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Title: The Works of Henry Fielding; vol. xi - A Journey From This World to the Next; Voyage to Lisbon
Author: Fielding, Henry, 1707-1754
Language: English
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THE WORKS OF HENRY FIELDING
EDITED BY
GEORGE SAINTSBURY
IN TWELVE VOLUMES
VOL. XI.
MISCELLANIES
VOL. I.
[Illustration: frontispiece]
A JOURNEY FROM THIS WORLD
TO THE NEXT AND A VOYAGE
TO LISBON BY
HENRY FIELDING ESQ
[Illustration: text decoration]
EDITED BY GEORGE
SAINTSBURY WITH
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
HERBERT RAILTON
& F. J. WHEELER.
LONDON PUBLISHED BY J. M. DENT & CO.
AT ALDINE HOUSE IN GREAT EASTERN
STREET MDCCCXCIII
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION xi
A JOURNEY FROM THIS WORLD
TO THE NEXT, ETC. ETC.
INTRODUCTION 1
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
_The author dies, meets with Mercury, and is by him conducted
to the stage which sets out for the other world_ 4
CHAPTER II.
_In which the author first refutes some idle opinions concerning
spirits, and then the passengers relate their several deaths_ 7
CHAPTER III.
_The adventures we met with in the City of Diseases_ 12
CHAPTER IV.
_Discourses on the road, and a description of the palace of Death_ 20
CHAPTER V.
_The travellers proceed on their journey, and meet several
spirits who are coming into the flesh_ 23
CHAPTER VI.
_An account of the wheel of fortune, with a method of preparing
a spirit for this world_ 28
CHAPTER VII.
_The proceedings of judge Minos at the gate of Elysium_ 31
CHAPTER VIII.
_The adventures which the author met on his first entrance
into Elysium_ 37
CHAPTER IX.
_More adventures in Elysium_ 40
CHAPTER X.
_The author is surprised at meeting Julian the apostate in
Elysium; but is satisfied by him by what means he procured
his entrance there. Julian relates his adventures in the character
of a slave_ 44
CHAPTER XI.
_In which Julian relates his adventures in the character of
an avaricious Jew_ 52
CHAPTER XII.
_What happened to Julian in the characters of a general, an
heir, a carpenter, and a beau_ 56
CHAPTER XIII.
_Julian passes into a fop_ 61
CHAPTER XIV
_Adventures in the person of a monk_ 62
CHAPTER XV.
_Julian passes into the character of a fidler_ 64
CHAPTER XVI.
_The history of the wise man_ 69
CHAPTER XVII.
_Julian enters into the person of a king_ 77
CHAPTER XVIII.
_Julian passes into a fool_ 84
CHAPTER XIX.
_Julian appears in the character of a beggar_ 89
CHAPTER XX.
_Julian performs the part of a statesman_ 95
CHAPTER XXI.
_Julian's adventures in the post of a soldier_ 102
CHAPTER XXII.
_What happened to Julian in the person of a taylor_ 108
CHAPTER XXIII.
_The life of alderman Julian_ 112
CHAPTER XXIV.
_Julian recounts what happened to him while he was a poet_ 118
CHAPTER XXV.
_Julian performs the parts of a knight and a dancing-master_ 122
BOOK XIX.
CHAPTER VII.
_Wherein Anna Boleyn relates the history of her life_ 125
THE JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO
LISBON.
PAGE
DEDICATION TO THE PUBLIC 145
PREFACE 147
INTRODUCTION 156
THE VOYAGE 169
[Illustration: text decoration]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIELDING'S TOMB AT LISBON _Frontispiece_
I DESIRED HIM MUCH TO NAME A PRICE _Page 3_
HE ABJECTLY IMPLORED FOR MERCY _" 258_
[Illustration: text decoration]
INTRODUCTION.
When it was determined to extend the present edition of Fielding, not
merely by the addition of _Jonathan Wild_ to the three universally
popular novels, but by two volumes of _Miscellanies_, there could be no
doubt about at least one of the contents of these latter. The _Journal
of a Voyage to Lisbon_, if it does not rank in my estimation anywhere
near to _Jonathan Wild_ as an example of our author's genius, is an
invaluable and delightful document for his character and memory. It is
indeed, as has been pointed out in the General Introduction to this
series, our main source of indisputable information as to Fielding _dans
son naturel_, and its value, so far as it goes, is of the very highest.
The gentle and unaffected stoicism which the author displays under a
disease which he knew well was probably, if not certainly, mortal, and
which, whether mortal or not, must cause him much actual pain and
discomfort of a kind more intolerable than pain itself; his affectionate
care for his family; even little personal touches, less admirable, but
hardly less pleasant than these, showing an Englishman's dislike to be
"done" and an Englishman's determination to be treated with proper
respect, are scarcely less noticeable and important on the biographical
side than the unimpaired brilliancy of his satiric and yet kindly
observation of life and character is on the side of literature.
There is, as is now well known since Mr Dobson's separate edition of the
_Voyage_, a little bibliographical problem about the first appearance of
this _Journal_ in 1755. The best known issue of that year is much
shorter than the version inserted by Murphy and reprinted here, the
passages omitted being chiefly those reflecting on the captain, &c., and
so likely to seem invidious in a book published just after the author's
death, and for the benefit, as was expressly announced, of his family.
But the curious thing is that there is _another_ edition, of date so
early that some argument is necessary to determine the priority, which
does give these passages and is identical with the later or standard
version. For satisfaction on this point, however, I must refer readers
to Mr Dobson himself.
There might have been a little, but not much, doubt as to a companion
piece for the _Journal_; for indeed, after we close this (with or
without its "Fragment on Bolingbroke"), the remainder of Fielding's work
lies on a distinctly lower level of interest. It is still interesting,
or it would not be given here. It still has--at least that part which
here appears seems to its editor to have--interest intrinsic and "simple
of itself." But it is impossible for anybody who speaks critically to
deny that we now get into the region where work is more interesting
because of its authorship than it would be if its authorship were
different or unknown. To put the same thing in a sharper antithesis,
Fielding is interesting, first of all, because he is the author of
_Joseph Andrews_, of _Tom Jones_, of _Amelia_, of _Jonathan Wild_, of
the _Journal_. His plays, his essays, his miscellanies generally are
interesting, first of all, because they were written by Fielding.
Yet of these works, the _Journey from this World to the Next_ (which, by
a grim trick of fortune, might have served as a title for the more
interesting _Voyage_ with which we have yoked it) stands clearly first
both in scale and merit. It is indeed very unequal, and as the author
was to leave it unfinished, it is a pity that he did not leave it
unfinished much sooner than he actually did. The first ten chapters, if
of a kind of satire which has now grown rather obsolete for the nonce,
are of a good kind and good in their kind; the history of the
metempsychoses of Julian is of a less good kind, and less good in that
kind. The date of composition of the piece is not known, but it appeared
in the _Miscellanies_ of 1743, and may represent almost any period of
its author's development prior to that year. Its form was a very common
form at the time, and continued to be so. I do not know that it is
necessary to assign any very special origin to it, though Lucian, its
chief practitioner, was evidently and almost avowedly a favourite study
of Fielding's. The Spanish romancers, whether borrowing it from Lucian
or not, had been fond of it; their French followers, of whom the chief
were Fontenelle and Le Sage, had carried it northwards; the English
essayists had almost from the beginning continued the process of
acclimatisation. Fielding therefore found it ready to his hand, though
the present condition of this example would lead us to suppose that he
did not find his hand quite ready to it. Still, in the actual "journey,"
there are touches enough of the master--not yet quite in his stage of
mastery.
It seemed particularly desirable not to close the series without some
representation of the work to which Fielding gave the prime of his
manhood, and from which, had he not, fortunately for English literature,
been driven decidedly against his will, we had had in all probability no
_Joseph Andrews_ and pretty certainly no _Tom Jones_. Fielding's
periodical and dramatic work has been comparatively seldom reprinted,
and has never yet been reprinted as a whole. The dramas indeed are open
to two objections--the first, that they are not very "proper;" the
second, and much more serious, that they do not redeem this want of
propriety by the possession of any remarkable literary merit. Three (or
two and part of a third) seemed to escape this double censure--the first
two acts of the _Author's Farce_ (practically a piece to themselves, for
the _Puppet Show_ which follows is almost entirely independent); the
famous burlesque of _Tom Thumb_, which stands between the _Rehearsal_
and the _Critic_, but nearer to the former; and _Pasquin_, the maturest
example of Fielding's satiric work in drama. These accordingly have been
selected; the rest I have read, and he who likes may read. I have read
many worse things than even the worst of them, but not often worse
things by so good a writer as Henry Fielding.
The next question concerned the selection of writings more miscellaneous
still, so as to give in little a complete idea of Fielding's various
powers and experiments. Two difficulties beset this part of the
task--want of space and the absence of anything so markedly good as
absolutely to insist on inclusion. The _Essay on Conversation_, however,
seemed pretty peremptorily to challenge a place. It is in a style which
Fielding was very slow to abandon, which indeed has left strong traces
even on his great novels; and if its mannerism is not now very
attractive, the separate traits in it are often sharp and well-drawn.
The book would not have been complete without a specimen or two of
Fielding's journalism. _The Champion_, his first attempt of this kind,
has not been drawn upon in consequence of the extreme difficulty of
fixing with absolute certainty on Fielding's part in it. I do not know
whether political prejudice interferes, more than I have usually found
it interfere, with my judgement of the two Hanoverian-partisan papers
of the '45 time. But they certainly seem to me to fail in redeeming
their dose of rancour and misrepresentation by any sufficient evidence
of genius such as, to my taste, saves not only the party journalism in
verse and prose of Swift and Canning and Praed on one side, but that of
Wolcot and Moore and Sydney Smith on the other. Even the often-quoted
journal of events in London under the Chevalier is overwrought and
tedious. The best thing in the _True Patriot_ seems to me to be Parson
Adams' letter describing his adventure with a young "bowe" of his day;
and this I select, together with one or two numbers of the _Covent
Garden Journal_. I have not found in this latter anything more
characteristic than Murphy's selection, though Mr Dobson, with his
unfailing kindness, lent me an original and unusually complete set of
the _Journal_ itself.
It is to the same kindness that I owe the opportunity of presenting the
reader with something indisputably Fielding's and very characteristic of
him, which Murphy did not print, and which has not, so far as I know,
ever appeared either in a collection or a selection of Fielding's work.
After the success of _David Simple_, Fielding gave his sister, for whom
he had already written a preface to that novel, another preface for a
set of _Familiar Letters_ between the characters of _David Simple_ and
others. This preface Murphy reprinted; but he either did not notice, or
did not choose to attend to, a note towards the end of the book
attributing certain of the letters to the author of the preface, the
attribution being accompanied by an agreeably warm and sisterly
denunciation of those who ascribed to Fielding matter unworthy of him.
From these the letter which I have chosen, describing a row on the
Thames, seems to me not only characteristic, but, like all this
miscellaneous work, interesting no less for its weakness than for its
strength. In hardly any other instance known to me can we trace so
clearly the influence of a suitable medium and form on the genius of the
artist. There are some writers--Dryden is perhaps the greatest of
them--to whom form and medium seem almost indifferent, their all-round
craftsmanship being such that they can turn any kind and every style to
their purpose. There are others, of whom I think our present author is
the chief, who are never really at home but in one kind. In Fielding's
case that kind was narrative of a peculiar sort, half-sentimental,
half-satirical, and almost wholly sympathetic--narrative which has the
singular gift of portraying the liveliest character and yet of admitting
the widest digression and soliloquy.
Until comparatively late in his too short life, when he found this
special path of his (and it is impossible to say whether the actual
finding was in the case of _Jonathan_ or in the case of _Joseph_), he
did but flounder and slip. When he had found it, and was content to walk
in it, he strode with as sure and steady a step as any other, even the
greatest, of those who carry and hand on the torch of literature through
the ages. But it is impossible to derive full satisfaction from his
feats in this part of the race without some notion of his performances
elsewhere; and I believe that such a notion will be supplied to the
readers of his novels by the following volumes, in a very large number
of cases, for the first time.
[Illustration: text decoration]
A Journey from
This World to the Next,
_ETC. ETC._
INTRODUCTION.
Whether the ensuing pages were really the dream or vision of some very
pious and holy person; or whether they were really written in the other
world, and sent back to this, which is the opinion of many (though I
think too much inclining to superstition); or lastly, whether, as
infinitely the greatest part imagine, they were really the production of
some choice inhabitant of New Bethlehem, is not necessary nor easy to
determine. It will be abundantly sufficient if I give the reader an
account by what means they came into my possession.
Mr Robert Powney, stationer, who dwells opposite to Catherine-street in
the Strand, a very honest man and of great gravity of countenance; who,
among other excellent stationary commodities, is particularly eminent
for his pens, which I am abundantly bound to acknowledge, as I owe to
their peculiar goodness that my manuscripts have by any means been
legible: this gentleman, I say, furnished me some time since with a
bundle of those pens, wrapped up with great care and caution, in a very
large sheet of paper full of characters, written as it seemed in a very
bad hand. Now, I have a surprising curiosity to read everything which is
almost illegible; partly perhaps from the sweet remembrance of the dear
Scrawls, Skrawls, or Skrales (for the word is variously spelt), which I
have in my youth received from that lovely part of the creation for
which I have the tenderest regard; and partly from that temper of mind
which makes men set an immense value on old manuscripts so effaced,
bustoes so maimed, and pictures so black that no one can tell what to
make of them. I therefore perused this sheet with wonderful application,
and in about a day's time discovered that I could not understand it. I
immediately repaired to Mr Powney, and inquired very eagerly whether he
had not more of the same manuscript? He produced about one hundred
pages, acquainting me that he had saved no more; but that the book was
originally a huge folio, had been left in his garret by a gentleman who
lodged there, and who had left him no other satisfaction for nine
months' lodging. He proceeded to inform me that the manuscript had been
hawked about (as he phrased it) among all the booksellers, who refused
to meddle; some alledged that they could not read, others that they
could not understand it. Some would have it to be an atheistical book,
and some that it was a libel on the government; for one or other of
which reasons they all refused to print it. That it had been likewise
shewn to the R--l Society, but they shook their heads, saying, there was
nothing in it wonderful enough for them. That, hearing the gentleman was
gone to the West-Indies, and believing it to be good for nothing else,
he had used it as waste paper. He said I was welcome to what remained,
and he was heartily sorry for what was missing, as I seemed to set some
value on it.
[Illustration: '_I desired him to name a price_']
I desired him much to name a price: but he would receive no
consideration farther than the payment of a small bill I owed him, which
at that time he said he looked on as so much money given him.
I presently communicated this manuscript to my friend parson Abraham
Adams, who, after a long and careful perusal, returned it me with his
opinion that there was more in it than at first appeared; that the
author seemed not entirely unacquainted with the writings of Plato; but
he wished he had quoted him sometimes in his margin, that I might be
sure (said he) he had read him in the original: for nothing, continued
the parson, is commoner than for men now-a-days to pretend to have read
Greek authors, who have met with them only in translations, and cannot
conjugate a verb in _mi_.
To deliver my own sentiments on the occasion, I think the author
discovers a philosophical turn of thinking, with some little knowledge
of the world, and no very inadequate value of it. There are some indeed
who, from the vivacity of their temper and the happiness of their
station, are willing to consider its blessings as more substantial, and
the whole to be a scene of more consequence than it is here represented:
but, without controverting their opinions at present, the number of wise
and good men who have thought with our author are sufficient to keep him
in countenance: nor can this be attended with any ill inference, since
he everywhere teaches this moral: That the greatest and truest happiness
which this world affords, is to be found only in the possession of
goodness and virtue; a doctrine which, as it is undoubtedly true, so
hath it so noble and practical a tendency, that it can never be too
often or too strongly inculcated on the minds of men.
[Illustration: text decoration]
BOOK I.
Chapter i.
_The author dies, meets with Mercury, and is by him conducted to the
stage which sets out for the other world._
On the first day of December 1741[A] I departed this life at my lodgings
in Cheapside. My body had been some time dead before I was at liberty to
quit it, lest it should by any accident return to life: this is an
injunction imposed on all souls by the eternal law of fate, to prevent
the inconveniences which would follow. As soon as the destined period
was expired (being no longer than till the body is become perfectly cold
and stiff) I began to move; but found myself under a difficulty of
making my escape, for the mouth or door was shut, so that it was
impossible for me to go out at it; and the windows, vulgarly called the
eyes, were so closely pulled down by the fingers of a nurse, that I
could by no means open them. At last I perceived a beam of light
glimmering at the top of the house (for such I may call the body I had
been inclosed in), whither ascending, I gently let myself down through a
kind of chimney, and issued out at the nostrils.
No prisoner discharged from a long confinement ever tasted the sweets of
liberty with a more exquisite relish than I enjoyed in this delivery
from a dungeon wherein I had been detained upwards of forty years, and
with much the same kind of regard I cast my eyes[B] backwards upon it.
My friends and relations had all quitted the room, being all (as I
plainly overheard) very loudly quarrelling below stairs about my will;
there was only an old woman left above to guard the body, as I
apprehend. She was in a fast sleep, occasioned, as from her savour it
seemed, by a comfortable dose of gin. I had no pleasure in this company,
and, therefore, as the window was wide open, I sallied forth into the
open air: but, to my great astonishment, found myself unable to fly,
which I had always during my habitation in the body conceived of
spirits; however, I came so lightly to the ground that I did not hurt
myself; and, though I had not the gift of flying (owing probably to my
having neither feathers nor wings), I was capable of hopping such a
prodigious way at once, that it served my turn almost as well.
I had not hopped far before I perceived a tall young gentleman in a silk
waistcoat, with a wing on his left heel, a garland on his head, and a
caduceus in his right hand.[C] I thought I had seen this person before,
but had not time to recollect where, when he called out to me and asked
me how long I had been departed. I answered I was just come forth. "You
must not stay here," replied he, "unless you had been murdered: in which
case, indeed, you might have been suffered to walk some time; but if you
died a natural death you must set out for the other world immediately."
I desired to know the way. "O," cried the gentleman, "I will show you to
the inn whence the stage proceeds; for I am the porter. Perhaps you
never heard of me--my name is Mercury." "Sure, sir," said I, "I have
seen you at the playhouse." Upon which he smiled, and, without
satisfying me as to that point, walked directly forward, bidding me hop
after him. I obeyed him, and soon found myself in Warwick-lane; where
Mercury, making a full stop, pointed at a particular house, where he bad
me enquire for the stage, and, wishing me a good journey, took his
leave, saying he must go seek after other customers.
I arrived just as the coach was setting out, and found I had no reason
for enquiry; for every person seemed to know my business the moment I
appeared at the door: the coachman told me his horses were to, but that
he had no place left; however, though there were already six, the
passengers offered to make room for me. I thanked them, and ascended
without much ceremony. We immediately began our journey, being seven in
number; for, as the women wore no hoops, three of them were but equal to
two men.
Perhaps, reader, thou mayest be pleased with an account of this whole
equipage, as peradventure thou wilt not, while alive, see any such. The
coach was made by an eminent toyman, who is well known to deal in
immaterial substance, that being the matter of which it was compounded.
The work was so extremely fine, that it was entirely invisible to the
human eye. The horses which drew this extraordinary vehicle were all
spiritual, as well as the passengers. They had, indeed, all died in the
service of a certain post-master; and as for the coachman, who was a
very thin piece of immaterial substance, he had the honour while alive
of driving the Great Peter, or Peter the Great, in whose service his
soul, as well as body, was almost starved to death.
Such was the vehicle in which I set out, and now, those who are not
willing to travel on with me may, if they please, stop here; those who
are, must proceed to the subsequent chapters, in which this journey is
continued.
Chapter ii.
_In which the author first refutes some idle opinions concerning
spirits, and then the passengers relate their several deaths._
It is the common opinion that spirits, like owls, can see in the dark;
nay, and can then most easily be perceived by others. For which reason,
many persons of good understanding, to prevent being terrified with such
objects, usually keep a candle burning by them, that the light may
prevent their seeing. Mr Locke, in direct opposition to this, hath not
doubted to assert that you may see a spirit in open daylight full as
well as in the darkest night.
It was very dark when we set out from the inn, nor could we see any more
than if every soul of us had been alive. We had travelled a good way
before any one offered to open his mouth; indeed, most of the company
were fast asleep,[D] but, as I could not close my own eyes, and
perceived the spirit who sat opposite to me to be likewise awake, I
began to make overtures of conversation, by complaining _how dark it
was_. "And extremely cold too," answered my fellow-traveller; "though, I
thank God, as I have no body, I feel no inconvenience from it: but you
will believe, sir, that this frosty air must seem very sharp to one just
issued forth out of an oven; for such was the inflamed habitation I am
lately departed from." "How did you come to your end, sir?" said I. "I
was murdered, sir," answered the gentleman. "I am surprized then,"
replied I, "that you did not divert yourself by walking up and down and
playing some merry tricks with the murderer." "Oh, sir," returned he, "I
had not that privilege, I was lawfully put to death. In short, a
physician set me on fire, by giving me medicines to throw out my
distemper. I died of a hot regimen, as they call it, in the small-pox."
One of the spirits at that word started up and cried out, "The
small-pox! bless me! I hope I am not in company with that distemper,
which I have all my life with such caution avoided, and have so happily
escaped hitherto!" This fright set all the passengers who were awake
into a loud laughter; and the gentleman, recollecting himself, with some
confusion, and not without blushing, asked pardon, crying, "I protest I
dreamt that I was alive." "Perhaps, sir," said I, "you died of that
distemper, which therefore made so strong an impression on you." "No,
sir," answered he, "I never had it in my life; but the continual and
dreadful apprehension it kept me so long under cannot, I see, be so
immediately eradicated. You must know, sir, I avoided coming to London
for thirty years together, for fear of the small-pox, till the most
urgent business brought me thither about five days ago. I was so
dreadfully afraid of this disease that I refused the second night of my
arrival to sup with a friend whose wife had recovered of it several
months before, and the same evening got a surfeit by eating too many
muscles, which brought me into this good company."
"I will lay a wager," cried the spirit who sat next him, "there is not
one in the coach able to guess my distemper." I desired the favour of
him to acquaint us with it, if it was so uncommon. "Why, sir," said he,
"I died of honour."--"Of honour, sir!" repeated I, with some surprize.
"Yes, sir," answered the spirit, "of honour, for I was killed in a
duel."
"For my part," said a fair spirit, "I was inoculated last summer, and
had the good fortune to escape with a very few marks on my face. I
esteemed myself now perfectly happy, as I imagined I had no restraint to
a full enjoyment of the diversions of the town; but within a few days
after my coming up I caught cold by overdancing myself at a ball, and
last night died of a violent fever."
After a short silence which now ensued, the fair spirit who spoke last,
it being now daylight, addressed herself to a female who sat next her,
and asked her to what chance they owed the happiness of her company. She
answered, she apprehended to a consumption, but the physicians were not
agreed concerning her distemper, for she left two of them in a very hot
dispute about it when she came out of her body. "And pray, madam," said
the same spirit to the sixth passenger, "How came you to leave the other
world?" But that female spirit, screwing up her mouth, answered, she
wondered at the curiosity of some people; that perhaps persons had
already heard some reports of her death, which were far from being true;
that, whatever was the occasion of it, she was glad at being delivered
from a world in which she had no pleasure, and where there was nothing
but nonsense and impertinence; particularly among her own sex, whose
loose conduct she had long been entirely ashamed of.
The beauteous spirit, perceiving her question gave offence, pursued it
no farther. She had indeed all the sweetness and good-humour which are
so extremely amiable (when found) in that sex which tenderness most
exquisitely becomes. Her countenance displayed all the cheerfulness, the
good-nature, and the modesty, which diffuse such brightness round the
beauty of Seraphina,[E] awing every beholder with respect, and, at the
same time, ravishing him with admiration. Had it not been indeed for our
conversation on the small-pox, I should have imagined we had been
honoured with her identical presence. This opinion might have been
heightened by the good sense she uttered whenever she spoke, by the
delicacy of her sentiments, and the complacence of her behaviour,
together with a certain dignity which attended every look, word, and
gesture; qualities which could not fail making an impression on a
heart[F] so capable of receiving it as mine, nor was she long in raising
in me a very violent degree of seraphic love. I do not intend by this,
that sort of love which men are very properly said to make to women in
the lower world, and which seldom lasts any longer than while it is
making. I mean by seraphic love an extreme delicacy and tenderness of
friendship, of which, my worthy reader, if thou hast no conception, as
it is probable thou mayest not, my endeavour to instruct thee would be
as fruitless as it would be to explain the most difficult problems of
Sir Isaac Newton to one ignorant of vulgar arithmetic.
To return therefore to matters comprehensible by all understandings: the
discourse now turned on the vanity, folly, and misery of the lower
world, from which every passenger in the coach expressed the highest
satisfaction in being delivered; though it was very remarkable that,
notwithstanding the joy we declared at our death, there was not one of
us who did not mention the accident which occasioned it as a thing we
would have avoided if we could. Nay, the very grave lady herself, who
was the forwardest in testifying her delight, confessed inadvertently
that she left a physician by her bedside; and the gentleman who died of
honour very liberally cursed both his folly and his fencing. While we
were entertaining ourselves with these matters, on a sudden a most
offensive smell began to invade our nostrils. This very much resembled
the savour which travellers in summer perceive at their approach to that
beautiful village of the Hague, arising from those delicious canals
which, as they consist of standing water, do at that time emit odours
greatly agreeable to a Dutch taste, but not so pleasant to any other.
Those perfumes, with the assistance of a fair wind, begin to affect
persons of quick olfactory nerves at a league's distance, and increase
gradually as you approach. In the same manner did the smell I have just
mentioned, more and more invade us, till one of the spirits, looking out
of the coach-window, declared we were just arrived at a very large city;
and indeed he had scarce said so before we found ourselves in the
suburbs, and, at the same time, the coachman, being asked by another,
informed us that the name of this place was the City of Diseases. The
road to it was extremely smooth, and, excepting the above-mentioned
savour, delightfully pleasant. The streets of the suburbs were lined
with bagnios, taverns, and cooks' shops: in the first we saw several
beautiful women, but in tawdry dresses, looking out at the windows; and
in the latter were visibly exposed all kinds of the richest dainties;
but on our entering the city we found, contrary to all we had seen in
the other world, that the suburbs were infinitely pleasanter than the
city itself. It was indeed a very dull, dark, and melancholy place. Few
people appeared in the streets, and these, for the most part, were old
women, and here and there a formal grave gentleman, who seemed to be
thinking, with large tie-wigs on, and amber-headed canes in their hands.
We were all in hopes that our vehicle would not stop here; but, to our
sorrow, the coach soon drove into an inn, and we were obliged to alight.
Chapter iii.
_The adventures we met with in the City of Diseases._
We had not been long arrived in our inn, where it seems we were to spend
the remainder of the day, before our host acquainted us that it was
customary for all spirits, in their passage through that city, to pay
their respects to that lady Disease, to whose assistance they had owed
their deliverance from the lower world. We answered we should not fail
in any complacence which was usual to others; upon which our host
replied he would immediately send porters to conduct us. He had not long
quitted the room before we were attended by some of those grave persons
whom I have before described in large tie-wigs with amber-headed canes.
These gentlemen are the ticket-porters in the city, and their canes are
the _insignia_, or tickets, denoting their office. We informed them of
the several ladies to whom we were obliged, and were preparing to follow
them, when on a sudden they all stared at one another, and left us in a
hurry, with a frown on every countenance. We were surprized at this
behaviour, and presently summoned the host, who was no sooner acquainted
with it than he burst into an hearty laugh, and told us the reason was,
because we did not fee the gentlemen the moment they came in, according
to the custom of the place. We answered, with some confusion, we had
brought nothing with us from the other world, which we had been all our
lives informed was not lawful to do. "No, no, master," replied the host;
"I am apprized of that, and indeed it was my fault. I should have first
sent you to my lord Scrape,[G] who would have supplied you with what you
want." "My lord Scrape supply us!" said I, with astonishment: "sure you
must know we cannot give him security; and I am convinced he never lent
a shilling without it in his life." "No, sir," answered the host, "and
for that reason he is obliged to do it here, where he is sentenced to
keep a bank, and to distribute money _gratis_ to all passengers. This
bank originally consisted of just that sum, which he had miserably
hoarded up in the other world, and he is to perceive it decrease visibly
one shilling a-day, till it is totally exhausted; after which he is to
return to the other world, and perform the part of a miser for seventy
years; then, being purified in the body of a hog, he is to enter the
human species again, and take a second trial." "Sir," said I, "you tell
me wonders: but if his bank be to decrease only a shilling a day, how
can he furnish all passengers?" "The rest," answered the host, "is
supplied again; but in a manner which I cannot easily explain to you."
"I apprehend," said I, "this distribution of his money is inflicted on
him as a punishment; but I do not see how it can answer that end, when
he knows it is to be restored to him again. Would it not serve the
purpose as well if he parted only with the single shilling, which it
seems is all he is really to lose?" "Sir," cries the host, "when you
observe the agonies with which he parts with every guinea, you will be
of another opinion. No prisoner condemned to death ever begged so
heartily for transportation as he, when he received his sentence, did to
go to hell, provided he might carry his money with him. But you will
know more of these things when you arrive at the upper world; and now,
if you please, I will attend you to my lord's, who is obliged to supply
you with whatever you desire."
We found his lordship sitting at the upper end of a table, on which was
an immense sum of money, disposed in several heaps, every one of which
would have purchased the honour of some patriots and the chastity of
some prudes. The moment he saw us he turned pale, and sighed, as well
apprehending our business. Mine host accosted him with a familiar air,
which at first surprized me, who so well remembered the respect I had
formerly seen paid this lord by men infinitely superior in quality to
the person who now saluted him in the following manner: "Here, you lord,
and be dam--d to your little sneaking soul, tell out your money, and
supply your betters with what they want. Be quick, sirrah, or I'll fetch
the beadle to you. Don't fancy yourself in the lower world again, with
your privilege at your a--." He then shook a cane at his lordship, who
immediately began to tell out his money, with the same miserable air
and face which the miser on our stage wears while he delivers his
bank-bills. This affected some of us so much that we had certainly
returned with no more than what would have been sufficient to fee the
porters, had not our host, perceiving our compassion, begged us not to
spare a fellow who, in the midst of immense wealth, had always refused
the least contribution to charity. Our hearts were hardened with this
reflection, and we all filled our pockets with his money. I remarked a
poetical spirit, in particular, who swore he would have a hearty gripe
at him: "For," says he, "the rascal not only refused to subscribe to my
works, but sent back my letter unanswered, though I am a better
gentleman than himself."
We now returned from this miserable object, greatly admiring the
propriety as well as justice of his punishment, which consisted, as our
host informed us, merely in the delivering forth his money; and, he
observed, we could not wonder at the pain this gave him, since it was as
reasonable that the bare parting with money should make him miserable as
that the bare having money without using it should have made him happy.
Other tie-wig porters (for those we had summoned before refused to visit
us again) now attended us; and we having fee'd them the instant they
entered the room, according to the instructions of our host, they bowed
and smiled, and offered to introduce us to whatever disease we pleased.
We set out several ways, as we were all to pay our respects to different
ladies. I directed my porter to shew me to the Fever on the Spirits,
being the disease which had delivered me from the flesh. My guide and I
traversed many streets, and knocked at several doors, but to no purpose.
At one, we were told, lived the Consumption; at another, the Maladie
Alamode, a French lady; at the third, the Dropsy; at the fourth, the
Rheumatism; at the fifth, Intemperance; at the sixth, Misfortune. I was
tired, and had exhausted my patience, and almost my purse; for I gave my
porter a new fee at every blunder he made: when my guide, with a solemn
countenance, told me he could do no more; and marched off without any
farther ceremony.
He was no sooner gone than I met another gentleman with a ticket,
_i.e._, an amber-headed cane in his hand. I first fee'd him, and then
acquainted him with the name of the disease. He cast himself for two or
three minutes into a thoughtful posture, then pulled a piece of paper
out of his pocket, on which he writ something in one of the Oriental
languages, I believe, for I could not read a syllable: he bade me carry
it to such a particular shop, and, telling me it would do my business,
he took his leave.
Secure, as I now thought myself, of my direction, I went to the shop,
which very much resembled an apothecary's. The person who officiated,
having read the paper, took down about twenty different jars, and,
pouring something out of every one of them, made a mixture, which he
delivered to me in a bottle, having first tied a paper round the neck of
it, on which were written three or four words, the last containing
eleven syllables. I mentioned the name of the disease I wanted to find
out, but received no other answer than that he had done as he was
ordered, and the drugs were excellent.
I began now to be enraged, and, quitting the shop with some anger in my
countenance, I intended to find out my inn, but, meeting in the way a
porter whose countenance had in it something more pleasing than
ordinary, I resolved to try once more, and clapped a fee into his hand.
As soon as I mentioned the disease to him he laughed heartily, and told
me I had been imposed on, for in reality no such disease was to be
found in that city. He then enquired into the particulars of my case,
and was no sooner acquainted with them than he informed me that the
Maladie Alamode was the lady to whom I was obliged. I thanked him, and
immediately went to pay my respects to her.
The house, or rather palace, of this lady was one of the most beautiful
and magnificent in the city. The avenue to it was planted with
sycamore-trees, with beds of flowers on each side; it was extremely
pleasant but short. I was conducted through a magnificent hall, adorned
with several statues and bustoes, most of them maimed, whence I
concluded them all to be true antiques; but was informed they were the
figures of several modern heroes, who had died martyrs to her ladyship's
cause. I next mounted through a large painted staircase, where several
persons were depictured in caricatura; and, upon enquiry, was told they
were the portraits of those who had distinguished themselves against the
lady in the lower world. I suppose I should have known the faces of many
physicians and surgeons, had they not been so violently distorted by the
painter. Indeed, he had exerted so much malice in his work, that I
believe he had himself received some particular favours from the lady of
this mansion: it is difficult to conceive a group of stranger figures. I
then entered a long room, hung round with the pictures of women of such
exact shapes and features that I should have thought myself in a gallery
of beauties, had not a certain sallow paleness in their complexions
given me a more distasteful idea. Through this I proceeded to a second
apartment, adorned, if I may so call it, with the figures of old ladies.
Upon my seeming to admire at this furniture, the servant told me with a
smile that these had been very good friends of his lady, and had done
her eminent service in the lower world. I immediately recollected the
faces of one or two of my acquaintance, who had formerly kept bagnios;
but was very much surprized to see the resemblance of a lady of great
distinction in such company. The servant, upon my mentioning this, made
no other answer than that his lady had pictures of all degrees.
I was now introduced into the presence of the lady herself. She was a
thin, or rather meagre, person, very wan in the countenance, had no
nose, and many pimples in her face. She offered to rise at my entrance,
but could not stand. After many compliments, much congratulation on her
side, and the most fervent expressions of gratitude on mine, she asked
me many questions concerning the situation of her affairs in the lower
world; most of which I answered to her intire satisfaction. At last,
with a kind of forced smile, she said, "I suppose the pill and drop go
on swimmingly?" I told her they were reported to have done great cures.
She replied she could apprehend no danger from any person who was not of
regular practice; "for, however simple mankind are," said she, "or
however afraid they are of death, they prefer dying in a regular manner
to being cured by a nostrum." She then expressed great pleasure at the
account I gave her of the beau monde. She said she had herself removed
the hundreds of Drury to the hundreds of Charing-cross, and was very
much delighted to find they had spread into St James's; that she imputed
this chiefly to several of her dear and worthy friends, who had lately
published their excellent works, endeavouring to extirpate all notions
of religion and virtue; and particularly to the deserving author of the
Bachelor's Estimate; "to whom," said she, "if I had not reason to think
he was a surgeon, and had therefore written from mercenary views, I
could never sufficiently own my obligations." She spoke likewise
greatly in approbation of the method, so generally used by parents, of
marrying children very young, and without the least affection between
the parties; and concluded by saying that, if these fashions continued
to spread, she doubted not but she should shortly be the only disease
who would ever receive a visit from any person of considerable rank.
While we were discoursing her three daughters entered the room. They
were all called by hard names; the eldest was named Lepra, the second
Chæras, and the third Scorbutia.[H] They were all genteel, but ugly. I
could not help observing the little respect they paid their parent,
which the old lady remarking in my countenance, as soon as they quitted
the room, which soon happened, acquainted me with her unhappiness in her
offspring, every one of which had the confidence to deny themselves to
be her children, though she said she had been a very indulgent mother
and had plentifully provided for them all. As family complaints
generally as much tire the hearer as they relieve him who makes them,
when I found her launching farther into this subject I resolved to put
an end to my visit, and, taking my leave with many thanks for the favour
she had done me, I returned to the inn, where I found my
fellow-travellers just mounting into their vehicle. I shook hands with
my host and accompanied them into the coach, which immediately after
proceeded on its journey.
Chapter iv.
_Discourses on the road, and a description of the palace of Death._
We were all silent for some minutes, till, being well shaken into our
several seats, I opened my mouth first, and related what had happened to
me after our separation in the city we had just left. The rest of the
company, except the grave female spirit whom our reader may remember to
have refused giving an account of the distemper which occasioned her
dissolution, did the same. It might be tedious to relate these at large;
we shall therefore only mention a very remarkable inveteracy which the
Surfeit declared to all the other diseases, especially to the Fever,
who, she said, by the roguery of the porters, received acknowledgments
from numberless passengers which were due to herself. "Indeed," says
she, "those cane-headed fellows" (for so she called them, alluding, I
suppose, to their ticket) "are constantly making such mistakes; there is
no gratitude in those fellows; for I am sure they have greater
obligations to me than to any other disease, except the Vapours." These
relations were no sooner over than one of the company informed us we
were approaching to the most noble building he had ever beheld, and
which we learnt from our coachman was the palace of Death. Its outside,
indeed, appeared extremely magnificent. Its structure was of the Gothic
order; vast beyond imagination, the whole pile consisting of black
marble. Rows of immense yews form an amphitheatre round it of such
height and thickness that no ray of the sun ever perforates this grove,
where black eternal darkness would reign was it not excluded by
innumerable lamps which are placed in pyramids round the grove; so that
the distant reflection they cast on the palace, which is plentifully
gilt with gold on the outside, is inconceivably solemn. To this I may
add the hollow murmur of winds constantly heard from the grove, and the
very remote sound of roaring waters. Indeed, every circumstance seems to
conspire to fill the mind with horrour and consternation as we approach
to this palace, which we had scarce time to admire before our vehicle
stopped at the gate, and we were desired to alight in order to pay our
respects to his most mortal majesty (this being the title which it seems
he assumes). The outward court was full of soldiers, and, indeed, the
whole very much resembled the state of an earthly monarch, only more
magnificent. We past through several courts into a vast hall, which led
to a spacious staircase, at the bottom of which stood two pages, with
very grave countenances, whom I recollected afterwards to have formerly
been very eminent undertakers, and were in reality the only dismal faces
I saw here; for this palace, so awful and tremendous without, is all gay
and sprightly within; so that we soon lost all those dismal and gloomy
ideas we had contracted in approaching it. Indeed, the still silence
maintained among the guards and attendants resembled rather the stately
pomp of eastern courts; but there was on every face such symptoms of
content and happiness that diffused an air of chearfulness all round. We
ascended the staircase and past through many noble apartments whose
walls were adorned with various battle-pieces in tapistry, and which we
spent some time in observing. These brought to my mind those beautiful
ones I had in my lifetime seen at Blenheim, nor could I prevent my
curiosity from enquiring where the Duke of Marlborough's victories were
placed (for I think they were almost the only battles of any eminence I
had read of which I did not meet with); when the skeleton of a
beef-eater, shaking his head, told me a certain gentleman, one Lewis
XIV., who had great interest with his most mortal majesty, had prevented
any such from being hung up there. "Besides," says he, "his majesty hath
no great respect for that duke, for he never sent him a subject he could
keep from him, nor did he ever get a single subject by his means but he
lost 1000 others for him." We found the presence-chamber at our entrance
very full, and a buz ran through it, as in all assemblies, before the
principal figure enters; for his majesty was not yet come out. At the
bottom of the room were two persons in close conference, one with a
square black cap on his head, and the other with a robe embroidered with
flames of fire. These, I was informed, were a judge long since dead, and
an inquisitor-general. I overheard them disputing with great eagerness
whether the one had hanged or the other burnt the most. While I was
listening to this dispute, which seemed to be in no likelihood of a
speedy decision, the emperor entered the room and placed himself between
two figures, one of which was remarkable for the roughness, and the
other for the beauty of his appearance. These were, it seems, Charles
XII. of Sweden and Alexander of Macedon. I was at too great a distance
to hear any of the conversation, so could only satisfy my curiosity by
contemplating the several personages present, of whose names I informed
myself by a page, who looked as pale and meagre as any court-page in the
other world, but was somewhat more modest. He shewed me here two or
three Turkish emperors, to whom his most mortal majesty seemed to
express much civility. Here were likewise several of the Roman emperors,
among whom none seemed so much caressed as Caligula, on account, as the
page told me, of his pious wish that he could send all the Romans hither
at one blow. The reader may be perhaps surprized that I saw no
physicians here; as indeed I was myself, till informed that they were
all departed to the city of Diseases, where they were busy in an
experiment to purge away the immortality of the soul.
It would be tedious to recollect the many individuals I saw here, but I
cannot omit a fat figure, well drest in the French fashion, who was
received with extraordinary complacence by the emperor, and whom I
imagined to be Lewis XIV. himself; but the page acquainted me he was a
celebrated French cook.
We were at length introduced to the royal presence, and had the honour
to kiss hands. His majesty asked, us a few questions, not very material
to relate, and soon after retired.
When we returned into the yard we found our caravan ready to set out, at
which we all declared ourselves well pleased; for we were sufficiently
tired with the formality of a court, notwithstanding its outward
splendour and magnificence.
Chapter v.
_The travellers proceed on their journey, and meet several spirits who
are coming into the flesh._
We now came to the banks of the great river Cocytus, where we quitted
our vehicle, and past the water in a boat, after which we were obliged
to travel on foot the rest of our journey; and now we met, for the first
time, several passengers travelling to the world we had left, who
informed us they were souls going into the flesh.
The two first we met were walking arm-in-arm, in very close and friendly
conference; they informed us that one of them was intended for a duke,
and the other for a hackney-coachman. As we had not yet arrived at the
place where we were to deposit our passions, we were all surprized at
the familiarity which subsisted between persons of such different
degrees; nor could the grave lady help expressing her astonishment at
it. The future coachman then replied, with a laugh, that they had
exchanged lots; for that the duke had with his dukedom drawn a shrew for
a wife, and the coachman only a single state.
As we proceeded on our journey we met a solemn spirit walking alone with
great gravity in his countenance: our curiosity invited us,
notwithstanding his reserve, to ask what lot he had drawn. He answered,
with a smile, he was to have the reputation of a wise man with £100,000
in his pocket, and was practising the solemnity which he was to act in
the other world.
A little farther we met a company of very merry spirits, whom we
imagined by their mirth to have drawn some mighty lot, but, on enquiry,
they informed us they were to be beggars.
The farther we advanced, the greater numbers we met; and now we
discovered two large roads leading different ways, and of very different
appearance; the one all craggy with rocks, full as it seemed of boggy
grounds, and everywhere beset with briars, so that it was impossible to
pass through it without the utmost danger and difficulty; the other, the
most delightful imaginable, leading through the most verdant meadows,
painted and perfumed with all kinds of beautiful flowers; in short, the
most wanton imagination could imagine nothing more lovely.
Notwithstanding which, we were surprized to see great numbers crowding
into the former, and only one or two solitary spirits chusing the
latter. On enquiry, we were acquainted that the bad road was the way to
greatness, and the other to goodness. When we expressed our surprize at
the preference given to the former we were acquainted that it was chosen
for the sake of the music of drums and trumpets, and the perpetual
acclamations of the mob, with which those who travelled this way were
constantly saluted. We were told likewise that there were several noble
palaces to be seen, and lodged in, on this road, by those who had past
through the difficulties of it (which indeed many were not able to
surmount), and great quantities of all sorts of treasure to be found in
it; whereas the other had little inviting more than the beauty of the
way, scarce a handsome building, save one greatly resembling a certain
house by the Bath, to be seen during that whole journey; and, lastly,
that it was thought very scandalous and mean-spirited to travel through
this, and as highly honourable and noble to pass by the other.
We now heard a violent noise, when, casting our eyes forwards, we
perceived a vast number of spirits advancing in pursuit of one whom they
mocked and insulted with all kinds of scorn. I cannot give my reader a
more adequate idea of this scene than by comparing it to an English mob
conducting a pickpocket to the water; or by supposing that an incensed
audience at a playhouse had unhappily possessed themselves of the
miserable damned poet. Some laughed, some hissed, some squawled, some
groaned, some bawled, some spit at him, some threw dirt at him. It was
impossible not to ask who or what the wretched spirit was whom they
treated in this barbarous manner; when, to our great surprize, we were
informed that it was a king: we were likewise told that this manner of
behaviour was usual among the spirits to those who drew the lots of
emperors, kings, and other great men, not from envy or anger, but mere
derision and contempt of earthly grandeur; that nothing was more common
than for those who had drawn these great prizes (as to us they seemed)
to exchange them with taylors and coblers; and that Alexander the Great
and Diogenes had formerly done so; he that was afterwards Diogenes
having originally fallen on the lot of Alexander.
And now, on a sudden, the mockery ceased, and the king-spirit, having
obtained a hearing, began to speak as follows; for we were now near
enough to hear him distinctly:--
"GENTLEMEN,--I am justly surprized at your treating me in this manner,
since whatever lot I have drawn, I did not chuse: if, therefore, it be
worthy of derision, you should compassionate me, for it might have
fallen to any of your shares. I know in how low a light the station to
which fate hath assigned me is considered here, and that, when ambition
doth not support it, it becomes generally so intollerable, that there is
scarce any other condition for which it is not gladly exchanged: for
what portion, in the world to which we are going, is so miserable as
that of care? Should I therefore consider myself as become by this lot
essentially your superior, and of a higher order of being than the rest
of my fellow-creatures; should I foolishly imagine myself without wisdom
superior to the wise, without knowledge to the learned, without courage
to the brave, and without goodness and virtue to the good and virtuous;
surely so preposterous, so absurd a pride, would justly render me the
object of ridicule. But far be it from me to entertain it. And yet,
gentlemen, I prize the lot I have drawn, nor would I exchange it with
any of yours, seeing it is in my eye so much greater than the rest.
Ambition, which I own myself possest of, teaches me this; ambition,
which makes me covet praise, assures me that I shall enjoy a much larger
proportion of it than can fall within your power either to deserve or
obtain. I am then superior to you all, when I am able to do more good,
and when I execute that power. What the father is to the son, the
guardian to the orphan, or the patron to his client, that am I to you.
You are my children, to whom I will be a father, a guardian, and a
patron. Not one evening in my long reign (for so it is to be) will I
repose myself to rest without the glorious, the heartwarming
consideration, that thousands that night owe their sweetest rest to me.
What a delicious fortune is it to him whose strongest appetite is doing
good, to have every day the opportunity and the power of satisfying it!
If such a man hath ambition, how happy is it for him to be seated so on
high, that every act blazes abroad, and attracts to him praises tainted
with neither sarcasm nor adulation, but such as the nicest and most
delicate mind may relish! Thus, therefore, while you derive your good
from me, I am your superior. If to my strict distribution of justice you
owe the safety of your property from domestic enemies; if by my
vigilance and valour you are protected from foreign foes; if by my
encouragement of genuine industry, every science, every art which can
embellish or sweeten life, is produced and flourishes among you; will
any of you be so insensible or ungrateful as to deny praise and respect
to him by whose care and conduct you enjoy these blessings? I wonder not
at the censure which so frequently falls on those in my station; but I
wonder that those in my station so frequently deserve it. What strange
perverseness of nature! What wanton delight in mischief must taint his
composition, who prefers dangers, difficulty, and disgrace, by doing
evil, to safety, ease, and honour, by doing good! who refuses happiness
in the other world, and heaven in this, for misery there and hell here!
But, be assured, my intentions are different. I shall always endeavour
the ease, the happiness, and the glory of my people, being confident
that, by so doing, I take the most certain method of procuring them all
to myself."--He then struck directly into the road of goodness, and
received such a shout of applause as I never remember to have heard
equalled.
He was gone a little way when a spirit limped after him, swearing he
would fetch him back. This spirit, I was presently informed, was one who
had drawn the lot of his prime minister.
Chapter vi.
_An account of the wheel of fortune, with a method of preparing a spirit
for this world._
We now proceeded on our journey, without staying to see whether he
fulfilled his word or no; and without encountering anything worth
mentioning, came to the place where the spirits on their passage to the
other world were obliged to decide by lot the station in which every one
was to act there. Here was a monstrous wheel, infinitely larger than
those in which I had formerly seen lottery-tickets deposited. This was
called the WHEEL OF FORTUNE. The goddess herself was present. She was
one of the most deformed females I ever beheld; nor could I help
observing the frowns she expressed when any beautiful spirit of her own
sex passed by her, nor the affability which smiled in her countenance
on the approach of any handsome male spirits. Hence I accounted for the
truth of an observation I had often made on earth, that nothing is more
fortunate than handsome men, nor more unfortunate than handsome women.
The reader may be perhaps pleased with an account of the whole method of
equipping a spirit for his entrance into the flesh.
