FAME IN THE BOROUGH ROAD. THE AUTHOR DANIELIZES.
_Duc, Fama,—
Duc me insolenti tramite; devius
Tentabo inaccessos profanis
Invidiæ pedibus recessus._
VINCENT BOURNE.
Guess, Reader, where I once saw a full-sized figure of Fame, erect,
tip-toe in the act of springing to take flight and soar aloft, her
neck extended, her head raised, the trumpet at her lips, and her
cheeks inflated, as if about to send forth a blast which the whole
city of London was to hear? Perhaps thou mayest have seen this very
figure thyself, and surely if thou hast, thou wilt not have forgotten
it. It was in the Borough Road, placed above a shop-board which
announced that Mr. Somebody fitted up Water-Closets upon a new and
improved principle.
But it would be well for mankind if Fame were never employed in
trumpeting any thing worse. There is a certain stage of depravity, in
which men derive an unnatural satisfaction from the notoriety of their
wickedness, and seek for celebrity “_ob magnitudinem infamiæ, cujus
apud prodigos novissima voluptas est._”[1]—“_Ils veulent faire parler
d'eux,_” says Bayle, “_et leur vanité ne seroit pas satisfaite s'il
n'y avoit quelque chose de superlatif et d'eminent dans leur mauvaise
reputation. Le plus haul degré de l'infamie est le but de leurs
souhaits, et il y a des choses qu'ils ne feroient pas si elles
n'etoient extraordinairement odieuses._”
[Footnote 1: TACITUS.]
Plutarch has preserved the name of Chærephanes who was notorious among
the ancients for having painted such subjects as Julio Romano has the
everlasting infamy of having designed for the flagitious Aretine. He
has also transmitted to posterity the name of Parmeno, famous for
grunting like a pig, and of Theodorus, not less famous for the more
difficult accomplishment of mimicking the sound of a creaking
cart-wheel. Who would wish to have his name preserved for his
beggarliness, like Pauson the painter, and Codrus the poet? Or for his
rascality and wickedness like Phrynondas? Or like Callianax the
physician for callous brutality? Our Doctor used to instance these
examples when he talked of “the bubble reputation,” which is sometimes
to be had so cheaply, and yet for which so dear a price has often been
paid in vain. It amused him to think by what odd, or pitiful accidents
that bubble might be raised. “Whether the regular practitioner may
sneer at Mr. Ching,” says the Historian of Cornwall, “I know not; but
the Patent Worm-Lozenges have gained our Launceston Apothecary a large
fortune, and secured to him perpetual fame.”
Would not John Dory's name have died with him, and so been long ago
dead as a door-nail, if a grotesque likeness for him had not been
discovered in the Fish, which being called after him, has immortalized
him and his ugliness? But if John Dory could have anticipated this
sort of immortality when he saw his own face in the glass, he might
very well have “blushed to find it fame.” There would have been no
other memorial of Richard Jaquett at this day, than the letters of his
name in an old deed and obsolete hand, now well nigh rendered
illegible by time, if he had not in the reign of Edward VI. been Lord
of the Manor of Tyburn with its appurtenances, wherein the gallows was
included, wherefore from the said Jaquett it is presumed by
antiquaries that the hangman hath been ever since corruptly called
Jack Ketch. A certain William Dowsing who during the Great Rebellion
was one of the Parliamentary Visitors for demolishing superstitious
pictures and ornaments of Churches, is supposed by a learned critic to
have given rise to an expression in common use among school-boys and
blackguards. For this worshipful Commissioner broke so many “mighty
great Angels” in glass, knocked so many Apostles and Cherubims to
pieces, demolished so many pictures and stone-crosses, and boasted
with such puritanical rancour of what he had done, that it is
conjectured the threat of giving any one _a dowsing_, preserves his
rascally name. So too while Bracton and Fleta rest on the shelves of
some public Library, Nokes and Stiles are living names in the Courts
of Law: and for John Doe and Richard Roe, were there ever two
litigious fellows so universally known as these eternal antagonists!
