JOHN DE LANCASTER.

A NOVEL. BY RICHARD CUMBERLAND, ESQ. IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON: PRINTED FOR LACKINGTON, ALLEN, AND CO. TEMPLE OF THE MUSES, FINSBURY-SQUARE. ——— 1809.

{1}

Harding and Wright, Printers, St. John’s Square. JOHN DE LANCASTER.

BOOK THE FIRST.

CHAPTER I. The Reader is made acquainted with the Family of De Lancaster.

On the first of March 1751, Robert De Lancaster, a native of North Wales, and grandfather of my hero, had assembled his friends and neighbours to celebrate, according to custom, the anniversary of their tutelary saint.

I enter at once upon my story without any introduction, having already announced this novel in my Memoirs, and I flatter myself, if it is perused with that candour, to which fair dealing has{2} some claim, it will serve to entertain the major part of its readers, disappoint not many and corrupt not one.

Robert de Lancaster was a gentleman of great respectability, and Kray-castle, the venerable seat of his family through many generations, lost nothing of its long-established fame for hospitality on this occasion: the gentry were feasted, and the poor were not forgotten.

The family of this worthy antient Briton consisted of an only son Philip, married to an heiress of the house of Morgan, and a maiden daughter, named Cecilia. He was himself a widower. Mrs. Philip De Lancaster was at this time in that state, which gave speedy hopes of an heir to the very ancient family, into which she had married: in the festivities of the day she had taken little share, and in the superintendence{3} of her father-in-law’s household absolutely none: that province she had found in much more able hands, and never sought to interfere with the administration of it: in short she had no ambition for authority, and very great objection to any thing, that might require exertion, or occasion trouble.

Cecilia De Lancaster from the death of her mother, through a period of more than ten years, had patiently and without repining suffered her youth to pass away, amply repayed by the love and approbation of her father, whilst she devoted herself to all those duties, which had devolved upon her, when Kray Castle lost its mistress. Her brother Philip had quite as little disposition to trouble as his lady, so that all things were under the unenvied government of Cecilia; and every guest, that resorted to the{4} house, every domestic, that belonged to it, bore witness to the excellence of her administration.

A character like hers, though located amidst the recesses of Merionethshire, could not be totally divested of attraction; for she had high pretensions on the score of fortune, and a pedigree, that only stopped where the world began: these might have been enough to satisfy any reasonable man, though some perhaps would have rated them the higher for the loveliness of her person, the excellence of her understanding and the virtues of her mind.

Amongst the many suitors, who in various periods of her celibacy had been induced to propose themselves to her, none had been so persevering in his addresses as Sir Owen ap Owen, baronet, a gentleman by no means of yesterday,{5} and possessed of a very fair and ample landed property, upon which there were no other encumbrances save only the barren rocks and unproductive mountains, over which it stretched. He was indeed not very eminent as a scholar; for although Sir Owen had without doubt been taught to read, he had almost entirely discontinued the practice of it: and indeed, considering the nature of Sir Owen’s more immediate pursuits, reading might very well be dispensed with, as it could only tend to interrupt his evening nap, and not improve him in the art of hallooing to his hounds, or pushing round the tankard to a tawdry toast: he however administered justice to his neighbours, and settled differences in a summary way after a fashion of his own, by reference not to any books of law, but to the beer barrels in his cellar;{6} by

which his decisions as a magistrate became extremely popular, and men quarrelled first, that they might get drunk afterwards, and patch up the peace in their cups, which they had broken when they were sober. By these means Sir Owen got a good name in the county, and supported a considerable interest, which he never failed to employ, as his fathers had done before him, in opposing and railing at the minister of the day, whoever that obnoxious animal might chance to be.

This distinguished personage was now in the fifth year of his suitorship, and verging towards the fiftieth of his age, whilst the inexorable Cecilia had already endured a siege half as long as that of Troy, without betraying any symptoms, that might indicate a surrender. In fact Sir Owen seemed now to content{7} himself with a yearly summons, like the Moors before Ceuta, as a compliment to his perseverance, and to keep up appearances and pretensions.

