IT has been observed, I think, by Sir William
Temple, and after him by almost every other
writer, that England affords a greater variety of
characters than the rest of the world. This is
ascribed to the liberty prevailing amongst us, which
gives every man the privilege of being wise or
foolish his own way, and preserves him from the
necessity of hypocrisy or the servility of imitation.
That the position itself is true, I am not
completely satisfied. To be nearly acquainted with the
people of different countries can happen to very few;
and in life, as in every thing else beheld at a
distance, there appears an even uniformity: the petty
discriminations which diversify the natural character,
are not discoverable but by a close inspection;
we, therefore, find them most at home, because there
we have most opportunities of remarking them.
Much less am I convinced, that this peculiar
diversification, if it be real, is the consequence of
peculiar liberty; for where is the government to be found
that superintends individuals with so much vigilance,
as not to leave their private conduct without
restraint? Can it enter into a reasonable mind to
imagine, that men of every other nation are not equally
masters of their own time or houses with ourselves,
and equally at liberty to be parsimonious or profuse,
frolick or sullen, abstinent or luxurious? Liberty is
certainly necessary to the full play of predominant
humours; but such liberty is to be found alike under
the government of the many or the few, in
monarchies or commonwealths.
How readily the predominant passion snatches an
interval of liberty, and how fast it expands itself
when the weight of restraint is taken away, I had
lately an opportunity to discover, as I took a journey
into the country in a stage-coach; which, as every
journey is a kind of adventure, may be very properly
related to you, though I can display no such
extraordinary assembly as Cervantes has collected
at Don Quixote's inn[j].
[j] Johnson has made impressive allusion to the immortal
work of Cervantes in his Second Rambler. Every reflecting man
must arise from its perusal with feelings of the deepest
melancholy, with the most tender commiseration for the weakness
and lot of humanity. To such a man its moral must ever be
"profoundly sad." Vulgar minds cannot know it. Hence it has
ever been the favorite with the intellectual class, while Gil
Blas has more generally won the applause of men of the world. An
amusing anecdote of the almost universal admiration for the chef
d 'oeuvre of Le Sage may be found in Butler's Reminiscences.
That bigotted, yet extraordinary man, Alva, predicted, with
prophetic precision, the effects which the satire on Chivalry
would produce in Spain. See Broad Stone of Honour, or Rules for
the Gentlemen of England.
In a stage coach, the passengers are for the most
part wholly unknown to one another, and without
expectation of ever meeting again when their
journey is at an end; one should therefore
imagine, that it was of little importance to any of
them, what conjectures the rest should form concerning
him. Yet so it is, that as all think themselves
secure from detection, all assume that character of
which they are most desirous, and on no occasion is
the general ambition of superiority more apparently
indulged.
On the day of our departure, in the twilight of
the morning, I ascended the vehicle with three men
and two women, my fellow travellers. It was easy
to observe the affected elevation of mien with which
every one entered, and the supercilious servility with
which they paid their compliments to each other.
When the first ceremony was despatched, we sat
silent for a long time, all employed in collecting
importance into our faces, and endeavouring to strike
reverence and submission into our companions.
It is always observable that silence propagates
itself, and that the longer talk has been suspended, the
more difficult it is to find any thing to say. We began
now to wish for conversation; but no one seemed
inclined to descend from his dignity, or first propose
a topick of discourse. At last a corpulent gentleman,
who had equipped himself for this expedition with
a scarlet surtout and a large hat with a broad lace,
drew out his watch, looked on it in silence, and then
held it dangling at his finger. This was, I suppose,
understood by all the company as an invitation to
ask the time of the day, but nobody appeared to
heed his overture; and his desire to be talking so far
overcame his resentment, that he let us know of his
own accord it was past five, and that in two hours
we should be at breakfast.
His condescension was thrown away: we continued
all obdurate; the ladies held up their heads; I
amused myself with watching their behaviour; and
of the other two, one seemed to employ himself in
counting the trees as we drove by them, the other
drew his hat over his eyes, and counterfeited a
slumber. The man of benevolence, to shew that he was
not depressed by our neglect, hummed a tune, and
beat time upon his snuff-box.
