_ CHAPTER XIX
LETTER FROM DR. PERCY TO HIS SISTER ROSAMOND.
"I never told you, my dear Rosamond, that the beautiful Constance was Mr. Gresham's daughter; I told you only that I saw her at his house. To the best of my belief she is no relation to him. She is daughter to Mr. Gresham's sick partner; and this partner--now, Rosamond, here is coincidence, if not romance, enough to please you--this partner is Mr. Panton, the London correspondent of the shipwrecked Dutch merchants, the very Panton and Co. to whom my father lately wrote to recommend Godfrey's friend, young Captain Henry--captain no more. I have not seen him yet; he is invisible, in the counting-house, in the remote city, in ultimate Broad-street, far as pole from pole from me at Mrs. Panton's fine house in Grosvenor-square.
"But now to have done with an old story, before I begin with a new--I will tell you at once all I know, or probably shall ever know, about Constance. She is sole heiress to her father's fortune, which, on his repeated word, I believe, amounts to hundreds of thousands. She is accomplished and amiable, and, as I told you before, beautiful: but luckily her style of beauty, which is that of one of Rubens' wives, does not particularly strike my fancy. Besides, I would really and truly rather have a profession than be an idle gentleman: I love my profession, and feel ambitious to distinguish myself in it, and to make you all proud of your brother, Dr. Percy. These general principles are strengthened beyond the possibility of doubt, by the particular circumstances of the present case. A young unknown physician, I have been introduced by a friend to this family, and have, in my medical capacity, been admitted to a degree of familiarity in the house which none shall ever have cause to repent. Physicians, I think, are called upon for scrupulous good faith, because in some respects, they are more trusted in families, and have more opportunities of intimacy, than those of any other profession. I know, my dear Rosamond, you will not suspect me of assuming fine sentiments that are foreign to my real feelings; but I must now inform you, that if I could make myself agreeable and acceptable to Miss Panton, and if it were equally in my will and in my power, yet I should never be, in the language of the market, one shilling the better for her. Her father, a man of low birth, and having, perhaps, in spite of his wealth, suffered from the proud man's contumely, has determined to ennoble his family by means of his only child, and she is not to enjoy his fortune unless she marry one who has a title. If she unites herself with any man, below the rank of a baron's son, he swears she shall never see the colour of sixpence of his money. I understand that a certain Lord Roadster, eldest son of Lord Runnymede, is the present candidate for her favour--or rather for her wealth; and that his lordship is patronized by her father. Every thing that could be done by the vulgar selfishness and moneyed pride of her father and mother-in-law to spoil this young lady, and to make her consider herself as the first and only object of consequence in this world, has been done--and yet she is not in the least spoiled. Shame to all systems of education! there are some natures so good, that they will go right, where all about them go wrong. My father will not admit this, and will exclaim, Nonsense!--I will try to say something that he will allow to be sense. Miss Panton's own mother was of a good family, and, I am told, was an amiable woman, of agreeable manners, and a cultivated mind, who had been sacrificed for fortune to this rich city husband. Her daughter's first principles and ideas of manners and morals were, I suppose, formed by her precepts and example. After her mother's death, I know she had the advantage of an excellent and enlightened friend in her father's partner, Mr. Gresham, who, having no children of his own, took pleasure, at all his leisure moments, in improving little Constance. Then the contrast between her father and him, between their ignorance and his enlightened liberality, must have early struck her mind, and thus, I suppose, by observing their faults and follies, she learned to form for herself an opposite character and manners. The present Mrs. Panton is only her step-mother. Mrs. Panton is a huge, protuberant woman, with a full-blown face, a bay wig, and artificial flowers; talking in an affected little voice, when she is in company, and when she has on her company clothes and manners; but bawling loud, in a vulgarly broad cockney dialect, when she is at her ease in her own house. She has an inordinate passion for dress, and a rage for fine people. I have a chance of becoming a favourite, because I am 'of a good fammully," and Mrs. Panton says she knows very well I have been egg and bird in the best company.