First, then, he receives from a very sage person, whose look much
resembled that of an apothecary (his warehouse likewise bearing an
affinity to an apothecary's shop), a small phial inscribed, THE PATHETIC
POTION, to be taken just before you are born. This potion is a mixture
of all the passions, but in no exact proportion, so that sometimes one
predominates, and sometimes another; nay, often in the hurry of making
up, one particular ingredient is, as we were informed, left out. The
spirit receiveth at the same time another medicine called the NOUSPHORIC
DECOCTION, of which he is to drink _ad libitum_. This decoction is an
extract from the faculties of the mind, sometimes extremely strong and
spirituous, and sometimes altogether as weak; for very little care is
taken in the preparation. This decoction is so extremely bitter and
unpleasant, that, notwithstanding its wholesomeness, several spirits
will not be persuaded to swallow a drop of it, but throw it away, or
give it to any other who will receive it; by which means some who were
not disgusted by the nauseousness drank double and treble portions. I
observed a beautiful young female, who, tasting it immediately from
curiosity, screwed up her face and cast it from her with great disdain,
whence advancing presently to the wheel, she drew a coronet, which she
clapped up so eagerly that I could not distinguish the degree; and
indeed I observed several of the same sex, after a very small sip, throw
the bottles away.
As soon as the spirit is dismissed by the operator, or apothecary, he is
at liberty to approach the wheel, where he hath a right to extract a
single lot: but those whom Fortune favours she permits sometimes
secretly to draw three or four. I observed a comical kind of figure who
drew forth a handful, which, when he opened, were a bishop, a general, a
privy-counsellor, a player, and a poet-laureate, and, returning the
three first, he walked off, smiling, with the two last.
Every single lot contained two more articles, which were generally
disposed so as to render the lots as equal as possible to each other; on
one was written, _earl_, _riches_, _health_, _disquietude_; on another,
_cobbler_, _sickness_, _good-humour_; on a third, _poet_, _contempt_,
_self-satisfaction_; on a fourth, _general_, _honour_, _discontent_; on
a fifth, _cottage_, _happy love_; on a sixth, _coach and six_, _impotent
jealous husband_; on a seventh, _prime minister_, _disgrace_; on an
eighth, _patriot_, _glory_; on a ninth, _philosopher_, _poverty_,
_ease_; on a tenth, _merchant_, _riches_, _care_. And indeed the whole
seemed to contain such a mixture of good and evil, that it would have
puzzled me which to chuse. I must not omit here that in every lot was
directed whether the drawer should marry or remain in celibacy, the
married lots being all marked with a large pair of horns.
We were obliged, before we quitted this place, to take each of us an
emetic from the apothecary, which immediately purged us of all our
earthly passions, and presently the cloud forsook our eyes, as it doth
those of Æneas in Virgil, when removed by Venus; and we discerned things
in a much clearer light than before. We began to compassionate those
spirits who were making their entry into the flesh, whom we had till
then secretly envied, and to long eagerly for those delightful plains
which now opened themselves to our eyes, and to which we now hastened
with the utmost eagerness. On our way we met with several spirits with
very dejected countenances; but our expedition would not suffer us to
ask any questions.
At length we arrived at the gate of Elysium. Here was a prodigious crowd
of spirits waiting for admittance, some of whom were admitted, and some
were rejected; for all were strictly examined by the porter, whom I soon
discovered to be the celebrated judge Minos.
Chapter vii.
_The proceedings of judge Minos at the gate of Elysium._
I now got near enough to the gate to hear the several claims of those
who endeavoured to pass. The first, among other pretensions, set forth
that he had been very liberal to an hospital; but Minos answered,
"Ostentation," and repulsed him. The second exhibited that he had
constantly frequented his church, been a rigid observer of fast-days: he
likewise represented the great animosity he had shewn to vice in others,
which never escaped his severest censure; and as to his own behaviour,
he had never been once guilty of whoring, drinking, gluttony, or any
other excess. He said he had disinherited his son for getting a bastard.
"Have you so?" said Minos; "then pray return into the other world and
beget another; for such an unnatural rascal shall never pass this gate."
A dozen others, who had advanced with very confident countenances,
seeing him rejected, turned about of their own accord, declaring, if he
could not pass, they had no expectation, and accordingly they followed
him back to earth; which was the fate of all who were repulsed, they
being obliged to take a further purification, unless those who were
guilty of some very heinous crimes, who were hustled in at a little
back gate, whence they tumbled immediately into the bottomless pit.
The next spirit that came up declared he had done neither good nor evil
in the world; for that since his arrival at man's estate he had spent
his whole time in search of curiosities; and particularly in the study
of butterflies, of which he had collected an immense number. Minos made
him no answer, but with great scorn pushed him back.
There now advanced a very beautiful spirit indeed. She began to ogle
Minos the moment she saw him. She said she hoped there was some merit in
refusing a great number of lovers, and dying a maid, though she had had
the choice of a hundred. Minos told her she had not refused enow yet,
and turned her back.
She was succeeded by a spirit who told the judge he believed his works
would speak for him. "What works?" answered Minos. "My dramatic works,"
replied the other, "which have done so much good in recommending virtue
and punishing vice." "Very well," said the judge; "if you please to
stand by, the first person who passes the gate by your means shall carry
you in with him; but, if you will take my advice, I think, for
expedition sake, you had better return, and live another life upon
earth." The bard grumbled at this, and replied that, besides his
poetical works, he had done some other good things: for that he had once
lent the whole profits of a benefit-night to a friend, and by that means
had saved him and his family from destruction. Upon this the gate flew
open, and Minos desired him to walk in, telling him, if he had mentioned
this at first, he might have spared the remembrance of his plays. The
poet answered, he believed, if Minos had read his works, he would set a
higher value on them. He was then beginning to repeat, but Minos pushed
him forward, and, turning his back to him, applied himself to the next
passenger, a very genteel spirit, who made a very low bow to Minos, and
then threw himself into an erect attitude, and imitated the motion of
taking snuff with his right hand. Minos asked him what he had to say for
himself. He answered, he would dance a minuet with any spirit in
Elysium: that he could likewise perform all his other exercises very
well, and hoped he had in his life deserved the character of a perfect
fine gentleman. Minos replied it would be great pity to rob the world of
so fine a gentleman, and therefore desired him to take the other trip.
The beau bowed, thanked the judge, and said he desired no better.
Several spirits expressed much astonishment at this his satisfaction;
but we were afterwards informed he had not taken the emetic above
mentioned.
A miserable old spirit now crawled forwards, whose face I thought I had
formerly seen near Westminster Abbey. He entertained Minos with a long
harangue of what he had done when in the HOUSE; and then proceeded to
inform him how much he was worth, without attempting to produce a single
instance of any one good action. Minos stopt the career of his
discourse, and acquainted him he must take a trip back again. "What! to
S---- house?" said the spirit in an ecstasy; but the judge, without
making him any answer, turned to another, who, with a very solemn air
and great dignity, acquainted him he was a duke. "To the right-about, Mr
Duke," cried Minos, "you are infinitely too great a man for Elysium;"
and then, giving him a kick on the b--- ch, he addressed himself to a
spirit who, with fear and trembling, begged he might not go to the
bottomless pit: he said he hoped Minos would consider that, though he
had gone astray, he had suffered for it--that it was necessity which
drove him to the robbery of eighteenpence, which he had committed, and
for which he was hanged--that he had done some good actions in his
life--that he had supported an aged parent with his labour--that he had
been a very tender husband and a kind father--and that he had ruined
himself by being bail for his friend. At which words the gate opened,
and Minos bid him enter, giving him a slap on the back as he passed by
him.
A great number of spirits now came forwards, who all declared they had
the same claim, and that the captain should speak for them. He
acquainted the judge that they had been all slain in the service of
their country. Minos was going to admit them, but had the curiosity to
ask who had been the invader, in order, as he said, to prepare the back
gate for him. The captain answered they had been the invaders
themselves--that they had entered the enemy's country, and burnt and
plundered several cities. "And for what reason?" said Minos. "By the
command of him who paid us," said the captain; "that is the reason of a
soldier. We are to execute whatever we are commanded, or we should be a
disgrace to the army, and very little deserve our pay." "You are brave
fellows indeed," said Minos; "but be pleased to face about, and obey my
command for once, in returning back to the other world: for what should
such fellows as you do where there are no cities to be burnt, nor people
to be destroyed? But let me advise you to have a stricter regard to
truth for the future, and not call the depopulating other countries the
service of your own." The captain answered in a rage, "D--n me! do you
give me the lie?" and was going to take Minos by the nose, had not his
guards prevented him, and immediately turned him and all his followers
back the same road they came.
Four spirits informed the judge that they had been starved to death
through poverty--being the father, mother, and two children; that they
had been honest and as industrious as possible, till sickness had
prevented the man from labour. "All that is very true," cried a grave
spirit who stood by. "I know the fact; for these poor people were under
my cure." "You was, I suppose, the parson of the parish," cries Minos;
"I hope you had a good living, sir." "That was but a small one," replied
the spirit; "but I had another a little better."--"Very well," said
Minos; "let the poor people pass." At which the parson was stepping
forwards with a stately gait before them; but Minos caught hold of him
and pulled him back, saying, "Not so fast, doctor--you must take one
step more into the other world first; for no man enters that gate
without charity."
A very stately figure now presented himself, and, informing Minos he was
a patriot, began a very florid harangue on public virtue and the
liberties of his country. Upon which Minos shewed him the utmost
respect, and ordered the gate to be opened. The patriot was not
contented with this applause; he said he had behaved as well in place as
he had done in the opposition; and that, though he was now obliged to
embrace the court measures, yet he had behaved very honestly to his
friends, and brought as many in as was possible. "Hold a moment," says
Minos: "on second consideration, Mr Patriot, I think a man of your great
virtue and abilities will be so much missed by your country, that, if I
might advise you, you should take a journey back again. I am sure you
will not decline it; for I am certain you will, with great readiness,
sacrifice your own happiness to the public good." The patriot smiled,
and told Minos he believed he was in jest; and was offering to enter
the gate, but the judge laid fast hold of him and insisted on his
return, which the patriot still declining, he at last ordered his guards
to seize him and conduct him back.
A spirit now advanced, and the gate was immediately thrown open to him
before he had spoken a word. I heard some whisper, "That is our last
lord mayor."
It now came to our company's turn. The fair spirit which I mentioned
with so much applause in the beginning of my journey passed through very
easily; but the grave lady was rejected on her first appearance, Minos
declaring there was not a single prude in Elysium.
The judge then addressed himself to me, who little expected to pass this
fiery trial. I confessed I had indulged myself very freely with wine and
women in my youth, but had never done an injury to any man living, nor
avoided an opportunity of doing good; that I pretended to very little
virtue more than general philanthropy and private friendship. I was
proceeding, when Minos bid me enter the gate, and not indulge myself
with trumpeting forth my virtues. I accordingly passed forward with my
lovely companion, and, embracing her with vast eagerness, but spiritual
innocence, she returned my embrace in the same manner, and we both
congratulated ourselves on our arrival in this happy region, whose
beauty no painting of the imagination can describe.
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Chapter viii.
_The adventures which the author met on his first entrance into
Elysium._
We pursued our way through a delicious grove of orange-trees, where I
saw infinite numbers of spirits, every one of whom I knew, and was known
by them (for spirits here know one another by intuition). I presently
met a little daughter whom I had lost several years before. Good gods!
what words can describe the raptures, the melting passionate tenderness,
with which we kissed each other, continuing in our embrace, with the
most ecstatic joy, a space which, if time had been measured here as on
earth, could not be less than half a year.
The first spirit with whom I entered into discourse was the famous
Leonidas of Sparta. I acquainted him with the honours which had been
done him by a celebrated poet of our nation; to which he answered he was
very much obliged to him.
We were presently afterwards entertained with the most delicious voice I
had ever heard, accompanied by a violin, equal to Signior Piantinida. I
presently discovered the musician and songster to be Orpheus and Sappho.
Old Homer was present at this concert (if I may so call it), and Madam
Dacier sat in his lap. He asked much after Mr Pope, and said he was very
desirous of seeing him; for that he had read his Iliad in his
translation with almost as much delight as he believed he had given
others in the original. I had the curiosity to enquire whether he had
really writ that poem in detached pieces, and sung it about as ballads
all over Greece, according to the report which went of him. He smiled at
my question, and asked me whether there appeared any connexion in the
poem; for if there did he thought I might answer myself. I then
importuned him to acquaint me in which of the cities which contended for
the honour of his birth he was really born? To which he answered, "Upon
my soul I can't tell."
Virgil then came up to me, with Mr Addison under his arm. "Well, sir,"
said he, "how many translations have these few last years produced of my
Æneid?" I told him I believed several, but I could not possibly
remember; for that I had never read any but Dr Trapp's. "Ay," said he,
"that is a curious piece indeed!" I then acquainted him with the
discovery made by Mr Warburton of the Elusinian mysteries couched in his
sixth book. "What mysteries?" said Mr Addison. "The Elusinian," answered
Virgil, "which I have disclosed in my sixth book." "How!" replied
Addison. "You never mentioned a word of any such mysteries to me in all
our acquaintance." "I thought it was unnecessary," cried the other, "to
a man of your infinite learning: besides, you always told me you
perfectly understood my meaning." Upon this I thought the critic looked
a little out of countenance, and turned aside to a very merry spirit,
one Dick Steele, who embraced him, and told him he had been the greatest
man upon earth; that he readily resigned up all the merit of his own
works to him. Upon which Addison gave him a gracious smile, and,
clapping him on the back with much solemnity, cried out, "Well said,
Dick!"
I then observed Shakspeare standing between Betterton and Booth, and
deciding a difference between those two great actors concerning the
placing an accent in one of his lines: this was disputed on both sides
with a warmth which surprized me in Elysium, till I discovered by
intuition that every soul retained its principal characteristic, being,
indeed, its very essence. The line was that celebrated one in Othello--
_Put out the light, and then put out the light._
according to Betterton. Mr Booth contended to have it thus:--
_Put out the light, and then put out_ THE _light._
I could not help offering my conjecture on this occasion, and suggested
it might perhaps be--
_Put out the light, and then put out_ THY _light._
Another hinted a reading very sophisticated in my opinion--
_Put out the light, and then put out_ THEE, _light._
making light to be the vocative case. Another would have altered the
last word, and read--
_Put out thy light, and then put out thy sight._
But Betterton said, if the text was to be disturbed, he saw no reason
why a word might not be changed as well as a letter, and, instead of
"put out thy light," you may read "put out thy eyes." At last it was
agreed on all sides to refer the matter to the decision of Shakspeare
himself, who delivered his sentiments as follows: "Faith, gentlemen, it
is so long since I wrote the line, I have forgot my meaning. This I
know, could I have dreamt so much nonsense would have been talked and
writ about it, I would have blotted it out of my works; for I am sure,
if any of these be my meaning, it doth me very little honour."
He was then interrogated concerning some other ambiguous passages in his
works; but he declined any satisfactory answer; saying, if Mr Theobald
had not writ about it sufficiently, there were three or four more new
editions of his plays coming out, which he hoped would satisfy every
one: concluding, "I marvel nothing so much as that men will gird
themselves at discovering obscure beauties in an author. Certes the
greatest and most pregnant beauties are ever the plainest and most
evidently striking; and when two meanings of a passage can in the least
ballance our judgments which to prefer, I hold it matter of
unquestionable certainty that neither of them is worth a farthing."
From his works our conversation turned on his monument; upon which,
Shakspeare, shaking his sides, and addressing himself to Milton, cried
out, "On my word, brother Milton, they have brought a noble set of poets
together; they would have been hanged erst have [ere they had] convened
such a company at their tables when alive." "True, brother," answered
Milton, "unless we had been as incapable of eating then as we are now."
Chapter ix.
_More adventures in Elysium._
A crowd of spirits now joined us, whom I soon perceived to be the
heroes, who here frequently pay their respects to the several bards the
recorders of their actions. I now saw Achilles and Ulysses addressing
themselves to Homer, and Æneas and Julius Caesar to Virgil: Adam went up
to Milton, upon which I whispered Mr Dryden that I thought the devil
should have paid his compliments there, according to his opinion. Dryden
only answered, "I believe the devil was in me when I said so." Several
applied themselves to Shakspeare, amongst whom Henry V. made a very
distinguishing appearance. While my eyes were fixed on that monarch a
very small spirit came up to me, shook me heartily by the hand, and told
me his name was THOMAS THUMB. I expressed great satisfaction in seeing
him, nor could I help speaking my resentment against the historian, who
had done such injustice to the stature of this great little man, which
he represented to be no bigger than a span, whereas I plainly perceived
at first sight he was full a foot and a half (and the 37th part of an
inch more, as he himself informed me), being indeed little shorter than
some considerable beaus of the present age.
I asked this little hero concerning the truth of those stories related
of him, viz., of the pudding, and the cow's belly. As to the former, he
said it was a ridiculous legend, worthy to be laughed at; but as to the
latter, he could not help owning there was some truth in it: nor had he
any reason to be ashamed of it, as he was swallowed by surprize; adding,
with great fierceness, that if he had had any weapon in his hand the cow
should have as soon swallowed the devil.
He spoke the last word with so much fury, and seemed so confounded,
that, perceiving the effect it had on him, I immediately waved the
story, and, passing to other matters, we had much conversation touching
giants. He said, so far from killing any, he had never seen one alive;
that he believed those actions were by mistake recorded of him, instead
of Jack the giant-killer, whom he knew very well, and who had, he
fancied, extirpated the race. I assured him to the contrary, and told
him I had myself seen a huge tame giant, who very complacently stayed in
London a whole winter, at the special request of several gentlemen and
ladies; though the affairs of his family called him home to Sweden.
I now beheld a stern-looking spirit leaning on the shoulder of another
spirit, and presently discerned the former to be Oliver Cromwell, and
the latter Charles Martel. I own I was a little surprized at seeing
Cromwell here, for I had been taught by my grandmother that he was
carried away by the devil himself in a tempest; but he assured me, on
his honour, there was not the least truth in that story. However, he
confessed he had narrowly escaped the bottomless pit; and, if the former
part of his conduct had not been more to his honour than the latter, he
had been certainly soused into it. He was, nevertheless, sent back to
the upper world with this lot:--_Army_, _cavalier_, _distress_.
He was born, for the second time, the day of Charles II.'s restoration,
into a family which had lost a very considerable fortune in the service
of that prince and his father, for which they received the reward very
often conferred by princes on real merit, viz.--000. At 16 his father
bought a small commission for him in the army, in which he served
without any promotion all the reigns of Charles II. and of his brother.
At the Revolution he quitted his regiment, and followed the fortunes of
his former master, and was in his service dangerously wounded at the
famous battle of the Boyne, where he fought in the capacity of a private
soldier. He recovered of this wound, and retired after the unfortunate
king to Paris, where he was reduced to support a wife and seven children
(for his lot had horns in it) by cleaning shoes and snuffing candles at
the opera. In which situation, after he had spent a few miserable years,
he died half-starved and broken-hearted. He then revisited Minos, who,
compassionating his sufferings by means of that family, to whom he had
been in his former capacity so bitter an enemy, suffered him to enter
here.
My curiosity would not refrain asking him one question, _i.e._, whether
in reality he had any desire to obtain the crown? He smiled, and said,
"No more than an ecclesiastic hath to the mitre, when he cries _Nolo
episcopari_." Indeed, he seemed to express some contempt at the
question, and presently turned away.
A venerable spirit appeared next, whom I found to be the great historian
Livy. Alexander the Great, who was just arrived from the palace of
death, past by him with a frown. The historian, observing it, said, "Ay,
you may frown; but those troops which conquered the base Asiatic slaves
would have made no figure against the Romans." We then privately
lamented the loss of the most valuable part of his history; after which
he took occasion to commend the judicious collection made by Mr Hook,
which, he said, was infinitely preferable to all others; and at my
mentioning Echard's he gave a bounce, not unlike the going off of a
squib, and was departing from me, when I begged him to satisfy my
curiosity in one point--whether he was really superstitious or no? For I
had always believed he was till Mr Leibnitz had assured me to the
contrary. He answered sullenly, "Doth Mr Leibnitz know my mind better
than myself?" and then walked away.
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Chapter x.
_The author is surprised at meeting Julian the apostate in Elysium; but
is satisfied by him by what means he procured his entrance there. Julian
relates his adventures in the character of a slave._
As he was departing I heard him salute a spirit by the name of Mr Julian
the apostate. This exceedingly amazed me; for I had concluded that no
man ever had a better title to the bottomless pit than he. But I soon
found that this same Julian the apostate was also the very individual
archbishop Latimer. He told me that several lies had been raised on him
in his former capacity, nor was he so bad a man as he had been
represented. However, he had been denied admittance, and forced to
undergo several subsequent pilgrimages on earth, and to act in the
different characters of a slave, a Jew, a general, an heir, a carpenter,
a beau, a monk, a fiddler, a wise man, a king, a fool, a beggar, a
prince, a statesman, a soldier, a taylor, an alderman, a poet, a knight,
a dancing-master, and three times a bishop, before his martyrdom, which,
together with his other behaviour in this last character, satisfied the
judge, and procured him a passage to the blessed regions.
I told him such various characters must have produced incidents
extremely entertaining; and if he remembered all, as I supposed he did,
and had leisure, I should be obliged to him for the recital. He answered
he perfectly recollected every circumstance; and as to leisure, the only
business of that happy place was to contribute to the happiness of each
other. He therefore thanked me for adding to his, in proposing to him a
method of increasing mine. I then took my little darling in one hand,
and my favourite fellow-traveller in the other, and, going with him to
a sunny bank of flowers, we all sat down, and he began as follows:--
"I suppose you are sufficiently acquainted with my story during the time
I acted the part of the emperor Julian, though I assure you all which
hath been related of me is not true, particularly with regard to the
many prodigies forerunning my death. However, they are now very little
worth disputing; and if they can serve any purpose of the historian they
are extremely at his service.
"My next entrance into the world was at Laodicea, in Syria, in a Roman
family of no great note; and, being of a roving disposition, I came at
the age of seventeen to Constantinople, where, after about a year's
stay, I set out for Thrace, at the time when the emperor Valens admitted
the Goths into that country. I was there so captivated with the beauty
of a Gothic lady, the wife of one Rodoric, a captain, whose name, out of
the most delicate tenderness for her lovely sex, I shall even at this
distance conceal; since her behaviour to me was more consistent with
good-nature than with that virtue which women are obliged to preserve
against every assailant. In order to procure an intimacy with this woman
I sold myself a slave to her husband, who, being of a nation not
over-inclined to jealousy, presented me to his wife, for those very
reasons which would have induced one of a jealous complexion to have
withheld me from her, namely, for that I was young and handsome.
"Matters succeeded so far according to my wish, and the sequel answered
those hopes which this beginning had raised. I soon perceived my service
was very acceptable to her; I often met her eyes, nor did she withdraw
them without a confusion which is scarce consistent with entire purity
of heart. Indeed, she gave me every day fresh encouragement; but the
unhappy distance which circumstances had placed between us deterred me
long from making any direct attack; and she was too strict an observer
of decorum to violate the severe rules of modesty by advancing first;
but passion at last got the better of my respect, and I resolved to make
one bold attempt, whatever was the consequence. Accordingly, laying hold
of the first kind opportunity, when she was alone and my master abroad,
I stoutly assailed the citadel and carried it by storm. Well may I say
by storm; for the resistance I met was extremely resolute, and indeed as
much as the most perfect decency would require. She swore often she
would cry out for help; but I answered it was in vain, seeing there was
no person near to assist her; and probably she believed me, for she did
not once actually cry out, which if she had, I might very likely have
been prevented.
"When she found her virtue thus subdued against her will she patiently
submitted to her fate, and quietly suffered me a long time to enjoy the
most delicious fruits of my victory; but envious fortune resolved to
make me pay a dear price for my pleasure. One day in the midst of our
happiness we were suddenly surprized by the unexpected return of her
husband, who, coming directly into his wife's apartment, just allowed me
time to creep under the bed. The disorder in which he found his wife
might have surprized a jealous temper; but his was so far otherwise,
that possibly no mischief might have happened had he not by a cross
accident discovered my legs, which were not well hid. He immediately
drew me out by them, and then, turning to his wife with a stern
countenance, began to handle a weapon he wore by his side, with which I
am persuaded he would have instantly despatched her, had I not very
gallantly, and with many imprecations, asserted her innocence and my
own guilt; which, however, I protested had hitherto gone no farther than
design. She so well seconded my plea (for she was a woman of wonderful
art), that he was at length imposed upon; and now all his rage was
directed against me, threatening all manner of tortures, which the poor
lady was in too great a fright and confusion to dissuade him from
executing; and perhaps, if her concern for me had made her attempt it,
it would have raised a jealousy in him not afterwards to be removed.
"After some hesitation Rodoric cried out he had luckily hit on the most
proper punishment for me in the world, by a method which would at once
do severe justice on me for my criminal intention, and at the same time
prevent me from any danger of executing my wicked purpose hereafter.
This cruel resolution was immediately executed, and I was no longer
worthy the name of a man.
"Having thus disqualified me from doing him any future injury, he still
retained me in his family; but the lady, very probably repenting of what
she had done, and looking on me as the author of her guilt, would never
for the future give me either a kind word or look: and shortly after, a
great exchange being made between the Romans and the Goths of dogs for
men, my lady exchanged me with a Roman widow for a small lap-dog, giving
a considerable sum of money to boot.
"In this widow's service I remained seven years, during all which time I
was very barbarously treated. I was worked without the least mercy, and
often severely beat by a swinging maid-servant, who never called me by
any other names than those of the Thing and the Animal. Though I used my
utmost industry to please, it never was in my power. Neither the lady
nor her woman would eat anything I touched, saying they did not believe
me wholesome. It is unnecessary to repeat particulars; in a word, you
can imagine no kind of ill usage which I did not suffer in this family.
"At last an heathen priest, an acquaintance of my lady's, obtained me of
her for a present. The scene was now totally changed, and I had as much
reason to be satisfied with my present situation as I had to lament my
former. I was so absolutely my master's favourite, that the rest of the
slaves paid me almost as much regard as they shewed to him, well knowing
that it was entirely in my power to command and treat them as I pleased.
I was intrusted with all my master's secrets, and used to assist him in
privately conveying away by night the sacrifices from the altars, which
the people believed the deities themselves devoured. Upon these we
feasted very elegantly, nor could invention suggest a rarity which we
did not pamper ourselves with. Perhaps you may admire at the close union
between this priest and his slave, but we lived in an intimacy which the
Christians thought criminal; but my master, who knew the will of the
gods, with whom he told me he often conversed, assured me it was
perfectly innocent.
"This happy life continued about four years, when my master's death,
occasioned by a surfeit got by overfeeding on several exquisite
dainties, put an end to it.
"I now fell into the hands of one of a very different disposition, and
this was no other than the celebrated St Chrysostom, who dieted me with
sermons instead of sacrifices, and filled my ears with good things, but
not my belly. Instead of high food to fatten and pamper my flesh, I had
receipts to mortify and reduce it. With these I edified so well, that
within a few months I became a skeleton. However, as he had converted
me to his faith, I was well enough satisfied with this new manner of
living, by which he taught me I might ensure myself an eternal reward in
a future state. The saint was a good-natured man, and never gave me an
ill word but once, which was occasioned by my neglecting to place
Aristophanes, which was his constant bedfellow, on his pillow. He was,
indeed, extremely fond of that Greek poet, and frequently made me read
his comedies to him. When I came to any of the loose passages he would
smile, and say. 'It was pity his matter was not as pure as his style;'
of which latter he was so immoderately fond that, notwithstanding the
detestation he expressed for obscenity, he hath made me repeat those
passages ten times over. The character of this good man hath been very
unjustly attacked by his heathen contemporaries, particularly with
regard to women; but his severe invectives against that sex are his
sufficient justification.
"From the service of this saint, from whom I received manumission, I
entered into the family of Timasius, a leader of great eminence in the
imperial army, into whose favour I so far insinuated myself that he
preferred me to a good command, and soon made me partaker of both his
company and his secrets. I soon grew intoxicated with this preferment,
and the more he loaded me with benefits the more he raised my opinion of
my own merit, which, still outstripping the rewards he conferred on me,
inspired me rather with dissatisfaction than gratitude. And thus, by
preferring me beyond my merit or first expectation, he made me an
envious aspiring enemy, whom perhaps a more moderate bounty would have
preserved a dutiful servant.
"I fell now acquainted with one Lucilius, a creature of the prime
minister Eutropius, who had by his favour been raised to the post of a
tribune; a man of low morals, and eminent only in that meanest of
qualities, cunning. This gentleman, imagining me a fit tool for the
minister's purpose, having often sounded my principles of honour and
honesty, both which he declared to me were words without meaning, and
finding my ready concurrence in his sentiments, recommended me to
Eutropius as very proper to execute some wicked purposes he had
contrived against my friend Timasius. The minister embraced this
recommendation, and I was accordingly acquainted by Lucilius (after some
previous accounts of the great esteem Eutropius entertained of me, from
the testimony he had borne of my parts) that he would introduce me to
him; adding that he was a great encourager of merit, and that I might
depend upon his favour.
"I was with little difficulty prevailed on to accept of this invitation.
A late hour therefore the next evening being appointed, I attended my
friend Lucilius to the minister's house. He received me with the utmost
civility and chearfulness, and affected so much regard to me, that I,
who knew nothing of these high scenes of life, concluded I had in him a
most disinterested friend, owing to the favourable report which Lucilius
had made of me. I was however soon cured of this opinion; for
immediately after supper our discourse turned on the injustice which the
generality of the world were guilty of in their conduct to great men,
expecting that they should reward their private merit, without ever
endeavouring to apply it to their use. 'What avail,' said Eutropius,
'the learning, wit, courage, or any virtue which a man may be possest
of, to me, unless I receive some benefit from them? Hath he not more
merit to me who doth my business and obeys my commands, without any of
these qualities?' I gave such entire satisfaction in my answers on this
head, that both the minister and his creature grew bolder, and after
some preface began to accuse Timasius. At last, finding I did not
attempt to defend him, Lucilius swore a great oath that he was not fit
to live, and that he would destroy him. Eutropius answered that it would
be too dangerous a task: 'Indeed' says he, 'his crimes are of so black a
die, and so well known to the emperor, that his death must be a very
acceptable service, and could not fail meeting a proper reward: but I
question whether you are capable of executing it.' 'If he is not,' cried
I, 'I am; and surely no man can have greater motives to destroy him than
myself: for, besides his disloyalty to my prince, for whom I have so
perfect a duty, I have private disobligations to him. I have had fellows
put over my head, to the great scandal of the service in general, and to
my own prejudice and disappointment in particular.' I will not repeat
you my whole speech; but, to be as concise as possible, when we parted
that evening the minister squeezed me heartily by the hand, and with
great commendation of my honesty and assurances of his favour, he
appointed me the next evening to come to him alone; when, finding me,
after a little more scrutiny, ready for his purpose, he proposed to me
to accuse Timasius of high treason, promising me the highest rewards if
I would undertake it. The consequence to him, I suppose you know, was
ruin; but what was it to me? Why, truly, when I waited on Eutropius for
the fulfilling his promises, he received me with great distance and
coldness; and, on my dropping some hints of my expectations from him, he
affected not to understand me; saying he thought impunity was the utmost
I could hope for on discovering my accomplice, whose offence was only
greater than mine, as he was in a higher station; and telling me he had
great difficulty to obtain a pardon for me from the emperor, which, he
said, he had struggled very hardly for, as he had worked the discovery
out of me. He turned away, and addressed himself to another person.
"I was so incensed at this treatment, that I resolved revenge, and
should certainly have pursued it, had he not cautiously prevented me by
taking effectual means to despatch me soon after out of the world.
"You will, I believe, now think I had a second good chance for the
bottomless pit, and indeed Minos seemed inclined to tumble me in, till
he was informed of the revenge taken on me by Rodoric, and my seven
years' subsequent servitude to the widow; which he thought sufficient to
make atonement for all the crimes a single life could admit of, and so
sent me back to try my fortune a third time."
Chapter xi.
_In which Julian relates his adventures in the character of an
avaricious Jew._
"The next character in which I was destined to appear in the flesh was
that of an avaricious Jew. I was born in Alexandria in Egypt. My name
was Balthazar. Nothing very remarkable happened to me till the year of
the memorable tumult in which the Jews of that city are reported in
history to have massacred more Christians than at that time dwelt in it.
Indeed, the truth is, they did maul the dogs pretty handsomely; but I
myself was not present, for as all our people were ordered to be armed,
I took that opportunity of selling two swords, which probably I might
otherwise never have disposed of, they being extremely old and rusty;
so that, having no weapon left, I did not care to venture abroad.
Besides, though I really thought it an act meriting salvation to murder
the Nazarenes, as the fact was to be committed at midnight, at which
time, to avoid suspicion, we were all to sally from our own houses, I
could not persuade myself to consume so much oil in sitting up to that
hour: for these reasons therefore I remained at home that evening.
"I was at this time greatly enamoured with one Hypatia, the daughter of
a philosopher; a young lady of the greatest beauty and merit: indeed,
she had every imaginable ornament both of mind and body. She seemed not
to dislike my person; but there were two obstructions to our marriage,
viz., my religion and her poverty: both which might probably have been
got over, had not those dogs the Christians murdered her; and, what is
worse, afterwards burned her body: worse, I say, because I lost by that
means a jewel of some value, which I had presented to her, designing, if
our nuptials did not take place, to demand it of her back again.
"Being thus disappointed in my love, I soon after left Alexandria and
went to the imperial city, where I apprehended I should find a good
market for jewels on the approaching marriage of the emperor with
Athenais. I disguised myself as a beggar on this journey, for these
reasons: first, as I imagined I should thus carry my jewels with greater
safety; and, secondly, to lessen my expenses; which latter expedient
succeeded so well, that I begged two oboli on my way more than my
travelling cost me, my diet being chiefly roots, and my drink water.
"But, perhaps, it had been better for me if I had been more lavish and
more expeditious; for the ceremony was over before I reached
Constantinople; so that I lost that glorious opportunity of disposing
of my jewels with which many of our people were greatly enriched.
"The life of a miser is very little worth relating, as it is one
constant scheme of getting or saving money. I shall therefore repeat to
you some few only of my adventures, without regard to any order.
"A Roman Jew, who was a great lover of Falernian wine, and who indulged
himself very freely with it, came to dine at my house; when, knowing he
should meet with little wine, and that of the cheaper sort, sent me in
half-a-dozen jars of Falernian. Can you believe I would not give this
man his own wine? Sir, I adulterated it so that I made six jars of
[them] three, which he and his friend drank; the other three I
afterwards sold to the very person who originally sent them me, knowing
he would give a better price than any other.
"A noble Roman came one day to my house in the country, which I had
purchased, for half the value, of a distressed person. My neighbours
paid him the compliment of some music, on which account, when he
departed, he left a piece of gold with me to be distributed among them.
I pocketed this money, and ordered them a small vessel of sour wine,
which I could not have sold for above two drachms, and afterwards made
them pay in work three times the value of it.
"As I was not entirely void of religion, though I pretended to
infinitely more than I had, so I endeavoured to reconcile my
transactions to my conscience as well as possible. Thus I never invited
any one to eat with me, but those on whose pockets I had some design.
After our collation it was constantly my method to set down in a book I
kept for that purpose, what I thought they owed me for their meal.
Indeed, this was generally a hundred times as much as they could have
dined elsewhere for; but, however, it was _quid pro quo_, if not _ad
valorem_. Now, whenever the opportunity offered of imposing on them I
considered it only as paying myself what they owed me: indeed, I did not
always confine myself strictly to what I had set down, however
extravagant that was; but I reconciled taking the overplus to myself as
usance.
"But I was not only too cunning for others--I sometimes overreached
myself. I have contracted distempers for want of food and warmth, which
have put me to the expence of a physician; nay, I once very narrowly
escaped death by taking bad drugs, only to save one seven-eighth per
cent. in the price.
"By these and such like means, in the midst of poverty and every kind of
distress, I saw myself master of an immense fortune, the casting up and
ruminating on which was my daily and only pleasure. This was, however,
obstructed and embittered by two considerations, which against my will
often invaded my thoughts. One, which would have been intolerable (but
that indeed seldom troubled me), was, that I must one day leave my
darling treasure. The other haunted me continually, viz., that my riches
were no greater. However, I comforted myself against this reflection by
an assurance that they would increase daily: on which head my hopes were
so extensive that I may say with Virgil--
'_His ego nec metas rerum nec tempora pono._'
Indeed I am convinced that, had I possessed the whole globe of earth,
save one single drachma, which I had been certain never to be master
of--I am convinced, I say, that single drachma would have given me more
uneasiness than all the rest could afford me pleasure.
"To say the truth, between my solicitude in contriving schemes to
procure money and my extreme anxiety in preserving it, I never had one
moment of ease while awake nor of quiet when in my sleep. In all the
characters through which I have passed, I have never undergone half the
misery I suffered in this; and, indeed, Minos seemed to be of the same
opinion; for while I stood trembling and shaking in expectation of my
sentence he bid me go back about my business, for that nobody was to be
d----n'd in more worlds than one. And, indeed, I have since learnt that
the devil will not receive a miser."
Chapter xii.
_What happened to Julian in the characters of a general, an heir, a
carpenter, and a beau._
"The next step I took into the world was at Apollonia, in Thrace, where
I was born of a beautiful Greek slave, who was the mistress of Eutyches,
a great favourite of the emperor Zeno. That prince, at his restoration,
gave me the command of a cohort, I being then but fifteen years of age;
and a little afterwards, before I had even seen an army, preferred me,
over the heads of all the old officers, to be a tribune.
"As I found an easy access to the emperor, by means of my father's
intimacy with him, he being a very good courtier--or, in other words, a
most prostitute flatterer--so I soon ingratiated myself with Zeno, and
so well imitated my father in flattering him, that he would never part
with me from about his person. So that the first armed force I ever
beheld was that with which Marcian surrounded the palace, where I was
then shut up with the rest of the court.
"I was afterwards put at the head of a legion and ordered to march into
Syria with Theodoric the Goth; that is, I mean my legion was so ordered;
for, as to myself, I remained at court, with the name and pay of a
general, without the labour or the danger.
"As nothing could be more gay, _i.e._, debauched, than Zeno's court, so
the ladies of gay disposition had great sway in it; particularly one,
whose name was Fausta, who, though not extremely handsome, was by her
wit and sprightliness very agreeable to the emperor. With her I lived in
good correspondence, and we together disposed of all kinds of
commissions in the army, not to those who had most merit, but who would
purchase at the highest rate. My levee was now prodigiously thronged by
officers who returned from the campaigns, who, though they might have
been convinced by daily example how ineffectual a recommendation their
services were, still continued indefatigable in attendance, and behaved
to me with as much observance and respect as I should have been entitled
to for making their fortunes, while I suffered them and their families
to starve.
"Several poets, likewise, addressed verses to me, in which they
celebrated my achievements; and what, perhaps, may seem strange to us at
present, I received all this incense with most greedy vanity, without
once reflecting that, as I did not deserve these compliments, they
should rather put me in mind of my defects.
"My father was now dead, and I became so absolute in the emperor's grace
that one unacquainted with courts would scarce believe the servility
with which all kinds of persons who entered the walls of the palace
behaved towards me. A bow, a smile, a nod from me, as I past through
cringing crouds, were esteemed as signal favours; but a gracious word
made any one happy; and, indeed, had this real benefit attending it,
that it drew on the person on whom it was bestowed a very great degree
of respect from all others; for these are of current value in courts,
and, like notes in trading communities, are assignable from one to the
other. The smile of a court favourite immediately raises the person who
receives it, and gives a value to his smile when conferred on an
inferior: thus the smile is transferred from one to the other, and the
great man at last is the person to discount it. For instance, a very low
fellow hath a desire for a place. To whom is he to apply? Not to the
great man; for to him he hath no access. He therefore applies to A, who
is the creature of B, who is the tool of C, who is the flatterer of D,
who is the catamite of E, who is the pimp of F, who is the bully of G,
who is the buffoon of I, who is the husband of K, who is the whore of L,
who is the bastard of M, who is the instrument of the great man. Thus
the smile, descending regularly from the great man to A, is discounted
back again, and at last paid by the great man.
"It is manifest that a court would subsist as difficultly without this
kind of coin as a trading city without paper credit. Indeed, they differ
in this, that their value is not quite so certain, and a favourite may
protest his smile without the danger of bankruptcy.
"In the midst of all this glory the emperor died, and Anastasius was
preferred to the crown. As it was yet uncertain whether I should not
continue in favour, I was received as usual at my entrance into the
palace to pay my respects to the new emperor; but I was no sooner rumped
by him than I received the same compliment from all the rest; the whole
room, like a regiment of soldiers, turning their backs to me all at
once: my smile now was become of equal value with the note of a broken
banker, and every one was as cautious not to receive it.
"I made as much haste as possible from the court, and shortly after from
the city, retreating to the place of my nativity, where I spent the
remainder of my days in a retired life in husbandry, the only amusement
for which I was qualified, having neither learning nor virtue.
"When I came to the gate Minos again seemed at first doubtful, but at
length dismissed me; saying though I had been guilty of many heinous
crimes, in as much as I had, though a general, never been concerned in
spilling human blood, I might return again to earth.
"I was now again born in Alexandria, and, by great accident, entring
into the womb of my daughter-in-law, came forth my own grandson,
inheriting that fortune which I had before amassed.
"Extravagance was now as notoriously my vice as avarice had been
formerly; and I spent in a very short life what had cost me the labour
of a very long one to rake together. Perhaps you will think my present
condition was more to be envied than my former: but upon my word it was
very little so; for, by possessing everything almost before I desired
it, I could hardly ever say I enjoyed my wish: I scarce ever knew the
delight of satisfying a craving appetite. Besides, as I never once
thought, my mind was useless to me, and I was an absolute stranger to
all the pleasures arising from it. Nor, indeed, did my education qualify
me for any delicacy in other enjoyments; so that in the midst of plenty
I loathed everything. Taste for elegance I had none; and the greatest
of corporeal blisses I felt no more from than the lowest animal. In a
word, as while a miser I had plenty without daring to use it, so now I
had it without appetite.
"But if I was not very happy in the height of my enjoyment, so I
afterwards became perfectly miserable; being soon overtaken by disease,
and reduced to distress, till at length, with a broken constitution and
broken heart, I ended my wretched days in a gaol: nor can I think the
sentence of Minos too mild, who condemned me, after having taken a large
dose of avarice, to wander three years on the banks of Cocytus, with the
knowledge of having spent the fortune in the person of the grandson
which I had raised in that of the grandfather.
"The place of my birth, on my return to the world, was Constantinople,
where my father was a carpenter. The first thing I remember was, the
triumph of Belisarius, which was, indeed, a most noble shew; but nothing
pleased me so much as the figure of Gelimer, king of the African
Vandals, who, being led captive on this occasion, reflecting with
disdain on the mutation of his own fortune, and on the ridiculous empty
pomp of the conqueror, cried out, 'VANITY, VANITY, ALL IS MERE VANITY.'
"I was bred up to my father's trade, and you may easily believe so low a
sphere could produce no adventures worth your notice. However, I married
a woman I liked, and who proved a very tolerable wife. My days were past
in hard labour, but this procured me health, and I enjoyed a homely
supper at night with my wife with more pleasure than I apprehend greater
persons find at their luxurious meals. My life had scarce any variety in
it, and at my death I advanced to Minos with great confidence of
entering the gate: but I was unhappily obliged to discover some frauds
I had been guilty of in the measure of my work when I worked by the
foot, as well as my laziness when I was employed by the day. On which
account, when I attempted to pass, the angry judge laid hold on me by
the shoulders, and turned me back so violently, that, had I had a neck
of flesh and bone, I believe he would have broke it."
Chapter xiii.
_Julian passes into a fop._
"My scene of action was Rome. I was born into a noble family, and heir
to a considerable fortune. On which my parents, thinking I should not
want any talents, resolved very kindly and wisely to throw none away
upon me. The only instructors of my youth were therefore one Saltator,
who taught me several motions for my legs; and one Ficus, whose business
was to shew me the cleanest way (as he called it) of cutting off a man's
head. When I was well accomplished in these sciences, I thought nothing
more wanting, but what was to be furnished by the several mechanics in
Rome, who dealt in dressing and adorning the pope. Being therefore well
equipped with all which their art could produce, I became at the age of
twenty a complete finished beau. And now during forty-five years I
drest, I sang and danced, and danced and sang, I bowed and ogled, and
ogled and bowed, till, in the sixty-sixth year of my age, I got cold by
overheating myself with dancing, and died.
"Minos told me, as I was unworthy of Elysium, so I was too insignificant
to be damned, and therefore bad me walk back again."
Chapter xiv.
_Adventures in the person of a monk._
"Fortune now placed me in the character of a younger brother of a good
house, and I was in my youth sent to school; but learning was now at so
low an ebb, that my master himself could hardly construe a sentence of
Latin; and as for Greek, he could not read it. With very little
knowledge therefore, and with altogether as little virtue, I was set
apart for the church, and at the proper age commenced monk. I lived many
years retired in a cell, a life very agreeable to the gloominess of my
temper, which was much inclined to despise the world; that is, in other
words, to envy all men of superior fortune and qualifications, and in
general to hate and detest the human species. Notwithstanding which, I
could, on proper occasions, submit to flatter the vilest fellow in
nature, which I did one Stephen, an eunuch, a favourite of the emperor
Justinian II., one of the wickedest wretches whom perhaps the world ever
saw. I not only wrote a panegyric on this man, but I commended him as a
pattern to all others in my sermons; by which means I so greatly
ingratiated myself with him, that he introduced me to the emperor's
presence, where I prevailed so far by the same methods, that I was
shortly taken from my cell, and preferred to a place at court. I was no
sooner established in the favour of Justinian than I prompted him to all
kind of cruelty. As I was of a sour morose temper, and hated nothing
more than the symptoms of happiness appearing in any countenance, I
represented all kind of diversion and amusement as the most horrid sins.
I inveighed against chearfulness as levity, and encouraged nothing but
gravity, or, to confess the truth to you, hypocrisy. The unhappy
emperor followed my advice, and incensed the people by such repeated
barbarities, that he was at last deposed by them and banished.
"I now retired again to my cell (for historians mistake in saying I was
put to death), where I remained safe from the danger of the irritated
mob, whom I cursed in my own heart as much as they could curse me.
"Justinian, after three years of his banishment, returned to
Constantinople in disguise, and paid me a visit. I at first affected not
to know him, and without the least compunction of gratitude for his
former favours, intended not to receive him, till a thought immediately
suggesting itself to me how I might convert him to my advantage, I
pretended to recollect him; and, blaming the shortness of my memory and
badness of my eyes, I sprung forward and embraced him with great
affection.
"My design was to betray him to Apsimar, who, I doubted not, would
generously reward such a service. I therefore very earnestly requested
him to spend the whole evening with me; to which he consented. I formed
an excuse for leaving him a few minutes, and ran away to the palace to
acquaint Apsimar with the guest whom I had then in my cell. He presently
ordered a guard to go with me and seize him; but, whether the length of
my stay gave him any suspicion, or whether he changed his purpose after
my departure, I know not; for at my return we found he had given us the
slip; nor could we with the most diligent search discover him.
"Apsimar, being disappointed of his prey, now raged at me; at first
denouncing the most dreadful vengeance if I did not produce the deposed
monarch. However, by soothing his passion when at the highest, and
afterwards by canting and flattery, I made a shift to escape his fury.
"When Justinian was restored I very confidently went to wish him joy of
his restoration: but it seems he had unfortunately heard of my
treachery, so that he at first received me coldly, and afterwards
upbraided me openly with what I had done. I persevered stoutly in
denying it, as I knew no evidence could be produced against me; till,
finding him irreconcilable, I betook myself to reviling him in my
sermons, and on every other occasion, as an enemy to the church and good
men, and as an infidel, a heretic, an atheist, a heathen, and an Arian.
This I did immediately on his return, and before he gave those flagrant
proofs of his inhumanity which afterwards sufficiently verified all I
had said.
"Luckily I died on the same day when a great number of those forces
which Justinian had sent against the Thracian Bosphorus, and who had
executed such unheard-of cruelties there, perished. As every one of
these was cast into the bottomless pit, Minos was so tired with
condemnation, that he proclaimed that all present who had not been
concerned in that bloody expedition might, if they pleased, return to
the other world. I took him at his word, and, presently turning about,
began my journey."
Chapter xv.
_Julian passes into the character of a fidler._
"Rome was now the seat of my nativity. My mother was an African, a woman
of no great beauty, but a favourite, I suppose from her piety, of pope
Gregory II. Who was my father I know not, but I believe no very
considerable man; for after the death of that pope, who was, out of his
religion, a very good friend of my mother, we fell into great distress,
and were at length reduced to walk the streets of Rome; nor had either
of us any other support but a fiddle, on which I played with pretty
tolerable skill; for, as my genius turned naturally to music, so I had
been in my youth very early instructed at the expense of the good pope.
This afforded us but a very poor livelihood: for, though I had often a
numerous croud of hearers, few ever thought themselves obliged to
contribute the smallest pittance to the poor starving wretch who had
given them pleasure. Nay, some of the graver sort, after an hour's
attention to my music, have gone away shaking their heads, and crying it
was a shame such vagabonds were suffered to stay in the city.
"To say the truth, I am confident the fiddle would not have kept us
alive had we entirely depended on the generosity of my hearers. My
mother therefore was forced to use her own industry; and while I was
soothing the ears of the croud, she applied to their pockets, and that
generally with such good success that we now began to enjoy a very
comfortable subsistence; and indeed, had we had the least prudence or
forecast, might have soon acquired enough to enable us to quit this
dangerous and dishonourable way of life: but I know not what is the
reason that money got with labour and safety is constantly preserved,
while the produce of danger and ease is commonly spent as easily, and
often as wickedly, as acquired. Thus we proportioned our expenses rather
by what we had than what we wanted or even desired; and on obtaining a
considerable booty we have even forced nature into the most profligate
extravagance, and have been wicked without inclination.
