The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851

"Lord Clare, afterwards Lord Chancellor, fought Curran, afterwards Master of the Rolls. So much for equity; but common law also sustained its reputation. Clonmel, afterwards Chief Justice, fought two Lords and two Commoners,—to show his impartiality, no doubt. Medge, afterwards Baron, fought his own brother-in-law, and two others. Toler, afterwards Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, fought three persons, one of whom was Fitzgerald, even in Ireland the 'fire-eater,' par excellence. Patterson, also afterwards Chief Justice of the same court, fought three country gentlemen, one of them with guns, another with swords, and wounded them all! Corry, Chancellor of the Exchequer, fought Mr. Grattan. The Provost of Dublin University, a Privy Councillor, fought Mr. Doyle, a Master in Chancery, and several others. His brother, collector of Customs, fought Lord Mountmorris. Harry Deane Grady, counsel to the Revenue, fought several duels; and 'all hits,' adds Barrington, with unction. Curran fought four persons, one of whom was Egan, Chairman of Kilmainham; afterwards his friend, with Lord Buckinghamshire. A duel in these days was often a prelude to intimacy."

In spite, nevertheless, of this rude, nay, almost wild condition of society,—in spite of a most fantastic affectation attending nearly every act and thought and word,—yet were Curran and his cotemporaries men of great and vigorous ability. Grattan, Curran, and Flood, deserve indeed to take rank among the foremost class of their own age,—among the men of genius of every age and country. If we speak of them as orators, and wish to judge of their excellence with relation to the great orators of our own country, we must bear in mind the character of the society in which they lived, and of the assemblies they addressed. It would be unjust to try them by the rules of our fastidious taste and undemonstrative manners. They addressed Irishmen, and Irishmen just when most excited, and indulging in all the wild sallies of a dearly-prized and lately acquired independence. What to us would appear offensive rant and disgusting affectation, would, in the Irish House of Commons, have been but the usual manifestation of strong feeling, and was absolutely required, if the speaker desired to move as well as convince his auditory.

If, however, we seek to know what was the virtue of these men, more especially that of Curran, we must probe to the bottom the corruptions and baseness of that society, which deserves to be branded as among the most base and the most corrupt that history has hitherto described. The temptations which England employed, the horrible corruption and profligacy she fostered, must be fully known, if we desire to do justice to the men who came out undefiled from that filthy ordeal.

From Chambers' Papers for the People

THE LOST LETTER

I

One night, between twenty and thirty years ago, a party were assembled in the drawing-rooms of a house situated in one of the most spacious squares of the great metropolis. The brightly lighted lamps lent an additional lustre to yet brighter eyes, and the sprightly tones of various instruments accompanied the graceful evolutions of the dancers, as they threaded the mazes of the country-dance, cotillon, or quadrille; for waltz, polka, and schottish, were then unknown in our ball-rooms. Here and there sat a couple in a quiet corner, evidently enjoying the pleasures of a flirtation, while one pair, more romantic or more serious than the others, had strayed out upon the balcony, to indulge more unrestrainedly in the conversation, which, to judge by their low and earnest tones, and abstracted air, seemed deeply interesting to both.

It was now long past the hour 'of night's black arch, the keystone,' and the early dawn of a midsummer morning was already bestowing its first calm sweet smile on the smoke-begrimed streets and world-worn thoroughfares of mighty London, as well as on the dewy hay-fields, shady lanes, green hedgerows, and quiet country homes of rural England. The morning star, large, mild, and lustrous, was declining in the clear sky; and on the left of the lovely planet lay a soft purple cloud, tinged on the edge with the lucid amber of the dawning day. A light breeze just stirred the leaves of the trees in the square garden, and fanned the warm cheeks of the two spectators, as, suddenly silent, they stood feasting their eyes and hearts on the surpassingly beautiful scene before them, and marvelling at the remarkable purity of the atmosphere, which, in the foggy metropolis of Britain, seemed almost to realize the Venetian transparency of the pictures of Canaletti. Perhaps it may be as well to take advantage of the pause to describe the two lovers, for that they were lovers you have of course already guessed.

