Complete Works of Thomas Love Peacock

by Thomas Love Peacock

  “How would you like it, sir?” said a little sharp-nosed man with a quill behind his ear.”

  “In the circulating medium of this city, said Calidore.”

  “But I mean, sir, in what portions?”

  “In no portions: I wish to have it all at once.”

  “Thousands, sir? said the little man.”

  “The specified sum, sir, said Calidore. — The little man put into his hand several slips of paper.”

  “Well, sir!” said Calidore, “what am I to do with these?”

  “Whatever you please, sir, said the little man, smiling. I wish I could say as much for myself.”

  “I am much obliged to you, said Calidore; and I have no doubt you are an exceedingly facetious and agreeable person; but, at the same time, if you would have the goodness to direct me where I can receive my money.”

  “Sir, said the little man, that is your money.”

  “This!”

  “Certainly, sir; that.”

  “What would you have?”

  “Gold coin, to be sure, said Calidore.”

  “Gold coin! I am afraid, sir, you are a disaffected man and a Jacobin, or you would not ask for such a thing, when I have given you the best money in the world. Pray, sir, look at it — you are a stranger, perhaps — look at it, sir; that’s all.”

  Calidore looked at one of the pieces of paper, and read aloud: “I promise to pay to Mr Henry Hare — One Thousand Pounds — John Figginbotham. — Well, sir; and what have I to do with John Figginbotham’s promise to pay a thousand pounds to Henry Hare?”

  “John Figginbotham, sir, having made that promise, and put it upon that paper, makes that paper worth a thousand pounds.”

  “To Henry Hare, said Calidore.”

  “To any one, said the little man. You overlook the words: or bearer. Now, sir, you are the bearer.”

  “I understand. John Figginbotham promises to pay me a thousand pounds.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Then, sir, if you will have the goodness to direct me to John Figginbotham I will thank him to pay me directly.”

  “But, good God, sir! you mistake the matter.”

  “Mistake, sir!”

  “Yes, sir! John Figginbotham does not pay; he only signs. We pay: we, who are here; I and my chums.”

  “Very well, sir; then why can you not pay me without all this circumlocution?”

  “Sir, I have paid you.”

  “How, sir?”

  “With those notes, sir.”

  “Sir, these are promises to pay, made by one Figginbotham. I wish these promises to be performed. You send me round in a circle from Hare to Figginbotham, and from Figginbotham to yourself, and I am still as much in the dark as ever, as to where I am to look for the performance of their very liberal promises.”

  “Oh! the performance, sir, — very true sir, — as you say; but, sir, promises are of two kinds, those which are meant to be performed, and those which are not, the latter being forms used for convenience and dispatch of business.”

  “Then, sir, these promises are not meant to be performed.”

  “Pardon me, sir, they are meant to be performed, not literally, but in a manner. They used to be performed by giving gold to the bearer, but that having been found peculiarly inconvenient has been laid aside by Act of Parliament ever since the year Ninety-Seven, and we now pay paper with paper, which simplifies business exceedingly.”

  “And pray, sir, do these promises to pay pass for realities among the people?”

  “Certainly they do, sir; one of those slips of paper which you hold in your hand will purchase the labour of fifty men for a year.”

  “John Figginbotham must be a person of very great consequence, there is not much trouble I presume in making one of these things.”

  “Not much, sir.”

  “Then I suppose, sir, John Figginbotham has all the labour of the country under his absolute disposal. Assuredly this Figginbotham must be a great magician, and profoundly skilled in magic and demonology; for this is almost more than Merlin could do, to make the eternal repetition of the same promise pass for its eternal performance, and exercise unlimited control over the lives and fortunes of a whole nation, merely by putting his name upon pieces of paper. However, since, such is the case, I must try to make the best of the matter: but if I find that these talismans of the great magician Figginbotham do not act upon the people as you give me to understand they will, I shall take the liberty of blowing my bugle in his enchanted castle, and in the meantime, sir, I respectfully take leave of your courtly presence.”

  “Poor, deranged gentleman! exclaimed the little man after Calidore was gone, did you ever hear a man talk so in all your life, Mr Solomons?”

  “Very much cracked,” said Mr Solomons, “very much cracked in the head; but seems to be sound in the pocket, which is the better part of man.”

  CHAPTER V

  CALIDORE, FINDING THE talismans of Figginbotham sufficiently efficacious, proceeded to establish himself in a magnificent house, engaged numerous servants, purchased an equipage, and lived like an ambassador. He suffered so much of his object to be known as might facilitate its accomplishment; and it was soon buzzed about the town, and significantly told in dashes by the Morning Post, that a stranger of great consequence was arrived from Terra Incognita, whither he would shortly return, and take with him from England a wife and a philosopher; which would be a very good speculation for any unmarried lady and literary gentleman, as on their arrival in the stranger’s country, the former would receive a most splendid allowance of pin-money, and the latter would sit down for life as an Honourable Gentleman Pensioner, with such a pension in his single person as in this more economical nation would keep in pay two whole gangs of Legitimate Reviewers. This intelligence threw into a state of complete fermentation all the disinterested beauty and liberal talent of the metropolis, and all the seats of the Carlisle mails were engaged every night for a week in bringing up shoals of embryo laureats and poetical philosophers from Cumberland.

