THE REMARKABLE HISTORY
OF
SIR THOMAS UPMORE, BART., M.P.,
FORMERLY KNOWN AS
"TOMMY UPMORE."
_Non usitatâ, non tenui ferar
Pennâ_----
A NEW EDITION.
LONDON:
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON,
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.
1885.
(_All rights reserved._)
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED.
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING-CROSS.
PREFACE.
When Sir Thomas Upmore came, and asked me to write a short account of
his strange adventures, I declined that honour; partly because I had
never seen any of his memorable exploits. Perhaps that matters little,
while his history so flourishes, by reason of being more creditable, as
well as far more credible, than that of England, for the last few years.
Still, in such a case, the man who did the thing is the one to tell it.
And his veracity has now become a proverb.
My refusal seemed to pain Sir Thomas, because he is so bashful; and no
one can see him pained, without grieving for his own sake also, and
trying to feel himself in the wrong.
This compelled me to find other arguments; which I did as follows:--
"First, my dear sir, in political matters, my humble view's are not
strong, and trenchant--as yours are become by experience--but
exceedingly large, and lenient; because I have never had anything at
all to do with politics.
"Again, of science,--the popular name for almost any speculation, bold
enough,--I am in ignorance equally blissful, if it were not thrilled
with fear. What power shall resist the wild valour of the man, who
proves that his mind is a tadpole's spawn, and then claims for that mind
supreme dominion, and inborn omniscience? Before his acephalous rush,
down go piled wisdom of ages, and pinnacled faith, cloud-capped heights
of immortal hope, and even the mansions everlasting, kept for those who
live for them."
"All those he may upset," replied Sir Thomas, with that sweet and
buoyant smile, which has saved even his supernatural powers, from the
sneers of those below him; "or at least, he may fancy that he has done
it. But to come to facts,--can he upset, or even make head, or tail, of
such a little affair as I am? Not one of his countless theories about me
has a grain of truth in it; though he sees me, and feels me, and pokes
me in the side, and listens, as if I were a watch run down, to know
whether I am going. I assure you, that to those who are not frightened
by his audacity, and fame, his 'links of irrefragable proof' are but a
baby's dandelion chain. In chemistry alone, and engineering, has science
made much true advance. The main of the residue is arrogance."
"In that branch of science, we are all Professors," I answered, to
disarm his wrath; knowing that, in these riper years, honest indignation
wrought upon his system, as youthful exultation once had done; and I
could not afford to have a hole made in my ceiling. "However, Sir
Thomas, I shall stick to my resolve. Though your life--when its
largeness is seen aright--will be an honour to the history of our race,
justice comes before honour; and only you can do justice to it."
Humility, which competes with truth, for the foremost place in his
character, compelled him to shake his head at this; and he began again,
rather sadly.
"My purpose is a larger one, than merely to talk of my own doings. I
want to put common sense into plain English, and to show--as our medical
men show daily--that the body is beyond the comprehension of the mind.
The mind commands the body to lie down, and be poked at, and probed, and
pried into, with fifty subtle instruments, or even to be cut up, and
analysed alive; and then understands never the more of it. If the mind
can learn nothing of the body it lives in, grows, rejoices, and suffers
with, how can it know all about it, for millions of years before either
existed? How can it trace their joint lineage up to a thing, that had
neither a head, nor a body?
"Go to; what I offer is not argument, but fact; and I care not the head
of their ancestor for them. But if I write it, will you remove whatever
may offend a candid mind?"
"If you offend no mind but that," said I, being fresh from a sharp
review of something I had written; "you will give small offence indeed;
and to edit you will be a sinecure."
Both these predictions have proved correct; except indeed that a few
kind readers of sadly unscientific mind have hankered for some
explanation of parts which they failed to witness.
The reply is truly simple--"if you were not there the fault was yours;
here are the facts as in evidence, better supported, and less strange,
than those you accept without a wink; and perhaps your trouble in
realising a case of specific levity proceeds from nothing but your own
excessive specific gravity."
