Thomas Spedding

“ That promise I hold, and I shall claim its fulfilment from her before she and I are many weeks older."
"Well done, Pomeroy! That's manly--that's as it should be!" exclaimed Sir Thomas. "I knew you would turn out a decent fellow at bottom."
Her ladyship was slightly scandalised. "My dear!" she pleaded, "you are too enthusiastic. You let your heart run away with your head."
She drew her skirts round her, pushed back her chair a little, and perching her double eye-glass on the bridge of her high nose, she stared curiously at Eleanor.
Lady Dudgeon's feelings just now were of a very mixed kind. ”

“ Sir Thomas sat staring at his wife in speechless dismay. After a little while he got up and walked to the window, and stood there jingling his loose silver.
"What a pity it is, Matilda, that you are not the member for Pembridge instead of me! You would have done far more justice to the position than I can ever hope to do."
"Tut! tut! my dear. You must not talk so foolishly," said her ladyship, complacently. "I know your abilities far better than you do yourself. ”

“ All that you lack is confidence, and that will come to you in due time."
"I suppose those worthy people down at Pembridge wouldn't feel satisfied unless I made some sort of an attempt at a speech some time before the session's over, eh?"
"Certainly not. So the sooner you take the plunge, the better for everyone. How would you like to meet your constituents in the autumn, if the sound of your voice had never been heard in the House?"
Sir Thomas stood without speaking for a minute or two. At last he said, "I think I'll go and have a little talk with Pomeroy." ”

“ I have been almost alone here: having seen even Spedding and Donne but two or three times. They are well and go on as before. Spedding has got out the seventh volume of Bacon, I believe: with Capital Prefaces to Henry VII., etc. But I have not yet seen it. After vol. viii. (I think) there is to be a Pause: till Spedding has set the Letters to his Mind. Then we shall see what he can make of his Blackamoor. . . .
I am almost ashamed to write to you, so much p. 2have I forsaken Persian, and even all good Books of late. There is no one now to ‘prick the Sides of my Intent’ ”

“ I am persuaded that no one is more competent. [45a]
You see your Americans will go too far. It was some American Professor’s Note [45b] on ‘the Autumn of his Bounty’ which occasioned Spedding’s delightful Comment some while ago, and made me remember my old wish that he should do the thing. But he will not: especially if one asks him.
Donne—Archdeacon Groome told me a Fortnight ago that he had been at Weymouth Street. Donne better, but still not his former Self. ”

“ This second speech is for my constituents, and you must arrange with the editor for its appearance in the Pembridge Gazette on the Saturday following my delivery of speech number one in the House."
"I comprehend perfectly, sir," said Jack.
"You are a good fellow, Pomeroy--a very good fellow," added Sir Thomas. "I like you much. Her ladyship likes you much. She quite values you. But not a word to her about our little arrangement--and don't forget the plums in the dumpling."
Sir Thomas had hardly been gone five minutes, when there came a discreet tap at the door, and in walked Olive Deane. ”

“ And here is Spedding’s vol. vi. which leaves me much where it found me about Bacon: but though I scarce care for him, I can read old Spedding’s pleading for him for ever; that is, old Spedding’s simple statement of the case, as he sees it. The Ralegh Business is quite delightful, better than Old Kensington.
Then I have bought 3 vols of the ‘Ladies Magazine’ for 1750-3 by ‘Jasper Goodwill’ who died at Vol. iv. It contains the Trials and Executions (16 men at a time) of the time; Miss Blandy above all; and such delightful Essays, Poems, and Enigmas, for Ladies! ”

“ Under the portico stood a man smoking a cigar. Their eyes met for an instant in the lamplight, but they were strangers to each other, and Tom passed on his way. Next moment he started, and turned to look again. He had heard a voice say: “Mr. St. George, your dinner is served.”
He had come at last, then, this cousin, who had not been seen in Duxley since the day of the inquest—on whose evidence to-morrow so much would depend.
“Is that the man, I wonder,” said Tom to himself, “in whose breast lies hidden the black secret of the murder? ”

