Behind the Scenes. A novel, etc

Front matter

BEHIND THE SCENES. A NOVEL BS LADY BULWEB LYTTON. Author of Cheveley," "School for Husbands," &c. i( Providence is dark in its permissions ; yet one day when all is known, The universe of Reason shall acknowledge how just and good were they." Tapper's Proverbial Philosophy. " All who have treated of divine subjects, whether Greeks or barbarians, industriously involved the beginnings of things, and delivered the truth in enigmas, signs, and symbols ; in allegories, and metaphors, and other such figures." Clement of Alexandria, Strom, i.v., p. 658, Ox. Ed. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: CHARLES J. SKEET, PUBLISHER, 21, KING WILLIAM STREET, CHAK1NG CROSS. 185-4. M. S. MYEKS, PRINTER, 22, TAV1ST0CK STREET, C'OVEMT GARDES. BBELIMINABY ADDRESS. TO ALL WHO SUFFER. |>Hffl£%ADDKESS these remarks to f^Octl-fj^^c^ You, fellow-sufferers* w_k-,8 •ia]/ <-rX^S2-N _ because every thing in these days, is " For '^^H^> the Million !

" But rsi^^y% as all works of apparent supererogation require, if not an apology, at least an explanation, I must say a few words that may serve for the latter ; for, truly, at an epoch when the very gravitation of the world ! seems endangered A PRELIMINARY ADDRESS. by the chaotic masses under which every printing-press groans, anything in the shape of an additional atom, laid on the tot tering heap, may be well calculated to create alarm; besides "How presumptuous!" some wdl exclaim — "Lay Sermons, indeed! as if there were not aheady a superabundance of proper, orthodox, clerical sermons both preached, and published, without the world being inundated with any amateur trash ! " True, most true, my dear sir, or madam ; and so completely did I agree with you, in this view of the case, that most assuredly these humble pages would never have seen the light in a printed form, had it not been for the following circumstances.

Often have I heard it remarked, with regret, by those "who labour and are heavy laden,'' both in coming out of the lowly porch of the village fane, and on leaving the more gorgeous aisles of some mediæval cathedral, that the text had not been more expounded, and less often repeated ; and this remark more particularly struck me coming from the lips of good mistress Amy Yerner, the landlady of a little road-side Highland inn, and at one and the same time, the Sh Oracle, as well as the Lady Bountiful of that ilk, as she and I, were one Sabbath leaving the vdlage church together. It was evident something had displeased her, either in or before the afternoon-service, though most probably the former ; for albeit Archdeacon Banmuh was no favourite of hers, although an excellent customer in a spirituous point of view, and first cousin to The Banmuir, the Laird of Glenfern.

Preface

. XII Yicar of Wakefield ? ' " Simply because each succeeding age has its own peculiar tone and inflection, of which writers are but the echoes, and therefore they cannot choose but echo them correctly. Life in Goldsmith's day, was much less hurried, and, above all, much less filled up, not to say closely packed, than it is now ; and even the Primrose family, had they been created in these days, and located in Cornwall itseh, or even at Lancast ! — where local tradi tions aver that the devil caught cold and died ! (which, if true, would have considerably abridged his memoirs) — still, Deborah her self, would have been different, for sho would have taken in "Eli_a Cook's Journal," and so deserted pickles for poetry. As for the Yicar, dear, good, Christian soul that he was, he would have been such a fish out of water, that I doubt if he could have existed at all in these high-pressure times.

The girls, in deed, from being (as all girls are) more adaptive, might have got on very well ; only instead of "flourishing upon catgut," they would have flourished upon paper. George,

PREFACE.

. XIII though he might have deserted Miss Wil mot, would at least have had the prudence not to lose sight of her strong box. Burchell, instead of frittering away his energies in whistles and gingerbread for the children, would have devoted himself to the world at large, either by concocting or subverting dynasties. The town ladies — but more es peciaUy Miss Carolina WUhelmina Amelia Skeggs — instead of talking " taste, Shak speare, and the musical glasses," would have written upon table-turning, sonnambulism, and the mesmeric asses ! The seven Miss Flamboroughs would at least haye been drawn with seven pine-apples, instead of seven oranges, in theh hands. Dick, instead of getting a lump of sugar for speaking first, would have repudiated sugar altogether, from the innate conviction that its saccharine properties are injurious to the gastric juices.