Johnson tells a story of a man who was standing in an inn kitchen with
his back to the fire, and thus accosted a traveller who stood next
him, “Do you know Sir, who I am?” “No Sir,” replied the traveller—“I
have not that advantage.” “Sir,” said the man, “I am the great
Twalmley who invented the new Flood-gate Iron.”—Who but for Johnson
would have heard of the great Twalmley now? Reader I will answer the
question which thou hast already asked, and tell thee that his
invention consisted in applying a sliding door, like a flood-gate, to
an ironing-box, flat-irons having till then been used, or box-irons
with a door and bolt.
Who was Tom Long the Carrier? when did he flourish? what road did he
travel? did he drive carts, or waggons, or was it in the age of
pack-horses? Who was Jack Robinson? not the once well known Jack
Robinson of the Treasury, (for his celebrity is now like a tale that
is told,) but the one whose name is in every body's mouth, because it
is so easily and so soon said. Who was Magg? and what was his
diversion? was it brutal, or merely boorish? the boisterous exuberance
of rude and unruly mirth, or the gratification of a tyrannical temper
and a cruel disposition? Who was Crop the Conjuror, famous in trivial
speech, as Merlin in romantic lore, or Doctor Faustus in the school of
German extravagance? What is remembered now of Bully Dawson? all I
have read of him is, that he lived three weeks on the credit of a
brass shilling because nobody would take it of him. “There goes a
story of Queen Elizabeth,” says Ray, “that being presented with a
Collection of English Proverbs, and told by the Author that it
contained them all, ‘Nay,’ replied she, ‘Bate me an ace, quoth
Bolton!’ which proverb being instantly looked for, happened to be
wanting in his collection.” “Who this Bolton was,” Ray says, “I know
not, neither is it worth enquiring.” Nevertheless I ask who was
Bolton? and when Echo answers “_who?_” say in my heart _Vanitas
Vanitatum, omnia Vanitas_. And having said this, conscience smites me
with the recollection of what Pascal has said, _Ceux qui écrivent
contre la gloire, veulent avoir la gloire d'avoir bien écrit; et ceux
qui le lisent, voulent avoir la gloire de l'avoir lu; et moi qui écris
ceci, j'ai peut-être cette envie, et peut-être que ceux qui le liront,
l'auront aussi._
Who was old Ross of Pottern, who lived till all the world was weary of
him? all the world has forgotten him now. Who was Jack Raker, once so
well known that he was named proverbially as a scape-grace by Skelton,
and in the Ralph Roister Doister of Nicholas Udall,—that Udall, who on
poor Tom Tusser's account, ought always to be called the bloody
schoolmaster? Who was William Dickins, whose wooden dishes were sold
so badly that when any one lost by the sale of his wares, the said
Dickins and his dishes, were brought up in scornful comparison?
Out-roaring Dick was a strolling singer of such repute that he got
twenty shillings a day by singing at Braintree Fair: but who was that
Desperate Dick that was such a terrible cutter at a chine of beef, and
devoured more meat at ordinaries in discoursing of his frays and deep
acting of his flashing and hewing, than would serve half a dozen
brewers' draymen? It is at this day doubtful whether it was Jack Drum
or Tom Drum whose mode of entertainment no one wishes to receive;—for
it was to haul a man in by the head and thrust him out by the neck and
shoulders. Who was that other Dick who wore so queer a hat-band that
it has ever since served as a standing comparison for all queer
things? By what name besides Richard was he known? Where did he live
and when? His birth, parentage, education, life, character and
behaviour, who can tell? Nothing, said the Doctor, is remembered of
him now, except that he was familiarly called Dick, and that his queer
hat-band, went nine times round and would not tie.
“O vain World's glory, and unstedfast state
Of all that lives on face of sinful earth!”[2]
Who was Betty Martin, and wherefore should she so often be mentioned
in connection with my precious eye or yours? Who was Ludlam whose dog
was so lazy that he leant his head against a wall to bark? And who was
Old Cole whose dog was so proud that he took the wall of a dung-cart
and got squeezed to death by the wheel? Was he the same person of whom
the song says
Old King Cole
Was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he?