“ Few writers of authority have ventured to applaud the treatise. An exception is Mr. Spedding, who could not well let judgment pass against his idol without a word of defence for one of the worst blemishes in a pitiful official career. He shows here as elsewhere his admirable diligence in the collection of evidence; but he cannot be said to have shed any new light either on Ralegh's character, or on the part Bacon played in his slaughter, and in the endeavour to blacken his memory. For him both the King and the keeper of the King's conscience had no option but to put Ralegh to death. ”

“ And you see that I am putting my steel pen into its very best paces all for you. By far the chief incident in my life for the last month has been the reading of dear old Spedding’s Paper on the Merchant of Venice: [176] there, at any rate, is one Question settled, and in such a beautiful way as only he commands. I could not help writing a few lines to tell him what I thought; but even very sincere praise is not the way to conciliate him. About Christmas I wrote him, relying on it that I should be most likely to secure an answer if I expressed dissent from some other work of his ”

“ Kester took off his dress-coat, put on an old shooting-jacket and a smoking-cap, and then went off to the billiard-room.
“Monsieur St. George means mischief to-night,” said Pierre, smiling to himself, and rubbing his hands slowly. “It is not very often I see that light in his eye. When I do see it, I know it means no good to somebody.”
Kester found the two men chalking their cues. A servant was mixing a tumbler of brandy-and-seltzer for Osmond.
“I’ll play you one game, a hundred up,” said Osmond, as soon as the servant had left the room; “and I’ll back my own play for ten pounds.” ”

“ Well, that’s the way with heaps of us. Circumstances are dead against us, and we are not strong enough to overmaster them; else should we smite the world with surprise, and genius would not be so scarce an article in the market as it is now.”
Kester stared. Was this the half-drunken blackguard who had been jeering at him but two minutes ago? “And yet, drunk he must be,” added Kester to himself. “No fellow in his senses would talk such precious rot.”
“Your obedient servant, sir,” said Skeggs, with a purposely exaggerated bow as he held open the door for Mr. St. George to pass out. ”

“ I always find that I have to repent of what I have done, not what I have left undone; and poor W. Browne used to say it was better even to repent of what [was] undone than done. You know how glad I should be if you came here: but I haven’t the Face to ask it, especially after that misfit last Summer; which was not my fault however.
I always look upon old Spedding’s as one of the most wasted Lives I know: and he is a wise Man! Twenty years ago I told him that he should knock old Bacon off; I don’t mean give him up, but wind him up at far less sacrifice of Time and Labour; and edit Shakespeare. ”

“ All things considered, it was certainly unadvisable that he should leave Park Newton yet awhile.
Day after day he waited with smothered impatience for some further tidings of Mother Mim. But day after day he waited in vain. Most men, under such circumstances, would have gone to the place and have made personal inquiries for themselves. This was precisely what Kester St. George told himself that he ought to do, but for all that he did not do it. He shrank, with a repugnance which he could not overcome, from the thought of any further contact with either Mother Mim or her surroundings. ”

“ Tom revenged himself by turning his attention to the opposite end of the table, where sat Miss Culpepper, with her faithful squire, Mr. Edward Cope, in close proximity to her. “They are engaged, I suppose,” said Tom to himself, “or else she wouldn’t let him sit so near her, and glare at her so with those pig’s eyes of his. But I’ll never believe that she can care for a fellow like that. She’s just the kind of girl,” he went on mentally, “that, if I were a marrying man, I should like to win for myself—and, by Jove! he’s just the sort of fellow that I should glory in cutting out. ”

“ You will be able to do what is fitting better than I can tell you.
[Pg 398] The scheme came to nothing, for what reason we do not know; possibly “college etiquette,” as Spedding anticipated, might stand in the way, for Hallam was neither Fellow nor Scholar of the College.
In the spring of 1834 Spedding was still at Mirehouse, and gives Thompson an account of a day and night he spent with Hartley Coleridge:
The said Hartley is indeed a spirit of no common rate—his mind is brimful of rare and precious fancies, which leap out of him as fresh as a fountain in the sunshine. ”

“ In returning to the question of the authorship of Henry VIII., I am anxious to remove a misconception under which MR. SPEDDING appears to labour relative to the purport of a remark I made in my last communication to you (Vol. ii., p. 198.) on this subject. As we appear to be perfectly agreed as to the reasons for assigning a considerable portion of this play to Fletcher, and as upon this basis we have each worked out a result that so exactly coincides with the other, I conclude that MR. SPEDDING, as well as myself, has rested his theory solely on positive grounds ”

