CHAPTER XX.

A Dinner Party at Oatlands-Lord Erskine's description of it in Verse -The Company present-Colonel Armstrong-The Honourable William Spencer-Monk Lewis-Kangaroo Cooke-Lady Anne Culling Smith-Miss Fitzroy-Colonel de Lancey BarclayBrummell-Le Chevalier Cainea-Lord Erskine's Childhood-One of his Letters written from School Goes to Sea in the "Tartar”Letter to Lord Cardcross from Jamaica.

THIS challenge of Sheridan's seems to have had its. effect upon Lord Erskine on the 31st of December 1812, on which day, in compliance with the good old custom of seeing the Old year out and the New year in, a dinner party was given at Oatlands; and this he afterwards described in the following lively and agreeable manner.

LORD ERSKINE.

"The fair Princess1 sat first, far the highest in place,
But her rank in eclipse by good-nature and grace—
Her manners no court upon earth could bestow,
To the best of all hearts their perfection they owe;

1 Her Royal Highness Frederica Charlotte Ulrica Catharina, Princess Royal of Prussia, married to the Duke of York, on the 29th of September 1791, and died at Oatlands, on the 6th of August 1820, in the fifty-fourth year of her age.

And her converse, so pleasant, so keen, so refined,
No reading could give-its bright source is the mind;
Her elegant form gives a life to the whole;
Coalition complete of the body and soul.

Next, Armstrong1 was seated; on Armstrong depend,
For wit as companion, for truth as a friend;

As a man of the world he's completely at ease,
No effort he makes to amuse or to please;
Yet is sure to do both, with his manners so quiet,
Sliding in better things than many who try it.

To Armstrong next sat, my friend William Spencer ; 2
Why Spencers such poets are, I would fain ken, sir;
I hate all monopolies-never was seen

Such a fuss as we had, with the famed 'Faerie Queen.'
Ere England had numbers, this bard took the lead,
And wrote like an angel when few men could read.
Thus centuries pass'd; and now when Old Time
Has exalted our language, and fashion'd our rhyme,
William Spencer runs in, other poets before,
To witch us as Edmund has witch'd us of yore ;
And yet not content with this talent divine,
Whenever he speaks, he must sparkle and shine.

1 Lieut. Colonel James Armstrong, originally in the Tenth Foot, and subsequently in the Ceylon and 50th Regiments, was at this time an aide-de-camp of the Duke of York's. He died on the 15th of August 1828.

2 "Polished William Spencer, the Poet of society," as he was usually called, was the second son of Lord Charles Spencer, by the Honourable Mary Beauclerk, daughter of Lord Vere, and sister of Aubrey, fifth Duke of St. Albans. The first of Mr. Spencer's Poetical Works, and published in 1790, was a translation of Bürger's Leonora, embellished by his aunt Lady Diana, the wife of Topham Beauclerk, a great macaroni in his day. Subsequently to this, he wrote a Drama called Urania, or the Illuminé; it was performed at Drury Lane, with some applause, and his friend Lord John Townshend wrote the prologue. In 1811, he published a collection of Poems which were dedicated to Sarah, Lady Jersey. This accomplished gentleman, one of the most agreeable dining-out men of his day, died at Paris, on the 23rd of October 1834.

But to make such a picture as friendship would draw,
You must lend me, dear Spencer, your pen or your jaw-
Each a capital prize to a man of the law.

'Other poets,' cried Lewis,1 who sat next beside,
'Who shoulder us thus, may all evils betide!'

Matthew Gregory Lewis, born in London in 1773, was the son of a large West Indian proprietor, at one time Under Secretary at War. Educated at Westminster, he afterwards travelled on the Continent, and remained some time in Germany, where he imbibed that excessive love of the marvellous, which he afterwards displayed in his works; exhibiting all the fantastic vagaries of his Teutonic models, in addition to the wildness, originality, and license of his own ideas. He had talent, but it was of an illegitimate and unhealthy description; and his novel and nickname, "The Monk," by which he acquired an infamous notoriety, and which on account of its licentiousness was very popular with a certain class, will be a lasting monument of his depraved taste -lasting, because society will never be without readers who delight in works of that character; and in this respect he lives for posterity, a posterity of demireps and courtesans, inexperienced, youth and debauchees. Mr. Lewis was a senator, as well as a novelist; but seldom took part in the business of the house, and never made a figure in it. The notoriety that he succeeded in obtaining by his works, a superficial skill in poetry, and great conversational powers, his wealth and the letters M.P., enabled him to insinuate himself into the society of people of rank. He was a constant visitor of the Princess of Wales at Kensington House, and, as seen by this poem, an occasional one at Oatlands; where he made himself agreeable to Her Royal Highness, by writing elegies and epitaphs on the death of her dogs, and possibly birthday odes when they were living. In the periodicals of the day, and particularly in a satirical poem, published in 1802, Mr. Lewis and his works are severely criticised, and the author concludes his censures with these two lines :

"That the man who to talent makes any pretence

Should write not at all, or should write common sense."

