X.

A Tale of the Good Old Times.

An alderman of the ancient borough of Beetlebury, and churchwarden of

the parish of St. Wulfstan’s in the said borough, Mr. Blenkinsop might

have been called, in the language of the sixteenth century, a man of

worship. This title would probably have pleased him very much, it being

an obsolete one, and he entertaining an extraordinary regard for all

things obsolete, or thoroughly deserving to be so. He looked up with

profound veneration to the griffins which formed the water-spouts of St.

Wulfstan’s Church, and he almost worshipped an old boot under the name

of a black jack, which on the affidavit of a forsworn broker, he had

bought for a drinking vessel of the sixteenth century. Mr. Blenkinsop

even more admired the wisdom of our ancestors than he did their

furniture and fashions. He believed that none of their statutes and

ordinances could possibly be improved on, and in this persuasion had

petitioned Parliament against every just or merciful change, which,

since he had arrived at man’s estate, had been made in the laws. He had

successively opposed all the Beetlebury improvements, gas, waterworks,

infant schools, mechanics’ institute, and library. He had been active in

an agitation against any measure for the improvement of the public

health, and being a strong advocate of intramural interment, was

instrumental in defeating an attempt to establish a pretty cemetery

outside Beetlebury. He had successfully resisted a project for removing

the pig-market from the middle of the High Street. Through his influence

the shambles, which were corporation property, had been allowed to

remain where they were; namely, close to the Town-Hall, and immediately

under his own and his brethren’s noses. In short, he had regularly,

consistently, and nobly done his best to frustrate every scheme that

was proposed for the comfort and advantage of his fellow creatures. For

this conduct he was highly esteemed and respected; and, indeed, his

hostility with any interference of disease, had procured him the honor

of a public testimonial;--shortly after the presentation of which, with

several neat speeches, the cholera broke out in Beetlebury.

The truth is, that Mr. Blenkinsop’s views on the subject of public

health and popular institutions were supposed to be economical (though

they were, in truth, desperately costly), and so pleased some of the

rate-payers. Besides, he withstood ameliorations, and defended nuisances

and abuses with all the heartiness of an actual philanthropist.

Moreover, he was a jovial fellow,--a boon companion; and his love of

antiquity leant particularly towards old ale and old port wine. Of both

of these beverages he had been partaking rather largely at a

visitation-dinner, where, after the retirement of the bishop and his

clergy, festivities were kept up till late, under the presidency of the

deputy-registrar. One of the last to quit the Crown and Mitre was Mr.

Blenkinsop.

He lived in a remote part of the town, whither, as he did not walk

exactly in a right line, it may be allowable, perhaps, to say that he

bent his course. Many of the dwellers in Beetlebury High-street,

awakened at half-past twelve on that night, by somebody passing below,

singing, not very distinctly,

“With a jolly full bottle let each man be armed,”

were indebted, little as they may have suspected it, to Alderman

Blenkinsop, for their serenade.

In his homeward way stood the Market Cross; a fine mediæval structure,

supported on a series of circular steps by a groined arch, which served

as a canopy to the stone figure of an ancient burgess. This was the

effigies of Wynkyn de Vokes, once Mayor of Beetlebury, and a great

benefactor to the town; in which he had founded alms-houses and a

grammar-school, A. D. 1440. The post was formerly occupied by St.

Wulfstan; but De Vokes had been removed from the Town Hall in

Cromwell’s time, and promoted to the vacant pedestal, _vice_ Wulfstan,

demolished. Mr. Blenkinsop highly revered this work of art, and he now

stopped to take a view of it by moonlight. In that doubtful glimmer, it

seemed almost life-like. Mr. Blenkinsop had not much imagination, yet he

could well nigh fancy he was looking upon the veritable Wynkyn, with his

bonnet, beard, furred gown, and staff, and his great book under his arm.

So vivid was this impression, that it impelled him to apostrophize the

Statue.

“Fine old fellow!” said Mr. Blenkinsop. “Rare old buck! We shall never

look upon your like again. Ah! the good old times--the jolly good old

times! ‘No times like the good old times--my ancient worthy. No such

times as the good old times!”

“And pray, Sir, what times do you call the good old times?” in distinct

and deliberate accents, answered--according to the positive affirmation

of Mr. Blenkinsop, subsequently made before divers witnesses--the

Statue.

Mr. Blenkinsop is sure that he was in the perfect possession of his

senses. He is certain that he was not the dupe of ventriloquism, or any

other illusion. The value of these convictions must be a question

between him and the world, to whose perusal the facts of his tale,

simply as stated by himself, are here submitted.

