The Man of Feeling
Henry Mackenzie
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EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER XI {16}—ON BASHFULNESS.—A CHARACTER.—
HIS OPINION ON THAT SUBJECT
CHAPTER XII—OF WORLDLY INTERESTS
CHAPTER XIII—THE MAN OF FEELING IN LOVE
CHAPTER XIV—HE SETS OUT ON HIS JOURNEY—THE
BEGGAR AND HIS DOG
CHAPTER XIX—HE MAKES A SECOND EXPEDITION TO THE
BARONET'S. THE LAUDABLE AMBITION OF A YOUNG MAN TO BE THOUGHT
SOMETHING BY THE WORLD
CHAPTER XX—HE VISITS BEDLAM.—THE DISTRESSES OF
A DAUGHTER
CHAPTER XXI—THE MISANTHROPE
CHAPTER XXV—HIS SKILL IN PHYSIOGNOMY
CHAPTER XXVI—FRUITS OF THE DEAD SEA
CHAPTER XXVII—HIS SKILL IN PHYSIOGNOMY IS
DOUBTED
CHAPTER XXVIII—HE KEEPS HIS APPOINTMENT
CHAPTER XXIX—THE DISTRESSES OF A FATHER
CHAPTER XXXIII—HE LEAVES LONDON—CHARACTERS IN
A STAGE-COACH
CHAPTER XXXIV—HE MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
CHAPTER XXXV—HE MISSES AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.—
AN ADVENTURE CONSEQUENT UPON IT
CHAPTER XXXVI—HE RETURNS HOME.—A DESCRIPTION
OF HIS RETINUE
CHAPTER XL—THE MAN OF FEELING JEALOUS
CHAPTER LV—HE SEES MISS WALTON, AND IS HAPPY
CHAPTER LVI—THE EMOTIONS OF THE HEART
Henry Mackenzie, the son of an Edinburgh physician, was born in
August, 1745. After education in the University of Edinburgh he went
to London in 1765, at the age of twenty, for law studies, returned to
Edinburgh, and became Crown Attorney in the Scottish Court of
Exchequer. When Mackenzie was in London, Sterne's "Tristram Shandy"
was in course of publication. The first two volumes had appeared in
1759, and the ninth appeared in 1767, followed in 1768, the year of
Sterne's death, by "The Sentimental Journey." Young Mackenzie had a
strong bent towards literature, and while studying law in London, he
read Sterne, and falling in with the tone of sentiment which Sterne
himself caught from the spirit of the time and the example of Rousseau,
he wrote "The Man of Feeling." This book was published, without
author's name, in 1771. It was so popular that a young clergyman made
a copy of it popular with imagined passages of erasure and correction,
on the strength of which he claimed to be its author, and obliged Henry
Mackenzie to declare himself. In 1773 Mackenzie published a second
novel, "The Man of the World," and in 1777 a third, "Julia de
Roubigné." An essay-reading society in Edinburgh, of which he was a
leader, started in January, 1779, a weekly paper called The Mirror,
which he edited until May, 1780. Its writers afterwards joined in
producing The Lounger, which lasted from February, 1785, to
January, 1787. Henry Mackenzie contributed forty-two papers to The
Mirror and fifty-seven to The Lounger. When the Royal
Society of Edinburgh was founded Henry Mackenzie was active as one of
its first members. He was also one of the founders of the Highland
Society.
Although his "Man of Feeling" was a serious reflection of the
false sentiment of the Revolution, Mackenzie joined afterwards in
writing tracts to dissuade the people from faith in the doctrines of
the Revolutionists. Mackenzie wrote also a tragedy, "The Prince of
Tunis," which was acted with success at Edinburgh, and a comedy, "The
White Hypocrite," which was acted once only at Covent garden. He died
at the age of eighty-six, on the 13th June, 1831, having for many years
been regarded as an elder friend of their own craft by the men of
letters who in his days gave dignity to Edinburgh society, and caused
the town to be called the Modern Athens.
A man of refined taste, who caught the tone of the French
sentiment of his time, has, of course, pleased French critics, and has
been translated into French. "The Man of Feeling" begins with
imitation of Sterne, and proceeds in due course through so many tears
that it is hardly to be called a dry book. As guide to persons of a
calculating disposition who may read these pages I append an index to
the Tears shed in "The Man of Feeling."
My dog had made a point on a piece of fallow-ground, and led the
curate and me two or three hundred yards over that and some stubble
adjoining, in a breathless state of expectation, on a burning first of
September.
It was a false point, and our labour was vain: yet, to do Rover
justice (for he's an excellent dog, though I have lost his pedigree),
the fault was none of his, the birds were gone: the curate showed me
the spot where they had lain basking, at the root of an old hedge.
I stopped and cried Hem! The curate is fatter than I; he wiped
the sweat from his brow.
There is no state where one is apter to pause and look round one,
than after such a disappointment. It is even so in life. When we have
been hurrying on, impelled by some warm wish or other, looking neither
to the right hand nor to the left—we find of a sudden that all our
gay hopes are flown; and the only slender consolation that some friend
can give us, is to point where they were once to be found. And lo! if
we are not of that combustible race, who will rather beat their heads
in spite, than wipe their brows with the curate, we look round and say,
with the nauseated listlessness of the king of Israel, "All is vanity
and vexation of spirit."
I looked round with some such grave apophthegm in my mind when I
discovered, for the first time, a venerable pile, to which the
enclosure belonged. An air of melancholy hung about it. There was a
languid stillness in the day, and a single crow, that perched on an old
tree by the side of the gate, seemed to delight in the echo of its own
croaking.
I leaned on my gun and looked; but I had not breath enough to ask
the curate a question. I observed carving on the bark of some of the
trees: 'twas indeed the only mark of human art about the place, except
that some branches appeared to have been lopped, to give a view of the
cascade, which was formed by a little rill at some distance.
Just at that instant I saw pass between the trees a young lady
with a book in her hand. I stood upon a stone to observe her; but the
curate sat him down on the grass, and leaning his back where I stood,
told me, "That was the daughter of a neighbouring gentleman of the name
of WALTON, whom he had seen walking there more than once.
"Some time ago," he said, "one HARLEY lived there, a whimsical
sort of man I am told, but I was not then in the cure; though, if I had
a turn for those things, I might know a good deal of his history, for
the greatest part of it is still in my possession."
"His history!" said I. "Nay, you may call it what you please,"
said the curate; for indeed it is no more a history than it is a
sermon. The way I came by it was this: some time ago, a grave, oddish
kind of a man boarded at a farmer's in this parish: the country people
called him The Ghost; and he was known by the slouch in his gait, and
the length of his stride. I was but little acquainted with him, for he
never frequented any of the clubs hereabouts. Yet for all he used to
walk a-nights, he was as gentle as a lamb at times; for I have seen him
playing at teetotum with the children, on the great stone at the door
of our churchyard.
"Soon after I was made curate, he left the parish, and went nobody
knows whither; and in his room was found a bundle of papers, which was
brought to me by his landlord. I began to read them, but I soon grew
weary of the task; for, besides that the hand is intolerably bad, I
could never find the author in one strain for two chapters together;
and I don't believe there's a single syllogism from beginning to end."
"I should be glad to see this medley," said I. "You shall see it
now," answered the curate, "for I always take it along with me
a-shooting." "How came it so torn?" "'Tis excellent wadding," said
the curate.—This was a plea of expediency I was not in a condition to
answer; for I had actually in my pocket great part of an edition of one
of the German Illustrissimi, for the very same purpose. We exchanged
books; and by that means (for the curate was a strenuous logician) we
probably saved both.
When I returned to town, I had leisure to peruse the acquisition I
had made: I found it a bundle of little episodes, put together without
art, and of no importance on the whole, with something of nature, and
little else in them. I was a good deal affected with some very
trifling passages in it; and had the name of Marmontel, or a
Richardson, been on the title-page—'tis odds that I should have wept:
But
One is ashamed to be pleased with the works of one knows not whom.
CHAPTER XI
{16}—ON BASHFULNESS.—A CHARACTER.—HIS OPINION ON THAT SUBJECT
There is some rust about every man at the beginning; though in
some nations (among the French for instance) the ideas of the
inhabitants, from climate, or what other cause you will, are so
vivacious, so eternally on the wing, that they must, even in small
societies, have a frequent collision; the rust therefore will wear off
sooner: but in Britain it often goes with a man to his grave; nay, he
dares not even pen a hic jacet to speak out for him after his
death.
"Let them rub it off by travel," said the baronet's brother, who
was a striking instance of excellent metal, shamefully rusted. I had
drawn my chair near his. Let me paint the honest old man: 'tis but one
passing sentence to preserve his image in my mind.
He sat in his usual attitude, with his elbow rested on his knee,
and his fingers pressed on his cheek. His face was shaded by his hand;
yet it was a face that might once have been well accounted handsome;
its features were manly and striking, a dignity resided on his
eyebrows, which were the largest I remember to have seen. His person
was tall and well-made; but the indolence of his nature had now
inclined it to corpulency.
His remarks were few, and made only to his familiar friends; but
they were such as the world might have heard with veneration: and his
heart, uncorrupted by its ways, was ever warm in the cause of virtue
and his friends.
He is now forgotten and gone! The last time I was at Silton Hall,
I saw his chair stand in its corner by the fire-side; there was an
additional cushion on it, and it was occupied by my young lady's
favourite lap dog. I drew near unperceived, and pinched its ears in
the bitterness of my soul; the creature howled, and ran to its
mistress. She did not suspect the author of its misfortune, but she
bewailed it in the most pathetic terms; and kissing its lips, laid it
gently on her lap, and covered it with a cambric handkerchief. I sat
in my old friend's seat; I heard the roar of mirth and gaiety around
me: poor Ben Silton! I gave thee a tear then: accept of one cordial
drop that falls to thy memory now.
"They should wear it off by travel."—Why, it is true, said I,
that will go far; but then it will often happen, that in the velocity
of a modern tour, and amidst the materials through which it is commonly
made, the friction is so violent, that not only the rust, but the metal
too, is lost in the progress.
"Give me leave to correct the expression of your metaphor," said
Mr. Silton: "that is not always rust which is acquired by the
inactivity of the body on which it preys; such, perhaps, is the case
with me, though indeed I was never cleared from my youth; but (taking
it in its first stage) it is rather an encrustation, which nature has
given for purposes of the greatest wisdom."
"You are right," I returned; "and sometimes, like certain precious
fossils, there may be hid under it gems of the purest brilliancy."
"Nay, farther," continued Mr. Silton, "there are two distinct
sorts of what we call bashfulness; this, the awkwardness of a booby,
which a few steps into the world will convert into the pertness of a
coxcomb; that, a consciousness, which the most delicate feelings
produce, and the most extensive knowledge cannot always remove."
From the incidents I have already related, I imagine it will be
concluded that Harley was of the latter species of bashful animals; at
least, if Mr. Silton's principle is just, it may be argued on this
side; for the gradation of the first mentioned sort, it is certain, he
never attained. Some part of his external appearance was modelled from
the company of those gentlemen, whom the antiquity of a family, now
possessed of bare £250 a year, entitled its representative to approach:
these indeed were not many; great part of the property in his
neighbourhood being in the hands of merchants, who had got rich by
their lawful calling abroad, and the sons of stewards, who had got rich
by their lawful calling at home: persons so perfectly versed in the
ceremonial of thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands
(whose degrees of precedency are plainly demonstrable from the first
page of the Complete Accomptant, or Young Man's Best Pocket Companion)
that a bow at church from them to such a man as Harley would have made
the parson look back into his sermon for some precept of Christian
humility.
There are certain interests which the world supposes every man to
have, and which therefore are properly enough termed worldly; but the
world is apt to make an erroneous estimate: ignorant of the
dispositions which constitute our happiness or misery, they bring to an
undistinguished scale the means of the one, as connected with power,
wealth, or grandeur, and of the other with their contraries.
Philosophers and poets have often protested against this decision; but
their arguments have been despised as declamatory, or ridiculed as
romantic.
There are never wanting to a young man some grave and prudent
friends to set him right in this particular, if he need it; to watch
his ideas as they arise, and point them to those objects which a wise
man should never forget.
Harley did not want for some monitors of this sort. He was
frequently told of men whose fortunes enabled them to command all the
luxuries of life, whose fortunes were of their own acquirement: his
envy was invited by a description of their happiness, and his emulation
by a recital of the means which had procured it.
Harley was apt to hear those lectures with indifference; nay,
sometimes they got the better of his temper; and as the instances were
not always amiable, provoked, on his part, some reflections, which I am
persuaded his good-nature would else have avoided.
Indeed, I have observed one ingredient, somewhat necessary in a
man's composition towards happiness, which people of feeling would do
well to acquire; a certain respect for the follies of mankind: for
there are so many fools whom the opinion of the world entitles to
regard, whom accident has placed in heights of which they are unworthy,
that he who cannot restrain his contempt or indignation at the sight
will be too often quarrelling with the disposal of things to relish
that share which is allotted to himself. I do not mean, however, to
insinuate this to have been the case with Harley; on the contrary, if
we might rely on his own testimony, the conceptions he had of pomp and
grandeur served to endear the state which Providence had assigned him.
He lost his father, the last surviving of his parents, as I have
already related, when he was a boy. The good man, from a fear of
offending, as well as a regard to his son, had named him a variety of
guardians; one consequence of which was, that they seldom met at all to
consider the affairs of their ward; and when they did meet, their
opinions were so opposite, that the only possible method of
conciliation was the mediatory power of a dinner and a bottle, which
commonly interrupted, not ended, the dispute; and after that
interruption ceased, left the consulting parties in a condition not
very proper for adjusting it. His education therefore had been but
indifferently attended to; and after being taken from a country school,
at which he had been boarded, the young gentleman was suffered to be
his own master in the subsequent branches of literature, with some
assistance from the parson of the parish in languages and philosophy,
and from the exciseman in arithmetic and book-keeping. One of his
guardians, indeed, who, in his youth, had been an inhabitant of the
Temple, set him to read Coke upon Lyttelton: a book which is very
properly put into the hands of beginners in that science, as its
simplicity is accommodated to their understandings, and its size to
their inclination. He profited but little by the perusal; but it was
not without its use in the family: for his maiden aunt applied it
commonly to the laudable purpose of pressing her rebellious linens to
the folds she had allotted them.
There were particularly two ways of increasing his fortune, which
might have occurred to people of less foresight than the counsellors we
have mentioned. One of these was, the prospect of his succeeding to an
old lady, a distant relation, who was known to be possessed of a very
large sum in the stocks: but in this their hopes were disappointed; for
the young man was so untoward in his disposition, that, notwithstanding
the instructions he daily received, his visits rather tended to
alienate than gain the good-will of his kinswoman. He sometimes looked
grave when the old lady told the jokes of her youth; he often refused
to eat when she pressed him, and was seldom or never provided with
sugar-candy or liquorice when she was seized with a fit of coughing:
nay, he had once the rudeness to fall asleep while she was describing
the composition and virtues of her favourite cholic-water. In short,
be accommodated himself so ill to her humour, that she died, and did
not leave him a farthing.
The other method pointed out to him was an endeavour to get a
lease of some crown-lands, which lay contiguous to his little paternal
estate. This, it was imagined, might be easily procured, as the crown
did not draw so much rent as Harley could afford to give, with very
considerable profit to himself; and the then lessee had rendered
himself so obnoxious to the ministry, by the disposal of his vote at an
election, that he could not expect a renewal. This, however, needed
some interest with the great, which Harley or his father never
possessed.
His neighbour, Mr. Walton, having heard of this affair, generously
offered his assistance to accomplish it. He told him, that though he
had long been a stranger to courtiers, yet he believed there were some
of them who might pay regard to his recommendation; and that, if he
thought it worth the while to take a London journey upon the business,
he would furnish him with a letter of introduction to a baronet of his
acquaintance, who had a great deal to say with the first lord of the
treasury.
When his friends heard of this offer, they pressed him with the
utmost earnestness to accept of it.
They did not fail to enumerate the many advantages which a certain
degree of spirit and assurance gives a man who would make a figure in
the world: they repeated their instances of good fortune in others,
ascribed them all to a happy forwardness of disposition; and made so
copious a recital of the disadvantages which attend the opposite
weakness, that a stranger, who had heard them, would have been led to
imagine, that in the British code there was some disqualifying statute
against any citizen who should be convicted of—modesty.
Harley, though he had no great relish for the attempt, yet could
not resist the torrent of motives that assaulted him; and as he needed
but little preparation for his journey, a day, not very distant, was
fixed for his departure.
The day before that on which he set out, he went to take leave of
Mr. Walton.—We would conceal nothing;—there was another person of
the family to whom also the visit was intended, on whose account,
perhaps, there were some tenderer feelings in the bosom of Harley than
his gratitude for the friendly notice of that gentleman (though he was
seldom deficient in that virtue) could inspire. Mr. Walton had a
daughter; and such a daughter! we will attempt some description of her
by and by.
Harley's notions of the , or beautiful, were not always to be
defined, nor indeed such as the world would always assent to, though we
could define them. A blush, a phrase of affability to an inferior, a
tear at a moving tale, were to him, like the Cestus of Cytherea,
unequalled in conferring beauty. For all these Miss Walton was
remarkable; but as these, like the above-mentioned Cestus, are perhaps
still more powerful when the wearer is possessed of souse degree of
beauty, commonly so called, it happened, that, from this cause, they
had more than usual power in the person of that young lady.
She was now arrived at that period of life which takes, or is
supposed to take, from the flippancy of girlhood those sprightlinesses
with which some good-natured old maids oblige the world at
three-score. She had been ushered into life (as that word is used in
the dialect of St. James's) at seventeen, her father being then in
parliament, and living in London: at seventeen, therefore, she had been
a universal toast; her health, now she was four-and-twenty, was only
drank by those who knew her face at least. Her complexion was mellowed
into a paleness, which certainly took from her beauty; but agreed, at
least Harley used to say so, with the pensive softness of her mind.
Her eyes were of that gentle hazel colour which is rather mild than
piercing; and, except when they were lighted up by good-humour, which
was frequently the case, were supposed by the fine gentlemen to want
fire. Her air and manner were elegant in the highest degree, and were
as sure of commanding respect as their mistress was far from demanding
it. Her voice was inexpressibly soft; it was, according to that
incomparable simile of Otway's,
—"like the shepherd's pipe upon the mountains,
When all his little flock's at feed before him."
The effect it had upon Harley, himself used to paint ridiculously
enough; and ascribed it to powers, which few believed, and nobody cared
for.
Her conversation was always cheerful, but rarely witty; and
without the smallest affectation of learning, had as much sentiment in
it as would have puzzled a Turk, upon his principles of female
materialism, to account for. Her beneficence was unbounded; indeed the
natural tenderness of her heart might have been argued, by the
frigidity of a casuist, as detracting from her virtue in this respect,
for her humanity was a feeling, not a principle: but minds like
Harley's are not very apt to make this distinction, and generally give
our virtue credit for all that benevolence which is instinctive in our
nature.
As her father had some years retired to the country, Harley had
frequent opportunities of seeing her. He looked on her for some time
merely with that respect and admiration which her appearance seemed to
demand, and the opinion of others conferred upon her from this cause,
perhaps, and from that extreme sensibility of which we have taken
frequent notice, Harley was remarkably silent in her presence. He
heard her sentiments with peculiar attention, sometimes with looks very
expressive of approbation; but seldom declared his opinion on the
subject, much less made compliments to the lady on the justness of her
remarks.
From this very reason it was that Miss Walton frequently took more
particular notice of him than of other visitors, who, by the laws of
precedency, were better entitled to it: it was a mode of politeness she
had peculiarly studied, to bring to the line of that equality, which is
ever necessary for the ease of our guests, those whose sensibility had
placed them below it.
Harley saw this; for though he was a child in the drama of the
world, yet was it not altogether owing to a want of knowledge on his
part; on the contrary, the most delicate consciousness of propriety
often kindled that blush which marred the performance of it: this
raised his esteem something above what the most sanguine descriptions
of her goodness had been able to do; for certain it is, that
notwithstanding the laboured definitions which very wise men have given
us of the inherent beauty of virtue, we are always inclined to think
her handsomest when she condescends to smile upon ourselves.
It would be trite to observe the easy gradation from esteem to
love: in the bosom of Harley there scarce needed a transition; for
there were certain seasons when his ideas were flushed to a degree much
above their common complexion. In times not credulous of inspiration,
we should account for this from some natural cause; but we do not mean
to account for it at all; it were sufficient to describe its effects;
but they were sometimes so ludicrous, as might derogate from the
dignity of the sensations which produced them to describe. They were
treated indeed as such by most of Harley's sober friends, who often
laughed very heartily at the awkward blunders of the real Harley, when
the different faculties, which should have prevented them, were
entirely occupied by the ideal. In some of these paroxysms of fancy,
Miss Walton did not fail to be introduced; and the picture which had
been drawn amidst the surrounding objects of unnoticed levity was now
singled out to be viewed through the medium of romantic imagination: it
was improved of course, and esteem was a word inexpressive of the
feelings which it excited.
