“All London has fallen to reasoning on this marvellous adventure, and not an argument presents itself that some other does not contradict. I insist that I have a talisman.
“You must know that last winter, being asked by Lord Vere to assist in settling Lady Betty Germaine’s auction, I found in an old catalogue of her collection this article, ‘The Black Stone into which Dr. Dee used to call his spirits’ Dr. Dee, you must know, was a great conjuror in the days of Queen Elizabeth, and has written a folio of the dialogues he held with his imps. I asked eagerly for this stone; Lord Vere said he knew of no such thing hut, if found, it should certainly be at my service. Alas, the stone was gone!
“This winter I was again employed by Lord Frederic Campbell to do him the same service about his late father’s (the Duke of Argyle’s) collection. Among other odd things he produced a round piece of shining black marble in a leathern case, as big as the crown of a hat, and asked me what that possibly could be?
“I screamed out, ‘O Lord, I am the only man in England that can tell you! It is Dr. Dee’s Black Stone!’
“It certainly is; Lady Betty had formerly given away or sold, time out of mind, for she was a thousand years old, that part of the collection which contained natural philosophy. So, or since, the Black Stone had wandered into an auction, for the lotted paper is still on it. The Duke of Argyle, who bought everything, bought it. Lord Frederic gave it to me; and if it was not this magical stone, which is only of high-polished coal, that preserved my chattels, in truth I cannot guess what did.”
Thus, in gay mood, wrote Horace
Walpole to his nephew, Lord Orford; and ’twas Lord Orford who, taking a soberer view, brought the letter to Dr. Sam: Johnson. ’Twas his belief, that the thief who had missed his mark in Arlington Street, might try again, and succeed, at his uncle’s Twickenham estate, the famous Gothick castle of Strawberry Hill.
Dr. Johnson, concurring in this view, found himself forthwith whisked off to Strawberry Hill; and to my delight, for I had never seen the place, Lord Orford accommodated me also with a scat in his chariot.
We found Strawberry Hill to be a little miniature imitation of the Gothick, with lath-and-plaster battlements and a smell of raw wood. Nevertheless, it had every Gothick appurtenance, a chapel a-building in the garden, a great garden-seat like a shell, an oratory with its niches, a hermitage under a bank. A little toy house across the mead housed Kitty Clive, late the darling of the stage.
The chatelain of Strawberry greeted us in the library, when I perceived to my disquiet not only that he had not desired our presence or our assistance, but also that it was far from welcome to him. Indeed he looked at me askance when Orford named me, and knapped his thin lips together with ostentatious and ludicrous determination, as who should say, “Not one word shall pass my lips until this man and his notebook are out of earshot I”
“What the devil do you mean, George,” he muttered aside to Lord Orford, “by bringing ursa major—” by this disrespectful designation he intended Dr. Johnson — “to Strawberry?”
Dr. Johnson, by good fortune, was engrossed at the bookcases, oblivious of all else, but I watched the little passage enthralled. Mankind is my study.
Mr. Walpole is a point-device creature with a faded kind of fineness to his countenance, and large eyes full of sensibility. He frowned pettishly upon his nephew. Lord Orford is higher than his uncle, and broader, and smells of Newmarket. His scalded red countenance and his blank boiled eyes are susceptible of little change of expression, but a kind of grin broadened his loose mouth. He made no reply whatever, merely leered like a codfish, and after a moment our unwilling host shrugged, and dispatched a flunky to conduct us to our chambers.
“The Blue Bedchamber, George. The Red Bedchamber, Dr. Johnson. And for Mr. Boswell, as you affect the Gothick, you shall lie in the Round Tower.”
I heard Orford laughing to himself as he retired to the Blue Bedchamber. He sounded rather as if he could not stop.
Leaving Dr. Johnson at the Red Bedchamber adjoining, I followed my guide the fifty-foot length of the Great Gallery. At the west end a noble Gothick doorway led by way of a passage into the newly-completed Round Tower, which on this floor housed a handsome drawing-room. The flunky conducted me to the Round Bedchamber above, on the two-pair-of-stairs floor.
I took a romantick satisfaction in lodging in the Tower. The windows were mere slits set in deep embrasures. Opposite the bed hung a noble portrait of a gentleman in tilting-armour; he held his casque in his hand. Over the deep fireplace was Hogarth’s portrait of Sarah Malcolm the Temple murderess, which he painted in Newgate the night before her execution. In her uneasy company I erased the stains of travel before descending.
I found a distinguished company gathering in the Round Tower drawing-room. Mr. Walpole named me to them rather as if I had been a slug upon his roses. To my intense satisfaction, I found myself greeting the noble company upon a footing of acquaintanceship and mutual respect. They were Mr. Walpole’s neighbour, the Duke of Argyle, his brother Lord Frederic Campbell, and Lord Frederic’s lady, Lady Mary.
I stared covertly upon Lady Mary’s sweet face. She was the relict of the notorious Lawrence, Earl Ferrers, who for her sake murdered his steward, and was hanged for it. Suffering had stamped its mark upon her, but she held her head proudly.
To my mingled relief and chagrin, the Duchess was not one of us. She was the most famous beauty of the age. She had come to London a raw Irish girl, so beautiful she could not walk in St. James’s Park without a mob attending her; she had married the Duke of Hamilton at midnight with a ring from the bed-curtains; and when she tried to obtain for their son the Douglas patrimony, among the attorneys who defeated her was your humble servant, James Boswell — but that is all another story. Now she was by a second marriage the Duchess of Argyle — and what would she say to James Boswell?
“My wife will follow,” the Duke told Mr. Walpole, “in the carriage. The boy is ailing, and engages her attention.”
“I fear you will never raise him,” said Lady Mary gently.
“Nay, ma’am, he blooms in Argyle; ’tis but the air of London sends him into a decline.”
“Pray, Mr. Walpole,” Lord Frederic diverted the conversation, “has Dr. Johnson seen the treasures of Strawberry?”
“No, sir,” replied our host, “he is newly arrived this past hour.”
“May not he see them now,” begged Lord Frederic, “and we will all assist in the perambulation, and thus expend our time until our table at cards is complete?”
I thought the Duke looked mighty bored, as the new saying is; but Dr. Johnson bowed polite acquiescence, and Mr. Walpole seized upon the proposal with enthusiasm.
A great fire burned in the gallery as we admired the paintings with which the walls were hung, and the antique marbles that lined the hall.
“Make way,” cried a deep rich voice with a chuckle in it, “for still another of Horde’s antiques!”
Into the gallery like a City Company’s state barge surged Kitty Clive, the beloved actress, now a hearty ample woman of some sixty years.
Orford, up to this time sunk in the sullens, brightened at sight of her.
“Damme,” he shouted, “filly or mare, ’tis all one to me! Have at thee, Kitty!”
He rumpled her, and had a box o’ the car for his pains.