Burlesques | Page 7

Club, but at Timothy the waiter, who is removing a plate of that
exquisite dish, the muffin (then newly invented), at the desire of some
of the revellers within.
"I would, Sam," said the wild youth to his companion, "that I had some
of my mother Macclesfield's gold, to enable us to eat of those cates and
mingle with yon springalds and beaux."
"To vaunt a knowledge of the stoical philosophy," said the youth
addressed as Sam, "might elicit a smile of incredulity upon the cheek of
the parasite of pleasure; but there are moments in life when History
fortifies endurance: and past study renders present deprivation more

bearable. If our pecuniary resources be exiguous, let our resolution,
Dick, supply the deficiencies of Fortune. The muffin we desire to-day
would little benefit us to-morrow. Poor and hungry as we are, are we
less happy, Dick, than yon listless voluptuary who banquets on the food
which you covet?"
And the two lads turned away up Waterloo Place, and past the
"Parthenon" Club-house, and disappeared to take a meal of cow-heel at
a neighboring cook's shop. Their names were Samuel Johnson and
Richard Savage.
Meanwhile the conversation at Button's was fast and brilliant. "By
Wood's thirteens, and the divvle go wid 'em," cried the Church
dignitary in the cassock, "is it in blue and goold ye are this morning, Sir
Richard, when you ought to be in seebles?"
"Who's dead, Dean?" said the nobleman, the dean's companion.
"Faix, mee Lard Bolingbroke, as sure as mee name's Jonathan Swift--
and I'm not so sure of that neither, for who knows his father's
name?--there's been a mighty cruel murther committed entirely. A child
of Dick Steele's has been barbarously slain, dthrawn, and quarthered,
and it's Joe Addison yondther has done it. Ye should have killed one of
your own, Joe, ye thief of the world."
"I!" said the amazed and Right Honorable Joseph Addison; "I kill
Dick's child! I was godfather to the last."
"And promised a cup and never sent it," Dick ejaculated. Joseph looked
grave.
"The child I mean is Sir Roger de Coverley, Knight and Baronet. What
made ye kill him, ye savage Mohock? The whole town is in tears about
the good knight; all the ladies at Church this afternoon were in
mourning; all the booksellers are wild; and Lintot says not a third of the
copies of the Spectator are sold since the death of the brave old
gentleman." And the Dean of St. Patrick's pulled out the Spectator
newspaper, containing the well- known passage regarding Sir Roger's

death. "I bought it but now in 'Wellington Street,'" he said; "the
newsboys were howling all down the Strand."
"What a miracle is Genius--Genius, the Divine and Beautiful," said a
gentleman leaning against the same fireplace with the deformed
cavalier in iron-gray, and addressing that individual, who was in fact
Mr. Alexander Pope. "What a marvellous gift is this, and royal
privilege of Art! To make the Ideal more credible than the Actual: to
enchain our hearts, to command our hopes, our regrets, our tears, for a
mere brain-born Emanation: to invest with life the Incorporeal, and to
glamour the cloudy into substance,--these are the lofty privileges of the
Poet, if I have read poesy aright; and I am as familiar with the sounds
that rang from Homer's lyre, as with the strains which celebrate the loss
of Belinda's lovely locks"--(Mr. Pope blushed and bowed, highly
delighted)--"these, I say, sir, are the privileges of the Poet--the
Poietes--the Maker-- he moves the world, and asks no lever; if he
cannot charm death into life, as Orpheus feigned to do, he can create
Beauty out of Nought, and defy Death by rendering Thought Eternal.
Ho! Jemmy, another flask of Nantz."
And the boy--for he who addressed the most brilliant company of wits
in Europe was little more--emptied the contents of the brandy- flask
into a silver flagon, and quaffed it gayly to the health of the company
assembled. 'Twas the third he had taken during the sitting. Presently,
and with a graceful salute to the Society, he quitted the coffee-house,
and was seen cantering on a magnificent Arab past the National
Gallery.
"Who is yon spark in blue and silver? He beats Joe Addison himself, in
drinking,, and pious Joe is the greatest toper in the three kingdoms,"
Dick Steele said, good-naturedly.
"His paper in the Spectator beats thy best, Dick, thou sluggard," the
Right Honorable Mr. Addison exclaimed. "He is the author of that
famous No. 996, for which you have all been giving me the credit."
"The rascal foiled me at capping verses," Dean Swift said, "and won a
tenpenny piece of me, plague take him!"

"He has suggested an emendation in my 'Homer,' which proves him a
delicate scholar," Mr. Pope exclaimed.
"He