Buch lesen: «Some Distinguished Victims of the Scaffold», Seite 5

Naturally, the acquittal of Mrs Rudd determined the fate of the unfortunate twins, who had been kept alive all this time pending the result of her trial. Only in one way could Robert, deemed the less guilty, have been spared. Had Daniel confessed that he was the forger, exonerating his brother, probably a pardon would have been granted. Not being built, however, after the fashion of martyrs, he continued to make frantic protests of innocence, thereby sealing the doom of both. For arguments that were incredible merely in the case of the apothecary became preposterous when applied to Daniel. Yet the loyalty of Robert was admirable, as although he knew that his one hope was to be dissociated from his brother, he would not pretend that he had been his dupe. Desperate efforts were made to save the unhappy men. A petition, signed by more than seventy bankers and influential men of business, was presented to the King. Mrs Robert Perreau with her three children, all in deep mourning, flung herself at the feet of the Queen. But good King George III. was a stranger to mercy, and Justice Mansfield was not the sort of person to make the introduction.

On Wednesday, the 17th of January 1776 – a bitter morning, with keen frost in the air and deep snow on the ground – the two poor brothers were led out to die. When they were brought from the chapel into the day-room within the Press Yard, to await the coming of the hangmen, they found only a few faithful friends who wished to say farewell. For, to prevent an unseemly crowd, good Keeper Akerman stood himself at the gate of the fatal quadrangle, denying entrance even to his own acquaintances. Daniel Perreau, apparently unmoved, gave a bow to his friends, and then sought the warmth of the fire. Robert, less resolute than his brother, was unmanned for an instant by the sight of the cords and halters upon the table. In a few moments their steps were ringing across the flags of the courtyard, as with bound arms they followed the Sheriffs towards the gate. Those who gazed upon these poor victims of a merciless law testify that their tread was firm and their faces hopeful and serene. For, save in that first base betrayal of a woman, no one can accuse Daniel and Robert Perreau of cowardice. Five others bore them company to the grave.

Shortly after nine o’clock the City Marshals, attended by the full panoply of sheriffdom, started the procession. Next came an open cart, covered with black baize, where sat three of the convicts, and then a hurdle, dragged by four horses, on which rested a pair of wretches condemned for coining. And last, there followed the sombre mourning-coach – a special privilege – with the unhappy brothers. All around lay a winding sheet of snow, crusted thick on the housetops, piled in deep billows against the walls. A piercing east wind shot down the Old Bailey, while the prison gleamed in the frosty mist like a monument of hard black ice.

Beyond Newgate Street the bell in St Sepulchre’s high steeple rang fiercely over the frozen roofs, as though pealing forth a pæan of exultation upon the procession of death. Here there came a halt in the march, while from the steps of the church, in time-honoured fashion, the sexton delivered his solemn exhortation to the condemned prisoners: —

“All good people, pray heartily unto God for these poor sinners, who are now going to their death, for whom this great bell doth toll…

 
“Lord have mercy upon you,
Christ have mercy upon you.”
 

Backwards and forwards around the mourning-coach surged the mob, clamouring with ribald fury for a glimpse of the celebrated forgers. Robert Perreau, sitting with his back to the horses beside one of the sheriff’s officers, pulled down the glass meekly, and gazed out with calm, unruffled features. Then the long journey was resumed. Over the heavy road the wheels and hoofs slipped and crunched down the slopes of Snow Hill, and toiled up the steep ascent into Holbourn. Standing erect in the cart, George Lee, a handsome boy highwayman, gorgeous in a crimson coat and ruffled shirt, doffed his gold-laced hat with a parade of gallantry to a young woman in a hackney coach. Then, while a hundred eyes and a hundred loathsome jests were turned upon her, the poor girl burst into a flood of tears. In another moment her lover had passed away for ever. Huddled in the same tumbril with the swaggering youth, a couple of Jews, condemned for housebreaking, shook and chattered with dread, their yellow faces livid as death, a strange contrast to their florid, bombastic companion. Shivering with cold, the two tortured coiners were jolted over the snow, bound fast to their hurdle, their limbs turned to ice by the frost. Within the black coach, the brothers listened calmly and reverently to the prayers with which Ordinary Villette, who sat by the side of Daniel, supplicated the Almighty to pardon these victims unworthy of human mercy. And all the while, the mob – forty thousand strong – shrieked, danced and hurled snowballs, maddened like fierce animals by the scent of blood.

