Old Friends: Essays in Epistolary Parody

VI

Mrs. Proudie, wife of the Bishop of Barchester, admits Mrs. Quiverful into her confidence. Mrs. Proudie first takes pleasure in a new and pious acquaintance, Lady Crawley (née Sharp), but afterwards discovers the true character of this insidious and dangerous woman.

The Palace, Barchester, July 17.

Dear Letitia, – The appearance of mumps in a small family of fourteen like yours, is indeed one of those dispensations which teach us how mysterious are the ways! But I need not tell you to be most careful about cold, which greatly adds to the virulence of the complaint, and it is difficult for you, in lodgings at Brighton, to keep a watchful eye on so many at once. May this discipline be blessed to you, and to the dear children!

I have much to tell you of Barchester. The light worldly tone of some families in this place (I will not mention the Grantleys nor the Arabins) has been checked, I hope, by one of those accidents which surely, surely, are not to be considered accidents alone! You know how strong is my objection to fancy fairs or bazaars, too often rather scenes of giddy merriment than exhibitions of genuine Christian feeling. Yet by means of one of these (how strangely are things ordered!) a happy change, I trust, is being brought about in our midst.

You have heard of Hogglestock, though you may never have visited that benighted and outlying parish. Indeed, I was never there myself till last week, when Tom felt it his duty (though woefully misdirected, to my mind, but we are fallible creatures) to go and open a bazaar in that place for the restoration of the church. ⁶ I accompanied him; for I trusted that an opportunity might be made for me, and that I might especially bear in on the mind of the rector’s wife the absolute necessity of Sabbath-day schools. The rector is a Mr. Crawley. He led us on our arrival into a scene of red cloth, wax dolls most indelicately displayed, cushions, antimacassars, and similar idols. The Bishop’s speech (I composed it myself) you will read in the “Barchester Guardian,” which I send you. While approving the end he rebuked the means, and took the opportunity to read a much-needed lesson on Jesuitry and the dangers of worldliness in high ecclesiastical places. Let those wince who feel a sense of their own backslidings. When the Bishop had ended, I determined to walk once through the bazaar just to make sure that there were no lotteries nor games of chance – a desecration of our mites now too, too frequent. As I was returning through the throng, alas! of pleasure-seekers, and wishing that I might scourge them out of the schoolroom, Mr. Crawley met me, in company with a lady who desired, he said, to be presented to me. He is a distant relation of the well-known county family, the Crawleys, of Queen’s Crawley; the present baronet, Sir Rawdon, having recently married Miss Jane Dobbin, daughter of Colonel Dobbin. The lady who was now introduced to me, and whose still pleasing face wears an aspect of humble devoutness, was Lady Crawley, mother of the present baronet.

“Madam,” she said, “I came here in the belief that I was discharging a pious duty. My life, alas! has been one of sore trial, and I only try to do good.”.

I was going to say that I had seen her name in a score of charity lists, and knew her as a patroness of the Destitute Orange-Girls, the Neglected Washerwomen, and the Distressed Muffin-Men. But she shook her head; and then, looking up at me with eyes like a saint’s (if our privileges permitted us to believe in these fabulous beings of the Romish superstition), she said, “Ah, no! I have always been in the wrong. The beautiful address of the Bishop of Barchester has awakened me, and convinced me that the path does not lie through Fancy Fairs. I have to begin again. Who shall guide me?”

I trust I am not subject to vanity; but the news that I (for I composed the Charge, as I may almost call it) had been the instrument of so affecting a change did not fail to please me. I thanked Lady Crawley, and expressed my deep interest in her altered convictions. Finally she promised to come on a visit to us at the Palace (she usually resides at Bath or Cheltenham), and has been three days an inmate. Never have I met a more singular example of what the Truth can do for one who, as she admits, was long ago a worldling. “I have seen the vanity of it,” she tells me, with tears in her eyes; and from her example I expect an awakening among our worldlings. They will follow the path of a titled person. Tom is much interested in his convert, as he thinks her. Not to me be the glory! – Your assured friend,

Emily Barnum. ⁷

From Mrs. Proudie to Mrs. Quiverful

The Palace, Barchester, July 22.

