasy sleep ; in the course of which I dreamed that 
 I went to a masquerade with Mr Foggerton, who 
 was dressed as a polar bear, took his head off in 
 the middle of a quadrille, and insisted on treating 
 the Virgin of the Sun, with whom he was dancing, 
 to hot brandy and water.
 
 CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 In the course of a few weeks I became very in- 
 timate with Mr and Mrs Foggerton ; for my land- 
 lord was not the gentleman to keep his company 
 from any one, and frequently came into my rooms 
 in a friendly way, when he felt languid from u anos- 
 mia. " Poor Mrs Foggerton was rather frightened 
 at me at first, for, as I discovered afterwards, her 
 husband (who very seldom stated any fact exactly 
 as it stood), after his first introduction to me, amazed 
 his weak and credulous wife, who was a person 
 born to be imposed upon, by informing her that 
 their new lodger was not only a member of the very 
 distinguished club to which he had belonged when
 
 A YOUNG COUPLE. 183 
 
 a bachelor, but also a first-class classic and wrang- 
 ler from Cambridge, and that I wrote the leading 
 articles for a powerful daily political oracle. This 
 veracious statement made a great impression upon 
 Mrs Foggerton, who, at our next interview, told 
 me that " really I frightened her so, that she was 
 afraid to look and speak before me ; and that liter- 
 ary men were generally dreadful quizzes." How- 
 ever, a little timely flattery respecting her personal 
 appearance, and the daily information of the slow 
 servant (who generally praised me even to the 
 milkman, in order to contrast Mr Foggerton dis- 
 advantageously), calmed the lady's trepidation, and 
 in time I became her friend, and even confidant in 
 her troubles. 
 
 The more I knew of this young couple, the more 
 I pitied them. It puzzled me to know what they 
 meant to do in this world, in order to scramble 
 through it. Eeally the best thing they could do, 
 as merely regarded their prospects here, seemed to 
 me to be to catch one of the fevers always raging 
 in the neighbourhood, and get out of a state of
 
 184 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 things which had apparently not been constructed 
 entirely for their accommodation. Mr Foggerton's 
 night-bell and day-bell never really rang : he had 
 no practice out of doors ; nor did he deserve any. 
 During his apprenticeship, and while walking the 
 hospital, my landlord had studied his profession 
 very diligently, knew the sciences which bore upon 
 it better than most general practitioners, and had 
 been highly complimented upon the examination 
 he passed at the College of Surgeons. Had he 
 after that been immediately patronized, put at the 
 head of a large hospital full of patients, and eulo- 
 gized every week in the Lancet and Medical Times, 
 the overwhelming pressure of his engagements, and 
 the gratification of his vanity, might have kept him 
 sjteady, and he would have distinguished himself 
 greatly. But he was too fickle and restless to wait 
 in his rambling old house in Bartlett's Buildings, 
 until practice slowly came in ; and, moreover, un- 
 less he had some terrible case or fearful operation 
 to gratify his self-importance, would neglect even 
 the patients who came to him; and as the poor
 
 A GENIUS ABOVE HIS BUSINESS. 185 
 
 soon discovered this, they held aloof even from his 
 " gratis advice," and turned their backs upon him 
 altogether. 
 
 The little surgery at the back of the house was 
 a pretty fair index to Mr Foggerton's state of mind, 
 for there was plenty of professional apparatus in it, 
 but all in disorder. It horrified the slow-minded 
 maid-servant, who dreaded to go into it, and hated 
 her master for keeping such a place. This wench 
 was as loquacious as she was ignorant, and amused 
 me with her revelations of the dreadful things 
 in the surgery. There was a " skillington," 
 as she called it, hung upon wires, which some- 
 times terrified her mistress beyond measure ; and 
 the cupboard contained, she told me, a poor little 
 babby in a bottle of gin ; and a dead man's arm, 
 which her master informed her had once belonged 
 to a celebrated murderer; but what amazed her 
 most was, what she described as " a white crockery 
 man's head, with the hair shaved off, and the mul- 
 tiplication table written all over the top of it." This, 
 of course, was the ordinary phrenological head :
 
 186 MAUEICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 the girl mistook the figures, which referred to the 
 bumps, for a copy of her old tormentor the multi- 
 plication table. 
 
 When I made acquaintance myself with Mr Fog- 
 gerton's surgery, the state I found it in made me 
 angry. It was not the quantity of scientific lum- 
 ber, in the way of galvanic batteries, retorts of all 
 sizes, large sheets of diagrams, and models of in- 
 genious inventions by Foggerton himself — who was 
 always going to patent something and acquire a 
 fortune by it, but never did — but the beautiful ar- 
 rangements he had made to poison anybody who 
 was fool enough to take medicine from his hands, 
 and that at the smallest amount of trouble to him- 
 self, rather annoyed me. Everything seemed in 
 the wrong place : corrosive sublimate had been 
 emptied into the division which was marked mag- 
 nesia ; and oxalic acid stood ready to be made up 
 into a dose as Epsom salts. Oil of bitter almonds 
 looked quite tempting in a stopt bottle labelled 
 Scheele's Prussic Acid ; and arsenic stood on the 
 table in a paper bag, so that the slow servant or
 
 MR FOGGERTON'S SURGERY. 187 
 
 Mrs Foggerton might have put it into a pudding 
 for dinner. This carelessness was something like 
 wickedness, and I gave Mr Foggerton the benefit of 
 my opinion ; but he laughed it off, and went away 
 to spend the evening pleasantly at some u profes- 
 sional appointment." 
 
 Poor Mrs Foggerton was as hopeless as her hus- 
 band, and unfortunately for her own peace of mind 
 had some dim perception of the fact. As I knew 
 more of her, she would often bewail to me her 
 husband's want of success, hinting that he did 
 not stick close enough to business ; and complain 
 that she had herself got into a position she neves 
 expected, and for which she was not prepared. She 
 spoke almost with tears in her eyes of the quiet life 
 she led at home with her u papa and mamma ;" and 
 said, rather grandly, that she had been too well 
 brought up to make Mr Foggerton the domestic 
 wife he ought to have. 
 
 About this beautiful " bringing up" I differed 
 from Mrs Foggerton altogether ; for what had been 
 taught her in the course of her life, except to dress
 
 188 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 herself in gay bonnets and shawls, and dawdle about 
 Hackney gossiping with other young ladies who 
 were going to ruin the same road as herself, I never 
 could discover. This poor creature was a type of 
 the mawkish, helpless, ignorant women which the 
 boarding-school system of education has inflicted 
 upon the community in general, and unlucky hus- 
 bands in particular. She knew nothing about house- 
 keeping, could not price an article at the butcher's 
 or baker's, but allowed them to cheat her before 
 her face. She did not even keep the slow servant 
 in order, but suffered the girl to hector her, and rule 
 the house. She seemed never to use needle and 
 thread ; but even, whilst in want of new clothes, let 
 those she wore hang in tatters on her back. She 
 might certainly have picked up a " trashy accom- 
 plishment" or two, for a few music books were lying 
 about her slatternly drawing-room, with " Miss 
 Maria Hicks" in gold letters on the covers ; but as 
 Mr Foggerton could not afford to buy her a piano- 
 forte, I was spared the infliction of boarding-school 
 " execution." Knowledge of books or the world,
 
 A WIFE FROM BOARDING-SCHOOL. 189 
 
 or the power of reasoning in a sensible manner, 
 she had none : perhaps, because she was not by 
 nature the brightest of women, married or single. 
 But she was gentle and pliable, and a little more 
 might have been done with her to fit her for a 
 world in which her highest aspirations, of course, 
 had been to incur the responsibilities of a married 
 life. 
 
 With such a master and mistress as this, the 
 house went to ruin, and no ordinary lodger would 
 have stayed in it one week. They never seemed 
 to get the breakfast-things off the table, to dine at 
 any regular hour, or to go to bed and get up like 
 the rest of mankind in Bartlett's Buildings. Mrs 
 Foggerton was almost every morning wailing 
 about some insignificant trouble or other ; and the 
 slow servant was either saucy or sulky because 
 she had been reprimanded without deserving it, 
 or from not being called to order when any other 
 mistress would have paid her her wages and sent 
 her about her business. Mr Foggerton became 
 more and more engrossed by his out-door practice ;
 
 190 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 and when he returned home, frequently looked as 
 if he had been practising at some tavern : although 
 I must admit he was never very far gone. 
 
 The house was so dirty that it was a disgrace 
 even to the not very brilliant neighbourhood in 
 which it stood ; but it would occasionally take a 
 fierce fit of cleansing and set itself to rights. On 
 these occasions, Mrs Foggerton was sure to be in a 
 little fit of helplessness, and kept snivelling from 
 morning to night, while the slow-minded servant 
 tyrannized over her more than ever; even while 
 she knelt extended on all-fours on the stairs, with 
 a pail of water by her side. In this posture she 
 scrubbed and splashed away to the accompaniment 
 of the popular melodies of the day, which she 
 trolled out in the most exhilarating manner. On 
 these occasions she enjoyed the company of a friend 
 and ally, one Mrs Bungham the charwoman, an 
 ancient female of robust proportions, who wore a 
 black stuff gown and widow's cap, and whose pro- 
 fessional residence was Old Boswell Court, Lincoln's 
 Inn Fields. Mrs Bungham generally took her post
 
 MRS FOGGERTON'S DOMESTIC MANAGEMENT. 191 
 
 a little higher upon the stairs, and surveyed the pro- 
 ceedings beneath her from the summit of a large 
 pair of deal steps. When at Cambridge, I had of 
 course worked some fifty problems upon stable and 
 unstable equilibrium ; but I never could understand 
 how Mrs Bungham, a ponderous woman, kept her 
 poise upon the top of those steps, planted as they 
 were on two descending stairs. Stand on them 
 however she did, with professional ease, holding a 
 large flannel in her hand, which she dipt into a pan 
 of dirty water by her side. She would occasionally 
 sweeten her toil by a dialogue, carried on in a loud 
 hoarse voice, with the maid-servant below, who 
 responded in a cheerful key. The conversation, 
 which could be heard all over the house, was brisk 
 and diversified ; for Mrs Bungham was of a sarcastic 
 and cynical turn of mind, not having found that 
 matrimonial felicity with the late Mr Bungham 
 which she had anticipated. It chiefly related to 
 the births, deaths, and marriages of the two parishes 
 of St Andrews Holborn and St Clements Danes, 
 and the great mistake Mr Foggerton had made in
 
 192 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 setting up in Bartlett's Buildings and expecting 
 the poor to come to him for advice. Towards the 
 evening, the noise would subside, and the house, 
 smelling strongly of bees-wax and yellow soap, 
 gradually settled down into its accustomed dimness, 
 and got dirty again in the shortest possible time.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The fact of my establishing myself in Bartlett's 
 Buildings soon became known to my friend Mr 
 Gently. I had given his name to my landlady as 
 my reference, and Foggerton, who always took a 
 vast amount of trouble when it was unnecessary, 
 went round to Bedford Bow himself with my card 
 in his hand. Perhaps the medical man had some 
 idea of bagging a patient by the mere dazzling in- 
 fluence of his professional demeanour, for he thought 
 that when he chose he could make up as the steady- 
 going young doctor in first-rate style. Mr Gently, 
 who knew nothing about my connexion with the 
 VOL. 1. l
 
 194 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 newspaper, imagined that I had removed into the 
 legal neighbourhood in order to bury myself in the 
 library of. Lincoln's Inn and the literary treasures 
 of Mr Bellows ; or to be near at hand to run round 
 to him, Mr Gently, v. hen a knotty point puzzled 
 me ; for he was rather conceited of his legal ac- 
 quirements. Bartlett's Buildings, too, although 
 gone down in the world, had never lost a kind 
 of abstract gentility in the solicitor's eyes, for he 
 recollected how, when he first came to London, it 
 was full of leading professional men, whose car- 
 riages used to set up and take down their wives and 
 daughters and keep the whole place in an uproar. 
 