"We carried on this method of thievery for a long time without
detection: but, as Fortune generally leaves persons of extraordinary
ingenuity in the lurch at last, so did she us; for my poor mother was
taken in the fact, and, together with myself, as her accomplice, hurried
before a magistrate.
"Luckily for us, the person who was to be our judge was the greatest
lover of music in the whole city, and had often sent for me to play to
him, for which, as he had given me very small rewards, perhaps his
gratitude now moved him: but, whatever was his motive, he browbeat the
informers against us, and treated their evidence with so little favour,
that their mouths were soon stopped, and we dismissed with honour;
acquitted, I should rather have said, for we were not suffered to depart
till I had given the judge several tunes on the fiddle.
"We escaped the better on this occasion because the person robbed
happened to be a poet; which gave the judge, who was a facetious person,
many opportunities of jesting. He said poets and musicians should agree
together, seeing they had married sisters; which he afterwards explained
to be the sister arts. And when the piece of gold was produced he burst
into a loud laugh, and said it must be the golden age, when poets had
gold in their pockets, and in that age there could be no robbers. He
made many more jests of the same kind, but a small taste will suffice.
"It is a common saying that men should take warning by any signal
delivery; but I cannot approve the justice of it; for to me it seems
that the acquittal of a guilty person should rather inspire him with
confidence, and it had this effect on us: for we now laughed at the law,
and despised its punishments, which we found were to be escaped even
against positive evidence. We imagined the late example was rather a
warning to the accuser than the criminal, and accordingly proceeded in
the most impudent and flagitious manner.
"Among other robberies, one night, being admitted by the servants into
the house of an opulent priest, my mother took an opportunity, whilst
the servants were dancing to my tunes, to convey away a silver vessel;
this she did without the least sacrilegious intention; but it seems the
cup, which was a pretty large one, was dedicated to holy uses, and only
borrowed by the priest on an entertainment which he made for some of his
brethren. We were immediately pursued upon this robbery (the cup being
taken in our possession), and carried before the same magistrate, who
had before behaved to us with so much gentleness: but his countenance
was now changed, for the moment the priest appeared against us, his
severity was as remarkable as his candour had been before, and we were
both ordered to be stript and whipt through the streets.
"This sentence was executed with great severity, the priest himself
attending and encouraging the executioner, which he said he did for the
good of our souls; but, though our backs were both flead, neither my
mother's torments nor my own afflicted me so much as the indignity
offered to my poor fiddle, which was carried in triumph before me, and
treated with a contempt by the multitude, intimating a great scorn for
the science I had the honour to profess; which, as it is one of the
noblest inventions of men, and as I had been always in the highest
degree proud of my excellence in it, I suffered so much from the
ill-treatment my fiddle received, that I would have given all my
remainder of skin to have preserved it from this affront.
"My mother survived the whipping a very short time; and I was now
reduced to great distress and misery, till a young Roman of considerable
rank took a fancy to me, received me into his family, and conversed
with me in the utmost familiarity. He had a violent attachment to music,
and would learn to play on the fiddle; but, through want of genius for
the science, he never made any considerable progress. However, I
flattered his performance, and he grew extravagantly fond of me for so
doing. Had I continued this behaviour I might possibly have reaped the
greatest advantages from his kindness; but I had raised his own opinion
of his musical abilities so high, that he now began to prefer his skill
to mine, a presumption I could not bear. One day as we were playing in
concert he was horribly out; nor was it possible, as he destroyed the
harmony, to avoid telling him of it. Instead of receiving my correction,
he answered it was my blunder and not his, and that I had mistaken the
key. Such an affront from my own scholar was beyond human patience; I
flew into a violent passion, I flung down my instrument in a rage, and
swore I was not to be taught music at my age. He answered, with as much
warmth, nor was he to be instructed by a stroling fiddler. The dispute
ended in a challenge to play a prize before judges. This wager was
determined in my favour; but the purchase was a dear one, for I lost my
friend by it, who now, twitting me with all his kindness, with my former
ignominious punishment, and the destitute condition from which I had
been by his bounty relieved, discarded me for ever.
"While I lived with this gentleman I became known, among others, to
Sabina, a lady of distinction, and who valued herself much on her taste
for music. She no sooner heard of my being discarded than she took me
into her house, where I was extremely well cloathed and fed.
Notwithstanding which, my situation was far from agreeable; for I was
obliged to submit to her constant reprehensions before company, which
gave me the greater uneasiness because they were always wrong; nor am I
certain that she did not by these provocations contribute to my death:
for, as experience had taught me to give up my resentment to my bread,
so my passions, for want of outward vent, preyed inwardly on my vitals,
and perhaps occasioned the distemper of which I sickened.
"The lady, who, amidst all the faults she found, was very fond of me,
nay, probably was the fonder of me the more faults she found,
immediately called in the aid of three celebrated physicians. The
doctors (being well fee'd) made me seven visits in three days, and two
of them were at the door to visit me the eighth time, when, being
acquainted that I was just dead, they shook their heads and departed.
"When I came to Minos he asked me with a smile whether I had brought my
fiddle with me; and, receiving an answer in the negative, he bid me get
about my business, saying it was well for me that the devil was no lover
of music."
Chapter xvi.
_The history of the wise man._
"I now returned to Rome, but in a very different character. Fortune had
now allotted me a serious part to act. I had even in my infancy a grave
disposition, nor was I ever seen to smile, which infused an opinion into
all about me that I was a child of great solidity; some foreseeing that
I should be a judge, and others a bishop. At two years old my father
presented me with a rattle, which I broke to pieces with great
indignation. This the good parent, being extremely wise, regarded as an
eminent symptom of my wisdom, and cried out in a kind of extasy, 'Well
said, boy! I warrant thou makest a great man.'
"At school I could never be persuaded to play with my mates; not that I
spent my hours in learning, to which I was not in the least addicted,
nor indeed had I any talents for it. However, the solemnity of my
carriage won so much on my master, who was a most sagacious person, that
I was his chief favourite, and my example on all occasions was
recommended to the other boys, which filled them with envy, and me with
pleasure; but, though they envied me, they all paid me that involuntary
respect which it is the curse attending this passion to bear towards its
object.
"I had now obtained universally the character of a very wise young man,
which I did not altogether purchase without pains; for the restraint I
laid on myself in abstaining from the several diversions adapted to my
years cost me many a yearning; but the pride which I inwardly enjoyed in
the fancied dignity of my character made me some amends.
"Thus I past on, without anything very memorable happening to me, till I
arrived at the age of twenty-three, when unfortunately I fell acquainted
with a young Neapolitan lady whose name was Ariadne. Her beauty was so
exquisite that her first sight made a violent impression on me; this was
again improved by her behaviour, which was most genteel, easy, and
affable: lastly, her conversation compleated the conquest. In this she
discovered a strong and lively understanding, with the sweetest and most
benign temper. This lovely creature was about eighteen when I first
unhappily beheld her at Rome, on a visit to a relation with whom I had
great intimacy. As our interviews at first were extremely frequent, my
passions were captivated before I apprehended the least danger; and the
sooner probably, as the young lady herself, to whom I consulted every
method of recommendation, was not displeased with my being her admirer.
"Ariadne, having spent three months at Rome, now returned to Naples,
bearing my heart with her: on the other hand, I had all the assurances
consistent with the constraint under which the most perfect modesty lays
a young woman, that her own heart was not entirely unaffected. I soon
found her absence gave me an uneasiness not easy to be borne or to
remove. I now first applied to diversions (of the graver sort,
particularly to music), but in vain; they rather raised my desires and
heightened my anguish. My passion at length grew so violent, that I
began to think of satisfying it. As the first step to this, I cautiously
enquired into the circumstances of Ariadne's parents, with which I was
hitherto unacquainted: though, indeed, I did not apprehend they were
extremely great, notwithstanding the handsome appearance of their
daughter at Rome. Upon examination, her fortune exceeded my expectation,
but was not sufficient to justify my marriage with her, in the opinion
of the wise and prudent. I had now a violent struggle between wisdom and
happiness, in which, after several grievous pangs, wisdom got the
better. I could by no means prevail with myself to sacrifice that
character of profound wisdom, which I had with such uniform conduct
obtained, and with such caution hitherto preserved. I therefore resolved
to conquer my affection, whatever it cost me; and indeed it did not cost
me a little.
"While I was engaged in this conflict (for it lasted a long time)
Ariadne returned to Rome: her presence was a terrible enemy to my
wisdom, which even in her absence had with great difficulty stood its
ground. It seems (as she hath since told me in Elysium with much
merriment) I had made the same impressions on her which she had made on
me. Indeed, I believe my wisdom would have been totally subdued by this
surprize, had it not cunningly suggested to me a method of satisfying my
passion without doing any injury to my reputation. This was by engaging
her privately as a mistress, which was at that time reputable enough at
Rome, provided the affair was managed with an air of slyness and
gravity, though the secret was known to the whole city.
"I immediately set about this project, and employed every art and engine
to effect it. I had particularly bribed her priest, and an old female
acquaintance and distant relation of her's, into my interest: but all
was in vain; her virtue opposed the passion in her breast as strongly as
wisdom had opposed it in mine. She received my proposals with the utmost
disdain, and presently refused to see or hear from me any more.
"She returned again to Naples, and left me in a worse condition than
before. My days I now passed with the most irksome uneasiness, and my
nights were restless and sleepless. The story of our amour was now
pretty public, and the ladies talked of our match as certain; but my
acquaintance denied their assent, saying, 'No, no, he is too wise to
marry so imprudently.' This their opinion gave me, I own, very great
pleasure; but, to say the truth, scarce compensated the pangs I suffered
to preserve it.
"One day, while I was balancing with myself, and had almost resolved to
enjoy my happiness at the price of my character, a friend brought me
word that Ariadne was married. This news struck me to the soul; and
though I had resolution enough to maintain my gravity before him (for
which I suffered not a little the more), the moment I was alone I threw
myself into the most violent fit of despair, and would willingly have
parted with wisdom, fortune, and everything else, to have retrieved her;
but that was impossible, and I had now nothing but time to hope a cure
from. This was very tedious in performing it, and the longer as Ariadne
had married a Roman cavalier, was now become my near neighbour, and I
had the mortification of seeing her make the best of wives, and of
having the happiness which I had lost, every day before my eyes.
"If I suffered so much on account of my wisdom in having refused
Ariadne, I was not much more obliged to it for procuring me a rich
widow, who was recommended to me by an old friend as a very prudent
match; and, indeed, so it was, her fortune being superior to mine in the
same proportion as that of Ariadne had been inferior. I therefore
embraced this proposal, and my character of wisdom soon pleaded so
effectually for me with the widow, who was herself a woman of great
gravity and discretion, that I soon succeeded; and as soon as decency
would permit (of which this lady was the strictest observer) we were
married, being the second day of the second week of the second year
after her husband's death; for she said she thought some period of time
above the year had a great air of decorum.
"But, prudent as this lady was, she made me miserable. Her person was
far from being lovely, but her temper was intolerable. During fifteen
years' habitation, I never passed a single day without heartily cursing
her, and the hour in which we came together. The only comfort I
received, in the midst of the highest torments, was from continually
hearing the prudence of my match commended by all my acquaintance.
"Thus you see, in the affairs of love, I bought the reputation of
wisdom pretty dear. In other matters I had it somewhat cheaper; not that
hypocrisy, which was the price I gave for it, gives one no pain. I have
refused myself a thousand little amusements with a feigned contempt,
while I have really had an inclination to them. I have often almost
choaked myself to restrain from laughing at a jest, and (which was
perhaps to myself the least hurtful of all my hypocrisy) have heartily
enjoyed a book in my closet which I have spoken with detestation of in
public. To sum up my history in short, as I had few adventures worth
remembering, my whole life was one constant lie; and happy would it have
been for me if I could as thoroughly have imposed on myself as I did on
others: for reflection, at every turn, would often remind me I was not
so wise as people thought me; and this considerably embittered the
pleasure I received from the public commendation of my wisdom. This
self-admonition, like a _memento mori_ or _mortalis es_, must be, in my
opinion, a very dangerous enemy to flattery: indeed, a weight sufficient
to counterbalance all the false praise of the world. But whether it be
that the generality of wise men do not reflect at all, or whether they
have, from a constant imposition on others, contracted such a habit of
deceit as to deceive themselves, I will not determine: it is, I believe,
most certain that very few wise men know themselves what fools they are,
more than the world doth. Good gods! could one but see what passes in
the closet of wisdom! how ridiculous a sight must it be to behold the
wise man, who despises gratifying his palate, devouring custard; the
sober wise man with his dram-bottle; or, the anti-carnalist (if I may be
allowed the expression) chuckling over a b--dy book or picture, and
perhaps caressing his housemaid!
"But to conclude a character in which I apprehend I made as absurd a
figure as in any in which I trod the stage of earth, my wisdom at last
put an end to itself, that is, occasioned my dissolution.
"A relation of mine in the eastern part of the empire disinherited his
son, and left me his heir. This happened in the depth of winter, when I
was in my grand climacteric, and had just recovered of a dangerous
disease. As I had all the reason imaginable to apprehend the family of
the deceased would conspire against me, and embezzle as much as they
could, I advised with a grave and wise friend what was proper to be
done; whether I should go myself, or employ a notary on this occasion,
and defer my journey to the spring. To say the truth, I was most
inclined to the latter; the rather as my circumstances were extremely
flourishing, as I was advanced in years, and had not one person in the
world to whom I should with pleasure bequeath any fortune at my death.
"My friend told me he thought my question admitted of no manner of doubt
or debate; that common prudence absolutely required my immediate
departure; adding, that if the same good luck had happened to him he
would have been already on his journey; 'for,' continued he, 'a man who
knows the world so well as you, would be inexcusable to give persons
such an opportunity of cheating you, who, you must be assured, will be
too well inclined; and as for employing a notary, remember that
excellent maxim, _Ne facias per alium, quod fieri potest per te_. I own
the badness of the season and your very late recovery are unlucky
circumstances; but a wise man must get over difficulties when necessity
obliges him to encounter them.'
"I was immediately determined by this opinion. The duty of a wise man
made an irresistible impression, and I took the necessity for granted
without examination. I accordingly set forward the next morning; very
tempestuous weather soon overtook me; I had not travelled three days
before I relapsed into my fever, and died.
"I was now as cruelly disappointed by Minos as I had formerly been
happily so. I advanced with the utmost confidence to the gate, and
really imagined I should have been admitted by the wisdom of my
countenance, even without any questions asked: but this was not my case;
and, to my great surprize, Minos, with a menacing voice, called out to
me, 'You Mr there, with the grave countenance, whither so fast, pray?
Will you please, before you move any farther forwards, to give me a
short account of your transactions below?' I then began, and recounted
to him my whole history, still expecting at the end of every period that
the gate would be ordered to fly open; but I was obliged to go quite
through with it, and then Minos after some little consideration spoke to
me as follows:--
"'You, Mr Wiseman, stand forth if you please. Believe me, sir, a trip
back again to earth will be one of the wisest steps you ever took, and
really more to the honour of your wisdom than any you have hitherto
taken. On the other side, nothing could be simpler than to endeavour at
Elysium; for who but a fool would carry a commodity, which is of such
infinite value in one place, into another where it is of none? But,
without attempting to offend your gravity with a jest, you must return
to the place from whence you came, for Elysium was never designed for
those who are too wise to be happy.'
"This sentence confounded me greatly, especially as it seemed to
threaten me with carrying my wisdom back again to earth. I told the
judge, though he would not admit me at the gate, I hoped I had committed
no crime while alive which merited my being wise any longer. He
answered me, I must take my chance as to that matter, and immediately we
turned our backs to each other."
Chapter xvii.
_Julian enters into the person of a king._
"I was now born at Oviedo in Spain. My father's name was Veremond, and I
was adopted by my uncle king Alphonso the chaste. I don't recollect in
all the pilgrimages I have made on earth that I ever past a more
miserable infancy than now; being under the utmost confinement and
restraint, and surrounded with physicians who were ever dosing me, and
tutors who were continually plaguing me with their instructions; even
those hours of leisure which my inclination would have spent in play
were allotted to tedious pomp and ceremony, which, at an age wherein I
had no ambition to enjoy the servility of courtiers, enslaved me more
than it could the meanest of them. However, as I advanced towards
manhood, my condition made me some amends; for the most beautiful women
of their own accord threw out lures for me, and I had the happiness,
which no man in an inferior degree can arrive at, of enjoying the most
delicious creatures, without the previous and tiresome ceremonies of
courtship, unless with the most simple, young, and unexperienced. As for
the court ladies, they regarded me rather as men do the most lovely of
the other sex; and, though they outwardly retained some appearance of
modesty, they in reality rather considered themselves as receiving than
conferring favours.
"Another happiness I enjoyed was in conferring favours of another sort;
for, as I was extremely good-natured and generous, so I had daily
opportunities of satisfying those passions. Besides my own princely
allowance, which was very bountiful, and with which I did many liberal
and good actions, I recommended numberless persons of merit in distress
to the king's notice, most of whom were provided for. Indeed, had I
sufficiently known my blest situation at this time, I should have
grieved at nothing more than the death of Alphonso, by which the burden
of government devolved upon me; but, so blindly fond is ambition, and
such charms doth it fancy in the power and pomp and splendour of a
crown, that, though I vehemently loved that king, and had the greatest
obligations to him, the thoughts of succeeding him obliterated my regret
at his loss, and the wish for my approaching coronation dried my eyes at
his funeral.
"But my fondness for the name of king did not make me forgetful of those
over whom I was to reign. I considered them in the light in which a
tender father regards his children, as persons whose wellbeing God had
intrusted to my care; and again, in that in which a prudent lord
respects his tenants, as those on whose wealth and grandeur he is to
build his own. Both these considerations inspired me with the greatest
care for their welfare, and their good was my first and ultimate
concern.
"The usurper Mauregas had impiously obliged himself and his successors
to pay to the Moors every year an infamous tribute of an hundred young
virgins: from this cruel and scandalous imposition I resolved to relieve
my country. Accordingly, when their emperor Abderames the second had the
audaciousness to make this demand of me, instead of complying with it I
ordered his ambassadors to be driven away with all imaginable ignominy,
and would have condemned them to death, could I have done it without a
manifest violation of the law of nations.
"I now raised an immense army; at the levying of which I made a speech
from my throne, acquainting my subjects with the necessity and the
reasons of the war in which I was going to engage: which I convinced
them I had undertaken for their ease and safety, and not for satisfying
any wanton ambition, or revenging any private pique of my own. They all
declared unanimously that they would venture their lives and everything
dear to them in my defence, and in the support of the honour of my
crown. Accordingly, my levies were instantly complete, sufficient
numbers being only left to till the land; churchmen, even bishops
themselves, enlisting themselves under my banners.
"The armies met at Alvelda, where we were discomfited with immense loss,
and nothing but the lucky intervention of the night could have saved our
whole army.
"I retreated to the summit of a hill, where I abandoned myself to the
highest agonies of grief, not so much for the danger in which I then saw
my crown, as for the loss of those miserable wretches who had exposed
their lives at my command. I could not then avoid this reflection--that,
if the deaths of these people in a war undertaken absolutely for their
protection could give me such concern, what horror must I have felt if,
like princes greedy of dominion, I had sacrificed such numbers to my own
pride, vanity, and ridiculous lust of power.
"After having vented my sorrows for some time in this manner, I began to
consider by what means I might possibly endeavour to retrieve this
misfortune; when, reflecting on the great number of priests I had in my
army, and on the prodigious force of superstition, a thought luckily
suggested itself to me, to counterfeit that St James had appeared to me
in a vision, and had promised me the victory. While I was ruminating on
this the bishop of Najara came opportunely to me. As I did not intend to
communicate the secret to him, I took another method, and, instead of
answering anything the bishop said to me, I pretended to talk to St
James, as if he had been really present; till at length, after having
spoke those things which I thought sufficient, and thanked the saint
aloud for his promise of the victory, I turned about to the bishop, and,
embracing him with a pleased countenance, protested I did not know he
was present; and then, informing him of this supposed vision, I asked
him if he had not himself seen the saint? He answered me he had; and
afterwards proceeded to assure me that this appearance of St James was
entirely owing to his prayers; for that he was his tutelar saint. He
added he had a vision of him a few hours before, when he promised him a
victory over the infidels, and acquainted him at the same time of the
vacancy of the see of Toledo. Now, this news being really true, though
it had happened so lately that I had not heard of it (nor, indeed, was
it well possible I should, considering the great distance of the way),
when I was afterwards acquainted with it, a little staggered me, though
far from being superstitious; till being informed that the bishop had
lost three horses on a late expedition, I was satisfied.
"The next morning, the bishop, at my desire, mounted the rostrum, and
trumpeted forth this vision so effectually, which he said he had that
evening twice seen with his own eyes, that a spirit began to be infused
through the whole army which rendered them superior to almost any force:
the bishop insisted that the least doubt of success was giving the lie
to the saint, and a damnable sin, and he took upon him in his name to
promise them victory.
"The army being drawn out, I soon experienced the effect of enthusiasm,
for, having contrived another stratagem[I] to strengthen what the bishop
had said, the soldiers fought more like furies than men. My stratagem
was this: I had about me a dexterous fellow, who had been formerly a
pimp in my amours. Him I drest up in a strange antick dress, with a pair
of white colours in his right hand, a red cross in his left, and having
disguised him so that no one could know him, I placed him on a white
horse, and ordered him to ride to the head of the army, and cry out,
'Follow St James!' These words were reiterated by all the troops, who
attacked the enemy with such intrepidity, that, notwithstanding our
inferiority of numbers, we soon obtained a complete victory.
"The bishop was come up by the time that the enemy was routed, and,
acquainting us that he had met St James by the way, and that he had
informed him of what had past, he added that he had express orders from
the saint to receive a considerable sum for his use, and that a certain
tax on corn and wine should be settled on his church for ever; and
lastly, that a horseman's pay should be allowed for the future to the
saint himself, of which he and his successors were appointed receivers.
The army received these demands with such acclamations that I was
obliged to comply with them, as I could by no means discover the
imposition, nor do I believe I should have gained any credit if I had.
"I had now done with the saint, but the bishop had not; for about a
week afterwards lights were seen in a wood near where the battle was
fought; and in a short time afterwards they discovered his tomb at the
same place. Upon this the bishop made me a visit, and forced me to go
thither, to build a church to him, and largely endow it. In a word, the
good man so plagued me with miracle after miracle, that I was forced to
make interest with the pope to convey him to Toledo, to get rid of him.
"But to proceed to other matters.--There was an inferior officer, who
had behaved very bravely in the battle against the Moors, and had
received several wounds, who solicited me for preferment; which I was
about to confer on him, when one of my ministers came to me in a fright,
and told me that he had promised the post I designed for this man to the
son of count Alderedo; and that the count, who was a powerful person,
would be greatly disobliged at the refusal, as he had sent for his son
from school to take possession of it. I was obliged to agree with my
minister's reasons, and at the same time recommended the wounded soldier
to be preferred by him, which he faithfully promised he would; but I met
the poor wretch since in Elysium, who informed me he was afterwards
starved to death.
"None who hath not been himself a prince, nor any prince till his death,
can conceive the impositions daily put on them by their favourites and
ministers; so that princes are often blamed for the faults of others.
The count of Saldagne had been long confined in prison, when his son D.
Bernard del Carpio, who had performed the greatest actions against the
Moors, entreated me, as a reward for his service, to grant him his
father's liberty. The old man's punishment had been so tedious, and the
services of the young one so singularly eminent, that I was very
inclinable to grant the request; but my ministers strongly opposed it;
they told me my glory demanded revenge for the dishonour offered to my
family; that so positive a demand carried with it rather the air of
menace than entreaty; that the vain detail of his services, and the
recompense due to them, was an injurious reproach; that to grant what
had been so haughtily demanded would argue in the monarch both weakness
and timidity; in a word, that to remit the punishment inflicted by my
predecessors would be to condemn their judgment. Lastly, one told me in
a whisper, 'His whole family are enemies to your house.' By these means
the ministers prevailed. The young lord took the refusal so ill, that he
retired from court, and abandoned himself to despair, whilst the old one
languished in prison. By which means, as I have since discovered, I lost
the use of two of my best subjects.
"To confess the truth, I had, by means of my ministers, conceived a very
unjust opinion of my whole people, whom I fancied to be daily conspiring
against me, and to entertain the most disloyal thoughts, when, in
reality (as I have known since my death), they held me in universal
respect and esteem. This is a trick, I believe, too often played with
sovereigns, who, by such means, are prevented from that open intercourse
with their subjects which, as it would greatly endear the person of the
prince to the people, so might it often prove dangerous to a minister
who was consulting his own interest only at the expense of both. I
believe I have now recounted to you the most material passages of my
life; for I assure you there are some incidents in the lives of kings
not extremely worth relating. Everything which passes in their minds and
families is not attended with the splendour which surrounds their
throne--indeed, there are some hours wherein the naked king and the
naked cobbler can scarce be distinguished from each other.
"Had it not been, however, for my ingratitude to Bernard del Carpio, I
believe this would have been my last pilgrimage on earth; for, as to the
story of St James, I thought Minos would have burst his sides at it; but
he was so displeased with me on the other account, that, with a frown,
he cried out, 'Get thee back again, king.' Nor would he suffer me to say
another word."
Chapter xviii.
_Julian passes into a fool._
"The next visit I made to the world was performed in France, where I was
born in the court of Lewis III., and had afterwards the honour to be
preferred to be fool to the prince, who was surnamed Charles the Simple.
But, in reality, I know not whether I might so properly be said to have
acted the fool in his court as to have made fools of all others in it.
Certain it is, I was very far from being what is generally understood by
that word, being a most cunning, designing, arch knave. I knew very well
the folly of my master, and of many others, and how to make my advantage
of this knowledge.
"I was as dear to Charles the Simple as the player Paris was to
Domitian, and, like him, bestowed all manner of offices and honours on
whom I pleased. This drew me a great number of followers among the
courtiers, who really mistook me for a fool, and yet flattered my
understanding. There was particularly in the court a fellow who had
neither honour, honesty, sense, wit, courage, beauty, nor indeed any one
good quality, either of mind or body, to recommend him; but was at the
same time, perhaps, as cunning a monster as ever lived. This gentleman
took it into his head to list under my banner, and pursued me so very
assiduously with flattery, constantly reminding me of my good sense,
that I grew immoderately fond of him; for though flattery is not most
judiciously applied to qualities which the persons flattered possess,
yet as, notwithstanding my being well assured of my own parts, I past in
the whole court for a fool, this flattery was a very sweet morsel to me.
I therefore got this fellow preferred to a bishopric, but I lost my
flatterer by it; for he never afterwards said a civil thing to me.
"I never baulked my imagination for the grossness of the reflection on
the character of the greatest noble--nay, even the king himself; of
which I will give you a very bold instance. One day his simple majesty
told me he believed I had so much power that his people looked on me as
the king, and himself as my fool. At this I pretended to be angry, as
with an affront. 'Why, how now?' says the king; 'are you ashamed of
being a king?' 'No, sir,' says I, 'but I am devilishly ashamed of my
fool.'
"Herbert, earl of Vermandois, had by my means been restored to the
favour of the Simple (for so I used always to call Charles). He
afterwards prevailed with the king to take the city of Arras from earl
Baldwin, by which means, Herbert, in exchange for this city, had Peronne
restored to him by count Altmar. Baldwin came to court in order to
procure the restoration of his city; but, either through pride or
ignorance, neglected to apply to me. As I met him at court during his
solicitation, I told him he did not apply the right way; he answered
roughly he should not ask a fool's advice. I replied I did not wonder at
his prejudice, since he had miscarried already by following a fool's
advice; but I told him there were fools who had more interest than that
he had brought with him to court. He answered me surlily he had no fool
with him, for that he travelled alone. 'Ay, my lord,' says I, 'I often
travel alone, and yet they will have it I always carry a fool with me.'
This raised a laugh among the bystanders, on which he gave me a blow. I
immediately complained of this usage to the Simple, who dismissed the
earl from court with very hard words, instead of granting him the favour
he solicited.
"I give you these rather as a specimen of my interest and impudence than
of my wit--indeed, my jests were commonly more admired than they ought
to be; for perhaps I was not in reality much more a wit than a fool.
But, with the latitude of unbounded scurrility, it is easy enough to
attain the character of wit, especially in a court, where, as all
persons hate and envy one another heartily, and are at the same time
obliged by the constrained behaviour of civility to profess the greatest
liking, so it is, and must be, wonderfully pleasant to them to see the
follies of their acquaintance exposed by a third person. Besides, the
opinion of the court is as uniform as the fashion, and is always guided
by the will of the prince or of the favourite. I doubt not that
Caligula's horse was universally held in his court to be a good and able
consul. In the same manner was I universally acknowledged to be the
wittiest fool in the world. Every word I said raised laughter, and was
held to be a jest, especially by the ladies, who sometimes laughed
before I had discovered my sentiment, and often repeated that as a jest
which I did not even intend as one.
"I was as severe on the ladies as on the men, and with the same
impunity; but this at last cost me dear: for once having joked on the
beauty of a lady whose name was Adelaide, a favourite of the Simple's,
she pretended to smile and be pleased at my wit with the rest of the
company; but in reality she highly resented it, and endeavoured to
undermine me with the king. In which she so greatly succeeded (for what
cannot a favourite woman do with one who deserves the surname of
Simple?) that the king grew every day more reserved to me, and when I
attempted any freedom gave me such marks of his displeasure, that the
courtiers who have all hawks' eyes at a slight from the sovereign, soon
discerned it: and indeed, had I been blind enough not to have discovered
that I had lost ground in the Simple's favour by his own change in his
carriage towards me, I must have found it, nay even felt it, in the
behaviour of the courtiers: for, as my company was two days before
solicited with the utmost eagerness, it was now rejected with as much
scorn. I was now the jest of the ushers and pages; and an officer of the
guards, on whom I was a little jocose, gave me a box on the ear, bidding
me make free with my equals. This very fellow had been my butt for many
years, without daring to lift his hand against me.
"But though I visibly perceived the alteration in the Simple, I was
utterly unable to make any guess at the occasion. I had not the least
suspicion of Adelaide; for, besides her being a very good-humoured
woman, I had often made severe jests on her reputation, which I had all
the reason imaginable to believe had given her no offence. But I soon
perceived that a woman will bear the most bitter censures on her morals
easier than the smallest reflection on her beauty; for she now declared
publicly, that I ought to be dismissed from court, as the stupidest of
fools, and one in whom there was no diversion; and that she wondered how
any person could have so little taste as to imagine I had any wit. This
speech was echoed through the drawing-room, and agreed to by all
present. Every one now put on an unusual gravity on their countenance
whenever I spoke; and it was as much out of my power to raise a laugh
as formerly it had been for me to open my mouth without one.
"While my affairs were in this posture I went one day into the circle
without my fool's dress. The Simple, who would still speak to me, cried
out, 'So, fool, what's the matter now?' 'Sir,' answered I, 'fools are
like to be so common a commodity at court, that I am weary of my coat.'
'How dost thou mean?' answered the Simple; 'what can make them commoner
now than usual?'--'O, sir,' said I, 'there are ladies here make your
majesty a fool every day of their lives.' The Simple took no notice of
my jest, and several present said my bones ought to be broke for my
impudence; but it pleased the queen, who, knowing Adelaide, whom she
hated, to be the cause of my disgrace, obtained me of the king, and took
me into her service; so that I was henceforth called the queen's fool,
and in her court received the same honour, and had as much wit, as I had
formerly had in the king's. But as the queen had really no power unless
over her own domestics, I was not treated in general with that
complacence, nor did I receive those bribes and presents, which had once
fallen to my share.
"Nor did this confined respect continue long: for the queen, who had in
fact no taste for humour, soon grew sick of my foolery, and, forgetting
the cause for which she had taken me, neglected me so much, that her
court grew intolerable to my temper, and I broke my heart and died.
"Minos laughed heartily at several things in my story, and then, telling
me no one played the fool in Elysium, bid me go back again."
Chapter xix.
_Julian appears in the character of a beggar._
"I now returned to Rome, and was born into a very poor and numerous
family, which, to be honest with you, procured its livelyhood by
begging. This, if you was never yourself of the calling, you do not
know, I suppose, to be as regular a trade as any other; to have its
several rules and secrets, or mysteries, which to learn require perhaps
as tedious an apprenticeship as those of any craft whatever.
"The first thing we are taught is the countenance miserable. This indeed
nature makes much easier to some than others; but there are none who
cannot accomplish it, if they begin early enough in youth, and before
the muscles are grown too stubborn.
"The second thing is the voice lamentable. In this qualification too,
nature must have her share in producing the most consummate excellence:
however, art will here, as in every other instance, go a great way with
industry and application, even without the assistance of genius,
especially if the student begins young.
"There are many other instructions, but these are the most considerable.
The women are taught one practice more than the men, for they are
instructed in the art of crying, that is, to have their tears ready on
all occasions: but this is attained very easily by most. Some indeed
arrive at the utmost perfection in this art with incredible facility.
"No profession requires a deeper insight into human nature than the
beggar's. Their knowledge of the passions of men is so extensive, that I
have often thought it would be of no little service to a politician to
have his education among them. Nay, there is a much greater analogy
between these two characters than is imagined; for both concur in their
first and grand principle, it being equally their business to delude and
impose on mankind. It must be confessed that they differ widely in the
degree of advantage which they make by their deceit; for, whereas the
beggar is contented with a little, the politician leaves but a little
behind.
"A very great English philosopher hath remarked our policy, in taking
care never to address any one with a title inferior to what he really
claims. My father was of the same opinion; for I remember when I was a
boy, the pope happening to pass by, I tended him with 'Pray, sir;' 'For
God's sake, sir;' 'For the Lord's sake, sir;'--To which he answered
gravely, 'Sirrah, sirrah, you ought to be whipt for taking the Lord's
name in vain;' and in vain it was indeed, for he gave me nothing. My
father, overhearing this, took his advice, and whipt me very severely.
While I was under correction I promised often never to take the Lord's
name in vain any more. My father then said, 'Child, I do not whip you
for taking his name in vain; I whip you for not calling the pope his
holiness.'
"If all men were so wise and good to follow the clergy's example, the
nuisance of beggars would soon be removed. I do not remember to have
been above twice relieved by them during my whole state of beggary. Once
was by a very well-looking man, who gave me a small piece of silver, and
declared he had given me more than he had left himself; the other was by
a spruce young fellow, who had that very day first put on his robes,
whom I attended with 'Pray, reverend sir, good reverend sir, consider
your cloth.' He answered, 'I do, child, consider my office, and I hope
all our cloth do the same.' He then threw down some money, and strutted
off with great dignity.
"With the women I had one general formulary: 'Sweet pretty lady,' 'God
bless your ladyship,' 'God bless your handsome face.' This generally
succeeded; but I observed the uglier the woman was, the surer I was of
success.
"It was a constant maxim among us, that the greater retinue any one
travelled with the less expectation we might promise ourselves from
them; but whenever we saw a vehicle with a single or no servant we
imagined our booty sure, and were seldom deceived.
"We observed great difference introduced by time and circumstance in the
same person; for instance, a losing gamester is sometimes generous, but
from a winner you will as easily obtain his soul as a single groat. A
lawyer travelling from his country seat to his clients at Rome, and a
physician going to visit a patient, were always worth asking; but the
same on their return were (according to our cant phrase) untouchable.
"The most general, and indeed the truest, maxim among us was, that those
who possessed the least were always the readiest to give. The chief art
of a beggar-man is, therefore, to discern the rich from the poor, which,
though it be only distinguishing substance from shadow, is by no means
attainable without a pretty good capacity and a vast degree of
attention; for these two are eternally industrious in endeavouring to
counterfeit each other. In this deceit the poor man is more heartily in
earnest to deceive you than the rich, who, amidst all the emblems of
poverty which he puts on, still permits some mark of his wealth to
strike the eye. Thus, while his apparel is not worth a groat, his
finger wears a ring of value, or his pocket a gold watch. In a word, he
seems rather to affect poverty to insult than impose on you. Now the
poor man, on the contrary, is very sincere in his desire of passing for
rich; but the eagerness of this desire hurries him to over-act his part,
and he betrays himself as one who is drunk by his overacted sobriety.
Thus, instead of being attended by one servant well mounted, he will
have two; and, not being able to purchase or maintain a second horse of
value, one of his servants at least is mounted on a hired rascallion. He
is not contented to go plain and neat in his cloathes; he therefore
claps on some tawdry ornament, and what he adds to the fineness of his
vestment he detracts from the fineness of his linnen. Without descending
into more minute particulars, I believe I may assert it as an axiom of
indubitable truth, that whoever shews you he is either in himself or his
equipage as gaudy as he can, convinces you he is more so than he can
afford. Now, whenever a man's expence exceeds his income, he is
indifferent in the degree; we had therefore nothing more to do with such
than to flatter them with their wealth and splendour, and were always
certain of success.
"There is, indeed, one kind of rich man who is commonly more liberal,
namely, where riches surprize him, as it were, in the midst of poverty
and distress, the consequence of which is, I own, sometimes excessive
avarice, but oftener extreme prodigality. I remember one of these who,
having received a pretty large sum of money, gave me, when I begged an
obolus, a whole talent; on which his friend having reproved him, he
answered, with an oath, 'Why not? Have I not fifty left?'
"The life of a beggar, if men estimated things by their real essence,
and not by their outward false appearance, would be, perhaps, a more
desirable situation than any of those which ambition persuades us, with
such difficulty, danger, and often villany, to aspire to. The wants of a
beggar are commonly as chimerical as the abundance of a nobleman; for
besides vanity, which a judicious beggar will always apply to with
wonderful efficacy, there are in reality very few natures so hardened as
not to compassionate poverty and distress, when the predominancy of some
other passion doth not prevent them.
"There is one happiness which attends money got with ease, namely, that
it is never hoarded; otherwise, as we have frequent opportunities of
growing rich, that canker care might prey upon our quiet, as it doth on
others; but our money stock we spend as fast as we acquire it; usually
at least, for I speak not without exception; thus it gives us mirth
only, and no trouble. Indeed, the luxury of our lives might introduce
diseases, did not our daily exercise prevent them. This gives us an
appetite and relish for our dainties, and at the same time an antidote
against the evil effects which sloth, united with luxury, induces on the
habit of a human body. Our women we enjoy with ecstasies at least equal
to what the greatest men feel in their embraces. I can, I am assured,
say of myself, that no mortal could reap more perfect happiness from the
tender passion than my fortune had decreed me. I married a charming
young woman for love; she was the daughter of a neighbouring beggar,
who, with an improvidence too often seen, spent a very large income
which he procured by his profession, so that he was able to give her no
fortune down; however, at his death he left her a very well accustomed
begging-hut, situated on the side of a steep hill, where travellers
could not immediately escape from us, and a garden adjoining, being the
twenty-eighth part of an acre, well planted. She made the best of
wives, bore me nineteen children, and never failed, unless on her
lying-in, which generally lasted three days, to get my supper ready
against my return home in an evening; this being my favourite meal, and
at which I, as well as my whole family, greatly enjoyed ourselves; the
principal subject of our discourse being generally the boons we had that
day obtained, on which occasions, laughing at the folly of the donors
made no inconsiderable part of the entertainment; for, whatever might be
their motive for giving, we constantly imputed our success to our having
flattered their vanity, or overreached their understanding.
"But perhaps I have dwelt too long on this character; I shall conclude,
therefore, with telling you that after a life of 102 years' continuance,
during all which I had never known any sickness or infirmity but that
which old age necessarily induced, I at last, without the least pain,
went out like the snuff of a candle.
"Minos, having heard my history, bid me compute, if I could, how many
lies I had told in my life. As we are here, by a certain fated
necessity, obliged to confine ourselves to truth, I answered, I believed
about 50,000,000. He then replied, with a frown, 'Can such a wretch
conceive any hopes of entering Elysium?' I immediately turned about,
and, upon the whole, was rejoiced at his not calling me back."
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Chapter xx.
_Julian performs the part of a statesman._
"It was now my fortune to be born of a German princess; but a
man-midwife, pulling my head off in delivering my mother, put a speedy
end to my princely life.
"Spirits who end their lives before they are at the age of five years
are immediately ordered into other bodies; and it was now my fortune to
perform several infancies before I could again entitle myself to an
examination of Minos.
"At length I was destined once more to play a considerable part on the
stage. I was born in England, in the reign of Ethelred II. My father's
name was Ulnoth: he was earl or thane of Sussex. I was afterwards known
by the name of earl Goodwin, and began to make a considerable figure in
the world in the time of Harold Harefoot, whom I procured to be made
king of Wessex, or the West Saxons, in prejudice of Hardicanute, whose
mother Emma endeavoured afterwards to set another of her sons on the
throne; but I circumvented her, and, communicating her design to the
king, at the same time acquainted him with a project which I had formed
for the murder of these two young princes. Emma had sent for these her
sons from Normandy, with the king's leave, whom she had deceived by her
religious behaviour, and pretended neglect of all worldly affairs; but I
prevailed with Harold to invite these princes to his court, and put them
to death. The prudent mother sent only Alfred, retaining Edward to
herself, as she suspected my ill designs, and thought I should not
venture to execute them on one of her sons, while she secured the other;
but she was deceived, for I had no sooner Alfred in my possession than
I caused him to be conducted to Ely, where I ordered his eyes to be put
out, and afterwards to be confined in a monastery.
"This was one of those cruel expedients which great men satisfy
themselves well in executing, by concluding them to be necessary to the
service of their prince, who is the support of their ambition.
"Edward, the other son of Emma, escaped again to Normandy; whence, after
the death of Harold and Hardicanute, he made no scruple of applying to
my protection and favour, though he had before prosecuted me with all
the vengeance he was able, for the murder of his brother; but in all
great affairs private relation must yield to public interest. Having
therefore concluded very advantageous terms for myself with him, I made
no scruple of patronizing his cause, and soon placed him on the throne.
Nor did I conceive the least apprehension from his resentment, as I knew
my power was too great for him to encounter.
"Among other stipulated conditions, one was to marry my daughter Editha.
This Edward consented to with great reluctance, and I had afterwards no
reason to be pleased with it; for it raised her, who had been my
favourite child, to such an opinion of greatness, that, instead of
paying me the usual respect, she frequently threw in my teeth (as often
at least as I gave her any admonition), that she was now a queen, and
that the character and title of father merged in that of subject. This
behaviour, however, did not cure me of my affection towards her, nor
lessen the uneasiness which I afterwards bore on Edward's dismissing her
from his bed.
"One thing which principally induced me to labour the promotion of
Edward was the simplicity or weakness of that prince, under whom I
promised myself absolute dominion under another name. Nor did this
opinion deceive me; for, during his whole reign, my administration was
in the highest degree despotic: I had everything of royalty but the
outward ensigns; no man ever applying for a place, or any kind of
preferment, but to me only. A circumstance which, as it greatly enriched
my coffers, so it no less pampered my ambition, and satisfied my vanity
with a numerous attendance; and I had the pleasure of seeing those who
only bowed to the king prostrating themselves before me.
"Edward the Confessor, or St Edward, as some have called him, in
derision I suppose, being a very silly fellow, had all the faults
incident, and almost inseparable, to fools. He married my daughter
Editha from his fear of disobliging me; and afterwards, out of hatred to
me, refused even to consummate his marriage, though she was one of the
most beautiful women of her age. He was likewise guilty of the basest
ingratitude to his mother (a vice to which fools are chiefly, if not
only, liable); and, in return for her endeavours to procure him a throne
in his youth, confined her in a loathsome prison in her old age. This,
it is true, he did by my advice; but as to her walking over nine
ploughshares red-hot, and giving nine manors, when she had not one in
her possession, there is not a syllable of veracity in it.
"The first great perplexity I fell into was on the account of my son
Swane, who had deflowered the abbess of Leon, since called Leominster,
in Herefordshire. After this fact he retired into Denmark, whence he
sent to me to obtain his pardon. The king at first refused it, being
moved thereto, as I afterwards found, by some churchmen, particularly by
one of his chaplains, whom I had prevented from obtaining a bishopric.
Upon this my son Swane invaded the coasts with several ships, and
committed many outrageous cruelties; which, indeed, did his business,
as they served me to apply to the fear of this king, which I had long
since discovered to be his predominant passion. And, at last, he who had
refused pardon to his first offence submitted to give it him after he
had committed many other more monstrous crimes; by which his pardon lost
all grace to the offended, and received double censure from all others.
"The king was greatly inclined to the Normans, had created a Norman
archbishop of Canterbury, and had heaped extraordinary favours on him. I
had no other objection to this man than that he rose without my
assistance; a cause of dislike which, in the reign of great and powerful
favourites, hath often proved fatal to the persons who have given it, as
the persons thus raised inspire us constantly with jealousies and
apprehensions. For when we promote any one ourselves, we take effectual
care to preserve such an ascendant over him, that we can at any time
reduce him to his former degree, should he dare to act in opposition to
our wills; for which reason we never suffer any to come near the prince
but such as we are assured it is impossible should be capable of
engaging or improving his affection; no prime minister, as I apprehend,
esteeming himself to be safe while any other shares the ear of his
prince, of whom we are as jealous as the fondest husband can be of his
wife. Whoever, therefore, can approach him by any other channel than
that of ourselves, is, in our opinion, a declared enemy, and one whom
the first principles of policy oblige us to demolish with the utmost
expedition. For the affection of kings is as precarious as that of
women, and the only way to secure either to ourselves is to keep all
others from them.
"But the archbishop did not let matters rest on suspicion. He soon gave
open proofs of his interest with the Confessor in procuring an office
of some importance for one Rollo, a Roman of mean extraction and very
despicable parts. When I represented to the king the indecency of
conferring such an honour on such a fellow, he answered me that he was
the archbishop's relation. 'Then, sir,' replied I, 'he is related to
your enemy.' Nothing more past at that time; but I soon perceived, by
the archbishop's behaviour, that the king had acquainted him with our
private discourse; a sufficient assurance of his confidence in him and
neglect of me.
"The favour of princes, when once lost, is recoverable only by the
gaining a situation which may make you terrible to them. As I had no
doubt of having lost all credit with this king, which indeed had been
originally founded and constantly supported by his fear, so I took the
method of terror to regain it.
"The earl of Boulogne coming over to visit the king gave me an
opportunity of breaking out into open opposition; for, as the earl was
on his return to France, one of his servants, who was sent before to
procure lodgings at Dover, and insisted on having them in the house of a
private man in spite of the owner's teeth, was, in a fray which ensued,
killed on the spot; and the earl himself, arriving there soon after,
very narrowly escaped with his life. The earl, enraged at this affront,
returned to the king at Gloucester with loud complaints and demands of
satisfaction. Edward consented to his demands, and ordered me to
chastise the rioters, who were under my government as earl of Kent: but,
instead of obeying these orders, I answered, with some warmth, that the
English were not used to punish people unheard, nor ought their rights
and privileges to be violated; that the accused should be first
summoned--if guilty, should make satisfaction both with body and estate,
but, if innocent, should be discharged. Adding, with great ferocity,
that as earl of Kent it was my duty to protect those under my government
against the insults of foreigners.
"This accident was extremely lucky, as it gave my quarrel with the king
a popular colour, and so ingratiated me with the people, that when I set
up my standard, which I soon after did, they readily and chearfully
listed under my banners and embraced my cause, which I persuaded them
was their own; for that it was to protect them against foreigners that I
had drawn my sword. The word foreigners with an Englishman hath a kind
of magical effect, they having the utmost hatred and aversion to them,
arising from the cruelties they suffered from the Danes and some other
foreign nations. No wonder therefore they espoused my cause in a quarrel
which had such a beginning.
"But what may be somewhat more remarkable is, that when I afterwards
returned to England from banishment, and was at the head of an army of
the Flemish, who were preparing to plunder the city of London, I still
persisted that I was come to defend the English from the danger of
foreigners, and gained their credit. Indeed, there is no lie so gross
but it may be imposed on the people by those whom they esteem their
patrons and defenders.
"The king saved his city by being reconciled to me, and taking again my
daughter, whom he had put away from him; and thus, having frightened the
king into what concessions I thought proper, I dismissed my army and
fleet, with which I intended, could I not have succeeded otherwise, to
have sacked the city of London and ravaged the whole country.
"I was no sooner re-established in the king's favour, or, what was as
well for me, the appearance of it, than I fell violently on the
archbishop. He had of himself retired to his monastery in Normandy; but
that did not content me: I had him formally banished, the see declared
vacant, and then filled up by another.
"I enjoyed my grandeur a very short time after my restoration to it; for
the king, hating and fearing me to a very great degree, and finding no
means of openly destroying me, at last effected his purpose by poison,
and then spread abroad a ridiculous story, of my wishing the next morsel
might choak me if I had had any hand in the death of Alfred; and,
accordingly, that the next morsel, by a divine judgment, stuck in my
throat and performed that office.
"This of a statesman was one of my worst stages in the other world. It
is a post subjected daily to the greatest danger and inquietude, and
attended with little pleasure and less ease. In a word, it is a pill
which, was it not gilded over by ambition, would appear nauseous and
detestable in the eye of every one; and perhaps that is one reason why
Minos so greatly compassionates the case of those who swallow it: for
that just judge told me he always acquitted a prime minister who could
produce one single good action in his whole life, let him have committed
ever so many crimes. Indeed, I understood him a little too largely, and
was stepping towards the gate; but he pulled me by the sleeve, and,
telling me no prime minister ever entered there, bid me go back again;
saying, he thought I had sufficient reason to rejoice in my escaping the
bottomless pit, which half my crimes committed in any other capacity
would have entitled me to."
