Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

TOO HANDSOME FOR ANY THING.

said his mother. "C My first cousin is the lord chancellor," said his father; "let him go to the bar." The lord chancellor dined there that day; Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy was introduced to him. His lordship was a little, rough-faced, beetle-browed, hard-featured man, who thought beauty and idleness the same thing-and a parchment skin the legitimate complexion for a lawyer. bar!" said he, "no, no, that will never do!-send him into the army; he is much too handsome to become a lawyer." "And that's true enough, my lord!" said the mother. So they bought Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy a cornetcy in the regiment of dra

"Send him to the

"A

MR. FERDINAND FITZROY was one of those models of perfection of which a human father and mother can produce but a single example-Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy was therefore an only son. He was such an amazing favorite with both his parents that they resolved to ruin him; accordingly, he was exceedingly spoiled, never annoyed by the sight of a book, and had as much plum-cake as he could eat. Happy would it have been for Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy could he always have eaten plum-cake, and remained a child. "Never," says the Greek tragedian, "reckon a mortal happy till you have witnessed his end." A most beautiful creature was Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy ! Such eyes-such goons. Things are not learned by hair-such teeth-such a figure-such inspiration. Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy manners, too—and such an irresistible way of tying his neckcloth! When he was about sixteen, a crabbed old uncle represented to his parents the propriety of teaching Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy to read and write. Though not without some difficulty, he convinced them, for he was exceedingly rich, and riches in an uncle are wonderful arguments respecting the nurture of a nephew whose parents have nothing to leave him. So our hero was sent to school. He was naturally (I am not joking now) a very sharp, clever boy; and he came on surprisingly in his learning. The school master's wife liked handsome children. "What a genius will Master Ferdinand Fitzroy be, if you take pains with him!" said she, to her husband. "Pooh, my dear, it is of no use to take pains with him." "And why, love?" "Because he is a great deal too handsome ever to be a scholar." "And that's true enough, my dear!" said the schoolmaster's wife. So, because he was too handsome to be a scholar, Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy remained the lag of the fourth form! They took our hero from school."What profession shall he follow?"

29 ATHENEUM, VOL. 1, 3d series.

had never ridden at school, except
when he was hoisted; he was, there-
fore, a very indifferent horseman ;
they sent him to the riding-school,
and everybody laughed at him.
horrid puppy!" said Lieutenant St.
Squintem, who was very ugly; "if
he does not ride better, he will dis-
grace the regiment!" said Capt. Ri-
valhate, who was very good-looking;
"if he does not ride better, we will
cut him!" said Colonel Everdrill,
who was a wonderful martinet. "Pooh,
sir, he will never ride better." "And
why will he not?"

"Bless you!

colonel, he is a great deal too hand-
some for a cavalry officer!" "True!"
said Cornet Horsephiz. "Very true!"
said Lieutenant St. Squintem. "We
must cut him!" said the colonel.
And Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy was ac-
cordingly cut. Our hero was a youth
of susceptibility—he quitted the
regiment, and challenged the colonel.
The colonel was killed!
"What a
terrible blackguard is Mr. Ferdinand
Fitzroy !" said the colonel's relations.
"Very true!" said the world. The
parents were in despair! They were
not rich; but our hero was an only
son, and they sponged hard upon the

[ocr errors]

crabbed old uncle. "He is very clever," said they both, "and may do yet." So they borrowed some thousands of the uncle, and bought his beautiful nephew a seat in parliament. Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy was ambitious, and desirous of retrieving his character. He fagged like a dragon-conned pamphlets and reviews-got Ricardo by heart-and made notes on the English Constitution. He rose to speak. "What a handsome fellow!" whispered one member. 86 Ah, a coxcomb!" said another. "Never do for a speaker!" said a third, very audibly. And the gentlemen on the opposite benches sneered and heared! Impudence is only indigenous in Milesia, and an orator is not made in a day. Discouraged by his reception, Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy grew a little embarrassed. "Told you so!" said one of his neighbors. Fairly broke down!" said another. "Too fond of his hair to have anything in his head," said a third, who was considered a wit. "Hear, hear!" cried the gentlemen on the opposite benches. Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy sat down-he had not shone; but, in justice, he had not failed. Many a first-rate speaker had begun worse; and many a county member had been declared a phoenix of promise upon half his merit. Not so, thought the heroes of corn laws. "Your Adonises never make orators!" said a crack speaker with a wry nose. “Nor men of business, either," added the chairman of a committee, with a face like a kangaroo's. "Poor devil!" said the civilest of the set. "He's a deuced deal too handsome for a speaker! By Jove, he is going to speak again! this will never do; we must cough him down." And Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy was accordingly coughed down. Our hero was now seven or eight and twenty, handsomer than ever, and the adoration of all the young ladies at Almack's. "We have nothing to leave you," said the parents, who had long spent their fortune, and now lived on the credit of having once enjoyed it. "You are the handsomest man in London; you

