The History of Pompey the Little.
By
Francis Coventry
Published by the Ex-classics Project, 2017 http://www.exclassics.com
Public Domain
CONTENTS
Frontispiece 2
Bibliographic and Editorial note 4
Introduction by Edmund Gosse 5
Title Page 8
BOOK I 9
CHAP. I. A panegyric upon dogs, together with some observations on modern novels and romances 10
CHAP. II. The birth, parentage, education, and travels of a lap-dog 13
CHAP. III. Our hero arrives in England. A conversation between two ladies concerning his master 16
CHAP. IV. Another conversation between Hillario and a celebrated lady of quality.19 CHAP. V. The character of Lady Tempest, with some particulars of her servants and family 22
CHAP. VI. Our hero becomes a dog of the town, and shines in high-life 26
CHAP. VII. Containing a curious dispute on the immortality of the soul 28
CHAP. VIII. Containing various and sundry matters 31
CHAP. IX. Containing what the reader will know, if he reads it 34
CHAP. X. The Genealogy of a Cat, and other odd Matters, which the great Critics of the Age will call improbable and unnatural 37
CHAP. XI. The history of a modish marriage; the description of a coffee-house, and a very grave political debate on the good of the nation 40
CHAP. XII. A description of Counsellor Tanturian 44
CHAP. XIII. A short chapter, containing all the wit, and all the spirit, and all the pleasure of modern young gentlemen 46
CHAP. XIV. Our hero falls into great misfortunes 48
BOOK II 50
CHAP. I. A Dissertation upon Nothing 51
CHAP. II. Fortune grows favourable to our hero, and restores him to high-life 54
CHAP. III. A long chapter of characters 56
CHAP. IV. The characters of the foregoing chapter exemplified. An irreparable misfortune befalls our hero 61
CHAP V. Relating the history of a milliner 63
CHAP. VI. Another long chapter of characters 66
CHAP. VII. A sad disaster befalls Sir Thomas Frippery in the night, and a worse in the day 69
CHAP. VIII. A description of a drum 72
CHAP. IX. In which several things are touched upon 75
CHAP. X. Describing the miseries of a garretteer poet 78
CHAP. XI. Showing the ill effects of ladies having the vapours 81
CHAP. XII Our Hero goes to the University of Cambridge 84
CHAP. XIII. The character of a Master of Arts at a university 87
CHAP XIV. Another college character 89
CHAP. XV. A prodigious short Chapter 91
CHAP. XVI. Pompey returns to London, and occasions a remarkable dispute in the Mall 92
CHAP. XVII. A terrible misfortune happens to our hero, which brings his history to a conclusion 94
CHAP. XVIII. The Conclusion 97
Bibliographic and Editorial note
The History of Pompey the Little was first published in 1751 and sold very well. A second edition came out the same year, and a third, substantially revised, version the following year. There is also an early, but undated, bowdlerised edition published by
C. Cooke.
This Ex-Classics edition is taken from a facsimile of the second edition. Spelling and capitalisation have been modernised.
An online version of the third edition is available at http://penelope.uchicago.edu/pompey/index.shtml
Introduction
by Edmund Gosse
In February 1751 the town, which had been suffering from rather a dreary spell since the acceptable publication of Tom Jones, was refreshed and enlivened by the simultaneous issue of two delightfully scandalous productions, eminently well adapted to occupy the polite conversation of ladies at drums and at the card-table. Of these one was The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality, so oddly foisted by Smollett into the third volume of his Peregrine Pickle. This was recognised at once as being the work of the frail and adventurous Lady Vane, about whom so many strange stories were already current in society. The other puzzled the gossips much longer, and it seems to have been the poet Gray who first discovered the authorship of Pompey the Little. Gray wrote to tell Horace Walpole who had written the anonymous book that everybody was talking about, adding that he had discovered the secret through the author's own carelessness, three of the characters being taken from a comedy shown him by a young clergyman at Magdalen College, Cambridge. This was the Rev. Francis Coventry, then some twenty- five years of age. The discovery of the authorship made Coventry a nine-days' hero, while his book went into a multitude of editions. It was one of the most successful jeux d'esprit of the eighteenth century.
The copy of the first edition of Pompey the Little, which lies before me, contains an excellent impression of the frontispiece by Louis Boitard, the fashionable engraver- designer, whose print of the Ranelagh Rotunda is so much sought after by amateurs. It represents a curtain drawn aside to reveal a velvet cushion, on which sits a graceful little Italian lap-dog with pendant silky ears and sleek sides spotted like the pard. This is Pompey the Little, whose life and adventures the book proceeds to recount. "Pompey, the son of Julio and Phyllis, was born A.D. 1735, at Bologna in Italy, a place famous for lap-dogs and sausages." At an early age he was carried away from the boudoir of his Italian mistress by Hillario, an English gentleman illustrious for his gallantries, who brought him to London. The rest of the history is really a chain of social episodes, each closed by the incident that Pompey becomes the property of some fresh person. In this way we find ourselves in a dozen successive scenes, each strongly contrasted with the others. It is the art of the author that he knows exactly how much to tell us without wearying our attention, and is able to make the transition to the next scene a plausible one.
There is low life as well as high life in Pompey the Little, sketches after Hogarth, no less than studies à la Watteau. But the high life is by far the better described. Francis Coventry was the cousin of the Earl of that name, he who married the beautiful and silly Maria Gunning. When he painted the ladies of quality at their routs and drums, masquerades, and hurly-burlies, he knew what he was talking about, for this was the life he himself led, when he was not at college. Even at Cambridge, he was under the dazzling influence of his famous and fashionable cousin, Henry Coventry, fellow of the same college of Magdalen, author of the polite Philémonto Hydaspes dialogues, and the latest person who dressed well in the University. The embroidered coats of Henry Coventry, stiff with gold lace, his "most prominent Roman nose" and air of being much a gentleman, were not lost on the younger member of the family, who seems to paint him slyly in his portrait of Mr. Williams.
The great charm of Pompey the Little to contemporaries was, of course, the fact that it was supposed to be a roman à clef. The Countess of Bute hastened to send out a copy of it to her mother in Italy, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu did not hesitate to discover the likenesses of various dear friends of hers. She found it impossible to go to bed till she had finished it. She was charmed, and she tells Lady Bute, what the curious may now read with great satisfaction, that it was "a real and exact representation of life, as it is now acted in London." What is odd is that Lady Mary identified, with absolute complacency, the portrait of herself, as Mrs. Qualmsick, that hysterical lady with whom "it was not unusual for her to fancy herself a Glass bottle, a Tea-pot, a Hay-rick, or a Field of Turnips." Instead of being angry, Lady Mary screamed with laughter at the satire of her own whimsies, of how "Red was too glaring for her eyes; Green put her in Mind of Willows, and made her melancholic; Blue remembered her of her dear Sister, who had died ten Years before in a blue Bed." In fact, all this fun seems, for the moment at least, to have cured the original Mrs. Qualmsick of her whimsies, and her remarks on Pompey the Little are so good-natured that we may well forgive her for the pleasure with which she recognised Lady Townshend in Lady Tempest and the Countess of Orford in the pedantic and deistical Lady Sophister, who rates the physicians for their theology, and will not be bled by any man who accepts the doctrine of the immortality of the soul.
Coventry's romance does not deserve the entire neglect into which it has fallen. It is sprightly and graceful from the first page to the last. Not written, indeed, by a man of genius, it is yet the work of a very refined observer, who had been modern enough to catch the tone of the new school of novelists. The writer owes much to Fielding, who yet does not escape without a flap from one of Pompey's silken ears. Coventry's manner may be best exemplified by one of his own bright passages of satire. This notion of a man of quality, that no place can be full that is not crowded with people of fashion, is not new, but it is deliciously expressed. Aurora has come back from Bath, and assures the Count that she has had a pleasant season there:
"'You amaze me," cries the Count; 'Impossible, Madam! How can it be, Ladies? I had Letters from Lord Monkeyman and Lady Betty Scornful assuring me that, except yourselves, there were not three human Creatures in the Place. Let me see, I have Lady Betty's Letter in my Pocket, I believe, at this Moment. Oh no, upon Recollection, I put it this morning into my Cabinet, where I preserve all my Letters of Quality.' Aurora, smothering a Laugh as well as she could, said she was extremely obliged to Lord Monkeyman and Lady Betty, for vouchsafing to rank her and her Sister in the Catalogue of human Beings. 'But, surely,' added she, 'they must have been asleep, both of them, when they wrote their Letters; for Bath was extremely full,' 'Full!' cries the Count, interrupting her; "Oh, Madam, that is very possible, and yet there might be no Company--that is, none of us; Nobody that one knows. For as to all the Tramontanes that come by the cross Post, we never reckon them as anything but Monsters in human Shape, that serve to fill up the Stage of Life, like Cyphers in a play. For Instance, you often see an awkward Girl, who has sewed a Tail to a Gown, and pinned two Lappets to a Night-cap, come running headlong into the Rooms with a wild, frosty Face, as if she was just come from feeding Poultry in her Father's Chicken-Yard. Or you see a Booby Squire, with a Head resembling a Stone ball over a Gate-post. Now, it would be the most ridiculous Thing in Life to call such People Company. 'Tis the Want of Titles, and not the Want of Faces, that makes a Place empty.'"
There are indications, which I think have escaped the notice of Goldsmith's editors, that the author of the Citizen of the World condescended to take some of his
ideas from Pompey the Little. In Count Tag, the impoverished little fop who fancies himself a man of quality, and who begs pardon of people who accost him in the Park-- "but really, Lady Betty or Lady Mary is just entering the Mall,"--we have the direct prototype of Beau Tibbs; while Mr. Rhymer, the starving poet, whose furniture consists of "the first Act of a Comedy, a Pair of yellow Stays, two political Pamphlets, a plate of Bread-and-butter, three dirty Night-caps, and a Volume of Miscellany Poems," is a figure wonderfully like that of Goldsmith himself, as Dr. Percy found him eight years later, in that "wretched, dirty room," at the top of Breakneck Steps, Green Arbour Court. The whole conception of that Dickens-like scene, in which it is described how Lady Frippery had a drum in spite of all local difficulties, is much more in the humour of Goldsmith than in that of any of Coventry's immediate contemporaries.
Strangely enough, in spite of the great success of his one book, the author of Pompey the Little never tried to repeat it. He became perpetual curate of Edgware, and died in the neighbouring village of Stanmore Parva a few years after the publication of his solitary book; I have, however, searched the registers of that parish in vain for any record of the fact. Francis Coventry had gifts of wit and picturesqueness which deserved a better fate than to amuse a few dissipated women over their citron-waters, and then to be forgotten.
Title Page
THE
HISTORY
OF
Pompey the Little:
OR, THE
LIFE and ADVENTURES OF A
LAP-DOG.
—gressumque Canes comitantur herilem VIR. Æn.*
—mutate nomine de te Fabula narrator. HOR.**
THE SECOND EDITION
LONDON:
Printed for M. COOPER at the Globe
in Paternoster-Row MDCCLI.
*" two watch-dogs go before him" Virgil, Aeneid Bk. VIII. l. 462.
**"with the name changed, the story applies to you " Horace, Satires, Bk. I Sat.I l. 69
BOOK I.
CHAP. I.
A panegyric upon dogs, together with some observations on modern novels and romances.
VARIOUS and wonderful, in all ages, have been the actions of dogs; and if I should set myself to collect, from poets and historians, the many passages that make honourable mention of them, I should compose a work much too large and voluminous for the patience of any modern reader. But as the politicians of the age, and men of gravity may be apt to censure me for misspending my time in writing the adventures of a lap-dog, when there are so many modern heroes, whose illustrious actions call loudly for the pen of an historian; it will not be amiss to detain the reader, in the entrance of this work, with a short panegyric on the canine race, to justify my undertaking it.
And can we, without the basest ingratitude, think ill of an animal, that has ever honoured mankind with his company and friendship, from the beginning of the world to the present moment? While all other creatures are in a state of enmity with us; some flying into woods and wildernesses to escape our tyranny, and others requiring to be restrained with bridles and fences in close confinement; dogs alone enter into voluntary friendship with us, and of their own accord make their residence among us.
Nor do they trouble us only with officious fidelity, and useless good-will, but take care to earn their livelihood by many meritorious services: they guard our houses, supply our tables with provision, amuse our leisure hours, and discover plots to the government. Nay, I have heard of a dog's making a syllogism; which cannot fail to endear him to our two famous universities, where his brother-logicians are so honoured and distinguished for their skill in that useful science.
After these extraordinary instances of sagacity and merit, it may be thought too ludicrous, perhaps, to mention the capacity they have often discovered, for playing at cards, fiddling, dancing, and other polite accomplishments; yet I cannot help relating a little story, which formerly happened at the play-house in Lincolns-Inn-Fields.
There was, at that time, the same emulation between the two houses, as there is at present between the great common-wealths of Drury-Lane and Covent-Garden; each of them striving to amuse the town with various feats of activity, when they began to grow tired of sense, wit, and action. At length, the managers of the house of Lincolns- Inn-Fields, possessed with a happy turn of thought, introduced a dance of dogs; who were dressed in French characters, to make the representation more ridiculous, and acquitted themselves for several evenings to the universal delight and improvement of the town. But one unfortunate night, a malicious wag behind the scenes, threw down among them the leg of a fowl, which he had brought thither in his pocket for that purpose. Instantly all was in confusion; the marquis shook off his peruke, mademoiselle dropped her hoop-petticoat, the fiddler threw away his violin, and all fell to scrambling for the prize that was thrown among them.—But let us return to graver matter.
If we look back into ancient history, we shall find the wisest and most celebrated nations of antiquity, as it were, contending with one another, which should pay the greatest honour to dogs. The old astronomers denominated stars after their name; and the Egyptians in particular, a sapient and venerable people, worshipped a dog among the principal of their divinities. The poets represent Diana, as spending great part of her life among a pack of hounds, which I mention for the honour of the country gentlemen
of Great-Britain; and we know that the illustrious Theseus dedicated much of his time to the same companions.
Julius Pollux informs us, that the art of dying purple and scarlet cloth was first found out by Hercules's dog, who roving along the sea-coast, and accidentally eating of the fish Murex, or Purpura, his lips became tinged with that colour; from whence the Tyrians first took the hint of the purple manufacture, and to this lucky Event our fine Gentlemen of the army are indebted for the scarlet, with which they subdue the hearts of so many fair ladies.
But nothing can give us a more exalted idea of these illustrious animals, than to consider, that formerly, in old Greece, they founded a sect of philosophy; the members whereof took the name of Cynics, and were gloriously ambitious of assimilating themselves to the manners and behaviour of that animal, from whom they derived their title.
And that the ladies of Greece had as great a fondness for them as the men, may be collected from the story which Lucian relates of a certain philosopher; who in the excess of his complaisance to a woman of fashion, on whom he depended for support, took up her favourite lap-dog one day, attempting to caress and kiss it; but the little creature, not being used to the rude gripe of philosophic hands, found his loins affected in such a manner, that he was obliged to water the sage's beard, as he held him to his mouth; which so discomposed that principal, if not only seat of his wisdom, as excited laughter in all the beholders.
Such was the reverence paid to them among the nations of antiquity; and if we descend to later times, we shall not want examples of great men's devoting themselves to dogs. King Charles the second, of pious and immortal memory, came always to his council-board accompanied with a favourite spaniel; who propagated his breed, and scattered his image through the land, almost as extensively as his royal master. His successor, king James, of pious and immortal memory likewise, was distinguished for the same attachment to these four-footed worthies; and 'tis reported of him, that being once in a dangerous storm at sea, and obliged to quit the ship for his life, he roared aloud with a most vehement voice, as his principal concern, 'to save the dogs and the Duke of M——.' But why need we multiply examples? The greatest heroes and beauties have not been ashamed to erect monuments to them in their gardens, nor the greatest wits and poets to write their epitaphs. Bishops have entrusted them with their secrets, and prime-ministers deigned to receive information from them, when treason and conspiracies were hatching against the government. Islands likewise, as well as stars, have been called after their names; so that I hope no one will dare to think me idly employed in composing the following work: or if any such critic should be found, let him own himself ignorant of ancient and modern history, let him confess himself an enemy to his country, and ungrateful to the benefactors of Great-Britain.
And as no exception can reasonably be taken against the dignity of my hero, much less can I expect any will arise against the nature of this work, which one of my contemporaries declares to be 'an epic poem in prose'; and I cannot help promising myself some encouragement, in this life-writing age especially, when no character is thought too inconsiderable to engage the public notice, or too abandoned to be set up as a pattern of imitation. The lowest and most contemptible vagrants, parish-girls, chamber-maids, pick-pockets, and highwaymen, find historians to record their praises, and readers to wonder at their exploits. Star-gazers, superannuated strumpets, quarrelling lovers, all think themselves authorized to appeal to the public, and to write
apologies for their lives. Even the prisons and stews are ransacked to find materials for novels and romances. Thus, I am told, that illustrious mimic Mr. F——t, when all other expedients fail him, and he shall no longer be able to raise a kind of tax, if I may so call it, from tea, coffee, chocolates, and marriages, designs, as the last effort of his wit, to oblige the world with an accurate history of his own life; with which view one may suppose he takes care to chequer it with so many extraordinary occurrences, and selects such adventures as will best serve hereafter to amaze and astonish his readers.
This then being the case, I hope the very superiority of the character here treated of, above the heroes of common romances, will procure it a favourable reception, although perhaps I may fall short of my great contemporaries in the elegance of style, and graces of language. For when such multitudes of lives are daily offered to the public, written by the saddest dogs, or of the saddest dogs of the times, it may be considered as some little merit to have chosen a subject worthy the dignity of history; in which single view I may be allowed to paragon myself with the incomparable writer of the life of Cicero, in that I have deserted the beaten track of biographers, and chosen a subject worthy the attention of polite and classical readers.
Having detained the reader with this little necessary introduction, I now proceed to open the birth and parentage of my Hero.
CHAP. II.
The birth, parentage, education, and travels of a lap-dog.
POMPEY, the son of Julio and Phyllis, was born A. D. 1735, at Bologna in Italy, a place famous for lap-dogs and sausages. Both his parents were of the most illustrious families, descended from a long train of ancestors, who had figured in many parts of Europe, and lived in intimacy with the greatest men of the times. They had frequented the chambers of the proudest beauties, and had access to the closets of the greatest princes. Cardinals, kings, popes, emperors, were all happy in their acquaintance; and I am told the elder branch of the family now lives with his present holiness in the papal palace at Rome.
But Julio, the father of my hero, being a younger brother of a numerous family, fell to the share of an Italian nobleman at Bologna; from whom I heard a story of him, redounding so much to his credit, that it would be an injury to his memory not to relate it; especially as it is the duty of an historian to derive his hero from honourable ancestors, and to introduce him into the world with all the éclat and renown he can.
It seems the city of Bologna being greatly over-stocked with dogs, the inhabitants of the place are obliged at certain seasons of the year to scatter poisoned sausages up and down the streets for their destruction; by which means the multitude of them is reduced to a tolerable number. Now Julio, having got abroad one morning by the carelessness of servants into the streets, was unwisely tempted to eat of one of these pernicious cates; which immediately threw him into a violent fit of illness: but being seasonably relieved with emetics, and having a good constitution, he struggled through the distemper; and ever afterwards remembering what himself had escaped, out of pity to his brethren, who might possibly undergo the same fate, he was observed to employ himself during the whole Sausage Season, in carrying away these poisonous baits one by one in his mouth, and throwing them into the river that runs by the city. But to return.
The Italian nobleman above mentioned had an intrigue with a celebrated courtesan of Bologna, and little Julio often attending him when he made his visits to her, as it is the nature of all servants to imitate the vices of their masters, he also commenced an affair of gallantry with a favourite little bitch named Phyllis, at that time the darling of this fille de joye. For a long while she rejected his courtship with disdain, and received him with that coyness, which beauties of her sex know very well how to counterfeit; but at length in a little closet devoted to Venus, the happy lover accomplished his desires, and Phyllis soon gave signs of pregnancy.
I have not been able to learn whether my hero was introduced into the world with any prodigies preceding his birth; and though the practice of most historians might authorize me to invent them, I think it most ingenuous to confess, as well as most probable to conclude, that nature did not put herself to any miraculous expense on this occasion. Miracles are unquestionably ceased in this century, whatever they might be in some former ones; there needs no Dr. Middleton to convince us of this; and I scarce think Dr. Ch——apman himself would have the hardiness to support me, if I should venture to relate one in the present age.
Be it sufficient then to say, that on the 25th of May N. S. 1735, Pompey made his first appearance in the world at Bologna; on which day, as far as I can learn, the sun shone just as usual, and nature wore exactly the same aspect as upon any other day in the year.
About this time an English gentleman, who was making the tour of Europe, to enrich himself in foreign manners and foreign clothes, happened to be residing at Bologna. And as one great end of modern travelling is the pleasure of intriguing with women of all nations and languages, he was introduced to visit the lady above- mentioned, who was at that time the fashionable and foremost courtesan of the place. Little Pompey having now opened his eyes and learnt the use of his legs, was admitted to frolic about the room, as his mistress sat at her toilet or presided at her tea-table. On these occasions her gallants never failed to play with him, and many pretty dialogues often arose concerning him, which perhaps might make a figure in a modern comedy. Every one had something to say to the little favourite, who seemed proud to be taken notice of, and by many significant gestures would often make believe he understood the compliments that were paid him.
But nobody distinguished himself more on this subject than our English Hillario; who had now made a considerable progress in the affections of his mistress: For partly the recommendation of his person, but chiefly the profusion of his expenses made her think him a very desirable lover; and as she saw that his ruling passion was vanity, she was too good a dissembler, and too much a mistress of her trade, not to flatter this weakness for her own ends. This so elated the spirits of Hillario, that he surveyed himself every day with increase of pleasure at his glass, and took a pride on all occasions to show how much he was distinguished, as he thought, above any of her ancient admirers. Resolving therefore to out-do them all as much in magnificence, as he imagined he did in the success of his love, he was continually making her the most costly presents, and among other things, presented master Pompey with a collar studded with diamonds. This so tickled the little animal's vanity, being the first ornament he had ever worn, that he would eat biscuit from Hillario's hands with twice the pleasure, with which he received it from any other person's; while Hillario made him the occasion of conveying indirect compliments to his mistress. Sometimes he would swear, 'he believed it was in her power to impart beauty to her very dogs,' and when she smiled at the staleness of the conceit, he, imagining her charmed with his wit, would grow transported with gaiety, and practise all the fashionable airs that custom prescribes to an intrigue.
But the time came at length that this gay gentleman was to quit this scene of his pleasures, and go in quest of adventures in some other part of Italy. Nothing delayed him but the fear of breaking his mistress's heart, which his own great love of himself, joined with the seeming love she expressed for him, made him think a very likely consequence. The point therefore was to reveal his intentions to her in the most tender manner, and to reconcile her to this terrible event as well as he could. They had been dining together one day in her apartments, and Hillario after dinner, first inspiring himself with a glass of Tokay, began to curse his stars for obliging him to leave Bologna, where he had been so divinely happy; but he said, he had received news of his father's death, and was obliged to go to settle cursed accounts with his mother and sisters, who were in a hurry for their confounded fortunes; and after many other flourishes, concluded his rhapsody with requesting to take little Pompey with him as a memorial of their love. The lady received this news with all the artificial astonishment and counterfeited sorrow that ladies of her profession can assume whenever they please; in short she played the farce of passions so well, that Hillario thought her very life depended on his presence: She wept, entreated, threatened, swore, but all to no purpose; at length she was obliged to submit on condition that Hillario should give her a gold- watch in exchange for her favourite dog, which he consented to without any hesitation.
The day was now fixed for his departure, and having ordered his post-chaise to wait at her door, he went in the morning to take his last farewell. He found her at her tea-table ready to receive him, and little Pompey sitting innocently on the settee by his mistress's side, not once suspecting what was about to happen to him, and far from thinking himself on the point of so long a journey. For neither dogs nor men can look into futurity, or penetrate the designs of fate. Nay, I have been told that he ate his breakfast that morning with more than usual tranquillity; and though his mistress continued to caress him, and lament his departure, he neither understood the meaning of her kisses, nor greatly returned her affection. At length the accomplished Hillario taking out his watch, and cursing time for intruding on his pleasures, signified he must be gone that moment. Ravishing therefore an hundred kisses from his mistress, and taking up little Pompey in his arms, he went off humming an Italian tune, and with an air of affected concern threw himself carelessly into his chaise. From whence looking up with a melancholy shrug to her window, and shewing the little favourite to his forsaken mistress, he was interrupted by the voice of the postilion, desiring to be informed of the rout he was to take; which little particular this well-bred gentleman had in his hurry forgot, as thinking it perhaps of no great consequence. But now cursing the fellow for not knowing his mind without putting him to the trouble of explaining it, 'damn you,' cries he, 'drive to the devil if you will, for I shall never be happy again as long as I breathe.' Recollecting himself however upon second thoughts, and thinking it as well to defer that journey to some future opportunity, he gave his orders for ——; and then looking up again at the window, and bowing, the post-chaise hurried away, while his charmer stood laughing and mimicking his gestures.
As her affection for him was wholly built on interest, of course it ended the very moment she lost sight of his chaise; and we may conclude his for her had not a much longer continuance; for notwithstanding the protestations he made of keeping her dog for ever in remembrance of her, little Pompey had like to have been left behind in the very first day's stage. Hillario after dinner had reposed himself to sleep on a couch in the inn; from whence being waked with information that his chaise was ready and waited his pleasure at the door, he started up, discharged his bill, and was proceeding on his journey without once bestowing a thought on the neglected favourite. His servant however, being more considerate, brought him and delivered him at the chaise-door to his master; who cried indolently, 'begad that's well thought on,' called him 'a little devil for giving so much trouble,' and then drove away with the most unconcernedness. This I mention to show how very short-lived are the affections of protesting lovers.
CHAP. III.
Our hero arrives in England. A conversation between two ladies concerning his master.
BUT as it is not my design to follow this gentleman through his tour, we must be contented to pass over great part of the puppyhood of little Pompey, till the time of his arrival at London: only it may be of importance to remember, that in his passage from Calais to Dover he was extremely sea-sick, and twice given over by a physician on board; but some medicinal applications, together with a week's confinement in his chamber, after he came to town, restored him to his perfect health.
Hillario was no sooner landed, than he dispatched his French valet to London, with orders to provide him handsome lodgings in Pall-Mall, or some other great street near the court; and himself set forwards the next day with his whole retinue. Let us therefore imagine him arrived and settled in his new apartments; let us suppose the news-writers to have performed their duty, and all the important world of dress busy, as usual, in reporting from one to another, 'that Hillario was returned from his travels.'
As soon as his chests and baggage were arrived in town, his servants were all employed in setting forth to view in his ante-chamber, the several valuable curiosities he had collected; that his visitors might be detained as they passed through it, in making observations on the elegance of his taste. For though dress and gallantry were his principal ambition, he had condescended, in compliance with the humour of the times, to consult the Ciceroni at Rome, and other places, as to what was proper to be purchased, in order to establish a reputation for Vertù: and they had furnished him accordingly, at a proportionable expense, with all the necessary ingredients of modern taste; that is to say, with fingers and toes of ancient statues, medals bearing the name of Roman emperors on their inscriptions, and copied-original pictures of all the great masters and schools of Italy. They had likewise taught him a set of phrases and observations proper to be made, whenever the conversation should turn upon such subjects; which, by the help of a good memory, he used with tolerable propriety: he could descant in terms of art, on rusts and varnishes; and describe the air, the manner, the characteristic of different painters, in language almost as learned as the ingenious writer of a late essay. 'Here,' he would observe, 'the drawing is incorrect; there the attitude ungraceful—the costume ill-preserved, the contours harsh, the ordonnance irregular—the light too strong—the shade too deep,'—with many other affected remarks, which may be found in a very grave sententious book of morality.
