The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield Part 15

"_Enter a_ BOY.

"BOY. Sir, the grave-digger of St. Timothy's in the Fields would speak with you.

"UNDERTAKER. Let him come in.

"_Enter_ GRAVE-DIGGER.

"GRAVE-DIGGER. I carried home to your house the shroud the gentleman was buried in last night; I could not get his ring off very easilly, therefore I brought you the finger and all; and, sir, the s.e.xton gives his service to you, and desires to know whether you'd have any bodies removed or not: if not, he'll let them be in their graves a week longer.

"UNDERTAKER. Give him my service; I can't tell readilly: but our friend, Dr. Pa.s.seport, with the powder, has promised me six or seven funerals this week."

These extracts are not from the ma.n.u.script of a modern farce-comedy,[A] but belong to Steele's play of "The Funeral, or Grief a la Mode." If they have about them all the air of _fin-de-siecle_ wit, so much the more eloquently do they testify to the freshness of d.i.c.k's satire. Freshness, satire, and death! Surely the three ingredients seem unmixable; yet when poured into the crucible of Steele's genius they resulted in a crystal that sparkled delightfully amid the lights of a theatre--a crystal which might still shed brilliancy if some enterprising manager would exhibit it to a jaded public.

[Footnote A: In "A Milk White Flag," a good specimen of "up-to-date"

farce, Mr. Hoyt dallies entertainingly and discreetly with the blithesome topics of undertakers, corpses, and widows.]

In "The Funeral" the author impaled, with many a merciless slash of the pen, the hypocrisy and vulgar flummery that characterised the whole gruesome ceremony of conducting to its earthly resting-place the body of a well-to-do sinner. For the average Englishman loved a funeral and all its ghastly accompaniments as pa.s.sionately as though he had Irish blood in his veins, and often insisted upon investing the burial of his friends with the mockery, rather than the sincerity, of woe.

Grief thus became a pleasure, and it was a pleasure, be it added, which was not taken too sadly. (Pardon the paradox.) The spirits of the deceased's many admirers had to be raised, and the enlivening process was set in motion by means of numerous libations, not of tea, but of l.u.s.ty wine. When the wife of mine host of the "Crown and Sceptre" left this world of cooking and drinking, the women who crowded to the good lady's funeral had to drown their sorrows in a tun of red port,[A] and it is evident that at the burial of men the grief of the mourners required an equal amount of quenching. Indeed, the most absurd expenditures and preparations were made for what should be the simplest of ceremonies, and the result oftentimes proved garish in the extreme. As an example of the display in this direction, John Ashton quotes from the _Daily Courant_ a report of the obsequies of Sir William Pritchard, sometime Lord Mayor of London. After a vast deal of pomp wasted in St. Albans and other places upon the unappreciative and inanimate Pritchard, the remains reached the country seat of the deceased, in the county of Buckingham. "Where, after the body had been set out, with all ceremony befitting his degree, for near two hours, 'twas carried to the church adjacent in this order, viz., 2 conductors with long staves, 6 men in long cloaks two and two, the standard, 18 men in cloaks as before, servants to the deceas'd two and two, divines, the minister of the parish and the preacher, the helm and crest, sword and target, gauntlets and spurs, born by an officer of Arms, both in their rich coats of Her Majesty's Arms enbroider'd; the body, between 6 persons of the Arms of Christ's Hospital, St. Bartholomew's, Merchant Taylors Company, City of London, empaled coat and single coat; the chief mourner and his four a.s.sistants, followed by the relations of the defunct, &c."[B] In this aggregation of grandeur the mere bagatelle in the shape of a corpse seems almost completely overshadowed, and it is thus comforting to reflect that the latter finally had interment in a "handsome large vault, in the isle on the north side of the church, betwixt 7 and 8 of the clock that evening." The dear departed, or grief for his memory, frequently played but too small a role in all these trappings of despondency, and the insignificance of the deceased might only be likened to the secondary position of a man at his own wedding. It was all fuss and mortuary feathers, mourning rings and mulled wine in the one case, just as in the other it is entirely a show of bride and blushes, flounces and femininity. [Footnote A: In writing of the customs connected with old-time English funerals, Misson says: "The relations and chief mourners are in a chamber apart, with their more intimate friends; and the rest of the guests are dispersed in several rooms about the house. When they are ready to set out, they nail up the coffin, and a servant presents the company with sprigs of rosemary: Every one takes a sprig and carries it in his hand till the body is put into the grave, at which time they all throw their sprigs in after it. Before they set out, and after they return, it is usual to present the guests with something to drink, either red or white wine, boil'd with sugar and cinnamon, or some such liquor. Butler, the keeper of a tavern, told me there was a tun of red port drank at his wife's burial, besides mull'd white wine. Note, no men ever go to women's burials, nor the women to the men's; so that there were none but women at the drinking of Butler's wine. Such women in England will hold it out with the men, when they have a bottle before them, as well as upon t'other occasion, and tattle infinitely better than they."]