He had taken leave of his aunt on the eve of his intended
departure; but the good lady's affection for her nephew interrupted her
sleep, and early as it was next morning when Harley came downstairs to
set out, he found her in the parlour with a tear on her cheek, and her
caudle-cup in her hand. She knew enough of physic to prescribe against
going abroad of a morning with an empty stomach. She gave her blessing
with the draught; her instructions she had delivered the night before.
They consisted mostly of negatives, for London, in her idea, was so
replete with temptations that it needed the whole armour of her
friendly cautions to repel their attacks.
Peter stood at the door. We have mentioned this faithful fellow
formerly: Harley's father had taken him up an orphan, and saved him
from being cast on the parish; and he had ever since remained in the
service of him and of his son. Harley shook him by the hand as he
passed, smiling, as if he had said, "I will not weep." He sprung
hastily into the chaise that waited for him; Peter folded up the step.
"My dear master," said he, shaking the solitary lock that hung on
either side of his head, "I have been told as how London is a sad
place." He was choked with the thought, and his benediction could not
be heard:—but it shall be heard, honest Peter! where these tears will
add to its energy.
In a few hours Harley reached the inn where he proposed
breakfasting, but the fulness of his heart would not suffer him to eat
a morsel. He walked out on the road, and gaining a little height,
stood gazing on that quarter he had left. He looked for his wonted
prospect, his fields, his woods, and his hills: they were lost in the
distant clouds! He pencilled them on the clouds, and bade them
farewell with a sigh!
He sat down on a large stone to take out a little pebble from his
shoe, when he saw, at some distance, a beggar approaching him. He had
on a loose sort of coat, mended with different-coloured rags, amongst
which the blue and the russet were the predominant. He had a short
knotty stick in his hand, and on the top of it was stuck a ram's horn;
his knees (though he was no pilgrim) had worn the stuff of his
breeches; he wore no shoes, and his stockings had entirely lost that
part of them which should have covered his feet and ankles; in his
face, however, was the plump appearance of good humour; he walked a
good round pace, and a crook-legged dog trotted at his heels.
"Our delicacies," said Harley to himself, "are fantastic; they are
not in nature! that beggar walks over the sharpest of these stones
barefooted, whilst I have lost the most delightful dream in the world,
from the smallest of them happening to get into my shoe." The beggar
had by this time come up, and, pulling off a piece of hat, asked
charity of Harley; the dog began to beg too:—it was impossible to
resist both; and, in truth, the want of shoes and stockings had made
both unnecessary, for Harley had destined sixpence for him before. The
beggar, on receiving it, poured forth blessings without number; and,
with a sort of smile on his countenance, said to Harley "that if he
wanted to have his fortune told"—Harley turned his eye briskly on the
beggar: it was an unpromising look for the subject of a prediction, and
silenced the prophet immediately. "I would much rather learn," said
Harley, "what it is in your power to tell me: your trade must be an
entertaining one; sit down on this stone, and let me know something of
your profession; I have often thought of turning fortune-teller for a
week or two myself."
"Master," replied the beggar, "I like your frankness much; God
knows I had the humour of plain-dealing in me from a child, but there
is no doing with it in this world; we must live as we can, and lying
is, as you call it, my profession, but I was in some sort forced to the
trade, for I dealt once in telling truth.
"I was a labourer, sir, and gained as much as to make me live: I
never laid by indeed: for I was reckoned a piece of a wag, and your
wags, I take it, are seldom rich, Mr. Harley."
"So," said Harley, "you seem to know me."
"Ay, there are few folks in the country that I don't know
something of: how should I tell fortunes else?"
"True; but to go on with your story: you were a labourer, you say,
and a wag; your industry, I suppose, you left with your old trade, but
your humour you preserve to be of use to you in your new."
"What signifies sadness, sir? a man grows lean on't: but I was
brought to my idleness by degrees; first I could not work, and it went
against my stomach to work ever after. I was seized with a jail fever
at the time of the assizes being in the county where I lived; for I was
always curious to get acquainted with the felons, because they are
commonly fellows of much mirth and little thought, qualities I had ever
an esteem for. In the height of this fever, Mr. Harley, the house
where I lay took fire, and burnt to the ground; I was carried out in
that condition, and lay all the rest of my illness in a barn. I got
the better of my disease, however, but I was so weak that I spit blood
whenever I attempted to work. I had no relation living that I knew of,
and I never kept a friend above a week, when I was able to joke; I
seldom remained above six months in a parish, so that I might have died
before I had found a settlement in any: thus I was forced to beg my
bread, and a sorry trade I found it, Mr. Harley. I told all my
misfortunes truly, but they were seldom believed; and the few who gave
me a halfpenny as they passed did it with a shake of the head, and an
injunction not to trouble them with a long story. In short, I found
that people don't care to give alms without some security for their
money; a wooden leg or a withered arm is a sort of draught upon heaven
for those who choose to have their money placed to account there; so I
changed my plan, and, instead of telling my own misfortunes, began to
prophesy happiness to others. This I found by much the better way:
folks will always listen when the tale is their own, and of many who
say they do not believe in fortune-telling, I have known few on whom it
had not a very sensible effect. I pick up the names of their
acquaintance; amours and little squabbles are easily gleaned among
servants and neighbours; and indeed people themselves are the best
intelligencers in the world for our purpose: they dare not puzzle us
for their own sakes, for every one is anxious to hear what they wish to
believe, and they who repeat it, to laugh at it when they have done,
are generally more serious than their hearers are apt to imagine. With
a tolerable good memory, and some share of cunning, with the help of
walking a-nights over heaths and church-yards, with this, and showing
the tricks of that there dog, whom I stole from the serjeant of a
marching regiment (and by the way, he can steal too upon occasion), I
make shift to pick up a livelihood. My trade, indeed, is none of the
honestest; yet people are not much cheated neither who give a few
half-pence for a prospect of happiness, which I have heard some persons
say is all a man can arrive at in this world. But I must bid you good
day, sir, for I have three miles to walk before noon, to inform some
boarding-school young ladies whether their husbands are to be peers of
the realm or captains in the army: a question which I promised to
answer them by that time."
Harley had drawn a shilling from his pocket; but Virtue bade him
consider on whom he was going to bestow it. Virtue held back his arm;
but a milder form, a younger sister of Virtue's, not so severe as
Virtue, nor so serious as Pity, smiled upon him; his fingers lost their
compression, nor did Virtue offer to catch the money as it fell. It
had no sooner reached the ground than the watchful cur (a trick he had
been taught) snapped it up, and, contrary to the most approved method
of stewardship, delivered it immediately into the hands of his master.
We have related, in a former chapter, the little success of his
first visit to the great man, for whom he had the introductory letter
from Mr. Walton. To people of equal sensibility, the influence of
those trifles we mentioned on his deportment will not appear
surprising, but to his friends in the country they could not be stated,
nor would they have allowed them any place in the account. In some of
their letters, therefore, which he received soon after, they expressed
their surprise at his not having been more urgent in his application,
and again recommended the blushless assiduity of successful merit.
He resolved to make another attempt at the baronet's; fortified
with higher notions of his own dignity, and with less apprehension of
repulse. In his way to Grosvenor Square he began to ruminate on the
folly of mankind, who affixed those ideas of superiority to riches,
which reduced the minds of men, by nature equal with the more
fortunate, to that sort of servility which he felt in his own. By the
time he had reached the Square, and was walking along the pavement
which led to the baronet's, he had brought his reasoning on the subject
to such a point, that the conclusion, by every rule of logic, should
have led him to a thorough indifference in his approaches to a
fellow-mortal, whether that fellow-mortal was possessed of six or six
thousand pounds a year. It is probable, however, that the premises had
been improperly formed: for it is certain, that when he approached the
great man's door he felt his heart agitated by an unusual pulsation.
He had almost reached it, when he observed among gentleman coming
out, dressed in a white frock and a red laced waistcoat, with a small
switch in his hand, which he seemed to manage with a particular good
grace. As he passed him on the steps, the stranger very politely made
him a bow, which Harley returned, though he could not remember ever
having seen him before. He asked Harley, in the same civil manner, if
he was going to wait on his friend the baronet. "For I was just
calling," said he, "and am sorry to find that he is gone for some days
into the country."
Harley thanked him for his information, and was turning from the
door, when the other observed that it would be proper to leave his
name, and very obligingly knocked for that purpose.
"Here is a gentleman, Tom, who meant to have waited on your
master."
"Your name, if you please, sir?"
"Harley."
"You'll remember, Tom, Harley."
The door was shut. "Since we are here," said he, "we shall not
lose our walk if we add a little to it by a turn or two in Hyde Park."
He accompanied this proposal with a second bow, and Harley
accepted of it by another in return.
The conversation, as they walked, was brilliant on the side of his
companion. The playhouse, the opera, with every occurrence in high
life, he seemed perfectly master of; and talked of some reigning
beauties of quality in a manner the most feeling in the world. Harley
admired the happiness of his vivacity, and, opposite as it was to the
reserve of his own nature, began to be much pleased with its effects.
Though I am not of opinion with some wise men, that the existence
of objects depends on idea, yet I am convinced that their appearance is
not a little influenced by it. The optics of some minds are in so
unlucky a perspective as to throw a certain shade on every picture that
is presented to them, while those of others (of which number was
Harley), like the mirrors of the ladies, have a wonderful effect in
bettering their complexions. Through such a medium perhaps he was
looking on his present companion.
When they had finished their walk, and were returning by the
corner of the Park, they observed a board hung out of a window
signifying, "An excellent ORDINARY on Saturdays and Sundays." It
happened to be Saturday, and the table was covered for the purpose.
"What if we should go in and dine here, if you happen not to be
engaged, sir?" said the young gentleman. "It is not impossible but we
shall meet with some original or other; it is a sort of humour I like
hugely."
Harley made no objection, and the stranger showed him the way into
the parlour.
He was placed, by the courtesy of his introductor, in an arm-chair
that stood at one side of the fire. Over against him was seated a man
of a grave considering aspect, with that look of sober prudence which
indicates what is commonly called a warm man. He wore a pretty large
wig, which had once been white, but was now of a brownish yellow; his
coat was one of those modest-coloured drabs which mock the injuries of
dust and dirt; two jack-boots concealed, in part, the well-mended knees
of an old pair of buckskin breeches; while the spotted handkerchief
round his neck preserved at once its owner from catching cold and his
neck-cloth from being dirtied. Next him sat another man, with a
tankard in his hand and a quid of tobacco in his cheek, whose eye was
rather more vivacious, and whose dress was something smarter.
The first-mentioned gentleman took notice that the room had been
so lately washed, as not to have had time to dry, and remarked that wet
lodging was unwholesome for man or beast. He looked round at the same
time for a poker to stir the fire with, which, he at last observed to
the company, the people of the house had removed in order to save their
coals. This difficulty, however, he overcame by the help of Harley's
stick, saying, "that as they should, no doubt, pay for their fire in
some shape or other, he saw no reason why they should not have the use
of it while they sat."
The door was now opened for the admission of dinner. "I don't
know how it is with you, gentlemen," said Harley's new acquaintance,
"but I am afraid I shall not be able to get down a morsel at this
horrid mechanical hour of dining." He sat down, however, and did not
show any want of appetite by his eating. He took upon him the carving
of the meat, and criticised on the goodness of the pudding.
When the table-cloth was removed, he proposed calling for some
punch, which was readily agreed to; he seemed at first inclined to make
it himself, but afterwards changed his mind, and left that province to
the waiter, telling him to have it pure West Indian, or he could not
taste a drop of it.
When the punch was brought he undertook to fill the glasses and
call the toasts. "The King."—The toast naturally produced politics.
It is the privilege of Englishmen to drink the king's health, and to
talk of his conduct. The man who sat opposite to Harley (and who by
this time, partly from himself, and partly from his acquaintance on his
left hand, was discovered to be a grazier) observed, "That it was a
shame for so many pensioners to be allowed to take the bread out of the
mouth of the poor."
"Ay, and provisions," said his friend, "were never so dear in the
memory of man; I wish the king and his counsellors would look to that."
"As for the matter of provisions, neighbour Wrightson," he
replied, "I am sure the prices of cattle—"
A dispute would have probably ensued, but it was prevented by the
spruce toastmaster, who gave a sentiment, and turning to the two
politicians, "Pray, gentlemen," said he, "let us have done with these
musty politics: I would always leave them to the beer-suckers in
Butcher Row. Come, let us have something of the fine arts. That was a
damn'd hard match between Joe the Nailor and Tim Bucket. The knowing
ones were cursedly taken in there! I lost a cool hundred myself,
faith."
At mention of the cool hundred, the grazier threw his eyes aslant,
with a mingled look of doubt and surprise; while the man at his elbow
looked arch, and gave a short emphatical sort of cough.
Both seemed to be silenced, however, by this intelligence; and
while the remainder of the punch lasted the conversation was wholly
engrossed by the gentleman with the fine waistcoat, who told a great
many "immense comical stories" and "confounded smart things," as he
termed them, acted and spoken by lords, ladies, and young bucks of
quality, of his acquaintance. At last, the grazier, pulling out a
watch, of a very unusual size, and telling the hour, said that he had
an appointment.
"Is it so late?" said the young gentleman; "then I am afraid I
have missed an appointment already; but the truth is, I am cursedly
given to missing of appointments."
When the grazier and he were gone, Harley turned to the remaining
personage, and asked him if he knew that young gentleman. "A
gentleman!" said he; "ay, he is one of your gentlemen at the top of an
affidavit. I knew him, some years ago, in the quality of a footman;
and I believe he had some times the honour to be a pimp. At last, some
of the great folks, to whom he had been serviceable in both capacities,
had him made a gauger; in which station he remains, and has the
assurance to pretend an acquaintance with men of quality. The impudent
dog! with a few shillings in his pocket, he will talk you three times
as much as my friend Mundy there, who is worth nine thousand if he's
worth a farthing. But I know the rascal, and despise him, as he
deserves."
Harley began to despise him too, and to conceive some indignation
at having sat with patience to hear such a fellow speak nonsense. But
he corrected himself by reflecting that he was perhaps as well
entertained, and instructed too, by this same modest gauger, as he
should have been by such a man as he had thought proper to personate.
And surely the fault may more properly be imputed to that rank where
the futility is real than where it is feigned: to that rank whose
opportunities for nobler accomplishments have only served to rear a
fabric of folly which the untutored hand of affectation, even among the
meanest of mankind, can imitate with success.
Or those things called Sights in London, which every stranger is
supposed desirous to see, Bedlam is one. To that place, therefore, an
acquaintance of Harley's, after having accompanied him to several other
shows, proposed a visit. Harley objected to it, "because," said he, "I
think it an inhuman practice to expose the greatest misery with which
our nature is afflicted to every idle visitant who can afford a
trifling perquisite to the keeper; especially as it is a distress which
the humane must see, with the painful reflection, that it is not in
their power to alleviate it." He was overpowered, however, by the
solicitations of his friend and the other persons of the party (amongst
whom were several ladies); and they went in a body to Moorfields.
Their conductor led them first to the dismal mansions of those who
are in the most horrid state of incurable madness. The clanking of
chains, the wildness of their cries, and the imprecations which some of
them uttered, formed a scene inexpressibly shocking. Harley and his
companions, especially the female part of them, begged their guide to
return; he seemed surprised at their uneasiness, and was with
difficulty prevailed on to leave that part of the house without showing
them some others: who, as he expressed it in the phrase of those that
keep wild beasts for show, were much better worth seeing than any they
had passed, being ten times more fierce and unmanageable.
He led them next to that quarter where those reside who, as they
are not dangerous to themselves or others, enjoy a certain degree of
freedom, according to the state of their distemper.
Harley had fallen behind his companions, looking at a man who was
making pendulums with bits of thread and little balls of clay. He had
delineated a segment of a circle on the wall with chalk, and marked
their different vibrations by intersecting it with cross lines. A
decent-looking man came up, and smiling at the maniac, turned to
Harley, and told him that gentleman had once been a very celebrated
mathematician. "He fell a sacrifice," said he, "to the theory of
comets; for having, with infinite labour, formed a table on the
conjectures of Sir Isaac Newton, he was disappointed in the return of
one of those luminaries, and was very soon after obliged to be placed
here by his friends. If you please to follow me, sir," continued the
stranger, "I believe I shall be able to give you a more satisfactory
account of the unfortunate people you see here than the man who attends
your companions."
Harley bowed, and accepted his offer.
The next person they came up to had scrawled a variety of figures
on a piece of slate. Harley had the curiosity to take a nearer view of
them. They consisted of different columns, on the top of which were
marked South-sea annuities, India-stock, and Three per cent. annuities
consol. "This," said Harley's instructor, "was a gentleman well known
in Change Alley. He was once worth fifty thousand pounds, and had
actually agreed for the purchase of an estate in the West, in order to
realise his money; but he quarrelled with the proprietor about the
repairs of the garden wall, and so returned to town, to follow his old
trade of stock-jobbing a little longer; when an unlucky fluctuation of
stock, in which he was engaged to an immense extent, reduced him at
once to poverty and to madness. Poor wretch! he told me t'other day
that against the next payment of differences he should be some hundreds
above a plum."
"It is a spondee, and I will maintain it," interrupted a voice on
his left hand. This assertion was followed by a very rapid recital of
some verses from Homer. "That figure," said the gentleman, "whose
clothes are so bedaubed with snuff, was a schoolmaster of some
reputation: he came hither to be resolved of some doubts he entertained
concerning the genuine pronunciation of the Greek vowels. In his
highest fits, he makes frequent mention of one Mr. Bentley.
"But delusive ideas, sir, are the motives of the greatest part of
mankind, and a heated imagination the power by which their actions are
incited: the world, in the eye of a philosopher, may be said to be a
large madhouse." "It is true," answered Harley, "the passions of men
are temporary madnesses; and sometimes very fatal in their effects.
From Macedonia's madman to the Swede."
"It was, indeed," said the stranger, "a very mad thing in Charles
to think of adding so vast a country as Russia to his dominions: that
would have been fatal indeed; the balance of the North would then have
been lost; but the Sultan and I would never have allowed it."—"Sir!"
said Harley, with no small surprise on his countenance.—"Why, yes,"
answered the other, "the Sultan and I; do you know me? I am the Chan
of Tartary."
Harley was a good deal struck by this discovery; he had prudence
enough, however, to conceal his amazement, and bowing as low to the
monarch as his dignity required, left him immediately, and joined his
companions.
He found them in a quarter of the house set apart for the insane
of the other sex, several of whom had gathered about the female
visitors, and were examining, with rather more accuracy than might have
been expected, the particulars of their dress.
Separate from the rest stood one whose appearance had something of
superior dignity. Her face, though pale and wasted, was less squalid
than those of the others, and showed a dejection of that decent kind,
which moves our pity unmixed with horror: upon her, therefore, the eyes
of all were immediately turned. The keeper who accompanied them
observed it: "This," said he, "is a young lady who was born to ride in
her coach and six. She was beloved, if the story I have heard is true,
by a young gentleman, her equal in birth, though by no means her match
in fortune: but love, they say, is blind, and so she fancied him as
much as he did her. Her father, it seems, would not hear of their
marriage, and threatened to turn her out of doors if ever she saw him
again. Upon this the young gentleman took a voyage to the West Indies,
in hopes of bettering his fortune, and obtaining his mistress; but he
was scarce landed, when he was seized with one of the fevers which are
common in those islands, and died in a few days, lamented by every one
that knew him. This news soon reached his mistress, who was at the
same time pressed by her father to marry a rich miserly fellow, who was
old enough to be her grandfather. The death of her lover had no effect
on her inhuman parent: he was only the more earnest for her marriage
with the man he had provided for her; and what between her despair at
the death of the one, and her aversion to the other, the poor young
lady was reduced to the condition you see her in. But God would not
prosper such cruelty; her father's affairs soon after went to wreck,
and he died almost a beggar."
Though this story was told in very plain language, it had
particularly attracted Harley's notice; he had given it the tribute of
some tears. The unfortunate young lady had till now seemed entranced
in thought, with her eyes fixed on a little garnet ring she wore on her
finger; she turned them now upon Harley. "My Billy is no more!" said
she; "do you weep for my Billy? Blessings on your tears! I would weep
too, but my brain is dry; and it burns, it burns, it burns!"—She drew
nearer to Harley.—"Be comforted, young lady," said he, "your Billy is
in heaven."—"Is he, indeed? and shall we meet again? and shall that
frightful man (pointing to the keeper) not be there!—Alas! I am
grown naughty of late; I have almost forgotten to think of heaven: yet
I pray sometimes; when I can, I pray; and sometimes I sing; when I am
saddest, I sing:—You shall hear me—hush!
"Light be the earth on Billy's breast,
And green the sod that wraps his grave."
