Behind the scenes. Three volumes in one

Front matter

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

Preface

To bore the reader with a Preface is, perhaps, of all an author's faults, the one he is least inclined to pardon ; but among the many twaddles of our times there is one very rife (more, it is true, among reviewers, than among the general class of readers emphatically called, " The Public "), and this one consists in asking, " Why won't people write novels in one volume, like ' The Vicar of Wakefield ? ' " Simply because each succeeding age has its own peculiar tone and inflection, of which writers are but the echoeSj 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 treated in these days, and located in Cornwall itself, or even at Lancastl — ^where local traditions aver that the devil caught cold and died ! (wluch, if true, would have considerably abridged Az« mCTioirs) — still, Deborah herself would have ;been different, for she would lave taken in " Eliza Cook's Journal," and so deserted pickles for poetry. As for the Vicar, 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 sA. all in these high-pressure times.

12 PREFACE.

The gills, indeed, 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, though he might have deserted Miss Wilmot, 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 especially Miss Carolina Whilhelmina Amelia Skeggs — instead of talking " taste, Sbakspeare, and the musical glasses," would have written upon table-turning, sonnambulism, and the mesmeric asses ! The seven Miss Flamboroughs would at Zcos^have been drawn with seven pineapples, instead of seven oranges, in their 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 faire, would have given his great commercial talents a wider scope, by going on a foreign tour with those distinguished travellers, " Brown, Jones, and Robinson." 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 cosipopolitan, and writing moral essays for " The Edinburgh," and ' utilitarian articles for "The Westminster," relieved by occasional educational and philanthropic 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

PREFACE. 13

Westminster scholar and Miss Martineau can inform you,— and the said population all going at railway speed, is one cause which has swelled the bulk of novels (for Richardson 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 multitudinous Dramatis Personaj which a transcript of modern life entails, it is impossible to be graphic within a very restricted compass. The most masterly jSctions in the language are Daniel De Foe's ; and why is this 1 Not, certainly, even from their unrivalled English and 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 " Memoirs 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 history. Having evoked this great name, I cannot express my own feelings better (more especially in regard to the fate of this work) than in this " second Daniel's " own terse and energetic words — "lam 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 their breath so freely in censuring me, may consider of some better use to make of their 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 expect good in it ; and I have learned to value it too little to be concerned at the evil. I have gone through a life of wonders, and am the subject

■ 14 ' PEBFACB.

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 Persones of these Lay Sermons, I refer all readers to " Gil Bias ' " author's dedication, which is mine — only Le Sage got hold of it first ! — and au sage un demi mot !

Alciphron.

London, 1854.

BEHIND THE SCENES.

PARABLE THE FIRST.

SECTION" I.

" Who can uiiderstaud his errors ? "^PsAiSi xix. 12.

" The more honest a man is, the less he affects the air of a saint. Tho affectation of sanctity is a blot on the face of piety." — Latatee.

As there is nothing higher, broader, and, at the same time, more profound, than Christianity ; so is there nothing lower, shallower, and narrower than sectarianism : while the former, emanating from God, approaches us to Him, the latter drags us ever earthward, into that fearful abyss of stubborn pride, relentless cruelty, remorseless ambition, and 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 Pharisaical High Church, or the Puritanical 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 dominion 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 Priests, Mammon, and his elder brother. Selfishness. It is true, that these idols are never worshipped under these 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 yioe prudence ! The coward boasts of his peaceful disposition ! — the slothful man of his content ! the spendthrift of his generosity ! the wine-bibber of his sociality and good fellowship ! — and he whose " vaulting ambition o'erleaps itself," of his indomitable courage and pereeverance ! 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 glass houses, 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 pa.ssion of our own, accompanied, as it invariably is, by the most bigoted intolerance against our neighbour's sect, or ruling passion. 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, and, for that reason, many may ask in what consists their difference? It consists in a very wide one, that of saying and doing. Benevolence is passive, sympathy active ; benevolence pities, but sympathy helps ; benevolence professes 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 practical Christianity ; and benevolence, theoretical piety. Sympathy is the wayfaring Samaritan, who, though a stranger, and unknown, does not pass over on the other side, but pours oil and wine into our wounds, and ministers to our necessities. Benevolence is the self-righteous Pharisee, ever .boasting of the good it has done, and the evil it has left undone. And as all qualities descend from one generation to another — in tribes or races — it is for this reason that relatives or friends may be benevolent, and compassionate our misfortunes, as far as words go ; or even abound in works of supererogation — such as offering our indolence a seventh carriage, if we already possess six ; but should we be penniless, and chance to break our leg, and the 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 t]ie ONE source from whence all flows, and to which all is known ; it may be at once to reprove, and to reassure the vacillating faith of om- tempest-tossed souls ; as erst the Saviour did on the sea of Tiberias, that of the trembling disciples. 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 progression 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 thatHeaven's archives are composed. It is truly remarked, by the Eeverend E. 1). Eendell, in his admirable work on Antediluvian 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 until 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 coui-se of interior thinking ever would begin in many of us, but for affliction, which is the whetstone of all the soul's blunted intelligences; for, by interior thinking, is meant self-examination, with a view to ac- ^ quiring 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 *f the above remark, of there being many things belonging to our nature which actually esdst a long time before we become properly aware 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 eternkl state, quite as embryo 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 confines of its present sphere, that occasions all the throes, struggles and chafings of the future great and emancipated spirit; and causes it to consider the said throes, struggles, and chafings, as so many trials, afflictions, and even unjust perseoutioiis, 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 discouree, on the score of pleasing Mistress Amy Verner, had fallen so wide of the mark — though Scotch, was not a minister ofthe Scottish Kirk ; but a much greater personage, for he was a canon of St. Paul's, and second cousin— not only to the late Laird of Glenfern, but to the living Lord McToady, a Scottish Peer, who had bodd and boo^d himself 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 (Edipus enough to solve ; and yet is pretty much the same as the Theban one of old — save that the crawling, 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, shppery, 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 consanguinity ; and hence the two fat livings held by the Eeverend Samuel Panmuir.