But dress, as we before observed, was his darling vanity, and consequently, his rooms were more plentifully scattered with clothes than any other curiosity. There all the pride of Paris was exhibited to view; suits of velvet and embroidery, sword-hilts, red-heeled shoes, and snuff-boxes, lay about in negligent confusion yet all artfully disposed to catch the eyes of his female visitors. Nor did he appear with less éclat without doors; for he had now shown his gilt chariot and bay horses in all the streets of gay resort, and was allowed to have the most splendid brilliant equipage in London. The club at White's soon voted him a member of their fraternity, and there began a kind of rivalry among the ladies of fashion, who should first engage him to their assemblies. At all toilettes and parties in the morning, who but Hillario? At all drums and diversions in the evening, who but Hillario? Nobody came into the side-box at a play-house with so graceful a negligence; and it was on all hands confessed, that he had the most accomplished way of talking nonsense of any man of quality in London.
As the fashionable part of the world are glad of any fresh topic of conversation, that will not much fatigue their understandings; and the arrival of a new fop, the sight of a new chariot, or the appearance of a new fashion, are all articles of the highest importance to them; it could not be otherwise, but that the show and figure, which Hillario made, must supply all the polite circles with matter for commendation or censure. As a little specimen of this kind of conversations may, perhaps, not be disagreeable, I will beg the reader's patience a moment, to relate what passed on this subject between Cleanthe and Cleora, two ladies of eminence and distinction in the commonwealth of vanity. The former was a young lady of about fifty, who had out- lived many generations of beauties, yet still preserved the airs and behaviour of fifteen; the latter a celebrated toast now in the meridian of her charms, and giddy with the admiration she excited. These two ladies had been for some time past engaged in a strict female friendship, and were now sitting down to supper at twelve o'clock at night, to talk over the important follies of the day. They had played at cards that evening at four different assemblies, left their names each of them at near twenty doors, and taken half a turn round Ranelagh, where the youngest had been engaged in a very smart exchange of bows, smiles, and compliments with Hillario. This had been observed by Cleanthe, who was a the same place, and envied her the many civilities she received from a gentleman so splendidly dressed, whose embroidery gave a peculiar poignancy to his wit. Wherefore at supper she began to vent her spite against him, telling Cleora, she wondered how she could listen to the impertinence of such a coxcomb: 'Surely,' said she, 'you cannot admire him; for my part, I am amazed at people for calling him handsome—do you really think him, my dear, so agreeable as the town generally makes him?' Cleora hesitating a moment, replied, 'she did not well know what beauty was in a man: To be sure,' added she, 'if one examines his features one by one, one sees nothing very extraordinary in him; but altogether he has an air, and a manner and a notion of things, my dear—he is lively, and airy, and engaging, and all that—and then his dresses are quite charming.' 'Yes,' said Cleanthe, 'that may be a very good recommendation of his tailor, and if one designs to marry a suit of velvet, why nobody better than Hillario— How should you like him for a husband, Cleora?' 'Faith,' said Cleora smiling, 'I never once thought seriously upon the subject in my life; but surely, my dear, there is such a ing as fancy and taste in dress; in my opinion, a man shows his parts in nothing more than in the choice of his clothes and equipage.' 'Why to be sure,' said Cleanthe, 'the man has something of a notion at dress, I confess it—yet methinks I could make an alteration for the better in his liveries.' Then began a very curious conversation on shoulder-knots, and they ran over all the liveries in town, commending one, and disliking another, with great nicety of judgment. From shoulder-knots they proceeded to the colour of coach- horses; and Cleanthe, resolving to dislike Hillario's equipage, asked her if she did not prefer greys to bays? Cleora answered in the negative, and the clock struck one before they had decided this momentous question; which was contested with so much earnestness, that both of them were beginning to grow angry, and to say ill-natured things, had not a new topic arisen to divert the discourse. His chariot came next under consideration, and then they returned to speculate [on] his dress; and when they had fully exhausted all the external accomplishments of a husband, they vouchsafed, at last, to come to the qualities of the mind. Cleora preferred a man who had travelled; 'because,' said she, 'he has seen the world, and must be ten thousand times more agreeable and entertaining than a dull home-bred fellow, who has never improved himself by seeing things:' But Cleanthe was of a different opinion, alleging that this would only give him a greater conceit of himself, and make him less manageable by a wife. Then they fell to abusing matrimony, numbered over the many unhappy couples
of their acquaintance, and both of them for a moment resolved to live single: But those resolutions were soon exploded; 'for though,' said Cleanthe, 'I should prefer a friendship with an agreeable man far beyond marrying him, yet you know, my dear, we girls are under so many restraints, that one must wish for a husband, if it be only for the privilege of going into public places, without the protection of a married woman along with one, to give one countenance.' Cleora rallied the expression of we girls, which again had like to have bred a quarrel between them; and soon afterwards happening to say, she should like to dance with Hillario at the next Ridotta, Cleanthe could not help declaring, that she should be pleased also to have him for a partner. This stirred up a warmer altercation than any that had yet arisen, and the contended with such vehemence for this distant imaginary happiness, which perhaps might happen to neither of them, that they grew quite unappeasable, and in the end, departed to bed with as much malice and enmity, as if the one had made an attempt on the other's life.
CHAP. IV.
Another conversation between Hillario and a celebrated lady of quality.
IF the foregoing dialogue appears impertinent and foreign to this history, the ensuing one immediately concerns the hero of it, whose pardon I beg for having so long neglected to mention his name. He was now perfectly recovered from the indisposition hinted at in the beginning of the preceding chapter, and pretty well reconciled to the air of England; but as yet he had made few acquaintances either with gentlemen of his own or a different species; being seldom permitted to expatiate beyond the ante-chamber of Hillario's lodgings; where his chief amusement was to stand with his forepaws up in the window, and contemplate the coaches that passed through the street.
But fortune, who had destined him to a great variety of adventures, no sooner observed that he was settled and began to grow established in his new apartments, than she determined, according to her usual inconstancy, to beat up his quarters, and provide him a new habitation.
Among the many visitors that favoured Hillario with their company in a morning, a lady of quality, who had buried her husband, and was thereby at liberty to pursue her own inclinations, was one day drinking chocolate with him. They were engaged in a very interesting conversation, on the Italian opera, which they all declared to be the most sublime entertainment in life; when on a sudden little Pompey came running into the room and leapt up into his master's lap. Lady Tempest (for that was her name) no sooner saw him, than addressing herself to his master with the ease and familiarity of modern breeding, 'Hillario,' said she, 'where the devil did you get that pretty dog?' 'That dog, Madam,' cries Hillario, 'O l'amour! thereby hangs a tale—That dog, Madam, once belonged to a woman of the first fashion in Italy, the finest creature, I think that ever my eyes beheld—such a shape and such an air.'—O quelle mine! Quelle delicatesse!' Then ran he into the most extravagant encomiums on her beauty, and after dropping many hints of an intrigue, to awaken Lady Tempest's curiosity, and make her enquire into the particulars of the story, concluded with desiring her ladyship to excuse him from proceeding any farther, for he thought it the highest injury to betray a lady's secrets. 'Nay,' said Lady Tempest, 'it can do her reputation no hurt to tell tales of her in England; and besides, Hillario, if you acquitted yourself with spirit and gallantry in the affair, who knows but I shall like you the better after we have heard your story?' 'Well,' said he, 'on that condition, my dear countess! I will confess the truth—I had an affair with this lady, and, I think, none of my amours ever afforded me greater transport: But the eyes of a husband will officiously be prying into things that do not concern them; her jealous-pated booby surprised us one evening in a little familiar dalliance, and, sent me a challenge the next morning.' 'Bless us!' said Lady Tempest, 'and what became of it?' 'Why,' cries Hillario, 'I would willingly have washed my hands of the fellow if I could, for I thought it but a silly business to hazard one's life with so ridiculous an animal; but, curse the blockhead, he could not understand ridicule—You must know, Madam, I sent him for answer, with the greatest ease imaginable—quite composed as I am at this moment—that I had so prodigious a cold, it would be imprudent to fight abroad in the open air; but if he would have a fire in his best apartment, and a bottle of Burgundy ready for me on the table after I had gone through the fatigue of killing him, I was at his service as soon as he pleased—meaning, you see, to have turned the affair off with a joke, if the fellow had been capable of tasting ridicule.' 'But that stratagem,' replied Lady Tempest, 'I am afraid did not succeed—the man I doubt was too dull to
apprehend your raillery.' 'Dull as a beetle, Madam,' said Hillario; 'the monster continued obstinate, and repeated his challenge—When therefore I found nothing else would do, I resolved to meet him according to his appointment; and there—in short—ha! ha! I shall never forget how he looked—in short, not to trouble your ladyship with a long, tedious description—I ran him through the body.' Lady Tempest burst out a-laughing at this story, which she most justly concluded to be a lie; and after entertaining herself with many pleasant remarks upon it, said with a smile, 'but what is this to the dog, Hillario?' 'The dog, Madam,' answered he, 'O pardon me, I am coming to the dog immediately.—Come hither Pompey, and listen to your own story.—This dog, Madam, this very little dog, had at that time the honour of waiting on the dear woman I have been describing, and as the noise of my duel obliged me to quit Bologna, I sent her private notice of my intentions, and begged her by any means to favour me with an interview before my departure. The monster her husband, who then lay on his death- bed, immured her so closely, that you may imagine it was very difficult to gratify my desires; but love, immortal love, gave her courage; she sent me a private key to get admission into her garden, and appointed me an assignation in an orange-grove at nine in the evening. I flew to the dear creature's arms, and after spending an hour with her in the bitterest lamentations, when it grew dangerous and impossible to stay any longer, we knelt down both of us on the cold ground, and saluted one another for the last time on our knees.—Oh how I cursed fortune for separating us! But at length I was compelled to decamp, and she gave me this dog, this individual little dog, to carry with me as a memorial of her love. The poor, dear, tender woman died, I hear, within three weeks after my departure; but this dog, this divine little dog, will I keep everlastingly for her sake.'
When the lady had heard him to an end, 'well,' said she, 'you have really told a very pretty story, Hillario; but as to your resolutions of keeping the dog, I swear you shall break them; for I had the misfortune t'other day to lose my favourite black spaniel of the mange, and I intend you shall give me this little dog to supply his place.' 'Not for the universe, Madam,' replied Hillario; 'I should expect to see his dear injured mistress's ghost haunting me in my sleep to-night, if I could be guilty of such an act of infidelity to her.' 'Pugh,' said the lady, 'don't tell me of such ridiculous superstitious trumpery.— You no more came by the dog in this manner, Hillario, than you will fly to the moon tonight—but if you did it does not signify, for I positively must and will take him home with me.' 'Madam,' said Hillario, 'this little dog is sacred to love! he was born to be the herald of love, and there is but one consideration in nature that can possibly induce me to part with it.' 'And what is that,' said the lady? 'That, Madam,,' cries Hillario, bowing, 'is the honour of visiting him at all hours in his new apartments—he must be the herald of love wherever he goes, and on these conditions—if you will now and then admit me of your retirements, little Pompey waits your acceptance as soon as you please.' 'Well,' said the lady, smiling, 'you know I am not inexorable, Hillario, and if you have a mind to visit your little friend at my ruelle, you'll find him ready to receive you—though, faith, upon second thoughts, I know not whether I dare admit you or not. You are such a killer of husbands, Hillario, that 'tis quite terrible to think on; and if mine was not conveniently removed out of the way, I should have the poor man sacrificed for his jealousy.' 'Raillery! raillery!' returned Hillario; 'but as you say, my dear countess, your monster is commodiously out of the way, and therefore we need be under no apprehensions from that quarter, for I hardly believe he will rise out of his grave to interrupt our amours.'—' Amours!' cried the lady, lifting up her voice, 'pray what I have said that encourages you to talk of amours?'—
From this time the conversation began to grow much too loose to be reported in this work: They congratulated each other on the felicity of living in an age, that allows such indulgence to women, and gives them leave to break loose from their husbands, whenever they grow morose and disagreeable, or attempt to interrupt their pleasures. They laughed at constancy in marriage as the most ridiculous thing in nature, exploded the very notion of matrimonial happiness, and were most fashionably pleasant in decrying everything that is serious, virtuous and religious. From hence they relapsed again into a discourse on the Italian opera, and thence made a quick transition to ladies' painting. This was no sooner started than Hillario begged leave to present her with a box of Rouge, which he had brought with him from France, assuring her that the ladies were arrived at such an excellency of using it at Paris, as to confound all distinction of age and beauty. 'I protest to your ladyship,' continued he, 'it is impossible at any distance to distinguish a woman of sixty from a girl of sixteen; and I have seen an old dowager in the opposite box at their playhouse, make as good a figure, and look as blooming as the youngest beauty in the place. Nothing in nature is there required to make a woman handsome but eyes.—If a woman has but eyes, she may be a beauty whenever she pleases, at the expense of a couple of guineas.—Teeth and hair and eye-brows and complexions are all as cheap as fans and gloves and ribbons.'
While this ingenious orator was pursuing his eloquent harangue on beauty, Lady Tempest, looking at her watch, declared it was time to be going; for she had seven or eight visits more to make that morning, and it was then almost three in the afternoon. Little Pompey, who had absented himself during great part of the preceding conversation, as thinking it perhaps above the reach of his understanding, was now ordered to be produced; and the moment he made his appearance, Lady Tempest catching him up in her arms, was conducted by Hillario into her chair, which stood at the door waiting her commands. Little Pompey cast up a wistful eye at the window above,; but the chairmen were now in motion, and with three footmen fore-running his equipage, set out in triumph to his new apartments.
CHAP. V.
The character of Lady Tempest, with some particulars of her servants and family.
THE sudden appearance of this lady, with whom our hero is now about to take up his residence, may perhaps excite the reader's curiosity to know who she is; and therefore, before we proceed any farther in our history, we shall spend a page or two in bringing him acquainted with her character. But let me admonish thee, my gentle friend, whosoever thou art, that shalt vouchsafe to peruse this little treatise, not to be too forward in making applications, or to construe satire into libel. For we declare here once for all, that no character drawn in this work is intended for any particular person, but meant to comprehend a great variety; and therefore, if thy sagacity discovers likenesses that were neverintended, and meanings that were never meant, be so good to impute it to thy own ill-nature, and accuse not the humble author of these sheets. Taking this caution along with thee, candid reader, we may venture to trust thee with a character, which otherwise we should be afraid to draw.
Lady Tempest then was originally daughter to a private gentleman of a moderate fortune, which she was to share in common with a brother and two other sisters: But her wit and beauty soon distinguished her among her acquaintance, and recompensed the deficiencies of fortune. She was what the men call 'a sprightly jolly girl,' and the women 'a bold forward creature,' very cheerful in her conversation, and open in her behaviour; ready to promote any party of pleasure (for she was a very rake at heart), and not displeased now and then to be assistant in a little mischief. This made her company courted by men of all sorts; among whom her affability and spirit, as well as her beauty, procured her many admirers. At length she was solicited in marriage by a young lord, famous for nothing but his great estate, and far her inferior in understanding: But the advantageousness of the match soon prevailed with her parents to give their consent, and the thoughts of a title so dazzled her own eyes, that she had no leisure to ask herself whether she liked the man or no that wore it. His lordship married for the sake of begetting an heir to his estate; and married her in particular, because he had heard her toasted as a beauty by most of his acquaintance. She, on the contrary, married because she wanted a husband; and married him, because he could give her a title and a coach and six.
But, alas! there is this little misfortune attending matrimony, that people cannot live together any time, without discovering each other's tempers. Familiarity soon draws aside the mask, and all that artificial complaisance and smiling good-humour, which make so agreeable a part of courtship, go off like April blossoms, upon a longer acquaintance. The year was scarce ended before her young ladyship was surprised to find she had married a fool; which little circumstance her vanity had concealed from her before marriage, and the hurry and transport she felt in a new equipage did not suffer her to attend to for the first half year afterwards. But now she began to doubt whether she had not made a foolish bargain for life, and consulting with some of her female intimates about it (several of whom were married) she received such documents from them, as, I am afraid, did not a little contribute to prepare her for the steps she afterwards took.
Her husband too, though not very quick of discernment, had by this time found out, that his wife's spirit and romantic disposition were inconsistent with his own
gloom; which gave new clouds to his temper, and he often cursed himself in secret for marrying her.
They soon grew to reveal these thoughts to one another, both in words and actions; they sat down to meals with indifference; they went to bed with indifference; and the one was always sure to dislike what the other at any time seemed to approve. Her ladyship had recourse to the common expedient in these cases, I mean the getting a female companion into the house with her, as well to relieve her from the tediousness of sitting down to meals alone with her husband, as chiefly to hear her complaints, and spirit her up against her fool and tyrant; the names by which she usually spoke of her lord and master. When no such female companions, or more properly toad-eaters, happened to be present, she chose rather to divert herself with a little favourite dog, than to murder any of her precious time in conversing with her husband. This his lordship observed, and besides many severe reflections and cross speeches, at length he wreaked his vengeance o the little favourite, and in a passion put him to death. This was an affair so heinous in the lady's own esteem, and pronounced to be so barbarous, so shocking, so inhuman by all her acquaintance, that she resolved no longer to keep any terms with him, and from this moment grew desperate in all her actions.
First then, she resolved to supply the place of one favourite with a great number, and immediately procured as many dogs into the family as it could well hold. His lordship in return, would order his servant to hang two or three of them every week, and never failed kicking them downstairs by dozens, whenever they came in his way. When this and many other stratagems had been tried, some with good and some with bad success, she came at last to play the great game of female resentment, and by many intimations gave him to mistrust, that a stranger had invaded his bed. Whether this was real, or only an artifice of spite, his lordship could never discover, and therefore we shall not indulge the reader's curiosity, by letting him into the secret; but the bare apprehension of it so inflamed his lordship's choler, that her company now became intolerable to him, and indeed their meetings were dreadful to themselves, and terrible to all beholders. Their servants used to stand at the door to listen to their quarrels, and then charitably disperse the subjects of them throughout the town; so that all companies now rang of lord and Lady Tempest. But this could not continue long; for indifference may sometimes be borne in a married state, but indignation and hatred I believe never can; and 'tis impossible to say what their quarrels might have produced, had not his lordship very seasonably died, and left his disconsolate widow to bear about the mockery of woe to all public places for a year.
She now began the world anew on her own foundation, and set sail down the stream of pleasure, without the fears of virginity to check her, or the influence of a husband to control her. Now she recovered that sprightliness of conversation and gaiety of behaviour, which had been clouded during the latter part of her cohabitation with her husband; and was soon cried up for the greatest female wit in London. Men of gallantry, and all the world of pleasure, had easy access to her, and malicious fame reports, that she was not over-hard-hearted to the solicitations of love; but far be it from us to report any such improbable scandal. What gives her a place in this history is her fondness for dogs, which from her childhood she loved exceedingly, and was seldom without a little favourite to carry about in her arms: But from the moment that her angry husband sacrificed one of them to his resentment, she grew more passionately fond of them than ever, and now constantly kept six or eight of various kinds in her house. About this time, one of her greatest favourites had the misfortune to die of the mange, as was above commemorated, and when she saw little Pompey at Hillario's lodgings, she resolved
immediately to bestow the vacancy upon him, which that well-bred gentleman consented to on certain conditions, as the reader has seen in the foregoing chapter.
She returned home from her visit just as the clock was striking four, and after surveying herself a moment in the glass, and a little adjusting her hair, went directly to introduce Master Pompey to his companions. These were an Italian grey-hound, a Dutch pug, two black spaniels of King Charles's breed, a harlequin grey-hound, a spotted Dane, and a mouse-coloured English bull-dog. They heard their mistress's rap at the door, and were assembled in the dining-room, ready to receive her: But on the appearance of master Pompey, they set up a general bark, perhaps out of envy; and some of them treated the little stranger with rather more rudeness than was consistent with dogs of their education. However, the lady soon interposed her authority, and commanded silence among them, by ringing a little bell, which she kept by her for that purpose. They all obeyed the signal instantly, and were still in a moment; upon which she carried little Pompey round, and obliged them all to salute their new acquaintance, at the same time commanding some of them to ask pardon for their unpolite behaviour; which whether they understood or not, must be left to the reader's determination. She then summoned a servant, and ordered a chicken to be roasted for him; but hearing that dinner was just ready to be serve dup, she was pleased to say, he must be contented with what was provided for herself that day, but gave orders to the cook to get ready a chicken to his own share against night.
Her ladyship now sat down to table, and Pompey was placed at her elbow, where he received many dainty bits from her fair hands, and was caressed by her all dinner- time, with more than usual fondness. The servants winked at one another, while they were waiting, and conveyed many sneers across the table with their looks; all which had the good luck to escape her ladyship's observation. But the moment they were retired from waiting, they gave vent to their thoughts with all the scurrilous wit and ill- mannered raillery, which distinguishes the conversation of those parti-coloured gentlemen.
And first, the butler out of livery served up his remarks to the house-keeper's table; which consisted of himself, an elderly fat woman the house-keeper, and my lady's maid, a saucy, forward, affected girl, of about twenty. Addressing himself to these second-hand gentlewomen, as soon as they were pleased to sit down to dinner, he informed them, 'that their family was increased, and that his lady had brought home a new companion.' Their curiosity soon led them to desire an explanation, and then telling them that this new companion was a new dog, he related minutely and circumstantially all her ladyship's behaviour to him, during the time of his attendance at the side-board, not forgetting to mention the orders of a roasted chicken for the gentleman's supper. The house-keeper launched out largely on the sin and wickedness of feeding 'such creatures with Christian victuals,' declared it was flying in the face of heaven, and wondered how her lady could admit them into her apartment, for she said, 'they had already spoiled all the crimson damask-chairs in the dining-room.'
But my lady's maid had a great deal more to say on this subject, and as it was her particular office to wait on these four-footed worthies, she complained of the hardship done her, with great volubility of tongue. 'Then,' says she, 'there's a new plague come home, is there? he has got the mange too, I suppose, and I shall have him to wash and comb to-morrow morning. I am sure I am all over fleas with tending such nasty poisonous vermin, and 'tis a shame to put a Christian to such offices—I was in hopes when that little mangy devil died t'other day we should have had no more of them; but
there is to be no end of them I find, and for my part, I wish with all mu heart somebody would poison 'em all—I can't endure to see my lady let them kiss her, and lick her face all over as she does. I am sure I'd see all the dogs in England at Jericho, before I'd suffer such polecat vermin to lick my face. Faugh! 'tis enough to make one sick to see it; and I am sure, if I was a man, I'd scorn to kiss a face that had been licked by a dog.'
This was part of a speech made by this delicate, mincing comb-brusher; and the rest we shall omit, to wait upon the inferior servants, who were now assembled at dinner in their common hall of gluttony, and exercising their talents likewise on the same subject. John the footman here reported what Mr. William the butler had done before in his department, that their lady had brought home a new dog. 'Damn it,' cries the coachman, with a surly brutal voice, 'what signifies a new dog? has she brought home ever a new man?' which was seconded with a loud laugh from all the company. Another swore, that he never knew a kennel of dogs kept in a bed-chamber before; which likewise was applauded with a loud and boisterous laugh: but as such kind of wit is too low for the dignity of this history, though much affected by many of my contemporaries, I fancy I shall easily have the reader's excuse, if I forbear to relate any more of it.
My design in giving this short sketch of kitchen-humour, is only to convey a hint to all masters and mistresses, if they choose to receive it, not to be guilty of any actions, that will expose them to the ridicule and contempt of their servants. For these ungrateful wretches, though receiving ever so many favours from you, and treated by you in general with the greatest indulgence, will show no mercy to your slightest failings, but expose and ridicule your weakness in ale-houses, nine-pin-alleys, gin- shops, cellars, and every other place of dirty rendezvous. The truth is, the lower sort of men-servants are the most insolent, brutal, ungenerous rascals on the face of the earth: they are bred up in idleness, drunkenness and debauchery, and instead of concealing any faults they observe at home, find a pleasure in vilifying and mangling the reputations of their masters.
CHAP. VI.
Our hero becomes a dog of the town, and shines in high-life.
POMPEY was now grown up to maturity and dog's estate, when he came to live with Lady Tempest; who soon ushered him into all the joys and vanities of the town.
As he attended his mistress to all routs, drums, hurricanes, hurly-burlies and earthquakes, he soon established an acquaintance and friendship with the most noted dogs of quality, and of course affected a most hearty contempt for all of inferior station, whom he would never vouchsafe to play with, or pay them the least regard. He seemed to know at first sight, whether a dog had received a good education, by his manner of coming into a room, and was extremely ambitious to show his collar at court; in which again he resembled certain other dogs, who are equally vain of their finery, and happy to be distinguished in their respective orders.
If he could have spoken, I am persuaded he would have used the phrases so much in fashion, 'nobody one knows, wretches dropped out of the moon, creatures sprung from a dunghill;' by which are signified all those who are not born to a title, or have not impudence and dishonesty enough to run in debt with their tailors for laced clothes.
Again, had he been to write a letter from Bath or Tunbridge, he would have told his correspondent 'there was not a soul in the place,' though at the same time he knew there were above two thousand; because perhaps none of the men wore stars and garters, and none of the women were bold enough to impoverish their families by playing at the noble and illustrious game of brag.
As he was now become a dog of the town, and perfectly well-bred, of course he gave himself up to intrigue, and had seldom less than two or three amours at a time with bitches of the highest fashion: In which circumstances he again lamented the want of speech, being by that means debarred from the pleasure of boasting of the favours he received. But his gallantries were soon divulged by the consequences of them; and as several very pretty puppies had been the offspring of his loves, it was usual for all the acquaintance of Lady Tempest to solicit and cultivate his breed. And here I shall beg leave to insert two little billets of a very extraordinary nature, as a specimen of what it is that engages the attention of ladies of quality in this refined and accomplished age. Lady Tempest was sitting at her toilette one morning, when her maid brought her the following little scroll, from another lady, whose name whose name will be seen at the bottom of her letter.
'Dear Tempest,
My favourite little Veny is at present troubled with certain amorous infirmities of nature, and would not be displeased with the addresses of a lover. Be so good therefore to send little Pompey by my servant who brings this note, for I fancy it will make a very pretty breed, and when the lovers have transacted their affairs, he shall be sent home incontinently. Believe me, dear Tempest,
Yours affectionately, Racket.'
Lady Tempest, as soon as she had read this curious epistle, called for pen and ink, and immediately wrote the following answer, which likewise we beg leave to insert.
'Dear Racket.,
'Infirmities of nature we are all subject to, and therefore I have sent master Pompey to wait upon miss Veny, begging the favour of you to return him as soon as
his gallantries are over. Consider, my dear, no modern love can, in the nature of things, last above three days, and therefore I hope to see my little friend again very soon.
Your affectionate friend, Tempest.'
In consequence of these letters, our hero was conducted to Mrs. Racket's house, where he was received with the civility due to his station in life, and treated on the footing of a gentleman who came a courting in the family. Mrs. Racket had two daughters, who had greatly improved their natural relish for pleasure in the warm climate of a town education, and were extremely solicitous to inform themselves of all the mysteries of love. These young ladies no sooner heard of Pompey's arrival, than they went downstairs into the parlour, and undertook themselves to introduce him to Miss Veny: for love so much engrossed their thoughts, that they could not suffer a lap- dog in the house to have an amour without their privity. Here, while they were solacing themselves with innocent speculation, a young gentleman, who visited on a familiar footing in the family, was introduced somewhat abruptly to them. They no sooner found themselves surprised, than they ran tittering to a corner of the parlour, and hid their faces behind their fans; while their visitor, not happening to observe the Hymeneal rites that were celebrating, begged to know the cause of their mirth. This redoubled their diversion, and they burst out afresh into such immoderate fits of laughter, that the poor man began to look exceedingly foolish, imagining himself to be the object of their ridicule. In vain he renewed his entreaties to be let into the secret of their laughter; the ladies had not the power of utterance, and he would still have continued ignorant, had he not accidentally cast his eye aside, and there beheld Master Pompey with the most prevailing solicitation making love to his four-footed mistress. This at once satisfied his curiosity, and he was no longer at a loss to know the reason of that uncommon joy and rapture which the ladies had expressed.