"My patient--observe, my patient is the last person of whom I speak or think--is nervous and hypochondriac; but as I do not believe that you have much taste for medical detail, I shall not trouble you with the particulars of this old gentleman's case, but pray for his recovery--for if I succeed in setting him up again, it will set me up.... For the first time I have, this day, after many calls, seen Godfrey's friend, young Mr. Henry. He is handsome, and, as you ladies say, interesting. He is particularly gentlemanlike in his manners; but he looks unhappy, and I thought he was reserved towards me; but I have no right yet to expect that he should be otherwise. He spoke of Godfrey with strong affection.
"Yours, truly,
"ERASMUS PERCY."
In the care of Mr. Panton's health, Dr. Percy was now the immediate successor to a certain apothecary of the name of Coxeater, who, by right of flattery, had reigned for many years over the family with arbitrary sway, till he offended the lady of the house by agreeing with her husband upon some disputed point about a julep. The apothecary had a terrible loss of old Panton, for he swallowed more drugs in the course of a week than any man in the city swallows in a year. At the same time, he was so economical of these very drugs, that when Dr. Percy ordered the removal from his bedchamber of a range of half full phials, he was actually near crying at the thoughts of the waste of such a quantity of good physic: he finished by turning away a footman for laughing at his ridiculous distress. Panton was obstinate by fits, but touch his fears about his health, and he would be as docile as the
bon vivant seigneur in Zadig, whose physician had no credit with him when he digested well, but who governed him despotically whenever he had an indigestion; so that he was ready to take any thing that could be prescribed, even a basilisk stewed in rose-water. This merchant, retired from business, was now as much engrossed with his health as ever he had been with his wealth.
When Dr. Percy was first called in, he found his patient in a lamentable state, in an arm-chair, dying with the apprehension of having swallowed in a peach a live earwig, which he was persuaded had bred, was breeding, or would breed in his stomach. However ridiculous this fancy may appear, it had taken such hold of the man, that he was really wasting away--his appetite failing as well as his spirits. He would not take the least exercise, or stir from his chair, scarcely move or permit himself to be moved, hand, foot, or head, lest he should disturb or waken this nest of earwigs. Whilst these "
reptiles" slept, he said, he had rest; but when they wakened, he felt them crawling about and pinching his intestines. The wife had laughed, and the apothecary had flattered in vain: Panton angrily persisted in the assertion that he should die--and then they'd "see who was right." Dr. Percy recollected a case, which he had heard from a celebrated physician, of a hypochondriac, who fancied that his intestines were sealed up by a piece of wax which he had swallowed, and who, in this belief, refused to eat or drink any thing. Instead of fighting against the fancy, the judicious physician humoured it--showed the patient sealing-wax dissolving in spirit of wine, and then persuaded him to take some of that spirit to produce the same effect. The patient acceded to the reasoning, took the remedy, said that he felt that his intestines were unsealing--were unsealed: but, alas! they had been sealed so long, that they had lost their natural powers and actions, and he died lamenting that his excellent physician had not been called in soon enough.
Dr. Percy was more fortunate, for he came in time to kill the earwigs for his patient before they had pinched him to death. Erasmus showed Mr. Panton the experiment of killing one of these insects, by placing it within a magic circle of oil, and prevailed upon him to destroy his diminutive enemies with castor oil. When this
hallucination, to speak in words of learned length, when this hallucination was removed, there was a still more difficult task, to cure our hypochondriac of the three remote causes of his disease--idleness of mind--indolence of body--and the habit of drinking every day a bottle of
London particular: to prevail upon him to diminish the quantity per diem was deemed impossible by his wife; especially as Mr. Coxeater, the apothecary, had flattered him with the notion, that
to live high was necessary for a gouty constitution, and that he was gouty.--N.B. He never had the gout in his life.