Moses, instead of buying grosses of green spectacles at English fairs, would have given his great commercial talents a wider scope, by going on a foreign tour with those distinguished traveUers, " Brown, Jones, and

PREFACE.

. XIV Bobinson." And, though last not least, Squire Thornhill, instead of playing the French horn at his uncle's side table, would have played first fiddle— by making his profligacy cosmopolitan, and writing moral essays for " The Edinburgh," and utdita rian articles for " The Westminster," relieved by occasional educational and philan thropic harangues at Mechanics' Institutes, till Provincial Mammas and Misses, (bless their innocent hearts, and ignorant heads ! ) would have deemed him a model Moralist ! " But population having greatly increased — as the aforesaid Westminster scholar and Miss Martineau can inform you, — and the said po pulation all going at railway speed, is one cause which has swelled the bulk of novels (for Bichardson, is the exception that proves the rule, he being the only old romancer that ever laboured under that fearful malady, literary elephantiasis !) ; for, with the multi tudinous Dramatis Bersonæ which a trans cript of modern life entails, it is impossible to be graphic within a very restricted com pass. The most masterly fictions in the Ian-

PREFACE.

. XV guage are Daniel De Foe's ; and why is this ? Not, certainly, even from their un rivalled English aud incomparable style, but from their being so graphic as to make it almost impossible to believe that they are not only realities, but realities scrupulously and minutely noted ; for, as the great Lord Chatham, before he discovered De Foe's " Memohs of a Cavalier, during the Civil Wars in England," to be a fiction, used to cite it as the best account of the Civil Wars extant ; so the world at large believed "Robinson Crusoe" to be a veritable his tory. Having evoked this great name, I cannot express my own feelings better (more especiaUy in regard to the fate of this work) than in this " second Daniel's " own terse and energetic words— "I am a Stoic," says he, and say I, "In whatever may be the event of things, I'll do and say what I think is a debt to justice and truth, without the least regard to clamour and reproach ; and as I am utterly unconcerned at human opinion, the people who throw away theh breath so freely in censuring me, may con-

PREFACE.

. XVI sider of some better use to make of theh passions, than to waste them on a person that is both above and below the reach of them. I know too much of the world to ex pect good in it ; and I have learned to value it too httle to be concerned at the evil. I have gone through a life of wonders, and am the subject of a vast variety of providences ; I have been fed more by miracle than Elijah, when the ravens were his purveyors ; and in the school of affliction I have learnt more philosophy than at the academy, and more divinity than from the pulpit." With reference to the Dramatis Personæ of these Lay Sermons, I refer all readers to " GU Bias' " author's dedication, which is mine— only Le Sage got hold of it first !— and au sage un demi mot I Alciphron. London, 1854. PARABLE THE FIBST.

Section I

€jje Sem antt tjre Gentile. " Who can understand his errors?" — Psalm xix. 12. " The more honest a man is, the less he affects the air of a saint. The affectation of sanctity is a blot on the face of piety. ' ' — L avater. THEBE is nothing higher, broader, and, at the same time, more pro found, than Christianity, so is there nothing lower, shallower, and narrower than sectarianism : while the former, ema nating from God, approaches us to Him ; VOL. I. B the latter drags us ever earthward, into that fearful abyss of stubborn pride, relentless cruelty, remorseless ambition, Janus-faced treachery, gloating avarice, complex intrigue, and petrifying selfishness ; under which pestilential influences the world has become hoary with vice, and wrinkled with sin. But let me not be misunderstood ; by sectarianism I do not mean solely that which appertains to the doctrinal opinions either of the Bharisaical High Church, or the Buritanical Low Churchman, nor of the thousand ites, flights, isms, and schisms, branching therefrom ; for of this conscience, coinage of men's hearts, as God giveth the stamp, so He alone can warrant the issue.

