International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1

"Dr. Riccabocca consents to dine with us," cried the Parson hastily.

"If Madame permit!" said the Italian, bowing over the hand extended to him, which however he forebore to take, seeing it was already full of the watch.

"I am only sorry that the trout must be quite spoiled," began Mrs. Dale, plaintively.

"It is not the trout one thinks of when one dines with Mrs. Dale," said the infamous dissimulator.

"But I see James coming to say that dinner is ready?" observed the Parson.

"He said that three-quarters of an hour ago, Charles dear," retorted Mrs. Dale, taking the arm of Dr. Riccabocca.

* * * * *

CHAPTER VIII

While the Parson and his wife are entertaining their guest, I propose to regale the reader with a small treatise apropos of that "Charles dear," murmured by Mrs. Dale;—a treatise expressly written for the benefit of THE DOMESTIC CIRCLE.

It is an old jest that there is not a word in the language that conveys so little endearment as the word "dear." But though the saying itself, like most truths, be trite and hackneyed, no little novelty remains to the search of the inquirer into the varieties of inimical import comprehended in that malign monosyllable. For instance, I submit to the experienced that the degree of hostility it betrays is in much proportioned to its collocation in the sentence. When, gliding indirectly through the rest of the period, it takes its stand at the close, as in that "Charles dear" of Mrs. Dale—it has spilt so much of Its natural bitterness by the way that it assumes even a smile, "amara lento temperet risu." Sometimes the smile is plaintive, sometimes arch. Ex. gr.

(Plaintive.)

"I know very well that whatever I do is wrong, Charles dear."

"Nay, I am only glad you amused yourself so much without me, Charles dear."

"Not quite so loud! If you had but my poor head, Charles dear," &c.

Arch.

"If you could spill the ink anywhere but on the best table-cloth, Charles dear!"

"But though you must always have your own way, you are not quite faultless, own, Charles dear," &c.

In this collocation occur many dears, parental as well as conjugal; as—"Hold up your head, and don't look quite so cross, dear."

"Be a good boy for once in your life—that's a dear," &c.

When the enemy stops in the middle of a sentence, its venom is naturally less exhausted. Ex. gr.

"Really I must say, Charles dear, that you are the most fidgety person," &c.

"And if the house bills were so high last week, Charles dear, I should just like to know whose fault it was—that's all."

"Do you think, Charles dear, that you could put your feet anywhere but on the chintz sofa?"

"But you know, Charles dear, that you care no more for me and the children than," &c.

But if the fatal word spring up, in its primitive freshness, at the head of the sentence, bow your head to the storm. It then assumes the majesty of "my" before it; is generally more than simple objurgation—it prefaces a sermon. My candor obliges me to confess that this is the mode in which the hateful monosyllable is more usually employed by the marital part of the one flesh; and has something about it of the odious assumption of the Petruchian pater familias—the head of the family—boding, not perhaps "peace, and love, and quiet life," but certainly "awful rule and right supremacy." Ex. gr.

"My dear Jane—I wish you would just put by that everlasting tent-stitch, and listen to me for a few moments," &c.

"My dear Jane—I wish you would understand me for once—don't think I am angry-no, but I am hurt. You must consider," &c.

"My dear Jane—I don't know if it is your intention to ruin me; but I only wish you would do as all other women do who care three straws for their husbands' property," &c.

"My dear Jane—I wish you to understand that I am the last person in the world to be jealous; but I'll be d–d if that puppy, Capt. Prettyman," &c.

Now, if that same "dear" could be thoroughly raked and hoed out of the connubial garden, I don't think that the remaining nettles would signify a button. But even as it was, Parson Dale, good man, would have prized his garden beyond all the bowers which Spenser and Tasso have sung so musically, though there had not been a single specimen of "dear," whether the dear humilis, or the dear superba; the dear pallida, rubra, or nigra; the dear umbrosa, florens, spicata; the dear savis, or the dear horrida;—no, not a single dear in the whole horticulture of matrimony which Mrs. Dale had not brought to perfection. But this, fortunately, was far from being the case—the dears of Mrs. Dale were only wild flowers after all!

* * * * *

CHAPTER IX

In the cool of the evening Dr. Riccabocca walked home across the fields. Mr. and Mrs. Dale had accompanied him half way; and as they now turned back to the parsonage, they looked behind, to catch a glimpse of the tall, outlandish figure, winding slowly through the path amidst the waves of the green corn.