Mrs. Panton augured ill of Dr. Percy's success, and Constance grew pale when he touched upon this dangerous subject--the madeira. Yet he had hopes. He recollected the ingenious manner in which Dr. Brown [Footnote: Vide Life of Dr. Brown.] worked upon a Highland chieftain, to induce him to diminish his diurnal quantity of
spirituous potation. But there was no family pride to work upon, at least no family arms were to be had. Erasmus found a succedaneum, however, in the love of titles and of what are called
fine people. Lord Runnymede had given Mr. Panton a gold beaker, of curious workmanship, on which his lordship's arms were engraved; of this present the citizen was very fond and vain: observing this, Dr. Percy was determined to render it subservient to his purposes. He knew they would be right glad of any opportunity of producing and talking of this beaker to all their acquaintance. He therefore advised--no, not
advised; for with some minds if you
advise you are not listened to, if you command you are obeyed--he commanded that his patient should have his madeira always decanted into the curious beaker, for certain galvanic advantages that every knowing porter-drinker is aware of: Erasmus emptied a decanter of madeira into the beaker to show that it held more than a quart. This last circumstance decided Mr. Panton to give a solemn promise to abide by the advice of his physician, who seized this auspicious moment to act upon the imagination of his patient, by various medical anecdotes. Mr. Panton seemed to be much struck with the account of bottles made of antimonial glass, which continue, for years, to impregnate successive quantities of liquor with the same antimonial virtues. Dr. Percy then produced a piece of coloured crystal about the size of a large nut, which he directed his patient to put into the beaker, and to add another of these medicated crystals every day, till the vessel should be half full, to increase the power of the drug by successive additions; and by this arrangement, Panton was gradually reduced to half his usual quantity of wine.
Dr. Percy's next difficulty was how to supply the purse-full and purse-proud citizen with motive and occupation. Mr. Panton had an utter aversion and contempt for all science and literature; he could not conceive that any man "could sit down to read for amusement," but he enjoyed a party of pleasure in a good boat on the water, to one of the
aits or islets in the Thames at the right season, to be regaled with eel-pie. One book he had read, and one play he liked--no, not a play, but a pantomime. The book was Robinson Crusoe--the pantomime, Harlequin Friday. He had been heard to say, that if ever he had a villa, there should be in it an island like Robinson Crusoe's; and why not a fortress, a castle, and a grotto? this would be something new; and why should he not have his fancy, and why should not there be
Panton's Folly as well as any of the thousand
Follies in England? Surely he was rich enough to have a Folly. His physician cherished this bright idea. Mrs. Panton was all this time dying to have a villa on the Thames. Dr. Percy proposed that one should be made on Mr. Panton's plan. The villa was bought, and every day the hypochondriac--hypochondriac now no more--went to his villa-Crusoe, where he fussed, and furbished, and toiled at his desert island in the Thames, as hard as ever he laboured to make his
plum in the counting-house. In
due course he recovered his health, and, to use his own expression, "became as alert as any man in all England of his inches in the girth, thanks be to Dr. Percy!"
We find the following letter from Dr. Percy, written, as it appears, some months after his first attendance upon Mr. Panton.
"Yes, my dear friends at home, Alfred tells you truth, and does not flatter much. The having set up again this old citizen, who was thought bankrupt in constitution, has done me honour in the city; and, as Alfred assures you, has spread my name through Broad-street, and Fleet-street, and Milk-street, embracing the wide extremes between High-Holborn and St. Mary Axe,
'And even Islington has heard my fame.'
"In earnest, I am getting fast into practice in the city--and Rosamond must not turn up her aristocratic lip at the city--very good men, in every sense of the word, some of the best men I know, inhabit what she is pleased to call the wrong end of the town.
"Mr. Gresham is unceasing and indefatigable in his kindness to me. I consider it as an instance of this kindness that he has found employment for my poor friend, O'Brien; has made him his porter--a pleasanter place than he had with the painter that pleased nobody: O'Brien sees me almost every day, and rejoices in what he calls my prosperity.
"'Heaven for ever prosper your honour' is the beginning and end of all he says, and, I believe, of all he thinks. Is not it singular, that my first step towards getting into practice should have been prepared by that which seemed to threaten my ruin--the quarrel with Frumpton about O'Brien and the hospital?
"A delicacy strikes me, and begins at this moment, in the midst of my prosperity, to make my pride uneasy.
"I am afraid that my father should say Erasmus gets on by patronage, after all--by the patronage of a poor Irish porter and a rich English merchant.
"Adieu, my dear friends; you must not expect such long letters from me now that I am becoming a busy man. Alfred and I see but little of one another, we live at such a distance, and we are both so gloriously industrious. But we have holiday minutes, when we meet and talk more in the same space of time than any two wise men--I did not say, women--that you ever saw.
"Yours, affectionately,
"ERASMUS PERCY.
