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One morning, a very few days after Strahan had shown me Sir Philip Derval's letter, I received a note from my old college acquaintance, stating that he was going to Derval Court that afternoon; that he should take with him the memoir which he had found, and begging me to visit him at his new home the next day, and commence my inspection of the manuscript. I consented eagerly.
London: Printed by Strahan and Spottiswoode, Printers-Street: for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, Paternoster Row. 1819. None of Wordsworth's productions are better known by name than Peter Bell, and yet few, probably, are less familiar, even to convinced Wordsworthians.
While I read this long and strange letter, Strahan sat by my side, covering his face with his hands, and weeping with honest tears for the man whose death had made him powerful and rich. "You will undertake the trust ordained to me in this letter," said he, struggling to compose himself. "You will read and edit this memoir; you are the very man he himself would have selected.
Imagine that I have just waked up from that long nap of which I have spoken. Miss Marian was such a sympathetic listener that I dwelt much longer than I intended on scenes which impressed me powerfully. I have not yet described my search for Strahan, or given Mr. Merwyn such hints as my experience affords. Having just come from the field, I do not see that he could gain much by undue haste.
'Your most affectionate humble servant, 'Edinburgh, March 12, 1778. 'The alarm of your late illness distressed me but a few hours; for on the evening of the day that it reached me, I found it contradicted in The London Chronicle, which I could depend upon as authentick concerning you, Mr. Strahan being the printer of it.
Strahan and others expose themselves to such risks and hardships while you look idly on, when you so easily prove yourself able to take a man's part in the struggle?
Strahan, as he spoke, looked wistfully round at the quaint oak chimneypiece; the carved ceiling; the well-built solid walls, with the large mullion casement, opening so pleasantly on the sequestered gardens. He had ensconced himself in Sir Philip's study, the chamber in which the once famous mystic, Forman, had found a refuge. "So cozey a room for a single man!" sighed Strahan.
You are sure a friend will thank you for hindering him from tumbling over a precipice; but, in the other case, I should hurt his vanity, and do him no good. He would not take my advice. His brother-in-law, Strahan, sent him a subscription of fifty pounds, and said he would send him fifty more, if he would not publish. GARRICK. 'What! eh! is Strahan a good judge of an Epigram?
But this impulse soon faded in the eager yearnings of an ardent and irresistible curiosity. I promised to read the manuscript, and in order that I might fully imbue my mind with the object and wish of the deceased, I asked leave to make a copy of the letter I had just read. To this Strahan readily assented, and that copy I have transcribed in the preceding pages.
"What should I hear or see?" Strahan was silent for some moments; then he said, with great seriousness, "I could not sleep when I went to bed last night; I felt feverish and restless. Somehow or other, Margrave got into my head, mixed up in some strange way with Sir Philip Derval.
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