Thus was our hero permitted to riot in all the luxuries of life, and treated everywhere, both at home and abroad, with the greatest indulgence. He fed every day upon chicken, partridges, ragouts, fricassees, and all the rarities in season; which so pampered him up with luxurious notions, as made some future scenes of life the more grievous to him, when fortune obliged him to undergo the hardships that will hereafter be recorded.
CHAP. VII.
Containing a curious dispute on the immortality of the soul.
IT is the nature of all mankind, authors as well as others, to abuse the patience of their friends, and as I have already related two conversations in this little work, instead of supposing the reader to be satiated with them, I am tempted to trespass farther on his patience, and trouble him with a third; in which, moreover, the name of our hero will but once be mentioned.
Lady Tempest, being indisposed with some trifling disorder, kept her chamber, and was attended by two physicians. As her behaviour in life had excluded her from the prudent and virtuous part of her sex, her visitors consisted chiefly of such ladies, who had contracted a stain, which placed them on a level with her ladyship: and to say the truth, ladies of this sort are so numerous in the great city of London, that no woman may fear a solitude, let her imprudence be ever so glaring. Her Ladyship's physicians were now making their morning visit, and had just gone through the examinations, which custom immemorial prescribes—as, 'how did your ladyship sleep last night?— do you find any drouth, Madam?—pray let me look at your ladyship's tongue,'—and many other questions of a like nature, which I have not leisure now to record. When these were finished, and the youngest was preparing to write a perscription on a sudden, a violent rap at the door, and shortly afterwards the appearance of a visitor, interrupted their proceedings. The lady, who now arrived, came directly up to Lady Tempest, and made her compliments; then being desired to sit down, and addressing herself, after some little pause, to one of the physicians, with a face of infinite significance and erudition, she asked him, 'if he believed in the immortality of the soul?'—but before we answer this extraordinary question, or relate the conversation that ensued upon it, it will be for the reader's ease to receive a short sketch of her character.
In many respects this lady was in similar circumstances with Lady Tempest; only with this difference, that the one had been separated from her husband by his death, the other was divorced from hers by act of Parliament; the one was famous for wit, and the other affected the character of wisdom. Lady Sophister, (for that was her name) as soon as she was released from the matrimonial fetters, set out to visit foreign parts, and displayed her charms in most of the courts in Europe. There, in many parts of her tour, she had cultivated an acquaintance with literati, and particularly in France, where the ladies affect a reputation of science, and are able to discourse on the profoundest questions of theology and philosophy. The labyrinths of a female brain are so various and intricate, that it is difficult to say what first suggested the opinion to her, whether caprice, or vanity of being singular; but all on a sudden her ladyship took a fancy into her head to disbelieve the immortality of the soul, and never came into the company of learned men without displaying her talents on this wonderful subject. The world indeed ascribed the rise of this opinion in her ladyship's brain, to self-interest; for, they said, 'it is much better to perish than to burn;' but for my part, I choose rather to impute it to absolute whim and caprice, or rather, an absurd and ridiculous love of paradox. But whatever started the thought first in her imagination, she had been at the pains of great reading to confirm it, and could appeal to the greatest authorities in defence of it. She had read Hobbes, Malbranche, Locke, Shaftsbury, Woolaston, and many more; all of whom she obliged to give testimony to her paradox, and perverted passages out of their works with a facility very easy to be imagined. But Mr. Locke had the misfortune to be her principal favourite, and consequently it rested chiefly upon him to furnish her with quotations, whenever her ladyship pleased to engage in controversy. Such was the
character of Lady Sophister, who now arrived, and asked the surprising question above- mentioned, concerning the immortality of the soul.
Doctor Killdarby, to whom she addressed herself, astonished at the novelty of the question, sat staring with horror and amazement on his companion; which Lady Tempest observing, and guessing that her female friend was going to be very absurd, resolved to promote the conversation for her own amusement. Turning herself therefore to the doctor, she said with a smile, 'don't you understand the meaning of her ladyship's question, Sir? She asks you, if you believe in the immortality of the soul?'
'Believe in the immortality of the soul, Madam!' said the doctor staring, 'bless me, your ladyships astonish me beyond measure—Believe in the immortality of the soul! Yes undoubtedly, and I hope all mankind does the same.' 'Be not sure of that, Sir,' said Lady Sophister; 'pray have you ever read Mr. Locke's controversy with the bishop of Worcester?' 'Mr. Locke's controversy, Madam!' replied the doctor, 'I protest I am not sure;—Mr. Locke's controversy with the bishop of Worcester, did your ladyship sat? Let me see—I vow I can't recollect—My reading has been very multifarious and extensive—Yes, Madam, I think I have read it, though I protest I can't be sure whether I have read it or no.' 'Have you ever read it, doctor Rhubarb?' said she, addressing herself to the other physician.—'O yes, Madam, very often,' answered he; ''tis that fine piece of his where—Yes, yes, I have read it very often; I remember it perfectly well—but pray, Madam, is there any passage—I beg your ladyship's pardon if I am mistaken—but is there any passage, I say, in that piece, which tends to confirm your ladyship's notion concerning the immortality of the soul?' 'Why pray, Sir,' said the lady, with a smile of triumph, 'what do you esteem the soul to be? Is it air, or fire, or æther, or a kind of quintessence, as Aristotle observed, and composition of all the elements?' Doctor Rhubarb quite dumb-founded with so much learning, desired first to hear her ladyship's opinion of the matter. 'My opinion,' resumed she, 'is exactly the same with Mr. Locke's. You know Mr. Locke observes, there are various kinds of matter—well—but first we should define matter, which you know the logicians tell us, is an extended solid substance—Well, out of this matter, some you know is made into roses and peach-trees; then the next step which matter takes, is animal life; from whence we have lions and elephants, and all the race of brutes. Then the next step, as Mr. Locke observes, is thought and reason and volition, from whence are created men, and therefore you very plainly see, 'tis impossible for the soul to be immortal.'
'Pardon me, Madam,' said Rhubarb—'Roses and peach-trees, an elephants and lions! I protest I remember nothing of this nature in Mr. Locke.' 'Nay Sir,' said she, 'can you deny me this? If the Soul is fire, it must be extinguished; if it is air, it must be dispersed; it be only a modification of matter, why then of course it ceases, you know, when matter is no longer modified—if it be anything else, it is exactly the same thing, and therefore you must confess—indeed Doctor, you must confess, that 'tis impossible for the Soul to be immortal.'
Doctor Killdarby, who had sat silent for some time to collect his thoughts, finding what a learned antagonist he had to cope with, began now to harangue in the following manner. 'Madam,' said he, 'I shall not trouble myself with the sophistry and quibbles of the schools, where men of idleness and retirement first of all puzzle themselves with intricate speculations, and then disturb the quiet of the world, by publishing the result of them, and by starting difficulties in men's minds that otherwise would never have occurred. Common-sense, assisted by revelation, is capable of attaining to all the knowledge, that is of use and importance for us to know; and
whatever goes beyond this, is but a specious learned kind of trifling, which may be attended with much mischief, but never can produce any good. Now the concurrent opinions of mankind have ever agreed in believing the immortality of the soul, and there was never any nation so barbarous in ignorance, or so depraved by superstition, as to be without, or doubtful of, this fundamental article of all religion. They may have differed, perhaps, in their notions of a future state, but the maim article, the first groundwork of the question has ever been the same; and this to me, I confess, is to me an unanswerable argument of its truth. You see, Madam, I purposely wave the topic of revelation, that I may not expose it to the ridicule of infidelity.'
'Oh, Sir, as to that matter,' said the lady, interrupting him with a sneer, 'as to that matter, as to revelation'——and here she ran into much common-place raillery at the expense only of Christianity and the gospel, till Lady Tempest cut her short, and desired her to be silent on that head; for this good lady believed all the doctrines of religion, and was contented, like many others, with the trifling privilege only of disobeying all its precepts.
Lady Sophister however, though she had been unsuccessful in her first attack, was resolved not to quit the field of battle, but rallied her forces, and once more fell on her adversaries with an air of triumph. 'You may think, Sir,' resumed she, 'that a multitude of opinions will establish a truth—Now you know all the Indians believe that their dogs will go to heaven along with them; and if a great many opinions can prove anything to be true, what say you to that, Sir? For instance, there's Lady Tempest's little lap-dog'—'My dear little creature,' said Lady Tempest, catching him up in her arms, 'will you go to heaven along with me? I shall be vastly glad of your company, Pompey, if you will.' From this hint both their ladyships had many bright sallies, till Lady Sophister, flushed with the hopes of this argument, recalled her adversary to the question, and desired to hear his reply. 'Madam,' said Killdarby; 'The reply would be easy enough; but I am sorry to her your ladyships talk so loosely on so serious a subject; though I confess it is not a new thing to me, for I have been present in many companies of late, where the weakest arguments, and most wanton raillery against religion have been received with applause. The answer to what your ladyship has advanced, would be easy and obvious, but I must beg to be excused—my profession does not oblige me to a knowledge of such subjects—I came here to prescribe as a physician, and not to discuss topics of theology.—Come, brother, I believe we only interrupt their ladyships, and I am obliged to call upon my lord —— and Lady —— and Sir William —— and lady Betty, and many other people of quality this morning.' Dr. Rhubarb declared that he likewise had as many visits to make that morning; whereupon the two gentlemen, taking their leaves—and their fees, retired with great precipitation, leaving her ladyship in possession of the field of battle; who immediately reported all over the town, that she had out-reasoned two physicians, and obliged them by dint of argument to confess that the soul is not immortal.
Before I conclude this chapter, I must beg the reader not to imagine that any ridicule was here intended of Mr. Locke, whose name ought ever be mentioned with honour, and much less of the great question debated in it; but on the contrary, that it was designed to expose the folly and impiety of modern wits, who dare to think religion a proper subject of ridicule; and principally, to explode the vanity of women's pretending to philosophy, when neither their intellects, or education qualify them for it. Beauty is no excuse for infidelity, and when they have so many other arts to gain admirers, one would think they need not be driven to dispute against the immortality of the soul.
CHAP. VIII.
Containing various and sundry matters.
POMPEY had now lived two years with Lady Tempest, in all the comforts and luxuries of life, fed every day with the choicest, most expensive dainties that London could afford, and caressed by all the people of fashion that visited his mistress:
——sed scilicet ultima semper Expectanda dies——dicique beatus
Ante obitum nemo supremaque funera debit
["But we should always wait for a man’s last day, for we should call no man’s life happy until he is dead"—Ovid, Metamorphoses, Bk. III l. 137-139]
A moral reflection, no less applicable to dogs than men! For they both alike experience the inconstancy of fortune, of which our hero was a great example, as the following pages of his history will very remarkably evince.
LADY Tempest was walking in St. James's park one morning in the Spring, with little Pompey, as usual, attending her; for she never went abroad without taking him in her arms. Here she set him down on his legs, to play with some other dogs of quality, that were taking the air that morning in the Mall; giving him strict orders however not to presume to stray out of her sight. But in spite of this injunction, something or other tempted his curiosity beyond the limits of the Mall; and there, while he was rolling and indulging himself on the green grass (a pleasure by novelty rendered more agreeable to him) it was his misfortune to spring a bird; which he pursued with such eagerness and alacrity, that he was got as far as Rosamond's Pond before he thought proper to give over the chase. His mistress in the meanwhile was engaged in a warm and interesting a dispute on the price of silk, which so engrossed her attention, that she never missed her favourite; nay, what is still more extraordinary, she got into her coach and drove home, without once bestowing a thought upon him. But the moment she arrived in her dining-room, and cast her eyes on the rest of her four-footed friends, her guilt immediately flew in her face, and she cried out with a scream, 'as I am alive, I have left little Pompey behind me.' Then summoning up two of her servants in an instant, she commanded them to go directly and search every corner of the park with the greatest diligence, protesting she should never have any peace of mind, till her favourite was restored to her arms. Many times she rang her bell, to know if her servants were returned, before it was possible for them to have got thither: but at length the fatal message arrived, that Pompey was nowhere to be found. And indeed it would have been next to a miracle, if he had; for these faithful ambassadors had never once stirred from the kitchen fire, where, together with the rest of the servants, they had been laughing at the folly of their mistress, and diverting themselves with misfortunes of her little darling. And the reason why they denied their return sooner, was, because they imagined a sufficient time had not then elapsed, to give a probability to that lie, which they were determined to tell. Yet this did not satisfy their lady; she sent them a second time to repeat their search, and a second time they returned with the same story, that 'Pompey was to be found neither high nor low.' At this again the reader is desired not to wonder; for though her ladyship saw them out of the house herself, and ordered them to bring back her favourite under pain of dismission, the farthest of their travels was only to an ale-house at the corner of the street; where they had been entertaining a large circle of their parti-coloured brethren with much ribaldry, at the expense of their mistress.
Tenderness to this lady's character makes me pass over much of the sorrow she vented on this occasion; but I cannot help relating, that she immediately dispatched cards to all her acquaintance, to put off a drum, which was to have been held at her house that evening; giving as a reason, that she had lost her lap-dog, and could not see company. She likewise sent an advertisement to the newspapers, of which we have procured a copy, and beg leave to insert it
Lost in the Mall in St. James's Park, between the hours of two and three in the Morning, a beautiful Bologna lap-dog, with black and white spots, a mottled breast, and several moles upon his nose, and answers to the name of Pomp, or Pompey.
Whoever will bring the same to Mrs. La Place's in Duke-street, Westminster, or Mrs. Hussey's mantua-maker, in the strand, shall receive two guineas reward.
This advertisement was inserted in all the news-papers for a month, with increase of the reward as the case grew more desperate; yet neither all the enquiries she made, nor all the rewards she offered, ever restored little Pompey to her arms. We must leave her therefore to receive the consolations of her friends on this afflicting loss, and return to examine after our hero, of whose fortune the reader, perhaps, may have a desire to hear.
He had been pursuing a bird, as was before described, as far as Rosamond's Pond, and when his diversion was over, galloped back to the Mall, not in the least doubting to find his lady there at his return. But alas! how great was his disappointment: he ran up and down, smelling to every petticoat he met, and staring up in every female face he saw, yet neither his eyes, or nose, gave him the information he desired. Seven times he coursed from Buckingham-house to the Horse-guards, and back again; but all in vain: at length tired, and full of despair, he sat himself down, disconsolate and sorrowful, under a tree, and there turning his head aside in a thoughtful attitude, abandoned himself to much mournful meditation. In this evil plight, while he was ruminating on his fate, and like many other people in the park, unable to divine where he should get a dinner; he was spied by a little girl about eight years old, who was walking by her mother's side in the Mall. She no sooner perceived him, than she cried out, 'La! Mamma! there's a pretty dog,—I have a good mind to call to it, Mamma! Shall I, Mamma? Shall I call to it, Mamma?' Having received her mother's assent, she then applied herself with much tenderness, to solicit him to her, which the little unfortunate no sooner observed, than breaking off his meditations, he ran hastily up, and saluting her with his fore-paws (as the wretched are glad to find a friend), gave so many dumb expressions of joy, that speech itself could hardly have been more eloquent. The young lady, on her side, charmed with his ready compliance, took him up in her arms, and kissed him with great delight: then turning again to her mother, and asking her if she did not think him a lovely creature, 'I wonder,' says she, 'whose dog it is, Mamma! I have a good mind to take him home with me! Shall I, Mamma? Shall I take him home with me, Mamma?' to this also her mother consented, and when they had taken two or three more turns, they retired to their coach, and Pompey was conducted to his new lodgings.
As soon as they alighted at home, little Miss ran hastily upstairs, to show her brother and sisters the prize she had found; and he was handed about from one to the other, with great delight and admiration of his beauty. He was then introduced to all their favourites, which were a dormouse, two kittens, a Dutch pug, a squirrel, a parrot, and a magpie. To these he was presented with many childish ceremonies, and all the innocent follies, that are so important to the happiness of this happiest age. The parrot was to make a speech to him, the squirrel to make him a present of some nuts, the kittens
were to dance for his diversion, the magpie to tell his fortune; and all enjoined to contribute something to the entertainment of the little stranger. And 'tis inconceivable how busy they were in the execution of these trifles, with all their spirits up in arms, and their whole souls laid out upon them.
In a few days, little Pompey began to know his way about the house alone, and, I am sorry to say it, in less than a week he had quite forgot his former mistress. Here I know not how to excuse his behaviour. Had he been a man, one should not have wondered to find him guilty of ingratitude, a vice deeply rooted in the nature of that wicked animal; and accordingly we see in all the revolutions at court, how readily a new minister is acknowledged and embraced by all the subalterns and dependent flatterers, who fawn with the same servility on the new favourite, as before they practiced to the old; but that a dog—a creature famous for fidelity, should so soon forget his former friend and benefactress, is, I confess, quite unaccountable; and I would willingly draw a veil over this part of his conduct, if the veracity of an historian did not oblige me to relate it.
CHAP. IX.
Containing what the reader will know, if he reads it.
ALTHOUGH the family, into which Pompey now arrived, are almost too inconsiderable for the dignity of history, yet as they had the honour of entertaining our hero for a time, we shall explain some few circumstances of their characters.
The master of it was son of a wealthy trader in the city, who had amassed together an immense heap of riches, merely for the credit of leaving so much money behind him. He had destined his son to the same honourable pursuit, and very early initiated him into all the secrets of business; but the young gentleman, marrying as soon as his father died, was prevailed upon by his loving spouse, whose head ran after genteel life, to quit the dirty scene of business, and take a house within the regions of pleasure. As neither of them had been used to the company they were now to keep, and both utterly unacquainted with all the arts of taste, their appearance in the polite world plainly manifested their original, and shewed how unworthy they were of those riches they so awkwardly enjoyed. A clumsy, inelegant magnificence prevailed in every part of their economy, in the furniture of their houses, in the disposition of their tables, in the choice of their clothes, and in every other action of their lives. They knew no other enjoyment but profuse expense, and their country-house was by the road-side at Highgate. It may be imagined such awkward pretenders to high-life, were treated with ridicule by all the people of genius and spirit; but immoderate wealth, and a coach and six, opened them a way into company, and few refused their visits, though all laughed at their appearance. For to tell the reader a secret, money will procure its owners admittance anywhere; and however people may pride themselves on the antiquity of their families, if they have not money to preserve a splendour in life, they may go a- begging with their pedigrees in their hands; whereas lift a grocer into a coach-and-six, and let him attend public places, and make grand entertainments, he may be sure of having his table filled with people of fashion, though it was no longer ago than last week that he left off selling plums and sugar.
The fruits of their marriage were three daughters and a son, who seemed not to promise long life, or at least were likely to be made wretched by distempers. For as the father was much afflicted with the gout, and the mother pale, unhealthy and consumptive, the children inherited the diseases of their parents, and were rickety, scrofulous, sallow in their complexions, and distorted in their limbs. Nor were their minds at all more amiable than their bodies, being proud, selfish, obstinate and cross- humoured; and the whole sum of their education seemed calculated rather to improve these vices than to eradicate them. For this purpose, instead of sending them to schools, where they would have been whipped out of many of their ill-tempers, and perhaps by conversation with other children, might have learnt a more open generous disposition, they were bred up under private teachers at home, who never opposed any of their humours, for fear of offending their parents, thus little master, the mother's darling, was put under the care of a domestic tutor, partly because she could not endure to have him at a distance from her sight, and partly because she had heard it was genteel to educate young gentlemen at home.
The tutor selected for this purpose, had been dragged out of a college-garret at thirty, and just seen enough of the world to make him impertinent and a coxcomb. For being introduced all at once into what is called life, his eyes were dazzled with the things he beheld, and without waiting the call of nature, he made a quick transition from college- reservedness to the pert familiarity of a London preacher. He soon grew to
despise the books he had read at the university, and affected a taste for polite literature—that is, for no literature at all; by which he endeared himself so much to the family he lived in, by reading plays to them, bringing home stories from the coffee- house, and other arts, that they gave him the character of the 'entertainingest, most facetious, best-humoured creature that ever came into a house.' As his temper led him by any means to flatter his benefactors, he never failed to cry up the parts and genius of his pupil, as a miracle of nature; which the fond mother, understanding nothing of the matter, very easily believed. When therefore any of her female visitors were commending little master for the finest child they ever beheld, she could not help adding something concerning his learning, and would say on such occasions, 'I Assure you, Madam, his tutor tells me he is forwarder than ever boy was of his age. He has got already, it seems, into his syntax—I don't know what the syntax is ma'am, but I dare say 'tis some very good moral book, otherwise Mr. Jackson would not teach it him; for to be sure, there never was a master that had a better manner of teaching than Mr. Jackson—what is the syntax, my dear? Tell the ladies what the syntax is, child!' 'Why, mamma,' cries the boy, 'the syntax is—it is at the end of the as in presenti, and teaches you how to parse.' 'Ay, ay,' said the mother, 'I thought so my dear; 'tis some very good book I make no doubt, and will improve your morals as well as your understanding. Be a good boy, child, and mind what Mr. Jackson says to you, and I dare say, you'll make a great figure in life.'
This is a little specimen of the young gentleman's education, and that of the young ladies fell short of it in no particular: for they were taught by their mother and governesses to be vain, affected, and foppish; to disguise every natural inclination of the soul, and give themselves up to cunning, dissimulation, and insincerity; to be proud of beauty they had not, and ashamed of passions they had; to think all the happiness of life consisted in a new cap or a new gown, and no misfortune equal to the missing a ball.
Besides many inanimate play-things, this little family had likewise, as we before observed, several living favourites, whom they took a delight to vex and torture for their diversion. Among the number of these, little Pompey had the misfortune to be enrolled; I say misfortune, for wretched indeed are all those animals, that become the favourites of children. For a good while he suffered only the barbarity of their kindness, and persecuted with no other cruelties than what arose from their extravagant love of him; but when the date of his favour began to expire (and indeed it did not continue long) he was then taught to feel how much severer their hate could be than their fondness. Indeed he had from the first two or three dreadful presages of what might happen to him, for he had seen with his own eyes the two kittens, his play-fellows, drowned for some misdemeanour they had been guilty of, and the magpie's head chopped off with the greatest passion, for daring to peck a piece of plum-cake that laid in the window, without permission; which instances of cruelty were sufficient to warn him, if he had any foresight, of what might afterwards happen to himself.
But he was not left long to entertain himself with conjectures, before he felt in person and in reality the mischievous disposition of these little tyrants. Sometimes they took it into their heads that he was full of fleas, and then he was dragged through a canal till he was almost dead, in order to kill the vermin that inhabited the hair of his body. At other times he was set upon his hinder legs with a book before his eyes, and ordered to read his lesson; which not being able to perform, they whipped him with rods till he began to exert his voice in a lamentable tone, and then they chastised him the more for daring to be sensible of pain.
Much of this treatment did he undergo, often wishing himself restored to the arms of Lady Tempest, when fortune taking pity of his calamities, again resolved to change his lodgings. An elderly maiden lady, aunt to this little brood and sister to their papa, was one day making a visit in the family, and by great good luck happened to be witness of some of the ill-usage, which Pompey underwent: for having committed some imaginary fault he was brought down to be tormented in her presence. Her righteous spirit immediately rose at this treatment; she declared it was a shame to persecute poor dumb creatures in that barbarous manner, wondered their mamma would suffer it, and signified that she would take the dog home with her to her own house. Though the little tyrants had long been tired of him, yet mere obstinacy set them a-crying, when they found he was to be taken from them; but there was no contending; their aunt was resolute, and thus Pompey was happily delivered from this House of Inquisition.
CHAP. X.
The Genealogy of a Cat, and other odd Matters, which the great Critics of the Age will call improbable and unnatural.
A QUITE new scene of life now opened on our hero, who from frequenting drums and assemblies with Lady Tempest, from shining conspicuous in the side boxes of the opera and playhouse, was now confined to the chambers of an old maid, and obliged to attend morning and evening prayers. 'Tis true the change was not altogether a sudden one, since his last place had a good deal reduced his aspiring notions, but still his genius for gallantry and high-life continued, and he found it very difficult to compose himself to the sober hours and orderly deportment of an ancient virgin. Sometimes indeed he would turn up his ear and seem attentive, while she was reading Tillotson's Sermons; but if the truth were known, I believe he had much rather have been listening to a novel or a play-book.
People who have been used to such company, cannot easily reconcile themselves to solitude, and the only companion he found here, was an ancient tabby cat, whom he despised at first with a most fashionable disdain, though she solicited his acquaintance with much civility, and showed him all the respect due to a stranger. She took every opportunity of meeting him in her walks, and tried to enter into conversation with him; but he never returned any of her compliments, and as much as possible declined her haunts. At length, however, time reconciled him to her, and frequent meetings produced a strict friendship between them.
This cat, by name Mopsa, was heiress of the most ancient family of cats in the world. There is a tradition, which makes her to be descended from that memorable Grimalkin of antiquity, who was converted into a woman at the request of her master, and is said to have leapt out of bed one morning, forgetting her transformation, in pursuit of a fugitive mouse: from which event all moralists have declaimed on the impossibility possibility of changing fixed habits, and L'Estrange in particular observes, that 'Puss, though a Madam, will be a mouser still.'
It is very difficult to fix the precise time of her family's first arrival in England, so various and discordant are the opinions of our antiquaries on that subject. Many are persuaded they came over with Brute the Trojan; others conjecture they were left by Phœnician merchants, who formerly traded on the coast of Cornwall. The great B—n W—ll—s insists, that Julius Cæsar, in his second expedition to Britain, brought over with him a colony of Roman cats to people the island, at that time greatly infested with mice and rats. The learned and ingenious Dr. S—k—y, disliking all these opinions, undertakes to prove, that they were not in England till the Conquest, but that they came over in the same ship with the Duke of Normandy, afterwards William the First. Which of their' conjectures is the truest, these ingenious gentlemen must decide among themselves; which I apprehend will not be done without many volumes of controversy; but they are all unanimous in supposing the family to be very ancient and of foreign extraction.
Another of her great ancestors, whose name likewise is considerable in history, was that immortal car, who made the fortune of Mr. Whittington, and advanced him to the dignity of a Lord-mayor of London, according to the prophesy of a parish- steeple to that effect. There are likewise many others well known to fame, as Gridelin the Great, and Dinah the Sober, and Grimalkin the Pious, and the famous Puss that wore Boots, and another that had a legacy left her in the last will and testament of her deceased
mistress; of which satirical mention is made in the works of our English Horace. But leaving the deduction of her genealogy to the great professors of that science, and recommending it to them as a subject quite new, and extremely worthy of their sagacious researches, I shall proceed to matters of greater consequence to this history.
'Tis observed by an old Greek poet, and from thence copied into the Spectator, that there is a great similitude between cats and women. Whether the resemblance be just in other instances, I will not pretend to determine, but I believe it holds exactly between ancient cats and ancient maids; which I suppose is the reason why ladies of that character are never without a grave mouser in their houses, and generally at their elbows.
Mopsa had now lived near a dozen years with her present mistress, and being naturally of a studious, musing temper, she had so improved her understanding from the conversation of this aged virgin, that she was now deservedly reckoned the most philosophic cat in England. She had the misfortune some years before to lose her favourite sister Selima, who was unfortunately drowned in a large china vase; which sorrowful accident is very ingeniously lamented in a most elegant little ode, which I heartily recommend to the perusal of every reader, who has a taste for lyric numbers and poetical fancy; and it is to be found in one of the volumes of Mr. Dodsley's Collection of Miscellany Poems. This misfortune added much to Mopsa's gravity, and gave her an air of melancholy not easily described. For a long while indeed her grief was so great, that she neglected the care of her person, neither cleansing her whiskers, nor washing her face as usual; but time and reflection at length got the better of her sorrow, and restored her to the natural serenity of her temper.