"P.S. I have just recollected that I forgot to answer your question about Mr. Henry. I do see him whenever I have time to go, and whenever he will come to Mr. Gresham's, which is very seldom. Mr. Gresham has begged him repeatedly to come to his house every Sunday, when Henry must undoubtedly be at leisure; yet Mr. Henry has been there but seldom since the first six weeks after he came to London. I cannot yet understand whether this arises from pride, or from some better motive. Mr. Gresham says he likes what he has seen of him, and well observes, that a young officer, who has lived a gay life in the army, must have great power over his own habits, and something uncommon in his character, to be both willing and able thus suddenly and completely to change his mode of life, and to conform to all the restraints and disagreeable circumstances of his new situation."
EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM MR. PERCY TO ERASMUS PERCY.
"... Let me take the opportunity of your playful allusion to your present patrons, a porter and a hypochondriac, seriously to explain to you my principles about patronage--I never had any idea that you ought not to be assisted by friends: friends which have been made for you by your parents I consider as part of your patrimony. I inherited many from my father, for which I respect and bless his name. During the course of my life, I have had the happiness of gaining the regard of some persons of talents and virtue, some of them in high station; this regard will extend to my children while I live, and descend to them when I am no more. I never
cultivated them with a view to advancing my family, but I make no doubt that their friendship will assist my sons in their progress through their several professions. I hold it to be just and right that friends should give, and that young men should gratefully accept, all the means and opportunities of bringing professional acquirements and abilities into notice. Afterwards, the merit of the candidate, and his fitness for any given situation, ought, and probably will, ultimately decide whether the assistance has been properly or improperly given. If family friends procure for any young man a reward of any kind which he has not merited, I should object to that as much as if the place or the reward had been bestowed by a professed patron from political or other interested motives. If my friends were to assist you
merely because you were my sons, bore my name, or represented the Percy estate, I should not think this just or honourable; but they know the principles which have been instilled into you, and the education you have received: from these they can form a judgment of what you are likely to be, and for what situations you are qualified; therefore it is but reasonable that they should recommend you preferably to strangers, even of equal ability. Every young man has friends, and they will do all they can to assist him: if they do so according to his merits, they do well; if in spite of his demerits, they do ill; but whilst nothing is practised to prevent the course of free competition, there can be no evil to the community, and there is no injurious patronage. So much for family friends. Now as to friends of your own making, they are as much your own earning, and all the advantage they can be of to you is as honourably yours, as your fees. Whatever assistance you may receive from Mr. Gresham I consider in this light. As to gratitude--I acknowledge that in some cases gratitude might be guilty of partial patronage.
"If you had saved a minister of state from breaking his neck, and he in return had made you surgeon-general to our armies, without knowing whether you were qualified for that situation, I should call that partial and pernicious patronage; but if you had cured a great man of a dangerous disease, and he afterwards exerted himself to recommend you as a physician to his friends and acquaintance, this I should consider as part of your fit reward.
"So now, my dear son, I hope you fully understand me, and that you will not attribute to me false delicacies, and a prudery, a puritanism of independence, which I utterly disclaim.--Go on, and prosper, and depend upon the warm sympathy and entire approbation of your affectionate father,
"L. PERCY."
LETTER FROM ALFRED PERCY TO ROSAMOND.
"MY DEAR ROSAMOND,
"Thank you for your letters from Hungerford Castle. If Mr. Barclay had been but ten years younger, and if he had been ten degrees more a laughing philosopher, and if Caroline could but have loved him, I should have had no objection to him for a brother-in-law; but as my three
ifs could not be, I regret the Leicestershire estate as little as possible, and I will console myself for not having the marriage settlements to draw.
"Your letters were great delights to me. I kept them to read when the business of the day was done, and I read them by my single candle in my lone chamber. I would rather live in my lone chamber all my days, and never see a wax-light all my nights, than be married to your Lady Angelica Headingham. I give Mr. Barclay joy of having escaped from her charms. I prefer an indenture tripartite, however musty or tiresome, to a triple tyrant, however fair or entertaining.
"So you expect me to be very entertaining next vacation, and you expect to hear all I have seen, heard, felt, and understood since I came to London. Alas! Rosamond, I have no wonders to relate; and lest you should be disappointed when we meet, I had best tell you now and at once all I have to say about myself. My history is much like that of the first years at the bar of every young lawyer--short and bitter--much law and few fees. Some, however, I have received.
