THE AUTHOR HINTS AT CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES IN THE LIFE OF THOMAS GENT
ON WHICH HE DOES NOT THINK IT NECESSARY TO DWELL.
Round white stones will serve they say,
As well as eggs, to make hens lay.
BUTLER.
If I were given to prolixity, and allowed myself to be led away from
the subject before me, I might here be tempted to relate certain
particulars concerning Thomas Gent; how under his first London master,
Mr. Midwinter, whose house was a ballad-house, “he worked many times
from five in the morning till twelve at night, and frequently without
food from breakfast till five or six in the evening, through their
hurry with hawkers.” And how in that same service he wrote, which is
to say in modern language _reported_, Dr. Sacheverel's sermon after
his suspension, for which his master gave him a crown piece, and a
pair of breeches,—not before they were wanted;—and by which the said
master gained nearly thirty pounds in the course of the week. And how
he once engaged with Mr. Francis Clifton, who having had a liberal
education at Oxford proved a Papist, set up a press, printed a
newspaper, and getting in debt moved his goods into the liberty of the
Fleet and there became entered as a prisoner; and how Gent sometimes
in extreme weather worked for him under a mean shed adjoining to the
prison walls, when snow and rain fell alternately on the cases, yet,
he says, the number of wide mouthed stentorian hawkers, brisk trade,
and very often a glass of good ale, revived the drooping spirits of
him and his fellow workmen: and he often admired the success of this
Mr. Clifton in his station, for whether through pity of mankind or the
immediate hand of Divine Providence to his family, advantageous jobs
so often flowed upon him as gave him cause to be merry under his heavy
misfortunes.
And how while in this employ a piece of work came in which he composed
and helped to work off, but was not permitted to know who was the
author. It was a vindication of an honest clergyman who had been
committed to the King's Bench upon an action of _scandalum magnatum_:
however says he, “when finished the papers were packed up, and
delivered to my care; and the same night, my master hiring a coach we
were driven to Westminster, where we entered into a large sort of
monastic building. Soon were we ushered into a spacious hall, where we
sate near a large table covered with an ancient carpet of curious
work, and whereon was soon laid a bottle of wine for our
entertainment. In a little time we were visited by a grave gentleman
in a black lay habit, who entertained us with one pleasant discourse
or other. He bid us be secret; for, said he, the imprisoned divine
does not know who is his defender; and if he did, I know his temper;
in a sort of transport he would reveal it, and so I should be blamed
for my good office: and whether his intention was designed to show his
gratitude, yet if a man is hurt by a friend, the damage is the same as
if done by an enemy: to prevent which is the reason I desire this
concealment. You need not fear me, Sir, said my master; ‘and I, good
sir,’ added I, ‘you may be less afraid of; for I protest I do not know
where I am, much less your person, nor heard where I should be driven,
or if I shall not be driven to Jerusalem before I get home again. Nay
I shall forget I ever did the job by tomorrow, and consequently shall
never answer any questions about it, if demanded. Yet sir, I shall
secretly remember your generosity, and drink to your health with this
brimfull glass.’ Thereupon this set them both a laughing, and truly I
was got merrily tipsy, so merry that I hardly knew how I was driven
homewards. For my part I was ever inclined to secresy and fidelity;
and therefore I was nowise inquisitive concerning our hospitable
entertainer.—But happening afterwards to behold a state prisoner in a
coach, guarded from Westminster to the Tower, God bless me, thought I,
it was no less than the Bishop of Rochester, Dr. Atterbury, by whom my
master and I had been treated!”
Were I to ramble from my immediate purpose I might relate how Gent saw
Mr. John Mathews, a young printer, drawn on a sledge to the place of
execution where he suffered for high treason; and how Mathews's
clothes were exceeding neat, the lining of his coat a rich Persian
silk, and every other thing as befitted a gentleman; and how he talked
of death like a philosopher to some young ladies who came to take
their farewell. This poor youth was but in his nineteenth year, and
not out of his apprenticeship to his mother and brother. He had been
under misfortunes before, and through the favour of the government at
that time was discharged, at which time his brother had given public
orders to the people in his employ that if ever they found John either
doing or speaking any thing against the government, they would inform
him that he might take a proper method to prevent it. Nevertheless for
ten guineas, he with the assistance of another apprentice and a
journeyman printed a treasonable paper intitled _Vox Populi Vox Dei_,
containing direct incitement to rebellion. I might relate also how
this journeyman Lawrence Vezey, who went by the name of _old
gentleman_ in the printing office, and who had not the character of an
honest man about his printing; and who moreover had gone to the
criminal's mother and offered to go out of the way if she would give
him money, and accordingly had gone to St. Albans, and staid there
nine days, but no money coming, he could not stay out of the way
longer, but seems rather to have been suspected of putting himself in
the way,—I might, I say, relate, how this Vezey did not long survive
the ill-fated youth; and how at his burial in an obscure part of
Islington church-yard, many of the printers boys called devils, made a
noise like such, with their ball stocks carried thither for that
purpose, and how the minister was much interrupted thereby in the
burial service, and shameful indignities were committed at the grave:
and how the printers who had been at Islington that day, had their
names sent off to the Courts of Westminster, where it cost their
pockets pretty well before their persons were discharged from trouble.
