Dr. Doran

“ He did not despise the dissolute men and the more dissolute women of Naples less than he despised the French; but, in supporting the one and destroying the other, he was the great antagonist of anarchy, and the great promoter of order at home. Loyalty here flourished by the blood of his victories. The veriest would-be rebel in England was proud of the pale warrior whose feeble arm upheld a world of thrones; a defeat at Aboukir might have made him a Republican. But we are hurried from Nelson’s cradle to his glories and his grave. ”

“ It is all good and picturesque in its way, but tuneful Charley is more to our liking when he gets into an English corn-field, strolls down an English lane, or sits at the door of an English cottage. He is then as natural as Moreland treating the same subjects on canvas. The fragrance of the fields comes on the wings of his song, and his English home and peasant are still more truly English than his English ships and sailors. ”

“ For them, Queen Margaret writes with affectionate urgency to that sort of sire who is apt to say of a suitor to his daughter, who is unwelcome to himself, ‘I can’t imagine what the girl can see in such a fellow, to like him!’ To such stern fathers Margaret of Anjou writes like a wise and affectionate woman. She may be called a ‘matchmaker,’ for she seems to have gone to the work of coupling with great alacrity, but we are sure that many a young couple, in those turbulent times, owed to her a happiness and a harmony in their married life which poor Margaret never enjoyed in her own. ”

“ So stern were the most of the Prussian margraves, electors, and dukes, that, to express the peril of joking with them, there arose the well-known popular proverb, ‘It is advisable not to eat cherries with princes.’ The queens of Prussia, on the other hand, brought their own wit with them into the royal family, and there was not a sharper lady among them than Queen Sophia Charlotte, the first queen of Prussia. Leibnitz, whom she delighted to honour as a man and a philosopher, once asked her if she could imagine the infinitely little? ”

“ Many a woman has been canonised for the performance of duties not half so holy.
The widow Rooke is forgotten, while the annals of fashion still keep warm the memory of people less worthy of being remembered. There was a time when Mrs. Prince, as old Dame Gunn, the bathing woman, used to call Mrs. Fitzherbert, reigned in Brighton. She was one of those women who justify the old saying that beauty is of every age. She was exquisite when young. There are some among us who may remember that she was queenly, when crowned by years. Like a queen, she was surrounded by duchesses at Brighton ”

“ In that form the half-mad and most melancholy Henry manifested his humour with regard to family affairs—an example which has not been generally followed. In one of his sons, Richard the First, there was much readiness of wit; and he especially loved to turn it against the priests. To make a joke at the cost of an ecclesiastic was as good to him as slaying an infidel. John’s jokes took a cruel form, drawing Jews’ teeth to accelerate their disposition to lend money, and behaving noisily at divine worship with an idea of humiliating some priest or bishop who had offended him. ”

“ James’s has grown common, without lacking any people of the high quality that used to gather there in animated groups. King Charles loitered there for hours amid his birds, to the great delight of the crowds who watched him, killing time. Queen Caroline, George II.’s queen, would fain have had the park to herself, as Elizabeth had, but failing that, she only visited it in her sedan. But where those great personages tarried, for pleasure, personages equally great only hurry along, bent on business. ”

“ But, notwithstanding this, we repeat that the locality which had been illustrated by humanity, by patriotism, by liberality, and by love of freedom, was a becoming spot whereon to spread the carpet of repose for him whose humanity was as great as his courage—whose patriotism was without a stain—whose liberality was ever extended without selfishness, and whose love of freedom made him the invincible foe of the nation that was endeavouring to enslave the world. ”

“ They show her less as a fiercely struggling, deeply sorrowing, terribly avenging queen, than as a sympathising woman, not so busy in her own affairs as to lack time for being interested in the affairs of others. She is ever ready to say a good word for a worthy man seeking advancement, and her heart responds to appeals from young maidens with whom the course of true love does not run smooth. ”

“ A Polish countess proved to be a Drury Lane ballet-girl; a magnificent lady turned out to be a lady’s maid; and real ladies stooped to copy the fashions set by the counterfeits. But space fails to permit us to do more than refer to the dainty Petersham, the curled Geramb, the Four-in-hand and the Tandem clubs, the dandies who ruled when the men were at the wars, and the men who came back with the Don Cossacks and the allied sovereigns, and showed themselves in Hyde Park, as a proof that heroes were again upon the throne of fashion. ”

