Part 2

unimportant material, anything, everything, so long as it has not been known beforehand to the world. The French critic protests against the class of scholars who go into ecstacies over a newly discovered washing list of Pascal or a bill from Racine's perruquier. The complaint tells against us as well on our side of the Channel. We hear a great deal about newly discovered fragments by this great writer and that great writer, which are of no value whatever, except that they happen to be new. But no such stricture applies to the letters of Lord Chesterfield which the late Lord Carnarvon so recently gave to the world. They are a valuable addition to our knowledge of the last century, a valuable addition to our knowledge of the man who wrote them. And knowledge about Lord Chesterfield is always welcome. Few of the famous figures of the last century have been more misunderstood than he. The world is too ready to remember Johnson's biting letter; too ready to remember the cruel caricatures of Lord Hervey. Even the famous letters have been taken too much at Johnson's estimate, and Johnson's estimate was one-sided and unfair. A man would not learn the highest life from the Chesterfield letters; they have little in common with the ethics of an A Kempis, a Jean Paul Richter, or a John Stuart Mill. But they have their value in their way, and if they contain some utterances so unutterably foolish as those in which Lord Chesterfield expressed himself upon Greek literature, they contain some very excellent maxims for the management of social life. Nobody could become a penny the worse for the study of Chesterfield; many might become the better. They are not a whit more cynical than, indeed they are not so cynical as, those letters of Thackeray's to young Brown, which with all their cleverness make us understand what Mr. Henley means when in his "Views and Reviews" he describes him as a "writer of genius who was innately and irredeemably a Philistine". The letters of Lord Chesterfield would not do much to make a man a hero, but there is little in literature more unheroic than the letters to Mr. Thomas Brown the younger.

It is curious to contrast the comparative enthusiasm with which the Whartons write about Horace Walpole with the invective of Lord Macaulay. To the great historian Walpole was the most eccentric, the most artificial, the most capricious of men, who played innumerable parts and over-acted them all, a creature to whom whatever was little seemed great and whatever was great seemed little. To Macaulay he was a gentleman-usher at heart, a Republican whose Republicanism like the courage of a bully or the love of a fribble was only strong and ardent when there was no occasion for it, a man who blended the faults of Grub Street with the faults of St. James's Street, and who united to the vanity, the jealousy and the irritability of a man of letters, the affected superciliousness and apathy of a man of ton. The Whartons over-praise Walpole where Lord Macaulay under-rates him; the truth lies between the two. He was not in the least an estimable or an admirable figure, but he wrote admirable, indeed incomparable letters to which the world is indebted beyond expression. If we can almost say that we know the London of the last century as well as the London of to-day it is largely to Horace Walpole's letters that our knowledge is due. They can hardly be over-praised, they can hardly be too often read by the lover of last century London. Horace Walpole affected to despise men of letters. It is his punishment that his fame depends upon his letters, those letters which, though their writer was all unaware of it, are genuine literature, and almost of the best.

We could linger over almost every page of the Whartons' volumes, for every page is full of pleasant suggestions. The name of George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham brings up at once a picture of perhaps the brilliantest and basest period in English history. It brings up too memories of a fiction that is even dearer than history, of that wonderful romance of Dumas the Elder's, which Mr. Louis Stevenson has placed among the half-dozen books that are dearest to his heart, the "Vicomte de Bragelonne". Who that has ever followed, breathless and enraptured, the final fortunes of that gallant quadrilateral of musketeers will forget the part which is played by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, in that magnificent prose epic? There is little to be said for the real Villiers; he was a profligate and a scoundrel, and he did not show very heroically in his quarrel with the fiery young Ossory. It was one thing to practically murder Lord Shrewsbury; it was quite another thing to risk the wrath and the determined right hand of the Duke of Ormond's son. But the Villiers of Dumas' fancy is a fairer figure and a finer lover, and it is pleasant after reading the pages in which the authors of these essays trace the career of Dryden's epitome to turn to those volumes of the great Frenchman, to read the account of the duel with de Wardes and invoke a new blessing on the muse of fiction.