 Of course Mr Gently communicated my arrange- 
 ments to his wife, and asked her to agree with him 
 in the conclusion that I was acting very judiciously. 
 Mrs Gently, who had already put me into her 
 good books, agreed that I had done so as far as my 
 judgment went, but that unfortunately I was a 
 very young man to be left alone on my own re- 
 sources (I was only three years older than Mr 
 Gently had been when he married), and that I
 
 MRS gently's solicitude. 195 
 
 had no mother or sister to advise me. For instance, 
 
 she remarked, she saw clearly that I meant to 
 shut myself up in Bartlett's Buildings (where poor 
 Miss Penrose, he would remember, died just ten 
 years ago), and read myself into a consumption like 
 Mr Caser, Mr Gently's Junior at the Chancery Bar. 
 Then, too, she said, the woman of the house would 
 no doubt put the sheets on my bed wringing wet, 
 and neglect to shut down the windows in the bed- 
 room, and that she was sure I could never do 
 without little comforts which were not to be 
 got in a lodging-house. These dismal suggestions 
 struck my good friend with some dismay, for he 
 recollected with remorse his own exhortations to 
 hard reading ; but he kept this to himself, for there 
 really was no occasion for him of his own accord 
 to give his wife the advantage over him ; so he 
 agreed with her in all she said, and told her that 
 I must be coaxed to walk out of London occasion- 
 ally, and to sleep at Highgate-rise. He observed 
 with a sigh that there was poor Tom's bedroom 
 for me, and as this set Mrs Gently off crying, he
 
 196 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 brought her home the next evening a new silver 
 cream-jug to put her into good spirits again. 
 
 The staff of clerks in Bedford Row now began 
 to make periodical calls, and to deliver furtive in- 
 vitations for me without stint. This invasion struck 
 poor timid Mrs Foggerton with dismay, for she 
 was occasionally compelled to open the door to them 
 herself in the absence of the slow-minded maid- 
 servant, who was in the habit of slipping round 
 to the milk-shop in Bartlett's Passage in order to 
 converse with a milkman in a glazed hat and 
 smock frock, with whom she kept company. My 
 landlady, who treated the very beggars and hawk- 
 ers like noblemen, behaved to all the members of 
 Mr Gentry's establishment with nervous respect. 
 Even Mr Simmers, the junior articled clerk, who 
 had not yet cast his professional jacket, came in 
 for a share of her civility ; he was generally hon- 
 oured by a seat in the surgery, where he contem- 
 plated Mr Foggerton's chamber of horrors with 
 intense delight, and refreshed his outer man with a 
 glass of stale sherry and a little plate of biscuits?
 
 FRIENDLY ATTENTIONS. 197 
 
 while Mrs Foggerton brought some message up 
 stairs to me. When, therefore, the young gentleman 
 felt weary of bending his legs under a high stool, 
 and rocking it on the hind feet while he threw quill 
 pens at the other legal young gentleman, he would 
 volunteer to save the time of the paid clerks and 
 carry messages round to Bartlett's Buildings — a 
 condescension which gained him a kind smile from 
 Mr Gently, and the goodwill of the scribes with 
 whom he was doomed to pass the early years of 
 his life. 
 
 By degrees I conceived a great liking for Mr 
 Gently, and as for his admirable wife, her kind 
 and motherly ways made me fond of her the very 
 first day I dined at her table. I was, however, 
 poorer, and therefore prouder, than I had been, and 
 stood at first upon a vast amount of ceremony ; for 
 I did not feel quite certain that the Gently s did 
 not intend to patronize me ; bat in time I got the 
 better of this feeling : and really it seemed like 
 emerging from a dark cavern into the fresh air 
 and mild blue sky to run away from Bartlett's
 
 198 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 Buildings and forget the British Lion and its For- 
 eign correspondence in the society of this family. 
 
 The place where the Gentlys lived was a pretty 
 one, the very gem of the realms of Cockagne, and 
 pleased was I to scent the sweet breath of the gar- 
 den as I turned down the green lane and came upon 
 the little villas nestled in their miniature plantations, 
 with the roofs peeping over them, and the walls 
 covered with jasmine, clematis, passion-flower, and 
 other climbing plants. Even now I often see in 
 my mind's eye the trim lawn in front of the house, 
 and the four large stone urns on the terrace full of 
 geraniums, monophyllas, or rich purple and yellow 
 dahlias, according to the season, and the light 
 sunny flower-plot in the middle, with Mrs Gently's 
 graceful standard rose-trees — for she was an en- 
 thusiastic rose-fancier — in full blossom blushing 
 over it. Then there was her little collection of 
 delicate exotics, in which she took great pride, 
 just set out to catch the sun in the portico, and 
 hiding the graceful statues behind them. I some- 
 times fancy I am still in the quiet dining-parlour
 
 A SUBURBAN VILLA. 199 
 
 with the substantial mahogany sideboard and 
 handsome French lamp standing upon it, look- 
 ing at the picture of the deceased Vestry Clerk 
 of Warminster and fancying that I should have 
 liked to have known the old gentleman ; or loung- 
 ing before the new rosewood chiflonniere with its 
 marble slab set out with the tall alabaster vases, 
 two or three filigree silver baskets, and several 
 slim little ground glass jars, each one containing 
 a full-grown specimen of Mrs Gently's favourite 
 moss or damask roses. — I remember that there was 
 a collection of nicely bound books at the back of 
 this chirYonniere — Rollin's Ancient History amorrg 
 them — and that if any one took a volume out of 
 the row without leave asked and obtained, it 
 sadly annoyed Miss Mary Ann, who liked to 
 see proper things in their proper places. 
 
 How often have I sat on a fine summer's evening 
 in the handsome drawing-room, with its gay ormolu 
 chandelier and bright green damask furniture, 
 looking over the garden at the back of the house, 
 with its smooth pleasant grass-plot and well-stocked
 
 200 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 flower-beds. There was a little shrubbery below 
 the garden, from which came a pleasant whisper 
 of waving foliage; and on the right hand you 
 looked over a sloping meadow with a sheet of 
 water in the middle of it, the skirt of Caen wood 
 forming the boundary of the scene. Adjoining 
 was the pleasant library with its French polished 
 bookcase full of solid volumes, and the little table 
 with Mrs Gently' s work-basket on it — a piece of 
 furniture sacred from intruders ; and in a recess 
 stood Miss Gently's desk — that awful chest bound 
 with brass and ornamented with mother-of-pearl, 
 which closed with a sharp snap, and seemed to 
 contain a host of documents, books of accounts, 
 letters and correspondence : there, too, hung little 
 Amelia's two great coloured maps of Europe and 
 North America, which she studied so frequently. 
 
 Well, the scene has shifted, and the green cur- 
 tain fallen : — perhaps it was better for the actors 
 not to grow gray -headed and peevish in the 
 midst of a pleasant stage. We have all of us 
 played graver parts since then, and some of the
 
 YOUNG LADIES ON THE WANE. 201 
 
 poor mimics sleep in a narrow chamber. The 
 Duke of Illyria is there, with Escalus Prince of 
 Verona, and Pedro Prince of Arragon, and the 
 Governor of Messina. Turn down the lights, throw 
 a cover over the front of the dress circle, and call 
 my lord's chariot, and let us get out of this gaudy 
 unsubstantial pageant. — 
 
 When I became better acquainted with Mr Gent- 
 ly's two grown-up daughters, I learned to respect 
 the elder one, Mary Ann, very highly ; although 
 she never did, and probably does not now, bear me 
 any good- will, yet candour compels me to speak 
 of her with respect, as an upright and talented 
 woman. She did not resemble that numerous class 
 of young ladies who, just declined from their me- 
 ridian, and missing matrimony at the age when a 
 girl is really willing to take its ups and downs, 
 turn their backs upon a settlement in life and avoid 
 it. Some of these ladies take refuge in selfish in- 
 dulgence and indolence, or at best flaunt about the 
 streets in order to pick up shawls and bonnets. 
 Others yawn through a dull spring at some water- 
 
 i 2
 
 202 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 ing place, reading trashy novels, and carrying on 
 desperate flirtations with elderly lady-killers with 
 bald heads and large gray whiskers, who are them- 
 selves too selfish and frivolous ever to intend to 
 settle down in life. There is a third and increasing 
 class, who attire themselves in the prettiest sack- 
 cloth and ashes in the world, made in a fashionable 
 style by an Anglican milliner in the West end ; or 
 shut their poor fragile bodies up in nunneries in order 
 to forget plain Mary Jones in the seraphic and pic- 
 turesque Sister Angelica. Others — for fantastic folly 
 has many shapes — busy themselves in worsted-work 
 and fancy bazaars, and " the interesting case" of 
 Chubbardee Chuckardee, the bran new Hindoo 
 convert : with his conversion no one need quarrel, 
 only he will do nothing for his living ; not even 
 beat a drum with the palms of his two hands, since 
 Exeter Hall took him up. 
 
 Now, Mary Ann Gently was not of any of 
 these classes. She knew that the world had its 
 duties to fulfil certainly ; but instead of sweeping 
 the milky way of philanthropy with a ten -feet
 
 CHARACTER OF MISS GENTLY. 203 
 
 refractor telescope, she used her own healthy eye- 
 sight, looking at home to see if there were no 
 duties worth fulfilling there. In the first place, 
 she kept up her own excellent education, and 
 superintended that of Amelia. She treated this 
 young lady, who was nearly twelve years of age, a 
 little too much like a child, and put a vast amount 
 of Mrs Ellis, Mrs Markham, and the History of the 
 Twelve Tribes of Israel, into her head ; but she was 
 bringing her up in all respects a well-informed lady- 
 like girl, and did not neglect teaching her many 
 little accomplishments. These duties fulfilled, she 
 had to act as business correspondent, general adviser, 
 and director of her own domestic circle ; and some- 
 times directed them a little too much according to 
 her own arbitrary conclusions. She was not, how- 
 ever, allowed to direct Mr Gently, her father, 
 at all ; for my dear old friend had taken that task 
 in hand in the very first year of her husband's 
 articles, and could never be prevailed upon to sur- 
 render an English wife's lawful prerogative. To 
 sum up, Mary Ann Gently was an admirable, clever
 
 204 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 woman, who had taken a dislike to Maurice Elv- 
 ington, and for that reason may not expect his good 
 word, although he gives it to her. 
 