When first he heard the Statue speak, Mr. Blenkinsop says, he certainly

experienced a kind of sudden shock, a momentary feeling of

consternation. But this soon abated in a wonderful manner. The Statue’s

voice was quite mild and gentle--not in the least grim--had no funeral

twang in it, and was quite different from the tone a statue might be

expected to take by anybody who had derived his notions on that subject

from having heard the representative of the class in “Don Giovanni.”

“Well; what times do you mean by the good old times?” repeated the

Statue, quite familiarly. The churchwarden was able to reply with some

composure, that such a question coming from such a quarter had taken

him a little by surprise.

“Come, come, Mr. Blenkinsop,” said the Statue, “don’t be astonished.

’Tis half-past twelve, and a moonlight night, as your favorite police,

the sleepy and infirm old watchman, says. Don’t you know that we statues

are apt to speak when spoken to, at these hours? Collect yourself. I

will help you to answer my own questions. Let us go back step by step;

and allow me to lead you. To begin. By the good old times, do you mean

the reign of George the Third?”

“The last of them, Sir,” replied Mr. Blenkinsop, very respectfully, “I

am inclined to think, were seen by the people who lived in those days.”

“I should hope so,” the Statue replied. “Those the good old times? What!

Mr. Blenkinsop, when men were hanged by dozens, almost weekly, for

paltry thefts. When a nursing woman was dragged to the gallows with a

child at her breast, for shop-lifting, to the value of a shilling. When

you lost your American colonies, and plunged into war with France,

which, to say nothing of the useless bloodshed it cost, has left you

saddled with the national debt. Surely you will not call these the good

old times, will you, Mr. Blenkinsop?”

“Not exactly, Sir: no; on reflection I don’t know that I can,” answered

Mr. Blenkinsop. He had now, it was such a civil, well-spoken

statue--lost all sense of the preternatural horror of his situation, and

scratched his head just as if he had been posed in argument by an

ordinary mortal.

“Well, then,” resumed the Statue, “my dear Sir, shall we take the two or

three reigns preceding. What think you of the then existing state of

prisons and prison discipline? Unfortunate debtors confined

indiscriminately with felons, in the midst of filth, vice, and misery

unspeakable. Criminals under sentence of death tippling in the condemned

cell with the Ordinary for their pot companion. Flogging, a common

punishment of women convicted of larceny. What say you of the times when

London streets were absolutely dangerous, and the passenger ran the

risk of being hustled and robbed even in the day-time? When not only

Hounslow and Bagshot Heath, but the public road swarmed with robbers,

and a stagecoach was as frequently plundered as a hen-roost. When,

indeed, ‘the road’ was esteemed the legitimate resource of a gentleman

in difficulties, and a highwayman was commonly called ‘Captain’ if not

respected accordingly. When cock-fighting, bear-baiting, and

bull-baiting were popular, nay, fashionable amusements. When the bulk of

the landed gentry could barely read and write, and divided their time

between fox-hunting and guzzling. When a duellist was a hero, and it was

an honor to have ‘killed your man.’ When a gentleman could hardly open

his mouth without uttering a profane or filthy oath. When the country

was continually in peril of civil war through a disputed succession; and

two murderous insurrections, followed by more murderous executions,

actually took place. This era of inhumanity, shamelessness, brigandage,

brutality, and personal and political insecurity, what say you of it,

Mr. Blenkinsop? Do you regard this wig and pigtail period as

constituting the good old times, respected friend?”

“There was Queen Anne’s golden reign, Sir,” deferentially suggested Mr.

Blenkinsop.

“A golden reign!” exclaimed the Statue. “A reign of favoritism and court

trickery at home, and profitless war abroad. The time of Bolingbroke’s,

and Harley’s, and Churchill’s intrigues. The reign of Sarah, Duchess of

Marlborough, and Mrs. Masham. A golden fiddlestick! I imagine you must

go farther back yet for your good old times, Mr. Blenkinsop.”

“Well,” answered the churchwarden, “I suppose I must, Sir, after what

you say.”

“Take William the Third’s rule,” pursued the Statue. “War, war again;

nothing but war. I don’t think you’ll particularly call these the good

old times. Then what will you say to those of James the Second? Were

they the good old times when Judge Jeffries sat on the bench? When

Monmouth’s rebellion was followed by the Bloody Assize. When the King

tried to set himself above the law, and lost his crown in consequence.