Indeed, his poor over-worked curate, — once dining at -tlie house of an old college-chum, in one of those social saturnalias that after-dinner confidences are wont to produce — had been heard to observe, in strict secresy to his host, as he held a glass of rare old port to the light, to watch the beeswing which, like pleasant rumoure, floated about it, that, " Had the canon but risen half as early in the morning, as he had done in the Church, the larks themselves never could have been up to^im 1 " Nevertheless, he was not proud — oh, dear, no, not by any means, — for he had presented the little kirk, at Glenfern, with a painted vrindow, which donation had been duly chronicled in all the London, and echoed in all the provincial 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 Scripture enjoins with regard to our gifts — namely, not to let our left hand know what our right does, the Eeverend Samuel Panmuir extended 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 Reverend gentleman was not proud ; so that not only had he presented to the village kirk this painted window, which set forth in all the mediaeval 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 dignitaiy of the Church ; 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 undulations, till they filled the dome of his own magnificent cathedrsl.

Nor was this edifying humility confined to the Church alone ; for his social amenity extended beyond its pale, and the illustrious prebend, who in London sipped tokay with princes, did not in his native Highlands disdain to quaff humble toddy with peasants. His visit to Glenfern this year, had been made earlier than 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 suspected ! The old laird, Muir of Panmuir, as he had been called during his father's lifetime, 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-commoner, at Trinity College, Cambridge, and who, at the period of his father's death, wanted eighteen months of being of age ; although among the fastest of the very fast cantabs with whom he associated. Mrs. Panmuir had been dead many years, so that at thelaird'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. Duntar, their 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 companions— 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 accompany his remains to Scotland. But no one liking 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 andMr.Ponsonby Fen-ars. 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, their confluent epidemics of embiyo celebrities, and Cambridge that year shrouded many a future star of the literary and political hemisphere. Though a fortnight had elapsed', since Mr. Ponsonby FeiTars and his friend had brought the sad tidings, of which they were the bearers, to the now truly bereaved orphan ; yet, at Glenfern they still lingered ; their pretext was, that they waited for the sa,le, 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 exe- . cutors, as the landed property went to a very distant branch of the family. The catalogue included a fine collection of curiously embossed Medieval plate and bijouterie, former gifts of the Stuarts, among which were many sardonyx and jewelled cups, and icuelles, 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 to this sale, was a very splendidly carved table, some high-backed chaii-s, and tabourets of old mahogany as black as ebony, said, like the dining tables at Westminster 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 altaipieces to the church at Glenfern. Considering, therefore, not only the intrinsic, but the conventional interest, attached to this sale, it was, perhaps, very natural that the two cantabs should remain for it ; yet, their doing so was to me a source of disquietude ; nay, more, ever since their advent, it was as if —

" A great, and migMy shadow had fallen on my heart ; "

and no wonder — for " coming events " do, indeed, " cast their shadows before ! " but, I must not anticipate.