There was a plaintive wildness in the air not to be withstood;
and, except the keeper's, there was not an unmoistened eye around her.
"Do you weep again?" said she. "I would not have you weep: you
are like my Billy; you are, believe me; just so he looked when he gave
me this ring; poor Billy! 'twas the last time ever we met! -
"'Twas when the seas were roaring—I love you for resembling my
Billy; but I shall never love any man like him."—She stretched out
her hand to Harley; he pressed it between both of his, and bathed it
with his tears.—"Nay, that is Billy's ring," said she, "you cannot
have it, indeed; but here is another, look here, which I plated to-day
of some gold-thread from this bit of stuff; will you keep it for my
sake? I am a strange girl; but my heart is harmless: my poor heart; it
will burst some day; feel how it beats!" She pressed his hand to her
bosom, then holding her head in the attitude of listening—"Hark! one,
two, three! be quiet, thou little trembler; my Billy is cold!—but I
had forgotten the ring."—She put it on his finger. "Farewell! I
must leave you now."—She would have withdrawn her hand; Harley held
it to his lips.—"I dare not stay longer; my head throbs sadly:
farewell!"—She walked with a hurried step to a little apartment at
some distance. Harley stood fixed in astonishment and pity; his friend
gave money to the keeper.—Harley looked on his ring.—He put a
couple of guineas into the man's hand: "Be kind to that unfortunate."—
He burst into tears, and left them.
The friend who had conducted him to Moorfields called upon him
again the next evening. After some talk on the adventures of the
preceding day: "I carried you yesterday," said he to Harley, "to visit
the mad; let me introduce you to-night, at supper, to one of the wise:
but you must not look for anything of the Socratic pleasantry about
him; on the contrary, I warn you to expect the spirit of a Diogenes.
That you may be a little prepared for his extraordinary manner, I will
let you into some particulars of his history.
"He is the elder of the two sons of a gentleman of considerable
estate in the country. Their father died when they were young: both
were remarkable at school for quickness of parts and extent of genius;
this had been bred to no profession, because his father's fortune,
which descended to him, was thought sufficient to set him above it; the
other was put apprentice to an eminent attorney. In this the
expectations of his friends were more consulted than his own
inclination; for both his brother and he had feelings of that warm kind
that could ill brook a study so dry as the law, especially in that
department of it which was allotted to him. But the difference of
their tempers made the characteristical distinction between them. The
younger, from the gentleness of his nature, bore with patience a
situation entirely discordant to his genius and disposition. At times,
indeed, his pride would suggest of how little importance those talents
were which the partiality of his friends had often extolled: they were
now incumbrances in a walk of life where the dull and the ignorant
passed him at every turn; his fancy and his feeling were invincible
obstacles to eminence in a situation where his fancy had no room for
exertion, and his feeling experienced perpetual disgust. But these
murmurings he never suffered to be heard; and that he might not offend
the prudence of those who had been concerned in the choice of his
profession, he continued to labour in it several years, till, by the
death of a relation, he succeeded to an estate of a little better than
£100 a year, with which, and the small patrimony left him, he retired
into the country, and made a love-match with a young lady of a similar
temper to his own, with whom the sagacious world pitied him for finding
happiness.
"But his elder brother, whom you are to see at supper, if you will
do us the favour of your company, was naturally impetuous, decisive,
and overbearing. He entered into life with those ardent expectations
by which young men are commonly deluded: in his friendships, warm to
excess; and equally violent in his dislikes. He was on the brink of
marriage with a young lady, when one of those friends, for whose honour
he would have pawned his life, made an elopement with that very
goddess, and left him besides deeply engaged for sums which that good
friend's extravagance had squandered.
"The dreams he had formerly enjoyed were now changed for ideas of
a very different nature. He abjured all confidence in anything of
human form; sold his lands, which still produced him a very large
reversion, came to town, and immured himself, with a woman who had been
his nurse, in little better than a garret; and has ever since applied
his talents to the vilifying of his species. In one thing I must take
the liberty to instruct you; however different your sentiments may be
(and different they must be), you will suffer him to go on without
contradiction; otherwise, he will be silent immediately, and we shall
not get a word from him all the night after." Harley promised to
remember this injunction, and accepted the invitation of his friend.
When they arrived at the house, they were informed that the
gentleman was come, and had been shown into the parlour. They found
him sitting with a daughter of his friend's, about three years old, on
his knee, whom he was teaching the alphabet from a horn book: at a
little distance stood a sister of hers, some years older. "Get you
away, miss," said he to this last; "you are a pert gossip, and I will
have nothing to do with you."—"Nay," answered she, "Nancy is your
favourite; you are quite in love with Nancy."—"Take away that girl,"
said he to her father, whom he now observed to have entered the room;
"she has woman about her already." The children were accordingly
dismissed.
Betwixt that and supper-time he did not utter a syllable. When
supper came, he quarrelled with every dish at table, but eat of them
all; only exempting from his censures a salad, "which you have not
spoiled," said he, "because you have not attempted to cook it."
When the wine was set upon the table, he took from his pocket a
particular smoking apparatus, and filled his pipe, without taking any
more notice of Harley, or his friend, than if no such persons had been
in the room.
Harley could not help stealing a look of surprise at him; but his
friend, who knew his humour, returned it by annihilating his presence
in the like manner, and, leaving him to his own meditations, addressed
himself entirely to Harley.
In their discourse some mention happened to be made of an amiable
character, and the words honour and politeness were
applied to it. Upon this, the gentleman, laying down his pipe, and
changing the tone of his countenance, from an ironical grin to
something more intently contemptuous: "Honour," said he: "Honour and
Politeness! this is the coin of the world, and passes current with the
fools of it. You have substituted the shadow Honour, instead of the
substance Virtue; and have banished the reality of friendship for the
fictitious semblance which you have termed Politeness: politeness,
which consists in a certain ceremonious jargon, more ridiculous to the
ear of reason than the voice of a puppet. You have invented sounds,
which you worship, though they tyrannize over your peace; and are
surrounded with empty forms, which take from the honest emotions of
joy, and add to the poignancy of misfortune." "Sir!" said Harley—his
friend winked to him, to remind him of the caution he had received. He
was silenced by the thought. The philosopher turned his eye upon him:
he examined him from top to toe, with a sort of triumphant contempt;
Harley's coat happened to be a new one; the other's was as shabby as
could possibly be supposed to be on the back of a gentleman: there was
much significance in his look with regard to this coat; it spoke of the
sleekness of folly and the threadbareness of wisdom.
"Truth," continued he, "the most amiable, as well as the most
natural of virtues, you are at pains to eradicate. Your very nurseries
are seminaries of falsehood; and what is called Fashion in manhood
completes the system of avowed insincerity. Mankind, in the gross, is
a gaping monster, that loves to be deceived, and has seldom been
disappointed: nor is their vanity less fallacious to your philosophers,
who adopt modes of truth to follow them through the paths of error, and
defend paradoxes merely to be singular in defending them. These are
they whom ye term Ingenious; 'tis a phrase of commendation I detest: it
implies an attempt to impose on my judgment, by flattering my
imagination; yet these are they whose works are read by the old with
delight, which the young are taught to look upon as the codes of
knowledge and philosophy.
"Indeed, the education of your youth is every way preposterous;
you waste at school years in improving talents, without having ever
spent an hour in discovering them; one promiscuous line of instruction
is followed, without regard to genius, capacity, or probable situation
in the commonwealth. From this bear-garden of the pedagogue, a raw,
unprincipled boy is turned loose upon the world to travel; without any
ideas but those of improving his dress at Paris, or starting into taste
by gazing on some paintings at Rome. Ask him of the manners of the
people, and he will tell you that the skirt is worn much shorter in
France, and that everybody eats macaroni in Italy. When he returns
home, he buys a seat in parliament, and studies the constitution at
Arthur's.
"Nor are your females trained to any more useful purpose: they are
taught, by the very rewards which their nurses propose for good
behaviour, by the first thing like a jest which they hear from every
male visitor of the family, that a young woman is a creature to be
married; and when they are grown somewhat older, are instructed that it
is the purpose of marriage to have the enjoyment of pin-money, and the
expectation of a jointure."
"These, {61}
indeed, are the effects of luxury, which is, perhaps, inseparable from
a certain degree of power and grandeur in a nation. But it is not
simply of the progress of luxury that we have to complain: did its
votaries keep in their own sphere of thoughtless dissipation, we might
despise them without emotion; but the frivolous pursuits of pleasure
are mingled with the most important concerns of the state; and public
enterprise shall sleep till he who should guide its operation has
decided his bets at Newmarket, or fulfilled his engagement with a
favourite mistress in the country. We want some man of acknowledged
eminence to point our counsels with that firmness which the counsels of
a great people require. We have hundreds of ministers, who press
forward into office without having ever learned that art which is
necessary for every business: the art of thinking; and mistake the
petulance, which could give inspiration to smart sarcasms on an
obnoxious measure in a popular assembly, for the ability which is to
balance the interest of kingdoms, and investigate the latent sources of
national superiority. With the administration of such men the people
can never be satisfied; for besides that their confidence is gained
only by the view of superior talents, there needs that depth of
knowledge, which is not only acquainted with the just extent of power,
but can also trace its connection with the expedient, to preserve its
possessors from the contempt which attends irresolution, or the
resentment which follows temerity."
* * * * *
[Here a considerable part is wanting.]
* * "In short, man is an animal equally selfish and vain. Vanity,
indeed, is but a modification of selfishness. From the latter, there
are some who pretend to be free: they are generally such as declaim
against the lust of wealth and power, because they have never been able
to attain any high degree in either: they boast of generosity and
feeling. They tell us (perhaps they tell us in rhyme) that the
sensations of an honest heart, of a mind universally benevolent, make
up the quiet bliss which they enjoy; but they will not, by this, be
exempted from the charge of selfishness. Whence the luxurious
happiness they describe in their little family-circles? Whence the
pleasure which they feel, when they trim their evening fires, and
listen to the howl of winter's wind? Whence, but from the secret
reflection of what houseless wretches feel from it? Or do you
administer comfort in affliction—the motive is at hand; I have had it
preached to me in nineteen out of twenty of your consolatory discourses
- the comparative littleness of our own misfortunes.
"With vanity your best virtues are grossly tainted: your
benevolence, which ye deduce immediately from the natural impulse of
the heart, squints to it for its reward. There are some, indeed, who
tell us of the satisfaction which flows from a secret consciousness of
good actions: this secret satisfaction is truly excellent—when we
have some friend to whom we may discover its excellence."
He now paused a moment to re-light his pipe, when a clock, that
stood at his back, struck eleven; he started up at the sound, took his
hat and his cane, and nodding good night with his head, walked out of
the room. The gentleman of the house called a servant to bring the
stranger's surtout. "What sort of a night is it, fellow?" said he.—
"It rains, sir," answered the servant, "with an easterly wind."—
"Easterly for ever!" He made no other reply; but shrugging up his
shoulders till they almost touched his ears, wrapped himself tight in
his great coat, and disappeared.
"This is a strange creature," said his friend to Harley. "I
cannot say," answered he, "that his remarks are of the pleasant kind:
it is curious to observe how the nature of truth may be changed by the
garb it wears; softened to the admonition of friendship, or soured into
the severity of reproof: yet this severity may be useful to some
tempers; it somewhat resembles a file: disagreeable in its operation,
but hard metals may be the brighter for it."
* * *
The company at the baronet's removed to the playhouse accordingly,
and Harley took his usual route into the Park. He observed, as he
entered, a fresh-looking elderly gentleman in conversation with a
beggar, who, leaning on his crutch, was recounting the hardships he had
undergone, and explaining the wretchedness of his present condition.
This was a very interesting dialogue to Harley; he was rude enough,
therefore, to slacken his pace as he approached, and at last to make a
full stop at the gentleman's back, who was just then expressing his
compassion for the beggar, and regretting that he had not a farthing of
change about him. At saying this, he looked piteously on the fellow:
there was something in his physiognomy which caught Harley's notice:
indeed, physiognomy was one of Harley's foibles, for which he had been
often rebuked by his aunt in the country, who used to tell him that
when he was come to her years and experience he would know that all's
not gold that glitters: and it must be owned that his aunt was a very
sensible, harsh-looking maiden lady of threescore and upwards. But he
was too apt to forget this caution and now, it seems, it had not
occurred to him. Stepping up, therefore, to the gentleman, who was
lamenting the want of silver, "Your intentions, sir," said he, "are so
good, that I cannot help lending you my assistance to carry them into
execution," and gave the beggar a shilling. The other returned a
suitable compliment, and extolled the benevolence of Harley. They kept
walking together, and benevolence grew the topic of discourse.
The stranger was fluent on the subject. "There is no use of
money," said he, "equal to that of beneficence. With the profuse, it
is lost; and even with those who lay it out according to the prudence
of the world, the objects acquired by it pall on the sense, and have
scarce become our own till they lose their value with the power of
pleasing; but here the enjoyment grows on reflection, and our money is
most truly ours when it ceases being in our possession.
"Yet I agree in some measure," answered Harley, "with those who
think that charity to our common beggars is often misplaced; there are
objects less obtrusive whose title is a better one."
"We cannot easily distinguish," said the stranger; "and even of
the worthless, are there not many whose imprudence, or whose vice, may
have been one dreadful consequence of misfortune?"
Harley looked again in his face, and blessed himself for his skill
in physiognomy.
By this time they had reached the end of the walk, the old
gentleman leaning on the rails to take breath, and in the meantime they
were joined by a younger man, whose figure was much above the
appearance of his dress, which was poor and shabby. Harley's former
companion addressed him as an acquaintance, and they turned on the walk
together.
The elder of the strangers complained of the closeness of the
evening, and asked the other if he would go with him into a house hard
by, and take one draught of excellent cyder. "The man who keeps this
house," said he to Harley, "was once a servant of mine. I could not
think of turning loose upon the world a faithful old fellow, for no
other reason but that his age had incapacitated him; so I gave him an
annuity of ten pounds, with the help of which he has set up this little
place here, and his daughter goes and sells milk in the city, while her
father manages his tap-room, as he calls it, at home. I can't well ask
a gentleman of your appearance to accompany me to so paltry a place."
"Sir," replied Harley, interrupting him, "I would much rather enter it
than the most celebrated tavern in town. To give to the necessitous
may sometimes be a weakness in the man; to encourage industry is a duty
in the citizen." They entered the house accordingly.
On a table at the corner of the room lay a pack of cards, loosely
thrown together. The old gentleman reproved the man of the house for
encouraging so idle an amusement. Harley attempted to defend him from
the necessity of accommodating himself to the humour of his guests, and
taking up the cards, began to shuffle them backwards and forwards in
his hand. "Nay, I don't think cards so unpardonable an amusement as
some do," replied the other; "and now and then, about this time of the
evening, when my eyes begin to fail me for my book, I divert myself
with a game at piquet, without finding my morals a bit relaxed by it.
Do you play piquet, sir?" (to Harley.) Harley answered in the
affirmative; upon which the other proposed playing a pool at a shilling
the game, doubling the stakes; adding, that he never played higher with
anybody.
Harley's good nature could not refuse the benevolent old man; and
the younger stranger, though he at first pleaded prior engagements, yet
being earnestly solicited by his friend, at last yielded to
solicitation.
When they began to play, the old gentleman, somewhat to the
surprise of Harley, produced ten shillings to serve for markers of his
score. "He had no change for the beggar," said Harley to himself; "but
I can easily account for it; it is curious to observe the affection
that inanimate things will create in us by a long acquaintance. If I
may judge from my own feelings, the old man would not part with one of
these counters for ten times its intrinsic value; it even got the
better of his benevolence! I, myself, have a pair of old brass sleeve
buttons." Here he was interrupted by being told that the old gentleman
had beat the younger, and that it was his turn to take up the
conqueror. "Your game has been short," said Harley. "I re-piqued
him," answered the old man, with joy sparkling in his countenance.
Harley wished to be re-piqued too, but he was disappointed; for he had
the same good fortune against his opponent. Indeed, never did fortune,
mutable as she is, delight in mutability so much as at that moment.
The victory was so quick, and so constantly alternate, that the stake,
in a short time, amounted to no less a sum than £12, Harley's
proportion of which was within half-a-guinea of the money he had in his
pocket. He had before proposed a division, but the old gentleman
opposed it with such a pleasant warmth in his manner, that it was
always over-ruled. Now, however, he told them that he had an
appointment with some gentlemen, and it was within a few minutes of his
hour. The young stranger had gained one game, and was engaged in the
second with the other; they agreed, therefore, that the stake should be
divided, if the old gentleman won that: which was more than probable,
as his score was 90 to 35, and he was elder hand; but a momentous
re-pique decided it in favour of his adversary, who seemed to enjoy his
victory mingled with regret, for having won too much, while his friend,
with great ebullience of passion, many praises of his own good play,
and many malediction's on the power of chance, took up the cards, and
threw them into the fire.
The company he was engaged to meet were assembled in Fleet
Street. He had walked some time along the Strand, amidst a crowd of
those wretches who wait the uncertain wages of prostitution, with ideas
of pity suitable to the scene around him and the feelings he possessed,
and had got as far as Somerset House, when one of them laid hold of his
arm, and, with a voice tremulous and faint, asked him for a pint of
wine, in a manner more supplicatory than is usual with those whom the
infamy of their profession has deprived of shame. He turned round at
the demand, and looked steadfastly on the person who made it.
She was above the common size, and elegantly formed; her face was
thin and hollow, and showed the remains of tarnished beauty. Her eyes
were black, but had little of their lustre left; her cheeks had some
paint laid on without art, and productive of no advantage to her
complexion, which exhibited a deadly paleness on the other parts of her
face.
Harley stood in the attitude of hesitation; which she,
interpreting to her advantage, repeated her request, and endeavoured to
force a leer of invitation into her countenance. He took her arm, and
they walked on to one of those obsequious taverns in the neighbourhood,
where the dearness of the wine is a discharge in full for the character
of the house. From what impulse he did this we do not mean to enquire;
as it has ever been against our nature to search for motives where bad
ones are to be found. They entered, and a waiter showed them a room,
and placed a bottle of claret on the table.
Harley filled the lady's glass: which she had no sooner tasted,
than dropping it on the floor, and eagerly catching his arm, her eye
grew fixed, her lip assumed a clayey whiteness, and she fell back
lifeless in her chair.
Harley started from his seat, and, catching her in his arms,
supported her from falling to the ground, looking wildly at the door,
as if he wanted to run for assistance, but durst not leave the
miserable creature. It was not till some minutes after that it
occurred to him to ring the bell, which at last, however, he thought
of, and rung with repeated violence even after the waiter appeared.
Luckily the waiter had his senses somewhat more about him; and
snatching up a bottle of water, which stood on a buffet at the end of
the room, he sprinkled it over the hands and face of the dying figure
before him. She began to revive, and, with the assistance of some
hartshorn drops, which Harley now for the first time drew from his
pocket, was able to desire the waiter to bring her a crust of bread, of
which she swallowed some mouthfuls with the appearance of the keenest
hunger. The waiter withdrew: when turning to Harley, sobbing at the
same time, and shedding tears, "I am sorry, sir," said she, "that I
should have given you so much trouble; but you will pity me when I tell
you that till now I have not tasted a morsel these two days past."—He
fixed his eyes on hers—every circumstance but the last was forgotten;
and he took her hand with as much respect as if she had been a
duchess. It was ever the privilege of misfortune to be revered by him.
- "Two days!" said he; "and I have fared sumptuously every day!"—He
was reaching to the bell; she understood his meaning, and prevented
him. "I beg, sir," said she, "that you would give yourself no more
trouble about a wretch who does not wish to live; but, at present, I
could not eat a bit; my stomach even rose at the last mouthful of that
crust."—He offered to call a chair, saying that he hoped a little
rest would relieve her.—He had one half-guinea left. "I am sorry,"
he said, "that at present I should be able to make you an offer of no
more than this paltry sum."—She burst into tears: "Your generosity,
sir, is abused; to bestow it on me is to take it from the virtuous. I
have no title but misery to plead: misery of my own procuring." "No
more of that," answered Harley; "there is virtue in these tears; let
the fruit of them be virtue."—He rung, and ordered a chair.—"Though
I am the vilest of beings," said she, "I have not forgotten every
virtue; gratitude, I hope, I shall still have left, did I but know who
is my benefactor."—"My name is Harley."—"Could I ever have an
opportunity?"—"You shall, and a glorious one too! your future conduct
- but I do not mean to reproach you—if, I say—it will be the
noblest reward—I will do myself the pleasure of seeing you again."—
Here the waiter entered, and told them the chair was at the door; the
lady informed Harley of her lodgings, and he promised to wait on her at
ten next morning.
He led her to the chair, and returned to clear with the waiter,
without ever once reflecting that he had no money in his pocket. He
was ashamed to make an excuse; yet an excuse must be made: he was
beginning to frame one, when the waiter cut him short by telling him
that he could not run scores; but that, if he would leave his watch, or
any other pledge, it would be as safe as if it lay in his pocket.
