As a last struggle in the argument, I now asked Fothergill, if he could mention instances of this? "A pregnant one," he replied, "in the Countess of Warwick, with no less a man than Addison; though that could scarcely be called a mesalliance, for, in the end he was Secretary of State. That union was not happy, because, as was said, the Countess could never forget (perhaps never forgive), that her second husband had been her son's tutor. And yet, no doubt, when the great lady first made this stoop, she was actuated, as she thought, by a most generous devotion, as well as admiration, for a person certainly the ornament of his age. Still it availed little for poor Addison; and I cannot do better, as an illustration of the subject, than refer you to what Johnson says of it, in his life of that illustrious man." At this, taking down his Lives of the Poets, he read as follows: : "This year (1716) he married the Countess Dowager of Warwick, whom he had solicited by a long and anxious courtship, perhaps with behaviour not very much unlike that of Sir Roger, to his disdainful widow; and who, I am afraid, diverted herself often by playing with his passion. He is said to have first known her by becoming tutor to her son. In what part of his life he obtained the recommendation, or how long, and in what manner, he lived in the family, I know not. His advances, at first, were certainly timorous, but grew bolder as his reputation and influence increased; till at last the lady was persuaded to marry him, on terms much like those on which a Turkish princess is espoused, to whom the Sultan is reported to pronounce, daughter, I give thee this man for thy slave. The marriage made no addition to his happiness; it neither found them, nor made them equal. She always remembered her own rank, and thought herself entitled to treat with very little ceremony the tutor of her sou.”* "This is surely enough for the argument," concluded Fothergill, though there are other cases which I have not been 66 *She was a Middleton, daughter of Sir Thomas. Who that reflects upon the universal fame of Addison, and feels him in his delightful literature one of the benefactors of mankind, and at the same time is puzzled to find out the family name of the wife who thus looked down upon him, but must laugh such nonsense to scorn. without observing, and which, in fact, first prompted this opinion of mine." I entreated to know them. "Why frequently," he replied, "some of our most settled maxims of life arise from accidental circumstances. When I was the companion of Lord Castleton, a picture of mesalliance forcibly struck me, in the person of his own sister, Lady Harriet Longueville, who exchanged that name for Baggs." "Baggs!" exclaimed I, "what a name!" and I thought with complacency of the De Cliffords. "Plebeian, certainly," said Fothergill," nor was Mr. Baggs in his condition much better than his name, though he was the son of honest parents, respectable in their line of life, his father, in fact, having a place in the Lord Mayor's court. As for himself, the best that can be said of him was, that he was, not disreputable from any vice, and had a certain coarse vigour of character; the worst, that being tolerably educated, he had conceived too high an idea of his own abilities, which he supposed would ensure him fortune whenever he pleased. In the meantime, his reading gave him notions far beyond himself; for he practised the sentimental and romantic, with much contempt for those whom he called cominon-place persons." I thought my good tutor looked too significantly at me while thus describing the hero Mr. Baggs; but I contented myself with saying, "And was it such a person as this who obtained an earl's sister? Ah! she could not have been like Bertha. Perhaps she was plain and unattractive; perhaps half-witted or uneducated; or perhaps a despairing old maid.” "Far from them all," said Fothergill. "She was rather handsome; had had the usual education of her rank; was accomplished and popular, and though not in her teens, was by no means antiquated. Of her wit, I will not say much, for whatever it was, she showed it not here; it was all lost and overlaid by a love of romance, by which she too was bit, and which, in fact, was what occasioned the step which ruined her." "She is then ruined?" said I. "I think so. But listen. While her brother, over whose house she had presided, was abroad, she resided with an aunt, an old and infirin lady, who, during the summer, shut herself up with her niece in a monotonous park in Gloucestershire; and in this park, where she had full liberty to range, Lady Harriet one eventful morning met this young swain reading aloud to himself. It was poetry, and he read well. He seemed confused at seeing her-shut the book in a hurryfeared he was a trespasser-was taken by the beauty of the park-a stranger that lodged in the village-et cetera, et cetera. The lady was pleased-thought it an adventure; said that reading out aloud in a park to one's self must be very delightful; in fine, gave him leave to repeat his walk whenever he pleased, and went home and told her aunt that