The Sun.
London, England, 1867-01-04 00:00:00

RIL.

Old. Stories Re-Told.

(From Dickens's "All the Year Round.")

TH MIAS GRIFFITHS WAINE WRIGHT (JANUS WEATHER.

COCK), THE POISONER.
One of those pleasant winter evenings, when fires
burn frosty blue, and hearts grow warmer as the
weather grows colder. It is an evening soon after

he ascent to the throne of .his Most Gracious
lesty King George the Fourth.

A pleasant, merry, and highly intellectual par'y,
are dining at the house of the publishers of ',.hat
clever periodical the " Lond ,n Magazine.;" in
Waterloo-place, to cerebrate the new proprietorship.
The cloth has been removed, the glasses sparkle in '
the light of the wax candles, the wine glows ruby
and topaz in the fast revolving decanters, -the
oranges gleam golden, the crystallised fruits glitter
with jewel!ed frost, the chestnuts, tight in their
leather jackets, are hoarding their warm floury me
for the palates of poet. 3 and thinkers, puns arc flash-,
ing in the air like fireworks, smart sayings are dal c_.
ing past like dragon-flies, even the gravest frhers
glow and brighten. A ring,of brilliants the party
resembles; for there is no one round the well-spyead
table but has a name in the world of letters or in.
the world of fashion. There is Charles Lamb, uo'
busy with his " Elia," the finest essays ever writt,ja
a little grave man in black, but with the face of a
genius ; Hazlitt is glorying in a Titian, upon which
he is expatiating ; Thomas Hood, with a frAce like
that of an invalid Plato, is watching for a pun like
a fly-fisher waiting for his cast. The Rev. H. Cary
_ _

(the translator of Dante), the mildest and gentlest
of men, is explaining a passage of the " Inferno" to
that fine, vigorous Scotch poet, Allan Cunninghatrl,
the sculptor. Mr. Proctor (Barry Cornwall), in
his own kind, cheery way, is defending a fine pas..
sage in Ben Jonsou from the volatile ilipparAcy of
the art-critic and gay dilettante of the magazine—
to wit—Janus Weathercock, otherwise Thoma 4
Griffiths Wainewright. ,

He is a fop and a dandy, but is clever, has a re-
fined taste, and is the kindliest and most light-
hearted creature in the world. He has run throug4
one fortune, has been in some dragoon regime/it,
and no doubt distinguished himself against the
French—if he ever met them. He is on the wrong
side of thirty, and records his military career by that
exquisitely blue undress military coat he wears, all
braided and befrogged down the front. His cravat
is tied to a nicety. His manner most gallant, in-
sinuating, and winning. His face, however, is by
no means that of the mere dandy. His head is
massive, and widens at the back. His eyes are deeply
set in their orbits. His jaw is square and solid. He

seldom looks the person he talks to full in the face.
He has his hair curled every morning (a stray ring-
let or so left free), and slightly stoops. His expres-
sion is at once repelling and fdscinating.
He is übiquitous. Go to the Park, and you ob-
serve him in his phaeton, leaning out with his
cream-coloured gloves and his large turned-down
wristbands conspicuous over .the splashboard. Go
to old Lady Fitzrattle's ball the same evening, and
you will see the fascinating creature with the belle
of the evening, gracefully revolving in the waltz.
In the club library he is conspicuous ; at the supper
party he is the merriest and the gayest. He has
fortunately left us portraits of himself both at the.
coffee-house and at home.
Let us see the charming man at 9 o'clock on a
November evening, 1822. The diners at George's
Coffee-house, 213, Strand, then the great resort of
Kentish lawyers and men from the Temple, are all
gone but three—two young barristers in the last box
but one from the fire, and next to them a fashion-
ably dressed man with the exquisite cravat, the
square jaw, and the deep-set eyes, that we at once
recognise. George's was famous for its soups and
wines, and Mr. Wainewright has dined luxuriously.
A bottle of the rarest wine he has sipped away with
supercilious pleasure. lie now holds to the candle,
in an affected manner, displaying carefully his
white jewelled fingers, a little glass of eau de vie de
Dantzig, and is languidly watching the little flakes,
or, as he would call them, " aureate particles," float
and glimmer in the oily and glutinous fluid like
scales of gold. fish. The voices in the next box
catch his ear ; he lis;.cns. The one Templar is read-
ing to the other with unction an article by Janus
Weathercock in the last London Magazine.
" Soothed into that desirable sort of self-
satisfaction so necessary to the bodying out
those deliciously voluptuous ideas perfumed with
languor which occasionally swim and undulate like
gauzy clouds over the brain of the most cold-blooded
men, we put forth one hand to the folio,which leant
against a chair by the sofa side, and, at hap-hazard,
extracted thence Lancret's charming Repas—
A summer party in the greenwood shade,
With wine prepared and cloth on herbage laid,
And ladies' laughter coming through the air.
'itimini.

