Part 2

"What is it?" asked the pupil looking askance at letter, and tutor.

"An original letter which comes to hand, just in time for my lives of the tragedians--the volume to be dedicated to your lordship--it is a letter of poor Otway."

{Otway = Thomas Otway (1652-1685), English playwright who wrote a number of important tragedies in verse, but who died destitute at the age of 33. The Coopers were familiar with his work; James Fenimore Cooper used quotations from Otway's "The Orphan" for three chapter heading epigraphs in his 1850 novel, "The Ways of the Hour"}

"Otway?--What, the fellow you were boring me about last night?"

"The same my lord--the poet Otway--you may remember we saw his Venice Preserved last week. It is a highly interesting letter, written in great distress, and confirms the story of his starvation. You see the signature."

{Venice Preserved = a well-known play by Otway, written in 1682}

"That name, Otway?--Well, to my mind it is as much like Genghis Khan."

"Oh, my lord!--Thomas Otway clearly--signatures are always more or less confused.

"Well, have it your own way.--It may be Tom, Dick, or Harry for all I care," said the youth, stretching himself preparatory to a visit to his kennels; and such was his indifference to this literary treasure that he readily gave it to his tutor. In those days, few lords were literary.

Mr. Lumley's delight at this discovery, was very much increased by the fact that he was at that moment anxious to bring out an edition of the English Tragedians of the seventeenth century. The lives of several of these authors had been already written by him, and he was at that moment engaged on that of Otway. A noted publisher had taken the matter into consideration, and if the undertaking gave promise of being both palatable to the public, and profitable to himself, a prospectus was to be issued. Now here was a little tit-bit which the public would doubtless relish; for it was beginning to feel some interest in Otway's starvation, the poet having been dead half a century. It is true that the signature of the poor starving author, whoever he may have been, was so illegible that it required some imagination to see in it, the name of Otway, but Mr. Lumley had enough of the true antiquarian spirit, to settle the point to his own entire satisfaction. The note was accordingly introduced into the life of Otway, with which the learned tutor was then engaged. The work itself, however, was not destined to see the light; its publication was delayed, while Mr. Lumley accompanied his pupil on the usual continental tour, and from this journey the learned gentleman never returned, dying at Rome, of a cold caught in the library of the Vatican. By his will, the MS. life of Otway with all his papers, passed into the hands of his brother, an officer in the army. Unfortunately, however, Captain Lumley, who was by no means a literary character, proved extremely indifferent to this portion of his brother's inheritance, which he treated with contemptuous neglect.

After this first stage on the road to fame, twenty more years passed away and the letter of the starving poet was again forgotten. At length the papers of the Rev. Mr. Lumley, fell into the hands of a nephew, who inherited his uncle's antiquarian tastes, and clerical profession. In looking over the MSS., he came to the life of Otway, and was struck with the letter given there, never having met with it in print; there was also a note appended to it with an account of the manner in which it had been discovered by the editor, in the library of Lord G----, and affirming that it was still in his own possession. The younger Lumley immediately set to work to discover the original letter, but his search was fruitless; it was not to be found either among the papers of his uncle, or those of his father. It was gone. He was himself a tutor at Cambridge at the time, and returning to the university, he carried with him his uncle's life of Otway, in MS. Some little curiosity was at first excited among his immediate companions by these facts, but it soon settled down into an opinion unfavorable to the veracity of the late Mr. Lumley.--This nettled the nephew; and as Lord G----, was still living, a gouty bloated roue, he at length wrote to inquire if his lordship knew any thing of the matter. His lordship was too busy, or too idle, to answer the inquiry. Some time later, however, the younger Lumley, then a chaplain in the family of a relative of Lord G----'s, accidentally met his uncle's former pupil, and being of a persevering disposition, he ventured to make a personal application on the subject.

"Now you recall the matter to me, Mr. Lumley, I do recollect something of the kind. I remember one day, giving my tutor some musty old letter he found in the library at G----; and by the bye he came near cracking my skull on the same occasion!"

Mr. Lumley was not a little pleased by this confirmation of the story, though he found that Lord G---- had not even read the letter, nor did he know any thing of its subsequent fate; he only remembered looking at the signature. Not long after the meeting at which this explanation had taken place, Mr. Lumley received a visit from a stranger, requesting to see the MS. Life of Otway in his possession. It was handed to him; he examined it, and was very particular in his inquiries on the subject, giving the chaplain to understand that he was the agent of a third person who wished to purchase either the original letter if possible, or if that could not be found, the MS. containing the copy. Mr. Lumley always believed that the employer of this applicant was no other than that arch-gatherer, Horace Walpole, who gave such an impulse to the collecting mania; he declined selling the work, however, for he had thoughts of printing it himself. The application was mentioned by him, and, of course, the manuscript gained notoriety, while the original letter became a greater desideratum than ever. The library at G---- was searched most carefully by a couple of brother book-worms, who crept over it from cornice to carpeting; but to no purpose.

