Devereux — Complete. Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон

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СКАЧАТЬ compensation for his confidence, we left the innocent assistant of Mr. Powell, and marched into the puppet-show, by the sound of the very bells the perversion of which the good sexton had so pathetically lamented.

      The first person I saw at the show, and indeed the express person I came to see, was the Lady Hasselton. Tarleton and myself separated for the present, and I repaired to the coquette. “Angels of grace!” said I, approaching; “and, by the by, before I proceed another word, observe, Lady Hasselton, how appropriate the exclamation is to you! Angels of grace! why, you have moved all your patches—one—two—three—six— eight—as I am a gentleman, from the left side of your cheek to the right! What is the reason of so sudden an emigration?”

      “I have changed my politics, Count,7 that is all, and have resolved to lose no time in proclaiming the change. But is it true that you are going to be married?”

      “Married! Heaven forbid! which of my enemies spread so cruel a report?”

      “Oh, the report is universal!” and the Lady Hasselton flirted her fan with the most flattering violence.

      “It is false, nevertheless; I cannot afford to buy a wife at present, for, thanks to jointures and pin-money, these things are all matters of commerce; and (see how closely civilized life resembles the savage!) the English, like the Tartar gentleman, obtains his wife only by purchase! But who is the bride?”

      “The Duke of Newcastle’s rich daughter, Lady Henrietta Pelham.”

      “What, Harley’s object of ambition!8 Faith, Madam, the report is not so cruel as I thought for!”

      “Oh, you fop!—but is it not true?”

      “By my honour, I fear not; my rivals are too numerous and too powerful. Look now, yonder! how they already flock around the illustrious heiress; note those smiles and simpers. Is it not pretty to see those very fine gentlemen imitating bumpkins at a fair, and grinning their best for a gold ring! But you need not fear me, Lady Hasselton, my love cannot wander if it would. In the quaint thought of Sidney,9 love having once flown to my heart, burned its wings there, and cannot fly away.”

      “La, you now!” said the Beauty; “I do not comprehend you exactly: your master of the graces does not teach you your compliments properly.”

      “Yes, he does, but in your presence I forget them; and now,” I added, lowering my voice into the lowest of whispers, “now that you are assured of my fidelity, will you not learn at last to discredit rumours and trust to me?”

      “I love you too well!” answered the Lady Hasselton in the same tone, and that answer gives an admirable idea of the affection of every coquette! love and confidence with them are qualities that have a natural antipathy, and can never be united. Our tete-a-tete was at an end; the people round us became social, and conversation general.

      “Betterton acts to-morrow night,” cried the Lady Pratterly: “we must go!”

      “We must go,” cried the Lady Hasselton.

      “We must go!” cried all.

      And so passed the time till the puppet-show was over, and my attendance dispensed with.

      It is a charming thing to be the lover of a lady of the mode! One so honoured does with his hours as a miser with his guineas; namely, nothing but count them!

      CHAPTER III

MORE LIONS

      THE next night, after the theatre, Tarleton and I strolled into Wills’s. Half-a-dozen wits were assembled. Heavens! how they talked! actors, actresses, poets, statesmen, philosophers, critics, divines, were all pulled to pieces with the most gratifying malice imaginable. We sat ourselves down, and while Tarleton amused himself with a dish of coffee and the “Flying Post,” I listened very attentively to the conversation. Certainly if we would take every opportunity of getting a grain or two of knowledge, we should soon have a chest-full; a man earned an excellent subsistence by asking every one who came out of a tobacconist’s shop for a pinch of snuff, and retailing the mixture as soon as he had filled his box.10

      While I was listening to a tall lusty gentleman, who was abusing Dogget, the actor, a well-dressed man entered, and immediately attracted the general observation. He was of a very flat, ill-favoured countenance, but of a quick eye, and a genteel air; there was, however, something constrained and artificial in his address, and he appeared to be endeavouring to clothe a natural good-humour with a certain primness which could never be made to fit it.

      “Ha, Steele!” cried a gentleman in an orange-coloured coat, who seemed by a fashionable swagger of importance desirous of giving the tone to the company,—“Ha, Steele, whence come you? from the chapel or the tavern?” and the speaker winked round the room as if he wished us to participate in the pleasure of a good thing.

      Mr. Steele drew up, seemingly a little affronted; but his good-nature conquering the affectation of personal sanctity, which, at the time I refer to, that excellent writer was pleased to assume, he contented himself with nodding to the speaker, and saying,—

      “All the world knows, Colonel Cleland, that you are a wit, and therefore we take your fine sayings as we take change from an honest tradesman,—rest perfectly satisfied with the coin we get, without paying any attention to it.”

      “Zounds, Cleland, you got the worst of it there,” cried a gentleman in a flaxen wig. And Steele slid into a seat near my own.

      Tarleton, who was sufficiently well educated to pretend to the character of a man of letters, hereupon thought it necessary to lay aside the “Flying Post,” and to introduce me to my literary neighbour.

      “Pray,” said Colonel Cleland, taking snuff and swinging himself to and fro with an air of fashionable grace, “has any one seen the new paper?”

      “What!” cried the gentleman in the flaxen wig, “what! the ‘Tatler’s’ successor,—the ‘Spectator’?”

      “The same,” quoth the colonel.

      “To be sure; who has not?” returned he of the flaxen ornament. “People say Congreve writes it.”

      “They are very much mistaken, then,” cried a little square man with spectacles; “to my certain knowledge Swift is the author.”

      “Pooh!” said Cleland, imperiously, “pooh! it is neither the one nor the other; I, gentlemen, am in the secret—but—you take me, eh? One must not speak well of one’s self; mum is the word.”

      “Then,” asked Steele, quietly, “we are to suppose that you, Colonel, are the writer?”

      “I never said so, Dicky; but the women will have it that I am,” and the colonel smoothed down his cravat.

      “Pray, Mr. Addison, what say you?” cried the gentleman in the flaxen wig; “are you for Congreve, Swift, or Colonel Cleland?” This was addressed to a gentleman of a grave but rather prepossessing mien; who, СКАЧАТЬ