Thus universally displeased with one another, and
not much delighted with ourselves, we came at last
to the little inn appointed for our repast; and all began
at once to recompense themselves for the constraint
of silence, by innumerable questions and
orders to the people that attended us. At last, what
every one had called for was got, or declared
impossible to be got at that time, and we were persuaded
to sit round the same table; when the gentleman in
the red surtout looked again upon his watch, told us
that we had half an hour to spare, but he was sorry
to see so little merriment among us; that all fellow
travellers were for the time upon the level, and that
it was always his way to make himself one of the
company. "I remember," says he, "it was on just
such a morning as this, that I and my Lord Mumble
and the Duke of Tenterden were out upon a ramble:
we called at a little house as it might be this; and
my landlady, I warrant you, not suspecting to whom
she was talking, was so jocular and facetious, and
made so many merry answers to our questions, that
we were all ready to burst with laughter. At last the
good woman happening to overhear me whisper the
duke and call him by his title, was so surprised and
confounded, that we could scarcely get a word from
her; and the duke never met me from that day to
this, but he talks of the little house, and quarrels
with me for terrifying the landlady."
He had scarcely time to congratulate himself on
the veneration which this narrative must have
procured for him from the company, when one of the
ladies having reached out for a plate on a distant part
of the table, began to remark, "the inconveniences
of travelling, and the difficulty which they who never
sat at home without a great number of attendants,
found in performing for themselves such offices as
the road required; but that people of quality often
travelled in disguise, and might be generally known
from the vulgar by their condescension to poor inn-
keepers, and the allowance which they made for any
defect in their entertainment; that for her part,
while people were civil and meant well, it was never
her custom to find fault, for one was not to expect
upon a journey all that one enjoyed at one's own
house."
A general emulation seemed now to be excited.
One of the men who had hitherto said nothing, called
for the last newspaper; and having perused it a while
with deep pensiveness, "It is impossible," says he,
"for any man to guess how to act with regard to
the stocks; last week it was the general opinion that
they would fall; and I sold out twenty thousand
pounds in order to a purchase: they have now risen
unexpectedly; and I make no doubt but at my
return to London I shall risk thirty thousand pounds
among them again."
A young man, who had hitherto distinguished
himself only by the vivacity of his looks, and a frequent
diversion of his eyes from one object to another,
upon this closed his snuff-box, and told us that "he
had a hundred times talked with the chancellor and
the judges on the subject of the stocks; that for his
part he did not pretend to be well acquainted with
the principles on which they were established, but
had always heard them reckoned pernicious to trade,
uncertain in their produce, and unsolid in their foundation;
and that he had been advised by three judges,
his most intimate friends, never to venture his money
in the funds, but to put it out upon land security,
till he could light upon an estate in his own country."
It might be expected, that upon these glimpses
of latent dignity, we should all have begun to look
round us with veneration; and have behaved like the
princes of romance, when the enchantment that
disguises them is dissolved, and they discover the
dignity of each other; yet it happened, that none of
these hints made much impression on the company;
every one was apparently suspected of endeavouring
to impose false appearances upon the rest; all
continued their haughtiness in hopes to enforce their
claims; and all grew every hour more sullen, because
they found their representations of themselves without
effect.
Thus we travelled on four days with malevolence
perpetually increasing, and without any endeavour
but to outvie each other in superciliousness and
neglect; and when any two of us could separate
ourselves for a moment we vented our indignation at
the sauciness of the rest.
At length the journey was at an end; and time and
chance, that strip off all disguises, have discovered
that the intimate of lords and dukes is a nobleman's
butler, who has furnished a shop with the money he
has saved; the man who deals so largely in the funds,
is the clerk of a broker in Change-alley; the lady who
so carefully concealed her quality, keeps a cook-shop
behind the Exchange; and the young man who is so
happy in the friendship of the judges, engrosses
and transcribes for bread in a garret of the Temple.
Of one of the women only I could make no
disadvantageous detection, because she had assumed no
character, but accommodated herself to the scene
before her, without any struggle for distinction or
superiority.
I could not forbear to reflect on the folly of
practising a fraud, which, as the event showed, had been
already practised too often to succeed, and by the
success of which no advantage could have been
obtained; of assuming a character, which was to end
with the day; and of claiming upon false pretences
honours which must perish with the breath that paid
them.
But, Mr. Adventurer, let not those who laugh at
me and my companions, think this folly confined to
a stage-coach. Every man in the journey of life takes
the same advantage of the ignorance of his fellow
travellers, disguises himself in counterfeited merit,
and hears those praises with complacency which his
conscience reproaches him for accepting. Every man
deceives himself while he thinks he is deceiving
others; and forgets that the time is at hand when
every illusion shall cease, when fictitious excellence
shall be torn away, and ALL must be shown to ALL in
their real state.