A handsomer pair, I am sure, you would never wish to see! The well-knit, well-proportioned figure of the gentleman bespoke at once activity and ease, while the spirited, intelligent expression of his countenance—dark-complexioned as that of an Andalusian—would have given interest to far plainer features. The glance of his dark eye, as it rested fondly on his fair companion, or was turned abroad on the world, told alternately of a loving heart and a proud spirit. Philip Hayforth was one who would have scorned to commit an ignoble action, or to stain his soul with the shadow of a falsehood for all the treasures and the blessings the earth has to bestow; but he was quick to resent an injury, and slow to forget it, and not for all the world would he have been the first to sue for a reconciliation. Like many other proud people, however, he was open-hearted and generous, and ready to forgive when forgiveness was asked; the reason of which might be, that a petition for pardon is, to the spirit of a proud man, a sort of homage far more gratifying than the most skilful flattery, since it establishes at once his own superiority. But to his Emily, Philip was all consideration and tenderness, and she, poor girl, with the simple faith of youth and love, believed him to be perfection, and admired even his pride. A very lovely girl was Emily Sherwood—gifted with a beauty of a rare and intellectual cast. As she now stood leaning on the arm of her companion, her tall yet pliant and graceful figure enveloped in the airy drapery of her white dress, with her eyes turned in mute admiration towards the dawning day, it would have required but a slight stretch of the imagination to have beheld in her a priestess of the sun, awaiting in reverent adoration the appearance of her fire-god. Her complexion and features, too, would have helped to strengthen the fantasy, for the one was singularly fair, pale, and transparent, and the other characterized by delicacy, refinement, and a sort of earnest yet still enthusiasm. Her hair, of the softest and palest brown, was arranged in simple yet massive plaits around her finely-shaped head, and crowned with a wreath of 'starry jessamine.' From the absence of color, one might have imagined that her beauty would have been cold and statue-like; but you had only to glance at her soft, intellectual mouth, or to look into her large, clear, hazel eyes, which seemed to have borrowed their sweet, thoughtful, chastened radiance from the star whose beams were now fast paling in the brightening sky, to learn that Emily Sherwood could both think and love.

"Dear Philip," she said at last, in that low tone which is the natural expression of all the finer and deeper emotions, "is it not beautiful? I feel at this moment as if I were almost oppressed with happiness—as if this were but an intense dream of love and beauty, that must, as sentimental people say, 'be too bright to last.' I never felt as I do now in all my life before."

"Nor I neither, my Emily, my sweet little poetess; but I suppose it is because we love, for love intensifies all the feelings."

"All the best feelings."

"The whole nature, I think. It is, for instance, more difficult to bear a slight from those we love than from a comparatively indifferent person."

"A slight! but there can be no such thing as a slight between those who love perfectly—as we do. Are we not all in all to each other? Is not our happiness indivisible?"

"It is my pride and joy to believe so, my sweet Emily. I know in my own heart that the needle is not more true to the magnet than my thoughts and feelings are to you. It shall be the chief care of my life to save you from all uneasiness; but, Emily, I expect the same devotion I give: unkindness from you, of all the world, I could not and would not endure."

"Oh, Philip, Philip!" she said, half tenderly, half reproachfully, "why should you say this? I do not doubt you, dear Philip, for I judge your love by my own."

He looked into the truthful and affectionate eyes which were raised so trustingly to his face, and replied, in a voice tremulous with emotion, "Forgive me, Emily. I trust you entirely; but I had started an idea, the barest contemplation of which was insupportable—maddening, because of the very excess of my affection. In short, Emily, I know—that is, I suspect—your father looked for a higher match for you than I am. Report says that his prejudices are strong in favor of birth, and that he is very proud of his ancient blood; and the idea did cross me for a moment, that when you were with him he might influence you to despise me."

"My father is proud; but, dear Philip, is nobody proud but he? And notwithstanding his prejudices, as you call them, I can assure you, you are not more honorable yourself in every act and thought than he is. He has consented to our marriage, and therefore you need not fear him, even if you cannot trust me alone."

"Oh, Emily, pardon me! And so you think me proud. Well, perhaps I am; and it is better that you should know it, as you will bear with it, I know, for my sake, my best, my truest Emily; and I shall repay your goodness with the most fervent gratitude. Yes, I feel with you that no cloud can ever come between us two."