Dear Letitia, – My hand trembles so with indignation that I can hardly direct my pen. Pray burn my letter of July 17 at once, if you have not already done so. ⁸ We have been deceived in that woman! She is a brazenfaced, painted daughter of Heth, and has no more right to the title of Lady Crawley than you have. I am told that she was at one time the paramour of Lord Steyne, and that her conduct made it impossible for her husband to live with her. And this is the woman who has come within the gates of the palace of a Christian prelate; nay, more, who has secured his signature to a cheque of very considerable value. I think my suspicions were first excited by the disappearance of the brandy in the liqueur-stand, and by meeting “her ladyship’s” maid carrying the bottle up to her room! I spoke to the Bishop, but he would not listen to me – quite unlike himself; and even turned on me in her defence.

Entering his study hastily on the following day, I found her kneeling at his feet, her yellow hair (dyed, no doubt, for she must be sixty if she is a day) about her shoulders, doing what do you suppose – ? Confessing herself to the Bishop of Barchester!

And he was listening to her “confession” with an appearance of interest, and with one of her hands in his.

“Serpent!” I said – and her green eyes glittered just like one – “unhand his lordship!” She gave a little laugh and said, “Dear Mrs. Proudie, do not let me monopolise the Bishop’s time. Perhaps I am in the way?”

“And you shall go out of it,” I said. “You are one of those who cause Israel to sin. You bring the Confessional, for it is no better, into the house of a Prelate of the Protestant Church of England!” Would you believe that she had the assurance to answer me with a passage from the Prayer Book, which I have often felt certain must be mistranslated?

“Pack, madam,” said I; “we know who can quote Scripture for his own ends!”

And I pretty soon saw her out of the house, though not in time; for the infatuated Bishop had already given her a cheque for a sum which I cannot bring myself to tell you, for the Funds of the Destitute Orange-Girls. Not a penny of it will they ever see; nor do I approve of such ostentatious alms in any case. – Yours in haste,

Emily Barnum.

P.S. – I have heard from Lady Courtney all her history. It is abominable.

VII

From Robert Surtees, Esq., of Mainsforth, to Jonathan Oldbuck, Esq., of Monkbarns

It is well known that Mr. Surtees of Mainsforth not only palmed off on Sir Waiter Scott several ballads of his own manufacture, but also invented and pretended to have found in a document (since burned) the story of the duel with the spectre knight which occurs in Marmion. In the following letter this ingenious antiquary plays the same game with Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck, of Monkbarns, the celebrated antiquary. A note on the subject is published in the Appendix.

Mainsforth, May 9, 1815.

Dear Sir, – I am something of the Mussulman’s humour, as you know, and never willingly pass by a scrap of printed paper, however it comes in my way. I cannot, indeed, like the “Spectator,” “mention a paper kite from which I have received great improvement,” nor “a hat-case which I would not exchange for all the beavers in Great Britain.” It is in a less unlikely place that I have made a little discovery which will interest you, I hope; for as it chances, not only has a lost ballad been at least partially recovered, but.. however, I will keep your learned patience on the tenterhooks for a while.

Business taking me to Newcastle of late, I found myself in Bell’s little shop on the quay. ⁹ You know the man by report at least; he is more a collector than a bookseller, though poor; and I verily believe that he would sell all his children – Douglas Bell, Percy Bell, Hobbie Bell, and Kinmont Bell – “for a song.” Ballads are his foible, and he can hardly be made to part with one of the broadsides in his broken portfolios. Well, semel insanivimus omnes (by the way, did it ever strike you that the Roman “cribbed” that line, as the vulgar say, from an epigram in the Anthology?), and you and I will scarce throw the first stone at the poor man’s folly. However, I am delaying your natural eagerness. So now for the story of my great discovery. As our friend Bell would scarce let his dusty broadsheet lumber out of his hands, I was turning to leave him in no very good humour, when I noticed a small and rather long octavo, in dirty and crumpled vellum, lying on the top of a heap of rubbish, Boston’s “Crook in the Lot,” “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” and other chap-book trumpery. I do not know what good angel that watches over us collectors made me take up the thing, which I found to be nothing less than a copy of old Guillaume Coquillart. It was not Galliot du Pré’s edition, in lettres rondes, but, still more precious had it only been complete, an example in black letter. I give you the whole title. First the motto, in the frieze of an architectural design, ΑΓΑΘΗ ΤΥΧΗ. Then, in small capitals —