In some earlier volumes of the same great series we meet with yet another figure who has his image in the Wharton picture gallery. In that "crowded and sunny field of life"--the words are Mr. Stevenson's, and they apply to the whole musketeer epic--that "place busy as a city, bright as a theatre, thronged with memorable faces, and sounding with delightful speech," the Abbé Scarron plays his part. It was here that many of us met Scarron for the first time, and if we have got to know him better since, we still remember with a thrill of pleasure that first encounter when in the society of the matchless Count de la Fere and the marvellous Aramis we made our bow in company with the young Raoul to the crippled wit and his illustrious companions. The Whartons write brightly about Scarron, but their best merit to my mind is that they at once prompt a desire to go to that corner of the bookshelf where the eleven volumes of the adventures of the immortal musketeers repose, and taking down the first volume of "Vingt Ans Après" seek for the twenty-third chapter, where Scarron receives society in his residence in the Rue des Tournelles. There Scudery twirls his moustaches and trails his enormous rapier and the Coadjutor exhibits his silken "Fronde". There the velvet eyes of Mademoiselle d'Aubigné smile and the beauty of Madame de Chevreuse delights, and all the company make fun of Mazarin and recite the verses of Voiture.

There are others of these wits and beaux with whom we might like to linger; but our space is running short; it is time to say good-bye. Congreve the dramatist and gentleman, Rochefoucault the wit, Saint-Simon the king of memoir-writers, Rochester and St. Evremond and de Grammont, Selwyn and Sydney Smith and Sheridan each in turn appeals to us to tarry a little longer. But it is time to say good-bye to these shadows of the past with whom we have spent some pleasant hours. It is their duty now to offer some pleasant hours to others.

JUSTIN HUNTLY M'CARTHY.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

In revising this Publication, it has scarcely been found necessary to recall a single opinion relative to the subject of the Work. The general impressions of characters adopted by the Authors have received little modification from any remarks elicited by the appearance of 'The Wits and Beaux of Society.'

It is scarcely to be expected that even _our_ descendants will know much more of the Wits and Beaux of former days than we now do. The chests at Strawberry Hill are cleared of their contents; Horace Walpole's latest letters are before us; Pepys and Evelyn have thoroughly dramatized the days of Charles II.; Lord Hervey's Memoirs have laid bare the darkest secrets of the Court in which he figures; voluminous memoirs of the less historic characters among the Wits and Beaux have been published; still it is possible that some long-disregarded treasury of old letters, like that in the Gallery at Wotton, may come to light. From that precious deposit a housemaid--blotted for ever be her name from memory's page--was purloining sheets of yellow paper, with antiquated writing on them, to light her fires with, when the late William Upcott came to the rescue, and saved Evelyn's 'Diary' for a grateful world. It is _just_ possible that such a discovery may again be made, and that the doings of George Villiers, or the exile life of Wharton, or the inmost thoughts of other Wits and Beaux may be made to appear in clearer lights than heretofore; but it is much more likely that the popular opinions about these witty, worthless men are substantially true.

All that has been collected, therefore, to form this work--and, as in the 'Queens of Society,' every known source has been consulted--assumes a sterling value as being collected; and, should hereafter fresh materials be disinterred from any old library closet in the homes of some one descendant of our heroes, advantage will be gladly taken to improve, correct, and complete the lives.

One thing must, in justice, be said: if they have been written freely, fearlessly, they have been written without passion or prejudice. The writers, though not _quite_ of the stamp of persons who would never have 'dared to address' any of the subjects of their biography, 'save with courtesy and obeisance,' have no wish to 'trample on the graves' of such very amusing personages as the 'Wits and Beaux of Society.' They have even been lenient to their memory, hailing every good trait gladly, and pointing out with no unsparing hand redeeming virtues; and it cannot certainly be said, in this instance, that the good has been 'interred with the bones' of the personages herein described, although the evil men do, 'will live after them.'

