THE ADVENTURES OF
ANTHONY VARNISH.
VOL. III.
THE ADVENTURES OF
ANTHONY VARNISH;
OR, A PEEP AT THE MANNERS OF SOCIETY. BY AN ADEPT.
Parva res est voluptatum in vitâ, prae quam quod molestum est.
IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III.
LONDON: PRINTED FOR WILLIAM LANE, LEADENHALL-STREET. M.DCC.LXXXVI.
THE ADVENTURES OF ANTHONY VARNISH.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Meet with a mortifying disappointment.— An extraordinary character.—He gives some very important advice.—I experience one of the ill consequences of being too warm in an argument.—Find the wisest men are subject to particular weaknesses.—Meet with a poet.—He delivers an opinion not much to the credit of human nature.
WHEN I had purchased the articles of dress that I stood in need of, I inquired the nearest way to Westminster, where my late master's friend, the lieutenant, lived, to whom I had a letter of recommendation; and, by the assistance of various persons, who were kind enough to shew me the way, I made a sort of a zig-zag movement towards the place of destination. But, unfortunately for me, when I came there I heard that the gentleman was gone in the country but the day before; and an old woman, who was left as the guardian dragon of his furniture in his absence, informed me, for my comfort, that she did not expect him to return to town for at least two months. This intelligence was another thunderbolt of fate that drove me still nearer to the cave of despair; however, wishing her a good morning, I assumed new courage, and resolved to keep up my spirits as well as I could, not doubting but that I should shortly arrive at the end of all my inquietude.
Buoyed up by this idea, I continued whistling an old tune till I found myself at a gate, which led into a row of trees, and this place, on inquiry, I found to be St. James's Park. When I had sauntered about a considerable time, I sat down on one of the benches in the Mall, and continued there for some minutes in a state of insensibility, with my hands in my breeches-pockets, and my head reclined against a tree. I was exactly in this position, when an odd sort of a figure came and sat down on the same seat. He was a tall, athletic, man, with a black visage, thick lips, and rather meanly attired; but, notwithstanding which, there was an air of politeness in his demeanour, and such marks of philanthropy in his countenance, that he attracted my respect by a sort of involuntary impulse.
He had scarcely sat down three minutes before he entered into conversation with me, by asking with a smile, which seemed equally to partake of good-humour and concern,
What makes you look so serious, my lad?
I told him, with a low bow, that I was not well.—"I am sorry for it," said the stranger;
but tell me now, without disguise, is the disease situated in your body or your mind?
—I answered him, with a deep sigh, that it lay intirely in my mind.—"Does it?" replied he,
well, my lad, I'll be your physician on this occasion; but, contrary to the general rules of practice, I shall administer without a fee, and my medicines, though salutary, are not expensive.—But, first, tell me what religion you profess, for I perceive, by your tongue, that you are a native of Ireland.
When I informed him that I was educated agreeably to the established church of that country, he took my hand with seeming rapture, and professed himself, very warmly, my friend; then, taking a little book out of his pocket, he presented it to me with these words:—
I give you this, my young friend," said he, "to learn by heart, which I conjure you to do immediately:—you will find it contain some prayers that you must repeat in the course of the day, according to the order in which they are set down. Do that, and pray to God to bless you, and depend upon it all will go well. For, the evils we experience in this life originate from two causes; the first is, by neglecting our daily worship of the Almighty; and the second is, by not knowing ourselves; for, if we knew ourselves, my young friend, we should have no occasion for the rigorous exercise of those severities, which the wisdom of men finds it necessary to put in force for the well-being of each other; but, losing sight of those great beacons of our felicity, we suffer ourselves to be driven about by the tempest of our passions, until we are eventually lost for ever.—I hope, my lad," continues he, "that my advice has made a proper impression upon your heart: — you look like a good-natured young man, and I dare take upon me to assert that you will profit by my instructions.
The imposition of the pious pedlar, of whom mention is made in the former part of this history, was still so fresh in my recollection, that I could scarcely muster up words enough to tell him that I was obliged to him: (so much do the actions of the unworthy part of human nature place us on our guard against the professions of the best:) however, I promised him to read his book with attention, which pleased him so much, that, seizing the button of my coat, he began to give me a short history of his life, in which I was informed, that he was a major in the army, on half-pay; and that the whole business of his life was to succour the distressed, and take such poor wretches under his protection, as, from their poverty, or other causes, were deprived of every temporal comfort, and obliged to seek for happiness in the contemplation of eternity.
He was proceeding to give me the history of a poor woman he had been to see that very morning, who had been deprived of her senses as well as property by the villany of an attorney, when the narrative was interrupted by a gentleman, who tapped the major on the shoulder with great familiarity; and, placing himself on the bench, they entered into mutual inquiries about their private affairs, to my great joy and satisfaction: for I should have remarked, that the military reformer of manners laboured under exactly the same impediment, in point of delivery, as the celebrated Demosthenes, and was obliged to deposit three or four large stones in his mouth before he could make himself understood; and the good man, in the midst of his zeal for my happiness, talked so fast and so vehemently, that the stones dropped one by one out of his mouth, unperceived, and he was actually reduced to a dependence on a single pebble for his powers of elocution when the person beforementioned came to my relief. And, indeed, that circumstance was particularly fortunate to me; for the major had first griped fast hold of my button, to prevent my escape from his admonitions, (which, though very pious, were not extremely pleasant,) and then he put his mouth close to my face, and so bespattered me with spittle, that, before he would have got half through his story, I probably should not have had an eye left, or been able to have distinguished an object at a yard distance.
But my attention was now engaged by a severe conflict between the major and his acquaintance, which I could perceive derived its source from a difference in political principles; the major being a strenuous advocate for the privileges of the people, and the other equally as violent for the prerogative of majesty. In the course of this debate I was somewhat concerned to find the major lose sight of that equanimity of disposition, which I imagined was the natural concomitant of a mind so well regulated as his. After a few polite bickerings they both left their seats in great perturbation, and walked up the Mall, to finish and adjust their political disputation.
They had scarcely left the bench, when the vacancy was filled by a meagre, thin, man, in a thread-bare black coat, who approached with one hand deposited in his bosom, and the other in his waistcoat-pocket. He wore a small hat, which partly covered a tie-wig without powder, that seemed, by the appearance of the caul in various places, to have seen almost as many days as its master. He wore likewise a black stock, which, by the careful manner in which he had buttoned his coat to the top, gave me strong suspicion to imagine, that, from a rigid principle of either prudence or poverty, he made it answer all the purposes of a shirt; for I could not trace the smallest vestige of that necessary appendage of a man's dress through any of those apertures which the iron hand of time had made in his suit of sable.—His beard was at once gristly and grey, and appeared to have been unmolested by the razor for at least a week; which, added to the pale aspect of his weather-beaten face, made him altogether no indifferent representation of the figure of famine. When he had taken his seat, he seemed to retire within himself with a sort of sullen dignity, and bore a kind of
noli-me-tangere
on his forehead, that tacitly forbade all human communication.
I don't know exactly to what motive to attribute it, but, certainly, I never felt a stronger curiosity take place in my breast than did at that time to know the history of this seeming original. Thrice I made advances to speak to him, but was as often instantly frozen by the uncharitable contraction of his muscles. At length an occasion offered of doing him an inconsiderable service, which I did not suffer to pass unheeded.—I observed that he had taken a small bundle of papers from his bosom, which he looked at for some time with great earnestness, till a silent tear, stealing from his eye, sullied his manly cheek; but, eager to wipe away so frail a testimony of his weakness, he felt in his pocket, with great trepidation, for a handkerchief, and, in his hurry, dropped those papers, which had moved him to so public and expressive an indication of his sorrow and chagrin. I immediately leaped from my seat, and, taking up the bundle, delivered it to him with all that delicacy of address and tenderness of manner, which should ever accompany our actions, when we mean to pour the balm of consolation into the wounds of the unfortunate. He seemed pleased with the respect I paid him, and, gently bowing towards me, so far descended from the majesty of genius as to offer me a pinch of snuff, from a paltry iron box, as a recompence for my civility, which I accepted with rapture as an overture of friendship.
After a few mutual inquiries, the understrapper of Apollo opened his circumstances as follows.—"I am," said the wretched man,
a poor, but faithful, servant of the Muses, and have been wandering about the plains of Parnassus for the last thirty years of my life, gathering laurels to adorn my tomb, but have found the journey so painful, and the profit so scanty, that, had I known the inconveniences before I set forward in the pursuit, I should scarcely have had the hardiness to encounter such complicated perils of fatigue to have acquired the reputation even of a Homer.
Emboldened by this free declaration on the part of the poet, I told him, that I presumed those papers, which he held in his hand, were some children of his brain, that he doubtless meant to favour the world with in due time.—"Ah!" replied this literary veteran,
you guess right as to my intention, I do mean to publish them; but of what importance is the possession of the most brilliant talents, if you want friends to bring you into reputation?—you may perish in a garret with the abilities of an Otway.
—I told him, that I always conceived a work of merit would sufficiently recommend itself.—
Aye, my dear friend," says the bard, that observation proves you to be a very young man indeed; when you have acquired a little more experience, you will see, that, in nine instances out of ten, the retinue of folly overcome the inheritors of genius. If a noble lord, or a great man, has a fool in the family, who wishes to be celebrated as a wit, it follows, as naturally as the night succeeds the day, that he must be supported in his pretensions at the expence of reason and justice:—it matters not how absurd his productions may be, he will always find the pen of venality ready to aggrandize his fame.
—Here I ventured to interrupt his harangue by observing, that I thought bestowing of praise upon performances, that were undeserving, only served to heighten their deformity by making them more conspicuous, as dressing a cripple in finery served but to render him the more remarkably ridiculous.—
That observation will hold good," says my companion, "in almost every other human concern but that of public writing; for, in that particular province, where individuals, indeed, should be most tenacious of their reason, they are least so, and tamely resign their judgement, upon the literary essays of the times, to news-paper editors and reviewers of periodical publications; who, independent of the facility with which they are corrupted, are, in general, as little capable of discovering the beauties of a work (and very often much less so) as the herd of asses who listen to their determinations.
By these sarcastic opinions, I naturally conjectured that my new friend had recently undergone the flagellations of criticism; but, as the asseverations of the author opened a new field of knowledge to my view, I resolved to cultivate his acquaintance with all the industry in my power.
CHAPTER XXX.
The poet and I resolve to dine together.— Poor encouragement for authors.—Dive for a dinner.—The poets refectory.— A proof of their antipathy to a certain profession.—Every mouth open, but none satisfied.—An unfortunate circumstance. —The comforts of a thick head.
I OBSERVED a kind of ingenuous shame hang about the poet, which it was evident arose from a consciousness of his poverty; and it, doubtless, would have depressed him much more, if the lofty ideas I perceived he entertained of his own abilities, as an author, did not step in to his assistance, and counteract, by the ambition they suggested to his imagination, all the slights he might hourly receive, from the gross bulk of mankind, on the score of his wretchedness and want of money.
As we walked through the park, in an inattentive moment I asked my companion where he proposed to dine that day; to which question he replied, with a significant look, that bore strongly the tokens of surprise. Afraid lest I had committed some gross impropriety, my cheeks reddened with a deep suffusion of scarlet, and I remained silent; when the poet, reading the state of my thoughts, relieved me from my embarrassment, by voluntarily informing me, that there was a house, not very far distant, at which he usually satisfied the craving demands of nature, unless he was engaged abroad, which, he observed, happened but seldom; and, if I were inclined to accompany him, that I should be exceedingly welcome to a share of his porridge.—"It is true," says he,
we poor fellows, who have the misfortune to labour under that most incurable of all diseases, the
cacoethes scribendi,
have seldom an opportunity of tasting those elegancies, whose delicious flavours render life so desirable to the animal part of humanity;—no," continued this miserable child of the Muses, "we are frequently obliged to walk over the thorny path of distress, and waste our existence in the vale of misery.
Here he ended his remark with a deep-fetched sigh, at the same time clapping his hand, as it were by instinct, to his purse;—a combination of events that very plainly evinced the weakness of his finances; for, however poets may be elevated above the common classes of human nature in their ideas, I find the visitations of misery can make them melancholy as well as other men.
In our way to the place of entertainment, the little author diverted me with various anecdotes of the persons, in whose company we might, in all probability, dine; and, if his penciling was to be depended upon, as conveying the outlines of truth, a most egregious set of beings they were.
At last, after innumerable turnings and windings through by-streets and filthy alleys, I was given to understand, by my conductor, that we had come to the wished-for port; and I was looking with prodigious industry, but in vain, for a sight of some of those
insignia
of good living, which hung pendant from the windows of the house I had been introduced to the day before; and I began then to imagine that the poet was out in his reckoning, or, in plain English, had mistaken his way; when he removed my scruples by hailing me from a neighbouring cellar, into which he was descending with great precipitation, and had already got so far, that nothing but his head remained above the surface of the earth.
I followed him into this subterranean cavern with infinite caution on my part, which was was very necessary to observe; for, though the poet, from long practice, could have run down them on a pressing occasion, yet a stranger must have found the descent to be no easy passage, as several of the stairs were wanting, and one false step might have been as detrimental to the safety of his person as it is generally found to the reputation of a fair lady: but, thanks to my prudence, I landed safe in this retreat of genius; for such it might be called from the characters of the persons who retired there to eat in security.
The appearance of the place altogether was so unlike what I had ever seen before, that, had I been conveyed thither in a sleep, I should have had no doubts, on my awaking, of being an inhabitant of the other world.—All the light we were favoured with proceeded from the glimmering of two dirty lamps, which only served, as Milton has observed, to make darkness more visible; and, by the aid of which, I could just discern a table, at one end of the apartment, where the poet, taking me by the hand, introduced me as his particular friend, and a man of genius.
Before the dinner was served up, a sort of general conversation took place, in the course of which a human figure, who sat at one corner of the table, (whom I took for an author, for he was still thinner, if possible, than my companion,) accosted my friend with "Well, Mr. Crambo, have you heard the melancholy news this morning?" — No," replies the diminutive poet, Lord bless me! what's that?" — Only your competitor Balderdash in limbo! — that's all," adds the other. —"I'm sorry for it," says my friend, shrugging his shoulders, "but 'tis what we must all come to."—"Aye, it was a damned unlucky accident for poor Frederic," cries another, "for he had been appointed, that very morning, editor to the Scandalous Chronicle."—"That was a damned stroke of fate, indeed," says a fourth; pray," continued he, "is it a fair question, Mr. Slang, to ask the sum he is nabbed for?"—"Oh! certainly," replies the other, "'tis thirteen pounds and upwards."—"Zounds! that's a sum indeed!" exclaims another, "but, perhaps, it could be settled;—as our friend is known to be seedy, the creditor might be persuaded to compound for half the debt on good security."—"No," rejoins another, "that's impossible; for his creditor is as inexorable as Dick Flint, the bailiff."—"Why, then, he hasn't the proper feelings of a man," cries my friend.—"Oh! damme, we know that," replies the other, "but the best of the joke is, he is not a man." —"Not a man!" exclaims the poet in amazement, "why, what the devil is he then?" — "Why, if you must know, he's a tailor," says the other.— Oh! damn the tailors," echoed instantly, and at the same moment, from every mouth in the cavern but mine; from which circumstance I naturally concluded there was a little antipathy existing between the two professions.
The farther discussion of that subject was now postponed by a summons from the cook, who gave an additional edge to their appetites by the following polite exordium: — "Come, gemmen," says the lusty host,
get ready, for I shall soon be with you.—Damme, here's a dish fit for his majesty, God bless him. —You may say what you please, gemmen, about your Hellishogabalus, but I'll be curst if he ever sat down to soup like this.—Marrow and fat, my blades!—I have bought you the best meat in the market, and here it is, my masters, swimming in an ocean of soup, like a fleet at Spithead.— This will do your hearts good, my boys!—'tis no wishy-washy stuff, such as they give the MOUNSEERS, made up of cabbage and garlic;—no, no, I knows what's fitting for you, — you love the solid thing; and, for the matter of that, d'ye see, you do credit to it;—why, zounds! one of you authors will eat more in one meal than a French grenadier could in three, and much good may do you with it, say I.—Only understand me rightly, my masters, you must come down today, by Ch—t; for, damme, I can't stand it much longer if you go any more upon tick, d'ye see.
At the end of this polite and persuasive harangue, he took up a large earthen dish, which smoked like a furnace or the tremendous crater of Mount Vesuvius, and, bending under it, came waddling towards the table; but, whether it was his over-eagerness to accommodate his half-famished guests, or that the heat of the dish burnt him so much that he could not hold it any longer, I will not take upon me to determine; but he certainly was too precipitate in the affair; for, not looking rightly before him, and the place being exceedingly dark, instead of placing the smoking viands immediately in the center of the table, he clapt it down with such violence on the scull of a tragic poet, who lay sleeping on the table, with his head resting on his hands, as split the dish into a hundred fragments, to the great annoyance of the whole society, who were terribly scalded by the soup, which was splashed around the table in copious streams, like the bursting of a water-spout, or the falls of Niagara.
As for the lethargic servant of Melpomene, it was generally thought, that, so far from being able to honour any more of his friends, by writing dying speeches to immortalize their memory, he would behold the sweet face of the sun no more, or, in other language, that his scull was fractured past relief. But, in that conjecture, his brethren of the quill were fortunately deceived; for, when a neighbouring surgeon was sent for to examine the contusion, he gave them the satisfaction of knowing that their friend's wound was very inconsiderable; and likewise added, to their manifest comfort, that if a ton weight had fallen upon the poet's
cranium,
instead of an earthen dish, it would not have done his faculties the smallest injury, as nature had furnished him with a particular thickness of bone in that part, that absolutely bade defiance to accident for its demolition.