Harley jumped at the proposal, and pulling out his watch, delivered it
into his hands immediately, and having, for once, had the precaution to
take a note of the lodging he intended to visit next morning, sallied
forth with a blush of triumph on his face, without taking notice of the
sneer of the waiter, who, twirling the watch in his hand, made him a
profound bow at the door, and whispered to a girl, who stood in the
passage, something, in which the word CULLY was honoured with a
particular emphasis.
After he had been some time with the company he had appointed to
meet, and the last bottle was called for, he first recollected that he
would be again at a loss how to discharge his share of the reckoning.
He applied, therefore, to one of them, with whom he was most intimate,
acknowledging that he had not a farthing of money about him; and, upon
being jocularly asked the reason, acquainted them with the two
adventures we have just now related. One of the company asked him if
the old man in Hyde Park did not wear a brownish coat, with a narrow
gold edging, and his companion an old green frock, with a buff-coloured
waistcoat. Upon Harley's recollecting that they did, "Then," said he,
"you may be thankful you have come off so well; they are two as noted
sharpers, in their way, as any in town, and but t'other night took me
in for a much larger sum. I had some thoughts of applying to a
justice, but one does not like to be seen in those matters."
Harley answered, "That he could not but fancy the gentleman was
mistaken, as he never saw a face promise more honesty than that of the
old man he had met with."—"His face!" said a grave-looking man, when
sat opposite to him, squirting the juice of his tobacco obliquely into
the grate. There was something very emphatical in the action, for it
was followed by a burst of laughter round the table. "Gentlemen," said
Harley, "you are disposed to be merry; it may be as you imagine, for I
confess myself ignorant of the town; but there is one thing which makes
me hear the loss of my money with temper: the young fellow who won it
must have been miserably poor; I observed him borrow money for the
stake from his friend: he had distress and hunger in his countenance:
be his character what it may, his necessities at least plead for him."
At this there was a louder laugh than before. "Gentlemen," said the
lawyer, one of whose conversations with Harley we have already
recorded, "here's a pretty fellow for you! to have heard him talk some
nights ago, as I did, you might have sworn he was a saint; yet now he
games with sharpers, and loses his money, and is bubbled by a fine tale
of the Dead Sea, and pawns his watch; here are sanctified doings with a
witness!"
"Young gentleman," said his friend on the other side of the table,
"let me advise you to be a little more cautious for the future; and as
for faces—you may look into them to know whether a man's nose be a
long or a short one."
The last night's raillery of his companions was recalled to his
remembrance when he awoke, and the colder homilies of prudence began to
suggest some things which were nowise favourable for a performance of
his promise to the unfortunate female he had met with before. He rose,
uncertain of his purpose; but the torpor of such considerations was
seldom prevalent over the warmth of his nature. He walked some turns
backwards and forwards in his room; he recalled the languid form of the
fainting wretch to his mind; he wept at the recollection of her tears.
"Though I am the vilest of beings, I have not forgotten every virtue;
gratitude, I hope, I shall still have left."—He took a larger stride
- "Powers of mercy that surround me!" cried he, "do ye not smile upon
deeds like these? to calculate the chances of deception is too tedious
a business for the life of man!"—The clock struck ten.—When he was
got down-stairs, he found that he had forgot the note of her lodgings;
he gnawed his lips at the delay: he was fairly on the pavement, when he
recollected having left his purse; he did but just prevent himself from
articulating an imprecation. He rushed a second time up into his
chamber. "What a wretch I am!" said he; "ere this time, perhaps—"
'Twas a perhaps not to be borne;—two vibrations of a pendulum would
have served him to lock his bureau; but they could not be spared.
When he reached the house, and inquired for Miss Atkins (for that
was the lady's name), he was shown up three pair of stairs, into a
small room lighted by one narrow lattice, and patched round with shreds
of different-coloured paper. In the darkest corner stood something
like a bed, before which a tattered coverlet hung by way of curtain.
He had not waited long when she appeared. Her face had the glister of
new-washed tears on it. "I am ashamed, sir," said she, "that you
should have taken this fresh piece of trouble about one so little
worthy of it; but, to the humane, I know there is a pleasure in
goodness for its own sake: if you have patience for the recital of my
story, it may palliate, though it cannot excuse, my faults." Harley
bowed, as a sign of assent; and she began as follows:-
"I am the daughter of an officer, whom a service of forty years
had advanced no higher than the rank of captain. I have had hints from
himself, and been informed by others, that it was in some measure owing
to those principles of rigid honour, which it was his boast to possess,
and which he early inculcated on me, that he had been able to arrive at
no better station. My mother died when I was a child: old enough to
grieve for her death, but incapable of remembering her precepts.
Though my father was doatingly fond of her, yet there were some
sentiments in which they materially differed: she had been bred from
her infancy in the strictest principles of religion, and took the
morality of her conduct from the motives which an adherence to those
principles suggested. My father, who had been in the army from his
youth, affixed an idea of pusillanimity to that virtue, which was
formed by the doctrines, excited by the rewards, or guarded by the
terrors of revelation; his dashing idol was the honour of a soldier: a
term which he held in such reverence, that he used it for his most
sacred asseveration. When my mother died, I was some time suffered to
continue in those sentiments which her instructions had produced; but
soon after, though, from respect to her memory, my father did not
absolutely ridicule them, yet he showed, in his discourse to others, so
little regard to them, and at times suggested to me motives of action
so different, that I was soon weaned from opinions which I began to
consider as the dreams of superstition, or the artful inventions of
designing hypocrisy. My mother's books were left behind at the
different quarters we removed to, and my reading was principally
confined to plays, novels, and those poetical descriptions of the
beauty of virtue and honour, which the circulating libraries easily
afforded.
"As I was generally reckoned handsome, and the quickness of my
parts extolled by all our visitors, my father had a pride in allowing
me to the world. I was young, giddy, open to adulation, and vain of
those talents which acquired it.
"After the last war, my father was reduced to half-pay; with which
we retired to a village in the country, which the acquaintance of some
genteel families who resided in it, and the cheapness of living,
particularly recommended. My father rented a small house, with a piece
of ground sufficient to keep a horse for him, and a cow for the benefit
of his family. An old man servant managed his ground; while a maid,
who had formerly been my mother's, and had since been mine, undertook
the care of our little dairy: they were assisted in each of their
provinces by my father and me: and we passed our time in a state of
tranquillity, which he had always talked of with delight, and my train
of reading had taught me to admire.
"Though I had never seen the polite circles of the metropolis, the
company my father had introduced me into had given me a degree of good
breeding, which soon discovered a superiority over the young ladies of
our village. I was quoted as an example of politeness, and my company
courted by most of the considerable families in the neighbourhood.
"Amongst the houses where I was frequently invited was Sir George
Winbrooke's. He had two daughters nearly of my age, with whom, though
they had been bred up in those maxims of vulgar doctrine which my
superior understanding could not but despise, yet as their good nature
led them to an imitation of my manners in everything else, I cultivated
a particular friendship.
"Some months after our first acquaintance, Sir George's eldest son
came home from his travels. His figure, his address, and conversation,
were not unlike those warm ideas of an accomplished man which my
favourite novels had taught me to form; and his sentiments on the
article of religion were as liberal as my own: when any of these
happened to be the topic of our discourse, I, who before had been
silent, from a fear of being single in opposition, now kindled at the
fire he raised, and defended our mutual opinions with all the eloquence
I was mistress of. He would be respectfully attentive all the while;
and when I had ended, would raise his eyes from the ground, look at me
with a gaze of admiration, and express his applause in the highest
strain of encomium. This was an incense the more pleasing, as I seldom
or never had met with it before; for the young gentlemen who visited
Sir George were for the most part of that athletic order, the pleasure
of whose lives is derived from fox-hunting: these are seldom solicitous
to please the women at all; or if they were, would never think of
applying their flattery to the mind.
"Mr. Winbrooke observed the weakness of my soul, and took every
occasion of improving the esteem he had gained. He asked my opinion of
every author, of every sentiment, with that submissive diffidence,
which showed an unlimited confidence in my understanding. I saw myself
revered, as a superior being, by one whose judgment my vanity told me
was not likely to err: preferred by him to all the other visitors of my
sex, whose fortunes and rank should have entitled them to a much higher
degree of notice: I saw their little jealousies at the distinguished
attention he paid me; it was gratitude, it was pride, it was love!
Love which had made too fatal a progress in my heart, before any
declaration on his part should have warranted a return: but I
interpreted every look of attention, every expression of compliment, to
the passion I imagined him inspired with, and imputed to his
sensibility that silence which was the effect of art and design. At
length, however, he took an opportunity of declaring his love: he now
expressed himself in such ardent terms, that prudence might have
suspected their sincerity: but prudence is rarely found in the
situation I had been unguardedly led into; besides, that the course of
reading to which I had been accustomed, did not lead me to conclude,
that his expressions could be too warm to be sincere: nor was I even
alarmed at the manner in which he talked of marriage, a subjection, he
often hinted, to which genuine love should scorn to be confined. The
woman, he would often say, who had merit like mine to fix his
affection, could easily command it for ever. That honour too which I
revered, was often called in to enforce his sentiments. I did not,
however, absolutely assent to them; but I found my regard for their
opposites diminish by degrees. If it is dangerous to be convinced, it
is dangerous to listen; for our reason is so much of a machine, that it
will not always be able to resist, when the ear is perpetually assailed.
"In short, Mr. Harley (for I tire you with a relation, the
catastrophe of which you will already have imagined), I fell a prey to
his artifices. He had not been able so thoroughly to convert me, that
my conscience was silent on the subject; but he was so assiduous to
give repeated proofs of unabated affection, that I hushed its
suggestions as they rose. The world, however, I knew, was not to be
silenced; and therefore I took occasion to express my uneasiness to my
seducer, and entreat him, as he valued the peace of one to whom he
professed such attachment, to remove it by a marriage. He made excuse
from his dependence on the will of his father, but quieted my fears by
the promise of endeavouring to win his assent.
"My father had been some days absent on a visit to a dying
relation, from whom he had considerable expectations. I was left at
home, with no other company than my books: my books I found were not
now such companions as they used to be; I was restless, melancholy,
unsatisfied with myself. But judge my situation when I received a
billet from Mr. Winbrooke informing me, that he had sounded Sir George
on the subject we had talked of, and found him so averse to any match
so unequal to his own rank and fortune, that he was obliged, with
whatever reluctance, to bid adieu to a place, the remembrance of which
should ever be dear to him.
"I read this letter a hundred times over. Alone, helpless,
conscious of guilt, and abandoned by every better thought, my mind was
one motley scene of terror, confusion, and remorse. A thousand
expedients suggested themselves, and a thousand fears told me they
would be vain: at last, in an agony of despair, I packed up a few
clothes, took what money and trinkets were in the house, and set out
for London, whither I understood he was gone; pretending to my maid,
that I had received letters from my father requiring my immediate
attendance. I had no other companion than a boy, a servant to the man
from whom I hired my horses. I arrived in London within an hour of Mr.
Winbrooke, and accidentally alighted at the very inn where he was.
"He started and turned pale when he saw me; but recovered himself
in time enough to make many new protestations of regard, and beg me to
make myself easy under a disappointment which was equally afflicting to
him. He procured me lodgings, where I slept, or rather endeavoured to
sleep, for that night. Next morning I saw him again, he then mildly
observed on the imprudence of my precipitate flight from the country,
and proposed my removing to lodgings at another end of the town, to
elude the search of my father, till he should fall upon some method of
excusing my conduct to him, and reconciling him to my return. We took
a hackney-coach, and drove to the house he mentioned.
"It was situated in a dirty lane, furnished with a tawdry
affectation of finery, with some old family pictures hanging on walls
which their own cobwebs would better have suited. I was struck with a
secret dread at entering, nor was it lessened by the appearance of the
landlady, who had that look of selfish shrewdness, which, of all
others, is the most hateful to those whose feelings are untinctured
with the world. A girl, who she told us was her niece, sat by her,
playing on a guitar, while herself was at work, with the assistance of
spectacles, and had a prayer-book with the leaves folded down in
several places, lying on the table before her. Perhaps, sir, I tire
you with my minuteness, but the place, and every circumstance about it,
is so impressed on my mind, that I shall never forget it.
"I dined that day with Mr. Winbrooke alone. He lost by degrees
that restraint which I perceived too well to hang about him before,
and, with his former gaiety and good humour, repeated the flattering
things which, though they had once been fatal, I durst not now
distrust. At last, taking my hand and kissing it, 'It is thus,' said
he, 'that love will last, while freedom is preserved; thus let us ever
be blessed, without the galling thought that we are tied to a condition
where we may cease to be so.'
"I answered, 'That the world thought otherwise: that it had
certain ideas of good fame, which it was impossible not to wish to
maintain.'
"'The world,' said he, 'is a tyrant, they are slaves who obey it;
let us be happy without the pale of the world. To-morrow I shall leave
this quarter of it, for one where the talkers of the world shall be
foiled, and lose us. Could not my Emily accompany me? my friend, my
companion, the mistress of my soul! Nay, do not look so, Emily! Your
father may grieve for a while, but your father shall be taken care of;
this bank-bill I intend as the comfort for his daughter.'
"I could contain myself no longer: 'Wretch,' I exclaimed, 'dost
thou imagine that my father's heart could brook dependence on the
destroyer of his child, and tamely accept of a base equivalent for her
honour and his own?'
"'Honour, my Emily,' said he, 'is the word of fools, or of those
wiser men who cheat them. 'Tis a fantastic bauble that does not suit
the gravity of your father's age; but, whatever it is, I am afraid it
can never be perfectly restored to you: exchange the word then, and let
pleasure be your object now.'
"At these words he clasped me in his arms, and pressed his lips
rudely to my bosom. I started from my seat. 'Perfidious villain!'
said I, 'who dar'st insult the weakness thou hast undone; were that
father here, thy coward soul would shrink from the vengeance of his
honour! Cursed be that wretch who has deprived him of it! oh doubly
cursed, who has dragged on his hoary head the infamy which should have
crushed her own!' I snatched a knife which lay beside me, and would
have plunged it in my breast, but the monster prevented my purpose, and
smiling with a grin of barbarous insult -
"'Madam,' said he, 'I confess you are rather too much in heroics
for me; I am sorry we should differ about trifles; but as I seem
somehow to have offended you, I would willingly remedy it by taking my
leave. You have been put to some foolish expense in this journey on my
account; allow me to reimburse you.'
"So saying he laid a bank-bill, of what amount I had no patience
to see, upon the table. Shame, grief, and indignation choked my
utterance; unable to speak my wrongs, and unable to bear them in
silence, I fell in a swoon at his feet.
"What happened in the interval I cannot tell, but when I came to
myself I was in the arms of the landlady, with her niece chafing my
temples, and doing all in her power for my recovery. She had much
compassion in her countenance; the old woman assumed the softest look
she was capable of, and both endeavoured to bring me comfort. They
continued to show me many civilities, and even the aunt began to be
less disagreeable in my sight. To the wretched, to the forlorn, as I
was, small offices of kindness are endearing.
"Meantime my money was far spent, nor did I attempt to conceal my
wants from their knowledge. I had frequent thoughts of returning to my
father; but the dread of a life of scorn is insurmountable. I avoided,
therefore, going abroad when I had a chance of being seen by any former
acquaintance, nor indeed did my health for a great while permit it; and
suffered the old woman, at her own suggestion, to call me niece at
home, where we now and then saw (when they could prevail on me to leave
my room) one or two other elderly women, and sometimes a grave
business-like man, who showed great compassion for my indisposition,
and made me very obligingly an offer of a room at his country-house for
the recovery of my health. This offer I did not chose to accept, but
told my landlady, 'that I should be glad to be employed in any way of
business which my skill in needlework could recommend me to,
confessing, at the same time, that I was afraid I should scarce be able
to pay her what I already owed for board and lodging, and that for her
other good offices, I had nothing but thanks to give her.'
"'My dear child,' said she, 'do not talk of paying; since I lost
my own sweet girl' (here she wept), 'your very picture she was, Miss
Emily, I have nobody, except my niece, to whom I should leave any
little thing I have been able to save; you shall live with me, my dear;
and I have sometimes a little millinery work, in which, when you are
inclined to it, you may assist us. By the way, here are a pair of
ruffles we have just finished for that gentleman you saw here at tea; a
distant relation of mine, and a worthy man he is. 'Twas pity you
refused the offer of an apartment at his country house; my niece, you
know, was to have accompanied you, and you might have fancied yourself
at home; a most sweet place it is, and but a short mile beyond
Hampstead. Who knows, Miss Emily, what effect such a visit might have
had! If I had half your beauty I should not waste it pining after e'er
a worthless fellow of them all.'
"I felt my heart swell at her words; I would have been angry if I
could, but I was in that stupid state which is not easily awakened to
anger: when I would have chid her the reproof stuck in my throat; I
could only weep!
"Her want of respect increased, as I had not spirit to assert it.
My work was now rather imposed than offered, and I became a drudge for
the bread I eat: but my dependence and servility grew in proportion,
and I was now in a situation which could not make any extraordinary
exertions to disengage itself from either—I found myself with child.
"At last the wretch, who had thus trained me to destruction,
hinted the purpose for which those means had been used. I discovered
her to be an artful procuress for the pleasures of those who are men of
decency to the world in the midst of debauchery.
"I roused every spark of courage within me at the horrid
proposal. She treated my passion at first somewhat mildly, but when I
continued to exert it she resented it with insult, and told me plainly
that if I did not soon comply with her desires I should pay her every
farthing I owed, or rot in a jail for life. I trembled at the thought;
still, however, I resisted her importunities, and she put her threats
in execution. I was conveyed to prison, weak from my condition, weaker
from that struggle of grief and misery which for some time I had
suffered. A miscarriage was the consequence.
"Amidst all the horrors of such a state, surrounded with wretches
totally callous, lost alike to humanity and to shame, think, Mr.
Harley, think what I endured; nor wonder that I at last yielded to the
solicitations of that miscreant I had seen at her house, and sunk to
the prostitution which he tempted. But that was happiness compared to
what I have suffered since. He soon abandoned me to the common use of
the town, and I was cast among those miserable beings in whose society
I have since remained.
"Oh! did the daughters of virtue know our sufferings; did they see
our hearts torn with anguish amidst the affectation of gaiety which our
faces are obliged to assume! our bodies tortured by disease, our minds
with that consciousness which they cannot lose! Did they know, did
they think of this, Mr. Harley! Their censures are just, but their
pity perhaps might spare the wretches whom their justice should condemn.
"Last night, but for an exertion of benevolence which the
infection of our infamy prevents even in the humane, had I been thrust
out from this miserable place which misfortune has yet left me; exposed
to the brutal insults of drunkenness, or dragged by that justice which
I could not bribe, to the punishment which may correct, but, alas! can
never amend the abandoned objects of its terrors. From that, Mr.
Harley, your goodness has relieved me."
He beckoned with his hand: he would have stopped the mention of
his favours; but he could not speak, had it been to beg a diadem.
She saw his tears; her fortitude began to fail at the sight, when
the voice of some stranger on the stairs awakened her attention. She
listened for a moment, then starting up, exclaimed, "Merciful God! my
father's voice!"
She had scarce uttered the word, when the door burst open, and a
man entered in the garb of an officer. When he discovered his daughter
and Harley, he started back a few paces; his look assumed a furious
wildness! he laid his hand on his sword. The two objects of his wrath
did not utter a syllable.
"Villain," he cried, "thou seest a father who had once a
daughter's honour to preserve; blasted as it now is, behold him ready
to avenge its loss!"
Harley had by this time some power of utterance. "Sir," said he,
"if you will be a moment calm—"
"Infamous coward!" interrupted the other, "dost thou preach
calmness to wrongs like mine!"
He drew his sword.
"Sir," said Harley, "let me tell you"—the blood ran quicker to
his cheek, his pulse beat one, no more, and regained the temperament of
humanity—"you are deceived, sir," said he, "you are much deceived;
but I forgive suspicions which your misfortunes have justified: I would
not wrong you, upon my soul I would not, for the dearest gratification
of a thousand worlds; my heart bleeds for you!"
His daughter was now prostrate at his feet.
"Strike," said she, "strike here a wretch, whose misery cannot end
but with that death she deserves."
Her hair had fallen on her shoulders! her look had the horrid
calmness of out-breathed despair! Her father would have spoken; his
lip quivered, his cheek grew pale, his eyes lost the lightning of their
fury! there was a reproach in them, but with a mingling of pity. He
turned them up to heaven, then on his daughter. He laid his left hand
on his heart, the sword dropped from his right, he burst into tears.
Harley kneeled also at the side of the unfortunate daughter.
"Allow me, sir," said he, "to entreat your pardon for one whose
offences have been already so signally punished. I know, I feel, that
those tears, wrung from the heart of a father, are more dreadful to her
than all the punishments your sword could have inflicted: accept the
contrition of a child whom heaven has restored to you."
