The Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush Part 25

Sir Maurice Beevor informed her ladys.h.i.+p. How should she get rid of him?

In this wise. He was in love with Violet, let him marry her and be off; for Lord Ashdale was in love with his cousin too; and, of course, could not marry a young woman in her station of life. "You have a chaplain on board," says her ladys.h.i.+p to Captain Norman; "let him attend to-night in the ruined chapel, marry Violet, and away with you to sea." By this means she hoped to be quit of him forever.

But unfortunately the conversation had been overheard by Beevor, and reported to Ashdale. Ashdale determined to be at the chapel and carry off Violet; as for Beevor, he sent Gaussen to the chapel to kill both Ashdale and Norman; thus there would only be Lady Arundel between him and the t.i.tle.

Norman, in the meanwhile, who had been walking near the chapel, had just seen his worthy old friend, the priest, most barbarously murdered there.

Sir Maurice Beevor had set Gaussen upon him; his reverence was coming with the papers concerning Norman's birth, which Beevor wanted in order to extort money from the countess. Gaussen was, however, obliged to run before he got the papers; and the clergyman had time, before he died, to tell Norman the story, and give him the doc.u.ments, with which Norman sped off to the castle to have an interview with his mother.

He lays his white cloak and hat on the table, and begs to be left alone with her ladys.h.i.+p. Lord Ashdale, who is in the room, surlily quits it; but, going out, cunningly puts on Norman's cloak. "It will be dark,"

says he, "down at the chapel; Violet won't know me; and, egad! I'll run off with her!"

Norman has his interview. Her ladys.h.i.+p acknowledges him, for she cannot help it; but will not embrace him, love him, or have anything to do with him.

Away he goes to the chapel. His chaplain was there waiting to marry him to Violet, his boat was there to carry him on board his s.h.i.+p, and Violet was there, too.

"Norman," says she, in the dark, "dear Norman, I knew you by your white cloak; here I am." And she and the man in a cloak go off to the inner chapel to be married.

There waits Master Gaussen; he has seized the chaplain and the boat's crew, and is just about to murder the man in the cloak, when--

NORMAN rushes in and cuts him down, much to the surprise of Miss, for she never suspected it was sly Ashdale who had come, as we have seen, disguised, and very nearly paid for his masquerading.

Ashdale is very grateful; but, when Norman persists in marrying Violet, he says--no, he shan't. He shall fight; he is a coward if he doesn't fight. Norman flings down his sword, and says he WON'T fight; and--

Lady Arundel, who has been at prayers all this time, rus.h.i.+ng in, says, "Hold! this is your brother, Percy--your elder brother!" Here is some restiveness on Ashdale's part, but he finishes by embracing his brother.

Norman burns all the papers; vows he will never peach; reconciles himself with his mother; says he will go loser; but, having ordered his s.h.i.+p to "veer" round to the chapel, orders it to veer back again, for he will pa.s.s the honeymoon at Arundel Castle.

As you have been pleased to ask my opinion, it strikes me that there are one or two very good notions in this plot. But the author does not fail, as he would modestly have us believe, from ignorance of stage-business; he seems to know too much, rather than too little, about the stage; to be too anxious to cram in effects, incidents, perplexities. There is the perplexity concerning Ashdale's murder, and Norman's murder, and the priest's murder, and the page's murder, and Gaussen's murder. There is the perplexity about the papers, and that about the hat and cloak, (a silly, foolish obstacle,) which only tantalize the spectator, and r.e.t.a.r.d the march of the drama's action: it is as if the author had said, "I must have a new incident in every act, I must keep tickling the spectator perpetually, and never let him off until the fall of the curtain."

The same disagreeable bustle and petty complication of intrigue you may remark in the author's drama of "Richelieu." "The Lady of Lyons" was a much simpler and better wrought plot; the incidents following each other either not too swiftly or startlingly. In "Richelieu," it always seemed to me as if one heard doors perpetually clapping and banging; one was puzzled to follow the train of conversation, in the midst of the perpetual small noises that distracted one right and left.

Nor is the list of characters of "The Sea Captain" to be despised. The outlines of all of them are good. A mother, for whom one feels a proper tragic mixture of hatred and pity; a gallant single-hearted son, whom she disdains, and who conquers her at last by his n.o.ble conduct; a das.h.i.+ng haughty Tybalt of a brother; a wicked poor cousin, a pretty maid, and a fierce buccaneer. These people might pa.s.s three hours very well on the stage, and interest the audience hugely; but the author fails in filling up the outlines. His language is absurdly stilted, frequently careless; the reader or spectator hears a number of loud speeches, but scarce a dozen lines that seem to belong of nature to the speakers.

