'Still however he did not venture openly to declare himself; and

Mr. Wakefield was too busy, in wasting your mother's fortune and

gratifying his own desires, to attend to those of the bishop. But his

prodigality, which is excessive, after a time brought him to London;

and the bishop imagined that, with his help, my scruples would at last

be conquered.

'The trial was made; not by the cautious bishop, but by Mr. Wakefield.

How such a proposition, coming from the man whom I had dearly loved,

and whose wife in justice I considered myself to be, was received,

you, who have a sense of the feelings of a highly injured and justly

indignant heart, may conceive!

'Yet, impassioned determined and almost frantic as I was, it was with

difficulty he could relinquish his plan. Till that hour, I never

believed him so utterly devoid of principle; but he then laid bare his

heart, hoping to make me a convert to its baseness. He exulted in the

power we should obtain over this sensual prelate, and the sums which

by these means we might extort. He looked with transport forward, to

the opening which this would afford for projects still much deeper.

The vices of the great, with which he might thus become intimate,

afforded a field ample as his own vice could wish. Nor could all the

impatience of indignation, with which I continually interrupted him,

impede that flow which the subject inspired.

'At length, disgusted beyond sufferance, I abruptly left him, and

sought relief from the racking sensations which he had excited. He

then entered into a correspondence with me, till I threatened to shew

his letters to the bishop. This induced him to desist, and for some

time I heard from him no more. At last he wrote once again, informing

me that you, Mr. Trevor, were come to London; characterizing you

as ignorant of the world and easily deceived; telling me that you

were intimate with the bishop; and advising me to promote a plan of

marriage between us, which he had proposed to the prelate as the best

way, in his own phrase, of making all things smooth!

'I hope the deep shame I felt, when the bishop introduced you and made

the experiment, was sufficiently visible to convince you how repugnant

my feelings were to such a crime!

'The bishop finding his first purpose thus defeated, and himself

encumbered by a kind of claimant, which his acknowledging me as a

niece had brought upon him, was determined at all events to rid

himself of me. Immediately before he left town, he wrote me a letter,

telling me that my loss of character was become too public for me to

receive any further countenance, from a man under the moral and divine

obligations which every bishop of the church of Christ must be; that

he was going on a visit to his diocese; that he could not think of

taking me, it was too flagrantly improper; and that he advised and

expected I should immediately return to my relations; further hoping

that I should see the enormity of my conduct, and reform.

'Oh! Mr. Trevor, what a world is this! Had he offered me money, I

should have rejected it with disdain! but he had not even that much

charity. I instantly quitted the house with a few shillings only in my

pocket.

'Mary had lived with me and my mother for some years before my

elopement: after my mother's death, my residence in the bishop's

family being known, I sent for her up to town and hired her. Her

artless affection made her my confidante; my situation required it;

and, when she heard the bishop's letter read, the kind creature with

honest anger instantly went and gave him warning.

'A quarter's wages was all her wealth; for the earnings of her labour

she had constantly expended on her boy, for whom she seems to have

more than a mother's affection. She has been my constant comforter.

Seeing the tears in my eyes, as we left the bishop's house, with a

look of mingled pity and indignation she exclaimed--"Do not grieve,

dear madam; though I work my fingers to the bone, you shall not

want."'

Miss Wilmot was proceeding with her narrative, when she was

interrupted by the hasty entrance of Mary. 'Oh madam,' said she, 'the

dear young lady and her maid are below. They were coming up stairs,

but I told them that you had a gentleman with you! Whereof at which

the young lady seemed a little in amaze; till I gave her to know that

it was only a friend of your brother's, a person from our own honest

country, and she would then a gone away, but as I said I was sure you

would be glad to see her, and would go up a purpose to your own room.

So do you go, madam, and I'll run down and tell her.'

Miss Wilmot immediately took her leave; and, though my curiosity was a

little awakened, a sense of decorum would not suffer me to endeavour

to see her visitor. I therefore shut the door, and, as soon as all was

silent on the stairs, I took my hat and walked out; that by changing

the scene I might dissipate a part of the melancholy which her story

had produced.

CHAPTER V

_Anger unabated: More news of the bishop: Deliberation on the mode of

my revenge: The articles answered; and new assailing doubts: A visit

to Turl: Advice given and rejected: And former feelings revived_

The next morning, when I came to reflect on all that I had heard, I

was surprised with the degree in which, by my mother's marriage with

Wakefield, I appeared to be implicated in the history. The character

of Wakefield, his prodigality, and total want of principle, were all

of a dangerous cast. Not satisfied with beggaring my mother, he had

projected to marry me to his mistress. The recollection of him roused

resentment, and cunning and inventive as he was described to be, I

wished for an opportunity of punishing his baseness, teaching him his

own insignificance, and treating him with the contempt he deserved. If

attacked, I had not yet learned the philosophy of forbearance. Though

I have been hurried forward too fast to narrate every little incident

as it occurred, yet it cannot be imagined that I all this while

neglected to peruse the defence of the articles published in the

bishop's name. No: it was my very first employment, on my arrival in

town; and though considerable trouble had been bestowed to disfigure

the work, as written by me, yet in substance I found it to be the

same. The wrongs of Miss Wilmot quickened my feelings, and, angry as I

was with Wakefield, I felt emotions of ten fold bitterness against the

bishop.

Association easily conjured up the earl, the president, the tutor,

Themistocles, and the injustice and disgrace I had suffered at Oxford.

The fermentation was so great that I was determined, immediately,

to expose them to the broad shame that should drive them from human

society.

In this benevolent project I was confirmed by another piece of

intelligence. One of the rich sees of the kingdom had become vacant.

The king's _congè d'elire_ was issued, and God's holy vicar the Bishop

of ***** himself was translated. What could I conclude, but that the

defence which I had written had been the cause? I had been made the

stepping stone of vice! I remembered the proceeding of the despot,

Frederic of Prussia, with the immortal Voltaire: the orange had been

squeezed, and the rind thrown to rot in the highway!

My teeth gnashed with the abundance of my wrath, and the impotence

of my means. I had hitherto forborne to write from a perplexity of

different plans. At one moment I determined to address my foes in the

public papers; at another I would concentrate the story, and relate

the whole in a pamphlet. Now it should be a history; anon a satirical

novel; Asmodeus in London, in which I would draw the characters in

such perfection that, without mentioning names, the persons should be

visible to every eye. But then this would not be sufficiently serious.

Thousands might mistake that for fiction which I wished all the world

to know was fact. To give them the least shelter was cowardly to

myself, treacherous to society, and encouragement to the criminal.

At last, the pamphlet was the mode on which I determined: and it was

begun with all the enthusiasm that the accumulating circumstances

could not but inspire, in a being constituted like me. Eager after

every species of aggravation, my anger could never be hot enough; the

gall of my ink was milk to that of my heart. The bitterness of my

feelings was tormenting; words that could burn, contempt that could

kill, shame that could annihilate, these and nothing less could

satisfy me. Could the serpent revenge fly, how would it dart and

sting! Happily for man it can only crawl. That I had been treated

with great injustice was true: but of justice my notions were very

inadequate; of revenge I had more than enough for a nation.

While hot in the pursuit of this task, I was diverted from it by

the publication of an answer to the articles. The moment I saw it

advertised, not sufficiently habituated to the vice of indolence

myself to recollect that I had an idle footman below, I hurried to

the publisher's, purchased it, and returned with a greyhound speed to

devour its contents.

Disgusted as I was with the members of the church, and beginning even

to doubt of the perfect orthodoxy of the church itself, I still had

too high an opinion of my own arguments to imagine the wit of man

could overturn them.

My haste had been so great that I had not taken off the paper, in

which the pamphlet was wrapped; and in the shop I had read no more

than the title-page. What was my surprise when snatching it from my

pocket and opening it, I discovered, at the conclusion of a short

preface, the name of Turl! it's author!

My emotions were confused. At one moment an answer from him was what I

wished; the next it was something like what I feared. In all argument,

I had hitherto found him so cool, so collected, and so clear, that, to

my imagination, he perhaps was the only man on earth fit to cope with

me. But the grating question, 'Was I fit to cope with him?' would

now and then recur. I could not but feel that I had, in a certain

manner, been subdued and cowed by his greater extent of knowledge,

perspicuity, and masculine genius. By thoughts like these my anxiety,

if not my ardour, was increased, and I began to read.

My forebodings were fulfilled. The impotence of my arguments was

exposed, their absurdity and self-contradiction ridiculed, their evil

tendency demonstrated, their falsehood rendered odious, and the author

of them treated like a child. My self respect was wounded at every

line, each paragraph was a death stab, and I never before felt myself

so completely ridiculous.

As a lesson of philosophy it was the most serious, salutary, and

impressive I ever received; for though, while reading, I affirmed to

myself that every thing urged against me was weak, or ill founded,

inconclusive, or absolutely false, yet the arguments returned with

increasing and reiterated force, haunting and oppressing me like a

painful dream from which I could not awake.

The evil tendency which he proved against my doctrines was the least

to be forgotten. As far as I understood myself, I had a sincere love

of truth, and an unfeigned desire to benefit, not mislead and oppress,

mankind. As the author of the defence, the heavy charge of immorality

was brought against me; not by personal attacks on my substitute, the

bishop, but by a detail of the consequences of such doctrines.

This event made me pause and consider, though with but little

propensity to candour, concerning the pamphlet on which I was then

engaged. Consideration however did but seem to confirm me in my

purpose. Let my defence be right or wrong, and I had by no means yet

decided in the negative, still the turpitude of the bishop and my

persecutors was no less flagitious. These incidents once more turned

my thoughts toward Turl, whom I knew not whether to admire, love, or

hate. I was not so entirely overwhelmed but that I had arguments,

at least I had words, at my command. Beside, I felt a wish to

communicate to him my projected attack, and perhaps read a part of my

pamphlet, that it might, as it certainly must, meet his approbation.

I felt satisfied that what he approved could not be wrong. And how

disapprove? On former occasions indeed my hopes, in this respect, had

been deceived; but now it was impossible! The case was so clear! In

the present instance, there could be but one opinion!

Feelings which were not the most honourable to myself, for their

source was egotism, had withheld me from visiting him since my return;

but these were now subdued, by others that were more imperious. I was

not satisfied with requiring his approbation of my plan of vengeance;

my choleric vanity challenged him to the lists, and the combat was

resolved upon.

As I was going, I recollected the shortness of the period in which his

answer had been composed and published, and this did but remind me of

the champion I had to encounter.

I found him, as before, tranquily pursuing his labours; except that

now he was writing, engaged as I imagined on the grand work he had

projected; though his copper and engraving tools lay dispersed by

his side. He received me as usual with calmness, but not without an

evident mixture of pleasure. Irritable as my feelings were, I had

always experienced something infinitely more dissatisfactory in being

angry with him than with any other person. In his countenance there

was a sedate undeviating rectitude, that, but for my impetuous disdain

of all restraint, would have inspired awe; yet, whenever his eye met

the eye of another, there was something so benevolent as almost to

disarm ill humour.

Replete with new arguments, as I supposed, but which in reality were

only a repetition of those I had already adduced, I burst upon him

with a multitude of words; defending my own defence of the articles

and attacking his answer. He made various ineffectual attempts to

arrest my career, and at last was obliged to suffer me to weary

myself; after which he calmly replied.

'The best answer I can give, to all you have urged, is to request

you will read the defence of the articles and my answer again, with

care. Either I am mistaken or you will find every thing you have said

already confuted.'

I endeavoured to divert him from this defence by reference, but he

continued to urge that he should only weaken his cause by answering

desultory arguments in a desultory way; which in the present case

would be folly, because his answer was already given in a clear and as

he believed conclusive manner.

Finding his purpose not to be shaken, I asked him if he were aware

that I was the author of the defence of the articles? He answered

that, seeing the bishop's name to the publication, he could not but

suppose the bishop himself had been intimately concerned in the

writing of the work: but, from what I had formerly told him, he had

suspected me to be a fellow-labourer.

'If so,' said I, 'Mr. Turl, how did it happen that you felt no

aversion to the confutation, as you suppose, of a man for whom you had

professed a regard?'

He replied, 'You, Mr. Trevor, are well acquainted with my answer:

"Socrates is my friend, Plato is my friend, but truth is more my

friend." If I myself had written falsehood yesterday, and now knew it

to be such, I would answer it to day. Would not you?'

It was a home question, and I was silent.