 Fanny — pretty Fanny Gently, as I used to call 
 her when talking to myself in my dismal sitting- 
 room in Bartlett's Buildings — was much better fit- 
 ted to be the companion of a poor overworked liter- 
 ary man than her strong-minded elder sister. 
 Fanny, who had that bright sunny hair we see 
 hanging about the features of Guido's youthful 
 saints, with fine hazel eyes, possessed just the tem- 
 perament you meet with in such a complexion. She 
 was an even-tempered little girl, quiet and cheer- 
 ful, and although she was very happy in society, 
 was not at all afraid of keeping her own company. 
 She had always some little industrious task in hand 
 which filled her spare moments nicely ; but she did 
 not fret and worry over it, and make mountains of 
 molehills. She was always neat, and exceedingly 
 well dressed, and doing the proper thing at the 
 proper time, although that might only be planting 
 a carnation in the garden, or singing a new ballad
 
 FANNY GENTLY. 205 
 
 to a pianoforte accompaniment. She was well 
 read in young ladies' literature, but nothing be- 
 yond it ; nor was she conceited about it : she only 
 sought her own amusement, and rather avoided 
 Charlotte Elizabeth, Hannah More, and Mrs 
 Ellis, when she could shelve their treatises with- 
 out getting into disgrace with her mother and 
 sister. Fanny was pure in word and deed, and 
 a picture of happy cheerful health and innocent 
 self-employment. She was a good deal sought 
 after at Highgate, and had broken the hearts of 
 many poetical young swains ; but she never put 
 herself forward, or endeavoured to call off the 
 gentlemen from her elder sister : the latter was 
 still a handsome woman, but, to her credit, not at 
 all jealous. Mary Ann Gently was much above 
 that feeling, and rather endeavoured to put her 
 pretty sister forward, while she herself took up a 
 book and retired into the background. 
 
 I had many pleasant conversations with Fanny, 
 and got on very well with her ; and as I never made 
 any silly attempts to flatter the little lady, she be-
 
 206 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 gan to esteem me, and to make me her confidant, 
 telling me what flowers were her favourites, and 
 what books she liked best, and how she thought Mrs 
 More, her mother's great card, must have been a 
 chilling old woman. She was also very eloquent 
 concerning a large piece of work in Berlin wool (a 
 goldsmith's daughter, or something of that kind), 
 over which, she assured me, " she had cried her eyes 
 out, and detested it, and never intended to finish it." 
 She would sometimes, accompanied by Amelia, 
 stroll into the fields with me, and talk about the 
 country and the pretty glades in the New Forest, 
 where she had just been paying a visit. This was 
 all innocent enough, and won the heart of Mrs 
 Gently ; for Fanny was her favourite daughter, and, 
 as she took great pains to tell me, greatly resembled 
 herself at the period she first saw Mr Gently : whom 
 she then disliked exceedingly. " Ah," she would 
 say, " those who see Gently now, can never imagine 
 what a conceited young coxcomb he was. I gave 
 him up to my friend Miss Dender, and told her to 
 marry him ; but she laughed at his conceited ways,
 
 MRS gently's hints. 207 
 
 and so I was obliged to take liim out of compas- 
 sion." 
 
 Had I been myself an articled clerk of Mr 
 Gently's, and anxious to make up to one of his 
 daughters, I should certainly have fixed upon Fanny 
 Gently ; leaving her sister to be courted by a 
 person of much more decided character than I could 
 ever hope to become.
 
 208 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Had I been writing a novel, instead of merely 
 stringing together a few passages from the history 
 of my life, I should have been too anxious to pro- 
 pitiate my reader (of course my female reader) to 
 have travelled so far through my story without 
 introducing her to a heroine. A picture without 
 some member of the family of the Vicar of Wake- 
 field in it ; a tragedy without an assurance in the 
 fifth act by the dethroned monarch, that " life is a 
 vapour, a fitful dream, and a drama ill played out ;" 
 a curate's published sermon without a graceful re- 
 commendation of my Lord the Bishop's little tract 
 " On Consistency of Opinion on Matters of Dis- 
 cipline;" and a novel without a heroine irradiating
 
 KEQUISITES IN A NOVEL. 209 
 
 its pages, are, in the opinion of most people, un- 
 satisfactory and unsubstantial performances. 
 
 It is true certainly, that some eminent hands in 
 this branch of literature have contrived to make a 
 bachelor's journey of it almost to the end of their 
 pages ; but these are grave old fellows, and knew 
 something of the world — a preparation for fictitious 
 composition that is not regarded as essential by 
 some modern novel writers. There is Miguel de 
 Cervantes, that elegant Spanish gentleman who 
 meets one in Velasquez costume between the orange 
 trees in the court of his mansion, and ushers 
 us with the air of a refined host to a profuse en- 
 tertainment with sparkling wines. Like Signior 
 Benedick he has ever a jest and a flouting speech 
 for the stately muse of Chivalry, but he woos and 
 wins her all the while. I admit that Saavedra occa- 
 sionally waxes jocose, and tells, like other elderly 
 gentlemen, a few broad stories to the younger folks 
 respecting his esquire Sancho ; but this is mere 
 after-dinner talk, and helps to pass off the walnuts 
 and the wine. Cervantes then takes his poor crazy
 
 210 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 loveable old Don a long journey from La Mancha 
 through the Sierra Morena, afterwards to Seville, 
 and then home again, like us all, to a deathbed, 
 without introducing any heroine into the travelling 
 carriage. I grant that he takes up and puts down 
 several dainty creatures by the road, such as the 
 pure and affectionate Dorothea, the stately duchess, 
 and the innocent little thing, " seemingly about 
 sixteen years of age, beautiful as a thousand pearls, 
 with her hair tied up in a net of green silk and 
 gold," who is found by the governor Sancho in his 
 evening circuit round the streets of his island. 
 
 Then there is our old knavish friend, Signor Gil 
 Bias de Santillane, whose confessions, truer than the 
 truth, must receive implicit credit ; while those of 
 the morbid and distorted mind of Rousseau are to 
 be rejected like the deseased imaginings shadowed 
 forth by Fuseli, as drawn utterly beyond nature. 
 These confessions of Gil Bias I would of my own 
 choice enshrine in the casket of King Darius (which, 
 perhaps, one might purchase for a reasonable consid- 
 eration of Mr Lazarus the goldsmith), and sleep with
 
 SOME FAVOURITE AUTHORS. 211 
 
 it under my pillow, as Alexander did with his Homer. 
 Aristotle edited Homer, and now the Kev. Mr 
 Variorum is about to edit Aristotle ; and so a less 
 man treats a greater man's remains with indignity. 
 Signor Gil Bias, then, whom, if he will forget low 
 company, we will invite into the drawing-room, for 
 the sake of the legacy left to us by the Licentiate Pedro 
 Garcias, and also that he may inform us whether 
 Don Raphael did or did not carry the rosary and san- 
 dals of the dying hermit to the Bishop of Cuenca ; 
 and meanwhile let Smollett, with all his good jokes, 
 sit in the kitchen among the footmen and scul- 
 lions (and he will not improve even their morals) — 
 until Miss Lydia Melford's servant is rung for. 
 Gil Bias, so far from introducing us to a heroine 
 at all, keeps us in very questionable female society, 
 that of Camilla, the actress Laura with her mistress 
 Arsenia, until the very end of his story, as he origi- 
 nally published it. Just as we are bidding him 
 good evening, the jealous rogue certainly brings 
 forward a nice little woman, Antonia, the daughter 
 of his farmer Basil, and introduces her as Mistress
 
 212 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 Gil Bias. Lastly, there is our pen - and - ink 
 Hogarth, who in his chastest work amuses us with 
 the "humours" (for mere "humours" these are) 
 of Mr and Madame Mantalini, the domestic ambi- 
 tion of the house of Kenwigs, and the far-sighted 
 sagacity of Mrs Nickleby, many pages ere he 
 thinks of providing Nicholas with a wife, and then 
 settles him down with a mere shadow, Madelaine 
 Bray. If, then, my induction be rigid, the in- 
 stances lawfully chosen, and three great authorities 
 on the subject have nothing to say against it, I am 
 entitled to slip in an easy style into something very 
 like a paradox, and assert, that great geniuses 
 compound the best novels when they leave out the 
 heroine altogether. 
 
 Nevertheless, as I said before, if I were writing 
 a novel, I do not know that I could pick out a 
 better heroine than pretty Fanny Gently. A 
 hero who must marry at the end of the three 
 volumes, might go farther and fare worse. The 
 family is a pleasant one to settle in, and Mr Gently 
 a reputable English father-in-law after the estab-
 
 AN ENGLISH FATHER-IN-LAW. 213 
 
 lished fashion. He is just the respectable elderly 
 gentleman to introduce to one's old bachelor friends, 
 — Cracker of All Souls ; Firedamp, who lost his leg 
 at Waterloo ; Grinder, the double first class at 
 Cambridge, now vicar of Smallclothes cum Broad- 
 brim, who has married the great local heiress Miss 
 Plainbody, the girl they operated upon for strabis- 
 mus ; and Shifty the literary man, — and to say 
 with a quiet smile, " My father-in-law, Mr Gently, 
 — some gentlemen have met him at my house be- 
 fore." Mrs Gently also is thought something 
 of at High gate, where her advice is taken as to 
 measles and the hooping-cough before that of th£ 
 medical man ; and she has been known to have 
 driven a gaudy shawl, or a bonnet a little too much 
 off the head, out of the church. Sharp Miss Gently 
 is rather dreaded among the young ladies, but the 
 pretty Fanny is a favourite with them all. They 
 call upon her in the morning with bouquets, or a 
 roll of music, to try over that pretty duet to- 
 gether, and write her long confidential letters 
 crossed and re-crossed, from country houses at
 
 214 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 which they are visiting, telling her how " young 
 Mr Traverse seems to mean something," but they 
 must think about it, " for it is a painful thing, my 
 dearest Fanny, to leave one's mamma and papa." 
 
 Fanny Gently, in short, is a universal favourite, 
 and deserves to be so, for she is a quiet, even-tem- 
 pered, cheerful, innocent daughter of England, — 
 as unlike one of Mrs Ellis's daughters of England 
 as it is possible to imagine — and any reasonable man 
 will pass a happy life with her. Then — but this 
 is scarcely worth mentioning: — Mr Gently has been 
 a careful person, and the vestry clerk at Warmin- 
 ster picked up a few parcels of copyhold, and they 
 report at Highgate that the pretty Fanny will have 
 a little money when she marries. But this is really 
 not worth mentioning ; for although every young 
 gentleman, when he first starts in life, tells the other 
 young gentlemen that " he must and will have 
 some money with the girl he marries," very few 
 of us, after all, wear the yoke for life from purely 
 interested motives, — not even Loosetongue, who, 
 after being rejected by a young lady possessed of
 
 A DAUGHTER OF ENGLAND. 215 
 
 large landed estate in her own right, rushed off, and 
 married a very nice girl who had not a sixpence, 
 and is a happy husband and father in spite of 
 himself.
 
