Coningsby
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Benjamin Disraeli >> Coningsby
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CHAPTER V.
In the meantime, while ladies are luncheoning on Perigord pie, or coursing
in whirling britskas, performing all the singular ceremonies of a London
morning in the heart of the season; making visits where nobody is seen,
and making purchases which are not wanted; the world is in agitation and
uproar. At present the world and the confusion are limited to St. James's
Street and Pall Mall; but soon the boundaries and the tumult will be
extended to the intended metropolitan boroughs; to-morrow they will spread
over the manufacturing districts. It is perfectly evident, that before
eight-and-forty hours have passed, the country will be in a state of
fearful crisis. And how can it be otherwise? Is it not a truth that the
subtle Chief Baron has been closeted one whole hour with the King; that
shortly after, with thoughtful brow and compressed lip, he was marked in
his daring chariot entering the courtyard of Apsley House? Great was the
panic at Brookes', wild the hopes of Carlton Terrace; all the gentlemen
who expected to have been made peers perceived that the country was going
to be given over to a rapacious oligarchy.
In the meantime Tadpole and Taper, who had never quitted for an instant
the mysterious head-quarters of the late Opposition, were full of hopes
and fears, and asked many questions, which they chiefly answered
themselves.
'I wonder what Lord Lyndhurst will say to the king,' said Taper.
'He has plenty of pluck,' said Tadpole.
'I almost wish now that Rigby had breakfasted with him this morning,' said
Taper.
'If the King be firm, and the country sound,' said Tadpole, 'and Lord
Monmouth keep his boroughs, I should not wonder to see Rigby made a privy
councillor.'
'There is no precedent for an under-secretary being a privy councillor,'
said Taper.
'But we live in revolutionary times,' said Tadpole.
'Gentlemen,' said the groom of the chambers, in a loud voice, entering the
room, 'I am desired to state that the Duke of Wellington is with the
King.'
'There _is_ a Providence!' exclaimed an agitated gentleman, the patent of
whose intended peerage had not been signed the day that the Duke had
quited office in 1830.
'I always thought the King would be firm,' said Mr. Tadpole.
'I wonder who will have the India Board,' said Taper.
At this moment three or four gentlemen entered the room in a state of
great bustle and excitement; they were immediately surrounded.
'Is it true?' 'Quite true; not the slightest doubt. Saw him myself. Not at
all hissed; certainly not hooted. Perhaps a little hissed. One fellow
really cheered him. Saw him myself. Say what they like, there is
reaction.' 'But Constitution Hill, they say?' 'Well, there was a sort of
inclination to a row on Constitution Hill; but the Duke quite firm;
pistols, and carriage doors bolted.'
Such may give a faint idea of the anxious inquiries and the satisfactory
replies that were occasioned by the entrance of this group.
'Up, guards, and at them!' exclaimed Tadpole, rubbing his hands in a fit
of patriotic enthusiasm.
Later in the afternoon, about five o'clock, the high change of political
gossip, when the room was crowded, and every one had his rumour, Mr. Rigby
looked in again to throw his eye over the evening papers, and catch in
various chit-chat the tone of public or party feeling on the 'crisis.'
Then it was known that the Duke had returned from the King, having
accepted the charge of forming an administration. An administration to do
what? Portentous question! Were concessions to be made? And if so, what?
Was it altogether impossible, and too late, 'stare super vias antiquas?'
Questions altogether above your Tadpoles and your Tapers, whose idea of
the necessities of the age was that they themselves should be in office.
Lord Eskdale came up to Mr. Rigby. This peer was a noble Croesus,
acquainted with all the gradations of life; a voluptuary who could be a
Spartan; clear-sighted, unprejudiced, sagacious; the best judge in the
world of a horse or a man; he was the universal referee; a quarrel about a
bet or a mistress was solved by him in a moment, and in a manner which
satisfied both parties. He patronised and appreciated the fine arts,
though a jockey; respected literary men, though he only read French
novels; and without any affectation of tastes which he did not possess,
was looked upon by every singer and dancer in Europe as their natural
champion. The secret of his strong character and great influence was his
self-composure, which an earthquake or a Reform Bill could not disturb,
and which in him was the result of temperament and experience. He was an
intimate acquaintance of Lord Monmouth, for they had many tastes in
common; were both men of considerable, and in some degree similar
abilities; and were the two greatest proprietors of close boroughs in the
country.