t

must marry an heiress." "I will," said Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy. Miss Helen Convolvulus was a charming young lady, with a hare-lip and six thousand a-year. To Miss Helen Convolvulus then our hero paid his addresses. But what an uproar her relations made about the matter! "Easy to see his intentions," said one : "a handsome fortune-hunter, who wants to make the best of his person!"-" handsome is that handsome does," says another ;-" he was turned out of the army and murdered his colonel ;"- -" never marry a beauty," said a third; "he can admire none but himself;"—" will have so many mistresses," said a fourth ;"make you perpetually jealous," said a fifth ;-" spend your fortune," said a sixth ;-" and break your heart," said a seventh. Miss Helen Convolvulus was prudent and wary. She saw a great deal of justice in what was said; and was sufficiently contented with liberty and six thousand a-year, not to be highly impatient for a husband; but our heroine had no aversion to a lover, especially to so handsome a lover as Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy. Accordingly, she neither accepted nor discarded him; but kept him on hope, and suffered him to get into debt with his tailor and his coachmaker, on the strength of becoming Mr. Fitzroy Convolvulus. Time went on, and excuses and delays were easily found; however, our hero was sanguine, and so were his parents. A breakfast at Chiswick and a putrid fever carried off the latter, within one week of each other; but not till they had blessed Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy, and rejoiced that they had left him so well provided for. Now, then, our hero depended solely upon the crabbed old uncle and Miss Helen Convolvulus ;-the former, though a baronet and a satirist, was a banker and a man of business -he looked very distastefully at the Hyperian curls and white teeth of Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy. "If I make you my heir," said he, "I expect you will continue the bank.” Certainly, sir!" said the nephew.

[ocr errors]

:

Debt

"Humph!" grunted the uncle; "a exquisitely brodé)-" my natural son, pretty fellow for a banker!" John Spriggs, an industrious, painstaking youth, who will do credit to the bank. I did once intend to have made my nephew, Ferdinand, my heir; but so curling a head can have no talent for accounts. I want my successor to be a man of business, not beauty; and Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy is a great deal too handsome for a banker: his good looks will, no doubt, win him any heiress in town. Meanwhile, I leave him, to buy a dressingcase, a thousand pounds." "A thousand devils!" said Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy, banging out of the room. He flew to his mistress. She was not at home. 'Lies," says the Italian proverb, "have short legs;" but truths, if they are unpleasant, have terribly long ones! The next day Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy received a most obliging note of dismissal. "I wish you every happiness," said Miss Helen Convolvulus, in conclusion,"but my friends are right; you are much too handsome for a husband!" And the week after, Miss Helen Convolvulus became Lady Rufus Pumilion. "Alas! sir!" said the bailiff, as a day or two after the dissolution of parliament he was jogging along with Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy, in a hackney-coach bound to the King's Bench,

ors grew pressing to Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy, and Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy grew pressing to Miss Helen Convolvulus. "It is a dangerous thing," said she, timidly, "to marry a man so admired,-will you always be faithful?" << By heaven" cried the lover. "Heigho!" sighed Miss Helen Convolvulus, and Lord Rufus Pumilion entering, the conversation was changed. But the day of the marriage was fixed; and Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy bought a new curricle. By Apollo, how handsome he looked in it! A month before the weddingday the uncle died. Miss Helen Convolvulus was quite tender in her condolences" Cheer up, my Ferdinand," said she; "for your sake I have discarded Lord Rufus Pumilion!" "Adorable condescension!" cried our hero; "but Lord Rufus Pumilion is only four feet two, and has hair like a peony." "All men are not SO handsome as Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy!" was the reply. Away goes our hero to be present at the opening of his uncle's will. "I leave," said the testator (who I have before said was a bit of a satirist), "my share of the bank, and the whole of my fortune, legacies excepted, to"-(here Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy wiped his beautiful eyes with a cambric handkerchief,

Alas! sir, what a pity it is to take so handsome a gentleman to prison !"

[blocks in formation]

And they gaze on the face of the lovely sleeper,

And call on the God of Heaven to keep her
Free from all danger, and pain, and sin,
Till a virtuous course of life shall win
That home, where the lov'd ones are gone
before,

Where sin and sorrow can vex no more,
And where they shall ever united be,
Blessing and bless'd eternally !'

Oh, if it be that the lov'd departed
Are permitted to visit the broken-hearted;
To descend at times from their bright, bright
sphere,

Heralding hope to those lingering here;
To hover about our path and bed,

A balm o'er our wounded hearts to shed;-
Surely such visits as these are given

To prepare our souls for the joys of Hea

ven.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE.

