The all-sweeping besom of societarian reformation--your only
modern Alcides' club to rid the time of its abuses--is uplift with
many-handed sway to extirpate the last fluttering tatters of the
bugbear MENDICITY from the metropolis. Scrips, wallets, bags--staves,
dogs, and crutches--the whole mendicant fraternity with all their
baggage are fast posting out of the purlieus of this eleventh
persecution. From the crowded crossing, from the corners of streets
and turnings of allies, the parting Genius of Beggary is "with sighing
sent."
I do not approve of this wholesale going to work, this impertinent
crusado, or _bellum ad exterminationem_, proclaimed against a species.
Much good might be sucked from these Beggars.
They were the oldest and the honourablest form of pauperism. Their
appeals were to our common nature; less revolting to an ingenuous mind
than to be a suppliant to the particular humours or caprice of any
fellow-creature, or set of fellow-creatures, parochial or societarian.
Theirs were the only rates uninvidious in the levy, ungrudged in the
assessment.
There was a dignity springing from the very depth of their desolation;
as to be naked is to be so much nearer to the being a man, than to go
in livery.
The greatest spirits have felt this in their reverses; and when
Dionysius from king turned schoolmaster, do we feel any thing towards
him but contempt? Could Vandyke have made a picture of him, swaying
a ferula for a sceptre, which would have affected our minds with the
same heroic pity, the same compassionate admiration, with which we
regard his Belisarius begging for an _obolum_? Would the moral have
been more graceful, more pathetic?
The Blind Beggar in the legend--the father of pretty Bessy--whose
story doggrel rhymes and ale-house signs cannot so degrade or
attenuate, but that some sparks of a lustrous spirit will shine
through the disguisements--this noble Earl of Cornwall (as indeed he
was) and memorable sport of fortune, fleeing from the unjust sentence
of his liege lord, stript of all, and seated on the flowering green
of Bethnal, with his more fresh and springing daughter by his side,
illumining his rags and his beggary--would the child and parent have
cut a better figure, doing the honours of a counter, or expiating
their fallen condition upon the three-foot eminence of some
sempstering shop-board?
In tale or history your Beggar is ever the just antipode to your King.
The poets and romancical writers (as dear Margaret Newcastle would
call them) when they would most sharply and feelingly paint a reverse
of fortune, never stop till they have brought down their hero in good
earnest to rags and the wallet. The depth of the descent illustrates
the height he falls from. There is no medium which can be presented
to the imagination without offence. There is no breaking the fall.
Lear, thrown from his palace, must divest him of his garments, till
he answer "mere nature;" and Cresseid, fallen from a prince's love,
must extend her pale arms, pale with other whiteness than of beauty,
supplicating lazar alms with bell and clap-dish.
The Lucian wits knew this very well; and, with a converse policy, when
they would express scorn of greatness without the pity, they show us
an Alexander in the shades cobbling shoes, or a Semiramis getting up
foul linen.
How would it sound in song, that a great monarch had declined
his affections upon the daughter of a baker! yet do we feel the
imagination at all violated when we read the "true ballad," where King
Cophetua wooes the beggar maid?
Pauperism, pauper, poor man, are expressions of pity, but pity alloyed
with contempt. No one properly contemns a beggar. Poverty is a
comparative thing, and each degree of it is mocked by its "neighbour
grice." Its poor rents and comings-in are soon summed up and told.
Its pretences to property are almost ludicrous. Its pitiful attempts
to save excite a smile. Every scornful companion can weigh his
trifle-bigger purse against it. Poor man reproaches poor man in the
streets with impolitic mention of his condition, his own being a
shade better, while the rich pass by and jeer at both. No rascally
comparative insults a Beggar, or thinks of weighing purses with him.
He is not in the scale of comparison. He is not under the measure of
property. He confessedly hath none, any more than a dog or a sheep. No
one twitteth him with ostentation above his means. No one accuses him
of pride, or upbraideth him with mock humility. None jostle with him
for the wall, or pick quarrels for precedency. No wealthy neighbour
seeketh to eject him from his tenement. No man sues him. No man goes
to law with him. If I were not the independent gentleman that I am,
rather than I would be a retainer to the great, a led captain, or a
poor relation, I would choose, out of the delicacy and true greatness
of my mind, to be a Beggar.
