Ah! Sir, had I but bestowed half the pains in learning a trade, that I
have in learning to be a scoundrel, I might have been a rich man at this
day; but, rogue as I am, still I may be your friend, and that, perhaps,
when you least expect it.--Vicar of Wakefield.
What with the anxiety and uncertainty of my political prospects, the
continued dissipation in which I lived, and, above all, the unpropitious
state of my belle passion, my health gave way; my appetite forsook
me--my sleep failed me--a wrinkle settled itself under my left eye, and
my mother declared, that I should have no chance with an heiress: all
these circumstances together, were not without their weight. So I set
out one morning to Hampton Court, (with a volume of Bishop Berkely, and
a bottle of wrinkle water,) for the benefit of the country air.
It is by no means an unpleasant thing to turn one’s back upon the
great city, in the height of its festivities. Misanthropy is a charming
feeling for a short time, and one inhales the country, and animadverts
on the town, with the most melancholy satisfaction in the world. I sat
myself down at a pretty little cottage, a mile out of the town. From the
window of my drawing-room I revelled in the luxurious contemplation of
three pigs, one cow, and a straw-yard; and I could get to the Thames
in a walk of five minutes, by a short cut through a lime-kiln. Such
pleasing opportunities of enjoying the beauties of nature, are not often
to be met with: you may be sure, therefore, that I made the most of
them. I rose early, walked before breakfast, pour ma sante, and came
back with a most satisfactory head-ache, pour mes peines. I read
for just three hours, walked for two more, thought over Abernethy,
dyspepsia, and blue pills, till dinner; and absolutely forgot Lord
Dawton, ambition, Guloseton, epicurism--aye, all but--of course, reader,
you know whom I am about to except--the ladye of my love.
One bright, laughing day, I threw down my book an hour sooner than
usual, and sallied out with a lightness of foot and exhilaration of
spirit, to which I had long been a stranger. I had just sprung over a
stile that led into one of those green shady lanes, which make us feel
the old poets who loved, and lived for, Nature, were right in calling
our island “the merry England”--when I was startled by a short, quick
bark, on one side of the hedge. I turned sharply round; and, seated upon
the sward, was a man, apparently of the pedlar profession; a large
deal box was lying open before him; a few articles of linen, and female
dress, were scattered round, and the man himself appeared earnestly
occupied in examining the deeper recesses of his itinerant warehouse. A
small black terrier flew towards me with no friendly growl. “Down,” said
I: “all strangers are not foes, though the English generally think so.”
The man hastily looked up; perhaps he was struck with the quaintness of
my remonstrance to his canine companion; for, touching his hat, civilly,
he said--“The dog, Sir, is very quiet; he only means to give me the
alarm by giving it to you; for dogs seem to have no despicable insight
into human nature, and know well that the best of us may be taken by
surprise.”
“You are a moralist,” said I, not a little astonished in my turn by such
an address from such a person. “I could not have expected to stumble
upon a philosopher so easily. Have you any wares in your box likely to
suit me? if so, I should like to purchase of so moralizing a vendor?”
“No, Sir,” said the seeming pedlar, smiling, and yet at the same time
hurrying his goods into his box, and carefully turning the key--“no,
Sir, I am only a bearer of other men’s goods; my morals are all that I
can call my own, and those I will sell you at your own price.”
“You are candid, my friend,” said I, “and your frankness, alone, would
be inestimable in this age of deceit, and country of hypocrisy.”
“Ah, Sir!” said my new acquaintance, “I see already that you are one of
those persons who look to the dark side of things; for my part, I think
the present age the best that ever existed, and our own country the most
virtuous in Europe.”
“I congratulate you, Mr. Optimist, on your opinions,” quoth I, “but your
observation leads me to suppose, that you are both an historian and a
traveller: am I right?”
“Why,” answered the box-bearer, “I have dabbled a little in books, and
wandered not a little among men. I am just returned from Germany, and am
now going to my friends in London. I am charged with this box of goods;
God send me the luck to deliver it safe.”
“Amen,” said I; “and with that prayer and this trifle, I wish you a good
morning.”
“Thank you a thousand times, Sir, for both,” replied the man--“but do
add to your favours by informing me of the right road to the town of--
“I am going in that direction myself; if you choose to accompany me part
of the way, I can ensure your not missing the rest.”
“Your honour is too good!” returned he of the box, rising, and slinging
his fardel across him--“it is but seldom that a gentleman of your rank
will condescend to walk three paces with one of mine. You smile, Sir;
perhaps you think I should not class myself among gentlemen; and yet
I have as good a right to the name as most of the set. I belong to
no trade--I follow no calling: I rove where I list, and rest where I
please: in short, I know no occupation but my indolence, and no law but
my will. Now, Sir, may I not call myself a gentleman?”
“Of a surety!” quoth I; “you seem to me to hold a middle rank between a
half-pay captain and the king of the gipsies.”
