The English Spy Part 10

"_Clavigeri fallit verbera--virga cadit_."

And another on sc.r.a.ping a man down at the _Robin Hood_:

"_Radit arenosam pes inimicus humum_."

The scratching of the foot on the sandy floor is admirable.

During a vacation, Lord Sandwich took him to Holland; and he sported on his return a Dutch-built coat for many weeks. The boys used to call him _Mynheer Montague_; but his common habit of oddity soon got the better of his coat.

He rose to be a young man of great promise, as to abilities; and died too immaturely for his fame.

Tickell, the elder. _Manu magis quam capite_ should have been his motto.

By natural instinct he loved ~83~~ fighting, and knew not what fear was. He went amongst his school-fellows by the name of Hannibal, and Old Tough. A brother school-fellow of his, no less a man than the Marquis of Buckingham, met, and recognised him again in Ireland, and with the most marked solicitude of friends.h.i.+p, did every thing but a.s.sist him, in obtaining a troop of dragoons, which he had much at heart.

Tickell, minor, should then have had the eulogy of how much elder art thou than thy years! In those early days his exercises, read publicly in school, gave the antic.i.p.ation of what time and advancing years have brought forth. He was an admirable scholar, and a poet from nature; forcible, neat, and discriminating. The fame of his grandsire, the Tickell of Addison, was not hurt by the descent to him.

His sister, who was the beauty of Windsor castle, and the admiration of all, early excited a pa.s.sion in a boy then at school, who afterwards married her. Of this sister he was very fond; but he was not less so of another female at Windsor, a regard since terminated in a better way with his present wife.

His pamphlet of _Antic.i.p.ation_, it is said, placed him where he since was, under the auspices of Lord North; but his abilities were of better quality, and deserved a better situation for their employment.

Lord Plymouth, then Lord Windsor, had to boast some distinctions, which kept him aloof from the boys of his time. He was of that inordinate size that, like Falstaff, four square yards on even ground were so many miles to him; and the struggles which he underwent to raise himself when down might have been matter of instruction to a minority member. In the entrance to his Dame's gate much circ.u.mspection was necessary; for, like some good men out of power, he found it difficult to get in.

When in school, or otherwise, he was not undeserving of praise, either as to temper or ~84~~ scholars.h.i.+p; and whether out of the excellence of his Christianity, or that of good humour, he was not very adverse to good living; and he continued so ever after.

Lord Leicester had the reputation of good scholars.h.i.+p, and not undeservedly. In regard to poetry, however, he was sometimes apt to break the eighth commandment, and prove lie read more the Musee Etonenses than his prayer-book. Inheriting it from Lord Townshend, the father of caricaturists, he there pursued, with nearly equal ability, that turn for satiric drawing. The master, the tutors, slender Prior, and fat Roberts,--all felt in rotation the effects of his pencil.

There too, as well as since, he had a most venerable affection for heraldry, and the same love of collecting together old t.i.tles, and obsolete mottos. Once in the military, he had, it may be said, a turn for arms. In a zeal of this kind he once got over the natural mildness of his temper, and was heard to exclaim--"There are two griffins in my family that have been missing these three centuries, and by G-, I'll have iliem back again!"-This pa.s.sion was afterwards improved into so perfect a knowledge, that in the creation of peers he was applied to, that every due ceremonial might be observed; and he never failed in his recollection on these antiquated subjects.

Tom Plummer gave then a specimen of that quickness and vivacity of parts for which he was afterwards famed. But not as a scholar, not as a poet, was he quick alone; he was quick too in the wrong ends of things, as well as the right, with a plausible account to follow it.

In fact, he was born for the law; clear, discriminating, judicious, alive, and with a n.o.ble impartiality to all sides of questions, and which none could defend better. This goes, however, only to the powers of his head; in those of the heart no one, and in the best ~85~~ and tenderest qualities of it, ever stood better. He was liked universally, and should be so; for no man was ever more meritorious for being good, as he who had all the abilities which sometimes make a man otherwise.

In the progress of life mind changes often, and body almost always. Both these rules, however, he lived to contradict; for his talents and his qualities retained their virtue; and when a boy he was as tall as when a man, and apparently the same.

Capel Loft. In the language of Eton the word gig comprehended all that was ridiculous, all that was to be laughed at, and plagued to death; and of all gigs that was, or ever will be, this gentleman, while a boy, was the greatest.

He was like nothing, "in the heavens above, or the waters under the earth;" and therefore he was surrounded by a mob of boys whenever he appeared. These days of popularity were not pleasant. Luckily, however, for himself, he found some refuge from persecution in his scholars.h.i.+p.

This scholars.h.i.+p was much above the rate, and out of the manner of common boys.

As a poet, he possessed fluency and facility, but not the strongest imagination. As a cla.s.sic, he was admirable; and his prose themes upon different subjects displayed an acquaintance with the Latin idiom and phraseology seldom acquired even by scholastic life, and the practice of later years. Beyond this, he read much of everything that appeared, knew every thing, and was acquainted with every better publication of the times.