Does your worship fancy that these were the good old times?”

Mr. Blenkinsop admitted that he could not very well imagine that they

were.

“Were Charles the Second’s the good old times?” demanded the Statue.

“With a court full of riot and debauchery--a palace much less decent

than any modern casino--whilst Scotch Covenanters were having their legs

crushed in the “Boots,” under the auspices and personal superintendence

of His Royal Highness the Duke of York. The time of Titus Oates, Bedloe,

and Dangerfield, and their sham-plots, with the hangings, drawings, and

quarterings, on perjured evidence, that followed them. When Russell and

Sidney were judicially murdered. The time of the Great Plague and Fire

of London. The public money wasted by roguery and embezzlement, while

sailors lay starving in the streets for want of their just pay; the

Dutch about the same time burning our ships in the Medway. My friend, I

think you will hardly call the scandalous monarchy of the ‘Merry

Monarch’ the good old times.”

“I feel the difficulty which you suggest, Sir,” owned Mr. Blenkinsop.

“Now, that a man of your loyalty,” pursued the Statue, “should identify

the good old times with Cromwell’s Protectorate, is of course out of the

question.”

“Decidedly, Sir!” exclaimed Mr. Blenkinsop. “_He_ shall not have a

statue, though you enjoy that honor,” bowing.

“And yet,” said the Statue, “with all its faults, this era was perhaps

no worse than any we have discussed yet. Never mind! It was a dreary,

cant-ridden one, and if you don’t think those England’s palmy days,

neither do I. There’s the previous reign then. During the first part of

it, there was the king endeavoring to assert arbitrary power. During the

latter, the Parliament were fighting against him in the open field.

What ultimately became of him I need not say. At what stage of King

Charles the First’s career did the good old times exist, Mr. Alderman? I

need barely mention the Star Chamber and poor and Prynne; I merely

allude to the fate of Strafford and of Laud. On consideration, should

you fix the good old times anywhere thereabouts?”

“I am afraid not, indeed, Sir?” Mr. Blenkinsop responded, tapping his

forehead.

“What is your opinion of James the First’s reign? Are you enamored of

the good old times of the Gunpowder Plot? or when Sir Walter Raleigh was

beheaded? or when hundreds of poor miserable old women were burnt alive

for witchcraft, and the royal wiseacre on the throne wrote as wise a

book, in defence of the execrable superstition through which they

suffered?”

Mr. Blenkinsop confessed himself obliged to give up the times of James

the First.

“Now, then,” continued the Statue, “we come to Elizabeth.”

“There I’ve got you!” interrupted Mr. Blenkinsop, exultingly. “I beg

your pardon, Sir,” he added, with a sense of the freedom he had taken;

“but everybody talks of the times of good Queen Bess, you know!”

“Ha, ha!” laughed the Statue, not at all like Zamiel, or Don Guzman, or

a pavior’s rammer, but really with unaffected gaiety. “Everybody

sometimes says very foolish things. Suppose Everybody’s lot had been

cast under Elizabeth! How would Everybody have relished being subject to

the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Commission, with its power of

imprisonment, rack, and torture? How would Everybody have liked to see

his Roman Catholic and dissenting fellow-subjects, butchered, fined, and

imprisoned for their opinions; and charitable ladies butchered, too, for

giving them shelter in the sweet compassion of their hearts? What would

Everybody have thought of the murder of Mary Queen of Scots? Would

Everybody, would Anybody, would _you_, wish to have lived in these days,

whose emblems are cropped ears, pillory, stocks, thumb-screws, gibbet,

axe, chopping-block, and Scavenger’s daughter? Will you take your stand

upon this stage of History for the good old times, Mr. Blenkinsop?”

“I should rather prefer firmer and safer ground, to be sure, upon the

whole,” answered the worshipper of antiquity, dubiously.

“Well, now,” said the Statue, “’tis getting late, and, unaccustomed as I

am to conversational speaking, I must be brief. Were those the good old

times when Sanguinary Mary roasted bishops, and lighted the fires of

Smithfield? When Henry the Eighth, the British Bluebeard, cut his wives’

heads off, and burnt Catholic and Protestant at the same stake? When

Richard the Third smothered his nephews in the Tower? When the Wars of

the Roses deluged the land with blood? When Jack Cade marched upon

London? When we were, disgracefully driven out of France under Henry the

Sixth, or, as disgracefully, went marauding there, under Henry the

Fifth? Were the good old times those of Northumberland’s rebellion? Of

Richard the Second’s assassination? Of the battles, burnings, massacres,

cruel tormentings, and atrocities, which form the sum of the Plantagenet

reigns? Of John’s declaring himself the Pope’s vassal, and performing

dental operations on the Jews? Of the Forest Laws and Curfew under the

Norman kings? At what point of this series of bloody and cruel annals

will you place the times which you praise? Or do your good old times

extend over all that period when somebody or other was constantly

committing high treason, and there was a perpetual exhibition of heads

on London Bridge and Temple Bar?”

