The Fountain of Arethusa

Preface

. Some imaginary narratives must be written in the names of those fictitious adventurers whose fortunes they relate. When the author adds his own name, he subscribes it to an absurdity. I would leave my man of straw responsible for his autobiography, if this eva sion might be as well reconciled with honesty as with prudence. But it is not just that the buffets of criticism should be transferred from him and me to any third person ; or that a profitable error should be perpetuated. Two years ago, I published — thus far anonymously — a fictitious history collected from Plutarch's Lives, and called " The Fawn of Sertorius." It was instantly supposed to have been written by my brother : and several, even among his most discerning ac quaintances, might hardly be convinced that the first page of it which he ever saw, was already in print.

This misapprehension seems PEEFACE. the more inexplicable as there could be no con fusion of names, and as the single passage allusive to him must have disproved his inter ference, at least, if not his knowledge. He endured so humiliating a misconception with the good-humoured complacency which he always feels where my projects are con cerned. It must not, however, be forgotten that what I received as the most flattering of compliments, he must have suffered as an imputation — that the reader's interest is also implicated — and that silence, a second time, would operate disingenuously in one case, fraudulently in the other. There are few movements or qualities of the mind more carelessly considered than those in which what we call style originates — yet are there few so curious, so patent to our investigation, or so largely supplied with materials for analysis.

We hear much of resemblances from imitation ; and there can be no doubt but that a man's language, as well as his morals and his temper, may be corrected by good examples, or vitiated by bad. But, nevertheless, in all these three, the natural tendency will survive. Every style, which is

PREFACE.

. V not forcibly distorted, must be constitutional — for style is the form of expression assumed habitually by our thoughts, till it becomes characteristic. In the 5th volume of his Doctor, and the 165th chapter, Southey says that "perhaps there is no other instance of so strongly marked an intellectual family likeness" — as between my brother's mind and my own. The Laureat must have meant only such a resemblance as often exists between great things and little. He would have been as incapable of mistaking the one for the other, as a child for his father. Southey did not ascribe this resemblance to imitation. Yet neither he nor my brother could have been aware that, in prose compo sition, I was the earliest of the two — that pre ferring a fictitious denomination, or none at all, I wrote thirty years ago, as I write now.

In saying this, I ruin my best apology for having written, at last, no better — but then I free myself from the suspicion of an attempt to pass, with such short and coarse skirts, as if covered by a royal mantle. THE FOUNTAIN OF ARETHUSA.

Book I

Idem ego, cum subii convexa foramina terræ, Supposuique ferox imis mea terga cavemis, Solicito Manes. VOL. I. B THE FOUNTAIN OF ARETHUSA.

BOOK I. CHAPTER

I. That ancient method, exploded at present for no wiser reason than because it is old and methodical, by which the Author introduces his book as modestly as he knows how, was ever dear to me. It satisfies the inquisitive, propitiates the disdainful, prevents mis conceptions in the heedless, and establishes such social and amicable communication between the par ties chiefly concerned, as may consist with self respect. An Author formerly was humble in his opinions and deferential in his deportment : thus approached, the Reader's honour, as well as his humanity, required that he should be gentle, con siderate, benevolent, and forbearing. They began their intercourse with a good-humoured presage that both might be pleased in its prosecution. "VVe now look suspiciously, if not hostilely, at one another — coldly and carelessly, if not captiously and contemptuously.

Too early for any worse provocation, we are at least willing to quarrel. The Author cavils, swaggers, bullies, gasconades ; the Header looks at him superciliously, as if he would demand some ex planation of all this arrogance and insolence ; and yet, perhaps, he refuses to hear it when he may. In such a tone as may invite to reciprocal courtesy, if there be good breeding with its ordinary charac- B teristics on the other side, I will relate some few par ticulars of my family. And as part of that wisdom which derives its honours from a humble mind, I would at once acknowledge my Reader's superiority ; thus anticipating disadvantageous comparisons, and de precating offence. Unlike himself, imlike all his friends, relatives, or associates, I am, by birth, no more than a gentleman. Let this early and painful admission fortify my title to credit when other facts shall be related by me ; for surely there are not many which can appear so rare !