  Calidore, persuading himself that he had already made up his mind in the choice of a wife, prosecuted with great assiduity his search for a philosopher, and made diligent enquiry of several eminent booksellers, and among the rest of the fashionable Mr Macquire.

  “A philosopher, sir,” said Mr Macquire: “really the article is rather plentiful the in market, but I have not a sample on hand. A critic, indeed — I could spare you a fine lively critic on reasonable terms, as I have several in my pay; but they are all sworn enemies to the very name of philosophy, and if it be mentioned in their hearing, one of them faints, another cries, another swears terrible oaths, and a fourth falls into such a fit of raving that I am obliged to call for a straight waistcoat. To be sure there is a Mr. Crocodile, the lay-preacher, who looks in upon me now and then, and talks a great deal about old philosophy: perhaps he might do, and I should think he would go cheap: he is worth little to us, and I never could hear that he was worth anything to any one else: but here is a gentleman who knows more about these things. Allow me to introduce Mr Index.” And he presented to Calidore a very smart, lively-looking little man, dressed in the pink of the fashion.

  “Sir,” said Mr Index, “I am proud of the opportunity of this introduction. From the moment I heard of your arrival in London I have longed for the hour of your acquaintance.”

  The Pilgrim of Provence

  RAIMOND BERENGER, the Fifth Count of Provence, which was in his time an independent state, had four daughters whose names are recorded in history as having all been married to kings. He had a fifth daughter, who has been passed over by historians because she did not marry a king, but who is in our eyes the most interesting of the five, as being the heroine of a tradition which we have fished up from the dust of antiquity.

  The Lady Florance, who was usually styled the Princess in honor to her high connections and her father’s sovereignty, could not be the wife of a king, because there happened to be at that time no other
unmarried kings in the market. Count Raimond, in disposing of his other daughters, had stipulated that the County of Provence should remain as the inheritance of Florance in the event of her not marrying a king, and it became his paramount object to make her the wife of some powerful lord who might preserve the independence of his County.

  Count Raimond was generous, and disposed, when he could afford it, to be just. His besetting sin was ambition. He placed his delight and his glory in munificent hospitality, and this led him into greater profusion than his revenues could bear.

  The blessings of national debt and paper-currency being unknown to those barbarous times, he could not recruit his treasury by those felicitous expedients: but by sending a guard of honor to invite a few Israelites into his castle, and giving them a few days to consider the propriety of making him a voluntary contribution in return for the general security which they had long enjoyed in his dominions, he got a most gracious concession of a good round sum, which he proceeded to expend on a magnificent festival. It was his intention to bestow the hand of his daughter on the candidate who should combine the greatest portion of temporal power with the greatest excellence in arts and arms, that is to say as knight and troubadour.

  This intention he kept to himself. He did not propose his daughter as a prize to the assembly, but he determined to employ the festival as a favorable opportunity for making his selection.

  The princes and nobles of that time were not less ambitious of distinction as troubadours than as knights. They sometimes sang and accompanied their own productions, but more frequently they confined themselves to poetical composition, leaving the musical accompaniment and its performance to the minstrel or jongleur, a person of inferior rank who was inseparable from his verse-making lord.

  The name of troubadour, thus distinguished from that of jongleur or menestrier, became in itself a title of honor, and was an excellent passport and introduction to many young adventurers of talent who wandered from court to court in search of fortune, accompanied by a jongleur, or sometimes a troop of jongleurs, who took their chance with the poor troubadour on speculation, and saved him from the degradation which he could not have failed to sustain if he had contaminated his own fingers with jonglerie.

  Among the followers of the gaie science, as these combined lyrical pursuits were denominated, were many of the fair sex. The names of ladies of rank are found in the lists of the troubadours; and in the inferior class of minstrels many a pretty jongleuse travelled the country, sometimes alone, but more frequently in company with a husband or paramour. The minstrels enjoyed tolerable security: they were almost everywhere welcome, and passed without molestation through camps and fortified cities.

  The great festival of the Count of Provence attracted alike the highest and humblest votaries of the gaie science: and from the time that the preparations for it were first bruited abroad, all the beauty, genius and valour of the circumjacent territories were in motion towards the City of Aix.

  Marcabres, a tall, gaunt, dry, middle-aged troubadour of a cynical turn of mind, whose vein lay chiefly in satire: and Vidal, a short, thick, round, rosy-faced Bacchic genius, who passed half his time in feasting and the other half in celebrating his achievements — two persons who, from having no two sentiments in common, had become very fond of each other’s society during the few days that had elapsed since their meeting in the Castle of Aix — were standing near the gate, amusing themselves with speculations on the characters of the persons whom they saw successively arriving in great numbers: partly new comers and partly guests returning with the Count from the chace.

  Marcabres contented himself with talking to Vidal, but Vidal talked to everybody who gave him a shadow of encouragement. His attention was particularly attracted by a youth, simply drest, who, followed by a single jongleur, was proceeding through the gate.

