on, young Grigg (brother of Grigg of the Lifeguards, himself reading for the Bar) came up, and hooking his arm into mine, desired the man to leave off" chaffing” me; asked him if he would take a bill at three months for the money; told him if he would call at the "Horns Tavern," Kennington, next Tuesday week, he would find sixpence there, done up for him in a brown paper parcel and quite routed my opponent. "I know you, Mr. Grigg," said he; "you're a gentleman, you are:" and so retired, leaving the victory with me. 66 He Young Mr. Grigg is one of those young bucks about town, who goes every night of his life to two Theatres, to the Casino, to Weippert's balls, to the Café de l'Haymarket, to Bob Slogger's, the boxing-house, to the Harmonic Meetings at the Kidney Cellars," and other places of fashionable resort. knows everybody at these haunts of pleasure; takes boxes for the actors' benefits; has the word from head-quarters about the venue of the fight between Putney Sambo and the Tutbury Pet; gets up little dinners at their public-houses; shoots pigeons, fights cocks, plays fives, has a boat on the river, and a room at Rummer's in Conduit Street, besides his Chambers at the Temple, where his parents, Sir John and Lady Grigg, of Portman Square, and Grigsby Hall, Yorkshire, believe that he is assiduously occupied in studying the Law. "Tom applies too much," her ladyship says. "His father was obliged to remove him from Cambridge on account of a brain-fever brought on by hard reading, and in consequence of the jealousy of some of the collegians; otherwise, I am told, he must have been Senior Wrangler, and seated first of the Tripod." "I'm going to begin the evening," said this ingenuous young fellow; "I've only been at the Lowther Arcade, Weippert's hop, and the billiard-rooms. I just toddled in for half an hour to see Brooke in Othello, and looked in for a few minutes behind the scenes at the Adelphi. What shall be the next resort of pleasure, Spec, my elderly juvenile? Shall it be the SherryCobbler-Stall,' or the 'Cave of Harmony?' There's some prime glee-singing there." "What is the old Cave of Harmony' still extant?" I asked. "I have not been there these twenty years." And memory carried me back to the days when Lightsides of Corpus, myself, and little Oaks, the Johnian, came up to town in a chaise-and-four, at the long vacation at the end of our freshman's year, ordered turtle and venison for dinner at the "Bedford," blubbered over Black-eyed Susan at the play, and then finished the evening at that very Harmonic Cave, where the famous English Improvisatore sang with such prodigious talent that we asked him down to stay with us in the country. Spurgin, and Hawker, the fellow-commoner of our College, I remember me, were at the Cave too, and Bardolph, of Brasenose. Lord, lord! what a battle and struggle and wear and tear of life there has been since then! Hawker levanted, and Spurgin is dead these ten years; little Oaks is a whiskered Captain of Heavy Dragoons, who cut down no end of Sikhs at Sobraon; Lightsides, a Tractarian parson, who turns his head and walks another way when we meet; and your humble servant well, never mind. But in my spirit I saw them all those blooming and jovial young boys-and Lightsides, with a cigar in his face, and a bang-up white coat, covered with mother-of-pearl cheese-plates, bellowing out for "First and Second Turn-out," as our yellow post-chaise came rattling up to the inn-door at Ware. "And so the Cave of Harmony' is open," I said, looking at little Grigg with a sad and tender interest, and feeling that I was about a hundred years old. "I believe you, my baw-aw-oy!" said he, adopting the tone of an exceedingly refined and popular actor, whose choral and comic powers render him a general favorite. "Does Bivins keep it?" I asked, in a voice of profound melancholy. "Hoh! What a flat you are! You might as well ask if Mrs. Siddons acted Lady Macbeth to-night, and if Queen Anne's dead or not. I tell you what, Spec, my boy-you're getting a regular old flat- fogy, sir, a positive old fogy. How the deuce do you pretend to be a man about town, and not know that Bivins has left the Cavern? Law bless you! Come in and see: I know the landlord - I'll introduce you to him." This was an offer which no man could resist; and so Grigg and I went through the Piazza, and down the steps of that wellremembered place of conviviality. Grigg knew everybody; wagged his head in at the bar, and called for two glasses of his particular mixture; nodded to the singers; winked at one friend — put his little stick against his nose as a token of recognition to another; and calling the waiter by his Christian name, poked him playfully with the end of his cane, and asked him whether he, Grigg, should have a lobster kidney, or a mashed oyster and scalloped 'taters, or a poached rabbit, for supper? was full of young rakish-looking lads, with a The room dubious sprinkling of us middle-aged youth, and stalwart redfaced fellows from the country, with whiskey-noggins before them, and bent upon seeing life. A grand piano had been introduced into the apartment, which did not exist in the old days otherwise all was as