trials of Hardy, Horne Tooke, and Thelwall, which occurred while he was
attorney general. "Every evening," he said, "upon my leaving the court,
a signal was given that I was coming out, for a general hissing and
hooting of the attorney general. This went through the street in which
the court sat, from one end of it to the other, and was continued all
the way down to Ludgate Hill and by Fleet Market. One evening, at the
rising of the court, I was preparing to retire, when Mr. Garrow said,
'Do not, Mr. Attorney, pass that tall man at the end of the table.' 'And
why not?' said Mr. Law, who stood next. 'He has been here,' answered Mr.
Garrow, 'during the whole trial, with his eyes constantly fixed on the
attorney general.' 'I will pass him,' said Mr. Law. 'And so will I,' was
my rejoinder. As we passed, the man drew back. When I entered my
carriage, the mob rushed forward, crying, 'That's he, drag him out!' Mr.
Erskine, from whose carriage the mob had taken off the horses to draw
him home in triumph, stopped the people, saying, 'I will not go without
the attorney general!' I instantly addressed them: 'So you imagine,
that if you kill me, you will be without an attorney general! Before ten
o'clock to-morrow there will be a new attorney general, by no means so
favorably disposed to you as I am.' I heard a friend in the crowd
exclaim, 'Let him alone! let him alone!' They separated, and I
proceeded. When I reached my home in Gower Street, I saw, close to my
door, the tall man who stood near me in court. I had no alternative; I
instantly went up to him: 'What do you want?' I said. 'Do not be
alarmed,' he answered; 'I have attended in court during the whole of the
trial--I know my own strength, and am resolved to stand by you. You once
did an act of great kindness to my father. Thank God, you are safe at
home. May He bless and protect you!' He instantly disappeared."
Rulhiere told De Tocqueville a very different story, characteristic of a
Russian. He was a man of high rank, who had been sent to the French
head-quarters on a mission, and lived for some time on intimate terms
with the staff, particularly with Rulhiere. At the battle of Eylau
Rulhiere was taken prisoner. He caught the eye of his Russian friend,
who came to offer his services. "You can do me," said Rulhiere, "an
important service. One of your Cossacks yonder has just seized my horse
and cloak. I am dying of fatigue and cold. If you can get them for me,
you may save my life." The Russian went to the Cossack, talked to him
rather sharply, probably on the wickedness of robbing a prisoner; got
possession of the horse and cloak; put on the one, and mounted the
other, and Rulhiere never saw him again.
Incledon, the singer, related to Crabb Robinson, in a stage-coach,
anecdotes of Garrick and Foote, which show how completely they both lost
themselves in their acting. Garrick had a brother living in the country,
who was an idolatrous admirer of his genius. A rich neighbor, a grocer,
being about to visit London, this brother insisted on his taking a
letter of introduction to the actor. Not being able to make up his mind
to visit the great man the first day, the grocer went to the play in the
evening, and saw Garrick in Abel Drugger. On his return to the country,
the brother eagerly inquired respecting the visit he had been so anxious
to bring about. "Why, Mr. Garrick," said the good man, "I am sorry to
hurt your feelings, but there's your letter. I did not choose to deliver
it." "Not deliver it!" exclaimed the other, in astonishment. "I happened
to see him when he did not know me, and I saw that he was such a dirty,
low-lived fellow, that I did not like to have anything to do with him."
Foote went to Ireland, and took off a celebrated Dublin printer. The
printer stood the jest for some time, but found at last that Foote's
imitations became so popular, and drew such attention to himself, that
he could not walk the streets without being pointed at. He bethought
himself of a remedy. Collecting a number of boys, he gave them a hearty
meal and a shilling each for a place in the gallery, and promised them
another meal on the morrow if they would hiss off the scoundrel who
turned him into ridicule. The injured man learned from his friends that
Foote was received that night better than ever. Nevertheless, in the
morning, the ragged troop of boys appeared to demand their recompense,
and when the printer reproached them for their treachery, their
spokesman said: "Plase yer honor, we did all we could, for the actor-man
had heard of us, and did not come at all at all. And so we had nobody to
hiss. But when we saw yer honor's own dear self come on, we did clap,
indeed we did, and showed you all the respect and honor in our power.