Even then he studied law, politics, divinity; and could have written well upon those subjects.

These talents have served him since more effectually than they did then; more as man than boy:

For at school he was a kind of Gray Beard: he neither ran, played, jumped, swam, or fought, as ~86~~ other boys do. The descriptions of puerile years, so beautifully given by _Gray_, in his ode:

"Who, foremost, now delight to cleave, With pliant arm, thy gla.s.sy wave?

The captive linnet which enthrall?

What idle progeny succeed, To chase the rolling circle's speed, Or urge the flying ball?"

All these would have been, and were, as non-descriptive of him as they would have been of the lord chancellor of England, with a dark brow and commanding mien, determining a cause of the first interest to this country. Added to this, in personal appearance he was most unfavored; and exemplified the Irish definition of an open countenance--a mouth from ear to ear.

Lord Hinchinbroke, from the earliest period of infancy, had all the marks of the Montagu family. He had a good head, and a red head, and a Roman nose, and a turn to the _ars amatoria_ of Ovid, and all the writers who may have written on love. As it was in the beginning--may be said now.

Though in point of scholars.h.i.+p he was not in the very first line, the descendant of Lord Sandwich could not but have ability, and he had it; but this was so mixed with the wanderings of the heart, the vivacity of youthful imagination, and a turn to pleasure, that a steady pursuit of any one object of a literary turn could not be expected.

But it was his praise that he went far in a short time; sometimes too far; for Barnard had to exercise himself, and his red right arm, as the vengeful poet expresses it, very frequently on the latter end of his lords.h.i.+p's excursions.

In one of these excursions to Windsor, he had the good or ill fortune to engage in a little amorous amement with a young lady, the consequence of ~87~~ which was an application to Lucina for a.s.sistance. Of this doctor Barnard was informed, and though the remedy did not seem tending towards a cure, he was brought up immediately to be flogged.

He bore this better than his master, who cried out, after some few lashes--"Psha! what signifies my flogging him for being like his father?

What's bred in the bone will never get out of the flesh."

Gibbs. Some men are overtaken by the law, and some few overtake it themselves. In this small, but happy number, may be placed the name in question; and a name of better promise, whether of man or boy, can scarcely be found any where.

At school he was on the foundation; and though amongst the Collegers, where the views of future life, and hope of better days, arising from their own industry, make learning a necessity, yet to that he added the better qualities of genius and talent.

As a cla.s.sical scholar, he was admirable in both languages. As a poet, he was natural, ready, and yet distinguished. Amongst the best exercises of the time, his were to be reckoned, and are yet remembered with praise. For the medals given by Sir John Dalrymple for the best Latin poem, he was a candidate; but though his production was publicly read by doctor Forster, and well spoken of, he was obliged to give way to the superiority of another on that occasion.

Describing the winding of the Thames through its banks, it had this beautiful line:

"_Rodit arundineas facili sinuamine ripas------_"

Perfect as to the picture, and beautiful as to the flowing of the poetry.

He had the good fortune and the good temper to be liked by every body of his own age; and he was not enough found out of bounds, or trespa.s.sing against "sacred order," to be disliked by those of greater age who were set over him.

~88~~ After pa.s.sing through all the different forms at Eton, he was removed to Cambridge; where he distinguished himself not less than at school in trials for different literary honors.

There he became a.s.sistant tutor to Sir Peter Burrell, who then listened to his instructions, and has not since forgotten them.

As a tutor, he was somewhat young; but the suavity of his manners took away the comparison of equality; and his real knowledge rendered him capable of instructing those who might be even older than himself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: page088]

APOLLO'S VISIT TO ETON.{1}

T'other night, as Apollo was quaffing a gill With his pupils, the Muses, from Helicon's rill, (For all circles of rank in Parna.s.sus agree In preferring cold water to coffee or tea) The discourse turned as usual on critical matters, And the last stirring news from the kingdom of letters.

But when poets, and critics, and wits, and what not, From Jeffery and Byron, to Stoddart and Stott,{2} Had received their due portion of consideration, Cried Apollo, "Pray, ladies, how goes education?

For I own my poor brain's been so muddled of late, In transacting the greater affairs of the state; And so long every day in the courts I've been stewing, I've had no time to think what the children were doing.

There's my favorite Byron my presence inviting, And Milman, and Coleridge, and Moore, have been writing; And my ears at this moment confoundedly tingle, From the squabbling of Blackwood with Cleghorn and Pringle: But as all their disputes seem at length at an end, And the poets my levee have ceased to attend; Since the weather's improving, and lengthen'd the days, For a visit to Eton I'll order my chaise:

1 This poem, the reader will perceive, is an humble imitation of Leigh Hunt's "Feast of the Poets;" and the lines distinguished by asterisks are borrowed or altered from the original.