of yore — smoke rising from scores of human chimneys, waiters bustling about with cigars and liquors in the intervals of the melody — and the President of the meeting (Bivins no more) encouraging gents to give their orders. Just as the music was about to begin, I looked opposite me, and there, by heavens! sat Bardolph of Brasenose, only a little more purple and a few shades more dingy than he used to look twenty years ago. V. "LOOK at that old Greek in the cloak and fur collar opposite,' said my friend, Mr. Grigg. "That chap is here every night. They call him Lord Farintosh. He has five glasses of whiskeyand-water every night― seventeen hundred and twenty-five goes of alcohol in a year; we totted it up one night at the bar. James the waiter is now taking number three to him. He don't count the wine he has had at dinner." Indeed, James the waiter, knowing the gentleman's peculiarities, as soon as he saw Mr. Bardolph's glass nearly empty, brought him another noggin and a jug of boiling water without a word. Memory carried me instantaneously back to the days of my youth. I had the honor of being at school with Bardolph before he went to Brasenose; the under boys used to look up at him from afar off, as at a godlike being. He was one of the head boys of the school; a prodigious dandy in pigeon-hole trousers, ornamented with what they called "tucks" in front. He wore : a ring leaving the little finger on which he wore the jewel out of his pocket, in which he carried the rest of his hand. He had whiskers even then and to this day I cannot understand why he is not seven feet high. When he shouted out, "Under boy!" we small ones trembled and came to him. I recollect he called mẹ once from a hundred yards off, and I came up in a tremor. He pointed to the ground. "Pick up my hockey-stick," he said, pointing towards it with the hand with the ring on! He had dropped the stick. He was too great, wise, and good, to stoop to pick it up himself. He got the silver medal for Latin Sapphics, in the year Pogram was gold-medallist. When he went up to Oxford, the Head Master, the Rev. J. Flibber, complimented him in a valedictory speech, made him a present of books, and prophesied that he would do great things at the University. He had got a scholarship, and won a prize-poem, which the Doctor read out to the sixth form with great emotion. It was on "The Recollections of Childhood," and the last lines were, "Qualia prospiciens catulus ferit æthera risu, I thought of these things rapidly, gazing on the individual before me. The brilliant young fellow of 1815 (by-the-by it was the Waterloo year, by which some people may remember it better; but at school we spoke of 66 years as Pogram's year," Tokely's year," &c.) there, I say, sat before me the dashing young buck of 1815, a fat, muzzy, red-faced old man, in a battered hat, absorbing whiskey-and-water, and half listening to the singing. 66 A wild, long-haired, professional gentleman, with a fluty voice and with his shirt-collar turned down, began to sing as follows: "WHEN THE GLOOM IS ON THE GLEN. "When the moonlight's on the mountain At the cross beside the fountain Yes, the cross beside the fountain, [Down goes half of Mr. Bardolph's No. 3 Whiskey during this refrain.] "I have braved, since first we met, love, Many a danger in my course; But I never can forget, love, That dear fountain, that old cross, Where, her mantle shrouded o'er her For the winds were chilly then First I met my Leonora, When the gloom was on the glen, [Another gulp and almost total disappearance of Whiskey-Go, No. 3.] Many a clime I've ranged since then, love, Many a land I've wandered o'er; But a valley like that glen, love, Half so dear I never sor! Ne'er saw maiden fairer, coyer, Than wert thou, my true love, when In the gloaming first I saw yer, In the gloaming of the glen!" Bardolph, who had not shown the least symptom of emotion as the gentleman with the fluty voice performed this delectable composition, began to whack, whack, whack on the mahogany with his pewter measure at the conclusion of the song, wishing, perhaps, to show that the noggin was empty; in which manner James, the waiter, interpreted the signal, for he brought Mr. Bardolph another supply of liquor. The song, words, and music, composed and dedicated to Charles Bivins, Esquire, by Frederic Snape, and ornamented with a picture of a young lady, with large eyes and short petticoats, leaning at a stone cross by a fountain, was now handed about the room by a waiter, and any gentleman was at liberty to purchase it for half a crown. The man did not offer the song to Bardolph; he was too old a hand. After a pause, the president of the musical gents cried out for silence again, and then stated to the company that Mr. Hoff would sing "The Red Flag," which announcement was received by the Society with immense applause, and Mr. Hoff, a gentleman whom I remember to have seen exceedingly unwell on board a Gravesend steamer, began the following terrific ballad: "THE RED FLAG. "Where the quivering lightning flings Wilt follow him, lady mine? For the bonny, bonny brine. "Amidst the storm and rack, You shall see our galley pass For the bonny, bonny prize. |