A NARRATIVE OF MR. CAMPBELL'S COMING TO LONDON AND TAKING UPON
HIM THE PROFESSION OF A PREDICTOR; TOGETHER WITH AN ACCOUNT OF
MANY STRANGE THINGS THAT CAME TO PASS JUST AS HE FORETOLD.
To proceed on regularly with the life of young Duncan Campbell, I must
let the reader know that he continued thus conversing with his little
genius, as is set forth above in the dialogue he had with me, and
predicting many things of the like nature, as I have described, till the
year 1694, when he was just fourteen years of age, and then he left
Scotland.
But before I come to speak of the manner of his departure from thence,
his half native country, inasmuch as his father was of that country,
and he had his education there, what education he could have, being deaf
and dumb. I must let the reader know that in the year 1692, my very good
friend, Mrs. Campbell, his mother-in-law, died, and left him there at
Edinburgh, an orphan of twelve years of age.
He was, I may venture to say, the most beautiful boy of that age I ever
knew; and the sensible reader, who considers a child of good birth, with
the misfortunes of being deaf and dumb, left fatherless and motherless
in the wide world, at twelve years old, without any competency for his
maintenance and support, without any relations, in a manner, that knew
him or assisted him; all the little fortune his father had having been
lost in the civil commotions in Scotland, as I have related above, need
not hear me describe the compassion I and many more had for him; because
such a reader must certainly feel in his own bosom the same lively acts
of pity and commiseration at the hearing of such a mishap as I had at
the seeing it, or at least as I have now revived afresh within me at the
relating it.
However, it came so to pass, that a person of the name of Campbell, and
who was a distant relation of the boy, though he himself was but in
indifferent circumstances, was resolved to see him provided for one way
or another, in a manner somewhat suitable to his condition, and till
that time to take the best care of him himself that he was able.
Several ladies of quality who had known his perfections, coveted to make
the boy one of their domestics, as a page, or a playfellow to their
children; for though he could not speak, he had such a vivacity in all
his actions, such a sprightliness of behaviour, and such a merriment
accompanying all his gestures, that he afforded more entertainment than
the prettiest and wittiest little prattlers at those years are wont to
do. Mr. Campbell had certainly accepted of some of these fortunate
offers for his little cousin, which were many of them likely to prove
very advantageous, if it had not been put in his head by some friends,
particularly myself, that if he had a mind to dispose of the boy in that
manner, the best way he could take would be to present him to the late
Earl of Argyle, who for his namesake and for his father's sake, as well
as the qualifications and endowments of the boy, would more naturally,
according to all probability, take a greater pleasure and delight in
him, and consequently provide better for him, and with a more lasting
care, than any other person of quality that had a sudden liking to him,
which might change, and took him as a stranger out of a bare curiosity.
Mr. Campbell was by these reasons overruled in the disposal of his
little dumb prophetical cousin, as he called him, and resolved that an
offer should be made of him to the present illustrious Duke of Argyle's
most noble father. But it so unfortunately happened, that the earl
making very much a longer stay at London than was expected, Mr.
Campbell, the uncle, sent our young Duncan Campbell, his nephew,
handsomely accoutred, and with a handsome sum of money in his pocket, by
sea, with Captain Meek of Kircaldie, to London, with letters of
recommendation to the earl's favour, and just a few days before young
Duncan arrived in London, the earl was set out on his journey to his
seat in Scotland.
I had now left him for near three years, not having seen him since about
a year after his mother's death; and then coming to London, I had by
mere accident an appointment to meet some Scotch gentlemen at the
Buffalo at Charing-cross. There happened at that time to be a great
concourse of Scotch nobility there at an entertainment; and one of the
ladies and gentlemen passing by and seeing one of my friends, desired
him to come in, and told him both he and his companion should be very
welcome to partake of the diversion. The lady told him they had got a
lovely youth, a Scotch miracle, among them, that would give us exquisite
delight, and write down to us all the occurrences of our future lives,
and tell us our names upon our first appearance. The moment I heard of
it, Duncan Campbell came into my head; but as it is a thing not rare to
be met with in Scotland for second sighted persons to tell such things,
and as the Earl of Argyle was in the north, I thought little Duncan had
been under his protection and with him, and did not dream of meeting
with him there; and accordingly told my friend, before I went in, that I
believed I knew a lad in Scotland would exceed this in foresight, let
him be as dexterous in his art as he would.
As soon as I entered the room, I was surprised to find myself
encompassed and surrounded by a circle of the most beautiful females
that ever my eyes beheld. In the centre of this angelic tribe was seated
a heavenly youth, with the most winning comeliness of aspect that ever
pleased the sight of any beholder of either sex; his face was divinely
fair, and tinged only with such a sprightly blush as a painter would use
to colour the picture of health with, and the complexion was varnished
over by a blooming like that of flourishing fruit, which had not yet
felt the first nippings of an unkind and an uncivil air; with this
beauty was joined such a smiling draught of all the features as is the
result of pleasantry and good humour. His eyes were large, full of
lustre, majestic, well set, and the soul shone so in them, as told the
spectators plainly how great was the inward vivacity of his genius; the
hair of his head was thick, and reclined far below his shoulders; it was
of a fine silver colour, and hung down in ringlets like the curling
tendrils of a copious vine. He was by the women entertained, according
to the claim which so many perfections joining in a youth just ripening
into manhood might lay to the benevolent dispositions of the tender sex.
One was holding the basin of water, another washing a hand, a third with
a towel drying his face, which another fair had greedily snatched the
pleasure of washing before, while a fourth was disposing into order his
silver hairs with an ivory comb, in a hand as white, and which a monarch
might have been proud to have had so employed in adjusting the crown
upon his head; a fifth was setting into order his cravat; a sixth stole
a kiss, and blushed at the innocent pleasure, and mistook her own
thoughts as if she kissed the angel and not the man; and they all rather
seemed to adore than to love him, as if they had taken him not for a
person that enjoyed the frequent gift of the second-sight, but as if he
had been some little prophet peculiarly inspired; and while they all
thus admired and wondered, they all consulted him as an oracle. The
surprise of seeing a young man so happy amidst the general concurring
favours of the fair, made me be for awhile lost in a kind of delightful
amazement, and the consideration of what bliss he was possessed made me
scarce believe my own eyes, when they told me it was Duncan Campbell,
who I had left an unhappy orphan at Edinburgh. But so it was, though he
was much altered in stature, being now shot up pretty fast in his growth
since I had seen him, and having gained a kind of a fixed comportment,
such as we may daily observe in those who are taking leave of their
minority, and stepping into a stage of maturer life.
The first remarkable thing I knew him do in London, being in this
splendid company, where there were so many undoubted witnesses of
quality too, that had ocular proof of his predictions at that public
tavern: I choose to record it here in the first place according to its
due order. It was in the year 1698.
