Chapter XII: Preface: 'Tuâ nobis est gratiâ.'--CIC (12)

_October 28, 1791._ _Slugs in a Sawpit._ Published by S. W. Fores, 3 Piccadilly.--A brace of heroes, naval and military, are endeavouring to adjust their differences by an appeal to arms; the combat, for the sake of retirement and convenience, is taking place at the bottom of a sawpit. It seems that the duel is of a most obstinate nature; three or four broken swords are strewn around; and, honour not being yet satisfied, recourse has evidently been had to pistols, several of which (some dismantled), with balls, &c., are also thrown about on the limited field of conflict. It seems the antagonists are most implacable, as, after exchanging all these inconclusive passes and discharges, they are resorting finally to the use of a pair of huge blunderbusses, about the dimensions of fieldpieces, which would hold some pounds of slugs. The old Commodore is stooping his fat body, and the military buck is resting on one knee, in order to get the monstrous weapons into comfortable positions for firing; both combatants look a trifle nervous, as the results are likely to be tolerably marked at such ranges; the guns of the inveterate duellists are side by side, the stocks resting on their respective shoulders and the muzzles just touching their noses. The consequences likely to ensue on pulling the triggers can be easily imagined. A workman has just arrived at the edge of his sawpit in time to discover the trespasses these ferocious fire-eaters are making on his property.

_November 22, 1791._ _How to Escape Winning._--A pictorial satire directed against a famous incident of the turf, which provoked an unusual amount of attention and scandalous comments in proportion; the question never having been satisfactorily disposed of, although it has been generally received that the Prince of Wales, who owned the notorious racehorse _Escape_, was more sinned against than sinning. It is sufficient to mention that the horse in question, from certain circumstances which became a subject of vexed debate long after the occurrence, did _not_ win the race, when it was pretty evident, under fair conditions of horse-racing, that he could have distanced every horse on the course. In the print--which is the chief point we have to deal with--the race is being run; the other jockeys are making great efforts to get ahead; the Prince's jockey, Chiffney, on _Escape_, is holding in his mount; the horse is furious at the restraint which is crippling him and preventing his running freely, the animal's near fore-leg being secured to his off hind-leg with the owner's _Order of the Garter_, _'Honi soit qui mal y pense.'_ The figure of a sporting character, intended either for that of the owner or trainer of this unlucky _Escape_, is standing with his finger to his nose, an action implying that he has made it all right for himself. In the distance the backers of the Prince's horse are either regarding the owner with suspicion or are stamping with rage at the fraud by which they are doomed to lose instead of winning their money.

_November 22, 1791._ _How to Escape Losing._--The principal figure is standing in much the same style of 'knowing' attitude as that displayed in the previous plate. The race is still being run; _Escape_ is leading, the garter, _Qu'en pensez-vous_, only remains attached to the near fore-leg; but the horse's chances are borne down by heavy impediments; a pair of weights are slung over the jockey's shoulders and other weights are suspended round the horse's neck and in front of and behind his saddle.

1791. _Angelo's Fencing Rooms._ (From _Reminiscences of Henry Angelo, with Memoirs of his Friends, &c._)--'For some years I had a fencing-room at the Opera House, Haymarket, over the entrance of the pit-door. On the evening of June 17, 1789, about eight o'clock, when in Berkeley Square, I saw a black smoke ascending; and soon hearing that there was a fire in the Haymarket, I directly hastened there, when, to my surprise, I beheld the Opera House in flames. Having the key of my room in my pocket, and the crowd making way for me, I soon got there, at the time the back part was burning. I first secured the portrait of Monsieur Saint George (the famous fencer), which hung over the chimneypiece and removed it to St. Alban's Street, where I then resided. At my return, though I was not absent six minutes, the mob had rushed in and plundered the room of everything. As to the foils, jackets, &c., they were of little value to me compared to what I had in my closet--a portfolio of beautiful drawings, particularly several valuable ones of Cipriani, also of Mortimer, Rowlandson, &c., the loss of which I much regretted; but consoled myself by saving Saint George's picture, which he sat purposely for and offered me, after our fencing together, the second day of his arrival in the country. It was painted by Brown, an American artist, much encouraged here at the time. The last day of his sitting he dined at my father's, when, my mother enquiring of him if it was a good likeness, he smiled and replied (he was a Creole), 'Oh, madame, c'est si ressemblant _que c'est affreux_.' My room, which was in the front, was the only one saved from the flames in the whole house; and fortunately, the engines being placed in it, prevented the fire from communicating to Market Lane.