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Chapter xxi.
_Julian's adventures in the post of a soldier._
"I was born at Caen, in Normandy. My mother's name was Matilda; as for
my father, I am not so certain, for the good woman on her deathbed
assured me she herself could bring her guess to no greater certainty
than to five of duke William's captains. When I was no more than
thirteen (being indeed a surprising stout boy of my age) I enlisted into
the army of duke William, afterwards known by the name of William the
Conqueror, landed with him at Pemesey or Pemsey, in Sussex, and was
present at the famous battle of Hastings.
"At the first onset it was impossible to describe my consternation,
which was heightened by the fall of two soldiers who stood by me; but
this soon abated, and by degrees, as my blood grew warm, I thought no
more of my own safety, but fell on the enemy with great fury, and did a
good deal of execution; till, unhappily, I received a wound in my thigh,
which rendered me unable to stand any longer, so that I now lay among
the dead, and was constantly exposed to the danger of being trampled to
death, as well by my fellow-soldiers as by the enemy. However, I had the
fortune to escape it, and continued the remaining part of the day and
the night following on the ground.
"The next morning, the duke sending out parties to bring off the
wounded, I was found almost expiring with loss of blood: notwithstanding
which, as immediate care was taken to dress my wounds, youth and a
robust constitution stood my friends, and I recovered after a long and
tedious indisposition, and was again able to use my limbs and do my
duty.
"As soon as Dover was taken I was conveyed thither with all the rest of
the sick and wounded. Here I recovered of my wound; but fell afterwards
into a violent flux, which, when it departed, left me so weak that it
was long before I could regain my strength. And what most afflicted me
was, that during my whole illness, when I languished under want as well
as sickness, I had daily the mortification to see and hear the riots and
excess of my fellow-soldiers, who had happily escaped safe from the
battle.
"I was no sooner well than I was ordered into garrison at Dover Castle.
The officers here fared very indifferently, but the private men much
worse. We had great scarcity of provisions, and, what was yet more
intolerable, were so closely confined for want of room (four of us being
obliged to lie on the same bundle of straw), that many died, and most
sickened.
"Here I had remained about four months, when one night we were alarmed
with the arrival of the earl of Boulogne, who had come over privily from
France, and endeavoured to surprize the castle. The design proved
ineffectual; for the garrison making a brisk sally, most of his men were
tumbled down the precipice, and he returned with a very few back to
France. In this action, however, I had the misfortune to come off with a
broken arm; it was so shattered, that, besides a great deal of pain and
misery which I endured in my cure, I was disabled for upwards of three
months.
"Soon after my recovery I had contracted an amour with a young woman
whose parents lived near the garrison, and were in much better
circumstances than I had reason to expect should give their consent to
the match. However, as she was extremely fond of me (as I was indeed
distractedly enamoured of her), they were prevailed on to comply with
her desires, and the day was fixed for our marriage.
"On the evening preceding, while I was exulting with the eager
expectation of the happiness I was the next day to enjoy, I received
orders to march early in the morning towards Windsor, where a large army
was to be formed, at the head of which the king intended to march into
the west. Any person who hath ever been in love may easily imagine what
I felt in my mind on receiving those orders; and what still heightened
my torments was, that the commanding officer would not permit any one to
go out of the garrison that evening; so that I had not even an
opportunity of taking leave of my beloved.
"The morning came which was to have put me in the possession of my
wishes; but, alas! the scene was now changed, and all the hopes which I
had raised were now so many ghosts to haunt, and furies to torment me.
"It was now the midst of winter, and very severe weather for the season;
when we were obliged to make very long and fatiguing marches, in which
we suffered all the inconveniences of cold and hunger. The night in
which I expected to riot in the arms of my beloved mistress I was
obliged to take up with a lodging on the ground, exposed to the
inclemencies of a rigid frost; nor could I obtain the least comfort of
sleep, which shunned me as its enemy. In short, the horrors of that
night are not to be described, or perhaps imagined. They made such an
impression on my soul, that I was forced to be dipped three times in the
river Lethe to prevent my remembering it in the characters which I
afterwards performed in the flesh."
Here I interrupted Julian for the first time, and told him no such
dipping had happened to me in my voyage from one world to the other: but
he satisfied me by saying "that this only happened to those spirits
which returned into the flesh, in order to prevent that reminiscence
which Plato mentions, and which would otherwise cause great confusion in
the other world."
He then proceeded as follows: "We continued a very laborious march to
Exeter, which we were ordered to besiege. The town soon surrendered, and
his majesty built a castle there, which he garrisoned with his Normans,
and unhappily I had the misfortune to be one of the number.
"Here we were confined closer than I had been at Dover; for, as the
citizens were extremely disaffected, we were never suffered to go
without the walls of the castle; nor indeed could we, unless in large
bodies, without the utmost danger. We were likewise kept to continual
duty, nor could any solicitations prevail with the commanding officer to
give me a month's absence to visit my love, from whom I had no
opportunity of hearing in all my long absence.
"However, in the spring, the people being more quiet, and another
officer of a gentler temper succeeding to the principal command, I
obtained leave to go to Dover; but alas! what comfort did my long
journey bring me? I found the parents of my darling in the utmost misery
at her loss; for she had died, about a week before my arrival, of a
consumption, which they imputed to her pining at my sudden departure.
"I now fell into the most violent and almost raving fit of despair. I
cursed myself, the king, and the whole world, which no longer seemed to
have any delight for me. I threw myself on the grave of my deceased
love, and lay there without any kind of sustenance for two whole days.
At last hunger, together with the persuasions of some people who took
pity on me, prevailed with me to quit that situation, and refresh myself
with food. They then persuaded me to return to my post, and abandon a
place where almost every object I saw recalled ideas to my mind which,
as they said, I should endeavour with my utmost force to expel from it.
This advice at length succeeded; the rather, as the father and mother of
my beloved refused to see me, looking on me as the innocent but certain
cause of the death of their only child.
"The loss of one we tenderly love, as it is one of the most bitter and
biting evils which attend human life, so it wants the lenitive which
palliates and softens every other calamity; I mean that great reliever,
hope. No man can be so totally undone, but that he may still cherish
expectation: but this deprives us of all such comfort, nor can anything
but time alone lessen it. This, however, in most minds, is sure to work
a slow but effectual remedy; so did it in mine: for within a twelvemonth
I was entirely reconciled to my fortune, and soon after absolutely
forgot the object of a passion from which I had promised myself such
extreme happiness, and in the disappointment of which I had experienced
such inconceivable misery.
"At the expiration of the month I returned to my garrison at Exeter;
where I was no sooner arrived than I was ordered to march into the
north, to oppose a force there levied by the earls of Chester and
Northumberland. We came to York, where his majesty pardoned the heads of
the rebels, and very severely punished some who were less guilty. It was
particularly my lot to be ordered to seize a poor man who had never been
out of his house, and convey him to prison. I detested this barbarity,
yet was obliged to execute it; nay, though no reward would have bribed
me in a private capacity to have acted such a part, yet so much sanctity
is there in the commands of a monarch or general to a soldier, that I
performed it without reluctance, nor had the tears of his wife and
family any prevalence with me.
"But this, which was a very small piece of mischief in comparison with
many of my barbarities afterwards, was however the only one which ever
gave me any uneasiness; for when the king led us afterwards into
Northumberland to revenge those people's having joined with Osborne the
Dane in his invasion, and orders were given us to commit what ravages we
could, I was forward in fulfilling them, and, among some lesser
cruelties (I remember it yet with sorrow), I ravished a woman, murdered
a little infant playing in her lap, and then burnt her house. In short,
for I have no pleasure in this part of my relation, I had my share in
all the cruelties exercised on those poor wretches; which were so
grievous, that for sixty miles together, between York and Durham, not a
single house, church, or any other public or private edifice, was left
standing.
"We had pretty well devoured the country, when we were ordered to march
to the Isle of Ely, to oppose Hereward, a bold and stout soldier, who
had under him a very large body of rebels, who had the impudence to rise
against their king and conqueror (I talk now in the same style I did
then) in defence of their liberties, as they called them. These were
soon subdued; but as I happened (more to my glory than my comfort) to be
posted in that part through which Hereward cut his way, I received a
dreadful cut on the forehead, a second on the shoulder, and was run
through the body with a pike.
"I languished a long time with these wounds, which made me incapable of
attending the king into Scotland. However, I was able to go over with
him afterwards into Normandy, in his expedition against Philip, who had
taken the opportunity of the troubles in England to invade that
province. Those few Normans who had survived their wounds, and had
remained in the Isle of Ely, were all of our nation who went, the rest
of his army being all composed of English. In a skirmish near the town
of Mans my leg was broke and so shattered that it was forced to be cut
off.
"I was now disabled from serving longer in the army; and accordingly,
being discharged from the service, I retired to the place of my
nativity, where, in extreme poverty, and frequent bad health from the
many wounds I had received, I dragged on a miserable life to the age of
sixty-three; my only pleasure being to recount the feats of my youth, in
which narratives I generally exceeded the truth.
"It would be tedious and unpleasant to recount to you the several
miseries I suffered after my return to Caen; let it suffice, they were
so terrible that they induced Minos to compassionate me, and,
notwithstanding the barbarities I had been guilty of in Northumberland,
to suffer me to go once more back to earth."
Chapter xxii.
_What happened to Julian in the person of a taylor._
"Fortune now stationed me in a character which the ingratitude of
mankind hath put them on ridiculing, though they owe to it not only a
relief from the inclemencies of cold, to which they would otherwise be
exposed, but likewise a considerable satisfaction of their vanity. The
character I mean was that of a taylor; which, if we consider it with due
attention, must be confessed to have in it great dignity and importance.
For, in reality, who constitutes the different degrees between men but
the taylor? the prince indeed gives the title, but it is the taylor who
makes the man. To his labours are owing the respect of crouds, and the
awe which great men inspire into their beholders, though these are too
often unjustly attributed to other motives. Lastly, the admiration of
the fair is most commonly to be placed to his account.
"I was just set up in my trade when I made three suits of fine clothes
for king Stephen's coronation. I question whether the person who wears
the rich coat hath so much pleasure and vanity in being admired in it,
as we taylors have from that admiration; and perhaps a philosopher would
say he is not so well entitled to it. I bustled on the day of the
ceremony through the croud, and it was with incredible delight I heard
several say, as my cloaths walked by, 'Bless me, was ever anything so
fine as the earl of Devonshire? Sure he and Sir Hugh Bigot are the two
best drest men I ever saw.' Now both those suits were of my making.
"There would indeed be infinite pleasure in working for the courtiers,
as they are generally genteel men, and shew one's clothes to the best
advantage, was it not for one small discouragement; this is, that they
never pay. I solemnly protest, though I lost almost as much by the court
in my life as I got by the city, I never carried a suit into the latter
with half the satisfaction which I have done to the former; though from
that I was certain of ready money, and from this almost as certain of no
money at all.
"Courtiers may, however, be divided into two sorts, very essentially
different from each other; into those who never intend to pay for their
clothes; and those who do intend to pay for them, but never happen to be
able. Of the latter sort are many of those young gentlemen whom we equip
out for the army, and who are, unhappily for us, cut off before they
arrive at preferment. This is the reason that taylors, in time of war,
are mistaken for politicians by their inquisitiveness into the event of
battles, one campaign very often proving the ruin of half-a-dozen of us.
I am sure I had frequent reason to curse that fatal battle of Cardigan,
where the Welsh defeated some of king Stephen's best troops, and where
many a good suit of mine, unpaid for, fell to the ground.
"The gentlemen of this honourable calling have fared much better in
later ages than when I was of it; for now it seems the fashion is, when
they apprehend their customer is not in the best circumstances, if they
are not paid as soon as they carry home the suit, they charge him in
their book as much again as it is worth, and then send a gentleman with
a small scrip of parchment to demand the money. If this be not
immediately paid the gentleman takes the beau with him to his house,
where he locks him up till the taylor is contented: but in my time these
scrips of parchment were not in use; and if the beau disliked paying for
his clothes, as very often happened, we had no method of compelling him.
"In several of the characters which I have related to you, I apprehend I
have sometimes forgot myself, and considered myself as really interested
as I was when I personated them on earth. I have just now caught myself
in the fact; for I have complained to you as bitterly of my customers as
I formerly used to do when I was the taylor: but in reality, though
there were some few persons of very great quality, and some others, who
never paid their debts, yet those were but a few, and I had a method of
repairing this loss. My customers I divided under three heads: those who
paid ready money, those who paid slow, and those who never paid at all.
The first of these I considered apart by themselves, as persons by whom
I got a certain but small profit. The two last I lumped together,
making those who paid slow contribute to repair my losses by those who
did not pay at all. Thus, upon the whole, I was a very inconsiderable
loser, and might have left a fortune to my family, had I not launched
forth into expenses which swallowed up all my gains. I had a wife and
two children. These indeed I kept frugally enough, for I half starved
them; but I kept a mistress in a finer way, for whom I had a
country-house, pleasantly situated on the Thames, elegantly fitted up
and neatly furnished. This woman might very properly be called my
mistress, for she was most absolutely so; and though her tenure was no
higher than by my will, she domineered as tyrannically as if my chains
had been riveted in the strongest manner. To all this I submitted, not
through any adoration of her beauty, which was indeed but indifferent.
Her charms consisted in little wantonnesses, which she knew admirably
well to use in hours of dalliance, and which, I believe, are of all
things the most delightful to a lover.
"She was so profusely extravagant, that it seemed as if she had an
actual intent to ruin me. This I am sure of, if such had been her real
intention, she could have taken no properer way to accomplish it; nay, I
myself might appear to have had the same view: for, besides this
extravagant mistress and my country-house, I kept likewise a brace of
hunters, rather for that it was fashionable so to do than for any great
delight I took in the sport, which I very little attended; not for want
of leisure, for few noblemen had so much. All the work I ever did was
taking measure, and that only of my greatest and best customers. I
scarce ever cut a piece of cloth in my life, nor was indeed much more
able to fashion a coat than any gentleman in the kingdom. This made a
skilful servant too necessary to me. He knew I must submit to any terms
with, or any treatment from, him. He knew it was easier for him to find
another such a taylor as me than for me to procure such another workman
as him: for this reason he exerted the most notorious and cruel tyranny,
seldom giving me a civil word; nor could the utmost condescension on my
side, though attended with continual presents and rewards, and raising
his wages, content or please him. In a word, he was as absolutely my
master as was ever an ambitious, industrious prime minister over an
indolent and voluptuous king. All my other journeymen paid more respect
to him than to me; for they considered my favour as a necessary
consequence of obtaining his.
"These were the most remarkable occurrences while I acted this part.
Minos hesitated a few moments, and then bid me get back again, without
assigning any reason."
Chapter xxiii.
_The life of alderman Julian._
"I now revisited England, and was born at London. My father was one of
the magistrates of that city. He had eleven children, of whom I was the
eldest. He had great success in trade, and grew extremely rich, but the
largeness of his family rendered it impossible for him to leave me a
fortune sufficient to live well on independent of business. I was
accordingly brought up to be a fishmonger, in which capacity I myself
afterwards acquired very considerable wealth.
"The same disposition of mind which in princes is called ambition is in
subjects named faction. To this temper I was greatly addicted from my
youth. I was, while a boy, a great partisan of prince John's against
his brother Richard, during the latter's absence in the holy war and in
his captivity. I was no more than one-and-twenty when I first began to
make political speeches in publick, and to endeavour to foment
disquietude and discontent in the city. As I was pretty well qualified
for this office, by a great fluency of words, an harmonious accent, a
graceful delivery, and above all an invincible assurance, I had soon
acquired some reputation among the younger citizens, and some of the
weaker and more inconsiderate of a riper age. This, co-operating with my
own natural vanity, made me extravagantly proud and supercilious. I soon
began to esteem myself a man of some consequence, and to overlook
persons every way my superiors.
"The famous Robin Hood, and his companion Little John, at this time made
a considerable figure in Yorkshire. I took upon me to write a letter to
the former, in the name of the city, inviting him to come to London,
where I assured him of very good reception, signifying to him my own
great weight and consequence, and how much I had disposed the citizens
in his favour. Whether he received this letter or no I am not certain;
but he never gave me any answer to it.
"A little afterwards one William Fitz-Osborn, or, as he was nicknamed,
William Long-Beard, began to make a figure in the city. He was a bold
and an impudent fellow, and had raised himself to great popularity with
the rabble, by pretending to espouse their cause against the rich. I
took this man's part, and made a public oration in his favour, setting
him forth as a patriot, and one who had embarked in the cause of
liberty: for which service he did not receive me with the
acknowledgments I expected. However, as I thought I should easily gain
the ascendant over this fellow, I continued still firm on his side,
till the archbishop of Canterbury, with an armed force, put an end to
his progress: for he was seized in Bow-church, where he had taken
refuge, and with nine of his accomplices hanged in chains.
"I escaped narrowly myself; for I was seized in the same church with the
rest, and, as I had been very considerably engaged in the enterprize,
the archbishop was inclined to make me an example; but my father's
merit, who had advanced a considerable sum to queen Eleanor towards the
king's ransom, preserved me.
"The consternation my danger had occasioned kept me some time quiet, and
I applied myself very assiduously to my trade. I invented all manner of
methods to enhance the price of fish, and made use of my utmost
endeavours to engross as much of the business as possible in my own
hands. By these means I acquired a substance which raised me to some
little consequence in the city, but far from elevating me to that degree
which I had formerly flattered myself with possessing at a time when I
was totally insignificant; for, in a trading society, money must at
least lay the foundation of all power and interest.
"But as it hath been remarked that the same ambition which sent
Alexander into Asia brings the wrestler on the green; and as this same
ambition is as incapable as quicksilver of lying still; so I, who was
possessed perhaps of a share equal to what hath fired the blood of any
of the heroes of antiquity, was no less restless and discontented with
ease and quiet. My first endeavours were to make myself head of my
company, which Richard I. had just published, and soon afterwards I
procured myself to be chosen alderman.
"Opposition is the only state which can give a subject an opportunity of
exerting the disposition I was possessed of. Accordingly, king John was
no sooner seated on his throne than I began to oppose his measures,
whether right or wrong. It is true that monarch had faults enow. He was
so abandoned to lust and luxury, that he addicted himself to the most
extravagant excesses in both, while he indolently suffered the king of
France to rob him of almost all his foreign dominions: my opposition
therefore was justifiable enough, and if my motive from within had been
as good as the occasion from without I should have had little to excuse;
but, in truth, I sought nothing but my own preferment, by making myself
formidable to the king, and then selling to him the interest of that
party by whose means I had become so. Indeed, had the public good been
my care, however zealously I might have opposed the beginning of his
reign, I should not have scrupled to lend him my utmost assistance in
the struggle between him and pope Innocent the third, in which he was so
manifestly in the right; nor have suffered the insolence of that pope,
and the power of the king of France, to have compelled him in the issue,
basely to resign his crown into the hands of the former, and receive it
again as a vassal; by means of which acknowledgment the pope afterwards
claimed this kingdom as a tributary fief to be held of the papal chair;
a claim which occasioned great uneasiness to many subsequent princes,
and brought numberless calamities on the nation.
"As the king had, among other concessions, stipulated to pay an
immediate sum of money to Pandulph, which he had great difficulty to
raise, it was absolutely necessary for him to apply to the city, where
my interest and popularity were so high that he had no hopes without my
assistance. As I knew this, I took care to sell myself and country as
high as possible. The terms I demanded, therefore, were a place, a
pension, and a knighthood. All those were immediately consented to. I
was forthwith knighted, and promised the other two.
"I now mounted the hustings, and, without any regard to decency or
modesty, made as emphatical a speech in favour of the king as before I
had done against him. In this speech I justified all those measures
which I had before condemned, and pleaded as earnestly with my
fellow-citizens to open their purses, as I had formerly done to prevail
with them to keep them shut. But, alas! my rhetoric had not the effect I
proposed. The consequence of my arguments was only contempt to myself.
The people at first stared on one another, and afterwards began
unanimously to express their dislike. An impudent fellow among them,
reflecting on my trade, cryed out, 'Stinking fish;' which was
immediately reiterated through the whole croud. I was then forced to
slink away home; but I was not able to accomplish my retreat without
being attended by the mob, who huzza'd me along the street with the
repeated cries of 'Stinking fish.'
"I now proceeded to court, to inform his majesty of my faithful service,
and how much I had suffered in his cause. I found by my first reception
he had already heard of my success. Instead of thanking me for my
speech, he said the city should repent of their obstinacy, for that he
would shew them who he was: and so saying, he immediately turned that
part to me to which the toe of man hath so wonderful an affection, that
it is very difficult, whenever it presents itself conveniently, to keep
our toes from the most violent and ardent salutation of it.
"I was a little nettled at this behaviour, and with some earnestness
claimed the king's fulfilling his promise; but he retired without
answering me. I then applied to some of the courtiers, who had lately
professed great friendship to me, had eat at my house, and invited me to
theirs: but not one would return me any answer, all running away from me
as if I had been seized with some contagious distemper. I now found by
experience that, as none can be so civil, so none can be ruder than a
courtier.
"A few moments after the king's retiring I was left alone in the room to
consider what I should do or whither I should turn myself. My reception
in the city promised itself to be equal at least with what I found at
court. However, there was my home, and thither it was necessary I should
retreat for the present.
"But, indeed, bad as I apprehended my treatment in the city would be, it
exceeded my expectation. I rode home on an ambling pad through crouds
who expressed every kind of disregard and contempt; pelting me not only
with the most abusive language, but with dirt. However, with much
difficulty I arrived at last at my own house, with my bones whole, but
covered over with filth.
"When I was got within my doors, and had shut them against the mob, who
had pretty well vented their spleen, and seemed now contented to retire,
my wife, whom I found crying over her children, and from whom I had
hoped some comfort in my afflictions, fell upon me in the most
outrageous manner. She asked me why I would venture on such a step,
without consulting her; she said her advice might have been civilly
asked, if I was resolved not to have been guided by it. That, whatever
opinion I might have conceived of her understanding, the rest of the
world thought better of it. That I had never failed when I had asked her
counsel, nor ever succeeded without it;--with much more of the same
kind, too tedious to mention; concluding that it was a monstrous
behaviour to desert my party and come over to the court. An abuse which
I took worse than all the rest, as she had been constantly for several
years assiduous in railing at the opposition, in siding with the
court-party, and begging me to come over to it; and especially after my
mentioning the offer of knighthood to her, since which time she had
continually interrupted my repose with dinning in my ears the folly of
refusing honours and of adhering to a party and to principles by which I
was certain of procuring no advantage to myself and my family.
"I had now entirely lost my trade, so that I had not the least
temptation to stay longer in a city where I was certain of receiving
daily affronts and rebukes. I therefore made up my affairs with the
utmost expedition, and, scraping together all I could, retired into the
country, where I spent the remainder of my days in universal contempt,
being shunned by everybody, perpetually abused by my wife, and not much
respected by my children.
"Minos told me, though I had been a very vile fellow, he thought my
sufferings made some atonement, and so bid me take the other trial."
Chapter xxiv.
_Julian recounts what happened to him while he was a poet._
"Rome was now the seat of my nativity, where I was born of a family more
remarkable for honour than riches. I was intended for the church, and
had a pretty good education; but my father dying while I was young, and
leaving me nothing, for he had wasted his whole patrimony, I was forced
to enter myself in the order of mendicants.
"When I was at school I had a knack of rhiming, which I unhappily
mistook for genius, and indulged to my cost; for my verses drew on me
only ridicule, and I was in contempt called the poet.
"This humour pursued me through my life. My first composition after I
left school was a panegyric on pope Alexander IV., who then pretended a
project of dethroning the king of Sicily. On this subject I composed a
poem of about fifteen thousand lines, which with much difficulty I got
to be presented to his holiness, of whom I expected great preferment as
my reward; but I was cruelly disappointed: for when I had waited a year,
without hearing any of the commendations I had flattered myself with
receiving, and being now able to contain no longer, I applied to a
Jesuit who was my relation, and had the pope's ear, to know what his
holiness's opinion was of my work: he coldly answered me that he was at
that time busied in concerns of too much importance to attend the
reading of poems.
"However dissatisfied I might be, and really was, with this reception,
and however angry I was with the pope, for whose understanding I
entertained an immoderate contempt, I was not yet discouraged from a
second attempt. Accordingly, I soon after produced another work,
entitled, The Trojan Horse. This was an allegorical work, in which the
church was introduced into the world in the same manner as that machine
had been into Troy. The priests were the soldiers in its belly, and the
heathen superstition the city to be destroyed by them. This poem was
written in Latin. I remember some of the lines:--
Mundanos scandit fatalis machina muros,
Farta sacerdotum turmis: exinde per alvum
Visi exire omnes, magno cum murmure olentes.
Non aliter quàm cum humanis furibundus ab antris
It sonus et nares simul aura invadit hiantes.
Mille scatent et mille alii; trepidare timore
Ethnica gens coepit: falsi per inane volantes
Effugere Dei--Desertaque templa relinquunt.
Jam magnum crepitavit equus, mox orbis et alti
Ingemuere poli: tunc tu pater, ultimus omnium
Maxime Alexander, ventrem maturus equinum
Deseris, heu proles meliori digne parente."
I believe Julian, had I not stopt him, would have gone through the whole
poem (for, as I observed in most of the characters he related, the
affections he had enjoyed while he personated them on earth still made
some impression on him); but I begged him to omit the sequel of the
poem, and proceed with his history. He then recollected himself, and,
smiling at the observation which by intuition he perceived I had made,
continued his narration as follows:--
"I confess to you," says he, "that the delight in repeating our own
works is so predominant in a poet, that I find nothing can totally root
it out of the soul. Happy would it be for those persons if their hearers
could be delighted in the same manner: but alas! hence that _ingens
solitudo_ complained of by Horace: for the vanity of mankind is so much
greedier and more general than their avarice, that no beggar is so ill
received by them as he who solicits their praise.
"This I sufficiently experienced in the character of a poet; for my
company was shunned (I believe on this account chiefly) by my whole
house: nay, there were few who would submit to hearing me read my
poetry, even at the price of sharing in my provisions. The only person
who gave me audience was a brother poet; he indeed fed me with
commendation very liberally: but, as I was forced to hear and commend in
my turn, I perhaps bought his attention dear enough.
"Well, sir, if my expectations of the reward I hoped from my first poem
had baulked me, I had now still greater reason to complain; for,
instead of being preferred or commended for the second, I was enjoined a
very severe penance by my superior, for ludicrously comparing the pope
to a f--t. My poetry was now the jest of every company, except some few
who spoke of it with detestation; and I found that, instead of
recommending me to preferment, it had effectually barred me from all
probability of attaining it.
"These discouragements had now induced me to lay down my pen and write
no more. But, as Juvenal says,
--Si discedas, Laqueo tenet ambitiosi
Consuetudo mali.
I was an example of the truth of this assertion, for I soon betook
myself again to my muse. Indeed, a poet hath the same happiness with a
man who is dotingly fond of an ugly woman. The one enjoys his muse, and
the other his mistress, with a pleasure very little abated by the esteem
of the world, and only undervalues their taste for not corresponding
with his own.
"It is unnecessary to mention any more of my poems; they had all the
same fate; and though in reality some of my latter pieces deserved (I
may now speak it without the imputation of vanity) a better success, as
I had the character of a bad writer, I found it impossible ever to
obtain the reputation of a good one. Had I possessed the merit of Homer
I could have hoped for no applause; since it must have been a profound
secret; for no one would now read a syllable of my writings.
"The poets of my age were, as I believe you know, not very famous.
However, there was one of some credit at that time, though I have the
consolation to know his works are all perished long ago. The malice,
envy, and hatred I bore this man are inconceivable to any but an author,
and an unsuccessful one; I never could bear to hear him well spoken of,
and writ anonymous satires against him, though I had received
obligations from him; indeed I believe it would have been an absolute
impossibility for him at any rate to have made me sincerely his friend.
"I have heard an observation which was made by some one of later days,
that there are no worse men than bad authors. A remark of the same kind
hath been made on ugly women, and the truth of both stands on one and
the same reason, viz., that they are both tainted with that cursed and
detestable vice of envy; which, as it is the greatest torment to the
mind it inhabits, so is it capable of introducing into it a total
corruption, and of inspiring it to the commission of the most horrid
crimes imaginable.
"My life was but short; for I soon pined myself to death with the vice I
just now mentioned. Minos told me I was infinitely too bad for Elysium;
and as for the other place, the devil had sworn he would never entertain
a poet for Orpheus's sake: so I was forced to return again to the place
from whence I came."
Chapter xxv.
_Julian performs the parts of a knight and a dancing-master._
"I now mounted the stage in Sicily, and became a knight-templar; but, as
my adventures differ so little from those I have recounted you in the
character of a common soldier, I shall not tire you with repetition.
The soldier and the captain differ in reality so little from one
another, that it requires an accurate judgment to distinguish them; the
latter wears finer cloaths, and in times of success lives somewhat more
delicately; but as to everything else, they very nearly resemble one
another.
"My next step was into France, where fortune assigned me the part of a
dancing-master. I was so expert in my profession that I was brought to
court in my youth, and had the heels of Philip de Valois, who afterwards
succeeded Charles the Fair, committed to my direction.
"I do not remember that in any of the characters in which I appeared on
earth I ever assumed to myself a greater dignity, or thought myself of
more real importance, than now. I looked on dancing as the greatest
excellence of human nature, and on myself as the greatest proficient in
it. And, indeed, this seemed to be the general opinion of the whole
court; for I was the chief instructor of the youth of both sexes, whose
merit was almost entirely defined by the advances they made in that
science which I had the honour to profess. As to myself, I was so fully
persuaded of this truth, that I not only slighted and despised those who
were ignorant of dancing, but I thought the highest character I could
give any man was that he made a graceful bow: for want of which
accomplishment I had a sovereign contempt for most persons of learning;
nay, for some officers in the army, and a few even of the courtiers
themselves.
"Though so little of my youth had been thrown away in what they call
literature that I could hardly write and read, yet I composed a treatise
on education; the first rudiments of which, as I taught, were to
instruct a child in the science of coming handsomely into a room. In
this I corrected many faults of my predecessors, particularly that of
being too much in a hurry, and instituting a child in the sublimer parts
of dancing before they are capable of making their honours.
"But as I have not now the same high opinion of my profession which I
had then, I shall not entertain you with a long history of a life which
consisted of borées and coupées. Let it suffice that I lived to a very
old age and followed my business as long as I could crawl. At length I
revisited my old friend Minos, who treated me with very little respect
and bade me dance back again to earth.
"I did so, and was now once more born an Englishman, bred up to the
church, and at length arrived to the station of a bishop.
"Nothing was so remarkable in this character as my always
voting----[J]."
[Illustration: text decoration]
BOOK XIX.
Chapter vii.
_Wherein Anna Boleyn relates the history of her life._
"I am going now truly to recount a life which from the time of its
ceasing has been, in the other world, the continual subject of the
cavils of contending parties; the one making me as black as hell, the
other as pure and innocent as the inhabitants of this blessed place; the
mist of prejudice blinding their eyes, and zeal for what they themselves
profess, making everything appear in that light which they think most
conduces to its honour.
"My infancy was spent in my father's house, in those childish plays
which are most suitable to that state, and I think this was one of the
happiest parts of my life; for my parents were not among the number of
those who look upon their children as so many objects of a tyrannic
power, but I was regarded as the dear pledge of a virtuous love, and all
my little pleasures were thought from their indulgence their greatest
delight. At seven years old I was carried into France with the king's
sister, who was married to the French king, where I lived with a person
of quality, who was an acquaintance of my father's. I spent my time in
learning those things necessary to give young persons of fashion a
polite education, and did neither good nor evil, but day passed after
day in the same easy way till I was fourteen; then began my anxiety, my
vanity grew strong, and my heart fluttered with joy at every compliment
paid to my beauty: and as the lady with whom I lived was of a gay,
chearful disposition, she kept a great deal of company, and my youth and
charms made me the continual object of their admiration. I passed some
little time in those exulting raptures which are felt by every woman
perfectly satisfied with herself and with the behaviour of others
towards her: I was, when very young, promoted to be maid of honour to
her majesty. The court was frequented by a young nobleman whose beauty
was the chief subject of conversation in all assemblies of ladies. The
delicacy of his person, added to a great softness in his manner, gave
everything he said and did such an air of tenderness, that every woman
he spoke to flattered herself with being the object of his love. I was
one of those who was vain enough of my own charms to hope to make a
conquest of him whom the whole court sighed for. I now thought every
other object below my notice; yet the only pleasure I proposed to myself
in this design was, the triumphing over that heart which I plainly saw
all the ladies of the highest quality and the greatest beauty would have
been proud of possessing. I was yet too young to be very artful; but
nature, without any assistance, soon discovers to a man who is used to
gallantry a woman's desire to be liked by him, whether that desire
arises from any particular choice she makes of him, or only from vanity.
He soon perceived my thoughts, and gratified my utmost wishes by
constantly preferring me before all other women, and exerting his utmost
gallantry and address to engage my affections. This sudden happiness,
which I then thought the greatest I could have had, appeared visible in
all my actions; I grew so gay and so full of vivacity, that it made my
person appear still to a better advantage, all my acquaintance
pretending to be fonder of me than ever: though, young as I was, I
plainly saw it was but pretence, for through all their endeavours to the
contrary envy would often break forth in sly insinuations and malicious
sneers, which gave me fresh matter of triumph, and frequent
opportunities of insulting them, which I never let slip, for now first
my female heart grew sensible of the spiteful pleasure of seeing another
languish for what I enjoyed. Whilst I was in the height of my happiness
her majesty fell ill of a languishing distemper, which obliged her to go
into the country for the change of air: my place made it necessary for
me to attend her, and which way he brought it about I can't imagine, but
my young hero found means to be one of that small train that waited on
my royal mistress, although she went as privately as possible. Hitherto
all the interviews I had ever had with him were in public, and I only
looked on him as the fitter object to feed that pride which had no other
view but to shew its power; but now the scene was quite changed. My
rivals were all at a distance: the place we went to was as charming as
the most agreeable natural situation, assisted by the greatest art,
could make it; the pleasant solitary walks, the singing of birds, the
thousand pretty romantic scenes this delightful place afforded, gave a
sudden turn to my mind; my whole soul was melted into softness, and all
my vanity was fled. My spark was too much used to affairs of this nature
not to perceive this change; at first the profuse transports of his joy
made me believe him wholly mine, and this belief gave me such happiness
that no language affords words to express it, and can be only known to
those who have felt it. But this was of a very short duration, for I
soon found I had to do with one of those men whose only end in the
pursuit of a woman is to make her fall a victim to an insatiable desire
to be admired. His designs had succeeded, and now he every day grew
colder, and, as if by infatuation, my passion every day increased; and,
notwithstanding all my resolutions and endeavours to the contrary, my
rage at the disappointment at once both of my love and pride, and at the
finding a passion fixed in my breast I knew not how to conquer, broke
out into that inconsistent behaviour which must always be the
consequence of violent passions. One moment I reproached him, the next I
grew to tenderness and blamed myself, and thought I fancied what was not
true: he saw my struggle and triumphed in it; but, as he had not
witnesses enough there of his victory to give him the full enjoyment of
it, he grew weary of the country and returned to Paris, and left me in a
condition it is utterly impossible to describe. My mind was like a city
up in arms, all confusion; and every new thought was a fresh disturber
of my peace. Sleep quite forsook me, and the anxiety I suffered threw me
into a fever which had like to have cost me my life. With great care I
recovered, but the violence of the distemper left such a weakness on my
body that the disturbance of my mind was greatly assuaged; and now I
began to comfort myself in the reflection that this gentleman's being a
finished coquet was very likely the only thing could have preserved me;
for he was the only man from whom I was ever in any danger. By that time
I was got tolerably well we returned to Paris; and I confess I both
wished and feared to see this cause of all my pain: however, I hoped, by
the help of my resentment, to be able to meet him with indifference.
This employed my thoughts till our arrival. The next day there was a
very full court to congratulate the queen on her recovery; and amongst
the rest my love appeared dressed and adorned as if he designed some new
conquest. Instead of seeing a woman he despised and slighted, he
approached me with that assured air which is common to successful
coxcombs. At the same time I perceived I was surrounded by all those
ladies who were on his account my greatest enemies, and, in revenge,
wished for nothing more than to see me make a ridiculous figure. This
situation so perplexed my thoughts, that when he came near enough to
speak to me, I fainted away in his arms. Had I studied which way I could
gratify him most, it was impossible to have done anything to have
pleased him more. Some that stood by brought smelling-bottles, and used
means for my recovery; and I was welcomed to returning life by all those
repartees which women enraged by envy are capable of venting. One cried,
'Well, I never thought my lord had anything so frightful in his person
or so fierce in his manner as to strike a young lady dead at the sight
of him.' 'No, no,' says another, 'some ladies' senses are more apt to be
hurried by agreeable than disagreeable objects.' With many more such
sort of speeches which shewed more malice than wit. This not being able
to bear, trembling, and with but just strength enough to move, I crawled
to my coach and hurried home. When I was alone, and thought on what had
happened to me in a public court, I was at first driven to the utmost
despair; but afterwards, when I came to reflect, I believe this accident
contributed more to my being cured of my passion than any other could
have done. I began to think the only method to pique the man who had
used me so barbarously, and to be revenged on my spightful rivals, was
to recover that beauty which was then languid and had lost its lustre,
to let them see I had still charms enough to engage as many lovers as I
could desire, and that I could yet rival them who had thus cruelly
insulted me. These pleasing hopes revived my sinking spirits, and worked
a more effectual cure on me than all the philosophy and advice of the
wisest men could have done. I now employed all my time and care in
adorning my person, and studying the surest means of engaging the
affections of others, while I myself continued quite indifferent; for I
resolved for the future, if ever one soft thought made its way to my
heart, to fly the object of it, and by new lovers to drive the image
from my breast. I consulted my glass every morning, and got such a
command of my countenance that I could suit it to the different tastes
of variety of lovers; and though I was young, for I was not yet above
seventeen, yet my public way of life gave me such continual
opportunities of conversing with men, and the strong desire I now had of
pleasing them led me to make such constant observations on everything
they said or did, that I soon found out the different methods of dealing
with them. I observed that most men generally liked in women what was
most opposite to their own characters; therefore to the grave solid man
of sense I endeavoured to appear sprightly and full of spirit; to the
witty and gay, soft and languishing; to the amorous (for they want no
increase of their passions), cold and reserved; to the fearful and
backward, warm and full of fire; and so of all the rest. As to beaus,
and all those sort of men, whose desires are centred in the satisfaction
of their vanity, I had learned by sad experience the only way to deal
with them was to laugh at them and let their own good opinion of
themselves be the only support of their hopes. I knew, while I could get
other followers, I was sure of them; for the only sign of modesty they
ever give is that of not depending on their own judgments, but following
the opinions of the greatest number. Thus furnished with maxims, and
grown wise by past errors, I in a manner began the world again: I
appeared in all public places handsomer and more lively than ever, to
the amazement of every one who saw me and had heard of the affair
between me and my lord. He himself was much surprized and vexed at this
sudden change, nor could he account how it was possible for me so soon
to shake off those chains he thought he had fixed on me for life; nor
was he willing to lose his conquest in this manner. He endeavoured by
all means possible to talk to me again of love, but I stood fixed to my
resolution (in which I was greatly assisted by the croud of admirers
that daily surrounded me) never to let him explain himself: for,
notwithstanding all my pride, I found the first impression the heart
receives of love is so strong that it requires the most vigilant care to
prevent a relapse. Now I lived three years in a constant round of
diversions, and was made the perfect idol of all the men that came to
court of all ages and all characters. I had several good matches offered
me, but I thought none of them equal to my merit; and one of my greatest
pleasures was to see those women who had pretended to rival me often
glad to marry those whom I had refused. Yet, notwithstanding this great
success of my schemes, I cannot say I was perfectly happy; for every
woman that was taken the least notice of, and every man that was
insensible to my arts, gave me as much pain as all the rest gave me
pleasure; and sometimes little underhand plots which were laid against
my designs would succeed in spite of my care: so that I really began to
grow weary of this manner of life, when my father, returning from his
embassy in France, took me home with him, and carried me to a little
pleasant country-house, where there was nothing grand or superfluous,
but everything neat and agreeable. There I led a life perfectly
solitary. At first the time hung very heavy on my hands, and I wanted
all kind of employment, and I had very like to have fallen into the
height of the vapours, from no other reason but from want of knowing
what to do with myself. But when I had lived here a little time I found
such a calmness in my mind, and such a difference between this and the
restless anxieties I had experienced in a court, that I began to share
the tranquillity that visibly appeared in everything round me. I set
myself to do works of fancy, and to raise little flower-gardens, with
many such innocent rural amusements; which, although they are not
capable of affording any great pleasure, yet they give that serene turn
to the mind which I think much preferable to anything else human nature
is made susceptible of. I now resolved to spend the rest of my days
here, and that nothing should allure me from that sweet retirement, to
be again tossed about with tempestuous passions of any kind. Whilst I
was in this situation my lord Percy, the earl of Northumberland's eldest
son, by an accident of losing his way after a fox-chase, was met by my
father about a mile from our house; he came home with him, only with a
design of dining with us, but was so taken with me that he stayed three
days. I had too much experience in all affairs of this kind not to see
presently the influence I had on him; but I was at that time so intirely
free from all ambition, that even the prospect of being a countess had
no effect on me; and I then thought nothing in the world could have
bribed me to have changed my way of life. This young lord, who was just
in his bloom, found his passion so strong, he could not endure a long
absence, but returned again in a week, and endeavoured, by all the means
he could think of, to engage me to return his affection. He addressed me
with that tenderness and respect which women on earth think can flow
from nothing but real love; and very often told me that, unless he could
be so happy as by his assiduity and care to make himself agreeable to
me, although he knew my father would eagerly embrace any proposal from
him, yet he would suffer that last of miseries of never seeing me more
rather than owe his own happiness to anything that might be the least
contradiction to my inclinations. This manner of proceeding had
something in it so noble and generous, that by degrees it raised a
sensation in me which I know not how to describe, nor by what name to
call it: it was nothing like my former passion: for there was no
turbulence, no uneasy waking nights attending it, but all I could with
honour grant to oblige him appeared to me to be justly due to his truth
and love, and more the effect of gratitude than of any desire of my own.
The character I had heard of him from my father at my first returning to
England, in discoursing of the young nobility, convinced me that if I
was his wife I should have the perpetual satisfaction of knowing every
action of his must be approved by all the sensible part of mankind; so
that very soon I began to have no scruple left but that of leaving my
little scene of quietness, and venturing again into the world. But this,
by his continual application and submissive behaviour, by degrees
entirely vanished, and I agreed he should take his own time to break it
to my father, whose consent he was not long in obtaining; for such a
match was by no means to be refused. There remained nothing now to be
done but to prevail with the earl of Northumberland to comply with what
his son so ardently desired; for which purpose he set out immediately
for London, and begged it as the greatest favour that I would accompany
my father, who was also to go thither the week following. I could not
refuse his request, and as soon as we arrived in town he flew to me with
the greatest raptures to inform me his father was so good that, finding
his happiness depended on his answer, he had given him free leave to act
in this affair as would best please himself, and that he had now no
obstacle to prevent his wishes. It was then the beginning of the winter,
and the time for our marriage was fixed for the latter end of March: the
consent of all parties made his access to me very easy, and we conversed
together both with innocence and pleasure. As his fondness was so great
that he contrived all the methods possible to keep me continually in his
sight, he told me one morning he was commanded by his father to attend
him to court that evening, and begged I would be so good as to meet him
there. I was now so used to act as he would have me that I made no
difficulty of complying with his desire. Two days after this, I was very
much surprized at perceiving such a melancholy in his countenance, and
alteration in his behaviour, as I could no way account for; but, by
importunity, at last I got from him that cardinal Wolsey, for what
reason he knew not, had peremptorily forbid him to think any more of me:
and, when he urged that his father was not displeased with it, the
cardinal, in his imperious manner, answered him, he should give his
father such convincing reasons why it would be attended with great
inconveniences, that he was sure he could bring him to be of his
opinion. On which he turned from him, and gave him no opportunity of
replying. I could not imagine what design the cardinal could have in
intermeddling in this match, and I was still more perplexed to find that
my father treated my lord Percy with much more coldness than usual; he
too saw it, and we both wondered what could possibly be the cause of all
this. But it was not long before the mystery was all made clear by my
father, who, sending for me one day into his chamber, let me into a
secret which was as little wished for as expected. He began with the
surprizing effects of youth and beauty, and the madness of letting go
those advantages they might procure us till it was too late, when we
might wish in vain to bring them back again. I stood amazed at this
beginning; he saw my confusion, and bid me sit down and attend to what
he was going to tell me, which was of the greatest consequence; and he
hoped I would be wise enough to take his advice, and act as he should
think best for my future welfare. He then asked me if I should not be
much pleased to be a queen? I answered, with the greatest earnestness,
that, so far from it, I would not live in a court again to be the
greatest queen in the world; that I had a lover who was both desirous
and able to raise my station even beyond my wishes. I found this
discourse was very displeasing; my father frowned, and called me a
romantic fool, and said if I would hearken to him he could make me a
queen; for the cardinal had told him that the king, from the time he saw
me at court the other night, liked me, and intended to get a divorce
from his wife, and to put me in her place; and ordered him to find some
method to make me a maid of honour to her present majesty, that in the
meantime he might have an opportunity of seeing me. It is impossible to
express the astonishment these words threw me into; and, notwithstanding
that the moment before, when it appeared at so great a distance, I was
very sincere in my declaration how much it was against my will to be
raised so high, yet now the prospect came nearer, I confess my heart
fluttered, and my eyes were dazzled with a view of being seated on a
throne. My imagination presented before me all the pomp, power, and
greatness that attend a crown; and I was so perplexed I knew not what
to answer, but remained as silent as if I had lost the use of my speech.
My father, who guessed what it was that made me in this condition,
proceeded to bring all the arguments he thought most likely to bend me
to his will; at last I recovered from this dream of grandeur, and begged
him, by all the most endearing names I could think of, not to urge me
dishonourably to forsake the man who I was convinced would raise me to
an empire if in his power, and who had enough in his power to give me
all I desired. But he was deaf to all I could say, and insisted that by
next week I should prepare myself to go to court: he bid me consider of
it, and not prefer a ridiculous notion of honour to the real interest of
my whole family; but, above all things, not to disclose what he had
trusted me with. On which he left me to my own thoughts. When I was
alone I reflected how little real tenderness this behaviour shewed to
me, whose happiness he did not at all consult, but only looked on me as
a ladder, on which he could climb to the height of his own ambitious
desires: and when I thought on his fondness for me in my infancy I could
impute it to nothing but either the liking me as a plaything or the
gratification of his vanity in my beauty. But I was too much divided
between a crown and my engagement to lord Percy to spend much time in
thinking of anything else; and, although my father had positively forbid
me, yet, when he came next, I could not help acquainting him with all
that had passed, with the reserve only of the struggle in my own mind on
the first mention of being a queen. I expected he would have received
the news with the greatest agonies; but he shewed no vast emotion:
however, he could not help turning pale, and, taking me by the hand,
looked at me with an air of tenderness, and said, 'If being a queen
would make you happy, and it is in your power to be so, I would not for
the world prevent it, let me suffer what I will.' This amazing greatness
of mind had on me quite the contrary effect from what it ought to have
had; for, instead of increasing my love for him it almost put an end to
it, and I began to think, if he could part with me, the matter was not
much. And I am convinced, when any man gives up the possession of a
woman whose consent he has once obtained, let his motive be ever so
generous, he will disoblige her. I could not help shewing my
dissatisfaction, and told him I was very glad this affair sat so easily
on him. He had not power to answer, but was so suddenly struck with this
unexpected ill-natured turn I gave his behaviour, that he stood amazed
for some time, and then bowed and left me. Now I was again left to my
own reflections; but to make anything intelligible out of them is quite
impossible: I wished to be a queen, and wished I might not be one: I
would have my lord Percy happy without me; and yet I would not have the
power of my charms be so weak that he could bear the thought of life
after being disappointed in my love. But the result of all these
confused thoughts was a resolution to obey my father. I am afraid there
was not much duty in the case, though at that time I was glad to take
hold of that small shadow to save me from looking on my own actions in
the true light. When my lover came again I looked on him with that
coldness that he could not bear, on purpose to rid myself of all
importunity: for since I had resolved to use him ill I regarded him as
the monument of my shame, and his every look appeared to me to upbraid
me. My father soon carried me to court; there I had no very hard part to
act; for, with the experience I had had of mankind, I could find no
great difficulty in managing a man who liked me, and for whom I not
only did not care but had an utter aversion to: but this aversion he
believed to be virtue; for how credulous is a man who has an inclination
to believe! And I took care sometimes to drop words of cottages and
love, and how happy the woman was who fixed her affections on a man in
such a station of life that she might show her love without being
suspected of hypocrisy or mercenary views. All this was swallowed very
easily by the amorous king, who pushed on the divorce with the utmost
impetuosity, although the affair lasted a good while, and I remained
most part of the time behind the curtain. Whenever the king mentioned it
to me I used such arguments against it as I thought the most likely to
make him the more eager for it; begging that, unless his conscience was
really touched, he would not on my account give any grief to his
virtuous queen; for in being her handmaid I thought myself highly
honoured; and that I would not only forego a crown, but even give up the
pleasure of ever seeing him more, rather than wrong my royal mistress.