'Do you dine at Monmouth House to-day?' inquired Lord Eskdale of Mr.
Rigby.
'Where I hope to meet your lordship. The Whig papers are very subdued,'
continued Mr. Rigby.
'Ah! they have not the cue yet,' said Lord Eskdale.
'And what do you think of affairs?' inquired his companion.
'I think the hounds are too hot to hark off now,' said Lord Eskdale.
'There is one combination,' said Rigby, who seemed meditating an attack on
Lord Eskdale's button.
'Give it us at dinner,' said Lord Eskdale, who knew his man, and made an
adroit movement forwards, as if he were very anxious to see the _Globe_
newspaper.
In the course of two or three hours these gentlemen met again in the green
drawing-room of Monmouth House. Mr. Rigby was sitting on a sofa by Lord
Monmouth, detailing in whispers all his gossip of the morn: Lord Eskdale
murmuring quaint inquiries into the ear of the Princess Lucretia.
Madame Colonna made remarks alternately to two gentlemen, who paid her
assiduous court. One of these was Mr. Ormsby; the school, the college, and
the club crony of Lord Monmouth, who had been his shadow through life;
travelled with him in early days, won money with him at play, had been his
colleague in the House of Commons; and was still one of his nominees. Mr.
Ormsby was a millionaire, which Lord Monmouth liked. He liked his
companions to be very rich or very poor; be his equals, able to play with
him at high stakes, or join him in a great speculation; or to be his
tools, and to amuse and serve him. There was nothing which he despised and
disliked so much as a moderate fortune.
The other gentleman was of a different class and character. Nature had
intended Lucian Gay for a scholar and a wit; necessity had made him a
scribbler and a buffoon. He had distinguished himself at the University;
but he had no patrimony, nor those powers of perseverance which success in
any learned profession requires. He was good-looking, had great animal
spirits, and a keen sense of enjoyment, and could not drudge. Moreover he
had a fine voice, and sang his own songs with considerable taste;
accomplishments which made his fortune in society and completed his ruin.
In due time he extricated himself from the bench and merged into
journalism, by means of which he chanced to become acquainted with Mr.
Rigby. That worthy individual was not slow in detecting the treasure he
had lighted on; a wit, a ready and happy writer, a joyous and tractable
being, with the education, and still the feelings and manners, of a
gentleman. Frequent were the Sunday dinners which found Gay a guest at Mr.
Rigby's villa; numerous the airy pasquinades which he left behind, and
which made the fortune of his patron. Flattered by the familiar
acquaintance of a man of station, and sanguine that he had found the link
which would sooner or later restore him to the polished world that he had
forfeited, Gay laboured in his vocation with enthusiasm and success.
Willingly would Rigby have kept his treasure to himself; and truly he
hoarded it for a long time, but it oozed out. Rigby loved the reputation
of possessing the complete art of society. His dinners were celebrated at
least for their guests. Great intellectual illustrations were found there
blended with rank and high station. Rigby loved to patronise; to play the
minister unbending and seeking relief from the cares of council in the
society of authors, artists, and men of science. He liked dukes to dine
with him and hear him scatter his audacious criticisms to Sir Thomas or
Sir Humphry. They went away astounded by the powers of their host, who,
had he not fortunately devoted those powers to their party, must
apparently have rivalled Vandyke, or discovered the safety-lamp.
Now in these dinners, Lucian Gay, who had brilliant conversational powers,
and who possessed all the resources of boon companionship, would be an
invaluable ally. He was therefore admitted, and inspired both by the
present enjoyment, and the future to which it might lead, his exertions
were untiring, various, most successful. Rigby's dinners became still,
more celebrated. It, however, necessarily followed that the guests who
were charmed by Gay, wished Gay also to be their guest. Rigby was very
jealous of this, but it was inevitable; still by constant manoeuvre, by
intimations of some exercise, some day or other, of substantial patronage
in his behalf, by a thousand little arts by which he carved out work for
Gay which often prevented him accepting invitations to great houses in the
country, by judicious loans of small sums on Lucian's notes of hand and
other analogous devices, Rigby contrived to keep the wit in a fair state
of bondage and dependence.
One thing Rigby was resolved on: Gay should never get into Monmouth House.