But whilst a biographer is bound to give the fair as well as the dark side of his subject, he has still to remember that biography is a trust, and that it should not be an eulogium. It is his duty to reflect that in many instances it must be regarded even as a warning.

The moral conclusions of these lives of 'Wits and Beaux' are, it is admitted, just: vice is censured; folly rebuked; ungentlemanly conduct, even in a beau of the highest polish, exposed; irreligion finds no toleration under gentle names--heartlessness no palliation from its being the way of the world. There is here no separate code allowed for men who live in the world, and for those who live out of it. The task of pourtraying such characters as the 'Wits and Beaux of Society' is a responsible one, and does not involve the mere attempt to amuse, or the mere desire to abuse, but requires truth and discrimination; as embracing just or unjust views of such characters, it may do much harm or much good. Nevertheless, in spite of these obvious considerations there do exist worthy persons, even in the present day, so unreasonable as to take offence at the revival of old stories anent their defunct grandfathers, though those very stories were circulated by accredited writers employed by the families themselves. Some individuals are scandalized when a man who was habitually drunk, is called a drunkard; and ears polite cannot bear the application of plain names to well-known delinquencies.

There is something foolish, but respectably foolish, in this wish to shut out light which has been streaming for years over these old tombs and memories. The flowers that are cast on such graves cannot, however, cause us to forget the corruption within and underneath. In consideration, nevertheless, of a pardonable weakness, all expressions that can give pain, or which have been said to give pain, have been, in this Second Edition, omitted; and whenever a mis-statement has crept in, care has been taken to amend the error.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

The success of the 'Queens of Society' will have pioneered the way for the 'Wits and Beaux:' with whom, during the holiday time of their lives, these fair ladies were so greatly associated. The 'Queens,' whether all wits or not, must have been the cause of wit in others; their influence over dandyism is notorious: their power to make or mar a man of fashion, almost historical. So far, a chronicle of the sayings and doings of the 'Wits' is worthy to serve as a _pendant_ to that of the 'Queens:' happy would it be for society if the annals of the former could more closely resemble the biography of the latter. But it may not be so: men are subject to temptations, to failures, to delinquencies, to calamities, of which women can scarcely dream, and which they can only lament and pity.

Our 'Wits,' too--to separate them from the 'Beaux'--were men who often took an active part in the stirring events of their day: they assumed to be statesmen, though, too frequently, they were only politicians. They were brave and loyal: indeed, in the time of the Stuarts, all the Wits were Cavaliers, as well as the Beaux. One hears of no repartee among Cromwell's followers; no dash, no merriment, in Fairfax's staff; eloquence, indeed, but no wit in the Parliamentarians; and, in truth, in the second Charles's time, the king might have headed the lists of the Wits himself--such a capital man as his Majesty is known to have been for a wet evening or a dull Sunday; such a famous teller of a story--such a perfect diner-out: no wonder that in his reign we had George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham of that family, 'mankind's epitome,' who had every pretension to every accomplishment combined in himself. No wonder we could attract De Grammont and Saint Evremond to our court; and own, somewhat to our discredit be it allowed, Rochester and Beau Fielding. Every reign has had its wits, but those in Charles's time were so numerous as to distinguish the era by an especial brilliancy. Nor let it be supposed that these annals do not contain a moral application. They show how little the sparkling attributes herein pourtrayed conferred happiness; how far more the rare, though certainly real touches of genuine feeling and strong affection, which appear here and there even in the lives of the most thoughtless 'Wits and Beaux,' elevate the character in youth, or console the spirit in age. They prove how wise has been that change in society which now repudiates the 'Wit' as a distinct class; and requires general intelligences as a compensation for lost repartees, or long obsolete practical jokes.

