Chapter 5 No.5

Mr Pitskiver's origin, like that of early Greece, is lost in the depths of antiquity. Through an infinite variety of posts and offices, he had risen to his present position, and was perhaps the most multifariously occupied gentleman in her majesty's dominions. He was chairman of three companies, steward of six societies, general agent, and had lately reached the crowning eminence of his hopes by being appointed trustee of unaudited accounts.

In the midst of all these labours, he had gone on increasing in breadth and honour till his name was a symbol of every thing respectable and well to do in the world. With each new office his ambition rose, and a list of his residences would be a perfect index to the state of his fortunes. We can trace him from Stepney to Whitechapel; from Whitechapel to Finsbury square; from Finsbury square to Hammersmith; and finally, the last office (which, by the by, was without a salary) had raised him, three months before our account of him begins, to the centre of Harley Street. With his fortune and ambition, we must do him the justice to say, his liberality equally increased. He was a patron, and, would have travelled fifty miles to entertain a poet at his table; he had music-masters (without any other pupils) who were Mozarts and Handels for his daughters-Turners and Landseers (whose names were yet unknown) to teach them drawing-for, by a remarkable property possessed by him, in common with a great majority of mankind, every thing gained a new value when it came into contact with himself. He bought sets of china because they were artistic; changed his silver plate for a more picturesque pattern; employed Stultz for his clothes, and, above all, Bell and Rannie for his wines. His cook was superb; and, thanks to the above-named Bell and Rannie, there were fewer headachs in the morning after a M?cenatian dinner at Pitskiver's, than could have been expected by Father Matthew himself. With these two exceptions-wine and clothes-his patronage was more indiscriminate than judicious. In fact, he patronized for the sake of patronizing; and as he was always in search of a new miracle, it is no wonder that he was sometimes disappointed-that his Landseers sometimes turned out to have no eyes, and his musicians more fitted to play the Handel to a pump than an organ. But Pitskiver never lost heart. If he failed in one he was sure to succeed in another; he saw his name occasionally in the newspaper, by giving an invitation to one of the literary gentlemen who enliven the public with accounts of fearful accidents and desperate offences; had his picture at the Exhibition in the character of the "Portrait of a gentleman," and his bust in the same place as the semblance of the honorary Secretary to the Poor Man's Pension and Perpetual Annuity Institution. He was a widower, and looked dreadful things at all the widows of his acquaintance. And it was thought that, if he succeeded in marrying off his girls, he should himself become once more a candidate for the holy estate; and by this wise man?uvre-for, in fact, he made no secret of his intention-he enlisted in his daughters' behalf all the elderly ladies who thought they had any claims on the attentions of that charming creature Mr Pitskiver. There were certainly no young ladies I have ever heard of, so well supplied with assistants in the great art of catching husbands as the two plump damsels whom we have already seen enter the house in Harley Street, and one of whom we have perceived placed in possession of the mysterious letter by the skittle-minded Mr Snipe.

Miss Sophia Pitskiver, according to all ordinary ideas of romance and true love, had no right whatever to indulge in such luxuries, being more adapted to make pies than enter into the beauty of sonnets to the moon. She was short, stout-shall we be pardoned for saying the hateful word?-she was dumpy, but a perfect picture of rosy health and hilarious good-nature. And yet, if she had been half a foot taller, and half a yard thinner, and infinitely paler, she could not have been one jot more sentimental. She cultivated sentiment, because it was so pleasant, and her father approved of it because it was genteel. Her enthusiasm was tremendous. Her ideas were all crackers, and exploded at the slightest touch. She had a taste for every thing-poetry, history, fine arts in general, philosophy, glory, puseyism, and, perhaps more than all, for a certain tall young man, with an interesting complexion, whom we have introduced to the courteous reader by the name of the long-backed Ticket. It was this gentleman's note she was now about to read. Sundry palpitations about the robust regions of the heart might, to common eyes, have appeared to arise from her speed in running up stairs. But she knew better. She took but one look of the cheval glass, and broke the seal.

"Stanzas!" she said; and, taking one other glance at the mirror, she exclaimed to the agitated young lady represented there, "only think!" and devoured the following lines:-

"There is a tear that will not fall

To cool the burning heart and brain;

Oh, I would give my life, my all,

To feel once more that blessed rain!

"There is a grief-I feel, in sooth,

It rends my soul, it quells my tongue;

It dims the sunshine of my youth,

But, oh, it will not dim it long!

"There is a place where life is o'er,

And sorrow's blasts innocuous rave;

A place where sadness comes no more.

Know'st thou the place? It is the grave.

"Yes, if within that gentle breast

Mild pity ever held her sway,

Thou'lt weep for one who finds no rest-

The reason he can never say.

"P.S.-Miss Hendy is an angel upon earth. My friend Mr Bristles, of the Universal Surveyor, one of the most distinguished literary men of the age, has got me an invitation to go to her house to-night, to read the first act of my tragedy. Shall I have the happiness of seeing thee? Would to my stars my fate were so fortunate! I enclose you the above lines, which Bristles says are better than any of Lord Byron's, and will publish next week in the Universal. Mayest thou like them, sweetest, for they are dedicated to thee, Thine ever-ALMANSOR." What she might have done beyond reading the lines and letter six times over, and crying "beautiful, beautiful!" as fast as she could, it is impossible to say, for at that moment she was called by her venerable sire. She crumpled the note up after the manner of all other heroines, and hid it in her bosom; and hurried to the drawing-room, where she found her father in full dress, pulling on a pair of new kid gloves.

"Well, Soph, I'm off for Miss Hendy's-don't give me any nonsense now about her being low, and all that sort of thing; she don't move in the same circle of society, certainly, as we do, but she has always distinguished people about her."

"Oh, papa!" interrupted the young lady. "I don't object to Miss Hendy in the least. I love her of all things, and would give worlds to be going with you!"

"That's right! You've heard of the new poet then? Tremendous they say; equal to Shakspeare-quite a great man."

"Indeed! Oh, how I long to see him!"

"Well, perhaps you may one of these days. Bristles-my friend Bristles of the Universal-says he's a perfect-what do they call that pretty street in Southampton?-Paragon-a perfect paragon, Bristles says: I'll ask him to dinner some day."

"What day?-Oh, let it be soon, dear papa!"

"There's a dear delightful enthusiastic girl! We ought to encourage people of genius. Curious we never heard of him before, for he was our neighbour, I hear, in Finsbury; but poor, I suppose, and did not mix with our set even then."

Mr Pitskiver looked at the opposite side of the street while he spoke, as if to assure himself that he was in a still higher altitude above the poet now than some few years before. But, as if feeling called on to show his increased superiority by greater condescension, he said, as he walked out of the room, "I shall certainly have him to dinner, and Bristles, and some more men of talent to meet him-

'The feast of reason, and the flow of soul!'"

the only quotation, by the way, in which Mr Pitskiver was ever known to indulge.