Tracks of a Rolling Stone [106]
for 'drums' and dances. To my astonishment, or rather to my alarm, I received a letter from the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society (Charles Fox, or perhaps Sir George Simpson had, I think, proposed me - I never knew), to say that I had been elected a member. Nothing was further from my ambition. The very thought shrivelled me with a sense of ignorance and insignificance. I pictured to myself an assembly of old fogies crammed with all the 'ologies. I broke into a cold perspiration when I fancied myself called upon to deliver a lecture on the comparative sea-bottomy of the Oceanic globe, or give my theory of the simultaneous sighting by 'little Billee' of ' Madagascar, and North, and South Amerikee.' Honestly, I had not the courage to accept; and, young Jackanapes as I was, left the Secretary's letter unanswered.
But a still greater honour - perhaps the greatest compliment I ever had paid me - was to come. I had lodgings at this time in an old house, long since pulled down, in York Street. One day, when I was practising the fiddle, who should walk into my den but Rogers the poet! He had never seen me in his life. He was in his ninetieth year, and he had climbed the stairs to the first floor to ask me to one of his breakfast parties. To say nothing of Rogers' fame, his wealth, his position in society, those who know what his cynicism and his worldliness were, will understand what such an effort, physical and moral, must have cost him. He always looked like a death's head, but his ghastly pallor, after that Alpine ascent, made me feel as if he had come - to stay.
These breakfasts were entertainments of no ordinary distinction. The host himself was of greater interest than the most eminent of his guests. All but he, were more or less one's contemporaries: Rogers, if not quite as dead as he looked, was ancient history. He was old enough to have been the father of Byron, of Shelley, of Keats, and of Moore. He was several years older than Scott, or Wordsworth, or Coleridge, and only four years younger than Pitt. He had known all these men, and could, and did, talk as no other could talk, of all of them. Amongst those whom I met at these breakfasts were Cornewall Lewis, Delane, the Grotes, Macaulay, Mrs. Norton, Monckton Milnes, William Harcourt (the only one younger than myself), but just beginning to be known, and others of scarcely less note.
During the breakfast itself, Rogers, though seated at table in an armchair, took no part either in the repast or in the conversation; he seemed to sleep until the meal was over. His servant would then place a cup of coffee before him, and, like a Laputian flapper, touch him gently on the shoulder. He would at once begin to talk, while others listened. The first time I witnessed this curious resurrection, I whispered something to my neighbour, at which he laughed. The old man's eye was too sharp for us.
'You are laughing at me,' said he; 'I dare say you young gentlemen think me an old fellow; but there are younger than I who are older. You should see Tommy Moore. I asked him to breakfast, but he's too weak - weak here, sir,' and he tapped his forehead. 'I'm not that.' (This was the year that Moore died.) He certainly was not; but his whole discourse was of the past. It was as though he would not condescend to discuss events or men of the day. What were either to the days and men that he had known - French revolutions, battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo, a Nelson and a Buonaparte, a Pitt, a Burke, a Fox, a Johnson, a Gibbon, a Sheridan, and all the men of letters and all the poets of a century gone by? Even Macaulay had for once to hold his tongue; and could only smile impatiently at what perhaps he thought an old man's astonishing garrulity. But if a young and pretty woman talked to him, it was not his great age that he vaunted, nor yet the 'pleasures of memory' - one envied the adroitness of his flattery, and the gracefulness of his repartee.
My friend George Cayley had
But a still greater honour - perhaps the greatest compliment I ever had paid me - was to come. I had lodgings at this time in an old house, long since pulled down, in York Street. One day, when I was practising the fiddle, who should walk into my den but Rogers the poet! He had never seen me in his life. He was in his ninetieth year, and he had climbed the stairs to the first floor to ask me to one of his breakfast parties. To say nothing of Rogers' fame, his wealth, his position in society, those who know what his cynicism and his worldliness were, will understand what such an effort, physical and moral, must have cost him. He always looked like a death's head, but his ghastly pallor, after that Alpine ascent, made me feel as if he had come - to stay.
These breakfasts were entertainments of no ordinary distinction. The host himself was of greater interest than the most eminent of his guests. All but he, were more or less one's contemporaries: Rogers, if not quite as dead as he looked, was ancient history. He was old enough to have been the father of Byron, of Shelley, of Keats, and of Moore. He was several years older than Scott, or Wordsworth, or Coleridge, and only four years younger than Pitt. He had known all these men, and could, and did, talk as no other could talk, of all of them. Amongst those whom I met at these breakfasts were Cornewall Lewis, Delane, the Grotes, Macaulay, Mrs. Norton, Monckton Milnes, William Harcourt (the only one younger than myself), but just beginning to be known, and others of scarcely less note.
During the breakfast itself, Rogers, though seated at table in an armchair, took no part either in the repast or in the conversation; he seemed to sleep until the meal was over. His servant would then place a cup of coffee before him, and, like a Laputian flapper, touch him gently on the shoulder. He would at once begin to talk, while others listened. The first time I witnessed this curious resurrection, I whispered something to my neighbour, at which he laughed. The old man's eye was too sharp for us.
'You are laughing at me,' said he; 'I dare say you young gentlemen think me an old fellow; but there are younger than I who are older. You should see Tommy Moore. I asked him to breakfast, but he's too weak - weak here, sir,' and he tapped his forehead. 'I'm not that.' (This was the year that Moore died.) He certainly was not; but his whole discourse was of the past. It was as though he would not condescend to discuss events or men of the day. What were either to the days and men that he had known - French revolutions, battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo, a Nelson and a Buonaparte, a Pitt, a Burke, a Fox, a Johnson, a Gibbon, a Sheridan, and all the men of letters and all the poets of a century gone by? Even Macaulay had for once to hold his tongue; and could only smile impatiently at what perhaps he thought an old man's astonishing garrulity. But if a young and pretty woman talked to him, it was not his great age that he vaunted, nor yet the 'pleasures of memory' - one envied the adroitness of his flattery, and the gracefulness of his repartee.
My friend George Cayley had