"Is she not lost," answered he, "irrecoverably lost? Damnation! a
common prostitute to the meanest ruffian!"
"Calmly, my dear sir," said Harley, "did you know by what
complicated misfortunes she had fallen to that miserable state in which
you now behold her, I should have no need of words to excite your
compassion. Think, sir, of what once she was. Would you abandon her
to the insults of an unfeeling world, deny her opportunity of
penitence, and cut off the little comfort that still remains for your
afflictions and her own!"
"Speak," said he, addressing himself to his daughter; "speak; I
will hear thee."
The desperation that supported her was lost; she fell to the
ground, and bathed his feet with her tears.
Harley undertook her cause: he related the treacheries to which
she had fallen a sacrifice, and again solicited the forgiveness of her
father. He looked on her for some time in silence; the pride of a
soldier's honour checked for a while the yearnings of his heart; but
nature at last prevailed, he fell on her neck and mingled his tears
with hers.
Harley, who discovered from the dress of the stranger that he was
just arrived from a journey, begged that they would both remove to his
lodgings, till he could procure others for them. Atkins looked at him
with some marks of surprise. His daughter now first recovered the
power of speech.
"Wretch as I am," said she, "yet there is some gratitude due to
the preserver of your child. See him now before you. To him I owe my
life, or at least the comfort of imploring your forgiveness before I
die."
"Pardon me, young gentleman," said Atkins, "I fear my passion
wronged you."
"Never, never, sir," said Harley "if it had, your reconciliation
to your daughter were an atonement a thousand fold." He then repeated
his request that he might be allowed to conduct them to his lodgings,
to which Mr. Atkins at last consented. He took his daughter's arm.
"Come, my Emily," said he, "we can never, never recover that
happiness we have lost! but time may teach us to remember our
misfortunes with patience."
When they arrived at the house where Harley lodged, he was
informed that the first floor was then vacant, and that the gentleman
and his daughter might be accommodated there. While he was upon his
enquiry, Miss Atkins informed her father more particularly what she
owed to his benevolence. When he turned into the room where they were
Atkins ran and embraced him;—begged him again to forgive the offence
he had given him, and made the warmest protestations of gratitude for
his favours. We would attempt to describe the joy which Harley felt on
this occasion, did it not occur to us that one half of the world could
not understand it though we did, and the other half will, by this time,
have understood it without any description at all.
Miss Atkins now retired to her chamber, to take some rest from the
violence of the emotions she had suffered. When she was gone, her
father, addressing himself to Harley, said, "You have a right, sir, to
be informed of the present situation of one who owes so much to your
compassion for his misfortunes. My daughter I find has informed you
what that was at the fatal juncture when they began. Her distresses
you have heard, you have pitied as they deserved; with mine, perhaps, I
cannot so easily make you acquainted. You have a feeling heart, Mr.
Harley; I bless it that it has saved my child; but you never were a
father, a father torn by that most dreadful of calamities, the
dishonour of a child he doated on! You have been already informed of
some of the circumstances of her elopement: I was then from home,
called by the death of a relation, who, though he would never advance
me a shilling on the utmost exigency in his life-time, left me all the
gleanings of his frugality at his death. I would not write this
intelligence to my daughter, because I intended to be the bearer
myself; and as soon as my business would allow me, I set out on my
return, winged with all the haste of paternal affection. I fondly
built those schemes of future happiness, which present prosperity is
ever busy to suggest: my Emily was concerned in them all. As I
approached our little dwelling my heart throbbed with the anticipation
of joy and welcome. I imagined the cheering fire, the blissful
contentment of a frugal meal, made luxurious by a daughter's smile, I
painted to myself her surprise at the tidings of our new-acquired
riches, our fond disputes about the disposal of them.
"The road was shortened by the dreams of happiness I enjoyed, and
it began to be dark as I reached the house: I alighted from my horse,
and walked softly upstairs to the room we commonly sat in. I was
somewhat disappointed at not finding my daughter there. I rung the
bell; her maid appeared, and shewed no small signs of wonder at the
summons. She blessed herself as she entered the room: I smiled at her
surprise. 'Where is Miss Emily, sir?' said she.
"'Emily!'
"'Yes, sir; she has been gone hence some days, upon receipt of
those letters you sent her.'
"'Letters!' said I.
"'Yes, sir, so she told me, and went off in all haste that very
night.'
"I stood aghast as she spoke, but was able so far to recollect
myself, as to put on the affectation of calmness, and telling her there
was certainly some mistake in the affair, desired her to leave me.
"When she was gone, I threw myself into a chair, in that state of
uncertainty which is, of all others, the most dreadful. The gay
visions with which I had delighted myself, vanished in an instant. I
was tortured with tracing back the same circle of doubt and
disappointment. My head grew dizzy as I thought. I called the servant
again, and asked her a hundred questions, to no purpose; there was not
room even for conjecture.
"Something at last arose in my mind, which we call Hope, without
knowing what it is. I wished myself deluded by it; but it could not
prevail over my returning fears. I rose and walked through the room.
My Emily's spinnet stood at the end of it, open, with a book of music
folded down at some of my favourite lessons. I touched the keys; there
was a vibration in the sound that froze my blood; I looked around, and
methought the family pictures on the walls gazed on me with compassion
in their faces. I sat down again with an attempt at more composure; I
started at every creaking of the door, and my ears rung with imaginary
noises!
"I had not remained long in this situation, when the arrival of a
friend, who had accidentally heard of my return, put an end to my
doubts, by the recital of my daughter's dishonour. He told me he had
his information from a young gentleman, to whom Winbrooke had boasted
of having seduced her.
"I started from my seat, with broken curses on my lips, and
without knowing whither I should pursue them, ordered my servant to
load my pistols and saddle my horses. My friend, however, with great
difficulty, persuaded me to compose myself for that night, promising to
accompany me on the morrow, to Sir George Winbrooke's in quest of his
son.
"The morrow came, after a night spent in a state little distant
from madness. We went as early as decency would allow to Sir
George's. He received me with politeness, and indeed compassion,
protested his abhorrence of his son's conduct, and told me that he had
set out some days before for London, on which place he had procured a
draft for a large sum, on pretence of finishing his travels, but that
he had not heard from him since his departure.
"I did not wait for any more, either of information or comfort,
but, against the united remonstrances of Sir George and my friend, set
out instantly for London, with a frantic uncertainty of purpose; but
there, all manner of search was in vain. I could trace neither of them
any farther than the inn where they first put up on their arrival; and
after some days fruitless inquiry, returned home destitute of every
little hope that had hitherto supported me. The journeys I had made,
the restless nights I had spent, above all, the perturbation of my
mind, had the effect which naturally might be expected—a very
dangerous fever was the consequence. From this, however, contrary to
the expectation of my physicians, I recovered. It was now that I first
felt something like calmness of mind: probably from being reduced to a
state which could not produce the exertions of anguish or despair. A
stupid melancholy settled on my soul; I could endure to live with an
apathy of life; at times I forgot my resentment, and wept at the
remembrance of my child.
"Such has been the tenor of my days since that fatal moment when
these misfortunes began, till yesterday, that I received a letter from
a friend in town, acquainting me of her present situation. Could such
tales as mine, Mr. Harley, be sometimes suggested to the daughters of
levity, did they but know with what anxiety the heart of a parent
flutters round the child he loves, they would be less apt to construe
into harshness that delicate concern for their conduct, which they
often complain of as laying restraint upon things, to the young, the
gay, and the thoughtless, seemingly harmless and indifferent. Alas! I
fondly imagined that I needed not even these common cautions! my Emily
was the joy of my age, and the pride of my soul! Those things are now
no more, they are lost for ever! Her death I could have born, but the
death of her honour has added obloquy and shame to that sorrow which
bends my grey hairs to the dust!"
As he spoke these last words, his voice trembled in his throat; it
was now lost in his tears. He sat with his face half turned from
Harley, as if he would have hid the sorrow which he felt. Harley was
in the same attitude himself; he durst not meet his eye with a tear,
but gathering his stifled breath, "Let me entreat you, sir," said he,
"to hope better things. The world is ever tyrannical; it warps our
sorrows to edge them with keener affliction. Let us not be slaves to
the names it affixes to motive or to action. I know an ingenuous mind
cannot help feeling when they sting. But there are considerations by
which it may be overcome. Its fantastic ideas vanish as they rise;
they teach us to look beyond it."
* * * * *
A FRAGMENT. SHOWING HIS SUCCESS WITH THE BARONET
* * The card he received was in the politest style in which
disappointment could be communicated. The baronet "was under a
necessity of giving up his application for Mr. Harley, as he was
informed that the lease was engaged for a gentleman who had long served
His Majesty in another capacity, and whose merit had entitled him to
the first lucrative thing that should be vacant." Even Harley could
not murmur at such a disposal. "Perhaps," said he to himself, "some
war-worn officer, who, like poor Atkins, had been neglected from
reasons which merited the highest advancement; whose honour could not
stoop to solicit the preferment he deserved; perhaps, with a family,
taught the principles of delicacy, without the means of supporting it;
a wife and children—gracious heaven! whom my wishes would have
deprived of bread—"
He was interrupted in his reverie by some one tapping him on the
shoulder, and, on turning round, he discovered it to be the very man
who had explained to him the condition of his gay companion at Hyde
Park Corner. "I am glad to see you, sir," said he; "I believe we are
fellows in disappointment." Harley started, and said that he was at a
loss to understand him. "Pooh! you need not be so shy," answered the
other; "every one for himself is but fair, and I had much rather you
had got it than the rascally gauger." Harley still protested his
ignorance of what he meant. "Why, the lease of Bancroft Manor; had not
you been applying for it?" "I confess I was," replied Harley; "but I
cannot conceive how you should be interested in the matter." "Why, I
was making interest for it myself," said he, "and I think I had some
title. I voted for this same baronet at the last election, and made
some of my friends do so too; though I would not have you imagine that
I sold my vote. No, I scorn it, let me tell you I scorn it; but I
thought as how this man was staunch and true, and I find he's but a
double-faced fellow after all, and speechifies in the House for any
side he hopes to make most by. Oh, how many fine speeches and
squeezings by the hand we had of him on the canvas! 'And if ever I
shall be so happy as to have an opportunity of serving you.' A murrain
on the smooth-tongued knave, and after all to get it for this pimp of a
gauger." "The gauger! there must be some mistake," said Harley. "He
writes me, that it was engaged for one whose long services—"
"Services!" interrupted the other; "you shall hear. Services! Yes,
his sister arrived in town a few days ago, and is now sempstress to the
baronet. A plague on all rogues, says honest Sam Wrightson. I shall
but just drink damnation to them to-night, in a crown's worth of
Ashley's, and leave London to-morrow by sun-rise." "I shall leave it
too," said Harley; and so he accordingly did.
In passing through Piccadilly, he had observed, on the window of
an inn, a notification of the departure of a stage-coach for a place in
his road homewards; in the way back to his lodgings, he took a seat in
it for his return.
The company in the stage-coach consisted of a grocer and his wife,
who were going to pay a visit to some of their country friends; a young
officer, who took this way of marching to quarters; a middle-aged
gentlewoman, who had been hired as housekeeper to some family in the
country; and an elderly, well-looking man, with a remarkable
old-fashioned periwig.
Harley, upon entering, discovered but one vacant seat, next the
grocer's wife, which, from his natural shyness of temper, he made no
scruple to occupy, however aware that riding backwards always disagreed
with him.
Though his inclination to physiognomy had met with some rubs in
the metropolis, he had not yet lost his attachment to that science. He
set himself, therefore, to examine, as usual, the countenances of his
companions. Here, indeed, he was not long in doubt as to the
preference; for besides that the elderly gentleman, who sat opposite to
him, had features by nature more expressive of good dispositions, there
was something in that periwig we mentioned, peculiarly attractive of
Harley's regard.
He had not been long employed in these speculations, when he found
himself attacked with that faintish sickness, which was the natural
consequence of his situation in the coach. The paleness of his
countenance was first observed by the housekeeper, who immediately made
offer of her smelling bottle, which Harley, however, declined, telling
at the same time the cause of his uneasiness. The gentleman, on the
opposite side of the coach, now first turned his eye from the side
direction in which it had been fixed, and begged Harley to exchange
places with him, expressing his regret that he had not made the
proposal before. Harley thanked him, and, upon being assured that both
seats were alike to him, was about to accept of his offer, when the
young gentleman of the sword, putting on an arch look, laid hold of the
other's arm. "So, my old boy," said he, "I find you have still some
youthful blood about you, but, with your leave, I will do myself the
honour of sitting by this lady;" and took his place accordingly. The
grocer stared him as full in the face as his own short neck would
allow, and his wife, who was a little, round-faced woman, with a great
deal of colour in her cheeks, drew up at the compliment that was paid
her, looking first at the officer, and then at the housekeeper.
This incident was productive of some discourse; for before, though
there was sometimes a cough or a hem from the grocer, and the officer
now and then humm'd a few notes of a song, there had not a single word
passed the lips of any of the company.
Mrs. Grocer observed, how ill-convenient it was for people, who
could not be drove backwards, to travel in a stage. This brought on a
dissertation on stage-coaches in general, and the pleasure of keeping a
chay of one's own; which led to another, on the great riches of Mr.
Deputy Bearskin, who, according to her, had once been of that
industrious order of youths who sweep the crossings of the streets for
the conveniency of passengers, but, by various fortunate accidents, had
now acquired an immense fortune, and kept his coach and a dozen livery
servants. All this afforded ample fund for conversation, if
conversation it might be called, that was carried on solely by the
before-mentioned lady, nobody offering to interrupt her, except that
the officer sometimes signified his approbation by a variety of oaths,
a sort of phraseology in which he seemed extremely versant. She
appealed indeed, frequently, to her husband for the authenticity of
certain facts, of which the good man as often protested his total
ignorance; but as he was always called fool, or something very like it,
for his pains, he at last contrived to support the credit of his wife
without prejudice to his conscience, and signified his assent by a
noise not unlike the grunting of that animal which in shape and fatness
he somewhat resembled.
The housekeeper, and the old gentleman who sat next to Harley,
were now observed to be fast asleep, at which the lady, who had been at
such pains to entertain them, muttered some words of displeasure, and,
upon the officer's whispering to smoke the old put, both she and her
husband purs'd up their mouths into a contemptuous smile. Harley
looked sternly on the grocer. "You are come, sir," said he, "to those
years when you might have learned some reverence for age. As for this
young man, who has so lately escaped from the nursery, he may be
allowed to divert himself." "Dam'me, sir!" said the officer, "do you
call me young?" striking up the front of his hat, and stretching
forward on his seat, till his face almost touched Harley's. It is
probable, however, that he discovered something there which tended to
pacify him, for, on the ladies entreating them not to quarrel, he very
soon resumed his posture and calmness together, and was rather less
profuse of his oaths during the rest of the journey.
It is possible the old gentleman had waked time enough to hear the
last part of this discourse; at least (whether from that cause, or that
he too was a physiognomist) he wore a look remarkably complacent to
Harley, who, on his part, shewed a particular observance of him.
Indeed, they had soon a better opportunity of making their
acquaintance, as the coach arrived that night at the town where the
officer's regiment lay, and the places of destination of their other
fellow-travellers, it seems, were at no great distance, for, next
morning, the old gentleman and Harley were the only passengers
remaining.
When they left the inn in the morning, Harley, pulling out a
little pocket-book, began to examine the contents, and make some
corrections with a pencil. "This," said he, turning to his companion,
"is an amusement with which I sometimes pass idle hours at an inn.
These are quotations from those humble poets, who trust their fame to
the brittle tenure of windows and drinking-glasses." "From our inn,"
returned the gentleman, "a stranger might imagine that we were a nation
of poets; machines, at least, containing poetry, which the motion of a
journey emptied of their contents. Is it from the vanity of being
thought geniuses, or a mere mechanical imitation of the custom of
others, that we are tempted to scrawl rhyme upon such places?"
"Whether vanity is the cause of our becoming rhymesters or not,"
answered Harley, "it is a pretty certain effect of it. An old man of
my acquaintance, who deals in apothegms, used to say that he had known
few men without envy, few wits without ill-nature, and no poet without
vanity; and I believe his remark is a pretty just one. Vanity has been
immemorially the charter of poets. In this, the ancients were more
honest than we are. The old poets frequently make boastful predictions
of the immortality their works shall acquire them; ours, in their
dedications and prefatory discourses, employ much eloquence to praise
their patrons, and much seeming modesty to condemn themselves, or at
least to apologise for their productions to the world. But this, in my
opinion, is the more assuming manner of the two; for of all the garbs I
ever saw Pride put on, that of her humility is to me the most
disgusting."
"It is natural enough for a poet to be vain," said the stranger.
"The little worlds which he raises, the inspiration which he claims,
may easily be productive of self-importance; though that inspiration is
fabulous, it brings on egotism, which is always the parent of vanity."
"It may be supposed," answered Harley, "that inspiration of old
was an article of religious faith; in modern times it may be translated
a propensity to compose; and I believe it is not always most readily
found where the poets have fixed its residence, amidst groves and
plains, and the scenes of pastoral retirement. The mind may be there
unbent from the cares of the world, but it will frequently, at the same
time, be unnerved from any great exertion. It will feel imperfect, and
wander without effort over the regions of reflection."
"There is at least," said the stranger, "one advantage in the
poetical inclination, that it is an incentive to philanthropy. There
is a certain poetic ground, on which a man cannot tread without
feelings that enlarge the heart: the causes of human depravity vanish
before the romantic enthusiasm he professes, and many who are not able
to reach the Parnassian heights, may yet approach so near as to be
bettered by the air of the climate."
"I have always thought so," replied Harley; "but this is an
argument with the prudent against it: they urge the danger of unfitness
for the world."
"I allow it," returned the other; "but I believe it is not always
rightfully imputed to the bent for poetry: that is only one effect of
the common cause.—Jack, says his father, is indeed no scholar; nor
could all the drubbings from his master ever bring him one step forward
in his accidence or syntax: but I intend him for a merchant.—Allow
the same indulgence to Tom.—Tom reads Virgil and Horace when he
should be casting accounts; and but t'other day he pawned his
great-coat for an edition of Shakespeare.—But Tom would have been as
he is, though Virgil and Horace had never been born, though Shakespeare
had died a link-boy; for his nurse will tell you, that when he was a
child, he broke his rattle, to discover what it was that sounded within
it; and burnt the sticks of his go-cart, because he liked to see the
sparkling of timber in the fire.—'Tis a sad case; but what is to be
done?—Why, Jack shall make a fortune, dine on venison, and drink
claret.—Ay, but Tom—Tom shall dine with his brother, when his pride
will let him; at other times, he shall bless God over a half-pint of
ale and a Welsh-rabbit; and both shall go to heaven as they may.—
That's a poor prospect for Tom, says the father.—To go to heaven! I
cannot agree with him."
"Perhaps," said Harley, "we now-a-days discourage the romantic
turn a little too much. Our boys are prudent too soon. Mistake me
not, I do not mean to blame them for want of levity or dissipation; but
their pleasures are those of hackneyed vice, blunted to every finer
emotion by the repetition of debauch; and their desire of pleasure is
warped to the desire of wealth, as the means of procuring it. The
immense riches acquired by individuals have erected a standard of
ambition, destructive of private morals, and of public virtue. The
weaknesses of vice are left us; but the most allowable of our failings
we are taught to despise. Love, the passion most natural to the
sensibility of youth, has lost the plaintive dignity he once possessed,
for the unmeaning simper of a dangling coxcomb; and the only serious
concern, that of a dowry, is settled, even amongst the beardless
leaders of the dancing-school. The Frivolous and the Interested (might
a satirist say) are the characteristical features of the age; they are
visible even in the essays of our philosophers. They laugh at the
pedantry of our fathers, who complained of the times in which they
lived; they are at pains to persuade us how much those were deceived;
they pride themselves in defending things as they find them, and in
exploding the barren sounds which had been reared into motives for
action. To this their style is suited; and the manly tone of reason is
exchanged for perpetual efforts at sneer and ridicule. This I hold to
be an alarming crisis in the corruption of a state; when not only is
virtue declined, and vice prevailing, but when the praises of virtue
are forgotten, and the infamy of vice unfelt."
They soon after arrived at the next inn upon the route of the
stage-coach, when the stranger told Harley, that his brother's house,
to which he was returning, lay at no great distance, and he must
therefore unwillingly bid him adieu.
"I should like," said Harley, taking his hand, "to have some word
to remember so much seeming worth by: my name is Harley."
"I shall remember it," answered the old gentleman, "in my prayers;
mine is Silton."
And Silton indeed it was! Ben Silton himself! Once more, my
honoured friend, farewell!—Born to be happy without the world, to
that peaceful happiness which the world has not to bestow! Envy never
scowled on thy life, nor hatred smiled on thy grave.