[Footnote B: The will of Benjamin Dod, a Roman Catholic citizen of London (died 1714) runs in part as follows: "I desire four and twenty persons to be at my burial ... to every of which four and twenty persons ... I give a pair of white gloves, a ring of ten s.h.i.+llings value, a bottle of wine at my funeral, and half a crown to be spent at their return that night; to drink my soul's health, then on her Journey for Purification in order to Eternal Rest. I appoint the room, where my corpse shall lie, to be hung with black, and four and twenty wax candles to be burning; on my coffin to be affixed a cross and this inscription, _Jesus Hominum Salvator_. I also appoint my corpse to be carried in a herse drawn with six white horses, with white feathers, and followed by six coaches, with six horses to each coach, to carry the four and twenty persons.... Item, I give to forty of my particular acquaintance, not at my funeral, to every one of them a gold ring of ten s.h.i.+llings value.... As for mourning, I leave that to my executors hereafter nam'd; and I do not desire them to give any to whom I shall leave a legacy.... I will have no Presbyterian, Moderate Low Churchmen, or Occasional Conformists, to be at or have anything to do with my funeral. I die in the Faith of the True Catholic Church. I desire to have a tomb stone over me, with a Latin inscription, and a lamp, or six wax candles, to burn seven days and nights thereon."--_Vide_ ASHTON.]

Was it any wonder that when d.i.c.k Steele, aetat twenty-six, an officer of Fusiliers, and a merry vagabond, wanted to redeem his reputation by writing a rollicking comedy, his thoughts turned to the satirising of the British undertaker? For the young man must prove to the town that he was not the hypocrite several of his kind friends had dubbed him.

The fact was, that he had been virtuous enough to write a pious work ent.i.tled, "The Christian Hero," which he afterwards published, but as he had not grown sufficiently master of himself to live up to its golden precepts (nay, rather did he continue to spend his evenings in the taverns), the author came in for many a taunt and sneer. Why did he not practice what he preached? was the sarcastic query of his intimates.

Yet there was no thought of cant in what the soldier had done. His design in issuing the "Christian Hero" was, as he explained in after years, "princ.i.p.ally to fix upon his own mind a strong impression of virtue and religion, in opposition to a stronger propensity towards unwarrantable pleasures." This secret admiration was too weak; he therefore printed the book with his name, in hopes that a standing testimony against himself, and the eyes of the world (that is to say, of his acquaintances) upon him in a new light, would make him ashamed of understanding and seeming to feel what was virtuous, and living so contrary to life.

But the man was weak where the author was willing, and thus gay Richard went on "living so contrary a life" with true Celtic perversity, and made of himself anything but a Christian Hero.