"Poor man!" said Mrs. Dale, feelingly; "and the button was off his wristband! What a pity he has nobody to take care of him! He seems very domestic. Don't you think, Charles, it would be a great blessing if we could get him a good wife?"

"Um," said the Parson; "I doubt if he values the married state as he ought."

"What do you mean, Charles? I never saw a man more polite to ladies in my life."

"Yes, but—"

"But what? You are always so mysterious, Charles dear."

"Mysterious! No, Carry; but if you could hear what the Doctor says of the ladies sometimes."

"Ay, when you men get together, my dear, I know what that means-pretty things you say of us. But you are all alike; you know you are, love!"

"I am sure," said the Parson, simply, "that I have good cause to speak well of the sex—when I think of you, and my poor mother."

Mrs. Dale, who, with all her "tempers," was an excellent woman, and loved her husband with the whole of her quick little heart, was touched. She pressed his hand, and did not call him dear all the way home.

Meanwhile the Italian passed the fields, and came upon the high-road about two miles from Hazeldean. On one side stood an old-fashioned solitary inn, such as English inns used to be before they became railway hotels—square, solid, old-fashioned, looking so hospitable and comfortable, with their great signs swinging from some elm tree in front, and the long row of stables standing a little back, with a chaise or two in the yard, and the jolly landlord talking of the crops to some stout farmer, who has stopped his rough pony at the well-known door. Opposite this inn, on the other side the road, stood the habitation of Dr. Riccabocca.

A few years before the date of these annals, the stage coach, on its way to London from a seaport town, stopped at the inn, as was its wont, for a good hour, that its passengers might dine like Christian Englishmen—not gulp down a basin of scalding soup, like everlasting heathen Yankees, with that cursed railway whistle shrieking like a fiend in their ears! It was the best dining-place on the whole road, for the trout in the neighboring rill were famous, and so was the mutton which came from Hazeldean Park.

From the outside of the coach had descended two passengers who, alone insensible to the attractions of mutton and trout, refused to dine—two melancholy-looking foreigners, of whom one was Signor Riccabocca, much the same as we see him now, only that the black suit was less threadbare, the tall form less meager, and he did not then wear spectacles; and the other was his servant. "They would walk about while the coach stopped." Now the Italian's eye had been caught by a mouldering dismantled house on the other side of the road, which nevertheless was well situated; half-way up a green hill, with its aspect due south, a little cascade falling down artificial rock-work, and a terrace with a balustrade, and a few broken urns and statues before its Ionic portico; while on the roadside stood a board, with characters already half effaced, implying that the house was to be "Let unfurnished, with or without land."

The abode that looked so cheerless, and which had so evidently hung long on hand, was the property of Squire Hazeldean. It had been built by his grandfather on the female side—a country gentleman who had actually been in Italy (a journey rare enough to boast of in those days), and who, on his return home, had attempted a miniature imitation of an Italian villa. He left an only daughter and sole heiress, who married Squire Hazeldean's father: and since that time, the house, abandoned by its proprietors for the larger residence of the Hazeldeans, had been uninhabited and neglected. Several tenants, indeed, had offered themselves; but your squire is slow in admitting upon his own property a rival neighbor. Some wanted shooting. "That," said the Hazeldeans, who were great sportsmen and strict preservers, "was quite out of the question." Others were fine folks from London. "London servants," said the Hazeldeans, who were moral and prudent people, "would corrupt their own, and bring London prices." Others, again, were retired manufacturers, at whom the Hazeldeans turned up their agricultural noses. In short, some were too grand, and others too vulgar. Some were refused because they were known so well: "Friends are best at a distance," said the Hazeldeans. Others because they were not known at all: "No good comes of strangers," said the Hazeldeans. And finally, as the house fell more and more into decay, no one would take it unless it was put into thorough repair: "As if one was made of money!" said the Hazeldeans. In short, there stood the house unoccupied and ruinous; and there, on its terrace, stood the two forlorn Italians, surveying it with a smile at each other, as, for the first time since they set foot in England, they recognized, in dilapidated pilasters and broken statues, in a weed-grown terrace and the remains of an orangery, something that reminded them of the land they had left behind.