As this unlucky affair had destroyed the hopes of the company, relative to the engagement of a hot dinner, they were obliged to call their philosophy to their assistance, (a lady to whom they were frequently obliged to be indebted in spite of their teeth,) and sit down to the miserable and cold remains of some ox-cheek and neck of beef, which they presently devoured with such speed as made me imagine, that a thousand such men in a country would cause a general famine. Indeed, as for my part, my wonder had been so much excited by the singular occurrences that took place in the cellar, that all my former ideas of eating gave way to my astonishment, and I thought as little of satisfying the cravings of my belly as an old maid on the eve of matrimony.
CHAPTER XXXI.
Crambo and I take a walk.—Agree to see a play.—A visit to a first-rate comedian.—He is jocular at the expence of the poet.—Strong doubts of Crambo's sanity of mind.
AFTER discharging the reckoning in the cellar, my friend Crambo and I proposed taking a saunter into the fields; and, during our ramble, he asked me if I were willing to go to the play that evening. Upon my replying in the affirmative, and observing, that I could not indulge that propensity at present, on account of the expence, he bade me make myself easy on that particular, as he knew one of the principal comedians, for whom he constantly wrote puffs, and proposed that I should call upon him with a note, which, if he were at home, he said he would certainly honour; at the same time remarking, that he was sorry to give me so much trouble, but would have called himself on the actor, if he had not lodged, unfortunately, next door to a vile caitiff of a tailor, who had his name upon the debtor-side of his ledger for a greater sum than he found it convenient, or indeed even possible, to pay.
Being naturally fond of such exhibitions, I greedily seized so favourable an opportunity of seeing a play on the London stage, imagining that to be the very fountain-head of dramatic excellence; and, going into the first public house we came to, the poet wrote a note, which he sealed up, and sent by me to the player, resolving to wait for my return at the alehouse, and solace himself with the comforts of a quid of tobacco, a pennyworth of porter, and a belly-full of reflexion.
Rapt in idea with the pleasures which were to accrue from this commission, I hurried to the actor's house with all the haste imaginable, and, knocking at the door of his august mansion, it was opened by a servant, in rich livery, who appeared as much pampered with the good things of this world as an archbishop; but, before he would condescend to answer me the plain question, whether his master was at home or not, surveyed me from head to foot with a look of the most mortifying contempt, and then answered, with a supercilious smile,—
Well, if he be, what the devil can you possibly want with him?
—I was so provoked with the fellow's manner and incivility, that I had a great inclination to knock him down; but, repressing my choler as well as I could, told him, with some heat of resentment, that I came with a note from Mr. Crambo.—
What, Crambo, the poet?" says the fellow, with a sneer, "well, I'll take it in, but I'm cursedly afraid, my friend, that you'll go without your errand; for, to my knowledge, my master hasn't any cash to spare at present;— he has had a bad run at hazard lately, and been tricked most infernally; —he is left without a single guinea, and as poor as a minority-member:
then he walked leisurely up stairs, after bidding me wait in the hall till his return.
From the observations of the impertinent footman, upon the state of his master's purse, I conjectured that my associate, Crambo, had applied to him, upon occasion, for other favours, infinitely more substantial, egad, than orders.
After I had stood cooling my heels in the hall for above twenty minutes, the jackanapes in livery returned with a message from Mr. Buskin, his master, desiring me to walk up. I obeyed the mandate of the actor; and, following the footman up an elegant stair-case, I was shewn into a superb room, decorated with Titian's Loves of the Gods, and a couple of bawdy paintings, (which my friend Crambo assured me afterwards were the performance of a clergyman, and presented to the player as a mark of his particular esteem,) I found Mr. Buskin sitting at a table, like his redoubted highness the Great Mogul, demolishing a gallon of claret with two prostitutes of high
ton,
and a noted bailiff from Lincoln's-Inn, who had conscientiously lent him fifty guineas that morning, in hard specie, upon his simple bond and judgement, for a hundred, to be paid in six months, and the cash was displayed with great ostentation before him. — Turning to me with a contemptuous sneer, this consequential, self-swoln, comedian, inquired, in an authoritative tone of voice, if I was the person who brought the note from old Crambo. I answered, "Yes, sir," with a bow down to the very carpet; which, by the by, I might as well have spared myself the trouble of performing, as this haughty stage hero did not stoop from his dignity so much as to observe even the humility of so poor a being as myself.—"Well," says the actor, having read the note,
I don't know what to say to this business; this Crambo is a cursed troublesome sort of a fellow;— curse me," says the player, "but it would be an act of charity to confine him in a dark room, with clean straw, for a year or two."—"Who is he?
said one of the ladies.—"Who is he!" replied the king of shreds and patches, with a half-stifled laugh, "why, damme, he is an author, and more plague to me than a third-day ague;—the animal is continually levying contributions upon my purse, and, if I refuse him the supplies, I am sure to feel his sting the next day in some of the daily papers, where he incessantly scribbles, with as little regard to truth in his writing as he has to decency in his manners."—"Why d'ye indulge him in his beggarly requests?" rejoins the other lady.—"For the best reason in the world to an actor," cries the player, "because I'm afraid of him, you strap of Beelzebub; so I'm obliged to throw a sop to Cerberus now and then, to stop his growling; though, damme, I've often a great inclination to strangle the old dog, and get rid of him that way," continues the scenic chief, "by anticipating the conclusion of public justice."
This joke, at the expence of my friend Crambo, set the table in a roar; but,
on its subsiding, the tender limb of the law, who flanked the left side of the comedian, exclaimed vociferously,
B—st me, Master Buskin, why don't you do him over?—swear to any thing above ten pounds, and I'm your man;—by the Lord I'll muzzle the thief of the world in four and twenty hours;— say 'tis a match, and the thing's done, d'ye see me; so enough said.
But, whether the actor really held the philanthropic advice of his bosom-friend in abhorrence, or that he was afraid of the consequences, I cannot tell; yet certain it is, that he chose to turn a deaf ear to the charitable remonstrance of his companion at that period; and, calling for pen, ink, and paper, immediately wrote an order for two to the pit, which he delivered to me with as much majesty as if he had been in the act of personating the eighth Harry.
As I had succeeded so well in my negotiation, I saluted the mimic hero with the greatest marks of respect, in the performance of which he was pleased to eye me with a kind of merry disdain; and, at last bursting forth into an immoderate fit of laughter, roared out,
Damme, what, I suppose you're a young poet too, an't you?
I instantly replied, "No, sir," with evident marks of confusion. — "Well, well," replied the mangler of heroics,
I ask your pardon most sincerely for the suspicion; I should have seen at first sight that you're too sleek and well dressed to drink the waters of Helicon, and, if you are not damnably dry indeed, my honest fellow," continues the actor, you never should: — take my word for it, 'tis a cursed dirty puddle, and, in some respects, may be compared to bad gin; for, though it frequently intoxicates the ragged part of my associates, may I be hissed the next time I immortalize Dionysius if it ever fattened a single scoundrel of them all.
At the conclusion of this salutary admonition, one of the demireps politely observed, that she wondered Mr. Buskin should waste his time, talking about such shabby dogs. To which elegant observation the player thought proper to reply, that, though he admitted the rhyme-weaving rascals were contemptible as men, "yet," says the son of Melpomene,
they are to be dreaded as enemies, and, in some sort, are a kind of necessary appendage to the character of an actor, and answer much the same purpose to us as a candlestick does to a taper; for, though," continued Mr. Buskin, they haven't the power to increase our innate flame of merit, yet we find it damned difficult to stand upright without their assistance:—so, mind, my friend," says the player, turning to me, "give my respectful compliments to my worthy friend Mr. Crambo, and tell him not to forget me in the next critique he writes for the stage; for he knows that I both respect, admire, and regard, him," cries the insolent mummer, "as the devil does holy water,
turning his head to the bailiff, who sat in full enjoyment of the fun, with his tongue thrust in his left cheek, by the way of a tacit comment on the player's sincerity. — The actor, giving me a nod that seemed to say I might depart when I thought proper, I saluted the respectable group, and instantly left the house.
On the way back to my companion, I could not avoid reflecting on the singular behaviour of the comedian:—first, on the long and tedious interval that I passed in his hall, which was an intolerable sacrifice, I understood afterwards, he made every poor devil pay to his vanity, whose quality, or supposed rank in life, did not elevate him sufficiently to be treated as his equal: — secondly, the wanton freedom and uncharitable impertinence with which he spoke of poor Crambo, who, from his education as well as his heart, could properly claim an infinite pre-eminence, over this upstart ranter of heroics, in the grand scale of society:—and, lastly, at the general contempt he threw upon authors, of all descriptions, by his illiberal remarks upon my dress and condition; when he should have retreated within his own mind, and been thankful to Fortune for his situation, which lifted him above the experience of those calamities that are hourly endured by men of the most sublime merit, virtue, and sensibility, and whose caprice of disposition could not be better, or more strongly, evinced, than by her ridiculous dispensations in favour of so worthless an individual.
When I came to the rendezvous, I found my friend Crambo sitting with his pot before him, writing with a pencil in a book, which I learned afterwards he carried about with him, to enter such thoughts as arose in his imagination, and which he imagined worth a record. As I perceived that he was deeply immerged in thought, I was resolved not to disturb his ideas, but to remain where I was until he should be disengaged, and descend, like another mortal, to interest himself in the affairs of this sublunary world.
During this interval, the woman of the house came out of the bar, and desired me to take my companion away as fast as possible, for she did not choose to harbour madmen in her house. When I testified my surprize at this strange account of my friend's intellects, she told me, that, since I left him, he had started from his seat, and, running about the room with a book in his hand, made such a noise, and uttered such unintelligible jargon, as frightened two fish-women and a ticket-porter, who were drinking brandy in the same box. And she farther informed me, that she had sent to a mad doctor's, who lived within a few doors, for a straight waistcoat, to confine him, but, unfortunately, the physician had left home about an hour before, on a visit to a celebrated lady, who had gone out of her mind on the death of a favourite lap-dog.— Here I thought proper to remove the poor woman's apprehensions by informing her, that Mr. Crambo was a poet, and that what she took for incoherent ravings, was probably only the recital of some passages of a new poem which he had been conceiving;—that I would answer for it he was a very harmless character, and intreated her to let him remain unmolested for a few minutes longer, as perhaps disturbing him then might unhinge the best chain of ideas that were ever forged in the human understanding, and stop his progress in the very moment that he was galloping on his sublime Pegasus to the heights of immortality.
CHAPTER XXXII.
Discover Crambo in a poetical reverie.— Go to the play.—My friend and I meet with a disaster.—The applause of an audience not always consonant with reason.—More ways than one of acquiring fame.—The poet's remarks on the present state of the theatres.—He disputes with a critic, and shews his contempt of modern actors.—My wishes are constrained to be obedient to necessity.
PRESENTLY I observed that the poet's eyes began to glisten; and, my landlady conjuring me to step on one side for the love of God, I followed her advice, being willing to see what turn this affair would take: but my friend Crambo did not leave me long in doubt; for, grasping the pewter pot in one hand, and his common-place book in the other, he strutted about the room, repeating the following lines from Dryden with great energy:
"Happy's the man, and happy he alone,
"He who can call to-day his own;
"He who, secure within himself, can say,
"To-morrow do thy worst, for I have liv'd to-day;
"Be fair or foul, or rain or shine,
"The joys I have possess'd in spite of fate are mine;
"Not heav'n itself upon the past has pow'r,
"But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour."
At the conclusion of this elegant quotation, the little bard stalked across the room with the port of an emperor; when, running up to him, I took my friend by the hand, and informed him of the success of my embassy, taking care to conceal the disagreeable expressions which the player had made use of so much to Crambo's disadvantage.
As the clock struck five, my companion put me in mind that it was time we went to the theatre, if I wished to have a good seat, as the piece to be performed that evening was a very attractive dish to the public, and considered by the million as possessing merit, though, for his part, he thought otherwise.
Having paid the landlady, who seemed more than commonly rejoiced at my friend's departure, we hurried to the scene of action, and got there just time enough to squeeze in with the croud, who had been waiting for the doors opening. The pressure, on all sides of me, was so great, that I had not the power to make use of my hands, but was carried forward by the mob, intirely at their disposal, like an unnavigated boat in a strong current, and, by the time I had got into the pit, I was almost reduced to the consistence of a jelly. As for the little poet, he had been more scurvily used than myself; for, added to the embraces his ribs had undergone, the outrageous behaviour of the multitude who surrounded him had fairly carried away his hat and wig, and he was obliged to sit with his handkerchief tied round his head for the rest of the evening. An orange-woman accosting me to buy some fruit, I attempted to put my hand in my pocket, when, alas! I found they were turned inside out, and I was robbed of every shilling that my rigid oeconomy had preserved out of my last guinea. I communicated this doleful piece of news to my neighbour Crambo, who, after shrugging his shoulders a little, and pointing to the loss of his own hat and wig, bade me be comforted.—"You see," cries the poet,
how that vixen, Fortune, delights in persecuting us poor devils, and it matters not a whit, if she means to plague the human heart, whether she effects her vile purposes by the loss of a purse or the demolition of an empire; so, my friend," contitinued the bard, "e'en let us assume that equality of temper which makes its possessor easy under every difficulty, and defeat the malice of the gipsy's intentions, by shewing, in our conduct, that we despise her and all her works:—the motto of my existence has been always
nil desperandum,
which, let me tell you, is the best charm we can make use of to extirpate the presence of care.
Notwithstanding this well-timed address of the poet, I could not chace away, for the soul of me, the sorrow that I felt for the loss of my money; I was then almost dead with fatigue and want of rest;—the miseries that I had endured the night before were still warm in my imagination, and the uncertainty of knowing whether I should, or should not, have the felicity of paying a salutary visit to Morpheus, on that night, loaded my heart with the most inexpressible anxiety. But these fears were presently removed by the kindness of the philanthropic author, who generously offered me the use of one half of his bed, until Fate should enable me to procure one of my own.
Our conversation was now interrupted by the ringing of a bell behind the curtain, which I understood was a signal that the performance was going to begin. When I saw the people sit down around me, in preparation, my heart beat high with expectation of the coming pleasure, and, at length, the moment of gratification arrived. The curtain was drawn up, and a young man, of a genteel aspect, stepped forward to speak the prologue. As I understood that he was a dramatic novitiate, that had lately made his appearance with particular honour to himself and advantage to the manager, I listened, with the greatest attention, to his manner of delivery and to the language of the composition, expecting to see and hear something, if not immediately perfection, at least very near approaching to it. But, in this as well as many other instances of my life, I was most cruelly deceived. As for the language of the composition, (notwithstanding I was assured, by the persons around me, that it was written by a man of fashion,) I was convinced it was the most absurd combination of nonsense that ever disgraced the dramatic exhibition of a barn; and, as for the actor who spoke it, he put me in mind of the Merry-Andrew to an itinerant
charlatan,
by his gestures, rather than a first-rate comedian, who might be presumed to have some latent regard for common sense, when strutting away his ridiculous hour on the boards of so respectable a theatre; for he skipped and jumped about the stage like a mad dancing-master in one of the wards of Bedlam-Hospital.
When the disgusting business of prologue-speaking was over, the comedian retired; but, instead of being attended, in his theatric exit, by those murmurs of disapprobation, which I conceived must have always followed so vile a martyrdom of propriety, he was loudly applauded by several people from the pit and galleries. This extraordinary conduct in an audience, that I naturally supposed enlightened, from the opportunity they had of contrasting real merit with buffoonery, surprised me so much, that I asked Crambo what he thought of their procedure. He smiled at my question, and told me a secret, well worth knowing to all frequenters of theatres, namely, that the plaudits I had so judiciously condemned were bestowed by the dependents and hired auxiliaries of the player in question, to some of whom he gave orders for admission, and to others money, to support him in his earnest and laudable endeavours to acquire a great reputation as an actor, at the expence of every thing rational or praise-worthy.—
As for the judgement, or reason, that is supposed to predominate in a playhouse," says the poet, I would not give three farthings for their influence; besides, I dare aver, that the small portions there may be of either, among the audience of this evening, is confined to a few individuals, who are too proud to enter into a contest with ignorance, and too well bred to be violent in their displeasure; so that, unfortunately for common sense," continues the bard, "folly and presumption defeat her and all her influence, within these walls, in nine instances out of ten.
As the little man got heated, in his remarks upon the prostitution of public praise, he spoke so loud that he was overheard by several people around us; some of whom thought his observations very pertinent, and were so well pleased at the grace and facility with which he delivered them, that they paid him a particular attention during the rest of the entertainment; so much had the beauties of his understanding overcome the prejudice that was at first conceived against him from his grotesque and singular appearance.
At length the play began, and I kept a watchful eye, first on the performers and then on the poet, being willing to perceive, by the emotions of his countenance, (which, from his black eyes, heavy brows, and meagre muscles, was finely calculated for expression,) how far his feelings corresponded with my own. One of the most celebrated of the actresses making her appearance, such a clapping of hands ensued as could not have been exceeded if Thalia herself had personated the character; all which she received with a kind of indifferent insolence of behaviour, as tacitly implied, that she imagined it was doing them a prodigious favour by deigning to appear at all; but, entering into the business of the scene, she conducted her dialogue with such a smartness of delivery as seemed to give general delight; and, at one or two passages, where the poet had arisen a small degree above his usual dulness, she got through so well, and did the author such justice, by adding to his wit a certain poignancy peculiar to herself, that I observed the muscles of the grim bard (who was leaning his chin most attentively upon an oaken stick) relaxing with a lazy tendency towards a smile of approbation. I was the more pleased that my friend's iron features were expanded at this happy essay of the actress, as her management of the execution had made me extremely well pleased.
At the conclusion of the comedy, I heard the bard utter a loud groan, which was an ample testimony to me that he had not been amused equal to his wishes; and he was sitting in a kind of sullen discontent, when a gentleman observed, that he had never seen a more excellent comedy, nor one better performed. This public asseveration was, in the opinion of the poet, too great an insult to the taste of the audience to pass unnoticed; and, rising accordingly from his seat, with the importance of a Cicero, he challenged the person, who had passed such an eulogium on the performance and performers, to point out where those beauties lay, in the construction of the piece or the merit of the players, that he had so warmly attributed to both.