That was an empyrean too high for his wing to soar in. Rigby kept that
social monopoly distinctively to mark the relation that subsisted between
them as patron and client. It was something to swagger about when they
were together after their second bottle of claret. Rigby kept his
resolution for some years, which the frequent and prolonged absence of the
Marquess rendered not very difficult. But we are the creatures of
circumstances; at least the Rigby race particularly. Lord Monmouth
returned to England one year, and wanted to be amused. He wanted a jester:
a man about him who would make him, not laugh, for that was impossible,
but smile more frequently, tell good stories, say good things, and sing
now and then, especially French songs. Early in life Rigby would have
attempted all this, though he had neither fun, voice, nor ear. But his
hold on Lord Monmouth no longer depended on the mere exercise of agreeable
qualities, he had become indispensable to his lordship, by more serious if
not higher considerations. And what with auditing his accounts, guarding
his boroughs, writing him, when absent, gossip by every post and when in
England deciding on every question and arranging every matter which might
otherwise have ruffled the sublime repose of his patron's existence, Rigby
might be excused if he shrank a little from the minor part of table wit,
particularly when we remember all his subterranean journalism, his acid
squibs, and his malicious paragraphs, and, what Tadpole called, his
'slashing articles.'
These 'slashing articles' were, indeed, things which, had they appeared as
anonymous pamphlets, would have obtained the contemptuous reception which
in an intellectual view no compositions more surely deserved; but
whispered as the productions of one behind the scenes, and appearing in
the pages of a party review, they were passed off as genuine coin, and
took in great numbers of the lieges, especially in the country. They were
written in a style apparently modelled on the briefs of those sharp
attorneys who weary advocates with their clever commonplace; teasing with
obvious comment, and torturing with inevitable inference. The affectation
of order in the statement of facts had all the lucid method of an adroit
pettifogger. They dealt much in extracts from newspapers, quotations from
the _Annual Register_, parallel passages in forgotten speeches, arranged
with a formidable array of dates rarely accurate. When the writer was of
opinion he had made a point, you may be sure the hit was in italics, that
last resource of the Forcible Feebles. He handled a particular in
chronology as if he were proving an alibi at the Criminal Court. The
censure was coarse without being strong, and vindictive when it would have
been sarcastic. Now and then there was a passage which aimed at a higher
flight, and nothing can be conceived more unlike genuine feeling, or more
offensive to pure taste. And yet, perhaps, the most ludicrous
characteristic of these facetious gallimaufreys was an occasional
assumption of the high moral and admonitory tone, which when we recurred
to the general spirit of the discourse, and were apt to recall the
character of its writer, irresistibly reminded one of Mrs. Cole and her
prayer-book.
To return to Lucian Gay. It was a rule with Rigby that no one, if
possible, should do anything for Lord Monmouth but himself; and as a
jester must be found, he was determined that his Lordship should have the
best in the market, and that he should have the credit of furnishing the
article. As a reward, therefore, for many past services, and a fresh claim
to his future exertions, Rigby one day broke to Gay that the hour had at
length arrived when the highest object of reasonable ambition on his part,
and the fulfilment of one of Rigby's long-cherished and dearest hopes,
were alike to be realised. Gay was to be presented to Lord Monmouth and
dine at Monmouth House.
The acquaintance was a successful one; very agreeable to both parties. Gay
became an habitual guest of Lord Monmouth when his patron was in England;
and in his absence received frequent and substantial marks of his kind
recollection, for Lord Monmouth was generous to those who amused him.
In the meantime the hour of dinner is at hand. Coningsby, who had lost the
key of his carpet-bag, which he finally cut open with a penknife that he
found on his writing-table, and the blade of which he broke in the
operation, only reached the drawing-room as the figure of his grandfather,
leaning on his ivory cane, and following his guests, was just visible in
the distance. He was soon overtaken. Perceiving Coningsby, Lord Monmouth
made him a bow, not so formal a one as in the morning, but still a bow,
and said, 'I hope you liked your drive.'
CHAPTER VI.
A little dinner, not more than the Muses, with all the guests clever, and
some pretty, offers human life and human nature under very favourable
circumstances. In the present instance, too, every one was anxious to
please, for the host was entirely well-bred, never selfish in little
things, and always contributed his quota to the general fund of polished
sociability.
Although there was really only one thought in every male mind present,
still, regard for the ladies, and some little apprehension of the
servants, banished politics from discourse during the greater part of the
dinner, with the occasional exception of some rapid and flying allusion
which the initiated understood, but which remained a mystery to the rest.