'Sergeant Leger was an excellent fencer of the _première force_, whose elegant figure and mildness of manners greatly influenced the amateurs of the science. Though he was only in the ranks, his presence in every fencing-room was acceptable, and when Saint George was his antagonist the match never failed to excite attention.

_Fencing._--'In 1785 Monsieur Le Brun, a celebrated fencing-master now at Paris, visited England. My academy in the Haymarket being then the general rendezvous for all the foreigners who were either masters or amateurs of the science, and near the coffee-house, their usual resort, he paid me a visit. I was his first antagonist. I soon found out, as the pugilists call it, that he was a "good customer" (a queer one to deal with); so much so, that, however I might have distinguished myself before my scholars with the number of fencing-masters, &c. whom I have opposed, here I had nothing to boast of.

'I should observe that he was a left-handed fencer, and in full exercise in Paris, and of course he must have been daily in the habit of fencing with many, while in the course of years I might not meet with six of superior force. Finding such an excellent competitor, and as I thought that it would be beneficial to my scholars to accustom themselves to practise against a left-handed fencer, I told him he would be welcome to us all.'

Henry Angelo, who held the highest opinion of St. George, has drawn up the following account of his accomplishments:--

'The Chevalier de St. George was born at Gaudaloupe. He was the son of M. de Boulogne, a rich planter in the colony. His mother was a negress, and was known under the name of the "handsome Nanon;" she was justly considered one of the finest women that Africa had ever sent to the plantations. The Chevalier de St. George united in his own person the grace and the features of his mother with the strength and firmness of M. de Boulogne. No man ever united so much suppleness to so much strength. He excelled in all the bodily exercises in which he engaged; an excellent swimmer and skater, he has been frequently known to swim over the Seine with one arm, and to surpass others by his agility upon its surface in the winter. He was a skilful horseman and a remarkable shot--he rarely missed his aim, when his pistol was once before the mark; his talents in music unfolded themselves rapidly: his concertos, symphonies, quartettos, and some comic operas are the best proofs of his extraordinary progress in music. Though he was very young he was at the head of the concert of amateurs: he conducted the orchestras of Madame de Montesson and the Marquis de Montalembert.

'But the art in which he surpassed all his contemporaries and predecessors was fencing; no professor or amateur ever showed so much accuracy, such strength, such length of lunge, and such quickness; his attacks were a perpetual series of hits--his parade so close that it was in vain to attempt to touch him; in short, he was all nerve.

'In the summer of the year 1787, on returning to my residence in St. Alban's Street, I was surprised at the appearance of lights and a crowd of people entering Mr. Rheda's fencing academy; on enquiry I was informed that the Chevalier St. George had arrived in England, and was about to exhibit his great talents at that place. I immediately went in and renewed my acquaintance with him; and as it is customary for fencing-masters of celebrity to engage with each other at such meetings, I proposed myself, and was accepted as the first professor who engaged with him in this country.

'It may not be unworthy to remark that, from his being much taller, and consequently possessing a greater length of lunge, I found I could not depend upon my attacks with sufficient confidence unless I closed with him; the consequence was, upon my adopting that measure, the hit which I gave was so "palpable," that it "threw open his waistcoat," which so enraged him that, in his fury, I received a blow from the _pommel_ of the foil on my chin, the mark of which I still retain as a _souvenir_ of having engaged with the first fencer in Europe.

'It may be remarked of this celebrated man, that although he might be considered as a lion with a foil in his hand, yet, the contest over, he was as docile as a lamb; for soon after the engagement, when seated to rest himself, he said to me, "_Mon cher ami, donnez-moi votre main, nous tirons tous les jours ensemble._"'

On leaving this country the Chevalier St. George presented Mr. Angelo with his portrait by Mather Brown, his fencing-foil, glove, and jacket, which were hung up in the rooms rented by Angelo over the Opera portico (Haymarket).

Among the competitors in these fencing assaults, which were patronised by the Prince of Wales, and were sometimes held at Carlton House, are mentioned the names of D'Eon, M. Fabian, M. Magé (who was reckoned second to M. St. George among the amateurs of Paris), M. Sainville, Mr. Rheda, Mr. Mola, and Mr. Angelo, Sen.

