To the astonishment of the Honourable Buckhurst Stanhope, eldest son of Lord Beaconsfield, Mr. Vivian Grey, who had never yet condescended to acknowledge his existence, asked him one morning, with the most fascinating of smiles and with the most conciliating voice, “whether they should ride together.” The young heir-apparent looked stiff and assented. He arrived again at Chateau Desir in a couple of hours, desperately enamoured of the eldest Miss Courtown. The sacrifice of two mornings to the Honourable Dormer Stanhope and the Honourable Gregory Stanhope sent them home equally captivated by the remaining sisters. Having thus, like a man of honour, provided for the amusement of his former friends, the three Miss Courtowns, Vivian left Mrs. Felix Lorraine to the Colonel, whose moustache, by-the-bye, that lady considerably patronised; and then, having excited an universal feeling of gallantry among the elders, Vivian found his whole day at the service of Julia Manvers.
“Miss Manvers, I think that you and I are the only faithful subjects in this Castle of Indolence. Here am I lounging on an ottoman, my ambition reaching only so far as the possession of a chibouque, whose aromatic and circling wreaths, I candidly confess, I dare not here excite; and you, of course, much too knowing to be doing anything on the first of August save dreaming of races, archery feats, and county balls: the three most delightful things which the country can boast, either for man, woman, or child.”
“Of course, you except sporting for yourself, shooting especially, I suppose.”
“Shooting, oh! ah! there is such a thing. No, I am no shot; not that I have not hi my time cultivated a Manton; but the truth is, having, at an early age, mistaken my intimate friend for a cock pheasant, I sent a whole crowd of fours into his face, and thereby spoilt one of the prettiest countenances in Christendom; so I gave up the field. Besides, as Tom Moore says, I have so much to do in the country, that, for my part, I really have no time for killing birds and jumping over ditches: good work enough for country squires, who must, like all others, have their hours of excitement. Mine are of a different nature, and boast a different locality; and so when I come into the country, ’tis for pleasant air, and beautiful trees, and winding streams; things which, of course, those who live among them all the year round do not suspect to be lovely and adorable creations. Don’t you agree with Tom Moore, Miss Manvers?”
“Oh, of course! but I think it is very improper, that habit, which every one has, of calling a man of such eminence as the author of ‘Lalla Rookh’ Tom Moore.”
“I wish he could but hear you! But, suppose I were to quote Mr. Moore, or Mr. Thomas Moore, would you have the most distant conception whom I meant? Certainly not. By-the-bye, did you ever hear the pretty name they gave him at Paris?”
“No, what was it?”
“One day Moore and Rogers went to call on Denon. Rogers gave their names to the Swiss, Monsieur Rogers et Monsieur Moore. The Swiss dashed open the library door, and, to the great surprise of the illustrious antiquary, announced, Monsieur l’Amour! While Denon was doubting whether the God of Love was really paying him a visit or not, Rogers entered. I should like to have seen Denon’s face!”
“And Monsieur Denon did take a portrait of Mr. Rogers as Cupid, I believe?”
“Come, madam, ‘no scandal about Queen Elizabeth.’ Mr. Rogers is one of the most elegant-minded men in the country.”
“Nay! do not lecture me with such a laughing face, or else your moral will be utterly thrown away.”
“Ah! you have Retsch’s ‘Faust’ there. I did not expect on a drawing-room table at Chateau Desir to see anything so old, and so excellent, I thought the third edition of Tremaine would be a very fair specimen of your ancient literature, and Major Denham’s hair-breadth escapes of your modern. There was an excellent story about, on the return of Denham and Clapperton. The travellers took different routes, in order to arrive at the same point of destination. In his wanderings the Major came unto an unheard-of Lake, which, with the spirit which they of the Guards surely approved, he christened ‘Lake Waterloo.’ Clapperton arrived a few days after him; and the pool was immediately re-baptized ‘Lake Trafalgar.’ There was a hot quarrel in consequence. Now, if I had been there, I would have arranged matters, by proposing as a title, to meet the views of all parties, ‘The United Service Lake.’”
“That would have been happy.”
“How beautiful Margaret is,” said Vivian, rising from his ottoman, and seating himself on the sofa by the lady. “I always think that this is the only Personification where Art has not rendered Innocence insipid.”
“Do you think so?”
“Why, take Una in the Wilderness, or Goody Two Shoes. These, I believe, were the most innocent persons that ever existed, and I am sure you will agree with me, they always look the most insipid. Nay, perhaps I was wrong in what I said; perhaps it is Insipidity that always looks innocent, not Innocence always insipid.”
“How can you refine so, when the thermometer is at 100°! Pray, tell me some more stories.”
“I cannot, I am in a refining humour: I could almost lecture to-day at the Royal Institution. You would not call these exactly Prosopopeias of Innocence?” said Vivian, turning over a bundle of Stewart Newton’s beauties, languishing, and lithographed. “Newton, I suppose, like Lady Wortley Montague, is of opinion, that the face is not the most beautiful part of woman; at least, if I am to judge from these elaborate ankles. Now, the countenance of this Donna, forsooth, has a drowsy placidity worthy of the easy-chair she is lolling in, and yet her ankle would not disgrace the contorted frame of the most pious faquir.”
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