 216 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 It may be as well to mention, in this place, that I 
 did not quite intermit my legal studies, but renewed 
 my intercourse with Lincoln's Inn, in order to eat 
 sundry dinners in the hall; which dinners were 
 somehow or other supposed to put a certain amount 
 of knowledge into the head of the diner. Of Mr 
 Bellows's offer of the use of his library, and general 
 countenance, I felt no great disposition to avail my- 
 self ; having taken a dislike to that gentleman 
 which I never entirely got over. Not that either the 
 learned lawyer or his wife (for she still took an ac- 
 tive share in the practice) refused me any assistance 
 or advice, or, whatever might be the real state of
 
 LEGAL STUDIES WITH MES BELLOWS. 217 
 
 their feelings, showed any want of friendliness 
 when I thought it expedient to give a look in at 
 Chancery Lane. Mrs Bellows frequently gave me 
 directions as to my reading, lent me crabbed man- 
 uscripts in the handwriting of her father, and 
 would argue a point of law with me for hours 
 together. I cannot say that her law was always 
 sound ; but it was useless for any one to set the good 
 lady right, as she faced the matter out, and if fairly 
 driven into a corner, would slip from the grasp of 
 the victor, by declaring that " I might be right, 
 or might be wrong, but that that was how the law 
 stood in Justice Buller's time ; and as for the 
 Judges of the present day, why they did to the 
 best of their abilities, and that was all she could 
 say in their favour." 
 
 Amongst other little acts of civility, 1 was com- 
 pelled, impostor as I was, to accept, with many 
 thanks, a presentation copy of the fifth edition 
 of " The Law of Private Pumps," which somehow 
 or other had not gone off briskly of late years ; 
 and I actually sat down with an intention of 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 218 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 wading through it. However, after having read 
 a few pages, I found this legal masterpiece such 
 a bundle of hair-splitting rubbish, that I threw 
 it on to the back of the fire, and spent the even- 
 ing out with Mr Foggerton. With the Ancient 
 Sergeant himself I was also once politely asked 
 to dine, and should, in all probability, have been 
 enabled to have handed down to- posterity some 
 Boswellian reports of the lively conversation of the 
 venerable lawyer, had it not been for the proverbial 
 uncertainty which was the defect of his movements 
 in private life. 
 
 On this particular occasion, Sergeant Molehill 
 had allowed his clerk to array him in his best 
 suit of clothes, and was stepping out of the door 
 of his domicile in Lincoln's Inn Fields, when he 
 encountered, coming up the fore-court, two old 
 and cherished friends. One of these gentlemen 
 was no less a person than the Secretary to " Queen 
 Anne's Bounty," and his companion was at the head 
 of "the Queen's Silver Office ;" they had walked 
 round, arm in arm, to take Mr Molehill's opinion
 
 SERGEANT MOLEHILL " MAKES A NIGHT OF IT." 219 
 
 on a point of professional antiquarianism. Now 
 the Ancient Sergeant had, even in his best days, 
 relished the society of legal farthing rushlights like 
 these, far beyond that of Lawrence, Jekyll, Erskine, 
 or any other of the great wits and lawyers of the 
 last century ; and, on this occasion, he became so 
 interested in the point under discussion, that he 
 forgot all about his daughter and her little family- 
 dinner. When fairly warmed up, he invited both 
 gentlemen into his library, lighted a pair of wax- 
 candles, ordered two scuttlesful of coals, laid down 
 a dozen of his fine old crusted port by the side of 
 the fireplace, locked the door against his house- 
 keeper, and sat down with the avowed intention of 
 making a night of it. The two legal luminaries 
 were not bad hands at a bottle of wine, and, what 
 with rusty old anecdotes and grim jokes, the whole 
 party got so excited, that towards the end of the 
 evening they agreed to exert their vocal powers by 
 singing an ancient legal glee or catch, commencing 
 with 
 
 A woman having a settlement 
 Married a man with none ;
 
 220 MAUJtICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 but after they had howled out at the top of their 
 voices three several times the concluding chorus of 
 
 Quoth Sir John Pratt, 
 In a case like that, 
 It doth revive again, 
 
 the three gentlemen successively slid off their chairs 
 and disappeared underneath the table. The two 
 subordinate members of the Profession retained in- 
 tellect enough to enable them to stagger on to 
 their legs again ; but when endeavouring to ascer- 
 tain the state of the Sergeant, they found him, I am 
 sorry to say, perfectly incapable of speech or 
 motion. They unlocked the door, called in his 
 housekeeper, and endeavoured to remove him to his 
 bed-chamber ; but, while they were carrying him 
 up stairs, he revived and committed several acts 
 of assault and battery on all three before they 
 could get the better of him. The good woman, 
 however, who knew her master, managed to lay 
 him on the bed, untied his neckcloth, took off his 
 shoes — as he never wore braces, there was no 
 need to relieve him in that part of his dress — and
 
 DEATH OF THE ANCIENT SERGEANT. 221 
 
 then left him to repose ; when, after pouring a tor- 
 rent of abuse upon her, and giving vent to some of 
 those expressions in which elderly gentlemen in 
 their cups will sometimes indulge, Mr Molehill is 
 supposed to have fallen asleep. 
 
 Whether it was owing to this outbreak at sev- 
 enty-seven years of age, or to the labour undergone 
 by Mr Molehill in arguing a great case in the 
 Common Pleas, in which he divided his matter 
 into sixteen heads, and cited twenty cases to each 
 head — for, in order to drag in as much learned 
 lumber as possible, he not only quoted the decisions 
 in his favour, but those that went right against 
 him, so that the Judges on the Bench did not 
 exactly understand what Brother Molehill was 
 talking about, only they were too civil to tell him 
 so — I really cannot undertake to say, but the Ser- 
 geant was seized with a fit in open court, and died 
 three days afterwards. As he was the Father of the 
 Bar, they gave him a grand funeral in the Temple 
 Church, and Lord Chief Justice Gaily, who had 
 never ceased to venerate the man who came out at
 
 222 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 the head of the Wranglers at Cambridge in his own 
 year of humiliation, set some inquiries on foot as to 
 the provision he had made for his daughter. He- 
 was shocked to find that, although the Sergeant had 
 enjoyed a run of practice in his day, he had some- 
 how or other muddled all his money away, and left 
 nothing behind him but his library and the unsold 
 copies of " The Law of Private Pumps." Mr Bel- 
 lows, he ascertained also, was not rich ; for, al- 
 though esteemed a sound lawyer, he had no great 
 practice in court : in short, the Judge felt for 
 Mrs Bellows, and thought that he must get the 
 Chancellor to give her husband a lift in his profes- 
 sion, out of respect to the memory of the Sergeant. 
 When the two Law Lords laid their heads to- 
 gether, they agreed that the Bench was out of the 
 question ; but that no one could exactly begrudge 
 such an industrious person his Leadership on the 
 circuit : so, in due time, the worthy gentleman was 
 gazetted as Mr Sergeant Bellows, and the scandal 
 of the little bit of jobbery soon blew over. 
 
 The first time I saw my friend Gently after this
 
 MR SERGEANT BELLOWS. 223 
 
 promotion of his protege"e, I found him in an exalted 
 state of mind, for he rubbed his hands when he 
 talked about it, and said gaily : — 
 
 " Well, Mr Elvington, you see that the Bar is 
 not such a bad profession after all. We have done 
 something for worthy Mr Bellows. Really I think 
 that we ought to run round together to Chancery 
 Lane and congratulate him on his promotion. If 
 we do go round to Chancery Lane, Mr Elvington, 
 you must keep a sharp eye upon me." 
 
 " What, Mr Gently," said I, " do you think 
 that they will seize upon you for a Sergeajit 
 next ? And really they might take a worse law- 
 yer." 
 
 " Nonsense, my good friend," said Mr Gently, 
 laughing ; " no, sir, but you must beware lest 
 I am conceited enough to accept praise where 
 none is due to me. I am afraid that in my first 
 interview with the learned Sergeant I shall stand 
 in need of all the modesty I can muster." 
 
 " And so will Mr Bellows," I answered quietly, 
 for I had caught a glimpse of the learned gentle-
 
 224 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 man since he obtained his silk gown, and thought 
 that his promotion had by no means improved his 
 manners. 
 
 " Ah ! Mr Elvington," said the solicitor, " you 
 never did give the Sergeant all the credit he de- 
 serves for his candour and modesty. Now, it 
 really would not surprise me if he were to ascribe 
 some part of his good fortune to the encouragement 
 I gave him in early days ; but really, if he does 
 forget his dignity and talk in that way, I must 
 remind him that there is such a thing in existence 
 as the Etiquette of the Bar." 
 
 By this time we had reached the little house in 
 Chancery Lane, and were not likely h pass it, for 
 a great deal of paint had been lavished upon 
 the door since my last call there, and letters of 
 portentous proportions informed us that " Ser- 
 geant Bellows" lived within. The door itself was 
 opened by Shakely, who now walked on his tip- 
 toes and gave me a patronizing nod, as much 
 as to say that he should be happy to take a pint 
 of stout with me at the Cock in Fleet Street.
 
 A RISING MAN AT THE BAR. 225 
 
 After he had ushered us into the outer office, he did 
 not immediately condescend to announce our visit 
 to the Sergeant, but retreated to his own desk and 
 amused himself with the pleasant occupation of 
 counting gold and silver into a tin cash-box. 
 When he thought that he had annoyed Mr Gently 
 sufficiently, the worthy walked jauntily into Mr 
 Bellows' room, and as he opened the door we 
 heard two people talking there, and a prodigious 
 rustling of new silk. On the clerk's return he 
 said coolly that the Sergeant was just going to 
 Westminster, but could contrive to see us for five 
 minutes, and that we had better walk into the 
 room. 
 
 That the business in Westminster Hall had 
 come to a stand still just then because Mr Bellows 
 had not left Chancery Lane I did not exactly be- 
 lieve, but at all events when we entered his library 
 there was his portly figure standing bolt upright, 
 and he was pulling on to his shoulders with both 
 hands an ample gown of new silk, which dazzled 
 one's eyes by the gloss upon it, and Mrs Bellows, 
 
 k2
 
 226 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 who now also rustled in black silk, stood by his 
 side holding his wig, ready to hand it to him, 
 and in a trance of admiration at the majestic ap- 
 pearance of her lord and master. If I were to 
 assert that something like a rude stare from Mr 
 Bellows, and a sarcastic smile from his wife, 
 greeted us as we came into the room, I might not 
 be far out ; but about this I did not trouble my- 
 self personally, although I was sorry for Gently, 
 who looked rather surprised, if not annoyed, when 
 he discovered that the Sergeant did not intend to 
 speak first. 
 
 " I trust I do not interrupt you, Mr Sergeant," 
 said Mr Gently ; " at all events, I will not detain 
 you many minutes." 
 
 "Oh no! — not detain," replied the worthy 
 Leader ; " hum — ha — I am off to Westminster you 
 see. But Mr Shakely attends as usual to the — 
 hum — details of our arrangements, hands me my 
 papers, gives appointments for — hum — ha — con- 
 sultations (a great stress on this last word). The 
 solicitors who — hum — confide their — hum — ha —
 
 AN OLD FRIEND'S CONGRATULATIONS. 227 
 
 client's interests to our hands, will have every rea- 
 son to be satisfied with the accuracy and punctu- 
 ality of Mr Shakely." 
 