R. D. BLACKMORE.
1885.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. SIGNS OF EMINENCE 1
II. _ITUR AD ASTRA_ 10
III. THE DAWN OF SCIENCE 16
IV. THE PURSUIT OF SCIENCE 25
V. "GRIP" 43
VI. TRUE SCIENCE 54
VII. THE GREAT WASHED 65
VIII. FOR CHANGE OF AIR 75
IX. _THALATTA!_ 86
X. THE NEW ADMIRAL 96
XI. LARGE IDEAS 106
XII. TWENTIFOLD TOWERS 119
XIII. WHALEBONES 131
XIV. A SILLY PAIR 145
XV. POLITICAL OECONOMY 156
XVI. NO EXTRAS 166
XVII. SELF-DEFENCE 178
XVIII. AH ME! 189
XIX. COMFORT 199
XX. BOIL NO MORE 209
XXI. THE SEAT OF LEARNING 219
XXII. HEREDITARY LAWS 229
XXIII. A COUNTY MEETING 237
XXIV. OLD BONES, AND YOUNG ONES 247
XXV. ON THE ROCKS 256
XXVI. BENEATH THEM 266
XXVII. PLEASANT, AND UNPLEASANT THINGS 277
XXVIII. THE WELFARE OF THE FAMILY 286
XXIX. BECAUSE HE HAD NO PITY 295
XXX. PERFIDY 303
XXXI. FREE TRADE 314
XXXII. A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 326
XXXIII. STRONG INTENTIONS 338
XXXIV. _FAMES FAMÆ_ 350
XXXV. NATIONAL EMERGENCY 362
XXXVI. VOTE FOR TOMMY! 371
XXXVII. SUNNY BAY 379
XXXVIII. PREPARE 386
XXXIX. FOR PUBLIC AND PRIVATE BENEFIT 393
XL. FAIR COUNSEL 398
XLI. THE RIGHT WAY TO SURRENDER 406
XLII. SPARS 415
XLIII. THE BATTLE, AND THE BREEZE 421
XLIV. THE ENGLISH LION 435
TOMMY UPMORE.
CHAPTER I.
SIGNS OF EMINENCE.
If I know anything of mankind, one of them needs but speak the truth to
secure the attention of the rest, amazed as they are at a feat so far
beyond their own power and experience. And I would not have troubled any
one's attention, if I could only have been let alone, and not ferreted
as a phenomenon.
When the facts, which I shall now relate, were fresh and vivid in the
public mind, it might have been worth twenty guineas to me to set them
in order and publish them. Such curiosity, then, was felt, and so much
of the purest science talked, about my "abnormal organism," that nine,
or indeed I may say ten, of the leading British publishers went so far
as to offer me £20,[1] with a chance of five dollars from America, if I
would only write my history!
But when a man is in full swing of his doings and his sufferings, how
can he stop to set them down, for the pleasure of other people? And even
now, when, if I only tried, I could do almost as much as ever, it is not
with my own consent that you get this narrative out of me. How that
comes to pass, you shall see hereafter.
Every one who knows me will believe that I have no desire to enlarge a
fame, which already is too much for me. My desire is rather to slip away
from the hooks and crooks of inquirers, by leaving them nothing to lay
hold of, not even a fibre to retain a barb; myself remaining like an
open jelly, clear, and fitter for a spoon than fork,--as there is said
to be a fish in Oriental waters, which, being hooked, turns inside out,
and saves both sides by candour.
One reason why I now must tell the simple truth, and be done with it, is
that big rogues have begun to pile a pack of lies about me, for the sake
of money. They are swearing one another down, and themselves up, for
nothing else than to turn a few pounds out of me; while never a one of
them knows as much as would lie on a sixpence about me. Such is the crop
of crop-eared fame!
Now, if there is any man so eminent as to be made money of, surely he
ought to be allowed to hold his own pocket open. Otherwise, how is he
the wiser for all the wonder concerning him? And yet those fellows, I do
assure you, were anxious to elevate me so high, that every sixpence
pitched at me should jump down into their own hats. This is not to my
liking; and I will do my utmost to prevent it. And when you know my
peculiar case, you will say that I have cause for caution.
So fleeting is popularity, such a gossamer the clue of history, that
within a few years of the time when I filled a very large portion of the
public eye, and was kept in great type at every journal office, it may
even be needful for me to remind a world, yet more volatile than myself,
of the thrilling sensation I used to create, and the great amazement of
mankind.