'Men are not all evil:' so in the life of George Villiers, we find him kind-hearted, and free from hypocrisy. His old servants--and the fact speaks in extenuation of one of our wildest Wits and Beaux--loved him faithfully. De Grammont, we all own, has little to redeem him except his good-nature: Rochester's latest days were almost hallowed by his penitence. Chesterfield is saved by his kindness to the Irish, and his affection for his son. Horace Walpole had human affections, though a most inhuman pen: and Wharton was famous for his good-humour.

The periods most abounding in the Wit and the Beau have, of course, been those most exempt from wars, and rumours of wars. The Restoration; the early period of the Augustan age; the commencement of the Hanoverian dynasty,--have all been enlivened by Wits and Beaux, who came to light like mushrooms after a storm of rain, as soon as the political horizon was clear. We have Congreve, who affected to be the Beau as well as the Wit; Lord Hervey, more of the courtier than the Beau--a Wit by inheritance--a peer, assisted into a pre-eminent position by royal preference, and consequent _prestige_; and all these men were the offspring of the particular state of the times in which they figured: at earlier periods, they would have been deemed effeminate; in later ones, absurd.

Then the scene shifts: intellect had marched forward gigantically: the world is grown exacting, disputatious, critical, and such men as Horace Walpole and Brinsley Sheridan appear; the characteristics of wit which adorned that age being well diluted by the feebler talents of Selwyn and Hook.

Of these, and others, '_table traits_,' and other traits, are here given: brief chronicles of _their_ life's stage, over which a curtain has so long been dropped, are supplied carefully from well established sources: it is with characters, not with literary history, that we deal; and do our best to make the portraitures life-like, and to bring forward old memories, which, without the stamp of antiquity, might be suffered to pass into obscurity.

Your Wit and your Beau, be he French or English, is no mediæval personage: the aristocracy of the present day rank among his immediate descendants: he is a creature of a modern and an artificial age; and with his career are mingled many features of civilized life, manners, habits, and traces of family history which are still, it is believed, interesting to the majority of English readers, as they have long been to

GRACE and PHILIP WHARTON

_October, 1860_.

* * * * *

THE WITS AND BEAUX OF SOCIETY.

* * * * *

GEORGE VILLIERS, SECOND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.

Signs of the Restoration.--Samuel Pepys in his Glory.--A Royal Company.--Pepys 'ready to Weep.'--The Playmate of Charles II.--George Villiers's Inheritance.--Two Gallant Young Noblemen.--The Brave Francis Villiers.--After the Battle of Worcester.--Disguising the King.--Villiers in Hiding.--He appears as a Mountebank.--Buckingham's Habits.--A Daring Adventure.--Cromwell's Saintly Daughter.--Villiers and the Rabbi.--The Buckingham Pictures and Estates.--York House.--Villiers returns to England.--Poor Mary Fairfax.--Villiers in the Tower.--Abraham Cowley, the Poet.--The Greatest Ornament of Whitehall.--Buckingham's Wit and Beauty.--Flecknoe's Opinion of Him.--His Duel with the Earl of Shrewsbury.--Villiers as a Poet.--As a Dramatist.--A Fearful Censure!--Villiers's Influence in Parliament.--A Scene in the Lords.--The Duke of Ormond in Danger.--Colonel Blood's Outrages.--Wallingford House and Ham House.--'Madame Ellen.'--The Cabal.--Villiers again in the Tower.--A Change.--The Duke of York's Theatre.--Buckingham and the Princess of Orange.--His last Hours.--His Religion.--Death of Villiers.--The Duchess of Buckingham.

Samuel Pepys, the weather-glass of his time, hails the first glimpse of the Restoration of Charles II. in his usual quaint terms and vulgar sycophancy.

'To Westminster Hall,' says he; 'where I heard how the Parliament had this day dissolved themselves, and did pass very cheerfully through the Hall, and the Speaker without his mace. The whole Hall was joyful thereat, as well as themselves; and now they begin to talk loud of the king.' And the evening was closed, he further tells us, with a large bonfire in the Exchange, and people called out, 'God bless King Charles!'