1791. _A Four-in-Hand._

1791. _The Inn Yard on Fire._ Drawn and etched by T. Rowlandson; aquatinted by T. Malton.--_Dover, Deal, Margate, and Canterbury Coaches._--Fires at inns were by no means exceptional occurrences, if we may trust contemporary novelists; and who could have seized the changeful scenes of life flitting around them with such humour and fidelity as Fielding and the followers of his genial, life-like school have arrived at? Their fictitious personages, as Thackeray has argued, have often more vitality than those of actual history.

Everyone who was not content to live and die in one spot--the little space whereon they were born--must, at one time or another, have given way to the incentive of travel; all the world, high and low, aristocratic or mercantile, must, in the course of journeys in the pursuit of pleasure, variety, scenery, health, gain, or from necessity, from spot to spot, have encountered the humours of an inn; since the slow-going waggon, or the inevitable 'machine,' which, in a later generation, was supplanted by the flying stage-coach (itself, as judged by the present system of transport, a very tedious, insupportable affair, according to modern ideas--a serious and solitary means of travelling), and the various eccentric methods of locomotion indulged in a century back, rendered frequent 'puttings up' at posting-houses in a measure unavoidable. A traveller in the good old days when Fielding and Smollett noted down their pictures of life was almost bound to meet adventures of one sort or another. There was the excitement of the start, the difficulty of securing comfort in the article of seats, and sociability in the way of companionship; the dangers of the environs of London--the heaths, where the mail was always liable to be arrested at the wayward will of the pleasant and popular Mr. Richard Turpin, on his equally well-bred 'Black Bess,' or at the hands and holsters of less famous and ruder professional contemporaries; the risk of the roads; the digging of the great lumbering Noah's Ark from soft ways and quagmires; capsizing, or being snowed up, and such eventualities. Bad roads, disagreeable comrades, a stuffy inside place, or a moist outside 'shake-down,' were at intervals relieved by the arrival of the _cortége_ at some hospitable hostelry, with its vast rambling galleries and its commodious courtyard, where further adventures were not unlikely to attend the voyager.

Who'er has travell'd life's dull round,
Through all its various paths hath been,
Must oft have wondered to have found
His warmest welcome at an inn!

The ardent house-warming prepared for the passengers at the _Inn Yard on Fire_ barely justifies the rapture of the rhymer. From the notice-board we find the _Dover, Deal, Margate, and Canterbury Coaches_ are advertised to set out from the caravansary in question. The strangers are rudely disturbed, while the flames are lapping the old building and serpentining their way round the inflammable wooden balconies, as the suddenly awakened inmates take to flight with such solitary articles as come first to hand. Peregrine is rescuing Emilia much as Rowlandson has drawn that worthy in his illustration to the exciting situation of the fire at an inn yard. (See _The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle_, chapter xxvii.) A sufferer from gout is being conveyed in a wheelbarrow out of imminent danger of roasting; an old dowager has appeared on the scene with a pair of leather breeches to cover her shoulders, recalling similar episodes in La Fontaine, Boccaccio, &c.; while a corpulent old boy has simply thrown a lady's quilted petticoat round his neck. A waggon and horses are being dragged out of the dangerous vicinity. From its contiguity to the French route between Dover and Calais the house is evidently frequented by foreigners lately landed on our shores, and the unexpected warmth of their reception is too much for the excitable Gauls. One Frenchman, an officer, is making good his escape; his personal wardrobe is sacrificed, but he has secured his most precious belongings, an umbrella, a sword, his jack-boots, and his wig and solitaire--wigs being in those days somewhat costly appendages. A compatriot by his side is endeavouring to make off with his worldly possessions, and is dragging a heavy portmanteau at his heels; this salvage is endangered by the suspicions of a bulldog, who is not to be shaken off; the animal is first stopping the box, and finally arresting the fugitive by seizing his long _queue_ in his mouth, a mode of arrest against which the terrified _Parlez-vous_ is unequal and unable to defend himself. An antiquated husband is holding a ladder for the escape of his pretty wife; the curmudgeon is furious that the personal attractions of his better half should be thus displayed to the less privileged males around, who are assisting her delicate descent. The dangers of the fire are increased by the reckless impulse characteristic of similar casualties, in which blazing objects are hurled out of window, spreading the flames to places which have hitherto escaped ignition. Mirrors and tables, sheets and other objects, are sent flying from the upper galleries on to the heads of the scared travellers below. If the _Squall in Hyde Park_ may be accepted as an ordeal by water, the _Inn Yard on Fire_ must be acknowledged a most appropriate pendant. These plates were, it is believed, issued as a pair. Both are of one size, etched by Rowlandson, and aquatinted by T. Malton; the execution is spirited as regards outline, and the tinting is most successfully and delicately carried out. The second print, _A Squall in Hyde Park_, is, the Editor has reason to believe, the scarcer of the two; a copy (proof) in the National Library, Paris, and the one in his own collection, are the solitary examples with which he is acquainted. The _Inn Yard on Fire_ is more familiarly known; and, although original impressions command prices which are seemingly fabulous, several impressions, of varying excellence, have come under the writer's attention.