Among this angelical class of beauties were Dr. W--lw--d's lady and
daughter. Upon earth there was not sure a more beautiful creature than
the daughter was; she was the leading light of all the sparkling tribe;
and Otway's character suits her exactly; for she was among ten thousand
eminently fair. One would imagine prosperous and lucky fortune was
written upon her face, and that nothing unhappy could be read in so fair
a book; and it was therefore the unanimous consent of all, that by way
of good omen to the rest, his predictions should begin to be opened
luckily that day, and that therefore he should first of all be consulted
about her.
Accordingly, the mother, to be satisfied of his talent before she
proceeded to any other questions, asked him in writing if he knew the
young lady, her name, and who she was. After a little ruminating and
pondering upon the matter, and taking an exact view of the beauty, he
wrote down her name, told Mrs. W--lw--d she was her daughter, and that
her father was a doctor. Convinced by his so readily telling the name
and quality of persons he had never seen in his lifetime, that fame had
not given a false character of his capacity, she proceeded in her
questions as to her future fortune. He gazed afresh at her very eagerly
for some time, and his countenance during that time of viewing her
seemed to be ruffled with abundance of disturbance and perplexity. We
all imagined that the youth was a little touched at the heart himself
with what he saw, and that instead of telling hers, he had met in her
bright eyes with his own destiny, the destiny of being for ever made a
slave and a captive to so many powerful and almost irresistible charms.
At length, after having a long debate within himself, which we thought
proceeded from the strugglings of love and passion, he fetching a great
sigh, which still convinced us more, took the pen and wrote to Mrs.
W--lw--d, that he begged to be excused, and that his pen might remain as
dumb and silent as his tongue on that affair. By this answer we
concluded, one and all, that our former conjectures were true, and we
joined in pressing him the more earnestly to deliver his real and
sincere opinion concerning the accidents upon which the future fortunes
of her life were to turn and depend. He showed many mighty reluctances
in the doing it; and I have often since considered him in the same
anguish as the late great Dr. Ratcliff, who was endeavouring by study to
save a certain fair one, whom he loved with a vehemence of temper, and
who was, as his reason told him, got far away beyond the reach of the
art of physic to recover. At last he wrote in plain terms that his
backwardness and unwillingness to tell it, arose from his wishes that
her fortune would be better than his certain foreknowledge of it told
him it would be, and begged that we would rest satisfied with that
general answer, since it was in so particular a case, where he himself
was a well-wisher in vain, to the lady about whom he was consulted. The
young lady herself thinking that if she knew any disasters that were to
befall her she might, by knowing the nature of them beforehand, and the
time when they were likely to happen, be able, by timely prudence and
forecast, to avert those evils, with many beseechings urged him to
reveal the fatal secret. After many struggles to avoid it, and as many
instances made to him both by mother and daughter for the discovery of
his prescience in that point, he complied with very great difficulty;
and blotting the paper with tears that trickled fast from his eyes, he
gave her the lamentable scroll, containing the words that follow; viz.,
I wish it had not fallen to my lot to tell this lady, whom everybody
that but once looks at her must admire, though they must not have leave
to love, that she is not much longer to be possessor of that lovely
face, which gains her such a number of adorers. The smallpox will too
soon turn a ravisher, and rifle all those sweets and charms that might
be able to vanquish a king and to subdue a conqueror of mighty battles.
Her reign is doomed, alas! to be as short as it is now great and
universal; I believe she has internal beauties of the mind, not the
least inferior to those external excellences of the body; and she might,
perhaps, by the power of her mind alone, be absolute queen of the
affections of men, if the smallpox threatened not too surely to be her
farther enemy, and, not contented to destroy the face, was not
perversely bent to destroy the whole woman. But I want words to express
my sorrow. I would not tell it if you did not extort the baneful secret
from my bosom. This fair creature, whose beauty would make one wish her
immortal, will, by the cruel means of the smallpox, give us too sudden a
proof of her mortality. But neither the mother nor herself ought too
much to repine at this, seeing it appears to be the decree of
Providence, which is always to be interpreted as meant for our good, and
seeing it may be the means of translating her the sooner only to her
kindred angels, whose beauty she so much resembles here on earth, and to
be among the lowest class of whom, is better than being the greatest
beauty of the world here below, and wearing an imperial crown. While I
comfort you, I cannot help the force of nature, which makes me grieve
myself; and I only give you, because you compel me to it, so particular
and so exact an answer to so particular and so exacting a question.
The mother, who took the paper, was prudent enough to conceal from the
daughter what he said; but nature would force its way, and bubbled from
her eyes; and the daughter perceiving that, pressed hard to see it, and
wept at the consideration that hard fate, though she knew not
particularly what way, was to befall her. Never surely was anything so
beautiful in tears, and I obtained of the mother to see the writing. At
last, in general terms, to free her from a suspense of mind, it was told
her that some trouble should happen to her that should diminish her
beauty. She had courage enough to hear that misfortune with disdain, and
crying, If that be all, I am armed, I don't place much pride in that
which I know age must shortly after destroy, if trouble did not do it
before; and she dried up her tears; and, if what Mr. Bruyere says, be
true, viz., that the last thing a celebrated woman thinks of when she
dies, is the loss of her beauty, she showed an admirable pattern of
female philosophy, in bearing such a cruel prediction with such
unspeakable magnanimity, as exceeded even the patience of stern
stoicism, considering she was a woman, to whom beauty is more dear than
life.
If any evil, that is impending over people's heads, could be evaded by
foreknowledge, or eluded by art, she had the fairest opportunity of
having this prediction annulled, which would have been more to the
satisfaction of the predictor than knowing it verified, than ever any
woman had. Her mother was specifically told that the fatal distemper
should be the smallpox; her father was, and is still, a very eminent
physician; and distempers of that kind, especially, are much more easily
prevented by care, than cured by art, and by art more easily set aside,
when there is a timely warning given to a physician to prepare the body
against the danger of the poison, than when the distemper has once
catched hold of a body at unawares, when it is unpurged of any gross
humours that may accompany it. But neither the foreknowledge and caution
of the mother, nor the skill and wisdom of the great physician her
father, were sufficient to ward off the approaching harm, that was
written in the books of fate. Not many suns had finished their yearly
courses, before she was forced to submit to the inevitable stroke of
death, after the infectious and malicious malady had first ravished her
beauty, rioted in all her sweets, and made an odious deformed spectacle
of the charmer of mankind. The death of the daughter worked hard upon
the mother's bowels, and dragged her speedily after her, with a broken
heart to the grave.