This completed the Charm."
The gay writer listens with half-turned head,
gloating over every word, inhaling the intense so
delicious to his vanity, taking care, however, that
the waiter is not looking. Again they are talking
about it.
First Voice—" How glowing, how exquisite, how
recherché, how elegant, how full of the true West-
end manner! A fine mind that young fellow has.
Oh, he'll do."
Second Voice—" Don't like it. Flashy assump-
tion. Mere amateur stuff. By-the-by, when does
that case of Badger versus Beaver come on, Jones ?
Isn't to-day the 15th ?"
" Low creature ; debased nature," thinks Janus.
" Upon my honour, these coffee-houses are getting
mere haunts for the inferior classes. The 15th,
eh ? So it is. Why, that's the day I promised to
write my article for the London. I must be off to
Turnham-green."
Let us follow the delight of society to the White
Horse, and take a seat beside him in :the two-horse
stage till it stops at the door of Linden House, Mr.
Wainwright's elegant residence. His wife meets
him at the door, and with her there come
dancing out, radiant with almost an exuber-
ance of life, Phoebe and Madeleine, the two
blooming daughters by a second husband of his
wife's mother. They kiss him, they pet him, they
load him with playful caresses, for he is their idol,
they admire his genius, they love him as their
nearest and.dearest relation. Laughingly he frowns
in assumed anger, and pleads the occupation of a
popular author and a great critic. He breaks at
last from their pretty syren wiles, and locks him-
self iu his sanctum. It is a luxurions den. We
can sketch it in almost Mr.Wainewright's own cox-
combical words.
He strips off his smart tight-waisted befrogged
coat, in which he so exquisitely masquerades as the
retired officer of dragoons, and, in his own airy
way,ndreesdressing-grown,
nitegogs-
asguersto oni
graaryne
French
with
at
nfl pinkpow,
reitrbhebde
nr
gsu.rs
ot nne gd hintcgllightsa
sasz
lt
globe of which is painted with gay flowers and
gaudy butterflies. He then hauls forth languidly,
as if the severity of the labour almost exhausted
him, " portfolio No. 9," and nestles down into the
cushioned corner of " a Grecian couch ;" stroking
" our favourite tortoise-shell cat" into a sonorous
pur; he next, by a tremendous effort, contrives to
ring the bell by the fireside. A smiling " Venetian
shaped" girl enters, and places on the table "a flask
of as rich Montepulciauo as ever voyaged from fair
Italy;" they after contemplating his elegant figure
in a large glass, placed with a true artistiesense
opposite the chimney mirror, with a fresh exertion he
pours out " a full cut glass" of wine with one hand,
and strokes the cat with tho other. The sheet of
glass returns sharp-cut photographs of a gay carpet,
the pattern of which consists of garlands of flowers,
a cast of the Venus de Medicis (for [Mr. Waine
wright is an artist), a Tomkinson piano, some Louis
Quinze novels and tales, bound in French " mar-
roquin," withtabbysilk linings, some playful volumes
Lewis,choi e 1 ysoreearzedaleabsyteßemoginegrsN,v
iPt
ha3c,nriem,
sao nndb
ICo
shsaorml ess,
standing on a white marble slab, and a large peasabre
ceful
Newfoundland dog also. A fine Damascus
hung against the wall (dragoons again), an almost
objectionable picture by Fuseli, that gay old bache-
lor at Somerset }louse (a friend of the eminently
popular and accomplished art-critic); and last, but
not least of all, the exquisite man of the world him-
self, fell of heart, fall of soul, and bathed is the