These were more natural than wise; for I never was a wonder to myself,
and can only hope that a truthful account of my trouble will commend me,
to all who have time enough to think, as a mortal selected by nature for
an extremely cruel experiment, and a lesson to those who cannot enjoy
her works, without poking sticks at them.
My father was the well-known Bucephalus Upmore--called by his best
friends "Bubbly Upmore"--owner of those fine soap-boiling works, which
used to be the glory of old Maiden Lane, St. Pancras. He was one of the
best-hearted men that ever breathed, when things went according to his
mind; blest with every social charm, genial wit, and the surprising
products of a brisk and poetical memory. His figure was that of the
broadest Briton, his weight eighteen stone and a half, his politics and
manners Constitutional all over. At every step he crushed a flint, or
split a contractor's paving-stone, and an asphalt walk was a quagmire to
him.
My mother also was of solid substance, and very deep bodily thickness.
She refused to be weighed, when philosophers proposed it; not only
because of the bad luck that follows, but also because she was neither a
bull, nor a pen of fat pigs, nor a ribboned turkey. But her husband
vouched her to be sixteen stone; and if she had felt herself to be much
less, why should she have scorned to step into the scales, when she
understood all the rights of women?
These particulars I set down, simply as a matter of self-defence,
because men of science, who have never seen me, take my case to support
their doctrine of "Hereditary Meiocatobarysm," as they are pleased to
call it, presuming my father to have been a man of small specific
gravity, and my mother a woman of levity. They are thoroughly welcome to
the fact, out of which they have made so much, that the name of my
mother's first husband was Lightbody--Thomas Lightbody, of Long Acre, a
man who made springs for coaches. But he had been in St. Pancras
churchyard, seven good years before I was born; and he never was
mentioned, except as a saint, when my father did anything unsaintly.
But a truce to philosophy, none of which has ever yet bettered my
condition. Let every tub stand, or if stand it cannot, let every tub fly
on its own bottom. Better it is to have no attempt at explanation of my
case, than a hundred that stultify one another. And a truly remarkable
man has no desire to be explained away.
Like many other people, who have contrived to surprise the world before
they stopped, I did not begin too early. As a child, I did what the
other children did, and made no attempt to be a man too soon. Having
plenty of time on my hands, I enjoyed it, and myself, without much
thought. My mother alone perceived that nature intended me for
greatness, because I was the only child she had. And when I began to be
a boy, I took as kindly as any boy to marbles, peg-top, tip-cat, toffy,
lollipops, and fireworks, the pelting of frogs, and even of dogs, unless
they retaliated, and all the other delights included in the education of
the London boy; whose only remarkable exploit is to escape a good hiding
every day of his life.
But as a straw shows the way of the wind, a trifle or two, in my very
early years, gave token of future eminence. In the days of my youth,
there was much more play than there ever has been since; and we little
youngsters of Maiden Lane used to make fine running at the game of "I
spy," and even in set races. At these, whenever there was no wind, I was
about on a par with the rest of my age, or perhaps a little fleeter. But
whenever a strong wind blew, if only it happened to be behind my jacket,
Old Nick himself might run after me in vain; I seemed not to know that I
touched the ground, and nothing but a wall could stop me. Whereas, if
the wind were in front of my waistcoat, the flattest-footed girl, even
Polly Windsor, could outstrip me.
Another thing that happened to me was this, and very unpleasant the
effects were. My mother had a brother, who became my Uncle William, by
coming home from sea, when everybody else believed him drowned and done
for. Perhaps to prove himself alive, he made a tremendous noise in our
house, and turned everything upside down, having a handful of money, and
being in urgent need to spend it. There used to be a fine smell in our
parlour, of lemons, and sugar, and a square black bottle; and Uncle
William used to say, "Tommy, I am your Uncle Bill; come and drink my
health, boy! Perhaps you will never see me any more." And he always
said this in such a melancholy tone, as if there was no other world to
go to, and none to leave behind him.
A man of finer nature never lived, according to all I have heard of him.
Wherever he might be, he regarded all the place as if it were made for
his special use, and precisely adapted for his comfort; and yet as if
something was always coming, to make him say "good-bye" to it. He had an
extraordinary faith in luck, and when it turned against him, off he
went.