The ailing Israelite, that Mrs. Verner had alluded to, was a broker of the name of Jacob Jacobs, who, from the overturning of a coach, on his way to Perthj 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 Panmuir Arms ; " and even that was three miles across the fields ; here, for the last ten days he had been laid up ; the accident having occurred on the very evening, when some business connected with poor Donald Panmuir's death, had called me to Edinburgh ; and here, on my return, the previous Saturday night (prior to my conversation with Mrs. Amy Verner, in the churchyard), I still found him, and also the two cantabs, whom, fi-om not seeing at Church, I had hoped were gone ; but it appeared, they had only gone out for a drive in Mr. Trevylion's tilbury, for on following Mrs. Verner into the inn, I overheard the following colloquy, between Tim, Mr, Ponsonby Ferrars' stud-groom, and Railton, the Canon's

24 ' BEHIND THK S0BNK8.

portly servant, as they puflFed 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 Pickwick ain't worth a fardin.''

He next proceeded to light 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 lady, up at the moated house, yander ? — Miss Panmuir, 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 Tiis 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. Eailton, 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 Railton, as he emptied the ashes out of his pipe, and proceeded to refill it.

" Ah ! now, thafs just like basking 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, like master, like man ; and as he never says, I can't say, heither ; but don't let us talk of our masters, its 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. But, who's that elderly gent, though, as I saw one evening at the moated house, when we first come ? Something like a grey mare, in regard to having black eyes, and a white mane, and tail like. I thought as far as I could see, 'twixt windows and doors, he seemed to keep, an unkimmen sharp eye on the young lady. Don't wonder at it, though ; never saw a better forehand in my life — beautiful action — clever head — and pins as clean as a whistle ! "

" You don't mean Parson Fraser ? "

" No, no ! I know he by sight ; he wears a brown bob-wig, he do ; no ; the chap I means is tall, and sightly enough ; good knee-up action too — steps out well — must have gone over the ground when he was younger, I should think."

" Oh, that ! — that's Murray of Brierly, — Aloiphron Murray, a friend of the family.''

" Humph I don't approve of them there friends of the family. If no followers hain't allowed below stairs, I don't see why they should be above stairs ; and these friends of the family as they calls themselves, hain't nothink helse ; honly they goes hup the front stairs, instead of down the hairy steps ; but, for hevery think helse, its hegzacly the same ; they is always a-ferretingout, and a-poking-their-noses hinto hevery think — a-lurching, and a-poaching like, on bother gents' beats."

" Oh ! but MurrSy, of Brierly, ain't one of that sort," kindly interposed Mr. Railton : " I must say, he be quite a gentleman, and a real friend to the Panmuirs ; indeed, it is said, that in Ta\i young days there were some love passages between him and the great Perth beauty, Mary Dunbar — Miss Edith's mother ; but the Panmuir was thought a better match for her. To him she married ; and, during her life-time, the Laird of Brierly was •always beyond seas, and never came to Glenfern ; but since her death, he has hovered round the place, as an eagle does round a nest of eaglets, when some mishap has befallen the mother bird."

I .turned away faint and sick ; for there is something appalling in finding the holiest secrets of one's life, which one he^s 3 kept veiled, as it were, even from oneself, thus suddenly desecrated and bared, in the garish light of day, to every vulgar scrutiny. I gnashed my teeth in very bitterness ; for it seemed . as if my guardian angel must have given up his garrison, before HEE name could have been so sacrilegiously torn from the innermost sanctuary of my heart, to find utterance in this man's mouth ! Poor fool ! that I v?as, not to remember that even desolation has its gauds, and that these memories of the past are the bright green mosses growing on the ruins of our hopes, which tempt every passer-by to probe at, and uproot them ! When the sharp agony of this paroxysm had subsided, I pushed self back into its citadel, and securing my soul with stronger bars of endurance, I turned to Edith — for even change of suflfering, when we cannot get rid of suffering altogether, is a relief. It was evident to me, from what had fallen from the clever man's clever groom, that the vulture had marked and was careering round the dove-cote. It seemed as plain as if the plan of attack lay traced before me on a chart, that the fast servant had been set to pump the slow and more simple Railton as to what obstacles might be anticipated, or what,means of defence existed. I was glad I had overheard this much ; but, besides the impossibility of voluntarily stooping to the degrading role of an eaves-dropper, my head swam and my strength deserted me, so that I could have no longer stood in the passage awaiting Mrs. Verner's return, who had gone to see if Mr. Jacob Jacobs felt well enough to receive a visit from me. I therefore turned intaa little sitting-room, on the right hand, opposite the bar, where Railton and Mr. Ponsonby Ferrars' groom were smoking, and flung myself into an easy, at least into an arm-chair ; where I had not sat long, before, from the open garden-window, a shadow fell across the floor, accompanied by a subdued panting, like that of an incipient steam-engine ; and in another moment the door opened, and the Archdeacon centered, removed his shovel hat, and having, with a snow-white cambric handkerchief redolent of some fragrant odour (which it is to be sup-