My friend had scarcely thrown the gauntlet of defiance, when a circle was formed, of every one within hearing, to listen to the criticisms of the author, his former remarks having excited their attention. Upon my friend's opponent making a few loose and desultory attempts to defend his assertion, the little retainer of the muses answered him in the following manner.—"The science of acting," said the bard, "is a more difficult undertaking than is generally imagined by the actors themselves, or by those weak persons who arrogate a sufficient share of judgement to determine on its excellences, when, in reality, they have frequently no requisite to make them competent to such a situation but their presumption, and no ally to support so gross an usurpation of knowledge but their impudence. Many young people, impelled by a bastard kind of ambition," continued the slave of Parnassus, "rush upon the stage, foolishly imagining themselves under the guidance of the muses, and prosecute their intentions with as much industry and zeal as those hoodwinked wretches, who, from a supposed call of the Spirit, run about the confines of these nations, propagating religious bigotry at the expence of human happiness; yet they are both too often mistaken in the cause, and, in general, made miserable by the effect;—but this is a free country," exclaimed the son of Apollo, with a significant sneer, "and we have, thank heaven, a privilege to be ridiculous whenever we think proper."—
Here the bard's adversary stopped the progress of his raillery by asking him, if he did not admit that the present actors, taken in general, were equal to those he remembered when some years younger; to which question my friend replied, "No," with a strong emphasis, and supported his negative by the ensuing remarks.—
The modern players," said the poet, "are governed by a momentary caprice, and sacrifice the little understanding they have to please the vitiated palate of the public, without the least concern at the outrages they are doing to nature, or the unpleasantness of a labour where their reason and their efforts must be continually at variance. The actors of the old school, on the contrary, nobly stepped forward in the defence of insulted wisdom, and rescued the stage from that barbarity, into which it had been gradually sinking before for at least half a century: and their exertions did them immortal honour; for they dared to oppose their judgements, as men, against the ruinous prejudices which a false taste had implanted in the hearts of their benefactors. At the head of this reformation stood the late inimitable
Garrick,
" vociferated Crambo, "who united as many qualifications for an actor in his mind as the Almighty will perhaps admit a human being to possess; and the want of which all men of discernment must lament in his successors, who are seldom correct, but frequently intolerable.—And who can expect otherwise," said the poet, from men who have not a common knowledge of punctuation, or the absolute necessity that the gesture, voice, and eye, of the performer should intimately correspond in the execution, or that the smallest deficiency, in the conduct of either, renders the representation imperfect, in the same degree as the want of the most inconsiderable feature in the human body will not only take off from the beauty of the whole, but, in some cases, make it even repulsive and disgusting?
By this time the usual summons was given for the commencement of a farce that was to succeed the comedy, written by the favourite author of the day, which the bard no sooner heard, than, taking me by the arm, he forced me out of the theatre, asserting, that he would rather attend a puppet-show at Bartholomew-Fair than the performance of a modern farce, especially a dramatic abortion, squeezed from the brain of an animal, who had scarcely knowledge sufficient to declare whether a human being was a substantive or a preposition; "for," continued the inspired Crambo,
I have it in my power to apologise for the laughable blunders of the one, but cannot for the monstrous absurdities of the other;
upon which he dragged me by main force out of the pit, though I was repeatedly assured, that a great comedian was to support the principal character in the after-piece.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Arrive at the poet's lodgings.—An argument that sometimes proves the pleasure of living in a garret.—An accident occurs which terminates in a tragical manner.—A convincing proof, that fatigue is a better opiate than laudanum. —A hasty sketch of the furniture of an author's study.
MY friend Crambo not being in a condition to go into a house of entertainment, we scudded as fast as possible to his lodgings, where we cast anchor a little before ten o'clock. They were situated at the bottom of an alley, in St. Giles's, so narrow, that it would not admit two people to walk a-breast, and so long, that I thought we never should come to the bottom; for there the bard had chosen his residence, in the garret of a building that had once been a house, and whose attic story leaned for support against the mansions on the opposite side of the alley. He made innumerable apologies to me, as we ascended to his apartment, for taking me so high, and told me, that his predilection in favour of a garret intirely arose from its being more detached from the world than any other room in the house, besides the great advantages it afforded to a mind devoted to study and contemplation.
As we had no candle, and the poet was extremely drowsy as well as myself, we agreed to go to bed by moon-light; but, alas! I found, to my cost, when I had laid myself down with an intention to sleep, that very few persons had reason to envy my friend Crambo the possession of his couch; for the feathers it contained were so scanty that my bones rubbed against the frame of the bed; nor were they quite so soft in their quality as eider-down; for, a few having made their way through the ticking, they annoyed my poor carcass worse than so many crow-quills. However, I knew that my circumstances obliged me to make a virtue of necessity; so, putting the best face I could upon the matter, I was preparing to resign myself to the arms of Morpheus, whom I secretly implored to shed his poppy over my brow, when an accident happened that removed all ideas of sleep for some time. This was occasioned by the retainer of the muses himself, who, in groping his way to the bed, stumbled over some bricks, which he had artfully placed for its support at the foot, and which, falling down, not only destroyed the whole oeconomy of the poet's contrivance, but made such a confounded noise as alarmed an old woman, who slept in the floor beneath, and whose profession, I afterwards found, was that of a fortune-teller, a secret she had picked up in the neighbourhood of Norwood, and, by following which, she made more in a week than my friend Crambo did, by writing poetry, in a month.
The accident had not happened above five minutes, when the old sybil made shift to crawl up to the poet's door, and bestowed such a volley of curses upon him as made my hair stand on end; and, among the rest of her predictions, she declared, without any ceremony, that Crambo would most assuredly come to be hanged. But the little bard was so exasperated at the tenor of the last assertion, that▪ collecting all the strength he was master of, he ran full-but with his head against the stomach of the prophetess; but, using more force in the business than was necessary, and she, at the same time, fastening her claws an inch deep in his throat, they tumbled together down a perpendicular height of at least twenty feet, where they continued to fight on their arrival with prodigious ferocity, like two contending cats, till they were parted by some people who lodged in the same house, and came out to their assistance.
However, in a few minutes after the affray, the poet returned to his apartment, groaning and sobbing with the pain it had occasioned; but, undressing himself, he at last came to bed also, uttering incoherent ejaculations to the supreme Being, not to procure a sweet slumber, but to punish the wretch who had been the primary cause of his bodily torture.
Yet, in spite of every disadvantage, I made shift to sleep tolerably sound, until the bright beams of the sun had awakened my companion, who, shaking me violently by the shoulder, broke the fetters of my repose, to inform me, that it was time he should get up and procure another hat and wig, which he wished to do as early as possible, that his deficiency, in that particular, might not be seen by the neighbourhood, which, he assured me, was not the least scandalous within the bills of mortality; and, if I were willing to accompany him on that occasion, he should be very glad; but if, on the contrary, I was too much fatigued, he would leave me to my slumbers, and return in half an hour.
When I rubbed my eyes sufficiently to survey the apartment of poor Crambo, I must own I felt so little inclination to be left behind, being struck with amazement at the wretchedness of his retreat, that I immediately told him I should be extremely happy to take a walk in so fine a morning.—"Well," says the bard,
if that's your resolution, I will step down stairs, while you are dressing yourself, and get something applied to my forehead, which is extremely painful, and be with you directly.
— And, indeed, he had ample occasion for a plaster; for the disaster of the preceding night with the old woman had been attended with some very ugly effects; among the rest, a great lump upon his forehead, about the bigness of a turkey's egg, was not the most insignificant.
When the bard had left the room, I took an accurate survey of the furniture of his garret, which consisted of the miserable
succedaneum
for a bed, on which, though it appeared next to an impossibility that any one could close their eyes for half an hour, I found, from recent experience, that even Misery could drown his feelings, in the soft bands of sleep, even on a couch of stone. There was likewise a square deal table, with three legs remaining out of four, which it appeared the cabinet-maker had formerly thought necessary for its support, on which were some writings. Among the rest I discovered three cantos of a poem on the inefficacy of wealth towards constituting human happiness, and a satirical epistle to a justice of the peace, who, I understood afterwards, had dealt with such a degree of severity towards the poet, as the latter had thought sufficient provocation to draw upon the head of the devoted magistrate the bitterness of his redoubted pen. — There was, moreover, a rebus for a magazine, a list of bloody murders for one of the morning-papers, and some loose paragraphs; in one of which a man was to have his jaw twisted, in the act of taking some blasphemous oaths in Covent-Garden; — another was an outrageous puff for a tragic actress, who was to appear at one of the theatres in the course of the ensuing week, setting forth, that she was the great granddaughter of a general-officer, and supported an aged mother and three sisters by plain-work;—the third was an account of a bankruptcy that was to take place in a great house at Philadelphia;— and the fourth a particular relation of the plague, and its consequences, that was to break out at Grand Cairo in the beginning of the following month, with a full account of the lethargy that was to seize the Prussian monarch at Berlin, when the emperor was on a visit to the Austrian Netherlands.
I probably should have discovered some valuable manuscripts in my researches, had I not been disturbed in the pursuit by hearing the poet coming hastily up the ladder which led to his room; upon which I replaced every thing in proper order, and set myself down in a chair without a back, which, by the by, was the only one in the room, and was very industriously reading a dying speech, that was pasted against the wall, accompanied by a bawdy ballad and John the Painter's effigy, when the servant of the Parnassian family entered his sublime apartment, and told me he was ready to attend me.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Disadvantages of living in a dirty neighbourhood.—The poet dips for a wig.— Pays a visit to a bookseller.—A morning's lounge in Westminster-Abbey. — Meet with an original. — A summary discourse on the prostitution of epitaphs. —A man of an excellent understanding soured by misfortunes.
BY the time my friend Crambo and I had got out of the alley, we were both almost out of breath, not with the distance of ground we had walked over, but with the alertness we were forced to make use of to avoid some unsavoury salutes from the windows as we passed; for, by the number of offerings which the chaste nymphs of that district discharged from their apartments, one would naturally conclude, that sacrificing to Cloacina was the principal amusement of their existence.
At last I found myself in the middle of a court, which was occupied by dealers in almost every article of dress, such as clothes, boots, shoes, and, in short, every appurtenance necessary to the completion of a fine gentleman; and, at length, we arrived at a wig-warehouse, the windows of which were faced with shambles, and ornamented with wigs for all ages, sexes, and complexions; which the bard no sooner saw than he entered, beckoning me to follow him. The master of the shop, perceiving the nature of his visit, inquired, with much complaisance, if he wanted a tie-wig, a jasy, a bob, or a major; to which the poet immediately replied, "A tie-wig." —
Will your honour make a choice or take a dip?
says the merchant.— "Oh! a dip by all means," replies the bard.—
Why, then, come into the back-shop, master," says the other, "and I'll fit you for sixpence as well as any gemman in the land.
We both followed his directions; and, going into a little back room, he produced a canvass bag, at the same time informing us, that it contained caxens of such delicate workmanship as would not disgrace the forehead of a chief magistrate.
When the poet had deposited his sixpence, he stripped off his coat; and, the master of the shop having opened the mouth of the repository, the little bard put down his arm as far as he could reach, and, after groping about for some minutes, pulled out an old brown wig, without powder, which, from its complexion and disorder, seemed to me as if it had been in the hands of a japanner of shoes, and literally not worth two-pence. But the shopkeeper, it appeared, thought otherwise; for, taking it from the hands of the poet, he told him, with exultation, that he was in luck, for he had brought out a wig for sixpence which was honestly worth a crown between man and man, and, placing it alertly on a block, began to comb it; and indeed the ingenious wig-retailer brought it, by dint of industry, into so respectable a form, that I could not help congratulating my friend Crambo upon the additional graces it gave his countenance.
The next concern being to procure a decent hat, and my companion not being over nice in respect to the fashion, he got one in a neighbouring shop upon very moderate terms; and, being now equipped with the habiliments of a gentleman, he took leave of me, having first exacted my promise to dine with him, at the ordinary in the cellar, at the usual hour; after which he set off for Pater-noster Row, on a visit to a bookseller, with whom, I understood, he had articled himself, under a heavy penalty, to furnish a history of the last war for the moderate premium of half-a-crown a sheet.
Feeling myself in an aukward situation, destitute of a penny to buy the necessaries of life, and deprived of the society of the ingenious author, whose singularities of disposition in a great measure tended to divert my own chagrin, I resolved to pay a visit to Westminster-Abbey, and endeavour, by discoursing with the tombs of departed statesmen and heroes, to reconcile myself to those wants and inconveniences which oppressed me, by learning, from their posthumous declarations, how soon they would be no more. When I entered the abby, I felt an awful sensation pervade my whole frame; the Gothic magnificence of the pile at once pleased and surprised me; I fancied myself walking over the ashes of the good and great, whose names have shone so conspicuous in the page of history; and trod with a kind of sacred apprehension along the sculptured pavement, lest the levity of my actions should give offence to the ennobled dust that slept around me.
I was reading, with particular delight, the epitaphs on the tombs of the British poets, when a man of a genteel mein, but shabbily accoutred, and apparently in greater misery than myself, accosted me, and requested, in terms of the utmost politeness, that I would assist him in the translation of a Latin epitaph in the corner, and at the same instant informed me, that his curiosity was strongly excited to know if our forefathers were as ridiculous in their monumental inscriptions as ourselves, and as willing to honour the memory of a wealthy scoundrel as the present generation. The oddity of the remark, and the solicitude of the man, conspired to awaken my desire to know who he was; which I presently effected by asking him the following question: "Pray, sir," replied I,
do not you imagine, that the custom, all enlightened nations have adopted, of paying a proper tribute to the merits of the dead, is not only laudable in itself, as an exercise of the principle of gratitude for the services they have rendered us, but eventually of benefit to the living, inasmuch as it holds forth to their embraces a certain desirable reward, after death, for the maintenance of virtue and propagation of knowledge while they remained members of human society?" "Your idea of rewarding men of merit is erected upon a very noble foundation," says the stranger; "and, if these rewards were confined merely to persons of that denomination, I should have no possible dislike to their continuance; but as, on the contrary, like splendid titles and other human honours, they are lavished with as much, or more, profuseness on the unprincipled knave, who dies amidst the execrations of his fellow-creatures, as on the scholar who has ornamented his country by his labours, or the soldier who has defended it by his valour, I think they must be considered, by all men who judge properly, as a living satire upon our vanity, and not a lasting record of either our virtues or our wisdom.
I told him, in reply, that, if the abuses really existed which he had pointed out, I though that every man might retire to the grave, contented with having done his duty, and be totally indifferent whether a tomb was raised, to tell the world he had existed, or not; and that, however false praise might be lavished, or rather prostituted, on a bad man, it by no means tended to diminish the virtues of a good one; and, though, in some few instances, the practice might be liable to ridicule, yet, taken all together, the spirit of commemorating the actions of the deceased was not only praise-worthy, but, in my humble opinion, strictly proper.
On the conclusion of my reply, the stranger said,
I will pursue the subject no farther, as I find I am not likely to make you my proselyte very readily. You are but a young man, and have a much better opinion of mankind, I am afraid, than they deserve; but, when you have lived as long in the world as I have, you will perceive its vices and its follies, and most cordially despise them.
I told my new acquaintance, that I was very sorry every day's experience but too fully proved the justice of his remarks upon the depravity of our species; — "and, though a very young man," continued I, "I have discovered more vices, in the small circle of persons with whom I have been connected, than I before imagined to have existed in the whole world." "Oh ho! then," replies the misanthropical stranger, evidently pleased at my condemnation of modern manners, "you have bit at the bridle, you have found some difference between their professions and their actions, have you?" "Indeed I have, most woefully," rejoined I. "I am glad of it," says the stranger; "give me your hand; the more unpalatable the draught of life is in the beginning, the sweeter it will become at the conclusion; and take the word of a soldier, young man, when he avers, that you will be the better for it as long as you exist. Had I," continued the stranger, "felt the rod of adversity in my youth, I should not have been left destitute of the blessings of life at a period of my existence when I most require them."
His last expression touched me to the soul by the manner in which he delivered it. I sympathised with his misfortunes, and begged to know if I could serve him, before that I recollected I had not even the power to assist myself. However, he took my offer in my good part, and, perceiving my sensibility, told me, as we walked through the ailes of the abbey, the principal circumstances that had brought him to regard the world and its dependences with so inveterate an antipathy.
CHAPTER XXXV.
The history of Captain Blisset.
I AM apprehensive, my young friend," (said the stranger,) that you will find nothing sufficiently entertaining in my history to repay you for the trouble of listening to a chain of occurrences that have made up the principal part of my being, and which are tinctured with an infinitely greater proportion of sorrow than of joy. However, as it appears to be your wish to hear it, I will be as brief as possible.
I am descended from a reputable family in the north of Ireland. My name is Blisset; and my father was one of those people who are distinguished, in that kingdom, by the name of gentlemen-farmers; besides the profit that arose from a large portion of land which he rented from a neighbouring nobleman, he had a small fortune that was left him by a distant relation. On the joint issue of these he contrived to live in a state of comfort, enjoying all the diversions of the country, such as hunting, fishing, and all those amusements which are annexed to the life of a country gentleman. But, being one evening at a rural ball, he danced with a beautiful lady, whose natural graces made such an impression on his heart, that he could not quit the room without inquiring into her name and circumstances; and the account he received was far from adding fuel to his growing love; for he learned, that she was the only daughter of a gentleman of considerable property in the adjoining county, and who intended her as a wife for a young baronet of large estate, who was hourly expected to return home from the continent, where he had been for some time for the improvement of his education.
Though this account considerably diminished my father's hopes, it by no means removed the flame that still continued to rage within his bosom.— At last he contrived to have an interview with my mother, (for so the lady proved in the consequences, to my misfortune;) and they became so perfectly agreeable to each other, that a private marriage was resolved on, to put it out of the power of even Fate itself to divide their love.— She took an opportunity, when her father was gone to town upon business of the most serious importance, to convey the principal part of her clothes and baggage to her lover's house, who met her, in her father's park, with a trusty servant and a carriage, into which they both got, and drove with all expedition until they arrived at the farm, where a clergyman attended to unite them in the indissoluble bonds of matrimony.