This lady, whose fortune so great and so distinguished an assembly had
chosen to hear as a happy forerunner and lucky omen of all their own,
which were to be asked afterwards in their turns, proving so contrary to
their expectations, already unfortunate in the prediction, and having
been in tears about the matter, disheartened all the rest of the
beauties from consulting him farther that day. The person who kept the
tavern, by name, Mrs. Irwin, alleged that as some people were very
fortunate, and others unfortunate upon the same day, so one lady might
be before told a mishap one minute, and another lady all the prosperity
in nature the very next minute following, and therefore that what the
unfortunate lady had heard was not to be taken as ominous, or as what
could malignantly influence the day, neither ought it to be the least
hinderance to any who had the curiosity of being let into the secrets of
time beforehand. However, whether the ladies were convinced or no; if
she prevailed over their belief in that point, she could not prevail
over their humour, which, though they might not believe the former
prediction ominous to themselves, were naturally awed for fear of the
like, peradventure, for a time, and so it was agreed, _nemine
contradicente_, as a witty lady wrote it down, That no more petitions
should for that day be presented by any of that company to his dumb, yet
oracular, majesty. Mrs. Irwin, however, would have her way; said she did
not presume to such honour as to call herself of that company, and that
therefore she might consult him without breaking through the votes of
the assembly. Many endeavoured to dissuade her, but as she was
passionately fond of knowing future events; and had a mighty itch to be
very inquisitive with the oracle about what might happen, not only to
herself, but her posterity; it was agreed that he should have the
liberty of satisfying her curiosity, since she presumed her fortune was
sure to be so good, and was so forward and eager for the knowledge of
it. But, alas! such is too often the fantastical impulse of nature
unluckily depraved, that it carries us often into wishes of knowing,
what when known we would be glad to unknow again, and then our memory
will not let us be untaught.
Mrs. Irwin was at that time in a pretty commodious way of business,
everything in plenty round about her, and lived more like a person of
distinction, that kept such a cellar of wine, open house, and a free
table, than like one who kept a tavern. She brought in her pretty
children, that were then almost babies, the youngest having not long
been out of the nurse's arms, or trusted to the use of its own legs.
These children she loved as a mother should love children; they were the
delight of her eyes all day, and the dream of her imagination all night.
All the passions of her soul were confined to them; she was never
pleased but when they were so, and always angry if they were crossed;
her whole pride was centered in them, and they were clothed and went
attended more like the infants of a princess, than of a vintner's
relict. The fortune of these was what she had near at heart, and of
which she was so eager of being immediately apprised. Her impatience was
proportionable to the love she had for them, and which made her wish to
foreknow all the happiness that was like to attend them. She sat
cheerfully down, presented one to him, and smiling, wrote the question
in general terms, viz., is this boy to be happy or unhappy. A melancholy
look once more spread itself all over the face of the predictor, when he
read the too inquisitive words, and he seemed mightily to regret being
asked a question, to which he was by his talent of foreseeing compelled
to give so unwelcome an answer. The colour of the poor woman flushed and
vanished alternately, and very quick, and she looked not quite like the
picture of despair, but a disconsolate woman, with little hopes on one
hand, and great doubts and dismal fears on the other. She professed she
read great evil in the troubles of his face, thanked him for his good
nature, told him that they all knew that though he could foretell he
could not alter the acts and decretals of fate, and therefore desired
him to tell her the worst; for that the misfortunes, were they never so
great, would be less dreadful to her than remaining in the state of fear
and suspension. He at last wrote down to her that great and unexpected
and even unavoidable accidents would involve the whole family in new
calamities, that the son she asked him about would have the bitterest
task of hardship to go through withal, while he lived, and that to
finish all more unhappily, he would be basely and maliciously brought to
an untimely end, by some mortal enemy or other, but that she should not
trouble herself so much on that head, she would never see it, for it
would happen some years after she was departed from the world. This
melancholy account closed up the book of predictions for that day, and
put a sad stop to all the projected mirth and curiosity. Now I must tell
the reader how and when the event answered the prediction. And in a few
words, it was thus; poor Mrs. Irwin, by strange accidents, decayed in
the world, and dying poor, her sons were forced to be put out
apprentices to small trades, and the son, whom the above-mentioned
prediction concerned, was, for stealing one cheese from a man in the
Haymarket, severely prosecuted at the Old Bailey, and on Wednesday, the
23rd of December, 1713, hanged at Tyburn, with several other criminals.
The two foregoing passages are of so tragical a nature, that it is time
I should relieve the minds of my readers with some histories of ladies
who consulted him with more success and advantage, to whom his
predictions were very entertaining, when they so came to pass in their
favour, the relation whereof will consequently be agreeable to all
readers who have within them a mixture of happy curiosity and good
nature.
Two ladies, who were the most remarkable beauties in London, and most
courted, turned at the same time their thoughts to matrimony; and being
satiated, I may say wearied, with the pleasure of having continually
after them a great number and variety of adorers, resolved each, about
the same time, to make a choice of their several men, to whom they
thought they could give most happiness, and from whom they might receive
most. Their names, for they are both persons of distinction, shall be
Christallina and Urbana. Christallina was a virgin, and Urbana a young
widow. Christallina engrossed the eyes, the hearts, and the sighs of the
whole court; and wherever she appeared, put any court lady out of her
place, that had one before in the heart of any youth; and was the most
celebrated toast among the _beau monde_. Urbana's beauty made as
terrible havock in the city; all the citizens' daughters that had many
admirers, and were in fair hopes of having husbands when they pleased
themselves, as soon as Urbana had lost her old husband, found that they
every day lost their lovers; and it was a general fear among the
prettiest maids, that they should remain maids still, as long as Urbana
remained a widow. She was the monopolizer of city affection, and made
many girls, that had large stocks of suitors, bankrupts in the trade of
courtship, and broke some of their hearts, when her charms broke off
their amours. Well, but the day was near at hand when both the belles of
the court and the city damsels were to be freed from the ravages which
these two tyrants, triumphant in beauty and insolent in charms, made
among the harvest of love. Each had seen her proper man, to whom the
enjoyment of their person was to be dedicated for life. But it being an
affair of so lasting importance, each had a mind to be let into the
knowledge of the consequences of such a choice, as far as possible,
before they stepped into the irrevocable state of matrimony. Both of
them happened to take it into their heads, that the best way to be
entirely satisfied in their curiosity, was to have recourse to the great
predictor of future occurrences, Mr. Duncan Campbell, whose fame was at
that time spread pretty largely about the town. Christallina and Urbana
were not acquainted with each other, only by the report which fame had
made of beauty. They came to Mr. Campbell's on the same day, and both
with the same resolution of keeping themselves concealed and under
masks, that none of the company of consulters, who happened to be there,
might know who they were. It happened that on that very day, just when
they came, Mr. Campbell's rooms were more than ordinarily crowded with
curious clients of the fair sex, so that he was obliged to desire these
two ladies, who expressed so much precaution against, and fear of having
their persons discovered, to be contented with only one room between
them, and with much ado they complied with the request, and condescended
to sit together _incog._ Distant compliments of gesture passed between
them, the dress and comportment of each making them appear to be persons
of figure and breeding, and after three or four modish courtesies, down
they sat, without so much as once opening their lips, or intending so to
do. The silence between them was very formal and profound for near half
an hour, and nothing was to be heard but the snapping of fans, which
they both did very tunably, and with great harmony, and played as it
were in concert.