It was only half-past ten o’clock when the cortege reached the triple tree. Two separate gallows had been prepared, for it was not meet that Hebrew and Christian should hang from the same branch. So the tumbril was drawn under the smaller crossbar, and, their halters being fixed, the two Jews were left to their rabbi; while highwayman Lee, and the coiners Baker and Ratcliffe, were placed in a second cart. Seated in their coach a little distance away, the two brothers watched these ghastly preparations with unruffled mien. When all was ready Sheriff Newnham gave them a signal, and they descended to the ground. A moment later they were standing beside their three wretched compatriots. Then the Rev. Villette came forward to play his usual part. Holding the same prayer-book, Daniel and Robert Perreau followed the services with pious attention, their reverence forming a marked contrast to the swagger of the boy highwayman. For some time they were allowed to converse with the Ordinary, and each gave him a paper containing a last solemn declaration of their innocence. It was noticed that Daniel raised his eyes to the sky, and boldly asserted that he was guiltless.

At half-past eleven all was ready for the final scene. Ordinary Villette offered a last shake of the hand; Sheriffs Haley and Newnham bowed in solemn farewell. Having been fee’d by his distinguished clients, Jack Ketch gave a moment’s grace while the brothers embraced tenderly. Faithful unto death, the brave fellows exhibited more nobility in their last few hours than during the whole of their lives. As the cart drew away and their foothold slipped beneath them, their hands were still clasped together. For a full half minute their fingers remained linked as they dangled in the air, and then fell apart as they passed into oblivion beside their five dying companions. Four days later, on Sunday, the 21st of January, they were buried together in a vault within St Martin’s Church, Ludgate Hill.

No mob could have behaved with more indecency than the howling, laughing throng that gazed upon this scene of death, increasing by their wanton rioting the agony of the poor sufferers a thousandfold. With great difficulty an army of constables – three hundred in number – kept a clear space around the scaffold. After the spectacle was over it was found that there had been numerous accidents. A woman was beaten down and pressed to death; a youth was killed by a fall from a coach. One of the stands near the gallows collapsed during the execution, and three or four persons lost their lives.

In the history of crime the case of the unfortunate brothers forms an important landmark. Although many a forger had gone to the gallows before, they were the first ‘distinguished victims’ of the merciless code. Thus their fate served as a precedent. “If Dr Dodd is pardoned, then the Perreaus have been murdered!” quoth the crazy king, when he was asked to forgive ‘the macaroni parson’ Henceforth, it was as safe to blow out a man’s brains as to counterfeit his handwriting. At last, when the first humane monarch for more than a hundred years set his face against such butchery the lawgivers were unable to preserve the bloody statutes that had slaughtered thousands during the half century which separated the deaths of Robert Perreau and Henry Fauntleroy. By the side of Mackintosh, Romilly, and Ewart, the fourth George is entitled to an honourable place.

Public opinion changed once more with wonted inconsistency after the acquittal of Mrs Rudd, and the apothecary in particular, as the bankers’ petition indicates, received the widest sympathy. Still, it seems strange that his guilt could have been doubted by reasonable persons. No other defence was open to him save the one he used, old as human sin – it was the woman! – and even this apology involved the most absurd pretences. Clearly, the fable had been prearranged between the conspirators. Treachery brought its own reward, and Robert Perreau, forgetting that there should be honour among thieves, was ruined because he did not trust his fair accomplice to the full extent. No doubt she would have soothed sea-dog Frankland just as she pacified the bankers Drummond.