Rather was he a jolly Pagan, with a pa.s.sion for his wine and his coffee-house, and a kindly, merry word even for those who twitted him upon his inconsistency. It was plain, therefore, that he must be some other sort of hero, and so he evolved the brilliant satire of "The Funeral," to "enliven his character, and repel the sarcasms of those who abused him for his declarations relative to religion."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR RICHARD STEELE

By Sir G.o.dFREY KNELLER]

In the twinkling of an eye Steele became the spoiled darling of the day. The comedy, which was produced at Drury Lane in 1702, was the talk of the enthusiastic town, and the playwright arose from his beer-mugs, his wine-flagons, and his contemplation of ideal Christianity, to find himself famous. He had opened a new vein of satire, and a vein moreover which upheld virtue and laughed to scorn hypocrisy and vice. That was a moral which the dramatists of his epoch seldom taught.[A] And so the people crowded to the theatre, applauded the sentiment of the play, guffawed at the keen wit of the dialogue, and swore that this young rascal Steele was the prince of bright fellows. Then they went home--and revelled, as before, in the funerals of their friends.

[Footnote A: The "Funeral" is the merriest and most perfect of Steele's comedies. The characters are strongly marked, the wit genial, and not indecent. Steele was among the first who set about reforming the licentiousness of the old comedy. His satire in the "Funeral" is not against virtue, but vice and silliness.--DR. DORAN.]

What of this remarkable comedy? Its story turned upon the marriage of the elderly Lord Brumpton to a designing young minx who estranges the n.o.bleman from his son, Lord Hardy, the gentlemanly, poverty-stricken leading man of the piece. When Brumpton has a cataleptic fit, and is apparently dead as a doornail, the spouse confides his body to the undertaker with feelings of serene pleasure. But let the lines of the play, or a portion thereof, unfold the situation.

The scene is at Lord Brumpton's house; the n.o.bleman has just been p.r.o.nounced defunct, and Sable, the undertaker, has arrived. The latter, who is being bantered by two of the characters, Mr. Campley and Cabinet, is evidently a bit of a philosopher, albeit an uncanny one, for he says:

"There are very few in the whole world that live to themselves, but sacrifice their bosom-bliss to enjoy a vain show and appearance of prosperity in the eyes of others; and there is often nothing more inwardly distressed than a young bride in her glittering retinue, or deeply joyful than a young widow in her weeds and black train; of both which the lady of this house may be an instance, for she has been the one, and is, I'll be sworn, the other.

"CABINET. You talk, Mr. Sable, most learnedly.

"SABLE. I have the deepest learning, sir, experience; remember your widow cousin, that married last month.

"CABINET. Ay, but how you'd you imagine she was in all that grief an hypocrite! Could all those shrieks, those swoonings, that rising falling bosom, be constrained? You're uncharitable, Sable, to believe it. What colour, what reason had you for it?

"SABLE. First, Sir, her carriage in her concerns with me, for I never yet could meet with a sorrowful relict but was herself enough to make a hard bargain with me. Yet I must confess they have frequent interruptions of grief and sorrow when they read my bill; but as for her, nothing she resolv'd, that look'd bright or joyous, should after her love's death approach her. All her servants that were not coal-black must turn out; a fair complexion made her eyes and heart ake, she'd none but downright jet, and to exceed all example, she hir'd my mourning furniture by the year, and in case of my mortality, ty'd my son to the same article; so in six weeks time ran away with a young fellow."

And so on (with a cynicism of which, of course, no modern "funeral director" would be guilty--out loud), until the undertaker's men come on the scene.

"Where in the name of goodness have you all been?" asks SABLE. "Have you brought the sawdust and tar for embalming? Have you the hangings and the sixpenny nails, and my lord's coat of arms?"

"SERVANT. Yes, sir, and had come sooner, but I went to the herald's for a coat for Alderman Gathergrease that died last night--he has promised to invent one against to-morrow."

"SABLE. Ah! pox take some of our cits, the first thing after their death is to take care of their birth--let him bear a pair of stockings, he is the first of his family that ever wore one.... And you, Mr. Blockhead, I warrant you have not call'd at Mr. Pestle's the apothecary: will that fellow never pay me? I stand bound for all the poison in that starving murderer's shop: he serves me just as Dr.