This subject ended, he made some kind and cordial inquiries

concerning my present pursuits, and these furnished the opportunity

of unburthening my heart. I related to him, with all the indignation

which resentment inspired, my whole history; and ended with informing

him of my determination to publish the vice and infamy of all the

parties to the world. On this a dialogue began.

'Which way will you publish them?'

'In a narrative, that I am now writing.'

'A sense of duty has obliged me to tell you that, in my opinion you

have been guilty of several mistakes already: you are now intent upon

another.'

'How so?'

'The excess of your anger perverts your judgment, and you cannot

write such a narrative without keeping your passions in a vitiated

state. Owing to the prejudices of mankind, you will impeach your own

credibility. Moderate men will think you rash, the precise will call

you a detractor, and the partisans, who are numerous, of the persons

you will attempt to expose will raise a cry against you, that will

infinitely overpower the equivocal proofs you can produce. It will

become a question of veracity, and yours will be invalidated by the

improbability, if not of the guilt, at least of the folly of your

persecutor's conduct. You cannot reform them, will do yourself much

harm, and the world no good. You will not only misemploy your time for

the present, but impede your power for the future.'

'If such be the consequences of honestly speaking the truth, what is

the conduct that I am to pursue? Am I to be a hypocrite, and listen

with approbation while men boast of their vices, glory in their

false principles, and proclaim the destructive projects they mean to

pursue?'

'No.'

'Is not silence approbation?'

'Yes.'

'Yet your system will not allow me to speak!'

'You accuse my system unjustly: it is the manner of speaking to which

it attends. The precaution of speaking so as to produce good, not bad,

consequences is the doctrine I wish to inculcate. He that should sweep

the streets of pea-shells, lest old women might break their necks,

would doubtless have good intentions; yet his office would only be

that of a scavenger. Speak, but speak to the world at large, not

to insignificant individuals. Speak in the tone of a benevolent

and disinterested heart, and not of an inflamed and revengeful

imagination! otherwise you endanger yourself, and injure society.'

'What, shall any cowardly regard to my own safety induce me to

the falsehood of silence? For is it not falsehood, of the most

contemptible and atrocious kind, to forbear publishing such miscreants

to the world? It is this base this selfish prudence, that encourages

men like these to proceed from crime to crime. Had they been exposed

in their first attempt, their effrontery could never have been so

enormous. No! I am determined! Were my life to be the sacrifice, I

will hold them up a beacon, alike to the wicked and the unwary! Will

paint them in the gross and odious colours that alone can characterize

their actions, and drive them from the society of mankind!'

'Do you conceive you are now speaking in the spirit of justice, or of

revenge?'

'Of both.'

He who is resolved not to be convinced does not wish to hear his last

argument answered. With this short reply, therefore, I rose, took my

hat, made some aukward apology, was sorry we were fated to differ so

continually in principle, but each man must act from his own judgment;

was obliged to him nevertheless for his sincerity and good intention,

and once more took my leave, more angry than pleased, much in the same

abrupt manner that I had formerly done. The similarity indeed forced

itself upon me as I was quitting the door, and I knew not whether to

accuse myself of pettishness, obstinacy, and want of candour; or him

of singularity, and an inflexible sternness of opposition. At all

events, my purpose of publishing my pamphlet as soon as it should be

written was fixed; and to that labour I immediately returned.

CHAPTER VI

_Story of Miss Wilmot concluded: Olivia not forgotten: A gaming-table

friend characterized: Modern magicians: Suspicious principles: The

friend's absence, and return: Allegorical wit, and dangerous advice_

Various causes induced me to take the first opportunity of again

visiting Miss Wilmot; her story had inspired compassion and respect.

She might be in want, and to relieve her would give me pleasure.

Beside which I had a number of questions to ask, especially concerning

this Wakefield; and some desire to know who and what the young lady,

who was so great a favourite with Mary, might be.

In the evening I saw Miss Wilmot; and, in offering her with as much

delicacy as possible pecuniary aid, she informed me that fortunately

she had found a friend; generous, beneficent, and tender; not less

prudent than kind; and, though very young, possessed of a dignity of

understanding such as she had never before met in woman. Miss Wilmot

spoke with so much enthusiasm that I, whose imagination readily caught

fire, felt a redoubled wish to see this angel.

I hinted it to Miss Wilmot, but with apologies; and she replied that

the young lady had expressly requested her visits might be private,

and her name concealed. I inquired how they had first become

acquainted, and learned that it was in consequence of the friendly

zeal of Mary, who had a countrywoman that lived servant in the family

of this young lady, and from whom she gained intelligence of the

liberal and noble qualities of her mistress. The first retreat of Miss

Wilmot, after leaving the house of the bishop, was to a poor lodging

provided by Mary. From this she was removed by the friendly young lady

to her present asylum, till she could find the means of maintaining

herself; and had since been supplied with necessaries through the same

channel. 'The favours she confers on me,' said Miss Wilmot, 'are not

so properly characterised by delicacy, as by a much higher quality;

an open and unaffected sensibility of soul; a benevolent intention

of promoting human happiness; and an unfeigned heart felt pleasure

which accompanies her in the performance of this delightful duty.

The particulars I have now related,' continued she, 'were all that

remained to be told when I was interrupted by Mary, at our last

meeting; and you are now acquainted with my whole story.'

Every conversation that I had with Miss Wilmot confirmed the truth of

her own remark, that her intellect had been greatly awakened by the

misfortunes in which her mistakes had involved her; and particularly

by the deep despondency of her brother. He, Wakefield, and the young

lady were the continual topics of her discourse; but her brother the

most and oftenest. I was several times a witness that the papers were

daily perused by her, with all those quick emotions of dread which she

had so emphatically described. The terror of his parting resolution

was almost too much for her, and it was with difficulty she preserved

her mind from madness. I saw its tendency, and took every opportunity

to sooth and calm her troubled spirit; and my efforts were not wholly

ineffectual.

In the mean time I did not forget that I was not possessed of the

purse of Fortunatus. On the contrary, I had a mighty task before me.

The image of Olivia incessantly haunted me. The ineffable beauty of

her form, the sweet and never to be forgotten sensibility that she

displayed when I first saw her in the presence of Andrews, at Oxford,

and the native unaffected dignity of her mind were my constant themes

of meditation. Must I behold her in the arms of another? The thought

was horror! Yet how to obtain her? If I studied the law, preliminary

forms alone would consume years. From the church I was banished. A

military life I from principle abhorred; even my half ripe philosophy

could not endure the supposition of being a hireling cut-throat.

Literature might afford me fame, but of riches gained from that source

there was scarcely an example.

From literary merit however men had obtained civil promotion; it must

not therefore be neglected. Of such neglect indeed my passionate love

of letters would not admit. With respect to law, though infinitely too

slow for the rapidity of my desires, still it was good to be prepared

for all events. I therefore entered myself of the Temple, and thus

began another snail-pace journey of term keeping.

Youth is a busy season, and, though occupations are forced upon it

of a nature too serious for its propensities, it fails not to find

time for amusement. In St. James's-street, near the palace, was

a billiard-table, to which when an inmate with Lord Idford I had

resorted. It was frequented by officers of the Guards, and other

persons who were chiefly supposed to be men of some character and

fashion. Among them I had met a young gentleman of the name of

Belmont, remarkable for the easy familiarity of his address, an

excellent billiard player, and who had in a manner attached himself to

me, by a degree of attention that was engaging. I thought indeed that

I discovered contradictory qualities in him; but the sprightliness of

his imagination, and the whimsicality of his remarks, compensated

for a looseness of principle, which was too apparent to be entirely

overlooked.

He frequently turned the conversation on the county of which I was a

native, having, as he informed me, and as his discourse shewed, many

acquaintance in that county. Since my return to town I had again met

him, and he had sought my company with increasing ardour.

Flattered by this preference, and often delighted with the flights

of his fancy, I returned his advances with great cordiality. His

appearance was always genteel, but from various circumstances I

collected that he was not at present rich. His expectations, according

to his own account, were great; and his familiar habits of treating

every man, be his rank or fashion what it might, seemed to signify

that he considered himself their equal.

When we first met, after my return to town, he was desirous I should

relate to him where I had been, and what had befallen me: and when he

heard that I had visited the county of--he became more pressing to

know all that had happened. To encourage me, he gave me the following

account of himself.

'For my own part, Mr. Trevor, I am at present under a cloud. I shall

sometime or another break forth, and be a gay fellow once again: nor

can I tell how soon. I love to see life, and I do not believe there

is a man in England of my age, who has seen more of it. Perhaps you

will laugh when I tell you that, since we last parted, I have been

_vagabondizing_. You do not understand the term? It offends your

delicacy? I will explain.'

He saw he had raised my curiosity, and with a loquacity that sat easy

on him, and a vivacity of imagery in which as I have said he excelled,

he thus continued.

'Perhaps you will think a gentleman degraded, by having subjected

himself to the denomination of a vagrant? Though, no; you have wit

enough to laugh at gray-beards, and their ridiculous forms and absurd

distinctions. Know then, there is a certain set or society of men,

frequently to be met in straggling parties about this kingdom, who,

by a peculiar kind of magic, will metamorphose an old barn, stable,

or out-house, in such a wonderful manner that the said barn, stable,

or out-house, shall appear, according as it suits the will or purpose

of the said magicians, at one time a prince's palace; at another a

peasant's cottage; now the noisy receptacle of drunken clubs and

wearied travellers, called an inn; anon the magnificent dome of a

Grecian temple. Nay, so vast is their art that, by pronouncing audibly

certain sentences which are penned down for them by the head or master

magician, they transport the said barn, stable, or out-house, thus

metamorphosed, over sea or land, rocks, mountains or deserts, into

whatsoever hot, cold, or temperate region the director wills, with as

much facility as my lady's squirrel can crack a nut. What is still

more wonderful, they carry all their spectators along with them,

without the witchery of broomsticks.

'These necromancers, although whenever they please they become

princes, kings, and heroes, and reign over all the empires of the vast

and peopled earth; though they bestow governments, vice-royalties,

and principalities upon their adherents, divide the spoils of nations

among their pimps, pages, and parasites, and give a kingdom for a

kiss, for they are exceedingly amorous; yet, no sooner do their

sorceries cease, though but the moment before they were reveling and

banqueting with Marc Antony, or quaffing nectar with Jupiter himself,

it is a safe wager of a pound to a penny that half of them go

supperless to bed. A set of poor but pleasant rogues! miserable but

merry wags! that weep without sorrow, stab without anger, die without

dread, and laugh, sing, and dance to inspire mirth in others while

surrounded themselves with wretchedness.

'A thing still more remarkable in these enchanters is that they

completely effect their purpose, and make those who delight in

observing the wonderful effects of their art laugh or cry, condemn or

admire, love or hate, just as they please; subjugating the heart with

every various passion: more especially when they pronounce the charms

and incantations of a certain sorcerer called Shakspeare, whose

science was so powerful that he himself thus describes it.

--'I have oft be-dimm'd

The noon-tide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,

And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault

Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder

Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak

With his own bolt: the strong-bas'd promontory

Have I made shake; and by the spurs pluck'd up

The pine and cedar: graves, at my command,

Have wak'd their sleepers; op'd, and let them forth

By my so potent art.'

'I understand you,' said I; delighted with the picture he had drawn.

'Your necessities have obliged you to turn player?'

'Not altogether my necessities,' answered he: 'it was more from a

frolic, and to know the world. That is my study, Mr. Trevor. But can

you tell me why players, by following their profession, act in some

places contrary to all law, and are called strollers, vagabonds, and

vagrants, and in others are protected by the law, and dignified with

the high and mighty title of his Majesty's Servants?'--

'Indeed I cannot,' said I.

He continued: 'Mark my words; the day will come, Mr. Trevor, when you

will discover that there are greater jugglers in the world than your

players, wonderful as their art of transformation is. The world is all

a cheat; its pleasures are for him who is most expert in legerdemain

and cajolery; and he is a fool indeed who is juggled out of his share

of them. But that will not I be.'

He then turned the conversation to me, and what had happened during my

visit in the country. I was beginning my short narrative, but we were

interrupted by an acquaintance, who joined us; and we two or three

times met again in the billiard-room, before any opportunity presented

itself.

One evening however he followed me out, and required me to discharge

my promise. Accordingly I told him all that had occurred; but not

without those feelings of indignation which the subject always

awakened. He rather seemed diverted than to sympathize in my angry

sensations, and asked me 'whether I thought those men, whom the world

call swindlers, black-legs, and other hard names, were not at least as

honest as many of their neighbours?'