When the stage-coach arrived at the place of its destination,
Harley began to consider how he should proceed the remaining part of
his journey. He was very civilly accosted by the master of the inn,
who offered to accommodate him either with a post-chaise or horses, to
any distance he had a mind: but as he did things frequently in a way
different from what other people call natural, he refused these offers,
and set out immediately a-foot, having first put a spare shirt in his
pocket, and given directions for the forwarding of his portmanteau.
This was a method of travelling which he was accustomed to take: it
saved the trouble of provision for any animal but himself, and left him
at liberty to chose his quarters, either at an inn, or at the first
cottage in which he saw a face he liked: nay, when he was not
peculiarly attracted by the reasonable creation, he would sometimes
consort with a species of inferior rank, and lay himself down to sleep
by the side of a rock, or on the banks of a rivulet. He did few things
without a motive, but his motives were rather eccentric: and the useful
and expedient were terms which he held to be very indefinite, and which
therefore he did not always apply to the sense in which they are
commonly understood.
The sun was now in his decline, and the evening remarkably serene,
when he entered a hollow part of the road, which winded between the
surrounding banks, and seamed the sward in different lines, as the
choice of travellers had directed them to tread it. It seemed to be
little frequented now, for some of those had partly recovered their
former verdure. The scene was such as induced Harley to stand and
enjoy it; when, turning round, his notice was attracted by an object,
which the fixture of his eye on the spot he walked had before prevented
him from observing.
An old man, who from his dress seemed to have been a soldier, lay
fast asleep on the ground; a knapsack rested on a stone at his right
hand, while his staff and brass-hilted sword were crossed at his left.
Harley looked on him with the most earnest attention. He was one
of those figures which Salvator would have drawn; nor was the
surrounding scenery unlike the wildness of that painter's
back-grounds. The banks on each side were covered with fantastic
shrub-wood, and at a little distance, on the top of one of them, stood
a finger-post, to mark the directions of two roads which diverged from
the point where it was placed. A rock, with some dangling wild
flowers, jutted out above where the soldier lay; on which grew the
stump of a large tree, white with age, and a single twisted branch
shaded his face as he slept. His face had the marks of manly
comeliness impaired by time; his forehead was not altogether bald, but
its hairs might have been numbered; while a few white locks behind
crossed the brown of his neck with a contrast the most venerable to a
mind like Harley's. "Thou art old," said he to himself; "but age has
not brought thee rest for its infirmities; I fear those silver hairs
have not found shelter from thy country, though that neck has been
bronzed in its service." The stranger waked. He looked at Harley with
the appearance of some confusion: it was a pain the latter knew too
well to think of causing in another; he turned and went on. The old
man re-adjusted his knapsack, and followed in one of the tracks on the
opposite side of the road.
When Harley heard the tread of his feet behind him, he could not
help stealing back a glance at his fellow-traveller. He seemed to bend
under the weight of his knapsack; he halted on his walk, and one of his
arms was supported by a sling, and lay motionless across his breast.
He had that steady look of sorrow, which indicates that its owner has
gazed upon his griefs till he has forgotten to lament them; yet not
without those streaks of complacency which a good mind will sometimes
throw into the countenance, through all the incumbent load of its
depression.
He had now advanced nearer to Harley, and, with an uncertain sort
of voice, begged to know what it was o'clock; "I fear," said he, "sleep
has beguiled me of my time, and I shall hardly have light enough left
to carry me to the end of my journey."
"Father!" said Harley (who by this time found the romantic
enthusiasm rising within him) "how far do you mean to go?"
"But a little way, sir," returned the other; "and indeed it is but
a little way I can manage now: 'tis just four miles from the height to
the village, thither I am going."
"I am going there too," said Harley; "we may make the road shorter
to each other. You seem to have served your country, sir, to have
served it hardly too; 'tis a character I have the highest esteem for.—
I would not be impertinently inquisitive; but there is that in your
appearance which excites my curiosity to know something more of you; in
the meantime, suffer me to carry that knapsack."
The old man gazed on him; a tear stood in his eye! "Young
gentleman," said he, "you are too good; may Heaven bless you for an old
man's sake, who has nothing but his blessing to give! but my knapsack
is so familiar to my shoulders, that I should walk the worse for
wanting it; and it would be troublesome to you, who have not been used
to its weight."
"Far from it," answered Harley, "I should tread the lighter; it
would be the most honourable badge I ever wore."
"Sir," said the stranger, who had looked earnestly in Harley's
face during the last part of his discourse, "is act your name Harley?"
"It is," replied he; "I am ashamed to say I have forgotten yours."
"You may well have forgotten my face," said the stranger;—"'tis
a long time since you saw it; but possibly you may remember something
of old Edwards."
"Edwards!" cried Harley, "oh! heavens!" and sprung to embrace him;
"let me clasp those knees on which I have sat so often: Edwards!—I
shall never forget that fire-side, round which I have been so happy!
But where, where have you been? where is Jack? where is your daughter?
How has it fared with them, when fortune, I fear, has been so unkind to
you?"
"'Tis a long tale," replied Edwards; "but I will try to tell it
you as we walk.
"When you were at school in the neighbourhood, you remember me at
South-hill: that farm had been possessed by my father, grandfather, and
great-grandfather, which last was a younger brother of that very man's
ancestor, who is now lord of the manor. I thought I managed it, as
they had done, with prudence; I paid my rent regularly as it became
due, and had always as much behind as gave bread to me and my
children. But my last lease was out soon after you left that part of
the country; and the squire, who had lately got a London-attorney for
his steward, would not renew it, because, he said, he did not chuse to
have any farm under £300 a year value on his estate; but offered to
give me the preference on the same terms with another, if I chose to
take the one he had marked out, of which mine was a part.
"What could I do, Mr. Harley? I feared the undertaking was too
great for me; yet to leave, at my age, the house I had lived in from my
cradle! I could not, Mr. Harley, I could not; there was not a tree
about it that I did not look on as my father, my brother, or my child:
so I even ran the risk, and took the squire's offer of the whole. But
had soon reason to repent of my bargain; the steward had taken care
that my former farm should be the best land of the division: I was
obliged to hire more servants, and I could not have my eye over them
all; some unfavourable seasons followed one another, and I found my
affairs entangling on my hands. To add to my distress, a considerable
corn-factor turned bankrupt with a sum of mine in his possession: I
failed paying my rent so punctually as I was wont to do, and the same
steward had my stock taken in execution in a few days after. So, Mr.
Harley, there was an end of my prosperity. However, there was as much
produced from the sale of my effects as paid my debts and saved me from
a jail: I thank God I wronged no man, and the world could never charge
me with dishonesty.
"Had you seen us, Mr. Harley, when we were turned out of
South-hill, I am sure you would have wept at the sight. You remember
old Trusty, my shag house-dog; I shall never forget it while I live;
the poor creature was blind with age, and could scarce crawl after us
to the door; he went however as far as the gooseberry-bush that you may
remember stood on the left side of the yard; he was wont to bask in the
sun there; when he had reached that spot, he stopped; we went on: I
called to him; he wagged his tail, but did not stir: I called again; he
lay down: I whistled, and cried Trusty; he gave a short howl, and
died! I could have lain down and died too; but God gave me strength to
live for my children."
The old man now paused a moment to take breath. He eyed Harley's
face; it was bathed with tears: the story was grown familiar to
himself; he dropped one tear, and no more.
"Though I was poor," continued he, "I was not altogether without
credit. A gentleman in the neighbourhood, who had a small farm
unoccupied at the time, offered to let me have it, on giving security
for the rent; which I made shift to procure. It was a piece of ground
which required management to make anything of; but it was nearly within
the compass of my son's labour and my own. We exerted all our industry
to bring it into some heart. We began to succeed tolerably and lived
contented on its produce, when an unlucky accident brought us under the
displeasure of a neighbouring justice of the peace, and broke all our
family-happiness again.
"My son was a remarkable good shooter; he-had always kept a
pointer on our former farm, and thought no harm in doing so now; when
one day, having sprung a covey in our own ground, the dog, of his own
accord, followed them into the justice's. My son laid down his gun,
and went after his dog to bring him back: the game-keeper, who had
marked the birds, came up, and seeing the pointer, shot him just as my
son approached. The creature fell; my son ran up to him: he died with
a complaining sort of cry at his master's feet. Jack could bear it no
longer; but, flying at the game-keeper, wrenched his gun out of his
hand, and with the butt end of it, felled him to the ground.
"He had scarce got home, when a constable came with a warrant, and
dragged him to prison; there he lay, for the justices would not take
bail, till he was tried at the quarter-sessions for the assault and
battery. His fine was hard upon us to pay: we contrived however to
live the worse for it, and make up the loss by our frugality: but the
justice was not content with that punishment, and soon after had an
opportunity of punishing us indeed.
"An officer with press-orders came down to our county, and having
met with the justices, agreed that they should pitch on a certain
number, who could most easily be spared from the county, of whom he
would take care to clear it: my son's name was in the justices' list.
"'Twas on a Christmas eve, and the birth-day too of my son's
little boy. The night was piercing cold, and it blew a storm, with
showers of hail and snow. We had made up a cheering fire in an inner
room; I sat before it in my wicker-chair; blessing providence, that had
still left a shelter for me and my children. My son's two little ones
were holding their gambols around us; my heart warmed at the sight: I
brought a bottle of my best ale, and all our misfortunes were forgotten.
"It had long been our custom to play a game at blind man's buff on
that night, and it was not omitted now; so to it we fell, I, and my
son, and his wife, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer, who happened
to be with us at the time, the two children, and an old maid servant,
who had lived with me from a child. The lot fell on my son to be
blindfolded: we had continued some time in our game, when he groped his
way into an outer room in pursuit of some of us, who, he imagined, had
taken shelter there; we kept snug in our places, and enjoyed his
mistake. He had not been long there, when he was suddenly seized from
behind; 'I shall have you now,' said he, and turned about. 'Shall you
so, master?' answered the ruffian, who had laid hold of him; 'we shall
make you play at another sort of game by and by.'"—At these words
Harley started with a convulsive sort of motion, and grasping Edwards's
sword, drew it half out of the scabbard, with a look of the most
frantic wildness. Edwards gently replaced it in its sheath, and went
on with his relation.
"On hearing these words in a strange voice, we all rushed out to
discover the cause; the room by this time was almost full of the gang.
My daughter-in-law fainted at the sight; the maid and I ran to assist
her, while my poor son remained motionless, gazing by turns on his
children and their mother. We soon recovered her to life, and begged
her to retire and wait the issue of the affair; but she flew to her
husband, and clung round him in an agony of terror and grief.
"In the gang was one of a smoother aspect, whom, by his dress, we
discovered to be a serjeant of foot: he came up to me, and told me,
that my son had his choice of the sea or land service, whispering at
the same time that, if he chose the land, he might get off, on
procuring him another man, and paying a certain sum for his freedom.
The money we could just muster up in the house, by the assistance of
the maid, who produced, in a green bag, all the little savings of her
service; but the man we could not expect to find. My daughter-in-law
gazed upon her children with a look of the wildest despair: 'My poor
infants!' said she, 'your father is forced from you; who shall now
labour for your bread? or must your mother beg for herself and you?' I
prayed her to be patient; but comfort I had none to give her. At last,
calling the serjeant aside, I asked him, 'If I was too old to be
accepted in place of my son?'
"'Why, I don't know,' said he; 'you are rather old to be sure, but
yet the money may do much.'
"I put the money in his hand, and coming back to my children,
'Jack,' said I, 'you are free; live to give your wife and these little
ones bread; I will go, my child, in your stead; I have but little life
to lose, and if I staid, I should add one to the wretches you left
behind.'
"'No,' replied my son, 'I am not that coward you imagine me;
heaven forbid that my father's grey hairs should be so exposed, while I
sat idle at home; I am young and able to endure much, and God will take
care of you and my family.'
"'Jack,' said I, 'I will put an end to this matter, you have never
hitherto disobeyed me; I will not be contradicted in this; stay at
home, I charge you, and, for my sake, be kind to my children.'
"Our parting, Mr. Harley, I cannot describe to you; it was the
first time we ever had parted: the very press-gang could scarce keep
from tears; but the serjeant, who had seemed the softest before, was
now the least moved of them all. He conducted me to a party of
new-raised recruits, who lay at a village in the neighbourhood; and we
soon after joined the regiment. I had not been long with it when we
were ordered to the East Indies, where I was soon made a serjeant, and
might have picked up some money, if my heart had been as hard as some
others were; but my nature was never of that kind, that could think of
getting rich at the expense of my conscience.
"Amongst our prisoners was an old Indian, whom some of our
officers supposed to have a treasure hidden somewhere; which is no
uncommon practice in that country. They pressed him to discover it.
He declared he had none, but that would not satisfy them, so they
ordered him to be tied to a stake, and suffer fifty lashes every
morning till he should learn to speak out, as they said. Oh! Mr.
Harley, had you seen him, as I did, with his hands bound behind him,
suffering in silence, while the big drops trickled down his shrivelled
cheeks and wet his grey beard, which some of the inhuman soldiers
plucked in scorn! I could not bear it, I could not for my soul, and
one morning, when the rest of the guard were out of the way, I found
means to let him escape. I was tried by a court-martial for negligence
of my post, and ordered, in compassion of my age, and having got this
wound in my arm and that in my leg in the service, only to suffer three
hundred lashes and be turned out of the regiment; but my sentence was
mitigated as to the lashes, and I had only two hundred. When I had
suffered these I was turned out of the camp, and had betwixt three and
four hundred miles to travel before I could reach a sea-port, without
guide to conduct me, or money to buy me provisions by the way. I set
out, however, resolved to walk as far as I could, and then to lay
myself down and die. But I had scarce gone a mile when I was met by
the Indian whom I had delivered. He pressed me in his arms, and kissed
the marks of the lashes on my back a thousand times; he led me to a
little hut, where some friend of his dwelt, and after I was recovered
of my wounds conducted me so far on my journey himself, and sent
another Indian to guide me through the rest. When we parted he pulled
out a purse with two hundred pieces of gold in it. 'Take this,' said
he, 'my dear preserver, it is all I have been able to procure.'
"I begged him not to bring himself to poverty for my sake, who
should probably have no need of it long, but he insisted on my
accepting it. He embraced me. 'You are an Englishman,' said he, 'but
the Great Spirit has given you an Indian heart, may He bear up the
weight of your old age, and blunt the arrow that brings it rest!'
"We parted, and not long after I made shift to get my passage to
England. 'Tis but about a week since I landed, and I am going to end
my days in the arms of my son. This sum may be of use to him and his
children, 'tis all the value I put upon it. I thank Heaven I never was
covetous of wealth; I never had much, but was always so happy as to be
content with my little."
When Edwards had ended his relation, Harley stood a while looking
at him in silence; at last he pressed him in his arms, and when he had
given vent to the fulness of his heart by a shower of tears, "Edwards,"
said he, "let me hold thee to my bosom, let me imprint the virtue of
thy sufferings on my soul. Come, my honoured veteran let me endeavour
to soften the last days of a life, worn out in the service of humanity;
call me also thy son, and let me cherish thee as a father."'
Edwards, from whom the recollection of his own suffering had
scarced forced a tear, now blubbered like a boy; he could not speak his
gratitude, but by some short exclamations of blessings upon Harley.
When they had arrived within a little way of the village they
journeyed to, Harley stopped short, and looked steadfastly on the
mouldering walls of a ruined house that stood on the road side. "Oh,
heavens!" he cried, "what do I see: silent, unroofed, and desolate!
Are all thy gay tenants gone? do I hear their hum no more Edwards, look
there, look there? the scene of my infant joys, my earliest
friendships, laid waste and ruinous! That was the very school where I
was boarded when you were at South-hill; 'tis but a twelve-month since
I saw it standing, and its benches filled with cherubs: that opposite
side of the road was the green on which they sported; see it now
ploughed up! I would have given fifty times its value to have saved it
from the sacrilege of that plough."
"Dear sir," replied Edwards, "perhaps they have left it from
choice, and may have got another spot as good."
"They cannot," said Harley, "they cannot; I shall never see the
sward covered with its daisies, nor pressed by the dance of the dear
innocents: I shall never see that stump decked with the garlands which
their little hands had gathered. These two long stones, which now lie
at the foot of it, were once the supports of a hut I myself assisted to
rear: I have sat on the sods within it, when we had spread our banquet
of apples before us, and been more blessed—Oh! Edwards, infinitely
more blessed, than ever I shall be again."
Just then a woman passed them on the road, and discovered some
signs of wonder at the attitude of Harley, who stood, with his hands
folded together, looking with a moistened eye on the fallen pillars of
the hut. He was too much entranced in thought to observe her at all,
but Edwards, civilly accosting her, desired to know if that had not
been the school-house, and how it came into the condition in which they
now saw it.
"Alack a day!" said she, "it was the school-house indeed; but to
be sure, sir, the squire has pulled it down because it stood in the way
of his prospects."
"What! how! prospects! pulled down!" cried Harley.
"Yes, to be sure, sir; and the green, where the children used to
play, he has ploughed up, because, he said, they hurt his fence on the
other side of it."
"Curses on his narrow heart," cried Harley, "that could violate a
right so sacred! Heaven blast the wretch!
"And from his derogate body never spring
A babe to honour him!" -
But I need not, Edwards, I need not" (recovering himself a
little), "he is cursed enough already: to him the noblest source of
happiness is denied, and the cares of his sordid soul shall gnaw it,
while thou sittest over a brown crust, smiling on those mangled limbs
that have saved thy son and his children!"
"If you want anything with the school-mistress, sir," said the
woman, "I can show you the way to her house."
He followed her without knowing whither he went.
They stopped at the door of a snug habitation, where sat an
elderly woman with a boy and a girl before her, each of whom held a
supper of bread and milk in their hands.
"There, sir, is the school-mistress."
"Madam," said Harley, "was not an old venerable man school-master
here some time ago?"
"Yes, sir, he was, poor man; the loss of his former school-house,
I believe, broke his heart, for he died soon after it was taken down,
and as another has not yet been found, I have that charge in the
meantime."
"And this boy and girl, I presume, are your pupils?"
"Ay, sir; they are poor orphans, put under my care by the parish,
and more promising children I never saw."
"Orphans?" said Harley.
"Yes, sir, of honest creditable parents as any in the parish, and
it is a shame for some folks to forget their relations at a time when
they have most need to remember them."
"Madam," said Harley, "let us never forget that we are all
relations."
He kissed the children.
"Their father, sir," continued she, "was a farmer here in the
neighbourhood, and a sober industrious man he was; but nobody can help
misfortunes: what with bad crops, and bad debts, which are worse, his
affairs went to wreck, and both he and his wife died of broken hearts.
And a sweet couple they were, sir; there was not a properer man to look
on in the county than John Edwards, and so indeed were all the
Edwardses."
"What Edwardses?" cried the old soldier hastily.
"The Edwardses of South-hill, and a worthy family they were."
"South-hill!" said he, in a languid voice, and fell back into the
arms of the astonished Harley. The school-mistress ran for some water
- and a smelling-bottle, with the assistance of which they soon
recovered the unfortunate Edwards. He stared wildly for some time,
then folding his orphan grandchildren in his arms,
"Oh! my children, my children," he cried, "have I found you thus?
My poor Jack, art thou gone? I thought thou shouldst have carried thy
father's grey hairs to the grave! and these little ones"—his tears
choked his utterance, and he fell again on the necks of the children.
"My dear old man," said Harley, "Providence has sent you to
relieve them; it will bless me if I can be the means of assisting you."
"Yes, indeed, sir," answered the boy; "father, when he was
a-dying, bade God bless us, and prayed that if grandfather lived he
might send him to support us."
"Where did they lay my boy?" said Edwards.
"In the Old Churchyard," replied the woman, "hard by his mother."
"I will show it you," answered the boy, "for I have wept over it
many a time when first I came amongst strange folks."
He took the old man's hand, Harley laid hold of his sister's, and
they walked in silence to the churchyard.
There was an old stone, with the corner broken off, and some
letters, half-covered with moss, to denote the names of the dead: there
was a cyphered R. E. plainer than the rest; it was the tomb they sought.
"Here it is, grandfather," said the boy.
Edwards gazed upon it without uttering a word: the girl, who had
only sighed before, now wept outright; her brother sobbed, but he
stifled his sobbing.
"I have told sister," said he, "that she should not take it so to
heart; she can knit already, and I shall soon be able to dig, we shall
not starve, sister, indeed we shall not, nor shall grandfather neither."
The girl cried afresh; Harley kissed off her tears as they flowed,
and wept between every kiss.
It was with some difficulty that Harley prevailed on the old man
to leave the spot where the remains of his son were laid. At last,
with the assistance of the school-mistress, he prevailed; and she
accommodated Edwards and him with beds in her house, there being
nothing like an inn nearer than the distance of some miles.