At last, one of the civil, well-bred mutes, happening to sneeze, the
other very gracefully bowed, and before she was well aware, out popped
the words, Bless you, madam. The fair sneezer returned the bow, with
an--I thank you, madam. They found they did not know one another's
voices, and they began to talk very merrily together, with pretty great
confidence, and they taking a mutual liking from conversation, so much
familiarity grew thereupon instantly between them, that they began not
only to unmask, but to unbosom themselves to one another, and confess
alternately all their secrets. Christallina owned who she was, and told
Urbana the beau and courtier that had her heart. Urbana as frankly
declared that she was a widow, that she would not become the lady's
rival, that she had pitched upon a second husband, an alderman of the
city. Just by that time they had had their chat out, and wished one
another the pleasure of a successful prediction, it came to
Christallina's turn to visit the dumb gentleman, and receive from his
pen oracular answers to all the questions she had to propose. Well, he
accordingly satisfied her in every point she asked him about; but while
she was about this, one of Mr. Campbell's family going with Urbana to
divert her a little, the widow rallied at the virgin as a fool, to
imagine that she should ever make a conquest of the brightest spark
about the court, and then let fly some random bolts of malice to wound
her reputation for chastity. Now it became the widow's turn to go and
consult; and the same person of Mr. Campbell's family in the mean time
entertained Christallina. The maid was not behindhand with the widow;
she rallied against the widow, represented her as sometimes a coquette,
sometimes a lady of pleasure, sometimes a jilt, and lifted up her hands
in wonder and amazement that Urbana should imagine so rich a man as an
alderman such a one, should fall to her lot. Thus Urbana swore and
protested that Christallina could never arrive at the honour of being
the wife to the courtly Secretarius, let Mr. Campbell flatter her as he
would; and Christallina vowed that Campbell must be a downright wizard
if he foretold that such a one as Urbana would get Alderman Stiffrump as
a husband, provided a thing so improbable should come to pass.
However, it seems, Duncan had told them their own names and the names of
their suitors, and told them farther, how soon they were both to be
married, and that too directly to their heart's content, as they said
rejoicingly to themselves, and made their mutual gratulations.
They went away each satisfied that she should have her own lover, but
Christallina laughed at Mr. Campbell for assigning the alderman to
Urbana; and Urbana laughed at him for promising the courtier to the arms
of Christallina.
This a pretty good figure of the tempers of two reigning toasts with
regard to one another.
First, their curiosity made them, from resolving to be concealed,
discover one another wilfully; from utter strangers grow as familiar as
old friends in a moment, swear one another to secrecy, and exchange the
sentiments of their hearts together; and, from being friends, become
envious of each other's enjoying a similitude of happiness; the
compliments made on either side face to face, were, upon the turning of
the back, turned into reflections, detraction, and ridicule; each was a
self-lover and admirer of her own beauty and merit, and a despiser of
the other's.
However, Duncan Campbell, proved at last to be in the right; Urbana was
wrong in her opinion of Christallina's want of power over Secretarius,
and Christallina was as much out in her opinion that Urbana would miss
in her aim of obtaining Stiffrump; for they both proved in the right of
what they thought with regard to their own dear single persons, and
were made happy according to their expectations, just at the time
foretold by Mr. Campbell.
Christallina's ill wishes did not hinder Urbana from being mistress of
Alderman Stiffrump's person and stock, nor did Urbana's hinder
Christallina from showing herself a shining bride at the Ring, in
Secretarius's gilded chariot, drawn by six prancers of the proud Belgian
kind, with her half dozen of liveries with favours in their hats,
waiting her return at the gate of Hyde Park.
Both loved and both envied, but both allowed of Mr. Campbell's
foreknowledge.
Having told you two very sorrowful passages, and one tolerably
successful and entertaining; I shall now relate to you another of my own
knowledge, that is mixed up with the grievous and the pleasant, and
chequered, as it were, with the shade and the sunshine of fortune.
Though there are vicissitudes in every stage of life under the sun, and
not one ever ran continually on with the same series of prosperity; yet
those conditions which are the most liable to the signal alterations of
fortune, are the conditions of merchants; for professed gamesters I
reckon in a manner as men of no condition of life at all; but what comes
under the statute of vagabonds.
It was, indeed, as the reader would guess, a worthy and a wealthy
merchant, who was to run through these different circumstances of being.
He came and visited our Mr. Campbell in the year 1707, he found him
amidst a crowd of consulters; and being very eager and solicitous to
know his own fortune just at that critical juncture of time, he begged
of him, if possible, to adjourn his other clients to the day following,
and sacrifice that one wholly to his use; which as it was probably more
important than all the others together, so he wrote down that he would
render the time spent about it more advantageous to Mr. Campbell; and,
by way of previous encouragement, threw him down ten guineas as a
retaining fee.
Mr. Campbell, who held money in very little esteem, and valued it so
much too little, that he has often had my reprehensions on that head,
paused a little, and after looking earnestly in the gentleman's face,
and reading there, as I suppose, in that little space of time in
general, according to the power of the second-sight, that what concerned
him was highly momentous, wrote him this answer; That he would comply
with his requests, adjourn his other clients to the day following, and
set apart all the remnant of that, till night, for inspecting the future
occurrences of which he had a mind to be made a master.
There is certainly a very keen appetite in curiosity; it cannot stay for
satisfaction, it is pressing for its necessary repast, and is without
all patience: hunger and thirst are not appetites more vehement and more
hard and difficult to be repressed than that of curiosity; nothing but
the present now is able to allay it. A more expressive picture of this I
never beheld than in the faces of some, and the murmurs and complaints
of others, in that little inquisitive company, when the unwelcome note
was given about signifying an adjournment for only twenty-four hours.
The colour of a young woman there came and went a hundred times, if
possible, in the space of two minutes; she blushed like a red rose this
moment, and in the switch of an eyelash she was all over as pale as a
white one: the suitor, whose name her heart had gone pit-a-pat for the
space of an hour to be informed of from the pen of a seer, was now
deferred a whole day longer; she was once or twice within an ace of
swooning away, but he comforted her in particular, by telling her,
though he said it only by way of jest, that the day following would be a
more lucky day to consult about husbands than the present that she came
on. The answer was a kind of cordial to her hopes, and brought her a
little better to herself.