Emily Sherwood was the eldest daughter of Colonel Sherwood, a cadet of one of the proudest families in England; and which, though it had never been adorned with a title, looked down with something like contempt on the abundant growth of mushroom nobility which had sprung up around it, long after it had already obtained the dignity which, in the opinion of the Sherwoods, generations alone could bestow. Colonel Sherwood inherited all the pride of his race—nay, in him it had been increased by poverty; for poverty, except in minds of the highest class—that rare class who estimate justly the true value of human life, and the true nature of human dignity—is generally allied either with pride or meanness. Of course when I speak of poverty I mean comparative poverty—I allude to those who are poorer than their station. In a retired part of one of the eastern counties, Colonel Sherwood struggled upon his half-pay to support a wife and seven children, and as far as possible to keep up the appearance he considered due to his birth and rank in society. Emily had been for two seasons the belle of the country balls; and the admiration her beauty and manners had everywhere excited, had created in the hearts of her parents a hope that she was destined to form an alliance calculated to shed a lustre on the fading glory of the Sherwoods. But, alas! as Burns sings—

"The best laid schemes of mice and menGang aft ajee."

During a visit to some relatives in London, Emily became acquainted with Philip Hayforth; and his agreeable manners and person, his intelligent conversation and devotion to herself, had quickly made an impression upon feelings which, though susceptible, were fastidious, and therefore still untouched. Then, too, the romantic ardor with which his attachment was expressed, the enthusiasm he manifested for whatever was great, good, or beautiful, aroused in Emily all the latent poetry of her nature. Naturally imaginative, and full even of passionate tenderness, but diffident and sensitive, she had hitherto, from an instinctive consciousness that they would be misunderstood or disapproved, studiously concealed her deeper feelings. Hence had been generated in her character a degree of thoughtfulness and reserve unusual in one of her years. Now, however, that she beheld the ideas and aspirations she had so long deemed singular, perhaps reprehensible, shadowed forth more powerfully and definitely by a mind more mature and a spirit more daring than her own, her heart responded to its more vigorous counterpart; and at the magic touch of sympathy, the long pent-up waters flowed freely. She loved, was beloved, and asked no more of destiny. It was not, it may be supposed, without some reluctance that Colonel Sherwood consented to the demolition of the aerial castles of which his beautiful Emily had so long been the subject and the tenant, and made up his mind to see her the wife of a man who, though of respectable parentage, could boast neither title nor pedigree, and was only the junior partner in a mercantile firm. But then young Hayforth bore the most honorable character; his prospects were said to be good, and his manners unexceptionable; and, above all, Emily was evidently much attached to him; and remembering the days of his own early love, the father's heart of the aristocratic old colonel was fairly melted, and he consented to receive the young merchant as his son-in-law. The marriage, however, was not to take place till the spring of the following year. Meanwhile the lovers agreed to solace the period of their separation by long and frequent letters. Philip's last words to Emily, as he handed her into the postchaise in which she was to commence her homeward journey, were, "Now write to me very often, my own dearest Emily, for I shall never be happy but when hearing from you or writing to you; and if you are long answering my letters, I shall be miserable, and perhaps jealous." She could only answer by a mute sign, and the carriage drove away. Poor, agitated Emily, half happy, half sad, leaned back in it, and indulged in that feminine luxury—a hearty fit of tears. As for Philip, he took a few turns in the park, walking as if for a wager, and feeling sensible of a sort of coldness and dreariness about every object which he had never remarked before. Then he suddenly recollected that he must go to the counting-house, as he was "very busy." He did not, however, make much progress with his business that day, as somehow or other he fell into a reverie over every thing he attempted.

Nothing could exceed the regularity of the lovers' correspondence for the first two or three months, while their letters were written on the largest orthodox sheets to be had from the stationer's—post-office regulations in those days not admitting of the volumes of little notes now so much in vogue. At last Emily bethought herself of working a purse for Philip, in acknowledgment of a locket he had lately sent her from London. Generally speaking, Emily was not very fond of work; but somehow or other no occupation, not even the perusal of a favorite poem or novel, had ever afforded her half the pleasure that she derived from the manufacture of this purse. Each stitch she netted, each bead she strung, was a new source of delight—for she was working for Philip. Love is the true magic of life, effecting more strange metamorphoses than ever did the spells of Archimago, or the arts of Armida—the moral alchemy which can transmute the basest things into the most precious. It is true of all circumstances, as well as of personal qualities, that

"Things base and vile, holding no quantity,Love can transpose to form and dignity."