This way of talking, joined to his eager desire to possess my person,
convinced the king so strongly of my exalted merit, that he thought it a
meritorious act to displace the woman (whom he could not have so good an
opinion of, because he was tired of her), and to put me in her place.
After about a year's stay at court, as the king's love to me began to be
talked of, it was thought proper to remove me, that there might be no
umbrage given to the queen's party. I was forced to comply with this,
though greatly against my will; for I was very jealous that absence
might change the king's mind. I retired again with my father to his
country-seat, but it had no longer those charms for me which I once
enjoyed there; for my mind was now too much taken up with ambition to
make room for any other thoughts. During my stay here, my royal lover
often sent gentlemen to me with messages and letters, which I always
answered in the manner I thought would best bring about my designs,
which were to come back again to court. In all the letters that passed
between us there was something so kingly and commanding in his, and so
deceitful and submissive in mine, that I sometimes could not help
reflecting on the difference betwixt this correspondence and that with
lord Percy; yet I was so pressed forward by the desire of a crown, I
could not think of turning back. In all I wrote I continually praised
his resolution of letting me be at a distance from him, since at this
time it conduced indeed to my honour; but, what was of ten times more
weight with me, I thought it was necessary for his; and I would sooner
suffer anything in the world than be any means of hurt to him, either in
his interest or reputation. I always gave some hints of ill health, with
some reflections how necessary the peace of the mind was to that of the
body. By these means I brought him to recal me again by the most
absolute command, which I, for a little time, artfully delayed (for I
knew the impatience of his temper would not bear any contradictions),
till he made my father in a manner force me to what I most wished, with
the utmost appearance of reluctance on my side. When I had gained this
point I began to think which way I could separate the king from the
queen, for hitherto they lived in the same house. The lady Mary, the
queen's daughter, being then about sixteen, I sought for emissaries of
her own age that I could confide in, to instil into her mind
disrespectful thoughts of her father, and make a jest of the tenderness
of his conscience about the divorce. I knew she had naturally strong
passions, and that young people of that age are apt to think those that
pretend to be their friends are really so, and only speak their minds
freely. I afterwards contrived to have every word she spoke of him
carried to the king, who took it all as I could wish, and fancied those
things did not come at first from the young lady, but from her mother.
He would often talk of it to me, and I agreed with him in his
sentiments; but then, as a great proof of my goodness, I always
endeavoured to excuse her, by saying a lady so long time used to be a
royal queen might naturally be a little exasperated with those she
fancied would throw her from that station she so justly deserved. By
these sort of plots I found the way to make the king angry with the
queen; for nothing is easier than to make a man angry with a woman he
wants to be rid of, and who stands in the way between him and his
pleasure; so that now the king, on the pretence of the queen's obstinacy
in a point where his conscience was so tenderly concerned, parted with
her. Everything was now plain before me; I had nothing farther to do but
to let the king alone to his own desires; and I had no reason to fear,
since they had carried him so far, but that they would urge him on to do
everything I aimed at. I was created marchioness of Pembroke. This
dignity sat very easy on me; for the thoughts of a much higher title
took from me all feeling of this; and I looked upon being a marchioness
as a trifle, not that I saw the bauble in its true light, but because it
fell short of what I had figured to myself I should soon obtain. The
king's desires grew very impatient, and it was not long before I was
privately married to him. I was no sooner his wife than I found all the
queen come upon me; I felt myself conscious of royalty, and even the
faces of my most intimate acquaintance seemed to me to be quite strange.
I hardly knew them: height had turned my head, and I was like a man
placed on a monument, to whose sight all creatures at a great distance
below him appear like so many little pigmies crawling about on the
earth; and the prospect so greatly delighted me, that I did not
presently consider that in both cases descending a few steps erected by
human hands would place us in the number of those very pigmies who
appeared so despicable. Our marriage was kept private for some time, for
it was not thought proper to make it public (the affair of the divorce
not being finished) till the birth of my daughter Elizabeth made it
necessary. But all who saw me knew it; for my manner of speaking and
acting was so much changed with my station, that all around me plainly
perceived I was sure I was a queen. While it was a secret I had yet
something to wish for; I could not be perfectly satisfied till all the
world was acquainted with my fortune: but when my coronation was over,
and I was raised to the height of my ambition, instead of finding myself
happy, I was in reality more miserable than ever; for, besides that the
aversion I had naturally to the king was much more difficult to
dissemble after marriage than before, and grew into a perfect
detestation, my imagination, which had thus warmly pursued a crown, grew
cool when I was in the possession of it, and gave me time to reflect
what mighty matter I had gained by all this bustle; and I often used to
think myself in the case of the fox-hunter, who, when he has toiled and
sweated all day in the chase as if some unheard-of blessing was to crown
his success, finds at last all he has got by his labour is a stinking
nauseous animal. But my condition was yet worse than his; for he leaves
the loathsome wretch to be torn by his hounds, whilst I was obliged to
fondle mine, and meanly pretend him to be the object of my love. For the
whole time I was in this envied, this exalted state, I led a continual
life of hypocrisy, which I now know nothing on earth can compensate. I
had no companion but the man I hated. I dared not disclose my sentiments
to any person about me, nor did any one presume to enter into any
freedom of conversation with me; but all who spoke to me talked to the
queen, and not to me; for they would have said just the same things to a
dressed-up puppet, if the king had taken a fancy to call it his wife.
And as I knew every woman in the court was my enemy, from thinking she
had much more right than I had to the place I filled, I thought myself
as unhappy as if I had been placed in a wild wood, where there was no
human creature for me to speak to, in a continual fear of leaving any
traces of my footsteps, lest I should be found by some dreadful monster,
or stung by snakes and adders; for such are spiteful women to the
objects of their envy. In this worst of all situations I was obliged to
hide my melancholy and appear chearful. This threw me into an error the
other way, and I sometimes fell into a levity in my behaviour that was
afterwards made use of to my disadvantage. I had a son dead-born, which
I perceived abated something of the king's ardour; for his temper could
not brook the least disappointment. This gave me no uneasiness; for, not
considering the consequences, I could not help being best pleased when I
had least of his company. Afterwards I found he had cast his eyes on one
of my maids of honour; and, whether it was owing to any art of hers, or
only to the king's violent passions, I was in the end used even worse
than my former mistress had been by my means. The decay of the king's
affection was presently seen by all those court-sycophants who
continually watch the motions of royal eyes; and the moment they found
they could be heard against me they turned my most innocent actions and
words, nay, even my very looks, into proofs of the blackest crimes. The
king, who was impatient to enjoy his new love, lent a willing ear to all
my accusers, who found ways of making him jealous that I was false to
his bed. He would not so easily have believed anything against me
before, but he was now glad to flatter himself that he had found a
reason to do just what he had resolved upon without a reason; and on
some slight pretences and hearsay evidence I was sent to the Tower,
where the lady who was my greatest enemy was appointed to watch me and
lie in the same chamber with me. This was really as bad a punishment as
my death, for she insulted me with those keen reproaches and spiteful
witticisms, which threw me into such vapours and violent fits that I
knew not what I uttered in this condition. She pretended I had confessed
talking ridiculous stuff with a set of low fellows whom I had hardly
ever taken notice of, as could have imposed on none but such as were
resolved to believe. I was brought to my trial, and, to blacken me the
more, accused of conversing criminally with my own brother, whom indeed
I loved extremely well, but never looked on him in any other light than
as my friend. However, I was condemned to be beheaded, or burnt, as the
king pleased; and he was graciously pleased, from the great remains of
his love, to chuse the mildest sentence. I was much less shocked at this
manner of ending my life than I should have been in any other station:
but I had had so little enjoyment from the time I had been a queen, that
death was the less dreadful to me. The chief things that lay on my
conscience were the arts I made use of to induce the king to part with
the queen, my ill usage of lady Mary, and my jilting lord Percy.
However, I endeavoured to calm my mind as well as I could, and hoped
these crimes would be forgiven me; for in other respects I had led a
very innocent life, and always did all the good-natured actions I found
any opportunity of doing. From the time I had it in my power, I gave a
great deal of money amongst the poor; I prayed very devoutly, and went
to my execution very composedly. Thus I lost my life at the age of
twenty-nine, in which short time I believe I went through more variety
of scenes than many people who live to be very old. I had lived in a
court, where I spent my time in coquetry and gaiety; I had experienced
what it was to have one of those violent passions which makes the mind
all turbulence and anxiety; I had had a lover whom I esteemed and
valued, and at the latter part of my life I was raised to a station as
high as the vainest woman could wish. But in all these various changes I
never enjoyed any real satisfaction, unless in the little time I lived
retired in the country free from all noise and hurry, and while I was
conscious I was the object of the love and esteem of a man of sense and
honour."
On the conclusion of this history Minos paused for a small time, and
then ordered the gate to be thrown open for Anna Boleyn's admittance on
the consideration that whoever had suffered being the queen for four
years, and been sensible during all that time of the real misery which
attends that exalted station, ought to be forgiven whatever she had done
to obtain it.[K]
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THE JOURNAL
OF A
VOYAGE TO LISBON.
DEDICATION TO THE PUBLIC.
Your candour is desired on the perusal of the following sheets, as they
are the product of a genius that has long been your delight and
entertainment. It must be acknowledged that a lamp almost burnt out does
not give so steady and uniform a light as when it blazes in its full
vigour; but yet it is well known that by its wavering, as if struggling
against its own dissolution, it sometimes darts a ray as bright as ever.
In like manner, a strong and lively genius will, in its last struggles,
sometimes mount aloft, and throw forth the most striking marks of its
original lustre.
Wherever these are to be found, do you, the genuine patrons of
extraordinary capacities, be as liberal in your applauses of him who is
now no more as you were of him whilst he was yet amongst you. And, on
the other hand, if in this little work there should appear any traces of
a weakened and decayed life, let your own imaginations place before your
eyes a true picture in that of a hand trembling in almost its latest
hour, of a body emaciated with pains, yet struggling for your
entertainment; and let this affecting picture open each tender heart,
and call forth a melting tear, to blot out whatever failings may be
found in a work begun in pain, and finished almost at the same period
with life.
It was thought proper by the friends of the deceased that this little
piece should come into your hands as it came from the hands of the
author, it being judged that you would be better pleased to have an
opportunity of observing the faintest traces of a genius you have long
admired, than have it patched by a different hand, by which means the
marks of its true author might have been effaced.
That the success of the last written, though first published, volume of
the author's posthumous pieces may be attended with some convenience to
those innocents he hath left behind, will no doubt be a motive to
encourage its circulation through the kingdom, which will engage every
future genius to exert itself for your pleasure.
The principles and spirit which breathe in every line of the small
fragment begun in answer to Lord Bolingbroke will unquestionably be a
sufficient apology for its publication, although vital strength was
wanting to finish a work so happily begun and so well designed.
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PREFACE.
There would not, perhaps, be a more pleasant or profitable study, among
those which have their principal end in amusement, than that of travels
or voyages, if they were writ, as they might be and ought to be, with a
joint view to the entertainment and information of mankind. If the
conversation of travellers be so eagerly sought after as it is, we may
believe their books will be still more agreeable company, as they will
in general be more instructive and more entertaining.
But when I say the conversation of travellers is usually so welcome, I
must be understood to mean that only of such as have had good sense
enough to apply their peregrinations to a proper use, so as to acquire
from them a real and valuable knowledge of men and things, both which
are best known by comparison. If the customs and manners of men were
everywhere the same, there would be no office so dull as that of a
traveller, for the difference of hills, valleys, rivers, in short, the
various views of which we may see the face of the earth, would scarce
afford him a pleasure worthy of his labour; and surely it would give him
very little opportunity of communicating any kind of entertainment or
improvement to others.
To make a traveller an agreeable companion to a man of sense, it is
necessary, not only that he should have seen much, but that he should
have overlooked much of what he hath seen. Nature is not, any more than
a great genius, always admirable in her productions, and therefore the
traveller, who may be called her commentator, should not expect to find
everywhere subjects worthy of his notice.
It is certain, indeed, that one may be guilty of omission, as well as of
the opposite extreme; but a fault on that side will be more easily
pardoned, as it is better to be hungry than surfeited; and to miss your
dessert at the table of a man whose gardens abound with the choicest
fruits, than to have your taste affronted with every sort of trash that
can be picked up at the green-stall or the wheelbarrow.
If we should carry on the analogy between the traveller and the
commentator, it is impossible to keep one's eye a moment off from the
laborious much-read doctor Zachary Gray, of whose redundant notes on
Hudibras I shall only say that it is, I am confident, the single book
extant in which above five hundred authors are quoted, not one of which
could be found in the collection of the late doctor Mead.
As there are few things which a traveller is to record, there are fewer
on which he is to offer his observations: this is the office of the
reader; and it is so pleasant a one, that he seldom chuses to have it
taken from him, under the pretence of lending him assistance. Some
occasions, indeed, there are, when proper observations are pertinent,
and others when they are necessary; but good sense alone must point them
out. I shall lay down only one general rule; which I believe to be of
universal truth between relator and hearer, as it is between author and
reader; this is, that the latter never forgive any observation of the
former which doth not convey some knowledge that they are sensible they
could not possibly have attained of themselves.
But all his pains in collecting knowledge, all his judgment in
selecting, and all his art in communicating it, will not suffice, unless
he can make himself, in some degree, an agreeable as well as an
instructive companion. The highest instruction we can derive from the
tedious tale of a dull fellow scarce ever pays us for our attention.
There is nothing, I think, half so valuable as knowledge, and yet there
is nothing which men will give themselves so little trouble to attain;
unless it be, perhaps, that lowest degree of it which is the object of
curiosity, and which hath therefore that active passion constantly
employed in its service. This, indeed, it is in the power of every
traveller to gratify; but it is the leading principle in weak minds
only.
To render his relation agreeable to the man of sense, it is therefore
necessary that the voyager should possess several eminent and rare
talents; so rare indeed, that it is almost wonderful to see them ever
united in the same person.
And if all these talents must concur in the relator, they are certainly
in a more eminent degree necessary to the writer; for here the narration
admits of higher ornaments of stile, and every fact and sentiment offers
itself to the fullest and most deliberate examination.
It would appear, therefore, I think, somewhat strange if such writers as
these should be found extremely common; since nature hath been a most
parsimonious distributor of her richest talents, and hath seldom
bestowed many on the same person. But, on the other hand, why there
should scarce exist a single writer of this kind worthy our regard; and,
whilst there is no other branch of history (for this is history) which
hath not exercised the greatest pens, why this alone should be
overlooked by all men of great genius and erudition, and delivered up
to the Goths and Vandals as their lawful property, is altogether as
difficult to determine.
And yet that this is the case, with some very few exceptions, is most
manifest. Of these I shall willingly admit Burnet and Addison; if the
former was not, perhaps, to be considered as a political essayist, and
the latter as a commentator on the classics, rather than as a writer of
travels; which last title, perhaps, they would both of them have been
least ambitious to affect.
Indeed, if these two and two or three more should be removed from the
mass, there would remain such a heap of dulness behind, that the
appellation of voyage-writer would not appear very desirable.
I am not here unapprized that old Homer himself is by some considered as
a voyage-writer; and, indeed, the beginning of his Odyssey may be urged
to countenance that opinion, which I shall not controvert. But, whatever
species of writing the Odyssey is of, it is surely at the head of that
species, as much as the Iliad is of another; and so far the excellent
Longinus would allow, I believe, at this day.
But, in reality, the Odyssey, the Telemachus, and all of that kind, are
to the voyage-writing I here intend, what romance is to true history,
the former being the confounder and corrupter of the latter. I am far
from supposing that Homer, Hesiod, and the other antient poets and
mythologists, had any settled design to pervert and confuse the records
of antiquity; but it is certain they have effected it; and for my part I
must confess I should have honoured and loved Homer more had he written
a true history of his own times in humble prose, than those noble poems
that have so justly collected the praise of all ages; for, though I read
these with more admiration and astonishment, I still read Herodotus,
Thucydides, and Xenophon with more amusement and more satisfaction.
The original poets were not, however, without excuse. They found the
limits of nature too strait for the immensity of their genius, which
they had not room to exert without extending fact by fiction: and that
especially at a time when the manners of men were too simple to afford
that variety which they have since offered in vain to the choice of the
meanest writers. In doing this they are again excusable for the manner
in which they have done it.
Ut speciosa dehinc miracula promant.
They are not, indeed, so properly said to turn reality into fiction, as
fiction into reality. Their paintings are so bold, their colours so
strong, that everything they touch seems to exist in the very manner
they represent it; their portraits are so just, and their landscapes so
beautiful, that we acknowledge the strokes of nature in both, without
enquiring whether Nature herself, or her journeyman the poet, formed the
first pattern of the piece.
But other writers (I will put Pliny at their head) have no such
pretensions to indulgence; they lye for lying sake, or in order
insolently to impose the most monstrous improbabilities and absurdities
upon their readers on their own authority; treating them as some fathers
treat children, and as other fathers do laymen, exacting their belief of
whatever they relate, on no other foundation than their own authority,
without ever taking the pains of adapting their lies to human credulity,
and of calculating them for the meridian of a common understanding; but,
with as much weakness as wickedness, and with more impudence often than
either, they assert facts contrary to the honour of God, to the visible
order of the creation, to the known laws of nature, to the histories of
former ages, and to the experience of our own, and which no man can at
once understand and believe.
If it should be objected (and it can nowhere be objected better than
where I now write,[L] as there is nowhere more pomp of bigotry) that
whole nations have been firm believers in such most absurd suppositions,
I reply, the fact is not true. They have known nothing of the matter,
and have believed they knew not what. It is, indeed, with me no matter
of doubt but that the pope and his clergy might teach any of those
Christian heterodoxies, the tenets of which are the most diametrically
opposite to their own; nay, all the doctrines of Zoroaster, Confucius,
and Mahomet, not only with certain and immediate success, but without
one Catholick in a thousand knowing he had changed his religion.
What motive a man can have to sit down, and to draw forth a list of
stupid, senseless, incredible lies upon paper, would be difficult to
determine, did not Vanity present herself so immediately as the adequate
cause. The vanity of knowing more than other men is, perhaps, besides
hunger, the only inducement to writing, at least to publishing, at all.
Why then should not the voyage-writer be inflamed with the glory of
having seen what no man ever did or will see but himself? This is the
true source of the wonderful in the discourse and writings, and
sometimes, I believe, in the actions of men. There is another fault, of
a kind directly opposite to this, to which these writers are sometimes
liable, when, instead of filling their pages with monsters which nobody
hath ever seen, and with adventures which never have, nor could possibly
have, happened to them, waste their time and paper with recording things
and facts of so common a kind, that they challenge no other right of
being remembered than as they had the honour of having happened to the
author, to whom nothing seems trivial that in any manner happens to
himself. Of such consequence do his own actions appear to one of this
kind, that he would probably think himself guilty of infidelity should
he omit the minutest thing in the detail of his journal. That the fact
is true is sufficient to give it a place there, without any
consideration whether it is capable of pleasing or surprising, of
diverting or informing, the reader.
I have seen a play (if I mistake not it is one of Mrs Behn's or of Mrs
Centlivre's) where this vice in a voyage-writer is finely ridiculed. An
ignorant pedant, to whose government, for I know not what reason, the
conduct of a young nobleman in his travels is committed, and who is sent
abroad to shew my lord the world, of which he knows nothing himself,
before his departure from a town, calls for his journal to record the
goodness of the wine and tobacco, with other articles of the same
importance, which are to furnish the materials of a voyage at his return
home. The humour, it is true, is here carried very far; and yet,
perhaps, very little beyond what is to be found in writers who profess
no intention of dealing in humour at all.
Of one or other, or both of these kinds, are, I conceive, all that vast
pile of books which pass under the names of voyages, travels,
adventures, lives, memoirs, histories, &c., some of which a single
traveller sends into the world in many volumes, and others are, by
judicious booksellers, collected into vast bodies in folio, and
inscribed with their own names, as if they were indeed their own
travels: thus unjustly attributing to themselves the merit of others.
Now, from both these faults we have endeavoured to steer clear in the
following narrative; which, however the contrary may be insinuated by
ignorant, unlearned, and fresh-water critics, who have never travelled
either in books or ships, I do solemnly declare doth, in my own
impartial opinion, deviate less from truth than any other voyage extant;
my lord Anson's alone being, perhaps, excepted.
Some few embellishments must be allowed to every historian; for we are
not to conceive that the speeches in Livy, Sallust, or Thucydides, were
literally spoken in the very words in which we now read them. It is
sufficient that every fact hath its foundation in truth, as I do
seriously aver is the case in the ensuing pages; and when it is so, a
good critic will be so far from denying all kind of ornament of stile or
diction, or even of circumstance, to his author, that he would be rather
sorry if he omitted it; for he could hence derive no other advantage
than the loss of an additional pleasure in the perusal.
Again, if any merely common incident should appear in this journal,
which will seldom I apprehend be the case, the candid reader will easily
perceive it is not introduced for its own sake, but for some
observations and reflexions naturally resulting from it; and which, if
but little to his amusement, tend directly to the instruction of the
reader or to the information of the public; to whom if I chuse to convey
such instruction or information with an air of joke and laughter, none
but the dullest of fellows will, I believe, censure it; but if they
should, I have the authority of more than one passage in Horace to
alledge in my defence.
Having thus endeavoured to obviate some censures, to which a man without
the gift of foresight, or any fear of the imputation of being a
conjurer, might conceive this work would be liable, I might now
undertake a more pleasing task, and fall at once to the direct and
positive praises of the work itself; of which, indeed, I could say a
thousand good things; but the task is so very pleasant that I shall
leave it wholly to the reader, and it is all the task that I impose on
him. A moderation for which he may think himself obliged to me when he
compares it with the conduct of authors, who often fill a whole sheet
with their own praises, to which they sometimes set their own real
names, and sometimes a fictitious one. One hint, however, I must give
the kind reader; which is, that if he should be able to find no sort of
amusement in the book, he will be pleased to remember the public utility
which will arise from it. If entertainment, as Mr Richardson observes,
be but a secondary consideration in a romance; with which Mr Addison, I
think, agrees, affirming the use of the pastry cook to be the first; if
this, I say, be true of a mere work of invention, sure it may well be so
considered in a work founded, like this, on truth; and where the
political reflexions form so distinguishing a part.
But perhaps I may hear, from some critic of the most saturnine
complexion, that my vanity must have made a horrid dupe of my judgment,
if it hath flattered me with an expectation of having anything here seen
in a grave light, or of conveying any useful instruction to the public,
or to their guardians. I answer, with the great man whom I just now
quoted, that my purpose is to convey instruction in the vehicle of
entertainment; and so to bring about at once, like the revolution in the
Rehearsal, a perfect reformation of the laws relating to our maritime
affairs: an undertaking, I will not say more modest, but surely more
feasible, than that of reforming a whole people, by making use of a
vehicular story, to wheel in among them worse manners than their own.
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INTRODUCTION.
In the beginning of August, 1753, when I had taken the duke of
Portland's medicine, as it is called, near a year, the effects of which
had been the carrying off the symptoms of a lingering imperfect gout, I
was persuaded by Mr Ranby, the king's premier serjeant-surgeon, and the
ablest advice, I believe, in all branches of the physical profession, to
go immediately to Bath. I accordingly writ that very night to Mrs
Bowden, who, by the next post, informed me she had taken me a lodging
for a month certain.
Within a few days after this, whilst I was preparing for my journey, and
when I was almost fatigued to death with several long examinations,
relating to five different murders, all committed within the space of a
week, by different gangs of street-robbers, I received a message from
his grace the duke of Newcastle, by Mr Carrington, the king's messenger,
to attend his grace the next morning, in Lincoln's-inn-fields, upon some
business of importance; but I excused myself from complying with the
message, as, besides being lame, I was very ill with the great fatigues
I had lately undergone added to my distemper.
His grace, however, sent Mr Carrington, the very next morning, with
another summons; with which, though in the utmost distress, I
immediately complied; but the duke, happening, unfortunately for me, to
be then particularly engaged, after I had waited some time, sent a
gentleman to discourse with me on the best plan which could be invented
for putting an immediate end to those murders and robberies which were
every day committed in the streets; upon which I promised to transmit my
opinion, in writing, to his grace, who, as the gentleman informed me,
intended to lay it before the privy council.
Though this visit cost me a severe cold, I, notwithstanding, set myself
down to work; and in about four days sent the duke as regular a plan as
I could form, with all the reasons and arguments I could bring to
support it, drawn out in several sheets of paper; and soon received a
message from the duke by Mr Carrington, acquainting me that my plan was
highly approved of, and that all the terms of it would be complied with.
The principal and most material of those terms was the immediately
depositing six hundred pounds in my hands; at which small charge I
undertook to demolish the then reigning gangs, and to put the civil
policy into such order, that no such gangs should ever be able, for the
future, to form themselves into bodies, or at least to remain any time
formidable to the public.
I had delayed my Bath journey for some time, contrary to the repeated
advice of my physical acquaintance, and to the ardent desire of my
warmest friends, though my distemper was now turned to a deep jaundice;
in which case the Bath waters are generally reputed to be almost
infallible. But I had the most eager desire of demolishing this gang of
villains and cut-throats, which I was sure of accomplishing the moment
I was enabled to pay a fellow who had undertaken, for a small sum, to
betray them into the hands of a set of thief-takers whom I had enlisted
into the service, all men of known and approved fidelity and
intrepidity.
After some weeks the money was paid at the treasury, and within a few
days after two hundred pounds of it had come to my hands, the whole gang
of cut-throats was entirely dispersed, seven of them were in actual
custody, and the rest driven, some out of the town, and others out of
the kingdom.
Though my health was now reduced to the last extremity, I continued to
act with the utmost vigour against these villains; in examining whom,
and in taking the depositions against them, I have often spent whole
days, nay, sometimes whole nights, especially when there was any
difficulty in procuring sufficient evidence to convict them; which is a
very common case in street-robberies, even when the guilt of the party
is sufficiently apparent to satisfy the most tender conscience. But
courts of justice know nothing of a cause more than what is told them on
oath by a witness; and the most flagitious villain upon earth is tried
in the same manner as a man of the best character who is accused of the
same crime.
Meanwhile, amidst all my fatigues and distresses, I had the satisfaction
to find my endeavours had been attended with such success that this
hellish society were almost utterly extirpated, and that, instead of
reading of murders and street-robberies in the news almost every
morning, there was, in the remaining part of the month of November, and
in all December, not only no such thing as a murder, but not even a
street-robbery committed. Some such, indeed, were mentioned in the
public papers; but they were all found, on the strictest enquiry, to be
false.
In this entire freedom from street-robberies, during the dark months, no
man will, I believe, scruple to acknowledge that the winter of 1753
stands unrivaled, during a course of many years; and this may possibly
appear the more extraordinary to those who recollect the outrages with
which it began.
Having thus fully accomplished my undertaking, I went into the country,
in a very weak and deplorable condition, with no fewer or less diseases
than a jaundice, a dropsy, and an asthma, altogether uniting their
forces in the destruction of a body so entirely emaciated that it had
lost all its muscular flesh.
Mine was now no longer what was called a Bath case; nor, if it had been
so, had I strength remaining sufficient to go thither, a ride of six
miles only being attended with an intolerable fatigue. I now discharged
my lodgings at Bath, which I had hitherto kept. I began in earnest to
look on my case as desperate, and I had vanity enough to rank myself
with those heroes who, of old times, became voluntary sacrifices to the
good of the public.
But, lest the reader should be too eager to catch at the word _vanity_,
and should be unwilling to indulge me with so sublime a gratification,
for I think he is not too apt to gratify me, I will take my key a pitch
lower, and will frankly own that I had a stronger motive than the love
of the public to push me on: I will therefore confess to him that my
private affairs at the beginning of the winter had but a gloomy aspect;
for I had not plundered the public or the poor of those sums which men,
who are always ready to plunder both as much as they can, have been
pleased to suspect me of taking: on the contrary, by composing, instead
of inflaming, the quarrels of porters and beggars (which I blush when I
say hath not been universally practised), and by refusing to take a
shilling from a man who most undoubtedly would not have had another
left, I had reduced an income of about five hundred pounds[M] a-year of
the dirtiest money upon earth to little more than three hundred pounds;
a considerable proportion of which remained with my clerk; and, indeed,
if the whole had done so, as it ought, he would be but ill paid for
sitting almost sixteen hours in the twenty-four in the most unwholesome,
as well as nauseous air in the universe, and which hath in his case
corrupted a good constitution without contaminating his morals.
But, not to trouble the reader with anecdotes, contrary to my own rule
laid down in my preface, I assure him I thought my family was very
slenderly provided for; and that my health began to decline so fast that
I had very little more of life left to accomplish what I had thought of
too late. I rejoiced therefore greatly in seeing an opportunity, as I
apprehended, of gaining such merit in the eye of the public, that, if my
life were the sacrifice to it, my friends might think they did a popular
act in putting my family at least beyond the reach of necessity, which I
myself began to despair of doing. And though I disclaim all pretence to
that Spartan or Roman patriotism which loved the public so well that it
was always ready to become a voluntary sacrifice to the public good, I
do solemnly declare I have that love for my family.
After this confession therefore, that the public was not the principal
deity to which my life was offered a sacrifice, and when it is farther
considered what a poor sacrifice this was, being indeed no other than
the giving up what I saw little likelihood of being able to hold much
longer, and which, upon the terms I held it, nothing but the weakness of
human nature could represent to me as worth holding at all; the world
may, I believe, without envy, allow me all the praise to which I have
any title.
My aim, in fact, was not praise, which is the last gift they care to
bestow; at least, this was not my aim as an end, but rather as a means
of purchasing some moderate provision for my family, which, though it
should exceed my merit, must fall infinitely short of my service, if I
succeeded in my attempt.
To say the truth, the public never act more wisely than when they act
most liberally in the distribution of their rewards; and here the good
they receive is often more to be considered than the motive from which
they receive it. Example alone is the end of all public punishments and
rewards. Laws never inflict disgrace in resentment, nor confer honour
from gratitude. "For it is very hard, my lord," said a convicted felon
at the bar to the late excellent judge Burnet, "to hang a poor man for
stealing a horse." "You are not to be hanged, sir," answered my
ever-honoured and beloved friend, "for stealing a horse, but you are to
be hanged that horses may not be stolen." In like manner it might have
been said to the late duke of Marlborough, when the parliament was so
deservedly liberal to him, after the battle of Blenheim, "You receive
not these honours and bounties on account of a victory past, but that
other victories may be obtained."
I was now, in the opinion of all men, dying of a complication of
disorders; and, were I desirous of playing the advocate, I have an
occasion fair enough; but I disdain such an attempt. I relate facts
plainly and simply as they are; and let the world draw from them what
conclusions they please, taking with them the following facts for their
instruction: the one is, that the proclamation offering one hundred
pounds for the apprehending felons for certain felonies committed in
certain places, which I prevented from being revived, had formerly cost
the government several thousand pounds within a single year. Secondly,
that all such proclamations, instead of curing the evil, had actually
encreased it; had multiplied the number of robberies; had propagated the
worst and wickedest of perjuries; had laid snares for youth and
ignorance, which, by the temptation of these rewards, had been sometimes
drawn into guilt; and sometimes, which cannot be thought on without the
highest horror, had destroyed them without it. Thirdly, that my plan had
not put the government to more than three hundred pound expence, and had
produced none of the ill consequences above mentioned; but, lastly, had
actually suppressed the evil for a time, and had plainly pointed out the
means of suppressing it for ever. This I would myself have undertaken,
had my health permitted, at the annual expense of the above-mentioned
sum.
After having stood the terrible six weeks which succeeded last
Christmas, and put a lucky end, if they had known their own interests,
to such numbers of aged and infirm valetudinarians, who might have
gasped through two or three mild winters more, I returned to town in
February, in a condition less despaired of by myself than by any of my
friends. I now became the patient of Dr Ward, who wished I had taken his
advice earlier.
By his advice I was tapped, and fourteen quarts of water drawn from my
belly. The sudden relaxation which this caused, added to my enervate,
emaciated habit of body, so weakened me that within two days I was
thought to be falling into the agonies of death.
I was at the worst on that memorable day when the public lost Mr Pelham.
From that day I began slowly, as it were, to draw my feet out of the
grave; till in two months' time I had again acquired some little degree
of strength, but was again full of water.
During this whole time I took Mr Ward's medicines, which had seldom any
perceptible operation. Those in particular of the diaphoretic kind, the
working of which is thought to require a great strength of constitution
to support, had so little effect on me, that Mr Ward declared it was as
vain to attempt sweating me as a deal board.
In this situation I was tapped a second time. I had one quart of water
less taken from me now than before; but I bore all the consequences of
the operation much better. This I attributed greatly to a dose of
laudanum prescribed by my surgeon. It first gave me the most delicious
flow of spirits, and afterwards as comfortable a nap.
The month of May, which was now begun, it seemed reasonable to expect
would introduce the spring, and drive off that winter which yet
maintained its footing on the stage. I resolved therefore to visit a
little house of mine in the country, which stands at Ealing, in the
county of Middlesex, in the best air, I believe, in the whole kingdom,
and far superior to that of Kensington Gravel-pits; for the gravel is
here much wider and deeper, the place higher and more open towards the
south, whilst it is guarded from the north wind by a ridge of hills, and
from the smells and smoak of London by its distance; which last is not
the fate of Kensington, when the wind blows from any corner of the east.
Obligations to Mr Ward I shall always confess; for I am convinced that
he omitted no care in endeavouring to serve me, without any expectation
or desire of fee or reward.
The powers of Mr Ward's remedies want indeed no unfair puffs of mine to
give them credit; and though this distemper of the dropsy stands, I
believe, first in the list of those over which he is always certain of
triumphing, yet, possibly, there might be something particular in my
case capable of eluding that radical force which had healed so many
thousands. The same distemper, in different constitutions, may possibly
be attended with such different symptoms, that to find an infallible
nostrum for the curing any one distemper in every patient may be almost
as difficult as to find a panacea for the cure of all.
But even such a panacea one of the greatest scholars and best of men did
lately apprehend he had discovered. It is true, indeed, he was no
physician; that is, he had not by the forms of his education acquired a
right of applying his skill in the art of physic to his own private
advantage; and yet, perhaps, it may be truly asserted that no other
modern hath contributed so much to make his physical skill useful to the
public; at least, that none hath undergone the pains of communicating
this discovery in writing to the world. The reader, I think, will scarce
need to be informed that the writer I mean is the late bishop of Cloyne,
in Ireland, and the discovery that of the virtues of tar-water.
I then happened to recollect, upon a hint given me by the inimitable and
shamefully-distressed author of the Female Quixote, that I had many
years before, from curiosity only, taken a cursory view of bishop
Berkeley's treatise on the virtues of tar-water, which I had formerly
observed he strongly contends to be that real panacea which Sydenham
supposes to have an existence in nature, though it yet remains
undiscovered, and perhaps will always remain so.
Upon the reperusal of this book I found the bishop only asserting his
opinion that tar-water might be useful in the dropsy, since he had known
it to have a surprising success in the cure of a most stubborn anasarca,
which is indeed no other than, as the word implies, the dropsy of the
flesh; and this was, at that time, a large part of my complaint.
After a short trial, therefore, of a milk diet, which I presently found
did not suit with my case, I betook myself to the bishop's prescription,
and dosed myself every morning and evening with half a pint of
tar-water.
It was no more than three weeks since my last tapping, and my belly and
limbs were distended with water. This did not give me the worse opinion
of tar-water; for I never supposed there could be any such virtue in
tar-water as immediately to carry off a quantity of water already
collected. For my delivery from this I well knew I must be again
obliged to the trochar; and that if the tar-water did me any good at all
it must be only by the slowest degrees; and that if it should ever get
the better of my distemper it must be by the tedious operation of
undermining, and not by a sudden attack and storm.
Some visible effects, however, and far beyond what my most sanguine
hopes could with any modesty expect, I very soon experienced; the
tar-water having, from the very first, lessened my illness, increased my
appetite, and added, though in a very slow proportion, to my bodily
strength.
But if my strength had increased a little my water daily increased much
more. So that, by the end of May, my belly became again ripe for the
trochar, and I was a third time tapped; upon which, two very favourable
symptoms appeared. I had three quarts of water taken from me less than
had been taken the last time; and I bore the relaxation with much less
(indeed with scarce any) faintness.
Those of my physical friends on whose judgment I chiefly depended seemed
to think my only chance of life consisted in having the whole summer
before me; in which I might hope to gather sufficient strength to
encounter the inclemencies of the ensuing winter. But this chance began
daily to lessen. I saw the summer mouldering away, or rather, indeed,
the year passing away without intending to bring on any summer at all.
In the whole month of May the sun scarce appeared three times. So that
the early fruits came to the fulness of their growth, and to some
appearance of ripeness, without acquiring any real maturity; having
wanted the heat of the sun to soften and meliorate their juices. I saw
the dropsy gaining rather than losing ground; the distance growing still
shorter between the tappings. I saw the asthma likewise beginning again
to become more troublesome. I saw the midsummer quarter drawing towards
a close. So that I conceived, if the Michaelmas quarter should steal off
in the same manner, as it was, in my opinion, very much to be
apprehended it would, I should be delivered up to the attacks of winter
before I recruited my forces, so as to be anywise able to withstand
them.
I now began to recall an intention, which from the first dawnings of my
recovery I had conceived, of removing to a warmer climate; and, finding
this to be approved of by a very eminent physician, I resolved to put it
into immediate execution.
Aix in Provence was the place first thought on; but the difficulties of
getting thither were insuperable. The journey by land, beside the
expence of it, was infinitely too long and fatiguing; and I could hear
of no ship that was likely to set out from London, within any reasonable
time, for Marseilles, or any other port in that part of the
Mediterranean.
Lisbon was presently fixed on in its room. The air here, as it was near
four degrees to the south of Aix, must be more mild and warm, and the
winter shorter and less piercing.
It was not difficult to find a ship bound to a place with which we carry
on so immense a trade. Accordingly, my brother soon informed me of the
excellent accommodations for passengers which were to be found on board
a ship that was obliged to sail for Lisbon in three days.
I eagerly embraced the offer, notwithstanding the shortness of the time;
and, having given my brother full power to contract for our passage, I
began to prepare my family for the voyage with the utmost expedition.
But our great haste was needless; for the captain having twice put off
his sailing, I at length invited him to dinner with me at Fordhook, a
full week after the time on which he had declared, and that with many
asseverations, he must and would weigh anchor.
He dined with me according to his appointment; and when all matters were
settled between us, left me with positive orders to be on board the
Wednesday following, when he declared he would fall down the river to
Gravesend, and would not stay a moment for the greatest man in the
world.
He advised me to go to Gravesend by land, and there wait the arrival of
his ship, assigning many reasons for this, every one of which was, as I
well remember, among those that had before determined me to go on board
near the Tower.
[Illustration: text decoration]
THE VOYAGE.
_Wednesday, June 26, 1754._--On this day the most melancholy sun I had
ever beheld arose, and found me awake at my house at Fordhook. By the
light of this sun I was, in my own opinion, last to behold and take
leave of some of those creatures on whom I doated with a mother-like
fondness, guided by nature and passion, and uncured and unhardened by
all the doctrine of that philosophical school where I had learned to
bear pains and to despise death.
In this situation, as I could not conquer Nature, I submitted entirely
to her, and she made as great a fool of me as she had ever done of any
woman whatsoever; under pretence of giving me leave to enjoy, she drew
me in to suffer, the company of my little ones during eight hours; and I
doubt not whether, in that time, I did not undergo more than in all my
distemper.
At twelve precisely my coach was at the door, which was no sooner told
me than I kissed my children round, and went into it with some little
resolution. My wife, who behaved more like a heroine and philosopher,
though at the same time the tenderest mother in the world, and my eldest
daughter, followed me; some friends went with us, and others here took
their leave; and I heard my behaviour applauded, with many murmurs and
praises to which I well knew I had no title; as all other such
philosophers may, if they have any modesty, confess on the like
occasions.
In two hours we arrived in Rotherhithe, and immediately went on board,
and were to have sailed the next morning; but, as this was the king's
proclamation-day, and consequently a holiday at the custom-house, the
captain could not clear his vessel till the Thursday; for these holidays
are as strictly observed as those in the popish calendar, and are almost
as numerous. I might add that both are opposite to the genius of trade,
and consequently _contra bonum publicum_.
To go on board the ship it was necessary first to go into a boat; a
matter of no small difficulty, as I had no use of my limbs, and was to
be carried by men who, though sufficiently strong for their burthen,
were, like Archimedes, puzzled to find a steady footing. Of this, as few
of my readers have not gone into wherries on the Thames, they will
easily be able to form to themselves an idea. However, by the assistance
of my friend Mr Welch, whom I never think or speak of but with love and
esteem, I conquered this difficulty, as I did afterwards that of
ascending the ship, into which I was hoisted with more ease by a chair
lifted with pulleys. I was soon seated in a great chair in the cabin, to
refresh myself after a fatigue which had been more intolerable, in a
quarter of a mile's passage from my coach to the ship, than I had before
undergone in a land-journey of twelve miles, which I had travelled with
the utmost expedition.
This latter fatigue was, perhaps, somewhat heightened by an indignation
which I could not prevent arising in my mind. I think, upon my entrance
into the boat, I presented a spectacle of the highest horror. The total
loss of limbs was apparent to all who saw me, and my face contained
marks of a most diseased state, if not of death itself. Indeed, so
ghastly was my countenance, that timorous women with child had abstained
from my house, for fear of the ill consequences of looking at me. In
this condition I ran the gauntlope (so I think I may justly call it)
through rows of sailors and watermen, few of whom failed of paying their
compliments to me by all manner of insults and jests on my misery. No
man who knew me will think I conceived any personal resentment at this
behaviour; but it was a lively picture of that cruelty and inhumanity in
the nature of men which I have often contemplated with concern, and
which leads the mind into a train of very uncomfortable and melancholy
thoughts. It may be said that this barbarous custom is peculiar to the
English, and of them only to the lowest degree; that it is an
excrescence of an uncontrouled licentiousness mistaken for liberty, and
never shews itself in men who are polished and refined in such manner as
human nature requires to produce that perfection of which it is
susceptible, and to purge away that malevolence of disposition of which,
at our birth, we partake in common with the savage creation.
This may be said, and this is all that can be said; and it is, I am
afraid, but little satisfactory to account for the inhumanity of those
who, while they boast of being made after God's own image, seem to bear
in their minds a resemblance of the vilest species of brutes; or rather,
indeed, of our idea of devils; for I don't know that any brutes can be
taxed with such malevolence.
A surloin of beef was now placed on the table, for which, though little
better than carrion, as much was charged by the master of the little
paltry ale-house who dressed it as would have been demanded for all the
elegance of the King's Arms, or any other polite tavern or eating-house!
for, indeed, the difference between the best house and the worst is,
that at the former you pay largely for luxury, at the latter for
nothing.
_Thursday, June 27._--This morning the captain, who lay on shore at his
own house, paid us a visit in the cabin, and behaved like an angry
bashaw, declaring that, had he known we were not to be pleased, he would
not have carried us for five hundred pounds. He added many asseverations
that he was a gentleman, and despised money; not forgetting several
hints of the presents which had been made him for his cabin, of twenty,
thirty, and forty guineas, by several gentlemen, over and above the sum
for which they had contracted. This behaviour greatly surprised me, as I
knew not how to account for it, nothing having happened since we parted
from the captain the evening before in perfect good-humour; and all this
broke forth on the first moment of his arrival this morning. He did not,
however, suffer my amazement to have any long continuance before he
clearly shewed me that all this was meant only as an apology to
introduce another procrastination (being the fifth) of his weighing
anchor, which was now postponed till Saturday, for such was his will and
pleasure.
Besides the disagreeable situation in which we then lay, in the confines
of Wapping and Rotherhithe, tasting a delicious mixture of the air of
both these sweet places, and enjoying the concord of sweet sounds of
seamen, watermen, fish-women, oyster-women, and of all the vociferous
inhabitants of both shores, composing altogether a greater variety of
harmony than Hogarth's imagination hath brought together in that print
of his, which is enough to make a man deaf to look at--I had a more
urgent cause to press our departure, which was, that the dropsy, for
which I had undergone three tappings, seemed to threaten me with a
fourth discharge before I should reach Lisbon, and when I should have
nobody on board capable of performing the operation; but I was obliged
to hearken to the voice of reason, if I may use the captain's own words,
and to rest myself contented. Indeed, there was no alternative within my
reach but what would have cost me much too dear.
There are many evils in society from which people of the highest rank
are so entirely exempt, that they have not the least knowledge or idea
of them; nor indeed of the characters which are formed by them. Such,
for instance, is the conveyance of goods and passengers from one place
to another. Now there is no such thing as any kind of knowledge
contemptible in itself; and, as the particular knowledge I here mean is
entirely necessary to the well understanding and well enjoying this
journal; and, lastly, as in this case the most ignorant will be those
very readers whose amusement we chiefly consult, and to whom we wish to
be supposed principally to write, we will here enter somewhat largely
into the discussion of this matter; the rather, for that no antient or
modern author (if we can trust the catalogue of doctor Mead's library)
hath ever undertaken it, but that it seems (in the style of Don Quixote)
a task reserved for my pen alone.
When I first conceived this intention I began to entertain thoughts of
enquiring into the antiquity of travelling; and, as many persons have
performed in this way (I mean have travelled) at the expence of the
public, I flattered myself that the spirit of improving arts and
sciences, and of advancing useful and substantial learning, which so
eminently distinguishes this age, and hath given rise to more
speculative societies in Europe than I at present can recollect the
names of--perhaps, indeed, than I or any other, besides their very near
neighbours, ever heard mentioned--would assist in promoting so curious a
work; a work begun with the same views, calculated for the same
purposes, and fitted for the same uses, with the labours which those
right honourable societies have so chearfully undertaken themselves, and
encouraged in others; sometimes with the highest honours, even with
admission into their colleges, and with inrolment among their members.
From these societies I promised myself all assistance in their power,
particularly the communication of such valuable manuscripts and records
as they must be supposed to have collected from those obscure ages of
antiquity when history yields us such imperfect accounts of the
residence, and much more imperfect of the travels, of the human race;
unless, perhaps, as a curious and learned member of the young Society of
Antiquarians is said to have hinted his conjectures, that their
residence and their travels were one and the same; and this discovery
(for such it seems to be) he is said to have owed to the lighting by
accident on a book, which we shall have occasion to mention presently,
the contents of which were then little known to the society.
The king of Prussia, moreover, who, from a degree of benevolence and
taste which in either case is a rare production in so northern a
climate, is the great encourager of art and science, I was well assured
would promote so useful a design, and order his archives to be searched
on my behalf.
But after well weighing all these advantages, and much meditation on the
order of my work, my whole design was subverted in a moment by hearing
of the discovery just mentioned to have been made by the young
antiquarian, who, from the most antient record in the world (though I
don't find the society are all agreed on this point), one long preceding
the date of the earliest modern collections, either of books or
butterflies, none of which pretend to go beyond the flood, shews us that
the first man was a traveller, and that he and his family were scarce
settled in Paradise before they disliked their own home, and became
passengers to another place. Hence it appears that the humour of
travelling is as old as the human race, and that it was their curse from
the beginning.
By this discovery my plan became much shortened, and I found it only
necessary to treat of the conveyance of goods and passengers from place
to place; which, not being universally known, seemed proper to be
explained before we examined into its original. There are indeed two
different ways of tracing all things used by the historian and the
antiquary; these are upwards and downwards. The former shews you how
things are, and leaves to others to discover when they began to be so.
The latter shews you how things were, and leaves their present existence
to be examined by others. Hence the former is more useful, the latter
more curious. The former receives the thanks of mankind; the latter of
that valuable part, the virtuosi.
In explaining, therefore, this mystery of carrying goods and passengers
from one place to another, hitherto so profound a secret to the very
best of our readers, we shall pursue the historical method, and
endeavour to shew by what means it is at present performed, referring
the more curious enquiry either to some other pen or to some other
opportunity.
Now there are two general ways of performing (if God permit) this
conveyance, viz., by land and water, both of which have much variety;
that by land being performed in different vehicles, such as coaches,
caravans, waggons, &c.; and that by water in ships, barges, and boats,
of various sizes and denominations. But, as all these methods of
conveyance are formed on the same principles, they agree so well
together, that it is fully sufficient to comprehend them all in the
general view, without descending to such minute particulars as would
distinguish one method from another.
Common to all of these is one general principle, that, as the goods to
be conveyed are usually the larger, so they are to be chiefly considered
in the conveyance; the owner being indeed little more than an appendage
to his trunk, or box, or bale, or at best a small part of his own
baggage, very little care is to be taken in stowing or packing them up
with convenience to himself; for the conveyance is not of passengers and
goods, but of goods and passengers.
Secondly, from this conveyance arises a new kind of relation, or rather
of subjection, in the society, by which the passenger becomes bound in
allegiance to his conveyer. This allegiance is indeed only temporary and
local, but the most absolute during its continuance of any known in
Great Britain, and, to say truth, scarce consistent with the liberties
of a free people, nor could it be reconciled with them, did it not move
downwards; a circumstance universally apprehended to be incompatible to
all kinds of slavery; for Aristotle in his Politicks hath proved
abundantly to my satisfaction that no men are born to be slaves, except
barbarians; and these only to such as are not themselves barbarians; and
indeed Mr Montesquieu hath carried it very little farther in the case of
the Africans; the real truth being that no man is born to be a slave,
unless to him who is able to make him so.