The unfortunate peculiarity which distinguishes me from almost every other gentleman in England, agricultural or commercial, is this very humiliating uniformity. There was not one of my ancestors much more illustrious than myself. Some amends are made to me by the far prouder genealogy of a hundred acquaintances, proved through their armorial bearings and their own report. My Family was good, was old, was greater once, was much respected, was opulent if not powerful, — yet I stand solitary for want of pretensions as much higher than these, as these are higher than the truth. An introductory account of my father's death, — of my mother's marriage, — of my own pupilage under Doctor Ralph, — of my uncle Richard's two sons, and why they were removed from Smyrna to Corfu, — of my uncle Richard's own oversight and improvidence, — of my commercial acquisitions, expectations, and disappointments, — will occupy no more than a few pages in this first book.

I shall find room also for the history of my return to England, of my reception in Buckinghamshire and Derbyshire, with my esta- THE LUGWARDINES. blishment at Hayfield near Castleton as a country gentleman on my own estate. After having cleared away preliminary obstructions to the knowledge which will be more deliberately revealed as we advance, I shall conduct my courteous, and as I hope unincredulous, Reader farther than any other living man has ever been.

Chapter II

I was born on the 14th day of February, 1781, at Prince's Risborough, Bucks. My father, who is still affectionately remembered there, had been ordained to the curacy of Wendover in the same count)-. Youngest among three brothers, he was a patient and conscientious teacher in the twofold capacity of schoolmaster and parish priest. His life was not spared till he could graduate as Doctor in Divinity, or his pupils must have been much more numerous than they were, and the remuneration received from each of them twice as great. His eldest brother Antony, my godfather, resided on a small family estate between Hayfield and Castle ton in Derbyshire. Not without some gratification as an antiquary, I say a family estate, because the Luawardines have retained it during almost four centuries, and I retain it still.

We came originally from Lugwardine in Herefordshire; for I find that the two earliest of my Derbyshire ancestors are so B described in our title-deeds, their names being Philippus de Lugwardine and Robertus de Lugwar dine. In 1386 there was an Antonius de Lugwardine, who lost his life while fighting for our just right to the toll of Twyford Ferry between Breedon church and Tewksbury bridge, against the high bailiffs deputy, or, as some think, against the high bailiff himself. Having thus presented Antony, the eldest of these uncles, it remains to say that Richard, my father's only other brother, had been established during more than five and twenty years in the Levant, as a merchant or a factor there. After the cession of Corfu to England he removed both his sons thither from Smyrna ; but not, as Mr. Sylvester supposes, either his main establishment or himself.

Chapter III

My first great misfortune, the death of an indulgent father, occurred when I was barely fifteen. The year following deprived me of my mother also, thouo-h in a different way. She was then married to Giles Cadwallader Millar, Esq., of Amersham, whose five sons and eight daughters, by two former wives, required no family augmentation through me. As the latter half of my poor Father's education had been accomplished in Germany, he habituated his pupils to speak the Latin language. But sensible that, from this custom, there is as much dano-er of MR. AND MRS. MILLAR. barbarism as advantage through facility, he exercised us also in frequent and careful composition. His own knowledge of Greek was, perhaps, rather exact than extensive. I had become master of no more than the New Testament to the Epistles, of Xenophon's Mem., of Plato's Dialogues, Lucian, Herodotus, the Iliad, and about half the Odyssey, when my instructor was called away from me.

His illness had been sufficiently protracted to give him leisure for such arrangements on my behalf, as implied some forethought of those which his widow might possibly contemplate on her own. He had recommended me to the protection of his old Leipsic fellowstudent Doctor Ralph Drumcragenhaus ; and a friendship far less sacred than theirs would have secured, from one so affectionate and benevolent, the guardianship which he proposed. Doctor Ralph's tears, on my arrival in Germany, were scarcely less parental, and his kisses were certainly not less profuse, than those of my dear mother on our separation at Amersham. But then his thoughts were occupied about an old friend; hers, much more seasonably, about a new husband ; and, unlike her, he had nobody else to kiss. B