Two others, I remember, sisters and old maids, that it seems were
misers, women ordinarily dressed and in blue aprons, and yet, by
relation, worth no less than two thousand pounds each, were in a peck of
troubles about his going and leaving them unsatisfied. They came upon an
inquiry after goods that were stolen, and they complained that by next
morning at that time, the thief might be got far enough off, and creep
into so remote a corner, that he would put it beyond the power of the
devil and the art of conjuration to find him out and bring him back
again. The disturbance and anxiety that was to be seen in their
countenances was like that which is to be beheld in the face of a great
losing gamester, when his all, his last great stake, lies upon the
table, and is just sweeping off by another winning hand into his own
hat.
The next was a widow who bounced, because, as she pretended, he would
not tell her what was best to do with her sons, and what profession it
would be most happy for them to be put to; but in reality all the cause
of the widow's fuming and fretting, was not that she wanted to provide
for her sons, but for herself; she wanted a second husband, and was not
half so solicitous about being put in a way of educating those children
she had already, as of knowing when she should be in a likelihood of
getting more. This was certainly in her thoughts, or else she would
never have flounced about in her weed, from one end of the room to the
other, and all the while of her passion, smile by fits upon the
merchant, and leer upon a young pretty Irish fellow that was there. The
young Irishman made use of a little eye-language; she grew appeased,
went away in quite a good humour, scuttled too airily down stairs for a
woman in her clothes, and the reason was certainly that she knew the
matter before, which we took notice of presently after: the Irishman
went precipitately after her down stairs without taking his leave.
But neither were the two misers for their gold, the virgin for a first
husband, nor the widow for a second, half so eager as another married
woman there was for the death of her spouse. She had put the question in
so expecting a manner for a lucky answer, and with so much keen desire
appearing plainly in her looks, that no big-bellied woman was ever more
eager for devouring fruit; no young, hasty bridegroom, just married to a
beauty, more impatient for night and enjoyment, than she was to know
what she thought a more happy moment, the moment of her husband's last
agonising gasp. As her expectation was the greatest, so was her
disappointment, too, and consequently her disorder upon his going and
leaving her unresolved. She was frantic, raging, and implacable; she was
in such a fury at the delay of putting off her answer to the day
following, that in her fury she acted as if she would have given herself
an answer which of the two should die first, by choking herself upon the
spot, with the indignation that swelled in her stomach and rose into her
throat on that occasion. It may look like a romance to say it, but
indeed they were forced to cut her lace, and then she threw out of the
room with great passion; but yet had so much of the enraged wife left,
beyond the enraged woman, as to return instantly up stairs, and signify
very calmly, she would be certain to be there next day, and beseeched
earnestly that she might not meet with a second disappointment.
All this hurry and bustle created a stay a little too tedious for the
merchant, who began to be impatient himself, especially when word was
brought up that a fresh company was come in; but Mr. Campbell was denied
to them; and to put a stop to any more interruptions, the merchant and
the dumb gentleman agreed to slip into a coach, drive to a tavern in the
city, and settle matters of futurity over a bottle of French claret.
The first thing done at the tavern, was Mr. Campbell's saluting him upon
a piece of paper by his name, and drinking his health. The next paper
held a discourse of condolence for a disaster that was past long since;
namely, a great and considerable loss that happened to his family, in
the dreadful conflagration of the city of London. In the third little
dialogue which they had together, he told the merchant that losses and
advantages were general topics, which a person unskilled in that art
might venture to assign to any man of his profession; it being next to
impossible that persons who traffic should not sometimes gain, and
sometimes lose. But, said Mr. Duncan Campbell, I will sketch out
particularly, and specify to you some future misfortunes with which you
will unavoidably meet; it is in your stars, it is in destiny, that you
should have some trials, and therefore when you are forewarned, take a
prudent care to be forearmed with patience, and by longanimity, and
meekly and resignedly enduring your lot, render it more easy, since
impatience can't avert it, and will only render it more burdensome and
heavy. He gave these words to the merchant; who pressed for his opinion
that moment. By your leave, resuming the pen, said the dumb gentleman,
in writing, we will have this bottle out first and tap a fresh one, that
you may be warmed with courage enough to receive the first speculative
onset of ill fortune, that I shall predict to you, with a good grace,
and that may perhaps enable you to meet it when it comes to reduce
itself into action, with a manful purpose and all becoming resolution.
The merchant agreed to the proposal, and put on an air of the careless
and indifferent as well as he could, to signify that he had no need to
raise up an artificial courage from the auxiliary forces of the grape.
But nature, when hard pressed, will break through all disguises, and not
only notwithstanding the air of pleasantry he gave himself, which
appeared forced and constrained, but in spite of two or three sparkling
and enlivening bumpers, a cloud of care would ever and anon gather and
shoot heavily across his brow, though he laboured all he could to dispel
it as quickly, and to keep fair weather in his countenance. Well, they
had cracked the first bottle, and the second succeeded upon the table,
and they called to blow a pipe together. This pipe Mr. Campbell found
had a very ill effect; it is certainly a pensive kind of instrument, and
fills a mind, anything so disposed, with disturbing thoughts, black
fumes, and melancholy vapours, as certainly as it doth the mouth with
smoke. It plainly took away even the little sparks of vivacity which the
wine had given before; so he wrote for a truce of firing those sort of
noxious guns any longer, and they laid down their arms by consent, and
drank off the second bottle. A third immediately supplied its place, and
at the first glass, the opening of the bottle, Mr. Campbell began to
open to him his future case, in the following words: Sir, you have now
some ventures at sea from such and such a place, to such a value. Don't
be discomforted at the news which you certainly will have within three
months, but it will be false at last, that they are by three different
tempests made the prey of the great ocean, and enrich the bottom of the
sea, the palace of Neptune. A worse storm than all these attends you at
home, a wife who is, and will be more, the tempest of the house wherein
she lives. The high and lofty winds of her vanity will blow down the
pillars of your house and family; the high tide of her extravagance will
roll on like a resistless torrent, and leave you at low water, and the
ebb of all your fortunes. This is the highest and the most cutting
disaster that is to befall you; your real shipwreck is not foreign but
domestic; your bosom friend is to be your greatest foe, and even your
powerful undoer for a time; mark what I say, and take courage, it shall
be but for a time, provided you take courage; it will upon that
condition be only a short and wholesome taste of adversity given to you,
that you may relish returning prosperity with virtue, and with a
greater return of thanks to Him that dispenses it at pleasure to
mankind. Remember, courage and resignation is what I advise you to; use
it, as becomes you, in your adversity, and believe that as I foretold
that adversity, so I can foretell a prosperity will again be the
consequence of those virtues; and the more you feel the one ought not to
cast you down, but raise your hopes the more, that he who foretold you
that so exactly, could likewise foretell you the other. The merchant was
by this put into a great suspense of mind, but somewhat easier by the
second prediction being annexed so kindly to the first fatal one. They
crowned the night with a flask of Burgundy, and then parting, each went
to their respective homes.