Nothing can be more fulsome or loathsome to my mind than the continual sham-religious clap-traps which the author has put into the mouth of his hero; nothing more unsailor-like than his namby-pamby starlit descriptions, which my ingenious colleague has, I see, alluded to. "Thy faith my anchor, and thine eyes my haven," cries the gallant captain to his lady. See how loosely the sentence is constructed, like a thousand others in the book. The captain is to cast anchor with the girl's faith in her own eyes; either image might pa.s.s by itself, but together, like the quadrupeds of Kilkenny, they devour each other. The captain tells his lieutenant to BID HIS BARK VEER ROUND to a point in the harbor. Was ever such language? My lady gives Sir Maurice a thousand pounds to WAFT him (her son) to some distant sh.o.r.e. Nonsense, sheer nonsense; and what is worse, affected nonsense!

Look at the comedy of the poor cousin. "There is a great deal of game on the estate--partridges, hares, wild-geese, snipes, and plovers (SMACKING HIS LIPS)--besides a magnificent preserve of sparrows, which I can sell TO THE LITTLE BLACKGUARDS in the streets at a penny a hundred. But I am very poor--a very poor old knight!"

Is this wit or nature? It is a kind of sham wit; it reads as if it were wit, but it is not. What poor, poor stuff, about the little blackguard boys! what flimsy ecstasies and silly "smacking of lips" about the plovers. Is this the man who writes for the next age? O fie! Here is another joke:--

"Sir Maurice. Mice! zounds, how can I Keep mice! I can't afford it! They were starved To death an age ago. The last was found Come Christmas three years, stretched beside a bone In that same larder, so consumed and worn By pious fast, 'twas awful to behold it!

I canonized its corpse in spirits of wine, And set it in the porch--a solemn warning To thieves and beggars!"

Is not this rare wit? "Zounds! how can I keep mice?" is well enough for a miser; not too new, or brilliant either; but this miserable dilution of a thin joke, this wretched hunting down of the poor mouse! It is humiliating to think of a man of esprit harping so long on such a mean, pitiful string. A man who aspires to immortality, too! I doubt whether it is to be gained thus; whether our author's words are not too loosely built to make "starry pointing pyramids of." Horace clipped and squared his blocks more carefully before he laid the monument which imber edax, or aquila impotens, or fuga temporum might a.s.sail in vain. Even old Ovid, when he raised his stately, s.h.i.+ning heathen temple, had placed some columns in it, and hewn out a statue or two which deserved the immortality that he prophesied (somewhat arrogantly) for himself. But let not all be looking forward to a future, and fancying that, "incerti spatium dum finiat aevi," our books are to be immortal. Alas! the way to immortality is not so easy, nor will our "Sea Captain" be permitted such an unconscionable cruise. If all the immortalities were really to have their wish, what a work would our descendants have to study them all!

Not yet, in my humble opinion, has the honorable baronet achieved this deathless consummation. There will come a day (may it be long distant!) when the very best of his novels will be forgotten; and it is reasonable to suppose that his dramas will pa.s.s out of existence, some time or other, in the lapse of the secula seculorum. In the meantime, my dear Plush, if you ask me what the great obstacle is towards the dramatic fame and merit of our friend, I would say that it does not lie so much in hostile critics or feeble health, as in a careless habit of writing, and a peevish vanity which causes him to shut his eyes to his faults.

The question of original capacity I will not moot; one may think very highly of the honorable baronet's talent, without rating it quite so high as he seems disposed to do.

And to conclude: as he has chosen to combat the critics in person, the critics are surely justified in being allowed to address him directly.

With best compliments to Mrs. Yellowplush, I have the honor to be, dear Sir, Your most faithful and obliged humble servant, JOHN THOMAS SMITH.

And now, Smith having finisht his letter, I think I can't do better than clothes mine lickwise; for though I should never be tired of talking, praps the public may of hearing, and therefore it's best to shut up shopp.

What I've said, respected Barnit, I hoap you woan't take unkind. A play, you see, is public property for every one to say his say on; and I think, if you read your prefez over agin, you'll see that it ax as a direct incouridgment to us critix to come forrard and notice you. But don't fansy, I besitch you, that we are actiated by hostillaty; fust write a good play, and you'll see we'll prays it fast enuff. Waiting which, Agray, Munseer le Chevaleer, l'ashurance de ma hot c.u.msideratun.

Voter distangy,

Y.