When her father returned to the country, and found how his daughter had disposed of herself in wedlock without his knowledge, he grew frantic with the disappointment; but strove to forget her want of duty, and herself, by going to reside in France, where he survived the event but a few years, and left all the property he was able in large bequests to his friends and acquaintance, and the rest so laden with mortgages and other disagreeable incumbrances, that my father was half ruined in the endeavours to recover the remainder.— However, in spite of these draw-backs on their felicity, they contrived to live very comfortably, my mother bearing him a child every year; and the first fruit of their love was your humble servant.
The circumstance of my being a boy so pleased them both, that my parents continued to caress me with the most extravagant tokens of parental fondness, a mode of behaviour which they pursued till I left my country and saw them no more. As I grew up in strength and beauty, I was indulged in every wanton and improper propensity, at the expence of my brothers and sisters. This partiality in my favour was so glaring to every person that visited the family, that some, who were on the most intimate footing with my father and mother, strove to remove, or at least to reduce, a partiality which existed in preference to the rest of the children, who were, in general, more amiable in the eyes of strangers; for, the unlimited manner in which I experienced their ill-timed kindnesses had worked me up to such a pitch of arrogance and ill-nature, that my humour became intolerable to all those whose senses were not hood-winked by the unaccountable partiality of a parent; and various were the methods practised by the servants to mortify young master Frank, (for that is my name,) while my brothers and sisters were treated with kindness by every one but their parents: some would take an opportunity, while they were putting on my clothes, to run a pin into my arm, as if by accident, and others would give me a sly pinch, which made me roar for an hour. You may be sure I did not fail to make the most of these abuses to my parents; but, at last, my complaints became so frequent and so numerous, that they lost their credit; and, in the sequel, I was pinched and pushed about by all the servants in the house, out of the sight of my parents, without even the satisfaction of having my accounts believed. In this manner was the earlier part of my life passed, till I arrived at nine years of age, when it was thought proper to send me to an academy in the same county; but I had not been long there before the same spirit broke out which had rendered me so intolerable at home. But now the scene was changed; for my humours were counteracted with a studious particularity, and my faults punished by such severe applications of the birch to my ill-fated posteriors, that I could not sit down, for whole days succeeding the punishment. At length, a full, true, and particular, account reached the ears of my parents, who instantly flew to the school, and charged the master, on pain of their displeasure, not to whip me any more, but strive to make me learn my task by persuasion, which they assured him was a sufficient incitement to make a boy do his duty of so gentle and governable a disposition as mine.
Leaving the master of the seminary under that ridiculous restriction, they returned home; and it was not long before I resorted to my old tricks; which the master, endeavouring to curb by the methods prescribed by the wise authors of my being, and finding them ineffectual, very fairly took the resolution of sending me back to profit by their sage instructions; or, in other words, turned me out of the school as an incorrigible young puppy, who was destined to ruin, by possessing a perverse disposition, which he was forbidden to regulate or alter by the silly determination of two weak people, who rather chose that their offspring should shoot up to manhood, detested by every one but themselves, than grow amiable, dutiful, and exemplary, at the expence of a sore breech and a few salutary tears.
At my return home, my parents were filled with the most implacable resentment against the school-master, whom they honoured with the terms of insolent pedagogue, hard-hearted tyrant, and other phrases equally expressive of their folly and malignity; but, at the same time, took a firm resolution that their dear Frank should not be exposed to such merciless cruelty for the future, which they were well assured I had not deserved, because, forsooth, I had told them to the contrary; and, in consequence, I was permitted to pass my time, until I approached a state of manhood, without receiving those advantages of education which other young people enjoyed, for fear that discipline should break my heart and too much study impair my constitution. But, one day, after dinner, as the family were sitting in conversation, my mother told a story of a circumstance in which I was materially concerned; but her manner of relating it displeased me so much, that, when she came to a particular part of the narrative, I very coolly gave her the lie direct; and, upon her offering to remonstrate with me upon the impropriety of my behaviour, I immediately spit in her face. But this last was an outrage that not even their partiality could overlook; I was threatened by my father with personal chastisement, which I defied him to put in execution; and, at length, things grew to such a height of animosity, that it was determined to purchase me a commission in the army, in one of the regiments ordered abroad, for we were then at war. Accordingly the whole business was immediately put
en train,
and I was consigned to the care of a near relation of my father, in town, who was to provide every requisite necessary for such an undertaking, and to give me such advice as would prove beneficial to me in my conduct as an officer, he having retired from the army but a few years, and in which he had served with an unsullied reputation ever since he was the height of a regimental drum.
Agreeable to the desire of my parents, the sage veteran formed such rules for my conduct, as he thought, from experience, would prove most serviceable; but, in general, I turned such a deaf ear to his instructions as disgusted the old gentleman exceedingly; and, after executing his commission with fidelity, he gave me up to Fortune, as a perverse young man who would one day bleed severely under the rod of her displeasure.
The morning before I took my leave of this worthy man, he seized me by the hand, and, pressing it between his with a warmth which nothing but true friendship could inspire, spoke to me, with the most engaging complacency, in nearly the following manner: — 'My dear Frank,' said the old gentleman, 'before you quit me intirely, I must intreat your particular attention to the advice I am now going to give you. Do not shrink from it, my dear boy: it is not the severe admonition of an old man, who looks with a jaundiced eye upon mankind; it is the essence of all the knowledge I have gleaned in a long course of service, during which I have endeavoured not only to live in, but with, the world; and I have learned, from a knowledge of my own weakness, to look with an eye of charity upon all the frailties incident to our nature. I know the passions of youth are difficult to be restrained within the circle of prudence; but I have likewise discovered, my dear child, that, the more they are restricted, the happier it is for ourselves. As a soldier, you should make your passions observe the same degree of subordination to your reason as the duties of your profession will teach you to observe to your commanding officer: let each have its proper influence in the general system, but suffer none to be licentious. Your own good sense will, I hope, inform you, that you have now entered into a profession whose basis is virtue and honour; and that the utmost circumspection of behaviour is necessary on your part to preserve the character you have assumed from violation. You are now a soldier, Frank,' said the old gentleman with a particular strength of emphasis; 'and you must reflect, that you are going to join an army, of which you must consider yourself an active part, whose purpose is to crush the ambitious spirit of a perfidious enemy, and furnish another action of British glory to be recorded for ever in the archives of immortal Fame. There is,' continued the grey-headed veteran, 'an absolute necessity for every man, who wishes to be respected, to observe a proper degree of civility towards all ranks of people; and that mode of behaviour is particularly requisite in an officer. It should be your constant study to deserve the commendations of your general, by strictly adhering to your duty; to court the good will of your brother-officers by your complaisance; and to insure the blessings of your inferiors by acts of kindness, rectitude, and humanity: and take my word, that the pleasures you will experience, by following this line of conduct, will amply repay you for the trouble of putting it in practice; for, besides the advantage of establishing your own content, it is the best possible method of aggrandising your fortune. To enforce this observation more strongly, I will tell you an anecdote of two persons whom I knew well, and the consequences of whose lives prove the necessity of paying a proper deference to the opinion of others. — There were two friends, William and Frederic, who were educated together at the same university; the former possessed a sweet and gentle disposition, the latter a strong understanding; and, both happening to be under the care of the same guardian, (for they were orphans,) they followed one course of study, and were intended for one profession. When they arrived at man's estate, it was thought expedient, as they had some very important connections in America, to send them over there to settle as merchants. Accordingly they went to one of the principal colonies, which was then subject to the British legislature, and carried over some strong letters of recommendation to the principal people, but particularly the governor. On their arrival on the continent, they received every token of respect and friendship from the people; but, Frederic's temper being discovered to be as bad and unaccommodating as William's was good and polite, the latter naturally attracted the hearts of his acquaintance, while the former was treated with a coldness bordering on incivility, which soured him to such a degree, that he at last became intolerable even to his old companion and colleague, William; and it was determined at length, for the mutual happiness of both parties, to break up the partnership and reimbark for England. But, previous to their departure, the governor invited William and Frederic to dine with him; and, finding them both to be gentlemen of great information in regard to the situation of the province, he thought it proper to send a letter by them to the secretary of state, as two persons in every respect capable of pointing out the necessity and advantages of a measure which government had then in contemplation. When they arrived in England, they were both closeted with the secretary, who began with asking Frederic's opinion, who gave a succinct and clear account of the matter, but delivered his opinion in such a supercilious and dogmatic manner as gave the minister more disgust by his manner than he had satisfaction by his information; and he was dismissed with that kind of civil and constrained coldness, which clearly proved that he had lost the favourable opinion of the secretary, and sacrificed his fortune to the haughtiness of his spirit. On the contrary, William gave his opinion with equal accuracy, but with the utmost modesty; and, when the minister had heard every thing that he could advance upon the subject, he condescended to shew him a sketch of the intended operations; and, after speaking for a considerable time in defence of his proposed plan, he asked William what he thought of the undertaking; who replied, with an air of the utmost gentleness and good-breeding,
that he had formerly conceived those measures would be most salutary and beneficial which had been advised by his friend, Frederic, until he was convinced to the contrary by his lordship's superior reasoning. He had scarcely uttered his opinion, when the minister caught him in his arms, and told him, that he perceived he was not only a gentleman of extensive knowledge in politics, but a warm friend to his country, and that he might depend upon it he would mention him to the king; and indeed he was as good as his word, and, by the force of his interest, procured him a considerable post under government, which he has enjoyed with particular honour ever since, and is enabled, in consequence, to support the intemperate and proud Frederic, who is now reduced to the necessity of being the object of his bounty. Now you see, my dear boy,' said the old soldier, 'by the fate of these two gentlemen, what a prodigious superiority that man has, with a good temper and moderate talents, over him with an enlarged understanding, provided the latter is not regulated by good manners and supported by modesty.
The old gentleman, having concluded his instructions for my well-being, took a final leave of me, with tears in his eyes, after supplicating heaven to make me prosperous and happy as a man, and honourable and magnanimous as a soldier.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Conclusion of Captain Blisset's story.
THE next morning, (continued the gentleman,) I embarked with the regiment for America, and arrived at Boston after a disagreeable and tedious passage of upwards of two months. Not being used to fatigue, the inconveniences I suffered in the voyage, added to the sickness I had continually while at sea, made me curse the hour in which I consented to be a soldier; but, finding the die was cast, and that I must submit to the stern decrees of Fate, I bore my fortune as well as I could, and submitted my body to all the drudgeries and duties of war, in direct opposition to the impulse of my spirit. Habituated as I had been to have my own will obeyed from my childhood, I could but ill brook to be commanded at the caprice of another, and ordered into situations which I disliked, and upon services the most disagreeable; and my own dissatisfaction was increased when I took a comparative view of my brother-officers, who seemed to bear their worst hardships with a degree of pleasure and content, when the most trivial of mine were rendered extremely miserable by the perverseness of my disposition; for no spark of the
amor patriae,
or love of glory, irradiated my breast; I considered myself as a slave, and was consequently unhappy. Full often did I curse those indulgences which I had experienced from my father and mother, and even hated them for giving me an existence, which was become irksome and intolerable by their neglect of all the important parts of the education of a child.
Not to trouble you too much with a recital of trivial accidents, let it suffice when I acquaint you, that, after a service of something less than two years, I got appointed to a company, and was ordered by the general to take the command of a party that was sent to dislodge some Indians, who were sculking about the woods, to the great annoyance of the rear of the army. A few months previous to this expedition, I must inform you, that I had a quarrel with a lieutenant who happened to be stationed under my command, and I resolved (so diabolical was the complexion of my mind at that period) to take that opportunity of getting him, if possible, out of the way, or, in other words, to use some treacherous means of destroying his life. We had frequent skirmishes with the Indians, in all which my particular enemy, or rather the object of my hatred, came off unhurt, though I studiously placed him in the post of danger for that purpose. As his sight became every day more hateful to me, I watched all opportunities of punishing him for disobedience of orders; but in this too he foiled me; for, knowing the implacability of my heart, and being a brave and sober man, he was uncommonly punctual in the observance of his duty. It being resolved, in council, to make a grand attack upon a post, which the Indians possessed, the next morning at day-break, I determined to place my enemy in the hottest part of the fire; and, if he escaped his death then, I had made up my mind to dispatch him myself, by shooting him through the head.
Early in the morning we began the attack, which lasted with unremitting fury for some hours; at last I was unfortunately surrounded by some Indians, who made me their prisoner, and carried me off in triumph. I had scarcely arrived among their chiefs when I was ordered to be scalped, a punishment of all others the most dreadful; and they had fastened their hands in my hair, to draw the skin over my scull, which they were going to separate with a knife, when Providence interfered in behalf of a wretch like me; and, to make my humiliation the deeper, chose for its instrument the very lieutenant whose life I intended to destroy. It seems that, hearing of my captivity, he got a handful of men together, and, rushing through the thickest part of the enemy, arrived at the spot just time enough to save me from the bloody catastrophe.
Overcome with joy at my delivery, I fell at the feet of my benefactor, and asked him how he could think of venturing his life to save so unworthy a being? to which he nobly replied, that he was not ignorant of the hatred I so unjustly bore him; but that a knowledge of my infernal malice, though it might alarm his feelings as a man, could not efface his duty as a Christian, which instructed him to save the life even of his enemy, and, if possible, to return him good for evil.
I was so awed by the majesty and benevolence of his conduct, that I took a resolution, from that hour, of looking up to him as an example, and amend my life by a recollection of the means by which it had been preserved.
Nothing remarkable occurred, after this adventure, till the campaign ended, when, the regiment I belonged to being ordered home, I sold out, in order to settle in America, having contracted a soft intimacy with a lady who resided there, and whom I afterwards married. We have lived ever since in the utmost harmony; and, were it not for the intrusion of distress, which indeed" (added the captain with a heavy sigh) has visited us, since our union, but too often, we should be as happy a couple as any breathing under heaven. In short," (continued the stranger,) "I am afraid that the vices of the former part of my life have drawn down a curse upon my innocent wife and children. Here the tears started from his eyes; which so affected me, that I involuntarily wept too. But the stranger, recovering himself, went on as follows:
I had not been long married, when I received a letter which informed me of the death of my father, and that my mother had married a second husband; and, at the time of my father's decease, his affairs were so embarrassed by the law-suits which he had been maintaining for years, that he had left his family almost in a state of beggary.
Nor did my own private affairs turn out a whit better; for, having run out the money which I got for my commission, and the principal half of my wife's portion remaining in the hands of a capital merchant in London, who refused to remit any part of it to the continent, we resolved to leave America, and get that satisfaction in England which it was almost impossible to procure at so great a distance. We accordingly sold off all our effects; and my wife and I, with two children and a maid, embarked for the port of London.
When we arrived here, I took every prudent step, as I then thought, for the recovery of my property; — but, alas! there I was most woefully deceived. I was ridiculous enough to build a certainty of success upon the justice of my cause; but the event has proved that it was but a sorry foundation to erect my hope upon; for, after two years spent in unnecessary protraction, in which time I had expended not only my last guinea, but every valuable I had that could raise one, the momentous affair came to a trial; and I had the mortification to find, that my oppressor's being a richer man than myself was a certain sign that he would prove victorious; and that the boasted laws of this country can afford but little protection to the equitable claims of poverty and honour, when their spirit and their intention can be so easily perverted by the villanous ingenuity of professional man-eaters. In short, sir, I lost my cause for want of sufficient money to fee the counsel, and the judge very gravely decreed against me, because I had not an opportunity of telling him the reasons why he should have done otherwise.
I shall never forget the situation of my wretched family when I returned to inform them of the melancholy event, which had consigned them to all the horrors of want and desperation. My poor Maria, after she had recovered her senses a little, (for she fainted repeatedly in my arms on the first news of our defeat,) and was assured that such an account could be real, she fell upon her knees, surrounded by her half-famished children, and implored the omnipotent Searcher of all hearts to reject the last claims of mercy, which might be intreated, in his dying hour, by the unprincipled miscreant, who had robbed her poor little ones of that bread, which justice should have given them to satisfy the irresistible appeals of hunger. 'But pardon the presumption of a maddening wretch,' (exclaimed my poor Maria, recollecting herself,) 'for I bow my head in obedience to thy blessed dispensations, and must teach my heart no other language in future but — O Lord, thy will be done!
The noise, which the tender partner of my misfortunes had made in the wild indulgence of her sorrows, attracted the notice of a person, who was in the adjoining chamber, on a visit to an old couple, one of whom was bed-ridden, and, having been turned out of the hospital as incurable, was obliged to lengthen his woe-fraught being by the casual bounty of the good and charitable. Hearing the moans of distress, he gave a gentle tap at the door; and, lifting up the latch, he entered the room. But, good heavens! how was I amazed to recognise in his person the individual lieutenant that had saved me from the fury of the barbarous Indians! It was some time before I could make him believe who I was, so much had the woes that I had endured, and the difficulties I had experienced, altered my person since we took leave of each other: but, the moment that he was convinced of my identity, he embraced me with all the warmth of an old friend; and, sitting down with a little infant on each knee, asked the particulars of my life, since we had parted, with all possible delicacy and painful curiosity.
When he had been made acquainted with our story, he took my wife by one hand and me by the other, and bade us not despair, but put our trust in God Almighty, who would receive us, if deserving, into his benign bosom, and shield our little family from the machinations of the wicked and the prostitution of power.
After a present of some ginger-bread to the children, which I understood he always carried about with him for that purpose, he took his leave, promising to pay us another visit the following morning. And he was as good as his word; for he not only came to make us happy by his advice, but to comfort us by his assistance; and insisted, as Fortune had looked upon him with an eye of kindness since he left America, by advancing him in the army, that I should partake of that bounty, (as he expressed it,) which Providence only sent to the rich that they might become faithful stewards to the poor, by distributing her gifts, with the hand of circumspection and benevolence, among the most necessitous of their fellow-creatures.