He paid most attention to my mother's story; and, I having

characterized Wakefield according to the traits my mother and Miss

Wilmot had given me, he observed that 'this Wakefield must certainly

be a cunning fellow, and of no mean abilities.'

'In my opinion,' I replied, 'he is an unprincipled scoundrel; and

indeed a greater fool than knave; for, with the same ingenuity that he

has exerted to make all mankind his enemies, he might have made them

all his friends.'

Belmont's answer was remarkable. 'You have this ingenuity yourself,

Mr. Trevor; talents which you have exerted, in your own way. Have you

made all men your friends?'

I was silent, and after a moment's pause he added--'Come, come! You

have spirit and generosity; I will tell you how you can serve me. I

have a relation, from whom I could draw a good supply at this moment,

if I had but a small sum for travelling expences. Lend me ten guineas:

I will be back in a week and repay you.'

The pleasantness of his humour, and the manner in which he had gained

upon me, were sufficient to insure him a compliance with this request.

I had the money in my pocket, gave it him, and we bade each other

adieu; with a promise on his part that 'he would soon be in town

again, new moulted and full of feather.'

I must not omit to notice that, having had occasion to hint at Miss

Wilmot, in the story I had told him, but without mentioning her name,

which he never indeed seemed desirous to know, he put many questions

relating to her. He inquired too concerning her brother; and, though

he gave no tokens of deep passion, was evidently interested in the

whole narrative. His queries extended even to the bishop, and the

earl; and he discovered a great desire to be minutely informed of all

that related to me. His interrogatories were answered without reserve,

for I understood them as tokens of friendship.

In less than a fortnight, I met him again, at the usual place:

for he had always been averse to visit me at my lodgings. This I

had attributed to motives of vanity; for example, his not having

apartments perhaps, such as he wished, to invite me to in return. His

appearance, the moment I saw him, spoke his success. His dress was

much improved, he sported his money freely, and being engaged at play

more than once betted ten pounds upon the hazard. He was successful

in his match, in high spirits, welcomed me heartily, and was full of

those flights in which his vigorous imagination was so happy.

'Life,' said he, 'Trevor,' putting on his coat after he had done play,

'life is a game at calculation; and he that plays the best of it is

the cleverest fellow. Or, rather, calculation and action are husband

and wife; married without a possibility of divorce. The greatest

errors of Mrs. Action proceed from a kind of headstrong feminine

propensity, which she has to be doing before her husband, Mr.

Calculation, has given her proper directions. She often pours a

spoonful of scalding soup into his worship's mouth, before the

relative heat between the liquid and the papillary nerves has been

properly determined; at which, in the aforesaid true feminine spirit,

she is apt, while he makes wry faces, to burst into a violent fit of

laughter.

'Not but that Mrs. Action herself has sometimes very just cause of

complaint against her spouse; as most wives have. For example: If, in

coming down stairs, Mr. Calculation have made an occasional error but

of a unit, and told her ladyship she had only one step more to descend

when she had two, she, coming with an unexpected jerk in the increased

ratio of a falling body, is very much alarmed; and when the tip of

her rose-coloured tongue has happened, on such occasions, to project

a little beyond the boundaries prescribed by those beautiful barriers

of ivory called her teeth, it has suffered a sudden incision; nay

sometimes amputation itself: a very serious mischief; for this is

wounding a lady in a tender part.

'What is error? Defect in calculation. What is ignorance? Defect in

calculation. What is poverty, disgrace, and all the misfortunes to

which fools are subject? Defect in calculation.'

By this time we were in the street, walking arm in arm toward the

park, and he continued his jocular allegory.--

'You tell me you have a mind to turn author; and this makes me suspect

you understand but little of the algebra of authorship. Could you but

calculate the exact number of impediments, doubts, and disappointments

attending the trade, could you but find the sum of the objections

which yourself, your friends, and your employers will raise, not only

against your book but against the best book that ever was or will be

written, the remainder would be a query, the produce of which would be

a negative quantity, which would probably prevent both Sir and Madam

from reading either the nonsense or the good sense, the poetry or the

prose, the simple or the sublime, of the rhapsodical, metaphorical,

allegorical genius, Hugh Trevor: for in that case I suspect Hugh

Trevor would find a more pleasant and profitable employment than the

honourable trade of authorship. I have read books much, but men more,

and think I can bring my wit to a better market than the slow and

tedious detail of an A, B, C, manufactory.'

I laughed and listened, and he presently broke forth with another

simile.

'In what is the maker of a book better than the maker of a coat?

Needle and thread, pen and ink; cloth uncut and paper unsoiled; where

is the preference? except that the tailor's materials are the more

costly. In days of yore, the gentlemen of the thimble gave us plenty

of stay-tape and buckram; the gentlemen of the quill still give us

a _quantum sufficit_ of hard words and parenthesis. The tailor has

discovered that a new coat will sit more _degage_, and wear better,

the less it is incumbered by trimmings: but though buckram is almost

banished from Monmouth-street, it is still on sale in Paternoster-row.

'I once began to write a book myself, and began it in this very

style: Fable, said I, is the cloth, and morality the lining; a

good diction makes an excellent facing, satire ensures fashion,

and humour duration; and for an author to pretend to write without

wit and judgment were as senseless as for a tailor to endeavour to

work without materials, or shears to cut them. Periods may aptly be

compared to buttons; and button holes are like--

'I could find no simile for button holes, and thank heaven! left off

in despair and never wrote another line.

'Take my advice, Trevor; quit all thoughts of so joyless and

stupifying a trade! Every blockhead can sneer at an author; the title

itself is a sarcasm; and Job, who we are told was the most patient of

men, uttered the bitterest wish that ever fell from lips: "Oh that

mine enemy had written a book!"

'Beside you are a fellow of spirit, fashion, form, and figure; and if

you will but keep company with me may learn a little wit. How many

fools are there with full purses, which if you be not as great a fool

as any of them, you might find the means to empty? He that is bound by

rules, which the rich make purposely to rob the poor of their due, is

like crows, scared from picking up the scattered corn by rags and a

manikin.'

This discourse gave me no surprise; it was what I imagined to be

a free loose mode of talking, that did not correspond with his

principles of action. I deemed it a love of paradox, a desire to

shew his wit and original turn of thought, and was confirmed in

the supposition by his ironical and ludicrous replies, whenever I

attempted a serious answer. Such was the history of the beginning of

an acquaintance of which the reader will hear more.

CHAPTER VII

_An important secret betrayed by Mary: Transporting intelligence: The

reverse, or rain after sunshine: The reader entrusted with a secret:

Strange behaviour of a false friend: Lover's vows_

I did not suffer a day to pass without either seeing or sending to

inquire after Miss Wilmot; so that our intercourse was continual. One

afternoon, being in my own room, after hearing as I thought footsteps

and female voices on the stairs, Mary knocked at my door, and,

entering as desired, shewed marks of eagerness on her countenance, the

meaning of which a question from me immediately caused her to explain.

'Lord! Sir,' said she, 'you cannot think what a hurry and flurry I be

in! And all about you!'

'Me, Mary?'

'You shall hear, Sir. My mistress is gone out to take a walk in the

park, as I _avised_ her to _divart_ her _mellicholy_; and so the dear

young lady has _bin_ here; Miss--! I had forgotten! I _munna_ tell her

name. But if ever there _wur_ an angel upon _arth_ she is one; she

says such kind things to my dear mistress, and does not blame her for

her fault; for, _thof_ she be as innocent herself as the child unborn,

she can pity the _misfortins_ of her own _sect_, when they a _bin_

betrayed by false hearted men; and all that she says is that we _mun_

take care to be more be-cautioned for the time to come: and then she

says it in so sweet, and yet so _serus_ a manner, that I am sure no

Christian soul if they'd a heard her would dare do other than as she

says. And as for a doing a good turn, I do verily believe she would

give the morsel out of her mouth afore a poor creature should be

driven to sin and shame for want--'

I interrupted her: she had raised some strong surmises, and I was

impatient--'But you forget, Mary; you mentioned something concerning

me?'

'Oh lord! yea; a mort o' questions a _bin_ asked; for she talks as

familiarity to me as if she _wur_ a poor body herself; which gives me

heart, so that I be not _afeard_ to speak. Whereof I could not help

telling her a great many things about you; as how, when little more

but a child, you saved my life; and _consarning_ your goodness and

kind offers to my dear mistress; and how soft hearted and well spoken

you _wur_ even to poor me; just for all the world as I said, like her

own dear good self. Whereupon it gladdened her heart to hear there

_wur_ another good creature, as good as herself. And so she asked

_ater_ your name; which, you know that being no secret, I told her,

and then it _wur_, if you had but a seen her! Her face _wur_ as pale

as my kerchief! and I asked what ailed her ladyship? And she replied

in a faint voice, Nothing. So that I thought there must for _sartinly_

be a _summut_ between you! for she sat down, and seemed to do so! as

if a struggling for breath. And I ran for a smelling bottle; whereupon

she _wur_ better, and said she did not need it. And so she asked how

long you had lived in the house, and whether you looked happy? And I

answered and said there _wur_ not a kinder happier creature breathing.

So she asked again if I _wur_ quite sure that you _wur_ happy? And I

said I _wur mortally sartin_ of it. So then she fetched a deep sigh

from the very bottom of her heart, and said she _wur_ glad of it, very

glad of it indeed. For, said she, my good Mary, for she often calls me

good, which I be very sure is her kindness and not my _desarts_, my

good Mary, said she, I don't wonder that you do love Mr. Trevor for

having a saved your life. He once saved my life; which, says she, I

shall remember the longest day I have to breathe: and--'

'It is she!' exclaimed I; for I could hold no longer. 'It is Olivia!

Benevolent angel! And does she deign to think of me? Does she inquire

after me? Am I still in her thoughts?'

'Anan!' said Mary. 'I hope I a betrayed no secrets? For surely, I ha'

not mentioned a word of her name.'

Just as I was continuing to question Mary farther, Miss Wilmot

returned. I earnestly requested she would come into my apartment,

related the discovery I had made, and spoke with all that enthusiasm

which the revival of hope and the ardour of passion could inspire.

Miss Wilmot sympathized with my feelings; and, with a fervour that

spoke the kindness of her heart, hoped she should one day see a pair

so worthy of each other blessed to the full accomplishment of their

wishes; but she confessed she had her fears, for she thought that the

remark, that lovers best calculated to make each other happy were

seldom united, was but too true.

I prevailed on her to take tea with me; Mary waited, and I put a

thousand questions to her; for my conversation was all on this

subject. I could think of nothing else. O how pure was the delight

of this discovery! That Olivia should quit the scenes of tumultuous

joy, and seek the forlorn and unfortunate, purposely to mitigate

their wants, and administer consolation to their woes, was knowledge

inexpressibly sweet to the soul! And that she should still remember

me! that my very name should raise such commotions in her bosom! that

she should delight to hear my praise, and recollect the fortunate

moment when I bore her from death with such affection!--It was rapture

unspeakable!

I learned from Mary that she lived with her aunt, a few streets

distant; and Miss Wilmot informed me that she constantly visited her

twice, and sometimes oftener, each week. How did my bosom burn with

the wish that she might return that very evening, or at least the next

day! In the impatience and ecstacy of hope, I forgot all impediments.

Let me but see her; let me but know that she was in the house, and

I supposed the moment of perfect bliss would then be come. Happy

evening! Never did seductive fancy paint more delicious dreams, or

raise up phantoms more flattering to the heart.

Pains and pleasures dance an eternal round. The very next day brought

sensations of an opposite kind. My mother had found no person of whom

to purchase an annuity in the country; for, the money being her own by

my free gift, she had not thought proper to venture it with Thornby;

lest under the pretext of monies advanced, he should make she knew

not what deduction. She had therefore written to me, soon after I

came to London, to find her a purchaser; and after some delay, which

the necessity of consulting persons better informed than myself had

occasioned, I had advertised the week before and had entered into a

negotiation.

Terms were agreed upon, and the rough copy of a deed for that purpose

was brought me the same morning that the following letter arrived.

'SIR,

'In spite of my caution, your mother has played the fool once more.