{Horace Walpole = Horace Walpole (1717-1797), a prolific writer, connoisseur, and collector, best known for his extensive correspondence; he established a taste for literary collecting by would-be cultured gentlemen in England}

Some ten years later still--about the time, by the bye, when Chatterton's career came to such a miserable close in London, and when Gilbert was dying in a hospital at Paris--it happened that a worthy physician, well known in the town of Southampton for his benevolence and eccentricity, was on a professional visit to the child of a poor journeyman trunk-maker, in the same place. A supply of old paper had just been brought in for the purpose of lining trunks, according to the practice of the day. A workman was busy sorting these, rejecting some as refuse, and preserving others, when the doctor stopped to answer an inquiry about the sick child.

{Chatterton = Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770), British poet, who created an imaginary Thomas Rowley, a supposed medieval monk, to whom he ascribed some of his poems. Chatterton committed suicide at the age of 18 when a poem of his, allegedly by Rowley, was rejected; he was buried in a pauper's grave. Susan Fenimore Cooper no doubt has this in mind in naming a character in this story Theodosia Rowley.

{Gilbert = Nicolas Gilbert (1751-1780), French poet, who died in Paris at the age of 29. The French writer Count Alfred de Vigny (1797-1863), in his book of essays "Stello" (1832), popularized a legend that Gilbert had died insane and in abject poverty at the charity hospital of the Hotel Dieu in Paris, and compared his miserable end with that of Chatteron; it seems likely that Vigny, whose book appeared while Susan Fenimore Cooper was studying in Paris, was her source for this reference to Gilbert. In fact, Gilbert was not impoverished, and died of injuries after falling from his horse}

"Better, Hopkins--doing well. But what have you here? I never see old papers but I have an inclination to look them over. If a man has leisure, he may often pick up something amusing among such rubbish. Don't you ever read the papers that pass through your hands?"

"No, sir--I 'as no time for that, sir. And then I was never taught to read writing, and these 'ere papers is all written ones. We puts them that's written for one trunk, and them that's printed for another, as you see, sir; one must have a heye to the looks of the work."

"Why yes--you seem to manage the job very well; and I have a trunk, by the bye, that wants patching up before my boy carries it off with him; I'll send it round to you; Hopkins. But stay--what's this?" and the doctor took up a soiled, yellow sheet of paper, from the heap rejected by the workman; it contained a scrawl which proved to be the identical letter of the poor poet, the Lumley autograph, though in what manner it became mingled with that heap of rubbish has never been satisfactorily ascertained.

"Here's a poor fellow who had a hard fate, Hopkins," said the benevolent man, thoughtfully. "It is as good as a sermon on charity to read that letter."

The trunk-maker begged to hear it.

"Well, poor journeyman as I be, I was never yet in so bad a way as that, sir."

"And never will be, I hope; but this was a poet, Hopkins--and that's but an indifferent trade to live by. I'll tell you what, my good friend," said the doctor, suddenly, "that letter is worth keeping, and you may paste it in the trunk I'll send round this afternoon--put it in the lid, where it can be read."

The trunk was sent, and the letter actually pasted in it as part of the new lining. Dr. H----, who, as we have observed, was rather eccentric in his ways, had a son about to commence his career as a soldier; and the worthy man thought the letter might teach the youth a useful lesson of moderation and temperance, by showing him every time he opened his trunk, the extreme of want to which his fellow beings were occasionally reduced. What success followed the plan we cannot say. The trunk, however, shared the young soldier's wandering life; it carried the cornet's uniform to America; it was besieged in Boston; and it made part of the besieging baggage at Charleston. It was not destined, however, to remain in the new world, but followed its owner to the East Indies, carrying on this second voyage, a lieutenant's commission. At length, after passing five-and-twenty years in Bengal, the trunk returned again to Southampton, as one among some dozen others which made up the baggage of the gallant Colonel H----, now rich in laurels and rupees. The old trunk had even the honorable duty assigned it of carrying its master's trophies, doubtless the most precious portion of the colonel's possessions, though at the same time the lightest; as for the rupees, the old worn-out box would have proved quite unequal to transporting a single bag of them, for it was now sadly unfit for service, thanks to the ravages of time and the white ants; and, indeed, owed its preservation and return to its native soil solely to the letter pasted in the lid, which, in the eyes of Colonel H----, was a memento of home, and the eccentric character of a deceased parent.

{cornet = the lowest officer rank in a British cavalry regiment, below that of Lieutenant; now obsolete}

The time had now come, however, when the Lumley autograph was about to emerge forever from obscurity, and receive the full homage of collectors; the hour of triumph was at hand, the neglect of a century was to be fully repaid by the highest honors of fame. The eye of beauty was about to kindle as it rested on the Lumley autograph; jeweled fingers were to be raised, eager to snatch the treasure from each other; busy literati stood ready armed for a war of controversy in its behalf.

It happened that Colonel H---- was invited to a fancy ball; and it also happened that the lady whom he particularly admired, was to be present on the occasion. Such being the case, the most becoming costume was to be selected for the evening. What if the locks of the gallant colonel were slightly sprinkled with gray? He was still a handsome man, and knew very well that the dress of an eastern aymeer was particularly well suited to his face and figure. This dress, preserved in a certain old trunk in the garret, was accordingly produced. The trunk was brought down to the dressing-room, the costume examined piece by piece, pronounced in good condition by the valet, and declared very becoming by the military friend called in as counsellor.