And so yer honor won't forget us because yer honor's enemy was afraid to
come, and left yer honor to yer own dear self."
Immortal sermons are disguised in legends; the most familiar objects
are perpetually preaching to us. Ages ago, the Germans have it, there
went, one Sunday morning, an old man into the forest to cut wood. When
he had made a bundle, he slung it on his staff, cast it over his
shoulder, and started for home. On his way he met a minister, all in his
bands and robes, who asked him, "Don't you know, my friend, that it is
Sunday on earth, when all must rest from their labors?" "Sunday on
earth, Monday in heaven, it is all one to me," laughed the woodman.
"Then bear your burden forever," said the priest; "and as you value not
Sunday on earth, you shall have Monday in heaven till the great day."
Thereupon the speaker vanished, and the man was caught up, with cane and
fagots, into the moon, where you can see him any clear night. The
Norwegians think they see both a man and woman; and the legend is, that
the former threw branches at people going to church, and the latter made
butter on Sunday. In the clear, cold nights of winter they will point
out the man carrying his bundle of thorns, and the woman her butter-tub.
In Norway, the red-crested, black woodpecker is known under the name of
Gertrud's bird. Its origin, according to Thorpe, is as follows: When our
Lord, accompanied by St. Peter, was wandering on earth, they came to a
woman who was occupied in baking: her name was Gertrud, and on her head
she wore a red hood. Weary and hungry from their long journeying, our
Lord begged for a cake. She took a little dough and set it on to bake,
and it grew so large that it filled the whole pan. Thinking it too much
for alms, she took a smaller quantity of dough, and again began to bake,
but this cake also swelled up to the same size as the first; she then
took still less dough, and when the cake had become as large as the
preceding ones, Gertrud said: "You must go without alms; for all my
bakings are too large for you." Then was our Lord wroth, and said,
"Because thou gavest me nothing, thou shalt for punishment become a
little bird, shalt seek thy dry food between the wood and the bark, and
drink only when it rains." Hardly were these words spoken when the woman
was transformed to the Gertrud bird, and flew away through the kitchen
chimney; and at this day she is seen with a red hood and black body,
because she was blackened by the soot of the chimney. She constantly
pecks the bark of trees for sustenance, and whistles against rain; for
she always thirsts and hopes to drink. According to the legend, the
Wandering Jew is a poor shoemaker of Jerusalem. When Christ, bearing his
cross, passed before his house, and asked his leave to repose for a
moment on the stone bench at his door, the Jew replied harshly, "Go
on--go on!" and refused him. "It is thou who shalt go on till the end of
time!" was Christ's reply, in a sad but severe tone.
Lord Cockburn, in his Memorials, relates an anecdote of Dr. Henry, the
historian, as told to him by Sir Harry Moncreiff, who was the doctor's
favorite younger friend. The doctor was living at a place of his own in
his native county of Stirling. He was about seventy-two, and had been
for some time very feeble. He wrote to Sir Harry that he was dying, and
thus invited him for the last time--"Come out here directly. I have got
something to do this week, I have got to die." Sir Harry went; and found
his friend plainly sinking, but resigned and cheerful. He had no
children, and there was nobody with him except his wife. She and Sir
Harry remained alone with him for about three days, being his last
three; during a great part of which the reverend historian sat in his
easy chair, and conversed, and listened to reading, and dozed. While
engaged in this way, the hoofs of a horse were heard clattering in the
court below. Mrs. Henry looked out and exclaimed that it was "that
wearisome body," naming a neighboring minister, who was famous for never
leaving a house after he had once got into it. "Keep him out," cried
the doctor, "don't let the crater in here." But before they could secure
his exclusion, the crater's steps were heard on the stair, and he was at
the door. The doctor instantly winked significantly, and signed to them
to sit down and be quiet, and he would pretend to be sleeping. The hint
was taken; and when the intruder entered he found the patient asleep in
his cushioned chair. Sir Harry and Mrs. Henry put their fingers to their
lips, and pointing to the supposed slumberer as one not to be disturbed,
shook their heads. The man sat down near the door, like one inclined to
wait till the nap was over. Once or twice he tried to speak; but was
instantly repressed by another finger on the lip, and another shake of
the head. So he sat on, all in perfect silence for about a quarter of an
hour; during which Sir Harry occasionally detected the dying man peeping
cautiously through the fringes of his eyelids, to see how his visitor
was coming on. At last Sir Harry tired, and he and Mrs. Henry, pointing
to the poor doctor, fairly waved the visitor out of the room; on which
the doctor opened his eyes wide, and had a tolerably hearty laugh; which
was renewed when the sound of the horse's feet made them certain that
their friend was actually off the premises. Dr. Henry died that night.