 " I have no doubt of it, Mr Sergeant," said Mr 
 Gently — now beginning to understand what the 
 great man was driving at, and to tell the truth, a 
 little put up and irritated at his ingratitude — " I 
 have not the slightest doubt of it ; but my present 
 visit, Mr Bellows, is to Mrs Bellows and yourself, 
 in order to congratulate you respectfully on your 
 elevation to a higher walk in your own profes- 
 sion." 
 
 " Exactly, Mr Gently, exactly," said the Ser- 
 geant, looking as insolent as even a silk gown well 
 can. " In any other case you would — hum — ha — 
 have communicated with Mr Shakely, as a matter 
 of course. As for this visit, it is — hum — gratify- 
 ing to one's feelings, but — hum — ha — you will ex- 
 cuse the observation — a little out of course. There 
 is an etiquette in these things — hum — an etiquette 
 — I have already given the usual dinner to — hum 
 — ha — my own branch of the profession, and witli
 
 228 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 that it is — hum — expedient that all these civilities 
 should come to an end." 
 
 " And most assuredly they shall, Mr Sergeant 
 Bellows," said Mr Gently, very firmly, " as far as 
 I am concerned. I have now therefore only to 
 convey Mrs Gently' s congratulations to her old 
 friend Mrs Bellows, and to assure her that my 
 wife rejoices in her good fortune as cordially as if 
 it were her own." 
 
 " Mrs Gentry's congratulations," replied Mrs 
 Bellows, in a dry tone of voice, " afford me the 
 greatest pleasure. I shall always have pleasant 
 recollections of the intimate terms I was once on — 
 once on — with that excellent lady and her exem- 
 plary daughters. I am about to leave London for 
 a considerable period, for I have taken a cottage at 
 Little Hampton, near Worthing, in order to be 
 next door to my intimate friend Lady Barrenmouth, 
 the widow of the deceased Puisne* Judge. I cannot 
 exactly say when I shall return, but I trust by 
 that time to have my own brougham and to drive 
 round Highgate-rise in order to leave my card ; but
 
 MRS BELLOWS STANDS ON CEREMONY. 229 
 
 I am no great hand at paying visits of mere cere- 
 mony." 
 
 " And until then, Mr Gently," said the Sergeant, 
 thinking that the sooner he bowed us out of his 
 office the better, " we shall occasionally — hum — 
 ha — see each other in the Court of Common Pleas. 
 Mr Elvington, read such books as Molehill's Pumps 
 night and day, and when you really are called to 
 the bar, give me a look in, and — hum — let me 
 know of what possible service I can be to you. 
 Good morning, Mr Gently. You will excuse me 
 I am sure — excuse me for bringing this interview 
 to a close. Such an old established practitioner as 
 you are will of course recognise that there is — hum 
 — in these cases such a thing as — hum — ha — the 
 Etiquette of the Bar!" 
 
 Mr Gently had up to this time maintained his 
 dignity, and was determined not to be bowed out 
 of the great man's room until he thought proper to 
 take his departure ; but the moment the conversa- 
 tion assumed this turn, it was evidently all up 
 with him. He had been preaching up the Etiquette
 
 230 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 of the Bar all his life, and now he found out what 
 an inflated insolent man like Mr Bellows under- 
 stood " the Etiquette of the Bar " to mean. A 
 person of real dignity and importance, like Lord 
 Chief Justice Gaily, might have construed it dif- 
 ferently, but this surmise was no great consolation 
 to Mr Gently just then. He made a cool bow, 
 therefore, to Mrs Bellows, walked out of the study 
 in silence, put his arm within mine, and did not 
 utter five syllables until he was quite certain that 
 we had left Chancery Lane in the rear of us. 
 When he broke silence he just observed to me 
 that " I might live to see Sergeant Bellows on the 
 Bench ;" but I never heard him mention the learned 
 gentleman's name again during the whole of our 
 subsequent intercourse and acquaintance : nor did 
 he afterwards speak in such glowing terms of ad- 
 miration of " the Etiquette of the Bar."
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Time soon heals our bruises, even those of hurt 
 pride, when we have the consolation of reflecting 
 that the persons who inflicted the wound are worth- 
 less or ungrateful — or both. Mr Gently, then, in 
 all probability soon forgot that there was such a 
 couple as Sergeant Bellows and his helpmate in 
 the world, and allowed Mrs Gently to engage him 
 in a kind of domestic stratagem, which that good- 
 natured lady had planned for the use and behoof 
 of Maurice Elvington. 
 
 To explain myself more clearly, I will just 
 mention that it was about this period of our ac-
 
 232 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 quaintance that I noticed a certain change in the 
 conduct of the worthy solicitor and his wife, when- 
 ever I happened to be alone in their company or 
 closeted with either of them. Mr Gently, who 
 became more fatherly in his manner than ever, 
 would talk very confidentially when we were in 
 the little library together, and let me into his pri- 
 vate affairs. He would tell me how he had lent a 
 few hundreds out on a good mortgage, or when he 
 received a bonus on his gas shares. He would 
 then talk of the early professional labours of his 
 deceased partner, Mr Rackham, and observe com- 
 placently that he had himself brought the practice 
 into such a quiet state, that the next comer might 
 go to sleep upon it. He sometimes would forget 
 himself, certainly, when he dwelt upon the legal 
 beauties of the great case of " Cockroach and Sal- 
 mon," or exulted in the glories of the English Bar ; 
 but if Mrs Gently were present, she would frown 
 him down in two minutes. He would then, per- 
 haps to save himself from a curtain lecture — for 
 curtain lectures married men must have — tack
 
 A DOMESTIC STRATAGEM. 233 
 
 right in the teeth of the wind, and lament the 
 uphill work of a barrister's life, observing how many 
 a fine lawyer who commenced his career with vague 
 aspirations after the woolsack, felt happy in his 
 old days to subside into a County Court Judge. 
 
 Then motherly Mrs Gently — who had brought 
 her work into the library, because she said the girls 
 laughed and talked a great deal more behind her back 
 than when she was with them — would inquire if I 
 found that nasty reading agree with my health, and 
 say that many foolish young men worked themselves 
 to death in the Temple or at College, and all for no 
 earthly use ; and no doubt her poor Tom, had he 
 been living, would have been as wilful in some 
 way or another. When his son's name came up, 
 I always knew what Gently would say next, for 
 he would express his bitter regret that his fine con- 
 nexion should go to a stranger ; and would relate 
 how many instances he had known of the sons of 
 baronets, retired Lieutenants in the navy, and so on, 
 who had just taken their articles and stept into 
 some of the first legal practices in London. He
 
 234 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 said such men seldom made good lawyers in the 
 legal sense of the term, but that they brought a 
 largeness of mind and knowledge of the world to 
 bear upon their profession, which rendered them 
 excellent advisers in family affairs. He added that 
 no partner could reasonably expect a gentleman 
 who had moved in a higher walk of society to at- 
 tend to mere details or to undertake any drudgery, 
 which of course could always be purchased of a 
 clerk at the rate of a little kindness and a hundred 
 a-year salary. 
 
 If I happened to find myself alone with Mrs 
 Gently, that good lady was sure to begin by laying 
 down many general axioms upon the education 
 and bringing up of a family, and sometimes talked 
 sagaciously concerning prudent and imprudent mar- 
 riages. From this she made an easy descent to her 
 own daughters : for she did not trouble herself about 
 making one part of her conversation glide smoothly 
 into another. Of her eldest daughter, Mrs Gently 
 spoke with the esteem she merited, although she 
 asserted that it was impossible to convince her in
 
 A MATRIMONIAL BAIT. 235 
 
 an argument ; but she liked best to dwell upon the 
 good looks and amiable temper of her favourite 
 child. " If I were a gentleman," she would say, 
 " a very pretty girl would take my fancy more than 
 a handsome one ; and I should choose out of a fam- 
 ily which had been well brought up, and select a 
 young lady whose mother had not been above 
 teaching her to be domestic. Then a little money 
 is not to be despised, Mr Elvington ; although silly 
 young men will not admit that they set any value 
 upon it. My poor father was a careful man, and I 
 did not come home to Mr Gently without bringing 
 him a few thousands ; and he found it very con- 
 venient to furnish with, and to pay little odds and 
 ends, while Mr Eackham was alive and gave him 
 only a small share out of his business." 
 
 I was not such a very juvenile student of domes- 
 tic politics as not to see through the artifices of my 
 delightful old friend, although no doubt she imag- 
 ined she was weaving a thread of gossamer round 
 my freedom ; but notwithstanding her dexterity, I 
 did not view altogether with complacency this plot
 
 236 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 by a middle aged couple to turn the nephew of Sir 
 William Maurice into their son-in-law. Even if 
 I liked Fanny, I did not choose to be wheedled into 
 forming any permanent connexion with the little 
 girl unless I pleased j and although no doubt she 
 had affections to engage, I had really as yet taken 
 no pains to ascertain whether I should ever become 
 the object of them. 
 
 This last reflection was no pleasant one, for I 
 felt that it would cost my pride no little before I 
 persuaded myself to marry Fanny at all ; and if, 
 after I had taken the pains to compel myself to 
 come down from my lofty stand in order not to 
 blight the affections of the pretty creature and 
 ruin her peace of mind for ever, the little lady 
 had civilly turned round and told me " that she 
 could esteem me as a friend, but never love me 
 as a husband," I should have rushed off into a 
 lunatic asylum the very next day. I thought then 
 that there would be no harm in beating about the 
 bush a little, and ascertaining whether I had really 
 made any progress in winning her heart; and
 
 MY OWN DOUBTS. 237 
 
 Fanny, who, open as the day herself, never took 
 the trouble to avoid the artifices of any one else, 
 soon gave me an opportunity. 
 
 We were sitting one evening in the little li- 
 brary — Fanny, Mary Ann, and myself. Miss 
 Gently was occupied at her writing-desk, making 
 up her accounts ; for she was a great accountant, 
 and kept little books of all sorts and sizes, with a 
 regular army of lead pencils mounting sentry in- 
 side their leaves, ready to clap down an item at 
 the shortest possible notice. She kept all the 
 family books, the butcher's book, the laundress's 
 book, the baker's book, the disbursements upon 
 Amelia's wardrobe, and that young lady's growing 
 account with the Bloomsbury Savings Bank. Then 
 she was the female secretary to several ladies' char- 
 ities, and had to disburse large sums on account of 
 them, besides collecting the weekly pence from re- 
 fractory parents who did not care to send their 
 children to the infant school, or if they did, 
 thought paying for them disagreeable. Mrs Gently 
 was in the garden — for it had turned out a plea-
 
 238 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 sant summer's evening — watering her roses and 
 picking the dead leaves off them, with Amelia to 
 help her. Mr Gently had dined that day at his 
 office, as he was getting up the briefs in a Chancery 
 suit. Fanny was sitting at the library window 
 with a large frame before her, in which she was 
 counting the stitches of the great performance in 
 Berlin wools which she never intended to finish. 
 The writer of these pages had seated himself op- 
 posite to Miss Gently and next to Fanny, thinking 
 what a pretty girl she was, and how the little gold 
 chain round her neck made it look very white and 
 delicate. 
 