Thirdly, this subjection is absolute, and consists of a perfect
resignation both of body and soul to the disposal of another; after
which resignation, during a certain time, his subject retains no more
power over his own will than an Asiatic slave, or an English wife, by
the laws of both countries, and by the customs of one of them. If I
should mention the instance of a stage-coachman, many of my readers
would recognise the truth of what I have here observed; all, indeed,
that ever have been under the dominion of that tyrant, who in this free
country is as absolute as a Turkish bashaw. In two particulars only his
power is defective; he cannot press you into his service, and if you
enter yourself at one place, on condition of being discharged at a
certain time at another, he is obliged to perform his agreement, if God
permit, but all the intermediate time you are absolutely under his
government; he carries you how he will, when he will, and whither he
will, provided it be not much out of the road; you have nothing to eat
or to drink, but what, and when, and where he pleases. Nay, you cannot
sleep unless he pleases you should; for he will order you sometimes out
of bed at midnight and hurry you away at a moment's warning: indeed, if
you can sleep in his vehicle he cannot prevent it; nay, indeed, to give
him his due, this he is ordinarily disposed to encourage: for the
earlier he forces you to rise in the morning, the more time he will give
you in the heat of the day, sometimes even six hours at an ale-house, or
at their doors, where he always gives you the same indulgence which he
allows himself; and for this he is generally very moderate in his
demands. I have known a whole bundle of passengers charged no more than
half-a-crown for being suffered to remain quiet at an ale-house door for
above a whole hour, and that even in the hottest day in summer.
But as this kind of tyranny, though it hath escaped our political
writers, hath been I think touched by our dramatic, and is more trite
among the generality of readers; and as this and all other kinds of such
subjection are alike unknown to my friends, I will quit the passengers
by land, and treat of those who travel by water; for whatever is said on
this subject is applicable to both alike, and we may bring them together
as closely as they are brought in the liturgy, when they are recommended
to the prayers of all Christian congregations; and (which I have often
thought very remarkable) where they are joined with other miserable
wretches, such as women in labour, people in sickness, infants just
born, prisoners and captives.
Goods and passengers are conveyed by water in divers vehicles, the
principal of which being a ship, it shall suffice to mention that alone.
Here the tyrant doth not derive his title, as the stage-coachman doth,
from the vehicle itself in which he stows his goods and passengers, but
he is called the captain--a word of such various use and uncertain
signification, that it seems very difficult to fix any positive idea to
it: if, indeed, there be any general meaning which may comprehend all
its different uses, that of the head or chief of any body of men seems
to be most capable of this comprehension; for whether they be a company
of soldiers, a crew of sailors, or a gang of rogues, he who is at the
head of them is always stiled the captain.
The particular tyrant whose fortune it was to stow us aboard laid a
farther claim to this appellation than the bare command of a vehicle of
conveyance. He had been the captain of a privateer, which he chose to
call being in the king's service, and thence derived a right of hoisting
the military ornament of a cockade over the button of his hat. He
likewise wore a sword of no ordinary length by his side, with which he
swaggered in his cabin, among the wretches his passengers, whom he had
stowed in cupboards on each side. He was a person of a very singular
character. He had taken it into his head that he was a gentleman, from
those very reasons that proved he was not one; and to shew himself a
fine gentleman, by a behaviour which seemed to insinuate he had never
seen one. He was, moreover, a man of gallantry; at the age of seventy he
had the finicalness of Sir Courtly Nice, with the roughness of Surly;
and, while he was deaf himself, had a voice capable of deafening all
others.
Now, as I saw myself in danger by the delays of the captain, who was, in
reality, waiting for more freight, and as the wind had been long nested,
as it were, in the south-west, where it constantly blew hurricanes, I
began with great reason to apprehend that our voyage might be long, and
that my belly, which began already to be much extended, would require
the water to be let out at a time when no assistance was at hand;
though, indeed, the captain comforted me with assurances that he had a
pretty young fellow on board who acted as his surgeon, as I found he
likewise did as steward, cook, butler, sailor. In short, he had as many
offices as Scrub in the play, and went through them all with great
dexterity; this of surgeon was, perhaps, the only one in which his skill
was somewhat deficient, at least that branch of tapping for the dropsy;
for he very ingenuously and modestly confessed he had never seen the
operation performed, nor was possessed of that chirurgical instrument
with which it is performed.
_Friday, June 28._--By way of prevention, therefore, I this day sent for
my friend Mr Hunter, the great surgeon and anatomist of Covent-garden;
and, though my belly was not yet very full and tight, let out ten quarts
of water; the young sea-surgeon attended the operation, not as a
performer, but as a student.
I was now eased of the greatest apprehension which I had from the length
of the passage; and I told the captain I was become indifferent as to
the time of his sailing. He expressed much satisfaction in this
declaration, and at hearing from me that I found myself, since my
tapping, much lighter and better. In this, I believe, he was sincere;
for he was, as we shall have occasion to observe more than once, a very
good-natured man; and, as he was a very brave one too, I found that the
heroic constancy with which I had borne an operation that is attended
with scarce any degree of pain had not a little raised me in his esteem.
That he might adhere, therefore, in the most religious and rigorous
manner to his word, when he had no longer any temptation from interest
to break it, as he had no longer any hopes of more goods or passengers,
he ordered his ship to fall down to Gravesend on Sunday morning, and
there to wait his arrival.
_Sunday, June 30._--Nothing worth notice passed till that morning, when
my poor wife, after passing a night in the utmost torments of the
toothache, resolved to have it drawn. I despatched therefore a servant
into Wapping to bring in haste the best tooth-drawer he could find. He
soon found out a female of great eminence in the art; but when he
brought her to the boat, at the water-side, they were informed that the
ship was gone; for indeed she had set out a few minutes after his
quitting her; nor did the pilot, who well knew the errand on which I had
sent my servant, think fit to wait a moment for his return, or to give
me any notice of his setting out, though I had very patiently attended
the delays of the captain four days, after many solemn promises of
weighing anchor every one of the three last.
But of all the petty bashaws or turbulent tyrants I ever beheld, this
sour-faced pilot was the worst tempered; for, during the time that he
had the guidance of the ship, which was till we arrived in the Downs, he
complied with no one's desires, nor did he give a civil word, or indeed
a civil look, to any on board.
The tooth-drawer, who, as I said before, was one of great eminence among
her neighbours, refused to follow the ship; so that my man made himself
the best of his way, and with some difficulty came up with us before we
were got under full sail; for after that, as we had both wind and tide
with us, he would have found it impossible to overtake the ship till she
was come to an anchor at Gravesend.
The morning was fair and bright, and we had a passage thither, I think,
as pleasant as can be conceived: for, take it with all its advantages,
particularly the number of fine ships you are always sure of seeing by
the way, there is nothing to equal it in all the rivers of the world.
The yards of Deptford and of Woolwich are noble sights, and give us a
just idea of the great perfection to which we are arrived in building
those floating castles, and the figure which we may always make in
Europe among the other maritime powers. That of Woolwich, at least, very
strongly imprinted this idea on my mind; for there was now on the stocks
there the Royal Anne, supposed to be the largest ship ever built, and
which contains ten carriage-guns more than had ever yet equipped a
first-rate.
It is true, perhaps, that there is more of ostentation than of real
utility in ships of this vast and unwieldy burthen, which are rarely
capable of acting against an enemy; but if the building such contributes
to preserve, among other nations, the notion of the British superiority
in naval affairs, the expence, though very great, is well incurred, and
the ostentation is laudable and truly political. Indeed, I should be
sorry to allow that Holland, France, or Spain, possessed a vessel larger
and more beautiful than the largest and most beautiful of ours; for this
honour I would always administer to the pride of our sailors, who should
challenge it from all their neighbours with truth and success. And sure
I am that not our honest tars alone, but every inhabitant of this
island, may exult in the comparison, when he considers the king of Great
Britain as a maritime prince, in opposition to any other prince in
Europe; but I am not so certain that the same idea of superiority will
result from comparing our land forces with those of many other crowned
heads. In numbers they all far exceed us, and in the goodness and
splendour of their troops many nations, particularly the Germans and
French, and perhaps the Dutch, cast us at a distance; for, however we
may flatter ourselves with the Edwards and Henrys of former ages, the
change of the whole art of war since those days, by which the advantage
of personal strength is in a manner entirely lost, hath produced a
change in military affairs to the advantage of our enemies. As for our
successes in later days, if they were not entirely owing to the superior
genius of our general, they were not a little due to the superior force
of his money. Indeed, if we should arraign marshal Saxe of ostentation
when he shewed his army, drawn up, to our captive general, the day after
the battle of La Val, we cannot say that the ostentation was entirely
vain; since he certainly shewed him an army which had not been often
equalled, either in the number or goodness of the troops, and which, in
those respects, so far exceeded ours, that none can ever cast any
reflexion on the brave young prince who could not reap the lawrels of
conquest in that day; but his retreat will be always mentioned as an
addition to his glory.
In our marine the case is entirely the reverse, and it must be our own
fault if it doth not continue so; for continue so it will as long as the
flourishing state of our trade shall support it, and this support it can
never want till our legislature shall cease to give sufficient attention
to the protection of our trade, and our magistrates want sufficient
power, ability, and honesty, to execute the laws; a circumstance not to
be apprehended, as it cannot happen till our senates and our benches
shall be filled with the blindest ignorance, or with the blackest
corruption.
Besides the ships in the docks, we saw many on the water: the yatchts
are sights of great parade, and the king's body yatcht is, I believe,
unequalled in any country for convenience as well as magnificence; both
which are consulted in building and equipping her with the most
exquisite art and workmanship.
We saw likewise several Indiamen just returned from their voyage. These
are, I believe, the largest and finest vessels which are anywhere
employed in commercial affairs. The colliers, likewise, which are very
numerous, and even assemble in fleets, are ships of great bulk; and if
we descend to those used in the American, African, and European trades,
and pass through those which visit our own coasts, to the small craft
that lie between Chatham and the Tower, the whole forms a most pleasing
object to the eye, as well as highly warming to the heart of an
Englishman who has any degree of love for his country, or can recognise
any effect of the patriot in his constitution.
Lastly, the Royal Hospital at Greenwich, which presents so delightful a
front to the water, and doth such honour at once to its builder and the
nation, to the great skill and ingenuity of the one, and to the no less
sensible gratitude of the other, very properly closes the account of
this scene; which may well appear romantic to those who have not
themselves seen that, in this one instance, truth and reality are
capable, perhaps, of exceeding the power of fiction.
When we had past by Greenwich we saw only two or three gentlemen's
houses, all of very moderate account, till we reached Gravesend: these
are all on the Kentish shore, which affords a much drier, wholesomer,
and pleasanter situation, than doth that of its opposite, Essex. This
circumstance, I own, is somewhat surprising to me, when I reflect on the
numerous villas that crowd the river from Chelsea upwards as far as
Shepperton, where the narrower channel affords not half so noble a
prospect, and where the continual succession of the small craft, like
the frequent repetition of all things, which have nothing in them great,
beautiful, or admirable, tire the eye, and give us distaste and
aversion, instead of pleasure. With some of these situations, such as
Barnes, Mortlake, &c., even the shore of Essex might contend, not upon
very unequal terms; but on the Kentish borders there are many spots to
be chosen by the builder which might justly claim the preference over
almost the very finest of those in Middlesex and Surrey.
How shall we account for this depravity in taste? for surely there are
none so very mean and contemptible as to bring the pleasure of seeing a
number of little wherries, gliding along after one another, in
competition with what we enjoy in viewing a succession of ships, with
all their sails expanded to the winds, bounding over the waves before
us.
And here I cannot pass by another observation on the deplorable want of
taste in our enjoyments, which we shew by almost totally neglecting the
pursuit of what seems to me the highest degree of amusement; this is,
the sailing ourselves in little vessels of our own, contrived only for
our ease and accommodation, to which such situations of our villas as I
have recommended would be so convenient, and even necessary.
This amusement, I confess, if enjoyed in any perfection, would be of the
expensive kind; but such expence would not exceed the reach of a
moderate fortune, and would fall very short of the prices which are
daily paid for pleasures of a far inferior rate. The truth, I believe,
is, that sailing in the manner I have just mentioned is a pleasure
rather unknown, or unthought of, than rejected by those who have
experienced it; unless, perhaps, the apprehension of danger or
sea-sickness may be supposed, by the timorous and delicate, to make too
large deductions--insisting that all their enjoyments shall come to them
pure and unmixed, and being ever ready to cry out,
----Nocet empta dolore voluptas.
This, however, was my present case; for the ease and lightness which I
felt from my tapping, the gaiety of the morning, the pleasant sailing
with wind and tide, and the many agreeable objects with which I was
constantly entertained during the whole way, were all suppressed and
overcome by the single consideration of my wife's pain, which continued
incessantly to torment her till we came to an anchor, when I dispatched
a messenger in great haste for the best reputed operator in Gravesend. A
surgeon of some eminence now appeared, who did not decline
tooth-drawing, though he certainly would have been offended with the
appellation of tooth-drawer no less than his brethren, the members of
that venerable body, would be with that of barber, since the late
separation between those long-united companies, by which, if the
surgeons have gained much, the barbers are supposed to have lost very
little.
This able and careful person (for so I sincerely believe he is) after
examining the guilty tooth, declared that it was such a rotten shell,
and so placed at the very remotest end of the upper jaw, where it was in
a manner covered and secured by a large fine firm tooth, that he
despaired of his power of drawing it.
He said, indeed, more to my wife, and used more rhetoric to dissuade her
from having it drawn, than is generally employed to persuade young
ladies to prefer a pain of three moments to one of three months'
continuance, especially if those young ladies happen to be past forty
and fifty years of age, when, by submitting to support a racking
torment, the only good circumstance attending which is, it is so short
that scarce one in a thousand can cry out "I feel it," they are to do a
violence to their charms, and lose one of those beautiful holders with
which alone Sir Courtly Nice declares a lady can ever lay hold of his
heart.
He said at last so much, and seemed to reason so justly, that I came
over to his side, and assisted him in prevailing on my wife (for it was
no easy matter) to resolve on keeping her tooth a little longer, and to
apply palliatives only for relief. These were opium applied to the
tooth, and blisters behind the ears.
Whilst we were at dinner this day in the cabin, on a sudden the window
on one side was beat into the room with a crash as if a twenty-pounder
had been discharged among us. We were all alarmed at the suddenness of
the accident, for which, however, we were soon able to account, for the
sash, which was shivered all to pieces, was pursued into the middle of
the cabin by the bowsprit of a little ship called a cod-smack, the
master of which made us amends for running (carelessly at best) against
us, and injuring the ship, in the sea-way; that is to say, by damning
us all to hell, and uttering several pious wishes that it had done us
much more mischief. All which were answered in their own kind and phrase
by our men, between whom and the other crew a dialogue of oaths and
scurrility was carried on as long as they continued in each other's
hearing.
It is difficult, I think, to assign a satisfactory reason why sailors in
general should, of all others, think themselves entirely discharged from
the common bands of humanity, and should seem to glory in the language
and behaviour of savages! They see more of the world, and have, most of
them, a more erudite education than is the portion of landmen of their
degree. Nor do I believe that in any country they visit (Holland itself
not excepted) they can ever find a parallel to what daily passes on the
river Thames. Is it that they think true courage (for they are the
bravest fellows upon earth) inconsistent with all the gentleness of a
humane carriage, and that the contempt of civil order springs up in
minds but little cultivated, at the same time and from the same
principles with the contempt of danger and death? Is it----? in short,
it is so; and how it comes to be so I leave to form a question in the
Robin Hood Society, or to be propounded for solution among the ænigmas
in the Woman's Almanac for the next year.
_Monday, July 1._--This day Mr Welch took his leave of me after dinner,
as did a young lady of her sister, who was proceeding with my wife to
Lisbon. They both set out together in a post-chaise for London.
Soon after their departure our cabin, where my wife and I were sitting
together, was visited by two ruffians, whose appearance greatly
corresponded with that of the sheriffs, or rather the knight-marshal's
bailiffs. One of these especially, who seemed to affect a more than
ordinary degree of rudeness and insolence, came in without any kind of
ceremony, with a broad gold lace on his hat, which was cocked with much
military fierceness on his head. An inkhorn at his button-hole and some
papers in his hand sufficiently assured me what he was, and I asked him
if he and his companion were not custom-house officers: he answered with
sufficient dignity that they were, as an information which he seemed to
conclude would strike the hearer with awe, and suppress all further
enquiry; but, on the contrary, I proceeded to ask of what rank he was in
the custom-house, and, receiving an answer from his companion, as I
remember, that the gentleman was a riding surveyor, I replied that he
might be a riding surveyor, but could be no gentleman, for that none who
had any title to that denomination would break into the presence of a
lady without an apology or even moving his hat. He then took his
covering from his head and laid it on the table, saying, he asked
pardon, and blamed the mate, who should, he said, have informed him if
any persons of distinction were below. I told him he might guess by our
appearance (which, perhaps, was rather more than could be said with the
strictest adherence to truth) that he was before a gentleman and lady,
which should teach him to be very civil in his behaviour, though we
should not happen to be of that number whom the world calls people of
fashion and distinction. However, I said, that as he seemed sensible of
his error, and had asked pardon, the lady would permit him to put his
hat on again if he chose it. This he refused with some degree of
surliness, and failed not to convince me that, if I should condescend to
become more gentle, he would soon grow more rude.
I now renewed a reflexion, which I have often seen occasion to make,
that there is nothing so incongruous in nature as any kind of power with
lowness of mind and of ability, and that there is nothing more
deplorable than the want of truth in the whimsical notion of Plato, who
tells us that "Saturn, well knowing the state of human affairs, gave us
kings and rulers, not of human but divine original; for, as we make not
shepherds of sheep, nor oxherds of oxen, nor goatherds of goats, but
place some of our own kind over all as being better and fitter to govern
them; in the same manner were demons by the divine love set over us as a
race of beings of a superior order to men, and who, with great ease to
themselves, might regulate our affairs and establish peace, modesty,
freedom, and justice, and, totally destroying all sedition, might
complete the happiness of the human race. So far, at least, may even now
be said with truth, that in all states which are under the government of
mere man, without any divine assistance, there is nothing but labour and
misery to be found. From what I have said, therefore, we may at least
learn, with our utmost endeavours, to imitate the Saturnian institution;
borrowing all assistance from our immortal part, while we pay to this
the strictest obedience, we should form both our private oeconomy and
public policy from its dictates. By this dispensation of our immortal
minds we are to establish a law and to call it by that name. But if any
government be in the hands of a single person, of the few, or of the
many, and such governor or governors shall abandon himself or themselves
to the unbridled pursuit of the wildest pleasures or desires, unable to
restrain any passion, but possessed with an insatiable bad disease; if
such shall attempt to govern, and at the same time to trample on all
laws, there can be no means of preservation left for the wretched
people" Plato de Leg., lib. iv. p. 713, c. 714, edit. Serrani.
It is true that Plato is here treating of the highest or sovereign power
in a state, but it is as true that his observations are general and may
be applied to all inferior powers; and, indeed, every subordinate degree
is immediately derived from the highest; and, as it is equally protected
by the same force and sanctified by the same authority, is alike
dangerous to the well-being of the subject.
Of all powers, perhaps, there is none so sanctified and protected as
this which is under our present consideration. So numerous, indeed, and
strong, are the sanctions given to it by many acts of parliament, that,
having once established the laws of customs on merchandize, it seems to
have been the sole view of the legislature to strengthen the hands and
to protect the persons of the officers who became established by those
laws, many of whom are so far from bearing any resemblance to the
Saturnian institution, and to be chosen from a degree of beings superior
to the rest of human race, that they sometimes seem industriously picked
out of the lowest and vilest orders of mankind.
There is, indeed, nothing so useful to man in general, nor so beneficial
to particular societies and individuals, as trade. This is that _alma
mater_ at whose plentiful breast all mankind are nourished. It is true,
like other parents, she is not always equally indulgent to all her
children, but, though she gives to her favourites a vast proportion of
redundancy and superfluity, there are very few whom she refuses to
supply with the conveniences, and none with the necessaries, of life.
Such a benefactress as this must naturally be beloved by mankind in
general; it would be wonderful, therefore, if her interest was not
considered by them, and protected from the fraud and violence of some of
her rebellious offspring, who, coveting more than their share or more
than she thinks proper to allow them, are daily employed in meditating
mischief against her, and in endeavouring to steal from their brethren
those shares which this great _alma mater_ had allowed them.
At length our governor came on board, and about six in the evening we
weighed anchor, and fell down to the Nore, whither our passage was
extremely pleasant, the evening being very delightful, the moon just
past the full, and both wind and tide favourable to us.
_Tuesday, July 2._--This morning we again set sail, under all the
advantages we had enjoyed the evening before. This day we left the shore
of Essex and coasted along Kent, passing by the pleasant island of
Thanet, which is an island, and that of Sheppy, which is not an island,
and about three o'clock, the wind being now full in our teeth, we came
to an anchor in the Downs, within two miles of Deal.--My wife, having
suffered intolerable pain from her tooth, again renewed her resolution
of having it drawn, and another surgeon was sent for from Deal, but with
no better success than the former. He likewise declined the operation,
for the same reason which had been assigned by the former: however, such
was her resolution, backed with pain, that he was obliged to make the
attempt, which concluded more in honour of his judgment than of his
operation; for, after having put my poor wife to inexpressible torment,
he was obliged to leave her tooth in _statu quo_; and she had now the
comfortable prospect of a long fit of pain, which might have lasted her
whole voyage, without any possibility of relief.
In these pleasing sensations, of which I had my just share, nature,
overcome with fatigue, about eight in the evening resigned her to
rest--a circumstance which would have given me some happiness, could I
have known how to employ those spirits which were raised by it; but,
unfortunately for me, I was left in a disposition of enjoying an
agreeable hour without the assistance of a companion, which has always
appeared to me necessary to such enjoyment; my daughter and her
companion were both retired sea-sick to bed; the other passengers were a
rude school-boy of fourteen years old and an illiterate Portuguese
friar, who understood no language but his own, in which I had not the
least smattering. The captain was the only person left in whose
conversation I might indulge myself; but unluckily, besides a total
ignorance of everything in the world but a ship, he had the misfortune
of being so deaf, that to make him hear, I will not say understand, my
words, I must run the risque of conveying them to the ears of my wife,
who, though in another room (called, I think, the state-room--being,
indeed, a most stately apartment, capable of containing one human body
in length, if not very tall, and three bodies in breadth), lay asleep
within a yard of me. In this situation necessity and choice were one and
the same thing; the captain and I sat down together to a small bowl of
punch, over which we both soon fell fast asleep, and so concluded the
evening.
_Wednesday, July 3._--This morning I awaked at four o'clock, for my
distemper seldom suffered me to sleep later. I presently got up, and had
the pleasure of enjoying the sight of a tempestuous sea for four hours
before the captain was stirring; for he loved to indulge himself in
morning slumbers, which were attended with a wind-music, much more
agreeable to the performers than to the hearers, especially such as
have, as I had, the privilege of sitting in the orchestra. At eight
o'clock the captain rose, and sent his boat on shore. I ordered my man
likewise to go in it, as my distemper was not of that kind which
entirely deprives us of appetite. Now, though the captain had well
victualled his ship with all manner of salt provisions for the voyage,
and had added great quantities of fresh stores, particularly of
vegetables, at Gravesend, such as beans and peas, which had been on
board only two days, and had possibly not been gathered above two more,
I apprehended I could provide better for myself at Deal than the ship's
ordinary seemed to promise. I accordingly sent for fresh provisions of
all kinds from the shore, in order to put off the evil day of starving
as long as possible. My man returned with most of the articles I sent
for, and I now thought myself in a condition of living a week on my own
provisions. I therefore ordered my own dinner, which I wanted nothing
but a cook to dress and a proper fire to dress it at; but those were not
to be had, nor indeed any addition to my roast mutton, except the
pleasure of the captain's company, with that of the other passengers;
for my wife continued the whole day in a state of dozing, and my other
females, whose sickness did not abate by the rolling of the ship at
anchor, seemed more inclined to empty their stomachs than to fill them.
Thus I passed the whole day (except about an hour at dinner) by myself,
and the evening concluded with the captain as the preceding one had
done; one comfortable piece of news he communicated to me, which was,
that he had no doubt of a prosperous wind in the morning; but as he did
not divulge the reasons of this confidence, and as I saw none myself
besides the wind being directly opposite, my faith in this prophecy was
not strong enough to build any great hopes upon.
_Thursday, July 4._--This morning, however, the captain seemed resolved
to fulfil his own predictions, whether the wind would or no; he
accordingly weighed anchor, and, taking the advantage of the tide when
the wind was not very boisterous, he hoisted his sails; and, as if his
power had been no less absolute over Æolus than it was over Neptune, he
forced the wind to blow him on in its own despight.
But as all men who have ever been at sea well know how weak such
attempts are, and want no authorities of Scripture to prove that the
most absolute power of a captain of a ship is very contemptible in the
wind's eye, so did it befal our noble commander, who, having struggled
with the wind three or four hours, was obliged to give over, and lost in
a few minutes all that he had been so long a-gaining; in short, we
returned to our former station, and once more cast anchor in the
neighbourhood of Deal.
Here, though we lay near the shore, that we might promise ourselves all
the emolument which could be derived from it, we found ourselves
deceived; and that we might with as much conveniency be out of the sight
of land; for, except when the captain launched forth his own boat, which
he did always with great reluctance, we were incapable of procuring
anything from Deal, but at a price too exorbitant, and beyond the reach
even of modern luxury--the fair of a boat from Deal, which lay at two
miles' distance, being at least three half-crowns, and, if we had been
in any distress for it, as many half-guineas; for these good people
consider the sea as a large common appendant to their manor, in which
when they find any of their fellow-creatures impounded, they conclude
that they have a full right of making them pay at their own discretion
for their deliverance: to say the truth, whether it be that men who live
on the sea-shore are of an amphibious kind, and do not entirely partake
of human nature, or whatever else may be the reason, they are so far
from taking any share in the distresses of mankind, or of being moved
with any compassion for them, that they look upon them as blessings
showered down from above, and which the more they improve to their own
use, the greater is their gratitude and piety. Thus at Gravesend a
sculler requires a shilling for going less way than he would row in
London for threepence; and at Deal a boat often brings more profit in a
day than it can produce in London in a week, or perhaps in a month; in
both places the owner of the boat founds his demand on the necessity and
distress of one who stands more or less in absolute want of his
assistance, and with the urgency of these always rises in the
exorbitancy of his demand, without ever considering that, from these
very circumstances, the power or ease of gratifying such demand is in
like proportion lessened. Now, as I am unwilling that some conclusions,
which may be, I am aware, too justly drawn from these observations,
should be imputed to human nature in general, I have endeavoured to
account for them in a way more consistent with the goodness and dignity
of that nature. However it be, it seems a little to reflect on the
governors of such monsters that they do not take some means to restrain
these impositions, and prevent them from triumphing any longer in the
miseries of those who are, in many circumstances at least, their
fellow-creatures, and considering the distresses of a wretched seaman,
from his being wrecked to his being barely wind-bound, as a blessing
sent among them from above, and calling it by that blasphemous name.
_Friday, July 5._--This day I sent a servant on board a man-of-war that
was stationed here, with my compliments to the captain, to represent to
him the distress of the ladies, and to desire the favour of his
long-boat to conduct us to Dover, at about seven miles' distance; and at
the same time presumed to make use of a great lady's name, the wife of
the first lord commissioner of the admiralty, who would, I told him, be
pleased with any kindness shewn by him towards us in our miserable
condition. And this I am convinced was true, from the humanity of the
lady, though she was entirely unknown to me.
The captain returned a verbal answer to a long letter acquainting me
that what I desired could not be complied with, it being a favour not in
his power to grant. This might be, and I suppose was, true; but it is as
true that, if he was able to write, and had pen, ink, and paper on
board, he might have sent a written answer, and that it was the part of
a gentleman so to have done; but this is a character seldom maintained
on the watery element, especially by those who exercise any power on it.
Every commander of a vessel here seems to think himself entirely free
from all those rules of decency and civility which direct and restrain
the conduct of the members of a society on shore; and each, claiming
absolute dominion in his little wooden world, rules by his own laws and
his own discretion. I do not, indeed, know so pregnant an instance of
the dangerous consequences of absolute power, and its aptness to
intoxicate the mind, as that of those petty tyrants, who become such in
a moment, from very well-disposed and social members of that communion
in which they affect no superiority, but live in an orderly state of
legal subjection with their fellow-citizens.
_Saturday, July 6._--This morning our commander, declaring he was sure
the wind would change, took the advantage of an ebbing tide, and weighed
his anchor. His assurance, however, had the same completion, and his
endeavours the same success, with his formal trial; and he was soon
obliged to return once more to his old quarters. Just before we let go
our anchor, a small sloop, rather than submit to yield us an inch of
way, ran foul of our ship, and carried off her bowsprit. This obstinate
frolic would have cost those aboard the sloop very dear, if our
steersman had not been too generous to exert his superiority, the
certain consequence of which would have been the immediate sinking of
the other. This contention of the inferior with a might capable of
crushing it in an instant may seem to argue no small share of folly or
madness, as well as of impudence; but I am convinced there is very
little danger in it: contempt is a port to which the pride of man
submits to fly with reluctance, but those who are within it are always
in a place of the most assured security; for whosoever throws away his
sword prefers, indeed, a less honourable but much safer means of
avoiding danger than he who defends himself with it. And here we shall
offer another distinction, of the truth of which much reading and
experience have well convinced us, that as in the most absolute
governments there is a regular progression of slavery downwards, from
the top to the bottom, the mischief of which is seldom felt with any
great force and bitterness but by the next immediate degree; so in the
most dissolute and anarchical states there is as regular an ascent of
what is called rank or condition, which is always laying hold of the
head of him who is advanced but one step higher on the ladder, who
might, if he did not too much despise such efforts, kick his pursuer
headlong to the bottom. We will conclude this digression with one
general and short observation, which will, perhaps, set the whole matter
in a clearer light than the longest and most laboured harangue. Whereas
envy of all things most exposes us to danger from others, so contempt of
all things best secures us from them. And thus, while the dung-cart and
the sloop are always meditating mischief against the coach and the ship,
and throwing themselves designedly in their way, the latter consider
only their own security, and are not ashamed to break the road and let
the other pass by them.
_Monday, July 8._--Having past our Sunday without anything remarkable,
unless the catching a great number of whitings in the afternoon may be
thought so, we now set sail on Monday at six o'clock, with a little
variation of wind; but this was so very little, and the breeze itself so
small, that the tide was our best and indeed almost our only friend.
This conducted us along the short remainder of the Kentish shore. Here
we past that cliff of Dover which makes so tremendous a figure in
Shakspeare, and which whoever reads without being giddy, must, according
to Mr Addison's observation, have either a very good head or a very bad
one; but which, whoever contracts any such ideas from the sight of, must
have at least a poetic if not a Shaksperian genius. In truth, mountains,
rivers, heroes, and gods owe great part of their existence to the poets;
and Greece and Italy do so plentifully abound in the former, because
they furnish so glorious a number of the latter; who, while they
bestowed immortality on every little hillock and blind stream, left the
noblest rivers and mountains in the world to share the same obscurity
with the eastern and western poets, in which they are celebrated.
This evening we beat the sea of Sussex in sight of Dungeness, with much
more pleasure than progress; for the weather was almost a perfect calm,
and the moon, which was almost at the full, scarce suffered a single
cloud to veil her from our sight.
_Tuesday, Wednesday, July 9, 10._--These two days we had much the same
fine weather, and made much the same way; but in the evening of the
latter day a pretty fresh gale sprung up at N.N.W., which brought us by
the morning in sight of the Isle of Wight.
_Thursday, July 11._--This gale continued till towards noon; when the
east end of the island bore but little ahead of us. The captain
swaggered and declared he would keep the sea; but the wind got the
better of him, so that about three he gave up the victory, and making a
sudden tack stood in for the shore, passed by Spithead and Portsmouth,
and came to an anchor at a place called Ryde on the island.
A most tragical incident fell out this day at sea. While the ship was
under sail, but making as will appear no great way, a kitten, one of
four of the feline inhabitants of the cabin, fell from the window into
the water: an alarm was immediately given to the captain, who was then
upon deck, and received it with the utmost concern and many bitter
oaths. He immediately gave orders to the steersman in favour of the poor
thing, as he called it; the sails were instantly slackened, and all
hands, as the phrase is, employed to recover the poor animal. I was, I
own, extremely surprised at all this; less indeed at the captain's
extreme tenderness than at his conceiving any possibility of success;
for if puss had had nine thousand instead of nine lives, I concluded
they had been all lost. The boatswain, however, had more sanguine hopes,
for, having stripped himself of his jacket, breeches, and shirt, he
leaped boldly into the water, and to my great astonishment in a few
minutes returned to the ship, bearing the motionless animal in his
mouth. Nor was this, I observed, a matter of such great difficulty as it
appeared to my ignorance, and possibly may seem to that of my
fresh-water reader. The kitten was now exposed to air and sun on the
deck, where its life, of which it retained no symptoms, was despaired of
by all.
The captain's humanity, if I may so call it, did not so totally destroy
his philosophy as to make him yield himself up to affliction on this
melancholy occasion. Having felt his loss like a man, he resolved to
shew he could bear it like one; and, having declared he had rather have
lost a cask of rum or brandy, betook himself to threshing at backgammon
with the Portuguese friar, in which innocent amusement they had passed
about two-thirds of their time.
But as I have, perhaps, a little too wantonly endeavoured to raise the
tender passions of my readers in this narrative, I should think myself
unpardonable if I concluded it without giving them the satisfaction of
hearing that the kitten at last recovered, to the great joy of the good
captain, but to the great disappointment of some of the sailors, who
asserted that the drowning a cat was the very surest way of raising a
favourable wind; a supposition of which, though we have heard several
plausible accounts, we will not presume to assign the true original
reason.
_Friday, July 12._--This day our ladies went ashore at Ryde, and drank
their afternoon tea at an ale-house there with great satisfaction: here
they were regaled with fresh cream, to which they had been strangers
since they left the Downs.
_Saturday, July 13._--The wind seeming likely to continue in the same
corner where it had been almost constantly for two months together, I
was persuaded by my wife to go ashore and stay at Ryde till we sailed. I
approved the motion much; for though I am a great lover of the sea, I
now fancied there was more pleasure in breathing the fresh air of the
land; but how to get thither was the question; for, being really that
dead luggage which I considered all passengers to be in the beginning of
this narrative, and incapable of any bodily motion without external
impulse, it was in vain to leave the ship, or to determine to do it,
without the assistance of others. In one instance, perhaps, the living
luggage is more difficult to be moved or removed than an equal or much
superior weight of dead matter; which, if of the brittle kind, may
indeed be liable to be broken through negligence; but this, by proper
care, may be almost certainly prevented; whereas the fractures to which
the living lumps are exposed are sometimes by no caution avoidable, and
often by no art to be amended.
I was deliberating on the means of conveyance, not so much out of the
ship to the boat as out of a little tottering boat to the land; a matter
which, as I had already experienced in the Thames, was not extremely
easy, when to be performed by any other limbs than your own. Whilst I
weighed all that could suggest itself on this head, without strictly
examining the merit of the several schemes which were advanced by the
captain and sailors, and, indeed, giving no very deep attention even to
my wife, who, as well as her friend and my daughter, were exerting their
tender concern for my ease and safety, Fortune, for I am convinced she
had a hand in it, sent me a present of a buck; a present welcome enough
of itself, but more welcome on account of the vessel in which it came,
being a large hoy, which in some places would pass for a ship, and many
people would go some miles to see the sight. I was pretty easily
conveyed on board this hoy; but to get from hence to the shore was not
so easy a task; for, however strange it may appear, the water itself did
not extend so far; an instance which seems to explain those lines of
Ovid,
Omnia pontus erant, deerant quoque littora ponto,
in a less tautological sense than hath generally been imputed to them.
In fact, between the sea and the shore there was, at low water, an
impassable gulph, if I may so call it, of deep mud, which could neither
be traversed by walking nor swimming; so that for near one half of the
twenty-four hours Ryde was inaccessible by friend or foe. But as the
magistrates of this place seemed more to desire the company of the
former than to fear that of the latter, they had begun to make a small
causeway to the low-water mark, so that foot passengers might land
whenever they pleased; but as this work was of a public kind, and would
have cost a large sum of money, at least ten pounds, and the
magistrates, that is to say, the churchwardens, the overseers,
constable, and tithing-man, and the principal inhabitants, had every one
of them some separate scheme of private interest to advance at the
expence of the public, they fell out among themselves; and, after having
thrown away one half of the requisite sum, resolved at least to save the
other half, and rather be contented to sit down losers themselves than
to enjoy any benefit which might bring in a greater profit to another.
Thus that unanimity which is so necessary in all public affairs became
wanting, and every man, from the fear of being a bubble to another, was,
in reality, a bubble to himself.
However, as there is scarce any difficulty to which the strength of men,
assisted with the cunning of art, is not equal, I was at last hoisted
into a small boat, and, being rowed pretty near the shore, was taken up
by two sailors, who waded with me through the mud, and placed me in a
chair on the land, whence they afterwards conveyed me a quarter of a
mile farther, and brought me to a house which seemed to bid the fairest
for hospitality of any in Ryde.
We brought with us our provisions from the ship, so that we wanted
nothing but a fire to dress our dinner, and a room in which we might eat
it. In neither of these had we any reason to apprehend a disappointment,
our dinner consisting only of beans and bacon; and the worst apartment
in his majesty's dominions, either at home or abroad, being fully
sufficient to answer our present ideas of delicacy.
Unluckily, however, we were disappointed in both; for when we arrived
about four at our inn, exulting in the hopes of immediately seeing our
beans smoking on the table, we had the mortification of seeing them on
the table indeed, but without that circumstance which would have made
the sight agreeable, being in the same state in which we had dispatched
them from our ship.
In excuse for this delay, though we had exceeded, almost purposely, the
time appointed, and our provision had arrived three hours before, the
mistress of the house acquainted us that it was not for want of time to
dress them that they were not ready, but for fear of their being cold or
overdone before we should come; which she assured us was much worse than
waiting a few minutes for our dinner; an observation so very just, that
it is impossible to find any objection in it; but, indeed, it was not
altogether so proper at this time, for we had given the most absolute
orders to have them ready at four, and had been ourselves, not without
much care and difficulty, most exactly punctual in keeping to the very
minute of our appointment. But tradesmen, inn-keepers, and servants,
never care to indulge us in matters contrary to our true interest, which
they always know better than ourselves; nor can any bribes corrupt them
to go out of their way whilst they are consulting our good in our own
despight.
Our disappointment in the other particular, in defiance of our humility,
as it was more extraordinary, was more provoking. In short, Mrs Francis
(for that was the name of the good woman of the house) no sooner
received the news of our intended arrival than she considered more the
gentility than the humanity of her guests, and applied herself not to
that which kindles but to that which extinguishes fire, and, forgetting
to put on her pot, fell to washing her house.
As the messenger who had brought my venison was impatient to be
despatched, I ordered it to be brought and laid on the table in the room
where I was seated; and the table not being large enough, one side, and
that a very bloody one, was laid on the brick floor. I then ordered Mrs
Francis to be called in, in order to give her instructions concerning
it; in particular, what I would have roasted and what baked; concluding
that she would be highly pleased with the prospect of so much money
being spent in her house as she might have now reason to expect, if the
wind continued only a few days longer to blow from the same points
whence it had blown for several weeks past.
I soon saw good cause, I must confess, to despise my own sagacity. Mrs
Francis, having received her orders, without making any answer, snatched
the side from the floor, which remained stained with blood, and, bidding
a servant to take up that on the table, left the room with no pleasant
countenance, muttering to herself that, "had she known the litter which
was to have been made, she would not have taken such pains to wash her
house that morning. If this was gentility, much good may it do such
gentlefolks; for her part she had no notion of it."
From these murmurs I received two hints. The one, that it was not from a
mistake of our inclination that the good woman had starved us, but from
wisely consulting her own dignity, or rather perhaps her vanity, to
which our hunger was offered up as a sacrifice. The other, that I was
now sitting in a damp room, a circumstance, though it had hitherto
escaped my notice from the colour of the bricks, which was by no means
to be neglected in a valetudinary state.
My wife, who, besides discharging excellently well her own and all the
tender offices becoming the female character; who, besides being a
faithful friend, an amiable companion, and a tender nurse, could
likewise supply the wants of a decrepit husband, and occasionally
perform his part, had, before this, discovered the immoderate attention
to neatness in Mrs Francis, and provided against its ill consequences.
She had found, though not under the same roof, a very snug apartment
belonging to Mr Francis, and which had escaped the mop by his wife's
being satisfied it could not possibly be visited by gentlefolks.
This was a dry, warm, oaken-floored barn, lined on both sides with
wheaten straw, and opening at one end into a green field and a beautiful
prospect. Here, without hesitation, she ordered the cloth to be laid,
and came hastily to snatch me from worse perils by water than the common
dangers of the sea.
Mrs Francis, who could not trust her own ears, or could not believe a
footman in so extraordinary a phenomenon, followed my wife, and asked
her if she had indeed ordered the cloth to be laid in the barn? She
answered in the affirmative; upon which Mrs Francis declared she would
not dispute her pleasure, but it was the first time she believed that
quality had ever preferred a barn to a house. She shewed at the same
time the most pregnant marks of contempt, and again lamented the labour
she had undergone, through her ignorance of the absurd taste of her
guests.
At length, we were seated in one of the most pleasant spots I believe in
the kingdom, and were regaled with our beans and bacon, in which there
was nothing deficient but the quantity. This defect was however so
deplorable that we had consumed our whole dish before we had visibly
lessened our hunger. We now waited with impatience the arrival of our
second course, which necessity, and not luxury, had dictated. This was a
joint of mutton which Mrs Francis had been ordered to provide; but when,
being tired with expectation, we ordered our servants _to see for
something else_, we were informed that there was nothing else; on which
Mrs Francis, being summoned, declared there was no such thing as mutton
to be had at Ryde. When I expressed some astonishment at their having no
butcher in a village so situated, she answered they had a very good one,
and one that killed all sorts of meat in season, beef two or three times
a year, and mutton the whole year round; but that, it being then beans
and peas time, he killed no meat, by reason he was not sure of selling
it. This she had not thought worthy of communication, any more than that
there lived a fisherman at next door, who was then provided with plenty
of soles, and whitings, and lobsters, far superior to those which adorn
a city feast. This discovery being made by accident, we completed the
best, the pleasantest, and the merriest meal, with more appetite, more
real solid luxury, and more festivity, than was ever seen in an
entertainment at White's.
It may be wondered at, perhaps, that Mrs Francis should be so negligent
of providing for her guests, as she may seem to be thus inattentive to
her own interest; but this was not the case; for, having clapped a
poll-tax on our heads at our arrival, and determined at what price to
discharge our bodies from her house, the less she suffered any other to
share in the levy the clearer it came into her own pocket; and that it
was better to get twelve pence in a shilling than ten pence, which
latter would be the case if she afforded us fish at any rate.
Thus we past a most agreeable day owing to good appetites and good
humour; two hearty feeders which will devour with satisfaction whatever
food you place before them; whereas, without these, the elegance of St
James's, the charde, the perigord-pie, or the ortolan, the venison, the
turtle, or the custard, may titillate the throat, but will never convey
happiness to the heart or chearfulness to the countenance.
As the wind appeared still immovable, my wife proposed my lying on
shore. I presently agreed, though in defiance of an act of parliament,
by which persons wandering abroad and lodging in ale-houses are decreed
to be rogues and vagabonds; and this too after having been very
singularly officious in putting that law in execution.
My wife, having reconnoitred the house, reported that there was one room
in which were two beds. It was concluded, therefore, that she and
Harriot should occupy one and myself take possession of the other. She
added likewise an ingenious recommendation of this room to one who had
so long been in a cabin, which it exactly resembled, as it was sunk down
with age on one side, and was in the form of a ship with gunwales too.
For my own part, I make little doubt but this apartment was an ancient
temple, built with the materials of a wreck, and probably dedicated to
Neptune in honour of THE BLESSING sent by him to the inhabitants; such
blessings having in all ages been very common to them. The timber
employed in it confirms this opinion, being such as is seldom used by
any but ship-builders. I do not find indeed any mention of this matter
in Hearn; but perhaps its antiquity was too modern to deserve his
notice. Certain it is that this island of Wight was not an early
convert to Christianity; nay, there is some reason to doubt whether it
was ever entirely converted. But I have only time to touch slightly on
things of this kind, which, luckily for us, we have a society whose
peculiar profession it is to discuss and develop.
_Sunday, July 19._--This morning early I summoned Mrs Francis, in order
to pay her the preceding day's account. As I could recollect only two or
three articles I thought there was no necessity of pen and ink. In a
single instance only we had exceeded what the law allows gratis to a
foot-soldier on his march, viz., vinegar, salt, &c., and dressing his
meat. I found, however, I was mistaken in my calculation; for when the
good woman attended with her bill it contained as follows:--
£ _s._ _d._
Bread and beer 0 2 4
Wind 0 2 0
Rum 0 2 0
Dressing dinner 0 3 0
Tea 0 1 6
Firing 0 1 0
Lodging 0 1 6
Servants' lodging 0 0 6
__________
£0 13 10
Now that five people and two servants should live a day and night at a
public-house for so small a sum will appear incredible to any person in
London above the degree of a chimney-sweeper; but more astonishing will
it seem that these people should remain so long at such a house without
tasting any other delicacy than bread, small beer, a teacupfull of milk
called cream, a glass of rum converted into punch by their own
materials, and one bottle of _wind_, of which we only tasted a single
glass, though possibly, indeed, our servants drank the remainder of the
bottle.
This _wind_ is a liquor of English manufacture, and its flavour is
thought very delicious by the generality of the English, who drink it in
great quantities. Every seventh year is thought to produce as much as
the other six. It is then drank so plentifully that the whole nation are
in a manner intoxicated by it; and consequently very little business is
carried on at that season.
It resembles in colour the red wine which is imported from Portugal, as
it doth in its intoxicating quality; hence, and from this agreement in
the orthography, the one is often confounded with the other, though both
are seldom esteemed by the same person. It is to be had in every parish
of the kingdom, and a pretty large quantity is consumed in the
metropolis, where several taverns are set apart solely for the vendition
of this liquor, the masters never dealing in any other.
The disagreement in our computation produced some small remonstrance to
Mrs Francis on my side; but this received an immediate answer: "She
scorned to overcharge gentlemen; her house had been always frequented by
the very best gentry of the island; and she had never had a bill found
fault with in her life, though she had lived upwards of forty years in
the house, and within that time the greatest gentry in Hampshire had
been at it; and that lawyer Willis never went to any other when he came
to those parts. That for her part she did not get her livelihood by
travellers, who were gone and away, and she never expected to see them
more, but that her neighbours might come again; wherefore, to be sure,
they had the only right to complain."
She was proceeding thus, and from her volubility of tongue seemed likely
to stretch the discourse to an immoderate length, when I suddenly cut
all short by paying the bill.
This morning our ladies went to church, more, I fear, from curiosity
than religion; they were attended by the captain in a most military
attire, with his cockade in his hat and his sword by his side. So
unusual an appearance in this little chapel drew the attention of all
present, and probably disconcerted the women, who were in dishabille,
and wished themselves drest, for the sake of the curate, who was the
greatest of their beholders.
While I was left alone I received a visit from Mr Francis himself, who
was much more considerable as a farmer than as an inn-holder. Indeed, he
left the latter entirely to the care of his wife, and he acted wisely, I
believe, in so doing.
As nothing more remarkable past on this day I will close it with the
account of these two characters, as far as a few days' residence could
inform me of them. If they should appear as new to the reader as they
did to me, he will not be displeased at finding them here.
This amiable couple seemed to border hard on their grand climacteric;
nor indeed were they shy of owning enough to fix their ages within a
year or two of that time. They appeared to be rather proud of having
employed their time well than ashamed of having lived so long; the only
reason which I could ever assign why some fine ladies, and fine
gentlemen too, should desire to be thought younger than they really are
by the contemporaries of their grandchildren. Some, indeed, who too
hastily credit appearances, might doubt whether they had made so good a
use of their time as I would insinuate, since there was no appearance of
anything but poverty, want, and wretchedness, about their house; nor
could they produce anything to a customer in exchange for his money but
a few bottles of _wind_, and spirituous liquors, and some very bad ale,
to drink; with rusty bacon and worse cheese to eat. But then it should
be considered, on the other side, that whatever they received was almost
as entirely clear profit as the blessing of a wreck itself; such an inn
being the very reverse of a coffee-house; for here you can neither sit
for nothing nor have anything for your money.
Again, as many marks of want abounded everywhere, so were the marks of
antiquity visible. Scarce anything was to be seen which had not some
scar upon it, made by the hand of Time; not an utensil, it was manifest,
had been purchased within a dozen years last past; so that whatever
money had come into the house during that period at least must have
remained in it, unless it had been sent abroad for food, or other
perishable commodities; but these were supplied by a small portion of
the fruits of the farm, in which the farmer allowed he had a very good
bargain. In fact, it is inconceivable what sums may be collected by
starving only, and how easy it is for a man to die rich if he will but
be contented to live miserable.
Nor is there in this kind of starving anything so terrible as some
apprehend. It neither wastes a man's flesh nor robs him of his
chearfulness. The famous Cornaro's case well proves the contrary; and so
did farmer Francis, who was of a round stature, had a plump round face,
with a kind of smile on it, and seemed to borrow an air of wretchedness
rather from his coat's age than from his own.
The truth is, there is a certain diet which emaciates men more than any
possible degree of abstinence; though I do not remember to have seen any
caution against it, either in Cheney, Arbuthnot, or in any other modern
writer or regimen. Nay, the very name is not, I believe, in the learned
Dr James's Dictionary; all which is the more extraordinary as it is a
very common food in this kingdom, and the college themselves were not
long since very liberally entertained with it by the present attorney
and other eminent lawyers in Lincoln's-inn-hall, and were all made
horribly sick by it.