In the morning Harley persuaded Edwards to come with the children
to his house, which was distant but a short day's journey. The boy
walked in his grandfather's hand; and the name of Edwards procured him
a neighbouring farmer's horse, on which a servant mounted, with the
girl on a pillow before him.
With this train Harley returned to the abode of his fathers: and
we cannot but think, that his enjoyment was as great as if he had
arrived from the tour of Europe with a Swiss valet for his companion,
and half a dozen snuff-boxes, with invisible hinges, in his pocket.
But we take our ideas from sounds which folly has invented; Fashion,
Boa ton, and Vertù, are the names of certain idols, to which we
sacrifice the genuine pleasures of the soul: in this world of
semblance, we are contented with personating happiness; to feel it is
an art beyond us.
It was otherwise with Harley; he ran upstairs to his aunt with the
history of his fellow-travellers glowing on his lips. His aunt was an
economist; but she knew the pleasure of doing charitable things, and
withal was fond of her nephew, and solicitous to oblige him. She
received old Edwards therefore with a look of more complacency than is
perhaps natural to maiden ladies of three-score, and was remarkably
attentive to his grandchildren: she roasted apples with her own hands
for their supper, and made up a little bed beside her own for the
girl. Edwards made some attempts towards an acknowledgment for these
favours; but his young friend stopped them in their beginnings.
"Whosoever receiveth any of these children," said his aunt; for
her acquaintance with her Bible was habitual.
Early next morning Harley stole into the room where Edwards lay:
he expected to have found him a-bed, but in this he was mistaken: the
old man had risen, and was leaning over his sleeping grandson, with the
tears flowing down his cheeks. At first he did not perceive Harley;
when he did, he endeavoured to hide his grief, and crossing his eyes
with his hand expressed his surprise at seeing him so early astir.
"I was thinking of you," said Harley, "and your children: I
learned last night that a small farm of mine in the neighbourhood is
now vacant: if you will occupy it I shall gain a good neighbour and be
able in some measure to repay the notice you took of me when a boy, and
as the furniture of the house is mine, it will be so much trouble
saved."
Edwards's tears gushed afresh, and Harley led him to see the place
he intended for him.
The house upon this farm was indeed little better than a hut; its
situation, however, was pleasant, and Edwards, assisted by the
beneficence of Harley, set about improving its neatness and
convenience. He staked out a piece of the green before for a garden,
and Peter, who acted in Harley's family as valet, butler, and gardener,
had orders to furnish him with parcels of the different seeds he chose
to sow in it. I have seen his master at work in this little spot with
his coat off, and his dibble in his hand: it was a scene of tranquil
virtue to have stopped an angel on his errands of mercy! Harley had
contrived to lead a little bubbling brook through a green walk in the
middle of the ground, upon which he had erected a mill in miniature for
the diversion of Edwards's infant grandson, and made shift in its
construction to introduce a pliant bit of wood that answered with its
fairy clack to the murmuring of the rill that turned it. I have seen
him stand, listening to these mingled sounds, with his eye fixed on the
boy, and the smile of conscious satisfaction on his cheek, while the
old man, with a look half turned to Harley and half to heaven, breathed
an ejaculation of gratitude and piety.
Father of mercies! I also would thank thee that not only hast
thou assigned eternal rewards to virtue, but that, even in this bad
world, the lines of our duty and our happiness are so frequently woven
together.
A FRAGMENT.—THE MAN OF FEELING TALKS OF WHAT HE DOES NOT
UNDERSTAND.—AN INCIDENT
* * * * "Edwards," said he, "I have a proper regard for the
prosperity of my country: every native of it appropriates to himself
some share of the power, or the fame, which, as a nation, it acquires,
but I cannot throw off the man so much as to rejoice at our conquests
in India. You tell me of immense territories subject to the English: I
cannot think of their possessions without being led to inquire by what
right they possess them. They came there as traders, bartering the
commodities they brought for others which their purchasers could spare;
and however great their profits were, they were then equitable. But
what title have the subjects of another kingdom to establish an empire
in India? to give laws to a country where the inhabitants received them
on the terms of friendly commerce? You say they are happier under our
regulations than the tyranny of their own petty princes. I must doubt
it, from the conduct of those by whom these regulations have been
made. They have drained the treasuries of Nabobs, who must fill them
by oppressing the industry of their subjects. Nor is this to be
wondered at, when we consider the motive upon which those gentlemen do
not deny their going to India. The fame of conquest, barbarous as that
motive is, is but a secondary consideration: there are certain stations
in wealth to which the warriors of the East aspire. It is there,
indeed, where the wishes of their friends assign them eminence, where
the question of their country is pointed at their return. When shall I
see a commander return from India in the pride of honourable poverty?
You describe the victories they have gained; they are sullied by the
cause in which they fought: you enumerate the spoils of those
victories; they are covered with the blood of the vanquished.
"Could you tell me of some conqueror giving peace and happiness to
the conquered? did he accept the gifts of their princes to use them for
the comfort of those whose fathers, sons, or husbands, fell in battle?
did he use his power to gain security and freedom to the regions of
oppression and slavery? did he endear the British name by examples of
generosity, which the most barbarous or most depraved are rarely able
to resist? did he return with the consciousness of duty discharged to
his country, and humanity to his fellow-creatures? did he return with
no lace on his coat, no slaves in his retinue, no chariot at his door,
and no burgundy at his table?—these were laurels which princes might
envy—which an honest man would not condemn!"
"Your maxims, Mr. Harley, are certainly right," said Edwards. "I
am not capable of arguing with you; but I imagine there are great
temptations in a great degree of riches, which it is no easy matter to
resist: those a poor man like me cannot describe, because he never knew
them; and perhaps I have reason to bless God that I never did; for
then, it is likely, I should have withstood them no better than my
neighbours. For you know, sir, that it is not the fashion now, as it
was in former times, that I have read of in books, when your great
generals died so poor, that they did not leave wherewithal to buy them
a coffin; and people thought the better of their memories for it: if
they did so now-a-days, I question if any body, except yourself, and
some few like you, would thank them."
"I am sorry," replied Harley, "that there is so much truth in what
you say; but however the general current of opinion may point, the
feelings are not yet lost that applaud benevolence, and censure
inhumanity. Let us endeavour to strengthen them in ourselves; and we,
who live sequestered from the noise of the multitude, have better
opportunities of listening undisturbed to their voice."
They now approached the little dwelling of Edwards. A
maid-servant, whom he had hired to assist him in the care of his
grandchildren met them a little way from the house: "There is a young
lady within with the children," said she. Edwards expressed his
surprise at the visit: it was however not the less true; and we mean to
account for it.
This young lady then was no other than Miss Walton. She had heard
the old man's history from Harley, as we have already related it.
Curiosity, or some other motive, made her desirous to see his
grandchildren; this she had an opportunity of gratifying soon, the
children, in some of their walks, having strolled as far as her
father's avenue. She put several questions to both; she was delighted
with the simplicity of their answers, and promised, that if they
continued to be good children, and do as their grandfather bid them,
she would soon see them again, and bring some present or other for
their reward. This promise she had performed now: she came attended
only by her maid, and brought with her a complete suit of green for the
boy, and a chintz gown, a cap, and a suit of ribbons, for his sister.
She had time enough, with her maid's assistance, to equip them in their
new habiliments before Harley and Edwards returned. The boy heard his
grandfather's voice, and, with that silent joy which his present finery
inspired, ran to the door to meet him: putting one hand in his, with
the other pointed to his sister, "See," said he, "what Miss Walton has
brought us!"—Edwards gazed on them. Harley fixed his eyes on Miss
Walton; her's were turned to the ground;—in Edwards's was a beamy
moisture.—He folded his hands together—"I cannot speak, young
lady," said he, "to thank you." Neither could Harley. There were a
thousand sentiments; but they gushed so impetuously on his heart, that
he could not utter a syllable. * * * *
The desire of communicating knowledge or intelligence, is an
argument with those who hold that man is naturally a social animal. It
is indeed one of the earliest propensities we discover; but it may be
doubted whether the pleasure (for pleasure there certainly is) arising
from it be not often more selfish than social: for we frequently
observe the tidings of Ill communicated as eagerly as the annunciation
of Good. Is it that we delight in observing the effects of the
stronger passions? for we are all philosophers in this respect; and it
is perhaps amongst the spectators at Tyburn that the most genuine are
to be found.
Was it from this motive that Peter came one morning into his
master's room with a meaning face of recital? His master indeed did
not at first observe it; for he was sitting with one shoe buckled,
delineating portraits in the fire. "I have brushed those clothes, sir,
as you ordered me."—Harley nodded his head but Peter observed that
his hat wanted brushing too: his master nodded again. At last Peter
bethought him that the fire needed stirring; and taking up the poker,
demolished the turban'd head of a Saracen, while his master was seeking
out a body for it. "The morning is main cold, sir," said Peter. "Is
it?" said Harley. "Yes, sir; I have been as far as Tom Dowson's to
fetch some barberries he had picked for Mrs. Margery. There was a rare
junketting last night at Thomas's among Sir Harry Benson's servants; he
lay at Squire Walton's, but he would not suffer his servants to trouble
the family: so, to be sure, they were all at Tom's, and had a fiddle,
and a hot supper in the big room where the justices meet about the
destroying of hares and partridges, and them things; and Tom's eyes
looked so red and so bleared when I called him to get the barberries:-
And I hear as how Sir Harry is going to be married to Miss Walton."—
"How! Miss Walton married!" said Harley. "Why, it mayn't be true,
sir, for all that; but Tom's wife told it me, and to be sure the
servants told her, and their master told them, as I guess, sir; but it
mayn't be true for all that, as I said before."—"Have done with your
idle information," said Harley:- "Is my aunt come down into the parlour
to breakfast?"—"Yes, sir."—"Tell her I'll be with her immediately."
When Peter was gone, he stood with his eyes fixed on the ground,
and the last words of his intelligence vibrating in his ears. "Miss
Walton married!" he sighed—and walked down stairs, with his shoe as
it was, and the buckle in his hand. His aunt, however, was pretty well
accustomed to those appearances of absence; besides, that the natural
gravity of her temper, which was commonly called into exertion by the
care of her household concerns, was such as not easily to be
discomposed by any circumstance of accidental impropriety. She too had
been informed of the intended match between Sir Harry Benson and Miss
Walton. "I have been thinking," said she, "that they are distant
relations: for the great-grandfather of this Sir Harry Benson, who was
knight of the shire in the reign of Charles the First, and one of the
cavaliers of those times, was married to a daughter of the Walton
family." Harley answered drily, that it might be so; but that he never
troubled himself about those matters. "Indeed," said she, "you are to
blame, nephew, for not knowing a little more of them: before I was near
your age I had sewed the pedigree of our family in a set of
chair-bottoms, that were made a present of to my grandmother, who was a
very notable woman, and had a proper regard for gentility, I'll assure
you; but now-a-days it is money, not birth, that makes people
respected; the more shame for the times."
Harley was in no very good humour for entering into a discussion
of this question; but he always entertained so much filial respect for
his aunt, as to attend to her discourse.
"We blame the pride of the rich," said he, "but are not we ashamed
of our poverty?"
"Why, one would not choose," replied his aunt, "to make a much
worse figure than one's neighbours; but, as I was saying before, the
times (as my friend, Mrs. Dorothy Walton, observes) are shamefully
degenerated in this respect. There was but t'other day at Mr.
Walton's, that fat fellow's daughter, the London merchant, as he calls
himself, though I have heard that he was little better than the keeper
of a chandler's shop. We were leaving the gentlemen to go to tea. She
had a hoop, forsooth, as large and as stiff—and it showed a pair of
bandy legs, as thick as two—I was nearer the door by an apron's
length, and the pert hussy brushed by me, as who should say, Make way
for your betters, and with one of her London bobs—but Mrs. Dorothy
did not let her pass with it; for all the time of drinking tea, she
spoke of the precedency of family, and the disparity there is between
people who are come of something and your mushroom gentry who wear
their coats of arms in their purses."
Her indignation was interrupted by the arrival of her maid with a
damask table-cloth, and a set of napkins, from the loom, which had been
spun by her mistress's own hand. There was the family crest in each
corner, and in the middle a view of the battle of Worcester, where one
of her ancestors had been a captain in the king's forces; and with a
sort of poetical licence in perspective, there was seen the Royal Oak,
with more wig than leaves upon it.
On all this the good lady was very copious, and took up the
remaining intervals of filling tea, to describe its excellencies to
Harley; adding, that she intended this as a present for his wife, when
he should get one. He sighed and looked foolish, and commending the
serenity of the day, walked out into the garden.
He sat down on a little seat which commanded an extensive prospect
round the house. He leaned on his hand, and scored the ground with his
stick: 'Miss Walton married!' said he; but what is that to me? May she
be happy! her virtues deserve it; to me her marriage is otherwise
indifferent: I had romantic dreams? they are fled?—it is perfectly
indifferent."
Just at that moment he saw a servant with a knot of ribbons in his
hat go into the house. His cheeks grew flushed at the sight! He kept
his eye fixed for some time on the door by which he had entered, then
starting to his feet, hastily followed him.
When he approached the door of the kitchen where he supposed the
man had entered, his heart throbbed so violently, that when he would
have called Peter, his voice failed in the attempt. He stood a moment
listening in this breathless state of palpitation: Peter came out by
chance. "Did your honour want any thing?"—"Where is the servant that
came just now from Mr. Walton's?"
"From Mr. Walton's, sir! there is none of his servants here that I
know of."—"Nor of Sir Harry Benson's?"—He did not wait for an
answer; but having by this time observed the hat with its
parti-coloured ornament hanging on a peg near the door, he pressed
forwards into the kitchen, and addressing himself to a stranger whom he
saw there, asked him, with no small tremor in his voice, "If he had any
commands for him?" The man looked silly, and said, "That he had
nothing to trouble his honour with."—"Are not you a servant of Sir
Harry Benson's?"—"No, sir."—"You'll pardon me, young man; I
judged by the favour in your hat."—"Sir, I'm his majesty's servant,
God bless him! and these favours we always wear when we are
recruiting."—"Recruiting!" his eyes glistened at the word: he seized
the soldier's hand, and shaking it violently, ordered Peter to fetch a
bottle of his aunt's best dram. The bottle was brought: "You shall
drink the king's health," said Harley, "in a bumper."—"The king and
your honour."—"Nay, you shall drink the king's health by itself; you
may drink mine in another." Peter looked in his master's face, and
filled with some little reluctance. "Now to your mistress," said
Harley; "every soldier has a mistress." The man excused himself—"To
your mistress! you cannot refuse it." 'Twas Mrs. Margery's best dram!
Peter stood with the bottle a little inclined, but not so as to
discharge a drop of its contents: "Fill it, Peter," said his master,
"fill it to the brim." Peter filled it; and the soldier having named
Suky Simpson, dispatched it in a twinkling. "Thou art an honest
fellow," said Harley, "and I love thee;" and shaking his hand again,
desired Peter to make him his guest at dinner, and walked up into his
room with a pace much quicker and more springy than usual.
This agreeable disappointment, however, he was not long suffered
to enjoy. The curate happened that day to dine with him: his visits,
indeed, were more properly to the aunt than the nephew; and many of the
intelligent ladies in the parish, who, like some very great
philosophers, have the happy knack at accounting for everything, gave
out that there was a particular attachment between them, which wanted
only to be matured by some more years of courtship to end in the
tenderest connection. In this conclusion, indeed, supposing the
premises to have been true, they were somewhat justified by the known
opinion of the lady, who frequently declared herself a friend to the
ceremonial of former times, when a lover might have sighed seven years
at his mistress's feet before he was allowed the liberty of kissing her
hand. 'Tis true Mrs. Margery was now about her grand climacteric; no
matter: that is just the age when we expect to grow younger. But I
verily believe there was nothing in the report; the curate's connection
was only that of a genealogist; for in that character he was no way
inferior to Mrs. Margery herself. He dealt also in the present times;
for he was a politician and a news-monger.
He had hardly said grace after dinner, when he told Mrs. Margery
that she might soon expect a pair of white gloves, as Sir Harry Benson,
he was very well informed, was just going to be married to Miss
Walton. Harley spilt the wine he was carrying to his mouth: he had
time, however, to recollect himself before the curate had finished the
different particulars of his intelligence, and summing up all the
heroism he was master of, filled a bumper, and drank to Miss Walton.
"With all my heart," said the curate, "the bride that is to be."
Harley would have said bride too; but the word bride stuck in his
throat. His confusion, indeed, was manifest; but the curate began to
enter on some point of descent with Mrs. Margery, and Harley had very
soon after an opportunity of leaving them, while they were deeply
engaged in a question, whether the name of some great man in the time
of Henry the Seventh was Richard or Humphrey.
He did not see his aunt again till supper; the time between he
spent in walking, like some troubled ghost, round the place where his
treasure lay. He went as far as a little gate, that led into a copse
near Mr. Walton's house, to which that gentleman had been so obliging
as to let him have a key. He had just begun to open it when he saw, on
a terrace below, Miss Walton walking with a gentleman in a
riding-dress, whom he immediately guessed to be Sir Harry Benson. He
stopped of a sudden; his hand shook so much that he could hardly turn
the key; he opened the gate, however, and advanced a few paces. The
lady's lap-dog pricked up its ears, and barked; he stopped again -
—"The little dogs and all,
Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see they bark at me!"
His resolution failed; he slunk back, and, locking the gate as
softly as he could, stood on tiptoe looking over the wall till they
were gone. At that instant a shepherd blew his horn: the romantic
melancholy of the sound quite overcame him!—it was the very note that
wanted to be touched—he sighed! he dropped a tear!—and returned.
At supper his aunt observed that he was graver than usual; but she
did not suspect the cause: indeed, it may seem odd that she was the
only person in the family who had no suspicion of his attachment to
Miss Walton. It was frequently matter of discourse amongst the
servants: perhaps her maiden coldness—but for those things we need
not account.
In a day or two he was so much master of himself as to be able to
rhyme upon the subject. The following pastoral he left, some time
after, on the handle of a tea-kettle, at a neighbouring house where we
were visiting; and as I filled the tea-pot after him, I happened to put
it in my pocket by a similar act of forgetfulness. It is such as might
be expected from a man who makes verses for amusement. I am pleased
with somewhat of good nature that runs through it, because I have
commonly observed the writers of those complaints to bestow epithets on
their lost mistresses rather too harsh for the mere liberty of choice,
which led them to prefer another to the poet himself: I do not doubt
the vehemence of their passion; but, alas! the sensations of love are
something more than the returns of gratitude.
LAVINIA.
A PASTORAL.
Why steals from my bosom the sigh?
Why fixed is my gaze on the ground?
Come, give me my pipe, and I'll try
To banish my cares with the sound.
Erewhile were its notes of accord
With the smile of the flow'r-footed Muse;
Ah! why by its master implored
Shou'd it now the gay carrol refuse?
'Twas taught by LAVINIA'S sweet smile,
In the mirth-loving chorus to join:
Ah, me! how unweeting the while!
LAVINIA—can never be mine!
Another, more happy, the maid
By fortune is destin'd to bless -
'Tho' the hope has forsook that betray'd,
Yet why should I love her the less?
Her beauties are bright as the morn,
With rapture I counted them o'er;
Such virtues these beauties adorn,
I knew her, and prais'd them no more.
I term'd her no goddess of love,
I call'd not her beauty divine:
These far other passions may prove,
But they could not be figures of mine.
It ne'er was apparel'd with art,
On words it could never rely;
It reign'd in the throb of my heart,
It gleam'd in the glance of my eye.
Oh fool! in the circle to shine
That Fashion's gay daughters approve,
You must speak as the fashions incline;
Alas! are there fashions in love?
Yet sure they are simple who prize
The tongue that is smooth to deceive;
Yet sure she had sense to despise,
The tinsel that folly may weave.
When I talk'd, I have seen her recline,
With an aspect so pensively sweet, -
Tho' I spoke what the shepherds opine,
A fop were ashamed to repeat.
She is soft as the dew-drops that fall
From the lip of the sweet-scented pea;
Perhaps when she smil'd upon all,
I have thought that she smil'd upon me.
But why of her charms should I tell?
Ah me! whom her charms have undone
Yet I love the reflection too well,
The painful reflection to shun.
Ye souls of more delicate kind,
Who feast not on pleasure alone,
Who wear the soft sense of the mind,
To the sons of the world still unknown.
Ye know, tho' I cannot express,
Why I foolishly doat on my pain;
Nor will ye believe it the less,
That I have not the skill to complain.
I lean on my hand with a sigh,
My friends the soft sadness condemn;
Yet, methinks, tho' I cannot tell why,
I should hate to be merry like them.
When I walk'd in the pride of the dawn,
Methought all the region look'd bright:
Has sweetness forsaken the lawn?
For, methinks, I grow sad at the sight.
When I stood by the stream, I have thought
There was mirth in the gurgling soft sound;
But now 'tis a sorrowful note,
And the banks are all gloomy around!