It was now Saint David’s day, when he never failed to be a visitor to the castle, and he had brushed out the lining of his coach, and put himself in his best array, to do honour to the festival, at which he knew Cecilia would preside. His person was not eminently graceful, for he was a round, red-faced gentleman, neither tall of stature, nor light of limb; but his apparel bore the faded marks of ancient splendor, and his huntsman had bestowed uncommon pains in frizzing out a huge white perriwig, which he had powdered with no sparing hand. Sir Owen was at no time apt to be an idle looker-on whilst the bottle was in circulation, and on the{8} present occasion he had charged himself more than usually high to encounter an opposition, which he had reason to expect would be more than usually stubborn; for though due consideration had been paid to his rank, and he had been placed at table close beside the lady, who presided at it, fortune had not favoured him with any striking opportunities for displaying his address, or advancing himself in her

good graces. On the contrary he had been rather unlucky in his assiduities, and in his eagerness to dispute the ladle had overset the soup, with sundry other little misadventures, incidental to an awkward operator and an unsteady hand.

It is perfectly well understood, that the worthy baronet had pledged himself to his privy counsellor the huntsman for vigorous measures; confessing to him,{9} whilst assisting at his toilette, with the candour natural to his character, that he was ashamed of hanging so long upon a cold scent, and protesting, with a due degree of spirit, that he would that very day either bring the trail to an entapis, or give up the chace, and draw off; for which manly resolution he had all proper credit given him by the partaker of his secrets, and the companion of his sports.

When the gentlemen had sate a reasonable time after the ladies had retired, it was the custom of the house to adjourn to the drawing room, where Cecilia administered the ceremonials of the tea-table. It was here Sir Owen meditated to plant himself once more by her side, and bring his fortune to a crisis; trusting that wine, which had fortified him with courage, would not fail to in{10}spire him with eloquence. High in hope, and eager to acquit himself of his promise to his confidante at home, upon entering the room he pushed his course directly for the tea-table, where the cluster of candles and the dazzling gleams reflected from the polished apparatus, there displayed in glittering splendor, so confounded his optics, that without discovering the person of Mrs. Philip De Lancaster, or computing distances so as to bring up in time, he came foul of the tea-table, and discharged a part of the wreck with a horrible crash into the lap of the aforesaid lady, whilst his head came to the floor amidst the fragments of broken cups and sawcers with an

impunity, which no common head would probably have had to boast of in the like circumstance. Dreadful was the consternation of the{11} company, most alarmingly critical were the screams and convulsive throes of the unfortunate lady, whose lap was ill prepared to receive any such accession to the burden, which it was already doomed to carry. The consequences in short were so immediate, and their symptoms so decisive, that had not Mr. Llewellyn been in attendance, and happily not quite so tipsy as to be incapacitated from affording his assistance, the world might have lost the pleasure of reading these adventures, and I the fame of recording them.

A couch being provided, and the lady laid at her length upon it, she was carried up to her chamber, whilst the castle echoed with her piercing screams.

It would be treating this serious misadventure much too lightly, were I only to remark that the love-scene in projectu{12} was of necessity adjourned by Cecilia’s leaving the company, and attending upon her sister-in-law, whom a whole bevy of females under the conduct of the sage Llewellyn followed up the stairs. We may well suppose, where one so able was present to direct, and so many were assembled, ready either to obey, or sagaciously to look on and edify, that every thing needful for a lady in her critical situation was provided and administered. Every visitor, whose recollection served to remind him that after such a discomfiture the speediest retreat was the best compliment he could pay to the master of the house, called for their horses and their carriages to the great disappointment of their servants, who had not yet paid all the honours to Saint David, that were by customary right Saint David’s due.{13}