In all the sordid history the one bright spot is the loyalty of charming, wicked Mrs Rudd to her grimy confederates, for the scene in old William Adair’s parlour on that stormy March morning might well have cost her life. Had the bankers proved to be curmudgeons, the Perreaus would not have raised a hand to save her from the shambles. Since she must have known the men who were her associates, she must have realised also her own risk. Yet still she kept her faith, while perceiving that safety lay in betrayal. Truly a noble act of heroism, though based upon a mud-heap. Thus when we bear in mind how the two brothers repaid her trust, and reflect upon the breach of law-honour sanctioned by James Mansfield, there comes the obvious suspicion that, whatever her iniquity, the woman was more than repaid in her own coin.

Little is remembered of her subsequent history. A few days after her trial it is recorded that she visited the play in Lord Lyttelton’s chariot. During the following spring she was honoured by the polite attentions of James Boswell. On the 15th of May of this year, great Johnson himself declared that he would have visited her at the same time as his fidus Achates were it not that they had a trick of putting everything in the newspapers! Possibly other references occur in ‘Bon Ton Magazines’ or similar chroniques scandaleuses, now treasured in tree calf or crushed morocco, and vended at so many guineas per ounce. There is a hint somewhere that her charms had begun to wane, although she was only thirty at the time of her trial, for a life and experiences such as hers trace lines upon the face and dim the lustre of the eye. Still, whatever the cause, we may conjecture that her friendship with Lord Lyttelton did not last much longer than a couple of years, as, while he succumbed to the famous bad dreams on the 27th of November, she died before June 1779 in very distressed circumstances. Possibly she was supplanted by the famous Mrs Dawson.

In the testimony of her contemporaries there is unanimity with regard to the beauty and wit of Margaret Rudd – the sole grudge, even of the women, being that she was clever enough to cheat the gallows. To pretend sympathy with those who were saddened because she received no punishment is superlative cant, for the penalty would have been out of all proportion to the offence. Thus the cheers that rang through the Old Bailey on that December evening long ago find an echo in our hearts to-day. Moreover, since it was needful to offer up a propitiatory sacrifice to Mammon, it was a shrewd common-sense that selected the brothers as the more deserving of the awful atonement.

In the scarlet pages of the chronicles of crime there is not another dazzling figure such as the mistress of poor Daniel Perreau. Yet she walks across the dim stage in the guise of no tragedy queen as Miss Blandy. If at all, she compels our tears amidst our smiles, and such tears are the most gentle and spontaneous. Light, sparkling, joyous, she chases pleasure with reckless laughter, meeting the fate of all who pursue the glittering wisp, heedless of the deepening mire through which they tread. It is wrong to watch her dainty person with delight, but we cannot avert our eyes. Alas, transit gloria mundi! One of the most excellent of modern critics speaks truly of this immortal lady as a forgotten heroine of the Newgate Calendar, and she – the idol of princes and lord mayors – has not received a niche among the national biographies!

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE PERREAU CASE

I. Contemporary Tracts

1. The Female Forgery, Or Fatal Effects of Unlawful Love. J. Bew, No. 28 Paternoster Row. Price 1/6. “With a beautiful whole-length portrait of Mrs Rudd resolving whether to sign the Bond or forfeit her life. From the capital drawing of an eminent master.” (Published April 22, 1775.)

2. Forgery Unmasked, or Genuine Memoirs of the Two Unfortunate Brothers, Rob. and Daniel Perreau, and Mrs Rudd. A. Grant, Bridges Street, Covent Garden. Price 1/. “Illustrated with a New and Beautiful Engraving of Mr Dan. Perreau in the act of threatening to Murder Mrs. Rudd, unless she would sign the Fatal Bond.” (April 25, 1775. A pro-Rudd Tract, containing the case of Mrs Rudd, as related by herself, which appeared originally as a series of letters in the Morning Post from March 27 to April 10.)

3. Genuine Memoirs of Messieurs Perreau; (Now under Confinement.) With many Curious Anecdotes relative to Mrs Rudd; G. Allen, No. 59 Paternoster Row. Price 1/6. Brit. Mus. (April 26, 1775.)