The purse was quickly finished, and dispatched to Philip, together with a letter. Emily was in high spirits at the prospect of the answer. She danced about the house, singing snatches of songs and ballads, and displaying an unusual amount of gayety; for, though generally cheerful, she was of too thoughtful a disposition to be often merry. Philip, she was sure, would write by return of post. How she wished the time were come! She knew pretty well, to be sure, what he would say; but what did that signify? She longed to feast her eyes on the words his hand had traced, and to fancy the tones and the looks which would have accompanied them had they been spoken instead of written. The expected day came at last, but the post-bag contained no letter for Emily. At first she could hardly believe it; her countenance fell, and for a few minutes she seemed much disappointed; but never mind, the letter would come to-morrow, and she soon began to trip about and to sing almost as gayly as before. But another day passed, and another and another, and still no letter! Poor Emily's blithe voice was mute now, and her light step rarely heard. Sometimes she tried to read, or to play on the piano, but without much success; while her anxious looks, and the tear which occasionally might be seen to glisten in her eye, betrayed the trouble within. A whole week elapsed, a longer period than had ever passed before without a letter from Philip Hayforth—a fortnight—a month—and the poor girl's appetite failed, her nights were sleepless, and her drooping figure and pining looks told of that anxious suffering, that weary life-gnawing suspense, which is ten times more hard to bear than any evil, however great, of which we can ascertain the nature and discern the limits. Could Philip be ill? Could he—No, he could not be inconstant. Ought she to write to him again? But to this question her parents answered "No. It would be unfeminine, unladylike, undignified. If Mr. Hayforth were ill, he would doubtless write as soon as he was able; and if he were well, his conduct was inexcusable, and on Emily's part rendered any advance impossible." Poor Emily shrank from transgressing what her parents represented as the limits due to delicacy and decorum, and she would have died rather than have been guilty of a real impropriety, or have appeared unfeminine in the eyes of Philip Hayforth; and yet it did often suggest itself to her mind—rather, however, in the shape of an undefined feeling than of a conscious thought—that the shortest, best, most straight-forward way of proceeding, was to write at once to Mr. Hayforth, and ask an explanation. She could not herself see clearly how this could be wrong; but she supposed it must be so, and she acknowledged her own ignorance and inexperience. Emily was scarcely twenty; just at the age when an inquiring and thoughtful mind can no longer rely with the unquestioning faith of childhood on assertions sanctioned merely by authority, and when a diffident one is too timid to venture to trust to its own suggestions. It is only after much experience, or one of those bitter mistakes, which are the great lessons of life, that such a character learns that self-reliance, exercised with deliberation and humility, is the only safeguard for individual rectitude. Emily, therefore, did not write, but lived on in the silent, wasting agony of constant expectation and perpetual disappointment. Her mother, in the hope of affording her some relief, inquired in a letter she was writing to her relative in London, if the latter had lately seen Mr. Hayforth. The answer was like a death-blow to poor Emily. Her mother's correspondent had "met Mr. Hayforth walking with a lady. He had passed her with a very stiff bow, and seemed inclined to avoid her. He had not called for a long time. She could not at all understand it." Colonel Sherwood could now no longer contain his indignation. He forbade the mention of Philip Hayforth's name, declaring that "his Emily was far too good and beautiful for the wife of a low-born tradesman, and that he deserved the indignity now thrown upon his family for ever having thought of degrading it by the permission of such a union. And his darling child would, he knew, bear up with the spirit of the Sherwoods." Poor Emily had, it is to be feared, little of the spirit of the Sherwoods, but she tried to bear up from perhaps as good a motive. But it was a difficult task, for she was well-nigh broken-hearted. She now never mentioned Philip Hayforth, and to all appearance her connection with him was as if it had never been; but, waking or sleeping, he was ever present to her thoughts. Oh! was it indeed possible that she should never, never see him again? No, it could not be; he would seek her, claim her yet, her heart said; but reason whispered that it was madness to think so, and bade her at once make up her mind to her inevitable fate. But this she could not do—not yet at all events. Month after month of the long dreary winter dragged slowly on; her kind parents tried to dissipate her melancholy by taking her to every amusement within reach, and she went, partly from indifference as to what became of her, partly out of gratitude for their kindness. At last the days began to lengthen, and the weather to brighten; but spring flowers and sunny skies brought no corresponding bloom to the faded hopes and the joyless life of Emily Sherwood. The only hope she felt was "the hope which keeps alive despair."