The reader may perchance wonder how I, who make no mention of my being
there, as in truth I was not at the tavern, should be able to relate
this as of my own knowledge; but if he pleases to have patience to the
end of the story, he will have entire satisfaction in that point.
About half a year after, the merchant came again, told him that his
prediction was too far verified, to his very dear cost, and that he was
now utterly undone, and beyond any visible means of a future recovery,
and doubting lest the other fortunate part of the prediction was only
told him by way of encouragement, for groundless doubts and fears always
attend a mind implunged in melancholy, besought him very earnestly to
tell him candidly and sincerely if there was no real prospect of good,
and rid him at once of the uneasiness of such a suspension of thought;
But pray too, said he, with all the vehemence of repeated expostulation,
satisfy me if there are any farther hopes on this side the grave?
To this Duncan Campbell made a short, but a very significant reply in
writing. May the heavens preserve you from a threatening danger of life.
Take care only of yourself, great and mighty care; and if you outlive
Friday next, you will yet be great and more fortunate than ever you was
in all the height of your former most flourishing space of life. He
coloured inordinately when Duncan Campbell said Friday, and conjured him
to tell him as particularly as he could what he meant by Friday. He told
him he could not particularise any farther, but that great danger
threatened him that day; and that without extraordinary precaution it
would prove fatal to him, even to death. He shook his head, and went
away in a very sorrowful plight. Friday past, Saturday came, and on that
very Saturday morning came likewise the joyful tidings, that what
ventures of his were given over for lost at sea, were all come safe into
the harbour. He came the moment he received those dispatches from his
agent, to Mr. Duncan Campbell's apartment, embraced him tenderly, and
saluted him with much gladness of heart, before a great roomful of
ladies, where I happened to be present at that time; crying out in a
loud voice, before he knew what he said, that Mr. Campbell had saved his
life, that Friday was his birthday, and he had intended with a pistol to
shoot himself that very day. The ladies thought him mad; and he,
recovered from his ecstacy, said no more, but sat down, till Mr.
Campbell dismissed all his clients; and then we three went to the tavern
together, where he told me the whole little history or narrative, just
as is above related.
The fame which Mr. Duncan Campbell got by the foregoing, and several
other predictions of the like kind, was become very large and extensive,
and had spread itself into the remotest corners of this metropolis. The
squares rung with it, it was whispered from one house to another through
the more magnificent streets, where persons of quality and distinction
reside; it catched every house in the city, like the news of stock from
Exchange-alley; it run noisily through the lanes and little
thoroughfares where the poor inhabit; it was the chat of the tea-table,
and the babble of the streets; and the whole town, from the top to the
bottom, was full of it. Whenever any reputation rises to a degree like
this, let it be for what art or accomplishment, or on what account
soever it will, malice, envy, and detraction, are sure to be the
immediate pursuers of it with full mouth, and to hunt it down if
possible, with full cry. Even the great Nostradamus, though favoured by
kings and queens, which always without any other reason creates enemies,
was not more pursued by envy and detraction for his predictions in
Paris, and throughout France, than our Duncan Campbell was in London,
and even throughout England. Various, different, and many were the
objections raised to blot his character and extenuate his fame, that
when one was confuted another might not be wanting to supply its place,
and so to maintain a course and series of backbiting, according to the
known maxim, Throw dirt, and if it does not stick, throw dirt
continually, and some will stick.
Neither is there any wonder; for a man, that has got applauders of all
sorts and conditions, must expect condemners and detractors of all sorts
and conditions likewise. If a lady of high degree, for example, should
say smiling, though really thinking absolutely what she says, for fear
of being thought over-credulous: Well, I vow, some things Mr. Campbell
does are surprising after all; they would be apt to incline one to a
belief that he is a wonder of a man; for one would imagine the things he
does impossible: why, then, a prude, with an assumed, supercilious air
and a scornful _tihee_, would, in order to seem more wise than she was,
reply; Laud, madam, it is more a wonder to me that you can be imposed
upon so. I vow to Gad, madam, I would as soon consult an almanack maker,
and pin my faith upon what he pricks down; or believe, like my creed, in
the cross which I make upon the hand of a gipsy. Lard, madam, I assure
your la'ship he knows no more than I do of you. I assure you so, and
therefore believe me. He has it all by hearsay. If the lady that
believed it, should reply, that if he had notice of every stranger by
hearsay he must be a greater man than she suspected, and must keep more
spies in pay than a prime minister; the prude's answer would be with a
loud laugh, and giggling out these words; Lard, madam, I assure you
nothing can be more easy; and so take it for granted. Because she was
inclined to say so, and had the act of wisdom on her side, forsooth,
that she appeared hard of belief, which some call hard to be put upon,
and the other lady credulous, which some though believing upon good
grounds are called, and so thought, foolish; the prude's answer would be
thought sufficient and convincing.
Thus malice and folly, by dint of noise and impudence, and strong though
empty assertions, often run down modesty and good sense. Among the
common people it is the same, but only done in a different manner. For
example, an ordinary person that had consulted, might say, as he walked
along, there goes the dumb gentleman who writes down any name of a
stranger at first sight. Steps up a blunt fellow, that takes
stubbornness for sense, and says, That is a confounded lie; he is a
cheat and an impostor, and you are one of his accomplices; he will tell
me my name, I suppose, if you tell it him first: he is no more dumb
than I am; he can speak and hear as well as us; I have been with those
that say they have heard him; I wish I and two or three more had him in
our stable, and I warrant you with our cartwhips we would lick some
words out of his chaps, as dumb as you call him. I tell you it is all a
lie, and all a bite. If the other desires to be convinced for himself by
his own experience, the rougher rogue, who perhaps has stronger sinews
than the other, answers, If you lie any farther I will knock you down;
and so he is the vulgar wit, and the mouth of the rabble-rout, and thus
the detraction spreads below with very good success, as it does above in
another kind.
As there are two comical adventures in his life, which directly suit and
correspond with the foregoing reflections, this seems the most proper
place to insert them in. The first consists of a kind of mob-way of
usage he met with from a fellow who got to be an officer in the army,
but by the following behaviour will be found unworthy of the name and
the commission.