It was allowed by Mr. Blenkinsop that either alternative presented

considerable difficulty.

“Was it in the good old times that Harold fell at Hastings, and William

the Conqueror enslaved England? Were those blissful years the ages of

monkery; of Odo and Dunstan, bearding monarchs and branding queens? Of

Danish ravage and slaughter? Or were they those of the Saxon Heptarchy,

and the worship of Thor and Odin? Of the advent of Hengist and Horsa?

Of British subjugation by the Romans? Or, lastly, must we go back to the

Ancient Britons, Druidism, and human sacrifices; and say that those were

the real, unadulterated, genuine, good old times when the true-blue

natives of this island went naked, painted with woad?”

“Upon my word, Sir,” replied Mr. Blenkinsop, “after the observations

that I have heard from you this night, I acknowledge that I _do_ feel

myself rather at a loss to assign a precise period to the times in

question.”

“Shall I do it for you?” asked the Statue.

“If you please, Sir. I should be very much obliged if you would,”

replied the bewildered Blenkinsop, greatly relieved.

“The best times, Mr. Blenkinsop,” said the Statue, “are the oldest. They

are wisest; for the older the world grows the more experience it

acquires. It is older now than ever it was. The oldest and best times

the world has yet seen are the present. These, so far as we have yet

gone, are the genuine good old times, Sir.”

“Indeed, Sir?” ejaculated the astonished Alderman.

“Yes, my good friend. These are the best times that we know of--bad as

the best may be. But in proportion to their defects they afford room for

amendment. Mind that, Sir, in the future exercise of your municipal and

political wisdom. Don’t continue to stand in the light which is

gradually illuminating human darkness. The Future is the date of that

happy period which your imagination has fixed in the Past. It will

arrive when all shall do what is right; hence none shall suffer what is

wrong. The true good old times are yet to come.”

“Have you any idea when, Sir?” Mr. Blenkinsop inquired, modestly.

“That is a little beyond me,” the Statue answered. “I cannot say how

long it will take to convert the Blenkinsops. I devoutly wish you may

live to see them. And with that, I wish you good night, Mr.

Blenkinsop.”

“Sir,” returned Mr. Blenkinsop with a profound bow, “I have the honor to

wish you the same.”

Mr. Blenkinsop returned home an altered man. This was soon manifest. In

a few days he astonished the Corporation by proposing the appointment of

an Officer of Health to preside over sanitary affairs of Beetlebury. It

had already transpired that he had consented to the introduction of

lucifer-matches into his domestic establishment, in which, previously,

he had insisted on sticking to the old tinder-box. Next, to the wonder

of all Beetlebury, he was the first to propose a great new school, and

to sign a requisition that a county penitentiary might be established

for the reformation of juvenile offenders. The last account of him is

that he has not only become a subscriber to the mechanics’ institute,

but that he actually presided thereat, lately, on the occasion of a

lecture on Geology.

The remarkable change which has occurred in Mr. Blenkinsop’s views and

principles, he himself refers to his conversation with the Statue as

above related. The narrative, however, his fellow townsmen receive with

incredulous expressions, accompanied by gestures and grimaces of like

import. They hint, that Mr. Blenkinsop had been thinking for himself a

little, and only wanted a plausible excuse for recanting his errors.

Most of his fellow-aldermen believe him mad; not less on account of his

new moral and political sentiments, so very different from their own,

than of his Statue story. When it has been suggested to them that he has

only had his spectacles cleaned, and has been looking about him, they

shake their heads, and say that he had better have left his spectacles

alone, and that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and a good deal

of dirt quite the contrary. _Their_ spectacles have never been cleaned,

they say, and any one may see they don’t want cleaning.

The truth seems to be, that Mr. Blenkinsop has found an altogether new

pair of spectacles, which enable him to see in the right direction.

Formerly, he could only look backwards; he now looks forwards to the

grand object that all human eyes should have in view--progressive

improvement.