No ; I speak of a secular sectarianism, to which every soul amongst us is more or less addicted ; a setting up, and worshipping of false, yea, verily ! most false gods ! which has made social idolatry universal. Who can deny that they are, to a certain extent, the slave of some particular passion, each of which passions, when allowed to have domi nion over us, becomes an idol ? With one it is pride, with another sloth, or anger, avarice, ambition, lust, covetousness, intemperance, lying, envy, hatred, or revenge ; but to each and all of these, there are but two great High Briests, Mammon, and his elder brother Selfishness. It is true that these idols are never worshipped under those ugly names. No ; they have all to be gracefully draped and brightly gilt before they are bowed down to ; therefore is it that the miser, abounding in gold, but lacking all things else, calls his pet vice prudence !

The coward boasts of his peaceful disposition ! — the sloth ful man of his content ! — the spendthrift of his generosity !— the wine-bibber of his sociality and good fellowship ! — and he whose "vault ing ambition o'erleaps itself" of his indomitable courage and perseverance ! Thus all these ugly vices go masquerading through the world in the costume of the virtues, and as long as they take care not to drop their masks, few are so ill-bred as to question their identity ; for the fear of reprisals is the safety valve of our social system ; and not throwing stones when we ourselves hve in glasshouses, is the Brummagem article we display for Christian charity ! And so it will ever be, as long as each of us have a sect or dominant passion of our own, accompanied, as it invariably is, by the most bigoted intolerance against our neighbour's sect, or ruling pas sion.

It is truly and tersely remarked, in a charming little book, called " Friends in Council,'' abounding, as a writer in the Leader aptly expresses it, in many " an essay in an epigram," — that " it takes away much of the savour of life, to live amongst those with whom one has not anything like one's fair value. It may not be mortified vanity, but unsatisfied sympathy, which causes this discomfort." True, most true ; for although the world, more especially in the present day, abounds with philanthropy and benevolence, it is a melancholy fact, that every day sympathy ■ seems on the decrease. A phrenologist would account for this on the principle of the duality of the brain, and would tell us that there are many persons who have abundant benevolence, who yet have not an atom of sympathy ; true, again, and yet how often are they confounded, aud for that reason many may ask in what consists theh difference ?

It consists in a very wide one, that of saying and doing. Benevolence is passive, sympathy active ; benevolence pities, but sympathy helps; benevolence pro fesses to feel for those who suffer "in mind, body, or estate ;" but sympathy feels with them ; and, such being the case, puts its shoulder to the wheel of its neighbour's foundered load, and struggles bravely to extricate it. Sympathy, in short, is prac tical Christianity ; and benevolence, theoretical piety. Sympathy is the wayfaring Samaritan, who, though a stranger, and un known, does not pass over on the other side; but pours od and wine into our wounds, and ministers to our necessities. Benevolence is the self-righteous Bharisee, ever boasting of the good it has done, and the evd it has left undone. And as aU qualities des cend from one generation to another — in tribes or races, — it is for this reason that re latives or friends may be benevolent, and compassionate our misfortune 3, as far as words go ; or even abound in works of supereroga tion—such as offering our indolence a seventh carriage, if we already possess six ; but should we bo penniless, and chance to break our leg, and tbe sixpence has to be sought that would purchase a crutch to support us, then, verily, is it from the Samaritan stranger that we must seek it.

But perhaps there may be, in this still crude stage of the world's progression, a higher and deeper cause for the want of sympathy that is to be found among human beings for each other; for it may be part of the miracle and the mystery that is veiled in the Holy of Holies of every heart, hovering on spirits' wings between the Creator that afflicts, and the creature that is afflicted,— to prove to them that there is no real sympathy to be hoped for, or found, save from the ONE source from whence all flows, and to which all is known ; it may be at once to reprove, and to re assure the vacillating faith of our tempest tossed souls ; as erst the Saviour did on the sea of Tiberias, that of the trembling dis ciples. A guarantee, in short, now, as then, that He is there, and will save us in, if not always from the storm.

