PERSONATION.
It has several times happened to me, as doubtless to others of my
brethren, to find that I have been personated, certainly to my
considerable discredit. Take these instances. When at Brighton, a fellow
had the effrontery to collect money in my name, and I suppose he
somewhat resembled me, as I heard more than once that I had been seen
here and there, where I undoubtedly was not, and proved an _alibi_. At
Bignor, where I went to see some Roman pavements on the property of a
Sussex yeoman of my name (very possibly a German cousin) the owner
received me with more than suspicion when I said who I was,--because
"the true Martin Tupper had been his guest for a week, and brought him a
book he had written," and one of mine then was lying on the table! But I
soon made it clear that he had been deceived, and that the real Simon
Pure was now before him. Divers other cases might be mentioned; however,
perhaps the most curious is this, and I extract the whole statement from
one of my scrap-books now before me. It is headed "An anecdote to
account for certain slanders," the date being August 1865:--
"I have heard it seriously asserted of me that I am a great pugilist!
and very far in conduct and manners from what one might expect, and so
forth. Now it has just come to my knowledge that a sporting publican
and dog-fancier, who called his public-house in the Waterloo Road 'The
Greyhound' (my crest), and has my name over the lintel, has claimed to
be the author, and is supposed to be myself! Mr. Payne (my publisher)
told me about the 'pugilist,' and said he had heard it in the clubs that
I was a match for Sayers,--as I conclude my sporting namesake is." In
America, too, I found that my double lived at Hardwick, Worcester Co.,
N.Y., and that another Martin hailed from Buffalo. So, like poor Edgar
Poe, who had to suffer from the machinations of a profligate brother,
who gave Edgar's name whenever he got into a scrape, I may have
sometimes been credited with the sins of strangers. No one is free from
this sort of calumny. We all have heard of Sheridan's wicked witticism,
in that when taken up in Pall Mall for drunkenness, he gave his name
Wilberforce; and it is said that he got drunk on purpose to say so! My
venerable friend, Thomas Cooper, the pious and eloquent old Chartist,
has been similarly confused with Robert Cooper, the atheist, lecturer;
not but that Thomas had once been an atheist too. In this connection,
here is a curiously complicated case of _alibi_, which I abstract
_verbatim_ from one of my Archive-books.
"On Sunday, the 17th of September 1848, I was all the afternoon and
evening at my house on Furze Hill, Brighton, quietly reading and
teaching my children, &c. Next day the 'Rev. J.C. Richmond (an American
friend) called with me on the Rev. Mr. Vaughan, and in the course of
conversation the latter said to me in a good-natured tone of rebuke:
'Some of my congregation tell me they saw you yesterday afternoon
smoking a cigar in a fly on the Marine Parade.' I had hardly time to
deny the soft impeachment, which I might well have done with emphasis,
as a loather of cigars, and as little as possible a traveller on
Sundays, when Richmond broke out with 'That's impossible; for I saw him
myself in Shoreham Church (five miles distant), and noticed that he went
away in the middle of the sermon, as I supposed, to get home to Mrs.
Tupper.' Mr. Richmond says he could have made oath that I had been
there, and that he told several persons after church that I 'had heard
part of the sermon in the afternoon.' So, upon human and trustworthy
evidence, I could have been proved to have been in three places at
once."
My fetch similarly once rescued a young lady from death on Snowdon: at
least a stranger in company once came up to me, to thank me for my
prowess in having stopped his daughter's pony, which had run away down,
the mountain!--in vain I denied it:--and he addressed me by my name,
too! Somebody must have given him my card by accident.
And let me here allude (if I can without indelicacy) to another sort of
personation of more financial importance to myself. Lately, I have seen
some not very refined nor considerate paragraphs in American papers (Mr.
Bok, a Brooklyn editor, has told me that more than four hundred repeated
them) to the effect that in the battle of life I had--truly
enough--suffered reverses, and needed material help from my many
professing friends. Moreover I have heard it stated that some sort of
collection was volunteered for me. Well, this may have been the case or
not; but anyhow the fact is (and it should be announced to those who may
have given--and wonder at no acknowledgment of their kindness having
come from me) that to this hour I have received nothing from America
(except a few dollars sent by one lady, and some more from a
Transatlantic relative), either on account of my so-called testimonial,
or these more recent paragraphs. The annoyance in my own mind, and in
the suspicion of some others round me, is the awkward fancy that sundry
small collections may have been intercepted. Possibly some other Martin
Tupper has the spoil.
Another sort of dishonest personation whereto we are all liable, whether
authors or not, is the having imputed to us divers forged or garbled
sentiments, even in the immutability of print, I have now before me a
Boston copy of my first Proverbial published by one Joseph Dowe in 1840,
which, though stated to be "from the London edition," designedly omits
all allusion to the Trinity, even my whole essay thereon, for Mr. Dowe
as a Unitarian chose to make me one! Also, I have seen my name attached
to verses I never wrote, and have been claimed both by Swedenborgians
and Freemasons as a brother, while Jesuitry has otherwise traduced me.
Artists also as well as authors are similarly misrepresented; my
son-in-law, Clayton Adams, for instance, tells me that his name has been
added to landscapes he never painted, and that they sold by auction at
high prices. Modern society should punish such cheateries severely.