One day, while he was with us, I came in with an appetite ready for
dinner, and a tint of outer air upon me, from a wholesome play on the
cinder-heaps. "Lord, bless this Tommy," cried Uncle William; "he looks
as if he ought to go to heaven!" And without another word, being very
tall and strong, he caught hold of me under the axle of my arms, to give
me a little toss upward. But instead of coming down again, up I went,
far beyond the swing of his long arms. My head must have gone into the
ceiling of the passage, among the plaster and the laths; and there I
stuck fast by the peak of my cap, which was strapped beneath my chin
with Spanish leather. To see, or to cry, was alike beyond my power, eyes
and mouth being choked with dust; and the report of those who came
running below is that I could only kick. However, before I was wholly
done for, somebody fetched the cellar-steps, and with very great
difficulty pulled me down.
Uncle William was astonished more than anybody else, for everybody else
put the blame upon him; but he was quite certain that it never could
have happened, without some fault on my part. And this made a soreness
between him and my mother, which (in spite of his paying the doctor's
bill for my repairs, as he called it) speedily launched him on the waves
again, as soon as his money was got rid of.
This little incident confirmed my mother's already firm conviction that
she had produced a remarkable child. "The Latin Pantheon is the place
for Tommy," she said to my father, every breakfast time; "and to grudge
the money, Bucephalus, is like flying in the face of Providence."
"With all my heart," father always answered, "if Providence will pay the
ten guineas a quarter, and £2 15s. for extras."
"If you possessed any loftiness of mind," my mother used to say, while
she made the toast, "you would never think twice of so low a thing as
money, against the education of your only child; or at least you would
get them to take it out in soap."
"How many times must I tell you, my dear, that every boy brings his own
quarter of a pound? As for their monthly wash, John Windsor's boy, Jack,
is there, and they get it out of him."
"That makes it so much the more disgraceful," my mother would answer,
with tears in her eyes, "that Jack Windsor should be there, and no Tommy
Upmore! We are all well aware that Mr. Windsor boils six vats for one of
ours; and sixty, perhaps, if he likes to say it. But, on the other hand,
he has six children against our one; and which is worth the most?"
My father used to get up nearly always, when it came to this, and take
his last cup standing, as if his work could not wait for him. However,
it was forced into his mind, more and more every morning, that my
learning must come to a question of hard cash, which he never did
approve of parting with. And the more he had to think of it, the less he
smiled about it. At last, after cold meat for dinner three days running,
he put his best coat on and walked off straightway for the
_Partheneion_, which is in Ball's Pond, Islington. He did not come home
in at all a good temper, but boiled a good hour after boiling time, and
would not let any one know, for several days, what had gone amiss with
him.
For my part, having, as behoves a boy, no wild ambition to be educated,
and hearing from Jack Windsor what a sad case he was in, I played in the
roads, and upon the cinder-hills, and danced defiance at the classic
pile, which could be seen afar sometimes, when the smoke was blowing the
other way. But while I was playing, sad work went on, and everything was
settled without my concurrence. Mrs. Rumbelow herself, the Doctor's
wife, lady president of the college, although in a deeply interesting
state--as dates will show hereafter--not only came in a cab to visit my
mother, but brought with her on the dicky, as if he were nobody, the
seventh nephew of the Lord Mayor of London, who could do a Greek tree,
if it was pencilled out.
This closed all discussion, and clenched my fate, and our tailor was
ordered to come next morning. My father had striven his utmost to get me
taken as a day-boy, or at any rate to be allowed to keep a book against
the Muses. But Mrs. Rumbelow waved her hand, and enlarged upon liberal
associations, and the higher walks of literature, to such an extent that
my father could not put a business foot in anywhere. And before I was
sent to bed that night, when I went for my head to be patted, and to get
a chuck below the chin, he used words which hung long in my memory.
"Poor Tommy, thy troubles are at hand;" he said, with a tender gaze at
me beneath his pipe. "They can't make no profit from the victualling of
thy mind; but they mean to have it out of thy body, little chap. 'Tis a
woe as goes always to the making of a man. And the Lord have mercy on
thee, my son Tommy!"
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Sir Thomas cannot be accepted here, without a good-sized grain of
salt. Exciting as his adventures are, and sanguine as his nature is,
what can he be thinking of, in the present distress of publisher, strict
economy of libraries, and bankruptcy of the United States?