Quibus did, who promised to write a treatise against water-gruel, a healthy slop that has done me more injury than all the Faculty: look you now, you are all upon the sneer, let me have none but downright stupid countenances. I've a good mind to turn you all off, and take people out of the playhouse; but hang them, they are as ignorant of their parts as you are of yours.... Ye stupid rogues, whom I have picked out of the rubbish of mankind, and fed for your eminent worthlessness, attend, and know that I speak you this moment stiff and immutable to all sense of noise, mirth or laughter. [_Makes mouths at them as they pa.s.s by him to bring them to a constant countenance_.]

So, they are pretty well--pretty well."

[_Exit_.

When the stage is clear Lord Brumpton and his servant Trusty enter.

The former has wakened from his cataleptic trance, as the faithful Trusty watched beside him, and is horrified to learn of Lady Brumpton's lack of grief. But hush; he will conceal himself, for here comes my lady, accompanied by her woman and confidant, Mistress Tattleaid.

"_Enter_ WIDOW _and_ TATTLEAID, _meeting and running to each other_.

"WIDOW. Oh, Tattleaid, his and our hour has come!

"TAT. I always said by his church yard cough, you'd bury him, and still you were impatient.

"WIDOW. Nay, thou hast ever been my comfort, my confident, my friend, and my servant; and now I'll reward thy pains; for tho' I scorn the whole s.e.x of fellows I'll give them hopes for thy sake; every smile, every frown, every gesture, humour, caprice and whimsy of mine shall be gold to thee, girl; thou shalt feel all the sweets and wealth of being a fine rich widow's woman. Oh! how my head runs my first year out, and jumps to all the joys of widowhood! If thirteen months hence a friend should haul one to a play one has a mind to see,[A] what pleasure t'will be when my Lady Brumpton's footman called (who kept a place for that very purpose) to make a sudden insurrection of fine wigs in the pit and side-boxes. Then, with a pretty sorrow in one's face, and a willing blush for being stared at, one ventures to look round, and bow to one of one's own quality. Thus [_very directly_] to a snug pretending fellow of no fortune. Thus [_as scarce seeing him_]

to one that writes lampoons. Thus [_fearfully_] to one who really loves. Thus [_looking down_] to one woman-acquaintance, from box to box, thus [_with looks differently familiar_], and when one has done one's part, observe the actors do theirs, but with my mind fixed not on those I look at, but those that look at me. Then the serenades--the lovers! [A query--if the theatres were patronised only by those who looked solely at the stage, what would be the size of the audiences?]

[Footnote A: A well-regulated widow kept herself at home for six weeks after the death of her husband, and denied herself the theatre and other public amus.e.m.e.nts for a twelvemonth.]

"TAT. Oh, madam, you make my heart bound within me: I'll warrant you, madam, I'll manage them all; and indeed, madam, the men are really very silly creatures, 'tis no such hard matter--they rulers! they governors! I warrant you indeed.

"WIDOW. Ay, Tattleaid, they imagine themselves mighty things, but government founded on force only, is a brutal power--we rule them by their affections, which blinds them into belief that they rule us, or at least are in the government with us. But in this nation our power is absolute; thus, thus, we sway--[_playing her fan_]. A fan is both the standard and the flag of England. I laugh to see men go on our errands, strut in great offices, live in cares, hazards and scandals, to come home and be fools to us in brags of their dispatches, negotiations, and their wisdoms--as my good dear deceas'd use to entertain me; which I, to relieve myself from, would lisp some silly request, pat him on the face. He shakes his head at my pretty folly, calls me simpleton; gives me a jewel, then goes to bed so wise, so satisfied, and so deceived."

This pleasant conversation Lord Brumpton overhears, as he does also the inmost secrets of his lawyer, Puzzle. The latter gentleman, who has studied hard to cheat his good-natured employer, and succeeded, is a daringly drawn satire on the pettifogging attorney of the period.[A]

Note the following words of wisdom, _apropos_ to the drawing of wills, which Mr. Puzzle addresses to his nephew.