Sir Owen ap Owen, who had already taken some little time to recover his legs, found himself still at a loss to recall his recollection. At length, after contemplating the chaos he had created—By the Lord, friend De Lancaster, he exclaimed, I have made a terrible wreck of your crockery; but you should warn your housemaids not to dry rub your floors, for they are as slippery as glass, and let a man tread ever so carefully, a false step may throw him off his balance, and then who can answer for the mischief he may do? I heard a terrible screaming, but I hope, my good neighbour, nobody is hurt, and if your fair daughter, the divine Cecilia, (so I always call her) is inconsolable about her china, and if London can’t repair the loss, the East Indies shall, though I go all the way to fetch it home for her{14} myself; for though I know well enough I have had a glass too much, and am but as you may call me a kind of bear in a ball-room, yet I know what a gentleman ought to do, when he has done mischief; and on the word of a true ancient Briton you may

believe me, that if I had undesignedly set fire to your house, I am no such Hanoverian rat as to run away by the light of it: that is not my principle.

Your principle, my good friend, replied De Lancaster, nobody doubts, and if your accident shall be productive of no other mischief than what has happened to Cecilia’s tea-cups, Cecilia thinks no more of them than I do. The screams you heard did not proceed from her—

No, no, cried Sir Owen, her sweet pipe never uttered such a shrill veiw-{15}hollah; so if she is safe from hurt and harm, all is well. ’Twas an accident, as you say, and there’s an end of it.

A servant now announced to the baronet, that his coach was at the door. De Lancaster entered into no farther explanations, and his awkward guest surrendered himself to the guidance of a coachman luckily not quite so tipsey as his master.

CHAPTER II. Conversation in a Library.

When the wheels of Sir Owen’s coach had ceased from rattling over the flinty pavement of the castle court, Robert De Lancaster glanced his eyes round the room, and in a corner of it discovered his son Philip, unnoticed of him be{16}fore. Neither the cataract and confusion, that had ensued upon Sir Owen’s tumble, nor the screams of a lady, in whose safety he might be presumed to have some interest, had provoked this disciple of Harpocrates to violate his taciturnity, or to stir from his seat. At the same instant Colonel Wilson, a friend of the family, entered, and brought tidings from the runners in the service of Mr. Llewellyn, that things above stairs were going on as well as could be expected.

Then with your leave, Colonel, said the lord of the castle, we will adjourn to my library, and there await the event. Upon the word Philip started from his corner, ran to the door and held it open for his father. A silent bow was interchanged at passing; the library was near at hand: the chairs were set ready, the{17} candles lighted and the three gentlemen arranged themselves round the fire in their customary seats.

I think, said De Lancaster, addressing himself to the colonel, amongst all the extravagancies I have been betrayed into, there is none that sits so light upon my conscience, as the passion I have had for collecting books.

They certainly are a source of pleasure, said the colonel, to the readers of them.

They cause great trouble to the writers, Philip answered in an under voice, as if talking to himself.

Colonel Wilson was a disabled officer, having lost a leg in the service, and had now retired upon a sinecure government of twenty shillings per day to a small patrimonial estate in the near neighbourhood of Kray Castle: he was a few{18} years younger than Robert De Lancaster, who had now kept his sixtieth birthday. Wilson had two sons; the elder was in the army, and the younger at the head of Westminster school: he was a man of strict probity, good understanding and an excellent heart. These were qualities, which De Lancaster knew how to appreciate as well as any man, and though his studies and pursuits had been widely different from those of the Colonel, yet he courted his company, and lived in perfect harmony with him as his friend and neighbour. Wilson on his part was not blind to the eccentricities of De Lancaster, but as they never disagreed except upon points, that did not interest the passions, their disputes were carried on without any mixture of acrimony, and only served to keep the conversation amicably alive.{19}

Wilson had lived in the world; De Lancaster in study and retirement: the latter would sometimes contend against assumptions, which to the former appeared to be little less than self-evident; in the mean time De Lancaster would oftentimes undertake to demonstrate paradoxes, that to Wilson’s unsophisticated understanding seemed perfectly inexplicable: these he was in the habit neither to admit, nor pertinaciously to contest: if he had done the first, there would have been a speedy end to the discussion; if he had pursued the latter course, there would have been no end at all, for De Lancaster was not often in the humour to recede from his positions.

