Besides the Captain and his lady, there was a great and notable assemblage of company: my Lady of Chelsey having sent her lackeys and liveries to aid the modest attendance at Kensington. There was Lieutenant-General Webb, Harry’s kind patron, of whom the Dowager took possession, and who resplended in velvet and gold lace; there was Harry’s new acquaintance, the Right Honorable Henry St. John, Esquire, the General’s kinsman, who was charmed with the Lady Castlewood, even more than with her daughter; there was one of the greatest noblemen in the kingdom, the Scots Duke of Hamilton, just created Duke of Brandon in England; and two other noble lords of the Tory party, my Lord Ashburnham, and another I have forgot; and for ladies, her Grace the Duchess of Ormonde and her daughters, the Lady Mary and the Lady Betty, the former one of Mistress Beatrix’s colleagues in waiting on the Queen.
“What a party of Tories!” whispered Captain Steele to Esmond, as we were assembled in the parlor before dinner. Indeed, all the company present, save Steele, were of that faction.
Mr. St. John made his special compliments to Mrs. Steele, and so charmed her that she declared she would have Steele a Tory too.
“Or will you have me a Whig?” says Mr. St. John. “I think, madam, you could convert a man to anything.”
“If Mr. St. John ever comes to Bloomsbury Square I will teach him what I know,” says Mrs. Steele, dropping her handsome eyes. “Do you know Bloomsbury Square?”
“Do I know the Mall? Do I know the Opera? Do I know the reigning toast? Why, Bloomsbury is the very height of the mode,” says Mr. St. John. “ ’Tis rus in urbe. You have gardens all the way to Hampstead, and palaces round about you—Southampton House and Montague House.”
“Where you wretches go and fight duels,” cries Mrs. Steele.
“Of which the ladies are the cause!” says her entertainer. “Madam, is Dick a good swordsman? How charming the Tatler is! We all recognized your portrait in the 49th number, and I have been dying to know you ever since I read it. ‘Aspasia must be allowed to be the first of the beauteous order of love.’ Doth not the passage run so? ‘In this accomplished lady love is the constant effect, though it is never the design; yet though her mien carries much more invitation than command, to behold her is an immediate check to loose behavior, and to love her is a liberal education.’ ”
“Oh, indeed!” says Mrs. Steele, who did not seem to understand a word of what the gentleman was saying.
“Who could fail to be accomplished under such a mistress?” says Mr. St. John, still gallant and bowing.
“Mistress! upon my word, sir!” cries the lady. “If you mean me, sir, I would have you know that I am the Captain’s wife.”
“Sure we all know it,” answers Mr. St. John, keeping his countenance very gravely; and Steele broke in saying, “ ’Twas not about Mrs. Steele I writ that paper—though I am sure she is worthy of any compliment I can pay her—but of the Lady Elizabeth Hastings.”
“I hear Mr. Addison is equally famous as a wit and a poet,” says Mr. St. John. “Is it true that his hand is to be found in your Tatler, Mr. Steele?”
“Whether ’tis the sublime or the humorous, no man can come near him,” cries Steele.
“A fig, Dick, for your Mr. Addison!” cries out his lady: “a gentleman who gives himself such airs and holds his head so high now. I hope your ladyship thinks as I do: I can’t bear those very fair men with white eyelashes—a black man for me.” (All the black men at table applauded, and made Mrs. Steele a bow for this compliment.) “As for this Mr. Addison,” she went on, “he comes to dine with the Captain sometimes, never says a word to me, and then they walk upstairs both tipsy, to a dish of tea. I remember your Mr. Addison when he had but one coat to his back, and that with a patch at the elbow.”
“Indeed—a patch at the elbow! You interest me,” says Mr. St. John. “ ’Tis charming to hear of one man of letters from the charming wife of another.”
“La, I could tell you ever so much about ’em,” continues the voluble lady. “What do you think the Captain has got now?—a little hunchback fellow—a little hop-o’-my-thumb creature that he calls a poet—a little Popish brat!”
“Hush, there are two in the room,” whispers her companion.
“Well, I call him Popish because his name is Pope,” says the lady. “ ’Tis only my joking way. And this little dwarf of a fellow has wrote a pastoral poem—all about shepherds and shepherdesses, you know.”
“A shepherd should have a little crook,” says my mistress, laughing from her end of the table: on which Mrs. Steele said, “She did not know, but the Captain brought home this queer little creature when she was in bed with her first boy, and it was a mercy he had come no sooner; and Dick raved about his genus, and was always raving about some nonsense or other.”
“Which of the Tatlers do you prefer, Mrs. Steele?” asked Mr. St. John.
“I never read but one, and think it all a pack of rubbish, sir,” says the lady. “Such stuff about Bickerstaffe, and Distaff, and Quarterstaff, as it all is! There’s the Captain going on still with the Burgundy—I know he’ll be tipsy before he stops—Captain Steele!”
“I drink to your eyes, my dear,” says the Captain, who seemed to think his wife charming, and to receive as genuine all the satiric compliments which Mr. St. John paid her.
All this while the Maid of Honor had been trying to get Mr. Esmond to talk, and no doubt voted him a dull fellow. For, by some mistake, just as he was going to pop into the vacant place, he was placed far away from Beatrix’s chair, who sat between his Grace