1791. _A Squall in Hyde Park._ Drawn and etched by T. Rowlandson; aquatinted by T. Malton.--The fashionable throngs which Rowlandson, with his marvellously faithful pencil, has so often drawn, disporting themselves in the paths of frivolity amidst the haunts of _the ton_, are viewed by him under a more excited aspect. The promenaders, in a state of _sauve qui peut_, are rushing off pellmell in an attempt to preserve their dripping finery from the effects of a sudden thunderstorm. Doubtless _A Squall in Hyde Park_ may occur frequently enough in our day, but the artist who proposes to lend his graphic powers to delineate the episodes of such a stampede in the present generation would not have his eye for the picturesque gratified by the discovery of such grotesque elements as gratuitously lent themselves to the appreciative caricaturist a century back. Rowlandson's animated cartoon successfully includes all the diversities of the situation. The park-gates are crowded by the sudden _exeunt omnes_--pedestrians, horses, and carriages are mixed in one confused mass in the struggle to escape from a miniature tempest. Peers and pedagogues, the man of fashion in search of gallant adventures, and the hypochondriac, limping parkwards to take the air; the ignorant, new-fledged squire, the rustic dandy, whose head-dressing does not extend beyond the powdered and frizzed peruke, and the man of knowledge and philosophy, are thrown into violent contact, and unexpectedly realise whose cranium is the hardest. The storm breaks, the black clouds gather and meet, down pours a very torrent, and the wind suddenly takes to blowing 'big guns;' hats, caps, and bonnets, wigs and head-gear generally, are sent flying off on independent excursions; the sport of the sudden squall, to the dismay of the bereaved owners; umbrellas of the period--still popular novelties, in substantiality very different to their genteel descendants--are without exception blown inside-out; feathers, which were worn of great height, splendour, and profusion, are moistened and dripping like weeping willows. The Prince of Wales, in 'blue and buff,' on horseback, followed by his groom, is pushing forward for Carlton House; Lord Barrymore, in his lofty phaeton,[38] has to exert all his charioteering skill to restrain his terrified and plunging high-mettled steeds; while the fair companion perched by his side, high over the heads of the humbler stream of struggling humanity, is complacently enjoying the spectacle of the dilemmas around her. Footmen are dripping; naval and military heroes are retreating; such hats as have not been violently carried off are secured by handkerchiefs tied under the chin, or held on by main force; petticoats are turned over shoulders. The spectacle of confusion is fairly completed by an unfortunate slip, which has left the person of the unhappy victim a stumbling-block for the general capsizing of the hurried file which is following in his footsteps. A sturdy old admiral, in an advanced stage of corpulence, is rather enjoying the opportunity, to which the ruffling winds are contributing, of viewing the points of the dishevelled fair, and, spyglass in eye, like his Grace the notorious Peer of Piccadilly, he is quizzing the ankles and criticising the symmetry of the dainty belles before him; the long, gauze-like, and limp drapery in multitudinous folds then in vogue being exceptionally liable to come to grief under all such sinister emergencies. To add to the terrors of the flight, a fierce bulldog, irritated with the general condition of things, is taking exception to this universal attempt at escape, as indicating suspicion to his faithful mind; he is making darts at the passengers, and it will go hard with the fugitives he may take it into his head to arrest by the tension of his formidable teeth.

_Plates dated 1791-93 and 1795-96. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, by Henry Fielding, Esq. With prints by Rowlandson._ Edinburgh and London (Longman & Co.), republished 1805.

VOLUME I.

Frontispiece, book I. c. iii. The Infant Jones found in the bed of Mr. Allworthy.