Nevertheless an old story now and then well told by Mr. Ormsby, a new joke
now and then well introduced by Mr. Gay, some dashing assertion by Mr.
Rigby, which, though wrong, was startling; this agreeable blending of
anecdote, jest, and paradox, kept everything fluent, and produced that
degree of mild excitation which is desirable. Lord Monmouth sometimes
summed up with an epigrammatic sentence, and turned the conversation by a
question, in case it dwelt too much on the same topic. Lord Eskdale
addressed himself principally to the ladies; inquired after their morning
drive and doings, spoke of new fashions, and quoted a letter from Paris.
Madame Colonna was not witty, but she had that sweet Roman frankness which
is so charming. The presence of a beautiful woman, natural and good-
tempered, even if she be not a L'Espinasse or a De Stael, is animating.
Nevertheless, owing probably to the absorbing powers of the forbidden
subject, there were moments when it seemed that a pause was impending, and
Mr. Ormsby, an old hand, seized one of these critical instants to address
a good-natured question to Coningsby, whose acquaintance he had already
cultivated by taking wine with him.
'And how do you like Eton?' asked Mr. Ormsby.
It was the identical question which had been presented to Coningsby in the
memorable interview of the morning, and which had received no reply; or
rather had produced on his part a sentimental ebullition that had
absolutely destined or doomed him to the Church.
'I should like to see the fellow who did not like Eton,' said Coningsby,
briskly, determined this time to be very brave.
'Gad I must go down and see the old place,' said Mr. Ormsby, touched by a
pensive reminiscence. 'One can get a good bed and bottle of port at the
Christopher, still?'
'You had better come and try, sir,' said Coningsby. 'If you will come some
day and dine with me at the Christopher, I will give you such a bottle of
champagne as you never tasted yet.'
The Marquess looked at him, but said nothing.
'Ah! I liked a dinner at the Christopher,' said Mr. Ormsby; 'after mutton,
mutton, mutton, every day, it was not a bad thing.'
'We had venison for dinner every week last season,' said Coningsby;
'Buckhurst had it sent up from his park. But I don't care for dinner.
Breakfast is my lounge.'
'Ah! those little rolls and pats of butter!' said Mr. Ormsby. 'Short
commons, though. What do you think we did in my time? We used to send over
the way to get a mutton-chop.'
'I wish you could see Buckhurst and me at breakfast,' said Coningsby,
'with a pound of Castle's sausages!'
'What Buckhurst is that, Harry?' inquired Lord Monmouth, in a tone of some
interest, and for the first time calling him by his Christian name.
'Sir Charles Buckhurst, sir, a Berkshire man: Shirley Park is his place.'
'Why, that must be Charley's son, Eskdale,' said Lord Monmouth; 'I had no
idea he could be so young.'
'He married late, you know, and had nothing but daughters for a long
time.'
'Well, I hope there will be no Reform Bill for Eton,' said Lord Monmouth,
musingly.
The servants had now retired.
'I think, Lord Monmouth,' said Mr. Rigby, 'we must ask permission to drink
one toast to-day.'
'Nay, I will myself give it,' he replied. 'Madame Colonna, you will, I am
sure, join us when we drink, THE DUKE!'
'Ah! what a man!' exclaimed the Princess. 'What a pity it is you have a
House of Commons here! England would be the greatest country in the world
if it were not for that House of Commons. It makes so much confusion!'
'Don't abuse our property,' said Lord Eskdale; 'Lord Monmouth and I have
still twenty votes of that same body between us.'
'And there is a combination,' said Rigby, 'by which you may still keep
them.'
'Ah! now for Rigby's combination,' said Lord Eskdale.
'The only thing that can save this country,' said Rigby, 'is a coalition
on a sliding scale.'
'You had better buy up the Birmingham Union and the other bodies,' said
Lord Monmouth; 'I believe it might all be done for two or three hundred
thousand pounds; and the newspapers too. Pitt would have settled this
business long ago.'
'Well, at any rate, we are in,' said Rigby, 'and we must do something.'
'I should like to see Grey's list of new peers,' said Lord Eskdale. 'They
say there are several members of our club in it.'
'And the claims to the honour are so opposite,' said Lucian Gay; 'one, on
account of his large estate; another, because he has none; one, because he
has a well-grown family to perpetuate the title; another, because he has
no heir, and no power of ever obtaining one.'