 
Les Œuvres
Maistre Gvil
laume Coquil
lart en son vi
vant Official
de Reims.  Nov
vellement Re
veves et Corri
gees.
 

M. D. XXXV.

 
On les vend à Lyon en la
Maison de Françoys Juste,
Demourant devant nostre
Dame de Confort.
 

By bad (or good) luck this rare piece was imperfect – the back gaping and three sheets gone. But, in turning over the leaves, I saw something that brought my heart, as they say, into my mouth. So, beating down Bell from his upset price of fourpence to six bawbees, I pushed the treasure carelessly in my pocket, and never stopped till I was in a lonely place by Tyne-side and secure from observation. Then, with my knife, I very carefully uncased Maistre Guillaume, and extracted the sheet of parchment, printed in black letter with red capitals, that had been used to line the binding. A corner of it had crept out, through the injuries of time, and on that, in Bell’s “crame” (for it is more a crame than a shop), I had caught the mystic words Runjt macht Gunjt.

And now, I think, Monkbarns, you prick up your ears and wipe your spectacles. That is the motto, as every one of the learned family of antiquaries is well aware, and, as you have often told me, of your great forbear, the venerable and praiseworthy Aldobrand Oldenbuck the Typographer, who fled from the Low Countries during the tyrannical attempt of Philip II. to suppress at once civil and religious liberty. As all the world knows, he withdrew from Nuremberg to Scotland, and set up his Penates and (what you may not hitherto have been aware of) his Printing Press at Fairport, and under your ancestral roof of Monkbarns. But, what will surprise you yet more, the parchment sheet which bears Aldobrand’s motto in German contains printed matter in good Scots! This excellent and enterprising man must have set himself to ply his noble art in his new home, and in our unfamiliar tongue.

Yet, even now, we are not at the end of this most fortunate discovery. It would appear that there was little demand for works of learning and religion in Scotland, or at least at Fairport; for the parchment sheet contains fragments of a Ballad in the Scots tongue. None but a poor and struggling printer would then have lent his types to such work, and fortunate for us has been the poverty of your great ancestor. Here we have the very earliest printed ballad in the world, and, though fragmentary, it is the more precious as the style proves to demonstration, and against the frantic scepticism even of a Ritson, the antique and venerable character of those compositions. I send you a copy of the Ballad, with the gaps (where the tooth of time or of the worm, edax rerum, hath impaired it) filled up with conjectural restorations of my own. But how far do they fall short of the original simplicity! Non cuivis contingit. As the title is lacking, as well as the imprint, I have styled it

THE FRAGMENT OF THE FAUSE LOVER AND THE DEAD LEMAN

 
O Willie rade, and Willie gaed
Atween the shore and sea,
And still it was his dead Lady
That kept him company.
 
 
O Willie rade, and Willie gaed
Atween the [loch and heather],
And still it was his dead Lady
That [held his stirrup leather].
 
 
“O Willie, tak’ me up by ye,
Sae far it is I gang;
O tak’ me on your saddle bow,
Or [your day shall not be lang].”
 
 
“Gae back, gae back, ye fause ill wife,
To the grave wherein ye lie,
It never was seen that a dead leman
Kept lover’s company!
 
 
“Gae back, gae back frae me,” he said,
“For this day maun I wed,
And how can I kiss a living lass,
When ye come frae the dead?
 
 
“If ye maun haunt a living man,
Your brither haunt,” says he,
“For it was never my knife, but his
That [twined thy life and thee!]”
 