On returning to the inn, Dr. Riccabocca took the occasion of learning from the innkeeper (who was indeed a tenant of the Squire's) such particulars as he could collect; and a few days afterward Mr. Hazeldean received a letter from a solicitor of repute in London, stating that a very respectable foreign gentleman had commissioned him to treat for Clump Lodge, otherwise called the "Casino;" that the said gentleman did not shoot—lived in great seclusion—and, having no family, did not care about the repairs of the place, provided only it were made weather-proof—if the omission of more expensive reparations could render the rent suitable to his finances, which were very limited. The offer came at a fortunate moment—when the steward had just been representing to the Squire the necessity of doing something to keep the Casino from falling into positive ruin, and the Squire was cursing the fates which had put the Casino into an entail—so that he could not pull it down for the building materials. Mr. Hazeldean therefore, caught at the proposal even as a fair lady, who has refused the best offers in the kingdom, catches at last at some battered old Captain on half-pay, and replied that, as for rent, if the solicitors client was a quiet respectable man, he did not care for that. But that the gentleman might have it for the first year rent free, on condition of paying the taxes and putting the place a little in order. If they suited each other, they could then come to terms. Ten days subsequently to this gracious reply, Signer Riccabocca and his servant arrived; and, before the years end, the Squire was so contented with his tenant that he gave him a running lease of seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years, at a rent nearly nominal, on condition that Signer Riccabocca would put and maintain the place in repair, barring the roof and fences, which the Squire generously renewed at his own expense. It was astonishing, by little and little, what a pretty place the Italian had made of it, and what is more astonishing, how little it had cost him. He had indeed painted the walls of the hall, staircase, and the rooms appropriated to himself, with his own hands. His servant had done the greater part of the upholstery. The two between them had got the garden into order. The Italians seemed to have taken a joint love to the place, and to deck it as they would have done some favorite chapel to their Madonna.

It was long before the natives reconciled themselves to the odd ways of the foreign settlers. The first thing that offended them was the exceeding smallness of the household bills. Three days out of the seven, indeed, both man and master dined on nothing else but the vegetables in the garden, and the fishes in the neighboring rill; when no trout could be caught they fried the minnows, (and certainly, even in the best streams, minnows are more frequently caught than trouts.) The next thing which angered the natives quite as much, especially the female part of the neighborhood, was the very sparing employment the two he creatures gave to the sex usually deemed so indispensable in household matters. At first indeed, they had no woman servant at all. But this created such horror that Parson Dale ventured a hint upon the matter, which Riccabocca took in very good part, and an old woman was forthwith engaged, after some bargaining—at three shillings a week—to wash and scrub as much as she liked during the daytime. She always returned to her own cottage to sleep. The man servant, who was styled in the neighborhood "Jackeymo," did all else for his master—smoothed his room, dusted his papers, prepared his coffee, cooked his dinner, brushed his clothes, and cleaned his pipes, of which Riccabocca had a large collection. But however close a man's character, it generally creeps out in driblets; and on many little occasions the Italian had shown acts of kindness, and, on some more rare occasions, even of generosity, which had served to silence his calumniators, and by degrees he had established a very fair reputation—suspected, it is true, of being a little inclined to the Black Art, and of a strange inclination to starve Jackeymo and himself,—in other respects harmless enough.

Signor Riccabocca had become very intimate, as we have seen, at the Parsonage. But not so at the Hall. For though the Squire was inclined to be very friendly to all his neighbors—he was, like most country gentlemen, rather easily huffed. Riccabocca had, if with great politeness, still with great obstinacy, refused Mr. Hazeldean's earlier invitations to dinner; and when the Squire found that the Italian rarely declined to dine at the Parsonage, he was offended in one of his weak points—viz., his regard for the honor of the hospitality of Hazeldean Hall—and he ceased altogether invitations so churlishly rejected. Nevertheless, as it was impossible for the Squire, however huffed, to bear malice, he now and then reminded Riccabocca of his existence by presents of game, and would have called on him more often than he did, but that Riccabocca received him with such excessive politeness that the blunt country gentleman felt shy and put out, and used to say, that "to call on Riccabocca was as bad as going to court."

But I left Dr. Riccabocca on the high-road. By this time he has ascended a narrow path that winds by the side of the cascade, he has passed a trellis-work covered with vines, from the which Jacheymo has positively succeeded in making what he calls wine—a liquid, indeed, that, if the cholera had been popularly known in those days, would have soured the mildest member of the Board of Health; for Squire Hazeldean, though a robust man, who daily carried off his bottle of port with impunity, having once rashly tasted it, did not recover the effect till he had had a bill from the apothecary as long as his own arm. Passing this trellis, Dr. Riccabocca entered upon the terrace, with its stone pavement smoothed and trim as hands could make it. Here, on neat stands, all his favorite flowers were arranged. Here four orange-trees were in full blossom; here a kind of summer-house or Belvidere, built by Jackeymo and himself, made his chosen morning-room from May till October; and from this Belvidere there was as beautiful an expanse of prospect as if our English Nature had hospitably spread on her green board all that she had to offer as a banquet to the exile.