“ They are all gone, these Dibdins, of whom Charles of Southampton was the one whose fame will be the most lasting. Like all men, he is to be judged by his best. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link; a boiler is only as thick as its thinnest part; but a poet is to be measured by his best—the best teachings of the best of his poetry. ”

“ If the first gentleman in Europe had not been born a prince he might have made a very good livelihood as an actor. High or low comedy, it would have been all the same to a player of such versatility. He could have played Rover like Elliston, and his imitations were as good as Mr. Toole’s. The best-wigged prince in Christendom has, fortunately, had an historian who makes record of his royal hero in the histrionic part of his profession. Raikes is the chronicler, but the Duke of Wellington was the fountain of intelligence. ”

“ What will not a censorious world assert? The scandal-mongers affirmed that it was a Syncretic rule for each member, except the author, to hiss the play in course of representation, as each sibilant member hoped, by damning his brother’s play, to obtain a better chance of bringing his own forward earlier.
Is there anyone surviving whose pantomimic memories can flash vividly back half a generation? If so, how joyous yet sad must be his remembrance of another literary club—‘The Fielding’—and the pantomime of ‘Harlequin Guy Fawkes,’ acted by the members, at Covent Garden, in 1855! ”

“ With a squadron of observation he scoured the Mediterranean, and after a search unparalleled in its nature, and carrying despair to every heart but his own, he came upon the French at Aboukir and made 1798 for ever memorable in England by the well-won victory which he achieved at the Nile. If honours poured on him after the affair at St. Vincent, they descended now in an avalanche. His king made him a peer who among men was peerless. Parliament thanked him: the nation adored him. ”

“ The name of Merton is more closely connected with great men and great acts than many of our readers may be aware, and it was the fitting resting-place for a man who desired to gain breathing time between his heroic deeds. It was the birthplace of that Walter de Merton to whose liberality some of our readers may possibly be indebted for the instruction they may have received at Oxford—not that Merton College has been very famous for turning out good, at least great, scholars. ”

“ In the last century, while the charioteers exhibited themselves in Hyde Park, the promenaders took possession of that part of St. James’s known as the Mall. Along a portion of the road, Charles I., had walked his dolorous way to the scaffold at Whitehall; but he walked it like a true gentleman. The gay throng that succeeded remembered little of that King, in connection with the Park. They had lighter things to think of. At one time the scene was as animated as that of Venice in the old Carnival time, especially as long as visor-masks were in fashion. ”

“ Yes: when he first saw the light there were old men in England who had seen Prince Rupert beneath the beeches at Windsor. It was but the other day that Nelson’s sister died. Thus is he connected with two periods when the people were at issue with sovereigns: his figure stands half-way between the time, when Roundheads were assailing cavaliers and royalty; and the present period, when democracy, more despotic than any aristocracy, is again howling at palace gates and the hearths of nobles. ”

“ When Dibdin brought out ‘Rose and Colin,’ a piece which had been ‘set’ by Philidor, he was asked why he had not retained the clever Frenchman’s sparkling music. ‘Because,’ answered Charles, ‘Philidor is famous enough, and I have a reputation of my own to make!’ Philidor’s reputation is now more connected with chess (for he was the Philidor) than with music. Nevertheless, he is bracketed with Duni and Monsigny as one of the founders of modern comic French opera; and the song for Medusa, in his opera of ‘Persée,’ ‘J’ai perdu la beauté qui me rendait si vaine,’ remains a masterpiece of harmony. ”

“ Titus was rather gracious than given to jesting, though he enjoyed one sorry joke, in promising to every suitor that his request should be granted. They went away radiant. ‘Every one,’ he said, ‘ought to depart joyfully from the presence of his prince;’ and then, ‘the delight of mankind’ thought no more of his promise. The chief recreation of the gloomy Domitian was in playing dice; but he always won. Every antagonist knew what the joke would cost him if he beat the emperor. ”

“ Nelson was sent to Naples with despatches for our Minister, Sir William Hamilton. He was much on shore, and mischief came of it, of course. Sir William told his wife, the too famous, too erring, and yet much sinned-against Lady Hamilton, that a little man was coming to dine with him who was infirm [Pg 230] and ill-looking, but who had in him the stuff of a hero, and who was undoubtedly destined to be the man for the difficulties coming. If Emma Hamilton loved a virtue it was that of courage and ability in man: she loved heroes, and her ardent feelings were soon interested in Nelson. ”