In the year 1701, a lady of good quality came and addressed herself to
him much after the following manner. She told him she had choice of
lovers, but preferred one above the rest; but desired to know his name,
and if she made him her choice what would be the subsequent fate of such
a matrimony. Mr. Duncan Campbell very readily gave her down in writing
this plain and honest reply; That of all her suitors she was most
inclined to a captain, a distinguished officer, and a great beau, naming
his name, and one that had a great many outward, engaging charms,
sufficient to blind the eyes of any lady that was not thoroughly
acquainted with his manner of living. He therefore assured her, and
thought himself bound, being conjured so to do, having received his fee,
though there was danger in such plain and open predictions, that he was
a villain and a rogue in his heart, a profligate gamester, and that if
she took him to her bed, she would only embrace her own ruin. The lady's
woman, who was present, being in fee with the captain, resolving to give
intelligence, for fear the officer, her so good friend, should be
disappointed in the siege, slily shuffled the papers into her pocket,
and made a present of them to the military spark. Fired with indignation
at the contents, he vowed revenge; and in order to compass it, conspires
with his female spy about the means. In fine, for fear of losing the
lady, though he quarrelled with Duncan Campbell, a method was to be
found out how to secure her by the very act of revenge. At last it was
resolved to discover to her, that he had found out what she had been
told by Mr. Campbell, but the way how he had been informed was to remain
a secret. He did do so, and ended his discovery with these words:--I
desire, madam, that if I prove him an impostor, you would not believe a
word he says. The lady agreed to so fair a proposal. Then the captain
swore that he himself would never eat a piece of bread more till he had
made Mr. Campbell eat his words; nay, he insisted upon it that he would
bring him to his tongue, and make him own by word of mouth, that what he
had written before was false and calumnious. To which the lady answered
again, that if he performed what he said, she would be convinced. This
brave, military man, however, not relying upon his own single valour and
prowess, to bring about so miraculous a thing as the making a person
that was dumb to speak, he took with him for this end three lusty
assistants to combine with him in the assassination. The ambuscade was
settled to be at the Five Bells tavern, in Wych-street, in the Strand.
After the ambush was settled with so much false courage, the business of
decoying Mr. Campbell into it was not practicable any other way than by
sending out false colours. The lady's woman, who was by her own interest
tied fast to the interests of the beau, was to play the trick of
Delilah, and betray this deaf and dumb Samson, as he will appear to be a
kind of one in the sequel of the story, into the hands of these
Philistines. She smooths her face over with a complimenting lie from her
mistress to Mr. Campbell, and acted her part of deceit so well, that he
promised to follow her to the Five Bells with all haste; and so she
scuttled back to prepare the captain, and to tell him how lucky she was
in mischief; and how she drew him out by smiles into perdition. The
short of the story is, when they got him in among them, they endeavoured
to assassinate him; but they missed of their aim; yet it is certain they
left him in a very terrible and bloody condition; and the captain went
away in as bad a plight as the person was left in, whom he assaulted so
cowardly with numbers, and to such disadvantage. I was sent for to him
upon this disaster, and the story was delivered to me thus, by one of
the drawers of the tavern, when I inquired into it. They began to banter
him, and speaking to him as if he heard, asked him if he knew his own
fortune; they told him it was to be beaten to death. This was an odd way
of addressing a deaf and dumb man. They added, they would make him speak
before they had done. The boy seeing he made no reply, but only smiled,
thought what passed between them was a jest with an old acquaintance,
and withdrew about his business. The door being fastened, however,
before they began the honourable attack, they vouchsafed to write down
their intent in the words above mentioned, which they had uttered before
to make sure that he should understand their meaning, and what this odd
way of correction was for. All the while the maid who had brought him
into it was peeping through a hole and watching the event, as appears
afterwards. Mr. Campbell wrote them the following answer, viz., That he
hoped for fair play, that he understood beargarden as well as they; but
if a gentleman was amongst them he would expect gentlemanly usage. The
rejoinder they made to this, consisted, it seems, not of words but of
action. The officer in conjunction with another ruffian, one of the
strongest of the three he had brought, commenced the assault. As good
luck would have it, he warded off their first blows, it seems, with
tolerable success, and a wine quart pot standing upon the table, Duncan
took to his arms, and at two or three quick blows, well managed, and
close laid in upon the assailants, felled them both to the ground. Here
it was that the maid discovered her knowledge of it, and privity to the
plot to the whole house; for she no sooner sees the famous leader, the
valiant captain, lie sprawling on the floor with bleeding temples, but
she shrieked out with all the voice she could exert, Murder, murder,
murder! Alarmed at this outcry, the master and all the attendants of the
tavern scampered up stairs, burst into the room, and found Duncan
Campbell struggling with the other two, and the quart pot still fast
clenched in his hand, which they were endeavouring to wrench from him.
The drawers rescued him out of their hands, and inquired into the
matter. The maid in a fright confessed the whole thing. The officer and
his associate rubbed their eyes as recovering from a stunning sleep,
reeled as they went to rise, paid the reckoning and slunk pitifully
away; or, as the rakes' term for it is, they brushed off, and for all
their odds had the worst of the lay. I, who had some authority with Mr.
Campbell, by reason of my years, and the strict acquaintance I had with
his mother, when I came and found him in that pickle, and had the whole
relation told to me by the people of the house, though I could not
forbear pitying him within my own mind, took upon me to reprehend him,
and told him that these hardships would by Providence be daily permitted
to fall upon him, for he met with them twenty times, while he continued
in that irregular way of living and spending his time, that might be so
precious to himself and many others, in drunkenness and debauchery; and
I think the lessons I wrote down to him upon that head, though a little
severe just at that juncture, were, notwithstanding, well timed, and
did, as I guessed they would, make a more solid impression in him than
at any other. In all these scuffles, whether it is that being deaf and
dumb an affront works deeper upon a man, and so renders him far more
fierce or resolute, it must be said, that, though nature has been kind
in making him very strong, robust, and active withal, yet he has bore
some shocks, one would imagine, beyond the strength of a man, having
sometimes got the better of five or six ruffians in rencounters of the
like kind.
The next banter he met with was in a gentler way, from an unbelieving
lady, and yet she came off with very ill success, and the banter turned
all upon herself in the end.
A lady of distinction, whose name shall therefore be concealed in this
place, came with two or three of her special friends, who took her for
the most merry, innocent, spotless virgin upon earth, and whose modesty
was never suspected in the least by her relations or servants that were
nearest about her; after having rallied Mr. Campbell with several
frivolous questions, doubting his capacity, and vexing and teasing him
with gay impertinences beyond all patience, was by him told, that he did
not take fees in his profession to be made a jest of like a common
fortuneteller, but to do real good to those who consulted him, as far as
he was able by his predictions; that he was treated with more respect by
persons of a higher condition, though her own was very good, and so
offered her guinea back again with a bow and a smile. She had a little
more generosity of spirit than not to be a little nettled at the
proffer she had caused by so coarse an usage. She affected appearing
grave a little, and told him she would be serious for the future, and
asked him to set down her name, which she had neglected before, to ask
other questions that were nothing to the purpose. He promised to write
it down, but pausing a little longer than ordinary about it, she
returned to her former way of uncivil merriment and ungallant raillery.
