down, Georgy. Upon this most happy-I mean melancholy occasion, I feel that I may trust you with a secret. You see this fine house-our fine servants-our fine plate -our fine dinuers: every one thinks Sir John Vesey a rich man. Geor. And are you not, papa? Sir J. Not a bit of it1-all humbug, child—all humbug,2 upon my soul! As you hazard a minnow to hook in a trout, so one guinea thrown out with address is often the best bait for a hundred. There are two rules in lifeFirst, Men are valued not for what they are, but what they seem to be. Secondly, If you have no merit or money of your own, you must trade on the merits and money of other people. My father got the title by services in the army, and died penniless. On the strength of his services I got a pension of 400l. a-year-on the strength of 400l. a-year I took credit for5 8007.: on the strength of 800%. a-year I married your mother with 10,000l.: on the strength of 10,000l., I took credit for 40,000l., and paid Dicky Gossip three guineas a-week to go about everywhere calling me "Stingy Jack !" 7 Geor. Ha ha! A disagreeable nickname. 8 Sir J. But a valuable reputation. When a man is called stingy, it is as much as calling him rich; and when a man's called rich, why he's a man universally respected. On the strength of my respectability I wheedled a constituency, changed my politics, resigned my seat to a minister, who, to a man of such stake in the country, could offer nothing less in return than a patent office of 2,000l. a-year. That's the way to succeed in life. Humbug, my dear!—all humbug,10 upon my soul! Geor. I must say that you Now, for your Sir J. Know the world, to be sure. fortune, as I spend more than my income, I can have nothing to leave you; yet, even without counting your uncle, you have always passed for an heiress on the credit1 of your expectations from the savings of "Stingy Jack." The same with your education. I never grudged anything to make a show 2. -never stuffed your head with histories and homilies; but you draw, you sing, you dance, you walk well into a room; and that's the way young ladies are educated now a-days, in order to become a pride to their parents, and a blessing to their husband that is, when they have caught him. A propos of a husband: you know we thought of Sir Frederick Blount. Geor. Ah, papa, he is charming. Sir J. He was so, my dear, before we knew your poor uncle was dead; but an heiress such as you will be should look out for a duke.-Where the deuce is Evelyn this morning? Geor. I've not seen him, papa. What a strange character he is 6. -so sarcastic; and yet he can be agreeable. Sir J. A humorista cynic! one never knows how to take him. My private secretary,-a poor cousin,-—has not got a shilling, and yet, hang me,9 if he does not keep us all at a sort of a distance. 10 8 Geor. But why do you take him to live with us, papa, since there's no good to be got by it? Sir J. There you are wrong; 11 he has a great deal of talent: prepares my speeches, writes my pamphlets, looks up my calculations. My report on 12 the last Commission has got me a great deal of fame, and has put me at the head of the new one. Besides, he is our cousin-he has 1 foi. 2 te donner du relief; or, faire florès (fam.). 3 tu te présentes bien dans un salon; or, simply, tu te présentes bien. 4 j'avais jeté les yeux sur. 5 chercher à trouver. 6 faire is often quaintly used, with such a construction, instead of être, in relation to a person's ap pearance or qualities. 7 original. 10 We say, tenir à distance, without any article, in this sense: the literal translation, therefore, will not do here, and you must change the construction a little. 11 C'est ce qui te trompe; or, C'est en quoi tu te trompes. 12 á. no salary:1 kindness to a poor relation always tells well 2 in the world; and Benevolence is a useful virtue,-particularly when you can have it for nothing! With our other cousin, Clara, it was different: her father thought fit to leave me her guardian, though she had not a penny -a mere useless incumbrance; so, you see, I got my halfsister, Lady Franklin, to take her off my hands.3 Geor. How much longer is Lady Franklin's visit to be? Sir J. I don't know, my dear; the longer the better,*—— for her husband left her a good deal of money at her own disposal. Ah, here she comes. LORD CHATHAM'S SPEECH FOR THE IMMEDIATE REMOVAL OF THE TROOPS FROM BOSTON, IN AMERICA.