 « Why, Miss Fanny," I said, " if you really 
 work so diligently and talk so little I shall think 
 you are going to run away from us, and shall ask 
 leave to call as a bachelor friend and admire your 
 cottage and pretty neAv furniture." 
 
 u Well, really Mr Elvington," answered Fanny, 
 " you can talk very absurdly when you please, but 
 I never heard you say anything so incomprehen- 
 sible as that. What has my counting the stitches
 
 A TETE-A-TETE WITH FANNY. 239 
 
 of this detestable piece of worsted work, which 1 
 never will finish," said she, pouting very prettily 
 over it, "to do with what you have been talking 
 about. You may be very clever, but what you say 
 is quite beyond me." 
 
 " Why, I have been just looking at the portrait of 
 this young lady," returned I, " in last year's Book of 
 Beauty, and I see that she is embroidering at a frame, 
 or drawing, or something of that kind ; and when 
 I read the story, I find that she is thinking of what 
 I have been accusing you of thinking about, and 
 two pages farther on it comes to an end in the old 
 established fashion." 
 
 " Well, I hope," replied Fanny, laughing, "that 
 I am not like any of those elegant young creatures 
 in the Annuals, for they are all dreadfully out of 
 drawing : the heads are too heavy for the bodies, and 
 the eyes too heavy for the faces. But give me the 
 book ; I will see what your young lady is thinking 
 about : it is not anything about such a person as Mr 
 Elvington, I can undertake to say." 
 
 (i You cannot despise Mr Elvington," said I, as
 
 240 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 I handed her the book, " more than I do myself, 
 and therefore we shall not quarrel on that subject, 1 ' 
 (and I really did rather despise myself at the time 
 for talking such nonsense, and for the motive which 
 tempted me to do it.) 
 
 " Oh," exclaimed Fanny, after reading a few pages, 
 " this is a very nice young lady indeed you have 
 made choice of, and I only hope that, after she has 
 married you, she will make you miserable. She 
 runs away from her papa and mamma, and marries 
 against their wishes ; and if a girl does that," said 
 she very earnestly, " who has a good mother and 
 kind indulgent father to consult, she deserves all 
 she meets with, and has no right to complain if 
 her husband ill-treats her and runs away from her 
 to America." 
 
 Just as Fanny said this, Miss Gently, who could 
 listen to a conversation and add up a page of ac- 
 counts at the same time with the greatest ease, 
 closed the rosewood writing-desk with a pretty loud 
 snap, and turned the key in it with great firmness 
 and precision. " We are beginning to talk about
 
 MISS GENTLY ON MATRIMONY. 241 
 
 getting married in our family," said Miss Gently ; 
 " and I suppose, as Fanny and Amelia grow up, 
 we shall hear a little more about it. As for me, I 
 feel quite an old lady already ; and besides have my 
 poor railroad women to attend to and keep out of 
 mischief. If either of my sisters," continued Miss 
 Gently in a decided tone, " makes a good choice, 
 and marries in her own station of life, and not 
 above it, I am sure papa will throw no obstacles in 
 the way : and it will be my sister's own fault if she 
 is not happy ; but then she must be prudent and 
 cautious, and take time to know a person's temper 
 and character before she allows him to gain her af- 
 fections. If young Mr Sadgrove, now, who comes 
 up so often to see papa and ask his advice, should 
 get on in business, and should take a fancy to either 
 ot my sisters, I am sure he would make her a good 
 husband ; and solicitors' daughters, you know, like 
 nothing so well as to marry solicitors themselves. 
 I am not quite sure that if one of those two stout 
 old gentlemen in Gray's Inn who dine with my 
 father when he gives his bachelor parties, were to 
 VOL. I. L
 
 242 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 make me an offer, that I should refuse him, stupid 
 old lady as I am growing." , 
 
 " Who is that," asked pleasant Mrs Gently, com- 
 ing into the room, and looking very much pleased, 
 (she might have overheard part of the conversation,) 
 " has got among my little girls, and is putting 
 mischief into their heads ? If I find out who it is, 
 I shall forbid him the house, and get Mr Gently to 
 write a lawyer's letter to him." 
 
 " Why, it is Mr Elvington, mamma," said Fan- 
 ny, " who is talking in the most ridiculous and 
 foolish manner possible, and I am telling him 
 (tossing her little head) that I shall not be stupid 
 enough to listen to him." 
 
 " Well," said Mrs Gently, " in your poor grand- 
 papa's lifetime, Fanny, I was a stupid young crea- 
 ture myself, and allowed my father's articled clerK 
 to say a great many ridiculous and foolish things 
 to me. And I don't know," added she (patting 
 Amelia on the head as she came into the room, 
 and looking on her two handsome grown-up daugh- 
 ters with great pride and affection), " that I have
 
 MRS GENTLY ON THE SAME TOPIC. 243 
 
 ever had much reason to repent it. However, I 
 hear my poor Gently ringing at the bell : no 
 doubt he is tired to death with these nasty Chan- 
 cery suits. So we will have up the tea-urn just 
 where we are, and try to make our two gentlemen 
 pass the evening as well as they can in such a pet- 
 ticoat party." 
 
 This little dialogue quite answered my purpose, 
 and I learned all I wanted from it. I was con- 
 firmed in the belief that if I were anxious to enter 
 Mr Gently's family I should have Mrs Gently as 
 my friend and ally in the transaction. I was also 
 convinced that Fanny was an amiable little girl, 
 who personally did not dislike me, and was quite 
 willing to be courted and married in the old estab- 
 lished fashion, but would not go against her parents 
 for the world. Lastly, I saw at a glance that Miss 
 Gently, who conscientiously desired the happiness 
 of her sister, had doubts about my temper and hab- 
 its, and thought that I could never reconcile myself 
 to a middle station of life. As for Maurice Elving- 
 ton, a party to be consulted, I found out that he did
 
 244 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 not exactly know his own mind, and must there- 
 fore not be dishonourable enough to gain the affec- 
 tions of a pretty innocent girl until he had quite 
 made it up.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Just at the period when the Political Giants 
 who constituted the irregular staff of their fa- 
 vourite Growler were urging upon the Ministry 
 the necessity of its relinquishing power, in order to 
 escape from the condign punishment they had in 
 store for it, the Members of the Cabinet appeared 
 to have come to a conclusion somewhat similar 
 themselves. The two Family Parties which made 
 up the administration had never worked cordially 
 together, except in dividing the sweets of office 
 into a couple of large heaps ; and two of the Lead- 
 ing Members, each representing his own group, 
 came one fine morning to an open rupture. Upon 
 this quarrel between a few elderly gentlemen in a
 
 246 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 snug parlour, a total change of opinion in Home 
 Administration, External Kelations, Foreign Alli- 
 ances, Colonial Policy, and Free Trade and 
 Protection, apparently came over the minds of 
 the thirty millions of people making up the 
 population of the United Kingdom. According 
 to our asseveration, u the British Constitution 
 was saved;" in the opinion of our antagonists, 
 " after them came the Deluge : " — the Ministerial 
 Party went out, and the Opposition came in. 
 The leaders of the winning faction immediately set 
 about making themselves respectable, cut all con- 
 nexion with Chartist orators and Factory agita- 
 tors, and, above all, wound up their Conserva- 
 tive Palladium, which had never been a paying 
 concern. As for the poor editor and contributors, 
 we were treated, as usual by an aristocracy, with 
 " the thanks of Austria," and shared the fate of 
 the tools of that high-minded government, from 
 Wallenstein down to the hangman Hanau. We 
 were sent about our business without the slightest 
 ceremony ; and one poor devil, who was abject
 
 DECEASE OF THE BRITISH LION. 247 
 
 enough to beg for a post in the excise, earned 
 nothing but insult for such a piece of presumption. 
 Mr Simply, our editor, remained for some time 
 altogether out of commission ; for although a 
 safe man, his pen by no means sparkled with 
 brilliancy. He was always exceedingly cordial 
 with me, and I had contracted a kind of friend- 
 ship with him. I frequently dined with him at 
 New Camden Town, and in time made the ac- 
 quaintance of Mrs Simply, a clever lady who had 
 been a governess, and his two daughters who were 
 in the same line of life, going into it so early 
 and naturally that they rather liked it. He had 
 also a son, who was reporting for the Daily Press, 
 and keeping his terms in Gray's Inn, a brisk 
 young gentleman, who seemed to have the power 
 of being in two places at once. For some time after 
 the loss of the editorship, he was compelled to 
 accept the assistance of his children ; for his was a 
 united family, and the sons and daughters were 
 ready enough to support a parent who had always 
 done his best for his children. At last he en-
 
 248 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 tered into an engagement with a publisher to pro- 
 duce a series of school works on history, and they 
 have answered so well that he has no longer any 
 necessity to follow up his literary avocations, save 
 as a mere amusement. 
 
 As for my poor friend the Peaceful Revolutionist, 
 he was compelled to " cluck and dive about" again, 
 and at last took a dive which caused me to lose 
 sight of him entirely. He sometimes did some- 
 thing rather superior in. the penny-a-line way; 
 and in one of his country excursions made to the 
 scene of a railway accident, had noticed, near 
 Watford, a tall square red brick mansion, with 
 about one hundred little windows in it, which had 
 evidently seen better days, for the garden was 
 surrounded by a fine buttressed wall, and in front 
 of it were imposing iron double gates before the 
 principal entrance. This house, which was to be 
 let, impressed itself very much upon my friend's 
 imagination, and he would often calculate in how 
 many years he could make his fortune if he kept 
 a large school in it. When the British Lion was
 
 ST swithin's collegiate establishment. 249 
 
 given up, he rushed off and somehow or other 
 wheedled the landlord into granting him a lease 
 of the premises, which he immediately christened 
 St Swithin's Collegiate Establishment. 
 
 Having all the valuable patronage of the said 
 college in his own hands, my energetic friend at 
 once appointed himself Warden and Classical 
 Lecturer — a post he was well fitted to fill in any 
 college. He then created the offices of Sub-war- 
 den, mathematical master, second master, and so 
 on. He wrote a long and as I thought rather 
 vain -glorious letter to me, detailing how he was 
 quite weary of being driven from pillar to post 
 for a subsistence, and what grand things he was 
 certain to accomplish in this college. At the end 
 of the letter, he offered me, in a condescending 
 manner, the office of Sub-warden; but as the college 
 was not yet opened, and I doubted whether it ever 
 would be, I returned a civil refusal of the appoint- 
 ment, advising him in a friendly way not to go on 
 too fast : he did not get his Sub-warden very easily, 
 but at last a twentieth wrangler jumped at the bait.
 