How many daily and hourly proofs have we of this in our internal world, the chronology of which is more rapid, the events more stirring, the dramas more thrilling, the mysteries more sublime, the revolutions more frequent, and the pro gression more important, than any of its faint foreshadowings, which men are wont to misnomer facts, in the external and material world, which is but the husk of the spiritual creation; for it is of the soul's records that Heaven's archives are composed. It is truly remarked by the Beverend E. D. Bendell, in his admirable work upon Ante dduvian History, — " How many things there are belonging to our nature, which actually exist a long time before we become properly aware of them ! The internal man exists, and we may have this fact declared to us by infallible authority ; still we have no right perception of its truth untU we begin a course of interior thinking.

By this, man attains the evidence of its existence, and then believes." And it is a question whether this course of interior thinking ever would begin in many of us, but for affliction, which is the whetstone of all the soul's blunted intel ligences ; for by interior thinking is meant self-examination, with a vie\v to acquiring self-knowledge, and must not be confounded with those mere intellectual exhalations, of which even the lowest moral natures are capable, and which have often no more to do with the construction of our higher and spiritual intelligence, than have the vapours that rise from the ocean to do with the great world of waters, beyond a throwing off of its worser and more evanescent particles. But of the truth of the above remark, of there being many things belonging to our nature which actually exist a long time before we be come properly aivare of them, we have physical, as well as moral demonstration ; for have we not (though perfectly useless to us there) the germ of all our faculties, passions, and feelings in our mother's womb ? — and may it not be that the very highest intellectual pre eminence that the efforts or ambition of man can attain to in this life, may be, compared with the perfection he is destined to arrive at in a future and eternal state, quite as em bryo and undeveloped as were the elementary and component attributes of his nature prior to his terrestrial birth ?

And oh ! may it not also be the comparatively narrow con fines of its present sphere, that occasions aU the throes, struggles, and chasings of the future great and emancipated spirit ; and causes it to consider the said throes, struggles, and chasings, as so many trials, afflictions, and even unjust persecutions, for want of a broader light to view them by, which would show that each and every struggle was but the germination of the unborn angel? But we must leave the Angel, and return to the Man. The Archdeacon — whose afternoon dis course, on the score of pleasing Mistress Amy Yernor, had faUen so wide of the mark — though Scotch, was not a minister of the Scottish Kirk ; but a much greater personage, for he was a canon of St. Baul's, and se cond cousin — not only to the late Laird of Glenfern, but to the living Lord McToady, a Scottish Beer, who had We? and boo'd him self into that mysterious quantum of social and political influence, which, for the last century and a half, has been a riddle that the Anglo- Saxon is not Œdipus enough to solve ; and yet it is pretty much the same as the Theban one of old — save that the craAvling, or going upon all fours, is treated with a difference, and protracted far beyond the commencement of the career.

Nevertheless — to his credit be it spoken, — however steep, slippery, or miry the ascent which had to be climbed might be, his Lordship never lost the Celtic virtue of clanship, or pushing the fortunes of his relatives, even to the remotest degree of consan guinity ; and hence the two fat livings held by the Beverend Samuel Banmuir. Indeed his poor over-worked curate, — once dining at the house of an old college-chum, in one of those social Saturnalias that after-dinner con fidences are wont to produce — had been heard to observe, in strict secrecy to his host, as he held a glass of rare old port to the light, to watch the beeswing which, like pleasant ru mours, floated about it, that, " Had the canon but risen half as early in the morning, as he had done in the Church, the larks them selves never could have been up to him !"