She was too suspicious to trust the money in my hands, though I warned

her to beware of accidents. I must say she is a very weak woman. Her

husband, Mr. Wakefield, has made his appearance, and has trumped up

some tale or another to impose upon her, which I am sorry to find is

no difficult thing. He has got the money you gave her; so what is to

become of her I do not know. She expects he will fetch her away within

a month, and keep her like a lady, on the profits of some place at

court, which, according to his account, a friend was to procure for

him if he could but raise five hundred pounds. You may think how

likely he is to keep his promise. I told her my mind in plain terms,

and I believe she begins to be in a panic. She dare not write to you,

on which I thought it best to let you know the truth at once; for, as

I said before, what is to become of her I do not know.

I am, &c.

NABAL THORNBY.'

The train of ideas which the strange contents of this epistle excited

was painful in the extreme. The idiot conduct of my mother tempted

me to curse, not her indeed, but, according to the narrow limits of

prejudice, God and her excepted, all things else! Yet, who but she was

the chief actor in this scene of lunatic folly? Was there a woman on

earth beside herself that would have been so grossly gulled?

As for her husband, the bitterness of gall was not so choaking as the

recollection of him. The sight or sound of his name excited disgust

too intense to be dwelt upon! To suffocate him as a monster, or a

sooterkin, seemed the only punishment of which he was worthy.

And here it is necessary I should inform the reader of a secret, of

which I was myself at that time and long continued to remain utterly

ignorant. Belmont, the man who had purposely thrown himself in my way,

industriously made himself my intimate, informed me as I supposed of

his private affairs and motives of action, inquired minutely into

mine, wormed every intelligence I could give that related to myself

out of me, designedly attached me to him by intellectual efforts of

no mean or common kind (for he saw they delighted me, and they were

familiar to him) Belmont, I say, possessed of a pleasing person, a

winning aspect, and an address that, though studied with the deepest

art, appeared to be open, unpremeditated, and too daring for disguise,

this Belmont was no other than the hated Wakefield! Yes, it was

Wakefield himself, that by a stratagem which drove me half mad, while

it made every drop of blood in his body tingle with triumph, had thus

circumvented me! He it was who borrowed the ten guineas from me, by

the aid of which he robbed me of five hundred; and then returned to

observe how I endured the goad, laugh at my restive antics, and revel

in the plunder which he had purloined with so much facility from

foolish Trevor, and his still more foolish mother!

But this was not the only trick he had to play me. Secure in the

resources of an invention that might have been occupied in pursuits

worthy of his powers, his perverted philosophy taught him to employ

these resources only for the gratification of passions which he

thought it folly to control, and to exult over men whose sordid

selfishness he despised, and whose limited cunning was the subject of

his derision. He professed himself the disciple of La Rochefoucault

and Mandeville, and his practice did not belie his principles.

From the tenor of his discourse, I am persuaded that, had he found me

apt at adopting his maxims, he would have unbosomed himself freely,

have initiated me in his own arts, and, by making me the associate of

his projects, have induced me to look back on the past rather with

merriment than anger. As it was, he reserved himself to act with me as

with the rest of mankind; to watch circumstances, and turn them to his

own purposes whenever opportunity should offer.

This was the man who was the hero of the letter I had just received!

A letter that I could neither read nor recollect without being stung

almost to frenzy; yet that I could neither forget nor forbear to

peruse!

During two hours I traversed my room, and chafed with something like

bursting anguish. A few weeks ago, when I had received my legacy of

the lawyer, I seemed to be encumbered with wealth. Reflection and the

expence at which I now lived, to the visible and quick consumption

of a sum I then thought so ample, had since taught me that I was in

imminent danger of being reduced to beggary. I had no profession, nor

any means of subsistence till a profession could be secured; at least

no adequate means, unless by retiring to some humble garret, and

confining myself to the society of the illiterate, the boorish, and

the brutal, between whose habits and mine there was no congeniality.

The very day before, Olivia, ecstatic vision, had risen in full view

of my delighted hopes, and, forgetting the tormenting distance which

malignant fate had placed between us, I almost thought her mine. The

recollection of her now was misery.

Restless, desponding, agonizing, when this thought occurred, I was

hastening to go and communicate the accursed news to Miss Wilmot; but

an idea started which, after a moment's reflection, induced me to

desist. If I told her, the story of Wakefield must again be revived.

Olivia too might be informed of circumstances concerning my silly

mother, which, selfishness out of the question, motives of delicacy

ought to conceal. Such were my arguments at that time: I had not then

the same moral aversion to secrecy that I now possess.

I could not however any longer endure the present scene, and to get

rid of it hurried away to the billiard table, where, as usual, I found

the then supposed Belmont. He was not himself at play, but was engaged

in betting. Impatient to unburthen my heart, for as far as my own

affairs were concerned I had now no secrets for him, I hurried him out

of the room immediately that the game was ended.

The moment we came into the park, I shewed him my letter, and desired

him to read. While he perused it, I saw he was more than once

violently tempted to laugh.

'Well!' said he, returning it and restraining his titillation, 'is

this all?'

'All!' answered I. 'What more would you have? Could the maleficent

devil himself do more to drive a man mad?'

He looked in my face! I returned the inquisitive gaze! I saw emotions

the very reverse of mine struggling to get vent. His opposing efforts

were ineffectual; he could contain himself no longer, and burst into a

violent fit of laughter!

Astonished at mirth so ill placed and offensive, I asked what it

meant? The tone of my interrogatory was rouzing, and recalled his

attention. 'Pshaw! Trevor,' replied he, with a glance of half

contemptuous pity, 'you are yet young: you are but at the beginning

of your troubles. Your over weening fondness for the musty morality

of dreaming dotards, or artful knaves who only made rules that they

might profit by breaking them, will be your ruin. I tell you again and

again, if you do not prey upon the world, the world will prey upon

you. There is no alternative. What! be bubbled out of your fortune by

a whining old woman? I am ashamed of you!'

'But that woman is my mother!'

'Yes! and a set of very pretty motherly tricks she has played you! Not

that in the first instance it was so much your fault, who were but a

boy, as that of your old fool of a grandfather. It is now high time

however that you should become a man.'

'My grandfather? Say rather it was the scoundrel Wakefield!'

'You seem very angry with this Wakefield! And why? He appears to me

to be a fellow of plot, wit, and spirit. Instead of resentment, were

I you, I should be glad to become acquainted with the man who so well

perceives the stupidity and folly of the animals around him, laughs at

their apish antics, and with so much facility turns their absurd whims

to his own advantage.'

'Acquainted! Intuitive rascal! I would cut off his ears! Drag him to

the pillory with my own hands! He is unworthy a nobler revenge.'

'Pshaw! Ridiculous! What did your mother want but the gratification

of her paltry passions? which were but the dregs and lees of goatish

inclination; for with her the pervading headlong torrent of desire was

passed. Did she think of morality? She would have sacrificed the youth

and high spirits of Wakefield to her own salacious doating. Why should

not he too have his wishes? Were his the most criminal; or the least

fitted for the faculties of enjoyment?'

'You have not heard me defend my mother's conduct: but his villany to

the young lady I formerly mentioned [meaning Miss Wilmot] deserves the

execration of every man!'

'That is, as she tells the story. Women, poor simple creatures, are

always to be pitied, never blamed! But a little more experience,

Trevor, will tell you the devil himself is not half so cunning! Men

are universally their dupes; nay their slaves, though called their

tyrants. Do not men consume their lives in toils to please them? Who

are the chief instigators to what you call vice and folly? Who are the

mischief makers of the world? Who incite us to plunder, rob, and cut

each other's throats? Who but woman? And is not a little retaliation

to be expected? Poor dear souls! Cunning as serpents, Trevor; but,

though fond of cooing, not harmless as doves. Crocodiles; that only

weep to catch their prey. I once was told of one that died broken

hearted; a great beauty, and much bewept by all the maudlin moralizers

that knew her. The cause of her grief was a handsome fellow, who of

course was a cruel perjured villain. The tale had great pathos, and

would have been very tragical, had it but been true. Ages before that

in which Jove laughed at them, lover's perjuries were the common topic

of scandal, and so continue to be. I have often been reproached in the

same way myself, and I once took the trouble to write an apology; for

which, as it will suit all true lovers, all true lovers are bound to

thank me. Here it is.'

I

Men's vows are false, Annette, I own:

The proofs are but too flagrant grown.

To Love I vow'd eternal scorn;

I saw thee and was straight forsworn!

II

In jealous rage, renouncing bliss,

When Damon stole a rapturous kiss,

I took, with oaths, a long farewell;

How false they were thou best can'st tell.

III

By saints I vow'd, and pow'rs divine,

No love could ever equal mine!

Yet I myself, though thus I swore,

Have daily lov'd thee more and more!

IV

To perjuries thus I hourly swerve;

Then treat them as they well deserve:

Thy own vows break, at length comply,

And be as deep in guilt as I.

'What think you; was not this a valid plea? Are not women apt to take

the advice here given them? Lovely hypocrites! They delight in being

forced to follow their own inclinations!'

There was no resisting the playfulness of his wit, and the

exhilarating whim of his manner. My ill humour soon evaporated;

and yielding to the sympathetic gaiety he had inspired, I said to

him--'You are a wicked wit, Belmont. But, though I laugh, do not

imagine I am a convert to your mandevilian system: it is false,

pernicious, and destructive of the end which it pretends to secure.'

'Do not abuse my system, or me either', replied he. 'I tell you I am

the only honest man of my acquaintance; and the first effort of my

honesty is, as it ought to be, that of being honest to myself.'

'I hear many men profess the same opinions, but I find them acting on

different principles.'

'You mistake. You are young, I tell you. Every man's actions are

strongly tinged by the principles he professes.'

My countenance became a little more serious--'Surely you do not avow

yourself a rascal?'

'Pshaw! Epithets are odious. I do not know the meaning of the word;

nor do you.'

Our conversation continued; it relieved me from a bitterness of

chagrin from which I was happy to escape. We dined together. His flow

of spirits and raillery were unabating; I combated his opinions, he

laughed at my arguments, rather than answered them, and, though I

even then conceived him to be a very bad moralist, I thought him a

delightful companion.

CHAPTER VIII

_Revenge not forgotten: The visit delayed: Wilmot and his poetical

powers: Dreadful intelligence: An appalling picture: A fruitless

search; followed by a surprising discovery_

Stimulated by the ridicule of Belmont, though I never had a thought

of abandoning my mother to want, still I determined, according to the

proverb, to let her bite the bridle. Instead of writing, therefore, I

waited till she should write to me.

Mean time my pamphlet was the grand object of present pursuit. When I

began it, I imagined it would scarcely have been the work of a day,

certainly not of a week. I was deceived. To a man who has any sense of

justice, who fears to affirm the thing that is not, yet is determined

to be inexorable in revenge, no task is so harrassing as that which I

had undertaken. Page after page was written, re-written, corrected,

interlined, scratched, blotted and thrown in the fire. The work had

been three times finished, and three times destroyed. It was a fourth

time begun, and still the labour was no less oppressive, irritating,

and thorny.

It was in this state at the time that Mary brought me the joyful

intelligence relating to Olivia. I had watched with unremitting

assiduity during those hours of the day when she had been accustomed

to visit Miss Wilmot; but my watchings were fruitless; she came no

more.

The fourth day after her last visit, she sent a note to Miss Wilmot,

informing her that her aunt was going to Bath for the recovery of her

health, to which place it was necessary that she should attend her.

The blow was violent, and would have been felt more violently even

than it was, had it not been for an event which I must now relate.

The alarms of Miss Wilmot concerning her brother had not been lightly

excited: they might rather be called prophetic. She had indeed

strongly communicated her terror to me. One morning I was meditating

on the subject, and recollecting those early days when gathering the

first fruits of genius, I was taught by him to distinguish and enjoy

the beauties of its emanations, and the sublimity of its flights. His

affection for me, though but a boy, had induced him to give me some

short poetical compositions of his own. I was reading them over, with

strong feelings, partly of sorrow and partly of indignation, at the

folly and injustice of a world that could overlook such merit. One

of them in particular, which I had always admired for the simple

yet pathetic spirit of poetry in which it was written, I was then

perusing. It was the following.

I

Ho! Why dost thou shiver and shake,

Gaffer-Gray!

And why doth thy nose look so blue?

''Tis the weather that's cold;

'Tis I'm grown very old,

And my doublet is not very new,

Well-a-day!'

II

Then line thy worn doublet with ale,

Gaffer-Gray;

And warm thy old heart with a glass.

'Nay but credit I've none;

And my money's all gone;

Then say how may that come to pass?

Well-a-day!'

III

Hie away to the house on the brow,

Gaffer-Gray;

And knock at the jolly priest's door.