4. The Genuine Memoirs of the Messers Perreau. G. Kearsley, 46 Fleet Street. Price 1/6. (Published May 11, 1775. Second edition June 8, 1775.)

5. The Trials of Robert and Daniel Perreau. T. Bell, at (No. 26) the Top of Bell-Yard, near Temple Bar. Taken down in shorthand by Joseph Gurney. (June 6, 1775.)

6. Mr. Daniel Perreau’s Narrative of His Unhappy Case. T. Evans, No. 50 in the Strand, near York Buildings. Price 2/. Brit. Mus. (June 9, 1775.)

7. A Letter to the Right Hon. Earl of Suffolk… In which the Innocence of Robert Perreau is demonstrated. T. Hookham, at his Circulating Library, the Corner of Hanover Street, Hanover Square. Price 1/. Brit. Mus. (July 13, 1775.)

8. Facts, or a Plain and Explicit Narrative of the Case of Mrs. Rudd. T. Bell, 26 Bell-Yard, Temple Bar. Price 2/. Brit. Mus. (July 1775. This tract contains the “Case of Mrs. Rudd as related by herself,” with the addition of her “Narrative,” which appeared originally in the Morning Post. July 1, 3, 4, 7, 10, and 14.)

9. Observations on the Trial of Mr. Robert Perreau. With Mr. Perreau’s Defence, as spoken on His Trial. S. Bladon, No. 16 Paternoster Row. Price 2/. Brit. Mus. (July 17, 1775.)

10. The True Genuine Lives and Trials, etc. of the Two Unfortunate Brothers. Illustrated with Two New and Beautiful Engravings, 1st. Daniel Perreau threatening to Murder Mrs Rudd … 2nd. The two Perreaus lamenting their unhappy fate. J. Miller, White Lion Street, Goodman’s Fields. Brit. Mus. (1775.)

11. An Account of the Arguments of Counsel… On Sat., Sept. 16. 1775, whether Mrs. Rudd ought to be tried, etc. By Joseph Gurney. Sold by Martha Gurney, No. 34 Bell-Yard, Temple Bar. 1775. price 1/6. Brit. Mus.

12. The Case of Mrs. Margaret Caroline Rudd, from her first Commitment to Newgate on Thursday, the 1st of June, last to her final acquittal at the Old Bailey, Friday, December 8, 1775. J. Bew, No. 28 Paternoster Row. (December 15, 1775.)

13. The Whole Proceedings on the King’s Commission of the Peace, Oyer and Terminer, and Gaol Delivery for the City of London; and also the Gaol Delivery for the County of Middlesex; Held at Justice Hall in the Old Bailey, on Wednesday, the 6th of December, 1775, and the following Days. Revised and published by John Glynn, Serjeant at Law and Recorder of London. No. 1. Part I. Printed by William Richardson for Edward and Charles Dilby, price 9d. (December 19, 1775.)

14. The Trial at Large of Mrs. Margaret Caroline Rudd. Elucidated by such Matter as never before transpired. By Mr. Bailey, Barrister-at-Law. Sold at No. 26 Bell-Yard near Temple Bar. (1775.) London Library.

15. A Solemn Declaration of Mr. Daniel Perreau… Written by himself and Delivered to a Friend in the Cells of Newgate on Sunday, January 14. 1776. T. Evans, near York Buildings in the Strand, price 1/. Brit. Mus. (January 22, 1776.)

16. A Genuine Account of the Behaviour and Dying Words of Daniel and Robert Perreau. By the Reverend John Villette, Ordinary of Newgate. Printed for the Author and sold at his house, No. 1 Newgate St. 1776. Brit. Mus. (1776.)

17. An Explicit Account of the Lives, Trials, Dying Words, and Burial of the Twin Brothers. Brit. Mus. (1776. Without the publisher’s name.)

18. Mrs. Marg. Car. Rudd’s Case Considered, Respecting Robert Perreau. In an Address to Henry Drummond Esquire, J. Wilkie, No. 71, In St Paul’s Churchyard. Price 1/. (January 26, 1776.)