But though it should not be found among our English physical writers, we
may be assured of meeting with it among the Greeks; for nothing
considerable in nature escapes their notice, though many things
considerable in them, it is to be feared, have escaped the notice of
their readers. The Greeks, then, to all such as feed too voraciously on
this diet, give the name of HEAUTOFAGI, which our physicians will, I
suppose, translate _men that eat themselves_.
As nothing is so destructive to the body as this kind of food, so
nothing is so plentiful and cheap; but it was perhaps the only cheap
thing the farmer disliked. Probably living much on fish might produce
this disgust; for Diodorus Siculus attributes the same aversion in a
people of Æthiopia to the same cause; he calls them the fish-eaters, and
asserts that they cannot be brought to eat a single meal with the
Heautofagi by any persuasion, threat, or violence whatever, not even
though they should kill their children before their faces.
What hath puzzled our physicians, and prevented them from setting this
matter in the clearest light, is possibly one simple mistake, arising
from a very excusable ignorance; that the passions of men are capable of
swallowing food as well as their appetites; that the former, in feeding,
resemble the state of those animals who chew the cud; and therefore,
such men, in some sense, may be said to prey on themselves, and as it
were to devour their own entrails. And hence ensues a meagre aspect and
thin habit of body, as surely as from what is called a consumption.
Our farmer was one of these. He had no more passion than an
Ichthuofagus or Æthiopian fisher. He wished not for anything, thought
not of anything; indeed, he scarce did anything or said anything. Here I
cannot be understood strictly; for then I must describe a nonentity,
whereas I would rob him of nothing but that free agency which is the
cause of all the corruption and of all the misery of human nature. No
man, indeed, ever did more than the farmer, for he was an absolute slave
to labour all the week; but in truth, as my sagacious reader must have
at first apprehended, when I said he resigned the care of the house to
his wife, I meant more than I then expressed, even the house and all
that belonged to it; for he was really a farmer only under the direction
of his wife. In a word, so composed, so serene, so placid a countenance,
I never saw; and he satisfied himself by answering to every question he
was asked, "I don't know anything about it, sir; I leaves all that to my
wife."
Now, as a couple of this kind would, like two vessels of oil, have made
no composition in life, and for want of all savour must have palled
every taste; nature or fortune, or both of them, took care to provide a
proper quantity of acid in the materials that formed the wife, and to
render her a perfect helpmate for so tranquil a husband. She abounded in
whatsoever he was defective; that is to say, in almost everything. She
was indeed as vinegar to oil, or a brisk wind to a standing-pool, and
preserved all from stagnation and corruption.
Quin the player, on taking a nice and severe survey of a
fellow-comedian, burst forth into this exclamation:--"If that fellow be
not a rogue, God Almighty doth not write a legible hand." Whether he
guessed right or no is not worth my while to examine; certain it is that
the latter, having wrought his features into a proper harmony to become
the characters of Iago, Shylock, and others of the same cast, gave us a
semblance of truth to the observation that was sufficient to confirm the
wit of it. Indeed, we may remark, in favour of the physiognomist, though
the law has made him a rogue and vagabond, that Nature is seldom curious
in her works within, without employing some little pains on the outside;
and this more particularly in mischievous characters, in forming which,
as Mr Derham observes, in venomous insects, as the sting or saw of a
wasp, she is sometimes wonderfully industrious. Now, when she hath thus
completely armed our hero to carry on a war with man, she never fails of
furnishing that innocent lambkin with some means of knowing his enemy,
and foreseeing his designs. Thus she hath been observed to act in the
case of a rattlesnake, which never meditates a human prey without giving
warning of his approach.
This observation will, I am convinced, hold most true, if applied to the
most venomous individuals of human insects. A tyrant, a trickster, and a
bully, generally wear the marks of their several dispositions in their
countenances; so do the vixen, the shrew, the scold, and all other
females of the like kind. But, perhaps, nature hath never afforded a
stronger example of all this than in the case of Mrs Francis. She was a
short, squat woman; her head was closely joined to her shoulders, where
it was fixed somewhat awry; every feature of her countenance was sharp
and pointed; her face was furrowed with the small-pox; and her
complexion, which seemed to be able to turn milk to curds, not a little
resembled in colour such milk as had already undergone that operation.
She appeared, indeed, to have many symptoms of a deep jaundice in her
look; but the strength and firmness of her voice overbalanced them all;
the tone of this was a sharp treble at a distance, for I seldom heard
it on the same floor, but was usually waked with it in the morning, and
entertained with it almost continually through the whole day.
Though vocal be usually put in opposition to instrumental music, I
question whether this might not be thought to partake of the nature of
both; for she played on two instruments, which she seemed to keep for no
other use from morning till night; these were two maids, or rather
scolding-stocks, who, I suppose, by some means or other, earned their
board, and she gave them their lodging _gratis_, or for no other service
than to keep her lungs in constant exercise.
She differed, as I have said, in every particular from her husband; but
very remarkably in this, that, as it was impossible to displease him, so
it was as impossible to please her; and as no art could remove a smile
from his countenance, so could no art carry it into hers. If her bills
were remonstrated against she was offended with the tacit censure of her
fair-dealing; if they were not, she seemed to regard it as a tacit
sarcasm on her folly, which might have set down larger prices with the
same success. On this latter hint she did indeed improve, for she daily
raised some of her articles. A pennyworth of fire was to-day rated at a
shilling, to-morrow at eighteen-pence; and if she dressed us two dishes
for two shillings on the Saturday, we paid half-a-crown for the cookery
of one on the Sunday; and, whenever she was paid, she never left the
room without lamenting the small amount of her bill, saying, "she knew
not how it was that others got their money by gentlefolks, but for her
part she had not the art of it." When she was asked why she complained,
when she was paid all she demanded, she answered, "she could not deny
that, nor did she know she had omitted anything; but that it was but a
poor bill for gentlefolks to pay."
I accounted for all this by her having heard, that it is a maxim with
the principal inn-holders on the continent, to levy considerable sums on
their guests, who travel with many horses and servants, though such
guests should eat little or nothing in their houses; the method being, I
believe, in such cases, to lay a capitation on the horses, and not on
their masters. But she did not consider that in most of these inns a
very great degree of hunger, without any degree of delicacy, may be
satisfied; and that in all such inns there is some appearance, at least,
of provision, as well as of a man-cook to dress it, one of the hostlers
being always furnished with a cook's cap, waistcoat, and apron, ready to
attend gentlemen and ladies on their summons; that the case therefore of
such inns differed from hers, where there was nothing to eat or to
drink, and in reality no house to inhabit, no chair to sit upon, nor any
bed to lie in; that one third or fourth part therefore of the levy
imposed at inns was, in truth, a higher tax than the whole was when laid
on in the other, where, in order to raise a small sum, a man is obliged
to submit to pay as many various ways for the same thing as he doth to
the government for the light which enters through his own window into
his own house, from his own estate; such are the articles of bread and
beer, firing, eating and dressing dinner.
The foregoing is a very imperfect sketch of this extraordinary couple;
for everything is here lowered instead of being heightened. Those who
would see them set forth in more lively colours, and with the proper
ornaments, may read the descriptions of the Furies in some of the
classical poets, or of the Stoic philosophers in the works of Lucian.
_Monday, July 20._--This day nothing remarkable passed; Mrs Francis
levied a tax of fourteen shillings for the Sunday. We regaled ourselves
at dinner with venison and good claret of our own; and, in the
afternoon, the women, attended by the captain, walked to see a
delightful scene two miles distant, with the beauties of which they
declared themselves most highly charmed at their return, as well as with
the goodness of the lady of the mansion, who had slipt out of the way,
that my wife and their company might refresh themselves with the flowers
and fruits with which her garden abounded.
_Tuesday, July 21._--This day, having paid our taxes of yesterday, we
were permitted to regale ourselves with more venison. Some of this we
would willingly have exchanged for mutton; but no such flesh was to be
had nearer than Portsmouth, from whence it would have cost more to
convey a joint to us than the freight of a Portugal ham from Lisbon to
London amounts to; for though the water-carriage be somewhat cheaper
here than at Deal, yet can you find no waterman who will go on board his
boat, unless by two or three hours' rowing he can get drunk for the
residue of the week.
And here I have an opportunity, which possibly may not offer again, of
publishing some observations on that political oeconomy of this
nation, which, as it concerns only the regulation of the mob, is below
the notice of our great men; though on the due regulation of this order
depend many emoluments, which the great men themselves, or at least many
who tread close on their heels, may enjoy, as well as some dangers which
may some time or other arise from introducing a pure state of anarchy
among them. I will represent the case, as it appears to me, very fairly
and impartially between the mob and their betters.
The whole mischief which infects this part of our oeconomy arises
from the vague and uncertain use of a word called liberty, of which, as
scarce any two men with whom I have ever conversed seem to have one and
the same idea, I am inclined to doubt whether there be any simple
universal notion represented by this word, or whether it conveys any
clearer or more determinate idea than some of those old Punic
compositions of syllables preserved in one of the comedies of Plautus,
but at present, as I conceive, not supposed to be understood by any one.
By liberty, however, I apprehend, is commonly understood the power of
doing what we please; not absolutely, for then it would be inconsistent
with law, by whose control the liberty of the freest people, except only
the Hottentots and wild Indians, must always be restrained.
But, indeed, however largely we extend, or however moderately we
confine, the sense of the word, no politician will, I presume, contend
that it is to pervade in an equal degree, and be, with the same extent,
enjoyed by, every member of society; no such polity having been ever
found, unless among those vile people just before commemorated. Among
the Greeks and Romans the servile and free conditions were opposed to
each other; and no man who had the misfortune to be enrolled under the
former could lay any claim to liberty till the right was conveyed to him
by that master whose slave he was, either by the means of conquest, of
purchase, or of birth.
This was the state of all the free nations in the world; and this, till
very lately, was understood to be the case of our own.
I will not indeed say this is the case at present, the lowest class of
our people having shaken off all the shackles of their superiors, and
become not only as free, but even freer, than most of their superiors.
I believe it cannot be doubted, though perhaps we have no recent
instance of it, that the personal attendance of every man who hath three
hundred pounds per annum, in parliament, is indispensably his duty; and
that, if the citizens and burgesses of any city or borough shall chuse
such a one, however reluctant he appear, he may be obliged to attend,
and be forcibly brought to his duty by the serjeant-at-arms.
Again, there are numbers of subordinate offices, some of which are of
burthen, and others of expence, in the civil government--all of which
persons who are qualified are liable to have imposed on them, may be
obliged to undertake and properly execute, notwithstanding any bodily
labour, or even danger, to which they may subject themselves, under the
penalty of fines and imprisonment; nay, and what may appear somewhat
hard, may be compelled to satisfy the losses which are eventually
incident, to that of sheriff in particular, out of their own private
fortunes; and though this should prove the ruin of a family, yet the
public, to whom the price is due, incurs no debt or obligation to
preserve its officer harmless, let his innocence appear ever so clearly.
I purposely omit the mention of those military or militiary duties which
our old constitution laid upon its greatest members. These might,
indeed, supply their posts with some other able-bodied men; but if no
such could have been found, the obligation nevertheless remained, and
they were compellable to serve in their own proper persons.
The only one, therefore, who is possessed of absolute liberty is the
lowest member of the society, who, if he prefers hunger, or the wild
product of the fields, hedges, lanes, and rivers, with the indulgence of
ease and laziness, to a food a little more delicate, but purchased at
the expence of labour, may lay himself under a shade; nor can be forced
to take the other alternative from that which he hath, I will not affirm
whether wisely or foolishly, chosen.
Here I may, perhaps, be reminded of the last Vagrant Act, where all such
persons are compellable to work for the usual and accustomed wages
allowed in the place; but this is a clause little known to the justices
of the peace, and least likely to be executed by those who do know it,
as they know likewise that it is formed on the antient power of the
justices to fix and settle these wages every year, making proper
allowances for the scarcity and plenty of the times, the cheapness and
dearness of the place; and that _the usual and accustomed wages_ are
words without any force or meaning, when there are no such; but every
man spunges and raps whatever he can get; and will haggle as long and
struggle as hard to cheat his employer of twopence in a day's labour as
an honest tradesman will to cheat his customers of the same sum in a
yard of cloth or silk.
It is a great pity then that this power, or rather this practice, was
not revived; but, this having been so long omitted that it is become
obsolete, will be best done by a new law, in which this power, as well
as the consequent power of forcing the poor to labour at a moderate and
reasonable rate, should be well considered and their execution
facilitated; for gentlemen who give their time and labour _gratis_, and
even voluntarily, to the public, have a right to expect that all their
business be made as easy as possible; and to enact laws without doing
this is to fill our statute-books, much too full already, still fuller
with dead letter, of no use but to the printer of the acts of
parliament.
That the evil which I have here pointed at is of itself worth
redressing, is, I apprehend, no subject of dispute; for why should any
persons in distress be deprived of the assistance of their
fellow-subjects, when they are willing amply to reward them for their
labour? or, why should the lowest of the people be permitted to exact
ten times the value of their work? For those exactions encrease with the
degrees of necessity in their object, insomuch that on the former side
many are horribly imposed upon, and that often in no trifling matters. I
was very well assured that at Deal no less than ten guineas was
required, and paid by the supercargo of an Indiaman, for carrying him on
board two miles from the shore when she was just ready to sail; so that
his necessity, as his pillager well understood, was absolute. Again,
many others, whose indignation will not submit to such plunder, are
forced to refuse the assistance, though they are often great sufferers
by so doing. On the latter side, the lowest of the people are encouraged
in laziness and idleness; while they live by a twentieth part of the
labour that ought to maintain them, which is diametrically opposite to
the interest of the public; for that requires a great deal to be done,
not to be paid, for a little. And moreover, they are confirmed in habits
of exaction, and are taught to consider the distresses of their
superiors as their own fair emolument.
But enough of this matter, of which I at first intended only to convey a
hint to those who are alone capable of applying the remedy, though they
are the last to whom the notice of those evils would occur, without some
such monitor as myself, who am forced to travel about the world in the
form of a passenger. I cannot but say I heartily wish our governors
would attentively consider this method of fixing the price of labour,
and by that means of compelling the poor to work, since the due
execution of such powers will, I apprehend, be found the true and only
means of making them useful, and of advancing trade from its present
visibly declining state to the height to which Sir William Petty, in his
Political Arithmetic, thinks it capable of being carried.
In the afternoon the lady of the above-mentioned mansion called at our
inn, and left her compliments to us with Mrs Francis, with an assurance
that while we continued wind-bound in that place, where she feared we
could be but indifferently accommodated, we were extremely welcome to
the use of anything which her garden or her house afforded. So polite a
message convinced us, in spite of some arguments to the contrary, that
we were not on the coast of Africa, or on some island where the few
savage inhabitants have little of human in them besides their form.
And here I mean nothing less than to derogate from the merit of this
lady, who is not only extremely polite in her behaviour to strangers of
her own rank, but so extremely good and charitable to all her poor
neighbours who stand in need of her assistance, that she hath the
universal love and praises of all who live near her. But, in reality,
how little doth the acquisition of so valuable a character, and the full
indulgence of so worthy a disposition, cost those who possess it! Both
are accomplished by the very offals which fall from a table moderately
plentiful. That they are enjoyed therefore by so few arises truly from
there being so few who have any such disposition to gratify, or who aim
at any such character.
_Wednesday, July 22._--This morning, after having been mulcted as usual,
we dispatched a servant with proper acknowledgments of the lady's
goodness; but confined our wants entirely to the productions of her
garden. He soon returned, in company with the gardener, both richly
laden with almost every particular which a garden at this most fruitful
season of the year produces.
While we were regaling ourselves with these, towards the close of our
dinner, we received orders from our commander, who had dined that day
with some inferior officers on board a man-of-war, to return instantly
to the ship; for that the wind was become favourable, and he should
weigh that evening. These orders were soon followed by the captain
himself, who was still in the utmost hurry, though the occasion of it
had long since ceased; for the wind had, indeed, a little shifted that
afternoon, but was before this very quietly set down in its old
quarters.
This last was a lucky hit for me; for, as the captain, to whose orders
we resolved to pay no obedience, unless delivered by himself, did not
return till past six, so much time seemed requisite to put up the
furniture of our bed-chamber or dining-room, for almost every article,
even to some of the chairs, were either our own or the captain's
property; so much more in conveying it as well as myself, as dead a
luggage as any, to the shore, and thence to the ship, that the night
threatened first to overtake us. A terrible circumstance to me, in my
decayed condition; especially as very heavy showers of rain, attended
with a high wind, continued to fall incessantly; the being carried
through which two miles in the dark, in a wet and open boat, seemed
little less than certain death.
However, as my commander was absolute, his orders peremptory, and my
obedience necessary, I resolved to avail myself of a philosophy which
hath been of notable use to me in the latter part of my life, and which
is contained in this hemistich of Virgil:--
----Superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est.
The meaning of which, if Virgil had any, I think I rightly understood,
and rightly applied.
As I was therefore to be entirely passive in my motion, I resolved to
abandon myself to the conduct of those who were to carry me into a cart
when it returned from unloading the goods.
But before this, the captain, perceiving what had happened in the
clouds, and that the wind remained as much his enemy as ever, came
upstairs to me with a reprieve till the morning. This was, I own, very
agreeable news, and I little regretted the trouble of refurnishing my
apartment, by sending back for the goods.
Mrs Francis was not well pleased with this. As she understood the
reprieve to be only till the morning, she saw nothing but lodging to be
possibly added, out of which she was to deduct fire and candle, and the
remainder, she thought, would scarce pay her for her trouble. She
exerted therefore all the ill-humour of which she was mistress, and did
all she could to thwart and perplex everything during the whole evening.
_Thursday, July 23._--Early in the morning the captain, who had remained
on shore all night, came to visit us, and to press us to make haste on
board. "I am resolved," says he, "not to lose a moment now the wind is
coming about fair: for my own part, I never was surer of a wind in all
my life." I use his very words; nor will I presume to interpret or
comment upon them farther than by observing that they were spoke in the
utmost hurry.
We promised to be ready as soon as breakfast was over, but this was not
so soon as was expected; for, in removing our goods the evening before,
the tea-chest was unhappily lost.
Every place was immediately searched, and many where it was impossible
for it to be; for this was a loss of much greater consequence than it
may at first seem to many of my readers. Ladies and valetudinarians do
not easily dispense with the use of this sovereign cordial in a single
instance; but to undertake a long voyage, without any probability of
being supplied with it the whole way, was above the reach of patience.
And yet, dreadful as this calamity was, it seemed unavoidable. The whole
town of Ryde could not supply a single leaf; for, as to what Mrs Francis
and the shop called by that name, it was not of Chinese growth. It did
not indeed in the least resemble tea, either in smell or taste, or in
any particular, unless in being a leaf; for it was in truth no other
than a tobacco of the mundungus species. And as for the hopes of relief
in any other port, they were not to be depended upon, for the captain
had positively declared he was sure of a wind, and would let go his
anchor no more till he arrived in the Tajo.
When a good deal of time had been spent, most of it indeed wasted on
this occasion, a thought occurred which every one wondered at its not
having presented itself the first moment. This was to apply to the good
lady, who could not fail of pitying and relieving such distress. A
messenger was immediately despatched with an account of our misfortune,
till whose return we employed ourselves in preparatives for our
departure, that we might have nothing to do but to swallow our breakfast
when it arrived. The tea-chest, though of no less consequence to us than
the military-chest to a general, was given up as lost, or rather as
stolen; for though I would not, for the world, mention any particular
name, it is certain we had suspicions, and all, I am afraid, fell on the
same person.
The man returned from the worthy lady with much expedition, and brought
with him a canister of tea, despatched with so true a generosity, as
well as politeness, that if our voyage had been as long again we should
have incurred no danger of being brought to a short allowance in this
most important article. At the very same instant likewise arrived
William the footman with our own tea-chest. It had been, indeed, left in
the hoy, when the other goods were re-landed, as William, when he first
heard it was missing, had suspected; and whence, had not the owner of
the hoy been unluckily out of the way, he had retrieved it soon enough
to have prevented our giving the lady an opportunity of displaying some
part of her goodness.
To search the hoy was, indeed, too natural a suggestion to have escaped
any one, nor did it escape being mentioned by many of us; but we were
dissuaded from it by my wife's maid, who perfectly well remembered she
had left the chest in the bed-chamber; for that she had never given it
out of her hand in her way to or from the hoy; but William perhaps knew
the maid better, and best understood how far she was to be believed; for
otherwise he would hardly of his own accord, after hearing her
declaration, have hunted out the hoy-man, with much pains and
difficulty.
Thus ended this scene, which begun with such appearance of distress, and
ended with becoming the subject of mirth and laughter.
Nothing now remained but to pay our taxes, which were indeed laid with
inconceivable severity. Lodging was raised sixpence, fire in the same
proportion, and even candles, which had hitherto escaped, were charged
with a wantonness of imposition, from the beginning, and placed under
the stile of oversight. We were raised a whole pound, whereas we had
only burned ten, in five nights, and the pound consisted of twenty-four.
Lastly, an attempt was made which almost as far exceeds human credulity
to believe as it did human patience to submit to. This was to make us
pay as much for existing an hour or two as for existing a whole day; and
dressing dinner was introduced as an article, though we left the house
before either pot or spit had approached the fire. Here I own my
patience failed me, and I became an example of the truth of the
observation, "That all tyranny and oppression may be carried too far,
and that a yoke may be made too intolerable for the neck of the tamest
slave." When I remonstrated, with some warmth, against this grievance,
Mrs Francis gave me a look, and left the room without making any answer.
She returned in a minute, running to me with pen, ink, and paper, in her
hand, and desired me to make my own bill; "for she hoped," she said, "I
did not expect that her house was to be dirtied, and her goods spoiled
and consumed, for nothing. The whole is but thirteen shillings. Can
gentlefolks lie a whole night at a public-house for less? If they can I
am sure it is time to give off being a landlady: but pay me what you
please; I would have people know that I value money as little as other
folks. But I was always a fool, as I says to my husband, and never knows
which side my bread is buttered of. And yet, to be sure, your honour
shall be my warning not to be bit so again. Some folks knows better than
other some how to make their bills. Candles! why yes, to be sure; why
should not travellers pay for candles? I am sure I pays for my candles,
and the chandler pays the king's majesty for them; and if he did not I
must, so as it comes to the same thing in the end. To be sure I am out
of sixteens at present, but these burn as white and as clear, though not
quite so large. I expects my chandler here soon, or I would send to
Portsmouth, if your honour was to stay any time longer. But when folks
stays only for a wind, you knows there can be no dependence on such!"
Here she put on a little slyness of aspect, and seemed willing to submit
to interruption. I interrupted her accordingly by throwing down half a
guinea, and declared I had no more English money, which was indeed
true; and, as she could not immediately change the thirty-six shilling
pieces, it put a final end to the dispute. Mrs Francis soon left the
room, and we soon after left the house; nor would this good woman see us
or wish us a good voyage.
I must not, however, quit this place, where we had been so ill-treated,
without doing it impartial justice, and recording what may, with the
strictest truth, be said in its favour.
First, then, as to its situation, it is, I think, most delightful, and
in the most pleasant spot in the whole island. It is true it wants the
advantage of that beautiful river which leads from Newport to Cowes; but
the prospect here extending to the sea, and taking in Portsmouth,
Spithead, and St Helen's, would be more than a recompence for the loss
of the Thames itself, even in the most delightful part of Berkshire or
Buckinghamshire, though another Denham, or another Pope, should unite in
celebrating it. For my own part, I confess myself so entirely fond of a
sea prospect, that I think nothing on the land can equal it; and if it
be set off with shipping, I desire to borrow no ornament from the _terra
firma_. A fleet of ships is, in my opinion, the noblest object which the
art of man hath ever produced; and far beyond the power of those
architects who deal in brick, in stone, or in marble.
When the late Sir Robert Walpole, one of the best of men and of
ministers, used to equip us a yearly fleet at Spithead, his enemies of
taste must have allowed that he, at least, treated the nation with a
fine sight for their money. A much finer, indeed, than the same expence
in an encampment could have produced. For what indeed is the best idea
which the prospect of a number of huts can furnish to the mind, but of a
number of men forming themselves into a society before the art of
building more substantial houses was known? This, perhaps, would be
agreeable enough; but, in truth, there is a much worse idea ready to
step in before it, and that is of a body of cut-throats, the supports of
tyranny, the invaders of the just liberties and properties of mankind,
the plunderers of the industrious, the ravishers of the chaste, the
murderers of the innocent, and, in a word, the destroyers of the plenty,
the peace, and the safety, of their fellow-creatures.
And what, it may be said, are these men-of-war which seem so delightful
an object to our eyes? Are they not alike the support of tyranny and
oppression of innocence, carrying with them desolation and ruin wherever
their masters please to send them? This is indeed too true; and however
the ship of war may, in its bulk and equipment, exceed the honest
merchantman, I heartily wish there was no necessity for it; for, though
I must own the superior beauty of the object on one side, I am more
pleased with the superior excellence of the idea which I can raise in my
mind on the other, while I reflect on the art and industry of mankind
engaged in the daily improvements of commerce to the mutual benefit of
all countries, and to the establishment and happiness of social life.
This pleasant village is situated on a gentle ascent from the water,
whence it affords that charming prospect I have above described. Its
soil is a gravel, which, assisted with its declivity, preserves it
always so dry that immediately after the most violent rain a fine lady
may walk without wetting her silken shoes. The fertility of the place is
apparent from its extraordinary verdure, and it is so shaded with large
and flourishing elms, that its narrow lanes are a natural grove or walk,
which, in the regularity of its plantation, vies with the power of art,
and in its wanton exuberancy greatly exceeds it.
In a field in the ascent of this hill, about a quarter of a mile from
the sea, stands a neat little chapel. It is very small, but adequate to
the number of inhabitants; for the parish doth not seem to contain above
thirty houses.
At about two miles distant from this parish lives that polite and good
lady to whose kindness we were so much obliged. It is placed on a hill
whose bottom is washed by the sea, and which, from its eminence at top,
commands a view of great part of the island as well as it does that of
the opposite shore. This house was formerly built by one Boyce, who,
from a blacksmith at Gosport, became possessed, by great success in
smuggling, of forty thousand pound. With part of this he purchased an
estate here, and, by chance probably, fixed on this spot for building a
large house. Perhaps the convenience of carrying on his business, to
which it is so well adapted, might dictate the situation to him. We can
hardly, at least, attribute it to the same taste with which he furnished
his house, or at least his library, by sending an order to a bookseller
in London to pack him up five hundred pounds' worth of his handsomest
books. They tell here several almost incredible stories of the
ignorance, the folly, and the pride, which this poor man and his wife
discovered during the short continuance of his prosperity; for he did
not long escape the sharp eyes of the revenue solicitors, and was, by
extents from the court of Exchequer, soon reduced below his original
state to that of confinement in the Fleet. All his effects were sold,
and among the rest his books, by an auction at Portsmouth, for a very
small price; for the bookseller was now discovered to have been
perfectly a master of his trade, and, relying on Mr Boyce's finding
little time to read, had sent him not only the most lasting wares of
his shop, but duplicates of the same, under different titles.
His estate and house were purchased by a gentleman of these parts, whose
widow now enjoys them, and who hath improved them, particularly her
gardens, with so elegant a taste, that the painter who would assist his
imagination in the composition of a most exquisite landscape, or the
poet who would describe an earthly paradise, could nowhere furnish
themselves with a richer pattern.
We left this place about eleven in the morning, and were again conveyed,
with more sunshine than wind, aboard our ship.
Whence our captain had acquired his power of prophecy, when he promised
us and himself a prosperous wind, I will not determine; it is sufficient
to observe that he was a false prophet, and that the weathercocks
continued to point as before.
He would not, however, so easily give up his skill in prediction. He
persevered in asserting that the wind was changed, and, having weighed
his anchor, fell down that afternoon to St Helen's, which was at about
the distance of five miles; and whither his friend the tide, in defiance
of the wind, which was most manifestly against him, softly wafted him in
as many hours.
Here, about seven in the evening, before which time we could not procure
it, we sat down to regale ourselves with some roasted venison, which was
much better drest than we imagined it would be, and an excellent cold
pasty which my wife had made at Ryde, and which we had reserved uncut to
eat on board our ship, whither we all chearfully exulted in being
returned from the presence of Mrs Francis, who, by the exact resemblance
she bore to a fury, seemed to have been with no great propriety settled
in paradise.
_Friday, July 24._--As we passed by Spithead on the preceding evening we
saw the two regiments of soldiers who were just returned from Gibraltar
and Minorca; and this day a lieutenant belonging to one of them, who was
the captain's nephew, came to pay a visit to his uncle. He was what is
called by some a very pretty fellow; indeed, much too pretty a fellow at
his years; for he was turned of thirty-four, though his address and
conversation would have become him more before he had reached twenty. In
his conversation, it is true, there was something military enough, as it
consisted chiefly of oaths, and of the great actions and wise sayings of
Jack, and Will, and Tom of our regiment, a phrase eternally in his
mouth; and he seemed to conclude that it conveyed to all the officers
such a degree of public notoriety and importance that it intitled him,
like the head of a profession, or a first minister, to be the subject of
conversation among those who had not the least personal acquaintance
with him. This did not much surprise me, as I have seen several examples
of the same; but the defects in his address, especially to the women,
were so great that they seemed absolutely inconsistent with the
behaviour of a pretty fellow, much less of one in a red coat; and yet,
besides having been eleven years in the army, he had had, as his uncle
informed me, an education in France. This, I own, would have appeared to
have been absolutely thrown away had not his animal spirits, which were
likewise thrown away upon him in great abundance, borne the visible
stamp of the growth of that country. The character to which he had an
indisputable title was that of a merry fellow; so very merry was he that
he laughed at everything he said, and always before he spoke. Possibly,
indeed, he often laughed at what he did not utter, for every speech
begun with a laugh, though it did not always end with a jest. There was
no great analogy between the characters of the uncle and the nephew, and
yet they seemed intirely to agree in enjoying the honour which the
red-coat did to his family. This the uncle expressed with great pleasure
in his countenance, and seemed desirous of shewing all present the
honour which he had for his nephew, who, on his side, was at some pains
to convince us of his concurring in this opinion, and at the same time
of displaying the contempt he had for the parts, as well as the
occupation, of his uncle, which he seemed to think reflected some
disgrace on himself, who was a member of that profession which makes
every man a gentleman. Not that I would be understood to insinuate that
the nephew endeavoured to shake off or disown his uncle, or indeed to
keep him at any distance. On the contrary, he treated him with the
utmost familiarity, often calling him Dick, and dear Dick, and old Dick,
and frequently beginning an oration with D----n me, Dick.
All this condescension on the part of the young man was received with
suitable marks of complaisance and obligation by the old one; especially
when it was attended with evidences of the same familiarity with general
officers and other persons of rank; one of whom, in particular, I know
to have the pride and insolence of the devil himself, and who, without
some strong bias of interest, is no more liable to converse familiarly
with a lieutenant than of being mistaken in his judgment of a fool;
which was not, perhaps, so certainly the case of the worthy lieutenant,
who, in declaring to us the qualifications which recommended men to his
countenance and conversation, as well as what effectually set a bar to
all hopes of that honour, exclaimed, "No, sir, by the d--I hate all
fools--No, d----n me, excuse me for that. That's a little too much, old
Dick. There are two or three officers of our regiment whom I know to be
fools; but d----n me if I am ever seen in their company. If a man hath a
fool of a relation, Dick, you know he can't help that, old boy."
Such jokes as these the old man not only took in good part, but glibly
gulped down the whole narrative of his nephew; nor did he, I am
convinced, in the least doubt of our as readily swallowing the same.
This made him so charmed with the lieutenant, that it is probable we
should have been pestered with him the whole evening, had not the north
wind, dearer to our sea-captain even than this glory of his family,
sprung suddenly up, and called aloud to him to weigh his anchor.
While this ceremony was performing, the sea-captain ordered out his boat
to row the land-captain to shore; not indeed on an uninhabited island,
but one which, in this part, looked but little better, not presenting us
the view of a single house. Indeed, our old friend, when his boat
returned on shore, perhaps being no longer able to stifle his envy of
the superiority of his nephew, told us with a smile that the young man
had a good five mile to walk before he could be accommodated with a
passage to Portsmouth.
It appeared now that the captain had been only mistaken in the date of
his prediction, by placing the event a day earlier than it happened; for
the wind which now arose was not only favourable but brisk, and was no
sooner in reach of our sails than it swept us away by the back of the
Isle of Wight, and, having in the night carried us by Christchurch and
Peveral-point, brought us the next noon, _Saturday, July 25_, off the
island of Portland, so famous for the smallness and sweetness of its
mutton, of which a leg seldom weighs four pounds. We would have bought a
sheep, but our captain would not permit it; though he needed not have
been in such a hurry, for presently the wind, I will not positively
assert in resentment of his surliness, shewed him a dog's trick, and
slily slipt back again to his summer-house in the south-west.
The captain now grew outrageous, and, declaring open war with the wind,
took a resolution, rather more bold than wise, of sailing in defiance of
it, and in its teeth. He swore he would let go his anchor no more, but
would beat the sea while he had either yard or sail left. He accordingly
stood from the shore, and made so large a tack that before night, though
he seemed to advance but little on his way, he was got out of sight of
land.
Towards the evening the wind began, in the captain's own language, and
indeed it freshened so much, that before ten it blew a perfect
hurricane.
The captain having got, as he supposed, to a safe distance, tacked again
towards the English shore; and now the wind veered a point only in his
favour, and continued to blow with such violence, that the ship ran
above eight knots or miles an hour during this whole day and tempestuous
night till bed-time. I was obliged to betake myself once more to my
solitude, for my women were again all down in their sea-sickness, and
the captain was busy on deck; for he began to grow uneasy, chiefly, I
believe, because he did not well know where he was, and would, I am
convinced, have been very glad to have been in Portland-road, eating
some sheep's-head broth.
Having contracted no great degree of good-humour by living a whole day
alone, without a single soul to converse with, I took but ill physic to
purge it off, by a bed-conversation with the captain, who, amongst many
bitter lamentations of his fate, and protesting he had more patience
than a Job, frequently intermixed summons to the commanding officer on
the deck, who now happened to be one Morrison, a carpenter, the only
fellow that had either common sense or common civility in the ship. Of
Morrison he enquired every quarter of an hour concerning the state of
affairs: the wind, the care of the ship, and other matters of
navigation. The frequency of these summons, as well as the solicitude
with which they were made, sufficiently testified the state of the
captain's mind; he endeavoured to conceal it, and would have given no
small alarm to a man who had either not learnt what it is to die, or
known what it is to be miserable. And my dear wife and child must pardon
me, if what I did not conceive to be any great evil to myself I was not
much terrified with the thoughts of happening to them; in truth, I have
often thought they are both too good and too gentle to be trusted to the
power of any man I know, to whom they could possibly be so trusted.
Can I say then I had no fear? indeed I cannot. Reader, I was afraid for
thee, lest thou shouldst have been deprived of that pleasure thou art
now enjoying; and that I should not live to draw out on paper that
military character which thou didst peruse in the journal of yesterday.
From all these fears we were relieved, at six in the morning, by the
arrival of Mr Morrison, who acquainted us that he was sure he beheld
land very near; for he could not see half a mile, by reason of the
haziness of the weather. This land he said was, he believed, the
Berry-head, which forms one side of Torbay: the captain declared that it
was impossible, and swore, on condition he was right, he would give him
his mother for a maid. A forfeit which became afterwards strictly due
and payable; for the captain, whipping on his night-gown, ran up without
his breeches, and within half an hour returning into the cabin, wished
me joy of our lying safe at anchor in the bay.
_Sunday, July 26._--Things now began to put on an aspect very different
from what they had lately worn; the news that the ship had almost lost
its mizen, and that we had procured very fine clouted cream and fresh
bread and butter from the shore, restored health and spirits to our
women, and we all sat down to a very chearful breakfast.
But, however pleasant our stay promised to be here, we were all desirous
it should be short: I resolved immediately to despatch my man into the
country to purchase a present of cider, for my friends of that which is
called Southam, as well as to take with me a hogshead of it to Lisbon;
for it is, in my opinion, much more delicious than that which is the
growth of Herefordshire. I purchased three hogsheads for five pounds ten
shillings, all which I should have scarce thought worth mentioning, had
I not believed it might be of equal service to the honest farmer who
sold it me, and who is by the neighbouring gentlemen reputed to deal in
the very best; and to the reader, who, from ignorance of the means of
providing better for himself, swallows at a dearer rate the juice of
Middlesex turnip, instead of that Vinum Pomonæ which Mr Giles Leverance
of Cheeshurst, near Dartmouth in Devon, will, at the price of forty
shillings per hogshead, send in double casks to any part of the world.
Had the wind been very sudden in shifting, I had lost my cider by an
attempt of a boatman to exact, according to custom. He required five
shillings for conveying my man a mile and a half to the shore, and four
more if he staid to bring him back. This I thought to be such
insufferable impudence that I ordered him to be immediately chased from
the ship, without any answer. Indeed, there are few inconveniences that
I would not rather encounter than encourage the insolent demands of
these wretches, at the expence of my own indignation, of which I own
they are not the only objects, but rather those who purchase a paultry
convenience by encouraging them. But of this I have already spoken very
largely. I shall conclude, therefore, with the leave which this fellow
took of our ship; saying he should know it again, and would not put off
from the shore to relieve it in any distress whatever.
It will, doubtless, surprise many of my readers to hear that, when we
lay at anchor within a mile or two of a town several days together, and
even in the most temperate weather, we should frequently want fresh
provisions and herbage, and other emoluments of the shore, as much as if
we had been a hundred leagues from land. And this too while numbers of
boats were in our sight, whose owners get their livelihood by rowing
people up and down, and could be at any time summoned by a signal to our
assistance, and while the captain had a little boat of his own, with men
always ready to row it at his command.
This, however, hath been partly accounted for already by the imposing
disposition of the people, who asked so much more than the proper price
of their labour. And as to the usefulness of the captain's boat, it
requires to be a little expatiated upon, as it will tend to lay open
some of the grievances which demand the utmost regard of our
legislature, as they affect the most valuable part of the king's
subjects--those by whom the commerce of the nation is carried into
execution.
Our captain then, who was a very good and experienced seaman, having
been above thirty years the master of a vessel, part of which he had
served, so he phrased it, as commander of a privateer, and had
discharged himself with great courage and conduct, and with as great
success, discovered the utmost aversion to the sending his boat ashore
whenever we lay wind-bound in any of our harbours. This aversion did not
arise from any fear of wearing out his boat by using it, but was, in
truth, the result of experience, that it was easier to send his men on
shore than to recal them. They acknowledged him to be their master while
they remained on shipboard, but did not allow his power to extend to the
shores, where they had no sooner set their foot than every man became
_sui juris_, and thought himself at full liberty to return when he
pleased. Now it is not any delight that these fellows have in the fresh
air or verdant fields on the land. Every one of them would prefer his
ship and his hammock to all the sweets of Arabia the Happy; but,
unluckily for them, there are in every seaport in England certain houses
whose chief livelihood depends on providing entertainment for the
gentlemen of the jacket. For this purpose they are always well furnished
with those cordial liquors which do immediately inspire the heart with
gladness, banishing all careful thoughts, and indeed all others, from
the mind, and opening the mouth with songs of chearfulness and
thanksgiving for the many wonderful blessings with which a sea-faring
life overflows.
For my own part, however whimsical it may appear, I confess I have
thought the strange story of Circe in the Odyssey no other than an
ingenious allegory, in which Homer intended to convey to his countrymen
the same kind of instruction which we intend to communicate to our own
in this digression. As teaching the art of war to the Greeks was the
plain design of the Iliad, so was teaching them the art of navigation
the no less manifest intention of the Odyssey. For the improvement of
this, their situation was most excellently adapted; and accordingly we
find Thucydides, in the beginning of his history, considers the Greeks
as a sett of pirates or privateers, plundering each other by sea. This
being probably the first institution of commerce before the Ars
Cauponaria was invented, and merchants, instead of robbing, began to
cheat and outwit each other, and by degrees changed the Metabletic, the
only kind of traffic allowed by Aristotle in his Politics, into the
Chrematistic.
By this allegory then I suppose Ulysses to have been the captain of a
merchant-ship, and Circe some good ale-wife, who made his crew drunk
with the spirituous liquors of those days. With this the transformation
into swine, as well as all other incidents of the fable, will notably
agree; and thus a key will be found out for unlocking the whole mystery,
and forging at least some meaning to a story which, at present, appears
very strange and absurd.
Hence, moreover, will appear the very near resemblance between the
sea-faring men of all ages and nations; and here perhaps may be
established the truth and justice of that observation, which will occur
oftener than once in this voyage, that all human flesh is not the same
flesh, but that there is one kind of flesh of landmen, and another of
seamen.
Philosophers, divines, and others, who have treated the gratification of
human appetites with contempt, have, among other instances, insisted
very strongly on that satiety which is so apt to overtake them even in
the very act of enjoyment. And here they more particularly deserve our
attention, as most of them may be supposed to speak from their own
experience, and very probably gave us their lessons with a full stomach.
Thus hunger and thirst, whatever delight they may afford while we are
eating and drinking, pass both away from us with the plate and the cup;
and though we should imitate the Romans, if, indeed, they were such
dull beasts, which I can scarce believe, to unload the belly like a
dung-pot, in order to fill it again with another load, yet would the
pleasure be so considerably lessened that it would scarce repay us the
trouble of purchasing it with swallowing a bason of camomile tea. A
second haunch of venison, or a second dose of turtle, would hardly
allure a city glutton with its smell. Even the celebrated Jew himself,
when well filled with calipash and calipee, goes contentedly home to
tell his money, and expects no more pleasure from his throat during the
next twenty-four hours. Hence I suppose Dr South took that elegant
comparison of the joys of a speculative man to the solemn silence of an
Archimedes over a problem, and those of a glutton to the stillness of a
sow at her wash. A simile which, if it became the pulpit at all, could
only become it in the afternoon.
Whereas in those potations which the mind seems to enjoy, rather than
the bodily appetite, there is happily no such satiety; but the more a
man drinks, the more he desires; as if, like Mark Anthony in Dryden, his
appetite encreased with feeding, and this to such an immoderate degree,
_ut nullus sit desiderio aut pudor aut modus_. Hence, as with the gang
of Captain Ulysses, ensues so total a transformation, that the man no
more continues what he was. Perhaps he ceases for a time to be at all;
or, though he may retain the same outward form and figure he had before,
yet is his nobler part, as we are taught to call it, so changed, that,
instead of being the same man, he scarce remembers what he was a few
hours before. And this transformation, being once obtained, is so easily
preserved by the same potations, which induced no satiety, that the
captain in vain sends or goes in quest of his crew. They know him no
longer; or, if they do, they acknowledge not his power, having indeed
as entirely forgotten themselves as if they had taken a large draught of
the river of Lethe.
Nor is the captain always sure of even finding out the place to which
Circe hath conveyed them. There are many of those houses in every
port-town. Nay, there are some where the sorceress doth not trust only
to her drugs; but hath instruments of a different kind to execute her
purposes, by whose means the tar is effectually secreted from the
knowledge and pursuit of his captain. This would, indeed, be very fatal,
was it not for one circumstance; that the sailor is seldom provided with
the proper bait for these harpies. However, the contrary sometimes
happens, as these harpies will bite at almost anything, and will snap at
a pair of silver buttons, or buckles, as surely as at the specie itself.
Nay, sometimes they are so voracious, that the very naked hook will go
down, and the jolly young sailor is sacrificed for his own sake.
In vain, at such a season as this, would the vows of a pious heathen
have prevailed over Neptune, Æolus, or any other marine deity. In vain
would the prayers of a Christian captain be attended with the like
success. The wind may change how it pleases while all hands are on
shore; the anchor would remain firm in the ground, and the ship would
continue in durance, unless, like other forcible prison-breakers, it
forcibly got loose for no good purpose.
Now, as the favour of winds and courts, and such like, is always to be
laid hold on at the very first motion, for within twenty-four hours all
may be changed again; so, in the former case, the loss of a day may be
the loss of a voyage: for, though it may appear to persons not well
skilled in navigation, who see ships meet and sail by each other, that
the wind sometimes east and west, north and south, backwards and
forwards, at the same instant; yet, certain it is that the land is so
contrived, that even the same wind will not, like the same horse, always
bring a man to the end of his journey; but, that the gale which the
mariner prayed heartily for yesterday, he may as heartily deprecate
to-morrow; while all use and benefit which would have arisen to him from
the westerly wind of to-morrow may be totally lost and thrown away by
neglecting the offer of the easterly blast which blows to-day.
Hence ensues grief and disreputation to the innocent captain, loss and
disappointment to the worthy merchant, and not seldom great prejudice to
the trade of a nation whose manufactures are thus liable to lie unsold
in a foreign warehouse, the market being forestalled by some rival whose
sailors are under a better discipline. To guard against these
inconveniences the prudent captain takes every precaution in his power;
he makes the strongest contracts with his crew, and thereby binds them
so firmly, that none but the greatest or least of men can break through
them with impunity; but for one of these two reasons, which I will not
determine, the sailor, like his brother fish the eel, is too slippery to
be held, and plunges into his element with perfect impunity.
To speak a plain truth, there is no trusting to any contract with one
whom the wise citizens of London call a bad man; for, with such a one,
though your bond be ever so strong, it will prove in the end good for
nothing.
What then is to be done in this case? What, indeed, but to call in the
assistance of that tremendous magistrate, the justice of peace, who can,
and often doth, lay good and bad men in equal durance; and, though he
seldom cares to stretch his bonds to what is great, never finds anything
too minute for their detention, but will hold the smallest reptile
alive so fast in his noose, that he can never get out till he is let
drop through it.
Why, therefore, upon the breach of those contracts, should not an
immediate application be made to the nearest magistrate of this order,
who should be empowered to convey the delinquent either to ship or to
prison, at the election of the captain, to be fettered by the leg in
either place?
But, as the case now stands, the condition of this poor captain without
any commission, and of this absolute commander without any power, is
much worse than we have hitherto shewn it to be; for, notwithstanding
all the aforesaid contracts to sail in the good ship the Elizabeth, if
the sailor should, for better wages, find it more his interest to go on
board the better ship the Mary, either before their setting out or on
their speedy meeting in some port, he may prefer the latter without any
other danger than that of "doing what he ought not to have done,"
contrary to a rule which he is seldom Christian enough to have much at
heart, while the captain is generally too good a Christian to punish a
man out of revenge only, when he is to be at a considerable expense for
so doing. There are many other deficiencies in our laws relating to
maritime affairs, and which would probably have been long since
corrected, had we any seamen in the House of Commons. Not that I would
insinuate that the legislature wants a supply of many gentlemen in the
sea-service; but, as these gentlemen are by their attendance in the
house unfortunately prevented from ever going to sea, and there learning
what they might communicate to their landed brethren, these latter
remain as ignorant in that branch of knowledge as they would be if none
but courtiers and fox-hunters had been elected into parliament, without
a single fish among them. The following seems to me to be an effect of
this kind, and it strikes me the stronger as I remember the case to have
happened, and remember it to have been dispunishable. A captain of a
trading vessel, of which he was part owner, took in a large freight of
oats at Liverpool, consigned to the market at Bearkey: this he carried
to a port in Hampshire, and there sold it as his own, and, freighting
his vessel with wheat for the port of Cadiz, in Spain, dropt it at
Oporto in his way; and there, selling it for his own use, took in a
lading of wine, with which he sailed again, and, having converted it in
the same manner, together with a large sum of money with which he was
intrusted, for the benefit of certain merchants, sold the ship and cargo
in another port, and then wisely sat down contented with the fortune he
had made, and returned to London to enjoy the remainder of his days,
with the fruits of his former labours and a good conscience.
The sum he brought home with him consisted of near six thousand pounds,
all in specie, and most of it in that coin which Portugal distributes so
liberally over Europe.
He was not yet old enough to be past all sense of pleasure, nor so
puffed up with the pride of his good fortune as to overlook his old
acquaintances the journeymen taylors, from among whom he had been
formerly pressed into the sea-service, and, having there laid the
foundation of his future success by his shares in prizes, had afterwards
become captain of a trading vessel, in which he purchased an interest,
and had soon begun to trade in the honourable manner above mentioned.
The captain now took up his residence at an ale-house in Drury-lane,
where, having all his money by him in a trunk, he spent about five
pounds a day among his old friends the gentlemen and ladies of those
parts.
The merchant of Liverpool, having luckily had notice from a friend
during the blaze of his fortune, did, by the assistance of a justice of
peace, without the assistance of the law, recover his whole loss. The
captain, however, wisely chose to refund no more; but, perceiving with
what hasty strides Envy was pursuing his fortune, he took speedy means
to retire out of her reach, and to enjoy the rest of his wealth in an
inglorious obscurity; nor could the same justice overtake him time
enough to assist a second merchant as he had done the first.
This was a very extraordinary case, and the more so as the ingenious
gentleman had steered entirely clear of all crimes in our law.
Now, how it comes about that a robbery so very easy to be committed, and
to which there is such immediate temptation always before the eyes of
these fellows, should receive the encouragement of impunity, is to be
accounted for only from the oversight of the legislature, as that
oversight can only be, I think, derived from the reasons I have assigned
for it.