Chapter IV

I have never known a better man than Professor Ralph. Even Germany has produced few scholars more profound or so unambitious. His studies were chiefly directed to Greek and Latin literature ; adding, perhaps, not much more than such general knowledge of Oriental theology as might be demanded, by his profession, from a Protestant Divine. Classical and philological erudition was to him the amusement of life, if not its business. He eschewed all modern languages as either loose, flaccid, effeminate, and impure ; or else rough, uncouth, barbarous, and in expressive. Though heartily patriotic, never did he converse in his own, but by necessity and with dislike. Of Aristotle and Cicero he remembered many more particulars, historical, traditional, and conjectural, than of his younger brother Roger the Scrivener, or Andrew the Apothecary, though living affectionately with them in the same house.

That house contained apartments which he never entered, and to which he could not have found his way ; but he had con structed, with extreme minuteness, a large cork model of the Villa so elaborately, and, to most other readers beside himself or Doctor Becker, so unintelligibly described by the younger Pliny. Is it asked whether nothing else beside Greek and Latin was learnt by me from my illustrious friend? Greek and Latin, with their moral, philosophical, political, poetical, and historical revelations, are trea sures not quite so inconsiderable as they may appear. In their pages is deposited the wisdom of the two ON EDUCATION. wisest and greatest nations among mankind, still maintaining an intellectual sovereignty beyond so wide an abyss as seventeen centuries, and over so many ruins as lie between.

Yet through my own fault alone was it, if I did not acquire other instruction more profitable than even this from my venerable guardian. His piety was neither lessened nor cor rupted by his learning. Unlike most of his con temporaries, he valued knowledge because it exercised him in humility ; for by what other standard can we ascertain our deficiencies ? The dread of religious controversy, which when not unjust is almost always uncharitable, slackened his diligence in theological criticism. I have never known a better man : I have never known one so benevolent. Parents, whose children are the most sensitive and have the greatest docility, take heed to this ! Ye seek teachers for . them at home, or masters at the public schools — men of com petent erudition, of urbane habits, of unsullied morals, of cultivated tastes — and ye do well.

Yet some such qualifications, at least, may be found by us every day in conjunction with unchristianlike propensities and contentious tempers. These last are not less teach able than Latin and Greek. It is easier to cross the ass's bridge of dogmatism than of science. A man's feelings and affections are as momentous to his happiness as a first class. Our children's faces are like mirrors, with this difference, that the evil tempers which they reflect from other faces may remain, all life long, both there and upon the heart. The eyes of my little ones should look habitually at no man's countenance which was not gracious. Their b ears should be familiar with no recriminations, no splenetic retorts, no petulant and vexatious wrestlings for a dishonourable victory in debate. They should stand aloof from the feelings of malice, as well as from its acts and arts.

I would provide for their tuition, as far as it might be possible, the social exterior of their grandfather's friend ; in addition to his hopeful piety, his easy yet uncorrupt manners, and his un obtrusive learning. From their mother's voice and eyes they would acquire a love for music and a per ception of beauty. Their father's countenance should shine as a dial-plate on which to reckon their hourly progress in humanity and benevolence, but by some other indication than its shade. Alas, that I must so soon abandon these fanciful speculations ! Poor visionary babes, they never had a mother ! Their father's countenance is exceedingly lion-like and au stere ! The last surviving of the Lugwardines remains an unmarried man !

Chapter V

Men seldom appear so humane, or in a position so advantageous to their humanity, as when they part. How few friends are there who endure a protracted separation without some abatement of warmth — or meet, by appointment, without some precautionary anxieties — or continue together long without some accidental discontents ; but none, in any decree THE PARTING OF FRIENDS. 11 entitled to that character, ever part without much regret ! Even the cheerful and social are not always exempt from those momentary perturbations with which selfishness chills the pulse, or controversy overheats it. The needle will oscillate a little from the just point of its affections ; and though its polarity is never lost, it is seldom steady. Yet even the petulant, the irritable, and the more generous of the resentful, lose all unkindness as they pass away from each other, — sighing at a consummation which, perhaps, they may have mutually desired.