 250 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 When my friend had filled up the other ap- 
 pointments he sent me his circular, in order 
 that I might see what a good thing I had 
 allowed to slip through my fingers; and I was 
 vexed enough to find figuring away, among the 
 Patrons of the college, clergymen, county gentle- 
 men, and others, whom he had pestered into lend- 
 ing him their names — " Maurice Elvington, Es- 
 quire, Cambridge." I wrote angrily to the President 
 then, requesting him not to make use of my name 
 unless I authorized him so to do, but he took no 
 notice of my remonstrance, knowing very well 
 that he had done me a favour when he introduced 
 me to Mr Simply: and I learned a very useful 
 lesson in life, namely, never to accept an obligation 
 from the most friendly of men, if that man happens 
 to be a person not over-burdened with principle. 
 
 The governing body of his college being com- 
 plete, the warden began to look about him for 
 furniture, and literally coaxed several upholsterers 
 into sending it into the place upon credit, hold- 
 ing out some misty assurance that the Patrons of
 
 A CONFIDING TAILOR. 251 
 
 the college would be responsible for everything. 
 As a last and final stroke (and he thought it a 
 clever one), he applied to a robemaker and tailor at 
 Oxford, to whom he owed a long bill which he 
 had never been able to discharge, and represented 
 to the man that if he wished his old account to be 
 settled, it would only be prudent to help his debtor 
 on in the world. The tailor, who would not 
 have trusted such a slippery customer even for a 
 bachelor's hood, unless he had already owed him 
 money, fell into the trap very innocently, and made 
 one hundred and fifty neat black stuff gowns with 
 trencher caps to match, for the future collegian*. 
 Nay, he went so far as to hang them up in his 
 shop and display them to the Oxford Masters of 
 Arts when they lounged in to gossip with him. 
 
 The college was next opened by a procession 
 headed by the Incumbent of the parish, and was 
 ready to extinguish Harrow School in a few 
 months ; but unfortunately no students ever en- 
 tered it. The neighbourhood was about the worst 
 in the world my friend could have pitched upon,
 
 252 MAURICE ELVINGTON, 
 
 and not being in holy orders, lie was considered, and 
 that even by the Dissenters, perfectly unfit to teach 
 their sons to write Greek prose and measure heights 
 and distances. These two obstacles to success he 
 had omitted altogether from his calculation, so that 
 when St Swithin's College closed for the vacation 
 and never opened again, the poor Head of the Es- 
 tablishment exclaimed that the world was in a con- 
 spiracy against him, and having no commons to eat, 
 ceased to keep his 'terms in the building himself. 
 
 An execution for rent soon cleared out the fur- 
 niture and collegiate costume, and the London 
 creditors, who were very angry, began to molest 
 the Patrons of the college. These gentlemen soon 
 convinced the tradesmen that they had recom- 
 mended the college merely, and were not respon- 
 sible for the break - down in its finances ; so 
 the men of business put up with their loss, but 
 took care to make the metropolis too hot for the 
 person who had taken them in. As he was almost 
 starving, the poor Peaceful Revolutionist, who had 
 never intended that any one should really lose
 
 the creditor's revenge. 253 
 
 money by him, rushed off in a fit of desperation to 
 Oxford. I believe he had some notion of calling 
 upon the old Provost of St Swithin's, who had be- 
 friended him once or twice before, in order to see 
 if he could get him appointed tutor to some gentle- 
 man about to travel abroad. At Oxford, however, 
 he fell out of the frying-pan into the fire, as the 
 first person he met in the street was his creditor 
 the tailor, who was in a very fierce temper with 
 him, having not only been swindled out of his 
 caps and gowns, but made a fool of himself among 
 the young Masters of Arts, who laughed at him for 
 being taken in. The incensed tailor pounced upon 
 his debtor, and incarcerated him in Oxford jail, 
 where he remained in a very rueful fit of repen- 
 tance. Hearing of the man's mishap, I wrote 
 him a letter of consolation, enclosing what little 
 money I could spare for his use ; but he was so 
 completely overwhelmed with shame at the dis- 
 graceful figure he cut, within the very doors as it 
 were of his own university, that he never wrote 
 me a line in answer.
 
 254 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 This was the euthanasia of the British Lion, 
 which gave his last kick in the full blaze of suc- 
 cess, and its poor correspondents, among whom I 
 was numbered, were disbanded like a troop of in- 
 fantry at the conclusion of a peace. I certainly- 
 felt rather annoyed at first, but reflection taught 
 me philosophy. I had never relished the compan- 
 ions among whom I was thrown, and my con- 
 science had grown uneasy at the labrications of 
 the " Foreign Correspondent," with which I was 
 glad to have done. I had lived rather carefully 
 for a newspaper subaltern, and Sir William Mau- 
 rice's (or perhaps Mr Gentry's) fifty pounds was 
 as yet untouched ; added to which I had seen so 
 much of the shifting lives of my new friends, that 
 I had learned some of their hopefulness. I had 
 also by this time conquered what one set of ob- 
 servers would call a certain amount of fine feel- 
 ings, and others false pride, and now went round 
 boldly to the few friends I had left relating to 
 them what had occurred to me, and begging them 
 if they heard of any occupation which it was not
 
 I HAVE LEARNED PHILOSOPHY. 255 
 
 unbecoming of a gentleman to adopt, to let me 
 know of it. — Somehow or other I never could enter 
 upon my private affairs with my friend Mr Gently, 
 although I am sure that he would have served 
 me to the utmost of his ability ; and the good 
 man, after a few attempts to coax me to become 
 more confidential, gave the matter up as a bad 
 job, and pressed me no further.
 
 256 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 There are periods in the career of a man when 
 the flow of events is at spring or neap tide with 
 him, neither ebbing nor advancing — times when 
 the ripple for a second sleeps placidly on the strand. 
 Many such pauses occur in one's life, but they are 
 mostly so evanescent that we leave them unheeded ; 
 though these are the seasons when thoughtful and 
 prudent men call their vagrant thoughts home, 
 retrace the past, and form many good resolutions — 
 perhaps futile ones — for their guidance in future. 
 
 Just such a pause as this occurred in my own 
 insignificant career, and on glancing at the past the 
 retrospect was anything but satisfactory. The re-
 
 A RETROSPECTIVE GLANCE. 257 
 
 collection of my college days, and my idle, care- 
 less life in Suffolk Street, reproached me with the 
 time wasted and opportunities lost through indo- 
 lence and frivolity ; while my late avocations and 
 desultory law studies were not such as to in- 
 crease my self-complacency. But what struck me 
 most was the change that had taken place in my- 
 self. New trains of thought passed through my 
 mind : I was not the same man : my habits of life 
 were altered : fresh associations had supplanted 
 those of my prosperous days ; and I felt that I had 
 descended one step in society at least, and that 
 the result had been a sad loss of solicitude either 
 to regain my former position, or avoid sinking to 
 a yet lower level. Poverty had transmuted me : 
 its chill blast and biting frost had well nigh para- 
 lyzed the powers that years of self-indulgence and 
 listlessness had enfeebled. 
 
 But the last six months had not been quite 
 thrown away. I had been forgetting much I ought 
 never to have learned, and conning a lesson in the 
 school of adversity out of a crabbed book which I
 
 258 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 had almost at last mastered. Necessity had been 
 acting as my schoolmaster, and its severe discipline 
 was trying at first, however wholesome. I really 
 felt very grateful for this rough awakening from 
 the stupor of listlessness, and half made up my 
 quarrel with the world, which, I had thought, had 
 used Maurice Elvington very scurvily. 
 
 But here came a question which I did not relish. 
 Why, after all, had I been allowed to reflect 
 whither circumstances were driving me? Reason 
 and judgment are a curse when they only point 
 out to one a lee-shore, but do not give the power 
 to keep off it. If it really was my destiny to 
 walk along the level path of middle life, which I 
 had once looked down upon from the heights above 
 it — if my greatest prize in life was to be the pretty 
 Fanny, and to come to an anchor in a snug haven 
 by marrying the favourite child of Mrs Gently, and 
 subsiding into the Pater-familias of other Fannys 
 and Amelias — why was I forced to recollect that 
 Maurice Elvington had, in bygone days, turned 
 his back on a career in the Commons, and allowed
 
 DELIBERATION. 259 
 
 the jewelled hand of an heiress to slip through his 
 fingers? Was it tempting to enlist as a private 
 for life where I had refused a commission in the 
 regiment, until I had spent my last stiver ? Was 
 it a hopeful prospect, that of listening for the rest 
 of my days to my worthy father-in-law's flow of 
 legal talk, and that before a thorough domestica- 
 tion in the little library had really deluded me into 
 a respect for Lord Thurlow's rather dubious politi- 
 cal honesty, and transformed the disciple of Mill 
 and Bentham into a legal Paul sitting at the feet 
 of that Tory Gamaliel, Lord Eldon? 
 
 Thus I allowed my brain to run on for an, 
 hour or two, and then came to the rational con- 
 clusion that all this retrospection of the past and 
 divination of the future were so nfcich thought 
 and anxiety thrown away. I said to myself, 
 " Men are the playthings of Circumstance, and 
 she makes us and breaks us as she pleases. 
 Other people may hope to rise or fear to fall, 
 but I who have had my slip off the ladder of 
 life, have somehow or other got over the bruises,
 
 260 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 and will not take the trouble or concern of climbing 
 again. Every man enjoys the task of building his 
 own house after his own fancy if it be thrust upon 
 him, but to re-edify your old family residence after 
 a destructive fire is a costly and tedious operation. 
 It is not my own fault that I have been as it were 
 " burnt out of house and home ;" but since the 
 conflagration has been kindled for my especial 
 benefit, I will do as Mr Sheridan did when Drury 
 Lane was in flames, " enjoy myself by my own 
 fireside." 
 
 Since Fortune delights in thwarting our aims 
 and turning our resolutions upside down, I was 
 not very much surprised at discovering that the 
 moment I had formed a determination to take life 
 easily, my (Jestiny seemed inclined to find work 
 for me again. I had scarcely been a week in 
 this easy frame of mind before I was surprised 
 by a visit from my old friend the barrister in the 
 Temple. On the decease of the British Lion, I 
 had informed him that I was a gentleman at large 
 once more, requesting him, if he heard of any occu-
 
 A RISING MAN AT THE BAR, 261 
 
 pation which might suit me, to give me the refusal 
 of it ; and he had promised me that he would serve 
 an old friend to the utmost of his ability. 
 
 After this, however, I had lost sight of him 
 again, for he was not only a very quiet retired man, 
 but was just now getting on at the bar, and had 
 his hands full of work — that is, he sat from morn- 
 ing to night in one of the courts at Westminster 
 with a thin brief before him, endorsed in a certain 
 action, say " Smallpiece versus Testy — with you, 
 Sergeant Bellows," and there diligently read the 
 newspaper, occasionally varying his occupation by 
 drawing pen-and-ink portraits of some witness or* 
 irate cross-examiner on the desk before him. 
 