This was in March 1660; and during that spring Pepys was noting down how he did not think it possible that my 'Lord Protector,' Richard Cromwell, should come into power again; how there were great hopes of the king's arrival; how Monk, the Restorer, was feasted at Mercers' Hall (Pepys's own especial); how it was resolved that a treaty be offered to the king, privately; how he resolved to go to sea with 'my lord:' and how, while they lay at Gravesend, the great affair which brought back Charles Stuart was virtually accomplished. Then, with various parentheses, inimitable in their way, Pepys carries on his narrative. He has left his father's 'cutting-room' to take care of itself; and finds his cabin little, though his bed is convenient, but is certain, as he rides at anchor with 'my lord,' in the ship, that the king 'must of necessity come in,' and the vessel sails round and anchors in Lee Roads. 'To the castles about Deal, where _our_ fleet' (_our fleet_, the saucy son of a tailor!) 'lay and anchored; great was the shoot of guns from the castles, and ships, and our answers.' Glorious Samuel! in his element, to be sure.

Then the wind grew high: he began to be 'dizzy, and squeamish;' nevertheless employed 'Lord's Day' in looking through the lieutenant's glass at two good merchantmen, and the women in them; 'being pretty handsome;' then in the afternoon he first saw Calais, and was pleased, though it was at a great distance. All eyes were looking across the Channel just then--for the king was at Flushing; and, though the 'Fanatiques' still held their heads up high, and the Cavaliers also talked high on the other side, the cause that Pepys was bound to, still gained ground.

Then 'they begin to speak freely of King Charles;' churches in the City, Samuel declares, were setting up his arms; merchant-ships--more important in those days--were hanging out his colours. He hears, too, how the Mercers' Company were making a statue of his gracious Majesty to set up in the Exchange. Ah! Pepys's heart is merry: he has forty shillings (some shabby perquisite) given him by Captain Cowes of the 'Paragon;' and 'my lord' in the evening 'falls to singing' a song upon the Rump to the tune of the 'Blacksmith.'

The hopes of the Cavalier party are hourly increasing, and those of Pepys we may be sure also; for Pim, the tailor, spends a morning in his cabin 'putting a great many ribbons to a sail.' And the king is to be brought over suddenly, 'my lord' tells him: and indeed it looks like it, for the sailors are drinking Charles's health in the streets of Deal, on their knees; 'which, methinks,' says Pepys, 'is a little too much;' and 'methinks' so, worthy Master Pepys, also.

Then how the news of the Parliamentary vote of the king's declaration was received! Pepys becomes eloquent.

'He that can fancy a fleet (like ours) in her pride, with pendants loose, guns roaring, caps flying, and the loud "_Vive le Roi!_" echoed from one ship's company to another; he, and he only, can apprehend the joy this enclosed vote was received with, or the blessing he thought himself possessed of that bore it.'

Next, orders come for 'my lord' to sail forthwith to the king; and the painters and tailors set to work, Pepys superintending, 'cutting out some pieces of yellow cloth in the fashion of a crown and C. R.; and putting it upon a fine sheet'--and that is to supersede the States' arms, and is finished and set up. And the next day, on May 14, the Hague is seen plainly by _us_, 'my lord going up in his night-gown into the cuddy.'

And then they land at the Hague; some 'nasty Dutchmen' come on board to offer their boats, and get money, which Pepys does not like; and in time they find themselves in the Hague, 'a most neat place in all respects:' salute the Queen of Bohemia and the Prince of Orange--afterwards William III.--and find at their place of supper nothing but a 'sallet' and two or three bones of mutton provided for ten of us, 'which was very strange. Nevertheless, on they sail, having returned to the fleet, to Schevelling: and, on the 23rd of the month, go to meet the king; who, 'on getting into the boat, did kiss my lord with much affection.' And 'extraordinary press of good company,' and great mirth all day, announced the Restoration. Nevertheless Charles's clothes had not been, till this time, Master Pepys is assured, worth forty shillings--and he, as a connoisseur, was scandalized at the fact.