Notwithstanding the number and weight of my distresses, I felt a great consolation in the visits of this worthy officer; and indeed both I and my family must have perished but for the generosity of his disposition. The frequency, with which the remembrance of the malice I once exercised towards him recurred to my mind, hurt my peace exceedingly; but I now strive to expiate the heinousness of such transgressions by uniformly praying for his well-being.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
The stranger takes his leave. — Reflections on the vicissitudes of life. — Arrive at the cellar. — A humourous account of a marriage-ceremony, in which the intentions of Hymen are defeated by the influence of Bacchus.
HERE the officer took his leave, with the warmest wishes for my felicity; and, the hour approaching that I was to meet my friend Crambo at the ordinary, I set forward for that place, contemplating all the way on the vicissitudes of human nature, and the inscrutable and unaccountable methods by which Providence protects us from impending evil, and destroys our fairest hopes of prosperity. These reflections tended to bring on a strong tincture of melancholy in my mind; for, as I looked around me, I fancied that misery had taken up her abode in almost every breast, and that the smiling countenances of many that passed me in the street served but as a temporary veil to cover the real inquietude of the heart within. — The few examples of happiness I had seen, since I started in the world, convinced me of the truth of an observation, I had often heard, which asserts that we are born to suffer much more than to enjoy; but, finding myself arrived at the mouth of the cellar where I was to meet the poet, the fumes of the boiled and roast, that ascended from that receptacle of the sons of Apollo, saluted my nostrils in gales of such delicious
flavour, as drove away, in an instant, every other consideration but that of eating and voluptuousness.
As I descended into the quill-drivers refectory, I heard a loud laugh, which indicated that mirth presided at the board. When I had got far enough into the cellar to have a glimpse of the company, I perceived my friend Crambo as merry as the best of them. I was particularly glad of that sign, as I imagined he had been fortunate enough to touch his bookseller for some cash that morning; and I found afterwards that I was not out in my reckoning, for I had scarcely sat down, when he whispered in my ear that he had been cursed lucky since he saw me, and had absolutely persuaded his publisher, in Pater-noster Row, to advance him half a guinea; at the same time, slipping a couple of shillings into my hand unperceived by the company, added, that he was always happy to have it in his power to assist his friends. Now the poet was called to order by the rest of the company, to listen to a story which Mr. M'Paste, the compiler of a monthly magazine, was going to divert the company with. My friend bowed obedience to the
fiat,
and I sat wrapped up in expectation of hearing something excellent.
You must know, gentlemen," said the compiler, "that I have the honour of lodging at a chandler's shop; and, being considered as an inmate of the family, I was applied to to write an epithalamium on the approaching nuptials of my landlady with an old tallow-chandler who lived opposite, which were to happen in a few days; and, to have the thing done in a genteel style, it was resolved, by both parties, that it should be celebrated on a Saturday evening. Well, gentlemen, you must suppose every thing going on swimmingly; the bride-cake made; the company invited; and the old yellow tabby, that had been mouldering at the bottom of the bride's drawer, under the ravages of moths and time, for at least twenty years, drawn forth, by the influence of that wanton rogue, Cupid, and newly furbished and farthingaled by the ingenious hands of a modern mantua-maker, to make it, if possible, look fashionable, as it was intended for the gaudy vestment of the bride on that momentous occasion.— Instead of a system, to fasten on her cap, which she had imported but the day before from Cranborn-alley, she wore an old wig of her former husband's, which was frizzled and tortured into the shape necessary for the purpose; and, when fastened on her head, her visage, by the aid of this modish ornament, bore no bad resemblance to the forehead of a Newfoundland dog.
The company, invited on that memorable evening, consisted of a few select neighbours: — Mrs. Grogram, the old-clothes woman; a rich chimney-sweeper's lady, and her two daughters; a pettifogging attorney; Mrs. Snatch'em, the pawnbroker's widow, from the corner of the opposite alley; the tallow-chandler's nephew; and your humble servant.
When the clock had struck four, this goodly group had assembled; and it was plain, that the bridegroom had exhausted not only his purse, but his invention, to dress himself out to the best advantage, and make his person as engaging and irresistible as possible.
He had chosen a deep-coloured Prussian-blue coat, that would have been considered as the pink of elegance about half a century ago, the cuffs being large enough to make a modern waistcoat, with flaps down to his heels; and the dark blue was finely relieved by a large row of brass buttons, which covered at least one-fourth of that part of his habiliments. Added to this, he had on a scarlet waistcoat of prodigious magnitude, a pair of buckskin breeches, and a wig, without powder, in circumference as large as a moderate gooseberry-bush; which, considering the intense heat of the weather, was a dress, taken all together, that must naturally, as you will imagine, attract our notice, if not our admiration.
After tea, the whole party was summoned to attend the hymeneal altar; and, when we had got to the door, to step into the coaches that waited for our reception, there was as great a croud gathered in the street, to behold our dress and equipage, as if the lord-mayor of London were going to Westminster in solemn procession on the ninth of November, or a show of wild beasts had just arrived from the African deserts. When we were all secured within the coaches, they moved, in awful grandeur, amidst the shouts of the populace, to the parish-church, where the high-priest of Hymen, vulgarly ycleped a parson, waited to unite these extraordinary originals in the solemn bands of holy matrimony.
In the course of this tremendous service, a few mistakes happened, which sometimes disconcerted the whole business; but you will not wonder at that, when I inform you, that the bridegroom was as deaf as a mill-post; and the priest, when he came to that part of the affair which requires him to ask the bridegroom, if he is willing to take his blessed acquisition to be his true and lawful wife, was forced to bawl as loud as the woman that cries Newcastle salmon in the hundreds of Drury-lane, before he could make him understand the nature of the question; but, however, the bridegroom made ample amends when he did; for, as soon as his ear had caught the intent of the requisition, he answered, with great precipitation, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But this was not all the impediment which took place; for another important mistake occurred, which was no other than the bridegroom's putting the ring on the wrong finger of his amiable spouse; and this unfortunate stroke of Fate caused an infinite deal of trouble to the parties; for the hero of the evening, being a man of a narrow and avaricious disposition, had purchased a second-hand ring for the occasion, from his neighbour, the pawnbroker, which, unluckily, not being measured to the lady's finger, proved too small; but the bridegroom, by dint of personal strength, had absolutely forced it on the poor gentlewoman's middle finger ere the mistake was found out; and then, the endeavour to pull it off being found impossible, the ceremony was finished without it, and the blessing perhaps conveyed with equal efficacy to the parties, notwithstanding so gross a violation of prescribed order.
As we returned home, the bride expressed some doubts as to the validity of the obligation they had mutually entered into, as she imagined the blunder of her yoke-fellow, in the wrong application of that important appendage to matrimony on the finger of a lady, had in a great degree defeated the intention of that sacred business; and she began to enlarge on the stupidity of some people with such a tincture of bitterness, that we certainly should have had a matrimonial duet, in proper character, before the consummation, if I had not luckily observed, that the mistake was of no sort of consequence whatever, for that the personal liberty of his majesty's liege subjects might be charmed away, with equal force, by placing the ring on the wrong finger as well as on the right. As my landlady paid a sort of deference to my opinion, I had the good fortune to accommodate the matter before it arrived at what might be called a downright dispute, but not without a few oblique hints, from the lady, which proved pretty clearly to the company, that she was not perfectly satisfied with a husband, who did not, upon all occasions, know what use to make of his wife's ring.
But now, the cavalcade arriving at the bride's door, the betrothed couple were handed out of the carriage, attended by the huzzas of three-fourths of the vagabond-inhabitants of that enlightened and elegant quarter of the town. As soon as the whole party was well housed, we sat down to a cold repast of boiled beef, ham, pigs-cheek, and jellies, with plenty of Whitbread's best brown stout, pipes and tobacco, and a bowl of punch almost capacious enough to swim a fleet of West-Indiamen. Nor would I have you understand, gentlemen, that this assemblage of dainties was provided in vain; on the contrary, the only spirit of ambition, that seemed to reign among the guests, was, who should devour the most: totally regardless of the use of knives and forks, which they thought superfluous, as heaven had given them fingers, they began the attack with the appetites of aldermen, and continued the siege with the industry of pigs; till, at last, what with the punch and good living, the major part of the company began to stagger about the room, the ladies not excepted; and the bride and bridegroom made such direct overtures of fondness, before their guests, as plainly evinced that they wished them all at the devil, that they might be at full liberty to put the finishing stroke to a business which the church had so recently sanctified with its infallible authority. But, alas! that grim disposer of human events, vulgarly called Fate, doubtless envious of their approaching raptures, cruelly determined that this should not be, and the lovely bride panted in vain for those pleasures, which Destiny decreed should exist only in her warm imagination.
To drop all metaphorical descriptions, and come to the point, I must inform you, that some wags, who frequented a public house in the same street, entered into a combination to put a trick upon the tallow-chandler, which should deprive him of the sweet society of his bride for one night at least; and they effected it in the following manner. One of them got a note conveyed to the bridegroom, (who, by this time, was half-seas over,) requesting his immediate attendance at a friend's house, upon some business of the most material consequence to his peace, at the same time desiring him to steal away unperceived by the company at his house, and promising that he should be detained only a few minutes at farthest. The credulous maker of candles no sooner received this mischievous epistle, than he stole away to the appointed rendezvous, where a man was dressed up as a countryman, just arrived from Lincolnshire with an account of his brother's death, and that he had left him a great fortune; at the same time apologising for the manner of communicating the intelligence, as apprehensive of disordering the tender nerves of his lady if he had gone directly to his house with such a dismal tale upon his wedding-day. 'Dismal tale!' cries the tallow-chandler, interrupting him, half fuddled, 'why, damme, it is the best story I have heard these seven years, and, damme, you are the best friend I have seen these seven years. To be sure, d'ye see, as how I ought to be sorry for the death of a relation; but, damme, never mind; — though he was a cursed sort of a curmudgeon,' cries the bridegoom, 'I hope he is gone to a better place; at any rate, d'ye see, my friend, if he is happy, why I am contented.
During this exemplary dialogue, the pretended countryman plied the tallow-chandler with large glasses of punch, half the ingredients of which were strong brandy, until they had brought him to a proper pitch of insensibility, when one of the party came running in to inform his associates in iniquity that all was ready, which, it seems, was a watch-word for bringing out the bridegroom; — and, each taking hold of an arm and a leg, they conveyed him to the door, where a stage-coach was waiting for some passengers; and, taking him to the rear of the carriage, they threw the poor tallow-chandler, by main force, into the basket, like a stinking salmon into the Thames, in which situation he lay, bent double, and snoring as loud as the hogs at Vauxhall, until he was waked, the next morning, at Winchester, by the ostler's throwing in a heavy portmanteau, which, alighting on the breast of the intoxicated bridegroom, entirely broke the fetters of his repose, as well as three of his false ribs; and he was instantly dragged out of his uncomfortable bed-chamber, roaring like a bull with agony, by the servants of the inn, who secured him as a fellow who only feigned to be drunk, and had stolen into the basket with a design of robbing the stage on the journey.
These particulars I have since learned from one of the conspirators. Thus was the poor fellow, in the warm moments of fond expectation, like another Tantalus, snatched from the enjoyment of bliss just as he got the cup of happiness to his lip; while his poor lady at home, overcome by grief and anger at the disappointment of her wishes, fell into hysterics for the remainder of the night, and from which she was not intirely recovered until the next morning, when some timely draughts of burnt brandy and nutmeg relieved her so far, that she was enabled to sit up in her bed, and listen to the condolance of her female friends, who had kindly assembled for that pious purpose; but the poor woman was so woe-begone and dejected, that she could answer their consolation and conjecture only with her tears.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
The poet gives me some salutary advice. — He is attracted by my abilities. — Consults me on his literary pursuits. — I forfeit his friendship by the exercise of my candour. — A sarcastic colloquy between the host and the poet. — The latter's overthrow and discomfiture.
AFTER the company had applauded Mr. M'Paste for his story, which he assured them he should work into a tale, and have inserted in the next month's publication, we all sat down to dinner; at the conclusion of which my friend Crambo and I retired to another part of the room, in order to discourse upon our private affairs, and think of some expedient by which I might be enabled to get a livelihood, without existing by the sale of the few articles of wearing-apparel I had left. After ruminating upon a variety of projects, the poet advised me to look into the daily papers, where I should be certain of reading, among the list of the
wanteds,
something that would answer my purpose. At the same time the generous son of Apollo made me an unlimited offer of his purse and friendship, such as they were, upon all occasions; and, throwing the former upon the table, emptied its contents, which consisted of two half-crown pieces, a sixpence with a hole in it, a few halfpence, and a tobacco-stopper.
I was so much affected by this instance of his generosity, that I could not refrain from getting up and hugging him in my arms, as the best and most disinterested friend I had in the world; a compliment which he returned with great ardour, and accompanied it with an observation even more pleasing than his bounty, namely, that he had been attracted solely by the purity of my judgement and my abilities as a scholar. Such an eulogium from any one would have given me pleasure; but, when I considered it as coming from the mouth of one of the greatest authors of the age, (for such I had conceived him to be from his own broad insinuations,) I was transported by my vanity to a pitch of the utmost extravagance, and did not fail to extol my panegyrist to the skies in terms of unbounded flattery; all which, though but the incense of a novice like me, he received with peculiar complaisance, and was pleased to declare himself as happy in my commendation as if the Stagyrite himself had peeped from his tomb to signify his approbation of the labours of his brain.
After swearing an eternal attachment to each other, he took a parcel of papers from a pocket made within-side his waistcoat; and, spreading them upon the table in particular order, addressed me as follows: "Mr. Varnish," said the diminutive bard, "I am now going to give you an unquestionable proof of my confidence, which no man in my circumstances would, if he were not previously convinced of your experience and taste as a scholar, as well as of your unshaken fidelity to my interest as an individual. In short, my dear sir," exclaimed the poet, squeezing my hand, "I am going to shew you some hints, mere literary atoms to be sure, but such, I flatter myself, as, when called into form, will not only secure me the
otium cum dignitate
at present, but, what is infinitely more dear to my imagination, will hand me down to posterity with a laurel wreathed around my brow, so ample, that the very shadow of it shall hide the weaknesses of my nature. Here, my dear friend, are the precious morsels," said the poet, holding up the papers, "upon which I must inevitably build my fame and fortune. But, to return to the intent of this communication, let us now commune a little upon the scheme I have in agitation; and I intreat you, as my particular friend, to point out such parts as shall appear objectionable to you; for the very best writers that ever existed have been obliged to the assistance of their friends on these occasions, Mr. Varnish, you know: — Pope had his Bolingbroke, Prussia's monarch his Voltaire, and Moliere his old woman;
humanum est errare;
but it is the lot of our nature; the most brilliant genius that ever honoured the blazing ages of antiquity was not perfect. No," continues my friend, Crambo, "absolute perfection is not to be found on this earth, that is certain. But, à-propos, to business, or perhaps you may think the exordium of more importance than the subject: the affair, that I mean to consult you upon, my young Aristotle, is an epic poem; and the basis of it is," said the poet, leaning across the table, and whispering in my ear with a tone of exultation, the siege of Gibraltar. — Well," says the little author, looking me full in the face, and rubbing his hands, "I hope you will admit, my friend, that I have been tolerably lucky in my subject at least." "I think so too, indeed," replied I; "for I know of no theme so proper, for the pen of an Englishman, as the glorious atchievements of his own countrymen."
"You charm me by the propriety of your observations," replies the poet; "I protest you have an amazing deal of judgement, apt and comprehensive; and, what is better, damme but you are a true patriot."
I bowed my acknowledgements for the favour of such compliments, when the bard produced the argument of the first book for my consideration. — When I had perused it a little, I ventured to point out an inaccuracy in the poet's manner of treating the story; to which he significantly replied, with a nod of the head,
Aye, aye, read on, my friend, if you please; the deeper you get into the marrow, the more you will be ravished with the performance.
I proceeded, agreeably to his directions, to read farther, and carefully to examine the matter as I went on. At last, coming, in my humble opinion, to a manifest impropriety, I gave my opinion of it with all the freedom of a man who felt himself interested in the reputation of his friend. But I found, that the author was so far from taking it in this point of view, that he demurred against my observation, and added, —
Pish! man, I perceive you are not sufficiently acquainted with the subject.
I told him, in reply,
that, though I did not pretend to be a poet, I could lay some claim to a strong memory; and that informed me, the plot was ill managed; and, if such a breach of propriety were admissible in an epic poem, it was not to be reconciled to the laws of truth; and, to depart from truth, in such a theme, were to dishonour the cause he meant to immortalise.
But here I found that I had overshot my mark; for the little bard, looking at me with a countenance reddened high with ferocious indignation, snatched the manuscript out of my hand with great violence, and told me, in direct terms, that he had been grossly deceived in ranking me for a man of understanding, when I had not discernment enough to discover a literary beauty, if it were even set down in Roman capitals.
I now began to smell my error, and would willingly have retracted, but I found it was too late; for, upon my attempting to open my mouth, he turned round to the landlord of the place, and cried aloud, "Damme, landlord, here is a pretty fellow pretends to judge of an epic poem, and he has not read enough to distinguish between the excellence of the Iliad and the mummery and trash contained in the life of Tom Hickathrift! Here, you Mr. Critic," cries the bard to me, "be so good as to return me the two shillings, you dog, I lent you to pay for your dinner." "What? you have lent him money, too!" says the landlord, laughing heartily. "Yes," replies, the poet, "and he has made me a damned grateful return for it." — By Ch—t," says the landlord, I am glad of it." "Why are you glad?" replies the bard, bristling up to the host like an enraged turkey-cock. "Why?" cries the other, "because you would sooner be giving your money to any idle vagabond, like that, than pay your lawful debts." — You tell a damned lie," says the poet. I will let you know what it is to give a gentleman the lie in his own house, and be damned to you," replies the other." "Why, you poor dog, that is impossible," says the bard, "for you never kept one, but have spent your life under ground, grubbing for an existence like a mole in a meadow, until you have become as blind, to your own interest, as the reptile you imitate." "Blind!" says the landlord, with all the dignity he could assume. "Aye, I say blind," cries the follower of the muses, "or you would never affront a man of genius, when he condescends to eat in your infernal regions." "Condescend to eat, quotha!" replies the subterranean cook; — "damme, you snivelling dog, you know you would have been starved long ago, if it had not been for many a good slice from my surloin, which I suffered you to take upon tick from a motive of charity; you know I did, you ungrateful scoundrel." "Surloin!" cries the author, enraged to the summit of madness by the foregoing remarks; — "damme, you never had a surloin in your cellar." "What had I then, you mongrel maker of verses?" rejoins the host. "Ox-cheek and neck of beef," says the other. "And too good for you, and be damned to you," replies the landlord. "You lie, you scoundrel," cries the bard. Do I?" says the other; "damme, I will teach you better manners;"— and immediately threw the remains of a shin of beef at the poet, which striking him on the side of his head, he instantly measured his length upon the floor, and, growling, bit the dust.