"A few of my father's friends, who are so unfortunate as to be at law, have been so good as to direct their attorneys to give me briefs. But most of his friends, to my loss--I am too generous, observe, to say
to my sorrow--are wise enough to keep clear of lawsuits. I heard his friend, the late chancellor, say the other day to some one who wanted to plunge into a suit in Chancery, 'If any body were to take a fancy to a corner of my estate, I would rather--provided always that nobody knew it--let him have it than go to law for it.'
"But to go on with my own affairs.
"A little while after my interview with Lord Oldborough, his lordship, to my surprise--for I thought his offer to assist me in my profession, if ever it should lie in his line, was a mere courtier's promise--sent his attorney to me, with a brief in a cause of Colonel Hauton's. The colonel has gone to law (most ungrateful as he is) with his uncle, who was his guardian, and who managed all his affairs for years. I need not explain to you the merits of the suit, or the demerits of the plaintiff. It is enough to tell you that I was all-glorious, with the hope of
making a good point which had escaped the other counsel employed on our side; but the senior counsel never acknowledged the assistance he had received from me--obtained a nonsuit against the colonel, and had all the honour and triumph of the day. Some few gentlemen of the bar knew the truth, and they were indignant. I hear that my senior, whose name I will never tell you lest you should hate it, has got into great practice by the gaining of this suit. Be that as it may, I would not change places and feelings with him at this moment.
'Grant me an honest fame, or grant me none!'
"Mr. Grose, Lord Oldborough's solicitor, a rich rogue and very saucy, was obliged to employ me, because his client ordered it, and Lord Oldborough is not a man to be disobeyed, either in private or public affairs: but the attorney was obviously vexed and scandalized by his lordship's employing me, a young barrister, of whom nobody had ever heard, and who was not recommended by him, or under the protection even of any solicitor of eminence. Mr. Grose knew well how the suit was gained, but he never mentioned it to Lord Oldborough; on the contrary, he gave all the credit to my
senior. This dry story of a
point law is the most interesting thing I have to tell you about myself. I have seen nothing, heard nothing, know nothing, but of law, and I begin to feel it difficult to write, speak, or think, in any but professional language. Tell my father, that I shall soon come to talking law Latin and law French.
"I know no more of what is going on in this great metropolis than if I were at Tobolski. Buckhurst Falconer used to be my newspaper, but since he has given up all hopes of Caroline, he seldom comes near me. I have lost in him my fashionable Daily Advertiser, my Belle Assemblee, and tete-a-tete magazine.
"Last Sunday, I went to his fashionable chapel to hear him preach: he is much admired, but I don't like his manner or his sermons--too theatrical and affected--too rhetorical and antithetical, evidently more suited to display the talents of the preacher than to do honour to God or good to man. He told me, that if he could preach himself into a deanery, he should think he had preached to some purpose; and could die with a safe conscience, as he should think he had not laboured in vain in his vocation. Of all men, I think a dissipated clergyman is the most contemptible. How much Commissioner Falconer has to answer for, who forced him, or who lured him, knowing how unfit he was for it, into the church! The commissioner frets because the price of iniquity has not yet been received--the living of Chipping Friars is not yet Buckhurst's. The poor paralytic incumbent, for whose death he is praying daily, is still living; and, as Buckhurst says, may shake on many a long year. How Buckhurst lives in the mean time at the rate he does I cannot tell you--that art of living in style upon nothing is an art which I see practised by numbers, but which is still a mystery to me. However, the Falconers seem in great favour at present; the commissioner hopes Lord Oldborough may do something for Buckhurst. Last Sunday, when I went to hear him preach, I saw the whole family of the Falconers, in grandeur, in the Duke of Greenwich's seat. The Marchioness of Twickenham was there, and looked beautiful, but, as I thought, unhappy. After the sermon, I heard Lady Somebody, who was in the next seat to me, whisper to a Lady Otherbody, just as she was rising after the blessing, 'My dear madam, did you hear the shocking report about the Marchioness of Twickenham?' then a very close and confidential whisper; then, loud enough for me to hear, 'But I do suppose, as there are hopes of an heir, all will be hushed--for the present.'
"Just then the Duke of Greenwich and the marquis and marchioness came down the aisle, and as they passed, my scandal-mongers smiled, and curtsied, and were so delighted to see their dear marchioness! The Miss Falconers, following in the wake of nobility, seemed too much charmed with themselves, to see or know me--till Lord Oldborough, though listening to the duke, espied me, and did me the honour to bow; then the misses put up their glasses to see who I could be, and they also smiled, and curtsied, and were delighted to see me.