'The priest often preaches

Against worldly riches;

But ne'er gives a mite to the poor,

Well-a-day!'

IV

The lawyer lives under the hill,

Gaffer-Gray;

Warmly fenc'd both in back and in front.

'He will fasten his locks,

And will threaten the stocks,

Should he ever more find me in want,

Well-a-day!'

V

The squire has fat beeves and brown ale,

Gaffer-Gray;

And the season will welcome you there.

'His fat beeves and his beer,

And his merry new year

Are all for the flush and the fair,

Well-a-day!'

VI

My keg is but low I confess,

Gaffer-Gray;

What then? While it lasts man we'll live.

The poor man alone,

When he hears the poor moan,

Of his morsel a morsel will give,

Well-a-day!

In that precise state of mind which associations such as I have

described, and a poem like this could excite, when I was alike

bewailing the madness and turpitude of mankind, that could be blind to

the worth of a man such as Wilmot, while glowing I say and thrilling

with these sensations, my breakfast was brought and with it a paper--!

What shall I say?--It contained what follows! 'Yesterday a middle

aged man, of a genteel and orderly appearance, was seen to walk

despondingly beside the Serpentine river. A gentleman, who having met

him remarked the agitation of his countenance, suspected his design;

and, concealing himself behind some trees at a little distance,

watched him, and at last saw him throw himself into the water. The

gentleman, who was a good swimmer, jumped in after him; but could

not immediately find the body, which after he had brought it out was

conveyed to Mary-le-bone watch-house. A few shillings were found in

his pocket, but nothing to indicate his name, place of abode, or

other information, except a written paper, containing the following

melancholy account of himself.

'This body, if ever this body should be found, was once a thing which,

by way of reproach among men, was called an author. It moved about

the earth, despised and unnoticed; and died indigent and unlamented.

It could hear, see, feel, smell and taste with as much quickness,

delicacy, and force as other bodies. It had desires and passions like

other bodies, but was denied the use of them by such as had the power

and the will to engross the good things of this world to themselves.

The doors of the great were shut upon it; not because it was infected

with disease or contaminated with infamy, but on account of the

fashion of the garments with which it was cloathed, and the name it

derived from its fore-fathers; and because it had not the habit of

bending its knee where its heart owed no respect, nor the power of

moving its tongue to gloze the crimes or flatter the follies of men.

It was excluded the fellowship of such as heap up gold and silver;

not because it did, but for fear it might, ask a small portion of

their beloved wealth. It shrunk with pain and pity from the haunts of

ignorance which the knowledge it possessed could not enlighten, and

guilt that its sensations were obliged to abhor. There was but one

class of men with whom it was permitted to associate, and those were

such as had feelings and misfortunes like its own; among whom it was

its hard fate frequently to suffer imposition, from assumed worth

and fictitious distress. Beings of supposed benevolence, capable of

perceiving, loving, and promoting merit and virtue, have now and then

seemed to flit and glide before it. But the visions were deceitful.

Ere they were distinctly seen, the phantoms vanished. Or, if such

beings do exist, it has experienced the peculiar hardship of never

having met with any, in whom both the purpose and the power were fully

united. Therefore, with hands wearied with labour, eyes dim with

watchfulness, veins but half nourished, and a mind at length subdued

by intense study and a reiteration of unaccomplished hopes, it was

driven by irresistible impulse to end at once such a complication

of evils. The knowledge was imposed upon it that, amid all

these calamities, it had one consolation--Its miseries were not

eternal--That itself had the power to end them. This power it has

employed, because it found itself incapable of supporting any longer

the wretchedness of its own situation, and the blindness and injustice

of mankind: and as, while it lived, it lived scorned and neglected, so

it now commits itself to the waves; in expectation, after it is dead,

of being mangled, belied, and insulted.'

Oh God! what were my feelings while reading this heart appalling

story! It contained volumes; and sufficiently spoke the strength of

the mind that could thus picture its own sensations. It must be my

beloved Wilmot: it could be no one else; or even if it were, the man

who thus could feel and thus could write was no less the object of

admiration, grief, and a species of regret, of the guilt of which

every man partook! It was an act of attainder against the whole world,

in the infamy of which each man had his share!

Transfixed with horror as I was, I still had the recollection to

conceal the paper from the eye of Miss Wilmot, and that instant to go

in quest of the body. The utmost speed and diligence were necessary;

she must soon hear of the fatal event, and it was much to be dreaded

that this would not be the last act of the tragedy.

According to the indication given in the paper, I went immediately

to the watch-house; but was surprised to find that the body was not

there. They had heard something of a man throwing himself into the

Serpentine river, but could give no farther information.

I then ran to every bone-house and receptacle in the various adjoining

parishes; but without success. The only intelligence I could obtain

was that the gentleman, who leaped in after the man in order to have

saved his life, had taken the body home with him; but no one could

direct me where he lived.

The circumstance was distracting! My terrors for Miss Wilmot

increased. I knew not what course to pursue. At last I recollected

that Turl, from having lived some years in London being acquainted

with the manners of the place and possessing great sagacity, might

perhaps afford me aid. Personal knowledge of Wilmot he probably had

none, for he quitted the grammar school at *** just before Wilmot

became its head usher. But I knew not what better to do, and to this,

as a kind of last hope, I resorted, and hastened away to his lodgings.

It may well be supposed my tone of mind was gloomy. For a man like

Wilmot, with virtues so eminent, sensations so acute, and a mind so

elevated, to be thus impelled to seek a refuge in death was a thought

that almost made me hate existence myself, and doubt whether I might

not hereafter be driven to the same desperate expedient, to escape the

odious injustice of mankind. The distraction too which would seize

on Miss Wilmot haunted my thoughts; for I was convinced that the

intelligence, whenever it should reach her, would prove fatal.

Full of these dismal reflections, I arrived at the door of Turl,

knocked, and was desired to come in. Turl rose as I entered, and with

him a stranger, who had been seated by his side. A stranger, and yet

with features that were not wholly unknown to me. He seemed surprised

at the sight of me, examined me, fixed his eyes on me! Memory was very

busy! Associating ideas poured upon me! I gazed! I remembered! Heavens

and earth! What was my astonishment, what were my transports, when

in this very stranger I discovered Mr. Wilmot? Living! Pale, meagre,

dejected, and much altered; but living!

Turl was the gentleman in the park, who had observed the deep

melancholy visible in his countenance; had fortunately suspected

his intention; had brought him out of the water; had discovered

favourable symptoms; and, instead of either taking him home or to

the watch-house, had conveyed him to St. George's hospital; where he

immediately obtained medical aid, that had preserved his life! Turl

was the person whose courage, humanity, and wisdom, had prolonged

the existence of a man of genius; and who was now exerting all his

faculties to render that existence happy to the possessor, and

beneficial to the human race! Oh moment of inconceivable rapture! Why

are not sensations so exquisite eternal?

CHAPTER IX

_I secure Miss Wilmot against the danger of false alarm, and return to

hear the history of her brother_

Eager as I was to contribute all in my power to tranquilize the mind

of Mr. Wilmot, to renew my friendship with him, and to learn his

history from himself, I yet made but a short stay, and hastened home

to his sister. Fortunately the tragic tale had not reached her; and,

without relating circumstances that if abruptly told might have

excited alarm, I informed her that I had that moment parted from him,

and that now I had found him I should use my utmost endeavour to

reconcile him to her once more.

To hear that he was still in being gave an undescribable relief to her

mind. It beamed in her countenance, and called up thoughts that soon

made her burst into tears.

Having by this information, secured her against the ill effects which

might otherwise have followed, I escaped further question from her for

the present, by truly telling her I was impatient to return to her

brother.

I found the two friends still conversing for friends and sincere ones

they were become. The account given by Wilmot of himself had been

taken and sent to the newspaper, without the knowledge of Turl; but he

had read it, and it was a sufficient index of the mind of the writer:

and the behaviour of Turl through the whole affair, as well as the

sentiments he uttered in every breath, were enough to convince Mr.

Wilmot of his uncommon worth.

On my return, the latter was defending the right of man to commit

suicide; which Turl denied; not on the false and untenable ground of

superstition, but from the only true argument, the immoral tendency of

the act. He was delicate though decisive in his opposition; and only

requested Mr. Wilmot to consider, whether to effect the good of the

whole be not the true purpose of virtue? Ought not the good of the

whole therefore to be its only rule and guide? If so, can the man,

who possesses that degree of activity without which he cannot commit

suicide, be incapable of being farther useful to society?

Depressed and gloomy as his state of mind was, Mr. Wilmot testified

great satisfaction at our rencontre; and the interest which I

unfeignedly took in his welfare soon revived all his former affection

for me. My veneration for his virtues, love for his genius, and pity

for his misfortunes, tended to calm his still fluttering and agitated

spirits. Unfortunate as he himself had been, or at least had thought

himself, in his love of literature and poetry, it yet gave him

pleasure to find that the same passion was far from having abated

in me. He called it a bewitching illusion; Turl affirmed it was a

beneficial and noble propensity of soul.

We none of us had a wish to separate, for the imagination of each was

teeming with that sedate yet full flow of sentiment which, as Milton

has so beautifully described, melancholy can give. Mr. Wilmot had

supposed his sister was guilty with the bishop; and when I told her

story, with the addition of such probable circumstances as I myself

had collected, it afforded him very considerable relief to find that

the suspicions to which appearances gave birth had been false.

I did not conceal the desire I had to know by what train of accidents

he had been led into a state of such deep despondency; and he thus

kindly gratified my wish.

HISTORY OF MR. WILMOT

'The narrative given by my sister, which you, Mr. Trevor, have already

repeated, precludes the necessity of any detail concerning my origin.

Nor is origin in my opinion of the least moment, except as it displays

the habits and growth of mind, and shews how the man became such

as we find him to be. At what period of my existence that activity

of inquiry, and those energetic aspirings began, which to me were

afterward the source of the extremes of joy and sorrow, I cannot tell;

but I believe the quality of ardour, though probably not born with us,

is either awakened in early infancy or seldom if ever attains strength

and maturity. I could not only read with uncommon accuracy and ease,

while very young, but can remember I made efforts to reason with my

father, the major, on what I read, when I was little more than six

years old.

'He, though a man rather of irritable feelings than profound research,

was not destitute of literature; and encouraged a propensity in me

that was flattering to himself, as the father of a boy remarked

for his promising talents; which talents he supposed might lead to

distinctions that he had been unsuccessfully ambitious to obtain.

'He considered himself as one of the most unfortunate of men.

Imagining personal bravery to be the essence of the military

character, he had eagerly cherished that quality; and, having given

incontestible proofs that he possessed it in an eminent degree, to be

afterward overlooked was, in his judgment, too flagrant an instance of

public as well as private ingratitude to be ever pardoned. It was the

daily subject of his thoughts, and theme of his discourse; and I have

great reason to conjecture that the habitual discontent that preyed

upon his mind, and embittered his life, especially the latter part of

it, communicated itself to me. I was educated in the belief that the

world is blind to merit, continually suffers superior virtue to linger

in indigence and neglect, and is therefore an odious, unjust, and

despicable world.

'I own I have at some few intervals doubted of this doctrine; and

supposed in conformity to your opinion, Mr. Turl, that failure is

rather the consequence of our own mistakes, impatience, and efforts

ill directed, than of society: but the ill success of my own efforts,

aided perhaps by the prejudices which I received from my father,

have preponderated; and made me it may be too frequently incline to

melancholy, and misanthropy. What can be said? Are not the rich and

powerful continually oppressing talents, genius, and virtue? Is the

general sense of mankind just in its decisions?

'Beside, an appeal to the general sense of mankind is not always

in our power; and that the proceedings of individuals are often

flagrantly unjust cannot be denied. In the school where I was educated

I was a frequent and painful witness of honours partially bestowed;

and prizes and applause awarded to others, that were indubitably due

to me. When the rich and the powerful visited the seminary, the sons

of the rich and the powerful gained all their attention. Conscious as

I could not but be of my own superior claims, I was overlooked!

'Perhaps I felt the repetition of these and similar acts of injustice

too severely. Yet, are they not odious? I own the remembrance of them

ever has been, and is, intensely painful; and the pain is almost

unremittingly prolonged by what every man, who is not wilfully blind,

must daily see passing in the world. [Mr. Wilmot sighed deeply] Well

well! Would I could forget it!