Rags, which are the reproach of poverty, are the Beggar's robes, and
graceful _insignia_ of his profession, his tenure, his full dress, the
suit in which he is expected to show himself in public. He is never
out of the fashion, or limpeth awkwardly behind it. He is not required
to put on court mourning. He weareth all colours, fearing none. His
costume hath undergone less change than the Quaker's. He is the only
man in the universe who is not obliged to study appearances. The ups
and downs of the world concern him no longer. He alone continueth
in one stay. The price of stock or land affecteth him not. The
fluctuations of agricultural or commercial prosperity touch him not,
or at worst but change his customers. He is not expected to become
bail or surety for any one. No man troubleth him with questioning his
religion or politics. He is the only free man in the universe. The
Mendicants of this great city were so many of her sights, her lions. I
can no more spare them than I could the Cries of London. No corner of
a street is complete without them. They are as indispensable as the
Ballad Singer; and in their picturesque attire as ornamental as the
Signs of old London. They were the standing morals, emblems, mementos,
dial-mottos, the spital sermons, the books for children, the salutary
checks and pauses to the high and rushing tide of greasy citizenry--
--Look
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there.
Above all, those old blind Tobits that used to line the wall of
Lincoln's Inn Garden, before modern fastidiousness had expelled them,
casting up their ruined orbs to catch a ray of pity, and (if possible)
of light, with their faithful Dog Guide at their feet,--whither are
they fled? or into what corners, blind as themselves, have they been
driven, out of the wholesome air and sun-warmth? immersed between
four walls, in what withering poor-house do they endure the penalty
of double darkness, where the chink of the dropt half-penny no more
consoles their forlorn bereavement, far from the sound of the cheerful
and hope-stirring tread of the passenger? Where hang their useless
staves? and who will farm their dogs?--Have the overseers of St. L----
caused them to be shot? or were they tied up in sacks, and dropt into
the Thames, at the suggestion of B----, the mild rector of ----?
Well fare the soul of unfastidious Vincent Bourne, most classical, and
at the same time, most English, of the Latinists!--who has treated
of this human and quadrupedal alliance, this dog and man friendship,
in the sweetest of his poems, the _Epitaphium in Canem_, or, _Dog's
Epitaph_. Reader, peruse it; and say, if customary sights, which could
call up such gentle poetry as this, were of a nature to do more
harm or good to the moral sense of the passengers through the daily
thoroughfares of a vast and busy metropolis.
Pauperis hic Iri requiesco Lyciscus, herilis,
Dum vixi, tutela vigil columenque senectæ,
Dux cæco fidus: nec, me ducente, solebat,
Prætenso hinc atque hinc baculo, per iniqua locorum
Incertam explorare viam; sed fila secutus,
Quæ dubios regerent passûs, vestigia tuta
Fixit inoffenso gressu; gelidumque sedile
In nudo nactus saxo, qua prætereuntium
Unda frequens confluxit, ibi miserisque tenebras
Lamentis, noctemque oculis ploravit obortam.
Ploravit nec frustra; obolum dedit alter et alter,
Queis corda et mentem indiderat natura benignam.
Ad latus interea jacui sopitus herile,
Vel mediis vigil in somnis; ad herilia jussa
Auresque atque animum arrectus, seu frustula amice
Porrexit sociasque dapes, seu longa diei
Tædia perpessus, reditum sub nocte parabat.
Hi mores, hæc vita fuit, dum fata sinebant,
Dum neque languebam morbis, nec inerte senectâ;
Quæ tandem obrepsit, veterique satellite cæcum
Orbavit dominum: prisci sed gratia facti
Ne tola intereat, longos deleta per annos,
Exiguum hunc Irus tumulum de cespite fecit,
Etsi inopis, non ingratæ, munuscula dextræ;
Carmine signavitque brevi, dominumque canemque
Quod memoret, fidumque canem dominumque benignum.
* * * * *
Poor Irus' faithful wolf-dog here I lie,
That wont to tend my old blind master's steps,
His guide and guard: nor, while my service lasted,
Had he occasion for that staff, with which
He now goes picking out his path in fear
Over the highways and crossings; but would plant,
Safe in the conduct of my friendly string,
A firm foot forward still, till he had reach'd
His poor seat on some stone, nigh where the tide
Of passers by in thickest confluence flow'd:
To whom with loud and passionate laments
From morn to eve his dark estate he wail'd.
Nor wail'd to all in vain: some here and there,
The well-disposed and good, their pennies gave.
I meantime at his feet obsequious slept;
Not all-asleep in sleep, but heart and ear
Prick'd up at his least motion; to receive
At his kind hand ray customary crums,
And common portion in his feast of scraps;
Or when night warn'd us homeward, tired and spent
With our long day and tedious beggary.