'I wonder how he will form his cabinet,' said Lord Monmouth; 'the old
story won't do.'
'I hear that Baring is to be one of the new cards; they say it will please
the city,' said Lord Eskdale. 'I suppose they will pick out of hedge and
ditch everything that has ever had the semblance of liberalism.'
'Affairs in my time were never so complicated,' said Mr. Ormsby.
'Nay, it appears to me to lie in a nutshell,' said Lucian Gay; 'one party
wishes to keep their old boroughs, and the other to get their new peers.'
CHAPTER VII.
The future historian of the country will be perplexed to ascertain what
was the distinct object which the Duke of Wellington proposed to himself
in the political manoeuvres of May, 1832. It was known that the passing of
the Reform Bill was a condition absolute with the King; it was
unquestionable, that the first general election under the new law must
ignominiously expel the Anti-Reform Ministry from power; who would then
resume their seats on the Opposition benches in both Houses with the loss
not only of their boroughs, but of that reputation for political
consistency, which might have been some compensation for the parliamentary
influence of which they had been deprived. It is difficult to recognise in
this premature effort of the Anti-Reform leader to thrust himself again
into the conduct of public affairs, any indications of the prescient
judgment which might have been expected from such a quarter. It savoured
rather of restlessness than of energy; and, while it proved in its
progress not only an ignorance on his part of the public mind, but of the
feelings of his own party, it terminated under circumstances which were
humiliating to the Crown, and painfully significant of the future position
of the House of Lords in the new constitutional scheme.
The Duke of Wellington has ever been the votary of circumstances. He cares
little for causes. He watches events rather than seeks to produce them. It
is a characteristic of the military mind. Rapid combinations, the result
of quick, vigilant, and comprehensive glance, are generally triumphant in
the field: but in civil affairs, where results are not immediate; in
diplomacy and in the management of deliberative assemblies, where there is
much intervening time and many counteracting causes, this velocity of
decision, this fitful and precipitate action, are often productive of
considerable embarrassment, and sometimes of terrible discomfiture. It is
remarkable that men celebrated for military prudence are often found to be
headstrong statesmen. In civil life a great general is frequently and
strangely the creature of impulse; influenced in his political movements
by the last snatch of information; and often the creature of the last
aide-de-camp who has his ear.
We shall endeavour to trace in another chapter the reasons which on this
as on previous and subsequent occasions, induced Sir Robert Peel to stand
aloof, if possible, from official life, and made him reluctant to re-enter
the service of his Sovereign. In the present instance, even temporary
success could only have been secured by the utmost decision, promptness,
and energy. These were all wanting: some were afraid to follow the bold
example of their leader; many were disinclined. In eight-and-forty hours
it was known there was a 'hitch.'
The Reform party, who had been rather stupefied than appalled by the
accepted mission of the Duke of Wellington, collected their scattered
senses, and rallied their forces. The agitators harangued, the mobs
hooted. The City of London, as if the King had again tried to seize the
five members, appointed a permanent committee of the Common Council to
watch the fortunes of the 'great national measure,' and to report daily.
Brookes', which was the only place that at first was really frightened and
talked of compromise, grew valiant again; while young Whig heroes jumped
upon club-room tables, and delivered fiery invectives. Emboldened by these
demonstrations, the House of Commons met in great force, and passed a vote
which struck, without disguise, at all rival powers in the State;
virtually announced its supremacy; revealed the forlorn position of the
House of Lords under the new arrangement; and seemed to lay for ever the
fluttering phantom of regal prerogative.
It was on the 9th of May that Lord Lyndhurst was with the King, and on the
15th all was over. Nothing in parliamentary history so humiliating as the
funeral oration delivered that day by the Duke of Wellington over the old
constitution, that, modelled on the Venetian, had governed England since
the accession of the House of Hanover. He described his Sovereign, when
his Grace first repaired to his Majesty, as in a state of the greatest
'difficulty and distress,' appealing to his never-failing loyalty to
extricate him from his trouble and vexation. The Duke of Wellington,
representing the House of Lords, sympathises with the King, and pledges
his utmost efforts for his Majesty's relief. But after five days'
exertion, this man of indomitable will and invincible fortunes, resigns
the task in discomfiture and despair, and alleges as the only and
sufficient reason for his utter and hopeless defeat, that the House of
Commons had come to a vote which ran counter to the contemplated exercise
of the prerogative.
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