The last shake of the hand is sufficient to dissipate a hundred grievances. There are then no reproaches which we can recall beside those against ourselves. My dismissal from the hospitable Professor suggested these remarks, because among so many in timacies and associations contracted by me before the middle of life, they leave him as the single exception. In Doctor Ralph's case alone are they quite in applicable. We parted with many tears, but with no repentant and ungrateful remembrances. He would have fulfilled a duty imposed by friendship if it had not been consecrated by death. The guardianship of seven happy, because industrious, years was repaid on my part by love, gratitude, and a faithful devotion to the same pursuits. The loss of two sons by the small-pox had left my uncle Richard, amidst his mercantile distractions in the Levant, unassisted if not solitary.

Perhaps it was the first time, since his youngest brother's decease, that our relationship had occurred to him. But at present there is such a congruity in our respective losses and misfortunes as was formerly b discovered by Mr. Millar of Amersham and my dear mother. Two negatives make an affirmative. Two melancholy derelicts are the best materials for a happy couple. My uncle had no heirs, and I had no money : the sons deceased having made such a vacuum between us as nature abhors. So now for the orphan's sake, after his seven years' consignment to Doctor Ralph, for my father's sake, and not because such ignorant services as mine could benefit himself, did he propose that I should supply their place. To my mother and Mr. Millar this offer sounded like the conditional promise of adoption ; and as my uncle Richard was supposed by us to be rich beyond any arithmetical calculation, the whole family might partake, not directly, but through me.

Their congratulatory letters, therefore, were affec tionate in the extreme. And indeed it was a benignant thought at the right time. All my uncle Richard's negotiations were conducted in this manner. I cannot remember a single purchase which he ever made because the article was wanted by him. Jews, Turks, Greeks, and Armenians were under infinite obligations to their English customer for solicitude so much more active on their account than on his own. Nor were they at all wanting in readiness to return his benefits by similar consideration as often as they were able ; even looking out for the opportunity. There is a present as well as a promised blessingto the be nevolent. The most dependent of nephews became, by degrees, the most assiduous and economical of clerks. Zeal grows anxious through tenderness : the alertness of industry is quickened by hope, and MT UNCLE'S LOSS AND RESIGNATION. 13 invigorated by such contingencies as a large estate.

Every letter received by me from my mother had just room enough in it for a postscript from Mr. Millar, both reminding me that my uncle possessed no other nephew, and that his sons were dead. He received me at Smyrna, with the hospitality of a mind not unable to occupy its energies about commercial gains after such family losses. "When I would have cited the passages which I had collected from Cicero, Seneca, and Epictetus, he chucked me under my chin, pointing to a huge folio ledger. Without their help or mine, my uncle knew how to look for some compensation from his misfortunes, making the most of them, in one sense, and the least of them, in another. His two sons had lived long enough to spend a vast deal of money. They left memorials behind them with their creditors, which greatly augmented his affliction at first, and assuaged it afterwards.

A careful parent's bereave ment may have occurred too late rather than too soon ; if, through the small-pox's tardiness, his childrej could find leisure enough for the expenditure of seven thousand Spanish dollars. But then instead of seven thousands they might have obtained credit for fourteen. " I submit ! " said my uncle, " I am resigned ! There is no impiety or impatience in feeling that, if such an affliction must have visited me for my chastisement, I could have endured it better two or three years ago." The inferiority of my pretensions, as compared with theirs, made some amends to him for the greater distance of our relationship. On that ground I could keep no Greek mistresses, and — as my uncle intimated neither indistinctly nor unfrequently — I was dismissible when he pleased. As nephew I stood on the far less stable footing which can be maintained no longer than during our good behaviour, if so long.

Standings not the one word, nor is footing the other; but hanging as the spider does, with a slender thread, an active appetite, a doubtful expectancy, and from an hazardous elevation. Let me confess, in justice to my uncle, that he disavowed all promises. So candid was he as to repeat, whenever some lucky adventure, through my activity or intelligence, had called forth his good humour — that he promised nothing — that he disliked pledges — that he kept himself free — that no one should reproach him or his memory with disappointed hopes — but that he un derstood men's motives, and knew well when he was well served — that there was a time for all things — especially a time for the recompence of those who preferred his interests to their own gratifications. Strange to say, every one of my uncle's plainest warnings was read, like Canidia's incantations, the wrong way upwards.