A man without his coat, which was thrown over the balustrade, was employed in watering the flowers: a man with movements so mechanical—with a face so rigidly grave in its tawny hues—that he seemed like an automaton made out of mahogany.

"Giacomo," said Dr. Riccabocca, softly.

The automaton stopped its hand, and turned its head.

"Put by the watering-pot, and come here," continued Riccabocca in Italian; and moving toward the balustrade, he leaned over it. Mr. Mitford, the historian, calls Jean Jacques John James. Following that illustrious example, Giacomo shall be Anglified into Jackeymo. Jackeymo came to the balustrade also, and stood a little behind his master.

"Friend," said Riccabocca, "enterprises have not always succeeded with us. Don't you think, after all, it is tempting our evil star to rent those fields from the landlord?" Jackeymo crossed himself, and made some strange movement with a little coral charm which he wore set in a ring on his finger.

"If the Madonna send us luck, and we could hire a lad cheap?" said Jackeymo, doubtfully.

"Piu vale un presente che due futuri," said Riccabocca—"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

"Chi non fa quondo può, non può fare quondo vuole"—("He who will not when he may, when he will it shall have nay")—answered Jackeymo, as sententiously as his master. "And the Padrone should think in time that he must lay by for the dower of the poor signorina"—(young lady.)

Riccabocca sighed, and made no reply.

"She must be that high now!" said Jackeymo, putting his band on some imaginary line a little above the balustrade. Riccabocca's eyes, raised over the spectacles, followed the hand.

"If the Padrone could but see her here"—

"I thought I did!" muttered the Italian.

"He would never let her go from his side till she went to a husband's," continued Jackeymo.

"But this climate—she could never stand it," said Riccabocca, drawing his cloak round him, as a north wind took him in the rear.

"The orange-trees blossom even here with care," said Jackeymo, turning back to draw down an awning where the orange-trees faced the north. "See!" he added, as he returned with a sprig in fall bud.

Dr. Riccabocca bent over the blossom, and then placed it in his bosom.

"The other one should be there too." said Jackeymo.

"To die—as this does already!" answered Riccabocca. "Say no more."

Jackeymo shrugged his shoulders; and then, glancing at his master, threw his hand over his eyes.

There was a pause. Jackeymo was the first to break it.

"But, whether here or there, beauty without money is the orange-tree without shelter. If a lad could be got cheap, I would hire the land, and trust for the crop to the Madonna."

"I think I know of such a lad," said Riccabocca, recovering himself, and with his sardonic smile once more lurking about the corner of his mouth—"a lad made for us!"

"Diavolo!"

"No, not the Diavolo! Friend, I have this day seen a boy who-refused sixpence!"

"Cosa stupenda!"—(Stupendous thing!) exclaimed Jackeymo, opening his eyes, and letting fall the watering-pot.

"It is true, my friend."

"Take him, Padrone, in Heaven's name, and the fields will grow gold."

"I will think of it, for it must require management to catch such a boy," said Riccabocca. "Meanwhile, light a candle in the parlor, and bring from my bedroom—that great folio of Machiavelli."

* * * * *

RECENT DEATHS

LOUIS PHILIPPE, EX-KING OF THE FRENCH

The vicissitudes of kings form an impressive chapter in the history of Europe; and one of the most striking episodes in the narrative is the checkered life of the last king of France—one week among the mightiest monarchs on the loftiest pinnacle of ambition, he was, the next, an exile in a foreign land—his past supremacy almost forgotten.

Louis Philippe died on the morning of the 26th of August, at Claremont, in the presence of the Queen and several members of his family. He had been made aware of his approaching dissolution early the previous day, and receiving with calmness the melancholy intimation, prepared for the final arrangements he wished to make. After a conversion with the Queen, he dictated, with remarkable clearness, the concluding portion of his Memoirs, and then, having caused to be assembled his chaplain, the Abbé Gaelle, and all his children and grandchildren who were at Claremont, he received, with resignation and firmness, the last rites of the Catholic Church. Toward seven in the evening the debility that had oppressed him appeared to pass off, and fever came on, which continued during the night with much violence, but without disturbing his composure of mind. At eight o'clock in the morning he expired, in the presence of his wife, and of the Duchess of Orleans, the Count of Paris, the Duke de Chartres, the Duke and Duchess de Nemours, the Prince and Princess de Joinville, the Duke and Duchess d'Aureale, and the Duchess Augusta of Saxe-Coburg. Thus ended the closing scene of the life of Louis Philippe of Orleans,—the wise and judicious sovereign of a great people, the soldier of one revolution, the conqueror of a second, and the victim of a third.

