Whom I afterwards crossed the Rocky Mountains, the
last Lord Durham, my cousin, Sir Augustus Stephenson, ex-
solicitor to the Treasury, Julian Fane, whose lyrics were
edited by Lord Lytton, and my life-long friend Charles
Barrington, private secretary to Lord Palmerston and to Lord
John Russell.
But the most intimate of them was George Cayley, son of the
member for the East Riding of Yorkshire. Cayley was a young
man of much promise. In his second year he won the
University prize poem with his 'Balder,' and soon after
published some other poems, and a novel, which met with
merited oblivion. But it was as a talker that he shone. His
quick intelligence, his ready wit, his command of language,
made his conversation always lively, and sometimes brilliant.
For several years after I left Cambridge I lived with him in
his father's house in Dean's Yard, and thus made the
acquaintance of some celebrities whom his fascinating and
versatile talents attracted thither. As I shall return to
this later on, I will merely mention here the names of such
men as Thackeray, Tennyson, Frederick Locker, Stirling of
Keir, Tom Taylor the dramatist, Millais, Leighton, and others
of lesser note. Cayley was a member of, and regular
attendant at, the Cosmopolitan Club; where he met Dickens,
Foster, Shirley Brooks, John Leech, Dicky Doyle, and the wits
of the day; many of whom occasionally formed part of our
charming coterie in the house I shared with his father.
Speaking of Tom Taylor reminds me of a good turn he once did
me in my college examination at Cambridge. Whewell was then
Master of Trinity. One of the subjects I had to take up was
either the 'Amicitia' or the 'Senectute' (I forget which).
Whewell, more formidable and alarming than ever, opened the
book at hazard, and set me on to construe. I broke down. He
turned over the page; again I stuck fast. The truth is, I
had hardly looked at my lesson, - trusting to my recollection
of parts of it to carry me through, if lucky, with the whole.
'What's your name, sir?' was the Master's gruff inquiry. He
did not catch it. But Tom Taylor - also an examiner -
sitting next to him, repeated my reply, with the addition,
'Just returned from China, where he served as a midshipman in
the late war.' He then took the book out of Whewell's hands,
and giving it to me closed, said good-naturedly: 'Let us
have another try, Mr. Coke.' The chance was not thrown away;
I turned to a part I knew, and rattled off as if my first
examiner had been to blame, not I.
CHAPTER X
BEFORE dropping the curtain on my college days I must relate
a little adventure which is amusing as an illustration of my
reverend friend Napier's enthusiastic spontaneity. My own
share in the farce is a subordinate matter.
During the Christmas party at Holkham I had 'fallen in love,'
as the phrase goes, with a young lady whose uncle (she had
neither father nor mother) had rented a place in the
neighbourhood. At the end of his visit he invited me to
shoot there the following week. For what else had I paid him
assiduous attention, and listened like an angel to the
interminable history of his gout? I went; and before I left,
proposed to, and was accepted by, the young lady. I was
still at Cambridge, not of age, and had but moderate means.
As for the maiden, 'my face is my fortune' she might have
said. The aunt, therefore, very properly pooh-poohed the
whole affair, and declined to entertain the possibility of an
engagement; the elderly gentleman got a bad attack of gout;
and every wire of communication being cut, not an obstacle
was wanting to render persistence the sweetest of miseries.
Napier was my confessor, and became as keen to circumvent the
'old she-dragon,' so he called her, as I was. Frequent and
long were our consultations, but they generally ended in
suggestions and schemes so preposterous, that the only result
was an immoderate fit of laughter on both sides. At length
it came to this (the proposition was not mine): we were to
hire a post chaise and drive to the inn at G-. I was to
write a note to the young lady requesting her to meet me at
some trysting place. The note was to state that a clergyman
would accompany me, who was ready and willing to unite us
there and then in holy matrimony; that I would bring the
licence in my pocket; that after the marriage we could confer
as to ways and means; and that - she could leave the REST to
me.
No enterprise was ever more merrily conceived, or more
seriously undertaken. (Please to remember that my friend was
not so very much older than I; and, in other respects, was
quite as juvenile.)
Whatever was to come of it, the drive was worth the venture.
The number of possible and impossible contingencies provided
for kept us occupied by the hour. Furnished with a well-
filled luncheon basket, we regaled ourselves and fortified
our courage; while our hilarity increased as we neared, or
imagined that we neared, the climax. Unanimously we repeated
Dr. Johnson's exclamation in a post chaise: 'Life has not
many things better than this.'
But where were we? Our watches told us that we had been two
hours covering a distance of eleven miles.
'Hi! Hullo! Stop!' shouted Napier. In those days post
horses were ridden, not driven; and about all we could see of
the post boy was what Mistress Tabitha Bramble saw of
Humphrey Clinker. 'Where the dickens have we got to now?'
'Don't know, I'm sure, sir,' says the boy; 'never was in
these 'ere parts afore.'
'Why,' shouts the vicar, after a survey of the landscape, 'if
I can see a church by daylight, that's Blakeney steeple; and
we are only three miles from where we started.'
Sure enough it was so.