When little Pompey came into the family, she saw he had a good disposition at the bottom, though he was a wild, thoughtless, young dog, and therefore resolved to try the effects of her philosophy upon him. If therefore at any time he began to talk in the language of the world, and flourished upon balls, operas, plays, masquerades, and the like, she would take up the discourse, and with much Socratical composure prove to him the folly and vanity of such pursuits. She would tell him how unworthy it was of a dog of any understanding to follow the trivial gratification of his senses, and how idle were the pageants of ambition compared with the sober comforts of philosophy. This indeed he used to ridicule with great gaiety of spirit (if the reader will believe it) and tell her by way of answer, that her contempt of the world arose from her having never lived in it. But when he had a little wore off the relish of pleasure, he began to listen every day to her arguments with greater attention, till at length she absolutely convinced him that happiness is nowhere so perfect, as in tranquillity and retired life.
From this time their friendship grew stricter every day; they used to go upon little parties of innocent amusement together, and it was very entertaining to see them walking side by side in the garden, or lying couchant under a tree to surprise some little bird in the branches. Malicious fame no sooner observed this intimacy, than with her usual malice she published the scandal of an amour between them; but I am persuaded it had no foundation, for Mopsa was old enough to be Pompey's grand-mother, and besides he always behaved to her, rather with the homage due to a parent than the ardent fondness of a lover.
But fortune, his constant enemy, again set her face against him. The two friends one day in their mistress's closet, had been engaged in a very serious dispute on the summum bonum, or chief good of life; and both of them had delivered gravely upon it; the one contending for an absolute exclusion of all pleasure, the other desirous only to
intermix some diversions with his philosophy. They were seated on two books, which their mistress had left open in her study; to wit, Mopsa on Nelson's Festivals, and Pompey on Baker's Chronicles; when alas—how little things often determine the greatest matters! Pompey, in the earnestness of his debate, did something on the leaves of that sage historian, very unworthy of his character, and improper to be mentioned in explicit terms. His mistress unfortunately entered the room at that moment, and saw the crime he had been guilty of; which so enraged her, that she resolved never to see his face any more, but ordered her footman to dispose of him without delay. Thus was this hopeful friendship interrupted almost as soon as it began; for the footman, having received his mistress's orders, sold him that very day for a pint of porter to an ale house- keeper's daughter near Hyde-Park Corner.
CHAP. XI.
The history of a modish marriage; the description of a coffee- house, and a very grave political debate on the good of the nation.
POMPEY was sold, as we have just observed, to an alehouse-keeper's daughter, for the valuable consideration of a pint of porter. This amiable young lady was then on the point of marriage with a hackney-coachman, and soon afterwards the nuptials were consummated to the great joy of the two ancient families, who were by this means sure of not being extinct. As soon as the ceremony was over at the Fleet, the new-married couple set out to celebrate their wedding at the Old Blue-Boar in Tyburn-Road, and the bride was conducted home at night dead-drunk to her new apartments in a garret in Smithfield.
This fashionable pair had scarce been married three days before they began to quarrel on a very fashionable subject. For the civil well-bred husband coming home one night from his station, and expecting the cow-heels to have been ready for his supper, found his lodgings empty, and his darling spouse abroad. At about eleven o'clock she came flouncing into the room, and telling him, with great gaietè de coeur, that she had been at the play, began to describe the several scenes of Hamlet prince of Denmark. Judge if this was not provocation too great for a hackney-coachman's temper. He fell to exercising his whip in a most outrageous manner, and she applying herself no less readily to more desperate weapons, a most bloody fray ensued between them; in which Automedon had like to have been stabbed with a penknife, and his fair spouse was obliged to keep her bed near a month with the bruises she received in this horrid rencounter.
Little Pompey now most sensibly felt the ill effects of his former luxury, which served only to aggravate the miseries of his present condition. The coarse fare he met with in roofless garrets, or cellars underground, were but indelicate morsels to one who had formerly lived on ragouts and fricassees; and he found it very difficult to sleep on hard and naked floors, who had been used to have his limbs cushioned up on sofas and couches. But luckily for him, his favour with his mistress procured him the hatred of his master, who sold him a second time to a nymph of Billingsgate for a pennyworth of oysters.
His situation indeed was not mended for the present by this means, but it put him in a way to be released the sooner from a course of life so ill-suited to his constitution or his temper. For this delicate fisherwoman, as she went her rounds, carried him one evening to a certain coffee-house near the Temple, where the lady behind the bar was immediately struck with his beauty, and with no great difficulty prevailed on the gentle water-nymph to surrender him for a dram of brandy.
His fortunes now began to wear a little better aspect, and he spent his time here agreeably enough in listening to the conversations and disputes that arose in the coffee- room among people of all denominations; for here assembled wits, critics, templars, politicians, poets, country squires, grave tradesmen, and sapient physicians.
The little consistories of wit claimed his first attention, being a dog of a natural turn for humour, and he took a pleasure to hear young Templars criticise the works of Shakespeare, call Mr. Garrick to account every evening for his action, extol the beauty of actresses, and the reputation of whores. Here the illustrious Mr, F——t (before he
was yet exalted to the dignity of keeping a chariot and bay-horses, which perhaps may not be the highest exaltation he has yet to undergo) used to harangue to a club of his admirers, and like a great professor of impudence, teach them the principles of that immortal science. Here he conceived the first thought of giving tea, and milling chocolate; and here he laid the plan of all those mighty operations he has since achieved. The master of the coffee-house himself is a great adept in modern literature, and, I believe, reads lectures of wit to young Templars on their first appearance in town.
When he was tired of the clubs of humour, he would betake himself to another table, and listen to a junto of politicians, who used to assemble here in an evening with the most public-spirited views; namely, to settle the affairs of the nation, and point out the errors of the ministry. Here he has heard the government arraigned in the most abusive manner, for what the government never performed or thought of; and the lowest ribaldry of a dirty news-paper, cried up as the highest touches of Attic irony. He has heard sea-fights condemned by people who never saw the sea even through a telescope; and the general of an army called to account for his disposition of a battle, by men whose knowledge of war never reached beyond a cock-match.
A curious conversation of this kind happened one day in his hearing, which I shall beg leave to relate as a little specimen of coffee-house oratory. It happened at the end of the late rebellion; and the chief orator of the club began as usual with asserting, that the rebellion was promoted by the ministry for some private ends of their own. 'What was the reason,' said he, 'of its being disbelieved so long? Why was our army absent at such a critical conjuncture? Let any man tell me that. I should be glad to hear any man answer me these questions. D—mn it, they may think perhaps they are acting all this while in secret, and applaud themselves for their cunning; but I believe I know more than they would wish me to know. Thank God I can see a little, if I please to open my eyes, and if I ws in the House of Commons—'Zounds, old Walpole is behind the curtain still, notwithstanding his resignation, and the old game is playing over again, whatever they may pretend—There was a correspondence between Walpole and Fleury, to my knowledge, and they projected between them all the evils that have since happened to the nation.'
The company all seemed to agree with this eloquent gentleman's sentiments; and one of them ventured to say he believed the army was sent into Flanders, on purpose to be out of the way at the time of the insurrection. ''Zounds,' says the orator, 'I believe you are in the right, and the wind blew them over against their inclinations. Pox! what made What-d'ye-callum's army disperse as it did? let any body answer me that, if they are able. Don't you think they had orders from above to run away?—By G-d I do, if you don't, and I believe I could prove it too, if I was to set about it. Besides, if they have any desire of preventing future invasions from France, why don't they send out and burn all their shipping? Why don't they send out V-rn-n with a strong fleet, and let him burn all their shipping? I warrant him, if he had a proper commission in his pocket, he would not leave a harbour or a ship in France—but they know they don't dare do it for fear of discoveries; they are in league with the French ministry; or else, damme, can anything be so easy as to take and burn all the shipping in France?'
A gentleman, who had hitherto sat silent at the table, replied, with a sneer on his countenance, 'No, sir, nothing in the world can be so easy, except talking about it.' This drew the eyes of the company upon him, and every one began to wink at his neighbour, when the orator resumed the discourse in the following manner. 'Talk, sir? No, by G— d, we are come to that pass, that we don't dare talk now-a-days; things are come to such
a pass, that we don't dare open our mouths.' 'Sir, said the gentleman, I think you have been talking already with great licentiousness; and let me add too, with great indecency on a very serious subject.' ''Zounds, sir, said the orator, may not I have the liberty of speaking my mind freely upon any subject that I please? why, we don't live in France, sir; you forget, surely—This is England, this is honest Old England, sir, and not a Mahometan empire; though God knows how long we shall continue so in the way we are going on—and yet, forsooth, we must not talk; our mouths are to be sewed up, as well as our purses taken from us—Here we are paying four shillings in the pound, and yet we must not speak our minds freely.' 'Sir, said the gentleman, undoubtedly you may speak your minds freely; but the laws of your country oblige you not to speak treason, and the laws of good-manners should dispose you to speak with decency and respect of your governors. You say, sir, we are come to that pass, that we dare not talk—I protest, that is very extraordinary; and if I was called upon to answer this declaration, I would rather say we are come to that pass now-a-days, that we talk with more virulence and ill-language than ever—we talk upon subjects, which it is impossible we should understand, and advance assertions, which we know to be false. Bold affirmations against the government are believed merely from the dint of assurance with which they are spoken, and the idlest jargon often passes for the soundest reasoning. Give me leave to say, you, sir, are a living example of the lenity of that government, which you are abusing for want of lenity, and your own practice in the strongest manner confutes your own assertions—but I beg we may call another subject.'
Here the orator having nothing more to reply, was resolved to retire from a place where he could no longer make a figure. Wherefore, flinging down his reckoning, and putting on his hat with great vehemence, he walked away muttering surlily to himself, 'things are come to a fine pass truly, if people may not have the liberty of talking.' The rest of the company separated soon afterwards, all of them harbouring no very favourable opinion of the gentleman, who had taken the courage to stand up in defence of the government. Some imagined he was a spy, others concluded he was a writer of the gazettes, and the most part were contented with only thinking him a fool.
The angry orator was no sooner got home to his family, and seated in his elbow- chair at supper, than he began to give vent to the indignation he had been collecting; ''Zounds,' said he, 'I have been called to account for my words to-night. I have been told by a jackanapes at the coffee-house, that I must not say what I please against the government. Talk with decency indeed! a fart of decency!—let them act with decency, if they have a mind to stop people's mouths—Talk with decency! d-mn 'em all, I'll talk what I please, and no king or minister on earth shall control me. Let 'em behead me, if they have a mind, as they did Balmerino, and t'other fellow, that died like a coward. Must I be catechized by a little sycophant that kisses the a–e of a minister? What is an Englishman, that dares not utter his sentiments freely?—Talk with decency! I wish I had kicked the rascal out of the coffee-house, and I will, if ever I meet him again, damme—Pox! we are come to a fine pass, if every little prating, pragmatical jackanapes is to contradict a true born Englishman.'
While his wife and daughters sat trembling at the vehemence of his speeches, yet not daring to speak, for fear of drawing his rage on themselves, he began to curse them for their silence; and addressing himself to his wife, 'why dost not speak,' cries he, 'what, I suppose, I shall have you telling me by-and-by too, that I must talk with decency?' 'My dear,' said the wife, with great humility, 'I know nothing at all of the matter.' 'No,' cries he, 'I believe not; but you might know to dress a supper, though, and
be d-mned to you—Here's nothing that I can eat, according to custom. Pox, a man may starve with such a wife at the head of his family.'
When the cloth was removed, and he was preparing to fill his pipe, unfortunately he could not find his tobacco-stopper, which again set his choler at work. 'Go upstairs, Moll!' said he to one of his daughters, 'and feel in my old breeches pocket—Damme, I believe that scoundrel at the coffee-house has robbed me with his decency—Why do'st not stir, girl? what, hast got the cramp in thy toes? Why, papa,' said the girl flippantly, 'I am going as fast as I can.'—Upon which, immediately he threw a bottle at her head, and proceding from invectives to blows, he beat his wife, kicked his daughters, swore at his servants; and after all this, went reeling up to bed with curses in his mouth against the tyranny of the government.
Nothing can be more common than examples in this way, of people who preside over their families with the most arbitrary brutal severity, and yet are ready on all occasions to abuse the government for the smallest exertion of its power. To say the truth, I scarce know a man, who is not a tyrant in miniature, over the circle of his own dependants; and I have observed those in particular to exercise the greatest lordship over their inferiors, who are most forward to complain of oppression from their superiors. Happy is it for the world, that this coffee-house statesman was not born a king, for one may very justly apply to him the line of Martial,
Dic mihi! si fueris tu Leo, qualis eris?
["Tell me, if you became a lion, what sort of lion will you be?" Martial, Epigrams, Bok. XII no. 92]
CHAP. XII.
A description of Counsellor Tanturian.
BUT among the many people, who frequented this coffee-house, Pompey was delighted with nobody more than with the person of counsellor Tanturian; who used to crawl out once a week, to read all the public papers from Monday to Monday, at the moderate price of a penny. His dress and character were both so extraordinary, as will excuse a short digression upon him.
He set out originally with a very humble fortune at the Temple, not without hopes, however, of arriving, some time or other, at the chancellor's seat: But having tried his abilities once or twice at the bar, to little purpose, nature soon whispered in his ear, that he was never designed for an orator. He attended the judges indeed, after this, through two or three circuits, but finding his gains by no means equivalent to his expenses, he thought it most prudent to decline the noisy forum, and content himself with giving advice to clients in a chamber. Either his talents here also were deficient, or fame had not sufficiently divulged his merit, but his chamber was seldom disturbed with visitors, and he had few occasions to envy the tranquillity of a country life, according to the lawyer in Horace;
Agricolam laudat juris legumque peritus, Sub Galli cantum consultor ubi ostia pulsat.
["The lawyer, when his client knocks at the door
at cock-crow, praises the farmer's quiet." Horace, Satires, Bk. I. Satire 1. l. 9-10]
His temper grew soured and unsocial by miscarriages, and the narrowness of his fortune obliging him to a strict frugality, he soon degenerated into avarice. The rust of money is very apt to infect the soul; and people, whose circumstances condemn them to economy, in time grow misers from very habit. This was the case with counsellor Tanturian, who having quite discarded the relish of pleasure, and finding his little pittance, by that means, more than adequate to his expenses, resolved to apply the overplus to the laudable purposes of usury. This noble occupation he had followed a long time, and by it accumulated a sum of ten thousand pounds, which his heart would not suffer him to enjoy, though he had neither relation or friend to leave it to at his death. He lived almost constantly alone in a dirty chamber, denying himself every comfort of life, and half-starved for want of sustenance. Neither love, nor ambition, nor joy, disturbed his repose; his passions all centered in money, and he was a kind of savage within doors.
The furniture of his person was not less curious than his character. At home indeed he wore nothing but a greasy flannel cap about his head, and a dingy night-gown about his body; but when he went abroad, he arrayed himself in a suit of black, of full twenty years standing, and very like in colour to what is worn by undertakers at a funeral. His peruke, which had once adorned the head of a judge in the reign of Queen Anne, spread copiously over his back, and down his shoulders. By his side hung an aged sword, long rusted in its scabbard; and his black silk stockings had been so often darned with a different material, that, like Sir John Cutler's, they were now metamorphosed into black worsted stockings.
Such was counsellor Tanturian, who once a week came to read the newspapers at the coffee-house where Pompey lived. A dog of any talents for humour, could not help being diverted with his appearance, and our hero found great pleasure in playing him tricks, in which he was secretly encouraged by everybody in the coffee-room. At
first indeed, he never saw him without barking at him, as at a monster just dropped out of the moon; but when time had a little reconciled him to his figure, he entertained the company every time he came with some new prank, at the counsellor's expense. Once he ran away with his spectacles; at another time, he laid violent teeth on his shirt, which hung out of his breeches, and shook it, to the great diversion of all beholders: But what occasioned more laughter than anything, was a trick that follows.
Tanturian had been tempted one day, by two old acquaintance, to indulge his genius at a tavern; where he complained highly of the expensiveness of the dinner, though it consisted only of a beef-steak and two fowls. That nothing might be lost, he took an opportunity, unobserved by the company, to slip the leg of a pullet into his pocket; intending to carry it home for his supper at night. In his way he called at the coffee-house, where little Pompey playing about him as usual, unfortunately happened to scent the provision in the counsellor's pocket. Tanturian, mean time, was deeply engaged with his newspaper, and Pompey getting slily behind him, thrust his head into the pocket, and boldly seizing the spoils, displayed them in triumph to the sight of the whole room. The poor counsellor could not stand the laugh, but retired home in a melancholy mood, vexed at the discovery, and more vexed at the loss of his supper.
But these diversions were soon interrupted by a most unlucky accident, and our hero, unfortunate as he has hitherto been, is now going to suffer a turn of fate more grievous than any he yet has known. Following the maid one evening into the streets, he unluckily missed her at the turning of an alley, and happening to take a wrong way, prowled out of his knowledge before he was aware. He wandered about the streets for many hours, in vain endeavouring to explore his way home; in which distress, his memory brought back the cruel chance that had separated him from his best mistress Lady Tempest, and this reflection aggravated his misery beyond description. At last, a watchman picked him up, and carried him to the watch-house. There he spent his night in all the agonies of horror and despair. 'How deplorable,' thought he, 'is my condition, and what is fortune preparing to do with me? Have I not already gone through scenes of wretchedness enough, and must I again be turned adrift to the mercy of fate? What unrelenting tyrant shall next be my master? Or what future oyster-woman shall next torture me with her caresses? Cruel, cruel, fortune! When will thy persecutions end?'
CHAP. XIII.
A short chapter, containing all the wit, and all the spirit, and all the pleasure of modern young gentlemen.
AS he was here abandoning himself to lamentation and despair, some other watchmen brought in two fresh prisoners to bear him company in his confinement, who I am sorry to say it, were two young lords. They were extremely disordered, both in their dress, and their understanding; for champagne was not the only enemy they had encountered that evening. One of them had lost his coat and waist-coat; the other his bag and peruke, all but a little circular lock of hair, which grew to his forehead, and now hanging over his eyes, added not a little to the drollery of his figure.
The generous god of the grape had cast such a mist over their understandings, that they were insensible at first of the place they were promoted to; but at length, one of them a little recovering his wits, cried out, 'what the devil place is this? a bawdy- house, or a Presbyterian meeting-house?' 'Neither, sir,' answered a watchman, 'but the round-house.' 'O p—x,' said his lordship, 'I thought you had been a dissenting parson, old grey-beard, and was going to preach against wh—ring, for you must know, old fellow, I am confoundedly in for it—But what privilege have you, sir, to carry a man of honour to the round-house?' 'Ay,' said the other, 'what right has such an old fornicator as thou art, to interrupt the pleasures of men of quality? may not a nobleman get drunk, without being disturbed by a pack of rascals in the streets?' 'Gentlemen,' answered the watch, 'we are no rascals, but servants of his majesty King George, and His Majesty requires us to take up all people that commit disorderly riots in His Majesty's streets.' 'You lie, you scoundrels,' said one of their lordships, ''tis the prerogative of men of fashion to do what they please, and I'll prosecute you for a breach of privilege—D— mn you, my lord, I'll hold you fifty pound, that old prig there, in the great coat, is a cuckold, and he shall be judge himself.—How many eyes has your wife got, old fellow? one or two?' 'Well, well,' said the watchman, 'your honours may abuse us as much as you please; but we know we are doing our duty, and we will perform it in the king's name.' 'Your duty, you rascal,' cried one of these men of honour, 'is immediately to fetch us a girl, and a dozen of champagne; if you'll perform that, I'll say you are as honest an old son of a whore, as ever lay with an oyster- woman. My dear Fanny! if I had but you here, and a dozen of Ryan's claret, I should esteem this round-house a palace—Curse me, if I don't love to sleep in a round-house sometimes; it gives a variety to life, and relieves one from the insipidness of a soft bed.' 'Well-said, my hero,' answered his companion, 'and these old scoundrels shall carry us before my Lord- Mayor to-morrow, for the humour of the thing. Pox take him, I buy all my tallow- candles of his Lordship, and therefore I am sure he'll use me like a man of honour.'
In such kind of gay modish conversation did these illustrious persons consume their night, and principally in laying wagers, which at present is the highest article of modern pleasure; every particular of human life is reduced by the great calculators of chances to the condition of a bet. But nothing is esteemed a more laudable topic of wagering, than the lives of eminent men; which, in the elegant language of Newmarket, is called running lives; that is to say, a bishop against an alderman, a judge against a keeper of a tavern, a member of parliament against a famous boxer; and in this manner all people's lives are wagered out, with proper allowances for their ages, infirmities, and distempers. Happy the nation that can produce such ingenious, accomplished spirits!
These two honourable peers had been spending their evening at a tavern, with many others, and when the rational particle was thoroughly drowned in claret, one of the company leaping from his chair, cried out, 'who will do anything?' upon which, a resolution was immediately taken, to make a sally into the streets, and drink champagne upon the horse at Charing-Cross. This was no sooner projected than executed, and they performed a great number of heroical exploits, too long to be mentioned in this work, but we hope some future historian will arise to immortalize them for the sake of posterity. After this was over, they resolved to scour the streets, and perceiving a light in a cellar under ground, our two heroes magnanimously descended into that subterranean cave, in quest of adventures. There they found some hackney-coachmen enjoying themselves with porter and tobacco, whom they immediately attacked, and offered to box the two sturdiest champions of the company. The challenge was accepted in a moment, and whilst our heroes were engaged, the rest of the coachmen chose to make off with their clothes, which they thought no inconsiderable booty. In short, these gentlemen of pleasure and high-life were heartily drubbed, and obliged to retreat with shame from the cellar of battle, leaving their clothes behind them, as spoils, at the mercy of the enemy. Soon afterwards, they were taken by the watch, being too feeble to make resistance, and conducted to the round-house; where they spent their night in the manner already described. The next morning, they returned home in chairs, new-dressed themselves, and then took their seats in parliament, to enact laws for the good of their country.
CHAP. XIV.
Our hero falls into great misfortunes.
WHEN the watchman had discharged himself in the morning of these honourable prisoners, he next bethought himself of poor Pompey, who had fallen into his hands in a more inoffensive manner. Him he presented that day to a blind beggar of his acquaintance, who had lately lost his dog, and wanted a new guide to conduct him about the streets. Here Pompey fell into the most desponding meditations. 'And was this misery,' thought he, 'reserved in store to complete the series of my misfortunes? Am I destined to lead about the dark footsteps of a blind, decrepit, unworthy beggar? Must I go daggled through the streets, with a rope about my neck, linking me to a wretch that is the scorn of human nature? O that a rope were fixed about my neck indeed for a nobler purpose, and that I were here to end a dreadful, tormenting existence! Can I bear to hear the sound of, 'Pray remember the poor blind beggar?' I, who have conversed with lords and ladies; who have slept in the arms of the fairest beauties, and lived on the choicest dainties this habitable globe can afford! Cruel, cruel Fortune! when will thy persecutions end?'
But when the first emotions of his grief were a little calmed, he began to call in the aid of philosophy; the many useful lessons he had learnt from the sage Mopsa inspired him with resolution; and he fortified himself besides, with remembering a speech in King Lear, which he had formerly heard at Drury Lane playhouse.—
To be worst,
The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune, Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear:
The lamentable change is from the best;
The worst returns to laughter. Welcome, then, Thou unsubstantial air which I embrace;
The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst Owes nothing to thy blasts.
Yet to say the truth, his condition was not so deplorable upon trial, as it appeared in the prospect; for though he was condemned to travel through dirty streets all day long in quest of charity, yet at night both he and his master fared sumptuously enough on their gains; and many a lean projector or starving poet might envy the suppers of this blind beggar. He seldom failed to collect four shillings a day, and used to sit down to his hot meals with as much stateliness as a peer could to a regular entertainment and dessert.
There is a story I have often heard of a crippled beggar, who used constantly to apply for alms at Hyde-Park-Corner; where a gentleman, then just recovered from a dangerous fit of illness, never failed to give him sixpence every morning, as he passed by in his chariot for the air. A servant of this gentleman's going by chance one day into an alehouse, discovered the self-same beggar sitting down to a breast of veal with some more of the fraternity, and heard him raving at the landlord, because the bur was gone, and there was no lemon ready to squeeze over it; all of them threatening to leave the house, if their dinners were not served up with more regularity and respect. The servant informed his master of this extraordinary circumstance; and next morning when the pampered hypocrite applied for his charity as usual, the gentleman put his head out of the chariot, and told him with great indignation, 'No, sir, I can eat veal without lemon.'
The reader, I hope, will be contented to pass over many of the miseries which Pompey suffered in this wretched service; for as we have a great regard for his memory, we cannot be supposed to dwell with any pleasure on his misfortunes. After our hero had lived some months in London, his blind master set out for Bath; whither he always resorted in the public seasons; not for the sake of playing at EO, it may be imagined, nor yet for the pleasure of being taken out by the accomplished Mr. Nash to dance a minuet at a ball; but with the hopes of a plentiful harvest among infirm people, whom ill-health disposes to charity. The science of begging is reduced to certain principles of art, as well as all other professions; and as sickness generally a motive to compassion, the objects of charity flock thither in great numbers; for wherever the carrion is, there will be the crows be also.
The many adventures that befell them on their journey and at Bath; how terribly our hero was fatigued with traveling through miry highways, who had been used to ride in coaches-and-six; and how often he wished his blind tyrant would drop dead with an apoplexy, shall be left to the reader's imagination. Suffice it to say, that on their return back, Fortune gave him his wishes. His master fell sick at a public inn on the road, and died miserably in a stable, leaving Pompey at the disposal of chance.
What future scenes of good or evil are next to open upon him, fate does not yet choose to divulge, and therefore begging the reader to suspend his curiosity, till we have received a proper commission for gratifying it, we here put an end to this first book of our wonderful history.
BOOK II.
CHAP. I.
A Dissertation upon Nothing.
THAT great master of human nature, the ingenious author of Tom Jones, who justly styles himself king of biographers, published an edict in his last work, declaring, that no person hereafter should presume to write a novel, without prefixing a prefatory chapter to every book, under the penalty of being deemed a blockhead. This introductory chapter, he says, is the best mark of genius, and surest criterion of an author's parts; for by it the most indifferent reader may be enabled to distinguish what is true and genuine in this historic kind of writing, from what is false and counterfeit: and he supposes the authors of the Spectator were induced to prefix Latin and Greek mottos to every paper, from the same consideration of guarding against the pursuit of scribblers; because by this device it became impracticable for any man to presume to imitate the Spectator, without understanding at least one sentence in the learned languages.
In compliance therefore with the edict of this royal biographer, I shall beg leave, in the entrance of this second book of our history, to detain the reader with an introductory chapter upon Nothing; being the most proper subject I can recollect at present for such an initial section; which I hope will testify my loyalty to the great lawgiver above-mentioned, and also dispose the reader to a favourable opinion of my historic abilities.
I do not recollect any writer before myself, excepting the great Lord Rochester, who has professedly treated this abstruse, learned and comprehensive subject; which is something wonderful, considering the great number of penmen, whose works show them to have been excellently qualified for it. But though none have treated it professedly, many and various have indirectly handled it in all branches of science, and in all human probability will continue to do so to the end of the world. For though neither poet, philosopher, divine, or lawyer have ever been courageous enough to declare the subject they were writing upon; yet poems, systems of philosophy, bodies of divinity, and huge reports of law have in all ages swelled themselves to the greatest bulk upon Nothing.
Not to recur to those venerable tomes of antiquity, which have been delivered down to us from the peaceful ages of monkish darkness, modern examples present themselves in great abundance to our choice. What is contained in all the treatises of Mr. William Wh——n on the Trinity? Nothing. What is contained in the mighty and voluminous epic poems of Sir Richard Blackmore, Knight? Absolute Nothing. What again can be collected from that universal maze of words, called the UNIVERSAL HISTORY of all Nations, Languages, Customs, Manners, Empires, Governments, Men, Monsters, Land-Fights, Sea-Fights, and a million more of inexhaustible topics? What, I say, can be comprehended in the tedious pages of that ostentatious history? Every reader will be ready. To answer, Nothing. The works of Dennis, Descartes, Lord Sh— f—ry, and the mighty Mr. W—rb—n, all treat of the same immortal subject, however the ingenious authors, out of pure modesty, may have been contented to let them pass under the fictitious names of plays, systems of philosophy, miscellaneous reflections, and divine legations.