I have laugh'd at the jest of a friend;
Now they laugh, and I know not the cause,
Tho' I seem with my looks to attend,
How silly! I ask what it was.
They sing the sweet song of the May,
They sing it with mirth and with glee;
Sure I once thought the sonnet was gay,
But now 'tis all sadness to me.
Oh! give me the dubious light
That gleams thro' the quivering shade;
Oh! give me the horrors of night,
By gloom and by silence array'd!
Let me walk where the soft-rising wave,
Has pictur'd the moon on its breast;
Let me walk where the new cover'd grave
Allows the pale lover to rest!
When shall I in its peaceable womb,
Be laid with my sorrows asleep?
Should LAVINIA but chance on my tomb -
I could die if I thought she would weep.
Perhaps, if the souls of the just
Revisit these mansions of care,
It may be my favourite trust
To watch o'er the fate of the fair.
Perhaps the soft thought of her breast,
With rapture more favour'd to warm;
Perhaps, if with sorrow oppress'd,
Her sorrow with patience to arm.
Then, then, in the tenderest part
May I whisper, "Poor COLIN was true,"
And mark if a heave of her heart
The thought of her COLIN pursue.
THE PUPIL—A FRAGMENT
* * * "But as to the higher part of education, Mr. Harley, the
culture of the mind—let the feelings be awakened, let the heart be
brought forth to its object, placed in the light in which nature would
have it stand, and its decisions will ever be just. The world
Will smile, and smile, and be a villain;
and the youth, who does not suspect its deceit, will be content to
smile with it. Men will put on the most forbidding aspect in nature,
and tell him of the beauty of virtue.
"I have not, under these grey hairs, forgotten that I was once a
young man, warm in the pursuit of pleasure, but meaning to be honest as
well as happy. I had ideas of virtue, of honour, of benevolence, which
I had never been at the pains to define; but I felt my bosom heave at
the thoughts of them, and I made the most delightful soliloquies. It
is impossible, said I, that there can be half so many rogues as are
imagined.
"I travelled, because it is the fashion for young men of my
fortune to travel. I had a travelling tutor, which is the fashion too;
but my tutor was a gentleman, which it is not always the fashion for
tutors to be. His gentility, indeed, was all he had from his father,
whose prodigality had not left him a shilling to support it.
"'I have a favour to ask of you, my dear Mountford,' said my
father, 'which I will not be refused. You have travelled as became a
man; neither France nor Italy have made anything of Mountford, which
Mountford, before he left England, would have been ashamed of. My son
Edward goes abroad, would you take him under your protection?'
"He blushed; my father's face was scarlet. He pressed his hand to
his bosom, as if he had said, my heart does not mean to offend you.
Mountford sighed twice.
"'I am a proud fool,' said he, 'and you will pardon it. There!
(he sighed again) I can hear of dependance, since it is dependance on
my Sedley.'
"'Dependance!' answered my father; 'there can be no such word
between us. What is there in £9,000 a year that should make me
unworthy of Mountford's friendship?'
"They embraced; and soon after I set out on my travels, with
Mountford for my guardian.
"We were at Milan, where my father happened to have an Italian
friend, to whom he had been of some service in England. The count, for
he was of quality, was solicitous to return the obligation by a
particular attention to his son. We lived in his palace, visited with
his family, were caressed by his friends, and I began to be so well
pleased with my entertainment, that I thought of England as of some
foreign country.
"The count had a son not much older than myself. At that age a
friend is an easy acquisition; we were friends the first night of our
acquaintance.
"He introduced me into the company of a set of young gentlemen,
whose fortunes gave them the command of pleasure, and whose
inclinations incited them to the purchase. After having spent some
joyous evenings in their society, it became a sort of habit which I
could not miss without uneasiness, and our meetings, which before were
frequent, were now stated and regular.
"Sometimes, in the pauses of our mirth, gaming was introduced as
an amusement. It was an art in which I was a novice. I received
instruction, as other novices do, by losing pretty largely to my
teachers. Nor was this the only evil which Mountford foresaw would
arise from the connection I had formed; but a lecture of sour
injunctions was not his method of reclaiming. He sometimes asked me
questions about the company, but they were such as the curiosity of any
indifferent man might have prompted. I told him of their wit, their
eloquence, their warmth of friendship, and their sensibility of heart.
'And their honour,' said I, laying my hand on my breast, 'is
unquestionable.' Mountford seemed to rejoice at my good fortune, and
begged that I would introduce him to their acquaintance. At the next
meeting I introduced him accordingly.
"The conversation was as animated as usual. They displayed all
that sprightliness and good-humour which my praises had led Mountford
to expect; subjects, too, of sentiment occurred, and their speeches,
particularly those of our friend the son of Count Respino, glowed with
the warmth of honour, and softened into the tenderness of feeling.
Mountford was charmed with his companions. When we parted, he made the
highest eulogiums upon them. 'When shall we see them again?' said he.
I was delighted with the demand, and promised to reconduct him on the
morrow.
"In going to their place of rendezvous, he took me a little out of
the road, to see, as he told me, the performances of a young statuary.
When we were near the house in which Mountford said he lived, a boy of
about seven years old crossed us in the street. At sight of Mountford
he stopped, and grasping his hand,
"'My dearest sir,' said he, 'my father is likely to do well. He
will live to pray for you, and to bless you. Yes, he will bless you,
though you are an Englishman, and some other hard word that the monk
talked of this morning, which I have forgot, but it meant that you
should not go to heaven; but he shall go to heaven, said I, for he has
saved my father. Come and see him, sir, that we may be happy.'
"'My dear, I am engaged at present with this gentleman.'
"'But he shall come along with you; he is an Englishman, too, I
fancy. He shall come and learn how an Englishman may go to heaven.'
"Mountford smiled, and we followed the boy together.
"After crossing the next street, we arrived at the gate of a
prison. I seemed surprised at the sight; our little conductor observed
it.
"'Are you afraid, sir?' said he. 'I was afraid once too, but my
father and mother are here, and I am never afraid when I am with them.'
"He took my hand, and led me through a dark passage that fronted
the gate. When we came to a little door at the end, he tapped. A boy,
still younger than himself, opened it to receive us. Mountford entered
with a look in which was pictured the benign assurance of a superior
being. I followed in silence and amazement.
"On something like a bed, lay a man, with a face seemingly
emaciated with sickness, and a look of patient dejection. A bundle of
dirty shreds served him for a pillow, but he had a better support—the
arm of a female who kneeled beside him, beautiful as an angel, but with
a fading languor in her countenance, the still life of melancholy, that
seemed to borrow its shade from the object on which she gazed. There
was a tear in her eye—the sick man kissed it off in its bud, smiling
through the dimness of his own—when she saw Mountford, she crawled
forward on the ground, and clasped his knees. He raised her from the
floor; she threw her arms round his neck, and sobbed out a speech of
thankfulness, eloquent beyond the power of language.
"'Compose yourself, my love,' said the man on the bed; 'but he,
whose goodness has caused that emotion, will pardon its effects.'
"'How is this, Mountford?' said I; 'what do I see? What must I
do?'
"'You see,' replied the stranger, 'a wretch, sunk in poverty,
starving in prison, stretched on a sick bed. But that is little.
There are his wife and children wanting the bread which he has not to
give them! Yet you cannot easily imagine the conscious serenity of his
mind. In the gripe of affliction, his heart swells with the pride of
virtue; it can even look down with pity on the man whose cruelty has
wrung it almost to bursting. You are, I fancy, a friend of Mr.
Mountford's. Come nearer, and I'll tell you, for, short as my story
is, I can hardly command breath enough for a recital. The son of Count
Respino (I started, as if I had trod on a viper) has long had a
criminal passion for my wife. This her prudence had concealed from me;
but he had lately the boldness to declare it to myself. He promised me
affluence in exchange for honour, and threatened misery as its
attendant if I kept it. I treated him with the contempt he deserved;
the consequence was, that he hired a couple of bravoes (for I am
persuaded they acted under his direction), who attempted to assassinate
me in the street; but I made such a defence as obliged them to fly,
after having given me two or three stabs, none of which, however, were
mortal. But his revenge was not thus to be disappointed. In the
little dealings of my trade I had contracted some debts, of which he
had made himself master for my ruin. I was confined here at his suit,
when not yet recovered from the wounds I had received; the dear woman,
and these two boys, followed me, that we might starve together; but
Providence interposed, and sent Mr. Mountford to our support. He has
relieved my family from the gnawings of hunger, and rescued me from
death, to which a fever, consequent on my wounds and increased by the
want of every necessary, had almost reduced me.'
"'Inhuman villain!' I exclaimed, lifting up my eyes to heaven.
"'Inhuman indeed!' said the lovely woman who stood at my side.
'Alas! sir, what had we done to offend him? what had these little ones
done, that they should perish in the toils of his vengeance?'
"I reached a pen which stood in the inkstand dish at the bed-side.
"'May I ask what is the amount of the sum for which you are
imprisoned?'
"'I was able,' he replied, 'to pay all but five hundred crowns.'
"I wrote a draft on the banker with whom I had a credit from my
father for 2,500, and presenting it to the stranger's wife,
"'You will receive, madam, on presenting this note, a sum more
than sufficient for your husband's discharge; the remainder I leave for
his industry to improve.'
"I would have left the room. Each of them laid hold of one of my
hands, the children clung to my coat. Oh! Mr. Harley, methinks I feel
their gentle violence at this moment; it beats here with delight
inexpressible.
"'Stay, sir,' said he, 'I do not mean attempting to thank you' (he
took a pocket-book from under his pillow), 'let me but know what name I
shall place here next to Mr. Mountford!'
"'Sedley.'
"He writ it down.
"'An Englishman too, I presume.'
"'He shall go to heaven, notwithstanding;' said the boy who had
been our guide.
"It began to be too much for me. I squeezed his hand that was
clasped in mine, his wife's I pressed to my lips, and burst from the
place, to give vent to the feelings that laboured within me.
"'Oh, Mountford!' said I, when he had overtaken me at the door.
"'It is time,' replied he, 'that we should think of our
appointment; young Respino and his friends are waiting us.'
"'Damn him, damn him!' said I. 'Let us leave Milan instantly; but
soft—I will be calm; Mountford, your pencil.' I wrote on a slip of
paper,
"'To Signor RESPINO.
"'When you receive this, I am at a distance from Milan. Accept of
my thanks for the civilities I have received from you and your family.
As to the friendship with which you were pleased to honour me, the
prison, which I have just left, has exhibited a scene to cancel it for
ever. You may possibly be merry with your companions at my weakness,
as I suppose you will term it. I give you leave for derision. You may
affect a triumph, I shall feel it.
"EDWARD SEDLEY."
"'You may send this if you will,' said Mountford, coolly, 'but
still Respino is a man of honour; the world will continue to
call him so.'
"'It is probable,' I answered, 'they may; I envy not the
appellation. If this is the world's honour, if these men are the
guides of its manners—'
"'Tut!' said Mountford, 'do you eat macaroni—'"
* * *
[At this place had the greatest depredations of the curate begun.
There were so very few connected passages of the subsequent chapters
remaining, that even the partiality of an editor could not offer them
to the public. I discovered, from some scattered sentences, that they
were of much the same tenor with the preceding; recitals of little
adventures, in which the dispositions of a man, sensible to judge, and
still more warm to feel, had room to unfold themselves. Some
instruction, and some example, I make no doubt they contained; but it
is likely that many of those, whom chance has led to a perusal of what
I have already presented, may have read it with little pleasure, and
will feel no disappointment from the want of those parts which I have
been unable to procure. To such as may have expected the intricacies
of a novel, a few incidents in a life undistinguished, except by some
features of the heart, cannot have afforded much entertainment.
Harley's own story, from the mutilated passages I have mentioned,
as well as from some inquiries I was at the trouble of making in the
country, I found to have been simple to excess. His mistress, I could
perceive, was not married to Sir Harry Benson; but it would seem, by
one of the following chapters, which is still entire, that Harley had
not profited on the occasion by making any declaration of his own
passion, after those of the other had been unsuccessful. The state of
his health, for some part of this period, appears to have been such as
to forbid any thoughts of that kind: he had been seized with a very
dangerous fever, caught by attending old Edwards in one of an
infectious kind. From this he had recovered but imperfectly, and
though he had no formed complaint, his health was manifestly on the
decline.
It appears that the sagacity of some friend had at length pointed
out to his aunt a cause from which this might be supposed to proceed,
to wit, his hopeless love for Miss Walton; for, according to the
conceptions of the world, the love of a man of Harley's fortune for the
heiress of £4,000 a year is indeed desperate. Whether it was so in
this case may be gathered from the next chapter, which, with the two
subsequent, concluding the performance, have escaped those accidents
that proved fatal to the rest.]
Harley was one of those few friends whom the malevolence of
fortune had yet left me; I could not therefore but be sensibly
concerned for his present indisposition; there seldom passed a day on
which I did not make inquiry about him.
The physician who attended him had informed me the evening before,
that he thought him considerably better than he had been for some time
past. I called next morning to be confirmed in a piece of intelligence
so welcome to me.
When I entered his apartment, I found him sitting on a couch,
leaning on his hand, with his eye turned upwards in the attitude of
thoughtful inspiration. His look had always an open benignity, which
commanded esteem; there was now something more—a gentle triumph in it.
He rose, and met me with his usual kindness. When I gave him the
good accounts I had had from his physician, "I am foolish enough," said
he, "to rely but little, in this instance, upon physic: my presentiment
may be false; but I think I feel myself approaching to my end, by steps
so easy, that they woo me to approach it.
"There is a certain dignity in retiring from life at a time, when
the infirmities of age have not sapped our faculties. This world, my
dear Charles, was a scene in which I never much delighted. I was not
formed for the bustle of the busy, nor the dissipation of the gay; a
thousand things occurred, where I blushed for the impropriety of my
conduct when I thought on the world, though my reason told me I should
have blushed to have done otherwise.—It was a scene of dissimulation,
of restraint, of disappointment. I leave it to enter on that state
which I have learned to believe is replete with the genuine happiness
attendant upon virtue. I look back on the tenor of my life, with the
consciousness of few great offences to account for. There are
blemishes, I confess, which deform in some degree the picture. But I
know the benignity of the Supreme Being, and rejoice at the thoughts of
its exertion in my favour. My mind expands at the thought I shall
enter into the society of the blessed, wise as angels, with the
simplicity of children." He had by this time clasped my hand, and
found it wet by a tear which had just fallen upon it.—His eye began
to moisten too—we sat for some time silent.—At last, with an
attempt to a look of more composure, "There are some remembrances,"
said Harley, "which rise involuntary on my heart, and make me almost
wish to live. I have been blessed with a few friends, who redeem my
opinion of mankind. I recollect, with the tenderest emotion, the
scenes of pleasure I have passed among them; but we shall meet again,
my friend, never to be separated. There are some feelings which
perhaps are too tender to be suffered by the world.—The world is in
general selfish, interested, and unthinking, and throws the imputation
of romance or melancholy on every temper more susceptible than its
own. I cannot think but in those regions which I contemplate, if there
is any thing of mortality left about us, that these feelings will
subsist;—they are called,—perhaps they are—weaknesses here;—but
there may be some better modifications of them in heaven, which may
deserve the name of virtues." He sighed as he spoke these last words.
He had scarcely finished them, when the door opened, and his aunt
appeared, leading in Miss Walton. "My dear," said she, "here is Miss
Walton, who has been so kind as to come and inquire for you herself."
I could observe a transient glow upon his face. He rose from his seat
- "If to know Miss Walton's goodness," said he, "be a title to deserve
it, I have some claim." She begged him to resume his seat, and placed
herself on the sofa beside him. I took my leave. Mrs. Margery
accompanied me to the door. He was left with Miss Walton alone. She
inquired anxiously about his health. "I believe," said he, "from the
accounts which my physicians unwillingly give me, that they have no
great hopes of my recovery."—She started as he spoke; but
recollecting herself immediately, endeavoured to flatter him into a
belief that his apprehensions were groundless. "I know," said he,
"that it is usual with persons at my time of life to have these hopes,
which your kindness suggests; but I would not wish to be deceived. To
meet death as becomes a man, is a privilege bestowed on few.—I would
endeavour to make it mine;—nor do I think that I can ever be better
prepared for it than now:—It is that chiefly which determines the
fitness of its approach." "Those sentiments," answered Miss Walton,
"are just; but your good sense, Mr. Harley, will own, that life has its
proper value.—As the province of virtue, life is ennobled; as such,
it is to be desired.—To virtue has the Supreme Director of all things
assigned rewards enough even here to fix its attachment."
The subject began to overpower her.—Harley lifted his eyes from
the ground—"There are," said he, in a very low voice, "there are
attachments, Miss Walton"—His glance met hers.—They both betrayed a
confusion, and were both instantly withdrawn.—He paused some moments
- "I am such a state as calls for sincerity, let that also excuse it—
It is perhaps the last time we shall ever meet. I feel something
particularly solemn in the acknowledgment, yet my heart swells to make
it, awed as it is by a sense of my presumption, by a sense of your
perfections"—He paused again—"Let it not offend you, to know their
power over one so unworthy—It will, I believe, soon cease to beat,
even with that feeling which it shall lose the latest.—To love Miss
Walton could not be a crime;—if to declare it is one—the expiation
will be made."—Her tears were now flowing without control.—"Let me
intreat you," said she, "to have better hopes—Let not life be so
indifferent to you; if my wishes can put any value on it—I will not
pretend to misunderstand you—I know your worth—I have known it long
- I have esteemed it—What would you have me say?—I have loved it as
it deserved."—He seized her hand—a languid colour reddened his
cheek—a smile brightened faintly in his eye. As he gazed on her, it
grew dim, it fixed, it closed—He sighed and fell back on his seat—
Miss Walton screamed at the sight—His aunt and the servants rushed
into the room—They found them lying motionless together.—His
physician happened to call at that instant. Every art was tried to
recover them—With Miss Walton they succeeded—But Harley was gone
for ever.
I entered the room where his body lay; I approached it with
reverence, not fear: I looked; the recollection of the past crowded
upon me. I saw that form which, but a little before, was animated with
a soul which did honour to humanity, stretched without sense or feeling
before me. 'Tis a connection we cannot easily forget:- I took his hand
in mine; I repeated his name involuntary;—I felt a pulse in every
vein at the sound. I looked earnestly in his face; his eye was closed,
his lip pale and motionless. There is an enthusiasm in sorrow that
forgets impossibility; I wondered that it was so. The sight drew a
prayer from my heart: it was the voice of frailty and of man! the
confusion of my mind began to subside into thought; I had time to meet!
I turned with the last farewell upon my lips, when I observed old
Edwards standing behind me. I looked him full in the face; but his eye
was fixed on another object: he pressed between me and the bed, and
stood gazing on the breathless remains of his benefactor. I spoke to
him I know not what; but he took no notice of what I said, and remained
in the same attitude as before. He stood some minutes in that posture,
then turned and walked towards the door. He paused as he went;—he
returned a second time: I could observe his lips move as he looked: but
the voice they would have uttered was lost. He attempted going again;
and a third time he returned as before.—I saw him wipe his cheek:
then covering his face with his hands, his breast heaving with the most
convulsive throbs, he flung out of the room.
THE CONCLUSION
He had hinted that he should like to be buried in a certain spot
near the grave of his mother. This is a weakness; but it is
universally incident to humanity: 'tis at least a memorial for those
who survive: for some indeed a slender memorial will serve;—and the
soft affections, when they are busy that way, will build their
structures, were it but on the paring of a nail.
He was buried in the place he had desired. It was shaded by an
old tree, the only one in the church-yard, in which was a cavity worn
by time. I have sat with him in it, and counted the tombs. The last
time we passed there, methought he looked wistfully on the tree: there
was a branch of it that bent towards us waving in the wind; he waved
his hand as if he mimicked its motion. There was something predictive
in his look! perhaps it is foolish to remark it; but there are times
and places when I am a child at those things.
I sometimes visit his grave; I sit in the hollow of the tree. It
is worth a thousand homilies; every noble feeling rises within me!
every beat of my heart awakens a virtue!—but it will make you hate
the world—No: there is such an air of gentleness around, that I can
hate nothing; but, as to the world—I pity the men of it.
Footnotes:
{16} The reader
will remember that the Editor is accountable only for scattered
chapters and fragments of chapters; the curate must answer for the
rest. The number at the top, when the chapter was entire, he has given
as it originally stood, with the title which its author had affixed to
it.
{61} Though the
Curate could not remember having shown this chapter to anybody, I
strongly suspect that these political observations are the work of a
later pen than the rest of this performance. There seems to have been,
by some accident, a gap in the manuscript, from the words, "Expectation
at a jointure," to these, "In short, man is an animal," where the
present blank ends; and some other person (for the hand is different,
and the ink whiter) has filled part of it with sentiments of his own.
Whoever he was, he seems to have caught some portion of the
spirit of the man he personates.