“ We may suppose that a member of the ‘Early Rising Association’ has no affinity with the ‘Owls.’ The ‘One-o’-clock Club’ would no more understand a cricket-club than the members of the one could look like the members of the other. ‘The Early Risers’ are members of one of those cricket-clubs. During the season they pitch their wickets at four o’clock in the morning, and play till seven, and then to business—pleasure with them taking the precedence. But work is their business of the day. Put the ‘Owls’ by their side, the foul birds would certainly bear no resemblance to a man and a brother. ”

“ The great Julius, indeed, after he became great, had no leisure for jesting, but was the object of some popular jokes which he took with indifference. The guests of Augustus were afraid to ‘crack a joke’ in his presence. They would whisper one to a neighbour, and then turn pale if the emperor invited them to ‘speak up.’ The imperial table was as grand and dull as that of the copper Augustus, Louis the Fourteenth, and the emperor had recourse to merryandrews, just as the Grand Monarque had to harlequins. But the harlequins of those days were gentlemen and scholars. ”

“ Half the graceless fops and hussies of the comedy of the period play out their impudent drama in St. James’s Park. In the comedies of that time the manners of people of quality are reflected. As has been remarked, how they dressed, talked, and thought; what they did, and how they did it; what they hoped for, and how they pursued it: all may be learnt from contemporary comedy. ”

“ Sir Horace Mann, the King of Cricket, kept open house for the club at his seat near Maidstone, or at his marine residence at Margate. This hospitality did not cause him to be respected by the practical jokers. Some of the jokes lacked decency; and we do not see much fun in the emptying a man’s box of its snuff and filling it with hellebore, to make him sneeze a hundred times for one! It was a rule that no offence was to be taken at the roughest of these jokes, but it was not always in the power of a man to seem delighted at them. ”

“ We fully agree with the judgment which says of the personages, that the fine gentlemen are such unmitigated rascals, and the women, girls, and matrons are such unlovely hussies—in rascality and unseemliness quite a match for the men—that one escapes from their wretched society, and a knowledge of their one object, and the confidences of the abominable creatures engaged therein, with a feeling of strong want of purification and of that ounce of civet by which the imagination may be sweetened. ”

“ Moore does not say that Montagu had assumed the Mohammedan faith, but simply that he considered the Turkish way of life to surpass that of all other nations. Indeed they deserved to be ‘the happiest of mankind,’ if they were, as Montagu held them to be, distinguished for integrity, hospitality, and most other virtues. Egypt was, in his eyes, ‘a perfect paradise,’ to which he was longing to return; and he was convinced that if the Israelites of old could have had their own way they would have stuck to the land and the flesh-pots and driven the Egyptians into Canaan. ”

“ If any archæologist care about the Druidical name for Brighton—if indeed there ever was one—or sigh to learn by what classic term the Romans designated their station on the sea, the care and the sigh are expended in vain. Let such antiquary console himself by laughing at the explanation of its later name, handed down from one local historian to another. Brighthelmstone, as it was called, has not puzzled the easily-satisfied etymologists. To explain it they invent a Saxon bishop who never existed, Brighthelm. ”

“ This quack hired the hungry and heart-broken beauty, exhibited her as the ‘Goddess of Health,’ lectured upon her as the result of his system, and made half the fashionable women of his day mad to become like her, glowing with health and splendid with beauty. ”

“ In the sailor’s philosophy all is harmony; but Watts finds discord where other men find none. Jack does not believe that ‘dogs delight to bark and bite,’ nor that ‘God hath made them so.’ A pat on the head from a master’s hand is the supreme delight of the ever-faithful dog. And if ‘bears and lions growl and fight,’ it is not that ‘it is their nature to;’ any more, at least, than it is the nature of man. It was Nelson who told the young midshipman, as part of his duties, to ‘hate a Frenchman like the devil!’ Dibdin only allowed such feeling in the heat and fury of battle ”

“ It cannot be said that we are a very grateful people to our kings—to such of them, that is, as have claims on our gratitude. Richard III., when he was yet but a young prince, flying his hawks over his manor at what is now called Notting Hill (an estate which fell to him on the attainder of its old possessor, De Vere, Earl of Oxford) , had a great love for the drama. He was the first prince of the blood royal of England that ever formed a company of comedians in his pay, and we all know in what sort of light this Richard is represented on the stage of which he was such a noble patron. ”

“ Austerlitz killed Pitt as surely as Trafalgar killed Nelson. Each died for his country, but that country mourned more deeply for the great admiral, stricken down in the battle where he was the victor, than it did for the great minister who died of a broken heart. ”