-(JUNE 20, 1775.) Too well apprized of the contents of the papers, now at last laid before the House, I shall not take up their 5 lordships' time in tedious and fruitless investigations, but shall seize the first moment to open the door of reconcilement; for every moment of delay is a moment of danger. As I have not the honour of access to his Majesty, I will endeavour to transmit to him, through the constitutional channel of this House, my ideas of America, to rescue him from the misadvice of his present ministers. America, my lords, cannot be reconciled, she ought not to be reconciled, to this country, till the troops of Britain are withdrawn from the continent; they are a bar to all confidence; they are a source of perpetual irritation; they threaten a fatal catastrophe. How can America trust you with the bayonet at her breast? How can she suppose that you mean less than bondage or death? I therefore, my lords, move, that an humble address be presented to his Majesty, most humbly to advise and beseech his Majesty, that, in order to open the way towards a happy settlement of the dangerous troubles in America, it may graciously please his Majesty to transmit orders to General Gage for removing his Majesty's forces from the town of Boston. I know not, my lords, who advised the present measures; I know not who advises to a perseverance and enforcement of them; but this I will say, that the authors of such advice ought to answer it2 at their utmost peril. I wish, my lords, not to lose a day in this urgent, pressing crisis; an hour now lost in allaying ferments in America may produce years of calamity. Never will I desert, in any stage of its progress, the conduct of this momentous business. Unless fettered to my bed by the extremity of sickness, I will give it unremitting attention. I will knock at the gates of this sleeping and confounded ministry, and will, if it be possible, rouse them to a sense of their danger. The recall of your army I urge as necessarily preparatory to the restoration of your peace. By this it will appear that you are disposed to treat amicably and equitably, and to consider, revise, and repeal, if it should be found necessary, as I affirm it will, those violent acts and declarations which have disseminated confusion throughout the empire. Resistance to these acts was necessary, and therefore just; and your vain declarations of the omnipotence of parliament, and your imperious doctrines of the necessity of submission, will be found equally impotent to convince or enslave America, who feels that tyranny is equally intolerable, whether it be exercised by an individual part of the Legislature, or by the collective bodies which compose it. The means of enforcing this thraldom are found to be as ridiculous and weak in practice as they are unjust in principle. Conceiv ing of General Gage as a man of humanity and under 3 1 Simply, mais j'affirme. 2 en répondre. 8 Cette mesure fera voir. standing, entertaining, as I ever must, the highest respect and affection for the British troops, I feel the most anxious sensibility for their situation, pining in inglorious inactivity. You may call them an army of safety and defence, but they are in truth an army of impotence and contempt; and to make the folly equal to the disgrace, they are an army of irritation and vexation. Allay then the ferment prevailing in America by removing the obnoxious hostile cause. If you delay concession till your vain hope shall be accomplished of triumphantly dictating reconciliation, you delay for ever: the force of this country would be disproportionately exerted against a brave, generous, and united people, with arms in their hands, and courage in their hearts-three millions of people, the genuine descendants of a valiant and pious ancestry, driven to those deserts by the narrow maxims of a superstitious tyranny. But is the spirit of persecution never to be appeased? Are the brave sons of those brave forefathers to inherit their sufferings, as they have inherited their virtues? Are they to sustain the infliction of the most oppressive and unexampled severity, beyond what history has related or poetry has feigned? Rhadamanthus habet durissima regna, But the Americans must not be heard; they have been condemned unheard. The indiscriminate hand of vengeance has devoted thirty thousand British subjects of all ranks, ages, and descriptions, to one common ruin. You may, no doubt, destroy their cities; you may cut them off from 1 the superfluities, perhaps the conveniences of life; but, my lords, they will still despise your power, for they have yet remaining 2 their woods and their liberty. What 3 though you march from town to town, from province to province; though you should be able to enforce a temporary and local submission: how shall you be able to secure the obedience of the country you leave behind you, in 1 leur enlever; or, les priver de. 2 there will remain still to them.' "Qu'importe que (with the pres. subj.); or, Quand même (with the conditional); or, sniply, Quand (with the conditional). |