Eaton Barrett - The Heroine

Yes, my Biddy, sensations hitherto unknown now heave my white bosom, vary the carnation of my cheeks, and irradiate my azure eyes. I sigh, gaze on vacancy, start from a reverie; now bite, now moisten my coral lip, and pace my chamber with unequal steps. Too sure I am deeply, distractedly in love, and Altamont Mortimer Montmorenci is the first of men.

The landlady, his lordship, and another lodger, are accustomed to dine in common; and his lordship easily persuaded me to join the party. Accordingly, just as I had finished my last letter, dinner was announced, so having braided my tresses, I tripped up stairs, and glided into the room. You must know I have practised tripping, gliding, flitting, and tottering, with great success. Of these, tottering ranks first, as it is the approved movement of heroic distress.

'I wonder where our mad poet can be?' said the hostess; and as she spoke, an uncouth figure entered, muttering in emphatic accents,

'The hounds around bound on the sounding ground.'

He started on seeing me, and when introduced by his lordship, as Mr. Higginson, his fellow lodger, and a celebrated poet, he made an unfathomable bow, rubbed his hands, and reddened to the roots of his hair.

This personage is tall, gaunt, and muscular; with a cadaverous countenance, and black hair in strings on his forehead. I find him one of those men who spend their lives in learning how the Greeks and Romans lived; how they spoke, dressed, ate; what were their coins and houses, &c.; but neglect acquainting themselves with the manners and customs of their own times. Montmorenci tells me that his brain is affected by excessive study; but that his manners are harmless.

At dinner, Montmorenci looked all, said all, did all, which conscious nobility, united with ardent attachment, could inspire in a form unrivalled, and a face unexcelled. I perceived that the landlady regarded him with eyes of tender attention, and languishing allurement, but in vain. I was his magnet and his Cynosure.

As to Higginson, he did not utter a word during dinner, except asking for a bit of lambkin ; but he preserved a perpetuity of gravity in his face, and stared at me, the whole time, with a stupid and reverential fixedness. When I spoke, he stopped in whatever attitude he happened to be; whether with a glass at his mouth, or a fork half lifted to it.

After dinner, I proposed that each of us should relate the history of our lives; an useful custom established by heroines, who seldom fail of finding their account in it; as they are almost always sure to discover, by such means, either a grandmother or a murder. Thus too, the confession of a monk, the prattle of an old woman, a diamond cross on a child's neck, or a parchment, are the certain forerunners of virtue vindicated, vice punished, rights restored, and matrimony made easy.

The landlady was asked to begin.

'I have nothing to tell of myself,' said she, 'but that my mother left me this house, and desired me to look out for a good husband, Mr. Grundy; and I am not as old as I look; for I have had my griefs, as well as other folks, and every tear adds a year, as they say; and 'pon my veracity, Mr. Grundy, I was but thirty-two last month. And my bitterest enemies never impeached my character, that is what they did'nt, nor could'nt; they dare'nt to my face. I am a perfect snowdrop for purity. Who presumes to go for to say that a lord left me an annuity or the like? Who, I ask? But I got a prize in the lottery. So this is all I can think to tell of myself; and, Mr. Grundy, your health, and a good wife to you, Sir.'

After this eloquent piece of biography, we requested of Higginson to recount his adventures; and he read a short sketch, which was to have accompanied a volume of poems, had not the booksellers refused to publish them. I copy it for you.

'Of the lives of poets, collected from posthumous record, and oral tradition, as little is known with certainty, much must be left to conjecture. He therefore, who presents his own memoirs to the public, may surely merit the reasonable applause of all, whose minds are emancipated from the petulance of envy, the fastidiousness of hypercriticism, and the exacerbation of party.

'I was born in the year 1771, at 24, Swallow Street; and should the curious reader wish to examine the mansion, he has every thing to hope from the alert urbanity of its present landlord, and the civil obsequiousness of his notable lady. He who gives civility, gives what costs him little, while remuneration may be multiplied in an indefinite ratio.

'My parents were reputable tobacconists, and kept me behind the counter, to negociate the titillating dust, and the tranquillizing quid. Of genius the first spark which I elicited, was reading a ballad in the shop, while the woman who sold it to me was stealing a canister of snuff. This specimen of mental abstraction (a quality which I still preserve), shewed that I would never make a good tradesman; but it also shewed, that I would make an excellent scholar. A tutor was accordingly appointed for me; and during a triennial course of study, I had passed from the insipidity of the incipient hic , hæc , hoc , to the music of a Virgil, and the thunder of a Demosthenes.

'Debarred by my secluded life from copying the polished converse of high society, I have at least endeavoured to avoid the vulgar phraseology of low; and to discuss the very weather with a sententious association of polysyllabical ratiocination.

'With illustrations of my juvenile character, recollection but ill supplies me. That I have always disliked the diurnal ceremony of ablution, and a hasty succession of linen, is a truth which he who has a sensitive texture of skin will easily credit; which he who will not credit, may, if he pleases, deny; and may, if he can, controvert. But I assert the fact, and I expect to be believed, because I assert it. Life, among its quiet blessings, can boast of few things more comfortable than indifference to dress.

'To honey with my bread, and to apple-sauce with my goose, I have ever felt a romantic attachment, resulting from the classical allusions which they inspire. That man is little to be envied, whose honey would not remind him of the Hyblean honey, and whose apple-sauce would not suggest to him the golden apple.

'But notwithstanding my cupidity for such dainties, I have that happy adaptation of taste which can banquet, with delight, upon hesternal offals; can nibble ignominious radishes, or masticate superannuated mutton.

'My first series of teeth I cut at the customary time, and the second succeeded them with sufficient punctuality. This fact I had from my mother.

'My first poetical attempt was an epitaph on the death of my tutor, and it was produced at the precocious age of ten.

Here lies the body of John Tomkins, who Departed this life, aged fifty-two; After a long and painful illness, that He bore with Christian fortitude, though fat. He died lamented deeply by this poem, And all who had the happiness to know him.

'This composition my father did not long survive; and my mother, to the management of the business feeling quite unequal, relinquished it altogether, and retired with the respectable accumulation of a thousand pounds.

'I still pursued my studies, and from time to time accommodated confectionaries and band-boxes with printed sheets, which the world might have read, had it pleased, and might have been pleased with, had it read. For some years past, however, the booksellers have declined to publish my productions at all. Envious enemies poison their minds against me, and persuade them that my brain is disordered. For, like Rousseau, I am the victim of implacable foes; but my genius, like an arch, becomes stronger the more it is opprest.