She repeated to him in three or four little scraps of paper, one after
another, as fast as she could write them, the same words, viz., That he
could not tell her name, nor whether she was maid, wife, or widow; and
laughed as if she would split her sides, triumphing to the rest of her
companions over his ignorance and her own wit, as if she had posed him,
and put him to an entire stand. But see what this overweening opinion of
security ended in: the man of the second-sight was not to be so easily
baffled. Vexed at being so disturbed, and coming out of his brown study,
he reaches the paper and begins to write. Now it was the lady's turn to
suffer, she had deserved hearty punishment, and it came into her hands
with the note, to a degree of severity, as you will perceive by the
contents of it just now. She read it, and swooning away, dropped from
her chair. The whole room being in a bustle, I, that was in the outward
chamber, ran in: while Mr. Campbell was sprinkling water in her face, a
lady snatched up the note to read it, at which he seemed mightily
displeased; I, therefore, who understood his signs, recovered it out of
her hands by stratagem, and ran to burn it, which I did so quick that I
was not discovered in the curiosity which I must own I satisfied myself
in by reading it first; a curiosity raised too high by so particular an
adventure, to be overcome in so little a time of thought, as I was to
keep it in my hands, and so I came by the knowledge of it myself,
without being informed by Mr. Campbell. This shows how a sudden
curiosity, when there is not time given to think and correct it, may
overcome a man as well as a woman; for I was never over-curious in my
life, and though I was pleased with the oddness of the adventure, I
often blushed to myself since for the unmanly weakness of not being able
to step with a note from one room to another to the fireside, without
peeping into the contents of it. The contents of it were these: Madam
since you provoke me, your name is ----. You are no widow, you are no
wife, and yet you are no maid; you have a child at nurse at such a
place, by such a gentleman, and you were brought to bed in
Leicestershire. The lady, convinced by this answer of his strange and
mystical power, and pleased with his civility in endeavouring to conceal
from others the secret, after so many repeated provocations, though she
showed great disorder for that day, became one of his constant attenders
some time after, and would not take any step in her affairs without his
advice, which she often has said since, she found very much to her
advantage. She was as serious in her dealings with him afterwards, and
improved by being so, as she was gay and turbulent with him before, and
smarted for it. In fine, she was a thorough convert, and a votary of
his; and the only jest she used afterwards to make, concerning him, was
a civil witticism to his wife; to whom she was wont, every now and then,
smiling, to address herself after this manner: Your husband, madam, is a
devil, but he is a very handsome and a very civil one.
Not long after this came another lady, with a like intent, to impose
upon him; and was resolved, as she owned, to have laughed him to scorn
if she had succeeded in her attempt. She had very dexterously dressed
herself in her woman's habit, and her woman in her own; her footman
squired the new-made lady in a very gentlemanly dress, hired for the
purpose of a disguise, from Monmouth-street. The strange and unknown
masqueraders entered Mr. Campbell's room with much art. The fellow was
by nature of a clean make, and had a good look, and from following a
genteel master when he was young, copied his gait a little, and had some
appearance of a mien, and a tolerable good air about him. But this being
the first time of his being so fine, and he a little vain in his temper,
he over-acted his part; he strutted too much; he was as fond of his
ruffles, his watch, his sword, his cane, and his snuff box, as a boy of
being newly put into breeches; and viewed them all too often to be
thought the possessor of any such things long. The affectation of the
chambermaid was insufferable; she had the toss of the head, the jut of
the bum, the sidelong leer of the eye, the imperious look upon her lady,
now degraded into her woman, that she was intolerable, and a person
without the gift of the second-sight would have guessed her to have been
a pragmatical upstart, though it is very probable that during that time
she fancied herself really better than her mistress; the mistress acted
her part of maid the best; for it is easier for genteel modesty to act a
low part, than for affected vanity to act a high one. She kept her
distance like a servant, but would, to disguise things the better, be
every now and then pert, according to their way, and give occasion to be
chid. But there is an air of gentility inborn and inbred to some people;
and even when they aim to be awkward a certain grace will attend all
their minutest actions and gestures, and command love, respect, and
veneration. I must therefore own that there was not need of a man's
being a conjuror to guess who ought to be the lady and who the maid; but
to know who absolutely was the lady, and who was the maid did require
that skill. For how many such real ladies have we that are made so from
such upstarts, and how many genteel waiting-women of great descent that
are born with a grace about them, and are bred to good manners. Mr.
Campbell's art made him positive in the case; he took the patches from
the face of the maid, and placed them on the mistress's; he pulled off
her hood and scarf, and gave it the lady, and taking from the lady her
riding-hood, gave it the maid in exchange; for ladies at that time of
day were not entered into that fashion of cloaking themselves. Then he
wrote down that he should go out, and ought to send his maid in to
undress them quite, and give the mistress her own clothes and the maid
hers and with a smile wrote down both their names, and commended her
contrivance; but after that it was remarked by the lady that he paid her
less respect than she expected, and more to her footman, who was in
gentleman's habit, whom he took by his side, and told a great many fine
things; whereas he would tell the lady nothing farther. The lady nettled
at this, wrote to him that she had vanity enough to believe that she
might be distinguished from her maid in any dress, but that he had shown
his want of skill in not knowing who that gentleman was. Mr. Campbell
told her her mistake in sharp terms; and begging her pardon, assured her
he knew several chambermaids as genteel and as well-born as her, and
many mistresses more awkward and worse born than her maid; that he did
not go therefore by the rule of guess and judging what ought to be, but
by the rule of certainty and the knowledge of what actually was. She,
however, unsatisfied with that answer, perplexed him mightily to know
who the man was. He answered, he would be a great man. The lady laughed
scornfully, and said she wanted to know who he was, not what he would
be. He answered again, he was her footman, but that she would have a
worse. She grew warm, and desired to be informed, why, since he knew the
fellow's condition, he respected her so little and him so much, and
accused him of want of practising manners, if he had not want of
knowledge. He answered, Madam, since you will be asking questions too
far, this footman will advance himself to the degree of a gentleman, and
have a woman of distinction to his wife; while you will degrade yourself
by a marriage to be the wife of a footman; his ambition is laudable,
your condescension, mean, therefore I give him the preference; I have
given you fair warning and wholesome advice, you may avoid your lot by
prudence; but his will certainly be what I tell you.
This coming afterwards to pass exactly as was predicted, and his
disappointing so many that had a mind to impose upon him, has rendered
him pretty free from such wily contrivances since, though now and then
they have happened, but still to the mortification and disappointment of
the contrivers. But as we have not pretended to say, with regard to
these things, that he has his genius always at his elbow or his beck, to
whisper in his ear the names of persons, and such little constant events
as these; so, that we may not be deemed to give a fabulous account of
his life and adventures, we think ourselves bound to give the reader an
insight into the particular power and capacity which he has for bringing
about these particular performances, especially that of writing down
names of strangers at first sight, which I don't doubt will be done to
the satisfaction of all persons who shall read the succeeding chapter,
concerning the gift of the second-sight.