THERE are some few grave men who think that the temple of learning is daily profaned by a rabble rout, let in at the back-door by crafty editors. They complain that the secrets discovered by them, with so much labor, are degraded into the amusements of the idle and the vulgar. They seem to regret the days when no book less than a folio was ever published, and when none, therefore, but themselves would have ever read-days when the works of authors were truly imperishable; for, if once the mighty tomes were printed, they defied the damp of cellars, or the teeth of mice, to destroy them. They are indignant at the small compass into which many a weighty argument has been compressed, and they consider that the art of printing has been degraded, by being made the organ of so much that is familiar and transitory. Now, this last is exactly what I should glory in. The solitary man finds, in much that is printed, all the levity and relief of conversation, and can enjoy the pleasures of company and still retain his slippers and his easy chair. I look upon the Periodicals around me as a kind of society, as gentlemen who talk in print; and I rarely take up a newspaper or a magazine, without first greeting it with the usual salutation of the day. What is still more agreeable, I can impose silence on these whenever I please, without imputation of rudeness; and, if I am myself in a dogmatising mood, I can rail at them as long and as loud as I choose, without danger of a challenge or an answer. There is one evil, however, in all

this, which I will not attempt to palliate. Though Periodicals are the very support and sustenance of a bachelor, yet, on the other hand, they have to answer for the destruction of the peace and sociability of many a family circle. How often has a roomfull of chatterers been put to silence and confusion by the entrance of a journal! The greatest talker of the whole betakes himself to the more selfish pleasure of reading; and be who before amused others while be was amusing himself, is now a restraint upon the little community, and the object, perhaps, of its secret envy. For this injury to the social system, which I do not for a moment deny, but which I can only hope is overbalanced by still greater benefits, I would propose as a remedy, that every lady should make it a stipulation in her marriage settlement, "that the said A. B. shall not, nor will, during the hours of breakfast, tea, or supper, or for the space of sixty minutes after each and every of the said meals, (the said sixty minutes to be calculated by the minute-hand of the outside clock of the nearest parish church, provided that the said clock be going, and be in thorough repair, certificate of which, &c.) read or peruse, or appear to be reading or perusing, any gazette, journal, magazine," &c. Some such measure is undoubtedly necessary. How often has Mrs. to exclaim, in a tone of tender petulance, "My dear Henry, do pray put down that stupid paper!" venting her impatience by laying a cruel emphasis on the word stupid. Well, my dear, what have

cr

you to say?" answers the said Henry, dropping his journal for a moment, but with the most provoking determination not to find any topic of conversation himself. "Mrs. Vcalled on me this morning." "So you told me." "And did I tell you that her son". "All about it, my dear." Then follows a pause, which Henry takes advantage of, and begins again to read, while Mrs. consoles herself with the determination to be in her turn as sulky and as silent as she can. I have sometimes hinted to the fair complainant, that this reading will, at least, supply them with new subjects for future conversation; but I have been told in answer, that no such thing is necessary, that the old ones do well enough, and that, generally speaking, those people who think on many things, speak the least on any one.

There are some who speak in a slighting tone of ephemeral literature, as though it were a disgrace to be short-lived. I might repeat the old maxim of "a short life and a merry one;" but I rather think that this kind of literature has a species of immortality peculiar to itself; for, if it is every moment sinking into oblivion, it is every moment rising again into life. It should be considered as one continuous whole; not as existing in its separate parts. It is the perpetual fountain, whose life and whose beauty are not to be found in any one drop of the ever-changing liquid,—a fountain, whose boast it is to be continually exhibiting, under a graceful form, some portion of the collected, and otherwise stagnant, waters of learning. For my

self, indeed, I do not join in the usual contempt of an antiquated Periodical. I look upon it with something of that melancholy feeling with which I should regard the picture of an ancestress, decked out in the transitory fashions, and expressing the artificial spirit, of a past century. I smile at the fervor with which it speaks of the favorite actor or singer of their day, now totally forgotten,-at the eagerness with which it relates the news, or the rumors of news, which now appear of the tamest insignificance, and the importance it attaches to facts which the dusty chronicler can now with difficulty collect. Other authors have spent their passion on subjects which will at all times command the sympathy of men; but the Magazine writer has exhausted his on a topic of momentary interest. There he stands, in the same attitude of defiance, or astonishment, into which he was surprised by the popular excitement of the time he is still gazing, with awe and wonder, upon the ghost which the rest of the world has long since discovered to have been a white sheet upon an ivy bush. I feel a certain pleasure, too, in perusing those calmer speculations which were never expected to be read after the first month of their publication: I seem to be drawing the authors again into existence; or, rather, I seem to be visiting them alone, as they wander among the dead. And, for my own ambition, it will be well satisfied, if, on a future day, some idler like myself should alight upon my papers, and sympathise, for a brief moment, with their nameless writer.

THE FESTIVAL OF THE FIRST DAY OF THE ROOKS.

A REMINISCENCE.

HAPPIEST of all human homes, beautiful Craig-Hall! For so even now dost thou appear to be-in the rich, deep, mellow, green light of imagination trembling on tower and tree.Art thou yet undilapidated and undecayed, in thy old manorial solemnity

almost majestical, though even then thou hadst long been tenanted but by a humble farmer's family-people of low degree? The evening-festival of the First Day of the Rooks-nay, scoff not at such an anniversary-was still held in thy ample kitchen-of

« AnteriorContinuar »