“You have hit it, Sir,” rejoined my companion, with a slight laugh. He
was now by my side, and as we walked on, I had leisure more minutely to
examine him. He was a middle-sized, and rather athletic man, apparently
about the age of thirty-eight. He was attired in a dark blue frock coat,
which was neither shabby nor new, but ill made, and much too large
and long for its present possessor; beneath this was a faded velvet
waistcoat, that had formerly, like the Persian ambassador’s tunic,
“blushed with crimson, and blazed with gold;” but which might now have
been advantageously exchanged in Monmouth-street for the lawful sum
of two shillings and nine-pence; under this was an inner vest of the
cashmere shawl pattern, which seemed much too new for the rest of the
dress. Though his shirt was of a very unwashed hue, I remarked, with
some suspicion, that it was of a very respectable fineness; and a pin,
which might be paste, or could be diamond, peeped below a tattered and
dingy black kid stock, like a gipsey’s eye beneath her hair.
His trowsers were of a light grey, and Providence, or the tailor,
avenged itself upon them, for the prodigal length bestowed upon their
ill-sorted companion, the coat; for they were much too tight for the
muscular limbs they concealed, and rising far above the ankle, exhibited
the whole of a thick Wellington boot, which was the very picture of
Italy upon the map.
The face of the man was common-place and ordinary; one sees a hundred
such, every day, in Fleet-street or the ‘Change; the features were
small, irregular, and somewhat flat: yet, when you looked twice upon the
countenance, there was something marked and singular in the expression,
which fully atoned for the commonness of the features. The right
eye turned away from the left, in that watchful squint which seems
constructed on the same considerate plan as those Irish guns, made
for shooting round a corner; his eye-brows were large and shaggy, and
greatly resembled bramble bushes, in which his fox-like eyes had taken
refuge. Round these vulpine retreats were a labyrinthean maze of
those wrinkles, vulgarly called crow’s-feet;--deep, intricate, and
intersected, they seemed for all the world like the web of a chancery
suit. Singular enough, the rest of the countenance was perfectly smooth
and unindented; even the lines from the nostril to the corners of the
mouth, usually so deeply traced in men of his age, were scarcely more
apparent than in a boy of eighteen.
His smile was frank--his voice clear and hearty--his address open,
and much superior to his apparent rank of life, claiming somewhat of
equality, yet conceding a great deal of respect; but, notwithstanding
all these certainly favourable points, there was a sly and cunning
expression in his perverse and vigilant eye and all the wrinkled
demesnes in its vicinity, that made me mistrust even while I liked my
companion; perhaps, indeed, he was too frank, too familiar, too degage,
to be quite natural. Your honest men soon buy reserve by experience.
Rogues are communicative and open, because confidence and openness cost
them nothing. To finish the description of my new acquaintance, I should
observe, that there was something in his countenance, which struck me
as not wholly unfamiliar; it was one of those which we have not, in all
human probability, seen before, and yet, which (perhaps from their very
commonness) we imagine we have encountered a hundred times.
We walked on briskly, notwithstanding the warmth of the day; in fact,
the air was so pure, the grass so green, the laughing noonday so full
of the hum, the motion, and the life of creation, that the sensation
produced was rather that of freshness and invigoration, than of languor
and heat.
“We have a beautiful country, Sir,” said my hero of the box. “It is like
walking through a garden, after the more sterile and sullen features of
the Continent--a pure mind, Sir, loves the country; for my part, I am
always disposed to burst out in thanksgiving to Providence when I behold
its works, and, like the vallies in the psalm, I am ready to laugh and
sing.”
“An enthusiast,” said I, “as well as a philosopher!--perhaps (and I
believed it likely), I have the honour of addressing a poet also.”
“Why, Sir,” replied the man, “I have made verses in my life; in short,
there is little I have not done, for I was always a lover of variety;
but, perhaps, your honour will let me return the suspicion, Are you not
a favourite of the muse?”
“I cannot say that I am,” said I. “I value myself only on my common
sense--the very antipodes to genius, you know, according to the orthodox
belief.”
“Common sense!” repeated my companion, with a singular and meaning
smile, and a twinkle with his left eye. “Common sense. Ah, that is not
my forte, Sir. You, I dare say, are one of those gentlemen whom it is
very difficult to take in, either passively or actively, by appearance,
or in act? For my part, I have been a dupe all my life--a child might
cheat me! I am the most unsuspicious person in the world.”
“Too candid by half,” thought I; “the man is certainly a rascal; but
what’s that to me? I shall never see him again;” and true to my love
of never losing an opportunity of ascertaining individual character, I
observed, that I thought such an acquaintance very valuable, especially
if he were in trade; it was a pity, therefore, for my sake, that my
companion had informed me that he followed no calling.
“Why, Sir,” said he, “I am occasionally in employment; my nominal
profession is that of a broker. I buy shawls and handkerchiefs of poor
countesses, and retail them to rich plebeians. I fit up new married
couples with linen, at a more moderate rate than the shops, and procure
the bridegroom his present of jewels, at forty per cent. less than the
jewellers; nay, I am as friendly to an intrigue as a marriage; and when
I cannot sell my jewels, I will my good offices, A gentleman so handsome
as your honour, may have an affair upon your hands: if so, you may
rely upon my secrecy and zeal. In short, I am an innocent, good-natured
fellow, who does harm to no one for nothing, and good to every one for
something.”