And was his dog proud because his master was called King? Here are
questions to be proposed in the Examination papers of some Australian
Cambridge, two thousand years hence, when the people of that part of
the world shall be as reasonably inquisitive concerning our affairs,
as we are now concerning those of the Greeks. But the Burneys, the
Parrs and the Porsons, the Elmsleys, Monks and Blomfields of that age,
will puzzle over them in vain, for we cannot answer them now.
[Footnote 2: SPENSER.]
“Who was the Vicar of Bray? I have had a long chase after him,” said
Mr. Brome to Mr. Rawlins, in 1735. “Simon Aleyn, or Allen, was his
name; he was Vicar of Bray about 1540 and died in 1588; so he held the
living near fifty years. You now partake of the sport that has cost me
some pains to take. And if the pursuit after such game seems mean, one
Mr. Vernon followed a butterfly nine miles before he could catch him.”
Reader, do not refuse your belief of this fact, when I can state to
you on my own recollection that the late Dr. Shaw, the celebrated
Naturalist, a librarian of the British Museum and known by the name of
the learned Shavius, from the facility and abundance of his Latin
compositions, pointed out to my notice there many years ago two
volumes written by a Dutchman upon the wings of a butterfly. “The
dissertation is rather voluminous Sir, perhaps you will think,” said
the Doctor, with somewhat of that apologetic air, which modest science
is wont occasionally to assume in her communications with ignorance,
“but it is immensely important.” Good natured, excellent enthusiast!
fully didst thou appreciate the Book, the Dutchman, and above all the
Butterfly.
“I have known a great man,” says Taylor the Water-Poet, “very expert
on the Jews-harp; a rich heir excellent at Noddy; a Justice of the
Peace skilful at Quoytes; a Merchant's Wife a quick gamester at Irish,
especially when she came to bearing of men, that she would seldom miss
entering.” Injurious John Taylor! thus to defraud thy friends of their
fame, and leave in irremediable oblivion the proper name of that
expert Jews-Harper, that person excellent at Noddy, that great
Quoytes-man, and that Mistress who played so masterly a game at
Irish!—But I thank thee for this, good John the Water-Poet; thou hast
told us that Monsieur La Ferr, a Frenchman, was the first inventor of
the admirable game of Double-hand, Hot Cockles, &c., and that Gregory
Dawson, an Englishman, devised the unmatchable mystery of
Blind-man's-buff. But who can tell me what the game of Carps was, the
_Ludus Carparum_, which Hearne says was used in Oxford much, and being
joined with cards, and reckoned as a kind of _alea_, is prohibited in
some statutes. When Thomas Hearne, who learned whatever Time forgot,
was uncertain what game or play it really was, and could only
conjecture that perhaps it might be a sort of Back-gammon, what
antiquary can hope to ascertain it?
“Elizabeth Canning, Mary Squires the Gipsey, and Miss Blandy,” says
one who remembered their days of celebrity, “were such universal
topics in 1752, that you would have supposed it the business of
mankind to talk only of them; yet now, in 1790, ask a young man of
twenty-five or thirty a question relative to these extraordinary
personages, and he will be puzzled to answer.”
Who now knows the steps of that dance, or has heard the name of its
author, of which in our father's days it was said in verse that
Isaac's rigadoon shall live as long
As Rafael's painting, or as Virgil's song.
Nay, who reads the poem wherein those lines are found, though the
author predicted for them in self-applauding pleasantry, that
Whilst birds in air, or fish in streams we find,
Or damsels fresh with aged partners join'd,
As long as nymphs shall with attentive ear
A fiddle rather than a sermon hear,
So long the brightest eyes shall oft peruse
These useful lines of my instructive muse.
Even of the most useful of those lines, the “uses are gone by.” Ladies
before they leave the ball room, are now no longer fortified against
the sudden change of temperature by a cup of generous white wine
mulled with ginger; nor is it necessary now to caution them at such
times against a draught of cold small beer, because as the Poet in his
own experience assured them
Destruction lurks within the poisonous dose,
A fatal fever, or a pimpled nose.[3]
[Footnote 3: SOAME JENYNS.]