EAVESDROPPING.
IT is generally understood in respectable society that table-talk is confidential. The pleasure and advantage of social intercourse consist mainly in its entire abandon. The constraint of official dignity, the burden of earnest thought and settled purpose, are for a moment thrown aside. The mind takes pleasure in talking non • sense, or maintaining paradoxes, in the sort of exuberant spirit in which dogs when first let loose scamper over the fields, and children chase butterflies and each other. Unintentional is sometimes added to wilful absurdity on such occasions : for when the mind is excited and off its guard, it is most liable to disproportionate fits of anger upon slight provocation. Scarcely the happiest evening passes without a breeze—a burst of temper, at which the angry man is ashamed next moment, and continues uneasy till his friends laugh him into forgetfulness of his offence. The sayings and doings of the festive board cannot with safety be made public : they are sure to be misunderstood by those who are not inspired with the same whimsical mood which gave them birth. Hence the rule, that whatever passes on these occasions is "under the rose " ; the disposition to shun any person who from pure incontinence of talk reveals these Eleusinian mysteries ; the contempt and disgust felt for him who gives publicity to any indiscretion of which a com- panion may at such a time have been guilty, in order to lower his character or injure his fortunes.
The rule is wise and generous ; and it ought therefore to be kept inviolate even when it may serve as a screen to an undeserving person. Every gentleman has a deeper interest in keeping sacred the confidence of social intercourse than in punishing a rude and offensive brute. It is easy enough to send any man to Coventry who deserves it, without introducing suspicion and distrust into society.
They who violate the confidence of social conversation rarely stop there. It is an easy step from repeating what one man has said in his cups, to driving another, by vexatious and bullying ques- tions, into angry answers, which may be reported to his prejudice. And this is to wallow still deeper in the mire. He who reveals a secret, which in an unguarded moment has been thrown in his way, is merely a shabby fellow ; but he who provokes unguarded say- ings, to repeat them, is an intentional and premeditated spy.
These remarks are quite general in their application : their truth —their justice—is independent of any recent occurrences, or party
interests or predilections. But it is by such considerations that the conduct of the parties implicated in the DUNDAS and BOLDER() affairs ought to be tested. The pretext, that the safety of the illustrious person whose name is said to have been disrespectfully used requires an exception to be made from the general rule in these cases, is absurd. ale testimony of four gentlemen of un- questioned honour may certainly be considered sufficient proof that the angry inquisitor of Captain BOLDERO had misapprehended, his words, and that they contained nothing offensive to the Queen.* And the language of Colonel DONBAS, however coarse and im- proper as applied to any lady, (leaving the Queen altogether out of the question,) was not likely to endanger her Majesty's life. It was not addressed, in a moment of great excitement, to an irritated public, as was the case with certain Whig remarks about another Queen ; t and it was spoken in the ears of gentlemen whom the at- tainment of place has taught to speak of the Sovereign with all that deference and delicacy which notoriously characterized the private conversations in Whig clubs and coteries while their party was in office.
These matters might have been allowed to pass without remark had nothing more been made public than the punishment of Colonel DUNDAS and the newspaper attack upon Captain Bommao. After the culpable language of the Colonel had transpired, his being dis- placed was a matter of course ; and the publicity given to his words might have been the consequence of a venial indiscretion which had allowed the conversation to be reported within hearing of some penny-a-liner. The paragraph regarding Captain BOLDER() might also have been supposed to be the work of some eavesdropping penny-a-liner. But the letters published subsequently to the duel suggest a more unpleasant explanation of that affair. Here is an unlucky official pinned into a corner and persecuted with cross- questions, until something is elicited from him that appears likely to serve the questioner's purpose : who immediately makes "a me- morandum" of his words, which he "showed to Lord Palmerston and Mr. James Howard (Malmesbury) a minute after the occur- rence, and whilst the ink was yet wet.'
It will probably be said that a conversation held in the lobby of the House of Commons is not a parallel case to confidential table- talk. True : a blustering partisan may fasten upon a political op- ponent, provoke him by worrying expressions into the use of indis- creet expressions, take a note in writing of what his victim said on the occasion, for the use of his own header; and yet, strictly speak- ing, no confidence may be violated. But this conversational inqui- sition and putting to the rack—this extorting of words from a man to be used against him—is, if possible, a more indefensible practice than the other. The memorandum shown to Lord PasicasToN "before the ink was dry" is the worst feature in the case. Persons who are capable of noting down, for future use, words which they have teased men into uttering, are not likely to be very scrupulous in the use of information which an indiscreet confidence may put them in possession of; and one is tempted to surmise that the publicity given to Colonel DONBAS'S culpable indiscretion may not have been quite accidental.
The country may lose much, and it can gain nothing, through an Opposition which seeks to wriggle itself again into place, not by appealing -to the public, but by Court intrigue and personal fawning on the Sovereign. And if these shabby tactics are to be rendered still more shabby by violations of social confidence and the establishment of a system of domestic espionage, all the ame- nities of private intercourse will be poisoned. This would intro- duce the degrading practices of the old French Court into every town and county of the empire, so widely has the personal strife of parties been ramified by the new constitution under the Reform Act. All who can appreciate frankness, cordiality, and generous confidence, ought to join in stamping such practices with their reprobation.
• "After the exchange of shots," says the Examiner, "Mr. Craven Berkeley's second reasserted, on the part of his principal, his firm conviction that the words denied by Captain Boldero were uttered by him." And what does this prove ? Simply that Mr. BERHELET, having made an assertion, was hardy enough to maintain it at the risk of his life. There is no reason to doubt that Mr. BERKELEY believed his own statement ; but it is pretty clear from the account given by Mr. LIDDELL of that gentleman's manner on the occasion—" something between joking and earnest, and in a noisy manner "— that his temper was discomposed, and that he was consequently not in the best condition to apprehend accurately what was said to him.
t When WILtasrs the Fourth faltered in his Reforming career, it WAS common on the Liberal side to impute the blame to his Queen. Whether the imputation was true or not, its effect was to kindle a vehement dislike to her in the public mind. Her name was never mentioned by the innumerable hustings orators of the day but to denounce her ; and one fervid speaker, at Newcastle, went the length of reminding his hearers that "a fairer head than Adelaide's had rolled upon a scaffold." It was at this safe and tranquil moment that verses (whose reputed author afterwards became a great courtier) appeared in the Examiner, in which the Bing was personified as the recreant rat-catching Dog Billy, and the Queen was alluded to in these decorous terms-
" What can have cow'd thee, my poor dog Billy ?
Say, was it sulk or stupidity—which ? Or was it a doggish attachment so silly That moved thee to follow a
? PI
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