* * * * *

We are to understand, I make no doubt, that Willie had been too fortunate a lover, and that in his absence – the frailty of his lady becoming conspicuous – her brother had avenged the family honour according to that old law of Scotland which the courteous Ariosto styles “l’ aspra legge di Scozia, empia e severa.”

Pray let me know, at your leisure, what you think of this trouvaille. It is, of course, entirely at your service, if you think it worthy of a place in a new edition of the “Minstrelsy.” I have no room to inflict more ballads or legends on you; and remain, most faithfully yours,

R. Surtees.

From Jonathan Oldbuck, Esq., of Monkbarns, to Robert Surtees, Esq., Mainsforth

Monkbarns, June 1.

My Dear Sir, – How kind hath Fortune been to you, and, in a secondary degree, to myself. Your letter must dispel the unreasoning and I fear envious scepticism of MacCribb, who has put forth a plaunflet (I love that old spelling) in which he derides the history of Aldobrand Oldenbuck as a fable. The Ballad shall, indeed, have an honoured place in my poor Collection whenever the public taste calls for a new edition. But the original, what would I not give to have it in my hands, to touch the very parchment which came from the press of my revered ancestor, and, gloating on the crabbed letters, confute MacCribb to his face ipso visu et tactu of so inestimable a rarity. Exchanges – or “swaps,” as the vulgar call them – are not unknown among our fraternity. Ask what you will for this treasure, to the half of my kingdom: my gold Aurelius (found at Bermuckety, on the very limits of Roman Caledonia), my “Complaynte of Scotland” (the only perfect copy known),

My copperplate, with almanacks

Engrav’d upon’t, and other knacks;

My moon-dial, with Napier’s bones

And several constellation stones.

Make your choice, in fact, of all my Gabions, as honest old George Ruthven called them.

Nay, excuse the covetousness of an Antiquary, my dear sir; I well know that nothing I could offer were worth a tithe of your priceless discovery, the oldest printed Scots Ballad extant. It shall suffice for me to look on it, under the roof of Mainsforth, when next I make a raid across the Border. I have conquered my passions, and can obey the last of the Commandments. Haud equiden invideo, minor magis. I need not bid you be watchful of your booty. – Yours most faithfully,

Jonathan Oldbuck.

From Robert Surtees, Esq., to Jonathan Oldbuck, Esq

June 11.

My Dear Sir, – Alas, your warning comes too late. An accursed example of womankind, fit descendant of that unhappy Betty Barnes, cook to Mr. Warburton, who destroyed his ancient manuscript plays, hath invaded my sanctum, and the original black-letter text of the ballad has gone to join Shakspeare’s “Stephen” and “Henry II.” She hath lit with it my study fire, and it is fortunate indeed that I had made the copy of the ballad for you. But the volume of Coquillart is alive to testify to the authenticity of the poem; which, after all, is needless evidence, as not even Ritson could suspect of either the skill or the malice of such a forgery, Yours most faithfully,

Robert Surtees.

VIII

From Nicholas to the Editor of the St. James’s Gazette

It is only too probable that a later generation has forgotten “Nicholas,” the sporting Prophet of “Fun,” in the reign of Mr. Hood the younger. The little work, “Nicholas’s Notes,” in which Mr. W. J. Prowse collected the papers of the old Prophet, is, indeed, not an “edition de looks,” as the aged Seer says, with his simple humour. From the Paradise of Fiction, however (and the Paradise of Touts), Nicholas has communicated, perhaps to the Psychical Society, the following Epistle. His friendly mention of a brother journalist speaks well for the Old Man’s head and heart.

The Paradise of Fiction, Feb. 9, 1888.

Sir, – My dear young friend, it is ten to one, and no takers, that the public, than whom, between you and me, I do not think much of them, have forgotten Nicholas, or even never heard of the Prophet. Youth will be served; and it is now between twenty years since he left off vaticinating in “Fun,” during young Mr. Hood’s time, of future sportive events for to come, and came to live here with the other celebrated characters of Fiction, than whom I am sure a more mixed lot, though perhaps a little gay. It having come to the Prophet’s knowledge that some of them was writing letters to “The St. James’s Gazette” (than which I am sure none more respectable, though perhaps a little not quite so attentive to sportive interests as it might be), he have decided that Nicholas will take up his pen once more, as of old.