That nothing can arise out of Nothing, ex nihilo nil fueri, has long reigned an uncontroverted maxim of philosophy, and been a first principle of the schools: but novelty, and a modish love of paradox carry me.tp endeavour its confutation; and this I
hope to do on the general testimony and verbal confession of all mankind. For let us attend carefully to what passes around us, and we shall find Nothing to have the greatest sway in all human actions. Does anyone ask his friend or a stranger, 'What is the news at court today?' He receives constantly and universally for answer, 'Nothing, sir'—'what was done yesterday in the house?'—'Nothing at all, sir.'—'Any news in the city, or upon change?'—'Nothing in the world'—'Are our armies in motion, and have they achieved anything lately against the enemy?'—'Nothing in nature, sir,' is the sure and invariable answer, which may for ever be expected to all questions of this kind. Yet notwithstanding this universal declaration, if we look abroad, and trust rather to the information of our eyes than our ears, we shall really find a great deal done in the world, considering how people have been employed, and that mankind are by no means idle, though they are always doing Nothing.
Let us first cast our eyes upon the court, where though Nothing is said to be done, everything is in reality performed. There we see feuds, animosities, divisions, jealousies, revolutions, and re-revolutions; ministers deposed and again restored; peace and war decreed, contending nations reconciled, and the interests of Europe adjusted. Yet all this is Nothing.
From the court let us turn to the 'Change and City, and there also admire the infinite productions of Nothing. There we see avarice, usury, extortion, back-biting, fraud, hypocrisy, stock-jobbing, and every evil that can arise from the circulation of money. Thousands were there ruined yesterday, thousands are ruining to-day, and thousands will be ruined to-morrow: yet all this is Nothing.
Again, let us take a second survey of it, and we shall see little politicians hatching scandal against the government, and propagating malicious stories, which they know to be false: we shall see lies circulating from coffee-house to coffee-house, and gathering additional strength in every minute of their conveyance: we shall see the turbulent offspring of wealth, restless in peace, and dissatisfied in war; compelling their sovereign to take up arms in one year, and almost wresting them from his hands in another: yet all this is nothing.
Once more let us direct our views to the camp, and there again admire the productions of Nothing. For though Nothing was said to be done during the late war, and the little politicians above-mentioned took a pleasure to talk of the inactivity of our armies, yet in reality everything was performed, that could reasonably be expected from them. ’Tis true, they did not over-run the Kingdom of France, besiege its Capital, and take its King Prisoner; all which I believe many People thought easy and practicable; but they kept the most numerous armies of the most formidable monarchy in Europe at bay, and often contended hard with them for the victory, in spite of the treachery of allies, and the almost infinite superiority of their enemies. If anybody chooses to call this Nothing, he has my full consent, because it confirms the doctrine I want to establish, that Nothing produces everything.
Lastly, let us examine what passes in private life, and that will likewise furnish us with the same reflections. Do not quarrels of all sorts arise from Nothing? Do not matrimonial jealousies spring from Nothing? What occasions lawsuits, dissentions among neighbours, improbable suspicions, ill-founded conjectures, and the like? What is it that fills the brains of projectors, exercises the fancy of poets, employs the machinations of women, and draws the swords of young coxcomb officers in the army, when they are strutting with the first raptures of sudden elevation? To all these interrogations we may answer, Nothing. And not to multiply foreign examples, what is
it that I am now writing? Undoubtedly the reader will esteem it Nothing. In short, whatever we see around us,
Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas, Gaudia, discursus.
["Whatever mankind does—vows, fear, anger, pleasure, rejoicing, activity."
Juvenal, Satires, Sat. I. l.85-6]
All these are the genuine productions of Nothing. I would therefore humbly recommend it to the consideration of the two great seminaries of Oxford and Cambridge, whether their wisdoms shall not think fit to make an alteration in that old erroneous maxim of ex nihilo nil fit[Nothing comes from Nothing], and say rather ex nihilo omnia fiunt[Everything comes from Nothing]; which I take to be more consistent with truth and the reality of things.
Having thus discharged the duty imposed upon me, of writing an introductory chapter, I hope I am now at liberty to pursue the fortunes of my hero, without incurring the grievous imputation of dullness, denounced on all those, who shall disobey the royal edict, issued out for that purpose.
CHAP. II.
Fortune grows favourable to our hero, and restores him to high-life.
THE blind beggar, to whose tyranny fortune had committed our hero, groaned out his soul, as the reader has already seen, in a stable at a public inn. Pompey, standing by, had the pleasure of seeing the tyrant fall as he deserved, and exulted over him, like Cicero in the senate-house over the dying Cæsar. This misfortune was first discovered by an An ostler, who first discovered the misfortune, ran with horror in his countenance to tell his mistress; but the good woman was not immediately at leisure to hear his intelligence, being taken up in her civilities to a coach-and-six, just then arrived, and very busy in conducting the ladies to their apartments. However, when dinner was over, she bethought herself of what had happened, and went into the stable, attended by two of her chamber-maids, to survey the corpse, and give orders for its burial. There little Pompey, for the first time, presented himself to her view; but sorrow and ill-usage had so impaired his beauty, and his coat too was in such a dishabille of dirt and mire, that he bespake no favourable opinion in his beholders. We must not therefore think Mrs. Wilkins of a cruel nature, because she ordered him to be hanged, for, in reality, she is a very humane and friendly woman; but perceiving no beauty in the dog to incline her to compassion, and concluding him to be a thief, from the company he was found with, it was natural for her to show him no mercy. A consultation therefore was held in the yard, and sentence of death pronounced upon him; which had been executed as soon as commanded (for the ostler was instantly preparing a rope with great delight) had not one of the chamber-maids interposed, saying, 'she believed he was a sweet pretty creature, if he was washed,' and desired her mistress to save him. A word of this kind was enough for Mrs. Wilkins, who immediately granted him a reprieve, and ordered him into the kitchen for a turn-spit. But when he had gone through the ceremony of lustration, and was thoroughly cleaned, everybody was struck with his beauty, and the good landlady in particular; who now changed her resolutions, and, instead of condemning him to the drudgery of a turn-spit, made him her companion, and taught him to follow her about the house. He soon grew to be a favourite with the whole family, as indeed he always was wherever he came; and the chamber-maids used to quarrel with one another who should take him to their beds at night. He likewise got acquainted with Captain, the great house-dog, who, like Cerberus, terrified the regions round-about with his barking: yet would he often condescend to be pleased with the frolicks of little Pompey, and vouchsafe now and then to unbend his majesty with a game of play.
After he had lived there near a fortnight, a post-chaise stopped one day at the door, out of which alighted two ladies, just arrived from Bath. They ran directly to the fire, declaring they were almost frozen to death with cold; whereupon Mrs. Wilkins began to thunder for wood, and assisted in making up an excellent fire: after which, she begged the favour to know what their ladyships would please to have for dinner. 'If you please, Madam,' said the eldest, 'I'll look into your lardery.' 'With all my heart, Madam,' answered the good landlady; 'I have fish and fowls of all kinds, and rabbets and hares, and variety of butcher's meat—but your ladyship says you will be so good to accommodate yourself on the spot—I am ready to attend your ladyship, whenever your ladyship pleases.'
While the eldest was gone to examine the lardery, the youngest of these ladies, having seized little Pompey, who followed his mistress into the room, was infinitely charmed with its beauty, and caressed him during the whole time of her sister's absence.
Pompey, in return, seemed pleased to be taken notice of by so fair a lady; for though he had long been disused to the company of people of fashion, he had not yet forgot how to behave himself with complaisance and good-manners. He felt a kind of pride returning, which all his misfortunes had not been able to extinguish, and began to hope the time was come, which should restore him to the beau-monde. With these hopes he continued in the room all the time the ladies were at dinner, paying great court to them both, and receiving what they were pleased to bestow upon him with much fawning, and officious civility.
As soon as the ladies had dined, Mrs. Wilkins came in to make her compliments, as usual, hoping the dinner was dressed to their ladyships minds, and that the journey had not destroyed their appetites. She received very courteous answers to all she said, and after some other conversation on indifferent topics, little Pompey came at last upon the carpet. 'Pray Madam,' said the youngest of the ladies, 'how long have you had this very pretty dog?' Mrs. Wilkins, who never was deficient, when she had an opportunity of talking, having started so fair a subject, began to display her eloquence in the following manner. 'Madam,' says she, 'the little creature fell into my hands by the strangest accident in life, and it is a mercy he was not hanged—An old blind beggar, ladies, died in my stable about a fortnight ago, and it seems, this little animal used to lead him about the country. 'Tis amazing how they come by the instinct they have in them—and such a little creature too—But as I was telling you, ladies, the old blind beggar was just returned from Bath, as your ladyships may be now, and the poor miserable wretch perished in my stable. There he left this little dog, and, will you believe it, ladies? as I am alive, I ordered him to be hanged, not once dreaming he was such a beauty; for indeed he was quite covered over with mire and nastiness, as to be sure he could not be otherwise, after leading the old blind man so long a journey; but a maid-servant of mine took a fancy to the little wretch, and begged his life; and, would you think it, ladies? I am now grown as fond of the little fool, as if he was my own child.'
The two sisters, diverted with Mrs. Wilkins's oration, could not help smiling on one another; but disguising their laughter as well as they could, 'I do not wonder,' said the youngest, 'at your fondness for him, Madam! he is so remarkably handsome; and that being the case, I can't find in my heart to rob you of him, otherwise I was just going to ask if you should be willing to part with him.' 'Bless me, Madam,' said the obliging hostess, 'I am sure there is nothing I would not do to oblige your ladyship, and if your ladyship has such an affection for the little wretch—Not part with him indeed!' 'Nay, Madam,' said the lady interrupting her, 'I would willingly make you any amends, and if you will please to name your price, I'll purchase him of you.' 'Alack a-day, Madam,' replied the landlady, 'I am sorry your ladyship suspects me to be of such a mercenary disposition; purchase him indeed! he is extremely at your ladyship's service, if you please to accept of him.'—With these words she took him up, and delivered him into the lady's arms, who received him with many acknowledgements of the favour done her; all which Mrs. Wilkins repaid with abundant interest.
Word was now brought, that the chaise was ready, and waited at the door; whereupon, the two ladies were obliged to break off their conversation, and Mrs. Wilkins to restrain her eloquence. She attended them, with a million of civil speeches, to their equipage, and handling little Pompey to them, when they were seated in it, took her leave with a great profusion of smiles and curtsies. The postillion blew his horn; the ladies bowed; and our hero's heart exulted with transport, to think of the amendment of his fate.
CHAP. III.
A long chapter of characters.
THE post-chaise stopped in a genteel street in London, and Pompey was introduced into decent lodgings, where every thing had an air of politeness, yet nothing was expensive. The rooms were hung with Indian paper; the beds were Chinese; and the whole furniture seemed to show how elegant simplicity can be under direction of taste. tea was immediately ordered, and the two ladies sat down to refresh themselves after the fatigue of their journey, and began to talk over the adventures they had met with at Bath. They remembered many agreeable incidents, which had happened in that great rendezvous of pleasure, and ventured to laugh at some follies of their acquaintance, without severity or ill-nature.
These two ladies were born of a good family, and had received a genteel education. Their father indeed left them no more than six thousand pounds each; but as they united their fortunes, and managed their affairs with frugality, they made a creditable figure in the world, and lived in intimacy with people of the greatest fashion. It will be necessary, for the sake of distinction, to give them names, and the reader, if he pleases, may call them Theodosia and Aurora.
Theodosia, the eldest, was advancing towards forty, an age when personal charms begin to fade, and women grow indifferent at least, who have nothing better to supply the place of them. But Theodosia was largely possessed of all those good qualities, which render women agreeable without beauty: She was affable and easy in her behaviour; well-bred without falsehood; cheerful without levity; polite and obliging to her friends, civil and generous to her domestics. Nature had given her a good temper, and education had made it an agreeable one. She had lived much in the world, without growing vain or insolent; improved her understanding by books, without any affectation of wit or science, and loved public places, without being a slave to pleasure. Her conversation was always engaging, and often entertaining. Her long commerce with the world had supplied her with a fund of diverting remarks on life, and her good sense enabled her to deliver them with grace and propriety.
Aurora, the youngest sister, was in her four and twentieth year, and imagination cannot possibly form a finer figure than she was, in every respect. Her beauty, now in its highest lustre, gave that full satisfaction to the eye, which younger charms rarely inspire. She was tall and full-formed, but with the utmost elegance and symmetry in all her limbs; and a certain majesty, which resulted from her shape, was accompanied with a most peculiar sweetness of face: For though she had all the charms, she had none of the insolence of beauty. As if these uncommon perfections of nature, were not sufficient to procure her admirers enough, she had added to them the most winning accomplishments of art: She danced and sung, and played like an angel; her voice naturally clear, full, and melodious, had been improved under the best Italian masters; and she was ready to oblige people with her music, on the slightest intimation, that it would be agreeable, without any airs of shyness and unseasonable modesty. Indeed, affectation never entered into any one of her gestures, and whatsoever she did, was with that generous freedom of manner, which denotes a good understanding, as well as an honest heart. Her temper was cheerful in the highest degree, and she had a most uncommon flow of spirits and good-humour, which seldom deserted her in any place, or company. At a ball she was extremely joyous and spirited, and the pleasure she gave to her beholders, could only be exceeded by that unbounded happiness with which she inspired her partner. Yet though her genius led her to be lively, and a little romantic,
whoever conversed with her in private, admitted her good sense, and heard reflections from her, which plainly showed she had often exercised her understanding on the most serious subjects.
A woman so beautiful in her person, and excellent in her accomplishments, could not fail of attracting lovers in great abundance; and accordingly she had refused a variety of offers from people of all characters, who could scarcely believe she was in earnest in rejecting them, because she accompanied her refusals with unusual politeness and good humour. She did not grow vain, or insolent, from the triumphs of her beauty, nor long to spit in a man's face, because she could not approve his addresses (which I believe is the case with many young ladies) but sweetened her denials with great civility, and always asked the advice of her sister, of whom she was passionately fond. Such was Aurora, the present mistress of our hero; and as the characters of some of her admirers may perhaps not be unentertaining, we will give the reader a little sketch of two or three out of many them, from among a great variety.
And first, let us pay our compliments to Count Tag, who had merited a title by his exploits; which perhaps is not the most usual step to honour, but always most respectable whenever it happens. 'Tis true he had no patent to show for his nobility, which depended entirely on the arbitrium popularis auræ, the fickleness of popular applause; but he seems likely to enjoy it as long as he lives, there being no probability of any alteration in his behaviour. His father raised a fortune by a profession, and from him he inherited a competent estate of about three hundred pounds per annum. His education began at Westminster School, and was finished at Oxford; from whence he transported himself to London, resolving to make a bold push, as it is called, to introduce himself into life. He had a strong ambition of becoming a fine gentleman, and cultivating an acquaintance with people of fashion, which he esteemed the most consummate character attainable by man, and to that he resolved to dedicate his days. As his first essay therefore, he presented himself every evening in a side-box at one of the play-houses, where he was ready to enter into conversation with anybody that would afford him an audience; and was particularly assiduous in applying himself to young noblemen and men of fortune, whom he had formerly known at school, or at the university. By degrees he got footing in two or three families of quality, where he was sometimes invited to dinner; and having learnt the fashionable topics of discourse, he studied to make himself agreeable, by entertaining them with the current news of the town. He had the first intelligence of a marriage or an intrigue, knew to a moment when the breath went out of a nobleman's body, and published the scandal of a masquerade, or a ridotta, sooner by half an hour at least, than any other public talker in London. He had a conspicuous fluency of language, which made him embellish every subject he undertook, and a certain art of talking as minutely and circumstantially on the most trivial subjects, as on those of the highest importance. He would describe a straw, or a pimple on a lady's face, with all the figures of rhetoric; by which he persuaded many people to believe him a man of great parts; and surely no man's impertinence ever turned to better account. As he constantly attended Bath and Tunbridge, and all the public places, he got easier access to the tables of the great, and by degrees insinuated himself into all the parties of the ladies; among whom he began to be received as a considerable genius, and quickly became necessary in all their drums and assemblies.
Finding his schemes thus succeed almost beyond his hopes, he now assumed a higher behaviour, and began to fancy himself a man of quality from the company he kept. With this view he thought proper to forget all his old acquaintance, whose low geniuses left them grovelling in obscurity, while his superior talents had raised him to
a familiarity with lords and ladies. If therefore any old friend, presuming on their former intimacy, ventured to accost him in the park, he made a formal bow, and begged pardon for leaving him; 'but really, lady Betty, or lady Mary was just entering the Mall.' In short, he always proportioned his respect to the rank and fortunes of his company; he would desert a commoner for a lord, a lord for an earl, an earl for a marquis, and a marquis for a duke. Having thus enrolled himself in his own imagination among the nobility, it was not without reason that people gave him the style and title of Count Tag, thinking it a pity that such a genius should be called by the ordinary name of his family.
The second cavalier, who made his addresses in the same place, was an old gentleman turned of seventy, whose cheerfulness and vivacity might have tempted people to forget his age, if he had not recalled it to their remembrance, by unseasonable attempts of gallantry. The passions of youth are always ridiculous in old age; and though many fine women have sacrificed their charms to superannuated husbands, the union is so unnatural, that we must suppose their affections were fixed on title or estate, or something else besides the persons of their lovers. This old gentleman had led a life of constant gallantry almost from his cradle, and now could not divert himself of the passion of love, though he was deserted by the abilities of it. He had already buried three wives, and was ambitious of a fourth; though his constitution was extremely shattered by debauchery and high-living, and it seemed as if a fit of coughing would at any time have shook him to pieces. Besides this, he kept several mistresses, and all the villages round his country-seat were in a manner peopled with the fruits of his stolen embraces.
At his first entrance into life, he was a younger brother, and married an ugly old woman of fortune for the sake of her money, who quickly departed to his wishes, and lest him possessed of the only desirable thing belonging to her. Soon afterwards, his elder brother also went the same road to mortality, and left him an heir of three thousand pounds a year; which enabled his genius to display itself, and supplied him with all the essentials of pleasure. From this moment he began his career, and being a gay young fellow, handsome in his person, and genteel in his address, he resolved to indulge himself in every gratification that money could purchase, or luxury invent. He set up all nights in taverns, where he was the wit and genius of the company, travelled and intrigued with women of all nations and languages; made a figure at the gaming-tables, and was not silent in parliament. In short, whatever character he undertook to appear in, he supported it always with a spirit and vivacity peculiar to himself. His health of course received many shocks from his dissolute course of life, but he trusted to the vigour of a good constitution, and despised all the distant consequences of pleasure, as the dull apprehensions of cowards in luxury. As to marriage, he resolved never more to wear the fetters of that slavery, while his passions had so free a range in a way more agreeable to his inclinations: but having a long while solicited a fine woman of but slender fortune to comply with his desires, and finding her deaf to any but honourable offers, he was drawn in before he was aware, and married a second time with no other view than to have the present possession of a mistress. Yet he discharged the matrimonial duties for a time with tolerable decency, and contrived to keep his amours as secret from his wife as possible. But the eyes of jealousy could not long be deceived; and the moment she began to expostulate with him on his behaviour, he grew more bare-faced in his pleasures, and less careful to conceal them from her observation. The lady, disappointed in her views of happiness, had recourse to the common consolation of female sorrows, and tried to drown them in citron-waters; which pernicious custom grew upon her so much by habit and indulgence, that she often came down exceedingly
disordered to dinner, and sometimes was disqualified from performing the offices of her table. This extremely piqued the pride of her husband, who could not, bear to see the mistress of his family in such disgraceful circumstances, and began to wish her fairly in the other world. Enquiring how she came supplied with these cordial draughts of sorrow, he found they were secretly conveyed to her by a mantua-maker, who attended her three or four times a week, pretending to bring caps and gowns. This again piqued his pride to think she should expose her foible to the knowledge of her inferiors, and resolving to supply her wishes at an easier rate, he ordered his butler to carry up a certain number of bottles every week into her dressing- room. The stratagem took effect; and the good lady having frequent recourse to the fatal opiate, in a short time bade adieu to the world and all its cares.
He was now again lest to the unrestrained indulgence of his pleasures, and had mistresses of all characters, from the woman of quality down to the farmer's daughter and milk-maid. But as he advanced in years, a fit of dotage insensibly stole upon him; and in an unlucky moment he married a vain spirited young girl of twenty, who seemed. born to punish him for his sins. Full of herself and family, she took possession of his house with a certain conscious authority, and began to show the pleasure she found in government and sway. She regarded her husband only as an object that was to give her command of servants, equipage, and the like; and her head was giddy with notions of domineering and power. Her insolence soon became intolerable to a young lady in the family, daughter of his former wife, who could not endure to be governed by a mother of her own age, and therefore with great spirit left her father's house. In short, the old gentleman himself began to curse the choice he had made, finding himself in a manner quite disregarded by his accomplished spouse, whose thoughts ran wholly after drums, assemblies, operas, masquerades, ridottas, and the like; all which she pursued with the most ardent assiduity, and seldom could find one quarter of an hour's leisure to converse with her husband. He found her besides, more cold in her constitution, and less sensible of his embraces, than he had imagined; for indeed, she was a thing purely made up of vanity, and provided she made a figure in life, she cared not who enjoyed its pleasure. The old gentleman groaned severely under this scourge of his iniquities, and I question whether he would not have died himself of pure spite, had not his obliging wife saved him that necessity by kindly dying in his stead. She caught cold one night in Vauxhall gardens, and after a short illness of a week or ten days, retired to the peaceable mansions of her predecessors.
One would think he should now have been tired of matrimonial blessings; yet notwithstanding the ill-luck he had hitherto met with, notwithstanding the natural decay arising from his age, and the acquired infirmities of intemperance, he was once more engaged in courtship, and made one of the most gallant admirers of Aurora.
She had many other lovers, but I shall forbear the mention of them at present, to give a description of one, who was every way worthy of her affections, and to whom, in reality, she had devoted her heart. Neither Count Tag, nor the aged gallant last described, had any share in her regard; for though she received them with civility, she gave them little encouragement to hope for success.
The fortunate lover was a young nobleman about her own age, who conducted himself by rules so very different from the generality of the Nobility, that it will be a kind of justice to his memory to preserve his character. He had an excellent understanding, improved by competent reading; and the most uncommon uprightness of heart, joined with the greatest candour and benevolence of temper. His soul was
passionately devoted to the love of truth, and he never spoke or acted but with the clearest sincerity and ingenuity of mind. Falsehood of any kind, even in the common forms of intercourse and civility, wherein custom licenses some degrees of dissimulation, he held to be a crime and if ever he made a promise, there was not the least room to doubt of his performing it. Though he frequently mixed in parties of diversion, made by other young noblemen of his acquaintance, yet he never joined in the riots, that falsely challenge to themselves the name of pleasure, and superior enjoyment of life. He did not spend his mornings in levity, or his nights at a gaming- table. Nor was he ashamed of the religion of his country, or deterred from the worship of his maker, by the idle sneers of infidelity, and the ridiculous laughter of profane wits; but, on the contrary, gloried in the profession of Christianity, and always reprimanded the wanton sallies of those, who tried to be witty at the expense of their conscience. Added to these excellent endowments, he had the greatest filial obedience to his father, the sincerest loyalty to his Prince, the truest respect for his relations, and the most charitable liberality to all those, whom poverty, or distress of any kind, recommended as objects of compassion. In short, whoever has read Lord Clarendon's celebrated character of Lord Viscount Falkland, cannot be at a loss to form an idea of this amiable young nobleman; who resembled him exactly in the private social duties of life; and we may conclude, he would have acted the same part in public, had he been engaged in similar circumstances.
Being inspired with a passion for an agreeable woman, he was neither ashamed to own it, nor yet did he use the ridiculous eulogiums, with which coxcombs talk of their mistresses, when their imaginations are heated with wine. He did not compare her to the Venus of Medicis, or run into any of those artificial raptures, which are almost always counterfeited: but whenever he mentioned her name, he spoke the language of his heart, and spoke of her always with a manliness, that testified the reality and sincerity of his passion. It was impossible for a woman not to return the affections of so deserving a lover: Aurora was happy to be the object of his addresses, and met them with becoming zeal.
CHAP. IV.
The characters of the foregoing chapter exemplified. An irreparable misfortune befalls our hero.
THE two sisters had lain longer a-bed that usual the morning after their arrival in town, which was owing to the fatigue of their journey. They had but just finished their breakfast by twelve o'clock; Aurora was then sitting down to her harpsichord, and Theodosia reading the play-bills for the evening; when the door opened, and Count Tag was ushered by a servant into the room.
When the first ceremonies were a little over, and the Count had expressed the prodigious satisfaction he felt in seeing them returned to Town; he began to enquire what kind of season they had had at Bath? 'Why really,' said Theodosia, 'a very good one upon the whole; there were many agreeable people there, and all of them easy and sociable; which made our time pass away cheerfully and pleasantly enough.' 'You amaze me,' cries the Count; 'impossible, Madam! how can it be, ladies?—I had letters from Lord Monkeyman, and Lady Betty Scornful, assuring me, that except you and themselves, there were not three human creatures in the place.—Let me see, I have Lady Betty's letter in my pocket, I believe, at this moment—Oh no, upon recollection, I put it this morning into my cabinet, where I preserve all my letters of quality.'
Aurora, smothering a laugh as well as she could, said she was extremely obliged to lord Monkeyman, and lady Betty, for vouchsafing to rank her and her sister in the catalogue of human beings; 'but surely,' added she, 'they must have been asleep both of them, when they wrote their letters, for Bath was extremely full.' 'Full!' cries the Count, interrupting her; 'oh, Madam, that is very possible, and yet there might be no company—that is, none of us; nobody that one knows—for as to all the tramontanes that come by the cross-post, we never reckon them as anything but monsters in human shape, that serve to fill up the stage of life, like cyphers in a play. For instance, you often see an awkward girl, who has sewed a tail to a gown, and pinned two lappets to a night-cap, come running headlong into the rooms with a wild frosty face, as if she was just come from feeding poultry in her father's chicken-yard—Or you see a booby 'squire, with a head resembling a stone-ball over a gate-post.—Now it would be the most ridiculous thing in life, to call such people company. 'Tis the want of titles, and not the want of faces, that makes a place empty; for if there is nobody one knows—if there are none of us in a place, we esteem all the rest as mob and rabble.
While this imaginary man of quality was thus settling the orders and ranks of life, the door opened a second time, and a servant introduced the amorous old gentleman, whose character was drawn in the foregoing chapter. The ceremonies that ensued on his appearance interrupted the count's harangue, and fortunately gave the conversation another turn, before that pretty gentleman had time to finish his ingenious dissertation on polite company.
Our aged gallant, putting on an unusual air of gaiety, and busting himself up, as if his soul intended to walk out of his body, approached the two ladies, and saluted them both—then sitting down, and addressing himself to Aurora, told her, he should for ever afterwards think the better of the Bath waters, for sending her back with such a charming bloom in her complexion, * Madam, added he, you out-do your usual out- doings: I protest you look more divinely than ever; and not contented with excelling all other people, I see you have taken a resolution at last, to excel yourself.' 'Sir, said Aurora laughing, there is no possibility of making any reply to such extravagant
compliments.—but I thought, sir, you intended us the favour of your company at Bath this season.' 'Yes, Madam,' answered he, 'I did so, but my d—mn'd ignorant physicians would banish me to Scarborough, though I knew it was impossible for me to have my health in any place, at such a distance from your ladyship. I protest, added he, you inspire me with a youthfulness, which I have not felt this half-year in your absence.
While this superannuated man of gallantry was thus affecting the raptures and fire of youth, the door opened on a sudden, and the young lord appeared, whose character concluded the preceding chapter. He approached the ladies with a respectful bow, and enquired tenderly concerning their health, but addressed himself rather in a more particular manner to Aurora. Her face immediately changed on his entering the room, and a certain air of affectionate languor took possession of her features, which before were a little expressive of scorn and ridicule: in short, she received him with something more than complaisance, and a tone of voice only calculated to convey the sentiments of love. The conversation that ensued between them was easy, natural, and unaffected; and though sometimes his lordship's eyes would stray involuntarily to Aurora, yet he strove to direct his discourse indifferently to the two sisters, and likewise to the other gentlemen that were present: for the delicacy of his passion was unwilling to reveal itself in a mixed company. So very differently did these three lovers express their affection.