'After many a bitter struggle in my boyish years to rise into notice,

few, very few indeed, of which were effectual, I still continued the

combat. In due time, as I was told, my efforts were amply rewarded!

But how? Instead of being forwarded in those more noble and beneficial

pursuits for which I think I had proved myself fitted, the effusions

of genius though known were never once remembered. Oh, no! I obtained,

with great difficulty and as an unmerited favour a charitable

condescension of power that knew not very well if it ought to be so

kind to a being so unprotected, yes, I obtained--the office of usher!

The honour of mechanically hearing declensions, conjugations, and

rules of syntax and prosody, repeated by beings who detested the

labour to which they were compelled, was conferred upon me! beings who

looked on me, not as a benefactor, but as a tyrant! And tyrants all

teachers indubitably are, under our present modes of education.

'Humbled and cowed as my genius was, by the drudgery and obscurity

to which it was consigned, I yet had the courage to continue those

labours by which alone mind is brought to maturity. Alive as I was to

a sense of injustice, I recollected that, even if my powers were equal

to all that I myself had fondly hoped from them, there were examples

of men with at least equal powers, who had been equally ill treated.

Equally did I say? Oh Otway! Oh Chatterton! What understandings, what

hearts, had those men who without an effort, without moving a finger

(not to do you justice, of that they were incapable, but) to preserve

you from famine, could suffer you to perish? It was needless to

repine! I consoled and reconciled myself to my fate as well as I was

able. I pursued my studies, read the poets of ancient and modern times

with unabating avidity, observed the actions and inquired into the

motives of men, and made unceasing attempts to develope the human

heart.

'Excluded as it were by the pride, luxury, and caprice of the world

from expanding my sensations, and wedding my soul to society, I was

constrained to bestow the strong affections that glowed consciously

within me upon a few. My mother and sister had a large share of them.

To skreen them from the indigence, obscurity, and neglect, to which

without my aid they must be doomed, was a hope that encouraged me in

the bold project I had conceived.

'I determined to dedicate myself to literature, poetry, and

particularly to the stage. Essays of the dramatic kind indeed had been

made by me very early. At length, I undertook a tragedy; as a work

which, if accomplished with the degree of perfection that I hoped it

would be, must at once establish my true rank in society, relieve the

wants of my family, and be a passport for me to every man of worth

and understanding in the world. How little did I know the world! Fond

fool! Over credulous idiot! What cares the world for the toils and

struggles, the restless days and sleepless nights of the man of

genius! I am ashamed to think I could be so miserably mistaken!

'The ardour with which I began my work, the deep consideration I gave

to every character, the strong emotions I felt while composing it,

the minute attention I paid to all its parts, and the intense labour

I bestowed in planning, writing, correcting, and completing it, were

such as I believed must insure success.

'Surely mankind can be but little aware of the uncommon anxieties,

pains, and talents that must contribute to the production of such

a work; or their reception of it, when completed, would be very

different! They would not suffer, surely they would not, as they so

frequently do, this or that senseless blockhead to frustrate the

labour of years, blast the poet's hopes, and render the birth of

genius abortive!

'My tragedy at length was written; and by some small number, whose

judgment I consulted, was approved: never indeed with that enthusiasm

which I, perhaps the overweening author, imagined it must have

excited; but it was approved. "I was a young man of some merit; it

was more than they had expected." Nay, I have met with some liberal

critics, who have appeared modestly to doubt whether they themselves

should have written better!

'Before I made the experiment, I had supposed that every man, whose

wealth or power gave him influence in society, would start up, the

moment it was known that an obscure individual, the usher of a school,

had written a tragedy; not only to protect and produce it to the

world, but to applaud and honour the author! Would secure him from

the possibility of want, load him with every token of respect,

and affectionately clasp him to their bosom! The indifference and

foolish half-faced kind of wonder, as destitute of feeling as of

understanding, with which it was received, by the persons on whom I

had depended for approbation and support, did more than astonish me;

it pained, disgusted, and jaundiced my mind!

'The only consolation I could procure was in supposing that the

inhabitants of the city were I resided, were deficient in literary

taste; and that at a more polished place, where knowledge, literature,

and poetry were more diffused, I should meet a very different

reception. Experience only can cure the unhackneyed mind of its

erroneous estimates!

'London however and its far famed theatres were the objects at which

my ambition long had aimed; and thither after various doubts and

difficulties it was decreed I should go. The profits of my place I had

dedicated to the relief of my family, and my mother's great fear was

that, going up to London so ill provided, I should perish there for

want. Of this I was persuaded there could be no danger, and at length

prevailed.

'The danger however was not quite so imaginary as I in the fervour of

hope had affirmed it to be. The plan I proposed was to get another

usher's place, in or near town, till I could bring my piece upon the

stage. This I attempted, and made various applications, which all

failed; some because, though I understood Greek, I could not teach

merchant's accounts, or spoil paper by flourishes and foppery, which

is called writing a fine hand; and others because, as I suppose,

persons offered themselves whose airs, or humility, or other

usher-like qualifications, that had no relation to learning, pleased

their employers better than mine.

'I soon grew weary of these degrading attempts and turned my

thoughts to a more attractive resource. While in the country, I had

frequently sent little fugitive pieces, to be inserted in periodical

publications; and now, on inquiry, I found there were people who were

paid for such productions. I made the experiment; and after a variety

of fruitless efforts succeeded in obtaining half a guinea a week

from an evening paper; which I supplied with essays, little poetical

pieces, and other articles, much faster than they chose to print them.

'In the interim, the grand object for which I had left the country

was not neglected. It is a common mistake to imagine that, to get a

piece upon the stage, it is necessary to procure a patron, by whom it

shall be recommended. To this I was advised; and, in consequence of

this advice, wrote letters to three different persons, whose rank in

society I imagined would insure a reception at the theatre to the

piece which they should protect. I supposed that every such person,

who should hear of a poet who had written a tragedy, would rejoice in

the opportunity of affording him aid, and instantly stand forth his

patron.

'In this spirit I wrote my three letters; and received no answer to

any one of them! Amazed at this, I went to the houses of the great

people I had addressed; but my face was unknown! Not one of them was

at home! I could gain no admission! When now and then suffered to wait

in the hall, I saw dancing-masters, buffoons, gamblers, beings of

every species that could mislead the head and corrupt the heart, come

and go without ceremony; but to a poet all entrance was denied; for

such chosen society he was unfit. The very rabble, with which these

pillared lounging places swarm, looked on him with a suspicious and

half contemptuous eye; that insolently inquired what business had he

there? Were the slaves and menials of Mæcenas such? Was it thus at the

Augustan court; when the lord of the conquered world sat banqueting

with Virgil on his right hand and Horace on his left?

'Why did I read and remember stories so seductive? Why did I foolishly

place all my happiness in the approbation of the great vulgar or

the small; forgetting that approbation neither adds to virtue nor

diminishes? Perhaps, and indeed I fear, my mind was warped. Yet surely

the neglect and even odium in which the unobtruding man of genius is

at present overwhelmed, is a damning accusation against the rich and

titled great.

'It was long however before I entirely disdained these abject and

fruitless efforts. On one occasion I was fortunate enough, as I

absurdly thought, to get introduced to a Marquis. It was an awful

honour, to which I was unused; and instead of addressing him with the

frothy and impertinent levity which characterized his own manners,

and which he encouraged in the creatures that were admitted to his

familiarity, I stood confounded, expecting he should have read my

play, which I had transcribed for his perusal, have understood the

value of the poet who could write it, and have been anxious to relieve

that acuteness of sensibility which overclouded and hid the man of

genius in the timid, abashed, and too cowardly author. He spoke to me

indeed, nay condescended to repeat two or three of the newest literary

anecdotes that had been retailed to him from the blue-stocking-club,

and then civilly dismissed me to give audience to a Dutch

bird-fancier, who had brought him a piping bulfinch. But I saw him no

more, he was never afterward at home. I was one of a class of animals

that a Marquis never admits into his collection. My tragedy when

applied for by letter was returned; with "sorrow that indispensible

engagements had prevented him from reading it; but requested a copy as

soon as it should appear in print." For which, should such a strange

event have come to pass, I suppose I should have been insulted with

the gift perhaps of one guinea, perhaps of five. And thus a Marquis

discharged a duty which his rank and power so well enabled him to

perform! But, patience! The word poet shall be remembered with

everlasting honour, when the title Marquis shall--Pshaw!

'On another occasion an actress, who, strange to tell, happened very

deservedly to be popular, and whom before she arrived at the dignity

of a London theatre I had known in the country, recommended me to a

dutchess. To this dutchess I went day after day; and day after day

was subjected for hours to the prying, unmannered, insolence of her

countless lacquies. This time she was not yet stirring, though it was

two o'clock in the afternoon; the next she was engaged with an Italian

vender of artificial flowers; the day after the prince and the devil

does not know who beside were with her; and so on, till patience and

spleen were at daggers drawn.

'At last, from the hall I was introduced to the drawing-room, where I

was half amazed to find myself. Could it be real? Should I, after all,

see a creature so elevated; so unlike the poor compendium of flesh and

blood with which I crawled about the earth? Why, it was to be hoped

that I should!

'Still she did not come; and I stood fixed, gazing at the objects

around me, longer perhaps than I can now well guess. The carpet was so

rich that I was afraid my shoes would disgrace it! The chairs were so

superb that I should insult them by sitting down! The sofas swelled

in such luxurious state that for an author to breathe upon them would

be contamination! I made the daring experiment of pressing with a

single finger upon the proud cushion, and the moment the pressure was

removed it rose again with elastic arrogance; an apt prototype of the

dignity it was meant to sustain.--Though alone, I blushed at my own

littleness!

'Two or three times, the familiars of the mansion skipped and glided

by me; in at this door and out at that; seeing yet not noticing me. It

was well they did not, or I should have sunk with the dread of being

mistaken for a thief; that had gained a furtive entrance, to load

himself with some parcel of the magnificence that to poverty appeared

so tempting!

'This time however I was not wholly disappointed: I had a sight of

the dutchess, or rather a glimpse. "Her carriage was waiting. She had

been so infinitely delayed by my lord and my lady, and his highness,

and Signora! Was exceedingly sorry! Would speak to me another time,

to-morrow at three o'clock, but had not a moment to spare at present",

and so vanished!

'Shall I say she treated me proudly, and made me feel my

insignificance? No. The little that she did say was affable; the tone

was conciliating, the eye encouraging, and the countenance expressed

the habitual desire of conferring kindness. But these were only

aggravating circumstances, that shewed the desirableness of that

intercourse which to me was unattainable. I say to me, for those who

had a less delicate sense of propriety, who were more importunate,

more intruding, and whose forehead was proof against repulse, were

more successful. By such people she was besieged; on such she lavished

her favours, till report said that she impoverished herself; for a

tale of distress, whether feigned or real, if obtruded upon her, she

knew not how to resist.

'What consolation was this to me? I was not of the begging tribe. I

came with a demand at sight upon the understanding, which whoever

refused to pay disgraced themselves rather than the drawer.

'She mistook my character, and the next day at three o'clock, instead

of seeing me herself, sent me ten guineas in a note, by her French

maitre d'hotel; which chinked as they slided from side to side, and

proclaimed me a pauper! My heart almost burst with indignation! Yet,

coward that I was! I wanted the fortitude to refuse the polluted

paper! I thought it would be an affront, and still fed myself with the

vain hope of procuring from her that countenance to my own labours

which I imagined they deserved, and which therefore I did not think it

any disgrace to solicit. The disgrace of reducing men of merit to such

humiliating situations was not mine.

'I went twice more; and was both times interrogated in French, by

the insolent maitre d'hotel, so as to convince me that he thought my

coming again so soon was a proof of no common degree of impudence.

'Oh Euripides! Oh Sophocles! Did not your sublime shades glide

wrathful by and menace the wretch in whom your divine art had been so

degraded? How did I pray, as I passed the scowling porter, for the

death of your great predecessor; that some eagle would drop a tortoise

on my head, and instantly crush me to atoms!