But Gent, who desired to be out of harm's way, had shunned what he
called the crew of demons with their incendiaries to a mischief.
I might also relate how he once carried skull caps made of printing
balls stuffed with wool to his brother printers, who were to exhibit
their faces in that wooden frame called the pillory; in which frame
nevertheless he seems to think they were properly set; and the mob
were of the same opinion, for these skull caps proved but weak helmets
against the missiles wherewith they were assailed. Moreover further to
exemplify the perils which in those days environed the men who meddled
with printer's types, I might proceed to say how, after a strange
dream, poor Gent was in the dead of the night alarmed by a strange
thundering noise at the door, and his door broken open, and himself
seized in his bed by two king's messengers upon a false information
that he had been engaged in printing some lines concerning the
imprisoned Bishop of Rochester, which had given offence; and how he
was carried to a public house near St. Sepulchre's Church, whither his
two employers Mr. Midwinter and Mr. Clifton were also brought
prisoners, and how they were taken to Westminster and there imprisoned
in a very fine house in Manchester Court which had nevertheless within
the fusty smell of a prison; and how from the high window of his
humble back apartment he could behold the Thames, and hear the dashing
of the flowing waters against the walls that kept it within due
bounds: and how in the next room to him was confined that unhappy
young Irish clergyman Mr. Neynoe, (not Naypoe as the name in these
memoirs is erroneously given.) “I used,” says Gent, “to hear him talk
to himself when his raving fits came on; and now and then would he
sing psalms with such a melodious voice as produced both admiration
and pity from me, who was an object of commiseration myself, in being
awhile debarred from friends to see me, or the use of pen, ink, and
paper to write to them.” And how after five days he was honourably
discharged, and took boat from Palace Yard stairs, in which he says
“my head seemed to be affected with a strange giddiness; and when I
safely arrived at home, some of my kinder neighbours appeared very
joyful at my return. And my poor linnet, whose death I very much
feared would come to pass, saluted me with her long, pleasant,
chirping notes; and indeed the poor creature had occasion to be the
most joyful, for her necessary stock was almost exhausted, and I was
come just in the critical time to yield her a fresh supply.” It was
some compensation for his fright on this occasion that he printed the
Bishop of Rochester's Effigy “with some inoffensive verses that
pleased all parties,” which sold very well; and that he formed some
observations upon the few dying words of Counsellor Layer, in nature
of a large speech, which for about three days had such a run of sale
that the unruly hawkers were ready to pull his press in pieces for the
goods.
Farther I might say of Gent that in January 1739 when the Ouse at York
was frozen, he set up a press on the ice, and printed names there, to
the great satisfaction of young gentlemen, ladies, and others, who
were very liberal on the occasion. And how having been unjustly as he
thought ejected from a house in Stonegate which was held under a
prebendal lease and which fell to Mr. Laurence Sterne, (to whom
however it was in vain to apply for redress, it not being in his power
to relieve him,) he bought a house in Petergate and built a tower upon
it; “by which addition,” said he “my house seems the highest in the
city and affords an agreeable prospect round the country: we have a
wholesome air whenever we please to ascend, especially the mornings
and evenings, with great conveniency for my business when overcrowded
in the narrow rooms below; and several gentlemen have occasionally
taken a serious pipe there, to talk of affairs in printing, as well as
neighbours to satisfy their curiosity in viewing the flowers that grow
almost round about upon the walls.”
This, and much more than this, might be said of Thomas Gent, and would
have been deemed not uninteresting by the collectors of English
topography, and typographic curiosities, Gent being well known to them
for his “famous history of the City of York, its magnificent
Cathedral, St. Mary's Abbey, &c.;” his “History of the Loyal Town of
Ripon, Fountains Abbey, Beverley, Wakefield, &c.;” and his “History of
the Royal and Beautiful Town of Kingston-upon-Hull.” He entered upon a
different province when he wrote his Treatise, entitled “Divine
Justice and Mercy displayed in the Life of Judas Iscariot.” But though
it was because of his turn for books and antiquities that the Doctor
employed him to hunt the stalls at York, as Browne Willis did to
collect for him epitaphs and tradesmen's halfpence, what I had to say
of him arises out of his connection with Richard Guy, and must
therefore be confined to his dilatory courtship and late marriage.