  * * * *

  — Stand aside here: and as the parties return from the chace and advance to the drawbridge, I will point out to you those who are most worthy of note. —

  — That is Bertrand de Born: Lord of — : a splendid poet and an untranscended soldier: but as unbridled in his passions as lofty in his genius and mighty in his valor. He is of the noblest blood of France, and of the most ample possessions. He is at the head of a federation of petty chiefs who move at his bidding, and by whom he assumes an attitude that awes the monarchy. He is restless in pursuing wealth, not to hoard but to dissipate, and is as little scrupulous in its acquisition as reckless in its expenditure. There is a tale connected with him which I will tell you at more leisure.

  The gay figure that follows him is — , his jong leur or minstrel. He sings to his harp the songs which his troubadour lord composes. Bertrand has himself no minstrelsy, or despises it as an art merely mechanical.

  Bertrand had an elder brother, whom he succeeded in his present possessions: to which however he has added his whole political ascendancy, and an ample store of moveable property which he has transferred by force of arms from its former possessors.

  This brother was a brave knight, but of a calm and studious disposition. He disappeared with his infant son in a singular manner, not without some suspicion resting on Bertrand: but he who shall question him must have a strong arm and a sharp sword and a goodly array of men-at-arms.

  Sir Eustace was returning from the last Crusade to his castle, and on the last evening on which he was ever seen stopped at a little inn in the village of — , on the Rhone, to inquire his road. The host pressed him to remain till morning, but Sir Eustace was impatient and proceeded. The next day, a short distance from the village, the slime which a subsiding flood had left on a grassy bank of the river was trampled with horses’ hoofs and human feet as if it had been the spot of a mortal struggle, and from that day Sir Eustace was seen no more.

  Sir Eustace was assailed by his brother in the forest on the Rhone. He was wounded and struck into the flooded river, from which he was rescued by a fisherman. Being careless of wealth, and unwilling either to punish his brother or expose him to the temptation of repeating his crime, Sir Eustace availed himself of his knowledge of the secret passages of his castle to withdraw his infant son from Bertrand’s power, and to help himself from his own treasures to what was necessary for their support. Bertrand, in addition to the suspicion of having made away with his brother, fell under the same suspicion with respect to his nephew. The youth was educated, in ignorance of his parentage, in all the accomplishments of chivalry.

  Sir Eustace as Le Romieu, his son Cadenet as an aspirant in arts and arms, and Bertrand, meet at the Court of Provence.

  The Lord of the Hills

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER I

  A TRAVELLING CARRIAGE stopped at a little inn near the foot of the mountains which separate Silesia from Bohemia. The accommodations were not externally very promising, and the party in the carriage were divided between the expediency of staying till the morning or proceeding by night. The landlady, a round, plump, motherly little body, seemed very indifferent which way they decided; promising, however, to do her best for them if they determined to remain. Before deciding the question they alighted and walked into the best, and indeed only, parlour, where the accident of a blazing fire fixed their wavering resolutions, and they proceeded to arrange themselves around it. It was an evening on the confines of summer and autumn, chilly enough to make a fire agreeable.

  The party consisted of Monsieur and Madame de Virelai, their daughter Adeline, and Elise, a young girl of humble origin, who had been brought up in the family, and who, with the nominal office of lady’s maid, was more a friend than a domestic, but sufficiently of the latter to be the factotum of the party, and to be extremely useful to persons who had never found it necessary, and therefore had never learned, to do any thing useful for themselves.

  Monsieur was solicitous about his supper: Madame about her bed. Elise followed the landlady to attend to these important matters, and Mademoiselle Ad
eline, who gave herself little concern about either, sate watching the crackling of the faggots.

  Elise returned with a favorable report, and was shortly followed by the landlady, who placed on the table some coffee, en attendant le souper. The coffee was found excellent, and taken by Monsieur as a good omen. Dismissing all anxiety about his night’s entertainment, he proceeded to talk about their journey.

  “I am glad we stopped here,” said Monsieur. “We shall travel more comfortably over the mountains by daylight.”

  “And shall see the scenery, which we should otherwise have lost,” said Mademoiselle.

  “And have less fear of thieves or spirits,” said Madame. “These mountains have been haunted by both, whatever they may be now.”

  “I take it,” said Monsieur, “the plains have more thieves than the mountains, but perhaps the mountains have more spirits than the plains. And the reason is, that the plains grow rich, and the mountains remain poor. Theft follows riches, and superstition remains with poverty.”

  “Be that as it may,” said Madame, “I had rather pass these mountains by day than by night.”

  “So would I, mamma, for the sake of seeing them,” said Adeline. “But I should like of all things to fall in with the mountain spirit in these regions. I should not be at all afraid of him, and would willingly go on by night for the chance, if there were one.”

  “It is just that chance,” said Madame, “that I prefer to avoid by staying here.”

  “You must excuse me,” said Monsieur, “but I cannot help laughing again that a lady from Paris, at this time of the nineteenth century, should regulate her motions by the possibility of those of Numbernip.”

  “You may as well,” said Madame, “as we are about to pass through his territory, speak of him with more respect. He does not like his nickname. Call him the Lord of the Hills.”