she had met a love of a man, who, she was sure, had a most beautiful mind. The next day they met again, and again after that. They found they had both of them beautiful minds, akin of course to one another, and how much was that above the dross of the world! Besides, though Lady Harriet was not richly endowed, she was her own mistress, and told him so. 66 Upon this hint he spake," and was accepted before either of them had inquired after their means of subsistence-a thing Mr. Baggs said he spurned; which was lucky, for the honest clerk, his father, could not give him a pound. The old aunt could oppose nothing to this; but it was a sad blow to Lord Castleton, when he returned to England. His pride was hurt, and his anxiety for his sister alarmed. He urged all that could be so well urged against the measure-poverty, disparity of condition, loss of caste, ultimate misery. But in vain; her eyes were still blinded, her honour pledged, and the Lady Harriet Longueville became Lady Harriet Baggs." "Yet the result is to come," said I. "It is not happy, as you may suppose. Lord Castleton, at first resentful, paid his sister her £8,000, upon the interest of which, with her busband, she subsisted as well as she could for some months, exchanging her brother's fine mansion, of which she no longer could do the honours, for a lodging, neither very large nor very clean, in which, however, she expected to be visited by her friends. They came once, saw her husband, pitied her, took leave, and never came again. Lord Castleton, relenting, received her sometimes by herself, and sometimes with her husband, whose high pretensions and forwardness by no means conciliated him, but for whom, to keep them from starving, he obtained a small place, upon which they now barely exist. "Her society is almost already reduced to the aunts, sisters, and cousins, of Mr. Baggs, remarkable only for familiar vulgarity, and who, transported to call an earl's daughter their relation, never leave her to the solitude she now courts, as her only relief; and the certainty of finding her surrounded with these coarse people keeps off the very few friends who would still wish to notice her. "Thus exiled from all she most loved-lost to her former state, and despoiled of all that can cheer her (for her husband has long ceased to do so)-she drags on a melancholy existence, in which her only subject for meditation is unceasing self-blame. When last I saw her, it was in a smail, dirty, and mean house, near her brother's, who often feeds her from his larder. She has a child much neglected, from perpetual sorrow; her husband can neither give her consequence nor receive it from her; and her spirit is so broken, that she seems to have lost the desire as well as power to retrieve her condition. My tale is done." "And a melancholy one," observed I; "enough to terrify a bolder man than I; and yet I cannot help thinking that I am not Mr. Baggs." I said this firmly, as if it was in answer to his case. "And pray, as to essentials, in what are you different ?" asked my tutor, looking very tutor-like indeed. "I "I am a De Clifford," answered I, "and not a Baggs." "Aye, there it is," returned he with almost anger. wish the name were at the bottom of the sea, for it is perpetually haunting you as if the very ghost of your ancestor Sir William. "The times have been That when the brains were out the man would die, With twenty mortal murders on their crowns, And push us from our stools.' "So it is with you. You have not a word to say for yourself; you are beaten as flat in the argument as the Lords Clifford were killed regularly in battle some hundred years ago; yet you make them rise again, to push me from my stool. As if the name would give you an estate, other than a farmer." or make your father "My father is a grand juryman, in the county of York," said I, as well as Mr. Hastings, and not a lord mayor's official." "And why not add that he is the son-in-law of a Saxon duke, of a sovereign house, and that Mr. Hastings sells his own corn in Weatherby market. Upon my word, my Lord De Clifford, you are a very great fool." With these words he left me. PETULANT as I dare say I have appeared in the course of these memoirs, I was not in the least affronted with my kinsman-tutor for the appellation he gave me at the end of the last chapter. On the contrary, he had not been gone ten minutes, before the musing I fell into, the consequence of his portentous story, made me very much inclined to think he was right. This musing lasted during the greater part of the day; and I fell into as many resolutions as humours, according as love for Bertha, indignation at her brother, prudence, or a spirit of independence, became uppermost. At one time I arrayed myself in stoicism, and would be a Cato; at another, I was all dignity and Clifford-pride towards the whole family of Foljambe Park. But this soon gave way before the sweet beauty and frankness of Bertha, who had never shown pride to any one. In the end this prevailed; I could not part with my feelings, and would not if I could. In the midst of this, a trifling question obtruded itself |