In fairness, however, it ought to be mentioned, that his friend Mr. Galt says, in the "Diary illustrative of the Times of George the Fourth" that he possessed generous and noble feelings, and talents of a very high description. Lord Byron, another intimate friend of his, observes,

But Lewis all earthly approach may defy ;
As a canonised monk he may mount to the sky;
No, no, we can't spare his original brain,
Which has led us so often in Fancy's fair train ;
The scenes that surround us so dully the same,
Who shifts with his genius well merits his fame.
Next to Lewis there sat, would you wish to know who?
I will tell you-my worthy good friend Kangaroo ;1
He who goes by a name by parents not given,
Depend on't is one highly favour'd by Heaven;

1

that he was a "good man, a clever man, but a bore. My only revenge or consolation used to be setting him by the ears with some vivacious person who hated bores-especially Madame de Staël, or Hobhouse, for example. But I liked Lewis, he was the jewel of a man, had he been better set; I don't mean personally, but less tiresome, for he was tedious, as well as contradictory, to everything, and everybody. Poor fellow he died a martyr to his new riches-of a second visit to Jamaica.

'I'd give the lands of Deloraine,
Dark Musgrave were alive again.'

That is

'I would give many a sugar-cane
Mat Lewis were alive again !'"

But it is not easy to reconcile these opinions with the spirit of Mr. Lewis's works, which deliberately tend to debase the human heart, always sufficiently prone to error and infirmity. The most correct view of the Monk's character appears to have been taken by Madame de Staël, who wittily and piquantly remarked, that he was not only "inférieur, mais très inférieur."-Mr. Lewis died at sea in 1818.

1 Major-General Henry Frederick Cooke, C. B. and K.C.H., commonly called Kang-Cooke-a portrait of whom, under that sobriquet, is to be found in Dighton's caricatures, was at this time a captain and lieutenant-colonel in the Coldstream, and aide-de-camp to the Duke of York. Various rumours have been circulated to account for his name having been thus humorously associated with the mammalia of New Holland. One is that he let loose a cage full of these animals at Pidcock's menagerie; another, that on being asked by his old patron, the Duke of York, how he fared in the Peninsula, replied that he

The friend whom we love we mould at our pleasure,
And count on his temper, the best of all treasure ;
Since in spite of the misanthrope's sullen pretence,
Good-nature is still the companion of sense.

Thus take the world o'er, you will find very few

Who have more of sound brains than this same Kangaroo ;
And as for his person, his breeding, and taste,

They speak for themselves, so I pass on in haste.
By this Colonel sat one, in gay circles well known,
Yet, who see him in rounds of amusement alone,
Know little about him—they see him at ease,
A high man of fashion, with talents to please;
But believe me, in London to rise to the top,

Like Brummell (since London discarded the fop 1),
You must know all that's known to the highest in place,
And possess the rare gift to give knowledge a grace.
But why should the muse, his acquirements to show,
Fly to commonplace truths which the vulgar well know?
Since the brighter the emerald the duchess now wears,
The higher of course is the polish it bears.

Oh what shall I write? next him sat Lady Anne,2
How shall I describe her? describe her who can.
When I think on her face ev'ry thought's at an end;
And my numbers must flow as their chances may send,—
Her eye, full of fire, passes through to the heart,
As Wellington sees through his ranks at a dart ;
But a truce is soon put to this turbulent pother,

By the chain-shot of wife tied together with mother;
Each beauty-bred wish she's for ever annulling,

"could get nothing to eat but kangaroo." General Cooke died on the 10th of March 1837, at Harefield Park. He was the last surviving brother of Lieutenant-General Sir George Cooke, K.C.B.

1 Probably some passé dandy about town.

2 This lady was the only daughter of Garrett Wellesley, second Lord Mornington, and sister of the late Marquis Wellesley. Her ladyship was born on the 13th of March 1768, married first, Henry Fitzroy, third son of Charles, Lord Southampton, and subsequently, on the 9th of August 1799, Culling Charles Smith, Esq.

VOL. 1.

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