Now, hostilities on both sides beginning to cease, and finding that I had not the most distant expectation of regaining my former post in the little author's good opinion, I pulled out the two shillings; and, giving them to the landlord for the poet, with a heart ready to burst with vexation, I walked up stairs, to meditate at my leisure upon the instability of human friendship.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Take a lodging. — The symbols of an author. — Reflections on the neglect of genius.—Walk out, and meet with an old acquaintance. — My prejudice against the count removed.
I HAD not proceeded far in the street before I recollected, that it was a step absolutely necessary to provide myself with a lodging; and, as the evening was advancing with rapid strides, and the enamoured charioteer of day was posting to his Thetis on the wings of love, I thought it high time to be as industrious in the settlement of that business as possible. I had scarcely taken the resolution, when, passing by a mean sort of a house, I perceived a bill stuck on the window, signifying that they had lodgings to let for single gentlemen. — Though I had but very slender pretensions to the character of a gentleman, I resolved to try what sort of accommodation the house afforded; and, accordingly, knocking at the door, a woman came, who first took an accurate survey of my figure in so surly a manner as convinced me that she was not very fond of my appearance, and then asked my business. I replied, that I wanted a lodging, and, if any in her house suited me, I had no objection to take them. — She told me, I was an utter stranger to her, to be sure; but, as she conceived something favourable from my countenance, if we could agree, why she would as soon let me have a room in her house as another; that, to be sure, she never had any thing but gentlemen lodge in her house; "but," says the old hag, "we must not always judge from appearances; handsome is that handsome does; and your money may be as good to me as another's."
After this preamble I had a strong inclination to go away, thinking the lodgings might be too elegant for me, until she informed me that she had but one room unoccupied, and the last gentleman that lived in it was a poet. "Oh ho! my good landlady," says I, "shew me the apartment directly, for I am sure, if it was not too good for a poet, it will do very well for your humble servant." So saying, I shut the door, and followed the poor woman, up four pair of stairs, into a back garret. "Here," cries she, leaning upon an old table to recover her breath, — "this is the only place I have to spare at present, and this has been empty but three weeks, only since poor Mr. Couplet left it." "Aye, aye, my good woman," replied I, "I could have guessed at the last tenant by the relies of his profession. These are the true symbols of genius," cried I, taking up the stump of a pen, a washerwoman's bill, and a shoe without a heel. "You are merry," said the old lady; "but I assure you Mr. Couplet was as fine a spoken man as you would meet with in a summer's day." "And, pray," replied I, "how came you to lose so accomplished a lodger?" "Aye, poor gentleman!" cries the landlady, wiping her eyes; "good lack! he was was arrested one evening on a note of his printer's, and is now writing a parcel of sermons, for a Norfolk clergyman, in the master's side of the Fleet prison." "Yes, I thought it would come to that," replied I, when you mentioned his profession; for there are only two things of which a man of genius may be said to be certain in this world." "And, pray, what are they?" asked my landlady. "A prison while he exists, and a grave when he is no more: he is consigned to the first because he has more spirit than oeconomy, and he is indebted for the latter to the convenience of his neighbours; and, what is still more melancholy, there are many persons, who will give a guinea for his works, bound in Morocco, when he is dead, that would perhaps have denied him the loan of a crown, when living, to have protracted his miserable existence." "Anon!" cried the woman. "Oh! nothing," rejoined I:— how much do you ask for this apartment?" "Two shillings a week is the lowest that I can afford it at," cries the other; "if you are willing to give that, you may take possession directly." I nodded assent to her proposal, and the bargain was ratified.
The woman was retiring out of the room before I observed that my apartment was totally deficient in one necessary, and even indispensable, article of furniture, namely, a bed; and, upon my intimating this defect to the wrinkled gentlewoman, she waddled over to an old chest of drawers, as I imagined, and, unhinging the sides, let down a bedstead with all the apparatus, in the same breath informing me, that there was one, at my service, good enough for the best man in the land. Though I was not an entire convert to her method of thinking in regard to the beauty of the affair, I was very well satisfied, as it was full as elegant as I could wish in such a situation; so, wishing my landlady safe down stairs, I sat upon one corner of my couch, with a heart heavy laden with sorrow, and my arms enfolded, and broke out into the following ejaculation: —
Hapless, miserable, man! how art thou subjected to the caprice of Fortune! who, not satisfied with making thy wretched being groan under the pressure of pain and hunger, and subject to the inclement elements, adds, to aggravate thy calamities, the intolerable stings of mental pain. To what purpose are we decreed to exist? if to prolong a series of days clouded with misfortune, it were better that we were altogether extinct; for the continuance of a life such as mine is not worth the solicitation. I am poor, and consequently must be despised; and, being naturally unsuspicious, am hourly liable to the subtle arts of hypocrisy and imposition.
After I had indulged myself in this reverie, I sat musing upon the most probable means of raising a small supply of money. I revolved upon every expedient that my fancy could suggest to my despair; but found them all either unproductive as to the desired end, or impossible to be put in execution. I was rapidly sinking from one base idea to another, until I found my mind a chaos of confusion, in which desperation and shame alternately passed before me. To relieve myself from this heavy embarrassment, I took up my hat, and, walking down stairs sullenly, rushed into the street, with a full determination to raise some money by one means or another.
As I was rambling along in this state of perturbation, without knowing which path to pursue for the best, I felt a tap on the shoulder, from a person behind, which was given with an air of great familiarity; and, upon my turning round to recognise the person who had saluted me so unexpectedly, a young man held out his hand as an overture of friendship, and gave me to understand, that he had enjoyed the pleasure of my company, a few days before, at an ordinary near the Seven Dials. I instantly recollected him to be one of the gentlemen, to whose notice my very good friend, the count, had introduced me. As this rencounter brought his ungenerous behaviour to me fresh into my memory, I told my new acquaintance the whole story, without disguising the smallest circumstance. When I came to that part of the narrative, where he declared his intentions of making my fortune by marriage, and had so completely lulled my understanding by the force of the grossest flattery that was ever directed to a human being, the young man burst into an immoderate fit of laughter. As I considered the excessive mirth of my new friend to be another instance of my disgrace, in consequence of the count's lies and ingenuity, I inveighed against him in the severest terms of reproach that my resentment could furnish me with, and swore to chastise him personally the first time that I should meet with him. Here my new acquaintance thought proper to correct the violence of my language, by observing, that, admitting the count had played a few of his usual pranks at my expence, I should yet find it my interest to keep well with him. "Besides," added he, "the account you have heard of his character, from the landlady, must have arisen from prejudice; for it is not only overcharged, but in many respects entirely false, and could have proceeded from no other but the mouth of his enemy; for, though I will admit that he is fond of indulging an eccentric disposition, and sometimes fastens too close upon the weaknesses of mankind, believe me that he is neither destitute of principle or of friendship, but very often exercises both, in the most disinterested manner, for the advantage of his fellow-creatures." This testimony of the stranger, in favour of the count, tended considerably to reduce the ill opinion I had formed of him; and the more particularly when my new companion assured me, that he would pay me what he had borrowed the first time that he saw me, and would chearfully lend me as much more, provided he had it in his pocket, and my necessities called for such an instance of his generosity.
CHAPTER XL.
We agree to drink together. — I am comforted by his discourse. — He favours me with a short history of his life. — The melancholy death of a good woman, occasioned by the wickedness of mankind. — My spirits raised by Mr. Butler's philosophy.—Pledge my waist-coat.—Am promised relief by the keeper of a register-office.
IT was now proposed, by my new adherent, that we should drink together to our better acquaintance; and I felt myself extremely mortified to tell him, that I was obliged to defer that favour. "Oh! damn it," replies the young fellow, "if you are shy from the want of ready cash, never mind that. To be sure I am not very rich myself," continues he; "but, as what we shall spend new will not make me a penny poorer at the year's end, I must insist upon your accompanying me. They fell excellent porter at the Crooked Billet, yonder," cries he, pointing to an alehouse at the end of the street; "and take my word for it, that it will warm the cockles of your heart, and operate like a draught from the Lethean lake; it will make you forget your cares, my boy," giving me a hearty flap upon the back; — so come along, do you see, and make no more words about the matter."
By the force of this persuasion, I followed him to the house; and, taking our seats, he called for a tankard of the best, which soon made its appearance, mantling with a majestic head at the top, like a small-cauliflower; which he gently removed aside, and drank to our mutual prosperity; then, offering me the vessel in my turn, I was so fond of the health-giving beverage, that I took care to see the bottom of the tankard before my lips would permit the salubrious liquid to separate from their, embraces.
When we had become a little more intimate, by the influence of the tankard, (for it is wonderful how forcibly that operates in cementing friendships,) my new acquaintance informed me, without reserve, of his situation in life, and his willingness to prove of service to me if I thought him worthy of such a distinction; at the same time assuring me, that he was himself by no means unacquainted with misfortune. I had scarcely time to thank him for his kind offer, when he unbosomed himself in the following terms:
My name, sir, says he, is Butler; my father was an officer in a marching regiment, who died when I was but ten years old, and left my mother to struggle with an iniquitous world, incumbered with two children, — myself, and my sister, who was my elder by two years. As they had contrived, in my father's lifetime, to live in a style of some respectability, she had contracted a numerous acquaintance, some of whom had it in their power to assist her; — and, as she had frequently received the most unconditional offers of friendship from them, she thought it no breach of propriety or delicacy, to call their professions into practice, when she found herself in a situation that made so exalted an exercise of the human wishes necessary. But here my good mother found she had been leaning for assistance upon a broken staff; for, as soon as her polite friends discovered (and they possess uncommon sagacity upon these occasions) that her circumstances denied her the power of fulfilling the reciprocity of beneficial offices, they gradually fell off in their attachments, and the visible declension of their friendship began with pity and ended with contempt. Dejected with the unfavourable prospect of her affairs, she found that she must exert her utmost industry to maintain herself and family; which she effected, however, very tolerably, by taking in plain-work, in the performance of which, my sister, though young, afforded her considerable assistance; — and the profits of that, annexed to the scanty pittance allowed from government to the widows of subaltern officers, just furnished a bare sufficiency to bring us up with decency and frugality. In this confined manner we contrived to jog on, until, one day, she received an unexpected visit from a distant relation, who had held a place of importance under the East-India company, and who proposed to use his interest with the directors in procuring me a place in some of the public offices. My mother was overjoyed at this prospect of my success, and, in consequence, strained every nerve to give me a suitable education. When I had attained my fifteenth year, not hearing from her kinsman, she wrote him a letter upon the subject, which he condescended to answer after a delay of four months; but the sweetness of the contents attoned for the seeming coolness and neglect; — for, in that letter, he assured my mother that she need not be uneasy, for he had got an absolute promise that I should be appointed to the first vacancy that fell. And, as the appearances of good fortune are sometimes not content with coming alone, another circumstance took place, at this time, which gave additional happiness to the poor widow. My sister, who was remarkably tall and handsome for her years, had attracted the notice of a gentleman of immense property; and his passion was so deeply rooted, that he wrote a letter to my sister, desiring an interview, in which he made the most ardent and unequivocal declaration of his love. My sister had no sooner received this flaming epistle, than she ran in triumph to her mother, and shewed the flattering testimony of her own powers of attraction; and the poor woman was not less transported than her daughter, for she literally believed that the endowments of her child were capable of subduing the heart of an emperor, and had no doubt of the reality of the circumstance. Indeed this was my good parent's weak side; for, if ever she discovered more folly than usual, it was in the extravagance of her raptures, whenever she heard the voice of deceit attribute that degree of beauty to my sister, and understanding to myself, which the dispensations of Providence had perhaps denied both the one and the other. But, as the partiality is amiable, though destructive, it ought to be forgiven.
To return to the narrative: my sister was permitted to give her enamoured swain such encouragement as was consistent with prudence; but, at the same time, to take no material steps in the affair without first consulting her mother. In the infancy of the attachment, poor Louisa (for that was her name) faithfully fulfilled the engagement entered into with her fond parent;—but, at last she permitted her lover to make some small inroads upon decorum, which she well knew would be displeasing to the author of her being, and for that reason she concealed them from her knowledge; till, at length, poor girl! she waded so deep in the habits of deception, that even the idea of a falsehood had lost its consequent horror.
Unhappy Louisa! she little imagined that she was wounding her eternal happiness, when she lost sight of the beauty of truth. In short, eventually passing from one indiscretion to another, the rapid approaches of vice became less formidable as they became more frequent, until prudence at length abdicated her gentle bosom, and left the defenceless victim a prey to the alluring arts of prostitution.
To come to the catastrophe in a few words. My poor sister fell a prey to the insinuations of a villain, who first perjured his soul to draw her from the arms of innocence and peace, and then consigned her to destruction for giving faith to his detestable and infernal frauds. On the news of this miserable event, my mother was seized with a fit of sickness, which terminated in a deep melancholy; and her disorder was strengthened, when, at her particular request, I went to the India-house, to enquire after her relation, from whom she had not heard for a considerable time, and learned, to my sorrow, that he had been gone to the continent for some months before; and, so far from having got me the situation he promised, that he had never so much as mentioned my name to the board of directors. Both these disappointments affected her peace so much, that her melancholy ended in a confirmed madness; and she died, poor woman!" (cried Mr. Butler with the tears in his eyes,) "in Bedlam-hospital, a shocking spectacle of woe and wretchedness.
Since her death, I have procured myself a decent livelihood by writing for attorneys, in which situation I have continued ever since. To be sure, we are obliged to work devilish hard for what we earn; and the service is not the most respectable. Besides, I am perfectly convinced, that, if the finer feelings of human nature are to be rendered callous by example, it must be by associating with that right honourable fraternity. — But, as the motto of our family has been
Il faut manger,
from time immemorial, I am sometimes obliged to sacrifice my ease and my ambition to fulfil the intent of so important an obligation.
When my companion had finished his story, he ordered the pot to be replenished, and bade me not permit the accidental strokes of misfortune, which visited every man at some period of his life or another, to cast me down; at the same time, pulling out his purse, he requested me to accept of the loan of a few shillings; but this I absolutely refused, telling him, with great firmness, that I would sooner put an intire end to my being, than continue to live a burden upon fortuitous charity. He clasped my hand in his, and told me that he admired my spirit, but advised me not to let it carry me too far; that there was a medium between rashness and meanness; and again intreated my acceptance of his offer; but, on my refusal a second time, he put his purse in his pocket, asking me, with a grave air, how I intended to exist. This question made me thoughtful; but I replied, — "I trust I shall be able to do that by my industry: I mean to enquire for some place." "I suppose you are not over nice," says my friend. "No," I replied: "if it will but afford me a living, I shall be satisfied, till something better offers." "Then your best way," rejoins he, "is to make application to a register-office, and they will direct you to a place immediately; the fees of office amount only to a few shillings," added he; — and, if you will not let me assist you, you had better leave something at my uncle's, and he will lend you half-a-crown with the greatest readiness; and you may fetch it away at pleasure, when you find it convenient." But will not that be taking too great a liberty with your relation?" cried I; "besides, you know that I am a total stranger to his person." Here my friend smiled, and told me, that the word
uncle
was only a metaphorical expression, in common use among all men of the world, and applied to those people who get a convenient livelihood by lending money on pledges; "and you need not have any scruples of delicacy," cries my friend, "on the score of making use of their purse; for they will take pretty good care not to lay you under the smallest obligation to their politeness, or even to their humanity." Upon the strength of this information, I went to a house almost opposite, and which was distinguished from the rest by the sign of three blue balls; and, entering by a small door in a dark passage, I pulled off my waistcoat, and deposited it with the man of the shop for two shillings, though it had cost me a guinea but a short time before, and was not a bit the worse for wear. However, I pocketed the money; and, buttoning my coat from the top to the bottom, I hurried back to my friend, who congratulated me on the dexterity with which I had executed the business. He having previously insisted upon discharging the reckoning, we parted, extremely well pleased with each other, and engaging, provided I was not employed in service, to dine with him, the following day, at the ordinary where I first had the happiness of attracting his notice.
I did not lose a moment in delay, but went immediately to a register-office that was kept in Holborn. I had scarcely signified the intention of my visit, when the keeper informed me that he had several places that would suit me exactly, and requested me to come in the morning, and he would satisfy me more fully in the matter.
I was so much pleased with the issue of this adventure, that I went home, and slept that night with unusual comfort; but, waking before the hour appointed by the office-keeper for my attendance, I lay in bed ruminating upon the happiness that awaited my embraces; and, so fondly was I wrapped in the pleasures of the imagination, that I thought I saw Fortune smiling upon my wishes; which elevated my heart so much, that every pulse in my body accorded with peace and harmony.
CHAPTER XLI.
Attend at the office in the morning.—Dispatched to my new place.—My reception by the housekeeper.—Pass an ordeal before my master. — Approved of, and made happy.
BEFORE I got up, a thousand pleasurable circumstances arose in my mind, and I had no doubt but I had arrived at the end of my calamities. At last, hearing the clock give notice, that the long-expected hour of nine was come, I leaped out of bed with uncommon sprightliness, and surveyed my garret with rapture as I put on my clothes; for those objects, that had appeared to me disagreeable but the evening before, wore now a more graceful aspect, so much does the beauty of all exterior objects depend upon the serenity and tincture of the mind.