“ I wrote also my yearly Letter to Carlyle, begging my compliments to his Wife: who, he replies, died, in a very tragical way, last April. I have since heard that the Papers reported all the Circumstances. So, if one lives so much out of the World as I do, it seems better to give up that Ghost altogether. Old Spedding has written a Pamphlet about ‘Authors p. 90and Publishers’; showing up, or striving to show up, the Publishers’ system. He adduces his own Edition of Bacon as a sample of their mismanagement, in respect of too bulky Volumes, etc. ”

“ Culpepper. “I’ll turn over in my mind what you’ve said.” Which meant that the Squire would certainly adopt Tom’s advice.
“No lovemaking, you know, Bristow,” whispered the old man, with a dig in the ribs, as they entered the dining-room.
“You may trust me, sir,” said Tom.
“I’m not so sure on that score. We are none of us saints when a pretty girl is in question.”
Tom did not fail to keep the Squire alive during dinner. To the old man his fund of news seemed inexhaustible. In reality, his resources in that line were never put to the test. ”

“ There was not a great deal of enthusiasm in Sir Thomas’s voice. His nephew was not a young man whom he respected very highly. Spennie regarded his uncle with nervous apprehension, as one who would deal with his shortcomings with vigour and severity. Sir Thomas, for his part, looked on Spennie as a youth who would get into mischief unless he had an eye fixed on him. ”

“ Not that the old man would not have been as stanch as steel in such a case, and would have done anything and everything to assist Lionel. But, unfortunately, he had a garrulous tongue, which could not always be trusted to keep a secret—which often betrayed secrets without knowing that it had done so; and in a matter so grave as the one in which he was now engaged, Tom was careful to avoid the slightest unnecessary risk. It would be far better for every one that the squire should rest in happy ignorance, till the future should bring its own proper time for revealing everything. ”

“ Tom had called at Alder Cottage earlier in the day, and had seen Edith and Mrs. Garside, and had given them their final instructions. He had one other person still to see—Mr. Sprague, the chemist, and him he went in search of as soon as he had bidden Lionel good-night.
Mr. Sprague himself came in answer to Tom’s ring at the bell, and ushered his visitor into a stuffy little parlour behind the shop, where he had been lounging on the sofa in his shirt-sleeves, reading Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy.” And a very melancholy, careworn-looking man was this chemist whom Tom had come to see. ”

“ Bristow, you have told me enough this morning to induce me to promise beforehand that any scheme you may put before me, which has for its basis the welfare of Lionel, will meet with my heartiest support. No man could have proved himself a better friend to my dear boy than you have done. Your wishes are my law.”
After satisfying himself that there were no eavesdroppers about, Tom proceeded to lay before General St. George the details of a scheme which he had been elaborating in his brain for several days, and which, in outline, had been already agreed to by Lionel. ”

“ It was handed to him by Lionel. “The tea-cup turns out to be a coffee-cup,” said Tom. With that, he went down on one knee, drew the cork, half filled the cup with wine, and then offered it to Lionel.
“Not till you and Creede have both drunk to my health and acquittal,” said the latter. ”

“ Tom, all this time, had been talking volubly, and making ample use of his big pocket-handkerchief—doing his best, in fact, to keep his companion from being overmuch noticed. But now had come the most dangerous moment of all. They were all crowded together close to the outer gate, waiting for it to be unfastened—the three warders, Tom, and Lionel—under the light of a flaring gas-lamp. The slightest hesitation—the least want of presence of mind—might have been fatal to everything. ”

“ Knowing what he knew, that Richard was none other than Lionel, and knowing the quest on which he was engaged, and that, sooner or later, the climax must come, he might well wish to be away from Park Newton when that most wretched day should dawn—a day which would prove the innocence of one nephew at the price of the other’s guilt. Therefore did General St. George accept his old friend’s invitation to stay with him for an indefinite length of time—till, in fact, Kester should have left Park Newton, or till the tangled knot of events should, in some other way, have unravelled itself. ”