19. Mrs. M. C. Rudd’s Genuine Letter to Lord Weymouth… Together with An Explanation of the Conduct of a certain Great City Patriot. G. Kearsly in Fleet St. Price 1/. Brit. Mus. (March 5, 1776. The original letter appeared in the Morning Post, January 16, 1776.)

20. A Letter from Mrs. Christian Hart to Mrs. Margaret Caroline Rudd. J. Williams. No. 46, opposite Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, price 1/. Brit. Mus. (Published March 23, 1776.)

21. She is, and She is Not; A Fragment of the True History of Miss Caroline De Grosberg, alias Mrs. Potter, etc. J. Bew, No. 28 Paternoster Row. Price 1/6 Brit. Mus. (Published April 24, 1776.)

22. Authentic Anecdotes of the Life and Transactions of Mrs. Margaret Rudd … in a series of letters to … Miss Mary Lovell. “In two neat pocket volumes, price 4/ sewed, or 5/ bound, embellished with a striking likeness taken from the life and engraved by G. Bartolozzi.” J. Bew, No. 28 Paternoster Row. Brit. Mus. (Published June 16, 1776.)

23. Prudence Triumphing over Vanity and Dissipation; or the History of the Life, Character, and Conduct of Mr. Robert, and Mr. Daniel Perreau, and Mrs. Rudd. J. Maling, Bookseller, the corner of Fleet Market, Ludgate-hill; J. Bradshaw, No. 40, St John Street, Clerkenwell; and J. Naples, Greenwich. Brit. Mus.

24. A Particular Account of the Dreadful and Shocking Apparitions of the two unfortunate Perreaus. Brit. Mus. (Broadside. Published later than February 30, 1776.)

Lowndes mentions also: —

25. An Authentic Account of the Particulars which appeared on the Trials of Robert and Daniel Perreau. Nassau, pt. ii. 746.

26. The History of the Life, Character, and Conduct of Mr. Daniel and Robert Perreau and Mrs. Rudd. London 8. vo.

27. Law Observations on the Case of Mrs. Rudd. By a Gentleman of the Inner Temple. 8. vo. 1/6.

II. Contemporary Newspapers and Magazines

THE SONG “ROBIN ADAIR”

V. Notes and Queries.

Third Series, v. 404, 442, 500; vi. 35, 96, 176, 254.Fourth Series, viii. 548; ix. 99, 130, 197.Fifth Series, v. 20.Eighth Series, vii. 267; x. 196, 242, 426; xi. 32.

Although both words and music may have been plagiarised from old Irish ballad and old Irish melody, it is probable that the story of Surgeon Robert Adair and Lady Caroline Keppel suggested the later version of John Braham, December 17, 1811.

Note. – We are indebted to Sir Thomas Frankland for one of the most charming mezzotints by Wm. Ward, after Hoppner – a picture of his two daughters.

THE KING’S ENGRAVER
THE CASE OF WILLIAM WYNNE RYLAND, 1783

About the time that Miss Blandy was commencing her ill-fated amour with Captain Cranstoun, a dark-eyed boy with earnest, clear-cut features, often carrying a portfolio of drawings under his arm, might have been met by any one who strolled along Fleet Street or the Strand in the early morning between Charing Cross and the Old Bailey. From his home beneath the grim shadow of Newgate prison, where his father, Edward Ryland, prints and engraves in a house next door to that in which thief-taker Wild levied blackmail, the young artist trudges each day to the St Martin’s Lane Academy. And should one meet him in the autumn of 1749, he will be wearing a suit of solemn black; and his grave, eager face will seem more sombre than wont, for his patron and godfather, the good and kind Sir Watkin Williams-Wynne, has been killed by a fall from his horse, to the unspeakable grief of every son of gallant little Wales.