One May morning, as she was listlessly looking over in a newspaper the list of marriages, her eye fell upon a well-known name—the name of one who at that very time ought to have knelt at the altar with her. She uttered neither scream nor cry, but clasping her hands with one upward look of mute despair, fell down in a dead faint. For many days she was very ill, and sometimes quite delirious; but her mother tended her with the most assiduous affection, while her comfort and recreation seemed her father's sole care. They were repaid at last by her recovery, and from that time forth she was less miserable. In such a case as Emily's, there is not only the shock to the affections, but the terrible wrench of all the faculties to be overcome, which ensues on the divorce of the thoughts from those objects and that future to which they have so long been wedded. There is not only the breaking heart to be healed, but the whole mental current to be forcibly turned into a different channel from that which alone habit has made easy or pleasant. "The worst," as it is called, is, however, easier to be endured than suspense; and if Emily's spirits did not regain their former elasticity, she ere long became quite resigned, and comparatively cheerful.

More than a year had elapsed since that bright spring morning on which she had beheld the irrefragable proof of her lover's perfidy, when she received an offer of marriage from a gentleman, of good family and large property. He had been struck by her beauty at a party where he had seen her; and after a few meetings, made formal proposals to her father almost ere she was aware that he admired her. Much averse to form a new engagement, she would at once have declined receiving his addresses, had her parents not earnestly pressed the match as one in every respect highly eligible. Overcome at last by their importunities, and having, as she thought, no object in existence save to give pleasure to them, she yielded so far to their wishes as to consent to receive Mr. Beauchamp as her future husband, on condition that he should be made acquainted with the history of her previous engagement, and the present state of her feelings. She secretly hoped that when he learned that she had no heart to give with her hand, he would withdraw his suit. But she was mistaken. Mr. Beauchamp, it is true, knew that there was such a word as heart, had a notion that it was a term much in vogue with novel-writers, and was sometimes mentioned by parsons in their sermons; but that the heart could have any thing to do with the serious affairs of life never once entered into his head to suppose. He therefore testified as much satisfaction at Emily's answer, as if she had avowed for him the deepest affection. They were shortly afterwards married, and the pensive bride accompanied her husband to her new home—Woodthorpe Hall; an ancient, castellated edifice, situated in an extensive and finely-wooded park on an estate in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

But I have too long neglected Philip Hayforth—too long permitted a cloud to rest upon his honor and constancy. He was not, in truth, the heartless, light-minded wretch that I fear you may think him. Pride, not falsehood or levity, was the blemish in his otherwise fine character; but it was a very plague-spot, tainting his whole moral nature, and frequently neutralizing the effect of his best qualities. He had been quite as much charmed with Emily's present and Emily's letter, as she had ever ventured to hope, and had lost not a moment in writing to her in return a long epistle full of the fervent love and gratitude with which his heart was overflowing. He had also mentioned several affairs of mutual interest and of a pressing nature, but about which he was unwilling to take any steps without the concurrence of "his own dearest and kindest Emily." He therefore entreated her to write immediately; "to write by return of post, if she loved him." But this letter never reached its destination: it was lost—a rare occurrence certainly, but, as most of us are aware from our own experience, not unknown. And now began with Philip Hayforth the same agony which Emily was enduring—nay, a greater agony; for there was not only the same disappointed affection, the same heart-sickness, the same weary expectation, but there was the stronger suffering of a more passionate and less disciplined temper; and, above all, there was the incessant struggle between pride and love—the same fearful strife which, we are told, once made war in Heaven.