When I had dressed myself, I sallied forth to the temple of Fortune, for such had my fond fancy pictured the register-office to be; and I did not permit the grass to grow under my feet in the journey, for I performed it as quick as if the preservation of my life depended upon the speed I should use in that expedition. I got to the house just as one of the understrappers of the place was opening the shop for the public accommodation. When I told him my errand, he looked at me with some surprise, and said, it was very lucky that I had not called the family up in the middle of the night; and added, that, for his part, he was much obliged to me that I had patience to wait until he had pulled down the first shutter. I could not help feeling some resentment towards the author of these sarcastic remarks upon my eagerness for employment, but resolved to suppress my anger at any rate, and not suffer my passions to operate, at so critical a time, to the disadvantage of my interest; so, apparently taking all in good part, I sat down in the shop to wait until the principal should think proper to honour me with his presence.
During the time of my attendance in the office, a great number of young people of both sexes came in, with some of whom I entered into conversation, and learned, from their discourse, that the hand of necessity had not been employed in oppressing me alone; but that a considerable number of other people had received an equal share of her regard, who perhaps deserved, from their merits, a very different fate.
At last, when my patience was well-nigh exhausted, the director of the office made his appearance in a morning-gown and a blue velvet cap, and, eyeing me among the croud of claimants, called me on one side, and gave me to understand there was a family, at the west end of the town, that wanted a servant immediately, and that he believed I should find the place not only easy, but comfortable; at the same time giving me to understand, that I must take this part of his behaviour as an instance of his great regard for me, as it was not usual with him to be so expeditious; but that he had conceived a liking for me, from the first, from the manner and modesty of my application, and had determined, in consequence, to lose no time in settling me to my advantage. After I had returned him my warmest thanks for his kindness, I gave him a shilling, and, taking his recommendation to the family, I set out in quest of a new place of servitude with a heart as light as a feather.
When I arrived at the house to which I was directed, the door was opened by an old woman, turned of fifty, who seemed to carry about her person all the dignity and consequence of a housekeeper, and I found afterwards that I was not deceived by my conjectures. — When I told her the nature of my errand, she began to question me as to my age, and if I had ever been in service before; to all which interrogatories I gave such proper answers, that she deigned to tell me, that she believed I would answer her master's purpose, bidding me sit down in the kitchen until she went up stairs to see if the old gentleman was stirring. In this state I continued for about ten minutes, when a healthy rosy-cheeked wench came into the kitchen; and, under pretence of wiping some dishes, she took an opportunity of surveying my figure from the corner of her eye, which I imagined she did not think displeasing; for, turning round, she asked me, with a smile of hospitable complaisance, if I would eat any thing that morning, or, if I had an inclination for some table-beer, she would draw me some. I returned her many acknowledgements for these instances of her good-nature, and one word begot another, till I found myself inclined to be extremely talkative, from the friendly complexion of her manners; and she was inspired with confidence from the seeming candour of my disposition. The first question she put to me, that savoured of curiosity, and proved her in full possession of the true female spirit, was exactly as follows:
I supposes you are the young man that I heard old Honour, the housekeeper, say was coming to live in our family.
To this home thrust I replied, "Yes, I came with that intention, my dear; but whether I shall succeed or not depends upon the will of the person who is to employ me." "Oh! as for that," cries the damsel, "if you have the good fortune to be pleasing to Mrs. Honour, my master will take you to-night before tomorrow; for he leaves all them there matters to her." As I thought this was a piece of intelligence well worth attending to, I questioned the nymph of the kitchen very particularly as to the real situation of Mrs. Honour; and found that she had lived in the family for many years, and, by her upright conduct and fidelity, had acquired a very great ascendency over the inclinations of the old gentleman, her master;— I found, likewise, from my communicative fellow-servant, that the family consisted of the old gentleman, and his niece, a beautiful young lady of about eighteen, who was at that time absent from the family, on a visit to a relation at Epping-forest, and whose return was most anxiously wished for by the servants, as the sweetness of her temper not only charmed all those that came near her, but likewise tended to correct that of the old gentleman, her uncle, whose natural turn of mind partook of too much acidity, when it was not diverted from its ill-natured pursuits by the persuasive gentleness of his amiable niece. Those two, with the housekeeper, the ruddy lass who entertained me with the family-anecdotes, a housemaid, and myself, formed the domestic establishment of this respectable, though confined, circle.
I was now summoned by Mrs. Honour, who had come into the kitchen for that purpose, to follow her up stairs into her master's room▪ that I might undergo such enquiries as he should think necessary to make preparatory to my preferment. When we had ascended two pair of stairs, she bade me stay in the landing-place till her master was ready; accordingly she went into an adjoining chamber, but returned in a few minutes, beckoning me to follow her, and tread as lightly as possible. I obeyed her directions with such a palpitation of my heart as made me imagine I could even hear its throbbings against my ribs. When we came to an inner room, I perceived the old gentleman, sitting at a table, with a napkin under his chin, and very seriously employed in demolishing a large bowl of bread and milk, which I afterwards understood to be his daily breakfast.
This new master of mine had passed his grand climacteric at least a dozen years; but, notwithstanding, his aspect was healthy and florid; a large nose, somewhat inclined to the aquiline, parted too small grey eyes, which seemed to twinkle with asperity, and emit the rays of discord and ill-nature. When he was given to understand that I waited his pleasure, he took no farther notice than by nodding his head and eating the remainder of his mess with an additional haste. When he had finished his morning's repast, he threw himself back in his chair; and, pulling a pair of spectacles from a case, he fixed them on his tremendous nose with great deliberation, and sat looking at me, for a few minutes, with such circumspective curiosity, as if he intended to measure the exact altitude of my person. During this critical survey of the grey-headed senior, I not only blushed from ear to ear, but trembled in every limb, lest, on so nice an investigation of my figure and appearance, I might be found deficient in the requisites for a servant, at least in the old gentleman's eyes. But he soon removed those apprehensions, by observing to his housekeeper, that my person corresponded with her account, and he had no objection to employ me, provided my character were unexceptionable. At this declaration, I pulled the lieutenant's letter from my pocket, and was eagerly going to present it to the old man for his perusal; but he seemed to retreat from my endeavour, with an observation, that I need not be in such a devilish hurry; and, turning to his housekeeper, "Why, Honour," says he,
this lad you have brought me seems as much transported at the idea of eating a good dinner as a hungry poet at a twelve-penny ordinary. I hope he is not half-starved; egad, if he is, he will cost me more in a month than would pay his wages for a year.
The housekeeper making no reply to this sarcastic interrogation, I made the old gentleman an humble salute, and told him, that my eagerness arose from an ardent desire of having the honour to serve him, and not from any other motive.— He appeared somewhat pleased at my apology, and told me it was very well; at the same time he ordered his housekeeper to prepare for my reception on the evening of the next day.
Perfectly happy at the success of my application, I left my new master, and was going into the kitchen immediately, to inform the good-natured damsel of my reception; but I found that measure needless; for, as I opened the door that led to the landing-place, I discovered her at the passage ready to wish me joy; by which circumstance I found, that the inquisitive nymph had been listening at the door during my conversation with her facetious master and the agreeable Mistress Honour.
CHAPTER XLII.
Stumble by chance upon a former acquaintance.—A fruitless attempt to regulate the morals of the vulgar.— My friend maltreated for his piety. — He preaches the doctrine of forbearance in the midst of affliction.
I Sallied out of the house with a light and merry heart, and resolved, after I had discharged my lodging, to keep my appointment with Mr. Butler, whom I had promised to meet at the ordinary at dinner.
I was humming over to myself a favourite tune of old Carolan, the Irish bard, when I observed a croud of people on the opposite side of the way; and, being willing to know the cause that had brought so motley a collection of beings together, I crossed the way, and found one half of the audience listening with great attention to the exhortations of a man who stood with his back towards me, and the other half indulging themselves in excessive laughter, seemingly at the expence of the apostle who addressed them, for I soon learned, from the tendency of his discourse, that it turned entirely upon religious topics; but how was I struck with astonishment, when the preacher turned round, and I discovered him to be the very identical man, who had given me such excellent admonitions, for my future conduct in life, but a few days before, in St. James's park, and who had left me in a great hurry to settle a political dispute that had arisen between him and another person. A recollection of the disagreeable effects of his elocution would have prompted me to retire from the scene immediately, for fear of a second part of the same tune; but I soon found this was impossible, for the major's eye had no sooner come into the line of direction with mine, than he burst through the croud, and shook me heartily with one hand, while he secured a young chimney-sweeper from escaping with the other; and, after asking me a thousand questions in the same breath, three-fourths of which I could not understand, from the impediments of his speech, he concluded his list of enquiries by desiring to know how I liked his book upon self-knowledge, and if I had read it over and over; and (heaven forgive me for uttering such a confounded lie) I told the good man, without hesitation, that I had perused it with great attention, and had no doubt but I should live the better, and become the happier, for being acquainted with its contents. This assurance put the good soldier in a rapture; and, turning to me, he pulled the young chimney-cleanser forward, and, presenting him to my view, —
Here, says he, this boy you now see I met this morning quarrelling with his companions; he was then extremely wicked, and swearing the most shocking and prophane oaths, and I thought it my duty, as a Christian, to reclaim them, if possible, and bring the stray sheep back to the Shepherd's fold; two of the three abused me for my endeavours, and even were so hardened as to throw stones at me; but I pitied the poor wretches, for their behaviour arose from the impulse of the devil, and not from themselves; when it pleases heaven that they should be reclaimed they will, but I fear their time is not come; as for this poor boy, whom they had beaten severely, I took him into a house in the neighbourhood, and had him washed and cleaned; and he has promised me to be a good child for the future, and never to swear; have not you, my boy?
cries the major, addressing himself to the young sweep. "Yes, sir," answers the other. "Aye," continues this worthy character; "and, because I found him of a good disposition, and not stubborn, I have given him six-pence to encourage him, and some books to teach him his duty, which I dare say he will attend to;— won't you, my lad?" says the major. Yes, sir," says the boy. "Come, read me that prayer aloud at the beginning of the book," cries the major. "I cannot read, your honour," says the boy. "That is a shame to your parents," replies the major; — "but," continues he, "if you cannot read, you can say your prayers, and be sure you do that every night and morning." "I will, your honour," says the boy, "if my master will give me leave." "That's a good child," replies the major: "your master must give you leave, or he will never prosper, either in this world or the next. Come, repeat this prayer after me," added the major. Here the good man made the boy rehearse a long invocation to the Deity, which the sooty understrapper seemed to do with wonderful unwillingness, while the croud, who was listening to this singular dialogue, were employed in ridiculing the pious labours of my friend, some by groans, and others by thrusting the tongue in one cheek, and looking very gravely with the other. But the whole group was soon dispersed by the arrival of the boy's master, who had been informed of his delay by another of his apprentices; and, heated with anger, he tore the young proselyte away from the embraces of the well-meaning reformer of manners, whom he honoured with the most opprobrious epithets for detaining his lawful apprentice from his duty; and, after beating the lad in a most unmerciful manner, he began to pelt my friend with the filth of the street without ceremony, in which agreeable pastime he was joined by the greater part of the mob; and, in spite of all my endeavours to the contrary, by an unlucky manoeuvre of the enemy, they fairly drove us from the field; for, just as the major, regardless of their shouts, was exercising his lungs, in a most vociferous and thundering tone, to bring them to a sense of their misconduct, and to put them in the path of righteousness, he received an untimely as well as unsavoury salute, from the foe, of a large handful of mud, which, striking him with great force exactly in the mouth, which he had opened, with great energy, as wide as a small oven, put a final period to my friend's elocution, by entirely stopping up that necessary aperture, and thereby rendering the organs of speech totally useless. In this discomfited state we retired into a house, but not before I had stripped to my skin to offer any of them battle; and probably I should have come off even worse than my military friend, if the major had not insisted that I should not use the arm of flesh to correct the evil machinations of the spirit, but act like a true adherent to the Christian faith in its primitive purity, and, when I received a blow on one cheek, calmly to present my enemy with the other. Though I admitted the major to be my superior in knowledge, it was with a great degree of difficulty that I could bring myself to follow his pacific notions under the pressure of such unparallelled insolence. — However, when we had cleaned ourselves from the dirt that disfigured us, in consequence of the unsavoury and ill-timed application of the mob, the major and I took our leave of each other, but not before he had expressed the utmost wishes to be of service to my affairs, and extorted a promise that I would punctually breakfast with him on the following morning.
CHAPTER XLIII.
Meet by accident with Count Dapper.—I resolve to be revenged for his impositions.—The method he took to disarm my anger.—An object of misery.—The count's idea of promiscuous charity.— An noble instance of his humanity.
WHEN I had left my apostolic preceptor, I was ruminating upon some scheme to fill up my time till the hour of dinner; and, wandering by a bookseller's shop, I stopped to peruse some loose pamphlets that lay scattered on the window, when I observed a smart well-dressed man, ogling through his glass at some ladies that were crossing the way. It was not long before I recollected the very identical features of the facetious count, who had played so many pranks with my vanity at the expence of my purse. I stood for some time surveying him with great accuracy, that I might be certain of committing no mistake in the business; for he was so metamorphosed by his dress, that I should not readily have known him again, but for a peculiar smartness of air and cock of the hat that characterised all his movements. The moment that I was convinced he was my man, I walked up to him with a stern and determined manner, to claim not only the money he had so ingeniously borrowed of me, but likewise satisfaction for the injuries and shame I had experienced by his artful manoeuvres.
When I had approached him, I gave him a hearty slap on the shoulder, which seemed to set his whole nervous system in commotion, an effect that did not so much proceed from the violence of the blow as the particular place to which it was applied. He turned immediately round, as I imagined to thank the person who had bestowed so great a mark of their esteem upon him; and, perceiving me, he exclaimed, with a smile, "Aye, aye, my dear fellow, is it you? — damme, it is well it is no worse; I thought it was some diabolical understrapper, deputed from the inchanted castles about Shire-lane to drag me into limbo at the desire of some vile unhallowed rascal of a tailor, who, not having the fear of decency before his eyes, had issued a writ, by the L—d, to abridge my privileges of action; but, damme, I have met with an agreeable surprise. Give me your hand, my gay fellow," continues the count; "you shall dine with me to-day up to your ears in clover. I know an excellent house; — beef-steaks and porter fit for a prince! — Besides there is the widow Lamb, a monstrous good-natured gentlewoman, who keeps a house of entertainment, for hungry gentlemen, in Oxford-road; I will introduce you to her acquaintance; damme, any thing to serve a friend. The captain is onboard the sloop," cries the count, slapping his thigh; "and, by the immortal powers, it shall be your own fault if you want for any thing."
"I tell you what, Mr. Count," replied I with a serious air; "I must inform you that you have mistaken your man most egregiously. It is true, I have formerly suffered myself to be made a complete ass; but that is now over; and, what is more, sir, I insist upon immediate reparation." I would have proceeded farther, had he not stopped my harangue by indulging an excessive fit of laughter; at the conclusion of which he cried out, in disjointed sentences,—"Oh! damme, this is fine;— good,—very good, by Ch—t. Excuse my laughing, my dear friend," continued the beau; "but I can't avoid it; I can't, upon my soul. This is too much; but, damn it, you cannot be serious." "Yes, sir, but I am," replied I, and strutted up to him with my arms a-kimbo. "No, no, I know better," rejoins the count; "you are not serious, and, what is more, you do not intend to be serious." — Yes, but I do, sir," replied I. — Oh! no, you don't,' added he; why, zounds! man, if you were serious, I would not keep you company; I have a mortal aversion to serious men; and you must laugh now; come, I know you will, if it is only to oblige me." Whether it arose from my admiration of his impudence, or that the pleasantness of his features (for he had habitually a smile) attuned my heart to forgiveness and philanthropy, I cannot tell; but he certainly hit upon the only possible mode there was of disarming my resentment; and, before I had time to rally the daemons of revenge to my assistance, he took me under the arm, and, forcing me along the street, cocked his glass, and saluted every well-dressed man or woman we met, not one of whom, however, thought proper to return the compliment; and amused himself in this manner, without paying the most distant attention to me or my remonstrances.
We had not walked very far before he gave me an instance of his possessing a goodness of heart that would have done honour to a bishop. A poor woman sat upon the cold stones, at the corner of an alley, with two children in her lap, soliciting charity from accidental passengers. Misery and hunger were strongly depicted in her face; the complexion of her poor infants was sicklied over with the pale hand of famine; and the tattered vestments, that barely served to cover one half of her body, and answer the rigid purposes of delicacy, were ragged, filthy, and unwholesome. In this woe-begone state did the silent mourner sit, for her tongue seemed to have lost the faculty of telling the sorrow that was so eloquently delivered from her eyes; and, with an extended arm, to receive the benevolent offerings of the good and worthy, she reclined, as one "pining in thought,
"With green and yellow melancholy,
"And looked like Patience,
"On a monument, smiling at grief."