Around the school of drawing where young Ryland is learning his craft, a new world is springing into life – a world of fancy, grace, and colour, destined to free old London from the sable sway of dulness. It is the world of art, over which the deep black deluge has rested for so long, soon to be peopled with the bright creations of genius. William Wynne Ryland will see some of these great ones ere he leaves St Martin’s Lane for the studio of a new master. Often, as he passes the coffee-tavern of Old Slaughter, he must catch sight of a placid, round-faced young man, with a mild pair of eyes that seem to need the aid of glasses, hurrying down Long Acre, while he envies Mr Reynolds, the portrait-painter, who has the entry to the Club that meets beneath the roof where Pope has held his court. Or, when he looks up at the house where the elegant Thornhill lived and worked, now the residence of Beau Hayman, more at home with the bottle than the brush, he may observe a tall, sentimental youth springing through the door, whose thoughts are far away amidst the woods and dales of Sudbury, where dwells a pretty miss called Peggy. And possibly, a little later, he will listen to the romantic fable that Tom Gainsborough has married a princess in disguise. Sometimes he may meet a middle-aged compatriot, named Richard Wilson, whose glowing scenes from Nature are to wrest the guerdon from France, and to found the incomparable school of British landscape.

Frequently a smile will steal over Wynne Ryland’s grave, nervous lips, as a small boy with a big head and a long, Punch-like body scampers down the lane, whirling his crooked legs, and he will hail the truant with the cry: “What, little Joey, have you been tolling for a funeral?” But the breathless lad, who has wasted too much time in his favourite game of assisting his friend the sexton at St James’s Church, scuttles back to his casts and models. Perhaps, one day, this little Joey Nollekens, who in good time produces many a beautiful bust and statue, will be allowed to take his friend into the studio of the great good-natured Roubiliac. “Hush, hush!” we can hear the volatile master cry, as he drags his young admirer before the figure which his deft chisel has caressed for a last time; “look, he vil speak in a minute!” And as the youth gazes upon the noble work, his quick Welsh blood, warmed by the infection of genius, glows with like ambition to do and dare. Soon, also, he becomes a pupil of the sculptor in St Peter’s Court, from whom, whatever else he learns, he must acquire a boundless self-confidence.

Shortly after the death of his godfather, young Wynne Ryland, now about seventeen years old, is bound apprentice to engraver Ravenet, who came over from France to help Hogarth with his plates, and who has set up a school south of the river in Lambeth Marsh. As the crows flies, it is a short journey from the Old Bailey, but one must turn up Ludgate Hill, wind round Black Friars through Water Lane, holding one’s nose if the wind comes north-west down the grimy Fleet, and from the steps take wherry to the Surrey side. Across the Thames, the wide, deep ditches, bordered by their fringes of willows, have changed the moss into a fertile plain.

Old Ryland is careful to conciliate the French artist now and then by a judicious commission, which takes the form of woolly book-plates after Sam Wale – classic pictures according to Queen Anne traditions, filled with urns and hose-pipe torches, wooden scrolls of parchment, and busts on pillar-boxes, gentlemen in cotton dressing-gowns, with stony beards, and demure ladies in flowing nightshirts. We meet these curious plates in a rare copy of the Book of Common Prayer, with the sign of Edward Ryland of the Old Bailey, and similar ones in Sir John Hawkins’ interpretation of Old Isaac. Young Wynne takes his part in the work, and though Master François gives him the lead, aided by fellow-countrymen Canot and Scotin, while the senior prentices, Grignion and Walker, also ply their gravers, a glance at ‘Luke the Physician,’ or ‘St Matthew at the Receipt of Custom’ will show that the youthful Welshman already is the equal of the best of them. Thus for five years he works under Ravenet.