"It is well for us that we don't live on their smiles and curtsies. They went off in the Marchioness of Twickenham's superb equipage. I had a full view of her as she drew up the glass, and a more melancholy countenance than hers I have seldom seen. Lord Oldborough hoped my father was well--but never mentioned Godfrey. The marchioness does not know me, but she turned at the name of Percy, and I thought sighed. Now, Rosamond, I put that sigh in for you--make what you can of it, and of the half-heard mysterious whisper. I expect that you will have a romance in great forwardness, before Monday, the 3rd of next month, when I hope to see you all.
"No letters from Godfrey.--Erasmus has been so busy of late, he tells me, he has not had time to record for you all his doings. In one word, he is doing exceedingly well. His practice increases every day in the city in spite of Dr. Frumpton. Adieu till Monday, the 3rd--Happy Monday!--'Restraint that sweetens liberty.' My dear Rosamond, which do you think loves vacation-time most, a lawyer or a school-boy?
"I was interrupted just now by a letter from a certain farmer of the name of Grimwood, who has written to me, 'because I am a friend to justice, and my father's son,' &c., and has given me a long account of a quarrel he has with Dr. Leicester about the tithe of peaches--said Grimwood is so angry, that he can neither spell nor write intelligibly, and he swears that if it cost him a thousand guineas in gold, he will have the law of the doctor. I wish my father would be so kind as to send to Mr. Grimwood (he lives at Pegginton), and advise him to keep clear of Attorney Sharpe, and to keep cool, if possible, till Monday, the 3rd, and then I will make up the quarrel if I can. Observe, more is to be done on Monday, the 3rd, than ever was done on any other Monday.
"Your affectionate brother,
"ALFRED PERCY.
"P.S.--I open my letter to tell you a delightful piece of news--that Lord Oldborough has taken Temple for his private secretary, and will bring him in for the borough of ----. How his lordship found him out to be the author of that famous pamphlet, which bore Cunningham's name, I do not know. I know that I kept the secret, as in honour bound; but Lord Oldborough has the best ways and means of obtaining intelligence of any man in England. It is singular that he never said one word about the pamphlet to Temple, nor ever appeared to him to know that it was his writing. I cannot understand this."
To comprehend why Lord Oldborough had never mentioned the pamphlet to Mr. Temple, it was necessary to know more than Alfred had opportunities of discovering of this minister's character. His lordship did not choose to acknowledge to the world that he had been duped by Cunningham Falconer. Lord Oldborough would sooner repair an error than acknowledge it. Not that he was uncandid; but he considered candour as dangerous and impolitic in a public character.
Upon some occasion, soon after Mr. Temple came to be his lordship's secretary, Mr. Temple acknowledged to a gentleman, in Lord Oldborough's presence, some trifling official mistake he had made: Lord Oldborough, as soon as the gentleman was gone, said to his secretary, "Sir, if you make a mistake, repair it--that is sufficient. Sir, you are young in political life--you don't know, I see, that candour hurts a political character in the opinion of fools--that is, of the greater part of mankind. Candour may be advantageous to a moral writer, or to a private gentleman, but not to a minister of state. A statesman, if he would govern public opinion, must establish a belief in his infallibility."
Upon this principle Lord Oldborough abided, not only by his own measures, but by his own instruments--right or wrong, he was known to support those whom he had once employed or patronised. Lucky this for the Falconer family!
LETTER FROM ALFRED TO ERASMUS.
"MY DEAR DOCTOR,
"How I pity you who have no vacations! Please, when next you sum up the advantages and disadvantages of the professions I of law and medicine, to set down
vacations to the credit side of the law. You who work for life and death can have no pause, no respite; whilst I from time to time may, happily, leave all the property, real and personal, of my fellow-creatures, to its lawful or unlawful owners. Now, for six good weeks to come, I may hang sorrow and cast away care, and forget the sound and smell of parchments, and the din of the courts.