But I will dwell no longer on this subject. If what I have here said
should seem of sufficient consequence to engage the attention of any man
in power, and should thus be the means of applying any remedy to the
most inveterate evils, at least, I have obtained my whole desire, and
shall have lain so long wind-bound in the ports of this kingdom to some
purpose. I would, indeed, have this work--which, if I should live to
finish it, a matter of no great certainty, if indeed of any great hope
to me, will be probably the last I shall ever undertake--to produce some
better end than the mere diversion of the reader.
_Monday._--This day our captain went ashore, to dine with a gentleman
who lives in these parts, and who so exactly resembles the character
given by Homer of Axylus, that the only difference I can trace between
them is, the one, living by the highway, erected his hospitality chiefly
in favour of land-travellers; and the other, living by the water-side,
gratified his humanity by accommodating the wants of the mariner.
In the evening our commander received a visit from a brother bashaw, who
lay wind-bound in the same harbour. This latter captain was a Swiss. He
was then master of a vessel bound to Guinea, and had formerly been a
privateering, when our own hero was employed in the same laudable
service. The honesty and freedom of the Switzer, his vivacity, in which
he was in no respect inferior to his near neighbours the French, the
aukward and affected politeness, which was likewise of French
extraction, mixed with the brutal roughness of the English tar--for he
had served under the colours of this nation and his crew had been of the
same--made such an odd variety, such a hotchpotch of character, that I
should have been much diverted with him, had not his voice, which was as
loud as a speaking-trumpet, unfortunately made my head ach. The noise
which he conveyed into the deaf ears of his brother captain, who sat on
one side of him, the soft addresses with which, mixed with aukward bows,
he saluted the ladies on the other, were so agreeably contrasted, that a
man must not only have been void of all taste of humour, and insensible
of mirth, but duller than Cibber is represented in the Dunciad, who
could be unentertained with him a little while; for, I confess, such
entertainments should always be very short, as they are very liable to
pall. But he suffered not this to happen at present; for, having given
us his company a quarter of an hour only, he retired, after many
apologies for the shortness of his visit.
_Tuesday._--The wind being less boisterous than it had hitherto been
since our arrival here, several fishing-boats, which the tempestuous
weather yesterday had prevented from working, came on board us with
fish. This was so fresh, so good in kind, and so very cheap, that we
supplied ourselves in great numbers, among which were very large soles
at fourpence a pair, and whitings of almost a preposterous size at
ninepence a score.
The only fish which bore any price was a john dorée, as it is called. I
bought one of at least four pounds weight for as many shillings. It
resembles a turbot in shape, but exceeds it in firmness and flavour. The
price had the appearance of being considerable when opposed to the
extraordinary cheapness of others of value, but was, in truth, so very
reasonable when estimated by its goodness, that it left me under no
other surprise than how the gentlemen of this country, not greatly
eminent for the delicacy of their taste, had discovered the preference
of the dorée to all other fish: but I was informed that Mr Quin, whose
distinguishing tooth hath been so justly celebrated, had lately visited
Plymouth, and had done those honours to the dorée which are so justly
due to it from that sect of modern philosophers who, with Sir Epicure
Mammon, or Sir Epicure Quin, their head, seem more to delight in a
fish-pond than in a garden, as the old Epicureans are said to have done.
Unfortunately for the fishmongers of London, the dorée resides only in
those seas; for, could any of this company but convey one to the temple
of luxury under the Piazza, where Macklin the high-priest daily serves
up his rich offerings to that goddess, great would be the reward of that
fishmonger, in blessings poured down upon him from the goddess, as great
would his merit be towards the high-priest, who could never be thought
to overrate such valuable incense.
And here, having mentioned the extreme cheapness of fish in the
Devonshire sea, and given some little hint of the extreme dearness with
which this commodity is dispensed by those who deal in it in London, I
cannot pass on without throwing forth an observation or two, with the
same view with which I have scattered my several remarks through this
voyage, sufficiently satisfied in having finished my life, as I have
probably lost it, in the service of my country, from the best of
motives, though it should be attended with the worst of success. Means
are always in our power; ends are very seldom so.
Of all the animal foods with which man is furnished, there are none so
plenty as fish. A little rivulet, that glides almost unperceived through
a vast tract of rich land, will support more hundreds with the flesh of
its inhabitants than the meadow will nourish individuals. But if this be
true of rivers, it is much truer of the seashores, which abound with
such immense variety of fish that the curious fisherman, after he hath
made his draught, often culls only the daintiest part and leaves the
rest of his prey to perish on the shore.
If this be true it would appear, I think, that there is nothing which
might be had in such abundance, and consequently so cheap, as fish, of
which Nature seems to have provided such inexhaustible stores with some
peculiar design. In the production of terrestrial animals she proceeds
with such slowness, that in the larger kind a single female seldom
produces more than one a-year, and this again requires three, four, or
five years more to bring it to perfection. And though the lesser
quadrupeds, those of the wild kind particularly, with the birds, do
multiply much faster, yet can none of these bear any proportion with the
aquatic animals, of whom every female matrix is furnished with an annual
offspring almost exceeding the power of numbers, and which, in many
instances at least, a single year is capable of bringing to some degree
of maturity.
What then ought in general to be so plentiful, what so cheap, as fish?
What then so properly the food of the poor? So in many places they are,
and so might they always be in great cities, which are always situated
near the sea, or on the conflux of large rivers. How comes it then, to
look no farther abroad for instances, that in our city of London the
case is so far otherwise that, except that of sprats, there is not one
poor palate in a hundred that knows the taste of fish?
It is true indeed that this taste is generally of such excellent flavour
that it exceeds the power of French cookery to treat the palates of the
rich with anything more exquisitely delicate; so that was fish the
common food of the poor it might put them too much upon an equality with
their betters in the great article of eating, in which, at present, in
the opinion of some, the great difference in happiness between man and
man consists. But this argument I shall treat with the utmost disdain:
for if ortolans were as big as bustards, and at the same time as plenty
as sparrows, I should hold it yet reasonable to indulge the poor with
the dainty, and that for this cause especially, that the rich would soon
find a sparrow, if as scarce as an ortolan, to be much the greater, as
it would certainly be the rarer, dainty of the two.
Vanity or scarcity will be always the favourite of luxury; but honest
hunger will be satisfied with plenty. Not to search deeper into the
cause of the evil, I should think it abundantly sufficient to propose
the remedies of it. And, first, I humbly submit the absolute necessity
of immediately hanging all the fishmongers within the bills of
mortality; and, however it might have been some time ago the opinion of
mild and temporizing men that the evil complained of might be removed
by gentler methods, I suppose at this day there are none who do not see
the impossibility of using such with any effect. _Cuncta prius tentanda_
might have been formerly urged with some plausibility, but _cuncta prius
tentata_ may now be replied: for surely, if a few monopolizing
fishmongers could defeat that excellent scheme of the Westminster
market, to the erecting which so many justices of peace, as well as
other wise and learned men, did so vehemently apply themselves, that
they might be truly said not only to have laid the whole strength of
their heads, but of their shoulders too, to the business, it would be a
vain endeavour for any other body of men to attempt to remove so
stubborn a nusance.
If it should be doubted whether we can bring this case within the letter
of any capital law now subsisting, I am ashamed to own it cannot; for
surely no crime better deserves such punishment; but the remedy may,
nevertheless, be immediate; and if a law was made at the beginning of
next session, to take place immediately, by which the starving thousands
of poor was declared to be felony, without benefit of clergy, the
fishmongers would be hanged before the end of the session.
A second method of filling the mouths of the poor, if not with loaves at
least with fishes, is to desire the magistrates to carry into execution
one at least out of near a hundred acts of parliament, for preserving
the small fry of the river of Thames, by which means as few fish would
satisfy thousands as may now be devoured by a small number of
individuals. But while a fisherman can break through the strongest
meshes of an act of parliament, we may be assured he will learn so to
contrive his own meshes that the smallest fry will not be able to swim
through them.
Other methods may, we doubt not, be suggested by those who shall
attentively consider the evil here hinted at; but we have dwelt too long
on it already, and shall conclude with observing that it is difficult to
affirm whether the atrocity of the evil itself, the facility of curing
it, or the shameful neglect of the cure, be the more scandalous or more
astonishing.
After having, however, gloriously regaled myself with this food, I was
washing it down with some good claret with my wife and her friend, in
the cabin, when the captain's valet-de-chambre, head cook, house and
ship steward, footman in livery and out on't, secretary and fore-mast
man, all burst into the cabin at once, being, indeed, all but one
person, and, without saying by your leave, began to pack half a hogshead
of small beer in bottles, the necessary consequence of which must have
been either a total stop to conversation at that chearful season when it
is most agreeable, or the admitting that polyonymous officer aforesaid
to the participation of it. I desired him therefore to delay his purpose
a little longer, but he refused to grant my request; nor was he
prevailed on to quit the room till he was threatened with having one
bottle to pack more than his number, which then happened to stand empty
within my reach.
With these menaces he retired at last, but not without muttering some
menaces on his side, and which, to our great terror, he failed not to
put into immediate execution.
Our captain was gone to dinner this day with his Swiss brother; and,
though he was a very sober man, was a little elevated with some
champagne, which, as it cost the Swiss little or nothing, he dispensed
at his table more liberally than our hospitable English noblemen put
about those bottles, which the ingenious Peter Taylor teaches a led
captain to avoid by distinguishing by the name of that generous liquor,
which all humble companions are taught to postpone to the flavour of
methuen, or honest port.
While our two captains were thus regaling themselves, and celebrating
their own heroic exploits with all the inspiration which the liquor, at
least, of wit could afford them, the polyonymous officer arrived, and,
being saluted by the name of Honest Tom, was ordered to sit down and
take his glass before he delivered his message; for every sailor is by
turns his captain's mate over a cann, except only that captain bashaw
who presides in a man-of-war, and who upon earth has no other mate,
unless it be another of the same bashaws.
Tom had no sooner swallowed his draught than he hastily began his
narrative, and faithfully related what had happened on board our ship;
we say faithfully, though from what happened it may be suspected that
Tom chose to add perhaps only five or six immaterial circumstances, as
is always I believe the case, and may possibly have been done by me in
relating this very story, though it happened not many hours ago.
No sooner was the captain informed of the interruption which had been
given to his officer, and indeed to his orders, for he thought no time
so convenient as that of his absence for causing any confusion in the
cabin, than he leapt with such haste from his chair that he had like to
have broke his sword, with which he always begirt himself when he walked
out of his ship, and sometimes when he walked about in it; at the same
time, grasping eagerly that other implement called a cockade, which
modern soldiers wear on their helmets with the same view as the antients
did their crests--to terrify the enemy, he muttered something, but so
inarticulately that the word _damn_ was only intelligible; he then
hastily took leave of the Swiss captain, who was too well bred to press
his stay on such an occasion, and leapt first from the ship to his
boat, and then from his boat to his own ship, with as much fierceness
in his looks as he had ever expressed on boarding his defenceless prey
in the honourable calling of a privateer.
Having regained the middle deck, he paused a moment while Tom and others
loaded themselves with bottles, and then descending into the cabin
exclaimed with a thundering voice, "D--n me, why arn't the bottles stoed
in, according to my orders?"
I answered him very mildly that I had prevented his man from doing it,
as it was at an inconvenient time to me, and as in his absence, at
least, I esteemed the cabin to be my own. "Your cabin!" repeated he many
times; "no, d----n me! 'tis my cabin. Your cabin! d----n me! I have brought
my hogs to a fair market. I suppose indeed you think it your cabin, and
your ship, by your commanding in it; but I will command in it, d----n me!
I will shew the world I am the commander, and nobody but I! Did you
think I sold you the command of my ship for that pitiful thirty pounds?
I wish I had not seen you nor your thirty pounds aboard of her." He then
repeated the words thirty pounds often, with great disdain, and with a
contempt which I own the sum did not seem to deserve in my eye, either
in itself or on the present occasion; being, indeed, paid for the
freight of ---- weight of human flesh, which is above fifty per cent.
dearer than the freight of any other luggage, whilst in reality it takes
up less room; in fact, no room at all.
In truth, the sum was paid for nothing more than for a liberty to six
persons (two of them servants) to stay on board a ship while she sails
from one port to another, every shilling of which comes clear into the
captain's pocket. Ignorant people may perhaps imagine, especially when
they are told that the captain is obliged to sustain them, that their
diet at least is worth something, which may probably be now and then so
far the case as to deduct a tenth part from the neat profits on this
account; but it was otherwise at present; for when I had contracted with
the captain at a price which I by no means thought moderate, I had some
content in thinking I should have no more to pay for my voyage; but I
was whispered that it was expected the passengers should find themselves
in several things; such as tea, wine, and such like; and particularly
that gentlemen should stowe of the latter a much larger quantity than
they could use, in order to leave the remainder as a present to the
captain at the end of the voyage; and it was expected likewise that
gentlemen should put aboard some fresh stores, and the more of such
things were put aboard the welcomer they would be to the captain.
I was prevailed with by these hints to follow the advice proposed; and
accordingly, besides tea and a large hamper of wine, with several hams
and tongues, I caused a number of live chickens and sheep to be conveyed
aboard; in truth, treble the quantity of provisions which would have
supported the persons I took with me, had the voyage continued three
weeks, as it was supposed, with a bare possibility, it might.
Indeed it continued much longer; but as this was occasioned by our being
wind-bound in our own ports, it was by no means of any ill consequence
to the captain, as the additional stores of fish, fresh meat, butter,
bread, &c., which I constantly laid in, greatly exceeded the
consumption, and went some way in maintaining the ship's crew. It is
true I was not obliged to do this; but it seemed to be expected; for the
captain did not think himself obliged to do it, and I can truly say I
soon ceased to expect it of him. He had, I confess, on board a number of
fowls and ducks sufficient for a West India voyage; all of them, as he
often said, "Very fine birds, and of the largest breed." This I believe
was really the fact, and I can add that they were all arrived at the
full perfection of their size. Nor was there, I am convinced, any want
of provisions of a more substantial kind; such as dried beef, pork, and
fish; so that the captain seemed ready to perform his contract, and
amply to provide for his passengers. What I did then was not from
necessity, but, perhaps, from a less excusable motive, and was by no
means chargeable to the account of the captain.
But, let the motive have been what it would, the consequence was still
the same; and this was such that I am firmly persuaded the whole pitiful
thirty pounds came pure and neat into the captain's pocket, and not only
so, but attended with the value of ten pound more in sundries into the
bargain. I must confess myself therefore at a loss how the epithet
_pitiful_ came to be annexed to the above sum; for, not being a pitiful
price for what it was given, I cannot conceive it to be pitiful in
itself; nor do I believe it is thought by the greatest men in the
kingdom; none of whom would scruple to search for it in the dirtiest
kennel, where they had only a reasonable hope of success.
How, therefore, such a sum should acquire the idea of pitiful in the
eyes of the master of a ship seems not easy to be accounted for; since
it appears more likely to produce in him ideas of a different kind. Some
men, perhaps, are no more sincere in the contempt for it which they
express than others in their contempt of money in general; and I am the
rather inclined to this persuasion, as I have seldom heard of either who
have refused or refunded this their despised object. Besides, it is
sometimes impossible to believe these professions, as every action of
the man's life is a contradiction to it. Who can believe a tradesman who
says he would not tell his name for the profit he gets by he selling
such a parcel of goods, when he hath told a thousand lies in order to
get it?
Pitiful, indeed, is often applied to an object not absolutely, but
comparatively with our expectations, or with a greater object: in which
sense it is not easy to set any bounds to the use of the word. Thus, a
handful of halfpence daily appear pitiful to a porter, and a handful of
silver to a drawer. The latter, I am convinced, at a polite tavern, will
not tell his name (for he will not give you any answer) under the price
of gold. And in this sense thirty pound may be accounted pitiful by the
lowest mechanic.
One difficulty only seems to occur, and that is this, how comes it that,
if the profits of the meanest arts are so considerable, the professors
of them are not richer than we generally see them? One answer to this
shall suffice. Men do not become rich by what they get, but by what they
keep. He who is worth no more than his annual wages or salary, spends
the whole; he will be always a beggar let his income be what it will,
and so will be his family when he dies. This we see daily to be the case
of ecclesiastics, who, during their lives, are extremely well provided
for, only because they desire to maintain the honour of the cloth by
living like gentlemen, which would, perhaps, be better maintained by
living unlike them.
But, to return from so long a digression, to which the use of so
improper an epithet gave occasion, and to which the novelty of the
subject allured, I will make the reader amends by concisely telling him
that the captain poured forth such a torrent of abuse that I very
hastily and very foolishly resolved to quit the ship. I gave immediate
orders to summon a hoy to carry me that evening to Dartmouth, without
considering any consequence. Those orders I gave in no very low voice,
so that those above stairs might possibly conceive there was more than
one master in the cabin. In the same tone I likewise threatened the
captain with that which, he afterwards said, he feared more than any
rock or quicksand. Nor can we wonder at this when we are told he had
been twice obliged to bring to and cast anchor there before, and had
neither time escaped without the loss of almost his whole cargo.
The most distant sound of law thus frightened a man who had often, I am
convinced, heard numbers of cannon roar round him with intrepidity. Nor
did he sooner see the hoy approaching the vessel than he ran down again
into the cabin, and, his rage being perfectly subsided, he tumbled on
his knees, and a little too abjectly implored for mercy.
I did not suffer a brave man and an old man to remain a moment in this
posture, but I immediately forgave him.
And here, that I may not be thought the sly trumpeter of my own praises,
I do utterly disclaim all praise on the occasion. Neither did the
greatness of my mind dictate, nor the force of my Christianity exact,
this forgiveness. To speak truth, I forgave him from a motive which
would make men much more forgiving if they were much wiser than they
are, because it was convenient for me so to do.
_Wednesday._--This morning the captain drest himself in scarlet in order
to pay a visit to a Devonshire squire, to whom a captain of a ship is a
guest of no ordinary consequence, as he is a stranger and a gentleman,
who hath seen a great deal of the world in foreign parts, and knows all
the news of the times.
[Illustration: _He abjectly implored for mercy_]
The squire, therefore, was to send his boat for the captain, but a most
unfortunate accident happened; for, as the wind was extremely rough and
against the hoy, while this was endeavouring to avail itself of great
seamanship in hawling up against the wind, a sudden squall carried
off sail and yard, or at least so disabled them that they were no longer
of any use and unable to reach the ship; but the captain, from the deck,
saw his hopes of venison disappointed, and was forced either to stay on
board his ship, or to hoist forth his own long-boat, which he could not
prevail with himself to think of, though the smell of the venison had
had twenty times its attraction. He did, indeed, love his ship as his
wife, and his boats as children, and never willingly trusted the latter,
poor things! to the dangers of the seas.
To say truth, notwithstanding the strict rigour with which he preserved
the dignity of his station, and the hasty impatience with which he
resented any affront to his person or orders, disobedience to which he
could in no instance brook in any person on board, he was one of the
best natured fellows alive. He acted the part of a father to his
sailors; he expressed great tenderness for any of them when ill, and
never suffered any the least work of supererogation to go unrewarded by
a glass of gin. He even extended his humanity, if I may so call it, to
animals, and even his cats and kittens had large shares in his
affections. An instance of which we saw this evening, when the cat,
which had shewn it could not be drowned, was found suffocated under a
feather-bed in the cabin. I will not endeavour to describe his
lamentations with more prolixity than barely by saying they were
grievous, and seemed to have some mixture of the Irish howl in them.
Nay, he carried his fondness even to inanimate objects, of which we have
above set down a pregnant example in his demonstration of love and
tenderness towards his boats and ship. He spoke of a ship which he had
commanded formerly, and which was long since no more, which he had
called the Princess of Brazil, as a widower of a deceased wife. This
ship, after having followed the honest business of carrying goods and
passengers for hire many years, did at last take to evil courses and
turn privateer, in which service, to use his own words, she received
many dreadful wounds, which he himself had felt as if they had been his
own.
_Thursday._--As the wind did not yesterday discover any purpose of
shifting, and the water in my belly grew troublesome and rendered me
short-breathed, I began a second time to have apprehensions of wanting
the assistance of a trochar when none was to be found; I therefore
concluded to be tapped again by way of precaution, and accordingly I
this morning summoned on board a surgeon from a neighbouring parish, one
whom the captain greatly recommended, and who did indeed perform his
office with much dexterity. He was, I believe, likewise a man of great
judgment and knowledge in the profession; but of this I cannot speak
with perfect certainty, for, when he was going to open on the dropsy at
large and on the particular degree of the distemper under which I
laboured, I was obliged to stop him short, for the wind was changed, and
the captain in the utmost hurry to depart; and to desire him, instead of
his opinion, to assist me with his execution.
I was now once more delivered from my burthen, which was not indeed so
great as I had apprehended, wanting two quarts of what was let out at
the last operation.
While the surgeon was drawing away my water the sailors were drawing up
the anchor; both were finished at the same time; we unfurled our sails
and soon passed the Berry-head, which forms the mouth of the bay.
We had not however sailed far when the wind, which had, though with a
slow pace, kept us company about six miles, suddenly turned about, and
offered to conduct us back again; a favour which, though sorely against
the grain, we were obliged to accept.
Nothing remarkable happened this day; for as to the firm persuasion of
the captain that he was under the spell of witchcraft, I would not
repeat it too often, though indeed he repeated it an hundred times every
day; in truth, he talked of nothing else, and seemed not only to be
satisfied in general of his being bewitched, but actually to have fixed
with good certainty on the person of the witch, whom, had he lived in
the days of Sir Matthew Hale, he would have infallibly indicted, and
very possibly have hanged, for the detestable sin of witchcraft; but
that law, and the whole doctrine that supported it, are now out of
fashion; and witches, as a learned divine once chose to express himself,
are put down by act of parliament. This witch, in the captain's opinion,
was no other than Mrs Francis of Ryde, who, as he insinuated, out of
anger to me for not spending more money in her house than she could
produce anything to exchange for, or any pretence to charge for, had
laid this spell on his ship.
Though we were again got near our harbour by three in the afternoon, yet
it seemed to require a full hour or more before we could come to our
former place of anchoring, or berth, as the captain called it. On this
occasion we exemplified one of the few advantages which the travellers
by water have over the travellers by land. What would the latter often
give for the sight of one of those hospitable mansions where he is
assured _that there is good entertainment for man and horse_; and where
both may consequently promise themselves to assuage that hunger which
exercise is so sure to raise in a healthy constitution.
At their arrival at this mansion, how much happier is the state of the
horse than that of the master! The former is immediately led to his
repast, such as it is, and, whatever it is, he falls to it with
appetite. But the latter is in a much worse situation. His hunger,
however violent, is always in some degree delicate, and his food must
have some kind of ornament, or, as the more usual phrase is, of
dressing, to recommend it. Now all dressing requires time, and
therefore, though perhaps the sheep might be just killed before you came
to the inn, yet in cutting him up, fetching the joint, which the
landlord by mistake said he had in the house, from the butcher at two
miles' distance, and afterwards warming it a little by the fire, two
hours at least must be consumed, while hunger, for want of better food,
preys all the time on the vitals of the man.
How different was the case with us! we carried our provision, our
kitchen, and our cook with us, and we were at one and the same time
travelling on our road, and sitting down to a repast of fish, with which
the greatest table in London can scarce at any rate be supplied.
_Friday._--As we were disappointed of our wind, and obliged to return
back the preceding evening, we resolved to extract all the good we could
out of our misfortune, and to add considerably to our fresh stores of
meat and bread, with which we were very indifferently provided when we
hurried away yesterday. By the captain's advice we likewise laid in some
stores of butter, which we salted and potted ourselves, for our use at
Lisbon, and we had great reason afterwards to thank him for his advice.
In the afternoon I persuaded my wife, whom it was no easy matter for me
to force from my side, to take a walk on shore, whither the gallant
captain declared he was ready to attend her. Accordingly the ladies set
out, and left me to enjoy a sweet and comfortable nap after the
operation of the preceding day.
Thus we enjoyed our separate pleasures full three hours, when we met
again, and my wife gave the foregoing account of the gentleman whom I
have before compared to Axylus, and of his habitation, to both which she
had been introduced by the captain, in the stile of an old friend and
acquaintance, though this foundation of intimacy seemed to her to be no
deeper laid than in an accidental dinner, eaten many years before, at
this temple of hospitality, when the captain lay wind-bound in the same
bay.
_Saturday._--Early this morning the wind seemed inclined to change in
our favour. Our alert captain snatched its very first motion, and got
under sail with so very gentle a breeze that, as the tide was against
him, he recommended to a fishing hoy to bring after him a vast salmon
and some other provisions which lay ready for him on shore.
Our anchor was up at six, and before nine in the morning we had doubled
the Berry-head, and were arrived off Dartmouth, having gone full three
miles in as many hours, in direct opposition to the tide, which only
befriended us out of our harbour; and though the wind was perhaps our
friend, it was so very silent, and exerted itself so little in our
favour, that, like some cool partisans, it was difficult to say whether
it was with us or against us. The captain, however, declared the former
to be the case during the whole three hours; but at last he perceived
his error, or rather, perhaps, this friend, which had hitherto wavered
in chusing his side, became now more determined. The captain then
suddenly tacked about, and, asserting that he was bewitched, submitted
to return to the place from whence he came. Now, though I am as free
from superstition as any man breathing, and never did believe in
witches, notwithstanding all the excellent arguments of my lord
chief-justice Hale in their favour, and long before they were put down
by act of parliament, yet by what power a ship of burthen should sail
three miles against both wind and tide, I cannot conceive, unless there
was some supernatural interposition in the case; nay, could we admit
that the wind stood neuter, the difficulty would still remain. So that
we must of necessity conclude that the ship was either bewinded or
bewitched.
The captain, perhaps, had another meaning. He imagined himself, I
believe, bewitched, because the wind, instead of persevering in its
change in his favour, for change it certainly did that morning, should
suddenly return to its favourite station, and blow him back towards the
bay. But, if this was his opinion, he soon saw cause to alter; for he
had not measured half the way back when the wind again declared in his
favour, and so loudly, that there was no possibility of being mistaken.
The orders for the second tack were given, and obeyed with much more
alacrity than those had been for the first. We were all of us indeed in
high spirits on the occasion; though some of us a little regretted the
good things we were likely to leave behind us by the fisherman's
neglect; I might give it a worse name, for he faithfully promised to
execute the commission, which he had had abundant opportunity to do; but
_nautica fides_ deserves as much to be proverbial as ever _Punica fides_
could formerly have done. Nay, when we consider that the Carthaginians
came from the Phenicians, who are supposed to have produced the first
mariners, we may probably see the true reason of the adage, and it may
open a field of very curious discoveries to the antiquarian.
We were, however, too eager to pursue our voyage to suffer anything we
left behind us to interrupt our happiness, which, indeed, many
agreeable circumstances conspired to advance. The weather was
inexpressibly pleasant, and we were all seated on the deck, when our
canvas began to swell with the wind. We had likewise in our view above
thirty other sail around us, all in the same situation. Here an
observation occurred to me, which, perhaps, though extremely obvious,
did not offer itself to every individual in our little fleet: when I
perceived with what different success we proceeded under the influence
of a superior power, which, while we lay almost idle ourselves, pushed
us forward on our intended voyage, and compared this with the slow
progress which we had made in the morning, of ourselves, and without any
such assistance, I could not help reflecting how often the greatest
abilities lie wind-bound as it were in life; or, if they venture out and
attempt to beat the seas, they struggle in vain against wind and tide,
and, if they have not sufficient prudence to put back, are most probably
cast away on the rocks and quicksands which are every day ready to
devour them.
It was now our fortune to set out _melioribus avibus_. The wind
freshened so briskly in our poop that the shore appeared to move from us
as fast as we did from the shore. The captain declared he was sure of a
wind, meaning its continuance; but he had disappointed us so often that
he had lost all credit. However, he kept his word a little better now,
and we lost sight of our native land as joyfully, at least, as it is
usual to regain it.
_Sunday._--The next morning the captain told me he thought himself
thirty miles to the westward of Plymouth, and before evening declared
that the Lizard Point, which is the extremity of Cornwall, bore several
leagues to leeward. Nothing remarkable passed this day, except the
captain's devotion, who, in his own phrase, summoned all hands to
prayers, which were read by a common sailor upon deck, with more devout
force and address than they are commonly read by a country curate, and
received with more decency and attention by the sailors than are usually
preserved in city congregations. I am indeed assured, that if any such
affected disregard of the solemn office in which they were engaged, as I
have seen practised by fine gentlemen and ladies, expressing a kind of
apprehension lest they should be suspected of being really in earnest in
their devotion, had been shewn here, they would have contracted the
contempt of the whole audience. To say the truth, from what I observed
in the behaviour of the sailors in this voyage, and on comparing it with
what I have formerly seen of them at sea and on shore, I am convinced
that on land there is nothing more idle and dissolute; in their own
element there are no persons near the level of their degree who live in
the constant practice of half so many good qualities. They are, for much
the greater part, perfect masters of their business, and always
extremely alert, and ready in executing it, without any regard to
fatigue or hazard. The soldiers themselves are not better disciplined
nor more obedient to orders than these whilst aboard; they submit to
every difficulty which attends their calling with chearfulness, and no
less virtues and patience and fortitude are exercised by them every day
of their lives.
All these good qualities, however, they always leave behind them on
shipboard; the sailor out of water is, indeed, as wretched an animal as
the fish out of water; for though the former hath, in common with
amphibious animals, the bare power of existing on the land, yet if he be
kept there any time he never fails to become a nuisance.
The ship having had a good deal of motion since she was last under
sail, our women returned to their sickness, and I to my solitude;
having, for twenty-four hours together, scarce opened my lips to a
single person. This circumstance of being shut up within the
circumference of a few yards, with a score of human creatures, with not
one of whom it was possible to converse, was perhaps so rare as scarce
ever to have happened before, nor could it ever happen to one who
disliked it more than myself, or to myself at a season when I wanted
more food for my social disposition, or could converse less wholesomely
and happily with my own thoughts. To this accident, which fortune opened
to me in the Downs, was owing the first serious thought which I ever
entertained of enrolling myself among the voyage-writers; some of the
most amusing pages, if, indeed, there be any which deserve that name,
were possibly the production of the most disagreeable hours which ever
haunted the author.
_Monday._--At noon the captain took an observation, by which it appeared
that Ushant bore some leagues northward of us, and that we were just
entering the bay of Biscay. We had advanced a very few miles in this bay
before we were entirely becalmed: we furled our sails, as being of no
use to us while we lay in this most disagreeable situation, more
detested by the sailors than the most violent tempest: we were alarmed
with the loss of a fine piece of salt beef, which had been hung in the
sea to freshen it; this being, it seems, the strange property of
salt-water. The thief was immediately suspected, and presently
afterwards taken by the sailors. He was, indeed, no other than a huge
shark, who, not knowing when he was well off, swallowed another piece of
beef, together with a great iron crook on which it was hung, and by
which he was dragged into the ship.
I should scarce have mentioned the catching this shark, though so
exactly conformable to the rules and practice of voyage-writing, had it
not been for a strange circumstance that attended it. This was the
recovery of the stolen beef out of the shark's maw, where it lay
unchewed and undigested, and whence, being conveyed into the pot, the
flesh, and the thief that had stolen it, joined together in furnishing
variety to the ship's crew.
During this calm we likewise found the mast of a large vessel, which the
captain thought had lain at least three years in the sea. It was stuck
all over with a little shell-fish or reptile, called a barnacle, and
which probably are the prey of the rock-fish, as our captain calls it,
asserting that it is the finest fish in the world; for which we are
obliged to confide entirely to his taste; for, though he struck the fish
with a kind of harping-iron, and wounded him, I am convinced, to death,
yet he could not possess himself of his body; but the poor wretch
escaped to linger out a few hours with probably great torments.
In the evening our wind returned, and so briskly, that we ran upwards of
twenty leagues before the next day's [_Tuesday's_] observation, which
brought us to lat. 47° 42´. The captain promised us a very speedy
passage through the bay; but he deceived us, or the wind deceived him,
for it so slackened at sunset, that it scarce carried us a mile in an
hour during the whole succeeding night.
_Wednesday._--A gale struck up a little after sun-rising, which carried
us between three and four knots or miles an hour. We were this day at
noon about the middle of the bay of Biscay, when the wind once more
deserted us, and we were so entirely becalmed, that we did not advance a
mile in many hours. My fresh-water reader will perhaps conceive no
unpleasant idea from this calm; but it affected us much more than a
storm could have done; for, as the irascible passions of men are apt to
swell with indignation long after the injury which first raised them is
over, so fared it with the sea. It rose mountains high, and lifted our
poor ship up and down, backwards and forwards, with so violent an
emotion, that there was scarce a man in the ship better able to stand
than myself. Every utensil in our cabin rolled up and down, as we should
have rolled ourselves, had not our chairs been fast lashed to the floor.
In this situation, with our tables likewise fastened by ropes, the
captain and myself took our meal with some difficulty, and swallowed a
little of our broth, for we spilt much the greater part. The remainder
of our dinner being an old, lean, tame duck roasted, I regretted but
little the loss of, my teeth not being good enough to have chewed it.
Our women, who began to creep out of their holes in the morning, retired
again within the cabin to their beds, and were no more heard of this
day, in which my whole comfort was to find by the captain's relation
that the swelling was sometimes much worse; he did, indeed, take this
occasion to be more communicative than ever, and informed me of such
misadventures that had befallen him within forty-six years at sea as
might frighten a very bold spirit from undertaking even the shortest
voyage. Were these, indeed, but universally known, our matrons of
quality would possibly be deterred from venturing their tender offspring
at sea; by which means our navy would lose the honour of many a young
commodore, who at twenty-two is better versed in maritime affairs than
real seamen are made by experience at sixty.
And this may, perhaps, appear the more extraordinary, as the education
of both seems to be pretty much the same; neither of them having had
their courage tried by Virgil's description of a storm, in which,
inspired as he was, I doubt whether our captain doth not exceed him.
In the evening the wind, which continued in the N.W., again freshened,
and that so briskly that Cape Finisterre appeared by this day's
observation to bear a few miles to the southward. We now indeed sailed,
or rather flew, near ten knots an hour; and the captain, in the
redundancy of his good-humour, declared he would go to church at Lisbon
on Sunday next, for that he was sure of a wind; and, indeed, we all
firmly believed him. But the event again contradicted him; for we were
again visited by a calm in the evening.
But here, though our voyage was retarded, we were entertained with a
scene, which as no one can behold without going to sea, so no one can
form an idea of anything equal to it on shore. We were seated on the
deck, women and all, in the serenest evening that can be imagined. Not a
single cloud presented itself to our view, and the sun himself was the
only object which engrossed our whole attention. He did indeed set with
a majesty which is incapable of description, with which, while the
horizon was yet blazing with glory, our eyes were called off to the
opposite part to survey the moon, which was then at full, and which in
rising presented us with the second object that this world hath offered
to our vision. Compared to these the pageantry of theatres, or splendour
of courts, are sights almost below the regard of children.
We did not return from the deck till late in the evening; the weather
being inexpressibly pleasant, and so warm that even my old distemper
perceived the alteration of the climate. There was indeed a swell, but
nothing comparable to what we had felt before, and it affected us on the
deck much less than in the cabin.
_Friday._--The calm continued till sun-rising, when the wind likewise
arose, but unluckily for us it came from a wrong quarter; it was
S.S.E., which is that very wind which Juno would have solicited of
Æolus, had Æneas been in our latitude bound for Lisbon.
The captain now put on his most melancholy aspect, and resumed his
former opinion that he was bewitched. He declared with great solemnity
that this was worse and worse, for that a wind directly in his teeth was
worse than no wind at all. Had we pursued the course which the wind
persuaded us to take we had gone directly for Newfoundland, if we had
not fallen in with Ireland in our way. Two ways remained to avoid this;
one was to put into a port of Galicia; the other, to beat to the
westward with as little sail as possible: and this was our captain's
election.
As for us, poor passengers, any port would have been welcome to us;
especially, as not only our fresh provisions, except a great number of
old ducks and fowls, but even our bread was come to an end, and nothing
but sea-biscuit remained, which I could not chew. So that now for the
first time in my life I saw what it was to want a bit of bread.
The wind however was not so unkind as we had apprehended; but, having
declined with the sun, it changed at the approach of the moon, and
became again favourable to us, though so gentle that the next day's
observation carried us very little to the southward of Cape Finisterre.
This evening at six the wind, which had been very quiet all day, rose
very high, and continuing in our favour drove us seven knots an hour.
This day we saw a sail, the only one, as I heard of, we had seen in our
whole passage through the bay. I mention this on account of what
appeared to me somewhat extraordinary. Though she was at such a distance
that I could only perceive she was a ship, the sailors discovered that
she was a snow, bound to a port in Galicia.
_Sunday._--After prayers, which our good captain read on the deck with
an audible voice, and with but one mistake, of a lion for Elias, in the
second lesson for this day, we found ourselves far advanced in 42°, and
the captain declared we should sup off Porte. We had not much wind this
day; but, as this was directly in our favour, we made it up with sail,
of which we crowded all we had. We went only at the rate of four miles
an hour, but with so uneasy a motion, continually rolling from side to
side, that I suffered more than I had done in our whole voyage; my
bowels being almost twisted out of my belly. However, the day was very
serene and bright, and the captain, who was in high spirits, affirmed he
had never passed a pleasanter at sea.
The wind continued so brisk that we ran upward of six knots an hour the
whole night.
_Monday._--In the morning our captain concluded that he was got into
lat. 40°, and was very little short of the Burlings, as they are called
in the charts. We came up with them at five in the afternoon, being the
first land we had distinctly seen since we left Devonshire. They consist
of abundance of little rocky islands, a little distant from the shore,
three of them only shewing themselves above the water.
Here the Portuguese maintain a kind of garrison, if we may allow it that
name. It consists of malefactors, who are banished hither for a term,
for divers small offences--a policy which they may have copied from the
Egyptians, as we may read in Diodorus Siculus. That wise people, to
prevent the corruption of good manners by evil communication, built a
town on the Red Sea, whither they transported a great number of their
criminals, having first set an indelible mark on them, to prevent their
returning and mixing with the sober part of their citizens.
These rocks lie about fifteen leagues north-west of Cape Roxent, or, as
it is commonly called, the Rock of Lisbon, which we past early the next
morning. The wind, indeed, would have carried us thither sooner; but the
captain was not in a hurry, as he was to lose nothing by his delay.
_Tuesday._--This is a very high mountain, situated on the northern side
of the mouth of the river Tajo, which, rising about Madrid, in Spain,
and soon becoming navigable for small craft, empties itself, after a
long course, into the sea, about four leagues below Lisbon.
On the summit of the rock stands a hermitage, which is now in the
possession of an Englishman, who was formerly master of a vessel trading
to Lisbon; and, having changed his religion and his manners, the latter
of which, at least, were none of the best, betook himself to this place,
in order to do penance for his sins. He is now very old, and hath
inhabited this hermitage for a great number of years, during which he
hath received some countenance from the royal family, and particularly
from the present queen dowager, whose piety refuses no trouble or
expence by which she may make a proselyte, being used to say that the
saving one soul would repay all the endeavours of her life.
Here we waited for the tide, and had the pleasure of surveying the face
of the country, the soil of which, at this season, exactly resembles an
old brick-kill, or a field where the green sward is pared up and set a
burning, or rather a smoaking, in little heaps to manure the land. This
sight will, perhaps, of all others, make an Englishman proud of, and
pleased with, his own country, which in verdure excels, I believe, every
other country. Another deficiency here is the want of large trees,
nothing above a shrub being here to be discovered in the circumference
of many miles.
At this place we took a pilot on board, who, being the first Portuguese
we spoke to, gave us an instance of that religious observance which is
paid by all nations to their laws; for, whereas it is here a capital
offence to assist any person in going on shore from a foreign vessel
before it hath been examined, and every person in it viewed by the
magistrates of health, as they are called, this worthy pilot, for a very
small reward, rowed the Portuguese priest to shore at this place, beyond
which he did not dare to advance, and in venturing whither he had given
sufficient testimony of love for his native country.
We did not enter the Tajo till noon, when, after passing several old
castles and other buildings which had greatly the aspect of ruins, we
came to the castle of Bellisle, where we had a full prospect of Lisbon,
and were, indeed, within three miles of it.
Here we were saluted with a gun, which was a signal to pass no farther
till we had complied with certain ceremonies which the laws of this
country require to be observed by all ships which arrive in this port.
We were obliged then to cast anchor, and expect the arrival of the
officers of the customs, without whose passport no ship must proceed
farther than this place.
Here likewise we received a visit from one of those magistrates of
health before mentioned. He refused to come on board the ship till every
person in her had been drawn up on deck and personally viewed by him.
This occasioned some delay on my part, as it was not the work of a
minute to lift me from the cabin to the deck. The captain thought my
particular case might have been excused from this ceremony, and that it
would be abundantly sufficient if the magistrate, who was obliged
afterwards to visit the cabin, surveyed me there. But this did not
satisfy the magistrate's strict regard to his duty. When he was told of
my lameness, he called out, with a voice of authority, "Let him be
brought up," and his orders were presently complied with. He was,
indeed, a person of great dignity, as well as of the most exact
fidelity in the discharge of his trust. Both which are the more
admirable as his salary is less than thirty pounds English per annum.
Before a ship hath been visited by one of those magistrates no person
can lawfully go on board her, nor can any on board depart from her. This
I saw exemplified in a remarkable instance. The young lad whom I have
mentioned as one of our passengers was here met by his father, who, on
the first news of the captain's arrival, came from Lisbon to Bellisle in
a boat, being eager to embrace a son whom he had not seen for many
years. But when he came alongside our ship neither did the father dare
ascend nor the son descend, as the magistrate of health had not yet been
on board.
Some of our readers will, perhaps, admire the great caution of this
policy, so nicely calculated for the preservation of this country from
all pestilential distempers. Others will as probably regard it as too
exact and formal to be constantly persisted in, in seasons of the utmost
safety, as well as in times of danger. I will not decide either way, but
will content myself with observing that I never yet saw or heard of a
place where a traveller had so much trouble given him at his landing as
here. The only use of which, as all such matters begin and end in form
only, is to put it into the power of low and mean fellows to be either
rudely officious or grossly corrupt, as they shall see occasion to
prefer the gratification of their pride or of their avarice.
Of this kind, likewise, is that power which is lodged with other
officers here, of taking away every grain of snuff and every leaf of
tobacco brought hither from other countries, though only for the
temporary use of the person during his residence here. This is executed
with great insolence, and, as it is in the hands of the dregs of the
people, very scandalously; for, under pretence of searching for tobacco
and snuff, they are sure to steal whatever they can find, insomuch that
when they came on board our sailors addressed us in the Covent-garden
language: "Pray, gentlemen and ladies, take care of your swords and
watches." Indeed, I never yet saw anything equal to the contempt and
hatred which our honest tars every moment expressed for these Portuguese
officers.
At Bellisle lies buried Catharine of Arragon, widow of prince Arthur,
eldest son of our Henry VII., afterwards married to, and divorced from,
Henry VIII. Close by the church where her remains are deposited is a
large convent of Geronymites, one of the most beautiful piles of
building in all Portugal.
In the evening, at twelve, our ship, having received previous visits
from all the necessary parties, took the advantage of the tide, and
having sailed up to Lisbon cast anchor there, in a calm and moonshiny
night, which made the passage incredibly pleasant to the women, who
remained three hours enjoying it, whilst I was left to the cooler
transports of enjoying their pleasures at second-hand; and yet, cooler
as they may be, whoever is totally ignorant of such sensation is, at the
same time, void of all ideas of friendship.
_Wednesday._--Lisbon, before which we now lay at anchor, is said to be
built on the same number of hills with old Rome; but these do not all
appear to the water; on the contrary, one sees from thence one vast high
hill and rock, with buildings arising above one another, and that in so
steep and almost perpendicular a manner, that they all seem to have but
one foundation.
As the houses, convents, churches, &c., are large, and all built with
white stone, they look very beautiful at a distance; but as you
approach nearer, and find them to want every kind of ornament, all idea
of beauty vanishes at once. While I was surveying the prospect of this
city, which bears so little resemblance to any other that I have ever
seen, a reflexion occurred to me that, if a man was suddenly to be
removed from Palmyra hither, and should take a view of no other city, in
how glorious a light would the antient architecture appear to him! and
what desolation and destruction of arts and sciences would he conclude
had happened between the several æras of these cities!
I had now waited full three hours upon deck for the return of my man,
whom I had sent to bespeak a good dinner (a thing which had been long
unknown to me) on shore, and then to bring a Lisbon chaise with him to
the sea-shore; but it seems the impertinence of the providore was not
yet brought to a conclusion. At three o'clock, when I was, from
emptiness, rather faint than hungry, my man returned, and told me there
was a new law lately made that no passenger should set his foot on shore
without a special order from the providore, and that he himself would
have been sent to prison for disobeying it, had he not been protected as
the servant of the captain. He informed me likewise that the captain had
been very industrious to get this order, but that it was then the
providore's hour of sleep, a time when no man, except the king himself,
durst disturb him.
To avoid prolixity, though in a part of my narrative which may be more
agreeable to my reader than it was to me, the providore, having at last
finished his nap, dispatched this absurd matter of form, and gave me
leave to come, or rather to be carried, on shore.
What it was that gave the first hint of this strange law is not easy to
guess. Possibly, in the infancy of their defection, and before their
government could be well established, they were willing to guard against
the bare possibility of surprise, of the success of which bare
possibility the Trojan horse will remain for ever on record, as a great
and memorable example. Now the Portuguese have no walls to secure them,
and a vessel of two or three hundred tons will contain a much larger
body of troops than could be concealed in that famous machine, though
Virgil tells us (somewhat hyperbolically, I believe) that it was as big
as a mountain.
About seven in the evening I got into a chaise on shore, and was driven
through the nastiest city in the world, though at the same time one of
the most populous, to a kind of coffee-house, which is very pleasantly
situated on the brow of a hill, about a mile from the city, and hath a
very fine prospect of the river Tajo from Lisbon to the sea.
Here we regaled ourselves with a good supper, for which we were as well
charged as if the bill had been made on the Bath-road, between Newbury
and London.
And now we could joyfully say,
Egressi optata Troes potiuntur arena.
Therefore, in the words of Horace,
--hic Finis chartæque viæque.
END OF VOL. I.
BALLANTYNE PRESS: EDINBURGH AND LONDON
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Some doubt whether this should not be rather 1641, which is a date
more agreeable to the account given of it in the introduction: but then
there are some passages which seem to relate to transactions infinitely
later, even within this year or two. To say the truth there are
difficulties attending either conjecture; so the reader may take which
he pleases
[B] Eyes are not perhaps so properly adapted to a spiritual substance;
but we are here, as in many other places, obliged to use corporeal terms
to make ourselves the better understood.
[C] This is the dress in which the god appears to mortals at the
theatres. One of the offices attributed to this god by the ancients, was
to collect the ghosts as a shepherd doth a flock of sheep, and drive
them with his wand into the other world.
[D] Those who have read of the gods sleeping in Homer will not be
surprized at this happening to spirits.
[E] A particular lady of quality is meant here; but every lady of
quality, or no quality, are welcome to apply the character to
themselves.
[F] We have before made an apology for this language, which we here
repeat for the last time; though the heart may, we hope, be
metaphorically used here with more propriety than when we apply those
passions to the body which belong to the soul.
[G] That we may mention it once for all, in the panegyrical part of this
work some particular person is always meant: but, in the satirical,
nobody.
[H] These ladies, I believe, by their names, presided over the
_leprosy_, _king's-evil_, and _scurvy_.
[I] This silly story is told as a solemn truth (_i.e._, that St James
really appeared in the manner this fellow is described) by Mariana, I.
7, §78.
[J] Here part of the manuscript is lost, and that a very considerable
one, as appears by the number of the next book and chapter, which
contains, I find, the history of Anna Boleyn; but as to the manner in
which it was introduced, or to whom the narrative is told, we are
totally left in the dark. I have only to remark, that this chapter is,
in the original, writ in a woman's hand: and, though the observations in
it are, I think, as excellent as any in the whole volume, there seems to
be a difference in style between this and the preceding chapters; and,
as it is the character of a woman which is related, I am inclined to
fancy it was really written by one of that sex.
[K] Here ends this curious manuscript; the rest being destroyed in
rolling up pens, tobacco, &c. It is to be hoped heedless people will
henceforth be more cautious what they burn, or use to other vile
purposes; especially when they consider the fate which had likely to
have befallen the divine Milton, and that the works of Homer were
probably discovered in some chandler's shop in Greece.
[L] At Lisbon.
[M] A predecessor of mine used to boast that he made one thousand pounds
a-year in his office; but how he did this (if indeed he did it) is to me
a secret. His clerk, now mine, told me I had more business than he had
ever known there; I am sure I had as much as any man could do. The truth
is, the fees are so very low, when any are due, and so much is done for
nothing, that, if a single justice of peace had business enough to
employ twenty clerks, neither he nor they would get much by their
labour. The public will not, therefore, I hope, think I betray a secret
when I inform them that I received from the Government a yearly pension
out of the public service-money; which, I believe, indeed, would have
been larger had my great patron been convinced of an error, which I have
heard him utter more than once, that he could not indeed say that the
acting as a principal justice of peace in Westminster was on all
accounts very desirable, but that all the world knew it was a very
lucrative office. Now, to have shewn him plainly that a man must be a
rogue to make a very little this way, and that he could not make much by
being as great a rogue as he could be, would have required more
confidence than, I believe, he had in me, and more of his conversation
than he chose to allow me; I therefore resigned the office and the
farther execution of my plan to my brother, who had long been my
assistant. And now, lest the case between me and the reader should be
the same in both instances as it was between me and the great man, I
will not add another word on the subject.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Works of Henry Fielding; vol. xi - A Journey From This World to the Next; Voyage to Lisbon" ***
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