Douglas Jerrold speaks of a London tradesman of great practical
benevolence. It was the happiness of his temperament to recommend to the
palates of babes and sucklings the homeliest, nay, the most disagreeable
shapes, by the lusciousness of their material. The man made semblances
of all things in sugar.
Did you ever read that remarkable paper of Lamb's, the Reminiscences of
Juke Judkins, Esq., of Birmingham? It is a nice, microscopic,
philosophic study and analysis of meanness,--as common, we dare say, in
this world, as avarice,--and will make us wonder that ordinary gifts and
traits can be so perverted and belittled by debasing uses. All that is
good of humanity was once united with Divinity, and made the best
character that ever existed on earth. Humiliating it would be, if not
impious, to imagine how much worse might be the devil if he would adopt
the bestial qualities and worse than Satanic traits that men are
constantly exposing and cultivating in their relations with one another.
"I was always," says Juke, "my father's favorite. He took a delight, to
the very last, in recounting the little sagacious tricks and innocent
artifices of my childhood. One manifestation thereof I never heard him
repeat without tears of joy trickling down his cheeks. It seems that
when I quitted the parental roof (August 27, 1788), being then six years
and not quite a month old, to proceed to the Free School at Warwick,
where my father was a sort of trustee, my mother--as mothers are usually
provident on these occasions--had stuffed the pocket of the coach, which
was to convey me and six more children of my own growth that were going
to be entered along with me at the same seminary, with a prodigious
quantity of gingerbread, which I remember my father said was more than
was needed; and so indeed it was; for, if I had been to eat it all
myself, it would have got stale and mouldy before it had been half
spent. The consideration whereof set me upon my contrivances how I might
secure to myself as much of the gingerbread as would keep good for the
next two or three days, and yet none of the rest in manner be wasted. I
had a little pair of pocket compasses, which I usually carried about me
for the purpose of making draughts and measurements, at which I was
always very ingenious, of the various engines and mechanical inventions
in which such a town as Birmingham abounded. By the means of these, and
a small penknife which my father had given me, I cut out the one half of
the cake, calculating that the remainder would reasonably serve my turn;
and subdividing it into many little slices, which were curious to see
for the neatness and niceness of their proportion, I sold it out in so
many pennyworths to my young companions as served us all the way to
Warwick, which is a distance of some twenty miles from this town; and
very merry, I assure you, we made ourselves with it, feasting all the
way. By this honest stratagem, I put double the prime cost of the
gingerbread into my purse, and secured as much as I thought would keep
good and moist for my next two or three days' eating. When I told this
to my parents on their first visit to me at Warwick, my father (good
man) patted me on the cheek, and stroked my head, and seemed as if he
could never make enough of me; but my mother unaccountably burst into
tears, and said 'it was a very niggardly action,' or some such
expression, and that 'she would rather it would please God to take
me'--meaning, God help me, that I should die--'than that she should live
to see me grow up a mean man;' which shows the difference of parent from
parent, and how some mothers are more harsh and intolerant to their
children than some fathers; when we might expect the contrary. My
father, however, loaded me with presents from that time, which made me
the envy of my school-fellows. As I felt this growing disposition in
them, I naturally sought to avert it by all the means in my power; and
from that time I used to eat my little packages of fruit, and other nice
things, in a corner, so privately that I was never found out. Once, I
remember, I had a huge apple sent me, of that sort which they call
cats'-heads. I concealed this all day under my pillow; and at night, but
not before I had ascertained that my bed-fellow was sound asleep,--which
I did by pinching him rather smartly two or three times, which he seemed
to perceive no more than a dead person, though once or twice he made a
motion as he would turn, which frightened me,--I say, when I had made
all sure, I fell to work upon my apple; and, though it was as big as an
ordinary man's two fists, I made shift to get through before it was time
to get up. And a more delicious feast I never made; thinking all night
what a good parent I had (I mean my father), to send me so many nice
things, when the poor lad that lay by me had no parent or friend in the
world to send him anything nice; and, thinking of his desolate