When this wretched spectacle first caught the count's attention, he pulled me by the arm, and pointing to the miserable group, broke forth in the following apostrophe: "There," said he,
behold an instance of the boasted humanity of this nation. You see that unfortunate being, laden with almost as many afflictions as the vengeance of heaven can inflict upon a human creature as a punishment for the most complicated vices; and yet her situation, lamentable as it is, cannot touch the heart of one person in one hundred, that passes by, sufficiently to administer any thing to her relief. — The rich plebeian spurns at her necessities, because he can silence the appeals of pity in his bosom by being
forced
to contribute to the support of a parish-workhouse; the haughty and swollen ecclesiastic thinks it sufficient that he is
paid
for teaching others the beauties and advantages of charity, without being at the unnecessary trouble of practising it himself; and the prude, valuing herself upon the preservation of that chastity which never was besieged, instead of giving a piece of money for the relief of a sickly female, tosses her head, and wonders such harlots should be encouraged, by the ill-timed bounty of inconsiderate people, to live in idleness and get bastards. In this strain," continues the count, "do they comment upon the variegated miseries of such objects as these, when none of their remarks, it is highly probable, are founded either in charity or truth. — That poor woman," added he, "is the widow of a man of honour and understanding, whom I knew well. He came over from Ireland, a few years since, in the hope of mending his fortune; but, poor gentleman! he experienced a sad reverse; and, falling into misfortunes in a strange country, it speedily broke his heart, and he left that disconsolate woman pregnant with these children, who are twins. After the decease of her husband, she contrived to eke out a subsistence by the donations of her late husband's friends; — but, that precarious channel having long since been dried up, she is now obliged to beg her bread in the manner you behold, for the circumstance of her having drawn her first breath in our sister-kingdom entirely deprives her of receiving any benefit from a workhouse, and throws her upon the humanity of the public, whose general sentiments, in regard to such children of calamity as she is, I have painted to your imagination with, I am afraid, too accurate a pencil.
Here the count pulled out his purse, and took a crown-piece from among a parcel of money, and, walking up to the object of his discourse, put it into her hand, which he squeezed with some fervour; and, calling upon God to bless her, left her, rather precipitately, to wonder at the benevolence of a dissipated man, whose heart, not being steeled by the rigorous laws of prudence, or influenced by her narrow, saving, selfish, doctrines, was tremblingly alive to the necessities of human nature.
This noble behaviour of the count not only obliterated the remembrance of our former transactions, but raised him to such a pitch in my esteem, that I verily believe I would have encountered any hardship to have served a man of so exalted a way of thinking.
From this scene we repaired to the ordinary, where I met my friend Butler, to whom I communicated my success at the register-office. After passing an afternoon in innocent merriment, I took my leave of these pleasant, but unthinking, companions; and found, on my attempt to pay my share of the reckoning, that the whole had been discharged by the count, who took this opportunity to repay me what he had borrowed, and offered me the loan of a guinea, which I refused, with many thanks for his good opinion of my principles.
When I had disengaged myself from my friends, and asked pardon of the count for my unwarrantable behaviour, I made the best of my way to my lodging, where I advertised my landlady of my departure the next day; and, after putting every thing in readiness to enter upon my new post, I retired to bed, and enjoyed the most balmy and comfortable night's rest I had ever done since my arrival in Great-Britain.
CHAPTER XLIV.
I go to breakfast with Major Credulous.— Am surprised at meeting with an acquaintance. — My admiration of the major's virtues. — I repair to my new place. — Am struck with the beauty of my master's niece.
AGREEABLE to my appointment with the major, I got up early, and dressed myself with as much neatness as possible, to answer two purposes: in the first place, to breakfast with my military friend; and in the second, to appear as decent as I could upon my entrance to my new situation.
When I arrived at the major's lodgings, in the neighbourhood of St. James's, I was shewn up stairs by a decent orderly-looking woman, and found, on my entrance into the apartment, that several persons were attending there for the purpose of seeing the major: among the rest was a lady, whom I shrewdly suspected to be a
fille de joye;
a strange repulsive-looking man, in a rusty black coat, with a bushy wig, and a remarkable cast in his left eye, the sight of which was almost buried in his nose; and a decrepid old woman, who was almost bent double with the weight of age. While we sat there waiting for the major, several others came in; and, among the rest, I was astonished to recognise the face of Captain Blisset, the gentleman whom I formerly mentioned as having met in Westminster-abbey. His surprize at meeting me was to the full as great as mine. After congratulating me upon my happiness in being known to the major, he informed me, that he was the very gentleman to whose kindness both himself and his family had been so much indebted, and towards whom he had exercised such a diabolical spirit of rancour while on the same service in America.
A farther discussion of the subject was now prevented by the major's entering the chamber. The moment he saw me, he ran up and embraced me, and I was presented to the company as a young man to whom he considered himself greatly indebted; then he related the history of our affair with the chimney-sweeper, and its disagreeable issue. — While the major was pronouncing this eulogium in my favour, the people in the room eyed me with great attention and respect; but particularly the captain, who seemed extremely delighted that I should have taken so active a part in defence of so worthy a character.
The breakfast apparatus being all placed in order, we were summoned by our good host to the table, who made us follow him in his truly-laudable custom of kneeling down and repeating some prayers preparatory to our repast; in the performance of which, he shewed as much zeal for the honour of his Saviour, and respect for the canons of heaven, as e'er a ruby-faced pastor in the three kingdoms; but the most beautiful feature in the major's portrait, and in which he differed very materially from the reverend gentlemen in question, was, — that he constantly illustrated and enforced his precepts by his example. When that part of the morning duty was finished, he performed the honours of his table with the politeness of a gentleman and the hospitality of an Irishman, (for I understood, from his own declaration, that he was a native of that kingdom,) most assiduously endeavouring to render our situation as completely happy as possible; and his demeanour, so far from being soured by his religious attachments, was at once open, frank, chearful, and benevolent.
When the breakfast was over, he gave audience to his visitors in an inner room, to which they all retired one by one, as the major signified his wishes. When they were all gone, the good man came into the room where I had remained, and apologised to me for his absence by making me acquainted with the leading features of their several characters, and the general intent of his conversation with them all; by which I found, that my conjectures relative to the young lady were true; that the old woman had formerly kept a house of ill fame in the neighbourhood of Covent-garden, but had been converted from a continuance of her meretricious practices by the major's exhortations, who found her in Bridewell beating hemp for the good of society; that the man with an oblique vision was formerly one of the greatest reprobates about town, but, being sent to the county-jail for debt, was enlarged by his creditors at the intercession of the major, who took upon himself a part of his pecuniary obligations, on a solemn promise, from the prisoner, that he would follow his counsels and purify his conduct in future. The major was now proceeding to a panegyric on the captain; but I interrupted his narrative by informing him of our conversation in the abbey. My friend frankly declaring, that his time was not his own, he having long since resigned it to the service of the public, I took that as a hint for my departure, and wished him a good morning, but not before he had embraced me in a most affectionate manner, and promised to remember me particularly in his prayers, which he should daily offer to the throne of mercy for my felicity; and, if prayers from so incorruptible a heart as his could not be effectual, I tremble for the authority of a prelate.
I now hurried to my new place, and found every thing prepared for my reception in the family. I was soon given to understand, by my fellow-servant in the kitchen, that our family had been increased, since my departure, by Miss Jesse, my master's niece, who had returned home from her annual visit; and, by the favourable account I heard from Peggy, (for that was the name of the good-humoured wench in question,) I was enamoured with the young lady's character before I saw her person; but it was not long before I had an opportunity of being an eye-witness to those irresistible charms which had attracted my notice so much in the description. When the bell rang from above, I was ordered by the house-keeper to lay the cloth for dinner, a service I performed with such dexterity as procured me the approbation of Mrs. Honour.
I was in the act of placing the last knife and fork, when the young lady entered the room; and, at the first glance I caught of her person, I was so transported with an undescribable emotion, that I stood for some minutes motionless and incapable of fulfilling my duty. I believe she perceived my confusion, and partly guessed at the cause; for she observed, by way of encouraging me, when her uncle came in to dinner, that I was a modest-looking young man, and seemed very attentive to my situation; but the pleasing effects of her gentle spirit were strongly counteracted by her uncle, who replied, with a contracted brow,
Aye, aye, niece, new brooms sweep clean; when I know him better, I'll tell you more of my mind.
This retort of my master's threw me into confusion; which the young lady perceiving, she gave me a smile, unperceived by her saturnine relation, which seemed to insinuate, that old people have their humours, which ought to be indulged on account of their age, but not regarded on the score of their folly.
CHAPTER XLV.
Become deeply in love with my master's niece.—Write a poem on my hopeless situation.— The singular event that followed it. — Am ordered to attend my charmer at Vauxhall-gardens.
THE personal graces of Miss Jesse, added to the amiable complexion of her mind, had made such an indelible impression on my heart, that I became unhappy out of her sight. Indeed the idea of her charms was continually stepping between me and my peace, and I was ridiculous enough to sigh for the possession of that, which Fortune had placed infinitely beyond my reach. In this melancholy state I wandered about the house, sometimes like a being lost to himself, meditating upon a subject that was hourly preying on my spirits, without the most distant hope to bear me up against so much inquietude; but, so little are our inclinations within the government of our own power, that I am perfectly convinced we are frequently doomed to be involuntarily miserable.
I had not been a fortnight in my new place before I had every reason to believe I had made a conquest of my fellow-servant, Peggy, whose attentions to me in every thing, accompanied by certain love-fraught smiles, left me no room to doubt about the the nature of her desires. But I was too much absorbed in reflecting upon the charms of the mistress to pay the least regard to the wiles and witcheries of the maid; and my passion for that divine creature became at last so troublesome, that my nights were sleepless and my days were wretched; she existed in my imagination when I was awake, and haunted my dreams when I wished for rest. I had resolved a hundred times, in the moments of madness, to throw myself at her feet, disclose my passion, and then quit her sight for ever; but the terrors, which hung about the last part of the resolution, constantly defeated the advantages of the first; and in this state of uncertainty and disquiet, I passed my melancholy hours, until my very existence became intolerable.
One evening, having retired to my room, to indulge in secret the sorrows of my heart, I took up a pen, and diverted myself with writing the following verses:
The Lover's Complaint.
MY plaints to my Jesse unknown,
Unbless'd must I wander and sigh,
While echo rehearses each moan,
And sorrow distils from each eye.
The nymph, I lament to have seen,
Is gentle, complacent, and kind;
The graces have fashion'd her mein,
And wisdom illumines her mind.
For her I have roses entwin'd,
But dare not the chaplet reveal;
For, though her soft spirit is kind,
Her dignity freezes my zeal.
By the aid of my lyre no more
Shall accents of melody flow;
Its tones must my passion deplore,
And breathe but the measure of woe.
Unheeded approaches the spring
To open the blossoms of May;
In vain does sweet Philomel sing,
Or the flower-deck'd valley look gay.
But cease thy emotions, fond heart;
No longer or flutter or beat;
For why should you pine with a smart
The tongue is denied to repeat?
The passions that wound my repose
Will hasten the period of strife;
For love like the phoenix has rose,
And fed on the ashes of life.
Then, since I must never impart
Those feelings I'm doom'd to deplore,
The pulses that govern my heart
Shall throb with its transports no more.
My pipe I have thrown on the ground,
That was wont to beguile the sad hours:
Ah me! all the magic of sound
Is broke by superior pow'rs.
How cruel is Fate, with such woes
My ardour of youth to suppress!
Say, why does she smile upon those
Whom prudence forbids her to bless?
Then go, lovely nymph, to the plain,
And enslave all the shepherds you see:
You may find a more affluent swain,
But none that will love you like me:
While I stray the willows among,
Unconscious of peace or of rest;
For hope, that gave strength to my song,
Has deserted thy Corydon's breast.
When I had finished this impassioned epistle, which I left carelessly on the table, I pursued the avocations of my duty with more alertness; and it should seem, that, by disburdening my brain of this poetical child, it had operated to reduce the poignancy of my grief, as the tears of a woman are said to relieve the heart when laden with the keenest sorrows. — But how was my joy rekindled, when, returning to my room, I found that my amorous sonnet had been perused by some fair incognita, who had even added fuel to my attachment, by annexing the following lines:
Though hope, like coquettes, often plays with the heart,
To prove her seduction and skill,
We all find it best to subscribe to her art,
And obey the caprice of her will.
Then cease, love-sick youth, to abandon her wiles
Or yield up your mind to despair:
Attend her suggestions and cherish her smiles,
For she soon may extinguish your care.
The state of perturbation, that this discovery threw me into, is easier to be conceived than described. Various were my conjectures relative to the person who had left this testimony of her concern, and my arrogance, at times, would hurry me so far as to ascribe it to the fair object of my desires; but my presumption had scarcely brought such an idea to my imagination before my reflection reassumed her power, corrected my vanity, and destroyed it. The impossibility of such a circumstance taking place left me bewildered in doubts and uncertainties; however, I was relieved from all farther conjectures, as to the author of the verses, on the following evening.
Some young ladies and gentlemen having formed a party for Vauxhall-gardens, in which they had engaged my incomparable and charming Jesse to accompany them, I was ordered by my master to attend at the door of the gardens, at a particular hour, to wait upon her home. As this was a service I would have preferred to the honour of attending even royalty itself, and in which I chearfully could have spent my existence, I needed no monitor to spur me to my duty, but was ready at least two hours before the time appointed, waiting, at the grand avenue to the gardens, with the utmost anxiety, for a sight of her, whose presence would have cheared me even in the bosom of a wilderness. At length she approached, all charming as she was, and dressed with such an elegant neatness, that she appeared like another Venus attired with elegance at the toilet of the graces. It being determined, by her party, to return to town by water, as it was a remarkably fine night, I was dispatched to procure a boat in readiness against their arrival at the stairs; and I executed the commission so much to their entire satisfaction, that I had the superlative pleasure of hearing the company commend my assiduity and address to their fair companion.
When they had all taken their seats under a temporary awning, to shield them from the unwholesome dews of the night, I entered the boat, and sat behind the watermen. Their company consisted of my mistress and two other ladies, an officer in the guards, and a young attorney from the Temple. In this manner we proceeded down the Thames, the party taking it by turns to beguile the time with songs, and relate tales of mirth, for the mutual entertainment of each other. But we had not passed beyond the arches of Westminster bridge above a hundred yards, before an accident took place, that proved fatal to one of the party, and had nearly involved us all in one general destruction.
CHAPTER XLVI.
An accident happens that threatens us with imminent danger. — A bait for the devil. — My mistress makes a declaration of love in my favour.—My master dies. — I marry the object of my desires. — The infallible secret to insure conjugal felicity.
THE moon, which had shone with such unusual brightness on our first setting out, was almost totally eclipsed by a cloud ere we had performed one half of our voyage, and rendered the objects on the Thames so indistinct, that our watermen, not looking about them with that caution their duty required, ran against a coal-barge which was moored at a small distance from Surry-stairs. The violence of the shock, added to the sudden bustle of the ladies, who all started up instantaneously on the first notice of danger, overturned the boat, notwithstanding all the efforts of the gentlemen to the contrary. Being a good swimmer, I immediately caught hold of my angelic mistress by the arm, but not before her whole body had been immerged in the water, and bore her, in that situation, senseless, to the shore. By the assistance of the watermen, the two ladies, her companions, were saved, and the officer swam to a parcel of timber, that floated conveniently in the neighbourhood of the place where the disaster happened. By this time, the shrieks of the ladies had drawn several people to the water-side, who exercised every office of humanity in their power. As for the ill-fated limb of the law, though he was heard to call for assistance in such piteous accents as would have melted a heart of stone, no one could be prevailed upon to go to his relief, until a young man, who was present, stripped himself in a trice to swim to the aid of the unfortunate beau; — and was just preparing to plunge into the stream, when one of the company happened to mention the name of his profession, which operated like a charm on the disposition of the humane youth, who no sooner understood that he was an attorney, than he very deliberately put on his clothes, protesting that, as he was a lawyer, he might drown and be damned for him; that, for his part, he would not run the chance of incurring the displeasure of the devil, by so untimely robbing him of his dues.
When the fair Jesse had recovered the use of her senses, she eagerly enquired for her deliverer; and, finding that she was indebted for her life to my zeal and activity, she clasped her dear arms about my neck, and prayed that she might have the ability to express her gratitude. I was so overpowered by her condescension, that I remained speechless, kneeling at her feet, till, my passion getting the better of my reason, I seized her hand, and smothered it with kisses. By the gentle manner, in which she rebuked me for this freedom, I first discovered that I was not indifferent to her heart; which probably I should have remained ignorant of as long as I lived, if the decrees of Fate had not turned this seeming evil to my good.— When we returned home, she made me a present of a locket, which she intreated me to keep for ever, as a token of her gratitude and esteem; a present, to me of the most inestimable value, for it contained a ringlet of her lovely auburn hair, woven in the shape of a true-lover's knot. On receiving this mark of her favour, I threw myself at her feet, and, imploring her pardon for my presumption, made a full declaration of my passion. After this confession, I would have retired from her sight, and left the house for ever; but, perceiving my intention, she called me back, and told me, while her beauteous cheek glowed with a suffusion of blushes, that my partiality in her favour had not been a mystery to her for some time; that she could trace it in all my actions, and read it in all my looks: "But," added the divine Jesse,
I strove to avoid such observations as much as possible; for, in spite of the distance that fortune has thrown between us, I felt an advocate, that pleaded in behalf of your merits, in this breast, so powerfully, that I was obliged to yield to its solicitations; and must inform you, however painful to my delicacy, that my happiness cannot be more essential to your peace than yours is to mine.
Here the accomplished lady turned aside her head to hide her confusion, while I poured forth my acknowledgements at her feet in terms of the most rapturous gratitude. In short, we made a full confession of our regards for each other, and resolved to embrace the first opportunity, that Fortune should offer and Prudence should countenance, to make our bliss complete. And it was not long before that happened; for, her uncle being suddenly seized with the gout in his stomach, it carried him off, with the assistance of three physicians, in a few hours; and we had the pleasure to find, that he had left the greater part of his fortune at the sole disposal of his niece.
When the customary time had elapsed, that is prescribed for people apparently to mourn for the loss of those, whose deaths they had hourly prayed for, my Jesse and I were led to the sacred altar of Hymen; and there, performing all due rites and ceremonies, the beauteous maid was given up to my possession; and I may venture to add, that, if every wedded pair experienced as much felicity as we have done since the mysterious and indissoluble knot made us one, the honourable state of matrimony would no longer furnish food for the pen of satire, or laughter for the faculties of folly, by the ridiculous feuds it too frequently engenders; and, gentle reader, to give you a convincing proof that I have a proper regard for the well-being of my fellow-creatures, I will publicly make known the inestimable secret, by the observance of which we are so much happier than our neighbours: it is briefly this, — looking with an eye of kindness upon the weaknesses of each other.
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