The care with which I melted and recoined older Greek into the new currency — the alacrity with which I accomplished his commissions, during almost thirteen years, on both continents and twenty islands — travelling from Athens to Alexandria, from Constan tinople to Corfu, and from Smyrna to Malta — my zeal and industry, providence and self-denial, merited the confidence which was reposed in me, and — as I thought — something better still. He had no other nephew. But it was not his forgetfulness of which I had the most reason to complain. As his heir-at-law, MY OWN LOSS AND DISCONTENT. 15 I could have been reconciled to such neglect, even if he had prepared no will at all. Dying rich, my uncle Richard did prepare his will, in which he remembered, with sufficient distinctness, everything else concerning him, beside my duty.

How was this? Did I then indeed keep some Greek mistresses secretly, as his sons had done? No — but my uncle Richard himself did ; and by these means he had other sons. He afflicted me through the posthumous discovery that his morals had been no better than my foresight ; and that, without any other nepotism than the Pope's, there was no want of heirs.

Chapter VI

Before we calculate ill-fortune by the arithmetic of our mortifications, we should consider whether some casual profit may not have accrued, in which neither hope nor foresight were at all concerned. I lost what I had — perhaps not unreasonably — expected, the succession to my uncle's wealth. But then, twelve or thirteen years spent in honourable industry and the acquisition of valuable knowledge, were not ill spent. My occupations had made me familiar with countries the most interesting upon earth. With scholarship not usually looked for in the votaries of commerce, I had encountered individuals, some me morable through their singularities, others illustrious through their genius. Had I been resident in England, I should have seen nothing of Lord Byron, Lady Hester Stanhope, or Sir John Cam Hobhouse — though all three were English.

It is worth while to pick up smaller memorials than these, during our journey through early life, as curiosities which we may deposit in the cabinets of more stationary age, for our friends' amusement, and possibly for our own use. On my return to England, after an absence of almost twenty years, my good mother received me with the tenderest composure. She presented to me three brothers and four sisters. The two youngest of these, being my godchildren through the intervention of proxies, were named Antony and Cadwallader Antony. That two out of five, or six, or even seven, should have been so dedicated, during an absence which might have continued all life long, was the highest honour ever yet conferred upon me. Mr. Millar partly accounted for this unexpected compliment, by adding to it several others, attesting my good sense, my great opulence, and my strong family attachments, now so rare.

He demonstrated " that, three times married himself, no sino-le man can adequately comprehend the amount of his unincumbered felicity, till it be lost : that all happiness in this world is little else than an escape from something evil : that our first wives leave, with their children, a necessity for the maternal tenderness of our second wives — and they of our third augmenting and perpetuating grief: that lost liberty, like lost innocence, never may be regained ; and that it is still more certain to be followed by repentance : that our best, as well as our least troublesome children are our godchildren, answering almost every good mr. millar's thoughts on happiness. 17 purpose for which matrimony was ordained : that if he is worse than an infidel who provides not for his own household, worse than an apostate must he be who forgets or disregards this more spiritual relationship : that as Mr. Millar had ever been my father in affection, so were even his elder children my brothers and sisters : and finally, that the Antonies had two additional claims on my protection, being joined with me both by natural and ecclesiastical consan guinity."

It would be ungrateful to repine against that des tiny which had made me amends for such an uncle as uncle Richard, by a father-in-law thus earnestly dissuasive through his own experience. Both of these relatives were profuse in their commendations of my prudence — both calculated very flatteringly on my disinterested solicitude for their welfare. But my uncle should have remembered, as a merchant and also a moralist, the just claims of reciprocity. Mr. Millar, on the other hand, seemed to have contracted bis three marriages chiefly as three warnings against matrimony, for my admonition. I repaid these truths, as well as I could, with some others ; particularising certain events of which Mr. Millar had not yet heard. I said that "my uncle Richard's property was fallen into other hands : that my uncle Richard had been so far of Mr. Millar's opinion as to provide amply for his own household, in which nephews were not comprehended: that returning no more to the Levant, whether single or married, I should fix my residence, and pursue my studies, at Hayfield near Castleton in Derbyshire."