Little Pompey was witness of many of these interviews, and began to think himself happily situated for life. He was a great favourite with Aurora, who caressed him with the fondest tenderness, and permitted him to sleep every night in a chair by her bed-side. When she awoke in a morning, she would embrace him with an ardour, which the happiest lover might have envied. Our hero's vanity perhaps made him fancy himself the genuine object of these caresses, whereas in reality he was only the representative of a much nobler object. In this manner he lived with his new mistresses the greater part of a winter, and might still have continued in the same happy situation, if he had not ruined himself by his own imprudence, and defeated his own happiness by an unguarded act of folly.
Aurora had been dancing one night at a Ridotta with her beloved peer, and retired late to her lodgings, with that vivacity in her looks, and transport ion her thoughts, which love and pleasure always inspire. Animated with delightful presages of future happiness, she sat herself down in a chair, to recollect, the conversation that had passed between them. After this, she went to bed, and resigned herself to the purest slumbers. She slept longer than usual the next morning, and it seemed as if some golden dream was pictured in her fancy; for her cheek glowed with unusual beauty, and her voice spontaneously pronounced, 'My lord, I am wholly yours.'—While her imagination was presenting her with these delicious ideas, little Pompey, who heard the sound, thought she over-slept herself, leaped upon the bed, and waked her with his barking. She darted a most enraged look at him, and resolved never to see him any more; but disposed of him that very morning to her milliner, who attended her with a new head-dress.
Thus was he again removed to new lodgings, and condemned to future adventures.
CHAP V.
Relating the history of a milliner
THE fair princess of lace and ribbons, who now took possession of our hero, had gone through a great variety of fortunes before she fell into her present way of life; some of which perhaps may be worth relating. She was originally daughter of a country gentleman, who had lived, as it is called, up to his income-, by which means he obtained the character of a generous hospitable man in his neighbourhood, and died without making the leas l provision for his family. His widow soon afterwards married a wealthy lawyer in a large market-town, who like a great vulture preyed at large over the country, and suffered no other attorney to thrive within the regions of his plunder. The gentlemen round-about made him court-keeper-general of their estates; and the poor people flocked to him with a kind of superstitious opinion, that he could model the laws according to his pleasure. The mayor and aldermen too resorted to him for advice in all dubious cases, and he was a kind of petty viceroy in the town where he lived. Success had made him insolent and overbearing, and when he flaunted through the streets on a market-day in his night-gown, he looked prouder than a grandee of Spain.
The young lady, who was now to call him father-in-law, was not at all pleased with her new situation, thinking herself much degraded by her mother's marriage. When therefore the wives and daughters of the town came to visit her in their best gowns, she received them very coldly, disdained to be present at any of their public tea-drinkings, and always affected to confound their names. She was as little pleased with the company of her new father, and excepting the small time spent at meals, used to lock herself up all the rest of the day in a little closet, to read Cowley's Poems, and the History of Pamela Andrews. Gripe the attorney soon observed and resented this behaviour; and her mother too, thinking it a reflection on the choice she had made, began to take her roundly to task about it. She told her, she wondered what she meant by giving herself such airs, for she had no fortune to support them: 'And pray, Madam, said she, what is your birth, that you are so proud of, without money?' to this the young lady answered, 'that if some people could demean themselves, she saw no reason why other people should be obliged to do the same; and for her part, she sound no charms in the company of tradesmen and stinking shop-keepers.' Many altercations of this kind happened between them, till at length her mother fairly told her, that if she disliked her present condition, she might even seek for a better wherever she could. It was not long before she followed this advice, and married a young officer, who was quartered in the town, without consulting anybody's inclinations but her own. This was a fair pretence for her parents to get rid of her; they complained loudly of her disobedience in not asking their advice, represented her as a bold forward hussy, and renounced all correspondence with her for the future. The young officer swaggered a little at first, talked much of his honour, and threatened to cane her father-in-law; but finding the attorney despise his menaces, he prudently suffered his anger to cool, and proceeded no farther than words.
The regiment, to which this gentleman belonged, was soon afterwards ordered into Flanders; and as the young couple was then in the honeymoon of their love, the bride prevailed to make a campaign with her husband. He consented, and fixed her in lodgings at Brussels; near to which city the army was at that time quartered. There she had leisure to observe the lace manufacture, and learnt the first rudiments of millinery, which afterwards became her profession. In a little time the news of a battle arrived, and with it a piece of news more terrible to the ears of a young bride, that her husband was among the number of the slain. This broke all her measures and hopes of life, and
she was obliged to return into England, with scarce money enough to pay for her voyage, or maintain her on the road. On her arrival she began to consider, whether she should not proceed to her mother, and endeavour to obtain a reconciliation; but pride soon banished that thought; her high spirit would not suffer her to sue for pardon, and she resolved, as a better expedient, to go to service. Accordingly, she procured herself the office of a waiting-gentlewoman, in an agreeable family, but unluckily there was no table for upper servants, and her pride could not endure to sit down to dinner with menials. Preferably to this she would dine upon a plate of cold victuals in her bed- chamber; thus gratifying her vanity at the expense of her appetite.
From this place she removed to another more agreeable to her wishes, where there was a separate apartment for the higher servants, and her own dominion was pretty considerable. In this family all was pleasure. The lady of it having a husband she despised, filled his house with eternal parties of company, studied to be expensive, and seemed resolved to see the end of his estate before she died, without regarding what became of her children after her death. The husband himself was almost an idiot, and could hardly be said to live, for he spent his days chiefly in dozing, and constantly sell asleep in his chair after dinner. His wife treated him always with the highest superiority, would sometimes spit in his face, sometimes sling his wig into the fire, and never scrupled calling him fool and block-head before all companies. This would now and then provoke him to mutter a surly oath or two, but he had not spirit or courage to resent it in a proper manner. For her part, she gave herself up to all the luxuries of life, and her house was a general rendezvous of pleasure, while her slumbering spouse was considered both by herself and servants as nothing better than a cipher.
Our milliner having lived a few years in this family, in which time she saved some money, resolved now to execute a project she had long been forming. She had always been a great reader of plays, novels, romances, and the like; and when she saw tragedy-queens sweeping the stage with their trains at the playhouse, her imagination would be fired with envy at the sight; she longed to sit in a flowered elbow-chair, surrounded with guards and attendants; and was quite wild to give herself airs of high- life in the superior parts of a comedy. With these hopes she offered herself to the stage, and was received by the managers of Drury-Lane: but her genius did not make so quick a progress as she imagined; her ambition every day was mortified with refusals; and though she desired only to play the part of Lady Townley, as a specimen at first, the ignorant managers could not be brought to comply with-her solicitations. In short, she trod the stage near two years without once wearing a crown, or wielding a sceptre: the parts allotted her were always of the most trifling kind, and she had little else to do, than to appear on the stage as a mute, to make up the retinue of a princess, or sympathize in silence with the sorrows of a dying heroine, by applying a white handkerchief to her eyes.
But though she could not make a fortune by her genius, her beauty was more successful, and she had the luck to make a conquest of one of those pretty gentlemen, who appear in laced stocks behind the scenes, or more properly on the middle of the stage. He attended her in the green-room every evening, and at last made her the offer of a settlement, if she could be contented to sacrifice her ambition to love. She was at first a little unwilling to leave the theatre, where she foresaw such advantages from her genius; but thinking her merit not enough regarded, and despairing of better treatment (for she had not yet been permitted to play Lady Townley) she resigned herself to the proposals of her gallant, and set out with him immediately for the country. There they lived in solitude and retirement for a year, and probably might have done longer, had
not death spitefully interrupted their amour, and snatched away the fond keeper from the arms of his theatrical mistress. In his will she found herself rewarded for her constancy with a legacy of seventy pounds per annum; with which she returned to London, and set up a milliner's shop. She had a good fancy at new fashions, and soon recommended herself to the notice of people of quality; by which means in time she became a milliner of vogue, and had the art to raise a considerable fortune from lace and ribbons. The best part of her house she let out for lodgings, reserving to herself only a shop, a kitchen, and a little parlour, which at night served for a bed-chamber.
Such was Pompey's present mistress, who now lived in great ease and comfort, after a life of much vexation and disappointment.
CHAP. VI.
Another long chapter of characters.
ON the first floor of this house there lodged a family, whose characters, though pretty common in life, I do not recollect to have sound in any of the novels or romances, with which our age abounds.
The head of it, Sir Thomas Frippery, had formerly enjoyed a little post in Queen Anne's court, which entitled him to a knighthood in consequence of his office, though the salary of it was very inconsiderable and his own family estate very small. At the death of the queen he lost this employment, and was obliged to retire into the country; where he gave himself the airs of a minister of state, and amused his country neighbours with such stories of courts and intrigues of governments, that he was esteemed and oracle of politics. And many of them were weak enough to believe from this discourse, that he had constituted a kind of triumvirate with Lord Oxford and Lord B. in the management of public affairs. The same ridiculous vanity pursued him through every article of his life, and though his estate was known hardly to amount to three hundred pounds a year, he laboured to make people believe that it exceeded as many thousands. For this purpose, whatever he was obliged to do out of frugality, he was sure to put off with a pretence of taste; and always masked his economy under some pretended reason very far from the truth. For instance, when he laid down his coach, he boasted everywhere, how much better it was to hire job-horses as occasion required, than to run the hazard of accidents by keeping them—that coachmen were such villainous rascals, it was impossible to put any confidence in them—that going into dirty stables to overlook their management, and treading up to one's knees in horse-dung, was extremely disagreeable to people of fashion—and therefore for his part, he had laid down his coach to avoid the trouble and anxiety of keeping horses.
When his country-neighbours dined with him, whose ignorance he thought he could impose on, he would give them alder-wine and swear it was hermitage, call a gammon of bacon a Bayonne ham, and the commonest home-made cheese he put off for the best Parmesan that ever came into England; which he said had been sent him as a present by a young nobleman of his acquaintance then on his travels.
About once in three years he brought his wife and family to town, which served for matter of conversation to them during the two intermediate years, that were spent in the country; and they looked forward to the annus mirabilis [wonderful year] with as much rapture and expectation, as some Christians do to their Millennium.
During the time of his residence in London, Sir Thomas every morning attended the levees of ministers, to beg the restitution of his old place, or an appointment to a new one; which he said he would receive with the humblest acknowledgments, and discharge in any manner they should please to prescribe. Yet whether it was that his majesty's ministers were insensible of his merits, or could find no place suitable to his abilities, the unhappy knight profited little by his court-attendance, and might as well have saved himself the expense of a triennial journey to London.
But though these expeditions did not increase his fortune, they added much to his vanity, and he returned into the country new-laden with stories to amuse his country neighbours. He talked with the greatest familiarity of 'My old friend my good Lord —
—,' and related conversations that had passed at the Duke of ——'s table, with as much circumstance and particularity as if he had been present at them.
The last article of vanity we shall mention, were his clothes; which gives the finishing stroke to his character: for he chose rather to wear the rags of old finery, which had been made up in the reign of queen Anne, than to submit to plain clothes of a modern make and fashion. He fancied the poor people in his neighbourhood were to be awed with the sight of tarnished lace, and wherever he went, the gold-fringe fell from his person so plentifully, that you might at any time trace his footsteps by the relics of finery, which he left behind him.
Lady Frippery, his accomplished spouse, did not fall short of her husband in any of these perfections, but rather improved them with some new graces of her own. For having been something of a beauty in her youth, she now retained all the scornful airs and languishing disdain, which she had formerly practised to her dying lovers.
They had one only daughter, who having been educated all her life at home under her parents, was now become a master-piece of folly, vanity and impertinence. She had not one gesture or motion that was natural; her mouth never opened without some ridiculous grimace; her voice had learnt a tone and accent foreign to itself; her eyes squinted with endeavouring to look alluring, and all her limbs were distorted with affectation. Her conversation turned always upon politeness, and she fancied herself so very beautiful, well-bred, genteel and engaging, that it was impossible for any man to look on her without admiration.
It happened now to be the London winter with this amiable family, and they were crowded into scanty lodgings on a first floor, consisting only of a dining-room, a bed-chamber and a closet, for they could not afford to take any other part of the house to enlarge their apartments. The dining-room was set apart for the reception of company; Sir Thomas and his lady took possession of the chamber, and Miss slept in a little tent-bed occasionally stuffed into the closet.
On the second floor, over the head of Sir Thomas and his family, lodged a young gentleman, who likewise shall make his appearance in this history, as he afterwards married the young lady last described.
This young gentleman, usually called Jack Chase among his intimates, possessed an estate of fifteen hundred pounds a year; which was just sufficient to furnish him with a variety of riding-frocks, Kevenhullar hats, jockey-boots, and coach- whips. His great ambition was to be deemed a Jemmy Fellow; which term perhaps some of my readers may not understand, and therefore we must explain it by circumstances. He appeared always in the morning in a Newmarket frock, decorated with a great number of green, red or blue capes; he wore a short bob wig, neat buck's-skin breeches, white-silk stockings, and carried a cane switch in his hand. He kept a high phaeton chaise, and four bay cattle; a stable of hunters, and a pack of hounds in the country. The reputation of being a coachman, and driving a set of horses with skill, he esteemed the greatest character in human life, and thought himself seated on the very pinnacle of glory, when he was mounted up on a coach-box at a horse-race. He was one of the most active spirits at Newmarket, and always boasted as a singular accomplishment, that he did not ride above eight stone and a half. Though he was a little man, and not very healthy in his constitution, he desired to be thought capable of going through any fatigue, and was always laying wagers of the journeys he could perform in a day. He had likewise an ambition to be thought a man of consummate debauch, and endeavoured to persuade you, that he never went to bed without first drinking half a dozen bottles of claret, lying with as many wh—res, and knocking down as many watchmen. In the mornings he attended Mr. Broughton's amphitheatres, and in the
evenings, if he was drunk in time (which indeed he seldom failed to be) he came behind the scenes of the play-house, in the middle of the third act, and there heroically exposed himself to the hisses of the gallery. Whenever he met you, he constantly began with describing his last night's debauch, or related the arrival of a new wh——re upon the town, or entertained you with the exploits of his bay cattle: and if you declined conversing with him on these three illustrious subjects, he swore you was a fellow of no soul or genius, and for ever afterwards shunned your company.
By living in the same house this jemmy young gentleman had got acquainted with Sir Thomas's family, and seemed to be commencing a courtship with the daughter; which her parents encouraged from a knowledge of his estate. Sir Thomas indeed could have wished for a son-in-law more after his own heart, having no great idea of horsemanship and the heroes of Newmarket; but on the other hand, he thought it imprudent to let his daughter slip so advantageous a match, and therefore studied to promote it by all the stratagems, which parents think it lawful to practise in the disposal of their daughters; for it must be confessed, this sage knight had a very laudable regard for Mr. Chase's estate.
CHAP. VII.
A sad disaster befalls Sir Thomas Frippery in the night, and a worse in the day.
AND now that we have drawn the characters of so many people, let us look a little into their actions; for characters alone afford a very barren entertainment to the reader.
Our hero was grown a great favourite with the milliner, who presented him with a laced ruff, made in the newest fashion, worn by women of quality, and suffered him to play about the shop, where he was taken notice of by all the ladies, who came to traffic in fans and lace, and was often stroked by the fairest hands in London. In requital for these favours, he one night preserved the honour of his mistress from the attacks of a desperate ravisher, who came with a design of invading her bed.
The ancient knight, described in the last chapter, had, in his youth, been a man of some amour, and still retained a certain lickerish inclination, though he was narrowly watched by the jealousy of his wife. From the time of his last arrival in town, he had cast the languishing eyes of affection on the fair milliner with whom he lodged, and had been projecting many stratagems to accomplish his desires. He used frequently to call in at the shop, whenever he found the coast clear, under pretence of buying little presents for his wife or daughter, and there indulged himself in certain amorous freedoms, such as kisses, and the like, which would provoke her to cry out, 'Pray sir— don't Sir Thomas—I vow I'll call out, if you offer to be rude.' Inflamed with these little preliminaries, he once attempted a bolder deed; and though she repulsed him with great disdain, still he nourished hopes of success, and watched for a fair opportunity of making a second attempt.
One midnight, therefore, when his wife was fast asleep, he stole gently out of her bed, and with great softness proceeded downstairs, to find his way to that of her rival. But when he came to the door, unfortunately it was locked, and the noise he made against it awakened little Pompey, who lay watchful by his mistress's bedside. Instantly the dog took the alarm, and fell to barking with so much vehemence, that he roused his mistress, who started, and cried out, 'Who is there?' To this a gentle whispering voice replied, 'One—pray let me in.' The milliner, now no longer doubting but that her house was broke open by thieves, rang her bell with all her might, to summon people to her assistance, and Pompey seconded her with such outrageous fits of barking, that the amorous knight thought it high time to sheer off to his own bed. As he was groping his way upstairs in the dark, he ran against Jack Chace, who having heard the noise, was descending intrepidly in his shirt, to find out the cause of it. They were both exceedingly alarmed, and as Sir Thomas had some reasons for not speaking, Jack was obliged to begin the conference, which he did in the following words, 'What the devil have we got here?' Sir Thomas now finding himself under a necessity of replying, to prevent any farther discoveries, answered with a gentle voice, 'Hush, hush sir!—I have only been walking in my sleep, that's all—you'll alarm the the family, Mr. Chace! Hush, for god's sake, and let me return to my bed again.' This brought them to an eclaircissement, and Sir Thomas repeating a desire of returning to bed with as little noise as possible, Jack Chace lent him his hand, and they were almost arrived at the chamber-door, when the maid, who had risen at the sound of her mistress's bell, and with her tinder-box struck a light, met the noble pair in their shirts, on the top of the stair-case. She immediately screamed out, dropped her candle, and ran back to her garret with the utmost
precipitation. Miss Frippery, who had long ago heard the noise, and lay trembling in her little bed, expecting every moment some house-breaker to appear and cut her throat, now began to be revived a little at the sound of her father's voice, whom she heard talking with Mr. Chace, and took courage to call out from her cabin, 'Heavens, papa! What is the matter, papa?' By this time, the worthy knight was arrived at his bed-side, and finding his wife asleep, blessed his stars for being so favourable to him, and then putting his head into the closet where his daughter lay, desired her not to wake her mother with any noise, adding, 'I have only been walking in my sleep, my dear! That's all; and Mr. Chace has been so kind to conduct me back again to my bed.' So saying, he deposited himself once more by the side of his sleeping spouse, whose gentle slumbers not all the noise in the house had been able to disturb.
'Tis well observed, that misfortunes never come single, and what happened to Sir Thomas Frippery will confirm this ancient maxim; for the disgrace he suffered in the night, was followed by a more disastrous accident the ensuing day.
Out of compliment to Jack Chace, who was then laying close siege to his daughter, our knight had consented to make a party to Ruckholt-house, which was at that time the fashionable resort of all idle people, who thought it worthwhile to travel ten miles for a breakfast. Sir Thomas, and his lady, went in a hired chariot, and the lovers shone forth in a most exalted phaeton, which looked down with scorn on all inferior equipages, and seemed like the Triumphal Car of Folly. But alas! The expedition set out under the influence of some evil star, and fortune seemed to take a pleasure in persecuting them with mischances all the day long. Sir Thomas had not long been landed at Ruckholt, before he found himself afflicted on a sudden with a most violent fit of the colic; and the agitation of his bowels so distorted the features of his face, that his companions, began to think him angry with them, and begged pardon is they had offended him. 'Zounds, cried he, I have got the colic to such a degree, that I am ready to die; and 'tis so long since I have been at any of these youthful places of gaiety, that I know not where to go for relief.' Jack Chace could not help laughing at the distresses of his future father-in-law, but conducted him, however, to one of the temples of the goddess Cloacina, whose altars are more constantly and universally attended, than those of any other deity. Here he was entering with great rapidity, when, to his surprise, he found two female votaries already in possession of the temple; and 'tis an inviolable law in the Alcoran of this goddess, as it was formerly in the ceremonies of the Bona Dea, that the two sexes shall never communicate in worship at the same time. This put our knight into the strangest confusion, and he was obliged to retire, muttering to himself, that women were always in the way. The consequences of this disappointment I forbear to mention; only I cannot help lamenting, that statesmen should be as subject to the gripes as inferior mortals; for I make no doubt, but the greatest politicians have been sometimes invaded with this disease in the most critical junctures, and the business of the nation suspended, 'till a minister could return from his close-stool.
As the party was returning home, Jack Chace, desirous of showing his coachmanship to the young lady, whirled so rapidly round the corner of a street, that he overturned the chaise, and it was next to a miracle that they escaped with their lives. But luckily the future bride received no other damage, than spoiling her best silk night- gown (which I mention as a warning to all young ladies, how they trust themselves with gentlemen in high chaises) and little Pompey, who was in her lap, came with great dexterity upon his feet. The driver himself indeed lost his ear, which was torn off by the wheel in his fall; but this he esteemed a wound of honour, and boasted of it as much
as disabled soldiers do of the loss of their legs and arms. As for Sir Thomas, he entirely disclaimed Ruckholt for the remaining part of his life, which he swore abounded with perils and dangers, and declared with much importance, that there was no such place in being, when he and Lord Ofsord were at the helm of affairs.
CHAP. VIII.
A description of a drum.
BUT I hasten to describe an event, which engrossed the attention of this accomplished family for a fortnight, and was matter of conversation to them for a year afterwards. Lady Frippery, in imitation of other ladies of rank and quality, was ambitious of having a drum; though the smallness of her lodgings might well have excused her from attempting that modish piece of vanity.
A drum is at present the highest object of female vain-glory; the end whereof is to assemble as large a mob of quality as can possibly be contained in one house; and great are the honours paid to that lady, who can boast of the largest crowd. For this purpose, a woman of superior rank calculates how many people all the rooms in her house laid open can possibly hold, and then sends about two months beforehand 'Among the people one knows,' to bespeak such a number as she thinks will fill them. Hence great emulations arise among them, and the candidates for this honour sue as eagerly for visitors, as candidates for parliament do for votes at an election: For as it sometimes happens that two ladies pitch upon the same evening for raising a riot, 'tis necessary they should beat up in time for volunteers; otherwise they may chance to be defrauded of their numbers, and one of them lie under the ignominy of collecting a mob of a hundred only, while the other has the honour of assembling a well-dressed rabble of three or four hundred; which of course breaks the heart of that unfortunate lady, who comes off with this immortal disgrace.
Now as the actions of people of quality are sure of being copied, hence it comes to pass that ladies of inferior rank, resolving to be in fashion, take upon them likewise to have drums in imitation of their superiors: Only there is this difference between the two orders, that the higher call nothing but a crowd a drum, whereas the lower often give that name to the commonest parties, and for the sake of honour call an ordinary visit as assembly.
This was the case with Lady Frippery; her acquaintance in town was very small, and it seemed improbable that she could assemble above a dozen people at most, without making any allowance for colds, head-aches, vapours, hysteric fits, fevers upon the spirits, and other female indispositions; yet still she resolved to have a drum, and the young lady seconded her Mamma's inclinations so vehemently, that Sir Thomas was obliged to comply.
From the moment this great event was resolved on, all their conversations turned upon it, and it was pleasant to hear the schemes and contrivances they had about it. Their first and principal care was to secure Lady Bab Frightful, the chief of Lady Frippery's acquaintance, and whose name was to give a lustre to the assembly. Now Lady Bab being one of the quality, it was possible she might have a previous engagement, unless she was taken in time; and therefore a card was dispatched to her in the first place, to bespeak her for such an evening; and it was resolved, that if any cross accident prevented her coming, new measures should be taken, and the drum be deferred till another night. Lady Bab returned for answer, that she would wait on Lady Frippery, if her health permitted. This dubious kind of message puzzled them in the strangest manner, and was worse than a denial; for without Lady Bab it was impossible to proceed, without Lady Bab the assembly would make no figure, and yet they were obliged to run the hazard of her not coming, in consequence of her answer. Every day therefore, they sent to enquire after her health, and their hopes rose or fell according to
the word that was brought them; till on the day before the drum was to be held, a most calamitous piece of news arrived, that Lady Bab was disabled by her Surgeon, who in cutting her toe-nail, had made an incision in her flesh; yet still she promised to be with them, if it was possible for her to hobble abroad. 'Tis impossible to describe the damp, which this fatal message struck into the whole family; but they were obliged to submit with patience, and as a glimpse of hope still remained, they had nothing left but to put up their prayers for Lady Bab's recovery.
At length the important evening arrived, that was to decide all their expectations and fears. Many consultations had been held every day, that things might be perfect and in order, when the time came: yet notwithstanding all their precautions, a dispute arose almost at the last moment, Whether Lady Frippery was to receive her company at the top or bottom of the stairs? This momentous question begat a warm debate. Her ladyship and miss contended resolutely for the top of the stairs, Sir Thomas for the bottom, and Mr. Chase, observed a neutrality; till at length, after a long altercation, the knight was obliged to submit to a majority of voices; though not without condemning his wife and daughter for want of politeness. 'My dear,' said he, (taking a pinch of snuff with great vehemence,) 'I am amazed that you can be guilty of such a solecism in breeding: it surprises me, that you are not sensible of the impropriety of it—Will it not show much greater respect and complaisance to meet your company at the bottom of the stairs, than to stand like an Indian queen receiving homage at the top of them?' 'Yes, my dear!' answered her ladyship; 'But you know my territories do not commence till the top of the stairs; our territories do not begin below stairs; and it would be very improper for me to go out of my own dominions—Don't you see that, my dear? I am surprised at your want of comprehension to-day, Sir Thomas!' 'Well, well, I have given it up,' answered he, 'have your own way, child; have your own way, my lady, and then you'll be pleased, I hope.—But I am sure, in my days, people would have met their company at the bottom of the stairs. When I and Lord Oxford were in the ministry together, affairs would have been very different—but the age has lost all its civility, and people are not half so well-bred as they were formerly.'
This reflexion on modern times, piqued the daughter's vanity, who now began to play her part in the debate. 'Yes, papa,' said she, 'but what signifies what people did formerly? that is nothing at all to us at present, you know; for to be sure all people were fools formerly: I always think people were fools in former days. They never did anything as we do now-a-days, and therefore it stands to reason they were all fools and idiots. 'Tis very manifest they had no breeding, and all the world must allow, that the world never was so wise, and polite, and sensible, and clever as it is at this moment; and for my part, I would not have lived in former days for all the world.' 'Pugh!' said the knight, interrupting her, 'you are a little illiterate monkey; you talk without book, child! the world is nothing to what it was in my days. Every thing is altered for the worse. The women are not near so handsome. None of you are comparable to your mothers.' 'Nay, there,'—said Lady Frippery, interposing, 'There, Sir Thomas, I entirely agree with you—there you have my consent, with all my heart. To be sure, all the celebrated girls about town, are mere dowdies, in comparison of their mothers; and if there could be a resurrection of beauties, they would shine only like Bristol stones in the company of diamonds.' 'Bless me, Mamma!' cried the young lady, with the tears standing in her eyes, 'how can you talk so? There never were so many fine women in the whole world, as there are now in London; and 'tis enough to make one burst out a crying, to hear you talk—Come, Mr. Chase, why don't you stand up for us modern beauties?'
In the midst of this conversation, there was a violent rap at the street-door; whereupon they all flew to the window, crying out eagerly, 'There—there is Lady Bab—I am sure 'tis Lady Bab; for I know her footman's rap.' Yet in spite of this knowledge, Lady Bab did not arrive according to their hopes; and it seemed as if her ladyship had laid a scheme to keep them in suspence; for of all the people, who composed this illustrious assembly, Lady Bab came the last. They took care, however, to inform the company from time to time, that she was expected, by making the same observation on the arrival of every fresh coach, and still persisting, that they knew her footman's rap, though they had given so many proofs to the contrary. At length, however, Lady Bab Frightful came; and it is impossible to express the joy they felt on her appearance; which revived them on a sudden from the depth of despair to the highest exaltation of happiness.