'I had been the more anxious after patronage, because I wished the

actress whom I have mentioned to play my heroine. There was no

tragedian whose powers were in the least comparable to hers. But

the difficulty of getting a piece on the stage, at the theatre to

which she belonged, all the town told me was incredible. It was a

chancery-suit, which no given time could terminate. The manager was

the most liberal of men, the best of judges, and the first of writers;

as void of envy as he was noble minded, and friendly to merit. Yes,

friendly in heart and act, when he could be prevailed on to act. But

his rare virtues and gifts were rendered useless, extinguished, by the

killing vice of procrastination. He never listened to a story that he

did not sympathize with the teller of it. The request must be a wild

one indeed which he did not feel an instant desire to grant. He would

promise with the most sincere and honest intentions to perform; but,

hurried away by new petitioners, or projects of a more grand and

important nature, he would with still greater facility forget. All who

knew him uniformly affirmed, a soul more expansive, more munificent,

could not inhabit a human form; yet, from this one defect, it was

frequently his fate where he intended an essential benefit to commit

an irreparable injury. He encouraged hopes that were never realized,

retarded the merit he meant to promote, and raised up personal enemies

who impeded his own utility; conspicuous and grand as this utility was

and is, it would otherwise have been unexampled.

'I speak the sentiments of men who I believe were incapable of

exaggeration. For my own part I have read his works, and I love him

almost to adoring.

'He is I know assaulted by an infinite number of affairs, that all

demand his attention. Many of them are totally beneath it, yet are

undertaken by him with a too ready compliance; averse as he is to give

the solicitor pain, and continually desirous to make every creature

happy. He can do but one thing at once. Of the multitude of things to

be done, not half are present to the memory at any one time; and, of

those that are remembered, what can he do but select the most urgent?

The mistake has often been rather in the too ready promise than in the

non-performance. If prevented by serious occupation, by love of the

chosen companions of his convivial hours, or by habits of forgetful

revery, from reading my tragedy and being just to me, I attribute

the neglect to its true cause; which certainly was not jealousy of,

or indifference to, the man of talents. How can he honour merit,

granting it to exist, with which he is unacquainted? Yet let me not be

misunderstood; though I love his comprehensive benevolence of soul, I

wish it were less undistinguishing:--I cannot applaud or approve the

errors into which it leads, both himself and those he means to serve.

'In a word, I could find no mode of securing his attention. I

endeavoured to fix it by the intervention of the great; who delighted

in his social qualities, did homage to his wit, and were ambitious of

his friendship. But in these attempts I likewise failed.

Hopeless therefore of aid from my favourite actress, I sent my play to

the other house. How was I relieved, after the delay I had endured

and the continual anxiety in which I had been kept, how delighted,

by hearing from the manager within a fortnight! He appointed an

interview, received me with affability, and immediately proceeded to

the business in question.

He began with telling me, he could have wished I had rather turned

my thoughts to the comic than the tragic muse; for tragedy was less

fashionable, and consequently less profitable both to the house and

the author, than comedy or opera. I sighed and answered, it was an ill

proof of public taste, when it could receive greater pleasure from

the unconnected scenes of an opera than from the fable, pathos, and

sublime emotions of tragedy. But I feared the fault was less in the

audience than in the poet; and added that the first fortunate writer

who should produce a tragedy such as had been written, and such as

I hoped it was possible again to write, would find audiences not

insensible to his merit.

'He replied, it may be so. I can only answer that each author

thinks himself the chosen bard you have described, and that each is

disappointed. I am pleased, Sir, continued he, with many parts of your

tragedy; but I think it has one great fault; it is too tragical: it

rather excites horror than terror. Whether the age be more refined or

more captious, more humanized or more effeminate than other ages have

been I will not pretend to determine; but you have written some scenes

that would not at present be endured. If you think proper to make such

alterations as shall soften and adapt them to the present taste, and

if I approve them when made, your piece shall then be performed.

'I knew not what to reply. The scenes to which he referred were

conceived, as I had imagined, in the bold but true stile of tragedy. I

intended them to produce a great effect; and was sorry to be informed,

as among other things I had been, that ladies would faint, fall into

hysterics, and be taken shrieking out of the boxes at hearing them. I

had no remedy but to submit, re-consider, and, by lowering the tone of

passion, perhaps spoil my tragedy!

'Oh what a tormenting trade is that of author! He that makes a chair,

a table, or any common utensil, brings his work home, is paid for his

labour, and there his trouble ends. It was quickly begun, and quickly

over; it excited little hope, but it met with no disappointment. The

author, on the contrary, has the labour of days, months, and years

to encounter. When he begins, his difficulties are immeasurable; and

while as he proceeds they seem to disappear, nay at the very moment

when he sometimes thinks them all conquered, he discovers that they

are but accumulated! Every part, every page, every period, have been

considered, and re-considered, with unremitting anxiety. He has

revised, re-written, corrected, expunged, again produced, and again

erased, with endless iteration. Points and commas themselves have been

settled with repeated and jealous solicitude.

'At length, as he thinks, his labour is over! He knows indeed that no

work of man was ever perfect; but, circumstanced as he is, the eager

prying of his own sleepless eye cannot discover what more to amend.

He produces the tedious fruits of incessant fatigue to the world, and

hopes the harvest will be in proportion to the unwearied and extreme

care he has bestowed. Poor man! Mistaken mortal! How could he imagine

that the sensations of multitudes should all correspond with his own?

Educated in schools so various, under circumstances so contradictory

and prejudices so different and distinct, how could he suppose

his mind was the common measure of man? Faultless? Perfect? Vain

supposition! Extravagant hope! The driver of a mill-horse, he who

never had the wit to make much less to invent a mouse-trap, will

detect and point out his blunders. All satisfied? No; not one! Not a

man that reads but will detail, reprove, and ridicule his dull witted

errors.

'Well! he finds he is mistaken, he pants after improvement, and

listens to advice. He follows it, alters, and again appears. What

is his success? Are cavilers less numerous? Absurd expectation! Do

critics unite in its praise? Ridiculous hope! If he would escape

censure, he must betake himself to a very different trade.

'It was the month of February when my tragedy was returned. The

season was far advanced: I had then been nearly twelve months held in

suspence; seeking the means of appearing before the public, soliciting

patronage, and indulging hope. My mother and sister depended much on

my aid. Out of the small pittance which the newspaper essays afforded,

I at first made a proportionate deduction; and lived, that is

contrived to exist, on the remainder.

'This could not long endure, and I sought other channels of emolument.

I wrote a novel, which I hawked about among the booksellers. Some of

them printed nothing in that way; others would venture to publish it,

and share the profits, but not advance a shilling. One of them offered

me five guineas for the two volumes, and told me it was a great price,

for he seldom gave more than three.

'At last, I was fortunate enough to obtain double the sum. It was

printed; but, being written in haste and in a state of mind entirely

adverse to that fine flow which is the token, the test, and the

triumph of genius, its success was less than I expected. Still however

it more than answered the hopes of the bookseller; and I think I may

safely affirm, it had marks of mind sufficient to excite applause,

mingled with the censure of just criticism.

'Did it obtain this applause? No--"A vulgar narrative of uninteresting

incidents"--was the laconic character given of it in that monthly

publication in which, from its reputed impartiality, I most hoped for

just and candid inquiry.

'Finding what a terrible animal a critic is, I determined to become

one myself. I made the first essay of my talents for censure on such

books as I could borrow, and sent my remarks to the magazines; into

which they were immediately admitted.

'Thus encouraged, I applied to the publisher of a new review, and

informed him of my course of reading, and of the languages and

sciences with which I was acquainted. My proposal was graciously

received, and I was admitted of that corps which has certainly done

much good, and much harm to literature.

'I entered on my new office with great determination; but I soon

discovered that, to a man of principle, who dare neither condemn nor

approve a book he has not read, it was a very unproductive employment.

It is the custom of the trade to pay various kinds of literary labour

by the sheet, and this among the rest. Thus it frequently happened

that a book, which would demand a day to peruse, was not worthy of

five lines of animadversion.

'This is the true source of feeble and false criticism; a task in

itself most difficult, and to which the chosen few alone are equal.

Deep investigation, scientific acquirement, an acute and comprehensive

mind, a correct and invigorating stile, and intelligence superior to

prejudice, and an undeviating conscientious spirit of rectitude, are

the rare endowments it requires. Its seat should be the summit of

mental attainment; for its office is to enlighten. It has to instruct

genius itself, and its powers should be equal to the hardy enterprise.

In fine, its object ought to be the love of truth; it is the lust of

gain. I need not expatiate on the consequences; they are self-evident.

Poor as the trade is, I exercised it with the scrupulous assiduity

of which I knew it to be worthy. My labour therefore was as great as

my emoluments were trifling; and, though I made no progress toward

fame and fortune, my efforts were unremitting. I mention these

circumstances to shew that my failure, in my attempts to gain what I

believe to be my true rank in society, did not originate either in

indolence, want of oeconomy, or any other neglect of mine. Day or

night, I was scarcely ever without either a book or a pen in my hand.

With the most sedulous industry and caution I endeavoured to render

justice as well to the works of others as to my own. My uniform study

was to increase knowledge, diffuse good taste, and, as I fondly hoped,

promote the general pleasure and happiness of mankind.

But, while I was anxiously caring for all, no one seemed to care for

me. I and my learning, taste and genius, if I possessed them, wandered

through the croud unnoticed; or noticed only to be scorned: insulted

by the vulgar, for the something in my manner which pretended to

distinguish me from themselves; and contemned by the proud and the

prosperous, because of the forlorn poverty of my appearance. Among

the fashionable and the fortunate, where I might have hoped to find

urbanity and the social polish of a civilized nation, I could gain

no admittance; for I had no title, kept no carriage, and was no

sycophant. The doors of the learned were shut upon me; for they were

doctors or dignitaries, in church, physic, or law. Of science they

were all satisfied they had enough: of profit, promotion, and the

other good things of which they were in full pursuit, I had none to

give. By my presence they would have been retarded, offended at the

freedom of my conversation, and by my friendship disgraced. They

sought other and far different associates.

'Bowed to the earth as I was by this soul-killing injustice, and

wearied by these incessant toils, I still did not neglect my tragedy

for an hour. I considered and reconsidered the objections that had

been made. I was convinced they were ill founded: but I was not left

to the exercise of my own judgment. I had no alternative. To lower the

tone of passion was in my opinion to injure my tragedy; but it must

be done, or must not be performed. The manager urged arguments that

were and perhaps could not but be satisfactory, to any man in his

situation: his experience of public taste was long and confirmed: the

nightly expences of a theatre made it a most serious concern: the risk

of every new piece was great, for the town was capricious. To obtain

all possible security against risk, therefore, was a duty.

'The reluctance with which alterations were made occasioned them to

be rather slow. At last however I finished them, as much to my own

satisfaction as could under such circumstances be expected; and a fair

copy, written as all the copies made of it were with my own hand, was

again sent to the manager.

'A week longer than in the former instances elapsed, before I heard

from him; and, when I did hear, the substance of his letter was that

he had a new comedy in preparation; which, it being then the middle of

March, would entirely fill up the remainder of the season!

'What could I do? No blame was imputable to him for the delay. It was

no fault of his that I was pursued by the malice of poverty; that I

was tormented with the desire of effectually relieving the necessities

of my family; that I had written to my mother and sister, in the

elated moment of hope, an assurance of being able to grant this relief

in a very few weeks; and that, buoyed up by these calculations, I had

indulged myself in procuring a suit of clothes and other necessaries,

of which I was in extreme need, on credit.

'Thou world of vice! thou iron-hearted senseless mass of madness

and folly! why did I ever dream that I had the power to arrest thy

headlong course, and fix thy bewildered wits, thy garish idiot eye

on me? On my weak efforts! my humble wishes! my craving wants! What

signs of luxury, what tokens of dissipation, what innumerable marks of

extravagant waste did I every where see around me, at the moment that

poverty was thus pinching me to the very bone! Here a vain mortal,

as insolent as uninstructed, drawn by six ponies; with a postillion

before and three idle fellows behind, pampered in vice, that he might

thus openly insult common sense, and thus publicly proclaim the folly

of his head to be as egregious as the insensibility of his heart was

hateful. There trifling and imbecile creatures, who, not satisfied

with the appellation woman, call themselves ladies, and expend

thousands on their routs, masked-balls, whipped creams, and other

froth and frippery, procured from the achs and pains and blood and

bones of the poor! Wretches more bent and weighed down by misery than

even I was!

'What need I to recall such pictures to your imaginations? Can

you look abroad and not behold them? Are not the vices of unequal

distribution to be met with in every corner, nook, and alley? Is not

the despotism of wealth, that is, of that property which the folly of

man so much reveres and worships, every where visible? Does it not

varnish vice, generate crime, and trample virtue and the virtuous in

the dust? Is the deep sense which I have entertained of the relentless

injustice of society all false?

