cxxiv MEMOIR 



was designed for the taste of Joseph, the parting feast at Atta- 

 dale was ordered in every particular to the taste of Murdoch 

 the Keeper. Fleeming was not one of the common, so-called 

 gentlemen, who take the tricks of their own coterie to be eternal 

 principles of taste. He was aware, on the other hand, that 

 rustic people dwelling in their own places, follow ancient 

 rules with fastidious precision, and are easily shocked and 

 embarrassed by what (if they used the word) they would 

 have to call the vulgarity of visitors from town. And he, who 

 was so cavalier with men of his own class, was sedulous to 

 shield the more tender feelings of the peasant ; he, who could 

 be so trying in a drawing-room, was even punctilious in the 

 cottage. It was in all respects a happy virtue. It renewed his 

 life, during these holidays, in all particulars. It often enter- 

 tained him with the discovery of strange survivals ; as when, by 

 the orders of Murdoch, Mrs. Jenkin must publicly taste of every 

 dish before it was set before her guests. And thus to throw 

 himself into a fresh life and a new school of manners was a 

 grateful exercise of Fleeming's mimetic instinct; and to the 

 pleasures of the open air, of hardships supported, of dexterities 

 improved and displayed, and of plain and elegant society, added 

 a spice of drama. 



II. 



The Fleeming was all his life a lover of the play and all that 



drama. belonged to it. Dramatic literature he knew fully. He was 

 one of the not very numerous people who can read a play : a 

 knack, the fruit of much knowledge and some imagination, 

 comparable to that of reading score. Few men better under- 

 stood the artificial principles on which a play is good or bad ; 

 few more unaffectedly enjoyed a piece of any merit of construc- 

 tion. His own play (which the reader will find reprinted farther 

 on) was conceived with a double design ; for he had long been 

 filled with his theory of the true story of Griselda ; used to gird 

 at Father Chaucer for his misconception ; and was, perhaps first 

 of all, moved by the desire to do justice to the Marquis of 