These were my manners, this my way of life,
Till age and slow disease me overtook,
And sever'd from my sightless master's side.
But lest the grace of so good deeds should die.
Through tract of years in mute oblivion lost,
This slender tomb of turf hath Irus reared,
Cheap monument of no ungrudging hand,
And with short verse inscribed it, to attest,
In long and lasting union to attest,
The virtues of the Beggar and his Dog.
These dim eyes have in vain explored for some months past a well-known
figure, or part of the figure, of a man, who used to glide his comely
upper half over the pavements of London, wheeling along with most
ingenious celerity upon a machine of wood; a spectacle to natives,
to foreigners, and to children. He was of a robust make, with a
florid sailor-like complexion, and his head was bare to the storm and
sunshine. He was a natural curiosity, a speculation to the scientific,
a prodigy to the simple. The infant would stare at the mighty man
brought down to his own level. The common cripple would despise his
own pusillanimity, viewing the hale stoutness, and hearty heart,
of this half-limbed giant. Few but must have noticed him; for the
accident, which brought him low, took place during the riots of 1780,
and he has been a groundling so long. He seemed earth-born, an Antæus,
and to suck in fresh vigour from the soil which he neighboured. He
was a grand fragment; as good as an Elgin marble. The nature, which
should have recruited his reft legs and thighs, was not lost, but only
retired into his upper parts, and he was half a Hercules. I heard a
tremendous voice thundering and growling, as before an earthquake,
and, casting down my eyes, it was this mandrake reviling a steed that
had started at his portentous appearance. He seemed to want but his
just stature to have rent the offending quadruped in shivers. He was
as the man-part of a Centaur, from which the horse-half had been
cloven in some dire Lapithan controversy. He moved on, as if he could
have made shift with yet half of the body-portion which was left
him. The _os sublime_ was not wanting; and he threw out yet a jolly
countenance upon the heavens. Forty-and-two years had he driven this
out of door trade, and now that his hair is grizzled in the service,
but his good spirits no way impaired, because he is not content to
exchange his free air and exercise for the restraints of a poor-house,
he is expiating his contumacy in one of those houses (ironically
christened) of Correction.
Was a daily spectacle like this to be deemed a nuisance, which called
for legal interference to remove? or not rather a salutary and a
touching object, to the passers-by in a great city? Among her shows,
her museums, and supplies for ever-gaping curiosity (and what else but
an accumulation of sights--endless sights--_is_ a great city; or for
what else is it desirable?) was there not room for one _Lusus_ (not
_Naturæ_, indeed, but) _Accidentium_? What if in forty-and-two years'
going about, the man had scraped together enough to give a portion
to his child (as the rumour ran) of a few hundreds--whom had he
injured?--whom had he imposed upon? The contributors had enjoyed their
_sight_ for their pennies. What if after being exposed all day to the
heats, the rains, and the frosts of heaven--shuffling his ungainly
trunk along in an elaborate and painful motion--he was enabled to
retire at night to enjoy himself at a club of his fellow cripples over
a dish of hot meat and vegetables, as the charge was gravely brought
against him by a clergyman deposing before a House of Commons'
Committee--was _this_, or was his truly paternal consideration, which
(if a fact) deserved a statue rather than a whipping-post, and is
inconsistent at least with the exaggeration of nocturnal orgies which
he has been slandered with--a reason that he should be deprived of his
chosen, harmless, nay edifying, way of life, and be committed in hoary
age for a sturdy vagabond?--
There was a Yorick once, whom it would not have shamed to have sate
down at the cripples' feast, and to have thrown in his benediction,
ay, and his mite too, for a companionable symbol. "Age, thou hast lost
thy breed."--
Half of these stories about the prodigious fortunes made by begging
are (I verily believe) misers' calumnies. One was much talked of in
the public papers some time since, and the usual charitable inferences
deduced. A clerk in the Bank was surprised with the announcement of
a five hundred pound legacy left him by a person whose name he was a
stranger to. It seems that in his daily morning walks from Peckham
(or some village thereabouts) where he lived, to his office, it had
been his practice for the last twenty years to drop his half-penny
duly into the hat of some blind Bartimeus, that sate begging alms
by the way-side in the Borough. The good old beggar recognised his
daily benefactor by the voice only; and, when he died, left all the
amassings of his alms (that had been half a century perhaps in the
accumulating) to his old Bank friend. Was this a story to purse up
people's hearts, and pennies, against giving an alms to the blind?--or
not rather a beautiful moral of well-directed charity on the one part,
and noble gratitude upon the other?