'Impelled as I was by paltry yet pressing wants and debts that would

admit of no delay, I sought relief in endeavouring to raise money on

the presumptive profits of my tragedy. What can the wretch who is thus

besieged, thus hunted do, but yield? I had promised aid to my family;

and, depending on that promise which had been much too confidently

given, my mother was in danger of having her trifling effects seized;

my sister, whom I then tenderly loved, of being turned loose perhaps

into the haunts of infamy; and myself of being thrown into a loathsome

prison.

'My first attempt was a very wild one, and proved how little I yet

knew of mankind. I wrote a letter to a woman of great fame in the

literary world; the reputed writer of a work, the praises of which had

been often echoed, and whose wealth was immense. To such a person I

thought the appeal I had to make must come with resistless force. For

a man of literature, a poet, capable of writing a tragedy, that had

already been deemed worthy at least of attention from the theatre, and

of the merits of which she so well could judge, for such a man she

would be all kindness! all sensibility! all soul! What an incurable

dolt was I! Thus repeatedly to degrade the character of bard, and thus

too in vain. I blush!--No matter!

'I minutely detailed the circumstances of my case, to this female

leader of literature; and, assiduously endeavouring to avoid every

feature of meanness, requested the loan of one hundred pounds;

appealing for the probability of reimbursement to her own conceptions

of the rectitude of the mind that could produce the tragedy I sent,

and which I requested her first to read. She herself would judge of

the danger there might be of its condemnation. If she thought it would

fail, I then should be anxious that she should run no risk: but, if

not, the loan would be a most essential benefit to me, and perhaps a

pleasure to herself.

'Fool that I was, thus to estimate ladies' pleasures! Whether she

did or did not read my play I never knew; but this learned lady,

this patroness of letters, this be-prosed and be-rhymed dowager,

who professed to be the enraptured lover of poetry, wit and genius,

returned it with a formal cold apology, that was insulting by its

affected pity. "She was _extremely_ sorry to be obliged to refuse me!

_extremely_ sorry indeed! It would have given her _infinite_ pleasure

to have advanced me the sum I required; but she was then building

a _fine_ house, which demanded all the money she could _possibly_

spare."

'Why ay! She must have a fine house, with fifty fine rooms in it,

forty-nine of which were useless; while I, my mother, my sister, and

millions more, might perish without a hovel in which to shelter our

heads!

'Convinced at last of the futility of applications like these, I

sought an opposite resource. If men would not lend money to benefit

me, they would perhaps to benefit themselves. One of the actors,

with whom I became acquainted, informed me that there was a Jew, who

frequented all theatrical haunts, knew I had a play in the manager's

hands, and might possibly be induced to lend me the sum I wanted.

To this Jew I addressed myself, stated the merits of the case, and,

fearful of making too high a demand, requested a loan of seventy

pounds.

'His first question was concerning the security I had to give? I had

none! The Jew shook his head, and told me it was impossible to lend

money without security. I replied, that if making over the profits

of my tragedy to the amount of the principal and interest would but

satisfy him, to that I should willingly consent. Again he shrugged his

shoulders, and repeated it was very dangerous. Jews themselves, kind

as they were, could not lend money without security. Beside, money

was never so scarce as just at that moment. Indeed he had no such sum

himself; but he had an uncle, in Duke's Place, who, if I could but

get good _personal_ security, would supply me, on paying a premium

adequate to the risk.

'I must avoid being too circumstantial. I urged every incitement my

imagination could honestly suggest: he pretended to state the matter

to his uncle. The affair was kept in suspence, and I was obliged to

travel to Duke's Place at least a dozen times: but, at last I gave my

bond for a hundred pounds; for which I received fifty, and paid two

guineas out of it, on the demand of the nephew, for the trouble he

had taken in negociating the business; the uncle being the ostensible

person with whom it was transacted.

'Determined to secure my mother from want as far as was in my power,

I remitted the whole sum to her, except what was necessary to pay

my immediate debts; and blessed the Jew extortioner, as a man who,

compared to the learned lady, abounded in the milk of human kindness!

'By the continuance of my literary drudgery, the time passed away

to the middle of September; the season at which the winter theatres

usually open. I now felt tenfold anxiety concerning my tragedy. The

bond I had given at six months would soon become due; failure would

send me to prison, perhaps for life; it would disgrace me, would

distract my family, would cut short my hopes of fame, and the grand

progress which I sometimes fondly imagined I should make. Every way it

would be fatal! I trembled at its possibility. Success, which had so

lately appeared certain, seemed to become more and more dubious.

'During the summer, I had heard nothing from the manager. I now

inquired at the theatre, and was told he was at Bath, and would not

be in town in less than a fortnight. I waited with increasing fears,

haunted the play-house, and teazed the attendants at it with my

inquiries. Of these I soon perceived not only the sneers but the

duplicity; for, when the manager was returned to town, and, as I was

told by a performer, was actually in the theatre, they affirmed the

contrary! He had been, but was gone! I plainly read the lie in their

looks to each other. At that time it was new to me, and gave me

great pain; but I soon became accustomed though never reconciled to

their manners; which were characterized by that low cunning, that

supercilious mixture of insolence and meanness, that is always

detested by the honest and the open. A set of--Pshaw! They are

unworthy my remembrance.

'Finding the manager was now returned, I immediately wrote to him;

and a meeting was appointed three days after, at the theatre. He

then informed me there were still some few alterations, which he was

desirous should be immediately made; after which the tragedy should be

put into rehearsal, and performed in about three weeks.

This was happy news to me. I returned with an elated heart to make the

proposed corrections, finished them the same day, and again delivered

the piece into the manager's hands. He proceeded with a punctuality

that delighted me: the parts were cast, and the performers called to

the theatre to hear it read.

'This was a new scene, a new trial of patience, a new degradation.

Instead of that steady attention from my small audience which I

expected, that deep interest which I supposed the story must inspire,

suffusing them in tears or transfixing them in terror, the ladies and

gentlemen amused themselves with whispers, winks, jokes, titters, and

giggling; which, when they caught my attention and fixed my eye upon

the laughers, were turned into an affected gravity that added to the

insult. No heart panted! no face turned pale! no eye shed a tear!

and, if I were to judge from this experiment, a more uninteresting

soul-less piece had never been written. But the manager was not

present, and I was not a person of consequence enough to command

respect or ceremony, from any party. I complained to him of the total

want of effect in my tragedy, over the passions of the actors; but he

treated that as a very equivocal sign indeed, and of no worth.

'There was another circumstance, of which he informed me, that to him

and as it afterward proved to me was of a much more serious nature.

They had not been altogether so inattentive as I had imagined. Amid

their monkey tricks and common place foolery, their hearts had been

burning with jealousy of each other. Neither men nor women were

satisfied with their parts. I had three male and two female characters

of great importance in the play, but rising in gradation. Of the first

of these all the actors were ambitious; and one of them who knew his

own consequence, and that the manager could not carry on the business

of the theatre at that time without him, threw up his part.

'In vain did I plead, write, and remonstrate. No reasons, no motives

of generosity or of justice, to the manager, the piece, or the public,

could prevail; and his aid, though most essential, could not be

obtained. Had the part been totally beneath his abilities, his plea

would have been good; but it was avowedly, in the manager's opinion

and in the opinion of every other performer, superior to half of

those he nightly played. That it could have disgraced or injured him

partiality itself could not affirm.

'And is the poet, after having spent a life in that deep investigation

of the human heart which alone can enable him to write a play, whose

efforts must be prodigious, and, if he succeed, his pathos, wit, and

genius, rare, is he, after all his struggles, to be at the mercy of an

ignorant actor or actress? who, so far from deeply studying the sense,

frequently do not remember the words they ought to repeat!

'Every _mister_ is discontented with the character allotted him, each

envies the other, and mutters accusations against both author and

manager. Sir won't speak the prologue, it is not in his way; and Madam

will have the epilogue, or she will positively throw up her part.

One gentleman thinks his dialogue too long and heavy, and t'other

too short and trifling. This fine lady refuses to attend rehearsals:

another comes, but has less of the spirit of the author at the fifth

repetition than she had at the first. Of their parts individually

they know but very little; of the play as a whole they are absolutely

ignorant. On the first representation, by which the reputation of a

play is decided, they are so confused and imperfect, owing partly to

their imbecility but more still to their indolence, that the sense

of the author is mutilated, his characters travestied, and his piece

rather burlesqued than performed. The reality of the scene depends

on the passions excited in the actor listening almost as essentially

as in the actor speaking; but at the end of each speech the player

supposes his part is over: the arms, attitude, and features, all sink

into insignificance, and have no more meaning than the face of Punch

when beating Joan.

'Of the reality of this picture I soon had full proof. My tragedy,

after a number of rehearsals, during which all these vexatious

incidents and many more were experienced by me, was at length

performed. To say that the applause it received equalled my

expectations would be false: but it greatly exceeded the expectations

of others. It was materially injured by the want of the actor who

had refused his part. The reigning vice of recitation, which since

the death of Garrick has again prevailed, injured it more. The tide

of passion, which should have rushed in torrents and burst upon the

astonished ear, was sung out in slow and measured syllables, with a

monotonous and funeral cadence, painful in its motion, and such as

reminded me of the Sloth and his horrid cry: plaintive indeed, but

exciting strange disgust!

'My success however was thought extraordinary. The actors when the

play was over swarmed into the green-room, to congratulate me. The

actresses were ready to kiss me; good natured souls! The green-room

loungers, newspaper critics, authors, and pretended friends of the

house flocked round me, to wish me joy and stare at that enviable

animal a successful poet. One of them, himself an approved writer of

comedy, offered me five hundred pounds for the profits of my piece,

and as far as money was concerned I thought my fortune was made:

doubts and difficulties were fairly over, and the reward of all my

toils was at last secure. Sanguine blockhead, thus everlastingly to

embitter my own cup of sorrow! Secure? Oh no! The nectar of hope was

soon dashed from my lips.

'I must detail the causes of this reverse; they were various and

decisive.

'It had been the custom on the appearance of every new play to give

it what is called a run, that is to perform it without intermission

as many nights as the house should continue to be tolerably filled.

The managers of both theatres had at this time deemed the practice

prejudicial, and determined to reform it. Of this reform I was the

victim. My play was the first that appeared after the resolution

had been taken; and, in the bills of the day which announced the

performance of my tragedy for the Saturday evening, the public were

advertised that another piece would be acted on Monday. Ignorant of

the true reason, the town misinterpreted this notice into an avowal

that no favourable expectations were formed of my tragedy; and, as

the author was an obscure person whose name was totally unknown to

the world, none of that public curiosity on which popularity depends

was excited.

'This was but one of the damning causes. My play appeared about the

middle of October, when the season continued to be fine: the citizens

were all at the watering places, the court was at Windsor, the

parliament had not met, and the town was empty.

'To add to all this, one of the performers was taken ill on the second

night. Another of them thought proper to ride over to Egham races, on

the third; where he got drunk and absented himself from the theatre;

so that substitutes were obliged to be found for both the parts. In

fine though some few, struck as they affirmed with the merits of the

play, were just enough to attempt to bring it into public esteem, it

gradually sunk into neglect. My third night, after paying the expences

of the house, produced me only twenty pounds. On the sixth night, the

receipts were less than the charges, and it was played no more. The

overplus of the third night was little more than sufficient to defray

the deficiences of the sixth; and thus vanished my golden dreams of

profit, prosperity, and fame!

'The evil did not rest here. I was in danger of all the misfortunes I

had foreseen from the Jew, and the bond. There was not only hardship

and severity but injustice in my case, and I determined to remonstrate

to the manager. My mind was sore and my appeal was spirited, but

proper: it was an appeal to his equity.

'He listened to me, acknowledged I had been unfortunate, and said

that, though the theatre could not and ought not to be accountable

for my loss, yet some compensation he thought was justly my due. He

therefore gave me a draft on his treasurer for one hundred pounds, and

wished me better success in future.

'This it is true was of the most essential service to me; it relieved

me, not only from imprisonment, but from the degradation of having my

honesty questioned. It did not however restore me to the hope that

should have rouzed me to greater exertions.

'Some new efforts indeed I was obliged to make; for the time consumed

in revising my tragedy, and attending rehearsals, had occasioned me

to neglect other pursuits, and I was again some few pounds in debt.

No dread of labour, no degree of misery could induce me to leave

these debts unpaid. I therefore worked and starved till they were all

discharged: after which I returned to the country, and became usher at

the school where I first knew you, Mr. Trevor.