Philip De Lancaster on the contrary believed all things, and examined none: he was a man of great faith and few words; by no means wanting in curio{20}sity, but extremely averse from enquiry and trouble. Being an only son and heir to the wealthy house of De Lancaster, it was thought adviseable by the fathers on each side, who were the contracting parties, that he should take to wife Matilda, only child of old Morgan of Glen-Morgan, and presumptive heiress to his fortune and estate. Philip, who had shewn no ardour as a lover, was by no means remarkably uxorious as a husband; and Matilda did not molest him with her fondness or attentions: They lived in the same house as appurtenances to the family at Kray Castle, (for such from time immemorial had been the custom of the De Lancasters) and they lived without quarrelling; for they were very little together; their passions were never roused by contradiction, or enflamed by jealousy; the{21} husband had no attachments, and the wife, who was said to have been thwarted in her first love, laid herself out for no future admirers.

These few preliminary remarks may probably account for the placidity, with which Philip now sate down in the library between his father and the colonel to wait the issue of an event, in which if he did not manifest a very lively interest, the reason very probably was, because he did not feel it.

Philip, (if his sage remark is in the recollection of the reader) had risqued a truism, when he modestly suggested that it was a troublesome task to write a book. Philip did not speak this from his own experience; therefore it is, that I call his truism a risque, for it was not always that his father gave his passport to assertions of that character; but the{22} learned gentleman’s thoughts were just then employed not upon the trouble, that we take when we bring our works into the world, but the trouble, which we give, when we ourselves are brought into it, and upon this topic he began to descant, as follows.

The unlucky accident, by which my blundering neighbour has precipitated Mrs. De Lancaster into labour-pains, must in all probability tend to aggravate and enhance those sorrows, in which by the condition of her sex she is destined to bring forth; and indeed, independent of that accident, I should not wonder if the pains she suffers, and the screams she utters, were more than ordinarily acute and piercing, planted as she now is, by adoption into my family, in the very stream and current from the fountain head of the primæval curse{23}—

Whereabouts are we now, said the colonel within himself?

—Nevertheless, under the pressure of these apprehensions, I console myself with the reflection, that if the general observation, that what we produce with difficulty we are thereby influenced to preserve with diligence, be true in all other cases, it will be also true in that of child-bearing. If so, we may expect that the storgee, or natural affection of my daughter-in-law towards her infant will be proportionally greater than that of mothers, who shall have had easier times.

I see no grounds for that conclusion, replied the colonel.

Surely, sir, resumed De Lancaster, you must have remarked, that in all our operations, whether mental or manual, we are naturally most attached to those{24} on which most pains and labour have been expended. Slight performances and slight opinions may be easily given up, but where great deliberation has been bestowed, we are not soon persuaded to admit that our time has been misspent and our talents misapplied.

Certainly, replied Wilson, there are some points, upon which we ought not to waver in our opinions, but there are many others, which it is not worth our while to be too pertinacious in defending. In my profession we must not quarrel with men for their caprices, so long as they are not mischievously or impiously eccentric. It is not often we can find a mess-room in the same way of thinking, except upon the question of another bottle.

In your profession, my good friend, resumed De Lancaster, (for which I{25} have all possible respect) the pliability you describe may be perfectly in character, and much to be commended; for where differences are to be adjusted by arguments, swords should not be admitted into the conference. In my system of life I see no reason why I should be bound to think with the majority; nay, I confess to you I am very ill inclined to subscribe to popular opinions, unless upon strict investigation.

Are they always worth it? said the colonel.

I should think not, echoed Philip.