It must have been a happy home in that dingy, sunless house in the Old Bailey, where Wynne Ryland’s early days were spent. The father, busy and prosperous, devoted to his wife, eager to encourage the talents of his boys, and observing proudly, with expert eye, the amazing genius of his third son. Yet over all there broods the sad shadow of the grim prison. Often in the night the silence is broken by the hoarse voice of the bellman chanting this refrain: —

 
“You prisoners that are within,
Who for wickedness and sin,
 

“After many Mercies shown you, are now appointed to Dye to Morrow in the Forenoon: Give Ear and understand that to-morrow the Greatest Bell of St Sepulchre’s shall toll for you, in Form and Manner of a Passing Bell, as used to be tolled for those that are at the Point of Death…”

It is the loathly knell of the unhappy wretches within the deep black walls. And in the morning the awful boom of St Sepulchre rolls over the housetops, while a ribald, drunken mob chokes the street. Then comes the clank and clatter of sheriffs officers, and, as the procession moves from the iron portals of Newgate, there follows an open cart, driven by a gruesome creature astride a coffin, and in which, bound and quaking, lie the poor passengers to Tyburn. Such scenes are a portion of the boyhood of William Wynne Ryland, the great engraver.

But, after the long years of his apprenticeship have rolled away, a brighter and more glittering life than dingy old London, or even the whole world, can show, comes to the young genius. Since his youth Paris has been whispering to him her enticing summons – Paris, the Cyprus of art, where beauty, love, and colour walk hand in hand, and where he whose fingers can fashion their charms may become mightiest of the mighty. Two friends and old school-fellows are eager to make the same pilgrimage, and the indulgent parent, whose foresight perceives whither the talents of his gifted son will lead him, gives his consent. Although he knows that if the lowering storm-clouds shall burst, a visit to France may mean exile until the close of the war, he resolves that the young man shall pursue his art in the studios of the great French masters. So, early one morning the three enthusiasts mount Christopher Shaw’s stage-coach at the sign of the ‘Golden Cross’ and resting at Canterbury over night, reach Dover in good time the next day. With a fair wind, a stout smack will touch the opposite coast in a few hours, where they must tolerate a much less speedy team and a more shaky vehicle along the road to Paris.

It is the eve before the deluge, and a sunset, having no part in the morrow, most brilliant and gorgeous of aspect. To the eye of the poet or painter there is no blemish in the fair landscape. His vision rests only upon graceful palace or shining gardens. Around the fountains, over the lawns, glide the creatures of Arcadia – beautiful gentlemen in dazzling frocks and scented ruffles, toying with bejewelled sword or flicking the lid of a golden snuff-box, moving their satin limbs in obeisance to their fair partners. Sweet ladies with snowy ringlets falling upon bare shoulders, the bloom of roses in their cheeks, and the sheen of pearls on their round breasts, fluttering like butterflies amidst the flower-beds, clad in shimmering draperies, flashing in a blaze of colour. Or, in the twinkling of an eye, the picture may dissolve, to become more entrancing. My lord now trips the mead a dainty Strephon, tuning his pipes, and shaking the ribbands at his knees, while his highborn Phyllis, still wearing her powdered hair and disdainful patches, twirls her silken ankles in the graceful freedom of short frocks. What though these scenes dwell only on the canvas of the painter of Valenciennes! They are as real as were visions of angels to the dreamer Blake! In the eyes of the artist the whole of laughing France must be a fairy Arcadia such as this, for the witching Pompadour, who fulfils the thoughts of prescient Watteau, directs the dance.

Then from the thicket comes the tinkle of silvery laughter, where the paths wind beneath the branches to lonely dells, through which the sunlight streams in floods of amber between the leaves. Here, amidst the gold and olive shadows, which chase each other in flickering play round some graven image of goat-faced Pan, flits a wanton lady, flying from her persistent lover, but laughing, tripping, and calling to him still, as she draws him onward. Or, in the cool grove, crowned by a wealth of ivy-tinged greenery, a sylph-like figure sweeps through the air in her velvet swing, and her shining arms, raised to grasp the ropes, throw the contours of her form into shapely pose. From the bushes beneath sounds a burst of raillery, as her swain rises to his feet, gazing with rapture as the pretty girl flies past him and returns, adoring the tiny slippers, and the silken hose that vanish in dainty curves beneath a fluttering screen of drapery. The fancy of Fragonard has painted the spirit of his age – a world full of leaves, and flowers, and sunshine, where life moves with the rhythmic cadence of the swing, where every breath is pleasure, recking naught of pain or death.