The State of the Turf, my dear young friend, since an old but still handsome bird would freely alight (when not warned off) on Newmarket Heath, have caused Nicholas some anxiety. Sir, between you and me, it is rapidly getting no better. Here is Lord – (than whom a more sterling sportsman) as good as saying to Sir – (than whom, perhaps), “Did you ever hear of a sporting character called Swindells?” And the Prophet have been told that it may furnish matter for the gentlemen of the long robe – which, in my time, many of them was backers of horses.

And all along of what? Why, of the “inexplicable in-and-out running of horses,” as the “Standard” says, and as will often happen, you, perhaps, having a likely dark one as you want to get light into a high-class autumn handicap. The days is long past since Nicholas was nuts on the game little Lecturer, but still has the interests of the Turf at heart; and, my dear young friend, if horses never ran in and out, where would be “the glorious uncertainty of the sport”? On the whole, then, if asked my opinion on this affair, the Prophet would say – putting it ambiguous-like – “Gentlemen, when there’s so much dirty linen to wash, can’t you remember that we’re all pretty much tarred with the same brush?” A great politician – which a lot of his family is here, Coningsby, and the Young Duke, and many other sportsmen – used to say as what the Turf was “a gigantic engine of national demoralisation;” which Nicholas is not quite sure but what he was right for him, though his language on rather a large scale. Horses running in and out is inexplicable! Why, gents all, which of us wouldn’t do it, if he had the chance to put the pot on handsome, human nature being what it is, especially considering the lowness of the market odds as you have often and often to be content with. In short, the more you stir it the more it won’t exactly remind you of gales from Araby the Blest; than which a more delightful country, only not to be found on any atlas as Nicholas ever cast a glance at the map, however large.

But enough of a subject than which perhaps one more painful to me; the Prophet having often and often, in early days, been warned off Newmarket Heath himself, and called a “disreputable old tout,” though only labouring in his vocation.

(Make a new beginning here, please, Printer.)

It have come to the knowledge of the Prophet that his “Notes” are not quite so much read as they once was, partly owing, no doubt, to the book being not so much an “edition de looks” as rather a low-lived lot, to a casual eye, at fourpence; the picture outside representing Nicholas rather as having had too much for to drink than as a prominent member of the Blue Ribbon Society, which it did not exist in his period, nor would it have enjoyed, to any considerable extent, my personal or pecuniary support, he having something else to do with his money. (Printer, please put in a full stop somewhere here, Nicholas being a little out of the habit of writing for the periodical press.) He have also heard that it is proposed in literary circles to start a “Nicholas Society” for the purpose of printing a limited edition of my works including my lost treatise of Knur and Spell, on Japanese paper, illustrated with photo-gravelures; they having come in since the Prophet’s period, though perhaps a little gay.

But, my dear though exquisite young friends, is there no better way of rallying round the Prophet than this? I have heard, from characters in ancient literature, such as Agamemnon – than whom a more energetic soldier, though perhaps a trifle arbitrary – the Prophet have heard, I say, that a deal of liquor used to be poured on the graves of coves like him and me, and that it did them good. This may be the case, and anyway the experiment is well worth trying; though, I would say, do not let it be milk, as I gather was customary in early times, as didn’t know any better; but, if possible, a bottle or two of sherry wine, to which, as is well beknown, Nicholas was partial. He will now conclude; and the Prophet hopes that an experiment, than which, I am sure, one more deeply interesting, will not be deferred; he not much taking to the liquor here, though the company makes up for a great deal, especially an Irish officer by the name of Costigan, than whom a sweeter singer or a more honourable gentleman; and signs himself, with gratitude for past favours, and kind respects to the Editor of the “Guardian,”

Nicholas.