condition, I munched and munched as silently as I could, that I might
not set him a longing if he overheard me. And yet, for all this
considerateness and attention to other people's feelings, I was never
much a favorite with my school-fellows; which I have often wondered at,
seeing that I never defrauded any one of them of the value of a
half-penny, or told stories of them to their master, as some little
lying boys would do, but was ready to do any of them all the services in
my power that were consistent with my own well-doing. I think nobody can
be expected to go further than that." Juke, in the course of time, was
engaged to be married to a maiden named Cleora. Hear him relate the
circumstance that broke off the engagement: "I was never," he says,
"much given to theatrical entertainments; that is, at no turn of my life
was I ever what they call a regular play-goer; but on some occasion of a
benefit-night, which was expected to be very productive, and indeed
turned out so, Cleora expressing a desire to be present, I could do no
less than offer, as I did very willingly, to squire her and her mother
to the pit. At that time, it was not customary in our town for
trades-folk, except some of the very topping ones, to sit, as they now
do, in the boxes. At the time appointed, I waited upon the ladies, who
had brought with them a young man, a distant relation, whom it seems
they had invited to be of the party. This a little disconcerted me, as I
had about me barely silver enough to pay for our three selves at the
door, and did not at first know that their relation had proposed paying
for himself. However, to do the young man justice, he not only paid for
himself but for the old lady besides; leaving me only to pay for two, as
it were. In our passage to the theatre, the notice of Cleora was
attracted to some orange wenches that stood about the doors vending
their commodities. She was leaning on my arm; and I could feel her every
now and then giving me a nudge, as it is called, which I afterward
discovered were hints that I should buy some oranges. It seems it is a
custom at Birmingham, and perhaps in other places, when a gentleman
treats ladies to the play,--especially when a full night is expected,
and that the house will be inconveniently warm,--to provide them with
this kind of fruit, oranges being esteemed for their cooling property.
But how could I guess at that, never having treated ladies to a play
before, and being, as I said, quite a novice in these kind of
entertainments? At last, she spoke plain out, and begged that I would
buy some of 'those oranges,' pointing to a particular barrow. But, when
I came to examine the fruit, I did not think the quality of it was
answerable to the price. In this way, I handled several baskets of them;
but something in them all displeased me. Some had thin rinds, and some
were plainly over-ripe, which is as great a fault as not being ripe
enough; and I could not (what they call) make a bargain. While I stood
haggling with the women secretly determining to put off my purchase till
I should get within the theatre, where I expected we should have better
choice, the young man, the cousin (who, it seems, had left us without my
missing him), came running to us with his pockets stuffed out with
oranges, inside and out, as they say. It seems, not liking the look of
the barrow-fruit any more than myself, he had slipped away to an eminent
fruiterer's, about three doors distant, which I never had the sense to
think of, and had laid out a matter of two shillings in some of the best
St. Michael's, I think, I ever tasted. What a little hinge, as I said
before, the most important affairs in life may turn upon! The mere
inadvertence to the fact that there was an eminent fruiterer's within
three doors of us, though we had just passed it without the thought once
occurring to me, which he had taken advantage of, lost me the affection
of my Cleora. From that time she visibly cooled toward me, and her
partiality was as visibly transferred to this cousin. I was long unable
to account for this change in her behavior; when one day, accidentally
discoursing of oranges to my mother, alone, she let drop a sort of
reproach to me, as if I had offended Cleora by my nearness, as she
called it, that evening. Even now, when Cleora has been wedded some
years to that same officious relation, as I may call him, I can hardly
be persuaded that such a trifle could have been the motive to her
inconstancy; for could she suppose that I would sacrifice my dearest
hopes in her to the paltry sum of two shillings, when I was going to
treat her to the play, and her mother too (an expense of more than four
times that amount), if the young man had not interfered to pay for the
latter, as I mentioned? But the caprices of the sex are past finding
out; and I begin to think my mother was in the right; for doubtless
women know women better than we can pretend to know them."