"Here I am, a happy prisoner at large, in this nutshell of a house at the Hills, which you have never seen since it has become the family mansion. I am now in the actual tenure and occupation of the little room, commonly called Rosamond's room, bounded on the N. E. W. and S. by blank--[N.B. a very dangerous practice of leaving blanks for your boundaries in your leases, as an eminent attorney told me last week.] Said room containing in the whole 14 square feet 4-1/2 square inches, superficial measure, be the same more or less. I don't know how my father and mother, and sisters, who all their lives were used to range in spacious apartments, can live so happily, cooped up as they now are; but their bodies, as well as minds, seem to have a contractile power, which adapts them to their present confined circumstances. Procrustes, though he was a mighty tyrant, could fit only the body to the bed. I found all at home as cheerful and contented as in the days when we lived magnificently at Percy-hall. I have not seen the Hungerfords yet; Colonel H. is, I hear, attached to Lady Elizabeth Pembroke. I know very little of her, but Caroline assures me she is an amiable, sensible woman, well suited to him, and to all his family. I need not, however, expatiate on this subject, for Caroline says that she wrote you a long letter, the day after she returned from Hungerford Castle.
"I must tell you what has happened to me since I came to the country. Do you remember my receiving a very angry, very ill-spelled letter, from a certain Farmer Grimwood of Pegginton, who swore, that if it cost him a thousand guineas in gold he would have the law of
the doctor--viz. Dr. Leicester--about a tithe of peaches? My father, at my request, was so good as to send for said Grimwood, and to prevent him from having recourse in his ire to Attorney Sharpe. With prodigious difficulty, the angry farmer was restrained till my arrival; when I came home, I found him waiting for me, and literally foaming at the mouth with the furious desire for law. I flatter myself, I did listen to his story with a patience for which Job might have been admired. I was well aware that till he had exhausted himself, and was practically convinced that he had nothing more to say, he would be incapable of listening to me, or to the voice of the angel of peace. When at last absolute fatigue of reiteration had reduced him to silence, when he had held me by the button till he was persuaded he had made me fully master of his case, I prevailed upon him to let me hear what could be said on the opposite side of the question; and after some hours' cross-examination of six witnesses, repeaters, and reporters, and after an infinite confusion of
said I's, and said he's, it was made clearly to appear that the whole quarrel originated in the mistake of a few words in a message which Dr. Leicester's agent had given to his son, a boy of seven years old, who had left it with a deaf gate-keeper of seventy-six, who repeated it to Farmer Grimwood, at a moment when the farmer was over-heated and overtired, and consequently prone to
misunderstanding and to anger. The most curious circumstance in the whole business is, that the word peaches had never been mentioned by Dr. Leicester's agent in the original message; and Dr. Leicester really did not know that Mr. Grimwood of Pegginton was possessed of a single peach. Grimwood, though uncommonly obstinate and slow, is a just man; and when I at last brought the facts with indisputable evidence home to his understanding, he acknowledged that he had been too hasty, rejoiced that he had not gone to law, begged the doctor and the doctor's agent's pardon, thanked me with his whole honest heart, and went home in perfect charity with all mankind. Mr. Sharpe, who soon heard of the amicable conclusion of this affair, laughs at me, and pronounces that I shall never make a lawyer, and that my friends need never flatter themselves with the notion of my rising at the bar.
"Yours truly,
"A. PERCY.
"My letter was forgotten yesterday, and I am glad of it. Blessings on Farmer Grimwood of Pegginton! Little did I think that he and his quarrel about tithe peaches would have such happy influence on my destiny. Blessings on Farmer Grimwood of Pegginton! I repeat: he has been the cause of my seeing such a--of my receiving such a look of approbation--such a smile! She is niece to our good rector--come to spend a few days with him. Grimwood went to the vicarage to make up his quarrel with Dr. Leicester--I do not know what he said of me, but I find it has left a very favourable impression in the good doctor's mind. He came here yesterday, and brought with him his charming niece. My dear Erasmus, you know that I have often prayed that I might never fall in love
seriously, till I had some reasonable prospect of being able to marry; but I begin to retract my prayer for indifference, and to be of opinion that the most prudent thing a professional man can do is to fall in love--to fall in love with such a woman as Sophia Leicester. What a new motive for exertion! Animated by delightful hope, perseverance, even in the most stupid drudgery, will be pleasure. Hope!--but I am far from hope--far at this instant from knowing distinctly what I hope--or wish--or mean. I will write again soon and explain." _