Her ladyship's great toe engrossed the conversation for the first hour, whose misfortune was lamented in very pathetic terms by all the company, and many wise reflexions were made upon the accident which had happened; some condemning the ignorance, and others the carelessness of the surgeon, who had been guilty of such a trespass on her ladyship's flesh. Some advised her to be very careful how she walked upon it; others recommended a larger shoe to her ladyship, and Lady Frippery, in particular, continued the whole evening to protest the vast obligations she had to her, for favouring her with her company under such an affliction. But had I an hundred hands, and as many pens, it would be impossible to describe the folly of that night: wherefore, begging the reader to supply it by the help of his own imagination, I proceed to other parts of this history.
CHAP. IX.
In which several things are touched upon.
WHEN this great affair was over, the marriage came next upon the carpet; the celebration of which was fixed for Easter week; but Mr. Chase recollecting in time that it would interfere with Newmarket races, procured a reprieve till the week following. At his return from those Olympic Games, the nuptials were celebrated before a general assembly of their relations, and the happy couple were conducted to bed in public with great demonstrations of joy. The bridegroom took possession of the bride, and Sir Thomas took possession of Mr. Chase's estate.
When they had shown their new clothes a little in London, they set out in a body for the country; and in a few days afterwards, the lodgings on the first floor were taken by a lady, who passed under the fictitious name of Mrs. Caryl. The hasty manner, in which she made her agreement, infused a suspicion into our milliner from the very beginning; and many circumstances soon concurred to persuade her, that her new lodger was a wife eloped from her husband. For besides that she came into her lodgings late in the evening, she seemed to affect a privacy in all her actions, which plainly evidenced, that she was afraid of some discovery; and this increased our milliner's curiosity the more as the other seemed less inclined to gratify it. But an event soon happened to confirm her conjectures; for three days after the lady's arrival, a chair stopped at the door one evening near ten o'clock, from whence alighted a well-dressed man about forty years old, who wrapping himself up in a red cloak, proceeded hastily upstairs, as if desirous to conceal himself from observation. This adventure savoured so strongly of intrigue, that it was no wonder our milliner contrived to meet him in the passage, to satisfy her curiosity with a survey of his features; for people, in whom that passion predominates, often find the greatest consolation from knowing the smallest trifles. Pompey was still more inquisitive than his mistress, and took courage to follow the gentleman into the dining-room, with a desire, I suppose, of hearing what passed in so fashionable an interview.
The lady rose from her chair to receive this man of fashion, who saluted her with great complaisance, and hoped she was pleased with her new apartments. 'Yes, my lord,' answered she, 'the people are civilized people enough, and I believe have no suspicion about me—but did they see your lordship come upstairs? '' 'Pon my honour, Madam,' said the peer, 'I can't tell; there was a female figure glided by me in the passage, but whether the creature made remarks or not, I did not stay to observe—Well, Madam, I hope now I may give you joy of your escape, and I dare say you will find yourself much happier than you was under the ill-usage of a tyrant you despised.' The lady then related, with great pleasantry, the manner of her escape, and the difficulties that attended the execution of it; after which she concluded with saying, 'I wonder, my lord, what my husband is now thinking on?' 'Thinking on!' answered the peer—' that he's a fool and a blockhead, I hope, Madam, and deserve to be hanged for abusing the charms of so divine a creature—Good God! was it possible for him to harbour an ill-natured thought, while he had the pleasure of looking in that angelic face? 'My lord,' said the lady, 'I know I have taken a very ill step in the eye of the world; but I have too much spirit to bear ill-usage with patience, and let the consequences be what they will, I am determined to submit to them, rather than be a slave to the ill-humours of a man I despised, hated, and detested.' 'Forbear Madam,' said his lordship, 'to think of him; my fortune, my interest, my sword, are all devoted to your service, and I am ready to
execute any command you please to impose upon me—but let us call a more agreeable topic of conversation.'
Soon after this a light, but elegant supper, was placed upon the table, and the servants were ordered to retire; for there are certain seasons, when even the Great desire to banish ostentation. The absent husband furnished them with much raillery, and they pictured to themselves continually the surprise he would be in, when first he discovered his wife's elopement; nor did this man of gallantry and fashion finish his amorous visit till past two o'clock in the morning. As he was going downstairs, he found himself again encountered by the barking of little Pompey, whom he snatched up in his arms, and getting hastily into the chair, that waited for him at the door, carried him off with him to his own house.
THE next morning when our hero waked, and took a survey of his new apartments, he had great reason to rejoice in the change he had made: the magnificence of the furniture evidently showed that he was in the house of a man of quality; and the importance which discovered itself in the faces of all the domestics, seemed likewise to prove that their master belonged to the Court. The porter in particular appeared to be a politician of many years standing, for he never delivered the most ordinary message but in the voice of a whisper, accompanied with so many nods, winks, and other mysterious grimaces, that he passed among his acquaintance for a statesman of no common capacity.
About nine o'clock in the morning Lord Danglecourt was pleased to raise himself up in his bed, and summoned his valets to assist him in putting on his clothes. As soon as it was reported through the house that his Lordship was stirring, the multitudes who were waiting to attend his levee, put themselves in order in his ante- chamber to pay their morning homage, as soon as he pleased to appear. Several of them, however, who came on particular business, or were necessary agents under his Lordship, were selected from the common group, and introduced into the bed-chamber where they had the inexpressible honour and pleasure to see his lordship wash his hands and buckle on his shoes in private.
But his Lordship was condemned this morning to give private audience to the chief inhabitants of a borough-town, of which (to use the common phrase) he made the members, and consequently was obliged to treat them with that ceremonious respect, which free Britons always demand in exchange for their liberty. These gentlemen were ambitious of having their town erected into a corporation, and now waited on lord Danglecourt with a petition, setting forth the nature of their request, and begging his lordship's interest to obtain a charter for them. They were conducted into a private room, where his lordship soon presented himself to them, and after saluting them all round, begged to know if he could have the honour of serving them in anything, making many protestations of his particular regard for them and eternal devotion to their interest. This seemed to answer their wishes; whereupon one of them taking a packet out of his breast, began to read what might.be called the history of their town with more propriety than a petition, for it contained the names of all the blacksmiths, barbers, and attorneys, that had flourished in it for many centuries backwards. His lordship took great pains to suppress his inclination to laughter, and for a while seemed to listen with great attention; but at length his patience being quite exhausted, he was obliged to interrupt the orator of the company, saying, "Well, gentlemen, I won't give you the trouble to read any more; I see the nature of your petition extremely well, and you may depend upon ray interest; please to leave your petition with me, sir, and I'll look over the remaining part
at my leisure;—depend upon it, gentlemen, you shall soon be in possession of your desires.' His Lordship then began to enquire after their wives and daughters, and having ordered his servants to bring a salver of sack and biscuits, he drank prosperity to their new corporation, represented in the strongest terms the honour they did him, in making him instrumental to the completion of their desires, and hoped he mould very soon be able to compliment them on their success. He then conducted them to the door, and they departed from him with the most grateful acknowledgments of his goodness, and the highest inward satisfaction to think they had so gracious a patron.
They were no sooner gone, than his lordship returned into his closet, and fell a laughing at the folly and impertinence of his petitioners. 'Curse the boobies,' cries he, 'do they think I have nothing to do but to make mayors and aldermen?' and so saying, he threw down the petition to the dog, and began to make him fetch and carry for his diversion. Pompey very readily entered into the humour of this pastime, and made such good use of his teeth, that the hopes of a new corporation were soon demolished, and the Lord knows how many mayors and aldermen in a moment perished by the unmerciful jaws of a Bologna lap-dog. But his lordship soon grew tired of this entertainment, and when he thought the petition had been severely enough handled by the dog, he snatched it from him, and flung it into the fire, saying, with a most contemptuous sneer, 'So much for a new corporation:' after which, he called for his hat and sword, and went abroad; nor did Pompey see anything more of him during the remaining part of the day.
CHAP. X.
Describing the miseries of a garretteer poet.
THE next morning as his Lordship was sitting in his study, reading some papers of state, with our hero under his chair; his gentleman-usher entered the room, and informed him that Mr. Rhymer the poet was below. 'Curse Mr. Rhymer the poet, and you too for an egregious blockhead,—why the devil did you let the fellow in? Tell him, his last political pamphlet is execrable nonsense, and unintelligible jargon, and I am not at leisure to see him this morning.' 'My lord,' replied the valet, 'He begs me to present his humble duty to your lordship, and to inform you, that a small gratuity would be very acceptable at present, for it seems his wife is ready to lie-in, and he says, he has not six- pence to defray the expenses of her groaning.' 'How,' cries his lordship, 'has that fellow the impudence to beget children? The dog pretends here to be starving, and yet has the assurance to deal in procreation—Prythee, Dickson, what sort of a woman is his wife? Have you ever seen her?' 'Yes, my lord,' answered the trusty valet; 'I have had the honour of seeing the lady, but I am afraid she would have no great temptations for your lordship; for the poor gentlewoman has the misfortune to squint a little, which does not give a very bewitching air to her countenance, besides which, she has the accomplishment of red hair into the bargain.' 'Well then,' cries the peer, turn the hound out of doors, and bid him go to the devil. Pox take him, if he had a handsome wife, I might be tempted to encourage him a little; but how can he expect my favour without doing anything to deserve it?' 'Then your lordship won't be pleased to send him a small acknowledgment,' said the valet de chambre.' 'No,' replied the peer, 'I have no money to fling away on poets and hackney-writers; let the fellow eat his own works, if he is hungry.—Hold, stay, I have thought better of it; here Dickson, take this little dog, since my wife won't have him, and carry him to the poet. My service to the gentleman, and desire him to keep the creature for my sake.'
Dickson was a man of some little humour, which had prompted him to the dignity of first pimp in ordinary to his lordship, and perceiving that his master had a mind to divert himself this morning with the miseries of an unhappy poet, he resolved that the joke should not be lost in passing through his hands. Taking the dog therefore from his lordship, he made haste downstairs, and accosted the expecting bard in the following manner: 'Sir! his lordship is very busy this morning, and not at leisure to see you, but he speaks very kindly of you, and begs you would do him the favour to accept of this beautiful little Bologna lap-dog.' 'Accept of a lap-dog,' cries the poet with astonishment; bless me! what is the matter? surely there must be some mistake, Mr. Guillaume! for I cannot readily conceive of what use a Bologna lap-dog can be to me.' 'Sir,' replied the valet-de-chambre, 'you may depend upon it, his lordship had some reason for making you this present, which it does not become us to guess at.' 'No,' said the bard, I would not presume to dive into his lordship's councils; but really now, Mr. Dickson, a few guineas in present cash would be rather more serviceable to me than a Bologna lap-dog, even a few Bologna sausages, to carry home in my pocket, would have been more comfortable to my poor wife and children.' 'Sir,' said the valet, 'you must not distrust his lordship's generosity: great statesmen, Mr. Rhymer, always do things in a different manner from the rest of the world: there is usually, as you observe, something a little mysterious in their conduct; but assure yourself, sir, this dog will be the fore-runner of a handsome annuity, and it would be the greatest affront imaginable not to receive him.—You must never refuse anything, which the Great esteem a favour, Mr. Rhymer, on any account; even though it should involve you and your family in everlasting ruin. His lordship desired that you would keep the dog for his sake, sir, and
therefore you may be sure he has a particular regard for you, when he sends you such a memorial of his affection.'
The unhappy poet finding he could extort nothing from the unfeeling hands of his patron, was obliged to retire with the dog under his arms, and climbed up in a disconsolate mood to his garret, where he found his wife cooking the scrag end of a neck of mutton for dinner. The mansions of this son of Apollo were very contracted, and one would have thought it impossible for one single room to have served so many domestic purposes; but good housewifery knows no difficulties, and penury has a thousand inventions, which are unknown to ease and wealth. In one corner of these poetical apartments stood a flock-bed, and underneath it, a green jordan presented itself to the eye, which had collected the nocturnal urine of the whole family, consisting of Mr. Rhymer, his wife, and two daughters. Three rotten chairs and a half seemed to stand like traps in various parts of the room, threatening downfalls to unwary strangers; and one solitary table in the middle of this aerial garret, served to hold the different treasures of the whole family. There were now lying upon it the first act of a comedy, a pair of yellow stays, two political pamphlets, a plate of bread-and-butter, three dirty night-caps, and a volume of miscellany poems. The lady of the house was drowning a neck of mutton, as we before observed, in meagre soup, and the two daughters sat in the window, mending their father's brown stockings with blue worsted. Such were the mansions of Mr. Rhymer, the poet, which I heartily recommend to the repeated perusal of all those unhappy gentlemen, who feel in themselves a growing inclination to that mischievous, damnable, and destructive science.
As soon as Mr. Rhymer entered the chamber, his wife deserted her cookery, to enquire the success of his visit, on which the comforts of her lying-in so much depended; and seeing a dog under her husband's arm, 'Bless me, my dear!' said she, 'why do you bring home that filthy creature, to eat up our victuals? Thank heaven, we have got more mouths already, than we can satisfy, and I am sure we want no addition to our family.' 'Why, my dear,' answered the poet, 'his lordship did me the favour to present me this morning with this beautiful little Bologna lap-dog.' 'Present you with a lap-dog,' cried the wife interrupting him, 'what is it you mean, Mr. Rhymer? but, however, I am glad his lordship was in so bountiful a humour, for I am sure then he has given you a purse of guineas to maintain the dog. Well, I vow it was a very genteel way of making a present, and I shall love the little fool for his master's sake.—Great men do things with so much address always, that one is transported as much with their politeness as their generosity.' Here the unhappy bard shook his head, and soon undeceived his wife, by informing her of all that had passed in his morning's visit. 'How,' said she, 'no money with the dog? Mr. Rhymer, I am amazed that you will submit to such usage. Don't you see that they make a fool, and an ass, and a laughing-stock of you? Why did you take their filthy dog? I'll have his brains dashed out this moment.— Mr. Rhymer, if you had kept on your tallow-chandler's shop, I and mine should have had wherewithal to live; but you must court the draggle-tail muses forsooth, and a fine provision they have made for you.—Here I expect to be brought to bed every day, and you have not money to buy pap and caudle.—O curse your lords and your political pamphlets! I am sure I have reason to repent the day that ever I married a poet.' 'Madam,' said Rhymer, exasperated at his wife's conversation, 'you ought rather to bless the day, that married you to a gentleman, whose soul despises mechanical trades, and is devoted to the noblest science in the universe. Poetry, Madam, like virtue, is its own reward; but you have a vulgar notion of things, you have an illiberal attachment to money, and had rather be frying grease in a tallow-chandler's shop, than listening to the divine
rhapsodies of the Heliconian maids. 'Tis true, Madam, his lordship has not recompensed my labours according to expectation this morning, but what of that? he bid me proceed in the execution of my design, and undoubtedly means to reward me. Lords are often destitute of cash, as well as poets, and perhaps I came upon him a little unseasonably, when his coffers were empty; but I auspicate great things from his present of a dog.— A dog, Madam, is the emblem of fidelity, and that encourages me to hope his Lordship will be true to my interest.' 'The emblem of a fiddle-stick!' cried the wife, interrupting him, 'I tell you, Mr. Rhymer, you are a fool, and have ruined your family by your senseless whims and projects.—A gentleman, quotha! Yes forsooth, a very fine gentleman truly, that has hardly a shirt to his back, or a pair of shoes to his feet.—Look at your daughters there in the window, and see whether they appear like a gentleman's daughters; and for my part, I have not an under-petticoat that I can wear.—You have had three plays damned, Mr. Rhymer, and one would think that might have taught you a little prudence; but, deuce fetch me, if you shall write any more, for I'll burn all this nonsense that lies upon the table.' So saying, she flew like a Bacchanal fury at his works, and with savage hands was going to commit them to the flames, but her husband's voice interrupted her, crying out with impatience, 'See, see, see, my dear! The pot boils over, and the broth is all running away into the fire.' This luckily put an end to their altercation, and postponed the sacrifice that was going to be made; they then set down to dinner without a table-cloth, and made a wretched meal, envying one another every morsel that escaped their own mouths.
Their distresses increased every day, and it is highly probable, that Pompey would soon have fallen a sacrifice to hunger, and been served up at Mr. Rhymer's poetical table, had not the cunning little animal, prudentially foreseeing what might happen, taken to his heels one morning, and happily made his escape from this scene of misery, squalidness, and poetry.
CHAP. XI.
Showing the ill effects of ladies having the vapours.
OUR hero wandered about the streets for two or three hours, till being tired of his peregrination, he took shelter in a handsome house, where the door stood hospitably open to receive him. Here he was soon found by the servants, and the waiting- gentlewoman carried him upstairs, as a beauty, to her mistress, whom she found in a fit, and consequently was obliged to defer the introduction of Pompey, to assist her lady with hartshorn, and other physical restoratives, with which her chamber was plentifully stored.
This lady, by name Mrs. Qualmsick, had the misfortune to be afflicted with that most terrible sickness, which arises only from the imagination of the patient, and which it is no wonder physicians find such a difficulty to cure, as it has neither name, symptoms, or existence. She was, in reality, eaten up with the vapours, by which means her whole life became an uninterrupted series of miseriies, which she had been ingenious enough to invent for herself, because neither nature nor fortune had bestowed any upon her. Her constitution originally was very good and healthy, but she had so many years been endeavouring to destroy it, by the advice and assistance of physicians, that she had now physicked herself into all kinds of imaginary disorders, and was unhealthy from the very pains she took to preserve her health. Her meek-spirited husband possessed an estate of two thousand pounds a year, the far greatest part whereof his indulgent wise lavished away on physicians' and apothecaries' bills; and though she took all pains to render herself unlovely in the eyes of a husband, the good- natured simple man was so enamoured of her sickly charms, that he still adored her as a goddess, and paid a blind obedience to her will in everything. As her 'weak nerves' seldom permitted her to go abroad herself, she kept her onsequious spouse almost constantly confined in her bed-chamber, as a companion to her in her afflictions: and besides the confinement he underwent, he was obliged likewise, at all seasons, to conform himself to the present state of her nerves for, sometimes, the sound of a voice was death to her, and then he was enjoined inviolable silence: at other times she chose to be diverted with a book, and then he was to read Hervey's Meditations among the Tombs: again, at other times, when her imagination was a little more cheerful than usual, she would amuse herself with conjugal dalliances, toy with her husband, stroke his face, and provoke him to treat her with little amorous endearments.
As a reward for this humility, and readiness to comply with her humours, she would do him the favour, every now and then, to take him abroad in her coach, when her physicians prescribed her an airing: though it may be doubted whether he received any great enjoyment of this uncommon favour, as the glasses and canvases were constantly drawn up, while the sick lady lay along like a fat corpse, on one whole seat of the coach, gasping for air, and complaining of the uneasy motion.
As these kinds of distempers are very fantastical, she was often seized with the strangest whims, and would imagine herself converted into all kinds of living creatures, nay, when her frenzy was at the highest, it was not unusual for her to fancy herself a glass-bottle, a tea-pot a hay-rick, or a field of turnips. The furniture of her rooms was likewise altered once a month, to comply with the present sit of vapours: for, sometimes, red was too glaring for her eyes; green put her in mind of willows, and made her melancholic; blue remembered her of her dear sister, who had unfortunately died ten years before in a blue bed; and some such reason was constantly found for banishing every colour in its turn. But a little specimen of her conversation one day with her
doctor, and the consequences of it afterwards on her husband, will give the best description of her character.
The gentleman of the Æsculapian art came to attend her one morning, and she began as usual, with informing him of the deplorable state in which he found her. 'O, Doctor,' said she, 'my nerves are so low to-day, that I can hardly fetch my Breath. There is such a damp and oppression upon my spirits, that 'tis impossible for me to live a week longer. Do you think, sir, I can possibly have a week longer?' 'A week longer, Madam!' answered the physician, 'Oh, bless me! Yes, yes, many years, I hope—come, come, Madam, you must not give way to such imaginations. 'Tis the nature of your disorder to be attended with a dejection of spirits—perhaps some external object may have presented itself, that has excited a little fume of melancholy; or perhaps your ladyship may have heard a disagreeable piece of news; or perhaps the haziness of the weather may have cast a kind of a—a kind of a lethargy over the animal spirits, or perhaps mere want of sleep may have lest a tedium on the brain; or a thousand things may have contributed—but you must not be alarmed, you must not be alarmed, Madam! We shall remedy all that; we shall brace up your nerves, and give a new flow to the blood.' 'O doctor,' said she, interrupting him, 'I am afraid you comfort with vain hopes. My blood is quite in a state of stagnation, Doctor; and I believe it will never flow any more—Do feel my pulse, Doctor!' 'Let us see, let us see,' answered the physician, taking hold of her hand, 'Stagnation! Bless us, Madam! No, no, your pulse beats very regularly and floridly, I protest, and your Ladyship will do very well again in time—but you must take time, Madam! That plexus of nerves upon the stomach, which I have often described to you as the seat of your disorder, wants some corroborating help to give them a new springiness and elasticity; and when things are relaxed, you know, Madam, they will be out of order. You see it is the case in all mechanical machines, and of course it must be the same in the human economy; for we are but machines, we are nothing but machines, Madam!' 'O sir,' replied the lady, 'I care not what we are; But do, for heaven's sake, redeem me from the miseries I suffer.' 'I will, Madam,' returned the doctor; 'I'll pawn my honour on your recovery; but you must take time, Madam, your Ladyship must have patience, and not expect miracles to be wrought in a day. Time, time, Madam, conquers everything, and you need not doubt but we shall set you up again—in time. How do you find your appetite? Do you eat, Madam?' 'Not at all, sir, answered the lady, not at all; I have neither stomach, nor appetite, nor strength, nor anything in the world; and I believe verily, I can't live a week longer.—I drank a little chocolate yesterday morning, sir,. And got down a little basin of broth at noon, and eat a pigeon for my dinner, and made a shift to get down another little basin of broth at night-but I can't eat at all, sir; my appetite fails me more and more every day, and I live upon mere nothing.'
Much more of this kind of conversation passed between them, which we will not now stay to relate. When the doctor had taken his leave, the good-natured husband met him at the bottom of the stairs, and very tenderly enquired how he had left his spouse? To this, the son of Æsculapius answered, 'Quite brave, sir; and assured him there was no doubt to be made of her recovery;' adding at the same time, 'If you can persuade her to believe herself well, sir, you will be her best physician.' 'Do you think so, doctor,' said Qualmsick, with a silly smile? 'Sir, I am sure of it,' answered the physician: after which words he flew to his coach, and drove away to the destruction of other patients.
Qualmsick immediately posted upstairs to his wife's apartment to try the effect of his persuasions upon her, little thinking what a dangerous office he was about to
undertake. He began with congratulating her on the amendment of her health, and said he was very glad to find from the account her physician had been, giving, that me was in a very fair way of recovery. This extremely surprised her, and weak as she was, she began to put much resentment into her countenance; which Qualmsick observing, proceeded in the following manner. 'Come, come, my dear, you must not deceive us any longer—we know how it is; we know you are well enough, my dear, is you would but fancy yourself so—do but lay aside your vapours and imaginations, and I warrant you will have your health for the future.'
This was the first time that Qualmsick ever presumed to talk in this audacious strain to his wife; which incensed her so much, that she immediately burst out in tears, and fell upon him with all the bitterness of passion. 'Barbarous monster,' cried she, 'how dare you insult over my miseries, when I am just at the point of death? You might as well take a knife and stab me to the heart, you might—brutal, inhuman wretch, thus to ridicule my afflictions!—get out of the room, go, and let me never see your face any more.'
Qualmsick was so astounded at the praemunire he had drawn himself into, that he knew not at first what to think or answer; but when he had a little recovered his wits, which were none of the best, he endeavoured to lay the blame on the physician, and assured his wife, that whatever he had uttered, was by the advice and instigation of her doctor. ''Tis a lie, cried she blubbering, 'tis a horrid lie; the doctor has too much humanity to contradict me, when I tell him I am at the point of death—no; 'tis your own artifice, inhuman monster! You want to get rid of me, barbarian! And this is the method you have taken to murder me. I am going fast enough already, but thou wilt not suffer me to die in peace—get out of the room, cannibal, and never presume to come into my presence any more.'
With this terrible injunction he was obliged to comply, and it was near a fortnight before she admitted him to make his peace; which, however, he did at length, with many protestations of sorrow for his past offence, and repeated assurances of behaving with more humility for the future. The physician, who gave occasion to this dispute, now fell a sacrifice to it, and was immediately discarded for daring to suppose that a lady was well, when he had made such a vehement resolution to be ill.
CHAP. XII
Our Hero goes to the University of Cambridge.
POMPEY had the good fortune to bark one day, when his lady's head was at the worst; whether designedly, or nor, is difficult to determine; but the sound so pierced her brain, and affected her nerves, that she resolved no longer to keep him in her own apartments. And thus the same action, which had unfortunately banished him from the presence of Aurora, was now altogether as favourable in redeeming him from the sick chamber, or rather hospital of Mrs. Qualmsick.
Mrs. Qualmsick had a son, who was about this time going to the University of Cambridge, and as the young gentleman had taken a fancy to Pompey, he easily prevailed to carry him along with him, as a companion to that great seat of learning.
Young Qualmsick inherited neither the hypochondriacal disposition of his mother, nor the insipid meekness of his father; but, on the contrary, was blessed with a good share of health, had a great flow of animal spirits, and a most violent appetite for pleasure. He had received the first part of his education at Westminster school, where he had acquired what is usually called, a very pretty knowledge of the town; that is to say, he had been introduced, at the age of thirteen, into the most noted bagnios, knew the names of the most celebrated women of pleasure, and could drink his two bottles of claret in an evening, without being greatly disordered in his understanding. At the age of seventeen, it was judged proper for him, merely out of fashion, and to be like other young gentlemen of his acquaintance, to take lodgings at a university; whither he went with a hearty contempt of the place, and a determined resolution never to receive any profit from it.
He was admitted under a tutor, who knew no more of the world than if he had been bred up in a forest, and whose sour pedantic genius was ill-qualified to cope with the vivacity and spirit of a young gentleman, warm in the pursuit of pleasure, and one who required much address, and very artful management, to make any kind of restraint palatable and easy to him.
He was admitted in the rank of a fellow-commoner, which, according to the definition given by a member of the university in a court of justice, is one who sits at the same table, and enjoys the conversation of the fellows. It differs from what is called a gentleman-commoner at Oxford, not only in the name, but also in the greater privileges and licenses indulged to members of this order; who do not only enjoy the conversation of the fellows, but likewise a full liberty of following their own imaginations in everything. For as tutors and governors of colleges have usually pretty sagacious noses after preferment, they think it impolitic to cross the inclinations of young gentlemen, who are heirs to great estates, and from whom they expect benefices and dignities hereafter, as rewards for their want of care of them, while they were under their protection. From hence it comes to pass, that pupils of this rank are excused from all public exercises, and allowed to absent themselves at pleasure from the private lectures in their tutors' rooms, as often as they have made a party for hunting, or an engagement at the tennis-court, or are not well recovered from their evening's debauch. And whilst a poor unhappy soph, of no fortune, is often expelled for the most trivial offences, or merely to humour the capricious resentment of his tutor, who happens to dislike his face; young noblemen, and heirs of great estates, may commit any illegalities, and, if they please, overturn a college with impunity.
Young Qualmsick very early began to display his genius, and was soon distinguished for one of the most enterprising spirits in the university. Nobody set order and regularity at greater defiance or with more heroic bravery than he did; which made him quickly be chosen captain-general by his comrades, in all their parties of pleasure, and expeditions of jollity. Many pranks are recorded of his performing, which made the place resound with his name; but one of his exploits being attended with circumstances of a very droll nature, we cannot forbear relating it.