The intimation astonished my fatherin-law, and the resolution enraged him. Two or three of his sons by former marriages had been, not only designed, but prepared and expensively qualified, for junior partners in my establishment at Smyrna, expecting uncle Richard's decease. Giles especially had applied his mind to algebra with extraordinary success. Without waiting the maturity of little Antony and Cadwallader Antony, he was now ready for the voyage. And so was James, whose proficiency in book-keeping would make a spendthrift rich. Arrangements thus abortive operating upon my poor mother's spirits, could hardly be counteracted early enough, by sal-volatile and burnt feathers, to save Mr. Millar from a fourth wife. Perhaps it happened that, as my removal from them this time was only to so short a distance, Mr. and Mrs. Millar expedited my departure.

Certainly their family was not small ; and, as they said, their house was not large. It occurred to them that my books and pictures, if left unpacked, would be ruined by the mildew. So kindly considerate were they as to suppress their curiosity, and to discountenance any examination of these valuables till it could be accomplished at Hayfield. My intended visit of six weeks, after twenty years' absence, was reduced to eight days and nine nights. Some of the curiosities — a few pearls, cameos, and Venetian chains — were left at Amersham, among my mother's daughters and my mother's step-daughters. A promise was given that Antony should inherit my land, and Cad wallader Antony my money ; if, following Mr. Millar's advice, and eschewing his example, I contrived to die unmarried. In the mean time they were ad- ESTABLISHMENT IN DERBYSHIRE. 19 monished to emulate the learning of their god-father and their father-in-law ; to love their books, to love one another, and, as a foundation for the rest not yet secured, to learn their catechism.

Chapter VII

Commerce had done but little for me in the thirteen years of my devotion to it. A few small adventures hazarded successfully, without my uncle Richard's participation, were its only recompense. Never theless I did not return perplexed by the necessity of choosing a new profession so late in life. By the decease, in 1814, of Antony Lugwardine, my un married god-father and the eldest of my uncles, I was already a landed proprietor. Some four or five hundred acres, with my own accumulations of four or five thousand pounds, a bachelor's abode, and that ambiguous position in the world which is not much lower than an esquire's, or higher than a gentleman's, awaited my arrival. My travels, my Greek, my familiarity with the usages of continental society, all greatly less common at that time than at present, inclined the uncertainty in my favour.

No one doubted, except Sir Christopher Crane, but that I must be a gentleman. So rapid have been the changes among us since then, that we have now. for DO' one gentleman, seven esquires. As the concurrence of my neighbours had conceded to me thus much, the modesty which evades honour, or the wisdom which deprecates envy, required no more, — I declined a commission in the peace. You may become a grand-jury man in your new neighbourhood ; if properly introduced, you may present yourself uninvited at the nearest great archery meeting ; you may interpose with modest authority in your parish vestry, when the chair is vacant, because the vicar is sick ; you may second, or even propose, a vote of thanks at some friendly society, lamenting that the honour had not fallen on one far better qualified for its reception ; but beware lest you should be suspected of aspiring to the Bench !

It stands on that debatable ground which the old petty session settlers secretly and silently, but scornfully, defend against the new. The littleness of your estate will be diminished ; questions will arise about title-deeds, and whispers circulated insinuating a second mortgage ; the major will doubt your Greek, the agriculturalist your Latin. All my acquaintances directed their notes to Antony Lugwardine, Esqre., while the title was no more than honorary. After the commission had been rumoured as probable, all of the justices considered that Mr. Lugwardine would be enough. I regained my dignity by losing and renouncing my right to it. There are few changes in life more pleasurable than this. Pleasurable I say, speaking as a bachelor ; not rapturous, as at the approach of marriage, or ecstatic as at its arrival.