“I admire your code,” quoth I, “and whenever I want a mediator between
Venus and myself, will employ you. Have you always followed your present
idle profession, or were you brought up to any other?”
“I was intended for a silversmith,” answered my friend; “but Providence
willed it otherwise; they taught me from childhood to repeat the Lord’s
prayer; Heaven heard me, and delivered me from temptation--there is,
indeed, something terribly seducing in the face of a silver spoon!”
“Well,” said I, “you are the honestest knave I ever met, and one would
trust you with one’s purse for the ingenuousness with which you own you
would steal it. Pray, think you it is probable that I have ever had the
happiness to meet you before? I cannot help fancying so--yet as I have
never been in the watch-house, or the Old Bailey, my reason tells me
that I must be mistaken.”
“Not at all, Sir,” returned my worthy; “I remember you well, for I
never saw a face like yours that I did not remember. I had the honour
of sipping some British liquors, in the same room with yourself one
evening; you were then in company with my friend Mr. Gordon.”
“Ha!” said I, “I thank ye for the hint; I now remember well, by the same
token, that he told me you were the most ingenious gentleman in
England; and that you had a happy propensity of mistaking other people’s
possessions for your own; I congratulate myself upon so desirable an
acquaintance.” [Note: See Vol. II, p. 127.]
My friend, who was indeed no other than Mr. Job Jonson, smiled with
his usual blandness, and made me a low bow of acknowledgment before he
resumed:
“No doubt, Sir, Mr. Gordon informed you right. I flatter myself few
gentlemen understand better than myself, the art of appropriation;
though I say it who should not say it, I deserve the reputation I have
acquired. Sir, I have always had ill fortune to struggle against, and
have always remedied it by two virtues--perseverance and ingenuity.
To give you an idea of my ill fortune, know that I have been taken
up twenty-three times, on suspicion; of my perseverance, know that
twenty-three times I have been taken up justly; and of my ingenuity,
know that I have been twenty-three times let off, because there was not
a tittle of legal evidence against me.”
“I venerate your talents, Mr. Jonson,” replied I, “if by the name of
Jonson it pleaseth you to be called, although, like the heathen deities,
I presume that you have many other titles, whereof some are more
grateful to your ears than others.”
“Nay,” answered the man of two virtues--“I am never ashamed of my
name; indeed, I have never done any thing to disgrace me. I have never
indulged in low company, nor profligate debauchery: whatever I
have executed by way of profession, has been done in a superior and
artistlike manner; not in the rude, bungling way of other adventurers.
Moreover, I have always had a taste for polite literature, and went
once as apprentice to a publishing bookseller, for the sole purpose
of reading the new works before they came out. In fine, I have never
neglected any opportunity of improving my mind; and the worst that can
be said against me is, that I have remembered my catechism, and taken
all possible pains ‘to learn and labour truly, to get my living, and
do my duty in that state of life, to which it has pleased Providence to
call me.’”
“I have often heard,” answered I, “that there is honour among thieves; I
am happy to learn from you, that there is also religion: your baptismal
sponsors must be proud of so diligent a godson.”
“They ought to be, Sir,” replied Mr. Jonson, “for I gave them the first
specimens of my address; the story is long, but if you ever give me an
opportunity, I will relate it.”
“Thank you,” said I; “meanwhile I must wish you good morning: your
road now lies to the right. I return you my best thanks for your
condescension, in accompanying so undistinguished an individual as
myself.”
“Oh, never mention it, your honour,” rejoined Mr. Jonson; “I am always
too happy to walk with a gentleman of your ‘common sense.’ Farewell,
Sir; may we meet again.”
So saying, Mr. Jonson struck into his new road, and we parted. [Note: If
any one should think this sketch from nature exaggerated, I refer him to
the “Memoirs of James Hardy Vaux.”]
I went home, musing on my adventure, and delighted with my adventurer.
When I was about three paces from the door of my home, I was accosted,
in a most pitiful tone, by a poor old beggar, apparently in the last
extreme of misery and disease. Notwithstanding my political economy, I
was moved into alms-giving, by a spectacle so wretched. I put my hand
into my pocket, my purse was gone; and, on searching the other, lo--my
handkerchief, my pocket-book, and a gold bracelet, which had belonged to
Madame D’Anville, had vanished too.
One does not keep company with men of two virtues, and receive
compliments upon one’s common sense for nothing!
The beggar still continued to importune me. “Give him some food and half
a crown,” said I, to my landlady. Two hours afterwards, she came up to
me--“Oh, Sir! my silver tea-pot--that villain, the beggar!”
A light flashed upon me--“Ah, Mr. Job Jonson! Mr. Job Jonson!” cried I,
in an indescribable rage; “out of my sight, woman! out of my sight!”
I stopped short; my speech failed me. Never tell me that shame is the
companion of guilt--the sinful knave is never so ashamed of himself as
is the innocent fool who suffers by him.