Nevertheless, he was not proud — oh, dear, no, not by any means, — for he had presented the little kirk, at Glenfern, with a painted win dow, which donation had been duly chronicled in all the London, and echoed in all the pro vincial papers. That he had picked up this piece of antiquity, for a song, in an autumnal tour through the Netherlands, remained a secret to him and the Dutch broker from whom he had bought it ; for what the Scrip ture enjoins with regard to our gifts — namely, not to let our left hand know -what our right does, the Beverend Samuel Banmuh ex tended even to his bargains; so that, although the objects of art and vertu in his house, were always the most rare and valuable possible — no one ever knew what they had cost — and no wonder ; for, as we before said, the Be verend gentleman was not proud ; so that not only had he presented to the viUage kirk this painted window, which set forth in aU the mediæval splendours of blue, red, green, and yellow, — the miracle of the loaves and fishes ; but he did far more : for once a year, at least — generally about the time that the court moved northward, — he came and dazzled the simple congregation, with all the canonical splendours of a dignitary of theChurch; and though albeit, the fane was small, his voice was as sonorous and commanding as if he had been rounding periods to rise in inflated undula tions, till they filled the dome of his own magnificent cathedral.

Nor was this edify ing humility confined to the Church alone ; for his social amenity extended beyond its pale, and the illustrious prebend, who in Londou sipped tokay with princes, did not in his native Highlands disdain to quaff hum ble toddy with peasants. His visit to Glen fern this year, had been made earlier thar usual, about the beginning of August, instead of the end of September, for it had been occasioned by a domestic tragedy, which had occurred in the Panmuir family — alas ! what family is without one, if not more ? Though some are unedited, and some not even sus pected ! The old laird, Muir of Panmuir, as he had been called during his father's life time, to distinguish him from the Laird of Glenfern, had died of an apoplectic fit, some fourteen months before ; leaving an only daughter, who was finishing her education at Paris, and an only son, a gentleman-com moner, at Trinity CoUege, Cambridge, and who, at the period of his fathers death, wanted eighteen months of being of age ; al though among the fastest of the very fast cantabs with whom he associated.

Mrs. Panmuir had been dead many years, so that at the laird's death, Edith Panmuir, and her brother Donald, or The Panmuir, as he then became, were orphans. Great had been the preparations at Glenfern, for the coming of age of the young laird. Old Mrs. Dunbar, theh maternal grandmother, had been to Paris, — a long journey for her, even in these days of facile locomotion — and brought back her beautiful granddaughter, Edith, then just entering her eighteenth year, that nothing might be wanting to grace the festivities that were to celebrate young Donald's majority. But alas ! as Archy Argil, the old sexton at Glenfern, used crabbedly to twist the truism of " Man proposes, but God disposes " — " Man appoints, but God disappoints ;" and, just one little month previous to this long looked for happy event, Donald Panmuir was drowned, in a rowing match, at Cambridge.

Nothing, as may be supposed, could equal the consternation of the rest of the boat club, at this sad and most unlooked for event ; for even amongst the most heartless associations, any link suddenly severed from the general chain, gives, to say the least of it, a feeling of fear and insecurity, which comes home to each individual as a personal calamity ; but, in the present instance, the sorrow was less selfish, and more universal ; for the young man, from his openness of heart and purse, had been a great favourite with all his com panions — among whom it was proposed, that one or more should instantly set off for Glenfern, to break the heart-rending tidings to poor Edith and Mrs. Dunbar, and accom pany his remains to Scotland. But no one hking so sad a mission, they resolved to cast lots as to the two that should go, for none would consent to being singly the bearer of such fatal news.

This point settled, the chances fell to the Honourable Cecil Trevylion and Mr. Bonsonby Ferrars. The latter was the clever man of the term, and had, no doubt, head enough to acquit himself creditably, of what, in a worldly point of view, might have been considered a far more important embassy. To say he was the clever man of the term, was to say much ; for colleges and public schools have, at particular epochs, theh confluent epidemics of embryo celebrities, and Cambridge that year shrouded many a future star of the literary and political hemisphere. Though a fortnight had elapsed, since Mr. Bonsonby Ferrars and his friend had brought the sad tidings, of which they were the bearers, to the now truly be reaved orphan ; yet, at Glenfern, they stiU lingered ; theh pretext was, that they waited for the sale, which was now to take place in about another week ; for the young laird having, at the time of his decease, been a minor, he had of course died intestate ; and consequently, an immediate sale of all his effects, without reserve, had been ordered by the executors, as the landed property went to a very distant branch of the family.