Juke would have made a good tradesman under the rules laid down by De
Foe: "A tradesman behind his counter must have no flesh and blood about
him, no passions, no resentment; he must never be angry, no, not so much
as seem to be so, if a customer tumbles him five hundred pounds' worth
of goods, and scarce bids money for anything; nay, though they really
come to his shop with no intent to buy, as many do, only to see what is
to be sold, and though he knows they cannot be better pleased than they
are at some other shop where they intend to buy, 't is all one; the
tradesman must take it; he must place it to the account of his calling,
that 't is his business to be ill-used and resent nothing. I could give
you many examples, how and in what manner a shopkeeper is to behave
himself in the way of business; what impertinences, what taunts, flouts,
and ridiculous things he must bear in his trade; and must not show the
least return, or the least signal of disgust; he must have no passions,
no fire in his temper; he must be all soft and smooth; nay, if his real
temper be naturally fiery and hot, he must show none of it in his shop;
he must be a perfect, complete hypocrite, if he would be a complete
tradesman. It is true, natural tempers are not to be always
counterfeited: the man cannot easily be a lamb in his shop and a lion in
himself; but, let it be easy or hard, it must be done, and is done.
There are men who have by custom and usage brought themselves to it,
that nothing could be meeker and milder than they when behind the
counter, and yet nothing be more furious and raging in every other part
of life; nay, the provocations they have met with in their shops have so
irritated their rage, that they would go up-stairs from their shop, and
fall into frenzies, and a kind of madness, and beat their heads against
the wall, and perhaps mischief themselves, if not prevented, till the
violence of it had gotten vent; and the passions abate and cool. I heard
once of a shopkeeper that behaved himself thus to such an extreme that,
when he was provoked by the impertinence of the customers beyond what
his temper could bear, he would go up-stairs and beat his wife, kick his
children about like dogs, and be as furious for two or three minutes as
a man chained down in Bedlam; and again, when that heat was over, would
sit down and cry faster than the children he had abused; and, after the
fit, he would go down into the shop again, and be as humble, as
courteous, and as calm, as any man whatever; so absolute a government of
his passions had he in the shop, and so little out of it: in the shop, a
soulless animal that would resent nothing; and in the family, a madman:
in the shop, meek like a lamb; but in the family, outrageous, like a
Libyan lion. The sum of the matter is, it is necessary for a tradesman
to subject himself, by all the ways possible, to his business; his
customers are to be his idols: so far as he may worship idols by
allowance, he is to bow down to them, and worship them; at least, he is
not in any way to displease them, or show any disgust or distaste,
whatever they may say or do. The bottom of all is that he is intending
to get money by them; and it is not for him that gets money to offer the
least inconvenience to them by whom he gets it: he is to consider that,
as Solomon says, 'the borrower is servant to the lender;' so the seller
is servant to the buyer."
Poor George Dyer "commenced life, after a course of hard study, in the
'House of Pure Emanuel,' as usher to a knavish, fanatic school-master,
at a salary of eight pounds per annum, with board and lodging. Of this
poor stipend he never received above half in all the laborious years he
served this man. He tells a pleasant anecdote, that when poverty,
staring out at his ragged knees, sometimes compelled him, against the
modesty of his nature, to hint at arrears, the school-master would take
no immediate notice; but after supper, when the school was called
together to even-song, he would never fail to introduce some instructive
homily against riches, and the corruption of the heart occasioned
through the desire of them, ending with, 'Lord, keep thy servants, above
all things, from the heinous sin of avarice. Having food and raiment,
let us therewithal be content. Give me Agur's wish,'--and the
like,--which, to the little auditory, sounded like a doctrine full of
Christian prudence and simplicity, but to poor Dyer was a receipt in
full for that quarter's demands at least."