There was in the same college, a young Master of Arts, Williams by name, who had been elected into the society, in preference to one of greater genius and learning, because he used to make a lower bow to the fellows, whenever he passed by them, and was not likely to disgrace any of his seniors by the superiority of his parts. This gentleman concluding now there was no farther occasion of study, after he had obtained a fellowship, which had long been the object of his ambition, gave himself over to pursuits more agreeable to his temper, and spent the chief of his time in drinking tea with barbers' daughters, and other young ladies of fashion in the university, who there take to themselves the name of misses, and receive amorous gownsmen at their ruelles. For nothing more is necessary to accomplish a young lady at Cambridge, than a second- hand capuchin, a white washing gown, a pair of dirty silk shoes, and long muslin ruffles; in which dress they take the air in the public walks every Sunday, to make conquests, and receive their admirers all the rest of the week at their tea-tables. Now Williams, having a great deal of dangling good-nature about him, was very successful in winning the affections of these academical misses, and had a large acquaintance among them. The three Miss Higginses, whose mother kept the sun tavern; Miss Polly Jackson, a baker's daughter; the celebrated Fanny Hill, sole heiress of a tailor, and Miss Jenny of the coffee-house, were all great admirers of our college-gallant; and fame reported, that he had admission to some of their bed-chambers, as well as to their tea-tables. Upon this presumption, young Qualmsick laid his head together with other young gentlemen, his comrades, to play him a trick, which we now proceed to disclose.
About this time, a bed-maker of the college was unfortunately brought to-bed, without having any husband to father the child; and as our master of arts was suspected, among others, to have had a share in the generation of the new-born infant, being a gentleman of an amorous nature, it occurred to young Qualmsick to make the following experiment upon him.
As Mr. Williams was coming out of his chamber one morning early to go to chapel, he found a basket standing at his door, on the top of his stair-case, with a direction to himself, and a letter tied to the handle of the basket. He stood some little time guessing from whom such a present could come, but as he had expected a parcel from London by the coach for a week before, he naturally concluded this to be the same, and that it had been brought by a porter from the inn, and left at his door before he was awake in the morning. With this thought he opened the letter, and read to the following effect.
'Honourable Sir,
'Am surprised should use me in such a manner; have never seen one farthing of your money, since was brought to-bed, which is a shame, and a wicked sin.
Wherefore have sent you your own bastard to provide for, and am your dutiful sarvant to command till death.—
'Betty Trollop.'
The astonishment, which seized our master of arts at the perusal of this letter, may easily be imagined, but not so easily described: he turned pale, staggered, and looked like Banquo's ghost in the play; but as his conscience excused him from the crime laid to his charge, he resolved, (as soon as his confusion would suffer him to resolve) to make a public example of the wretch, that had dared to lay her iniquities at his door. To this end, as soon as chapel was over, he desired the master of the college to convene all the fellows in the common-room, for he had an affair of great consequence to lay before them. When the reverend divan was met according to his desire, he produced the basket, and with an audible voice read the letter, which had been annexed to it: after which he made a long oration on the unparallelled impudence of the harlot, who had attempted to scandalize him in this audacious manner, and concluded with desiring the most exemplary punishment might be inflicted on her; for he said, unless they discouraged such a piece of villainy with proper severity, it might hereafter be their own loss, if they were remiss in punishing the present offender. They all heard him with great astonishment, and many of them seemed to rejoice inwardly, that the basket had not travelled to their doors; as thinking, perhaps, it would have been unfatherly and unnatural to have refused it admittance. But the master of the college taking the thing a little more seriously, declared that if Mr. Williams had not been known to trespass in that way, the girl would never have singled him out to father her iniquities upon him; however as the thing had happened, and he had protested himself innocent, he said he would take care the strumpet mould be punished for her impudence. He then ordered the basket to be unpacked; which was performed by the butler of the college, in presence of the whole fraternity; when lo!—instead of a child puling and crying for its father, out leaped Pompey, the little hero of this little history; who had been enclosed in that osier confinement by his Qualmsick, and conveyed very early in the morning to Mr. Williams's chamber-door. The grave assembly were astonished and enraged at the discovery, finding themselves convened only to be ridiculed; and all of them gazed on our hero with the same kind of aspect, as did the daughters of Cecrops on the deformed Erichthonius, when their curiosity tempted them to peep into the basket, which Minerva had put into their hands, with positive commands to the contrary.
CHAP. XIII.
The character of a Master of Arts at a university.
WILLIAMS, though much ashamed and out of countenance, was yet in his heart very glad to be relieved from the apprehensions of maintaining a bastard, which he imagined would add no great lustre to his reputation as fellow of a college. When therefore Pompey escaped out of his wicker prison, he was in reality pleased with the discovery, which put an end to his fears, and feigning himself diverted with the thing, took the little adventurerg home to his own chambers.
If we were in a hurry to describe him, it might be done effectually in two or three words, by calling him a most egregious trifler; but as we have leisure to be a little more circumstantial, the reader shall be troubled with a day's journal of his actions.
He was in the first place, a man of the most exact and punctilious neatness; his shoes were always blacked in the nicest manner, his wigs were powdered with the most finical delicacy, and he would scold his laundress for a whole morning together, if he discovered a wry plait in the sleeve of his shirt, or the least speck of dirt on any part of his linen. He rose constantly to chapel, and proceeded afterwards with great importance to breakfast, which, moderately speaking, took up two hours of his morning; for when he had done sipping his tea, he used to wash up the cups with the most orderly exactness, and replace them with the utmost regularity in the corner-cupboard. After this he drew on his boots, ordered his horse, and rode out for the air, having been told that a sedentary life is destructive of the constitution, and that too much study impairs the health. At his return he had barely time to wash his hands, clean his teeth, and put on a fresh-powdered wig, before the college-bell summoned him to dinner in the public hall. When this great affair was ended, he spent an hour with the rest of the fellow in the common-room to digest his meal, and then went to the coffee-house to read the newspapers; where he loitered away that heavy interval which passed between dinner and afternoon tea: but as soon as the clock struck three, he tucked up his gown, and flew with all imaginable haste to some of the young ladies above-mentioned, who all esteemed him a prodigious genius, and were ready to laugh at his wit, before he opened his mouth. In these agreeable visits he remained till the time of evening chapel; and when this was over, supper succeeded to find him fresh employment; from whence he repaired to the coffee- house, and then to some engagement he had made at a friend's room, for the remaining part of the evening. By this account of his day's transactions, the reader will see how very impossible it was for him to find leisure for study, in the midst of so many important avocations; yet he made a shift sometimes to play half a tune on the German flute in a morning, and once in a quarter of a year, took the pains to transcribe a sermon out of various authors.
Another part of his character was a great affectation of politeness, which is more pretended to in universities, where less of it is practised, than in any other part of the kingdom. Thus Williams was always talking of genteel life, to which end he was plentifully provided with stories by a female cousin, who kept a milliner's shop in London, and never failed to let him know by letters, what passed among the Great; though she frequently mistook the names of people, and attributed scandal to one lord, which was the property of another. Her cousin however did not find out the mistakes, but retailed her blunders about the colleges with great confidence and security.
But nothing in the world pleased him more than shewing the university to strangers, and especially to ladies, which he thought gave him an air of acquaintance
with the genteel world; and on such occasions he would affect to make expensive entertainments, which neither his private fortune, or the income of his fellowship could afford.
CHAP XIV.
Another college character.
ABOUT this time, three ladies and a gentleman happened to be returning out of the north whither they had been to make a summer-visit, and were inclined to take Cambridge in their way home; which place they believed to be worthy of their curiosity, having never seen it. For this purpose they procured a double recommendation to two gentlemen of different colleges, lest one of them should happen to be absent at the time of their arrival. One of these gentlemen was the reverend Mr. Williams, who received a letter from a friend of his, advertising him of the arrival of three ladies, and desiring he would assist their curiosity in showing them the university. At the same time came another letter from another gentleman to an ancient doctor of divinity, whose character we shall here disclose.
This gentleman in his youth, when his friend was at college, had been a man of great gaiety, and stands upon record for the first person who introduced tea-drinking into the University of Cambridge. He had good parts, improved by much classical reading; but it was his misfortune very early in life to fall in love with an apothecary's daughter, with whom he maintained a courtship near twenty years; in which time he laboured by all means in his power, but without success, to obtain a living, as the foundation of matrimony. For though his vivacity had rendered him agreeable to many young gentlemen of fortune, who were his contemporaries at college, he found himself forgotten by them, when they came into the world, and too late experienced the difference between a companion and a friend. Disappointed in all his hopes, and growing sick of a tedious courtship, he shut himself up in his chamber, and there abandoned himself to melancholy: he shunned all his friends, and became a perfect recluse; appeared but seldom at meals in the college-hall, and then with so wild a face and unfashionable a dress, that all the younger part of the college, who knew nothing of his history, esteemed him a madman. This was the person recommended to conduct ladies about the university, for his friend unluckily made no allowance. For the fifty years that had elapsed since his own leaving the college, but concluded his old acquaintance to be the same man of gallantry in his age, which he had formerly remembered him in his youth.
When the ladies arrived at Cambridge, accompanied by a gentleman who was their relation, they laid their heads together to consider what measures they should pursue; and all agreeing that it would be proper to pay the doctor a visit at his chamber, they set out in a body for that purpose. Being directed to his college, and having with difficulty found out his stair-case, they mounted it with many wearisome steps, and knocked at the door for admittance. It was a long while before the sound pierced through the sevenfold night-caps of the old doctor, who sat dozing half-asleep in an elbow-chair by a fire almost extinguished. When he had opened the door, he started back at the sight of ladies with as much amazement as is he had seen a ghost, and kept the door half shut in his hand, to prevent their entrance into his room. Indeed his apartment was not a spectacle that deserved exhibition, for it seemed not to have been swept for twenty years past, and lay in great disorder, scattered over with mouldy books and yellow manuscripts. The cobwebs extended themselves from one corner of the room to the other, and the mice and rats took their pastime about the floor with as much security as if it had been uninhabited. On a table stood a can of stale small beer, and a plate of cheese-parings, the relics of his last night's supper; all which appearances created such astonishment in his visitors, that they began to believe themselves directed to a wrong
person, and thought it impossible for this to be the gay gentleman, who had been recommended to them as the perfection of courtesy and good-breeding.
When therefore they had suppressed their inclination to laugh as well as they could, the gentleman who was spokesman of the party, began to beg pardon for the disturbance they had given in consequence of a wrong information, and desired to be directed to the chambers of Doctor Clouse. 'Oho,' said the doctor, 'What—I warrant you are the folks that I received a letter about last week!' The gentleman then assured him they were the same, and begged the favour of his assistance, if it was not too much trouble, to show the ladies the university, which they would acknowledge as a very particular favour. 'Alack-a-day!' answered he with a stammering voice, 'I should be very glad, sir, to do the ladies any service in my power; but really I protest, sir, I have almost forgot the university. 'Tis many years since I have ventured out of my own college, and indeed it is not often that I go out of my room—you'll find some younger man, ladies, that knows more of the matter than I do; for I suppose everything is altered since my time, and I question whether I should know my way about the streets.' After which words he made a motion to retire into his chamber, which the company observing, asked pardon once more for the disturbance they had given, and made haste away to laugh at this uncommon adventure.
CHAP. XV.
A prodigious short Chapter
When the gentlemen and ladies were got back to their inn, they diverted themselves with much raillery at the old doctor's expense, and began to despair of any better success from their second recommendation, charitably concluding that all the members of the university were like the gentleman they had seen. They resolved therefore not to be at the trouble of visiting Mr. Williams but sent a messenger from the inn to inform him of their arrival, and beg the favour of his company at supper; which invitation, however, they would gladly have excused him from accepting, for they were grown sick of the place, and determined to leave it early the next morning.
Williams, who had lived in expectation of their coming several days, ported away to the inn with all imaginable dispatch, and with many academical compliments, welcomed them to Cambridge. He stayed supper, and the evening was spent with a good deal of mirth; for when the ladies found they had to do with a human being, they recounted the adventure of the old doctor, and Williams, in return, entertained them with several others of a similar nature. Nor did he depart to his college, till he had made them promise to dine with him at his chambers the next day.
Early in the morning then he rose with the lark, and held a consultation, with the college cook concerning the dinner, and other particulars of the entertainment: for as he had never yet been honoured with company of so high a rank, he resolved to do what was handsome, and send them away with an opinion of his politeness. Among many other devices, he had to be genteel, one very well deserves mentioning, being of a very academical nature indeed; for he was at the expense of purchasing a china vase of a certain shape, which sometimes passes under a more vulgar name, to set in his bed- chamber, that if the ladies should choose to retire after dinner, for the sake of looking at the pattern of his bed, or to see the prospect out of his window, or from any other motive of curiosity, they might have the pleasure of being served in china.
When these affairs were settled, he dressed himself in his best array, and went to bid the ladies good-morrow. As soon as they had breakfasted, he conducted them about the university, and shewed them all the rarities of Cambridge. They observed, that such a thing was very grand, another thing was very neat, and that there were a great many books in the libraries, which they thought it impossible for any man to read through, though he was to live as long as Methuselah.
When their curiosity was satisfied, and Williams had indulged every wish of vanity, in being seen to escort ladies about the university, and to hand them out of their coach, they all retired to his chambers to dinner. Much conversation passed, not worth recording, and when the cloth was taken away, little Pompey was produced on the table for the ladies to admire him. They were greatly struck with his beauty; and one of them took courage to ask him as a present, which the complaisant master of arts, in his great civility, complied with, and immediately delivered him into the lady's hands. He likewise related the story, how he came into his possession, which another person perhaps would have suppressed; but Williams was so transported with his company, that he was half out of his wits with joy, and his conversation was as ridiculous as his behaviour.
CHAP. XVI.
Pompey returns to London, and occasions a remarkable dispute in the Mall.
ONCE more then our hero set out for the metropolis of Great Britain, and after an easy journey of two days arrived at a certain square, where his mistresses kept their court. To these ladies, not improperly might be applied the question which Archer asks in the play, Pray which of you three is the old lady? The mother being full as youthful and airy as the daughters, and the daughters almost as ancient as the mother.
Now as fortune often disposes things in the most whimsical and surprizing manner, it so happened, that one of his mistresses took him with her one morning into St. James's Park, and set him down on his legs almost in the very same part of the Mall, from whence he had formerly made his escape from Lady Tempest near eight years before, as is recorded in the first part of his history. Her ladyship was walking this morning for the air, and happened to pass by almost at the very instant that the little adventurer was set on his legs to take his diversion. She spied him in a moment, with great quickness of discernment, and immediately recollecting her old acquaintance, caught him up in her arms, and fell to kissing him with the highest extravagance of joy. His present owner perceiving this, and thinking only that the lady was pleased with the beauty of her dog, and had a mind to compliment him with a few kisses, passed on without interrupting her: but when she saw her ladyship preparing to carry him out of the Mall in her arms, she advanced hastily towards her, and redemanded her favourite in the following terms: 'Pray, Madam, what is your ladyship going to do with that dog?' Lady Tempest replied, 'Nothing in the world, Madam, but take him home with me.' 'And pray, Madam, what right has your ladyship to take a dog that belongs to me?' 'None, my dear!' answered Lady Tempest; 'but I take him, child, because he belongs to me.' ''Tis false,' said the other lady, 'I aver it to be false; he was given me by a gentleman of Cambridge, and I insist upon your ladyship's replacing him upon his legs, this individual moment.' To this, Lady Tempest replied only with a sneer, and was walking off with our hero; which so greatly aggravated the rage of her antagonist, that she now lost all patience, and began to exert herself in a much higher key. 'Madam,' said she, 'I would have you to know, Madam, that I am not to be treated in this superlative manner. Your ladyship may affect to sneer, if you please, Madam, and show a contempt, Madam, which is more due to your own actions than to me, Madam; for, thank heaven, I have some regard to decency in my actions.' 'Dear Miss! don't be in a passion,' replied Lady Tempest; 'it will spoil your complexion, child, and perhaps ruin your fortune— but will you be pleased to know, my dear, that I lost this dog eight years ago in the Mall, and advertised him in all the new-papers, though you or your friend at Cambridge, who did me the favour to steal him, were not so obliging as to restore him?—And will you be pleased to know likewise, young lady, that I have a right to take my property wherever I find it.' ''Tis impossible,' cried the other lady, ''tis impossible to remember a dog after eight years absence; I aver it to be impossible, and nothing shall persuade me to believe it.' 'I protest, my dear,' answered Lady Tempest, 'I know not what sort of a memory you may be blest with, but really, I can remember things of a much longer date; and as a fresh instance of my memory, I think, my dear, I remember you representing the character of a young lady for near these twenty years about town.' 'Madam,' returned the lady of inferior rank, now inflamed with the highest indignation; 'you may remember yourself, Madam, representing a much worse character, Madam,
for a greater number of years. It would be well, Madam, if your memory was not altogether so good, Madam, unless your actions were better.'
The war of tongues now began to rage with the greatest violence, and nothing was spared that wit could suggest on the one side, or malice on the other. the beaux, and belles, and witlings, who were walking that morning in the Mall, assembled round the combatants, at first out of curiosity, and for the sake of entertainment; but they soon began to take sides in the dispute, 'till at length it became one universal scene of wrangle; and no cause in Westminster-Hall was ever more puzzled by the multitude of voices all contending at once for the victory. At last, Lady Tempest scorning this ungenerous altercation, told her adversary, 'Well, Madam, if you please to scold for the public diversion, pray continue; but for my part, I shall no longer make myself the spectacle of a mob.' And so saying, she walked courageously off with little Pompey under her arm. It was impossible for her rival to prevent her; who likewise immediately after quitted the Mall, and flew home, ready to burst with shame, spite, and indignation.
Lady Tempest had not been long at her toilette, before the following little scroll was brought to her; and she was informed, that a footman waited below in a great hurry for an answer. The note was to this effect.
Madam,
'If it was possible for me to wonder at any of your actions, I should be astonished at your behaviour of this morning. Restore my dog by the bearer of this letter, or by the living G-D, I will immediately commence a prosecution against you in chancery, and recover him by force of law.
'Yours ——'
Lady Tempest, without any hesitation, returned the following answer.
Madam,
'I have laughed most heartily at your ingenious epistle; and am prodigiously diverted with your menaces of a law-suit. Pompey shall be ready to put in his answer, as soon as he hears your bill is filed against him in chancery.
'I am, dear miss, yours, 'TEMPEST.'
CHAP. XVII.
A terrible misfortune happens to our hero, which brings his history to a conclusion.
THIS letter inflamed the lady so much, that she immediately ordered her coach, and drove away to Lincoln's-Inn, to consult her solicitor. She found him in his chambers, surrounded with briefs, and haranguing to two gentlemen, who had made him arbitrator in a very important controversy, concerning the dilapidations of a pig- stye. On the arrival of our lady, the man of law started from his chair, and conducted her with much civility to a settee which stood by his fire-side; then turning to his two clients, whom he thought he had already treated with a proper quantity of eloquence. 'Well, gentlemen,' said he, 'when your respective attornies have drawn up your several cases, let them be sent to me, and I'll give determination upon them with all possible dispatch.' This speech had the desired effect in driving them away, and as soon as they were gone, addressing himself with an affectation of much politeness to the mistress of little Pompey, he began to enquire after the good lady her mother, and the good lady her sister—but our heroine was so impatient to open her cause, that she hardly allowed herself time to answer his questions, before she began in the following manner. 'Sir, I was walking this morning in the Mall, when a certain extraordinary lady, whose actions are always of a very extraordinary nature, was pleased, in a most peculiar manner, to steal my lap-dog from me.' 'Steal your lap-dog from you, Madam!' said the man of law; 'I protest, a very extraordinary transaction indeed! and pray, Madam, what could induce her to be guilty of such a misbehaviour?' 'Induce her!' cried the lady eagerly; 'sir, she wants no inducement to be guilty of anything that is audacious and impudent.—But, sir, I desire you would immediately commence a suit against her in chancery, and push the affair on with all possible rapidity, for I am resolved to recover the dog, if it costs me ten thousand pounds.' The counsellor smiled, and commended her resolutions; but paused a little, and seemed puzzled at the novelty of the case. 'Madam,' said he, 'undoubtedly your ladyship does right to assert your property, for we should all soon be reduced to a state of nature, if there were no courts of law; and therefore your ladyship is highly to be applauded—but there is something very peculiar in the nature of dogs— There is no question, Madam, but they are to be considered under the denomination of property, and not to be deemed feræ naturæ, things of no value, as ignorant people foolishly imagine; but I say, Madam, there is something very peculiar in their nature, Madam.—Their prodigious attachment to man, inclines them to follow any body that calls them, and that makes it so difficult to fix a theft.—Now, if a man calls a sheep, or calls a cow, or calls a horse, why he might call long enough before they would come, because they are not creatures of a following nature, and therefore our penal laws have made it felony with respect to those animals; but dogs, Madam, have a strange undistinguished proneness to run after people's heels.' 'Lord bless me, sir!' said the lady, somewhat angry at the orator's declamation; 'what do you mean, sir, by following people's heels? I do protest and asseverate, that she took him up in her arms, and carried him away in defiance of me, and the whole Mall was witness of the theft.' 'Very well, Madam, very well,' replied the counsellor, 'I was only stating the case fully on the defendant's side, that you might have a comprehensive view of the whole affair, before we come to unravel it all again, and show the advantages on the side of the plaintiff.— Now though a dog be of a following nature, as I observed, and may be sometimes tempted, and seduced, and inveigled away in such a manner, as makes it difficult—do you observe me—makes it difficult, I say, Madam, to fix a theft on the person seducing; yet, wherever property is discovered and claimed, if the possessor refuses to restore it
on demand,—on demand, I say, because demand must be made—refuses to restore it on demand, to the proper, lawful owner, there an action lies, and, under this predicament, we shall recover our lap-dog.' The lady seeming pleased with this harangue, the orator continued in the following manner; 'if therefore, Madam, this lady—whoever she is, A. or B. or any name serves our purpose—if, I say, this extraordinary lady, as your ladyship just now described her, took your dog before witnesses, and refused to restore it on demand, why then we have a lawful action, and shall recover damages.—Pray, Madam, do you think you can swear to the identity of the dog, if he should be produced in a court of justice?' The lady answered, 'yes, she could swear to him amongst a million, for there never was so remarkable a creature.' 'And you first became possessed of him, you say, Madam, at the university of Cambridge.—Pray, Madam, will the gentleman, who invested you with him, be ready to testify the donation?' She answered affirmatively. 'And pray, Madam, what is the colour of your dog?' 'Black and white, sir.' 'A male, or female, Madam?' To this the lady replied, 'she positively could not tell;' whereupon, the counsellor, with a most sapient aspect, declared he would search his books for a precedent, and wait on her, in a few days, to receive her final determinations; but advised her, in the meanwhile, to try the effect of another letter upon her ladyship, and once more threaten her with a prosecution. He then waited upon her to her chariot, observed that it was a very fine day, and promised to use his utmost endeavours to reinstate her in the possession of her lap-dog.
This was the state of a quarrel between two ladies for a dog, and it seemed as if all the mouths of the law would have opened on this important affair (for Lady Tempest continued obstinate in keeping him) had not a most unlucky accident happened to balk those honourable gentlemen of their fees, and disappoint them of so hopeful a topic for shewing their abilities. This unfortunate stroke was nothing less than the death of our hero, who was seized with a violent phthisic, and after a week's illness, departed this life on the second of June, 1749, and was gathered to the lap-dogs of antiquity.
From the moment that he fell sick, his mistress spared no expense for his recovery, and had him attended by the most eminent physicians of London; who, I am afraid, rather hastened than delayed his exit, according to the immemorial custom of that right venerable fraternity. The chamber-maids took it by turns to sit up with him every night during his illness, and her ladyship was scarce ever away from him in the day-time; but, alas, his time was come, his hour-glass was run out, and nothing could save him from paying a visit to the Plutonian regions.
It is difficult to say, whether her ladyship's sorrow now, or when she formerly lost him in the Mall, most exceeded the bounds of reason. He lay in state three days after his death, and her ladyship, at first, took a resolution of having him embalmed, but as her physicians informed her the art was lost, she was obliged to give over that chimerical project; otherwise, our posterity might have seen him, some centuries hence, erected in a public library at a university; and who knows but some antiquary of profound erudition, might have undertaken to prove, with quotations from a thousand authors, that he was formerly the Egyptian Anubis?
However, though her ladyship could not be gratified in her desires of emblaming him, she had him buried, with great funeral solemnity, in her garden, and erected over him an elegant marble monument, which was inscribed with the following epitaph, by one of the greatest elegiac poets of the present age.
King of the garden, blooming rose!
Which sprang'st from Venus' heavenly woes, When weeping for Adonis slain,
Her pearly tears bedewed the plain, Here now thy precious dews distil, Now let thy dewy leaves bewail
A Greater beauty's greater ill;
Ye lilies! hang your drooping head, Ye myrtles! weep for Pompey dead; Light lie the turf upon his breast, Peace to his shade, and gentle rest.
CHAP. XVIII.
The Conclusion.
HAVING thus traced our hero to the fourteenth year of his age, which may be reckoned the threescore and ten of a lap-dog, nothing now remains, but to draw his character, for the benefit and information of posterity. In so doing we imitate the greatest, and most celebrated historians, lord Clarendon, Dr. Middleton, and others, who, when they have put a period to the life of an eminent person (and such undoubtedly was our hero) finish all with a description of his morals, his religion, and private character: Nay, many biographers go so far, as to record the colour of their hero's complexion, the shade of his hair, the height of his stature, the manner of his diet, when he went to bed at night, at what hour he rose in the morning, and other equally important particulars; which cannot fail to convey the greatest satisfaction and improvement to their readers. Thus a certain painter, who obliged the world with a life of Milton, informs us, with an air of great importance, 'that he was a short thick man,' and then recollecting himself, informs us a second time, upon maturer deliberation, 'that he was not a short thick man, but if he had been a little shorter, and a little thicker, he would have been a short thick man;' which prodigious exactness, in an affair of such consequence, can never be sufficiently applauded.
Now as to the description of our hero's person, for that we shall refer to the reader to the frontispiece prefixed to this work, and proceed to his religion, his morals, his amours, &c. in conformity to the practice of other historians.
Let it be remembered, in the first place, to his credit, that he was a dog of the most courtly manners, ready to fetch and carry, at the command of all his masters, without ever considering the service he was employed in, or the person from whom he received his directions: He would fawn likewise with the greatest humility, on people who treated him with contempt, and was always particularly officious in his zeal, whenever he expected a new collar, or stood candidate for a ribbon with other dogs, who made up the retinue of the family.
Far be it from us to deny, that in the first part of his life he gave himself an unlimited freedom in his amours, and was extravagantly licentious, not to say debauched, in his morals; but whoever considers that he was born in the house of an Italian courtesan, that he made the grand tour with a young gentleman of fortune, and afterwards lived near two years with a lady of quality, will have more reason to wonder that his morals were not entirely corrupted, than that they were a little tainted by the ill effect of such dangerous examples.
As to religion, we must ingenuously confess that he had none; in which respect he had the honour to bear an exact resemblance to all the well-bred people of the present age, who have long since discarded religion, as a needless and troublesome invention, calculated only to make people wise, virtuous, and unfashionable; and whoever will be at the pains of perusing the lives and actions of the great world, will find them, in all points, conformable to such prodigious principles.
In politics it is difficult to say whether he was a whig or a tory, for so great was his caution, that he never was heard on any occasion to open his mouth on these subjects; and therefore each of those illustrious clans of men may be allowed to lay claim to him, unless perhaps they should both concur, as is sometimes the case, to despise him for observing a neutrality.
For the latter part of his life, his chief amusement was to sleep before the fire, and indolence grew upon him so much, as he advanced in age, that he seldom cared to be disturbed in his slumbers, even to eat his meals: His eyes grew dim, his limbs failed him, his teeth dropped out of his head, and, at length, a pthisic came very seasonably to relieve him from the pains and calamities of long life.
Thus perished little Pompey, or Pompey the Little, leaving his disconsolate mistress to bemoan his fate, and me to write his eventful history.
FINIS.
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