The catalogue included a fine collection of curiously embossed Mediæval plate and bijouterie, former gifts of the Stuarts, among which were many sardonyx and jewelled cups, and ecuelles, the dainty workmanship of Benvenuto Cellini and his pupil, Aschanio, and brought by the ill-fated Mary Stuart from her apartments in the Louvre, during her brilliant but brief residence at the court of Catherine de Medici. But what chiefly attracted the brokers in this sale, was a very splendidly carved table, some high-backed chairs, and tabourets of old mahogany as black as ebony, said, like the dining tables at West minster School, to have been made out of some of the vessels which had composed the Spanish Armada ; and the carving of which was as fine, highly wrought, and elaborate, as any of Grinling Gibbon's marvels.

These chairs, tables, and stools, which had cost as a bargain £300 — the young laird had fallen in with at Antwerp, and had intended, upon attaining his majority, to present as altar pieces to the church at Glenfern. Considering, therefore, not only the intrinsic, but the con ventional interest, attached to this sale, it was, perhaps, very natural that the two can tabs should remain for it; yet, theh doing so was to me a great source of disquietude ; nay, more, ever since their advent, it was as if — " A great, and mighty shadow had fallen on my heart;" and no wonder — for " coming events'' do, indeed, " cast theh shadows before !" but, I must not anticipate. The ailing Israelite, that Mrs. Yerner had alluded to, was a broker of the name of Jacob Jacobs, who, from the overturning of a coach, on his way to Berth, had met with divers contusions, which had disabled him from proceeding on his journey, and caused him to be brought to the nearest place of refuge, which happened to be " The Banmuir Arms ;" and even that, was three miles across the fields; here, for the last ten days he had been laid up ; the accident vol. i. c having occurred on the very evening, when some business connected with poor Donald Panmuir's death, had called me to Edin burgh; and here, on my return, the previous Saturday night, (prior to my con versation with Mrs. Amy Yerner, in the churchyard,) I still found him, and also the two cantabs, whom, from ,not seeing at Church, I had hoped were gone ; but it appeared, they had only gone out for a drive in Mr. Trevylian's tilbury, for on following Mrs. Yerner into the inn, I over heard the following colloquy, between Tim, Mr. Ponsonby Ferrars' stud-groom, and Bailton, the Canon's portly servant, as they puffed a duet together, with a pipe and cigar.

The former, having relieved his feelings and expressed his sentiments by flinging his half-smoked weed through the open-window, at the head of a highly respectable drake, who was just waddling down to an opposite pond to organize a little aquatic excursion with his wife and family. The groom, exclaiming, as he hurled the firebrand amongst them, — " This here Bickwick ain't worth a fardin." He next proceeded to hght another, from the bowl of his companion's pipe; having achieved this new conflagration, he added, between every cloud of smoke— " Your master be a near relation, hain't he, of the young lad}7, up at the moated house, yander? — Miss Banmuir, I mean?" " Oh, dear, no ! — second, or third cousin, or somethink of that sort." " Oh, endeed ! Well, I'd a notion, as all Scotch relations was near."

"Why so?" asked the other, actually removing his pipe from his mouth. " Cause, all Scotch people is so unkimmen stingy, that I thought they must be near relations ; if so be as they was any. Ha, ha, ha ! no offence, Mr. Bailton, sir ; I looks towards you." And with a loud laugh, at his own wit, he raised a can of ale, that stood between them, and drank a large draught. " Is your gent agoing to make any stay in these parts?" asked Bailton, as he emptied the ashes out of his pipe, and proceeded to refill it. " Ah! now, that's just like hasking what colour the wind is. It's not easy to know what my master have done, or who he have done ! Ha, ha, ha ! let alone what he means to do. So, yer see, hke master, like man; and as he never says, I can't say, heither ; but don't let us talk of our masters, it's so perdigus personal; and personalities, should always be awoided in good surciety ; as I heerd Lord Snobsby's walley say one night at our goose club.