Louis Philippe was born in Paris, 6th October, 1773, the eldest son of Philippe Joseph, Duke of Orleans (so well-known under the revolutionary soubriquet of Egalité), by Marie Louise Adelaide de Bourbon his wife, daughter and heir of the wealthy Duke de Penthievre. At his birth he bore the title of Valois; but after the death of his grandfather, in 1785, was styled Duke of Chartres. The care of the young Prince's education was assigned to Madame de Genlis, who ably and admirably performed her important duties. From her guidance Louis Philippe passed at once to the arena of active life. In 1791, the Prince, then Duke of Chartres, having previously received the appointment of Colonel in the 14th Dragoons, assumed the command of that regiment, and shortly after, quitting the garrison of Vendôme, proceeded to Valenciennes, where he continued to pursue his military avocations. In the April of the following year, war being declared against Austria, the Duke made his first campaign, fighting with gallantry under Kellerman at Valmy, and with Dumouriez at Jemappes. But the horrors of the Revolution were progressing with giant strides; the unfortunate Louis XVI. was carried to the scaffold, and within a few months after, the Duke of Orleans was seized on a plea of conspiracy against the French nation, and after a mock trial, consigned to the executioner. A short time previously to the death of his father, the Duke de Chartres had effected his escape through Belgium into Switzerland, and there was joined by his sister Adelaide and Madame de Genlis. Our confined space precludes the possibility of our dwelling on the romantic events of this period of Louis Philippe's life, and permits us to glance only at his wanderings through Switzerland, Denmark, Lapland, Finland, America, and England. For one year he held the Appointment of Professor in the College of Reichenau, at a salary of fifty-eight pounds; and for that sum undertook to teach history, mathematics, and English. He bore the name of Chabaud-Latour, and none but the superiors of the institution were aware of his rank. The news of his father's execution reached him while quietly instructing the youth of Reichenau, and he instantly threw up his Professorship, and after a protracted journey through northern Europe, succeeded, by the kind instrumentality of Mr. Gouverneur Morris, the American Ambassador at Paris, in reaching the United States. He landed at Philadelphia on the 24th October, 1796, and was soon after joined by his brothers, Montpensier and Beaujolais. The three brothers passed the winter in that city, and afterward made a journey through the Western States, and visited General Washington at Mount Vernon. Their residence in this country was not however of very long duration. After an inhospitable reception by the Spanish authorities in Cuba, the royal exiles made their way to England, in February, 1800, and thence immediately proceeded to Barcelona, in the hope of meeting their mother. But this object failing, they returned to England, and took up their abode at Twickenham, on the banks of the Thames. In Great Britain they were treated with respect and consideration, and were furnished with ample opportunities for repose after their exciting adventures. Within a few years, however, the Duke of Montpensier and the Count Beaujolais both died—the former in England, the latter at Malta. Louis Philippe had accompanied his last surviving brother to that island, and after his interment sailed for Sicily, on the invitation of the King of Naples. There he gained the affections of the Princess Amelia, and their marriage took place in November, 1809. No event of material importance marks the subsequent life of the Duke, until the year 1814, when, on the abdication of Napoleon, he returned to Paris, and for a short period was in full enjoyment of his honors. In 1815, Napoleon's escape from Elba again called the Duke of Orleans into active employment, and he proceeded, in obedience to the desire of Louis XVIII., to take the command of the Army of the North. In this situation he remained until the 24th of March, hen he surrendered his command to the Duke de Treviso, and retired to Twickenham. After the Hundred Days, the Duke of Orleans obeyed the ordinance authorizing the Princes of the blood to take their seats in the Chamber of Peers; but subsequently incurring the jealousy and displeasure of the Court, he resought his old residence on the Thames, and dwelt there in seclusion until 1817, when he went back to France, and devoted himself to the education of his children, until the Revolution of 1830 broke out, resulting in his elevation to the throne. The subsequent events of his reign, and the memorable outbreak of 1848, that finally overthrew the dynasty that the monarch had strained every nerve to establish, are too fresh on the public mind to require recapitulation here.