 After a few days spent thus, some signs of a little 
 occupation in his own profession might dawn upon 
 my friend, and he would be required to attend 
 what is called a " consultation," with the great Mr 
 Bellows, his Leader. This consultation generally 
 took place in the lobby of the court, either for the 
 sake of quiet, or because Mr Bellows wished every- 
 body to understand that he was too overwhelmed
 
 262 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 with business to give an appointment anywhere 
 else ; and the consultation was for the most part a 
 monologue delivered by that gentleman (who had 
 laid aside his old blandness of manner entirely) in 
 a brisk, off-hand style, to the following effect: 
 " Oh ! I recollect— Mr Malland with me— ah— 
 Smallwood and Fustian— Eh ? — Plaintiff's Attor- 
 ney ? — Oh ! plaintiff himself — Action for fitting up 
 a house — Defendant obstinate — What witnesses? 
 — I see — Johnson, plaintiff's foreman — A safe wit- 
 ness ? — Swear anything ; plaintiffs' foremen always 
 do, and get the jury against us — Afraid we shall 
 lose it — Can't say — Get hold of the judge and hang 
 it up on a point of law — Best thing, I can assure 
 you — New trial next term — Pay costs of this — 
 Hard case on — Smallbody ; but what can we do ? 
 — I'll do my best — They're calling on the first 
 cause — I'm in it for the defendant — Good morn- 
 ing — " and so Mr Bellows would disappear under 
 a red curtain, having earned five guineas by the 
 consultation. A few hours afterwards, Smallpiece 
 and Testy would really be called on, and my friend,
 
 A CONSULTATION. 263 
 
 after rising and informing the jury that the plain- 
 tiff was an upholsterer, and the defendant a gen- 
 tleman of fortune, would sit down again and re- 
 linquish the conduct of the cause to that " sound 
 man," Sergeant Bellows. 
 
 However, to resume my narrative, I may state 
 that my friend Malland — he is dead, poor fellow — 
 was the best-natured, zealous person on the face of 
 the earth, and so grateful, that although I had 
 conferred many little favours on him in the days of 
 my prosperity, he did not show me the cold shoul- 
 der when misfortune overtook me. He found 
 time, therefore, although it was Hilary Term, to 
 run round in his wig and gown and inform me — 
 in rather a hesitating manner, certainly — that he 
 had heard of something which might suit my views, 
 and he trusted I would accept it. 
 
 11 It is the old story," said he — " private tuition. 
 I know before-hand how you will answer me : 
 That you have never taken your degree — have no 
 testimonials printed — and so on. Well, I have 
 obviated all these objections, and if you will only
 
 264 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 listen to me patiently, I think that you will find it 
 your duty to yourself to accept the offer." 
 
 "I very much doubt it," replied I; " but am 
 obliged to you for your kindness, and am ready to 
 hear who is the unlucky young fellow you have 
 been hunting up for me." 
 
 " Well," he answered, " the other day in the 
 hall of the Temple, one of our men, knowing that 
 I had been a scholar of our college, asked me to 
 recommend a tutor to him for a young limb of the 
 aristocracy, the Honourable Mr Markham, son of 
 Lord Budesdale. Now you know my temper, and 
 how I like to carry things before me steadily and 
 quietly, so I requested my friend to give me a 
 letter of introduction to the Earl ; waited upon 
 the great nobleman myself; and the result of the 
 interview was that I settled the matter. I was re- 
 solved to obviate all your scruples before I acquaint- 
 ed you with the offer. And now I expect you to fly 
 into a passion and order me out of your rooms. 
 Shall I open the door beforehand?" 
 
 il No," I replied (much vexed, however), " your
 
 A FRIENDLY ACT. 265 
 
 friendly intervention is well meant, although no 
 one admires being treated like a child. But as 
 you have taken upon yourself to make this engage- 
 ment for me without my consent, you cannot feel 
 hurt if I should write to Lord Budesdale and re- 
 sign it. Is young Markham intended for Cam- 
 bridge, and do you expect me to grind him up in 
 the orthodox fashion?" 
 
 " Elvington," interrupted my judicious friend, 
 " I have made no engagement for you whatever, 
 although you may accept one if you please. I 
 have only informed Lord Budesdale," added he, 
 with a quiet smile, u that you will in all prob- 
 ability condescend to call round at Budesdale 
 House, three times a-week, in order to prepare his 
 son for matriculation — at Cambridge certainly — 
 and that on your own terms. I begin to under- 
 stand the proper manner of dealing with these 
 mighty people, and find that a little quiet self- 
 assertion makes a great impression upon them." 
 
 " But I am the last person on earth," I objected, 
 " to prepare a youth for Cambridge." 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 266 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 " A fellow like myself who was seeking scholar- 
 ships and other distinctions," replied my friend, 
 " could not fall into much worse hands, I admit. 
 
 But this youth is to be what we called at T 
 
 College a parlour boarder, and is, moreover, good 
 classic enough already to sleep through his time 
 there. But he is terribly deficient in general 
 knowledge, his father tells me — coming as he does 
 from some great school or other where they have 
 been picking the Earl's pocket ; and I conscien- 
 tiously assured Lord Budesdale that I knew the 
 man who would do his best to cure the defect. 
 Come, think the matter over." 
 
 I still hesitated, but after a time replied, " I 
 cannot accept this appointment until I have seen 
 the Earl myself ; and, to tell you the truth, advised 
 him to send his son to Oxford, instead of Cambridge." 
 " Advise his Lordship as you please, Elvington," 
 said my friend, with another quiet smile, " and try 
 if you can turn him when he has once made up his 
 mind that young Markham is to go to Cambridge, 
 and that you are the person best fitted to prepare
 
 AN APPOINTMENT WITH A GREAT MAN. 267 
 
 him for our college. However, you will keep the ap- 
 pointment I have made for you at Budesdale House. 1 '' 
 
 Well — to cut a long story short — I felt that I 
 had no right to throw cold water on the zeal and 
 friendship of a better man than myself, and, after 
 some little struggle with my own pride, promised 
 to call at Budesdale House the next day, at the 
 hour appointed. 
 
 I had treated poor Malland in what my conscience 
 still tells me was a very thankless manner, and for 
 the rest of the morning felt chagrined at my folly 
 in allowing him to entrap me into a promise of wait- 
 ing on Lord Budesdale. To relieve my uneasiness, J 
 hunted up Mr Simply, who, among his other ac- 
 quirements, knew the peerage by heart, and was just 
 the man to tell me something about this great 
 nobleman. 
 
 I found my old friend at home, and he very 
 readily gave me the information of which I was in 
 search ; but he rather increased my chagrin by in- 
 forming me that I had let myself in for an inter- 
 view with a man of no small political importance.
 
 268 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 Lord Budesdale, he told me, was one of the 
 recognised leaders of the Tory party. He had 
 joined Lord Eldon, at the time the Reform Bill 
 was passed, in leading the forlorn hope in the 
 Peers during two desperate struggles, and was one 
 of the few veteran statesmen who would have 
 nothing to do with the new-fangled name of Con- 
 servative ; legarding the leader of the party which 
 had assumed the appellation with dislike and mis- 
 trust. Simply — who considered every fit of liking 
 and sulking that passed over the features of the spoilt 
 children of our Commonwealth as a matter of ex- 
 treme importance to the health of the realm — called 
 my attention with great earnestness to the fact that 
 Lord Budesdale had positively declined to fill the 
 post of Chamberlain, or some other gew-gaw ofhce 
 in the new cabinet, and argued from his refusal 
 direful results to the United Kingdom. He ad- 
 mitted, however, that the Earl might have other 
 reasons for declining office just then ; for he hinted, 
 but very cautiously, and as it were looking round 
 the room first, that the late Countess bore the rep-
 
 LORD AND LADY BUDESDALE. 269 
 
 utation of being a very extravagant woman, so that 
 her noble husband's revenue, ample as was its 
 margin, did not in the opinion of some people, he 
 said, exactly keep pace with her profuse expendi- 
 ture. 
 
 The veteran editor, in addition to his other liter- 
 ary capabilities, possessed that microscopic eye for 
 fishing out gossip and tittle-tattle which some in- 
 dustrious people mistake for a genius for the study 
 of history, and he appeared to have the whole court 
 newsman's reports of Lady Budesdale's receptions 
 — which were grand affairs in their day — at his 
 fingers' ends. I learned from him that the 
 Countess was one of those great ladies who, whilst 
 they were rigidly correct in their own personal 
 conduct, were certainly not inspired by such lofti- 
 ness of principle as to decline supplying by their 
 presence the court of George the Fourth with just 
 as much respectability and virtue as it could not in 
 this country positively do without. Of course 
 their retaining this rather questionable elevation 
 depended altogether on their falling into the pas-
 
 270 MAURICE ELVINGTON. 
 
 sion of " the first gentleman in Europe," for 
 pasteboard pageantry and frippery of every sort ; 
 and Lady Budesdale was one of the two or three 
 Peeresses to whom the Monarch turned over the 
 whole of the female aristocracy, old and young, com- 
 posing his court. Almack's was then in its zenith. 
 Those were the days of exclusive coteries and all 
 kinds of quarrels and heartburnings between vain 
 and ambitious women ; and Simply told me with 
 great gusto many stories of the petty tyranny of 
 Lady Budesdale, in the days when she was Queen 
 Regnant of the world of Fashion, as the newspa- 
 pers then used to phrase it. 
 
 He also reminded me that, although Lord Budes- 
 dale had thought fit to live in a state of dignified 
 retirement since the death of his countess, her 
 beautiful daughter, the Lady Venetia Markham, 
 still retained a kind of vice-regal power over the 
 young Tory aristocracy, and that her name was 
 often printed with due subserviency and admiration 
 in the columns of our own mighty political organ, 
 the Lion, where we recorded the quadrilles she
 
 LADY VENETIA MAEKHAM AND HER BROTHER. 271 
 
 danced with Royal Personages or Foreign Ambas- 
 sadors, or noted her introduction of the youthful 
 daughter of a Bishop or Baron of the Exchequer 
 at the drawing-room. I rather pleased our Editor 
 then by acknowledging that I recollected the para- 
 graphs, for somehow or other the lady's name had 
 caught my eye and ear, so that I appeared to know 
 more about her than could possibly be the case. 
 
 As for the rest of the family, Simply told me 
 that Lord Brockhall, the son and heir, had been a 
 great deal on the turf at one time, but was at pre- 
 sent out of the way of temptation, having lately' 
 joined his regiment of the Guards, which was then 
 (as an exceptional case, of course) serving in Canada. 
 Of young Markham, my future pupil, he knew 
 nothing, but hinted that no news was good news 
 of these budding scions of the aristocracy, several 
 of whom were just then disporting themselves by 
 appropriating street-door knockers, and performing 
 similar feats of the " Tom and Jerry " sort. 
 
 But the information I gathered concerning the 
 noble family of Budesdale — my connexion with
 
 272 MAURICE ELViNGTON. 
 
 which I felt was calculated to exert an influence 
 either for good or evil over my destiny — did not 
 render me less uneasy, nor tend to allay any mis- 
 givings as to my qualifications for the duties of my 
 post ; especially as I had gained no knowledge of 
 the character of my future pupil. What a differ- 
 ent state of mind was this from that when Maurice 
 Elvington, from the elevation of a high and seem- 
 ingly assured social position, surveyed the world 
 with calm complacency, as a field for the enjoyment 
 of such pleasures and pursuits as wealth enables 
 its possessor to choose, for the gratification of his 
 whim or the aspirations of his ambition ! 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
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